[174] Random #6

Bound Extended Side Angle Pose
Definitely one of my favorite yoga poses. It helps open up my shoulders, stretch out my hip flexors and my sides, and work my stabilizer muscles to maintain the pose.

[173] Asiantation 2012

Whereas Quad Day was an event to orient students to all University RSOs/Clubs, Asiantation is an event to introduce students to University Asian organizations.

Asian organizations have their tables set up along the perimeter of the room

You can see the diversity of Asian organizations that range from social orgs to Asian awareness to recreational to religious etc. Each org usually have some food at their table and throughout the event, there are various performances by various organizations. In the above picture, TASC (Taiwanese American Students Club) Special Ops are setting up to perform Chinese Yo-Yo. <---honestly, one of the coolest performances I've ever seen. They've always performed at the AAA Fashion Show & I can never get sick of watching em. In future posts, maybe I'll find a video to post or something. Their performances are very innovative and entertaining.

[172] Random #5

I really love learning new words! When I hear a new word I find interesting (or an old one I don't remember the definition of), I type it in my phone and at night, I look it up in my dictionary and write down its definition in a specific notebook I have. I started doing this in high school. Originally, I thought this would help me learn an amalgam of different words to diversify my vocabulary, but I learned very quickly that I don't retain knowledge too well if I don't apply it.. Plus, I'm very forgetful. But! I still remember amalgam! Smiles. It basically means a big melting pot (not literally), or as the dictionary says--a combination of diverse elements.

When I saw the above post on Tumblr, I actually didn't write down 'serendipity' but I should have. I'm not familiar enough with it yet to use it comfortably in a sentence.

Didja Know?
The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate...alongside spam (ex. email spam AND canned meat Spam).

Did you experience serendipity recently?

[171] Random #4

Here's a little mind-trip for y'all.

WARNING: Do not watch if you've only had 3 hours of sleep. 

Yeah...I've only been on the posting page for like 30 seconds and, this .gif is already giving me headache.

P.S. Did you know .gif is pronounced with a hard 'g' like "Gerber"? I always thought it was a soft 'g' like "gerbil". So, I basically pronounced it as JIF like the peanut butter for a very--long--time.  

[170] First AAA General Meeting 2012-2013

This school year is getting started super fast. Today is ALREADY the first general meeting for AAA (Asian American Association). I felt like there was barely any time to even get settled with moving in, a new class schedule, seeing friends again.

Basically, all the board members and officers in the club (there are like 27) sum up what the club is about and all the various activities new members and returning members are sure to expect in the upcoming school year. I'll post about 'em in this blog as the school year goes...

I'm not a board member or officer in the club and I don't really need to know what to expect, because I'll find out about the events eventually anyway.... so I basically just goofed around the whole time. My roommate Hiep and I rode our longboards up and down the hallway. Skating regular. Wheee! Skating backwards. Wheee! On our bellies. Wheee! On our bellies and backwards. Wheee!! Weaving through ppl.......you get the point.


Whee!!

[169] Quad Day 2012

Quad Day is basically a day for all the RSOs (registered student organizations...a fancy way to just say clubs) to come out and reach out to the new students. Or even the sophomores, juniors, and seniors. This is the equivalent of WY's Club Fair--except exponentially bigger.

Here's the quad. Now imagine all along the paths are just lined up with tables in juxtaposition with more tables, there are groups on the grass, and students all amuck collecting flyers, asking questions, or if you're like me, scoping out freebies.

Unfortunately, there were no good ones. Just pens, cups, a few bags, and a sports bottle.

I actually took the time to look at all the clubs and regret being a senior. I've been here for 3 years (this being my third), and I missed so many sweet opportunities to learn a new hobby. Like Chinese Yo-yo. Or Tai Chi. Yoga. Or join a Pre-OT Club. Etc etc.

Eh...whatevers. I had my share of fun and work here at the University. I've got the rest of my life to learn new things if I really wanted to.

