Week 3 in CA

Sunday started out great. Debbie and I went to my Sacramento church, El Camino Baptist Church,

met April and Mark's two new babies,

and had a delicious lunch and fellowship at Mary and Ron's.


However, that afternoon, on my way up to Auburn, I decided I wanted coffee. Took the Exposition Blvd exit off 80, and hit a slight dip in the road on the turn, causing my wheels to lose grip on the road and sliding my car off the street and into the dirt. My car would've been dirty, but okay, had it not been for the stupid, and apparently pointless curb at the edge of the road, which my wheels ran into on their way to the dirt. Blew out both tires on the driver's side, dented the frame underneath, broke something in one of the headlights, blah blah blah, so my car was incapacitated for the week. My friend Rickey came and stayed with me til my dad got there(and the cops, and the ambulance for the car that wrecked two minutes after I did on the same spot, hitting[and likely totalling] the car that had stopped to see if I was okay), and drove me home while Dad stayed with my car til the tow truck arrived. :(




So, Monday was spent...at home.

Tuesday morning Efrain picked me up SUPER early, and took me to work with him so I could get out of the house. His advanced guitar boys had a playing test, and I sat back and "enjoyed" their performances. Take a gander:



Wednesday...home. With a delicious dinner at the Creamery.

Thursday I was home in the morning, had the pleasure of talking with my wonderful French friend Florian, and then: my loving dad decided to have some sympathy for me, and lent me the truck. Taking advantage of my new temporary set of wheels, I called up Rickey and high-tailed it to Roseville to meet him for an evening church service called The Shore at Bayside Church in Roseville.

Loved it. If you know any 20-somethings in Roseville who have open Thursday nights, send them there. I can't vouch for the crowd(it was big, but I don't really know any of them), but the service was great, and the speaker was fantastic. Made it back home to Stockton just in time to meet a few of my friends at the theater downtown for the midnight premiere of Pirates IV. :D

Friday was Graduation Day! I had woken up in a cold sweat Thursday night at around 3am to the panicked realization that I had left my tassel in Thailand. (!!!) After sending frantic texts to various friends who'd walked the year before, with no luck, I got up early, drove up to Sac, and made a stop at Sac State to purchase another one in the Student Union. And they had a few 2010s, just for me! I was relieved, to say the least, and made my way to Arco(I'm sorry, "Power Balance Pavilion"). Whatever.

Found a few of my friends in our Psych Dept line, and marched proudly out into the arena to sit through some nonsense speeches and accept my fake diploma thing.




It was awesome. A few too many airhorns, but that's okay.


Had lunch at BJs with Mom and Dad,

then spent the rest of the day with Rickey, who drove us to Rocklin in his beautiful Falcon to visit my dear friend Taryn once more at work. Finished the evening with another night at the Grad.


Saturday was an early-rise day, with breakfast at the diner on Main St in Jamestown on the way to Dad's and my day of 4-wheel driving.


I got to drive, though there were only a few places where we really needed the 4wd. Here's one of them, except Daddy dearest thought I'd smash the truck into the rocks, so it doesn't quite get the end very well. Sigh..



Oh and we went 3.5 miles off the main trail because Dad wanted to find the "scenic" lunch spot. Quite the view..


Had a great day overall, but was glad to get home and shower. Concluded the week with(what else?) one last night at the Grad.


Sunday morning I finished up my packing, and we headed to the airport. Made all my connections, and landed safely in Bangkok late Monday night.

Week 2 in CA

Sunday was Mother's Day, so despite my late night Saturday I was up bright and early for church Sunday morning, and a fun-filled afternoon of shopping after a delicious lunch at Moo-Moo's.


Got some much-needed new jeans(which is an obnoxiously painful and tedious process), and spent some quality time with mommy dearest. Passed out around 7pm again.

Monday morning I awoke at 6:45 to shower and drive out to Ceres to "observe" Efrain's classes for the day. Apparently that meant I was in charge of bringing him coffee too. The classes were fun to watch(2 beginning guitar classes, 2 band classes, and an advanced guitar class), though his students were surprisingly shy around me. That is, except the advanced guitar class, made up of entirely of senior boys(and one freshman).

Followed Efrain back to his house after work where we made homemade enchiladas.


Okay, he made them, I helped. But they were SOOOO good! Be jealous.

Tuesday morning I had a dentist appt at 10am(which I aced!), and then drove up to Auburn, well, Cool, to see my dear friend Taryn and her family.

We chatted for a few hours, watched Tangled, her mom fed me(and everyone else), then I said my farewells and drove to Sacramento for the final Sac State Orchestra concert of the semester. The line was longer than I'd EVER seen it, and they ended up turning at least 50 people away when they reached max capacity.

I made it in about two minutes before they started, and got an awesome seat in the front row; I say awesome because the finale was a beautiful piano concerto with Ariadne at the keys, and I had the BEST view of her hands.

Mesmerizing. Also got to see my friend Ben, one of my favorite string bass players. :)


Wednesday was another observation day in Efrain's classes, with Wednesday evening a small family reunion of sorts; my grandparents and my aunt joined us for dinner at my parents' house, and my mom cooked a fabulous meal!


Thursday Jess and Sarah picked me up for a day in SF, and we hopped BART from Pleasanton and wandered by the wharf, browsed the street vendors at Justin-Herman Plaza, did some shopping, and took in the beautiful cloudless day on our way to Little Italy.


Ate lunch at Steps of Rome, splitting a bowl of delicious pasta and a scrumtious pizza. MMM.

And you can't go to (Little)Italy without having gelato, so down the street we trotted to a little gelato shop with a lovely young Italian guy who let us try every single flavor before actually making our order.

Hit Chinatown and stopped at the fortune cookie factory before heading back to BART.
Made it home in time to haul a** to Turlock and see CSU Stanislaus' wind ensemble concert. Had Applebees with Efrain after the concert, then headed home.

Friday I was back up in Sacramento for the weekend. First stop? Starbucks on 38th and J at 8am. Why? My awesome friend Josh(the one whose percussion recital I attended the Friday before) works there, and treats me to a complimentary coffee when I come visit, but his shift is an early morning one; so if I want my fix on the house, I gotta rise with the sun. It's always worth it :). Read my War and Peace for an hour or so, then headed to the dorms to drop my bag in Debbie's room. Put on my comfy ripped jeans and wandered over to meet my friend Justin, who had promised me a ride on his motorcycle. He briefed me on the "rules of being a passenger"(yes, you have to wear the helmet, don't lean too far when we turn, don't fall off, blah blah blah), then we took off to Squeeze Inn in Roseville.

Went to another percussion recital that afternoon(Brittany's),

then made my way back to Davis that evening for line dancing, and ran into my good friend Ricky.

Spent most of Saturday with him, then headed back to Sac for some friend time before going to the Grad again for some more dancing.

Week 1 in CA

Made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and boarded our flight to Beijing right on schedule. Found my row, and sat down in my "window" seat:

Since when do airplanes have window seats with NO WINDOW?!

Nine hour layover in Beijing. Miserable? Not quite. Wonderful Efrain got us two beds in the airport hotel thing, and we got to sleep for 7 of those hours. Looooong flight home, filled with lots of talking, laughing, movies, a few arguments over whose pillow was whose and who got the armrest, and some mediocre asian airplane food. Going through immigration in my own country was SO WEIRD. I've been through Bangkok immigration so many times, I wasn't sure which line to stand in(not to mention the people in front of me in the citizen line were asian, ironically). Met my parents on the other side of luggage claim, and headed home to Stock-town. But of course, we had to stop to eat. Where? Do you really have to ask..

Got home, drove Efrain to his house, then came back home and passed out(on my 12in serta mattress with 2in pillow top) around 7:30pm, trying to move pictures from my camera to my laptop. Woke up around 3am, went back to sleep for a few more hours, then got up around 6. Hello Jet-lag.

Friday was a super long and eventful day. Started my day with Starbucks, stopped by my dear friend Jess' house to say hello, then headed up to Sacramento for the day. Spent most of the day at Sac State; visited a few professors and instructors,

got talked into joining the Pep Band on a gig that afternoon,

attended my friend Josh's percussion recital,


and then took off to the Davis Grad for Line Dancing! Danced with Gavin, said hi to a few people, then left early(around 12am), grabbed an iced coffee at the gas station, and made my way out to Chico, where my fencing friend Geoffory had filet mignon and a delicious bottle of Port waiting for me :D. We enjoyed our meal, watched a movie, and then, what do you know, it was light outside! He headed off to "free comic book day" for about an hour(jerk), and I took a nap. Made some pasta when he came back, watched another movie, then I said farewell and drove back to Davis for another awesome night of line dancin'.

I can't believe it's been two years

The first year was so hard; and I'm not gonna lie, the second year was pretty awful at times too. But I am healing. I still miss you every single day, and I'd give anything to have you back, but I'm slowly making my peace with you being gone. Rest in peace, Kirk darling.

Stephanie's Arrival

Stephanie arrived late Sunday night(May 1st) with her mother Allyson in tow.

They(and Efrain still) and myself all crashed at my apt for the night(and then the following night as well since Steph's landlord couldn't come out til Tuesday). It was slightly cramped quarters, but we survived. Monday morning we got up bright and early(sort of) and took the bus and the ferry into Bangkok to visit..

Wat Pho(Reclining Buddha)










and Wat Arun(Temple of the Dawn).







Tuesday consisted of a visit to our school, the market next door, and a late lunch at Champs. In the evening I took Stephanie and Efrain to see the "other" side of Bangkok, and we made stops at Soi Cowboy


and The Pickled Liver



before settling in at The Saxophone to finish out our night.

Wednesday the four of us headed to Chinatown and spent the morning wandering the side streets and browsing the shops and stalls.



We got back mid-afternoon, and Efrain and I finished our packing and headed to the airport for our long trip home.