I remember you as you were in the last autumn

Last night, I made beef stew from scratch! Well, in all honesty, it was more a hybrid between traditional (Western) beef stew (no tomatoes, though) and (Asian) beef noodle soup. Spicy and delicious! I am pleased, though I still think my mom's version is better. Must learn her secret...

Painted my nails yesterday, too, painstakingly attempting stripes - slow work and painfully difficult with tape. One day I will just acquire the proper tools - brushes and pens and whatnot. For now, I repainted them all blue in Zoya Yummy and they're kind of boring and not particularly autumn-themed, but they will suffice.

Also caught up with this season's HIMYM and H50, which continues to make me lol re: plot. Just--everything. /eyeroll People are still hot, though, so I'm good with watching. Needs more Kono and, oh god, fewer white people though. So many white guest stars, why. I do like the new governor though!

Had dinner Thursday with P & R up in Chapel Hill and that was nice; catching up with people in general is nice, even if as we slowly grow older it becomes less of a "daily contact" thing and more of a "once a month" thing.

Not too many updates on the job-hunting front, but I am seriously looking at apartments in DC now. So there's that. Terrifying in its way, but necessary, I think.

海浪

I shudder when I look through archives of my old blogs and see the way I used to be so - young, I suppose, back in the day. Maybe I shouldn't blame myself for that, but it makes me wonder if I'll look back at how I am now in a few years and shudder still.

Apparently July is a tough month for me, generally speaking, over the years. This year, I'm worried my ~depression~ will interfere with my bar review - mostly in that it strips away the time I need to study with periods of listlessness/hopelessness/pointlessness. And other -esses.

Friendships always fuck me up more than any other type of relationship. Perhaps it is a sign I am not committed enough to those other relationships, or a sign that I am not yet ready for them. Somehow, I am not shocked. Sometimes (more often now) I wonder whether I even want that kind of relationship. What do I want? Ah, the essential question.

In happier news, I made garlic fried rice this morning and breakfast sausages. Cooking, like cleaning, makes me feel much more productive than studying ever will, since you reap the benefits of instant and visible results. Unfortunately, cooking and cleaning will probably not help me pass the bar...

hello, sweet june

The good news is that I'm pretty much sticking to my summer schedule. The bad news is that since my schedule pretty much consists of "eat, drive, class, study, drive, eat, study, sleep", it's not like I'm doing much. As class intensity has picked up this week, I've lost most of my time for cooking and reading for fun, to say nothing of exercise, which is always more of a theoretical concept for me. I exercise my mind!

For instance, sometimes lecture is so boring/slow/covering things I already know, I end up copying Chinese lyrics by hand into my notebook in an effort to improve my writing abilities. Today, I also made a list of Chinese songs I can actually sing during karaoke - all of which are almost entirely due to SJM covers. See? SJM totally furthers my education.

What is writing? What is socializing? We'll see if I can have at least one day per weekend to indulge in some of these rumored leisure activities.

For instance, this weekend: French Open final Saturday morning, USA v Spain friendly Saturday afternoon, and at least one of these two will be watched in J's company, hopefully.

I need to find the time to do actual research for AGA too. More hours in a day, I need them. Public library, for god's sake, have longer weekend hours.

Man, I hate long commutes. Rush hour traffic can please go fuck itself.