Week #46: SPRING BREAK 2014! (03.10.14 - 03.14.14)

Monday we (Alex, mom, dad and I) went to Busch Gardens, and we rode every single roller coaster except Guazi because it was closed. It wasn't cold or hot or rainy so it was an awesome day; however, it was kind of full. It's been the fullest I've seen the park since August, and it most be because it's spring break. We had an awesome time and after a long day we headed to Olive Gardens for dinner :) Before going to Busch Gardens we ran a few errands (USF credit union stuff) and I gave my dad and Alex a mini tour of the university.

On Tuesday, Alex and I went to Adventure Island! I bought the Fun Card which is good for a whole year! I'll definitely go there later on to relax in the sand or something. It was a lot of fun, we were alone because my parents decided to take the day off. We went on every single slide and they were so cool! Adventure Island was also kind of packed but there was no line longer than 10 minutes. After a tiring day at the water park we went to an all-you-can-eat-hibachi-and-sushi restaurant called Koizi, just outside my parent's hotel. It was good and worth it, I would love to go again to that place. 

On Wednesday we all went to downtown and I redeemed the vouchers for the Miley Cyrus concert I was given by the USF Housing Office! I got 4 tickets for the concert for free! We also went to the mall and had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, it was hummers :) I had a Reese's Cheesecake. Then it was shopping time and I had a blast, I bought a lot of stuff and I love it all. I even got my denim jacket I've been wanting. At 8 pm we headed to Bern's Steakhouse, a place my dad has been longing to go since forever. And he being there was just like watching a kid in a candy store, it was rather cute. The food was delicious, and I really loved the baked potato. 

On Thursday we went to my first New York Yankees game at the George Steinbrenner Field and it was so awesome! We all went navy blue and white (except for my mom) and we sat on the first base side, row N seats 11 - 14 (almost at the end of the stadium). The seat were pretty cheap, $29 each. I had a pizza for lunch and it was better than expected; I even like it better than the pizza I had for dinner at a fancy restaurant, Maracroni Grill. The game was against Baltimore Orioles and we won 6 - 0, I still am a Boston Red Sox, but in this game I was rooting for the Yankees. Before the game we stopped by Barnes and Nobles and I bought a couple of things, including a Calculus II for Dummies, LOL. After the game we went to Whole Foods because I wanted to see what was the big deal; it had a lot of cool stuff but I felt it was over prized. We then went to Target in search of some rain boot and I found everything but rain boots, *sigh. 

On Friday we had lunch at On Top of the Palms, a buffet on the third floor at the MSC. The food was not that great but the soup was pretty good, it was corn bisque. Afterwards we went to Busch Gardens for the second time, we got there a little late, around 2:30 and we saw the Iceploration show and rode a few roller coasters. We then had dinner at Chili's and I tried their chicken enchiladas for the first time and it was amazingly good :) Then we went to Publix to do some grocery shopping and I bought quite a lot, I even bought 12 packets of ramen... haha. But I'm happy with our trip to Publix because I got to buy tons of stuff all at once, and I got a lot of fruits! It's gonna be a healthy start next week to detox all the junk I ate this week :)

Two Main Types of Friendship

Along the years and the many different types of friendships I've had I can talk about two that really stand out: girlfriends and SOS BFFs. Personally I have both types of these kinds of friends, and I like them both, but I do classify myself in one of those categories. 

GIRLFRIENDS

These are the kind of BFFs you always find reading about in YA books, where the best friend always comes before the boyfriend. Currently I'm reading one right now lol. I find myself in this category, where I like to keep up with my friendships on a weekly basis, either texting, or skyping. I consider friendships a very important bond considering all I've been through and since then I've learned to never let them go or consider them in the palm of my hand. 

SOS BFFs

SOS BFFs are the kind of friends that are close to you and can go without talking to you for months and when they talk to you everything feels the same. No hard feelings, and mostly joy overflowing after months of not seeing each other. 

What happens when you mix these two kinds of friendships is chaos. The girlfriend thinks the SOS doesn't care and the SOS thinks the girlfriend is suffocating her. The key to this relationship, as to every other, is to compromise. To compromise, respect and tolerate each other's belief. 

