Lol okay, I'm updating.

A month before I had to come back to Cali, I thought of songs that fit me going back home. Here are some:

*- "Home" by Daughtry. But I didn't like the line, "These places and these faces are getting old," because I will never get sick of a lot of places in England. Or faces. :)

*- "Home" by Michael Buble. He mentions Paris and Rome, and I've been to those places! I was surrounded by, a million people I, ... never felt alone. So this song was out too x)

*- "Sweet Home Alabama" by [I forgot] I still remember one night when me and some of my friends had hot pot and my friend Steven sang, "Sweet Home California"!!!!!!!!

*- "Home Sweet Home" [recently sung by] Carrie Underwood. Every time a contestant was kicked off, I always thought of home because of Carrie. haha. I'm on my waaayyyy... home sweeet hoooome....

*- "California" by Phantom Planet. California, here I come, right back where I started from.

Okay I'm done. The last two songs fit, I think. I'm home now. It's been one week since I left England. I started looking for jobs already, decided not to go to school this summer, but lately just been lounging at home [playing The Sims 2!]. I went to the movies on Monday with Mom and my sister. We saw Up, which is another great film by Disney/Pixar. And today I drove for the first time since last July-August! I didn't drive at all in England, but for some reason I would be convinced that I should be driving on the left side of the road. lol.

A lot of my friends are graduating/have graduated this week, in Irvine and everywhere in Cali, and also in Portsmouth! Congratulations, everyone! I'm with you in spirit, always! I still have up to a year before I get to walk.

I'm now waiting to go to my cousin Kevin's birthday party. I'm sure it'll be big since all my family is going, including my mom's side of the family. And my Kevin's friends will be there too, I bet. Did I mention it's his 21st? It's gonna be massiiiive. Also, Happy Birthday to Anais!! And Happy Birthday to Brintharrr!!! I want to go to England to celebrate their birthdays with them.. but for now, I'll send them internet hugs~~~

It's 7am PST. 3pm GMT. I've been home for maybe 15 hours now. Had a long sleep and will sleep some more(My bed is awesomely comfortable!!!) My mind and my body is still in transition mode. I feel like I'm both not completely gone from Portsmouth but I am not completely back in LA. How many times did I say, "Oh my God!!!" as the plane landed? Not really sure.

I had a great last night in Portsmouth, though. I spent it with some of my closest friends(shoutout to the Malaysian gang, my second family lol ♥), and I was up all night, and some friends even visited me before I took the taxi out of Langstone. There was about a million people I didn't get to say goodbye to, which makes me sad. But I still have them all on Facebook, and I'm definitely going to keep in touch. To Portsmouth, to London, to England and everyone I've met in it, I'll never forget you and everything you've brought into my life. Thank you so much. I'LL DEFINITELY COME BACK TO VISIT.

It's great to be home, though. Actually I had maybe a total of 2 hours of sleep within a 48 hour time period so I was too tired to marvel at being back home. Hmm, I think the first thing I noticed was the lack of strictness going through US customs. I remember through UK customs I was asked a bunch of questions while they thoroughly investigated my passport before stamping. The dude in US custom asked me one question and stamped my passport without even looking at me. Hahaha, welcome homee.

I think I will go back to sleep. I didn't get to reach 100 posts. There's so much I want to do now that I'm here, and there's a lot of things that need to be done. But now I just want to sleep.

p.s. last night I had Filipino food. Lechon, Dinuguan... I've missed this!! I could cry with happiness!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's the very last Thursday of the semester, so hundreds of people went to the biggest club on Thursday nights, Tiger Tiger. My friends and I didn't even get in! I waited for my friends, then got into the queue, moved forward 2 feet within about 45 minutes waiting until someone announced the club was full, & they would allow people in as people left from the club. VIPs didn't even get to go in.

So my friends ditched it and we just hung out at a friend's friend's place for a bit. So strange how some flats are above shops and stuff. We walked through a walkway between two buildings(I didn't even realize the walkway was there! It had the ~Harry Potter~ effect I guess) And we got to the place through the staircase behind a foodshop. Craziness.

