Happy New Year! It’s been a while since my last post, and I skipped the holidays, unlike last year. It’s now 13 days into the new year and it’s been OK so far.

The guy I was dating, who later became my boyfriend in August 2007… is no longer my boyfriend – but we’re still dating. We still hang out but things would get difficult and somehow I think I know that we don’t have a great chance of ending up together in holy matrimony. It’s a feeling, I guess. Though nothing is absolute until it happens… or doesn’t.

Here is what went down (more or less) today – Sunday, January 13th, 2008.

Woke up at 5:20 AM
Participated in the Great Aloha Run running clinic where we ran 6 miles, and it was my first time moving up to the run / walk group that runs one minute, then walks one minute. It’s been a long time since I ran 6 miles, and I was surprisingly not winded, so I might move up to the running group within the next couple of sessions.

11:45 AM – Kapolei Subway: Had one of the worst-ever customer service experiences in there where a woman was trying to overcharge me, and wouldn’t even look at the huge sign on the wall behind her until I pointed at it and said – it’s on the sign right there… and then she sauntered over to it, and said “must be new” and that was it. No apologies, nothing. And she was the manager. And she’d just messed up the order before us by giving the wrong sandwich to the lady in front of me, and the guy before her… and then she proceeded to start arguing with the next set of customers while we were finishing our meal. She’s gotta be related to someone cause there’s no other way she should be managing anything.

12:30 – Went to see Juno at Kapolei theaters with the guy I’m dating. It was kinda a disappointment since there was all this buzz about it. On NetFlix i’d give it 3 stars… or a little less, actually… but enough to round-up to a 3 since they don’t let you leave portions of a star in your rating. (I think it was a 2.8 or 2.9 actually).

14:30 – Famous Footwear in Waikele. I went to try and find a replacement pair of running shoes but they didn’t have my size. Decided to try sticking with the recent pair I got. This morning when I got home I noticed my right toe – the 2nd toe.. the nail on it was pretty sore when I touched it so my shoes might be too tight. Not sure. My left foot’s fine though. These shoes cost me $100 and I rarely spend that much on anything, so I’m thinking I’ll try it another weekend. (I cut my toenails really short to be sure).

16:45 – in the car, on the phone, on the way to see my friend. My best friend, who is also my ex-boyfriend- and we aren’t dating. We’re both hip hop djs in our spare time, and both get along really well and make best friends… but after 3 years of going out we broke up about 3 years ago and I don’t know that we would ever get back together. But it’s cool and no stress, and we just cruise and do simple stuff for fun like go walking around and taking pictures of stuff, or walking through Don Quijote store. Nope – I didn’t spell that wrong – it’s a japan store which was formerly Daiei, and formerly Holiday Mart, but now calledDon Quijote. The Kaheka street location has the best alcohol selection of any grocery store I’ve been in here on Oahu. But hit me up with a comment if you know a place better! ha ha! Though my drinking days have been over a while

17:00 – Arrive at my best friend’s house and cruise with the bunnies. One belonged to me and he agreed to take her in when I was having a hard time with college and keeping up with her. Living in central Oahu makes commuting super difficult for college students. Not near as difficult as it must be for West-siders, and North Shore people though. The second bunny was purchased since I had originally gave him 2 bunnies to watch, but one passed away and the other seemed very lonely. Rabbits are very social creatures and she’s bonded to the new bunny even stronger than the last one. I’ve loved rabbits since I was a kid. They are the pet of choice for me.

17:30 – Cruise. We drive around Waialae, Kaimuki, Kahala, Diamond Head, and just look at the houses and talk about whatevers. We don’t know where to go and don’t mind cruising. Cause that’s what we do sometimes. We decide to eat at St. Louis Drive-In. We both order the Autumn special (BBQ Cheeseburger deluxe, fries, and large cokes).

19:00 – The Amazing Race is on TV and we arrived with the food in time to watch it. I like TK and Rachel, and Christina and Ron. I think ultimately I want TK and Rachel to win. I was glad Nathan and Jennifer were eliminated tonight. Though they make great antagonists! This is the first time I watched the show all season, and I’m pretty sure I’ll tune in for the finale next week.

