In the last few years I got used to not really making a deal out of my birthday, not really doing the whole present thing (which was also kind of a relief because I’m so bad at thinking of presents for other people), and mostly figured that as you grow up you just don’t do that stuff anymore.
But you know what? It’s still really nice being taken out to dinner and having the whole cake and song thing, as awkward as it may be at the time.
Tonight I celebrated my birthday with a group of good friends, most of whom I hadn’t even met a year ago. And what really made me happy was that, despite the short time we’ve known each other, they put in the effort and managed to come up with presents that they thought I would like. Not just the perfunctory gift that you would normally get just to show up with something (which would have been totally understandable), but something specifically me.
To think that we started out with just dinner for 2 on occasional Fridays, to a solid group of people that are bound together by nothing more circumstantial than mutual friendships and the enjoyment of one another’s company.
I guess turning 28 wasn’t so bad after all. =)
While I was in Vegas with my parents, we started getting hooked on these TVB dramas that were running on cable TV (we go to Vegas to watch Hongkong shows, go figure).
So I come home and I’m desperately surfing the web trying to find download sites and unsuccessfully signing up for forums that somehow won’t grant me access. Then tonight, while I’m losing credibility watching this trashy dating show (which, by the way, was hella entertaining believe it or not), I realise my mum is watching one of the aforementioned TVB dramas on her netbook.
Me (in shock): ni na li zhao dao de!!!
Mum (matter of factly): tudou lor.
… How heartening to discover, at the turn of the decade, that my mum is more technologically advanced than me.
I’m sitting in a bar at the airport in Boise, Idaho. I haven’t seen ANYTHING here. Aside from my hotel room, the client’s office and restaurants. I might as well be in San Jose. Minus the Asian people.
Anyway, there is something really nice about having your own hotel room. Especially when you’re not paying. I almost feel like a jet-setting consultant (shut up ypyeo).
I had a glass of Riesling with dinner last night and another glass while waiting for my flight. When did I start drinking wine? In the middle of the day no less? Probably because I figured a bar would serve better wine than coffee (which it does, this coffee sucks).
Ok enough rambling, I need to finish this sorry excuse for caffeine and go pee.
I can’t believe it’s already mid October. It’s been more than a month since I last wrote! And it’s less than 2 weeks to my exam! Oh em gee. Excuse me while I panic for a moment.
This is the first Friday in a while that I’ve made it home before 9pm. When did my life become so semi-exciting? Am I getting more socially adept? Less judgemental? Am I just getting to know more bored, friendless people to hang out with?
I finally managed to get my Katana-Ya ramen today, after weeks of craving. Yay! It’s never as good as what you dream of, but it was still good. And we had shaved ice + red bean + green tea ice cream. Can’t go wrong with red bean and green tea. Yum.
I’m interviewing Berkeley students next week. I’m so excited. I already know that I like some of the candidates so I’m looking forward to it. Today I got the intern to come up with some brainteasers I could use for the interviews, and we ended up wasting half the day trying to solve random puzzles instead of working. So much fun, although now I might have to work tomorrow to make up for it hurhur. There was one in particular about powder and rats that I was proud of because we came up with the answer collaboratively (let me know if you want to hear it, I’ll be happy to share!) Anyway it’s nice to have someone else around who likes doing this stuff just for fun. What a good job I did hiring this guy =)
Ok. Time to study. It’s miserable but I have to make up for the time I lost when I idiotically locked myself out yesterday (Germ is my hero! Yay Germ!)
- Went to San Diego for a weekend. My camera ran out of battery after the flamingoes (I’m an idiot). That aside, the rest of the trip was awesome. Played lots of board games. I love board games! Also got to eat at Park’s BBQ again. Yum!
- Finally went to Koi Palace for dim sum, after hearing tons about it. HR got in line at 10:50 and we didn’t get seated until 12:15. Completely overrated and overpriced, although it had good chicken feet. The leek dumplings are nowhere near as good as Great Eastern’s. Never coming here again, when City View is half the distance away.
- Went to see the Zong Guan Xian concert in SJ. They’re all super old but Zhou Hua Jian still has a fricking amazing voice. I don’t think listening to a CD will ever do him justice again. Also got to hear Ai Wo Bie Zou live, which I think will go down as one of my most memorable concert moments in life. This also reminded me again how much I’m becoming like my mum, because I still mysteriously remember lyrics to songs I haven’t heard for more than 10 years which I didn’t even like.
- Inspired by our foray into the old Chinese music of our childhood, decided on an impromptu karaoke session. We left the place at 1:30. I’ve never seen Pacific East Mall so dark!
