Saturday, June 30, 2018

Weekly Haul (105)

I bought a couple of books recently, and yet I haven't picked up a book at all this month... -__-"


Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty vol. 1 by Megumi Morino
Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty vol. 2 by Megumi Morino

Friday, June 22, 2018

Nails, Movies, & Moods

It's been a pretty busy and emotional couple of weeks. I’m only going to talk about the first week and a half of this month, and it already gets too long, lol.

At the beginning of the month, traffic was bad going home on Friday, so Kyle wasn't estimated to come home until 7 due to traffic accidents. Since Shelle and I were going to be home 45 minutes earlier, we went to get our nails done at the same place as last month, and it was just as hilarious, lol. As soon as my nail tech and I locked eyes through the front glass door, we busted out laughing! We ended up getting the same two nail techs as we did last time we were there, and we ended up laughing way too much again. All in all, a good trip, lol.

Since traffic and the weather was pretty bad, we decided to eat dinner at home before going down and visiting the parents. We didn't get home until 11ish, I think, but we were so tired from the day, that we went to bed almost immediately.

The next day, everyone wanted to go watch Deadpool 2, so I went to watch it again so I could spend some time with David before he went to work afterwards. Shelle and Kyle wanted to come, too, but then mom and dad wanted us to do some errands for them, so they couldn't come. I was going to take my mom to the store to get some stuff for dinner, but then they changed their mind and got Shelle and Kyle to take her instead because they forgot that I was going to the movies.

I also found out that we had to go to our little cousin's graduation party the next Sunday. Normally, this wouldn't bother me, but I was planning on taking the following Monday off and going home that weekend so that I could spend more time with David since he doesn't work on Sunday and Monday, but there was no point in taking that Monday off anymore if I was going to be in Atlanta the day before, so I had to drop those plans.

Basically, all of the changes of plans and finding out that David wasn't coming over early before the movie to hangout because he stayed up until 4 that morning and was then waiting on Kim to get ready before coming to pick me up made me slightly upset and cranky. So when he came over 15 minutes before we needed to leave for the movies, I said something and slapped him on the back as part of a joke, and he made this "Oh" noise that he usually sounds like when he's upset, I knew that I had upset him. Usually, when he's upset, I leave him alone until he's ready to talk, so I didn't talk to him at the movies, and he was taking so long walking with Andrew that we didn't even sit next to each other, which also upset me.

I didn't even get a ride home with him. Alec drove me home since I was going to give him Harrison's pillow and alcohol that he left at my house the week before to give to Harrison later that day. We had made plans to go eat at The Rookery and go drink and play at Reboot that night during the Memorial Day party, but I didn't think I was going to make it because of all of the errands my parents needed us to do. Lol, the whole point of the plans was for us to go because neither David nor I had gone to either of those places yet and both of us were busy that day.

We had to go to the farm with dad for a bit to fix his laptop, but it was raining so hard that we stayed for an extra 20 minutes waiting it out and feeding the dogs, which was fun. By the time we got home, it was already nine and we hadn't even eaten dinner yet, so I decided not to go out because I was still a little upset.

I kind of also thought that David wasn't going to go to Reboot after work because I thought he said so while we were planning things after the movie, but he called me while driving there and said that he was going because he already said that he would and that he didn't want to be a flake. This also upset me because I thought maybe we could talk that night since I thought we were both kind of upset with each other. I mean, he tried to ask me what was wrong during that phone call, but I wasn't ready to talk to him yet because I just became even more upset with myself for assuming that we'd have time to talk that night instead of just talking to him, so yeah...

So while I took a shower after dinner feeling sorry for myself, I realized that I hadn't watched the new My Hero Academia episode yet and that I hadn't seen Mikey in weeks since he didn't go to the Memorial Day party. I figured I'd call him and see if he wanted to hang since he also didn't go to Reboot that night, and I figured quality time with his dog, Wally, would also make me feel better.

He hadn't watched the episode yet, so I came over and talked to his mom for a bit before we watched the episode before talking for a couple of hours about what's been going on in our lives. Lol, stuff is always happening to Mikey. I even told him about how I was a little upset with David for what happened that day, so it was nice to vent. Then I went home at three and passed out for a couple hours.

