Easter/Spring break

On Easter temperatures went up to close to 90. I made a spontaneous trip to the beach, Coronado. I went because I figured it's a good place to get away, it's quiet, and I wouldn't suffer the wrath of those who felt I should be in church. I had this plan to actually go to church, for the first time in my life, to visit the megachurch - Crystal Cathedral in Irvine. I was actually up there on Friday, and they had service at 12.15, but then I never made it over. It turns out they televise their service every week (?). I caught about 5min Sunday morning. The founding pastor seemed quite enamored with celebrities and name dropping. Not a good 5 min impression.

So off to the beach. Remember Coronado and the Hotel? It looks something like this....


But you know what? By noon, it looked something like this....


I'd also brought with me a few of my new favorite friends. Part of the 30 student articles I have to read this month. Some of them are really good, some really terrible. The saddest part - I look forward to the ones that are obviously bad because the writer makes it easy for me to spot the problems. The better written ones, good but not great, on the other hand - they make me pay attention because they don't explain in a way that lets me clearly understand their points!

I packed a sushi-lunch as well. We don't have Mitsuwa any more (I think) but we now have Marukai! There's Marukai, Marukai living, and Daiso, which is Japan's 99 cent story but in the United States is where you find all the white-geeks-obsessed-with-asia-who-can't-cope-with-american-life. Nah that's cruel isn't it? Well, it's kinda true.

You can see going to the beach is quite an activity for me. I had to pack my folding chair, water, food, my comments, multiple layers of clothes in case it snowed - everything, and that was a spontaneous trip! I lay out there for 2hrs and didn't even get sunburned though, and I only put sunscreen on my face! I did have to leave early once some guys constructed a soccer field out of sand and started playing by my head.


I also got a new shirt! It's from Forever 21 and is a total knockoff of another shirt I wanted at a much more expensive store. I used to make fun of people who couldn't afford designer clothes because they choose to have babies instead of indulge on themselves. Well, I'm now ok with buying low quality clothes from discount lines. And while it does support China, and while China is busy killing people in Tibet and Darfur, I'm much too shallow and materialistic to not spend money I don't have on clothing I really don't need.


Face shot. You've gotta take a few mug shots of your face every few years, preferably up close mug shot style, from different angles. You never know when you'll need facial reconstructive surgery and these photos are what surgeons use to reconstruct your face. I suppose if you didn't have those photos, the surgeons would give you a much better face though...

Unrelated: A really good film about Tibet: Tibet Cry of the Snow Lion. It's a documentary but instead of focusing on talking heads, it shows tons of beautiful unique imagery. It's also very disturbing what's happened to the Tibetan people. The Chinese did the same thing in Africa, they go and modernize, but the jobs they create are given only to their own people, they hire the 'other' races for hard labor. In Africa, China flies in their own prostitutes, their own cooks, they take nothing from Africa except the resources, shipped back to their own people, and the corrupt African government leaders go along with the plan. It happened in Tibet. Do you think it'll happen in Taiwan?

SPRINKLES IS COMING TO PALO ALTO!!! OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!

why dont they come to san diego..

It's spring break and I'm posting from work (a major no-no..?).

C visited last week and we went to see something really awesome...it's opera in a movie theatre. We saw Peter Grimes, and yes, we were the youngest people in the theatre by about 40 years. Except for the gay couple.

Hasn't been a great few weeks (when are they ever). I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Problem is, there's several other shoes! I've got this weird feeling I didn't pass the moral character part of the bar...it's been almost six months. I've got another weird feeling someone's setting me up for massive humiliation. And a feeling that the nurse who took my blood punctured the vein and it's leaking blood all inside my arm. And just weird generalized anxiety, I don't know why and it won't go away. I wish I could take a pill and it would all go away.

Looking @ getting either a $500 camera, or a $700 laptop.

Photo Bucket

Seals @ the Children's Pool in La Jolla, in February. As you can see, we don't have the 20" of snow ala Buffalo.

A hiking trail above Torrey Pines Beach. Down below you can get to Black's Beach. Someone told me this trail in the right season is where people go to see whales! We saw dolphins, but no whales. It's a good hike though. A bit far to drive.


San Elijo Lagoon, site of the most gorgeous hiking trail ever. I would give anything to live in one of those homes walking distance, can just walk my dogs in my lagoon.


I had to tour a wastewater treatment plant today for class. It's located at the end of Cabrillo Monument (gorgeous area). One one side you've got your fecal matter which includes corn kernals (corn is undigestable), on the other you have the ocean and a colony of seals!

the postings of a mad man

I've got a ton of pix to post from the last month, but I haven't gotten to it yet. Crazy stuff keeps happening, like I entertained for 8 days causing me to neglect schoolwork(good) or my brakes fail/car sux (bad) or I can't handle the 9hrs of sitting at a desk and staring at a computer for meaningless/negative end game (school/work = bad) or I tell my coworkers I wanna be Paris Hilton and it horrifies them (why??/bad). I think this weekend I have a 12hr or so long meeting to attend.

