20 things

It's not my birthday today, but I felt like starting this post early. I don't really know exactly what I want to accomplish with this post, but you all know how much I love lists, so maybe I'll do that.

20 random things I remember about the last 20 years (in chronological order):

1. Falling asleep to Dumbo on the sofa and getting nightmares

2. Playing hockey with my brother in the living room and getting angry when he didn't let me score a goal

3. Watching I Love Lucy with my grandma as a child even though she didn't know English

4. Helping put up chairs and erase the chalkboard after Chinese school

5. Cleaning Johnston's house for fun and his mom telling me "all these dishes have to be clean, okay?!"

6. Redoing every problem of my AP Calculus homeworks on my living room floor weeks before the AP exam

7. Going through a box of Frances Lo's mom's video tapes and deciding to watch Drop Dead Gorgeous

8. The time I met Alvin and asked him to drive me to the mountains for APES and being very impressed by his driving skills

9. Gathering for group pictures at the last few minutes of filming the TMV music video

10. Being berated by a tall Asian man at Souplantation for having to wait in line, and the couple behind him telling me he was an idiot a little later
11. Danny shooting an air soft gun and puncturing a hole into Frances L's windowshade

12. Greg S. asking Chrystal and me if we were rooming together in Berkeley and us looking at each other with a "... I hadn't thought of that..." look

13. Feeling like I might die from exhaustion during my first Black Friday and sleeping in the food court of Ontario Mills

14. Owen getting stung by a bee in his swimming pool and looking extremely sad and little boy-like

15. Passing out drunk in my bedroom and waking up to a very angry mother

16. Walking to the Arcadia gym at 11pm and having my mom walk me back at midnight because she thought someone might attack me in the .25 miles between the gym and my house

17. Turning in my statistics final and being very happy when my GSI smiled at me and said goodbye

18. Waiting by the bus stop near the Bart station with Angelica and other RCSA people and bonding over never dating anyone and realizing that maybe I'm not so abnoormal

19. Talking to Caroline in the Unit 3 restroom and telling her to take her family to Cafe Durant, which is how we became friends

20. Going to my first Big4 Forum and feeling completely unqualified and unprepared

20 things I hope the next twenty years consists of:

1. Annual dinners with TMV

2. Dinners consisting of salad and fruit

3. Ironed dress shirts and comfortable high heels

4. All my favorite television shows on DVD lined up in rows next to my tv

5. Abs of steel

6. Making hot tea for myself during late nights

7. Taking friends out to eat and taking turns paying the bill

8. Inviting friends over to my apartment to watch football

9. Cleaning my living space thoroughly every Saturday morning

10. Going on dates

11. Driving my surfboard to the beach

12. Throwing my house keys on the kitchen counter after coming home from work

13. Sitting down at a big table with TMV during one of our weddings

14. Eating meals at the counter on a wooden bar stool in front of my laptop

15. Crossing off things on my "to do" list

16. Making friends in unexpected places

17. Some sort of heartbreak that I learn from

18. Sushi

19. Good television

20. Fulfillment

20 random thoughts about life at this age:

1. You don't have to work hard to get far in life. You just have to have connections

2. Sweets are my weakness and I'll never be able to ban them from my life

3. I don't even remember most of the things that used to stress me out

4. But that doesn't mean I should become apathetic about things

5. Being thin is a pretty good step up in life

6. "Don't cry over someone who wouldn't cry for you" - Lauren Conrad

7. Don't bother getting mad over something that probably wouldn't happen again, or if you can't change it

8. I've pretty much done everything I ever seriously wanted to do, which means I'm pretty lucky

9. AHS was a fairly atypical public high school

10. It's better to just buy something expensive and good quality instead of buying crap all the time

11. People judge you constantly. You just shouldn't worry about it all the time

12. Converses are really shitty shoes. And I shouldn't buy things just because they're popular

13. Most people don't know what they're doing in life, even if they sound like they do

14. Waking up at 4:30 is surprisingly easier than it sounds

15. You can't please everyone, but you shouldn't be annoying everyone

16. Eating healthy and keeping fit makes me a much happier person

17.  There's always someone better than you

18. "Some experiences can't be valued by how much you pay for it" - my mom

19. Some people really aren't cut out to have kids, and I'm more certain now that I am one of these people

20. I've led a pretty good life

:) Going home tomorrow. I'm going to try doing homework now. I ate like 1/3 of a really sweet cake today. Plus House of Curries. I feel terrible. I wish I were thin. That's what I'll be wishing for on my birthday. And for Christmas. And for all the subsequent years.