Wednesday, December 25, 2002

merry christmas to all!

in the wacky tradition in which my family does the untraditional, for christmas eve, jenny, jenny's friend sarah, chris, james, wendy, and i caught a movie...two weeks notice, which was funny - because sandra bullock is funny and hugh grant is funny. so, with the two of them together in one movie, makes for a very funny and enjoyable movie. hooray for romantic comedies that feed us more preposterous notions about relationships. one of these days, i'm really going to wake up and enter the real world - but not quite yet.

after the two hours of the fantasyland that is the movie-world, we ate random foods - which included iver's clam chowder and leftover noodles. this has the strong potential to sound sad, but it actually isn't - not so much anyway. every christmas eve for at least the last 7/8 years has been spent in random ways. when we were kids in youth group, a bunch of friends - the ol' jibc crew and friends - would congregate at chris and wendy's and just goof off until it was time to go home. we were the kids whose parents were working at the restaurant, or busy with church events, or busy hosting way too many people at their own house. it was actually tons of fun. the last couple of years have involved movie watching and then scrounging for food. but it's all good, because christmas day dinner is the big thing. the whole extended fam goes out to chinatown and we grub - i think maybe one year we did a potluck...oh wait...i think that was one thanksgiving 3 years ago...nevermind. anyway, anytime the extended family gets together for dinner it's fun, well, mostly fun, especially if the uncles and stuff get a bit sloshed...but it's more funny just because they're usually so proper. :)

and my little brother andy gets back from florida tomorrow - he went with his wrestling team - which i've been banned from making comments about. he doesn't appreciate when i make totally innocent comments about his little outfit...er...spandex uniform. but come on...he couldn't pick a different sport? one where there isn't a fear of getting ringworm and other weird fungi diseases? eh, i hope he got me a present from the magic kingdom :)

Monday, December 23, 2002

it's a little odd being home...but only because most of my time for the last 4 years has been spent in seattle. so when i'm here, i don't exactly have a "home" church, which means i just end up going to whichever church happens to strike my fancy. for christmas sunday, i went to antioch christian fellowship, out in tigard [that's in oregon]. it was nice - it wasn't exactly a traditional "christmas-y" message, but it was good anyway because it was about blessings and being a blessing to others. funny thing is that's two weeks in a row i've heard a message about blessings and such. last week a speaker at our church, rob schwartz, spoke about blessing and even used the same passage from the first few verses of genesis 12. interesting. afterwards, i dropped in a youth kids christmas party - which was a lot of fun, but that's mostly because these kids are just funny. we played guesstures and it was girls vs. boys - obviously the girls won. :) then there was the white elephant gift exchange - which was fun too.

today was much less eventful - a stop to costco to get my brand-spanking new tires onto my car and shopping with my dad for restaurant supplies - i think the checkout guy was horrified by the mass amounts of rice my dad bought. there was a brief stop at old navy - to help shop for a gift for project angel tree - a program that gets gifts for children whose parents are in prison, and some dinner with my parents.

it's very odd...christmas is in two days...yet it just doesn't feel like it's christmas time yet. i can't quite figure out why. maybe i should get off the computer and reflect on that for a bit. :)

...

Sunday, December 22, 2002

wow...though it's been just a little over a week between blogs, it feels like much longer. in the last week - i still got no rest...busy...working, shopping, working, shopping, going to christmas parties... the plan for my vacation is to sleep as late as i can without dipping into extreme laziness, so in essence, sleeping till about noon everyday sounds good. :) it's been a fun week despite the lack the sleep.

the two towers added to my lack of sleep, but it was so worth it...so much fun and enjoyment! aragorn and legolas...enough said. i can't wait to go and see it again. and because i seriously lack any sort of patience, i'm going to read the trilogy while i'm at home...because i need to know how it ends and i can't wait another year until the third movie comes out!

i left for portland and i got home earlier this afternoon...after an extremely inefficient drive home. detour was the key word of the day. i guess being tired really doesn't help, since i kept missing the turn-offs and exits that i needed to take. but 6 hours later, after stops at krispy kremes and an ill-fated search for an alternate route to ikea - i made it home. yay! and then after getting all cleaned up, hitched a ride to a christmas party down in west linn. it was fun, with lots of good food, and very random company. my old roommates were there, and other friends who are back from school or wherever they moved to. and the hosts even prepared party games - with a fear factor type round, which involved caroling to ja hye's parents (who are korean and choir directors no less) to guessing a food purely by it's texture (it was tripe - good job mark!)

and...there are always those kinda funny things that happen at parties, like people... and their quirks...hehe.

