two weeks ago: white elephant sale

It's been a while since the White Elephant Sale in Oakland happened and I finally found some free time to take pictures of half of my purchases! Ignoring the clothes I've bought for now (80s red power suit, flanel jacket...), though all are free to take a peek at the questionable purchase of the year: Bill Cosby style flower sweater, which was $2.50 if I remember correctly.

White set of 2 from Germany ($12); gold rim set of 3 from Japan ($4).

Subtle with fine detail: link bracelet ($2); circular ornament one ($5).

For my mother: light blue earrings with curavture ($3); bronze ones ($2.50).

working at: potrero hill

Chilling on the balcony for lunch.

View of downtown.

Documenting a very warm February day with Instagram shots (my first 'official' ones after a year of having the app on my phone).

spring is coming

All photos unedited, untouched.

February: the month in which a bunch of people poke at a poor groundhog to come out, Valentines (still awaiting my guy's package to come!), mardi gras explosive joy (New Orleans needs to go on my 'American Cities to visit' list), and spring. Allergies aside, a favourite of mine is watching all those blossoms paint the trees a delicate pink.

something about fall

Unfortunate relaxing Tuesday: woke up at 5 am nauseous and spent the rest of the day at home recuperating.
The last day of warm toasty autumn--creepy baby pumpkins, trees shedding, the nostalgic crunch of leaves against my shoes.

feeling like...

Summer hath come?

academy of science: nightlife

WHO ARE THE WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS?

PHENOMENAL

this week: a wrap up

Top to bottom: A free food/drink event sponsored by Yelp at Plant Warehouse in Noe Valley (thanks Teresa for inviting me!), Posey and Beardo hugging out a victory, Tuxedo-chocolate-covered strawberries at Cary Lane's 2nd Anniversary Party, Giants for World Series!!!

goodbye chinatimes

Goodbye New Oriental Cool Camp. You were very far from cool. You were also a hot mess. To escape your hot messiness, we merely escalated towards more hot messes which tended to turn into shit shows. It was kind of like a hell froze over for 6 weeks type of an experience. But I loved you nonetheless. For those very failtimes that allowed all of us to share, bond, learn, and grow as a collective and as individuals.

Goodbye Chinese kids. You were an amazing bunch and I am honoured to have met all of you and interact with you all. Some of you had insane names (Gentleman Fan Fan, Freedom, Circle, Killer, Mango, Panda…I will NEVER forget you guys). Some of you were a little too eager to befriend us. But I love you all. And I miss you guys. Keep learning, keep fighting. Maybe one day, we’ll see each other again.

Goodbye fellow foreign teachers and Chinese TAs. You were also an amazing bunch of people. And we became friends through our shared crazy failtimes. I miss you guys. We bonded over the strangest things and as a result, we have inside jokes that no one in the entire world will ever understand except for the bunch of us. Some of you were big characters; that’s okay; it just makes my storytelling that much more awesome. :P

Goodbye China. You were extreme. Extremely hot, extremely chaotic, extremely unorganized, extremely intense, extremely crazy. You never really made sense but at the end of the day, we found ourselves laughing at all the shenanigans and the next morning, alive and mosquito bitten to an entirely new level.

I'm not even German

But the sad part is I'm going to miss the semifinals because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to run into a bar by myself in Hong Kong at 2 in the morning. That's protocol for giving my aunts myocardial infarctions. Though I can insist. I think I know how to say World Cup in Cantonese. (For some reason, I don't know how to say football in Cantonese but got no problems in Mandarin. I predict epidemic fail for the next 6-7 weeks of my life. It doesn't help that I'm listening to BSB.)

thirty days of sharing: day twenty-five

25. your day, in great detail

Ooo, these are tough. Well, today was the long, delayed Mackenzie and Rebecca date. The car has been all sorts of suicidal and pulled one on me by excreting green liquid at the gas pump last week. But it has been fixed! And I drove into the city, found myself tackling parallel parking on a hill in the Castro district...and the girls hit lunch at Firewood where we got giant salads, which we took ...something ridiculous long to consume.

Mainly because there were a many things to catch up on. I can't discuss this part in detail because well, hello there, public blog. But it's nice to have a lengthy conversation between girls, catching up personally and everything.

After a few hours in the city, in order to have a head-start over transbay traffic, which is awful, I zoomed back but unfortunately met up with some car-jam up before the bridge. Chilling here with some Jamaican Ginger Beer, listening to some Ella Fitzgerald....the weather has been glorious....mmm, I think I can use a nap.

thirty days of sharing: day twenty-two

22. a website

Orisinal Games

Want to procrastinate and binge on uber-cuteness at the same time? Orisinal is the place to be (though for the longest time, I thought it was 'Original Games'). Adorable graphics, accompanied by equally adorable game soundtrack, these mini games are sure to distract you from a night's worth of productivity. Don't click on the link unless you really have nothing to do...or if you're really that keen to not do anything for a few hours. :)

This has nothing to do with anything but Jon's birthday package arrived this past weekend on one of the hottest days of the month. My room has been invaded and swamped by the cologne of Jon. Earl Grey did well for a while but now it has been knocked down. I also think I might be allergic to indecently copious amounts of this stuff, hence, the all sorts of wonky my eyes have been yesterday and this morning.

(Picture from jonasapproved.com)

Kat took me to Specialty Bakery and Cafe for some dense, thick cookies today downtown near Montgomery and while I didn't have snicker-doodle (shown above), the oatmeal raisin was richly condensed and utterly delicious. Nothing like a carefree afternoon spent in the city with one of your collegiate buddies, eating and drinking tea lattes while getting your macbook frame replaced for free because three years ago, you decided to purchase a lengthy protection plan. Thumbs up self.