let me tell you how nice it is to work half days.  i would love to go to work if i knew it was only for four hours and with nice clients.  i had a doctor's appointment this morning and took the morning off because i wasn't sure how long it would take at the doctor's and to get the lab work done.  it was fabulous to sleep in and not rush around in the morning.  when i got to work, it flew by since i was there for 4.5 hours.  the icing of the cake was i worked with my really nice clients.  what a fabulous day.

i so appreciate my nice clients that much more after dealing with a creep and some really mean clients.  thankfully, the creep has left me alone but i still get antsy walking to and from my car since my work decided not to pay for the parking garage.  i know this is mean, but i sometimes hope he would get arrested soon so i can have some peace of mind.  i suppose that creep and my mean client yesterday makes me grateful for the wonderful clients that i have gotten to know and build a good therapeutic relationship.  i have to remind myself that i have to pay my dues now before i move on private practice.

thanks to those who listened and offered their support and advice on what to do.  i appreciate it.

i nearly lost my mind when i saw gas was $3.79.  i remember flipping out at $3.49 a few months ago.  other than my student loans, gas will now be my biggest expense each month.  thankfully, i have a job that pays enough so far but if gas continues to go up, i'm going to have to rethink my spending to allot enough money for my long commute to work.  here i am making more than minimum wage, worrying about paying for gas to get to work when there are people on minimum wage trying to make ends meet.  is it even worth going to work making $7 an hour when gas is that expensive?  i really don't know what i would do if i was in that situation and thankfully i'm not.  i swear everything has gone up in price and have definitely cut down on my spending on random things compared to last year this time.  here's hoping the economy and/or my pay gets better.

my mom's been so annoying about asking me about what i think about john's friend.  she's convinced that john was trying to set jason and me up.  so not the case.  john invited a few of us down to hang out after his big test.  i get so frustrated when she asks about it.  i think she's worried that i won't find a guy to marry and heaven forbid won't have grandchildren to spoil.  in due time mom.  i'm just following cousin dien's and nga's footsteps by marrying late that's all!

finally it feels like spring.  love it!

have faith.

just thinking of ong today.  we miss you, i miss you.  hope we're all making you proud.

have faith.

not quite sure why, but i am just not my typical "this is my birthday month, yay me" mindset this year.  i was actually a little down the past week for various reasons.  not sure if i'm going through a twenty something mini crisis.  i normally don't freak out about age or living by people's time lines of what i should be doing/accomplishing at a certain age.  heaven knows i busted my parents' time line of getting married and popping out kids years ago.  just been pondering a lot of things in my life, the good and the bad, and what is in store for me next.  i think all this self-reflecting, stress from work, stress about finding a place to live that will please both vic and i, and feeling subpar made me wish i could swipe a few samples of lexapro at work.  kidding.  i do feel my mood has improved greatly since midweek due to improved weather, improved productivity, and improved skin.  now if only all those things could keep improving.

all i really want for my birthday and in life is to feel happy.  not so much to ask for, right?

i'm curious of what are people's definitions of lying is.  according to my dictionary on my desk (yes, i actually own one) it is to "speak falsely, have a deceitful appearance".  i had my fair share of lies the past three years and have to admit i've done some lying on my own.  i don't lie often but when i do they are often of the white lie realm.  i would never lie to betray family and friends.  i've definitely curbed back on the white lies because why say something i don't mean just to be polite?  for example, if i didn't like someone's outfit and was asked what i thought about it, i would say the outfit is fabulous.  now, i try not to say anything or change the subject if i don't have a good relationship with that person.  if i'm close to that person and depending on the matter, i'll give my two cents.  still not sure if that's a good or bad thing to do.  i believe a relationship i had with someone suffered greatly due to lies and my upfront talks.  i refuse to put on a facade that things are ok when they're not and tell things for what it is.  i'm not sure if it's my stubborness or self righteous getting in the way.

