a bucketful of random

i want to try to get back into the habit of posting actual entries to this blog, and by entries i mean stuff you can actually read and not just doodles.

thursday was a day filled with random surprises. i woke up at noon and started grading about 200 final exams, but since i had received a bachelor's degree in procrastination, i did not really get anything done. by thursday night, i was only done with about 1/4 of the exams.



and i still had about 150 exams more to go.



it was probably a good idea to scatter the exam papers all over my bed. that way i would not be tempted to just flop and not wake up until friday.

plenty thanks to aby and shiro for the surprise birthday present. aby got me a pair of panda socks, which fits my feet really well, and shiro got me a colorful mug that says CAFFEINE: BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS. the mug was bloody huge that it can fit twice the coffee dose i usually have per day.



for those who are curious, i did try filling up the mug with coffee and drinking the whole thing in one sitting. i turned a bit jittery afterwards and decided to not use the mug for coffee, ever.

next to the mug is a box of christmas cookies that i randomly received on thursday. i felt really special because the cookies were made personally by tsuba and was sent from alberta, canada. one of these days i will go to alberta to get a taste of her awesome cooking.

tsuba's special christmas cookies kept me companied all night while grading. by 4am, there was only one cookie left.



i received 2 early christmas card. 1 from tsuba that came with the cookies, and one more from leha.



i don't know if it was intentional, but leha sent me two identical cards. one with writings on it, and one blank. maybe i should be cheap and send the extra card back to her.

around midnight on thursday, stephanie randomly called me and asked if i wanted to get some food. since she went with me on tuesday on my midnight donut run, i thought it's only fair that i return the favor. it was an impulsive decision, but i ended up going to alerto's with her to get some tacos.

two very bright shooting stars split the sky on our way there.

i did not hear any news about there being a shower that night, but 2 shooting stars within the span of 5 minutes was plenty evidence that there might be some sort of shower going on, so we took our tacos and headed down newport coast to stargaze. it was great to finally have someone to go with me to newport coast to look at stars because at night that place is quite creepy, and the lack of street lights certainly did not help. apparently for stephanie, that was her first time seeing shooting stars, so she got excited and unleashed her inner dorkiness.

we saw about seven more stars as i ate my hulk taco and she her enchiladas. that made my night, even though i had to grade about 150 exams when i got back. i finished grading around 7 in the morning and flopped happily.