Year 1

I had a really depressed moment yesterday when I acknowledged that August marked the one year point of me being unemployed. Never had I imagined back when I decided to make the move that I’d have this much difficulty finding a job…a few months, maybe, but a whole year? I mean, yes, there’s also the other voice in my head saying “well you wanted a break, so you got a really nice one…now stop being ungrateful.” And it’s true–I had a friend who took a good amount of time after grad school till she decided to re-enter the workforce, and I remember being sooooo jealous and wished for that, too. So that wish came true, and here I am complaining about it, haha. But the truth is less in the unemployment aspect, but in both the bruised ego of being rejected from the 126 jobs I’ve applied for (yes, I’ve kept count), and coming to value the importance of good health insurance. I mean, it was my fault to buy the cheapest one available, but when you think it’s only going to last a couple of months, it makes sense at the time.

In our relationship, I’m the more outwardly optimistic one, while Cook tends to express her pessimism much more, whether or not she is truly a pessimist. So I find it’s not a bad thing for me to cry once in a while cuz it reminds Cook she needs to step into the role of “optimistic one” once in a while, too. She reminded me that while the job thing didn’t work out as planned, nor is our home sale going as smoothly as planned, WE worked out (not literally of course, we are so out of shape). But yes, as cheesy as it sounds and well, is, I did come to admit it was the most important thing. I gave up a good job, a nice house, good weather, and being near my parents to come here to this weird state with gross weather, gross bugs, bad drivers, and squirrels eating cars. Had our relationship also not worked out, it would have all been for naught. Sometimes I forget that we were facing the grand challenge of not just being in the same geographical area finally, but of learning to live together while we both were experiencing some of the biggest changes of our lives. I think in my mind I had been so sure that our relationship would work out, that I’d genuinely forgotten the possibility that it could have also all just gone horribly wrong.

It’s easy to take for granted the things that do work out and focus on the ones that didn’t. It’s one of those endless life lessons that you know and get, and yet you simultaneously don’t know and don’t get. And that’s why it’s important to have people–be it a partner, a sibling, or a best friend–to be there to remind you of the good things, and help give you hope when your own vision gets cloudy. So yes, I’m still going to need to find a job, sell our house, and better adjust to the new environment, but having my people creates the foundation for all those things. So today I’m choosing to be grateful instead of sad, to celebrate the time I’ve been able to be with my girlfriend this past year, and to thank all my friends and family who have been nothing but supportive while I cried and complained and reminded me to laugh.

New Year’s Check In With Prada

Hey losers, yep, it’s Prada here. Sup?

New year, new me. Ever since Cook’s been adding a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ in my food**, I’ve been feeling GREAT! Ting on the other hand…wondering why she hasn’t written in her blog for ages? Well she’s been glued to the TV playing weird games where you just break things. Yeah, I don’t get it either, I mean who’d rather be doing that than petting and cuddling me? *shakes head* Can’t believe there’s someone in this household lazier than I am. So I guess it’s up to me to keep this blog running, and I’m gonna bless y’all with a fantastic belated Christmas gift–photos of ME. I know, you’re welcome.

Yea I know I’m badass. Channeling my inner Phantom there, haunting Ting cuz she apparently brought with her the coldest winter in like, my entire lifetime. I thought she was from California so she’d bring sun with her. *rolls eyes* At least I can rest on the furnace.

But yea, what else does one do when it’s winter besides hibernate? I just sleep,

and sleep,

and sleep, even if it’s uncomfortable, as long as I get Ting’s body heat.

She keeps me warm I guess…

It’s not cuz I’m clingy or anything, OBVIOUSLY NOT…nope. DON’T YOU DARE GET OUT OF BED, TING.

In exchange I keep an eye on her car…I believe she’ll have more squirrel updates for y’all later.

Then it’s back to napping. I mean throwing down. I mean…both? Yes, both is good.

One time they came home too quickly, and I didn’t get to shut off the computer in time. Stop judging, I KNOW you guys went to Atlantic City without me.

Look at me I’m so cute. Love me.

Uh…help me out please? Mom? Stop pointing that thing at me and help me out! I’ll do anything! Even the French girls pose!

Dang it. She helped me out…well, as promised. Ugh, this is so embarrassing I can’t even look at the camera…can we blur my face out at least?

I feel like this post was a mistake…must be karma. I promise not to talk crap about Ting again, sigh. I’m just gonna lie here and mope now. Until next time, awesome nerds.

**blog-owner’s note: joint pills prescribed by her doc, we ain’t doping our cat or anything

Jug Handles, Loops, and Circles OH MY~

Considering it took me 20 minutes to get a new license in NJ and in Cali you have to jump through hoops and hurdles, it sure seems way easier driving in California than here. First of all, you can actually get ticketed for driving in the “passing lane” if you’re not trying to pass someone. Secondly, the license numbers are a million numbers long, so it seems unlikely I’ll have it memorized like I had my Cali one. Thirdly, there were no neighbors in Cali reversing on the street randomly to ram into you (ok that one’s not fair, I’m just bitter). But those are all minor details. When talking to anyone else that’s not originally from here, we can all agree that the worst is something you’d think shouldn’t be so annoying–TRYING TO MAKE A LEFT TURN. Let’s not even talk about U-turns…but trying to make a left here is a series of loops and handles and confusion. You can’t even rely on Google necessarily, cuz they’re not right 20% of the time. Yes, when even Google is confused, maybe that says something.

Love Handles, not Jug Handles!

So the hard part is that left turn signals do exist, you just have to know where they are. If you start expecting loops or jug handles, most likely you’ll be in the wrong lane cuz TA DA! Here’s a left! From my experience so far, there hasn’t been any general rule of thumb where they’re placed, you just have to know. So the two common “right lane” left turns are 1) veering off to a side street before the intersection and making a left there or 2) going past the intersection to enter a loop. Most of the time, both of those merges are horrific, so maybe you’ve made intersection traffic more smooth, but you’ve made a congested mess on the side street. Often times you’ll see a sign like this:

That essentially means “there’s a narrow lane around the plaza you can loop around.” There’s one I haven’t been able to get a photo of that we find the most ridiculous, because the sign for the U and Left Turns literally points into the parking lot of the corner plaza, asking you to do your turning that way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Speaking of these causing terrible merges, one of our favorites is the one outside the local college. Yup, a college, so you can imagine there are a lot of cars coming in and out. Apparently, they make it so it’s pretty easy to get into the college (upper left), but you want to leave? Well, good luck! As you exit from the college into the loop so that you can eventually go right, you go from a two lane exit to a this terrible, bad visibility merge halfway through the loop. Basically if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s very easy to get into an accident. Aside from the near misses I’ve seen, it’s just bad in general to have a merge so quickly, as it can back up traffic into the intersection. Yay, what great planning!

Here We Go Loop-dee-loop!

Below in red is what I mentioned before regarding the jug handle left. But my favorite here in blue is how you often have to make U-Turns. Basically it’s telling you to loop, attempt to merge, then loop, attempt to merge again. AKA it’s gross. Enough said.

Traffic Circle of Death

Luckily we don’t have that many traffic circles back in Cali, but the consistent rule I’ve seen is that right of way goes to those already in the circle. But here, apparently, each town has their own rule…so you just have to know. GREAT! Not dangerous or confusing at all. Here’s one we often drive through that is gross. Luckily, we’re mostly just in the red route, and I’ve learned to stick to the outer lane. If you’re in the inner, you can get to be like the blue and pink friends here and get stuck forever. I’ve often seen anywhere up to 10 cars get backed up in those waiting lanes, and it’s nasty. And trying to switch out of the lanes is dangerous, too, because visibility is so poor. Not a fan.

All this said, with all these gross designs, the first accident I get into is because someone randomly reverses into me a few feet from my house. So I guess you get used to it, and it becomes normal, and people deal with it just fine. But having just left a traffic engineering firm, I felt obligated to complain about it in a blog post. 😛

Lost In Space

I haven’t been writing in here as often as I intended, and I realize it’s because I’m often having trouble finding my words lately. I think in the past when I’ve felt that way, I could sit at the piano and play and play till the wheels started turning again. But now I just look at my instruments, sigh, and walk away. I find myself more easily frustrated, feel like things don’t make a lot of sense, but I can’t really pinpoint why. And I’m the type of person that NEEDS to know why. So I finally sat down and gave it some thought.

Moving to New Jersey was all about stepping outside my comfort zone–something I’d dare say I’ve rarely ever done in my life. When I was young, I was too afraid. When I was bolder, I could no longer afford it. Now I’m finally at a point where I’m blessed enough to have a chance to explore, and I just. don’t. know. what. I’m. doing. I’ve always played it safe–studied a major I didn’t love but knew I could get decent grades in, took jobs I didn’t love but knew I could get by in. I played roles I knew how to play. I knew what I needed to do to be a “good Chinese daughter” and be praised by Auntie So-and-so. Now I finally have an opportunity to discover what truly fulfills and pleases me without judgment, and I realize I have no idea how to. I’ve learned that stepping out of your comfort zone is more like leaving earth–you don’t simply end up on another planet, but instead you start floating around in space.

Don’t get me wrong, exploring space is REALLY cool. But it opens up a bunch of new risks I’ve never faced before, and naturally means I’m going to fail more often than I used to. I don’t understand why things don’t make sense when I literally just shook my whole life up. Of course a lot of things aren’t. Of course I’m no longer going to always know what I’m supposed to do next. Of course I’m going to be more fragile than I’ve ever been. That was the whole point, Ting! I just had a job interview that pretty much ended with “you’re not a fit for this role because you’re new to the area.” I wasn’t upset about it, but it sure gave a very clarifying sense of reality.

And so here I am, lost in space. Do I just find the next nearest planet and make a crash landing? Do I keep hoping a perfect planet will come my way before I run out of oxygen? Will I drag down the one person that’s stuck with the “new me” while I spend my days just gazing at the stars? Will I be strong enough to create new tethers for myself and discover a new normal?

I don’t know. All I know for now is I’m not going back to earth. So I better get used to sucking at things, and, frankly, suck it up.

Prada Spam

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but it’s hard to write much today because, as some of you know, I got in a car accident yesterday because someone reversed into me trying to get a better look at a plant? Yea, can you believe? And to think I thought my biggest car problem would be the squirrels…but we’ll save my continued car troubles for another post. Until then, I was told the internet wants more pictures of Prada, so here you go:

Hi, I’m Prada. This is my usual mood. I’m humoring Ting because she’s had some real crappy luck lately. And I was promised dinner afterwards.

I like to sleep, in particular on fuzzy things like Ting’s pajama pants. (Look at me I’m so cute. Come feed me.)

Does this pose make me look thinner?

This is my catnip tea bag. I like sitting on it and getting stoned.

Belly rubs are worth the embarrassing photos. Ting’s still rude though.

But I forgive her sometimes cuz I like her body heat.

And because I forget sometimes I’m too old to be jumping onto sinks. But I just wanted warm water from the sink…uh…help me down please?

Worst of all, Ting likes to pose me with weird things, and I hate it. They’re not even edible.

What? It’s dinnertime? K internet, smell ya later.

Moving Across the Country on a Budget

aka Why I did not U-Haul to New Jersey

When I was creating this blog, one of the suggested titles was “U-Hauled to NJ.” For those of you who get the reference, it’s indeed clever, but on the contrary, I was quite upset about not being able to literally U-haul over, so here’s the story on that.

I had barely done any moving research because I’d already decided in my head that a cargo van would be the perfect size to carry everything I wanted to carry, while not being difficult to drive, hard to park, or eat as much gas. As I merrily went to U-haul’s website, I put in my parameters to find all the options EXCEPT cargo van. I went onto the customer service chat, and they confirmed that cargo vans were unavailable for cross country trips. In fact, the cheapest option was their 10 foot truck, and the quote was a whopping $2700. I was devastated.

I then expanded my search and found that Penske and Budget also did not rent cargo vans, but had 12-foot trucks available in the low $2,000s. Dang U-haul, you’re renting a smaller truck for whopping lot more. You are really milking your brand recognition.

So I went back to the drawing board and looked at all the options. Luckily quite a few of my friends were moving as well, so I learned you can ship your stuff very inexpensively through Amtrak. Yes, by train! Your stuff has to fit in 3×3 boxes, you probably won’t want to put anything fragile in it, and you have to drop off and pick up at an Amtrak station on your own, but it’ll barely cost you anything. However, as most of you know, what I was hauling over was mostly my collectibles, so that was out of the question for me. But awesome knowledge!

PODS I’ve heard is generally pretty safe, but they also quoted upper $2000s. We started instead looking at the largest possible vehicle rented by car rental companies, which is a Ford Transit. The cost would only be in the upper $1000s, you just look kind of ridiculous driving around a 12-seater since we couldn’t exactly remove the seats for a one-way drive. Cook suggested we look into suburbans, as they’re spacious, the cost would be mid $1000s, and their seats go forward–and that’s when we got lucky.

When Cook mentioned that the seats fold, I automatically assumed she meant down instead of forward. I called Avis to ask if they had the newer models that did fold down, and the very helpful lady said suburban seats don’t fold down, but they had minivans that did. She told me to just call the morning of the rental and request a Chrysler Pacifica, and I’d be set. I looked up the prices of a minivan rental, and it was just around $1k with taxes and fees. SWEEEET!!!

Now the only downside is I spent like a month and a half in anxiety worrying what if I didn’t get that van specifically. Luckily, my credit card came with Avis Preferred, so I figured if anything that should increase my chances for priority car selection. So I called bright and early at 6am, said I needed the stow n go, and a couple of hours later, the app showed my Chrysler Pacifica was waiting for me to pick up its keys. WHEW!

So many of you have probably heard me blab about this van, but man, it was really solid. All the back seats folded down into the ground, giving me ample space–I essentially got the cargo van I had wanted in the beginning. At no point (even when we were climbing up what felt like a billion feet in Colorado) did it feel like we were hauling my collectibles, clothes, 4 guitars, and a few pieces of furniture. The drive was smooth and steady and secure. A++. Thank you, Pacifica. Thank you, helpful Avis lady. Bless stow n gos!

So what did we learn? U-haul may be the way to go for local moves, but long distance, not so much (a friend of mine rented a tow trailer for a cross-country move, and they charged her a 7-day minimum). If you don’t mind spending some cash, just get a pod. If you want low budget, look into Amtrak. But if you’re somewhere in between like me, look into the Chrysler Pacifica. And it’s cheapest when you rent and return at an airport!

Festival of the Sea

Long time no blog! I’ve been very busy sitting on the couch, clearly. A couple of weekends ago we went up to Point Pleasant for the seafood festival! Cook’s aunt insisted I had to see it at least once. Cook’s parents said it’s terrible and the lines are insane. So I didn’t really know what to expect, lol.

Luckily, as we are late risers in general, we made it to the festival at 2ish, and the lines were not as dreadful as I’d feared. There were all kinds of booths selling all sorts of things–in fact what sold me into going was that there was a stand that sold Lego minifigs. We didn’t end up buying any of them, but it was so great to see such a stand outside of a fan convention!

The saddest thing that Cook noted was that it used to be set up so that from far away you could see the entrance to the fair, which was a cute petting zoo. It would get all the kids excited and made it feel very welcoming and warm. This year, at both entrances to the fair were large (garbage?) trucks, parked to form a blockade for safety. We also saw SWAT officers roaming the crowd. While appreciated, it was sad to know public events have come to this. 😦

Now back to happier things–food! There were 5-6 local restaurants that had booths serving lobster roll, but I didn’t actually get any. Why? Because one of the stands had a BOMB lobster mac ‘n cheese and after I ate that I did not have any room left for anything else. I figured at least I now knew there were all these local places that had good lobster rolls, so in time I’ll hit them all up. There was also a stand with freshly shucked oysters, a sushi place selling hand rolls, and this awesome-looking seafood paella.

The mug was mine to keep! Except it was really heavy to carry around later so I semi-regretted it. I thought the lobster was just a bit on top, but there was actually plenty throughout. #worthit

There were, of course, options for non-seafoodies like Cook, who got a very tasty meatball sandwich. We also overheard some girls who were talking about one of the booths with wine tasting. She was very proud of the hat they gave out as a gift there lol.

All in all a fun and tasty time, and it introduced me to a few local seafood restaurants that I definitely want to try now. Hooray for food! And yes, the title of this blog is the official name of the festival, which just gets the “chicken of the sea” jingle stuck in my head…

Oh, that whiff of NY!

After discovering another (much more minor) scratch on my car, Cook insisted I get out of the house and have fun so I wouldn’t sit on the couch and wallow. So I finally paid a visit to my friends up north.

After a few previous trips, we had decided that driving just under an hour to a big train hub and hopping on NJ Transit from there beat going to the local stop and taking a two hour ride. So about 50 minutes and $2 in tolls later, I was at Metro Park station. I had a mild panic attack after getting to the platform and not being sure which train I was waiting for (lazy me always relied on Cook), but I told myself if my younger sister can figure this out, I can, too. They didn’t end up taking my train ticket till like the 3rd to last stop which ALSO made me slightly panic, so I’ve decided that I just have general pub trans anxiety…possibly due to that one time I got terribly lost in Taiwan because the bus system made a slight change so I completely missed a stop and ended up in the wrong city.

Once I was at Penn Station I was much more relaxed, and as expected, was immediately heckled for wearing my Packers hat. I accidentally moseyed into some random international food court that was open 24 hours a day and decided I’ll have to check it out again another time. After I found where I was supposed to go, I heard a heavenly choir sing as I saw a Gong Cha across the street.

Everything was instantly better. Thank you, wintermelon oolong with aiyu and white boba!

I knew I hadn’t wanted to work in NY cuz of the 2-hour long commute, but being there further reminded me why I didn’t want to have much to do with this place–EVERYWHERE SMELLED LIKE TRASH because, well, there was trash everywhere. I suppose it’s one of those things you stop smelling after a while, and maybe it’s a tradeoff for access to good Asian food and boba, but I guess I haven’t reached that level of desperation yet.

Speaking of good Asian food, we had Korean bbq for dinner and man I sure miss $20 AYCE kbbq in SoCal! But while pricey, the food was very good, and definitely scratched an itch.

I was asked why I took photos of the meat pre-cooked. I said the red pops better in pictures, and the moment it’s done cooking it’s going in my mouth, I ain’t got time to photograph it then.

I passed on dessert knowing I had another two hour trek home, so back to Penn Station I went. There was a train boarding as I arrived, and I was like SWEET and almost hopped on–luckily I hesitated just long enough to realize it was an express train and not stopping at Metro Park. Whew! Dodged one panic attack, at least. So I joined back into the crowd, staring at the screen, waiting for them to announce which platform the next train would board on.

When I try to sneak quick photos, my finger always end up in it somehow.

And so I’ll probably do that like once every month or two to get my Asian fill, but aside from that, I should really start looking at what museums and Broadway shows I want to catch. Until then, NY! Smell ya later.

Doodle of the Day

So a different kind of post today to change things up and give y’all a break from the wordiness of yesterday’s post! My first request for a doodle (and probably the last one after she sees this) was to draw our chat group hanging out. And since they are my four loyal readers, very well then.

