Name: ymmatammy Home: Berkeley, California, United States About Me: Currently a student at the University of California, Berkeley majoring in Economics. Soon-to-be graduate. Looking to take advantage of what time I have left before I get thrown into the real world--I want to take photos, travel and eat good food. I like to play tennis, design things, make things from scratch and cook. See my complete profile
III
Another check, and some needs!
July 27, 2009
// 8:26 PM
I don't really think I'm doing a very good job of making this whole college experience memorable. I think from now on, I will try harder. I need to make senior year amazing--just to make up for those other times that weren't as spectacular (and note-- I said spectacular not just okay, because it's just be quite alright so far). I think this summer has gone to prove that I'm trying to take advantage of this time. All this time before real life kicks in. And with that said, I've come to blog about another thing I've crossed out on the College Bucket List: camping!
Last.. last weekend about 8 of us decided to finally make camping happen and after a 50-some long thread on a facebook message titled "camping!" we finally made it to Folsom Lake. First and foremost---this place was HOT. Unbearably so. Coming from Bay Area--spending the last few wonderful spring and summer months in this 60-70 degree weather--this was HORRIBLE. It was like I was dumped in a sauna. But alas, it was camping and you need to make sacrifices. The night we left to go, both cars left behind schedule, but our car had the privilege of getting lost.. many times and deciding that perhaps we should listen to the GPS. NEVER LISTEN TO THE GPS WHEN YOU HAVE GOOGLE MAPS. Seriously. Anyways, we reached a gate at about 10pm and oh boy, what do you know--it's chained up. We arrived at the wrong gate. And after 2 hours of turning and backtracking--we finally made it to the campsite. It was past midnight.
The next day we spent trying to do "camping things" like hiking and swimming. The later we did for over 4 hours in the lake because of the weather. There, we met some strange and intoxicated guys who were quite crude. Anyways, they were a good laugh for the time we were there. We tried to kill time by playing Taboo but that only lasted so long. We took showers in spigets (many times through out the day) not caring whether or not this water was even clean. Phil cooked us some steak and nightfall came. Of course, we had our Skyy and the drama afterwards we won't discuss.
But all in all, I would do it again--maybe not anywhere in central valley, but I would do it again. My suggestions are for Big Sur which I've been dying to go to for a while now.
Since then.. it's been work-internship-work-internship-too short of a weekend, and so on. This weekend I took a little bit of a breaker. I went to Oakland Chinatown to check out their 夜市 Night Market. It wasn't as great as I wished it would be, but I happened to see my sister there. I also went shopping for a bit to ease the stress and it worked! Although, today at work was hardly easy.
This weekend I'm planning to finally get something I've been needing for a year now--a laptop. Everyone knows my laptop is struggling hard to keep working. The battery is dead, the screen is broken on both ends and is probably about to fall off, and the left click button is dead--and has been dead for more than a year now. My choice of a new laptop? It's gotta be a 13" Macbook Pro. Oh baby.
I can't wait until my one and a half week summer starts--that is, after work and the internship is over.
My, this past few weeks have been quite eventful. Despite the fact that this is my first time staying away from home for the summer, it's been.. okay. Since the last post, a good bunch has happened. I said bon voyage to Janella and Keith who are going to Ohio and China respectively. Keith is doing the same program I did last year, I hope his experience lives up to everything I always went on about.
Of course, I've started working too. The kids started out being really nice, getting along with each other and having a good time. The work itself isn't tiring at all. I follow them around to snack, lunch, and do some songs. The lesson isn't hard most of the time and is pretty easy to manage since I only have about 6-8 kids at a time. What is REALLY tiring about the job (besides having to wake up at 8am everyday) is making sure they're always in my view. Constantly counting, making sure everyone gets water, goes the bathroom. Also making sure that I'm not doing something I'm not suppose to because our director is pretty damn strict.
The internship has been good so far. I really want to get into making things though.. creating things and go further than just research. But luckily, I'm just starting to really get down to designing some stuff and messing around with Photoshop.
That pretty much means I've been doing a lot of work all summer. Tiring at the least.
