Week #69: BACK IN TAMPA! (08.18.14 - 08.24.14)

Monday was a day full of excitement! First I woke up exhausted and headed for dim sum with some friends since Ambar returned from Taiwan, it was Alex, Zhanzhy, Albany, Ambar and me :) We had a really good time and a nice long chat, we stayed at the restaurant for about three hours! After that Alex and Ambar came over to my house to just chat and then they left. Dorianne called me to go out with her and Vicki and we went to Multiplaza. At first I wasn't really feeling it, all I wanted to do was chill at my place of Dorianne's and just talk but it was really fun. We window shopped, Vicki got her hair done and then we came back. I just love Dorianne's spontaneity, we decided to workout and went for a run at her neighborhood followed by weights and toning at her house. I had dinner also at her house and it was good. I also saw Allan, and he was in his undies... didn't feel awkward though, he was kind of playing it cool haha. We headed back home and I bumped into a Chung San Jr. meeting at my house and it's always a pleasure to hang out with Beto.

On Tuesday I woke up extra early and my parents and I went to my grandparent's because they were going to take my mom and dad to the airport, I woke up around 8 am after not sleeping at all due to a midnight (actually 2 am) visit from Vicki and Dorianne. I slept on the way back from the airport and then I plopped on my grandma's bed until 1 in the afternoon where I had lunch and hung out with Patty when she came back from school. We also went for dinner, me, my grandparents, Tia Marilu, Patty and Cristy at Golden Unicorn. It was really yummy :)

On Wednesday I did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge which is a challenge promoting the Association for Escleorosis and the goal of the challenge is either you pour a bucket of ice and water on top of yourself or donate money and Patty and I did both. We both poured buckets of iced water on us and then donated $5.00. Then I showered and went straight to the airport where I didn't have to do any check in because I had no luggage and I had checked in online. I had no luggage because my mom and dad took it with them, smartest idea my dad've had! I read and slept on the flight and landed at around 10 or 11 pm. 

On Thursday I moved in into my new apartment, I did the cheek in which was pretty fast and moved all of my stuff from the storage container to my room. I'm pretty happy with my room, it's pretty big and clean and perfect. I still want to live off-campus though. We fixed everything on its right place so I could write down what I still needed and go shopping. We went to Walmart, Target and Bed Bath and Beyond and stock up on everything I would need. And after a hard day's work we had a well deserved dinner at Olive Garden. 

On Friday we went to see a couple of apartments off campus, we first went to The Province and at first that place was my second choice but after seeing The Flats at 4200 it's my first choice now. My mom and dad also like The Province a lot because it looked classier. After apartment hunting we headed to the mall to see if we could replace my iPad, I went fully convinced that I'd have to pay $250 because of water damage but when they inspected my iPad it had no trace of water so they gave me a brand new (refurbished) one for free! You have no idea how happy I was, that honestly made my whole weekend. I did a little shopping at H&M and Forever 21 as well and then we headed again to Target because there's always something to buy at Target. 

We had not much planned for Saturday since it was our last whole day together so we kinda just went with the flow. We had lunch at IHOP which was great and then went for more shopping, lol. My dad as you know is a Walmart fanatic so he had to go one last time, and he decided to go to the very ratchet one on Fletcher and it was a really scary experience. I will never ever want to go to the Walmart, nothing serious happened but it was so crowded and ugh I just can't even. My dad went headphone shopping and that was kind of the whole day's mission: find headphones for my dad. He ended up buying $11 phillips earbuds haha. We had dinner at Chili's and it was delicious. 

On Sunday my mom and dad dropped me off and headed for Orlando to catch their flight and I started unpacking all my clothes and unlike last year, this year I've got TONS of closet space and I'm so happy! I spent most (the whole) of the morning catching up on my YouTube videos, read some HP, made me some lunch (frozen pizza, because my roommate threw out my Olive Garden left overs /:) and prepared myself the yummiest green juice (it was really green from all the spinach I poured). 

