Week 9/11-17

Last week really got my emotions going all over the place.
First it was 9/11 and its anniversary has always got me watching the tv news again and seeing the event episodes play over and over again. And I don't get tired of it either. I nvr realized it but one of my friend's fb status post went:
 "If you asked me what i did one week ago, I couldn't tell you. If you asked me what I did 10 years ago, I could tell you exactly. Thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by 9/11. Never forget♥"

My memory isn't the best but that day when I stepped out of the doors of my JHS 56 and saw that smoke cloud around the Twin Towers, that image has forever made a lasting imprint in my memories.

The next morning, my former boss from my summer job at Cold Spring Harbor Lab emailed me to tell me that my former co-worker, Kenny Polk, had died in a car accident in Oyster Bay, Long Island. I was so shocked that I was hoping that she was just kidding, but after reading it 3 times, I didn't see that anywhere. I've never experienced a loss until and it's really benumbing. All my memories of my co-worker just started flooding through my mind and it made his death feel even more unreal. I had only been talking to him just a month ago and now he's just..gone? I was not very close with him, but he wasn't a bad person and he had dreams and goals and earned lots of appreciation of him. It made me realize how fragile and vulnerable this gift of life can be...sigh.. May he rest in peace...

My brother had bought a seasonal membership with Gold's Gym and it came with a 1-week free trial for a friend/family member, so of course I went to put it to good use. The workout I get there has been the most I've ever done in the past year. I forgot how good it is to do a cardio workout. The environment is pretty good and it only gets crowded after work hours since it's in mid-manhattan. They have classes too in various fields and so I took ballet and street jazz. I really like doing ballet and the instructor is great too. When I went into street jazz, the music is very poppy like Beyonce's recent song "Girls's who run the World." Ballet is more stiff while street jazz is more fluid. I found out that my body was better suited to ballet. I think I can do the street jazz moves if I can add a sexy attitude to it hahas like that's gonna ever happen..

I went back to yoga after having not done it in a month lols so bad of me and it was only b/c one of my friends, Jenny, wanted to try out Yoga to the People and needed someone to accompany her. Man, I sweat so much but it felt SOOO GOOOD! And then we ate at Dallas BBQ, which I never knew existed in St. Mark's lols I've been to that hood so many times and I'm still wondering how I nvr noticed it. And we shared a dinner meal (chicken, potatoes, rice, corn bread, soup) for $10 (not including tax/tips)! Can't believe how cheap it was, but it was an early bird special.
In the amNY newspaper that day, I read my horoscope like I always do for curiosity reasons and for the first time, it wrote something that did come true.."Share a meal with someone interesting.." and I sure did. We were able to devour our fatty meal and still talk about life in ~30 mins.

Since my last post, I've become a fan of Ann Taylor Loft and I couldn't stop thinking of that white shirt that I tried on. I had gone to another Ann Taylor store on Madison Ave and when I tried on the shirt, it didn't feel the same and was quite sheer. I became disappointed, but then I went back to the original store in Rockefeller Center (i know, i get episodes of OCD) and the one I had tried on before was STILL there and it felt PERFECT again -crispy cotton white, sheer only on the back side and not the front, covered buttons, modest v-neck cut line, not itchy, etc. I could only wish it wouldn't get wrinkled. Okay, I thought to myself, this shirt is def meant to be for me LOLS! I was willing to pay for its retail price cuz good things don't stay around for it to go on sale but this one did. When I was checking out, I didn't know there was a 40% off sale going on and I got it for ~$34 instead of $58 and i was like..0_0 hell yea! SCOOOOORE!!!!

I had my UNIQLO orientation on Saturday and I had left early cuz there was no F train running on my stop so I had to take a shuttle bus. o-m-gawd it was so horrible. Everybody wants to get in cuz one bus can't fill a train full of weekend commuters. Ppl were shouting, cursing, pushing, stepping on toes, etc. and then there was traffic on the expressway??!! Of course I got there late..by 20 mins. But thankfully, b/c there were so many new hirees, the front panel was still registering ppl. The orientation ended at 1pm and Harumi's bday dinner wasn't happening till 6:30 pm so I had to go home. But for some bizarre reason, the bus lady went on the regular roads instead of the expressway and so every other minute it was stopping. I get home and I find the oh-so-familiar FedEx tag on the door that I was missed grrrr. I got on the same commute when I went out to Harumi's dinner and this was really putting me in a grumpy mood and I just couldn't wait to meet my friends again so that I could forget it. And I had such a blast during Harumi's bday and I think I enjoyed myself the most after dinner when we were just chatting outside the resto hahas A random stranger even used his nifty white polaroid camera to take a pic of us, but since it was so random and sudden, we were all scattered in the pic lols But I will nvr forget that super loud and judgement-passing waiter at Laut who kept popping out of nowhere from behind me. I think he made me jump twice that night lols

love love love her gaping wide mouth lols

On the way home, I had to get on the bus again that went on the local route and the driver was even dropping ppl off at request when it wasn't allowed on an express one. That got a lot of ppl riled up. I was able to get a single seat and there was this azn man standing by me and he kept moving his phone near my face. I kept giving him nasty looks to signal my annoyance but it got so close that I had to physically move his arm away and  tell him loudly, yo, keep that away from me! 

I also got my period that night so maybe that was why my entire week has got my emotions fluctuating all over the place.

Sunday was the first day of training at UNIQLO's soho store and it was exciting, but tiring. I was on my feet the entire day except for the hour lunch I had and of which I had spent a good 15 mins on the women's bathroom line. So I was basically on my feet for 7 and half hrs that day. I need to find a comfy and stylish shoe now....>.< During the morning meeting, there were probably ~60 ppl on the ground floor that day. I was thinking to myself, how were all these 40+ new hirees gonna have space to get training with customers coming in on a Sunday?? During the meeting, I also noticed a lot of passerbys peering thru the glass window and they were probably wondering whether the store was open or not with that many ppl inside lols If anyone's been to UNIQLO, they will notice the employees there wear a red name tag and a black cross-body bag. I've been wanting that black bag since I saw it and I got my hands on one that day, but not my name tag cuz it wasn't ready. Since Uniqlo originated from Japan, I learned some of the cultural reasons behind some of their rules. I also need to take a paper test within 2 weeks or so after my training and periodic evaluations on my task speed. I don't know if other retailers do this but it felt soo ..Asian? lols  Another interesting fact I didn't know was that the SoHo store makes more than ANY of its stores worldwide, that means even more than the ones in Japan. Uniqlo is also one of the top 5 highest grossing garment retail stores while Zara sits on the #1 spot.

I didn't make any friends yet but there are some that I see myself getting along with very well. And then there are these "gay bitches." It's this recognizable high-pitch annoyed male voice that they have and every other sentence ends in a big disgusted sigh. So there was this one guy who was re-hired and when we were at the folding training, we were in the same group and I asked him for help cuz I heard he worked there before (but that was in 2007 but i didn't know that yet). He just looks to the side and tells to the person next to me: "This is why I didn't like the manager telling ppl I worked here before cuz then all these ppl start asking me this and that." I was like in my head, "Okay, fair enough, keep cool" and I folded the damn shirt better than he did HA! and it gets better...we had to give in our phone numbers to the trainer before we were dismissed at 5pm. So while we were waiting on a line, another manager (forgot her name but will remember next time cuz she will be managing the 34th st store) stopped by to see how things were going. This manager had interviewed me and she remembered my face. She's also very very pretty and I think she's mixed. Her face kinda reminds me of Kristin Kreuk (she played Lana in Smallville). 

Kristin Kreuk

When that gay bitch heard that she came from Japan, he started making conversations with her. He even told her that he had worked in Uniqlo before and I was like "Did he just say that?" I guess he was hoping that that would open to more conversations, but she was busy writing things down and walked 2 steps away from him before turning back to respond "Oh really? That's cool." and then continued to walk away.  I was laughing in my mind so hard. Girl, you just became my best-friend. I felt like I got my revenge, this evil side of me hahahas..but i'm not really liking my schedule for this week tho..sigh


Hmm..now I'm on the hunt for a long white tunic/dress that looks like this but with the black/blue stripes only on the upper quarter part of it. I saw it on one of the new Uniqlo hirees, but she was in another training group otherwise I would have asked her =\

Tunic (see more stripe tunics)