A month here and there and a week of SF

Listening to: Sultan & Ned Shephard – Walls (ft. Quilla) (this is my song for all times of the day – wake up song, walking around SF song, etc)

I did not want to do the same “this is what I did this weekend” structure of 2011 but when I look back at my old posts, I feel like I didn’t touch upon any of the fun things that I did! Which then makes me feel like this blog is incomplete.

Bone dry summary of March. First weekend – went to SD. Fun times. Love the brunches and dogs everywhere and the beach and the casualness of it all. I regret not doing more when I lived there in 2010, but I know I wouldn’t want to live there long-term again because I’m not a fan of being in 70+ degree weather. Second weekend – went to a William Fitzsimmons concert with Robin. I almost fell asleep standing up. My next concerts are The Wombats and The Shins. As of now, the only other bands on my concert watching bucket list: Birdy, Andrew Bird and maybe Taylor Swift.

Third weekend – began my “stay at home and get shit done once a weekend” routine. Although “get shit done” generally just means cook, gym, wash clothes, watch a lot of tv, read, go to a cafe. Which is still more than my previous “sit around … watch tv … sit around someone else’s house … feel horrible about self, sleep” routine. I also had brunch at my manager’s house with most of my busy season team. I realized just now that it was that day that rekindled my desire to buy a house. Went to Berkeley the Friday before that and VERY RANDOMLY Erica called me and said she was also in Berkeley and we met up at Ici’s. It was kismet! I also went to Rasputin’s and bought three more vinyls. And still no record player to listen to them HAHA Fourth week: started a 1.5 week period at a client about five minutes from my house. Soooo laid back and we’d go on coffee breaks almost every day. I now realize that I hate drinking anything from Starbucks and I find the food just barely passable. Peet’s is still decent. But my fav cafe ever is still Philz. I don’t even remember a Seattle cafe that I liked more than Philz.

Same fourth week: Watched Hunger Games at the midnight showing and also ate at Jang Su Jang with Amy, Julia and Laura. I felt like I was among the oldest people there (theater). Surprisingly most people in the theater seemed to scoff at the Twilight preview whereas usually in Harry Potter people go “OOOOO” non-sarcastically. Saturday, drove up to Walnut Creek for sangria night with an old team/the client. ❤ them. I also really need to go shopping. I have plans to buy one new outfit a month but … have not done so ever.

Now listen to: Tennis – My Better Self

Fifth week: This feels so long ago! I’m using my Google Calendar to help me remember what I have done. Tuesday, went to a Kelly Clarkson concert. Cross THAT off my bucket list! She sang Bruno Mars’ It Will Rain (awesome) and sang happy birthday to her guitarist (best rendition of happy birthday I have ever and probably will ever hear in my life). She sings different covers at each concert and they’re all so good! Thursday night was taco night at my house because one of my housemates is moving out. I made a mango salsa that was DELISH and now I feel like I must have mango salsa for EVERYTHING EVER. All the ingredients were completely fresh, even the green onion that I snipped off the plant growing by the kitchen sink. I also made a sangria but I don’t feel like it tasted like anything because I just used moscato and that already tastes like fruit juice. I heart taco nights at my house because we start a fire on the charcoal grill to cook carnitas and tillapia (obviously I live with Filipinos) and it feels like a party when it’s only a weekday!

Mango salsa! Not really cooking, just time + chopping

People say, don’t use good wine for sangria. I think I may have gone too far on the “cheap” axis

Al pastor tacos!

Then began my SF block which is still ongoing. I am now really sick of being in SF but I am just staying two more nights and then back to South Bay (mainly because I didn’t bring enough underwear). Friday I barted up to SF after work because I had planned a goodbye happy hour for the FIRST person to leave from my class. Everyone is leaving around me!!! The bill somehow came out to be $350 for six people. I hate Osha Thai. No, Osha Thai is fine for lunch. I just hate eating in downtown SF for dinner. HAHA When I leave, I want to throw a BBQ at my house or something and invite all the people I’ve worked with. Saturday I ended up helping my housemate move to Millbrae and afterward I decided I was close enough to SF that I might as well drive the extra twenty minutes. So I hung out with Kristen – read in Duboce Park and watched dogs run around (despite it being sunny it was still freaking cold because of the wind though, Kristen: “I just wish it would be a little warmer” Me: “I think this is the best SF can do”). Then went to eat Indian food in the Tenderloin with Soo Jin and Albert and one of my coworkers, Eugene, who lives nearby. Went home. Then drove back up to SF about nine hours later for brunch with Christina, Kristen and Naomi!!! Partial RCSA reunion!

Concrete slide in SF!

After I arrived super late to brunch (stupid parking and my lack of directional skills), we did quick summaries of our lives for the past two years (mine is depressingly centered around work), and ended up going to the Seward Concrete Slides in Eureka Valley of SF which is a place I have never even been near. Thennnn I went to Fillmore area and met up with Soo Jin to pick up her apt key. Ate frozen yogurt at Fraiche, which homemakes all of their ingredients. Pretty yummy! Especially their homemade mochi (surprising the best I’ve had, since it is in such a white area) It cost $6 for a regular size. But regular size is equivalent to a Pinkberry large.

Monday, I started my engagement at this super easy, super chill non-profit a block away from the SF office. I basically unintentionally finished 1/2 of the audit between 9am-2pm and then I was like oh fuck. I’m scheduled on this for two weeks and I don’t want my time taken off this client just to go to some more stressful engagement. But I only work at one pace and it’s my “just get this shit done” pace. I’m going to be really spoiled and then be sad when I start Q1 at my public client and go home at 11pm – 12am again. The client here leaves around 4:15pm and they set the security alarm so we end up leaving around that time too. HAHA Monday I went to the gym then decided I wanted a burger and went to eat at Umami Burger by myself. Which I kind of love doing from time to time – just going into a new restaurant and sitting at the bar and talking to my server and watching him make my food in front of me. It’s kind of the best. It was really fun to do in Seattle, it’s been fun to do in SF, but it is horrible to do in Chicago. I don’t know if it was total luck of the draw, but it’s weird to eat alone in Chicago because I felt like the restaurants were all wayyyyy smaller so it’s much more noticeable that you are eating alone when you can hear snippets of conversation all around you.

Anyway, Tuesday I ate at Umami Burger AGAIN but this time with Kathy. Their burgers are really salty and fatty but I guess that’s what people like. Wednesday I left the client in the middle of the day (LOL) and just went to the office. Ostensibly, it was because I needed another charger since my senior forgot hers, but it was mainly so I could go chat it up with Lindsay and Kathy. Lindsay and I went to the Ferry Building for lunch (Prather Ranch Meat Company – the pulled pork sandwich was crazzzyy vinegary). Then went back and spent several hours looking for this one sentence in accounting guidance to prove that the client did something correctly. Sometimes this job is so dumb. Then we all left at 4pm. I worked like a … six hour day? (Lindsay: Where are you charging your time?! Me: Uh, to the client.) HAHA Seriously LOVE this client. I have no idea what the people do all day but given their salaries and their stress levels, it makes me want to go into internal accounting. Then dinner I went to Tacolicious which was indeed Tacolicious but not that great for desserts. Of which Kathy and I got three.

So now it’s Wednesday night. I am now kind of sick of eating out all the time. Being in SF makes me fat and poor. I’ve spent $80 in the past three days on food in SF. I’m pretty sure I’ve spent $215+ in the past six days on food. I have also spent (a chargeable) $94 in parking for the past three days. If I really do end up staying on this client for two weeks, I will have spent $320 on parking for ten days. DAMN YOU SF!!!

I spent a good while today debating why I continue to stay in SF during the week when I get off at 4pm and could probably beat rush hour home. I figured I would save myself the commute time that would be essentially 3 hours roundtrip between SF and Santa Clara (including traffic time). But somehow … driving two miles back and forth from Janie’s apt to the office also takes about twenty minutes, of which ten minutes is spent going through five blocks in the financial district. Then I also end up thinking I HAVE to eat out in SF, otherwise I am squandering eating opportunities. Parking is annoying although relatively easy in this area. I had to wake up at 6:30 today just to move my car before street cleaning. But that DID give me the chance to try Contraband coffee in Nob Hill, which makes a pretty good mocha and allowed me to catch up on some emails. So I don’t know.

Caryn: Casey got tickets for us to see some band in concert. Of Montreal?
Me: Of Montreal … I’ve heard of them!  Their music is kind of … boring. Or, not boring, all the songs just sound the same
Caryn: You think they’re boring? And you like that … Bon Iver music? Oh god, this band must be really boring then

Kristen: Why don’t you come
Me: I don’t have the proper clothing to go clubbing
Kristen: You need, like … a San Francisco—
Me: Outfit?
Kristen: — lover. So you have a place to store all your weekend stuff
Me: If I had a lover, I wouldn’t be going out. We’d just sit in bed together and read all weekend.

