Day 21 & 22: Orientation & Making Friends

Thursday was an awesome day because of the fact that it was my Graduate School Orientation at UMBC. I was really excited to go and make friends. It started at 2PM, so I wanted to get there around 1:45-ish to make sure that I would make it in time so I can mingle and try to make friends. I really want to make friends at UMBC since everyone that I knew graduated. I know two people one is working full time and the other is in his own Ph.D program... so yeah. I am trying to make new friends especially with the people in the Education Program.

I got there around 1:45PM, I thought it started at 1:30... so I thought I was late, but I checked in and got my name tag, I got papers and a drawstring bag from the GSA. I waited for the campus tour, but no one wanted to talk to me. I also realized that my last name was not write on the name tag. It was "Truing" so I went to the check in and asked whether this was a permanent thing. They apologized and said that they copied it from what I wrote my registration sign up. So it was me. I wrote my own last name wrong. After 25 years of having the same name, I still can not manage to write my last name correctly. Life Lesson: Always proofread everything you type, especially your name.

The orientation was great, I needed up meeting a few people and wanting to be more involved with UMBC's GSA. I met a few people in the Education Program, which was great. I even gave someone I met there a ride home. It wasn't until we got to my car that I thought, "I don't know this person very well. They could murder me." So I brought my cell phone to the front just in case. I think have a stranger danger problem, the problem is that I don't have stranger danger. I believe in people and the good within them. Luckily, the person I took him was a nice guy nothing bad happened and he even friend requested me. I panicked a little over nothing. Am I the only one that does this though? I want to help people in need as much as I can. I have been trying to be as nice as possible and I feel like sometimes that is crazy hard.

Friday was a very fun and chill day. I started to get ready to go home for the weekend. I was able to work at Brickz for Kids that day too. We were teaching Robotics which was super cool. The kids made a claw and programmed the claw to open and close. It was really interesting. I was talking to one of the instructors (who is 17 years old) who told me that I need to get a hobby and stop working so much. I told him in order to get a hobby I needed money. He suggested instrument, cooking and streaming TV. I laughed at the last two since I need to cook to survive as I stream everything. I guess when you are 17, you don't understand the struggles of life and there is the cushion of your parents and of home. Oh yeah, he even asked me if I was going to go clubbing. I SUPER laughed at that one. Hilarious. I wish I was back to being 17, I miss it.

After work, I made plans to eat Bon Chon with a sorority sister from Dallas who was in town for a residency interview. She didn't have a car and was in Downtown Baltimore so I offered to pick her up before we got dinner. Young met us there and we ate a large combo of soy garlic and some spicy with two orders of fries and kimchi. It was delicious. I got a coke since I knew it was going to be a long night of driving. After we went to Shilla's Bakery to get some dessert, but we were all too full to eat it. So we just sat and chatted. It was nice.

Today, MLK day, I went grocery shopping with my cousin Vicky to get a reign on my spending. I am happy to day I only spent $30 on a weeks worth of food. I was really proud of myself. I think she did really help me and the fact that I am not spending that much time at the house this week since I will be going to Georgia over the weekend.

Day 19: The Oven Hates Me

I honestly late being two days behind, but I think by Friday I will be caught up. Since today I am not doing anything special besides my graduate school orientation, which I am insanely worried about. I just want to make friends. I think my housemates are getting a little tired of me and I feel like I need to get out of the house more. I don't think I have left since Monday. That is three days of not seeing the outside world without a window. I am leading a sad, sad life.

Anyways, Tuesday was a a great start to the morning. I had oatmeal in the morning with meatballs and tomato sauce. After eating my breakfast. I started to prep my berries in the fridge to eat with my yogurt or whipped cream. I started to prep my green beans too, I chopped off the ends and cooked them in chicken broth. I saved the broth to cook pasta noodles as well.

I combined a box of pasta, chopped green beans, cherry tomatoes, spinach and 4 tablespoons of pesto sauce in a large mixing bowl. It has lasted until today and there should be another bowl too. I have also been sharing it with Young, which has been super helpful or I would have never finished it.

Each time I have been cooking something, I send a picture to my mom. She told me that one day I will be a great cook like my dad, that is honestly my dream. I would love to be able to cook like my dad. He can make anything and it tastes awesome. She is a little jealous that I don't cook for her, my mother is just too cute sometimes.

This week I have been super missing my parents and family. I am actually looking forward to going home this weekend to see them. I know they miss me too... even thought my dad hung up on me when I called him. But I know it was a hang up out of love... Haha... at least that is what I am telling myself.

Later in the afternoon, I decided to make World's Best Chicken Recipe which I found on Pinterest.

I would like to promise that I actually read the recipe the whole way, it was really simple. But of course as I was cooking the smoke alarm starts to go off again. Even though I had the fan on so  I opened a window. I think the sauce began to burn a little in the oven so... when Young came home she told me to open the balcony door since it stilled like burning. I swear this time... I did everything right. The fan was on... I guess I just don't have skills with the oven. I didn't take a picture of my chicken, but wow it looked nothing like that photo... It was like brown and black... and not a pretty sight. It was pretty delicious though.

I feel like the oven HATES me. Luckily it all cleared out by the time Hyman came home. I think I need to cool it with the oven and only use the toaster oven for the next... I don't know... MONTH! Young didn't want to eat until about 6:30, so I watched Commando as I waited and the area smell cleared out. Just... Kim is a fail. Life Lesson: The oven and Kim are not friends.

But that night we watched Pain & Gain, since Young and Hyman hadn't watched it. About 3/4 of thew ay Hyman went upstairs but we continued without him.

Day 13: Case of the Mondays

I will be doing two posts since I am really behind on my posts... I know you guys are waiting for them because my life is uber interesting... not. But I am glad that people are reading.

Monday... oh Monday. Everything was going great, I woke up with a plan to cook my allusive cabbage that I bought on New Year's Eve. I ended up searching Pinterest for different cabbage recipes. I knew that for one of my recipes would be cabbage cooked with bacon fat, which ended up pretty delicious. I found this on Pinterest:

So I went to this recipe, and read it and substituted some recipes because I didn't have any fennel seeds. As the cabbage was roasting in the oven, I was cooking the bacon. I think the heat from the oven and the smokeyness from the bacon caused a lot of heat... and the fire alarm went off. So I turned on the fan, fanned the smoke alarm, and opened a window. So, I tried to make sure that it would not go off. I started texting my housemate, Young, about the situation. She told me not to tell Hyman about it since that is something he would not be happy about. So I haven't, I just fail at roasting cabbage I guess. Lesson learned: Always turn on the fan when cooking!

Roasted Cabbage

Semi-steamed cabbage with bacon and onions

After making both sets of cabbage, I went upstair to work on some of my sorority things. Around 12-ish, Young came home for lunch and she had some of my cabbage. We talked during her lunch and I further explained what happened. She invited me to go to Zumba with her and her coworker at 7:30PM and that we would get back in time for our friend to come hang out and eat s'mores.

I declined since I didn't want to spend money on a Zumba class. After she left for work, I started working on more sorority things. At 2PM, I went to take a walk around the neighborhood for about an hour. I explored more of the neighborhood, which was nice but freezing, absolutely freezing. But it was a nice walk, I came back and showered in time to watch The Taste while FaceTime-ing with my brother. We like to watch it together to comment about the contestants and to predict who's going to be eliminated next.

At around 5:30PM, Young came home and I suggested that she start cooking her food before she goes to Zumba, so that she could have her food right away when she got home. She was cooking her dinner and I began cooking mine. I started to make pesto with kale since I had a lot of kale that I have not been eating. It ended up being really bitter with a weird after taste so I added lemon juice and it turned out pretty good.

Hyman came home in the middle around 6:30PM and he started doing his laundry. Young left around 6:50PM, and I started cooking my dinner. I finished cooking around 7:10PM and finished eating around 8PM when Hyman came down to eat his dinner. I sat with him and talked. He wanted to Plex to see The Interview, which I have now seen three times. We sat and watched as he ate dinner he was in and out of the movie to do his laundry. At about 8:30PM, Lacey came over to surprise Hyman, but also to hang out and eat s'mores. I offered her some dinner and cookies. She ate most of the cookies and once Young came home I offered to make everyone some s'mores. I made two each for everyone. Young ate hers after her dinner. Hyman only ended up eating one so the extra went to Young. After The Interview was over, Young wanted to show me The Man from Nowhere on Netflix. During the movie, I kept seeing people that we knew, which I think ruined Young's life since she was super into those characters and I related them to people we were friends with. I thought it was an interesting movie, it was like Man on Fire and The Equalizer but with consequences for the main character. After the movies, it ended up being around 12AM, so everyone went home and to their rooms. I folded my laundry that I did that morning.

Day 10: Friday Night of Games & Movies

Friday morning started off with me waking up late around 11AM, and relaxing in bed until about 11:30AM. I was talking to my brother and cousin in the morning since my cousin Vicky was coming to visit that evening. It would allow me to get stuff from my house that I forgot: trash can, laptop charger, trash bags, sharpies, dry erase markers, and a pair of khakis. My brother was gracious enough to gather all those things for me to give to my cousin, Vicky.

After setting all that up, I went downstairs to start cooking breakfast for Hyman and Vicky. First, I put 8 slices of turkey bacon on a baking sheet in a 350°F oven for about 20 minutes. It turned into the chip again, which I know that Young likes, but I totally forgot to ask Hyman what he likes. I am clearly a terrible housemate. I started on the french toast batter again. To the normal eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon batter I added brown sugar and a flour & water mixture so that the flour would not just stay in clumps on top of the batter. Young told me that she liked day 2 french toast better. They each ended up with 3 slices of french toast and 4 slices of bacon. In the beginning stage of making the french toast, Hyman came down for breakfast. He seemed interested in what I was making and asked me questions about the batter and what went in it. He also seemed a little worried about the amount of food that I was putting on his plate. He does not eat that much; he ended up eating all the french toast, but only 3 slices of the bacon. They were both nice enough to wait as I made my breakfast of leftover pasta and sausage that I ended up cooking for myself. Hyman helped me flip the sausage when I ended up getting distracted in the middle of cooking. He even washed the dishes after we were all finished too.

