what the hell?

Clubbing at the Shark for Richard's birthday.

"Okay let's get Kimsun into the car"




Waiting in the parking lot pics



Disneyland starting doing its fireworks show when we got over there.




The huge giraffe that was in the Lego store at Downtown Disney


CA is so money


How many TVs in ESPNZone?




Albert in his mask


Rainforest Cafe


Jason and Jess


The tables have turned!





Asian loitering




Carolyne, Kat, James


More Asian loitering









Someone stuck something down Chris' shirt


CRRRRUSSSHHH Linda's head


Disney straws for the first placer




Feed the whatever it is... FOR IT IS HUNGRY


Time to go


Bye Downtown Disney

After I came back from Semiformal Committee back to my car I saw that my car's mirror got fucking scratched. Damn hippies who were smoking, there van was too close to the line so they must have just gone and hit it when they left. Arrr I feel a Darth Vader 'NOOOOOOOO' coming on.

Then I went to go see Saving Face with Sonny, Ryan, Allen, Brian, and Juliana. It was a good movie and all both the females looked pretty good looking. Too bad they're lesbians... or are they?

As I was leaving the parking lot I was slowly backing out to make sure I wasn't going to hit anyone. I saw that an SUV was approaching so I slowed down to see if the SUV would drive by or let me out. However there was a lady walking in the parking lot so the SUV had to stop. Upon seeing that I decided to pull out completely.

Haha that's when the lady in the SUV honked at me. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't as though I was going to back into her SUV or anything. She was just mad because she had to wait for me to straighten out after pulling out of my space. She got so mad that she drove her SUV really really close to my car. Don't you love that? That people get so angry that they have to do something "threatening" like moving her SUV really close to my car. As though this fucking yuppie of a woman would risk her current lifestyle to show some Yellow Man who was right. "I'll kill him with my car, that'll show him." Please. I was confused because I couldn't tell if she actually thought doing something like that would make me move my car out of her way faster. So I just kind of waited there wondering what she was doing. Eventually I did straighten myself out and curl around her behemoth of a car and sped off. She yelled something when our windows crossed paths but I refuse to listen to idiots like that.

Then I come home to my apartment and I have to smell my stupid roommate's stupid dumplings that he defrosted.

Stacy, Chun, Adrienne


Stacy thought it would be a good idea if Stitch were in the picture instead of Chun


Chun, Adrienne


Sandra (wo)mans the cash register


"Where is the bouncer? We have unwanted guests"


Sam/Eileen/Stacy's hand


Do I look gangster enough?


James and his Irish Car Bomb.


Xinlei and I. We're never in a picture together!


"Wahh who is this guy?"


Caroline and I. I think I'm already gone by this point.


Matt points.


?


Allen Ho and I


Eden and I




So apparently in my drunkeness I took four pictures with Linda. Here is the best one that came out


Meng Fei and I


Another drunken pic I don't really recall taking


Sandra is aroused


Me and Stacy


Guess the two girls


Okay this is actually the better pic of me and Linda.


Brian loves his cash register


I am in reverse drunkeness


Ray and Meng Fei


Lesbians and Michelle (Possible Lesbian?)


This is nothing new




I call this the drunk Shuan taking pictures of drunk Victor series


Girls


Me and Philip


If you know anything about Canon cameras...

Here is the day before practice...

First day of practice


Culture Chairs Chun and Angela


Linda and Johnny? Jack? Jesse? Julio? Juan? Jose? Joseph? Jorge? Jackson? Jake? James? Jimmy? Jeff? Jermaine? Jesse? Joel? Joey? Josh? Julian Jules? Justin?


Main characters practice their scene



Tiffany Vs Tiffany


More practicing


What everyone else was doing


All girls aborigini dance



Fight scenes


Sandra


James

Second day of All CACN practice

Winnie and Wade


Adrienne with all the hats


Mike was later killed when he stole some of Adrienne's hats

I've got a bunch of pics and even when I filtered out for the good stuff there were still a lot of pictures. Eventually I'll figure out how I want to sort all the files but right now I don't feel like giving out the pictures to everyone because we know how well that went with pics from NY. If you're in a pic then I'll send you that picture but otherwise I'm probably going to say no. Anyways, here are the initial pictures.

Last Dance Practice in Huntington

Group Picture


Andrew flipping Jessica


Victor, Andrew, and Wade doing a random part of our dance in synch.


Linda


Sandra


Eva


Chun doing a back flip or a front flip or hell if I know. What I do know is that Chun makes it look way too easy.


Linda and Eva


Adrienne and Michelle


Girls in their aborigini costumes




The girl's conga line


Jen is being pampered


Jessica


Smile like you mean it


The twins Ali and Julie



Oh no what has Andrew done?


Mace + Groin = Pain

Yeah I'm going to E3 Expo! But I can only go on Friday because Wednesday I have a quiz and Thursday I have class all day and watching Episode 3 at night.

Also here's a cool flash I saw a couple of weeks ago but forgot to make note of. Beatboxing and Harmonica

I was briefly talking to Bryan when he mentioned he was at work, at Google and had food. So I drove down there to go eat while we chatted about various things and how he and I both lived in New Jersey. After I ate everything in sight of me we went and drove over to Best Buy and Old Navy where I went to go buy Viewtiful Joe 2 and Bryan went to go return his shirts that he didn't like. As I waived goodbye to Bryan the thought passed through my mind that this was the first time I actually hung out with someone from CA without it feeling like it was either 1) some CA event or 2) some unofficial event that I was only invited to because I just happened to be in the room and nobody knows what the fuck.

Evaluating my time at CA, I don't know anyone at all. I'm just a mere acquaintance to everyone there. A perpetual wallflower for three years running. Half the time while I'm there I feel like I'm not even there. I'm too old of a member where everyone knows who I am so they don't really feel the need to talk to me that often. It kinda sucks but I understand the situation, they have to keep their member count and to be honest I'm just dead weight to them since I won't be coming back next year. There's nothing to gain investing in me.

Sam. Sam's my roommate but is that all? Would we even talk if not for that fact? I mean we both basically put our blind faith 2 years ago that we both wouldn't be horrible roommates to each other so at least we have that, right?

Then someone not even remembering that I went to NYC. I guess I shouldn't be really mad at that but when you feel totally invisible it sucks that you get a confirmation of that fact. Yeah I know you came in on a different flight and you were with your own group the whole time but yeah it still blows being forgotten.

And Chris, the organizer of the trip. I don't understand why I was even invited but I'm glad he invited me.

And then there's just various other members in CA who have been nice to me but let's be honest here, we don't hang out and the only time we see each other is for CA. Is that how it is with other members? I'm pretty sure it's just me. Off the top of my head of people from CA that I hang out with:

Yeah short list. In fact I really only hear things from Sam. Sam says, "Hey someone is having a party" or "Hey someone's birthday dinner is tonight." I'm always the last to know. Usually I don't mind because I know how it is planning something and not remembering to invite people and knowing people feel awkard being at an event that they weren't personally invited to attend, but let's be serious, my name is probably at the bottom of that list.

I don't even know where I'm getting at with this. I don't know what the fuck.

HOW THE HELL IS IT ALREADY 5AM

Saturday: Mark's Party.

Sunday: CACN Dance Practice

Tuesday: Final

Wednesday: Final

Thursday: PSP + Work + 143 Demo + BBQ + Boba with Erik and Asuka

Friday-Next Thursday: New York

I popped my pinky finger today while practicing for CA Culture Night. Nothing serious it just hurts when I type and use my pinky finger to hit the keyboard.

After eating at that nasty A&W place that made me feel deftly ill, I had to go get some gas for my car only to have to pull up to the one ARCO within 50 miles that wouldn't accept a credit card at the pump. Right after we finished filling up gas from the ARCO the guy behind the counter runs out to turn off the lights. Apparently they were preparing to close or something.

More pics here

Not as many pictures as I should have gotten but I gave up my battery
to Xinlei so that there could be more pictures for the CA website.

We're coming up this Saturday for CHF.

Be there or be not there.

Friday night I decided to go to Jack In The Box to get some food for dinner and on my way back I got pulled over by a cop for not having my lights on and missing a stop sign. Then he just let me go with a
warning so I don't know if I was lucky or if it wasn't time to issue tickets or if he was cutting me some slack but here I am without a ticket.

Thursday night I played with Erik at the Coffeehouse thing CA was hosting. Lots of great performers at the Pre Show. Everyone sounded nothing short of awesome and I'm glad I decided to participate.

That being said, talk about being nervous. Waiting for our turn to go up I was sweating bullets and constantly pacing around. I hadn't played in a performance since last year when we got jacked at the CV Talent Show. Only after about half way through the first song was I able to calm down and just start playing. Luckily I didn't do anything majorly stupid and I didn't mix around the verses like had done in practice. All in all it turned out well for us. I thought this would be the last show for what our group has called, The Team but now I am excited about future possibilities. :)

Also I'd like to say a big thanks to TL, Toni-Lynne, for driving down all the way from LA just to catch our show . Talk about being an awesome friend to go through all the trouble of driving down from LA
all for little ol Erik and Shuan.

Setlist: Josie, Fake Plastic Trees, Say It Ain't So. Undone (Jay-Z Intro)

Album:
Taken by Toni-Lynne

More pictures





Nostalgia Factor:

Chris' Lunar New Year Party was last night

I saw Steve and Dave Grotts at Albertsons on Saturday when I went with Le to buy some alcohol. Kimsun and one of his friends, Emily came and tagged along since we were all a bit too early to the party.

At the party I was made to take a shot because Le forgot Trinh(?)'s name. So somehow that made me liable for party foul by friend relation. Either way I just took the shot because how can you refuse alcohol?

From there things escalated. Chris made me a drink and then I think James also made me one although I might have just imagined that. Kevin made me 2 or 3 shots as well but the stuff he made was pretty light.

And then when I went back for more to drink no one was there to mix me a drink so I made my own drink. I put in some kind of banana flavored rum(?) and some melon alcohol and then put some pepsi on top of it. It tasted pretty good I wonder if Pepsi will ever come out with Banana Pepsi because that's what it tasted like.

The rest of the night was fun. Just going around randomly and hanging out with people. Being outside was nice because it was cool but apparently the Cha people could hear us across the street?

---

Le let me crash at his place since I had driven over there. I had to wake up early to head back home because I was going with my family to some Chinese New Year Festival in Pasadena.

First though, we stopped off at this place that sold these beautiful pieces of pottery from somewhere in China (forgot the name) where all they do is make pottery.

Here is an example of some of the pots.



For some reason there was some sort of "Military Museum" next to this place but it turns out it was just some random guy who kept a lot of old military junk and charging $4 to see it all. There was a tank and battleship AA gun. I couldn't tell what kind of tank it was so it may just be some fake but my sister and I took pictures in front of it anyways.



Here is the AA gun.



More stuff inside the store.



Haha and then I saw the greatest thing as I was about to leave


So when we got there I guess we got on the butt end of the parade because everyone was stopping and getting off their float.
The girl on the very top of the float is Miss Los Angeles China Town 2005. I didn't catch her name though


This is one of the bands. Santa Ana Winds Youth Band. They have a Bass Clarinetist


Here's me in front of the dragon that was at the end of the parade.

Patriots win Superbowl XXXIX over the Eagles 24-21, lots of food and people. Way more food than people though.

Lesson learned from the Superbowl? No matter how good you are (Donovan McNabb), someone will eventually fall down when you need them the most (Eagle's return man on the Patriot's last punt basically costing them 6 yards and probably the game)

Erik says I should update. So here it is.

I am going to get so fucking wasted tonight because I goddamn deserve it.

Check and check.

My boss sent me an email today telling me not to come to work but I didn't read it until I got to work but then they ended up locking the gate and now I'm stuck here because my key to the gate doesn't work.

TRAPPED IN COSTA MESA. SEND HELP!

So I guess there's nothing to do but update both of my blogs.

I went to Fullerton on Tuesday because some old high school friends wanted to eat at Waco's Tacos, which turned out to actually be Rockin Tacos, for dinner. We didn't stay long enough to be in any of the pictures that they take every night. Afterwards we went to a Starbucks and just chatted until midnight. It just made me realize how much I need to get out of the state of California, no matter how much I love it, just so I can experience new things. All their talk about iBanking and what not flew right over my head. I also realized that ever since they left Troy, a lot of the girls have been getting their freak on. Haha.

Around 12 the Starbucks closed so I had to get back to Irvine. I lived about 10 minutes away from the Starbucks and I actually got off the freeway to go home but I decided against it thinking, "The rain doesn't seem too bad, I'll just chance it."



This was probably the worst driving experience I've encountered. Not being able to see 5 feet in front of you, having water move your car around like it was a small pebble, and having lights on your dashboard turn on that I've never seen in the two years I've driven the car. All very scary, I thought I was going to bite the big one and die right there. I mean of all places to die I don't really want to die on the 55 Freeway. Driving onto the 73 was just as bad though, right when I got off the connector from the 55 to the 73 I literally had to stop my car because there was zero visibility. I eventually made it back but I had to drive on the left side of Bison into CV because the right side was so flooded.

Update: 1/2: On Wednesday I went to the ARC with Julie and Ali and met up wtih Roo, Le, and Both Davids. Since it was the twin's birthday we decided to go out to eat to celebrate by going to Kabuki's in Cerritos. We were gonna go to Guppys afterwards but the twins needed to go back to UCI so maybe another time for that.

Thursday: Hung out with more Troy people again. We went to go eat at the Pho place near AMC 20 and then we went to Jack In The Box so I could get my fry fix. Then we met up with John Carroll at Tea Zone and then I went home

Friday: New Years at Mark's. Michelle rotates the wrong way to pop open the streamers, Silly String Fight and No Dennys this time.

Year In Pictures 2004

I'll have other updates later.

This year's CA Ski Trip was pretty fun, having finally learned how to slow down my snowboard but it was still a tough chore getting all the way down the mountain. First off right before I got to Sky Lodge I took off my snowboard and it slid into a marked off area of snow. The snow was about 4 feet deep so I crawled to my board with as wide of a surface area as possible. I still fell about 1 foot or two into the snow. Then it also took me forever to get down Maggie's run of Heavenly. When I tried getting up after a fall about two hills before the finish I twisted something on my knee so I just gave up, unstrapped my snowboard and walked down the last two hills to the main lift area. I guess snowboarding is not my forte. I suppose if people stopped inviting me up to the intermediate runs I would have enjoyed it more, or maybe not.

Sunday night. Everyone got settled in. We rented boards from this one ski shop that smelled like shit. Mike and Carolyn got hitched at the nearby Chapel while we were waiting. Played our only games of Poker in CA on Sunday.

Monday we snowboarded, which is already described above. At night we drank and I donated my bottle of Smirnoff that we didn't drink at the Troy Thanksgiving Get Together. I ended up drinking one Bacardi Gold over my limit in the mountains and subsequently made only my second prayer to the porcelain God.

