a day in the life (as promised!)

today:

-woke up at 8:30 am, exhausted and feeling like i didn't sleep at all. hate that feeling. but haul myself out of bed and get ready for the day.

-get a text reminding me to eat breakfast from anna's mommy. haha.

-ritual face-washing, moisturizer slathering, brief doubts about personal appearance followed by subsequent makeup application, then an analyzation of clean/practical/sort of decent looking clothes for the day. throw clothes on and am out the door by 8:53.

-walk a block or so to the bus stop and catch the 42 it right as it arrives! roll over to connecticut and leroy ave to the washington hilton to meet anna's mommy, elizabeth. (she came into DC for a conference and we'd been sightseeing quite a bit).

-we make quick plans to go over to see the african american civil war memorial on u street then head down to china town to see the national portrait gallery. she had been there the day before but wanted to see more of it.

-luckily for us, it was an amazing fall weather day, with lots of sun and wind. walk from north dupont over to u street and make a quick pit stop at the post office so she can send postcards to anna and her niece. then we head up to the civil war memorial and take in all the miniscule names engraved into the metal plaques surrounding it. there are so many.

-take the u street metro down to chinatown and decide to detour down to the national treasury building and then over to the white house next door. there are so many tourist groups, and we walk by a particularly large group of japanese teenage boys.

-walk over to the corcoran gallery and college of art and spend a good amount of time perusing the modern art and earlier classical art.

-after exiting the corcoran, we meander over to the renwick gallery up the street and join a quick 12:00 tour of the white house treasures. there are so many beautiful things to look at, all furniture and china commissioned for the white house by the many first ladies who lived there. upstairs is some more modern art and more classical art, nonspecific to the white house. i can't decide which pieces are my favorite, but there is a huge swordfish piece made entirely out of small toys and beads, a reclining dress made of thick frosted glass, and a huge banquet table filled with over 400 pieces of hand blown glass made by 16 different artists.

-after exhausting the renwick gallery, we move to see the front of the white house (we had looped to the back of it earlier) there are so many people in black suits and sunglasses, we figure the president must be in.

-we continue walking back toward chinatown and the national portrait gallery and start to get hungry. i know of an elusive food truck area, but wasn't sure exactly where. happily, we stumble upon them and we both beeline straight for the korean food truck.

-with spicy bulgogi/spicy chicken in our hands, we head up to the portrait gallery to eat inside the big courtyard in the middle of the museum.

-we have a quiet but extremely delicious lunch and rest our feet while people watching. did i mention homemade kimchi? so good!

-then it was off to see parts of the museum, and we stayed mostly in the classical arts. paintings, marble and bronze statues, stained glass windows.

-departed from the national portrait gallery at 2:30 pm and took the metro to drop off anna's mom at her hotel. we said our goodbyes, and then i began the trek back to my apartment, hoping to catch an afternoon nap. my friend ayelet then texted me about perhaps going for a bike ride in the nice weather, and i decide i should probably just stay up and do something with the rest of the day.

-rush home and change quickly into better shoes and shorts, and meet ayelet at her house. we take her bike and roommates bike and bike about NW DC, mostly in our neighborhood where there aren't so many hills. we realize quickly that hills are largely unavoidable, and that we are both rather out of shape. we bike around quaint Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods and loop around to rock creek park and back through adams morgan. we find a small park tucked away with a lively family soccer game.

-after about an hour we head back to ayelet's out of exhaustion, but also because she had to work at 7 pm. she gets ready and we hang out and watch indie movie trailers and make plans to travel to seattle to see the deck the halls concert this december. not quite sure if it will actually happen, but it seems totally plausible at the moment. as do most grand plans with friends do.

-leave ayelet's house and walk home, immediately change into pajamas and begin scrounging the fridge for food.

-heat up an apple dumpling from maggiano's that payten brought back a week ago in the oven, and contemplate making some garlic and parmesan pasta. throw some pasta into boiling water and eat the apple dumpling first, while watching tv. then improvise with some minced jar garlic, olive oil, packaged grated parmesan, and garlic powder. it's hot, garlicky, and filling. and super cheap.

-watch some how i met your mother, some 30 rock, and then retreat to my room to finish up the november instyle i bought the day before.

-fall asleep reading the magazine in my bed and then wake up an hour later only to discover that i am now wide awake. which brings us to my current trolling on the internet. and it is exactly 12:00 am as i finish typing this! and there we have it, a much more busy than usual day in the life of bessie in DC. :)

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. :)