crazy travel bug strikes again. aish.. wish me luck over the holidays, take care and see you all in the next year. =D

a picture's worth a thousand words

i wanted to post some pictures, but 1) i'm lazy and 2) i just don't have time, so i'm just going to post them here for now, but i'll properly update my photo page eventually...

bep free concert sponsored by honda civic.. as if you couldn't tell by the background~

u2 concert! picture stolen from brian's site, who apparently stole it from pearl's site.

grx christmas banquet with my small group buddy! (aka joanna) gotta love food pictures~

still at the grx banquet, the kids put on a really cute skit! notice the empty chair next to mary? what's up with the deadbeat joseph???

it really is christmas =)

i just got home after a long and cold, albeit happy, evening. matthew and i went to the 'sing-it-yourself' messiah event given by the sf conservatory. basically it's about 3,000 people who may or may not know how to sing taking a stab at handel's messiah. matthew had a chorale background from high school so he actually had an idea of how to sing some of it but i had no clue.

it was amazing.

i didn't expect it to actually sound good, but when you have so many people sing (or try to sing) the same thing at once, there's just something magical about it. when we got to the part in the middle where we were singing the hallelujah chorus, it was just awesome. the entire auditorium was filled with voices raised and singing, and when we got to the final hallelujah, the crowd broke into cheers and applause. after the performance, we continued to clap, and got a final curtain call and a treat from the conductor when he lead the orchestra in an encore performance of the hallelujah chorus. the first time was good and this time it was even better.

it's hard to describe in words how it felt.. but it was just so uplifting and awesome. i wish i were a better writer so i could describe it better.

as we were leaving the auditorium, i could hear some people softly singing 'oh come, all ye faithful' and i sang along. we paused at the exit as we could hear the strains of the carol growing and growing, and peoples' conversations stopping, until all the people who had been pushing towards the exit stopped and all you could hear were the sounds of people singing. that spontaneous connection through music suddenly made these 3,000 strangers into a community.

and now here's the funny part. after this wonderful, uplifting evening, i almost stranded myself at the castro valley bart station. i missed my transfer at bayfair, and ended up one stop over. i went downstairs to ask the station attendent if there were any more trains to sf (because i thought i needed to take a sf train to head back to the bayfair station) and he replied no. after the requisite freak out moment, i called les and was just about to have her pick me up from castro valley. i need to ask the attendent for directions to the station, and he asked me where from. when i replied fremont, he was like, "why didn't you say fremont in the first place??" turns out, the last train of the evening goes only to bayfair and over there i could hop on my train to fremont. i had to wait about a half hour on the freezing cold platform of the station, but when i got on the train around 1 am, i was just relieved to be heading home without any major consequences.

regardless, i'm still really happy and i feel really fortunate to have had such an awesome experience. tonight's been wonderful. merry christmas, merry christmas...

been a while...

yeah, i know i've kinda ignored this blog for a while. sorry!

as some of you may know, i quit my job at the bank. workplace drama sucks and i think once you start bringing that stress home with you, it's a sign that you should be moving on. so that's just what i ended up doing. i'm glad i did it.. but forgoing a steady income and my "grand plan" for the subsequent months was tough. honestly it was scary to just leave without really knowing where i would go. although it's only a couple of months until the start of school, i like having a good idea of what's going on and where i'm going, so all this uncertainty was killing me.

but things have kind of worked out in their own way, and it's already been over a month since i left us bank behind me and there's been no major blowouts and i'm still standing, so i figure i must be doing ok.

=)

holidays are upon us. i'll be heading to hong kong for christmas.. i'm excited, it'll be my first time in hong kong and a chance to have REAL hong kong-style dim sum. that's the highlight of the trip, of course! i'm anxious to start school in january.. but i know with the holiday season, time will just fly.

time has just been flying lately.. but i'm optimistic and hopeful about next year. i'm sure something good will come.

eep.. sorry if i'm being overly sentimental.. holidays do that to me. happy holidays all!

clean slate

i gave my two weeks today. very hard and emotions are still kind of high, but i think it's about time that i moved on.

