Did I finish my "30 Before 30?"

4 years ago I created a list of 30 things I wanted to try and accomplish before I was 30 and I've tried to update you on how that has gone as each year has passed. 

Well, it finally happened and I turned 30. Did I accomplish my 30 things? Well, 21 out of 30 is pretty good, I think. Here's a complete run down of how I did on the whole list:

1. Graduate from the Portland State School Counseling graduate program
I did it! After two years of working part time, going to classes in the evenings, writing papers, reading, reading, reading, six months of clinical practice and then 9 months of stressful internships, and I did it! Graduated in June 2015.  I met some amazing people who are now doing amazing work at schools. Go team!

2. Sell a piece of my artwork

Nope. Didn't happen. Though I have given a lot away...

3. Go on a trip with my sister

Well, Chicky got married and moved to Idaho so that trip had to be canceled.

I DID, however, get to go on an amazing trip to Victoria BC with my girlfriend over the summer! It was so much fun! We walked around downtown, met up with some of her friends to go to the Butchart Gardens, and ate delicious food together (poutine, anyone?!).

4. Read the unabridged version of "Les Miserables"

Nope. I didn't even really try. It's still on the same page I left it at in 2013. I'm sorry, Victor Hugo. I'm just having a really hard time getting through Hugo's thoughts on the history of convents and religion in France. GET TO THE BARRICADES ALREADY. 

5. Move out of my parents' house

BOOM. DONE. And I'm keeping up a good list of all my firsts IN MY NEW HOUSE.

First time using my new toaster IN MY NEW HOUSE.

First pictures hung on the walls IN MY NEW HOUSE.

My first floor rug IN MY NEW HOUSE.

And Missy's first day... IN MY NEW HOUSE.

6. Decorate a room the way that I really want to
In 2013 I moved from my childhood room into what used to be my mom's craft room before my parents built the art sudio addition to the house. And I got to paint it and decorate it the way I wanted. And now I'm moving into a HOUSE and I get to decorate ALL OF IT.

7. Make something for my future home

I made a cute plate for my house! But it didn't turn out as nicely as I'd hoped... the writing was a littly wonky. But it was cute!

8. Shoot a gun (that one actually scares me...)

I put it off and put it off. I've had multiple people offer to take me to a shooting range but I just couldn't bring myself to do. Maybe this will turn into a bucket list type thing. 

9. Get a "real" job
Around about the time I went to Korea summer 2015, I was starting to feel a little worried about what I would be doing in the fall. I had done SO. MANY. INTERVIEWS. So many. And I had gotten so many phone calls and emails saying no, no, no. I got a couple of phone calls that were like, "It was down to you and another person, and we went with the person with more experience."

Then, in August, when I was in Santa Clara for my grandmother's unexpected funeral (rest in peace, Graham Cracker), I got a phone call while at the wake at my Aunt's house from a job in Newberg. We played a little phone tag and I got the interview set up. Then I got ANOTHER phone call from another school in Newberg asking if I wanted to schedule an interview for a little bit after my interview at the other school since I was in town.

Back to back interviews and both went well. I got tours of the schools showing me where my office would be, etc. As I as going into my second interview I got called off from work which turned out to be a blessing because I got a phone call from the district asking me to come interview with the superintendent (and the principal of the school from my first interview of the day). At that interview I was offered my pick of either position and while I felt like I knew which one right there, I told them I would sleep on it and call them in the morning.

Thus I became the school counselor at Mabel Rush Elementary in Newberg! Every day is an adventure. There have been many tears and lots of self-doubt, but I have been told by my principal I am doing well so I'm going to trust her judgement and continue working hard to create a better and more prevention focused program this year.

10. Learn a new skill
I learned several new skills in 2014. On a professional level, I learned how to do a whole bunch of things about what I will do as a school counselor. On a more personal level, I also learned some yoga. That was amazing. I was really surprised at how much I liked my yoga class and how good it felt. I have a hard time with meditation activities, and I feel like the yoga really helped me to focus on clearing my mind. I need to start doing it at home on my own. Great stress reducer.

11. Paint a piece of furniture

I painted my old little cube trunk (it used to have teddy bears printed all over it and I painted it pink!). But I can't find any of the pictures I took of the process. 

12. Have a theme party (perhaps "Nightmare Before Christmas"?)

I had a Halloween party at my new house this year! My friend Madi (she is a counselor at one of the local middle schools) and I cohosted. It was fun!

13. Make and send holiday cards
In 2013 I made and sent cute holiday cards... and took no pictures!!

14. Organize a recipe binder of things I can cook well

Nope. Still working on this one.

15. Take sister photos
Thanks to a JC Penney Groupon, Jesi and I got some adorable sister pictures summer of 2013.

Us holding the picture of when we first met. I'm the one with bangs in both pictures. ;)

16. Get a family portrait

Nope.

17. Cosplay

Nope.

18. Watch "Gone With the Wind" in one sitting

Nope.

19. Practice my language skills (Spanish? Korean?)
Well, I am definitely practicing. I have a fair amount of Spanish speaking families and I try really hard to go out of my way to speak with them in Spanish when I see them (same with my Spanish speaking students). I have been told I have a wonderful accent (why, thank you), but I still have a lot to learn! I really really REALLY want to do some more active practice. I'm hoping to find an imersion program (preferably involving travel, of course) where I can attack this language. I think I might have found something that also gives me graduate credit (which my district will pay for!) and I also have several friends at school interested in going, too! All right!!

20. Put fun color in my hair
I BECAME JEM!!! I had pink hair summer 2015. I was going to wait until I had a job but when July rolled around and I was frustrated with not getting hired, I decided to color my hair so it would be pink for the two weeks in Korea. It was amazing and I felt like a fairy princess. And then I did it again this last summer. I made it a bet with my kinders so I could have it on the last day of school. Love love love having pink hair. :)

21. Create a filing system for important documents

Yes! I have a nice binder/folder system for my important documents! Does that mean everything makes it into there? Nope. But it's set up and ready to function!

22. Take a fun class
During Spring term 2014, I took a couple of classes to do something fun for myself: yoga and watercolor. I liked the yoga, but the watercolor class was just annoying. It was mostly studio time. She didn't teach squat. If I'm going to take a class on something, I expect lesson plans and actual teaching of techniques or something. I was pissed. But, I got some time to do my own projects (which sucked because I don't know how to paint with watercolors, hence taking the class).

23. Learn to sing Korean karaoke
I decided to say yes to this one, though it is half-hearted. When I wrote this goal, I meant that I would be comfortable reading the Korean alphabet enough that I could sing Korean songs at a noraebang. Well, I'm not quite there yet.

BUT!

Mindy and I DID manage to sings a song in Korean when we went to the noraebang in Korea (mostly) AND we were able to figure out the  remote to work the basics of the karaoke machine at the noraebang.

In other news, I recently went with some friends to a Korean noraebang place in Beaverton that had the SAME GIANT REMOTES. And they had a sticker on the table with the translations! Look! It's so awesome!!

24. Bake GOOD cookies (all by myself!!)
I taught myself how to bake French macarons in 2014! I can't make a chocolate chip cookie to save my life, but I can make macarons. Very happy with that skill. I'm still trying to perfect the best filling for them, but I pretty much got the meringues down.



25. Write a letter to my future self

Nope. I should do that.

26. Go back to Korea (hopefully with a job there, but I'll settle for a vacation)
I went on a two week vacation to Korea last summer! It was AWESOME!!! I'm on the edge of deciding if I want to go back and work there (kind of feeling the vibe for western Europe), but that kind of depends on where I'm at in the next few years.

27. Tour Portland Shanghai Tunnels

Nope. I still want to do that!

28. Go to New York
I totally went to New York summer 2013!! It was SUCH A BLAST!! I saw five shows in one week, visited a million things, and generally drank my weight in water every day to keep up with how much we were sweating, it was so freaking hot. Check it out!

I'm in Times Square! In glasses because city air does not agree with my contacts.

29. Buy a car
My parents bought me a car for graduation in December 2014. His name is Fish and he is amazing.


30. Learn a new song on the piano
Christmas 2013! The piece was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be, but it's really pretty so I'm totally counting this one as done. Here's a video of it synchronized with dancing Christmas light. Just to be clear, I'm not actually the one playing it in this.  

House Update!

Update on The House!!

We are now a few weeks away from the beginning of the school year and we still have a good amount of work to do before The House is ready, but we are getting so close!! 

I got the walls all painted in July. Letty from work came one day and helped out which was fun! We were able to knock out the entire downstairs in one day. Dad helped with my bedroom (the high ceilings were not reachable for me on the ladder...), but, again, done in a day! Check out my light gray with teal accent wall. Oh, and I painted ALL THE TRIM. Which is horribly boring and tedious (but better than ripping out tile, I've now discovered). I'm pretty proud of all the lovely white trim. :) 

This shot also includes the beautiful new carpet. The old carpet was really gross. The previous owner had two elderly, incontinent dogs that peed everywhere. So much so, that it soaked through the old carpet AND padding to stain the subfloor (don't worry, we painted over the pee spots with special mildew stuff paint). We (re: Dad with help and sushi from me) are putting down laminate in the rest of the house.

A problem arose painting the stairway. The original idea was to have dad on the dual level ladder doing the cutting in and then I would come in with the extender and paint the rest of it. As you can see in the next picture, that didn't quite work out. About halfway through we decided he was going to fall off and die. So I'm going to be hiring some painters to come. Waiting on one more quote and then I can get that scheduled. Yay!

A few weeks ago Dad and I finished putting in the laminate upstairs (ignore the lack of baseboards). My dad is so cool.

Then my dad went on vacation leaving me instructions on how to work on taking out the tile from downstairs. He gave me a GIANT THOR HAMMER, a big iron stick, a scraper, a smaller THOR HAMMER, and instructions to bash it all to heck. You see this picture? This is two days of me working until I was no longer worthy to lift THOR'S HAMMER (ie: I am weak and my arms turned into very painful noodles). 

The last 10 minutes or so of this was me sitting on the floor despondently lifting and dropping the hammer trying not to cry. 

It was really hard. 

So I hit Google looking for power tools that help rip out tile. Some of the searches might have been a little sarcastic and mean spirited, but it ended up with me renting a legit jackhammer on Monday and busting that tile TO DUST. HELL. YES.

Dad did most of the work, but I helped! Again, I am weak and could only lift and maneuver the jackhammer for so long before I had to pass it back to the padre. But it went SO MUCH FASTER. The same size area that took me two days with THOR'S HAMMER took about 5 minutes with the jackhammer. 

We were able to finish the rest of the tile in about two hours of hard work. My entire downstairs is completely covered in dust which is fun, but totally worth it. Now I just need to rip out the layer that was between the tile and the subfloor (I don't even know what to call it) which is fun because it is nailed down AND cemented in some spots. Most of it is pretty easy, though. Then we can install the flooring downstairs (once Dad gets back from his cruise, of course).

What's left to do (in no particular order):

• Rip out floor thing downstairs
• Dump ripped out tile and floor stuff
• Install downstairs laminate
• Take nails out of base boards and paint
• Reinstall baseboards
• Put outlet face plates back on
• Caulk doors and do touch up painting on trim/walls
• CLEAN. SO MUCH CLEANING.

Some things can be done after moving in, but I'll still probably be moving into The House during the first few weeks of school. So excited to do a before and after post! Stay tuned!!

A short (but important) post

I've thought about the writing of this blog post a lot. Like, A LOT. And for a long time. I've thought about how it might affect current relationships, my family, my budding career... and my feelings are still very conflicted. But I know that I need to be open about this in order to be a happy, healthy person.

So, here it goes. *deep breath*

I'm gay.

(Oh, that still feels weird saying that where other people can hear it... or, you know, read it.) I definitely like girls and I have been dating a wonderful woman for almost a year now. I told my family members a little while after we started dating. That time in between starting to date and telling them was so strange because I do not really keep secrets from my family... I'm a bit of an oversharer, generally. The decision to start dating women was not lightly made and came after much internal struggle and many hours of prayer and soul searching. And I am really happy that I made the jump. Not just because I was able to meet a wonderful lady in the process, but also because it was a huge step in accepting myself.

I know many of you will have many questions, but I'm not going to really go into much detail here or on Facebook. If you have questions for me, you are welcome to private message me and I will answer as much as I am comfortable revealing (again... oversharer here).

I also know that some of you will have strong feelings (some of you positive, some of you negative), but please know that this is not up for debate with me. I understand the need to honor and respect other's opinions and I *mostly* try to not get into "political" debates online (notice I said online; a very important distinction... also "mostly"). However, this is not a political debate nor an opinion. This is my reality and my life. So, for my own mental health, at this point I ask that any comments you may have that are anything less than positive and supportive comments be kept to yourself.

Yep. Okay. I did it. *high fives myself* Now, please enjoy this video of cute kittens.

30 before 30: Second to last update!

I know I'm a little late. But only by a few months, right? I'm going with that being okay. But I realize that now I have less than a year to complete my 30 before 30 goals! Oh my gosh! I'm not sure I will get all this done. Eep! I picture myself doing a lot of work this summer to catch up.

But here it is! My next to last update on my 30 before 30 goals!

1. Graduate from the Portland State School Counseling graduate program
I did it! After two years of working part time, going to classes in the evenings, writing papers, reading, reading, reading, six months of clinical practice and then 9 months of stressful internships, and I did it! I met some amazing people who are now doing amazing work at schools. Go team!

9. Get a "real" job
Around about the time I went to Korea last summer, I was starting to feel a little worried about what I would be doing in the fall. I had done SO. MANY. INTERVIEWS. So many. And I had gotten so many phone calls and emails saying no, no, no. I got a couple of phone calls that were like, "It was down to you and another person, and we went with the person with more experience."

Then, in August, when I was in Santa Clara for my grandmother's unexpected funeral (rest in peace, Graham Cracker), I got a phone call while at the wake at my Aunt's house from a job in Newberg. We played a little phone tag and I got the interview set up. Then I got ANOTHER phone call from another school in Newberg asking if I wanted to schedule an interview for a little bit after my interview at the other school since I was in town.

Back to back interviews and both went well. I got tours of the schools showing me where my office would be, etc. As I as going into my second interview I got called off from work which turned out to be a blessing because I got a phone call from the district asking me to come interview with the superintendant (and the principal of the school from my first interview of the day). At that interview I was offerred my pick of either position and while I felt like I knew which one right there, I told them I would sleep on it and call them in the morning.

Thus I became the school counselor at Mabel Rush Elementary in Newberg! Every day is an adventure. There have been many tears and lots of self-doubt, but I have been told by my principal I am doing well so I'm going to trust her judgement and continue working hard to create a better and more prevention focused program next year.

19. Practice my language skills (Spanish? Korean?)
Well, I am definitely practicing. I have a fair amount of Spanish speaking families and I try really hard to go out of my way to speak with them in Spanish when I see them (same with my Spanish speaking students). I have been told I have a wonderful accent (why, thank you), but I still have a lot to learn! I really really REALLY want to do some more active practice. I'm hoping to find an imersion program (preferably involving travel, of course) where I can attack this language.

20. Put fun color in my hair
I BECAME JEM!!! I had pink hair last summer. I was going to wait until I had a job but when July rolled around and I was frustrated with not getting hired, I decided to color my hair so it would be pink for the two weeks in Korea. It was amazing and I felt like a fairy princess.

I plan on dying my hair again in June. Still trying to decide if I will wait until school is over or if I want to have pink hair on the last day of school.

23. Learn to sing Korean karaoke
I decided to say yes to this one, though it is half-hearted. When I wrote this goal, I meant that I would be comfortable reading the Korean alphabet enough that I could sing Korean songs at a noraebang. Well, I'm not quite there yet.

BUT!

Mindy and I DID manage to sings a song in Korean when we went to the noraebang in Korea (mostly) AND we were able to figure out the  remote to work the basics of the karaoke machine at the noraebang.

In other news, I recently went with some friends to a Korean noraebang place in Beaverton that had the SAME GIANT REMOTES. And they had a sticker on the table with the translations! Look! It's so awesome!!

26. Go back to Korea (hopefully with a job there, but I'll settle for a vacation)
I went on a two week vacation to Korea last summer! It was AWESOME!!! I'm on the edge of deciding if I want to go back and work there (kind of feeling the vibe for western Europe), but that kind of depends on where I'm at in the next few years.

There are still quite a few of my goals that I have not reached yet (why did I put so much reading on there? and shoot a gun? what was I THINKING?!), but there's a year of adventure before me so we will see what comes!

Eat all the things!

Last, but not least, FOOD! Of course this needs it's own post. We ate LOTS of delicious food in Korea and there are definitely days where I wish I could eat some of those things. Soooo good...

First, every morning, the guesthouse people put out a nice little spread for the guests. Nothing fancy, just hard boiled eggs, bread, nutella, jam, some fruit, cereal, milk and yogurt. Some mornings there was juice or some of those little yogurt milk things (not sure what to call them). It was a great way to start the mornings.

We also consumed large quantities of ice cream. Mindy go a fish shaped cone with ice cream and strawberry sauce. I was still full from who knows what so I didn't get one.

LOVED these rose shaped ice creams in Myongdong! Tasty, pretty, AND they matched my pink hair!

Got this honey comb ice cream in Hongdae. Mindy had never had honey on ice cream (baffled my brain because that's my go to).

Just one example of the many delicious ice cream bars you can get. This one has chocolate crispy crunchies on the outside with strawberry sauce in the middle. Mmmm... I want one.

We also tried lots of tasty snacks. Although these are way better when it is cold outside, Deli-mandoo are always delicious. They fill these yummy little things with custard. Yum yum yum. The ladies were also really impressed with my hair and we took a selfie with them.

 Mindy chillaxin with some of our favorite snacks: the spicy sweet tteokbokki crackers (SO GOOD!!!), choco pies, and rice cracker things.

A pile of more SNACKS!!

And gummy chicken feet!!

Mildly in love with Korean pizza... might have convinced Mindy to order it 3 times. Maybe... yes.
Go Pizza Heaven!! With K-Pop boy bands on the box (no idea who they are... Mindy probably knows).

Couldn't wait to take a picture... sorry. This one was sweet potato pizza. It had corn, onions, and sweet potatoes (not yams... sweet potatoes... they are different). And we got a free corn salad on the side. We ended up ordering multiples of that on the other orders. The guy at the front desk thought we were really weird ordering sweet potato pizza and so much corn salad...

SO GOOD.

A also love jajangmyung. It's noodles with black bean sauce. A little bitter and oh so good!

We went out for bbq one night and ordered pork belly which then came with a million sides. Poor Mindy was very patient with me. I would start out super hungry and then wimp out when there was still a ton of food left. She felt honor bound to finish all the meat. We didn't even touch the soup...

So... much... food... mmmmm...

 We tried to find this one restaurant in Hongdae and after hiking around trying to find it, we gave up and went to this yummy looking tteokbokki place. WHICH WAS AWESOME!

We got a set with tteokkbokki, cheese pizza (cheese bread with honey dip, YUM), and a GIANT BINGSOO. Tteokkbokki is chewy rice cakes in spicy sweet sauce. This also had ramen, veggies, some mandu (potstickers) and some other unidentifiable yummies. And baby quail eggs! So tiny!

Bingsoo is shaved ice with ice cream and sweet red beans.

We were really full and poor Mindy might have eaten her bingsoo a little too fast.

Brain freeze!!

 We REALLY love tteokkbokki... so we went to Tteokkbokki Town! A street lined with tteokbokki restauraunts! I really wanted to try jajangmyung tteokkbokki... but I guess she didn't understand me when I ordered and we got regular spicy tteokkbokki. Oh well. Still yummy.

And this lady was really funny. She kept trying to talk to me and I tried explaining that I couldn't understand but she kept talking and laughing and, like, hitting me on the back. And the FUNNIEST part was she just WOULDN'T TALK TO MINDY!! Mindy speaks more Korean than I do and kept trying to talk to this obviously excited grandma but the lady just blatantly ignored her!! Hahaha!! It was so funny!

Oh, and it was funny that Mindy and I wore aprons and still managed to get sauce on our clothes.

And then we went one more time to that yummy place in Hongdae.

At the recommendation of one of her friends, we also went to this one place that is supposed to be super famous. We went and Mindy ordered what we thought was just pork. Then she looked it up on her phone and looked at me with a scared look on her face. "I just ordered pigs feet."

Surprisingly very tasty (though very greasy) and paired very nicely with the soup it came with. I just couldn't do the fatty skin parts. I did for a while and then just... couldn't any more.

 And though we had just eaten a very large lunch with Mindy's friend's friend (I ate raw ground beef and didn't get a picture), when we found the Hello Kitty Cafe, I HAD to go!

An adorable brownie and lemonade.

One of our last meals was samgyetang: a whole chicken in a bown that has been tuffed with rice, ginseng, jujube, and garlic. Then boiled to delicious perfection and topped with green onions. I am salivating just thinking about it.

And our final meal in Korea: Taco Bell! At the airport, we were looking for food before our flight and when we headed up to the food court, Mindy looked at me all sad and said, "I REALLY want American food... can we have Taco Bell?" And I was MORE than happy to accommodate. And it was AMAZING!! Why do we not have a burrito with beef, nacho cheese, and FRIES?! OMG. Soooo good! Perfect food to eat right before a 10 hour flight, right? Right? Nothing could go wrong... and nothing did.

P.S. look at that adorable shirt Mindy is wearing! Apples! That are ORANGE! I got the same one with pink apples.