indecisiveness...

I have to decide which externship sites to apply for next year...but I can't!!! I narrowed down to 12 sites and I need to eliminate at least 2 more sites. ugh...I hate being son indecisive.

Some updates

1. When I got off at my train station, the train conductor said to me, "Take care, sweetie." Did he mistake me for someone else??? strange

2. This website has a good amount of strange conversations in NYC.

3. Finding out that one of my classmates is from Columbus, OH and attended OU for undergrad. What a small world.

4. My petname (?) given by my classmates--Pebbles. btw, my classmates' petnames are Bubbles, Marbles, Giggles, Sparkles, etc. We're into "...les" When we see each other, we greet each other like this..."Good morning, Pebbles." hehehe

5. Left my keys in the office again on Monday. I tend to lose things when I'm tired.

Thanksgiving weekend

It kinda sucked.

First of all, I had a horrible, horrible encounter with J on Wednesday night. I ended up getting pissed off at the end of night, storming out of a bar and walking by myself to the subway station at 1am. Horrible, horrible night.

Thanksgiving day: walking up with mild hangover. watched Macy's parade on TV. I was going to hang out with friends, but the plan didn't work out. So, I ended up staying at home all day long. Felt kinda miserable. None of the people who promised to call me on Thanksgiving called. I guess I don't have that many friends after all :-(

Friday: babysat in the morning. It was so freaking cold! Went to the gym to do some cardio. Had good mexican food and frozen margarita with Travis.

Saturday: went to the strength training class at the gym--my weekly routine. got a haircut. Ok, here's a question. Does "a half inch" mean "2-inches" in NYC? I'm trying to grow my hair, so I asked for trimming, not "chopping off" my hair. The lady chopped off like 2 inches! I was a little upset. My hair is shorter than ever!!! Met with W for a cup of coffee in W. Village. Great coffee :)

Sunday: hung out all day at home and cleaned up my room. Boring Sunday.

Overall, my holiday weekend sucked and I'm dreading about Christmas weekend. I need a family who will adopt me for holidays :-(

can't sleep

I don't know why but I can't sleep!!! I wanted to go to bed early tonight because I've been feeling mildly sick for the last few days.

You know, online dating is kind of like catalog shopping. You look through pictures and descriptions of people, all appearing nice and neat. You may see some hideous products every here and there, but overall, they all look nice. That's because they want you to purchase them. But unlike shopping at stores, you can't get the feel of products...like color, texture, etc. You can get some estimate of those qualities through catalog but they may not be a good representation of the actual product. Doesn't this happen to you before? You purchased something from catalog because it looked nice but when you received the product, you find out that the color looks very different from what you saw on the catalog.

I definitely prefer shopping at stores over catalog shopping. Catalog's are nice to look at, but nothing more.

Weekend report

After the get together at James' place on Friday night, my weekend was pretty much uneventful. Just worked on my take-home and intake reports, then did some house chores. That's about it. No craziness like last weekend.

I was hoping to hang out with T this weekend...but it turned out that he had to work both Sat and Sun because of the short week next week (b/c of Thanksgiving). sigh...I was disappointed. But he suggested to hang out together after Thanksgiving. I don't know when he is coming back to the city but I'm very much looking forward to it.

I've been feeling bit under the weather for the last couple of days...ugh...help me!!!

"I hate NYC" moment

It's 2am right now but I don't think I can go to bed before venting. I freaking hate NYC!!!!!!!!!!!!

Travis, James, and I cooked dinner and hung out at James' place in the E.Village tonight. I left his place around 11:45pm but I ended up getting home at 2am. It took me over 2 hours! This is rediculous.

This is all due to stupid late night/weekend service and clueless MTA workers. This stupid MTA worker told me that R is always running and N stops at Queens Plaza. What an idiot. I'm sooooooo angry.

I want to live in Manhattan. I hate Queens!!!!

typical Shihoko stupidity

I was so happy when I got off from class an hour earlier. But I had unlucky spell today. When I got to my apartment, I realized that my keys are missing. Since my key chain has too many important keys, I had to find them immediately. Oh, crap. the only place I can think of was school. So, I ended up taking trains back to school...I was about to cry :-(

When I got to school, it was already 9pm. Luckily, my keys were sitting in my office! Yay! I was sooooooooo relieved that I found the keys. But, can you imagine how pissed I was for having to make an extra round-trip to school late at night? I just got home....about 30 min ago.

