I need to take more pictures.

Yesterday, I woke up and went to lunch at Kubo's with Kris. It's pretty much the same as Zen Sushi since they share the same owner except downtown and possibly a bit pricier. In any case, I had the Boston and bagel rolls, both my fave.

We decided yesterday would be a great pool party day so I picked up some ham, turkey, cheese, lettuce, bread, fruit, etc. from Ingles (and Johnny who sliced our deli meat for us). I bought Yance some food and then we went to the gym. I think I'm working myself on the elliptical too hard. My right hip hurts. :( But according to my scale, I lost weight since yesterday. It's that swimming we did. At around 8pm, we went over to Liz's to swim. It was just me, Yance, Kris, and Jordan with some food and beer. Tucker joined us after. It was fun until we got out and Tucker threw me into the pool. Like, he picked me up and took me over to the pool. Luckily, I survived. We went back, drank tea and beer and decided to go to Grey Eagle. Well, actually, freaking Tucker wanted us to go because this girl he's been hanging out with. There was a cover and we couldn't go in anyways because Jordan decided to pee on the tour van and Kris was drinking in the parking lot.

We called up Woody and headed to their place, sat on their porch, and hung out, playing beer pong. The birthday girl roommate and I almost beat the champs in a chick vs. champs game. We were up 1 cup to 4 cups, but we just couldn't make the last cup! :( Darn. In a lame roomies (Nate and Yance) vs. awesome roomies (Woody and I) game, the awesome roomies lost twice. It was okay though because we had more fun. :) Overall, great freaking night. I took the guys home, got them some Taco Bell, and Jordan and I watched "Gran Torino." Though he stayed up, I fell asleep and randomly woke up to make comments. Haha.

I need some new undies. Maybe a trip to Victoria's Secret or Aerie tonight after the gym.

I'm watching "Californication" and must say, I need to work on my body more. Every chick in this show is way pretty even if they're old.

I have so many insecurities.

Particularly in such situations I guess. What situation? I don't even know. Darnit darnit darnit. :(

I know I'm pretty cool, but I wonder if I match up to all the other girls out there. What makes me so special?

I've been trying. Working out everyday. Eating better. Cooking even. What for? Because I want to buy clothes that I like and because I'm ready to be "more forward" as all my friends tell me to.

So the weekend was fun, I guess. Friday was Kris's b-day. I totally missed one of my students' b-day dinners! :( I was focused on hanging out with people my own age I guess. I went over to where they play poker, waited, and went over to pick up Huevos with Tucker but Tucker left me there for like an hour as he did some business. It was okay though because we hung out next door with the super cute neighbor. They were moving out. We played with this creepy crawly head massager - we helped each other out. That's kind of weird but totally awesome! Haha. We finally made it over to Temptations, a bar/small club. We left after one drink to go over to Bier Garden. We saw people we knew. Afterwards, we went back to hang around at some apartments. It was well, interesting.

Saturday, I went over to Grayson's before going to a party. I think that was my first circle of death in years. In any case, we went over to a dance party. I don't dance unless I've had a few drinks. It was slow so Kris, Grayson's friend, and I went to Usuals for dinner. We came back and found more people. Though it was sufficiently fun, particularly for the guys :), I was disappointed. Something was missing. What was it? I mean, I know what it was.

Yesterday was lame. I was supposed to hang out with Jesse before he left but I ditched for something better? I'm such a bad friend. I made dinner for myself (chicken lettuce wraps) and Yancey/Kris (burgers) then Kris and I headed to a gathering. I suck at beer pong, but I'm getting better. I did get better and I had lots of fun. I came home pretty trashed. I had a lot of fun and it pretty much made my weekend. :D

And so, with that, we go back to the beginning of this post and why I have so many insecurities. Thankfully, I got over it a bit. I danced a bit and talked trashed. It was fun. :)

Yancey's birthday + baking

Yancey's birthday at Hooters for fight night - we didn't take too many pictures

Yeah, I have no idea why I'm so hunched over... hunching over is not good.