...

still sad, though.

colors!

this is neat.

killing time.

couple things while i'm wasting the minutes before i have to leave for work.

i miss matthew. although i'm really stoked that he's going to cal (i can live vicariously through him!) it's quiet around the house without him. he's usually talking or playing his guitar, and of course when he's around i tell him to shush, but i kinda miss the noise that he brings to the house because it's just too quiet. :<

things with sjsu are progressing, albeit slowly. i'm still shuffling around transcripts and getting my app together. i have to take the wst on saturday and i'm DREADING it. i absolutely HATE timed writing exams and i am not looking forward to this at all! for those of you who remember sats, i think i got a 530 on the sat ii writing exam.. people used to joke that the minimum score was 400 for just writing your name on the test. so.. as you can see, i suck.

but if all goes as planned, by next year i'll be an enrolled student at sjsu. (crossing my fingers on that one)

so what's new?

okie, so the midterm is over and done with, i think i did ok? i don't know.. i can never tell after i'm done with a test, but now that it's OVER i can focus on getting ready for chicago! yay!! but as you can clearly see, i'm not focused at all, i'm procrastinating. (yet again)

actually, i wanted to post this. i saw ok go in concert a couple of months ago, and we were contemplating leaving early, but we're glad we didn't though cuz the dance encore definitely made the whole night worth it.

leaving on a jet plane

leaving tomorrow for chicago at 6 IN THE MORNING. so that equates to me being at the bart station at 4 IN THE MORNING in order to get to the airport. and of course, i'm not packed yet. i'm actually cramming for a midterm right now which is in 3 hours, but studying in front of the computer is a really bad study habit, and i'm getting distracted. (obviously)

one thing which i'm really stoked about is that i'm meeting with my old, old penpal while i'm in chicago. i met her when i was ten (?) on a cruise in the bahamas. that's 14 years ago! somehow we kept in touch.. mostly cuz of her since i'm horrible with correspondence, though. ai, i can't wait to go.. it's been a while since i've been out (arizona~) and i feel like i need a change of environment again, cuz i'm starting to feel restless again.

fourth of july, friends, food and fireworks.. not much more i can ask for. =D

p.s.

forgot to mention. i did well last quarter! despite all that slacking i pull through okay.. i did get an 'a-' in my patho class, which i know could've been an 'a' if i had put the work in, but i guess it'd be silly to b*tch about the '-', huh?

i'm not alone!

so i'm slowly discovering that i'm not the only one out there who has no idea what the he** to do with their life. since i've been going to my microbio class, i've met a diverse range of students - the lady i usually sit next to is middle-aged, and she wants to persue a degree in nursing, her THIRD degree. another girl i just met today is premed, AFTER having already gotten a bs in cs and and a jd. actually, most everyone in my class already has a degree from somewhere already which is completely different from the course of study they're taking right now.

this is kind of a relief to me, because all this time, i've kind of felt that i had done something wrong or made a mistake when i had gotten my first bachelor's. just by knowing that there's a whole lot of other people out there who are going through the same situation, i don't feel so bad anymore.

which is good.

annoyed

i'm cleaning my room right now (!!) and after doing all the laundry that was lying on the floor, i'm finding that i'm missing socks. THAT BUGS! for some reason, i can handle huge, unsightly messes where i can't see the floor, but i cannot STAND missing pairs of socks.

ai. now watch me turn my room upside down looking for spare socks...

OVEEEEEEEEEEEER!!

final's week is final over! i honestly came outta my last final with the biggest "oh sh*t" feeling. the grades were posted last night, and guess what i got?? 65%........................... which in the world of medical physiology is a b+. yup.. so i guess i wasn't the only one with that feeling after the final. hopefully i pulled an a- in the class, i did well in the two midterms so i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

now i've got two days worth of bonafide summer vac until classes start up in oakland on monday. TWO DAYS! dood, i'm stoked. [/sarcasm]

until then, i gotta clean my room.. i can't see the carpet anymore and my mother loves just walking by my room (even though it's out of her way!) and looking in so she can bug me about it.

aish-ya

trying to focus on these take home finals right now. emphasis on "take home". two of my three finals this quarter are take homes, and needless to say, this quarter's been a cakewalk. still it's hard for me to focus, my thoughts are flying all over the place and writing short answers and essays on a computer with an internet connection is not very conducive for productivity.

eep. enough procrastinating - gonna work on it now!

paper due tomorrow!

yeehaw, it's starting to feel like ucla all over again!! i've got a paper due tomorrow, and what am i doing?? i'm writing in here! blah. i s'pose it's cause i'm almost done with the paper, so i'm taking a premature victory lap.

