Things I should hate but I actually like

1. Songs by Fall Out Boy


2. The smell of chlorine on my skin
... so essentially, I like the smell of public pool on my body

3. Finals
Regular school is too structured and vacations are too unstructured. But finals are just right! You have friends all looking for excuses to not study + your own laziness = guilty fun. I kind of miss it now

4. Asparagus


5. Zac Efron
I know I'm about three years late, but I think it just took me three years to get used to his face. I somehow like him more after more media exposure, I think because I don't hear him talk too much and I don't bother reading his interviews so my impression of him never changes.

First week summer 09

Even though I've updated for mostly every day of my first week, I still find it necessary to do a summary of the week. Right now, I'm SUPER full after dinner with Alvin and Jackie. So full in fact, that I think I will continue blogging after I use the restroom...

Ok. Took a shower, brushed my teeth. So I guess around Wednesday I was like "OMG how is it only Wednesday?!" I felt like I had been working for weeks. Every day just sucks the life out of me. Summers always make me cherish being a student. Especially after Li-Ting's comment yesterday,

Li-Ting: I have vacation soon! YAY!
Laura: How long is your vacation?
Li-Ting: Two days! (with real enthusiasm)
Laura: oh god *moan*

I fear the days when 3 day weekends become the light at the end of the tunnel.

Anyhoo, this weekend was great! Such a welcome weekend of fun. Ideally, this is what the REST OF MY LIFE will be like - work work work FUN, repeat. But realistically, I think that FUN eventually becomes ERRANDS, so it's work work work ERRANDS with fun every few weeks (or dear god, months). I ended up doing really well diet wise and exercise wise during the week. Exercised twice a day, so now when people (that is, LAURA) introduce me with "SHE EXERCISES TWICE A DAY!" it's not a lie. BECAUSE I REALLY DID NOT EXERCISE TWICE A DAY. THAT WAS LIKE SOPHOMORE YEAR and maybe a couple of times junior year!

But then during the weekend, my exercise AND diet totally went out the window. We had Li-Ting's birthday celebration. I REALLY ENJOYED IT! We were basically touring the south bay. It felt nice to drive for so long. I was really relieved when we got a little lost, because then I could nap longer. I wish we had had been able to shop at the Great Mall, but if we had shopped, we couldn't have done other fun things.

So we went to D&B for lunch and arcade games. I cannot believe there is only ONE D&B in the bay area. I thought they were everywhere! How can there be a D&B in ARCADIA but none in SF?! That is too odd. I ate way too much at D&B - a huge chicken pesto pasta. My "eat only half of any dish you buy" was forgotten because I was so excited to eat pasta. Then we played games. I surprisingly made a couple baskets while playing basketball. I remember as a kid I loved basketball. I hope one day I can play with Li-Ting, Laura, Janie, and Soo-Jin. I don't remember who is the groper. I have the feeling it is Laura, but it could be both Laura and Soo-Jin.

We won Li-Ting a cute polar bear. At first I was really amazed that we got 800+ tickets, because you could get a lot of fairly good prizes with 800+ tickets. Then I realized that the polar bear essentially cost us $40. HAHA But totally worth it! The bear has memories attached to it now.

I think people watching in D&B is a little scary. I get freaked out by the intense dead stare people have when they are playing games and gambling with their money. It's too much like Vegas.

After that, we drove on to karaoke in Cupertino. I actually sang A LOT! Only because Laura joined us which was exciting. I'm pretty sure the karaoke place used to be an office. I think Cupertino is aesthetically better than Arcadia. The businesses in Arcadia seems a little more ghetto while Cupertino businesses look like Irvine. I also think the houses are more toned down, whereas there are more large but ugly mansion in Arcadia. The karaoke place had a lot of really new songs. They even had Sam Sparro - Black and Gold, and MGMT - Kids (which seems like it would be an unfun song to sing karaoke to). My favorite ever was singing Love Story with Laura because she would give me CRAZY EYES whenever we sang "BABY JUST SAY YES" and I would always burst out laughing.

