Friday, July 04, 2003  

I have so many mosquito bites! GO AWAY, mosquitos! *argh* Bright red itchy spots ...

j posted this at 6:37 PM.

 

Yesterday, I tried making tamales and empanadas (a kind of Hispanic meat pastry). The empanadas turned out really, really good, although they kind of reminded me of Hot Pockets. The tamales were ok. Something not quite on the mark as far as the dough went. The meat filling was pretty good. It was just the dough that's a little lacking. All that cooking has put me in good spirits.

This weekend, I will need to iron my dress shirts/blouses for work next week. They told me the dress code is business casual, but every time I've gone in to sign paperwork or something, everyone I see is dressed pretty formally in their suits, dress shirts, and ties. So just in case, I think I will wear a suit on the first day. Then I can observe and see what everyone else is wearing and adjust my wardrobe accordingly. Maybe it also varies by department. :T Hmm.

j posted this at 2:42 PM.

Thursday, July 03, 2003  

Nick called me (just randomly) on my cell phone when I got home after the accident. I was still crying and sniffling, and he was like, "Are you crying? Why are you crying?" And I said, "I just got in a car accident." The reception was really, really bad, and I heard him say, "Are you okay?" I told him yes, but then the phone cut out and hung up on him. He called me back at home, and I told him what had happened. Later, he scolded me, "You should NEVER say 'I've been in a car accident' and stop right there. You're *supposed* to say 'I've been in a car accident -- but I'm okay.' You should never leave out the last part! Sheesh! You had me really worried!" Awww ... how sweet ... He was really, really worried about me. :)

j posted this at 1:39 PM.

 

I watched "Children of Dune" on DVD this past weekend. It was REAAAALLLLLY GOOD. (<~~ This is what I WOULD have written about earlier this week if I did not have to write about the accident.)

I was really scared to drive. I'm still really scared to drive. But I'm getting better. The stubborn part of me is starting to take control and tell myself that the only way to beat the fear is to face it. So I drove to the supermarket today, even though I was really afraid to. It made me feel better when I got there and back, and nothing happened to me along the way.

I know the accident was not my fault, but I still feel pretty bad about it. I keep thinking back upon it and wondering what I could have done to prevent what happened. It makes me sad. I have really tried to be a good driver.

The superstitious part of me sees this as a bad omen. And since I was only two blocks away from Kaiser and finishing my application process when the accident occurred, I feel quite uneasy about working for Kaiser now. I hope this does not herald bad things to come of my internship.

j posted this at 1:32 PM.

Wednesday, July 02, 2003  

I got in a car accident yesterday. But don't worry, everyone, I'M OKAY. I was not hurt; it was not a bad accident.

Wahh :*( !!!!!! I've only been driving for four weeks! *sigh* Then yesterday, I got in a car accident. (Thank goodness I don't start work with Kaiser until next Monday, seeing as how I am now scared shitless to drive anywhere for the next couple of days.) I was driving through an intersection when the light turned yellow, and the guy that was waiting to make a left turn just TURNED IN FRONT OF ME. I braked as hard as I could, but it was not quite enough, and I still hit the car. But I'd slowed down enough not to hit it too hard. I dented the front passenger door on the other car. On my car, the damage was not very bad. In fact, my bumper was not even dented. Instead (and everyone so far who has heard about this or actually seen it still does not know how something so *strange* could have happened), there is a HOLE in the right corner of my bumper. (My bumper is plastic, not metal.) I guess when my car hit the other car, it scraped or something and sheared off a piece (which is, by the way, still attached to my bumper ... It's like a flap....). But seriously, there is a hole in my bumper the size of my hand. There is not other damage really, except that the foglight on that side will not light up. My car did not sustain much damage. But seeing as how there is now a HOLE in the bumper, the whole bumper has to be replaced. :T

When we pulled over to the side of the road to exchange info, I didn't really say anything to the other driver. When I first started driving, my dad told me if I ever got in a car accident, not to say anything or argue over whose fault it was; just exchange info and let the insurance companies fight it out. I called the police and proceeded to exchange info with the other driver. When the old guy saw my driver's license, he saw that I was supposed to be wearing corrective lenses, and he asked all suspiciously, "Where are your glasses? It says here you're supposed to be wearing glasses." I told him that I was wearing contacts. (Sheesh! Already trying to blame it on me!) Then when the police officer came, I was asked first for my version of the story, and I told it to her. When the old guy gave his version of the story, he tried to blame the whole thing on me! He said I was trying to run the light or beat the light, and that's why I hit him while he was making a left turn. But the police officer asked us both what color the light was. I said the light turned YELLOW as I entered the intersection. She asked him what color the light was when he made his turn, and he also said YELLOW. Which mean the accident WAS NOT MY FAULT, it was his. I was going straight, so I had the right-of-way. He was making a left turn, and he should have waited until all the cars going straight were out of the intersection. He kept trying to argue it that it was my fault, and she was like, "As long as the light was not red, it was not her fault because she was driving straight. YOU were the one making the turn; you were supposed to wait." *sigh* So the accident was NOT my fault, I just had the misfortune of not stopping in time.

So that was my day yesterday. At least I didn't cry while everyone was still there. I only started crying and shaking after the policewoman and the other driver drove off. I couldn't drive for the better part of an hour. I just sat there on the side of the road with my emergency blinkers still on, and I didn't even turn my car back on. Oh, it was so terrible and scary. I didn't want to drive home, but it wasn't like I needed to get towed either; the car wasn't damaged that badly. So I just sat there and cried, and drank my whole bottle of water to calm myself down. Finally, I felt ok enough to drive back home. When I got home, I lay in bed for a couple hours without falling asleep (just staring at the ceiling!) and only got up once to eat something in the afternoon because I hadn't eaten all day.

When my parents got home, they cooked pigs' feet, a thin noodle called somen, and boiled eggs simmered in a soy sauce mixture for me to eat. (Chinese believe that eating these things will expel the bad luck or evil spirits surrounding you and bring you better luck.) Everyone in my family ate some to bring better luck to our house.

On a side note, everything gets very quiet before an accident ... you only hear silence, and a sense of impending doom looms over you like an evil spirit pressing down upon your chest. And I swear to God, although I would never have believed it before I actually experienced it myself, that EVERYTHING appears to happen in slow motion.

*sigh* What a way to begin the month of July and the second half of this year. Very unfortuitous. :(

j posted this at 1:55 PM.

Monday, June 30, 2003  

Why are boyfriends so damned unemotional?! I don't talk to my boyfriend for a week, and he doesn't even seem very excited to talk to me when we finally talk to each other! Our conversation was punctuated with silences. Then I have to ask all these questions to draw him out into the conversation, but it invariably fails me and the awkward silence once again ensues. I feel ... forgotten or something. Or maybe it's better to say that I feel like I'm not missed. *sigh* Wahh! That's so depressing! Because I miss him a lot. But I feel like I'm the only one doing the missing.

j posted this at 9:52 AM.