Oh, well. This is a typical Shihoko moment.

Men in NYC

I've had some opportunities to meet some guys in NYC area. Here are some characteristics of them...

• They are in either financial field, law, or IT.
• They make a lot of money (6 figures) but they also work long hours and travel frequently with a short notice, which makes them rarely available.
• Even though they are only in their early 30's, they own an apartment or condo in the NYC metro area--they are quite expensive.
• They are into investing and opening up businesses. very driven and motivated.
• They respect my profession--Ph.D. student in psychology--or, at least they are good at faking it.

These are definitely type of people I would never meet within my social network. Quite interesting.

Some observations

Lately, I've been noticing that there are sooooooo many cute guys in the city. I mean, they are everywhere! I guess I never paid attention to guys until recently for some reason. hmm.

Sunday was fun. I was so exhausted from the craziness from a night before, so I just took it easy during the day. Then, I went to Chelsea to meet up with T. We met at the same French cafe that I met with Larry a few months ago. I really like the cafe--they have really good crepe. Anyway, I had a great time with T; he's really easy to talk to. We ended up hanging out at the cafe for 2+ hours but it didn't seem that long. Sometimes, you can tell within a few minutes whether you can get along with the person or not, and I think this was the case with T. (I guess some people call it "chemistry.") I had positive feelings about him right away. I hope that I will get to hang out with him again!

When I got home after meeting with T, S IMed me. It was already 8pm but he convinced me to hang out with him. He offered to pay for the cab fare to his place, and I felt bad for not hanging out with him on Sat. So, I decided to take a cab to his place. We watched this show called "Rome" and had some pinot noir :-) It was relaxing just chilling with a glass of wine.

So, it was a quite busy weekend. Of course, I was sooooooo exhausted on Monday morning!

Saturday night

Last night (Sat night) turned out to be a lot more crazier than I expected. It's Sunday afternoon, and I just got home about an hour ago.

The night started out with drinking/eating at one of the yakitori places in the E. Village with J. I ate a lot and drunk a lot (Sapporo beer!). I had interesting conversations with J, and it was fun. I told him that many people in NYC seem to work 12+ hours a day, which makes me feel my grad student schedule is not as bad. I also told him that many of my friends have 9-5 job and they have nothing to do after 5pm. Guess what he said--he was like, "is there a such thing as 9-5 job? are your friends secretary or something?" Apparently, people in NYC works way more than 40 hours/week!

After that, A picked me up from the E. Village, and we went to "martini party" at his friend's place. This was the real starting point of my crazy night. The party was fun, and I got really drunk! Had really good apple martini! After that, we went to another party in midtown at someone's apartment. This party had a lot of trendy looking people, and it was quite interesting. The apartment was really cool, too. I felt somewhat out of place because everyone else looked very attractive...but being drunk definitely helped me with awkward feelings. THEN, we went to another party at Plan B. By that time, my memory and cognitive functioning were going down hill. I remember it was very crowded there, to the point where you can't even get to the bathroom. Danced with A for a little bit but we decided to call it a night. A and I watched a movie at his place, and I ended up crashing at his place because I was sooooo exhausted.

Surprisingly, I had no hangover when I got up this morning. Feeling kinda tired but I'm not feeling sick or anything. It sure was a crazy, drunk Sat night.

I'm not a virgin any more...

...Treadmill virgin, that is.

I have always been terrified of treadmills but I decided to overcome my fear yesterday evening. When I got to the gym at 6:30pm, it was so crowded and none of the ellipticals (my favorite!) was available. BUT there was one treadmill available. I wasn't feeling like waiting around, so I thought this was a good opportunity to get over my treadmill phobia (if such thing exists).

Well...I still prefer elliptical over treadmill. I mean, treadmill wasn't as bad as I thought but it still scares me a little. Anyway, I ran 2.5 miles on treadmill and felt great.

My deep thought No.2

Well, my posting from yesterday was not mainly about bitching about guys. It was more about my own experience. I just realized that making out with someone I'm not really attracted to is NOT exciting. I thought making out can be fun no matter who the person is, as long as he is not hideous or a jerk. But I take that back. Without attraction, it's just a physical contact--not very fun. I mean, it's nice to have human physical contact...but it's not that exciting without mutal attraction.

by the way, Alexandra told me that Virgo's (me!) have the kinkiest sex life. Hmmm...I thought Virgo's are very conservative.

I had dinner with S last night at a Thai restaurant in UES. The food was decent. After dinner, he gave me a quick overview on wines--he's quite knowledgeable about wines and showed me some of the bottles he has in his "wine fridge." He also has a nice apartment!

My another deep thought

Kissing and fooling around is fun only when you are into the person you are making out with. Otherwise, you don't really feel the excitement. But I guess it's a different story for guys--they would just have s@& with anybody with female organs.

NYC marathon

Today was NYC marathon. I was thinking about going to Central Park to watch it especially because my classmate is running. But I just didn't feel like taking trains to go there when I got up this morning. So, I watched it on TV. One thing I noticed was that there were sooooooo many cute guys running! omg, where are they hiding in the city when they are not running? :-p Watching people running marathon kinda motivated me to start running. When I was in high school and college, I used to enjoy running...maybe I should start it again.

My love for the Greek Cafe in Astoria doubled last night for no apparent reason. :-) After hanging out at Travis' place, we went there for some wine. The Cafe is not fancy or anything, but I always feel relaxed there. And the wine is cheap, too!

and I LOVE Central Park with passion. I went there again to do some readings, and it made me super happy. The weather was wonderful. The leaves were changing color--so beautiful! I'd rather live in a warm place but I think I would miss four seasons. I don't know...well, I'm gonna be stuck in NYC for the next 2 years, so might as well like living here. I mean, no matter where I live, happiness depends on me, not to the environment. I just have to find a joy out of the given situation.

My kind of City

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Your personality type is SLOAI

You are social, moody, moderately organized, accommodating, and intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Tucson, Phoenix, Memphis, W. Palm Beach, Portland/Salem, Louisville, Cincinnati, San Diego, Los Angeles Area and these international countries/regions Ukraine, South Africa, Greece, Indonesia, Austria, Thailand, Turkey, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Portugal, Japan, Czech Republic, Guam

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
City Reviews at CityCulture.org

No wonder I'm stressed.

"Indeed, research shows that psychology graduate students are more stressed than faculty or practitioners and, simultaneously, have less money, security, power and social support, says psychologist John Norcross, PhD, who studies psychologists' self-care." from GradPsy (APA magazine).

German night

After a busy week, what I needed was fun time with friends. I got together with Alex, Billy, and Heather (Alex's friend from HS) in W. Village. We went to this German restaurant/bar, and I really liked it there. Their food was good, yet cheap. And beer was GREAT and CHEAP! I would definitely go back there with beer-loving friends.

The weather was nice again today, and I enjoyed being in outdoor while I was babysitting in the morning. My mood is greatly affected by weather.

I was searching for pre-doctoral internship which I have to do in two years...and I found a few interesting ones. One of them that I'm really interested in is this one at Harvard Medical School...I know it's too early to be thinking about it, but I get excited thinking about internship assignments.

classmate bonding

After 6-8pm class, Mariel, Alexandra, Aliza and I went to a mexican restaurant for dinner. We were starving to death! We invited other classmates, but they all had plans or were sick and wanted to go home. Four of us had a great time! Being at a Mexican restaurant, I of course had to have margarita! It's nice to have a classmate bonding moments. :-)

My therapy groups went OK today. They weren't as good as last week partly because many of the patients we know were discharged earlier this week. :-(

Oh, yeah, S called last night. I know I gave him my number but I completely forgot about it. So, when I got a call from him, it caught me off guard. He sounded sane over the phone, which is good. We may be meeting up for dinner on Sun :-)

I really need to go to the gym tomorrow. Mexican food is actually making me feel gross.

Graduation

Since I missed the deadline to petition for graduation, I'm going to petition for my MA next semester. My graduation will be on May 19, 2006! So excited!

meeting

I'm so proud of myself for going to the gym yesterday morning, before the case conference at 10:30am. I must say, it felt really, really good. But I was 5-minute late to the case conference--oooops!

It was pretty busy yesterday. Just like usual. After class, I met with B for bubble tea. Haven't had bubble tea in ages! It was fun chatting with him--he can engage in silly conversation to thought-provoking conversation. Even though he is an electrical engineer, he has good social skills :-p I had a great time last night.

thinking about doing laundry tonight...I have almost two weeks worth of laundry. ugh.