Carpe Diem

As I'm waiting for my friends to show up so we can go to Cottonwood, why not write another blog?

An online article sparked my interest the other day, it was about how everything happens for a reason. Now, I'm a firm believer that everything does NOT happen for a reason. Call me a pessimist, but that's not what it is. SOME things do happen for a reason, while other things happen for nothing at all. Yes, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, but you have to make the actions happen and fight for the reaction that you want. You can't just sit there and hope everything will end up where they want to be because "everything happens for a reason". I may be where I am today because of my actions, but not everything I did led to this point today. Good things can happen, bad things can happen, and it's sometimes a random factor or the unpredictability of the universe. Bottom line is to fight for what you believe in and if it doesn't work out, don't just sit there, but fight harder.

Anyway, enough with that LOL. Leah got me started on Insanity Workout on Tuesday. It's pretty much a nice scheduled workout and I got owned by it the first day, had to stop the video twice! The second day was a lot better though, no stopping it haha. Let's see how long I can keep up with this. It's supposed to be 6 weeks and you always keep track of your progress on this nice excel sheet they give you, pretty sweet, lots of random calculations.

On Tuesday, I went to eat at Genghis Grill. They basically give you a metal bowl for $10, you get however much meat/seafood/veggies you want, season it however you like, put sauce on it, and they grill it for you on the Mongolian grill. It was kind of like a buffet in a way and I ended up going overboard with sauces and it turned out to be too salty lol, but had fun nonetheless.

Wednesday went to work at Chopstix. I actually really miss waitressing - interacting with people and getting tips haha. I worked for 4 1/2 hours and got $90! Mwahaha all that smiling payed off. And now, all that money is going to be used up shopping in about half an hour.

I made you a cake, but I ate it ^^

(First attempt at a water picture, didn't turn out as bad as I thought :D)

I went to chill with Emma and her friends on Saturday. We watched Constantine, which was actually really interesting. I can't believe I've never seen it before. It was about heaven and hell, and for some reason, the concept of it made me think a bit about this subject. We then played Mario Kart until I had to leave to prepare for hiking the next day.



La Luz trail: 9-10 mile hike up to the peak, 12% grade, start at 7000 ft go up to 10,000 ft
Just like last year, I hiked this trail with Julie and Kaylyn on Sunday. At first, it was a bit hard because I still wasn't used to the altitude, let alone hike the thing. But after I got the hang of it, it was so nice to breathe fresh mountain air and surround myself with pretty scenery. I learned that you can see about 6 climate zones just hiking up the mountain, which is actually really cool. When we got to 4.7 miles, we called the Sandia Tram and they said they were closed, so instead of heading all the way up, we had to head back down haha, same distance, but it was sad we couldn't go all the way up (and also sad I couldn't take pictures at the peak!).




At night, it was the Lost season finale. After six years of my life, the show finally came to a close. I watched it from 6pm-10:30pm, then 11:00-12:00am for the talk show and 3 "alternate endings". After the series finished, I was still confused, but now I understand. The show is essentially about life, moving on, and death. It was a great finale and inspired me to take the picture above about "letting go".


Random note: On Hunan Channel, I saw this show about pen twirling, they were SO PRO and all 15 years old. Apparently, they're the world champions of twirling pens, but it was really cool to watch. And then there was this Rubik's cube pro from Japan, so good. Because of these shows, I picked up my rubik's cube and started playing around with it again, haha, took forever to learn this!

(Mary's house)

Anyway, Monday I went to Mary's house for pho and onion pancakes, yummy!
Homemade pho > restaurant ones anyday, and a lot healthier too! After that I did a photoshoot with Aimie, but I ended up shooting her dogs.

(I love Sparky)

Photography takes an instant out of time

Yet...I keep forgeting to take pictures.

Julie, Larr, Adrianne, and I went to Los Cuates on Wednesday. The food was pretty good and cheap, but the salsa sucked, it tasted like cranberry and jalapeno. Other than that, I LOVE Mexican/NM food. Again, forgot to take a picture of it ;(

Friday, we went photoshooting my friend's Subaru STI, it was so much fun and got a couple of good pictures :)
I put one as my display picture on Facebook and everyone seemed to believe that it's my car LOL. I should take a pic of my actual new car sometime!



I'm actually not going to SC anymore, gonna just stay here and do some random research/volunteering because I guess I love being home. SC would have been nice, but as of this moment, I don't think it's worth it when I can stay home and do pretty much the same thing. And this means that I could've gone to convention! (Now I'm stuck being a pelican LOL) On a brighter note, my 50mm FINALLY came in, but it's already midnight, so I guess tomorrow I'll play around with it haha.

Back Home

I love Albuquerque skies.

It feels so nice to be home, eating amazing home cooked food, relaxing at home, and chilling with friends. The list of my "things to eat" is actually almost fulfilled, which is amazing because I never told anyone the stuff I wanted to eat, but each meal is always something on there.

