Gimme All Your Pageviews!

My dear friends, it is that time again.

Where all my Android users at?  Did you get Instagram today?  I sure did.  And I feel like I joined a giant cult where everyone loves it and I am like, "wait I don't get it" and they are like, "just wait you will be addicted and it will be awesome."
Instagram was really smart about it though.  I bet they've had the app ready for Android for like an entire year but they wanted  to wait it out until a time where there was not very much insta-hype for their insta-app and then all the sudden KABLAMOOOO - you are hit with a billion thousand more instagram users and they have instant-insta-hype.

So this is me copying the Insta-model of hype-business.  Just when my blog was getting boring and boring, I am creating hype to make you all like, "OMG this is the best blog that no one's heard of that I've ever heard of."  Because it's time for your thousand-page-viewerly GIVEAWAY HINT.

Do you feel the anticipation rising, my dears?  We are only a hop skip and a jump away from 10,000 pageviews!  And as the little number at the bottom of this blog gets better, the hints get better.  Except that only applies from here on out.  Ok, without further ado...

Part of the giveaway will be personalized for the winner, part will be incredible, part will be delicious, part will be silly and mayhaps partially annoying to the winner, and the big part will be kind of a universal gift.  And of course, I will not be giving anything away that I wouldn't love to have myself.  


So now that that's over, I bet you will be staying up late at night wondering what you could possibly possibly win. I've been thinking about doing some smaller prizes too so that there's not just one winner.  What do you think?

By now you should know about my almost strict every-post-should-have-a-picture rule, so here we go, the photo that was my inaugural instagram photo:

I may or may not have an obsession with this color despite the fact that it is oh so clearly out of my season.  My mother taught me that I'm a winter - but haven't the rules of fashion changed?  And also, these are pants and a glass and shoes so they are not close to my face so that makes it okay?


Either way.  THIS IS HAPPENING YOU GUYS.

Auld Lang Syne

I, like Harry Burns, actually have no idea what the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne mean, but I know it is a song about new years.  And with that, let me share one of my top five meg ryan moments:

First things first, saying goodbye to 2011.
What a year!  In 2011, I had a lot of ups and downs. Realistically, I probably had more downs than ups, and I learned a lot a lot a lot about myself.  But highlights included:

• learning the effects and importance of a quick dance party
• travelling to the east coast in a Spring Break extravaganza
• making a good friend or two
• spending a lot of time trying to get myself to do things (that is both accurate and vague, and I apologize that it sounds so weird)
• getting my hair cut exactly once, although I trimmed it myself a bunch, and I am now comfortable doing that

But.....


Oh, I am feeling awfully romantic about 2012, dudes.  Awfully romantic indeed.  Like 1940s movie star romantic about it.
Every year that I am alive seems to bring a lot of new craziness, but at the same time, I feel like I know myself better as I get older and I feel more comfortable with myself.

Ok so RESOLUTIONS.  The million dollar question of the last week.  Here we go:

• Do things.  Like don't just half-do them.  If I'm eating a cookie, I want to be thinking about the way that cookie tastes.  If I'm in a class, I want to be paying attention to the ideas the teacher is presenting.  If I'm saying a prayer, I want to be talking to God.  Actually do things.  
• Move.  When I get depressed, I don't want to do anything besides sit somewhere warm and watch tv.  Which is bad for my waistline, my grades, and my social life.  And one of the things that helps the most? Moving around.  Dancing, walking, running, doing jumping jacks, etc.  

I guess I only have two resolutions, but that's because I really want to do them.  I want this year to be proactive and for me to savor it.  I want to be a go-getter again, because I think I used to be one.  

And yes, I realize it is now the fifth day of the new year.  And double yes, gratuitous photos:

Should old acquaintance be forgot.....

Add it to YOUR To-Do List!

Monday night.  8 o'clock.  What are you doing?  The question of all questions, my friends.

Here's what you should be doing: WATCHING MY TELEVISION DEBUT!

And by watching my television debut, I mean that you should be watching the Sing Off on NBC and scouring the shots of the audience for some sign of me.  Hey, everyone's gotta start somewhere, right?  Look for me in a blue top with pinkish flowers.  I'm probably holding a sign that says, "Everyone Loves Avi!" or something.  Probably looking like a crazed fan.  

A friend of mine is on the show in a group called Pentatonix, and they are completely awesome.  Like you wouldn't even believe.  I went to the taping of the show in August and since then I have been bursting at the seams waiting to see this episode.  I would tell you the name of the song they sing, but I think I signed a paper that says NBC will own a little piece of my soul if I let even the teensiest thing slip.  But, it has already been announced that it will be hip-hop night on the show on Monday.  

Seriously though, when I saw it live, I promise you I have never been more excited to hear anyone perform live.  It was amazing.  

You should really watch them sing "Video Killed the Radio Star."  In fact I think that so much that I'm going to post it.  

The bass in the group is a friend of mine and he and the percussionist seriously take the group to a whole other level.  A level that only exists in outer space.  Yeah, the dance moves are a little dorky for me in this video, but just listen to them.

And seriously, Monday night they are going to killlllllll!  Just trust me.  