Tuesday afternoon we went into downtown Tahoe and went to some casinos to gamble. Well at least other people gambled. I ended up not gambling because the tables just looked bad. At night we drove into Reno to eat at the expensive ass buffet that really wasn't that good. I would have been happy with just a burger but that's okay. What was not okay was me going to play some blackjack later on and ended up losing $70 to a dealer who pulled THREE straight blackjack's out of his ass. Such bullshit.

Wednesday was me actually going to gamble at Caesar's Palace. I actually came out on top from that but I spent it on a Subway Combo so I came out of that one pretty unscathed. I was actually down a lot of chips but I came back. On one hand I split Eights, getting a 3 and then double downed and pulled a 10. The other Eight I played also got a 3 and then when I double downed that I also got another 10. So I had a total of $40 in that hand alone which I ended up winning and helped me significantly

Okay I'm sick of summarizing all of Ski Trip. And I doubt anyone really wants to hear the whole play by play. What I learned:

1) Again I am only funny when I'm drunk. I'm a real bore when I don't drink
2) Courtney is actually a fourth year, and not a second year as I suspected.
3) Le broke his rule about girls and kissing.
4) My impressions of people changed a lot since I actually started to talk to them.
5) If you have 12 and you ask the dealer to hit, you're going to get that 10 that busts you.
6) Frisco is a nice place but I'm not sure I could handle the overcrowding and inflationary rate on apartments.

So that's it. I'll have videos of Eileen and Allen tomorrow. Here's my photos

In the spirit of wanting something right now and not later, I bought The Killer's CD, "Hot Fuss" at Target today and am now enjoying it.

I also bought Sam Reservoir Dogs and Fight Club for his birthday. Sam also got drunk off 3/4 pints of beer and then threw it all up about an hour after we got home.

I Beat It.

When I watched GATTACA for the first time when I was a freshmen in high school I had no real idea what the movie was about. But when I came out of the theater it became one of my favorite films.

However I totally forgot about it until Ken mentioned it in his speech during Semiformal. If you haven't seen the movie go see it right now because I promise that you won't be disappointed. The actual quote from the movie goes during the swim scene goes.

Anton: How are you doing this Vincent? How have you done any of this?

Vincent: Now is your chance to find out.

Both brothers continue to swim with Anton, the genetically superior of the two brothers begins to fall behind. Anton stops swimming, looks around and starts to panic.

Anton: Where's the shore? We're too far out. We have to go back!

Vincent: Too late for that. We're closer to the other side.

Anton: What other side? How far do you want to go? Do you want to drown us both? How are we going to get back?

Vincent (smiling): You wanted to know how I did it. That's how I did it, Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back

That to me, is what made the movie and is two fold in its meaning. Even though Anton is genetically better than Vincent he can't risk drowing and pushing his limits too far. Vincent has nothing to lose so he was the one who was willing to go to his limits. Two, like Ken said, give it your all and never leave anything for the return trip.

CA Semi Formal was last night. I didn't win for webmaster but I still had a blast.



Linda and her date Van: Van is the brother of one of my oldest friends Don. Van, Don, Linda and I all went to Troy in Fullerton, CA.
She was in Co-ed Dance with me for CA and I will miss her hitting me or stepping on my foot during practices.



Me, Sam, Linda, Ken, Victor



Me and Tiffany: Tiffany is so easy to tease. Maybe 'cause she's such a tease? Haha just kidding.



Me and Caroline: Such a flirt. But what a nice flirt she is!
Too many people already overuse singing that infamous Outkast song about her (or at least just named after her). She's not the reason for the word witch, I don't think anyone wants her to crash, crash, craaaashhhh into a ditch. But the song did get something right, 'all the guys would say she's mighty fine.'



Me and Casey: The other Culture Night Chair. This girl worked her butt off just so we could have a nice show. She went to all the dance rehersals, opened her house for us to party and trash and on top of that she's a fellow ICS major! Go ICS!


Me and Adrienne (x3):
Picture 1: Head cut off
Picture 2: Head cut off
Picture 3: Knees cut off
Bad photographer? I'm too tall? You choose.



Me and Phil: I met Phil at Ski Trip. I talked to him because I had no other choice, he slept in the same room as I did. Haha.



Me and Patricia: Dance Dance Co-Ed Partner. Why does she keep kicking me? Oh it's part of the dance? Right, okay, but we're not doing the dance?



Me and Jack: The "Old Guy" on CA. To me he was just another guy in CA. So very nice, drunk or otherwise. He always made sure things went right and it's going to suck not seeing him next year.



Me and Kat: Next year's CA President.



Me and Sam: Next year's IVP and my current and next year apartment mate. Man you think guys think his hearing is bad? Try having to deal with that every night and then having to deal with him hocking up loogies. Haha just kidding Sam (I'm not kidding about the hearing and loogies though).



Me and Teak: Let me just say that without Teak I would not be in CA at all. If anyone epitomizes what CA is all about, it would be Teak. Nice, funny, outgoing and willing to talk to anyone. I'm glad he was able to show up for a few of the CA meetings this year.


Me and Victor: I don't get why people say this guy eats a lot. I mean when we were freshmen all he would ever do for dinner is eat ONE SERVING of food from Pippin and then leave. Granted Pippin's doesn't have the most ideal food but still. One plate man? That is so weak Victor! But seriously this guy's pretty cool when he isn't being so mean.

Another year of college and CA is over. Just one more year for me.

Here are some pictures of stuff Culture Night related
The Girls practicing their dance + People watching movies + People painting backdrops

CA Meeting and then dinner at Islands (Day before CN)


Dinner at TGIFs plus After Party minus incriminating pictures.

Last night, after months of hard work CA's Culture Night finally came and went. I was pretty stressed about going on stage that I almost forgot the dance steps right before we went on. I had to ask Alby which way was right. But when it was actually time to go I got it all together and did the parts. No one was dropped, no one really slipped (well except for Ken at the beginning) But all in all I think we did well.

Congrats to Caroline and Casey for putting on the show. To the Skit Performers, Martial Artists, Dance Crews, Backstagers, Pre Show people and all those who came out to see it. Thanks everyone for their hardwork at making this Culture Night a great one!

CA/CADC are winning alot this year #1 CHF, #1 Fusion, #1 ALL-UC. Haha and LA finished third so none of the absurd arguing about judging points, etc

Clubbin'

Last Thursday was Guys Night Out Night at Hooters + some pool hall.

Rewind to last Friday where I went to go see the premiere of Red Trousers over at the Independent Edwards near UCI. There was a taiko drums and a Wushu performance. Robin Shou (AKA LIU KANG) showed up briefly to introduce them but apparently left right after everyone went into the theater. Also on hand was Hakim Alston and Keith Cooke (SUBZERO). Keith was the only one who actually stayed after the first showing.

The movie itself was okay, the part about the stuntmen was awesome because you see them take these crazy tumbles and then get right back up again (well except for that one guy). They also had some small movie in it called Lost In Time which was some cut/cancelled project from 3 years ago. It made no sense and kinda detracted from the overall experience. But it was still enjoyable just for the stuntment part.

Sunday after practice the group went to Hooters 'cause Sam won this VIP All-You-Can-Eat Chicken Wing deal. So the 10 lucky people (actually 11) went to go eat. We ended up polishing off 230+ chicken wings/legs during which we pondered whether or not they had to kill about 50 chicken or whether they grew chicken that had 4 wings and 4 legs. Haha man soo full from that. I think I actually gained weight because of that dinner.

Last Friday (Feb 27th), Erik, Jeff, Gerald, John Paul and Maya played in the ASUCI talent show as Dash Rend Band. While they played superbly, they sadly did not get any prize money. There were lots of really good acts and a big crowd came to watch. For some reason there was a boat-load of Troy people there for one reason or another. From my count (other than Troy alumni on stage), there was Katherine, Pranav, Josh and myself (who already goto UCI), then there was also Michelle, Sam Brumley, Nathalie and OF COURSE ESTHER! NO ONE WOULD FORGET ESTHER! Very odd indeed. I have no pictures from the show but I did get their performance plus CADC's performance on tape, so hopefully I can get that transferred into a digital format.

The following day was CHF which is where all the UC Chinese clubs (from Santa Barbara on down) + USC's Chinese club get together to have fun and watch the dance groups perform. Lots of cute girls there and the performances were great. Good job to the board for putting it together. I have my pictures up here and the CAUCI website also has tons more pics (800+ from what Victor told me).

And right now I just got back from watching 21 Grams staring Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts. It was a good movie although it was hard to follow at the beginning because it kept jumping around back and forth through different times in the movie. There was this one annoying guy in the hall that kept laughing at scenes that were funny at all or kept saying, "Oh shit" randomly. He left pretty quick after the movie ended so I'm guessing he just wanted to be a jackass and to get attention.

CA Thursday After Event was happy time for me. I promised David I would "show" him how to work his new camera. And when I say "show" I mean, "Hey this looks like the button I use for my camera."

David forgot his camera at his apartment in CV so when the meeting ended Le's friend was nice enough to drive us over. Only problem was we had 7 people to fit into a 5 person car. So we squish Le and Julie in the passenger seat and Philip, Me and David sat in the back with Jennifer lying on top of us. Haha it was great. I wish I got a picture of that but Jennifer was resting herself on my backpack.

The After Event was to go eat at Jack Shrimp near the Park Place Edwards. The place was nice looking and all but the food is mighty expensive. Luckily we only had to pay 50% of it. I ordered their Jack Shrimp special (which was 16.95). Basically large shrimp in this cajun sauce. I liked it but didn't think it's worth 17 bucks. 8-9 bucks maybe but not 17 bucks.

I also had to prepare a speech for Chinese today about co-habitation. If this is me reading this in the future. Friday (yesterday) was the day where you somewhat redeemed yourself. Self-congratulations are in order.

Lastly, I have to stop being so sad about stupid girls. I mean I don't even know why I crush on girls. On one hand my mind goes, "You must get a girlfriend" and the other half goes "Hey man, be , don't worry about them girls" (My thoughts aren't filled with emoticons or improper grammar, and I also doubt my mind is split in half like that). I generally feel that I don't really want a girlfriend but just needing to have someone to be with. It's about a week until Valentine's Day. Who knows what will happen within a week but I know that I won't force myself into looking stupid and getting into a relationship if I don't feel comfortable with it, no matter how cute the girl is. Although girls with a nice Chinese accent is quite the sexy.

I'm listening to Schoolhouse Rock right now, "The Shot Heard Around The World," and now "I'm Just A Bill" is coming up. Awesome

On Thursday CA went Karaoking at the Elvis Karaoke and then went to go get some Pho.

Now I'm at home.

My parents have had this house ever since we moved here to California. But that was way way back there. Ever since we first moved in we have had only one couch. This couch could seat about 5 people and was this kind of 70's tan color with black floral designs.

To my surprise, when I came home Friday night the couch had been replaced with this L-shaped leather couch. I'm still having difficult adjusting to this thing. It's comfy and all but it's just so much bigger than the old couch.

My uncle is also visiting from Taiwan. He was detained a couple of hours at customs because they were suspicious of him only staying a couple of days everytime he visited.

And then today I went to buy a used bass amp somewhere in Downey.

It's been more than a week since I headed to UCI to go on the CA Ski Trip. I packed up my stuff on Saturday and headed out to UCI at night. After a brief stop at CV to get some final things. I dragged all that crap down to the Social Science Parking Lot then to the Student Center Parking Lot when I realized that no one was at SSPL. Once there I met up with Ed. We were the first ones there, none of the officers were there yet.

Eventually people started arriving one by one, we manage to assign everyone to a car and fit all the bags into the back of the vans and head off at around 12:45 AM Sunday.

Sunday: We drove from about 12:45AM until about 12:00PM Sunday. During this time I only did 2 things. Sleep, and wake up to use the bathroom during the rest stops. At around 8AM we got to the base of the mountain. We ate breakfast at a McDonalds and also heard the news that Saddam Hussein was captured, in a hole no less. At 12 we made our way to the rental place for the people who needed skiing/snowboarding gear. Then after that we ate at Marie Calendar's. There is something wrong with this Marie Calendar. First the manager totally ignored our table. Sam and I ate with two others (can't seem to recall which two) and the manager waited on CA people who came much later than us and basically any attempt to get service was ignored. Eventually one of the waitresses took pity on us and took our order. Oh yeah and Hot Chocolate at Marie Calendar's in Lake Tahoe cost $2.50.

We eat and then we get the bill. Since we were such a big group, they split us into smaller groupings of 4 to 6. But apparently since there were 55 of us, separated, they decided to add in this ridiculous gratuity to our fee. Even though they split us apart because they couldn't handle so many people, they still charged us for having to serve said large group. Think about that for a minute. Restaurants usually charge you money for having to serve a large group of people with one waiter. But not only were there multiple waiters waiting on us, we weren't even a large group for the waiters to manage. Each of them probably only had to take care of two tables. Anyways, we paid our bill but we left a smaller tip mainly because a $15 dollar gratuity fee split among 4 people is pretty goddamn expensive.

We finally make it into our cabin at around 3 and everyone settles in to find a place to sleep. Luckily I was able to take the bed in one of the rooms and slept on it for the rest of the trip.

Speaking of the room I was sleeping in. It was THE ROOM TO BE IN! Every night there were always people chatting it up and more people coming in and out of there. Everyone wanted to be in the cool room!

Well okay some people came in because the room was the only place to get one bar of reception on their cell phones. People were on the bed moving their cellphones left to right like one of those scanners from Ghostbusters trying to get the coveted two bars of reception. But still it was a cool place to hang out.

Monday: This was the main skiing/snowboarding day. Everyone went to Heavenly to go have a good time. Being out there at like 9-10AM in the morning reminded me of why I hate the cold. It's cold. Even with several layers of clothing it was still cold. I only bought big thick gloves that were too big to grip anything small. I didn't bother to buy smaller gloves that I could use to help me keep warm so the whole day my hand would go numb everytime I took off my gloves.

Snowboarding in general was fun, but tough. Even the beginner's mountain was hard for me. It's not the fact that I couldn't stand up. Standing up and going down the hill fast was no problem. Learning how to turn and slow down was a different matter. For the life of me I could not "carve" my snowboard well enough to slow down. I would either carve too hard and fall on my ass or I would have to purposely fall to stop my snowboard. For some reason I thought it would be wise to go to the next easiest slope and I ended up staying there for half an hour snowboarding and falling in succession.

Well you know the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me." Well for some reason I was convinced by the other people there that I had not gone on the right course and that in fact I went on a more difficult course. So back up I went to that slope only to realize that the one I took was in fact the 2nd easiest slope and that I would have to go down it again. Luckily there were other people with me this time and we kept each other company while we tried to get down the mountain. One of our partners ran into one of the signs while we were starting and ran her snowboard into a tree right at the end. Good times. Good times.

Well at night when we got back to the cabin... Let's just say things got a little wild. Not much of the action was recorded by me but let's just say a few people on the trip have perfect blackmail material :)

Tuesday: A group of people went snowboarding again while another group went to Downtown Lake Tahoe to just look at some of the shops. Nothing much went on there except I won myself a harmonica only to realize later that it only plays 4 notes. At night we went to Reno where we ate at a buffet and then went to their "Win stuffed animals" Game Place. I played Ski Ball for an hour with little success, destroying the notion that I was king of ski ball. I still won a monkey though, so that was pretty cool.


Wednesday: Not much happened here, just a lot of chilling and relaxing. I woke up at like 9:15 because people had left earlier to go snowboarding again. I don't think anyone else woke up until noon. We got a lot of snow time though. Someone bought disc shaped sleds and we rode down this hill that was next to the house. And then later on in the night some of us went out and had a small snowball fight.

Thursday: Everyone packs to goto San Francisco. $30 Parking!!! A group of us went to Fisherman's Wharf where we saw the Bush Man. Haha, that was awesome. Paul didn't believe there was such a thing but there he was with his bushes.

We headed towards this World Famou Ghirardelli's where we ordered their Earthquake 8-Scoop Sundae. We totally annihilated that shit.



Ended up going back to eat with the rest of the group at Lichee Garden. They gave us a ton of food which we couldn't finish, which was sad 'cause we had a ton of guys at our table.

To wrap it up, we started driving back at around 10:30, we got back to Irvine at around 5 or so and then I found myself back home after a fantastic week.

Miscellaneous:
If it smells like Icy Hot in your room, someone must have slept on top of an open Icy Hot tube and spread it all over your sleeping bag.

Someone clogged up one of the toilets with what can only be described as dried apple sauce.

It is funny when you see someone in San Fran. turn their wheels the wrong way on a sloped hill. It is funnier when someone sticks a "How to park your car on a sloped hill" scrap from the San Fran guide on their windshield wiper.

Ski Ball at the Circus Circus is rigged, I swear to god.

A certain person decided to punch someone because said person wanted to get some sleep while others wanted to watch Minority Report. Either he really wanted to get some sleep or he was determined to not watch another Tom Cruise movie in the same night.

Here is me with a picture of Mt. Doom, aka the Heavenly slope to the top.

School: I had three tests last week for each of my classes. I also signed up for my classes next quarter... looks like I'll be taking three ICS classes.

Movies: I saw Gothika on Friday, starring Halle Berry. Let me just say that going into this movie my expectations were very low. The critics panned it as being stupid and I thought it looked dumb from the trailers. Well I'm not sure if its completely stupid. If completely stupid means that the movie scared the shit out of me, then yes it did. I mean, maybe it's me but I'm just not use to the whole 'freaky looking little girls popping out of no where to beat the shit out of someone,' theme to movies, but yeah... It was scary and loud and no boobies from Halle Berry this time.

* not really

Chinese Association: Let's see. Flag Football. I've been playing flag football all quarter for CA. It was certainly a fun experience although it would have been better if we won more games.

Two Thursdays ago (11/13) CA went Broomballing. Broomballing was pretty fun and this time I didn't fall at all. I scored a goal off someone's shot so all in all it was pretty cool. We ate at Island's beforehand and CA was generating so much noise that the manager threatened to kick us out. So we loitered outside instead for a good half an hour before heading over the the rink. While we were waiting for everyone else to arrive, we watched these two amateur hockey teams go at each other. When we first got there the score was a respectable 2-0. But by the time the game was over the score was something along the line of 8-1.

Then last Tuesday we had Cultural Night Dance Practice... I was very sore after that and it lasted well until this past Friday.

This past Thursday was Bowling. I bowled a hundred something first game and was on my way to a decent game of 130 or so when they shut down our lane But oh wells.

And finally Saturday was Beach Cleanup at Seal Beach...

Last minute decision. Went to the Century Club in LA. Had fun. Now tired. G'night.

I had to give a oral presentation for Chinese on Thursday and me being quite the procrastinator decided to do it late night Wednesday. I was nervous about doing this presentation mainly because I had to go first. Pretty funny story about that. The order was chosen at random by picking a number from a bag. I was probably the third person to choose and I mixed up those slips of paper pretty well. I said aloud, "I hope I don't go first" and wouldn't you know it... I grab a slip and it revealed itself to be #1. Goddamn.

When it was finally time to do the speech I got up there and went through my speech. And while I wouldn't say I did a great job (hardly any eye contact with the audience and I didn't use enough 'sentence patterns'), I say it went pretty well for the most part. After seeing all the speeches from Thursday and today (Friday), you can easily tell who wants to be in Chinese to learn something and who's in Chinese because they have to be. I suppose I am a little disappointed because some of them shouldn't be on this track of Chinese, which is for people who understand and speak fluent Chinese. Some people were saying a lot of things in English that could have easily been looked up on the a Chinese Dictionary website.

So how does that end up with me going to the Century Club? Well after I made my speech I was basically done for the whole day with no real assignments due the next day. I knew that CA was going to the Century Club but I didn't have a ticket. Looking at all the people dressed up at the meeting was what broke it for me. I found someone who knew someone else with a spare ticket so after the meeting was done I rushed over to the Middle Earth dorms and then rushed back to my apartment to get dressed as fast as I could. I think all in all the total time to do this was 20 minutes.

After an hour drive to LA and to find parking (which turned out to be $15). We stood outside the club for about 15 minutes and I chitchatted with some of some CA members who I never had met before.

Anyways before this gets way too long. The place looked awesome, the dance floor got too crowded, their smoke machines blasted the fuck out of one spot on the whole dance floor, the DJ was pretty good and somehow managed to sneak in the same songs but with different mixes on them, girls were dancing in a half-cage and kissing (two groups of two girls made out with each other although I missed the first two girls) and other craziness.

Midterms coming up, which means I'll be posting here more often throughout the week... haha.

CA had flag football on Monday. We won by a touchdown mainly because the other team couldn't run very fast. They were pretty well organized though because their quarterback had like one of those wristbands that has all the plays so he could call them out. Also we should have scored another touchdown but the referee called so many penalties for us not lining up correctly on the line.

Afterwards Sam and I went to the ARC to workout and lift weights (same thing?). Let me just say, that after one whole day, I am still sore as hell. I can barely lift my arms up.

So Chinese Association had a "car rally" on Thursday. A car rally was basically a scavenger hunt on a car. It was spread out all over Irvine. We were given clues on an envelope and had to guess where the next place was. The first one was at Jamba Juice and then we went to other various places. Starbucks, Blockbuster, uhh Fat Burger, Trader Joes, McDonalds. We had to do these small tasks at every stop. Like at the Blockbuster we had to figure out three recent releases and at the Trader Joes we had to leap frog over our other teammates. I think Fat Burger is a pretty cool place. Since I'm in CA we get a 15% discount on meals so Erik and I went to eat there today before watching Kill Bill which was a really cool movie and I'll talk about in the next post. Lucy Liu is pretty cool so here's her biography that I took from IMDB. "Born to Chinese immigrants in Queens, New York, Lucy Liu has always tried to balance an interest in her cultural heritage with a desire to move beyond a strictly Asian-American experience. Once relegated to "ethnic" parts, the energetic actress is finally earning her stripes as an across-the-board leading lady. Liu first appeared on the big screen as an ex-girlfriend in Jerry Maguire (1996) (she had previously filmed a scene in the indie Bang (1995), but it was shelved for two years). She then waded through a series of supporting parts in small films before landing her big break on "Ally McBeal" (1997). Liu initially auditioned for the role of Nelle Porter, which went to Portia de Rossi, but writer-producer David E. Kelley was so impressed with her spunk that he promised to write a part for her in an upcoming episode. The part turned out to be that of growling, ill-tempered lawyer Ling Woo, which Liu filled with such aplomb that she was signed on as a regular cast member." I knew a guy named Bill once but I really didn't want to kill him. By the way I put whip cream on my nipples. Did you know that Trader Joes doesn't really have a guy named Joe that trades? Erik and I just finished watching SNL and they had Cruz Bustamante on. Did I even spell that right? I don't know, maybe I'll go look it up.

So that's about it, nothing much happened. I am just here at 1:30 AM typing up this post. Well more like finishing it up. I opened this window at like noon Saturday and just now have I finally gotten to it. I like how WinXP can just stay on and on for days without requiring me to reboot every 10 hours like Win98 did. All right I'm gonna get some sleep. Cya guys later!

More and more recaps because I don't bother writing it down when it happens.

Thursday: First CA Meeting and Bonfire. I ate one hotdog and several marshmellows. I tried making someone a hotdog and ended up using three of them because two of the slipped into the pit.

Friday: I went up to LA with Erik as soon as my classes ended. We went to go see School of Rock, which my sister had gotten free tickets to see at the Paramount Studio. We hung out with Esther and Helen for a while. Helen was down here because her mom wanted her to get something, which I forget now. When we finished up the movie, we drove back to Esther's apartment and then drove to Denny's. Let it be known that Denny's is not good for my stomach, at least the 3 egg omlettes made my stomach queasy.

While we were driving back to Esther's I called Sherry to see if she was at her apartment but her voice mail picked up. During our stay at Denny's we called her up again and she actually picked it up. Turns out she was at work and had just gotten back. So as soon as we finished eating at Denny's we drove over to her place. She lived in an apartment complex that was close to the frat row at UCLA. When we got there it seemed like 20 parties were going on at the same time. We finally located a small and probably illegal parking space and went to see Sherry. We hung out for a while before deciding to head back before a cop ticketed Erik's car.

Saturday: Pranav, Don, Andrew and I drove around Orange County in a somewhat orderly fashion.

So I went ice skating yesterday with some CA people. First let me say, skating shoes are a bitch to put on.

I asked for a size 10 shoe first and tried to put those on but there was so much space in them. I think I wear like a 10.5/11 shoe and this thing had at least a good centimeter of space left after I put my foot in it.

So I go back and get a size 9. I guess I can't tie skate shoes real well or what because it literally took me four tries to get these skates on w/ a decent enough tightness where I wouldn't be skating awkwardly.

But skating was fun even though I didn't move that much. I basically skated around the whole edge of the rink as best as I could. It was kind of difficult because my laces weren't as tight as they should be so a lot of the time I had to readjust my feet to make them straight. I had the good fortune of not falling although there was plenty of comedic, "flailing arms to keep balance" comedy. Luckily not too many people saw that. Also there were lots of friendly people around to help give me tips or to push me

And then afterwards all the remaining CA people eventually found their way to Jeanette's house. Haha it was cool cause she made food for us! And also she kept getting food for all of us. I think she was planning on fattening us up and eating us.. Haha. I mean. uhh? what?

I also just had my phone interview. I'm not sure how well I did. I got kinda nervous and stuff but they're suppose to give me a call back in 3-5 days if I got the job, so hopefully... yeah....

I was suppose to have posted this yesterday (July 2nd) but unforunately I didn't get back until now! I gotta get ready for a phone interview tomorrow so I'll write about what I was going to after that. And also maybe, change the date of this post to July 2nd...

Date did not mysteriously change... It was all a dream to you guys

Last Friday I hung out with some good 'ol high school buddies. I went with Pranav and Maily to go play some pool. Since we had three people at the time we decided to play Cutthroat. But Pranav kept pulling a lot of his OMG BS HAX type shots so I kept losing at the very end. Then Victor, one of teh Berk Boys, decided to join us so we switched to Team 8-Ball. I think we lost one game by default and then another game we lost.

Afterwards we drove over to the Lollicup in Fullerton where we were going to meet up with James. I was fully expecting to meet more high school people because that place seems to beckon former THS alumni. But alas, no one familiar was there when we got there.

I ordered the standard boba with some fried chicken (popcorn-like). And then James showed up. I hadn't seen James in a while even though I've visited USC (and their apartment) a few times but he was hardly ever there because he was always "busy" with his frat . But yeah it was cool seeing him again. Still same 'ol James. Just crazier. If that's possible...

Here are some pictures...



Then Saturday was the CA Semi-Formal. I wasn't planning to go but I convinced myself to go and have fun even though I don't know too many people. I went to see all the interns who I know, and then Teak, Shaun, Albie and Kat, and then Jeanette and Carolyne. But past that I don't know too many people in CA. I guess that's partially my fault because I'm not usually very vocal among strangers. I guess it's something to work on next year in CA. It wasn't as though I didn't try meeting new people. I went to almost every single event CA held after I joined. I went to CHF, Culture Night, Karaoke, Unity (Club), and All-UC. But I guess the fact that I'm not very outgoing among people I don't know too well (to reiterate what I've already said above). Throughout the year there were a lot of times where it would seem like I knew everyone, then there were would be other times where it was like, "Who the hell is that guy?" Just really awkward situations.

The CA Board though were definitely great. Hell, none of them knew me when I joined and still most of them didn't even know me that well now but they still treated me like a friend. I guess you'll hear that a lot from people in CA and I would have to completely agree with them. They are some of the friendliest people I've met. Especially Teak and Shaun, they were the ones who always talked to me at the beginning of the meetings when I didn't know anyone at all. Also Kuo and his girlfriend Sue (is it Sue? I'm pretty sure it is, I hope I didn't screw that up), totally fed me when I was starving driving up to CHF. Hell the fact that they let me drive up with them was pretty cool.

And also Vic and Ed, my hallmates from last year. Without them, CA for me would not have been as fun. Also they drove me to stuff .

And also Sam, apartment mate for next year! The one who always seemed to show up with me to all the events that CA held.

And to everyone else who I met. You guys are all (I need to get a cool smiley)

Yeah, anyways, CA Semi-Formal. I'm glad I went. Both to see the old board leave and the new board get placed into power. And dancing was pretty fun albeit it was very hot (Cue Nelly plz thx).

And so anyways, here are the pictures.






The old board standing around while Kuo talks smack* about them.

*good stuff


Sam after he won for Social Chair


Justin "White Boy" winning for Historian


Albert, Sports Chair


Caroline(sp?) winning Culture Chair


Mike(?) for APSA rep


Ken and Kuo, new and old President of CA


Sam and Ed



Some shots of the room after the ceremony


Shawn, Shuan (Me), and Shaun


Me and Jeanette


Me and Sam


Teak and I


Me and Carolyne


Me and Kat

After the dance was over and I was starting up my car, the Jimmy Eat World CD I had in there started to play My Sundown. Talk about relating what I felt about the night into a song. What a coincidence that it came on when it did.

Sometime this past week Erik and I watched Ghost Dog: Way of The Samurai. I can't really say whether or not I liked this movie. Do not see this if you are looking for a fast-paced action movie. I don't get this movie. When he has guns you get double vision? RZA making random guest appearances? I don't get this movie. He's waving his gun like a samurai waving his sword? Wait, why is Forest Whitaker a hardcore samurai assassin? Why do they keep showing him stealing cars and then just drive around for 20 minutes? I don't get this movie.

Friday night was All-UC at LBC convention center. All-UC is where all the 5 So Cal UC's battle it out in a dance competition. It is indeed quite competetive. Shawn and I read each other's minds and decided that we should both wear red. Waiting 3 hours until the thing actually started _because I went with Ed and Shawn and David, who had to go early to "help"_ sucked. I felt like I was being a bother to everyone so I just tried to stay out of the way after a while.

