Day Twenty-Four: Hollywood And Monopoly Prison Hell

7/9/15, 9:37 PM PDT

We actually didn't return to San Diego yesterday. We stayed in LA with Sam's family, since Justin, Sam's brother, wanted to explore Hollywood, which was a once in a blue moon occurrence. So today, we hit up Hollywood!

We saw a neat little sculpture on the way there.

I looked it up, it's called "Progress" by Earl Krantz.

Our first stop was a particular star on the walk of fame, because Justin really really REALLY loves him:

Helyn and Jasmine are just sitting there because Sam's mom told them to.

Then we went to the Chinese Theater, where I've actually never been before. And even though it's not genuinely Chinese, it is still very very pretty.

I don't understand why The Mandarin was so mad...

Because this place is really pretty.

The big highlight of this place was the concrete slabs with celebrity hand/footprints on it. Most of them more or less were the same, but I noticed that a lot of them were talking about some guy named "Sid."

Poor guy. All he wanted was to be a science kid.

There were a few cool ones too, like Matt Damon and his tiny feet, and Vince Vaughn and his MASSIVE feet, but for the most part they were largely the same thing. A bunch of handprints and a bunch of footprints. Except for Marilyn Monroe, who had like... two dots instead of footprints because of her high heels.

For you dedicated readers, if you remember the creepy costumed people I saw walking around New York, asking for tips when I went last year, I have an update. They moved to Los Angeles. And they've increased in number.

Bee-do, bee-do, bee-do...

We also hopped on a train, where they had a... interesting picture on display.

This is what the nightmares of a Republican look like.

So where did we go on this train?

Nowhere cool, that's for sure.

We actually just went around CityWalk since Universal Studios was EXPENSIIIIIVE. Take a look at some of the stuff we found!

"I hate these things so much. They're like little
rats, they're everywhere." -Christina

Sam's cousin, John, had a close encounter with Jaws.

Either that or last night's longaniza finally snaked its way
out of John's large intestine.

And we found THESE THINGS.

OH MY GOD.

REAL LIFE SIMPSON'S DONUTS. We were worried that it was made out of plastic and not really edible, but after we figured out that the words "freshly baked daily" on the box weren't just there for decorative purposes, we were ALLLLLL over these guys.

Yeah, there was a chocolate one too. We also bought it.

I can understand why Homer Simpson loves these donuts so much, they are delicious. And no, to all you naysayers, it is definitely not just a bigger version of any old pink frosted sprinkled donut you could buy at any old donut shop. This one's different. It's made by Lard Lad. And because it's made by Lard Lad, it's made with fresh dough, hand-picked sprinkles, and expertly-crafted pink frosting of the highest caliber. Lard Lad imports sugar from the deepest, most untouched regions of the Amazon Rainforest and carries them by hand, one jar at a time down a 45-mile jungle trek to a processing plant in Brazil, where ten Swiss chocolatiers delicately fold the sugar over a hundred times to achieve the perfect, and I mean perfect glaze.

And that process is repeated for each donut.

We also found some cute socks. Take a look!

I didn't know Sam was embroidered onto a sock!

The rare and elusive Stacosaurus.

I wish my name was Godofredo.

They also had those license plate things they sell in every state, but they had two very important missing names.

It was destiny, Kayla. Meanwhile, Angela and
Christina were full.

Oh and we found Sam's birthing bus again!

And no, the bus name isn't referring to the woman in the left.

Afterwards, we went back to Sam's family's house and played a nice, wholesome game of Monopoly.

Just kidding. It was the most cutthroat Monopoly battle ever. We played this variation called "Monopoly Empire."

More like "Product Placement: Board Game Edition."

The goal was to either make everyone else bankrupt, or own enough properties to stack their tower to the top. We had a few house rules added, but it's basically Speed Monopoly.

And stuff got INTENSE. I think it was pretty tepid until I was four spaces away from winning. I had an Empire card that basically let me steal any player's topmost property (the one they most recently bought), so I decided to use it to steal Kate's four-space occupying Samsung property. I would have won, but she blocked it with her Empire card and everyone started SCREAMING at that point. The room got a hundred times hotter, everyone was sweating, Sam's cousin's forehead vein was coming out, it was HYPE.

When one of the players started to look like this, you know it was an
intense game.

Sam, because of unlucky dice rolls, went to jail at least 20 times. At one point, her cousin, Jasmine, got a Get Out of Jail Free card, which she wanted to donate to Sam to spare her more time in the stony lonesome. And you know what she said?