Kristen: Five minute summary of the past two years, go
Christina: Well … the first year of grad school was great. I went out all the time, was friends with a lot of people in my class, I was social chair… Second year of grad school was horrible. I hated everyone. It was just, the worst year of my life ever. July 2010 I met Michael and we started dating… yeah that’s about it!
Me: What the fuck, your summary was ridiculous

Christina: Then I didn’t like him because he has no flaws! He’s too perfect. I mean … if I really think about it … I guess he has some. He’s too tall. He’s too blonde. And he’s the older sibling. I prefer when guys are the younger sibling.

Me: You have the taste of a ten year old and a sixty year old … somehow simultaneously
Jessica: Yeah, well … I just have good taste
Me: You think ten year olds and sixty year olds have good taste?
Jessica: Yeah. Because they’re not fake or trying too hard. Old people just don’t give a fuck anymore. They’re going to do whatever the hell they want. And ten year olds aren’t at the stage when they care about what other people think of them.

Me: Oh that’s weird hahaha
Lindsay: Why was that weird?
Me: What?
Lindsay: What was weird?
Me: Oh. Honestly, I heard like half of your story and just said what I thought would be an appropriate response. Sorry. I guess nothing was weird.

I’M EXHAUSTED The good thing about staying in SF, even if it does take 20 minutes to go two miles, is that I can wake up at 8:15 and not freak out about being late to SF. What shall I eat tomorrow?

Taco night = Omelette morning

A two day weekend!!!

Still listening to: Lana del Rey – Summertime Sadness (Reich & Bleich remix)

The telltale sign that I went hiking

Recently my idle thoughts have centered around the question of where will I go on vacation this year? Work has turned a complete 180 and is extremely chill now, so I plan to go to the library tomorrow after work and pick up some tour books to peruse.

Last weekend I …

Ate dinner with Laura at Dishdash in downtown Sunnyvale on Friday night. And came to the realization (for the 600th time) that if I don’t watch out, the next six years of my life will probably flash before my eyes and I’ll one day find myself still single, still auditing, and still living in the worst part of the Bay Area (in my opinion)

I live around the southernmost Car Dealership and Office.

Saturday I intended to kickstart my morning around 7am but failed. I’m glad I stubbornly refused to give up my intention to go to the gym though. I always plan to wake up, deny myself the pleasure of watching tv in bed, and just immediately jump up and go to the gym. It worked maybe three times a year ago. When the morning arrives, it’s so hard to get up! I just lie there and roll around from side to side. I’ve developed a bad habit of returning back to bed, after brushing my teeth and washing my face, and I’ll end up watching a little more tv. Somehow that snowballs into four hours spent in my room still in my pjs.

I did finally manage to get myself off my ass and into the car toward Berkeley on Saturday. Thank goodness for plans. Otherwise I probably would have told myself that lying around my room for a day would be ok. I met up with Kathy at Elmwood Cafe (fav cafe in Berkeley!). It was maybe 80% talking, 20% reading, even though we had gone to a cafe so that Kathy could study for her CPA and I could … do whatever. I read this book which I started out really enjoying. But every time I put it down, I liked it less and less. I got about half way through before I finally just stopped reading it. It’s just not very compelling to read about journalists who have mid-life crises while being sent around the globe to write travel articles for magazines.

SUNDAY.

Purisima Redwoods view

HIKING. Finally. I have not gone hiking in FOREVERRRRRRRRR. I had yelped a place called Purisima Creek Redwoods last weekend. I need to keep a queue of hiking places because I think it’s an hour ordeal to find a new hiking place, figure out how to drive there, determine which trails to take, and then another hour where I go back and forth and question are there ocean views? is there enough parking? Do I have to pay? How far is this? What’s the likelihood I’ll get lost and die in the woods? Will there be shade? Is it going to be overcast? What should I wear? Do I have enough music to go hiking?

And then I spend like two hours in the morning downloading new music and filling up my ipod. Which is why so many days I start hiking around 2pm.

I don’t like certain plants. But I love coastal redwoods

So I plopped into my ipod: Lana Del Rey, The Wombats, Grouplove, Birdy and Angus & Julia Stone.

Awesome mellow song of the moment: Angus & Julia Stone – For You

HOW WHY ARGH I need to follow more artists on Facebook or Twitter or something. Birdy was in SD this weekend and … WHO KNOWS when she will return to US?! I’m like … what if between now and the next time she returns to the US, she becomes Adele-levels of famous?! I wish I had gone to see her live. Rawggghhhh. Also, per my following of Shay Mitchell’s Twitter, SHE went to the concert. Double Rawggghhhh

I picked out hiking trails for a total of 10mi. I think around 7mi was when I started to think “10 mi may have been a bit much for my recovering ankle” and around 8.5mi I started thinking “walk VERY carefully because if I turn my ankle, I think I might resprain it.” I feel accomplished for finishing (well, if I hadn’t, I’d still be wandering somewhere out in the wilderness) but at the same time, kind of depressed that my entire body is sore today (Monday) and I kept waking up in the middle of the night last night because my ankle would be throbbing. I don’t think people ever appreciate good health when they have it (I certainly didn’t) and it’s frustrating to me to think that last year I could do 10 mi and feel like I just went out for a walk, but now I go on a hike and I feel worse than when I would run four or five miles straight.

Not as much ocean as Pacifica trails but still fun

I was a little afraid at first that the trails would be super crowded, as it was a 3 day weekend (not for me though) but I was able to have long stretches of solitude which was really nice. I love my team, but it’s been a while since I’ve been by myself and not have to think about work and just think about life and what I want in the future and what I would like if reality weren’t an issue.

After that, drove up to SF to hang out with Kristen. I was still in my “this book is interesting!” phase so I asked if she’d want to meet me in a cafe and read together, which she was down for (woot!) So I parked near her house then walked over to a place I had yelped, Cafe Sophia, and paid about $4 for a pot of tea. Normally I am not down for that because I could buy an entire fucking box of tea leaves for $4, but I had only eaten a banana and raspberries that entire day and it was already 4pm, and I didn’t think drinking a mocha would go well with my empty stomach. Actually, I had stopped by a bakery on the way to the cafe and scarfed down a chocolate croissant, so not empty.

We read a little after talking (Kristen: “WAIT. Should we be talking?! Shouldn’t we be saving our conversation for dinner? Let’s just read”) and then the cafe closed so we walked around and Kristen suggested eating at Criolla’s Kitchen.

Kristen: So what do you want to do for dinner?
Me: I don’t know … is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to eat?
Kristen: What’s your price range?
Me: HAHA I don’t have one, where do you want to go
Kristen: I’ve always wanted to try this place…….

I will never say no to oysters

AND IT WAS FUCKING AMAZINGGGG. I don’t want to say, I wish I lived in SF because I don’t because I like having a driveway. And by driveway, I mean, something on which I can park on, not a tiny slab of extremely slanted concrete from which I ease my car into a crazy narrow garage. But I wish there are better restaurants near where I live. I mean, in the span of three hours I pretty much randomly walked into a bakery, a cafe and a restaurant and all the food I had was delicious and the ambiance was exactly what I love and they were all within two blocks of one another. Damn you SF.

Burger with fries and an andouille sausage patty

I wrote that on Monday. It’s now Tuesday!!! My client filed on Tuesday WOOOOOTTTTT and I’ve just been doing misc tasks for other people.

 

My perfect adult weekend

Listening to: Lykke Li – Tonight

I’ve pretty much accumulated a bunch of quotes over the past few days and now I will have to add in narrative in between.

As you can probably tell, I stopped doing my summaries of Week # blog posts, because towards the end of 2011 I realized that I was just blogging because I didn’t want to break my sequence, but a lot of times I wasn’t really feeling it. I also realized that I never even wrote about week #52 which was probably one of my more socially active weeks since that included TMV dinners and various SoCal outings.

BUT! This week was … pretty good! Well, my weekend was awesome. My work week was work-filled but at the time I didn’t mind.

Danny (after I played a Britney song on my laptop): Don’t you know … Britney’s back. I’ll support Britney. I’ll occupy Britney. Wait. That sounded really bad

Danny (talking about a cup of peanuts that was next to Julie’s laptop): Watch out you’re going to hit your nuts
Julie and me: -_____________-
Danny: WHAT
Me: I KNOW YOU SAID THAT ON PURPOSE
Danny: What are you talking about?! I WAS NOT you two are just SO IMMATURE
Me: You had that gleeful tone in your voice. I know you did that on purpose.

Me: I don’t get what the point of this was at all. I just basically said something was reasonable and there’s no real proof for it at all. Like, what the fuck do I know about whether this Company is going to make as much as they project?
Danny: You sound exactly like Ashley did when I thought to myself ‘she is going to quit within 3 months’
Me: What?!!? What did she say?
Danny: So this was after she had to sit and go through all of the calculations with the client. Then she gets back the module, no joke, with maybe 100 review notes. And she comes back into the room and just goes off: “WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF ALL THIS?! I am just tracing one FUCKING number to ANOTHER FUCKING number! This is so fucking stupid! I’m just looking at ONE piece of paper to another piece of paper.” That’s what you sound like right now.

