七月八月..真係好多野發生

..上個月我遇到一個好真同埋特別幾女仔...雖然只係做男女朋友一個月多..我好希望佢係我咁多年想要個種女朋友.

天,請你今似唔好玩我.


無論什麼事..不會忘記開心過d日子.

classic.Jay Chou - You Can Hear It (妳聽得到)

Writing it all down before I forget! Two months after my china trip!!

It's already been two months since I went to Beijing/Taiwan/Hong Kong. Man, time freakin flies! I better write all my memories before i forget all of it. This was probably the best trip I have ever had. I felt I had so much freedom to travel by myself. No fear of the unknown. No fear of getting lost. There was nobody or anything holding me down. It felt awesome. Everything was just went right. I didn't have any delays, didn't lose my baggage, and I was able to meet up with all of my Hong Kong/China friends that I wanted to meet up with.



When I was flying over to Hong Kong to transfer to Beijing, I had no idea how my trip was going to plan out. I didn't plan much and I pretty much winged it. I had no expectations, I packed a day before I left. This was the best way to handle it before a trip! I realized that having no expectations before a trip will usually work itself out.


Beijing was pretty awesome. I walked a lot...a LOT. It got to the point where my back heel on both of my foot the skin was starting to come off..but it was all worth it! I used a lot of broken mandarin/cantonese/english and managed to get around so it wasn't too bad! The best part of Beijing was THE GREAT WALL. It felt so awesome climbing to the top of mountain with Michelle and her friend. The weather was PERFECT that day. I got real lucky because it wasn't too hot, it was perfect at 75-80F. Coming back down was also a trip. It was super steep and it was completely unexpected. I have to admit I had that adrenaline rush, but at the same time it was exciting. The rest of the days I went to the usual tourist spots, checked out new places, ate weird food like DONKEY, and peking duck.


After 4 days in Beijing, I headed off to Taiwan for 3 days. Taiwan was also very fun. During this part of the trip, I completely winged it. I basically traveled with the use of the travel brochure that the subway provides for free. Man that book helped a lot! I went to 2 famous night markets but too bad everything was wet because it rained so hard the two days I went. I wasn't able to get on top of Taipei 101 but I still managed to drink a lot of Tapioca, eat stinky tofu, and see a lot of Taipei. I must say though, I've never seen so many pretty women and people who were very considerate on the subway than any other place that I've been to. goddamn!


After Taiwan, I went back to Hong Kong to visit my sister, grandma, cousins, met up with a friend who I haven't seen since 2007, kirbs! Hong Kong was cool this time I went. I went to all my childhood places, went to the temples that I usually go since I was a kid. I bought all the clothes I needed. I ate all the Hong Kong food that I've been craving the last 2-3 years! I was also kinda surprised this time around, I actually had clothes that I like from Hong Kong. I also went clubbing in LKF the first time in HK. It was funny and weird at the same time. People definitely club a little differently in Hong Kong..but it was still fun nonetheless.


After my trip ended, I really did not want to go back to the states. I was so motivated to learn my chinese..at least learn a bit of chinese characters of food! I literally took the menu from ABC restaurant in San Mateo to try to get the characters down. But knowing myself, being a halfass all the time, I ended up doing other stuff: Moving out.


Two weeks after my trip..I realized my sister was moving out soon. This was when I randomly started talking to a coworker who was looking at apts in the lab at work. It all happened randomly, we started looking for apartments and see how it would go. After looking for two weeks, we decided we'll just move in since we both had the same budget and wanted to live not too far from the beach. Hella random. All moved in now, and I gotta say I love the place and the location, but I do kinda miss my sista and my dog! It's nice to change it up I guess. I hope the next year is going to be great..but what am I to say? I have no idea whats gonna happen! Hope everythnig goes well...!

2 years after I started this blog..and reading this again today..damn..

Reading my first post right before graduation at UCSD back in April 2009..and reading it now...damn...feels like not much has happened...but I feel like I learned a lot these last two years in the working world. Can't believe its been a year already since I worked in QC EMB...and its not even called QC EMB anymore but QC Microbial Environmental Molecular. QCI, the old group, is now under the same manager now. crazy.

Now off the weekend shift since Jan '11, back on the weekdays, trained on every assay in the department, learned some assays from QC Micro, and even started training people now . Man, time really flies. It's funny to see how I was so set on graduate school right out of college, and now I am trying to take that route 2 years later, but struggling to study with 40hour work weeks now. And to think that, if I hadn't stayed at Genentech May of last year, I would've taken that English teaching job in Korea right now. Wonder what would've happened then?




Two of my favorite assays I've learned at my job this past year. TOC Total Organic Carbon and LAL Limulus Amebocyte Lysate to detect endotoxin. I've learned a lot in this job, yet sometimes I feel like its not the environmental route I really wanna take.


Time to holla at some water and em samples! gowning up like this errrday! I remember when I first started it took me forever to put it on...after doing it so many times..its cakewalk now.


It's nice to feel like I got something to write about soon. I can't wait to post stuff for my vacation to Beijing, Taiwan, and Hong Kong in 2 weeks. Taking my GREs in 2 weeks...definitely do not have my hopes up, and expecting the worst.

