Life is Not a Snapshot

dear SMN,

you are so sweet to call and check up on me with your busy schedule. i hope i will be as humble and loving as you someday

dear freesias and irises,

you didn't last long but it was nice while you were here. thank you for smelling beautifully each morning at our dining table

dear black coffee from strada,

thank you for keeping me wide awake during my 8 am classes. would not be possible without you.

dear chuck season 4 ep 2,

thank you for being sooo much better than season4ep1. i am so excited for this season!

dear josh wilson,

thank you for this song

dear esv,

get here soon! i am impatient....how long does it take to travel from sacramento to berkeley?

dear espana,

just wait a little longer for me....i will be there soon!

Almost convinced myself to drive to campus yesterday. In my defense, the building is a 20 min walk vs. 3 min drive. I ended up walking.

I dressed up like I was going to go to the gym and walked in my new running shoes to class instead. Just because those are wayyyy more comfortable.

Sometimes, I think i like a well made burger and beer more than anything else. and then i snap myself out of being a dude. But what can I say, a well made burger hits the spot so many times.

extremely loud & incredibly close THE MOVIE is expected to release in 2012, wowza.

I am thisss close to driving home for a weekend. I'm scared my mom will find out halfway with her mom-senses and make me turn back around at Bakersfield.

A stranger folded my clothes out of the dryer and placed them neatly in a stack on top of the dryer last night. I wasn't sure to feel blessed or creeped out. Thank you..God?

Psalm 119 is EPIC. I can't go ten verses without thinking about a Hillsong song.

freesias and free irises

Over the past few years, I've come to find things to do for myself in face of a bad day. They've become small parts of my day where I do things for myself simply because. One of them is to get flowers for myself. {Don't. you. judge.} After the gym (which in itself, is something new) I stopped by Moe's flowers to see what he had in store. Ever since freshman year, Moe's has been the only store I've gotten flowers from - I tend to develop these sometimes illogical but strongly loyal relationships with certain stores/vendors because I am a creature of habit, and I'd rather it be no other way. I go in and ask for peonies to which he laughs in amusement (-.- is my reaction.) "You Cal students are so smart but you know nothing about flowers." Yay us. Apparently peonies are mainly in season in April-May and they wouldn't last long if you got them out of season. So instead I opt for the freesias because of a middle school affinity I have to my Bath & Body Works Freesia lotion which they sadly discontinued. More than anything, they smell heavenly. After about a 10 minute conversation about freesias, he added a bunch of irises for free! He also promised me a 50% discount come this Spring for when the peonies do come back. Yayy. Freesias make me smile, free irises are even better.

Guilty Pleasure: Brita

My roommates and I share a Brita filter. I personally really like it because I love drinking cold water. It's the way I think water should be drunk. (Why does that sound so grammatically incorrect?) Anyway, I love filling the brita filter with more water. I don't know why but it is so therapeutic for me as I fill it, and watch the water slowly fill the pitcher. The little black thingies that float around kind of gross me out so I prefer not to peer into the filter, I watch the water slowly but surely rise. It makes me feel full knowing that there's a full Brita pitcher in the fridge :] I need to let the little things in life give me joy, life's too hard when you can't find joy in the small things.

Second one: I like reading a lot of peoples blogs/tumblrs. Sometimes, I like reading them even if I don't know the person too well. If I am drawn to their writing styles I'll subscribe anyway and follow along.

Speaking of soothing... one of my favorite songs on her new album:

Closet: way of learning

I use youtube to learn how to do a lot of things.

There I said it.

Maybe it's because I'm the first child and I didn't have too many people I thought I could ask on how to do certain things. Or maybe it's because I'm too prideful to ask sometimes. (darn you, pride) But I would often resort to Youtube to learn how to do lots of things I was unsure of. One time, Sarah walked in on me learning how to cook spaghetti on youtube. That was embarrassing. I just really wasn't sure what to do with the sauce--cook or no cook. Sigh. Recently, I turned to youtube to learn how to floss properly. And that one I'm not as embarrassed about (honestly) because I learned how to do it the right way and it's been really helpful. Plus, I've been able to educate others around me on how to floss efficiently and in the most...hygienic way possible.

