Routines & Traditions

it took me a little over 24 hours in san diego to have my first burrito and flautas meal and for those who grew up around here know just how absurd that statement is. 24 hours? my usual timeframe is within 30 minutes of arriving at the airport but this christmas trip home started off a bit different than the past years. and the difference is that jon isn't here. usually what happens is that jon will pick me up from the airport and then we always make the obligatory burrito pitstop with some boba to boot if i'm lucky. this time however, jon is in new york and not flying in until tomorrow so the task of picking me up was left to my mom and there was certainly no burrito stop on the way home. then i made grand plans to head to hotel pan and texted my excitement to anyone who would listen about how i desperately needed a flauta that very night but when push came to shove, it got late and i was too tired to make the drive out there and went to bed burrito-less. part of the issue also is i realized that without jon here driving me around i really have no idea how to get anywhere.

tonight i was determined to get some mexican and ventured out to hotel pan on my own and was so paranoid that i would get lost or would lose reception that i saved a screen shot of each page of the directions just in case. i made it just fine and maybe got a little over-confident on my way home as i somehow missed a turn and ended up driving 20 minutes out of the way before i even realized anything was amiss.

usually when i'm home i bitch and moan about how bored i am and how i can't wait to get back to sf but this time i am soaking it all up and loving it. part of it is because it's been a year since the last time that all of us, meaning my mom and jon, were home together and i found myself missing it. there's something to be said for tradition and routine and well, this is the closest to an annual family gathering that i've got.

i spent the earlier part of today getting a facial that my mom arranged for me and then we hit up a couple of stores afterwards for some shopping and then met up with my mom's friends son for a chaperoned dinner. now let me backtrack a bit. during dinner last night my mom inevitably brought up the subject of me getting older and settling down and dished out some sage advice (never date a married man for example) and spoke about her friend's son who was moving to shanghai and how it would be nice if i met him and we took him and his mom out for dinner. not really thinking too much about it i agreed because really what else did i have to do.

right after i could hear her making the calls and setting everything up for dinner the next night which was earlier today. so after our afternoon of shopping and such, she informs me that the mom is sick so it will just be the three of us out to dinner and when i protested a little, she came right back at me about my shitty attitude and ended with the phrase "fine if you don't want to go then don't" which of course had the exact effect she wanted of making me feel guilty and so off we go and while the dinner itself turned out to be fine i could not and still can't make head or tails of whether this was just dinner or if i've fallen for some type of mom setup again.

was my mom trying to set me up? some say yes but a part of me is skeptical since this guy is moving to shanghai in 2 days for work, something that mom is well aware of and so it just doesn't make sense to me. it was a little weird because him and my mom seem to get along really well and at times i felt like the third wheel and it was all very awkward as he would talk about me as if i wasn't even there like oh yes she is so gua (chinese for good/obedient) or she has pretty features and all the while i'm sitting right there and not really sure what i should be saying or doing. the best way i could describe him would be a smooth chinese businessmen but a little too smooth. such as when he told the waitress she had beautiful eyes in the hopes of getting our names higher up on the waiting list which didn't work by the way. and so that's how the night went. him and my mom speaking in mandarin about all sorts of topics while i sat there and interjected a word here or there and then when it was all finally over and we had dropped him off at home (oh yes did i mention that we picked him up at his house and that he came out wearing a pinstriped blazer) i was left very confused and not sure what the hell just happened.

and all this within the first 24 hours too! but it can only get more exciting from here on out as jon gets in tomorrow and the rest of the gang slowly trickle in throughout the week and i'm looking forward to finally having my chauffeur back to driving me around everywhere again.

My Albatross

for most of my adult life, i’ve been pretty spoiled and haven’t had to try too hard to get to where i’m at today. most of it seems to have just happened because i was in the right place at the right time or i’ve just been extremely lucky and i sort of just took it all for granted whether it be not studying all that hard in college but still graduating with honors (keep in mind i wasn’t at stanford or anything) or getting my first job out of college at one of the big five without even really knowing what that meant or even my current job now. it was my first interview after public accounting and i’m pretty sure i had no idea what i was talking about but still, somehow i managed to get the job without much trouble. all of that just seemed to fall into my lap without much effort on my end and i never really thought about any of this until the past year or so when the ever elusive title of cpa seemed to be alluding me. i’ve been trying off and on to get this damn license ever since college (yes i’m reaching double digits now shoot me please) and i’ve gotten to the point where i’ve passed 3 out of the 4 and with only 1 part left, i couldn’t finish it and proceeded to lose all of my credits.

just to give a little background on my history with this test. when i initially graduated, the test was a paper exam (yes that’s how ancient i am) and it was given only twice a year and you had to drive to some remote town and sit in a big warehouse type room with long tables and wall dividers between you and the next person and raise your hand to be given permission to use the bathroom and for the entire day from early morning until early evening, you would sit and take the exam. Each exam was about 4 hours in length so you’d take one in the morning and then another in the afternoon. back then, you had to get at least a passing score on 2 of the sections in order to get any credit and if you didn’t, well then too bad you would just have to wait until the next testing window which wouldn’t be for another 6 months.

well dear readers, i did this and studied my little brains out and on my first try ended up passing 2 at the same time. but then life sort of just got in the way and i could never muster up the motivation to finish the remaining two parts. eventually enough time passed to where my credits expired and i’m back to square one again. then a couple years later, i decide that yes i do really want the cpa so i start studying again and was doing quite well actually. by this point, the exam had moved to being computer-based and you could take it whenever you wanted (except the last month in each quarter) and you only needed to pass one section at a time. should be piece of cake right? that’s what i thought too. so i started studying again, one section at a time and was able to pass each one on my first try. then with one last part to go, i get rocked by a breakup and was in no shape to attempt studying at all and by the time i’m all better, my 18 month window from the time i passed the first exam to when i needed to be completed with all four is almost over and i make a half-hearted attempt at the last section but fail miserably and just like that, my three credits are gone.

wow this could end up being a longer post and more pitiful one than i thought now that i’m reliving through everything again. then a year goes by and i decide that yes, again, that i still want to be a cpa and am confident that it shouldn’t be too hard to pass them again. i mean after all, i passed 3 of them on the first try right? um no. i sat for my first section, felt reasonably confident coming out of the exam only to find out a month or two later that i failed. wait what? failed? up to this point, i’d never failed any of the exams that i actually studied for so this result shook me to the very core and after that i just stayed away for about a year and did nothing but play pretty much.

now it’s mid-2010 and for some reason, i decide that i want to try it one-more-time. my friends have heard this before. one of my friends when i told her was like i don’t understand why you torture yourself with this. at some point you just have to give up which I agree with and that is why i told myself i have to give it one more shot and if i don’t get it, then i should seriously consider and reconcile myself with the fact that maybe being a cpa is just not in the cards for me.

part of the reason why i am having such a hard time giving this up is because 1) i want it. i really really do. there was a time when i really questioned whether accounting was for me and what the cpa meant but in the end, it comes down to the fact that i want it and would probably hate myself if i didn’t give it another try. why else did i pull so many all-nighters in public accounting and go through the trouble of getting my audit hours if i’m not even going to use that for anything? 2) i’ve never had to try too hard at anything and now with this, i am definitely being tested and while yes i know it’s just a test but over time, it’s become to mean so much more. it’s become to be a test of myself and whether i have the discipline and perseverance to ride this out to the end and truthfully i don’t know if i do which is kind of what scares me the most. willpower has never been my strong suit.

but regardless, i’m giving it another go and i took my first part in October and found out last week that I passed! not by much and this is considered to be the second easiest part but for me it was a huge step. i knew that if the score came back negative i would have a really hard time motivating myself to start from scratch again and getting one under my belt gives me just that extra little boost to believe that maybe just maybe i do have it in me to stick this out and finally once and for all get rid of this albatross around my neck. I hope I’m using this phrase correctly. i feel pretty stupid when I see friends whom I haven’t seen in years and when they ask what i’ve been up to my answer is always um, still studying for the cpa and then the conversation kind of just stops there.

i’ve been receiving a ton of support from my friends and people who are encouraging me and really believing in me but i think part of the problem is that while all of it has definitely been very helpful and much appreciated, i need to start believing in myself or else i’m never going to get this damn test out of the way. so for 2011, i’m not setting any “real” resolutions except to get my cpa and hopefully find my way back to the girl who had so much confidence in herself that passing the exam wasn’t a question of if but rather a question of when.

