I think I'm running out of places to interview. Yesterday, I went on an interview with a city agency that already interviewed me… in February. What is going on? Have they run out of people to see so they’re re-interviewing everyone or am I just that unmemorable? Shouldn’t they have a record somewhere that they had already seen me and they didn’t want me? That's poor organization – your tax dollars at work everyone. I don’t think I’m going to get a call back this time either. Hmmm… getting rejected twice by the same people can’t be good for an already bruised ego. Although, I think my ego is very robust and healthy considering all the rejections. Anyway, I take every interview that comes my way even when I know that I don’t want to work for them just so I can practice. If I don’t practice then my mental filter gets weak and I scare the interviewer with my chattiness and honesty. That’s what happened during my very first interview when I started this whole looking for a job adventure – frightened the interviewers with my honesty. Suffice it to say, they didn’t call me back for a second interview. I wouldn't have either...

I am a confirmed Anglophile. It all started with Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte in my early pre-teen years. Since then, it’s evolved… I’ll go watch a film just because it’s a small British independent and I’ll spell color as colour (but that may be more of my high school and college French kicking in… the American spelling just looks wrong). I get most of my news from the BBC or the Guardian newspaper and I read almost exclusively non-American novelists. Also, there’s just something about the British accent and their penchant for saying words like “lovely” and “brilliant.” Still… I don’t know if I could ever live in the UK. London is still my favourite city outside of New York but whenever I talk about London I conveniently forget all the inconvenient bits. They have great theatre venues and museums, I can find a cup of tea pretty easily and it’s one of the all-time great walkable cities. BUT, the tube always crowded, half the time the escalators are broken in the tube stations, it’s easy to get lost there, and everything is so expensive. Yup... definitely can't live there. I wonder if a Brit would choose New York over London...

I am not a graceful person. I’ll find a bruise on my leg and have no idea how it got there or a cut on my finger and have no idea how that got there. Also, I would never call myself a dexterous person either. More to the point though, everyone in my family knows that I’m not especially skilled with my hands. When my grandmother taught me how to make steamed eggs she never told me to put minced garlic in it. After she passed away my sister told me that my grandmother told her about the garlic but didn’t tell me about it because she was afraid for me when I was using the kitchen knife. I think she was totally right. I’ll be slicing away and all of a sudden there's blood from one of my fingers. For some reason, the blood is always a surprise. Tonight while I was dicing an onion I sliced a bit of my left index finger right near the nail. Fingers really bleed more than you would think they would. I’ve been thinking of taking a knife skills class at the local culinary school for ages. I really should look into that...

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – movie tickets are really expensive in New York. It costs $11 for one ticket - highway robbery. Is it like that everywhere or just here? If you think about it, if two people go to a movie it costs $22 – basically the price of the DVD when it comes out in six to nine months. I would rather buy the DVD so I won’t usually pay $11 to watch a movie but I will pay $6. The AMC theatre chain offers a $6 movie ticket before noon on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Personally, I love this idea because two people can go to the movies for the cost of one regular ticket. But there aren’t a whole lot of people who will get up to watch a morning movie with me. However, there is my lovely sister. She works in publishing and they have “summer Fridays.” That means she gets every other Friday off during the summer. This is especially great for me because I have someone to go to a Friday morning movie with! More businesses should have summer Fridays so that I have someone to play with while I’m unemployed.

It’s very important for me to “beat the system.” I have this thing against the MTA. For those of you who don’t know the MTA is the Metropolitan Transit Authority. It’s the agency that runs the subways and buses in the city. It is also the agency that charges $2 for a ride on one of their said subways or buses. I know that $2 isn’t a whole lot of money but living in the city is expensive to begin with and it tends to add up because you don’t always have the time or inclination to walk 20 blocks. So I’ve figured out a couple of ways of beating the system. My favorite is taking the subway to get somewhere but then taking the bus back home. You only pay $2 for your whole trip since you get a free subway to bus or bus to subway transfer. However, this only works if my return trip is within two hours of my setting off. My second favorite way of beating the system is to borrow my sister’s monthly unlimited Metrocard for the day. This method is good if I have to make multiple trips. So take that MTA!

