ah, the weather is so nice in L.A.--I passed a sign yesterday that said the temperature was 81 degrees..woe is me.
Traveling out here was ridiculous. My flight was at 8:12am and I arrived promptly at the airport at 6:15am. I was able to check my bags in quickly through the self-service e-ticket line...but then I turned around and saw the horrendous line to get through security. It was like we were at Disney land. The line wrapped around the entire corridor and zig zagged twice. By the time I went through security, I had forgotten I had 2 quarters in my pocket and set off the metal detector. I was then scanned and asked to take off my shoes--at which point they scanned my feet and then put my shoes through the metal detector again. By the time I ran up to the gate--7 minutes late--I had missed my flight. What was frustrating was that my plane was still there, sitting at the gate. They had turned down 12 other people ahead of me and sent us all off to the customer service center to get rebooked. The entire time I waited in line, I could still see my plane just sitting there. What's funny is that they rebooked me on a direct flight to L.A., which landed me there 1.5 hours earlier than originally planned; unfortunately, my luggage was on my original flight...so I hung out at LAX with my parents just to wait for my suitcase full of presents. That kind of worried me--technically, my luggage got on a flight that I never got on. There's no foolproof way of knowing if a passenger actually gets on a plane that his luggage gets on. After the TWA flight way back, I would've thought that was something they'd check.
Since arriving here, we've just been eating a lot of Chinese food and seeing relatives. I was suprised by the appearance of my 18 year cousin whom I haven't seen in at least 2 years. She now wears makeup, has long hair, plucks her eyebrows and has a sense of style.
The biggest surprise was seeing my friend Ben. His parents called up my parents and said that he was coming back for Xmas...perfect timing. So yesterday, we all had lunch and Ben took Aaron and I back to his new house in Newport Beach where we hung out for the rest of the afternoon.
Tonight, I go back to rainy Seattle...but I can't wait to take off for Mt. Bachelor and go snowboarding..wahoo!

Ah, last day of work before finally taking off for the holidays. The last two weeks have been stressful and crazy. This week alone, being oncall, has been rather hard. I got paged 2 nights ago at 3am and worked until 6:30am...which didn't help the creeping cold that I now have. But alas, it's all over now..hopefully. Okay, enough about work.
Thomas finally got back from his business trip last week--it's good to have him around again. It's so comforting to know that someone cares for you and will take care of you. I have to say I'm quite content right now.
It seems like a few of my friends have embarked in new relationships lately...Owen is whistling happy with Amy. Jon came back from Fernley and breathed the "g" word regarding Chris..something I've never seen in the 2.5 years I've known him.
Last night, I threw my very first apartment party--my White Elephant Holiday party--which turned out to be a success...really happy with it. I had a good 25+ people show up from all walks of my life here in Seattle. Also ended up with really yummy refreshments and snacks: I made mulled wine, Thomas made his signature cider, Olke brought some homemade potent eggnog, and there was all sorts of food on the table. The gift swap turned out well with its own dramas...the popular gift being Jon's Dukes of Hazard watch. I ended up with a cool leather journal.
Tonight, I'll be meeting Thomas's mom, going to see the Pacific Northwest Ballet's sultan interpretation of The Nutcracker. Tomorrow night, we're going to see The Messiah, which I haven't heard in years. I remember singing parts of that for my high school choir's holiday concert. And on Sunday, I'll be off to L.A. to meet the rest of my family--it'll be quite the family gathering with all my uncles, aunts and cousins..plus my grandparents.

saw ocean's eleven sunday night with justin which i really enjoyed. they didn't stick to the original movie but they didn't bastardize it--they made it better. see, the beauty of the original was because it was a rat pack movie (perhaps one of the first) but the storyline was fairly simple for such a complicated robbery. the remake modernized everything. what i liked most was that they kept a lot of major elements of the original and twisted it so it still captured the essence: the idea of shutting off the electricity, the heart attack, the boxing match, etc.

Just got back from Crystal Mountain where I had my first run of the season---boy, it felt great. Snowboarding came back to me a lot faster than I expected...it helped that Justin was learning to snowboard so I could board conservatively next to him. But by the end of the day, the whole big group of us all went down together from the top, including Justin...so it was awesome. The snow was a little packed so conditions weren't optimal...but there was a ton of snow and it was a lot of fun. I love being out in the snowy mountains during this time of year---it's so beautiful. It definitely confirms why I love living out here so much.

man, i've barely had time to myself this week. i was hoping to really get going on my Christmas cards this week and it just hasn't happened. I'm so frustrated----see, normally I like to print out a picture and insert it into some of my cards..especially for friends that I haven't seen in awhile..with my coolio printer for my faboo digital pictures. I finally ran out of ink and whipped out, proudly, my backup new print cartridge--only to find out that that the freakin' blue ink is messed up. I have no choice but to go out and buy a new cartridge. Makes me mad. I bought that cartridge eons ago trying to plan ahead...but I wish there was a way to test that first.
But I'm going to stay in tonight, make myself a yummy dinner, watch a movie and write Christmas cards.
Last night, Phoebe and I tried holding another Smith alums event...and we got lots of responses and were expecting a decent turnout...but once again, it was just me, Phoebe and Susan. We went to the SAM to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit "Women" (what a Smithie event huh?). I was so tempted to buy the book for it but held myself back to check on Amazon today--and sure enough, I found a Used version from a seller who had overflow, so it was practically new--and it was only $18.90 (compared to $49 at the exhibit). Score. I love SDP. Afterwards, we wandered down to Art Walk in Pioneer Square where I randomly ran into Jocelyn...haven't seen that girl in so long since she's started law school. Anyhow, we went down to find Rachel but to no avail...hungrily, we found a yummy Italian place and had dinner and chatted until 11:30pm. [sigh] Great evening.
I've done all my Christmas shopping online so far..it's too convenient..and so are credit cards. I think I'm done though and am going to start doing old school Xmas shopping this weekend...so hard to come up with thoughtful gifts...

i get sick a lot. I've been sick for the last week or so. i had a bad head cold...and just as i was getting better, i got a flu shot. now i think i'm sick from that cuz' i'm just achy and weak and have constant headaches..plus, my throat kills me.
this last week, i started holidizing my apartment for the first time ever--it's actually a lot of fun. got a small little fake xmas tree and have been stringing up lights and boughs of fake holly.
work has been crazy...maybe that's why i'm sick...i've been so stressed out. hopefully, this week will start calming down.
javier beamed me a few games to my palm pilot and i've been obsessed with this one--bejeweled--ever since. i'm constantly playing it!!!!
thomas left this morning to york,pa for a business trip...now i've got some free time to myself ;-)
need to get started on my christmas cards...

argh. i'm sick again. my immune system sucks. i've gotten sick 3 times since august. my glands and sinus started feeling a little swollen early yesterday...by the evening, i was not feeling well and shaking. now i'm staying at home, drinking as much OJ as possible to shoo away whatever i have.
i've decided to have a holiday party--a white elephant one where there's anonymous gift swapping...it'll be fun and i can't wait! project for the next month: decorate apartment for the holidays. this'll be my first apartment party. yay!
i forgot to mention: i've got a new gadget to add to my collection. when i went home, my dad surprised me with an early christmas gift: the samsung i300 pda mobile phone. it's actually pretty cool and much smaller than the kyocera one that came out earlier this year. the width is about the size of a regular cordless phone that you'd use at home so, ergonomically, it's quite comfortable. i love the color screen---i downloaded the latest version of Launcher III, which is the palm interface that i live by (it's shareware now damnit...oh well, definitely worth the $10) and was able to colorize each of my tabs. The best part is being able to call directly from my address book. I always had problems synchronizing numbers between my cell phone and pda...often, the most up-to-date numbers were just in my cell phone as i always had that on me. And then, the phone still comes with all the usual great features: voice recognizition dialing, speaker phone, recording conversations, wireless web, etc. Speaking of, I was able to download the Blazer software for the wireless web interface to improve upon the current look for cell phones--that text only version. Because my screen is larger and in color, I can literally go to any website now, regardless of whether it's written in hdml or whatever and see it. crazy. i wonder what sort of future pda phones there will be and if it'll catch on. I'm definitely excited about this device.

I've been doing the usual since coming back to Lawrence: Thanksgiving a the Wongs, singing karaoke with Jed at Duffy's, getting coffee with Dan at Java Break, watching a late movie with Matt McGuire, braving the crowd at Oak Park Mall, eating dim sum at Bo Ling's, wandering through the Plaza, etc. It was really nice hanging out with Dan the other night--we stayed up til 5am talking...can't believe he's going to get married next summer. well, i believe it... but it's weird. he'll be my first ex-boyfriend to get married. jed's got a new girl named amy...seemed sweet but a little overly sensitive. god, it was weird being at duffy's...saw all sorts of random people from high school: david morrisey, aaron butler and meredith wales were also there.
time has flown by so fast..and i leave tomorrow. there's still so much i feel like i want to do. [sigh] wish there was more time to be at home.

okay, it's been a long long while since i've written here (as someone in lawrence recently reminded me)...i don't really have an excuse except for that work has been killing me. work work work. what a boring theme in my weblog. and given, i know people who work many more hours than i do....but still.
now, i usually dodge writing about my dating life for i don't want someone whom i'm dating to find out what i think about them via the internet...but i feel good about this one. i met him at that halloween party. i actually met him first way back on the salsa cruise in july....and things are going damn well. we're gettin' along just dandy--it's the month of november! did i ever mention that? i have this weird thing with the month of november. no, seriously. i don't know why. it's always an inside joke with my closest friends...and it's purely coincidental...but for some reason, november seems to be my month. since graduating from high school, most of my relationships have started in november--the one exception was last year, when matthew and i broke up in november; however, sophomore, junior, senior and first year in seattle-- each year, in november, i met somebody. and i try hard to not anticipate something happening each november, like this year, but somehow it does. my first date with thomas was on november 2nd technically. it's odd. and random. anyhow--so point is, wahoo--dating life is picking up again.
i'm actually back in kansas now for thanksgiving break--arrived back home only a few hours ago...and haven't been back since turkey break last year. boy, it was nice to get away from the craziness of work...but i digress. at KCI, while waiting for my suitcase at the baggage claim, i glanced to my left and realized I was standing next to carol schaeffer--this girl that was in my high school that i haven't seen in 6 years! talk about a small world...we were on the same flight coming from denver, where she currently lives. and furthermore, matt watkins, another classmate, was picking her up. it's so surreal to come back home and run into people from the past. we chatted briefly, trying to come up with names of former classmates and updating each other and what we currently know about them.
then the 45 minute drive back to lawrence...the old alvins is now some health food merc store...and the total fitness/former hillcrest theatre apparently burned to the ground! how sad. i went to that theatre all the time as a child. and home--well, my parents always have new fun toys that they're crazy about.
ack. my dad's telling my grandmother about thomas. eeks.
okay. i'm tired.

so now i'm driving a lovely red chevy metro...with no power steering. i didn't know that rental car places even rent cars with no power steering.
saw the ABT's Giselle last night at the Paramount with Phoebe...very dramatic and kind of sad.

Exciting: saw Ethan Stiefel dance the part of Count Albrecht who played the part of Cooper in the movie, Center Stage.

Willie comes to visit me tonight from San Francisco--yay!

got a phone call early this morning from the police....in federal way. they found my car: all of the seats are gone and the ignition was ripped out. the policeman found the car on the road, still running...and since the ignition was stripped, he couldn't turn the car off. i headed down to auburn after work (with my new chaffeur, jon) where they transferred my car to a collision repair center...and saw the poor thing. it's actually not too terribly bad. i don't think there are really any exterior damages...there's just not much inside. it's strange to see my car with no seats. they took that, the lid of my center console storage thing, my stickshift knob, my inline skates and the game of Cranium that eugene had gotten me for my birthday. surprisingly, they didn't take *any* cd's or tapes...they didn't even rip apart the stereo system. good thing i didn't leave too many valuables in there. i'll get an estimate tomorrow and hear from insurance how they're going to proceed...it's most likely that they're going to just repair my car instead of totalling it and writing me a check for blue book value. [sigh] must make trip to enterprise-rent-a-car soon.

i'm sorry. i haven't written in awhile. two weeks after the tragic events on 9/11, i don't know if i can even use words to express the emotional thoughts that have been running through my mind. so i'll just keep my thoughts simple here. i woke up quite early that morning - 7:15am - by a phone call from my father yelling frantically in the phone about war, planes, and the world trade center...and telling me to get up and turn the tv on. i stumbled over to my living room, turned the tv on and suddenly woke up with disbelief. "this can't be happening" i thought. at the time, one tower had already collapsed and the other remained burning. fifteen minutes after waking up, the second tower finally collapsed and the silhouette in the nyc skyline was no longer. i spent the next hour or so waking up friends in seattle whom i knew might have some connections in nyc and dc....i then tried frantically to reach my close smith friends. i immediately thought of debbie who used to work in the wtc but i didn't know if she did any longer. i was too distraught to go to work and just stayed at home, online and glued to the tv. my friend alex came over and we watched some tv together...and finally forced ourselves to take a walk along broadway to get something to eat and get our minds off everything. that evening, jon took me out to dinner for my birthday at salty's, a really nice restaurant in west seattle. it was a little unsettling knowing that i was enjoying a nice seafood dinner with a gorgeous view of the seattle skyline and puget sound while not knowing if someone i knew may have perished earlier that day.

the next few days, i started hearing more from close friends..and fortunately, they are all safe and sound. a smith bulletin was put up by some alums to account for other smithies...really reassuring to see many familiar names there. the patriotism here is like none other that i have ever seen in my lifetime. flags everywhere, patriotic songs playing all the time. i went to the symphony the following saturday and they began the whole program with everyone standing up and singing America the Beautiful. And last week, i went to the first opening show for the Pacific Northwest Ballet, and the finale consisted of a number choreographed to Stars and Stripes....and the donations to the red cross and all sorts of other funds have been incredible. i just hope we are careful and make the right decisions.

this last weekend, went up to bellingham for juli and todd's wedding (cancelled plans to go to L.A.)...absolutely beautiful...my first evening wedding. it was so enchanting with all sorts of candles lighting up the air of love and friendship. i've never been to bellingham except to stop to grab something to eat coming down from whistler. the next day, jon and i ate at a great cafe for brunch and then wandered around some shops, listening to some music. i really liked that town.

finally saw Hansa, the new baby elephant, on Sunday at the zoo with Phoebe and some other Smithies---it was so adorable and way too cute, playing with its bouncing balls. i think we were lucky in that we didn't have to deal with all the horrible lines that i had heard about.

so, bad news from the past 2 days: a) my cell phone's earpiece finally died and is pretty much useless..and b)my car was stolen last night. yup. i'm bummed and was pretty pissed off this morning. i last used my car last night to go over to fred's place for dinner..and came home around 11pm. when i walked out this morning to go to work, it was gone. i immediately called the police and insurance company. supposedly, most stolen vehicles are found within 2 weeks. i guess i shouldn't be too surprised considering my car is one of most stolen vehicles in america...and that seattle is one of the top 10 cities for car theft. ugh. so now i have to wait to see if it's gone and lost forever...or if they find it with who knows how much damage. as for my cellphone, ran out and bought a new one immediately so the police could contact me in case they found my car.

week's starting out lovely, isn't it? on a brighter side, saw the most twisted bizarre movie tonight--David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. I have to think about that one for a bit.

i'm so bummed. recently got the wedding invitation to juli and todd's wedding...but i've already booked a super cheap flight down to L.A. to visit my grandparents leaving that evening. just tried to change it but the cost to change it is greater than the cost of my initial flight. argh. oh well.

So happy that I made the last minute spontaneous decision to go to San Francisco for the weekend. Left work early on Friday and was down in the Bay Area in 2 hours. Funny, I saw my friend, Russell, the night before and told him about the great deal I found..and he bought a ticket too. I got there around 7pm and greeted Willie with a big 'ol hug...so nice to see him. It's been about a year since we last saw each other, back in Boston. We ate at this yummy place called House for dinner and just chatted the rest of the night. I couldn't believe how foggy that city gets at night...one can just get drenched with fog.

Saturday, headed down to Pier 39 and saw a gazillion sea lions and harbor seals hanging out on several wood planks. Back in '89, after the earthquake, about 15 of these huge adorable creatures came over to the pier for refuge...that 15 soon turned into a few hundred...which is what it is today. Later that afternoon, I went over to my friend Andrew's place--he moved there from Seattle just a few months ago. Turns out he lives only 5 minutes away from Willie..in a great house with a nice view. Bar-B-Q and karaoke. So happy to have seen him and be able to catch up. That night, saw a great great scary movie: The Others..it had a nice twist in the end. I don't want to give it away: go see it.

Sunday, did the whole Alcatraz tour which was really interesting. There was a guest author at the prison who happened to be the youngest guard to ever work there...fascinating to talk to him about his experience...then walked all over the place, finally eating a yummy Burmese dinner with Willie and his roomie, Cindy.

My little brother, Aaron, turned 22 on Saturday..eeks, I can't believe he's that grown up.

Saw "The Amazing Race" last night, the latest reality TV show: this one involves 12 pairs of people who race around the world from place to place. The last to arrive at each place gets eliminated. What I found most interesting was the relationship in each pairing: mother/daughter, grandparents, engaged couple, married couple, separated parents, working mothers, frat brothers, lawyers at the same firm, etc. It was fascinating watching the dynamics within each relationship...gotta wonder how this series will make or break some of these people. Who would I pair up with if I did this? It's hard to say. The first person that comes to mind is my college roommate, Anna...but part of me wonders if I could get through something like this with my brother.

had some good catching up with people i haven't chatted with in a long time. ate dinner at yummy sostanzza trattoria with steve...and then meg took me out for a delicious tapas dinner as a belated bday present...finally took alex out rollerblading along alki beach today...and then hung out with gary for a few drinks.

did a hell of a lot of cleaning up of the old apartment. i hate cleaning refridgerators.

made a spontaneous purchase earlier today...was bummed that i didn't really have anything to do for labor day weekend, so i bought a ticket to san francisco to see my friend willie. found a pretty good deal too...so i'm leaving tomorrow at 5pm. whoa, need to pack. also bought ticket to L.A. for later in month to visit gung-gung...

no more julia...it was so great seeing her. last sunday, we took a random trip down to olympia to have lunch at her friend brian's restaurant, la voyeur...my first time being down in the capital city...cute. it'll probably be about a year before i see her again. afterwards, jocelyn and i drove all over the place determined to find a banana republic store...surely, there must be one in the capital. after our lame attempt, we drove back to seattle and shopped downtown.
i've finally moved into my new apartment and spent the first night there tuesday night....oh, i love it so much. plus, my neighbors are great: peter, brett, kate. i got so much moved over...all i have left at the old place is some food, my mirror and 2 coats essentially. i can't wait to get all settled into it. first things i put together: bed, entertainment center. you can see what my priorities are.

saw maceo parker with eugene and scott on thursday...too bad it was raining initially...kinda spoiled all the fun.

a friend's father suddenly died yesterday...she's my age and her father's about the same age as my father. what a shock that must be...you're not even supposed to consider thinking about your parents leaving you at this time...i don't know what I'd do if either of my parents suddenly left me...I'd be a wreck of course...but I'd just be shocked most of all. [shudder] i don't want to think about it.

I finally have keys to my new apartment--how exciting! I got them this morning and already put my shower curtain up and brought over my plates and bowls. Need to get rugs because this place has hardwood floors. Got on a roll last night with packing things in boxes..stayed up til 1:30am doing so.
Julia and Jocelyn dropped by last night..it was so good seeing Julia...I miss her a lot! And I've got to meet up with Fred soon..well, I'll be hanging with him tomorrow to look at apartments in Cap. Hill.
and my Aussie friend just got laid off from work and has to find a new job soon or return to Australia....how sad. It's unlikely that he'll stay here in Seattle.
Also just settled into my new cubicle at work...decided to settle into this one more than my previous and put up my postcards and pictures...much more homey. It's strange, though, being on this floor amongst all the accountants. I'm sure they think us web devs are loud and obnoxious. ha ha.

back in the states now...wish i had more time over in europe...i miss it so much.

friday: woke up early and had breakfast in the city. then visited the old jewish cemetery, which is the oldest one in europe, dating back to the 15th century i believe. it's a small space and is essentially layers and layers of graves. today, the tombstones that exist have been brought up from each layer over the hundreds of years. i then took a bus (for only 68 Kc!) out to the town of Terezin (about an hour away), which was a former Jewish Ghetto during the war. It's a town of about 5,000...and at one point, conditions were so bad that they squeezed as many as 58,000 Jews in there. It kind of spooked me out that people still live there...which makes sense...but it's strange knowing the history of it and all the pain and suffering that went on. Like many other towns, Terezin was pretty much a public relations hoax on the part of the Nazis, twice fooling the International Red Cross into thinking that it was a Jewish refuge. More disturbing was the Lesser Fortress, or the prison that existed down the street from the town. That's no longer in use and it was completely creepy to walk through the former prison cells and isolation chambers.

Got back into the city that evening and celebrated my birthday by having an exquisite French dinner at a place called Saint-Jacques. There was this violin and piano duo...these 2 guys who were just hilarious. They did everything from Vivaldi to Elvis. Then went out to a club on the Charles River where we hung out with a group of guys from London in Prague for a stag party..lots and lots of fun. I love how international it was...meeting people from everywhere. Fabulous birthday.

on Saturday, I finally met up with Sara and saw her perform, which I haven't seen in years. Coincidentally, she was performing at the same place as Peter and Klara's wedding reception, the Lichtenstein Palace. Her parents were also in the city so I got to chat with them also. And later that day, Wil and I began our long drive back to Germany. At one point, he even let me drive because he was so tired---how crazy that was, especially not knowing all the various road signs in Europe...but it was in the middle of the night with fewer cars on the road. Still, it was insane considering the speed of all the cars. Sunday morning, I flew back...it was a long and exhausting flight...kind of annoying, but I made it back all right. Logan Airport was a nightmare. The Luthansa flight arrived 2 hours later, which made me miss my United connection to Seattle. Because we were coming into the U.S., I had to take out my suitcase for customs...but because I had missed my connection ,I couldn't re-check it back in, even though my bag was technically checked in through Seattle. So then I had to drag it all the way to the United terminal and wait in line with everyone..not just transferring passengers..but everyone. I did that for one hour...to find out that they need to rebook me on American just get back to Seattle that day...so then I had to carry my suitcase to another terminal (the entire airport is under construction...so I had to walk along the street...you can't get anywhere except by walking outside)...and I waited in line again at American where I finally checked my bags in and got my boarding pass.

Back at work, team is moving to another floor. Waiting for the movers right now---oh! they just arrived! now I can go out to lunch...I'm taking my team out to Dixie's Bar-B-Q where they serve their famous "The Man" sauce, which is ridiculously spicy.

Oh, and Fred's back in town now--wahoo! Like, permanently...what a strange thought....and it's Gary's birthday..must call him...and Julia's coming to town!!!!

So much to talk about...I'm in Prague now. The drive here was beautiful, though I slept through most of it. I apparently missed a dinner on Tuesday night that I was invited to, that Peter didn't tell me about...sadly, there was even a place setting with my name at a table at the restaurant...oh well. Prague is such a beautiful city...I'm so in love with it. The architecture here is so awe-inspiring...gothic, baroque, art noveau, etc.. and the weather has been fantastic...not too hot, not too cool..just perfect in the upper 70's, lower 80's. There are a ridiculous number of old old cathedrals around here..the cobblestone streets only add to the charm of this city. And yes, everything is very cheap. For example, to use the internet is about 25Kc/15 minutes...which is probably about 75 cents.

The whole wedding was beautiful...Klara was dressed in a non-traditional white sequin top with a large emerald green gown...looking quite stunning. And Peter was looking all dapper and handsome in his tuxedo. Both families were incredibly sweet and it was such a joy to see the blend of the two cultures. At some point after the wedding reception, Klara was "kidnapped" to some bar for Peter to find her...apparently, a Czech tradition. Poor Peter wandered around for 2.5 hours looking for her..and they still had to drive 2 hours to where they planned on spending their wedding night. Today, a large part of the wedding guests gathered together to travel down to southern Bohemia to visit 2 castles and take a nice boat ride down the Vltava River...just romantic and beautiful. I can't even describe how breathtaking this place is. They even put together a grand meal in the courtyard of a restaurant near the Orlick Castle in the evening..everything was perfect...Klara's family is much too generous.

I can now only hope to find my friend Sara who is also here in Prague for a chamber music festival..we've only been communicating via email...I hope we meet up soon.

what a jam packed day. for starters, i could barely sleep last night, adjusting to the 9-hour difference...waking up suddenly at 3:30am. later on, jumped on the 9am train up to Bielefeld to visit Tanyel...what a great train ride. i love riding the train in europe..despite the kinda icky, rainy day it was, it was so beautiful to ride along the Rheine and pass through places like Cologne and Bonn. I freaked out briefly while changing trains in Mainze as my next train was 20 minutes late...but I wasn't sure of that..and I ran around the place asking people "sprechen zie English?!" with a "neine!" in return most of the time....I finally arrived in northern Germany about 5 hours later to the greeting of Tanyel, whom I haven't seen in FOUR years, now that I think about it. It's amazing...I never thought I'd ever have this opportunity to see him again, in his own country. We went back to his apartment where he cooked me a fantastic meal of duck salad, an eggplant dish and home-made tiramisu...and then we took a nice walk around the city, going up to some fort to get a nice view of the town....a short but pleasant and worthwhile visit. He pointed out old parts of the city that weren't destroyed by WWII...sadly, most of the city center area was destroyed so the architecture there is all very new. It amazes me still how a war that seems so distant in the past and known only to me by history books continues to reverberate in all of Germany. Tanyel mentioned to me how it is only now, with our generation, that the Germans can say that they are German to foreigners without feeling any shame or guilt. I wish we had had more time to just sit down in his living room, sipping wine and enjoying each other's company and conversation....so after all that, took a 7pm train back to Idar-Oberstein...where I got back close to midnight...and now I have to prepare for the long drive over to Prague tomorrow...can't wait. It should be a beautiful drive.

I'm in Idar-Oberstein, Germany right now. oy...I haven't written here in awhile. quick summary before moving onto europe...

fun fun leo party last weekend where all sorts of friends from all sorts of social circles appeared at todd and olke's house. i took lots of pictures but haven't uploaded them yet online..you'll see it soon. took jon out for dinner for his bday at a yummy place on queen anne called sapphire on wednesday...and on friday, headed to george, wa at the gorge to see the area:one concert where moby, outkast, new order, paul oakenfold, timo maas, rhinocerese, the orb and the roots performed/dj'd. went with gary and had an amazing amazing time. saw eugene and party briefly but lost them.

and on saturday, i got on a plane for a long 15-hour journey over to frankfurt where Wil picked me up and took me back to here where he's stationed at the Baumholder U.S. Army Base. what a surreal world this is...not only being in a foreign country but also seeing a military base in another country. There's a whole community here so that one can feel like they're still in the U.S. I couldn't believe how cheap all the food items were in the grocery store...all subsidized by the government. he lives in this amazing apartment in the country that's huge...and the army pays for it. so this is where our tax money goes... Idar-Oberstein is a small conglomeration of several little towns just a little bit west of Frankfurt...quite peaceful actually. I love the view from his balcony, overlooking a bunch of hills with some houses nestled within. Tomorrow, I going to take a really last minute random trip up to Bielefeld where my friend Tanyel is studying law. I met Tanyel the summer of 1997 at summer school and that was the last time I saw him. I'm not going to have that much time with him...only about 5 hours...but it'll be worth it. I would've ended up just sitting in Wil's apartment watching TV or sleeping anyway...might as well make use of that time by....oh...traveling all the way to northern Germany for a day. And then on Tuesday is the long haul road trip (6 hours) to go to Prague, which is my primary reason for coming here in the first place---to attend Peter and Klara's wedding on Wednesday. Quite exciting.

grrr...i hate email viruses. my home account is getting spammed by the latest "W32.Sircam" virus which sends email out to every person in one's address book, randomly attaches a file from someone's computer and says Hi! How are you? I send you this file in order to have your advice. See you later. Thanks" What a dumb message. Of course, I--like many other dumb people--happened to open up the very first one that I got and was suddenly reading someone's cover letter to get an acting gig. That teaches me not to check my email late at night when I could care less about what email I get. Anyhow, I think I'm safe...mostly because, well, my computer's not always online...but I don't know if that means anything. And I'm too cheap to run out and get anti-virus software at this time. i know i know. well, i guess i'll find out from friends soon enough if indeed, i'm sending out similar ridiculous messages to them and they're suddenly reading some psychology lab i did in college. furthermore, i think i'm safe because the virus supposedly resides in your recycle bin if it's found its way into your computer...and my recycle bin is clean.

