Happy Birthday, Nanny!

My dearest most wonderful grandma would have had her 20th birthday today. Happy birthday, Nanny! I hope you are celebrating with Papa and all the angels.

***

Quick update on life:

**Viennese Ball**
Viennese Ball was extraordinary. I had so much fun performing for the opening ceremony, and it was so magical to float across the ballroom floor with Eric. He is so wonderful. The performance itself was stunning. Everything was smooth and graceful and I felt just like a princess in my beautiful white gown. Props to Tina and Kari and Jeremy for the choreography and for being such incredible teachers. It was truly stunning! My aunt and uncle and cousin got to come up from San Jose to see the performance, and that was really special. My father and his wife were supposed to come to the performance as well, but they didn't make it. I know I should be used to that by now, but for some reason I always hang on to this teeniest tiniest hope that maybe just this once he'll pull through for me. Owell. The rest of the evening far outshone that disappointment. The whole production of it was just so much fun! After the performance I felt like a diplomat for the Viennese Ball. I was introduced to a number of important people and this husband and wife who were alumni from the 1940s and I graciously shook their hands and said "we are so pleased to have you at the Viennese Ball." all elegant-like. Hearing myself speak I almost made myself laugh out loud! It was like in my pretty white dress I was this other person entirely. Of course, I would make an absolutely terrible diplomat because I can never remember people's names. Eep!

**The rest of the weekend**
Saturday I slept in soooo late. Oh my goodness. I woke up in the PM. Can you believe it?! I don't know when was the last time I did that! I was a bit loopy when I woke up, too, because I had just awaken from a dream about dancing and then I realized it was really late and for some reason that was just so hilarious to me. Maria commented that I looked pretty scary and then I looked in the mirror and realized my hair was going every which way and I started cracking up. You can always count on roommates to lift you up. =P

Then I went downtown to hang out with a couple of friends from freshman and sophomore year -- Chris, a graduated chem phD student, and Lisa who is a fifth year. It is amazing how people just, well, stay the same. I guess that's good and bad. Well, you'd have to know who I'm talking about to understand, I suppose. Anyways, it was interesting to meet up with them again.

Saturday afternoon, Eric's parents arrived from LA to visit for parent's weekend. It was really fun to see them again. It is incredible to me what a close family they are. I love that! It is just so right. They took me and Tina and Jeff (Eric's roommate) out to a yummy dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. The last time I went to the Cheesecake Factory was I think sometime in highschool (in SF) and I forgot how incredible it is. Such good food! After dinner I stayed and chat with Eric and his parents in his dorm room. They are just so sweet. It is also funny because I understand more about how Eric is Eric after being with his parents. Hee hee...

**Now**

I just talked with my bestest high school friend, Joey! He called to remind me of our Leap Year Anniversary. Who knows why, but he remembered that four years ago on Leap Year he and I and a handful of other friends from our senior class in high school cut classes all day in honor of Leap Year! I think our reasoning was that it was our extra day and wasn't no way that school was going to take that from us! We rented videos and played Smash Bros. Tee hee! Ahhh, memories...

Eep!! So much work! Oh dear, my little procrastination went much longer than I intended. Hm... well, it felt good to get that all out, so there you go. Okay, goal: finish with biochem problem set by midnight. Devote all of tomorrow to studying for pchem. Wish me luck!!

Blaaaagh!!!

I just spent the last two hours trying to figure out what to do with my hair for Viennese tomorrow. To no avail.
I think I'm going to cry.

Plus I haven't yet sewn my white ballet slippers, I haven't painted my nails and I haven't fixed my dress. How on earth am I going to get everything together?

Why does hair have to be so stupid!!!!

I have cells!!!

err... except this time too many clones showed up. So hopefully my clone-picking capabilities are very very high and everything will be successful. Hm... please remind me tomorrow that I must attend to my cells. I fear that in the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Viennese it will completely slip my mind! That cannot happen! Okay, solution: repeat the following mantra every 10 minutes from now until tomorrow morning: "Cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells..."

Kids, I'll be dreaming about you tonight.

(Is it weird to have dreams about lab.. hm...)

Lab is a comedy of errors.

