crashing the marathon?

i was just talking to nessie, and it looks like she'll be coming up north for the nike women's marathon. she's been running lately, and it's really inspiring to see all the progress that she's made in such a short time. it made me wonder if i can "crash" the marathon the way people sometimes crash the bay to breakers.. and just run with the crowd without registering...

hrm.. that'd give me eight good weeks to train for a half marathon. i think it'd be do-able... =D haha.. let's see if i actually follow through.

hot hot hot

i think that probably the only redeeming thing about these hot summer days are the nights. although the inside of the house is still sweltering from the day's heat, if you just go outside, the summer evening is slightly warm and that perfect go-outside-without-a-jacket weather. sitting outside at twilight, everyone has their windows open so you can vaguely hear the sounds of your neighbors' conversations and the kids are all outside running around.. it's nice.

but even though the summer nights have been nice, the days are still pretty miserable. supposedly it's going to cool down within the next couple of days. phew, not a moment too soon!

what a day.

so aside from the fact that today was a hot, yucky, summer day with temperatures just breaking the three-digit mark, today ended up being quite a day. started out today by going to the mystery spot in santa cruz with my small group. it was pretty mysterious, replete with billard balls rolling up inclines and people seemingly getting taller or shorter, but as the time on our 45 minute tour wound down, the tour guide quickly shuffled us out from the "center of the mystery spot" to make way for the next 45 minute tour. we were then sent off on our way with our very own mystery spot bumper stickers. pretty mysterious.. but a little rushed.

then we decided to head off to the boardwalk to enjoy the beach and cool down. unfortunately, we weren't the only people with that idea. after circling the boardwalk area for almost an hour through crawling traffic, we decided to skip the beach and just get some food and go home. bit of a bummer, but i guess that's just the way things go... at least the diner we went to for lunch was good. it has the special disntiction of being the only diner that i've ever seen which serves pho. no joke! along with your standard diner favorites such as 24-hour breakfasts, sandwiches, and hamburgers, this diner actually had a vietnamese food section on their menu. kinda cool, kinda scary... i was curious, but not curious enough to risk it, so i went for the omlette.

coming home was fine, until i got back to my car. somewhere along the line, a bolt AND washer had gotten stuck in my car tire and so i came back from santa cruz to a very, very flat tire. so now i'm driving on a donut and tomorrow morning, i hafta check with the tire shop to see if my tire is salvageable and if it can be patched up. i really, really hope so... (says the poor college student with no $$)

to top it off, it seems that our home's a/c and our ice cube maker are both broken. sometimes you just gotta laugh at the timing of things.

oh well! i guess that things could always be worse. =P

administrative duties

just did a whole bunch of administrative things that i've been meaning to do for a while now.. finally have health insurance after years of being uninsured, applied for professional liability insurance, and submitted the information for my background check. my immunizations are just about done too. i just need to get the results from my chicken pox titer and i'll be done with that.

phew, it's nice to have a lot of the things that i've been putting off, over and done with. it's a load off of my mind. now that that's done, i have a bunch of class-related stuff which i should be taking care of as well.

that, and my room is (again) a mess.

it never ends...

three months younger

my cousin just got married today. it was a really beautiful ceremony. my cousin is about three months younger than me. it's odd to think that she's married now. even though i know that she and her (now) husband had been seeing each other for so many years, the reality of the fact that she's now "mrs. kim" is pretty difficult to come to terms with.

.. it's weird.. and kind of sad. perhaps "sad" isn't the right word, but i'm not very good with words, so it'll have to do.

so for the next couple of days, i'll be in vancouver. i'm enoying the weather which is sunny and mild, and the company of family which i normally see on our annual trips up north.

good times, good times.

that, and i'm studying for a pharm exam on monday, which i'll take right after i fly into sfo.

good times.

summer school

ah, so now i'm almost into my fourth week of nursing school. since every week's been kinda crazy with various deadlines, tests, and assignments, time has gone by super-fast. i'm just trying to keep up with everything right now. the other students in my group are major overachievers who all seem to do their reading BEFORE the lecture (amazing, huh?). ai.. it just makes me feel like more of a slacker since i really haven't been keeping up with things the way i would like to.

anyway.. i'm trying to get some major studying done this weekend. next weekend, my cousin's getting married and we're throwing a birthday party for my grandma, so i'll be in vancouver (yay for yummy chinese food!). then when i come home, i can look forward to two midterms, a presentation, and the deadline for an assignment.

i'm not stressed at all!

well. kinda, not really. =/

i cooked today!

yup, you read it right. i actually cooked today! following yan can cook's quick and easy cookbook, i made ginger chicken, bok choy, and carrot and pineapple rice. couple of things: it's not that quick and easy. it easily took me over an hour. secondly, although yan can cook may disagree, i don't think that carrot should be cooked into rice.. it's just.. WEIRD. however, the bok choy came out rather well. the chicken was not very well marinated, but i'm sure i can figure out something to fix it if i want to try to make it again.

