I woke up around 10:30 and rescued my car, safely navigating the snowy back alleys to return to my apartment. Piece of cake. Now I have to decide what to do about my busted windshield wiper. After that, I called my mom and made some matzah ball soup out of the package... it actually turned out fairly well. Like not half-bad. I was happily surprised. I ate a bowl and dipped some bread in it, then froze the rest.

After that... I reread my favorite book for an hour or so in the bathroom. Bathroom reading is the best. Plus, it was Where the Red Fern Grows. I just freaking sob the whole last chapter of the book. I can no longer bring myself to read the ten pages or so where Old Dan is fatally wounded by the mountain lion. I can't. I always skip past it and end up where Little Ann pines away herself. :'( I love that book so very much.

Anyway, by then it was about 1:30, so I decided to finish my last Christmas present. Tomorrow, a few more should be arriving by mail (I hope!) and I'll wrap them. Then I will be ready come Thursday.

I should work on something. But I'm uncertain as to whether my NaNoWriMo novel is worth editing. I can't tell if this is just normal post-novel-needs-to-be-edited suckage, or if I should do something with it. Hm. I wish someone existed who would read it and tell me if I should bother. Is my boyfriend the answer? He has been wanting to read it. Maybe I'll bring it with me on Christmas Eve...

HI GUYS!!!! I'm at Taiwan freezing my limbs off. I just survived an earthquake and just finished soaking myself in hot spring. I bought so many food. Gonna weigh myself when I get back. SIGH I'M SO TIRED. OK SO SLEEPY NOW. BACK TO EMAILING MY FWENS. BUAIX.

3 MORE DAYS BABY!!!!

This morning, I woke up and was working on one of my Christmas presents for Nikita. It has a lot of cool quotes in it. One of those was: "Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."

A little more than a week ago, I took care of a patient named H. Fenstermacher. He was 96 and still gets around pretty well, has a sarcastic sense of humor, and made me laugh. As I was getting him dressed and ready to go home, he told me that he hopes he doesn't get to be 100, because he doesn't have any friends anymore as it is. I offer a ed to be his friend, and he laughed and waved his hand. Then the ambulance took him back to Elm Terrace Gardens, the local nursing home, for further recovery from his fall.

Later, I went back and cleaned out his room, dumping all the sheets and stuff, and a family member from the patient next door poked her head around the curtain.

"That was nice," she said.

"What?"

"That was nice, that you volunteered to be his friend."

And I thought about it as I went home that night, and then a bit more the night after, and today when I wrote that quote, I felt like a hypocrite, because here I was not following my own advice.

So today, around 1pm, I went to Elm Terrace Gardens to visit my soon-to-be friend Mr. Fenstermacher. It was locked to visitors from the weekend, so I went around the back and got a maintenance guy to let me in. Then I found my way to the dining room, where they were just finishing lunch, and there was Mr. Fenstermacher. (Really, his awesome name just makes this all the better.) I pulled up a chair and said, "Mr. Fenstermacher, do you remember me?"

He cranes his head up at me and says, "No... I'm sorry, I don't."

"My name's Lisa. I work at Lansdale hospital. I was your nurse's aide when I was last there."

"Oh."

"I came because I remembered you said you didn't have enough friends. Around the holidays is a time when you should have more than enough."

"That's true," he said.

"Could I be your friend?"

"I suppose."

I sat there and talked with him and the other elderly people at the table, all of whom were very nice. When Mr. F. stood up to leave, I asked him if I could visit him for a while in his room, and he said yes. We walked back to it, and started talking. I think we talked for a solid two hours where he told me quite a lot about his life (which was very interesting!) and asked me about mine. It was wonderful. He gave me his phone number in the end, the one to his house where he'll be moving back to on Monday, and I plan to call him. He seems like someone who has quite a lot to say, but no one worthwhile to say it to. I felt completely honored to be that person. I don't regret having done it, and my heart feels lighter now that I did! : )


In other news, it snowed like a bitch in Lansdale today and, though I got home fine, it's impossible to park in my lot. My poor car can't get traction up the little hill that leads to my parking space. I parked down the street for now and plan to move my car at least into the McDonald's lot as soon as that is cleared...

Snow is here! Only barely an inch or two so far though. We're see about the 12 to 16 inches we've been promised...

Had another hiking dream last night. I was at a dentist's office and just, like, wandered off from the tour to do my own thing. I had heard there were wild guinea pigs and wanted to catch one (seriously.) so I was feeling around in the bushes for them. Then I came back in, disappointed, and some creepy truck driver offered me a ride home. So weird.

In other news, I am now completely obsessed with Gives Me Hope. I cried for an hour last night, reading posts.

Nikita: "So what days are you working these next couple weeks?"

Me: "Um... it might be easier to tell you what days I'm not working."

Nikita: "... okay. Spill."

Me: "December 26th, January 1st, 4th, and 10th. That's all I know of until January 17th."

