This was the first Thanksgiving I've ever had without my family. It felt kind of weird, like I was missing prom... or like missing a party that EVERYONE is going to. But it turned out alright, I had my own party here in San Francisco. A lot of the kids in my classes are from Taiwan, probably rich families that can afford to send their kids to the States to study to get a masters. They heard I can cook, and asked me to make some Thanksgiving food for their party pot luck.

And if you know me, I can't just make SOME food. So I made the turkey, the mashed potatoes, a pasta, and some other stuff. Somewhere between the excessive amount of food, and the constant Chinese, I felt a little bit at home. It turned out pretty well.

I had to work a 7 am to 7 pm shift at Guess on Black Friday. The lines outside Abercrombie, ALL Asian. Mostly canto. People streaming into Guess, ALL Asian. Mostly canto. Seriously, if you are looking for a Cantonese soul-mate, love to shop, and are free next Black Friday, you should come to San Francisco.

After work, my friends and I went to KTV near Japan Town. It was pretty cool, they have a huge selection of songs in Mandarin, English, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese... something else... and they have a Wii in each room. I was the only ABC out of the whole group of kids, so every now and then they would let me help sing a song where I would only sing the words I could read like... "wo" or "ni" or "ai" or combinations of all 3.

One of my friend's friends from Taiwan came to visit. She is finishing her masters in London and so she has a really cute British accent. Fast forward 3 days, and she has to fly back to London. But she wants me to be her long distance boyfriend. She has a list of demands for me... 1) I have to tell the girl in the group that has a crush on me to back off, meaning I have to publicly acknowledge our relationship? 2) I have to get MSN Messenger 3) I have to acquire a web came for said MSN Messenger. I'm not afraid of commitment, but this is retarded. I mean SERIOUSLY? When she finishes her Masters this fall semester, she will move back to Taiwan. She was thinking about moving to San Francisco to pursue a second degree in Photography, and it was 50/50 before, now apparently, her move is contingent on me committing to a relationship. SERIOUSLY? What's next, a green card? I know I should prolly step away from this, but I found myself listening to the song she KTV'd over and over again...

After my finals in a couple weeks, I'll be going to Hong Kong for a relatives' wedding.

I'm home to NorVA Jan 4th through the 26th. My health insurance will kick back in by then, so let's do something fun! ie snowboarding.

Current Music: Sun Yan Zi - Yian Sheng

I'm returning a video near Jap Center so I'm buying some groceries to make lasagna. I'm waiting in line to pay for my stuff and the couple ahead of me, the girl's boob keep popping out of her loose top. She's kinda flat and she's not wearing a bra so her huge pancake dark pink areola keeps peeping out and her boyfriend doesn't really say anything. I mean... he kinda HAS to notice... everyone else in the line behind me was probably looking at her.

And the cashier is completely stupid, he haphazardly tosses wine bottles and egg cartons down to the baggage girl, who looks completely normal, but talks like Stan's sister in South Park. I leave Safeway kinda irritated and walk up the hill to my bus stop and realize that he didn't put my eggs in my bag. I check the receipt, and I did indeed pay for these overpriced eggs. So at that point, I'm starting to get really irritated, and too lazy and angry to go back and deal with the cashier.

I have my headphones and and some Asian lady in a old Asian tweed suit comes and starts talking at me. I ignore her for awhile cause I can't really hear what she's saying, but then after awhile I decide to be polite, take out my headphones and listen to what she has to say. She goes,

"Nihonjin?"
I shake my head.
"Kkkkkorean?"
I shake my head.
"Tong yun?"
I nod.
She asks me where I'm from, I say Washington DC. She says something like "oh good good" (all in cantonese now).
Then she goes, (in cantonese) "Be careful in this area. There are a lot of BLACK people. BLACK people everywhere. LOOK, there's TWO BLACK people waiting for this bus too. Make sure you keep your bags close to your body."

I kinda give her this "ahh I see" kind of look and I think to myself,

- FUCK... I want my eggs... -

On My Apartment:
My new apartment is pretty spiffy. It's clean, it's in a guarded area with a lot of trees and stuff, and it's in the middle of the city. I live above a pool, a gym, great concierge services. It's kinda like staying at a hotel, and when I calculate rent, it's about $40 a day. Thai Stick has been replaced by Dim Sum Deli. There's a Canton and Dimsum restaurant at the corner and they have a side deli that has dim sum to go from morning till 3:30 pm. There's no late night food around but that's okay.

My apartment has an interesting view tho. From the balcony, on one side is a view of the Financial District. On the other side you can see the lights of houses and streets of the west side of SF. My roommate isn't home much so it's kinda like having my own place.


(Not a view from my window, but, ya know... the Golden Gate Bridge)





On Work:
Manager Cantonese Raymond: "Hey Victor, look at my finger, I ripped a chunk out of it from the sharp edge on the door to the storage room"
Me: "Well, MAYBE if you didn't open the door so angrily every time-"
Manager Cantonese Raymond: "Well, MAYBE if you SHUT THE FUCK UP"
Me: "..."