This is what I've decided after repeatedly doing the same experiment over and over with no results and then realizing today that I hadn't used the right cells all along for the transformations. *sigh* Oh, but something very cool was that I discovered one of my labmates used to be in IV! How fun to have Christian companionship in the lab. It just made me feel all nice and happy inside. =)

On another fun note, waiting for cells to recuperate is a great time to while away the hours on www.orkut.com. I've managed to stay away from all of the friend/networking computer things in the past, but I caved in to this one because several people in Whirlwinds work at Google and they are all gung-ho about orkut because it is associated with google. (It's also associated with Stanford b/c the guy who made it is an alum and now works at google.) Anyways, everybody should join! I discovered that my high school has a little community so I think that is sorta cool. (Except that I only knew two of the 27 or so members.... hm... I must be old.)

Kay, my cells need me!

****

Ah, one more thing before I go:

Tee hee... so Eric and Justin picked me up from Town and Country Village this afternoon. We were in the car for a couple of minutes before I sort of sighed and said "you didn't notice..." all forlorn-like. Eric turned around to face me and said very confusedly, "no well I didn't well, err..." and then Justin piped in: "The correct answer is, 'Yes, yes I did!'" so I just had to burst out laughing because it was absolutely hilarious. =P

Oh my gosh. Going to bed at a decent hour on a Monday night! Wow.... wow...

Brief update:

*My dad is doing better. Well, at least when I talked to him after he came back from the hospital he seemed to believe once again that he was invincible. So, God knows.

*Viennese Ball is this Friday! If you aren't yet going, it is not too late! It will be so beeeau-tiful! =)

*10 days and counting 'till I turn 22! It is a special age because it is divisible by 11! (yes, I am a huge nerd) Goodness, though, it seems like it just crept up and all of a sudden, voila! Goodness gracious.

*I got a cup of coffee this afternoon during lab because, boy was I struggling... I realized, though, that this is definitely the first cup of coffee I've had this calendar year, and perhaps even this school year. I can definitely tell. I am still all caffeiney, more than 10 hours later. Hm... but isn't the half-life of caffeine only 3 hours? (again, I am a nerd) I can't believe that my dear suitemates Lauren and Maria have between 1.5 and 3 shots of espresso daily. Here I am all affected by one cup of iced coffee. I am worried about my suitemates. They are for sure addicted, it is ridiculous!

***
Now before I jump in to bed just want to give a shot out to my wonderful friends in Missouri. I got phone messages from two of them today in the course of one hour! Monica is coming to visit California for grad schools in the beginning of March, and we are going to get together. How fun!! =) I don't know if any of my Missouri folk actually read this, but if you do just know that I am thinking of you all and you are definitely all in my prayers. Good luck with grad and med school applications to everybody!

G'nite!

I know I already posted today, but I had to share the news!

Two good news:

**Eric got in to UC Hastings (San Francisco) and Stanford Law Schools today!

**Lauren started her very own blog!! (link) Yay!!


Not good news:

**My dad is in the hospital for cardiac problems.... aiya... lots of prayers please.


okay... off to work on biochem... wish me luck!

God has a funny sense of humor... tee hee...

I am amused. Today (and yesterday and I imagine the rest of this week, and well pretty much all the way till spring break comes in all its glory) is baaad. Today in particular because I didn't do the biochem problem set that is due today by 5pm because I couldn't bring myself to stay up later than 1:30 this morning... I decided that it would be better for me to take the extra time and get 10% off my homework turned in late so that I wouldn't be completely on no sleep for my 9am class. But then I forgot that I had to correct my spanish composicion so I ended up getting up around 7 anyways. That was pretty tough.

Miraculously, I made it through biochem, although the prof this morning took the strategy of 'let's see how many mechanism slides we can cram in here and have the students scribbling furiously while not understanding a word I'm saying'. Also not good.

Then I couldn't find my bike.

aaaaack! Thank God for Lauren, who walked with me around the chem building till we found where somebody had moved it. *Grr* I mean, really, who does that?

Then I went to print out my spanish composicion, except I had only 24 cents on my card and I had three pages to print.... so it printed the first two pages. Another *grr*. So I rushed like mad over to the other side of campus to print surreptitiously in the OSP office, then rushed on over to Spanish.

