work....

work work work... sometimes its so boring.. sometimes i'm busy beyond belief.. today its the former rather than the latter.. so its sort of quiet. I'm able to catch up on things that need to be caught up, sorta. Its been quiet here because of the holidays and the fact I'm no longer advertising the study in the city paper.. City paper brings out all the interesting people in the city.. Repeated phone calls that we attempt to avoid, etc. But now that its close to the holidays, it's a sugar rush every day. Like today, i brought in cookies, so did someone else, and candied nuts, and then there was the fruit basket that was in the break room.. OMG black coffee is good.. haha

Arghs.. sometimes u gotta love em!

So yesterday I had a child (16 y.o one but still), anyway, grandmom came with child. I swear i warned the research team way ahead of the appointment that we would potentially be there for a bit longer than expected.. boy was that an understatement.. I was there for a whole extra hour.. and it was hemming and hawwing the entire time. Good thing i got to work with the kid.. poor Nurse Coordinator got to work with g'mom. She was ready to throttle her within the first hour, imho (but not too sure since i was in a separate room with the "child" Anyway what was suppose to be a 2 hour appointment turned into a 3 hour appointment.. and this is with us hurrying the g'mom along.. if we let her just talk i bet it could have easily extended until 7pm (that would be a 4 hour appointment for those of you keeping track). We got back up to the offices and dropped everything and said ok lets go! And left for the day.. yep she was that bad

Happy 4th!

Happy belated 4th of July! haha. It rained horribly yesterday, but at least the fireworks still went off.. How i am not entirely sure, but hey it was on PBS. (yes i live in MD, but no I am too lazy to get myself to the national mall to see the fireworks..well I am not inclined because its a mess there! too many people!)

Last weekend (so 6/29) I went to the eastern shore, fun times for all. Kayaking, taking random pictures. But OMG so many bugs! I have so many mosquito bites and this is AFTER i put repellent on (the gnats were not affected *sigh*). I got to disturb the nesting osprey, play with the fiddler crabs, play with the blue crabs and oh did i say kayaking? So much fun, but again so many bites.. I itch! wah...

oopsies..

What a hassle -- discovered that my driver's license had mysteriously disappeared in the past 2 days and since I am driving down to the eastern shore this weekend it was imperative that i find it.. or get a new one. Instead of looking for it i decided it was way easier to just aquire a new one. Had to dig out my passport and some other forms of ID so that I could go to the MVA (which is open at 830.. dohs and closes at 4:30.) what is up with that? I mean people with jobs cant do those hours.. and its not just 1 MVA its like all mva's are open at those hours.. BLAH! anyway, my picture is really bad but hey i can drive and thats all i care about right?

Volleyball yesterday.. hmm that was an experience in itself.. we lost 2 games in a matter of hmm 15 mins.. yes i have no clue.. obviously we lost the match.. well i guess thats what we get when we have a 1 armed player (one of the players broke his left wrist..?)

hmmm.

So i still dont have a work computer, good thing we have a laptop that I am using. Well out of the 3 people that were scheduled today, guess how many showed? Thats right, none! None of them really had the courtesy to call and cancel, but instead just did not show up. The 11am subject asked if she could bring her 3 children.. hmm right we dont have that much room in the clinic areas.. Turns out we couldnt. And rescheduling her was just not feasable, all the times that we thought were good she could not make. (oh well) The afternoon subject was a child, too bad that one did not show up at all, nor did she call to cancel, instead when we called, her daughter kept stating that they were coming and mom was asleep. So 2pm rolls around and no child, no cab, we called the cab and they sent a second cab out because apparently the first cab did not pick up. Well, when we finally got ahold of someone, they stated that they were not coming [big suprise, right?], and that the child was scared of needles [understandable, but still why wait till 2pm, when your appointment is 2:45 to let us know?] Then we called cab to cancel, and the dispatch was like ya we know, thats why the first cabbie was canceled.. (ummm so if they knew why did they not tell us when we asked for a second cab?) duhs!

Its been so hot and humid outside lately! 90's everyday and on top of that totally humid, its been forcasting rain for the past 3 days and no rain, thus the humidity is what 80% or so? ick.. with the humidity, the heat forcast for baltimore today was in the 100's... so nasty out. Even I would not go outside to get food for lunch, ate cafeteria food (the only thing safe is the pizza, hah!)

LH's new song!

