Originally published at The Original Plog. You can comment here or there.

i gained an inch on my hips/butt and waist.

i lost an inch from my chest.

WTF.

excuse me, i need to go buy SMALLER BRAS. :/

so the search for plastic frames didn’t go as smoothly as i had hoped. however, i finally found and ordered a pair that i will hopefully get by next week. i am excited.

a friend recommended eyeglasses.com and i really love this place. i don’t think i will ever buy glasses anywhere else again! i would totally recommend it!

Originally published at The Original Plog. You can comment here or there.

i’m going into full study mode. i’m taking the lsat june 11th and i feel like i am switching gears in my life. at this time last year, i was single and not particularily lovin’ it. over the course of the year, i put more and more effort into my appearance. i dated, met someone, started a relationship… a bunch of things that can make a girl insecure about her appearance. i’m at a point in my relationship where i feel good in my own skin which is a nice feeling. i have now shifted my life focus from basically trying to looking pretty (haha) to devoting as much into preparing for the lsats in the three weeks i have left as possible. basically, i am gonna transform myself into nerd form because i don’t have the time, energy, or desire to be “pretty.” today, i got my hair cut an inch below my chin and tomorrow i’m going to get a new pair of dark plastic glasses. the way you look is a reflection of how you feel and right now i feel serious and down to business; no time for fuss or fluff.

this score will determine everything. E V E R Y T H I N G.

(pressure much?)

Originally published at The Original Plog. You can comment here or there.

I love my dad.

Even though I don’t want to.

Even though it hurts me to.

Originally published at The Original Plog. You can comment here or there.

rants
thanks to outsourcing, i now have the choice of speaking to a machine that speaks english or a live human being … that doesn’t.

is it just me or is american idol not even worth watching anymore? i’ve been watching this show since season one and as much as i tried to get into this season, i can’t. before, it would be so addicting, now it is so boring. my least favorite is that beat boxing guy. god, he’s so annoying and overrated. all of them are, but i think he’s the worst.

raves
I’ve been having a lot of luck with beauty products lately so for the second day in a row I would like to share something awesome I found this weekend. I have pretty good experience with Neutrogena Makeup: the other thing I tried from them were the MoistureShine LipSheers which I liked a lot. Anyway, the new one I tried this weekend are the MoistureShine Lip Soothers. I love how it’s so shiny and had the perfect amount of color so it’s really wearable. It’s like, a gloss and a lip balm which is my favorite combination - I just love combination products. Finally, it smells great: fruity and minty at the same time. The color that I use is call Gleam which is this fun pink color. It’s great. It’s all I’ve been using since I bought it whether I’m wearing other makeup or not.

This isn’t really a rave but i updated my desktop and I am trying out a new theme. there are some cool things about it but I don’t really like dark themes in general but I just want to try something different.

Originally published at The Original Plog. You can comment here or there.

i’m watching the news about the massacre at virgina tech and i am beside myself in sadness. you know, i always found solace with words but this is one of the few times where words utterly fail to express the sadness in my heart. just when i thought the era of the high school shootings were ending, this happens and i really don’t want to believe that this is real and now a part of our country’s history. i feel selfish for saying this, but i am afraid to go to work tomorrow. i don’t know how many ticking time bombs there are at my high school and it seems like any psycho can get dangerous weapons nowadays. i would feel the same way if i were a college student. i don’t know. maybe i’m just paranoid. but this also makes me think of the countless number of people in broken down, third world, war torn countries around the world who have to live in fear of their lives on a daily basis. this fear is somewhat new to me but the relative safety that i feel and take for granted i guess would be a luxury for some around the world. what a truly humbling and solemn thought.

Originally published at prach + blog = plog. You can comment here or there.

my mom is not moving to texas anymore; she is going to live with me. i really wanted my own place but i’m not going to kick my mom out either. i guess there are plus and minses of both and independent prach will just have to wait indefinitely to flourish. we went apartment searching today. it was pretty productive. we think we found a place but first we gotta make sure that directv will work there. they’re supposed to come tuesday to check it out. i am not signing a lease until i know for sure i can get directv.

tomorrow i start working again. yay? boo? i don’t know. i have mixed feelings. this whole bomb being dropped on me that my mom is not moving to texas anymore has been a little emotionally draining so going back to work has become a nonissue in comparison to moving/new living situation/etc.

currently, i have bigger fish to fry than all of the previous issues. i am a bit lonely tonight in the sense that i am not used to being so single. well, maybe saying “a bit” is a little bit of an understatement, more like bone-crushingly painful. ah, that’s more accurate. it’s the weirdest thing, too: i was happily reading my novel when all of a sudden thoughts of the past poured into my mind out of nowhere. these thoughts then translated themselves into the current feelings of despair that i now carry and don’t quite know how to get rid of. =/

all in all, there is a lot going on in my life. i looked at pictures that i took in 2005 (yes, all of them) and it was funny, sad, surprising. my life was so different just a year go, or even 5 months ago. this makes me feel both meloncholy and joy. weird. i am so indecisive - even when it comes to emotions. i guess that have a word for that in the world of psychocology: manic. haha. kidding aside, i feel like i am at the start of yet another journey: new age (coming up), new job, new apartment, newfound singleness, new town.

geez, i wasn’t expecting to write a long post at all but i guess i am in a rambling mood. this site is grossly out of date. i don’t know when i’m going to have time to sit down and actually create some subpages but we shall see.

Originally published at prach.org. You can comment here or there.

i saw two good movies yesterday.

The first one was Vanity Fair. I didn’t think I was going to like it but it was on HBO and I didn’t have anything else to do so I thought, what the heck. I ended up liking it a lot and almost cried several times. Okay, this is officially the summer where I cry in EVERY movie I see! What the heck!? My favorite part about this movie was that it is unlike most hollywood movies in that it is unpredictable. The acting is superb and I would highly recommend it. I didn’t want it to end!

The second movie I saw was You, Me, and Dupree. I’ve been wanting to see this movie since the previews because it looked so funny. I thought I was going to be diappointed because I was expecting so much but I actually love it. I love it that she’s a teacher. It was really funny and warm. I would highly recommend it. Even my friend who I saw it with didn’t want to see it but he ended up liking it a lot.

a bunch of couples that were dating my freshman year of college are getting married this summer. This is a very bittersweet truth for me because my ex and I (who were also dating our freshman year) broke up instead. now i know it’s for the best and yadda yadda yadda but it’s hard and i finally admited to myself this morning how fucking heartbroken i am about it. it’s not easy to be strong and “be positive.” it’s hard. it takes strength. i guess i am not strong prach today but i am weak vunerable prach who is sick of pretending she doesn’t care that all her dating peers’ relationships ended up in marriage while hers ended up in a life shaking break up.

Originally published at prach.org. You can comment here or there.

it turns out i brought my A game to the job interview. even though I only had 2 hours of sleep the interview went better than i could have expected. it was like a match made in heaven but of course it would be silly of me to presume. after the interview, they told me they’d get back to me before the end of the week and i thought to myself: I’ve heard THAT before! However, she got back to me by the end of the HOUR telling me the next steps we will have to take to move me toward hiring. One sentence that she said resonated in me and that is “We really enjoyed meeting you.” It was the way she said it more than anything. It felt really good. It just felt so good.

However, I want to take back a lot of the things i said yesterday. maybe it was because i blogged at 4 in the morning but i never want to be the person who measures “success” with a career, money, or status in society. that’s why i picked teaching. even though my teaching career did not take the traditional route, i know that i am a successful teacher. i know of lives that i have touched and i know that i went to work with my heart wide open. i will never forget one of my students who told me “You should get teacher of the year.” (and no, she is not the brownnosing type)

Even still, i think i am “successful” because i have a great family and friends. I think I am successful because i want to be a lifelong learner and i want to continue to work and grow to be a better person. i have not “arrived” and i never want the day to come where i am content with where i am because there’s always room for improvement.

Originally published at prach.org. You can comment here or there.

i believe that the true “f” word for many people may not be the first one that comes to your head when you hear that phrase but the word “failure.” as you all know, i am a teacher. some might say i’m a great teacher, other might say … not so much. everyone has an opinion. i used to think i had a lot to offer to my profession but the ghost of self doubt has been haunting me in the last month. i won’t list my failures in my career here as that would only further my depression and self doubt. i actually didn’t admit to myself that i’ve “failed” until today. i got a phone call for a job interview this morning and i was happy but i did not feel that gleeful delight that i normally experience. in fact, the whole day went by and it was as if the interview was a nonissue. as the day wore on, i realized that i was not even looking forward to my interview but just saw it as another errand to get over with. if you know me, this is not me. i didn’t realize until i was laying in bed tonight that the reason why i am approaching this interview with the utmost indifference is because i’m afraid to have hope. i’m afraid to do a good job on the interview. afraid to try to do my best and pour my heart and soul into it like i have been into teaching for the last two years only to find out i didn’t get the job or that i wasn’t good enough. everyone knows it’s one thing to fail when you didn’t even try but the “f” word takes on a completely different meaning when you wholly engross yourself into something only to find that you’ve come up short. i don’t know about you, but when someone is as passionate about something as i am about teaching, i think that there is little room for criticism.

even though i didn’t go to harvard and win a nobel prize i consider myself an overachiever. i have never failed at anything and i took upper division chemistry classes for fun in college. so it doesn’t sit well with me to work harder than i ever have in my life only to be treated the worst i’ve ever been treated professionally. it is a saying in the education community that teaching is the only profession where they eat their own young and i cannot agree more, especially having gone through everything that i’ve been through.