i believe not saying anything is also a form of lying.  according to the quoted definition, not saying the truth and pretending everything is ok is lying.  that's how i interpret it anyway.  so that brings me to my point of this rambling.  is lying ok when it is to spare someone's feelings and maintain the status quo with someone?  i can see why someone would avoid telling someone the truth.  from my experience, it changes everything about the relationship.  do i regret anything about being vocal about the truth?  no, the only thing i regret is the lack of relationship that is present.  it's hard to say lying is a bad thing when there are so many variables and situations that may or may not benefit from it.  for me, i do not tolerate lying.  a white lie here or there from myself or my family and friends, i can let slide as long as it wasn't hurtful to anyone involved.  i'm not here to say that i'm the lie enforcer because i wrote i do occasionally lie about liking certain foods or an article of clothing but i would not lie to hurt or betray someone.  it's just a standard i set for myself or for the people i have relationships with.

i am going to miss my apartment a lot.  saw another apartment this weekend and the counter space in the bathroom is so tiny.  the counter space i have now is so spacious compared to most bathrooms i saw.

happy birthday, dad!

have faith.

happy birthday to bill, jason, sarah, and me!  it's cool that i had the same birthday as three of my friends from back home.  i found out jason and i had the same birthday my second year at osu.  he finally figured out the time he was born and like i said from day one, i am older than him.  mucho thanks for the cards, calls, and text messages today.

my phone is so lame that the vibrate function does not work anymore.  i hate hearing my ringer because i jump every time i hear it.  not sure why i'm so jumpy but anyway, it's annoying i can't use my vibrate function anymore.  i suppose it's a good thing i turned my phone off last night since i went to bed rather early.  i would've been awoken around midnight several times.  it was nice to see the messages and hear the voicemails from family and friends wishing me a happy birthday at midnight.  it's nice to know family and friends remember!

my dad's talk to me is so funny.  he calls and says happy birthday and then follows with "you know today's a historical day, right?  it's the pope's birthday and they celebrated i think today in DC.  it's also the one year anniversary of the virginia tech shootings.  it's definitely a big day!"  that's basically for verbatim what my dad said to me today.  he's so goofy and i can't help but laugh at what he says sometimes.

note to self- NEVER EVER buy a LG phone again.

have faith.

hope you all did your taxes and turned them in a timely manner.  i did my federal and state in march and finished my city tax last night.  i was contemplating skipping the city tax all together since it came out to a whopping zero dollars but figured i better file a return to be on the safe side.  the plus side of working outside the county i live in is paying no city tax, not that it would've amounted to much. 

went apartment hunting all day saturday.  i must admit i was a brat by complaining about my current apartment when i first saw it.  i didn't like the location or the look of it.  i still don't like the location but have come to deal with it.  i guess i was just having a hard time coping with the fact that the apartment was brand spanking new or that i had to go to a laundry building attached to my apartment building.  it was also hard for me to go from living at my cousin's nice house to a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment.  was i being a spoiled brat?  absolutely.  i just couldn't understand why people who have come to our apartment said it was so nice.  i kept saying it was "eh". 

that thought changed real quick after looking at a handful of apartments.  the first one vic and i looked at had the tiniest closet i have ever seen.  there was no way i could fit a third of my clothes in the closet.  i even considered getting a rolling clothing rack but would not have the room in my room for it.  i know vic likes the apartment a lot but i'm iffy about how to store my clothes.  all the apartments vic and i looked at didn't have a washer dryer in the apartment which sucks.  some had a "laundry facility" which usually consisted of one dryer and one washer for the entire complex.  my apartment has two washers and two dryers for every 6 apartments.  there was one apartment that i really liked because it had big rooms and big closets.  the only bad thing i see is that it would make my one commute about an hour long.  i definitely come to appreciate my huge room, big closet, personal bathroom, laundry facility, and nice neighbor that i got to know while living where i'm at currently.  i definitely took for granted all that i have now and will miss it when i move this summer.

work still gets me down.  if only i didn't have to worry so much about productivity or some of my entitled clients requesting i do this or that for them.  it just makes me not excited about work.  thankfully, today was really busy to make up for my lack luster day yesterday.  here's hoping to a busy week so administration can lay off me for a bit!

