Bad News Bears

Richard and I decided that we are going to try every restaurant on Haight/Ashbury after our therapy session (that is where our sessions are located). However, we couldn't last night due to it being crowded and there wasn't any parking so we went out for Japanese instead!

 I first started off with a spicy tuna handroll. It was alright and I don't get the tuna mush mixed with hot sauce? I know really good Japanese restaurants where they will cube the tuna so you still get somewhat of a texture. The wasabi was way too green and pungent.

It could have also been due to me feeling off and I was oversensitive to smells and taste.

 Of course I got the udon.

Tempera udon. I usually love bell peppers but the smell was getting to me so I couldn't eat it. Yuck.

Anywho, on to the serious stuff.

I got laid off today.

It was totally unexpected and I am in shock and I called my mama and finally broke down and cried. At least I am getting severance package and am able to apply for unemployment and I'm thankful my birthday is in March so I have some income plus my tax refund to tide me over.

However, I don't know what my plans are as of right now. The obvious and most logical thing to do is apply for another job but I don't know what kind of work I am looking forward to do. Either way I think I'm going to take a vacation from all the stress and just relax and go to school starting next semester. Hopefully I can just take this time to really find out what I want to do in life and work on my relationship with Richard because really that is what is important to me right now.

Life is funny isn't it?

Maybe it's God's way of pushing me to do the humanitarian work I've been wanting to do and in a way give me the "fear" (friend's reference) to do it!

Either way, there has got to be some hard thinking to do.

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Come, let's Gather Around the Laptop

I realized how my scenery doesn't change at all. I am always chilling on my little Korean coffeetable/dining table (the one where you gotta sit on the floor) with my laptop on and Friends running on my PS3.

Tuesday:

 Example 1: Breakfast. I had fiesta veggie egg scramble with hot sauce, roasted potatoes and hot coffee. I got the fiesta veggies from Safeway. It's frozen but so convenient! There are broccoli florets and stems, corn, black beans and red bell peppers. It's cheap and good. Yum.

 Example 2: late dinner. I closed the other night and came home to make some Pastaroni that I mixed my fiesta veggies and frozen green beans in. It made it super watery and lack of flavor. I had to put extra parmesan cheese and Tapatio.

 I only had half the pasta and I was still hungry so I had Joe's O's with freeze-dried (wrote fried at first! LOL!) strawberries and nonfat milk. Simple yet satisfying.

Today:

I went to Trader Joe's this morning and it was SOO relaxing! I took my time going through every aisle and looking at every single item carefully and took it all in. Retail Therapy, always works.

 Example 3: another breakfast. After my Trader Joe run I made breakfast. I got brown rice tortilla and stuffed with scrambled eggs with spinach, mexican cheese, salsa and tons of Tapatio. Halfway through my tortilla broke into pieces! Do I need to steam beforehand? I don't want to steam with a papertowel because I don't want to create more trash. Help me ladies!!

 Of course this was all washed down with coffee. Oh why is coffee so addicting?!

Example 4: lunch. I had half of Trader Joe's Chana Masala (other half is packed for lunch tomorrow) with two naans. Holy Crap the naan was seriously addicting and the aroma from the bag was killer. I am going to stock up on these ASAP.

Anywho, I will be having another session with Richard and dinner after. I have a new idea for my blog and I will share it with you all tomorrow!

Goodnight!

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Snow Now

It is the day after my sweet much needed vacation and I am very tired. I had loads of fun with Richard and for once I was able to just relax. We also upgraded to a jacuzzi tub and we also ordered room service. Unfortunately, Richard was a bit sick and wasn't able to sleep or taste his food =(

We, of course, stopped in Davis to eat his favorite Mexican restaurant, Dos Coyotes.

 I always go nuts when there is a salsa bar. There are two fire-roasted tomato salsa, some weird cabbage mixed with tomatoes and onions, avocado cream of some sort, jalapenos and limes.

 I got the shrimp burrito and made sure every bite had a lot of salsa, lime juice, jalapenos and cabbage. It was really good and it was a great deal. I think for two shrimp burritos I paid $17, but considering we had big succelent shrimp and free chips and Chipotle would be be more if we got guacamole in each of our burritos and chips as well. This shrimp burrito had a white sauce, salsa, rice, cheese and guacamole.

When I was coming back, we had Korean food. It's like a tradition of my family's because the best type of Korean food would be in some random hole in the wall and in the middle of nowhere and it tasted the best when we came back from a trip.

 These are the side dishes. That sweet potato braised in some sort of soy sauce-based sauce was hella bomb.

 I got soon tofu and the menu didn't let you choose whether or not you wanted beef or seafood. Luckily for me, it was seafood. It was really good after a long day. The Korean restaurant had the Golden Globes on the tv and so Richard and I chilled and took our time eating. I loved Olivia Wilde's dress though. Favorite of the night!

I didn't take much pictures especially since there was a lot of snow involved and none of us felt like carrying the camera.

 This is me and my snowboard! I loved that bandit Underarmour bandana thing. I felt like a badass. Snowboarding was actually really fun this year, I remember going on my 21st birthday and I couldn't really keep up due to my extra weight and being out of shape. 30lbs lost and I was back to my old self on the slopes!

We also went snowmobiling and it was like a tour and it was so beautiful! Lake Tahoe is seriously a yearly tradition and I am glad we go every year.

Now I need to run some errands and clean my room before school starts tomorrow.

Goodbye!

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Anxious

I am impatiently waiting for Richard to get off work so I can finally start my vacation! I'm already packed, dressed and ready for action but I have to hold off for another hour due to an impromptu meeting. This is a true test of patience for me. In order to get my vacation, I had to work 7 days straight and worked every holiday.