20:00 – driving in my car towards home. And I drive a lot listening to the radio. Actually, listening to a recording of a show I subbed last week at the nameless radio station I used to be a dj at. It wasn’t as bad as I was thinking it was, but not as good as I’d have liked.

21:30 – home. On my bed surfing the interweb… then i start writing this blog on my macbook pro, which is part of the older generation that gets extremely hot.

22:17 – finishing the blog, and debating going to bed early since i have to wake up at 5 in order to get to work by 7 since traffic sucks that much here. Also about to write in my little running journal how far I ran today, how long it took, etc. I think I’m also signing up for the marathon this year. Pretty sure… more than 50% sure anyhow… And feeling lucky because I have a decent life and good friends. It’s been a good year so far.

Easter Sunday was good because it forced me to take a look at things and reflect. The guy I’ve been dating spent time with me in the evening after he went to evening mass. I’m not super religious, but he is and I felt good about him going since he seemed happy about it. He actually touched on the subject of us going out as girlfriend and boyfriend last week, but I told him we should talk about it when he wasn’t exhausted and half asleep. We never did come back to the conversation. I don’t know if he assumes we’re going out or not but his parents seem to think we are. I am not 100% sure what I want to do.

This weekend my family celebrated Easter Sunday by going to the lunch buffet at Makino Chaya. My mom’s birthday was on Friday, so it was a celebration of both events. My mom, sister and I try to go out on holidays. I remember being a teenager who hated spending time with the family and how much its changed for me as I got older since I realize how incomplete it would feel if we didn’t get together. I will seriously miss my family if anyone passes on or moves far away. My mom is already a senior citizen and I’m praying she’ll live beyond her eighties and retain her health. She’s doing good right now, but sometimes it hits me that she isn’t as young as she used to be, because she looks great for her age and seems 10 or 15 years younger, but then I realize her age and it surprises me. She isn’t 80 or 90 yet, but she’s in her early seventies. I would honestly feel lost without her. She is often someone I can bring my big problems to. She’s great even though we argue tons, and it might not seem like it to her, but I think she’s amazing.

My sister is a good person, but very different. Hopefully she and I will remain on good terms. She is super responsible and intelligent, and makes the right choices in life. She’s the older sister. Of course.

Our dad passed away in 1997, and I’ve always accepted it, but never quite gotten over it. I probably never will feel OK about how he died. But I accept he’s gone, and hope he’s cruising around someplace and that he’s healthy, happy and able to enjoy his existence without pain. I don’t know what i think happens in the after-life, exactly, but I like to imagine he can see how we’re doing, and I imagine him young for some reason.

Easter Sunday was somber for me because a lot of things started piling up on me. Anxieties about decisions I’ve been making in life, and the career path I chose… Realizing I don’t think I’m happy doing what I’m doing by choosing IT as a career path… all that stuff. I banged up my car on a pillar in the parking structure wednesday evening after work, and am going through insurance but feel incredibly stupid about it. My carelessness cost me the $500 deductible, and I imagine my premiums are rising now. I left work so frustrated on Wednesday… I just wasn’t paying attention when I pulled out of the stall and the front-passenger-side of the car got it. The mirror came off, and the front panel by the wheel and passenger door are both dented. The estimate is over $2K. I have debts to pay and my car’s due for a tune up, so I wish I hadn’t made this additional bill. The auto body shop is charging me $500, and insurance will pick up the rest.

I just started feeling kinda somber last night. I’m thankful for all that I have and realize I’m a lucky person to have family and friends and a job. Hopefully everyone else had a good Easter – whether you celebrate it or not.

Valentine’s Day came and went this past week, and I didn’t really get to celebrate it with the guy I’ve been dating. I did see him for a little while, but he had to do a system application upgrade and it took place from 9 – 10 pm, so he had to spend much of the evening making phone calls to radiologists, and preparing for the downtime.

he gave me a heart-shaped box of See’s chocolates. I gave him a regular 1lb. box of See’s candy with valentine’s wrapping paper on it.