Then we drove to get sushi at one of those places where sushi floats on a boat. I was still full from D&B and the delicious fruit tart so I didn't get too much... then drove back to Li-Ting's place. I love her place. It feels very bachelorette pad like. Li-Ting, Angel, and Tiffany seem very mature (actually, that is hilarious because Li-Ting and Angel are both very child-like sometimes). But they all work and seem very independent and knowledgable about a lot of things. I hope one day people will think of me in the same light.

LOL MY APTMATE JUST CALLED HIS MOM AND SAID "hey mommy" I struggled not to burst out laughing. I hope he doesn't glance at this while walking past me.

Anyway, so we sat there a little bit and Laura and I went to eat more of the fruit tart. While cutting it, Laura was like "wait where is everyone?" and I said "well Tiffany's sleeping, Angel went to her room, and Li-Ting just went to her room" and Laura replied "... so we're just in their house?" HAHA We were. We were just in their house, eating their dessert. HAHA So we left after we had our fill of delicious tart.

I really hope I find a reason to celebrate soon, because I want to eat a fruit tart either from Andronicos or from Shing Keee Bakery. Mmmm... NEED TO ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING!

Laura came back to Berkeley with me! Oh god, this entry is so xanga-like, I don't like it. These are not the kind of entries that get comments. Oh well. My roommate is gone so I just slept on his bed and Laura slept on mine. We were like "this is how it must feel to be each other's roommates!" Laura also said to me on the Bart "even though we haven't known each other so long, I feel like..." and then I interjected with "THAT I'M LIKE YOUR BEST FRIEND?" and she said "... yeah kind of" and I was like AWWWW.

I woke up and planned to gym but I was like, eh, I'm going to look for books to borrow from the library tomorrow. Laura looked at my list after she woke up and laughed at them. :( We ate at Cafe Durant then spent several hours watching celebrity interviews on tonight shows, which was fun. My FAVORITE was one I showed her, of Kellie Pickler on Ellen.

Then we rode the bus to Ici, stood in line, THEN DECIDED NOT TO GET ANY. So we walked home and I ate an apple and Laura ate some of my Fenton's ice cream. What a ridiculous trip. I kept thinking - I really want ice cream ... BUT I'M ON A DIET! ... but mmm ice cream and Laura's here ... BUT I'M ON A DIET!

Then she went home CRIES. I hope I see her next weekend. If I don't, I won't see her for AT LEAST A MONTH while she's in Europe with Soo Jin! I said to her, "do you think if I had been a year older, and if I had gotten a job, and I had known you guys, we would have gone to Europe together?" and Laura was like "yeah, but that's a lot of Ifs" :( They bought their tickets a couple of days ago. I realized that I had been hoping that they would be too lazy to buy their tickets and decide "hey! Hanging out with meltang all summer is pretty comparable to traveling through Europe for a month!" But I guess my dream is shattered.

Then I randomly took a nap. I didn't expect to but suddenly I just found myself face down on my bed. Then Jackie and I went to Alvin's to eat dinner together! Jackie had made this delicious almond pudding SO GOOD I MUST BUY THE POWDER! And Alvin had made curry and a really delicious Chinese dish. We ate in his room, then ate dessert (the pudding and freshly blended watermelon juice) on his back porch. SO CUTE I LOVE IT! :) Then we drove to Jackie's new apt which I REALLY LIKE! I would have loved to live in a place like that, except I don't know who I would have roomed with.

Eating dinner with them makes me feel like I should totally start cooking and make incredible dishes. I always get in those "YEAH I CAN COOK! I JUST NEED TO TRY!" modes when I eat at Alvin's, but then the next day I just stick a piece of salmon in the toaster oven. Then we also talked a little about what we want to do after graduation, which made me think "YEAH I SHOULD GO TO GRAD SCHOOL! LEARN TONS! GET A MASTERS!" but that feeling dies down after an hour of class.

