Jason's Daily Notes

Friday night: Went to Dave & Buster's with Matthew and his family. Lots of food, I had two Newcastles (why does the first beer always taste so good?!). I quickly bought a shirt at H&M. The girl ringing me up had an exclamation point on her name tag!

Saturday: Happy new month! I GOT A MACBOOK PRO. Had lunch at the Galleria - some Korean chicken place, it was alright. My mom is still driving the rental car that the insurance company is providing :)

Spent the afternoon getting to know my new Macbook.

Went to dinner at Hole in the Wall burger joint (finally). It's good! I like the system they have here. Matthew couldn't make it. Hrm.

Got ready for my party. Brian was there when I arrived. A good number of people showed up. Fernand, Vincent, Jmar, Jen, Josh, Martin, Mike, Carolina, Hanna (and their roommate Madeleine), P and Adrian, Ang and Kevin. We did not play guitar hero, despite how desperate Brian was to get it to work (which included driving 25 mins each way to my mom's house). We made a 1am taco run.

Sunday: I'm 23! Brian, Priscilla and Adrian stayed over. Brian had work so he left earliest. I spent the afternoon of my birthday alone. I walked to the farmer's market right before they closed, bought some fresh veggies and fruit to snack on.

I then set a relatively ambitious goal: to walk from my apartment to the beach. 3.8 miles. And I did it. I stopped for a late lunch at the Carl's Jr (which holds sentimental value for me; it's the site of my HS freshman retreat lunch). I had a $1 chicken sandwich and treated myself to criss-cut fries. There were two older men sitting at a table, who were talking loudly about politics and history. It was impossible to not hear them. They were walking a thin line - talking about whether Asians are naturally smarter (they agreed it was because Asians are just harder-working and that "when you live in a tropical country, you're lazy"). The views of older people often disturb/frighten me.

The weather was perfect. I mean, 74 and brilliantly sunny with a light breeze coming off the ocean. I really mean perfect.

I made it to the beach, and strolled around on the sand. The water was extremely cold. There were a lot of families on the beach by the pier. I ended up walking along the sand 3/4 of the way to Venice beach. I didn't have a towel or anything to sit on, so I lay on a concrete ledge by the bike path to give my feet and eyes a rest. There were a few moments on the beach when I could hear nothing but my thoughts. It's been a while since I've had the luxury of complete silence, without any cars passing by or computers humming.

I thought about sincerity and it's lackingness in much of society. I thought about maintaining purity and integrity in one's actions. The pureness of childhood. "Unadulterated" is an important word. Ah, to be adulterated sounds like such a bad thing, and painful at that. Just thoughts that anyone would think on a birthday.

I called my mom and uncle, who wanted to have dinner with me. And so we did. (I took the bus back to the apartment.) We went to Bossa Nova on Pico. It was a nice (and large-portioned) dinner of pasta and a Brazilian sandwich. The guys serving us seemed uninterested in us, however.

Back at the apartment, and back to playing with/learning how to use my new laptop. I transferred my music.