china.

i've heard about china all my life, but i didn't really know what to expect. first thing i noticed as we touched down in beijing was the smog. the air was this horrible combination of fog, smog, and humidity-so everywhere you went, the air felt like a sticky and dirty blanket. i never realized that clean air and blue sky was such a luxury-thank you california, for anti-pollution laws.

beijing was good, despite the heat and humidity we walked across the forbidden city (which is HUGE). it's amazing really, but after seeing your umpteenth amazing building in stiffling heat, you get kinda numb. i'd hafta say that the highlight of beijing was seeing the great wall-pictures do not do it justice. it's just amazing when you see the first segment of the wall, and then see it continue over hillside after hillside.

after a couple of days in beijing, they flew us down to shanghai. i really don't know enough about china to generalize, but it seems to me that the historical center of china is beijing, but the financial center is shanghai. it was a completely different world-i had gotten used to seeing the patches of poor conditions in beijing and middle-aged men with their bellies (!!) hanging out of their shirts, but shanghai didn't appear to have any of that. by contrast, the city and people seemed completely metropolitan and the buildings reached towards the sky.

from shanghai, they drove us to wuxi, suzhou, and hangzhou.. and garden, after garden, after garden-all very beautiful, but like the forbidden city, you get numb after a while. we spent a lot of time on the road, but the drives were interesting. the houses are right next to the freeways, so as you pass by, you can see people at work or in their homes, just going about their daily lives. just from observation, their lives seem very different from mine, simpler maybe?

we then drove back to shanghai, and FINALLY got a free day. after five days of having our wake up call anywhere between 5 or 6 in the morning and then having a packed schedule until 9 in the evening, it was a huge RELIEF to have at least one day where we could do our own thing. so, we did what made sense: we went shopping.

later that day, we flew back. when we landed in sfo the weather was in the 70s and misty.. heading out of the peninsula, the mist cleared and it was blue sky all the way. although it was only a week, it feels like we did and saw a lot and although i'd love to have another opportunity to go back, there's no place like home.

quickie...

china was really good! i'll write more later.

until then, here's a picture of me and shanghai's funky-wunky pearl tower (it looks even weirder at night):

my car must hate me by now.

something that i forgot to mention about los angeles. i HATE driving in l.a.

a couple of reasons:

1) TWO parking tickets in THREE days,

2) running up curbs and scaring everyone in the car,

3) and of course.. i got rear ended as well.

luckily, i got rear ended exactly where i got rear ended before, so now i have a collection of cracks on the left-hand side of my rear bumper. insurance is figuring it out right now, but thankfully.. nessie is more level-headed than me and we got a license plate number and vehicle description.

oh, and i think los angeles driving karma followed me up to the bay area, 'cause today i forgot about my headlights (third or fourth time this year, i think.. i've lost count) and my battery died.

eep!

i haven't visited los angeles for AGES. so this weekend, i finally went down. it was really good.

first off, i got to see so many people that i haven't seen in so long. jo and all the girls, pearl, jen, nessie, marie.. seeing all these people remind me of just how much i miss them. this is also the first time that we actually went to l.a. with an agenda. usually, we don't really have much of a plan, it's more like let's just go and see what happens.

this time, we actually had a chance to see all the touristy-type things that as a student, i never got to see. i (finally) saw the hollywood sign, the hollywood walk of fame, and mann's chinese theatre.

there are so many things.. i can prolly go gushing about on and on. but the biggest and best thing?.................................................. I SAW TOM CRUISE!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

aiwa.

so i finally emailed julie today and told her that i would not be able to volunteer for aiwa next semester. i'm going to miss doing aiwa, but with all the things coming up, i doubt that i'll have the time for it. most of all, i'll probably miss my students-they're a great group.

thanks to joanna, i'm (finally) starting to get things together for going back to school. i finished an application this weekend, and i'll start doing the others in august when applications for winter 2005 become available. kind of scaredexcited to go back to school, but i think it'll be a welcome change. also my application for volunteering at washington is also starting to move along and i have an interview on wednesday.

busy, busy. eep!

rip van winkle.