so in the last entry i wrote about how i was excited about my birthday gift to myself.  i was extremely excited to get them and wear them asap since i thought i wouldn't need to get them hemmed since they are petite jeans.  wrong.  the petite jeans were still too long for me and now i have to get them hemmed.  it's pretty sad when petite jeans are still too long for me.  i knew i was short but didn't think i was that short.

time for bed!

have faith.

i can't wait till this week is over.  i had my behind handed to me by work this week and can't wait to go running from my office tomorrow afternoon.  i'm not sure if i'm just tired of administration, tired of dealing with some very needy and/or mentally severe clients, tired of not being paid what i should be for the amount of work that i do, fatigued in general since it's my time of the month, or a combination of all the above things.  i had a meeting with my sup on tuesday about productivity since i had not met my goal since january.  to my defense, february was a short month, a took a few days off, and there were two days when the weather sucked and no one came in.  for march, i was out for basically for a week due to weather, illness, and taking a few days off because i had to.  my sup ran the report and found that for the third quarter, i was about 15 hours short of where i should be.  it wasn't as bad as i thought it would be due to the various reasons i listed above.  i then asked her about double booking and she told me not to worry about it which i definitely won't.  i had another meeting with her today and she saw that i am busy and joked she will lay off me for awhile.  thank goodness because it was starting to really get to me hearing about how my productivity has been off the last two months. 

i was talking to shuk about it the other day and was venting about work.  any month i take vacation i will be short in productivity hours.  there is no way i will work 50+ hours a week when i get back to make up for those vacation hours.  how is it a vacation if i have to somehow have to make up the hours i took off?  there are some therapists that work 40+ hours and do meet productivity and bonuses.  i'm just not one of them because one, i do enough work; two, i need a break from it or i'll go screaming out of my office soon; and three, i don't get paid enough to work 40+ hours.  being salaried sucks.

i have mad respect for my mom and missy and anyone else who works 11+ hours.  i worked yesterday from 9am-8pm.  i was annoyed i had to go back to the main office to do the evening divorce group after my normal work day.  i was in no mood to do it because one, i hate divorce groups and two, i had a killer migraine.  i plowed through it so i could go home and go straight to bed.  i'm not sure how my mom works 12 hour days some days but give her a lot of credit for doing it so often.  i did it one day and am now whining about it.  props to missy for working 12 hour days on wednesday and all weekend to help support her family.  here are two women who work their butts off all the time without much complaint and here i am whining after ONE 11 hour day.  they are much better women than i am.  i suppose i wouldn't complain so much if i didn't have a killer migraine last night.  when i got home, i popped some pills, took a nap till 10, showered, and went back to sleep.  i'll complain again in june after my next 11 hour day.

since i've been so blah lately, i treated myself to an early birthday present.  do i need another pair of jeans?  of course not, but it was sign that i HAD to buy them because i found a coupon code and they were in my size.  i justified the purchase by telling myself i deserve them because it's my birthday month, i was helping the economy, and i finally found a petite pair in my size which is a rarity.

nice to FINALLY talk to steve since he's been MIA.  he called to inform me squirrel touch 2008 started a few days ago.  caught up with him about what's been going on and his life.  it's nice to know steve will actually call me to keep me posted on important matters such as squirrel touch 2008.

till next time.

have faith.

went to a couples in conflict workshop yesterday in cleveland.  i was looking forward to it because lately i've been doing more couples therapy which i hate doing for a couple of reasons.  one, i'm not trained to do couples therapy, i'm trained to do individual.  two, couples therapy usually don't last long because i'm generally direct with the couples.  it usually happens in this order-i tell the couples what i think or what i see is as the problem and the couples never return after that session. 

a co-worker went with me and it was nice to have a familiar face at the workshop.  the presenter was really good and entertaining enough to keep me awake throughout the workshop.  it probably helped that i was eating candy every half hour.  i learned a lot about how affairs and how to help couples resolve through that if they choose to work on the relationship.  there were some annoying people at the workshop who would ask dumb questions or present irrelevant scenarios.  my co-worker and i would exchange looks that said omg, won't that person shut up so the presenter can continue with his workshop?  i also felt smart because some of the techniques the presenter talked about were things i already used in my couples therapy.  it just made me feel like i wasn't totally screwing things up in session and that somewhere in my scatter brained thinking, i'm doing something right.

