H1N1 has killed 3,900 Americans.

Buddha bless my soul! I consider myself lucky for having tide through a bout of sickness for the last few days.... I was on multiple medications. It might have been the flu, but I'm feeling so much better now! :)

Yeay to an awesome weekend ahead!

Carmen's Fiesta

Weekends are meant to be fun and I'm so so glad that I get a good break from school every 5 days, especially when I needed it the most. Whoever who invented the 7-day week is a genius!This week was mad crazy for me, and it will be crazier next week, with phone interviews, tests and more assignments due! Plus the fact that I'm sick (I secretly suspect it's the Swine since I exhibit some clear symptoms of the pig flu. Mental note to self: I will have to drop by the Nurse's office later)...

I woke up with a fever yesterday but I rested well the entire day so I could go out at night to celebrate Carmer's bday with the usual gang. I felt sluggish when I woke up in the morning, and it felt as if I lost my entire purpose in life, but my nap made me feel rejuvenated and I felt like a different person for the rest of the night. I always say that I'm a loner, but being around lovely people makes me a happy girl!

Whenever Jo and I go out during the weekends, a roomies picture is a must :) I like how we always dress up for the tiniest occasion, and then check out ourselves at the elevator mirror because my mirror is apparently too short in length for JoAnn to see her entire body -_-

And when Migs is around, we have to take the all Asian picture as well! Funny story: I gave Migs a picture of him and myself to put up in his room, but he accidentally slotted the picture into his folder and submitted it to his academic advisor. Hehehe, now she thinks both of us are official. See Migs, see what I told u? U can never escape from me! muahahahaha! But of course, Alyssa comes along and now she is the mistress of this complicated love triangle =p

Carmen's bday dessert, allegedly her bday "cake". The hat came with it since it was her bday and it was at a Mexican restaurant. I think we weren't supposed to take the hat together with us when we left, but Carmen assumed possession of it and wore it all the way on our train ride home.

The candle that can never be put out. Stay young forever!

Ok, so Mary decided to extend her lovely arms as we were taking this picture. Nicely taken picture, Dan!

My prom picture with Sean. He's such a sweetheart :)

So Asian. I just couldn't resist this.

When I told Nate that I needed a picture with him, since he and I are in the same class, and the same group, we ought to take a group picture... The others just barged into the picture without even asking. Nate has problems smiling for pictures, so Dan attempted to kiss him to make him giggly. Hehe.

Now that's a better picture of us :)

Carmen and I... Happy bday chica!

The boys. Manz, I love all of them!

And now the girls. Nice one, Mattie.

Take 2

While waiting for the train, Jo and Dan decided to fool around with Nate again. Poor boy, this is what he has to deal with on a regular basis.
And later, Jo decides to corner Nate... Poor boy, he looks so helpless...
Like I said, Sean is such a sweetheart. I'm sick, yet he still embraced me from behind :)

Yo, check out the stains on the seat... Hmmm, what's the cause eh? Welcome to Philly yo! Everything's so shady.

Both Jo and I staring longingly at Sean.

When we got back to SJU, we met Alyssa at the train station - another one of my fav Asian friends around here. She went downtown to do some serious grocery shopping in preparation for Lisa Abel's entourage of siblings who will be visiting the next day :)

After driving Carmen back to the apartment (a gesture that Jo did not appreciate at all because she feared so much for her life while I was driving and she literally prayed to God for protection. HAHA), we went to hang out with Alyssa and Miguel a little.

Me checking out Alyssa's hammock. I can't believe she has one in her tiny apartment and it was so comfortable! When I finally get my own real place, I shall have a hammock corner for my daily naps. hehe =p

As we were leaving, we decided to stop by Qiansylavania (Qian's place) to say hi, and we found another lovely group of people with them. Gosh, I love my Friday nights!

Sean attempted to do a split, to which Qian responded: Let's play the rock scissors game! Oh no Sean, you are doomed.

Wow Sean, getting a little low there, aren't u?

Then, Sean proceeded to do the bridge... He's getting ready for his epic pose here.

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down! But before he could come back down, Jo managed to make a crawl. Sean, you should seriously consider being a professional acrobat =p
Sean and Steve still stand around awkwardly whenever they take their guys picture, so both Jo and I proceeded to teach him to embrace friends in a friendly manner. Little did we expect him to make a surprise embrace on Qian from behind 2 seconds later. Qian freaked out a little when Sean attacked her from behind.
And he did another surprise attack when Qian was standing in the middle of room. We had such a good laugh, that Jo and I decided to do a reenactment of the "assault" case.

