Nightmares

I started to watch Triumph in the Skies II yesterday and I'm SOOOO BORED. It's very NOT interesting. The story lines have been sooo terrible so far. If it wasn't for all the good looking people in the show, I would have stopped watching after the first episode! I do like watching it for the scenes of Europe. Makes me really want to travel. But THAT's it! I don't know if it's just really slow or WHAT but OMG, it's going to take a LOT of will power to finish this soap. Why did it get all those awards?? I don't understand. You were right though, it's really not that great! Bleh.

I'm pretty sure someone has some stomach issues today because starting from the MORNING, someone used the STAFF restroom and I just happened to use it right after, and let's just say, I am too scared to keep using it today. I've been holding all restroom breaks until lunchtime where I can run home and relieve myself. I've also been trying not to drink any water because I'm avoiding using the restroom today. Ugh, it's really gross. Reminds me of China.

I actually saw a patient yesterday that I was having trouble examining because they had all these scars that are in a pattern of small circles/dots really closesly spaced together! So imagine like a sponge with a ton of holes or a bee hive. It's like that! I don't know if I ever told you this but things with a lot of closely spaced holes really scare me. It's the weirdest phobia but it's really freaky to me for some reason. Makes me cringe. Ah, I'm still freaking out thinking about what I saw yesterday. Ahhhh...I have to stop thinking about it.

Ok, moving. So I watched The Mindy Project yesterday. I don't remember if you watch that show or not. It's so good! I enjoy that show because I feel like Mindy is me. But I'm less neurotic, mean and blunt. But she's more funny and witty. Anyways, we share a lot in common in terms of the way we think. Oh yeah, she also gets more guys. She always seems to jump from guy to guy to guy so quickly too. But something really exciting happened on the show last night. I don't want to say and spoil it for you just in case you watch it and you haven't gotten to that episode yet! It's worth watching!!

I had this nightmare last night. I was at my parent's house. I was getting ready to go out and my grandma turns to me and says "You're going out? OK, go out and get married! Have fun!". I was so taken aback by that comment. I had a double take. I was really angry in my dreams. I woke up kinda angry too. See, I AM totally crazy! Not only am I mentally unstable when I'm awake and interacting with people, I'm starting to have nightmares about this issue! It's like some internal conflict that escalating to the point psychosis. Wait, I'm not even sure if that last sentence even made very much sense. The point is, I think it's really bothering me and I need to do something about it soon before I go crazy. Yup, that's the bottom line there.

Last night I had rice ovalettes for dinner. Yes, all THREE BIG plate fulls. Really, I mean, I don't even eat THAT unhealthy, I just eat in WAY TOO BIG of portions. Food, my best friend and my worst enemy. Eventually I just know I'm going to eat my way to my grave. Speaking of death, did I tell you how the fortune teller revealed I'm going to live until I'm at least 88. OMG. That's nuts! Especially since I don't plan on living past 35! I have nothing planned past that age. I am not even taking good care of my body! How is it going to last me until I'm 88?? If this is true, I better start taking better care of myself. As in like stop eating like I'm going to die tomorrow type of mentality. Haha, I say that now but we'll see how long that lasts.

I had an idea. What do you think about my HK friend and my dental friend? You think they would make a good couple?? Just a thought.

Hope you are doing well, I miss you!
*BIG HUGS*

Fortune telling

Hi Friend!

I definitely feel like it's a LONG time since we've caught up with each other. I know you are recovering and probably really weak right now, so it's ok. Take your time recovering and we'll talk when you feel better.

I went home this weekend again to celebrate my mom's birthday with her. She was really surprised when I showed up on Friday. I would say she was brimming with tears but she's not one of those people. But she did hug and kiss me several times which made me very uncomfortable. I'm not a hug and kiss type of person and especially not with my mom.

When I was driving back, I was trying to be very secretive about it, but I got this call from "Home" when I was driving back and I really wasn't going to answer it because I thought I might give it away but I thought, what the heck, I'll just answer it.

me: Hello (bluetooth while driving..I was being safe)
Dad: Hey, where are you? Are you almost back yet?
me: what??? I told you guys I wasn't coming home this weekend (I was totally lying!)
Dad: oh really? Sounds like you are driving, where are you going?
me: to a friend's place
Dad: oh...what friend?
me: where's mom?
Dad: at home. That's too bad you aren't coming back, we saved a bunch of food for you
me: where are you?
Dad: at home.
me: *thinks: well d'uh, the caller ID on my phone said "Home"* Is mom next to you right now?
Dad: yes
me: can she hear us talking?
Dad: no
me: oh then...I'm actually coming home! IT's a surprise for mom!
Dad: oh, ok
me: Don't tell her!
Dad: of course not, she's sleeping!
me: ok, cool, see you soon!

I just found it funny that my dad called like he knew where I was going. I would say this is mother's intuition, but this is more like Father's inuition...amazing, didn't even know stuff like that exhisted.

I was excited to spend a weekend with my parents but I found out early Friday when I got back that both my parents had to work Saturday so I was basically on my own.

So I woke up early on Saturday and caught my grandma in the kitchen. More like she caught me in the kitchen because I was looking for food to eat.

Grandma: I'm soooo happy for you that you have such a great BF.
me: really? if you like him so much why don't you marry him?
Grandma: why do you say that? you don't think he's that great?
me: I just don't like it when you'll think he's so great! Don't ask me why, it doesn't make sense to me either!

So that was that. I left the kitchen and my grandma didn't bring it up again. But later on that morning, I had to drive my mom to work and she repeatedly talked about how great my BF was and how lucky I should be to have him and that just drove me up the WALL. I broke down crying while I was driving. It was terrible and pretty dangerous! My mom got all disturbed and stopped talking to me about my BF. I dropped her off and drove to a nearby mall where I just sat around for hours just thinking. I told my BF what happened and he called me and tried to talk me through it. I'm starting to think something is wrong with me. Why would I be so angry or upset that everyone likes my BF so unconditionally? I used to think it's because they don't know what he's done to me so that's why they think he's the BEST. But given our history, I think I have some resentment towards him and I get angry because my family thinks he's perfect and treats me the best, but deep down, I know how much he's hurt me and it frustrates me that my family doesn't know about it. That might still be the reason, but now I just think I'm crazy. If I chose to be with him, I should just forget about the past, why am I still so angry and frustrated? Doesn't make sense. And I'm very upset that everyone seems to like him more than me! This brings me back to when my brother was born and all my thunder was stolen from me. I am considering seeing a psychologist about this and trying to get this internal block resolved because I don't think I can proceed like this. Break downs are not fun.

I stopped moping around eventually and went home. I was so bored at home I decided to go visit my grandma and my aunt. So that's what I did. They are big mahjong players so I knew I'd get sucked in. That's exactly what happened! And that's exactly how my Saturday was drained from me. Playing mahjong with my grandma and aunt. I know it's a little boring for me, but at least my grandma likes it and I got to spend some time with her doing something she likes.

I went home after a long afternoon of mahjong and somehow I think I fell asleep around 8ish? Which is really like 9ish where I live, so it's not THAT early.

Sunday was a little more exciting. My mom was home, dad still went to work. My mom shared with me that my HK aunt got my fortune told! It's CRAZY accurate! Ok, let's start with my brother first.

The fortune teller said my brother is smart but isn't very focused with school (so true!). But we don't have to worry about him because he'll accomplish great things (that's the second fortune teller that's told us that).  The teller said my brother must be a younger child and have an older sibling. The reason he will do well later on in his life is because his older sibling is going to help him get there. Which makes me think if my mom's just making that up so I will help my brother later on in his life. I'm very skeptical about this part.

Then onto me! The teller said that I left my home country when I was young. I'm more indepedent than my brother so even now, my job is somewhere farther from home. I have to be the oldest because I am competitive and easily jealous of things, so if I had an older sibling to compare myself to then it would have driven me insane. Then my HK aunt asked about love. They said it's not a good thing if I date someone the same year as me, unless they are younger than me (like my BF). They also said that the idea age for me to get married is 28-33. If I get married to someone that born the same year as me but is younger (which is my BF) then I'm going to bring him really good luck. Which makes me also think if my mom just made that up to encourage me to tie the knot with my BF.

Anyways, I just thought it was interesting, but this is all through my mom, whose a pathological liar, so who knows. If I really want to know the truth, I should probably ask my HK aunt. If she confirms everything then I'll know it's true. As for now, I'll believe a little bit here and there.

So later that day, my aunts, uncles, grandma and mom all went out for lunch to celebrate my mom's birthday. They were going to eat later that night (dinner) with my brother. My brother is crazy. He gets off work around 4pm and he's going to drive 1.5 hrs back to eat dinner with my mom and then drive 1.5hrs back after dinner to go back to school. Crazy kid. He must really love my mom.


So now this brings us to Monday. I've had another really busy day...very overbooked. I'm pretty tired now so I think I'll go home and take a BIG nap or maybe eat, or maybe READ or maybe watch something or maybe a combination of all those things.

I miss you, I'm sending you good vibes!

Sweet Friday

It's FRIDAY!

I'm on a roll today. I woke up early and went to Starbucks and got some treats for people in the clinic. I got my co-worker a muffin (the one that usually bakes me cookies and surprises me with treats) and she was so happy. I got a few other cake pops and were distributing them to other people that have helped me out a lot since I've been here. It really made their day. I feel really good today. I finally understand why people say it feels far greater to give than to receive. Am I finally growing up/maturing?

