Christmas and New Year break!

So, I spent Christmas and New Year (because of the inclement weather) in Richmond, VA. The drive down was the usual, mostly smooth until I hit Northern Virginia. I tried using alternative route instead of I-95, but it was still bad. I drove down on Christmas eve, and I guess many people are out for last minute shopping (as the alternative route passed by some strip malls and I saw that all the parking lots were packed.) So, it took me a good 11.5 hours to reach my cousin's place. Started the journey at 6.45am It was snowing/raining when I left my apartment.

As I spent Christmas in Richmond as well last year, but, because I was flying (no luggage room for gifts), and I was still a poor college student, I didn't buy any gifts last time. So, I did sorta double up this year. It was actually kinda fun to Christmas shop. Trying to pair gifts to my cousin, her husband, my niece and all really tested my memory. It got me trying to recall our conversations, my observations from my last few visits and trying to figure out what they will like. It's not so much about the price of it, because they can definitely afford most of the stuff they want, it's more like putting in time and effort to find the perfect gift. This may sound cliche, but, it's the thought that counts. So, after few trips to different malls/shops a couple weeks before Christmas, I finally got all the presents and even wrapped them nicely the weekend before.

As always, my visits to Richmond are always filled with food and drinks. Couple that with festive seasons really spell more food and more wine. Knowing that, I actually bought a case of wine down. (3 of us actually put a huge dent to that case of wine over the break.) So, for Christmas, there's turkey and lamb, then, all the eating out -> Sushi, and then, the visit to Harrisonburg to celebrate my cousin's mother-in-law birthday, there's ham and more... I did manage to put in a run with my cousin-in-law.

So, as my niece loves drawing and crafts, i bought her a colossal craft kit sets, with glass stone painting, friendship bracelet kit, sock puppet kit, stone painting kit and clay shaping kit. I actually can't believe I have some 'touch' in glass stone painting. :-)

Last year, I saw my very first Barbie movie. Well, lightnight struck twice. I saw another one this year. I got to admit that it wasn't as bad as I first imagined. It's actually an adaptation of the play 'A Christmas Carol'. For those who know the play, I was wondering how they actually adapt such a classic play into 'Barbie'ish. I actually saw the play live a week back at the Hanover theater, and then, another one on TV few days ago. It's kinda weird as I had never heard of it, let alone see it before that, and then, in a short span of less than 2 weeks, I've had seen 3 versions of it.

What else? Oh yeah, the new tinkerbell movie, also, Mamma Mia! the movie on dvd.

At first, I was thinking about leaving for MA again on the 30th, but I wasn't feeling too good. I guess it was because of the excessive merrymaking (reads wine drinking) and Rummikub from the night before. So, I postponed my trip to the 31st, not knowing that there was a snow storm brewing in New England. So, I found out about the snow storm warning on 30th afternoon. That's when I decided to spend New Year in Richmond. Well, it was all good. On New Year Eve night, after watching Mamma Mia!, it was about 11ish. Did the Countdown thing in front of the tv, bad champagne (a Chandon - lovely, not too dry) and strawberry to celebrate the new year! May the New Year of 2009 be a better year for all.

Woke up the next morning early to load up my car and all. After breakfast and a little waiting, I hit the road at 10.30am. The traffic was light all the way from Richmond, VA to Shrewsbury, MA. I stopped twice, for food and fuel. And with 30 minutes of stopping, I managed to cover 520 miles in 8 hours (including the stops), putting me traveling at an average speed of 65 mph, or if just average speed of moving, closer to 69 mph.... shhh....!!!

Also, last weekend, I bought a luggage sets and other stuff to start preparing for the trip home. I'm so excited!!! Finally going home again since Aug 2006. And finally be able to celebrate CNY back home (since 2004). Guess things might get a little awkward, but definitely gonna be some good time.

pictures? having hard time with firefox lately... guess i really need to restart it after updating... will try to get few up here...

New Year Resolutions?
I actually do have a few on my list. But, nope, I'm not sharing them here.

Happy New Year!!!

About Bees and DRIVING... Lotsa Driving

So, for my 4th of July weekend, I took an extra day off, on Thurs so that I can enjoy a 4-day weekend. I drove down to Richmond, VA to meet up with my uncle and aunt, who were visiting my cousin.