Week #29: Beach on a Monday (11/11/2013 - 11/17/2013)

Monday was Veteran's day so we got the day off. Armando invited me to the beach with his friends from Castor, Kiley took Armando, her boyfriend and I to Treasure Island where we met with her roommate Adrianna and her boyfriend Alberto. It was the kind of day to lay down in the sun so that's what we did for the first half hour or so. Armando was in the ocean so I stood up and went over there to cool off but the water was as Armando says "cold as my ex wife" in his scale of 1 to ex wife. Armando and I played some Frisbee and let me tell you I improved with practice. It felt weird being in there because it was two couples plus me and Armando and I definitely felt like a third wheeler, plus the fact that my shyness and being new to the group made me even more introvert. I kind of wanted to leave at some point, when Armando fell asleep and it was just me and the two couples but I just took it like a big girl. I really enjoy being with Armando, but it's really hard for me to make new relationships, like REALLY hard. Today Rod started his new workout routine, which I basically arranged for him and I'm gonna remind him every night to do his workout.

I have a lot of things in my bucket list, and one of them is to write a book. A couple of days ago I started writing this book about a name girl Elise, and this is the longest I've kept writing a book. For now is seven pages long and about to start the third chapter. I wrote the second chapter on Tuesday after having lunch. After class I went to the library and finished my chemistry homework, as a reward I went to Starbucks because I was craving a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Frappe, but they don't sell it anymore! :( So I had to deal with a Double Chocolate Chip Frappe, which was so-so. At 5 PM I met with my Foundations for Engineering Lab group and we just built the slinky iPhone holder in about 5 minutes, we'll get together again on Friday to make the video commercial.

On Wednesday the weather was super cold, not a lot but still, it was around 17 C but it was very windy. It was also a bad choice to just wear a cardigan and leggins. Today was just another common day, the highlight of my day was honestly being the last in line to get French Toasts. The server served about 6 french toast sticks to the guy in front of me! So I got what was left which was one whole stick and like 6 nuggets of toasts. The night was so chilly I opted to go back to my dorm in the BullRunner. I also skyped with Alex today! I guess that could be the second highlight of my day, she asked her mom if she could come for spring break and her mom says that that is a good idea! I'm so excited! :)

On Thursday Sara and I went to the Metropolitan Ministries for volunteering and we got assigned in the kitchen today. I saw Juan, the guy kind of in charge of the kitchen and he remembered me! I remembered I'm from Panama :) We made sandwiches and cleaned the kitchen. Today was also out last chemistry lab! We finished an hour and a half before time and our TA, Justin, didn't let us out until it was time so we just hung out watching vines and stuff. I learned about something called Raw Diet, which is eating like a vegan, but like food that is not processed either so like not cooked vegetables; and let me tell you, I'm kind of interested in that. For this week I'm gonna be a full vegan, eating raw. This weekend I'll go out and buy some fruits and veggies from Sweetbay and a blender from Target. I want to change, and I'm inspired because I weighted myself today after two and half months and I'm over 3 pounds heavier! I wanted to become skinnier in college not thicker, although I do see myself skinnier which can be the muscle adding pounds, but still there's a lot lo loose.

It's Friday and the USF Study Abroad Office finally uploaded the 2014 course list for next summer! I'm so excited, I saw a fine arts course that I really liked it's a Collage Workshop, and I also want to enroll in the Breads of Italy and Italian for Beginners courses. So all those courses are on Session A which is from May 18 to June 28. I also decided to begin my raw diet today so I went to Sweetbay after chemistry and bought 5 apples, 4 peaches, two pouches of cashews, some bananas, strawberries with whip cream, baby carrots and celery. I had the strawberries and whip cream for lunch and I am full! For dinner I kept going with my raw food diet and had an apple and a peach, but I was getting tired of the flavor so I dipped them in whip cream. It's going to be hard to heat fruits and veggies without whip cream :( I was supposed to meet up with Chad and Nick to do our Foundation of Engineering project but Nick is out of town so I'm just chilling in my dorm. At the end of the day I consumed less than 1500 calories and I feel kind of full so I guess it was a good day. I also drank nothing but water today!

Also a couple of weeks ago I sent a package to Alex in Panama with a bunch of little presents because her birthday is this Sunday. I sent it to my grandpa's address and got Brandon to give it to her at FSU. She got it Thursday and it felt awesome :) I also sent Rod a couple of t-shirts for his birthday since his birthday is one day after Alex's. Among Alex's gift I bough a USF t-shirt, 3 pairs of thighs, whoppers, an EOS lip balm, a poster for her dorm that says "keep exploring" or something like that, and a bunch of other silly gifts.

Week #16 (08/12/2013 - 08/18/2013) - Last Week in Panama

On Monday I went to my last doctor's appointment before leaving to get my last shot against some disease I don't know its name. There was something going on in Calle 50 on our way to the hospital and police cars where heading towards us. Policemen were wearing gas masks and had body shields, it looks like some professors were protesting in front of a government building. It took us over an hour to get to the hospital but we made it, I got my shot and then we headed back home. On our way home we stopped by Blockbuster so I could rent some movies and store them in my external memory to take to Tampa but I didn't found anything I liked. For dinner we had some pizza. Talking about food, my mouth still hurts and it's very difficult for me to talk or smile. It looks like I have a couple of cuts in the edges of my lips because of the dryness the day of the surgery and that hurts too.

I forgot to mention that over the weekend I finished reading "45 pounds" by K.A. Barson, and it was really hmm bad. I give it 2.5 stars. After that I started reading "This is Where I Leave You" by Jonathan Tropper, this book is kind of the ones with a low start, kind of "It's Kind of a Funny Story". Today, Tuesday, Rod came by and we hung out as always :) He had to leave early though because he had a final project to begin and to finish by tonight, two projects actually.

Wednesday was a really fun day! I went to my grandpa's to use his studio to take pictures with Alex (which you can see HERE), and we had a lot of fun :) This was like our farewell activity for the two of us. Panama's traffic was horrible and I had to pick up Alex, I had to go all the way to the Cinta Costera to end up in Calle 50 to go back to Via Israel to come back to Calle 50 and cross to Via Porras, Panama's traffic is madness itself, it's not just rush hour it's every time, everyday. After the shoot I took Alex home and went back to my grandparent's to dinner with the excuse that there would be a traffic jam, I actually did it because I wanted to spent time with them before leaving. I played Hay Day with Patty and Apo until the pizza arrived and after having dinner Tia Marilu, Patty, and I played some more. Before leaving Acun and Apo gave me a big check as a gift, Acun said that it's to be used for a car when I come back. But I'm thinking in using it to my master's degree. Either way, I'm very thankful :) On my way back home I stopped by "La Mexicanita" (my favorite restaurant in the whole world) to make and order for tomorrow's farewell dinner at my house.

Thursday was my FAREWELL PARTY! A bunch of my friends came by to my house, about 25 of them, and we hung out :) Alex came over early so that she could help me with the shopping and cleaning, so before we started working we ate some lunch: KFC. We went driving because the delivery system is stressful. We both ate a Famous Bowl (my favorite dish at KFC). When we came back Rod was already here, so we ate and then went to Riba Smith to buy some snacks and drinks. We ended buying about 6 bottles of 2L Sodas, two bottles of 2L iced tea and about a gazillion packages of different flavored Oreos. After that on our way home we saw the aftermath of an accident: a police motorcyclist on the ground without a shoe and complaining about his neck next to a Toyota Yaris with the rear part bumped. I've never witness car accidents, and I wish I'll never do. At 5:40 we went out again to pick up the order of Mexican Food from my favorite restaurant, the order was supposed to be ready by 6 and they ended up finishing it at 6:40. I was okay but Alex was kind of steamed haha. We also bumped into Ambar, Tommy and Andrew at the restaurant because they were picking up food at Nora Express (dumpling place). When all of us got home the spilling began. The tres leches cake Rod bought as a surprise, spilled on the back seat of Andrew's car; the pico de gallo spilled on our way from my car to the door and soaked Rod's socks and my arm. We finally went up and Vivianne and Alfonso were already there. We set up the food and then the party started! We talked, played heads up, ate, and laugh. I didn't really got emotional but I will really miss them all. Shey got sick during the party and after she left Rod went to the elevator and saw puke all over.. We believe it was her but she hasn''t said a word about that. Zhanzhy stayed overnight because she had no way to go home. It's so funny how Zhanzhy is like my lost sister, I feel so comfortable with her :)