Danny: Do you want to see what Ashley texted me? I texted her and told her that the client yelled at me and cursed at me on Friday. She wrote ‘hahaha that is not ok. Don’t worry she will get what is coming to her one day. Do you want me to go and show her what’s up?”

Me: Hey Danny? So … I changed the expectations and it’s not as detailed and is kind of covering up some of the year’s activities but I think it’ll be less confusing … just wanted to check if that’s ok …
Danny: You know what you’re asking me at a very vulnerable state right now so … I’ll look at it later
Me: What do you mean vulnerable state
Julie: He’s in emotional distress after his convo with the client
Danny: Yeah. Pretty much
Me: Oh …………… in that case …………….. can we work in a café on Saturday?
Danny: This will be rejection #……. I don’t even know. No, we are not going to a fucking cafe.

*So my senior refuses to download spotify even though Julie loves it after my convincing her to get it*
Senior: Damn it, I thought I hit pause on Pandora. Now I am listening to the tail end of a song I like.
Me: What song
Senior: Something by The Doors. I wish I could hit rewind
Me: You know, I can press rewind on spotify just fine
Senior: I don’t want to  fucking hear it

Me: Julieeeeee I can’t work today
Julie: That’s what you said yesterday!
Me: DID I?!
Julie: Yeah you said “today is not a day for working” as you stared at the ceiling for several minutes

*So I made the mistake of telling my team what my SAT score was which my senior has never been able to stop making fun of me about*

Danny: Melissa scored perfect, nyanh nyah nyah
Me: Ok, that was … random. And I didn’t score perfect. I was 40 points off.
Julie: That’s pretty close. that was that, top 1%?
Me: I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It was over ten years ago. Now I’m just an average employee
Julie: Omg don’t say that to kids! Killing their dreams
Me: I’m just one of many employees in this GT office, which is one of many GT offices, which is just one of many accounting firms. That score didn’t mean anything for my future.

Me: How can clearing review notes take so long?!
Danny: …. I had a comment … but I’m going to hold it in
Me: Yeah that’d be nice.
Danny: Yeah it will be. For about ten minutes. And then I’m going to let it rip!

Me: I feel sick. Should I go home and nap or go and buy fruits?
Julie: omg GO SLEEP
Danny: Don’t buy fruit. Fruit is bad
Me: WHAT are you talking about
Danny: UHHHH have you ever heard of something called THE BIBLE? Well there’s a story in it. It’s about a man, a woman, a snake, and an apple. And the gist of the story is, fruit is sin.
Me: Oh god.
Danny: Fruit is what led us all to this horrible existence. Fruit is what caused me to be sitting in this horrible conference room on a Saturday afternoon auditing. Fruit is the root of all evil. Maybe if they had eaten fried chicken, we wouldn’t be here right now

I have absolutely no idea what time I went home on Monday. Honestly, what happened this past Wednesday feels like it happened weeks ago. But Tuesday, I know we left early at 8pm and I ended up going rock climbing with my manager. I did about six? top roping courses and it was nice to be rock climbing again but it’s also VERY demoralizing to realize that a freaking 5.9 that would have been a piece of cake before is now difficult for me. I’m still very scared that I’ll put too much weight on my left ankle and fuck it up again.

Finally on Wednesday, my senior and manager finally realized how freaking terrible of an idea it was to be leaving “early” (ie. 8 or 9) and we resumed working late again … except now instead of leaving at 12am we would leave at 12:30 am. LOLLLLLL Really all I can do is laugh at this point. Friday we left early at six pm and I had no idea what to do! So I called/texted people and came close to a “OH MY GOD NO ONE IS FREE TO HANG OUT WITH ME I NEED NEW FRIENDS!” crisis but thankfully Kristen was free and I made her realize that when I said “want to hang out?” I would never mean “let’s go clubbing” and would only want to eat out.

So I drove up to SF around 7pm and then after circling her block about three times, finally found parking. Then we walked over to a TINY TINY sushi restaurant called Eiji’s. I haven’t had sushi in SOOOOOOOOO effing long I was really craving some damn good sushi. Which is what I got! I got white tuna carpacchio which I heart, grilled black cod, some Alaskan roll and some spanish mackerel. Even though I was already crazy full, I looked at the dessert menu and it looked so cute and I’ve only been eating boring ice cream lately that I was like OOO I want something!

The mochi kyoto style was AMAZING. Cinnamon + green tea ice cream = genius

omg I just went through my camera photos and realized I have a tonnnn of pics from winter break that I never uploaded anywhere. Shit. Well … don’t expect them until after my company files which will be end of February …

After dinner, where I somehow ended up dropping about $50 on a single meal (I NEED to realize that I can’t just spend my money mindlessly the few times I go out), we went back to Kristen’s and watched 50/50 which I really liked. I’d totally buy the movie when it’s $7.50 or lower at Target. ❤ Anna Kendrick! In fact, I kind of want to watch Up in the Air right now. The crazy thing is that there was this flash of the city locale for a second and I said “HEY I think that’s Seattle!” and I don’t think they ever showed the Seattle Center (Space Needle) because they’d probably have to pay some ridiculous amount to get that shot, but I was so certain that the setting was in Seattle … until I JUST googled it and found out that while the film was set in Seattle, it was actually filmed in Vancouver. LOL I don’t know what that says about my mind … that I can recognize a fake-Seattle?

Anyway … Saturday I went to work again BUT this was the FIRST weekend that I DID NOT work BOTH days on the weekend! So basically, I had worked for 27 days straight, at least eight hours a day. LOLLLLLLLLLLLL

Saturday night!!! So after work I went home and napped for about ten minutes before driving up to Kathy’s house in Danville for a REUNION!!! With my old team that worked at the Moraga client – me, Kathy, Marina, and our client Sarah. It was our WINE NIGHT which is something I have ALWAYS wanted to do. Sit around, drink wine with friends, make dinner, talk about life!!! ❤ It’s like I’m on an episode of COUGAR TOWN! (back on ABC on 2/14!)

Marina: Here choose one
Me: …. I don’t wear earrings
Marina: These aren’t earrings …. they’re for your wine glass
Me: Oh.

Mel’s favorite alcoholic beverages: ciders, white wine sangria, and mimosas

So Sarah, Kathy and I are single while Marina has been in a long-term relationship. So while a lot of hilarious things were said about our being single and being fed up with how hard it is to meet people when we work all the time … Marina’s comments about her relationship were just ridiculously funny

Kathy: God I just want to skip to the being married part
Marina: You know, after all the warm fuzzy stuff wears off … all you’re really left with is … the power to control. Honestly, I think the best relationships are where the guy just does everything the girl says
Sarah: My aunt and uncle’s relationship is exactly like that. Happiest couple I’ve ever met.

Marina: So the thing is, for the past few weeks I have been controlling what he eats and he doesn’t even know it! I’m making him lunches and dinners of healthy foods and he comes up to me on Friday and is like, pinching his stomach going, ‘you know, I think I’m getting trimmer!’ I”m thinking ‘no shit, of course you’re getting thinner, I’m practically spoonfeeding you!
Me: LOL WHAT DO YOU MAKE HIM?!
Marina: Breakfast, green foods shake. Pre lunch snack, carrots. Lunch, salad. Mid afternoon snack, broccoli. Dinner, another salad.
Me: I can’t believe a guy would actually eat that consistently
Marina: It just dawned on me one day, that I have so much control over him. He just doesn’t even know it. I just say to him “hey, I’m making lunch and dinner, I’ll pack one for you too” and he’s GRATEFUL for it, he’s just like “oh thanks!”
Me: omg that’s awesome
Marina: The thing is, the second after I started making more money than him, I was just like, well if this is the path we’re heading down where I make more money than you … you gotta be trimmer then. You can’t make less money than me and still be tubby.

Kathy: We just gotta go to some bars and meet people
Sarah: You go to a bar in Danville, you’re just going to end up dating a porn star

(true story for her)

Marina: So my brother is potentially moving out … and my boyfriend’s rental house is about to be foreclosed so he’s looking for a place to live. So …… logically … I told him “you know … you could just move into that room and live in this house and he freaking says ‘No, I kind of want to continue living with my friends.’ He didn’t even look at me when he said it! And then a week goes by and he emails me FROM HIS FREAKING WORK EMAIL to MY work email, and it says, this is verbatim, “I was thinking it might be fun to live together.” It took him a freaking week to figure out, hmm maybe living with my slobby friends isn’t such a great idea
Me: I don’t know! Guys just think about the present, he’s not thinking long term
Marina: Well at the rate he’s going, in a few months he’ll be homeless on the streets of SF

Marina: We’re totally different people from when we first started dating. It’s like, a relationship with three different people, before college, after college, then work. I feel like once we BOTH started work, that was when the real relationship began. The only thing that’s stayed constant for the past six years is the car he drives. And he’s considering selling it! I was like ‘you can get a new car, but don’t sell your old car! Without that car … we have nothing!'”

