I got a job!

Starting at the end of the month, I will be a full-time employee of the East Bay SPCA (a branch of the ASPCA)! The more I think about it, the more excited I get since I will get to work with and help animals, use my office skills, be active and do something meaningful. My boss seems really cool and I was happy to be hired even though she hadn't talked to all my references and I didn't get the original position I applied for. Everything seems to be falling into place and it's a little hard to believe! I will be working 40 or so hours a week at a decent pay rate (though its less than my current job) and I have Sundays and Mondays off to work my other jobs at the Raiders and Cal Athletics. All together, that should put me on track to pay off my loan by the end of the year and put away some money for savings. I'm still not sure when I will be able to go back to Japan, but at least with a job secured, there's no doubt in my mind that I can do it. And the timing worked out great too! I get to start right after I get back from Socal so there won't be any time that I am unemployed :) I get paid bi-weekly too! That'll be great in itself! I hope this really turns out to be what I am hoping for!

Lemon Loaf!

Got home tonight a little late after a birthday dinner at Jupiter (amazing pizza and salad...and ambiance! I might go back tomorrow, lol) and decided to bake lemon loaf. I have been planning on trying to make this for at least a week and got sour cream over the weekend with the intention of making it yesterday or today. And it turned out great! I used the recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod (which I love so far!) here!

Here are some pics of my masterpiece(s)! I didn't have the right size pan but I had two smaller ones which worked out great because I can bring one to work and have one at home :P I also messed up and added the lemon juice to the wet mixture (because I didn't realize it just said lemon zest and not juice too) instead of having the lemon syrup. It still turned out great though :) I baked them about 45 mins and they turned out perfectly. I also didn't use parchment paper, but I think it depends on the type of pans you use if you will actually need it. I love the glaze though!

What a Weekend

I actually did things! Most weekends, I spend my entire two days sleeping, eating, cooking, and watching tv. But this weekend, I actually went out on Saturday AND Sunday! Saturday I spent some time in Emeryville with Cilla and her bf and then Sunday went to Daly City and the surrounding area with Miren, Sherry, and Jonathan.

Saturday started off pretty slow since I slept in until noon (even though I didn't even go out Friday night--my sleep schedule is all messed up). Around 2 or so, I made lunch and decided to try out making alfredo sauce (which is not all too difficult since I already had all the ingredients) and made spaghetti. I added some tomato sauce (canned) to the alfredo and then added in pieces of salmon that I had from earlier that week. (My boss at work was too kind and picked me up salmon from Costco earlier last week.) It ended up in a pretty delicious dish and I gave some to Cilla and Brian to try (and they agreed it was good!). After some hilarious shenanigans (which involved Brian running a particularly funny errand for the two of us), the three of us headed out to Emeryville around 5 with the intention of clothes shopping for Brian. He had no idea, so basically we ended up luring him into H&M and then throwing clothes at him to try on. Coerced him into buying 4 new shirts (though the two girls paid 3/4ths of it, lol) and then almost (key word: almost) got him to get his eyebrows threaded. LOL. But after that failure, we headed back from Emeryville with the intention of going to Safeway (even though it was almost 9pm) to get ingredients for baking and curry. Our bus broke down in the middle of the route and we had to switch to another one that took us to the other side of campus but eventually we ended up at Safeway. I made key lime pie that night (as a reward to Brian for his success earlier in the day) and they made curry which we nom'd until midnight. All in all, a fun day :)

Then on Sunday, I woke up around 10 to get picked up by Miren and Eric to go to Daly City for dim sum. Lo and Behold it was the same dim sum place I had gone to with Jennifer, Erica and Simon last month called Koi Palace. It was packed (as expected) and we ended up waiting almost TWO HOURS to get a table for 5 people. But the food was amazing and I got to get all the dishes I like so I was content. After settling into a food coma, we tried to decide what to do but it was already so late in the day that a lot of our daytime activities couldn't be carried out. Stuff closes to early on Sunday and a lot of attractions in SF aren't open late anyhow, so we had to skip the zoo or exploratorium or other things on our list. Eventually, we ended up deciding on going bowling, but I had no socks so we stopped by a HUGE Daiso across the street. The biggest Daiso I have been to in the US! Got socks and went bowling for an hour and I almost broke 100 (we didn't get to finish the last game...) but I was playing decently well considering that I didn't think I could bowl at all with my long nails (and how I broke a number of them last time I bowled almost two years ago). After bowling we got boba across the street at a place called Onyx and it was quite tasty. (I got a Tropical Colada smoothie type drink with boba which was DIVINE.) We literally hung out there for two hours trying to decide what to do next and finally decided to go to Ikea. But then we realized it closed in an hour. So it was off to the beach!

