a new year

HAPPY NEW YEAR! May all you dogs have a most wonderful birth year.

American Idol has started. Lisa Tucker is my talent vote. Garet Johnson is my sentimental vote. I love this show. Scrubs has also been amazing, especially their 100th episode, which was like the Wizard of Oz.

Derrick subletted my apartment. He rocks! Now I am down to just one rent. Thank goodness.

I've been calling my mom and dad more often. They seem very happy to hear me call home. I also called all my aunts and uncles to wish them a Happy New Year. It was tough though because my Vietnamese is shaky and Bac Dien scolded me for it. He suggested that I start calling people every Saturday and Sunday and practice my Vietnamese, especially calling him. I also called Bac Nghia, and she asked if I went to church still, and considering she is a nun... I couldn't lie. Especially since it was the first day of the year! Lie the first day, lie every day. That has been our line lately, ______ the first day, ______ every day. Lee's was "Study the first day, study every day." I also checked in on my Uncle Thai and the kids. And my brother, who is starting off the year great. He has decided to go back to school, for business administration. I am not sure if I am totally into that choice of major. I think Phys. Ed. would be much better suited for him. He loves kids, coaching, and Phys. Ed. But I will support what he wants. It's just good to see him take a direction, finally.

We went bowling at Jillian's last week and it was BALLS expensive. Three people, two games per person, and shoe rentals cost us $45. SHEESH! But it was really nice to get out. Plus I wore my awesome new shirt and we all looked really nice and polished and having fun. I lost in bowling, but redeemed myself in Scrabble. The word of the night was Lee's: indicate.

The Colts-Steelers game was... heart breaking. I was in tears practically. My emotions were absolutely haywire, especially with that last minute fumble. Stupid kicker. And Peyton, stop choking. You're killing me. We were at Tom's watching it, and man, it was just one crazy game. I think Tom was going to explode when that fumble happened. I don't think I have ever seen the man looked that shocked. Anyways, I bet you all think I would be rooting for the Seahawks, but I am rooting for the Steelers. They are my number two team and I really want them to take one home to Art Rooney. Let's go Steelers!

Marissa, my half-sister, is going to be on The Today Show on February 4th. She is promoting the book that an author wrote about her being a military wife. I am very psyched for her. My cousins and I are going to NJ and then taking the bus into NYC to visit her. I can't wait to see her. I haven't seen her since I was in the hospital, when she came and saved my life, really. She took care of my legal and financial issues right after my accident and I really can't thank her enough for being there for me. I think that momoent really cemented our sisterhood, when she drove 15 hours from NC to be there for me in PA. I realized just how much we really are family, even if we haven't been sisters our whole lives. I only wish her happiness. :-)

Visiting NJ will be great because we will get to see Lee and Lisa's cousins Marcella (6 months old) and Michelle (10 years old). Marcella is the cutest baby ever. She is so good and hardly cries and is just great. Michelle is smart and very good. We played Scrabble together, with me using all 7 letters for the word "wrangler." They were great and their parents were so nice. Seeing Marcella makes me wonder when I will find someone and start my own family. I also thought about that when my uncle asked me if I had a boyfriend. When I said no, he told me I needed to get one soon. :-P Sheesh. You're preaching to the choir, Bac Dien, preaching to the choir. Although I did get hit on while waiting for the T. It was some older man, and he gave me his number, which I promptly threw out. He was creepy. Any nice, YOUNG men out there looking for a most fabulous crazy Asian? Inquire within.

Also, I realized this weekend, I did not get closure.

Three TV recommendations (in order of current awesomeness): 1. Grey's Anatomy 2. The Office 3. Scrubs. Really, I watch a lot of TV and these three are just amazing and continue to evolve and grow and get better.

Federer rocks my socks off. Kudos on winning the Australian Open. You are my king.

Lisa is leaving in March and it sucks, because she is like a best friend/sister to me. I'll still have Lee, whom I love equally, but she is gone a lot. I need to make new friends. But it's a struggle. That's the problem with big cities - all the people in the world, and yet you still feel incredibly lonely.

Also, talk about chance encounters, I ran into Tara Peters on the T. How awesome is that?! She lives a few stops down from me. I seriously need to call her sometime. At this point, I am expecting to all of a sudden run into someone from gradeschool or something with my string of encounters with past friends. :-)

Long update. Hope it satisfied you readers. If you're looking for a laugh and know who John McEnroe is, check this out!

the power of the internet

One blog about an old yearbook entry led to interesting results... anyways...

So we almost died... Kind of. Or not really. :-) Our building alarm went off for about 20 minutes before I even heard it. And I only heard it because I was hot and woke up and THEN heard it. It started around 1am and didn't stop until after 2:30am. A call to 911 let me know that it was an alarm malfunction, but still, the moment I realized the building alarm was going off, I panicked internally. After we found out everything was OK, we crawled in to bed, and I felt sick to my stomach. Weird reaction, considering that I'm not one to get nauseous. We crawled into my bed and tried to sleep, but three grown girls in a full size bed, laying horizontally in a hot bedroom equals not a lot of crazy fun. I should have called our management company and complained profusely about how it took 1.5 hours. Jeez.