Friday, December 13, 2002

double hooray for me again! my last presentation kicked booty. my group and i went down to airborne express headquarters, down near the space needle, and had our presentation in their executive board room - where we presented to our client, our prof, and some airborne people. it was awesome! we were totally smooth and poised, and fielded questions expertly. yay! i'm one step away from total freedom...at least for 3 weeks, until winter quarter starts. i just have to finish the report for the presentation we did today. and then i'm done with my last autumn quarter of undergraduate studies ever!!!

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

hooray for me! my spanish presentation was grr-eat! apparently i still had some leftover animosity that got translated into revved up energy. my classmates told me my presentation rocked - of course i think that their sympathy for the disaster on monday helped. :) so i've got tomorrow left and a paper to write over the weekend. i've definitely noticed that mood has been significantly more cheery with each thing that i finish and don't have to think about anymore.

and of course, there is always that good ol' remedy of retail therapy. yea, i said it. retail therapy. on my way home from the bus stop drop-off, i passed by gotrocks - a semi-new agey store full of rocks, stones, and jewelry, etc. and the pendant that i've been eyeing since before thanksgiving was just sitting in the window - begging me to buy it. it was my christmas present to myself! yay! so pretty...peridot, pink tourmaline, and blue tourmaline set in sterling silver on a black leather cord... fun fun!

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

academic countdown:
  • El nuevo cine latinoamericano Presentation
  • Take-Home Final Essay for Span 322 [Cultural Studies]
  • IS 310 Final Exam
  • I BUS: Importing - Company Presentation
  • I BUS: Importing - Company Report [8 pages single-spaced

    and then it's FREEEEE-DOMMMMMM! [think william wallace - though in no way demeaning the historical and cultural significance of their real fight for freedom of the scottish against the english]
  • Monday, December 09, 2002

    it's my blog...and i'll whine and complain if i want to...

    i think today could easily be one of the worst days i've experienced in a long time. i had a presentation in my spanish class scheduled for today and i spent forever working on it and researching it - granted it was forever last night - until 6:30am this morning. [i think some of my best work is done under this kind of pressure.] anyway, so i only had two hours of sleep and all day long i've been building up my confidence to do this presentation - which was only difficult because it's in spanish and we have so many great spanish speakers in class who are mass intimidating. anywho...i skipped lunch too because i was so nervous and didn't want to take any chances.

    ok, so my 1:30pm, i'm extremely tired, starving, and moody because i'm feeling all PMS-y [i'm sure nobody really cared to know that - but i'm on a rampage...] and there's like 4 people ahead of me who have to present - and each presentation is to be 10 minutes max. this is a two-hour class with a 10 minute break between hours. so...doing the math, all five of us should be able to finish with plenty of time leftover. during the first hour, three people did theirs and then we took a break. at the start of the second hour, this guy went up to do his presentation, which he made sound like it was too short because he mentioned he had a video that was two minutes long. so...he gets up there...and he start his presentation...10 minutes later, he's still going, and 10 minutes after that, still going. at this point, there's like 25 minutes of class left - still enough time for me. yea...like 35 minutes after he started, he finishes up and there's like 11 minutes left of class and i'm thinking, i can totally do my presentation in that amount of time...but no. he pops in his video and at this point i'm thinking...ok...two minute video...i can still finish mine in 9 minutes [with the whole fast talking thing].

    yea...the video clip ran for 10 minutes, and then class was over. i was livid. i wanted to jump up onto the table and taking a flying body tackle at this guy and beat him to the ground until he cried. i know...violence is never the answer...but i was that upset [given my lack of sleep, food, and pms - not to mention the anticipation and nerves i'd had to deal with all day long - which i'll have to repeat on wednesday.] i mean...fury was oozing from every fiber of my being. this was supposed to be one more thing that i could cross of my list and not deal with and i was just a bit crazed that i didn't get to stop worrying about it. well, 15 minutes after class, all my anger evaporated and i was just annoyed. i think i can say a big thanks to God for the quick simmerin' down of the crazy mad. so...what i'm left with is resignation that i'm going on wednesday. *sigh*

    academic countdown:
  • Bodas de sangre Essay - el teatro contra el baile contra el cine
  • IS 310 Web Services Presentation
  • IS 310 XML Homework
  • El nuevo cine latinoamericano Presentation
  • Take-Home Final Essay for Span 322 [Cultural Studies]
  • IS 310 Final Exam
  • I BUS: Importing - Company Presentation
  • I BUS: Importing - Company Report [8 pages single-spaced]

    all of this...by thursday. it's a big lame. and now that i've whined and complained for all the world - or whoever actually skims this - i'm going to find a happy thought that hold onto that for awhile.
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