is it spring already???

It was freaking 64 degrees in NY today. I almost thought the winter ended! We've been having such a mild winter.

Today, I had another evaluation from my inpatient unit supervisor. She told me that I'm "sensitive, thoughtful, professional, and responsible", and it made me really happy. Other than that, I had bi-weekly lab meeting and meeting with my advisor. My advisor told me that she doesn't mind if I took extra year in grad school to get more research done...which means that I will be in grad school for a total of 6 years (7 years with internship), instead of 5 years. Hmmm...I don't know if I want to spend that much of time in school.

weekend in NY

I spent this weekend in good ol' NY.

Friday: babysitting during the day. quite chilly out. Went to a party at Dr. O's apartment. I thought it was gonna be boring but it turned out to be lots of fun. had little too much wine, and it gave me a really bad headache! good party overall.

Saturday: completed my externship apps! Yeah! Met up with Mike and went to that pizza place by the Brooklyn Bridge. As usual, pizza was great!!! walked by the water in Brooklyn Heights area--such a beautiful day! Then, went to Veniero's. I so much wanted to have their fabulous pastries but I was too full from pizza! what a shame! Met up with Travis and we went to a sake bar right next to his apartment. I had two fruit infused sake (yummy) and I got slightly buzzed. good Sat.

Sunday: woke up early and finished laundry by 11am--yay for me. then, cleaned up my room a bit but I still have a lot more cleaning to do! couldn't get grocery shopping done today because it was raining out. spent most of the day just chilling at my apartment. relaxing day. :-)

All in all, I had a great weekend with a good mixture of relaxing and productivity.

uneventful day

It was such an uneventful day. ran two therapy groups, did some lab work, went to class, and came home afterwards. that's it. nothing really interesting. I guess first week of classes went smoothly. :-)

Plan for this weekend:
1. do laundry
2. go grocery shopping
3. clean up my room
4. go to the gym
5. hang out with my friends in NYC
6. watch some of the Netflix movies

I guess this is more of a "to do list" rather than "weekend plan" I'm looking forward to getting things done this weekend, though. It's been over a month since the last time I spent weekend at my apartment...and my apartment is such a mess right now!!!

externship nightmare

This year's externship was basically given by school but for next year, I actually have to apply. Since I'm a slacker, I put it off untill now to start the application process. I got extremely nervous this week and started to send CV's and other application materials to the sites today. I know I have to write different cover letter to each site, but I'm pretty much sending a generic one to them. bad me. :-p

Ever since I graduated from college, I've been applying to SOMETHING every year. I applied to grad school, went to OU, then applied to New School, applied to Ph.D. program, then I'm applying to externship this year. I have to keep doing this forever. After two externships, I have to apply for internship, then post-doc's, then jobs...endless appplication hell!!!

I hope in 15-20 years, people will come to me with a job so that I don't have to apply for anything any more.

another supervision and weekend update

I had a meeting with my supervisor from the outpatient unit to talk about my performance on the intake interviews. Again, I was really nervous...but my supervisor told me that he was "pleasantly surprised and impressed with my performance." He said that I did well on intake interviews, participantion on supervision sessions, write-up's, and working with interns/peers. It was such a self-esteem boost. According to him, I'm "a great beginning clinical student." :-)

Anyway, today was the first day of classes! Can't believe one month long winter break went by this quickly.

I spent last weekend in CT again. On Friday, Dave and I went out for much needed beer! Then, on Saturday, we went to a boat show. I got to see so many different kinds of boats, and it was a lot of fun! Some of them were rediculously expensive and ugly but I liked some other ones. It's nice thinking about how it would be like to own a boat...I don't think it will ever happen but it's just nice to fantasize about it. Sunday was such a beautiful day--we went out for a walk, and it felt really good. We spent the day relaxing, basically. Overall, it was a relaxing yet productive weekend. It was a great way to re-charge some energy before the semester started.

Just found out next weekend is Chinese New Year...I wonder what kind of events will be going on in Chinatown...

Supervision madness

I had two therapy groups to run today, and my supervisor came to observe both of the groups. I was soooo super nervous! But the good thing is, both of them went extremely well, and I'm happy about it. :-) I know I have to go through so many direct supervision and evaluations but I hate them with passion!

Ever since I came back from Nara/Osaka, I've been quite busy. Whenever I take vacation, work just piles up and I have to deal with them all when I come back. It almost makes me wonder whether it's worth taking vacation because I get stressed out as soon as I come back. But I must say, visiting Osaka/Nara was fun. I got to eat lots of yummy food and relax.