I'm also really excited today because I'm planning on driving back home to surprise my mom this weekend. It's her birthday on Sunday and I had told her last weekend I'm not going home so she's under the assumption that I'm not coming going to be there to celebrate with her. She seemed really disappointed so I decided to brave all odds and drive home THREE weekends in a row. I'm going home the weekend after that because it's Chinese New Years. But I just know surprising my mom today will be AWESOME! :)

I've been having a rough time adjusting to a new way to doing things in the clinic. I'm sorta sinking a little. I'm trying very hard to stay afloat, I'm sure I'll eventually adjust but as of recent, I feel like I've been just very frazzled and unorganized. I usually do better patient care when I'm not in that condition, so hopefully I'll pick things up and get things moving soon.

Remember my dental friend? I don't remember if you ever met her. Oh wait, yes you have, you gave her a ride when she went up to SF to interview. LoL. She asked about you. That's really sweet of her. I've been staying in touch with her because she's been trying online dating and she's actually grown quite fond of this one guy, but then she found out that he smokes weed socially and that was a total turn off for her. I was trying to tell her that through my dating experience, I'd found that not everyone is perfect and certainly there isn't going to be someone that you find that you LIKE EVERY aspect about them, so when you find out something you don't like, instead of discounting them right away, maybe try to figure out if you can work with it or not. Figuring out if it's absolutely a dealbreaker or if you can talk to them about it to fix the problem. If it is a deal breaker then it's absolutely not going to work out, but if it is something that you might be able to tolerate, then maybe you can work with him and just express your thoughts about it and see where it goes from there. Anyhow, I don't know what she ended up doing. I almost want to say she broke up with him, but I don't know. I'll have to follow up on that. But I just wanted to mention that she thought of you. We all do.  We all wish you a speedy recovery :)

Dementia

Thank you for the beautiful postcard. When I was first reading it, I was a little confused when you said the picture reminded you of us. I wasn't sure if you were suppose to be the one prancing through the field or if you were the other girl skipping. I can actually imagine both of those girls being me. LoL.

I had this patient today that made me really rethink about life. I've seen him before, the first time I saw him I didn't really slow down to think about things, but this time around, I thought about his situation a little more. He has dementia. He always comes with his wife and a caretaker. He's also wheelchair bound. When I first called his name, he came in with his wife first. He can barely transfer from his wheelchair to the exam chair. I'm thinking next time I might just leave him in his wheelchair. He's in his late 80's so I'm sure his wife is close to that age. She's a very nice lady. I'm assuming he's by his side all the time and constantly taking care of him and his needs. I remembered what a struggle it was the first time I tried to exam him. He was very upset, he called me names and even threatened to beat me up if I continued to examine him. Of course, this time was no different.

It was difficult enough to just transfer him to the exam chair. Once we got him onto the chair, I tried to do some preliminary testing on him. He wasn't very cooperative with all the testing. I had to mainly do objective testing. Couldn't get any subjective measurements from him. But that's expected from dementia patients. Then when some of the testing got a little more invasive, he began to fight me. He started to call me names and mimic the way I talk (in a very offensive way) and threaten me. His wife was talking to him through most of the exam, trying to explain to him what was happening, but it didn't seem like he was really understanding what she was saying. She would say one thing and he would respond with something completely off topic. To get the exam going, I tried to be a little more pushy with him and force him to be cooperative. That was a bad idea...he just got more angry and worked up. He started to threaten me more and stare at me with this look of hatred. It got really dicey when the wife got desperate and tried to strap his arms down so he wouldn't hurt me, then she asked me to use force to get my test measurements that I needed. I wasn't very comfortable with this whole situation. The patient's getting strapped down against his will and I'm going in and trying to do all this testing on him when he's resisting like their's no tomorrow. Seems kinda barbaric. But when I think about it, it's for his own good. I'm trying to monitor his conditions and make sure he stays healthy. So I went in for it, I tried my best for force him to cooperate and get the measurements that I needed. During the struggling, the patient somehow got lose and got a hold of his wife's hand. He must have been hurting her because she was constantly saying "let go, you are grabbing me too tight, let go!". I was really uncomfortable working in that type of environment. It's like watching two people wrestle and I'm trying to go in and get a blood pressure measurement or something. It's weird.

When the wife couldn't get a handle on him, she called in the caretaker to help. Middle aged woman. She seemed to calm him down a bit more. So we went at it again. The caretaker and the wife holding him down while they beckon me over to continue examining him. At one point, one of his hands got free and he punched me. It wasn't very hard, but it was enough for me to call it quits. I told them that I'm willing to try again, on another day, but I think he's had enough for today. So I kindly invited them to leave, but now the patient wouldn't leave. Remember when I said it's very hard to get him into the exam chair? Well, ending up, it's just as hard to get him back into his wheelchair. Especially when he was refusing to leave. He was confused I think. He thought he was home. He didn't want to be moved. Here I am, 45 mins into the exam (when I'm only allowed 30mins MAX), I obtained almost NO exam findings, and I have a patient that doesn't want to leave the exam room. I am basically in a bind. I can't start my exam on the next patient, this patient won't leave and I'm already super behind. Wonderful.

I don't know how, but he eventually left. They rescheduled for another day. I'm looking forward to working with him the THIRD time, which I will probably run into the same problems.

During the exam, when the patient was struggling with his wife, it all played out like a movie. Like I was in third person, watching myself from TV or something. It was weird. I know it sounds like I was having an out of body experience or something, but I wasn't. It was just all in my head. I imagined this experience like a scene out of "The Notebook" or something. Remember in the end, when the lady got Alzheimer's and she couldn't remember her husband and was going crazy and she had to be contained by the nursing home staff? Yeah, it suddenly occurred to me that this could be a scene from some romantic love story, a tragic ending scene, but certainly a scene.

At that moment, during the exam, I imagined that if there really was a movie that started out with this exact scene of this dementia patient at a clinic, then they would flash back and show how life was BEFORE the patient had dementia. It would take you all the way back to how the couple met. It would show you what their life was like together. How many children they ended up having. How happy they were together. How great the guy was to his wife. Then it would show signs of his mental decline. Little by little, the wife getting suspicious and asking the husband to go to the doctor. Then the dreadful day the couple found out that he has dementia. I imagine the couple would try to squeeze out as much time with each other as possible before the disease really wrecked havoc on the victim's mind. Little by little, he began to lose it and soon enough, he didn't know how he was and he certainly didn't know who his wife was. His wife is devastated and heartbroken. And then it would flash forward to today, this very exam I'm trying to conduct. I think it's always sad to retrace the steps of how people arrived at their tragic endings. Endings like this one, where the husband has end stage dementia and can't even recognize his wife. His wife that loves him to always be by his side and take care of all his needs. He'll never show appreciation for all she does because he won't remember it, he doesn't recognize her and most importantly, he doesn't comprehend what's going on.

Like I said, I noticed that the wife always came with the husband to the exam. She was trying very hard to help him understanding where he was and why it was important for him to cooperate. It occurred to me that when people get diagnosed with Alzheimer's or Dementia, they get sent to nursing homes because the family members find it too hard to take care of them. So they would rather hire other people to take care of them. But this wife, stayed by her husband's side. She has a caretaker, but who wouldn't? She's old and he's a handful. I don't blame her. I could tell from the way she talked to him that she really cared about him. "Billy, it's Kim, don't you remember me? We are here to help you Billy. Please let the doctor do her job. Please Billy. I don't want anything to happen to you, I want you to stay healthy. Please Billy. Please. It's Kim, don't you recognize me?"  "Get away from me! Don't touch me! Stop it! I'm going to hit you if you come any closer!"  "Billy, it's Kim, I'm not going to hurt you, please Billy, please! Let the doctor take a look!"  "I'm going to hit you! Get away! I don't know you!"  (names have been changed to protect their privacy)

I put myself in Kim's shoes for a second. How hurtful to hear those words coming from her loved one. Her husband that she takes care of everyday of her life and works so hard to keep him healthy and strong, for him to say those hurtful words, threaten to hurt her and not even recognize who she is. It must be heart breaking for her to be around someone like that everyday. Not only are the words hurtful, but I think just watching someone that you love so much become like this is very very heartbreaking. Just like at the end of The Notebook. That guy was so heartbroken that his wife didn't even recognize him and was freaking out that he was an intruder and was trying to hurt her. How terribly agonizing living life like that would be. The person you love is still physically alive and there, but his mind is gone. He's not the same person you fell in love with, and he's certainly not going to recognize you as someone that he loves and cherishes. It's like you just have this empty shell. Everyday, you watch them mentally deteriorate little by little, until they are a completely different person. You still want to love them, you still want to believe that they are the same person, but those are just lies. Poor Kim. Poor all those people out there with loved ones that have Alzheimer's or Dementia. It's a terrible disease to have.

I would hate to ever get diagnosed with that. I don't want to slowly lose my brain, lose myself, lose who I am, and be fully aware of this....well, I guess I'd only be aware until my brain doesn't even work anymore and I don't even know who I am. I would lose all my memories of my friends and family. It's so heartbreaking to even think about. I think it's actually probably worse for the people close to the person with Alzheimer's or Dementia, because they will slowly witness the person's brain dying and shutting off. The person that is losing their brain will eventually not even know what's going on. But it's those that are aware, that suffer.

Sorry, I didn't mean to rant on about such sad things. But it just really makes me think about life and how much I value all that I have. I think people can never be too grateful for everything that they are blessed with. People should be reminded more of all the great things in their life.