Friday was a good day. My co-worker found a position at another company as a Network Technician. I’m super happy for him. We had a party after work on Friday that started at Restaurant Row and moved to the 9th ave. rock house and grill along waialae avenue. I liked the place and would go there again to hang out.

The highlight of my weekend was spending time with the guy I’ve been dating. This weekend we booked a room in the Pacific Beach Hotel in Waikiki just for a day. We checked in, walked around Waikiki and did a little bit of shopping, Ate dinner at Genki Sushi in Waiau, drove back to the hotel, and in the morning, we checked out and went to Windward Mall and the new iHop that opened there.

The wait for iHop was about an hour, and we got there around 12:45. We played videogames at Tilt to kill time. We had the Sampler breakfast for $9.99 each. It was a good deal, and a lot of food since it had the option of all-you-can-eat hotcakes. They make pretty good pancakes (you’d hope so wouldn’t you!?) and there were choices of maple, strawberry and blueberry pancake syrup.

In Hawaii iHop’s a big deal since its a fairly new restaurant to open up out here. The iHOP in Waikiki has been open for a while now, but the Windward Mall location only opened on Feb. 5th, 2007. There were so many people buzzing around and excited about going to eat there. It was my first time ever in an iHop. I had fun.

After iHop we took a look at the model home for his future house (being built) and also looked at the lot itself. I’m really happy for him. His parents are helping him out with the downpayment. If you aren’t familiar with the incredibly high cost of housing in Hawaii, let’s just say that in order to own a simple home (3 bedroom, 2 bath) you’d better be willing to lay down almost half a million dollars. And keep in mind IT people in Hawaii are paid 1/3 less than IT people in the mainland USA. Its the price you pay to live in Hawaii, I’m told. I was born and raised here, and hope to live here, but in all honesty I don’t know if I can afford it. I want to get myself a simple one bedroom apartment or studio, and am hoping to get it for under $200K. That’s something I hope to accomplish this year, or maybe early 2008. And when I say simple, I also would like the building to be secure so I don’t get attacked.

We crashed at his house after looking at the model homes, watched a few Samurai X ova’s, which were cool, and ate Chinese food for good luck. I ordered Egg Blossom soup. His dad bought the food for us. It was nice spending time with him this weekend.

rurouni kenshin / samurai x

I feel close to the guy I’ve been dating. I am grateful to have had such a nice time with him this weekend, and will try to remember being happy when things get stressful during the week. I’m still not sure where we’ll end up, but am glad we met, and thankful for the good times we have.

I was supposed to go running this morning. I got dressed, and went to my spot to run, but for some reason couldn’t bring myself to run for more than 10 minutes. The winds were really strong, and it was so cold. I just felt restless and came back home instead. I also cancelled on going to the beach with Rich since I was feeling a little sick this afternoon. I slept for about 3 hours, ate dinner with my mom and sister, and am now blogging about my 3-day weekend coming to a close. I feel a little anxiety, but have to get over it and find a new job already! The winds outside are cold and seem a little sinister. I hope this upcoming week at work goes by quickly and painlessly.

When I get depressed, or don’t feel like dealing with certain things going on in life, I sleep. In school, I would get tired, and sleep all the time. Now that things at work have gotten as bad as I’ve ever seen them, I’m tired all the time. Last night I went to bed at 9PM, and woke up this morning at 9AM. I could feel the dreaded Monday nibbling away at the back of my relaxing Sunday. Recently, I dropped my beloved motorola razr v3 (black) on the floor in my bedroom, and killed the display entirely. The screen remained black, though the phone itself could still make calls when I tested it out.

This morning after I forced myself out of bed, I went running and invited Justin to go with me. It’s good running with him because we’re both kinda bad runners. His excuse being that he smokes and hasn’t gone running since last August. Mine’s being that I don’t push myself very hard. I am not marathon material, and often start walking when I should be pushing myself to go on. It was a nice morning though, and the sunshine and the scenic views were enough to make me feel good about things.

