MC Fair & AT&T (Part 2 of 2)

In an attempt to update after so long, this is going to be a dual entry haha. This one is more about the random happenings in my life. 

Went out to the bar this weekend with Eugene, Michelle, Charles, and Brian and had a really awesome "life talk". We shared stories all night and it turned out so much better than I thought. I had a blast :) We decided to go eat dimsum together the next morning & see inception after that. Inception was mind bogglingly good. Definitely a must-see!

During the night, we went to the Monroe County Fair. It was exactly what I always dreamed it would be in a fair! There were tons of rides and haunted houses and house of mirrors--all that usual stuff. It was open from 5pm-11pm so we went around 8:30PM when the sun was setting. The sky was a gorgeous golden color that reigned over the many lights from the rides. It was just picture perfect. There was a pig race where they had little piglets race around a track and win oreos (haha!). They also had pigs race through a short stretch of pool water. It was so cute! Not only that but they had a floral competition as well as a competition for cows, goats, guinea pigs, rabbits, etc. It was like what I used to see on TV--animals getting blue ribbons and stuff! Eugene & I bought an unlimited band so we could ride on all the rides we possibly can. We pretty much ran around all night trying to take advantage of the unlimitedness. Some of the rides womped but others were RIDICULOUSLY good! Ended that night with a chai tea. Yum.

I also had the worst experience with customer service with AT&T. I spent hours on the phone with them just trying to renew my 2 year plan and adding an extra line. It pretty much went something like this. I asked for a rate discount and I was forwarded to customer care. Then he said he can't deal with it so he handed me off to another. Then another. Then after I got a rate discount, I was transferred to someone who would update my lines. However, my blackberry offer price for upgrade disappeared after my rate discount. So I got transferred to someone who was in charge of pricing. Then transferred to online department. Then transferred back to the customer care people who told me I needed to talk to the rate discount people. They were closed by then. I call the next morning and they told me there was nothing I could do--my offer was gone. I got pissed because they told me that if I called this one last number, they'd honor my price. So I demanded to speak to the supervisor who told me it can't be helped. I got pissed and kind of professionally yelled at him. Finally I got my blackberry at the offer price. This whole process took about 5 hours. Yea I know.

But my beautiful blackberry came! After four years of using an old dinosaur phone, I'm so amazed at how handy dandy these smart phones were! Although it's super expensive to keep one...

I can't think of anything else that has happened but it's been really fun so far!

Hobbies (Part 1 of 2)

Sometimes I feel like taking an interest in too many hobbies  prevents me from focusing and excelling in each one. I want to do so much but I never seem to find the time.

First off, I have the sewing hobby--something I really need more practice on. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to the arts and right now it's definitely nowhere near acceptable in my personal standards. I bought some new fabrics and I really want to make something soon but I've been putting that off. I really need some inspiration.

I also was recently reminded of my love of drawing too. I'm not good at it, actually I'm terribly sub-par, but I really enjoy it so I wanted to start it up again. It takes a lot of practice to capture facial/body emotions and the still-action of a picture so I want to make some time to start drawing cartoons again. I also brought up my watercolors from home so that I can try out this new type of art. Again, I haven't gotten around to even opening the box or making a single drawing...

Photography is a brand new thing. Ever since I started using tumblr, I've been so impressed by the photography that people post up. I really wanted to get a dslr for myself and start taking pictures of everything! I have all these images in my head that I'd like to capture with a camera but it takes money to buy the equipment to capture images the way I want it too. I've been borrowing Brian's DSLR and taking pictures all over Rochester. It's been super fun but I am still extremely noob so I hope to learn more about it and take better pictures! Sadly, I can't invest in a DSLR until after the driving lessons...drivers license...car...then DSLR haha.

My all-time favorite hobby: reading. There are so many books I bought over summer but I haven't even touched yet.  I never buy books because I'm cheap but I don't know where the library is LOL Rush Rhees doesn't have much pleasure reading books. I tend to start books and leave them half way when I lose free time--so I have a lot of outstanding books. The awful part is that I always have to start from the beginning if it's been a while because I need to refresh my memory. I always read books when I'm sitting idly on a bus or train, which is how I get much of my reading done in NYC. But in Rochester, there's not much idle time so I can't sit down on my bed and just read. I'm too restless. I started the Asian American Dreams after I graduated and went home but only got halfway through before I went back to Rochester. Then I stopped reading it. When I went back down to NYC again for my birthday, I started reading Landburg's More Sex is Safer Sex...when I got back to Rochester, again I couldn't find time for it. So those two books are currently sitting sadly on my desk, collecting dust. Sadface.

Okay fine, I do have time, during evenings and weekends. But I fill that up with hanging out and going places--so there's never enough down time to just sit and do all of this stuff. I always tend to feel a bit guilty after going out because I never get any of this stuff done and it's just sitting in the back burner. Unfortunately all of the activities I listed above tend to occur in solitude and like I said, I'm too restless--I can't just do this alone and in silence. I like to move around, be around people, be super active. Help!

Rest of NYC

I’m currently on the Megabus on my way back to Rochester. The internet is hardly working so I’m trying to post this up when I get a spot of activity. I really needed something to do for 7 hours haha. So here is a recap of my week back in NYC after Virginia Beach.