I thought leaving at 8am will allow me to most of the traffic, but I was half-right. I managed to beat the traffic in New York and most of New Jersey turnpike, but, it was about 3pm, when I was clearing Washington DC. The traffic in Northern Virginia was bad, really bad. I was pretty much crawling at 20-30mph for a good hour. So, my 8.5 to 9-hour drive turned into a 10 and a quarter hours.

It was great to see my uncle and aunt, and of course my cousin, and cousin-in-law and niece. I really enjoy hanging out in Richmond, VA. More like, hanging out with family. Too bad, I was suffering from a minor cold. Started feeling a parch-throat on Wed, stuffy-nose on Thurs, droopy-nose on Fri, and the rest were history... But, that didn't stop me from enjoying all the good food. All the grilling and roasting...

So, the next day, Independence Day, we went to the Botanical Garden. Weather was hot, but, we went there anyway. The garden is of good-size, but well-maintained. The colors were so breathtaking, and just the sight, sound and smell of nature were really overwhelming. And the lunch at the tea-house was great. Amazing food. The Baja beef salad I had was delicious. I took a bunch of pictures, and here there are...
Bees... pretty huge ones...
More of them...
The colors....
Looks artificial sometimes.
Flower... flower... ORCHID-Lah...
More flower... oops, i meant more ORCHID-lah
An interesting-looking orchid. Just like a pitcher-plant.
A giant hibiscus, like the size of a soccer ball.Dragonfly...
The conservatory, reflected upon the lake.
More bees...
And another...
Very last one...

So, that was fun. Then, we had a great dinner on Friday. Always do when I was in Richmond, VA. Always some kinda holiday or celebration. Grilled lamb... seriously...

On Friday night, we planned to watch some fireworks in the city, but, the event was canceled because of bad-weather. And, we drove to the other part of town, more like another town, hope to catch another firework display, but apparently, it was canceled as well. My poor niece was very disappointed, as all the anticipation to her first 'LIVE' firework display was called off.

The next day, we drove up to Washington DC, to attend a cook-out of my cousin-in-law's relative. Well, it was a great party. We spent the night at Westin Hotel, in Arlington, VA. It was a nice hotel. The next day, we drove to Silver Spring, MD for lunch. I found a highly-rated, well-reviewed dim sum place, and true to the words, the food was pretty good. And we waited about an hour for it. Probably, 'value-added' in that sense too.

Then, a good drive back to Shrewsbury, MA from there. We left the restaurant at about 1.30pm, with them heading south to Richmond, VA, while I head North. On paper, it should be 7 hours. But it turned out to be a 11.5 hours monster. Again, the driving through New York was actually not that bad. With my fastlane tag, I managed to skip all the queue of cash-paying drivers. But, the traffic came to a standstill on I-91, right outside of Hartford, CT. Apparently, a fatal accident had occured and the police closed down the highway, and it wasn't 3 hours later that I was able to get out of that. When I google-news the next day, I found out that it wasn't until 6 hours later that the freeway was fully reopened. It was like something I thought would only happen in some movies, where people turned off their car and walked on the highway. But, what can you do?
Looking back...
Looking ahead...
So, I got back to my apartment at about 1.10am. Starving and exhausted, I assembled a quick bite, took a quick shower, and went to bed at about 2.30am. Woke up 4 hours later to go to work...

Did I mention that my house-warming gift from my cousin survive the entire journey. It's a plant. I'll get the picture up soon.

An update since graduation... for real

I didn't publish many posts since late April, but that doesn't mean that I didn't write many posts. Most of those posts (half-written) are saved as drafts and most likely will remain as draft forever, lost in wasted memory space, stored as 0's and 1's, never to be read (at least that's what I hope). One thing about blogging is, it's rather a spur-of-the-moment thing, if you don't blog about it now, eventually, you will tend to forget a little, and then, you don't feel like publishing it after you wrote it half-heartedly.

So, here I am, late at night, typing this post. A real (in my opinion) post. The reason I'm still up late at this hour is because I had a headache earlier today, took some aspirin and had a nap in the afternoon -> won't fall asleep til much later in the wee hours. So, what's better to do than to update my blog when the air is cold (it's less than 50 degrees outside, and it's late May) and the surrounding is quiet?