Kathy: HOW are all these people MARRIED. I just … ARGH!
Sarah: You know why? Because all these women who are married are not dominant, they do whatever the guy tells them to do, and because they’re dirty whores

Loveeee them 🙂 We are always awed that the four of us are friends because if it had not been for work, none of us really think we would be friends because we are SO different yet … now that we all know each other it’s hard to imagine not being friends with them. I feel like they’re my most feminine group of friends because we’ve gotten mani/pedis together and we plan to have spa days and … come on, wine night is pretty girly.

I ended up staying a little longer to help Kathy clean up because I just enjoy hanging out with her. I somehow ended up leaving her place at 2am which meant getting home at 3am. WORTH IT.

AND AMAZING. NO WORK ON SUNDAY! Although I realized it is somehow slightly more depressing to think “sigh. I have to go to work tomorrow.” Whereas before I never had that thought because I literally went to work every day. Grass is always greener, seriously.

I think the saddest part about wine night was when I would tell stories that started with “and then the partner said we had to leave early so we ended up leaving at 9pm” and everyone would laugh at me and I would be like “what?” and the response would be “… 9pm … early? I’m like, in bed at 9pm” And also when Marina informed me that apparently my team is NOTORIOUS now as being the most overworked team.

Me: WHAT?! I thought this was normal! Isn’t everyone else working these hours?
Marina: NO! Everyone is leaving at like 7 or 8! I don’t know why YOUR team is working so much but all of us are like, damn … how are they working so much…

Sigh. When I was a first year, the most overworked person in my class was Justine and I always thought to myself, well, no matter how bad it gets at least I don’t work as much as her. Now I realize SHIT. I WORK MORE THAN HER. I AM THE NEW JUSTINE. People are probably pitying ME now! I subscribe to Marina’s philosophy of “I would never ever want to be the top utilized person in the firm. I strive to be the lowest” because honestly it gets you NOWHERE. So that was a very depressing wake up call, to realize I am working more than others. Sigh!

Sunday: Woke up and talked to my mom on the phone before getting out of bed at just the right time before I’d be late to brunch at my ex-manager’s house in Fremont. Sometimes when I talk to my mom I realize how … odd the English language is

Mom: C-A-T-H-Y. How do you pronounce that? CATH like cake or CATH like cat?
Me: Like cat. Cathy
Mom: ok. Then, K-A-T-I-E. How do you pronounce that?
Me: Like cake. Katie.

I totally don’t think about how inconsistent English is until she asks me how to pronounce things and I realize there is no rhyme or reason to anything.

Anyway. So I drove to Amy’s where me, Julia and Amy carpooled to my friend/old manager Eunice’s house in Fremont. She was the manager at my Moraga client and somehow she thought I was hilarious and I think she is hilarious so I love being her friend. I wrote her a christmas card and she said she was reading it and thought it was the most entertaining card ever. Anyway, when she was having her goodbye party and in the process of leaving the firm I was always like EUNICE WE MUST HANG OUT and she’d say “yeah you can come over to my house” BUT NEVER gave me her address! I even said to her once “you know, you keep saying that but you NEVER tell me where you live” and she just laughed. But she finally gave in, after I essentially coerced her into it.

So she and her husband cooked up this delicious mushroom spinach thing, along with giant bowls of fruit and mimosas and some kind of egg potato scramble. I felt like I was eating brunch in SF, it looked so healthy and cute … except there weren’t strangers a foot from my table, and her husband put on Pandora on a hip hop station so it was freaking hilarious to be sitting around eating our classy little brunch in her cute apartment, off her Kate Spade wedding silverware and crazy nice dishware and sipping our mimosas while Kid Cudi and Eminem and 50 cent would be playing in the background.

Now I want to be engaged so I can start putting things on a wedding registry

Eunice: But you want to stay at least one year as a senior to get the managerial experience because other firms will value that, even if it’s not accounting
Me: yeah but … why do I need to get managerial experience at an accounting firm? I could get managerial experience at so many other places without having to go through so much shit
Amy: Yeah but you have to be in a hostile environment. The best soldiers are out in Afghanistan. I don’t think the soldiers out in … Idaho are learning anything

And it was hilarious to me to when Kathy and Marina came in and they started raving about the Jason Wu Target launch this morning with Amy. Amy, who had gone to Target at 8:15 to scoop up as many things as she could to resell.

So that’s adult thing #2 I always want to do with friends: mimosas and homemade brunch in the morning!!! Also, the idea of using fancy silverware that someone picked out once upon a time as a part of their wedding registry. CUTENESS.

Kathy: When I moved to America, I would watch Clueless and learn English that way
Me: Clueless?!!?! Omg everything makes soooo much sense now

Friends!

And THEN adult thing #3 was superbowl party which I always love! Except the real dream is to one day host my own superbowl party but that won’t be happening until I move to Seattle. This year it was at Laura’s and her sister basically smoked meat for the entire day and around half-time it was done and it was DELISH.

Giant slabs of meat and a light salad. A typical Kuo family dinner

After the Superbowl I went to Sprouts with Laura to get my groceries for the week. I have lived the past two weeks VERY unheathily and it took a reunion with Kathy and Marina to remind me that I need to EAT HEALTHY and EXERCISE because there THEY are eating fucking chia seeds and making green shakes and salads for meals while I sit around eating pints of ice cream for the hell of it. HAHA

So yes. I thought this weekend was awesome. I felt productive and useful at work. But I was able to squeeze in a LOT of fun time on the weekend (even despite working one of my weekend days!) How do I feel? Well, besides awesome, I think I may be getting sick from my lack of sleep.

AGHHHH It’s 11:59! Perfect time to post this and close my eyes and prepare myself for another week~

Weekend 51!!!: Christmas Time!!!

Listening to: She & Him – Baby It’s Cold Outside (my main 2011 Christmas song)

It’s 4am and I should be going to bed soon but I always think posts written half-deliriously and on an empty tank of fuel are sometimes the best.

It’s three days into my winter break and I am having a blast. So far I’ve made the most of each day and as long as I can feel like I’ve hit all the things I want to do in SoCal over break, while still accomplishing THREE FREAKING CLIENTS’ worth of work (FML) I will be very pleased.

I left the Bay Area on Thursday night, with Laura taking me to the airport after a day of my working from Amy’s home and then for about two hours in the office. My favorite place to work, besides a cafe, is probably Amy’s house. There are cats and there is not really food for me to eat so I don’t get distracted, and the lighting is good and it’s just very cozy.

As with every extended visit home, my first full day of vacation started with a trip to the dentist. I then spent about two hours in a Forever 21 and my reward was a $10 white top. I think after reading fashionofglee.com, I have begun to enjoy shopping in Forever because it’s easier for me to see how two or three ridiculous looking things may combine to make an ok outfit. Some of their things are also business casualable, so even more incentive to peruse the overstocked store! But, there is a very low rate of return for the amount of effort that goes into shopping at Forever.

On the flip side, I’ve lately become more and more inclined to buy more expensive things, and not even wait for a sale. I used to think it was CRAZY that anyone would ever buy something at a non-sale price. Now I realize why: I barely have time to go shopping and if I’m lucky enough to go shopping during a major sale, kudos to me. But I don’t have time to go around SHOPPING for DEALS. That, plus the fact that I don’t buy that many things in a year, makes me think it’s ok to pay for full-priced BR items. I’ve also started to think it is normal to shop at Nordstrom’s and that I couldn’t possibly deign to waste my time sifting through the Macy’s or JC Penny which is NOT GOOD. Because I do own several things I love from those department stores. And come to think of it, nothing I’ve ever gotten from Nordstrom’s was AMAZEBALLS. But, I can’t help it anymore. I think I’ve deceived myself into thinking I’ve moved up in the world.

One of my resolutions for the new year is to be more financially responsible, meaning 1) START TRACKING MY EXPENSES AGAIN (I stopped doing this after going to Peru and in August when I spent a ton on various plane tickets and  chose not to track my excessive spending) and 2) to STOP rationalizing purchases as well I deserve this. Because I don’t think I really deserve to buy myself something just because I happened to work or whatever. I think I have to move away from the idea of buying things to reward myself and towards the idea of buying things purely on a “well I need this and it’s a good deal so why not.”

That being said, Laura helped me buy that Crate & Barrel chair for 50% off over the weekend. Which means I just bought a $450 + tax chair. I’m already envisioning how to decorate my future Seattle bedroom so everything compliments the chair. I’m thinking, white carpet, blue walls with a white trim, and furniture that kind of looks like this, except NOT that because that is Pottery Barn and I can’t continue to buy $900 furniture pieces.

Future look of my bedroom furniture

Anyway.

Friday night I spent doing the one thing I have been dying to do in Socal for the past two months: GO SHOPPING IN THE GROVE! I went with Kim and it was everything I had hoped for! I love the idea of winter in socal because the nice, rich areas are pretty serious about the holiday decorations, yet the weather is nice enough to stroll around for several hours.

Love the Grove

Kim and I got some food at the Grove’s farmers market too. I got an oyster poboy at the New Orleans stand. DELICIOUS. In the eating area, there was a live band, the kind where couples would get up and dance by their seats. The atmosphere was just very festive and communal and ❤

Saturday … went shopping with my mom, then had a family xmas gathering where I began to START LIKING KIDSSS!!! My nieces and nephews are just soooooo cuteee!!! I think it’s adorable to see a little kid be so attached to their parents. It must feel pretty great when some little human being thinks you are the entire world.

After that and after heading home I ended up going out to Rowland Heights and meeting up with Li-Ting and Soo Jin for drinks at Ten Ren. Oddly, it was the first time I’ve ever gotten anything at a Ten Ren despite there being one in Arcadia. We only went there bc the Half & Half was closed. SAD! I am 3 stamps away from a free Half & Half drink!!! While there, we took pics with Soo Jin’s new poloraid camera which is CUTE and I kind of want one too! I’ll add it to my ever growing list of “Things I Want but do not really deserve and while may be able to pay for, should probably not buy in order to save up for a downpayment”

Cute lil poloraid!

SUNDAY. I woke up in a fit of panic about all the work I have to do. Unfortunately, I’ve planned things to do Monday and Tuesday so  I will continue to wake up in a frenzy until hopefully Thursday, assuming I am able to accomplish a lot on Wednesday. After waking up, I proceeded to cross off one of my MUST DO IN SOCALS, which was to READ. I am reading Caroline’s book The Lost Girls, which I started a long time ago, then stopped reading, then decided I had to wait a long enough time to forget what I had read before in order to restart it. I think I was able to read for about five hours straight and got through over half the book and it felt like a major accomplishment. I was all ready to finish the book, but then…

Movie at Frances L’s! We watched Beginners. I fell asleep for a few minutes in between and when I woke up, I could tell I had missed some sort of crucial character development because I was suddenly very confused as to why everyone became depressed in the movie. After that, we headed off to TMV Dinner…

Which I should probably write about but I’ll save for the next post because it’s 4:30 now and I REALLY WANT TO SLEEP!!!

Weekend 50: All around the Bay

Listening to: Angus and Julia Stone – And the Boys (ok. I only JUST realized that this song is different from Just a Boy. I burned Just a Boy onto my latest driving mix and have thought to myself, hmm I seem to like the song a lot more when I play it on Spotify but I don’t know why. Well now I know why. Because I was listening to two different songs!)

Exhausted. So so tired. But today was actually one of my more productive days of work, and probably one of my more enjoyable ones too. I woke up at 7am today and debated whether to work from home or go to the office. As I continued to lie in bed surfing the internet under my covers and watching my neighbors get into their cars and drive off, I decided I would work from home.

8am rolls around and I’m microwaving my Saturday leftovers from Brenda’s … getting ready to eat my breakfast with an episode of anything … when the power in my house shorts. I think it had something to do with the fact that we had a fridge, microwave, aquarium, 2 computers, 1 speaker, 1 heater, 1 washer, 1 dryer, and who knows what else running all at the same time. I had been in the middle of talking to Amy about whether I’d go work at her house or not, and now that I didn’t have power, I decided to go over.

I got there around 9am and the summary of it, I worked essentially from 9am to 11pm, but the first third of the day consisted of us working while watching Glee in the background. Amy made me a cup of mocha to start off my day. Around 1pm she made lunch: quinoa and chicken (this being the ONLY time I have ever liked eating quinoa; she cooked it with chicken broth). 3pm rolls around and we run out of Glee episodes, so Real Housewives goes up in the background. 5pm comes up and we take a break by driving to the office since Amy had to drop off an expense report. I hid out in her car because I couldn’t go up to the office in my sweatshirt and jeans. Then we had a Pinkberry break. Then back to her place; work for me but she had decided she was done for the day so she started making dinner: HOMEMADE PASTA. Like, straight from scratch flour that she kneaded and cut into little strips using her mixer. I was amazeeeeedddd at the sight of someone making their own pasta just for kicks. Around 11pm we started watching Contagion, which is exactly the kind of movie that puts me to sleep. Now it’s 1am and I’m back at home. Ideally I would pump out a little more work but I figure I will just go to the office early tomorrow.

Of  course, I say that every day and every day, I wake up early but decide to just lie in my bed and watch tv and get to work at 9:15.

So yes, that was my fantastic day of work. And this is exactly why I refuse to take PTO in the last weeks of December. There is barely anyone around to know if I’m at a client or at the office or on vacation. I still work pretty hard but somehow, since I’m working on my own terms of where and when and what will I be wearing, it doesn’t feel like work at all.

WEEKEND: I basically drove in giant circles around the Bay Area.

Saturday (left) Sunday (right)

SATURDAY: Was the Renegade craft fair!!! I went to the one in Chicago and lovvveeedddd it so I was really excited for this. Saturday morning I wake up at 8am and finally checked my phone at 8:30 which was when I found out that Kristen had taken me up on my request to eat brunch and come to Renegade with me. So I left home, picked her up. I told her if she didn’t research any other brunch places, we’d be going to Brenda’s which we had gone to two weekends before. We ended up going to Brenda’s.

Ok, I don’t know WHEN we got to Brenda’s last time. They open at 8am and I think we got there at 9am the first time. No wait at all. This time we got there at 10:30 and waited like 25 minutes. Blegh. SF.

I kind of want to just order beignets from Brenda’s next time and not even bother with a breakfast entree. MMM beignets. We got crabcake beignets which was deliciousss.

SF Hipsters

Then off to Renegade. I was very pleased to see that there was a pretty good turnout. FOR ONCE I am in the know of SF events! Go … me … I had had the impression that the vendors of Renegade just follow the fair. I now realize it’s more likely that the vendors there are  local to the city and Renegade is not so much a traveling circus of Etsy vendors. I loved Chicago’s fair way more. SF had more of a jewelery emphasis, I think, which kind of makes sense. Chicago had wayyy more posters which also makes sense. Plus, Chicago’s was outdoors on a street lined with restaurants and bars, which was just more fun. But I still really liked browsing the SF one.

Free photo booth! Cross that off my bucket list

After that … ah yes. Drove to Berkeley and met up with Amy, her husband and Julia for Wood Tavern. HAMBURGERS OMG YUM. I got some sort of pink grapefruit alcoholic drink and it was crazy good. OMG!!! I still have leftover fries. That will be my lunch tomorrow~ Also for lunch tomorrow, a lemon tart that Julia bought back for me from Dallas. LOL It’s not even a Texas-only restaurant. One of our clients is Corner Bakery Cafe and I was devastated to find out they don’t have those in the Bay Area. It’s actually on my list of places to hit up while I’m in socal.

COOL BREEZE

Domaine Charbay’s
Ruby Red Grapefruit Vodka
Fresh Grapefruit Juice
Splash Cranberry

If that means anything to you.

Burger. Amazeballs.

Amazingly only $11 on the mid-afternoon menu

Then we went to Ici’s. We took pictures together, which, YAY! I need to reinstate my PICTURES EVERY TIME WE MEET state of mind, because I have so little evidence of actually having a life the past year.

Friends!

SUNDAY

Woke up, toyed with the idea of going to the gym, went so far as to actually put on my gym clothes. About a minute later, I thought HA. No. And changed clothes and then drove up to Danville for champagne brunch with Marina, Kathy and Sarah ❤

I get to the restaurant, walk inside, and immediately text Kathy “omg this is the whitest place ever.” I later told Marina this and she was like “yeah … it’s a little too white, even for me.” This coming from someone who said “um, I don’t really want to go to Berkeley, can we go somewhere more yuppie?” when I suggested eating brunch at La Note.

Super fun! Endless mimosas and it was like a buffet breakfast. Sarah gave us all a super cute package of homemade cookies and I am eating them right now, at 1:30am. They are ridiculously good. She also gave us each an ornament, and this is my FIRST ornament that is MINE and it shall go into my “for my future Christmas tree in Seattle” box.

After that, I went back to Berkeley and hit all my favorite stops.

1) College Ave: Mrs Dalloway’s bookstore and the surrounding area. I would have had Ici’s if I hadn’t just been there the prior day.
2) Telegraph Ave: Rasputin. I didn’t buy anything but I find it really comforting to just flip through rows and rows of cds
3) 4th St: Holiday decorations! My favorite time of the year to visit Berkeley. The air is crisp and the lights on 4th st are just ridiculously cute.

You know my Monday.

Quote of the Day:
Me: How is the taiwan office different from the US one?
Amy: The taiwanese people actually audit really well. They know the company inside out, and their analytics are like, 100% thorough. It’s not like US, where everything’s just “appears reasonable” and I constantly say “this documentation doesn’t make sense” and some A1 goes “oh … I just rolled it forward from last year, I thought it applied. I guess I can go follow up.”