What Was That Again?

i like to think that i'm one of those people who can read a shitload of information and retain it but i'm coming to the realization that no matter how much i try, my short term memory leaves much to be desired. i chalk it up to the holes i probably have in my brain from those years of drug use (no joke, i've seen those real life episodes on mtv) but what i've learned is that i can only learn new information in small doses. except of course when it comes to celebrity gossip because then i have no trouble remembering that so and so used to date so and so but now they're dating so and so but cheated with so and so. get the picture? but this short term memory thing relates to just about everything else outside of that. for instance, i feel like i'm constantly reading, whether it's on my google reader, the magazines jon subscribed me to or just on the internet, but i'll read all these different articles about a wide variety of topics but none of it is retained for long periods of time. it is literally in one ear and out the other. this also applies to movies and music. there's been several times when i'll netflix a movie thinking that i've never seen it before only to realize a little bit of the way in that i HAVE seen it before but i've just completely forgotten about it. or if i watch a movie now and you were to ask me a couple of weeks later how the movie ended i probably wouldn't be able to tell you. sad isn't it?

but all is not lost because i have found a way to circumvent this when it comes to music. and i found this out quite accidentally sometime last year and i really have holysocks to thank. it all started when i was convinced to go to the phoenix concert and as i was unfamiliar with any of their music, a homework set was made for me where each week, i would get assigned a playlist consisting of five songs and for that week, that's all i would listen to until i knew the songs well enough to be able to bop my head along and distinguish one song from the other. then the following week i would get another set of 5 songs and by the end of this exercise, i had listened to a good chunk of their music and when i finally attended their concert, i was astonished at how many songs i recognized and knew and was feeling quite proud of myself! because you see, i'm known for not being able to identify one song from another or usually what happens is that i'll get a shitload of new music at once but none of it stays with me because they kind of just all jumble into one big song and then i have no idea who is singing what or what band it is and i just end up feeling overwhelmed with the amount of new music that i have and automatically default to my britney days.

but all that has changed since that phoenix concert. since then, i've been given homework before each concert that i attend and i am loving it! because of this i've learned to love the songs of tegan & sara, two door cinema, LCD soundsystem, miike snow, a special set for the treasure island music festival and la roux among others. and while it may not be the most efficient way in learning since i can only cover a couple of songs at a time, it really works and makes me enjoy the concerts so much more and i feel like i've been introduced to so many more new artists the past year than i have in a long long time.

i mean i'll never get to the level of some of my friends with their vast knowledge of different artists, songs, their backgrounds but i'm slowly and steadily learning one song and artist at a time and that's all that my cheese brain can intake at the moment. i did read this pretty interesting article recently about improving memory and on why we seem to be able to retain useless information all the time. now i just need to figure out how to incorporate this into my everyday life and i should be all set.

Cutthroat Challenge

i wasn't sure if i had it in me for another round but alas, jon has convinced me and jenn one of my favorites is back so i guess i'm in. season premiere starts wednesday and wouldn't you know it but jon will be in town so we can watch it together in all its glory.

if you have no life as we clearly do not, come follow along with us here. in the meantime, hot bitches win everytime! i really don't believe that in real life i promise, only when it comes to mtv challenges. at least that's what i'm hoping for anyways.

Parental Approval

i've been on a bit of a buying spree lately and it all started when my mom came to visit a couple of weeks ago and since i knew she only had limited time here, we were constantly furniture shopping, rug shopping, appliance shopping, fixture shopping…basically anything and everything you could ever want to furnish a condo with we looked at and purchased. we were so productive that by the time she left to go home, my place was pretty much fully furnished and completely settled in and i was in love.

however even though she's been gone for almost a month now, the shopping has not stopped on my end or the constantly asking for her opinion on everything. i even started including my aunt from new york who was also out here during the same time and is largely responsible for picking out the new fixtures that i bought for my kitchen and bathroom sink and since then, i've been barraging their emails with random pictures or links to what i'm thinking of buying and or when i add anything new to the place. So far i've sent them links to a patio set and headboard i was thinking of purchasing and took pictures of my living room one night when i had the candles that my mom had put on the door lit up to show her what it looked like and most of all, i've even started buying fresh flowers on a weekly basis and arranging them myself in a vase and sending a pic of that to my mom. i even took pictures of me cooking one night so she could see whether what i was making looked ok or not and to also show her that the chinese tea she taught me how to make that is supposed to be good for my body and eyes was in fact getting made and drunk on a regular basis. the emails i've been getting back from her have been absolute gems and make me laugh each time. for my flower arrangement, her email read:

"i guess you bought a bunch of flower. it looks a little messy. i like to teach you do a simple way and will look better when we get together."

i never thought this day would come but i'm slowly becoming a mini version of my mom. in fact when i sent a picture of my condo to my friend the first thing he said to me was oh it looks just like your house in san diego but smaller and when i looked around he was right. i have curtains now, yes curtains! and fresh flowers on my dining table as well as a potted plant in my study. oh did i mention that when i took the plant home the first thing i did was take a picture to send to my mom and this is what she came back to me with:

"for my experience to water plant, you can let it sit in the water about 1/2 to 1 hour and drain the water out. this way the root really get enough water. you can try the different way and experience it. the most important is whatever you do it looks nice and fresh"

see what I mean? pure gold right. i walked away recently having just gotten out of a facial with night cream that cost almost as much as one month's worth of HOA fees and had to send the link to my mom and aunt to see if they thought i was crazy or not and should return it. obviously the answer was yes, i had a momentary lapse in judgment but it seems that nowadays when it comes to anything to do with the condo or any big decisions, i'm incapable of making them on my own. next thing you know i'll be actually seeking their advice and approval on what guys to date but if that ever happens, someone please pull me into reality and splash some cold water on my face to make me snap out of it.

Fresh Meat II

i've been a bit quiet on here but my newest make no sense waste of time project is playing in a fantasy league for mtv's fresh meat challenge II started by who else, jon. i know i know there's so many other things i should probably be spending my time on but i love these challenges and i need to ultimately redeem my poor showing from last time. so wish me luck and if you have no life as well, feel free to follow along on our blog and see how well or horrible i do!

Papaya Farm

my first real blog of the new year and sure i could write one summarizing my 2009 which is what i was initially planning on doing or what my upcoming resolutions are but now that a full month of the new decade is almost over i've lost my motivation and would like to instead discuss another much more important topic...my addiction to papaya farm.

for those who don't know it's similar to farmville on facebook i've been told (i hate all those status updates by the way) where you basically plant seeds and wait for them to grow to be able to harvest enough to process them using different tools you're given to be able to sell them for money to open up more plots of land to plant on. get it? either did i at first. it's the most mindless game ever as there's no real strategy involved since after three days of logging on, you're automatically advanced to the next level and part of the fun i guess is that you can steal fruits from your friends but you're limited to just one or two at a time so even that takes some of the fun out of it. despite all this i find myself completely hypnotized by it to the point where i've set my phone alarm on timer many a times to remind myself to harvest my shit before someone comes in to steal it.

i've been playing this game ever since thanksgiving now and my addiction has only gotten worse. it's the first thing i check every morning when i wake up and my hand automatically goes towards the snooze button and through my half blind eyesight i have to make sure i harvest everything before getting a start on my day. my only saving grace is that my cellphone reception at work is horrible so i'm not able to log on meaning for a good ten hours of the day i'm papaya farm free.

what makes all this even more great is that a couple (and by couple i mean three) of my friends are also playing so over the holiday break we would constantly be having conversations of hey log on so you can water my plants or my all time favorite "hurry come plant your love bouquet in my love garden". people would look at us like we were crazy but we didn't care. and now that we're all in a different city we've moved on to sending each other text messages of "can you send me a cucumber?" and i do it faithfully because that is how papaya farm works.

there's even certain etiquette and rules one must possess and follow in order to play with us. we recently found out that not only is there a farm but also a ranch where you can grow different types of animals and well once we found that out all bets were off. a certain someone decided that his only goal was to raise animals and didn't care about the farm so his job was to only grow grass for all of us and whoever happened to harvest (aka steal) it would be responsible for replenishing our ranch so the animals didn't go hungry. and there was quite an email chain going back and forth when a tiger was bought and all they ate was meat which is quite a hard commodity to get in this game and agreements were made on who would participate in co-raising this thing. we aren't kidding around here.

another friend blindly decided on a night out that he too would download this onto his phone and well, let's just say it hasn't even been a week and he has fully quit from the game but not before being called out for exhibiting "very unfriendly papaya farming behavior." but i give him kudos for not getting sucked in because in case you haven't figured it out by now, it is a total waste of time but has brought me some great shits and giggles in the past few months.

i only allow myself to plant secret roses and tulips on friendly land because it was getting too annoying having to keep track of what i planted where and when it was ready to be harvested to make sure i grew just enough to process and nothing more. i haven't quite figured out why exactly i'm so into this game and can't seem to quit but as a friend so eloquently put it "we are simply filling a void via virtual fulfillment. that and i am obsessive-compulsive." it's probably a mixture of both of these for me right now sad to say but seriously, after all this what more can i say? oh right...

hi my name is dacurious and i'm addicted to papaya farm.