San Diego always feels pleasant to visit I guess....

We decided to take an one day trip to SD on Sat and see if we could take some cool photos. We left home and got us McDonald's breakfast to eat on the way. The trip started kinda smooth but then we got stuck in traffic for about half of the whole ride. By the time we got to SD it was almost 2 in the afternoon. I gave up the thought about calling Pauline since I don't think Hades would be too happy at home if we do eat dinner together and get home late at night....

We 1st went to La Jolla beach since Billy said he has never been there before. I guess that turned out to be the place where we took most of the photos. Stroll along the shore and taking photos of various little animals was kinda fun. The place was crowded, but not as annoying as all the LA beaches.

Our 2nd stop then was the seaport village since Billy said he has never been to the place either. I guess compare to him I am such a San Diego pro. We ate dinner there at a restaurant which had an outside section where we could sit and watch all the people walking along the shore. We ate while the sun was sinking into the ocean so I guess that was nice too. My camera ran out of juice cuz of our excessive tries of catching flying birds in sports mode and little crabs which were super sensitive to human movements. With the little left I was still able to take the photos of the sunset...kinda anyway....so here are the photos we got from the heavy traffic trip....Yeah...and Hades was kinda upset when we got home. He didn't go to pee at all for the whole day and was super hungry as well...This cat sure has attachment problems....sighs...

We stopped by this view point place half way to SD. Got some good photos of the seagulls (not really sure if they were...) Here is one with two of them...

When we were at La Jolla I took some photos of the squirl which posed for me for a long time...


After the squirl I concentrated on taking photos of the sea lion ? and the tiny crabs hiding in the rocks...


Billy....concentrated on taking "flying" birds that requires certain techniques and practices with the "sports mode". Here are two of his best shots of the pelicans...

On the street at La Jolla I shot this flower which reminded me of Hawaii for some reason...maybe because it appears on all the Hawaiian shirts? lol

We went to Seaport Village for dinner. Like I said...we sat outside and enjoyed dinner. Billy took a shot of me with two heads in the back...but then I guess it's good he got the restaurant sign. The waiter took a photo for us too. Food was kinda salty and we got REALLY fat after that dinner. I am still super fat two days after...sighs...I think it's the amount of cheese we had with all the seafood...

Billy took this 1st picture below and I altered the color. I think it looks very nice this way since the original color wasn't all that impressive cuz of the lighting and where we were sitting. The 2nd photo is the last one I took for the day because my battery just refused to stay alive after that. The sunset with the boat turned out nice enough with one try though....That concludes our photo trip at SD :)

You think crying would work? not all the time....

Today is the last Fri I can go without teaching anyone cuz it's the last Fri before EVERYONE starts school. Billy somehow decided to work at home today so I guess it's kinda interesting I am having a person working right next to me while I type and get my morning greetings with most of my MSN friends in the morning. Well....I sold another 5 CDs to a friend this morning so I guess it was somehow productive with the time spent chatting....?

Yesterday I had a bad time with that little girl who claimed she wants to learn violin (which I talked about around 1 month ago....the not yet 7 years old girl). I think this kid really has some issues cuz she usually does not even look up when I ask her simple questions, and it feels like her mom has to beg her to do things. I also found that she has this uncontrollable emotional problems cuz one min she would be alright and happy, and then next min she would be very angry....and I was thinking....what the heck? who is the person that cannot do those simple stuff? what the heck are you angry about?

So anyway....I asked her one simple question "what is the note on your D string if you press down your 2nd finger?" and she started crying when she could not figure out what the note is. It's been like 3 weeks since I asked her to memorize around 10 notes in the 1st position. 1st of all..I do not get why she would not be able to answer "what is one note higher than B?" if she has been playing piano for a while....and then what perplexes me is that there are only 10 notes to memorize!!!! how hard can that be? especially when the mom claims that at home she can always answer pretty quickly?

My suspitions are as followed...It's either 1. the kid is really slow and the mom is lying....or 2. the kid knows she can get away from everything just by crying...or 3. she wants to quit learning now cuz it's difficult and she is trying to put up a show to get out of the whole thing. I think both 2 and 3 are quite possible, but hey I was not the person who begged her to learn. I did not want to take her as a student, and her mom knows very well on that. The kid is just not get whatever she want with me cuz I don't care about her little 30 min payment and would not die without that 25 bucks.....

Knowing the little girl does have a problem (both with her eyes and her emotions....I think the eye problems probably caused the mom to spoil her somehow...) I told her I would let her try one more time in the next lesson. If she wants to put up another show then it will just not work. I was frank to show that she is not the 1st kid who cries in my lessons, and you either deal with your attitudes or there will be more teachers you can find on the street. I am usually friends with my students, but not with the ones who think they can control how I react by putting up a show. My other 8 year old little student knows not to lie when I am around now, and we have a good time even when she is not doing so well with some stuff.

Yeah I guess I am lucky in a way I get to choose who I don't want to teach....but then giving them enough chances before I fire is also a tough task for me. I wish I would not see so many details which may cause the problems on the surface so I can just fire whoever without thinking about it twice....but this is how the world is....messed up in many aspects...usually a messed up kid is kinda created through a messed up environment....and I do know there are other problems in this particular situation....sighs...not gonna mention about it now...not really my business anyway....knowing too much may not always work...right?

Weird nightmare....

I think I was dreaming throughout the night. Hades of course helped me have breaks from the dreams by bugging me several times in the night. I don't know what is wrong with him but he seems agitated at night a lot recently. I wonder what he is unhappy about in the room...

With all my dreams I only remembered one nightmare. I dreamed that one of the students I fired (or I should say student's mom that I fired) called me (or I should say the mom called) and pretend nothing happened and set up new schedule with me for the new semester. After I hung up the phone in the dream I realized I fired her before and I really didn't want to deal with the mom at all. I tried to call back and then the dad and the brother (which does not exist in the real world) tried to tell me their phone wasn't working properly. I got really pissed off and told them to give me the mom's cell numbers, but they told me that her cell phone was lost. I was thinking....dang....this family is really full of liars.....and then of course I woke up after that for a break and realized I really don't have to deal with that annoying parent in my life now....

I guess the nightmare really showed how much parents can become problems for teachers when they are not supportive and when they try to mess up everything. Sometimes I just don't get why parents would spend so much money for all diff. kinds of classes on their kids and not realize they are not learning everything well. I guess for those who have kids and cannot teach them properly this is the only way they know how to deal with it....providing that they do have enough bucks in their pockets.

I have an elementary classmate who is in special education now. I have never thought she would go into this career really since she was always a very outgoing character when we were kids. She 1st studied in the "tourism" major? and was being a tour guide for some years. Whenever I read her blogs nowadays I have to admire those teachers in the special educations. Of course there must be bad ones in that environment, but for those willing to sacrifice their time and energy dealing with the kids who need special attention....really something I am not sure I will ever be able to accomplish....

Anyway....teaching is now even part of my nightmare...isn't this just wonderful?......

Speak? Listen?

Can't believe I am actually done reading the old testament with my daily reading plans..man...such a long time....I wonder what I remembered through all those messed up Israel histories really. In the inspiration section today there was something quite interesting though...."Henry David Thoreau once wrote ' It takes two to speak the truth. One to speak and another to listen'"

I wonder how many people can really be a good listener?

Why do people try?

CL was chatting with me last night, and told me that she helped her ex with the loan and stuff. That guy is now done with buying the house and I guess he will just stay up in SF. I couldn't help thinking why she would be so "generous" and help him through things even after that ugly break up cuz he was having affairs in China. I guess not a lot of people really care about what I think when it comes to relationships...and yet most of the time when I think someone is not worth keeping, it's usually bad at the end. I certainly hope in the future I don't have to feel fishy about my brothers' girls cuz I doubt any of them would actually listen to me....especially the youngest one....sighs....

Anyway....I don't think I would ever be generous on any relationship when I know I am being cheated. Betrayal is just a big thing that I don't get over with. I guess that is the thing that finally got me to leave both of my previous jobs. I just think if there is no more trust between people, then there is no point staying close. This world is already too fake to start with anyway. I don't think we need to make it even worse...

It just amazes me how most people want to find a person and get married and yet not that many actually have a good marriage. I wonder if that is a desire that God puts into human so everyone is still trying so hard even after seeing so many failures...I wish I can see more people around me with REAL sweet and nicely maintained marriages so that adds a little faith in me. Again there are plenty of people FAKING it just so they feel better about the whole thing....but what is the point? I guess I am not all that depressed about my own, but a lot of times I just wish everyone can be happy somehow. Well...I guess happy can also be a relative term too? Who gets to decide if we are happy? right?

We sure wasted a lot of energy and time over the weekend....

This weekend was kinda funny....We 1st started it off with a LONG drive along the coast....why? well....1st of all Billy was having problem connecting to his computer at work from home. We decided to drive all the way to Huntington beach so he can reboot the work computer and then I can get gas cuz price there is a little lower. (I know....driving like almost whole hour to get gas that is only 2 cents cheaper? that sure makes a lot of sense...hahaha)

After rebooting the computer we then wanted to check out if any of the beaches along pacific coast highway would be a good spot to take photos with our new camera. Unfortunately the weather was kinda foggy, and there were just way too many people EVERYWEHRE....plus it was just too HOT to walk anywhere really. At the end...we drove all the way down to Laguna beach, and didn't take one single photo...right...funny....so that was Sat...

Sun we wanted to go to Ontario mall for this discover card deal which you get a 10 gift card when you spend 100 dollars. It turned out that the mall ran out of gift cards so we will probably have to go again next weekend...Funny thing about this whole mall trip was....Irene and Jack actually helped us reaching the 200 dollar spending with the lunch we ate together and the stuff they bought. At the end Billy and I only got this massage oil which is about 17 dollars.....and if we do get a 20 gift card at the end we basically didn't spend any money other than the food? lol...anyhow it was sure time and gas consuming though....

After we got home Billy wanted to try our "fry daddy" making onion rings, 鹽酥雞, and French fries....So here are the photos....I thought they didn't turn out all that bad, but Billy didn't think it was working too well even though he spent a long time frying stuff. For some reason he just thought the taste wasn't good enough. I guess fried food is not good for us anyway so it's ok we won't be frying much....lol....


Anyway....Since we didn't get any cool photos I decided to just post the photos we took for the cutest cat on earth....:)

Hades loves the pants Billy always wears to cut grass....I guess Hades really likes the smell of freshly cut grass or something....2nd photo is how Hades shakes hands with us every night for treats that brush his teeth.

I don't think I need to say much here....Hades is for sure the cutest cat ever....

Scheduling mess

Life has been kinda slow this week. Not much is happening, and yet I am getting more anxious each day. I think I am just kinda annoyed with school starting in a week or 2. It's been a little hard to schedule the students since everyone is starting school at diff. time....plus nobody seems to really know their after school times and all...I can't believe summer is already over and I will back to teaching 5 days a week again....sighs....I wonder why it makes any difference since I didn't really do much with that extra day in Aug anyway....

My head has been acting kinda weird too. I am not sure if the brain is functioning slower cuz I didn't sleep well, or indeed I do have a very mild cold. I have been waking up with headache every morning for this week, and yet the symptom of a cold seems very minor. Maybe the routine of life staying the same everyday gets my brain rusty or something....I don't know....Not really sure having a very routined life is good for me, but seems to be good for Hades. He has now been off the collar for several weeks. That is for sure a big accomplishment in the past few years of his life....

Alright....let me go on with my boring life today and finish my 2 students of the day now. Too bad it's a 5 day week for me already....scattered schedule is really annoying.....Arhhhh....