travel diaries/summer adventures

i've been travelling a lot this summer and while it's been nice to have things to look forward to and to be fortunate enough to afford to travel, i'm starting to think maybe i should slow down a little and save more money? but then again...i remember that i always wanted to travel as much as possible. maybe what i should be doing is saving up for bigger trips? but the small ones are fun and meaningful too. oh well.

june: was able to go to seattle/home/disneyland with everybody and finally do all the things i was craving!

-see my lovely friends graduate at last!

-eat my customary in n out on the way home from LAX: animal style burger and neapolitan shake.

-see my family/hang out with my high school friends i hadn't seen in over a year!

-DISNEYLAND DISNEYLAND DISNEYLAND!

-ride everything at disneyland, eat adobo, bread pudding, corn dogs, bread bowls, churros, etc. and watch world of color!

july: i went to vegas with my roommate payten and my friend from work megan for payten's birthday, and anna came and met us there! it was pretty baller.

-arrived on thursday afternoon and immediately went for a steak lunch and gambling.

-had sushi in caesar's palace with a great view of the strip (sounds bad, but it was great, albeit very expensive!)

-went to the moon club in the palms and met some interesting canadians. >__<

-spent almost everyday at the pool, trying to get some color. it's so hard when you live in a basement and work in a hospital!

-had lunch at wolfgang puck's in the MGM which had the BEST burger of my life. prime rib with caramelized onion marmalade and garlic aioli. holy shit. i will probably never eat a finer thing. so worth 17 dollars!

-watched the creepy and totally uncool new show at treasure island. ugh.

-anna drove in and we went to tao in the venetian. surprise surprise, it is kim kardashian's bachelorette party! we don't get to see her, but we have a lot of fun and eventually end up pooped out at dennys around 5 am.

-brought payten and megan to their first in n out ever! not sure if they were terribly into it, but i am used to people's reactions to in n out as such now, and could not give too much of a damn. i really do think you just have to be from california!

-brunch buffet at the belagio and i literally cannot move for a couple hours after, i am in so much pain from too much food. later, when everything calms down a bit, we go for gelato/crepes in the new hotel aria.

-gambled here and there on the penny slots and miraculously won $100 with $5 that payten gave me to amuse myself! i was playing on this tarzan slot and was losing money, almost about to give up, when i hit the stampede bonus! the machine would NOT stop alarming, and the lady next to me shot me the dirtiest glare...wahahaha. the high you get from winning at the slots is so intense! i can definitely see how people get addicted to it! but i cashed out and immediately blew most of it on an awesome sushi dinner with wayyy too much food.

-our last night we went to lavo, which is also in the venetian. and totally randomly, we find we're in the middle of chris humphrey's (kim k's fiancee) bachelor party! which, i hear, she crashed, but we didn't stay long enough for that.

-flew back to dc, 10 pounds heavier and slightly tanner. woot!

august: i know it's still august!

-last minute trip home to use up a random 6 day stretch of off days and take advantage of anthony's buddy passes!

-ate more in n out, of course.

-caught up on all the asian food i've been deprived of: filipino, vietnamese, korean, chinese.

-spent a day with my dad and mom separately, which i don't think has happened since school vacations.

-harry potter IMAX 3D for the second time! also watched glee live 3D, and paranormal activity 2 with alex...not as scary as the first one, but still disturbing and terrifying!

-went to the artwalk in downtown la that happens every 2nd thursday each month with anna, tiffany, and a bunch of their friends. found our way to the library bar (which looks like a library inside, except with far less books!), then eventually ended up at canters, the 24 hour jewish deli in hollywood that i've come to love as a late night stop after shows with the guys.

-tried to go the edison twice, but failed twice. haha. one day, la, one day!

-things i miss: asian supermarkets, fresh cheap fruit, excessive amounts of food in the fridge, water coolers, and sunny dry heat. things i do not miss: driving, not having a car and needing to be picked up/dropped off places (contradictory, and extremely unsure how to remedy the two?), telling my parents exactly what i'm doing/where i'm going.

-had a 2 stop, all day flight back to dc that ended with sitting next to a very nice guy just moving to dc on my last flight. he is going to start med school so he can be doing public health in indian reservations. very inspiring conversation, and hopefully a cool new friend who can help break or at least, explain mormon stereotypes? and maybe teach me some ballroom dancing. we'll see. :)

welp, after cramming 3 months of material into one blog post, i shall break. next blog post idea: let's do a day in the life of! there are a couple film projects coming out right now that record individual people's daily lives. (one by morgan spurlock, the guy who did supersize me). it seemed like a cool idea that i want to try! not only does it promote individualism which i am so fond of in contemporary society but it just seems like fun. hahaha. unfortunately, i won't be filming, but we can do a couple posts about day in the life of bessie the nurse, and bessie in dc...mostly because i'd love to hear about a day in your lives, more than mine!

