Sunshine, Warmth, Food (and lots of it, too), Drinks, Friends.

All these do a perfect job describing my week in California and Nevada. For spring break, Jack and I visited our friends in Los Angeles and spent a few days in Las Vegas. Needless to say, it was incredible.

Usually after a week of vacation anywhere, I am ready to come home. This time, however, I was actually sad to hop on the red eye back to Boston.

Los Angeles rose high above my expectations. Sure it was smoggy, but the atmosphere and the weather totally won me over.

The trip involved a lot of exercise. I left dreary Boston thinking I will be laying out on a sandy beach, doing nothing and eating nonstop. The actually itinerary, however, took me hiking, biking and a lot of walking.

First day we hiked up to the Hollywood sign and spotted two celebrities – A.J. from the Office and Ravi from the League, although I was too distracted by A.J.’s adorable golden retriever to actually notice his face. But totally understandable? Right?

After the hike, we sat down for a lovely dinner at In-N-Out. After three visits in a week, I think I can proudly say I have mastered its secret menu. Let me help you out here – especially if you have never experienced the joy of biting into In-N-Out’s delicious cheeseburger.

• Double-Double: Yes, for the first time in my life, I ordered a double-cheeseburger. Double patties and double cheese.
• Well-Done Fries: Meaning, extremely crispy!
• Animal Style: On your burger OR on your fries. I actually suggest both. Carmelized onions + cheese + secret sauce.
• Neopolitan Shake: Strawberry + Vanilla + Chocolate milkshake.

My mouth is watering just thinking about it. In general though, the food in California was absolutely incredible. I consider myself a foodie – I love food; I enjoy eating; I love trying new food.

Baja-style Mexican food matched my high expectations of Mexican cuisine in general since I grew up in TX after all. English pub we tried in Santa Monica offered one of the best fish & chips I tried in the US. Even a tiny little food shack along the beach near Manhattan Beach – owned by a nice Georgia man with his homemade chicken salad recipe – was amazing.

We also biked from Santa Monica to Manhattan Beach… Long long long bike ride, but totally worth it! Sure it took all day and sure I ended up with some funny tanlines thanks to my decision to wear a blazer, but the view and simply the idea of biking right along the beach and taking in the scenery… Just, WOW.

Though LA is not a walking city, we chose the simplest mode of transportation – our legs – to see Sunset Blvd, and that wrapper up our stay in Los Angeles.

I would loooove to go back – possibly live there in the future?

(View from the Hollywood sign. Yes, it was a long hike, but totally worth it! Especially when there is a trip to in-n-out involved afterward.)

(While biking down from Santa Monica to Manhattan Beach. one day… I will be a proud owner of one of those modern, chic, fancy houses.)

(Near LAX… Alvin and the Chipmunks. Downstairs there were Sully & Mike from Monsters Inc.)

Post on VEGAS to come soon!

No, but seriously, quit playing games with my heart.

Dear scammers who send “job scam” e-mails to Boston University students, DON’T. A couple of days ago, I received this e-mail from College of Communication Career Center.

Subject: Beware of email employment scams

Body: Please be aware that there are a number of recent email scams that are targeting BU students. We are aware of most of these scams and have alerted the BU Police Department. If you receive a suspicious email stating that a company received your resume from “university/college career services”, and is asking for personal or financial information, do not respond! The BU Police Department has asked that all suspicious messages be forwarded to them.

Really? I personally have not received any e-mail offering me a job in exchange for my personal financial information, but simply thinking about the fact that someone out there has the guts to send out scam e-mails disguised under prospect of a job…

Imagine, you go to your inbox – usually my first stop in the morning – and you see an e-mail saying something about a job. Obviously you get excited. You open up the e-mail with extremely high hopes, only to be crushed 5 seconds later when the e-mail actually asks you for strange information, clearly indicating it is NOT a potential employer.

Devastating.

Especially as a senior with only a couple of months left in college, “job search” is an extremely sensitive topic. In this economy, trying to stay positive about post-grad life is hard. With so much uncertainty ahead of us, we do not need yet another scammer trying to take advantage. Definitely not.