After running, Justin came with me as I replaced my broken Motorola Razr v3 (1st gen) with an updated Motorola Razr v3xx, which I got from a cool-enough sales guy from the Sears Ala Moana Cingular outlet. His name was Curtis, and his customer service was the best I ever got from a Cingular store, ever. I was sad to lose my saved images, ring tones, and text messages that were on the old phone, but I dropped it, and the display totally died. I renewed my contract so I could get the phone for $49 after the $50 mail-in rebate. The v3xx is larger (its longer) than the v3. It has more functions, including the ability to play music and the ability to connect as a drive to your PC, so you can upload and download files. I can’t remember if the V3 had bluetooth (thinking it did) but I use it on my phone to transfer photos to my computer. Overall I’ve been satisfied with the upgrade.

the updated razr: motorola razr v3xx

my o.g. motorola razr v3

I’ve been feeling both good and bad about the relationship with the guy I’m dating. I was a little scared to invite him to my sister’s wedding party, but am glad I did since he accepted to being my guest with no hesitation. It’s going to be on a Sunday morning at the Oceanarium in Waikiki.

Tomorrow I get to start work late, but am worried about the rest of the week. I can only pray the interview I went to pans out well for me. It’s only been a little over a week since my interview for the position of Systems Support Technician. I really am hurting at Help Desk in the Lead position, because we normally have 6 people, but are now down to 3.

My sister and her boyfriend went to Vegas on Sunday, and arrived back in Honolulu yesterday morning. My mom went to pick them up. I’d been hearing on the radio that people were getting sick up there, so I was a little worried about them. That was all I thought of their trip. But when I got home from work yesterday, my mom asked if I had time to talk, and I said a little since my date was coming in about 20 minutes to pick me up. And she told me my sister got married in Vegas.

Wow. Just like that. I am kind of shocked though they’ve been seeing each other for the longest time, and my mom’s been harassing my sister to get married for so long. I asked my mom how she felt about it, and she said it was OK with her since she and my father also eloped.

Kinda weird. Just have to get used to the fact she’s got a husband now, and she’s not going to have the family name once she changes it. But I’m happy for them nonetheless.

Last night, the guy I’m dating ate with me at Thai Kitchen in Waipahu. It was his first time there, and he liked it a lot. They are so reasonable– and their food is great. Its really worth checking out if you live on Oahu and like Thai food. We ate ice cream at Waiau Zippy’s, returned his Star Trek Season 1, Disc 1 to Diamond Head Video, and then cruised at my house. It was nice hanging out with him. He’s been having large amounts of stress at work. I felt bad because I know his friends wanted him to come hang with them, but he ended up hanging with me instead.

Maybe this will be the year I get a new job? Maybe this will be a year of changes for my family. My mom and sister’s life has already changed a lot with this wedding. I know my mom’s been ready to ask him to marry my sister herself! Haha!

Yesterday I saw The Pursuit of Happyness with the guy I’m dating. We used the coupons we got for Christmas to go to the movies, get popcorn, and a medium drink. We went to the Pearlridge West theaters, and watched the 5:05 showing. We both enjoyed it a lot. It was very different from Letters From Iwo Jima– that’s for sure! In all honesty, I enjoyed myself more watching the Pursuit of Happyness. It left me feeling good for the main characters, and wistful, I suppose. I really admired how he took such risks. He took gambles that I probably would not have had the guts to take myself in all honesty. And I’m sure a lot of people fail when they take chances like these, but I still admire people for trying. It was kind of funny seeing the Rubick’s cube. I kind of remember when those first came out as a kid, and I believe we had 1. I never could do it though.

We also studied a bit after the movie. I have my OS portion of the A+ certification I have to take, and he is studying for a couple of certs himself. I enjoy his company a lot. It’s very relaxing.

Today, it was back to work. We managed to grab lunch together at the restaurant inside the YWCA downtown. It was a nice atmosphere. It felt good to be away from the office.

