Chinese Food?

Candace and I were hanging out in Deb's room Wednesday night "doing homework." Well, as usually happens, not so much was getting done. Deb, as RA , had rounds to make (which of course as a good friend, I couldn't let her do alone, right??), and we made hot chocolate/tea, and things were just generally hilarious that night. So what better way to "do homework" than not do it? Dave, the guy's RD came knocking on the window with his brother, and Ruby (the girl's RD), asking if he could persuade anyone to come out to Chinese food- Michael was buying! Free food? Heck yes. Not much persuasion needed. We collected Ev along the way, and piled (illegally) into Dave's car. This night was so much fun. I got stuck between Micheal and Ruby. Ruby was great, but Michael drinks....a lot (just water- don't worry). But let's just say by the end of the night I so did not know who's cup I was drinking out of. He stole any one's glass within reach that had water in it. Plus it was just nice to get off campus with random people.
After the (DELICIOUS!) food, we went back to studying. And this time we really did. We finished homework around midnight (successfully avoiding the guy's movie trap that they tried to induce us to watch). THEN, (dun, dun, dun)midnight rolls around, I've just changed into my pjs, and am closing down the computer for the night. I start to receive random texts from Dave. Hilarious texts. And I did so want to go. When he finally brought out the fact that he had rocky road ice cream, Ev and I were sold. We put sweatshirts on (over pjs)and went. We ended up turning off their movie and putting Everybody Loves Raymond in, while playing Jango. And eating salted unsalted peanuts by downing them like you would shots (Apparently- I wouldn't know, of course.). Playing games with guys is always an experience. Playing a game when the two guys are brothers is even more of a competitive experience. Anyways, we eventually escaped and made it to bed around 1:30. Truly was a great night, though!!

"Life is a Highway"

First of all, let me just say that I love that song.
And second, do you ever feel that life is just whizzing along? Sometimes taking you along, and other times leaving you on the edge, needing your gas tank refilled or tire changed?
Summer ended and school began. So many changes came flooding in with this one simple, seemingly ordinary, occurrence. Being on a new campus has been wonderful, as well as posed its own set of problems. Things are just so much louder here. I can here the people above me, the people below me, the people in the parking lot, the people who share my quad, and the guy who loves to blast his music one floor down and a quad over! Combine this with heat and our lack of air conditioning, and you have one overly stressed ME! Problems which should be fairly simple expand beyond all proportion.
But things have begun to get better. A volleyball court was set up on campus. And as trivial as that sounds, it makes a huge difference. No longer do we sit in our rooms wondering where everybody is (since we are such a small school on a large campus), we have a meeting spot where we know we will find PCC people! It's a great way to get to know freshmen. The weather has broken, and for the first time I haven't woken up feeling sick from heat. So little things have been helping, and the pendulum has begun to slide back into normality.


As far as adventures go, I've managed to fit a couple in.
Friday night we had a campus movie: Cinderella Man, which was fun. Always interesting to squeeze what is practically your whole campus into one room. Afterwards, Stalin and I gathered a group (which kept expanding!) to attempt to discover a mountain. This is actually much harder than one would think. We had three cars at one point, but they dropped out, until it was just Sarah, James, Stalin, and I cruising up streets that dead ended or were much too populated to yield any results. We ended up walking down Colorado Blvd around 2am. It was good to hang out, though being followed by some creeper asking for money, was an experience.
Saturday a group of us went down to Venice beach. Can you tell we're taking full advantage of not yet having papers to write?? Venice is just an interesting place. We talked to a couple Salvation Army drivers at a stoplight, saw LAPD on horses, and a huge bus "painted hippy" stopped in the road, throwing chips to passersby (I regret to say that we did not get any: despite honking horn and me flailing my arms out the window!). It's been great to be back with school people, and as we find more places to congregate, I'm sure things will only continue to improve.

A long, long time ago- that I can still remember

This blog was begun nearly 4 years ago. CRAZY! I feel like we were just standing in the hall in front of our lockers, when Danielle told us about this new 'fad thing' that was going around. Anyways= I believe this is the only thing remotely resembling a journal that I have kept for more than 2 days. Success! :)

From the mouth of 'babes'

Durring the course of the day, Aiden poured for himself two generous glasses of chocolate milk. While I prompted him with a few questions, I am not manipulating what he said.
"I'm a drinker." "I love to drink. I can't stop drinking them."
Too funny.

Interiors

ok... except for this one, they are interiors. This is to ride around on when you must leave the interior. =]

Hippy at heart.

