Summer_Heat's Xanga

1 year later.

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:26:09 GMT

i keep thinking about that last day. everything from those last moments since i woke up from my nap keep replaying in my mind over and over. i keep seeing it all the time. watching mom die was not how i expected it to be.

it haunts me.

i miss you. i wish there was a cure for cancer, all types, so no one, the loved ones left behind or the ones afflicted with cancer, would have to go through this pain.

01231969-08052008

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:43:24 GMT

new goal:

try to only spend $250 a month. will accomplish goal but not using credit card and taking $200 in cash out and only using credit cards for REALLY important things.

Will deposit all money made through tutoring directly to the bank instead of spending it.

Looking Back

Sat, 30 May 2009 17:54:38 GMT

Listening to: (Overcast Vacation)

I remember that day.
I was at the computer, playing games,
when my mom came home.
I turned and with a quick glance,
got out of the chair to give her a hug.
Showed her my new toy,
a skinny, blonde, blue-eyed winged fairy doll,
filling young girls' with foolish and unrealistic ideals of beauty.
I was so excited, the doll was so pretty.
Someone took a picture of us,
me in my Care Bear nightgown,
her in her expensive, pretty clothes.
It has been a long time since I was so happy, so carefree.
Throat tightens with remembrance
of happiness
lost,
Eyes start to fill with tears
but, the tears,
they don't fall.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Sun, 10 May 2009 04:27:29 GMT

Natto Spaghetti

Ingrediants
2 packages of natto
Kewpie mayo
Chopped onions
1 can of tuna, drained
minced garlic
chopped cilantro
spaghetti
Butter (optional)
canola oil
soy sauce (to taste)
lemon juce (to taste/optional)

Prepare spaghetti as package instructions. Prepare natto with the packaged ingrediants. Stir at least 20 times.
Add butter and oil to hot pot (use the one you cooked the spaghetti in to save from washing additional pots), once hot, add garlic and onions. When onions translucent, add tuna to heat it up. Mix in natto. Add mayo to pot, make sure pasty consistency. Add cooked spaghetti, mix, serve with a squeeze of lemon, and garnish with cilantro.

Happy Earth Day

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:04:00 GMT

beauty tips

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:35:28 GMT

When I was young, I read a lot of beauty magazines and books and there are some tips that I remember because they are pretty useful. I'm not sure if anyone knows them or not, but I have shared a few with some friends and they never heard of it. So, this is just a reminder for myself and also, hopefully, a bit helpful for whoever reads this blog. Haha, sometimes I wonder if there is a point in writing on xanga, who reads it? But I guess this is more of a reminder than anything else.

"Umm... Excuse me... You have lipstick/lipgloss... on your teeth..."
Who wants to hear that? It is embarassing and imagine how long you've been walking around, smiling at people like that, until finally someone had the guts/nerves/decency to tell you! To prevent this from happening to you, do NOT put on globs on lipgloss. When you talk or move your lips, the lipgloss will slide inside your lips and coat your teeth in something other than pearly white. But if you must layer on the lipgloss/lipstick, after application, stick your finger into your mouth, close your lips around your finger, and pull it out. Any excess lipgloss/lipstick that would have ended up on your teeth is now on your finger.

Flyaway Hairs
A quick and easy tip, that I often forget, is that if you have staticky hair and it is all sticking up, just get a piece of fabric softener and smooth it over your hair. It calms down most of your flyaways.

Fabric imprints/dents on nailpolish covered nails
Ever painted your nails before bed, had to wait for them to dry, and eventually, they seemed dry enough and you fell asleep? Then you wake up and find that your freshly lacquered nails now have an imprint of your bedsheets texture on them... Argh! What do you do? You already spent 30 mins or so, putting on a base coat, or not, painting two coats of color, then added a top coat... Do you really want to spend another 30 minutes re-doing your nails? Well, fear not! This beauty tip is on it's way. Just use nail polish remover.

First, fill the cap of the nail polish remover or a little container with the nail polish remover. Then dip the pad of one of your fingers into the nail polish remover and use your nail polish drenched finger pad to smooth over one of your dented nails. Feel free to re-dip into the nail polish remover and smooth over again. Use a LIGHT touch, you want the nail polish dents to just be smoothed over. When you have smoothed out the dents, the nail polish should look smooth but lackluster, to make your nails shiny again, just add another top coat, and voila! Your nails are pretty and shiny again! Free from fabric imprints... But to avoid the whole mess, just paint your nails earlier or at a time when you are not feeling sleepy. Also, using a fast-dry top coat really helps.

Raccoon Eyes
When using pencil eyeliner, especially on the bottom, after a few hours or so, you look in the mirror and find that your eyeliner has smudged/melted and you now have raccoon eyes... And no one had the decency to tell you!! To prevent this, of course, you could forgo the eyeliner all together but sometimes, you want to wear eyeliner. In this case, use liquid eyeliner.

However, if you have to use regular pencil eyeliner, after putting on your eyeliner, use a same color eyeshadow to cover over your eyeliner. The eyeshadow helps set the eyeliner so it will smudge/run less. You can also use liquid eyeliner over pencil eyeliner if you must insist on using pencil eyeliner first to line your eyes. Also, if you line your bottom lashes in eyeliner, besides using the previous tip, you can also dust on some more face powder under your bottom lash line to also help prevent melting/smudging of the eyeliner. This is something I did last night for a dinner party and when I got home and inspected my makeup, I found that there was minimal smudging that was only noticeable upon close inspection.

In a Pinch, Tinted Moisturizer
I'm not sure if everyone knows this or not, but if you don't... Sometimes you might wake up, wash your face, yaddy dah, then look in the mirror and find that your face looks really blotchy or uneven that day. Oh no! You don't have time to do your makeup, you might be like me and only wear makeup once in a while, and you don't really feel like letting everyone see you like this. I mean, sure, really who cares that much if you're a college student running back and forth to and from classes, you probably wouldn't even notice if someone in your class looked like that. But, if you are already going to put sunscreen or moisturizer on your face, regardless, of whether or not you normally put makeup on, if you have mineral powder foundation, just add a bit of that to your lotion. Put however much lotion/sunscreen (I usually use my Neutrogena face sunscreen for this)on your hand and add a bit of your foundation powder to that, mix and apply to your face. Hopefully, it will help even out your skin tone, while providing your face with moisture and possible more spf.

Well, that's all I can remember for now. If I remember more, I'll update with another post.

food list

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:45:14 GMT

Taken from http://heavenisatacotruck.blogspot.com/

Bold what you have eaten.

Mochi
Takoyaki
Chicken Heart
Natto (Go me! I just had maguro natto yesterday. It was very good. I want to try some more natto dishes next time I get the chance to )
Okonomiyaki
Fresh Wasabi
Red bean ice cream
Sochu
Kimchee
Bitter Melon (I hate it but I have tried it many times during my lifetime, hoping each time that I will like it.)
Raw Crab
Papaya Salad
Mangosteen
Black Egg
Pig's Blood Soup
Chicken Feet
Roti Canai
Wild Boar
Vietnamese Iced Coffee
Dosai
Turkish Coffee
Trappist Ale
Jamon Serrano or Jamon Iberico
Deep Fried Snickers
Moon Pie
Quail
Boiled Peanuts
Pickled Okra
Cracklin' Corn Bread
Turtle
Gizzard
Muffaletta
Homemade beer
Tacos from a taco truck
Menudo
Ceviche

friday night dinner

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:00:17 GMT

edamame with salt, ground pepper, and lemon juice.
uni with white rice (rice not depicted). when choosing uni, look for bright color and for roe that is intact and not 'smooshed'.

spaghetti mentaiko recipe
2 spicy cod roe sacks (mentaiko)
spaghetti
kewpie mayo
1/8 tbsp butter
water/chicken stock/heavy cream
lemon juice (optional)
shredded nori (optional)

boil the spaghetti as instructions says to.
while spaghetti is boiling, take out two spicy cod roe sacks and slit it open. scrap out the roe with a spoon until it is empty, repeat with the second sack.
when pasta is done, drain and set aside.
add butter to the pot/pan, melt and add the roe.
stir it around, add mayo (eyeball it, add a little at a time).
add your liquid (water/chicken stock/heavy cream). i used water, no set amount. eyeball it. you want the sauce to be just thick enough to evenly coat the pasta.
put the pasta back into the pot and toss it with the sauce evenly.

serve with shredded nori and side of lemon wedge. i liked it better with the lemon juice because i thought it was a bit heavy for me, good thing i didn't use the heavy cream but if you like rich foods, the heavy cream and omission of lemon juice would probably be tastier to you.

sending this out to the cosmic universe...

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 07:57:27 GMT

why is it so hard to find happiness? i guess, happiness isn't obtainable. maybe people have to work towards being happy. i just want to be happy, or even content. but inside, i am sad and sick of this life. i know i'm always saying that i'm sick of this life. i just really want to be happy. why is happiness is damn fleeting? i feel like the past 20 years of my life, or the past 18 years of consciousness was pretty nice, for the most part. or at least pretty happy until the past 5-6 years ago. sure, even as a grade school kid, i felt neglected and wished my parents would just pay attention to me. i wish that i could eat dinner with them every night like how the families on tv did. but i did love those sundays when my parents spent time with my brother and me, or is it i? anyways, for a while things had a sort of rhythm but the rhythm got messed up.

is it that easy to fall in love with someone? i guess for some people it is.

what exactly am i working for? what is the point to all this? i just want to know. am i going to be successful? i don't mean making a lot of money. i would even be fine without any luxury items like designer bags if i were happy and content with my life. i always think that this life is temporary, that my real life, the next chapter or whatever, will start when i get married and have kids. but will doing those things make me happy? or will i be even more sadden because i will find out that those things don't bring happiness. i am grateful for what i have. i am grateful that i have a job and can afford to go out to eat once in a while and go shopping for fun, or rather retail therapy. i am luckier than a lot of people, i contest to that but i also feel very miserable a lot of times. i guess everyone feels miserable and alone once in a while.

gosh, what is the point in staying in this house? there are 4 bedrooms and only half of them are occupied most of the time. sometimes my grandma stays over but still, it is usually just me and my brother. just the two of us occupying this house that encompasses a pretty big living room, a dining room, a breakfast room, and a nice kitchen. when grandma isn't home, we're lazy and eat microwave food or canned food. well, at least i know i do. i usually have half a can of soup with a egg thrown in. i could make food, but if my brother isn't home or isn't hungry, i really don't feel like spending all that time and effort to make something because 90% of the time, if i am cooking for myself, i am full by the time i finish cooking. not really full, maybe full off the smells, or maybe i have starved for so long that i am no longer hungry. but i force myself to eat anyways.

this existence feels so... undescribable. even though, i say all these things, i lack the courage to do the things that i want to do. so it doesn't even really mean anything when i says these things because i can't, or rather i won't, do the things to change my circumstances because i lack the means and i feel obligated to continue this way. what i'm saying probably doesn't make sense. i bet a lot of people would think that i am very lucky and am being selfish but... oh well. those people aren't here now. i just had to tell somebody how i was feeling and xanga, you're the only one i could talk to right now. i mean talk to and calm down in a faster manner than if i were to talk to a living human being and end up getting even more emotional.

good-bye.

Grammar [does not] Rock..

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 07:45:58 GMT

...at least not when you feel like you haven't learned anything at all about grammar during high school.

A week or two ago, I watched all the School House Rock! Grammar videos on youtube. If only the show was still on but targeted towards the type of grammar that college grammar professors make you learn... Like... how to differentiate between an adjectival prepositional phrase and an adverbial prepositional phrase...

Adjectical Prep. Phrase:

The purple hair, looking fabulous on Martha's head, won the best hair color award.

Averbial Prep. Phrase:

We took a breath, for a minute.

:( I wish I just picked these things up easily...

Anyways, I just spent half an hour uploading all the assignments and readings that I have to do for the rest of the quarter onto my google calendar, that way, I won't forget any assignments. Yay for google, that and I have a g1 so it would make sense to do that. I also reinstalled google desktop and am only keeping the google calendar widget on my desktop so I can see my daily assignments/to-do's once I turn on my desktop.

Anyways, enough about boring school. Here's an interesting/weird story:

On Saturday, I went to my friend Brian's birthday get together and around 11 pm when people were starting to dwindle down to just a handful or two, I started getting coughy and sniffly.

When I left and got in the car around 12:30 am, I started coughing a lot. Once I got home, did all the stuff to get ready in bed, and finally got in bed, I started getting chills and coughing a lot.

During my sleep, I even woke up once hacking and coughing away soooo hard that tonsil stones flew out of my tonsil crevices and onto my hand. It was gross and disgusting but I was tired so I just wiped it on the side of my bed, near the wall. For those who never had tonsil stones, if you don't squash it and make a smelly mess, tonsil stones, when left alone, will dry up and turn into little clear yellowish/orangish tiny piece of sand looking things.

Anyways, when I woke up on Sunday, I had egg on toast and cheese (Thanks Jerry!) and then I went to work. Within 30 minutes, my tummy started to hurt... By 45 minutes of being at work, my tummy was hurting even more and I felt nauseous. It was such a strange feeling, it felt like it was burning inside my tummy. By 50 minutes, I was getting up with the urge to gag every 2 minutes. Finally at 60 minutes, I told my employer that I felt sick and asked if I could go home.

After she said she would get my paycheck, I went to the restroom and FINALLY barfed. Afterwards, I felt better and well enough to drive home. I drove home and felt fine and within 15 minutes of being at home and trying to go to sleep, my tummy started hurting sooo much that I couldn't sleep; that burning feeling came back again. Finally, after who knows how long, I went to sleep after some crying and lots of tossing and turning.

When I woke up around 4:30 pm, I asked Jerry to get me Chicken Porridge from the Pho Ga place that I like on Garvey. I devoured the whole thing and felt better. Then for dinner we went to Vietnam House for 7 course beef and I ate a lot.

Then I had egg pudding from Phoenix. Oh no! I forgot about that! I shall eat it tomorrow

Yep, that's my first interesting gross story of 2009. Okay, back to studying for grammar Nooooo! Save me!