Fast week!

Wow, I've been up to so much since last Sunday, so here goes! Also, I know this summer I've been updating approximately once a week, so I usually do brief recaps and pictures, but once school starts again (August 30), I'll be updating at least twice a week with more detailed experiences like before, so look forward to that! Now.. for this week!

Monday - Work. Relatively uneventful..

Tuesday - Crazy day! In the morning, I got an assignment to research a little bit, so I looked up public records and things like that. After, I got a chance to go to Wake County Courthouse with one of our cops reporters, so that was really cool! We met at 2:30 in the newsroom and headed out, since the courthouse was a block or two from The News & Observer office. We first went to the public records department to look up information and then later across the street to look up some more records (traffic information, etc.), so that was really fun. I had been to the courthouse before to do a public records search during a journalism camp in high school, but I hadn't done it in a while, and it was great seeing how everything worked! I was too fascinated by everything that I forgot to take pictures, but here are some images I found on Google of the courthouse!









Later in the afternoon, I got the chance to interview NC Central professor (& wheelchair basketball player) Dr. Andrea Woodson-Smith. It was pretty difficult trying to find the Walker complex at NCCU, but I ended up talking to her for almost an hour, so that was tons of fun! She was a bench player for the USA Women's Team at the International Wheelchair Basketball tournament, and she ended up saving the day in the women's championship match against Germany, blocking a shot with 19 seconds left on the clock! Read more about her here--my last story published for The N&O! After that, I headed back, had dinner, and relaxed.

Wednesday - My last day at The N&O! The summer seemed to pass by really slowly and really quickly at the same time. I learned so much from the internship (and living alone and having responsibilities), but at the same time, I was pretty ready to go home and see my family and friends. I got into work and worked on the story I mentioned earlier then went to lunch with my editor and two other reporters. We went to this nice Lebanese restaurant called Sitti, 3-4 blocks from the office. I didn't get any pictures of the food since I was afraid I'd be awkward to, but I did find some nice pictures of the restaurant on Google!










After lunch, I headed out in the mid-afternoon to prepare for my flight later that night. After leaving Raleigh, I headed to Duke for a job interview for an internship for the fall. then, I got ready for the airport and went with Stephen to Cook-Out for the last meal and waited at the airport. Wednesday night--and five hours later--I finally arrived at LAX! I know you're not supposed to have electronics on toward the end, but here are some blurry pictures with the skylights from lA! (They don't capture the place at all, though..)

Thursday morning, I woke up early and went to George's Hamburgers with my friends David and Serena. We got breakfast burritos--which are massive and absolutely delicious.

Half of the burrito & a mini cup (saucer?) of Ranch.

After, Serena and I came over to my house and we tanned/went swimming, which was awesome, because I missed the pool and the nice weather! After talking for a long time outside, Serena left and my dad and I went to Costco to pick up some groceries. I continued reading Everything Matters!, the Duke class of 2014 summer reading book (because I need to lead a discussion on it later as a FAC). Then, we had a nice home-cooked meal!

After dinner, I went to Brea Mall with my parents to buy presents for my grandma's surprise birthday party on Sunday. Then, I met up with a bunch of my friends, like 20 of them, and had boba/bubble tea at Boba Loca then came back to my house with David and my cousins Dexter and Jon to play mahjong. Needless to say, it was a busy but extremely successful/fun day!!

Friday - I had lunch with my dad in the afternoon at Farmer's Boys, and it was great. I love having talks with my dad, and we ended up talking for almost two hours before I headed out to a frozen yogurt place--Berry Cool--to meet up with the Accolade kids (staff members of my high school newspaper). It was great catching up with the kids my year and the ones a year younger and finding out where they were going to college. Then, I went with Jennifer to Party City to buy some decorations for my grandma's party, and look what I found!

Saturday was a pretty crazy day! I hung out with my best friend Kevin from UCLA & Nishant from UCSD. They both were taking classes/working in labs, but they came home for the weekend, so we had a day-long adventure! We met up for lunch at this restaurant called Guppy's, and we ate SO MUCH. I'm still full from that, and that was a few days ago.. We had pineapple fried rice, which was actually served in a pineapple!, brick toast (really thick toast with a flaky butter layer on top), popcorn chicken, and a huge shaved ice thing with strawberries! After, we went to our old neighborhoods--turns out we all used to live 10-15 minutes away from each other, all before we even met!! I got to see the house I lived in from when I was born to 4th grade, and after, we went to Tri-City Park and ended up talking a lot about the future and watching a bunch of kids running around for birthday parties. Then, we headed back to my house to walk my dog back from the pet grooming place across the street. We talked for a long time at my house then decided that we'd finish our reminiscing tour by visiting my and Nishant's elementary school, Laguna Road, and all three of our junior high's-- Parks Jr. High. The places had changed a lot, but it was fun swinging on the swings and just walking around. Then we had boba, which was delicious. We finally grabbed Yoshinoya--a fast food Japanese food kind of place--for dinner and went our separate ways since I wanted to get a good night's rest for the next day's party, and both of them had places to go early in the morning. Pictures!

Sunday was my grandma's surprise birthday party, so a bunch of relatives came over in the afternoon, and then me, Dexter, and Jon went over to the restaurant to decorate the place. I didn't take any pictures, but I'll put some up soon once my relatives email them over!!

Monday I had lunch with my friend Nicole at California Pizza Kitchen. Then we wandered around the mall, and I found this cute shop called The Daisy Shoppe and saw a bunch of cupcake/ice cream-like things that were really manicure sets, towels, lip gloss, etc.! Now I'm heading to UCLA with Serena to see Kevin again. Woohoo! Updates again once I'm at Duke!