getting really excited about going to europe. apparently, i'll be driving through this part of the czech republic called the West Bohemian Spas where there are literally hundreds of spas all over the place....hmmm...massage? anyhow, i have so much to do before i go...like...PACK...and prepare for MOVING when i come back. ack!

i finally found a place to live. after a year of living with a roommate, i'm venturing back into the world of living by myself. i think i read a statistic somewhere saying how more and more people in america are living by themselves now as compared to a few years ago. anyhow, i'm really excited about my new home...it's one of four units in an old house built in the early 1900's (that's old for seattle). the landlord is really nice and awesome, which is so important to me. i've got one month to move now...can't wait.

last weekend, i went on the salsa cruise with a few friends..and it was so much better than last year: bigger boat, more people that knew how to dance, etc. I absolutely love the salsa community here...I'm determined to get better.

saw my surgeon the other week and she removed the surgical tape surrounding my incisions. i'm recovering well though every once in awhile, i feel a small pull in my navel muscles. i feel so lazy as i cannot do anything until august...can't lift anything more than 15 lbs., can't work out, etc. i'm so out of shape now.

last night, i hung out with my friend alex and saw startup.com...whoa. it's a documentary following the lives of 2 guys who got into the whole dot-com boom, succeeded immensely and then crashed harder than they ever imagined. i really enjoyed this movie...i'm sure the producers of the documentary had no idea what kind of drama could happen when they first started...and all sorts of things happened...from the CEO meeting bill clinton to one guy having to fire his best friend and co-CEO from the company only months before it goes under. i would love to see the reactions of friends of mine who went through all of this in the last 2 years...traveling to meet VC's, staying up all night programming and eating pizzas, etc.

i forgot to mention that my friend gary is back in town! i'm so excited! he was the only person i knew in seattle when i first moved here as we had studied abroad together in spain...then last summer, he decided to move down to florida for a year just to check it out...and he finally moved back to seattle last week. i'm determined to hang out with him more this time.

ah, the weather has been absolutely beautiful. to celebrate independence day, james invited me to go sailing on a boat with his friend goldie from work, her boyfriend and some other people down in tacoma--my first time on an actual sailboat. we went down there around noon and were on the boat until midnight--->see my pictures. mount rainier looked incredible down there and the air show was tons of fun to see. i just sat back, soaking in the rays and enjoyed the gorgeous day.

i'm starting to feel much better and am able to move around a bit more. i even made it to salsa class with jon on thursday. friday, i saw the symphony again where bobby mcferrin was the guest conductor...enjoyed it very much. at one point, he asked the audience "are there any sopranos in the house who can sing bach's ave maria?", and 4 women leapt up on stage...and bobby proceeded to vocalize the background as these 4 women burst out into a gorgeous rendition of this aria. i was mucho impressed. and on saturday evening, headed down to pier 62/63 with eugene, christina, robert and some other people to see Buena Vista Social Club presents Ibrahim Ferrer...great Cuban, salsa, rumba, etc. music. afterwards, we headed over to wild ginger to get some late night munchies...here are some pictures i took along the way.

i decided last week that i'm definitely going to head over to prague in august to attend my friend peter's wedding. i'm incredibly excited as my bestest friend from kansas, sara, will be there for a chamber music festival. not only will i probably be able to hear her play violin but i get to celebrate my birthday with her and wil in prague (my bday is only 3 days after the wedding). now i have to find a good plane ticket and start booking the hotel....

i'm alive!!! i survived the surgery!!! my recovery hasn't been too horrible. the procedure went well despite some complications---it was only supposed to be 45 minutes and it turned into 2.5 hours...giving my parents quite the scare in the waiting room. my lil' incident in hong kong had actually caused a fairly large gall stone to slip out and lodge itself in the bile duct, making it difficult to remove the gall bladder initially. what perfect timing...that gall stone could have started up an infection and caused some serious damage. so my surgery came at the perfect time, removing what we were trying to avoid. it took me a really long time to wake up from the anesthesia and i didn't get home until the late afternoon. when we got back, i found these beautiful white roses from meg sitting at my doorstep..what a sweetheart. since coming back, things haven't been too bad with the exception of yesterday morning when i actually threw up bile. i didn't know that was possible....very disturbing. i've been slowly walking around the apartment today, with the help of some very strong painkillers. I'm hoping to take my parents down to the Market today because it's such a beautiful weekend...and olke's having a bar-b-q because his dad is in town.

The night my parents came in, we had a dinner with some friends that they've never met: eugene, eric, christina, ryan and james. We ate at Top Gun, the usual, and had a fabulous dinner. it was nice for my parents to finally meet all these people.

i wonder when i'll be able to return to work. the only pain right now is from any activity using my stomach muscles. it feels like a combination of getting hit in the stomach really hard and having done 2000 situps. plus, i get a little whoozy from the painkillers. my diet has been rather mild so i have yet to test what i can or cannot eat.

had a pretty great weekend considering that i had no plans as of last Thursday. friday night, i hung out with brad...catching up over drinks and dinner at the pink door down in the market. saturday, i went hiking at mount si with eric, jon & felix..what a great hike and a perfect day for it too; however, while up there, i realized had little time to get back to seattle to go to the symphony where one just cannot be late. so i literally bolted down the mountain, making it in about 1.5 hours and eric rushed me back to my apartment where i somehow changed from grungy hiking gear to a nice black cocktail dress with heels and then met up with james. it was my first time going to benaroya hall (for shame) to see the symphony. andre watts was playing the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2--what a romantic, emotional piece that is. Oh, it was so beautiful....wonderful evening it was. Afterwards, james and i were able to get a late dinner at 96 Union, overlooking the puget sound--great food, company, conversation. the weather took a downward turn on sunday and i just stayed in cleaning all day, when i discovered an old tape of mine that i had recorded of me playing the chopin revolutionary etude at the age of 15. ah, the memories. later that evening, i caught up with my friend steve over dinner and a movie: the anniversary party....enjoyable.

last night, the crm team sponsored a bowling night at the imperial lanes where i discovered that my manager is a secret hard-core bowler, scoring a 191 average! i did okay, with something like a 125 average.

my parents get in tomorrow morning--I can't wait to see them again and show them around. I hope the weather'll be nice. i'm so happy that they'll be around for my surgery on thursday--eeks!

it can be so tragic to meet someone so incredibly wonderful but then realize that time and life events are not on your side. but then, to actually know them and have met them and to have them in your life can be all worth it...i hope.

i had a great night tonight. jon convinced me to start taking salsa lessons with him so we headed over to century ballroom this evening for our first salsa class...which was fairly advanced in my opinion for the very first class in a beginner salsa class. but it was tons of fun. afterwards, he and i caught up over dinner at la spiga and then he dropped me back off at the ballroom where i met up with felix for the salsa dance that's held almost every thursday night. it was just so great to see all the salsa dancers...such a free, liberating and articulate dance...yet, people just flow and it looks so smooth and elegant. felix has improved so much since the last time i ever danced with him (which was like early last fall)...i had a really great time and had forgotten how much i love to salsa dance. i think i may actually benefit from these classes for my technique isn't very solid...i've got the hip thing down but i think once i understand and master turns and take note of the leader's slight movement of the wrist, i'll be much better. i'm excited to be taking up salsa again.

the past couple of days have been absolutely beautiful, sunny and warm here in seattle. oh, i have enjoyed the weather.

feeling much better now. wow, i was very sick for quite awhile last week. oh my health. first my eye, then my gall bladder, then my stomach, and next week, the surgery. i'm just falling apart.

had a great weekend. hung out with james a lot and went to the fremont fair where i saw the annual solstice parade, which is just such a beautiful, liberating event. one of my webdevs, javier, invited a few of us over to his place for an authentic mexican dinner and to also meet his new wife--what a fantastic meal that was. on sunday, i went jogging in the aboretum for the first time--it smelled wonderful and was such a nice place to take a run. then went rollerblading, washed my car and had dinner with jon at spaghetti red's to catch up on things.

yesterday, finally went back to the gym for this first time in a long time with meg for a class which was hard but was a good burn...and then watched moulin rouge with betina--the music was a bit funky but i think i really liked it. it was done well....different....nice.

i'm oh so very tired right now and want to go home. still trying to recover from the jet lag of a 15 hour time difference. the trip home was difficult as i was still rather sick. i haven't been able to keep any food down for the past 4 days...today's the first day in which i'm starting to feel a little bit better. the tokyo airport was really neat. you can rent a "day room" for $5/hour in which you get a nice clean shower and a bed. too bad i wasn't there long enough to try to take advantage of that.

i need to get my new mp3 player hooked up at home and see how it works. very exciting.

oh...so much to say about things that have happened in the past few days. Well, for starters, we went to China and Macau..I'll talk about that.

On Friday, we went on an organized trip to Macau. The ferry boat ride there was absolutely gut-wrenching....1.5 hours of hearing people throw up. When we got there, we were disappointed to see that the weather wasn't that far different than in HK, where the "red signal had been raised" (translation: "a ton of rain"---it's typhoon season here). The entire day we were there, it was a torrential downpour. Our first stop was the Macau Museum where we could look at the history of this peninsula...which is rather interesting. Before the turnover to China in 1997, this was a Portuguese colony...so all the street signs, official pamphlets, directions, store signs, etc... are in 3 languages: Chinese, Portuguese and English. There's also a clear Portuguese influence in the style and architecture of the city with cobblestone streets and hacienda-like buildings. The rest of the day we went to touristy points, such as the A-Ma Buddhist Temple, the Ruins of St. Paul (a church that was burned down in the 19th century--only the facade remains) and the Casino. See, gambling is illegal in HK so everyone comes to Macau to gamble, one of the primary sources of income for the Macanese people. I wasn't too keen on it since I've seen too many casinos in my time...especially since it was overly crowded, stuffy and full of smoke. Also, there were all sorts of young teenage prostitutes approaching my brother...he was slightly traumatized. On this trip, I met a nice doctor my age from London named Robin...he was able to tell me more about my eye and my upcoming surgery. Amazing to know that someone my age has already performed numerous surgeries...of course, medical school in England seems to be different than in the US because you can be finished by age 23.