First Fool Friday

You know how on blogs they always do things with cute alliteration for the days of the week (Wordless Wednesday, Fashion Friday, Tutorial Tuesday)?

Well, I've decided to start my own alliteration day: Fool Friday.  Basically, every Friday, I will post something that makes me look like a fool.  Got it?  Good.


I've been busy unpacking and gearing up for  new school year that starts on Monday, so this week's Fool Friday is a picture that is actually a year and a half old.  I know, lame.  But I'm busy.

OK here it goes:

And there's a whole lot more of fool where that came from.  :)

Dude.

A lot of people in my family have a recent fascination with this word.  But we use it when we are frustrated with something.  It's weird.  Maybe just saying dude is weird.  It's the surfer guy inside of all of us.....

Sometimes (like now) I really want to blog, but I have nothing particularly blog-worthy in my arsenal.  It's weird though.  Like I have this urge to just divulge to the internets for no particular reason.  Like if someone finds out some flaw I have I can be like, "I told the internets, and you use the internets, so you should have known the whole time."

Like this flaw:  I don't much like being told what to do.  I'm pretty bad at that.  Not that I have trouble with authority figures too much, but I don't like when things are laid out for me like they are the best thing for me to do, when really, they might not be the best thing for me to do.  Like my school choice.  A very high percentage of Mormons who go to college go to some form of Brigham Young University (Very scientific, I know).  I didn't apply there.  And it worked out for me. (I'm a rebel like that.)

Or in high school there was this big dance festival thing where the youth from my church spent months learning this elaborate waltz that we performed to Disney songs.  And in an especially dramatic part of the song, all the boys would pick up their partners sort of on their side and the girls had flow-y dresses that they would hold out while being spun in a circle.  Except that I absolutely HATE to be picked up.  And my partner definitely could have managed it, but why should I do something that I am physically uncomfortable with, especially at a church activity where they teach us that you should say no to those sorts of things.
And all the adults teaching us the dance were like, "Gigi, you are the only one not being picked up, you stick out.  Everyone else is doing it, can't you just join everyone else?"  And it still makes me a little heated because these are the sort of peer pressure attitudes that I was taught to stay strong against.  Which I did.
You can't tell me what to do.

Which is exactly what I literally said out loud when my mom's car said this:

I most certainly will not change the oil now, thank you very much.  What nerve!  Demanding that I do it now.  As if I wasn't busy driving somewhere when I got this message.  Right now?  You want me to drop everything else right now and change your oil?  Get my clothes dirty and everything?  Without so much as a please?

No thank you.


And that my friends, is how you turn one picture into an entire blog post.

You know what's the worst?

When people who I know and whose opinion matters to me tell me that they read my blog.  Or really just anyone reads it.  Except anyone in a country I will probably never visit.  Armenia?  But maybe I'm not really proud of the image of myself that I put out in blog-form, but then, why do I keep putting it out there?

I've seriously been thinking about the answer to this question for days, if not maybe a week here, and I still don't have an answer that I like.

So maybe let's look at the way I sound via blog:
I am obsessed with my hair.
I like to take pictures of myself.
I'm obsessed with the idea of family and/or babies.
I loooove puns, cheese (like the food and the bad sort of jokes), and Disney.
I sound like a scatter-brain.

Guys, I promise I am less of all of these things in real life.  Except [insert any of the items from the list, because really?].

I am maybe more exciting in my blog form.  Not afraid to look stupid or conceited or whatever.  Because I picture you (and I mean you as in the audience here) to be one faceless internet mass who will not judge me or if they will judge me they will be like you're too adjective to take seriously, so I will just enjoy you instead.

Blogging is just a weird little thing.  It's like I share all my weird eccentricities and anecdotes and expect you to take me as normal.  Because compared to a man who gets married to a pillow in Japan (or James Franco in that one episode of 30 rock), I am sooo normal.  But then, anything on the internet can pass for normal.

The point is, what if you only read my blog and then you meet me and expect me to be like this blog-person in real life and I can't measure up because I can spend several drafts becoming worse and worse in a better and better way in blog-form, but in real life I probably only get one draft at a conversation.  But then - I've just hit it, haven't I?  Writers are sometimes very awkward in real life, even if their characters are really suave and la sexi.  I mean, could I really say the last two sentences aloud without sounding like a complete weirdo?

Somehow, hiding behind this, makes me think that the words are less real:

Or somehow like my blog-person is allowed to be a more dramatic version of me.

I guess just DISCLAIMER.  Just so you all know.  And this is before my blog becomes the most interesting thing on the internet and I gain billions of fans that follow my every word.

Welcome to Weirdsville.

OK, let me begin by saying I don't know how Moms do it.  I've been sort of the next best thing to mom since Sunday to my two nephews (okay well maybe my mom has been more of a mom to them, but....) and let me tell you it is pretty much impossible to feel like a normal person and to be all child-rearing-y all the time.  Granted a 20 year old like myself probably doesn't have the patience required to simultaneously watch a 3 year old and a 18 month old (they are to the day, a year and a half apart - yikes).

The point of this whole thing was - holy free birth control!  If you're wondering what I won't be doing for at least another 4 years, it's having a baby.

