Extra flowers from work! I think I am beginning to prefer yellow flowers. But blood red roses will always hold a special place in my heart :)






Remember Bloonies? I feel like they were called something else when I was a kid, but Ashley saw some at CVS so we had to pick them up. Man the fumes they emit... how are they safe for children?!


I promised food, didn't I? Well, I am a fried rice machine! This one has sausage, egg, bean sprouts, corn, broccoli, and carrots. Mmm...


This is a recipe I tried by Alton Brown (Good Eats), called "Roasted Vegetable Spread." It turned out more like dip than bread spread, but it's still delicious!

Posted by Joanna at 6:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Time for an update, huh guys. My life has been iNsAnE as of late~!! o.O Buuut finally it's the weekend, I have a little downtime to tell you what's up.

This class that I'm taking, Basic Studio Skills, is a lot more time consuming than I thought. We're learning to train our eye, and to become technically proficient. Essentially, to become a human computer. My teacher told us, "You guys just have to accept the fact that your summer is going to SUCK. You will have no life." And hey, she's right! Not only is the work tedious, I've also apparently lost any time management skills I might have previously had (which were few to begin with), and now my sleep schedule has changed to going to bed around midnight and waking up at 4am to finish assignments due at 830am. I'm dying, folks. We're doing projects in days that normally are assigned over weeks. :sigh: Well aside from practically killing myself, I finally feel like I've done something productive in college. After three years, I actually feel like my college education is paying off, hoorah! This is the first project we did, the "Donut Project":

That took me four tries of about four hours each to accomplish. Yep, that's 16 hours that I spent this weekend drawing damn lines and circles. I was even in Louisville! Precious vacation time! But I did receive an A on this project, and apparently the teacher doesn't give out A's, especially on the very first assignment. I am superwoman.

Well I'm completely settled in, and I really like this apartment. I don't love it, but I think I can tolerate living here for about 3-4 more years. The stove is working!! All we had to do was pull it out and plug it in. So I am happy to report that I can now cook :) However, I don't have money to spend on groceries at the moment (the amount I've spent on art supplies makes me want to vomit), so I've mostly been eating all the wonderful food that my mom precooked for me. But hopefully when I do have money, I can start posting pictures of yummy food! Here are some pictures:

Everything looks a little small and sparse, but it's comfortable. :)

Did I mention that I lost nine pounds before I came up to Kent? I went on a two-week diet that I call the "Egg and Tomato" diet because you eat so many eggs and tomatoes (example: every morning for breakfast, one egg, one tomato). The first time I ever tried this diet, I lost I think 13 pounds

Posted by Joanna at 9:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As of this past Saturday, I am moved back up here in Kent. This apartment is HUGE compared to the one in Columbus; my stuff barely fills the room and it feels so e m p t y... Well anyway, I like all this space. It feels clean. And will be cleaner once Ashley and I invest in a vacuum. Aah, cleanliness...

Welp, everything's running smoothly. The only problem is our stove doesn't work. This is very upsetting since I was expecting to start cooking up a storm the minute I moved in. I have so many ideas... Salads! Pastas! Stir-frys! Cakes!! We think that it's just not plugged in in the back, but we're also not really sure if we should be moving a stove. Hopefully that gets fixed soon... and once we both have steady incomes, we'll probably stop mooching off of this random Motorola wireless connection and get some REAL internet and cable. And I need to purchase a television. As well as a Macbook Pro. ...and a car...andadog.

I'll be taking two graphic design classes this summer: from June 12-July 13th, I'll be in Basic Studio Skills, and from July 17-August 17th I'm in Intro to Graphic Design. The projects I have to do seem pretty tedious but interesting, lots of drawing perfect lines and circles, and I think I'm motivated enough to do everything perfectly. Now if I was a freshman in this class, which I think the rest of the 7 girls are (all girls!), I think I'd just... change my major. Oh well, hopefully I have a life this summer. Apparently people don't sleep when they take this class over 15 weeks, and this class is 5 weeks long for me, I might just die of stress! And then I'm supposed to squeeze in a job somewhere, and this video game website? And cook? People who can live this kind of lifestyle (:coughJackiecough:) really impress me. But their days are numbered.

I suppose that's it for now, I'm gonna go relax since class was at 8:30a and I couldn't sleep last night due to the first day of class jitters. Oh, meet Gus the Spud:

Listening: Gnarles Barkley - St. Elsewhere
Playing: Chibi-Robo
Reading: Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Posted by Joanna at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Did you know that I went for six whole days with my left contact in my right eye and my right contact in my left eye? I honestly thought I had some kind of brain damage. Everything was really blurry. Glad that's over with.

Posted by Joanna at 1:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I don't understand why people hate the dentist's office. You get to know the status of your teeth, get freebies like toothbrushes or mouthwash, and leave with your teeth feeling brand-spankin' new and slick. If they have to drill and fill, they make it so painless that you're basically just leanin' back watching The Incredibles while people with masks hover over your mouth. Heck it's so painless it's fun even! Why fun? Because half of my face was numb today, and let me tell you it's almost as fun as being put to sleep and waking up not knowing what the hell just happened. Seriously. You try singing with one half of your face paralyzed and tell me that's not fun.