Over 'n' out!

[168] Random #3

Without having seen the movie Drive starring Ryan Gosling, this .gif really doesn't mean anything.

Anyways, this is one of the newest addition to my list of favorite movies. I don't want to give away the story...not because I don't want to spoil it, but mainly because I'm too lazy to summarize it....but I will elaborate on why it's one of my favorite movies.

The whole movie, in my opinion, is a complete masterpiece. The directing, editing, writing, acting, soundtrack, etc. One criticism may be that it's a pretty slow movie. Although there's action, it's a pretty slow-paced movie. The dialogue is slow and the tracking is slow. Altogether slow, right? However, I think it really adds to the whole look and feel of the movie.

One of the greatest feats of this movie is that nothing is wasted. Every scene and line is so important for the whole plot! I love the absence of superfluousness in the movie. And the music matched everything so perfectly too in terms of the mood or dialogue or the lines.

As I think more about the movie, I feel like it's getting harder to describe this movie in words and why I love it so much. It's just a masterpiece. End of story. 

Bottom line: Go watch it. 

[167] Last Undergrad Move In Day

Wow, I can't believe this is going to be the last time I move into either the dorms or an apartment! [I don't want this to be my last year of undergraduate school!] It was a really good move-in though. I had the help of like four people: one of my new roommates Hiep, Becky, Jerry, and Teresa. It would have been a pain in the ass moving into our third-floor apartment solo...Hiep would know. :P

(Informal shoutout to my buddy Hiep who probably won't ever read this) He was the first to move in so he had the disadvantage of moving in all by himself and then helping the rest of us too, which he did cordially. He's a really great guy! I'm sure he appreciated the workout though, and we greatly appreciated the helping hand.

Anyways, we got unpacked pretty quickly, and we were able to finally get some grub in our tummies 'cause we were starving--Hiep too. We called up a few other friends who were already on campus and we all shared a nice meal at ....

[drum roll]

COURIER CAFE!
My cousin Jerry reads my blog (hopefully he still follows it though I haven't been keeping up with it) and read that little ditty about the Reuben sandwich. Since then, I've been dying to bring the rascal to Courier Cafe and have him try it for himself. I think he ordered the Reuben. "Did he?" "He did." "Did he?" "Yeah." "You sure?" ....I don't quite remember, but he may have. Stilllll soooo goooddd...although this time, I have one teensy complaint. I wish they had more sauerkraut. I luh that stuff!

....

That's all I remember about that day. I'm sure we had a really great bonding time before my family had to go back to Chicago. Thanks for accompanying me on the move-in. I hope you guys had fun!

[166] Random #2

I'm sure you guys have seen this already, but this is what came up for my random post!

Here's a flippin' awesome kid (no pun intended) just totally being a boss in a game of dodgeball.
There's not much else to say. :D

[165] Random #1

Okay, so I decided that for days where I have nothing to write about (or nothing I want to write about), I'm just going to post a random .gif or .png. or .jpeg and .... talk about it? Does that sound interesting? Probably not.

How will I do this? I will go to my Tumblr, and click the random button to jump to a random post.

Anyways, the first random post.

This .gif of Superman petting Batman is soo cute. Look how happy Batman is getting petted. This isn't the dark knight that we know in today's Batman trilogy, Justice League, or other recent Batman series--this is 1970s to 1980s Batman.

This was taken out of a really old show called Super Friends. I actually used to watch this show all the time when I was younger, and it was soooo PG compared to the Justice League of today's time. Having seen both, I can compare the two. Super Friends was very black and white. There were the good guys and the bad guys--the good guys were always good and like perfect and the bad guys weren't. It was very sugarcoated and denied the imperfections of human nature. Though, in my elementary school years, it was very fitting for just a happy-go-lucky TV series to watch after school. I'd much prefer watching Justice League though. The heroes were good guys but not without their flaws, and the bad guys were evil but even they had so much more to them than just "evil" that, as us being compassionate human beings, understood on some level.

