Reflect Back....

1 more day we will start a new year 2009, and saying goodbye to 2008. Many things happened this year - Real Estate, GM, Ford, Stock Market etc etc

Other than those things, we:

* Got a New Camera
I gave away my old camera (Sony) and got Canon this time - could not believe that I would betray Sony like that.

* Chicago and Bento
Found the best bento place in Chicago and totally love it.

* Traveled to Indo together
For a first time, my Russian husband went back with me to my country.

* Got married
Surprised a lot of friends but we decided to do a civil ceremony.

* Went camping for a first time (real camping - no electricity and shower)
A day after our really small wedding, we decided to test our marriage in the real environment.

* Learned to swim
Took 7 lessons, and I am now able to swim backward and short distance forward swim. Decided to cancel the rest of the lessons because it was getting cold outside.

* A lot of Hiking
This year we started being outdoors and enjoyed MN more than last year but we still don't like winter in MN.

- Flood at our kitchen
See previous blog.

* Bought a new townhouse in only 2 weeks and then canceled it the next 2 days.
The our lease was expiring the end of December and we hate living without our own washer/drier, so we decided to get a townhouse. We found this townhouse near Blaine (brand new) which was really nice and big enough for both of us + our stuff. There were couple of other people also interested in the house, so we were impulsive enough to get it and later decide to cancel it after showing it to a couple of friends. 1 week after we canceled it, the mortgage interest went down and this house price also went down (by 10,000$), so it was lucky that we canceled it.

* Bought a Wii
First we were planning to sell it for profit but we could not hold back the temptation to have it for ourselves.

* L2 Got a New Job
Still adjusting to the new environment but really excited to learn new things/experience from this place.

- Russian Got sick and ride the ambulance
Read previous blog.

- Russian Got towed
Check previous blog.

Sooooo HAPPY NEW YEAR guys, hopefully next year will be better for our economy and environment and for all of us in general.

3 movies all with sad endings

For our first Xmas in here (our city) we did not have any fancy plans. We just went to see 3 movies (1 with a few friends on Xmas Eve and the other 2 on Xmas day just together) and had dinner on Xmas Eve with our friends. Every single of the movies we watched ended with tears - what was wrong with this Xmas? Why did Hollywood premiere these tragic movies on Xmas day????

1. Seven Pounds: two things I learned from this movie - the lifespan of a Great Dane is only around 7 years, and everyday we take our health for granted, never realizing that we are actually quite fortunate to live a healthy life every day.

2. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - it sucks to outlive someone you love and it's better to live forward instead of backward. But Brad Pitt is really hot.

3. Marley & Me - I liked the book better, the movie was not funny enough and sorry Jen, you are not funny and have no chemistry with Owen Wilson :( By the way, both V and I met John Grogan at a Borders book signing in Lenox three years ago. I have the photos for proof! :P

Every one of these movie really made me think about health and life this weekend.

Bleeding again

Guess what mode of transportation is as expensive as an ambulance...............? Well? While you are thinking I will start giving you some clues:

Last Friday (19 Dec) we decided to hang out with V's work friends so we drove downtown, but we arrived 2 hours late...long story... ok, ok, I'll explain it. I went with Jal shopping on Friday instead of Saturday, because I decided I would like to work from home Saturday and spend Friday shopping around.

So I came back a bit late from the shopping (and by "a bit" I mean 0.5 hours late) a bit after the time when we should have already left. V was not happy, he was pouting like a little boy, and we started leaving around 9. Btw the party started at 8 actually (Indonesian time == 9 pm).

Along the way, I was telling him everything that happened that day at work, taaalking talking talking non-stop, and somehow (who knows how), he missed his exit and decided to take the path using his own internal GPS. His internal GPS is either very very reliable or about the same as driving around and taking random turns until we get somewhere sort-of familiar.

At the end we found the place, but we were 2 hours late already. When we were turning into the street we were supposed to turn into, we actually missed the turn and took a different back alley.... a small road behind a rental building - but by the way, no, the answer to the question is not about getting a ticket for going the wrong way.

But we could see his friend's house from the parking lot. He decided to park behind someone's else car, under a tree, where there wasn't actually a parking spot, near a window and with no towing sign. Of course I told him to park somewhere else, but he convinced me that it would be ok since there was no sign and we would be able to see our car from his friend's place just in case anything happened.

We had fun at the party - learned a new card game (cribbage) and got to know V's coworkers. Then around 12 we decided to leave since everyone else had left, too. We walked to our car, and he noticed that the remote did not open the car -- not long after that he said "omg, our car is gone" ..... yup yup yup our car got TOWED. So in the middle of the really cold weather, in the middle of the night, we were looking for a phone number of the car towing company. Finally found it, and I noticed the minimum price of the towing "$280" - bye bye Christmas gifts and dinners and lunches.

His friend was nice enough to drive us there, but we didn't see any ATM on our way to the towing company location. V decided that he won't use credit card since they will charge 15$ extra while using ATM is only 3.50$ extra. Turned out we have to pay exact cash $276.31 - we had to withdraw cash twice from the ATM (there was a 200$ max per drawing). So altogether it cost us $7 to withdraw the cash (but at least it wasn't as bad as the $15 "convenience fee" for credit cards). He was being stingy to the towing company - no more extra money for them.

Then his friend had to go back to his car and scrape out $6.06 but we still needed 25 more cents. Thankfully there were 2 ladies who needed to pick up their car too and they had extra cash, and donated us 25 cents. Those jerks behind the bullet-proof glass at the office were just smiling to themselves as we tried to count out the change. We walked to the car and the guy in the compound told us that he just towed the car an hour ago.

So our car got a $276.31 Christmas gift - a free ride to the middle of nowhere, being held hostage in car-prison, and probably being molested by some of the dirty old trucks there. I don't know if his car will think about it that way, but for me it was definitely like his car going to prison for an hour. I think the car towing tops the price of the ambulance. Hehehhe we will find out soon when we get the bill from hospital :) That's our generous Christmas donation to the medical industry and the car-towing industry, to boost this economy. If the economy turns around next year, trust us, it's not Obama, it's our $1 billion stimulus package for the Minneapolis/St.Paul area.

December has not been the best month for V :(
Hopefully I can keep him out of the trouble next year...

Ambulance + Emergency Room == common cold

We spent 5 hours in the emergency room last Thursday for a common cold. Wondering why?

V got sick right after I felt better - seems the common cold has been vacationing between us the last two weeks. It started from a flight to Atlanta, which got him sick, then it came to me and then inside of me, the common cold got stronger and more powerful, became uncommon and extraordinary, so when it got back to him, it took much more time to cure it.

Thursday he stayed at home from work since he didn't feel well - I made him a porridge (a really good one, full of rice, carrots, green onions, fish and shrimp, really tasty and delicious) then I went to work. Then around 1 pm, he was feeling worse with the fever (NyQuil doesn't do aaaaanything to it) so I decided to take him to the doctor/clinic since his condition was getting worse.

