Dual Wedding Invitations
*Sigh*
A third one is coming. They're getting married later in April so the invitation hasn't arrvived yet. These are the first friends of mine getting married. *SIGH SOME MORE* And I solemnly mark 1 on each RSVP. But anyway, I hope the best for So and Emily and for Hien and Matt.
Excerpts from a few days ago
I called up Nam for lunch the other day I was in San Jose. I hadn't seen that guy the last two times I was up. And he just imed me so I said what the heck. Like always, we were both interested in doing some additional shopping so it worked out quite well. He pulled up in his brand new Mazda MX-5 (Miata). I have to say, I didn't like the shape of the new body the first time I saw it. I didn't like it anymore in the nasty grey color he got. So it was with a bit of bias that I sat inside. When he started driving, the car felt very casual and leisurely, not frenetic like a normal 4 banger should be. It felt like a smaller droptop version of his Hyundai Tiburon. Again, I was not impressed. I was expecting hard edge, raw power. But the engine seemed a lot tamer than it's 170+ hp output would suggest. It seemed to be missing pizazz. Or it "dragged" as Nam called it. The suspension was very soft sprung and didn't seem to convey the motion of a ragtop roadster. My hair didn't even get messed up. Although that one is a plus. Interior materials were plasticky and ergonomics were attrocious. The head visor was a thin cheap piece of plastic. About the only thing I was impressed with is the ease at which the top is put down, about 5 seconds done in the driver's seat. But to me, it seems the soul of a sports car was missing in this iteration of the Miata. This is compared with my passenger status in the previous. Thumbs down for me. Oh and apparently it gets great fuel economy, which explains the tame engine and soft suspension. Maybe it has relaxed gear ratios.
What was peculiar to me was Nam decided on a no AC policy because it made his vents stink. There goes my last advocate of using AC. He used to tell me he hated going to the police station with a wetback, made him feel like a dirty mexican. Now if it is too hot, he will just drop the top. Ummm, you still sweat, sir. Darn, now I have to stay out of Ying-Ying's, Jack's, and Nam's car. I don't want to have a wetback.
The next day, after I dropped off ah Peng and her family we decided to go get some food. Actually, I decided and they just wanted to be nice to me. We went to The Thai Boat for some soup noodles. It was refreshing finally winning at fighting for the paycheck. I've been losing to Jack and Ying-Ying way too often the past couple of months because I am just too lazy to run up to a register or a waiter. Here, Sang Uncle has to fend with not knowing english very well. So how is he gonna fight me for the check? Better luck next time. However, he did manage to stick $100 bucks in my car for gas money for driving his kids.
JPL International Day
That's it. I have to get a camera and I have to get one soon. There is so much going on right now that I am missing out on capturing posterity. There are about 5000 employees here so JPL is able to develop it's own culture. There are different activity clubs that meet at various times. There's always some kind of lecture given somewhere on campus. There are dance classes you can take for free. And with such a wide ethnic background influence, there can be an international day. They had some booths setup outside the theater where different cultures show off their food. And all for free. What a treat!
I had some Korean BBQ from the korean tent. Some roast beef and lumpias from the Filipino tent. The sausages and saur krout (spelling) from the Germans was wonderful. The Chinese beef and brocolli plus chow mein and fried rice was standard fare. I skipped the nachos and salsa from the mexican tent. Had some apple strudel from the Austrian tent. Some strange sweet candy from the East Indian tent. The Arab tent had some weird chalupa-like tortilla with some odd peanut sauce. No good. What else did I have? There was plain california roll sushi from the Japanese. Oh you can't leave out the hotdogs from good old US of A.
Afterwards there was some entertainment in the theatre. I went in to check out it out since it was air conditioned and my belly was getting fat and sweaty. The first act was why I am kicking myself for not having a camera. 4 sultry goddesses came out in full arabian garb and belly danced for us. The first dance was more of a seductive slow body movement. These women really know how to move. I was surprised they were approved to dance like that for a family outing. Still they were fairly dressed, only their stomachs were exposed. And they used that to their maximum advantage. I was mesmerized for a good 20 minutes. One of them can even do that arabian infidel yell where they roll their tongues. Amazing.