Other highlights of the past week … hmm … well I had oyster happy hour with Amy on Wed. Well. We thought it would be happy hour. It turns out it was full price that night. It had taken me a LONG time to walk to the Embarcadero though, even though the office is just 3 blocks away, because of my shit ankle. So we ended up just getting 12 oysters for $32. Kind of hurts to think about, but as Amy said “you know you’re pretty rich when you don’t wait for the happy hour.” I think this just means next time there’s an oyster happy hour I’ll have to eat more to compensate.

We were in SF that Wed for a training that ended at 12. Wed was another good work day. Amy and I went to get lunch and afterwards sat in a conference room to do work. Working in a conference room is way better than working in a cubicle … for obvious reasons. It was a really foggy day so I spent a good while just staring out the window, watching the fog totally enshroud the Bay Bridge. Then I went to get water and all of a sudden it just burned away! I think at 5pm sharp we headed out for our oyster happy hour. I think my best work memories will primarily be related to Amy and the adventures I have with her

That’s about it. Tomorrow I’ll go to the office because I have to ask some questions. I’m debating leaving in the middle of the day but I think that looks way worse than not showing up at all. Wednesday I have an inventory count. Thursday I’m definitely working from home. NO! I’m going to go to Philz. ❤ And I need to check if my Crate & Barrel chair is under $500 yet or not. I swear, if I actually buy that chair … no more nice things for like six months. Then night time … flying back home. Look forward to it!

Weekend 49: Productivity

Listening to: M83 – Midnight City (yes I know I’m a little late to the party. Shush.)

I have to stay awake anyway to listen to New Music Monday so I figured I might as well blog. My body feels incredibly sore right now and lately my little leg brace keeps making my left leg itch. I’m starting to get a lot of pent up energy and usually I’d drive to Palo Alto and go running, but that won’t be a viable option for several months. Sigh that’s depressing. I hope I can start hiking again around the time that the Bay turns green again.

I hate work again. I’ve pinpointed it to one particular client that I don’t enjoy doing the work for. Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure how I can go about trying to switch clients.

I had one PERFECT day last week. If I could make that one day my life’s norm, I think I’d be the model of work-life balance. Last Tuesday I …

Went to work at a leisurely 900-915 time
Five minutes after setting my laptop down, left work to grab coffee with two of my coworkers
Had a real lunch break at Specialtys
Left work at 5pm
Had happy hour at The Grill
Went home and read The Hunger Games
Went to the gym
Returned home, read a little more of The Hunger Games
Watched an episode of something
Checked my celebrity gossip
Fell asleep

Basically, the pinnacles of my happiness are: friends, food, exercise, tv and edification. Unfortunately, this day presented itself under very rare circumstances, the main one being that I didn’t have that much work to do. That happens about four days in the year.

Hrm. Saturday was my Holiday Party which was pretty fun. It was at the SF Hyatt, and the lobby was AMAZZZINGGG but I failed to bring my camera. Well, it was easy enough to find a picture online. I feel like my table was probably one of the more fun tables. They assigned each partner to sit at a table, and I’m glad we didn’t get stuck with a tax partner or a partner that is harder to talk to. I got home pretty freaking exhausted. Earlier that day, I went to Palo Alto with Laura, shopped a little, then went to a cafe where I wrote Christmas cards. I clocked it: each card takes 20 minutes to write and that doesn’t even include drawing time. It’s a little depressing how much time I’ve spent writing cards, yet I’m only 1/3 done. 21 more to go.

Loveeedddd ittttt

I felt really unsatisfied because on Saturday I really wanted to buy something for myself but  didn’t see anything I wanted at the mall. Bah. Sunday, I cleaned my room (I love returning to a super clean room Sunday night, all fresh for the new week!) and then drove to Palo Alto. HAAA I ended up buying a $130 blazer from BR. I’m glad I resisted the Kate Spade flats but … I half can’t believe I bought a full-priced anything from BR. My mom would have a heart attack if she finds out. It is an awesome blazer, but I also feel like I don’t have anything that could nearly compliment its awesomeness, pants or shoe-wise.

Then I went to Philz Coffee to write some more cards. They have a REALLY insanely good mocha. Like, good top to bottom whereas most mochas get grossly sweet at the bottom. I realized on my drive home that I never freaking paid for my coffee! Thought process: oh man now I have a new cafe to go to. That drink was really good! And it wasn’t even that expensive, it was only … OH SHIT

So next time I go back (probably next week to write more cards), I’ll have to pay for my other cup of coffee.

I’m listening to the radio using these new speakers that Jessica gave to me. It makes my music experience SO MUCH GREATER! I can’t wait until one day I have my own little setup with like … vinyl player in the living room, surround sound Bose speakers in every room of my house hooked up to like … my itunes or something so that I can play the same song in the kitchen, the bathroom, my living room, without having to cart my laptop everywhere.

After the cafe closed, I went to Laura’s and organized her sister’s book and dvds HAHAAAAA most productive time ever. I felt pretty awesome.

Me: NO YOU can’t just PUT that there! You need to put them in a box!

Me: NO don’t throw that in the closet. Just put that and that in a box and then we can put the box in the closet

Me: If you put that up there it’s going to be REALLY hard to take down. Find a box

Jessica: What are these BOXES you keep talking about?! Where are you going to find boxes?!

Me: You guys don’t just keep boxes?!?! WHAT?! You guys need to start collecting them. Cereal boxes are the best ones

Falling asleep now and new music monday is over. Good night.

Weekend 48: So … close … to the end of the year

I think my weekend can be summed up by saying … I woke up Sunday morning feeling like my Saturday had been rather fulfilling and I had done many things I enjoy doing that are productive to my well-being, and I did them in good company. I am going to bed Sunday night thinking that, while my room is much cleaner than before, the cleaning process could have been done in about two hours and I squandered my other twelve awake hours. So once again, I shall head into the start of my workweek feeling like I’ve wasted another weekend.

Friday at work we had one of those fluffier trainings that is ostensibly to better ourselves but is actually meant to retain employees and boost morale. It sort of worked … midway through the training I was feeling pumped up about my career and was actually thinking “YES! How can I further devote myself to my career so that it can help ME reap more benefits?!” Then the training wore on and my enthusiasm was dulled. But my greatest takeaways from that training was from an “energizing” training meant to help us figure out how we best keep our energies up during the workday. I realized that my “energizing” activities are working out and eating out with friends, whereas my “depleting” activities are watching tv and reading books.

Which makes me think, I really have to cut down on watching unnecessary tv shows and constantly checking gossip sites. It’s such a waste of time and while I’m not going to cut it completely out, I think I need to enforce only checking the sites once a day, maybe in the morning when I wake up. If I hadn’t kept refreshing the same stupid sites over and over this Sunday, I would have been able to get so much more done.

Friday night, I drove up to SF for a meal at Fresca’s, a Peruvian restaurant, with Soo Jin, Janie and Laura. The food did not remind me of the food I ate in Peru at all, but I don’t care much for authenticity, as long as it tastes good, and it tasted good. Sometimes when I look at pictures of Peru, I realize with sadness that I will never be able to eat those things again. It’s not like the feeling of missing something in LA … or even something I ate in New Orleans or Pittsburgh. I can conceivably revisit other states, even if it’s just for a quick (and expensive) food refresher. But I’m definitely not going back to Peru, not because I wouldn’t want to but because there are so many other countries I’d have to visit before I start making return trips. 😦

We all stayed in Janie / Soo Jin’s apartment that night, which was a first in a long while. Back in my last semester of college, I spent nearly every weekend sleeping over at Soo Jin’s, going to some club/bar and then eating brunch at 2pm the next day. I ended up reading a little bit of The Hunger Games on Janie’s Kindle and WAS HOOKED. I’d link it but I think anyone reading this blog who would even be interested in The Hunger Games has either already read it or knows about it. It seems incredibly dark for a young adult. I haven’t read young adult books in a while … I imagine when I read them growing up, I thought the dark themes were a norm or maybe I didn’t understand the full significance of certain things. But now that I’m older, I’m constantly thinking “omg I can’t believe young kids are reading this sort of material!” Perhaps it’s completely normal for kids to be exposed to awful things, but as we get older we don’t give them as much credit as we should in terms of how much they can handle.

I pretty much woke up super early that Saturday morning so I could read as much of the Hunger Games before I had to leave the apt. I got to 50% of the book, which is not bad considering I rarely focus so intently on a book nowadays. It’s an AMAZING BOOK though and I adore Jennifer Lawrence so I am now super excited to see the film, along with millions of other fangirls.

I left to pick up Kristen so we could brunch at Brenda’s, which is my default “favorite SF brunch place” only because it is the only SF brunch place where I can actually remember thinking “wow this food is amazing!” I have been to many SF brunch places and all of them are delicious, but all of them are also very, very similar and I cannot really distinguish between one $14 plate of eggs over another. I ended up ordering all the wrong foods that brunch (Apple beignets and granola pancakes when I REALLY should have gotten the beignet platter and the hangtown fry) and I continued to let Kristen know this about 10 times during the day. I really am a wonderful eating companion.

Amazingly, even though we got to the restaurant around 10:15, which I thought was prime brunching time, we were seated immediately and made it out of the restaurant within 57 minutes! Which meant unlike the LAST time I went to Brenda’s, we did not have to move the car three times. Woot!

I dragged Kristen to my optometrist so I could pick up my awesome new glasses. The main comment I expect from everyone will be “these look exactly like your old glasses.” Well I like these more so I do not care. As long as they look good on me. They are Kate Spade glasses. Despite not being a  thin, super pale white girl, I LOVE Kate Spade stuff. I do not really own anything from Kate Spade besides these glasses, but for whatever reason, I love going into the store and I am way more likely to buy something from there as opposed to J Crew, which is another store where I have the “well this looks super cute but it doesn’t look that great on an Asian” problem.

We then went shopping around Walnut Creek, and for some time would hang out with Naomi as well. I think, as a crippled person for the time being, I may prefer Palo Alto over Walnut Creek because Walnut Creek is just SOOO HUGE! I am sad that I can’t walk for long periods this Christmas season though. The Dub C looks like an awesome place to walk around at night, I imagine there are lights strung up and holiday decorations that will light up.

Then Kristen and I went to Berkeley … drove to Willard Park and just relaxed on the grass which was awesome and much needed. Kristen told me I would soon become a hilarious, bitter old lady. I only wish I could remember verbatim what she said because I laughed a lot. I also started writing Christmas cards! 4 down … 31+ more to go …

We meant to go to a cafe afterwards but I made poor choices on streets to drive on and driving aimlessly made us realize how hungry we were so, off to Brazil Cafe! YUMMMMMM! So delish. THEN back to Elmwood Cafe. I stopped at the next-door bookstore and impulsively bought The Hunger Games. THAT’S HOW GOOD IT IS! I so rarely buy books. I mainly bought it because an employee was saying how she reread it recently and she said it was just as good the second time. So then we sat in Elmwood Cafe (my favorrriteeee cafe in Berkeley – I really need to take a picture of its cute interior!) and read, Kristen read Bossypants, I read Hunger Games. Somehow 3.5 hours passed without our realizing it, which feels AWESOME. Reading always seems to make the time pass by so slowly, but not that day. We somehow finished both our books within minutes of each other, another sign of perfection that day. HAHA

I”m now reading Breakfast with Socrates: An Extraordinary (Philosophical) Journey Through Your Ordinary Day, which I only got because the concept seemed interesting and the cover was yellow. I didn’t expect to make it past the introduction but it is surprisingly a good read. Kristen’s constantly laughing at Bossypants made me want to go home and read my own copy. I also woke up this Sunday and decided I’d finally watch the Google Talks with Tina Fey, which THEN led me to this HILARIOUS SNL skit. And I am not the greatest fan of SNL. I think this video may have been one of the main contributors to my time wasting today, since I rewatched it about six different times

It is very hilarious to watch and at the same time, rather odd because this was back when Lindsay Lohan was still poised to become the next big Hollywood actress and … it’s weird how GOOD she is! To think that at one point, she was the one trying to hold a skit together …

This morning my one accomplishment was cleaning my room. What a mess. I even organized a portion of my closet. If I happen to die prior to moving out of this South Bay residence, someone who has read this entry will have to do the following:

Go to the closet in my room. Within it you will find a large Crate & Barrel box. Within this box contains some of my most prized possessions. All unused and in pristine condition. I would like to be buried with the items you will find therein. Three ceramic baking dishes, two ceramic berry containers, and one airtight water bottle. These were all items I had been waiting to put to use in my future Seattle home. They will now go with me to the grave.

I went to Crate & Barrel to return something and … this chair that I LOVEEEEEEEE and have loved from first sight is on sale. I am waiting until it is on sale for … $350. And then I will buy it. I can’t believe I would consider buying a chair for $350, and it only fits one person. But right now, I’m thinking “that chair is super cute AND also crazy comfortable, and I do not plan on having children so one day I will have so much money I won’t even know what to do with it!”

It’s originially $899 so really, I’m being quite thrifty …

There were other thoughts I had wanted to blog about but can’t remember anymore. I had intended to sleep at 10pm. Then I decided 11pm. Now it’s midnight and I didn’t even read any more out of my book. OHHHH SUNDAY. Starting now, I’m going to cut out all the stupid, time wasting, unproductive, depleting, useless things out of my life.

Weekend 47: Thanksgiving

Listening to: Flight Facilities ft. Giselle – Crave You

It’s 9:23am on a Wednesday morning and I am … lying in my bed under the covers in my work clothes. Why am I not at work? Because my car is locked up in the library parking lot!!! So sad. Yesterday I went out to eat dinner. I was the first one there so I just put my name down and then drove to the library to drop off my books (yes, I actually have time to go to the library and get books! No, I don’t time to actually read them. I just renew them three times before I give up and just return them). While there, Amy calls and goes “where are you? I’ll just come pick you up, it’s on my way.” I’m not one to turn down a free ride so I just got in her car and off we went. She drives me back after dinner, which is when we pull up to a gated parking lot. Ooops. So I’m just going to go into work late and she will take me to the library around 10am (when the library opens).

Sometimes people would say “the good thing about this job is how flexible the hours are” and as an A1 I would think “wtf are they talking about, my entire life revolves around this fucking job. I can’t even make dinner plans because I don’t know for sure when I’m leaving.” Now I see what they mean though, but only after I’ve been there a year and have grown comfortable enough to know that if I’m late for work a few times, it really doesn’t matter in the big picture (because I will inevitably make up that time anyway, some time late into the night).

I don’t know why but I don’t care so much about blogging anymore. I wonder if part of it is because I don’t take pictures of things anymore. Maybe another part is because my weekends have become more and more average and I don’t feel like constantly writing “this weekend I did nothing, then sat around, then went to SF, then oh shit my weekend is over.”

Thanksgiving: my memorable parts included

1) Eating a crazy delicious banana peanut butter donut that Henry bought me from a place in LA THAT I MUST HAVE AGAIN

I don’t have many pictures but I made sure to take one of this

2) Falling in love with the black sesame milk tea at HoneyBoba

3) Realizing that HoneyBoba is not all that great two days later when I went back for the same drink

4) Bar Louie with some TMVers; I got a Woodchuck Amber Cider and it was pretty much my favorite sweet alcoholic drink I’ve ever had

5) Lying around doing nothing

6) Buying $61 worth of DVDs (Good Wife, Bridesmaids, 2 seasons of Mad Men and 3 seasons of FNL!!!)

7) Buying $420 worth of plane tickets on Southwest’s Cyber Monday sale. I regret not buying a ticket to Seattle for this weekend though. It went from $59 to $248 😦

Things I failed to do:

1) I really wanted to just go out and do very SoCal-like things but never had the time to. It is hard to do things on a holiday weekend when almost everything closes. Also, I should yelp things prior to going to SoCal because it’s too overwhelming to try to think of all the things I want to do/eat when I’m already there

2) Write down my thoughts about life. I think before I left, I had all of these “THINGS I WANT TO DO IN 2012!!!” ideas and “MOTIVATING THOUGHTS!” and by the time my weekend ended I had forgotten about all of them. Blegh.

Tired now. Hrm. I left work at 5pm, was in my PJs and in bed by 8pm, thought I would fall asleep around 9pm. My main concern tonight is that I’ve been under my covers for so long, that now it is a bit too warm. What a hard, hard life.

Weekend 45 and 46: My weekends are getting more and more boring

While I have actually been doing things with my life (and by that, I mean “going out and eating things”), I don’t think they are blog worthy. Plus, I am trying to cut down on talking too much about my life. In my blog. That seems counterintuitive. I think what I’m really trying to say is, I’m too lazy to bore you with the details of my previous weekend or this weekend. Here are the highlights:

1) I somehow ended up eating at The Counter three times in a single week. I have wanted to go back to The Counter, basically since October 2010. But I never did. Well, as of today I think I’ve eaten my combo of: 1/3 beef, honey wheat bun, red onion, hard boiled egg, mixed greens, and corn & tomato salsa, so often that I no longer want to go to the Counter again. Next, Father’s Office!!!

2) Chez Panisse and Wood Tavern: I could really get used to the idea of eating at expensive restaurants with friends on a weekday night. I left work around 4pm to make it to SF/Chez Panisse one day, then I was able to leave work at 3pm so I could make a 6pm reservation at Wood Tavern. What salary level do I have to hit so that sitting around, drinking glasses of wine and eating giant plates of meat becomes my norm?

3) Blind Pilot Concert!!! At the GAMH in SF. I went with Robin who is now my concert buddy. Blind Pilot was aweeeesssomeee. They played all the songs I love off their first album. I am a bad fan and have not gotten their second album yet, but I then fell in love with all the new songs! And usually in a concert I’m like “UGH STOP no more new songs!” The ending was cute: they played Three Rounds and a Sound acoustic and they all got down from the stage and everyone sat down on the ground, kum bah yah style. Well, it was cute in theory. In practice, I ended up sitting down on a huge puddle of spilled beer, and then in an attempt to not get my ass wet, I tried squatting and throughout the entire song, I thought I was going to snap my ligament or something because my feet were so weak from sprainedness/standing for three hours. Otherwise, AMAZING.