I had to get some cavities filled today, and they shot me with numb-juice four times. Originally they just did it twice, once on top and once on bottom, but since I kept feeling a slight pinch, they decided to just keep drugging me until the left side of my face felt like it was going to melt right off. Never felt a thing. Actually, the feeling on the left side of my tongue came back a little faster than the rest of my mouth, and I realized that I was actually biting on my tongue while I talked. Good thing the dentist said to not eat until two hours later or else I would have just chewed my tongue right off, wouldn't that have been a trip! Well, I should be back sometime soon for one last cavity (seriously, when did my teeth just decide to give up fighting plaque? I used to have perfect teeth.) so the party will definitely continue!

This past weekend was Play! Symphony in Chicago. Last year Ben, Nick and I went to see the Dear Friends: Music from Final Fantasy concert, and I went crazy with the camera when Nobuo Uematsu (the composer) appeared on the big screen. Little did we know that this year we would get to MEET the man, SHAKE his hand, AND get an interview! He has a beagle! Okay, it was mostly Ben and Nick talking to him in Japanese, and Nick's friend John interviewing him, but I was present at all times!

Yea, we met him twice and he was wearing the same shirt. Lazy bastard. Anyway, we met him, the composer for Oblivion, the composer for Halo, and the composer for Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, Ben and Nick's (and now my) personal favorite. We also met this Japanese pop star named Angela Aki who sings the ballad for Final Fantasy XII, and saw her give an in-store performance (that girl's got some lungs). While all this was happening, I felt like I shouldn't have been so privileged because I know gamers who are much bigger fans than I am, and I really only got these opportunities through Nick's friend John (who also got Ben and Nick into E3). Oh well, it was a lot of fun!

But my favorite part of the trip:

Duh, the food. This was some of the best sushi I've had in my life. This small hole in the wall called Green Tea had extremely well-made and fresh sushi at great prices. We sat at the sushi bar so we got to watch the sushi chefs (are they chefs?) roll the sushi. We got the Spider Roll, Philadelphia Roll, and my new favorite, New York Roll, complete with cooked eel, avocado, and cream cheese. According to this website the "New York Roll" is actually a new addition to the traditional sushi menu. I'll be ordering New York instead of California from now on. ^_^ More pictures at Flickr.

edit: I forgot to mention the actual concert. The music was wonderful, but I suppose that's a given. My favorites were the Super Mario Bros. suite, Metal Gear Solid main theme, Oblivion main theme, Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross suite, Zelda suite, and Silent Hill 2 - for that one, the composer came out in this really slick fly outfit, I wish I had pictures, and played the crap out of an electric guitar and kept throwing up the devil horns rock symbol. Haaa! At one point, Koji Kondo (Mario and Zelda theme composer, biiiig guy) came out and did a little piano solo, all the while violently bopping his head to the New Super Mario Bros. theme song. It was cute :) Kingdom Hearts suite was a severe disappointment, they only did orchestral versions of "Simple and Clean" and "Sanctuary"... they could have done SOOOO MUCH MORE! Like the song in the beginning of KH1 when Sora is in the area with the stained-glass floor and the spiral stairs. Aaaugh!!! But oh well, this concert was fantastic! We are trying to finagle a way to get into the Detroit concert for free. Hmmmmm...

Well the countdown for summer school has begun, I have 10 days left until I head back up to Kent. :sigh: I'm not looking forward to classes at all, but I think it'll be nice to be on my own again and being productive - cooking, designing, working hopefully. I just had a huge talk with my parents, and the general concensus for me is to just finish my education at Kent and graduate in 2009 with a bachelor's. We've looked at several other possibilities but nothing seems to get me a degree any earlier, so I might as well just stay at Kent which has a good program, instead of jumping around from school to school (and most likely delaying graduation). This kind of saddens me, to accept this fate, but I guess it's a little weight off my shoulders. If I can find good internships or jobs during these torturous three years, then it'll be worth it I suppose. I don't think I'll be shooting for a master's anymore, but we'll see. I'm just reeeeeally burnt out from school. But you know, I've always felt like my life was in order while I'm taking classes (probably because it gives me a schedule and a purpose and some deadlines), so I'm not too worried.

So because I'll be staying at Kent, I'm going to try to shoot for residency, and that means I need loans, and that means I need credit. So Joanna became a big girl today and applied for a credit card!! Discover, to be exact. Now I can dive into debt faster than you can say "free shipping"! Or "sale!" Or whatever you say, I'm not really sure how to use that phrase. I also discovered (not with my credit card) that I don't know how to pronounce "waft" or "pecans". Anna and I have gone over this, we don't know how to speak the English. Having Asian parents leads to language hilarity. A few of my favorites: "chamomile", "develop" and "maintenance". I'll let you figure out how I've been pronouncing these words for the majority of my life.

Quick notes: I've started a video game website, but I'll wait until it's polished to reveal it. X-men 3: The Last Stand is a pretty good movie. BBQs are my favorite part of summer. And Happy 21st Birthday, Anna! Until next time... here is a picture of my finger and the Sears Tower!

Listening: The Black Mages: Battle Music of Final Fantasy
Playing: Chibi-Robo
Reading: Haruki Murakami's The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Posted by Joanna at 1:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)