[164] Royal Buffet

Continuing with the previous post, here's another first. This was my first time going to Royal Buffet.

Let's talk a little about Royal Buffet.
WHAT: All-you-can-eat Buffet {aka. I'm gonna eat my head off for the second day in a row}
WHERE: Hoffman Estates {aka. far as hell}
HOW MUCH: $22 {aka. expensive as hell}

Worth it? Yes.

At least for my first time, it was so worth it. They have dim sum and some really cool Chinese food I would never expect. In addition, they have one of the largest sushi selection I've seen at a buffet. They also have flan for dessert and a lot of different fresh fruits. Also, they do this birthday singing thing with a gong and Lion Dance instruments and it's sooooo funny! That made it wortth it too. I was cracking up so much, and lucky me, that day had like eight birthdays within an hour.

Anyways, I'll be hesitant to go again unless I'm just really in the mood or really, really hungry, but it's definitely worth trying once. The dim sum really swooped me off my fake-food-critic feet.

[163] Red Lobster - Endless Shrimp

Ooh, another first. This month, I've had a lot of firsts. I don't want to put up hyperlinks to every post but so far this month, I had my first panbazo, first plentil, first clubbing experience, first time going out to do pottery arts & crafts, and first time just going all out dancing with no fears or anxiety.

Anyways, back to this Red Lobstah Endless Shramp Day. [Yes, I spelled "lobster" and "shrimp" incorrectly on purpose.. I had to add some swag]

Fortunately, we were hungry as heck when we got there and full prepared to eat our body weight's worth of shrimp. Unfortunately, the waiting time to be seated was like 20-30 minutes. By the time we got in and ordered, we had to wait a bit for our orders too.

We started with two shrimp dishes and an appetizer and salad--that was to start us off. Every consecutive shrimp dish had to be ordered in twos. The funny thing is that since pretty much everyone is doing endless shrimp, we were all ordering from the same 8 or so shrimp items. It's pretty hard for the waiters to mix up orders, so we never really quite got what we ordered. Somehow, we just kept getting the shrimp scampi. Haha. It was really funny, because we would always take the wrong order instead of sending it back. Why? So we didn't have to wait longer for food.

Gosh, I don't know how much we ate that day, but I know we had too much shrimp scampi. Blech!

[162] Maxwell St. Market - Pambazo, NOT "Bombasso"

Remember the post about the ¿bombasso? Yeah...it's totally not called a bombasso; it's a pambazo. So le good!!

But today, I got it again!!! And now I know what it's called and I can spread the joy!!! Gotta introduce it to my sister, my mom, my cousins, my friends, and everyone.

[161] Errands, Packing, Organizing Folders

Yeah...the title says it all. That probably means I was biking all day, really tired, didn't get to eat much. All my things I need to pack for school was crowded onto my pool table, and my living room was blanketed with a layer of papers that I eventually organized into different subjects and categories. 

End of post. 

Here's a picture of a cute, litty kitty to make this post a tidbit more interesting.

 

[160] Chicago Summer Dance - Afro-Cuban // Sandy's 21st Party

Dance, dance, dance. I want to keep this post short, because I don't think I remember too much about this day. Admittedly, I am writing this post on November 18 (a whole three months after this day).

I remember that the Afro-Cuban dance was probably really, really fun. Maybe, I really admired the teacher for Chicago Summer Dance and there's a good chance it was another day of me just having a blast dancing.

To better understand this euphoric feeling of dancing, refer to the last paragraph of this previous post.

As for Sandy's birthday party, it was just as fun. No, it was more fun! It was my first time at a club. Yeah, yeah, you can associate nightclubs with drinking and grinding and smut and smut, but it doesn't have to be like that. I certainly didn't want to make it like that. I was with some close friends, some good friends, and yo! ...we just danced like it was our living rooms, and we had a great time!! First experiences are always interesting, because you never know whether or not you'll like it or not. Well... I'm glad this was my first experience, because I loved it. This is definitely a night I want to remember! And I actually do remember everything about this night, but eh...I promised a short post. This already isn't short, but ... ooops.

