Weekly Haul (109)

My Christmas presents were mainly books, and I'm not mad about that lol. I can't believe 2018 is almost over! :o

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

Speak: The Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson & Emily Caroll

Emotions Explained with Buff Dudes by Andrew Tsyaston

Blue Exorcist vol. 11 by Kazue Kato

Blue Exorcist vol. 14 by Kazue Kato

Birthdays, Wedding Dress Shopping, Parties, Tattoos, Thanksgiving, Avoiding People and Problems, Dinner Dates, & Infinity Mirrors

Last month was pretty busy. I celebrated birthdays, went to New York with David, helped host Thanksgiving at our house, avoided my problems for most of the month, hungout with lots of friends, and went to Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrors exhibit among other things.

November 1st was Archana's birthday, and she started the day off by giving donuts to everyone in our office that we knew. It's Indian custom to celebrate your birthday by giving to others, which is the complete opposite of American customs of receiving gifts for our birthday lol. But we still surprised Archana by having Sonali decorate her cube with a sign, Dom getting her a cupcake and present, and me getting her a bouquet.

Archana wanted to go to Swapna, this Indian restaurant nearby that Shelle said was really good, for lunch, so we went with a couple of coworkers. Shelle was coming back from a physical therapy appointment and ended up stopping by for lunch with us anyway lol. Archana was planning on paying for all of us as Indian custom, but her manager insisted on paying, which made her sad lol.

Since my birthday was that Sunday, everyone decided to celebrate my birthday the next day since it was Friday, so I got a cupcake and present, and my team went out to the Pho place nearby to celebrate Anita and my birthday since her birthday was on Halloween. It was a nice way to end the week.

The next day, some of the bridesmaids and family went wedding dress shopping with Emily. We only went to one store surprisingly before she made her decision. Lol, with the way her mom was acting about the whole day, no one was surprised when she started tearing up after Emily tried on her first dresses. In the end, she decided on the fifth or sixth dress she tried on. Meethu, who was running late, missed the whole thing lol. I called her after she texted that she was close by, and she literally yelled "What?!" after I told her that Emily found her dress. XD

Since we didn't have any other reason to go wedding dress shopping, we went out to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch where they told the waiter that it was my birthday. I got embarrassed as they sang to me lol.

Afterwards, we went to the mall since the Cheesecake Factory was connected to it anyway. Emily's mom wanted a head start on looking at dresses for her for the wedding. However, she kept on getting sidetracked and finding dresses for the bridesmaids instead since most of the dresses were catered towards younger women. But it was reasonable for us to be looking at bridesmaids dresses yet anyway since two of the bridesmaids were pregnant, and only half of us were there to try them on. In the end, it was a lot of wasted time in my opinion.

I originally thought that we'd finish early since Emily only went to one bridal store, but the whole mall trip took longer than expected, so I made it to Alec's housewarming/Thanksgiving party in Macon exactly on time instead of getting there early enough to take a nap like I had hoped. I mean, being sleep deprived that day is partially my fault because I couldn't sleep the night before until 4 AM, which sucked. I ended up napping on David for a bit after we ate and were playing Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch around midnight. But it was good to see everyone since it had been a while since I saw everyone.

The next day was my actual birthday, and I spent it with David and his siblings. We played the new multiplayer version of Stardew Valley and had burger night at his place. The funny thing is that I played Stardew Valley a year or two ago, and David made fun of me for it! But last month, his older sis got into it, who then got him into it, and then he wanted me to play with him as well since they had a new multiplayer option.

In the words of Michael Scott:

Because I didn't change my address after moving to Kennesaw, I was still registered to vote in Warner Robins, so my manager let me work from home on Monday so that I could go vote on Tuesday. As such, I hungout and got smoothies with Jessica for a bit before I worked out with Mikey, who killed me with his workout. I was still sore for four days afterwards. I was still sore in New York lol.

The next day, I worked a half day before going to vote after lunch. Then I drove back to Kennesaw and worked another full day. That night, David drove up because we were leaving for New York the next morning. I already wrote a post about our trip if you want to check it out. It was really fun and pretty. :)

The day we came back from New York was Veteran's day, which was when my siblings and I got our sibling tattoos. We have been talking about getting these tattoos for a few months, but it was put on the backburner for a while since we didn't see each other often enough to remember to plan on the designs and stuff.

We got this triangle tattoo made up of multiple triangles since there's three of us, and triangles are one of the strongest shapes. It wasn't a super complicated reason lol. That and because it was Brian and my first tattoo, so we didn't want anything too complicated.

It's funny because I have always said that I could never get a tattoo because I'm too indecisive to choose a design and would probably end up regretting it. I guess I was able to agree to this tattoo because Shelle had come up with the design, and I ended up liking it lol. Idk, I think I just wanted to see if I could handle the pain as well.

Turns out I handled the pain just fine. My body just almost went into shock afterwards, so I almost passed out, which was just lovely lol. Apparently my adrenaline was really high in anticipation of the tattoo, and since he finished really quickly in 15 minutes, the sudden drop in adrenaline made me lightheaded, sweat profusely, and see black spots like when I almost passed out from donating blood too quickly a few months ago. Luckily, I recognized those signs and sat down immediately after I realized that I was close to passing out. Smalls, our tattoo artist, gave me some candy and juice, and I felt fine after that.

So yeah, not sure if I want another tattoo or not lol.

Kyle, Shelle, and I hosted Thanksgiving at our house the Sunday before actual Thanksgiving for Kyle's side of the family. It was fun even though we spent all of Saturday cooking and preparing and cleaning. Then we got asked to host Christmas as well, which kind of sucks because I don't like hosting parties; I hate the cleanup afterwards.

I took the whole week of Thanksgiving off for vacation, so I spent the next day recovering from the party lol. I ended up getting super addicted to this Chinese drama called Love O2O, WHICH BASICALLY TOOK OVER MY WHOLE LIFE FOR THREE DAYS BECAUSE IT WAS SO CUTE AND GOOD LOL.

Then we went down to visit the parents for a few days for Thanksgiving. Mom cooked a feast as per usual, which was great. It was half American food and half Vietnamese food and everything that I wanted lol. We had some family over, and Brian also invited two of his friends. David already had plans with his family in Montezuma, so he didn't come.

We were also kind of still not talking to each other since our New York trip, so it was fine. I was

That night, we took our mom to the Riverside Mall since she wanted to go Black Friday shopping. We were in the upstairs, home furnishing section paying for our purchases when I saw someone I have been avoiding for the past few years because he's pushy and plays the "woe is me" card and tried to hit on me even after I told him that David and I were seeing each other.

Basically, I recognized him from behind while I was picking up the giant box full of pillows we just bought, froze, and immediately signaled to Shelle that we needed to go the other way. I quickly turned around and walked the long way to the escalator with my mom calling my nickname out in confusion. Then she called me by my full name, so I yelled out, "Don't call my name!" while Shelle was behind us laughing her ass out. It was a stressful five minutes lol. Luckily, we didn't run into him after all of that.

Since Shelle had some coupons for Victoria Secret, we went there next. Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone and their mom also went there, so we spent 45 minutes in a line that snaked around half of the whole store.

Then we went home because we were hungry and hadn't had dinner yet lol.

The next day, we were cleaning out our rooms, because like I mentioned in my last Book Unhaul post, our mom told us that she was going to start throwing our stuff away if we don't do it soon so that we'll have less things to move when they move out next year.

We went home not long after since we made plans to get dinner with some of Shelles friends the next night. Joan has talked about Bonchon, which is a Korean fried chicken restaurant, for so long that we decided to eat dinner there with some friends. It was good, but I would have liked it if there was more sauce overall since some parts of the chicken weren't fully coated. Then again, I love having my chicken drowning in sauce lol.

Later that week, Shelle stayed late at work, therefore I stayed late at work, and then we got invited to dinner with some of her coworkers. This is because Melanie, her coworker and friend I met a couple of times, just got broken up and because there was a Christmas Tree lighting event nearby. We ate at this fancy restaurant called Paces and Vinings, which wasn't bad. I wasn't too hungry, so I got a small plate and a drink since everyone was drinking lol.

I also met Shelle's other coworker, Amanda, who is hilarious. She knows that she's a bitch and she owns it. She's fiercely protective of her friends and gives a lot of tough love and blunt advice. Lol, she reminds me of one of my own coworkers named Laura who is pretty similar.

The next night, my intern friends and I went to the High Museum to see Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirrors exhibit. We bought our tickets in September and have been excitedly waiting for it ever since. It was definitely worth the wait; everything was so cool and awesome. The only downside was the every installation had a 20-30 second limit inside each room, since the lines were so long. That meant that we barely had any time to look around and take good pics. Luckily, you could go to the installations multiple times, so we went back to the first two installations again to retake pictures.

The last installation was super fun because we were all given a sticker sheet and were allowed to put them anywhere inside the room, so we could stay in there as long as we want. It was really cool seeing how everyone used their stickers, trailing after each other and making them hang off of each other.

Whew! This post was a lot longer than I expected! November was a busy month!

Book Unhaul 17

When we went home for Thanksgiving, our mom said that she was going to start throwing out our stuff over the next couple of months, so we had better clean out our rooms soon if we wanted to keep anything from home. She had already thrown some stuff away from Shelle's closet, so we spent the last day at home frantically cleaning out our rooms lol.

I still have a lot of stuff in my room, so I definitely need to go back home and pack up more stuff, but I looked through my bookshelves again and found more books to sell or donate. Most of these books I haven't read yet, but I've read most of the ARCs.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

Hourglass by Myra McEntire

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan

Follow the Blue by Brigid Lowry

Just One Wish by Janette Rallison

Girl Parts ARC by John M. Cusick

Trinkets ARC by Kirsten Smith

Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between ARC by Jennifer E. Smith

Your Lie in April vol.1 by Naoshi Arakawa

Books I Want to Read This Month

I managed to read two books off of this list last month. Let's see if I can do that again this month, since I took a week off for Christmas and New Years.

1. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon? vol. 10 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda
2. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon? vol. 11 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda
3. Seraph of the End vol. 1 by Takaya Kagami & Yamato Yamamoto
4. Dengeki Daisy vol. 1 by Kyousuke Motomi
5. Kenka Bancho Otome vol. 1 by Chie Shimada
6. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang
7. The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
8. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
9. The Bingo Theory by Mimi Ikonn
10. On Love by Alain de Botton
11. The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One by Amanada Lovelace
12. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
13. The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic
14. The Consumption of Magic by T.J. Klune
15. Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan

November in Retrospect

I managed to read and reread a couple of books this month as well as become addicted to another Chinese drama lol. I basically didn't have a life for three days. XD

I read:

• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? vol. 7 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda
• Kimiko and the Accidental Proposal by Forthright.
• A Sloth's Guide to Mindfulness by Ton Mak
• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? vol. 8 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda
• Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? vol. 9 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda

I watched:

• Oceans 8 (2018)
• Skyscraper (2018)
• Love O2O (Drama 2016)
• Love O2O (Movie 2016)
• High Speed!: Free! Starting Days (2015)
• Free! Take Your Marks (2017)

Weekly Haul (108)

I absolutely loved The Tempest's cover, so I had to buy while I was in New York. I was so close to buying a bunch of books just for their covers while there lol.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

New York Trip with the Bae

While initially drafting this post, I wanted to quickly jot down all of the events we experienced  in New York when I came back so I wouldn't forget everything. Looking at the post again, I decided to keep the bullet format to keep the post shorter since they don't need that much explanation.

Overall, this trip was a whirlwind. It started out stressful, was chill and peaceful in the middle, and then was stressful towards the end again lol.

THURSDAY

• Did not take into account 6AM traffic so we were late to airport
• Made it to our gate 5 minutes before boarding
• David put in the wrong hotel in the GPS, so we were walking to the wrong place
• Didn't look at my gift certificate and ordered way too much food at Kailash Parbat because we hadn't eaten since 6AM, and the menu was slightly confusing (the food was good, so not many regrets lol)
• Gift certificate didn't even work because we didn't order off of the regular menu :(
• Explored the New York Public Library and Bryant Park
• Checked into our hotel room (check-in was at 4PM even though we landed at 11AM)
• Took a (well deserved) nap
• Ate our leftovers and walked around Times Square
• Took some pics and watched a street performance where this guy jumped over a kid and then jumped over 5 adults and ended up hugging the last guy in line lol

FRIDAY

• The places we had gift certificates to weren't open until noon, so we got brunch at this Korean food court I found the last time I was in New York with my family
• Walked to Chelsea Market
• Tried goat milk ice cream with tahini toppings (so good!)
• Bought a book
• Walked The High Line and took lots of pics
• Walked to Keki Modern Cakes and bought one of their famous bouncy cheesecake (had to wait 10 minutes for one since they ran out; the place smelled so good!)
• Ate it back at the hotel and napped afterwards (amazingly delicious)
• Got soaked walking through the rain to the ramen shop we passed on the way back from Keki in Korea Town
• Spent the rest of the night reading my book because we were so wet from the rain and didn't want to explore anymore

SATURDAY

• Took the subway to Lavain Bakery for their famous cookies
• There was already a line outside, and we hadn't had breakfast yet, so we ate at the pizza place around the corner (it was so good!)
• Took the cookies to Central Park to eat and people watch
• Explored the park and took lots of pictures
• Took the subway to Chinatown for lunch
• Walked around and decided to eat at a place with tasty looking pictures at the front and because we overheard a group of millennials say that the place was great
• Stuffed ourselves with delicious authentic food (you know it's authentic when they play the authentic Chinese music lol)
• Walked around and got street food (those little waffle bubbles from childhood!)
• Got ice cream at The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, which is where Amanda took Shelle and me a few years ago (matcha oreo flavor is a great combination)
• Went back to the hotel to rest
• Walked to Abiko Curry for dinner (delicious but my curry noodles were so hot that I basically burned my tongue eating it lol)

SUNDAY

• Took an extra 20 minutes finding the right train and bus to the airport
• Arrived when we were supposed to start boarding our plane
• Made it 10 minutes before take off (I was so stressed the whole time lol)
• Went to get lunch at Pho Dai Loi after we landed
• GPS wasn't working for a bit when we left, so I got mad
• Finally arrived at home and rested until Shelle and Kyle came back home
• Chilled for the rest of the day since I didn't have work the next day since it was Veteran's Day

I hope you like this new format! I might use it in the future (if I remember lol).

Book Unhaul (16)

Some more books I'm planning on selling back to Second and Charles. I just keep on forgetting to bring them every time I go there lol.

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff

Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty vol. 1 by Megumi Morino

Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty vol. 2 by Megumi Morino

Games, Food, Indoor Skydiving, Birthdays, Games, Third Wheeling, & Poetry

If September was a super busy month, I would say that October was a more chill/relaxing month. It was still pretty eventful, but I think I spent more time at home just trying to recover and get more sleep (even though that didn't work lmao).

On the first Saturday of October, David finally got to meet of my coworkers, Dom and Archana. Archana recently bought this game called Who Should I Be With? that we made plans to play on Saturday. Then I realized that David was coming up to visit, so we rearranged our plans to go to Starbucks earlier to play the game, and then get lunch with David at Chai Pani afterwards.

The card game is to help you figure out what traits you want in an ideal partner, so we didn't want to play it with David around since it might make things awkward lol. But we were at Starbucks for around two hours, and we only made it through a third of the deck, so we had to pause the game for another day to make it to lunch on time.

Archana has been wanting to go to Chai Pani for a long time since a lot of her Indian friends told her that it was really good. Then we get there, and she's dissatisfied with the decor because it's too Indian lol. She was like, "It's too Indian! We don't even decorate like this in India!" lmao. But the food was really good, especially the drinks! I wish I remembered what David ordered because his drink was delicious and reminded me of my mom's homemade yogurts. I got the strawberry lassi, which was pretty tasty, too. I almost got the salt lassi until the waitress gave me a sample, and I realized that it was good, but I couldn't handle a whole cup of it lol.

We walked around the area after stuffing ourselves full of food. There seemed to be a roasted bell pepper booth that day, so the smell was really obvious when we walked by. It was such a hot day even though it was a cool morning, so I regretted wearing jeans lol. I also didn't get the memo that we were dressing up that day to take pictures either lol.

All in all, it was a good day. David went home with me afterwards, and we spent the rest of the weekend being bums. :)

So Dom, Archana, and I have been talking about going to iFly, an indoor skydiving place, for a while since there's one super close to our office. The last time we brought it up, I had recently found out that I had an ear infection and opted out lol. But the week before, we finally bit the bullet and booked an appointment for the next Tuesday.

It was really fun! We were poor, so we booked the cheapest option, which was two flights lol. However, we ended up paying an extra $10 to get another option that let us fly super high for the last 30 seconds of our last flight. I'm glad we did! It was awesome going so fast and high!

Because we were all beginners, we had our instructor with us inside of the tube, which was cool since he helped us straighten out and learn how to control ourselves with all of the air blowing at us from below. Lol Archana's first time in there had her bent backwards into a teardrop, and we all learned how flexible she was. XD Dom and I also realized that smiling and laughing was a bad idea because we ended up drooling since our mouths were open lol.

We also weren't able to bring our phones with us into the tube because one person in the past forgot to leave his phone outside and entered the tube with it in his pocket. It slipped out of his pocket and went straight to the top of the tube and shattered into a million pieces because of the fan at the end. So yeah, all phones have to be locked up in their little lockers now.

However, we were able to take pics with all of our equipment on afterwards! Lol this pic is of Dom and me deciding to look like we hit the side of the wall.

That Saturday, I finally had an eye appointment. I haven't had one since I went to Vietnam in 2012, so it's been a while. -__-" Luckily, my doctor told me that my eyesight hasn't changed much, but I got new glasses anyway since it's been so long. They came in this past weekend, but I haven't had a chance to pick them up yet.

The next Wednesday, Dom, Archana, and I went to a Starbucks after work and finished playing Who Should I Be With?. We stayed there until nine playing! In total, we played for around six hours! Our brains were fried towards the end, but we were committed to finishing it that day since we were already so close to the end.

At the end of the game, you're supposed to choose your top six traits that you prefer in an ideal partner, and I found out that I basically want someone similar to me and that David almost fit perfectly into those six traits. That made me wonder if I was being biased when I played the game because I was thinking of David while choosing traits. However, I am dating him because I like him and how he is, so it makes sense that I would choose similar traits in my ideal partner.

Jessica and I were supposed to go to a Gallant concert the next day, but it got canceled because he wasn't completely ready before his tour started. I was really looking forward to it too. :(

That day, Archana spammed our group chat after work about her crisis on trying to find a pair of boots to wear to work when she was at the mall earlier. It was so cute lol. She really didn't know what to choose, so after work on Friday, Shelle and I took her to the mall and helped her find some boots. She ended up getting two pairs and was super happy about them. The most hilarious part was when she asked us, "Why do I have no opinion???" when we were talking about the boots she already tried on lol.

Not long after that, Kyle, Shelle, and I went down to visit the parents. It figured that the one weekend we came to visit, Brian went to Atlanta with his friends lol. Our family hasn't been all together in a while since everyone's all over the place.

It was David's birthday that week, so I saw him the next day. We went out to Your Pie for lunch since I haven't been there before. He actually had food poisoning for the past few days, so we weren't sure if he could handle solids yet, but he was tired of porridge and wanted real food, so we compromised on getting a smoothie afterwards just in case lol.

We went back to my house and napped and hungout until everyone else came home. Then Mom cooked a feast for dinner. She had 10 lbs of ribs that she was waiting for us to visit to finally cook since it was just too much food for her, dad, and Brian to finish alone. She also accidentally bought some giant Idaho potatoes, so Shelle, Mom, and I ended up splitting one potato since it was ginormous! She also made chicken fingers and bacon wrapped shrimp, so I was full pretty quickly lol. Then she packed up most of the food and told us to bring it home with us since it was too much for them to finish at home, so we didn't have to cook anything for that week. :D

David recently started playing Stardew Valley thanks to his sister, Steph, since they have a new multi-player option. I couldn't believe he was playing it since I totally remember him making fun of me when I played it a year or two ago! Lol but he convinced me to start playing again, and now we have a farm together. I definitely don't play as much as him though. He's already so far ahead of me in the game!

That night, we left to go back to Kennesaw since we had plans for the next day. For brunch, we went to get Dim Sum at Happy Valley with one of Shelle's coworkers, Melanie. She was pretty hilarious; I could see why she got along so well with Shelle at work lol.

Afterwards, I had enough time to chill for an hour or two before heading over to Emily's house to carpool to Antico's. Jackie had told us a few weeks ago that she was moving out and moving in with Ben on the 21st, so they were going to Ikea in Atlanta on the 20th to get furniture and wanted to know if we could get dinner together. Obviously, we all tried to make it since Ben has been wanting to meet us for the past few months since it's hard for all of us to get together lol.

So you know how I'm basically third wheeling at home since Shelle and Kyle are married? Well, that night, I became the seventh wheel. Apparently everyone got the memo to bring their boyfriends to dinner except for me lmao. So there was I was, enjoying my own company while everyone else was coupled up. XD It was fun anway; we were just missing Meethu, and it would have been the whole crew. Also, Ben was really nice and was prepared for an interrogation lol.

A few months ago, one of our coworkers, Jessie, posted that she and a friend were going to see one of my favorite poets, Rupi Kaur, in October, so of course Dom and I were interested in going as well. We got Archana hooked onto Rupi as well, so we bought tickets to see her and made plans to get dinner with Jessie and her friend beforehand.

We ate dinner at Alma Cocina, which was downtown and close to the venue, so it was nice to eat and then walk a few blocks to get to the Tabernacle. If anything, it got me excited for David and my New York Trip tomorrow because I liked walking around downtown while it was slightly chilly.

Rupi was hilarious. I've never been to a poetry event before, so I didn't know what to expect, but she was so funny and down to earth and realized how millennial she was at times as well, which made it more funny and relatable lol. I especially liked it when she explained why she wrote some of the poetry she performed.

David spent the following weekend up here with me while Michelle and Kyle went to Texas to see their friends. He had a job interview on Friday, so we mainly just ate out and chilled that weekend.

So yeah, that's how October went. Time flew by so quickly. I'm surprised it's November already. I'm surprised my birthday already past lol. I'm officially a quarter of a century old now. XD

Books I Want to Read This Month

So I haven't received a copy of Kimiko and the Accidental Proposal yet since Amazon estimated that it'll arrive sometime between this month and December due to being out of stock. Instead, I decided to pay a little extra to get a personalized copy from the author and get it shipped immediately. :) I really hope to read it this month!

1. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon? vol. 9 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda
2. Seraph of the End vol. 1 by Takaya Kagami & Yamato Yamamoto
3. Dengeki Daisy vol. 1 by Kyousuke Motomi
4. Kimiko and the Accidental Proposal by Forthright
5. Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer
6. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
7. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang
8. The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
9. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
10. The Bingo Theory by Mimi Ikonn
11. On Love by Alain de Botton
12. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
13. The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic
14. The Consumption of Magic by T.J. Klune
15. Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan

October in Retrospect

I actually read something this month! However, I mainly got addicted to a Chinese drama and watched anime for the most of this month lol.

I read:

• Re:Monster vol. 1 by Kogitsune Kanekiru & Kobayakawa Haruyoshi
• Re:Monster vol. 2 by Kogitsune Kanekiru & Kobayakawa Haruyoshi
• Re:Monster vol. 3 by Kogitsune Kanekiru & Kobayakawa Haruyoshi

I watched:

• My Hero Academia Season 3 (2018)
• Meteor Garden (2018)
• ReLIFE (2016)
• ReLIFE: Kanketsu-hen (2018)

Weekly Haul (107)

I bought a couple of books this month and then received a book from Archana who loved On Love so much that she got Dom and me a copy lol.

On Love by Alain de Botton

The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One by Amanda Lovelace

Viz Manga Sample 2018

Kenka Bancho Otome vol. 1 by Chie Shimada

Shows I'm Currently Watching: Tokyo Ghoul:Re, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, ReLIFE, Adam Ruins Everything

I've been watching some great stuff recently! :D Also, this post turned out a lot longer than I expected lol. -__-"

CURRENTLY WATCHING:

Tokyo Ghoul:Re

I started watching Tokyo Ghoul when I was spending the night in London because I saw that it was available on Netflix, which isn't available on Netflix in the US. That and because I had a lot of friends and family recommend the series. After watching the first few episodes, I finally understood the appeal. I ended up staying up for most of the night and finishing the first season before taking a nap and then heading to the airport a few hours after that. When I finally got back home, I finished Tokyo Ghoul Root A and started Tokyo Ghoul:Re. It's been a few weeks since I started watching it, but I'm hoping to finish it soon since the second season of this just started recently airing.

I was really interested in seeing how Kaneki's philosophy on ghouls changed throughout Tokyo Ghoul, especially towards the end. Tokyo Ghoul Root A was not what I was expecting either. It wasn't as exciting as the first season for me. I found out that the season deviated from the manga, so that was why it was different (and according to most fans, very disappointing). That's why Tokyo Ghoul:Re was pretty confusing for me in the beginning. Apparently this takes place after Root A but is supposed to follow the manga storyline? I'm not too sure, but I was planning on reading the manga after I finished the series anyway to make sense of everything. Lol, everyone in the comment section were all like "Just read the manga. It's better and makes more sense." I also really hate how they censor all of the gore scenes too. I felt like it distracted me from the gravity of the scene.

Jingai-san no Yome

I had to watch this because the summary was too weird not to lol. Basically, this high school boy finds out that he's to be the wife to this fluffy creature, and the show details the start of their married life. And that's it. That's the summary. The art looked cute, so I was interested to see how it went.

What I didn't realize was that the anime is only five minutes long, and the outro song is around 1:30 seconds! You basically only get 3 minutes of plot! But I'm still interested in it since it has the same vibes as How to Keep a Mummy, which was one of the cutest anime I have ever seen. There are only two episodes out now, but they were pretty entertaining as it is, so I'm going to continue to watch it since it gives me fluffy feelings lol.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

I've heard about this light novel series for a while now, but I wasn't interested in reading it since I knew it was still ongoing. Luckily, now it's being made into an anime, so I started watching it to see if I would want to buy the light novels after the anime's over to continue with the plot like how I did for Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?

I've watched the three episodes available, and I really like it! Yeah, the main character is OP, but he's literally a slime just eating everything that he thinks might be useful for later and becoming powerful because of it. I like the way Rimuru thinks and his friendship with a tsundere dragon is the best lol. I'm looking forward to see how this anime pans out!

ReLIFE

I was interested in ReLife for a while since I've seen the webtoon around manga sites I visit. When I found out that it was being adapted into an anime, I was interested in watching it. I planned on waiting until it was finished being aired, and then completely forgot about it until recently when I found it again.

I'm about halfway through the anime, and the plot is interesting because it's about a 28 year old almost NEET taking a pill that makes him look 10 years younger and attending his last year of high school all over again. The characters are entertaining and funny, the animation is nice, and I love how you see the main character slowly start caring about his classmates. Plus, there's hints about a failed test subject before him that look intriguing, so I'm interested to see what that's all about.

Adam Ruins Everything

The show has been added to Netflix recently, so we've watched a couple of episodes in between cooking and chilling at home. I forgot how informative his show is; I've definitely learned a lot in the few episodes we've watch so far. I remember when his show was super popular on Facebook with everyone reposting his videos. Wonder what happened since I haven't heard much about him recently.

FINISHED:

Meteor Garden

Michelle and I have been planning on watching as soon as it was finished airing on Netflix, but between my Abu Dhabi trip and vacation, we only recently got around to watching it. Omg, it took over our lives for 9 days straight. I'm so sleep deprived now lol.

But the drama was really entertaining! I loved how childish Dao Ming Si was; once he got over his bad boy image, he was literally an immature child who's used to getting his way and pouts when he doesn't lol. Shancai was pretty interesting, too, but she was also really wishy washy towards the middle, which got annoying. Lei was also great! I loved how he always had these witty remarks after he got over his issues towards the beginning. Plus, he always looked so adorable, like a puppy lol. One of my favorite scenes was when Dao Ming Si's friends try to help him practice apologizing to Shancai by trying to get him to look innocent like Lei. It was too funny!