So last tuesday Hitoradio in taiwan broadcasted leehom's new song called "Falling Leaf Returns to Root" (落葉歸根). The mv was shot in LA over Memorial Day weekend *sigh* wish we were there, oh well.. not a big deal i got to walk around NYC instead. Anyway, the song was really sweet and nice, and now on like the singapore station that i listen to during my day. haha Like Elly i cant wait for the album "Changes My Ways" (改變自己), its on preorder at yesasia now or i guess if you live in taiwan.. you can preorder there for me. muahaha! [i guess this only applies to ben, i need more friends in taiwan *sigh*].

His world premiere of the mv is coming soon and all the fan clubs were invited to be part of the premiere. Like they would be broadcasted to the studios in sony.tw and would get to see the mv, and also hear from Leehom. THey want it to show a lot of people in the room, so I am out and so is elly since we dont have the number of fans in the area. *sigh* We gave the privilege to LA and we wanted to give TO an opportunity but Sony isnt willing to open another stream for the Canadians.. so LA wins with 22 people from the MV shoot that want in. (too bad its 3am their time because its broadcasting 6pm Tw time) It would have been 6am EST, but oh well, we arent in TO with bunks nor are we anywhere close together *sigh*

Wow its been a while..

So i realize its been a while since i've been around. The wacky-ness of changing jobs, and dealing with the remnants of work and learning my new job has really taken a while. So its been about a month, and the new job is still a work in progress. I am still learning the ropes, and figuring out things. Yesterday we were having problems with skin testing and err *cough* we ended up having to test the histamine. i ended up with 6 histamine wheals on my arm.. good thing histamine goes away fast not like allergens, though i did look a bit strange running around with 6 red bumps (evenly spaced, mind you) with writing all over my arms (we were testing lots..)

On top of that we had 2 subjects yesterday. We do skin testing so they are suppose to be off all antihistamines... oopsies, can we say one of them forgot? Anyway, he sounded like he needed more antihistamines. So he's been rescheduled, and i need to call him the day before the 4th to remind him no antihistamines all weekend long (poor guy). Second patient seemed almost like a professional study subject, calm cool collected till we told him he would not be getting cash, that it was a check and that it would be mailed ot his house.. then he got upset, and stated that all the other studies that he had done they paid him cash, etc. Well, our study u dont get cash, blabla is the standard response we gave him, anyway the skin test didnt work on him so he has to come back. In addition to all that drama, we had cab driver drama. Stupid cab driver lied to us and told us yes they were there to pick up our subject, when in fact he was not, he just happened to be in the area. Duh! when he found out our patient would not be paying him cash, he dropped him off on the street corner! wtf! We called the cab company and they couldnt help us because the cabbie did not log it in, so now in addition to getting the cabbie's number we must get the trip number from the cab company when we make the trip arrangements.. what a bunch of bureaucracy. Oh well.

wackiness at work, resigning.. etc!

So i resigned from my position last thursday (05/17/2007). Yay for me... boo for the program. Not only are we severely understaffed, now with me gone there really is no one left in the program full time other than the program manager. He will have to shadow me for 2 weeks (well if you take out the weekends and holidays.. more like a week), and it will be his responsibility to translate all this knowledge to the next person in the job. So when i went in to give my resignation, i started crying.. I dont know why, but I just know that I am THAT emotional, so it was not unfounded that i would start to cry. Why cry when i've been griping over the work situation? well, perhaps its because i know that the patients really wont have an advocate for the time being. I will miss my patients, perhaps thats why i cried.. and i will also miss some of my friends from here.. *sigh* I got asked repeatedly why i was leaving, and if there was anything they could do to prevent me from giving my resignation, to which i basically said i'm taking this new job no matter what, so pretty much nothing will be keeping me from moving.

Friday I decided I needed to tell my PI directly, and went over to his office to give him my resignation as well as my former manager. Of course i started crying there too..(this emotional thing again..) My former manager was not told by anyone, and I was the first to tell her. She agreed it was best for me to leave, and told me to stop crying (course with me telling me to stop crying doesnt work..)

But in between all this, work has been piling up (of course.. when does it not?) oh well, guess its not going to be my problem for very much longer. Wednesday (05/16/07), one of my patients found out some news that he didnt want to hear. I remember distinctly when he was going through the bx process, he stated that he hoped that he would not have to come back and hear bad news. Well it was bad news that he heard *sigh* but the program will help him through all his hardships and hopefully he will get the treatment he deserves and will be able to get all that help that he needs in order to get everything done. He is the last patient I will be working with, since his appointment date is the 30th and my last day is the 1st. I have already started the calling of my patients to tell them i am moving on.. i am such a good lackey!

cookbook fun.