Today I had an interview with the umbrella union of the municipal unions in the city. It’s a position in the housing unit – basically fighting evictions and that sort of thing. I’m a little ambivalent about working with actual clients. During law school, all of my internships were either with judges or with nonprofits working on special projects. I never had to advocate on behalf of one person before. Honestly, it scares the crap out of me… It would be my fault if a person lost his benefits or got evicted or lost custody of her kids and I don’t know if I could sleep at night if a case went badly. I want to help people but I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it. I think everyone has doubts when it comes to their profession especially in the beginning. I guess the only way to find out how strong you are is to throw yourself to the wolves. But honestly, housing court? It’s a zoo… a literal zoo. I’ve only observed housing court once and there was yelling and screaming and people everywhere. Maybe I should have gone into corporate law or tax law...

I seem to have a lot of interviews coming up… I don’t understand it but I suppose that saying is true: when it rains, it pours. Personally, I like a nice light rain… just enough to soak the garden but not so little that it just makes the first inch of soil damp. Hmmm... now that I wrote that it occurs to me that I should adjust my parent’s sprinkler system schedule sometime next month. Anyway, the one thing that I have learned from interviewing is that you get better at it the more you practice. My favourite tricky question is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” I always hated this question… I mean, what am I supposed to say? “In five years I’d like to be happy, not too stressed out with a reasonable blood pressure and cholesterol level” – not the best answer I think. I finally came up with an ideal answer (at least for me) – “In five years I’m not sure what I’ll be doing or where I will be working but I would like to be really good at whatever it is that I’m doing.” Now how’s that for an answer?

I love a good return policy. This morning my mother and I did a Costco run mostly to buy fruit but also to pick up some more water filters. My parents use the PUR water pitcher but Costco only sold the filters for the faucet attachment. After deliberating for about ten minutes my mom decided to buy a new Brita water pitcher and a box of filters. It was a good idea because then I could steal their water filters since I have a Brita water pitcher at my apartment. Anyway, the only thing we didn’t foresee was the size of the water pitcher. My parents’ refrigerator has this little door in the door so that you can easily access drinks and beverages but the new Brita water pitcher was too tall so it didn’t comfortably fit. In the end my mom decided that she had to return it… so we wrapped it back up, replaced the filter we had opened with a new one from the box of filters and taped the plastic wrap back on. When we took it back to Costco this afternoon, they just gave us back the money, no questions asked…

Today is the eighteenth of October and I have 83 entries to write if I want to catch up. I don't know if catching up with all of these journal entries is feasible. On the one hand, it would be so easy to ignore that I ever started a Word Count Journal. I could delete all of these stickies on my desktop and continue on with my life. On the other hand, I have all of these stickies on my desktop and there's something to say about closure. But then again, the fall television season has started so I have something to watch on most nights and I love fall in New York so I'm walking a lot or at least spending more time outside than I do in the summer.

I guess it'll come down to how much I can write before my brain goes all gooey. I like writing these little vignettes about my days or what I'm thinking mostly because I have a horrible memory and the idea of having my year documented in some way appeals to me. I guess in the end, it’ll be a question of my writing stamina…

Most people go back home to spend time with their families... so why is it that when I go back home my parents leave me home all alone for the whole day? Sigh... I guess it's better that they have their own lives instead of focusing on mine. It's weird how my parents are busier now that they are retired than when they were working. It's all good though... their absence gave me a chance to wash all the sheets. I hate folding sheets so I like to strip the beds, wash the sheets, then put everything back after it's dried. It would be better to rotate the sheets in the closet... although, I did see Martha Stewart fold sheets. Apparently, there's a trick to it. Other than washing sheets and making beds I didn't do much today. I did look into my parents getting an iMac. They really need a new computer and I'm trying to push them the Apple way. They need everything in Korean and that's really easy to do with a Mac but more than that you don't have to worry so much about viruses and other bad PC diseases.

