Back to Berkeley

12-30-11

Went in to work for a bit today. Back to Berkeley = back to seeing fun sidewalk art outside the BART station!

A Little After the Fact

12-27-11

The first snow since I've been in MI. A few hours before I leave. I sorta like it that way! Purdy.

12-26-11

YAY Credits with Jonathan's name!

Christmas Casualties

12-25-11

The Christmas festivities are just too much for some people.

Christmas Eve

 12-24-11

Christmas Eve! Tree, fire, presents and cookies. Kathryn always goes all out and bakes hella cookies. She even made some gluten-free for me! Yay! Merry Christmas Eve, everybody.

Meet My New Boyfriend

 12-23-11

I was disappointed that the Y here didn't have any heavy bags, and then I discovered this handsome fellow. Oh yeah. He's a punching bag. I went to the Y just to get in a core class and noticed him sitting against the wall, so I asked if I could use the room to work out more and stayed to beat him up a little. It was awesome. Shadow boxing is just not the same. And it was fun to have a "person" to hit - really helped me work on angles and uppercuts! 

Christmas is Coming...

12-22-11

I've been busy wrapping presents today - getting it done before everyone else gets here!

There Really Isn't Much to do in Michigan...

12-21-11

Obligatory visit to Meijer. 

Holiday Vacations: Contrasting Experiences

Jess is currently in Hawaii.

I am in Michigan.

I bring you: contrasts via text message:

Bekah: "It's sleeting. It's gross."
Jess: "It is bright and sunny here with cool tradewinds."
Bekah: "Jerk."
Bekah: "They call this a 'wintery mix'"
Jess: "Well, they call this paradise."

Then she sent me a picture of the balmy sunny day with the "cool tradewinds."

There is not justice in the world.

There isn't even any snow here to pretty things up. It's just gray and dead. Though to be honest it hasn't been as cold as I expected so far. Granted, I did run from the parking lot into Schuler's (a book store) screaming "it's sooooo coooooold" (drawing strange glances from everyone around...oh and my apologies to the lady I almost ran over...I was cold...?), but still. That was later in the day and I swear to you it was getting colder no matter what anyone may tell otherwise.

Also, I must admit, Lansing is pretty cute/charming during the holidays. A lot more so than I remembered it. Maybe the downtown area has just been renovated even more since I was last here. There still is jack shit going on and absolutely nothing to do, but it's definitely got the Midwest charm and jolly good cheer thing workin' for it this winter.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and take my camera in somewhere for fixin'...

"I chose and my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on." 

--Stephen Sondheim

12-17-11

Buckeyes!! Katherine is having a Christmas party tonight so I made buckeyes in honor of her Ohio roots. You don't even want to know how much powdered sugar is in these things. Eesh.

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture. My camera is broken right now, so I had to use my phone :( 

12-16-11

More sidewalk art outside the BART station! I keep thinking this is a turtle, but I guess it's actually a ladybug...with a very turtley head. He's totally turtley enough for the turtle club.

12-15-11

Officially done with PhD apps! Unless I decided to apply to Gallaudet in Feb. But we'll not think about that for right now. 

Yipee! I'm drinkin your wine to celebrate! 

Sidewalk Art

12-12-11

Someone drew a rendition of the downtown Berkeley BART station on the ground outside the station's main entrance. I especially like the creepy bugs...

Christmas Time is Here

12-9-11

So I took over the family gift exchange this year. It has been no small task, let me tell you. The slips of paper I printed out to randomly choose the names, however, were quite small. Don't print a list straight off of google documents, everyone. They'll end up a millimeter wide and your roommate will curse you as she tries to choose them out of the hat.

Nerdy Times

12-8-11

And now for your viewing pleasure. I bring you: Devoid. Yes. I dressed up like Devo and then played in a rock band band for my friend's birthday. The audience of dorks and nerds totally loved us. 

Watch Katherine dance around - she's both awesome and hilarious. 