About the headache. I think I'd been rather stressed out recently. Well, I always think that I handle my stress well, that's just because I don't show it, and manage to let go of it (at least that's what I think) with a chuckle, a deep breathe and a smile. But, come to think about it, do I really handle my stress well, or I'm just good at hiding it? Come to think about it, maybe it's a good combination/mixture of both. So, back to headache and stress. So, since graduation, I'd been trying to study as much as I could for the exam. Even with all the support and understandings from Jessica, Tomas and my dad, I still couldn't concentrate, partly because I feel bad for them, and I still think it was kinda selfish for me to write the exam, with my dad flying across the globe to come to the states and all. And now, knowing rather well that I didn't do well enough to pass the exam is really adding salt to wound. Ouch!

So, other than a 3-day vacation to Harrisonburg, VA and Charlottesville, VA, I hadn't been enjoying much of my 'freedom' of a fresh graduate. In addition, there's the apartment hunting, and still staying under other's roof stress that I'm feeling. Because of preparing and taking the exam, I didn't have much time to hunt for apartment in Worcester, MA. Fortunately, my colleagues help me on that. Now, I've the furniture hunting stress too.

Living off suitcases and with your car-trunk loaded is no fun too. And, the worse of all is, eating out! Try eating out 80% of the time for close to a month now. There's only that many restaurant and fast-food that one can have before you get sick and tired of them all. To me, eating out is only good once in awhile. Regardless how good is the premium burger, or the panini, or the pho, or the sandwich taste, it's not as good as a simple home-cooked food like simple celery hearts stir-fry, oyster-sauce chicken with potatoes and a simple omelet, all to go with rice.

So, thanks to my colleagues, I found a 2-bedroom apartment for myself. Why a 2 bedroom? Because this apartment doesn't have any of the extraneous amenities like gym, dvd library, tennis court, pool and whatnot, and for that reason, it's cheaper and bigger and more practical that all the 1-bedroom apartment that I found. So, if you need a place to crash if you are in town, once it's furnished (not sure when), just let me know in advance. I'll be moving into the apartment this Wed or Thurs. As much as a planner I am (aka a worry-freak), I started looking for furnitures since Sunday, actually, since 2-3 weeks ago on Craigslist, but didn't find much. So, I've been to Lowe's, the Home Depot, furniture outlet stores, Bed Bath & Beyond, Linen N Things, too many websites to remember, Pier 1 import, Sleepy's, Mattress Giant, BJ's wholesale club (which I'm now a member), Target, Staples, Office Depot and you-name-it. Furniture hunting's been not bad, especially for today, it's rather fruitful as I have quite some KIVs at Pier 1 and bought a set of cookware.

So, that's all the stress. People were telling me furniture hunting is fun, maybe, if you have the money to spend and also don't have a deadline to meet. Deadline being having no real bed to sleep on, and no chairs to sit on, and no table/desk to use.

Also, I can't mention enough how grateful I am to all the people that have helped me over my pre-university and undergraduate life. Also, worth another mentioning, is to Jessica and Tomas for helping me transitioning from graduating to starting my new job. THANK YOU!

So, guess, pictures next! A picture a day, and I'll try to elaborate on that day...
04/25/08 -- Right after Econ commencement. With my dad. In front of the Rackham Graduate School. Bell tower as background!

04/26/08 -- Right after the Actuarial Math Commencement, which was after the Spring Commencement. Congratulations, Class of 2008!


04/27/2008 -- Because of the dinner and then a party last night, I didn't finished packing and didn't start loading the car yesterday night. So, with all the cleaning and packing and loading to do, my dad and I only started our journey to Richmond, VA at 11am, 2 hours later than we initially planned. Here's how my bedroom look after all the cleaning up and stuff. Goodbye Ann Arbor. You'll be missed.

04/28/2008 -- Arrived at my Tomas' and Jessica's, Richmond, VA at about 10.45pm last night. Other than a 25-minute delay, before I decided to turn around and took a different route, because part of I-70 being closed for hazmat cleaning up after a spill, it was a great smooth drive. After a good night sleep, I did some unloading today and getting comfortable in this great house which I'll call home for the next 3 weeks.


04/29/2008 -- A big bird (related to hawk) perched on the very top of the tree beside the house, and shows how bored my dad was. (He took this pic.) LOL!


05/03/2008 -- Weather was great. Went to the park, Deep Run Park. Look at those cute goslings. Then, we went to downtown Richmond, and took the James River boat tour. Pretty interesting and informative.


