~:[Day 91]:~ Keeping Busy on Marathon Day II

~:[Day 91]:~ Keeping Busy on Marathon Day II
Just when you thought my work week was over, I spent another 13 hours at Trabuco Hills High School and on a bus for the second day of the invitational. The meet dragged at first, but in the end, the group behaved well and kept things entertaining. We had some good finishes and PR marks! During my down time, I was playing Draw Something (the craze that will die down eventually). While in a moving bus, I was able to draw the Lorax! :) Not the most amazing thing ever, but not bad for less than a minute!

~:[Day 90]:~ Marathon Workday

~:[Day 90]:~ Marathon Workday
Today was a marathon workday as I put in about 17 hours. In fact, I couldn't even post this message before midnight since we got back from our meet after then. In any case, as usual, the night had its highlights with a good selection of food and good fun! The picture I select is one of my athletes who is my TA as well, who loves frogs! Her pillow was a "plumpy" asian frog :) If you could see its eyes, you'd understand! I survived the marathon and we had pretty good success and definitely had some fun!

~:[Day 89]:~ What's the Skinny?

~:[Day 89]:~ What's the Skinny?
Bellflower is always a tough test in track since they have a good balance of athletes. This year was no different. They were strong in most areas including distances, as they were able to handle us in a number of areas. However, our girls varsity was able to come out on top and remain undefeated during the season. We had some good showings all around and now are showing signs of progress! Afterward, I tried the new skinny chicken bowl at Baja Fresh. It definitely was a healthy meal, but it wasn't too bad and it looked nice! First of three meet days in a row complete! I must now prep for Trabuco's Distance Carnival!

~:[Day 88]:~ Peking the Right Meal

~:[Day 88]:~ Peking the Right Meal
It's been awhile since I hit up New Peking, but it was delicious as always with our regular hot & sour soup, beef chow fun, fried rice and with an addition of Mongolian Beef. It definitely filled my appetite, just before watching the Clippers game, where we won our third in a row! The next few days will be filled with track & field ventures! Let's hope that we can find some time to relax, however, it's not looking so good, as it will be wall-to-wall track! Let's hope for the best!

~:[Day 87]:~ Driving Ahead

~:[Day 87]:~ Driving Ahead
Today was one of those days you dread. When looking at the schedule, I knew it would be a long day and that it was! Today was also a day where I saw so many alumni, of course, since the schedule was so tight, I was unable to really get to talk to any of them - sorry! After spending the morning finishing my prep for open house by printing hundreds of fliers, I gathered all the items I thought I might need for a successful campaign to get people to join cross country and track & field. After a day of lecture, we ran through an interval workout. I then proceeded to set up for open house, met numerous athletes and parents, then headed to the library to cover the end of the MUN open house sim! I was so proud of my freshmen from last year, they killed the sim! While exhausting, the day was topped off with a wonderful meal from Yasai awaiting me on top of a boba milk tea with EGG PUDDING! It's back at Tapioca! After watching Battle Royale II (until 2am), I finished up some formatting for my book, send an e-mail I couldn't sleep without sending, then headed to bed for a short but restful nap! What a long day! At least it was a productive one :)

~:[Day 86]:~ Formally Framed

~:[Day 86]:~ Formally Framed
I did not have many pictures I could have uploaded today since I cannot reveal the site of the dance, however, I guess I can release a shot like this to show that I did in fact take some photos (1,000) for a promotional shoot for our prom this year! We took over three hours to shoot 1,000 shots on a beautiful day! I ended up with my goal of at least 100 photos to upload of which we'll select 10-15 for promotion! The rest of my day consisted of track & field practice and a (surprise) visit from Kendall and Doug. I guess the mandatory day off worked in our favor, except for the fact that it's a non-paid vacation.

