Where did "Kimbalina" come from?

Everyone has their nicknames that were somehow derived from a certain event or joke. Kimbalina is mines. I really like it, and over the years more and more people have been using it for me. Where did it come from? Well, way back in the day...I was very small for my age. I was a lot smaller than my other friends. It's kind of funny, because my brother was always one of the biggest in his class. The genes obviously didn't split evenly. It was one extreme or the other. I did hit a growth spurt eventually though, and now I'm pretty average, or even a little above average for asian females. When I was in sixth grade, after lunch my friends and I were sitting on this bench and talking. One of my friends looked at me and said, "Kimmy you're small like Thumbelina. I'm going to call you Kimbalina" She actually had a special way of saying it, "Kimbaliiiina" (with an accent on the 'ina' and she even would kind of nod her head when she said it). Since then, the name has stuck and I even found my grandpa calling me Kimbalina once. How cool is that?

I'm one of those people who loves to write "To Do" lists. Actually, I don't really love to write the lists necessariliy, but I love to cross things off of the lists. It gives me such a feeling of accomplishment and that I'm actually getting somewhere. I'm pretty organized and good at getting my priorities straight about what I need to do, but occasionally when I'm bored or have some extra time on my hands, I write my lists. Sometimes I'll add little easy things to my list just so that I will have something to cross off. It kind of gives me hope that I will be able to finish everything on the list one day.

After talking with a friend, I created a list of 10 things that I wanted to do before I graduated. I finally finished it, my list is complete! It hit me yesterday that even though I only had one thing left to do, I only had 2 weeks to do it in. My last thing to do on my list was to take a nap lying in the UC Davis Arboretum. With the rainy spring weather that we had this year, it made it hard for me to accomplish this task, and therefore put it off until now. The weather again isn't helping because it is so hot, I would risk heat stroke lying out there on the grass. ;) As luck would have it, one of my classes was cancelled today and I had an hour to spare before my next class. So I trudged all the way across campus so that I could cross out and finish my list for the year. It's a good thing my goal was to lie down because once I finally reached the Arboretum, I was so hot and tired that I just plopped down on the grass. But it was all worth it...because my list is done! The things that I will go through just to cross something off of a list. :)

Guess who I saw! Guess who I saw! RASCAL FLATTS! Ahhhhhhh!!!! =)

To say that I had a great weekend would be quite an understatement. Yay for Memorial Day weekend! On friday Bertrand took me to go see my very favorite group perform in concert. It was so fun! Rascal Flatts were awesome performers and we had some pretty good seats. During the break when the stage was getting prepared for the next band, my friend Lawrence from high school called me up and we played a game of Where's Waldo to find each other among the crowd of thousands. We met up outside of the amphi-theater and Scott another friend was with him too! It was so nice to see them after four years, we took pictures together and talked about the concert. Of course as soon as I heard the band come on stage, I took off running. Brooks and Dunn, the headliners, were also awesome performers. In case you haven't figure out by now....yes, I am a country fan. Why? Because it's good stuff! I'm not that into the old twangy stuff, but the new country, I love. A lot of people say, "Country sucks." I don't mind if others have different taste in music than I do, as long as they've actually listened to country and then say that it sucks. People who just say that it sucks right off the bat, without ever giving it a shot, are just ignorant in my eyes. I listen to all types of music and don't descriminate. If you give everything a try, you learn to appreciate them all. Who says you only have to listen to one type of music? However, there are definetly stereotypes and at this particular concert, I was surrounded by hics in Wranglers and Cowboy hats. What better way to celebrate Memorial Day.

I need to get my car fixed. My car has been faithful to my family for 18 years now and it is starting to die piece by piece. I guess it's not really dying, because it still runs, but there are little things here and there that are falling apart. Me being the non-mechanic that I am, don't know how to do anything with my car except put the key in the ignition, turn it, and drive. Anything about the engine or anything else that is under the hood, please don't ask me. For the longest time, I didn't know that you had to check the oil in your car. I've seen people do it, but I didn't know that I was supposed to be doing it! Luckily my dad takes a little peep under the hood of my car occasionally to make sure that I'm not driving a death trap, and he said that I had no oil and that it was completely dry! Ah! I could have almost burned myself and my car to death. Actually...that has happened more than one time. Recently, all of my brake lights burned out except for the one in the middle that sits in the back window. I need to go buy some bulbs (which ones?) and install them (how?).

Several months ago I was driving down the freeway when something went wrong with my car and I had to pull over. I had to call the tow truck to come and tow my car to the shop and had my boyfriend come to pick me up. Nothing like this had ever happened to be before this time, so I was pretty clueless. I called my dad to ask him what I should do and where I should go. He told me to go to the shop that he always goes to (they know him by his first name there) and that he had already talked to a man named Rich, and that Rich would take care of me. So once I get to the car fixing place, I went inside and saw a man at the counter. This is the dialogue that follows:

Me: Hi, are you Rich?
pause...
Man: ...is that what you say to all the boys?
Me: *gasp* *giggle* My dad told me that I'm supposed to talk to Rich
Man: looks up at my boyfriend Are you rich?
BF: No I'm not rich, I'm comfortable
Me: *whimper* I need to talk to Rich.
Man: Rich is my boss, but don't worry I can help you.

Stuff like this always happens to me. =)

What it feels like to be three weeks away from graduation....

• So close, yet so far....I want nothing more than to do absolutely nothing and just goof off my last quarter here in college and just enjoy being here. Apparently my professors didn't get the memo, because they're giving me way too much to do.
  
• Senioritis....the disease that plagues all seniors at one point or the other, where you really stop caring about anything academic. It's taken awhile, but the senioritis has finally hit me....when I only have three weeks left. Why didn't it come earlier? My stress level would have been much reduced.
  
• The economy.... :( No jobs there for me to apply for...and the ones that are available have about 80,000 people applying for one position.
  
• What am I going to do now?...I am a very organized person and I usually know what I want. I had it all planned out...I was going to graduate in four years, get a job...Now that there is no job (yet), what am I going to do?
  
• I need a break. Hey, I think I deserve a little break. What better time to do it than when I am done with school and haven't started working yet? No responsibilities...or big ones yet. I had planned on taking a tour of Asia since I have never been there and would love to see what it is like there. As I was making travel plans...SARS broke out. So, no more Asia.
  
• What do I want?...The other night I was lying in bed thinking about everything and what I wanted to do now with my life in the next year. And then I suddenly realized...I have no idea. I don't know what I want to do anymore. I used to have it planned out, but now that that moment is here, I really don't know anymore. So many things seem like they would be fun and interesting to do.
  
• I have so much junk. Now that I will be moving out of my apartment soon, I have started going through and throwing away things that I no longer need. I have saved every single assignment and test from every single class over the past four years. Why? I thought that either I might need them to reference back to, or that they would be useful to any of my friends taking the class later. I've gone through and trashed boxes full of papers. Clothes...Salvation Army loves me and my roommates. We are going through everything and putting them in bags to give to salvation army.
  
• I'm going to miss this place. Last night after having dinner with my roommates, I walked around the corner to the apartments right behind me to work on homework with a couple of my friends. On my way over, another friend was in his apartment and called me in to watch his inflatable plane fly from upstairs down to the window. After graduation, life will be different, and I won't be living next door to all of my friends anymore and I won't be living in a town with 25,000 other people my age.
  
• I'm getting old. Okay...okay...those of you who are older than me are probably going, "psh." But, I have realized that after college, that is when you start to get old, and I am at that peak. :)

Ever since I've gotten my digital camera, I have become one of those people who never leaves home withouit their camera. I am one of those annoying people that always says, "Hey, get together! Let's take a picture!." It brings me so much joy and happiness to look at pictures...and now with this camera, I have even MORE pictures to look at. It has almost gotten to the point where I feel naked without my camera...kind of like my cell phone. I am becoming waay too technology dependant. I've been kind of busy lately with projects and midterms, that I have forgotten to bring my camera with me this entire week. Can you believe it? Ah! Every time I see something neat, I think about, "wow...I wish I had my camera."

I'm sitting in the main reading room of the Shields Library now, procrastinating and looking around at the room and the people around me. I've never realized how pretty this room is, maybe because I rarely ever study in the library. What I should be doing is cramming for my two midterms that I have today, which I have yet to really study for. But so far, today has started off on a great foot. I actually woke up at 6:15 this morning on my own with no alarm clocks, had my coffee, and even made it to my 8 o'clock discussion. I am in a great mood even though I should be completely stressed out about these tests that I should be studying for. So maybe...just maybe...this day will turn out great after all and I will ace both midterms. But if I don't...does it really matter? I'm not sure that it does anymore....senioritis in full force.