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So I just went home this past weekend...to find out that this coming weekend is my mom's birthday. Then the subsequent weekend is Chinese New Years! So my mom was asking if I was coming home this weekend for her birthday and I said no. I said no because if I did come home this weekend, that would mean I would have to go home THREE weekends in a ROW. And besides, there is a fun party/get together at a co-worker's this coming weekend and I was really looking forward to going. But on my drive back to my apartment here, I realized that I should cherish my time together with my family. It's like every day my mom has a birthday and it certainly would be nice to go home and celebrate with her. She would be so happy. I am still going to stick with my "I'm not coming home" story but I think I'll sneak home and surprise her. I haven't decided if that's what I'm doing yet, but I think I'm 80% sure I'll be going home this weekend. But that means I'll be SUPER tired these coming few weekends. I've been growing very tired of this drive. It's only 2.5hours but those short 2.5hours seem like an eternity for me, especially when I have to do it alone, with NO RADIO and NO CELLPHONE reception. Ugh. Oh well, I'll do it for Mommy!

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Hope you are doing well. *Big Hugs*

Long weekend, Long update

Hello Friend!

Coming back from a three day weekend is always hard, but here I am.

Sorry I haven't updated for a while. It's been really crazy busy. And you know what happens when it gets crazy busy...I yearn for my boring/lazy days. LoL.

So I'm going to back track a little bit and start on Friday. I was crazy overbooked on Friday. I was really pumped and ready for my patients, but someone my schedule got messed up and people got here late and before you know it, I was so behind that I had 5 people I was seeing all at once. One person had to wait 1.5hours. I was so overwhelmed that I wanted to quit and burst into tears. I couldn't believe how behind I was and I felt awful for how long my patients had to wait. But I think, despite how stressed out I was, I did pretty well. I just took a deep breath and powered through it. Just took one patient at a time and kept at it until they were all done. So usually it's just my mornings that are crazy. I never try to overbook my afternoons. So on Friday, I wasn't overbooked, I only had 4 people. Considering the crazy morning I had, I thought the afternoon would be ok, but it wasn't! My patients all had crazy stuff going on and at 3:30pm (keep in mind, my last appointment is usually at 3:00pm) there was a patient that demanded to be seen because he had an emergency. So I had to squeeze this person in. I was trying really really hard to get out on time because I usually like to leave right at 4:30pm on days I'm planning on going home. My parents are usually waiting for me to come home to each dinner with them so I try my best to get home in a timely fashion. I don't know how I managed to finish all my charts, see all my patients, and get out on time, but I did it. I tell ya, when you really put your mind to something, you really can make it happen.

So I managed to get out on time and hurried home. The drive, like always, was boring. But it was nice being home. Because...this was the BIG weekend, where my BF would meet my family and I will meet his! I had trouble actually sleeping that night because I was so nervous about it. I ended up waking up at 5:00am on Saturday because I was so worried.

Usually when there's something going on, like when I was in school, the night before a BIG test, I would automatically wake up really early because I guess psychologically I was worried and wasn't getting super restful sleep. So I think the same thing happened here.

Like always I ate breakfast with my family and headed out to pick up my BF at 11:00am at the airport. He arrived actually a little early, so that meant I was late. Our first stop after I picked him up was to go see my friend, Jona, from HK. Haha, I know, it's not that much different from his actual name. Haha. Anyway, I went to pick up Jona from his dorm. You won't believe this, he made egg tarts from SCRATCH!!! And it actually tasted REALLY GOOD! Remember that egg tart place that was really famous on HK island that we went to a few times? And one of the times I went we saw them filming Batman (that might have been with Kim...now that I think about it)...anyways, his egg tarts tasted like it was from there!!! The crust was delicious! The egg filling was so good! Not too sweet! Five starts for Jona's egg tarts for sure!

So after eating two of those (lol), we went out for lunch at a Korean place. The food was ok, I wasn't completely satisfied with the seafood pancake, but all the other dishes were good. After lunch, we went to The Cliffs. That seems to be the place I bring EVERYONE. But neither my BF or Jona's been there, even though both of them went to undergrad there. Anyways, it was nice. Then my BF made a request to go to The Salk Institute, which we hung out for a little while. Then we dropped off Jona and we made out way to my BF's house, where we were going to have dinner. By this time, it was probably only about 4 or 5ish. We got to his house, which is super big and very nice. They are remodeling their home so there were some rooms that were nice and some rooms that were GOREGOUS!!! I really liked the way the remodeled rooms looked! I raved about it when I went home. My parents always talk about remodeling our home, but it never gets done. They are such procrastinators.

Then we sat around and looked through my BF's baby pictures. He was sooo cute! He rarely smiled. He has this photo stare. LoL. It's kinda funny. But he was a cute baby. Had dimples and everything. Too bad he lost the dimples now. His sister's baby pictures were so funny. His sister was really CHUBBY, like borderline fat baby. She had no neck...well, maybe she has a neck but her cheeks were so chubby that they hung down and obstructed the view of any neck she could have possibly had. There were pictures of my BF trying to pick up his sister and he was just struggling because she was so heavy! Haha. I even looked through his parents' wedding photos. They had a really nice album. I saw pictures of some of his uncles that I have met before, like the ones from the bay area. We couldn't recognize him honestly because he looked SOO DIFFERENT. So he's bald now has gained some weight. In his picture in the wedding album, he has long hair, down to his shoulders, and he's super, i mean SUPER skinny. He actually looked more like a girl. HAHAHA. My BF and I both thought he looked like a girl.

I ended up texting his Aunt in the bay area (yes, we keep in touch) and told her about this picture. She requested we take a picture of it and send it to her. So I had my BF do it. Hahaha.

After 3 big albums of photos, it was dinner time. His sister came with her BF. There were some appetizers before dinner, guacamole, mango salsa, chips, spanokopita, and cha sui. Everything was home made aside from the spanokopita and the chips. It was delicious! I would have eatten a lot more but two things were stopping me. 1) I have two REALLY big kankersores on my lip, this is NOT because of yeet hay, but because I bit my lip TWICE when I was eating last week and now it swelled up and is trying to heal itself and 2) I don't want to look like a pig and make a bad first impression.

So after the appetizers, we had the main course, which were cornish game hens (little chickens), mashed potatoes, roasted veggies and stuffing. I didn't eat very much of anything because I got full really fast. I think because everything was heavily laced with oil, so that really helped fill me up fast.

After the main course, there was dessert, which consisted of egg tarts and a really fancy white chocolate cake (from a famous local bakery). All the food was really good, I enjoyed it all very much!

So...onto the juicy stuff, my interaction with his family. I think I was really nervous or somthing because I had all these things I wanted to say and things that I worked on in my mind, ahead of time, of what I wanted to be like and the impression I wanted to make but when I got there, I just froze. I didn't feel like myself. I didn't feel very comfortable and I sure wasn't trying to make conversation with anyone. Ugh, why did I have to freeze up during a time like this when I was trying my hardest to appear outgoing and lovable. Ugh. So I really wanted to wish his parents "Happy Wedding Anniversary", but that never made it out of my mouth. I also wanted to thank them for having me over and compliment their nice home, but those thoughts also just stayed in my mind. I mostly only talked when I was talked to. I didn't really initiate any conversation. OMG, it was pathetic. Even my BF's sister's BF made more conversation with me and was trying to get to know me. I felt so dazed and out of it. But aside from playing the part of a silent mouse, I think dinner went pretty well. I didn't choke on anything or throw up on the dining room table, so at least I didn't make a terrible impression.

When I left, I was really hoping my BF would walk me to my car, because there was a little walk from the door to the driveway, but he just said "bye" and slammed the door on me. *rolls eyes*

The whole night I kept starring at my watch, and when I saw it was 9:30pm, I was starting to think it's SO LATE. And then when 10:30 rolled around, I almost nearly fell asleep. So I left around 10:30 and drove home thinking "omg, it's SO LATE!" I got home at 11pm and realized that it's 11pm in my STATE but not in my hometown. It was actually only 10pm. OMG. I'm such a loser. If I knew how early it was, I should have stayed and helped to offer to clean up. I just thought it was so late so I left so quickly. Another strike against me.

So Sunday rolls around and my BF is suppose to show up at my house at 9:00am for breakfast with my family. I convinced everyone that we should go out for dim sum, and that's what we did :) I was really excited and waiting for my BF to come. 9:00am rolls around and he's still not here. I get a text from him telling me that he's feeling sick and will be a little late. So he came around 10:00am. We left for the restaurant. As we were driving there, my brother calls and says he's on his way home too! YAY! He would meet us at the restaurant. So we got there and we waited and waited and waited. We waited for 1.5 hours. We were slowly eating so we had gotten a full by the time he came. So we were just watching him eat.

The restaurant my parents chose to go to, we haven't been there for probably 15years for dim sum. We always go to this other place but my parents decided to go here because they claimed they knew less people there. But when we got there, it seemed like they never EVERYONE. It just so happened that this table that sat next to us were all of my mom AND dad's friends. Then all the waiters somehow knew us too. And the dim sum cart pushing ladies too. Everyone that came around asked who my BF was. And my mom started telling everyone it's her son. Haha. Which everyone was confused and was like "wasn't you son chubbier" "he lost weight" "oh...." lol. Then my brother actually showed up and then everyone was super confused. I think they eventually figured out he was my BF.