reason why i'm posting is because i checked friendster a while ago and discovered that tanya wrote me a testimonial. it makes me nolastalgic. gawd, i remember gaby (tanya's parakeet) - i remember how tanya snuck her into the dorm, and we'd hide her in the shower when they came to inspect our room. i remember feeling that l.a. xmases don't feel like xmas at all, so i cut paper snowflakes and taped them all over our dorm window. i remember when we were moving outta the dorms, i tore off the mirror that ray foam taped to the wall and tore off part of the wall with it, then going to home depot buy paint to try to hide the damage. it was a weird time, it doesn't feel like it happened to me anymore.

looking at other people profiles is almost like looking at an old yearbook and seeing what people have since become. some people have changed so much.. it makes me wonder if i've changed over the years. maybe yes, maybe no.

aishya.. gotta get to work. i'm listening to uber-mellow music right now, and it's making this nolastalgic mood even worse. but damien rice has such a lovely voice...

big bugs

my little brother got a spider bite on his hand and his hand has swelled up to two times its normal size. it's really impressive actually.. heh, i wanted to take a picture, but he wouldn't let me. anyhoo, he went to the hospital to have the doctors take a look at it. the doctor poked the hand a bit and prescribed some medication, but when he asked the nurse what the medication did, she really didn't know.. when he was telling me this he said, "amy, be a good nurse."

it's funny. i'm studying for this patho exam on tuesday, and i guess i kinda lose sight of the longterm goal. even though it's a chore to stuff all this information in my head for the exam, it's really cool learning all this stuff which has such a huge impact on other people's lives. after all, i want to be a good nurse too.

ugh

after waking up from over 12 hours of sleep, i think i can say that i never EVER want to pull another all nighter.

oy.

stoopid deanza

so i got an acceptance letter from csuh's nursing department. thing is, with me not getting the microbio class that i needed to take before june 30 i won't be getting into the program. so with that, my plans for going to csuh are cut short and it's prolly not an option for me anymore...

...

kinda disappointed about csuh (and stoopid deanza!) but i guess that just means i need to examine my other options and right now sjsu and ucsf are looking particularly attractive. sjsu has an accelerated undergrad nursing program and ucsf.. what can i say.. i know it's stupid and petty, but i'm attracted to name-brand degrees and a masters in nursing from ucsf would be pretty impressive. i know, stupid, stupid me.. it shouldn't (and doesn't) matter! ><

i'm wavering about getting the masters though. first of all there's the time commitment - three years versus a year and half.. i know it's only a year and a half difference, but for some reason it makes a huge difference to me. second of all there's the cost - ucsf's first year would KILL my bank account. (30k just for the first year!) third (and prolly most importantly) is that i'm just not sure if i can handle the responsibility of being a nurse practitioner. it's just so much power and providing healthcare is scary - because a simple mistake could potentially KILL someone. i'm not sure if i'm ready for that.

*sigh* but that's just me talking out loud. jeez, i haven't even gotten into the program and i'm already so gloomy about it. just like me to think too much.

house warming

my cousin ching got married recently - the first of the cousins to get married. (other than my 50 year old and 30 year old cousins) he and pam (the new wife) bought a little house in milpitas, a steal at only 380k. it's an older home, there are weeds growing up in the front yard and the outside could probably use a new coat of paint, but they've done up the inside really well. the kitchen's newly remodeled with marble floors and granite countertops and in the little dining nook is the hand-me-down dining set that we gave to them when they moved in. the bathrooms have been remodeled too - granite counters, marble floors, new plumbing fixtures.. the works.

i'm pretty impressed. it's funny to see my cous get all domesticated like this. he immigrated from china when my mom was still pregnant with me, so i've known him all my life and he's almost like my other brother and he's always been the "wild one" that worried my mom. but seeing him like this: pam is sweet and seems like she's good to him, and the house is slowly coming together.. i'm really happy to see that he's finally putting down his roots and happy because he's had it tough since he's come to the states.

i felt kinda bad. i had to leave early to meet a friend so i wasn't able to stay for the big feast that pam was preparing. but i'm sure there'll be more times to come. i'm really glad to see him happy.

btw

this is so cool - if you're lookin for an apartment and you don't wanna sift thru craigslist.

