Gift Exchange with Rebecca!

Mood: Neutral
Playing: Punk Rock Princess-Something Corporate
On December 27th, I had my gift exchange with Rebecca. I think it's amazing that we've remained great friends, even though we're no longer going to the same school. It's probably because we write so many letters to each other. Our gift exchange was quite a bit of fun actually. I haven't met up that much with friends over this winter break. I've had two gift exchanges including this one and I've been seeing my art class friends...That's about it.

We got tea from Tapioca Express. I got peach green tea with lychee jelly, while Rebecca got passion fruit tea with boba. The large is only $0.50 more than the small, so I usually end up getting the large...

We ended up eating next door at a bakery, so I tried their coffee cake. The sad thing is, I prefer Starbuck's coffee cake over this one. Darn, my love for chain restaurants....

Rebecca sewed me up a bag with a hand made key chain on it. The bag is super cute and I'm impressed that Rebecca did this. I didn't even know that she sewed! She also got me a mystery Hello Kitty food charm. We sat there feeling it, trying to figure out which one she got for me.

I took this photo later on to show that we got the doriyaki Hello Kitty key chain. It's currently dangling on my camera strap. Rebecca also gave me a Tomorrow Frog folder.

We walked around afterwards and went to the drainage area to check how high the water had gotten from all the rain. It wasn't that high at all so we walked around in the sand. Unfortunately, I took a step forward and sank around 6 inches into the sand. I still haven't cleaned off my Converse yet...We ended up going to Barnes&Noble to read comic books. Did you know there's a Justin Bieber comic book? Who knew? Oh yeah, I had a weird dream, where I met Alexander McQueen and we talked about manga together. Yeah, who knew he liked talking manga with me? That'd be pretty epic, if that happened in real life.

What are you doing for New Years?

Gift Exchange with Tina, Vivian, Jackie, and Tiffany!

Mood: Excited
Playing: Planetary (GO!)-My Chemical Romance
Yesterday, I had a gift exchange with Tina, Vivian, Jackie, and Tiffany. You've probably heard me talk about them before on my blog because they're the friends I sit with every single day during lunch now. We decided to do our Christmas gift exchange yesterday and we all had a $10-$15 limit. My friends did an amazing job making the money stretch. Most of my friends wanted cute Japanese items and as most of you know, it's pretty hard to make $10-$15 stretch at an Asian store.

Afterwards, we headed off for dinner. We all had a hard time choosing one restaurant because one of us would pick a place and two others wouldn't want to go there. Haha, it took awhile to choose, but we ended up at the crepe place. My crepe was filled with mushrooms, olives, mozzarella cheese, bacon, and tomato sauce. It was extremely hard to cut and I kind of regret not getting the salmon one instead.

We were too lazy to wait in line for an inside table, so we ended up sitting outside, where it was very cold. Being the smarties we are, we ordered a huge thing of shaved ice covered in condensed milk, mangoes, and green mango jelly.

We did a pretty good job, I say so myself. We were able to finish more than half of it. By the end of it, we were all freezing and cursing ourselves for not waiting for an inside table. It was extremely tasty though!

This is a poster that Jackie drew for Vivian. Alejandro was Vivian's fake boyfriend. Yes, Vivian had three fake boyfriends. We had to kill off Alejandro though, so we made up a story, where he was pushed off a cliff by Tina.

Tina gave me a cute bunny cell phone holder, 2 Banao lead cases, Calpico candy, a San-X folder, and her card has a drawing of all of us. I love how she got all of our clothing correct. Click on the image, so you can see her drawing better!

Vivian gave me a cute purse that will be very good for the summer time. She has the exact same bag in grey! Maybe we can twin one day. Wouldn't that be fun to do? I just need to find a top that a Vivian would wear...In her card, she drew a very fat Santa because she's just cool like that.

Jackie and I are both very into high end designers. She wants to marry Jonathon Saunders and I have a crush on Alexander Wang. This book was a very fitting choice to come from Jackie! Haha, I hope Jackie and I get into a fashion career together, so we can go to fashion week together!

Tiffany gave me a great gift. The stationary will be perfect for writing letters to people because as most of you know, I love writing and receiving letters...What can I say about the Rilakkuma items other than the fact that they're too cute? Overall, our gift exchange was a ton of fun because we all got something that we've been wanting and by that, I mean the shaved ice. Seriously, I've been waiting a long time to try that with a huge group of friends...Today I'm having a gift exchange with Rebecca, so I'll definitely blog about that later!

Sorry for the long post!

This is Kind of Like an Update?