When I came back from Macau, I suddenly felt very ill with an internal chill and extreme headache...I had to go to bed right away...I woke up early the next morning to go on the Shenzhen, China trip and I still felt awful. My sickness had turned into a throbbing pain in my stomach, which is related to my damn gall bladder problems (thus my surgery in 2 weeks). So the entire time I was in China, I was in pain. Our first stop was at a museum where they were having a special exhibition of the Terracotta warrior statues from Xian--they had 3 of them...really cool. After that, I slept...I just could not get up to do anything more so I stayed on the bus. In the afternoon, my family skipped one of the places we were supposed to go to--"Splendid China" which is a place with miniatures of all the major monuments, fortresses, etc in all of China (so in essence, not something horrible to miss)...and we all went to a beauty salon! Can you believe that? We all got foot massages, body massages and my brother got his haircut---all for under $50. It was actually much more interesting because we got to talk to the people there about everyday life in Shenzhen, which is sad. They consider going to McDonald's a luxury dinner. It definitely made me feel bad about the amount I pay my hairdresser currently for one haircut. So of course, all this relaxing treatment made me feel a little better...The only other interesting thing I learned was how business men from HK will come up to China to meet their mistresses (or "second wives/concubine") for the weekend...and these women will get paid thousands of dollars a month to be these mistresses. With that, they don't have to worry about having more than one child.

We got back to HK that evening but my pain didn't go away and I still felt awful...to the point that I went to the emergency room last night. The doctor prescribed me all sorts of pills that I'm currently taking. I'm feeling a bit better this morning..but I'm hoping it'll all go away before my long journey back to Seattle tomorrow. Today, being my last day in Hong Kong, I'm taking it fairly easy. Damn gall bladder.

i swear i'm going to gain fifty pounds on this trip with all the delicious chinese food i've been eating. last night, we had dinner with my grandmother and all her banker friends at this amazing restaurant....it was course after course...don't know how i made it through. The meal consisted of: shark's fin soup, braised abalone, crab, fried rice, pig's skin, some sort of fish, duck's feet, vegetables, soup noodles and all sorts of dessert. and then today, my "ma-ma" (chinese for grandmother on the father's side) took us to the Luk Yu Tea House, which is this famous 100+ yr. old dim sum/tea house...wow, the dum sum there was incredible. Now, I'm in the Times Square Mall, wandering around until I meet up with my mother again.

The other night, my cousin took Aaron and I out to a karaoke bar...how amusing. It was actually quite cheap---just $55HK (a little over $5US) per person...for the entire night...oh, and my cousin has changed her English name from Mandy to Gigi (sounds more like her Chinese name now). She works in some fancy beauty salon in the hotel that we're staying at and has a 21yr old boyfriend. She's the only one in her family still in HK--the rest has immigrated over to L.A. within the past few months.

I've decided I'm not too wild about the new fashion in HK...it's like we've reverted to the 80's. What's really in are graffitti decorated shirts paired with jean skirts and big silver studded belts.
I'm hoping to visit Macau this time....and re-visit the Big Buddha since it's so neat. Much of what we do here is dictated by my grandmother...

i'm in hong kong now, sitting at the "log-in cafe" in some random shopping mall. it's really amazing how the internet access in hong kong has changed since the last time i was here (2 years ago). Back then, it was pretty hard to find a computer to get internet access to--and even then, it was expensive. now, almost every store, shopping mall, street corner has some sort of internet podium that you can use for free....like, surf the internet while shopping. and they just limit your amount of use to like 15-20 minutes....not bad at all.

I've only been here for about 2 days so far...and all I've been doing is catch up on sleep, eat and see relatives. today, we had dim sum with my great aunts #4, 6 & 7. This morning, I took a jog around Kowloon Park, which is right across the street from the hotel....it was amazing. I probably came across 8 different groups of Tai Chi classes and just all sorts of interesting people enjoying the Sunday morning. There was also a bird aviary, full of beautiful creatures.

Shopping is difficult as usual...I had to buy a pair of XL pants...and even then, they're a little on the tight side. Oh well.

I see my cousin this evening...from what I hear, she's quite the grown up now. This store that I'm in right now is so interesting...you can buy everything here. My senses are overwhelmed.

finishing things up at work. busy day. deciding whether or not to pack up my office...don't know if they will move me while i'm away. i don't want to leave. i want to stay and drink my bubble tea.

feel like i have so much to do before leaving for hong kong tomorrow. seriously need to pack...but then again, maybe not--will probably buy a lot of clothes again in hong kong. this can be a fun or depressing trip. see, the women in hong kong weigh on average like 85lbs. i'm considered a pretty big girl over there. i remember walking into a shop once where they said to me "we don't carry up to your size" (!). i'm nervous to see my cousin who is some hot shot model now and works in a fancy salon. but i can't wait for the warmth...(let's see what i say next week as i'm drowning in the balmy heat) i'll be flying by myself from seattle and meeting my family in tokyo. need to buy books. damn, my discman is fried. may need to make emergency run to best buy or something like that. need music. should i bring running shoes? would be fun to take a morning run around the harbor. i can't believe i've never gone out at night for the amount of times that i've been to hong kong. i'm determined to make it out at least once this time.

hanging out with james again tonight.

wow, so much has happened since my last entry. to recap: reunion was great. the weather turned out to be amazing and a few friends showed up on ivy day that i didn't expect---such as lori and gina. saturday night, i made it to illumination night where they light up the entire campus up with japanese lanterns...and the poofs pulled me up to sing "thank you", which i could barely remember for the life of me. oh well. afterwards, i went out with gina and judy to go dancing at city cafe--never went there while i was at smith..but it was good 'ol fun dancing with my girls again. god, i miss dancing with them. on sunday, i had brunch with judy's family and helped her put her graduation robe on...what memories this bring me. in the afternoon, headed to commencement exercises and watched toni morrison speak about how these new graduates are about to enter the most unpredictable phase in their lives and to not fault themselves if things don't really seem to go the way they plan for it to go...good advice.

back at work on monday. finally ready to devote myself 100% to the new team...things a little crazy. on wednesday, saw a private performance by the cowboy junkies in one of our conference rooms---so so good. that night, saw a special screening of pearl harbor at the cinerama since my entire team launched our project finally last week. unfortunately, the audio kept fading in and out at very key scenes. thought the battle scenes were good...but disappointed that the movie lasted as long as it did (3 hours)..especially since it wasn't necessary. the story continued on at least 4 months after the pearl harbor incident...only so they could bring some sort of resolution to the love story.

thursday night, saw the ben harper concert with eugene, robert and sean. friday night, went out with james and had a wonderful time. we had planned on seeing shrek but all the websites and newspapers' listings were wrong for pacific place cinemas...so we ended up going back to my place to watch The Game. yesterday, took meg out to greenlake and went in-line skating for her first time--she was pretty good. it still feels weird to say "in-line skating" when I really want to say "rollerblading"...but rollerblading is actually referring to the brand rather than the actual sport. interesting how one brand can truly dominate a sport so much that people think that the name of the sport is coined after the actual product name.

and finally, today, went to the pike place market festival with felix where i got a neat-o leo henna tattoo on my back. i hope that's okay. it's going to be there when i'm in hong kong this next weekend. oh yeah--i'm going to hong kong. how random is that? i just found out. anyhow, hope my grandmother doesn't freak out and think i'm a wild child or anything....and then i just got back from seeing "O", a modern adaptation of Othello with Eugene...it was part of the Seattle International Film Festival (which y'all should check out). The director was there and gave a little Q & A afterwards, which was cool....now, I'm off to eat dinner with Jocelyn.

i'm in northampton, ma now....after a long, overnight flight from seattle last night. phoebe & i arrived early in the morning and jumped onto the valley transporter, where we encountered another smithie here for her 10 year reunion. since we were arriving so early, we dropped off our stuff and then just wandered around. it's so sad to see the fine arts center completely torn down...and then to see this temporary engineering building--so ugly compared to the rest of campus. but aside from that, everything's lovely. i chatted briefly with my former econ professor, jim in the morning...and then shopped around town. finally, at 3pm, we were able to check in and found out that we're staying at baldwin house. now i'm in the library as i kill time...i'm supposed to meet julia in half an hour...i'm excited--she's been out of the country so long..it'll be great to catch up with her.

