I Hate Moving...

Yes, it's that rather dreadful time again...Moving is just so painful. Throughout the course of 3 years in Athens, i've accumulated quite a lot of junk. Some proved to be very useful while others just sat untouched in the original place.

I've decided to kick up my job-hunting a notch by moving to Atlanta. At least there will be many more opportunities than sticking around Athens. So after accepting a friend's invitation, I packed up my bags and will be crashing at her place for however long it'll take to find a new place.

It was a rather sad affair to part with many of my lovely possessions. My queen-sized bed, where it's been fun sprawled out luxuriously for the past year...Then there's my leather chair, which I have lounged in a little too comfortably at times while studying...

I had planned to move around the afternoon. Alas, I got caught up chatting with my brother while I waited for the laundry to dry. Couple hours passed by and I was ready to load up the car.

Then raindrops started pouring down..Did I mention I hate rain? I think I did..one too many times actually..I hate rain when I'm out and about attending to important business. I hate getting my heels (or shoes) wet or splashed on by inconsiderate drivers who don't bother to slow down when driving pass a puddle of muddy water. But any other time, it's really very much welcomed with open arms..especially in the middle of the night through the break of dawn...

Anyway back to my plan. I looked out the window with despair. After several minutes of underbreath muttering and silent cursing, the rain still didn't seem to relent a bit..So I decided to brave the rain, armed with an umbrella, took a few trips to empty the trash, and then loaded up my car.

It was inevitably an awkward process. I had to press the umbrella up against the car while attempting to place all my stuff in the most space-saving positions. Oh..I don't even remember how many trips I had to make back and forth.

Nevertheless, I managed to stuff almost everything into my tiny little Pontiac. It was rather amazing as I almost couldn't believe everything fit tight. Of course with that said, I had to sit up straight-er while driving what with the bathroom stand pushed against my seat ^___^

And of course, the rain stopped once I've loaded up everything! Argh...Then better yet, the sun finally shed its first ray of lights once I ventured out of my apartment.

So lalilalila..I'm on my way to embark on a new adventure. Hopefully this move will turn out to be more prolific than the past 2 months.

My friend called me while I was on the way. She told me to take a detour to her friend's place for a bbq. I happily obliged since I haven't had a chance all summer long to do any grilling. I thought it'd be a great idea to meet some new people as well.

Gosh..I think I had one too many lamb skewers! My belly was about to burst out with little lambs as the host, Raymond stuffed more skewers into my already-full hands. But it was too good to refuse the hospitality so I jovially swallowed my initial protest and seized those yummylicious skewers.

Over the course of I've-lost-count number of skewers and chicken wings, I ended up making several new acquaintences. In fact, we've already made plans to go get some coffee soon. Off to a good start I'd say!

Sweet Farewell

Another friend leaving town soon for Japan. D will be teaching English there for a year or two. In the meantime, figure out what he wants to do with his life.

Hmm..I'd love to do that if I could. I mean the pay is really good for a beginner--$36K a year, without tax! If you stay in a rural area, you'd probably end of saving most of that. Imagine after a two-year stint there, you'd be so much better off financially.

But of course I can't since I'm technically not a native speaker. Blah...There goes my opportunity of mastering the Japanese language and immersing in this intricately modern yet traditional culture.

D made us cupcakes with strawberry icing tonight. They were oh-so-sweet!

All the best to D and Emily! Have my share of the fun in Japan. Emily, hope I'll get to stopover to visit you next time I go home =)

Never Wait Til It's Too Late...

It was a beautiful morning brimming with any possibility, what with birds chirping outside my windows and the lawnmower mowing the grass, releasing the fresh faint of grassy fragrance...It all seemed normal enough...

Until I received a phone call from a close friend..informing me of a dreadful piece of news which would alter my mood all day.

In a voice rather unlike her usual upbeat tone, she told me that our friend had passed away in an accident last Thursday in Atlanta en route to the airport.

The eery silence that followed was chilling, allowing me just enough time to let the harrowing words sink in..before I managed a heave of despair. I remember my very first thought was that I didn't even get to see him and say goodbye...

After rereading the article on the newspaper, we still weren't sure if the victim was indeed our friend, but the excrutiating pain was still gnawing on our hearts. As bad is it sounds, both of us were surreptitiously hoping that our friend would be at work going about his usual business right that moment.

A few phone calls later, we finally clarified that the victim was in fact another person who incidentally had the same name and same major as my dear friend. Thank God. Later I happened to talk to my roommate about the accident and she reminded me of our conversation which took place last Friday.

She told me that the driver of the car was actually our friend's ex-girlfriend's brother. I was rather taken away by the turn of events.

It is extremely hard to think about death, especially when we've been so sheltered all our lives. I've never given it much thought, hoping that if I don't then i won't have to deal with the grief from it. However death is such an imminent occurence in our lives that sometime, somewhere, someone is dying at this very moment.

And we'll have to learn to deal with it one way or another and also forge ahead in our lives. But while we're busy building golds in the bank and striving to achieve our ultimate dream, we shouldn't neglect the simple deed of keeping in touch with our loved ones, near or far. Let's hope it doesn't take an accident like this to remind us of how grateful we are to have one another, painting each other's lives with bright and beautiful colors...

My deepest condolences goes out to the families of the victims. May they rest in peace.

Emily's Birthday

It's Emily's birthday today! It's kind of sad though because it'll be the last time I see her before she leaves for Japan next week. It's been so much fun hanging out with her this past year. We always have a ball when we do!

A bunch of her close friends got together for dinner at East-West Bistro to celebrate her day. I love East-West because they serve the best fusion food I've had so far.

As I was heading to the restaurant all dressed up for the occasion, the sky looked gloomy though. And sure enough, as soon as I reached downtown it started to rain cats and dogs! How exact can the timing be? Nevertheless I decided not to let the rain get the best of me and dashed out to fetch Ash since she didn't have an umbrella. My bottom half was pretty soaked when we got to the restaurant. Eeek, I hate rain >.<
Dinner was a pleasant affair. Crazy shrimp-lover Ash convinced me to share the Coconut Shrimp and they were oh-so-delicious especially considering coconut is not on the top of my favorite list. Then I had Thai Pizza for my entree and boy I miss that stuff! It's a concoction of chicken drizzled with soy sauce, caramelized onion and ginger spread on homemade onion flatbread.

We had a great time teasing D about Ash's flashes all night long. Although he denied it, the guilt was written all over his face. One time, he was filming Ash giving a toast. But when we looked at the video, a good 5 seconds in the beginning were images of Ash's chest instead of her face. He kept insisting it was hard to aim up at her face since he was sitting next to her, we were like 'yeah right, dude'. Boys...


After dinner we moved on to good ole Copper Creek for some drinks. We were taking so many pictures that people kept glaring at us because of all the camera flashes. Did we care? Not really. We had a good laugh as well when Ash started to take like a gazillion pictures of herself..with my camera..haha ^^ Good times..

Later we decided to go to another bar, Roadhouse. There are just so many bars in downtown Athens that I think I've only been to a quarter of them. The most profitable business in downtown Athens has got to be bars considering the whopping number of students who spend their Thursday, Friday and Saturday (and most likely Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday) nights drinking.

It seems like there's always an excuse to go drinking--it's my birthday, or my friend's birthday, or I flunked my class, or I got flying colors in my physics test, or I just broke up with somebody, or well...just for the heck of it. No wonder it's fairly rare to hear that a bar closed down as a result of low business. As long as it serves alcohol and has decent seating, people will come rolling.

Anyway, it was a feast for our eyes to goggle at Ken 'grinding' Emily..haha.. Another beautiful night with some beautiful company =)

Movie and Dinner

I've been hanging out with the guyz pretty often this week. 4 days a week..mmm.. pretty intense. Part of the reason is because Vision Video has special movie promotions on Monday--$1 for each movie rental so D went and got 12!

So tonight we had potluck dinner and movie afterwards. I made my signature Fried rice vermicelli. It turned out kind of sticky. It might be because of the 2 types of noodles that I used since I ran out of the first type ^___^ Oh well, everyone liked it.


A made a dish from Nagoya, some chicken thing. Everytime I asked him what it was, he just said it's chicken from Nagoya..So I guess that'll have to do. It was extremely flavorful though. He marinated the chicken with onion and sauce for 2 nights. After dipping the chicken in the batter, he wrapped it with seaweed before deep-frying. Amazingly it wasn't greasy at all. Scrumptious!


