Compaq Presario V2000

What my laptop and I did in the last 24 hours…

I think my computer is d.e.a.d.
8:09 PM Oct 21st from mobile web

Oh my God. Thank God for smartphones.
about 23 hours ago from mobile web

Laptop shopping during my lunch break. Bah.
about 9 hours ago from web

Found an affordable laptop that I liked. But then I found out it’s got a 9 inch screen. No thanks.
about 9 hours ago from web

Performing surgery on my laptop. . .
about 2 hours ago from mobile web

And it turned on. . .
about 2 hours ago from mobile web

I think I rock, but Im definitely going to be nicer to my laptop from now on.
about 2 hours ago from mobile web

What Im doing after work tomorrow: saving all my files on my external hard drive.
about 2 hours ago from mobile web

My laptop just shut down while I was using it last night. It wasn’t a gradual shut down; it was as if someone had unplugged the actual battery itself. It wouldn’t turn on at all so, naturally, I panicked. Thoughts were running through my head like, “Oh my God. All the photos I haven’t back up yet.” “My fellowship application.” “What am I going to do without a laptop!” “How am I going to watch my shows?!” And so on. (My imagination can run rampant at times).

I took every opportunity during my breaks at work today to research an affordable laptop that I could buy and have delivered by the weekend. After work, however, I was brave enough to take apart my laptop in hopes that things were just a little dusty and loose in there. And, sure enough, it worked! (After a couple times of taking more and more things apart).

My laptop is probably nearing its end anyway. It’s nearly five years old but I like it. A lot. Kudos to me for knowing how to take apart a laptop (I can do the same for a desktop but I haven’t done that in a very long time).  So, off I go now to celebrate with some Long Islands…

Updates from my lovely Twitter, and my lovely phone–Sony Ericsson P1i!

When It Rains, It Pours.

Hard. Too hard.

Excuse me while I get on my soapbox to rant (ever so elusively) some more.

To make the past week and a half even worse, I found out today that I am no longer moving to San Francisco. Yes, you read that correctly. No more San Francisco. No more of ‘The Move.’ I was moving to San Francisco because I was offered a fantastic job there but after a 12 hours of non-stop training and some talking, there was mutual consensus that I bit off more than I could chew. I say ‘mutual’ with hesitation because I would have liked to gone ahead and given it a shot, but they didn’t want to risk that because a lot of time, commitment, and money will be involved.

Long story short: the position is usually offered to someone in their late twenties/early thirties with several years of post-undergrad work experience under their belt whereas I am a fresh out of college, 22-year old with “zero” years of experience. Oh, and they decided to place me in a state that runs multi-million dollar campaigns instead of a state than only needs to earn $50,000 by the end of the year.

I’m upset, mad, and relieved. Upset because I turned down another job offer (and-a-half) for this and, well, I’m unemployed. Mad because I do think that I could’ve done a great job once I got the swing of things and they didn’t want that learning curve even though I’m new. At all. Relieved because a part of me disagreed with the format of their development program and though I care about the environment I don’t think I’m passionate enough to be an advocate for it. Education, yes. Health, yes. Multicultural/international issues, yes. Environment? Maybe not so much.

So, the rest of my day is going to be spent in bed watching old Stargate episodes save that dinner trip to Applebee’s with my friends to cheer me up.

Life sucks sometimes. What’s my plan of action? Relax for a few days, then head home to Manila by the end of the month.

Rough Week

It’s nearly 2am; I’m tired but I can’t sleep. This has been one ridiculously tough and draining week.

• I lost someone–things between us will never be the same again.
• I lost some three pounds in one week due to a lack of appetite (and eating would only make me nauseous).
• I haven’t been able to sleep properly/continuously without waking up at 4am needing to read or go online to be able to fall asleep again.
• I’m nervous and scared shit-less about this whole move to San Francisco. I don’t even want to write down all that goes through my head in rapid-fire succession when I think of SFO even for a split second.
• And, tonight, I couldn’t determine where the fine line was between just looking after someone and seeking professional help.

Sigh.

I’ve had stressful weeks because of academia but I don’t I’ve ever been this emotionally tired before.

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?

My Quest for Asian Food Delivery

My quest for an Asian restaurant in Portland, Ore. that delivers can be summed up as,

#PDX #fail

Yeah. I learned long, long ago that Asian restaurants in Portland simply don’t make house deliveries. A small handful have take-out service (call up to order, pick it up when it’s ready) but that just doesn’t quite cut it.

There was one time when I managed to convince the only Chinese restaurant that deliveredto venture out of their delivery area coverage. It was finals week, a friend and I had been couped up studying in the library all afternoon- and night-long, and we had neither the energy nor the time to make the 5-minute walk back to my apartment to even make ramen (not that I ever bought ramen…). Anyway, bad idea. It took the driver nearly two hours to make it to campus and that was after a lot of phone calls asking for directions in his broken English. The food was still hot and delicious but I don’t think that restaurant delivers at all anymore. My friend and I are probably to blame for that. Oh well.

When the dangerous combination of optimism, hunger, and hopefulness hits me, I still do extensive Googling and calling to check if any restaurants now deliver. But, nope–Asian restaurants in Portland refuse to be progressive. A lot of times I just shrug it off and venture into my own kitchen. Last night, however, it did make me embarassingly sad.

I was overcome with homesickness; I craved for comfort food. Much to the dismay/disbelief of the BF, I don’t consider mac and cheese, meatloaf, fried chicken, and the like to be comfort food. No, no. I’m Asian! Filipino if we’re being precise. Sure, I enjoy sushi, chicken tandoori, sweet and sour pork, and what not but what I really wanted/want is Filipino food.

Sisig with an egg cracked on top. Halo-halo. Laing. Pork inihaw. Kare-kare with lots of bagoong on the side. Balut.

Oh God. Just thinking about all that is making my mouth water and my eyes tear up.

Food can really represent–epitomize, even–a culture so it’s no wonder that people who are homesick just crave the food of their culture. There’s a Filipino restaurant in Portland but I think that its portions are too small and overpriced at that, and the location isn’t exactly convenient. That said, I’m thinking of making my way over to an Indonesian restaurant downtown tomorrow. (With the BF in tow, of course.) Indonesian and Malay food are as close as it gets to Filipino food.

So, Indonesian food it is tomorrow night.