My student's neck broke off!

The flan turned out great, so I decided to make another one for the Secret Santa get together that my friends and I had over at the Garrett-Gardner residence. It was quite tasty as well....although, the first one was better. Yep, I'm a bad ass.

Christmas was quite stressful until the day of. I was shopping right up until we had to go to Andrew's parents' for Christmas Eve dinner. I've pretty much decided that people have definitely forgotten what Christmas is about. It's become too much about buying presents and all that, and it's really getting me depressed. Okay, so maybe I wouldn't be so depressed this time of year if I had more money and time to actually prepare and get in the mood.

Either way, everything's done and over with. All the presents were opened, all the food eaten, and in the end, I had a pretty good time with friends and family. Andrew did very well this year with the presents. He knocked out three out of 10 things from the Christmas wishlist without even looking at it. You wanna know what he said? He said, "Baby, I don't need to read your blog to know what you want for Christmas...I know you." hehe...I guess I underestimated his gifting abilities.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about what I should be doing with my life. Yes, I have a job right now that's full time, has a salary and has great benefits. So why should I be thinking about doing something else, right? Good question. Why can't I be happy with what I have? Probably because it's too hard and I don't want to deal with it. Man, that makes me sound like a complete quitter.

I'm making flan for the first time. I really, really hope it turns out well. There's nothing like failed baked goods to make you feel like a failure at life.

I got together with an old friend tonight. He told me the big news - he's going to propose to his girlfriend sometime this month so they can get married next December. It's so freakin' weird. I never thought that he'd ever say those words to me. Here's why:

1) He's only 22! Barely older than my little sister! That's waaay too young to get married. I think I'm too young, being 24. Marriage is just so serious, and people shouldn't just go about doing it without really thinking about it...hard...like super duper hard.

2) They've only been dating for 2 years. I guess being in a relationship of a little over 5 years and still not feeling ready to "settle down," I think 2 years is a little too soon to be seriously thinking about marriage.

3) It's just weird to think that he's getting married. I dunno...it's just weird.

Also, it's funny that I bumped into him today and found out about this, because just last night I had a conversation with a friend about marriage and all that, and I said something like, "I just don't feel like I'm ready or even close to it." And he said, "Well, can you really imagine yourself ever saying, 'I'm ready to get married'?" The truth is, I don't think i can...not right now, not anytime soon. Maybe it's because Andrew's so far away, or I'm not making enough money. I just don't feel old enough to do something like that. I know I have a real job that pays real money now, but I don't feel any older than I did 5 years ago. Will I ever feel like I'm ready for it? Maybe what Victor said is right - you don't really realize that you're ready for it until it happens. Wait...does that even make any sense?

People change. Time makes them change. Situations make them change. Sometimes, I really don't like that change.

This week's gonna be hell. I'm not gonna get a chance to go home before 9pm almost every night this week. SIGH.

Last night, a couple of the Korean girls who are co-workers came over after a rehearsal for a gig. We had...SOJU! My first time! I got pretty excited about it. Apparently, there are rules to drinking soju.

1) You can't pour yourself a drink, otherwise the person in front of you will have bad luck for 3 years.
2) You can't pour more soju into a glass that already has some in it.
3) You have to eat pork belly sahm with it.

Personally, I think that's a little too much to prepare for drinking.

Anyways, the soju was pretty weak. The night before, my drinking buddy came over, and we had shots of vodka. Compared to vodka, the Korean stuff was nothing. Didn't really matter, I suppose because it definitely served its purpose (of course, it doesn't take much with the Korean folks...man, they can't handle their alcohol). One of the girls got pretty drunk, talked trash to a friend that I "drunk" dialed (I put it in quotations because I wasn't really drunk, but i was still drinking), and passed out while saying, "No, we can't sleep..." Hehe...it was funny.

The "deep thought" moment during the drunkenness was when one of the girls said, "Grace, you're not all Korean. You're really American too." I guess that's true, but I don't know how I feel about that. Just because I'm not a FOB, I don't act like one and I don't have an accent when i speak English, does that mean I'm not all Korean? I've always wondered why Korean girls never tried to be friends with me. It's not like they looked down on me or were mean to me, but they all seemed to always clump together and always hang out and stuff, but I was never invited. Is it because I'm not Korean enough? It just sucks sometimes because I feel like I don't really feel completely comfortable in either group. If I'm with a whole bunch of Korean people, I feel slightly strange. If I'm with a whole bunch of white people, and I'm the only Asian, I really feel weird. I guess there's really no way to get over it...except to not think about too much, maybe.

:: Ode to Pho ::

Pho, I love you so
So full of animal parts
Noodles and beef broth

I impulse bought a laptop on Friday, so I guess I can cross off that one. I literally woke up that morning and thought, "Hey....I think I'm going to buy a laptop today." It was during that still sleeping but awake state, but I said it to myself with such...conviction...so I guess I convinced myself that way. That night, I went to Fry's and bought one. That's bad...really, really bad.

In place of the laptop thing on my list, I'd like to add the following:

2. a really hot laptop carrier bag...by prada