cars and dogs

i read that lexus was coming out with a hybrid SUV so i went to go check it out (i think my next car is going to be a lexus SUV). the price difference is crazy. the regular rx330 starts at $36,675, AWD model starts at $38,075. The Hybrid SUV $49,185 (part time AWD, not sure what that means). That's over $10,000 just for the hybrid. and the regular SUV:19/25 mpg city/highway AWD: 18/24 mpg, hybrid: 31/27 mpg. would the savings in gas make up for the price difference? doesn't seem so, hopefully by the time i am going to buy a new car (which will definitely be several years from now) the price difference will be considerably less, or at least a bigger difference in mpg, right now it doesn't seem THAT much better.

i've also been researching about dogs (can't you see i'm sooo productive at work? heh) and they are a big committment, so i'm not sure if we'll get one or not yet, i think i'll need to do more research. but all the costs of getting a dog adds up, vet fees, grooming fees, shots, food, toys, etc etc etc. also some dogs shouldn't be left alone for over 9 hours or whatever, but since we'll both be working, that would be hard, especially during the puppy/training periods. but here are some pictures of dogs that are sooo cute. makes me really want to get a dog!

the unthinkable

today the unthinkable happened, i flipped someone off !!!! some dude cut me off TWICE today while driving to work. usually i'm a very sedate person, so it takes a lot to make me mad. i'm a very nice driver and don't really get mad at people that drive stupidly. i hardly use my horn and i feel kinda bad when julian does because he likes to use it a lot!
but today, this dude sure pushed my buttons!! the first time he cut me off, i was kinda like okkk, cause it wasn't like a NICE cutoff, i had to brake pretty hard for him to come in. then a couple of minutes later, he did the SAME exact thing!!! he could have gone in front of any other car but it just so happened to be me AGAIN!! coincidence?? i don't think so, he did it on purpose!! so i honked and moved two lanes over so i could drive next to him. i wasn't planning on flipping him off (i was even thinking about whether or not i should, but thought, no that's not me), i just wanted to stare him down. however, i guess in the heat of the moment, knowing that he knew i was pissed and he cut me off on purpose, i had to express my anger again so i flipped him off as i drove by! he probably thought it was funny though, hehe. the car was a really crappy one, his back bumper was missing, the car was purple but he painted the area around his lights a beige color or something, it looked really bad. it was like two mexican dudes in the car, what losers.
anyways, this is my first "road rage" incident, hopefully i won't have anymore.

although this reminds me of one of julian's friend, i don't remember the exact details. but i think he and this dude were flipping each other off or yelling obscenities at each other or something. later, julian's friend saw that dude got into an accident, so he exited, and drove back around so he could drive by again and laugh at that dude. hahaha, i thought that was funny =) anyways, i don't think i would do that....hehe

almost done!

i turned in a paper and took a final on sat, turned in another paper yesterday, and now i just have one more final tonight and then i'll be done with school! for the next 3 months at least heh.

the aviator is suuuuch a boring movie, AND it's soooo long almost 3 hours! i stopped watching halfway through, i couldn't stand it any longer. julian watched the whole thing though. i don't see why people liked that movie. i also tried watching life with steve zissou ( i didn't want to watch it but julian did ), but that movie did not keep me captivated either, i only watched liked the first 10 minutes and decided, nope, this movie isn't for me!

there are actually movies i want to see in the theaters now! i want to see saving face and mr and mrs smith. i think mr and mrs smith will be good, if not, at least i'll have nice eye candy =) i've had these two free passes to amc since forever which i still have not used because it's so hard to wait until 10 days after the release date to watch a movie! plus there really haven't been any good movies out at all!!

memorial day weekend

i started off my 4 day weekend (i took friday off) by ditching class on thurs (gasp!) so i could hang out with nancy who came back for a couple of days. since i was going to seattle & vancouver on friday, it was the only time we could meet up!

fri morning (very early) flew to seattle. it was sooooo hot! the pacific northwest was having a heat wave, so it was like 85+ on fri and sat. i won't bore everyone with the nitty gritty details, but i don't think i can walk around every day so much anymore. i'm getting oooold. my feet were so sore every night either that or i need to take more breaks or something. i think i'm made for tropical vacations =P

seattle is really beautiful though, very green, trees everywhere, and it's cool how they have forests/lakes/rivers/marshes in the midst of the city. vancouver was really nice too, sooo many fobby chinese. i love the exchange rate in canada =P all the prices are like 20% off hehe.

this weekend we ate a whoooole bunch, i don't think all the walking around burned off all those calories. miami is coming up in a month, can't wait! it still sorta seems far away, but it'll be fun to hang out with all my friends again!

nutritious foods?

i've been paying more attention to the Nutitrition Facts on foods lately, and it's a little shocking! A lot of packaged food has sooo much sodium, it's kinda scary.

