wow its been awhile. lots to catch up on...

- synopsis: i finished my paper. my sister and parents arrived. i had a fancy-shmancy graduation brunch. i graduated. i signed the lease for my new apartment. i realized i can't afford said apartment. i graduated again. i moved into apartment. parents left. i went to ikea. sister left. i built furniture. i am here, back at work. i go home on wednesday.

- graduation brunch: honestly, i feel like it was a waste of my parents money. out of my 18 or so relatives that live within 20 minutes of the city... only 4 showed up. my original head count went from 25 to 15, then only 12 actually showed...four of which were nyu friends and three were my immediate family. we all could've just gone to some chinese restaurant for lunch. so for future reference: don't attempt to plan any large family gatherings unless its my wedding and in that case, it might even be better to just elope. and on another note, my goal was to break the $500 mark, and i have yet to do so. *sigh*

- graduation(s): the first one was my school one (the one where they call names). it was at MSG and took almost three hours. my department was one of the largest so they saved us for last. by the time they called us, they were in super-speedy mode since everyone was antsy to get out of there. my spotlight lasted maybe a millisecond, if that. the ceremony also randomly intertwined musical numbers. it was weird. the second graduation was my university one at Washington Square Park. luckily, we had sunshine during the ceremony (unlike the previous forecasts for rain showers), but the sunshine made it really hot. so of course, i fell asleep. i just hope the camera didn't catch me.

- apartment: i moved into an apartment on wall street. its only a block away from the NYSE so the streets around me are always closed to traffic. we'll see how annoying that gets. since i'm now living in the financial district (only a 2 blocks from justine and bev and walking distance to the seaport), it's really quiet on weekends and at night. i'm still getting used to restaurants closing at 10:30pm and not having the convenient corner 24-hour deli. i miss my old neighborhood.

- now let me just take a minute to bitch about the expensies. like most of my fellow manhattan residents, i'm paying about $1000/mo. and on top of that, electricity, cable, phone, cell and credit card bills. and then of course, furnishing my apartment (yes, ikea.. but i'm thinking i should've opted for k-mart) and the damn $1200 walls we had to have built. now i owe my parents over $3000. yes, i've entered the real world with real responsibilities and real expenses. and i've realized that even though i'm making decent money, i'll still be living paycheck-to-paycheck with hardly any money to play with. that blows.

- lastly: i'm goin goin back to back to cali cali on wednesday wednesday. YIPEE!! i'm so excited. elaine and kat's graduations are this weekend. tons of partying. socal visits norcal. and i just want to get away from the city for awhile and be on MY coast. even though i'm only home till the 1st of june, something is better than nothing. it will be such a tease though and i will be SO homesick when i return. but i'll take what i can get.

ps. happy graduation class of 2003. good luck. and thanks to duma, rp and jose for helping me furnish my apartment!