9 Ends and Beginnings

My summer is just about to end, while others of you might've already ended yours or never really had one. I'm glad I had some time this week to reflect. There's been so much going on lately that it's hard to find the time to do so.

Last Friday, we had a Mini-golf Tournament for charity at work. It was so fun. The interns worked together to create one of the holes and here is what we got.

We had a Mario theme and it turned out pretty cool. We had a little Yoshi windmill. We made its tail swag over the tunnel. The trap flower in front also opens and closes. Oh the things you can make with cardboard and Lego. We were a bit smug and thought that we were already going all out with our 2-foot moving Yoshi, but our hole didn't compare with the holes that other employees made! They all pulled it off in such a short amount of time and they went all out with their decorations! I was amazed! Everyone had so much fun playing too. They were all so excited! Here is one of the holes that I thought was cool. It has a Racing theme.
This Monday, I finally bought a bike! I was so excited but sad at the same time because I couldn't ride it yet. I didn't know how! Yesterday (Wednesday), my friend Ashley came over and helped me learn. It was so fun! I went pretty far. I'm still not really good, but I just have to practice. At least I know that I can kind of start by myself and just keep going haha. :D It was so great though. I reached my summer goal! Totally cutting it close, but I still made it! Here's a picture of me with my pink bike and matching helmet. I won't post up a video of me falling. :P

So my internship at AT&T is about to end. My last day is next Monday. I can't believe that it's over! A bunch of people are leaving tomorrow and I really won't know if and when I'll see these people again. I had a lot of fun this summer. Just having those people at work made it much more enjoyable. Tomorrow is going to be fun though. I don't have any real work to do anymore. My partner and I did what we could with our project and they just need to integrate it. Our department is putting on a talent show that we've been making decorations for all week long. Again, it's for charity. It should be really fun. :]

I'm also off to go to a staff retreat this weekend. I'm so excited! I get to see everyone again! It'll be so much fun. I'm so excited for the new year. New people to meet, new experiences along with familiar places and faces. Check out our club website that I've been working so much on! It's only supposed to be a temporary layout, but it looks pretty nice. I might just keep it the way it is and just keep adding new and old content to it.

Off to sleep! Big things ahead of me. :]

8 Blush on a Tuesday night

I usually try and have a picture to go along with every post, but I don't have one today, at least not from my personal collection.

Tonight, I invited my friends Dereck and Ritchie to come along for band practice. I used to be a member of the local community band here and thought that it'd be fun for all of us to play a little music together. Only Dereck got to come down though, but I'm glad that he still ended up coming through. It's rare that I get to spend one-on-one time with my college friends. So he came down and we played a little bit. Ah, sight-reading music... It was fun. Very short time to play and we didn't really get to play our main percussion instruments but still enjoyable.

Afterwards, I wanted to go and get some frozen yogurt. I got Dereck to look up some places on Yelp and we found Blush in Dublin. The place was great! Nicely decorated and very friendly staff! I initially thought that it was pricey but they served a good amount of yogurt. Neither one of us really wanted a lot so we ended up getting a Blush Parfait for around $5. "Blush" is their featured flavored yogurt made of Pomegranate and Dragonfruit. The parfait was perfect for the two of us and had tasty granolas on top of it all. We got mochi balls and Fruity Pebbles for our toppings to make quite a colorful combination. So delicious!!

Just wanted to share my lovely Tuesday night and a reminder to myself to try out new places every time that I go out. Also, if you haven't been using it, Yelp is an awesome resource when trying to find places for eating or shopping, etc. Hope you all had a lovely Tuesday also! :]

7 In between celebrations

On Saturday, my good friend Ryan came up all the way from Moorpark (from a little bit north of LA) to visit me. I knew that he was going to be staying over at my place for quite a while beforehand. What I didn't know was that my other friend Edward from Sacramento was going to come down and stay also. He called me up at around 2 PM saying that he had a chance to go down to the Bay for the weekend. I thought that it'd be nice to take them to San Francisco and walk around but it would be pretty late by the time we get there. So we decided to go to the evening mass and save our trip to SF for the next day. We just ended up hanging around. Ryan had come prepared and we were about to build a rocket! Instead, we spent the last hours of the day eating In & Out and watching a few episodes of The Office.

The next day was jam-packed! We headed on over to San Francisco around noon. It was Ryan's first time being on BART, haha. How exciting. We just ended up hanging around Powell and Market, not even really going into that many stores. I was shopping around for presents and took a long time doing so. But we met up with another one of our friends, Jeffrey, who is a San Francisco native. I was so tempted to spend, spend, spend! but I've been trying to keep track of what I'm buying and how much money I've been spending lately.

We went back at around 5:30 PM and got ready for dinner. I had to hastily wrap my presents and I didn't even get a chance to write a card. We were celebrating my friend Nora's and Ritchie's birthdays. (Nora's was on Saturday, the 30th and Ritchie's was on Monday, the 1st.) It was great, perfect weekend to celebrate. We went to Alameda and ate at Sushi House. The food was so good! I hadn't expected the sushi rolls to be so big. Ah, it was so great being with all of them again. Everything just felt right. I'm excited to spend another year with everyone!

Around the table...

After dinner and after about half an hour debating on what to do, we ended up hanging out at Ritchie's house. I unfortunately don't have any pictures from after dinner, but it was fun! We just relaxed. The guys played Madden and Geometry Wars. I played around on the piano and played with Ritchie's dog, Fortune. He is the most mellow dog ever. He is so lovable! I want a dog like him. :] The other most prominent thing I remember from that night was the wonderful smell from their front garden of Lady of the Night flowers. They smelled a lot like Sampagitas, these white flowers that people would sell after church in the Philippines. Ahh, so good. I think I would have to have these flowers in my garden when I get my own house.


Second years!