For dessert, C made the sinful Chocolate Bundt cake...Needless to say the chocolate-smothered cake was the best satisfaction ever and left us wanting more than we need. D attempted to make Chocolate Macarons for 4 hours, but they did not turn out anything like the picture in the cookbook at all. In fact, it was a thin sheet of stuff. For some reason, the batter spreaded throughout the whole pan. It was hilarious but we tried not to laugh too hard as he dumped both trays into the trash.

For movie of the night, we watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was the first time I watched it despite all the hype about the movie. And to my surprise, I liked it okay..well at least the fighting scenes.

I still think the 'flying' parts were a little too exaggerating. I mean no matter if kung-fu masters really did it back then, it's ridiculous that the fighters could practically just fly across the whole lake, then continue to fly through trees and rooftops...talk about realistic!

Heard of right timing?!

I was catching up on past Desperate Housewives episodes on ABC just now. (I adore that show, get off my case.) So there I was watching intently to what was happening with Susan, Gabrielle, Lynette, and Bree's interesting lives. And I could feel my anticipation mounting eagerly as I could just tell something important was about to unfold soon, my hands clutching onto the couch drumming my fingers nervously...anytime now...soon to come...

And then all of a sudden, boom...the TV screen cut off into a break. Not a commercial break though..It was a severe weather forecast update. What severe weather? I don't see thunder! I don't see storm! Then the weathercaster informed viewers that as of yet, no severe weather has been forecasted for the area, but a few counties are experiencing rain at the moment..

HELLO?!?

Why did we need to know that bit of information if no big hurricane has been spotted in our area? When the Severe Weather Report screen came on, I was expecting something big for them to interrupt an exciting sequence.

Another thing that aggravates me is when the station toots out the program's audio with an annoying beeping sound to alert audience about hurricane, tornado or what-have-you warnings. Wh-Wh-What did Oprah just say?! It would then take me another few seconds to figure out what went on before moving along again.

Oh and also, usually this would be repeated several times at once. Urgh..It just gets on my nerves!

Slurs...

I was going about my usual walking routine earlier this evening. As I was walking up the hill, this Ford truck drove by on the opposite direction. Then a guy howled, quite vociferous at that, at the top of his lungs out the window directed at me...

Needless to say, I was aghast. He scared the bejezzus out of me!

'What was that all about?' I asked myself as my nerves attempted to recline to their ends. Once again, I was baffled. It was not the first time this has happened. A year ago during football season, this dude strained out of his car window and bellowed at my friend and I. We could not make out what exactly he bellowed.

I could count that out as a drunken stupor. I can still vividly remember his flushed face, like a bright apple, making a stupid face at us. However innocent that incident might have been though, it jolted me to the core. My friend and I were shaken up.

However, tonight it happened at seven. It was too early to be drunk. Or was it?... It's definitely not football season quite yet, so people still retain some sensibility in them. So what really was that sudden outburst?

I've came down to several conclusions. First, it was a gender slur. I have gotten honked at by cars driving by occasionally. I utterly despise people who do that. I'm just minding my own business when I'm walking, so why do they feel the need to invade my personal space? It agitates me when tasteless guys act this way thinking they could nail some attention. Well 'cuse me but it is such a huge turn-off that attention is the last thing a sane person would think to offer.

Second, he's a redneck. No explanations necessary here.

Or could he just be drunk? At seven in the evening...They don't crown UGA a top 10 college party town for no reason I guess.

My Kind of...Bread

Yes I'm obsessed with blogging about food now. I don't hear anyone complaining =p I know I won't for sure. It's just my life right now is pretty much a blank page. So I'm trying to incorporate more colors into it by indulging in culinary arts and mastering some photography skills to add to my repertoire.



I have been scouring all over Athens for banana bread to no avail. It seems like it's only available during festive seasons such as Easter holiday. Thus, I decided I shall take on the challenge of making one myself. After waiting patiently for the bananas to ripen for a week, they finally turned into a shade of brownish black.

I had a lot of fun making this banana bread. I think knowing several friends would be heading over to taste it buoyed up my spirits. The thought of feeding others my labor of love oozes sheer enthusiasm in me.


In goes the batter and out comes a beautiful pan of banana bread. (scroll mouse over picture) It was another high while the piquance of the baking banana bread permeated every corner of the house. Initially I was pretty worried that I might have overbaked the batter as I have tweaked the recipe, yet again..But after the first bite, all the worries were washed down and gave way to the luscious texture of the bread.

