Life Update

It has been awhile since my last post but life has been so crazy busy and I haven't had the chance to really catch my breath yet. Since I've brought up the transfer to my supervisor, Tony and I have started seriously looking for places to live in San Diego. It's a tedious process but hopefully the place we find will be worth it. I've always hated apartment hunting. Even when I was apartment hunting in Stockton (which me and Judy "hunted" for all of 1 day lol), nice places are definitely slim pickings if you factor in the idea of a budget. So there you go folks, when apartment hunting and work stop consuming all hours of life, I'll resume posting regular posts. I definitely have some fun posts in line including a last trip to Disneyland with some Sac lovers, Qwirkle-ing with Friends, and Fall Fashion Trends. Hope you're all doing well and I'll talk to you all soon! Toodles!

...oh oh, the damage is done so I guess I be leaving...

The damage is done. I finally emailed my district manager about transferring to San Diego. I'm crossing my fingers that all goes well. Wish me luck friends!

Note: Props to the folks who recognize the song in the title lol.

Wish me luck!

The hunt has been full of ups and downs but that hasn't stopped me from getting back on the horse. Wish me luck tomorrow friends! No matter what happens though, I'll never stop trying. Love you all for your unconditional support and have a great weekend!

Food: baco mercat, king taco

One thing I absolutely love when it comes to food is FRIED CHICKEN. Combine it with waffles and I'm literally in heaven. I recently discovered Bruxie and I thought their chicken and waffles was absolutely delicious! I think it's that coleslaw with sweet and sour sauce that puts it over the top for me (don't knock it until you try it!). I asked my coworkers what other places they would recommend for chicken and waffles and baco mercat was one of the places. Unfortunately when we went, they didn't have that on the menu :/. We ordered the Belgian Waffle anyway and it was absolutely delicious. It didn't look like anything special when we first got it but it was a tasty little sucker for sure.

decided to order some drinks for brunch: left - inca punch, right - steelhead ipa lol

the TNA - (turkey & pork belly)
consists of greens that taste like rabbit food although it contains a very tasty, flavorful sauce

the waffle

banana cream pudding

One last thing to add. We came at a slow time, right before the lunch crowd started filling up the place so we had amazing service. Our waters must've been filled at least 10 times. I'm with a camel these days so water follow-up during the service is a must. Parched customers = unhappy customers lol.



King Taco

Awhile ago, Tony and I were in Pasadena and decided to try the King Taco there. In my opinion, that place was a massive fail. I don't know how it has such great ratings on Yelp (but then again, Yelp ratings are slightly off sometimes) because personally, the one in El Monte is sooooo much better. First of all, it is way cleaner and lots more space to sit. Second, quality of the food was 10 times better. The onions were so fresh you can smell the "freshly diced onion" smell. Lastly, customer service was great. I obviously had no idea what the heck buche and saudero were before I ordered it so I asked the nice lady at the cashier what they were. She was nice enough to tell me even though it was hard for her to think of what the English translation of those meats were (it's like when someone asks you to say something in Chinese on the spot... hard when you don't know the exact words).

The buche was absolutely delicious. I looked online and it said it's supposed to be pig esophagus. Not sure that most people would like this though but I think it's one of those things you should at least try once so at least you know you don't like it lol. The worst thing that could happen is that you wasted $1.50. I happen to love the texture and tenderness of the buche. Good substitute for tripe although if King Taco started selling tripe, I'd probably be there every other day lol. The saudero tasted a little more like steak and was a little more tough. The flavor for both of the meats were very good. I'd love a little more cilantro and less onion in the future and please bring tripe to King Taco!!

left - taco de buche, right - taco de saudero plus hot sauce (sooo effing hotttt my mouth was on fire)

Happy Tuesday everyone! Only a few more days to go before the weekend! Too bad I'm working this entire weekend :/ but all you nine to fivers enjoy yourselves!

Pixar in Concert & Food Truck Festival

This last weekend my friends and I had tickets to see Pixar in Concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I love seeing shows at the bowl. The setting and sound is amazing and being there with the lover is a plus :). I kept telling Tony I was afraid I was going to cry during the Up portion and what did you know lol. It's just sooooo sad! I swear everyone around me was also sniffling... or maybe just really sweaty eyeballs?

all of us minus judy taking zee picture! photo cred: judy

intermission after sob fest 2012 during the UP portion of the show lol

Two weekends ago I went down to San Diego and Tony and I went to see The Dark Knight Rises at Cinepolis, this super fancy theatre. Instead of regular seats they have these barcaloungers and you can also order food at your seat. They have all the regular snacks/food that other theatres have while also having some actual food (sandwiches, pizza, gourmet popcorn, etc). Didn't get to take a picture of the food since the movie had already started but it was pretty good. I thought the movie was absolutely amazeballs! After the movie I was telling Tony how I thought the cinematography was amazing and I totally thought about this Foamy rant (see below, starts at 1:30). During me and Judy's time at UCLA we had this one TA that showed this to us at one of our reviews. After that day we went back to the residence halls and watched pretty much all of Foamy's videos. All of Foamy's rants are hilarious and most of them are so true!

would definitely pay extra for this... until i can afford these chairs in my own home lol

After watching the movie, we headed to the Del Mar Food Truck and Beer Festival. I didn't take many pictures because I was too busy scarfing down my food but here's one of this waffle place there was there. Super good!