On October 3rd, our store is having some kinda party, hosted by Vogue. They're paying for hors d'oeuvres and alcohol and they're having a guest list. I'm not exactly sure what it is... and why we need a guest list, but they kind of indirectly told me to start inviting people to the guest list. My friends, and customers that are ... well... attractive... or ... uh... image?... I dunno... cause apparently there are gonna be people with cameras, and a celebrity is coming. It's not some Hollywood blowout... but wouldn't it be cool if I could be in a picture with the celebrity in some obscure teen magazine or website? They told me they will schedule me to work that night cause I'm one of the better ones, not sure what that means. But GUESS who is going to be the celebrity "hosting" our "party". I'll give you a clue, this person was in Hairspray :P

Hey guys, I'm gonna be visiting (yes visiting, not returning home) Virginia for three weeks starting August 11th. Lemme know if you guys wanna do anything fun like theme park or beach or if you still have any summer left in you guys. They're gonna put me at Tysons but they havn't given me hours yet but just lemme know if you wanna do anything.

I'm craving an avacado bubble tea and a banh mi. I'm pretty sure I can get them here... just too lazy to look. Jamba Juice is good, but expensive.

When you live in the city, you're bound to get cheap drugs. I bought 1530 grams of crack today for only 7 bucks.

All I really eat now is Thai food cause it's the most inexpensive. The Thai restaurant below my building is called "Thai Stick", and for 7 bucks I get a pad thai that I split into two meals. My life is exciting.

I watched Silver Surfer today by myself at the downtown theater. Nice theater, lonely sitting alone. I felt so stupid. The movie, BTW, sucked. SPOILER: They win by showing the baddie that he can "do the right thing" and be nice. It's kinda like Barnie... or Dora the explorer... or something...

My roommate's name is Brad. He's been to Berkley, and some other schools transferring majors and stuff. He's white, tall, played in the US Open...? and raps. Yes. He mixes his own beats and sells them on myspace for 99 bucks a pop. I think he's sold two. I'm not a fan of hip hop, but he's actually really good. It took me a really long time to believe that it was his voice. Not to sound racist, but he sounds really really black when he raps... He did one about his ex-fiance. After that we started talking about girls and things spiraled out of control. He got really emo and he was drunk and went through a couple of cigarettes and started ranting about how much girls suck and how he hates girls that know they're good looking and think they can treat guys like shit because they're so desirable.

Braddo said that the other night around the corner, there's a coffee shop where a guy in a wheelchair capped two people with a machine gun. It was on the news and stuff. Sometimes I forget I'm in the city. Am I too trusting of people? I feel safer here than I did in streets of China. Should I? I check my back pocket every now and then to make sure my wallet is still there. I stay in the "good zones" away from the "crazies". I just don't wanna be caught in a drive by or something. I hear things at night. Gun shots... car accidents? The first night in the middle of the night I heard a loud BOOM followed by a "WHAT the FAAAAAAAACK".

Braddo was flipping through music earlier today. Hip-hop, hip-hop, something that sounded like Cake, hip-hop, rap, "I wanna beee with youuuuu.... if only for a niiiight", hip hop, hip hop...

I applied to Guess, did the group interview, got a call to do a final phone survey, now waiting for another call. I also submitted a resume and cover letter to like... 3 different places that pay about 15 an hour for administrative assistance, and one that is a manager for the SF Symphony gift shop.

Pin is coming soon. That'll be fun. I think. The guy's here in SF will LOVE pin. He's just their type.

I need a job. DEY TERK AR JAAAOOOOB

Current Music: TLC - I miss you so much

I'm starting to go around interviewing and looking at apartments to move into after my summer school housing ends. It's sad because I'm trying to sell myself, and at the same time, get to know them and considering if I can live with them or not. Well that part's not sad, what's sad is that I realized these people are the closest people I have to 'friends'. :(

Today really kicked my ass (as opposed to 'kick ass!'). I didn't get much sleep and I had to get out my front door at 4:30 AM. My flight was from Dulles at 6AM to JFK NY, then to San Francisco. The flight wasn't so bad, jetBlue takes every shortcut possible so for the span of 9 hours or so, all I had to eat were blue potato chips. I napped through most of the flight, accept someone around me kept farting horrendous farts that woke me up.

I took the rapid transit system to downtown where I had to navigate through crack whores, the homeless, and other junkies to get to my building (apparently I took the scenic route). My arms and feet were destroyed going up all those hills. After I got to my apartment, they sent me to another building to fill out some paper work and then I did some exploring, filled out some applications to work retail for the time being.

There was this one crack whore in particular that looked SO out of it. She wasn't wearing any pants and she was running up and down steps (like she was freestyle walking). A lady with her baby in a stroller was walking by and the crack whore ran towards the baby and crouched down to play with it and the mom ninja dodged that stroller like a pro. SF sure is colorful.

For lunch I ate at this Bangkok noodle restaurant, for dinner I had dim sum. I was good, but eating alone sucks.

( Pictors )

Current Music: Eating Alone

( Pictures of Yummy Food )

I was almost late to photography today, but got there on time and pumped out about 3 photos towards my final portfolio review. I started on my bracelet/cuff project for metals and turned it into a necklace. I also have a dish (food dish) due tomorrow for Industrial Design (don't ask why it's for that class, it's a thesis I'm doing on authenticity and contamination of culture and design and I took a culinary slant on the topic).







It feels good to be productive.
Now if only I can get back my JACcard...