it's about time

4:44 a.m. nikki sp
[written may 24, 2009, but placed after my cali 08 trip... as i had written this after i reflected on my cali 08 trip... try to follow]


this entry may be very confusing considering its placement after my cali 08 entry. but this references my cali trip in may 09. i still gotta get through my mexico xmas before i detail this pivotal cali visit. but i may as well get this out there.


having come fresh off my weekend getaway to cali, i am pretty anxious to live a better, brighter lifestyle along the pacific coast. i told myself - yeah, not a big deal. i'll just move there in october and coast.
but i have worked hard to save all my money, i don't necessarily wanna blow it just to be able to live the life of a burnout. i know my mom would help support me but i'd rather not take advantage of that unless i'm feeling like a total bum.

anyway, so here are some thoughts:

- go there as a visitor, live there for a bit and try to get work under the table
- eventually get an internship visa, try to blow my internship away and then hope to get hired
- go to school for graphic design/copy writing or hospitality and tourism managementy things and then see what i can do with that/get my masters in some sort of communications theory program
- move to australia and do my working holiday visa, get some work experience under my belt and enjoy the aussie summer during n.a. winter whilst i figure out my cali plans
- marry an american
- hope that my mom becomes a lawful permanent resident and can file a petition for me to come over
- do a 6 month internship in cebu, hopefully transfer to a u.s. office
- go on a bachelor-type show and win and get married
- see if josh can sponsor me as an employee...

ahh this is getting exhausting to think about right now

ok i just thought of something
- my friend asa worked there last summer for a couple of months. i will talk to her about how she was able to do that and perhaps follow her steps... i like that option.

also in terms of living situation, this is where i would be looking: silver lake, echo park, los feliz, glendale and in surrounding areas.
i would really need to live with at least 2 other roomies, ideally live in a huge house with 4. and i'd need to have some dude roomies to balance it out. and possibly introduce me to some suitors that can help me legally work in the states.

in the meanwhile, there are A LOT of things to figure out.
i HAVE TO learn how to drive. it is imperative to get that under my belt befoer i head to such a auto-centric city.
i would have to get my gre if i want to go to usc. so i would have to book a prep course as well as book and take the actual course.
i have to remember what it was like to live in sydney and scrape by. i will for sure need a good microwave and sandwich toaster.
i will also have to get a car. and see what i can do about a bike situation.
i will need to get an iphone. yep, it's a must. hopefully they will have a sexy new model by then.
also, i gotta cut back on my current expenses. not like i have much that i blow money on regularly. but i gotta be conscious about my habits. i am very fortunate that i dont have to worry about food for the next while cuz of craft and catering. but i am gonna have to remember that once i'm outta my job, it will be something that i need to budget in.


...so much of this will have to be taken care of by mommy at first. i am lucky. i hope i dont break too much bank.
i really gotta get serious about this by august. hopefully have a lot of this figured out in july. i really don't wanna rush it. i really don't wanna burn out. but i feel like that is where i need to be. if only i pursued acting seriously. i could get my agent to take care of my visa... sigh.


i need to talk to my mother about getting back onto her health care plan. scary. well i guess i would still count as an ontario resident until the us gov says otherwise. but when i leave my job, i lose my benefits.

what do i do with all of my furniture??? i would love to take it across the continent. at least my bed, my desk, my wardrobe, my tv/computer. the couch i can do without for the moment. but i love all that other shit. i need to investigate that.
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august 31st-september 1, 2008: la la laaa part

2:16 a.m. nikki sp
lemme try to get into the right mindframe for this. it is so tricky considering i had been to l.a. since...

let's see..

ok, so post the loft party with lotsa pot and weird videos, mikey had a chill sunday.
in attempts to nurse our hangover, we went to korea town and had some k-food. now having been in to korea, you'd think we'd be less ignorant about eating practices.
not so much.

they erve whole fish bone-in, head attached and everything. now this shouldn't be a surprise to me with my savage filipino roots and everything, but it is still very awkward to eat. mikey fared alright with this, but i struggled.

i also struggled at their feeble attempt to serve me 'rice soup'. ie taking the remnants of rice in our stone pot and pouring hot water in it and stirring it. i know asians are resourceful but please. when i order a burger, i don't mix around the lettuce that has spilt out with the rest of the drippy condiments and call it a salad. amirite?!

mikey took me to the americn apparel factory store and i was pretty stoked at all the sexy discounts and samples. it makes it very hard to shop at aa back at home cuz i'm pretty much paying double. it's also pretty cool just seeing the factory that all these clothes come from. i can imagine many parts of asia look like that. like, with the sweat shops and all. although this wasn't quite a sweatshop. despite all the mexicans that were chillin out. im sure they were legitmately employes and all.

also, i love fro yo and wish there was a greater abundance of froyo bars here. it makes total sense. it's healthy. and you get awesome flavours.

for example, at yogurtland you can choose however many flavours you want and whichever toppings you want and it's all $.30 an ounce! brilliant! i can deal with expensive sushi when yogurt comes so cheaply. yeah, i could live on fro yo for every meal of every day.

now later that eve mikey took me to this communist party that his school friends were holding sort of to celebrate labour day. i think they were mixing themes a little bit, but i love theme parties so i wasnt going to argue. after all, red colours a lot of my wardrobe.

now this party felt very american, ironically enough, considering it was supposed to be commie. i think there were a lot of crashers first of all. but it felt like an american party style house party where everyone was having their last big bang before heading back to school and whatever.


naturally, my contribution to this party was punch.