Who thinks MJ did not know what she was getting herself into when she volunteered to help out with the cookbook? Here are some problems.. from this years' fun bday project"
- people still submitted entries days late
- people asked if they could change their entries
- formats were funny (I had to redo pages because of formatting)
- we didnt realize the amount of work involved in doing the final pages
- TOC's were a nightmare [lining up dots, constant page changes, making it fit on 1 page]
- people DID NOT follow directions (good thing MJ's computer recognizes chinese font, and so did her computer)
- people used backgrounds that were too dark, MJ and the team had to edit
- MJ was brain dead and cut it wrong.. so then subsequently had to reprint, and recut all the pages
- some of the actual pages were smaller than the rest of the CB, so if MJ forgot, she had pages that were cut off (this happened like 4 times)
- last minute recipes were given (though, the very last one is forgiven)
- last minute phone calls/ripping apart envelopes
- people did not pay

After countless hours of talking via IM/MSN/gtalk/sms the cookbook was finally printed, cut, and taped/glued and sent to Canada to get bound and sent to the PO box. Yay! Bunkee i would offer to buy u a drink, but u live ini canada.. have fun.. sorry i had problems with my cutter on some of the edges :|

Mezze, Fells Pt, Baltimore, MD

Well, Mezze is never a good place to go (just because its in fells point) and fells point is just insane on friday nights.. Well, we went without reservations, which is usually not a good idea, because they may refuse to sit you, but they were nice enough to seat us today. Their babah ganoush is pretty good, so that is always an order, we tried the smoked salmon, grilled? salmon, raw oysters, portabella mushrooms.

Today it took a while to actually get the menus. It took our waiter a couple of minutes before he realized we were seated and had no menus.. He quickly rectified it, and gave us menus, and immidately asked us if we wished to order drinks. We asked for a couple of minutes to decide (why bother since we always order sangria.?) We decided on the white today instead of the red, and got a similarly sweet sangria (i am still not sure i like theirs as much as i like Tapas Teatro or Tio Pepe's) The white sangria i think was better than the red, but it has been a while since i've had the red. The food came rather rapidly today. The oysters were yummy, too bad JL refused to have any. But most of the food was rather unremarkable, the tiramasu was really yummy.. (hmm notice i jump straight to the dessert?) hah so was the dessert JL and CH shared.. forget the name but it had like pistasho and ice cream.. and some yummy layered phyllo dough stuff..

CH getting ready to eat her oyster	Me after i had an oyster in my mouth

edit: blahs i will fix my table later.

Baltimore Road Rules

For those who are from Baltimore, still live there, have traveled there, and/or plan to travel through there in the future...


First, you must learn to pronounce the city name. It is Bawl-mer, or Ball-da-more, depending on whether you live North or South of Route 40.

Next, if your road map is more than a few weeks old, throw it out and buy a new one.

If you live near Howard County and your map is one day old, it is already obsolete.

Forget the traffic rules you learned elsewhere. Baltimore has its own version of traffic rules... "Hold on and pray."

There is no such thing as a dangerous high-speed chase in Baltimore. We all drive like that.

All directions start with "The Beltway"... which has no beginning and no end.

The morning rush hour is from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. The evening rus! h hour is from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday's rush hour starts Thursday morning.

If you actually stop at a yellow light, you will be rear-ended, cussed out
and possibly shot.

When you are the first one on the starting line at a light, count to five when the light turns green before moving ahead to avoid crashing with all five of the drivers running the red light in cross-traffic. (However, if you don't go as soon as it turns green, you will get the horn.)

Construction on I-97 is a way of life and a permanent form of entertainment.

Interesting that it's called "an Interstate," but runs only from the Beltway to
Annapolis. Opening in 1992, it has been torn up and under reconstruction ever
since. (Does Former Governor Glendening have any relatives who build highways?)

All unexplained sights are explained by the phrase, "Oh, we're in GLIMBURNIE! (Glen Burnie!)"

If someone actually has their turn signal on, it is probably a factory defect.

Car horns are actually "Road Rage" indicators.

All old ladies with blue hair in Buicks have the right of way. Period.
And the same goes for all old men wearing hats!!!

All roads mysteriously change their names as you cross intersections(8th Avenue and Dorsey Road is a good example).

If asking directions in Ellicott City or Columbia, you must know how to speak Korean. If in Randallstown, Ebonics will be your best bet. If you stop
to ask directions in Brooklyn ... well, don't.

A trip across town (north to south) will take a minimum of four hours, although the tunnel does have, on occasion, more than one lane open, but never on holiday weekends.

The minimum acceptable speed on the Beltway is 85. An! ything less is considered downright sissified. The Beltway is our daily version of NASCAR.

If you drive to a football game, pay the $75.00 to park in the "Ravens Lot." Parking elsewhere could cost up to $7,500 for damages, towing fees, parking tickets, etc.

If some guy with a flag tries to get you to park in his yard during Preakness, run over him. It's probably not his yard, anyway.

WELCOME TO BAWLMER, HON

ach!

So, its monday.. how fun.. Well the week surely does fly when there is a deadline. LH's bday gift from HSH is due soon, i've been busy all week with compiling, talking with JEM team to figure out what is the deal.. in addition i have actual work to do (this is what happens when you have a job). I've been offsite a lot so it hinders my ability to be in the board meetings to discuss what is going on.. *sighs* anyway i gotta get back to HSH stuff because its due to J of JEM team like yesterday.

Work was well interesting... site visits, offsite events, finding out that yes i did get the job but now i have to wait for HR to let me know when, telling DHMH that yes i will be moving on, but not sure when...

Fun Thrusday?

Lets see where do i begin? Lets start with Monday, shall we?
Monday
hmmm right I had this meeting at 11, recruitment i think it was. Well i got more things added to my plate.. how convenient! :| for everyone else but me. I was told at the meeting that we expect MJ to be able to do group presentations regarding prostate cancer, while that is not a problem since i talk about prostate cancer all the time, the fact that we want a presentation worked out, and practiced by next monday is.. especially with the amount of crap on my plate already. oh well, other than that Monday was fairly uneventful.

Tuesday
Insane day. what can i say? I've got to run from clinic to clinic today.. First, 2 patients scheduled at shepherd's clinic, a 9:30 and a 10:00, you would think they would show up on time, correct? Good thing the people at the clinic have my telephone number, because i dont get 5 mins beyond the door, when i get a call from the receptionist there calling me back because my 10am patient has shown up.. 45 mins late. yay! So i sit down and finish his paperwork, as I am waiting for my patient to be seen my 9:30 patient shows up.. yes you read right.. 9:30 it is now 11am.. he's only what 2 hours late for an appointment? We go through the paperwork and he does not seem to be happy to have to wait.. i wanted to hit him on the head and go doh! u missed your appointment 2 hrs ago, you are lucky they are even considering seeing you! As i am there, the CRNP comes out and says oh i have another patient for you.. *dohs!* so we do paperwork, by this time its close to 12, well MY clinic at EBMC starts at 1.. so obviously i'm not going to have time to have the lunch i've planned with some old coworkers. *sigh* why does my day get interrupted like this? anyway, I wait for another 45 mins to get most of the paperwork, grab that, swing by the hospital grab my food that friends bought for me because they knew i would not have time for sit down lunch (how i love friends like this), and get myself to my clinic. As i am leaving Shepherd's I get a phone call from somoene at EBMC, telling me that we have patients! I looked at my watch and went O.O, its 12:45?! When i found out who it was i was even more suprised, because his appointment was not until 1:45.. oopsies... oh well come early as he said he would, he did.. hahah just an hour early. I get back to my clinic, scarf down some food so could down some pain killers (messed up wisdom tooth fun).

Wednesday
Hump day, you would think this is better day right? Wrong again! Firstly, I had an hour phone call with my departmental HR representative, where we discussed wth was going on with my department and where it all going. Its insane here now, IMHO, but I got some suggestions on what to do and how to handle things. Yay! Then one of the nurses called, to talk just because, and we ended up chatting about what was discussed with HR. Then it was time to do actual work (seeing patients i mean), I had a patient at Urology, so it was off to the hospital for a while for me... biopsies tend to take a bit longer, 3 hours later, we were done, yay! I get back to the office, and see like 10 emails all in the span of like 2 hours, some of them stating that I would be happy to do xyz, without consulting my calendar the PM decided that we were doing these.. *rolls* meetings scheduled, presentations scheduled. yay for me.. Then, i actually attempt to start work.. too bad the phone keeps ringing, and i spend the last hours of my "work day" on the phone resolving issues, running around getting clinical notes, calling nurses, etc, basically nothing that I would be doing for my work.. yay! Then I go to the PM and want to drop something off, and he just wants to chat.. cuz he's fustrated with work and all that, and wanted someone to help him.. I didnt leave till 8pm cuz we were discussing possiblilites for him.. poor him, wish u the best, but I'm so outta here once i get another offer, I'm sorry, but you can only overwork me so much without me needing to get out.. and you guys have taken too much liberities with my time.. so i'm so outta here.. sorry! :|

Happy Monday?

