Begin

It was only recently that I began to like pastries to go with coffee. Throughout the year, I always like looking at the café while passing by and seeing people relaxing outside while sipping their favorite beverages. The café soon became one of my favorite places to go to to relax and do homework since it was close to the dorms. One of my favorite pastries is the almond croissant since it’s not too sweet or overbearing. I guess what I enjoy alot about Berkeley is doing my homework in a coffee shop during the weekends since I find it much more relaxing and less distracting than in the dorms.

I’ve completed my finals a little more than a week ago and I received my final grades. There’s a little part of me that wants to nudge myself saying that I could have done better that semester considering I was taking less classes but at the same time I should feel content about how I performed. I guess the bright side in it is that my mom was rather content with my results and didn’t say that I couldn’t keep my job, whew. But in the end, I just hope that I can at least improve as each semester progresses to show at least that I have the ability to do better. Though, I’m still rather frustrated with myself that I am still not able to achieve the area that most people are doing. At the same time, I am still content that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Packing up everything after finals was pretty hectic and saddening. In retrospect, I feel pretty fortunate that I was able to be rather close to the floor, close enough that many of the floormates encouraged to have get together dinners every week. I was a bit surprised that the majority of the floor was anything but emotional, but rather everyone looked forward seeing each other again. In the end, there are two ways to approach this kind of situation, and I’m glad that people took the future more optimistically. However, I’m sure everyone knows in reality most of us will probably drift away. I would be pretty surprised and grateful if I end up being wrong next year.

My summer break week went by really quickly, which is rather sad and irritating. I guess the only thing that I got out of the break was to stay up really late and wake up really late…a habit I never did during college and only do at home. I guess that routine never subsided since I would be drowning myself with tea that would make me wide awake. It was the only time that I was away from my parents too, so I really took my time.

Though, the summer wasn’t very enjoyable since there was alot of stuff to take care of in terms of the apartment that two girls and I are sharing. At first, I thought that the outline of the apartment was finalized and ready to go for me to move in. However, I was soon welcomed with scolding and anger from one of my roommate’s parents, which left me frustrated and unhappy with the result. I have to admit, what I did afterwards was rather immature as well (hanging up in the middle of a videochat),  but I was rather “resentful” of how poorly the whole apartment situation was handled. Luckily, all three of us moved passed it since we had more things to worry about for the apartment.

To be honest, I’m quite excited yet a bit sad to live a new life in an apartment. The great upsides to it is that I’m able to cook and experiment on different dishes rather than settling with the rather bland dorm food. I guess there will also be less distraction in terms of studying, so hopefully my grades will improve? However, it definitely will feel different without all the noise down the halls of the dorms and the accessibility of seeing friends/floormates. But then again, life is always full of compromises.

When the Tide is Rough

The upcoming finals week did not start as auspiciously as I hoped for it to be. In fact, these last unfortunate events even came before the rain. It the weather was supposed to forewarn me of the problems, it is quite late. It is kind of annoying how almost everything bad that happens to me tend to happen on the day it rained. Perhaps that gives me a perfect explanation of why I do not like rain; it makes me paranoid and wet.

Despite the fact that I would love to rant more about my embitterment of the flawed registration system, I will not. Unless you would like to know that your life is not as bad as mine at the moment, feel free if you would like to know if I’m alright. Long story short, I am forbidden to enroll into two prerequisite classes for next semester. Now, the only alternative I have is to take two math classes that I have no knowledge of. Despite the fact that one math class is not related to the other, many people said that they regretted making the decision of taking the harder class before the easier. But whatever, I want to graduate on time.

Boy, has the time passed so quickly that I will soon have to move out the dorms. After staying here for four months now, I really can’t wait to go back home. My brothers just celebrated their birthdays, and it just saddens me that I had to miss it the first time. I stared at the facebook pictures that my brothers posted and I couldn’t help but cry. No, not the teary-eyed kind, more like the water pouring, sniffling, wah-wah kind. What bothers me even more is that I will not be able to see my family for most of the week when I’m at home. Technically, I won’t even be around for a whole weekend since I have to drive up by Sunday. I’ll find that the vacation will be slightly unproductive since I’ll be at home while my brothers and friends are at school and my sister at work. Ah, I will predict that I will be just working for my parents again, making some spare change here and there and come back up. That’s it.

It will be a lonely and short summer.

Warming up.