- Due to a strange chain of thought (I think it was because this happened when I was waking up and you tend to think strange things when you’re waking up) I impulsively made an appointment today at a random salon on J-town that I found on Yelp. I was so excited. I took a bus there all by myself and stuff (don’t laugh ok, I’ve taken buses in SF maybe 5 times in my life and it was always with someone else). The salon was nice and clean and full of Korean people. I’ve never had a hair cut at a nice place before because I’m too cheap. Anyway it turned out ok. The lady I got was really good but I blame myself for not describing what I wanted properly. I can’t wait to go back again to try something else out!
In conclusion, Zhang Zhen Yue is how hot on the drums:
I really like English muffins. They’re my ideal toast and they make my sandwiches taste good. So one day someone asked me, if English muffins are English, do they just call them muffins in England?
So I had to ask my trusty British colleague about this, and as it turns out, English muffins in England are actually called crumpets. Isn’t that awesome?? CRUMPETS. I love the word. Germ doesn’t agree but I love how it sounds so Enid Blyton.
‘Would you like some tea and crumpets?’
‘Jolly well!’
Ok I realise this may not be very exciting for you, especially if you don’t even like English muffins. But contemplating crumpets is way more fun than working over time!
Gmail and Facebook are both going nuts on me. I’m a bit worried that it’s just me. The other day I was trying to visit my old deep-ice blog, and my computer warned me that it was a danger site, but I went anyway. Now I’m all paranoid that my computer is infected with something =(
In other news, BART is going on strike on Monday (there are some spelling errors in the article but it’s suitably angry). Bloody idiots. Guess it gives me an excuse to work from home for a day at least, but I’m super busy next week and can’t really afford to be out of the office too much. They better settle this soon. My time is too precious to be dealing with this shit!
I was reading old journal entries last night, and realised that I’d written about so many things that I’ve already forgotten about. I’m glad they’re recorded somewhere. So I’m inspired to write more frequently now. We’ll see how long this lasts!!
Not sure how many of you remember our friend Raymond, the chao bin (sp??) guy who used to work in Sweetheart Cafe in Berkeley. In recent years we stopped seeing him there, and figured he’d move on. Then last year I went to Sweetheart Cafe in SF Chinatown, and guess what? There was dear old Raymond behind the counter, serving bbt with his usual sour disposition! So I figured, hey he got transferred to the SF branch, it sounds like a promotion right? Good for him!
Then last week, Germ and I visit the new Berkeley Bowl on 9th and Ashby. We are disoriented with the new layout, annoyed with the slow lunch meat people, and anticipate the same subpar service at the cheese counter. So we’re standing around waiting for our cheese, when what should cross our line of vision but that ever present frown framed by that oh so familiar fobby centre parting? It is Raymond, now arranging dairy products at the Cheese Island!
What a mystery. Has he been fired from the Sweetheart chain or is this just a weekend stint? Has he finally moved on to better things and healthier food products? Is this the last we’ll see of him??
We may never find out.
I really really really really really don’t want to be working right now. I shouldn’t complain. I left work at 6:30, had good Indian food for dinner and Ici for dessert, got distracted looking at photos on Facebook and returned to my laptop at 11pm. So I’ve only really been working for 15 minutes. But it doesn’t change the fact that I really really really really really don’t want to be working right now.
So I was looking up restaurants for dinner this Thursday (it will be a fun event but I’ll only talk about it if it produces good results). This restaurant looked really promising (4 stars on Yelp! with 217 reviews), then I clicked on the restaurant’s website here.
….. Ok. How credible is a place that apparently doesn’t pay its website bills??
I’m a bad person. A friend just called me crying because her boyfriend had broken up with her. She said she didn’t know who else to call, and I failed her by being totally useless. I didn’t know what to say at all (plus she was crying so hard that at some points I couldn’t really tell what she was saying, so I might’ve ended up giving wrong responses) I tried to give some cheering up advice that probably added zero value.
Sigh. How depressing. What does one say in such a situation? On one hand I’m really sad for her because I know how much she cares about him. On the other hand, I think it’s probably a good thing considering how unhappy they’ve both been. Which made it even harder to say something meaningful, so all I ended up being able to say was It’ll be ok.
Then I hung up after 8.5 minutes. Well, I didn’t hang up, she made the move to hang up and I didn’t really object. Was I supposed to object? Should I really let her cry it out on her own over the weekend? Should I have been more insistent about hanging out tomorrow so she wouldn’t spend it moping at home? Or maybe what she really needs is to cry it out of her system and move on with life?
It’s a really crappy feeling wanting to help and not being able to do a thing =(