My left eye is a pink nightmare. It definitely got worse over the weekend. Whenever I drank a glass of water, I could feel the compression of air as it came to my face. Sunday morning, it took me 2 hours to be able to look out the window at the light. Everytime my eye caught the light, it felt like someone was stabbing me in the eyeball with their finger. I finally saw my doctor yesterday and then an opthamologist today....and the final analysis is that I've got uveitis--cause is unknown. I've been prescribed 2 hardcore eyedrops: One I have to take every 2 hours, which is essentially steroids for my eyes...and the other I take twice a day, which'll dilate my eyes each time. I'll be wearing sunglasses a lot in this next week or two. Being in front of the computer isn't really good for my eyes...so I didn't go to work today and I won't be going tomorrow either...and after that, I'm heading back to smith for my reunion. it's been interesting trying to find something to do instead of work. I want to do work from home, but looking at the computer screen more than 5 minutes at a time really hurts my eye. [sigh]

i'm tired. my eye hurts. so earlier this week, my eye became bloodshot...i don't know why. i thought it was because i was staring at the computer too much. it occurred after this one night of working until 1:30am (like tonight) and then I woke up the next morning with my eye a little achy. but ever since, my eye's just this bloodshot mess. it's really tired and gives me a headache. i think i'm addicted to eye drops now. i should visit the doctor.

my PM forced me to take the day off on thursday. i didn't know what to do with myself. i just *had* to log on and check email. but i eventually went downtown where i treated myself to highlighting my hair at the salon...even though no one can really tell. she made the color a little bit too warm...blends with my hair too much. oh well. it's not bad...just not very noticeable. and then i went rollerblading for 1.5 hours with felix around green lake. and i ended the evening taking a nice, warm bath.

today was the web dev all hands. all the web developers across the company -- US, JP, UK, DE, FR, etc -- congregated in the 8th floor AV Room of pacmed to talk about all the various groups and future codebase. as exhausting as it was, it was rather interesting meeting everyone and hearing about future implementations.

i have to wake up early and go to work. my eye still hurts.

beautiful sunday, sitting in my office. oh joy. it'll soon be over...i just need to survive for another 2 weeks or so.
let's see..this past week...had dinner with jason on wednesday. haven't seen that boy in awhile--had a great time catching up. he's looking at buying a condo now..how exciting. and on thursday, went to the mariners game with my new team. friday: hung out with felix. made dinner with him & betina--linguini with clams, salad, shrimp cocktail, baked apples, yum. and then we went to a late late showing of The Mummy Returns--haha. pretty neat special effects, storyline still cheesy.

and yesterday was jocelyn's birthday! a few of us went to celebrate at Coastal Kitchen where the featured cuisine was bengali--i had a wedding chicken. dan brought along a friend of his from work, an aussie named James--really cool guy...also into yoga. had a wonderful conversation with him about psychology, spirituality among other things. back at my apartment, he proceeded to show me his favorite yoga position, which involved him immediately going into a headstand, bending his knees, lifting his head up and balancing completely on his forearms. wow. afterwards, we all went over to ryan's cinco de mayo party where we enjoyed margaritas, taquitos & christina's 7 layer dip (which was very good Christina!).

anyhow, i'm sadly at work now and need to get back to it. i'm determined to get as much stuff done before 8pm, when the kickoff for the build into....okay, i'm babbling.

"what have you been up to lately, audrey?"
"work"
"no really"
"yes"
so sad. it's saturday evening and i'm in the office. i've actually been here for awhile...doing some amazon work and finally finishing up on my brother's website. i'm sitting on the 16th floor of our downtown office with a magnificent view of the puget sound as the sun slowly sets over the olympic mountains..absolutely gorgeous. scenes like this make me love seattle. god, i can't believe how beautiful it is...and to see all the ferries and boats sail on by....[sigh] this summer, i need to take advantage of seattle. i've spent 2 summers here now and still have yet to go to the san juans or anything summer-y like that.

saw st. germain at the showbox on wednesday night (thanks to kevin! boy, it feels good to say that i'm on the guest list). anyhow, it was an amazing show--8 piece band...extremely talented musicians...laid back, smooth french jazz electronica.

what a full weekend. on friday, i ate korean with a few people and then went to the most ghetto casino along 99...i won though--woohoo. saturday: slept in and then got together with phoebe to make lemon bars for the "Smith Tea in Fremont" which took place all afternoon. We had a fabulous time meeting everyone, sipping our tea & sherry, nibbling on crumpets, cheese & salmon. at night, i met up with ryan to go to dave & steve's party...we didn't leave until like 12:30am...that is, to go there. anyhow, had a great time...interesting time. didn't get much sleep. woke up early sunday. had brunch with matthew at cafe campagne--very yummy: quiche with asparagus and gruyere. and then went to a smith yield party to convince high school seniors who've been accepted to go to smith. in the evening, went to peter's engagement party where i finally met klara. she's beautiful as was the whole party. then i rushed over to buco di beppo's where we had a final good bye dinner for jed, eric and oren who are moving from seattle...so so sad. we had a blast....we've had some good times together over the past few months.

and now, i am tired and must sleep. tomorrow begins another long long week.

oy, what a week. these are the days when work just makes me so tired. anyhow, i don't want to talk about work anymore.

the network commerce boys are leaving soon....so sad. well, not all of them, but most of them. the other day, i went to the mariners b-ball game with christina, felix, eric, jon & ryan. oh what fun...there's just something about sitting in the sun, eating a hot dog, hearing people sing "take me out to the ballgame" which just says "Summer is Here". anyhow, so i took jed out to dinner last night. i wanted to make sure he'd eaten at a nice seafood restaurant on the pier before he ever left..so i took him to waterfront--the food was yummy.

last weekend, i went on a shopping binge. see, i don't shop very often...i'll go for months without ever stepping into a store. and then one day, i'll just go shopping like crazy. that's what i did on saturday. i bought 4 pairs of shoes.

okay okay...it's been awhile since i've written anything. apologies for those of you who care.

[sigh] soooo much has happened. i've been doing a lot of thinking. a lot of exciting stuff at work...amazon is joining up with borders. had my performance review---way too flattering. huge reorg announced: i'm completely affected. need to find a new place in my amazon world. talking to lots of people. need to make decision soon. difficult decision. want to be loyal to my projects and stay on...don't know if i have a choice. need to realize that i am no longer are a part of two groups i love so much: music & video. but it will all work out in the end. my officemate (gilia) is going to come back to complete chaos. things can change so much when you go off to borneo.

went boarding again last week up at mt. baker for the first time---it was absolutely amazing. i think we had like 10 inches of fresh snow....so beautiful. at one point, i stopped briefly, turned around and sunk into the snow, up to my waist. with a snowboard attached to my feet, you can see it was quite the dilemna. i eventually got out of it. my next ride up on the lift, you could see the exact points where i sunk, where i lifted my board out, and where i slowly trekked out of the deep madness.

went to my first U2 concert last night with jason--the elevation tour. it was great...they played all the classics. i love it when a band still sounds just as good, if not better, live.

last sunday, finally pulled together the smithie potluck that phoebe and i have been planning--essentially, a get together of all smithies in the seattle area that have graduated in the past 10 years. it was a lot of fun and we got a lot of great feedback. there are more 99's and 00's out here than i thought.

still trying to put together aaron's website...though have so little time for it. the project i'm working on now is sucking up my time. and next week, the PM is going on vacation...and guess who's the lucky soul who gets to step in as temp. PM? am i scared? i don't know. this whole project is scary...but we can do it!!! that's the spirit.

damn, the ATM ate my card this morning.

okay, i'm caving in and starting this puppy back up again. it's a new month...so guess where i am? at work...though i'm not doing work. i'm creating this huge website for my brother to show off his art portfolio. boy, he's got a lot of art to show.

went snowboarding yesterday for the first time in over a month...i'm sore. ryan came along and decided to try out boarding himself...i'm so proud of him...he did a great job for a beginner.

been seeing a lot of movies. on friday night, saw memento which i really loved...also saw a lot of people there---katy, jocelyn, dan, etc. and mark came over late last night and watched men of honor with me until 5am...though it was actually like 4am for us since the time changed.
betina's in vegas now with joe, meeting the parents...

this is really freaky to read

i'm tired...going to go home now and attempt to make clams with linguini for dinner.

i'm freaking out again about how many random people read this. this was supposed to just be a small 'lil thing for my friends. but technically, total strangers could know everything about my life just by reading this. i need a little more privacy. i'm going to pause. probably not for too long, knowing me. at least until i can get over everyone knowing everything about me.

wahoo! KU beat Syracuse today!! Not only did we win, but we creamed Syracuse (87-58).

i'm still coughing but feeling much better. i'm excited to see tahiti 80 tonight at the croc.

blegh. i'm sick. i didn't go to work today so now i'm sitting at home, dialed up, looking out at the beautiful weather and watching some bad spanish soap opera.

american airlines is so dumb. linda called them today and they informed her that my bags are still lost. what idiots.

back in seattle. sick. tired. the last 2 days have been quite the adventure. our plane took off from san juan over an hour later and we arrived in miami just as our connecting flight to d.c., the last flight out, took off. so we were stranded in miami--yay! well, not really. it was supposed to be a fun night but we ended up waiting in the airport for hours and hours waiting for them to get our bags for us, which they never did. pissed off, we went back to the holiday inn, where i called up gary, who moved from seattle to ft. lauderdale last august...and he drove down and hung out with me a bit. we woke up the next morning, barely making our 7am flight to d.c., only to find that our bags were MIA and i was screwed since i needed to take a train to newark to catch a flight out to go to seattle. my train arrived in newark really really late and i finally got to the airport at 5:30pm for my 5:40pm flight...ironically, the only reason they let me on board was because I didn't have any bags to check in. i later on found out that they had found my suitcase and that american airlines was sending it on a random flight via dallas to arrive in seattle before i would--yay! nope. i arrived in seattle, only to find out that the flight my suitcase was on was delayed and wouldn't arrive until 3am. sadly, i went home and crashed. now i'm at work. my bag finally got to my apartment sometime in the afternoon. i'm sick because i think i caught something on the plane. i don't like getting sick from the plane--it just seems foul that there were all sorts of diseases floating in the air.

on the positive side, i had a marvelous time in puerto rico. it was gorgeous, sunny, warm, relaxing. linda and i ate at the most wonderful restaurants: metropol, la querencia and the parrot club where we met 2 really interesting guys: armando y carlos. it's good to make friends in P.R. since i'm determined to make my trip to san juan an annual trek and it's nice to have friends there. best of all--they can bailar salsa! i wish i had more time there...i miss eating the maduros fritos..i should just learn to make it myself.

but now i'm back to the chaos of my life and i'm sick. i can't wait to take a bath, crash on my couch and watch the sopranos all evening.

