Homemade

December 24, 2010 Igor's mom's homemade bread thingy

Igor and I spent the afternoon together. We exchanged gifts. I gave him chocolate which I bought at the last minute. He/You gave me Wuthering Heights and the classic version of Romeo & Juliet. They sound sappy. Hurray!

I'm glad we started filling out that book of us. It was kind of entertaining, though you were confused by the questions (I was not).

Fireplace

December 24, 2010

This is post 1000! This means that our blog has concluded 500 days.

Tomorrow is Christmas. But you will be in the air moving against the Earth and across the date line. You will fly the great circle route: North, perhaps touching the Alaskan islands, then perhaps you will see some of the Eastern Russia, then past Korea and/or Japan, before finally landing in Taipei. You will leave LA after noon on Christmas and arrive in the evening of the next day.

Be safe and have lots of fun in Taiwan. Take lots of pictures! And I'm excited about building my new computer tomorrow. I will share that with you in pictures.

Thanks for the truffles, and enjoy the movies I gave you. Remember today. We played Chinese checkers, had my mom's pirozhki, listened to classical music, and started filling out our little book. Then we played some more and played piano a little, and took pictures like this one.

Happy Christmas from us!

Computer

December 23, 2010

I got a new computer today... it's crazy. I'll list the things here, from left to right: motherboard (main board), CPU (processor), memory, power box (for outages), DVI cable (for monitor), GPU (graphics card), power block, hard drive, DVD drive, PC case. Building this is going to be a lot of fun, and most likely a lot of pain. What's not here: the existing monitor, keyboard and mouse (and camera, microphone, headphones, speakers, etc) and the 64bit Windows 7 that I will need for everything to work. The software's probably not going to be that much fun.

I'm not touching this pile until the 25th. Hopefully by the time Christmas comes I will feel less guilty about getting all of this.

Bright

December 22, 2010 | Bellevue Botanical Gardens

I like close-ups, and these lights look interesting. They're not the plain boring kind you put on your house.

I liked the ants and the tree. Wish there were more ants, though.

Mystery

December 21, 2010

My mom got a package today! First present to go under the tree. The plush Santa is guarding it. Ha ha.

Wonder what's in the box. It'll be a surprise. Probably nothing interesting for me.

Luuuuuu

December 23, 2010 Hanging with the Luu sisters

Helen isn't crying...she's just hiding from the camera. I'm not sure what Sandra is doing. Spent my day at Sandra's house! It was amazing. Really, all we do is watch TV because we're awesome like that.

Dragonflies

December 22, 2010 Garden d'Lights at the Bellevue Botanical Garden

I love dragonflies!

So, we went to a Szechuanese restaurant which I think has potential for greatness, but we must have ordered the wrong dishes. The eggplants were drowning in soy sauce or sodium, and the ants on the tree were essentially absent. Still tasty...just wasn't reasonable.

Afterwards, the garden of lights where I realized that my vision totally sucks even with my glasses! I liked a lot of the flower displays, and the animals were cool.

Take-out

December 21, 2010 Hanging out with mama results in food

So, I went to Target with my mom and got stuck with her all afternoon. I slept in the car...meant to read my book. Anyway, here is food from Sichuanese Cuisine which may look familiar because we order basically THE SAME THING EVERY TIME. And it is AWESOME that way. Left to right: black bean chicken, eggplant in spicy garlic sauce, Mandarin spicy chicken, and dry-cooked string beans. I think my tolerance has changed quite a bit because suddenly the three to the right are not as spicy as I remember them being.

Winter begins!

Potterful

December 20, 2010 | Bellevue Square by Red Mango

We're happy because we just watched Harry Potter, I'm happy because all of us are together, Kevin's friend from China is doing a thumbs up with his left hand since his right hand is busy, and Andrew Chan is half- not paying attention.

This is a record that on December 20 we ate quickly at Pizza Pasta, then saw Harry Potter, then walked around a bit and went home, but more importantly, that the two of us went looking at lights, and that we watched the eclipse progress along the way. We stood outside my house a bit looking at the moon, then knocked on the window and said hi, and I smelled cake. We then stood a bit more, watched the moon through binoculars, and the sky cleared long enough for us to see the edge of the moon, and then to see a fully-eclipsed moon. And we had tea and cake.

