hannah jang

So it’s finally Thursday, which means we have FaithGroup tonight, and I happen to be leading tonight. All week, I’ve been reflecting and praying for this, and here I am finally preparing my testimony to share it tonight. As I’m sitting here and preparing it, I realize once again how incredibly blessed I have been in my life. God is good, and my life testifies that that is an undeniable truth. So blessed, encouraged, and thankful.

Nehemiah 8:10 “the JOY of the Lord is our strength”
Boston, are you ready?

Get me out of here…

On Sunday night, I called my mother to let her know that I had no scheduled work for the week. She suggested that I come home and go up to Buffalo with the fam (minus Jane since she’s in Korea) to help Paul move into his new school. She said that we’d move him in on Wednesday, drop him off at orientation on Thursday morn, and that we would have the rest of day and Friday to just enjoy at the Niagara Falls. And since I’d been wanting to get away and just go somewhere, this sounded somewhat attractive. But I should’ve known…

I drove down to NY on Tuesday afternoon with my two friends from Barcelona, which was fun because all we did was talk about barca barca barca. Roger says that of all the foreigners he knows, I know the most about barca bahahahah gracias :) I dropped them off in NYC and headed home to LI. Mother and I then ran a bunch of errands to buy necessities for Paul to take to Buffalo. 

Early on Wednesday morning, Papa Jang packed the highlander and we were on our way. The drive to Buffalo was supposed to be around 8 hours; it ended up being 9.5-10 because of traffic. I honestly do not do too well in traffic (in long car/bus rides in general) because I start feeling sick. So, since I’m small enough I usually just curl up in the back seat and so I did. I slept for a few hours until I heard my brother get a phone call from the real estate agent saying that he gave away the room that my brother was going to sign for. What the helicopter, who does that? #rude. Anyways, so we drove even faster to try to get there early enough to see some other places. As soon as we got off the highway, we entered into the most shady and sketchy areas I’ve ever seen, and even Paul agreed. We saw a few apartments, but they were all basements so Mama & Papa Jang said no.

I frantically texted Eleanor to get some help (she’s been at UB for the past 4 years and is still in the pharmacy program there), and she suggested this Villa place where a lot of UB students lived. Paul called them, they had one spot left, so we rushed over. We all thought it looked amazing, and after seeing one of the villas, we thought this would be a great place to stay. But sir Paul Jang was hesitant in signing because he’d seen reviews online that were negative. But since we had no other option, he at least filled out an application to save his spot just in case we couldn’t find anything the next day. #done! Not really…

So Paul didn’t book a hotel, and so now it was my responsibility to do so. Great. So he looked up places on my iphone and called a number, and after 30 seconds he hands the phone to me because he doesn’t understand what the woman’s saying. So I talk to this woman for 30 minutes trying to book a place, and now I’m just frustrated because this is taking too long. So my mother says to just book the cheapest and closest place and so we do. #mistake. We’d never even heard of this place or seen any reviews. We finally got to Red Carpet Inn and we couldn’t believe such a place could exist. We also couldn’t imagine having to spend 2 nights there. So mother tried to get a refund, but they said we had to pay for one night so we stayed for Wednesday night. We immediately left the room to get dinner. Dinner was good except my side of the table was super sticky and then my pasta came out cold. #Whyme?! It’s okay, I got over it pretty quickly.

Then we went to see the Niagara Falls because there was no way we were gonna head back to the room and just stay there for hours before sleeping. I love water and the beauties it creates. Therefore, seeing the falls lit up in the many colorful lights made up for the not-so-fun first day in Buffalo. 

We then unfortunately had to return to our not so fresh and attractive room, only to find out that the ac was broken, so it was incredibly hot. I struggled to fall asleep and I barely did until I woke up at 2 because I couldn’t stand the heat. I opened the room door and just watched the rain and lightning for an hour while playing bejeweled on my phone. I somehow managed to fall asleep again around 3 and then woke up at 7. I was ready to be out of there.

Paul had orientation so we drove him to campus, and seeing the campus made me want to be in college again. #reality. The campus was HUGE—significantly larger than Boston College. Since Paul’s a cool kid, he skipped parts of his orientation (since he’d done one for drexel already in the past), and instead went to go pick up his ID which took an hour. We then went to the housing office to try to get him a room on campus, and PTL he was finally off the waitlist—he was put into a triple as the 4th roommate (temporary housing until a room opens up). Yes, this was incredibly good good news!

Paul then went to register for classes which we thought would take less than an hour; it took 2 hours because there are so many students at UB. So I just fell asleep somewhere on campus wishing that I was still in college. 

This definitely was not what I’d imagined this “vacation” to look like. I thought we would just drop Paul off on Wednesday and that I’d get to spend Thursday & Friday with my parents and then come home. #fail.

After he was registered, we checked into our new hotel which was a legit one #yesicansleeptonight. But then we had to go back to campus to check Paul into his new room. For an hour and half, we just reorganized the 4 beds, dressers, and desks to maximize the little space in the room. Walmart was our next destination and we spent over an hour in there as well. By this time, we were all tired and hungry so we headed over to Anchor Bar to try some of Buffalo’s famous wings, but the place was incredibly crowded so we just ordered it to go and ate in our room. Yes, they were good.

Then we went back to UB campus to drop off all the things we bought at Walmart- his TV, fridge, etc etc. ‘Twas an incredibly tiring day.

Friday morning, we went back to Walmart because we forgot to buy Paul a fan, but they ran out. So we went to Target, who also ran out. Home depot, Lowes also ran out. We finally found one at Bed Bath & Beyond. 

OKAY time to go to Niagara Falls again! VACATION TIME thank you. We walked around the beautiful park and admired the beauteous falls. We also went on the boat that took us around the falls. We got pretty wet, but I enjoyed it nonetheless :) Paul was not a happy camper though. We went back to the UB area to grab lunch and then drop Paul off at his dorm. #Done. Not really- there was still an 8 hour ride back to LI.

During my three days in the blo, I yearned for Boston quite a few times. I don’t know if I’ll be going back to Buffalo anytime soon. Are vacations supposed to be this tiring? Mm, I didn’t think so.

But now I’m back in LI, and heading back up to Boston tomorrow. It’ll be another stressful week since I’m moving to my new place, which means I have to pack all my stuff and move my furniture from one place to another, but I’ll get through it. Right? :)

I give up!

So for the past half hour I’ve been trying to write about my past two days here in BUffalo, but something keeps going wrong and my posts disappear after I’ve written multiple paragraphs, and it’s 12:30 now so I can’t stay up any longer to keep attempting at it. Maybe after I leave Buffalo and return home and return to my HAPPIER self I will re-attempt it. 

I am so ready to leave this place. SO incredibly ready.

Niagara Falls tomorrow for a boat ride and then HASTA LA VISTA, blo.

Okay, this might sound super selfish but I just really want to go away on a vacation. I want to go away to so many different places and not have to worry about a single thing and instead just enjoy the moment while I’m there. 

Truth is, it’s not like I worked an intense amount this summer that I’m tired of working; I actually enjoy it a lot. But every night before I go to bed I think of all of the places around the world that I want to see, and I get so excited with the thought of one day being able to go. But then comes the inevitable disappointing thought- when will that one day come? Will it ever come? It’s scary to think that it won’t come, so I’ll have to hold on tight to that hope.

For now, I’m just dreaming and dreaming.

Off to go dream some more dreams. Good night, world.

The Patriots have their first pre-season game tonight, and that’s pretty exciting. I absolutely love the hustle and bustle of all the different people setting up around the stadium and preparing for the start of the game. Not gonna lie, I am loving life now. Incredibly thankful :)