05/04/2008 -- Cousin threw me a party. THANKS! Beef was great! Beer was better! Then, Jose took us back to his place at Harrisonburg, VA. Where we spent 2 nights there! First night, we tried some really authentic Mexican food for dinner. Also, my dad and I sampled 3 tequilas -> 3 shots each supposedly, but my dad gave me some of his, sangria, wine, and more!

05/05/2008 -- Visited the Luray Caverns. Nice and not smelly like Mulu Cave I visited. No bats!

05/06/2008 -- On the way back to Richmond from Harrisonburg, we stopped by Charlottesville to visit University of Virginia. Of course, I took the opportunity to visit Wooi Yang. Back to Richmond, VA! About 1 week to study for my exam! Yippee!


05/08/2008 -- A doe? Well... it's eating some flowers at my cousin's backyard.

05/11/2008 -- A squirrel got onto the bird-feeder! I was bored! And studying for the exam, and saw this. :)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Well, i guess it's still in time since it is not epiphany yet.

Happy 2008. A leap-year. My senior year.

So, for my Christmas, as I mentioned many times in previous posts, I went to Richmond, VA to spend time with my cousin and her family. It was really good to be able to spend about 2 weeks with them. (I was only able to spend 2.5 days last time when I visited them on my way back to Ann Arbor after my Summer internship).

I flew from Detroit (DTW) to Richmond, VA with a layover at Columbus, OH, just to avoid Chicago (because of their infamous delays) and I'm too cheap to pay 200 bucks extra for the direct flight. I didn't drive this time either, as it took me 11+ hours to drive (one-way) last time around and I don't think I'm that comfortable driving in the snow. Anyway, I left on Thur, Dec 20th, for Richmond, VA. Both flights were on time, and my luggage showed up at Richmond too. My only complain was the tiny flights. The first plane seats 4 per row(2 and 2), and has 11 rows, while the 2nd plane seats 3 per row (2 and 1), and has 19 rows. Really tiny plane. I'm 5-7/8, and by standing up straight in the aisle, my hair can reach the ceiling of the plane.

"My" room for 2 weeks...
My stuff... notice the football jersey...GO BLUE!...
So, it was basically just eating and drinking (wine mostly, on average of 2 glasses a night), some dinner parties, and of course the really TACKY Christmas Light tour.
One of the houses on the tour...
A video I took from inside the car on the Tacky Light Tour at Richmond, VA.
...just like a gingerbread house.


I tried uploading more onto youtube but it's acting up again.


I also spent two nights at Harrisonburg, VA, my cousin-in-law's hometown. It was also all fun. And more good food.

Not to mention. Got quite some Christmas presents from my cousin and relatives. Let me see, a sweater, a sleepwear set, 2 books, an audio-book, 2 bars of chocolate(dark), a B&N gift card...

So, what else did I do over the 13 days I was under my cousin's care. Let me see, I was computer technician-carpenter-babysitter-white-or-red wine decider-cousin. :)

And children say the darnedest thing. I mean, without any filter. Like my niece, 4.5 years old, in a restaurant, pointed at a lady and said, quite loudly, "She's smoking." Also, at the dinner table at home, "I don't like peanut butter, it's disgusting". And, all the tantrums and flares. Also, while talking to grandma (my aunt) over the phone, she went, "Nana, I want to tell you something... my birthday is coming soon." And her negotiation skill is second to none.

Also, I also recorded quite a number of 'first-times', (Tremayne, NOT THAT first time...). Like, carrying a conversation with someone for more than 2 hours (yes, my first time); watch a Barbie movie; use a power-screwdriver; and playing kiddie stuff with a niece for a long period of time (go check out "my littlest pets"), and Chutes and Ladders, and without getting bored. Also, first time decorating sugar cookies with icing and all. All in all, it's a great learning experience, of American way of Christmas celebration.
Sugar cookies i decorated...

Also, what a great man my cousin-in-law is. Someone that I really look up to.

And, all the conversations really gave me more to think about this year. Especially, I'll be graduating in no time and start working before I know it.

I managed to scribble down my new year resolutions: (not even sure if you can consider this my new year resolutions, more like a to-do list)
1) learn how to float (I can swim the length of a pool but not float)
2) do more running
3) eat more
4) read more
5) think more (sorry if my future post are more philosophical)
6) sleep more (I think i can use 6-7 hours average...)
7) drink more wine, less beer
8) travel more (Cancun for Spring break? not just drink-silly Cancun, but explore Cancun)
9) buy less

...