THIS GUY.

Whose Line?

Had a department meeting today - lots of talk about safety, goals, etc. Julio encouraged us to work weekends and holidays. Er... Haha. Went out to lunch with Josh, Alan, Sean, and Sal (a new hire from Irvine). Taco truck! =]

We had a farewell party for Steve Young, a director here. Seems like a great guy - didn't know him though. But they had delicious food: empanadas, dim sum, crab cakes, cheese and crackers, fruit, and the cutest little cakes and tartlets.

Came back and just talked and watched TV. Whose Line (!!!), Capture, Criminal Minds, Flashpoint...

T-6 (work) days until the poster session. Super nervous, have yet to start. But I have all the help I could want, and I'm excited!

I've been feeling a lot better lately. Still sort of nervous and unsettled and uncertain, but much better than the past half week or so. Just thinking about the future, in terms of career and just being in the real world... It just feels so unknown. I don't know what I want.

I was talking to Josh today about happiness. How all man really wants is happiness, but in his search for it, he substitutes all of these other things, like a career and wealth. And I feel like it's because people feel like there's no set way to happiness. But there *is* a way to wealth, which might lead to happiness, and so people keep chasing after these false gods in hopes of eventually obtaining happiness.

But there *is* a way. And it doesn't take any of our own doing.

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
~ Matthew 6:33

Luce - One Michelin Star

Went out to an amazingly fancy and rather expensive meal today with the Fro. Or, for today, Mr. Callender. Felt rather awkward (we very obviously did not belong) but it was fun and the food was absolutely delicious. We started with a "taste of zucchini" followed by some bread (personal sized servings and we got to pick the type of bread - like what?).

Pork terrine as an appetizer. 

Brandon had the salmon and I the rib eye. Both were amazingly tender and delicious.

And of course, you have to have dessert! Strawberry shortcake and a pluot custard tartlet.

Adorable and scrumptious strawberry macaroons.

Walked around the city for a bit afterward. It was a gorgeous night out. =]

SF Ballet

Got together with Clarie in the Mission. It was Sunday Streets in the Mission this week - they shut the streets to cars and basically open it to stalls and street performers. Grabbed lunch then headed over to Stern Grove for a free performance by the SF Ballet.

Got pretty lost on the way there - mistakenly started heading towards the Stern Grove Festival Association offices and not the park haha. Made it there eventually though, and caught up with Daniel, who had saved a space for us. =] Pretty amazing. I'm horrible at getting stories from the ballet but it was a great performance of course, and completely impressive. Absolutely wonderful.

Dropped Clarie off and went to service - we had a joint service with GrX Fremont and the Marin Asian Community Church. A pretty wonderful sermon on being a living stone and part of the Lord's priesthood. Had a church dinner afterward which was absolutely delicious - seasoned chicken, pulled pork, kale salad, mac 'n cheese, blue cheese kettle chips, and cornbread. Plus watermelon for dessert. =]

Off to another week of work. Nervous for the poster session, but it's in His hands.

SUP! Paddleboarding

Paddleboarding is honestly one of the best things I've done. Pretty tiring after a while, but tons of fun and not too hard when you have a wide board. We saw quite a few seals in the bay too. =] Really wishing I brought my camera out, but only because I didn't fall in haha.

Grabbed lunch at Barbara's Seafood Parlor. The town is called Princeton By The Sea. Guess Princeton was so awesome they made one in California, because you know, California deserves the best. =P

Came back, did laundry, completely passed out for like 2 1/2 hours. Went down to the guys' room - they were having a few drinks and watching Big Bang Theory. Headed out to dinner at Jack's and came back and just chilled. Watched a bit of POTC on TV before we sent Will and Dmitriy pack.

Just took a shower and watching American Ninja Warrior while waiting for my hair to dry. =P

Archstone SSF v. Archstone San Bruno. Winner: Table.

Work was a bit rough today. NMR wasn't working too well, was feeling particularly stressed about the poster presentation...

Tried to give blood. They told me I didn't weigh enough. What else is new? Going to see if I can try some other blood donation centers with slightly more lax requirements...

Had an amazing barbeque with Will, Dmitriy, Blane, Andrew, and Lucy. Pineapple, onions, bell peppers, corn, tofu, sausage, steak... Grilled peaches are absolutely delicious. I manned the veggie grill and Dmitriy did the meat grill haha. Food was *so* good. Will spent like $300 at Costco and refused to let us pay him back, insisting that most of it was for him. Super sweet. Had a lot of fail moments while grilling - definitely cut my thumb a bit chopping onions. I felt like I did but couldn't find the cut at the time, but I can see it now. It's barely there though.

Had Haagen-Dazs ice cream bars for dessert! Dropped half of mine on the ground when I was gesturing to make a point about something or the other... It was a pretty hilarious moment.

Played pool on a very obviously slanted table. All of the balls just wouldn't stop rolling until they hit the left bumper. Made for a very interesting game. Played with Andrew against Dmitriy and Sid. In the game of Archstone San Bruno v. Archstone SSF, the table wins. (But for the record, San Bruno won. *Super* close game though!)

Went to watch Wolverine with Daniel, his brother Sam and friend Frank. Pretty good movie - mindless entertainment really. More violent, or at least graphically so, than the previous X-Men movies, at least from what I recall. It was a lot of fun though; I'm really thankful that Daniel invited me. =]

Off to try paddleboarding in Half Moon Bay tomorrow! We'll see how that goes haha...

Eventually. I'll be able to eventually.

Lucky Charm?

Got a really nice padfolio from Josh today! Now I have something fancy to carry stuff to interviews in! Plus he got me a little cup of like, cotton candy balls. All different flavors. It's super cute haha.

