Apartment!

I have officially signed my lease to an apartment for Fall 2011-Summer 2012! About a month ago, when I really started looking for apartments, I fell in love with "The Lodges of East Lansing," a housing complex opening in August super close (within walking distance) to the med building at MSU! The apartments are huge, each room has their own bathroom, the rooms are fully furnished, the leasing house staff was incredibly helpful, the complex has a gym/pool, there is a clubhouse at the complex, and they have free parking! The only thing that was holding me back from actually being able to sign was finding roommates. Well, I have found them! I will be living with two other female in-coming MSU-CHM MS1s! :) I am so excited to live with other roommates that will understand my daily stresses and will run on my same time-clock!

Here is the floor plan of my apartment: 

And the model home pictures:





The clubhouse:

(All photo credits: The Lodges of East Lansing. I do not own these photos.)

Concert in the Park

One of my summer goals is to really explore the city of Sacramento before I move to Michigan. Yesterday, I went to "Concert in the Park," which is a summer concert series in Ceasar Chavez's Plaza downtown. They have multiple local bands come to play. This week's bands were "Agent Ribbon," "Roman Funerals," "Golden Ghosts," and "Dreaded Diamond." Yes, apparently you have to have strange two-phrased names to play at this concert haha. While (most of) the bands were pretty good, my favorite part of the evening was people watching. It was pretty crazy the diverse crowd that showed up at this event. Also, they had an awesome beer garden and a TON of food trucks. I didn't actually try the food this time, but next time I am definitely going to wait to eat until I get to the park so that I do try some of the yummy food truck food.

Here are some photos of the event:

(photo credits: Lyle Chan. Thanks Lyle!)

Concert in the park was an awesome event and I will definetely be going to more as the summer progresses. They are actually heald every Friday. If any Sacramento-ians are reading my blog and interested in going, here is the link for the info:

 http://grubzilla.com/2011/04/15/sacramento-concert-in-the-park-2011-schedule/

Happy Birthday to Me!

Thursday was my 23rd (gasp!) birthday. I, however, am referring to it as my "21+2" birthday. Although I was really not expecting much of a celebration, it did turn out to be a good one. Thursday morning started with me attempting to sleep in. I got the day off of work, but my body is just so used to waking up early that my sleeping in was still 7 AM. Oh well, waking up on your own always feels better than waking up with an alarm clock. Then, after the unhealthy breakfast of cinnamin toast eggo waffles (yummy in my tummy), I opened up my parent's gift to me. My mom had organized a visit to the beauty spa where I was going to get a facial and full body massage. 2 hours of pampering with a hydrating facial and massage is basically the best combination ever. For anyone who has not had either, you must. Seriously. After the spa treatments, I went out to dinner with my parents at my favorite restaurant: Wasabi. This place is basically like Benihanas, only better because of cheap happy hour! Then, I headed to Thunder Valley Indian Casino with Morgan to play video poker (dueces wild=the best) and have some birthday drinks. Sadly, I was never carded, which made me feel old, but I guess its only going to get worse from here haha.

My birthday celebrations carried on throughout yesterday. In the morning, I had to go to wackford for a quick meeting, but finished with plenty of time to get a good workout in. Wednesday, I had a phenomenal swim...2,500 yards or 100 laps...which is the first time I have swam that much consecutively in QUITE  a while. So, as a birthday gift to myself, I wanted to make sure I got a good swim in for Friday. It wasn't quite as long, only 2,000 yards (80 laps), but still felt really nice. After my workout, I met my mother for lunch at Chevys (birthday sombraro hey-oh) and then went home, judged drill team tryouts, and then the real celebration began.

I rented a hotel room at the Hyatt. The room was supposed to cost $189 for the night, but a family friend works there and got us a deal for only $89 and free parking. Even better, she upgraded our room to the 9th floor suite! This room was amazing! Like, "The Hangover" status. Here is one picture, but its hard to see. This was the living room portion of the room:



And the view from our room:




After check in, we got ready, went to Mikuni's from yummy sushi, went back to the room to coach dance, and then hit the town. Our stops: the Park Ultralounge, DeVeer's Irish Pub, Dive Bar, and Petra (for late night Greek food).

Overall, a really great birthday. Thank you to my parents and friends who made it special! :)

Kailyne's Cake Shop/Mother's Day

I LOVE TO BAKE! 

May is always the month in my family with the most celebrations. We have only just completed the first week of May and there have already been two cake-making days. My step dad Sam celebrated his 51st birthday on May 2. (According to the cake, I know it looks like he turned 501, but I didn't have the right candles...haha) For his cake, I baked him a two-layered lemon cake with lemon frosting filling. He LOVES to fish, so I went with that theme. 

Today is Mother's Day. (Happy Mother's Day, Mom!) So, I baked my second cake of May: a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake. I tried my first Pineapple Upside-Down Cake a few months ago and have been wanting to try to make one. So, today was the day! I know the picture doesn't make it look to appetizing, but it was YUMMY!  