When the show actually started it was pretty cool. Lots of the teams had cool dance routines. Some schools you can also add, "dance scandalous and suggestively." But in the end UCLA won against defending champion UCI. :(

After the whole dance show they opened the floor up for the normal out-of-rhythm people to dance. My back started to hurt probably because I stood in one place too long. I tried to have fun but after a while I just gave up, went out, and resting my back then went back in.

And yeah after an exhaustive night, I went to eat at Denny's

And then today. For most of the morning I was packing and organizing my stuff at the apartment and browsing the interweb. My sisters came down to pick me up after my oldest sis flew in from up north. The whole family decided to go eat at Todai in the Puente Hills Mall (where they filmed BTTF) and ate there. Sushi is good but don't eat too many too quick or else you get sick.

Speaking of sick (this means if you don't want to hear something sick, albeit funny, skip this paragraph), during our dinner I had to take an "important" trip to the bathroom. I'm sitting on the can and I'm in the big stall which has the toilet facing the remaining two stalls. A kid comes in, enters the closest stall near mine. He slams the door several times back and forth before he finally turned around settled down and went to pee. Except he urinated onto the floor. I don't know anyway to describe it. He didn't lose control of his aim or anything. He basically pissed in long bursts that completely missed the toilet. Big Double You Tee Eff to that.

So in short, Todai = good = expensive. Thanks sis for paying :D

After we ate, we went down to the Fullerton AMC 20 to watch The Matrix Reloaded. My mid-sis, cousin and 'rents hadn't seen it yet so we all went to go watch it. Viewing it a second time makes me reconsider lots of stuff throughout the movie except (MINOR SPOILER: the Raving/Sex scene still burns my eyes).

Thursday I woke up to go to Chinese at 8 again. This quarter has been real trying for me as I attempt to wake up at 7 every single day so that I can head down to Chinese and struggle through it for 50 minutes. ICS 151 was also uneventful. I kept falling asleep every so often. At 11, I went to meet one of my classmates in Chinese for a small group project I had to do on Friday. That did not go so well as we didn't understand exactly what to do and we only kept within the boundaries of what we thought we should have done. I felt that I could have done much better on it knowing what I know now about it. I seriously fucked it up in class and I feel sorry for my partner who had to endure me trying to say some easy lines in Chinese. I think I do pretty well on projects where my lines aren't scripted. I have difficulty doing straight memorization now so my attempt to read memorized lines turned out to suck major ass. If I had some way to adlib on stuff it would have gone on much better. I just feel really bad about my partner... I hope she didn't get a worser grade because of me.... Hell I know I didn't do so well.

So after finishing that I went to go grab a bite to eat and then met Donny to talk to his boss. Then I spent the two or three hours afterwards studying for my Bio midterm. Except I really didn't know what to study. That class is so vague as to what we specifically have to cover on the midterm. There's so much stuff that we go through that it's impossible to focus on what to study. You basically guess what could be on the test and hope you're right.

When I got back I played around with GTA3: Vice City. That game is so fucking tight. There is nothing like trying to get an ambulance to attempt a jump and having the game go in slow motion as it slowly ascends to its peak and then gradually comes crashing down. Then I watched the end of the Lakers/Spurs game. Indeed it was a sad sad moment. You could see Kobe trying to hold it all in but you know he was devastated about not winning. Oh well, the Lakers will win it next year assuming that they get some players during the offseason and I make a huge contribution to the Laker Fans Donating to Referee Club. Apparently we came up a hundred dollars short to force that game 7 .

So after watching them lose to the Spurs I walked down to the student center for some night market thing HKSA and ROCSA were holding with all proceeds going to help fight SARS back in China. I bought 5 dollars of tickets. I ate two pieces o' chicken, some tea, a rice ball. I also won a drink and a set of markers.

And then afterwards I went to the CA meeting and went to the Karaoke afterevent. They crammed 10 or so of us into a little room (Apparently the other room had way more people though so can't really complain). We sang various tunes, mostly English although some people sang some Chinese songs. Also I just saw a commercial by Apple promoting their online music store of music for 99 cents. The dude was singing "Baby Got Back" by Sir-Mix-A-Lot. I cringe and hoped I didn't act like that while I was singing it last night. Jessica didn't want to sing at all when I tried to get her to sing into the mic. So I ended up hitting her with a microphone ^_^..

Also Thursday was the Matrix premiere which I skipped to goto Karaoke. Hopefully I'll see it soon before too many spoilers arise.

I went paintballing today with CA members over at some place near LA. This was the first time I had gone paintballing at all. It was expensive to play even though we got some stuff discounted. Basically a bag of 2000 paintballs costs $60. Totally weak.

But paintballing was so much fun! First off a lot of the guys who regularly go there helped us newbies out beforehand. The standard paintball gun that we got with the rental was so damn heavy. There was no real way to both aim and hold the gun as the CO₂ cartridge was in the way so you could either hold it comfortably or hold it for accuracy.

Speaking of equipment, the goddamn masks were also uncomfortable to breathe in. The padding on all the ones we had rented were starting to fall off so it was a bitch to constantly readjust your goggles because that stupid piece of foam wouldn't stay properly. You also couldn't take off your mask while you're in the game and you had to wait until you exited the arena and walked down this long pathway before you were allowed to take off those masks.

So did those paintballs hurt? Somewhat. The first game that I played the two/three guys on my leftside got overrunned and in my attempt to surprise the enemy who had not noticed me I decided to shoot at the guys feet. This of course caused the guy (with a much better, self-bought gun) to shoot me in the ass. Which is quite an accomplishment seeing how the front side of my body was facing him when he shot yet somehow still managed to land a big stain on my ass. So basically when you're hit, it stings and depending on where and how far you were hit is the amount of pay you'll feel. The second game I was on one side of a pretty large rock and didn't happen to notice the guy on the other team standing on the other end of the rock. So I got shot three times. One of the paintballs hit me in the ribs but didn't break. But being hit stunned me to where I didn't dodge his next two shots which hit once on my left leg (this hurt like crazy, and theres a nice red bruise there now).

I also got hit in the collar bone. Now that would have been fine except I was hit by my own goddamn team. Here we are in the middle of the round and we've taken out a lot of the other team. I finally decide to start advancing and I turn to my left because I see a guy. But this guy is on my team and he waves me off as being friendly. Then I turn to my left slightly again and there's a guy there.

Pretend for a moment that you are on the paintball field. A guy to the right and front of you sees the guy thats ahead of you. The guy ahead of you waves the 'other guy' off as a friendly. So when that 'other guy' turns towards you... now keep in mind that neither guy shot at each other and the guy ahead of you is on your team. What is the most logical team to do? YES! Shoot the 'other guy'!

I simply couldn't believe. My own teammate had shot me. I was pissed off too! Not only did he fail to see that I had no identifying bands that said, "SHOOT ME IM ON THE OTHER TEAM" he also had to hit me on the freaking collar bone, so now I have a red bruise there as well.

The final game consisted of me being hit by a very lucky shot. But I'm assuming the guy who shot me had a much better gun than the standard one because it was accurate and actually had enough pressure to reach me and sting. So that is another bruise that I got.

So total out of the dozen or so games I played. I got "hit" 4 times. 4 other games I didn't get hit at all and 1 game I was flanked and had to surrender. The only thing that sucked about the whole paintballing thing was that I couldn't tell whether or not I had hit someone. I was mainly trying to not get hit so I was shooting from the maximum range thus making it hard to judge if I had hit someone or not.

But basically paintball comes down to having a decent gun (which I didn't have) and some decent clothing to protect yourself (which I kind of had) and not getting shot (which I did)...

Wow this turned out to be such a long post...

Edit: I changed the title since Ow! Fucker looks like something else ://

So I'm sick. I have no idea how it happened, but I'm sick. What I have is a dry throat that likes to make me cough whenever the fuck it feels like making me cough. Goddamn colds.

For helping out backstage at CA Cultural Night, one of the head prop gals, Stacy (is it with an e too?) and her roommate gave us some Cheesecake to eat after the CA meeting. I decided to wait to eat it after I got back to my apartment where I would have a fork. But many many eyes were... eyeing my cheesecake so I took a bite out of it tasted great.

When I got back to my apartment we didn't have any utensils left so I basically picked the cheesecake up and scarfed it down. Big mistake. Although it was probably because I ate the piece of cheesecake waaaaaayyyyyyyyy too fast I would like to think that the cheesecake was instead poisoned. Yes, someone tried to poison me by sneaking it into my cheesecake.

Say It Ain't So is officially the greatest song ever.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

CA Cultural Night was awesome!!!!!

TGIFS, Slow ass service

After-Party, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So today or Thursday anyways I had a presentation due in Chinese 1B where I had to do a lot of "acting", in the sense that I had to do a lot of moving around to get the point across. The reading that my group did was about Beijing's four seasonal changes and I had to act like I was in the weather they were describing.

My group in Chinese class is the best. We have the greatest time in there even though the class itself is a lot of work. It's drained so much out of me this quarter. It seemed like almost everyday there was always something major due in Chinese. Speaking of which, there's an essay due today (Friday) which I haven't done because I went out tonight! :)

Yeah but I'll still be able to see my group next quarter 'cause we're all taking the 8 AM class. (YAY?) Geez, Chinese at eight in the morning. Sounds like some hip-hop tune, And we'll be taking Chinese at eight in the mornin'.

Then afterwards I went to my Chinese Association meetings, or as Josh likes to put it, my meeting with 'The Association'. The meeting itself was pretty general but the after-event was to go to some club that was opening down in Long Beach called Rhythm and we could get in if we got there before 10:30. So I decided to go and forego my Chinese essay (Hey, still got time tomorrow {today}!) and go with people there.

One of the first people to greet meet when I went to join CA was Teak. Teak's been so nice to me even though I've barely been at CA for more than 2 months or so. I always get a ride with him to the events and he makes sure that I'm taking care of and introduced to others when we go somewhere. There's been lots of others we have been very friendly to me as well but Teak stands out as the one who went the extra mile for me. It's sad that this is his last year here :(

Also before I joined CA, I thought that I was the only asian dude named Shuan. Turns out they were all just hiding in CA cause there's at least 4 other Shawn Sean Shaun Shuans in CA.

So anyways, the club was pretty interesting. I didn't know anyone there at all sans CA people and I didn't know any of the CA girls to well so I was lke uhhh "Strongbad, why don't I know any CA girls" and like Strongbad told me, "Because I'm standing next to you stupid, they all want to know ME" and I'm like, "Oh man c'mon Strongbad why you gotta go and do that" but all he did was just laugh aftewards.

While I was there, I saw a girl who had quit Chinese class during the 5th or 6th week at the club and so we talked very briefly while I sat down from heat exhaustion. And then the funniest thing happened. I'm looking around the dance floor and I'm thinking, "Goddamn I dance like a dork!" and I was joking around with myself that the next time all the Troy people met up with each other I could talk about this and joke to Michelle, "Hey why don't you give me lessons on how to dance Michelle?" and everyone would get a big laugh. Anyways I'm looking around the dance floor and on one of the risers there's like five girls dancing, and one of them looks strangely familiar. Me in my tired (not drunken) stupor try to focus more on what she looked like. HOLY SHIT! IT WAS MICHELLE! Haha, I was laughing my ass off (well not on the outside, but on the inside) when I realized who it was. I went over to talk to her briefly before heading back to the CA table. When I got back my ride home, Teak, asked us if we were ready to go. So we went out the doors said bye to some of the other CA people and left.

As you can see, Chinese *something* is now an integral part of my life, which I find amusing and wonderful at the same time.

Now off I go to scrub this big red X off my hand

I left Friday night for Santa Barbara

The Association was going to an event that was going to be at UCSB and all the major Associations from the other UCs and USC also went.

There are too many things to discuss and too many things to go through to explain properly on this page but I had a blast. There was a lot of driving and lots of traffic. Going up I rode with the President of CA, his gf, the EVP of CA and another person from CA (not trying to be impersonal but I don't think it matters whether you know their names or not). The group of people in CA were all very nice over the weekend even though they didn't know me that well and it's nice to know that there are people out there we go out of their way to be nice.

So the thing I wanted to mention about this trip is that during the festival all the clubs were suppose to think of a cheer to do. Under some strange circumstances, someone decided to do a Strongbad e-mail, specifically the one about Techno. Yes we split into groups of four and the guy who thought it up impersonated Strongbad while the rest of the club did their parts of the song (Bass, Melody, High Pitched Sound, Obligatory Sci-Fi quote) although we instead said, "UCI is here" instead of "The system is down." I'm not sure how many people understood it, I knew some of the UCLA people did, but I think most people enjoyed the comedy of it. Watch the e-mail flash animation and you'll understand why.

Sometimes I can think of a great title but not a great writeup. Sometimes I can think of a great writeup but severly lacking in its title.

This time I don't really have either a great title nor a great writeup to follow it. But I felt like writing...

1. Why doesn't anyone update with any frequency?


2. I joined a club, club Chinese Association


3. For joining CA, I went with them to the beach (late night bonfire)


4. I saw someone get pants*, and no it was not a girl.


5. The Super Bowl is tomorrow and I have yet to mention it until now. Probably because not many of my friends are big football fans. Go Raiders because I want to see Tim Brown win a Super Bowl.


6. I thoroughly enjoyed Donnie Darko. I think that it would have made more sense to people if they also introduced the time travel pamphlet they mention in the movie. There's a website for it so if anyone wants the link, just IM me.


7. At present I have about 169 people on my buddy list, of which I talk to about 30 on a regular basis and with conversations. Add ten to the total if you count the number of people who only IM me because they want something from me. (When is this essay due? Do you have the problems from two days ago?)


8. Erik recently regained his yearbook from an anonymous female and that got me to think about my yearbook and all these people who wrote keep in touch in my yearbook and left their phone numbers and e-mail addresses. I wonder if I should try them and see if they're actually real. Oh yeah and speaking of my yearbook: Ross forgot to sign mine.


9. Speaking of which, Liz and Ross are big supporters of this site, yet I never talk to them online.


10. Does it make me a phony if I call those numbers, e-mail to those addresses or talk to Liz and/or Ross?


11. I mean phony in the sense as in would they think I am like one of those ten people on my buddy list. Someone with a hidden agenda and only IM'ing you now because I want something from you guys. Like maybe I want you guys to switch your phone service from AT&T to MCI.


12. But I think I'm worried more about what I would say then worried about being phony. I think a lack of topical conversation is my biggest concern when I talk to people.


13. Speaking of which, is my writing terrible? I try to put some sense of humor into my writing but I don't think I'm a terribly great writer. I'd actually prefer to talk to people rather than write to people. Inflection, Intonation and Timing.


14. I miss everyone but they're all up north, all the way east or just too busy here with their jobs.


15. I feel like one of those people who reminisces too much about high school. But people say that high school is the most exciting period in your life. But that's only if you were some kind of mega-popular captain-of-everything kind of person. High school for me was just too much drama, way more than I bargained for. I think if I ever become a writer (read: UNLIKELY) for some high school tv show then I would have plenty to write about.


16. I like UCI, it is a safe environment. But a little too safe. A car can make it more exciting. Car can go far. Car can go far enough to get boba.