All these middle aged ladies (my mom's age and older) kept checking out my BF and would make comments like "he's so handsome!" My BF at one point went to the restroom and he told me that when he was walking back, all those ladies were starring him down from head to toe and checking him out. Hahaha.

After dim sum, we went back to my house and hung out. We played games and just did random stuff for a little bit. Then we went to my Aunt's house, the one that lives around the corner. My other grandma lives with her now so I wanted to see her. I didn't tell them who my BF was, but it seemed like they all knew, they didn't have to ask. We sat around for a little bit and then I had to leave and go to the mall. I was meeting up with my quiet cousin and her BF. I was really excited about meeting her BF!! She's just so quiet that it's hard to imagine her dating someone. But there he was, in the flesh. He's really tall, like 6ft tall! Made us all feel like midgets. He seems nice, he checks out. There wasn't really much to highlight from our extremely long conversation together. It lasted like 1.5-2hrs. It was just me talking the WHOLE time. I was just grilling him and asking him all these questions about himself. So afterwards, he went home, and we left for dinner. We went to a szechuan restaurant. It was pretty good. I guess I was pretty hungry because as soon as the food came, I just started eating, I didn't wait for anyone. I pretty much pulled the dishes close to me and started going at it. My parents both were yelling at me and saying how impolite I was being, but I wasn't paying attention. I was just stuffing my face.

We finished dinner and went back to our house. My BF and I have been trying to watch Cloudy with a Change of Meatballs 2 but hadn't had the time. So we decided to watch that together. I guess it really sucked because my brother was the first one to fall asleep, then me. I don't know if my BF fell sleep or not. I woke up when the movie was over and my BF tapped me to wake me up. So after the movie, he left and went home.

I was nice and actually walked him out to his car. I was trying to give him directions on how to get back on the freeway then these two myterious dark figures emerged from NO where and started walking towards us. It was so dark outside and they were both wearing hoodies so you couldn't see their face or very much about their outline. It was so scary! Both my BF and I stood there in fear and we didn't move. I was alreadying thinking about what we would do if they pulled out a gun or a knife on us. Thankfully they just walked by and didn't do anything to us. But we talked about it afterwards and we both were SUPER SCARED at that time.

Monday rolled around. My parents made me eat breakfast at home around 10am. I was suppose to meet my BF and his mom up for dim sum (yes, again) at the other restaurant my parents were trying to avoid going to at 11am. So of course I wasn't very hungry. I got there right at 11am, like I was suppose to. My BF and his mom were late AGAIN. I sat there and drank a whole pot of tea before they even came. His mom was very nice and thoughtful. She got me some "gifts". She brought me some mangoes, some spaghetti sauce she made (I had talked about how good her cooking was that night at her home) and some HK soaps (on DVD's). I was very touched that she had thought of me and brought me these things. My BF revealed to me later that it was really because they just had too much and was trying to get rid of it. -_-  Like I said, he always ruins things. I'm going to just believe that his parents like me and were just thoughtful.

After dim sum, it landed us at around 1ish, we went to the mall. Originally, were suppose to go to the beach but since it was late and his flight is at 6, so that means we would have to get to the airport around 4:30ish, we just went to the mall and walked around a little bit. We went home around 2:30 where my mom and brother fed us again. We were eating like every two hours. My mom and brother made a ton of food and we were really stuffed (my third meal of the day and it was barely afternoon). After the linner (between lunch and dinner), I drove my BF to the airport and we said our goodbyes. I can't believe we had three days together but it really didn't feel like any time together at all. It was all very packed and rushed and filled with other people. We didn't really have any alone time to spend with each other at all.

I realized I didn't get to spend any time with my brother either. I rarely get to see him now too. I think I really care about my brother and when he disappoints me, or prioritzes friends over family or doesn't come home when he says he would, it just makes me so disappointed it gets projected as ANGER. When he disappoints me, it makes me want to morph into the SHE-HULK and strangle him. But I love him. I really do. I'll just have to get over it that he has different prorities and I should accept that I will be disappointed from time to time.

So I got back to my apartment kinda late. I was so tired, I just passed out earlier than usual. And now, I'm at work. Back from a LONG LONG weekend. It hasn't been too bad so far, I've had three no shows already.

Oh, just to let you know people care...my BF and Jona asked about you. We are all thinking about you and wish you a speedy recovery.

*BIG hugs*

Portland is my city, it's confirmed!

There was a moment that I thought my life was over for a few minuets last night. I'm going to tell you what it is and you are going to roll your eyes and think "stupid first world problems." I was suppose to go out to dinner last night, AGAIN, with John, but then last min, things didn't work out and I just ate at home. Which I was fine with because I was already in my PJ's and really comfy on my couch. I actually was really excited because a few of the shows I watch were back again. They always on on hiatus for a while during Christmas and I never know when they come back. But a friend told me that The Mindy Project was back. So of course, I go to hulu and I start streaming the episode. When it was on commercial, I popped some food in the microwave and hit "start" and it went on for like a milisecond and then it stopped. I think my heart stopped at the exact same time too. If you know me, which you do, you know that I don't cook. The microwave is how I heat up and make ALL my meals. Here I'm thinking "OMG, my life is over, it just broke!!" I tried to hit a few more buttons, nothing happened. I opened it and the light was on inside. For some reason the buttons were just not responding. I look behind the microwave and tried to make sure it's not a lose plug but it was clearly plugged it. I play with the plug a littl bit and I have to admit, I was a little scared that something terrible was going to happen and I was going to get electricuted. Since I'm living alone, that would be a bad thing because no one would find my dead, electricuted body, until I was probably rotting and missing for a while. Anyways, I didn't end up getting electricuted, obviously. I messed with the bottons a little more and ending up, I think it just somehow short circuited (maybe because I use it so much) and I just had to reset the time on it before it started working. I swear though, even after it came on, I was a little scared to stand near it, I hid in my room for a little while, FAR away from the microwave because I was deathly afraid it was going to explode on me or something to that extent. Anyway, it all ended up being fine and everything worked out, which was nice. But that was my "OMG, my life is over without a microwave" story I wanted to share.

*******************

So I'm sure by now you have been reminded by me enough times that I'm going to have dinner with my BF's parents this weekend. So here's a little bit of our convo from last night:

BF: so we aren't having the salmon anymore.
me: what? we are having salmon?
BF: Oh, I didn't tell you that?
me: no
BF: are you sure? I thought I told you.
me: it's about food, be real, I have an extrodinary memory when it comes to food, I would have remembered if you told me we were having salmon.
BF: oh, well, we aren't having it anymore, we are having cornish game hen.
me: ?? I've heard of it but I don't think I've ever had it
BF: oh good, you get to try it.
me: why is it called that?
BF: they are small, so everyone gets one, and when they raise them, the people play games with them.
me: seriously?
BF: no.
me: -_- gullible me.

So that's what's for dinner, in case you were wondering. Which I wasn't even wondering so I doubt you would have been thinking about that. And apparently, my BF's sister is going to bring her BF too, so that's nice. I'm glad not all the attention is going to be on me. Someone else is going to be scrutinized too. Yes!

*******************

I was so hungry, I ate so much at lunch today. I went out with my tech again and she took me to this Mexican place. I had 3 tacos: 2 chicken, 1 carne asada, a large portion of rice, a large portion of refried beans and a lot of chips and salsa. I don't even want to begin to think about how many calories that was. And my tech only had half a soup and half a cup of horchata. Way to make me look like a PIG. She really barely even ate any of the soup's ingredients, she just had WATER! OMG. But I guess she's on a diet, she's trying to lose some weight. Well, supposedly, I am too, but that almost always never works out for me.

******************

I took this quiz online to determine what city I should live in. I really would share it with you but you don't click on links...so I'm going to spare myself the trouble. Anyways, after the quiz, it told me that I belong in Portland!




Amazing right?? It's like a sign!

So my BF took the same test and he got London.



I agree, he would look nice in a Burberry coat :) And he doesn't like hype. So I guess that's pretty much him.

******************

I think I have to admit I have a problem. I can't stop starring at that kitty picture. Just in case your forgot, it's this one:



I can see you rolling your eyes at me. This little kitty is just so cute!!! I also told my BF this and he told me that I need to go see a psychologist. So considering you two are the same person, I'm pretty sure you are thinking the same thing. I think I figured out that I have this "type" of animal I really like. BIG eyes and round faces. Just like this kitty and all my tiny beanie boo children. I have a lot of them now. Kurtis, Ulli, Max and Aly. All so cute!!

I'm going to make this picture my desktop picture, it's worthy :)

I kinda don't even get the saying on the bottom on this picture but I just think this kitty's face is the bee's knees!