Mood: Nostalgic
Playing: Helena-My Chemical Romance
Today has been one of ups and downs. At lacrosse practice, we learned that tomorrow will be the last day of practice at this small field we've been using. Next Monday and Tuesday are tryouts and on Wednesday (December 15th), we will learn who made the team. I know for a fact that a lot of these girls I'm strictly friends with because of lacrosse and if I don't make the team, I fear that the friendship will "fade" away. Some of the other girls don't have much in common with me, so the only time we interact is during lacrosse. Oh, how I'll miss them, but I must think in positive terms, in which I'll make the team.
I spent today listening to a lot of Andrew McMahon music and then I just listened to "Enchanted" by Patrick Wolf again and again. "Enchanted I am because of you..." Oh, how the quote makes my heart melt. I'm a real sucker for sweet or sad songs. For one post, I should put a list of all the songs that can make me cry...That would be a depressing post though. I spent the last half hour listening to My Chemical Romance and I read an article about them in this month's Rolling Stones. I found it very fascinating and I'll probably rip the pages out of the magazine. I really picked it up to read about John Lennon, but then I got sidetracked by My Chemical Romance. On a happier note, I want to give you an update on what's been going in my life.

For Hannie's birthday, my dad and I made a wand for him, like in HARRY POTTER! You probably can't tell, but we carved the end to be more pointed like a wand. I'll probably make one for Vivian because she loves Harry Potter.

My life has been very boring lately and very dull, so I decided some fun socks should brighten my mood. I really like the star ones because my mind is always in the sky. Stars just remind me of dreamers for some reason. Also, you can get them for $1 a pair. Such a good price.

Someone gave us some cookies from this expensive French bakery. I always wondered what was the big deal about the place and now I know. The shortbread cookies are simply delicious. I love munching on the cream colored ones because they have jam on them.
Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about this. My school's winter formal is coming up and everyone is making a huge fuss out of it. I have never had fun at school dances. I guess I'm just not that type. I just prefer talking to a person and getting to know them. Yes, I'm old fashioned like that, I guess. My mum was wondering if I'd go, if the cutest guy at school asked me and I replied no. I rather go see a movie or do karaoke or even go to a park. School dances just aren't my thing.

What do you think of school dances?

Let's Make Reindeers!

Mood: Tired
Playing: Sing-My Chemical Romance
Yesterday was a really terrible day, so I had to make sure today was extra good, which I sort of failed at. Yesterday, I figured out my grade in Biology dropped, did badly on my French oral because I kept on asking her to repeat a question, and I made my first huge mistake in lacrosse. Tryouts are coming soon for lacrosse, so I've been extra worried about looking good in front of the coach, While doing a drill, I fell for the first time. Everyone else has tripped and fallen before on the team, but it's still embarrassing because I scraped myself up pretty bad. I also got my flu shot yesterday, so my arm is super sore! Sorry for the long-ish rant!
Today I did something good, since I did some charity work! For my church, I helped decorate candy canes to send to an orphanage in Mexico. I hope the kids like them. I showed up a few minutes late, but I'm happy to say that many of my friends were there!

We started off with plain cherry flavored candy canes. Unfortunately, we didn't get to eat any, but I understand, it's for the children!

I would then take a medium size pipe cleaner that Chelcee cut and twist it around the top to start the antlers.

Then I would take two small pipe cleaners that Chelcee also cut and twist it around to make the antlers look more full.

I would then pass it on to Clare, so she could glue on eyes and a little red nose, since I don't like working with glue...

These were our finished products with around 10 people working for around 30 minutes. I think we did a pretty good job!

PJ, a new guy I just became friends with, started to get creative and made one with three eyes. We had a hard time explaining that to the person supervising us...

PJ's mustached reindeer tried to hit on Clare's reindeer, even though it tried to run away. As you can see, we were acting like geeks!

Of course, I had to go and make one with a mustache bigger than PJ's reindeer's mustache! Haha, our supervisor found the mustaches "cute."

When we thought we were done, we learned we had to tie on notes that said, "Jesus loves you." I wrote that out and then I learned we had to do it in Spanish, so Daniela helped out with that! Not all of those notes are mine. No way is my handwriting that perfect!

Chelcee had this interesting lemon kumquat juice. I've tried kumquat juice, but never lemon kumquat juice. Interesting, huh?

They had hot chocolate and whipped cream, but then they ran out of hot chocolate. I ended up taking a cup of whipped cream and several people were thoroughly grossed out by it. Whatever, I'll work it off during lacrosse practice! At the end, we had to fill in a form about what we learned and we were all sitting there wondering what to write. Eventually we just shared answers because none of us knew what to write. Overall, it was a lot more fun that I thought it would be and it helped me get to know PJ and Sara better and helped me grow closer to Chelcee, Clare, and Daniela.