The passing of Michael Jackson really saddened me. Some of my friends who knew me before college might remember I was a huge fan of Michael Jackson. He was my very first idol. My very first website ever created. Very first CD ever bought. I used to watch the specials on VH1 all day. The Jackson 5 movie and the Moonwalker movie that they played all day (or, that played all day only on my computer because I recorded them on mountains of VHSs. I watched all those music videos all day long. Sad to say though, the opinion about him was not very good during that time, or any time after that for that matter. I was embarrassed sometimes when I said I really liked him. Especially after the trials, I would always say I loved Michael Jackson in "the olden days." Now he's gone and everyone is feeling sad about it. I'm pretty sure many people doubted him but now are feeling bad about it. Regardless he's a legend and I wish I could have seen him perform live. He passed away too soon.
The weekend after we had a nice little EAP Reunion because Ivy came to SF-- finally our plans followed through. We took her out to the Golden Gate Bridge but unfortunately, the place was really foggy and the layer was pretty thick. We could hardly see the bridge when we first pulled up. After a bit it finally cleared up. Made for interesting pictures though. My favorite part of the entire visit was when George pulled up his car next to Julia's and we waited for Ivy to realize we were there. The look on her face was classic. Classic Ivy's China shocking moments face. I wish I had taken a picture of it.
After the Bridge, we took a very long and traffic-y drive to Barney's on College. It was all worth it though. I think everyone had a pretty good and fulfilling meal. George and I took an oath to not have so many burgers (because it's pretty much his favorite meal on Earth). So it was satisfying for the both of us. After the meal we said our goodbyes and tried to arrange plans to get together again.
A promise to reunite again!
After that we hung out with Angela a bit more and dropped her back off in Alameda. Since then, we've seen her another time when we had a meal at Sushi House the other day. We took a walk on the random (but.. nice?) beach in Alameda. It was so awkward. A two way main road with a shopping center on one side and a beach on the other. The weekend was filled with delicious food as I went out with George's family to Dopo, an Italian restaurant on Piedmont Ave. It was amazing! The best lasagna I've ever had--perfect balance of pasta, cheese, meat and crispyness.
Well anyways, for July 4th my parents came over and we had a meal at Joshuya's. My parents liked it and I guess I enjoyed it too (even though I had Sushi House the day before). We went to Oakland Chinatown after and shopped around. I think they just wanted a break from routine and go out. I think they had a fun time even though all they did was buy vegetables and fruit. After that I helped George wash his car. Always eventful (eh. hehe). After that his sister invited us to a BBQ over in Oakland. I was a bit hesitant at first, but it turned out to be pretty fun. It was at warehouse type building. From the outside it looked abandoned. Inside, it was beautiful! It was an architecture firm and it made me really sad that I ditched my dream of becoming an architect. Everything in there was beautiful--the models, the blueprints, the colors, the inspiration! We BBQed on the ledge that looked out to the train tracks. It was really nice and quaint. It turned out a friend from Cal was there that we knew too. The fireworks were amazing, though it was a bit cold. Those fireworks in the pictures look fake almost.
Anyways, I went to bed at about 1:30am and woke up at 7am to watch the Wimbledon final. Andy Roddick never fails to impress me. When even I had started losing hope, thinking he wasn't going to get far, he beats Murray and reaches the final. An impressive act in and of itself. I was so happy to see him in the final, but playing Federer, I was scared to see a quick defeat. I was wrong and SO happy to see him fighting, and playing the best he's played ever. He had the championship in his hand, but lost it. Without a doubt, everyone knew Andy was the one who they wished ended up with that trophy. He was so emotional afterwards, and Federer, lost for words because he was so fortunate to get lucky. Andy got the breaks and had the edge, but Federer got lucky the last game of the match. Classic match regardless. I'm proud of him and I can't wait for him to show everyone what else he's got.
"This is the beginning of Andy Roddick, not the end. By his own admission he had given himself a chance to win Wimbledon, just to reach the final he had beaten a former world No.1 and then the world No.3 in front of a parochial home crowd. He lost to a player who has won more Grand Slam titles than any other and who was appearing in his seventh consecutive Wimbledon final."
Name: ymmatammy