Lovely people :)

My latest wish list

1) Get certified for the Bloomberg Terminal at my working place - Wall Street Trading Room at SJU
2) I need to ace all my actuarial phone interviews!
3) Driving license is up on the list as well
4) Do well in school
5) Master some new dishes so I don't have to eat the same old stuff I've been cooking for myself lately
6) And of course, get my nightly 7hrs beauty sleep :)
7) Maybe I can throw this in my list as well....Find my soulmate! haha, so cheesy.

p/s: 56 more days to London!

Just because I have a high-pitched voice...

Rob Cocci: When Vi explodes, Hello Kitties will be running around her.

I have no idea how to respond to that -_-

I will take my sinking boat and point it home eventually :)

"Many who fear rejection are enablers and resort to passve behavior. They also tend to be confused about their identity and become angry or depressed because of their dishonesty towards themselves"

Life is tough. Lately, I have been facing with a lot of rejections. I think I'm losing the courage to stand up tall again and function. It's difficult to hide my personal feelings, and I apologize for snapping at anyone... Words fall through me and I always end up fooling myself.

I try to rectify it. I chant to the Gohonzon to restore the same sense of balance in myself. I watch funny shows to cheer myself up. I talk to people about it to get it off my chest, and I use my rejection letters as decoration to complete my art work. Not gonna lie, the last option feels the best!

I know life will play itself out for the best, and I ain't worried. Like Kris Allen sings in his song.... I will take my sinking boat and point it home, towards my goals and emerge victorious again one day! I've got time, and I will raise my hopeful voice eventually... :D

Bistro Romano Mystery Theatre

It's Friday night, and it's time to put my records on, play my favorite song and let my hair down! Did I also mention it's Halloween weekend? This year, I decided that I don't want to be part of Friday crazy mess, so Jo and I opted for Bistro Romano instead.

At Bistro Romano, the waiter/ waitresses are the cast for the mystery dinner. As you feast away on your delicious food, the cast sets the stage for intrigue, murder and mayhem. And your job as the audience is to unlock te mystery and vote for the murderer and the victim. It's just like playing Cluedo once again!

Jo and I with the cast behind us...They were serving us food during the "commercials".

Food is the love my life :)

Granny is part of the cast as well..

Both these lovely ladies were our waitresses when they were not on the set. One was a horrible drunkard who played her role really well. Even when she was taking our orders, she appeard "intoxicated". The other one in black was a clear bimbo who talked like a typical brainless gold-digger.

Wealthy Beef Wellington was the "bachelor" on the set...

Anyway, Bistro Romano was interesting. My first ever dinner at a mystery theatre :) On our way back home, we stopped by the Perch in school for the Halloween party. Yes, I'm jaded, and I didn't even bother dressing up for Halloween.

With Qianners and Jo :)

And here's a Halloween teaser picture. More to come soon!

I drove myself home today from SJU at 1am in the morning. I wanna say that's a good 2 miles there :)

A household with 16 kids. Four-wheelers. Woods. Happiness. Joy. Lots of Rain. That defines my fallbreak weekend.

This weekend I finally had my fallbreak. My, I've waited for so long for this 4-day break (actually it's 5-days since I have Fridays off). While I was happily feasting on my Sesame Chicken and Pork fried rice at Miguel's place for dinner with Alyssa and JoAnn on Friday, Alyssa came up with this crazy idea of renting a car to go visit Lisa at Elizabethtown! I was under the obligation to say no, since I had a paper due on Sunday, and I had to learn driving, but I said yes anyway.

So on Saturday, I woke up at 5am to write my paper, and off we went on a roadtrip to Elizabethtown. Impromptu roadtrips are so much fun. While you sit in the car and play around with the radio, you get to discover the craziest, randomest stations like the kiddy-kiddish one. Oh the joy they bring to your life is just indescribable!

"Tractor, tractor, flying through the sky. Back hoe back hoe, shooting up up the moon..." WTH? Kids shouldn't be listening to them, but Migs told me to shut up because "you've got to use your imagination V!!!!!!!" Ok. My bad.

Approx 2 hours later, we pulled into the Abel's front gate. We zoomed past it at first, because we didn't think Lisa's house would be that magestic.

Welcome to the Abel's place!

Now let me fill u in a little on Lisa's background. Lisa's from Vietnam and she was adopted by the Abel family when she was 14. There are 13 daughters and 3 boys in the Abel family, and most of them are adopted from all around the world. HOW COOL IS THAT?!?

Lisa's dad started his business 30+ years ago with $700 at his grandma's garage, and now it's a multi-million business. And Lisa's house is HUGE, on a 275-acres plot of land. Erm, excuse me, we are not talking centimetres or metres here. Get it?

The tv room :)

I call this the "greenhouse" because of the clear glass panes as the roof. This is where the Abel family opens christmas presents.

Movie theatre with 19 seats and awesome sound system. Everyone in the family gets a seat!

The model room. It's just like a museum in their home. Mr Abel collects ship and aeroplane models, and filled up this entire room with miniature figurines that depicts the World War Era with the help of both his sons. He visited countries, procured every single material/ingredient by himself. I just can't imagine the amount of effort and time he poured into this project, but it was simply a spectular sight!

The miniature figurines/model close-up.

Pool room with a horse theme. Everything in this room is about horse... the lights, the paintings, the wall decorations, the wooden horse.... everything!

View of Lisa's house from the back. I think I can cry just dreaming about it my sleep.
Miguel (in feigned ignorance): "Why is the pool so shallow?" Haha, oh Migs.

Volleyball court at Lisa's backyard. Boy, Lisa's place is just like a country club. I told her, I'll be first in line to sign up for membership if she's ever gonna have it =p

Lake behind Lisa's house! OMG, not one Gazebo, but TWO! It's like fairyland back there.

I wanna say that I am very much impressed by Mr Abel and when I grow up, I want to be like him. I want to be successful in life (who doesn't, right?), I want a beautiful house with kids (are u kidding me?), and whenever you step out of your house, you have a huge backyard, and you can go galloping on your horse through the woods, and chance upon small creeks and streams on your plot of land. Oh did I also mention the old train tracks that used to run pass the backyard? And you get to prosecute trespassers for hunting on your property =p

Ok, so here's Alyssa Ng, the driver who brought us to Lisa's place with one of the Abel sister. Emily is awesome. I cannot stress enough of the awesome-ness of this family. This girl is so chirpy, so positive and so happy in life despite being blind.

This is Zach's little bedroom corner in the master bedroom. He is 6 years old, and he is from Vietnam, but he can't speak anymore Vietnamese and chatters away in cute truncated English words.

After a movie at the home theater with the family, we decided that it's time for us to change out for a ride on the four-wheelers through the woods. It was raining (in fact, it has been raining since Thursday), but the disgusting weather did not stop us from having fun. Her other siblings were sick, so it was just down to the 4 of us - Alyssa, Lisa, Migs and I. I didn't bring any change of clothes, so Lisa took pity on me and lent me hers.

That's me in Lisa's shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, PJ pants, sweatpants as the outer layer, socks and shoes. Basically, everything was Lisa's. I'm surprised I even fit in. Oh, and that's little Zach Abel!
Put on the headgears folks.

Getting pumped for our adventure.

When we were out, Lisa had to back up the four-wheelers. We had enough bikes to go around, but we decided to share and switch it up later. My, Lisa looks so small compared to the four-wheeler.

Need some help there Lisa? Lol. She couldn't move the gears, so Migs had to assist her a little there.

Bad ass =p

Path through the woods in the rain. Driving past the water puddle was fun!

We spotted lots of deers, but they all started to run away as we chased after them. Raaaaaaaaaar!

Another one of the countless deers staring at us. We invaded their land.

Alyssa's sexy legs after the ride :)

After our little adventure in the rain, we still looked good and accomplished! Yeay team!

Now, picture with some of the kids. Zach from Vietnam, Kyla from Albania, Emily and Hope from China :) Awesome family! We played hide and seek with the kids, and I hid with Emily, Hope and Kyla. Zach was with Alyssa and he couldn't sit still half the time because he's just being a typical kid.

And finally, let me introduce the dog. Well, there's two of them, but I only took a picture of one. These doggies are really naughty. They killed a rabbit and destroyed one their phones by chewing on it, but surprisingly, they didn't bark at us. See, that is why I don't have pets =p I once had fishes, but they all died in the end because the tigerfish ate up the goldfishes. Note to self: You can't put these fishes together in the same fish tank in the future!

This trip was a last minute plan and I didn't expect myself to have so much fun. I learned so much from the Abel family. I am inspired by Lisa's dad. They seem like a really happy, genuine family, and I would love to go back there one day :) Lisa's parents adopted these kids without expecting anything in return and I am so glad these kids found them. Can you imagine how their lives would turn out to be if weren't for these amazing opportunities that the Abels have given them? I can't, and I have to give them a lot of credit for doing such a great thing! Despite so many imperfections in the kids, they manage to live a happy life.

~the end~