Kindle Paperwhite

Last Christmas, my sister gave me an Amazon gift certificate with a lot of money. Finally, in March, I decided to use my Amazon money for a Kindle. Being the old books lover that I am, I spent a lot of time debating whether or not to get the Kindle. I gave in to the dark side due to a lot of convincing words from other book lovers.

Then it was a matter of which Kindle to get. That was also exhausting. After receiving so many detailed and well-thought out recommendations from friends and the interweb, I decided to get the Kindle Paperwhite. I would like to thank Ruby, Joanie, Brendan, and Nur for their opinions and recommendations. I appreciate your precious time.

Inside the black box.



Turning my baby on!



So, what do I think about my purchase? I LOVE IT!

It has a nice matte exterior finish like an eraser. The same texture as the Google Chromebook. It's very light. However, Brendan mentioned that his simple Kindle is a lot lighter than mine.

The Kindle Paperwhite has a back light which is very helpful because I love to read in the dark. Please don't try this at home. I'm able to read nonstop from the afternoon, to dusk, to night without having to get up to turn on the light. This is not a good thing, I'm sure.

Previous owners of the Kindle Touch complained that the touch was too sensitive and it reacting to clothing (sleeves mainly) touching the screen flipping pages. The new Paperwhite model corrected this problem and I have not encountered this issue.

Some of the reviews complained that there isn't much hand room to hold onto the Kindle and their fingers get tired. Well, sure, if you're dumb enough to hold the Kindle like it's shown in the picture. How about not hold it up with just two fingers? How about just letting it whole thing rest on your hand? It's small enough.


I sew a really quick and simple cover for my Kindle from 3mm thick felt. I didn't feel like adding embellishments or buttons (it was tight enough to hold it in place) or design because I was lazy. It helped keep my Kindle scratch free in my purse.

Overall, I'm really happy with this purchase and have been buying a lot of ebooks already.

Thank you everyone for contributing to this purchase!

Invisalign

At the end of December last year, I decided to get Invisalign. I know my teeth aren't in the celebrity smile status but I didn't have a problem with them at all. I liked them snaggletooth and all. In fact, no one seemed to have any issue with my snaggletooth either. No one ever make fun of my teeth or reject me for anything because of my teeth. So why did I decide to go with Invisalign? Mainly because it's nice to have a straight set of teeth...a luxury! The second big reason is that the way my teeth were lining up, the top front teeth were scraping on the bottom teeth causing them to wear down. I didn't want them to get so worn that they will be completely gone when I'm 55.

Because I was an idiot, I didn't take photos of the original state of my teeth to compare. I only started to take photos in February. So, here are the comparison between February and now.


I didn't see any improvement here. I actually think it got worse. My bottom teeth would take almost twice as long as my top to move around since I have that one tooth that is almost horizontal.


Left view.


Right view.


Top view.


I found this photo of my upper teeth back in October of 2012 and you can see that they did move from their original positions.


Front view. Oh yeah, one of my front teeth is chipped like crazy because it's freakishly long so it got into the way of me eating and noming.


Bonus non-crazy picture!


I'm always pretty, I swear!!!

Changes Are Good

This is the piece of paper notifying my dad that we were granted permission to emigrate from Vietnam to the United States almost 23 years ago. This piece of paper helped changed the courses of four lives. I'm sure my parents were afraid and apprehensive of the new direction we were going but I did not know its significance.

Fever Ray

I like this song. The end.

Colorful keys

So I heard a lot about people putting nail polish on their keys to differentiate between the different keys for a while now. I always said to myself to do it but never got around to it even though it was easy. I finally did it!

Look!

I put on 3 coats of polish on each keys and tapped them to the table to dry. That was it. So easy, why didn't I do it earlier?


I enjoyed it so much that I even did it to Helen's keys, too. Now, I have a super duper colorful key set. I would post them for you but people can cut keys with just photos of the keys. Call me paranoid but I'd rather be paranoid than have my kidneys stolen.

Valentine

For Valentine's Day this year, we decided to stay home and make another epic pizza because that was way more fun than dressing up and going out.

All the delicious ingredients are here! We even got the fancy pepperonis and sausages from the butcher. For the dough, he called a local pizzeria up and ordered some premade delicious dough.


In addition to the sausages and pepperonis, we also made spicy candied bacon for the pizza.


Yay! Everything is cut up and ready to go!


Dough is rolled and ready for some sauce action.


Can't be a true dough master until flour is all over face!


We poured a whole jar of sauce on the dough because I really love sauce. We had some fun laying out the goat cheese. Don't worry, we filled in the holes after this pretty picture.


Basils and onions.


Sausages, bacon, and pepperonis. Oh yeaaah.


Cherry tomatoes, artichoke hearts, sliced jalapeno peppers, and more basils.


Topping off with shredded mozzarella.


Baked pizza! Whoohoo!


So beautiful and so delicious! Best night ever!

The 30th Year

In the first month of the year, I turned 30.


It was quite wonderful. It happened on a Friday so my friends came to have a lovely dinner with me. All planned by lovely Helen and Priyanka.


We ate cakes and stuff.


Everyone looked all posh and dressy for me.


They're totally trying to guess how old I really am.


If you guess wrong, no cake for you!


If you guess right, champagne for you!


Err...can we get both?


I came home and my sister got me this super delicious red velvet cake. It was the best red velvet cake I've ever eaten in my life!


Besides the presents of good company and love, I also get physical presents. My dad got me these nude shoes. I'm now a grown up with nude shoes!


My mom got me warm fuzzy socks! My parents really care about how my feet look and feel.


In addition to the cake, my sister also got me this awesome PDF maker. I'm going to make everything a PDF! Rawr!


One more special present from someone super special. I was told that this box contained flowers ordered all the way from Russia.


Then why were they in a Japanese box?


The "Russian flowers" were really sharp....I tested this knife. It is the most awesome knife ever. If I had this knife as a kid, I would never hate the chore of being a prep cook.


The first 30 years of my life was really eventful and I'll even say that it was successful. I've done things that I wanted to do. I've reached goals that I set out for myself. Generally, I spent more time being happy than experiencing other emotions. There are still a bunch of things that I have yet to accomplished. How about I accomplish them in the next 30 years?