On Friday Zhanzhy woke me up at 8 AM so say good bye, I asked her to do that because it's going to be the last time I see her until holidays. How cute is that she left a note on my laptop saying that she loved me and that she's going to miss me? :) At 11 AM I went to the dentist, again, to have my stitches taken out. It didn't hurt but it wasn't comfortable either. At 1 in the afternoon I went with Rod to the Causeway, and we drove the whole thing until we decided to eat at Pencas. I was craving clams really bad so I order that as my main dish along with fried yucca, Rod ordered the same, which I think is the first time we've ordered exactly the same thing! After lunch we stopped by Arrocha and bought each one a frame so we could put a picture of us, which I'll be taking with me to college. We were going to stop by Popo's after Arrocha to say my last good bye but my mom didn't let me because of traffic. I really wanted to present Rod and my grandma. I think she would be the only grandparent who would actually and genuinely like Rod. Anyway.. Rod came to my house and we hung out. We did a lot of things for half an afternoon. We played the cups song and did our own song, we watched YouTube videos, played Color Sheep and talked. I didn't get emotional but I almost cracked because I suddenly realized the absence he was going to make in my life for the next four months. After Rod left I bought my MacBook Pro! I'm so excited for that!

I'm Kinda Into Photography #11

Alex and I did a photo shoot just for fun at my grandpa's photo studio, we just went with the flow. The first ones are a little off because I didn't put the flashes for the background but the last ones came out PERFECT!

Baby Bull class of 2017! USF!

Week #10 (07/01/13 - 07/07/13)

It's finally July!! Way past half the year! What about that? Oh my God this year has gone so fast, I can't believe next month I'll be moving out of my country! I can't believe this is my last month at FSU. July's not gonna be a very active month, rather a very busy one due to college and stuff.

On Monday I finished "Beautiful Disaster" by Jamie McGuire and I literally gave it 5 stars! I said when I was halfway through the book that how can it get more interesting if the happy ending already happen on the middle of the book. Wrong was I, the story got more complicated and I liked it a lot. Now I'm gonna star reading "One Tiny Lie" by K. A. Tucker which is the sequel to "Ten Tiny Breaths", now this one is the sequel to the little sister's life when she's off to Princeton. This should be exciting. Now that I'm going off to college I like to read novels related to college, I feel related to them. The rest of the day I played Hay Day and did a paper due Tuesday, as always at last minute. Also a very big bird landed on my window! It's called Gallinazo here in Panama. It was HUGE, it's the second time I've seen one of these at home. The first time it was in front of my car and I realized when I got in and totally froze. This bird was bigger than my printer! And when he landed it had its wings all open. Traumatic. Also the total calories I consumed is humongous, I feel so bad. I didn't even realized I ate so much. I guess this is the purpose of counting your calories and I discovered that eating Mac and Cheese is not good. I consumed 2443 calories in total D: I also finished my paper in record time, I finished before 8:30 and I started today at around 5 or 4!

On Tuesday we went on a field trip to the library so they could teach us how to use the university's data base for our Final Paper (the research paper). After trigonometry, which was endless, I went for a froyo with Alex and bumped with my mom and that since they were picking me up because dad was using my car. I don't get why I couldn't use my car if my dad and mom went together to pick me up. At home I napped, read, and did nothing else at all; later at night I was curious if there was any photography course at USF because I have some spaces in blank - 3 spaces - and it turns out there is! Photography for beginners, Intermediate Photography, Advanced Photography and Special Topics Photography. It's so awesome that I can get to fill my blanks with subjects I like, there's also Keyboard Skills I so I can learn how to play the piano. How awesome is that? I think I'm going to take Photography I my second semester and then leave the other ones for my blank spaces in my last year, so that I can have some relaxation classes. Nothing is definite yet, but I do hope it works the way I'm planning. Countdown until Tampa from now: 46 days :)

