Birthday Dinner, QACON 2011, & SJ Japantown

Shiva, Marian, and I went to The Cheesecake Factory with people on Friday night to celebrate Michelle W's 25th birthday. Didn't eat too much. Shiva and I split a dish called Evelyn's Favorite Pasta or something like that. It was bland. Shiva asked for pasta sauce.

Harrison came late. There was endless bread. Server was nice. Food was eh. Expensive. I think I may decline next time someone invites me to go eat at The Cheesecake Factory.

I slept over at Shiva's. Woke up kinda early Saturday morning. Got ready. Billy N picked us up in his minivan, along with Adan, Tan, and Danny. Went to Berkeley for QACON.

Keynote speaker Cecilia Chung was cool. Shared her story about becoming and being a woman. Very heartrending, at least for me.

Three workshops--I went to the ones about oppression (good; started off slow, but the end was fun; we made skits), asexuality (not very good; speaker was not completely informative about the different aspects of asexuality and the community), and coming out to family (pretty good; originally a panel, turned into 6 different groups because a lot of people showed up; my group did a share-your-story-with-a-partner kinda thing and a chair game thing kinda like I Love My Neighbor).

Shiva and I skipped Storytime because we didn't think it would be any better than the one from Western Regional. Plus, we were tired. Went to nap on the grass near where lunch had been served. Ran into Karishma. She was skipping Storytime too.

Uhh, after the third workshop, Shiva told me to decide where we were gonna go next. Either to the scavenger hunt or to the leadership caucus. I chose the former. When we got to Sather Tower, only six other people showed up to do the hunt. So I decided not to participate. Shiva and I went back to find the caucus but couldn't. Later, we found out it had moved to another room.

Walked around, looking for Crossroads, except that was not the store that Shiva actually wanted to check out. Went into Hot Topic instead. She bought a black tie with a skull on it. Took that skull off with the help of Billy's mini-scissors.

Went to eat at the "Asian ghetto." Shiva and I shared veggie dragon rolls and vegetable tempura.

Went to Alex R's place. Alex is a UCB student that SJSU Q&A people know. Hella guys crammed in there. So SJSU Q&A people walked several blocks down to Alex's friend Patrick's place. Patrick was shocked to see 10 of us. He had only expected 3 or 4. He was "bitchy." He said so himself. Ultimately, Billy, Shiva, and I stayed at his place, while the rest went back to Alex's and another person's place.

I tried to think of anyone I knew at Berkeley to see if I could ask for a place to stay. I texted Cristina D, but she didn't know anyone with a place. Told her about the afterparty at Kip's. I just realized I could have asked Jeisun X. Totally forgot about him.

Anyway, afterparty at Kip's was all right. Danced almost the whole time. Only times I didn't were when the "DJ" played stupid songs, like "Friday" by Rebecca Black. Shiva wanted to dance swing with me. Did that for a while. Apparently, other people started doing the same thing (Oh my, people know how to dance outside of freaking). Our friends showed up later. Danced with them. Group kept changing size throughout the night. Tan was messed up from alcohol. Very touchy-feely -_- Kissy, wobbly, and stuff like that. He elbowed me and other people several times.

Cristina came and danced with me and my friends a bit. Then she went and danced with other people. She thought Tan was hilarious because he was dancing crazy. Oh, Tan ended up dancing all night with some guy he met.

Though it was fun seeing friends dance, I wasn't really into the dancing until the last few songs. Sad. So much freaking going on. I kinda wanted to leave, but I also wanted to dance. So I just stayed and danced, though my dancing was way less energetic than usual. I just felt hella tired.

Party ended at 1h20. Was supposed to go till 2h00. But the establishment kicked us all out. Yelled at us to not loiter in front of the bar.

Uh, what else? Oh, Shiva and I got to play with Alex's 2 cats, Pixel and Scout. They were so calm and well-behaved. And fluffy.

Anyway, slept on Patrick's couch for the night. Tan slept over at Patrick's too because he was too drunk to go elsewhere. Though, he, Patrick, and Billy didn't return till 4 in the morning. I remember hearing them come in to the living room, but that's all I remember.

In the morning, we woke up, got ready, and went to Alex's place. Talked to Danny, Crystal, Karishma, Jen, and Alex. Played with the cats. Watched Alex feed them. Went to brunch on campus. Open mic: some interesting and good performances. The dance performances were probably my least favorite. I dunno why.

Anyway, left UCB after the Open Mic. Evan Low was the keynote speaker afterward, but we left before he really started talking.

Back in SJ, Shiva and I went to the Nikkei Matsuri festival to volunteer. She helped out. I didn't. I felt bad. I didn't help out because I had been waiting in line for shaved ice with a snow cap (one hour and ten minutes or so). Really hot day. When Shiva and I were eating/drinking it, quite a bit of it fell out. So sad.

Went back to Shiva's place around 6. Talked.


So QACON was good. Though, I don't know if I'm going again next year. Maybe. We'll see. I don't really feel like a conference-attending kind of person.

Blah. I have allergies. My eyes are burning, and my nose is runny. Today has ended not so well, but I won't complain too much. I just feel something that's the equivalent of a heavy weight on me. Not quite the same but similar.