All seniors out there, don’t fall for scams and keep your hopes up. We will ALL be hired soon enough… Soon enough…

Recent events in Egypt led me to think… do journalists need something like diplomatic immunity?

We are witnessing history as we speak. After 18 days of demonstrations, the Egyptians people have successfully ousted President Mubarak who has ruled the country for three decades. And the future? Well, quite unknown, but hopefully a change for the better.

In the process ousting the dictatorial regime, we saw the army defending the protesters, refusing to use weapons. We also saw hundreds of thousands of people mobilizing due to the power of social media. Then we saw violence escalating with pro-Mubarak crowd playing a hand, even hurting American journalists.

The day pro-Mubarak crowd made a grand entrance in Tahrir Square, reports, rather, tweets, flooded my feed.

“Got roughed up by thugs in pro-mubarak crowd..punched and kicked repeatedly. Had to escape. Safe now.”

“Situation on ground in #egypt very tense. Vehicle I was in attacked. My window smashed. All ok.”

Both from Anderson Cooper… I strongly believe only because of his status as a well-known journalist, people instantly perked up and started paying attention.

Regardless, my initial reaction, actually to most incidents that involve journalists, basically went something like this: WHY? What is the point of beating up reporters? What do you prove? NOTHING.

Let’s be real. Roughing up American journalists does not exactly contribute too much. Sure, it draws attention. As we saw in the case of Katie Couric’s crew and Anderson Cooper, people immediately began paying attention even more.

With that aside, though, it still did not bring American intervention nor did it increase or decrease foreign support. All other countries can do is basically continue to stand by.

Most recently, we are deeply disturbed by CBS correspondent Lara Logan’s attack.

Another tweet from AC:

“Sickened and saddened by the attack on Lara Logan. She is in all of our thoughts and prayers.”

This makes me wonder, why don’t journalists enjoy immunity? Diplomats do. They represent the government of the sending state in the receiving state, and they have all sorts of diplomatic privileges and immunities. Including but not limited to special parking spaces, no income taxes and special security forces, these rules protect our diplomats.

In a way, couldn’t we say the media also serves as a representation of a certain country? By having our reporters out there, we show we care. We are delivering news to people back home so they would know what’s going on and in Egypt’s case, so Egyptian Americans can receive information.

Perhaps calling for diplomatic immunity is just too much. But why can’t we get some respect and protection from horrible crimes? All we want to is produce that newscast.

Oh, you mean you haven’t seen that SIX FEET TALL SNOWBANK OUTSIDE?

I returned to Boston on January 10th, narrowly escaping the snowstorm in Texas, which almost canceled my flight. Two days later, I had to deal with a blizzard in Boston. Of course.

Since classes started, we have had I believe three snowstorms thus far. But this is not the time to count how many snowstorms passed through New England already. There is one coming our way as I type this, and it’s going to drop yet another 12-15 inches of snow.

Where will we put all the snow??? The snowbanks outside are already taller and bigger than me. And dear God, please don’t let the roofs of any buildings I’m in collapse. In the end, I did see that video of the Vikings stadium. I believe the Cowboys stadium is struggling a bit as well. But…

I think the better question is, how is Boston handling this?

City of Boston has proven itself quite capable of clearing the sidewalks and improving road conditions. Sometimes sidewalks in Allston don’t exactly welcome pedestrians, and you have to resort to walking side by side with cars. But I know that responsibility falls to landlords, so no point in blaming the city for the inconvenience.

If you look at downtown Boston, you can see a little bit of concrete under all this snow, and people are out and about.

Boston University, on the other hand, I’m sad to say I am disappointed. Before I delve in further, I do have to say, however, that I appreciate all the B&G staff out there clearing the sidewalks. It is hard work, and it’s COLD out there.

But what is the point of having our B&G staff out there from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m. fighting the losing battle against the huge snowflakes and the windchill? No matter what they do, snow continues to come. So we have those workers out there, at night, in the freezing temperature, ATTEMPTING to do something just so BU can open two hours late?

B&G probably receives overtime pay for working that awful “clear the snow throughout the night” shift. Is that really financially responsible?