After being a Cal student for a semester and a half (almost two semesters! wow!), I find that it is VERY rare to have myself free from any homework during the weekends. If you have not heard my utter complaints about the rather long lab reports due every beginning of the week, you are very lucky. This week though, I was free of lab reports, confusing homework problems, and Mastering Physics! Hurrah!

To I guess celebrate for the free time, I decided to go to the dentist. Yeah, very exciting isn’t it? Well my top wisdom teeth decided to come out, which cause massive headaches during the week. Hopefully I will be able to wait it out until the summer and pull them out then instead of having to fly back. Afterwards, Eric and I went to the Berkeley’s Farmers’ Market, where we walked around and looked at all the interesting fruits and $10 orchids. I would have bought the orchids considering their long lifespan and it’s rather cheap price. Unfortunately, I already have a bouquet of real and fake flowers that I can barely find room for. Boo, well I guess I’ll consider buying it for the apartment during the summer.

Anyways, Eric and I later went to Jack London Square in Oakland. I have to say, it was rather uncomfortable walking in an urban area known for its high crime rates. Walking around Jack London Square was quite a pleasant experience, despite its small walking area. The plaza comprises of many fancy restaurants, a yacht showing, and random shops to look around. Eric and I decided to browse around Bevmo! since he wanted to buy another bottle of the Torino syrup to serve italian soda with. Along with that, we also bought some brie cheese and crackers to snack on during the week.

Since last summer, Eric and I have an inside joke where I strip his masculinity by treating him to a meal (typically dinner). Because he owed me about three dinners, he insisted on paying me back. I felt guilty because technically my mother tells mt to treat him as a “thank you” for the many favors that he does for me (such as walking me to the dentist), but it’s rather hard to say no to a persistant person taking me to a nice restaurant. So, we decided to go to Yoshi’s since I was very attracted to their menu the week before.

I was rather amazed how much Eric ordered: four rolls, one seaweed salad, and two desserts. The restaurant overall was delicious, and I was quite amused by the chef torching the salmon on the sushi roll. What bothered me the most in the dishes was a type of flavoring leaf that was used in their salad and in one of their rolls. To me, it tasted rather soapy and reminded me of lavendar tea I had with Ashley back in high school. I was interested in their Japanese/French dessert fusioned crème brûlée filled with red bean filling; though, I felt that the combination did not taste as suitable as a combination of peanut butter and jelly.

This week was rather…uneventful. Actually, no, there was a boat dance yesterday that was pretty fun. The Boat Dance that was hosted by our resident hall program rented a boat that had four floors filled with dance floors and rockband. It reminded me much of the high school dances at home, without the pictures sand corsage. I guess my mother will be happy to know that I wore the winter formal dress from senior year that she made me bring up. I felt a bit overdressed, oh well. What was nice about the event was that the boat actually drove from one side of the San Francisco Bay to the other side, and back; we got to see alot of nice buildings along with Pier 39. It was definitely a nice experience since it’s rather sad to know that college students will rarely ever be invited to these kinds of events.

Gah, I am bothered with my schedule dilemma for next year since I still have yet to fulfill an English requirement that I should get done soon, but my schedule is full as it is. I really want to go to Japan Town tomorrow since that’s another place I still have yet to visit. Though, I should be studying for finals…

Rewinding.

I have given myself another reason to say that my break isn’t as great as I expected it to. Unfortunately, I was not careful and unaware while backing out that I backed into my dad’s car. As a result, his car now has a huge scratch on his hind bumper that rubbed off a good handful of the paint coating. My sister’s car was lucky not to suffer the same damage, but has a slight dent on the bottom of her tail light and a few, but nearly unnoticeable, scratches.

Ugh. How can I be so stupid. Now I owe my mother probably a bajillion hours since my parents have to fix both cars eventually. I feel terrible.

Anyways, after yesterday’s trauma, I asked Jono to pick me up from my house to visit the high school campus. I find that I enjoy eating and conversing with only one person, two at most. Call me shy, but I deeply enjoy having conversations with nearly or no distractions, and I find that a large crowd are much more irritating than memorable. Plus, it’s been a while since Jono and I caught up with things, so it was nice talking and stuffing his face at the same time. Being the skinny person that Jono is, I made a bet with him that if he doesn’t gain enough weight to reach 145 pounds by the end of this winter break, he owes me two treats to boba. To be quite honest, I think I am going to win unless he gorges a gallon of guacamole a day.