The NYtimes informed me if I feel really tired I should go running because a little exercise will increase my energy 20%. Something like that, I don't fact check man. So I'm now going to jog in place while watching tv at night. I know, it's kinda lame, but I can't afford a gym and I don't live in a safe running place. I ate a bag of spinach the other day and it just made me hungry and kinda nauseated. I need the NRG bad. Moe got a $50 ikea faux persian rug and she just rolls rolls rolls and expects me to roll with her alll day.

Spring break in 2 weeks. This semester just feels really really long and really exhausting and somewhat futile. I think all third years probably share those sentiments. We're just waiting to take the bar. And then what? A long well deserved vacation followed by the tragedies and realness of real life.

Happy Valentines Day!

It's freezing and raining hard today but it's still Valentine's Day. Our red velvet cake. Parts were given away of course.


Muffy.


My (new to me) futon sofa.


The tv I'm borrowing from my brother. The speaker in the background I don't own. Little stuffed leopard given to me.

Nice weather again

I went on a mini-hike yesterday, I found the most beautiful trail in the entire universe. Trailhead starts right in the middle of multimillion dollar homes, not the fake land rich ones but homes that actually look nice. The first 10 feet of the trail are also padded with a thick carpet of fragrant pine needles. Your view throughout the walk is the ocean, the lagoon, or other expensive homes. It's a different hike from my usual walk up and down the coastline, which in itself is also a scenic walk.

Went to the mall today. It's a shopping addiction afflicting 90% of women, but it's a socially acceptable addiction. You don't just go to the mall, you dress up, gather your friends, and you have a social outing at the mall while avoiding the creepy single men preying in the underwear aisle. I always forget these elements. Part of it can't be helped . . . my name brand purse doesn't have the name brand logo prominently displayed nor do my name brand jeans include fancy stitching in the back. Oh, and I don't wear false eyelashes. So I went where people like me belonged. I went into JC Penney. And my god that store is complete chaos. So then I thought, where else do poor people with poor sense of style but love glitter and glitz get clothes? Oh that's right, Old Navy. Well, their line was too long for me. I must admit I did venture into Macy's, but so did the rest of the city. So no new things for me. At least for another week.

Hopefully the beach next weekend. I saw a picture of someplace in New York where it's blowing snow. Sucks to be them.

Airports & Cats

The Airport's terminal 2 is relatively new, I think 10 years old or so. It's very airy and clean feeling.

Far side of terminal 2:


Looking down terminal from upstairs, to baggage claim:


And Muffy in her tree.

Sexual harassment training video I was forced to watch:

(in the office)

Guy: Hey Cindy, it's getting late, how about we go grab a bite to eat and some beers?
Cindy: Umm, no thanks I have to go home to feed my cat.

(next day)

Cindy: Why did you take me off the project?

Guy: You better watch it, you're starting to develop an attitude, kinda like a cat.

Me: I wish my life was that exciting. Let's see, incredibly awesome things that happened today . . . well I wore my pants that don't fit in a really obvious way along with my $10 Hong Kong shoes and don't look good in general, of course we had to have a meeting today and I had to show up looking like a frumpy bunny. Also instead of doing my assignment in a legal manner, I produced an excel spreadsheet full of estimated and actual values of litigation, handicapped by risk. I'll turn it in, enjoy the shock value, and then have to redo it in a less efficient harder to comprehend legal format. I sat through an hour long meeting today and came away with one note of interest: there's an Ivy in San Diego?? I was forced to eat Panera food and drink a soda without a straw (bad day in my book). My coworkers luv their babies. I put up a picture of the cat but it's not getting quite the same response. Tonight I "look forward" to reading more hopefully good but often disappointingly not so good articles written by fellow students. And oh ya, I have to feed my cat.

update on me

I haven't blogged in a while . . . a few reasons for this. Mostly I have a weird schedule this semester between work and class and others, a schedule that blurs the distinction between weekdays and weekends. All I know is I get up and I've got stuff to do and usually it's not 'fun.' I guess the fact that it's rained or greyed-out straight since January 1 doesn't help things, every day looks the same. There's also a lot of stuff going on but none of it is stuff I can share on the intertubes, you know I can't talk much about work or how I hate people!

One exciting thing this weekend, I got a free plasma tv* and a free futon sofa! Of course I'm much more excited about the sofa. It's a huge improvement over my icky sweat stained no armrest ikea sofa. The plasma tv will be great for my Xbox, since that's in HD.

*So the tv's not really free, it's my brother's, but I get to keep it until he comes reclaim it..

Edit: Question of the day: more grease on hair = more charisma? or more grease on hair = higher chance of making partner? or more grease on hair = bigger asshole? or ALL OF THE ABOVE.