On Wednesday I woke up at 8 AM and fell asleep again, that compared to the days when I woke up at 3 PM is such an improvement. It means that I'm getting used to waking up at 7 AM for classes. Alex came by because she had a lunch with some of her other friends nearby and it was easier for her to come here instead of her home. She came at noon and we hung out in the afternoon until 4 PM. Christian also came along, and I had forgotten how funny Christian was. I had a great time teasing Alex and laughing with them. I miss Rod :( it's been a while since I don't see him, I miss him so much. Lately our phone calls have been very short because we are both tired from college and doing homework. For dinner I had sushi from Sushi Express, a breaded roll. I'm always craving sushi but when I get it and am halfway through it I get sick of it, it's so weird. I think that's because there's took much of it. 9 PM and I still haven't studied for Thursday's English quiz :)

Thursday was a rough morning for me, I can't wait to go to Tampa and don't have to drive myself to school. I have tons of homework for next week, I'm gonna literally die from stress. At lunch I bumped with Alex at the library and we went together to the classroom, and she told me some gossip I'm really not content about... That saddened me the rest of the day. After class I stopped by Blockbuster to rent a movie and Rod was there to meet me, we spent like an hour searching for the right movie and ended up picking A Thousand Words starring Eddie Murphy. We stopped by McDonald's to buy some lunch and we used his discount from being from USMA. When we got to his house and decided to watch the movie we realized we left it in the car! And my car as at my place, so we would have to walk all the way there to get it so we decided to watch something online. We clicked on Spring Breakers starring Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudson, but the beginning was so sexual we paused it and started watching YouTube videos. Ricci, Rod's little brother, was bugging us all day. I was fine with it but it was getting into Rod's nerves. How cute that he now can greet you and say good bye, and count to 15 and also sing! It was so cute. Anyway, Rod was pretty pissed and that actually ruined our hang out. At the end of the day when he dropped me off, he was feeling ashamed and I was mad at him for ruining the day but I said something funny and we both laughed and that kind of lifted the tension and we were laughing. I love that even when we are mad, we can laugh at ourselves and be happy again. More than a couple of friends of mine applied for a Taiwan Scholarship, which usually awards people from my school because we are linked with Taiwan. But this year they only granted two and it was because Alhan and Sandra were the three highest positions at school, and those scholarships were set in stone. I thought my friends were going to get it, I'm really sad :( This year the scholarships organizations have been granting less and less scholarships than past years. I know how they feel, I mean, I lost a scholarship too with SENACYT; and let me tell you those people are VERY DISORGANIZED. They only thought that helps me through is that bigger things are waiting for me and I'll show them wrong. 

Friday was errands day, I woke up at noon and head out to pick up my passport. I finally have my Visa for college! No more paper work until orientation, YES! After that we stopped by the bank to get a new credit card for me for college; however, we didn't get anything done because my dad is the account's administrator and he's at the mine until the week after next. So funny what happened at the bank, here you can check it out: Spreading Joy? I also started with my Research Paper about the History of Lego, and so far so good. I hate research papers because you have to search and search and cite, and too much stuff compared to personal essays in which you just write. It's 10 PM and I've got 4 and a half pages from my 10 pages Research Paper. What am I going to do? I have only one more bullet to address and the conclusion, and that's not going to occupy more than 5 pages. I need to come up with more bullets or expand what I already have. I'm in trouble :( Close to midnight I was curious about the Lego collection I had, and went to the room it was to check it out. I was all dusty but other than that in perfect conditions. I moved them to my room and started playing for like an hour. I forgot how cool was playing with Legos, it's such a shame that I didn't had enough to keep building stuff. 

I'm Kinda Into Photography #9 - Memories

Since I'll be going to Tampa soon I did a photo album with pictures I would like to look at when I'm there missing everybody. So here are the pictures, so I'm not the only only shedding a tear. I collected pictures of my friends, family, trips, graduation, prom, and a lot of more stuff. These are not all the photos, I had to cut some down because it would make this post lager than it is.