Last days of 2011

12/30/12
Dim sum for lunch! Then caught the bus back to Salt Lake to meet up with Jess M Jess O and Kelly. I guess it was like a mini girls day since it was just us 4. We all met up at Moanalua Ranch for some Bee's (I would say bubble tea, but I didn't get bubble tea this time.) I got some Hot Milk Tea since I was still in progress of healing my throat. We opened late Christmas presents, chatted, and watched a couple horror movie trailers. It was a great day for random story talking. Hope we'll have more days like these together next year!
And then in the evening I wasn't feeling so good and I crashed when I got home. My mom even had to cancel work for me.

12/31/11
It's the last day of 2011! Woke up feeling good as new compared to the awful night before. I watched the first Alvin and the Chipmunks movie to go with lunch. I also watched some inspirational YouTube videos. And then I thought about a J-drama that I watched a few years ago. I'll never forget this drama. Some of you may think it's kind of weird that I'm talking about this J-drama on this last blog post of the year, but I wanted to share it with you guys.
If you've never heard of or watched this before, it's a very sad, but inspirational J-drama called One Litre of Tears. It's based on a true story, that took place in Japan, of a 15 year old girl who just started her freshman year in high school (though in America she would be considered a Sophomore). In the same setting, she found out that she had a very cruel and incurable disease called spinocerebellar degeneration. This disease is cruel in the way that it doesn't affect the mind, memory, or thinking; but it does affect every body movement & function. Slowly, she couldn't walk, write, speak, and even swallow. She asked herself, "Why did this illness choose me? I'm only 15." She eventually passed away at the early age of 25, but she did her best.
After her death, her diary was published and had sold over 1.1 million copies in Japan alone. It was then made into a movie and drama. One day, I want to obtain a copy of her diary too, but with someone to translate it for me x]

This morning when I was flipping through my music player, I came across songs from the OST of One Litre of Tears. It made me really sad listening to it, but it also made me feel very happy to have the life that I'm living right now, which led me to writing about this amazing and inspirational story.
It encourages me to live on as she did.

For my New Years Resolution 2012, I hope to

Live Healthy, Live Happy

Smile More, Cry Less.

I know that in this year of 2011, I had cried more than any other year (not including my baby years), but I also feel that I had smiled in this year more than any other year. And I owe those smiles to all my loved ones. Have a Happy New Years everyone.

Honolulu City Lights

12/29/11
Went to eat at Pho1 with my parents and some relatives. Then we went to Ala Moana to make some Christmas gift exchanges. Alas was very crowded with all the After-Christmas sales going on I guess. I also bought some nice sunglasses for myself because I needed it for driving (when the sun's bright). At night after dinner, we went to Honolulu Hale for the City Lights. Even after Christmas, it was still very crowded. It was my first time being there at night. If you haven't been there at night, you really have to go and see it! It's beautiful~
Though, I really wish I was able to go with my friends and see it with them, I still had a good night with my parents and relatives :)

Left: a New Years tree featuring the year of the dragon spinning around at the top

Right: Angry Bird Christmas Tree!

Angry Bird ornaments!

They actually had 2 Angry Bird Trees (I liked this one better!)

The top of the same tree from above.

and some side decorations ^^ (adorable!)

Driving Lesson #2

12/29/11
Woohoo! I got to drive on the road today! Of course, it was a road with very few cars in the area behind the airport. Today, I drove in the same parking lot for only ~5 mins before moving on to the road. Lol, i make it sound so sacred xD
Time sure flies by fast when I'm learning and having my fun at the same time. At one point, I got really bored because I was doing the same thing over and over again driving in a square to practice in a cycle of slowing down, turning, then speeding up again.
My worst mistake, was being directed to turn left out onto the main road, when I suddenly blanked out and turned right instead. I felt so embarrassed... I even had the left-signal turn on, and I still went right.. face palm. But that just happened once and at least there weren't any cars around at that time.
Still getting used to the signals and turning them on/off at the right time as well.
My biggest reward today was being able to drive home. Yes, I drove home from the airport!
My driving instructor asked if I wanted to drive home and I couldn't help but sound excited when I said yes.
I was on the road with a lot of other cars. Now I feel like a big girl x]

Next driving lesson:
Next week Tuesday & Friday @ 3:30pm
(yay, no more waking up for early 8am lessons! for now..)