Then Jackie drove us home. I think this weekend was super cute. Hung out with my good friends! I hope all summer weekends are the same, because if they are, then I will gladly have terribly exhausting weekdays. I'm so tired. Sorry for the boring entry

<3 Imeem

The place I'm interning at gives me full access of the internet which means: LOTS AND LOTS OF IMEEM! I wish radioblogclub.com still existed, but I've given up hope that it will ever come back. Its welcome screen has been there for the past three years. But imeem is ok ... I wish people would have more diverse playlists though, instead of just uploading albums. I like to discover new artists. I listened to the house playlist Soo Jin sent me and today I listened to a lot of Silversun Pickups. I would not have ever listened to them except Danny mentioned them in his blog. Their band name makes me think that they would sound like Incubus, (which is why I never bothered to listen to them) when they do not. Of course, I am a sucker for any remixes


I can also go on gmail, facebook when I eat my apple, and read nytimes! So much better than when I could only access sec.gov, as interesting as that was. I think meebo would be too tempting, so I refrain from that. I like reading The Atlantic Monthly magazine and I saw it at Berkeley Bowl so today I read some articles on the website. I was pretty disappointed. Their website reminds me of a giant twitter but with more characters. Too many opinions.

It's 10:20! While swimming today, I suddenly got all these images of food in my head around my 50th lap. At my 70th lap, I couldn't stand the hunger anymore so I just pushed until my 80th and went home. So I plan to make some sort of pasta with broccoli for dinner next week, and then maybe lasagna. I need to think of dishes that I can make over the weekend, refrigerate, and then eat slowly over the course of a week. There's no time for me to cook a good meal on weekdays! My past two dinners were good though. I finished off my salmon patties, and I would steam spinach and put it in the hamburger. If I had had feta cheese, it would have been even more delicious, but oh well. No time to go to Trader Joe's either.

I don't know what's up but I used to be able to swim for a very long time and just think about life. Now, I'm barely at lap 40 and I'm super bored. What did I use to think about? I think I used to have a more active imagination, but now I'm just kind of whatever. Also, don't really want to think about real life. So that leaves me with nothing to think about. I need some drama.

My mom and I are in a non-fight right now - there's nothing we're really fighting about but shit happened and now I don't really want to speak to her. I guess I should be the bigger person and just figure out how to repair our relationship but I'm the kind of person who just cuts their losses and moves on. But you can't really cut a parent out of your life, especially when I still need them for money... haha.

It's 10:45! I can't figure out if I'm tired enough to sleep or not. Tomorrow is Friday, end of the first week of my summer.

Omg... I've decided to rewatch old seasons of Laguna Beach. Two things wrong with that: 1) I'm watching Laguna Beach 2) I'm REWATCHING Laguna Beach. No one should really watch it ever, much less MULTIPLE TIMES. But I'm desperate for drama... omg... my life...

It took me a long time to find the site too. MTV.com is one of the worst designed sites ever. What is this crap. Anyway, if you feel like dumbing down, here they are

A few seconds

I'm glad the place I'm interning at is very flexible with time. Taking public transportation to work is so stressful. Everything comes down to a few seconds. Even if I know that nextbus says that the 51 is coming in three minutes, the entire time I walk to Bancroft, I wonder if I shouldn't have checked my hair in the mirror, or if I shouldn't have attempted to add a few more songs to my iPod.

Also when I'm on the 51, I freak out if the bus makes too many stops. I always tag one person as someone I am going to blame if I miss the Bart. Like today, I went down the escalator but right when I stuck my ticket in, I saw the SF/Milbrae train pull away. So I said to myself, "ARGH IT WAS YOUUUUU person who got on in front of the RSF!"

My days are way too busy. And every morning I wake up thinking "what excuse do I have to NOT exercise?" But I'm going to proclaim that I can not break away from my diet/exercise plan for any reason until summer school begins (July 6th). Let this blog hold me accountable! I only swam 50 laps today which was pretty lame. But I had to go to the library to drop off some books I borrowed, and I wanted to go before the sun went down.