And I went to the Erik's Deli Cafe website to check out their nutrition facts, and their sandwiches are soooo fatty. Some of them have like 40g of fat!?! You're only supposed to get 60g a day, so one small measly little sandwich (which you would think is healthier than a big mac) is loaded with fat!

And we get this yummy spinach salad from Trader's Joe, which has blue cheese, candied walnuts, cranberries, and a raspberry vingarette. And it's fat content is really high too for one serving, like 25-30g?!? it's a bit disconcerting. i mean, they don't give a lot of all the extras (nuts/cheese/cranberries), but they do give a pretty big bag of dressing (you mix it all yourself). my only consolation is that i don't use up the whole dressing bag, so i'm hoping i'm saving on A LOT of fat there!!

if food that i think is "healthy" is filled with so much fat, i really wonder what foods that i deem as "unhealthy" are like! sometimes i think it's a good thing restaurants don't put nutrition facts on their menus =P sometimes being "informed" has its drawbacks!

save my eyes

last year i switched to soft contacts, and now my prescription has worsened!! the last 6-7 years my prescription when i wore hard contacts it hasn't changed at all! i'm kinda scared now, i don't want it to get worse every year, eek. my left eye went from 550 to 650 and my right eye went from 400 to 450. sigh. is there some way i can prevent it? i don't think i strain my eyes at all, i don't read that much. i don't want to become blinder! i don't even really notice a huge difference between my old contacts and new contacts, i don't feel like i see any better. i don't think i could go back to hard contacts, i switched for a reason!

cherry season!

the onset of summer means it's time for...cherries!! woohoo! i bought some at the farmer's market at santana row last weekend, but i finished them all in one sitting. they're sooo expensive from the farmer's market, but so yummy. i hope costco is going to sell those big tub of cherries again this year, i'll have to go check it out, but yay, so exciting =)

fashion week in sf

there's gonna be a fashion week in sf august 24-28! april and shandi from american's next top model will be there! it would be cool to check out, it is the week right before my wedding though but if others are interested, i can make time! =)

star wars

when julian and i started dating (3 years ago! - whoa it's been that long?? i guess it has heh) anyways, he asked if i would promise to watch star wars 3 with him, and silly me agreed. i can't believe star wars is out now! at the time, i thought 3 years was sooo far away, but alas the time has now arrived. i think i've weaseled my way out of it though because he's going to watch it on friday with his coworkers =) thank goodness!!

i don't why i have this thing against sci-fi, i just do. well, it's not anything against it, i just don't like it, it doesn't appeal to me at all. anything related to outer space or aliens i have no interest in. the only sci-fi related thing that i've liked so far is the book ender's game. star trek, star wars, ick. and doesn't hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy look really bad?? =P

3 more weeks

i have 3 more weeks until the quarter is over, i can't wait! every tues and thurs when i leave for work, i always think to myself, i won't be home for another 12 hours... =( i really shouldn't think that way because it makes me dread going to class even more, sigh. i don't know if i can do it for one more year, i guess i'll just have to make myself.

i have a bunch of stuff due at the beginning of june and will have to study for tests/finals, so i'm going to have to work on those, which i don't look forward to. i can't wait to have the summer free! it'll be so nice!

i'm considering taking morning classes in the fall, from 7-9am, but that would mean i have to wake up at 6am! i don't think i've ever had to wake up that early in a while! but at least i would still come into work basically at the same time i do now and i can leave whenever i want and not have to wait around until 6:30pm which i do now for my 7-9pm class. we'll have to see what the class of schedules is like =P

books

i haven't really had that much time to read lately, but when i went to the bookstore i bought "my sister's keeper" by jodi piccoult. apparently all her books are about some kind of controversial subject. this book is about these parents who have a daugher diagnosed with some rare form of leukemia that needed an exact match donor for her to stay alive, so the parents decided to have another child that would be an exact match using the wonderous world of science & technology. her other books include topics such as euthanasia, teen suicide, etc.

