Mini B-day Celebration

I got to my sister's house to carpool to the TAO: Martial Arts of Drumming and here is a lil preview of what the show was all about. I was surprised with a lovely and delicious ICE CREAM b-day cake. My nieces, her friend and my sister sang to me.


I hear this chipmunk voice and it was Lizzy singing on behalf of her 7 Zoo Zoo hamster.
It was too cute!!! The cake was yummy and off we were to the show. My Mom was giving a speech in LA that night, so was meeting up with us at the theater. The show started with some stick fighting, which totally blew me away. I kept thinking "wow... and I thought I knew some moves with sticks" or "oh...so that's the way it's supposed to look!" The show was on point! These people were is excellent shape and at one point they did drumming for like 5 minutes with their backs facing the crowd. All we saw were muscles flexing with each stroke. Made me want to go to the gym immediately. Haha... but I didn't. All in all, a great night!!

Rays of sunshine

Right when I start complaining and thinking "why me?!?!", rays of sunshine start pouring down. I got an email that I passed the 4 hour long, written, P.O.S.T. exam to proceed to the next step in the hiring process. It's for a dispatcher position at the PD on campus that I applied for not too long ago. I scheduled a sit in with the current dispatcher for next Thursday and interviews will be the week on the 22nd. Since my research assistant position is temporary and the project is coming to a close, I was searching for a position that paid higher then minimum wage and flexible with my school schedule. I hope I pass the interview panel and background check (20+ pages mind you) and get offered the position.

Then, I got an email with work to do. Not homework, but work that pays you the green. :)Originally, my current job didn't have any work for me for two weeks, as my supervisor was busy interviewing potential student candidates for the coming year. But seems like my student leader who is supposed to oversee this research project didn't code all the surveys she was supposed to, so I was asked to do them and some other admin work that popped up. Perfect timing as I need $$ for my aunt's wedding/vow renewal present and for Santa's baby shower gift.

I started reading my school paper and good thing too. There is so much information on school events and offers that I was oblivious to. One of them was an offer to have your taxes done for free. The event is put on my the accounting department at my school. How cool is that? It's definitely a money saver and on my student income, I need to save every penny! The rays of light are plentiful this week.

I also got news from my uncle in Nicaragua saying he will pay us (my sisters and I) the remaining money from the sale of some land down there on Feb. 19th. Awesome news!!! We were going to put the money towards remodeling our kitchen, but Jay wants me to put it towards my debit. Not a bad idea.

And finally... my poor lil heart was broken when my sister want to cancel or reschedule my b-day celebration with the family. She text me not too long ago about a martial art drumming show in LA titled TAO that she wants to take me to. This is TOTALLY up my alley! She ordered the tickets for us to go tomorrow night. Awwww.... I felt so special!!! What a great way to start a weekend!

Tomorrow, Jay is picking up Jayla and we get her until Tuesday. Her b-day is tomorrow, but since she will get home late, we will be celebrating it on Sunday. The tentative plan is to head to Scooter's Jungle, a bounce house with my lil niece Lizzy. :) If we don't go there, we will definitely hit up some kid friendly place.

B-day Sushi

I miss my old town and the convenience of knowing where everything is. Yesterday. Santa and I headed over to Chomp's Sushi (in my old neck of the woods) to enjoy their Sexy Mutha rolls and celebrate my b-day. It was nice to catch up over some great food. We started off with edemames and a cumber salad that had squid, seaweed and crab meat on it. Next came the long awaited rolls and at the last minute Santa ordered a banana tempura and ice cream dessert. The celebration had come days after my sister wanting to reschedule or shorten my b-day celebration so she could go to a workshop, which ended with us cancelling the whole celebrating all together, so it was very touching. Sometimes people do something kind, like inviting you to lunch, not knowing what perfect timing it is and how extra special the act of kindness was.

Ramblings of a student

I've been a weird mood lately. It could be for a lot of reasons - I am fighting a cold, school has become extremely stressful this quarter, I'm working less and less hours at my research job, and finances have me worried.

I don't know why, but I can't handle bad news well or just seem like there is a little gray cloud hanging over me lately.

I broke down after my chem mid-term last week. It was my b-day and failing my mid-term just got to me. Granted, I could just take the class over and start fresh, but I felt like a failure. I hate chem. Even times were I have had a weekly tutor, studied and did all the work, I barely got by with a C. Reality of "how am i going to do this" and get only A's and B's is setting in.

Yesterday, I drove practically 40 miles round trip to see my counselor to removing a routine advising hold so I can register for classes. Traffic was a mess and so was parking. My regular 30-45 drive was about an hour and finding a parking spot damn near took 30 minutes. I had to go to this office called SEES to get one of the 3 forms I needed for the meeting. They were closed! Luckily, when I went into the SEES study room, there just happen to be on of the forms I need. Then I headed to the biology office to get my curriculum worksheet and planning form and headed off to my advisor office. A lot of walking and three buildings later there was a yellow posit-it saying he wasn't having office hours that day. Ugh! I went there today 30 minutes early to ensure I was the first student to be seen and he arrived 30 minutes late. WTF? During the advising session i learned i needed to take 3 additional organic chem classes. *crying!* Makes me want to rethink being a vet. I mean taking these classes doesn't even guarantee I will make it into vet school. Why put myself through such hell? I know, I know... I am not looking at the big picture.

Saturday, I drove in a big rain storm to take this math placement test at school in hopes of being able to take Trig on campus, instead of at the JC. Got my results and I scored at algebra level :( I either have to take the class over at CPP, wait to take the placement exam again in October OR take it at the JC. My school has a weird rule that if you haven't taken the prereq class within a year, you have to take the placement test and pass to be let in. I don't want to waste more money on classes I already took or spend more time studying for a placement test, so the JC it is.