*******************

Just one more day to power through and then it's a three day weekend! I'm so excited! Although I know this weekend I can't veg at home, which is what I normally like to do. I know it's going to be filled with all these activities and meeting up with people because my BF is back too and we are trying to maximize our activities/meeting up with friends together. *sighs

SWEET LITTLE KITTY

I know I already emailed you this picture by gosh this kitten is soooooooooo cute! I can't stop staring at it's cute little face. I'm in a trance O_O

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went out to dinner again last night with the new doctor, John. We went to a new American place that is actually really close to our place. I was pretty upset because I've been searching for chicken tortilla soup FOREVER here and yelp is almost useless here since no one really uses it or posts any reviews on it. So I've been searching and searching for tortilla soup and I get to this place and find out they HAVE IT THERE!! OMG. So I ordered it last night and it was delicious! Yum! I can't stop thinking about it. I really want to go back and SOON, but I know I should hold off. It started back at Berkeley when I went out to eat with....that other electrical engineer friend alot, let's can him "Edison". His real name starts with the same letter if you are wondering who it is. Edison and I have this pact that if we go eat somewhere and we both agree it's really good, we should return for at least a few weeks. Everytime we return sooner than that, the food just doesn't taste as good anymore. I don't know if it's because you raise your expectation SO high that there's no way the food will ever taste as good or I don't know why, but this rule has held true to me for a LONG time. Everytime Edison and I find a great place to eat, we go back really quickly and then it doesn't taste as good anymore and it gets ruined. So I'll try to honor that rule and not return to that place for a while. Oh yeah, I think it's also Edison's theory that if you wait a long time, then you'll really want it, and by the time you actually get it, you'll be grateful to have it and you won't be disappointed by the food. So we'll see.

 

Are you still looking at this cute little kitty? I am...lol

 

***********************

 

I met my co-worker's son and daughter in law last night. They are all such nice people, I really do enjoy their company. I don't know who or how this thought started but they are probably the second or third people to ask me "So, I heard your fiance lives in Portland". "Fiance"? Haha, I wish. I shot back a quick reply "Fiance?? NOOOO, we are NOT at that status yet!! I wish we were, but he has different thoughts...." and I continued to ramble on. I must have really overreacted to it because the son that asked me was taken aback and he was apologizing profusely, "I'm sorry, I really didn't know it was such a sensitive topic" hahaha...whoops. I really didn't mean to overreact. I guess I was more reacting to my BF's lackluster attitude towards getting married SOON and all the frustration got projected onto this poor incident co-worker's son. LoL.

 

I'm still looking at the cute little kitty! I just sent the picture to my tech. She thinks it's adorable too...we are both just gawking at this cute little kitty! LoL.

 

*********************

 

I just realized today is "hump day". Middle of the week! My classmate told me a joke one time. "After Monday and Tuesday, even the rest of the week is saying WTF". Hehehe. Get it?? That one always stuck out to me because it's so cleaver and funny. He's a really cleaver and funny guy! He always has really funny sayings. And he is super smart too. I got to meet up with him once or twice when I went up to Portland to visit my BF. I went hiking with him, to pass the time since my BF went to work and left me alone in his apartment. We went out to eat and we hung out together, it was fun. He went home for Christmas break and he was telling me how annoying his parents were. They were constantly on his tail about getting married. "Wives don't just fall out of the sky!! It's like my parents expect a wife to just drop into my lap or something!" And it's totally true. I mean, my parents were so adamantly against dating for most of my life. And then when you hit like 23-24, they are like "Why aren't you married???" Really mom and dad? You wnat me to go from "OMG, don't even look at that guy, NO DATING!" to walking down the isle over night?? I don't think so!

 

Asian parents always have these unrealistic expectations of society and how the world runs. It's like they don't know we aren't in the 1950's anymore. There isn't arranged marriages anymore. Well, I mean, there are, but it's frowned upon now. It's more about dating and finding your true love now. So you've got to give me that transition time to DATE people. But nope, it goes from "NO DATING" to "GET MARRIED and SPIT ME OUT A COUPLE OF GRANDKIDS NOW!!". Aiya!

 

But I'm glad I'm not the only one suffering from this insanity. My classmate feels the same way. And he's a guy, so at least it's not even a daughter thing. What erks me the most is when Asian parents treat daughters vs sons differently. I see it all the time with my brother and I. It's just one of those things that can make me pop a blood vessel if you get me worked up and talking about it. It's just so unfair and it makes absolutely no sense. Well, I'm sure it makes plenty of sense to them and that's why they practice it but it makes no sense to me! I guess it's hard for me to look past the benefits of them caudling me and letting my brother run free when I feel like I'm in prison and under a microscope all the time. Well, I'm sure other Asian daughters have it worse. Nice thing about being in such a BIG world, there is always someone that has it worse than you. You can count on it. I don't know why it does make me feel better, but knowing that someone else is enduring a simliar fate as me but they have it worse and they are still alive and trying to live their life, makes me feel a little bit better. If someone else can handle a situation worse than mine, then so can I. so can I.

 

* Still looking at the kitty.....so cute  :)

 

*****************************

 

Last night I thought someone broke into my apartment. I heard a loud sound and it sounded like someone opened my front door and slammed it shut. I was really scared. I slowly got out of bed and checked my whole apartment and checked the front door to make sure it's locked. Everything looked fine. And then I realized, why would someone break into my apartment and slam the door to warm me they had broken into my apartment? It must have been my neighbors that slammed the door really hard and it sounded like it was coming from my apartment because I have paper thin walls. But it's all those Sherlock Holmes shows I've been watching that has really freaked me out. I realized that watching murder/mystery shows right before bed is not advised because I tend to be spooked really easily or I get nightmares. Yes, I had a nightmare last night. It wasn't about getting murdered or any mystery, but it was about me in clinic. I think the stress of clinic has finally gotten to me. I'm having nightmares about it. I think I was just really busy or something, but it was scary to me because I'm deathly afraid of falling behind and having patients complain about how long they had to wait to be seen.

 

I've decided that I can never be a cop, a private investigator, a spy, a criminal, or any type of job that requires being awake at night, stalking people or potentially killing or seeing a dead person. I am just not brave enough for that. I get scared when my neighbors slam the door too hard. I freak out and almost pee in my pants because I think someone broke into my apartment and is going to kill me. Every night I go to bed thinking someone is hiding somewhere in my apartment and is waiting for me to fall sleep before they slaughter me. I don't know why I didn't really get that scared when I was living in my studio before. But suddenly now, living in the middle of nowhere with two bedrooms and spotty cell phone reception is horrifying for me. HORRIFYING. *shivers*

 

So yesterday when I met my co-worker's son and daugheter in law they were telling me about this science channel show that tries to explain the unexplanable things that happen in the world. It was SCARY! He told me about this case where this airplane and the pilot disapppeared and right before he disappeared, he radioed into some tower telling those guys that he thinks he's being followed by a UFO. Then they picked up some weird UFO-like object on the radar but it flew in weird patterns and then suddenly, it was gone, it vanished and so did the pilot + the plane! So scary! And there were more stories but that one stuck out the most and was the most frightening! So on top of criminals and ghosts, I have to worry about UFO's coming to get me now. Perfect, just perfect! Ugh.

 

This is probably why I wake up really tired every morning. I always wake up a few times in the middle of the night and I don't feel like I have a restful sleep. I'm probably subconsciously too worried about something super natural coming to get me and not going into my deep REM sleep. *shakes head in shame*

 

 



Genius best childhood friend

I've always thought my childhood best friend is a genius. Or if not a genius, at least the best psychologist. She should have been a psychologist, what a waste of talent. Anyway, we had a brief chat yesterday when she called me, the reception was terrible...why? because I'm in the middle of nowhere. I only heard like every other word she was saying...but I diverge....so I discussed a little bit about my BF and how he doesn't listen to me when I try to talk to him about important things. Here I am trying to poor out my deepest darkest thoughts and emotions just to realize that he's surfing the web or answering emails. So my best friend talked me through it. She's really good about doing that. And she gives really good food analogies if I don't understand. It's great. anyways, so he asked me a few questions.

Friend: How long are the converstations you two are having?
Me: Maybe like an hour or two?
Friend: So given what I know about your BF, you are probably the one talking most of the time
Me: yes, that assumption is correct
Friend: So he's probably just listening to you talk for 1-2 hours straight
Me: sure...
Friend: Ok, so pretend you are at a lecture and you have to pay attention for 1-2 hours, you are probably going to space out here and there right?
Me: yes...
Friend: So that's probably what's happening with him, he's spacing out here and there because he's just getting talked at for 1-2 hours, and that's ok, because it's human nature to space out, our attention span can't concentrate on something for that long of a time
Me: I guess....
Friend: See, what I do with my husband is that if I have something important to share, I prompt him so he knows he should pay attention. You should try this "I have something I'd like to share, it's pretty important to me", then pause, wait for them to pay attention and then share.
Me: I guess that makes sense. But why do I have to do this?? Shouldn't he be paying attention to me anyway??
Friend: Ok...remember what I just told you? He's being talked at for 1-2 hours, hard to pay attention the whole time. That's the problem with our generation these days, they think it's always the other person's problems, they never think the problem might be themselves or that they, themselves, might have the power to solve the problems. Instead of blaming him for not paying attention all the time, why don't you reflect and ask yourself what you can do to change/prevent this from happening again?
Me: omg, that makes so much sense
Friend: Yes, so instead of being defenseless and letting the situation control you, you can take control of the situation. You have the power to solve this problem, just try it.

OMG, she's a genius!

So last night, I tried it!

Me: Hey, I have something important to say, can you please pay attention to me for a second and stop working?
BF: sure, *full attention on me
Me: wow, that really works
BF: so what's up?
Me: Nothing, just a test hehehehe
BF: What??
Me: Ok, so here's the deal....

And I broke down what my friend said to my BF and he was smiling the whole time I was talking about how it might be my problem that I'm talking his ear off and that I should be the one that changes my approach to communicating with him. Ugh. I can still see that smirk on his face. We were skyping.

So I'm going to try that now. It seems to be effective so far.