The other day I was making these

and I was all dressed in a skirt and chasing after babies and also barefoot in the kitchen and I thought, "The picture of domesticity"

Mine did not turn out that pretty for the record.  They are cookie dough truffles from here.  Redonkulously easy to make and similarly delicious.

..

.....

Sorry I was drooling over the thought of eating cookie dough right now.

The real real point of this whole thing is that I have hardly left home in the last few days except to go to the gym.  Because, you know, the forced-surrogate-mom-hood.  Not that I don't enjoy it.  It's just that I've actually been around these guys since last Monday. as in still June.

Oh my tangents.  (to be read like "Oh my goodness" except well, you get it)

The gym.  Okay back to the real story.  On Dayday (let's call it that because I have no concept of days in this summer haze thing I am in), we had a massive break in our water line which caused us to turn our water off for several hours as we tried to locate and fix it.  Meanwhile, I, being smelly and in need of an excuse to get my rather rotund rear off the couch for something besides baby-chasing and eating, decided to go to the gym.

My parents got me gym membership for the summer (subtle, aren't they) and it is a nice gym and we had no shower and they have showers which are significantly better than the showers I used during my entire freshman year of college, so I took my own towel, shampoo, and razor to the gym.  Can you say classy?  (Also, can you say run-on?)

I used to make fun of people who showered and got like ready for the day in the gym before I went to college and lost my fear of showering in places in that are not my home (I realize that makes me sound ... bad but it's just that showers are weird stalls in dorms).  But then I became one of those people and now I think they are cool.  Isn't that how it goes?

Also, I'm still not as bad as the lady who spent two hours curling her hair in the gym locker room.

But I did blow dry my hair.  So not by much.


I hope no one (aka my parents) took offense to this post, but I meant it out of love?  And also no one reads this blog in my house (except me of course, because you have to make sure you don't sound like too much of a dweeb ..... dweeb?) so who cares.

Yeah, I'm going to call this one.

Stella

You know what Stella and I have in common?  We both got our groove back.  Have you ever gotten your groove back?  It's pretty much the most awesome thing there ever was.

Definitely groovin'

I didn't realize I had lost a little bit of my life-fire (is that phrase too cheesy to actually use?) until this last weekend.  When I got it back.  I know it's a little soon to be saying that I definitively got some mojo back, but just listen to the day I had yesterday:

I woke up a full two hours before my first class and got ready, answered emails, read five pages of the Book of Mormon, and started cleaning my room.  I ate breakfast and went to class for an hour and then came back and then I did level 1 of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred.  I showered and got dressed and finished cleaning my room.  I even vacuumed.
At this point it was only noon and so I got some lunch and then headed to institute.  After an hour of that, I went to work and after an hour of nothing much to do, I finished everything I wanted to.
After work, I called my brother, got dinner with a friend, sent my resume out to three different places and then headed to the library, where I finished my music theory homework, wrote yesterday's blog post, and brainstormed this one.
Then I wrote in my journal and got to bed by 11:30.

That amount of productivity has been gone in my life for sooo long.  I went through a while (an embarrassingly long while I might add), where I didn't do much besides go to class and lay in bed.  I barely squeaked by with my grades (don't worry Mom and Pops, still B's and better) and at work and I just felt like a blob.  A bloggy blob.  Haha

It's good to feel excited about life.  My point is this: if you don't feel excited about your life, don't settle for that.  Because being excited about life helps you to be a more Christ-like person.  (At least that's how it's been working for me for the last 20 years).  And I look at myself in the mirror and I feel more attractive.

And more importantly:  Being more excited about your life doesn't necessarily mean changing it.  I almost hate the cliché that if you don't like something you can't change then just change your attitude.  I prefer to think about it in this (only slightly different) way:

Choose your love.
Love your choice.

There are tons of things I don't like about Stanford.  There are tons of things I don't like about being a student in general.  There are tons of things I don't like about myself, my body, my family, my personality, my laugh.  I could go on and on.  But these are the things I have.  And they are great.  There are things that I am absolutely crazy about for each of these things.  So I am going to concentrate on accentuating those things that I love.

Sometimes, I am afraid to do posts like this because I don't want to sound preachy or like I have all the answers.  It is so very painfully clear sometimes that I don't have all the answers.  But I have decided from now on to be unapologetically grateful and happy and positive.
People make it so cool-seeming to be a tortured artist type.  Or to be so aware of the sadness on this planet that they cannot possibly be happy.  Sadness has its place.  It has an important place.  But I think in my life, I'm going to decide that happiness has an even bigger one.

I have decided that I am in love with my life and that I always will be.

(I apologize that I don't have a glass of wine to give you because that ending was cheeeeeeeese.)

Jambalaya

This post has nothing to do with jambalaya other than the fact that jambalaya kind of sounds like jumbly.  And my life is awfully jumbly right now.

Stanford is a weird place. It is a lot like all of my dreams coming true.  There is great weather and great people and great departments.  And I love it.  It's like tiramisu.  Delicious and refined and energizing and just a little bit too much but in that good way where you like the indulgence of it all.
It's also like success boot camp sometimes because a lot a lot of people think that money will lead to happiness.  I think that more often money leads to a desire for more money.  Catch-22, really (but not really).

All of the pictures that come from my webcam automatically go into a folder called Narcissism, because well, you know. But I can't be the only one who knows.   

Oh and also, Stanford is like one big question.  And that question is: What do you really want to do?
How am I supposed to know what I want to do?  I mean I know what I want to do today but also that involves laying in bed all day and watching movies (Let's be real, they are probably of the Disney variety) and then getting all dressed up so I can teleport to the party where all of my friends are dancing and they clap and yell, "Oh Shnaps!" at all the cool dance moves that we take turn doing.  And afterwards I teleport home and my family is playing a board game and the babies are being cute and everyone keeps saying, "that's racist" because Marcus said that he likes his chocolate milk really dark.

But here's the real thing.  It's that one of my eyes is significantly bigger than the other and I don't think I can pull off bold lipsticks and I almost don't hate the way my feet look.

Are you catching on to the feeling of jumbly-ness?

That picture reminds me of how I want to make the Gamboa family motto, "Well, at least I am having a good hair day."  Because while Gamboa's may be modest about many things, not hair.

Oh but just because I want to spend today doing the fun nonsense doesn't mean I will want to do it forever.  I mean I will also want to eat good food and eventually have my own man-friend and little monsters.  And I want to probably do something else.  Like put this $50,000 a year education to use and like enter the work field or whatevs.  Who knows how?  Oh wait, God knows.  Why won't he just let me in on the joke already?

How could you possibly not be tired of reading all of this jambalaya?  I'm practically tired of writing it , but then, wait no, I don't really get tired of telling people every third thought that pops into my head even though there is no sense of whatever that fancy word is that means that everything goes together somehow.  Stupid jumbly-brain and my inability to think of the words that fit in.

Well I think that's about enough for one post.  Welcome to ten minutes of jumbly-brain.  I hope you enjoyed your ride.  At this point, we are unable to give refunds if you are not satisfied with your experience.  Good day. 

Summer Lovin'

You wouldn't believe how excited I am for this summer.  More excited than I am for practically anything else right now.  Well, that's false.  But I'm still PRETTY excited.  (Yeah, I used all caps, so what?)

This summer I am going home.  It's weird how my concept of home changes.  When I had a roommate, I was starting to feel like Stanford was home.  I still love it here, but coming back to my room everyday doesn't really feel like home.  It could be because half of my room has empty walls and a weird, uncomfortable and bare blue mattress.  It doesn't exactly give off a home-y vibe.

Oh the digressions of my brain.

Anyways, to Upland I go.  In about 8 weeks, that is.  I have big plans for this summer.  I hope I get through all the stuff that I want to.

Hopefully, the internship that I wan this summer will pull through and I'll be able to have a grand ol' time learning le business skillz and whatnot.  We'll see.  I'm afraid to count my chicks before they hatch on this one.

But then, since I am recently sort of becoming a foodie (Thanks K-Trizz), I was hoping to get a job as a hostess or the likes at some restaurant.  Just so I can get a feel for restaurants and a little extra cash in my pocket.  Which Stanford can then take away from me in the fall.

And then here's the part where I will (hopefully) never be bored or without anything to do,  because I have made a list of things I want to do during the summer.
I want to:

• Learn to cook a lot of dishes that are yummy and healthy and flavorful.  
• Go the Beach about a billion times.  Or like 4+
• Get tan.  Like, actually look like I'm Mexican tan.  
• Learn all the spices that are somewhat common.
• Have a street art photoshoot in L.A.  I'm sort of obsessed with street art.  
• Explore Griffith Park especially the Observatory.
• Go to the Getty Museum
• Read through the Book of Mormon start to finish.  
• Go to the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade
• Go to the Grove and hear some free music
• Hear Friday Night Jazz at LACMA
• Hit up the Garment District in LA

It's crazy how I've lived so close to LA all my life and never seen a lot of these things.  Basically every Saturday of the whole summer will be a day trip for me, so hopefully I can get some friends to come along with me.

Also, I made this terribly awesome joke in a TUSB post and I'm afraid no one will ever see it, so I'm putting it here: Studies show that if you eat a bucket of spinach at every meal, you will grow big and strong.  (You have to click the link to get the joke).

And pictures make every blog post better, right?

This is relevant because he's at the beach.  

This is relevant because it's my blog and it's a picture of me!

This is not relevant.  

The End.  

And Finally, Boston

I've been putting off telling the Boston stories for a while because it means I probably have to stop talking about my crazy awesome spring break trip.
That and because by the time we got to Boston we had figured out travelling and we didn't do any stupid things any more.  Haha jk.  We just had friends in Boston to take care of us everywhere so we didn't really have too much of an opportunity to get lost or be starving or feel a little bit out of control.

Some of my Boston favorites were:

Canolis from Mike's Pastry two days in a row.  Thank goodness we were walking like 8 miles a day.  

Walking the Freedom Trail.  It starts with the old state building (I think it's called that - my memory is already starting to fade - boooo!)

Stopping to give ourselves some beauty treatment.  I turned into the face mask monster.  

And enjoying great seafood.  I'd never enjoyed a meal of seafood before that night.  New England does it right.  

This post doesn't have a cool story in it.  But Boston was soo incredibly awesome.  Everything there is deeply rooted in history and culture that has been that way for practically as long as America has been a country.  Besides there was the time KT and I bought a $7 brick of cheese and some focaccia from a little Italian place and ate it all for lunch.  Or when we went to the observatory telescopes in Harvard and got to see a great view of Boston and Cambridge.  

Boston is cool, yo

DC craziness

Oh the DC.  DC was, I'm not going to lie here, my least favorite of the three cities that I visited over Spring Break.  Although to be honest I'm not sure I really gave it a fair chance.  We were limited to public transportation, which was fine because the place we stayed at was about a quarter mile from the subway station. And also we basically limited ourselves to free attractions.

I guess I have to explain.  I love food.  I love to eat and I love trying new foods and I love the idea of sitting down to a meal with someone.  It's a social thing for me.  It's about sharing.  Kristin and I would go two different places for each meal just so that we could eat half of whatever we bought and then switch with the other person. And in New York, we ate out for every single meal.  And it got to be expensive.  New York is expensive.  So by the time we got to DC, we figured we had better slow down on the food expenditures.

So when we got to DC on Monday night, we had some time to kill, and decided to go grocery shopping.  We could buy sensible things and spend less in two days than we had on two meals in New York.  It was brilliant.  Here's where the fun began.

Fun thing Number 1:
The nearest grocery store to where we stayed was Whole Foods.  I think whole foods is great.  But also, every time I go there, I want to buy expensive cheese and some grapes to go with them and these crackers look so good, and is that curry I smell?  Which translates to not cheap.  So we decided to take an extra little walk to whatever grocery store that the Google Maps app on my phone said was closest.  It was about a ten minute walk.  But then again we were in Virginia. So Virginia decided to have some rain right then.  Correction, Virginia decided to have a thunder storm right then.  A thunderstorm that only lasted ten minutes, and, you guessed it, it chose the exact ten minutes that we were walking to the grocery store.

Contemplating the State of the Union, and also what my next meal would be.  

Only when we got there, it was more like a convenience store that comes with a gas station except there were no fountain drinks and there was no gas station.  Which not only had like negative selection, but was actually probably more expensive than going to whole foods.  So soaked and disappointed, we walked over to whole foods.  But we were good!  Despite being hungry enough to have way too many cheese samples to not even buy the cheese, we were like Ms. Don't spend money and Ms. Only buy the essentials.  We ended up getting some deli meat, bread, boring cheddar cheese, yogurt, a couple of apples, a couple of oranges, and a bunch of bananas.  The  bread and things turned into sandwiches, which we ate for lunch and dinner.  And the yogurt and bananas turned to breakfast.  And fruit for snacks.  Which brings me to.....


Fun Thing Number 2:
Day 1 of eat all the groceries worked out great.  Were were full all day and we were happy and we even got to go to the temple that night.  It was cheap and awesome.
But on day two, we ran out of turkey for the sandwiches (holy cow brains I have been spelling this word sandwhiches my whole life and that is wrong!).  But no worries!  We would make grilled cheese sandwiches (it is so weird to type) instead.  Except that we only had enough bread for three sandwiches.  One and a half each.  And we were out of snack fruit.  But we had a bag of nasty peanuts that we had bought for the bus ride to DC.  So as we made the grilled cheese's, we realized we were using a really funny burner after we had burnt all 3 of them.  And then we put them in a plastic bag, which turned into us having soggy, burnt sandwiched when we were hungry for lunch.  It was the saddest thing we had ever seen.  We walked though cafes at all the museum-y places and smelled the food and instead ate our yucky sandwiches and nasty peanuts.

Not so excited at museum Number 7.  

Besides this, DC is a LOT of museums.  Like 7 museums in 2 days a lot.  So by the time day 2 was ending, we were more than happy to meet some friends at Good Stuff Eatery to eat a properly cooked meal and enjoy something else besides reading a plaque about a dead person (I know I sound terribly insensitive right now).

This trip has soooo many pictures of food.  But the food was definitely a highlight.  

Honestly my favorite part was the temple.  It is such a gorgeous temple.  Not that there are ugly ones, but this one was breathtaking. 

Oh and I left all my toiletries (read: makeup) in NY on accident, so I get progressively more haggard looking in the pictures.  

New York City Stories

Oh my gosh NEW YORK CITY!!!  What a wonderful city.  It is awesome and there about a billion thousand things to do there.  Kristin and I had to squeeze whatever we could into 2 and a half days and we were pretty much shameless tourists.

 I know that hearing about other people's vacations can be capital b Boring, so I will spare you and only tell the stories of the ridiculous things we did.