[via cool hunting]

sleepy

i just had a good conversation with a couple of old friends. sometimes that's just nice.. to have that sort of comfort and connection where you can talk about the 'good ol days' and stuff like that. it just feels.. good.

of course i spent too long talking too so now i'm super sleepy. lookin forward to sleeping in tomorrow, i have a day off! no school, no work, no nutin! i know it's kinda sad but i'm actually really happy to have a honest-to-goodness two day weekend!

aiya

just got back a while ago. too exhausted to really write anything, but a couple of random thoughts: the southwest is beatiful, there's so much open land that stretches for miles and miles. jen's niece and nephew were adorable. campfires are harder to make than you'd think and don't use magazines as tinder! i went to mass for the first time and found out that i'm allergic to frankincense.

it was an awesome trip.

couple of snags near the end though. because of an unexpected traffic jam i missed my flight outta vegas so i had to go on standby for a later flight which was then delayed by TWO HOURS. came home to find out that someone broke the driver's side window on my car - now i have some lovely duct tape and plastic bags covering my window.

my first campfire! note the white flakes.. yes, that is snow!



lunch after easter mass.



the always-wonderful "fobby pose".

*sigh*

time to regroup.

...

CAN'T CONCENTRATE!!!!

i have a final at noon tomorrow and i still haven't finished the reading and i'm just sitting here, wasting time. after that i have two more finals on thurday til i'm homefree.

ai.

at least i have the grand canyon to look forward to. i'm totally stoked about the trip and i think that getting out and communing with nature will do me some good.

ack

the mess in my room is directly proportional to how stressed i am. right now, you can't see the carpet.

somehow, i idealized my school memories. i remember going out and having fun but forgot all about the studying and test-taking parts. the worst part about school is that it's not like work which just ends at a set time. instead you have to study and when you're not studying, you're feeling guilty about not studying. all that, and you don't get a paycheck every two weeks.

...

even though i'm complaining, i think i kinda hate/love stress. although it can be just horrible sometimes, i think it's a lot better than being bored out of your mind. stress can be a challenge.. but challenging yourself makes you grow.

marilyn just told me something funny just yesterday. she said that physiologically the brain that you've developed by 25 is that brain that you'll have for the rest of your life - so basically even at 65, you'll still be thinking with your mentally 25 year old brain.

SO! i'm 24. i have one year to expand my mind as much as it can expand and do as much as i can before my brain hits its 25 year old peak. stress just comes with the package, right?

all that jazz

just got back and felt like writing a little bit. we went to a jazz club in sf.. it was my first time and i really, really liked it. i just like how the music is so free-form and you can just close your eyes and get taken away by the music. i'm almost inspired to seriously take up the piano again...

kinda funny. my friend had made the reservations for us and her last name is kok. there were two hosts working in the front of the club and when the host asked for her name, she replied and he went down his list of attendees and then told the other host that we were the "kok party".

yes, it sounded as bad as it looks.

fifth week, already?

four tests later, i still can't believe that it's already fifth week. after being out of school for so long, i've forgotten how quickly these quarters move. i'm still reeling from all of this studying, last night i stayed up until almost 4 in the morning just catching up on five weeks' worth of readings for my psych midterm.

i'm exhausted, my room's a disaster, and i still have five more weeks to go. i'll be so relieved when i'm actually certain that i've been admitted into a nursing program, this uncertainty thing isn't for me.

happy (belated) new year!

so.. the situation has changed a little bit. after nearly two years, i'm no longer working at redwood city. it was really nice too - they had a little send off breakfast for me and then i had lunch with jeannie and pat. then i packed up my stuff and said goodbye to cube-life. jeannie and pat are both women i really admire and respect - i hope i can keep in touch with them. also, i've reduced my (already little) schedule at the bank - instead of working there fridays and saturdays, i now only work saturdays.. a whopping five hours a week!

so i've essentially left the working world behind to concentrate on being student.

i'm attending hayward right now and i gotta say that student life is weird. i feel so OLD. seriously, those six years make a huge difference. i'm sure i'll get used to it eventually but i feel like i'm on a different plane than a lot of the other students. Working for the past two years has really given me a different perspective on school. it's only second week and i'm already staying late, trying to keep up with all of my readings, but i feel like i'm the only person on campus when i stay past 6pm.

anyhoo, i'm totally stoked that i got all the classes i wanted. it was kinda scary with one of the classes because it was so full, but i ended up getting in at the very last minute. now i just have a lot of readings to catch up on.

phew...