Cinnamon pull aparts aren't quite right when the 2 parts of the recipe were mixed together (by accident cause the recipe screwed up by not splitting up the brown cinnamon sugar and the flour/dough) and when not baked in a muffin pan. I still need one.

My first keg (and 3 lost cell phones)

I've been to parties with kegs, but this is my first keg shared with Kris, Jordan, and Andrew. We were having dinner, Dos Equis/PBRs/Gaelics, and Jägerbombs at Westville Pub (also my first trip to Westville Pub in West Asheville). The food was subpar. I had a burger (should have gone to Fuddruckers or as they suggested later, Burgermeister's), Kris had a philly cheese steak with too much mayo?, Jordan had a fish and chips (didn't even get his garlic bread), and Andrew had actually delicious-looking mildly-hot BBQ chicken tenders.

Well, as we are talking, Jordan brings up the idea of a keg so we text some people and grab the keg. We have less than 1/4 of it left so Kris is coming over in a little bit to finish it off so I can go get my $75 back. One of the crappiest things about the night was that in the end, 3 people lost their phones. We have never had anyone steal things from our house. There were new people. Yance, Kris, and I talked about this - you need to keep your phone on you. Jordan's iPhone is gone, which really worries me because I saw it late last night when I picked up my laptop from the basement. I placed it on top of the speaker and never saw it again. At that point in the night, we only had people we knew there.

ffffound!

I'm glad my new friends came out to play. No girls though (that one in the picture is just me)... sorry guys. :/


I did a keg stand too. Two random guys and Jordan helped with this event - it was pretty fun.




A couple of them fell asleep... I thought this was cute. The other guys thought I was weird. Now if they were naked too then I would have to leave the room.


Don't fall asleep with your shoes on.


They decided to wrestle downstairs and upstairs. Jordan's bloody knees on our carpet were easier to clean than Yancey's freaking red Kool-Aid. He does not get to drink red stuff again.

Graduation night house parties

Pictures from my camera:

With Chelsea

With Grayson, my new pal


Johnny Huevos (cause he had a "huevos" shirt), Kris, and Yance


Hanging out with my new pals Tucker and Grayson... and this dog.


My new pal Big Tuck


Trevor and I have heard about each other for years now. We finally met.


My new pal Huevos/Johnny


Pictures from Jess's phone and thus, a bit blurry:

A picture of Kris taking a picture of us three


With Andrew at a party on Friday night. I love this picture!


With Jess on Friday night


Okay, this dress is okay if I put something flattering over it. Also Friday night.

Senior week activities

Last day of classes and grades due for seniors today/yesterday. I got my first B in 3 years. Granted, it was a B+ in a 1 hour class. What a bitch. I hate that woman so much. Anyways, I got an A- in history. :( Sad, but I could care less because I got an A in my big education methods course. I didn't even get the perfect attendance extra credit because I missed for the Atlanta trip. So yay me. I worked my butt off. And of course I got satisfactory grades in yoga and aerobics as well as an A in sociology.

After being able to skip classes (thanks to my profs), I went to a JV baseball game in Waynesville/Tuscola. I went because one of my fave sophomores plays (barely - he's right field though) and asked me to go. I told him I would try. I succeeded. Though I didn't go to the band concert tonight when I really could have. :/ You can see where my priorities are... Anyways, the boys lost, but I had fun and I saw #26 was one of my other students.

Then we went out to Barley's for the senior mixer and free pizza. We met up with Alex and friends at Yacht Club afterwards. Then, Liz thought we should visit Meredi. We did until my mom got lost on her way to Walmart. She didn't get very far.

Jay, me, Mer, and Liz after 4 years...

Pain Killer Mondays at Yacht Club

Jesse and I - I look awesome!

**These were after tutoring so I wore the same thing.

Happy 2nd Anniversary (of being roomies)

My roomie and me with our cookie cake!


Svit, Jeff, Cassie, John, Daniel, me, and Liz - aw, we're cute!

Svit nabbed me flowers for free from the Grove Park Inn!

My drinking buddy came to my party not the other one. What a sweetie... even though I give him guff so often.

Celebration!

This is quite exciting. We're having a party. :)

Lock the door.

After last night, I'm pretty sure I need out of here soon. It's not that I don't like it here but there are many places I still need to visit and to enjoy including Atlanta and Austin. Of course I need to visit Austin first, but it seems like a nice place to live. I can't wait for the summer. I'm going to visit Andizzle this summer in NYC and so I'm going to go everywhere I can with the train: Boston, Philly, etc. As I told Andrew, "Everything is so convenient with the train!" Haha.

Friday I went to do some shopping with Liz. We saw Joe and then Jennie so we went with her to her place for beers on her porch. :) Then Stephen and Jess joined us. The ladies walked downtown for dinner at Doc Chey's. Mmmm. It was a lot of food and I have trouble eating leftovers with any veggies because they get soggy. :( Anyways, we went down to Dirty Jack's/Greenman to meet up with my drinking buddy. It was getting late, but thankfull they took us back so we wouldn't have to walk. Jess, Liz, and I went home, speed cleaned (amazingly), and had them come over after. We just watched "Dead Like Me," the movie, which was a litle disappointing and "Role Models." However, we all definitely fell asleep. In the morning, we sat on the porch eating our leftovers... Basically, the weather is gorgeous as of late.

Saturday runs into today at this point. Liz, Yance, and I sat in my room for awhile even though it's the dirtiest room in the house to decide where to go. We might have gone to Spartanburg/Greenville or Haywood Rd/West Asheville, but we picked up Bonnie and Sarah and ate at Jack in the Box. It was the first time for Bonnie! I had these taco nachos that were just okay. Very much like the tacos.

After dropping Bonnie off, we went back to the house and were planning on baking cookies and watching Dexter. The latter happened but we didn't have butter. People came over slowly: CeCe, Kris, Conor and Adam, and Stephen and his friend Joel (who looks like Ryan Lochte and I totally kept playing off that). Liz left though. :( Lame right? She didn't get to help me and Sarah bake cookies once Conor brought us strawberry daquiri mix and butter. :)

Black and white cookies (recipe via Joy the Baker)

When Conor and Adam came back at 3am, we all got a bit trashed until I fell asleep around 5:30-6am. :/ Yikes. I woke up for lunch with Stephen and Joel at Five Guys. Not shabby but not better than In N Out. Maybe because I was hungover and still am. I'm feeling a little better though. Then I followed them to the shooting range. I know very little but I really had a good time learning. :) I shot him in the face and crouch and Kris shot him in the stomach.

Well, all in all, yesterday and today especially made me realize I made the right choice last night and I'm ready to learn and do new things and go to new places.

I love this picture that Kyle developed for me. He's a photography minor and I think he did a fantastic job. :)

I'm going to finish watching "Dexter" and maybe cook some food. It's tough for me to get started on work though despite the fact I have so much! :/

I'm not one to take tests.

It's late and I have to wake up at 7AM tomorrow to finish up my 6th visit to my observation school so I think I'll leave this blog for tomorrow night when I get home.

Quick notes though:

• Thursday night, I went out.
  
• Friday night, I went out.
• Saturday and Sunday night I stayed home esp. since it snowed Sunday.
• Snow day on Monday, but I ate at 12 Bones for the first time, studied with Liz, dinner with Em, and headed downtown for some celebratory drinks. Lizzle got into Vanderbilt for grad school!
• Today, I had two classes. I killed my lesson plan from last Thursday with a 98%, however, I did not really participate in today's Padaeia seminar which made me feel bad. :(
• My moo cards came and I will take pictures of them soon. Apparently, I missed 30 kids - 15 intentionally and 15 not. What to do? Shall I make the business cards? I started making some moo business card sized pictures with names on them instead of studying. :(
• Studying sucks. I haven't studied for an exam in forever. I hope I will do well on this exam though. :( A lot of it feels obvious or repetitive.
  