We got to the beach about an hour or so before sunset, so I took off my shoes, went down the sandy cliff and walked along the beach. The water was freezing! I got my friends to finally join me down the cliff and we wandered along the beach for a while, taking pictures and finding sea shells. I decided to randomly pick up my friend (or rather, give her a piggyback ride) and then it escalated into me picking up both of my friends bridal style and fireman style and them trying to carry each other. XD We took a lot of hilarious pictures (which are now dubbed the 'honeymoon' pictures) and the sunset we got to see was beautiful! After that, we dropped of Sherry to her house in SF and realized...we were hungry. It had been about 6 hours since dim sum so we ended up going to In N' Out. Got myself animal fries after a looong time of not eating them and they were amazing. Then Miren and I took the BART back to Berkeley, got picked up by Eric to get a ride home and finally got home around 10:30pm. After having left my apt around 12 hours earlier, I was exhausted. But still, I stayed up until around 1am doing nothing (as always) since I hadn't been online all day. Cilla and I watched True Blood (we are seriously swooning over amnesiac Eric) and then I decided to hit the hay. (Of course, I got woken up at 6am again by my roommate getting up for work sooo, I was rather sleep deprived yesterday.)

For someone who rarely goes out, the last week has just been a whirlwind! Stuff to do every night with friends so I was barely home all week. This week should be a bit more chill since I do have a couple nights off but I probably won't be doing much cooking or baking this week due to time constraints.

Upcoming Posts...

• Experience studying abroad in Japan
• Plans for the future!
• Favorite Makeup 
• Nail of the Week
• Sites I am obsessed with
• Outfit of the Day
• Update my 'About Me' and 'Snaps' portion XD

Job Hunting!

As it is halfway through Summer, Spring o' 2011 grads are either preparing for graduate school, taking time off to travel, doing internships or DUN DUN DUNNN...looking for a 'real' job. There are a good number of people I know who haven't worked any jobs during the duration of their college years and a couple have asked me for help with their resumes, cover letters or job hunting itself. It's not that I'm particularly great at finding or getting jobs but I have had a number more interviews and applications than some of my fellow graduates. (So far...job interviews: 8, jobs gotten: 6..not a bad percentage. The other two I was totally out of my league on anyhow.) Right now I'm working 4 part-time jobs, though three out of four are VERY part time (once every week or two) and the fourth is almost full-time (30+hours a week). But my full-time (almost) campus job ends next month so I'm looking for a new day job (most of my other part-time jobs are in the evenings/weekend). I've had two years of office experience so I'm looking to go into some kind of admin/office work or possibly ticket sales if I can get a job at a theater (that does concerts or shows, not a movie theater XD) since I have also done clerk/sales work for two years as well. So we'll see! I am applying for jobs basically every other day whenever something shows up on Craigslist, the Berkeley Careers page, or any of the theaters I'm interested in working at locally.

So here are a few tips that can be useful when job hunting, applying and interviewing! (from my own personal experience, may or may not prove useful <.< That's a disclaimer!)