i've been so exhausted lately. in redwood city the other day, i was actually falling asleep at my desk. so last night, i put an end to that-i slept a total of TEN HOURS. yup, i'm awfully proud of myself. so hopefully that'll curb the exhaustion for at least a little while.

it's cloudy outside, but i think that it'll clear up. i think i'll do some hiking today.

here's a picture from last weekend. isn't my grandma beautiful? i don't think i'd look so good at 90.

my cousin christine, me, and my grandma <3

back in fremont.

i got back from vancouver just today. it was a good visit-chinese food every night, family, etc. it was just really difficult to leave, especially to leave my grandmother. next year seems very far away right now, and i know i'm going to miss her terribly.

eep.

yeah, i hate goodbyes.

birthday!

so yesterday (actually two days ago now) was my grandma's birthday.  the build-up to the 'event' was huge.  there were guest lists to finalize, seating arrangments to fix, cups to be wrapped, cakes to pick up...  but amazingly, everything went off without a hitch.
 
for some reason, every time we go to restaurants in vancouver, we have a tendancy to go to the sames restaurants over and over.  so this year we had the banquet in the same restaurant as last year's banqet-we reserved over half of the restaurant and had nine tables.  my dad ACTUALLY gave a speech.  now, you have to know my father to know what a huge step that was for him, because he can be painfully shy at times.  but for such a big event, he really pulled it out from in him and when he was speaking, i was just like, "yup, that's my dad."
 
most importantly, we had a good time that night, and i think my grandmother was really happy.  i can't hardly believe that she's 90.  but God-willing, we'll be celebrating her 100th in another ten years.

tying up loose ends.

so i'm leaving tomorrow. i'm trying to straighten out the house and tie up some loose ends.. i still hafta pack, though. i hate packing, did i ever mention that?

oh! i'm ACTUALLY starting to get somewhere with my application for volunteering at the hospital, after postponing for a long time, i finally went and took the tb test which is required of all employees/volunteers, i have a second test in the next week. after that i can schedule the interview and (hopefully) everything from there on out will be fine.

i also need to start applying to programs and etc. i think i've done enough research for now, all i really need to do is apply. i'm kinda nervous since i really don't know about starting school again (i feel old next to all those freshmen!). but on the other hand, i really appreciate school so much more since i've graduated. dood, i wish i just put some thought into my major before i went and chose something the first time around, but i guess late is always better than never.

i got an email from julie requesting our schedules for the fall semester of aiwa. i don't think i'll be doing it in the fall anymore. i love it, but on the other hand.. i need to be honest with myself. it might just be because i don't have the time to really plan out lessons or maybe i just don't have 'the gift' (blech) but i don't think i'm that great of a teacher, and who wants to be a mediocre teacher?

...

eep. going back to what i was talking about before, another reason i'll be glad to get out of a desk job: lately, my hand/wrist has been bugging me. early onset of carpal tunnel syndrome? i don't wanna wait and see...

...

so i left for work early today and headed off to the mall right afterward. i just didn't want to go home to an empty home, you know?

the WORST part is that despite the fact that i just spent two hours in the mall, i couldn't find anything at all.

eep.

sheezers.

i'm up. i woke up at 4:30 since i was feeling a little restless. normally at this time, my mom would come out telling me to sleep.. but my family's been away so i have the house to myself for two more days. believe it or not, it was a real relief to hear my mom's voice when she called to tell me that they (my family) made it up to canada.

on wednesday, i'll be joining them. this time of year, we always go up to canada because of my grandma's birthday. this year is special too, since it's her 90th birthday. i'm looking forward to seeing her and the rest of my dad's family.

but for now and the next two days.. this house is way too much for one person.

...

too much peace and quiet: part 2.

i have the house to myself and it's driving me kinda crazy again.