"He went to court and filed for divorce from his secrets, fears, shortcomings and failings. Citing irreconcilable differences, he said they had simply grown apart over the years and no longer had anything in common."

--Jonathan Carroll

12-4-11

Took a walk in the Albany Bulb after a nice day of relaxing and listening to RadioLab with Katherine and Eric. Someone had painted this...huge concrete block to look like a rubix cube! The bulb is so fun.

12-2-11

I thought this was Dinah at first, but sadly it wasn't. Still I thought she looked cool up on this garage. 

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

12-1-11

Hellooooo December! It's been quite windy today...

Here we Goooooooooo!

11-30-11

First application - complete. Check it out - it says "Under Review." Both scary and exciting! 

Happy Twain Day

"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."

--Mark Twain

Another Foggy Morning

11-29-11

Another foggy morning. It's like winter just hit, BAM, after Thanksgiving ended. I thought this spiderweb on my gate looked pretty cool with the fog everywhere.

"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life."

The Picture of Dorian Gray

FOGGY!

11-28-11

Foggy morning! I decided not to ride my bike in it since I couldn't see even a block down the road.

I love fog, nonetheless.

Ummm...

11-26-11

Ok. Jonathan, Miriam, and I drove up Highway 1 to head back to the Bay (them to visit, me to go home) and stopped halfway at a hotel for the night. The place advertised fire places in most rooms. Among other issues with this place, THIS was the fire place. Yeah. Not only did it not emit any heat (although the mechanism seemed to be there - just didn't work), but it made weird clunking sounds and was just a weird glowing light behind plastic hollow pieces of wood. This is the most janky ghetto-ass "fireplace" I've ever seen.

11-25-11

Just some cool bikes I saw while in LA. Not sure where I was exactly...

Happy Thanksgiving!

11-24-11

Jonathan carves the turkey while Liron, Andreas, and Christiana all observe. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Orange County

 11-23-11

Jonathan had to work today so I went to a coffee shop to work. I found this really cool place. It's an old house they converted into a coffee shop, and all of the tables were made from old sewing machines. Very cool. 

The place was also, however, rather creepy with old hair salon equipment all over the place:

Creepy, no? It might have been less unsettling if there had been other people in the coffee shop, but I was the only one there. Fortunately no one murdered me. I was slightly worried...

Jonathan! Or should I say Ralphie?

11-22-11

Happy birthday, Jonathan! This year his birthday was a palindrome! How cool is that? Almost as cool as this leg lamp. 

Fall

11-16-11

Fall in the Bay = sporadic lonely red leaves.

YAY!

11-16-11

Look what I got in the mail from my awesome cousin! I love birthday presents that come late! It's so exciting - especially when they're of Weird Al ;)  

Yummm!

11-15-11

My friend Adriana had moved back to Indonesia, then Philly for a while, and now is finally back in the Bay! So we met for a wonderful lunch of Indonesian food today and caught up. omg it's so scrumptious. I shouldn't have had a bite of the breaded fish though...

I just don't feel like blogging or taking pictures lately :(

Of course...that's probably why I should.

Blah.

I Wanna Be Your Beef Burrito

11-9-11

Weird Al Concert with my fave cuz. Yeah. We were this close. omfg.

On Writing and Stalking

So I've been pretty MIA lately. This is mostly due to the fact that somehow I've become insanely busy added with the fact that I'm just exhausted all of the time. Literally. If I stop going I fall asleep. So I try not to stop going.

Anyway, right now it's all exacerbated by the fact that I have to get this personal statement for my PhD applications done. Now. Like yesterday. Well, not really. I just need a good enough draft to send to my potential recommenders. And THAT needs to be done now. Like yesterday.

I hate writing about myself in any serious manner. This blog isn't serious. I don't generally reveal anything that means that much to me. But in a personal statement you're basically revealing your deepest passion. Like, this is what you want to do. What you feel so strongly about that you are willing to dedicate your life to it. That's hard and scary to write about. I keep imagining readers rolling their eyes. Eep!