So its Monday morning.. and even better 7:30am, and where am i, you ask? I am at work, and have been since 7ish. The day got off to a great start, with me feeling cranky because my wisdom tooth is coming in, and now my gums are sore, and I'm not sure if i need to get the gums lanced again because i'm developing an infection, or of it is just sore because my wisdom tooth is coming in. Then, spilling water (at least it was not the coffee i was making, right?) all over myself. After that, not being able to find office keys so i can unlock all the appropriate doors (this is about 5 different doors..) Well, we'll see how the rest of my day turns out.

How is the job seeking you ask? well, I dont quite know. Still interviewing at places, got formal rejection from the lady I met with on Wednesday on friday.. *sighs* I've so many decisions to do, firstly, am i really looking for a job that I like now? or is it something just to take me away from here, and that is why I am considering it? I mean, its come to the point where I dont even want to come to work at all, and when i do, i'm not entirely focused on work. Don't get me wrong, with patients i still go for the full 100% if not 110%, but the paperwork crap that i've been working with? I think i'm slowly losing interest in it all (a sign that I truely need a change of scenery). I still love working with the patients, however, I think that the amount of work that I get piled on my load gets larger as the days go by. In addition, we let go one of our temps, (for personal and professional reasons) and thus I have to work on that position's work as well as what i would normally have on my load. We also got another temp to replace a second temp that left, and in theory I am suppose to be training her, but she's a know it all... so when i taught her stuff, she stated she knew it all, so my training lasted 5 mins. (we'll see what happens when she has to work with our patients...)

I was also suppose to be subbing My Lucky Stars, i got 15 mins in, but so much dialogue, I ended up having to pause after each person spoke to finish writing what needed to be written down and translated, so the first 15 mins took about an hour. So, that stopped at 10 last night, and i watched the rest of episode 1 and started watching ep 2. I had thought originally i would have ep 1 and 2 done by this weekend, obviously that did not work out.. oopsies.!

Happy Easter!

Well, its the day before Easter, so to all those of you that read this (all two of you), that celebrate Easter, happy easter.

So, what did i do today? I went to the retirement home and "rehearsed" with the "choir" we're putting together a spring festival show, too bad its in 2 weeks, and we're still arranging the music. Boy do i have to practice, especially since we're having me play violin, and well um ya. I also have to get get cracking on subbing this drama that i was suppose to have done, just no time! ahh! Well i am going to work on it tonight and tomorrow, and hopefully eps 1-3 will be done? we'll see.. i tend to get fustrated easily though.

ok... lets speed it up to friday

So, its Friday. One of our temps is leaving us and today is his last day (so many people leaving these couple of days, huh?) Anyway, this give me more work since he is helping me with the patient case management issues, not that i'm not always at work already.. *sighs* Lately, it seems like i dont feel like doing much work, i come to work and do a little, but mostly its like being silly and wandering the halls, answering phones, and being relatively useless.. *shrug* perhaps i am just tired of here..

Talked to my cousins in the PH today.. he just got a new ipod video (well guess i save $100+), as i had considered buying him one, but, now i have to send him a dvd of music/music videos, but since he doesnt listen to much chinese music, he doesnt quite know the names of the singers/songs, its rather hard to figure out what he likes.. oh well, ipod collection to cousin.. *checks!*

BTW, smelly that psycho bunny game is HILARIOUS.. i like the dancing game.. so much fun, except i didnt play on WII, just on regular.

oops forgot a post!

So, if i knew how to backdate this i would have.. but i don't.. and i already posted something about the ipod dying.. and I'm a bit lazy and don't want to go back, so bear with me!

Friday (April 3rd), i had a patient actually it was 2 over at Urology. Normally my patients are seen as the last patient of the day (so 4pm start time), but if they are having procedures they may be seen earlier, who knows.. but i am getting off topic :) I had 2 such patients on Friday, one at 3:45 and one at 4:00, The 3:45 had been seen previously and was just there for a checkup, so he was relatively painless, but the 4pm patient was a new patient. When new patients see the Urologists, it normally takes 30-40 min discussion, since there are things that the doctor needs to get out of the patient (READ: pertinent Medical History), Well, the doctor (surprise surprise) was running approximately one hour late already, so I hunkered down for a long wait, did some small talking with the patient. There was a cankerous old man there that was complaining (he had been sitting there since 3pm)and by the time the doctor got around to them i think they had been sitting there close to 2 hours. He was complaining about everything to everyone that was within hearing distance. When he required water to take his meds, one of the registrars went and got him some water from the water fountain, and he complained about how it was not cold enough and then placed the water on the table, and almost knocked it over. I ended up taking the water to the water fountain and pouring it all out because we didn't want any accidents in the waiting area.

