Weekly Haul (111)

Kyle and I went to Second and Charles to sell some stuff, and I ended up buying a couple of books. I also got some more books for Christmas from my coworkers!

Someone Else to Love by Susan Polis Shutz

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven R. Covey

Poems That Make Grown Men Cry by Anthony Holden & Ben Holden

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

The Five-Minute Journal by Intelligent Change

Crush by Svetlana Chmakova

Yona of the Dawn vol. 16 by Mizuho Kusanagi

101 Corporate Haiku by William Warriner

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

I'm so excited for Mob Psycho 100 II! Gonna wait until the season's over so I can binge it like how I did the first season! Lol there's a lot of anime I'm excited for this season, but there's not many movies I'm interested in. I still need to watch the second How to Train Your Dragon movie, too...

Anime:

• The Rising of the Shield Hero
• Mob Psycho 100 II
• The Promised Neverland
• Dororo
• Boogiepop wa Warawanai
• My Roommate is a Cat

Movies:

• Isn't It Romantic (Feb 15)
• How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Feb 22)
• Captain Marvel (Mar 8)
• Us (Mar 15)

Game Nights, Work Events, Graduation, Ugly Christmas Sweaters, Movie Night, Christmas Parties, New Years Eve

December was pretty busy due to the holidays.

We hosted game night at our place on December 1st, the first Saturday of the month. We invited a bunch of friends over to drink and play video games. We played some of Kyle's new Switch games, and of course, we had to play Quip Lash as well. I don't know how, but for some reason, Shelle and I started calling butter as burter, so I used that as my name while playing the game, which was hilarious.

The next Saturday, we had Smash Bro's Saturday at Alec's place since the game came out that week. We spent hours playing. It was really funny because I suck at video games, but after a while I would button smash correctly and kill enough other players to be the last three or four standing during every round, so everyone thought that I had the random luck of maybe beating one of the harder characters in order to acquire it. Luckily, David defeated the character before it had to pass on to me to try lol.

The next week was Archana's Master's graduation on Friday. Because she was taking the day off for graduation, her teammates threw her a surprise graduation party on Wednesday. We even passed around a folder that held a card inside it for us to sign, which had a list of people to pass it to after we signed it.

We were all hanging out inside of the floor's conference room while Sheraun, Archana's manager, messaged her to come see her and talk about a product, so she was completely surprised when she opened the door and heard "SURPISE!" from all of us. She literally paused for a while and had to say "I was expecting to talk about AMS, so I'm not sure what's happening" lol. Laura had even bought coconut cake for her, which was really tasty and is Archana's favorite food anyway lol.

The next day, we (the interns on our floor) had lunch with Thys, who is the president of our division. It sounded sounded really intimidating because he's an important person and was technically on vacation, so he was taking time out of his busy life to get lunch with us and learn about what we've been working on since we started.

Then the actual day we had lunch, we found out that CJ, his personal assistant, and Zach, our friend, were also going to lunch with us because Thys insisted on it lol. He didn't want to have lunch with just us interns lmao. But all in all, it was really good. He likes talking and gave good advice, and he was really funny, so it was nice.

The next night was our company holiday party. My manager told our team that we could work from home that day so we wouldn't have to drive back and forth from work to the event, which was nice. I made plans to carpool with Archana since her apartment was 20 minutes away from the venue. Apparently Lavit was coming with us, and he took forever to get ready, so we basically arrived when it was halfway over and only got to see people for an hour and a half.

It was nice seeing everyone all dressed up, but I didn't want to because it was cold and I was lazy lol. I wore a nice shirt and tights instead lol. I think Anita and I were the only women who didn't wear pants that night. What confused me was the fact that this was the only year where it was semi-formal. Every other year was casual! Why couldn't it be casual again?!

But the food was good, and they had unlimited drinks at the bar. Lol Jack and I were the only ones in our group who got white wine instead of red. The food were all appetizer sized, which made it easy to try lots of different stations. And the dessert station was really pretty; I wish I took a picture lol.

All in all, it was a good night. A lot of people were making plans to go to a bar nearby for the after party, but Archana and I were peopled out and didn't want to stay out too late since we still had work the next day. Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of people at work that day lol.

That day, Dom and I left work early to go to Archana's graduation. Since it was a Master's ceremony, it was pretty small and quick. I kept joking about how come Mercer didn't offer snacks and refreshments before the ceremony lol.

Lol Archana was quick to find us in the crowd. We kept waving like crazy at her and stuff throughout the whole time. We technically weren't supposed to clap or whistle while they were announcing all of the students names, but people kept on doing it anyway, so Dom and I decided to do it for Archana as well. Afterwards, we went to Ponce City Market to get drinks at the bar. Then I saw the ramen place and wanted ramen, so Archana said we could eat here and get drinks too. She's so nice lol.