At first, we went to Allina hospital, but they said they had no walk-in clinic, only the emergency room, and of course we didn't think we needed the emergency room so we asked where the nearest walk-in clinic was. They told us to go to a small Allina clinic nearby. We went there, but there we were told they could not provide us a walk-in treatment before 5pm, only by appointment. And all the doctors were already busy. So finally we decided to go to my old workplace building since they have a Minute Clinic over there. All of this driving around for 1 hour was not pleasant at all, we had to park, walk in through the cold, get rejected over and over, and V was running a fever of 102'F (39'C) the whole time.

When we got to the clinics, the nurse checked him out and she said nothing serious and he just have a common cold which usually suck for the first 2 days. His temperature was pretty high, so he needed to take Tylenol or Ibuprofen. He got checked for flu and strep throat and meningitis and it was none of those things. Good, right?

We were at our last minutes of visit, the nurse was printing us the prescription, V buttoned up his coat nice and tight, getting ready to stand up when suddenly he told me that he needed to lean his head on my shoulder and... whoops, lost his consciousness. The nurse told me to hold his head while we kept calling his name. That time I knew the procedure at my work when someone faints, ERT team will be summoned, then the ambulance will come. So the nurse called ERT, and a pile of ERT people just came. They took his name and his condition, then they put him on the floor and gave an oxygen mask.

Note: ERT == Emergency Response Team - the people at my work who volunteer to be called when any medical emergency event is triggered. They have knowledge of CPR and basic first aids. They also carry emergency bags which contains bunch of first aids (such as bandage, glucose paste, oxigen, AED, etc etc - many many things - each bag is quite heavy and big). Each bag is located near exit area/printing room, so they just grab the bag when they are summoned. How do I know all this stuff about them? Because I am one of them!! :) Yup yup we are fully trained, everyone!!! with many skills, how to help injurer people, how to use an Automatic External Defibrillator... and don't worry, you can always reject our help - we are just good Samaritans.

Before the ERT team got there, V had regained consciousness, laying down on the floor. After he gained more consciousness, the ambulance and medical guys came - they asked what happened and his history. They asked if he wanted an ambulance to hospital or not - Actually I was so sure that V was ok and no need to go to ER at all. But the medical guys scared us by saying it could be a heart problem or a blood-sugar problem (diabetes) and that he could faint again randomly and fall in a parking lot and injure his head, etc. etc., so they convinced him to go with them, on a stretcher, into the ambulance, and BACK TO THE SAME EMERGENCY ROOM WE HAD JUST VISITED EARLIER THAT DAY! Tragic irony.

I followed him to hospital and wondered why everything became big big huge expense/event suddenly.

I parked my car and was pointed to his room asap. He was laying on the bed and couple nurses were sticking 3M labels on him for ECG reading. They asked him same questions again (btw we had been answering each question 3 times by now) and they were doing more tests to him to ensure he was ok and his fainting was not caused by his heart or other factors. So while they were doing those things - we realized that the fainting was probably because he has not eaten any lunch and wore tooooooooo many layers of clothes - which were way too warm to be wearing something like that indoors.

They gave him a bag of IV fluid and attached him to many wires. V just felt dizzy but overall he looked fine. I asked him if it would be necessary to get all the tests - and finally told the nurse to hold off any further tests and request a doctor. The nurse was finished anyway, and then the doctor came in and asked the same set of questions again (4th time), and she said V just needed to take Tylenol and Ibuprofen for the fever and drink a Gatorade, wait until the IV was done to check if he would be better by then.

So we stayed several hours longer and a few of our friends dropped in to visit. They just wanted to make sure we were ok and no more help needed at that point. V was embarrassed of course.

After another 2 hours, they finaly released us. Nothing dangerous/serious, just needed couple small pills, our heroes - 600 gm of ibuprofen and 600 gm of Tylenol which would have cost us less than $4, actually, but now we have to pay a few times that...

Speaking of payments, the bills have not arrived yet - but this is a really nice experience for us. Ambulance ride for V was his Christmas gift. We still could not believe "600 gm of ibuprofen and 600 gm of Tylenol" would co$t u$ thou$and$ of dollar$ -- I will blog more when I receive the bills from hospital. That blog will be in all capital letters.

This incident has also caused us to cancel our flight to Atl. the next day since V was not feeling better yet - even now, he's still got achy muscles and chills. We had to cancel our tickets, suckkkkkk big time, more dollar$ flying out. The car rental was gone. We were bleeding money on Thursday hiks hiks hiks...

One day we will read this and hopefully laugh about it. I just hope we're not living in a cardboard box at that time.

Pictures

We took two pictures today:
1. Current weather in MN .... snow everywhere
2. Number of laptops at our apartment (not all ours, only 3 - the rest are work computers)

New Job + Sick

This week is my last week at work - It was hard to say good bye to everyone especially to my manager. He always joked with me - our remarks to each other were always sarcastic but never actually hurt each other's feelings. I wrote him a card (with some jokes in it) but I didn't get a chance to say good bye to him. So I left him a note :(

Everyone at work was really supportive and some told me that I probably will come back since I would miss the environment so much - and the good thing is that I am always welcome. Hopefully I could keep in touch with them and they will reply to my email.

So it was a really busy week since I also have to plan another trip to Atlanta (for my cousin's wedding) - getting a present, tickets, car rental, dress and buying stuff that my mom and sister asked me to get from US. My aunt will deliver those items back to Indonesia. So almost every night I was out to get something. MN is not warm anymore like Atl - we have a pile of snow already and I still haven't bought my gloves. :(

My last day at work I was not feeling well and water running down my nose all day. I don't know if I will get better this Monday :( my new work starts already - I have my new work laptop but I still have to setup bunch of things.
Hopefully I will get better...................

I blame my Russian for bringing this cold from Atl. He blames me for finally being more wimpy than he is (usually he is the wimpy one).

THxGivings

Same as previous thanksgivings, we are going back to ATL. So, everyone in ATL, be ready for our arrival!!!!

Since we are going to be there, we might as well hunt down some black Friday deals, but I really hope there is a cheaper deal for SLR camera.......

Winter is coming (to some of us)

I changed the theme to match the current season.....

Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do :)

Shrimp Risoles

After tasting veggie risoles from the new Indonesian restaurant - we decided to make our own -better ones, with shrimp. Here is the recipe - copied & modified from Mrs Herti's recipe:


Ingredients:
The wrapper (skin):
100 gr flour
1 spoon salt
1 egg
175 ml milk

Filling:
Shrimp (as much as you want)
1 big potato
6 carrots
2 onions
3 garlics
4 chilies, cut (if you like to eat spicy)
salt, pepper, sugar to taste
1 spoon flour, mixed with a little bit of water

Coating:
1 egg, mixed
bread crumbs

Steps:
Skin/wrapper: Mix all wrapper/skin ingredients until smooth (no clumps). Then make each skin/wrapper by pouring one ladle at a time into a hot greased frying pan. Cook until they are firm, then put them aside.