Driving Lesson #1

12/27/11
Ahh, I was a little nervous at first, but my driving instructor reminded to be calm and just relax. Hehehe, I never knew driving could be so fun but kind of hard since I'm not familiar with it yet. I don't know the name of the place we practiced at, but it was a parking lot area next to a park near the airport, where there were very few cars in the area.
If I had to evaluate myself, I think I really need to improve on being able to multitask. There's so much stuff to take notice of when driving. It sounds a lot simpler than it is..to me..for now. Throughout the whole 1-hour lesson, I basically practiced my braking and turning; right, left and u-turns. Sometimes I don't notice that I step on the brake too much, so then the whole car stops mid-turn xD
Didn't kill myself or hit any cars that were parked/driving by, but I did go slightly over the curb when turning right; just once though x]
Besides braking and turning correctly, I know that later on I will have to pay attention to stop lights, speed limit signs, other cars, pedestrians, omg....

Driving instructor never said anything about my driving; just critiqued me along the way. All in all, it was fun :]
I get to drive again on Thursday!

Day after Christmas

12/26/11

I'm really happy that I can finally enjoy my break after working so many days! And as I wished, my paycheck was really worth the hard work. I was paid $600 for working 6 days. More savings! lol

 Teehee! My secret santa gift! Out with the Hello Kitty shower curtain, in with the Owls! My mom helped me put this up the morning after Christmas :]

 Isn't this so cute!?! 

Aero shirt from Vina, shorts&cow socks from Lily!

I like the shirt, but I already have a lot of white shirts. I wonder if Vina remembers that she bought me a white Aero shirt from 2 years ago for Christmas too. Well, those are my all my Christmas presents for now. Hopefully more pictures of presents to come later :]

Christmas Day^^

12/25/11
Woke up in the morn to get ready for partying at my Grandma's house. We had dim sum in the morning and BBQ at night. It was pretty boring during the day because there wasn't much to do. I even took a 2 hour nap with a couple of my cousins. When I woke up, they were getting ready to BBQ. I ate more than I thought I would; probably because the food was good. I forgot about pictures until the time came to opening presents/distributing presents. For the first time, I was passing out the presents instead of my older cousins. We're growing up so fast!
The youngest children got the most presents because they're still 12 and under. After all the kids unwrapped their presents and moved their stuff out of the way, we played our Secret Santa game (it's becoming a tradition). It's originally called White Elephant, but most people don't know that's the official name of the game. This is the second year we played it and as the host of the game, I know it was yet another successful year of "White Elephant." We actually had more gifts this year than last year because more people joined in, therefore more presents were available to go around the game. There were a total of 29 wrapped presents. I think only a couple items were stolen the maximum 3 times this year, which is almost the same as last year, but there was definitely more "stealing" of presents this year vs. last year, which is a good thing!
I also got some important feedback from people so that next years Secret Santa/White Elepahnt game will be even better. To remember what that feedback is for next year, I should just write it here:
 - Gift Receipts can be a good and a bad thing to leave because then people can exchange for something else, but it defeats the purpose of the game and they wont remember what they got from the game if they do exchange it for something else.
 -  Neutral-Gender Gifts encouraged over gender-specific gifts
 - Gift Price Minimum will be raised from $20 to $30 for better gifts = more stealing
 - New Rule Remains: no food, no clothes, no gift cards
I think that was it. My parents said it was fun and I hope everyone else thought the same as well.

Red Packets for xmas!

Secret Santa game time!