Which was highly unstimulating, as usual. Aiya... if I can just keep in my mind why I'm doing this. (The kids, the kids!) At least Eric was there to greet me with a sweet sweet smile and a 'you can do it!' hug. That was good. =)
Somehow, the unending class ended. I got on my bike to go back home and grab a quick bite to eat, as well as my pchem book and homework assignment (because as of 1:30 this morning I was still not done and very frustrated to boot. I swear, I used to be really smart in chemistry... there's just something about this book and the prof. Oh my gosh, I swear he can confound the simplest topics until they seem so esoteric and ridiculously confusing!).

Then-- I noticed smack-dab in the center of the thigh of my blue jeans a red spot. (Remember, I'm biking here so my leg keeps circling in and out of view) What could it be? Tee hee... it was non other than a little ladybug, coming along for a ride with me! Hahhahahaa.... I just started laughing to myself. God is just so funny sometimes! The lil' guy hung out till I made it to the eating club and then I scooped him up and away he flew! But what a cute little reminder that God cares about the littlest details of my life, not to mention all these big things that are coming up!

*happy dance*

Prayers please

Yesterday I had my phone interview with ICTC. It went pretty well, I think. Eep! Although I was Highly Inarticulate for the first question, trying to explain concisely why I want to do ICTC. How do you sum something like that up? Hm... I hope they don't hold that against me! There were lots of fun things about the interview, though. I got to talk about Bea a lot, in particular about the Soy Latte Incident and about how through my friendship with her God has grown me in how I do friendships. I also got to talk about Tina and bonding through chem and bio studying as an example of teaching/working together. We got to talk about Eric, too, and how something I'm learning is to open myself up and communicate more. We talked about Camp Kesem and the challenges that I faced as a counselor there. I talked about my girls at Eastside Prep and how we feed off each other's excitement for our science project (the girls were *adorable* in their special nitrile gloves... they were so tickled that they got to wear them!) and how they inspire me. I brought up this book that I read recently called Inside Mrs. B's Classroom: Hope, Courage and Learning on Chicago's South Side, by Leslie Baldacci. Incredible, this book... it made me cry at points and at others I felt nauseated, but after everything my heart was praising God that there are people like her to fight for these kids. Through my tears and shock at some of the anecdotes she relates, I was encouraged. So hard, sooo hard, but praise God that he made me a fighter.

I need everybody's prayers. Please be in prayer that God's will be done here. That I be encouraged and that God use the rest of my time here to prepare me for whatever happens next year. We find out around March 22nd and then we need to let them know within a week of our decision. Thank you so much, everybody, for your support. I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends. =)

Hahahahahaaaa!

I haven't laughed that hard for so long in such a long long time. Haha hahahahhehaeheheee!
My roommates are *hilarious*!! God is so great to keep laughter in our lives.

One of the highlights--

Bea: Yeah, we were making donuts and it was like "Plop, plop, plop..."
Maria: That sounds like an Asian word!
Everybody: *stunned silence followed by crazy laughter*
Maria (after several minutes): I was just kidding!

Down with AIM

...at least for the moment. I've decided that it's going to be better for the state of my work, as well as for my emotional and mental well-being that I not go online for a while. We shall see how long this experiment lasts. So I guess until I then, I'll talk to you later...

Can I punch someone? Any volunteers?

fine... I realize that punching through my computer wouldn't be so great. It already has enough difficulties as it is. How about virtual punches?

hm... in lieu of that, maybe I'll go curl up in a ball until I can go to sleep.

*note: virtual hugs would be good too... in lieu of actually seeing or talking to anybody.

Hm... I feel like I should post something. I'm just not entirely sure about what. I saw Big Fish this evening with my darling suitemates Bea and Maria, and the Erics. See this movie. It was stunning. And I've identified my grandma's accent-- it's from Alabama. I guess I should have known that, since I knew that is where she grew up. But I guess I figured that since she moved around a bunch it wasn't a place kind of accent, it was just a my Nanny sort of accent. Well, I still think so.

There were a lot of things in that movie that resonated with me. *editor's cut*

Well, my head is a little whirly because I realize I haven't slept much in the past... oh... four years, so I'm going to go to bed pretty soon and stop procrastinating. Besides I realize I'm not making much sense right now. And there is dance tomorrow. I am hoping that my foot will be all healed up and ready to twirl me around the dance floor.

Bonsoir, mes cheries...