Bling ring

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dollar bills folded into ring and elephant

Check out my handiwork combined into one awesome ring.

In a cloud

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This week has been pretty brutal on me mentally.  Early on, I got hit with roadblocks and conundrums that had me wracking my brain and trying to troubleshoot multiple issues.  Some were pretty complex problems that required much mulling and consulting with others in the office.  It didn’t take long to get a headache trying to figure out the best resolutions to these issues.  Just when I thought I knew what was going on and had come up with a decent way to fix it, something else would crop up to complicate it all over again.  After awhile, my mind was fuzzy and I felt like a cloud had descended throughout my head.

It took many phone calls, emails, and IMs (along with quite a bit of thinking out loud) to eventually get to a place that I felt good about.  And that process lasted a good 2-3 days, finally letting up a bit today.  I feel much more relieved now and I can’t wait until the weekend – all the better that it’s a long one!  Usually the weeks go by fast for me, but this one has dragged on as my poor brain took a beating.  I’ve broken out all over my face, had restless dream-filled sleep, and sometimes can’t muster up an appetite.  Amazing that I could have so much stress with hardly anything to show for it.  I guess that’s what’s most frustrating – I spent so much time and effort and came up against so many dead ends that aren’t reflected in the final solution.  It’s like all those drafts you go through to write a paper.  The final product is clean and well-organized, but hides all the edits, revisions, changes…

I’m looking forward to getting a rest and hopefully a truly restful night of sleep soon.

Fishy meal

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If we didn’t see a lady taking pictures at the tree, we never would’ve noticed this hawk-type bird.

hawk eating fish from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Urth Caffé animals

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They (Urth Caffé) always make super cool designs. Extremely entertaining! I requested the kitty cat. 🙂

swan design in the foam of a drink at urth caffe

cat design in foam of urth caffe drink

LoveSac PillowSac

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examples of various pillowsac usesThis weekend I finally got the LoveSac PillowSac!  I mentioned back in May 2009 that I’ve wanted this thing for ages (about 8 and a half years by now) and now it’s here.  Originally I had wanted a SuperSac, the 6-foot diameter LoveSac, but after my friend lent me his indefinitely, I started to focus more on the PillowSac, which is cool because it is quite versatile.  I like that you can get the Rocker and set it up to be a rocking couch, or lay it out flat to be the size of a full mattress.  In addition, there are the fun shapes like fortune cookie and pea pod.  🙂

I’ve been following the Deals section of the LoveSac site, where they had an entire Fushia Berry Chenille set for $499 (more recently discounted to $399 for Valentine’s Day specials).  I liked this set because it came with the PillowSac and cover, a Rocker, and two throw pillows.  Purple’s my favorite color and I thought this unique pattern would be fun.  However, it’s absolutely tacky and impossible to match with anything, so I held off, not sure about that pattern.  Then, about three weeks ago, the Red Herringsuede one showed up for Valentine’s Day, also at $399, but without the throw pillows.  Now I couldn’t decide between the two.  The purple set had a better deal, but the red set is far easier to put in a room.

Click to see the deals:

fushia berry pillowsac set on sale

red herringsuede pillowsac set on sale

So, that’s how I ended up at the LoveSac store with Panda this weekend.  I figured I could take a look at the materials and decide once and for all which one made more sense.  Thank goodness I did too!  I had thought that the Herringsuede is a type of faux suede, but instead it’s actually a herringbone pattern renamed.  After seeing that, I would have rather had another more exciting texture.  Luckily enough, the store had a black Velvish PillowSac cover that it was selling for a discount because this cover was discontinued and it was their last one.  Even more fortunate was that they had an open PillowSac selling for a discount because it was not completely brand new and in the packaging.  The reason for that was it was used in a L’Oreal commercial that Beyoncé shot recently.  Pretty cool, huh?

So when I heard the price of the PillowSac and cover, I was pretty sold, but I wanted the entire set I’d seen online, Rocker and throw pillows too.  I asked the saleslady about that and she was able to offer slight discounts for both.  She had a couple of throw pillows to choose from and I thought the Red Herringsuede would actually be a great contrast on the black.  Having pillows that don’t match the PillowSac itself made things much more lively and exciting, otherwise those pillows sort of blend right in.  In the end, I’d be paying about $27 more at the store for a much more customized set with a cool back story.  And so that is how I ultimately got my new PillowSac set!

The vertical life

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Check out the worms in the background (also very vertical) that look like cousins of the clown fish.

vertical fish from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Elephant tip

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Internet woes

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I haven’t wanted to spend the money to get internet service at the apartment, so I’ve been using whatever signal I can get.  Unfortunately, this results in a lot of disconnecting and extremely slow loading.  It’s getting to the point where I need to use an alternative solution, or just give up using the internet extensively while in the apartment.  My first hope is to find a nice neighbor with enough bandwidth to share their network password with me in exchange for a portion of their monthly cost.

I don’t want to have to deal with a setup cost for internet I’ll only have for a year, so I’d rather split the cost with someone who has already set it up anyway.  I just hope I have some nice neighbors who’d be willing to do this.  Roomie refuses to go ask, so I wonder if it’s an American culture thing for each unit to stay separate and not share amongst each other.  I really hope I can avoid incurring a cost that isn’t wholly necessary by making a new friend with the neighbors!  We’ll see how that goes.

It’ll be nice to finally go on Skype, watch a video, and do other things that haven’t been working for me lately.  The frustration of getting kicked off AIM just might have to be avoided by paying up, sadly.  That’s a good $200 each* if Roomie and I split a service – quite a hefty sum at the end of it all.

*clarification: for the year we’re at the apt, not per month!

Plane squared

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The view of a plane from a plane!

plane flying over plane from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

Pedal, panda!

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stuffed animal panda bear on top of huge bicycle

Careful up there!

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