*sigh*

too much peace and quiet.

maybe it's just because i've grown up in a noisy family where everyone's vying to be the center of attention, but too much peace and quiet drives me crazy. i slept immediately after work today, and when i woke up the house was quiet. and for some reason, that freaked me out completely so it was a relief when i heard the garage open and my mom came home.

sometimes peace and quiet is good-sometimes it's necessary. but you know what? i don't like that feeling of not having anyone around either. company, even if they're not talking, is good. there are times when my family drives me crazy but i can't imagine (or want to imagine) life without them. they're noisy, they're not perfect, but they're my family and i love them to death.

wonders never cease.

guess what?? MY ROOM IS CLEAN. yes, i know it's a amazing, but it's true! i ended up staying up until 4 am yesterday night just cleaning. usually when i get into my "cleaning mode" it's hard to stop me. and of course i had to work the next day so that gave me about three good hours of sleep.

eep.. so sleepy...

fieldtrip!

tomorrow is the the last day for aiwa. good news: we're going on a fieldtrip! bad news: we're going to sacramento. i'm not sure how many of the women will actually attend because chung hee was saying how last year, the group went to angel island and since most women thought that it would be fun there was a pretty good turnout. but sacramento is.. sacramento. after boring my students for a semester and watching my class grow smaller and smaller i don't know if state government is going to hold their interest.

well i hope it'll be fun! regardless i have to attend since i am a (kinda) leader. oy, better go to sleep. i'm supposed to be in san jose at 8:30. not leave the house at 8:30 but be in san jose at 8:30. so i better sleep or i'll miss the whole thing.

nite!

brr...

it's chilly tonight. the stars are out. nice night.. doesn't feel like summer, but nice.

also, nessie's leaving tomorrow. not far away, since she's only going to los angeles.

but...

i guess i just don't like goodbye's.

first wedding.

yesterday i went to my first wedding ceremony. for some reason, i always go the banquet/reception part of the wedding, but not the actual ceremony. i didn't really know the girl getting married, but it was very nice to watch.

i'll say one thing that i've learned though. when it comes to weddings, you hafta hire RELIABLE people. ok, me and les were 15 minutes late for the ceremony, and they still hadn't started the ceremony when we arrived. in fact, the decorating people were putting up decorations when we arrived, and they were STILL putting up decorations as the music started playing and people were walking down the aisle. and the cake.. omigosh.. that's a whole story on its own.

so me and les came up with a resolution: les is gonna learn how to bake and decorate cakes. my assignment is to learn how to arrange flowers. now all we need is a dj and photographer, and then we have most of our bases covered.

ucsf.

i attended an prospective student seminar for ucsf. it's for admission into their mepn where you can have a bachelor's in a degree other than nursing and then just get your master's. first of all ucsf is HARD TO FIND. i drove around the castro and then the twin peaks area for a half hour looking for it. then when i was trying to leave, i got lost AGAIN and ended up driving in circles. thank goodness for my cell phone and friends who don't mind if i call for directions (thanks jen and nessie!).

anyway, the actual seminar gave me a pretty good idea of what i could expect and honestly, i don't know if it's for me. it seems once you graduate, you'll be very specialized, and i'm not sure if that's what i want. i think that i'd be happy just as a general floor nurse. so if that's the case, i may just need to get a regular bachelor's in nursing. and guess which school i'm thinking of? csuh. it seems really round-about, especially after working so hard to get into ucla.. but i guess you just hafta do what makes you happy even if it takes you while to figure out what makes you happy.

old dogs and new tricks.

my mom has a computer proficiency survey for her job coming up, so she's requested that i help her out.

i just spent the past hour going over microsoft word and how you cut and paste text. it's amazing how something which seems so intuitive to me, like right-clicking and left-clicking, goes completely over her head. but i suppose that just beccause i've lived with computer all my life, while for her they're still a relatively new invention.

i still have to go over formatting, spreadsheets, and databases with her before next week.

...

ai, i can already tell that it's gonna be a long week.

franz ferdinand!

i saw franz ferdinand tonight. i haven't been to a concert in AGES, so this is the first one that i've been to in a couple of years. i don't know if it's just that i forgot how fun concerts could be or that this one in particular was really awesome, but i'm leaning towards being really awesome.

i'll hafta say that the two opening bands were disappointing and by the time we got around to the main attraction i was scared that they would be more of the same. but they weren't. (thank goodness!) they were awesome, high energy, and just fun to dance and jump around to. and it's much better to hear them live rather than hear them on a cd since there's a world of difference between the two.

my recommendation: see them when they're in town-they're worth the buck.