Filling: Fry onion and garlic until they turn brown, then add chilies, carrots and potatoes. When all the veggies are soft enough, add shrimp, and wait until the meat cooks. Then add the flour which was previously mixed with water.

Fill each skin with a couple of spoons of the filling, and fold it like an envelope. Dip it into the egg then into the bread crumbs. Deep-fry until it turns brown.

Brule/Eagle again

Last weekend we went to clear a trail again - this time the Brule lake trail. Yup, a cold weekend to be doing outdoor activities, especially camping/hiking. But this time we were lucky, since we did not have to camp out - we stayed at the forest service cabin. Nice temperature to stay inside or to eat our food inside, instead of freezing our butts outside. Still camping, guys ..... just warmer.

The trail clearing was a bit different from last time - this time we went with completely new people except the leader (total crew: 9 people). The people were older so the conversations were different, too - much more adult talk such as relationships, commitment, etc. etc. Learning interesting things about love and everyone's problems/issues in love.

There is only 1 room in this cabin, and 6 of us stayed inside the cabin while the other 3 wanted to sleep outside in the tents. We somehow were chosen to stay inside the room which another person - and V was nice enough to pick sleeping on the mattress on the floor, while me and the other person each got our own bed. At this point we didn't know what would happen to us at night.

We went to sleep, and in the middle of the night, I was awakened by snoring noises (really loud ones and continuously), so I thought it was V's, but I had never heard him snoring that loud. The next day, all the mystery was solved - 3 of us went to the bed at the same time, while I was still talking to V - the mystery snoring came back, and this time was non-stop for 2 hours before it went to the quieter one. Poor V - he could not sleep for 2 days and he was blamed for all the snoring in that room since no one would think the other person could snore that loud...the snores were two different types mixed together... man...it sounded like two people snoring.

I guess you cannot judge people from their appearance - the other person is a girl. Dang, I thought they were lucky nights for V but actually they turned out quite the opposite.

This time we also climbed up Eagle mountain (same as last time), and most of the trees lost their leaves already. On the top of the Eagle mountain, the view was different from our last visit (summer) - but still beautiful as always :)



We got a new recipe for apple dumplings - delicious and not too sweet, from one of the campers... Thanks K---!!!!
We will try it soon (once we have a new oven).

Happy Diwali guys!!!!!!!

Laskar Pelangi

I am so curious about this movie (adapted from a novel) - I googled it during work and found the entire movie in Youtube and also the scanned novel (yup for entire novel). But could not read/watch during work (ya ya ya I am ethical person at work, doesn't like to get paid for pleasure)

And when I got home from work (2 days later, totally forgot about it), I could not find any movie in Youtube and even could not find the scanned novel.

Hiks hiks hiks I could not believe this : ( where where I can find the entire movie again??????

Just want to know how good this movie is......

Oberg Mountain

After the kitchen disaster last week, we finally got a chance this Saturday to drive for Fall colors. The trip was planned Friday night with a phone call from Jal, asking if she could come along to our trip. That time we didn't have a plan yet, so any suggestions were welcome. She sent me a link about north fall drive favorite locations, and I just had to plan everything. First time, everything was blurry - I was not sure where we should go since our last year trip was not as good as we thought. So I read the website while reading my manga (Dang I am so good in doing 2 things in parallel), so I saw the link to fall colors gallery, and that gallery was becoming our plan : ) Sooooooo we planned to go to Oberg Mountain (I know it was not a surprise anymore since I mentioned the name on the post).

We should have left at 9 AM, but we decided to drag Pra with us -- she actually didn't want to go since she would have to run for marathon next day, but we were sooooo good at persuading her, but we left around 11.30.

We got to Duluth around 1 PM, got our lunch at BK (as usual - Mocha Joe, no ice) and stopped by 2 spots - Lake Superior and Rocky piers (we don't know the actual name for this place), and drove through this scenic drive which later we found out that nothing scenic about it - the website had fooled us. But at the end we got to Oberg Mountain (around 4 PM) after making a U-turn around Lutsen.

Hiked up to the top with soooooo many stops for each photographer to take panoramic pictures. The scenery was beautiful, all the trees were different colors - red, yellow, green, brown. Made everything looks like bunch of raspberries - really hard to describe how beautiful what we saw there.

We definitely will come back to see Fall Colors next year but maybe not going to the same place.

Ruined Fall Foliage Trip.......

Dishwasher full of brown nasty water, stains on the ceiling, our flooded stove and a nasty brown color of paper towels soaking up the water

I returned home on the evening of Friday to find my kitchen flooded with brown, foul-smelling water which had leaked through the ceiling from the upstairs apartment. The kitchen floor, carpets, insides of our oven and dishwasher, and food cabinets were contaminated.

................................

We had to stay home all day today .. cleaned the whole mess, made phone calls to the apartment manager and waited for them to fix the leak which they didn't. All this housework canceled the fall foliage trip - we can't reschedule it tomorrow since we have to go Stan's place.

Till now we are not sure if it is safe to use our dishwasher and oven again. Most likely we won't use them since we don't know what inside the dirty brown water .... we just have to eat out for 3 months.......

Friendster SUCKS

All the pictures from these blogs were gone ... something happened to Friendster and all my old blogs were copied from it, so the pictures linked together.

Soooo today I spent 2 hours to find out why and re-uploaded pictures for all old blogs : ( Really wasting my time while Russian is watching articles regarding our galaxy.......... I should have spent those hour(s) watching 88 minutes (new in DVD) or watching Friends re-run or re-read my mangas

Which one of us is more geeky?

Camping/Hiking

Back from Camping trip...
The Kekekabic trail was closed, so MK (our leader) changed the trip plan a week before we left but we didn't know the plan until Sunday (5 days before we left). Turned out we would go to Eagle Mountain to do some trail clearing, and hike Brule/Eagle mountain trails to find a new campground near fishhook lake. As you can imagine the week before we left for camping was a hectic week: every day after work we had to shop for camp gear at different places. MK provided us with the list of camp gear...dang there were more than 50 items we had to buy since we didn't have any of the proper camp gear. REI(www.rei.com) was really happy since we got to spend quite a large amount number of money - totally way outside my budget. WHAT DID I THINK WHEN I SAID 400$???

Monday: We met Pra at the store and were looking for backpack, this basically took the entire evening and we ended up renting our backpacks from REI instead of spending 200$ for each backpack. I didn't rent mine from the same store because I was not sure yet if I would like to buy it or not. We also found a new cheaper priced Sakkio at the mall and bought shoes for Russian's mom.

