On writing and the mind

I used to write a lot more by hand. In journals, which I'm sure are still somewhere in my parents' houses, jotting down the details of the day. Writing down random little thoughts in notebooks while I played games or sat in class or tried to fall asleep.. Lists, so many lists. There's a list of all of my 70+ AIM screennames in some notebook I'm sure still in my mom's house.

In middle school my best friend at the time, Alesha, and I wrote so many notes back and forth, and had enough intercepted by teachers or other classmates, that we invented our own little cipher of the alphabet to write in instead. We had that stuff memorized after a while and could read and write whole notes in it. I bet I still know some of it.

Why I stopped writing by hand

Computers, and my addiction to them. Why write when I could type so much faster? Why write when typing looks so much cleaner than my somewhat sloppy handwriting? Despite all that, I found I stopped writing as much. Yeah, I kept a Deadjournal and Livejournal for a couple years, but never updated it nearly as much as I used to write in my old journal. It just...didn't feel the same for some reason. Plus once I got sick of all the stuff I'd written in it, it was just so easy to hit a button and destroy it forever. As much as I'm sure I'd love to burn the old handwritten journals I have, there's some sentimental value to them that I'm sure would keep me from doing it.

I also never liked note taking on my laptop in college. I stopped making lists cause they just never stuck with me when I typed them the way they did when I used to handwrite them. Text messaging and twitter came along and made it easy for me to just blast off random thoughts to someone else for a quick laugh or comment, instead of writing them down and adding to them, elaborating on them, turning them into something more. I used to daydream more, I wonder if my decline in writing had something to do with the decline in my imagination as well?

Why I'm writing by hand again

After reading some articles regarding writing by hand and memorization and using your non-dominant hand as brain exercise and the plethora of writing exercises for anxiety and negativity I started looking at to help with mine I decided to start working on bettering myself, even if just through little writing exercises. I also started looking at ways to improve my handwriting since I've never cared for it. This eventually led me to looking at fountain pens and after a few weeks of lurking /r/fountainpens I couldn't resist buying one. (I got the Pilot Metropolitan which currently has a pretty orange ink in it).

Now I keep a gratitude journal, which I try to write a page of things I'm grateful for each night before I go to sleep, or when I'm feeling especially down or anxious. I pulled out a bunch of my other little notebooks I've collected over the years in hopes of writing in. Some are for random thoughts, some are for the internal narrative when it comes so I can jot it down before losing it, some for list making and note taking, one is for "stream of consciousness" writing to just get out whatever it is on my mind, especially helpful when I'm stressed or bummed. I've started buying postcards to send to my friends back home and my long distance man. I want to start writing them letters, but with the instantaneous communication of this generation it's hard to come up with things to tell that haven't already been said to them!

Why you should start writing by hand again

Why not! If you're having issues with your anxiety, if you find yourself being more negative than you'd like, if you find you can't ever remember the notes or lists you make on your computer/phone, or even if you just find yourself with nothing much to do with some pen and paper nearby, try sitting down and writing it all out. Or buy a postcard and send it to a friend you wish you kept better touch with or to someone special just to bring a smile to their face! Even if you just throw whatever it is you wrote immediately afterwords it can still be helpful, still therapeutic, still feels...productive.

Disneyland Vacation Photo Post!

My first trip to Disneyland was the day after Blizzcon in 2011 with Cathy and we only had a few hours to spend there before our flight, so this weekend was like my first real Disneyland trip.

I'd never been to California Adventure before, and spent most of the first day there. Wandered around and scouted the place out a bit before meeting up with friends and having an amazing lunch at Carthay Circle Restaurant. Now, I didn't know this, but you can buy alcohol at a lot of places in California Adventure and even walk around with it in the park, but in Disneyland there's only one exclusive place, Club 33, that you can get alcohol. This place apparently has amazing cocktails, but I opted for a beer instead. Also, if you ever go there be sure to check with the bar downstairs to watch how they make their perfectly round ice spheres that they put in the drinks. So. Friggen. Cool.

We rode most everything that we could in California Adventure that day. Tower of Terror, Radiator Springs Racers, The Little Mermaid ride, The Bugs Life Show, Muppets 3D theater, Midway Mania, probably more that I forgot. We did miss out on California Screamin' since it closes when they start doing World of Color at night and I wasn't with anyone who liked roller coasters.

 I'm on the left, is that a good score for my first time doing Midway Mania?

We headed over to Disneyland later in the day to ride Indiana Jones and Pirates before going to Blue Bayou for the dinner reservations we had made there and then headed back to California Adventure for World of Color!

California Adventure closes an hour earlier than Disneyland on weekends, so back to Disneyland we went, where we mostly just wasted time walking around and window shopping and eating Dole Whip. We did get to ride/play Astro Blasters, which I have to say I like a lot more than Midway Mania. Oh, and played Fix It Felix Jr.!

So, I really love roller coasters, and I already explained that we missed out on California Screamin', Unfortunately, Thunder Mountain was closed for renovations until October and Space Mountain was closed due to a safety review. Bah. Next time next time next time. Luckily I knocked out Space Mountain and Matterhorn on my previous trip (and Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain in Disney World too!)

