I almost had a garage door open on me…
So for no good reason, the garage door started to open when I was holding the people door open, wedging it into the wall.
I managed to kick the door until it closed and the garage door began to open now that it was free to move again.
I was testing out my tree-climbing skills...
Am I a good koala bear? Check out the girls in the back... such a boring shot.
Don't make me go there yet! Let me do my interview first, please. photo credit: sanfernandovalleylawyers.com
Today I got an e-mail that had me bouncing off the walls: an invitation to schedule an interview for a job I really want! It was thrilling to see it sitting there in my inbox, waiting patiently for me to open it and arrange to meet with the hiring manager for the position. I eagerly replied with a preferred time and she confirmed not long after. Suddenly, I remembered that I’m on call for jury duty this week! Frantically, I began to compose an e-mail back, bringing up the topic. I came up with as many alternatives as I could and sent it back, hoping she can be flexible with her time. Now I’m waiting here and haven’t received a response, so I anticipate she has gone to bed and I won’t know until tomorrow.
In the mean time, I’m reviewing the application information and compiling a list of my qualifications for each of their requirements. I’ll go over their website, my cover letter, and interview advice articles over the next two days as I prepare for this all-important interview. I e-mailed my parents, happily sharing the news with them and called up my mom when she was free to talk. Tomorrow I’ll be chatting with my dad, discussing possible questions I should be ready for and anything else his wisdom has to offer. After all, he’s often been in both the hiring and applying positions and can impart a lot of useful knowledge and insight.
LEED certified! Who wouldn't want to work in a building so green? photo credit: smithgroup.com
I’m also going to e-mail a former boss, who I just went to visit days ago, and see what she has to say. It’ll be nice to share the good news with her, after I gushed about the position and how much I wanted it. Besides, she works for UCLA, so maybe she’ll have some pertinent pointers to share with me. Now let’s hope I can make it to the final step and get hired! I’d be absolutely elated because this job fulfills the requirements I had outlined before. Though I said it’s not exactly my dream job (which would to be an eco-consultant, I think), it is my favorite candidate for being my first career job.
When I was talking to my mom, I was concerned that they weren’t interviewing on Friday because they were going to choose then and then rush someone into the position by Monday. That would make things difficult if I had jury duty and the manager couldn’t stay after work to interview me. My mom assured me that no company would ever be so crazy-rushed to hire someone in such a short time frame, so there must be leeway for me to interview at a later time if I must. If I get called in to serve my civic duties on Thursday, I certainly hope she’s right. I would love to get this position!
Gosh I’m nervous. I haven’t wanted something so much since Panda.
One sitting, one feeding, and one hovering.
Going in for a quick dip.
Check out that hovering action!
Today my dear friend Philosopher arrived from a looong trip over, from across the pond, as they would say. I encountered far more traffic than I anticipated going down and then spent 40 minutes driving in circles trying to see if he was out yet. I had neglected to tell him to wait outside for me and the poor fellow had to wait for me for an hour while I was stuck in traffic and driving around outside wondering if he had gotten his luggage! Thankfully, I finally figured it out and parked my car to go get him and that little round trip was expedient enough to render no parking fee! Brilliant.
I made a pit stop to Boston Market on the way back because I love their cornbread and chicken pot pie, but alas, they no longer have pot pies! Philo had wanted a salad that they were out of, so I got some cornbread and we headed back closer to Panda’s and ended up getting some CPK salads. I learned (too late) that the half size was not quite big enough for my appetite, so I had some of the wooonderful cornbread to supplement my meal. I think Boston Market’s cornbread is amazing – it’s soft with crunchy little bits of meal (or whatever grainy thing that is) and has a bit of sweetness to it.
When we got back, I was surprised with a box of Quality Street candies (between that and Celebrations, I could be dancing in heaven) and a bar of luscious chocolate, straight from England! Philo then went off to shower off the grime from the trip and refresh a bit before eating. We then had a lovely chat, with me sharing a lot of the things that have been interesting me in my life lately – like Google Wave, which I finally received my invitation for! After a few hours, it was getting late and he was getting tired, so we set up his little bed for the night.
I played around with Google Wave for a bit and now it’s time for me to retire as well – I’ve still got a busy day at Opportunity Green tomorrow!
Taking over the sidewalk!
Stubbornly growing up on high.