Dear Aimi and Anthony...

i think we're the only ones still checking/posting on blogspot. tumblr has taken over people's lives! (which may or may not be a bad thing).

anyways, please keep posting with me on blogspot! i love reading your blogs!

most ardently yours,
bessie

a flipbook of my brain

i know it's been so fucking long since i've written anything.

and i must apologize. there are not many excuses besides just a general lack of...well, feeling.

my mom will call and ask me for stories or just what's new with me, and i tell her the same thing, because it's true. nothing is going on, nothing new has happened, everything is fine. but we all know what the word "fine" means. just....blah. fine = blah. not good, not bad, just....existing. well, hardly.

anyways, here is a lovely list of what has been going on with bessie, because i am so very fond of lists!

-work work work. moving to night shift tomorrow, which means, no social life. not like i had one to begin with? grah.

-PRAYING that i can get time off to go to disneyland. PRETTY PLEASE WITH SPRINKLES AND NUTELLA AND WHIPPED CREAM ON TOP???

-utter obsession with darren criss and everything about him. i have no shame.

-looking forward to and dreading the last harry potter event everrrrrrrrrrr. because it means my childhood will officially be over.

-right at this very very moment: watching hello dolly on fmc, skyping with elaine, sitting on our giant armchair with a big blanket, deuce (my impossibly soft and fluffy sheep friend), and some coffee, and trying to draft a long overdue letter but blogging instead.

-wishing i knew what was missing in my life, worrying about what i want to do with myself, and kind of loathing myself for being so self-involved.

-finally bought a new laptop...FINALLY. now i am broke. hahaha. but it will be worth it!

-excited and nervous to start being creative again. i need this kick to my brain though. i also need to start reading more and start exercising again. just...you know....rev up my wellness in general and get some balance back in my life again. let's do it together!

-homesick for the west coast....even though the weather is nice out here....i want to see my family and friends and just....chill.

-trying to be on skype more often and more open to keeping in touch more often.

okay. enough rambling for now. until next time, lovely people. :)

highlights: thanksgiving 2010 in new york

wednesday:

-megabus up to the big apple = $27.00. sat next to a quiet guy who read and napped = awesome. sat in front of asian kid who played his DS and was very vocal throughout the trip = not so awesome. free wifi definitely helped a 4-5 hr turned 6-7 hr bus ride more tolerable.

-met up with bin in the classiest lobby of the swankiest building of my life, aka JP Morgan.

-dropped off my stuff at their super cool apartment in the kiehl's building near NYU and union square and went for a quick tour of NYU.

-dinner at ippudo: delicious ramen, kalbi beef with lime jello sauce and mushrooms, and chu-hai with fresh grapefruit juice you squeezed yourself with a juicer they brought you.

-back to the apartment, met bin's roommates, and then went out to the smith with ravi and had a few beers and the pink pussy ice cream sundae with red velvet cake. convinced bin that photobooth pics were a good idea. and they were.

-met up with bin's friends alyssa and marica at piano, some bar in the lower east side. this has been so far the only bar i've been to with more guys than girls trying to get in, and the bouncers were only letting girls in. we got in because bin was with me, and i have swagger. haha! had shots of tequila and then gin and tonic, and danced away until 4:30 am with bin. meet pierre, this french guy towards the end of the night, and he gives me his number.

-drunk food at artichoke which bin swears is the best pizza in NY: two huge spinach artichoke slices with white sauce and TONS of cheese (the specialty), a slice of margherita, and a slice of sicilian. i can barely finish a slice of the spinach artichoke, but it is fucking delicious.

thursday:

-slept in all morning til 1 pm.

-ate the slice of margherita pizza for breakfast. still fucking delicious.

-bin wakes up at 3 pm. hahaha.

-we decide to get thanksgiving dinner reservations at les halles, anthony bourdain's restaurant, with bin's friend humai, and go on a meat filled food tour before dinner (sausages, meatballs, etc.)

-none of the places bin took me to were open save for this amazing little german hole in the wall that we stumbled into. had THE BEST SAUSAGE OF MY LIFE. curry wurst = sausage with tomato-y curry sauce and fries. also, very light and refreshing wheat beer that i can't remember the name of.

-this greek guy at the sausage place makes very long and interesting conversation with bin and i. he is insistent that i move to new york immediately. and i rather agree with him, if i can have sausage like this all the time.

-dinner at les halles: roast turkey with fois gras and green beans, bin decided to have steak, and humai has salad. we share our desserts: banana flambee with coconut ice cream, pecan pie with vanilla ice cream, and the most decadent chocolate mousse. thumbs up mr. bourdain.

