Whirlwind

Where do I even begin?!

As you may know, my life has been filled with more downs than ups the past few weeks. The personal mood + outlook at life trend is beginning to take a positive spin. If you were to graph it, however, you would notice that it still vacillates some and is therefore an all too tumultuous upward trend.

I don’t want to go into details online since I’d rather share it with those friends who take the time to ask how I’m doing and to hang out with me. (And, of course, you, if so choose to send me an e-mail). To sum up what I’ve been up to and will be up to, however, here are a few lovely snippets:
- workshops and webinars on start-up businesses and social media
- fellowship applications
- research proposal: ‘Applying the Business Model to Education’
- only wearing either heels or boots
- making my f*in awesome Halloween costume
- maybe visiting a new country or two

This week, I decided that I really need to concentrate on who and what matters most to me. A few weeks ago, I just felt so unwanted by people who I thought were important to me. What did I do? Well, I cried, moped around, got angry, etc. Then I changed my attitude. With that, I quickly realized what an amazing support system I have: immediate and extended family, close and distant friends, new and old colleagues. There are people out there that care about  me and love me as much as I care about them and love them. For that, I am extremely grateful. Imagine that.

Simply said, the world is my oyster!

San Francisco, Here I Come!

I’m moving to San Francisco, CA in about, oh, two and a half weeks. It’s both exciting and scary for the same reasons: I’m doing this on my own; I’m moving to a city where I have no friends; and I (sort of) get to start over. There’s no doubt that I’ll be chronicling the move to SFO on this blog that I’ve neglected for the past few weeks.

On a slightly different note, I just saw this on this week’s PostSecret.

It made my heart skip a beat.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

I’ve been up to all sorts of things and thought it was about time I updated you. I’m a bit of a hodgepodge when it comes to what I do. (I like that about me.)

The BF surprised me with a slice of cherry rum cheesecake that we shared and a copy of ‘Il y a longtemps que je t’aime‘ after he got home from work one evening last week. Both were much enjoyed. I wasn’t expecting him to like the movie as much as he did.

The next day, while we were waiting for the bus, I told him about what I caught our neighbour–a published poet–doing. She would run up her driveway to the road, do this weird wave action with her arms, arrange these sticks by the crosswalk, and then run back down to her house… several times. There was one day when I saw her doing that as I left to go to work in the morning, and she was doing the same exact thing when I got back later that evening.

The BF quickly came to the conclusion that she had OCD so he decided to let her know. This is what he left her:

He re-organized the sticks to say OCD. I’m not sure if she’s seen it but it’s still there.It’s a little mean but he thinks it will be good for her to realize that she suffers from OCD.

Later that evening, we found ourselves at a bar with some friends. We got to Kell’s a little too early for happy hour, which is why we went there in the first place, so to entertain ourselves we played a “drinking game” with GRE flashcards. We’re a rather rambunctious group of kids. Not really. Just lame. Haha.

Favourite word that I learned? ‘Cosset.’ It basically means ‘to pamper.’

All that was from last week. Between then and yesterday, I got time off from work and I’ve just been up to a whole lot of nothing.

Yesterday was rather productive because I had a couple meetings. After the first meeting of the day, I decided to have lunch at St. Honore on NW 2rd. Their pastries and entrees never fail to disappoint…

…until yesterday when I found a fly underneath my brioche cocette. Gross, yes? I was enjoying it up until that point so the fly was a rather unfortunate find. I like to complain (especially when it comes to hygiene) but I held back because I just didn’t have the patience nor the energy. Given the cleanliness of their bathrooms, however, the fly shouldn’t have come as a shock. Bathrooms are often good indicators of the kitchen’s cleanliness; there seems to be a positive correlation between the two.

Let’s all stick to the St. Honore in Lake Oswego.

I didn’t stay around for much longer after that. I decided to head on over to a coffee shop in the Pearl to take care of some loose ends online. They overcharged me for my caramel latte and although I didn’t really mind having to pay extra I wanted to point out their error. The cashier was just beyond confused so I gave up and told him to forget it. He sort of did and gave me a free drink coupon for next time. Sweet, I guess.

Later that evening, the BF and I went to check out ‘Taste of Jakarta,’ an Indonesian restaurant located right downtown. Excellent find, I think. It’s nothing fancy–paper plates and cups, plastic utensils, not too overly-decorated–but good service and great food. The food is a little greasier than what I’m used to but delicious and reasonably priced nevertheless. We were both uncomfortably full that even walking to our next destination was just painful.

Death by Indonesian food indeed.

And that’s some of the highlights from the past week. I guess this post makes it rather obvious that I really like food. Oh well. Who doesn’t like good food?

How Do I Dial 1.800.XOXO?

“For more information, please call 1.800.XOXO.”

“If you know the name of the party you are trying to contact, please type in the first three letters of his first or last name.”

“1.800.GOOG.411″

I don’t know about you but I absolutely despise those commands. Why? Because I can’t figure out the actual numbers on my phone that has a QWERTY-keypad. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve stood there looking at my phone trying to quickly figure out which numbers to press before I get hung up on. With a growing amount of people owning smart-phones, most which have QWERTY-keypads, I think it’s rather archaic to have alpha-number commands.

Even Google isn’t on top of it. I love Google and its 1.800.GOOG.411 function though so I have that saved on my phone. (Notice how I haven’t said, ‘…so it’s all right’?) Aside from that, it’s gotten to the point where I don’t even bother picking up my phone to call when I find out the organization doesn’t put out the actual numbers.

Who’s with me on this?

Never Ever Have I…

…sprained or broken anything, or gotten stitches.

Until this weekend. Sort of.

I was on my way over to check out our badminton court* when I rolled on both my ankles after taking one step off the porch. My left foot gave out and my body twisted mid-fall so that I pivoted on my right foot to land on my right side. To make it even better, as I was falling, my mind was suddenly filled with all these random thoughts. Sort of like how your life would flash before your eyes but instead of seeing my life I saw the consequences of my fall.

“Should I call out for P and Z for help? No, no. That would be embarassing.” “Oh crap. Don’t tell me I finally broke something.” “Uh oh, am I not going to be able to go to yoga? Maybe I can get a hold on my monthly membership.” “Why isn’t the BF here?!”

All of that in the span of a few half seconds. Yeah. How epic.

When I landed, I did get kind of teary-eyed because it hurt. But, I did start giggling when I realized I was fine. Fortunately, nothing was broken or sprained–both my ankles buised and swelled slightly but I hadn’t completely lost the ability to walk. It doesn’t hurt much anymore except for when I’m on stairs and walk for a considerable amount.I’m also staying away from yoga for another day or two.

…bought something that expired ten days ago.

Thanks, Whole Foods!

In pursuit of a mostly vegetarian diet, I purchased some fake meat from Whole Foods yesterday. Soy bacon, soy chorizo, soy ground beef–all that good stuff. When I was unpacking my grocery bags though, I noticed that the ground beef expired… on August 15. Ten days ago. Lovely, right? I’m usually pretty good about checking the expiration dates but I guess free truffles right by the fake meat section doesn’t help my focus much. Anyway, I called Whole Foods, explained to them what happened, and they told me to come in to get my refund. I did just that today. I got a double refund and new soy ground beef that expires two months from now.

So, there you go. My first (almost) sprain and (not) delicious (very) expired fake meat.

*Yes, we have a badminton court.