Got back to my home for 2 more nights. So the huge night out I highly, highly anticipated ended up extremely anticlimactic. I've never queued to get into a club before LOL. Interesting atmosphere. Everyone was just standing there quietly. Nothing rough happened. But the funny thing is, I don't really care at all that I didn't get to dance the night away. I didn't spend any money tonight, but I did spend time with friends. :) I did say goodbye to people and these goodbyes have been quite sad. Surprised I haven't cried yet. I know it hit me but maybe I've gotten to the point of acceptance.

Last Friday in Portsmouth. I'm freaking out--I need to be packed and have the room cleaned in 14.5 hours. I know I'll be able to do it. But. ugghhh. Let it begin. Omg I'm staring at myself in the mirror right now and my eyes are pretty big.

10:30 In my room. La la la.. oh wait, I need to go into town to eat lunch with a friend. She's paying. (Thanks for the lunch, Meri!)

13:30 Ohhh hey, I ended up in Portland Building! In the computer lab there was a sign that said, "Quiet Please--Civil Engineers at work!!" Then why are half the computer screens in the room showing Facebook? Ah well, time to study and eavesdrop...

15:15 Hmm, Time to change my environment. I will study on the grass outside of the SC building. The sun is out and there is a nice breeze.(It's seriously Irvine-on-a-beach-day weather) La la la

16:00 I can't get this problem!!! Time to change again. Going inside the SC building now.. oh.. there's no one in there but the employees... I feel like they are watching me.. why don't they watch the TV, happy music videos are on anyway.. gah, change.

16:30 Hello, library.

Strange to say, but that was kind of fun. People study in different places for "a change of environment" so today I ended up living that phrase out to the best of my abilities.

And the time afterward included a dinner and a little break that increased because I missed the uni bus. But it was a good break in town. I will miss this town, and all the people I met in it. I'm going to repeat that so so so so so so much.

(looking to the home front though, the International Office at UCI sent a newsletter for returning students--i.e. me--about the outlook on going home. It was a very comforting read.)

So, it's a little after 5am. The morning sun is already nagging the world with, 'Time for the day to begin!!' and the birds are helping tremendously. I have actually been awake since 9am yesterday.

This is mostly due to my flatmates trying an experiment to mix coffee with Coke. It doesn't taste spectacular, but it doesn't taste disgusting either. We're just weird, seeking new ways of being awake. Well, it worked, didn't it? x)

But I just kept thinking as I tried to fall asleep. and then I realized, where will I be a week from this moment in time?

All this time, I've been thinking, "I'm leaving in a week, I'm leaving in a week." But now a new realization: "In a week, I'll be home." It's...wild to think about. I haven't been home for so long! I'm pretty sure everyone can't wait to see me. I feel the SAME. <3

Still.. I felt a sense of belonging to this place. Another place in the world I can call home. And with that I've met so many great people, and it'll be hard parting ways... knowing that next year, I won't be living with them, running into them at uni, hanging out at the library(b/c that's what libraries are for here, lol), chilling at pubs... yeah, it'll be hard.

That's only a minisculear(ahh that's not even a WORD) fraction of what I'm thinking about right now. I know I still have loads to do. I still have to pack. To think, I packed days, maybe weeks before I left for England. And now I'm days away from this ride coming to an end, when after months of being away, I'll be touching down in .. Angel town.

Aaaaaaaaaand here I sit now with a bowl of cereal I figured since I'm going to wake up later in the afternoon or something, might as well not miss breakfast, hahaha.

Maybe I can fit 12 more posts before Saturday?? lol, I'll probably end up spamming on the last day. We'll see what happens this week. A lot can happen in a week. :)

LONDON <3

It was pretty lame having to wake up so early on a Saturday morning(5am, YEAH BOIII) but I had a pretty good time. Though nowadays, I'm so used to waking up at 10-11-12 so it was kind of offputting. But still fun.

What was up in London this time? The London Expo, of course. And I went with Anime Society. So we got to see lots and lots and lots of people dressed as anime/video game characters. Really cool. And I saw a lot of signs that said "Free Hugs" or "Hug Me". I got so annoyed with those.. pretty soon they started looking like "Kick Me" signs. But I kept my cool, that I did.