Sunday also consisted of lots of shopping, and I finally found a pair of mouse ears for myself!

Checked out the Iron Man exhibit at Innoventions, which was really just all the Iron Man suits lined up. Not as cool as I'd hoped.

Now off to ride more rides and do more shopping! I went back to play more Astro Blasters so I could try and get a better score. I don't think I did too bad for only being my second time playing ever!

Hopped on a quick ride of Star Tours before going back to the Fantasmic viewing area and managing to score a pretty sweet spot to sit! I was too entertained to think of taking any pictures of it though!

I can't decide if I like World of Color or Fantasmic more. World of Color is so beautiful, but the opening/ending song is kinda lame, where Fantasmic I felt had better original music and I loved the cast presence in the show.

Was an excellent trip and I'm super excited to go back sometime soon, partially for rides, but mainly so I have another reason to wear my awesome mouse ears!

Finally finished Mass Effect 3

Stayed up till like...3am last night finishing Mass Effect 3 . I would've been done before 2am, but APPARENTLY [SPOILERS] in the Extended Cut if you try to shoot the catalyst at the end it gives you a new, not good 4th ending! [/SPOILERS]

FUN.

So I had to restart from the beginning of the last section and watch all the fucking cutscenes again and go through all the dialogue options and then NOT jokingly shoot at the catalyst and get the ending I really wanted.

It was pretty alright I guess. I enjoyed the stories told and wrapped up throughout the rest of the game more than the ending though. I feel kind of sad though that all this time I put in with these characters has finally come to an end and I won't here any more of their stories from here on out. I mean, yeah, there is DLC but I think BioWare has said that none of the DLC they'll put out will ever cover post-ME3 ending. I'm already missing them so much that I think I might just have to go download all the DLC and play through it.

Why I hate San Francisco cabs (and why I hope Lyft and Uber put them out of business)

I never thought I'd say this, but thank goodness for the SF Muni. Cause last night I took the bus home.

Alone.

At 1am.

I went out and had a great time with my former roommate and close friend, Cathy and a new friend, Ben, last night. Around midnight my phone was at 8% battery life, so I turned it off hoping to preserve it so I could call an Uber or Lyft home later. Of course, when I tried to turn my phone back on it was dead (thanks, Apple, for the shitbag update that is 6.1.3!)

So Cathy ordered me an Uber Taxi from her phone, we said our goodbyes as she and Ben were staying later, and I went outside to meet it at the designated spot. The app had said 4 minutes till the driver's arrival. And I don't know if it was because I didn't look like Cathy enough for him to stop and recognize me, or if he canceled or called her phone and got no answer, but no Uber Taxi ever came. But, at this time of night downtown SF was crawling with cabs, so not a huge deal I should just be able to flag one down.

So I did.

Me: *gets in cab and sits down* "Yeah I'm going to [address in Outer Richmond]."

Cabbie: "Oh, I don't have time to go to Outer Richmond."

This actually translates to "I can't get a return fare in Outer Richmond and I'm a cheap dick so fuck you and your need to get home." Yes, I'm pretty sure they're not allowed to do this and this happened with two different cabbies last night! And this has happened before to me with SF cabs and trying to get back home.

After the second cab turned me down I happened to see a 38 bus coming and just decided to take that home. Was a little slow, but at least it was free and more reliable than the cabs here.

This isn't the first time I've had to deal with cabbies denying us service after finding where we want to go, but has been the first time I've had to deal with it alone. I guess I'll just invest in a backup battery charger so I never have to go without my access to Uber or Lyft ever again.

2013 - My Journey into Fitness

Now, I know, I know. I don't look like the type of person who needs a fitness routine. Yes, I am decently skinny and have been so most of my life, but I have never once been in shape. I have never been able to run for any extended (read: over a minute) period of time. The fittest I ever was was back when I was still going to the beach a lot as a kid and boogie boarding and swimming in the ocean. The least fit I have ever been was when I was dating my ex and eating and drinking way too much and gained probably close to 20 pounds over two years. The break-up phase didn't help with that at all either.

I've tried here and there about attempting to get fit again, and then always slowly stopped doing it. Ellipticals, trying to get into running (but not easing myself into it), Wii Fit, etc. Nothing ever really stuck. I hated all of it. I hated the gym, I hated that I sucked at running, and the hate eventually made me say fuck it each time.

So, what made it stick this time around?

Back in late August of last year, in another bout of hating my body, I bought a Fitbit. I had hoped that it would make me realize just how inactive I truly am, and encourage me to do more. And...it did! When I first got it my daily step count hovered around 2000 to 4000 steps a day during the work week. And on weekends...oh gosh, there were days that I barely even got 1000! This HAD to change.

Late fall of last year I started pushing myself to walk more. Instead of waiting for Rich to meet me somewhere after work, I'd walk the near mile to his office instead. Instead of getting up from bed in the mornings on weekends and going straight to the couch, I planned walks with MapMyFitness and Routeloops that I would have to do before I could sit on my ass and play games for 5+ hours straight.