~:[Day 85]:~ Dog Sitting on a Lazy Sunday

~:[Day 85]:~ Dog Sitting on a Lazy Sunday
After a long past few days, I got a lazy Sunday, as we dog sat Max for the weekend. I was able to clear out some old electronics at the e-waste recycling drive and finished race entries by the deadline, however after that, it was relaxation time for me. Now that the day is over, I wish I had done a little more, but I guess I can take one of these days every once in awhile, especially considering, I only have a little bit of work to do tomorrow. Running at 7:15am :)

~:[Day 84]:~ Track and Tracking

~:[Day 84]:~ Track and Tracking
Today, I spent most of the day at Cerritos College for the 9th Annual California Relays! Our highlights include a third place finish in the BV DMR, GV 4x1600, GV Shot Put, BFS 4x200 & GV 4x100 finalist qualifiers, and our first sub-12 female 3200m runner in quite awhile! We also set the fastest BV 4x800m time, BFS DMR time, and was #2AT for the GV 4x800m. Not bad for a days work! Afterwards, I relaxed a bit before I caught the Hunger Games at the Towne Center (hence the word "tracking" in the title). In any case, it was nice catching up with some of the oldies and watching a movie in the theater for once! The movie was not all that great, but there are some good things about it. Here's to a restful Sunday!

~:[Day 83]:~ Friday Night Lights

~:[Day 83]:~ Friday Night Lights
After a long day at school, it was finally time for my first invitational of the season! It was not my team's first invitational, but my first one! There was a bit of craziness at the meet, however, after the dust settled, the meet went well! Our boys DMR finished in 3rd and I believe our boys 4x200m qualified for finals. Tomorrow, most of our events will be contested and I know there will be a few marks being shot at including the 4x1600m and the 4x800m. We'll just see how that goes. Also, there will be a shot at the breaking the top five marks by a few athletes, especially in the distances and throws! Let's go!

~:[Day 82]:~ Poetry in Motion

~:[Day 82]:~ Poetry in Motion
Pages and pages finally organized into a format that is almost ready for print. I am having a hard time formatting everything, but soon enough it will be ready and maybe, just maybe, you'll see the book on Amazon or somewhere cool. In any case, I have enjoyed my experience of making this book and realized how similar all the poems were when I proofed it. While they all have their differences, they end up very similar in nature in the end, which makes me think, I hope I find progress in the near future :)

~:[Day 81]:~ Dirty Mouth???

~:[Day 81]:~ Dirty Mouth???
Since I slept late last night, today was quite the exhausting day! I finished grading all of my papers! After practice, I had scrip for MUN and afterward, I came home and edited my book! I think I am ready to send it in now, but I want to reproof my last section, as I was reading while tired, not a good idea! Today, Dylan was sitting on Damon's lap and kept trying to eat his shoe. If he has a dirty mouth when he grows up, we'll know why!

~:[Day 80]:~ The Light Outside

~:[Day 80]:~ The Light Outside
It's been pretty cold the past few days, so when I dressed for cold weather again, it caught me by surprise that it was actually hot. Coaching an interval day dressed for cold weather was not the best thing that could have happened, yet with a good set of intervals, it all worked out in the end. After going home, I decided to meet people at Disneyland mainly because Grace is back! Yahoo! She got so excited by the build a light saber station! I really wish I had a video of her reaction, but this is all you get! It's great to have you back Grace, too bad you brought the windy city with you! :)

~:[Day 79]:~ MegaSale = MegaWonderful

~:[Day 79]:~ MegaSale = MegaWonderful
Ralph's continued it's Vitamin Water sale for 49c a piece! While it may take me six months to consume this stockpile of Vitamin Water, it saved me $120 according to the cashier. I know at least one of these cases should come with us on our Ragnar Relay run next month, so maybe I should go back to Ralph's tomorrow to replace that one missing case? Yeah right, I'm not that addicted! :) Today was a non-eventful day and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I got some work done and finally got my files transferred to my new flash drive after recovering all the important files from the old one! Someone is watching over me! I also got in a short run today, but I'm not a beast like Melody! You should take my spot at Ragnar! Haha :)

