Moving, Arcadia, Gym

So! I have successfully been in Arcadia for over a week.  It's been weird but good I guess? I feel like I get into such a rhythm when I come home.  I still feel like I'm in "visit mode."  I feel like I need to go out all the time with this urgent feeling that I'm going to leave soon for SF. BUT... I am not. So after I realize that I'm here for good, or at least for awhile, I'm sad.  I really miss SF and Ellen and all my other friends in the bay area. *sigh. But! I guess LA is fun too. I get to hang out with Susie a lot and I get to see my family... all the time.  I feel so useless since I haven't worked in like three months. I'm turning into a certifiable BUM. Yeesh. I wake up everyday at like 11 or 12... or 1. And I mostly just hang out in the living room on the couch watching tv... or I watch tv in bed in my room. The one thing I have been doing that's positive is going to the gym! I went to the gym last week THREE days in a row!! Only for like 30 minutes at a time, but still. I'm going!

My first weekend home it was Andrew and Magus' birthday parties at Tokio on Cahuenga in Hollywood and then on Sunday Melissa was down in LA so we hung out! Susie, Melissa, and I watched 27 Dresses! It was soooo great. Very very cute and sweet. James Marsden is pretty damn cute (I'd hit it).  I spent the rest of Sunday semi-studying for the GRE... yuck. Monday I actually took the GRE and got a pretty horrible, but passing, score. So! Since I don't need to take the damn test, I'm just going to forget I ever took it. :) Yes. Avoidance and forgetfulness is best.  The rest of the week I just hit the gym and hung out at home mostly.  This last weekend, it rained like a mother so yeah, I just mostly stayed in doing nothing at home. Niiice. Yesterday I hit the gym and then met up for lunch with Susie and Chris.  We had a really YUMMY lunch at Panera Bread (I got french onion soup and a chicken caesar sandwich) and then after we were bored so we walked around Paseo (DSW, Loehmann's, Sephora, MAC... I just got a cool eyebrow powder thingy and an eyeliner) and then we walked around Old Town a bit.

Since we couldn't figure out what to do... we walked around the MALL.  Wow we walked around THREE shopping centers yesterday. Nice. We tried the frozen yogurt at Ce Fiore (which is GOOD... as good as pinkberry I'd say) and then decided to eat dinner at The Hat. Susie and I shared an order of chili cheese fries and Chris got a burger. Yum.  And after dinner, I hung out at my friend's house and played hold 'em for like three hours with the boys. Niiiice.  I lost $8 which isn't too bad considering I played for so long!

Today I had an appt with my personal trainer at 24 Hour Fitness and man... my body is in pain. Yeesh. I've never worked my body sooo hard before. And now, I'm back in bed watching Friends. I really need to get a job or something... although I'm sure I'll be complaining of not having enough time to be lazy once my pre-req classes start. Hm.

My 100th Post and My...

Last night in San Francisco. How very sad. :(  I'll really miss Ellen, our apt, all my friends in the bay area, and the delightful city that is San Francisco. *SIGH Very sad. But! I can't pay rent and if I want to go to school, I gotta get my ass back home.  It's weird, it never really hit me until tonight that I'm actually leaving. Forever. Well, not forever.  I'm definitely open to moving back up here after I finish school.  I love SF... but we'll see where my life takes me from here.  I'm pretty excited to start school again, even though I'll hate it as soon as it starts.  My pre-req classes start in late February... Intro to Counseling (online class) and Behavioral Statistics (scary scary scary).  I need to get a B in stats. Fudge. I hope I can pull it off. I've taken two stats classes already for undergrad and I got a C in both. Yikes. They really should have been C-'s. I'll just try to get as much help as possible and meet with the professor as often as possible. I need to do well! I hope I can get into CSUN for the counseling program.  If I don't get into CSUN for Fall 2008, I'll definitely apply for SFSU's program for Fall 2009. I hope I can do it.

Anyway, what the hell have I been up to? Since I've been back in SF for my final two weeks, I've mostly been hanging out with Ellen, slowly packing up, hanging out with Emily and Melissa, and watching LOTS of TV.