It takes me forever to start on my journey home. Okay, I say that it's a journey but people commute daily from Staten Island into the city for work every day. Actually, I used to commute into the city to work from Staten Island for a little over a year. I didn't mind the commute at all... the ferry ride home every evening gave me time to decompress and I got a lot of reading done that year. You really can't get much reading done when you're just going a couple of stops on the subway. Actually, I just bring the New York Times and/or the New Yorker with me when I go out now. Although, I imagine that commuting for years on end would get pretty old, pretty fast. My brother went to school on the Upper East Side for about six years and he ended up going to Dartmouth for college. That school is literally in the middle of nowhere. I would have been scared to walk around there at night. At least in the city there are people everywhere... who would hear me scream in the middle of a field?

A LOT of walking today and thankfully it was a beautiful day... My best friend came into the city for the first time in ages and we just walked everywhere. We had brunch at the new Grey Dog's on University... Grey Dog's on Carmine is one of my favorite places to eat so of course I had to try their new location. The place on University was pretty good... it's where the hardware store used to be. That was a great hardware store... it was owned by this Chinese family and they were always really nice to me even when I would go in there just to buy one nail or one screw. Anyway, the service at the new Grey Dog's is a little uneven but I guess that's to be expected considering that they just opened a week ago. I'll go there to check up on them before NYU moves in for term. Other than that, we walked all over Nolita and all the way down to Chinatown where I found my new favorite fruit - the golden kiwi! That stuff is awesome - not hairy like a regular kiwi and really sweet.

I didn't read Harry Potter at all yesterday. I thought it would be best if i just took a break and digested everything that I had read on Saturday. Do you skip to the end of books? I don't do that but my mom does. I don't think she can stand the anticipation of it all... But if you don't read the end first then you're genuinely surprised that there was an epilogue. Actually, I was really disappointed with the New York Times - why (WHY?) would you publish a review of the book two days before it comes out when millions (MILLIONS!) of people are awaiting its unveiling? Honestly, it was a global event of the good kind and those are far and few between. The review wasn't even printed in the Arts section but in the National section - some wayward reader (who didn't want to know) could have just come across it accidentally during his morning commute. I didn't read the review until today but I'm glad that I hadn't read it beforehand... it doesn't give much away but even a little bit would have been too much for me...

The UK is under water... I hope everyone is okay there. Last year, my sister, mom and I went to London right after my bar exams. They were going through a real heat wave with temperatures in the nineties a couple of days before we had arrived but the weather while we were there was just perfect - low eighties and dry. What is going on with global weather patterns? Have you seen "The Day After Tomorrow"? I just saw that for the first time a couple of days ago and it was quite sobering. In the movie New York was flooded to about the third story and then everything froze over because an ice age had started. The entire northern two thirds of the country was frozen not to mention most of Europe and the population wasn't evacuated in time. I wonder if that could really happen... I mean, there must be an element of truth in the premise of the movie, right? It's something to think about... the way we treat this planet with such careless indifference. This is why I want a MINI Cooper when I grow up...

HARRY POTTER DAY! Since we ordered our books from Amazon, my sister and I were up rather early waiting for the UPS man. But it wasn't the UPS man who delivered our books but a USPS woman. She rang our doorbell at 11:06am and handed us a specially designed Harry Potter Amazon box. Talk about good packaging... you have to hand it to Amazon. Anyway, I started reading around 11:15am and finished reading at 10:00pm but that included eating two meals. I would have finished faster if I didn't have to eat but then I wouldn't have had the energy to actually read. So now it's over. Now what? Well, besides the reading and re-reading of it? Although, things to look forward to... two more movies are coming out and the theme park in Orlando is going to open in 2009. All in all though I thought it ended very well... I was really pleased that there was an epilogue although a few more details wouldn't have gone amiss. I particularly liked that Teddy Lupin turned out so well despite his sad beginning - a new world and all that.

IT'S HARRY POTTER WEEKEND! My sister and I decided that we would be more comfortable if we went back home to Staten Island to read so we took the ferry home this afternoon. Here's our logic... our mom could feed us while we're reading. If we just stayed in our respective apartments then we would have to take time out to cook or order in... precious minutes that could be spent on Harry Potter. When I told our mom that we were coming home to read she asked us what we wanted to eat during the weekend so I knew then that we had made the right choice. We also decided to have Amazon deliver the books to us. While my sister would have stood on line for the book, I can't get any quality reading done in the middle of the night, especially after standing in a crowd for who knows how long. Although... it is a seminal event in our lives so maybe we should've stood on line. Nah... best to have the books brought to us so that we can use our energy to read.

You learn something new every day. This is what I learned today... Virgin now has domestic flights in this country and tennis balls are packaged like cans of soda. While I was reading the newspaper today I noticed this full page ad for Virgin America airlines. When did this happen? Usually I don't notice the ads in the newspaper... you learn to tune them out but this ad caught my attention because I love Virgin Atlantic. In my lifetime I have flown across the Mississippi River only once but I've crossed the Atlantic more than a half a dozen times. But if Virgin is now offering domestic flights perhaps I won't fly across the ocean for my next vacation (I was thinking Florence or someplace in Spain next) but I'll try someplace like San Francisco... The other thing I learned is that opening a can of tennis balls is like opening a can of soda. I've never opened a can of tennis balls before so I wasn't prepared for the escaping air. Why are tennis balls under pressure? That totally surprised me but in a good way...

I floss more than anyone I know... Does anyone else floss every single night? I do. It's become a bit of a habit and it started three years ago when I got my braces off. My teeth were reasonably straight when I was growing up but then when I hit my twenties they started to move around. I think it's because I had my wisdom teeth pulled when I was 18 - all of a sudden my teeth had all this space. Anyway, while I had braces I flossed every other day - it's tricky flossing when you have all those wires on your teeth. But after I got my braces off I've flossed every night before going to bed. I wonder how much floss I've used over the years? Would it be more or less than a mile? I'm thinking less than a mile... Still, that's a lot of floss. Once when I was in law school a friend asked me if I had any floss. Do I look like the type of girl that would have floss on her? I did, but that's not the point...

Good lord dry cleaning is expensive in the city. I've been spoiled for my whole life because my parents owned a dry cleaning store up until a year ago. This is why I've never touched or used an iron until I was in college and why I have never paid for dry cleaning until the last year. Actually, I only used an iron once during my four years at NYU and that was an unmitigated disaster. Anyway, I didn't need free dry cleaning when I was growing up... I need it now. Should it really cost $24 to dry clean a coat? Really? Maybe it's because I go to the organic dry cleaner but I think it's because I go to a dry cleaner in Manhattan. Geez... and before anyone asks why I go to the organic dry cleaner it's because they did the best press job on my shirt. There are five dry cleaners within one block of my apartment and I took one shirt to each and the organic place did the best press job. I should just accept it and move on...

A momentous day - it's the half way point. For the first time I have written more entries than I will have to write for the rest of the year. Hmmm... rather anti-climatic isn't it?

Who knew that fabric softener is really a little disaster in a bottle? I am a dryer sheet kind of girl but I found an old bottle of fabric softener in my closet tonight and I thought that I should finish it - waste not, want not. Unfortunately, I should have just wasted it. It seems that when fabric softener ages a bit it'll separate and then leave spots all over your clothes. I didn't know that would happen and I didn't know what to do with all the spots. I thought that washing everything again would fix it but I'm telling you now that it doesn't do anything. The trick (and I found this out on Google) is to pretreat the spots with a bit of dishwashing liquid and then throw it into the washing machine. My dad always told me that dishwashing liquid was good for stains... smart man.