My Hero Academia Season 3

This was such an important season regarding character development. We've got Midoriya learning better ways to control his quirk and understanding the importance of his role with All Might's big reveal. We've got his classmates' growth during the provincial license exam and just how impactful having Midoriya and Bakugo as classmates have inspired the rest of 1A to be better heroes. Finally, we've got Bakugo's character growth, an accumulation of recent events finally getting him to explosively talk about his feelings and ending with them as proper rivals. It's been a long time coming, and I am living for it. ;__;

But yeah, a great season, and I'm looking forward to the next one since the anime is about to catch up the where I left of in the manga series two years ago. :D

My Week Vacation

After I came back from Abu Dhabi, I worked for a week before taking a week off for vacation. It was a busy week. I hadn't made many plans beforehand, but I ended up meeting up and hanging out with a lot of friends the whole vacation. :)

It started with the Friday before I started my vacation. I had basically finished all of my work the day before and was waiting on feedback from Abu Dhabi, who was already enjoying their weekend due to the time difference. As a result, I had nothing to do at work and was kind of feeling sick since I kept on having a runny nose. All of my coworkers told me to just go home since our managers weren't even in the same country as us, but I ended up staying until 3:30 because Dominique and wound up giving advice to Sonali since she was going through some relationship issues.

Then I drove all the way to Warner Robins from work. Brian was out with friends and Mom was spending the night at the farm, so that I was probably the only time I didn't hangout with anyone when I was down there lol.

David and Harrison have this tradition of going to Curry Mantra once every month or two to hangout, but they hadn't had a chance for the past month because of their schedules. They finally made plans to go out the next day and ended up inviting half of the group as well since it had been a while since we've all seen each other. I finally got to meet Grace, Harrison's girlfriend! She was really nice, and it was so obvious that she cared for him and worried that he was being too nice sometimes. I'm just really glad that he found someone who treats him right and takes care of him. :)

It figures that the one time we want to go to Curry Mantra, it was closed for renovations that one day lol. We went further across the plaza to Tbreak and Pho instead. They were really understaffed; even by the time we finished ordering (and there were 6 of us) none of the available tables were cleaned up or anything.

After that, we went back to Harrison's place and hungout. We played Ticket to Ride and tried to watch a terrible movie called Zombeaver, but we couldn't Chrome cast it to the tv because it was only available on Amazon Prime, which has beef with Chrome because of business. When we tried to stream it using a laptop and an HDMI cord, it kept on lagging, so we gave up on watching it and started watching How It's Made videos on YouTube instead lol.

It was also Alec's birthday, so we went to Piedmont Brewery and Kitchen that night with his parents to celebrate his birthday. We ate until we were stuffed and then headed downstairs to play darts and goof around. I had brought a bunch of snacks back from Abu Dhabi and all of the airports I was at, so we were planning on going back to Alec's place to eat, but it was getting late and Harrison wanted to take Grace home since she was introverted out lol.

Instead, I made plans to have everyone come over to my house the next day to try all of the snacks. We tried a bunch of them, and then went over to David's house to play Overcooked 2 on his Nintendo Switch. My mom had been out grocery shopping when we left, so after we got to David's house, she called me asking where we all went. Apparently she went grocery shopping to get more ingredients for dinner since we had so many people over. I got guilted into bringing everyone and the Switch back over to our house lol.

I think mom missed cooking for a lot of people, especially since I moved out and because Brian keeps on coming home late at night. I mean, she offered to make Pho Ga for us later that week as well. We planned that for Thursday since Alec comes back from his work trip that day and because David has work on Friday. But yeah, it was nice hanging out with everyone and making spring rolls and watching everyone attempt to make them too. XD

Tyler had contacted me that day, so we made plans to hangout the next day. Lol, he asked me if I watched anime, and I was just like, "Do you even know me??? Of course I watch anime." He told me that he and his mom started marathoning Naruto since the night before, which prompted me to tell him that I stopped watching it after it transitioned to Shippuden. What can I say, I have a series commitment issue lol. That is how I ended up going over to his house and watching Naruto with his family for like 5 hours lol. We also had chili dogs, and I ended up running into Mikey's mom at Walmart when we were buying hot dogs and buns.

I texted Mikey about it, and we ended up making plans to hangout the next day since we had already talked about hanging out and watching the newest episode of My Hero Academia together that came out a few days ago. His house had a leak, so he's been staying at a hotel nearby for the past month while they pull up the plumbing and fix the leak, which sucks. It also sucks that he just had knee surgery a few months ago and could only recently put his weight on that leg, so things have been really rough for him and his family. We watched the anime and talked for a few hours before I had to go home and eat dinner with my parents.

Kim has been living with their aunt and uncle in Milledgeville since the summer, but she came back to visit for a few days. That Wednesday, she had to go back to Milledgeville, so David and I ate dinner with her before driving her back to Milledgeville and playing with their little cousins for a bit before driving back home. It sucked that she only came back for such a short time since I was busy hanging out with Tyler and Mikey to stop by and see her until the day she left. Maybe next time we'll all have enough time to hangout and play board games like old times lol.

The next night was when my mom made Pho Ga for my friends and me, so everyone came over (Alec and David late because of school and work) to eat and hangout for dinner. It was a Thursday night, so they didn't stay for long, but it was still nice.

I took my mom to the Riverside mall the next day since she wanted to go shopping for her and dad's Washington trip in a few weeks. I'm more surprised that I didn't end up buying anything, probably because I'm poor and saving up for the New York trip David and I are going next month lol. Because mom had never eaten at Olive Garden before, we ate lunch there. She liked it lol.

The next day was Saturday, and also the day I was leaving. David drove over to hangout and eat lunch before he left for work and I left to go home in Kennesaw. I got home and ate some of Kyle's birthday ice cream cake since his birthday the day before.

The next day, Kyle, Michelle, and I met up with Tawanda, Tiet, and Nicole for dinner at Iron Age. I have seen Tiet and Nicole in a while, so it was nice catching up with them. It reminded me that I needed to make plans to hangout with my girl friends as well lol. But we ate so much that night; we did not need to eat the last three dishes lol. XD

But yeah, that's how my week vacation went! I wasn't expecting to hangout with so many people, and I didn't have a chance to hangout with some of my other friends as well, so I definitely need to make plans before everyone becomes busy with the holiday season!

New Anime and Movies This Fall That I'm Excited For!

It's officially fall, but why does it still feel like summer? Stupid Georgia weather never cools down until November. :(

Anyway, there's a lot of new anime and movies coming out this season that I'm excited for! I can't believe the yaoi manga I read a few years ago got turned into an anime lol. I never finished it, so I hope it has a completed ending.

Anime:

• Sword Art Online Season Three
• Goblin Slayer
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
• Tokyo Ghoul:Re Second Season
• Dakaretai Otoko 1-I ni Odosarete Imasu
• Jingai-san no Yome
• Bakumatsu
• Kitsune no Koe
• Tsurune: Kazemai Koukou Kyuudoubu

Movies:

• Venom (Oct 5)
• The Hate U Give (Oct 5)
• Ralph Breaks the Internet (Nov 23)
• Creed II (Nov 23)
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Dec 14)
• Aquaman (Dec 21)

I'm most looking forward to SAO, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, and Spider-Man!

Books I Want to Read This Month

The sequel to Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox comes out this month! I've been excited for it since I finished Tsumiko last month! I read that book in one night partially due to jetlag and partially due to how addicting it was. I really hope I find the time to read this book when it comes out at the end of this month lol.

1. Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat
2. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon? vol. 9 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda
3. Seraph of the End vol. 1 by Takaya Kagami & Yamato Yamamoto
4. Kimiko and the Accidental Proposal by Forthright
5. Dengeki Daisy vol. 1 by Kyousuke Motomi
6. Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer
7. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
8. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang
9. A Midsummer's Nightmare by Kody Keplinger
10. The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
11. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
12. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
13. The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic
14. The Consumption of Magic by T.J. Klune
15. Anatomy of a Scandal by Sarah Vaughan

September in Retrospect

A lot has happened this month! Since I was stuck in a lot of planes, I watched a lot of movies and ended up watching a bunch of anime while in Abu Dhabi. However, I also finished reading a book while dealing with jetlag, lol.

I read:

• Tsumiko and the Enslaved Fox by Forthright

I watched:

• Flavors of Youth (2018)
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
• War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
• Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale (2017)
• The Asterisk War Season 1 (2015)
• The Asterisk War Season 2 (2016)
• Baby Driver (2017)
• The Greatest Showman (2017)
• Wonder Woman (2017)
• Rampage (2018)
• Red Sparrow (2018)
• Tokyo Ghoul (2014)
• Tokyo Ghoul Root A (2015)
• How Not to Summon a Demon Lord (2018)

Weekly Haul (106)

I think I'm three books behind in this series now lol.

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? vol. 11 by Fujino Omori & Suzuhito Yasuda

Abu Dhabi Work Trip

Basically, for the past four months, I've been working on this AMS project for the Abu Dhabi International Airport. Jenn, who had written the original AMS training two years ago, was working with me in the beginning until she announced her resignation two and a half months before the training was due, which was when things were getting really busy because we realized the extent of updates needed for the training.

With the help of my manager and another coworker and a lot of stress, we managed to finish creating the training. It was insane; we found out that the training was due the previous week and needed it to be done within the next two days! I accumulated a lot of overtime in the past two months working on this project lol.

However, it was obvious that we needed someone there during the pilot training session to see how the training went since this was the first training we've created for this program, and our team usually sends at least one person to a newly created training that we've created for this purpose. In addition, we had rushed to finish the training the week before, so there was bound to be updates made.

Irene, my manager, had been planning on sending me to the pilot session for a few weeks now for the experience and to make updates so that future training sessions would go smoother. However, we didn't receive confirmation for my trip until August 30th, a week before training started, so I spent the next week shopping, packing, and planning for my trip to Abu Dhabi.

I quickly learned that Abu Dhabi is extremely hot and humid--way worse than Georgia humidity. It's like getting slapped in the face with hot water whenever you step outside, lol. I was really concerned about overheating during training since Irene had been to the training center the year before to check it out and said that it was very hot in there. However, they moved the training location to another room, and I was actually pretty cold in the building! I wasn't ready to freeze every day lol.

It was a great experience though. I got to see my training in use firsthand and had to make a lot of adjustments and updates to the training as we found out that we were missing some content and that the order of topics should be rearranged to better follow the system's flow.

I had two main issues during my trip though: jetlag and Uber's unavailability. First off, to book my flight, I had to use our company's new system called Concur, which is really limited when trying to find specific flights. That's how I ended up booking a flight to Abu Dhabi with two layovers on the flight there and back. By the end of the trip, I had been to six different airports and had to spend the night in London for one layover. It was pretty crazy and super tiring, so I was suffering from sleep deprivation and jetlag for the majority of my time in Abu Dhabi.

It didn't help that training was squished into four days instead of the planned five days due to a national holiday. That meant that training was from 9AM to 6PM everday, but as I had to be picked up to the airport, I had to be there around 8:30 every morning. Luckily, training usually ended around 5:30 everyday and we ended around 4 on the last day of training, which gave me more time to nap lol.

However, it was really nice to meet so many of my coworkers in person since we've only been communicating through emails and Skype meetings. Everyone was so nice!

The other issue I ran into was the fact that Uber was unavailable in Abu Dhabi. When I was researching for the trip, I read that Uber was available in the UAE, but it wasn't until I arrived in Abu Dhabi that I found out that it used to be available in Abu Dhabi before they canceled it two years ago due to privacy issues. But it's available in Dubai lol. So yeah, because of that and because I found out that most taxis didn't have credit card readers, I wasn't able to travel much within Abu Dhabi since I hadn't converted much cash before leaving the airport.

