(Damnit, this post puts me back at 99 again.. I guess imma have to go and delete more posts until I come up with a good idea for my 100th post.)

Yesterday was my dad’s 58th & my brother’s 25th birthday. Yeah, that’s right. My dad and my brother share the same birthday, isn’t that cute? So 25 years ago, my dad was given a baby boy as a present (:

Anyways, yesterday started out with me going to go eat pho with my mommy before class because she was sick & I didn’t want her to eat alone. Afterwards, went through a normal class day. Then I went to Safeway to buy candles. I was looking for the numbered ones and so when I got there I saw 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. For some reason I was really upset/frustrated (probably because I was rushing and there was mad rush hour) so I started being extremely vulgar. I was like “WHAT THE FCK?!” and then Trang called me so I tried to look through the candles using one hand while using my other hand to be on the phone. I kept dropping the candles which made me more upset and I couldn’t stop using vulgarities ~_~; Normally, I wouldn’t care, but I think a mother and her toddler daughter were in the same isle looking for baking goods. But seriously! How can they NOT have a 5?! I needed two fives and they didn’t have it ;/ So I went to Giant and bought it there along with some birthday cards. BTW, cards are the hardest thing to shop for, ever. There are so many choices and then I never know whether I should go for the simple one, the meaningful one, or the humorous one. It didn’t help that Trang wasn’t there with me to choose D:

Came home, got ready. Then met up at Chima Brazilian Steakhouse with Nam for dinner. My parents never eat anywhere fancy, ever. They like our usual simple restaurant, Hai Duong, or Chinese buffets. They don’t even like the fancier Vietnamese restaurants cause more expensive for ultimately, the same food or the food is more westernized. My dad’s a pretty simple fella, and my mom likes extravagant things but doesn’t mind settling for less, so trust me when I say that my family as a whole never goes to restaurants like this. But of course, no one lives forever so we need to enjoy the finer things in life as we can. So this experience was a first for mommy & daddy. Basically at a Brazilian steakhouse, you are given a little button that you can flip to orange for “gimme fewd” or black for “no thanx.” Its essentially an all-you-can-eat buffet, but in this case instead of you going to get the food, they bring the food to you.

The parents ❤

Add Trang into the picture.

Trang & Daddy. They have the same nose!

We weren’t ready, but I didn’t wanna show my face anyways.

OMG, my blob face looks so much like my mom’s (:

Daddy & I

Sister sister. As you can see, our fashion sense are completely different ~_~;;

Yay for pictures of my parents with their mouths open (:

Appetizerssss, yum.

What can I say, I’m a camwhore n_n

:{D

We kept the button on this way for most of the time cause the meat carriers kept on attacking us with too much fewd D:

They sang happy birthday to Nam & dad. Look how happy dad is, he’s never gotten this at a restaurant before n_n;;

Cakes complimentary of Chima.

Pretty pretty!

It was like 90% whipped cream & 10% tiramisu, which I don’t like anyways ):

Family photo! I hate my face in this picture, but kept it there for the sake of the family photo n_n;; My sister & I actually look sorta alike in this picture.

It was so funny when they were presenting the cakes. They were basically standing pretty far away for a while behind Nam with the cakes and I was staring at them waiting for them to come over. Then as they were about to come over, Nam was like, “Where’s the bathroom? I need to go pee.” And I was like “UHhh…. (Oh crap! Nam can’t leave the table now D:< !!) It’s near the exit, you can go on your way out <__<;;" And luckily that worked. The total came out to be $300, including tip which isn't too bad. We just split it amongst the siblings so about $100 each. To be honest, I don't really mind the bill because getting to spend time with my family and the fact that I get to introduce my parents to a new experience made it worth it. Money is not that important to me because even if I spend a lot, I'll always manage to get it back. I guess it did make me a little sad that our family dinners are always quiet and that we never have anything to talk about anymore though ;/

Afterwards, came home to celebrate with moar cake! Coconut cake for Nam, strawberry shortcake for daddy, and Nam bought the fruitcake for him and dad. So much cake to take up space in our fridge u__u;;

Three birthday cakes!

Happy birthday anh hai!

Lit up.

I wonder what my dad wished for.

Haha, Nam blew all of the light source out.

Awesomest birthday card ever!

Please excuse our high-pitched laughters.
Trang & I sound a lot alike when we’re being recorded ;x

Bwuaha, I went and deleted two old posts so that this wouldn’t be my 100th post because I have nothing planned, no time to do anything, and I missed blogging too much. Wee!

Anyways, on Saturday I attended MAUVSA’s 3rd Annual Retreat which was conveniently hosted at George Mason. Its basically an organization that unites the Vietnamese Student Associations of George Mason University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, James Madison University, University of Maryland – College Park, University of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. It was super duper fun & I wish I didn’t have to work so I could’ve gone to the uNAVSA conference earlier this month and maybe the MAUVSA summit next month. I also wish I wasn’t sick so that I could’ve enjoyed Saturday better and not refrain myself from meeting people cause I couldn’t stop coughing/sniffing.

My name tag. Colored circles correspond to the workshop we are go to.

