when i bought my car a few months ago it came with a free trial of XM satellite radio. the last few months have been quite amazing while i listened to the top 20 on 20, on broadway, npr, comedy, e!, sonic theatre, and so much more…and did i mention that so much of it was commercial free? the free trial is over now and i’m really beginning to feel the pain of missing out on the XM. the problem is that i don’t want to spend $12.95 on radio. what is a boy to do?

for lunch yesterday i decided to go try out the local A&J restaurant. the restaurant serves various chinese noodle and meat dishes and there’s this one particular soup that i really like but haven’t had in years. i’ve stayed away from spicy foods because my body really doesn’t react well to them, even though i do like a little spice.

i thought things would be just fine so i ordered the hot and spicy beef noodle soup. it was every bit as good as i remembered it, but it was a warm summer day and the restaurant didn’t have air conditioning. sweat started to pour down my face as i continued to eat the food. it was so bad that the waitress gave me extra napkins without me asking for them. how embarassing.

it was good noodle soup, though.

today was the first day at the new job. it was pretty laid back as is usually the case on the first day. i still have to get my development machine up and running, but for the most part it’s alright. i think the hardest part is going to be working at 1024×768. how do people do it? i thought working on one monitor was bad enough, but at this resolution, it’s sort of ridiculous. =P

this is also the first company where i’ve had to work in a cube. that sort of bums me out. what also sucks is that the cube is situated in such a fashion that your back is always faced to the open part of the cube. i feel like i will never get any kind of privacy. i wonder if i still have my mirror from the other company.

my cube neighbors are kind of loud and it seems like it’s going to be like that for a while now, so i’m going to have to remember to bring some tunes with me so that i won’t be so distracted.

but all in all it was a pretty nice, easy going kind of a day. i really enjoyed the fact that the commute was pretty short. being in the same city as your job definitely has its benefits.

i am flying out to new york city the last weekend of september. this will be my first trip out to the big apple. i’m pretty excited. aside from seeing jenny who i haven’t seen in YEARS, i really want to go explore new york. i think it’ll be a lot of fun.

i’m also going to be trying to visit some people while i’m there, hopefully, it’ll work out well. drop me a line if you are in the area and maybe we can meet up for some pearl tea or something.

recently, i had to make a choice between what i should do and what i want to do. this kind of choice is always the hardest because it is a battle between what you truly desire and what you know is really best for you. it’s odd, then, that if we know what’s best for us that we continue to want things that we should not have.

i felt like i was standing on a precipice trying to decide if i should jump head first into the crashing waves below me, sure that it would be disastrous. but knowing that after i had lept off that cliff, i would take flight into the wonderous joy that we all know too well when you do what you want to do with reckless abandon despite what you know you should do, i wanted so desperately to jump.

i thought about how amazing it would be as the wind cut through my body as i plummeted towards certain doom. i thought about how thrilling it would be as i prayed that somehow there was some kind of bungee cord tied to my feet that would save me at the last minute. wishful thinking? perhaps, but even that tiny shred of hope would be enough to keep me happy as i plunged towards the inevitable.

oh, how i long to take such a leap.

the moment was rapidly approaching, time was running out, a decision had to be made. i reached the point of no return, it was now or never, do or die, pee blindly into the wind.

but instead, the moment passed. sadness filled my heart as i looked over my shoulder and saw opportunity pass me by. a void filled my soul as i knew that doing the right thing was the best thing to do, yet felt so wrong. a sinking feeling weighed my heart down and finding light in the darkness that surrounded me seemed unlikely.

good bye, alvarado niles exit, the exit of the delicious krispy kreme. some other time…some other time.

it’s been a while since i’ve gotten a haircut. if i had followed my usual schedule, i probably would have gotten one about 2 weeks ago. the hair has been getting pretty long and with the long hair, it’s been getting pretty crazy too.

i decided that it was time to get a haircut. i went to my regular place and the guy that i go to was still not there. some other woman cut my hair and though it is shorter than i usually prefer, i know that my hair will grow out fast anyway, so it’s no big deal.

after coming home and showering, i immediately missed the longer hair that i had. there’s not a whole lot i can do but put some gel in the hair and hope that it doesn’t look like a pincushion.

it’s too bad that life doesn’t have an undo button. some lessons are hard to learn.

I Shall Believe
-Sheryl Crow

Come to me now
And lay your hands over me
Even if it’s a lie
Say it will be alright
And I shall believe
I’m broken in two
And I know you’re on to me
That I only come home
When I’m so all alone
But I do believe

That not everything is gonna be the way
You think it ought to be
It seems like every time I try to make it right
It all comes down on me
Please say honestly you won’t give up on me
And I shall believe
And I shall believe

Open the door
And show me your face tonight
I know it’s true
No one heals me like you
And you hold the key

Never again
would I turn away from you
I’m so heavy tonight
But your love is alright
And I do believe

That not everything is gonna be the way
You think it ought to be
It seems like every time I try to make it right
It all comes down on me
Please say honestly
You won’t give up on me
And I shall believe
I shall believe
And I shall believe

sometimes we all need to believe that everything will be ok, even when it seems like everything is looking down. i think that i’ve always felt that everything will be fine, things tend to work themselves out. so i, too, shall believe.

i’ve been having a bummy kind of a day today. strange, because one would think that with the good news of a job and a lens order on the way, one would think that it would be a pretty good day today. especially with the start of a new volleyball team tonight, one would think that it would be a particularly good day. but such is not the case.

maybe it is just the hump day blues. maybe things will look up in a bit. maybe all i need is a little pearl tea. i think i’m going to go out and get some and escape the heat of the summer afternoon.

last week i decided that i would start looking for a job. it’s only been about a month since i resigned my position from the last company and i think that i could still have taken more time off, i am more or less ready to start work again. so i started to send my resume out last week and i got a few responses and set up a few interviews.

i had an interview yesterday and it was scheduled at 10AM. ugh, i thought, an early morning interview! but still, i was able to manage to wake up early enough and get myself over to the company. the company is luckily located in san jose. i have never worked in the same city as where i lived. it was weird for me to live so close to my workplace.

anyway, after a 4 hour interview, i left the office and felt pretty good, but hungry about the interview. it was originally scheduled to be 2.5 hours long and i thought that that was already crazy enough, but i never would have imagined that it would last 4 hours. i don’t think that i’ve ever been through such a long interview.

a few hours later, they made an offer to me.

a few minutes later, i accepted the offer.

i start work on monday. yay! looks like i can finally buy that lens that i’ve been eyeing.

is it tuesday already? i am so tired! so it turns out that i’ve been ridiculously busy. how is that possible? i’m not even employed.

i am currently sitting at bar code in san jose enjoying their pearl tea and free wireless internet. let’s start off with the weekend wrap up, shall we?

on friday, i went camping with a ton of people in tahoe. the original plan was to go on the plume trail in tahoe, but my back had been bothering me a little and by the time people went biking, i just wasn’t ready for it. so i had to bail at the last minute and decided to go hiking instead.

saturday was a lot of fun and very relaxing. i think that it was very peaceful to sleep in and just chill out at the camp site. i regret not being able to go biking, but i suppose that i will have to go again some other time.

sunday, we woke up, ate, packed up and spent far too long in traffic. i barely made sunday night volleyball and after that i promptly fell asleep. all in all it was a good weekend.