32 Update

Yesterday, my mom and I went out to the mall to get our free mini facial at Origins. I guess that it wasn't a limited time promo. They had small postcards at the cashier area advertising free mini facials everyday and another one for a free mini spa day with an option to get your make-up done! I sort of wish that we had gone for the mini spa day instead, but it's alright. My mom was right and they of course sold us things. I made it out without opening my wallet, but my mom didn't! We came out with a facial scrub and mask, but also with refreshed faces. It was a nice, little relaxing treatment to get in the middle of the week. Gotta hand it to my mom though, to be polite and give them some business in exchange for their mini service.

Another free thing!

Not sure how many of you are coffee lovers, but in case you are, get a free sample!

Some friendly notes about signing up for things online, or at least here's what I do:

- Use a nickname or a fake name. Some forms check the length of the last/first name, so I usually go for two letters for my last name instead of an initial.

- For e-mails, use a fake e-mail, making sure there's an "@" symbol and a ".com" or ".net" or whichever. Or if they verify e-mail addresses, use an e-mail address that you don't mind getting junk mail in, or make a new one.

- Don't check the box that asks you if you would like to receive more information/future offers (unless you do want to hear more from them).

- Don't type in your phone number. I don't know about you, but I don't like getting random calls on my cell phone about promos. I'm just a little wary of getting calls from phone numbers that I don't know.

- If they ask you to sign up for other free offers, forget it. It's just a waste of time and you'll just end up with more junk than you want or need.

- Most importantly, never give away your social security number or credit card numbers if you're supposed to be getting a freebie!

Hope that helps! I apologize that I'm not posting up free offers everyday. This is just a blog for fun and not completely dedicated to finding free things. I assure you that there are many other blogs that do just that. It's just up to you to find it! I'll make sure to post ones that I like. :)

31 Oh, Recession...

Inspired by a recent Tyra Show that my sister saved, I've been looking around to see if I truly can live my life accumulating free things and free services. As I browse through the Internet and get free stuff, I'll post about them and share the "wealth."

In the past few days, here's what I've accumulated:

- a free T-shirt from Yogurtland -- they had a grand opening here in San Ramon and my friends and I lined up early to score one. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the T-shirts, they ran out of normal adult sizes. My sister and I ended up with youth mediums, which fits her perfectly. I'll have to do something else with mine, haha.

- a free pint of Starbucks ice cream -- they had a promo over Facebook and were giving out coupons for free ice cream. Sorry if you didn't see it! It was a while ago and I could only send out one. I sent it to my mom. :)

Until August 3, Origins is giving away free mini facials! I called the store nearest us today and scheduled an appointment for me and my mom on Wednesday! She's pessimistic and says that they'll probably try to sell us some stuff, which is probably true, but I'd just like to get my free mini facial. We'll see if I can make it through without taking my wallet out!

McDonald's also gives away free ice Mocha samples on Mondays, but I'm not sure if the ones nearest us are participating stores. =/

30 Trying to refrain

Oh how quickly the weeks go by... Trying to figure out what I'd like to do with my time during the summer. I guess it's nice to lounge around, but I don't think I'm the type to do that, at least not for extended periods of time. I should stop... haha, random post.

Currently reading

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

It was a hard decision to put the book down! I would still be reading it if I didn't start to feel bad. I was up at 2 reading very slowly when I could be packing up all the junk in my room like I meant to do all weekend.

Enjoying the read so far and amazed at how quickly I got engrossed in the book and the man's life and accomplishments. Blogging to say I'm still alive despite my reclusion away from the outside world!

My iPhone has taken over

Wow this is amazing. So long as I have Wi-Fi, I can pretty much do all that I do online on my iPhone! There seems to be an app for everything... Twitter, AIM, Facebook, ... I can pretty much use anything Google ... Now I can blog too?? Haha. Oh technology... How easy it is for you to keep me at one spot for endless hours at a time...

26 Some time...

... for total and internal reflection. Thank you for your support, especially to those that I've been talking to lately. I swear I'm okay! I've just lost focus and need to regain it back. You know how it goes. =]

25 Is it really me?

It's been about a year since the idea of once again keeping up a blog came about, but in all honesty, this hasn't been updated as much as it should've been. I'm starting to wonder whether I should continue with this blog. I've been so busy and I wish that I could've documented everything that's happened. At the same time, and I know this is weird to say, I wonder if my thoughts and experiences are even worth documenting. I think this is one of the reasons why I haven't been able to keep up with one blog throughout these years. Even though all the thoughts I've sent out to the world are mine and mine alone, there's some part of me that feels like such a poser, as though I'm only doing things so that I feel like I'm part of something cool. I feel like I'm just imitating thoughts and art that I see instead of learning from them and creating something that is mine.

And so summer begins. This is really the first time in a while that I've been able to sit down and reflect with a keyboard and a piece of electronic paper.