Oh, yeah, last weekend was fun, too. I went to CT to visit Dave. Because my babysitting job got cancelled on Friday, I took an early bus to CT. We went to a Korean/Japanese restaurant for dinner (bibimbap, baby!) and went to a sake bar later that night. People, be careful with martini's! I had two sake-tini's and I got DRUNK! They are evil because they taste good and make you feel like you are not consuming that much of alcohol, but you actually are! Saturday was fun, too. We just chilled out at Dave's apartment all day long--we're lazy, hehe. Oh, Dave took me out to this wine bar at night--it was fancy, but they didn't have any variety for food. So, we ended up going to another place. And, on Sunday, it snowed! It was soooooo cold that Dave's car froze and we couldn't get into the car. So, we ended up getting into the car through trunk...! It was crazy! And I had bison burger for the first time in my life--it was yummy!!!!!

Talking about food makes me hungry...what should I eat for dinner???

jet lag

I was always proud of myself for having very minimal jet lag whenever I travel overseas. But this time, I think I'm jet lagged big time... :-( It probably is a sign of aging...sigh.

I got up around 3am this morning and could not go back to sleep. I have a full day ahead of me and don't know what to do! Hopefully, I can recover over the weekend.

Back in NY

I came back to NYC last night, around 6pm. It took me 23 hours, door-to-door. As usual, I couldn't sleep on the airplane, so I ended up staying up for 29 hours with a total of 1 hour sleep.

Even though I slept for 9 hours last night, I still felt very tired this morning. I had to go to the hospital to run two therapy groups but I was feeling dizzy and disoriented throughout the groups. After that, I went to the photo studio to do bookkeeping but I was still feeling sleep deprived. I don't know how I could enter all those numbers with my jet-lagged brain. I was going to hang out with M after the bookkeeping job but I ended up cancelling it because I couldn't bare waiting for an hour until he gets off from work at 7pm.

Now I'm home unpacking. still feeling dizzy and disoriented. I've been stumbling over all the stuff I brought back from Japan and I can't even stand still for 5 seconds. I need to sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

relaxing week

For the last couple of days, I've been sleeping more than 10 hours per night. I don't know why...it's not like I've been active during the day, either. I just get up in late morning and go shopping in the afternoon. That's all I've been doing ever since I got to Japan.

Today, I went to Umeda (central Osaka, kind of like 34th street area in Manhattan) with my mom. After being there for an hour or so, I got so exhausted because there were soooooooooo many people. It's always busy in Umeda but it was more so today because it's in the middle of big "sale season" right now. My mom bought me some clothes, and I feel guilty and happy at the same time.

Two more days in Japan...what should I do tomorrow?

back in Nara

I flew back to Osaka/Nara last Wednesday. I was supposed to leave last Tuesday but my domestic connection flight was cancelled, and I ended up flying on the next day. The flight was super long (16 hours total), and my inability to sleep on the airplane made it seem even longer. Interesting happened on my NYC-Detroit flight. Out flight was delayed because someone vomited on the aircraft and they had to clean it up before we could start boarding. This has never happened to me before.

Thursday: went shopping with my mom and sister. bought two skirts, a pair of pants, and a scarf. Osaka is a shopping heaven! had dinner with my cousin, Eriko. we had a great time catching up.

Friday: went shopping on my own. bought two pairs of pants, and whole bunch of random stuff. fell asleep around 9pm. my sister's bf made a surprise visit at night.

Today: went to Mr. Donuts with an intention of doing some work but ended up reading "Da Vinci Code" two more chapters to go.

My impression of Nara--again, everything is so small. tons of good food.
what's going on in Japan--snowing a lot in all over Japan. Northern part of Japan got over 10 feet of snow!

NYE celebration

I was house/catsitting for my prof for the last 1.5 week or so and have been quite busy going back and forth between my place and her place while prepping for my trip to Osaka. Been kinda crazy. In the midst of that, I had to arrange to meet our future roomie to arrange her move in and to hang out with M (btw, we went to an interesting bar called Beauty Bar--14th between 3rd and 2nd aves).

Anyway, by the time NYE came around, I was kinda tired. But I have to have fun on NYE, right? Dave came in from CT on the 31st by train. I met him up at Grand Central and we enjoyed dim sum in Chinatown. We went to "Golden Unicorn", and their dim sum was slightly more expensive than the ones we've been to but probably the best one so far. After that, we just chilled at my prof's house, eating very yummy cheesecake and drinking spiced wine and beer. Yes, we started drinking from 3pm in the afternoon!

At night, we had dinner/drink at Heartland Brewery in Union Sq. I don't know what happened but we both felt kinda sick afterwards...maybe too much grease and carbonation... Then, we went to Central Park for midnight run and fireworks. When we got there, there was some dancing going on, and it was fun! free DJ and dancing! Countdown was crappy because it happened 10 seconds after the DJ told us that NY is in 5 minutes, which turned out to be a wrong information. So, I wasn't sure when it turned to New Year... Anyway, they had amazing fireworks!!! It was soooo beautiful. I'm so glad that we went to Central Park for the new year's. :-) Then, we went to a bar in E. Village to drink more (3 drinks and 1 shot) By the time we got back to the apartment at 4am, I was exhausted. But I had a really good New Year celebration!!!!!!!

Now I'm chilling out at my apartment because my flight to Detroit got cancelled and can't fly out to Osaka today.