The next Friday was basically the last Friday of the year for half of the people on my team since we were all going on vacation until New Years. As such, we decided to throw a pizza party since Anita, Jack, and I were craving pizza one day and decided to try Blaze Pizza out since someone left a stack of coupons for the place in the break room for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, the coupons expired by the time we went lol. Then it evolved into an ugly Christmas sweater pizza party because we decided to be festive. Only a few of us actually wore them tho... Lol it was still fun though.

After work, Archana and I went to the mall to buy her some make up since she wanted to get a foundation that actually matched her skin tone and a blush since she's never worn any before. I also had to buy a shirt for Henry's Christmas present, so it worked out.

Afterwards, we all met up at Dom's place for movie night. We made a quick trip to Trader Joe's for snacks and ingredients for mulled wine. Archana found out that it was the Winter Solstice, and apparently it's tradition to drink mulled wine during this time. Then Archana and I made the executive decision to watch The Haunting of Hill House lol. Sonali and Dom hate horror, but Dom was like "gotta get over the fear by doing it" so we overruled Sonali lol.

It was hilarious because Sonali kept on grabbing Archana whenever it got scary, and Dom, who was sitting perpendicular to the tv, kept on avoiding the screen whenever something scary happened. Archana just kept on putting her hand up to the tv to avoid seeing the scary scenes lmao. We had to watch an episode of Friends to help Sonali calm down lol. Then we started watching it again while Dom was showering since she didn't want to continue it. We left off on episode six, and I keep on forgetting to finish watching it since. It's either that or I don't have time to marathon all four episodes at night like I want to.

After that was a week of Christmas events lol. We hosted Christmas for Kyle's mom's side of the family. Then we celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve with my family before David and I went to his uncle's Christmas party later that night. The next day, we had Korean BBQ and video games on Christmas with Willy and Janice and some of their friends. A few days later, David and I had dinner with Mikey as a Christmas present to him. Finally, that Saturday night, I went to David's work's holiday party. I met most of his coworkers and learned that they're all kind of crazy funny lol.

In between all of this, David's family was fostering a pitbull puppy called Thanos for Christian, so I got to play with the cutest puppy since Hercules came around last year lol. He was adorable and soft and cuddly; he just wanted to nap all day. Then we found out that he was a dick to other dogs lol.

Shelle and Kyle went on a cruise, so I didn't see them until it was New Year's Eve, and we had a bunch of people coming up to celebrate with us. David and Alec came up, and so did some of Shelle and Kyle's friends did too. We ate snacks and drank and played with fireworks lol.

All in all, it was a very busy month. I was super peopled out by the end of it. That's probably why it took so long to write this post lol.

Weekly Haul (110)

So I didn't realize that I already included some of these books in my last haul, but I already uploaded the pic and am too lazy to retake it since I already put up the manga lol.

Anyway, Amazon had a $5 coupon if you spent $20 on books on their site last month, so I decided to buy this box set. My friend told me about The Four Agreements months ago when I told him I wanted to work on my empathy, and I thought getting the box set was the best deal since it covers a lot of different interesting topics.

Basically, that and the manga (which was also on sale) was my Christmas present to myself along with a bunch of clothes I bought during Black Friday lol.

The Four Agreements Toltec Wisdom Collection by Don Miguel Ruiz

Yona of the Dawn vol. 1-15 by Mizuho Kusanagi

Emotions Explained by Buff Dudes by Andrew Tsyaston

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

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

Books I Want to Read This Month

I didn't read any books last month, but I've been feeling the urge to read since I got so many books for Christmas. Let's hope this feeling lasts the entire month lol.

1. Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls In a Dungeon? vol. 10 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. Kenka Bancho Otome vol. 1 by Chie Shimada
5. Yona of the Dawn vol. 1 by Mizuho Kusanagi
6. Emotions Explained with Buff Dudes by Andrew Tsyaston
7. The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
8. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow & Jen Wang
9. The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
10. Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari
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

December in Retrospect

Happy New Year! I hope this year is better than last year!

December was a pretty busy month. I didn't read anything other than fanfics, but I did watch a lot of awesome shows and movies. A lot of anime ended last week, so I'll be binging those completed seasons soon! :)

I watched:

• GATE Season 1 (2016)
• Vir Das: Losing It (2018)
• Attack It, Lightning! (2017)
• Jingai-san no Yome (2018)
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
• Dakaretai Otoko Ichii ni Odosarete Imasu. (2018)
• Tight Rope (2012)
• Irresistible Love (2016)
• HIStory 2: Boundary Crossing (2018)

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!