Europe, my mother, and cirque du soleil

1.) Europe:

I am finally going back! This time, I am excited to say, I get to remember actually having been there! I haven't been to Europe since I was 6-7 years old. That was a very long time ago! I have made a serious effort at just DOING, and I'm getting fairly good at it I think. No more, "Yeah, someday!" WOO HOO! I, along with the best travel partner I could imagine going with, will be leaving May 21st and heading first to Amsterdam. Belgium, Paris, Italy, and Greece will follow all in just 18 days! I absolutely cannot wait! Now I just have to learn how to say the following words in all these different languages:

a) Hello/ Thank you/Please
b) Where is the restroom?
c) I can't breathe
d) Help
e) Where is the nearest bank?
f) No, I will not!

2.) My mother:

OK, I love her to death, but sometimes my mother says things that leave me speechless, and not in the, "Wow...that was so heartfelt" kind of way. A few nights ago, my person and I had dinner at my mom's house. My mom was treating the new dog like a baby, and I said, "Wow, mom...that's crazy."

My mother replied with something that left me shocked, "That's why you need to have a baby. So I can have a grandchild." WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT???? It USED to be, "Don't come home pregnant like those other girls," but now it's, "You need to come home pregnant." MYYYY, how times have changed!

I suppose another possible subheading for this part of my blog is, "How my age has changed my mother's opinions." Am I that depressingly old? I wonder what level of nervous that made my significant person. Anyway, in short....YIKES!

3.) Cirque Du Soleil:

I went to watch Kooza in San Jose last night with Dan, Phuoc, and Sharon. It was the first Cirque show I've ever seen. I wondered if it would be as amazing as people made it out to be, and I went with a bit of skepticism, but it really was spectacular. It was mostly things I'd seen before, but with a "Cirque twist" to it. A juggler came out and was faster, more athletic, more entertaining than any juggler I've ever seen before, and I've seen a bunch of them. The music was great, and it was definitely visually stunning. I'd have to say that my favorite, and the most exciting bit of it had to be these two guys:

The Universe Decided to be Awesome today...

I woke up today, and for whatever reason, the universe decided to be kind. I was getting ready to go to work, when I heard the door open up, and the significant person walked in. This meant that I had a ride to work, and I didn't have to pay for parking. HOORAY! I'm up $6.33!


Second, I got into work, and I was reminded that Be Kind, Rewind is opening tomorrow, Feb. 21st! HOORAY! I have been waiting for this movie for quite some time! I love Jack Black, Mos Def, and Michel Gondry. Having them on one project together just blows my mind! I bet it's going to be fantastic!

Thirdly, I just found out that there are talks of an ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT movie! HOORAY! Jason Bateman mentions that he was approached about the project in this article. Totally exciting! I was one of those people that always planned to watch, but never got to because I couldn't figure out exactly when they were on, or what channel. Sadly, I got really into it after the show was canceled, and I got to watch the 3 seasons on DVD.



Lastly, I found out that Wondercon is going to be at the Moscone Center in San Francisco over the weekend. Steve Carrell is going to be there to talk about Get Smart! Hopefully they'll show a lengthy clip, or even provide a preview of the movie! YAY!


Too bad I have quite a bit of studying to do this weekend. I have two midterms in the coming week, and a few other school-related projects to attend to. Nuggets! The Universe, however kind, has got to have balance I suppose.

The silver lining

We stayed at a beautiful suite at the Venetian. It was very fancy shmancy, and also very confusing! The place is a maze. If you ever stay there, you'll know exactly what I mean. We didn't end up seeing any shows, but we definitely did some eating (Rio, Margaritaville, Paris, Venetian, etc.)! There was a lot of walking around too, so I didn't feel TOO bad about all the food that was going into my tummy. I didn't do any gambling, but almost everyone else did. If I ever decide to gamble again, it'll probably have to be craps since the group I was with had some good luck with it. Here's what our suite looked like:



Now for the stressful part... Apparently, doing a flight number search on Southwest is NOT a good idea. When I bought my flight ticket home, I did a flight search...and a flight came up with that number, time, and day. As it turned out...I booked flight 1642, leaving Las Vegas 6:55 pm, on the 18th.....but accidentally booked it for JANUARY and NOT FEBRUARY! YIKES! So I was stranded in Vegas, with the next available flight leaving 6:45 am the following day. Stand-by was not a real option because there were 10 people waiting ahead of me. Thank goodness for Virgin America! It was a later flight, but the experience was definitely better than sleeping at the airport over night.


Now for the silver lining... I haven't had much time to read for fun, and I've been wanting to read this for a while now:


Realizing that I would have to be at the airport for a few hours, I stopped by the little BORDERS in the airport, and happily found it! It's a book about travel, love lost, love found, food, spirituality, personal journey...I love it so far.

Also, not that I didn't already know, but my significant other is pretty fricken amazing. I would go into heavy detail about why he's awesome, but that might be far too vomit-inducing for others to handle. Suffice it to say that he has just consistently been wonderful in every situation thus far.

Lastly, I highly endorse Virgin America. I would say it's better than Jet Blue, and I happen to love Jet Blue.

V

V1) Valentine's Day Recap:

- Went to the SF Pillow Fight. It was AWESOME! I was inhaling feathers, and was coughing them up hours later. (I'll post pictures soon)
- Dinner at Yoshi's was magnificent
- Jazz music was a good way to end the night
- I GOT A STUPID $250 parking ticket! MOTHER F!
a) The fine was for parking in a red zone and a bus zone.
b) Yes, it was red. No, it was not a bus zone!
c) I'm going to try and get it reduced. (Fines: $70 for red zone. $250 for bus zone)
I SO HATE PARKING TICKETS! It's just ridiculous!


V2) Vegas

I'm flying to Vegas tomorrow! YAY! I'll be going with about 8 other people, and meeting up with some friends there as well. Should be awesome fun! Not really sure what we'll be doing, but we'll:

a) be staying at the Venetian:

b) probably watching zumanity:


























c) probably doing some shopping

d) hanging out at clubs/bars in the evening

e) getting fat at buffets

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day EVERYONE!! Valentine's day must suck for people that don't have anyone to give flowers and other mushy love stuff to. That being said, I love my flowers! hahaha. Thanks Awesome Person.





SF Pillow Fight TONIGHT! Hopefully I can surround myself with an army of friends, and we can pillow kill everyone...even this KID! I heard there will be tons of kids at the fight! The strategy is as follows:
1) Kids

2) Grannies and Grampsies

3) Adults

4) Aliens

5) Robots

Wish me luck!!

Will Ferrell Cracks Me Up!

Will Ferrell cracks me up! His face in this picture is priceless. He really looks like he's trying to model. hahaha! I LOVE IT!

There's going to be a significant amount of driving that I have to do today. Home to Oakland, Oakland to San Rafael, San Rafael to San Francisco, then back home. Ugh. I just hope it'll all be worth it. I have a meeting with SF General tonight. Hopefully I'll land the field placement, and the hours will fit nicely with my already crazy schedule.

I'm going to be having dinner with Jackie and Eric tonight. I haven't seen Eric since I was 14 years old. It should be a nice little reunion.

I finished watching 28 Weeks Later last night. For those of you who know me, I am a big fat wuss when it comes to scary movies, but I can at least handle zombie movies. It was interesting. Although, I'll have to confess that I turned my head several times. I don't do well with scary anticipatory moments in these movies when you know the zombie/ghost/killer is going to jump out at any moment, and you're just waiting for it.



A few years ago, after watching I Heart Huckabees (this is funny now that a presidential candidate is actually named Huckabee), I snuck into The Grudge 2. I made it through three minutes of the previews before I decided I couldn't handle it, and walked out. Yeah. Sad.

Anyway, finally the movie, which was supposed to be funny, but miserably failed in its attempt, can now get the laughs it so desperately wanted. By the way, my parents voted for Huckabee. WHY OH WHY?

Poor Saturday..

My Saturday was bombarded! I woke up early for my stupid 9 am- 6 pm Junior Seminar class. Thank goodness there won't be anymore of those this semester. I headed to the gym after class, then headed to Target, went to my mom's to do some printing & studying, and then closed the night out with a few hours of salsa dancing at Club Montero's. It was definitely a very long day.

I was much kinder to my Sunday. Slept in, cleaned up my room a bit, welcomed the boyfriend home, and had practice with the guys.

This week is going to be packed FULL of stuff I have to do:

- TODAY: Class, dinner with friends, studying..
- Tuesday: Work, gym, cello lessons, meeting with Marin County Health Services
- Wednesday: Work, class, meeting with SF General Psych Department, dinner with some friends in the city.
-Thursday: Work, Valentine's Day Activities (SF Pillow Fight, Dinner, Yoshi's)
- Friday: Work, study, study, study!!
- Saturday/Sunday/Monday: VEGAS!!
Life is busy, but I'm quite happy. I've been going to the gym on a more regular basis lately. Hopefully I can keep it up!

Random note of the day: Demetri Martin is pretty fricken hilarious. Check him out!

ONCE

You have to see this movie if you love music. Glen Hansard is a phenomenal musician, and his voice is extraordinarily powerful. I love stumbling upon artists I've never heard of before that just blow me away. I did some research and found out he is in a band called The Frames.




I was roaming the streets of San Francisco last night after watching the SF Symphony, when my ears dragged me to a band playing out on the street in front of the Old Navy on Market. They were pretty good. It made me think, "Hey, why doesn't Audiology do THAT?" I'm going to throw the idea out to the guys, and see if they're up for it. We may be playing on a street near you.

It's just a music kinda day. =)

Random Note of the Day: Mitt Romney is a horrible person. Also, it has been brought to my attention that Mitt rhymes with a certain word that starts with the letters S -H.

Pillow to the Death!

I have been training several months for this upcoming event:

I am all too excited! I couldn't go last year due to my work/class schedule, but this year it is ON gangstas! What better way to show strangers how much you love them by smacking them on their faces with a fluffy pillow? Everyone GO! Woo Hoo for the Annual San Francisco Pillow Fight

Who won on Super Tuesday?

I voted for Obama, and I know he didn't win California, but who's winning in super delegates? CNN says Clinton is slightly leading, but MSNBC says Obama is leading by 4. I don't know who to believe, but I do know it's very close.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22419475

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/scorecard/

I wasn't sure if I wanted to vote for Hillary or Barack, but this won me over:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/documents/the-war-over-the-wonks.html

Hillary's advisers are mostly pro-war. Check out who's advising the other candidates. You might be surprised.

I'm BAAAACK!!

So, for many reasons, primarily boredom, I'm going to start this blog again. A million things have happened since I last wrote in this thing, but I'll just outline the important stuff:

1) I'm older, and hopefully wiser.

2) I'm in a band that I love called Audiology! I'm really proud of the musical direction we're taking. This is us (Antonio, Neil, ME, Q):















3) I now attend Dominican University where I am a Psych and Nursing double major. I'm starting on my thesis this semester. I am not that excited about it.

4) I visited two places last year that I've never been to: Hawaii and Puerto Vallarta. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from my trip to PV
























































































5) I'm happy. I attribute it to feeling more like I know myself, having more control over my own life, and really feeling loved.

6) My little brother, whose diapers I used to change, now attends UCLA. Super crazy.

7) I have been working for a non-profit low-income/affordable housing advocacy group located in Oakland called EBHO. I absolutely love it.

That's the important stuff I guess. I'll post again tomorrow.

Random Note of the Day: Went to Yoshi's and saw Chris Botti. He was absolutely, mind-blowingly, AMAZINGLY, talented!