4)

Omg. Best thing ever. I pretty much start and end my day with this. And sometimes play it at work. And pretty much force all of my audit teams to watch the performance with me as I beam at my laptop and say “ISN’T THIS GREAT?! DON’T YOU LOVE IT?! You don’t seem as into it as I am. FINE GO BACK TO WORK THEN”

Weekend 44: A normal weekend

Listening to: Etta James – I Worship The Ground You Walk On (I’ve realized today that my general music tastes are: dance, top 40, folk, indie and soul)

Reading: Mindy Kaling – Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

(HAHA Henry ordered this for me as a surprise gift. The day it arrived, I had JUST watched her on Daily Show and thought “I kind of want to read her book!” and when I got home I thought “OMG A PACKAGE! But I didn’t order anything! It’s book-sized too! Did I go online shopping in my sleep?!” Henry just knows me too well. It is a hilarious read and made me want to reread her blog which was one of my favorite blogs to follow back in high school. I only wish Amy Poehler would one day come out with a book as well, because that would just be perfection. In the meantime, I need to get this book to bolster my collection of hilarious books)

The introduction had me laughing out loud. One of my favorite quotes, just in the first three pages:

I don’t know. I have a lot of books already. I wanted to finish those Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books before the movies come out. This book will take you two days to read. Did you even see the cover? It’s mostly pink. If you’re reading this book every night for months, something is not right.

Today my dinner was a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. My dessert was blood orange sorbet. I think I should take this as a sign that I need to start dieting. Between my uninhibited consumption of desserts and my lack of rock climbing exercise, I’m just waiting for the day when I look in the mirror and go “OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE TO MYSELF?!?!”

Agh I stupidly walked around way too long today without my crutches and my ankle area is throbbing. Sigh. I now look forward to another five days of doing nothing but sitting around in an office chair. I just want to go running again. And rock climbing. And now that I’m incapacitated, I want to go surfing more than ever. Great idea, now that it is about 50 degrees in the Bay Area.

Last year I started writing Christmas cards after Thanksgiving and probably only got halfway through. This year, I think I am going to start now if I intend to finish all the cards. I am going to abstain from buying any cards this year because I have like … three unopened boxes from previous years. This includes the ridiculously glittery ones that explode all over you when you take out the card. Anyway, don’t be confused if you get a card from me dated 11/8 or something.

I’m very tired and it is already 1am which means it would be 2am yesterday, but I am trying desperately to finish this blog tonight (hard since I haven’t even talked about my weekend yet). I think I may be funnier if I write on the weekend, rather than in the middle of the week when work has sucked the life out of me.

Ok. FRIDAY. Um … oh. I went to eat one of those Korean Fried Chicken places in SF with Laura, Soo Jin, Albert, Kaitlyn and their friend whose name I don’t remember. The service was not that good, I don’t know why. The food was like generally good Korean food. I think I am totally over going to SF, even for the food at this point. Actually, I think it’s more accurate to say that I don’t really want to go to Asian restaurants in SF anymore. Going to an Asian restaurant and getting bad service is acceptable if it’s in a suburb where I found easy parking RIGHT next to the restaurant and didn’t have to wait an ungodly amount of time to get seated/place an order/get drinks/get food. But having to deal with all the usual SF crap and THEN have bad service just makes me pissy.

Saturday I drove up to Walnut Creek for my eye appt. Marina had recommended me the optometrist, which is why I was driving an hour to get my eyes checked. The main reason is because I honestly had no clue where to go in the South Bay, so I figured I might as well go somewhere that someone had recommended. A minor reason is because … the guy’s in Walnut Creek. I would assume that any doctor in that rich, white neighborhood would have to be pretty good. I liked him a lot – but I also detested my optometrist in Arcadia in comparison. He was an ass. I have only been to two optometrists in my life, both in very Asian neighborhoods. I don’t know if I can assume that my new optometrist is representative of other eye doctors in rich, white neighborhoods, but I appreciated that his helpers weren’t high school/college aged Asian girls trying to get a good line on their resume, and were instead some 50ish year old looking white women who made me feel rather well-cared for and mothered. Also, I was at the optometrist from 10:30-1:00 AND it was a  Saturday, so I liked how they took their time with me. The asshole doctor in Arcadia is not nearly as attentive.

I had scheduled a hair appt in Berkeley at 2, so I started driving. I thought I might be able to eat lunch first, but somehow it really did take an hour for me to get from Walnut Creek to the hair salon. When I called, I wanted to ask for my previous hairdresser, who had cut my hair REALLY well. I couldn’t remember his name though, only that he was Mexican. I wanted to say “can I have … Javier? Or maybe his name was Jose.” I am glad I said nothing, because his name was actually Pedro.

This time, I think he cut my hair way too short so I’m not in love with it. It’s also not as layered as I would like. Whatever. I think it would look cute clipped up but I do not own medium sized clips. Also, I don’t really know how to clip my hair. I would hope by Thanksgiving it grows out to the length I desire.

I had wanted Bakesale Betty’s but they had closed by the time I finished my haircut. I walked to Cheeseboard but they had ALSO closed. I went to Masse’s to buy cakes as a substitute (again, with the desserts). Luckily I remembered that Gregoire’s had a fried chicken sandwich so I met up with Laura and her sister (who had decided to also go to Berkeley) and we ate Gregoire’s in my car. AMAZINGGG! I want more… I also want Bakesale Betty’s. I don’t know where my sudden craving for fried chicken and cole slaw in a sandwich came from, but it’s not going away.

Despite JUST eating that sandwich, I then drove off to meet up with Kathy for Johnny Garlic’s which is Guy Fieri’s new restaurant. This was how we chose it

Kathy: Do you know who Guy Fieri is?
Me: Is it that fattish guy with blonde highlights
Kathy: Yes, he just opened a new restaurant. Want to go there?
Me: Sure

So I met up with her in an Ulta in Dublin. She was trying on different shades of red nail polish and asked me which one looked best. I told her they all looked exactly the same to me. HAHA I love shopping with Kathy. Then she proceeded to be an AWESOME friend by driving her car back and forth to accommodate my bum leg. The short story is, the wait was an hour so we went back to her car and ate the two cakes from Masse’s that I had bought (YUMMERS!) then after we finished the cakes we went back to the restaurant and I ate a salad and she ate a crazy delicious ahi tuna sandwich. I feel somewhat bad because she is in study cram mode for the CPA and the dinner ended up going from 6:30-10:00. I love hanging out with Kathy though, so that guilt does not last very long.

Driving home, it started pouring on the 680. I thought it was great fun to drive around at night time in the rain with my radio blasting … until I hit a huge fucking puddle while going 65 and thought I was going to die.

TODAY. Went to SF with Laura and her sister and ate at some … restaurant … our server was Australian. I kept thinking Yvonne Strahovski was near me. I split a baked mac & cheese, escargot, and smoked salmon sandwiches with Jessica. Then we went to Bi-Rite and I got honey lavender. Bi-Rite is not as good as Ici’s, I’ve decided. Then we went to Nordstrom’s and Crate & Barrel in Palo Alto. You know, I drove an hour to find an optometrist in a rich white neighborhood when I could have probably found one in Palo Alto, which 20 minutes away from me. Oh well.

So I had browsed online for boots I wanted from Nordstrom’s and I thought I had seen like five pairs I loved. When I was looking in the store though, either they looked cheaper in person, or I never found them. The one I really want is this Luxury Rebel boot. It’s more expensive than I’d pay for shoes, but I was hoping I’d be able to see them and realize they weren’t that great after all, and then forget about them. Unfortunately, I didn’t see them so now here I am thinking about them.

Then we went back to Laura’s and did our semi-annual Glee marathon of performances

I think I will have spent a lot of money for this weekend and the next few days. I’m not even sure what I bought but I am 95% sure I bought something that cost me $200…

Oh. It was my new pair of glasses. HAHA That’s what it was.

Things I want and how much I’d be willing to spend:

– hot black athletic pants: $80. As long as it’s still trendy to wear yoga pants around SF, I am down to put down some cash for some pants I will never actually use while exercising.

– a Kristen Stewart leather jacket: $150. I have never found a suitable leather jacket but I’m always on the lookout. Something soft, thin, preferably with a hood, and good for layering with long t-shirts or something

– light brown leather boots: $120. This is to start off my “simple but chic” look that I hope one day becomes associated with me, to replace the current “simple and lazy” look that I’ve been mastering

– grey leather boots: $100. I just love boots.

– shorter black boots no heel: $100. See above picture.

– brown and black blazer: $75 each. I’m channeling Lauren Conrad as I think of this blazer.

Like so but without the weird leggings or shoes

You know what. This is not the end of the list. But it’s 1:56. Which means my body thinks it’s 3am. I don’t want to continue this list anymore. To be honest, every time I step into a store, I feel like the clothing is too cheap (material-wise) or too expensive (dollar-wise). So good night 🙂