Hope you’re happy, dundundun. The rest of you, back to the regularly scheduled program shortly.

The Curse of the ILX

Perhaps the biggest ticket item aside from finding a job was finding myself a car. The last time I bought a car was some 4+ years ago when a bad accident left me suddenly car-less, and having recently purchased a home I was also broke, so I bought the cheapest reliable car known to man–the Corolla. And boy did it take really good care of me the years following. Hopefully it continues to do so for the chick driving it now (hi sis!).

This time around I suddenly had options. While inclined to put myself on the waiting list for a Tesla, I figured that while I did want to treat myself a little, I should maybe look at pre-owned to make less of a dent in the savings account. After hours and hours of online research (primarily performed by the reliable Cook), it came down to a used Acura ILX, a new Mazda CX-3 or a new Honda HR-V. The latter two are crossovers which everyone in California insisted I needed (and everyone in New Jersey said AWD is NOT necessary), so I figured I had to at least look. So off we went to the dealerships.

I knew I was leaning towards the Acura so I wanted to see it first. After seeing that everything appeared to check out, we took it for a test drive. The sales agent talked about how much he loves Acuras and that he hoped I would too, we spoke to the Used Car manager who said he’ll knock a little off the window price for me, and it felt good. But I didn’t want to tell people I bought a car without comparing, so I told them I’d think on it and let them know.

Next we drove to the Mazda dealer, and upon first look of the CX-3, I made a face and said let’s go. We also didn’t like that the sticker price was a few grand different from the price we saw online, so we both just got a bad feeling and left pretty much immediately.

Upon first look of the HR-V, I actually really liked it. I’ve wanted a red car my whole life, and it was that pretty red that I wanted. So we walked in and chatted with the agent. He showed us this AWESOME feature that really moved me, which was that not only do the back seats fold down, the seats fold up as well, so you could put hella things in the back seat, like an entire bike! But during the test drive, the agent barely spoke a word, and I instead had to try to make conversation to avoid the awkward silence. Like did he even want to sell me the car?

Following his lack of interest in budging on the price or seemingly to sell the car to me at all, we decided that the HR-V is a fantastic car for any of you looking, but my heart was set on the Acura. I called the dealer and put down the deposit, and headed back in the next day.

And this is where it all began (I know, you’re like damn I read 7 paragraphs already and you’re just starting? I’m sorry I’ll try to be quick). We went back to the dealership to a dark showroom, to find that they had had a power outage that day, and in the whole office only one guy’s computer was working. The VP had to take a photo of my license with his phone and email it to the one guy, and they had to do all the paperwork they could by hand. They were all clearly flustered and let us know that they’ve been undergoing some construction and something must have happened. The next day we picked up the car and the business manager ran into a ton of computer problems, and maybe I should have already known then to be extra paranoid…

From here a lot of you already know–within a week we had a thunderstorm and when we used the wiper I was like “huh, what’s that weird line across my windshield?” After confirming it wasn’t just dirty and was in fact a scratch, I just got so upset. My windshield lasted a week! ONE WEEK! We complained to the dealer who basically said “that sucks, must be debris, sorry,” as did insurance. The service lady also had a ton of computer problems when I dropped the car off, so we mentioned maybe we were cursed. The lady said “yea, maybe it IS you guys.” …excuse you.

After much agony and people telling me it was not something fixable, I finally pulled myself out of depression and got some quotes on new windshields. The replacement was quick and efficient, and I’m really praying this is the end of it.

It’s like the opposite of a convertible!

The two very nice dudes working on my car.

Afterwards we had a few questions regarding the work, and they swung back around to take another look at it and ensured it was fine. At least I have a warranty on that now, so we’ll just see what happens. Cook’s colleague suggested we take the car to the church across the street and get it blessed cuz it sure picked up some bad karma along the way. I pray and pray that things settle down from here, so I can finally go do some normal things like find a job and have fun.

All this and I haven’t even had a chance to blame the squirrels! …yet.