i also networked with other therapists there and found a few to be in private practice.  i definitely asked a lot of questions about it because that's where i want to be in the near future.  i know i've been uberly stressed with work the past month to the point where i just don't want to get out of bed to go to work.  it's not necessarily the work that gets to me but all the politics behind working at a community agency.  i understand that it's a business and the hours i bill are what makes my work run, but don't shove it down my throat everytime i have meet with my supervisor and administration.  it's just discouraging when the only thing the administration looks at is my schedule and freaking out on me because of last week's higher than normal cancellation rate.  sorry if my clients get sick, have to work, or don't have gas to come to appointments.  argh!  maybe i just had a bad work month and things in april will pick up so administration will get off my back about productivity.

i just hope things get better at work.  even though i haven't worked a full work week in three weeks, it just seems to drag each day.  i just remember when i used to like going to work.

just my luck.  i finally get the acne treatment i want and my face is starting to clear up a little.  i'm not sure if it's because i'm weaning myself off the sucky treatment i was on or if jessica's products are helping.  maybe i'm more calm now that my friend's visit is over.  i was stressed about finding things to do, finding places to eat, and etc. etc.  i will cry at the doctor's if i go in and find out i can't get my treatment because my skin improved.  i should stress out more or not use some products to insure that won't happen.  am i slightly crazy to do this?  absolutely because i never ever want to get acne again.

on a more positive note, i really love the spring weather.  it just makes me more tolerable to work having the sun fill my office with light and warmth.  i also love how it gets dark around 8 now.  there is nothing i don't like about spring.

have faith.

it's nice to know that nancy still cares about me despite the hell i gave her when we were little.  (in my defense, i got in trouble for not playing with her so that turned me off from her a lot.  now that i want to hang out and talk to her, she's too busy for me.  karma's great!)  anyway, she and i caught up a little today and she was concerned about my new acne treatment because it does have some severe side effects such as depression and some suicidal thoughts.  she said i must call her to make sure i'm ok once i start taking it to make sure i didn't off myself or something like that.  if that wasn't enough, she hooked me off with some skin care treatment to try since my current treatment does not work.  if that's not cousin love, i don't know what is.

have faith.

it's weird how there are a million things/topics i want to blog about recently and for whatever reason, i end up not updating as i should for my faithful few.  i notice i tend to blog more when i have really nothing of major importance.  i'll work on blogging more frequently because i hate not documenting thoughts or events for me to look back 4 years from now and think what a dumb ass i was at the time.

i finally got sick.  real sick.  i have to thank my lovely brother for infecting me with his crazy cold.  the cold knocked me out and i for the first time ever called off work on thursday.  some of my clients were so thoughtful that it reminded that work doesn't suck all the time.  when some of my afternoon clients found out i was feeling ill when they called in to check their appointment times, they canceled their appointments so i could rest that hour.  bless their hearts because on that wednesday, i was slowly falling apart towards the end of the afternoon.  i think i went to bed every single night at 9:30pm and don't remember the last time i went to bed that early.  i must note vic also got everyone in my family except for scott sick.

went to my derm appointment with the new doctor this tuesday and i am finally getting the treatment i want.  yes, vinh, i will get to know ipledge real well the next 5 months starting in may.  i am not looking forward to some of the side effects, monthly blood work or pregnancy tests, but i'm at the point where i will do just about anything to clear up my skin.  i have a better feeling about this doctor since she seems to really listen to my concerns and actually looked at my skin.  can't wait to start looking more like my old self again.

speaking of skin treatments, i got a package from jessica on thursday.  on the box it said liquid so i guessed it might be something liquidy from texas since she was just there for a visit.  i opened it up and in it was a ton of acne skin care products from aveda.  i talked to her about how bad my skin has gotten and how self-conscious i've become because of my acne.  she really listened to my pressing problem, took me seriously instead of saying something like it's acne, get over it, and hooked me up with products.  i teared up looking at each product because it was such a thoughtful thing for her to do.  hopefully, the products will help lessen the acne i have since i won't be able to start my other treatment till may.  speaking of good friends, mary sent me a useful link about skin care.  i am really fortunate to have the friends that i have.

i had a friend come visit me for a few days.  i had some anxiety and mixed feelings about it because of how some people feel about him and because i haven't spent more than 2 days with him before this visit.  turned out the visit went really well and i had a really fun time with him.  there wasn't a ton of things to do in the area, but we managed to keep busy and have fun doing random things.  i was surprised i wasn't annoyed or irritated with him after 2 days but found myself really enjoying his company.  i don't know what will come of this visit and all i can do really is wait and see.  it was just a nice change of pace for me recently with work and everything else that is going on to hang out with someone that can take my mind off things for a bit.  not quite sure when i'll see him next but i'll be anxious to see how that goes.

that's about it for now.  i must also note i am number 1 in two bracket groups that i am participating in this year.  it feels so good to be the top spot.  i just need unc to win to guarantee that i'll finish first in my two groups.

have faith.

i chose not to wear green today because i didn't not feel like partaking in the office festivities of wearing green and paying $3 to wear jeans.  just wasn't in the festive mood when i woke up this morning.  i've been lax with updates so i thought i just summarize what has happened.

-work has been brutal.  i got reamed by two parents for not doing a good job changing their kids.  well, changes can't happen if the environment isn't conducive to positive change.  got reamed by the doctor for referring him a client who is on benzos.  he basically did not want any client referrals who refused therapy and is on benzos.  i asked if i should tell clients that they weren't going to get any meds if they were already prescribed that and the doctor said yes.  i was not comfortable with telling clients they weren't going to get certain meds because one i'm not a doctor.  i told my sup who told her sup who talked to doctor's sup.  i can't wait till i see that doctor again!  then on friday, i found out i was snowed by a client and she has been telling me a bunch of lies since i started seeing her in january.  i could not wait for the weekend.

-speaking of work, it's been one year at my job and boy does it seem like i've been there forever.

-a blizzard hit ohio march 7-8th.  pics of the snow are posted on my other site.  it was one of the most stressful drives home i ever had. it took me an hour and a half to drive home when it normally takes me 45 minutes.  the roads were so sloppy and slick.  going to church on saturday was a real treat.  vic's car kept sliding and we had so much trouble finding parking since snow was everywhere and we couldn't make it uphill to the church parking lot.

-i was given Buddha by a client since i'm asian and did not have one displayed in my office.  the statue was gross because it had yellow junk all over it but it's the thought that counts, right?

-there are nice, honest people in this crazy world.  i was so flustered after being yelled at by two parents last week that i forgot my wallet on top of the tomatoes.  you may be thinking why don't i carry a purse so i don't lose my wallet.  well, i throw my wallet in my work bag and when i stop by the grocery stores after work, i don't like to carry my work bag in since it's so big and heavy.  i was just so stressed and flustered that i totally forgot my wallet as i went to get a plastic bag to put my tomato in.  i was in line and patted my coat to find my wallet to pay for my groceries.  i had a real sick feeling when i couldn't feel my wallet and did not find it in my basket.  i ran back to the tomato bin and did not find it there.  i went to customer service to ask if a wallet was turned it and learned that no wallet was found.  i started to put away all my groceries trying to think of all the things i would need to replace and card companies to call to freeze my account when i heard over the intercom "the customer who reported a missing wallet please go to aisle 6".  i ran over to aisle 6 and grabbed my wallet.  i opened it up and checked it to see if anything was taken.  everything was still there thankfully.  if i saw the person who found my wallet, i would've tackled that person in a bear hug for being such an honest person.

-went to columbus for the day to hang out with jessica before she moved.  i'll miss her so much.  it was good to see ken since it's been over a year.  he took me to a cool tea place which will be our place to hang out when i'm in town.  john and deanna made me feel so welcome in their home and i slept on the most comfy pillow at their house. 

happy birthday, nick!

so that sums up what has been happening in my life.

have faith.