In Sickness and in Health

Thursday night Mom and I left around 10pm to drive an hour to SFO to pick up Big Sis and her husband from their honeymoon.  When we were leaving, my brother, who already has a diagnosed heart condition, started complaining of chest pain, so he took some medicine and then Mom and I headed out.  About 2 hours later, 20 minutes away from home, we get a call from Lil Sis saying Brother is splayed out on the floor in complete chest pain.  He can’t move, he’s nauseous, she’s sorta freaking out.

Ambulance is called, we meet them at the house, Brother is inside with the Paramedics.  They’re asking him questions and he’s barely groaning out the responses.  He’s got a pretty high threshold for pain, so seeing this is really starting to get to me, I thought he was having a heart attack. They take him away and at that very moment I am so thankful for VA benefits because he’s not covered by his current job.  Mom goes to the hospital, I stay home with Lil Sis and Big Sis and BiL go to their apartment.  It’s 1:30am and I’m worried – extremely worried.  I was so tired and I felt a little guilty for going to bed, but I knew I couldn’t help him at all, whether asleep or awake.  I didn’t find out until about 6am that it was his appendix.

I breathed the biggest sigh of relief because Brother is only 24.  We’re only 14 months apart and we graduated high school together.  He’s almost like a twin to me.  I was afraid for a moment that he wouldn’t be around anymore.

They removed his appendix, he’s back home today, playing Call of Duty on Xbox 360 and I’m sooooo grateful.  Praise God.

Chock-full of Random-ness Today

Christmas is Tuesday. I have absolutely zero funds but the fam all sorta voted on foregoing the traditional Christmas because The Wedding beat it by 10 days and that was an all-too-realistic financial experience. So I have asked the immediate fam: Momma, Daddy, Big Bro, Lil Sis (Big sis and brand new BiL don’t really get presents for Christmas because they’ve gone to Kauai Hawaii and NYC for the honeymoon and still haven’t opened 99% of their wedding gifts).

I want to make everything with stuff already in my stash, so far I think Im doing pretty well, even though only one person will actually receive on the 25th. Moms will get a reusable heating pad, you know the kind with rice in it? I found a tute aqui. I figured it would be pretty awesome to have at work.

Im knitting a cap for Daddy, he’s the only person who will get his gift day-of because we don’t live together and we’ll be doing Christmas breakfast. It’s always sorta hard trying to figure out what my dad wants besides a giant flat-screen HDTV… Big Bro will also be getting a hat, but we went and picked out some dark heather gray yarn for his because he wants a hat like the style that Common wears a lot, only a knit version.

I mean, you can’t fully see the style of hat in this photo, but Common is my #1 celebrity crush, so who cares because he’s just GORGEOUS!

So anyway… the Lil Sis… I don’t know what she wants yet, but I’ll ask her. She’s usually pretty cool about what she wants. Plus, she just got a Pink DS Lite (I’m only slightly jealous… she let’s me play it) so she’s still stoked about that.

Also, I was thinking of creating a Painting as a gift for another friend of mine, I’ve got a spare canvas that just about the right size… but I’ve got to sketch it out first and then think about it. I think it would be a pretty awesome gift and they’d definitely be stoked about it.

In other news, I had an interview last Friday for an internship at a videogame website that I’ve actually had a profile on for about 1.5 years. It’s paid, it’s in The City

(only 3 blocks from my mom’s job/BART [our subway]), and it’s an industry gig. That would be pretty awesome to score, without even thinking about the possibility of free stuff! They want to start the position in the beginning of the year, so I won’t find out for another week because they’re interviewing several candidates and I was the first one. Sooo…. hopefully they liked me best! [in that photo, btw, I can totally see in the almost bottom left-hand corner the building I had my last internship in; right next door to Second Life offices!]

I guess that’s it for now. I’m going to go watch The Little Mermaid in Spanish and get some work done on Daddy’s hat. Merry Christmas everyone!

Picked up a new crafty book!

It’s the end of the semester and so, book buy-back time. I didn’t have very many books this semester, so I was just expecting to sell back my books and get some lunch with the money they gave me. Before I left the house this morning, though, I grabbed a book I’d never returned from a class I’d taken probably 3 semesters ago.

So on campus, 5 bucks for the first book, $7.50 for the second book and a whopping $28 for the oldy oldy book! I wasn’t expecting that much. With some extra cash I went and checked out what the bookstore had to offer. I picked up LOTR: RotK widescreen version for only $4. Sure, Return of the King is like, 4 years old, but that’s the one DVD of the trilogy that we didn’t have, and it happens to be my fave one.

I also bought a cute little planner for next year, and a book from a Smithsonian show called “Captive Passage: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Making of the Americas” for only $8, it was like, 60% off. It looks really interesting and Dad and I have been trading Black History books lately, which is really cool. Makes for good discussions.

The final thing I got was a more recent release title Subversive Seasmter.

I saw this book earlier in the semester when it was first released but I was flat broke. So I’m totally glad I could pick it up today. Another awesome point is that their Store, Stitch, is located in San Francisco! I go to school in The City! I live here in the Bay Area! I totally want to go there now and check them out.

The projects in the book look so fun(ky) I can’t wait to try them out. After I finish my last paper of the semester tomorrow. I’ll be going to bed now, though. So good night!

