Wednesday, January 25, 2012

First baking post

About a month ago, I baked a cake for my dear friend's birthday surprise party. A few years ago my sister got me the recipe book for the bakery, Tartine, in San Francisco which I love! I finally decided to try my hand at one of the recipes, the Devil's Food Layer Cake. It was SUPPOSED to look like this:
It was WAY less labor intensive as I feared and also kind of fun. Baking is definitely a destressor for me but until I get to live in my own house, it's still kind of stressful (with my mom breathing down my neck and telling me that I have too much of everything or I'm making a mess).
What the bakery's looks like
ANYWHO, the cake ended up looking like this:

At my house right after adding the crumbs
After my friends decided to dress it up and add a cute little flower... I think it looks great!
It was a HUGE hit! I was super happy mostly because I did only 2 layers instead of 4 and cut down on the sugar a lot. If you want to know the recipe... let me know!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Dream recap#2

My most vivid dream last night? Started out with just panels of the cartoon "Luann." I'm guessing you're wondering why on earth would "Luann" even be in subconscious... Well. The truth? I still read the comics section of the newspaper (read: real newspaper, San Jose Mercury News) everyday. Or at least I try. Judge me all you want but I've been doing since I was a wee child. Okay maybe since I could read. And my favorites have been "Calvin and Hobbes" (before Bill Watterson stopped writing new ones for the paper in 1995) and "Garfield" (which I actively searched for in the library for my one "fun" book when my mom would allow me one out of the fifteen she made me read over the summer. Okay fifteen is an exaggeration but that's what it felt like).

Anyway, "Luann" hasn't been a favorite per se, but I do enjoy how she basically has aged over time with me. And she went through her boy issues with Aaron, Gunther, and others (now an Aussie which I think is hilarious!) kind of the same time I went through mine so yeah. I identify with a cartoon character who is apparently completely fictional, go ahead and judge.

Back to the dream. Honestly, all I can remember was the fact that it started out with what seems like now just zoom-ins on different panels of the cartoon but over the time span of my dream, the characters became animated and Brad Degroot and Toni Daytona were having a fight and T.J. and I were off on the side making "peanut gallery" type commentary. Luann was there too but mostly just as a wall character watching everything happen.

Then I woke up. I know this wasn't that captivating but it was just weird to me that I dreamed in comic strip format AND it's my first dream that I can remember dreaming in black and white... Ah the interwebs. The place to document my firsts.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Week 1 at school done!

Call me a nerd, a crazy person, whatever but I LOVE CAÑADA COLLEGE! Seriously. De Anza can suck the big one. They put me such crazy beaurocratic crap that I will honestly never try to go there again. Unless I have a real hankering to put myself through torture again or I really have no where else I can swim. Anywho, to continue with my love affair of Cañada...


Why do I love this college so? Let me count the ways:
1. Everything that De Anza made me do over WEEKS (and by the way they still have not gotten back to me about this one thing) Cañada finished in a few hours. A FEW HOURS. AND they had me meet with a counselor (because I needed to get my prerequisites signed off) and he was super helpful and even told me about how I should apply to the nursing program because more than likely I'll get in. 
2. I have class Thursday nights and I went to the bookstore to buy this stupid thing for chem, and this girl stopped me to hand me a flyer and said something. However, of course my hearing is terrible so I said, "Sorry what?" And she repeated, "Do you want a free pork bun and tea? We're celebrating Chinese New Year!" UHM... YES PLEASE. I then asked the nice folks freezing in the rain if they were a part of some club (and if they said yes I would've asked if I could join because comon... free food?) but they're not! The student government/the school itself fronted the money for this! Oh there's more. Every month on the third Thursday, they have free food! EVERY MONTH. 
3. My very first class guess what my teacher is? SCOTTISH. It's like they knew that I needed/was missing that aspect of education (the tuning my ear to different accents).
4. They qualified me for the BOG Waiver (Board of Governors.. I think)... which means I don't have to pay too many registration fees! They understand that I'm poor and just because I live in Los Altos with my parents doesn't mean that I'm inherently wealthy... Stupid De Anza and their senseless zip code discrimination.


.... I can't think of anything else right now but needless to say, I LOVE IT! I mean it's going to be difficult since I'm taking a max load but what can you do? I'm poor and don't have a career. Back to school right? Isn't that the cry of our generation?

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Dream recap#1

So let me start this one off by saying, I have crazy vivid dreams. Okay well everyone dreams (don't say you don't, you do but you just don't remember them) but I dream very vividly and with a ton of color. Oh and I've only had 2 nightmares in my life that I can remember. I have never had a recurring dream that I can remember. I know. I'm weird.