Last Wednesday, I went bar-hopping with Kishore, Emily, Sean, Kathy J, Khanh, Ty, Rachel, and Tina.  We went to a few places that night...  We started out at Lone Palm for a few pre-drinks (uh, I had a shirley temple) and then off to Laszlo where I had an OK mojito and weird appetizers.  After that it was Luna Park for a blood orange mojito (which was yummy, as their mojitos always are) and goat cheese fondue, fries, tuna poke.  After Luna Park we head to Ramblas for a tapas style dinner.  Everyone kind of ordered random stuff and while I think it could've been yummy... I already had too much random crap to eat and two much alcohol drunk too fast. YIKES.  So I threw up in the bathroom.  So classy. Yikes. But! Almost no one noticed! Only Emily could tell that I felt really terrible. After Ramblas (and puking, which made me feel 10x better) we hit up Blondie's bar across the street.  Of course, by this time I was totally done drinking but I was able to enjoy myself at Blondie's by listening to their live band play some jazz. Nice.  It was a fun night minus the barfing.

Last weekend Susie and Chris flew up to hang out and celebrate my last weekend in SF.  We had dinner at my fav crab place, Nonna Rose, and after we went to Shine in SoMa for drinks.  Dinner was yummy and fun... of course.  But Shine? Not so much.  The atmosphere was kind of weird.. rave-ish with a really weird mix of people.  Bo bought me ONE shot of tequila... which I think was maybe Cuervo or something.  But that definitely did not mix well with my tummy.  Probably due to A) I hate shots B) I'm weak sauce C) I didn't get eat that much.  I definitely cracked most of my crab but I didn't eat that much... and crab is hardly filling. Well! I had the shot around 11, threw up around 11:30, and was home by 11:45... where I threw up some more and had the spins for about two hours. YIKES.  I kept thinking that something else was in that tequila, but whatever. It's probably just due to my terrible alcohol tolerance.  And here I was thinking that I got better. Yeesh. Two episodes of barf in like four days. Holy crap.  Prior to last week, I hadn't thrown up since I was 21. Bleh. Anyway! No more barf talk...

This week I packed up my room, gave all of my furniture to the Salvation Army (bed, dresser, bookshelf, desk, bicycle), had lunch with Ellen at Olive Garden on Wednesday (mmm breadstick/salad/soup lunch!), then we walked around the mall for a bit to entertain ourselves and digest.  After the mall we went to Genki to get crepes... mmmmm crepes.  For dinner we just got Burger King and hung out at home watching 30 Rock. Wee!  Today I had lunch with Melissa, Emily, Ellen, Bo, and Kathy.  Sad to be leaving everyone, but I promise to come back all the time to visit!  After lunch, I went to Target with Emily and we just wandered around.  I got home around 5-ish and just started loading up my car... well my dad's car.  I can't believe how much CRAP can fit in there!  I went to dinner with Ellen at Tartine in the Mission. YUM.  So so fancy.  We split a small salad and then I ordered the potato gnocchi with kale and Ellen got the black carp.  After dinner I ordered the chocolate torte cake and Ellen got this uh whipped cream type dessert thingy.  MMM. So good and it was really nice to have one last dinner with Ellen as roommates.

After dinner we loaded up the rest of my big stuff... tomorrow I just have a few more small things to put in the car (I hope it fits) and then I'm off back to Arcadia!  Wish me luck!

Christmas, New Years, and SF

Ahh so much time has passed since my last blog update. Not like it matters... but here we go... Prior to Christmas Eve I exchanged gifts with Ellen and Susie (got a gc for Burke Williams Spa, a cool tornado chocolate milk maker thingy, and a cute Splendid navy sweater... thanks guys!) and then hung out at Jenn's apt with Ellen.  She got a new puppy and he's ADORABLE.  We just hung out at her pad to catch up and play guitar hero.  Christmas Eve I went to my aunt's house in Simi Valley and then Christmas Day went to my other aunt's house in Rowland Hts. Both were fun family times and I ended up Christmas cash and sweet gifts.

The day after Christmas I went shopping with my mom and sister at the mall.  I ended up getting some Hawaii essentials (cotton shorts, tank tops) and a cute pair of white/pink pumas! After shopping I just hung out at home with my family, packed for Hawaii, and played my sister's new Guitar Hero game (I'm getting pretty good).

