FEB 19TH: Rachel came to visit yesterday! Haven’t seen her since GradNight, and I’m so happy it wasn’t awkward when we stopped talking. Karen was there too, and she gave Rachel a ride to Susan’s place, and we hung out from 1:30ish to 3:30ish? I meant to be back by 1, but Yen and I were toilet paper shopping at Target. That was the day I discovered Subway’s February $5 Footlong deal! After, Karen drove us back to the ARC and we hung out with Rachel and her Volleyball Tournament group for a little, and I worked out with Susan. Honestly do not know why I don’t go more often. We did ellipticals and treadmill for 30 minutes, went upstairs and did the circuit for around the same amount of time and finished up with running 3 laps on the track. That’s a little over a quarter of a mile! 
The circuit was hard, since I had to work on the machines for 45 seconds and 15 seconds rest to get to the next one. Once I got off the one I was working on and adjusted the weights for the next one, the 45-second countdown already started. I sweated, and it kinda felt good! I’m happy it wasn’t pouring when Susan and I left. We walked quickly and it took us around 20 minutes to get back to CV. Don’t remember what else I did that day, since it was a week ago. I’m slow to update.
FEB 23: Finally met with Larry Cabral for research for next quarter. Last time, he got sick, after rescheduling again because he couldn’t make it on Tuesday at 10 AM, even though he said any time Tuesday works for him. For some reason, my left eye gets irritated easily when I leave contacts in there for too long. I spent a few minutes taking it out and changing into my glasses before meeting with him. He talked to me for a bit; I told him about my major and why I wanted to be there (mentioned something about intrinsic value in every organism, which interested him and got him on a tangent to explain how ecology and evolution shouldn’t be separated). I asked about how else they were stimulating the flies besides starvation, and I don’t remember what he said to that anymore. He said Mueller and Rose were working together in Bio 198 research or something, and that Mueller’s lab was looking to have the flies evolve toward giving birth to live young, and that they were seeing progress already, even though they started the experiment during the summer. Amazing. He had to swat flies away from his face a good number of times. He told me the position was open, and the opportunity to do Bio 199 was there; all I had to do is prove myself capable. I need to be organized, display strong leadership and be willing to work hard to get myself to where I want to be in lab. I’m excited for this.
FEB 24: Chem midterm. The prediction of products was simpler than the predicting NMR structures. Those were worth so much. Can’t believe I missed the ozone for the oxidizing reagent. Too many reagents to memorize for that. At least reduction was only 3 types. Happy there wasn’t much radicals ones, because I didn’t learn that at all. I just know the electron meets in the middle of nowhere. I skipped Art Studio this whole week. I prepped for lab presentation on Diels-Alder. I spoke too quickly, and kept saying “this thing.” I couldn’t even come up with “pi and sigma bonds!”
Steven Lam was probably annoyed at me. Simon was great. He explained the hydrolysis mechanism and explained it clearly why we didn’t get products when wannabe our friend guy asked him. Vanessa told us that day that Douchebag’s name is Kevin. Simon and I found out Douchebag #2′s name is Jason today. He was running on 5-Hour Energy and couldn’t measure out the magnesium so I had to help him out. I seem to always take gloves out in between his lab partner. It’s like cutting him off. Also, the acetone too. This took the whole 4 hours, almost. The last one too! Simon told me about the dry ice and how it expanded a water bottle until it got really fat. He took a picture of me with irritated eyes. I was leaning in to check and let my guard down and now he has another ugly picture of me.