Tuesday: We decided to split out from Pra and Jal, we went to different branch of REI, and got us bunch of hiking shoes and sandal. We also tried different stores such as fleet farm and Wal-Mart for cheaper price items.

Wednesday: I went to work early, so I could leave early...
I went to buy camping clothes (everything that was not cotton) - reason: if we get wet, it will dry quickly. Then I bought myself a dress from Banana Republic.
Then we joined Pra and Jal at MK's place to learn more about what to pack, hiking trail and meet time since we would leave a day after him. This was the first time we met him and Paul.

Thursday: We went to our civil ceremony for our wedding then dined with our friends (who could make to our wedding) and then did the last shopping for our camping. Finally we got to rent our tent - sooo lucky that someone canceled their trip - and the name was Lily - waoo coincidence that other Lily knew that I needed the tent for this trip.

Friday: Left work early, and did final packing, and started the journey to camp ground - approx 5 hours. We had to pass Duluth - we needed to get to Sawbill. For dinner, we stopped at Burger King, Russian ordered whopper Jr, Mocha Joe and lamb from previous night's dinner, L ate other left-overs from yesterday dinner, P and J ate veggie burgers and shared fries.

We finally made it to the camp ground around 9.30 which was 1 hour too late - we should have left our place around 3 pm, but P and J were late [ahem, no hard feelings] so we left around 4. But we found the message MK left behind the post board which would guide us to their camp ground. So we left a message also for them in case we got lost. The plan was to read the message posted by them and leave them a message so they would know that we made it but we got lost at the campground (they would come back around 10 pm to check if we leave any post for them), then they would once again wait for us at 7.30 am next day. But we made it, we met MK on his way to check our messages.

Our camp ground was number 32 - and we had to setup our tent in the middle of the dark - so we had to use our headlights which turned out really useful item for the entire trip - we got to use it every night. Then we watched the stars before we went to sleep.

Saturday: It was a cold morning, could not sleep peacefully since you could hear everything - including your neighbors. I woke up because I heard P and J talking, and went out to find them, but couldn't. SO I went back to the camp ground, and turned out everyone just woke up. We made our breakfast - Indonesian ramen - and went to rent our canoe, also learned how to carry the canoe and how to drop it. Then we went out on the lake in the canoes, cleared the some trails, ate lunch (energy bars, we had to throw away some spoiled eggs), hiked to the top of a small mountain and canoed back in the middle of the night.

We got to see how beautiful our earth with the stars - no trees are blocking the view since we were in the middle of the lake. Our peaceful time was interrupted by our argument regarding direction - The boss was trying to teach the slave how to canoe. Got really hungry too and our feet got really cold because of the wind and the wetness... but finally we made it to our campground.

Ate Mashed potatoes and chicken noodles and went to sleep - we were exhausted.

Sunday: Woke up, went to the sawbill outfitter to get extra ramen and dried food for the lunch and dinner - we gave our Indonesian noodles to Paul and Dave - so we were in big trouble. We drove to Eagle Mountain and left one of the cars over there, and everyone joined Dave's car and went to Brule lake. We started our hike from here. Russian was a leader for the beginning of this trip - there are always one sweeper and one leader - to trail the path. We stopped a lot for drink, history about the trail and looking different wild plants.

We finally made it to Fishhook lake, and MK showed us how to use a compass, so we could go back to our position after searching around for a new camp ground. We had to go off the trail and into unmaintained wilderness, where pine trees grow everywhere, the branches would slap your face and scratch your arms - like a cat fight between 2 girls. Luckily we wore long sleeves, gloves and safety glasses. They found the new camp ground and left us near the water, we got to enjoy the lake for almost 30 minutes without MK!

But soon enough we had to continue our journey and hike to our last campground. I almost gave up the hiking because my bag was hurting my shoulder badly - the bag I borrowed from REI was a torture tool on my back and shoulders - it had a choking strap! Most of my hike, I didn't strap my bag and had to put the gloves between my shoulders and bag to prevent it from slicing my shoulders. Near the end of the hike, Russian had to help me carry the bag for a moment. Finally after 4 hours we got to our destination. We had to hike in total darkness with no moonlight in the dark wood on the rocky unmaintained trail down the mountain without killing ourselves...

We set our tent, had dinner (teriyaki chicken) delicious -- better than our veggie parmesan (next morning breakfast) and went to sleep.

Monday: Got up early as usual and enjoyed everything around us -- lake by our campground. At night when we got there, we could not really see the lake since we got there quite late already. I pumped the water for cooking and Eagle Mountain hike while Russian was snoozing inside the tent -- the boss had to work.....

We ate our breakfast and hiked to the top of Eagle mountain. The view was beautiful and felt that all the pain and tiredness from the day before was paid off. We enjoyed our quiet time there, took some pictures and had back home. To get to our car, we had to hike 2-3 more hours but it was easier since the bag was not as heavy as before - maybe because we ate all the food or all the weight was transfered to Russian's bag :) benefit of having a slave/husband hehehe

Plan plan plan [August 29, 2008]

We (L 99%, Russian 1%) have a couple of plans for this year's labor day
long weekend:

1. Go to Chicago and grab bunch of bento (Japanese lunch boxes)
2. 3-day hike
3. Drive to Winconsin Dells
4. Laying low (staying home and play games - so paparazzi would not be able to take our pictures, and we don't spend too much money after the Big Indo vacation we just took - that's the 1% input from Russian). It was a good thing that Russian is only donating 1% planning, otherwise we will have more not-fun/geeky plans.

But I lean toward option#2 -- really want something totally different for that weekend. I knew about the camp from Pra, so I contacted her and got all the info. We just had to attend the pre-trip meeting and buy all the equipment for Hiking (which probably will cost
both of us around $400). Yes yes, it does sound a little cheap for all those over-priced
hiking things, but that's because of the brilliant idea: borrow hiking tents/bags from co-workers and share kitchen tools!!!

But just 40 minutes before the meeting, Pra informed me that the trip had been canceled due to the restrictions in the area, a.k.a. the Kekekabic trail being closed. The hiking club would hike Eagle Mountain instead (so it wouldn't be as extensive as the 42-mile Kekekabic).

Till now, I don't know what is the plan is, and when will we leave. Really want this camping though : (

[August 29, 2008]

Hectic Week

Surpriiiiise!!!! WE ARE MARRIED!!!!!!

Wao you are really surprised, that's good, please get up off the floor now... it means we really did a good job of not sending out invitations to the HUGE wedding we did not have!

We had really little time to plan the marriage and the same time we were planning for our labor weekend gateway (camping)..... I could not figure out now why we planned to do camping and wedding at the same weekend?????? Before you ask: camping and honeymoon are not the same thing.