If medicine doesn't work out, maybe I can own a cake shop. Now, I just need to learn how to make a cake that doesn't come from a box! :D

Campus Placement!

There are two options for pre-clinical campuses for first and second year medical students: East Lansing  or Grand Rapids.  While Grand Rapids is the brand-new 90-million-dollar building, I have never visited or have any idea what is around GR. In contrast, I have been to EL several times since S started school. Also, since S is going to be in Flint, Michigan next year, EL is only 40 minutes away and GR is about an hour an a half. Although I have moved to Los Angeles and the Netherlands for periods of my life without knowing anyone, I do feel much more comfortable knowing that I have someone so close during my transition to living in a new state. So, a lot of things were leading me to wanting to be in East Lansing over Grand Rapids.

Well, I got the following email on Thursday:

The latest round of preclinical campus assignments is complete.  You have been assigned to your preferred preclinical campus of East Lansing for Blocks I and II, your preclinical years at MSU CHM.  

So, yay! East Lansing here I come! Now, the apartment search really starts.


Also, in other news, a big CONGRATS to TANYA SHEVAVESH, who just finished her USMLE step 1 board exams on Friday! :)

Blacklight

One of the biggest parts of the year for the Elk Grove High School Drill Team is the end-of-the-year showcase called "Blacklight." There are two performances--a "parent dress-rehearsal" which was on Wednesday night and the "Blacklight Rally" at EGHS on Friday at 2:30 PM. This is always the girl's favorite performance of the year because of the concept--every routine is coreographed and costumed to using blacklights. All of the lights in the gymnasium are turned off and only blacklights light the room. The girls have been working on this since February and, while I am very happy that the rally has come, it is very sad to know that this really was my last dance performance at EGHS.

There were 7 dances total. The first dance is always "Hands." This dance is choreographed using hands only (hense the name). The girls where black unitards, "pockets" and white gloves.

The next 5 dances were choreographed by the captains and coaches. The concepts change every year. This year, the dances included a hip hop to a variety of popular songs, character dance centering around a "Toy Store" theme, dance medley with many different types of songs and dances, and a drill team/hip hop combination. Also, the coaches (me, Jeannette, and next year's coach Brittany) decided to surprise the girls by cheoreographing a dance to Backstreet Boys' "Everybody." We didn't tell the girls we had done this until an hour before the Friday performance and I think they all really enjoyed it.

Finally, the showcase always ends with a "senior tribute" performance. This dance is called "Wings." The seniors wear black unitards and have white sheets that they choreograph into making them look like wings. (Again, I know the name makes since). The juniors used ribbons and the underclassmen end the performance by writing out the graduating class's year with their gloved-hands.

All of these videos were taken with an iPhone (Thank you Terri!!! :]), so that quality is not fabulous. Also, I think she was only able to record 5/7 of the routines. However, I know another parent was the "official" videographer and once I get her higher-quality videos I will switch them out.

Disneyland

Anyone who knows me knows how obsessed I am with Disneyland. For the four years that I was at UCLA, I had an annual pass and went to Disneyland basically any time that I could get a free day. Well, since I have been home in Northern California, I have made only two trips: one right after Thanksgiving and one two weeks ago with Elk Grove High School. As a coach of the drill team, one of the major perks of the job is a free trip to Disneyland. Yes, I had to "chaperone" the girls, but, to tell you the truth, those chaperoning duties probably lasted about 2 hours per day. The rest of the time, I could enjoy myself with my fellow coach, Jeannette, and the team.

The team left on Wednesday morning at 5 AM to drive down on a charter bus. Being the fabulous chaperone I am (sarcasm), I was not on the bus due to my work schedule. Since this was high school spring break, I was stuck at Wackford teaching Lifeguarding/CPR classes until Thursday afternoon. After my class got out on Thursday, I immediately went to the airport and flew out to Orange County. I arrived to Disneyland at 8:45 PM and met a few of the girls at Rainforest Cafe. Then, finally at around 11 PM, I went into the park for one ride--Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters! Even though I missed the vast majority of the day, I still had a great time in those few hours.

The next day, we woke up fairly early, enjoyed the complementary breakfast buffet at Embassy Suites, and headed to the park. The majority of the day was "free time" except for the hours of 2 PM-5 PM. During that time, the team performed in the afternoon Disneyland parade. Performing in the parade was a tradition for the four years that I was on the team. However, over the past 5 or so years, that tradition stopped. So, it was exciting to be apart of this again---especially because it was a new experience for every girl on the team.

I don't have pictures as of yet, but once I get them developed, I will be sure to add them! One of the picture highlights: a team picture on the Tower of Terror. :)

Disneyland, I love you. I will miss you when I move to Michigan, but don't fret...I WILL make a trip down either during winter or spring break. In the meantime, I will be looking forward to my next trip by having this picture as the background on my work computer: