2017 in Review

This year, my blog posts continued to decrease and I can't really promise that I'll be more active in 2018. In a nutshell, the latter half of this year was filled with travels and two new additions to the family. Here are some mini recaps by months: 

January - February: 

Survived working 60~85 hours a week

March: Washington D.C.

Didn't get a chance to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom because it was a bit delayed due to cold weather during those few weeks, but at least we got to see hints of it.

April: Baltimore

Not really sure what to say about Baltimore.. I honestly don't know if I would ever come here again if it wasn't to visit someone.

May: Washington D.C. (again)

I felt like the first trip left more to be desired, but when I had the opportunity to come again, it just didn't meet expectations.

June: Las Vegas & moved into my new apartment

Las Vegas was also a bit underwhelming, I think mostly because it was such a short weekend and I was just so exhausted throughout the bulk of it. The following week, I moved into a one bedroom a bit further from work.

July: Canada & Leo

First omakase experience in Toronto, thanks D! :)

But admittedly the biggest highlight of this month, maybe this year (sorry #2!) is Leo! (Short post on his adoption here)

I know he's definitely gotten a lot bigger now, but it's hard for me to imagine and remember him when he was still so tiny! I still wake up sometimes feeling as if he's grown so much but when I see him every day and because he has grown so quickly, it's hard to remember. To think it hasn't even been half a year yet. He's definitely given me a lot of headaches but when he snuggles up against me or looks at me like that, I can't stay mad as cliche as it sounds.

August

Mostly uneventful. I think I was trying hard to find a second cat at this time, but at the same time also wavering as it seemed like a lot of commitment. Because, commitment issues I guess.

September: Austria, France, Germany

Excuse the super awkward pic, but it was my first time fiddling with remotely taking pictures on my camera via my phone! This was taken atop the Hohensalzburg Castle in Salzburg. 

To be perfectly honest, it was the most stressful trip ever. In a nutshell, I broke my phone on the first day, missed a number of flights, and was reminded on how impatient of a person I can be.

October

Nothing significant here as well, but a bit of self reflection.

November: San Francisco, London, Iceland & #2

Semi impulsive trip to San Francisco. It's my first time in years in the West Coast without family. It was a nice getaway but unfortunately too short of a trip.

The second trip to Europe this year was a bit stressful as well because it kind of ended on a bad note (had a minor auto accident) but overall it was better than expected. I don't think I'll be blogging about this trip though. I was able to visit London again - I can't believe it's already been two years. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but London will always leave more to be desired.

On the day I got back from my trip, #2 was delivered to my apartment! 

Don't be deceived by how peaceful he looks! It took weeks before he finally came out from under the bed but he's actually sleeping on my leg right now as I type though. I've drafted a separate post on him, which I may or may not ever get to. It took me four months, but I finally found a friend for Leo! Leo is already a teenager so I'm a bit worried that it'll get more difficult for him to 'learn' how to be a socialized cat, but better late than never. I don't really want to go into too much detail now to keep things short, so maybe I will blog separately after all :P 

December

Uneventful, mostly spent reflecting and helping #2 adapt. 

While writing this post, I realized that it wasn't as quiet as I thought this year. I traveled quite a bit and there were two additions to the family! But for some reason it still feels a bit uneventful in my mind. I'm looking forward to what 2018 may bring :) I hope it'll be full of happiness not only for myself but for everyone as well.

Until next time~

Happy New Year!! / 2016 in Review

Happy New Year!! 

I was planning on staying in last night to just study but ended up going out to Central Park for fireworks. But I did study to/from there, as well as while waiting for the countdown.

I guess "life changing" events did happen this year, but they're more like milestones. Even so, in a way, it feels like not a lot has happened this year, so that's why this post will be kept short.

Graduated

Graduated with more than enough credits, but wish I had been able to take electives that I was interested in (mainly language courses) and a bit disappointed that I dropped my minor in my senior year. But I was able to study abroad twice, which not a lot of others get a chance to.

Traveled to Shanghai and Thailand (Phuket & Chiang Mai)

It was a two week trip but I wish I had stayed for at least a month, as originally planned.

Moved to New York

Fortunate to say that I graduated without having stressing about unemployment. Thus, I relocated to New York for said job. 

Without going too much into it, I think I did mature/learn a lot on certain levels. I discovered a goal that I would like to strive for, although who knows, maybe it'll change, but it took me 5 years to finally reach one. I learned more about myself in terms of what I seek out. I was able to strengthen existing bonds and form new ones, although some were broken along the way. But it's all part of growing up. Last but not least, I developed an unhealthy worry about aging.

Enough procrastinating, until next time~

Happy New Year!

Hi, 

I kind of just disappeared this summer without any word but I haven't really been too motivated to blog. I'm still very behind with my travel posts so at this point, I don't know if they're even worth blogging about since it's been nearly a year already. Maybe I'll just do a picture spam of them though.

For those of you who don't know, I was abroad in London this past fall. I really do like the city, it's very beautiful and has the urban feel that I desire. I don't really think I'll blog about the experience though. While I love the city, there were circumstances that prevented me from fully diving into the experience. But in a sense, that is an experience in itself. I would definitely love to come back to London, it's fairly close by, just separated by the ocean. London is such an expensive city though :(

My main resolution is to be a better friend!! I feel like I neglect people a lot/don't show my appreciation well, so I'm hoping to improve on that!

I don't have too much to say, so until next time!

Singapore: New Year's Countdown at Marina Bay

December 31, 2014

So we ended up going to Marina's Bay with a group of people from my friend's hostel. We took the train over and walked for a bit too. We got there somewhat early, so it wasn't super crowded yet, but as the night went on, they fenced off some of the area. Some New Year's concert/event thing was also being hosted too. 

Photo would've been so nice if it wasn't for that person's arm >:(

I thought I remembered taking way more photos but this was one of the two firework photos I found on my camera wtf. From what I remember, my eyes were glued on my camera too...Where did they all go?! >:( And it's so blurry too...

The guy from the hostel was so nice ;_; Since there was so many people and I'm not exactly that tall, I couldn't really get a good view of the fireworks, so he actually let me sit on his shoulders for maybe half of the time. :O I dunno if I ever even did that as a child lol.

To my knowledge, Marina Bay is the most mainstream place to go to for fireworks. By the time the fireworks were about to be set off, it was super, super crowded. I had to jump the fence to the other side (the concert area) and that was like a good 15-20 minute wait :( 

From what I was told, construction work has been really big in Singapore in the past few years, especially amongst foreign workers. So a lot of them come out for New Year's to kinda just let it go for the night. And they add to the crowdedness.

By the end of it, it was extra smokey. You can kinda see it from the photo, but it was worse in person. The smoke spread out too.

It took an hour just to get out of the area because there was so much people traffic. Luckily the hostel wasn't too far of a walk and I was able to catch the train home and it wasn't that crowded either.

Hmm... I would recommend coming here maybe once for fireworks because it's crowded, yeah, but it's the experience that counts too. The fireworks itself are just kind of there, maybe just 25% of it. Because yeah, there are definitely more isolated places we could've gone to where we can see the fireworks as well, but we decided it would be nice to see it from here ^^

Until next time~

Nemo & New Year's

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! 

In the last entry I mentioned that there was going to be a big snowstorm on Friday and it was disastrous in some ways but rewarding because I got to spend time with friends as well.

So I went to visit my friend's school on Thursday night (school was canceled on Friday) and we just played Poker with a bunch of people.

To end the game, the three of us remaining decided to go all in.. and we won with two pairs!! ..Until our friend pointed out five minutes later that someone else had a flush.

We ended up staying up until 5:00AM just chatting randomly and listening to music. 

The next morning, we had to do laundry before heading home for CNY. The trains were scheduled to stop running at 3:30PM, so we had some time. We finished laundry stuff around 2 and lazed around for a bit. At 2:30PM, we decided to head out, but my friend's wallet was missing so we spent like 10 minutes looking for it. As we were crossing to street to the station, we saw a train leave.. and then found out the last train was at 3:00PM, and we got there at like 3:02PM -__- So we spent the next half an hour wondering what to do, whether to call a cab or not because there was a traveling ban at 4:00PM (so no cars were allowed on the road) so a cab probably wouldn't have gotten us home on time. Meanwhile, my mom was so angry at me for not being able to get home.

So we ended up going back to another friend's dorm to take shelter. At this point, the snow wasn't too bad..it was snowing a lot and snow was starting to build up.

I took this photo at 9:30PM..by then the snow had piled up a lot.

Trekking along the snow

When we decided that it was finally time to return to my friend's dorm, it was already 2:00AM..and it's normally a 10-15 minute walk. The snow was just so deep.. at some point we took a road that nobody else had even taken and the snow was knee high x__x We got back half an hour later, cold and wet. Relaxed in the lounge until 6:00AM watching shows like Arrested Development and Phineas and Ferb..and random YouTube stuff. 

The next afternoon.. we went outside to play for a bit :D!! People made a bunch of igloos outside.

My boots are ruined from the past two days T__T;; At least it kept me warm.. I seriously need waterproof boots.

Lastly.. we had our ghetto New Year's Eve dinner. Chinese takeout, which took an hour to deliver D:

Then my friend and I got picked up and went home for New Year's the next day ^^ I basically just slept in the whole day.. I have school tomorrow :\

Happy 2013!

Happy New Year! This also marks the first anniversary of my blog :) So thank you to all my readers. 

I spent the countdown with a bunch of friends and it was pretty fun. I learned how to play Hearts :O Haven't played that game in years and it was always on the computer when I was really young...I don't even know if I knew how to play properly before or not lol. 

I got back really late and slept in until 5. My aunt came over earlier in the morning and she was yelling "JESSICA! WAKE UP, JESSICA! WAKE UP!!" -__- That was just so unnecessary. She could've at least CALLED or something to give me a heads up to know that she was coming over (so I can help her set up her phone). And in the end she got pissed that I was upset for getting woken up in such a way so she just left. Wtf? Woke me up for nothing.

Some updates with my life is that I won't be working at one of my jobs anymore in two weeks. They hired a new full-time staff, so they're letting go of the part-time staff. I'm not going to have that much spending money anymore :x I'm already spending more than I make as is, so without this job... x__x

Anyways, since it's a new year, here's a review of last year and goals for this year :)

A review of 2012 for me:

1) I graduated high school & started college

2) I started this blog

3) I went to Canada for the first time

4) I'm legal 

5) Gained some weight.. (a new personal record)

Anyways, some of my goals for 2013 are:

1) Make my own franken polish

2) Lose 5+ pounds or at least don't gain any weight

3) Get into my school's honors program

4) Maintain my grades

5) Get a good summer internship

That's all I have for this post, so until next time! :)