After grubbing, Tony and his friends went to bet on the final race of the day. I did not bet lol. I'm just not a huge fan of gambling.

On our way home from the fair. Sunset in Del Mar. Hopefully one day this will be the view from my back yard.

For dinner we went to this Afghan restaurant in Hillcrest. I was too busy eating to take pictures but the food was actually really good. I'm not a big fan of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern food so I was hesitant about this place but Afghan food was actually pretty flavorful. I tried this lamb dish that was alright. I think I should go more for lamb chops next time because the lamb tasted more like ground meat which I don't really like. After dinner we went to Chocolat and got some ice cream and cocktails. I got watermelon ice cream which tastes just like watermelon juice! Super good and refreshing!

After the mini earthquakes we've been getting in Southern California, I get the feeling that the big one is coming :/. Anywhos, hope everyone has a great weekend! I'm so glad the weekend is finally here!

Yearly Finance Evaluation: 2012

One of the biggest worries of being in the real working world is dealing with bills. As soon as you graduate, you are pretty much inundated with bills. Testing fees, licensing fees, insurance fees, living costs, and most of all... loans. Without a job, trying to juggle paying for all these can be extremely stressful. Even with a job, the amount of money that grad students owe today can be daunting.

Last August, after I became a licensed professional and was actually bringing home some cash, I took a good hard look at my finances and tried to decide which direction I would be going, especially with paying off my loans. Obviously paying them off faster would help me avoid having to pay more in interest over time. I'm a hater of interest (I mean who likes interest? lol) and not paying things off in full every month so owing this much money bothers the crap out of me. I'm by no means a financial expert but I had to figure something out that would work for me. Here are some things I took into account when I evaluated my financial situation last year.

1. Family Financial Stability - By family stability I mean if I suddenly lost my job, would my parents be able to support themselves financially? In my case the answer to that question was a definite no. My mom is the only one working and she barely brings home enough to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. I have taken over paying for all other bills (trash, utilities, cell phone, etc). If I lost my job, we'd be struggling to keep afloat financially. In this case, I feel the best bet is to save up a good chunk of money in an emergency fund. An emergency fund is really dependent on your own spending habits so one person's emergency fund might only be $5,000 whereas another person's emergency fund might be $30,000. You want your emergency fund to be able to cover your expenses for at least 3-6 months. Of course, you don't have to save all of it up front. It's always nice to keep contributing a small amount of your paycheck to this fund so when that rainy day does come, you'll have yourself a nice umbrella. For me,  it was easier to just save it up front so I could concentrate fully on paying off my loans. Some friends of mine posted an article about this Harvard graduate that paid off all or most of his student loans in the first year he was out out of school by putting all of his income towards paying off his loans. For me, it just wouldn't be the smartest plan. If it was just my life, I would go ahead and do the exact same thing. But with my parents also thrown into the mix, the safest option is to save.  


2. Interest Rates - The first thing I considered when deciding which loan to tackle first was the interest rates. Even though the interest rates for my loans don't vary that much, I decided to tackle the ones with the larger interest rates first. For me, I wanted to start small so I went for the smallest loan amount with the largest interest rate (that would be Direct Loan - E in my chart below). My goal for this year is to finish paying off that entire loan. Just a couple more paychecks to go!


3. Know Your Limits and Be Realistic - Basically don't bite off more than you can chew and don't over or underestimate. After saving some emergency cash, I split my income into thirds. One third goes towards living expenses and credit cards, the second third goes to paying off loans and the last third goes towards savings. It's a good thing to audit yourself each month. How much of my paycheck went to credit cards and other bills? How much did I pay on my loans? How much actually went into my savings? When you do this every month, you can see whether those goals you set out are realistic. Maybe one-third towards living expenses just isn't enough and that's ok. Just adjust your budget accordingly. Maybe it was just the holidays that made you go over your living expenses budget for the month; in that case, spend a little less the following month and save a little extra to make up for the outlier event. It's a system of checks and balances that takes a lot of work to get started but once you set up a nice little spreadsheet, you just need to input the numbers and you're good to go!

Here's how the loan situation is looking a year later. I didn't knock out as much as I had wanted but considering I didn't start paying my loans until January of this year (since I spent a good chunk of last year saving up), I think I'm doing ok. Hopefully I can continue and keep paying that principal down!