Anyway, when I got back Saturday, my Dad and I went to my Mom's restaurant and I ate tomatoes and eggs, which is pretty much my favorite dish in the world. We then went back home and I got to open my camera! Only problem was that the 50mm lens did not come in yet (and it still hasn't), so I was stuck with a 12-24mm in ugly ABQ. Note to self: If I ever get rich I'm buying a Leica M8 + Noctilux 50mm f/0.95.

Sunday, I met up with Julie and Larr, we pretty much talked like I never left. We had Julie's mom's Vietnamese noodles, which was really good as always. We then went to watch the movie "Letters to Juliet". It is now one of my favorite chick flicks, I pretty much suggested it to everyone after I came back.

On Monday, my Mom, Mary, and I went to Gardunos. Apparently, they had to close down three restaurants already because businesss wan't going so well. It's so sad to hear because it's my favorite Mexican restaurant (although it's New Mexican as well...). I ordered a pina colada (virgin of course, sadly), beef chimichanga, and this one aguas frescas that tasted like 酸梅汤 . They had four different kinds of salsa, each made with a different type of chile. It was so good to finally have green chile again after suffering with the canned salsa at Rochester haha. I missed freshly cooked chips and sopapillas, even their refritos tasted different, so that lunch was definitely amazing. Then I worked out with Julie in the afternoon. I pretty much died on the treadmill (only ran 0.75miles) I'm guessing because of high altitude, but nonetheless, I must lose weight!

At night, we invited a friend over for dinner and made 茴香 and 韭菜 dumplings, since we grew it in the backyard. This was the first day I ate stuff off of my list haha. Since my parents sleep late, we called my grandparents around midnight because they really wanted to talk to me and my mom and I talked to them until 1:30am. Their health is slowly declining and they were afraid that they'll never see me again, it made me want to go to Beijing right at that moment.

Yesterday, Tuesday, was pretty relaxing. I read Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" throughout the day and worked out with Julie in the afternoon once again. The book was a bit creepy but very interesting because the facts are real, just not the connection. From noetics to the Mason society to underground secrets in DC, it really opened my eyes to what could be out there and to think outside the box. And especially the study of noetics (I actually felt smart cause I understood some of it from BCS). The book was probably my 3rd favorite, right after "Angels and Demons" and "The Da Vinci Code". Later that day, my Dad had to fix the swamp cooler, so we both climbed up to the roof of our house and I took a lot of random pictures of the neighborhood, mountains, and the sky.

I actually didn't take any pictures of anything I did thus far. I guess when you have too much fun, you forget to take pictures haha. My 50mm comes in today though, and this will mean lots and lots of pictures and the start of flickr. I'm excited :)

Done with Sophomore Year

Wow...I can't believe everything went by so fast. Sophomore year is gone and two more years before I graduate. This year my grades pretty much sucked, GPA lowered a lot, and well...I guess I'll just live with it. Stupid Orgo I'm gonna kill you! x.x

It's so weird to think that after I come back from England, I'll be done with more than half of my college career. Everything feels like just yesterday - moving in, experiencing college, making new friends, going to my freshman classes...but that isn't the case anymore.

Thinking back, freshman year was one of the best years of my life. It was fun, exciting, spontaneous, and very eventful. Despite some of the drama, I have learned so much, gained so much, and changed a bit (in a good way of course). They say college is about growing, and it's true - I have definitely grown as a person. All the experiences I took away from freshman year is priceless. I can still remember almost everything that went on in those two semesters.

Sophomore year was a bit different, to no surprise. Classes got harder, friendships grew and faded, new friends came in, and there was no more "fun" time or just time to relax and hang out with friends like I did freshman year. The first semester went by fast, I can't remember a lot of it. The second semester was filled with China Nite + Korea Night practices plus 4 science classes and 1 Linguistics, it was really hard for me to handle. I remember going to practice until 11pm and then studying for a test that was in the morning. But despite all that, what's done is done and I don't regret much.

I was looking at my transcript and I already have 92 credits. Then, I looked at the classes I still need to take and it fills up my schedule every single semester until I graduate. What happened to taking fun classes? There are so many classes I want to take but have no time, like ASL, Chinese, astronomy, photography, math. I think the premed stuff is taking the time of those classes and I'm not even sure if I still want to do it yet. What a waste of time...

Anyway, the last two weeks was somewhat uneventful because of finals. It wasn't that stressful though because I only had 3 and one was S/F. After I took my last final on Friday, it was around 8pm. I went to the pit and grabbed food only to find out that it was their last day! They're renovating everything and putting a Panda Express and something Mexican, haha I'm so excited! The workers seemed really happy too, talking with each other, laughing and cleaning, celebrating their last day of work (although where do they go after...). The only thing they had was a hamburger so I ate that as my last Pit meal. Around 10pm I went to hang out with some badminton friends. They were all leaving the next day, so we played some 升级 until 1am. Ah, one thing I'm gonna miss studying abroad will be playing cards. I'm such an addict, but I blame my family. Around 3am Manpreet and Tommy came over to visit Alex and knocked on my door. Wow, were they drunk, it was actually kind of funny. Susana filled me in on that later with her many pictures and random videos of Frances' party...and Tommy.

Saturday was Darien Lake day. We were supposed to go with Brian, Will, and Tommy but since they got so drunk the night before, none of them woke up. It just ended up being me and Susana. I wore flip flops that day and a light jacket, not thinking about the weather beforehand. Right when I was going to leave, Susana called and asked for me to bring a hoodie for her, which I did. She then called and said that I didn't need to because she got one already. That Sigma hoodie pretty much saved my life that day. Darien Lake was cold and rainy, it was around 30-40 degrees. At first it was ok, we rode the wooden roller coaster because it was the only one that was open. My feet started getting wet and I swear I couldn't even move them at one point. We rode a gravity ride and a black roller coaster. The gravity ride was fun because we were acting retarded and I almost couldn't get on, you had to be 5 feet. The roller coaster was nice too except that we always sit first row and the rain HURT SO MUCH on my face. After that, we ate Italian food at this restaurant that was a huge rip off...but it was worth it to be sheltered from the rain. Then we rode on a red roller coaster, ran back to the bus, and called it a day.

(End result of Darien Lake...LOL)

After we got back, Susana and I chilled in Sue B. and watched Enchanted. We then went to Douglass, ate a huge platter of fruit (like always). Later that night, Tommy, Alex, and DSong came over and we did some random stuff karaoke, which was hillarious. No videos because they're too embarrassing. It made me miss KTV in China. We were then going to watch a scary movie in Gleason but someone was already in the theater there, so we played some inklink and went to bed.

Sunday...I honestly can't remember what I did Sunday. All the days are starting to blur together.

(Stuffing Omelet)

Fast forward to Monday around 3pm, we made a bunch of food for brunch one of those days, where Frances and Di Pan came over as well. That night, Alex "made" us pull an all nighter with him because his plane was early in the morning. They did that for me last year, so I guess it's fair haha. We chose 4 of Justin's movies, none of which I have seen, and headed to Gleason. Once again...someone was using the place. Frances, Mike, Di Pan, Alex, Susana, and I just hung around and sat in a studio to watch Sherlock Holmes. It was a really good movie, I've always been meaning to see it, just keep forgetting. That guy is crazy, I wish I was as smart as him haha. During the movie, Justin, Lior, and DSong came to join us after watching their basketball. After the movie, everyone left and Susana, Alex, DSong, and I played some inklink, then went to help Susana clean her room. Lol, it was a mess, but that's to be expected. We didn't do any cleaning, but chilled there unil Alex had to go.

Tuesday, I was going to go to work, but then decided not to due to sleeping at 5-6am everyday since the end of school. I chilled in my room, did some cleaning, and talked to a few friends on IM. I really can't remember what I did that day as well. Ahhh I have an early case of Alzheimers....

Wednesday I actually went to work at 12pm, ended up waiting for my boss until 3pm, talked to him until 4pm, and went to dance practice. However, the Mac Room was closed, so I ended up eating and meeting Susana to go to CVS to pick up some pictures. We then dropped by the med center for a salad that was filled with tomatoes (yummmm) and then Douglass for a fruit platter (yummm x2). I met up with her later in Gleason, and Camille was there writing her speech for convention, lol poor GBig. Annabelle was there as well. We then went to Sue B. to learn a really fun dance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt6cKQPGlOY We weren't TOO bad for learning it in 3 hours.

Today, I'm at work again, came at 3pm and I've been waiting for him for 2 hours. He's such a busy person, but as long as I have my computer, I don't mind lol. That is why I'm writing this huge blog post.

I finally ordered a DSLR as well!! Nikon D90 + 50mm f/1.8 + Tokina 12-24mm = ~$1500. I'm soooo excited to finally get to play around with it after 2 years of wanting one. Taking pictures, making videos, dancing, singing, playing piano and guitar, I've realized that I really like arts (though I hate drawing). Why can't science and art be together? It would really make my life. It also makes me really grateful for the parents I have to support me in everything I do, and never say that it's a waste of money and/or time. They offered to buy me the DSLR, but I knew it would've been a waste of money so I just saved up for one on my own time. I feel like I'm the only one in the family who complains about money and keep tabs of everything I spend (it's quite OCD though). My mom always offers me money when I go shopping, but I rarely take it, or if I do I'll always pay her back. My parents just kind of go with the flow, do whatever because they feel that life's about having fun, of course they don't go overboard. I guess they just want me to be happy doing whatever I love to do, which is why I love them so much. Makes me sound spoiled, right? I just had to get that out there because it was Mother's Day on Sunday and I actually miss hanging out with my parents.

I can't believe I'm almost going home!
List of things to eat:
Federico's breakfast burrito
Tomatoes & Eggs (or anything with eggs in general)
Gardunos chimichanga + chips and salsa + fried ice cream
Everything fried rice
Julie's mom's Vietnamese food
Any kind of noodles
Kiwis, mangoes, strawberry, Asian pear, dates, anything from our backyard
Susana: Give Susana dates (Uh..what an idiot...)

List of movies to catch up on:
Alice in Wonderland
Iron Man 1 & 2
Clash of the Titans
A Nightmare on Elm Street
And any good chick flick
I'm sure there's more

Unfortunately, I have to do this within a week, cause I'll be leaving to SC on the 22nd.