Thing Number 1:  Stay with a complete stranger
Being the starving college students that we are, Kristin and I opted to not get hotel reservations for anywhere we went and instead depend on the kindness of others for a place to sleep.  Luckily we knew people in every city except NY!  So we ended up staying with a man named Mbe who is Nigerian and in his late 30s!  Not to mention, neither of us had ever met him before.  I make that sound SOO sketchy.  Haha.  But Mbe is a really good friend of one of Kristin's current roommates, so that is how we got that hookup.  Plus he is Mormon, so there is that automatic Mormon trust thing.  He had such a sweet place.  Here is the view from his apartment:

Yep, he lives on the corner of 110th and Central Park West on the 16th floor so his apartment literally overlooks the beauty of Central Park and then the city.  It was awesome.


Thing Number 2: Sleep on the subway
Trying to save money and minimize the time that we would stay in a stranger's house, we bought a red-eye flight from Friday night to Saturday Morning.  It left at 11 pm and got in at 7 am.  We figured we would be fine after a crappy 7 hours of sleep to go explore the city.  What we didn't realize that with the time change, a crappy 7 hours of sleep was really a crappy 4 hours of sleep.  So by 2 pm on Saturday afternoon, we were EXHAUSTED.  Like incoherent strings of words and going into free museums just for the warmth and not knowing where we were.  So we got on the subway for the sole purpose of taking a nap.
Because we were soo completely tired, and we had a Broadway play to go to that night, and we did NOT want to fall asleep for that (which is good because Memphis is now my favorite musical of the ones that I have seen).
We took a train as high as it would go, and then back downtown.  The only problem is we got interrupted by some teenage boys who came on to sing/play the guitar to "Come Together" by the Beatles for money.  And maybe I was just half-asleep, but they sounded really good. 
I do remember saying to Kristin, "Do you know who sleeps on subways?  Homeless people."  And then she responded, "Well, in NYC, we are pretty much homeless."

We were completely fine, and nothing got stolen (except I was wearing a pair of really cheap dangly earrings that are now missing, but if someone stole those I'm too impressed to be mad), but still, I don't think I'll do that again.


Thing Number 3:  Taking the Peep World bus. 
On Monday afternoon, Kristin and I got ready to take a Chinatown bus from NYC to DC.  We had looked up a super cheap bus that left from Penn Station that would take us from there to the Chinatown in DC.  So we got ready to head to "Chinatown Express"  for our trip.  When we got there, it was a restaurant.  A restaurant!  We were there at about 1:10, we hadn't yet bought a ticket, and the bus we wanted was supposed to leave at 1:30.  We frantically tried to find the bus and ask the Chinatown Express people if they knew where to go and figure out a way to get ourselves(and all of our stuff which we were carrying), over to DC.  Kristin turned the corner on 33rd to see a bus that had DC 2 NY written on the side and a line of people.  The bus was parked in front of this classy establishment:

It says Peep World, if you can't tell.  It ended up being $30 as long as we paid the driver right then, and in cash, but we got on the bus and made it DC without stopping or danger of being raped.  It was actually a really nice bus with free water and they played a really cheeeeeeesy Bruce Willis movie called Red on the way over.  It was actually quite enjoyable, despite the mass amounts of stress before getting on the bus when we didn't know if we would be able to go on or not.


So besides those 3 stories, and the normal getting lost in the subway system stories, I only have normal tourist stories about how much I LOOOOVED the bagels or the street food or watching Memphis.  Seriously, you should all go see Memphis.  It won 4 Tony's last year, so you don't just have to take my word for it. 

Oh New York City, I will miss you.  Hopefully some day I can live on you.

East Coast Tour!

Hello blog-lings!

Did you have an awesome time over the last two weeks?  The week before last was my finals week which was pretty much torture for me (it was probably my hardest finals week ever).
But then I went on an amazing tour of Boston, NY, and DC all in one week.  KTrone and I were super tourists.

Since I currently lack the mental capacity to put something cute and creative together, I will rely on the amazing foresight that KTrone had.  At the end of each day, we made a list of everything we did that day.  Probably a lot of it needs explaining, and it's kind of a long list, but I'm going to post all 8 lists.

Enjoy!:

First Saturday:

JFK -> Airtrain -> Trains to Mbe's

Tried to go to Times Square, B line off on weekends

World Trade Center

Times Square

Hotdogs
Tickets

Brooklyn

Grimaldi's

Awesome View

Train to Bull (Wall Street)

Battery Park

Native Museum

Nap on the subway

Dudes played music, "Come Together"

Katz's deli, food too expensive

Gelato in lower east side

Cool Earrings

Knish

Memphis

Magnolia Bakery

Sunday:

Church in the Temple

Mesa Grill!!

Jacque Torres

Garment District

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Central Park

Shower

Middle Eastern Street Food

Columbus Circle - Random Mall

Duane Reade

Indian Food

lost at 50th street station FOREVER

Mbe's

Monday:

Carnegie Deli - Too Expensive

Shoes

Times Square Bagels!