*************
On a side note about my converstation with my friend, she's about to give birth soon. I say about to, but she's really still got two months. She's been telling me that everyone's been asking her if she's excited about the new baby coming and all she can think about is just how fearful she is about giving birth to her new baby. I was the first one to actually ask her "are you scared? You are about to give birth soon!". The truth is, she has been scared. And no one's really asked her about it. She's been trying to hide it and tell everyone she's excited but the truth is she's scared. I totally understand! I would be scared out of my mind if I'm about to give birth. Seems so painful. Haven't you seen the videos before? Doesn't look like that's suppose to be possible! So again, I'm going to emphasize that my friend gives the best analogies and her analogy to this situation is "How can I be excited about squeezing a watermelon out of my nostril?" LoL. She's so funny. But I agree, that's exactly what childbirth sounds like to me.

I find it ironic how baby crazy I am, but at the same time, how deathly afraid of childbirth I am. Oxymoron huh? I don't know how I'm going to cope with it when I do become pregnant but I'm sure I'm going to be frightened out of my mind.

My friend was saying she's trying to tell herself that a lot of women that are wimpier than her have experienced childbirth and if they can do it, so can she. She's brave to be thinking that way. I'm probably one of the wimpier people I know when it comes to pain. It's interesting that whenever I'm faced with pain, I chose to not medicate myself and endure through the pain, but yet, I am a really big baby when it comes to enduring pain. Another oxymoron. I'm filled with those.

*************

I can't believe I'm still getting bug bites here! It's cold! Aren't the bugs suppose to have gone somewhere else? I have this annoying itchy patch on my foot. It rubs against my flats when I'm wearing them, especially when I'm walking. It's so itchy and the constant rubbing against my shoes is not helping. Just thought I'd vent about the relentless bugs here.

Emotions, emotions

This weekend I just sat around, watched TV, read and ate. It was AMAZING. I was so happy with this weekend. I used to think that just lounging around my apartment is a waste of my life and my time but when you get really busy and you don't have time to lounge around anymore, LOUNGING AROUND suddenly becomes fun again! I actually really enjoyed reading this weekend. You don't hear me say that very often. But yes, READING was fun :) I'm still trying to get through the second installment of this children's novel that my BF and I like. It's finally starting to pick up. The beginning was very slow and quite boring. I can't wait to read more about what happens to all the characters! :)

**********************************

I tried to have another serious heart to heart talk with my BF about how I feel. Like I said before, these "emotional confessions" are difficult for me and it takes a lot for me to verbalize how I'm feeling. This time the topic was "how he feels about me". I don't know if I ever mentioned this but here's a little background.

My BF met his first GF at our undergrad college. He really liked her. He claims he was different back then. He was actually romantic and cared about how being sweet and caring towards the girl. He told me about how he spent endless hours folding origami flowers for her. He would surprise her with the flowers at her apartment. He thought about her all the time and really fell head over heels over her. Too bad she didn't feel the same way and ended up breaking his heart. After that incident, he claims that he has difficulty feeling/loving again. He doesn't and hasn't felt the same way about anyone and he doesn't have any motivation to be sweet or romantic anymore. Then, of course, I came along and now I'm benefiting from his robotic-like state of mind.

When I first heard about this I was so determined to be "that girl" that turns him around. Completely changes him and helps him realize that he can love again! I imagined myself being Belle and he is The Beast from "Beauty and the Beast". But that idea flopped as weeks turned into months and months turned into years and he's still the same way. -_-  I feel like a complete loser for not being able to turn him around and become all loving again. I feel like a failure.

So going back to my "emotional confession", I brought this topic up again about how his first GF captured his heart and never gave it back to him. He responded with "yea..." Ouch, dagger into my heart. "Well, I guess I wouldn't ever be able to capture your heart like she did". He responds "yea....." Double OUCH! He pushes the dagger in DEEPER. "Wait, so I still haven't won you over at all? Not even a little bit? She still has your attention? She's still got your heart?" His response "yea...." I'm pretty sure my heart just stopped beating. If that's really how he feels then I really have to re-evaluate our relationship together! "So why are we still together? You are just with me because there's no one else? Your heart has already been stolen by your previous GF so you mind as well give up and settle for me?? What are you saying??" I was starting to get very upset and rethink our whole relationship and then he responds "huh? what? Oh...I'm sorry, I'm just kidding, you have captured my heart" Really? How gullible does he think I am? "Just kidding? I think you are just trying to prevent me from throwing a fit, but I don't think you are just kidding about that" I said. He responded "I'm sorry, I really was just kidding. Ok...honestly, I wasn't really paying attention to the conversation because I was answering an email but once I was done I realized what you were talking about and that I responded incorrectly, sorry"

OMG!! He ALWAYS does this! He always pulls this on me! He's always doing something else when we are talking. Makes me wonder if he's EVER listened to anything I've said!! I know I have a bad memory but I've noticed MORE and MORE that he'll ask me details about things that I'm pretty sure I have talked about in an extensive conversation with him before. WHY DO WE EVEN TALK IF HE IS NOT GOING TO LISTEN??

So last night I semi-confronted him about this issue. "I know you prioritize your work, so I know you multi-task when you talk to me. You are always answering emails or looking at data or doing something work related when you talk to me". Then he said to me "I'm sorry, I don't prioritize work but I just have some stuff that I can't figure out so I'm just working on that right now".  *rolls eyes* It's not the first time I've heard that before...it's the 'I don't prioritize you over work' line.

I don't want to seem like an overbearing GF and I do understand his stress with work so I don't want to add to his stress but by sparing his feelings, I feel like mine is always compromised. Just because I have a less stressful job or I don't let my job stress me out as much or I don't have as many responsibilities to take care of as him, I have to be the understanding one and I have to let his needs come before mine. I know this is how things have been for a while now. I know I have to either learn to deal with it or our relationship is just not going to work out.

I get mad about all of this but when it comes down to it, I pity him too. I feel bad for him. He's always telling me about how stressful work is. How he's having nightmares. How he is losing sleep. He's forgetting to eat because he's so stressed and busy. He has long days. He has long nights. He has long weekends. He's almost always constantly working. He's lost a bunch of weight. He's gained more gray hairs. He gets sick really easily (stressed --> decreased immune system). I know, it sounds horrible. So when he tells me all of this, how can I even think about throwing a temper tantrum about how he doesn't listen to me or pay attention to me? How can be so selfish and only think about my needs? But on the other hand, I want him to know how neglected I feel. It's always a constant struggle for me.... *sighs*

Sharing Feelings...

I feel like I'm a pretty passive-aggressive person. I don't like confrontations, so if I ever do confront you, it's a HUGE deal. I mainly don't have a problem sharing my feelings but for some reason it's harder for me to speak up when it comes to certain topics with my BF.

So last night, we were skyping and I mentioned that he should look for cheap tickets to fly down to visit me again. And he said "no, it's ok". I think it was meant more like a joke, but it hurt my feelings that he didn't want to make the effort to come and visit me. So I took a deep breath and managed to bravely share my feelings with him:

"I know it makes more sense for me to go and visit you since there is more to do where you live and it's boring here because it's in the middle of nowhere, but it's very tolling for me to drive 2.5-3hours back home, then get on a plane for 4-6hours to go up there to visit you. When you say you don't want to come visit me, it's almost like you don't want to put in the effort to see me"

*takes a deep breath*

I'm so proud of myself that I voiced my opinion about that. During my whole confession, I was looking down because I felt so vulnerable and uncomfortable sharing my feelings, I couldn't even look him in the eyes. Then when I was done I looked up and I realized he wasn't even paying attention, he was looking somewhere else, which usually means he's watching TV or using the computer (i.e. working/checking emails).

Ugh.

So I think he managed to catch a few words of what I was saying because his response wasn't way out of left field.

"Do you want me to purpose where you live or here, where I live?"

Here I'm talking about making the effort to visit each other and he goes and changes the subject to "incentives for coming to visit him". But that did it, I got distracted and started to talk about purposals/getting married.

I always perk up when we talk about marriage. But again, he never fails to disappoint me.

"It's not happening any time soon, don't get your hopes up"

-_-

I was so sad/disppointed from his response, and his lack of response about making the effort to visit me, I told him I was tired and ended our skype call.

Sometimes I just feel like our wedding plans are never going to happen. He's just giving me empty promises. i'm very fearful and worried that history is going to repeat itself and we aren't going to work out and all this would have been in vain AGAIN. It's not the first time we've not worked out and I'm very afraid it's not going to be the last.

I always try to comfort myself by reminding myself that he did mention once that he wants it to be a surprise when he does purpose so he's trying to hide his tracks and not make it seem like he is for sure going to purpose, we are for sure going to get married, he is for sure always thinking about it, because he wants to keep me guessing. He doesn't want me to think it's for sure going to happen so it won't be a surprise when it does. I try to remind myself that he's probably just doing that...but it's hard.

I like him and everything, I do...but sometimes I just feel like he's kinda alouf and he doesn't care about the relationship or moving the relationship forward or where we are going. I don't know if it's just because of the distance but I've always felt like he neglects me and doesn't give enough attention to me. He always prioritizes work over me. I don't know if it's his problem or if it's my problem. Maybe we should try to meet each other halfway. I should be less needy and he should try to neglect me less. I dont' know. It's just something on my chest I thought I'd share.