[159] Becky's Birthday // Made By Me Pottery

Happy, happy birthday to my dearest sister Beeckity. For her birthday, she decided to take my cousins Judy & Lisa and I to this place called Made By Me Pottery.

Step One: Choose your thing to paint.
Seems easy enough, but nooooo. This place has a large variety of bowls, dishes, cups, and figurines of different shapes and sizes, which is exactly why step one is so difficult. Becky and the girls drove there, and I had to meet up with them after work. Even though I arrived half an hour after them, they were still deciding on what to paint by the time I got there.

After much contem-plate-ion, we all decided on a bowl. We just went for something very practical. The girls got identical small bowls, Becky got a bigger bowl, and I chose a wider, less-concave bowl. I'll put pictures of them later in this post of the final products.

Step Two: Choose your paints.
Dude! There were sooo many different colors of paints. Not only did they have every hue, they had all these special kind of paints too. Paints that were shiny, more pastel, created different effects in the kiln, etc etc. Crap. I never would have imagined there was so much variety with paint. A second overwhelming decision. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention that we got there pretty late, so we only had about two hours to do everything before they closed. FRANTIC FRANTIC!

Step Three: Paint your thing to paint with your chosen paints.
I don't know how Becky and the girls did, soooooo I will describe my process.

(Inside) - Paint random yellow blobs and lines and squiggles, and eventually transform into cartoon-y characters with black paint

(Outside) - Paint my hands with some fancy exploding paint, and attempt to put handprints along the sides of the bowl. Paint negative space with this reflective black. DONE!

Step Four: Fire!
Leave it overnight for the shop to fire it up for you and then pick 'em up later.
Here are the final results!

(Left to Right) Judy, Becky, Lisa

(Left to Right) Becky, Judy, Lisa

(Left to Right) Becky, Judy, Lisa

Mine (Outside)

Mine (Inside)

[158] Plentils & Wow Bao

Some radio station (I think) was having a big promotion thing in the courtyard of the office building I worked at. You know what that means, don't you? FREEBIES!

So, during my lunch break, I went downstairs and capitalized like crazy. Pepsi, paper fans, dumb keychains, plastic cups, blah blah blah. Whatever. All that's useless crap, but there were two things that got me super excited.

1. Plentils

They let me take like 10 bags & I got to try all the flavors except Garlic & Parmesan. They ran out. Bummer.

2. Wow Bao

Got 5! Vegatarian, chicken something, wheat something, something, & something something. Delicious!

[157] Purity Ring // Now, Now

Today, spent some good quality time with my buddy Jason.

He introduced me to the bands Purity Ring (which he'll be seeing in concert in September and I'm sorry I can't join him), and Now, Now.

Since then, I've been really listening to them a lot and it's just great music! I don't have a nice car to cruise in at night while listening to these bands like he does, but it still works really well for night bike-riding. Or going to sleep. Or going to class or eating a sandwich or taking a dump or walking down the street. You get the point.

Anyways, I wanted to share this one song by Now, Now that is called "Threads". Note their awesome-ness and cute-ness :3

And check out this song, Wolf. It's my favorite song off their new album, Threads. 

And if you don't love them yet, watch this great interview with Now, Now. CUTENESS!

[156] Jewel, Jeff, and Venus

Since I started work, it's been raining a lot when I get off. Of course, it's never rained again as hard as that Lollapalooza day, but it's been raining nonetheless.

Lo and behold, today it rains too! Right when I get off work, it's pouring. Again, not as much as that Lollapalooza day but even running a few blocks to meet up with where Jeff and Venus were picking me up gets me prettty soaked.

Whatevs. Ain't nothing but hair flip. I'm done complaining. So after getting picked up, we went to Jewel for me to deposit some checks and also get some ingredients to make bread and whatnot for Jeff's dinner. We didn't really help, or at least I didn't... I don't think. I don't remember. Maybe I helped a litttlee. Or maybe not. Anyways, whatever. We had a really nice time chillin' and chattin'...and relaxin'. Although I would say Jeff did most of the relaxin'. He told us about how he had this really intense knot on the right side of his mid-back, so we tried our best to knead that knot outta here. Stupid little thing was hard as a frickin' rock! Venus and I both massaged Jeff at the same time while he's lying on the ground. It was tough work, but I think we got the knot a little smaller.

Note to self: In the future, I want to have two massages at the same time.

[155] Bi-sun

Man, what is this called in English?

Well, today, the family and my aunt all prepared for bi-sun this whole day. We spent the morning in Chinatown buying the pork, whole chicken, whole duck, and other vegetables and food items to prepare for dinner.

Actually, besides going to buy groceries with them, I don't know that I did too much to help when we got home. I feel like I just took a nap. Womp womp for lazy son.

Anyways, by nighttime we did lit the incense and bi-sun to our ancestors (I assume). Okay, this is really bad.  I want to blog about this, but I can't explain the cultural significance of this day.

I'm going to end this post here...very sadly. I will find out more about this topic and hopefully, come back to it in a later post.

[154] Chicago Summer Dance - Chicago Line Dance

What is Chicago Summer Dance? Read this to find out. I don't want to re-explain it all over again in another post.

Today, met up with Wing, Kathy, Justin Law, and Amy to do some Chicago Line Dance! I was really excited for this, and it was perfect that Wing and Kathy were able to make it today. Last year, we talked about line dancing a few times and we'll just do it in the Allen hallways or the Quad or whatever whatever. The line dance we learned was this hoedown-looking line dance, so we thought it was going to be that.

Nope!

Cha Cha Slide, Electric Slide, The Soulja Boy, The Wobble....these are all line dances apparently. Who knew?! We didn't.

Just like I say in alllll my posts....THIS WAS SO FUN! But seriously, I mean it. It was really awesome! The Thompson Twins taught us a whole bunch of cool line dances, and it was so great! They're really good too. Man, they got some sort of rhythm that's like awesome. Oh gosh! My writing in this paragraph is so rudimentary (<--that's a word I learned the other day hehe). Who cares.

After the hour of instruction from 6:00 to 7:00pm, they had a huuuugge dance party from 7:00 to 9:30pm. I left at 7pm, but I came back by 8:40pm or so and danced the rest of the night by myself...everyone else left. Womp womp. But it was a really great experience dancing by myself. They played really good 90's and 2000's R&B mixed with house. The dance floor was flipping packed! I squeezed into the middle of the dance floor and began an awkward "I'm dancing all by myself and I don't know anyone" side-to-side step. After a few minutes though, the music and the energy in the environment quickly got me out of that awkward zone, and I began to have REAL fun. I just moved however I wanted, however I felt, and it was a great relief to not worry about anyone judging me. The people were really friendly too. Some adults invited me to join their little dance circle, I danced with this one lady for a little bit (not any grinding nonsense but just grooving with each other), danced outside some cipher circles where some people were doing some really awesomely fun stuff. This one middle-aged guy danced out and did a bunch of cool Michael Jackson stuff and even slowly ripped his shirt in a stop-motion style. These kids were doing some Chicago style footwork. This one woman who was probably in her 60's took center-circle and did her own thing too, and then a teenage boy probably 18 years old went in and grooved with her too. It was so awesome! The party went until 9:45pm, and trust me, by the end of it, I was drenched in sweat and stinky but boy did it feel good.

I had an ECSTATIC time dancing during last year's AAA Semi-Formal 2011 and AAA Formal 2012, but I still struggle to completely let loose with dancing and just have the best time I can have dancing and enjoying the music. Well, today, I finally did. I was able to finally step over that fear and inhibition and dance like no one is watching. It was a great feeling of ... like.... liberation! Liberation from myself. I hope future events, I can have this same level of fun.