Somewhere along the line I bought a scale too, but wasn't seeing much progress in weight. I was hovering around 131 for weeks.

So, despite saying during New Years that I wasn't going to make any resolutions, about a week in to January I decided to make more changes. I started taking the 5 flights of stairs up to my office. I started trying to sneak in little bits of strength training where I could here and there. I started using MyFitnessPal to track my food intake and realized how much I was eating serving-wise. This has also caused me to cut back considerably on certain foods and alcohol. I do still drink, just less.

After a while 4+ mile walks were becoming too long and I'd been talking about starting Couch-to-5k for months, so I finally bought some running shoes.

Tomorrow starts Week 5 Day 1 of C25K for me. And while I in no way feel I can call myself a runner (yet), I have made so much improvement over the last 5 weeks alone. The first day of the program has you walk 1.5 minutes and then run 1 minute for a total of 20 minutes. I could barely run those one minute stretches. And now, here I am, running 3 and 5 minutes at a time in the program. The last day of Week 5 is to run 20 minutes straight, and while I'm definitely worried about it I definitely think I can do it.

I've lost ~8lbs total since the true start of my journey back in January, and I'm nearly to my goal weight of being 120 again. It hasn't been difficult at all (well, except the running at times) and I honestly think that anyone can do it with a bit of discipline.

I'm still not completely happy with my body (who ever is, right?), but I think finishing C25K and being able to run 30+ minutes straight nearly daily will help. I also need to get back into my strength workouts. While I've been keeping up with my arms/shoulders/back and abs, I've basically stopped all leg strength workouts because of the strain I know running puts on my legs/knees and not wanting to over do it. (I am, however, trying to do Tuff Butt April to ease back into the leg workouts). I'd also like to get into yoga, because I'm not very flexible and it also seems like it's meditation-like, but I'd actually like some girlfriends to get into that with. I doubt I can talk Rich into going to a yoga class with me and I know I won't go alone.

I should probably say that I have dragged Rich along on this journey too, and he is in much better shape than I am! I'm extremely thankful for the days he's pushed me when I wanted to stop (or not do anything at all) and for slowing down and going at my pace, because I know he could go further and faster.

Feel free to add me on Nike+, MyFitnessPal, and Fitbit!

Boundaries and The Penis Incident

Edit 2 3/31/13: I also attended the .party() | gdc and I had an amazing time (and brought my boyfriend AND didn't drink). I don't remember seeing any "escorts" like I keep seeing stories saying there were. Wargaming had go-go dancers, why didn't they get any shit for it? What happened to me wasn't caused by there being women hired to work the party, that guy probably would've done it anyway. 

Edit: I'm seeing a lot of comments on twitter and elsewhere blaming PAX for this incident and the security guard's reaction. This party was NOT held by PAX, it was not even in the same venue, hell it wasn't even on the same street. It was not affiliated with, sponsored by or organized by PAX. The only things it had in common were being gaming related and being the same weekend in the same city.  I'm even seeing some blaming Mojang and Notch (the party was held by Notch himself, not Mojang). The ONLY person who should be held accountable for what happened is the asshole himself. And if you're going to get mad about security, blame that guard. Also this post isn't about nerd or gamer culture or blaming those cultures at all, this could happen in any community, at any party, to anyone.

So before I write up my official PAX Prime blogpost I wanted to touch on this, because it happened and I want to talk about it but I don't want the bad feels tainting the rest of the awesomeness that was PAX.

Around the end of the (amazing) Minecraft party (which is NOT affiliated with PAX at all, this is a separate, privately held party but is in no way organized or held by the same people as PAX), my feet were tired, I was tired and I had been drinking and dancing for nearly 6 hours straight. I found myself a secluded and empty couch in the VIP section so that I could drink my rum and Coke in peace, rest, people watch and catch up on Internety things on my phone.

I don't exactly know what it is about a girl sitting alone, at a party that just screams "YES I TOTALLY WANT TO BE BOTHERED BY YOU, RANDOM GUY" but it does. You'd think in a social situation like that if I wanted to be social then I wouldn't be sitting alone. And I'm usually (always) too nice to say "Hey, fuck off" so when they start small talk I'll reply, but keep trying to ignore them while looking at my phone. So when he came over I did the same. "Oh yes, hi, no I don't work for a gaming company but my boyfriend does. No he's not here he's busy with work. Oh yeah Japan is awesome, where at does your sister live?" One of my very good friends at the party caught my eye and made a gesture asking if I needed help, but no I didn't, I mean,  it was just normal small talk at the time.

This went on for a while, but maybe I was too drunk or maybe I still try to hard to be "one of the guys" to realize it was quickly going into creeper (haha, get it? get it? Minecraft party?) territory.

So when he started talking about boobs I didn't really care. When he started showing me pictures of boobs of girls at the party that he had taken I thought "okay that's weird whatever maybe he asked beforehand." At some point he raised a concern about being Asian and women not wanting him cause of some stereotypical view of penis size, and I was like "most women will agree size doesn't matter" and went back to my phone.