"No. I don't need your charity."

The next turn, she immediately did more prison time.

Her luck was so bad that at one point, she landed one square next to the "Go To Jail" tile. Since there were two dice, it's impossible to roll a 1 and go to jail again, right?

Well, for Monopoly Empires, they have a special die where instead of a "one" face (as in, the face of the die that you can roll a "one" on), they had a "swap" face. If you rolled both dice and rolled the "swap" face, you could either swap your topmost property with another player's topmost property OR move the number of spaces the other die got.

Samantha rolled a "one" and a "swap." She had the most valuable property in the game, so swapping was out of the question. So she went to jail.

A one-in-36 chance dice roll. And she got it. And she went to prison.

I never let that go when we ate dinner later that night. And I'm never gonna let her hear the end of that.

RFotD: Typing blog entries with one hand SUCKS.

Day Sixty: A House Party

8/12/14, 12:01 AM PDT

This morning, I blasted through three quarters of A Thousand Splendid. JESUS, that book is INCREDIBLY sad. In case any of you guys are in my school and also reading it for the summer assignment (which is a good chunk of my demographic), I won't spoil anything, but DAMN, Mariam and Laila go through SO MUCH. No kidding, a few times I literally said "oh god, NO" out loud when I read some parts. Considering I'm damn near emotionless when I read books, that's probably the equivalent of making me cry in a movie.

I feel you, Tracy Morgan.

During this sad literature marathon, I let the TV play in the background. Tuned in to MTV, because everything else was too distracting with their words and talk about Ebola and all. Did you know that Asian MTV still mostly consists of music videos instead of crappy, mind-rotting Reality TV shows? Well it does, which is wonderful. I've been writing down a bunch of songs that they've played so that when I get home, I can load up my Spotify playlists with foreign music.

Also, tonight, we had a little party thing for my dad's birthday. A whole bunch of my extended family showed up and brought with them food and a handful of tiny adorable children, which took quite a liking to me after I played couch peekaboo with them.

Ice also showed up to play with my sister. They got pretty absorbed in some iPad game. While they were playing, I slipped my iPhone in between their faces and the screen and took this picture:

Look at that cold stare in her eyes. Get it? HAH.

We also had a little cake.

We couldn't fit 49 candles on this thing.

We had everything we needed for a really fun party. The only thing we were missing? MY DAD.

Pictured: My dad.

Apparently, he's staying in Manila instead of flying down to Butuan with us like he originally planned, a fact that my mother's not exactly happy about.

But hey, she said that if he doesn't show up by today, we'll fly to Japan instead of go back to Manila. So sayonara, Philippines, and konnichiwa, Japan!

"Konnichiwa, Michael!"

...We don't know anyone in Japan and the only Japanese phrases I know are "Arigatou gozaimasu" and "Gochisousama deshita."

We're gonna die there. But before we do, check out what my cousin can do with his head.

Oh, and Ujeth figured out how to pick his nose.

Mining like it's 1849.

RFotD: I have a video of Ujeth picking his nose but I spared you guys from seeing that. You're welcome.

SGAT: None really.

Day Ten: The First Day of Work

6/23/14, 4:53 PM PDT

Today was my first day of working as a TA at Gateways Summer School, located in the Jewish Academy.

As soon as I stepped on campus, I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to do. I figured out that I was supposed to head to the main office to clock in and pick up an apron, a name tag, a roll sheet, and a sign that had my class' name on it. But the guy that manages us was pretty stressed out and kinda intimidating (even though he looks exactly like Grant Imahara from Mythbusters), so I didn't wanna ask him anything after he told me what I was supposed to do.

My supervisor.
(via smartplanet.com)

Clueless, armed with an NES bag, a sign that says "Movies," and a campus map, I decided to head out, with absolutely no idea what to do.

Thankfully, I ran into a girl who, although was just as clueless as I was, ended up being helpful because she was friends with a few TAs that actually knew what they were doing. So I decided to stick with her and her group so that I won't get fired on the first day. We made some light conversation, so I guess I made a friend here? I never caught her name, but I'll probably ask her tomorrow.

Anyway, I figured out that the first part of my job was supervision at the playground during lunch. And BOY, was that playground PACKED. Seriously, the density was probably 10 kids per square meter, it was CRAZY. At one point, I saw the janitorial golf cart trying to make it through these kids and holy CRAP, I have never seen something so nerve-wracking in all my life. There were kids sitting on the ground eating and I shit you not, his wheels were INCHES away from these kids' fingers and toes. It was incredible how accurate this guy's driving was. He didn't even honk once, he just navigated through this massive mosh pit of kids as if his car was the tweezer in the most complicated game of Operation ever.