FEB 25: I cleared out my entire schedule to finish it on the last day. No work, thankfully no bio discussion and I also skipped chem midterm review at 4. I was about to print out my third one when MS Word completely shut down. I spent 20 minutes trying to recover it, but I had to retype the whole thing. I rushed through my 4th one, and that was as far as I got. I matched the structures to ones found on Wikipedia, so that was pretty good. I printed all that I had out, left at around 4:52 PM, and starting galloping through the rain to get there on time for the 5 PM deadline. Near that shady area to get straight to RH’s steps, I saw Kenneth’s roommates Harrison and the Asian one walk quickly too. When we got closer, one of them looked down at his watch and started running. I ran too. There were these girls in heeled boots who were gasping and saying that they ran from the Science Library. We all waited for the elevator and the big one came down. The two guys who were getting out looked surprised at the mob of people waiting to get in. I swear there were around 15 people crammed into it. No one asked for 4th, or god forbid, 2nd floor. I think we all would have screamed bloody murder at them. The elevator deposited us on 5th floor at 4:58 PM. We all clamored out and rushed toward the mailboxes. There were several TAs lining the walls and the stock people were there too. One TA looked at his watch and said, “One minute.” With everyone pressing in on poor little me, I couldn’t find Dave’s mailbox. Then I did and squeezed myself out of there and headed toward the elevator. It came up and a few people came with it, and someone told them to hurry, they only had less than a minute left, and they tore off. Someone said they didn’t finish it either, which made me feel better, even though that’s completely bad. I can’t believe these people will be our doctors in the future. It was really windy by the time I got out there again, and I tried to use my umbrella, but the wind kept changing directions. I got wet anyway. I hung out at Ana’s apartment and we all watched “Minute to Win It” for two hours. Those best friends were the best team I’ve seen. They complimented each other well. I can’t believe we spent 2 hours watching people on TV play with household items. I went back to my apartment and Yen and I went to BCD Tofu again and I explained to her that she doesn’t have to worry when she’s with me, since every time I need to step outside, the rain has either stopped or died down. We talked for nearly 2 hours, and it felt like a date, because we were learning things about each other. But not that way of course.
FEB 26: I got to see Byron Valencia in the morning at work. Christine and Jess didn’t get there until 9 or something, even though I was supposed to open the Front Desk at 8:30. Alison came to take the rest of my shift and I left for SSPA to take the practice GRE. I scored 500 for the Quantitative Analysis, and 540 for the Verbal section. It’s not too too bad, but I need to work on it to raise it to at least a 700 for the math portion. It’s just like the SATs again, only much harder. The GRE people confused me. I still don’t know if I should take them before the change, and study hard for them, or wait. If I take the classes, which cost $100 more than the Princeton SAT Prep we had to pay, after the $100 off, I’ll have to find transportation there. Mary, Angel and Fenny came soon after, so I had to think of those issues at a later date. I haven’t seen them in so long! I forgot how often Mary keeps saying “…What’s that called?…” Fenny was nice, but a little shy. I’m happy we got to the point where we were able to tease each other at the end of their stay though. We hung out in the laundry room with Susan for a while, then followed her back to her apartment and watched some NICK. Ana was there, without makeup, not at any of her events. It was a nice change. I teased her about having so many connections in Riverside. We went to my apartment and made some pho and funfetti cake and waited around for Angel to leave. When she did, I took the cake I was making out of the oven to let it cool, ran to take a shower, came out to a sleeping Fenny, started watching “The Hangover” with Mary, went back to the beginning when Fenny woke up and started watching with us, and checked the cake lots of times in between. We promised to save Angel some, but kept devouring it. I cut it into 16 pieces instead of 25 this time, and it seemed a lot less. We went to the CC to get “Shallow Hal” after a long time trying to find a chick flick all of us agreed on. We set up our blankets on the floor of the living room, and talked and talked until 1:30ish until we were tired out, and fell asleep. It hurt my tail bone and hipbone and everything else when I woke up the next morning. Mary told me she didn’t hear me snore, just breathing deeply, which made me happy. The next day we went to lunch at Shin Sen Gumi in Fountain Valley with Angel’s friend Sherry, who was one of those girls who knows she’s pretty and acts all stuck up about it. I suggested BCD, Ajisen, Guppy, and that area, but they were all, I know someplace better. I assumed we’d be eating at a place close by, but I guess not. We waited for the longest time for a table, but they didn’t let us in until our 7th person