As a BU student who’s almost running out of work-study award, I am struggling to find an on-campus office that will pay me with their own BU funding. Almost all offices rely on work-study to pay their student workers, and when the award runs out, oops, sorry, you gotta go. Sorry I pay $50,000 per year for my education and sorry I need money for groceries, textbooks and materials for my resume reel. Instead of wasting money on B&G projects that get you nowhere, how about you increase funding for student employees?

If you’re committed on clearing the snow no matter what so we can continue our normal days, why is crossing the BU Bridge absolutely impossible? Snowbanks are in place of the little islands where pedestrians stand while waiting for the green light. Not to mention, the narrow sidewalk is absolutely deadly with thousands of students attempting to walk.

Today, for example, a steady snow fall worsened sidewalk & road conditions throughout the day. Boston University is a WALKING campus. We walk to classes; we walk to the GSU; we walk to the library just so we can print our assignments.

BU did not say a word about early closings or safety concerns until around 2 p.m. when it announced, the university will close at 5 p.m. In the meantime, other area institutions had canceled afternoon activities earlier in the day.

Even now, as we are expecting another foot of snow to come in the next couple of hours, we hear nothing from BU.

Students have no idea who makes the decision whether BU stays open or not, nor do they know what kind of factors go into consideration. How about more open communication? How about actually telling us where we can expect MBTA delays? At least tell us everything is still open, so plan ahead and leave early. Be careful on the road. Administrators may have fancy cars, so all they have to do is take the elevator down to their car, hop in the car and drive away. But we students have to brave the storm and walk.

As of 11:38 p.m. weather forecast:

Most recent announcement from Gov. Deval Patrick:

And area school closings (scroll all the way down for college info):

http://boston.cbslocal.com/closings/

Safe to say many people are truly concerned about this snowstorm? Yes. Safe to say many people will have tomorrow off for safety reasons? Yes. Safe to say Boston University students will enjoy the same day off? Doubtful.

I would love to know what exactly the school loses by having one snow day, and really, more than anything, I would love to know who and what decides whether we have a 2-hour delay, or we are closed for the day.

First, sincere apologies for not updating Yooj(in)Boston in WEEKS. Although I shouldn’t make any excuses, in my defense, nothing happened over winter break, and since my return to Boston, from sorority recruitment to 1,000 pages of reading – NOT exaggerated, my life desperately needed some sort of time off.

With that said, something called “graduation” has crept up ever so quietly. About four months from now, I’ll have to walk across the stage in a red gown to receive my diploma, call Boston University my “alma mater” and lose by ycho@bu.edu e-mail address. Yikes.

I am about 80% sure I’m looking forward to graduation. Past two summers, I have gotten a little taste of “real life…” Lovely 9-5 work hours, a steady income and no homework. After all, 16 years in school catalyzed some hatred toward readings, homework assignments and tests.

On the other hand, though, can’t I just stay in school FOREVER? No?

The idea of having to find a job, especially in my industry – TV reporting, is honestly extremely daunting. Oh, and having to leave Boston. I moved here from Plano, TX when everyone else from my high school went a “great distance” to University of Texas in Austin or University of Oklahoma. Sure, at first, living in Boston was a struggle. But now, I absolutely love it.

So here’s to our last semester in college, and in honor of the very last semester ever, some of my goals..

LOVE ON BOSTON.

Well, obviously. There is so much to do in Boston, and even after living here for a good chunk of my life, I feel like I haven’t done everything that the city has to offer. I haven’t even gone skating on the Frog Pond yet!

MAKE MY OWN WEBSITE – UNDER MY OWN DOMAIN.

Well, this is a more generic life goal. As an aspiring, journalist, it’s quite essential for me to have a professional website where all my work can live. I promise, an awesome website coming very soon.

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF STUDENT PERKS.

Student discounts… Cheap movie tickets at the GSU… Sympathy interview from prestigious professionals because you’re a student reporter… The list goes on.

ENJOY SPRING BREAK.

VEGAS, VEGAS, VEGAS! Enough said. Once the “real world” comes around, no more taking a week off for a nice little vacation in LA & Las Vegas.

WEEKEND TRIPS – NY ANYONE?

Going along with the idea of randomly taking days off for fun things, weekend trips!

GET HIRED!

Kind of obvious, isn’t it? Someone please please please hire this entry-level on-air and multimedia reporter!