i was not too enthused about how the book ended, but the book itself was pretty good. it is definitely one that will tug on your heart strings and make you think. julian thinks that the premise of the book is absurd, saying that no one would conceive a child to save another because it's "morally and ethically wrong". but isn't that what parents do? they would do anything to save their child's life? i think without us having been in the role of a parent, it's harsh to say that what they did is wrong. plus, i think with the advance of science and technology, this sort of thing will be very common, perhaps not in our lifetime but it's definitely what's going to happen in the future. It'll be interesting to see how her other books are, hopefully I'll get a chance to read those also!

next books on my list:
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
"The Kite Runner" tells a heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between Amir, the son of a wealthy Afghan businessman, and Hassan, the son of his father's servant.

Cast of Shadows by Kevin Guilfoile
Set in a not too distant future after human cloning is legalized, this debut thriller is a disquieting pseudo-scientific meditation on what happens when the teenage daughter of a leading fertility specialist is brutally murdered and her father uses his professional skills and a bit of DNA extracted from the death scene to create a copy of her killer.

I probably won't be able to get to them until after June at least, or maybe even until after the wedding! I'll put them here so I won't forget what I wanted to read!

time for the beach!

victoria's secret is having a sale on their swimsuits, they even have one that is $19! wow! so in the last month, i've bought 3, i only ordered 2 from victoria secret =) i can now say that i'm ready for miami and my honeymoon!! the 2 from victoria secret have straps though, so i can't wear them until sept!

so if any of you guys need more swimsuits, go check out their website =)

more time at work

having more free time at work has it's blessings, i do a whole lot of web surfing, researching about wedding related stuff and having time to do whatever i please. however, all this websurfing also leads to a lot of web shopping and it's not good! i find all these things that i want!! and end up buying! i need to find cheaper websites to frequent sigh, but oldnavy or gap just don't appeal!

i think i need to hang out with my more cost-conscious friends or something so i won't spend as much money. whenever i hang out with julian's friend's gfs, they're sooo into fashion and magazines (even more than me). but after hanging out with them, buying a piece of clothing for >$100 becomes ok! ACK!!

what luck

it seems like every time i want to post something, my blogger is down, so i never get a chance to update! so frustrating, i really wonder why the site is so unreliable! i've also lost posts, sigh.

anyways, picking a first dance song is not easy, so if you guys don't have "your" song, you should find one now so you don't have to worry about it for your wedding. either that or find a fiance with similiar music tastes =P

also i'm trying to decide if i should get a chipao in traditional red, or should i go for a different color? if i don't do red, i'll have sooo many possibilities, but it'll be so hard for me to narrow it down. at least if i choose to go red, i can only select from a couple of fabrics. hmm, my mom seems to think it doesn't really matter what color I pick, so that's no help. i *guess* if i don't get red, i can more likely wear it again, but in reality, would i ever ever wear a chipao again???

career aspirations

we just had to write up our "individual development plan" for the year. is it ok to say, i don't have any career aspirations? as i am here longer, the desire to move up higher in the chain diminishes. moving up higher just means more time committment. is it so wrong to not want to be chained to my job?? i know that eventually i'll want to have a family, i would prefer spending time with my family rather than working. i'm fine with where i am now, i think my income is good enough.

my officemate recently got some more responsibilites AND she just had a baby, so basically she takes her son to daycare around 10. comes to work. leaves work at 5 to pick her son up. and then at night she logs back in to work more. i think that's just the nature of software engineering jobs, you end up having to spend a lot of your "free" time working. luckily, i have been able to get by without having to work at nights, which has been nice, which is the way i want to keep it. i think eventually i'll have to come up with a new "career", especially if i want to stay at home more. hmm.

i think it would be a really good idea to open up an inexpensive cute chic nail salon in the south bay, there are a ton in SF, but not really any down here. all the cute salons down here are expensive and all the cheap places are vietnamese places which don't look so nice. they have nice cute ones in SF where a manicure and pedicure are $40-$50. whities are soooo obsessed with having nice nails, i think i need to capitalize on that. that's my new idea for the day. it would be tough to get all the financing if i wanted to open my business though, i would need some partners, any takers? =)

4 more months!