The visit to the high school was quite refreshing and it was nice to see that nothing too much has changed other than some of my teachers have changed their glasses frames. While we were visiting my economics teacher, Mr. Bosanko, a student randomly waved at me as if she knew me while I was at high school. She definitely was a familiar face, which I quickly recalled later that she was in Treble Choir; however, I don’t recall ever talking to her in high school. I was surprised that the conversation that we had was not awkward at all; we quickly got into topics like IB, college decisions, and choir as if we knew each other for a while. It was nice though, considering that I had Key Club officers in that class and I didn’t talk nearly as much to them. Ironic isn’t it? Anyways, I also visited Mrs. Dutton whom I was so glad to see and catch up with.

After the visit, Eric came back from visiting UCLA and USC and bought a dozen of Diddy Reise cookies for me and my family. For his request, I showed him the rather embarrassing picture on the yearbook cover of me studying away on microeconomics as well as the studio pictures that I took at Taiwan and Shanghai a couple years back. It was nice to see him though after what has happened a few days back, hope he’s feeling better.

Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to see Shark after his long road trip with his parents. I was surprised that his friends would actually go so far of a place to get Pokemon cards and posters. Oh well, it was a nice coincidence since the convention was only a five minute drive away from my house. Despite the long noon being with my mom in the office, it was definitely worth the wait since I was able to go out with Shark and his friends and introduce them to the asian town that I live in. Unfortunately, I was not able to show them as much as I wanted to, but I guess spending time with him and his friends was all worth it. I was also able to see my Key Club buddies, Cheryl and Dayna, again. Even though we haven’t seen each other since school started, I am so glad to see that we still catch up and share our usual girl talk.

After all these visits, I had this unusual feeling that nothing has changed since I left, as if time was frozen here while I was gone and resumed again when I came back. Although it’s impossible to ever happen, it was a nice feeling that nothing much has changed over the past few months with places or people.

Random note: My mom is obsessed with bookmarking links to YouTube videos on her iPhone, and she just found out how nifty that tool was this week. Now, she’s just as hooked to this as a kid playing video games, it’s quite hilarious.

Falseless Complexion

To make it official than on the overrated Facebook status, I am finally home. Actually, I have been home since the 20th at approximately 1:00AM. I was actually scheduled to arrive to Walnut somewhere around 11:00PM, but there were a numerous amount of delays. What makes it more irritating was that these delays were last minute: once when Eric and I came in to check-in our baggage, another time when we were about twenty minutes from boarding, and once more when he and I were in the plane waiting impatiently for a pilot to fly the plane. If I were to attempt to make an optimistic perspective out of all this, at least I got home since there were many unfortunate few who had to fly out of state and had either cancelled flights or had to live in the terminal for a night. Plus, at least I had company with Eric and I was fortunate enough to talk to Shark with free Wi-fi to kill some time. I found it rather sweet that while Eric was playing Mario Kart 64 on his laptop, he immediately paused it and said “Happy Birthday” to me when the clock stroke 12. This was the first time being in the plane during my birthday.

Home was the usual, and I grew to get used to it. Sort of. Although I was surprised that my mom shared alot of things with me that I never would expect. As we both sat in her Mercedes, engine and lights off, every word that my mother and I conversed of felt alive and meaningful. I empathized more of where she came from and why she tends to hold endless grudges that my siblings and I would never understand. After that moment, I learned to admire her more.

One thing that I totally underestimated was how much my friends wanted to celebrate my birthday this year. I initially thought that we were going to plan the Christmas party together on the same day as we planned during Thanksgiving. Thus, I was reluctant to plan since I didn’t come home since the night before and I was swamped with finals till the 19th. Surprisingly, everyone came in with presents for me. I stared down and asked if we were supposed to plan the Christmas party that day, which everyone answered that it was postponed till the 29th. Looking at everyone coming to the party and wanting to plan everything for that day truly made me touched and very happy that I had friends like them to rely on. I also felt rather guilty since I haven’t bought half of them a present this year, which I should definitely make up next year. I am so grateful for you guys, you certainly made my spirits much lighter and happier after what’s been happening the last few weeks. It was certainly a great start to Winter Break, and I can’t wait till the 29th to see everyone again.

Today was the last day to eat my antibiotics. Yay!

Bad Timing

Surprisingly, I have another case of uninary infection. The element of surprise is that I am still in the middle of my finals and this became another problem of the many that I’ve been trying to deal with.

Ugh, I hate my life. Truthfully, I rarely notice that my birthday is coming up this Saturday. Now, I really don’t care and I’ve grown to be more apathetic about this day.

I REALLY hope this pessimistic mentality changes. But at this rate, it won’t.