well, I decided to flee nyc after several people suggested me to. on monday, i slept in and went over to the upper east side to visit josh, whom i haven't seen in over 2 years. he looks so mature now, well-dressed, poised. it still amazes me how much he's accomplished in his life---he moved to nyc when he was only 16 yrs. old to begin college where he continued to work with Al Hirschfeld (sp?) and created some set designs for some major off-broadway and broadway productions. then suddenly, this last year, he decided to give up the life of the theatre to study medicine, which he's doing now. anyhow, so i went to his place, ate the best spaghetti carbonara in my life, went back to anna's, packed up and took the first train out of ny to d.c.....arriving around 10:45pm to smiling linda's face at union station.

she had to go to work the next day...so i just hung out, watched tv on her roomie's ridiculously huge projection tv thing and wandered around georgetown. we finally took off and arrived in puerto rico late late last night and are now staying at the ever familiar esj towers. it is so warm and sunny...i love it.

i feel like i've done so much in the last 24 hours. well, last night, i met up with debbie (sans husband) to go clubbing...we ended up at a place called ohm that was pretty swanky...bass-filled techno upstairs and laid-back hip-hop downstairs. it's really nice to be a girl sometimes...debbie and i walked up to the long line and were quickly ushered to the front where we were instantly given tickets to get in for free. anyhow, about 45 minutes later or so, we met up with my friend jimmy whom i haven't spoken to in over a year. he brought his girlfriend, carol, and his friend dan. it was a pretty fun night...i haven't gone dancing in a scene like that in so long. seattle can play music like that but no one gets dressed up at all the way they do in nyc. i must admit, it's amusing to see all the staten island guidos hitting on all the long island chicks. debbie left midway through the night and it was just me, jimmy, carol and dan....we continued dancing and partying it up until about 5am when we left the club and wandered around trying to find food, eventually settling at a pizza joint in union square, near dan's place. after eating there, dan insisted on "calling a car" for me to get Uptown rather than taking the A train all the way up. he works for some hedge fund where he can "call a car" at any hour to give him or whomever a ride to wherever, no questions asked. so we said goodbye to jimmy & carol and i went up to dan's place to wait for this car until around 6:15am...eventually getting back to anna's apartment near 7am. now that's a total night out in the city.

i didn't get much sleep, obviously...woke up in the morning and Anna & I left to go all the way to Chinatown to meet up with Li Mei to eat dim sum. Being on her crazy Wall Street schedule as she is, Mei only had about an hour to eat with us. it was nice chatting with her about everything that's occurred over the last year. After lunch, I attended a baby naming ceremony for a friend of Anna's mother, whom I also saw. We hung out there for awhile, took off, bought myself some Tevas and then headed over to the Circle in the Square Theatre to watch Rocky Horror Show Live, the B'way musical revival----what a fun show! It starred Dick Cavett, Joan Jett and Daphne Rubin-Vega. The actor who played Frank 'N' Furter was absolutely amazing. After the show, we grabbed some quick dinner and then met up with Debbie and her husband, Nick, for some martinis in the lounge at the swanky Royalton Hotel. This was my first time meeting Nick who was a really cool guy. I'm really happy for Debbie.

We're now finally back at Anna's apartment and ready to retire to bed...very tired. It was a very chilly evening...snow is starting to stick to the ground. I hope the snow doesn't become an issue for flying out of D.C.

slept in. so nice. left the apartment in the afternoon...went to the MoMA with Anna and saw the most amazing exhibition called workspheres about our work spaces and incorporating technology into the comfort of our homes. we spent so much time there that we ended up going through the van gogh exhibition in about 2 minutes. then we went to penn station where i bought my ticket to go to D.C. on tuesday and then did some shopping...successfully finding a $21 swimsuit at old navy. now i'm back at the apartment and will head out soon to meet up with debbie to go clubbing at twi-lo...i miss the city. hopefully, i can catch a show in the next few days. i feel bad that i didn't really take advantage of the arts here while i went to college out here.
everyone's talking about some huge snowstorm that's supposed to hit the eastern seaboard tomorrow through monday...at least a foot of snow. it's supposed to be the most snow to hit nyc since 1966...sounds crazy.

I'm in New York City now, typing on Anna's computer, listening to Kruder & Dorfmeister as Anna falls asleep on her bed....just like old times...Anna resting on her bed, I bent over on the computer. I pretty much stayed up all night, getting only about 45 minutes of rest before getting up around 4:15am to take a shower and finish up the rest of my packing before taking off at 5:15am for SeaTac (which is up and running) for my 6am flight to St. Louis & then to Newark. I arrived in NJ late afternoon and found Anna. We searched for my luggage and then randomly jumped on one of the Blue Shuttle vans to take us into the city. All the way over, we talked and talked to catch up with each other...god, it was great talking to her. We finally arrived at her apartment in Inwood, way up on 204th St. Such a cute apartment...walking around it brought back lots of memories as I saw familiar pictures and things on her shelves. I made a few phone calls to friends in the city and then grabbed some Indian cuisine for dinner. We went shopping at the grocery store and then came back to the apartment, spending the rest of the night eating ice cream and talking and talking. yay! I'm so happy to be back in this city...so many memories from places I've been to and of the various people I was here with. We had to cross the GW Bridge and that reminded me of driving a certain person from West Point into the city on any given weekend in my senior year. I can't wait to see old friends...

I went out with Jason again last night and had a great time....took off from work early, picked him up and we ate dinner at Andaluca...then saw "Shadow of the Vampire" and then headed back to his place for about an hour afterwards. It's weird to think that I only went on my first date with him a week ago....we've seen a lot of each other...taking this vacation will be good. tee hee..he confessed to me that he found my weblog. hmm..should be careful ;-)

what an interesting 24 hours. i started off the day yesterday waking up at 6:30am and meeting peter at 8 limbs yoga for our usual wednesday morning class. afterwards, we headed back to my apartment so that he could jump in the shower and i could change. around 9am, we drove over to b&o and grabbed some quick breakfast....and then Peter dropped me off at the hair salon so i could trim my short hair once again. after finally launching my project the night before, i felt like indulging myself with a haircut.
I got to work around 10:15am and started reading my emails, poring over all the press coverage on Jungle. About 5 til 11am, I started hearing some loud, clunky noises above me. I thought the people in the office above were moving large pieces of furniture or something...and then the trembling started...i didn't know what to think...i was confused. And then my huge 21" monitor started tilting towards me and all the contents of my bookshelf fell all over the floor. I noticed the hanging light from the ceiling swaying all over the place. I freaked out and ducked underneath my desk (thank god for sturdy amazon door desks). I sat there shaking so hard, literally thinking I was going to die. About 45 seconds later, I emerged from my now cluttered office out into the hallway to find all my coworkers standing huddled underneath door frames together or crouched below their desks, all still shaking and not knowing what to do next. We then all evacuated the building and gathered in a huge crowd outside, everyone hugging each other, thankful that we were all safe. We looked around, blown away by what had happened and forgetting all the issues we were dealing with at work just before the earthquake, issues that seemed so small in comparison now.
We were then told to gather our things and go home. I climbed the six flights of stairs and walked around, seeing all the cracks in the walls, computer monitors on the floors, ceiling light fixtures which had fallen and shattered its glass everywhere. I quickly gathered my things, sent out a few short emails and took off.
Walking home with Betina, we saw a ridiculous amount of traffic as everyone was trying to get home as soon as possible. I eventually got in touch with my parents, as the cell phone and telephone networks were all crammed. I spoke to them for awhile, calming my mother down and reassuring her that we were all safe. When we got home, Jocelyn was still a little shaken as she was home alone when this all happened. Fortunately, everything was completely intact at home...nothing major had fallen. We turned on the news and watched in awe at something that we had all experienced for the first time.
I logged in briefly to see if people were still working...which they weren't. Then I just sat on the couch, watching the news, answering many phone calls from concerned friends and relatives...forgetting to eat lunch. Eventually, I wandered out onto Broadway, shipped off my laser printer which I had sold on eBay, and grabbed a wrap sandwich from World Wraps. I didn't really know how to take advantage of all this extra time I had.
6.8 on the Richter scale. Epicenter near Olympia. Take a look at some pictures from a Cobalt employee.

another evening, trapped in the office, techno music blasting as my mind zombies into a state infused with perplexed code and a damn desktop that keeps phasing in and out! i've been having problems all day with my work area as i might call it. [sigh] my project launches tonight--yay!!! finally....there's a launch party in about half an hour where we will hopefully chill back and relax.
i bought my ticket last week to go to new york city this friday...i cannot wait. i'm gonna stay with anna whom i miss so dearly much. there's so much for the 2 of us to catch up on...then on tuesday, i'll make my way somehow down to d.c. and meet up with linda where we will take off and fly to San Juan, Puerto Rico!!! god, i really need this vacation. i just need to get away from work and not think about anything. i wanna lie on the beach, sipping margaritas, and check out all the eye candy.

well, i went on a date with lawyer boy last week...ate at tango--yum yum. we saw each other the night after and then again a few days later...many times. i'm going to have lunch with him tomorrow too. hmmm. i'm afraid to write much for fear of him discovering my weblog and knowing my thoughts before i could ever voice them to him...not that it's bad or good.

a new web dev started on monday. that makes 3 direct reports now. eeks.

jocelyn is back in seattle...i loved hearing about her crazy adventures traveling with julia and climbing mt. kilmanjaro (sp?). i wish i had the willpower that julia has to just take off time and travel around the world like that. anyhow, it was so wonderful seeing jocelyn again.

and of course, went snowboarding again over the weekend---this time, with ben up at stevens on sunday. i really thought i'd be on my own the entire time...but we actually rode together the entire day! i was so excited...given, we were on super easy runs for ben...but it was sweet that he didn't get fed up with me and actually volunteered to ride with me all day. i even told him he could go off on his own but he wanted to continue riding with me...so that was cool. i really need to buy equipment.

ack. so many things to do before i take off:

• figure out how to efficiently get my new web dev to spend his time next week while i'm gone.
• get summer sandals
• find all my cute summer outfits and see if i fit in them anymore
• write all my peer reviews and self evaluation in the next 2 days
  pack.
• maybe get new swimsuit? ack.

