Try Everything!

It's kind of hard to believe that I'll be graduating at the end of this school year! It feels as if I just started college; I can remember dorm-life as if it were just yesterday. 

We're all grown up now and the real world (and unemployment in this economy) are waiting for us on the other side. Before we cross over though, I'll take some time to enjoy what's left of my college experience. Making the most out of my last year includes running around town and sampling foods from every restaurant, food truck, and  kitchen! 

We most recently attended an "Off the Grid" local food truck event in the neighborhood. There was so much delicious-looking food to try. We'll definitely be back!

Twenty One!

We celebrated my 21st birthday yesterday. I'm grateful for all my awesome friends and family, especially my roommates, who made this birthday so wonderful. Thanks everyone!

I can't believe I'm 21! I totally feel like I'm still 15! Let's see what I make of this year (:

scream for sorbet!

Last weekend before heading over to the ballpark for a game, I visited the Ferry Building Farmer's Market to grab some snacks. I've found myself frequenting this market almost every week when I head back to the city.

After grabbing some delicious dried apples from one of the market vendors, I noticed a tiny little stand behind me that was serving sorbet. I have never been a sorbet fan, but I was nonetheless drawn to the stand to take a look at their menu. Scream Sorbet sources their ingredients locally and just a look at their menu and I could tell that they were all about making the best of in-season produce. I opted for a scoop each of the pluot rooibos and the elephant heart plum sorbet. This place won me over. Their sorbet is soooo yum! I'll be back for more.

They're Growing!

Our tomato babies are growing big and strong! All that time we put into watering, feeding, and grooming our tomatoes has finally paid off! Some of our tomatoes had just started to ripen last week and just a few days ago, we picked our first batch of fully vine-ripened tomatoes!

It feels so great to grow our own food. They taste amazing too!

sunny days ahead (hopefully)!

It's finally getting a little warmer here! Hopefully this weather trend is here to stay.

In the mean time, I'm off to get some ice cream! I've got to enjoy the official start of my summer break, and gotta make the best out of what's left of this break before school starts. Cheers!

Bright Summer Nails

I'm loving bright-colored nail polishes for the summer. My favorites from left to right:

China Glaze: For Audrey

Essie: Braziliant

China Glaze: Re-fresh Mint

In the Warm California Sun!

Roomies and I took a trip down to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and had a fun time under the sun!

Exploratorium Trip!

We took a nice trip out to San Francisco to visit the Exploratorium last Thursday. The weather was quite cooperative--skies were clear, the sun was out...although it was slightly breezy. Oh well, that's the Marina District!

I hadn't been to the Exploratorium since I was a kid, so I was super excited when we decided to go. Although I didn't have as much fun this time around compared to the times I've been when I was much younger, I still enjoyed myself nonetheless!

We took the route along the Embarcadero to get back to the East Bay. It turned out to be a nightmare because of construction work. We drove ourselves to a burger place immediately after getting off the freeway because we were super hungry. We probably scarfed down those burgers in less than ten minutes (: Fun day!

Impulsive Folks at the Park

After our developmental psychology final about two weeks ago, Liana and I darted out of the classroom and as impulsive children do, we rewarded ourselves by buying tickets to a bunch of Giants games. Thursday's game was our first of three!

I was much too busy munching on my garlic fries and cheering and singing songs to take a bunch of photos. Here are a few photos from just a handful I took that night.

Highlights:

• "Tejada, why you no run fast!?!?"
• Whiteside's homerun; Timmy fist-pumping
• Drunk people dancing
• Drunk person offering us a sketchy drink in a flask
• Couple eating each others' faces on "Kiss Cam"
• WIN!

Finally feels a bit more like summer!

Dear blog,

I'm sorry I've neglected you for the past month or so. I promise it will never happen again!