Then he grabbed my free wrist and put it on his crotch and asked "Is this big enough?"

That would have been bad enough, but he had also pulled his dick out through the zipper of his pants. I had no idea what to do but say "You can't do that!" and NOPE'D the fuck on out of there to find my friends. There's a tweet from right around when this happened that says "I NEED AN ADULT AGAIN."

I mentioned it to my group right after it happened, but it didn't really sink in to them, or me, for a while. I tried to dance and drink it off for a bit, but eventually just sat down as the situation began to replay in my head and as soon as the party ended I bolted for the door to find a cab, trying to hold tears back. Thoughts of "Is this how people who don't know me in the industry see me? Did he not even HEAR the amount of times I mentioned my boyfriend? Did he think I was just some whore?" and of course all the guilty thoughts of "Is this my fault for not leaving the conversation sooner/dressing like this/etc." Being drunk also wasn't helping me be any less upset. My friends tried to find him, and tried to tell security (and got a "Okay? What do you expect me to do?" response). I freaked out for a bit, but thank god I have amazing friends who were there to smother me in hugs and "I'll break his dick off" threats. And I'm thankful that if something that shitty had to have happened, that it happened that close to the end of the party. The events totalled about 30 minutes from it happening (I tweeted around 1:22am) to me waiting on a cab to leave (2amish).

I'm not okay with it, but I'm dealing with it better than I was right after it happened. Hell, I was even on the phone with my airline trying to see how early I could leave as soon as I got back to my hotel. I'm trying my best to keep it separated in my mind from the rest of PAX as to not let it overshadow the awesome time I had this weekend. It's fucked up and I keep replaying the scene in my head and trying to figure out what I could have done differently to keep it from happening. People tell me I should've called the cops or screamed or made a huge scene, but I didn't want that type of attention and the reaction of the security guard made me feel like cops would be even more of a waste. I actually even deleted a lot of the tweets I posted, because I felt ashamed and embarrassed that this happened to me. I didn't want to ruin the party/PAX for other people. I don't want people to pity me. "I'm stronger than this" I kept saying to myself as I was crying.

So yeah. Needed to get that shit off my chest. And I'm sure all the drunk, self-loathing tweets that I sent out at the time weren't really helpful, but I definitely don't want to act like this didn't happen. This is more common than people think and could happen to anyone you love, anywhere, anytime, in any community. A girl should be able to go and sit alone at a party and not be bothered, or go where they want and dress how they want and not be treated like that.

Los Angeles and WWE SummerSlam!

Last Friday immediately after work I hopped on the BART straight to SFO to catch a flight to LA for the weekend.

Why LA? Because the beau was there for work, flights were cheap ($160 round trip) and I could just stay in his hotel room! So all I really had to pay for was my flight and my food.

Also, the hotel he was staying at has a 4th floor rooftop pool. I think that helped sway my decision to go a little bit too. ;)

Where I spent most of my Saturday and Sunday morning and afternoon.

IGN Pro League, Soccer and Bad Disney Sequel Night

I didn't actually plan on doing much this past weekend, what with Rich being in Hawaii without me (damn you, expensive flights!) and all. Actually, I was thinking of just having a nice weekend, holed up in my room, with my cat, playing video games and browsing the web.

But then I got a message from my friend, John, telling me he was going to be in San Francisco this weekend at the IGN Pro League Face Off: San Francisco Showdown for work.  I haven't ever watched much e-sports, other than the Starcraft 2 tournaments that were shown at Blizzcon of last year, but I enjoyed those enough, and I enjoy my friend's company enough, that I got myself a ticket and decided to at least stop by.

Then, on Friday night, I got a text from another friend asking me if I'd like to go to a Major League Soccer game on Saturday night. Well sure I do! I love sports and I've never been to an MLS game before so why  not? Plus I doubt I'd be staying very late to watch League of Legends at IPL.

So I MEANT to get to the IPL event around 10 or 11am since it started at 9:30, but instead ended up sleeping until 10 and not getting there till around 12:30. Oh well, sleeping in is what weekends are for, right? So I get downtown, meet up with Jon and start watching some pro-SC2.

It was the Team Arena Challenge going on this weekend and it was Team Liquid vs team LG-Incredible Miracle. When I got there TaeJa from Team Liquid was on a winning streak and was about to face Nestea next. I've seen Nestea play before, and he's one of the best in the world. I think he would've had the match, but then his computer crashed and they had to restart the whole thing and TaeJa ended up winning the rematch. TaeJa ended up winning 7 matches total before finally being defeated by Seed in the second Best of 9.

Pretty decent sized crowd for SC2! 

In between matches, and sometimes during matches that we didn't care much for, John and I would go wandering and eat. He managed to get me some AMD thundersticks and an IPL shirt by telling the IPL booth workers that my boyfriend works for IGN (which I don't think they believed, but gave me the shirt anyway). At one point we went on a venture to get gelato from a place down the street and John took this amazingly flattering picture of how ridiculous I looked with my pack and thundersticks.

Nice thumb placement, John.