The next two performances weren't that interesting to me. The Indian dance had some kid dancing to some hindu stuff that probably had a lot of feeling and stuff to it. It was interesting but dragged on too long. They last performance was the African dance. It was more dancing out to the words. It reminded me of the episode of Drawn Together when .... forgot her name, the princess told her life story through dance. I was expecting some chinese or japanese dances next but oh well, that was it. Still quite wonderful.
Again, I'm having the time of my life.
Shyy
I remember when I used to be shy. Heh, what am I talking about. I am still shy. But I know I've come a long way from that little 4th grader hiding behind his speech paper in front of class. This JPL summer internship gets better and better everyday. On Monday nights, there is a professional development seminar series. It's held at the Caltech campus and dinner is provided. So not only is it fun to meet people but you get to feel like one of those incredibly intelligent people who go here. And wow, the women at JPL were were good looking enough. But the ones at Caltech make me go gaga. This is due to them being much closer to my age so I could actually talk to some of them. Good food, good people and smart women. Nice.
There was this one shy little boy at my table. He didn't speak much and I thought I would try to include him in our conversations. Turns out, he is a 16 year-old. Almost everyone here is in college. Some are even post docs. He is probably the youngest person here. No wonder he is so quiet. Must be intimidating in front of so many adults. We were given an assignment to do as a group and no one took charge. So I took up the pen and did the writing and stuff for the group. Someone had to present. No one raised their hand. So I volunteered that little boy to do it. It will be good practice for him to speak in front of an audience I thought. It's only about 100 people. He accepted begrudgingly. That he didn't squirm or refuse made me think he isn't all that shy. Brilliant people are usually very full of themselves. If you are 16 and at Caltech... Come on, you're probably very arrogant and think you're superior to anyone who doesn't know how to calculate the Fourier transform of sin(x).
Our presentation topic was alzheimer's disease. The guy started off by stuttering and going "ah" and "em." I was a little worried and then he said, "Oh yeah alzheimer's disease." Everyone laughed and applauded. Have to admit, that was a great opener. A couple of minutes in though he stuttered again and got lost. It was so obsessive that I went up there with him so he wouldn't feel so alone. I ended up reading the last bit of our work. Oh the guilt set in. I wonder if I scarred this guy for life. I remember how bad it was for me in front of people. I hope I didn't make this a horrible experience for him. He didn't show up to yesterday's seminar. I hope he's ok. I feel like such a jerk. That's what I get for opening my big mouth. I wonder if his opening was on purpose or not.
Button pushing
Mandy always knows the exact buttons to push to get me riled up. It must be a skill. I was back up in San Jose the other weekend because ah Peng asked me if I could drive her and her siblings down to LA. I was happy to do the job because ah Peng is one of the few... hmmm no... she is the only person I can speak chinese to. She is the only one who tries to help me learn more. Of all the relatives we've sponsored over from Vietnam, I like her best. It's an odd thing but I feel very comfortable with cantonese. I may not be able to express myself as easily but when I hear or speak it, everyone sounds like family to me. It's very familiar. Sadly, very few people actually want to speak to me in cantonese. They'd rather thumb their noses and go tsk tsk at me for not knowing my culture. Take Mandy for instance.
She came along with me to San Jose to pick up my cousins because she was bored. This was a good way for me to wrestle the truck from my dad. I got him good. No way he would let 5 people sit 7 hours with all their belongings in a tiny corolla. Just as we begin our drive home, Mandy starts with her button pushing. I don't think she's aware of the things she says. I wish I had the courage to tell her, when you say things like that people run away from you.
Mandy says, "H___ and S___ are getting old now. They'll probably have to go get mail order brides from China. What's wrong with them? I think they are good guys. Why can't they find a good girl? Neither of them has ever had a girlfriend" Ok, you just put down two of your good friends. They're somewhat my friends too so that's not a good thing. "So when you are 35 you'll probably get someone from China too huh? Would you be ok with that?" The heck is wrong with you? In case, someone reading this doesn't understand. The general consensus here is that if someone has to marry a mail order bride it means they are a loser and no one wants them.
