The Adventures of Tin-Tin

Ain't nothing going on but the rent...

Oh my...it's been so long since I've blogged. I've mostly been busy with work, selecting invitations, and trying to stick with my diet. So far, things are on the up.

Ten Things That Happened Since My Last Post

1. Lost 10 14 lbs on the South Beach Diet. I got a couple more to go.
2. Bought lots of sweaters at Ann Taylor. YAY COLD WEATHER!
3. Designed my wedding web site.
4. Picked out the bridesmaid dresses. Surprisingly flattering on a variety of body shapes and sizes.
5. Changed the wedding colors like five times.
6. Made my first big student loan payment. ugh. The internal struggle in my bank account goes as follows: WEDDING vs. STUDENT LOANS vs. RENT
7. Got my hair cut and suddenly the world is new again. Thanks, Chakra!
8. Went to the new Barney's in San Francisco. It is morbidly overpriced but filled with happy friendly salespeople who wanted to help me spend what little I had.
9. Ate a fantastic cheese omelette at a new (to me at least) breakfast joint--the Country Gourmet in Sunnyvale. Click here for the Yelp.com reviews. Even though I am limiting my carbs, I don't think I would be able to resist having a bite of anything served with their buttery biscuits.
10. Ordered our STD's (Save the Dates for those of you who don't live in WeddingLand). I also discovered that I LOVE LOVE LOVE letterpress invites and nothing else will do.

Ah well...I am slowly becoming more stubborn about what I want while I'm visiting WeddingLand. I started off with a "whatever as long as it's not tacky" attitude. And now I am getting more--focused. I guess that's the nice way to put it. hehehe.

A litte pre-wedding diet humor...

Courtesy of Miss Peppermint at WeddingBee.com

Destination Wedding-Why Do We Bother?

Lots of people ask me why. I was tooling around on WeddingBee.com and found this interesting post on what people really think of destination weddings. I'm experiencing some backlash from certain kuripots as well as some "once in a lifetime" excitement from friends and family who are really looking forward to our Big Day.

My reasons for wanting a destination wedding seemed to coincide with another destination bride-to-be so I decided to blog about my own reasons.

1. We wanted to keep the wedding small, and this is easy to do with a destination wedding.

2. My parents and my brother and I have never been to Hawaii and it would be fun to be there together with our closest friends and family. And honestly as the years go by and as we are all getting older and living our own lives, family vacations are going to be rare.

3. My parents would never go on vacation if I didn't force them to.

4. Even with travel expenses, it would cheaper to have the wedding in Hawaii with 60 or so guests rather than If we had the wedding in the Bay Area where the guest list could soar to 200.

5. Our friends and family are scattered throughout California and the east coast. If they're gonna travel to be at our wedding, might as well make it to a fabulous destination!

6. My grandma has never been to Hawaii and she said she would like to go before she cannot walk anymore.

7. Everytime I researched wedding venues in the Bay Area, vendor pricing and my actual budget (in light of my massive student loan debt load), I'd have a panic attack. I seriously considered eloping--many many times (something I knew I would regret later).

8. I found an awesome wedding planner who can help me stay within my budget and still have a great wedding.

9. I'd rather have a small special and memorable wedding than a big boring expensive one where everyone is in a rush to go home afterwards.

10. We aren't getting married to make other people happy, but we do want to share our happiness in celebrating the Big Day with our closest family and friends in a very special place.

And to quote meduzagirl's eloquent words: "To the poster who says that destination weddings are a pain in the ass for guests, I say: 'just don't come!'  We have a lot of friends and family who can't make it, and we are okay with that."

Image from blog.Webshots.com

The Cows Came Home---OAAAKAAAAY

Today I saw cows grazing by the 880 south bound freeway between Fremont and Milpitas. It was awesome to see them so close to all those high-tech companies and luxury car dealerships. It's so rare to see cows in the Bay Area--in south bay at least. It's like the cows went away while the dot-com-boom was going on and now they are coming home. WATCH OUT!

Note: Okay so this photo isn't really from 880. This pic is from my trip to Point Reyes, where the cows are rude. Hmph.

Meanwhile, M sent me this awesome music video for Kanye West's "Stronger" with that dude who was in Fiona Apple's video lip syncing to her song, too. Click here to see Fiona's music video "Not About Love." I guess everyone has to have a talent. Click here to see Kanye's "Stronger" music video and listen to the song that is now my official job-hunting-and-drowning-in-student-loans anthem. yay.