Am I the only weird one who does that?

How much more constant, how much more true, how much more whole.

are You

Whom have I in heaven but You

Earth has nothing i desire besides you

lately, i like

amazon prime

if you are a college student with a working .edu email address, get on it! they are offering a year subscription to amazon prime for free, and it's really worth it. i've been using it sooo much within the past month to buy books and you end up saving lots of money because 2-day shipping is free. if that's not awesome, then i don't know what is.

guernsey literary & potato peel pie society

i still need to get through more of the book to more clearly write why i truly like this book but for now, all i know is that it's beautifully written. there are so many lines that make me just sit there in amazement at the beauty of the way those words are stringed together so seamlessly, and so beautifully. it also makes me laugh because the romance in it is so cute.

magical rice in the rice maker

it's amazing, there's always new rice in the rice maker in this apartment! it's quite convenient...just when you think all the rice would be gone, there's more! makes prepping dinner at least 30 minutes shorter. thank you roommates :D

la times

lately, i've confirmed my opinion that i much prefer the latimes website>ny times website. it's much more easier to navigate through, there's less clutter, columns, and tiny headlines. i understand the legitimacy and prestige of the ny times but their website is just....too much. nevertheless, the timescast videos they upload on the nytimes website is still a guilty pleasure of my nerdy journalism loving side.

crisp weather

two days ago i was wearing a t-shirt, shorts and rainbows and today i'm wrapped up in my northface jacket with boots on. ahh berkeley weather, welcome back.

Honest Confession

Sometimes I keep people on my buddy list [even though I don't really talk to them a lot] because I like the songs they put up on their status. It's one of the ways I discover a lot of good music.

leon the professional

I have terrible memory when it comes to...a lot of things. I can watch a movie and easily not be able to tell you what specifically happened in it a month later. However, after I watched Leon the Professional with Jean Reno and Natalie Portman, when I was around 14, I couldn't shake the fact that it was a wonderful work. I didn't know anything about cinematography, I did not know much about how famous Natalie Portman became from that first role of hers, and I definitely was too young to know that those round wired glasses and potted houseplant would be so highly referenced in many subsequent movies/parodies. All I knew, was that the movie was STRONG (for lack of a better word, ha.) It was gory, but it was just gory enough to leave an impression. It was sad, sad beyond the expression of tears. It was witty, but not as witty as it was the second time I watched it. It invoked so many emotions in me, which is why I remember it so clearly. I can honestly say that I don't think I have watched another movie since that has invoked just as many emotions from me.

Running around in my dreams

Random encounters

Today was a rather good day simply because of the random encounters I had and the conversations that I shared with these people. I trekked 20 minutes all the way across campus for a discussion section that I forgot was not meeting today. Fortunately though, I wasn't the only one who had forgotten this crucial detail and I met a 3rd year who was trying to get into the class. I always am pleasantly surprised when people try to start a conversation with me (except if they're a creepy psycho weirdo and it's very apparent upon the first moment I meet them) because as outgoing as I like to think I am, it actually takes a lot for me to start that first conversation for no other reason than "just because." We ended up talking for a little while, and it wasn't really anything too special but it was just nice that a new acquaintance came out of my forgetfulness and that 20 minute trek in the sun.

Then the second pleasant acquaintance encounter happened in the computer lab where I was printing my reading for my urban ed class. The guy sitting next to my computer stopped me to ask about the article, letting me know that his research is mostly based on the ratio relationship between the incarcerated and those with high school diplomas. I was genuinely glad that I could accidentally help him and his research and that I am once again reminded in these small but significant ways that there is such a need for experienced and skilled educators.

These kinds of days make me happy.

In other news, I got my first football t-shirt. It says This is Cal Football. How exciting weeeee. Here we go bears!