Had a lot of laughs tonight~

Hohoho with the Shopping

12/23/11
As mentioned in the last post, today was my day-off from work. I got to sleep-in a little later and go shopping with Kelly! We were going to catch the bus down to Ala Moana, but then my dad drove us there on his way to town as well, yay! We got there around 11:15am and started shopping according to our list of people/gifts to shop for. Shopping is hard work and very sad when it comes to paying x]
We ate lunch at Mcds around 3pm; we needed to be cheap since we spent so much money lol. After lunch, Kelly and I picked up some snacks (candy) for the movie from Longs. Then Megan was nice enough to drive by Ala Moana to pick up Kelly and I for our Girl's Day at the movies. Unfortunately, Girl's Day ended up with only Kelly, Megan, Jess M. and I. We watched the 3:55pm showing of Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol at Ward Theatres. We made it just in time for it too!
Luckily, we found decent seats even though we got in during previews. The movie was very action-packed and pretty intense, but I think I would understand the whole plot and story line better if I watched it a second time. A lot of information just kind of flew by a little too fast for me xD But still, I thought it was a good movie and humorous at some parts too :]
After the movie, we went back to Ala Moana for dinner/helping Megan find a xmas present for Nancy. We ended up not accomplishing either of those. Instead, we went down to Funworks for Jess M to play DDR. Megan and Kelly played a "button-mashing" fighting game. Then this random dude challenged Megan after Kelly lost to her. We thought it was pretty funny and Megan kept giving us her "wtf" face. I think Megan lost to the guy?? I went out for a phone call so I'm not sure who lost/won. But by the time I got back inside after my phone call, Jess was about to challenge the guy. And she kicked butt! :D
Anyways, we left around 8pm and I got dropped off at home because I wasn't feeling very well. After dropping me off, I think the rest of them went to eat at Young's Raamen.

I spent a lot of $ today, but I did accomplish my main shopping goals. I felt very accomplished inside too. Walking around with shopping bags was so tiring, I felt the ache in my arms the next day.

O Christmas Tree!

Winter Break..so far

12/22/11
My winter break so far...has been work work and more work! Ah, not much time to play and hang out with anyone :( I tell myself my paycheck will be worth it xD
Right after my last day of exams, 12/16/11, I went shopping with my mom at Ala Moana for my nephews (little baby clothes). And of course, we did some shopping for ourselves too. I got this cute dress that I can't wait to wear sometime. It was on sale because all the size "smalls" and almost all the "mediums" were gone, but luckily I found a medium. I didn't even try it on yet, but it will fit, i hope...
I started working on the 17th, which is the Saturday after exams ended. And so I packed a lot of my things to sleep over my grandma's house for convenience of going to work for the whole week (12/17-12/24).
I work close to Longs Drug Stores, so I have officially made 4 trips to Longs in 2 days because of the stuff I'm always being told to buy. I like not having to work, but I don't like having to run to Longs just for one thing; it's kind of a pain.
Luckily, I am officially given a day-off tomorrow! I can sleep in, go shopping, and hang out with friends :) I wish I didn't get sick though. My voice is changing from the rasp in my throat :(
Here's my Christmas checklist this year (as of now):
Friends:
- Kelly  ✔
- Jess M  ✔
- Jess O  ✔
- Kristine  ✔
- Tracy  ✔
- I don't even wanna go through the guys yet...xD

Family
-Parents  ✔
-Sister Julie (sorry didn't get anything for Bella)  ✔
-Kaiden  ✔
-Cassidy ✔
-Chase  ✔
-Connie  ✔
-Kenneth
-Vina
-Secret Santa Gift  ✔
I have a a whole lot more cousins that are older than me, but I'm not getting them anything. Just for the really young cousins, my niece and nephews, and my bff cousin Vina.
Ahh, well I hope I get better since I'll be sleeping a lot earlier than usual tonight :]

1st Day of Exams

12/14/11
My first day of exams was today! Wednesday! I know, a lot of people's exams started on Monday or Tuesday, but mines started today and guess what? I had two exams in one day -_-
Chinese in the morning at 9:45-11:45, but I finished around 11am. I could've stayed longer to write more, but I was getting tired from thinking. I was on the last part of the exam that said to write at least 150 characters about my daily life at school and my experience with taking Chinese. I only wrote 90 characters xD Hey, don't shake your head at me; I was going to leave it blank in the first place. I was going to leave the whole writing section blank because it was only worth so little of my grade, but ahh didn't wanna be a rebel like some dude in my class whom I know did leave it blank because he was the first to leave in like, ~35mins. We were taking our exam in a big classroom too with all the other Chinese 101 students from other sessions.
Well, I had a whole lot of time to study for my next exam: Oceanography. I made good use of my time after Chinese exam ended; so good that I didn't even eat lunch. I kind of regretted that because I got hungry before the exam, which was 2:15-4:15pm, but I finished at 2:40pm. Ninja! I know I kind of sped past the test, but that's because I studied and it was a "either I know it or I don't" kind of test. Half the class finished 5 minutes before me, so when I was done, I looked around and thought, gee it's so empty.
After Oceanography exam, I called Reynold to tell him I was done and he said "already?!!" And when I looked at the time, I was surprised myself xD I was going to head over to Reynold's dorm, until I got Jess's txt that she wasn't going to perform at her guitar recital anymore. So I went home instead. Honestly, I was really looking forward to going. I just realized today that I've never been to a recital before, i think; at least not a instrumental one. I even purposefully brought my camera for it. Oh wells! Still looking forward for you to perform for us though Jess :]
Well, and then it was pouring hard when I got back to Salt Lake. I had to wait under the bus stop seating area for about 10mins before the rain died down. I forgot to bring my umbrella :(