NMR was super annoying today. Tons of the guests bind to CB[7], but not in a 50:50 ratio with the TMS guest, more like 30:70. It's rather frustrating... Less than 2 weeks to the poster session! Little bit anxious...

They had raffles today. Six prizes, I knew three people who got things - Will (a basket of Amgen swag), Sean (a serving bowl and spoon), and Josh (a set of shirts, like polos). It was especially hilarious with Josh because we were talking about company shirts and company polos just this afternoon, and one of the shirts is a white polo with Amgen embroidered on it haha. Lucy called me a lucky charm, considering I knew three of the six raffle winners, and taking into account the fact that the campus is about 400 employees (even though I'm sure quite a few didn't enter the raffle, it's still impressive).

Pretty happy today, really want to do some reflecting and praying tonight though. I've been finding quite a few more things to work on lately, and I just pray that I might be able to make as much progress as I daresay I have in regards to other things. I'm honestly just so, so blessed.

Perks of Being a Chem Nerd

Really awesome Word with Friends plays.

Motorcycles, Darts, and Love

Legitimately had the strangest dream last night. Also pretty freaky. (This is going to be a very disjointed and random recollection and will probably make no sense.)

I don't actually remember how it started, but I was in a hotel-resembling building, but with classrooms and weird banisters and stuff. Started out with me talking to a friend, somehow got to the topic of love and stuff. Ended up telling me he liked me and tried to kiss me, and I told him I had a boyfriend (which was honestly the only part of this dream that made any sort of sense). Something happened, I ended up hanging off a banister over like a two story drop. 

Climbed down a wall somehow. Ended up in a garage which was pretty much the replica of our apartment complex garage, and was on my motorcycle (since I totally have a motorcycle and can totally drive) with people chasing me. Had to ditch the motorcycle and ran into the building again. The place was suddenly a mall, started talking to people, found some friendly people (who were actually friendly and told me something about what was going on or whatnot). Crazy people started chasing us, ended up in the general "lobby" of the mall.

Was told that people were after me, to stay alive, and that some guy had locked up my motorcycle for me. (Said guy saw me and waved.) Somehow now had my bike with me and decided that the best course of action would be to lock up my bike with my motorcycle (like really?!). Dropped over the railing of the mall, ran back into the garage. Found my motorcycle, locked my bike to it, but not before some guys found me and shot me in the neck with a dart. Ran back into the building (which was now a hotel again), into the elevator. Someone shouted to go underground. Apparently the elevator had underground levels (tons of them!) so the buttons were like normal elevator buttons except after the first floor button, they increased downwards too. Went down a few stories, got shot in the neck with more darts when the door opened on a floor.

Collapsed in the elevator, woke up. Absolutely crazy. Yeah, I have no idea.

A Lack of Spatulas

Work today went pretty smoothly! Started forming the paracyclophane diketones! Pretty much ran the whole thing under reflux for the whole day... Our glassware situation is absolutely horrible though. We basically have no clean glassware (it goes off to the wash and never comes back) and no spatulas... We've actually resorted to cleaning our own glassware now haha. Which you know, sounds normal for like a college lab but it's pretty sad for a huge research facility...

Had another Exec Speaker Series! Senior VP of R/D this time. =] He was pretty awesome - basically turned the entire presentation into a Q/A. Checked out the cafe with Lucy afterward - we actually have options! Apparently the old cafe (before the temp one in ASF5) was way better but this one's pretty good, especially in comparison to the temp one...

Lucy and I stopped by Ali Baba (a Mediterranean restaurant on the bike back that *always* smells amazing) and got some delicious food. Grabbed more Cold Stone afterward from the mall too haha.

We talked a bit with a guy playing guitar outside the BART station named Frank. Seemed like a really nice guy, he's trying to save up some money to take his girlfriend up to the city for a day. He sang us a few songs, talked a bit about some random things. He comes by every once in a while, so hopefully we'll see him again!

A pretty good day today. Tiring, but satisfying. Time to read for a bit then sleep. =]

We Do Science!

Had a pretty awesome time at work today. Felt a bit bad since Maegan basically just watched me mix stuff, filter it, and rotovap it the entire time she was in lab haha.

Grabbed lunch at Specialty's and then she headed off back to SoCal. =[ This weekend was wayyy too short. Super glad she could come and visit though! Love this girl. =]

Maegan ♥

Had yet another amazing day with Maegan! Woke up around 8am, made some absolutely delicious omelettes (cheese, red/yellow bell peppers, tomato, cucumber, a little bit of bacon in mine), and chilled for about an hour until her dad got here (I drifted in and out of consciousness haha).

We headed over to the Ferry Building and browsed the shops there. So much delicious food! Got a macaron and a cannoli style lemon cream donut. Grabbed some hot chocolate/espresso at Blue Bottle and just wandered around looking at cheeses, pastries, grow-your-own-mushroom kits... There are so many places I haven't gone in San Francisco that I've literally walked past dozens of times... This was one of them haha.

Went to Slanted Door for lunch! Also grabbing dinner there with Fro next Monday evening. =P Absolutely delicious Viet cuisine.

Headed over to Dolores Park to catch a free concert by the SF Symphony. It was a beautiful day so we just chilled on the grass for two hours. Tanned a bit haha. Grabbed more Bi-Rite after (dark chocolate and brown sugar today)! I went to church (wonderful message about Sabbath) and grabbed boba with Maegan after by the apartment. Also watched the random K-pop MVs that are always playing in Quickly haha.

Pretty tired so I'm probably going to head off to bed soon. Hopefully seeing Maegan tomorrow at Amgen and grabbing lunch with her before she heads back to SoCal! Super happy to have her here. =]

Your Love Never Fails

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. ~ Lamentations 3:22