I met up with him after work, and we went to Coffee Talk for a little bit, walked over and found this new store that sells urban vinyl figures and I bought 2 nano spores, and then we picked up his car and drove separately to my house. He was so tired, he ended up falling asleep on the couch during Battlestar Galactica (which he loves) and I let him sleep for about 1.5 hours til about 10:30PM.

Before he’d crashed, we ate Hickory Farms sausage, sweet hot mustard, and gouda cheese on crackers. As a kid I always loved those Hickory Farms sets. I mentioned it to him once in December, and he bought me one for Xmas. We ate some of it today. It was pretty fun, and reminded me a little of being a kid again. We had one of those sets just once when I was little.

There is something about watching him sleep that is almost heartbreakingly sweet. He truly is a nice person, and I hope he has a good life. I know there’s a great chance we’ll drift apart in time, and go out with other people, but I really enjoy his company for now. And whatever happens, he deserves a lot of great things out of life. I really believe he is one of the nicest people I know. Heh. This post is more for my memory than anything.

Yesterday, I went to the movies with the guy I’m dating. We were trying to decide between 3 movies: The Pursuit of Happyness, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Letters From Iwo Jima. Overall, it was a good movie, but admittedly it felt like some of it was a little disjointed, but perhaps that was the idea? My date brought up a good point when he told me he was disappointed they didn’t mention the fact that they held the island for a few months. Time is hard to distinguish in the film, and as someone who doesn’t know much about the history, I got the impression they only held the island a few weeks from watching the movie. When he told me they held off the American attack for that long, I was really surprised.
Ken Watanabe was really good in the film as Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. Tsuyoshi Ihara was also great as Baron Nishi. I was glad they shot the film in Japanese, and subtitled it. There were some moments that were difficult to watch, but not because they weren’t good. I don’t like to give spoilers, so I’ll just say that overall, I liked the movie. I wished they did some things differently, and went into more detail with Ken Watanabe’s character, because he was interesting. They did show a lot of conflict within the Japanese military and its people, and I thought that was one of the facets that are probably not touched upon much when people make movies about wars. Instead of a pure “us against them” type of film, you can see that the enemy is not always what you think they are, and that your own team can cause you more pain than any enemy could.

Today I took the CompTIA A+ Core Hardware exam (220-301) and I passed! Yes!If you are thinking of taking it, you might be interested to know that the version I took today (2003) will be “retired” on June 30, 2007. They changed the format for the new 2006 version. The 2003 version had 2 parts: Hardware, and OS. The new 2006 version also requires you to take 2 exams. The required exam is the CompTIA A+ Essentials, and then you can choose from 3 different tests which specialize on different types of tech support positions that the test candidate might be interested in pursuing, or is currently working in / towards. I honestly don’t like the sound of it since it seems more restrictive if, say: you take a test tailoring to Remote Support Technician (call center, help desk, etc.) and you find yourself interested in a Bench Technician, or Enterprise / IT Technician position. Just my opinion. Here are links to study guides approved by the CompTIA site. Make sure to note whether or not it is for the 2003 or 2006 version if you make a purcase!

It was 100 questions long, multiple choice, and 90 minutes were allotted for the exam. There was an additional 15 minutes to read the terms and accept them before beginning the exam, and a survey that was 15 minutes long at the end of the exam. I took 1 hour to complete everything. That test cost me $158 baby! This is the last year you can take the 2003 version of the test, so if you want to take the 2003 version, you only have til the end of June 2007.

I was the only person there, and I wore my new jack swing suit to the exam. I take what I wear to tests very seriously. Today’s theme was “no fear.”

Now I have to schedule the OS portion of the exam. Afterwards I met up with the guy I’m dating and we had a couple of drinks at a bar alongside the ocean. And now I’m at home waiting for him to show up so we can hang out. It’s been a good week so far. It’s Friday night, I passed my exam, and yes — I just got paid. Awww yeah!