My patient finally got seen at close to 6:30, so it was past 7pm before i was done for the day. I was suppose to go out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner because one of our coworkers was leaving and we were going to do a farewell dinner with her, but because of the patient I was unable to go. There were many text messages and phone calls that night trying to figure out if i was going to make it or not - obviously it ended not well on my part. After the patient's visit was completed, it was determined he needed further workup *sigh* so we had to walk over to the pharmacy (the patient didn't know where the pharmacy was, so i had to show him), and the pharmacy was closed again *sigh* He told me he was planning to get the RX filled over the weekend, so i had to go and get that the approval done since he did not and would not be receiving his approval letter prior to him picking up his medicine. This new development necessitated me to go back to the office, drop off the patient files (which i would have had to do, but was planning to overlook and just bring stuff in on Monday). I drive myself back over to the office, by this time its close to 8pm *yay for 12 hour days* I deal with not being able to find my keys, and having to ask security to come upstairs and unlock doors for me, write my emails, write my fax, send my fax to the pharmacy, and then leave for the day.. that would be the wonderful ending to this story right...?



oh of course not! I get in on Monday, and right before a meeting, i get a call from the pharmacy that i did not take, but got the message for. I decided that was a bit more important than the meeting..Pharmacy claimed that i never sent stuff to them.. right! I had proof (good thing i keep the confirmation pages to all my faxes these days) oh well, had to resend the fax so that the patient could pick up his meds.

ho hum!

So my ipod died last week (was it last week, or 2 weeks ago..i forget!) but basically HD failure = need for new mp3 player.. *sighs* so after much consideration a new ipod was purchased via Apple. Well, a week later (almost) but no ipod, and the tracking kept saying the billing info was sent to UPS.. *shrug* i finally called them and apple did not know what happened to the ipod, so quick work was made and a new replacement was sent out. I had asked for it to be engraved, but when the ipod got to me on Wed (they shipped it next day, because i was suppose to have gotten it by the 26th), no engraving.. oh well, who cares, i just had my name engraved, so its ok.. i wont lose the $400 brick that i carry.. i use it way too much, as a secondary HD, and also to carry music. So now I am painstakingly adding music, since half the music that i have to load on my ipod is chinese, i have to find cd track lists and copy and paste them in one by one --the unicode doesnt transfer for some fun reason.

So much fun right?

oops!

Right.. i forgot i had this.. so many things to do, totally forgot about this. Well, what did i write about last? oh right the LH concert.. *sigh* its been over for >1 month and i still wish he had a concert right around the corner.

Anyway, talked to "Usher" and he's still in TW, but coming back in a couple of weeks? So, then maybe i can get to see the wushu place and perhaps have a new workout place.. since i've been sorta wanting to get back to it. I'm getting more and more involved with HSH stuff, we have "board meetings" everyday, where we talk about random mundane things.. ie, dunkin' donuts, and photos, and the such. but a lot of it is random stuff about actual HSH stuff, like what we're doing in May, etc. My disc of pictures finally got to Munkee but well, it was cracked, so i have to send a new one.. more cd burning for moi unless Smelly decides that she wishes to send my photos out. oh well, not a big deal.

Part 2 of Leehom Overload

So Saturday Morning.. i of course get up at like 6 or 7am.. its sorta ingrained in me now. But since the rest of the room was still sleeping i felt bad waking them up, i decided to brush my teeth and then go read somewhere.. but it was too early to go out to the lobby so, I ended up reading in the bathroom.. yes dont laugh.. i didnt want to open the blinds because then I would wake the others, same with the lights.. so i just went to the bathroom, sat on the towel that was on the floor, and turned on the light and got some reading done. At around 7am, i decided it was time to go get bfast.. so i scrounged around for the keycard.. since I didnt actually have one. After bfast I get these really weird sms from the room asking for food to be brought to the room.. *cough* smelly So food delivery happened :) i'm so nice arent i? Anyway, we stick around the hotel for a bit, then the Malay girls came and asked when we were going to the casino. So around 11ish? we headed out, but gimpy wanted to get some tylanol before we got to the casino because her foot hurt (she had broken her ankle 2 days before?, hence the term gimpy), but anyway, we went to the Shop & Save (i kept wanting to call it stop shop and save, because they have those in MD) and go inside getting ready to purchase tylanol. Then some lady came out and was like, sorry we're still closed, grand opening is not till this coming friday! We were all going O.O and after we left we were going umm so why was the front door wide open then? I guess maybe so the workers and the people looking for jobs could go? So we finally found a drugstore and went and bought the tylanol, and some huge 2 L bottles of water and off we were back to the casino.