"I have a dream....." to live in Northern California, where the sun don't stop shining, and the air is clear, and plants flourish. But really. I think it would be amazing to live in a small house on an acre of land, with *Larry* and my 5 boys. We'd have tons of fruit trees, a large garden, and animals galore. Wouldn't it be amazing??
Until I get there, I do things like make yogurt at home. It was super easy, and basically all you need is time. I made it last night, let it grow over night, and then this morning, presto! Yogurt. Know what I discovered? I don't like plain yogurt. So I have some blueberries that I'm going to blend and ad a little brown sugar to to try to mix in. We'll see if it works, or if I can manage the taste any better.

Picture post

Perspective

Talk about putting things into perspective. One of my friends, my RA, has been seriously sick. With an infection that no one can find, pneumonia, trouble breathing, and low blood platelet count, she's been in the ER, ICU, and had to transfer to a larger hospital. Not to sound callous, but coming right after my disaster with my car, how could I not be grateful? Not that she's sick of course, but man, I have nothing to complain of! Hard way to learn this lesson, but all I can do now is pray for her. He is, after all, the best physician and ultimate healer!

Fail (cubed)

Bad things come in threes, no?

With the arrival of summer comes the ever present query, "what do you want to do?"

Well, for once, I actually knew. So I dragged Danielle up to Signal Hill Wednesday night (after her Spanish class, which left her *slightly* loco). Just a normal night, right? We made a pit stop at Starbucks for drinks, then pulled the blanket out of my car to sit on and look at the lights. Evidently brain deprived from her class, she looks over the expanse, and asks, "is this ALL Long Beach?" About 30, maybe 40 minutes, after we arrived a security guard came flashing the brightest light into everyone's face, telling them to leave. Fine. We'd go to a different park, no problem. WRONG! As files of people stream past us to get to their cars, my car decides to- NOT turn on!! So there we sit with it 'revving' but not starting- looking, well you can imagine how intelligent. :). Eventually, we were able to call a tow truck (Danielle had AAA, thankfully), and about 45 minutes after the park closed we were on our way home. You can imagine how thrilled the security guard was when we couldn't leave. The next morning my dad and brother took it to my dad's old work where, since he is friends with all the mechanics, we don't get ripped-off. (Because, naturally, once we had it towed to the mechanics by my house, it started. Figures, right?!). Anyways, we got a call the same day, saying they'd fixed it! Awesome!! My dad and I went to pick it up. I told him I needed to stop for gas, so he told me to follow him, and after a bit on the freeway, we'd get off. Once on the freeway, though, things didn't looks os good. My temp. gauge turned to HOT, and my 'check engine' light turned on. So there I am crawling behind (rush hour), honking my horn repeatedly, and waving my arms to try to get his attention (he has no phone). I can only imagine what those around me thought. Anyways, to head this off.... turns out my car is definitely over-heating, and Monday I need to take it back to where we first had it towed, because it won't make it all the way back to his work. Yay for being ripped off by mechanics, eh?
And now, my computer is acting up, and won't let me on Word, and keeps freezing or alternately shutting down- which defo needs to be fixed before school starts. BUT I just had it fixed!!! ARghh.
And because, as the saying goes, bad things come in threes, I am deciding to count the fact that my bike is broken, as an 'evil.' I didn't get paid until Thursday, and my car broke Wednesday, so I didn't have a chance to get a new tire. Blech. Would've been nice to at least have a bike while my car is broken.

BUT, on the bright side. I might be watching a second little boy this summer. It would be at the same time as Aiden, so it might actually make things easier, and the money will definitely be useful in the car/computer situation. So much for saving up for next year life/college expenses, right?

Picture Timeline :)

Here is what I've been doing lately- while waiting for work to begin :)





Joey is adorable.

Many a prank took place the last couple weeks of school! The guys- Henry and Ben- put goldfish in all the sinks and plenty of toilets around the dorms.


This one was my fault. Mine and Annika's (just wait, though- we haad reason). We took Vaan's underwear and strung it up in the shower room.

I also took part in this one. Deb, our RA, gave Candace candycorn to fill her cupcake candy jar. May I state that it was like March? Way past candycorn season. So we returned it! :D




This is what Vaan did to me and Annika. Dressed our pillows with all sorts of clothing- and then strung our underwear up. What a way to come back from spring break :P All in good fun.