[153] BANG! (the card game)

Awesomely fun game! I don't know how long we played this game, but it was awesome.

For anyone reading this and wanna blow some dough, buy this game and invite me over to play, yeah? Up to 7 players, baby.

We played the Bullet Deluxe Edition. I don't know what's the difference between this and this less-expensive card game, but that bullet game case is HOT! <---get it?? hot? Hm...nevermind, that's not a really good one.

My favorite character to use was Vulture Sam.

Can anyone guess why?
.
.
.
Anyone thing he bears some resemblance to ... say... a Harry Potter villain? They have the same first letter in their name too. Hehe

[152] Chicago Summer Dance - The Twist

Ahh... I can't believe it took me this long to attend my first Chicago Summer Dance. At least I think it's my first one. There are no other posts about Chicago Summer Dance on this blog, so I assume it's my first...along with Venus and Jeff's first.

A brief introduction to the program. It's a really great, FREE program that takes place every summer. Every Thursday to Sunday night, the city hosts a free dance lesson. For the first hour, everyone gets on the dance floor and the instructors teach. They're always really fun, engaging, and talented instructors.

Today's lesson was The Twist. Before the session, I was just thinking we'll be doing THIS for a whole hour. Honestly, THANK GOODNESS it wasn't that. The instructor taught us a bunch of different dances from the '60s and '70s, the "Cha Cha Slides" of back-in-the-day....or for you really hip peoples, the "Wobble" of back-in-the-day. It's too bad that I don't remember any of the names of the dances we did. The only one I remember is this one called "The Roach", and it's just my luck that there are no YouTube clips of the only dance I remember the name of.

As we made our way through the hour, I kept wondering "When are we going to learn the Twist?" Of course, we eventually learned it and it's sooooo much fun!! This one was great because it's not a whole choreographed thing, and you could do it however you wanted. Jeff, Venus, this old lady who joined us, and I all had our own little ways of doing it. It was so much fun!! The old lady rocked it though! She was really nice with us throughout the night, and seriously, I don't know what she was doing that I couldn't do, but she had so much style.

So, that was the first hour of lessons with Summer Dance. Every Summer Dance session begins with instruction, and then ends with live music and just a free-for-all dance party! Woot woot! We ... did not stay for this unfortunately. Next time. Next time.

[151] Walked Home From Work

The spontaneous bug bit me I guess 'cause today I decided to walk home from work....and it was raining. Oh! That must be it. I guess I still had that change of heart from that Lollapalooza day.

A. The Office (Wacker + Michigan)

||

1.4 miles in 46 min

||

B. End of the Michigan Stretch (Michigan + Roosevelt)

||

1.5 miles in 31 min

||

C. Chinatown (Cermak + Archer) 

||

1.5 miles in 31 min

||

D. McGuane Park (29th + Poplar)

||

0.9 miles in 30 min

||

E. Orange Line (Archer + Ashland)

TOTAL = 5.3 miles in 138 min (2hrs 18min)

It was a pretty good walk. I was pooped afterwards, but it was a lot of fun. It's good to slow down and just see once in a while.

[150] Tennis - Remotivation

After work, I played tennis at the park and BOY OH BOY DOES IT FEEL GOOD!! Besides that one tennis day at CFC, I haven't played tennis in a while.

Today, I was able to play for a few good hours and boy did I miss it. Tennis is one of my favorite sports, and I could easily play it for the whole day if my body let me (I'm getting older). I was definitely re-motivated to start playing again...just like past summers. I'm sure we'll have a few more sessions in the summer after this.

[149] Work ... That's About It

Yeah... Besides work, I really did nothing today. Ooh! Except watch Will & Grace.

Okay...that's about it. The end.