"Whoops, crushed another six year old's hand. Minus 20 points."
(via craziestgadgets.com)

(Samantha, if you're reading this, you might wanna stop reading now since this part is probably gonna be funnier to tell in person)

When lunch ended, the real work began. Went to the room of the teacher I'd be helping out for the next three weeks (who, coincidentally, was Mrs. Bartels, imagine that). The way the summer school works is that the day is divided into six periods. Since I'm working the PM shift, I only have to take care of the last three periods, but since I'm a primary aide (I'm working with 1st and 2nd graders), those periods involve me walking them all to their next class during their 10-minute passing period. More on that later.

So fourth period, the kids were all great except for this one REALLY talkative Asian kid that kept interrupting Mrs. Bartels whenever she talked. And even though it was pretty obvious that Mrs. Bartels got a little annoyed at him, it was pretty clear that the kid knew his stuff because all of his responses to her questions were correct (albeit blurted out, but a correct answer is a correct answer).

Fifth period? My god, fifth period is my FAVORITE. They're all quiet, adorable little angels and those kids freaking LOVE me for some reason. When I had to walk them to their next class, a bunch of them just suddenly hugged me (or at least, hugged my knees because that's the tallest part of me that their tiny arms could reach) for no reason. While walking backwards to watch all of the kids, I accidentally ran into a sign that I didn't see behind me and they all laughed and it was SO CUTE. After I hit that sign, one of them told me in their tiny, high pitched voice, "You're funny, mister," and dear god, my heart just melted right then and there.

Sixth period. Wait, more like six six sixth period, because that period has some of Satan's spawn in there. There's not one, but two groups of friends that would rather talk and swordfight with markers than pay attention to the lesson. One of the groups (henceforth named "The Jets") made a goddamn TEN-MARKER-LONG SWORD and thought it was a good idea to whack the kid next to him with it. I broke that shit up, but apparently that inspired the other rowdy group (henceforth named "The Sharks") to make their own marker swords. So I break that shit up, but as I was disciplining them, The Jets changed their focus from weapon development to civil engineering because they start making the fucking Golden Gate of all marker bridges to connect their table with the one in the very corner of the class. So I Pacific Rim'd that bridge right in half and guess what happens?

The fucking Sharks decide to run around the classroom, drawing shit each other's arms whenever they pass each other.

The Sharks, rocking their battle scars.
(via jonandlaura.blogspot.com)

In the end, Mrs. Bartels steps in and puts and end to their crap. I take away the Sharks' markers since they were waaaay rowdier than the Jets. Unfortunately, a little girl that came in late got stuck in the same table as the other three Sharks, so when that table lost marker privileges, the girl complained that it wasn't fair because she didn't do anything. I felt bad for her, so I snuck her three markers so she could at least prettify her notebook a little.

It doesn't end there. Ten minutes before class ends, some punk kid raises his hand and asks if he could go to the bathroom. So of course, I walk him to the bathroom (which, apparently, is effing THIRTY LIGHT YEARS AWAY SINCE IT TOOK US A DECADE TO WALK THERE) and what's he decide to do?

He takes a 15 minute shit. FIFTEEN MINUTES. I TIMED IT. He made me late for the last, most stressful part of my day: parent pick up.

So since I was five minutes late for returning to my class, I didn't get to catch the parents that picked up their kids right outside of the classroom, which means my final count for kids got all skewed, but that's not that big of a problem. Oh no, you know what the biggest problem is? The fact that I have to watch 15 kids that I've literally just met and make sure that each and every one of them gets picked up by their parents.

Not so bad, right? Except there's only ONE pick up area. And there's EASILY over 14.5 billion kids all crammed in this area.

"I found the wizard, but WHERE THE HELL ARE MY 15 KIDS?"
(via survivinggrady.com)

And it didn't help that every 5 minutes, someone would ask me a question. Swear to god, my kids are NINJAS. Seriously, I could resolve a question in thirty seconds tops, but in those thirty seconds that I'm not paying 100% attention to my kids, HALF OF THEM DISAPPEAR.

Eventually, all of the kids got picked up. But not after an hour of waiting and a light scolding from Grant Imahara to all of the TAs.

That was super stressful.

RFotD: "Where's Waldo" is called "Where's Wally" in every other country except for the US and Canada. And also I'm really tired.

SGAT: Was too tired to write anything.