**********************

I've grown a great distain for patients that show up late for appointments with me. This is why if I make an appointment with anyone now, I will show up EARLY. Not even on time, I'm EARLY. Sometimes, all it takes is ONE person that shows up late and then you are SCRAMBLING the rest of the day to try to catch up for the time that was lost because that ONE patient decided to not show up on time. Even if patients show up ON TIME it's still feels like they showed up late to me now. So, just FYI, if you are late, you mind as well not show up because if you do show up, it really screws up someone's schedule to try to squeeze you in there. Your care gets compromised and so does everyone else after you. Just a short work rant.

*********************

Remember when I told you that Danny's sister called me? When she called me, I actually missed her call. And she left me a message but the message kinda cut out when she said her name, so I couldn't really hear it. So when I called her back, I just mumbled her name. Kinda embarrassing that I don't even know her name. I looked her up on Danny's FB later and found out what her real name was lol.

We chatted for around an hour. She's super nice and I really like her. We mainly talked about work and our patient experiences. Apparently, Danny tells his mom AND his sister everything because his sister was able to recall a lot of things I told Danny that one day I went out to lunch with him. I think that's really nice that he shares so many things with his family. I wish I was close enough with my own brother to share so many details about my life. I'm sure my mom would listen to me talk about my life, but she always takes things the wrong way and says weird things to me and then worries incessantly about things which stresses me out so I try to filter what I tell her now. I still feel like I tell her a lot but less than what Danny shares I guess.

Danny's sister mentioned to me that she's dating his guy that is going to purpose really soon. He would have purposed already, but her mom got sick and then passed away. When she told me this I was SOOO HAPPY for her. I really was and still am! I guess since I'm so baby crazy right now and really want to get married, when I hear about other people getting married, it just gets me so excited and happy for them. If I can't tie the knot, at least other people are! That's really nice, I'm really happy for her. I wish them a happy life together!

I feel like Danny's sister and I would be good friends, if we were living in the same city. One of the funny things that Danny's sister mentioned to me was that Danny and I hang out because we are both very filial and obedient to our respective mothers. Danny's sister said it was always kind of awkward for him to call me and ask to hang out because we aren't really friends, we are just friends by association of our mothers' being best friends. It's not like we don't like each other but I guess we just never hit it off or had enough in common to be close friends. He has his own group of friends and I have mine. Our spheres of friends barely mesh together. Well, I guess it did once when we all had dinner together at that dumpling place and you were there too. Maybe if we also lived in the same city and we started to hang out more and our friends became each other's friends then we would be closer. I bet if Danny and I became closer friends it would make his mom really happy. May she rest in peace. I do try to text him ever so often. We keep in touch now.

**********************

I'm really sorry I missed your call the other day. I got back so late and I was so tired and then I still had to go out for dinner. It was a LONG day.

**********************

This morning one of my co-workers, that I'm hanging out with more and getting closer to, brought me a parfait from Starbucks. She's so nice. She's been brining me treats since the holidays. She at first brought me some chocolate covered pretzels (that she made herself) which were DELICIOUS!!! I still dream about them! Then she brought me these cookie/brownie things and she gave me the plate too. Then she brought me a PLATTER of cookies. And now the parfait. She's so amazing. I really do want to thank her with something but I don't know what to thank her with. Should I cook/bake her something? I'm such a terrible cook/baker I'm not sure if I give her something if that would be thanking her or punishing her. Should I go buy her something? Do you have any ideas? Let me know if you think of something! :)

*********************

So I've been watching Sherlock at night before bed and since it's a detective show, there's always murders and mysteries and sometimes, some of the stories scare me. This is bad timing because if you can imagine, it's dark (lights turned off), I crawl into bed and try to close my eyes but I'm so scared by all the scary stories, I'm afraid someone is hiding under my bed waiting for me to fall asleep and then kill me in my sleep. Or someone's in my closet. Or hiding in my spare bedroom. Or my other bathroom. Or comes out of the walls or gets me from under my blankets. I'm basically very paranoid and scared before bed. I keep opening my eyes to any little noise. I think that's why I'm so tired every day because I have such a hard time falling asleep and then when I am asleep, I don't think I'm having a very restful sleep. I always wake up tired and I can't open my eyes. I used to wake up before my alarm and be all well rested. Oh no! Am I just getting older?? Is this what this is? Is this just an age thing??

Tuesday Stories

I started on the Sherlock Holmes British series last night. I got hooked on it last year when one of the guys I met off that dating website introduced me to it. That same guy told me the new season started again and I'm so excited to watch it. Unfortunately, I seem to have an attention span of Dory from Nemo because I can't watch it all in one sitting. Each episode is 90mins long. That's like a Disney Movie!! So I watch them in increments of 30 mins. I started the episode last night, got through about 1/3 of it and I'm excited about continuing the episode tonight! Little things in life make me happy when I'm living in the middle of nowhere. LoL.

My technician took the day off today. She's at a doctor's appointment. I had to man the whole clinic myself. I thought it was going to be WAY worse, but it actually wasn't too bad. I was only behind ONCE during the whole day and it was only like 5 mins. So not too bad for doing the whole exam and running all the ancillary testing on my own too. I think I'm learning the art of cutting people off when they talk and only extracting important information. At some point, I realized I stopped caring about what people have to say. I guess I have to if I want to be on time. I can't listen to everyone recite their life story to me. I would be here ALL day and not even be done with one person. The positive spin on this would be "I'm becoming more pragmatic and efficient". The negative spin on this is "I'm becoming robotic and unsympathetic". I still slow down to talk to people when they seem really nice and I have time. So maybe I haven't lost all emotions/feelings.

I saw a patient that had MRSA today. I was pretty intimidated but I think I hid it well. I thoroughly cleaned ALL the equipment, everything in the exam room and my hands after his exam. There's no joking around with MRSA.

I got the yelp elite email today welcoming me into yelp elite 2014! That was exciting. My BF suggested I look for yelp elite events where he lives. I think that's a good idea but I bet it would be hard to coordinate. It'll have to be on the exact weekend that I'm there and opportune time/place. Eh, it'll probably never line up this way. I can dream though.

Remember how I told you this past weekend I babysat "little mouse"? Well, we took her to Costco and she said she really wanted to eat ice cream. I was under the impression we had some at home and told her I'd give her some when we got home. I completely forgot but when we got home, she asked me for ice cream. I looked in the freezer and realized we didn't have any. We had popsicles but she wasn't interested in that. I don't know why but my mom has gotten in this habit of freezing bananas, so I found a BIG bag of frozen bananas. I decided to take a risk. I cut one up into small bit size pieces and told her to try it. She knew it was a banana and she asked me for ice cream. So I told her, it tastes just like ice cream. And she asked me "so when you freeze bananas it turns into ice cream?" and I said "yes" so she tried it and she really liked it! She ate the whole banana on her own! I can't believe that worked! I'm totally going to tell my kids that frozen bananas are ice cream now because kids can't seem to tell the difference. That way, my kids can still eat healthy and think they are eating unhealthy sweets. When I told my BF about this, he thought it was a terrible idea. "Our kids are going to go to school and tell everyone that when you put a banana in the freezer, it turns in ice cream and all the other kids are going to think their CRAZY!!" Yeah...didn't realize there's that social aspect to life where they are going to interact with other kids and probably be taunted about being crazy. I'm still going to try it though, don't tell my BF :)

So last night my cousins and I decided to start a private conversation on a very public FB comment wall. These are cousins on different sides of the family. One's on my dad's and one's on my mom's side of the family. You would think they wouldn't be close, but ending up, they always hang out with each other and x me out of the picture. I guess they have a lot in common. Eh, whatever. So I commented on mom cousin's wall since she posted she had a "family day", I just mentioned "I'm sad I wasn't there for family day". Then one thing led to another and I somehow mentioned that we should try to gather together and meet dad cousin's BF. Yeah, I did mention she has a BF now?? Crazy right! Anyways, within mins, my dad cousin responded say "Are you talking about me?". I know, what a stalker right? Two cousins...trying to have a personal conversation on public FB about you...geez, why do you have to but in? Haha. JK. I actually found it really funny and amusing she was reading our comments about her. So all three of us started leaving comments for each other and it was like a chat room but on a FB wall where everyone else can read what we are chatting about. So we are going to meet up most likely MLK Jr. Weekend and meet her boyfriend. She requested I bring mine and I said yes. She probably thinks I'm bluffing but little does she know he's really back that weekend. MUhahahah! I'm really excited about meeting her BF. I want to know what type of guy he is and everything about him! I'm super nosy like that! I'm probably going to ask him a MILLION questions, the whole meeting will consist of me grilling him the whole time. I can see it now. Hhahahaha.

My BF told me yesterday that his co-worker got him some gourmet popcorn that he's saving for me when I visit him. And they also got him two fancy champagne glasses. Guess what they are for? It's for when he pops the question and you celebrate afterwards!!! And hopefully he'll be popping the question to me and I'll be using those glasses. LoL. They are really nice glasses. I told my BF that I think it would have been more practical if they got him an engagement ring in my size instead. Well...more practice for ME anyway. Haha. So I guess his coworkers like me and they are rooting for me :) Yay!

Just to keep you dated, I still have Babies on my mind, still baby crazy.

I'm really glad we got to catch up yesterday. So how did the haircut go?

A Few Things To Share

I don't think I ever shared this dining experience with you. This happened when my BF came to visit me and I wanted to try a restaurant that several people at work recommended me to. So here's what happened:

Me: Hi, can I have a...
Cashier: No, you can't order here
Me: What? 
Cashier: This is call in orders only, you can't eat here either
Me: Wait, what? So why do you have a menu here and why are there tables and chairs here? Can I just call on my cell phone and order something and then pick it up here?
Cashier: If you want to dine in, that's next door
Me: Oh...ok
Cashier: You can get there by passing through the restrooms *points at restroom doors
Me: That's ok, I'll walk outside and go around the restrooms, thanks though. 

*Next door
Me: Hi, can I order the soup?
Cashier: No, that's only on Wed and Fridays
Me: Ok...can I have that combination plate? *points at the menu
Cashier: No, that's only before 2pm
Me: Ok....can I have a vegetarian rolled taco?
Cashier: No, we don't do that
Me: Ok....can you tell me what we CAN order?
Cashier: A tostada or a burrito only. 

Isn't that crazy? They had so many restrictions! It was really exhausting trying to find something to order! They had a reasonable sized menu but apparently, 90% of it is off limits! 

So when the food came, they FORGOT the burrito! But it doesn't matter because everything tasted too salty and I was just unimpressed with the food. We also ordered chips that came with "salsa" but the I use quotations because it was really just watered down tomato juice with spices in it. It wasn't real salsa. Anyways, overall, a very disappointing dining experience. And this was a place that some of my coworkers recommended to me! 

When I asked about this place the next day again, they confessed that they actually haven't been there for 2 years now. *rolls eyes

***********************************

Referring to my last exciting post of how I got Yelp Elite.  Yes, I WAS very excited, I felt on top of the world.....and then decided to tell my BF. Here's another good example of how my BF ruins things for me:

me:  HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i've got really important news!!!!!!!!

 BF:  what??

 me:  ok, BRACE yourself!

are you bracing yourself?

it's BIG NEWS!

BF:  I'm excited

what is it

are you transferring?

you got promoted?

you won the lottery?

you don't owe that $18 grand?

 me:  no...............

you just made my news boring

and insignificant

BF:  ohh...

 me:  -_-

i got yelp elite 2014, gold badge -_-

but it's not exciting now

because its non of the aforementioned items

YELP ELITE!!!

I got YELP ELITE 2014!! GOLD BADGE!!! YES!!!!!

Little things in life make me happy :)

Weekend Updates

Happy Monday!

So I went home this weekend. I tried not to do very much but I ended up doing some stuff. Ugh.

Friday:
Durig the day, a coworker that just recently gave birth, maybe 2 weeks ago, brought her baby in to the clinic for us to see. He is SOOO ADORABLE and cute!!!!!!!! OMG, I am in LOVE with her baby!!! It makes me really want a baby, RIGHT NOW!

During lunch my mom called me to tell me that we will be hotpot-ing that night. So I was really excited because I love hotpots! When I get home, no cars were home. That's a bad sign. Means everyone's not home. And when everyone's not home, it means that there's no food prepared. I am very impatient with the amount of time it takes to prepare food, especially when I'm hungry. When I'm hungry, I want to eat NOW, not in 10 mins, but NOW.

So I'm already preparing myself for the worse because there are no cars in the driveway. But surprisingly, my mom opened the door for me, so at least she's home. Hope is not lost, she might have been preparing the food! Which is what happened, she prepared all the hotpot stuff but my brother wasn't home. My brother was in charge of the broth, so even though all the stuff was prepared, we still couldn't eat. After sitting around, HUNGRY, for 15mins, I decided to just boil some water and start eating. So that's what I did, I started the hotpot with just plain water. The food all came out very bland. Well, what do you expect, it's just boiled in water. But at least I got some food. My brother didn't come back until 30mins after i started the hotpot. Thank goodness I didn't wait for him. When he came back he said he was just going to boil water too, he wasn't going to make a broth, so good thing we didn't wait.

Saturday:
I've been meaning to tell my parents for a while now about how my BF wants to have dinner with them. I'm so embarrassed by the idea, not sure why. But that morning, there were 4 of us in the car, my mom, dad, brother and me, so I thought that was a good chance to bring it up. So keep in mind, I already told my brother about this...

*mom and dad chatting with each other*
*interrupt them talking*
Me: So...MLK Jr weekend is coming up
Mom: so?
Me: it's a three day weekend
Mom: ok, are you coming home?
Me: most likely
Mom: ok
*mom and dad starts a conversation with each other again*
Me: So...B**** is coming home that weekend too
Mom: Ok
Brother: Spit it out already
Me: So we are going to be here on the same weekend
Brother: SPIT IT OUT ALREADY
Me: *ahem* So he wants to have dinner with you guys
Mom: Wait, what?? So he wants to treat us out for dinner?
Me: NO! I didn't say he was treating, I just said he wants to eat dinner with us, our family.
Mom: What day?
Me: Some day that weekend.
Mom: I work Saturday, your dad works Sunday and Monday.
Me: Oh right...
Mom: Maybe your dad can take Sunday off....maybe he should take the whole week off and we can go to palm springs!
Me: No, we are meeting B****.
Mom: Oh...right. Ok, your dad will take Sunday off and we'll eat together.

*later that day

Mom: So did you tell your grandma?
Grandma: Tell me what?
Me: OMG, no! Don't say anything!
Mom: B**** wants to have dinner with us
Grandma: REALLY?!?! WHEN?
Mom: Jan 19th
Grandma: What day is that?
Mom: Sunday
Grandma: What day is today?
Mom: The 5th
Grandma: Let me look at the calendar, it's in 2 weeks! He wants to treat us out to dinner?? That's so nice!
Me: NO! No one said they are going to treat us out to dinner, we are having dinner together.
Grandma: Well, that's GREAT! Why didn't you tell me sooner? I need to find a really nice outfit to wear!
Me: You don't need to wear a fancy outfit, it's just dinner.
Grandma: So we are going to meet his parents? Are you guys getting married?
Me: OMG! We are not meeting his parents! He's just having dinner with us! And he's not TREATING!
Grandma: I have to find something nice to wear! You should have told me sooner so I can be happy for you! So there's more time for me to be happy for you! I'm so happy!

I don't know why it bothers me so much when my mom and grandma go crazy happy over meeting B****. They are so in love with him and they don't even know him. Sometimes I feel like they love him more than they love me. And that's not right. I've told my BF about this before and he said "that's weird, normally, should you be happy your family likes the person you are dating?" Yeah, I mean, I guess I should be happy they like him so much, but I'm mad they seem to like him unconditionally and from what I can tell, MORE than me!

I also think I don't want him to meet my family because then there's going to be expectations. And then there's all this pressure. I already feel like there's all this pressure and he hasn't even met them yet. I have a bad feeling about this. Anyways...I guess I should stop worrying about, what will happen, will happen.

I babysat my dad's coworker's daughter the whole day on Saturday. She's a bundle of energy!! While she was with us, we brought her over to my cousin's place to visit my new baby cousin nephew. He's so cute! So precious! Makes me want to have a baby, RIGHT NOW! That's what I texted my BF too. My text to him "WE NEED TO GET MARRIED AND HAVE A BABY RIGHT NOW!!!" His response was not running away screaming, as I thought he would, he just said "haha, are you sure?". I'm not sure what to make out of that response.

So I "partied" all day long with my dad's coworker's daughter. She's really cute too. My mom always tells me that she is a spinning image of me when I was younger. Well...personality wise. I'm sure she's way prettier than me when I was younger.

She really liked to dance and just hang out in my room. It got kinda tiring since she didn't let me go into the livingroom or kitchen or anywhere else in the house. Everytime I went anywhere, she just tried to pull me back into my room and dance with me. And she seemed to never get tired. She was constantly jumping around and bouncing all over the walls but she never looked like she got tired or stopped. Five year olds are amazing balls of energy.

By the time she went home, which was like 10pm, I was exhausted. When I told my BF, he said "if you have a child, it's going to be like that ALL the time and they don't 'go home' to give you a break". I guess that's true. But I think I'm still baby crazy right now.

Sunday:
Finally got some time to relax but I had to get packing to go back to work. Ugh. Weekends are so exhausting. Before I got back, John (the new doctor), called me and told me to swing by his apartment, he made me dinner. He's SO NICE! I feel really bad. He treats me so nicely and I don't feel like I deserve any of his kindness. I haven't done anything to return his kindness, more like he doesn't accept any of my attempts to repay him. He made a tasty salad, rice, eggplant and his "fake" meat. If you didn't tell me, I would have thought it was regular meat. It's really good!

During dinner we talked about unfortunate things happening to the people around us. He brought up how he recieved a call ealier that day from his neighbor back in Orange County. They have known each other for a LONG time. She called him crying. Her daughter, whose super healthy, exercises like 2 hours each day, recently was rushed to the ER because she had abdominal pain. It turns out she has end stage pancreatic cancer and has less than 2 weeks left to live. Shocking right? Completely asymptomatic until the acute abdominal pain. Made me think of you and Danny's mom again.

He also mentioned he had another friend that was also diagnosed with end stage liver cancer. Both of these people went through a really stressful/bad divorce. We were trying to link if stress has something to do with the development of cancer. It's probably just a coincidence but there maybe a corelation. When you are stressed, your body's immune system decreases and this sets up for potential infection and could make you suspectable to cancer cells. It doesn't take very much for cancer cells to take over and start replicating like crazy. Well, it could be something, it could be nothing.

Monday:
I think people are still in Holiday mode. I'm getting so many no-shows. Which is GREAT for me. I feel like my schedule is so much more managable when there are no-shows :)



Hope you are doing well :)