Week 10: I dislike teenagers and bras

This week has been an interesting one, especially on Wednesday. But before that... I have been dealing with school, of course. But I have been going to a deli in Clarksville/ Columbia area that is owned by the parents of one of my sorority sisters. It is called, Ruthie's Deli & Cafe.

It is a small deli with wifi in the store and the nicest ladies making the sandwiches. I went there twice about two weeks ago since it was 5-15 minutes away from the elementary schools I went to for Brickz for Kids. 

This is the Ruthie Panini, which has corned beef, cole slaw, swiss cheese with Russian dressing on rye bread

This is the Bulgogi Sandwich, which has Korean style marinated beef with provolone cheese, lettuce, tomato, and banana peppers. 

Out of the two of them, I liked the Bulgogi Sandwich the best. I think that the meat was sweet and delicious with a nice tartness from the banana peppers and a little heat. It was delicious. You can add fresh fruit instead of chips for an extra $1.50? I think, but I feel like it is worth it since I felt so much healthier after eating the fruit. Plus, I am in love with fruit. 

Anyways... back to my story... This Wednesday, I went to a new elementary school to work with these two teenagers (Jake and Sam) since I will be taking over their class next week. They are going to be leaving for spring sports. I was talking to Jake about this senior year of high school and he was complaining to me about how hard it was. Here was the convo:

Jake: Senior year is really tough. It is the hardest year of high school. 

Me: Well, after AP exams you can coast and not show up to school basically. 

Jake: I can't. I am already in hot water, I can't get into any more trouble. 

Me: What did you do?

Jake: (after like 10 minutes of asking) I got suspended... I got turnt at school. I got turnt on a water bottle and a half of Grey Goose. I threw up in the hallway. If I made it to the bathroom, I would have never gotten caught. 

I was silent after this for a while, I could not believe that this happened. So I started to leave the building to go home. 

Me: Well, I don't feel bad for you since I believe you deserve to get caught. But good luck with your senior year and college. 

Jake: What?! Are we never going to see each other again?

Me: No. You are leaving next week, and yeah. 

Jake: What?

Me: When are we ever going to see each other again?

Jake: When we party together

Me: I am 25, I am not going to party with you. 

Sam: Does that mean you can buy us drinks?

Yeah... I hate teenagers. They have no idea how hard life is going to be when you get suspended from school because you were drinking? 

Later that night I went to the mall with my housemate, Young, to get her boobs measured. I have gotten this done since I was 12. But back in the day, the Victoria Secret worker measured me in the middle of the store over my hoodie and jacket. On this night, Young and the sales associate walked to the dressing rooms and went into a room. Young started taking off her jacket and sweater. Internally, I was freaking out. I kept thinking, "Why are we in here? Am I going to have to go topless?" So, I asked, "How far do I need to go?" as I was taking off my jacket. Young told me to about my shirt would be fine since the sales associate can measure through my clothing. 

After she measured the both of us, I moved to a different fitting room. The sales associate gave me a bra in my size and told me to try it on. Once I put it on she told me, "I need to see it on." So I threw on my t-shirt, and walked out. She gave me a crazy look implying that I need to take my shirt off for her to see. She gave me a push up bra instead because... I have no boobs. She came in after I put on the push up. She instructed me to pull on the middle part of the bra. She asked, "Do you mind?" and gestured to my boobs. I said, "No." She started to re-adjust my boobs in this bra for me. I went to second base with this woman and I had no idea what her name was. 

I found out about an hour later what her actual name was. Life lesson: I am apparently easy and let people just touch my boobs. I need a push up. Always. 

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 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 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 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...