Its been a tumultuous night, to say the least. I just spent the last 5 hours looking for my cousin who ran away. Fortunately, he came home and no physical harm was done to him.

I woke up today feeling good too. I just had a pretty productive last 2 days. Thursday night, I was off to Berkeley to chill with Maria. I'm trying to kick it w/ her as much as I can until she is off to Brazil for 6 months. So I get there around like 11-ish and I'm pretty beat so we just hang out at her place and just catch whatevers on tv. Friday morning comes and we start the day off with a hike. It was no ordinary hike though. We went off trail only to find a abandoned car, homeless men living in some hut thingy, and a whole lotta reptiles. It was pretty intense, definitely not made for hiking. We made it to the top of the hill and it felt really good up there. The view was great and the breeze was just right.

After taking that unorthodox trail to the top, we took a more conventional route down and headed to Cafe Matinna. This place is famous for their salads so I ordered the chef salad. If I knew how big the salads were, I wouldn't have ordered a sandwich too.

The bowl was as big as my head. I really liked the atmosphere of the place. There was this big tree in the middle of the restaurant and a bunch of cool artwork too. We were pretty stuffed so we just chilled for a while at the restaurant while eavesdropping on the people sitting next to us. This girl was talking to her mom about the experience of losing her virginity at such a young age. She was being really detailed, I might add. After about 15 minutes of listening to that, we just walked around all of Berkeley. I was more productive today than I was all of last week combined.

I really like the Berkeley area and could see myself living there one day. I like how Berkeley is sort of in its own bubble. We were walking back to her apartment to get some stuff and we see her neighbor just smoking weed out on the street. I'm like...you can do that in public? She responds by saying, that cops there care more about parking tickets than weed. If I were a smoker I would be ecstatic. Being there for the day made me kinda upset that I didn't get accepted. I like that you walk everywhere instead of driving. Everything in Newark is so spread apart that it would take forever to walk to your destination but only 5 minutes to drive. Having a car in Berkeley is actually a hassle.

After about 2 hours of packing, we BARTed home. On BART we had one of those really good conversations about relationships, school, and the future. When it came to relationships, the question of, what couples our age actually have a healthy relationship? By healthy, we meant no jealousy, genuine affection, and the ability to still maintain some sort of independence/individuality within that relationship. It was pretty hard to think of any. I got home and I was pretty exhausted so I just knocked out. Sorry I missed your little shindig ammo.

So, about 5 minutes after getting home from my grandmas, my aunt calls and tells us that my cousin Ivan ran away. We head on over to their house and just drive around the neighborhood for about 5 hours. The cops came to get a photo and I went to all of his friends houses and local parks. I had no luck.

Ivan's been struggling w/ school and his parents put a lot of pressure on him and I guess he just couldn't handle it. I feel really bad, cause his parents put so much emphasis on school and nothing else. He doesn't have much of a social life, but he's a really good kid. Last night gave me a different perspective on my parents. I'm very fortunate that they never smothered me. It allowed me to grow up, let me make my own mistakes, and learn from them. He eventually came back and just kinda kept to himself. I was just glad he was home. It was a long night. Driving around and looking for him wasn't my ideal choice of activity for a Saturday evening but everything ended on a high note.

Its like 5:30 and I'm beat. We have a family lunch in a little bit. Hopefully its not filled with awkward silences stemming from last night's events.