Nikita: "..."

Me: "Heh. Surely we can fit a sleepover in there somewhere."


(facepalm)

Work wasn't too bad last night (with the exception of a guy seizing and bleeding from the mouth, anyway, and we got him sorted within a half hour), so when Carol asked me to stay, I said yes. I stayed on for a 1-to-1, which was with some confused old woman who was nice. Plus, she fell asleep around 12:30 and slept the rest of the time. Not bad at all. I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on TV, wrote a bit, and only really felt the time drag during the last twenty minutes when my tiredness hit. Suddenly I was like "HOLY HELL GET ME OUT!". My relief didn't show up right away, but the nurses said I could leave, thank god. I got out of there and into my bed, in pajamas, by 3:10. I slept in until 12:30, haha.

The only sad part is that it's now 1:08 and I will be running around at work in less than two hours. Damn!

On the bright side, that means I've worked 12 additional hours this week. Why hello thar, Nook...


I made a new friend in Lansdale the other day, and we looked for one of the geocaches I failed to find by myself. We got it! XD

I've been catching quite a few 11:11 these days. Hehe. Anyway, it's 5 in the morning and i cant sleep. Oh wait, i think i'm feeling rather sleepy already. Crap. Supposed to wake up in 2 hours. Maybe i should sleep. Taiwan in approx 5 hours and i cant wait. I'm really happy today worx. Hehe. I'll miss everyone! : )

But it is $40 every Wednesday for 3-4 hours of child-sitting. Hm. Can't make up my mind about this one.

weiqi's back and we met up with her on monday! i really love these 3 people! it's really incredible how i've made such awesome friends in jc <3

weiqi and her sexciting overseas stories, and of cos her lovable personality. even tho we meet up like once a year cos she's stuck in the US most of the time, we still talk like we nv grew up from jc.

jiale and her random sweetness. how she surprised me with our favourite bubble tea, and became ca's unexpecting and unassuming 'rival' in bubble tea delivery

and finally turtle! i can't describe her. she's one sweet friend who gets scolded by jiale all the time. HAHA! LOVE HER ALL THE SAME (:

yay can't wait to see them tmr again, although im coughing lyk there's no tmr( stares down deb's neck! ) turtle, if you're reading this, IM GLAD THAT YOU'RE FINALLY COMING DOWN TO OUR SIDE.

i hate the east (:

hahahaha!

1. I am working more than ever in order to buy the Barnes and Noble Nook. I'm a woman obsessed.

2. Dave and I are taking a break while he gets some things accomplished. It sucks.

3. I have to babysit those damn kids for four hours tomorrow. Goddamnit. I think I'm going to tell her I'm switching to dayshift so that I don't have to... no offense to the kids. Lexie is adorable. Luna, annoying as shit. She can't help it. She's seven. That doesn't make her any less annoying. Was I this annoying when I was seven? (Probably.)

On the other hand, it's $40 more toward the Nook...

4. My new life plan is this: go to nursing school, graduate, work down in Florida, get a job on a cruise liner as ship's nurse and travel around the world for free. Eventually marry, have kids, get old, and die. /end. Personally, I think that last bit has quite a bit of success built in.

5. I have begun geocaching. I am unstoppable. WATCH ME!

Hi! So it's stay at home Friday today. Heh. And there's a weird guy talking to me..................
Sian diao lorzzzzzz. Manicure with Cheryl tom! : )
Taiwan in 5 days!! I should start to pack a little by little before I rush and forget everything!

In case you haven't noticed, I'm really tired and I'm using all my strength.
But I'm sure _______ is gonna be worth it.

THIS SUCKS

I am a fat pig today cus I had 2 buffets and my stomach is exploding. Heehee. But I had fun today!

Happy birthday XT! Hope you had fun today!!! I know you will read this.
I love you worx : )

the holidays are really great because i am seeing alot of my favourite bestest people. i am so happy! everyday im doing reading, discovering, catching up, laughing, loving, and really, what's there not to love about life?

anyway i must really blog about ter's 21 at CHACHACHA. twas a really awesome night with good company because i have v spontaneous and crazy friends! aft dinner we frolicked over to walawalas where ter treated us to drinks, and we seriously went abit crazy there. i haven't had such crazy clean fun before in sucha while. with the night still young and moon still bright, we trudged along to holland v carpark to execute a bday dance for ter. it was really crazy because initially we wanted clem to dance on the ceiling of a car but decided against it because we figured it cld get abit rowdy. so we found a great spot with a gigantic light to make-do as a stage spotlight and pam, clem and i danced a rendition of songs for ter's 21. we were sooooooooooo in the zone man. we garnered a few stares and stops and ( the couple in the car beside us even taped us down ) but, i had fun because everyone was just darn happy! BOOTYLICIOUS BABY!

and if the night couldn't have ended even better, i got a FREAKING SUMMON THANKS TO XYZ!


cheers to the night we felt alive and young and 21!