Picking up my diploma from the framer today seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually, getting there and picking it up was easy enough. It was the getting home bit that was a bit difficult AND I made it more complicated than I had to. Here's the thing... I hate spending money on the MTA when I don't have an unlimited Metrocard. So my idea was to take the train down to Union Square and then take the M7 bus home - that way I would get a free transfer and only pay $2.00 for the whole trip. What ended up happening was my standing at the wrong bus stop on University Place, the M7 wouldn't let me on when it did pass, and I walked over to Sixth Avenue to catch the M5, M6 or M7 home. I didn't really have to walk over to Sixth Avenue but I figured that I would have a better chance of catching one of three buses going up Sixth Avenue than just waiting around for the M7. Honestly, I can be so pig-headed sometimes.

A rather productive Saturday for once. My sister and I went to watch Harry Potter - first time for her, second time for me. There are few movies that I'll watch twice in the theatre. Actually, I can't remember the last movie I watched twice in the theatres. It's just too expensive. Why are movie tickets so expensive? It costs $11 in New York... does it cost that much elsewhere? Although... do you remember Sliding Doors? I watched that once in New York (possibly twice) and again in London. That was such a great story... between a romance and a fantasy and it was set in London. I have a thing for movies set in London. Hmmm... that was a long time ago... nine years ago. Anyway, as the kids get older in Harry Potter, they get more interesting. That's probably why I like this movie so much... that, and the underground anti-Umbridge society. The whole idea of a group of kids getting together to subvert the oppressor is very appealing to me. Maybe I have a touch of the revolutionary in me...

One of the theories of my not sleeping well is that I don't get enough physical exercise during the day. That's probably true but the idea of exercise is abhorrent to me. I might feel differently about exercising if I didn't have to sweat while exercising. More than that though, I just don't feel a need to exercise. Don't people exercise so that they can become thin or stay thin? I am naturally thin which just gives me a false sense of security. I say that I'm thin on the outside but fat on the inside. My sister says that I'm nicely marbled inside. That's probably true actually given my love of pork, pork products and the odd hamburger. (Oh!!! I could so use a hamburger right now...) As it is though, it doesn't matter what I eat or how little I move around but in ten or fifteen years it'll turn out that my cholesterol is through the roof and my blood pressure is dangerously high. I should probably cut back on my sausage intake now but it's so good!

[Not too bad... finished nine entries tonight. I figure it'll take me another three nights to catch up. Geez...]

[Well, that was a fantastically optimistic statement - three nights? It's going to take me an age and a day to catch up. Today's date is August 6th and I'm just procrastinating...]

I love Target runs! Although.. Target runs are not as much as fun as they were four years ago - the novelty of it all has worn off. Four years ago, I would go and find a whole bunch of things to buy but now I only get what's on the list. Today, I only needed toilet paper and Q-Tips and that's all I got. It's always good to have a stockpile of toilet paper. Other than that, I forgot to bring my cell phone out with me. It's really no big deal but there's always that first moment of panic... But then again, people did survive without cell phones way back when but who wants to pay fifty cents to make a call from a payphone? Highway robbery, I say...

A friend of mine never graduated from NYU but she's decided that it's time to finish. Finally! I've been bugging her about it for ages. But it's not that easy... apparently, you have to apply for re-admission and write an essay about what she's been doing since she left school. Personally I think that NYU should just give her the two credits for all the work experience she's had for the last nine years. She even moved out to LA for two years. I think that surviving in that cultural vacuum of a city should count for two credits. Okay, that's mildly dramatic... Anyway, so I edited her essay then had lunch and then watched Order of Phoenix. That was well done and considering the length of the book, very impressive. The casting was spot on. Helena Bonham Carter was deliciously disturbed and Imelda Staunton was perfect. She reminded me of my 10th grade English teacher - failed you with a smile she did. I bet she could have turned into a real-life Delores Umbridge under the right circumstances... scary.

