a convoluted mess

It's interesting to see how up and down my week have become. I started nice and high on Monday, and now, heading into Friday, I feel like I'm wadding through mud, stuck to the floor with stormy clouds above. Quite a scene huh? Okay, maybe I'm being a tad bit dramatic. I find myself frowning a lot today. I just want to throw my hands in the air and proceed to bury my head underneath my pillow. But I shouldn't. I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't do that, what should I do? And yes, I know I shouldn't have such a defeated attitude but I feel lost, once again. I just wonder how we will rebound back from it and when. I know I shouldn't be focusing on it because I have other things that I should direct my attention to but it's so gosh darn distracting.

I must stay positive! Think happy thoughts! At least fake it?

Labor Day Weekend

My Labor Day weekend can be summarized with a couple of words: hectic, laughs, smiles.

It was a bit crazy driving back home just to drive away the very next morning with 3-4 hours of sleep. Thank goodness my dad provided me with life's best energy source - COFFEE! And having my brother wish me a happy and safe trip to LA definitely made the morning way brighter. The plane was unexpectedly tiny! I was definitely worried for a while because of all the noise the plane was making when the gears was going up.

It was really fun hanging out with B's family and watching them interact with one another. My family functions really different in comparison so it was nice to see and be a part of something different for once. It was also interesting meeting the rest of his family and his cousins/nephews/nieces. The wedding was also really nice and touching. I nearly teared up because I thought it was so sweet and simple. Yeah, I get teary-eyed quite easily...

I didn't take that many pictures but I'll for sure remember this weekend for awhile. These are some of the memorable places and things we did: went to Rosco's Chicken N Waffles (a higher-end KFC in my opinion), a fancy Chinese restaurant that served shark fin soup (this was quite a debate afterwards, whether it was actually shark fin soup or something else...), a yummy Indonesian cafe (I want to go again!!), Wolfgang Puck catering at the wedding, and Manhattan beach (too bad the weather was kind of crappy). Oh, and I also brought back some desserts from the Indonesian cafe and it was delicious! B said that Indonesian food is a bit fattening, which is super unfortunate because it tastes so phenomenal that I want to have it every day and would have to sacrifice my waistline for it. Food, or waist. Hmm.. tough decision.

It was only 3 days but it was a well-needed vacation, even though I was running low on sleep. It's hard getting back to work mode when your body and mind just wants to run the other way. Now all I'm looking forward to is a trip out of the state, maybe to Hawaii again? That would be pretty sweet.

sweltering, melting

The weather is so crazy right now! It's night time and I feel as though the temperature hasn't even dropped one bit. I can't wait to get back to the bay where all the fog and chillness is.

Yesterday B, The Professor, and I went on a little field trip to find these little creatures down below.

Burrowing owls! Also known as Athene cunicularia. Did you know that these particular owls are most active in the day? Yes, I wikipedia-ed the information. And that's all I know as of yet. Maybe I should have asked The Professor more questions while we were staring down the owls. I was too busy feeling miserable in the oppressive heat in my jeans, cursing myself for not bringing an extra pair of shorts to change into. Unfortunately the sun was glaring straight at us while we were taking pictures of the owls so this is the best picture I've got. (We brought a friend's better quality camera but the battery died after like 5 photos - major fail!) I definitely want to go back and take better pictures, preferably with a camera that's fully charged.

a warming sunday

Last night was quite eventful (understatement!). B and I went to the Sacramento River Cats game against Fresno (go RC!) with my bosses and co-workers. It was a pretty fun night full of food, candy, and just plain baseball! We had a minor rough patch (another understatement...) prior to the game so I'm glad (more like relieved) that we managed to put our game faces on and tried to enjoy the rest of the night. I really wish we had brought the camera to capture the beautiful fireworks at the end of the game. We had a great view and great seats, and great company! Go Davis Sequencing! Performing sequences for you, and for the tomorrow! Yeah, I made up the last line - that's not our slogan or motto whatsoever. I'm hoping I can grab a copy of the pictures from Dan tomorrow. Crossing my fingers! On a side note, it was quite the chilly night. I'm glad we brought sweatshirts and jackets, though I kind of wish we had a blanket to cover our shivering legs.