I guess we got to the casino at around 11:30, maybe it was 12? But the girls decided to sit at the front desk reception area, because they figured LH would walk by and we would be able to see him. Gimpy had a hard time getting from the garage up to the front desk, because a LOT of walking was involved, we ended up sitting and waiting quite a bit, so finally we were all sitting there and chatting. I sorta got bored and began reading all the newspapers that were there.. at about 12:30 or 1:00? The TO girls showed up dragging a bf.. poor bf! They had driven 10 hours starting at like 3am! OMG, i'm so glad we got there the night before then! But they were famished and wanted naps, and so we told them if we saw LH we would call them, and they should go eat. So off they went, and of course about 1/2 hour after they left, who shows up walking through the front door? LH! along with his parents and his assistant. The Malay girls quickly grab their stuff to give him, and run up to him, Smelly and I were a distant 2, but poor gimpy just sat at the sofas because of the leg problem. We get to LH and Smelly asks LH if she can have a picture with him, but the pesky assistant says no no pictures. *sigh* our first rejection. So, after LH goes up, we attempted to call the TO girls, but they never pick up! When we meet up with them again, we tell them what happened and they exclaimed that they had heard a pay phone ringing, but decided it could not possibly be us, and didnt pick up. [They called from pay phone because they had roaming on their phones, way expensive!] Oops, guess we will text from now on.. The malay girls and gimpy decided to sit up at the sofas and smelly and i got bored so we decided to wander the casino. If we found something interesting we would play, but otherwise blahs. No we didnt see anything remotely interesting, but then we walked by the arena where LH would be playing and we saw the small poster, and the advert on the LCD board... so we took obligatory photos beside them. Then we peeked in the arena box office area, and saw the TO girls chatting to the security guards... Cool! something to do, so we joined them for a bit.

Frank the security guard was so much fun. He kept making fun of munkee, and the rest of us.. I did a couple of cartwheels and handstands(cuz i do), and we just tease Frank about random stuff. Ask him about what goes on in the life of a Casino Security Guard.. Apparently JL, the taiwanese singer, is a bit hauty, but AL (JL's special guest in Nov) was nice. We talked to Ken, the other security guard a bit too. In between, there were runs to the car, back to the hotel to get some stuff, drop stuff off (we went back to the hotel like twice), but we also a made a new friend of the security guard. He was also nice enough to ask us if we wanted some stuff delivered down to LH's dressing room, so we asked that the scrapbook be taken down there. The guards radio'ed back asking if we wanted it signed or what, No we replied its for LH to keep. Munkee got her cookies and ball thing taken down, along with a note telling LH that we were up there waiting for him to come out. During one of our runs to the hotel, LH did come out and i guess was looking for the people that gave him the scrapbook (US!) haha, but then smelly and i were gone, so the TO girls had no clue what to do. Good thing we came back and LH was still outside the arena, we went up to him and smelly had more gifts for him, flowers that she made from crepe paper and a small red dragon (oh so cute!) and we passed that to him, and he thanked us. The lawyer to be asked him (LH) if we could take a picture with him, but he declined stating that he was really busy, and he turned around to go back into the arena to rehearse some more. *sighs* oh well.. Then we started chatting with other people that were just milling about, met the dancers (sorta), talked to "usher", turns out hes from MD and does wushu, and so we exchanged phone numbers, cuz now i can harass him and perhaps look for a new wushu place since my last teacher went back to TW, haha.

The 2am concert was insane. Everyone was so high, everyone was dancing to the music, singing along. Too bad I had a scare, lost my ticket had to go back retrace my route and some girl picked it up, good thing i got my ticket back.. and some ribbing about losing my ticket. *sighs* sometimes.. i dont know where my brain is! Gimpy threw up her flower, LH picked it up and smelled it, and played with it all during the song.. aww so sweet! It was close to 4am when the concert ended *sigh* after 2 encores.. and hong bao being thrown out into the crowd. I went for one, but didnt get it, had to ask the guy at the end in chinese if he could hand it to me.. haha good thing he understands chinese and said ok, and handed me the hong bao. :).. Glad my parents forced me to learn chinese.. haha.

So at 5:30 (i guess?) we finally make it back to the hotel, Smelly and I decided we needed showers, so we went upstairs to someone elses' hotel room to take quick showers.. our shower was being used by the malay girls.. 6am i guess i finally drift off into slumber, on the window sill (yes we had like 5 different people in the room, so me being the smallest stated i would sleep on the window sill). 7am rolls around and im awaken by someone's cell phone going off with some leehom song (yes 1 hr of sleep, and not even because it was sorta tossing and turning a bit during the nite). I try to roll around and go back to sleep, but then the phone rings again.. *sighs* turns out it is Jason calling one of the malay girls to ask how the concert went. He stated enough inconstancies for us to realize that he probably didnt make it to the concert, and was just trying to get details.. but still now everyone in the room was up. I text usher and let him know that we're awake blabla and if he wants to meet us after hes awake gimmi a call. We finally make it to breakfast, i drink a lot of coffee (since i am driving home later too and i've only had one hour of sleep remember..) and we head over to the casino after the TO girls are up. Usher comes up we chat with him for a bit, go see Frank, chat with him and get him some coffee, then we're off to find some lunch before it gets interesting. 12 pm the lion dance begins, and runs all over the casino floor, smelly and i catch it by johnny rockets and she takes pictures while i hold onto food.. hehe we then go back to the arena box office area and sit there for a while, chat with the other people that have come for the 2pm show that didnt make it to the 2am show.

We finally make it into the arena for the second show, no mishaps this time! and all is well.. smelly and i are closer in and we can get cooler shots, this time we sign the HSH sign and we decided we would attempt to pass it to LH during the concert. The 2pm concert totally rocked, but for a different reason. This crowd was a bit more on the staid side, only our small corner was up and dancing to the music.. *sighs* so much for the crowd, there were people from Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, in the crowd and LH acknowledged them. We were again dancing singing along to his songs, he played the same songs as the first concert, but somehow he made it over to our section more.. haha.. more flower throwing, a LOT of him posing, him bending down to shake people's hands, etc. Smelly gave me the sign to pass to LH, and between the 2 of us we finally get the sign to him, he looked at the sign for a bit, then held it up for the arena to see.. We of course grabbed cameras and were taking pics of LH with the HSH sign! Once he was done the song, he turned around, showed his band mates, and they clapped at the sign and he put the sign down. The crowd totally didnt want the concert to end, but of course as with anything, all good things wind down to a close.. and we finally left at like 5:30. We were planning to stalk LH but figured well not really worth it, because we didnt know what restaurant he was going to be eating at (turns out smelly and i guessed the right one but still), usher sprinted away (cuz um he had to go meet family at the restaurant..) oh wells, maybe next time la.

So, the day after the concert? HSH sign was up on his website
. A couple of days later, it was the scrapbook in all its glory for people to see.. eek! phone numbers and email addys.. oh well...

OMG! Leehom Overload

Well, munkee got me started on this.. and since she was babbling a bit about the LHW concert i thought i would join and babble as well.

A couple of nights prior to the concert i found out that Lily had broken her ankle and still wanted to go.. (crazy girl), through gimpy and smelly. I was like umm ok can you carry all your stuff? because I dont know how much the rest of us will be able to carry, since we have our own things too. Well, then i had to get Elly and Lily's numbers so i could call them when the bus dropped me off in Boston, since they were meeting me there at S Station.

The fun started at about 8am on Friday morning since I decided that i wanted to meet up with smelly and gimpy in Boston then drive down to CT together. The trip up to Boston basically went off without a hitch - got to Boston at like 5:30ish? Read my book for a bit, tried to stay away from the drunk people that were in the bus station too (ya by the time you got to me smelly I had already moved like twice..). smelly and I just waited for a bit for the gimpy one aka gimpy. Finally gimpy called and smelly went up to help her since I had no clue where gimpy was and wouldn't be able to find her, i just sat and watched Elly's things. Once they got back we had a quick dinner at the station and then it was off to Logan to pick up the rental. Oops I forgot to print out the confirmation, not that I thought we needed it anyway, but, thank goodness smelly printed it out, just in case. Good thing smelly printed out directions to where we were going too since I had no clue, but being the only one with car insurance and old enough to rent the car, as well as drive (remember Lily had a messed up left leg)... anyway, we get the car and on went the ipod. For a while it was just random songs, then smelly had the idea of Leehom songs.. so we switched to LH for the rest of the 2 hr drive. We got into the hotel at hmm 10ish? not bad for leaving Boston at like 8:30? Apparently I drive like all the other MD drivers.. really fast.. hey not MY fault I didnt have a stick shift car and didnt realize half the time i was going 80 mph.

Once there we called the Malay girls, visited them for a bit. gimpy and I had to work on the scrapbook pages cuz gimpy had to put her page in, and I had to write a message. Then we went off to sleep deciding that we would meet the Malay girls in the AM to go over to the casino to wait for Leehom.