Luckily, I stayed at the Crowne Plaza on Yas Island, which had a free shuttle service to all of the attractions on Yas Island, so I was able to go to the Yas Mall for dinner and souvenirs for a few nights.

The mall is HUGE. I think it has over 300 stores inside? I only had 2-3 hours to explore before the last shuttle left every night, so I walked around a bunch after eating dinner. It was crazy! They actually had a rock climbing wall in one store, and there was a huge area for a kids' amusement park with fair rides and everything. There was also a waterfall inside the mall as well. Plus, it was the entrance for Ferrari World and had Ikea right next to it.

I ended up eating dinner at this place called the Giraffe Urban Kitchen my first night visiting the mall since it had a variety of meals from around the world. I tried their beef brisket pho since I was curious how it would taste over there compared to the U.S. It was pretty okay lol. I was more excited about the butterfly pea latte I had also ordered because it was blue.

The next night, I went back to the mall and ate at Al Fanar Restaurant, a famous local Emirati restaurant. It was really good, but the portions were more family style. I felt so bad that I could barely finish a third of my meal and couldn't bring it back to my hotel since I didn't have a fridge. I had also ordered dessert and a mango and passionfruit smoothie before finding out how large the portions were, so I was stuffed by the time I left lol.

I knew that there was a McDonald's somewhere in the mall, and I was curious to see if the menu was any different from the States. However, the mall was so big and I didn't have a lot of time to explore, so I never found it. -__-"

Because we had a national holiday that week, I had Thursday off to explore before I go back home the next day. Luckily, we had a new member join our team the week before who is stationed in Dubai, so we made plans to meet up on Thursday so that he could show me around. It was great because Rakesh was able to drive me around to visit the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and the Louvre, which are the two places I really wanted to visit while I was in Abu Dhabi.

The mosque was as magnificent as all of the pictures I've seen online. It's incredibly huge and humbling and mindblowingly beautiful, and the architecture is amazingly designed. I loved walking around and seeing everything.

They blocked off a few areas, so we weren't able to explore everything, but I wasn't disappointed at all. I was dying from the heat, but I was also wearing longsleeves because I'm dumb lol. I just wanted to wear white so it wouldn't attract more heat to myself throughout the day. I had to wear a burqa there since I had to cover my hair and was wearing shorts, and the burqa helped cool me down. However, I was dumb and didn't tie my hair up beforehand, so I was still sweating up a storm because my hair was all over my neck lol.

It was interesting that we had to take our shoes off before entering the mosque. There were just shoe racks on both sides for people to store their shoes and some people keeping watch so no one would steal them. I think the fact that we were walking around barefoot on the tiled ground helped emphasize the holy atmosphere. The fact that everyone was taking pics everywhere you looked kind of detracted that, but I was one too so what could I do lol.

Afterwards, we went to the Emirates Palace for their famous Palace Cappuccino which has 24 carat gold flakes in it. Lol we actually saw that there was a dress code for the cafe, which didn't allow shorts (which I was wearing), but they didn't say anything and served us coffee.

It was really pretty. I tried to drink it as it without stirring it first and ended up breathing in a few gold flakes lol. They gave us a date and chocolate macaroon as well, which were also tasty.

The hotel itself was grand and magnificent. The lobby and cafe were all low-lit and stately that I felt like a pleb in my hoodie and shorts lol.

Afterwards, we went to the Louvre, which was so cool. I liked how it showcased how different items have the same history even though they occurred in different time periods and countries. Like these water vases were all from different time periods and countries but they all served the same purpose.

The building itself was really cool. You got to walk outside at one point to get to the end of the gallery, and you get to see the ocean and underside of the ceiling as you make your way to the cafe or children's museum.

Afterwards, on the way back to my hotel, Rakesh took me to this small Indian cafeteria that sold authentic Indian tea, so I got to try Indian tea. It was delicious! So creamy and flavorful. I wish I could get some around here lol.

But yeah, the next day, I ordered room service for breakfast and frantically packed before going to the airport. I ended up being moved to the front next to the window and became friends with my seat mates towards the end of the eight hour flight to London lol. For most of the flight, we were all alternating between sleeping and watching movies (I've watched so many movies this month due to all of my flights lol), but then we started talking towards the last few hours, and it was fun.

I learned that the Rawan, the girl seated next to me, was on her way to London for school. She was starting her Master's in Physics soon, which is crazy! She said she was thinking about getting her PhD afterwards! She's crazy! XD

We soon got to know Sayid afterwards. He's actually from London, but he usually only goes home once a year during Christmas due to his job, which has him traveling year round.

I was in London for the night because I had a 13 hour layover before my next flight. What did I do while I was in London? Ordered room service and watched Netflix because I was tired, jetlagged, and so peopled out that I didn't want to interact with anyone lol. I didn't even sleep for long because I had to get up at 4AM to go to the airport.

I landed in Chicago and had to quickly go to my next flight since I had a short layover at that airport. Luckily, they gave us these bright orange Express Connection tickets that allowed me to cut through the customs line and stuff, so I made it to my gate with 15 minutes to spare lol.

Then I finally got back home. I barely had any sleep for the past two days and was already sleep deprived the whole week because of jetlag, so I wanted to sleep after I had lunch, but Shelle wouldn't let me sleep until after 8PM. I ended up sleeping around 10:30PM and woke up at 7:30AM and finally got more than 5 hours of sleep for the first time in ages.

The jetlag actually wasn't as bad since I came back, but I'm still tired. I think it's because I haven't had much sleep to begin with anyway. :P But yeah, I'm finally home and have a bunch of snacks for everyone to try!