Mbe's, Stuff

Penn Station

Chinatown Express = Restaurant

Buss to DC

Cheesy Bruce Willis

Lost at Dupont Circle

Metro to Sarah's

Mason Building

Thunderstorm

Ghetto Grocery

Whole Foods Memory Lane

Tuesday:

Wait for mattress - bust

Holocaust Museum

American History

Natural History

Capitol

Washington Monument

State Signs - Pics

Big Lincoln

Meet Jared

Temple

Baptisms

Sachi and Julie

Georgetown

Wisemillers

home

silly

Wednesday:

Burnt Cheese Sandwhiches

Arlington - JFK, Unknown Soldier

Freer Art

African Art

Air and Space

National Archives

nasty peanuts

Natural History

Good Stuff Eatery

Thursday: 

King Street - Potomac

Bruegger's Bagels 

flight to Boston

Scott Runyon

Faneuil Hall

Driving Tour

Mike's Pastry/ North End

Back Bay

Newbury ST

Whitney!

BYU game

hangin out

shower

Friday:

Freedom Trail

USS Constitution tour

Italian Grocery Store - bread and cheese

Mike's Pastry

Hahvahd

Ruth Tour/ Observatory

Institute

Burdick's hot chocolate/canoli

Walden Pond

Temple

Lexington/Concord

Fenway

Legal Seafood

JP Lick's Ice Cream

Hangin out' / bed

Saturday:

Yummy apple pancakes and good sauce

airport

Phoenix

starving - Becky

starving - Judy

best friends

San Diego

San Jose

Timmy, Jair

Chipotle

Grocery Store

HOME - exhaustion / east coast time

A little flirt never hurt.

Interwebz, meet the new guy who is staying in my room.  He's kind of huge and obnoxious, but I have to house him for the next few days.  His name is Frank:

As in, short for Frankenstein.  Because the lady at the PC repair place called him a monster.  

I'm actually growing quite fond of Frank, I held all 29.2 pounds of him in my arms across a street and up three flights of stairs, and we bonded because of it.  

Let me tell you the story of how Frank and I came to be roommates.  

Yesterday, my computer broke.  Out of nowhere. But luckily, it was just the screen that broke.  When I turn it on, it looks like this:

One stripe.  And I din't drop her or anything (my computer's name is Black Betty).  I love Betty and I would never do anything to hurt her.  

So after waiting overnight to see if something magical would happen, and waking up to realize that the computer fairy is not real, I decided to make phone calls to PC repair places close by.  

I ended up at Kangaroo Mobile for a free diagnostic of the problem with Betty.  Betty has a broken LCD screen.  Which they have to special order and then install, and it is NOT cheap.  

But you guys, it is finals week next week.  And I have to create a website by this Friday, and all of my files are sitting in Betty.  I need her.  This week especially, Betty is sooo important to me.  So I went to kangaroo mobile, and I played the girl.  I batted my eyes, I made extra eye contact, and I was smiley.  

And kangaroo mobile let me have Frank for free.  Yes, he is all mine until a new screen comes in the mail for Betty.  

The guy at kangaroo mobile even carried Frank to my car for me.  So either I am good at smiling, or kangaroo mobile has some good customer service.  As I made the quick drive back to campus, I thought about how things have a way of working out.  And then I had a one girl dance party to Rocketeer in my car to celebrate. (Note to self: that song is going to play REALLY loudly next time I turn on my car.)  

But f'realz.  It's good to be young.  

In other news ( and I know this is not a fashion blog and I am not about the fashion), what do you think of this outfit?

Too many colors?  I actually wore this today, except I wore flats that were more neutral.  But the yellow sweater and the blue shoes and the pink earrings?  I like the bright colorz, but I'm thinking this might be a little too redonk.  Also, over half of these items were obtained from my fashionista older sister.  

Oh and be tee dubs, what are you giving up for lent tomorrow?  I am giving up using my sister's netflix account and the soft serve ice cream that they have in the dining halls and most importantly, I am giving up needless worry. As in when you worry about things that you have no control over.  

Three.

"Genevieve, please tell me the significance of the number three for you right now.  Oh please, oh please, oh please."

Well interwebz, because you are basically begging me, I will tell you why this post is titled, "Three".

In the last month, I have made no less than 3 decisions late at night because I have wanted to make a change in my life.  Decisions that I thought, "What's keeping me from doing that?"  and then took the plunge and went for.

Decision Numero Uno:
Changing My Name.  Or at least changing the name that I use to refer to myself. The most permanent of the the three decisions.

Decision B:
Rearranging my room.  My room has undergone some pretty drastic changes in the last week or so.  I know without a reference the following pic doesn't really show change, but it does show how huge my room feels now.

And when your entire living situation is about 20 square feet, that feels pretty huge.  Also notice how my desk keeps me trapped against the wall.  I like it because it forces me to stay back there and do work, but I still have an entry/exit path.  I call it my Cave of Wonder.

and finally
Decision Number 3:
I cut my own bangs into straight across bangs.  The idea popped into my head at about 11:45, and after consulting my brother (who does so many crazy things to his hair that of course he was going to tell me to go for it), I did it.  The whole thing was over and done with (including me washing and then restyling my bangs) by about 12:30.  Pic on fb the next morning (social media addict, I know).

So why do I do it?

I don't know.  I used to be so the opposite of impulsive.  Plan plan plan, stan.  But now I think of all these things, and I think that there is nothing stopping me from doing them, and I just do them.  I take trips across the country and I take classes on web design and negotiation and ebonics, and I read about what life would be like managing a restaurant.  Maybe I still plan, but now I just plan to be impulsive.  Or, because it is impossible to plant to be impulsive, I plan to do things I want, just because I can and I think they'd be good for me.