I worked a lot last week. My weblogs were getting monotonous...so sad.

It snowed in Seattle also at the end of the week---like, real snow. That is, it actually stuck on the ground and was a little difficult to drive in..but it was just a few inches. I found it hilarious how this city just crumbled at the site of snow. All the news stations called it "Snowstorm 2001!" [insert dramatic bass line]...and then after it all melted after just one day, they all talked about "the aftermath of snowstorm 2001". All the schools closed...some businesses...but not Amazon! It was pretty seeing the snow...I immediately ran out and took pictures. I figured it was a rare experience.

Weekend was a lot of fun....on Friday night, I hit this hip-hop show by the Slum Villagers at I-Spy with Jon and Owen...and ended up hanging also with Jaume, Justin, Juli and all their respective friends. It was such a fun show since I haven't danced to hip-hop in awhile. I went nuts. I also met Jon's new girlie-girl, Reina---she rocks! I liked her a lot and hope things work out between the 2 lovebirds. Afterwards, we all crashed some random U-Dub party...anyhow, that night, I met this guy who's a friend of a guy that works with Jaume...his name's Jason and he asked me out to dinner. I haven't been on a date-date in awhile...I'm all nervous. Anyhow, he called me tonight and we had a really great conversation. We're going to Tango (good choice) on Thursday...let's see what happens.

Speaking of randomness in meeting boys, I was also asked out by a coworker. I don't know how to react yet...

The rest of the weekend was pretty easy...didn't really do much on Saturday except for buying a fondue pot! And I made my first fondue that night...though I probably put too much wine and kirsh in. Sunday, I hit Crystal Mtn with Jon & Owen, which was a lot of fun. I tried snowboarding again and was having a great time...I even did a run with Jon at the end of the day, and for the most part, was able to keep up with him.

Today was a yucky day at work. Bad stuff. Was not happy. Went to yoga afterwards...calmed down. I'm really getting into this yoga thing.

i'm at work at a really ungodly hour. i'm here to push out content for the video/dvd group to announce the Oscar nominations. there are a surprising number of people that get on the 5:15am bus.

we set back launch of my project by 2 weeks...for PR/Business reasons. i actually feel better about it. i was a little worried.

last night, i went to my first yoga class with peter...it was so incredibly invigorating. i immediately signed up for a 2-month membership and have vowed to meet peter at this yoga center at 7am at least twice a week. if things go well, i might quit my gym and make this my primary workout. the whole experience reminded me of theatre exercises...of closing our eyes and getting in tune with our bodies...especially of playing contact where control and balance are key. now this is what i need. i'm told that i did well considering it was my first class..and also since it wasn't really a beginner's class...but i think it was mostly because of my dance background. i just felt incredibly inflexible throughout the class...but it's just a matter of time. afterwards, i joined peter with his friends--including the yoga instructor--at the gravity bar for dinner...yum yum.

oh, i'm tired. i'm still at work...hanging out with robert and ezra, drinking dr. pepper. i'm worried. i don't know if we will launch.

i'm at work again. but i got to eat yummy malaysian food care of HB as a result.

i'm at work again. but hopefully i can leave soon. i'm definitely going to IKEA tonight. watched the first 3 episodes of the sopranos last night.

wow, it's 9pm and i'm at work. i've been here for the past 7 hours...on a Saturday!!! i didn't think i'd be here this long...i was just going to come in for about 2 hours or so. it's all about last minute bugs. i was even going to go to IKEA to buy my neat bamboo curtain..but there goes that idea. i just want to curl up on my couch and watch a movie at home tonight. i have to come in again tomorrow.

betina got a full size bed today and was assembling it as i left. perhaps i'll see her more often now, with a larger bed (yay!)

found an interesting website of a former amazon employee...he made a video making fun of our environment.

i put my HP printer up for auction on ebay. i've never auctioned anything off online....there's this terrible fear that i did something wrong and i'll lose all this money.

i'm tired. long day...but a good day. right after work, i made dinner and headed off to see the pacific northwest ballet's "sleeping beauty" with phoebe. a very long ballet--3 hours. the girl who played aurora had major problems holding her attitudes even though it comprised a large part of her choreography. god, i miss dancing. i think i'm going to quit the gym. i don't know what i've been doing...i'm not really a gym person. i want to take classes at a dance studio and start up yoga...something to refresh my mind.

i'm completely redoing my bedroom. i just got a new bed frame...i've never had a bed frame in my life. it's one of those cool, cast black iron ones..."something to hold onto" as many of my guy friends would say. and i'm going to run to ikea and buy a bamboo curtain thing-a-ma-bob and drape it against the wall. then find some neat cloth and hang that over the bamboo.
i'm bummed..i was going to go to whistler this weekend with eugene, but i've got this big launch next week...and guilt came over me last night, and i decided to stay.

manine, the sweetheart, bought me a "seaweed pedicure" as a lil' goodbye present from her. what a great team...i'll miss them so much. did i mention the really awkward "goodbye music, hello video" party that was held for me last week? well, normally, the admin. assistant makes arrangements for these sorts of things; however, she was (doh!) laid off a few days before...and no one knew. so everyone gathered in pike 1744, standing around awkwardly, as if they were at a meeting...then manine stood up and gave a random (but very sweet) speech...explaining how things weren't as festive as they should be because of the sudden loss of laura, people clapped, then left. i felt weird.

i just found out that lilchrissy thinks i have "genius prose"...wow. thanks. that totally baffles me. i think my writing sucks. at least on this site. i'm not really one to express myself well in writing...i'm all about verbalizing. also, my parents have complete access to this site and i fear what i may reveal.

i'm realizing more and more how much smith has influenced me in my years. i have this need to be surrounded by strong women who are comfortable in their skin and able to express their honest selves....those that can see past "what's right/wrong" and embrace the beauty of what makes me strong and weak. phoebe really does that for me.

my little brother called me up this week, asking me to create this lil website for him, displaying his entire portfolio so that he can get an internship this summer. then it dawned on me---he really needs me! it's odd...there's always this strange distance between us, and i think it's a guy-girl thing or something like that. or perhaps it's that acknowledgment from him that he trusts that i can do what he needs...and is asking for help. warm fuzzies all around.

had dinner with matthew last night at this random italian restaurant owned by a chinese couple. oh, and the restaurant offers a limo service. but it was totally fun. things are well with matthew...i just wish i could spend more time seeing him. i saw a picture of his new girlfriend for the first time too. it was a little shocking at first because i wasn't expecting it...but then i was relieved, to finally know. i think i'm going to be single for awhile. there are so many things that i haven't had a chance to do while i was dating matthew. there aren't so many rules either. i can have my fun as long as i know i'm emotionally okay with it. but who knows. i'm even thinking about visiting wil in germany. i don't know why. in some ways, i'm curious about what he's doing out there. between march and may, he'll be "out in the field", training his military boys and playing combat games. that world is so surreal to me. i think i really miss him.

what a nice weekend...I got to hang out with people that I don't see that often. on friday night, brad invited me to his friend rick's bday dinner at typhoon where i met a bunch of his college friends and his best friend from san fran. afterwards, we just headed back to brad's place where i engaged in the most interesting conversation with his good friend matthew, matt, sousa...whatever people call him. anyhow, i had a really great time meeting all of brad's friends and just talking to all of them.

i then spent all of saturday with phoebe in southcenter. that place gets more and more ridiculous i go there...it's like a huge vacuum cleaner, where it sucks you up and won't let you out until you've spent at least $100 in one of its hundreds of stores. i got a new alarm clock (yay!..my old one died), a new minishelf stereo system (the cd player on my old one is fried), and lots of other random things that i don't really need (i.e.--the Eurosealer...it creates that seal on plastic bags...and functions as a refrigerator magnet at the same time!). and we ended the evening watching "billy elliott" at the b'way market theatre...god, i loved that movie. within the chaos of the events in his family's life, this young boy found pleasure in ballet! i love it! phoebe and i were in giggles, bringing back memories of dance classes.

and today, i went to steven's pass with the whole music site-dev team. manine and boris took ski lessons and everyone went off and did their thing. last minute, i decided to snowboard, which i'm glad i did. i don't think i could've survived today on skis....and it was so much fun on a board...the snow was soft and easy to fall on (not that i fell that much..ahem...[eyes wander])
but i'm exhausted now because i woke up at 5:30am and really only got about 3 hours of sleep since i always find myself staying up til 2am at least. but i've gotta crash now...me very sleepy....

ick...what a hard week it's been in the company. there were really huge layoffs on tuesday--15% of the company. i had a few friends that were let go...so sad. the overall mood is fairly somber, especially within editorial. some friends question the integrity and soul of this company. i don't know what to think. i feel like this is definitely a good move..and if we hadn't done it, i don't know how we'd survive in the eyes of the investors this next year. at the same time, could we have accomplished our goals without the layoffs? this is a much bigger hit than last year's which was only 2%. fortunately, i don't think anyone in web dev was affected.

other than that, the week has just flown by...working pretty long hours trying to get my project done..we're supposed to hit beta tomorrow. for the most part, i feel good about it all.

i caught temptation island for the last 10 minutes for the first time last night...what a disgusting show. can you imagine being one of the single people? and being paid to literally be meat?

yay--phoebe is back in town!

i didn't make it to the gym this morning..[sigh] but i went on monday, tuesday and wednesday..pretty good for me. i've decided to try to make my tuesday and thursdays a morning gym routine. gotta get in shape to go to puerto rico with linda!