4 months until the big day (and i guess one day if we want to be picky about it)! i think for the most part all the big stuff is done, now it's just all the small little details. fun fun. my paper is due tomorrow, my topic is extremely boring, i can't wait until i finish it and don't have to think about it anymore.

every weekend we seem to watch at least one or two movies to take advantage of our netflix subsription. this past weekend we watched hotel rwanda. i thought it was a really good movie, i guess the only way i find out about issues around the world is to watch movies =P i would definitely recommend it for those that have not seen it.

oh, we also watched another movie a couple of weeks ago (taegukgi -- i think that's how you spell it? it's something like that) it's a korean movie, it's sooooooo sad. it's a little long (almost 3 hours) so some parts dragged a little, but the ending made it all better i guess. it was a good movie, lots of drama. a warning, it's about the korean war, so it's pretty gory.

next in our queue: closer, meet the fockers =)

haircut

i finallllly got my hair cut, i was thinking that i could just grow it out as long as possible until september, but i couldn't stand it. i was feeling like my hair was overwhelming me. the last time i cut it, i had it all cut to the same length, so it was starting to look scary. even though it LOOKS like i don't have much hair, having it all at the same length and very long, just doesn't look good on me and is very heavy, in my opinion anyways.

so i finally took a leap and got it cut and colored. the stylist kept on saying, your hair is sooooo long. your hair is soooooo long. and you only want to cut it two inches?? are you sure?? he kept on saying it, argh. i kept on thinking to myself, dude, my hair isn't even as long as sharon's or pearl's, now THAT is long, not mine! and THEN when he was blow drying it, he kept on saying, your hair is soooooo straight. i'm trying to put a little curl to it at the ends, but it's soooo straight. i was like, yeah, i get it, thanks. the hair cut was really good though, and it's layered, so i don't feel like a scary hairy monster now. even just cutting two inches, it seems a lot lighter, it's sooo much better. ahh, i'm so glad i got it cut =P

hmmm

i guess i don't really have anything important to say, last week i was sick (again!), i wonder if it's from my officemate, it seems she is always sick from her son, and it seems like i haven't been able to fight off those germs. but i think i'm finally back to normal again.

on sat i had class and i had a test, i totallly didn't feel like studying fri night. after class, julian and i went up to SF cause some of his friends from LA were visiting. we all stayed at his friend's place in SF, it was quite interesting. i haven't been to a "sleepover" in a while. we mostly hung out, 2 other people (not including me) were also sick, so we kept it pretty low-key. we played "dirty" charades, which was actually kinda amusing. each team thought up some "dirty" phrases (i.e. orgasm, porn, lap dance, etc etc) that the other team had to act out. the first round was kinda tame, the second round, people were trying to think of really gross stuff to do. i think everyone was just amused to see people acting it out. i learned many new terms that night =P

yesterday i had another test in my other class, it was T/F so it wasn't too bad. i'm glad i don't have to spend too much time on school and i can still do well =) next week i have a paper due. i kinda dread it, wireless networks is the most boring subject ever! i hope i can find 10 pages worth of stuff to write about, ugh.

chocolate

i have this new obsession with the color brown, i've bought so many things in chocolate brown recently, it's kinda crazy. shirts, pants, flipflops! and i still want more! =P

so strange

it's so strange not being able to check any of my work email, even though i'm physically here at work. numerous people have asked "did you see my email?" and i'll sheepishly have to say, no, my hard drive crashed, so i'm borrowing someone else's computer and have not figured out how to get stupid lotus notes to work. lotus notes sucks, hopefully none of you guys will ever have to use it for your work email, it's a pain in the butt.

anyways, so basically all i can do is use exceed and login to our servers, which is fine, i can still work. and i can login to the internal ibm chat, so people can still find me. but i can't access my work email and i have to use gimpy icq2go. icq2go sucks, it doesn't flash any messages on the screen, so if someone replies or sends me a message, i'll only see it if i check the window.

on sunday i made my first venture into being artsy craftsy and bought a paper cutter from michael's. it's not one of those ones that we had in school or at work with that huge chopping arm, it's a cool one that i guess is used for scrapbooking or something. so last night instead of diligently working on my homework or working out, i was working on our invitations! i'm just sprucing them up so that they look nice, i guess i shouldn't ruin the surprise and describe what i'm doing. you guys will just have to wait and see what they look like when i send them out =P but it involves a paper cutter hehe, and if i do say so myself, they are looking very nice so far! =)