And I know the whole point of going to a convention is to go all out and buy collector's items like DVDs, mangas, character figures, humongous swords, etc, and leave the place with an empty wallet. All I bought was a Fruits Basket coin purse, and 4 buttons which ended up as a grand total of 11 pounds!!!! ...So what, I'm not that hardcore. I could say I didn't want to make room for all that stuff in my luggage. I could say that I'm just so used to staring at things instead of buying things. But what also ran through my mind was, "Do I really need this? Is that really going to last me?" Sigh. I guess I'm just not big on spending. ~shrug~

Good times, though. I wondered if those people in Star Wars trooper costumes were the same people who do it every year. And after that, we left the expo and went to central London, walked into this one manga shop, and then Forbidden Planet megastore place(aaaaaahhh Tom Fletcher aaaaaaaaahhhh). Thennn we ate at this Japanese restaurant called Wagamama, which had decent Japanese food. I love Japanese food, yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Will I go back to London within these next two weeks? I think the next time I'll go will be on my way to London-Heathrow airport. Aside from studying for exams, I'll try to enjoy the rest of my time in England as much as I can. :)

Still very tired from yesterday(my shoulders and legs are sore, woo! Working it out in London) so here is what happened:

I was surprised to be able to wake up at 6 in the morning! Wow! Got to London by 10ish, headed straight toward the London Eye. Mann, the views from the top of the Eye are amazing. Yeah, it's pretty much a bunch of buildings close together with trees clumped together here and there(those are the parks, haha) but it was still quite a view! They labeled each side of the pod with North, South, East, and West, and there was a difference in each direction. Way cool.

Where did I go next? I went to King's Cross Station and looked for Platform 9 3/4, hahaha. For those of you who don't read Harry Potter, it's the barrier at the station that wizards and witches go through to get to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Eee!! 'Twas well cool. But no, I did not just travel to King's Cross just to take a picture of a trolley stuck in a wall. I also stopped by the British Library(apparently the official library of the UK, wooo). It was huge and, well, official. It also felt a little bit like a museum, but also a library of course. The part of the library I really wanted to go to(Rare Music, omgg) required membership to the library or something like that, so I ended up not going. Though I did get to walk through an exhibit that displayed original manuscripts of classical orchestra, like those of Mozart's. And, right next to the classical music was one whole wall dedicated to none other than THE BEATLES!!! Lyrics, guys, I saw the original handwritten lyrics to some of their greatest songs. One of them was "Let It Be". Pretty cool, right?

Then I went to Pollock's Toy Museum, one thing I've been looking forward to a lot-- I just like looking at toys, old and new. Sad thing was, there was an admission fee. Boo. I just ended up not going in. I went into the shop though, that was good enough for me, lol!

I did go to the Science Museum. That was really, really cool. I didn't expect it to be that cool. There were things about food, engineering, and genetics, such as "Which side of the family did you get your nose from?" or "Why do you get scared of such and such?" or "Why are you so awesome?" etc. One thing that was creepy though, was the gigantic pair of lips talking to you on a wall. That was weird.

Went to the Natural History Museum as well! Saw things about natural disasters and how the Earth began (ooh, rocks. ooh, waves on rocks. oooh, smooth rocks). I learned a lot of things about rocks(ahahaha). Then I kind of rushed past the green part, where they talked about why recycling was important. And then I suddenly had the urge to walk through the "creepy crawlies" section. I don't know, it was an urge. It seemed dangerous, but I guess that seemed fun. So I did, and got creeped out by every little thing, HAHAHA. They had a display of food and which bug/insect liked that food. Wtf. Needless to say I walked out pretty fast.

(I saw a little boy with a piece of paper drawing the large model of a scorpion on the paper. It was pretty much a stick figure but his mum said, "That's fantastic! Brilliant drawing! Let's move on to the next one! Brilliant!" Heeeeeee bless 'em.)

After that, I headed to Lyceum Theatre and saw THE LION KING!!!!!! I still prefer the movie over the show, but wow, it was fantastic. Loved the costumes and the the way the actors portrayed the animals. The songs were awesome. I must say though, some of the musical numbers were a bit out of place, LOL. Still loved it!

That was it. Apart from the long and frustrating journey home(engineering works on train tracks and delays and switching to last trains make these train rides no fun) I had a really fun time and I would SO do it again. Pictures will be up soon, still too tired to do anything right now..

Aunt Vivian #1, fresh prince of bel air. :)


Happy Mother's day to my friends!!! Titas, Pinsans, Lola, and Mommy. :)