She’s not Bridezilla, everyone else is!

Swear; like this whole wedding thing makes me want to elope when I find The One. I’m the Maid of Honor so it’s my duty to help keep the Bride from stressin’ out too much, right? Well, my sister is probably one of the more mellow people of the bunch even though she’s still got mad stress from trying to decide between what she and her fiance want and what other people want.

Mom, who’s is charge of decorating the church and the reception hall, making all the flower arrangements and coordinating almost all of the groom’s family who are here from another country, is also totally buggin out. I live with Mom so I hear her vent. And on top of that, it’s also a touchy subject planning how she and my father will interact throughout the ceremony. They’ve been divorced for 11 years but for a lot of stuff we still take a LOT of caution.

Then today at the Dress Rehearsal there was such drama when one of the bridal party got mad and stormed out during a run-through because they were dissatisfied with their placement. They didn’t want to be on the end, and they didn’t understand why they could not stand on the stage (even though myself and my younger sister, the other MoH, are the only bridesmaids onstage). It was an extremely selfish move and caused undue stress to the future To-Be’s and to Mom as well.

To try and mellow them both out, I kind of had to just tell them to screw it. Screw the tantrum. This person likes throwing hissy fits and having people come back and beg them to change their mind. So screw them for this rude outburst and when they realize what they’ve done, they’ll be sorry. And I’m glad Big Sis/Bride has firmly stated that she and her fiance will not be making any concessions for anyone, they won’t beg, and they will do this their way. Seriously, the ceremony is two days away, they shouldn’t have to change anything or deal with something like this.

I really wanted to say Come on, dude, where’s your head at? Are you for real??!?!? I mean, they’re family and all, but I don’t have a high tolerance level for that type of immaturity… especially if you’re nearing 30… it’s ridiculous.

So tomorrow is the last day before the wedding. Still a lot to do. A lot of stuff can happen. I hope everyone else tries their best to help destress the couple…. and I will start looking at Drive-Thru chapels so that when my day comes, I can avoid the drama.

Word.

The Final(s) Push

I am not looking forward to the next 12 days. I’m into finals and the Sister’s wedding is coming up. I have to do an interview, write a 7-page paper from said interview, write a summary on a museum visit, spend 20 hours on a painting, and do a 10-page research paper. All of this staggered up to the 19th. Then, the wedding is on the 15th and I have to do rehearsals, write a toast, help decorate, and keep my Sister from going insane/bridezilla from all the stress. She’s got stress? Ha!

I know I have to get all this done, but I have absolutely no drive. This is the worst final effort I’ve ever displayed in my entire college career. I think it’s because of the wedding and having to hear sister/mom/groom/everyone stress about the ceremony preparations. My goodness, don’t people know that I have school! Good lord.

Also, part of my lack of motivation comes from me wanting to just get to the part where I can get back to deciding what I do with my time: hanging with friends, playing videogames, CRAFTING! whatever. I know I should get things done, but I just keep getting sooo distracted. And then it doesn’t help when, on top of alllll of this, your thoughts are yet otherwise occupied to the point where everything gets pushed even further back into the “outskirts of my periphery”.

I worry about a lot of stuff and I’m sort of just hanging on until mid-month. It’s like that really corny poster of the kitten with the tag line, “hang in there”.

Yeah, I feel just like that stupid cat, with the sorry expression and all.

When the 20th rolls around, I better get to do what I want and hang out with whomever… ugh… I can’t wait. I sort of hate school right now.

JET Application: Signed, Sealed, Delivered…

I’ve been wanting to apply for the JET programto be an Assistant Language Teacher for at least 4 years now and for the first time I am eligible because I will be (finally) graduating in the Spring. While checking the requirements several weeks ago, I somehow didn’t remember the date the application was due. When I checked last Monday I found that the application would be due today. That gave me seven days to get everything together!

So I scrambled all around trying to get my transcripts from both schools, my letters of recommendation, proof of graduation (sort of like a progress report), a copy of my birth certificate, a statement of purpose, and the application form. I also needed two copies of everything. I emailed the head of my department for one of the letters and ended up having to drive an hour down to San Jose to pay a hold and get my transcripts (which wouldn’t be available until the next day), another hour up the peninsula to San Francisco (to get one of the recommendation letters and progress report), and then yet another hour across San Francisco and back to the East Bay to go home. I did this all before 4:30.

Since my transcripts weren’t ready in San Jose on Thursday, I had to drive all the way back down the next day to pick them up, and that was because the lovely woman at the Registrar’s office put a rush through so when I picked them up, I gave her a Ghirardelli chocolate assortment as thanks for doing me such a huge favor.

Even though I had to drive to San Jose twice this week, it was okay because I got to hang out and catch lunch with my old roommate and also an APhiO friend. It was great because I haven’t seen either one of them in a looong time and I adore and miss San Jose – my friends, the campus, the city. It makes my heart warm. =)

I mailed off the application Saturday and I just checked the UPS website and it was delivered to Washington, D.C., this afternoon at 1:30pm. AWESOME! So now comes the waiting, wich I’ve heard/read can be agonizing. I’ll stay optimistic, though, because this would be a great opportunity… I mean, who wouldn’t want to live in Japan for a year and learn about the culture? So cross your fingers, I’ll keep you posted.