Unfinished Business

The picture above features a picture that Eric took of his brunch plate at Liaison Bistro. Surprisingly, I found his picture to look alot better than most of the pictures that I have featured on my blog. The plate shown is an Ouefs Liaison, which is poached eggs over Dungeness crab cakes topped with hollandaise sauce. Unlike most restaurants that Eric and I tried over the summer, Liaison Bistro was one of the few that we would be willing to go again since the food is not only delicious, but also the really nice service.

These last few months I’ve been on a long hiatus since summer school was very long and tough, yet busy and enjoyable at the same time. Between the endless nights of starting or revising papers, Eric and I would go on short adventures of either trying out restaurants around the Berkeley area, using each other as guinea pigs and do some experiment cooking, or have weekly gatherings of either watching Studio Ghibli movies or Food Network’s “Who Will Be the Next Food Network Star?” Those adventures definitely kept me sane for the most part of the summer, along with the 14/week work hours that I tried keeping up. In the end, most of my paychecks went down the drain due to shopping. So I decided that I am going to make sure I ban myself from shopping, a nearly impossible challenge to overcome.

Overall, I was very pleased with the grade that I received in the course and I was touched by the words of my instructor on the last day of class. I think out of all the professors that I have had the last few semesters, my College Writing instructor was so far the most effective teacher who pushed my boundaries away and kept me going. I learned alot of things from not only the instructor herself, but also the peers who also helped me drive my essays in the right directions. But I would not have gone this far without Eric’s help, and I really apologize since I feel bad for making him come over all the time in the wee hours to help me with my essays. Looking back, I am very happy to have taken this class since it really showed that 1) I don’t completely fail at writing anymore and 2) the work really pays off.

It’s great being back at home again and seeing my family. There were also several things that I was surprised with since my sister changed the look of our room (yay! we have a sofa!) and our bathroom downstairs is having a beauty makeover. I really miss having a dog in Berkeley, I think I am having withdrawal symptoms since I squeal at every dog I come across. Seeing friends was great too, especially with really cheap dim sum!  Gah, I wish I can afford at DSLR! I was playing around with Eric’s and now my urge of getting one has only gotten stronger. I need to save up.

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!

Beginning of something?

Surprise surprise that I have moved again (not really) to another blog. Still, I decided to not make it a clean, fresh beginning since I kept the original name of the blog. Actually, beautifylove originated on WordPress first and I moved it to Blogger. Quite frankly, I have no idea why I did that a year and a half ago, but I’m back here again. It was amusing seeing that I rant chemistry as if it was my life. Well sadly, I guess it did consume a huge portion of my life.

You may wonder why I decided to move it here. Being a lazy person I was during this summer, I begin to actually notice that blogspot has a limited choice of themes that are available for everyone. Not only that, but they set restrictions on the template, leaving little creativity to customize one’s blog. Thus, I was annoyed and decided to continue my blogging needs here.

Most of you guys know that I went to Taiwan for three weeks. Long story short, it was the best vacation I’ve had for a very long time. While I was there, I shopped. ALOT. It was very rare to see me carrying bags and bags of clothes and other accessories. Don’t get me wrong, I love to shop, but everything in America becomes so expensive compared to Taiwan. I mostly bought either things that were related to fashion or necessities for college. Yes, very nerdy of me. Anyways, Taiwan was a great experience such as the night life. Since the legal drinking age at Taiwan is eighteen, I was able to have the wonderful experience to drink alcohol and clubbing. Actually, it wasn’t the greatest experience, maybe it’s because but it was fun spending time with friends and not worry about having to clean the house or put up with my mother. I also made alot of new friends as well as getting close with my distant relatives. It’s amazing how large my mother’s family tree is. Here’s how I’m related to my “cousins” of whom I stayed with.
Tatum and Yvonne -> Their father’s -> mother’s -> sister’s -> husband’s -> brother’s -> daughter’s -> Me!

No joke! It’s ridiculously long, but it’s true!

Anyways, after Taiwan, my sleeping cycle has returned as it was before I left. Although it’s annoying to wake up in the afternoon and waste the whole morning sleeping away. I haven’t been the most productive person either since I was determined to “study” during the rest of the summer. The biggest accomplishment I have done since I came back was buying the textbook that I needed for the chemistry class. Ha, It was half the original price and I guess I’m excited to look through the book when it comes in. Boy, do I sound really nerdy right now.

Blah, I’m getting exhausted.