"Laaaalalala...wait till I get my money right. Laaaaalalala...then you can't tell me nothing right."

Good Things Come in 3's

Tagged by Twice the Rice

Random sets of 3’s:

3 things you WILL do in this lifetime:

1. Have my own business
2. Learn to drive stick-shift
3. Learn to love running/jogging

3 songs with lyrics that have made you cry:

1. In My Life (The Beatles)
2. Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones)
3. Why (Annie Lennox)

3 TV shows you enjoy watching (old or new):

1. TLC's What Not to Wear 
2. House
3. Globe Trekker

Dreams you once upon a time had, but that haven’t come true and you’re okay with that:

1. To be a doctor
2. To be tall, thin and rich
3. To learn to mountain climb

3 places you go/have been where you found a sense of peace:

1. St. Ignatius Catholic Church (San Francisco, CA)
2. Ocean Beach (San Francisco, CA)
3. Watching the donut machine at Krispy Kreme

3 minor regrets in life:

1. Not working in a more creative field
2. Not going to Las Vegas more often when I lived in L.A.
3. Not having the ultimate foodie experience when I went to Paris

3 clichés or common phrases that you tend to believe are true:

1. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
2. The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.
3. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I tag everyone who is (a) traveling to another country, (b) getting married, (c) currently attending school, or (d) desperately lacking sleep.

I passed the bar!!!

I passed!!! Weeee!!! When I found out I passed, I ran several laps around my apartment pumping my arms up and down like a choo-choo train. :)

What a relief! Ever since I started law school, the tension had been building. Even graduation from law school didn't feel like anything very significant since I had the bar exam looming in the near distance. Add that to the fact that I missed my chance at passing the California Bar Exam the first time around by 11 points. Oh the agony. I remember studying at Starbucks and the barista asking me what I was studying for and whether or not I came close to passing the first time (very nosey barista btw) and when I told her how close I came to passing she said "WHOA! I bet you cried your eyes out over that one!"

hah. well we can all laugh about it now.

Honestly, I don't think BarBri was enough for me. I may have passed again studying on my own, but I would not have been as prepared and I would definitely not have learned how to memorize huge amounts of facts and feel confident about what I know the way Essay Advantage helped me. I really needed to learn how to study and regurgitate what I learned properly. Sadly this is something I failed to accomplish in law school and college since I was so used to cramming and throwing up as much info as possible in the hopes that it would somehow stick and earn me some points. It works most of the time and sometimes it can fail you at the most important time--like the bar.

I am so glad I took the Essay Advantage class that Jeff Adachi taught this past winter. I wholeheartedly recommend that class to anybody taking the bar for the first time or for the umpteenth time.

And for everyone who has to take it again, my condolences. I don't know why California makes it so difficult to pass. It makes me very angry. And when I didn't pass the first time, I felt very alone. I didn't realize how many of my very intelligent and outspoken classmates had failed the July bar exam until the first day of the February exam. Read this blog about the talented and intelligent people who had to retake the bar exam many times and have gone on to be very successful. It made me feel a lot better.

Also, buy the flashcards and law charts that Jeff Adachi has for sale on his web site and on amazon.com. His materials will save you a lot of grief and the law charts were absolutely critical to my passing the bar this time around. And if you can afford it, take PMBR because it really is worth it. Compared to the level of preparation BarBri's program provides, PMBR is definitely in a class by itself. The first time around, I didn't do PMBR and my essays and performance tests were above the passing score for attorneys but what killed me was the MBE. Most people blow off the MBE and just focus on the essays. I say, every point counts. Especially when you only needed 11 more to pass.

Whew! So now I can go back to making pajamas and tote bags without the bar exam hovering over me. :P

So What Do You Do All Day?

I get asked this question a lot because right now I am unemployed. I graduated law school last May. Took the bar. Worked as a paralegal for a little bit. Then took the bar again. Now I am waiting for results which come out in a few days. Nobody wants to hire someone as a paralegal who might leave in a few weeks/months for a better job. And nobody wants to hire someone who may or may not pass the bar. Everybody wants a sure thing. And I am in limbo. Sigh...

With all the free time I have, I have always wondered why there are so many friggin people out in the middle of the day clogging freeways at non-rush-hour times and shopping in malls. Do all these people have the day off? Are they tourists? Graveyard shift workers? Unemployed? I know I shouldn't really care, but I do. Especially when there are no places to park in the middle of the day on a Tuesday at Safeway.

Today SFGATE had a very interesting article on just this question. You should definitely read it if you have nothing better to do right now. Like me.