Starcraft 2 finals were supposed to be done around 3pm, but ended up going until way after I left around 7pm. The way the Team Arena Challenge is laid out is that the finals are between two teams, the winner of the Winners' Bracket from qualifiers (in this case, LG-Incredible Miracle) and the winner of the Losers' Bracket (Team Liquid). The Losers' Bracket winner must win two best of 9s to win, and since Team Liquid won the first best of 9 with TaeJa just dominating everyone, they had to do a second Bo9. Had LG-IM won the first best of, then Starcraft 2 finals would've totally been done on time.

So around 7pm I left and met up with Stone so that we could go to the soccer game! It was in San Jose and it was the San Jose Earthquakes vs Seattle Sounders. Stone is a Seattle fan and we were sitting on the Seattle side right next to the crazy group of fans that I guess are referred to as "ultras" and damn are they crazy. Jumping up and down and singing songs and chanting. Was very entertaining.  We wandered around a bit, looking at the different food trucks and meeting up with one of his friends, we even got Hawaiian leis randomly from a little kid!

 Well alright.

Ultras waving Seattle flags and setting off blue and white smokebombs.

We left a little early to beat traffic, but also because Stone had a midnight flight to Boston to catch.

The next morning I woke early to a text from John telling me he wasn't going to be staying at IPL much later than noon that day. So, since I didn't really care to see pro-LoL or be at IPL alone, I decided not to go and again slept in till 11. Later that night I knew my roommate was having a movie night with some friends, so I decided to be social and join in on that, even though I knew it meant I'd have to put on pants.

Apparently the theme for the movie night was Bad Disney Sequels. We watched The Fox and the Hound 2, which is far less depressing than the original, has voices by Patrick Swayze and Reba McEntire and was full of so many facepalm worthy puns. So many puns. It wasn't all that terrible though. Second up was Belle's Enchanted Christmas, a midquel to Beauty and the Beast, and wow was that shit terrible. I mean it was bad. The songs were bad, the voices were bad (even though it was apparently the original voice actors!), the story was bad. But despite being bad, it was certainly fun to mock with good people and good food (and booze)!

For a weekend that I didn't plan on doing anything I certainly ended up doing a lot!

Till next time,

Ky

Best. Gift. Ever.

After getting back to the bf's parents' house late last night after my flight to LA there was a gift bag waiting for me on their coffee table. He had mentioned early in the week that he got me something that I was going to love. I tried to get the information as to what he got me, but though all my pestering and questioning I never managed to crack him.

I'm glad I didn't.

The magnitude of how amazing this gift is took me be surprise the minute I opened its wrapping.

A Japanese copy of Hyrule Historia. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was THE game that made me fall in love with games, with the storytelling element of games and with game design itself. And while I didn't continue down the path of becoming a game developer, that game helped shape so many aspects of my life (including moving to Chicago and starting out college as a Game Dev major). I remember staying up late on weekends reading Triforce rumors and timeline theories, rumors about new Zelda games and how they'd connect to the previous games. This series means the world to me. This book alone is an amazing gift.

But it's when I opened the book that the gift was taken to another level.

Shigeru Miyamoto. My bf got Shigeru Miyamoto to sign my copy of Hyrule Historia. This man is one of my idols, and this might be the closest I ever get to meeting him myself. 10 year old Kyle could only have dreamed of ever having anything signed by this man.

And not just Miyamoto! There are signatures from Takashi Tezuka and Reggie Fils-Aime as well!

"They all know who you are now too, babe."

Floored.

Why I'm 2+ years behind on games (and what I'm catching up on)

For the past year it seems I've been playing catch up with video games.

Since around this time in 2009 I have started and finished the following list of games (that I remember...):
-Assassin's Creed 1
-Assassin's Creed 2
-Bioshock 1
-COD: MW3
-Fable 3
-Halo 3
-Halo: Reach
-Mass Effect
-Mass Effect 2

Hardly any of these games are recent releases. And, hell, I still have a HUGE backlog of other games I still want to START (Skyward Sword, all the other Assassin's Creed, Bioshock 2, etc).

So why am I so damned far behind on games?

First to blame is college. I barely had any time to really focus on both starting and finishing a game in any reasonable amount of time between sleep, class, homework and the occasional party (or two, or three, or seven).

Second, I'm going to blame my last boyfriend. Don't want to go into too much detail, but he didn't like that I was a nerd. I quit WoW for the majority of our relationship because of his constant "Are you playing that stupid game, AGAIN?" I also haven't really been able to play Pokemon since that relationship. Anywho. It was a good two years of almost no gaming and it was terrible!

Third, World of Warcraft. Complete other game motivation killer. Why play Mass Effect 3 when I need to log in and check my mail and do my dailies and maybe run a dungeon and...oh shit it's 1am?!

Fourth, SO. MANY. GAMES. So many. Every time I knock one game off my backlog it's like another one comes right out. At least it's kind of slow right now, but I bet by the time I finish the next 2 or 3 games on my backlog it'll probably be time for Assassin's Creed 3 to come out!

So wish me luck.

Currently playing: Mass Effect 3, Diablo 3 and Minecraft (also gaming motivation killer. must. build. lava. moat.)

Current Backlog:
-Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
-Assassin's Creed: Revelations
-Bioshock 2
-Lost Planet
-Portal 2
-Zelda: Skyward Sword

First week in San Francisco

Chilly in SF, borrowing one of the bf's beanies.

I have successfully made it to San Francisco and survived my first full week here!

Squeaks (my kitty) and I flew out the evening of April 30th! Squeaks actually did surprisingly well with the 4 hour flight, I think the sedatives helped. Definitely a lot easier than a multiple day drive would have been. Moving costs added up to about $1k total between flight ($150 for me, $100 for the cat, $50 for two suitcases) and around ~$750 for shipping all of my belongings via UPS.

The weather here has been crazy nice and sunny (though I hear this isn't all that common) and I've actually managed to work up a little of a tan by laying out during the nicer days. Last Thursday at midnight the boyfriend and I went and saw The Avengers (which is awesome and we're talking of going to see again) and then last Friday I went to the San Francisco Giants game with the bf and my roommate (and a bunch of Redditors).

Not only that, I've also managed to find an awesome job and just finished my second full day of work there! I'll be doing QA and some programming for test automation. I'm really excited but also nervous. It's my first time ever doing QA stuff, but everyone at the company is super friendly and I know I can go to anyone with questions or if I get stuck. Plus I'm actually being trained and taught all their systems and products. I think it'll be awesome (and I'll be awesome at it) once I learn more!

Company MacBook means lots of Photo Booth pics!

Big Changes Incoming

Since it's still April and I've been messing around on blogger all day (look at all the purty changes!), I feel obligated to write a post.

Plus my mind is overflowing with thoughts and to dos, so this will be a nice place to put some of it into words. And a good distraction as well, of course.

I packed two boxes today to be shipped off...sometime. I need more boxes, lots of boxes...KL says she can get some from Micah's job so that should help, otherwise I'll just make a trip down to The UPS Store and get some.

Luckily I don't have much furniture, and I've already arranged to sell my mattress and bed frame to Cathy. The futon is mostly trash though I might try and list it for cheap, KL is going to take my one bookshelf and I might try to sell the other two for cheap as well. The fish tank I listed up on Craigslist but haven't had any bites on it yet.

I also booked my (and Squeaks') one-way flight to San Francisco. April 30th. Less than two weeks to finish packing and preparing and getting out of here. I know I'll get it done though, mainly because I have no choice!

I also have a job interview over Skype tomorrow that I am probably completely unprepared for (don't know anything about QA jobs), but I'll try my best at it. Getting a job this early would definitely be a load off my mind.

Wish me luck!

Japan Trip!

Around this time last month I was in Japan. Specifically in Gifu City to visit my cousin, Sarah. She lives there with her husband and two cats, working full-time teaching English. We had been talking about me visiting for years but money and time (or me going to vacations elsewhere like Mexico and Florida) got in the way. But it just so happened that her work contract would be ending this March and thus this could be my last chance to go visit her. So I scheduled a week off in February, booked a flight and went on my merry way!

I was flying into Nagoya, and there aren't many places that do direct flights from the US to Nagoya. I could've done a layover in either Detroit or in Tokyo. I decided to go with Detroit, it was only like $40 more expensive. (My trip was $1280 roundtrip for flights). I actually made the brilliant decision to get completely wasted the night before with two friends and probably smelled of booze and regret during both of my flights. The only upside to this was that I was so absolutely dehydrated from the alcohol that I didn't have to pee! At all. On a 13 hour flight.

That's probably not incredibly healthy.

So I left Chicago on Saturday morning Chicago time and got to Nagoya around Sunday night Japan time. Met up with Sarah and her husband, Mario, at the airport and took a train back to Gifu where we then ordered pizza via their Wii. We didn't get anything crazy, and trust me they had some weird pizza options (shrimp and corn? what the fuck?) but got a normal meat pizza and Sarah got a smaller pizza with mochi, bacon, and some seaweed.

Monday and Tuesday were mostly running around and seeing local things with Sarah and going to this awesome underwear place for a fitting (new bra in a size that actually fits me, fuck yeah). Went to a karaoke booth but I only sang one song because apparently my shyness with that sort of thing extends to even small, close groups of friends in confined rooms haha. Plus they didn't have "Sexy and I Know It" what the fuck? We got delicious parfaits and went to a used game store where I bought a Nintendo Famicom! They had Super Famicoms too and I'm kicking myself for not getting one of those too. Next time I will.

 Want these in my mouth again.

Wall of used Super Famicom games. 

Famicom. Newest edition to my collection. <3

Tuesday night we went to a public bath (woo naked Japanese ladies!), which was super awesome and incredibly relaxing. So relaxing. Especially the outdoor baths, hot water and steam rising up all around you in the cool air. Oh my gosh so relaxed. Slept like a baby that night.

Wednesday Sarah and I took the Shinkansen (bullet train) into Kyoto where we spent the whole day visiting all sorts of different temples. It was crazy busy and crazy fun.