~:[Day 78]:~ Battling the "TIE"redness

~:[Day 78]:~ Battling the "TIE"redness
After an exhausting few days, I used the day to relax and catch up on some games and do a little extra crafting. Thinking about the upcoming prom, I designed a duct tape bow tie using the barque style duct tape. What do you think? I was glad to see the Clippers win, however, most of the teams I wanted to win today lost. Oh well, I have no attachment to them, so I wasn't too bummed out :) Fried chicken sealed the deal for me today, which was ironic, because I just read a flow chart of fried chicken on FB wall! I started Draw Something today, we'll see how that goes! Farewell weekend! BTW, congrats to all those who finished the LA Marathon today!

~:[Day 77]:~ Rain on My Parade

~:[Day 77]:~ Rain on My Parade
The rain came down as I left Kat's house on EARLY Saturday morning (Friday night). The rain continued the rest of the day, but I didn't let it stop me! The picture is technically from late Friday night, yet since it was after midnight, I figured I could use it for Saturday to show off the template for the annual pass holder! Yay! In any case, my visit to SD was cool on Saturday except for the rain that made the drive difficult. Since I was meeting with my SD crew, I drove back alone and starving since we ate early, I used my eating-a-taco-while-driving skills to scarf down my Del Taco meal! In any case, two late nights = a lazy Sunday to come!

~:[Day 76]:~ Cute as a Penguin

~:[Day 76]:~ Cute as a Penguin
Today was quite the day as it was the last day of school for the week, practice went smoothly, our team bonded over Pho Tasty, and I was able to work on my bento box (a penguin), as well as make duct tape wallets and Disneyland annual pass holders. While I forgot to eat my creation, I felt so productive and wasn't even tired as I drove home. I know I will feel it tomorrow on a day that is so busy, but who cares, that's what good days/nights are for! I love making bento boxes! :)

~:[Day 75]:~ Destruction & Recovery

~:[Day 75]:~ Destruction & Recovery
Sometimes when things go wrong, you can not worry about what went wrong, but rather, look for ways to recovery and chart a new course. In numerous areas in my life, I've faced that exact issue and have had to do so and I'm hoping we are starting to see movement in the right direction. Sometimes things must be destroyed before they can be rebuilt correctly. The thought of this actually came because on Monday, I had lost my red flash drive with every important piece of data on it. Thinking it was lost, I began to make preparation to remake any important files on it. Yesterday, I found it on the track, mangled and destroyed, but hoped remained as I was able to peel off the exterior, fix the usb, and now am trying to backup the data on the disk. It started and let's hope it finishes. I thus rename this post, destruction and a hope for recovery.

~:[Day 74]:~ Failed Attempt

~:[Day 74]:~ Failed Attempt
My first attempt at the panda bento box was a fail. First, the rice was good, but was made too hard for making a good solid rice ball. The pieces did not form well together or at least not as well as it should have. Secondly, because of that, the ears and arms were not nicely wrapped! Finally, I didn't have a bento box to put the items in, so I used a plate. I will continue to work until I can get it right, until then, you'll have to enjoy this!

~:[Day 73]:~ Man's Best Friend

~:[Day 73]:~ Man's Best Friend
The day was quite uneventful in comparison to the past month of non-stop events, however, it was a great day to spend a little time with man's best friend, in my case, JD. Despite the fact that she has shredded her "rope" into pieces of yarn, she still loves to play with it and I had a few chances to play before passing out on the couch. It was a much needed rest despite the fact that I missed dinner. I loved being in New York, but I did miss JD!