The day after I came back was my birthday. I really hadn’t planned to do anything—I’m not a big fan of celebrating my birthday because the planning, inviting, and trying to make it all work out is quite exhausting when I just want to have a relaxing day. So I met up with Viv for coffee at this place at 71 Irving in manhattan. We had a long but insightful talk about everything and anything. These are the moments I really look back on as a perfect bonding experience. Then we met up with some friends for dinner at May’s Sushi Place at St.Marks since their food was cheap but delicious haha. After that we went next door to Maychan for $1 Sapporo’s. Then we went to Pinkberry for dessert. Most of my friends left after that but Viv & I stayed behind to crash the bars of St.marks. We bumped into some Rochester people and chilled in the bars with them the rest of the night. It was really fun seeing everyone, especially Steph, and drinking together Afterwards, Kelvin came to pick me & viv up to go home. I ended my night with a happy buzz :)

I met up with Christy the next day for a date J She bought an unlimited so we kinda went everywhere in Manhattan. We met up at Union Square and then went to eat at a Japanese Ramen Place in Alphabet city called Minca. It was delicious! Must go back there someday haha. Then we went to a coffee house called the Coffee Foundry? It was super edgy and contemporary. It was part bar and part coffee/tea house. We sat there and talked a long time before heading to Times Square for the new Forever21. She had to go after some shopping so I went to meet up friends at St. Marks again. I didn’t drink that night because I’ve been drinking a lot throughout vacation & birthday. Some drama went down between some friends but I hope everything will work out!

Friday I went with Sunny to Chinatown to get a haircut. They cut my hair much shorter than I had anticipated but it didn’t bother me much. It’s nice to have a change after all these years of long hair. I’m just sad I won’t be able to braid it for a long time especially since I just learned how to French braid and do the fishtail braid as well. Then went to eat at a Thai place with Sunny and his friend Antonio. After that, we went to AX to use up Antonio’s 75% off discounts since he was quitting the next day to work for Forever21. Then I went to meet up with Viv for an unsuccessful night at the bars (why so dead?!)

Saturday, my last day!! I went to dimsum with my friends and then we all went to target with my brother as well. We picked up dorm stuff for my bro and shopped at other places. I went home early with my brother for some family time before I leave Sunday. I watched some TVB with my mom and then they all chilled in my room for some of the night, playing cards while I packed. It was a good night…I’m going to really miss my family.

I’m excited that my brother is going to college in the fall (he’s all grown up, tears!) I feel happy that we’ve gotten closer now that we’re older because we were pretty much strangers our entire lives due to our 4 year age gap. It’s weird to see this protective/bigsister side of myself appear when I’m around him haha. I’m really going to miss Vivian too—it sucks being in Rochester without her because we do everything together L

On another note, I’m using Futureme.org to write myself an email that will be sent to me on my 28th birthday. So many expectations I have for myself at that point!!

It’s 4:50PM so there should be 2 more hours until I get to Rochester. I can’t wait to get offt his bus, my butt is sore and it’s crazy cold with the AC blasting!! The internet is awful L I can barely get online the entire time. On the bright side, I’m not sitting near loud nor smelly people, which makes my trip many times more pleasant J

Virginia Beach

I haven’t updated in a long time but I got tired of writing daily. I realize I’m not a writer; I’m more of a historian haha. I like to document my life and others by writing about my days and taking pictures of everyday happenings. This unfortunately results in uninteresting entries on my blog and photos that are far from artsy. But mostly it’s just for me to reflect back on later on life and let people who actually take the time to read my blog to keep up with what’s been going on in my life—that’s the reason I read my friends’ blogs as well.

My days in Rochester, in retrospect, remain a blur to me. It has definitely gotten less mundane since I haven’t been bumming at home after work like I used to. Brian’s been an awesome friend and driving me to places to hang out and sharing his talents with me (his cooking & his art). There’s a bunch of things we’re planning to do/go to this summer so I’m looking forward to it! I usually look forward to seeing my syzters (Miranda and Michelle) and currently I’m waiting for Michelle to get back from Boston so that we can see Despicable Me

My break back in NYC is always action-packed because my mentality is that these are the only few day’s I’ll be back in a “long” time so I have to take advantage of it every way I can. I went with Vivian, Dara, Jon, Jen, Brian, Anthony, and Annie to Virginia Beach on July 2-July 6. It was a good escape with people I love. We had 2 rooms at an oceanfront hotel at the Days Inn, complete with balconies that face the beautiful beach. The 4 guys shared one room and the 4 girls shared the other. We went drank every night and/or went to the bars. There was a massive amount of people around since it was the Fourth of July weekend.

We walked around the streets of Virginia beach a lot but there wasn’t a lot of good places to eat or see. It’s mostly mom and pop stores and other touristy shops. I’m guessing it’s hard to run any big businesses because when it’s NOT a holiday or vacation season, it’s pretty much deserted. When July 4th came and went, the streets were pretty bare.

So we went tanning at the beach and splashed in the water—which was much cleaner than anything in NY haha. Although the waves were pretty strong since it knocked me down and gave me a sand burn! The weather was amazing for the 4 days we were there. The girls also went tanning on the hotel balcony at some point while the guys went go-karting. I definitely got rid of my pastyness, yes!

There were so many ridiculous moments, which made the vacation fun for me. I went with the guys to the beach in the middle of the night when nobody was around. I tried to learn how to do cartwheels since I never was able to master it. Luckily I finally learned how! I also saw that they had trucks that cleaned the sands of Virginia beach—awesome ! we need to invest in some of these for NY for sure.

I don’t really want to write out all the details of the vacation because it’ll be a crapload of more stuff to read haha.