came. It was really Japanese. We had to take off our shoes and everything. I was wearing my barefoot socks. It was pretty good. I used sesame oil in it, wanted to try the miso but didn’t, and wanted to try a tiny dumpling but didn’t. I should have ordered the noodles hard though. I don’t know why I didn’t, since that’s how I usually like my noodles. I didn’t know what to say the whole time. Wen was the only nice one out of all the people I just met. He at least talked in my direction. Angel and Danny didn’t seem to resonate. She liked him too much. Her expectations are too high. I had a small deja vu moment when I met him though, because it reminded me exactly of Ana and Ryan. Wen was nice enough to give Mary, Fenny and I a ride back to CV. I did some laundry. We gossiped. We went to Cha after a while, I finally got popcorn chicken meal and had black almond milk tea with little bobas. I found out that day I’m a slow eater, but it’s just because I don’t want to be the first one done eating with others, so I slow down and wait for them, but before I know it, they’re all done and waiting for me. We walked back to Angel asleep on top of my covers, thankfully (I saw those dirty feet), I turned on the Oscars to watch Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore sing their duet, we talked a lot about Danny and Angel and Yen came back and we kept talking and talking, and it was such a good day for me, hanging out with girls and being able to act like one and lean against them and hit them and talk about what works and what doesn’t work about our bodies. I never get to do that! They left a little after 10, I declined their invitation to go eat again, and I absolutely loved that I was able to hug people like a normal person! These aren’t even people I’m the absolute closest to, maybe except for Mary, and I get to be who I want to be around them. I cherish these kinds of releases from the person I feel like I’ve turned into. Those two days were amazing.
FEB 28: Last day of February! I got two Subways. One with Helen and another with Kevin. I finally tried other breads, herbs and cheese and honey oat, which is painful against the roof of my mouth when toasted. This was a good day regardless of that, since my plants finally appeared! Too bad Mary couldn’t see it. I was so excited! I had to register for classes too, and it just so happened again that I didn’t get into the bio class I wanted with Tsai, so I just kept refreshing it at night and got in! Things just work out for me sometimes. And I love it when they do. Mary came again because she and I both forgot her camera was in my bag, and I forgot about showing her my plants again! Helen and I started watching “The Bachelor” at 9, which I completely forgot it started at 8, and Yen came in a few minutes later to watch until the end with us. Yay for Emily still staying in! I love her genuineness and beauty and the way she holds herself, and I admire that she is able to care for her daughter as a single mother in a beautiful home. I didn’t feel as bad for declining their invitation to go eat again, as Angel was heading toward Mesa to pick Sherry up. No loss there.
MAR 1: We were to meet at 8:15, and I woke up at 8:09 after realizing that I haven’t heard my alarm for a while since it started ringing at 7:15. I rolled out of bed, threw a sweater on over my PJ t-shirt, pulled on some pants, washed my face quickly, brushed my teeth, popped in some gum and took off for the Front Lawn. Jerry and Rodrigo were there and Rodrigo was all, go take a nap, which got Jerry laughing. I ran toward the Housing Office and stumbled into the Conference Room and everyone laughed, because my eyes were still red and half shut and it was so obvious I just woke up. I wanted to check people off for my cluster so I can laugh at Helen and Marina when they came in, and so I could say hi to Mervin on one side, and Ana and Susan and the rest of them on the other side when they came to check in. None of them came, except for Mervin, who didn’t see me, and Jenny, who was frustrated her file was on hold so she couldn’t register. I had a glazed and sugar twist after. I like the glazed more. Only 14, including me, out of 64 people showed up to check in. I wanted to help out because I’d rather be up and dressed than scared out of my sleep and in PJs. Christine actually LOL!-ed in her reply back. Piggy bank program was also that day. I took a long time to decide to paint my pig the same pink as Helen’s. I painted a matching green one, and let my poor sister pick one. I’m so sad she and Chris broke up. It doesn’t make it easier when you see something coming. It hits you just as hard. I was late to chem this morning just talking to her on the phone. We never talk like that. She finally opened up to me, even if it’s about such a devastating thing to her, and I still haven’t done the same to her. It’s moments like this when I wish I were at home instead of 50 miles away, but I guess it wouldn’t have gone as smoothly if I were with her, since we’re not that kind of people, as much as I wish we were. All in all, this was my first blog for the entire quarter, my first published blog since I got my job, and it was an eventful week for me, even though this would be nothing to those social animals I will be always jealous of.