~:[Day 72]:~ A Light Show Almost-Spectacular

~:[Day 72]:~ A Light Show Almost-Spectacular
The game started off with a bang. Great seats, great teams, and a laser light show. However, the back and forth game did not play into the Clippers favor as they drop to 8-10 without Billups losing their last three games when I was watching live :( I was quite disappointed, however, at least my pseudo-son Thien-Nam To was happy with his Bostonians taking the win. Someone help the Clippers :(

~:[Day 71]:~ Welcome Home

~:[Day 71]:~ Welcome Home
Springing Forward and a Clippers loss were not the best welcome home gifts I could have asked for, but there was something quite comforting about being home. For once in the last week, I did not have to worry about much more than what I was going to eat and what I was going to wear. It was comforting to know that I have a break before any big trips come up and I will have some time to breathe. Today was very nice. Aside from relaxing, I joined my family for our "Christmas" gift (my brother bought us tickets) to watch the Clippers vs the Warriors after our dinner at Lawry's Carvery. I ordered the brisket because I was not craving prime rib and I was happy with my choice :) ... At the game, I ran into Jamie and also sat a row in front of Damon! Crazy, right? Well the refs blew this game, but the Clippers lost it by not playing well in the first half. We need to pick things up, otherwise, we're in trouble! On a happier note, our Berkeley team came out with a delegation award! Anyway, this time change and spring forward has really screwed me up, so I am going to head to bed. To bed, I said!

~:[Day 70]:~ Distinguishing Themselves

~:[Day 70]:~ Distinguishing Themselves
I had to reminded them that my proudest accomplishment of them was the fact that they had so much substance and that they continued to maintain UN-related as long as possible, however, I could not help but applaud them for their efforts in receiving the Award of Distinction (Debate) and the Award of Excellence (Research). It's always tough starting out with a group that has never been to the conference and try to train them how to match the speaking skills of the east coast students while requesting of them a higher level of preparation than in the past. This group showed themselves to be the most improved group in the process, as they started with one of the weakest grill sessions and finished with the best. They collected so many articles and worked so hard to prepare while battling illnesses (a few nearly lost their voices yet willed out a sentence or two in the General Assembly Hall) and overcoming a few scatter-brained moments. However, it was the energy and enthusiasm of this group that ultimately allowed them to find success, not because of the award, but because of the display of all the qualities you would expect in a top notch model UN delegate - engagement, substance, diplomacy and much, much more!

~:[Day 69]:~ New Yorker, My Second Life

~:[Day 69]:~ New Yorker, My Second Life

I have long realized that if I did not live in California, I would probably live in New York. After college, I applied to NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and I even picked up a few gigs in the city just to fulfill that bit of emptiness that New York could provide. Each year I come back, my love of the fast paced lifestyle, with food on every corner, and an endless supply of interesting characters, makes me wonder how my life would have changed if I were a New Yorker. Tonight is our final night in New York and after going back to Levain's and eating at Margon and Stardust, it is finally time to say goodbye. I will miss the advenutres and hopefully it will not be too long before I return. New York, my love, farewell.

~:[Day 68]:~ A Fatty Fest

~:[Day 68]:~ A Fatty Fest

The week has been filled with it's normal touring, good times, and good food. However, with a group that loves to eat, it has truly become a fatty fest :) Referring to Janie's album, this is why I'm fat, this group can be to blame of why I come back fat :P ... at almost every location we have gone to, two or three places and almost every night, a midnight snack was in order. The best so far, was the cookie from http://www.levainbakery.com/. (Kristine) I am not a sweets person, but I truly enjoyed the experience of eating a piece of this cookie. I also had a great bite to eat at a Thai restaurant when catching up with Debra. Tonight is our last night in New York (today is Kat's last day), so I guess my stomach can finally get a rest after tonight! On another note, the conference is half way done and students had a great day today! I was able to hear so many of them speak so many times! Great times!

