Home Stretch.

IT'S OVER!

I've completed my last day as an editorial intern at 303 Magazine! My mission here in Denver is complete. Well, if you don't count the post-internship congratulatory shindigs which begin TONIGHT (calmly and discreetly, of course).

I'd like to thank God, the Academy, and my omnipresent patience for my editor's demands, needs, wants, and redundant parables.

Okay, but in all seriousness, I'd really like to thank God, for choosing this path for me. My parents for allowing me to come here and support me and being cool with me living with a boy for 2.5 months. The friends who have supported me and have encouraged me and monetarily helped me out from the start, including Stephen, where the big Thanks goes out to. In this manner, I'd like to complete my appreciative entry. If I go on any longer, it'll only turn out cheesy instead of lovely and tear-jerking.

It has certainly been the most interesting summer of my 21 years of life and living..for many, many different and unique reasons.
When you live with the opposite sex, your best friend, and personal photographer, there is much to experience first-hand with and without the everyday problems that one naturally comes across.
When you work for fashion-heavy magazine when you're not interested in fashion yourself, you learn to dislike the industry. (Which, by the way, reminds me, what's up with the EIC being so nonchalant about me leaving? Nicole, our graphic designer, was more emotional than her. Maybe it has to do with Nicole being a wife and mother and Laura being a single, bossy, affectionately immature woman. That's me in the future).
When you become obsessed with a newfound online medium/social forum (also known as Yelp), you soon realize that you don't want to become a freak. So, reviews will be published to a minimum once summer is over (that is, when free Elite events are no longer in the area).
And when your close friend decides to leave the world filled with pain and sorrow without anyone's awareness, that no one is to blame, and all there is left to do is to keep on living.

So I leave for California on Saturday morning. My agenda for the rest of my stay here is as follows:
>Thursday- any last requests/must-do's in Denver; my farewell/thank you dinner at Steuben's with (hopefully) everyone I've basically met here and their plus one's; and my third and last time at Tracks to end the night.
>Friday- PERHAPS a friend from home is making a pit stop here in Denver. If so, hang time. At night, my last Elite event is at Beauty Bar-- a retro future dance party (dress like Barbarella or the Jetsons), free manicures, free Rubio's, and free cocktails (great way to end with a bang, huh?); and Aggie informed us of a street fashion show held at Suite 200 around the same time. We probably won't attend that one.
>Saturday 5AM- head to DIA for my flight to LAX.

As you can see, this ain't the last of the Mile High just yet.

Long Live Mathemathics.

Frustrating day as hell at the office today. I thought my days of numbers and statistics were over, but even at a magazine office as an editorial intern, I need to use my phone as a calculator and think about percentages and decimals. I hate math. More than a lot of things (among them being science, Anne Hathaway, and coconuts). I had to tally up surveys and kept getting the numbers wrong because idiots (all men, by the way) pressed submit twice or didn't enter what label they would categorize themselves (hipster, skater, prep, hippie/pothead).

After doing that for hours, I was emailed four separate emails, each containing at least 20 documents of past articles where I had to look for restaurants and chef names. No "thank you" from the Ed-in-chief at the end of the day too. She was so annoying today! I'm not starting my period soon am I? No. I'm not. I'm not PMSing.
Oh well, this is my last week in the office forever.

To reward myself of my mathematical frustrations, I had an iced coffee. Why does coffee just make you feel better? It was partly the lack of sleep last night too, that made coffee sound like heaven. I was restless. Maybe because it was too hot, or maybe because I was remorseful of my unexpected actions.

Can't believe I am going home this weekend.

All Around.

All we did was walk across downtown Denver a million times yesterday.

To Platte River Park to see Jayme and friends.

 Shortly thereafter, Aggie came over.

 Met up with Boomi, her brother, Darby, and Luke for dinner at Euclid Hall. Boulder people coming to visit us, I guess.

This is it guys. My last week in Denver.

Bolder Boulder.

Almost on a whim, Steef and I went to Boulder for this kid's "BBQ" last night. More like just sitting in a hot apartment with strangers for an hour. This kid (who will remain anonymous) started talking about church, and thought I was offended by what he was saying, and then without letting me answer, went on about how he didn't "give a shit" and about how much he DGAF about anyone's opinions. Made me realize how afraid people are of being judged. I was honestly pretty indifferent on his stance on the church, especially because it wasn't anything I've never heard before. What was supposed to happen next? All we could do was give an unfortunate look of goodbye when I got up to leave his place. 

Nice knowing you.

 So we went to the bookstore after we lied and said we were heading back to Denver.

Had mochi ice cream. Mine was passion fruit and it was dericious.

 Summer face.

 Trippy. 

Illegal Pete's before heading back to Denver.

And a pit stop to the 37th floor of the Hyatt. Welcome to Denver everybody. Pictures from today (Sunday) will be uploaded tomorrow during work. Heh. I'm too tired today.

Coffeehouse Contemplations.

Sometimes there are days where I just can't stop writing. I think I literally wrote like six or seven different entries/blogs/journals/whatever-ya-want-to-call-thems today. Here I am again at 3:30 in the morning telling you about what kind of epiphany I had here in the 303 (Hot Box Studios, to be specific).

So a friend of mine gave me a link to his gf's blog today. I left it open for probably six-ish hours before I finally found room in my mental capacity to fully reap its benefits. I wonder if people find it weird that I, a stranger, read about their daily lives (me representing all the "you"s who do the same, maybe even to me, who you don't know). Well, that's what I was thinking while reading her blog, but I genuinely found it interesting. I mean, it's a niche blog. That's what I like to call them at least. Kind of like this one, except with more structure. DIYs, fashion, travel, and beginning your new life. Those are the typical niche blogs.
Other than the actual content, I mean to say what I found interesting was her tone of voice. I find tone of voice to be the most interesting of all writing. I would call myself somewhere along the lines of dark, sarcastic, and cut-throat, with a hint of realism and ambiguity. A mess, if you will (I hate the word hodge-podge, so don't even think it).

Anyway, sensing her tone made me wish I could just be happy and fun and enthusiastic in my writing. I don't think there is ever a moment when I am, and the closest I'll get is when I'm being sarcastically humorous (at least in my head I think I'm funny. Don't know if anyone else gets me).

Other than that, I just came back from Bardo Coffeehouse (it closes at 4 on Fri-Sat). I was sitting on a plushy green couch, next to a dim table lamp, drinking jasmine tea and writing an entry on my laptop in a dreamy room.
Here, let me show you.

Looks like someone's living room. That's how amazing this coffeehouse is.

The Winner Is.

No decent pictures from today (which consisted of  a busy schedule: an interesting time at Tuscany's for coffee, Pandora for miscellaneous, Panera Bread for Stephen's soup and getting work done, the Highlands for an interview with Strut Shoes, Heidi's Brooklyn Deli for my late lunch/early dinner). Yesterday, however, we had to go to Cherry Creek for an interview with Oster (for watches). Pictures are as follows:

Very funny.

Rihanna boy who kept checking Stephen out HAHA.

Welcome to Civic Center Park.

 We live 5 minutes walking distance from here.

 This is the Denver Art Museum (where Matthew works), which is directly in front of the apartment.

That brick is my summer abode.

And I wasn't in this car ride but this is Kayla, our neighbor and fellow 303 writer.

Bingo.

GOODY. I can tell you all about my first Yelp Elite experience.

Well first off, yes, I am still an intern. I feel like people are getting confused as to whether or not I am here purely just to play or to put some stuff on my resume. So, yes, today I went to the office. And it was a long day (what more is there to say?).

 Oooo. So attractive.

Hm. It's funny how big his nose is, but how small his nostrils are.

I get many complaints about how I never smile.

So, I bought this dress my senior year of high school. This is my fourth time wearing it (which is a lot). But every time I wear it, I look like a little kid. So I'm giving it away or cutting it up or selling it for some rip-off price at Buffalo. Whichever offer entices me first is the winner.

Oh. I just realized I didn't tell you what the event was.

It was a wine tasting event at a bar called Indulge. We got to sample (a bit too many) of a red wine, Sea Mist white wine (which was delicious, and we were the first people ever to taste this wine), and a whiskey that tastes like "cream soda" (said this one lady). Sure. It tasted like cream. But not cream soda. I felt like gagging just smelling it so I took a half-sip and let it sit on the table. We also devoured all their appetizers.

Btw, "Mark" is of age. Stephen is not. Mark is Stephen's roommate.

Yeup. A little girl holding a glass of wine.

We met tons of people. Crazy cool dudes and dudettes. Many +1's. Many veteran Yelpers. One woman said the LA Elite events are MUCH different from the Denver ones because LA has like 500 people and no such thing as mingling. We played bingo and didn't win anything. We were definitely the youngest of the bunch by maybe 5-10 years. I expected that.

My Yelp breath mints.

As a side note (which is actually pretty exciting), the Denver Elite director or whatever (who looks like a rad girl and all but you can't help but wonder how she loves Yelp more than I do and then decided she really wanted to take the position to be head of all Elite Yelpers in the area) notified me saying congrats on being on this week's newsletter as a Top Yelper. I had no idea what she was talking about until I actually opened the newsletter and saw my picture.

Well wattaya know! One month of Yelping in Denver gives me so much recognition-- they love me!

Say Anything.

Met the most good looking man in my life today. No lie. He's the same model who told me I have beautiful hair a few months ago. Except I went to talk to him today to hook my friend up, and instead, ended up falling in love with him myself (at least I had the balls to talk to him!).

Oh yeah, I forgot to say (because it's honestly not worth mentioning), but...he's gay. Straighter than any straight guy, but unfortunately for me, not into my luscious locks in that way.
I'll be decorating my room with his photoshoot pictures for all of you to see.

Anyway, finally got paid for my article that published this month. I'm really bummed out that there's no release party! Of all the months...

Anyway, enough is enough. Tomorrow is my first Elite event! Goodnight.

Day Late.

After being in a rom-com watching streak, and after doing some Facebook picture back tracking, and after back tracking Dailybooth, I finally mustered up a different kind of mood other than hot, sweaty, lazy, and bored; which resulted in writing in this blog. I'm in the writing kind of mood now, which is good because I should probably start on my little 400-word write up for September's issue (how wonderful, I won't even be here).

I missed church today. I fell asleep at 5 in the morning while talking depressing things with my summer roommate in the dark, and my alarm went off two hours later to get ready.

Snooze.

Some other messages on my phone went off (which sleeps next to my head every night). And then, rise and shine by 11AM. But I already knew I was going to miss church.

I'm really looking forward to going back home. Before, it didn't matter much to me. I think now that I have this opportunity, I'm grateful for it. And thinking about it now, I really need it. I need to be there for my family for the remainder of the summer.

You Versus The Sea. That DLD song always gets to me when it's night. Or Birthday Gallery. I just remembered what conclusion I came to about my favorite band: they've vanished into thin air. Too lazy to really do what Kenny Choi says he'll do, and too absorbed in the simplicities of life. No more tours. No more traveling in vans. No more pit stops for fast food at 3AM. No more 5'2" Asian fan girls.
I would stop if I were him too, especially if I started at 15.

So DLD put me in this mood, and so did looking at old pictures. Right now, I have this really sharp feeling in my chest because I realized that I had a lot of things I wanted to say to Joyce. A lot of things I wish I had said and done before she left us behind. I just wished she would have known what I would say before she left. Maybe it wasn't as cliche as "I love you" (because it unfortunately wasn't-- not because I don't love her, but just because I'm not an affectionate person and I rarely say "I love you" in the first place. Isn't that a good thing in a way?), but it was definitely along the lines of "I really appreciate you and I didn't know how much I meant to you." It didn't hit me how much she loved our high school group. It didn't hit me how fond she was of me until I got a personal email from her roommate when it happened. "She used to talk about you a lot," she wrote. That was my heart's cue to finally release some emotional pain.

I was gonna ask her too, when she came to Denver, to teach me how she did her hair all crazy like in her Dailybooth picture. That was seriously nuts!

Two Month Celebration.

To kick off the celebration, after midnight, July 15 (two months since my arrival in Denver), we had a tea party in front of the art museum.

We ended up sitting on a bunch of ants and freaked out for a good 10 minutes. 

To start, nengmyun and kalbi in Aurora. Hot picture, by the way.

Went to Washington Park with Sebastian from Cruel Intentions.

Welcome to the Safari Disco Club!

After MUCH, MUCH pestering, whining, crying, shouting from Sebastian, I finally gave in and went PEDALING in the lake.

In the evening, Sarah came over (hahahaha) and we explored Denver on a Friday night.

This picture (despite how much I hate it) made me realize how much I'm starting to look like my sister (with the ever-present appearance of my brother).

And ended the night at Denver Diner.

So how does it feel to be two months into Denver's culture and lifestyle? I don't know, stop asking me. It's as if I live here.