Back in the city... I wasn't really planning on coming back but my parents were on their way to their ballroom dance class this morning and they dropped me off at the bus stop... most convenient. Also, I'm supposed to go watch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix with a friend of mine tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to that. It's part of getting ready for the new book that's coming out next week. It was another hot day today and I got my one errand done early in the morning... my eyebrows. I always get my eyebrows threaded every three weeks. I figure if my eyebrows are groomed then I don't have to bother with makeup and I can just pull up my hair and still look neat. Other than that, I watched Goblet of Fire again and watched Match Point. I don't really know Woody Allen as a filmmaker. I couldn't even finish Annie Hall. This one was well done but really dark. I think I better stick with my fluffy fun movies.

Another day at home in Staten Island. Actually, it was a pretty quiet day... I played in the backyard for most of the afternoon. I pulled out another azalea plant from the front yard and put it into a container. I don't know what is going on with the azaleas in the front yard... their color is off and even their blooms this spring weren't as impressive as it was earlier in their lives. The azalea plant I rescued earlier in the spring is doing fabulously... all green and full but there was some lacebug damage on it. Insecticidal soap and maybe some fertilizer? Anyway, we also picked the first two cucumbers of the year! Most exciting but now I'm bored with growing cucumbers... I know I can grow them so it's time to move on. Still it always amazes me how a tiny little seed becomes a plant. I planted seedlings at three week intervals so my parents should be pretty well supplied with cucumber this year. I wonder if my mom will make cucumber kimchi?

Since it's Sunday I went to mass with my parents at 7:30 in the morning and then we went to see my grandmother. Those wax begonias are fabulous... they've totally filled out the planter. Well, except for the very middle in the back. At the time we were planting them in we were leaving room for the chrysanthemums my mom likes to plant in the fall. I've never been a fan of wax begonias because everybody and their mother has them but they're really great. They're drought tolerant, are always in flower, and you don't have to do any dead heading. We also rescued the two holly bushes. I'm going to see if I can revive them but the prognosis is not good. We'll have to find something else to plant there... Actually, I just got this great catalog from Klehm's Song Sparrow Farm and Nursery. They have varieties of plants that I've never even seen before and you have to love that. I'm definitely going to need some gardening space when I buy a house.

I'm really not into music... I just need something that will keep me company while I'm on the subway or walking. My favorite band right now is The Feeling. They're this band from London and their sound is very mainstream. But my brother also introduced me to Lily Allen not too long. I love Lily Allen... she's this tiny little thing with this great voice. But here's the thing... I like music solely for the melody. I can't hear lyrics at all. I need to see and read the lyrics while listening to the song for it to make sense. That's probably why I like traditional Irish music and film scores... no words. My favorite film composer is Ennio Morricone. He's really famous for his scores for westerns but my favorite is his score for Cinema Paradiso. It's like listening to a dream but the odd thing is that I've never even seen the movie. I'll be really disappointed if the movie doesn't do justice to the music... best not to watch it I think...

Don't you love Costco? The size that everything comes in is so obnoxious that you can't help but love it. You don't just buy a pound of cherries, you buy five pounds of cherries and it's not a spray bottle of Windex, it's a spray bottle of Windex with an attached gallon "institutional size." Stuff like this is great if you have a big family or a house where you can fit everything but it's just not practical for most people. I imagine that Costco wouldn't work in Manhattan... it'll be driven out like Walmart. Actually, Walmart hasn't been driven out... it's just not welcome and the entire city has banded together and made that clear. I've only ever been to Walmart once. Every one tells me that it's not a big deal but it's become this mythic thing in my head. At least I have Target. We love Target! My Target is in Elmhurst because it's only twenty minutes away. Come to think of it, I must do a toilet paper run soon...