Ralph Banana's
@ 10:26 a.m.
Hmm. It seems my workplace has blocked blog website and other website that doesn't pass security. I can write up an entry, but I can't visit the actual webpage. There's no particular reason for my visit today. Actually, I was bored and realized that I hadn't been on here in a while. You know, I'm not sure why I'm still coming here. Sometimes, I read what I've written in the past 5-10 entries, realize it's spanned probably a year, to even a few years. I think about, "oh yeah" I remember that happening and then remembering the result of it, and realize I never wrote the result. I'm not sure what's the point of these half assed stories. Actually, it's mostly half assed thoughts. I'm really disappointed in my writing. Pretty much in everything I read, I keep thinking I'm all over the place with my thoughts. It just seems like I can't clearly communicate my point across. I guess the trouble is that's how I feel most of the time too. Now that I'm thinking about this, I think my entries are just been one long bad explanation after another, trying to explain the same thing over and over again. Maybe this diary is representative of me trying to become something I'm not. I guess the root of the problem is that I'm not sure what I should be writing in here. What would I want to read about a few years down the line when I'm revisiting this? Or in a few months from now? I can say with certainty, it's not any of the crap that I've been writing these past few years. I guess the problem stems from me not knowing what to write about, and feeling like my life is boring or that nothing ever changes in my life. Maybe instead of writing badly about what I'm feeling, I should just write about what's been going on. It's actually not a terrible idea as I think that would be more interesting to read about down the line then my stupid "feelings" entries that go nowhere. OK, let's see where this entry goes.
Oh God, I almost started talking about how all my excess weed smoking has lead me to be totally unmotivated. While that is true, that is just the type of boring entry that I've been writing the past handful of years that I said I would try to avoid. I don't know why, but it feels so hard to write now. I was going to say that it didn't used to feel this way, but actually, I think it's been this way since I started college. Suddenly, it felt like I had to really think about what I wanted to say, and that I don't want to type the first thing that comes into my mind. OK, enough of this...
I guess if I had to give this year a title, it would be the year of Disneyland. I most likely haven't mentioned it, but last November, we went to Disneyland for three days during Thanksgiving. We even stayed at the Grand Californian hotel for that stay. It was fun, but it was exceedingly tiring. That's my own fault though because I wanted to take advantage of the entire time the park was open, which is rather ridiculous. They normally open at 8am, but if you stay at the hotels, those guests receive an additional hour, and can enter at 7am. Disneyland closes at midnight, every night (at least they do during the end of the year season). So I was already pretty tired at the end of the first day. We didn't get back to our hotel until about 1 am. Then we woke up the next morning around 7, and probably entered the park around after 8am. We then proceeded to stay in the entire park until midnight again. I was so tired by the third date, that I couldn't do 7 am again. I "slept in" until about 8 or 9 and then we went to the park after that. I think we left around 11pm because we were too tired. At that point, we decided to turn our three day passes into an annual pass. We actually got the three day pass for free from my sister in law and her husband. It was in exchange for our old computer parts. They only use Mac so with our spare computer parts, we built them a PC. The value of the three day pass is around $300+ each. The annual pass is about $1700 (at least the one we got anyway, there's three tier levels, we got the second one), so with credit from the three day pass, the annual passes were around $1400 each. It's still pretty expensive and Disneyland has taken so much of our money this year. Actually, on the third day, while we were eating breakfast at Storyteller's Cafe, our waiter specifically commented and asked if we were doing alright. I explained that it was our third day and how we had been passing the time, and he at that point mentioned to me that it's supposed to be a vacation, meant to imply that if were that tired, that we probably should just relax instead of pushing it so hard. Which, at the time, I get what he meant. But I think I only truly took it to heart and agreed with him this time. Anyway, since we got our annual passes, we have gone back to Disneyland at least once a month, but I think more close to two times a month. Oh, I forgot to mention that we bought my sister in law an annual pass to Disneyland for Christmas, so the three of us have been going a lot. We've done some days where it was just c and me, but she has come with us for some of the days. We find that Sundays work best in terms of crowds and our own schedules. We tried a few Tuesdays as well but surprisingly, Tuesday always ended up being more busy than Sunday. I will say that going back to work on Monday has been painful at times, although today is one of the better days. Last month, we spent a weekend at Disneyland again, and we stayed at the Disneyland hotel. There's a reason why Disneyland hotel is cheaper. And after staying at the Paradise Pier hotel this past weekend, I know why this hotel is the cheapest. c and I both agreed that we wouldn't want to stay at Paradise Pier again. It is only slightly cheaper, but for a farther walk. The walk isn't that bad, unless you consider that you'll be walking all day long in the parks and after the third day when you're ready to go home, that 5-10min extra walk sure does seem to take really long. So part of the reason we did hotel reservations this time was because we didn't register for Galaxy's Edge in time. However, if you book a hotel, you automatically get a reservation into Galaxy's Edge with the hotel booking. So I am not a huge Star Wars fan. This is probably because I didn't know anyone that was a huge Star Wars fan. Actually, I can still recall when Episode 1 came out, and there was so much hype. I went to see it with a friend (who I don't think was that huge of a Star Wars fan) and afterwards, I didn't get what the big deal was about. I actually had no context nor even the slightest understanding of what Star Wars was even about then. Anyway, I have seen the original trilogy as an adult and have a well enough appreciation for it and like the movies a standard amount. Anyway, even though I am not a huge Star Wars fan, I can clearly see Galaxy's Edge is very well done. The new ride they did is really well thought out, and fits really well too. Galaxy's Edge met my expectations and I can see why Disneyland is still doing well honestly. They still give so much attention to detail and I think it's the reason why their company is still doing so well. That and their amazing, superior customer service. I don't think anyone can top Disneyland's customer service, with the exception of a few cases where I think a cast member or two isn't following company rules and got power mad. These last two hotel stays, I definitely took it way easier. For one thing, we relaxed at the hotel more instead of staying all day at the parks. We did go to the park early, but afterwards, we went swimming in the afternoon and took a nap as well. We then went back to the park in the evening. We showed up two hours late to our dinner reservations (6pm instead of 4pm), and they don't question why we're late (although we do apologize), they just tell us it will be a little bit of a wait (we understand!), that's just another reason why Disneyland is so awesome. We tried a new restaurant this time, Ralph Brennan's (which we've been jokingly calling Ralph Banana's) Jazz Kitchen, which we all really enjoyed. Yesterday, my sister in law's two children were with us, which I can now clearly see in all the ways how children slow everything down. Not that I was necessarily complaining about that in general, but her older child, she's 7 or 8, she was in a terrible grumpy mood all day. My sister in law explained that it was because she was tired, but we were all tired! And she was in a stroller the entire time, so I just don't understand it. The bigger issue was her attitude the entire time. She's been on Mission Breakout before and previously had fun on it, but now suddenly, she keeps whining that it's dark so it's scary and that she doesn't want to go on it. She has butterflies in her stomach and she's going to throw up (she never did). Her younger sister (about 5) decided to follow suit and both of them whined until the ride was over. (The younger one has been on the ride before and had a great time on it the first time she went on.) Whenever we were discussing about going on any ride, her answer was "I don't want to go on it". When the younger sister said "I wanna go on Pirates!", the older one said "No!" She was being a brat for a majority of the day. She got a little better at the end, when in nicer terms, my sister in law said to suck it up for two more hours. Since we're on the topic of my niece, I sometimes fear that I will end up with a child like her (when I think about having children). I guess no one likes to talk about that, but I fully recognize that real strong possibility that maybe I will hate my child, which I guess I don't hate my niece, but I definitely favor my younger niece. The older one drives me crazy in the way that she behaves, which I can't tell if it's partially bad/lazy parenting from my sister in law, or maybe that's just how she is... could be a combination of both. One of my biggest pet peeves is how much my niece lies. One instances of this is while at the hotel this past weekend, my sister in law stated for no one to go into the closet. At one point, I hear older niece tattling "younger sister is in the closet." My sister in law goes over there and tells her to get out of the closet. My husband then goes to my sister in law and shows her a picture of the older sister in the closet as well. My sister then calls out the older child and says she was in the closet. Her response is "I wasn't in the closet! I was getting younger sister out!" When it's explained to her that she doesn't need to go into the closet to do that, she whines no again. I'm not sure what part she was whining about exactly, that she was called out or if she still doesn't think she did anything wrong, but the entirety of her actions surrounding this event makes me feel a little disgusted. I worry this is the kind of reaction I would have with my own child if she/he were doing something similar. I suppose part of it is with my sister in law though. She kindly and patiently explained why what she did was wrong, yet administered no punishment. I find nothing wrong with the first part, but the second part is probably why she still continues to lie and think that her behavior is OK. I wonder if she actually believes her lies. She sounds so convincing of it when she protests. In typing this out, I'm wondering if maybe if I parent differently, my child will turn out differently. I just wish there were more reassurances, but of course when people are involved, there's no such thing as assurances, especially babies. I hear people say all the time that you'll love your children, but I don't think I'm most people, and I fear that I will hate my children. Even if I manage to raise them right, raise them to be good enough, what if I still don't like their personality or their life choices or who they end up being? People say not to worry, but is that really cause it works out in the end. It obviously doesn't work out well for everyone, otherwise why is the world filled with terrible people? Is it just because these people don't care, that they're being raised by even worse people? It's like postpartum depression. It's real but no one discusses it for real.
Ok that was kind of a long tangent but at least it was different from the kind of stuff I usually write.