Non-stop eating!
Had lots of food this long weekend.... family party at my house on Thursday night, Alan's family party at his house on Friday night, and then of course leftovers... I love eating leftover honey baked ham... toss it in a frying pan, let it fry and burn the edges, cook an over-hard egg, and eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner!

Lots of shows this weekend too!
My family and I saw the Stephen Sondheim musical A Little Night Music at the Post Street theater in SF on Friday. My mom got some free tickets from her company, so we went to see it. The only song I knew was "Send in the Clowns", but it was good anyway.

Then on Saturday morning, we all went to see the movie Love Actually. Sweet, sweet movie about different kinds of love. I love Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. =)

Then on Saturday night, Kitchie, Damon, Alan, and I went to see Alegria which is the Cirque du Soleil production that is playing in SF right now. It was in a huge tent in the middle of the Pacific Bell Park parking lot. It was a great show, with different acrobatic-type performances, clowns, and live music. I definitely recommend it. Now I want to see the other shows, like the ones in Vegas!

What? Me not shop on the biggest shopping day of the year??
Yup. I didn't go to ONE store the day after Thanksgiving, or the next, or the next. No shopping for me this past weekend. I'm very proud of my self-control :) hehe.

Rain Rain Go Away
Come again another day.

Turkey Day celebration!
This past Saturday, Alan and I went to a Thanksgiving dinner with all our friends from SCU. There were about 20 of us, and it was nice because it was a sit-down dinner, 2 tables of 10 each. Christina and Nelson hosted it in their house in SF and we had turkey, ham, potatoes, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies, pie, wine, and other good food!! The rest of the night was spent singing karaoke, comparing everyone's scores, and then doing guy group vs. girl group karaoke. I think the girls won every round ;). Good night of friends, food, and fun. Check out the pics!

Job's going well
It's great to be working again!! I feel like I do a lot during the day, compared to before, where I would just be at home watching TV and eating. Plus I think I've lost a couple of the pounds I gained while slumming around. I think I'm pretty used to the every day commute (unless there's an accident and it takes more than 2 hours!), and I got my FasTrak sensor in the mail. Plus, today is my first payday! :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
I noticed that 96.5FM KOIT plays all Christmas music now. I love the feeling you get when you hear Christmas music. I love this time of year! Plus, the air is getting a little colder... reminds me of my year in New York.

Vegas in January
I'm going on a girls-only Vegas trip at the end of January with my girlfriends from SCU. Notice I said MY, and not ALAN'S. Yes, they're my friends too... It's great to have different groups of friends to hang out with. Anyway, we're going during the last weekend of January... none of us girls realized it was Superbowl weekend until later! Oh well. I'm not that into football anyway... If it was World Series time, then I'd have to think about it :)

Happy Thanksgiving all! Have a great long weekend!

New Job!
I started my new job at Celera Diagnostics yesterday! I really like the company and the work I'm gonna be doing. I had a couple of glitches with my email and my accounts... since I worked at Celera Genomics last year, my old account was still active, so it got all confused. But most of it is sorted out now. I have a cubicle (well not really a cubicle with 3 walls, more like a section with a desk - with someone right next to me separated by a divider), but it's next to the window! I look outside and see the fountain right in front of our building... very refreshing.

Lunch!
My boss took us out to lunch yesterday for sushi! I think that's the first time I went to a Japanese restaurant and only ate sushi and no other food. I ordered my favorite - Philadelphia Roll - and we ordered some other stuff like the Lambada Roll, Island Roll, and Spider Roll. I really liked the Island Roll - with salmon on top and tempura inside. Yummmmm....

The commute!
So far the commute to work isn't too bad... around 50minutes to 1 hr, traffic on 101 towards the bay bridge. The commute home yesterday was the worst!! I think it took me about 2 hours to get home... probably because of the 49ers game. Today wasn't too bad... around 1 hour. I might try taking BART/AC Transit to work and back home one day. My company has commuter checks, which will pay for public transportation expenses (50% of total commute expenses) up to $100. So I won't be too stressed out and I can read books on my way to work!

Diploma & Frame
I officially have my master's degree, as seen by the diploma and frame that I got in the mail today... Now I just have to make room on the wall next to our CAL diplomas.

Nemo!
I just watched Finding Nemo and it's soooo cute!! The animation is amazing and the story flows so well! Lots of suspense... I even yelled outloud during a couple of parts... Definitely worth renting or buying! I want a big Nemo stuffed animal now!

Non-stop eating
Seems like I've been eating and eating all weekend... First was Nick & Diep's wedding... What a great day! Lots of surprises and touching moments, and food of course!! A ?-course meal at Mayflower Restaurant in Milpitas! So much good food.
On Sunday, Alan and I went over to our friends' (Nelson & Christina) house in San Francisco for dinner with one of my high school/college friends (Regina) who is in town for a couple weeks from UCSD Med School. We caught up on our lives, looked at wedding pictures, and got some tips for Regina's wedding next year! It's great to see old friends and feel like nothing has changed!

Today, my mom, Heidi, my Auntie Syv, Lolo, and Lola went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch - we had walnut prawns, beef with oyster sauce, sweet & sour rock cod, chicken corn soup, and fried rice!!! Yummmmm....

Treadmill Mishap
So I tried to run on the treadmill this morning (to try to work off all that food!) and as soon as I started running, I knew something was off... With every step, my footing seemed unstable, like I was landing wrong or something. I just kept running and something happened to the treadmill's rotating belt and I literally fell down and hurt my wrist. It hurt like hell, I pulled the emergency cord to make it stop and I got up. I called my sister and she said sometimes it happens and that Damon would know how to fix it. I should have trusted my first instincts and stopped - so I haven't run in 3 days and I really want to! Who knew running would be this addicting...

The search is over!
After two months of looking for a job back here in the bay, I accepted a great offer at Celera Diagnostics in Alameda! I'm really excited to start working again, especially in this position. The people are cool, it's a nice building near the water, and the work they're doing is really interesting. The only thing is the commute... about 50 minutes each way, crossing the Bay Bridge. Needless to say, I ordered a FasTrak sensor, so I don't have to worry about finding $2 for toll everyday! My start date is Monday, November 17th, so I'm enjoying my last few days of 'vacation'!

Spookalicious 2003
Halloween was fun this year! Alan and I went to a costume party at our friends' (Nate & Michele) condo in San Francisco. All of us dressed up in costume, had food and drinks, played card games, and then walked around the streets of San Francisco going into some of the bars and seeing different people in costumes! Then we went back to their place and watched Nightmare on Elm Street. I fell asleep and missed some of the action... Apparently one of our friends was really sick and had a little accident. Nonetheless, it was a fun night! I love getting dressed up!

Click here to see our pics!

Baby Shower!
My mom, Alan, and I went to my aunt's baby shower on Sunday... They had lots of good food and a whole bunch of games!! One was a safety pin game (similar to the clothespin game at bridal showers). You can't say the word 'baby' or else someone can steal your safety pin from you. Whoever has the most by the end, wins! They changed it up every hour, so the rules changed... like one hour, you can't touch your stomach. I even got to steal my mom's!

Other games were baby word Taboo, guess the animal (they gave us the names of baby animals and we had to guess what animal it was), cotton soup (pick up as many cotton balls with a soup ladle into a bowl - blindfolded!), put a diaper on the 'baby' (the babies were grown adults, so it was really funny!), a baby-naming contest (they told us to give suggestions for their baby's name - had to start with "G"). It was pretty fun!