Anywho, I received a Starbucks giftcard from my customer and I have been using it to good use.

 My breakfast was a grande coffee and a butter croissant. I don't think Starbucks has the best croissants. They're always really cold, doughy (when they should be flaky!) and too buttery. I think the best croissants are actually from Costco! LOL and you get a dozen for about $5.

My anxiety has been causing me to throw up and I couldn't stomach anything solid so I decided to get some miso soup at the food court and it was really good. Plus, it was only $1.75 for a big cup.

Well, I will be killing time now by playing more snake and hopefully 2 o'clock comes fast!

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Last Minute Worries

It is currently 12 am and I have less than 12 hours to get ready for my weekend getaway with Richard and I am freaking out! I guess this is the result of waiting until the last minute to pack but I am missing a couple of important items such as my snowboarding jacket, gloves and probably something else I can't think of at the moment!

Sigh.

Anyways, it's been a stressful week for me.

 Hence the greasy cheesy fries with lemon aioli. That aioli is like crack and I almost cried while eating it. Amazingly at the mall, this is one of the cheapest items but it's very gourmet. At least to me.

I also went to dinner with a very good dear friend of mine and we had shabu shabu! It is becoming our routine and I seriously am addicted! I forgot what the name was or actually it was more of a I never bothered to see what the restaurant was called. All I know is that it is on Geary.

 Of course we got our favorite: spicy miso.

 The veggies that come with our entree.

Our dipping sauce: the grey looking matter is some ginger miso thing? The brown was a soy sauce type of dipping sauce? Either way, I really need to pay attention next time. I obviously got the vegetarian entree but wasn't very fond of the huge Shitake mushrooms that came with it, Luckily I was able to sub it with more tofu.

Like always, I had the greatest night with my friend!

On another note, I have been going to therapy with Richard every week and although there is some progress, I have not been getting better. I now have panic attacks and have anxiety and I mostly stress out. It is to the point where it is physically affecting me and now my therapist wants to discuss being on medication. I came home and cried wondering how I've become like this. Although I don't want to be on medication I dont see that I can cure my anxiety with my mental state. Please give me your two cents and tell me how you feel about medication, or help me find out solutions to reduce this!

I think I will be going to sleep and hopefully I can wake up with a fresh mind and be able to pack all the things I need.

Goodnight.

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Sellout

Did I ever mention how much I LOVE my dogs?

This little guy is Titan. He is FULL cockapoo, yes he is always mistaken for a chihuahua but he came from two cockapoos.

 He's 6 lbs and he's the smartest dog I know.

 We didn't get a long when we first met but later we couldn't be apart.

This big one is Maximus. He's half cockapoo (same moms) but I dont know what the dad is. Everyone just thinks he's a miniature golden retriever.

 He's 26 lbs and he isn't the brightest crayon but he is the most loving dog in the world. I even considered making him a therapy dog because he would run to everyone at the park and just say hi.

My dogs are the sweetest dogs I know and I know they wouldn't hurt a fly. I genuinely love them and it's a big part of the reason why I want to be vegetarian soon.

Also, they made me realize all the dreams and hopes I had in high school. I've never really known what I wanted to do in life but I know I've always wanted to help people. But, for some reason I've started going the other way and even at some point I wanted to be those corporate jerks and be an investment banker.

I've been working at Bloomingdale's for about a year and a half and everytime I help out a customer I would feel really good about myself. For example, I've been helping out this Korean customer who never received reward certificates and after many visits and phonecalls during the span of 2 months, I've resolved it for her. Not only was she grateful and even gave me a $25 gift card to Starbucks (my weakspot) I've realized something.

Not only did she purchase $50,000 in Chanel bags that year but every time she's visited she's worn a mink coat, Burberry toggle cashmere coat and carried Chanel AND Hermes bags. WTF?! Why am I using all my energy to help out someone so privileged? Then I realized I'm a huge sellout. I kept wondering what kind of person I've become. I've always wanted to help the orphans in North Korea and be a veterinarian and made sure I've recycled and now I've become the person I've never wanted to be.

A corporate sellout.

At least this kick-start my quest to doing something meaningful in my life.

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Yuck

Tell me how good this meal looks:

It has all my favorites: salmon baked with jalapenos and tons of onions, broccoli lightly stirfried with carrots and more onions with soy sauce and my delicious mixed grains rice.

Yet,

It disgusted me.

First off, my mama made this labor intensive meal for me but I don't know where she got the salmon. I had to carefully chew through my salmon because I kept finding random bones and random fish scales throughout my meat. I don't mean to be a snob but when you clean fish, I would assume that scales are a big NO NO and so are bones. ESPECIALLY in salmon.

So, I couldn't help but to not enjoy my meal because I couldn't. Everything else was delicious though.

Another reason why I may not have enjoyed my meal was probably reading Peta news during. I was reading about the epidemic of pigs getting food and mouth disease in South Korea and how thousands are being thrown in trucks to be dumped in huge "graves" basically being buried alive. Vaccines to cure these pigs aren't even costly. So why with all the cruelty?

I don't understand people sometimes. When have we all become desensitized? When have we stopped appreciating the animals that feed us?

Anyways, it makes me feel more secure in becoming a pescetarian but maybe due to my horrible experience with fish lately, I might just go full vegetarian.

I've also been seeing the benefits of eating less meat such as: feeling better, losing weight (I didn't do it for this reason!) and I have been getting a lot of compliments on my skin!

I just need to come up with more vegetarian meals.

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