So sorry for the sudden event, hopefully y'all are happy for us : ) Everyone at work was surprised too and some people could not believe since I did not give any clue or hint that I would get married that soon. Actually it was not soon, we have been dating for almost 5 years and we have been planned to get married by 2008. Most of my friends knew about this since I emailed them. We did not have a huge wedding - just a civil ceremony.

Btw we have been married since August ;)

BACKKKKKKKKKK

Finally I am back to my blog ... confession: i was back almost 2 weeks ago but as usual I am procastinating to get my blog updated. But this time I have an excuse - I had to upload my trip pictures and it was not an easy job! There are around 1000 pictures! I had to put them in different folders and add comments to some of them. I had also to upload some pictures into Picasa and add comments there, too. I started this habit of uploading pictures with comments to share mine and Russian's stories and jokes for people who are interested (or not interested...) but also I always have a great moment when in the future I go back to re-read my old comments from a previous time (same with blog entries like this one).

Coming back to the US and starting to work again was not too bad at first, because our department was in the middle of moving AGAIN. Yes, my office was moved yet again, but still within the same building - just moving to a different area. I was helping to pack and unpack, and the best part was we had a picnic on Thrusday and had Friday off! (The movers were working during those days and would not be finished yet.)

So the week I got back, I could totally take my time to adjust to the US timezone, since I did not need my head to think too much. It was a really relaxing week - not much to do - like having another week of vacation, except I had to be in the office. Poor V, he had the exact opposite experience -- lots of work to do because his project didn't make enough progress while we were on vacation -- yeah he was totally jealous of my week. :^P (Wait a second, did I say "was"? Hah! STILL IS. Even now, he keeps asking me if anyone in my company ever actually *works*.)

We had a blast during the Indonesia trip -- visited many cities and met a bunch of people. The best part was Russian got to meet ALL of my family -- well, almost all, except for two cousins who study abroad and my younger brother who was too stingy to go back for vacation for a week. But hopefully we will be able to meet him soon. It would fun to see two geeks talking to each other - I saw geeks talking before, but this will be much more fun - trust me!!! I vow to have a video camera handy for that scene... mmhahahahaaa.

The memento I got from Indonesia was a blistering evil sunburn which is peeling now - yeah we totally forgot to put sunscreen lotion the first day we went to the beach on Bali island. So, for everyone who is reading this blog, please don't ever forget to put sunscreen lotion when you go to the beach, even if your plan is just to lay under a giant umbrella (not getting tanned) - well those umbrellas don't really work. Just look at what happened to us - not really a fun experience when you can't even sleep because of the 3rd degree burning pain.

Today I finished reading "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch in B&N. Actually I was not originally planning to read his book at all, but I had to wait for Russian to catch up on a few hours of work that he missed the day we got back, so there was nothing else to do around there. I saw two books that interested me - "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and "The Last Lecture" - both of them written by dying people (which is creepy), but both seemed to be good books, stories about a person's final messages/memoirs. But I decided to read "The Last Lecture" because it was a novel written by a computer science professor -- which is rare to see! But to make it fair, next time I will read "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly".

I was touched by his story, and even cried a few tears (yeah yeah, Russian would say a lot, but don't trust him, he is lying... he may even say I cried for six hours almost non-stop, but again, that is an exaggeration! It was only 5 hours and 48 minutes. Come on people, it was sad to know that the man really really died, and had touched so many lives.), so by the time I finished the book - I had to run out from B&N ASAP before anyone realized I had cried all over my shirt sleeves. I was reading the book in the corner of B&N so that no one would notice it. I didn't bring my wallet, so I could not buy and read it somewhere else. But I will definitely buy this book - want to give some credit to the author, and also giving a copy to someone else would make a nice gift.

When I picked up Russian from his work I shared with him all the stories and many of the points and pieces of advice that were interesting - I could not let him not know about this man's lecture. I was hooked on this man's last words. So then at home we watched his last lecture on YouTube. He was actually a really funny lecturer, and I wished I had a chance to meet him and ask him bunch of questions. Later on we found out that he died the day we came back from Bali trip.

Sooooooo people who read this blog, please check out "The Last Lecture" or "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" by Randy Pausch - hope you will like it as much as we did. Then buy the book, since the profits go to charity and cancer research.

procrastinated post from before our vacation

As usual, I always always pack the night before I leave for my vacation. Basically I was a cat chasing a mouse, tried to ensure I did not leave any presents behind, no cables forgotten (sooooo many cables: phones - both nokia and motorola, cameras - both canon and panasonic, laptops - both apple and sony, ipod, nintendo ds. Btw these are for 2 people, not all mine, I am not that greedy and rich : ) ...yet. We didn't end up taking everything anyway.

So after we (I) finally packed, we still have to wait until all the clothes are dry and have to fold them after that. Really annoying living at an apartment without your own washer/dryer.

But I should be happy happy since tomorrow we leave for 1 month. No more work and no more waking up early to go to work. Even though I like people at work, I would still prefer to sleep and earn money at the same time.

Interviews

This semester I've had the most travel of my entire life. I had 3 out-of-town interviews: Seattle, Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St.Paul) and Charleston. Almost every weekend I went out of state, and stayed in different hotels. I learned something about interviews: the more interviews you go through, the more you prepare for the next one, and the more you know about your self. Every time you have to explain to them about yourself, your skills, and answer technical and non-technical questions, you learn how to solve and divide and conquer your problem. Even though I was tired through all these interviews, I am really grateful that I had lots of them. I did not pass some of the first interviews but sometimes I made it to the second interview.

At the end I had two offers that I debated for soo long liked so much because of the environments and also (hehe) the $$$. But one offered much higher $$$ than the other one and I saw that my career would grow faster. I liked the starting date they offered, it made me be able to stay here in Atlanta with Russian for awhile and we could then move to the new city together. I am afraid going to a new place alone ... thinking of living there alone and knowing no one except people at my work. But now no more, because Russian will move to the same city after I move. I felt lucky for having everything - a new job, new city and a really nice boyfriend : )

November 27, 2005

Seattle - Microsoft Interview

Yipeee ..... I passed my first interview with microsoft and they asked me to come to Redmond for a second one. So i arranged my travel with them .. was really easy to take care of it.

I decided to go on Saturday, which gave me extra days to spend in Seattle and also gave me Sunday to prepare for the interview. Fortunately the Russian was able to company me there, thanks to him begging his dad for a plane ticket using some of the frequent-flyer miles he has collected. So it was a nice time - spending a little holiday in Seattle, everything for free including plane tickets, hotel for 3 days and car rental.

My car rental

When we got there, we traveled through seattle, downtown, the space needle, the international park ... and ended the day in pike's public market - a really exotic international place. I liked this fish market soo badly, because it reminded me of my hometown. They sold lots of fresh fish, and the way they sold them was really interesting: everyone was singing and they threw fish from one person to other like the bartenders from the Coyote Ugly movie. The other cute thing I saw there were lots of flowers shops (I love flowers). The prices were not too expensive, and they were really cute ... not only roses, but lilies, daisies, sunflowers, etc., making the market so colorful and lovely.

However I didn't like Seattle too much, I prefer San Fransisco still.

We spent all of saturday downtown. The next day, we went around Redmond, nothing much there, just looking around the surrounding area. We ended up eating in an Indian restaurant, and the Nan (bread) was sooo goood, the best Nan I've ever had. I love food if you don't know me well, but I am a bit picky , not like the Russian who can eat everything .... We chatted with the waiter and asked him regarding the living costs in seattle (I like to know how much $$$ I have to ask for, before the interview...)

After our lunch, we went back to hotel and practiced lots of programming problems, just to make sure that I know how to solve them and to explain it clearly. The problem with technical questions is that sometimes you are too nervous and forget everything or maybe you want to solve it right away without thinking through all the possibilities. I read from the internet that Microsoft likes the interviewee to explain or give the algorithm before writing code. So I practiced that a lot, and during my practice, Russian noticed that I always said "everyting like that" and made lots of assumptions without explaining them. Phew - good thing he noticed and let me know before my interview.

Monday, Russian dropped me off at Building 19 (the hiring building), and I walked inside (btw, we went a day before to check out the building and took some pictures hehehheheh).

I was nervous, really nervous, and the lady at the front desk asked my name and gave me a nametag and asked me to wait until my hiring HR lady (Marie) came to pick me up. So I waited around 15 minutes until she came out, and she took me to her office and gave me some questions regarding my status and starting date .... she also gave me tips how to "divide and conquer" each question ... really nice tips. She also asked me this as a warm-up:

"Imagine you are a librarian in the Microsoft Library, and
Bill Gates calls you one day and asks if he can borrow
a book, and you check the database to see that the book
is available. So you tell Bill Gates to come to pick it up,
but after you hang up, you realize that the book is not on
the shelf. What do you do?"

She wanted to know how I will divide and conquer the problem, and then she explained what mistakes I made. After finishing with her, she took me to the interview car, a honda car, really small one, and this car drives all the interviewees around every day.

I jumped into the car, and had a bit of conversations with the driver. He said that every day there are 100 people interviewing with Microsoft .... ooooo my God ..... to make the story short, I had 6 interviews, only 1 lunch break..... Microsoft's cafeteria is way better than GT's, and they have 13 different cafeterias!

I was so exhausted after the interviews. I skipped the dinner with Microsoft because I had to go back to Atlanta since my flight departed at 10 pm, and the interview was finished at 7 - no time for dinner. But I ate a realy expensive dinner at the Seattle airport with the Russian (and Microsoft paid for us).

November 27, 2005

Names

How you pick your children names? based on your husband/wife name? someone in the family? meaning?

I think everyone should her/his children names unique........how hard it is?

April 12, 2005

Interesting research

Really interesting day today (March 1)...really a good start of the month

Couple interesting researches were discussed inside the class such as: sms stringer bus, and graffiti.

SMS stringer bus would allow us to send sms messages to find out how far or location of the busses, so we don't have to wait too long or in the cold weather. Yipeee, does not have to find a computer and log in to check the buss again : ) mobile computing and network are really paid off

Graffiti is nice and interesting one too. It would allow us to leave a comment regarding places we have visited or stayed. The users would use PDAs or mobile phone to read or write opinions to/for other people. I remember when I just graduated from my junior high school, I really wanted to leave my name on one of the walls inside the school, however I was not able to. I knew if I wrote something, someone would paint the wall back and my "autograph" would disappear. So this software would able to save those kind of stuff that I wanted to do. This would be a really challenging software to complete

................................................................................time to search more about GIS

March 02, 2005

Old Blogs

I could not believe that I have quite number of old blogs and to re-read them again brought me back to Atlanta and our old-sweet memories over there. How silly I was :) ... ops I am still silly now ;)

Now I remember why I didn't update my friendster blog - all because of their stupid limit number of postings. I lost couple older posts because of that - so I decided to not write more since I didn't want to lose my current posts. I don't know if they change their rules yet. But nevermind, I am taking over my posts to different website - sorry.

Opssss I found some more old blogs.....

To know which one is new or old, just check the date below each blog. The old ones have dates below them.

Janji Joni (Joni's Promise)

I have seen many Indonesian movies such as "mengejar matahari," virgin, brownies .... etc. (I forgot the titles already.) The reason I watched most of them is because of my curiosity after reading news from Kompas regarding how good they are. However, after watched all of them, I am so disappointed with the stories and the acting - it seems they just try too hard, causing it to become unreal and totally not funny, not romantic enough etc etc.

I dont say they are bad actresses or actors, or bad storylines or bad directors etc, but I was not attached to the movies while watching. I was able to finish some of my assignments and even fell asleep during some. Always a lot of distractions. Maybe after you get used to watching Hollywood movies, the Indonesian movies becoming amateurish, something not interesting and sometimes obviously copying the stories from comics, and other love stories.

But yesterday I watched "Janji Joni", the storyline being so simple, but I really liked it! : ) And not because "Nicholas Saputra" is really cute. Basically I learned something I have never known regarding the job of a "movie reel delivery boy", and never knew there even existed a job like that. Even though some of the jokes are old jokes or copied from American movies, there were lots of moments that would make you remember about typical Jakarta.

The story was about a guy named Joni who promised that he will not disappoint movie watchers when they watch the movies because - it turns out that for a movie to be played in a cinema, there are 6 reels (for Indonesian movies) - however to reduce the production costs, each set of 6 reels is always being used by 2 cinemas, so they have to have a delivery boy to take rolls to exchange between the cinemas *while* the movie is playing! The way they illustrated it was really good :)

Of course one day he meets a really cute girl (I have no idea what her name is... do I have to know her? NAHHHH... as long I know the guy's name that's enough for me ;) actually, just go watch the movie, otherwise I will spoil the story. It looks a bit like the "Serendipity" story, but little bit more funny, and less romantic (I admit it). If you are going to watch it, do not expect too much - I realized if you expect the movie to be really good, you will end up disappointed :(

But seriuosly the movie is a good one (8/10 rating). Btw I liked the Final Fantasy 7 movie too : ) , I mean I was not interested with FF at all before, but now really curious thanks to the brothers Goh. Still too lazy to play the games though, so I used my online cheat sheet to know the story.

Let me know if you want to borrow "Janji Joni". It's $59.99 per day ONLY!*

*Some late fees may apply. See store for details. Batteries not included.

January 23, 2006

Geisha

I read the book before I went to watch the movie. Lani told me that it was worthless to watch it since we both had read, but after I finished the book, I was so obssessed to see the movie (same as the kite runner)... I like to compare between the book and the movie, which is better, and to imagine how they actually illustrated the book into a movie, where exactly inside your brain you had little pictures of everything and felt you knew each character really well. The movie was not so bad, but there were several scenes I wish they had changed, and still hate the ending, I always wish it would be different. I like Gong Li's acting as Hatsumomo, just think she is not mean enough, I imagined she should be the devil someone who made someone's life really hard daily, but the movie lacked sympathy, love, emotions etc. For sure it lacks the full story about Geisha, the book explained it much better. But overall, I am ok with the movie. I give 8/10 for the novel and 7/10 for the movie

January 16, 2006

Long time no blog

I didn't forget about my blog, I just had a really looooong vacation, starting with parents coming for graduation, taking them around east coast (washington dc, philadelphia, atlantic city, new york, boston, providence and niagara falls), all the way until now, when i ran away with my friends to florida.

To start 2006, i had 2 vacations to florida (since i guess one was just not enough). The first one was cold and so was the second. I though we could avoid the cold weather in Atlanta but it turned out that Florida was NOT as hot as it's supposed to be. The second vacation was crazy since we went to the beach and all the windy-ness of the beach blowing through me had added to my sickness (sssneeze, sneezeee!).

Lots of gambling moments and "talking big" from Han2 during the trip. I was a bit quiet - hehehehhe really!! I know that you couldn't believe that, but I was quiet ... sickness caused me some dizziness.

The most memorable moment from the vacations was my fight with Vietnamese lady in Atlantic City, she is a total crazy %#$&$#%@# lady @#*^&%!!! All started because I had put some gambling money on top of her money, and she told me to take it away because it gave her bad luck and this long long lecture from her made me lose my temper a bit and i said to her "shut up," and after that there was lots of talk back of FFFFFFFFFF---- Chinese this, Vietnamese this, beep beeeps beeeeps, lots of censoring there. I had never had fight this big which almost caused me being kicked out of the casino - heheheh. Not a really good way to end and start a year, but whatever, accidents happen. Stupid lady.

January 16, 2006

GT Survival Guide - please read it when you have lots of time to waste

Finished my programming language final - Pheeeew!

During my exam, there was a guy who finished his test and ran out screaming: "I am out of college!!!" Repeating and repeating it, so loud. Same with me, I wanted to scream at him and tell him to wait for me so we could celebrate together ;) but at the end, it became a bit annoying because he just wouldn't stop screaming and I couldn't concentrate one bit on my exam with all the noise. (Ya ya ya blame my lack of concentration aaaall on him just for celebrating too early.)

This semester I only went to library a grand total of two times - the last visit was on Monday. And it turned out there were lots of interesting things going on there during finals week. One of them was shocking: there was a *sleeping bag* on the floor of one of the big group-study cubicles! Sleeping bag in the library ... what? Maybe I was lost. Is this a library or am I in a dorm?

Ok so it was really a sleeping bag, not in the dorms or camping ground, no: in *the library*. I even have a picture to prove it - I didn't think anyone would believe me otherwise. (Sorry, maybe you all have seen sleeping bags in libraries, but not me, it was my first time, so I'll admit I got a bit too excited to photograph it for evidence).

So I just want everyone to know, I am not as big of a geek as Ernita, Merry, Han2, and Lani try to accuse me of. At least I have never SLEPT in the library ... well wait, I mean: I've taken a nap before, I guess (have you seen our textbooks? zzzzz) but hey, at least I never brought a sleeping bag EXPECTING to take a "nap" for eight hours! Not even a blanket.

But this all gave me an idea: how to stay in GT without paying anything... can it be possible? Yeah, now that I think about it, actually someone *can* stay in GT without even having an apartment. How? Take a look:

STINGY GT SURVIVAL GUIDE
----------------------------------

Q: Where should I sleep?
A: You can sleep @ GT library from Monday - Thursday, Saturday and Sunday (GT library closes after 6pm on Friday). Then Friday sleep in Student center... big Tv, lots of computers, and there are comfy sofas. Definitely better than Library. Maybe switch between them, so people would not notice that you use these places for sleeping.

Q: OK but now I smell like sofa. Where do I shower?
A: You can take showers in CRC (GT exercise center), and you can rent a locker to put all your bathroom stuff. And if the CRC is closed, you can go to the old Boggs Building, I saw one of the restrooms there has a shower. Or maybe ISYE...? I can't remember where I saw the other one, but I notice in the old buildings, the restrooms still have showers connected sometimes. Looks a bit creepy, I remember saw them during my 1st year in GT.

Q: OK now I smell good, but my clothes still smell like sofa. What do I do?
A: Now if you want to be much cheaper - even completely pennyless - you can keep some of your stuff in your friends' house and wash clothes at their place too : ) maybe do them a favor as an exchange. I dunno if you have to pay for laundry when you live in the dorms. (P.S. Lani & Han2, I washed my clothes @ your place because I was too lazy to go to a laundry place, not for saving money! I'm serious. Stop that.)

Q: I'm really tired of carrying all my stuff with me. It's embarrassing when I go to class with my alarm clock and microwave. What should I do about storage?
A: Like I said, got any friends?

Q: No. I smelled really bad until you gave me the showering tip, so all my friends left me.
A: Hmm... well dang. Then I cant find another way for saving money on laundry and keeping your stuff except for help from your friend ... hmm, think think .... tik tok tik tok ... OK your time's up - I can't find any places without a janitor finding it. And any more advice from me will cost you $$$ (which you don't have, otherwise you wouldn't be asking these ridiculous questions).

But if you can get a job, using your new clean smell, you can hide stuff at your workplace.

Q: OK wait, can I have one more question before you start charging me?
A: Was that a question?

Q: NO!!! Don't count that one. Here's my last question: all of the shower stuff is nice, but walking around and showering everywhere has made me REALLY hungry. What should I do for food?
A: Aha, the most important part: for food, you can pretty much get it from different departments at GT for free almost every day! Every department has free food sometimes (free pizzas mostly, and Diet Coke). If you know which department has it and you go around lunch time, you're pretty much guaranteed some leftovers at least! It's a good idea to go and save some for the next meal too. You can heat your food in the student center during lunch hours, and at night you can go to the library downstairs to reheat your leftover leftovers.

Oh and, this all reminds me of one of the old news from Stanford (or maybe Yale or NYU, I can't remember where...) there was a student who lived homeless inside the school library... so it is possible! He even got housing and scholarship in the end, when the administrators found out. (And CNN found out... hehe)

So using my handy guide, this can happen in GT too - lots of resources, no problem.

Dang, I'm still such a dork. : (

Q: Yeah you are!
A: Shut up!

December 13, 2005

Suck! I got robbed!

I spent 78 dollars for my graduation gown. 78 bucks man! That's like... that's like 15 meals at Sakkio! Enough to feed starving children in Africa and everything.

OK, it's not that i am complaining but the price of the little stripes is so expensive (32$) and it is just a stupid yellow strip of stupid material, I mean it's not even worth more than 4 dollars if I asked someone to make it. My 8 year-old cousin could make it, easily.
Yeah, I don't understand why it is so expensive, and WHY WHY we have to spend OUR personal money to buy this stuff - shouldn't the school give them for free, after we spend 4 years tuition and 2 years of master program graduate-tuition. Besides, I have never even used those useless Stingers (maybe one or twice) and never ever used any health facilities ... damn, they should have made exceptions ... especially for graduating seniors. Just as a gift for graduation! Stingy ridiculous people - why everything has to be paid by students?!!
I got robbed. After staying up all night for two years studying crap, I have to pay another 78 bucks to graduate in a funny costume? What &#^#%... you know what? nevermind. I am just feeling cheapo today
December 10, 2005

Substance Test

I finished with 2 of my finals, yippeee!

It is not finals week yet, still 2 weeks away, so a bit relief for me. So after my exam, I went to get a substance test/drug test for pre-employment. I hate drug tests, not because i am a junkie, for sure i am clean, and never tried anything. I just hate the way we have to take it, feels so disguisting. This time was my second time, once before I had to do it for my internship in ADP, and I did not know what was the substance test procedure. I thought they were going to take my blood .... so when I got there, I had a difficult time to ... um... you know, "go"... so they *rejected* my sample! Not enough. What the @#$%&*$# is that? I had to go to Burger King and buy a really big size sweet tea to "prepare" to take the test *again*, and the place was closing in like an hour.

However, two things: 1) the tea was disgusting, not sweet at all, had way too much ice which tasted bad, and 2) it did not work right away so I had to keep drinking and drinking and drinking it, even when I lost all my taste because it was so bitter and cold and watered-down after the ice melted. It took around 30 minutes even though I had only drank half of the cup. The Russian made me finish it all - really painful event, but a bit funny if I think of it now. I wish we had a different way to test this.

December 01, 2005

AJC's Photo Contest

Finally I submitted 3 pictures to the AJC photo contest, phewwww... feel better since I made it on time - usually I always wait till the last minute to do everything and forget to do them. So I submitted 3 pictures I took in Seattle:





For People, Animal and Place Category
They are not too good since I am not a great photographer but I really like them, especially the place category, I think that one is unique, and really cute. Good thing the photo contest is for amateur people, so I am one of them. Maybe I am not too amateur, maybe beginner. If you want to participate in the contest, just click this link AJC's photo contest http://www.ajc.com/news/content/travel/articles/stories/1005/photocontest.html
Actually for the animal category, I was going to submit this picture.
But I need a consent form from Puffy (lani's beagle). I dunno if she will be happy to appear in a newspaper, and she might want to share the prize. But can she ride inside the plane? Is there doggy spa with this prize? And overall she needs a ticket to fly back to Atlanta just to claim it. Puffy, I miss you ... your fatness, laziness and beaglesness.
November 27, 2005

Lazy Day

So today I woke up and I should have studied for my final, but I was so lazy (as usual), and just stayed in front my TV all day and watched watched watched. The page hasn't moved since 3 hours ago. I am way unmotivated to study ... thinking to go to Borders to study, but I know if I go there, I will end up reading manga and magazines, and when I finish with them, I will rush out to go home thinking that it is better to study at home. But if I stay at home, the TV distracts me soooooo much, even if I study inside my room, there is a TV and lots of manga surrounding me.

So I decided to enjoy my time by blogging and submitting photos to the contest.

November 27, 2005

Fruits Basket

Sorry for making lots of new blogs today. I have saved them in my mind and my lapi (my laptop) and did not have a chance to post them because of my busy schedule with interviews, homeworks, projects and tests.

Today, I received Fruits Basket No. 12 - yippeeee I am crazy about fruits basket!
I have its DVDs (presents from my Russian), calendar and also the mangas. The story is getting better and I can't wait for the next one - really impatient about it, so I decided to get No. 13 from the Japanese store near my place. Even though I cant read Japanese fluently, I will patiently find each word from dictionary ... btw the Dvds stories are different from the mangas...my Russian might think I am crazy heheeh, but he knows I am crazy and a maniac about fruits basket. But not too maniac based on my wallet size now. So I went there and found not only no 13, but no 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18! Aaaarrrhgggggg, I don't have time to translate all of those with my elementary japanese level. So without thinking much, I decided to get no 18. I like to read endings of stories. Yup, but it never ruins the story for me because if the story has a good ending, it is worthwhile to read and spend time on it. Otherwise why should i even spend time to read it?

So I got no 18, and I went through all, but didnt understand anything because it way too far ahead from the part that I read. Dumpu dumpu Lili <--- this is what the Russian will say, because I always say it to him too. I should have bought no 13, but my greed corrupted my bright idea to begin with... oooh well, I'll have to wait till April until I get the No. 13 in English. Now I can't spend another cent on manga, if I want to travel with my parents.

November 26, 2005

Cold Case

I felt in love with this tv show, in love with its story, the main actress ... the first girl I love so much to see, thinking that she is HOT hehehehhe. Russian is so jealous because he cant compete with her, even if he wears a cute skirt and pink lipstick (hehehheh can't really imagine this .... )

Why did I fall in love with this show? Because what she said when someone asked her "Why do you handle old cases?" She said: "Because they have been waiting for so long, and people should not be forgotten."

I always like detective stories. I think if I was not a programmer, I would want to be a detective or a lawyer ... my dad told me long time ago that I can be a good lawyer because I can get my way using words ... really tricky. But I dunno if I am good enough at remembering all the different cases for my trials, and I don't think I want to defend bad people. But you never know if clients are bad people or not, maybe they are liars. I wish I could read other people's minds.

Ok back to Cold Case - I am planning to get the collection of DVDs from seasons 1 until 3, proving how much I feel in love with the show. But I am still just planning.

I like the main actress, especially her hair. Maybe because the way she dresses really professional and still her hair is never tidy ... makes her much more cute.
For the new season she changed her hair style. I don't really like it, but I still like the show - always makes me smile, especially the endings when the dead person smiles because the detectives solved the old case (the one no one else wanted to solve).

In a way, the show is really romantic and sentimental - thinking that someone still cares about others.

Russian watched it once, and he fell into it too, especially the beginning music. Yup, ex-music majors, always paying more attention to music than the story. He's happy that he found the title of the song, but hasn't found the song yet : (

November 26, 2005

First

Yup yup yup
Finally I decided to blog again - I used to do it on the friendster website but after awhile I completely forgot about it, so hopefully I can keep this one fresh and updated.

Inubaka, inu == dog and baka == stupid or crazy
I took it from a manga title which means crazy for dogs - since I love dogs and manga ;)

So for starters, I will copy all my previous blogs to here, happy reading ... until I find new material to gossip/write about.

P.S I will be visiting my country for a month, so probably not much blogging during that time : )
but I will definitely post some trip journals after I come back or find internet access.