12/15/11
So now it is 2:40am and why am I up right now? I slept at 8pm (yesterday) because I had a headache. I woke up at 2am to brush my teeth xD and found that my headache was gone. I could stay up longer, but then I could probably still continue to sleep. I haven't studied today at all for the Microeconomics exam today at 12noon.
So, here was my study schedule:
Sunday - Oceanography (make study guide)
Monday - Oceanography (study)
Tuesday - Microeconomics (study notes & past midterms)
Tuesday night - Chinese (study)
Wednesday - What was supposed to be "studying for Microeconomics" ended up to be sleep xD
Thursday 2am: I don't know if I should be worried now, but I'll study for it later today.
Thursday (after econ) - Make study notes for Biology exam (it's an open book exam :] )

Haha, almost 3am guys x] I'll be going back to sleep now. Byee!

Busy Busy Day

12/09/11
Grr, I can't believe I didn't wake up as early as I intended to today. I was going to catch bus with kekekelly at 7:45am but then woke up around that time instead. So.. I went back to sleep after I washed up lol. Since it takes an hour to get there, I left around 9:50am since Kelly said she finishes class around 11am. It turned out that she finished an hour earlier. So sorry I didn't go earlier, cuz then you wouldn't have had to wait for me, but that was a very long bus ride. I never rode the 3 bus that far before. After reaching KCC, we made our payment for next semester's classes. I paid $307 for my online English 100 class at KCC. That is a lot cheaper compared to the tuition at UHM, which is like, $1,050 for 3-credits.
After making payment, both Reynold and Jessica did not reply to any txts or calls, so Kelly and I decided to go to UHM to hunt them down x] But then Jess replied after we got on the bus. When we got to UH, we ate lunch at Campus Center and then I had to catch the bus to my dentist appointment for my cavity filling D: I was a bit nervous at first, since I never had a cavity in a long long time, but it turned out to be really quick. ~20 mins was the shortest cavity filling I've ever had; but of course that's a good thing. Though, the right side of my face was numb; but just for about 3 hours. It eventually got less and less numb, so it wasn't too bad.
Then I caught the bus down to HPU for my flu shot at the doctors. I had time before my appointment so I went around looking for boots for my younger cousin's christmas gift. I didn't find any real nice ones that matched/fit her (we have the same shoe size and she's only 10yrs old). So yea, I was really bummed that I walked around for an hour and couldn't find her any boots.
After getting my shot, I went to my aunt's house to wait for dad to pick me up. I got to eat chocolate ice-cream, which made me happier from sitting in the waiting rooms for my appointments (i dislike waiting - you can tell how impatient I am when it comes to waiting). My aunt also tempted me with giving me her 4-ft. x-mas tree. As much as I really wanted to take it home and decorate it, I know there isn't really room for it at my house, therefore my mom won't allow it anyways.  Well, that was my Friday, followed by sleeping early because there was nothing else to do at night.

LOL I also found it pretty cute and random that there is a cactus garden at KCC

Look! there's flowers coming out of these ones. ~cool x]

That big thing in the middle reminds me of a coral reef?

Adventures with Fishy!