anyway, i’m beginning to feel like i’m beating a dead horse. in my defense, i am learning that the teaching profession is probably not the best match for me knowing my skills and talents. it drowns my strengths and leans on my weaknesses.

it’s 3 the morning and i have to get up in about 3 hours to go on the interview that i have emotionally detached myself from. however, the overachiever in me is telling me to channel all that frustration i feel about teaching and express it as passion for teaching in my interview tomorrow.

well, i guess only time will tell.

despite what he did in his personal life, one of my favorite directors/producers/actors is woody allen. i have loved everything he’s made. the dialogue in his movies are really rich and thought provoking which is very rare in movies nowadays. he has an incredible talent for expressing himself through the medium of films. when i watch his movies i feel a strong sense of what he’s trying to project. plus, life looks more brillant in his movies, like if life were a picture, the colors would be much more saturated compared to real life or other movies.

i saw match point last night and even though the ending was unsettling, it was great. the reason why i thought it is great even though the ending was unsettling is because sometimes unsettling endings make you think harder about the topics being discussed in the movie. obviously, the movie is about love and affairs. the movie made me think about why men just sleep with some women but marry others. all the while, these men are feeding very similar lines to both groups of women.

so those are the things that the movie made me think about. i was meloncholy last night but the fact that it is summer was still invigorating and made me happy.

other than that, i had a really good time at the beach yesterday and the dinner with my family was really good. i seriously had some of the best crab in my life!

i am going to try to blog everyday since it’s summer and i have more free time.

Originally published at prach.org. You can comment here or there.

i finally bought a scanner. i scanned some old pictures that i wanted to keep in a digital format in case something happened to the physical ones. i couldn’t find one of my yearbooks so one of my favorites hasn’t been scanned yet. anyway, sorry if this is narcissistic but here are some pics if you’re interested:

me in the philippines. i think i was barely 1.

me in chicago around 3 or 4.

my first bikini but definitely not my last!

curly pigtails

my first time meeting santa claus. i had no idea who he was because i didn’t speak a word of english. it was very scary.

fifth grade. my first picture in california.

jr year high school

high school graduation with my sister

college graduation with some guy i no longer remember

2nd year out of college with my best friend and cousin

my first appearance in a yearbook as a teacher. first year of teaching. guess which one i am.

Originally published at prach.org. You can comment here or there.

today i don’t feel scared of being alone. i guess in many ways, i am not alone (see previous post), but i am strictly speaking of romantically alone.

sometimes when i am in a large crowd of people and in that group of friends and or family, there is a couple, it makes me miss my significant other. that is seriously one of the worst feelings to me.

but i guess pain is a part of life. and you can’t always be with someone all the time. well, maybe you can, but it might not necessarily be the best thing for you. when i was younger, i never wanted to be so dependant on a guy that i would not be able to leave him the second he does something sub par. i forgot to be that girl somewhere along the way in my life but i want to grow back into the person that she was. i don’t want to compromise who i am anymore and settle for something less than i deserve just because i’m afraid of being alone and i’m afraid of never finding someone.

so i accepted that this post doesn’t have a point. i have just been thinking a lot, feeling a lot, and trying to make sense of my pain. i know i have to be strong. being strong is so easy to say and so hard to do. however, it is not an option for me. i will try to remind myself it is an exercise and i just have to practice it and the more that i practice it, the better i will get.

well, before this meaningless post gets any longer, i am going up to northern california tonight to be a part of my brother’s college graduation tomorrow. i will be back sunday. have a good weekend to the 1 person who is reading this. hahaha.

Originally published at prach.org. You can comment here or there.

there are people in my life who have shown me a lot of love lately and i wonder why they love me. i think one of the reasons why i am so baffled is because i was/am in a relationship for so long where i have to fight so hard just to earn what i can of that person’s love. i didn’t realize it until my brother told me actually, that i was doing things and working hard for something that i should get for free (in the context of that relationship). i don’t know if this will make sense to people, but i am trying to express thoughts while keeping my private life private.

my family, friends, and church members have shown a lot of care and love for me recently and throughout my life. sometimes i would react in disbelief. anyway, i probably sound like a crazy person. i wonder why they love me. what is it about me that is so lovable? examing myself, i’m pretty average in every possible way. maybe those people are just loving? i do not know.

anyhow, only a fool rejects the love of others. (i made that up myself). and if people want to give me love, i want to be smart enough to accept it and return it. why am i chasing so hard for the love of one person who is so stingy with it when i have all these people who are willing to give it freely? i have to be smart and choose to fill my life and heart with these people instead of allowing myself to die slowly in an abusive cycle.