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...

late is better than never.

phew.. i've finally gotten my pictures from london AND paris organized. actually it was easier than i thought it would be because i found this handy site called flickr - which is really awesome, by the way.

anyhoo - pictures is what you want, right?

(drum roll please)

paris - march 2004

london - november 2004

tada! that wasn't too hard now, was it?

christmas time already?

when the seasons sort of mush one into the other like they do in california it doesn't really feel like the holiday season even though the calendar tells you otherwise. i haven't started shopping at all and i'm dreading the thought of stepping foot in a mall. if money wasn't an issue and everything i wanted was right in front of me, then i'd love shopping.. but it doesn't really work like that, does it?

i don't think i really wrote much about london/paris - but i think my favorite part in the trip was this one night in paris. it was so cold and we wanted to go back to the hotel so badly, but nessie wanted to stop at les galeries lafayette (a huge department store) to look at the lights. as we came out of the metro station, this is what we saw:

i've never seen anything like that before. i just remember walking out to the station and being completely awestruck by the lights because it was so beautiful. people were clustered around the store windows and we walked closer to see what was going on. as we approached, we saw that each display window was done up elaborately with models and animated puppets - i don't know how to explain it because words just don't do it justice. parents brought their children simply to look at the displays and the kids would immediately run up to the windows and press their noses against the glass.

on a cold night in paris, i felt like a kid again and christmas was magic. i just wish there was some i could capture everything from that moment in time and store it away.

merry christmas, everyone. make it magic.

(les galeries lafayette is maintaining a christmas page for now, click on the site to enter and click on the green ornament on the right to see videos of some of the window displays. it's still not the same, but it's better than anything i could ever write.)

turkey

mom and dad's 30th aniversary was yesterday. because of that, they've left me, matthew and david to spend the holiday on our own, while THEY go on a mexican cruise.

sooooooooooooo.. tomorrow's turkey day will be fresh (store-bought from safeway) and we're driving to auntie lil's to celebrate. i love lil by the way - she's just the kind of woman i would want to be like when i grow up.

grow up... ack, did i mention that i'm now TWENTY-FOUR???

...

happy thanksgiving, everyone.

ramen!

i found a new favorite restaurant! it's called ringer hut and it's located in san jose. the champon ramen that les ordered was super-good and when i asked them what song was playing over the speaker system, the owner actually took the cd out of the player and gave it to me.

hehe. it's the little things that make me happy.

mind the entry

got back from london, simply amazed that people are able to exist in that sort of weather since my wimpy californian body is unable to handle anything under 50 degrees fahrenheit. weather aside, we had a good time. we had our share of rough spots, but overall it went off really, really well. (amazingly, no major drama!) now i'm home and trying to adjust to post-vacation life. i still have yet to do my laundry and my room looks as if a small tornado's passed through.

ugh.. when's my next vacation?

good news!

my cousin is getting married today! kind of expected/unexpected. he and his girlfriend (wife??) bought a house just recently and they've been living together for the past year or so, so we've been expecting him to pop the question.

but he just called my mom yesterday night and told her that he and pam (pam jei-jei?) are going to register this afternoon in san francisco city hall. mom's delighted. she's been worried about him for years, especially since it took him a long time to get over his last ex.

i'm super happy for him. i just hope it works out...