Los Angeles, Day 1

so, it's been almost a year since I added anything on here. hopefully, i'll be able to discipline myself to write something here regularly (ideally, every day but that's not going to happen). so without further ado (adieu? adoooooo?), day 1 of my fantastic journey to the city of angels.

i always found it interesting that despite my tendency to be late to everything, it's the complete opposite for significant things (unless, of course, it's my final exam. but that's another story). despite having only 4 hours of sleep, i wasn't the least bit groggy when my dad woke me up this morning at 5:30. in fact, we were out the door a good 30 minutes ahead of schedule. plus, with gas at $4.25 a gallon, there weren't many cars out on the highway during rush hour; it was more like "nice, comfortable pace hour", actually.

the plane ride was uneventful, unfortunately. i had this couple next to me who were very into each other, so it didn't seem like a good idea to start any small talk. "the bucket list" was the inflight show, but it got uninteresting about 10 minutes into it when the system had to be reset and i ended up seeing the same 10 minutes again. that and jack nicholson scares me. i don't know if it's because of the recent changes by every airline or if it's just united, but given that this was a 4 1/2 hour flight, there was remarkably little food provided to the passengers. i got a packet of cinnamon-flavored cookies (which i swear is just pure sugar that's given a porous texture) and a drink =/ i was, however, able to sweet talk the stewardesses into giving me a few extra packs of those cookies. i win.

after landing and taking the shuttle over to Toyota HQ, i headed over to the vehicle leasing department where i found out that the vehicle assigned to me accidentally went through the wash with the windows down. and this was after waiting 30-some minutes for lunch to be over. so my would-be blue toyota matrix then became a rav4. don't get me wrong, the rav4 is a great car, but it's too big for me. as luck would have it, 5 additional cars were turned in during the lunchbreak and one of them was a blue scion tC (my favorite out of the lot). but then they tell me that i can't take it because it's a 5-speed, which was my cue to jump up and shout, "I DRIVE STICK!" (visuals to follow later). funny thing is, i had requested a manual before coming in but they told me they didn't lease manuals to interns. apparently, they used to but no one knew how to drive them and so there was a huge fiasco with paperwork and all that fun stuff. *shakes head* see how the world would be a better place if people knew how to drive stick???

armed with a kick-ass ride, i pick up some packages i sent out ahead of time from HQ and headed over to the hotel i'm staying at for the summer. i go in to check in and after getting my room assignment, i find out that there was still someone living in the room! i go back and inform them of this and the girl behind the desk is confused. so she assigns me another room, which again is occupied. haha. so i head down again and we find out that because i was scheduled to come in on friday, the system displayed rooms that would be free on friday (strange, because i was confirmed to check in today. oh well.) anyway, i finally got an unoccupied room and started unpacking =] i love unpacking. always fun figuring out a new system based on your room setup and space and stuff like that.

so yea, i finished unpacking most of my stuff. there's still one more package on its way here and i have to do some grocery shopping. i'm just bumming around, watching episodes of scrubs and trying to get bittorrent to work so i can watch Bleach and Naruto. it seems like the wireless here is heavily monitored, so i might just watch them on youtube (unfortunately). i got a call a couple hours ago from a co-worker who's flying in tomorrow morning. she's new at driving or something so i'm helping her find her way around. haha, i remember when i first got behind the wheel. EVERYTHING looked the same. 6 years of driving definitely changes the way you view streets...

some quick, random details:
-my car has iPod integration! i plug in my iPod into it and i can control it from the dashboard =] haha, it's so awesome. it also has a pretty decent sound system (Pioneer). compared to my civic, it's a definite winner.

-transmission is a little rough. it feels too mechanical to drive. i mean, it IS a machine. but where driving my civic is an art, driving the scion has no life in it. it's not no heart. i get no joy out of making the car move, really. i have no regrets choosing the civic now.

-i went to walmart to get a few things for my room: RF modulator, krazy glue, cheerios and milk. the rf modulator allows me to plug in my gamecube to the tv which only has a coaxial input. the krazy glue was for the power adapter for my GPS device that cracked. and i left the milk at walmart. yum, dry cheerios for breakfast =x

-i wanted to drop by my cousin's place tonight to visit, but the time of day was bad because of all the traffic (i've heard horror stories of LA rush hour traffic), so it's rescheduled for saturday. that also meant that i had to make dinner with no utensils or anything. luckily, i brought a rice cooker and had some packaged jjam-ppong. but the noodles were spoiled so i just made the soup and ate rice with it. tomorrow, it will be better. i am NOT going to eat that crap again.

oh, if anyone wants anything from LA, lemme know.