Yours truly,

Crystal

There hasn't been much going on lately. The first summer school session started about a month ago and ended just last week. The class subject (childhood development) was way more interesting than I had predicted, my professor was super awesome, and I was lucky enough to take the class with one of my middle-childhood friends, Liana! I'm a tad bit disappointed that this first session of classes ended so quickly! Has it been six weeks already?

My next session starts today! I will be taking a nutritional sciences course. It looks like fascinating stuff! Let's hope I come to enjoy this class as much as my last!

On another note, I'm super stoked that it's beginning to feel a lot more like summer here in the Bay! It has definitely been sunnier and warmer out. I don't usually like to eat cooked hot food when it's warm out, so I decided to make a nice little summer salad with oranges and shrimps for dinner (: It was super yum!

Hooray for summer! Time to shave those legs and bust out those shorts!

One Week Summer Break

It's been such a long time since I've updated. I will blame this on finals and the mild viral infection/disease I contracted during finals week. Finals week was tough as always, but what made it worse was the annoying viral infection. I had a huge headache that lingered around for a few days, a nasty fever accompanied by the chills, and to top it off, a body full of red bumps and rashes that made it look as if I had the chickenpox. I felt lethargic and worn-out. It took so much willpower just to get myself to study.

Thankfully finals are now over! I headed back home to "recover" in my comfy bed and to my mom's yummy food. Mom forbid me to leave the house at the beginning of the week because I was still feeling sick and my red bumps/rashes hadn't completely cleared up. Thank goodness it was a speedy recovery and I was able to accompany my high friends to a Giants game on Friday! It was such an exciting extra innings game! The Giants won, of course! It was such a fun time hanging out with some old friends and catching up. Oh, and I got a freebie "snuggie" sweater blanket! I was thinking about posting a photo of myself modeling it, but the thing looks ridiculously hideous on me so...nevermind.

This has been my one week summer vacation before I head back to school next Monday to start summer sessions. Booo...summer school!

Flashback Fridays: Statement of Intent

Before my brother graduates from high school a month from now, he'll need to decide where he wants to go for college. My parents forced me to have a little talk with him--let him know his options, share my own experiences, and help guide him on the right path.

All this college-talk took me back to a time three years ago when I was just absolutely the most indecisive person and couldn't decide where I wanted to go to school. I guess my brother is in that same boat right now. I wanted to venture off from home and go to school in Southern California, but a part of me was really scared to make that commitment. Back and forth I contemplated mainly three choices. Finally on the last possible day to submit my statement of intent to register, I picked a school. I wasn't satisfied with my decision initially, wishing I had more time to decide. Prolonging things probably would have made the decision more difficult anyway, if anything. I was anxious and regretted my decision for the longest time. In retrospect, I don't think it was until my second month in college that I actually fully accepted my choice and started to embrace my school and my college experience.

At the end of the day, I can say sure, I occasionally ponder what life would be like at UCLA or UCSD, but I have been a Cal Bear for three years now and I've loved (mostly) every minute of it.

I look forward to hearing from my brother when he makes his decision. It'll be his start to a fantastic four years.

Digression: Anyhow, I just wanted to add that I have had the nicest, stress-free week. Thanks to everyone who made this possible!

Crystal Lately.

Long time, no posts.

I've just been feeling a little stressed out with school, feeling ridiculously uninspired and just plain lethargic at best. Study, eat ramen, sleep...as the routine went. I'm finally done with midterms, but I've still got a couple more papers left to churn out, but I'm hoping those won't be too bad. I'm slowly starting to pick myself back up. 7th-inning end-of-semester stretch, right?

I had a nice little conversation with some friends and acquaintances the other day about post-graduate plans and such. They were all business majors and to be honest, it was really nice not hearing the words "pre-med" or "med school" coming out of their mouths as I hear from most of the people I meet here on campus. These folks are so motivated and goal-oriented that they have inspired me to just suck it up and continue to do what I'm doing. I remember someone asking me how I felt about school and the workload I'm doing, and I responding by saying that at times I feel depressed. I quickly took that statement back because "depressed" is such a strong word, and depression is a serious mental issue. I'm not depressed, just occasionally down or discouraged, like the average college student.

It's just been really tough now that I'm essentially fulfilling requirements for three different areas of study--social welfare, education, and nursing, and it can be taxing. Throw in my terrible habit of comparing my life and situation with other folks' lives. I have friends studying abroad this semester and I'll just be honest here, I am jealous to say the least. Sometimes I think if I had planned my college career better and knew what I wanted to do from the start, I could be abroad as well. It's funny that the one thing I thought I knew I was going to do in college--study abroad--is the one thing that I definitely will not be doing. But that's life. It doesn't necessarily always work out as we've planned, and life is some crazy dynamic thing...I guess I've just gotta roll with the punches and just keep swimming.

 

Hello Spring Break!

Someone started playing Rebecca Black's "Friday" at the end of chem lecture...totally an appropriate symbol of the start of the weekend and spring break, haha.

Even though break has just begun, I feel as if my brain has been on break since the beginning of the week. I had trouble waking up for class all week. I stopped reading for my classes. I dropped and broke a flask and ended up spilling dilute HCl all over myself in chem lab. School has just been overwhelming and frustrating. Break could not have come at a better time.

As frustrating as this past week may have been, it wasn't all so bad, especially toward the end of the week. I had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends I hadn't hung out with in quite a while. I met up with Jesson and went on a mini excursion to Oakland's Chinatown area to grab lunch at a cute little cafe. We had their famous pulled pork adobo sandwich. I'd never had adobo before and needless to say, I really enjoyed it! On Thursday night, I met up with Deanna and Rick for sushi at Joshu-Ya Sushi. This place has the most extensive specialty sushi menu I have ever seen. We shared some rolls, and had some nice conversations. Hooray for good food and good company!

As for spring break itself (this week), I plan simply to relax and catch up on my schoolwork. I know this isn't really exciting, but hey, it'll do.

flashback fridays: everything was easy then

Fridays will now be "Flashback Fridays"? Possibly maybe.

I was browsing through some old photos and came across these photos from a Cal football game back in 2008. To be honest, I've never really been that interested in college football, but hey, who can pass up free tickets?  Anyone who has not been to a football game should definitely go. The fans are so loyal and supportive and this creates just the most amazing environment of intense school spirit. Go Bears!

Looking back at these photos, I feel as if I haven't done anything as fun as attending a football game since my first year. As a third year now, I definitely feel more withdrawn and less social. School has been getting tougher with the years, and I feel like my workload is just barely manageable. I have also been thinking a lot about what post-college life will entail. Grad school immediately after? Take a year off? I am perplexed.

I was a carefree first year with not too much to worry about. Everything was easy then. What happened?

Things I'm Loving Thursdays: Cream Cheese Frosting & Cupcakes

I've been thinking that I should post with themes/features on certain days just to give this blog a little more organization beyond the random ramblings I do. So far I've come up with "Things I'm Loving Thursdays".

I've been loving cream cheese frosting on cupcakes. I've never been particularly fond of cream cheese by itself, say on bagels. I do however, love cheesecake, and I guess now I'm loving cream cheese frosting!

We made these carrot cupcakes about a week ago. They were absolutely delicious! We had a lot of fun frosting and decorating these too!

"Yeah, we're hungry"

It's Thursday night. We're all studying very hard. We hadn't had dinner yet and it was 9:30 pm. Someone suggests wings and pizza and next thing you know we have 55-pieces of spicy buffalo wings, a large pizza, eight cheesy garlic twisty sticks, and a whole lot of ranch dipping sauce delivered to the apartment.

Delivery man: "This is a lot of food!"

Me: "Yeah, we're hungry."

So for six girls, this was a whole lot of food--definitely a late night pig out. No worries, we didn't actually finish all this food. We still have leftover wings in the fridge because seriously, 55 wings is a whole lot of food.

I expect to have gained pounds after all this stress-eating I've been doing for this round of midterms.