I don't know what it is...but I seem to run into people that I know at the most random places....or at the most random times. During one trip to DisneyWorld I was kind of tired, and sat down on a bench in front of Epcot Center...and I looked up and saw my eight grade Health and Math teachers there on a trip together. On another trip to Hawaii, I was sitting down at a terminal waiting to board my plane, and my friend from junior high walked off the plane. Even more strange, I ran into a guy from my high school on the elevator going up to the top of the Space Needle in Seattle.

There are usually random occasions where I run into old long lost friends in the most random places doing my everyday thing. This has been such the case these past three days. Late saturday night I was up working on my term paper for my Computer Security and got an IM from an old friend of mine from high school who I haven't talked to for four years. It was great! We just caught up on old times and about things that have been going on with us these past four years...basically, a little "life update." Even better than that, we may be going to the same concert in a couple of weeks! Speaking of which....Hi Lawrence! (I know he reads this site occasionally). Yesterday, I was sitting on the bus to go home from campus, and someone randomly tapped my shoulder and said, "Excuse me....Are you Kimmy?" I turned around and it was my friend who I haven't seen in 6 years! WOAH. She looked so different and yet the same. I've always thought that she was a lot younger and didn't realize that she was in college yet, so she was the very last person I ever thought that I would run into in Davis. We also had our own "life update." Today, I was coming into my 550 person lecture class and was climbing through the aisles to grab a seat and heard, "Kimmy!" LOL. I looked up and it was one of my best friends from elementary and middle school! haha...what the heck. It was so great to see her and talk to her. We tried to catch up on everything, what we've been up to, how our families are doing, everything....

Man, if I could keep this going for awhile, I will have had such an exciting week. :)

Whole Earth Festival

Yay hippies! Today was the start of the annual Whole Earth Festival here in Davis. Nothing like a bunch of hippies gathering together on the quad and selling their tye-dye and pottery. I actually had a lot of fun today. I got to try on a few fun hats...one was even in the shape of a fish.

There was the lifesize jungle climbing thing and the humongous tricycle. The main speaker this year is the lady who lived in a tree for three years to save its life. Everything at the Whole Earth Festival seemed to be centered around trees and everything else organic. We had to pay an extra dollar as a deposit on our plastic plates when we bought food and got the dollar back when we returned the plate. Mostly it was just a gorgeous day out, and was fun just to walk around and see all of the weird and interesting things that they had...

I've been taking a nutrition class this quarter. Actually...I've wanted to take this class since I was a freshman, but could never fit it in my schedule with my core classes that I needed to take. Alas, I waited 4 years and finally had the chance to take the class the very last quarter of my senior year. I wanted to take this class not only because it is one of the most popular classes here at UCD, but also because I find this sort of thing interesting. Never had I imagined that taking this class would affect my life so much though. I should have known...I took a Healthful Living course 3 years ago, and that was the class that scared me out of drinking coffee everyday. They told us about how bad caffeine was and showed us a picture of this old lady who drank a lot of coffee over the years...and I think that picture scared me enough to drop the habit completely. Now I just drink coffee...every other day....

So in my nutrition class we had a "Diet Project" where we recorded everything that we ate and drank (aside from water) for 3 days, and recorded all of the vitamins...nutrients...etc. Then we did all this fancy calculation stuff to see how healthy our diets were and how we met our daily nutritional needs. I've always know that I wasn't the "healthiest" eater...but this project just showed how much my diet sucked. I was deficient in EVERY single vitamin and nutrient except for....saturated fat. How I am not 2000 lbs. I'm not quite sure. Apparently with the amount of fat I'm eating, I should be one of those people that get transported from their homes with a tractor. I was especially deficient in my fiber and Vitamin C intake. Yesterday, when we turned in our projects, the professor did a sort of "game" to see how bad the class was. She had us raise our hands if we were under a certain amount for our diet intakes. So she calls off certain ones...."Fiber, how many of you have less than 20g per day?" (The daily value is 25g) So about 100 people raised their hand and she gasped....then she goes down to 10 g....with even more gasps from the class....and then...she asked for anything lower than that. I had my hand raised still because apparently my daily intake was only 5 grams! But I was sitting on the side of a huge lecture hall and she didn't see me. The guy that won only got 8 grams.....haha sucker! I beat you...uh um...I mean... So the teacher asked that guy, "how are you still alive???" and gave him a box of Fiber One cereal. Then she moves on to Vitamin C and did the same thing to see who got the lowest percentage of Vitamin C. The person with the lowest had 30% of the daily value...yeah...I had 20%.

My friend who sat next to me in class kept going, "Oh my God Kimmy." At the end of class he gave me a granola bar which he told me has 2 grams of fiber....Thanks. After that class yesterday I realized that I am going to die if I keep eating the way that I do. How I'm alive now, I'm not really sure. God loves me. My roommate who is a dietician, took a look at my project to see what foods I was eating. I didn't really understand where the problem was because I don't eat junk food that often. She said that I am eating well, but that I need to add other foods to my diet so that I can increase my amount of vitamin intake. After I got off of work, I raced home and went to the grocery store. I bought all these healthy foods like...broccoli, salad, Fiber One cereal, fruit juice....and I had a "balanced healthy" dinner. I'm going to be healthy from now on.

100 Things about Kimbalina

Updated: January 24, 2006

1. I have a scar on my chin from when my brother knocked me off a stool when he was 1 and I was 3

2. My pinky nail fell off when I was 3 after my finger got slammed in a door

3. In most of my classes...I am 1 of 2-5 girls in a class of 70 plus (Since I'm not in school anymore, I'll give a new fact)

3. I fractured a rib from coughing.

4. I can hold 30 tapioca balls in my mouth at once

5. I once won an award and patch for the brownie who sold the most Girl Scout cookies in my county

6. When I was 16, I was the Weekend manager at Haagen-Dazs

7. During a 3 day straight-no-sleep road trip, I mistakenly washed my hair with hotel body lotion rather than conditioner.

8. I have never met anyone famous...at least I don't think so Since working for Google, I've met my share of famous people

9. When I left home for college, my pastor gave me a box of top ramen as a going away gift

10. I missed my good friend's wedding because I was in the hospital with pneumonia (I was the maid of honor)

11. I am not a fan of feet

12. My highest bowling score is a 157 194

13. My lowest bowling score is a 52

14. I am afraid of cats

15. In third grade, I got hit in the nose playing dodge ball and got a bloody nose

16. I got a 100% on my written driving exam

17. I know how to ballroom dance and danced the Rhumba and Ballero at my wedding

18. I am addicted to chocolate

19. I am ticklish

20. I wore braces for 3 months

21. My uncle attempted to teach me calculus when I was 5 years old

22. I once bought the board game Sorry at a garage sale for $3

23. I ran into a guy I knew from my high school in the elevator on the way up to the top of the Space Needle on a family vacation

24. When I was 6, I promised my grandma that I would come and live with her when I was 10 (because I didn't think that 10 would ever come)

25. In second grade, I got the overall highest score on my math quizzes in my class, so my teacher took me shopping for a teddy bear

26. I named that bear Alice

27. I learned to play the piano when I was 3 1/2

28. I couldn't reach the keys, and sat on top of two phonebooks

29. My second grade class had a class rabbit that we traded off taking home on the weekends between all of the students

30. When it was my turn to take care of the rabbit, I was so afraid of it, I never even came close to the cage (My dad took care of it)

31. I love to shop

32. I am studying to be a Computer Engineer I have a degree in Computer Engineering and am now a Software QA Engineer

33. I wear one contact

34. I have 5 alarm clocks that go off every morning...yet I still don't hear them

35. I studied french in high school

36. My french name is Arielle

37. I love to eat funnel cakes at the fair

38. I once edited an engineering magazine before they sent it to the publisher

39. My dad made me write a formal contract when I got my dog, promising that I would take care of him

40. I got my drivers license at 8am on my 16th birthday

41. I believe in true love

42. I love to snowboard

43. I have never skied

44. My friend and I got on the big screen at a concert twice

45. I have gotten splinters from hair before...and still have the scars to prove it

46. After taking a health class freshman year of college, I stopped drinking coffee everyday

47. When I was in 2nd grade, I missed my class field trip to Sea World because I had the chicken pox

48. I once worked with runway models checking their clothes and how they looked before they stepped onto the runway

49. I never liked to play with dolls

50. I have been to the Kennedy Space Center

51. I have mastered the art of sleeping with my head on my arm and pen in hand in class

52. When I was 12, I made my brother call me, "Older sister Kimmy" for a period of time, because I didn't think that he respected me

53. I have never gotten a speeding ticket

54. I can remember my 21st birthday...or most of it ;)

55. In second grade, I cried because a girl called me "stupid"

56. My first grade teacher slipped on a french fry on our way to the school library and broke her nose, while 30 six-year olds stood by crying

57. My first word was "Ma"

58. I appreciate polite people

59. I saw snow fall for the first time 3 years ago in 2000

60. When I was four, I swam the entire length of an olympic sized pool to show my grandma that I could do it

61. I once failed a midterm to talk to someone who told me that they were dying, and that their last dying wish was to talk to me. (he lied and wasn't dying)

62. My dream job would to be a personal shopper

63. If I could have three wishes, my first would be to wish for more wishes

64. I got an A+ in Photography I,II,and III in high school

65. My friend and I once painted another friend's toenails pink while he slept.

66. I have been scuba diving in a pool

67. I took a picture with my hand on a statue's butt at The Louvre Museum in France

68. My fourth grade class got an ice cream party thrown for us when our teacher was fired

69. I always sing in the shower

70. If I weren't an engineer, I would like to be a teacher

71. My brother and I used to walk along the edges of tennis courts and take home any tennis balls that we found

72. During a family reunion, all of my cousins and I raided our uncles cabinets and had a food sale in the backyard. We took the money that we made and bought slurpees at 7-11

73. If I don't concentrate while drinking out of a cup, my pinky always sticks out

74. I am not very good at golf, but I try

75. My hat fell in the water when I went too fast while jetskiing

76. I look a lot like my mom

77. I really don't want to study right now (Time for a new fact)
My husband and I met on our own. We later found out that my great-grandfather and his grandfather were best friends years ago.

78. I love extra spicy food

79. I was sore for two weeks after my first time snowboarding

80. I used to collect soda can tabs

81. I really like love Thai Iced Tea

82. I love looking through old pictures and albums

83. I really like to get "real" mail

84. My friend and I used to write long letters and mail them to each other...we lived down the street from each other

85. My friends bought me a Tamagotchi for fun on one of my birthdays

86. Sometimes I put a mirror up to my beta's fish bowl and watch it flare up and get ready to fight itself...it's really pretty Update: fishy died, but this is still a good memory

87. During senior cut day in high school, my friends and I went hiking and I fell in the river

88. I've played piano at Nordstrom's during Christmastime

89. I've never broken any bones, but I sprained my arm once in fourth grade playing Octopus Does a fracture count?

90. For fun, my friends and I used to poke a hole on the top of soda cans with a pen, cover the hole, shake the can, and then let it shoot into our mouths

91. My neighborhood used to have kickball tournaments where all of the kids and parents came out to play at night

92. My dog caught a bird in his mouth once and brought it home

93. I love to give and receive hugs

94. I've never really wished that I could fly

95. I love the smell of cinnamon

96. I usually drive about 75-80 mph on the freeway

97. When my friend called me in the morning on September 11th and told me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, I told him that there was an alien at my front door,
and to let me go back to sleep.

98. I applied for my major in college not really knowing what I was getting into, nor much about computer or engineering.

99. I once told my professor that I had been to "Munich, Austria"

100. I like white and silver cars.

Awhile back, a friend of mine had talked about how he wanted to have a list of the things that he wanted to do before he turned 30...and that gave me the idea that I should have a list of things that I wanted to do before my next milestone, graduation. So in January, I wrote my list of things that I wanted to do before June 13th. I actually managed to get 8 of the items checked off. Yay! But two of my "must-do's" have yet to be accomplished. The weather isn't really helping me to accomplish my number one thing, "Taking a nap lying on the grass at the UCD Arboretum" unless I want to take a nap in a puddle of mud while it rains on me. My 7th item of this list has yet to be accomplished too...."Do something completely crazy and spontaneous." I'm not much of a crazy person....although I am spontaneous at times. I guess my schedule hasn't really allowed me to be that crazy or spontaneous....but I guess that's the whole point.... Anyhow, I still have 5 weeks to finish my list.....I think I can....I think I can....

Update: So it was brought to my attention that I HAVE accomplished my 7th thing on my list! Dressing up, dancing, and lip syncing to Eminem and recording it as a spur of the moment thing is definetly crazy and spontaneous. Yay! One more to go!