Here are some pics of my new dorm room:

Week# 68: MYSTIQUE 2014 (08.11.14 - 08.16.14)

On Monday, my first free day the remaining of the summer after working I didn't do much, I continued working on the video I was assigned, and read some Harry Potter :) I discovered a really healthy way of juicing without buying a juicer and that is blending the fruit with no water or anything at all, just fruit and then strain it and voila! It's really good and I'm so excited to start eating healthy again! I bought a bunch of lettuce to make some salads this week :) Alex was supposed to come over and have a bake date but she got here late because she was at lunch with Ana and Adrianna... so she just came over to talk -bummer.

On Tuesday there was a Debutantes practice in my building so I went down and worked on some videos with my aunt's help. It's coming pretty good. Besides doing the two opening videos now I have to do tons of new stuff, among: sponsor's video, girl's power point with their names and photos, a power point for the central screen, the white dress video times four for each group, the finale video, and the power points for all the prizes with their contributor... That's more than I signed up to honestly.

On Wednesday I had the whole day planned to be with Rod, we were going to the movies and watch Guardians of the Galaxy but Tio Lancho called telling me I had to pick up the girl's recordings and take it to his house for their meeting, and I was so pissed because that's definitely NOT my job. my job is not to pick up stuff and take them to somebody, my job is solely to edit videos and there was I doing someone else's job. That made us late for the movie and we missed it and I repeat: I was so pissed. After picking up that CDs I went and visited my grandma (Popo) before leaving for Tampa and I brought Rod along for them to meet. Because we missed the movie and Tio Lancho had asked for me to edit everything so he could run it at the meeting I rushed and edited everything while Rod hung out at my house and gave it to Tio Poncho to take it to Tio Lancho's house. What made me even madder is that Tio Lancho didn't even bother watching the fucking shit I had been working on the whole afternoon, the reason I had to miss one of my last dates with Rod and I'm still pissed at their lack of respect, consideration and organization.

On Thursday I went early in the morning to Alfavinyl to finish working on the videos since Tio Lancho asked me to and we worked on it. Tia Sandra, Tia Rosa, Alan Emilio and Dorianne came over from time to time to work on their stuff too (well, not Dorianne haha she was just hanging out). Alan Emilio bought us some pizza and I kind of finished the important stuff. The whole point for this was for Tio Lancho to take the videos to the company in charge of running them and that's why I woke up so early and worked on them as fast as I could for Tio Lancho to not do anything with them... Not even bothering to watch the whole thing. Tia Rosa kept bursting into the office yelling and pissed, and Tia Marilu and Tio Lancho kept telling her there was nothing to be pissed about but Tia Rosa was already on fire. After a hard day working -that made me miss my third re-schedule of my bake date with Alex- we headed to the practice, I picked up Patty at Apo's and drove to my house. At 8 pm me and Rod went to Friday's to have our last date, the service was awful but I had such a fun night with Rod! It doesn't cease to amaze me every time after a date with him how much fun we have together, I swear I never stop laughing with him. This evening's fun topic was: winking. Haha I just love how he winks and we kept winking the whole evening. After dinner we headed to Juan's farewell party since he's leaving for Taipei because he won the scholarship! I saw so many old and current friends and although I didn't stay for long it was really nice :)

On Friday we went to the hotel and checked in. My mom, grandparents and I were to share a suite at the hotel -which was huge. We had lunch at "soy..." the sushi place at the hotel and it was so good! The best cheesecake I've had for sure, and sushi too. I had a banana and guava cheesecake and it was absolutely glorious. After lunch, which took longer than expected, we headed to the convention center to see what was going on and to prepare what needed to be prepared. I went to try the videos but the big screens hadn't arrived and the video guy didn't have the software to try it out either so I rushed editing the videos and going there early for nothing. I stayed for the practice and helped in what I could. Dorianne, Alex, Brandon, Mafe, Mei Lin, Agustin and Esteban came to watch the practice so we hung out for a bit. For dinner I wanted to make use of the room service we had so I went back and had a delicious Sancocho at our room. The practice finished at around 1 or 2 am and we plopped to bed.

On Saturday, the big day, I was woken up by Acun shaking me. We went to breakfast and it was really good, there was a great variety and quality in the buffet. We headed to the convention center and it was the last and must day to try out the video, they had problems with the screens and such so I waited from 11 am until about 5 or 6 pm to finally try out the videos! It was really stressful. I did my own make up and tried to go for a cat eye. Alex didn't approve but I was actually proud of it. I spent the whole night in my Sperry's because I was running around from edge to edge. The show went perfect, except for the audio mess up in which the audio guy played the wrong recording on a girl. Tia Rosa came running to me to complain and I pointed out the audio guy was next door. Tia Rosa and Tio Lancho kept running to me with every audio problem and I always had to point them towards the audio guy... It's like they thought it was my fault. Anyways, I loved how the screens looked with the show and I'm so fucking proud! After the show I went back to me room with Brandon after a few round of greetings and small talk. We picked up my Apples to Apples and headed back to the convention center, as we arrived Dorianne pulled me over to accompany her while she dropped Nicole Cam and Karina at their houses. We got back at around 2:30 am and went over to David Chu's hotel room where Brandon, Priscilla, Juan Camilo, and Grace were hanging out. We had some food, talked and played Apples to Apples. At around 5 am I headed back to my room and finally slept.

Week #67: Done With Work! (08.04.14 - 08.09.14)

Monday was such a dread to me, I've started not eating breakfast at home but taking it in a doggie bag to eat it at work and gaining a little more sleep. Now I wake up at 7 get ready in 5 minutes, sleep until 7:40 (that is a 35 minute nap), brush my teeth and leave.

Tuesday - Thursday: I swear I'm not on drugs or anything but I cannot remember anything aside going to work and having Rod over one time and playing video games with him.

Friday was my last summer working day! And I was payed in a check because they had no cash so that is my first paycheck! I culminated my job earning $400 over a one month lapse. Everybody was upset of my leaving and I had such a great time and met so many great people. But I was also so excited to be finally on a non-working schedule where I can stay up late and wake up early. Later I went to a Debutantes' practice and was told I had to edit the video for the whole opening show so we got together and brainstormed some ideas and I started working that same night. 

The next morning on Saturday I continued with the video before going to lunch, and after lunch I kept editing. Brandon texted me asking if I wanted to hang out, I told him I was doing a video and if he wanted to come over so he came. It's always so fun to talk to him, I feel so at ease and I really hope he decides on USF so we can hopefully live together and don't feel so lonely. I took what I had to the practice and showed it to Carlos and he loved it, Tia Marilu was criticizing of course (my grandpa's daughter...) and some of the other aunts like Tia Rosa asked to see it but didn't even bother to see it through. Then my mom and I decided to have some dinner and we went to La Nostra Pizza for some pizza :)

Week #66: CHARADES! (07.28.14 - 08.03.14)

On Monday I went to work, and it's getting harder and harder to wake up in the mornings; now I'm sorta swallowing my breakfast in one swallow to be able to sleep in for another half an hour. Today was a pretty slow day at work, Aracely left at around noon to do some errands so I was left alone in the office. At 2 pm Tia Marilu called telling me I had to pick up Patty from school at 3, so when I told my boss (my aunt's friend) she told me to close up the place at 3 as well. So I went to my cousin's school and I didn't see her anywhere, I asked around and they told me that tenth grade students were to get out at 3:30 so there I was waiting in the car for half an hour. At 3:45 I saw some girls getting out and I spotted Izabel, one of Patty's friends, so I asked her where was she and she told me that she had left on the bus earlier... Rod came over later in the evening and we just chilled, and as usual I sneezed quite a lot.

On Tuesday I went to work as usual, I was expecting a visit from Alex... but she bailed on me yet a thousandth again, she had cramps. So I just chilled until my mom told me to get ready to go to this Chung San Jr. meeting at my high school's library. We got there early on purpose because they were having this thing and we knew they would have free food so I had dim sum for dinner, yummy. The meeting went well and I gave off great ideas, one of them is actually going to go for this BBQ we are planning in motives of the Moon Cake Festival.

On Wednesday I started using this new pacer I downloaded on my iPhone that counts your steps and gives off the calories you burn and the active time which I think is pretty cool so I kept walking unnecessarily at the office. I didn't realize how little we exercise when working or having a normal day at home. So I started reading my books while walking which has helped my number of steps :)

On Thursday I had for breakfast a really good juice I made myself the night before, I blended real oranges with spinach and then collate it (is that how you say it?) to make the thickness go away and the result was so smooth and so good! I really can't wait to have my own juicer. At work I had a bit of assignments but towards the end of the day I was left reading Harry Potter news on Buzzfeed - btw. Happy birthday J.K. Rowling and Harry! Rod came over and we had the funnest night yet this summer! We played PS3, Little Big Racing, and it was so much fun! And I can't still believe it but I beat Rod a couple of times.  

TGIF! I wait all week for this day just so I can stay up late and wake up later than 7 am :) I went to work as usual, and had my favorite for lunch, reheated homemade fish. Just when I was driving back to the office it started pouring, that kind of rain you can't see the horizon aw... And I had to drive it to get to work, I almost called saying I'll be there when the rain sets off because I'm pretty sure the boss would be more worried about my safety than me helping her because that's the kind of person she is and I'm so glad of that. After work I decided to go to another Debutantes practice since I had nothing better to do and after five minutes being there I completely regretted it... Just as all the previous times I've done the same thing. Although I was bored 90% - 5% being with Austin and having several laughs and the other 5% hanging out with my favorite cousin and her best friend Izabel, gosh I cannot do justice in expressing my love and gratefulness of having Patty as my youngest cousin. She's just so like me in so many ways and we can just laughs for hours and hours, like tonight we were just laughing about pregnant women being fat and fat women being pregnant and after a while her friend was like "are you still talking about pregnant women?!". It's like the simplest topics takes us a rely long way and we can never stop laughing. We just click together so well and we kind of finish each other's sentences sometimes and even buy the same clothes or have the same meal for dinner and eat it halfway through each.

The most amazing thing happened last night! So you know the story of my iPad and my water bottle inside my backpack in a plane right? I was devastated of the iPad not working anymore... Last night when I was comfy in my bed ready to dream of goodies I thought "what if God recompenses me for giving away this comfiness in fixing my iPad?" So I stood up and took my iPad out of my drawer and plugged it in. Amazingly, I saw the white Apple glowing in the middle of the screen! I ran to my mom's room and told her to come immediately and when we both got to my room we saw the little white apple change into my background picture! I started jumping and screaming of happiness, I even opened Hay Day and it worked perfectly! So after all the jumping and screaming was over and my mom went back to her room and decided to unplug my iPad since it had 70% on its battery life... and then it died again. So after lunch I went to El Dorado to see if they could revive the iPad but their outcomes didn't sound very convincing so I decided to send it to Apple. At night (or should I see afternoon), all the losers gathered together at Rod's and we watched Tarzan, played poker, made wantons (for real! And it was really good), and played charades right at the end. It was a really really amazingly good day. 

On Sunday I had to wake up around 10 to go to this Debutantes' workshop, I had to take pictures of course. They went through four workshops! And it was boring as hell, the up side is that I got free food (it was kind of plain though, I only liked the soup). 

Project ME - 2014

So throughout the years I've noticed that my likes, dislikes, perspectives, and goals change dramatically from year to year (even from month to month!) so I decided to write everything related to "me" down each year in the month of August since that's when I have free time to explore myself because of the summer vacation. 

I'm obsessed with:
Generally - Harry Potter, TMNT and Jelly Beans
Book - Harry Potter
Role Model - Albus Dumbledore
Movie - The Notebook and Harry Potter series
TV series - Keeping Up With The Kardashians
Youtube - Itsjudyslife, dailyBUMPS, vlogbrothers, WULAS, PointlessBlogTV and Jim Chapman
Website - Buzzfeed
Hobby - Running and reading
Food - Zoodles and mac and cheese
Drink - Water!

Pet peeves right now: Mom not knocking before coming in

Stage in my life: Just got back from Europe - started a new job - going into sophomore year

Goal for the next year: Have amazing grades, start vlogging and live in an apartment off campus

Goal I'm pursuing right now: Eating healthy, exercising and get good grades in next term

Goals reached so far: Running a 5 k, running 10 k and earning money

I want for christmas/birthday/presents in general: Lighting for videos, books, Harry Potter stuff, and a Wii U

Most amazing experience so far: Going to Europe by myself and meeting the most amazing people

Today's picture: