So...I'm Here....

I've arrived!
Okay, so I actually arrived two weeks ago, today. But still...

I'm finally pretty much settled into my apartment in Las Vegas. I've resigned myself to knowing that I have to stay for at least a year and a half. I'm hoping that I can stick to the 2 year program that I want to and that my thesis committee chair will allow me to work on the bulk of my thesis from home and I can move back to Hawaii next December. But that's probably wishful thinking at this point and I shouldn't be thinking about moving home right now anyway since I just got here.

Anywho, if you haven't been following me on Facebook or Instagram, a lot has been happening over the past couple of weeks. Here are some highlights:
* I didn't even turn my computer on from the time I left Hilo on August 12 until last night. (I know, SHOCKER!)
* I bought my first new car (a 2014 Nissan Versa)
* I freaked out when I realized that I had really signed the papers for said car and will be paying it off for the next 10 billion years. (Okay, only 60-something months, but that's like forever!)
* Realized that I never budgeted for all these little things that have been coming up recently. (Like car registration, who knew?)
* Started school yesterday and hunted for parking all over campus for OVER AN HOUR! How ridiculous is that? Completely. And I still had to park across campus from my last class and it took like almost half an hour for me to walk back to my car. Crazy.

I also realized that I never finished packing my craft box at home for my mom to send up. I guess I'll have to make do with whatever they have at Michael's. When I get my happy butt over there to go look. Once I get a job so I have the money to go over there and go look. *sigh* Technicalities.

I've only gone to three of my classes. I still have one more on Thursday. But I've come to realize that I may not have as much downtime as I think I will. All of the classes I've gone to so far will require papers that are around 15 - 30 pages done by the end of the semester. And I'm thinking that the last one will be the same. Plus the content of these classes are completely crazy. Why am I taking a class on the First Amendment and Society again? Oh yeah, because it's the only 600-level class that was open that I was even remotely interested in.

Anyway, I guess I should go read for class tomorrow. I need to read the Constitution and be ready to have suggestions for changing it ready by class tomorrow afternoon. Great. Since I have no crafty stuff with me, I may be gone for a while again. We'll see. If you don't hear from me in a month, send a search party. Grad school may have killed me.

~Jeni

It's (Almost) Time to Say Goodbye

Apparently I'm not so good at this keeping up with blogging thing. LoL. And, no, I'm not deleting my blog or anything drastic like that. I'm actually relocating in a few months. Back in January, I took the GRE while I was on Oahu (I think I mentioned that) and got my scores a few weeks later. Just like I thought, I didn't do very well in the math portion, but on the verbal and composition portions, I did better than expected. I applied to the American Studies graduate program at UH Manoa, but unfortunately I didn't get in. I thought that was going to be the end of my graduate school applying season for this year, but I remembered that I had asked the two professors from UH Hilo that were writing my recommendation letters to write me one for UNLV as well. I seriously debated about whether or not to apply and almost wasn't going to, but decided to chance it since they wrote the letters for me. After weeks of finger crossing and hoping and wondering, I checked online (since they don't mail you an actual decision letter) and...nothing. Then I get this e-mail from the Journalism and Media Studies graduate program at UNLV saying that they look forward to seeing me in the fall. WHAT?! I originally thought it was fake because my last name was spelled wrong, but after waiting 24 hours and checking the status of my application again, I realized that it wasn't a fake.
So what does that mean? In August, I'm heading to Vegas. I debated whether or not to accept the admission, but in the end, my mom made a good point. What if I don't accept it and later on decide to apply again because I change my mind and want to go. And what if because I declined it they don't want to accept me again? So I might as well go. It's only 2 years.
It's strange knowing that I'm going to be leaving a job that I've had practically since I moved back from my one year at UNLV seven years ago. My last day of availability at work is July 25 even if I don't leave until August. There's a lot of stuff that needs to be done before I go.
I'm taking some of my crafting stuff with me (quite a bit actually if my estimates are anything to go by) but I'm also going to be selling quite a bit of stuff. Mostly paper and things that may become damaged or not usable within 2 years of not being touched. My off-line friends are going to get first crack at the stuff but after that I'll be taking pictures and posting them on here to see if anyone wants anything.
So I might not be around much until after the move. There are a few things I still want to blog about, but I'm not going to be crafting much between now and then. But if you want to find me, you know where I'll be. :)

See you soon!

~Jeni

Vacation Time!!

HI!!!! 

Okay, I know it's been like forever since I last blogged. But things have been a little crazy and I haven't really even had time to go into my craft room and do anything. (Well, especially since it's kind of a mess. Okay, not kind of a mess. Really a mess. It looks like a bomb exploded in there or something. I really do need to go clean.) 

January was fun and I'm sad it's over. I went to Honolulu for a weekend and had an amazing time. I haven't been on a decent trip in over a year. Sure, the hotel wasn't amazing (I stayed at the Pagoda Hotel. Should have spent the extra $15 a night and stayed at the Ala Moana Hotel.) But I got to see some friends, took my GRE (it's like the SATs for Graduate School), and, the best part, got to see Wicked!!! 

But the trip began when I flew to Maui. LoL. Yes, Maui. There was a flight with a stopover on Maui and I decided that I wanted to do that instead of flying straight to Honolulu. Wasn't the best choice. The flight from Maui to Honolulu was delayed for almost an hour. But, I did get Maui Cookies!

But then I finally got to Honolulu and got to the hotel. Took a taxi to Ala Moana to do a quick little bit of shopping because I had some downtime before my aunty came to pick me up for dinner and then to see Wicked. There were already a ton of people in front of the theater when we got there so we couldn't take a picture in front of the big banner thing, but we took a picture in front of the smaller poster. XD

I did some damage to my shopping funds (they had some cute stuff that I wanted to get, but everything was so expensive!) and then went in to find my aunty because she had already gone to our seats. OMG I was SO happy with the seats we had! Picture of the dragon and the screen on the stage from where I was sitting. 

The show was amazing! It went by SO fast. I was disappointed when it was over. I wish I could have gone again, but I went on the Thursday before the run ended. And tickets were sold out for the remainder of the shows so it didn't happen. I've been listening to the soundtrack almost constantly since I got back to the hotel from the show. (Yay for friends giving me the soundtrack and me putting it on my iPod but never listening to it!) If anyone gets a chance to see it, GO! 

I took the test the following morning at 8a.m. Yes. 8a.m.. Thought it was a total fail but it turns out only the math portion was a total fail. LoL. But I'm not a math person anyway. Totally did not get that Asian gene that gives you super math skills apparently. But oh well. 

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent shopping. I blew the rest of my money in Waikiki (where I went to karaoke with a couple of friends for a couple of hours and then went went to lunch and then I did more shopping) and at Ala Moana. 

Went to this tea place at Ala Moana and bought macarons. I think the red one was red velvet and the pink one was strawberry guava. They weren't bad. The ones I made before were crunchy on the outside and squishy on the inside. These for some reason were squishy all the way through. Not very crunchy. But they were yummy. 

I kinda forgot to take pictures from the rest of my trip. But I did buy yummy cake at Shirokiya. It was from this little place called Kulu Kulu on the second floor. It was really light cake and I wish I had bought it on the first day so I could have gone back and bought more. LoL. 

But now I'm home and back at work and school. Things are back to normal. I finally put my UH Manoa Graduate School application in and now it's a waiting game. And work on my UNLV application. But I'm hoping to get my craft room cleaned up on my next day off and get back to working on stuff.
Okie dokie, back to my homework that I've been procrastinating about for the past 45 minutes while I wrote this blog post. ^.^. It's not due until Sunday, so I still have time.
See you later!!!

~Jeni