My partner in crime. We didn’t have any workshops together D:

All of the schools, represent.

VCU has got major VSA pride (:

All of MAUVSA

George Mason University, cause that’s the only school I care enough about to show (: Can you spot me? I’m behind my brother.

It was pretty fun. The opening ceremony consisted of a huge icebreaker. Basically on the back of our name tag was an animal and we had to make that noise to get grouped with the rest of our kind. I was a lion so I rawred myself over my my group mates. Phana got a giraffe, and to this day I still do not know what sound giraffes make. After that, within our group we had to do a scavenger hunt where we brought random things that they called out up to stage. Someone under five feet, a pen, an iPhone, a condom, a tampon (which NO group had), and the like. The winning team (which wasn’t us we didn’t have a condom, stupid boys!) then had to go on stage and play the alphabet game until there’s only one standing. The alphabet game is basically you go between two people and say statements that do not have to relate to each other starting with the next letter in the alphabet. i.e. Are you okay, But you smell bad and so on.

The rest of the day was workshops, free banh mi, more workshops, and a closing ceremony. There was an after party but I was way too sick to go and try to fend off creepers. I met a total of three people whom I added on facebook. I really hope I didn’t give off the “btchy stuck-up” vibe because I didn’t want to talk to anyone since I didn’t want to cough in their face. A lot of people kept on complimenting my camera cause apparently its really cute, (I agree n_n). And also everyone kept on asking me if I was Nam’s little sister. Sigh! It’s really hard to not be compared to him if he’s on the microphone, on stage, pointing at me going, “THAT’S MY LITTLE SISTER. STAY AWAY FROM HER. BTW, CALL HER NAM’S LITTLE SISTER!” ;____;

Stereotypes workshop, where we talk about how Asian people are bad drivers and have small packages.

The icebreaker workshop. They’re playing the staring game. You can blink but you can’t take your eyes off of each other & you can’t laugh.

Also part of the icebreaker workshop, musical chairs!

Team building workshop led by these facilitators. We had to get through the “Spider Web of Death” without going through the same hole twice and no touching of the web as a team.

Rawr, spider gonna eat chu (:<

BTW, do you not get enough of Mai action on this blog alone? I started a tumblr for all the random things that happen in my life that I feel like I need to write down that are too long for tweets but too short for a blog post.

I’m really addicted to this song right now ever since I heard it in Dear Daniel’s car the other day. Outsider is such an amazing rapper, its crazy!

I haven’t done anything interesting enuff to blog about since I’ve been trying to spend the last few days of my winter break bumming around so I guess I’ll just post up some things that I’ve bought in the past month or so.

Mai ♥s her legwear (:

bogo free @ aldo

Trang has this same bag too, but I didn’t wanna share cause I destroy my bags pretty quick & I’m sure she’d get mad at me so I got my own. (from forever21)

Ring fetishhhh! The turtle one is my favorite cause its the most ridiculous (:

Left: Sequined jacket from h&m. I don’t know what I wanna wear with it since its cropped and makes my torso appear freakishly longer than it is. The inside tee is from f21 and says, “Love Shall Conquer All” which is extremely cheesy and Trang told me not to get it because I “don’t believe in love,” but I got it anyways cause the font is so cuteee :3 Sigh, too bad I then proceeded to vomit all over this t-shirt last night D: & yes, that is the face I use when I’m trying to pick up guys/girls/animals/inanimate objects.
Right: New leather jacket from h&m. Its very Chanel-eqsue (:

However, can you guess my favorite most ridiculous purchase in the past month? Probably not cause only Trang & my coworkers have seen it. Here’s a hint:

Give up?
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its a pink faux fur coat ♥♥♥

LOL! Bet you didn’t see that one coming, cause I didn’t either. At work we got this coat in black, tan, and a snow leopard print and because no one ever bought them, they all went on sale for 70% off. Then for some odd reason, the warehouse decided to send us this one pink one which happened to be in my size. It took me a day of staring at it and seeing someone else almost buy it before I bought it. Weeee~ Its awesomeness makes me happy and I can’t wait to wear it out. Trang & Joon told me that if they saw me wear it, they would pretend to not know me though D; Such haters. The actual color is closer to the picture of the close-up.

Anyways, I’m kinda excited for the new semester to start because I will get to meet new people (hopefully not creepy!) and I’m starting to get extremely bored of working/shopping/eating/drinking all the time. I will also get back to receiving my full allowance +_+ !! But more school = less time for blogging & I still haven’t decided if I wanted to renew this domain or not but I most likely will. My next post will be my 100th post & I have no idea what to dooo D:

BTW! Would like to thank Debbie for buying me a tripod for Christmas, which is what I’ve been using to take pictures of my lame outfits ;x !! Also the Hello Kitty bag that I’m so in love with and won’t stop using is a Christmas present from Phana (:

Today’s outfit is pretty lazy cause all I planned on doing was going thrifting with Thelmany. I actually don’t like people knowing that I thrift, which is pretty hypocritical since I’m writing here that I do. But not many people know I do it and I don’t like going with many people. I like going with Thelmany cause we don’t mind rummaging through piles and piles of other people’s clothes and smelling that smell of other people’s houses all mixed together. Its actually kinda weird because I’m a pretty big germaphobe, but I go through people’s used clothes… I guess my like for looking at stuff is bigger than my fear of germs, but I do bring hand sanitizer with me. Anyways, only a few of my friends and my sister know I go thrifting, but my parents don’t know. I don’t like the idea of people having the idea of me going through used stuff where I don’t know where its been, even though that idea is completely correct. I know, I don’t make sense a lot.

But yeah, Dear Daniel kept on asking me where I was going to go to hang out with my friends. I told him I was going “shopping,” but wouldn’t really specify beyond that cause like I said, I don’t really like people knowing. Dear Daniel reads my blog anyways, so he’s going to find out & technically I didn’t lie cause I did go shopping (:

The “prizes”

01 Damn straight, Mai now officially owns her first pair of designer jeans ever (: ~ I actually found them at a different thrift store when I was hanging out with my coworker&/friend, Christina. It was actually pretty lucky since they’re a size 25 (H&M makes me feel fat cause I have to wear a size 28 there), a nice wash, straight leg (I normally only wear skinnies, but mer), & only $35.
02 I actually already own a denim shirt exactly like this from H&M (except H&M’s fits better), but I really liked this one too. Its funny cause I saw this on clearance at AE last week for $20 and was pretty close to buying it, good thing I didn’t cause I got this shirt for $3.50 ;D
03 I just like big cardigans that are interesting. Its 100% cotton too (unlike all the freaking wool & acrylic stuff that we sell at work that makes me itchy ;x). All winter clothes were 50% off today so I got it for $2.50 (:

Speaking of thrifty things, remember those 7 for all mankind shorts I bought over the summer (at the thrift store with Thelmany)? I finally got off my lazy butt around to sewing it into cuffed shorts.

Before!

Sewn & ironed!

Yeah, its not really hard but I’m really proud of myself for finally doing something that I planned to do half a year ago. Whoever cut it up to begin with did a horrible job cause its uneven so the lengths are a little uneven but its not that noticeable unless you’re staring at my crotch. Now I just have to wait half a year for it to get warm enough for me to wear it . . .

Also, this is completely unrelated but I got to pick up more of my favorite white eyeliner from Lotte the other day when I went to go hang out with Dear Daniel (: Yay for VOV Auto Shining Pencil ♥♥

Yay for free samples (:

My coworker asked me the other day, “Why does it take you so long to get ready? You don’t wear make up.” Its cause me “getting ready” include a lot of bumming around. And well, if I were to ever to accidentally decide to turn my TV on in the middle of getting ready, lets just say I probably would never end up going anywhere. There have been many times where I’ve caught myself half-dressed/undressed cause the TV would turn on (Law & Order would hopefully be playing) and I would just freeze in my position until a commercial break comes on.

Also, I freaking hate this weather because it makes my skin so dry no matter what I do. The cold weather makes me dry. The hot showers make me dry. My room heater makes me dry. The dry air makes me dry. My lotion makes me itchy if it doesn’t absorb quickly enough. My skin keeps breaking out in rashes and everyone keeps asking me if I have allergiesss D: Ughh, mommy! Take me to the doctor’s and please actually buy what he prescribes this time. Do humidifiers help with dry skin? Cause this would definitely give me a reason to buy the Hello Kitty humidifier I’ve seen at Target.

Anyways, spent the day in Maryland yesterday with Dear Daniel (haha, I just like calling him that because his name is Daniel!) and his friend David. It included a lot of driving, getting lost, eating, drinking, and listening to Korean people talk. Maryland is weirdddddd. They have four giant grocery stores right next to or right across from each other. And next to each grocery store is a liquor store. I guess if you ever decide to open up a business in Maryland, you know what couldn’t go wrong. We went to Lotte, which is one of many Korean owned grocery stores, for lunch. I’ve actually never eaten at a Lotte before this adventure (have eaten at Hmart), but it turned out to be really gewd!

Udon & Tonkatsu combo for only $9 +_+~

Both Dear Daniel & David got this eel with rice thinggg, but I only took pictures of one n_n

Afterwards, we went to UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore Campus. Okay, iunno what BC stands for but I’m assuming its something like that) to play in their common room since its all free during winter break. We play foosball, which I fail at. Ping pong, which I semi fail at. And pool, which I surprisingly did pretty good at. I actually always choose not to play pool on campus cause the only “real” time I’ve played was when I was in elementary/middle school in my neighbor, Thelmany’s, basement. I guess I played enough back then to be decent, but didn’t think that those elementary skills would help me beat two guys at pool yesterday. I was so close to winning my one versus two of them game, but the stupid eight ball went in the wrong hole, grrrr.


DD hates pictures, so I promised that I wouldn’t show his face evarrrr (:

Then the rest of the night just included me failing at power hour (gaah! gag reflexes started kicking in at twelveeee D: ?!! weak!) and other very interesting thingssss. And by interesting, I mean I don’t know if I can write anything here or not cause the person it includes reads this blog too! Sighh ;x