• Based on your skill set (work with computers, knowledge of other languages etc), use the 'job type' option on CL to see jobs that are outside of your main city. Sometimes they might just be a city over and commuting to a worthwhile job isn't all that bad. Also, the 'gigs' page on CL can be useful to find part-time work as a personal assistant, gardener, petsitter etc. 
• Most of these job finding websites will NOT prove to be that useful. I haven't gotten any luck with any big companies using sites such as monster.com, BUT if you know some companies you might be interested in working for, just go to their main site and apply there! If they are not hiring or do not have a 'careers' page, send them an email to get your foot in the door and express your interest for when they are. 
• Ask around! Friends in the right places can definitely be beneficial and lucky in the search for getting a job. Some people might have seen ads around town that a place is hiring or know someone who is looking for more employees. That is how I found my fourth job through my work supervisor! 
• Find and keep good connections with your work references. If they are bosses you have worked with, I hope your time at their company ended well! For personal references, teachers/professors or any group you have volunteered with before could prove useful. Make sure to drop them a line and let them know that you are using them on your resume if they are ever contacted. 
• Have your resume prepared and updated any time you are job searching. If you find a job you want to apply for right away, then you have nothing holding you back!
• Create a universal cover letter with a 'general' outline of your quality attributes and what would make you suited to work for a company. Chances are, they will be looking for similar qualities for no matter what job you are applying and you can rather easily edit parts to include their job description, your interest in it etc. Then you don't have to type up a new cover letter every time you are applying for a different job that requires one.
• Don't be afraid to talk yourself up! Don't discredit yourself by not listing all the things you have done (but don't add too much fluff -irrelevant info-!) in certain job positions or any promoted statuses you may have received. If you have had leadership positions in any form, employers want to see that! 
• If you have a lot of volunteer experience, use that in the 'Additional Work/Volunteer Experience' portion of your resume. You don't have to go 10 years back to your work at the Summer Library Program when you were in middle school, but any club or organization that you were a part of for an extended amount of time (I would say 6months+) will make you seem like you weren't lazing about all those years in school. 
• Dress well for an interview. For men, a business suit attire is appropriate. Women can wear either a pant suit or nice skirt with blouse. Jeans and flip-flops are never appropriate. If the interview seems like it will be casual, still wear something more dressed up than shorts and a T-shirt. 
• If there are things you can prepare for before interviewing, do so! If you are applying to work for a company that you aren't too familiar with, do your research and find out their main policies, what they are known for and how you can fit what they are looking for and be an asset to their team. Depending on the position, they will ask you questions like (ex. customer service position), 'What was the best and worst customer service you ever received?' Getting asked a question like that on the spot can take a while to think of an answer for! Also, think of 3 adjectives to describe yourself. That shows up in a lot of random interviews. 
• Make sure to let your possible employer know what day you can start work and what your hours are. Getting hired means nothing if you end up with shifts you can't work because you didn't discuss it previously. This can also be mentioned in your cover letter to clarify beforehand. 
• If pay is not brought up, don't hesitate to bring it to the table. It is rather important after all! Ask if there is a starting wage/hourly rate/salary and if it increases, if you are working in a restaurant, ask how much percentage in tips you will receive, etc.
• Ask about your company's dress code and what you will be expected to wear to work every day. If it turns out they are supplying you with a uniform, great! But if you suddenly need business casual attire for every day of the week and are unprepared, that can get costly. 
• Make sure to address your interviewer by name and make sure they know YOUR name by the end of the interview. Chances are, they could be your new supervisor and you want to establish a good relationship and make a good impression on whatever company employees you encounter. 
• Show personality! Don't be nervous and get afraid to be yourself. Just be friendly and outgoing, but also, make sure to be polite, well-spoken and informed before you just show up.

I'm pretty sure there are a number of things I have forgotten but I will add them in as I remember :) 

Things I am EXCITED about

• Going home to see my best friend at the end of August
• The prospect of getting a good job after Summer
• 2NE1's new album!
• Super Junior comeback (maybe soon?)
• Starting anew with people after Summer (one person in particular)
• Potential karaoke-ing on my computer!
• Urban Decay's 15th Anniversary Palette 
• Zoya's Smoke and Mirrors collections (and possible promo!)
• Salmon for lunch tmrw!

Beginning of a Busy Week

Actually, we are nearly halfway through! Monday and Tuesday were both rather busy, so in comparison, today was more relaxed. Had only four hours of work in the day time, then came home and figured out how to use my Logitec mic so I can karaoke off my computer. One of my bosses also bought me salmon from Costco! LOL. Lounged around for a little bit and then went out to dinner with 3 of my girlfriends at my favorite local Italian restaurant called Giovannis. I am basically a regular there since I go about once every two weeks so the waiting staff is very familiar and friendly with me. I always get an extra bag of free bread to take home and 'my' waiter (who has served me almost every time I've gone in the last 6 months) is always a great server and fun to talk to. Funny thing is, I almost thought he was going to ask me out today.

When we were sitting around after finishing our meal, my friends started implying that I should ask him out. He is cute, nice and seems like an all around good guy, so they kept saying that they thought we had 'chemistry' and such. Haha. I'm not sure how much of that is true but it did get me thinking. Then as we were about to leave, I was in the back of the pack of my friends and he asks 'so what are you doing this weekend?' Rather odd, right? I told him I was planning on spending time with my friend (one of the girls with me) who is in town and he didn't really persist. Then I apologized for a rather rude/insensitive comment that the guy I had brought to that restaurant the last time I was there (2 weeks ago) had said that I thought might have offended the waiter. I had to restate what my guest had said and he was like, 'oh no, it's fine. He was a cool guy,' and then we kind of left it at that. I told him I'd see him next time and went to join my friends who had ditched me the second that he had started talking to me to 'give us privacy.' Though nothing happened, who knows if anything down the line will!

Anywho, I ended up making a batch of Snickerdoodle cookies since we are having a Harry Potter viewing party tmrw before going to the midnight premiere. Also made enough to bring to work and let my roommate take some to her work place too.

 

THREE containers full of cookies! Red for my roommate, green for the movie tmrw and the top for my workplace. 

All in all, a very good day. :)