• I'm going to observe, tutor, take a test, and go to yoga and aerobics tomorrow. Hopefully, I will squeeze in some studying time between observing and tutoring and before my exam. Wish me luck!
• After tomorrow, I'm HOME FREE for Spring Break! I'll let you know about my plans tomorrow! Honestly though, they are NOT quite exciting.
  
• I'm getting 5 hours of sleep, but I've had lots and lots of sleep the previous nights!
  

Achy breaky

1) Saturday was cool. That afternoon, Yancey and I wanted to eat a late lunch, which ended up being our dinner of course. We had no idea where to go but a few texts and calls and we got Liz, Emily, Alex, and Stephen to join us. Yancey got no calls back from his friends. Okay, he did, but they were all working. Psh. We ate at Early Girl Eatery. I was so hungry and so fulfilled by my Sweet Potato Black Bean cakes. Yeah, weird but absolutely yum. I also realized I hate biscuits and gravy, but I enjoy biscuits with jam. Their food was delish and the place was cute. It's on the best street in Asheville, Wall Street. If every road looked like that, we'd be living in England! Haha.

From the tiny storefront, you could never tell that their dining room was so large!

(via Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project)

Look at their glasses! So vintage-like.

(via their web site)

After dropping Liz and Em off, we did homework till late. I didn't realize it was so late. Jessica came over and Yance, Jessica, Emily, and I went out at 11pm. We headed to Hannah's because they haven't been there. Then to Thirsty Monk to meet Conor and his friends Liz and Bron (weird name, cool guy). I always get a little tipsy at Thirsty Monk. I love that place. This is recent since I only started liking beer in November.

2) Last night, Sunday, we watched the WEC fights. Faber won as I mentioned. Dan Lauzon won the night before and I finally got to watch it online. Because we don't have cable, we went over to Sarah's dorm with Yancey's TV (not the huge one but a fairly large 30" one) and Chinese food. It was like a quick party. Haha.

3) Yoga and aerobics kicked my butt today. My back hurt after. I feel good, but it hurts and I'll feel it tomorrow. The chick at Subway's hates her job for sure. I'm forcing myself to stay up because it's fun to do that, but I'm rather sleepy. Oh yeah, I went to Subway instead of somewhere else I was supposed to go because well, I'm annoyed by a certain someone and no one else wanted to come with. Actually, because I didn't want to go, my friends didn't go.

My unfinished lesson plan (due next Tuesday but I have a meeting with my prof this Wednesday) is already 6 pages with just the input. I don't even know if it's possible to get all that stuff done.

My teaching strategies are done. Tomorrow is going to suck. I'm waking up in less than 5 hours to go to a meeting from 8-9am then I plan on coming home for a nap till noon. I will make sure to cut my student teaching application and go over my six teaching strategies so I can teach them to my classmates. Crap, that's a lot. I'll need the nap. Maybe? No no, I won't take a nap. I'll just drown myself in ice coffee tomorrow.

Good idea: take laptop to school, do homework, go to class till 8:30pm, and get drinks with friends at TGI Fridays. I will then promptly go to bed when I come home. Ahhh, we'll see. I may really need the nap. I haven't slept for only 5 hours in FOREVER. Maybe I have when I sleep at 5am and wake up at 10am. Huh... quite true. Let's do it!

I love this web site/project and wish I loved someone more than _____.

Well, this is good response to that (above):
(via your message here)

Buzzed hair, questionable race, diamond stud in one ear - that's what I like

Okay, somehow I decided to wake up at 6:30am? No idea, but sometimes I wake up at this time with things on my mind: I have to cancel my T-Mobile account and pay for last month's bill or I have to find my poster! :( My dad pays for my cell, but since he's out of the country, my uncle pays on his behalf. However, it always seems like a bitch for him to do it so I have to yet I'm not the keeper of my dad's funds. :(

Tons of things on my mind I guess and it didn't get easier because it became 2009. It just makes it harder because I need to think about whether or not I can really teach. I've got the connection, but I'm not a terribly amazing teacher when I'm working with large groups. I love it so I have to work on it. Oh yes, pay for my water bill and credit card! :( Once I get my T-Mobile stuff sorted out, my credit card bill will have a balance of $0. :)

I also have to think about where I want to live. Never thought endless choices would make choosing so tough. Help! I'll discuss this with Peter today after he gets off work and I go over there to watch movies. Woo! Then tomorrow, I think I'm going to Van's for dinner.

2009 started off rather sunny here in the LA/OC vicinity.

Oh, I promised a recap of New Year's Eve. I haven't taken pictures at all since I've come here. Oh well. Okay, so I drove to LA, went to Van's shiny new apartment, and we got ready. We went to her friend's apt, which conveniently is next door to the party. Grey Goose, Ciroc, beer and Bacardi later, I met lots of new people. As I told Albert, Korean people are my favorite Asians. :) Though according to Albert, they don't like anyone else as much. :(

Anyways, it was pretty great hanging out with Asian people for a night especially since this group consisted of hot guys and not so attractive girls. I passed out next to some girl on a bean bag and definitely said random stuff to people. Honest stuff, but since I didn't know them, it was fine. :) For example, I told this guy who I spotted when I walked in that he was the hottest guy there. I then turned to the girl laying next to me and asked, "Right? Don't you think so?!" I don't remember what she said, but I think he just smiled and said, "Thanks." Hah. Cute. He was like part Asian or something and had a diamond stud in one ear. Sadly, his was the only name I didn't get. :(

No more drinking for awhile though. I'm pretty grossed out by liquor right now. Even the mention of it now is grossing me out.

Yesterday, I was definitely hungover. I felt so sick with this massive consuming headache and I couldn't eat anything. I drove home and thankfully, no cars! Amazing for LA. Van came back too so we actually went to dinner... at Albert's. Mung bean pancake things and meat with rice was our first real meal of 2009 besides the croissant with turkey I tried to eat. :) I love his cute family and little 4 1/2 year old nephew. Aw, that's the only reason we visit Albert. Okay, not really.

I'm super hungry right now, but it's about 8am and no one else is awake. Why am I awake?

Drunk twice in a day

I've partied a little too much lately. I consider even little outings partying because I never did so much of that. This past summer was wild and now I have senioritis so I want to relive my youth! Hah.

Yesterday was Papas & Beer. Yes, we keep celebrating our thesis and yesterday was the fourth time. We made plans for Tuesday, the last day before I go back to CA for the winter. :(

So we attempted to get carne asada fries. It wasn't as good as I hoped, but it was a fun experience as Conor had to tear up the carne asada and I tossed it with the fries, sour cream, cheese, and guac. Also, I have developed a taste for beer. I only have room for a little food and lots of beer. I'm pretty sure this is because the history family only go to beer bars and I'm not going to sit there like a party pooper.

TWO 32 oz. glasses and he was fine. I had 2 pints and I was out.

We tried to go to Grove Park but failed so downtown we went to Old Europe!

Bonnie gave me jammies and after lots of fun, Yance came to pick me up. :)


Today involves studying for psych. I have no idea what time my exam is at either. :(

Finals week!

Cleaning isn't happening. Or, it's happening very slowly. :( I hate dishes so much... I think I'll splurge and buy some dish washing liquid to wash the dishes. Vacuuming and cleaning off the tables is also a must.

I'll enlist Yance to clean downstairs. He's over at Kyle's. I decided not to go. I was too excited about cleaning my room (seriously), my new book (Domino: The Book of Decorating), and watching movies ("Father of the Bride," "Just Like Heaven," "Hamlet 2").

Tomorrow is PAPAS AND BEER! :) I'm super excited! I love my thesis family! We went to the thesis dinner and had fun going to Usuals and then Kelly's after. Sadly, I had an 8am final. :(

Kelly made French Onion soup!

Of course, some beer pong...


Oh yes, here are some pictures from the holiday party. Lots of people ended up showing up!
See...