Hyman then got ready to go home to Philadelphia to see his family. Young and I ended up watching Maleficent on Plex and another movie or TV show. I am not 100% sure. But we ended up snacking on chips, salsa, and guacamole too. After the movie, we each got ready to go to Shin Chon and tried to go to Target earlier, but I take too long to get ready.

We met Huy and Vicky at Shin Chon in Ellicott City, which is Korean BBQ. It was a lot of fun seeing them and eating delicious Korean meat. The only downside of Korean BBQ is how you stink after. The smell gets into your hair and clothing and does not leave. At the dinner, we talked about how Hyman seemed sad that he could not be joining us. After dinner, Vicky and Huy came back to the house to see it for the first time. We gave them a tour and showed off our rooms. They seemed to like the house. We then played Telestrations and watched Mean Girls.

I absolutely love board games or games in general, but this is definitely my favorite one. 

If you have never played or heard of it, it is like pictionary and telephone had a baby. It is a hilarious game especially when you are playing with a larger group of people. You start off with a secret word, someone has to draw a picture of that word then pass it to the person to their left. That person needs to guess the word from the picture then pass it to the left. The new person needs to draw the word and this continues until it ends back to the original person. It can be on point the whole time or just go somewhere completely different. Once I played the original word was moonwalk, which turned into Michael Jackson and then Super Saiyan. Everyone seemed to like the game, which I was happy about. I think the best one from when we played was graveyard to garden.

Vicky, Myself, and Young 

After Vicky and Huy left, Young and I stayed up watching The Equalizer and then we started watched K-POP music videos. Specifically, we were watching 2NE1 to see the evolution of their plastic surgeries then we moved to Big Bang. It ended up being 3AM after that and we went to bed.

This will forever be my favorite 2NE1 song and music video. 

"I Am The Best" by 2NE1 

Day 6: Homebound

After spending most of the night talking to Hyman and Young or as they like to be called Hymdiesel and Youngjeezy, I had to get up at 7:30 AM to prepare to spend about a week and a half home. I made a list of things that I will need coming back to the house, packed up my laptop, charging cords, and put all my laundry into the basket by the door. I got up extra early. I did not feel like I slept because of the noise the closed vent in my room made. It was like a white noise machine and canceled the outside which was great, but I did not feel like I slept at all. I showered and got changed. When I came out, Hyman was in the hall, he wanted to troll Young by shouting, "YEAH DADDY!" at 8AM to wake her up. So mean.

I went downstairs put the recycling out in the bin since my bottled water drinking habit just filled up the recycling bucket we have in the kitchen. I drank my Suja green juice and ate my fruit in the kitchen. Apparently Hyman thought I already left, so when he was getting ready to leave, he was scared by the sight of me in the kitchen. This I found utterly hilarious since he has been scaring me all week when he comes out of the darkness. Young has scared me once in my week at the house and Hyman has scared me at least 3 times. He scares me to a point where I scream and fall to my bottom. Clearly, I have no survival skills.

I left the house with my Suja juice in my tote (it was not very delicious but I powered through since I needed the veggies and fruit). I got to the house about 10 minutes before 9AM and A's mom talked to me about the routine, snacks, and what time they would be back. They left the house around 9:30 AM and would be back around 1PM. A is two years old and really cute. She loved playing with legos, watching Disney Junior, and PBS kids on her iPad. Around 11AM, a pest control worker showed up at the house, I did not know what to do, so I called the dad, who didn't answer. Luckily Mom answered, but she had no idea what was happening. So, yeah that was the first time that has ever happened to me. But hanging out with A was a lot of fun, she was really easy going.

I left around 1PM to go home and eat my dad's homecooking since I was utterly starving. I got home by 1:50PM and no one was home but our cleaning lady, Ana. So I called up my cousin, Jonathan that I was supposed to met at 3PM to come over early since no one was home to greet me. I went over there to make these awesome shirts for our family's annual Christmas gift exchange. Jonathan and I went to Michael's and McDonalds to get supplies for the shirt. Well, the McDonalds was because we were starving. We ate at watched Christmas Carol with Jim Carey, and I fell asleep for about an hour and a half.

We started working on the shirt. It was going to say "Merry Christmas" with a picture from last year's get together. Too bad that Jonathan's printer ran out of ink. So we had to go to Target to get some printer ink; we ran into more family members at Target getting last minute gifts for each other. It was cool. Jon and I returned to his house to make three iron on shirts for him, my brother and myself. They were ironed onto bright neon green shirts.

 Jonathan with the shirt we made

2013's Family photo (I am not in it)

My favorite part of wearing these shirts besides the fact that they are bright green was that I'm not in the picture. I think Jon wants to continue this tradition of making shirts, but wants to make them for everyone next year. 

2014 Family Picture with the shirts

For dinner, I went home with my family to have Five Guys since my mom has never had it before. Sigh, it is just so good. 

I am not sure if you guys want to read about my week at home, so I might just do one big post about it since it isn't that exciting.