284.

Volunteered this morning; it was such a drag having to go, especially since I had such a long break from it since I didn't have to go last week, but I just kept comparing it to lifeguarding, and how much faster time passed by when I was doing this, and it totally worked. The four hours passed just like that. (8 At the beginning they had me working with Osiri on the computer next to Dr. Gao, but about three hours in, they had me switch with that Lawrence guy for some reason. I didn't mind; the computer they had me switch to was pretty sweet; it had two screens, and the mouse passed seamlessly from one screen to the next when I moved it from the left to the right. (8

We got amazing parking; right by the end of the road -- a minute walk from the beach! 8D

And then around one-ish Jen picked me up to go to the beach; Grace was already with her, and we stopped by Sayaka's house to pick her up.

I was kind of surprised though, since I thought Jen organized the beach day, and it was gonna be all our friends, but apparently it was Tony's thing, and we got there, and there was this mass of people we had never seen before. And according to Tony, they were people from 'Gardena, Carson, and ... Kansas.' They seemed pretty nice though; we all played volleyball for a while, and they made me and Jen serve, and I found out I'm not entirely terrible at volleyball lol. I can actually serve over the net! (8 Grace and Sayaka just kind of ran off on their own and didn't come back until I started calling Grace a few hours later.

And then later everyone went into the water. I'm still on my period so I didn't bring my suit, and Jen just doesn't like going into the water (which kind of defeats the whole purpose of going to the beach but whatever), and I forget why those guys didn't go. Tony taught us how to play Somewhere Over the Rainbow on the uke. (8 The red guy's name is Kevin (I think?); apparently he went to Magruder with Tony, and then he went to South. He knows Ken and he swims, so I'm kind of wondering if he's that one guy I saw with Ken way back at the Beverly Hills meet in freshman year, but whatever.

Around 3:40-ish, I started wondering about our parking meter, but Jen said she had set an alarm for when we had to go back. ... But then she checked her phone and apparently she hadn't set the meter after all. So we hurried back to the car, and sure enough our meter had long expired (by one or two hours actually lol), but she didn't get a ticket. The sign actually said we couldn't park there for more than two hours, her car wasn't marked or anything so we just dropped some more quarters in.

Then around 4:35-ish, we went back to the car cuhs the meter was gonna expire again, and I felt like we pretty much already got as much out of the beach as we were gonna that day. We dropped off Grace and Sayaka at the Galleria and then we went to Cold Stone cuhs I wanted yogurt, but there weren't any yogurt places really close by, and Cold Stone was right there. I got their signature creation "Our Strawberry Blonde" and it was quite delicious. (8

Then we went back to Jen's house to work on our Little Big Planet level a bit more; we added in a cave. With fire lol.

I finished my Barnes and Noble application, so Mom took me (and Eva) over to drop it off. I went to Customer Service and the manager told me to just put it on the table. And then I walked off and later when we were leaving I looked and it was still there ... |:

You know, I'd really like to have cooking books, like this. I don't know if I'd ever actually make anything in it, but I've just always really wanted to have it, so in case I ever did want to make something, I'd have it ready.

I ended up buying this huge book full of all of Jane Austen's books! I was actually just looking for Pride and Prejudice, but hey, this was a good deal. Also, I made small talk with the cashier so I am proud of myself. He said something about how it was a pretty good size for having all the books in it, and I said something like 'yeah but imagine how small the text must be' and yeah. 8D