I would say the dash of cinammon spice gave a subtle touch to the mashed banana without overwhelming the true revelation of the bread. The filling inside was just moist and left a good aftertaste. My friends seemed to have relished it as much as I did as we devoured the whole bread until all that was left were traces of crumbs.


Seductively simple in construction, it definitely lived up to the standards of baking high society. That is at least in my kind of society =)

Sweet Tooth

The weather has been extremely warm and humid recently. So much so that I would sweat even though I'm just sitting around, not working an ounce of muscle. Ok that's not very likely but I just wanted to stress the point that it's been scorching hot.

So it's times like these that call for a bowl of Barley Soup,which has been traditionally believed to release body heat. Well actually since the soup was served piping hot, perspiration trickled down my forehead as I savored the slurpy goodness of the dessert soup. But the after-effect works wonder!

As I rummaged through my pantry, I tried to use up any leftover ingredients so that I could gradually clear out my stuff. So this is what I got--barley, lotus seeds, longan, fu-zhuk(beancurd skin) and white fungus. I added some glutinous rice because I prefer my soup to have a thicker texture.


It's a very simple concoction that's excellent in warding off some heat. A perfect solution as well to satisfy a sweet-tooth crave.

Night..then Day..

Wow, it's been quite awhile since I've partied like it's well, 2005..haha.. Okay, it's not that long ago but still..if I can't remember the exact time straight off the bat, it's been way too long, yes? Anyways, I had the best time yet so far since I've been confined to home-ridden boredom.

My roommates invited me to party it up at Downtown last night. For the lack of any reasons why not, I very much willingly obliged. The plan was to get together one last time with their friends before everyone splits for future endeavors.


I have actually gone out with their friends before but I always had other friends to distract me so I never got around to really know them. So last night was the perfect opportunity to spark some long-due friendships =)

After pre-gaming at one of the guy's place, we headed straight for Copper Creek to chill out. Seemed like we always go there..Well they do make pretty decent drinks I guess.

Off to a slow start initially, it didn't take too long before things eventually warmed up, especially after a couple of drinks. Things got pretty interesting as well when a friend started to wail because her bf, who was in the group, recently broke up (I refuse to use the word dump as it sounds too vicious) with her.

It took me by surprise actually because she was perfectly fine one minute and she was bawling the next. I guess it's true alcohol is indeed a depressant. I felt extremely bad for her as well because I understood how miserable she must have felt (we've had quite a few prior long talks).


It was kind of a turn of things though as we started to have fun at the same time. Well gotta give some credit to the booze too, I guess ^__^ We even tango-ed all the way to another bar for last call. Now, that was fun..I almost couldn't believe I became one of those irritating drunk people stumbling while attempting to walk straight. Nevertheless I prefer to think we were all just slightly tipsy and euphoric..haha..

How long it took us to get back to our friend's apartment I couldn't tell. It probably took us three times as long as it took us earlier. Upon arrival, relief spread through us as we reveled in the comfort of the couch...zzz...

Got home at almost nine this morning. Another one of those precious crazy college memories =) Cheers!

What's for Lunch?

This was my lunch--good ole Char Bee Hoon, or rather fried rice-vermicelli. Haven't had this dish for a long, long time. It's always been a comfort food and it sure still is! But in addition to the usual mushroom, I added in some celery at the suggestion from grandma the last time she was here.

She said the celery here is much fresher and aromatic than the ones back home. And I couldn't agree with her more. Maybe one day I can dip my celery sticks into some peanut butter. I've never muster enough courage to try that..Somehow it doesn't seem right..

Wow..it's July already..Half a year has gone by. Looking back at the past half year, it's amazing how time seemed to tick like nobody's business. Hopefully I'll find a job really soon. I have been going through all these stages--hopeful, rejection(well, not really since I haven't heard from anyone really, but still..), denial, disbelief..Basically just a bundle of emotions balled up into an enormous bubble...

But the worst thing that could happen is to lose hope because to lose hope is like losing a limb, or worse still, your heart. And even if your heart starts to waver a bit, you'll start to lose the will to live strong. So I refuse to give up just yet. I'm sure something will come up, soon? Pretty please...