Do you ever do charity work with your church?

I'll try to do a real tutorial on how to make these, if you want...This was more a summary of what I did.

Feeding the Ducks With My New Buddy

Mood: Apathetic
Playing: Shadow of the Day-Linkin Park
I went to go feed the ducks some bread and tortillas over the break. It was extraordinarily chilly, but not as cold as today. It was only 41 degrees today, which is super cold for California. There was crisp white frost on my lawn and roof. I don't remember ever seeing that before. I remember one time, when I was little (I believe 2nd grade?), we would exhale and we could see our breath. Back to the point, I brought one of my new Rilakkumas and some of his friends along to help feed the ducks.

Here are a bunch of the ducks and quite a few Canadian geese were there too! In the corner, you can see my blue Pickles the Frog, whom I named William.

There are a few ducks there, who have these super cute pastel blue beaks. They're a lot calmer in nature than the other ducks and I find them adorable.

Sergeant Chicky Poo fed the ducks some tortilla pieces. My dad came up with the Chicky Poo part and I came up with the Sergeant part to toughen him up! One time I accidentally called him Sergeant Pepper...Please excuse my Beatles reference.

This picture was mostly to show off my new Rilakkuma and an onigiri plushie that I made. His name is Frank.

At the end of the day, I realized that I had been a complete and total rebel. In fact, no duck feeding was to be allowed at that park. Luckily, I didn't get caught so it's ok. I enjoyed the crisp clean autumn weather and made a few ducks very pleased.

What do you like to do in your free time?

Thanksgiving Dinner

Mood: Depressed
Playing: Rhythm of Love-Plain White T's
I'm fairly depressed right now right now because school starts tomorrow and I had this past week off for Thanksgiving. I always feel this way before going back to school, after a long break. I know it's going to be alright, but I still feel a mixture of anxiety, nervousness, and depression before going back. For Black Friday, I got a sewing machine and some fabric that I plan to turn into a Lolita skirt. It's about time that I got a sewing machine actually. For practice, I'm going to sew up a hot pink bow for my new backpack. I just need to figure out the bobbin and I'm ready to go. I'm just going to do a photo dump of my Thanksgiving meal. I hope you don't mind.

This is our turkey, which my dad and I cooked.

This is the turkey once we carved it.

These are mushrooms my great aunt mailed us.

This is some stuffing my dad and I made.

This is are mashed sweet potatoes and our gravy.

This is shrimp skewered on a thing of broccoli.  

These are home made onion rolls. The steam was coming up towards my camera, so that's why the coloring is funny. 

This was the first year we had three pies. My family bought one and my brother's roommate, Joon, walked in with 2 pies. Needless to say, we had way too many pies.

This is a Chinese dessert that my grandpa made. I hope all of you guys had absolutely wonderful Thanksgivings, filled with food and family.

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you get anything on Black Friday?

Disney Brings the Spirit of Chrsitmas Home

Mood: Excited
Playing: Holidaze-The Bigger Lights
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you eat tons of yummy foods and of course, turkey! I know I sure will. My dad and I cooked everything together, but it was mostly my dad...Yesterday I went to Disneyland with my mum because Disneyland is always so much fun. Plus, Disneyland always has the most amazing Christmas decorations!

According to the newsman, it was supposed to rain, so that explains the depressing grey clouds. It rained at night, so the newsman was right for once. What do you think of the Mickey Mouse wreath? I want one on my door.

This is Cinderella's castle. It's one of the smaller castles out of the Disney parks, but this one is the original, which in my mind, makes it the best!

So this is how they find out how long the line takes! I always wondered how they did that and for the first time in my life, I got the card. I thought it'd be funny to give it to the person at the back of the line, when I get to the front, just to mess with the wait time!

It's a Small World always has such nice light decorations. This is the outside and I think it's pretty amazing.

This is more of the decorations from the ride above. It's just so happy and puts me right in the Christmas mood.

Just another picture of the Christmas lights. How can this not put you in a good mood? Doesn't it make you want to give?

I took a bunch of pictures inside the ride because the decorations are the best on this ride.

Looking at these lights, gives me ideas for how I'm going to decorate my house for Christmas.

I love this wreath and I kind of want one for my house. It looks like pieces of candy surrounded by powdered sugar. That's so me, always thinking about food.

That's really all anyone wants during the holidays. We all want peace on Earth and just want everyone to be happy. I sound so cheesy, don't I? Now you're probably wondering why I only took pictures of one ride, right? It's because I only wanted pictures of the Christmas decorations and It's a Small World has the best decorations in the whole theme park. Wishing you a great Thanksgiving and great food, I must end this post.

Have you ever been to Disneyland or any other Disney theme park? What did you think of it?