I HAVE NO FREE TIME ANYMORE! I have to do all my errands one per day, because I'm unable to do all of them at once. Also, I HATE how I can't do anything within normal business hours! I had plans to borrow all these library books to read while sitting on the bus/bart, but the freaking libraries are only open when I'm at work! Even if I get off at 4:00, by the time I get back to Berkeley, the libraries are closed. The only books I have left are Blink and Fools Rush In. I think I can finish those by next week. Then maybe I'll go into work an hour late, check out like ten books at the Haas library, and then read them over the rest of the month.

I went with my coworkers to buy lunch at the food court in Westfield. I DO NOT LIKE. SO expensive! Why can't Berkeley food be present everywhere?! Cheese N Stuff should become a franchise. I must have access to $3.50 deli sandwiches for the rest of my life.

I keep having ideas of what to blog about when I'm at work but when I get home there's too much for me to do. And now there's NO TIME for me to blog! I should have been in bed two minutes ago! So goodnight.

*songs left to transfer on my computer: 4787*

I did it! One (fairly good) day

I have some very lofty goals for this summer. All the same goals I always have: lose weight, make friends, eat less. Kristen looked at my post-it note of summer goals and was like "You need TANGIBLE GOALS! BE SPECIFIC!" So here are some more specific goals

Lose weight: keep my same jean size but be thin enough to require a belt so my pants aren't falling down my butt.

Make friends: some at my internship, some in my Haas class. I don't think I can really quantify this. I just don't want to be lonely!

Eat less: Once I finish my box of variety oatmeal (aka packets of sugar and oats), I'm going to buy a canister of PLAIN oatmeal and eat that. I hope strawberry season lasts the duration of my oatmeal craze. Lunch currently consists of a giant apple. Some people may think, "an apple! That doesn't sound very filling!" But I have given my giant apples to Andria, Laura and Soo Jin, and they all looked at the apple as if it were Mt. Everest.
Dinner has been Soo Jin's leftover Intermezzo salad, which I slowly pick at. I doubt there is much nutrition left in these browning leaves, but the garbanzo beans are so tasty relative to the box of tastelessness

So today I woke up at 6:34, a few minutes before my alarm was scheduled to go off at 6:45. I debated ignoring my alarm and just sleeping in, but I realized this would be pointless because I already couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up then got ready to go to the gym. I ran on the treadmill (yay!). I always feel relieved when I see people at the gym during the summer. It reminds me that there ARE people in Berkeley.

Got home, I felt like I didn't have time to do the rowing machine or weights, and I was probably right. Showered then checked my daily websites real quick. Now, my entire morning routine is coupled with panicked checking of nextbus.com and bart.gov to make sure that I'm not going to miss my public transportation.

So I figured out I can catch the 8:47 bart and make it to my work around 9:15, which is still earlier than my supervisor comes in. Worked ... then ate lunch with Kristen, Christina, Kate and Lauren. I'M LIVING THE SATC DREAM! Working but managing to have time to eat with friends. They were in SF for Museum Day. Apparently tons of museums had free admissions today. I have no idea how Kristen and Christina are constantly finding out about events in the Bay Area but I'm grateful for it. We ate at Mel's Diner - this was my one regret: ordering anything. 1) I was not very hungry 2) I'm supposed to save money 3) The potatoes tasted like they were made of cardboard. And kind of looked like it too. Oh well.

So... went back to work. Then took the F bus back home, then sat around in my apartment slowly transferring music from one laptop to the other. I still have 5000 songs (+ my unsorted music) left on the old computer X_______X I think I've transferred 500 songs over four hours. I have all summer to complete this project.

Then went to the RSF to swim. Which is when I realized I should probably eat more because I was exhausted by my 30th lap. I forced myself to keep going though and ended up swimming 80 which was pretty good. Came back home, now I'm transferring MORE music.

Now it's 10:37, already seven minutes past my scheduled bed time. It's so hard to sleep early. It's easy for me to fall asleep because I'm exhausted (especially now that I've gone swimming), but psychologically my brain is like "10:30?! That's prime homework time!"