Thursday, we left for Hawaii and arrived on Oahu around 11 am Hawaii time.  We got our rental car, went to Pali lookout, drove around the island and finally checked into the hotel around 4 pm.  After dinner, Tracee, Jeremy, Al and I walked around downtown Waikiki to look at the stores.  There was this one cute store called 88 Tees with lots of cutesy cotton t-shirts (one said, "Hawaii: a sunny place for shady people.").  Our 2nd day in Hawaii we went out to the Dole Plantation, Matsumoto's Shave Ice, and walked along a few beaches in the North Shore.  Al and I walked to the beach in Waikiki after dinner and hung out on the beach for awhile.  Beautiful!  Our 3rd day in Hawaii, we (minus Tracee and Jeremy) went to Sandy Beach, a "blowhole" (this hole near the ocean that shoots water up when the waves come in... it's pretty cool), and had McD's for lunch.  We actually ate McD's a LOT while we were in Hawaii... gross and delicious.  On our 4th day, we went to the big flea market at Aloha Stadium.  Sunday was the only really really sunny and hot day in Hawaii.  After the flea market we went to the beach in Waikiki and hung out there for a bit.  It was pretty warm and nice until it got hella cloudy and started to RAIN.  The rain sucked but we just rented a beach umbrella and ended up hanging out for a few hours.  After the beach we had dinner at this yummy restaurant called the Side Street Cafe... if anyone goes to Honolulu, go to this restaurant and order the teriyaki steak and the house/chef's salad. :) Yum.

On Monday, our 5th day in Hawaii, we (Al, Tracee, and my mom) went PARASAILING! It was pretty exciting.  At first I thought we were going to start in the water and fly up which scared me because I'm afraid of sharks and other various sea wildlife.  But! We were able to take off and land ON the boat! They had this cool thingy where it just reeled us in. Nice.  After parasailing we just hung out at the hotel for awhile.  We had a late dinner at Cheesecake Factory and then hit the beach for the New Years Eve firework show.  The fireworks were BEAUTIFUL! Best fireworks show I've ever seen in my life.  The beach was hella crowded but it was worth it to elbow ourselves a spot and wait.  On Tuesday, we meant to ride the trolley to the Hilo Hattey store but unfortunately the store closed early and the trolley never came... even though we waited for like 45 minutes. Assholes!  So instead we (me, my mom, and Al) just walked around the shops in Waikiki before retreating back to the hotel to hang out with the rest of the family.  Our last night in Oahu, we (minus Tracee and Jeremy) watched the Cirque Hawaii show.  TERRIBLE show. Wow, basically... if you ever wonder where Cirque Du Soleil performers go to die... it's at the Cirque Hawaii show.  Damn I'm mean, but it was pretty terrible.  There was an Elvis impersonator for the first 15 minutes, and the rest of the show was a slew of sub-par performers who asked for applause every 2 minutes. Yeesh.  The contortionist was pretty awesome... she was the only redeeming thing. Yikes.

Wednesday we finally went to Hilo Hatties and got some goodies before departing for LA. Our flight was pretty standard with a bit more turbulence than usual but not too shabby.  I mostly just napped, played Sims on my laptop, and played my DS.  Thursday I hung out with Susie! We went to the mall and I got TONS of stuff at the Victoria's Secret sale! YAY. I got a bra, underpants, slippers, and thermal pj pants! After the mall we went to 24 Hour Fitness in Pasadena so I can sign up for a gym membership. FINALLY. It was pretty damn pricey but I think I got a good deal.  I paid for three years in one lump sum and then after my three years, every year after is only $30.  $30 for the ENTIRE year! Not too shabby I guess. I can use any gym facility (except the ULTRA sport gym in Irvine... which apparently has a spa and tanning salon inside),  I have VIP access which means I can take anyone to the gym with me EVERY single time I go, and I get 10 sessions with a trainer.  So! If things go well and I actually force myself to go to the gym (and drag Susie along with me) my goal is to lose like 45 lbs by summer.  Whew. We'll see!

Today I just drove up to SF.  The drive was hella windy, rainy, and full of stupid tumbleweeds.  At first I thought the tumbleweeds were kind of cute until they started rolling under my car. Grrr. Luckily I drove my dad's giant SUV up so the tumbleweeds didn't stand a chance. But yes... now I must rest a bit and then I have to start studying for the GRE. AHHHH grad school applications are looming and I'm kind of up shit creek without a paddle. We'll see if I can do it.