So one of my dreams last night (and also you dream multiple dreams a night but usually only remember one or two, so I've heard from psychologists) was definitely set in Cupertino but it didn't look like it. Well it was on Stevens Creek and Tantau or whatever that street that Cupertino High is on but yeah. I was driving in my former burgundy old school Ford Explorer along this road on my way home blasting music and singing along. Of course in my own dream, I was amazing at singing and was rocking it. But then I got this call from my dad saying be careful. And then the next thing I remember in my dream is feeling very creeped out and weird. The street was completely empty. So I say it didn't look like Cupertino because it definitely was Stevens Creek but there was a big hill that I had to go up and down. As my car was climbing up the hill I saw a kid on the side of a street. Let me clarify, this kid was a boy, no more than 14. As I got closer I realized that he had a rifle in his hand so I slunk down in my seat as far as I could but still able to see over the dashboard. This was near the top of the hill. Then as I passed him I said to myself, "What the eff is a kid doing out of school with a gun? What the hell is going on?" But then as I was going down the hill I saw a line of people by on the street being herded by a bunch of other kids, boys and girls alike, around the same age all with semi-automatic guns. Some were handguns, but most were uzis and stuff. I decided to turn on the news and heard about some kids who went crazy over unfair homework load and other issues and decided to round up their teachers and kill them. It was happening in Cupertino but I kept hearing Oakland in my dream. I was super confused until I think I got home and finally it somehow became clear that the "movement" started in Oakland and had just made it's way down to the South Bay because of the Asian kids being super overstressed and realizing that this wasn't the way education should happen. Oh I forgot to say that the kids were also shooting at cars that looked like they had adults driving them which was another reason why I slunk down in my car (so I'd look like a kid) and there was a weird moment of the kid looking into my car and trying to decide if I was an adult or not.

Would you classify that as a nightmare? I guess so? I wasn't all that scared I guess? The two nightmares I've had are MUCH worse. Maybe another day I'll write about those too...

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

2 blogs in one night!

So, tonight I had a revelation while a friend was talking during small group. What is small group? It's a group of people from my church, in this case all females, who get together once a week (besides the large group meeting on Sunday hence the name small group), to talk about the Bible, share about our lives, and give/receive encouragement (in many different forms). Basically, a life-coaching group. It's awesome. Everyone should have one.

Tangent: Earlier today I caught up with a dear, dear friend of mine and I had a different revelation. Small groups to me is kind of how God intended for church to be... no? Like in Acts? When people met in homes and such and then got together in larger groups to have a bigger community? 


Anyway, my revelation/encouragement that I got tonight was that I think I am on the right track. Even though effing De Anza has been putting me through the ringer about my residency status and class prerequisites and I am confused about where I'm going in my life, my base-line for why I'm doing this all is steady and the same. So what spurred me to think this? Basically my church is reading the Bible from cover to cover together. (I think... that's how I understood it anyway). So we are starting in Genesis (obviously) and when God was forming the Earth as we know it*, in the Bible it says that Adam and Eve were to "rule" over all living things and to "subdue it." The way I saw/interpreted it was that they were supposed to be benevolent rulers, not destroyers. They were supposed to care and cultivate all the living things. But now, as time marches on, all we humans do (it seems like) is destroy it. How many species have gone extinct? I don't think scientists can accurately count because I'm almost 100% positive that we do not have the same fauna and flora as was when the earth began (no matter if you think the earth was created by the Big Bang or by intelligent design). So, God was all about (social) justice from the beginning! He wanted His one creation, humans, to love, cherish, and see the beauty of His other creations and to rule with/by love. But all we have done is destroy, destroy, destroy. So my life purpose (or what I think my life purpose is anyway), to change peoples' minds and lives for the better, is somewhat solidified in this revelation. I have been put here to encourage to live healthy lives, not just for people, but for our planet too!

Le sigh.

Start fresh, start clean

Yes. This is my fourth blogspot blog that I'm starting. Excessive? Probably. Necessary? Not really. Do I care what you think? Not completely. But anywho, this, unlike my other blogs, is less with a direction and clear focus. "Yeah, I win stuff" is about shows and things that I win (in efforts to try to get radio stations and other companies to start giving me more stuff to blog about how wonderful they are... it's failing). Then I have my 2 travely type blogs about ZA and Ireland. This blog will be almost entirely just be about my life and things that I'm thinking.

Almost entirely? I lie. Completely is what I meant to say.

So if you think I'm pretentious for starting a blog about my life because you think it's because I think that I'm awesome and people should know who I am, you're wrong. I'm doing this to keep me in check. I'm publicly declaring certain things in my life and later when if something happens that pertains to something prior, I'll have my blog (and possibly your comments) to refer back to; to see how much I have grown (or not), to examine my life choices and ensure that they have been well informed (or not), and ... yeah. You see where I'm going with this.

So what will I write about? Possibly my baking adventures (but there are SO many way better blogs out there about this these will probably be few and far between unless I absolutely rock something), my opinions about things, life revelations, shortcomings, rants, raves... etc. So read on if you really want to, and don't if you don't. Also, I will exercise my right to delete/block certain people/comments if I see fit. After all, "it's my liiiiiiiiife" (I'm singing that along the melody of that Backstreet Boys song.)