Yesterday I went to the movies with the guy I’m dating, and we saw Children of Men. The director, Alfonso Curaon, is the same one who did Y Tu Mama Tambien. I’d heard only good things about this movie, and I’m glad we went. It was a really good movie. Lots of unexpected things, and visually one of the most believeable possible futures I’ve seen in a movie. They didn’t make everything look like The Island, or any of those other futuristic movies. It was believeable. And I was expecting to see extremely dark settings, but in fact a lot of the scenes were full of light, and there was beauty in it, despite how messed up some of the situations were. There were some things I wish they’d given more detail about, but in some ways movies spoil themselves by trying to explain too much, so perhaps its for the best that they didn’t explain it all. I enjoyed it a lot, and at the risk of writing any spoilers, will leave it at that. I should mention I thought it was cool how Michael Caine played some “zen” music for Clive Owen. Many subtle and small things were very cool, and when you see them all together on the screen, it makes a great big-picture. I really like this director’s work on this film.

We took a drive to Down to Earth in Pearlridge, ate some sandwiches, and then went back to my house and watched Little Miss Sunshine on DVD. The music for this movie caught my attention. Alan Arkin was great, and so was the rest of the cast. Every character was interesting, and the most interesting were the men: Grandfather, Frank, Dwayne, and Greg Kinnear’s character. Every character was cool though. It was not as amazing as I thought it would be, but there were some great lines in this movie, and something very sweet and yet not too sappy about it. It left me feeling good in the end. Grandpa’s advice to Dwayne was great. I love Alan Arkin. He’s awesome.

It was a nice day because I got to spend some time with someone I like a lot. He’s oncall this weekend, and I was scared I might get paged as well since I have a new Saturday shift person working unsupervised and I thought there might be questions for me, but thankfully, neither of us got paged the whole time we hung out. I really enjoyed myself, and am thankful for days like the one I just had.

Its about 2 AM here. When I finish posting this, I’m going to sleep, wake up and go running, and then try to study some more for the A+ exam coming up for me on Friday. It’s already Sunday, and man am I tired. I hope I pass. I’m only taking the hardware portion and will schedule the OS part for a few months afterwards if I make it through this first part.

Yesterday, was the kind of day that makes up for a lot of crap I’ve been dealing with. A really good day can keep me going for a long time. Thankfully I had one this weekend. I needed it!

It’s rare that I buy shoes, but yesterday I bought not 1, but 3 pairs of shoes.

Brooks Adrenaline GTS 6’s:

These shoes cost me $90. Which makes them the most expensive pair of shoes I have ever bought in my LIFE. Ever. I went to The Running Room
and bought them since I strained my achilles tendon earler in the week. Among the possible causes was running in shoes with worn-out soles. My old running shoes were almost 10 years old so the guy I’m dating (who runs the Honolulu Marathon each year– awesome) scolded me a bit about having 10-year old running shoes.
The lady in the store determined I needed a stability shoe. So I have a pair of metallic running shoes. Yes. They’re metallic. That was the first time in my life where I decided not to even look at the shoes myself and allow someone else to select them for me. I wanted the professional choice instead of my own because I would have surely tried to pick something that looked cool, but was cheaper, and probably wouldn’t have been as good for my feet.
If you’re looking for a running shoe, I would recommend the Running Room. They are very attentive, and even told me to try the shoe out on the concrete outside of the store. I’m gonna break them in by running a few miles in the morning. It was a great sales experience, and I haven’t had such great customer service in a long time.
Later, I bought 2 pairs of shoes at the Skechers outlet in Waikele. The first model is called “the Scholar” and it is the work-shoe of choice for me. I keep trying to buy the same exact shoe when they wear out. This is my third pair in about 2.5 years. Not only do I wear them to work, but much of the time when I’m just cruising. If they ever stop making this shoe, I will be sad.

And, because I am unable to resist bargains 2 days after getting my paycheck, I bought the shoe below, but in black. Why? Cause they’re fresh! And because they had a buy-two-pairs-of-shoes-and-get-the-2nd-pair-1/2-off sale going on.

Hopefully my achilles tendon won’t flare up again when I go on my run. I’m also taking my clip-on ipod shuffle that I got for Christmas– damn it’s cool! I had to name it when I registered it, and ended up naming it “gift06.”