Also, I have a 3DS and had only ever gotten 3 StreetPass tags within the last 6 or so months. Within my whole time in Kyoto ALONE that day I got 60+. It was so awesome.

 Fushimi Inari 

  Fushimi Inari 

  Fushimi Inari 

  Fushimi Inari 

 Rotating sushi place! So good and so cheap! I also tried raw horse meat sushi here.

Kinkakuji Temple/The Golden Pavilion 

 Ryoanji Temple Rock Garden

 Kiyomizu Temple and Kyoto in the background.

We were so ABSOLUTELY exhausted after our trip to Kyoto and walking around all day. I think we walked a total of nearly 12 miles that day. We went to bed early and slept in the next day. Also, once we got back from Kyoto, Sarah checked her email and found out she had gotten the job she had interviewed for in Hiroshima! She's now staying in Japan for at least another two years!

Thursday we took the train into Nagoya so I could do some shopping and buy some gifts! Went to the NHK-Character store and picked up some little Domo figurines for my roommates and a limited edition (Japan is really big on limited edition items) pink, Valentine's Domo. Then right across from there was the Pokemon Center! I was hoping to get a plush Mew but they seemed to only have new Pokemon and all the generation of starter Pokemon as plushes. So I got a Charmander instead. Also picked up KL a little figurine and a Mew and Eevee figurine for myself. (and a Mew and Scyther figurine for my amazing beau and two Pikachus that were in a Valentine's set that fit together all cute!)

Thursday night we headed out to a bar because it just so happened to be my 24th birthday (and to celebrate Sarah's new job!). I had a matcha milk (green tea liquor and milk) and a special birthday drink, a few Asahi beers (like 5), a tequila shot (which they follow up with a lemon and give you no salt) and another weird shot named after one of my cousin's former coworkers. I also got a birthday dorayaki which was DELICIOUS. And I taught Sarah's friend, Toshi, lots of dirty words in English and he taught me lots of dirty words in Japanese!

 Matcha milk and birthday drink!

 Birthday dorayaki!

Self-explanatory.

Most of Friday was spent sleeping off a hangover, then eating amazingly delicious burgers to stave off our hangovers and then going to see Inuyama Castle and a penis shrine!

 Inuyama Castle

 Me at the top of Inuyama Castle

 Tagata Shrine aka the Penis Shrine!

  Tagata Shrine aka the Penis Shrine!

 Tagata Shrine aka the Penis Shrine! 

We got some ramen and headed back home. Woke up early the next morning, packed up all my things and we got on the train back to Nagoya to the airport. After a 13 hour flight to Detroit and an hour flight back to Chicago I was finally home and spent the next few days eating birthday cake (thanks Cathy!) and trying to get over my jetlag.

This picture pretty much sums up my weekend

Dear UPS,

Why do you hate me?

You used to leave my packages, the ones that said no signature was required. But back in May you stopped. Just suddenly you stopped. You even had me sign the doortag once only to leave me another doortag on top of it the next day.

Why would you do that to me?

I mean, I can understand for expensive things like my laptop. But cheap things?

You left my roommates $40+ worth of Mass Effect books (nerd) but you won't leave my $20 Sonic Screwdriver (also nerd)? Why?

You always do it when it's something I really want too.  I tracked the package all day and was home during your "First attempt" but, no, you just must've seen the broken doorbell and said "WELP guess I tried."

I know our doorbell is broken, but that's why the note on it says "Out of Order PLEASE KNOCK." Do you see that big, open window upstairs? Seriously just knock on the door, I can hear it. I can hear my roommates opening the door when they come home, I'm sure I can hear your fist pounding on it.

The FedEx guy figured it out, why can't you?

The most creative way I've been asked out

Yesterday someone asked me on Tumblr what was the most creative way I've been asked out, and I was like "eh nothing really"

But I forgot about this.

There was this campus wide game of tag that was going on my freshman year of college. You were on teams and each week your team was given a new team to target. The thing was, you had to be wearing a red clown nose (I still have mine somewhere I think) before the person saw you and then you had to tag them with the DeTag sticker.

Much fun was had, seeing people running while being chased by someone with a clown nose.

One week someone figured out which dorm room I was in (wtf) and this guy ended up camping outside my dorm room to tag me. I ended up skipping class to avoid getting tagged one of the days that he was there, but another night he slid a note under my door, offering to buy me lunch if I let him tag me since he had no night class and got my schedule and knew I had to leave at some point (kinda wtf again).

Eventually I had to leave for that class, since I couldn't miss it, so I let him tag me. We did end up going out after that and dated for most of our freshman year.

And that's that.

I'm not a very good cook

Hopefully, whoever I end up marrying (hah, unlikely) ends up being someone who enjoys cooking.

Or enjoys teaching someone how to cook.

Or enjoys eating multiple failures of food and telling me it's not that bad and stomaching through it anyway only to throw it up immediately after.

(Just kidding my cooking isn't THAT terrible)

Or maybe I will just spend the rest of my days alone, skipping a real dinner and continuing to snack on fruits and crackers or eating bowls of cereal.

I do like baking, baking is easy. It's precise. It's science for hungry people. Not to mention that most everything you can bake ends up as sweet and delicious future diabetes food.

But cooking? Cooking is too interpretive. "Flavor to taste." Well, fuck, I don't know how this is going to taste once it's done cooking. How the hell can I flavor to taste now?

I can cook a few things, like chicken, I can cook chicken. That's a pretty hard one to fuck up, I think. All I need to do there is branch out and start trying different marinades and shit. I can make good burgers, but I always left the cooking of the burgers up to the grillmaster ex-boyfriend. Pretty much most grillable, red meat items were his duty. Oh men and their grills.

I can also make most common breakfast items (not just cereal) and grilled cheese.

Except that last time I made grilled cheese. Normally I make pretty decent grilled cheese, but last time I don't know what went wrong. My bread didn't toast or burn at all, even though the pan was sufficiently hot. Instead my bread suddenly developed a hole in it, leaking hot, delicious cheese all over the pan.

I then decided that I would rectify this by patching up the bread hole with some more bread. But the only slice of bread left in the bag was one of those end pieces.

Oh well it would have to do, else my future dinner would continue hemorrhaging cheese everywhere.

Eventually the sandwich started to kind of cook, but not nearly enough despite me standing there for what felt like forever waiting for it to cook.

The end result ended up being a decently delicious, yet incredibly ugly looking, grilled cheese sandwich.

I have a problem...

Sometimes I'll start cleaning and can hardly stop myself. I just keep going and going and seeing one more thing to clean.

It doesn't happen all the time, but it seems to be happening more and more frequently.

It'll start out as something small, like I'll wipe up something spilled on the counter.

Which then turns into cleaning that whole section of the counter.

Then all of the counters.

Then all of the flat surfaces in the kitchen.

Then emptying the dishwasher so that I can put all the dishes in the sink into it and then clean the sink; then sweep the floor; then cleaning out the fridge and taking out the trash.

And before you know it whatever it is that I was doing before hand had been completely forgotten and the whole kitchen is now clean.

I find it very therapeutic.

Does anyone else do this too or am I just crazy?

In related news: I cleaned the whole downstairs of the apartment today!

Family Reunion - Saturday

I woke up Saturday morning around 9am.

Actually, that's a lie.

I woke up at 5am and then every hour until 9am because the fridge in our room was making some ridiculously obnoxious noise that sounded like the mix between being hit with a hammer and a coffee maker percolating.

At 9am I eventually gave up on trying to sleep in and got up.

The next few hours were spent showering and getting all pretty and then waiting on my aunt Angela and mom to do the same. Then we joined Uncle Jim, Aunt Julie and my cousin Joey and went downtown to The West Side Market. I LOVED it there. I was drooling at all the fruit and pastries, especially since I had yet to eat that day.

Eventually we met up with a butt-ton of other family members (I think there were 13 of us in total) and we went to the Great Lakes Brewing Company for lunch.

My mom's whole family loves beer (and none of us like hoppy beers/IPAs). My mom and her siblings once bought my grandpa a brew your own beer kit and I remember him having special occasion beers for every wedding and reunion. He stopped doing it now but I hope if I ever get married that I'll get my own wedding brew.  My mom has always made a point to try a new beer whenever she can, which is what encouraged me to do my beer list.

So my mom and I, of course, decided to get their sampler of all the beers they had on tap and share it.

All the beers we got to try. The EdmundFitzgeraldPorter was definitely my fav (I love dark beers), followed by the Market Street Wheat and Wright Pils.

 So good.

What my mother and I decided to do after drinking them all.

After lunch we went back to the market, got some food (mmm cherries), and went back to the hotel where we then proceeded to nap for a while.

After our nap we went downstairs by the pool where the whole family was getting ready to grill for dinner. The next few hours consisted of my Uncle Tim repeatedly asking me if I needed another beer.  Mostly just had Blue Moon (IN A CAN WHAT?!) and Angela had brought some growlers of Sun King Sunlight Cream Ale, which was pretty damned good.

When it got late enough (so that my cousin in Japan would be awake) we Skyped her on an iPad and passed it around so the whole family could say hi! It made it a little better, but I still missed my favorite cousin being there.

As more people started going to bed, the only other cousin who is 21+ talked my two youngest uncles, into playing beer pong. Eventually more family members got involved and I got chosen to be the designated drinker (I don't really play beer pong, I'm terrible at it) for one of my cousins who is still in high school.

Family bonding memories that will last a lifetime...unless you drink too much.

We also tried out our Guinness Ice Cream Float recipe that we had seen online, which consisted of Guinness and vanilla ice cream. It was pretty incredible. The liquid part just tasted like Guinness and the ice cream tasted like heaven in my mouth. Seriously. If you like Guinness and you like ice cream then get on this shit.

Pretty sure I had a mouthgasm from the ice cream part of the float.

One aunt and I also went on a beer run for the group (she was my designated driver!) and we got hit on while standing in line. I'm a pretty socially awkward person so I really don't care for getting hit on, but my aunt was thrilled since she's married with two kids. Hahah. 

After that we stayed up a while longer and talked and drank before we all headed to bed.