[148] HMart - Korean Dinner - Jerry BBQ

(left to right) Henry, Jackie, Becky, Teresa

After work, the neighbors (Becky, Jackie, Teresa, and I) drove to HMart. I don't know why, but grocery shopping is one of the favorite things I like to do with friends. I blame Carmen. Actually, I don't blame her; I thank her. You know how some people hang out at the park at night or at bars or at diners? Yeah....our late night spot was Dominick's. Whoops! Hella tangent. Sorry...back to the day with the neighbors (not Carmen and peeps).

So, this day was planned for a while now, and I was hella looking forward to it. I really wanted some of the jajangmyeon and KIM CHI! I was craavvvinnng itt!!! Sad news: It turns out that the jajangmyeon was hella expensive (or was it not there?)...I can't remember. But either way, I couldn't get it. Becky and I did get kim chi though! Hell yes!! [Oh man I'm getting hungry typing this up] 

A few hours later when we're done buying groceries (and eating free samples), we went out to a Korean restaurant to eat. Again....hell yes! I love their appetizers! I ordered some cold buckwheat noodle thing, which sounded really good but that was so spicy, I could only eat like half of it and had to take the rest to-go. Boo!! Oh well...the appetizers were waaay worth the trip though. That's probably what I like best about Korean restaurants. 

The neighbors concluded our day by playing some volleyball and hanging out at the newly constructed 31st Street Beach. We had to leave eventually because it was hella dark and couldn't see shit. OH YEAH! And our cousin Simon kept calling us to come over for bbq. Yeah...they had a bbq today, but we couldn't go because these plans were already made like a week or two ago. They still wanted us to go, so we did.

By the time we arrived, it was already like 10:30 pm. When we got there, everyone had just left and we walked into the backyard to Jerry cleaning off the grill. Man, this nice buttmunch started grilling again when we got there. Aww....so nice. Ended up just chillin' and chit-chattin' until midnight when we had to go home. I had work the next day early in the morning. 

[147] TORRENTIAL RAINS // LOLLAPALOOZA

Just my luck! Right after I get off work today, it is storming storming storming! From the office, I couldn't even tell. Walking out from the lobby and seeing parades of Lollapalooza-ers racing through the streets was pretty interesting though, so I decided to just stay right underneath the awning and watch.

 Some were scared and screaming, some didn't care and just walked calmly, and some were happy as I've ever seen someone--smiling, giggling, taking pictures, and giving people hugs. One guy really outshined everyone though. This guy was yelling "USA! USA!! USA!!!" up and down the sidewalk in front of me, laughing his ass off in the rain, and giving high fives to anyone who passed. He splashed water at himself, at us, at passing cars, and at any chance he got when no vehicles were passing, he would lay in the pools of water on the street. Haha! This man was crazy, but he made it look like so much fun. In fact, he sort of inspired me.

I went back up to the office, dropped off my backpack, took only my keys and wallet inside a garbage bag, and walked home in the rain.

I've never been a fan of rain. Some of my friends will tell you that I really hate the rain. But today, I guess I had a change of heart.  "I'm siiinnggging in the rain...I'm singgingg in the rain..."

[146] Second Job - First Day

I was very fortunate this summer to have had two wonderful opportunities--first  CFC and now this. Right after CFC, I was offered a student intern position to work with a business on a big project until I leave for college. 

The first five days or so were really hectic because I had to get up to speed about the company and the project. The business was a small, successful IT consulting firm. On top of a bunch of  law-related cases, this summer they also took up a summer project: installing Wi-Fi switches for a branch of charter schools. Since their team only consisted of about 5 people, they needed someone to stay in the office and handle the data work and manage the inventory, orders, and invoices for the project. That's where I come in! 

Though I had minimal experience with this type of organizational work, it was a great chance to really maximize how much I can get out of this experience. 

By the way, a few days without a job made me a bit lazy. It felt wonderful waking up early in the morning and biking to work again. Feels fulfilling!   

[145] Root Beer #2

Root Beer Tally

Two

[144] Root Beer #1

Root Beer Tally

One