Thursday, June 29, 2006
i'm in london now
and having eaten and drunk… drinked? i dunno… at any rate we had dinner and drinks on the thames river and that was cool… overlooking the tower bridge and the tower of london and a cool naval museum housed on a boat. i have pictures but i’ll have to post ‘em later.
anyways, as i was saying, having eaten and drunked =), i am now ready for bed at 1:19 am.
toodles!
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update: why’d i wake up at 6am? i dunno, but here i am, awake, so i thought i’d post pics. (btw, all of these are links to larger images)
the “old wellington inn and restaurant” building is the oldest one on record in manchester, dating back to 1552. it was cute… small on the inside, but a nice large outdoor dining area. we stopped by for a few minutes on our walking tour of manchester, right before we took off for london
the tower of london is this old historical place which houses the crown jewels and was where ann boleyn was killed or something or other… it’s on our list of things to see, after which i’ll be able to talk a little bit more intelligently about it, but it was also our meeting point to find the keys to the ‘flat’ where we’re staying, just down the road… yup, we’re staying on tower road!
tower bridge… apparently this is the bridge that the US thought they were buying when they bought london bridge (y’know, the one at lake havasu!) hahahah… what suckers we are…
eating on the thames with tower bridge and the guerkin building behind us. i’m with marlene and HJ (pauline’s flatmate, aka our tour guide)
obligatory night time pic of the bridge
marlene sitting on the wall of the thames…
me on the wall of the thames
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
here in england
first leg of my journey: manchester, UK
the flight… so tiring! this is how we both looked after both flights:
and then we walked all over manchester. and i mean, we walked ALL OVER manchester. just the main parts of town, but still. we went back and forth and saw the museum and the library and the urbis and a whole buncha other stuff, we hit up everything that was in the tourist guide book.
this is a cool building we saw looking for the urbis
and chris and i got to stick up a photo on the wall inside the museum. leaving our mark, y’know?
anyways, i dropped chris off at the station around 4 so that he can go on to visit elsa in germany, and now i’m all alone. i went to a play entitled “she stoops to conquer” in this cool building
but y’know, i think i was just so tired from all the traveling i kept on drifting off to sleep… my head was nodding =) hahahahaha… seriously, since monday noon, i’ve only had about 3 2-hour naps at the most! i slept 2 hours on monday night/tuesday morning, and about 2 hours on the first plane, and two hours on the second plane, and now it’s almost 4pm PST on wednesday… so that would be almost 46 hours? yeah… i’ve been awake that long… yikes!
anyways, the only other thing to report is that their damn accent that makes them sound so cool makes it incredibly hard for us to understand each other. i don’t know if i’ve talked to anyone without having to say, “sorry? could you repeat that?”
at one point we bought an ice cream bar and then asked the girl, “so what’s cool to do around here?” and she stared at us blankly, nudged her co-worker, and whispered, “you gotta help ‘em! i don’t understand what they’re saying!”
oh wow… they can’t understand me either!
maybe after i sleep a little it’ll all get better =)
Thursday, June 22, 2006
update on my life, summer 2006
yes… it -is- four in the morning.
luckily i don’t have to be up for anything! tomorrow…
this is my summer break. with the exception of wednesday night dinners, where i (true to filipino form) cook for a ton of people who come over and hang out with me in return for the free food, i don’t really have any responsibilities.
last year, this time of year, although it was nice, well… it also drove me crazy!!! here i was with all this free time! i could go on trips for long weekends! i could leave on thursday and be back by monday night (when i had classes at ucr). and i would say - “hey! come out with me, you-person-that-has-a-job!”
it never worked. people had these things called “jobs” and they had to be “responsible” and and they always had to “be somewhere”. pshaw!!! they couldn’t just run off with me… and those that could run off with me, well, they could do that cuz they didn’t have a job… but that also meant that they hadn’t had a job so they had no money to accompany me. it rather sucked. i spent most of my days cooped up in my house (cuz seriously, would you go outside in -that- heat?!?!?), and i would wait for nighttime to roll around…
and then at night, i HAD to go to UCR for summer school. bleah… that’s the worst thing - to be free for dozens of hours with no one to spend that time with, and then to get busy the moment they’re free. on a side note, that was also the sucky thing about being a waitress when the rest of your friends worked nine-to-five’s, cuz it was pretty much the same thing - i was home all day but then go work at night when my roommates got home. yuck!
SOO.... (and this would be the part where the aforementioned long-awaited update is!) anyways, SOO.... i decided this summer would be different. with no summer school to attend, and pretty much the entire summer free, i decided i would do something that i’ve wanted to do ALL MY LIFE!
I’M UP AND GOIN’ TO SPAIN!!!
that’s right… i’m gonna live in europe! well… live there for six weeks, if you wanna get technical about it. growing up, i heard my dad’s stories of his adventures swimming the mediterranean, etc, and i always thought it’d be cool to travel and rack up stories of my own =) and those of you who’ve known me for quite a while will know that i’ve tried everything to move outta loma linda! every year it was a new place - whether i was trying to get a “job” (a loosely used term because they weren’t gonna pay me at all!) in the philippines, or go to taiwan for the summer, or teach math in english in japan, i was -always- on the move. i think part of the reason philippines and japan fell thru was because no matter how adventurous i was, i wasn’t gonna quit my job for something temporary in another country that would leave me more in debt than when i started. that was not my idea of how jobs were s’posed to work.
but see… spain is perfect for me now! i have a job - and i will have a job when i come back! that’s the beauty of being a teacher! i’m old enough and wise enough *hopefully* to take care of myself in another country. i’ve lived in ecuador and so therefore i speak spanish - so i won’t be so lost running around spain all by myself.
oh wait, i didn’t mention that? yeah… i’m going alone! i bought my tickets on sale (only $585 from lax-manchester!) and i emailed all my friends and invited them to join me. marlene will be with me for the first week and she’ll come back july 6, but i’ll be gallivanting around until august 8. yup! you heard me right! i’m leaving next week (june 27) and i’ll be back august 8!! that’s 6 weeks exact!
everyone asks - “what are you gonna do there - teach?” and no - the answer simply is, i’m gonna live there! my grand plan: find a house where i can live/rent out a room, wake up, lounge around, go down to the beach, come back and sit in a cafe, siesta, maybe hit up a museum or some other cultural touristy thing, and then go out at night. go to bed, sleep, and then repeat! doesn’t it sound great? =)
so… keep in touch… email me… i got an international cell phone and i’ll be posting my number as soon as i get a sim card - please call me and make sure i’m still alive! email me and comment on my blogs and my pictures! send me info/links to any cool things you think i might be able to see while in spain! basically, keep in touch and keep me grounded in reality so i actually come back - i know that’s what you’re thinking - that i’ll go there and never come back ‘states-side’ =)
anyways, if you would like to come celebrate the start of summer, or have a fare-well party for me, then you can swing by my place this saturday afternoon/night, so that you can swim, barbecue, play cranium, boggle, and catchphrase, and then end the night with poker! i would love to see you…
Monday, June 19, 2006
grove graduation
my first batch of seniors graduated… 8 of them from my mentor group - chris pine, andrew palmer, emily okon, carynn, shelby, & mallory, and jesse morgan.
i got to wear my master’s robe and hood, which was cool - i was one of the few of my classmates who actually bought my robe instead of renting it, but it comes in handy once a year when i’m supposed to be distinguished =)
anyways, here are a few pics:
amy, carynn, me, and mallory
courtney, the other kim (and the cowboy hat she wore all graduation long), and jesse alford
chris pine, carynn, and tom celebrating before the ceremony
some over-excited under-dressed fans of logan’s and phil’s
trying to get sarah to smile… i took a few unsavory ones (she was giving me the finger for trying to take her picture) but we finally got her to smile! that’s carynn, amy, and mike waggoner surrounding the student who always called me “asian”. guess what i called her?! =)
april flowers… post-ceremony, post-reception, with her shoes in hand…
that’s exactly how i felt like walking around - but then i had to follow the truck back to the school and unload all the chairs… what do you call a fifteen-hour workday?! *sigh* i just wanted to go home and collapse…
and last, but not least, the video of my students who were helping to clean the reception hall. doing a great job, weren’t they?
Monday, June 12, 2006
darlene graduates
yesterday there was a whole buncha graduation stuff to do… i skipped the graduations in the moring, but i attended the baccalaureate service for rhs, rev, and grove high school in the afternoon. it was sorta nice, but since our school has 30 seniors compared to the hundreds or thousands of students at the other two schools, i only knew a small portion of the students involved.
afterwards, i went to darlene’s graduation party. all the cousins took a picture, here they are: allan, darlene, jessica, gigi, and perry.
and for those of you who know mike sarsoza, here he is with his 2 1/2 year old daughter kayla, whose chubby cheeks are so adorable it makes me wanna squeeze her…
Sunday, June 11, 2006
new favorite comics
i’ve been checking comics online at united media since… hmm… since i graduated college in 2001! but while i was bored last night, i found some real gems that i’d never read before. wow… i’ve missed out on 5 years of sarcastic humor and just general dorkiness =) you can bet they’ll be on my list of stuff to check everyday from now on.
here are some good ones…
f minus
this one was pretty good, too, and while i probably -shouldn’t- be laughing at some of them cuz i’m a teacher, they’re just so refreshingly irreverent =) hahahahaha....
moderately confused
this is -SO- me
and off the mark.
kudos to you if you get this one
hope you enjoy ‘em as much as i did!
Monday, June 05, 2006
another pokerstars tournament
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!
This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.
Registration code: 2706307
how fun will this be!!!
fish lips
me & my nephew d’mitri at my 10 year reunion…
Sunday, June 04, 2006
another 10 year reunion
here we are! not all 26 of us made it into this picture (sam & kathleen, jenny and nikki had already left, grace and christy hadn’t gotten there yet) but here are the other 20 that did make it, out of our class of 90+. is that a good turnout? i actually thought it was pretty decent…
we ate a bj’s in arcadia and i think the best part was the dessert - giant huge pizookies that everyone just dug into and ate. yummy! i have all the other pictures up in my other album so just email me or comment for an invite to that album!
good times, good times…