The weather in New England is out of control. It is just too warm. I didn't even wear a winter jacket today. Just my new denim jacket. And it's still going to be warm over this weekend. We will be in Jersey and then NYC. But with my luck, it's 90% chance of rain on Saturday. Seriously, every time I go to the city, it ALWAYS rains. What a crappy string of luck. But there could be worse things in life.

Small world: I am taking a class for my exam, and one of the guys I am taking it with actually knows John and lived on the same floor their freshman year. Really... what a small world.

Shopping at Wrentham and Solomon Pond this past weekend was nice and a little out of control. I am not allowed to shop for at least a few weeks. :-) Browsing always turns into buying for me. Not that I regret my items. We also played Scrabble, where I lost twice. They were such low-scoring games, too. We were also distracted by the Pats game.

Man, I am really into football right now. The Rose Bowl was AMAZING. We went out to a sports bar/restaurant by Fenway and were obnoxious and really into the game. Then we came home and fretted. We screamed the moment Vince Young ran in that last touchdowns. Screamed like little girls. Daniel was nice enough to text me with updates and then call me as everyone sang the UT fight song. It was very cool. One of the most exciting games I've seen in a while. As for the NFL, my stomach is in knots over the Colts and Steelers game. Ugh, I like them both, but my allegiance lies with Peyton. Don't break my heart, Peyton! :-)

"What's that Matt, I can't hear you -- I have a Heisman in my ear." Oh Will Ferrell, you rock my world. Too bad you were rooting for the wrong team, but still... you crack me up.

Random thought about the past: How can someone not like Zoolander? And as for the past, I feel like it keeps creeping up on me. I look back so much, I should just install a permanent rear view mirror to my head. :-P (Sex and the City line, in case you thought that was funny.)

Time for bed... Today is Friday the 13th... This day was meant for freaky occurences. I can't wait to see what it has in store for me.

i love funerals

Wham, bam, the new year is here. 2006 came in with not so much a bang, but a soft clap. It was very chill at Tom's in Stanford. I am never going to try to plan New Year's again though. I realize that I am not one for the excessive nature of New Year's and never will be. Although, jokingly enough, my New Year's resolution was to drink more. :-P

Vacation in Erie came and went with a lot of stuff going on. I met my two cousins, Vee (3) and Trung (10). My uncle will always call out "Vee Bui!" and I keep thinking that is me. She is very cute and sickenly talkative and heavily favored, since she is the youngest. I obviously love her, but I admit I do try to show a lot of attention to the older one. It's tough being the oldest! Anyways, they were great and I tried my best to spoil them with the movies, games, and lots of loving attention. Perhaps the funniest memories will be 1. Vee sticking a Battleship peg up her nose and not telling us about it until it hurt real bad and 2. Trung crying her eyes out because she thought she wouldn't get to say good bye to me. So cute. Vee loved my new Colts Santa hat. Aren't they adorable?


Unfortunately, Becky's grandma, Barbara McCormick died over the holidays. I've known her since I was 13 or 14 as well, so it was sad. But it was her time and she was suffering. I spent much of my vacation (after the little cousins left) with my second family, the Van Cleves. And you'd think that it wasn't fun, but really, I enjoyed the funeral festivites. I am just like my mother, who loves funerals. Although it was sad, funerals bring together family you wouldn't see otherwise, and you get to celebrate a great person. The only time funerals stink are the ones that involve accidental and shocking deaths. This was not one of them. I got to meet Uncle Clem, Cousin Scott (who is hot :-P), told Steve Irvin's dad that I used to have the hugest crush on Steve in 8th grade (verbal vomit is such a problem with me), saw several scary old BSS teachers and Sister Mary Alice (aggh!), and just schmooze with the best adoptive family around. Plus Sam visited from Vegas and it was great to see the alpha male of the cousins. He has shot up to a healthy 6ft 2in and might just grow up to be the most normal out of everyone, even though we tried our hardest to screw him up. :-) Here's a photo of us, going crazy with Becky's new G5.


It was great catching up with Ben. Back from Africa and as crazy as ever. Very ethnic! I also got to see Hanni, my biatch, who was as biatchy as ever. :-P But that's Hanni and I still love her. I'll make her suffer in March, though. Tom was Tom with an amazing apartment in Stamford. I can see why it costs $1,000 a month! Mom was mom, with her wonderful love and food. I've started telling her "I love you Mom!" in English and she will return with a gargled "... you too." in broken English. It's so cute. And Patton got me tons of Colts paraphenalia, so I can be incredibly obnoxious. And best of all, I got to see Becky, perhaps my female platonic soulmate. Here are a few awesome photos of us. This is us being thugs:

And now us being incredibly snarky and sneaky:


It was hard to leave Erie. Whenever I leave, I get a heavy feeling in my heart. But I push on because I know being in Erie too long would make me crazy and unhappy. I'd look like this:

Still, I can't help but miss my family and friends. I love you all.

Crazy new idea: Moving to California! I would do it if I won the lottery. I'd look like this if I did: