attack of the livejournal tirade!
FRIDAY.JUNE.2:
...my family headed down to **San Diego** for my piano recital at the Music Teacher's Association of California state convention @ the Town and Country Resort & Convention Center... it was very nice there, and I actually played my Dello Joio piece well despite not practicing it for months. (I only played it several times the week before.) Warning to children: do not practice this at home - it doesn't always work My teacher said I played "perfectly". ahah, that's a first.
After the recital, we went to the Grand Ballroom to browse through all of the music exhibitions. It's very fortunate that this splendid 5-day event only happens annually, because I was like a kid in a candy store w/ all the books & music-related merchandise everywhere. heehee. My favorites of the stuff I bought include treble cleft earrings, FOTR & TTT music books (painfully simplified, but still LotR), and a small "Too Hot to Handel" towel (heehee)... ^_^
Once I was dragged kicking and screaming from the MTAC convention (lol, jk), we ate lunch and went to Sea World! woot woot! I normally wouldn't have asked to go (on account of the expense), but we had free tickets and hence only had to buy the incredibly overpriced food. :P My dad put me in charge, so I balanced our schedule to see all of the shows and go on the rides we wanted. We spend most of the day going to/on said attractions, and by 10pm we had time to check out the other, less dynamic ones ("Shark Encounter", "Manatee Rescue", etc.).
The animal displays are overlooked, unfortunately - everyone's busy going on rides & seeing shows and often forget the other attractions tucked away in corners of the park. The ones we had time to visit were beautifully done and presented great animal viewing. It's amazing to see a huge, powerful polar bear an inch away from you and to see swimming manatees below the surface of the water... It seems like the larger the aquatic animal, the more graceful and dignified it looks in the water. :)
SATURDAY-SUNDAY.JUNE.3-4:
... got home from Sea World around 1:30am. *yawn* At 2pm I went to my cousin's bridal shower @ the Four Seasons Tea Room. It was a small, nice event w/ good food, pleasant furnishings, and a fun game (w/ fobby prizes, hehe)... at 4pm I was picked up and taken home to finish packing for my dad's side family vacation. We left around 5pm and hours later reached the mountain 'mansion' in Kern Country (in the Los Palos National Forest).
People who don't have a 40+ person family vacation with everyone living in one giant two story house which is stuck in the mountains with nothing to do outdoors, are missing out on life... then again, it only gets so fun because everyone on my dad's side always gets along. Even if there are arguments, they don't last long and no one become bitter or holds grudges - five minutes later they can be laughing again. That's one of the best things about the Ngo clan: laughter. It's not often that you see so many people laughing so joyfully, naturally, and much...
Also, there's a sense of harmony within the entire group. During the day, everyone is split up into different groups of different ages doing different things (mostly watching tv, playing games, or cooking), but we all still interact. When the evening/night falls, everyone gets together to play group games on the floor of the biggest room in the house. At least, that’s what we loud, laughing hyenas did on Saturday night (after the last Family Feud game, some of us watched a movie, then went to bed around 2:30am). On Sunday night the adults and older kids sang and/or danced to various styles of music [in Vietnamese; occasionally French]. As for myself, I didn't dance or let anyone drag me out to teach me, although a bunch of people tried... I would have if my parents weren't around. lol.
I was actually bored and tired a lot of the time there, despite taking random naps during the day - being in the mountains, there was no reception; there also was no yard or activities to do outside. There was a place for sports a short drive off, but I can't play volleyball and was too tired for basketball... fortunately, the evening entertainment made up for everything and allowed me to forget the day's boredom. :) I also kept myself busy by giving my older relatives personalized back & shoulder massages - they really love mine, for some reason. (I don’t see how mine is “so much better” than anyone else’s, especially since I’ve never been trained.)
MONDAY.JUNE.5:
... finished packing up our belongings, reorganizing the house’s furniture, and cleaning up; left in the afternoon and arrived home at 1:30pm. My piano teacher was still @ the MTAC convention, so I didn't have to worry about changing the time for my lesson. The rest of my afternoon was spend registered for my fall PCC courses, cleaning out my email inboxes, and putting away all of the belongings accumulating in my room from the weekend's activities. In the evening, I had to fix a 5 page literature paper. *growls*
So ends my [mostly] awesome weekend... *ambiguous half grin* lol.