~:[Day 67]:~ A Day of Reflection

~:[Day 67]:~ A Day of Reflection

Going to the 9/11 memorial was an interesting moment for me, as I was in New York six months before the attack, six months after (with ground zero still smoldering) and have been able to visit the site almost every year since the attacks! Seeing how much it was grown is amazing and being able to reflect on it is even more amazing. The inverted tower makes you wonder where the water goes to and how deep it actually is, however, I think that it sends a clear message of the challenges and uncertainties of that day, 9/11. In any case, it was a great time and a break from conference preparation. Committee began tonight and we had a pretty good session, as I got video of a lot of our speakers, however, I know we still can do better and I hope to see what they are capable of tomorrow!

~:[Day 66]:~ A Wicked Good Time

~:[Day 66]:~ A Wicked Good Time

After a long journey through Central Park and a day at the MET, the team went to watch Wicked at the Gershwin! The musical was great as always and it seemed like, while tired, the kids enjoyed their evening at the musical! The walk consisted of about six looping miles including the walk back to the hotel. We took a few breaks and had a few stops along the way that broke up the trip! The MET was cool to go through and I was able to see a few more things that I have missed, however, after being in the museum at least ten times, you are able to see most, if not all of the museum! After a long day, Pie Face and a late night Halal closed out the night, our final full day tour day. Tomorrow, conference.

~:[Day 65]:~ Falling in Love, Like Sleepless in Seattle

~:[Day 65]:~ Falling in Love, Like Sleepless in Seattle

I never expected to find the love of my life at the American Museum of Natural History, but sure enough, the love of my life found me at the AMNH in the Butterfly Observatory. The butterfly pictured above was so attached to me and returned on multiple occasions :) Anyway, yesterday, our group got split up in half and both halves made it to the right place! Our students did a good job using their subway training and I guess it must have paid off! We visited the UN where they were setting up a taiko performance organized in part or in whole by Jane! We also hit up Grand Central Station and relaxed during a study session for the night! I also saw Ellie who filled me up with more treats - pies and cupcakes! Delicious! All of this was topped off with the Woody Allen from Carnegie!

~:[Day 64]:~ Skating Through the Day

~:[Day 64]:~ Skating Through the Day

One of the longest days of the trip was today, where we left at 7:15am for Battery Park. We hit up the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, walked by the Wall Street bull, went to the WTC Visitors Center, went north to Chinatown/SoHo, walked to Washington Square Park, by Radio City Music Hall where Coldplay was prepping, then finished the night off with ice skating at Rockefeller and of course a night stop at Duane Reade and pizza/food carts (day 2 of 2)! My feet are super sore and need a massage, but it was definitely a great day!

~:[Day 63]:~ Great Times SQUARED

~:[Day 63]:~ Great Times SQUARED

After a long flight (where we got complimented for being the best group the flight attendant ever had), our team hit the streets of Times Square, as we ate and hung out for a few hours. Afterwards, we made a trek down to the Empire State Building to freeze our tails off! It was a great view, but very cold, as expect. Despite eating dinner, our first night also consisted of a late night snack at the street vendors. I guess, the addiction has begun!

~:[Day 62]:~ A Farewell

~:[Day 62]:~ A Farewell
It's been ridiculous trying to get everything organized and setup for the week I am gone since there is so much going on next week. However, after a whirlwind week, we've finally arrive at the end! Tomorrow, it is finally time to head off to New York and I would write a longer post, but it's time for me to finish up the last minute details before heading to bed. Ready for the trip? Definitely! However, we'll see how things work out! See you in the EST!

~:[Day 61]:~ Thai-TeaYING Up

~:[Day 61]:~ Thai-TeaYING Up
We opened up our season officially with our inter-squad meet that showed some promise for the season ahead, yet that promise might have to wait a week, as we will be short a group of athletes next week who will be on various trips. Of course, we still will be able to hold our own and hopefuly we'll find good performances out of our athletes. Afterward, we hit up Sweetee Thai and I got the Thai Chicken with Thai Tea. A great last Thai meal before I head off to New York!