As for today, the weather picked up again today and went from chilly (on Saturday) to a pleasant degree of warmth (almost borderline HOT). It was suppose to be a simple Sunday. My definition of simple? Do a bit of house cleaning here and there, do my laundry, crack open the GRE book, hang out with the B-myster for a few hours, and call it a night. Midway during my chopping and prepping for lunch, the B-myster's parents were in town and I got treated to Thai for lunch! YUM! I felt bad for being a tag-a-long but man, the Thai Iced Tea is unbelievable. I just kept slurping away. Food? What food? All I need is this yummy orange concoction. :]

After a nice and filling lunch, it was back to my place time to put our brains to work. While B-myster was taking advantage of my Princeton Review materials, I was busy trying to memorize the endless stream of vocabulary. It never ends I tell ya. I still can't believe B got such high-scores on the first test. It blew my score wayyy out of the ocean. I need to work harder and beat him. Too bad studying is such a pain in the butt. Motivation is easy to find, but difficult to keep.

stretched taunt

Sometimes I feel like I'm pulled at every angle. Not by people but more towards responsibilities and emotions I suppose. A few weeks back I enrolled in a Princeton GRE review course that meets up every Tuesday night for 7 weeks. I anticipated a whole buttload of homework and no surprise, you ask and you shall receive! The GRE manual and ETS book is always nearby, tucked away in my bright green tote bag. So I have been devoting a lot of my time to the class and trying my darn hardest to stay on track in terms of homework and coursework. Luckily I always have a few hours at work to just scribble away so that has been extremely helpful since I seem have a knack at being unproductive at home. But I still want to have fun. I still want to go out at night and have a nice dinner. I want to go places on the weekends and not think about the long list of vocab words I have yet to memorize. And, this is going to sound awful, but I want to knit. I want to knit my stress away in the form of scarves and hats and whatnots! My creative outlet is feeling quite repressed at the moment.

All this is driving me nuts. Every time I go out, I pray for a satisfying night that will leave me feeling content. And when it doesn't, I get super grumpy because a little part of me is whispering sarcastically, "well wasn't that fun... you could have spent that whole time being more productive instead!" This, in turn, causes me to go sink into my pit of funk where everything just simply sucks. GREs, I dislike you! I dislike the person you have turned me into.

coffee on my mind

Recently I have been hooked, addicted, obsessed, with coffee. Just this past weekend, my friend Paula and I checked out a local coffee "hideout" in SF called Blue Bottle on Linden. It's so small and is literally out of someone's garage in the middle of an alley. I ordered a mocha (for $4.50) and the foam/whip design was so cute! It was one of the main reasons why we, more like Paula, chose this place. I'm really glad we got to check it out. The mocha tasted more like hot, dark chocolate - very delicious! There was a park nearby and we talked, sipped coffee, and watched kids and dogs walk by. I hope I have many more days like that in the future.

Blue Bottle can be considered a hidden gem. Hidden from plain view, hard to find parking. I'm not an expert at coffee tasting but the taste of the Caffe Mocha was quite different from the ones that I have had in the past. It was more chocolate, but not in an overly sweet way. The price of the drink, in proportion to the size, was reasonable - comparable to the price of Starbucks. There were not a lot of selections but sometimes that might make it easier for the customer to choose. I noticed while we were there that they served espresso shots in tiny mug cups. And once they were done with the drink, they just handed the cup back. I like! :D

I would love to go back a second time, if only parking was easier. Another drawback was that it is so far from my house. I wonder if there are any nice coffee shops nearby my house.

weekend getaway

This weekend was AWESOME. It was such a nice treat from the craziness of the past week. On Saturday, I woke up at 6am to this beautiful sight. The colors were just so awe-worthy.

Around 2 hours later, we arrived at Pt. Reyes and went through one of the dirtiest and muddiest hikes yet. My shoes were slipping and getting sucked. The biggest surprises during the hike was on the way back, there were cows (huge ones!) blocking the trail! Too bad I wasn't fast enough to capture a picture of Brian running towards the cows, and scaring them off in the process. In addition, the first bed of water we saw in the beginning of the hike had subsided later on in the day, leaving mud and splotches of trapped water. Then we proceed to hit up the beaches.

At this beach, there were a lot of rock formations and we can even saw a lot of stratification. That was cool - seeing the layers of rock that has been there for ages. Of course I would not of realized all this without Brian pointing it out (duh).

On Sunday, we went yumcha at a place called Rice Bowl Restaurant in Sacramento. It was a decent place for dimsum but taste-wise, New Canton is still more favorable. Then we drove in circles (!!!) trying to find the local Ranch 99 and when we finally found the address, it turns out that the stated address, the location at which the Ranch 99 website posted up, was an EMPTY BUILDING. Oh. My. Gawd. It was so disappointing, but at least I was with good company. Plus, the hours or so nap that we took afterward makes everything better.

Good hike, food, nap, run, and company = AWESOME POSSUM! (Thanks for taking me Brian!)