12/05/11
At first, I planned to go to the Waikiki Aquarium on Sunday, but that didn't happen, so I went the next day, Monday 12/05/11. I needed to go because it was for a grade in Oceanography; to fill in a worksheet, get a receipt, and stamp to prove I went there. I knew everyone was busy getting ready for exams and all so I was gonna go by myself, but then Reynold said he had time and wanted to go too. So after classes, we walked back to his dorm to drop off his stuff (and for him to eat lunch). Then we walked out to catch the 4 bus, but then we missed it :( we were so close to making it, if it weren't for the stoplight we had to wait for -_-" Well, at least the wait wasn't too long; just 15mins until the next one came.
It was my first time riding the 4 bus into Waikiki, so I wasn't sure about the route, but I knew where to get off xD. After we got off, we had to walk another 8 mins to get to the Waikiki Aquarium. Admission was $6 to get in and at the front desk I got my paper stamped. The place is pretty small, but we took our time looking into every fish tank and looking at all the fishes in them. We saw some main characters from Finding Nemo and got to hold tiny little hermit crabs. Reynold touched the sea urchin, but I didn't want to xD It looked like it hurt to touch it. I was also really looking forward to see the Hawaiian Monk Seal, but they were renovating their tank to make room for a new one. I was bummed, but oh wells. We even went into the gift shop to look around xD
By the time we finished, we noticed that we had spent an hour in there. On the way home, we got melon flavored ICEE's from the ABC Store. We took the 4 bus back, but I got off at my dad's work place so that he didn't have to go to UH to pick me up.

Thanks for coming with me Fishy! I can't imagine how bored and awkward I would've felt if I went by myself.
& Hope you enjoyed seeing all your relatives at the aquarium xD

We also took a lot of pictures, but I think Reynold's pictures came out better than mines. It's hard to take pictures when they're always moving and swimming around.

 

Left: Jelly-fishies                   Right: Cleaner Shrimp

More jelly-fishy

I like how the coral reef is reflected in the surface water

Orange Tree Coral

 

Gilll from Finding Nemo :]

Dory!! I forgot to take a picture the clown fish and anemone. That was the first tank we looked into.

This picture came out too dark :[

Little neon fish :3

Hermit crabs!!!

It tickles when they move xD and you can see the spiky sea urchin too :)

~Fun Day!~

Happy Birthday Jess Meep!

12/03/11
What a busy busy busy day. I had work during the day and was still in the process of planning the surprise party. I stayed up til 1am the day before planning with Kelly. Then finished the main plans with Tyler in the morning. I was eating breakfast at the moment too xD. All through the car ride to work, I was texting and alsmot got a headache. Good thing I didn't :]
It was very busy at work today too. I felt so tired by 2:30pm. I was really happy to end work at 5pm xD By that time, I really did have a slight headache, but it kinda went away after got back to my grandma's house to take a shower. Then I got ready to get picked up by Reynold. We thought we weren't gonna find good parking when we got to Pearlridge, but I think we got pretty lucky. It wasn't close, but not too far either. We made reservations for a table of 15 as soon as we got to Bravo's. Everyone started showing up half an hour later. And we continued waiting until we got impatient. So we went in and found out that they had written down the wrong phone number. They had even went out to call for us, but we were waiting somewhere else.
In that moment, I could not really say I was mad since it was their fault, but it was also our fault for not being there when we were called. We also could've prevented it from happening if we had double-checked that they wrote down the right number. At least we only had to wait another 10 mins before they got our table ready. We had waited a total of an hour and 40 mins to get our table, when it could've been shorter.
But, at least the surprise was a success! Everyone had got there before Jess, Tyler and Marc. Despite being hungry from all the waiting, it felt great when the food finally came.
After dinner, we all went over to Tyler's house to cut the cake. It was a cute little strawberry cheesecake that Kelly and Kristine bought from Pastry House. It was yummy, though some said it was too sweet, but I really liked it :]
After some people had to leave, the guys continued to duel, while the girls were in the other living room. We decided to sing karaoke, though it was more like a sing-along x] We sang to some Wonder Girls, SNSD, Disney songs and then a lot of Hilary Duff's songs from at least 5-6 years ago xD It was super late by the time we finished our last song. I got home at 1:30am and as expected, my mom woke up once I got home, but she didn't say much. So technically I didn't get into trouble, phew* xD
Now for the winter break plans after finals :]

My Chicken Picatta :) yum

Grrrr..

11/26/11
Sigh, I don't know why I feel so grumpy right now. I hate the feeling of being grumpy or upset over something because it makes me distressed. I mean, i know i'll get over it soon, but there's so much to complain about that I can't even explain it all. All I know right now is that I feel grumpy and frustrated. How can it be so hard to understand and communicate with each other!?! I give up.

Ok, calming down now..

Thanksgiving and Black Friday Craze

11/23/11
I actually had a one-day-early Thanksgiving dinner at my grandma's house. We had a nice big turkey, stuffing, ham, sweet yam, and salad. I'm really not a big fan of this kind of food, probably because I'm not used to eating this stuff. I didn't have a very good appetite today either.
I also painted my nails today and stayed up til 1am doing them xD

Candy Canes :3

11/24/11 - 11/25/11
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Thanks for all the thanksgiving text msgs as well. I'm very thankful that I met you guys and you guys became a very important part of my life. I don't exactly believe that anything can last forever, but I sure hope that our friendship will.
It was nice that I got to sleep in today and I had dim sum with some of my family around 11am today for brunch down at the Chinese Cultural Plaza. Then I went on an adventure with my cousins trying to find the memorial we were all going to visit. We didn't know what the memorial was called, though we go there every once or twice a year. After trying to google the memorials down in Kaneohe we ended up going to the wrong memorial. Good thing the right one was only about 5 mins away xD
Everyone else was there already when we got there. We also didn't want them to know that we got lost and went to the wrong one; how embarrassing. It was funny though and still is lol.
In the afternoon, I went to Jess Ms house because we planned to make a cake or cupcakes for Kristine :3
We were originally supposed to meet at 2, but then it got pushed back to 2:30, which was when I arrived. Jess was still trying to clean her house, until her mom and dad came home. They were so nice to invite me to eat. Although I already at dim sum, I wasn't really full from that meal, so I was able to eat at Jess's house. I met her dad for the very first time. It was very nice to meet him :) The food was also good, although I felt like I was intruding their meal at first.
We finally got to baking around 5pm xD with Kelly and Jenny as well. We put in the wrong oil.. Of all the different oils we could've put in, we put in the expensive truffle oil, which had a very strong corn scent that was added to the cake mix. I then walked with Jess to Safeway for frosting, whipped cream, and ice cream. My parents were there for ice cream as well, so they dropped us off back at Jess's house so I could grab my stuff and go with them to the dinner at my aunt's. We had hot pot for our thanksgiving dinner and a lot of ice-cream for dessert :]
After dinner, I took a short nap and showered at my aunt's house. My uncle drove me home so that could change before walking to Tyler's house. We were running late according to our original plan, but it all turned out alright as usual. When we got to Reynold's house, his thanksgiving party was done and we got to play with Kuri (did I spell that right?) She's a very hyper dog that likes to lick people, but very cute. Even after everyone was there and ready to walk over to Waikele Shopping Center, we were watching the end of Wall-E on TV and wanted to finish it before going xD awesome movie.
We all walked as a group and it only took about 8 mins to walk there instead of driving and trying to find parking that would've cost us $5. We shopped around and most of us bought something. I bought converse that were light green from the Converse store. I later found out that they can glow in the dark; so cool! We also went into K-Mart for a snack at Little Caesars. I shared my order of Italian Cheese Sticks with Jess. I haven't had them in so long! They're super yummy and if you haven't tried them before, you must!
We then went to Ala Moana after walking back to Reynold's house to take a break. We got to Ala Moana around 2:30am and when I texted Vina, she had already finished shopping and left.
At Ala Moana, I bought sandals from Jeans Warehouse (hard to find my size there) and a hoodie from Aeropostale. I got a white one while Kris, Jess and Kelly all got different colors of the same design. The price was $15 on the sign, but then we were only charged $12 for it! Awesome deal. And now we all have matching hoodies :3
Before leaving, we got breakfast from the food court. Then we went back to Tyler's house to eat and crash. We shopped around for a super long time and didn't get back to Salt Lake until 8:30am. I went home around 2pm and went to sleep until 8:30pm. I feel wide awake right now, but feel like I should sleep because I have to work tomorrow.

On 11/24/11, we sang Happy Birthday to Kristine and ate cupcakes. They look really cute!

I ate the one in the center :]

1:30 am: K-Mart

10am: At Tyler's in our matching hoodies