I’ve realized that I write a lot of my thoughts and opinions, alluding only occasionally to experiences, so I’ll now attempt to do some more storytelling and share some of my adventures.
Very zen.
Well to start off with, I didn’t get the best of directions and probably should have copied the map better. The bus driver and my fellow passengers had no idea what I was looking for and couldn’t tell me where to get off. By a stroke of luck, I was looking out the right side of the bus and the building had a large sign, so I found it. I got off the bus and made my way to the entrance, where I was greeted by a nice little landscaping in the front area and huge wooden doors. As soon as I stepped in, I knew I had chosen wisely. This place was impeccably clean and very nicely decorated. It was quiet and peaceful and the ladies working there were all well-mannered and well-dressed.
Take your pick of aromas and treatments! Top left: herbal scents for the steam room. Bottom: facial treatment options.
Nice place to just chill.
Beautiful decorations and delectable tea.
Iced water tastes so much better coming out of the steam room.
Everything you need to enjoy a hot stone massage. That black thing was knit underwear.
I was then taken to another room for my hot stone massage. I was given a funny little black underwear thing to put on, as well as a shower cap and towel. A nice little lady came in with the hot rocks and began to work on my weary muscles. She used two stones to stimulate my muscles and would trace the bones in my ankles or other areas where it felt really good to have something hot and firm running along it. Sometimes it would just be one stone or her hands and some lotion. The heat of the stones was just enough to leave a burning trail wherever it went, but certainly not enough to burn or hurt. She knew just how long to leave the heat there before it would start to generate more pain than relaxation. I wondered how her hands could handle the stones – as far as I could tell, she did not use gloves or anything to protect herself from the heat. When she wrapped up a few stones for me to lie on to soothe my back, I began to see how the prolonged heat could cause discomfort. We made a quick adjustment to protect me from the heat a bit more and I comfortably lay there for awhile. At the end, she had me sit in positions I’d never tried before, then pushed or pulled just the right way to make my neck and back crack. I’d never been cracked like that before and I imagine that’s what they’d do at a chiropractor’s. I fully intend on finding out one day.
Delicious ginger tea that was just sweet enough, yet with a slight kick.
If I get the chance, I’d definitely want to do that again. It was a great service experience. Next time I’m opting for the four-hand herbal massage… two hours of synchronized movements from two masseuses at 1400 Baht! How many people have four hands massaging them at once? Until then, I’ll dream of going back, or getting the unique jade stone massage at Le Petite Retreat, right here in LA.
Brake. Gas. Brake. Gas. Brake. Brake. Brake.
What it looks like. photo credit: enterstageright.com
The morning commute sucks, even at 9:30. You would have expected it to be a little clearer, but I guess enough people go to work later that it doesn’t even matter anymore. Panda has mentioned a few times that he wants to live near work so he only has a 5-minute commute (much like mine to Opportunity Green when I’m at his place). I completely understand. The problem will be working close enough to each other that we can find a place that isn’t too far from either. For I certainly don’t want to have to wake up in the morning only to drive an hour and a half to start working. It’s exhausting and the complete wrong way to start the day. I’m amazed that so many people do it.
I hate to get up in the morning as it is. When you put a morning commute as miserable as they get in LA, that’s just about the worst way anyone could start their day. I can’t imagine something more stressful and draining, both physically and mentally. And for those who experience road rage and get extremely anxious when they are running late, it’s emotionally taxing as well. If only everyone could just work from home and cut the commute, be close enough to just walk on over, or had public transportation that easily transported people. Maybe cities should be planned in such as way as to ease this sort of congestion. I’m not sure that would be enough though, what the complexity of the problem. Perhaps businesses and residences should intermingle more evenly to spread out the flow of traffic in all directions instead of one main one. It just doesn’t make sense to have hordes of people heading into a central business district each morning and rushing out each evening. Is there really any real benefit to having business hubs?
What it feels like. photo credit: Curtis Gregory Perry on flickr
It might be that the problem would not be solved with a different distribution of businesses, but rather needs to be tackled via transportation solutions. I know I sure wish I had someone to drive with so I could take advantage of the carpool lane and probably shave a good 20-30 minutes off of my 90-minute drive. Even better would be a mass transportation system that runs at that time. The only way I can get from my valley down to more central LA via public transportation is a commuter bus that only runs in the early morning. This city is in desperate need of a mass transit makeover. Buses, trains, subways, monorails, whatever. A city so spread out shouldn’t leave its people with so few options to get around.