It's times like these when I become a facebook stalker. I do this when I'm feeling down as well, which is bad because it just makes me feel more depressed for wasting my time in such a worthless and neurotic way. It's sort of disturbing. I seriously stalk people I don't even know or care about. I will go on someone's page and look at their pictures, and then I'm like "huh who's that" and soon enough I'm 8 degrees of Kevin Bacon away and knee deep in some random person's profile and I have no idea why, nor do I really want to be. And then I have to go to my own profile and stalk myself. I sit there and wonder what my perception of myself would be if I didn't know me and I was looking at my profile. And then I realize how neurotic I am and I log off.

I seriously shouldn't be allowed on facebook when I'm a) feeling depressed or b) trying to write something that is difficult for me. Does anyone else do this? No? Just me? Ok...therapy time...Just kidding. Sorta!

Anyway, I don't know why I just felt the need to blog about that. Maybe so I shame myself out of doing it again?

Or maybe I'm just avoiding this damn paper. BAH!

Back to it.

I love the Bay

11-7-11

This evening's sunset. As seen through my office window.

A Long Long Time Ago...

11-6-11

Happy birthday to ME.

Weird

11-1-11

Apparently this tree was getting too friendly with the wire and got cut down...but they left the branches hanging? What?

Happy Halloween!

10-31-11

Carving pumpkins and watching Nightmare Before Christmas. Pretty low key this year, but I'm ok with that.

Halloween!

10-26-11

It's almost Halloween! 

???

10-22-11

Where did all these toadstools come from!?!? It hasn't rained in weeks. Hmmmmmmmmm...methinks Halloween powers are at work.

Lunchtime Walk

10-21-11

Katherine and I went up to Tilden today for a walk/short hike during lunch time. It was amazing. Here she is watching leaves and other objects float down this little waterfall. It was gorgeous up there. Times like this, I love Berkeley with all my heart.

10-20-11

My stupid bike got another flat last night so I had to carry the tire to work with me today in order to take it to Mike's Bike's and get it fixed. Here I am taking a break on the big hill up to work. yay.

10-14-11

Awesome little sewing shop where I brought my machine to be cleaned/serviced! It's like walking into the past where there owner just shoots the breeze with you for a while every time you stop in. Love it. :) 

You Know Your Job is Weird When...

10-11-11

Umm...this is the list of fund codes for different expenses. Yeah. It says "Holy smoke supplies." There it is folks. Mysticism revealed.

I hate my job. lol

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

10-10-11

I bought my first rain jacket last week. Good thing too, because it's been raining like crazy for the last few days! I thought it was going to be fairly nice today, but wore my jacket anyway (only a 30% chance of rain), and I'm glad I did. It rained a LOT and for a LONG time! 

Urban Picnic

10-8-11

Delphine, Katherine and I went to check out a Berkeley taco truck for lunch today! We ate an unfinished bike path, which was actually quite lovely!

Technically from Friday, but I forgot about it. So I post today since today I did nothing but lie on my couch and clean. BORING! 

Retro

10-7-11

Cool car I saw today.

hehe!

10-6-11

Stopped at a cafe after work for a while to read and unwind before improv (yeah, I'm taking an improv class. You can blame Nicole for that one). This is what I found when I went to the bathroom there. HAHAH! Seems like something Jess would put in our bathroom ;) 

10-5-11

Why do I enjoy spotting rocks with smiley faces on them so much? 

Makeshift

10-4-11

I can't find my camera case. So this sock has been serving me in a new capacity...

City Psychology

10-3-11

I went to see my cousin's band play at Kimo's in SF last night. Here they are performing! I guess technically this should be Sunday's picture, but I'm pretty sure it was close to midnight when I took this so it's all fair, right? 

Anyway, they sounded really good! I was very impressed with my widdle cuz. He's an awesome performer!