so we got some vodka in there to be thematic and commie.










and then we got the wine in there, for colouring and class







it would've been really irresponsible of us to create a bev without and nutritional value. so of course, we added some sunny d.









this was the result. it tasted as good as it looks. and like communism, it's great in theory. but when executed...


so yeah, this was a pretty good rager but i couldn't help feeling like i was cramping mikey's style. i tried making some of my own friends, and i think i was relatively successful with erin and carlos and robby, but i will always just be juan's (mikey's real name) cousin to them.

overall, good trip. i think it was the first time i tried being a local there. every other time i spent the majority of my days in orange county... and there is no question of living the local lifestyle there because it's suburbia and it's essentially like living in the burbs anywhere. but since i did get to see the lifestlye my cousin lives, it made me feel a little inadequate about my life in toronto. yeah i had it alright, my own apartment in the annex and a pretty good job. but like, it made me feel really average. and really set the ball rolling in terms of me considering a big move to la la land.
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august 27-30th, 2008: la la laaa part 1

9:56 a.m. nikki sp
ok ok. so this is me catching up about my trip to l.a. right before we started shooting the hollywood special episodes for degrassi.

i remember being at odds with this trip because i had just spent some time in ecuador and was really into the whole being a good person thing.
so when i caught up with keya and met her friend sneha, and did some shopping with them in beverly hills... it was tricky having to not blow all my money. and justify spending $50 on lunch at the ivy.

anyway. it started like usual - spending a day or 2 at huntington beach. because why not, it's a good beach. i think i just body boarded all day. blah blah blah. that's not what this blog is about. my daily routine...

let's remember the fun stuff...

so it began when my cousin mikey picked me up. we hung out at huntington for a bit before heading to l.a.

let me discuss my cousin for a little bit and provide somewhat of a background of our family...
a year before, pretty much to the day i discovered my aunt lily and mikey's father hated me. they thought so lowly of me and didn't believe i should hang out with my cousins because my terrible attitude would invariably influence them in the worse way possible.
my uncle was not keen on the fact that i left some booze for my cousin when i was there in 06... when mikey was still not able to drink. he thought i was the one who forced booze on him, when mikey had done far worse. even worse than i. thanks uncle, but your son only has himself to hold accountable for his sins. whatever. every family needs a scapegoat.
also, i discovered that my aunt hated me because i dated. yeah. that's it. she hated that i got involved with guys instead of focusing on my education. uh yeah, i graduated with honours, got 3/4s of my education covered by scholarships. but because i knew 'how to live with boys' (that's the way she chose to call me a slut), none of that mattered; i was a terrible person.
so yeah, i found this out when i got back from australia. august 07. i tried getting in touch with my cousin during that time too, but he never got back so i figured it was his father's influence. blah blah blah, esther and i became better friends after this, much to our relatives' chagrin. it really helped my realize how smart esther was, not even just loyal. i, like the rest of our family, underestimated how independent minded she is. i thought she could be easily swayed by them. but she and i were besties since birth pretty much, and i think she resented the fact that everyone thought she was spineless.

anyway, fastforward to this time, august 08. i brought this whole deal up with mikey and he had no idea. mikey was pretty much living his whole life, but it was great that he took the time to hang out with me.

so yeah, more about him... he studies at this small private architecture school, lives in his own loft in little tokyo. had to get a new car because he had totalled his other one. oh yeah, he is the only other only child in the san pedro family.

so, when we got back to the city, we did a pick up, and smoked on his friend's rooftop. holy shit. i felt very small city all of a sudden. and that these people were too hip. but also, i was struggling with smoking the gourd. i eventually got a good enough hit and tripped out hard and fast. the sun was setting and i felt like it was burning through my soul. i thought i was gonna pass out but was too embarrassed to do that in front of everyone. i was also worried about falling off the edge, even though i was nowhere near it. the rooftop patio was HUGE. and i was also hungry. so once i felt calm enough, i got my cousin to take us to get food. we wanted japanese. bad idea.
i tripped again.
all the foreign script... the cold of the grocery store... the weird food... i had to stop and stare at bread for a bit so i could look normal.
i read that loaf of bread for what felt like a half an hour before my cousin returned for retrieving something and we checked out.
never before had i tripped so hard.

anyway. i wish i remembered better the chronology of things. i think i met up with keya and sneha and we went with mikey to this gallery opening thing. free booze. i love culture.
we didn't quite get what was going on. but it felt like monkeybars suspended from a ceiling. oh art. it was mainly a venue for keya and i to catch up and bond over our judgment of other people and it was nice hearing her and sneha's stories. oh the aussie accent, how i miss it so.

afterward, we returned to the rooftop to smoke some more, get some 2am tacos and we dropped them off. no trips this time. but i did enjoy a story about a squirrel that used to visit that loft. i felt sad when i heard it stopped visiting. i felt everyone did.

ok well i dont remember some of the other details. but im pretty sure that the next day was my day with the girls in beverly hills. so much walking. so much money spent. not by me but yeah.

that night... mikey took me to another party. a lot of smoking... i remember getting asked if i had ever had sex. mikey's friend interjected and told the asker how inappropriate he was being. i personally was not offended, more confused than anything. afterward, we did a mcdonald's run and when i woke up, i noticed the remote was in mikey's mc'd's bag. san pedros are awesome.


our family portrait.

anyway... that's a good way to wrap up this entry. there is more but i guess this is more family oriented. not terribly insightful. but more family-revelatory than anything. whatever. these things aren't really supposed to have a point.

the end/to be continued.
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