The more I work at the restaurant though, the more I am learning about people. It is really interesting to see how a business manages people, whether it is their employees, customers, friends, competitors, good and bad.

Last year, I kept asking myself, what is my passion? What kind of work will move and inspire me, while supporting an independent lifestyle? I kept looking outwards. But I found a blogger who said to start looking at what is available and go from there. I try not to get into that mindset that I am “stuck” where I am, difficult as it is. I can help right now and at the same time learn to build myself. Again, nothing is forever, but you have to have a plan if you want change in the right direction.

So the plan is this. Become the best freakin manager/assistant manager at this restaurant so that when I decide I want to venture on to a new industry, career, whatever, my skills at managing people, inventory, customer service, marketing, etc. will be applicable anywhere. In the end, it all comes down to myself. AND STOP BEING SO NICE!

Woke up today to a voicemail from a producer lady from HGTV’s show House Hunters. Said she wanted to use our cafe for an interview for this chick who’s buying a house around MV and happens to love boba. And I was like…uh, YEAH! That would be so awesome! Filming on Saturday…more details to come

A side note though….does anyone even watch that show?

- Late to work at sushi cuz the Dish guy took freaking forever. Lunch was hella slow and the dampness was invading the restaurant as well because we kept the door open. Closing the door made it too hot but it was too cold to turn on air conditioning. Just weird…

- Slow lunch hour. Two sets of strange customers. One guy told me his order in a very slow, airy, sorta British accent. It was really strange to hear because he talked soooo slow and elongated all of his words. “Caaaan Iiiii have aaaa meesooooo raaaamen? With veeeegetable tempuuuuuuura? Aaaand a glass of waaaaater?” Sometimes I wonder if people just mess with other people just for the hell of it. Another set of two guys came in looking like twins. The same type of dark shirt and jeans, same hairstyle, same facial hair, almost the same face, but a little bit off? They also didn’t start ordering their AYCE until about 20 mins after they told me they wanted to get it. Later on night shift, I saw another set of two girls wearing the exact same SpongeBob shirt…..maybe it was twins day at foothill?

- For some reason, almost everyone wanted to go home today and get off early. Two people in the kitchen at sushi, one person in the kitchen at cafe, and I had to cover night shift at sushi cuz the girl told me she felt like a fever was coming on….seriously? Other strange issues being brought up at the cafe that I will not discuss here.

- Worked at cafe for a little bit. During the short hour, a smelly old lady in a wheelchair stuffed with crap comes in and orders two hot teas. Pays with all coins and then asks if someone can push her to the train station for 5 bucks. I tried to be nice to her, but I said “Sorry, we are a bit busy and short-staffed right now.” She says oh and slowly wheels herself outside and stays by the front door, staring at us. I find out that we are out of fries and that I have to go on a run to get some more…meaning I have to pass the old lady again. It’s times like these I really wish we had a back door at the cafe and sushi. She asks me again as I walk by if I could push her to the train station. I feel bad for her so I said ok, don’t worry about the 5 bucks, I’ll push you, smelly old lady. It will be my good deed of the year. I’m in a little bit of a rush since I still have to get fries and hurry back to work. All I can say is…my god…it is hard to push people in wheelchairs. (Thanks Tina.) Just like with biking, you really notice every single little hill on the road when you are pushing a heavy ass wheelchair with a smelly old lady in it. I start to chat with her.

“Where you going?”

“To the train station.”

“How did you get here?”

“Someone pushed me.”

“Where do you live?”

“On the streets here. I’m homeless.” (Explains the smell..)

“Where you heading to on the train?”

“Palo Alto, I have a spot there. What a lovely walk, isn’t it? At least when you have someone pushing.”

“Hah..”

I just kept pushing….. The day started to get hot and I could feel every incline. I was sweating and probably starting to smell as bad as her..besides being my good deed for the year, it was also like my workout for the week. And at every decline, the wheelchair would gather speed and I was very scared it would lose control and send her off the curb. We pass by moms pushing children in strollers…it must have been a very strange sight to see, young Asian girl pushing an old white lady in a wheelchair. We finally make it to the station and she asks me if I could take her to the other side. Oh…of course…I’m already freakin here, aren’t I? To get to the other side is a long ass 30-something feet ramp down, under a bridge, and then a long-ass ramp up. I practically ran down the ramp behind that smelly lady and heaved and pushed her all the way up the other side. And THEN she asks me to keep pushing until we reach the handicap waiting area which just so happens to be ALL the way at the other end of the platform. This btw, to whoever designated these waiting areas, is incredibly stupid. Why would you make a handicap person walk ALL the way to the other end of the freakin platform?? They are fucking handicapped! Anyway…she finally decides it’s far enough and insists that I take the 5 dollars even though I said it was quite alright. “It’s for soup,” she said. So I said take care and left….to walk all the way back to the cafe. One cafe staff tells me that God is looking down at me and will see my kind acts. Haha…maybe I will have some good karma…or maybe this was karma for Vegas…lol. Either way, things should be looking better from here on out?

- For some reason, the topic of my grandma was brought up a lot. One of our employees at the cafe was talking to me about how much she missed her. The lady I was working with today for some reason also brought it up and I started talking about her history, how she came to America, how she knew 5 languages, etc. Even that smelly old lady kinda reminded me of her cuz she was wearing this purple ski vest, kinda similar to the one that my grandma wore all the time.

- Glenn came by today, randomly. I haven’t seen him in a month or so.

Dead tired…worked 12 hours today with a half hour break and a workout in between too. Wonder what tomorrow has in store.

Little did I know…this was a terrible terrible idea.

Maybe its my eyes, maybe its my computer screen’s inability to display colors accurately - even though I checked the colors on more than one monitor – but I think the shade difference between the photos and the actual bottles are just a little too inaccurate. Please see below.

From left to right: Empress Tree, Bachelors Buttons, Japanese Rose, Fireglow

Screenshots from PritiNYC.com

Is it just me? Does anyone else’s screen show these to be the same colors? The first one is decently accurate though in real life it is a bit more pinkish and the second one looks like they are pretty close in the photo but it actually looks more purple in real life. The red looks like fire engine red rather than a dark, rich red and the orange looks almost neon rather than a soft pastel orange creamsicle color.

This is already after doing an exchange from my first order cuz I really didnt like the colors that showed up at my house…unfortunately these aren’t a whole lot better. I think that is a big problem with online shopping. It is too difficult to show actual colors because of cameras and monitors all creating different shades. I think it’s ok with clothing for the most part, but nail polish is a different story. If you walk down an aisle of polish, you might see a whole wall of baby pink and they all look ALMOST the same, but not quite. How are you going to accurately show the differences? Impossible.

Other than their website failing to show accurate colors, I do think this brand is actually not bad. The colors are very opaque and of course, they claim eco-friendliness. For some reason, I thought that meant it wouldn’t smell like cancer, but it still smells like normal nail polish, so I dunno.

Anyway…lesson learned.

Plus…need to brush up on those writing skills…hah.

I have been in a jewelry mood lately, mainly eyeing bracelets and rings to create my own arm party. Friendship bracelets and wrap bracelets are everywhere and it makes me sad that I don’t have more money to afford this look. Maybe I will have to make my own bracelets? Or ask some best friends to make them for me

Here is my attempt at an arm party aka just putting on all the bracelets that I own…which quickly made me realize how few bracelets I have! Sads.

From left to right: Bracelet my dad got me from Mexico, Swarovski crystal bracelet from Taiwan?, Grandma's gold/jade bracelet, gold bracelet with leaf charms, Bodhi seed bracelet from Taiwan, Chan Luu bracelet from Chan Luu for Banana Republic, gold bracelet from my mom, glass elastic bracelet from Taiwan?, jade bracelet from China.

Almost all these bracelets are from Taiwan/China and are gifts from family members. Actually, I can say I didn’t purchase any of these. Even my newest one, Chan Luu, was from Dennis And I have been LONG eyeing Chan Luu bracelets, so happy to finally have one! On sale too at the Edition by Banana Republic concept store in SF. There were very few left by the time I got there…bought the last gold one, but there was also a rose gold one that I am slightly regretting not getting as well. I suggest stopping by if you’re in the area and wanting to own Chan Luu at basically half off usual prices.

How does my arm party/family gathering look? It has more sentimental value than fashion appeal I think. Haha…need to go buy more braceletsss…

Natalie Portman Daily (clipped to polyvore.com)

Since the last few days, I have been feeling much better about quitting. I have been wanting to do more with the cafe. So many ideas that need to be put to action. I figured if I am going to be spending my energy, I might as well spend it on helping my family. Especially now since business needs improvement and my dad being disabled, an extra person around will help a lot. I do really enjoy our little cafe. I think it has a lot of potential.

In the meantime, will keep an eye out for jobs. New criteria: Company MUST be doing something that I am interested in (aka fashion, advertising, design, baking, etc.), Company must be bigger than 30 people, Bonus: Company is in or very close to a big city.

After leaving the office, I had dinner with my family. My aunt from Taiwan came to visit and my uncle who half lives in Taiwan and half lives here brought her back with him. My uncle started talking about chi because another fam friend uncle was talking about his luck. He said over the years, he has become very in tune with his luck/chi/whatever you want to call it. We all have on and off days, but he said it’s important to recognize them. Back off on your off days, for example, don’t push things, don’t make rash decisions, don’t try to make anything happen because they will most likely turn out bad. And on your on days, go full force, all in. You will always come out winning while minimizing loss this way. It’s kinda interesting. I believe in energy and every person having that sort of…spirit or mentality or “force.” Maybe I should start paying more attention to it.

The statement assumes that all things that make you happy are good for you. You can have moments of fleeting happiness that may only be a distraction or temporary solution. Things like getting wasted and retail therapy are examples. Sometimes pain and struggle is necessary in order to appreciate what you have instead of being unhappy about what you don’t. Lives of the rich and spoiled come to mind. Happiness can also come from toil and hard work resulting in success. Sometimes happiness is dependent on others, whether others accept you and love you. Sometimes happiness is dependent on whether you were able to do good for people less fortunate or giving back to the world.

I guess the point is that happiness is different for each person. Is it being selfish to want to do things to be happy for myself, even if it doesn’t make other people happy or maybe even makes other people mad/hurt/sad/disappointed? What if doing what makes me happy is actually just doing what I think is easiest…because I am too lazy to fight through the struggle? Should my life be about me or be about helping others? What purpose do I have, what kind of impact am I going to make on this world? I am contributing to good or just to more meaninglessness. Or is it actually all meaningless? What if I knew I could help people, but they don’t want to be helped and it only stresses me out that they won’t believe me?

How happy do I want to let myself be? How happy do I think I can be? What is happiness for me?