my mom was gracious too. it was her birthday today, hence today's cooking experiment. she said it was "different" and "colorful".. i like how both of those adjectives don't specify whether it tasted good or not. =P but everyone finished up their food, and there were hardly any leftovers.. so that's a good sign. anyway, we finished up dinner well. i got a mango mousse cake from sogo and that's always a winner! =D

hmm.. i'd like to practice cooking more. just trying different flavors and making different sauces is fun.

finished behind a demon

Another View of the Devil
Originally uploaded by SeenyaRita.

this is from 2005, but i'm pretty sure this is the same dood from yesterday. he had wings this time, though.

i could've beat him! if i just went a little bit faster...

bay to breakers

Running Roman
Originally uploaded by jmmorton.

i was running at pace with this guy during most of the bay to breakers yesterday. i kept telling myself that if this guy can run wearing FULL ARMOR, certainly i can keep up with him. he kept a bottle of water hidden behind his shield too. i thought that was amusing.

that, and i finished right behind a guy dressed as a demon. he got into the finishing chute right before me. as we were coming out, some guy commented to him, "i thought i died."

only during the bay to breakers.

=D

just to let people know, i'm officially in the nursing program. good sam in san jose offered me a hospital sponsorship, so i'm finally official. no more wondering what i'll be doing in two weeks! i'm super-happy, but now i have so much stuff to get done: immunizations to get, insurance to purchase, books to buy, cpr certifications.. the fun never ends!

eep.. that, and i have a final tomorrow.

and if someone knows, please answer this question: how the heck is one supposed to clean spilled soap out of a carpet?? it just foams more and more and gets worse and worse. =*(

i am loving pandora. check it out, uber-cool.

since i'm a sucker for cute

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

“It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a ‘mother’,” ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

“After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,” the ecologist added. “The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,” Kahumbu added.

“The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years,” he explained.

it must be something in the air

but i've been having problems focusing lately. it's especially bad since it's almost the end of the semester and ugh.. i just feel like bumming around and not doing any work. the fact that the past couple of days have been gorgeous hasn't made things any easier either. the other day, i was driving to san jose state, and i was just thinking to myself, "if i keep going 880 south, i'll hit the 17, and then santa cruz.. i should just keep going." but then reality hits and i realize that i have work to do and that i'm driving to SCHOOL.

*sigh*

responsibilities.. career... i feel old sometimes. the other day, i went out to see a movie, and we were supposed to get tea afterward.. i don't even think it was midnight yet, and me and my friend were practically falling asleep in the car, so we decided to skip tea. eep. oh well, older and wiser i guess, because there's no way that i'd want to be 19, 20, or whatever again.. i just wish i had this head and that age.

hee. oh well, life goes on. live, learn, move on.

words cannot describe...

.. just how awesome these people are.

hey

i'm in the accelerated program. i got the email confirmation today. i am happy, i guess that it's been on my mind for so long that i'm too exhausted to really show it.

*big sigh of relief*

still gotta interview with those hospitals though, so i'm not outta the woods yet.

spring cleaning

i just cleaned out 100+ unread emails. after all, i don't think i'll be needing those emails from last november after all. now, i still gotta clean my room (it's messy again!). and.. by the end of this week, i should get an answer about the nursing program. although i'll still have to do interviews with the respective hospitals.

will be kind of busy for the next couple of weeks...

nolastalgia

okay. so i know that i haven't updated in a while. i've been a big nerd lately, and my life's been boring. but since i'm on spring break now, i have some time to catch up on lost sleep and things i've been putting off (my eyes seriously have this perpetual sunken in and tired look). i was looking at some old pictures. omigosh.. memories are a funny thing. i definitely don't feel like the same person that are in those pictures, it's weird.

working at the library, skateboarding along the beach, random birthday roadtrips to vegas (complete with 100 mile "detours"), scary hotels with holes in the bathroom ceilings, 24-hour tofu, even commencement.. i remember speeding up to l.a. fresh from jen's ceremony so i wouldn't miss my own ceremony.

so weird.

well, enough introspection. i'm gonna work on getting rid of those dark circles and get some sleep.

nippon?

a friend of mine taught english in japan for a year, and when she asked me if i'd be interested in being pen pals with some of her former students i told her that it was fine. but what i didn't realize is that i'd become a class project! i currently have four letters from various japanese high school students. their letters are cute and i appreciate them taking the effort to write to me, but it's so difficult to write while trying to maintain perfect grammar! writing like this is a breeze because it's just like my stream of conciousness where i just write whatever i'm thinking at the moment, but when i write to them, i make a concerted effort to write with perfect grammar because i'm afraid of being a bad example.

aish.. i'm wondering just how many more letters i'm going to get...

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???