And it was a memorable day.

Nutcracker

December 19, 2010 | Somewhere on Mercer Island

Kevin, Hanna, and I went to see the Nutcracker to see Kevin's student perform (she's 6). The ballet was a combination of beautiful, cute, and funny. To the latter, the mice looked like raccoons, the wine glasses were plastic and scotch-tape attached to the tray, and the Nutcracker's huge jaw went up and down - that's while he was protecting the girl from those mice.

After, they took some pictures of "Kevin's kid" with lots of flowers and I was trying to not bump anyone with my backpack - it was packed. You can probably tell. We finally made it out, and stopped at the Chinatown Oasis for bubble tea. I got hot milk tea, but I don't think my stomach liked it very much. Also, I lost at Jenga, twice. :( First time wasn't my fault, I just should have waited a second after Kevin made his move. Second time I should have been more careful trying to balance a ridiculously tall tower of blocks.

Lights

December 20, 2010 Christmas Lights

So, we went to see Harry Potter today with some friends, second time for me. Ohhh, and I got a cookie (and froyo) from the mall. I liked our walk around Igor's neighborhood. Lots of lights. I think my favorite thing to see is the lighted trees in the windows.

Pokemon!

December 19, 2010 Vending Machine

My mom and I went shopping today because she has these ancient gift cards that she never gave away...pretty sure we didn't buy anything at the store in the end. Haha.

So, in the mall, there was a Pokemon stall! It was incredible! I don't think I've ever seen Pokemon plushies IRL! I was very excited.

Flags

December 18, 2010

Only 6 people showed up yesterday, and I was the only officer present, so I got to be in charge of the CTF backpack. Those are our flags. There's also a First Aid kit in the backpack, and there should be a few papers. I haven't really looked.

We use up the flags while playing, but I don't think anyone actually uses the string for anything. Want some? :)

Enchiladas

December 18, 2010 Eating at U. Village

The U. Village is interesting. A bit lacking in food places and everything is a bit expensive. Sandra and I went to Sonrisas ("Modern Mex"). I liked my food, but the salad was awful. Later, we spent our time watching the end of Wall-e, the beginning of Toy Story, and 2 episodes of How I Met Your Mother...while eating green tea ice cream straight from the pint. Love ♥ . We also spent time admiring her hall decorations which are much better than any other hall I've ever seen. At USC, you barely know that the RAs exist sometimes. Maybe not true for the freshmen dorms. Anyway, had a picture, but they weren't so fantastic (of me), so I've saved them for facebook.

DOMO

December 17, 2010 Domo backpack

The much anticipated Domo backpack. It is pretty dope. I can't wait to use it. So soft...definitely not Seattle-proof. :/

Today was spent sleeping (yay!). And later visiting a few high school teachers. I also discovered cable in my house. So, I watched a movie...bad Jessica. Bad!

Yoshis

December 16, 2010 Yoshi Slippers

Came home finally! So much stress in the past few weeks, it was ridiculously! There is still work for me to do which I may or may not do. I promised I would, so I guess I should get around to it.

In my parents' room, I found YOSHI SLIPPERS and a DOMO BACKPACK. Incredible! My cousin owns an anime shop, so my mom bought these things to give her support. Ahhhhh! She's so innately awesome that she picked just the right things. I look ridiculously awesome (also, awesomely ridiculous) while supporting the backpack and wearing the slippers.

Farewells

December 15, 2010 Jen and Tiff

So, today, I said good-bye to everyone. Tiffany left in the morning. Having pushed two beds together, the three of us had a sleep over. Unfortunately, we went to sleep very late (~3 or ~4), so there was not much time for talking. Jen left in the afternoon, and Peter left at night.

Good-bye to Jen! And good luck in Guatemala! I know she will visit me while I'm doing my Masters, but it is strange as it marks the beginning of the end of undergrad life when all our new close friends leave to go separate ways.