So yes. Sorry this was out of order. Kind of went backwards. And not really a timeline- just my random compilation of pictures that I haven't posted anywhere :)

done, done, and DONE!

Freshmen year is finished, never to be repeated! Oh man, am I glad. I enjoyed the year immensely, though. It certainly went out with a bang. Friday was my roommate, Candace's, birthday. Evelyn and I (another roommate) conspired to plan a surprise party for her up on the mountain. A group of 4 of us often went up to a particular mountain at midnight to gaze up at the stars, and get away from school. I took up a group of people around midnight- there ended up being around 20 altogether, and then at one (it took them a bit longer than planned) they came up. We had a cake, and balloons, and a group of people waiting for her. So from 1-3am on Friday, I was partying it up on a mountain under the stars:)
I slept in Friday, since exams ended Thursday, and then began to pack for home. After lunch, Justin Bond and I headed down to LA. We went to USC for an MRI. USC was offering some money for a marijuana research program, so to help another roommate out on May term, we went down and did it. We split the money. That was one of those things I never thought I would do- participate in those 'phony' research assignments. But I did. Cross that one off the bucket list.
MRI was finished around 5- rush hour. I was NOT going to drive out of LA at 5. So we went to dinner, and then brought out the Garvin to see what was around. We ended up going down to Sunset Blvd, and Amoeba Records. Pretty neat place. On our tour of Sunset Blvd, we saw..... Annie Wersching and Kiefer Sutherland! Fairly random, but pretty awesome! They were across the street from us on a red carpet event. We made it back to campus around 9.
I watched a senior video, and then began to pack again..... Candace's mom was coming at 11, so it was a race to get the room semi-decent before she arrived. We made it look presentable, considering everyone's stuff was in the middle of the floor, and closets were empty ;)
At midnight, a group of us headed out under the gazebo, hearing that there was going to be a prank pulled. Well there was.... on us. A crazy Costa Rican (aka Stalin) and his friends brought out the eggs and began throwing them at us. It is tradition to throw eggs at the birthday-person, but they decided to expand a bit, and include Sarah and I. Fortunately, the egg shells were pretty hard. One was thrown at me, but didn't break. So I picked it up, and ended up smashing it over James. Which was both brilliant and foolish! I got him, but then I got chased down the field and had a nice scalp full of egg- I've always heard it's good for the hair, though.....
So that was that. After putting clothes in the wash, and washing my hair, I headed down to Lowes. Lowes is just a block away, and a bunch of us hang out behind it just for the sake of getting off campus. We sit on a wall that faces the freeway and watch the cars zip past and talk.
At 2am we had a room check to make sure we hadn't harassed any of the furniture too badly. After that it was bedtime! Bed at 3, up at 8:45 for graduation. Have you ever heard of a more extremist day? :D A great way to end the year- with the most random things that could have possibly happened.

Mt Wilson

Friday night- after a week full of paper writing, and staying up late, about 25 of us drove to Mt. Wilson for a 4W. We left at 3, and got back at 3. Being up that late after a week of no sleep, you can imagine how crazy everyone went!
It started with the drive, which can be highly entertaining in a 15 passenger van, with 15 people on little sleep. We were just joking around and talking the whole way up. When we got there, we parked at the base of the observatory and had dinner. Then I walked around with a senior, Annika, who I don't know super well, but love. We had a photo session with the whole group, and played around a bit with the little snow that was on the side of the mountain. Finally, the lady who was going to show us the telescope, came down. She was amazing! She was totally Ms Frizzle's sister or something. She had a star jacket on and the rocket ships coming out of her hair :) We made our way up to the observatory (where Einstein studied!! it was a 60in telescope:). The dome opened, and the explained all their technology to us. Eventually, it got dark, and the stars came out. We saw the moon, a cluster of stars (100,00-250,00 stars!, Saturn (rings and 4 moons!!), and a couple other stars. It was spectacularly amazing. The dome had great acoustics, so we started singing hymns. I've never heard anything so wonderful. At the end, the lady, who was not a Christian, asked us to sing a couple more- awesome. It was also freezing in there. We were there from 7-1 am, with the dome open to the night. No one knew it would be that cold. So I ended up sitting on Lorah's lap, with two blankets on top of us, listening to Jake tell stories about his childhood.
I love 4Ws so much because I get to talk to people I wouldn't regularly talk to: Scouting around the mountain with Annika, sitting on Lorah's lap, listening to Jake, talking to Kevin, huddling under a borrowed blanket with Bond to keep warm- it was an amazing night.