Week 8: Valentine's Means I Eat All The Chocolate

Wow, the weeks and time that I am living here has been going by so quickly. Soon it will be that I have lived here for two months. Last Friday, I was going to blog, but I ended up doing homework and going to Pub Dog in Fed Hill with some of my friends. Jimin is one of my friends is starting a blog too. Here is the link, I will say that her blog makes my mouth water. I love looking at her blog and pretending to be there. Wow... writing that down makes me seem like a loser. We also ended up going to Pitango Gelato and getting gelato. It was tons of fun to see them and eat delicious food. Our friend Gina came back from California for her birthday weekend, so we hung out with her. It was awesome.

Graduate school is already kicking my butt, I feel like I am constantly behind and not really informed about what is going on. But I am slowly making friends, a group of girls added me to their WhatsApp chat about the class. They seem really nice and on top of their own assignments. They also seem really close, which makes me feel a little left out.

On top of the stress, I got sick this week. I have been staying at home. I didn't get to go to my field placement because I woke up yesterday not being able to talk. I have been practicing, "I'm Batman" randomly when I am by myself. I have also been trying out my Bane voice too, "Take back your city Gotham!" I look super crazy a lot.

As a roommate bonding activity, Young, Hyman, and I have been playing Heads Up, which is a game that has been made famous by Ellen. It is great. Awesome investment and great amount of entertainment for just a cellphone game. Here are our videos:

This is the Super Heroes category, which I was holding the phone. 

This is Act It Out category. Hyman was holding the phone. 

Yesterday night, Young and I were just hanging out since I spent the whole day at home by myself not talking. I just needed to converse with people! I also started to make chocolate covered strawberries because Valentine's week to me isn't complete without chocolate or strawberries. I wanted to make it for my housemates as well. 

It was super easy to make it since I use microwaveable chocolate and dipped the strawberries right in. It is super important to wash the strawberries and dry them really well or the chocolate will start to harden. Young mentioned to me about how she thought chocolate-covered strawberries were usually only half covered and didn't really like them. She thought it was funny how mine were a 1:1 ratio. Towards the end, the chocolate started to harden from cooling and running out. Young and I crushed about half of them before Hyman came home. We need to finish them tonight. 

If I had a Valentine, I would be making like a zillion of these babies. Actually, let's be honest, if I had more money, I would make a zillion for myself. 

With school and my field placement going on, I haven't been cooking as much or taking pictures of it. I have been missing it. I think I need to start finding a balance in my life. I need to start making time for blogging, e-buddies, volunteering, and my life.

How do people handle it so well?

Week 6: First Week of Graduate School

Sorry that I have to change the title of my posts because since school started I have barely had time to cook let alone blog about my life. My weeks are crammed with studying and various school related activities on top of my sorority stuff.

But, what I will say is that so far I really like school. I am in a cohort with 25 other ladies and they are all really nice. I am the only East Asian student in the cohort and there is another South Asian student. We do not have any dudes in our group, but that is okay. Most of the ladies are working with children or just working. There is a good mixture of undergraduates and graduate students.

First day of school was officially the 26th, but I don't have classes on Mondays and Wednesdays only Tuesday and Thursdays. Monday and Wednesday of this week was for orientation for the Early Childhood Education (ECE) program. I met some of the girls that will be doing the same schedule as well. They even suggested that we take a multiple intelligence test for homework.  I put in a link if you wanted to see what your strengths are and what you need to improve on. We also made a pie chart representing our areas of strengths and needing improvement.

I clearly need to work on my spacing because 5% looks getting than my 10%s. 

Starting school has been me want to get myself into gear, so I made like a weekly assignment doc. I hope that this will help me keep organized and on top of the various assignments that I will have to do. 

This doc took me about 2 days to complete since I was waiting for my syllabi from my professors. 

I already got my field placement which is apparently similar to a preschool that I went to when I was 4-5 years old. When I told my mom about it she mentioned that to me. I don't remember preschool other than that this girl kept calling me a liar and didn't want to be friends with me. 

What I learned about this week? I need to plan better with food. I would come home and have to made a whole meal and do homework. Or I would be running out of the door with little to no food because I didn't time my morning correctly. I decided since Fridays are my off days minus work, I will do laundry, clean, errands, and blog. It will be my catch up day, plus the weekends depending if I am traveling or going home to my parents' house or no. I am planning on leaving early afternoon on Sunday to come back here to Severn since there is snow and I need to cook food for the week. 

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 4: All I Hear Are Ghosts

The day started off with me making my bed and having plans to cook about a pound of maple bacon and cleaning the kitchen. I remember my mom talking to me the night before about how she feels it is unfair how much I clean here at my new place compared to cleaning at home. I completely understand why she feels this way, but if I don't clean here no one will. If I don't clean at home, our cleaning lady or my parents will; yes this is a spoiled point of view but this is how I am thinking.

I completely made a mess of the kitchen when I cooked my bacon. I was trying to figure out how to place the bacon fat into another place to go into the trash, but I stupidly used a styrofoam bowl, which I thought would hold up for some reason. The bottom of the bowl was melted through. So, there was fat and grease everywhere in the kitchen. It took me about a half an hour to cook and clean up the bacon but about an hour to clean the kitchen. I honestly don't mind cleaning. I feel like I am rearranging things in the kitchen and I am worry that they will not like it. The house smell like straight syrup for the rest of the day, I used the exhaust and everything. I definitely need to get a candle for the kitchen or open a window when I am making that bacon.

Both Young and Hyman are so nice to me, I am scared they won't be honest with me to spare my feelings. I hope they will be honest about how I am trying to insert myself into their house and their lives right now.

After cleaning the kitchen, I heard these voices coming from the basement where Young's room is. I thought it was a neighbor's TV being really loud, but as I was sweeping downstairs, the voices were louder. My initial reaction: Ghosts are in the house. So, I snapped myself being scared to Young. She later explained to me that her laptop might have turned on when she accidentally touched the screen. These are the thoughts in my mind: ghosts. I am not atypical thinking person. I also thought this is later in the night when I was changing to go to bed, and I could hear muffled voices. My first reaction was: GHOSTS! But when I really thought about it, it was Hyman talking on the phone I guess.

I vacuumed my room, which really helped since I will like my hair is everywhere. I feel like my room is a lot cleaner. I really need lately.

Then I did some yoga for beginners. I forgot how serious yoga is, it is all about breathing, but wow right now a day later. I am sore. Super sore. I will keep doing yoga once a day. But I wish Fitbit would track yoga better, it said that I was not active yesterday even though I did yoga for 40 minutes and walked up 18 flights of stairs.

I was offered an interview to babysit for a family in Severn. I searched the address it was 2 minutes away, which was amazing. I was really excited and hoped that I was start building up families around here. I met them after I trained for Brickz For Kids, which I feel more confident about after training with Judy. She had more control over the children and it was a larger group than the day before. She seemed really sweet and loved the fact that I had a lot of questions about the program. She is 19 years old and was about to call herself old until I mentioned how I was 25. She just found out that she is pregnant and seems really excited about having her baby. It was awesome talking her and seeing how long she has been with the program.

The family was really nice and wanted me to start on Saturday. This makes me sad since I wanted to come home home to Germantown home on Friday night to eat my dad's food. Money will always win out in my mind since I am poor. So, I will be going home a day later than I thought. This makes me really sad, but I have to go what I have to do.

Day 3: Eating Like a Poor College Student

I woke up and started to clean my bathroom since... well I blew it up. It was disgusting. But I gave it a good scrub and deep cleaning, under the toilet rim and in my shower. It was super satisfying to shower in my bathroom. I felt clean and the place felt super clean.

After cleaning it was breakfast time, so I cooked my ground turkey and made myself a oatmeal pasta bowl. It was great, but looked like a mushed mess.

I came up to my room to blog, put my face on, and get ready for my training. I went to an Elementary school as part of my new position as a Teacher for Brickz for Kids. I am really excited about the job. I just did not feel that confident about myself and the position. The person I trained with did not seem to like our boss and did not have control of the children. I was worried that it would all be like that, and I do not do well with chaos.

I went there from about 2:45 util 5:00PM, I was so hungry when I got home that I sat and watched CSI:NY as a crushed a half bag of carrots, greek yogurt, and cottage cheese.

I came up to my room and hung out solo for a while until my housemates came home around 6-7PM. We all had dinner together. They had their leftovers and I had a bowl of honeynut chex with almond milk. Hyman made a comment about my cereal and offered me some of his food, it made me feel like I was so poor. Haha. But I know it was out of a good place, but it kicked me into a new place that I should be eating better. I am eating like I am a poor person. I don't really eat any veggies with my meals. I am eating them as a snack. That is not how my meals should be going.

I guess for me it is conflicting since I will only be here for a week. I want to make the most of my food so I am trying to make sure that I don't get anything that will spoil or that I can finish in a week.


My idea is to start planning for a week, making sure that I plan all my meal and all the ingredients for the week. This is my first step to becoming an independent adult: planning and buying my groceries for the week.

What are some recipes or weekly planning tips anyone can give me? It would really help me out a lot. I was looking into Rachael Ray's 3 meals in a day recipes. But I am just worried about starving. 

Day 1: Moving In and Making My Mark

Yesterday was my first day on my own after moving out of my parent's house to a room in my friend's townhouse. I am renting a room from his house, while I am in graduate school.

This is the first time I have moved out of my parent's house and not into a dorm.

Already it has been an experience of firsts, at the age of 25, I feel as though there should be less of these... But I had a coupe of minor ones and a couple of disgusting big ones.

My dad was unable to help me move to my new room yesterday, which was the first time my dad was not around to help me move. That broke my heart a little, but I understand that his work is important. I had to set up a bed frame a couple of times because I just did not understand how to do it. Every time I thought, "I got this!" I didn't have it. It was too small. I had to adjust it 3 times.

Saying goodbye to my brother and my mom was sad, I almost cried. I am making it seem as though I am moving states away. (Please know I moved 40 minutes away from my house.) I am just super dependent on my parents and my brother.

After coming home from dinner, I was having tummy problems, and I blew up my bathroom... I clogged the toilet my FIRST day. Sigh... I spent about 30 minutes or more trying to plunge a toilet for the first time. It got to a point where my new roommate offered to help and demanded that he come in and help me. No amount of embarrassment in my life can ever top this. None. At. All. I wanted to die, but luckily he was really nice about it. Am I going to avoid him today? You bet I am.

First day in new place with people I have never lived with went... awful in my mind. But the plus side to this whole situation is that I now know how to use a plunger correctly.

I don't think they will want to keep me around for another week. Anyone want to take me in? I promise not to kill the toilet. Just kidding. Hopefully...

I can't wait for day two...

Say Goodbye to Princess Life

I wanted to chronicle my life living away from my parents and on my own. This is the first time I am living outside of my parents and not in a form room. To me, this is one o the biggest steps that I have ever taken. I rely heavily on my parents and brother for everything because I am needy and a princess at home. Most people become independent when they are 18 or right after they graduate college. I am 25 and I moved to be closer to school. So here is a little about me, and how I am going to start being more an adult and less of a princess.

After I graduated from college, I moved back home to start working full time. I was an overnight mental health specialist at a behavior facility for young adults between the ages of 9 to 17 years old. I worked Tuesday to Saturday from 11 PM to 7:30 AM. I hated this job. The hours were awful, I never saw the sun, and I never had any weekends. This job also did not have holidays off for overnight staff so I rang in the new year there. That was a low point. Another was getting bed bug bites from a unit I was watching one night, the fire and pain I felt was unbearable. I started looking for jobs, any job to get out of there. I could not stand being there anymore nor could I stand the depression I was feeling. This was from missing out on holidays, vacations, and hang outs with friends and family. 

I got two more full time jobs after this awful job, they were great for me: 15 minutes from my house, day hours, and within my range of experience. My coworkers for the most part have been great to work with and fun. They were all around my age. I started to realize that I wanted to work with a younger population and went to work for a preschool within my company. This ignited a desire to be a teacher to enrich the lives of young children. I wanted to work as a public school teacher, I started to research how I can go about that without going back to undergraduate school for another 4 years. I found a couple of graduate programs which allow you to gain a teaching license within 2 years. I started to apply to these programs. 

I got into the MAT: ECE Program at UMBC to start in Spring 2015. I am really excited about this program and making new friends. To be closer to school, I moved to Severn into a friend's house. They are working full time in jobs close to the house. This will be my chronicle of living with them. The house owner is Hyman, he is about 28. He reminds me of Frank Grimes from the Simpsons. Same eyebrows and everything. He has retired from the Army, loves being independent, and trolls almost everyone. He does seems to enjoy our housemate time together and does not like missing out on jokes. My other housemate is Young, she is one of my sorority sisters. She love anime, comics (Marvel mostly, Spiderman, especially), and fashion. She does cook in the house so the kitchen will start being her domain and mine soon. 

I wanted for you all, the readers, to learn a little more about me and how I am becoming independent.