We planned on leaving at 10AM the next day, but we didn't actually leave until 11. But I realized that that was another reason why I was upset with David, because we both knew that we really wouldn't have any time to spend together that weekend except for Saturday morning and afternoon before the movies, and instead he stayed up until 4 playing video games with his friends and didn’t wake up until way later than usual. It couldn’t be helped that Kim wanted to watch the movie, too, even though she usually watches it for free with her friend who works at the movies. It was just bad timing.

But we barely spent any time together the weekend before because of the party and our friends, we barely spent any time together that weekend, I wasn’t planning on going down the next weekend because I already had plans, and now we weren’t going to see each other the following weekend either because of the graduation party. So basically, we knew that this was the only weekend we’d see each other in a while, and we wasted it on miscommunication and assumptions.

And we talked about that the a few days later when I finally could verbalize all that I was feeling. It wasn’t a fun conversation. He said that it seemed like I expected him to drop everything for me whenever I was in town, while I said that our schedules didn’t match up at all anymore except for Sundays. When he’s free, I’m at work, and when I’m free, he’s at work or at school. Which is why I wanted to spend time with him when we had the opportunity, which was just that Saturday afternoon.

I’ve told him many times before whenever I get upset with him that half of the reason why I’m upset is because he doesn’t plan things out well—that his time management is terrible. Now that I’ve talked to Dom and Shelle about it, I think it just boils down to him not prioritizing me enough, and I think that also stems from him taking me for granted.

He’s already admitted to taking me for granted twice now when I was upset with him about the green card marriage thing and not making time for me before I moved, and what sucks is that he knows that I need quality time together to be happy. I’ve told him multiple times that, and it’s obvious because we’ve been together for almost four years now; it’s been proven time and time again that I get grumpy when we don’t get to hangout just the two of us occasionally.

The thing is… I’ve already gotten used to not missing him anymore. Yeah, there are times when I want him because I’m thirsty, but more often than not, I don’t miss him and wish to have him around anymore. Sure, it’d be nice if he was around because it’s usually fun when we’re together, but I’m too busy to miss him. Too busy with work, with errands, with cooking, with reading, etc.

I don’t text him as much anymore because I’m busy at work or because I’m busy doing something else, but I still anticipate his texts when we do start a conversation. I do like hanging out with him, but it also seems like we’re mainly spending the time teasing each other and having sex. We try to video call each other every couple of days, but it seems like we’re too busy to have a long conversation most of the time. There’s all these pros and cons to our relationship recently.

Here’s the thing: this is our third time doing long distance. I feel like the first two times weren’t as bad as this time. I even distinctly remember having the same “not missing him” feelings during my last internship, but I don’t remember feeling this conflicted and upset as I am now. And it’s only been seven weeks so far! The last two times we did long distance, it was for around three months and we were okay! And my current internship is for a whole year.

I’m just not sure if this is a good time for us to be together. It seems like we’re too busy, and while I’m trying to prioritize time for us, he doesn’t seem to be trying as hard.

I get that we’re at that weird transition period of our lives as young adults, which does affect things differently. I’m working full time while he’s still in school and working part time. We’re doing long distance and live with our families on top of everything as well, so it’s hard to have alone time as it is.

I’ve never really seen the point of taking a break in a relationship, so I don’t really see myself asking to have one either. So the only options left is to see if we can work through this or break up, and right now, I’m really torn on which option to take.

I guess the mature option right now would be to talk to him about all of this, so I’ll let you know how that goes, lol.

Update: It goes just as well as anyone would expect. Difficult.

We spent the first half hour arguing and doubting if we should even continue our relationship because we don’t know what we want and don’t know if long distance is going to work. Then we started talking and explaining our reasoning, and it boiled down to a couple of points.

My main takeaway was when I realized that the past few times that I was upset with him was not about him. I was taking out my frustration about different things happening to me and thinking that the problem was our relationship, so I would get upset with him over stuff. I’ve been discontent with my lack of motivation to workout and new, later eating and sleeping times, and instead of figuring out a solution, I would get upset with him because I thought that he wasn’t prioritizing our time together even before I moved. He realized my whole problem way before me, which is unfair for him since I’ve been taking my frustrations out on him for the past two months.

The other main point we needed to figure out is what we want out of our relationship and out of each other. What do we want? What will make us happier in the long run?

David had already talked to Mikey about our problem before, and Mikey said that even though we’ve been together for so long, our relationship hasn’t matured, and the long distance is making it clear that we haven’t learned to communicate. That and because David’s my first and only boyfriend, and I’m his longest relationship, makes it hard for us to communicate and understand what we want because we don’t have any previous relationships to compare our relationship to.

I think he’s right. I don’t know what I want, and now I’m not sure if I was even mentally ready to be in a relationship to begin with. I’m just so doubtful about our relationship whenever we hit any type of snag in the road, and that doesn’t sound like a positive mindset to have while dating someone.

I feel like if we can get over this hurdle, we’ll be stronger as a couple in the long run. I think if we broke up now, it would mean that we couldn’t or didn’t want to try to fix the problem—that we’d just be running away. So I feel like we should try to work on our relationship, but I don’t know if that’s just me being stubborn and not wanting to give up because I’ve already spent almost four years with him. Sometimes it’s better to just call it quits when you know that things are toxic, but I don’t think our relationship is toxic, and I’m not sure if it’s positive either?

I need to figure out if we’re better off alone or if we can be stronger together. I need to figure out what I want. I need to figure out a lot of things.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Shows I'm Currently Watching: My Hero Academia, Ugly Delicious, Black Lightening, Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku

I've been slowly watching these anime and shows for the past couple of months, some much more consistently than others (*cough*MyHeroAcademia*cough*), so I thought I'd tell you my thoughts on them so far.

CURRENTLY WATCHING:



I have been consistently watching this show every week since the new season came out, and I have been consistently dying every week after the episode is over because cliffhangers are the devil. Mikey and I basically spam each other with texts after we watch the new episode every weekend and despair that we have to wait another week to find out what happens next. Lol, it's a great anime that only gets better with every season. I think we're at the halfway point of the season, which is great, because there's so much happening, and I need to know what's going to happen next even though I've already read this part of the manga a year or two ago, lol.

But the newest episode hit me in the feels too much. How dare this anime make me cry! D:



I watched the first episode with David a couple months ago not too long after it came out, but stuff happened, and I don't think we were ever in the mood to watch it when we were together. But I started watching it with Michelle and Kyle when we were food prepping for our Memorial Day party, and we ended up watching almost the whole season in one day. Hopefully we'll finish it soon, because it's really good. I like how it brings different perspectives to common food that we never think about their origins and how they've changed over time and the connotations they can have depending where in the world you're at.



I was really interested in this show because of many reasons. First, you finally have a hero who retired and has a family he needs to take care of. Second, this is the first black superhero on tv in a long while. Lastly, it goes deep and showcases racial tension and racial profiling in a time where real life is fraught with it, showing a realistic depiction of what's been happening to black people for so long that's only been brought to light only in the past few years. I just really like what the show stands for and the direction it's going. David and I started watching it together last month, but we haven't watched it since. I really want to continue it, so I think I'm gonna watch it on my own time soon.



I started watching this anime recently, but it's been on my watchlist since the beginning of the season, because the plot sounded great. It hasn't let me down for a second! It's hilarious and somewhat relatable since I can understand wanting to hide your otaku personality when you first meet people and the joy that comes from finding other people who enjoy your same interests. It's a great, funny anime with hilarious and adorable characters. The romance is cute and funny, and the side characters are equally as charming if a little confusing about their relationship, lol. I'd definitely recommend it to any otaku, lol.

FINISHED:



I watched the anime last year and really enjoyed it, so of course I knew that I was going to watch the live action drama version of it. I ended up watching all 12 episodes in one day; I forgot how addicting it was. I also loved how even the show knew not to take itself so seriously at parts, which made things even funnier, lol. If you liked the anime, then you will probably like the drama version. It's got all of the same great points of the anime and exaggerated it even more in the drama. I loved the body building club members. They were so dumb but sweet, lol.

Saturday, June 9, 2018

New Job, Working Out, Wedding, Hanging Out, Parties, Terrariums, and Movies

Here's what's happened in May! It's been an exciting month!

I started my first day of work on May 1st. I had a new hire orientation and benefits meeting with a couple of other new hires, one who was also a grad intern like me, so that was cool. Then I got to meet some of my team members, who took me out to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory at the mall across the street from our building, which was awesome. Then I had to set up my stuff and login and gain access for a lot of stuff and learn more about the company. All in all, a pretty good first day.

It wasn't until the third day there that I ran into the other grad intern, Dominique at the bathroom of all places, lol. We found out that we're on the same floor--just on the other side of the building! There was another intern working near her, Archana, so I met her and grabbed lunch with them and some other interns who started in February. It was really nice meeting more people around my age and learning about their struggles of gaining access to things, too. :) Everyone's so nice here!

Michelle, Kyle, and I decided to go to the local park on Tuesdays to run and workout, so that's basically the only time I've done to workout since I haven't found a gym to sign up with at the time. I just feel not great since I haven't worked out as often as I'm used to.

Megan and Nicole's older brother's wedding was on Sunday, and Michelle chipped another nail, so we ended up getting our nails done a few days before the wedding. Omg, our nail techs were so funny that we died laughing so much. I couldn't breathe for a while and my abs hurt from laughing so much! It was great!

That Friday, we met up with Tiffany and Zach and took them to Iron Age because apparently Michelle and Kyle have promised to take them there for a while now. They loved it. Omg, Zach can eat so much! I was so stuffed afterwards to the point that I contemplated unbuttoning my pants, lol.


That night, I helped Michelle make her popular buffalo chicken dip for game night at Lance's apartment the next night. I met his roommates and one of their friends who kind of reminded me of a slutty version of Mikey, lol. He had a lot of raunchy story times that were hilarious. We played Quip Lash at the end of the night, which is always fun.

The next day was the wedding. Michelle curled my hair, and I did my makeup and wore heels for once, and my mom didn't recognize me at first glance, lol. We didn't sit with our parents like we thought we would. Instead, we sat with another family, but it was still pretty funny. The MC's were entertaining because they were really into it when they sang, and it was nice seeing Megan and Nicole again.

That Friday, we got dinner at the Big Chow with Mell after work. She was her usual hilarious self. It was nice catching up and hearing about office drama, lol.

The next day, we drove home to spend some time with our parents for Mother's day weekend before driving them to the airport the next morning for their trip to Mexico. Michelle and Kyle actually drove them to the airport, and I drove their truck to our house, so they could just drive home themselves when they came home.

For the past month or so, David and his friends have been trying to make plans to see each other, and it finally happened on Wednesday. David drove up to pick me up for lunch at PF Chang since we've never eaten there before, and then we met up with them at Kuroshio's for dinner.


It was kind of annoying because there's two locations for Kuroshio, one in Kennesaw and one in Smyrna. We thought that since they went to KSU, we'd be eating at the one in Kennesaw, which is close to us, but then we find out a few hours before we're meeting up that we were going to the other one. That meant that I had to drive home for an hour and a half only to turn back around in 30 minutes to go back to the same location as my office to get dinner because they couldn't communicate properly. They had the past two weeks to come up with a place to eat and make plans, and they all decided it in a few hours the day of. It was so annoying, and then Desiree was a kind of a bitch about it when I told them about the miscommunication, and I was kind of done with her for the rest of the dinner. It was nice to talk to Trey after we left the restaurant though.

Ugh, I'm still kind of annoyed by the whole thing. I guess it's just because I'm used to making plans and ironing out the details ahead of time with other people. Spontaneous plans are hard to do when you've got a job and traffic to deal with, and I value my time and don't want to waste it on traffic any longer than I have to.

That Friday was busy. I made plans to go watch Deadpool 2 with some of the other interns and one of their friends that night as well as going to a terrarium class beforehand. I also made an appointment to check out LA Fitness to finally sign up with a gym.

That mean after work, I spent an hour checking out LA Fitness's facilities and doing paperwork before heading over to the terrarium class and getting gas around that area. Because Dominique and Archana were still out getting alcohol (it was a BYOB terrarium class) and had already eaten, I stopped by Tropical Smoothie to get a drink for dinner, lol. We met up at the store 30 minutes before the class started, and I eventually got to meet their friend Esther, who was really nice and funny.

The class was really fun! There were so many options from the succulents to the pebbles and moss, so it was hard for an indecisive person like me to choose what to use. Esther also brought cheese and crackers for us to snack on, so we had to try not to drop dirt on our drinks and food, lol. In the end, all of our terrariums showed our personalities and how different we are. Like Dominique was very natural looking while I had a dinosaur in mine, and Archana was very minimalistic like how she likes to keep her desk, and Esther did three small ones to give to other people like her boyfriend and friends.


After class, we had 30 minutes before our tickets for Deadpool 2 started at 10 PM, so we went over to AMC Phipps Plaza, a fancy movie theater with really nice seats and got some snacks and figured out where our seats were. Lol, Deadpool 2 was hilarious! The ending scene was the best!

I was planning on going home that weekend because I had made plans with everyone down there, so I decided to just drive home after the movie around 12:15 in the morning because then I wouldn't have to deal with traffic. The drive was pleasant since I had my music up, lol. I spent the night at David's house since my parents were still in Mexico and Brian had maybe plans of spending the night in Atlanta at one of his friend's house.

Later that day, I went to Alec's graduation party. I wish I took a pic of the card David and Kim got him that I ended up signing as well. It was a picture of the Statue of David with a diploma springing out where his junk was, and on the inside, I wrote MOIST really big, because we all know that he hates that word. When he opened the card, all he saw was that word, and he threw it on the ground without reading the rest, lol.

The party was fun. We ate way too much food, joked too much, teased each other way too much, and played a lot of Mario Cart. Lol, I like teasing Kim about all of her (not) boyfriends.

The next day, we finally watched Avengers: Infinity War. I felt so betrayed the day before when I found out that Alec had already watched the movie twice. It was bad enough that Jerry and Harrison had ended up watching it opening weekend with their other friends, but Mikey, David, and I were so betrayed to find out that we've all been avoiding spoilers for three weeks waiting to watch the movie with our friends like we agreed when it first came out only to find out that half of our friends had already watched it! Even Kim had already watched it! Lol, I'm glad that I already watched Deadpool that weekend so I wouldn't have to wait forever to watch it.

Last weekend was Memorial Weekend, so we decided to throw a little potluck that Sunday so we'd all have Monday to recover. That meant that we ended up going to three different grocery stores on Saturday to get groceries and last minute things and ended up watching six out of eight episodes of Ugly Delicious on Netflix while food prepping and snacking. It was a long day. But that show is really good. The first episode was kind of iffy though; it was trying too hard. All of the other episodes were much better.

The next day David, Harrison, Alec, and Jerry came up half an hour early to celebrate. They brought a bunch of food and ended up cooking chicken an hour after they came for the potluck after Michelle and Kyle's friends came. Jerry was so impressed by Kyle's collections, and Kyle ended up giving him some anime DVDs that you could practically see Jerry's heart eyes, lol. It was a fun party. I didn't drink as much I planned to because I started getting a headache, but playing Quip Lash and card games were still hilarious. We all learned that we are terrible people with the same horrible sense of humor that night.


The next day, we wanted to eat ramen, so we decided to eat at Ton Ton, which is at Ponce City Market. The wait for the restaurant was an hour long, but ordering to gp was going to be 10 minutes, so obviously we ordered to go. It was really good. I tried a bit of the broth beforehand and ended up burning my tongue, so everything tasted slightly muted, lol. After that, we walked around the mall and got ice cream for dessert, which was delicious. I hadn't been to Ponce City Market in years, so it was nice walking around and seeing everything. It was super hot and humid outside, so we mostly stayed inside until it was time to leave.

The past two weeks have been kind of stressful at work because I've been working on a project that's been put on the backburner for a while since the consultant went on a two week vacation a day after I started working, so I really couldn't do anything for a while. Now the deadline's coming up, and we've been given lots of inconsistent and confusing information, and even trying to schedule a meeting is tough because she's in Abu Dhabi, and it's Ramadan over there, so they leave work even earlier this month. But yeah, I'm working with another coworker, so I'm not overwhelmed or anything now that we have daily meetings to go over everything we're working on. We also just found out that the deadline got pushed back to September, so we all feel much better about working on the project now, lol.

Saturday, June 2, 2018

Books I Want to Read This Month

One of these days I am actually going to pick up a book, lol.
  1. The Vegetarian by Han Kang
  2. Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat
  3. Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
  4. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon? vol. 9 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda
  5. Scythe by Neal Shusterman
  6. Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox by Forthright
  7. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
  8. Brave by Svetlana Chmakova
  9. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang
  10. The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
  11. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
  12. The Consumption of Magic by T.J. Klune
  13. Meet Cute: Some People are Destined to Meet edited by Jennifer L. Armentrout
  14. All the Feels by Danika Stone
  15. Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan

Friday, June 1, 2018

May in Retrospect

I really want to read a book, but I also really can't stop reading fanfics... Lol, they're just so convenient to read on my phone and so addicting!

I feel like I really didn't watch or do anything much this month, but a lot of stuff actually happened, which I will talk about in a post soon. Maybe I'll finally start watching some shows on my list on Netflix this month, so I can start whittling down my obnoxiously long list, lol.

I watched:
  • Deadpool 2 (2018)
  • Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
  • Miira no Kaikata (2018)