I've been HELLA wanting to get away..so bad that I scheduled my trip RIGHT AFTER I take my GREs, then I'M OFF TO ASIA!

So far mid year 2011...its been a very ehhhh year...lots of working world politics I guess, my dog having to go through a 5000 dollar surgery and having to pay half of it :(...lots of drama..I was ALSO supposed to go to Japan, but failed with my third attempt due to the earthquake. I guess I was lucky enough not to be there when it happened :/ ...I wouldn't have been able to gone through all of my bullcrap this past year, if it wasn't for my 2 closest childhood friends. Man, its crazy how we used to bitch about middle school homework and where to play in the neighborhood. Now we talk about paying bills, where to find jobs, what the hell to do with life.


stupid picture. throwback. my niggs.

Damn there goes one year since I updated this!
Now hopefully I can finally have some fun in Asia for two and a half weeks with my whole year's worth of saved up paid-vacation days.

Genentech- "We'd strongly like you to be on the weekend shift...you'll learn a lot more!" ohh what?!

..After weeks of searching and scrambling for a new job in February before my temp contract was up at Genentech QCI, I managed to land a regular term position doing Environmental Monitoring and Bioburden after 3 long hours of interviewing. After working here in EMB for a week, I realized the training is insanely intense! Supposedly, to be a fully trained analyst in EMB takes 9 months! What a fast paced department. I had to take so much notes...took me a good hour to type up all of it...it felt like college..I'm learning something again...something I wanna do too! I am so thankful for the referrals that my friend and supervisor gave to my new manager. It was such a coincidence that my supervisor was very close to my new manager. The crappy news is that I am moving to a weekend shift...

Working on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays from 8-6:30pm....and then getting Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off...

My social life is basically gone! but a job is a job in this economy.. ...I guess what happened was during the interview, I told them I was willing to learn new stuff and work on as much stuff as I could, and the weekend manager wanted me to be in his group... Supposedly, the weekend people work on more assays, monitoring, and more cross-training in other depts. (so they say).

I'm happy I'm finally a blue badge at Genentech...the temp/regulars segregation was very apparent throughout the months I've worked here. It feels good to be able to take advantage of some benefits and be part of the Genentech Community. No more paying 140 a month just for medical insurance! More money to pay off my car now, and pay off the mortgage and bills. Finally some money I can spend on and save up. Finally get to eat out more!!!!

I'm gonna miss my QCI group a lot and B29. Too bad I didn't take a group picture. No more taking 2 hour lunches and watching Ironman 2. No more Jollibee runs at Tanforan!! :( My lunch hours are so strict now..

No more messing around with Achilles in the front lobby checking out accidents/chemical spills/gas leaks that happen every so often on the security cameras, or just chilling playing fuseball. Good times! Probably the chillest job in the last 10 months while being able to learn a lot of new things. (Sorry Achilles I just had to put this picture up of you...for good memories! haha!)

I'll definitely miss everyone else in my QCI Group. Gonna miss talking about random stuff in everyday life...the deuces...the gym workouts...the ladies...videogames..cussing at each other in cantonese...making up stupid names to call each other....blasting music in the inspection room and having our mini-karoake sessions! Gonna miss those free Genentech-paid-for Japanese buffet runs that we so often get in QCI. Very grateful to have had a such a good first out of college full-time job with a really cool supervisor and group. I guess theres always a time when everyone has to move on and do what they gotta do.

I won't be seeing these glass vials for awhile!

These last couple of months have been very surprising...just before the Genentech offer, I was about to be shipped out to South Korea to teach English. I cancelled the last minute once I found out I got the job at EMB. I had prepared all my paperwork and had just finished 2 rounds of interviews.

I would have been teaching at this place called Chungdahm Institute somewhere near Seoul. I was pretty desperate to travel to Asia and experience life there and Korea would've been just fine to fulfill my interest. I wasn't hearing back from any other job applications besides crappy temp jobs that were all the way in Oakland or Fremont, so this job seemed perfect. I guess everything happens for a reason, maybe I was destined to stay to help my sister pay off the mortgage...or maybe I'm meant to stick to doing something that was related to my major..who knows! I do wonder what would've happened right now if I was in Korea...maybe having the most awesome time of my life..?

Chungdahm Institute

Some other stuff happening in life...my sister just got her degree in California College of the Arts..so really happy for her...freelancing right now..i hope she finds a nice job soon!

Looking forward to the upcoming months...either I will hate it or love it...I hope I don't mess up or screw up big time at work...hopefully I'll be able to endure the training...tiring yet stimulating...excited to take days off again in July and head back down to socal again to see my socal buddies!

..To finish it off..I just had to post a video of my pets. Some of my friends didn't believe I had this much fish. IMMA PROVE YOU GUYS WRONG! haha...

I'm showing my Marine Bio side of me! They were the size of my pinky when I first got them! Its been like 6 years!

(the whining noise in the background is my dog wanting to play fetch..haha)

Sacramento is now officially my de-stressor spot. My parent's backyard is like one of the most relaxing spots. That's one thing I like about Sactown, the large amount of space you can get for such a cheap price.

You start to appreciate abundance of space when you've been living in a small living room for over a year without your own room.

haha...