i've been having the worst days. from a parking ticket, to the wrong coxital thingy for my cable receptor, to putting together my bookshelf wrong, to cutting myself while putting together my incorrect bookshelf. it just hasn't been my days. the eternal optimist in me wishes to believe that if i've had bad days, then the better ones are to come. and ... WHAT?! okay thoughts are interrupted and i have to say, i HATE comcast, fucking bastards. i call them to straighten things out and somehow they managed to CANCEL our internet?! THE HELL IS WRONG with those customer service reps?! UGH, i'm frustrated. this semester has NOT been going well.

a bit of homesickness you're already a freaking junior in college you've done this twice already. why does it always get to me, why do i have to miss home so much on the first night, why is it i cannot get over home, los angeles, southern california? i feel like a big baby sometimes, i just want to crawl under my blanket and weep endlessly.

i am complaining. as usual.

this summer i realized many things.

i realized that i like mangoes more than strawberries. i realized that i dislike many books because i don't have an english teacher behind me to tell me all the underlying themes and hidden intricacies that lie in most literature. i realized i took living with my parents for granted. i realized i like diet pepsi better than diet coke. i realized that i cannot get sick of the brea mall. i realized that renting movies at the 94 cent store (dvds are $2.50) is way cheaper than renting movies at blockbuster. i realized i want to be fluent in chinese. i realized i should have continued with spanish.

i realized i don't want to go to law school. i realized that a masters in journalism is much more appealing to me. i realized how much i adore fashion. i realized sleeping at midnight makes me feel more alive the next day. i realized i hate losing control. i realized i never finish my battles. i realized how much i miss bookstores. i realized how much i don't mind traffic if i'm going to work at a place i love. i realized just how much i truly love los angeles. i realized that i'm even more than terrified of moving to new york to pursue a career in magazines.

i realized how much i love cucumbers. i realized how lucky i am to have been given all i have asked for. i realized how much i've grown from last summer. i realized that my new favorite color is pink. i realized the warmth of old friends and the comfort of the new ones. i realized that sometimes it's okay to lean on others, i realized that i cannot do everything by myself, i realized that in the end, all i want is to be taken care of.

this is my last day of work reflection, shh, i just don't want to pack any more boxes and i'm really looking forward to our CPK lunch.

last day of work tomorrow. i'm sad, i absolutely love my job. i have to document this because i hope it's not the last time i ever utter the words "i love my job".

sex, lies, and dawson's creek i have a guilty pleasure. i should admit now that i'm a sucker for the WB. ever since dawson's creek premiered six years ago, the WB has lured me into its lineup of teen shows - felicity, charmed, smallville, hell i even watched hyperion bay and that one show eddie cahill was in for like three episodes!

but there's something about dawson's creek. the storyline, the teen angst, all the sexual innuendo at the time it first aired, it was like, my life exaggerated, or the life i wanted? i don't quite know; but i do know that i have tapes and tapes of dawson's creek episodes which i play every so often i'm home because it reminds me of my quest to have the one perfect kiss, the one perfect date, and the dawson and joey romance that captivated me from the very beginning.

damn, now i lost my train of thought. talking on AIM and blogging doesn't work for me simultaneously.

driver of the shuttle (i shuttle to and from work, parking lot is about seven blocks away from main office): "hey, so you surf?"
me: (i thought he said "serve", the music was on a bit loud in the shuttle) "excuse me?"
driver: "surf, you know, in the water?"
me: "haha oh, no, i don't, i wish i did."
driver: "oh really? you look like a surfer."
me: "umm, thanks?"

i take it as a compliment. shoot, i'd love to look surfer-ish.

this 100 degree heat reminds me of

ice cold lemonade, slurpees from 7-11, sticky red dirt from the softball field, david's sunflower seeds, pools, searching neighboring hills for the perfect shaded dirt track to race our BMX bikes on, watermelon, summer, childhood ... childhood.

i don't remember where i was going to go with that, but regardless of the heat, i still love summer. because, for the first time in seven years, i have not been in any kind of school (no summer school, no SAT school, heck, no driving school either!), but sadly, like everything else, it all has to come to an end. i'll be back in berkeley around the 22nd or so, weeee fun. sense the sarcasm?

i should have taken spanish literature.

III.
ideas sin palabras,
palabras sin sentido;
cadencias que no tienen
ni ritmo ni compas;

-becquer

III.
ideas without words,
words without feeling,
cadences without rhythm;

photo shoots are the best.

1. catered food. that speaks for itself. fresh orange juice, coffee, fruit, brownies, bagels, lox, mini sandwiches ... yeah, so basically i ate for five hours straight.

2. music. normally, i wouldn't like to hear trance/dance/pop-ish tunes constantly, but for the occasion, it just brightened the mood.

3. fitting in. seriously, i never felt left out, never felt looked down upon, never felt as if i weren't an equal.

4. the people. they were all sweethearts.

5. make-up and hair. studying them do it teaches me how to improve on how i can put make up on and blow dry my hair.

6. the clothes. a rack of gorgeous shirts, jackets, pants, sweaters! and five boxes of jewelry!

7. the aura. erika, this is what you want to see every now and then for the rest of your life.

i usually try to refrain from complaining in my own blog but this deserves it.

i took my godmother (okay fine, technically she's not really my godmother but screw technicalities) out today around socal, well, just brea. so we sipped coffee, walked around the mall where she bought the shirt i wanted (i didn't let her know that but she knows now, haha, it's all good), and caught a movie. BAD IDEA. whoever in the world thought that johnny depp as a pirate is attractive must seriously be attracted to men in rags, grease, and a horrible sense of black eyeshadow. i swear, during the entire movie, jihye and i kept looking at each other, shaking our heads in disgust. and as she looked at her watch and saw that there was still forty minutes left, i wanted to crawl under the seats. as my witty godmother put it, it must have been a bunch of drunk or high guys who came up with the idea for this movie because they took one retarded idea (pirates) and just created stupider ideas from that. FINE, i'll admit one thing. when orlando bloom cleaned himself up and at the last scene in the movie where he's wearing that cool feather hat, he didn't look half bad. better than the gay pirate captain jack sparrow otherwise known as johnny depp.

i will not laugh anymore at seabiscuit which is obviously a better quality movie.