-back at the apartment, we watch youtube cat videos of maru the cat and weed through resumes of college kids trying to apply for jobs at JP morgan until bedtime.

friday:

-slept in again. bin went to his office for a couple of hours. meet up with marica and alyssa at the met. the met RULES.

-meet up with bin for THE BEST UDON NOODLES OF MY LIFE. they make the udon fresh in front of you. and i get the curry beef b/c i am still on a curry high from the curry wurst. and it definitely lives up to my expectations.

-marica, bin, and i go to the moma and meet up with bin's friend christina. the moma RULES.

-christina, bin, and i get dinner at boka: korean. dinner: beef soon doo bu, righteous korean fried chicken, pickled daikon radish, and sizzling fried tofu with kimchee, which doesn't sound so fancy, but OMG. it blew my world apart. we eat everything.

-we go for a crazy hunt for korean ginger tea, and end up at this japanese tea house. i get some genmai cha, bin gets white tea, and christina get some black tea.

-christina is still craving korean ginger tea, we buy some at a konbini type store and go back to bin's apt to experiment with it. we make it with a little too much cinnamon, but it tastes pretty decent anyways.

saturday:

-another late morning. i try to get some work done, but end up just listening to bon iver and enjoying being lazy on the couch.

-bin takes me to have brunch at spitzer's: we share vanilla pancakes with fresh berries, stumptown coffee, and crispy crispy bacon.

-wander around soho to work up an appetite for 'lunch'. marica meets us at uniqlo. spoils of soho shoppign: sweater tights from uniqlo, a ring, umbrella socks, and a complexly fashion forward top from top shop. there are many many other things i want, but shouldn't buy.

-alex meets us for a late lunch at new green bo: pork soup dumplings, green onion pancakes, sauteed sichuan eggplant with rice. OMNOMNOM.

-go back to the apt to change and meet marica in times square for off broadway avenue q. marica got half price tickets and we sat in the 4th row. an usher did back handsprings while we waited for curtains to rise. tried not to sing along, but failed. it was FANTASTIC. :)

-met up with bin and all 3 of his roommates (ravi, nick, matt) at city crab for oysters and drinks. moved to a beer bar, sampled all the beers on tap, and settled on one. bin is baller and pay for all my drinks. made everyone play fantasy threesome game. other friends meet us and leave us. a few of us moved to another bar/club, where we try to get into the scene, but it doesn't quite work. but still ballin, as my baller cousin and his roommate pay for my cover and drinks.

-marica decides to spend the night, so we go back to the apt with a good buzz and ravi, bin, marica, and i change into jammies and hang out on ravi's bed with ravi's bear collection. ravi makes sure we each get a bear to sleep with, (i get gordy) and we turn in.

sunday:

-wake up very very late. make plans for brunch with bin's friend liz at the smith at 2 pm, and make plans to meet alex and hang out for bit before then.

-alex meets me at bin's apt and we go to the strand, a bookstore that boasts "18 miles of books". meander along the art books, the comic books, the banned literature section. visit a huge halloween store that has a lifesize bust of darth vader with his mask off from return of the jedi and geek out a little.

-brunch: smoked salmon eggs benedict with home fries, hot coffee, and a bloody mary. best fucking brunch of my life. bin thinks i am an eggs benedict kind of person. i think he's right.

-go back to the apt and can't think of anything to do that doesn't involve food. ravi makes french press and then we finally decide to hit the holiday market at union square until dinner, since we aren't hungry enough to do food tours.

-the holiday market reminds me of the street fairs in seattle...kitschy and cute and fun to poke around.

-go to yakitori bar with bin and christina for dinner: assorted yakitori platter which includes chicken skin, chicken heart, and pork belly. we also get creamy salmon spaghetti and grilled chasu pork with avocado, which is surprisingly very very tasty together.

-pack up and bin hails me a cab over to the bolt bus stop, and catch the 10 pm bus back to DC.

-roll into my apt around 3 am, missing the big city and all the food, and not wanting to go to work at 7 am.

the alpha, the omega, and keep moving forward

on my last day in seattle, we visited seattle u for a nostalgic walk about campus. things were so different. people i didn't recognize, new buildings, new paint, new furniture, new pavement. and yet, things were the same. i felt the same sense of home, the same sense of this dense little microcosm of a world that focused on student life. and it was so painfully clear that i am no longer a student, but an alumni, a visitor.

on our way out, i visited the chapel, just to see it one more time, to feel the beeswax wall one more time. and i sat and looked around, and tried to keep the lump in my throat at bay, but failed. i looked at the altar, at the alpha and the omega. and i came to realize something. this is neither the beginning, nor the end. i am not at the end. i'm smack in the middle of this ridiculous journey, and i have to respond to this challenge, this obliteration of what i know. i have to haul out the little courage i have, and keep my fear from consuming me entirely. and i have to trust that i will somehow make it through this, and that while everything is changing drastically, i have so much love, and so much support from my family and friends, that it would be impossible for me to fail in their eyes. and i can keep moving forward, knowing that they are behind me, and beside me, and cheering me on.

keep moving forward is the moral of the story from disney's meet the robinsons. it is a highly underrated movie, and i love it immensely. i love the cheesiness, the humor, the story, but most of all, i love the message. to keep moving forward, to not look backwards for very long. i have been repeating these three words to myself over and over. keep moving forward. keep moving forward.

they say that what doesn't kill us makes us who we are.

i am going to washington d.c. for those who haven't heard, i got the job there, at washington hospital center, on the cardiac unit. i start on oct 18th, and am flying out there for a physical on the 8th and to try and find a place to live.

i am:

-terrified

-excited

-exceedingly sad to leave seattle and everyone i love here.

-trying not to be sad about leaving

-constantly nostalgic for all the little routines and rituals i have come to know.

-mostly optimistic about the adventure and starting fresh.

-apprehensive about the total culture and life shock i am about to experience.

well...apart from being a giant ball of feelings, the days have been going by easier than i expected. maybe they'll get harder as we count down, but for now, i'm getting by. leaving with this:

"This is the comfort of friends, that though they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal."

-William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude

i don't know what to do with my life.

sooo...after a summer of sitting in a cubicle and worry-warting about why i haven't gotten anywhere with the job hunt, i suddenly find myself in a very odd situation. and i have no idea how to proceed. so, prepare yourself for a plethora of lengthy, haphazardly digressive speech.

first things first, i have an interview for a residency in washington dc. it's on sept 24th, and i'm flying out for a day. i told my parents once i got the confirmation email about it, and surprise of all surprises, they were both REALLY SUPPORTIVE and really excited about it. i feel like i'm in inception or something and i'm going to wake up somewhere crazy, because they've been kind of been pushing for me to go back to california this whole time. and so this is all very very exciting, especially since my girl natalie got the job!! it definitely has been a big reassurance that she's going through the same thing and that there's a possibility we might do this together! (i am trying to squeeze out all the silver linings i can!) but at the same time, it's absolutely TERRIFYING. hauling ass to the east coast? if i get the job, i have to leave seattle in two weeks and adjust to a completely new city all over again. as everyone keeps telling me, this is the best fucking time for me to pick up and just leave and experience something new and different, but thinking about leaving everyone and everything i've come to know and love here...well, it's incredibly sad and i can't even begin to process any of that yet.

next, i had a mini interview for another residency at providence hospital in everett. it was just a 5 minute meet and greet info session sort of thing, and so i'm waiting to hear back from them as to whether i can move on to a real interview. i think i did well, and the hospital sounds/looks fantastic, they're doing a lot of construction and opening a new campus, and the residency program is good too. this is sort of on the back burner as compared to DC, but god...i guess it's still on the table, and when push comes to shove, i don't know which one i would rather pick. both programs are good, but there's a good possibility that i would be able to start in critical care with everett, which is eventually what i want to do. the only thing is...do i want to be an hour north of seattle by myself?

so, both of these things came up so suddenly, and even though nothing has actually happened, my mind just started getting ahead of itself, and everything just seemed so overwhelming and unbearable. i keep saying this, but i keep feeling like i'm just counting chickens before they hatch...all these half baked plans that have a very real possibility of not going through. i feel silly for all these little panics i've been having, just periods of utter doubt in myself...i think because i'm feeling so on pause right now, like i'm waiting for my life to start, because there really isn't much that's grounding me. everything is temporary, a weird transitional and existential patch. and i dunno if it's this office job or whatever, but i feel so trapped at the same time, like all my future is going to consist of is staying in the lines, paying off loans and building up a 401k, and getting 2 weeks of vacation a year. my own little boring slice of the american dream pie. and then i die. it's all very depressing...mostly because it's true. i just feel so disillusioned and disenchanted with this lifestyle that so many people just seem to accept. like i'm not allowed to do anything but these things, because it would be irresponsible. i dunno. rambling.

finally....i got an email from the supervisor on my senior prac floor at swedish ICU, and she said that they were going to open a couple positions soon, and to apply and let her know so she can flag my name for the recruiter...applied for that today, and cannot believe the ridiculous timing! i emailed her weeks ago about any openings, and of all times, now is when i get an 'in' to swedish.

shit is just getting too real, too fast.