Let’s end the concept of rush hour. It’ll make the atmosphere cleaner and the people happier.
Just like old times, taking self-portraits in the car.
I got a chance to hang out with Katana yesterday and it never ceases to amaze me how each time we see each other, I don’t feel like she’s been gone for that long. The last time I saw her was sometime during Christmas break a good nine months ago, but it’s easy for us to fall right back into an old pattern, an old routine. I guess this is kind of how I live my life, since the same thing happens when my parents and I are reunited, and last month when I finally came back to LA and saw Panda again. In each case, the time we spent apart doesn’t seem so long because of the ease in which we slip back into familiar territory. Sure, a lot has changed, but fundamentally, we’re still the same.
It’s weird to think about Katana and Elle, who were the two best friends I had from my high school years at Valencia. Ever since Katana and I graduated, with her going off to VMI, then NMMI, and I going off to UCLA, the three of us have only gotten to hang out sporadically, whenever it happened to work out. Usually that meant about once or twice a year, particularly the over the holidays and/or during another one of our seasonal breaks. And though interactions were few and far between, we were still the Asian girls who stood out and didn’t quite fit into the mould of what people expected girls, especially Asian girls, to be. I guess that’s what ties us together in the end – this common way of life that leads us from “normal” girl activities to things like JROTC, where we met, or to be particularly outspoken about some feminist beliefs.
Sometimes I can’t believe I’ve known these two ladies for nearly 7 years now! I haven’t ever known and stayed in contact with someone for that long. Being that I moved every 3-4 years, that’s not too surprising. For the first time in my life though, I’m going back to old friends again and again. They are no longer memories to be stored away in a compartment labeled based on what city I knew them from. Now they are a consistent prescense in my life, however fleeting that may be. So I guess this is shocking to me because I don’t know what it’s like to have lifelong friends. Do they all fare so well seeing each other so infrequently? No matter where we are, whether it’s spread across three states in the US (like we are now), or spread across countries (as we’ve often been), I don’t need to see or even talk to these girls to know they will be there. It’s kind of like family.
A picture is also like a moment frozen in time... photo credit: _Mike_Howard_ on flickr
Speaking of family, mine is also a very scattered one, with me seeing my relatives something like seven times over my lifetime and seeing my parents twice a year on average. And though we’ve all grown a lot these two decades, I still think of my parents as 35-year-olds and honestly, only when I look closely do I realize they’re not anymore. But in my head, there’s a semi-frozen image of my family members – my cousins are still budding young adults, my parents quite young, and my grandparents still sprightly. Sure, we’ve added a few new members since then, but they kind of just get tacked on without the others gaining much in age. I don’t know how it works in my mind, but that’s how I recall my closest kin. Every time I see them again, even after four years away and so much that happened in between, I remember a lot of my childhood and the main processes remain unchanged. I still get spoiled and stay with the same people and generally do and eat the same things.
Even for my parents, the few weeks I see them out of the year doesn’t seem so odd because those memories last me a long time. I’ve got so much other stuff going on while I’m on my own that just touching base with them semi-annually is plenty to work from. It does get lonely in the house sometimes when I’m the only one, but I’m used to solitude. That was much like how our household functions anyway. Besides, at my age, it’s time to be moving out and doing things on my own. Much as I adore my house, Valencia is not really the place to jump start a career. I’d rather be in Westwood or Santa Monica, or somewhere more central to the hubbub of LA.
Finally, the day that I came back after months away in Singapore, I was nervous to see Panda again. It was our first time being apart since things really got started and it was certainly not a short period of time to cope with. Even now I wonder how we managed, because not seeing him for a day can make me antsy. I was glad that we fell pretty quickly back into a comfortable rhythm, working out our schedules around challenges, as we’ve always done. I had been afraid that it would take some time to warm up again and that we may almost be like strangers for a bit, but that didn’t last very long. Once again, time altered its flow for me (well, at least to my perception it did) and it was like a fraction of the time had actually passed. I guess that’s what happens with people you care about. Katana said it best: we have changed enough to have things to talk about, but haven’t changed so much that we don’t connect anymore.
Do this...
...get this!
So for volunteering a few hours, I got free entry into the Killers concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Not a bad deal, eh?