Maybe I'll grow out of it, but hopefully I won't.

Celebrate Good Times, COME ON!

I hope you sang the title as you read it.  That was my intention.

Recently, I turned 20 years old.  Old old old.  Okay, I'm not at all old.  I'm twenty years young.  So young, that I spent the weekend not thinking about school at all and instead taking a road trip to southern California.

While there I spent time:

• Eating with the fam

• Cruising the streets of Hollywood

• Oggling Blake Griffin

• Chilling with some princesses

• Forcing Marcus and Puke to step out of their comfort zones

• Dancing with Mr. Incredible

• Getting in powdered sugar fights in public

• and generally having a blast

By the way, Mr. Incredible is a FLIRT.  Just don't tell Elastigirl about our little encounter.  (I would also like to add that I was not overly flirtatious and that if anything, Mr. Incredible was coming on to me.  But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it.)

But TWO DECADES.  I mean, that is a looong time. Bring on two more?

I came to DANCE DANCE DANCE

I am about to post a picture of myself doing something that all Gamboa girls (and possibly just all Gamboas) do. Don't judge me.

No, I am not being really bad at posing and at the same time narcissistic (which also might be a Gamboa feature), I am in fact dancing in front of a mirror.

And while the real attention-getter in this picture might be the nast smudges on my mirror or the fact that my side of the room looks cleaner than Kelsey's (WHAAAAAA????), that's not what this post is about.

It's actually about my dancing shoes, which, predictably, are generally flip flops.

I got complimented on Saturday night on the fact that I am a good dancer (I am sure other Gamboa children have experienced this as well).  I don't actually think I'm a good dancer.  Instead, I think that I am not afraid to look stupid in front of large crowds of people, and more importantly I dance like I am having fun.  This is surprisingly rare in dancing places.  People like to watch people who are having fun, hence the compliments on the moves.  I know I'm not the only Gamboa to get made fun of for an overly expressive dancing face.

Other cool weekend activities include:

• Teaching myself several adobe software programs in order to create the new header at the top of my blog.  Did you notice?  This is my first time using fireworks, photoshop, or illustrator so don't judge. (Do I say that phrase too often?)  Oh, and I took all of the pics myself (except the first one).  I'm really proud of the sunny Stanford pic.  
• Planning next weekend's epic L.A. road trip extravaganza with one KTrone.
• Attempting to lead the VERY small ward choir.  
• Listening to Marcus' newly developed ukulele skills.  
• Shamelessly making myself a youtube playlist of Love songs for the holiday and listening to them by myself.  And not even feeling bitter. (really, I am not being sarcastic)
• and engaging in general tomfoolery.  ooh and i watched a Meg Ryan chick flick (I.Q. if you must know) by myself on Saturday night.  

All in all, a good weekend.  :)

Also, I feel like I have a ridiculously high number of pictures of myself on this sucker right now.  I promise to rectify this in the future with less pictures of this mug.  

Some Reasons I am not Angsty Right Now

Even though I have been angsty a lot lately.  (But that's all changing)

• The wonderful Kelsey had a birthday on Thursday.  I love her so much, and it was sooo fun to celebrate with her.  Pic:

• The weather.  Did you know that I suffer from SAD?  It's Seasonal Affective Disorder, and it means that I get depressed in the winter time.  Yes, I am a California girl wuss.  But this is keeping my body from realizing that it's winter right now.  Thank you California.  
• Blogging got me a job!  Well ... Kinda.  Blogging and my superior people skills.  Like making jokes in interviews.  No but f'real, the people at the Stanford Alumni Association wanted someone who was adept with social media and it's marketing uses.  AKA, I uses the interweb and I gotz me a job.  
• I'm taking an Ebonics class.  Which is incredibly interesting to study, and which makes for great conversation.  I come back with interesting facts and phrases all the time.  This is a book I use to study, along with another picture which I don't find offensive in the least bit:

• It's February.  Meaning my birthday is coming up.  Also meaning this is week 5 of the quarter.  Also meaning I'm taking a girlfriend's road trip to LA soon.  Meaning it's practically March, and then I get to go travel the east coast.  
• I decided I don't like being stressed.  And I decided I'm just going to work really hard and then not set any grade requirements for myself.  So if I work my bee-hind off this whole quarter and get C's in all of my classes, it will suck, but I will be okay with it (eventually).  So whatevs
• I finally blogged for TUSB, which I have been meaning to do for literally 2 weeks.  
• Also, I remembered not to take life so seriously.  Like is it really the end of the world if I don't get a really legit job this summer and I end up doing office work again.  And I decided that if I'm not having fun in my music theory class then that's stupid, because I love music a lot.  And that should apply to everything basically.  
• Also, I discovered good music.  Like Mumford and Sons and Brandi Carlile and Rod Stewart (mostly joking there), and Bon Iver.

So I'm happy.  And I'm fixin to stay that way.  

Sometimes Inspiration Hits

And you just can't stop it.

Like when you're done with finals and your brain is like AHHHHfdaghi8ehsf!!!!!!1