Mandy wasn't done yet though. No, far from it. I was speaking to ah Peng about something and of course my words were far from fluent. Normally, a chinese person might start to giggle a little bit or something of that nature. I was used to it too. My grandma and my uncle laughed on many occasions when I spoke to them when I was young. Mandy, however, isn't normal. "You know John. I have to tell you this. Your Chinese is just horrible. It's just really really bad. Do you know that? It's really bad. It was so hard to understand what you were saying." And you just had to tell me this why? As if you hadn't told already before? And did you have to use such colorful words to describe it? Two of my buttons were pushes in less than 10 minutes: fear of being alone the rest of my life and my crappy chinese. And by the way, that's not what she said exactly in those quotes. I had to fix some of her grammar. Because I know Mandy is as sensitive about her english as I am about my chinese, I would never tell her, her english is not as good as it could be.
Thank God for Kim
I was beginning to lose faith in mankind. Has people forgotten how to post mail? Geez, it's not that hard of a task. Just the other day I was wondering if kids would start asking why I wear a watch. You can get time off your cell phone. What is the point of wearing a band around your wrist? And now email is just dumbing us down on postal mail. I'm glad there are good people like Kim around who pay attention. Keepin' it real, old school, by using stamps instead of a modem. (errr.... they don't even use modems anymore, it's all broadband).
See the not so subtle difference between the top envelope and the bottom envelope. See the very very very important part of "addressing" an envelope that is missing in the top letter? If this was an isolated incident I would go sure whatever. But two people actually emailed me asking me about it. Is that really your address? It doesn't look right. What is so hard to believe about my address?
The whitewater rafting trip I set up for August 5th has ballooned to over 30 people. Transferring money to me was getting complicated. A good friend of mine told me to simplify things and just have people mail me their checks. It seemed to make sense. So I placed my address on the evite list. I didn't know there would be this much trouble with my address. And one person decided to omit what they wanted for dinner. Enjoy your veggie burger Doan.
Jiffy Lube
That's right. I switched over to the dark side. I always like to do my own car maintenance. The easy stuff anyway. I like getting my hards dirty. I feel like a man when I am under a car getting all greasy and smelly. Something about raw power generated by 2 tons of steel just makes me go arggggg! But alas, I had to let the good folks over at Jiffy Lube handle my oil change.
For being an ex-mechanic, my dad is incredibly bad at taking care of his cars. Never buy used cars from him. I thought it was bad luck that our cars always had that low tire rumble or that annoying engine buzz. Why did my first 5 cars break down on me? Now I know. Ever since I started doing minor auto maintenance our cars have been running smoothly. Not a single breakdown from wear and tear since I started a few years ago. Since I've been away at college, I haven't been able to keep a close eye on our stable. So apparently this Nissan truck needs to get it's oil changed like now. I didn't have time when I was at home and there is no place to do it here in LA because I rent. So off to Jiffy Lube it goes.
They checked off "wiped down windows" on my invoice. But my windows were clearly not wiped down. I had accumulated a fair amount of insect carcasses on my trip down here. The splotches are so big they cast shadows on inside of my dark interior truck. That's pretty messy. Normal people would wipe it down because you can barely see the road. I am too lazy. And apparently so was Jiff Lube. This is for the Jiffy Lube at the corner of Valley and Fremont. Thumbs down to you. $20 for a tire rotation? $70 for a radiator flush? Get off my back you ripoffs. No addons! I could do those two jobs in an hour for about 10 bucks.
Anyway I am ashamed of myself. I will not have someone do my change again. Unless it's cheap of course.
Impressions of JPL
We had new affiliate orientation the second day of work. Makes sense to have it on our second day huh? Apparently, the other 140 or so summer interns from outside the LA area came in on Monday. So their first day is Tuesday. Why not get them here on Sunday and start on Monday? It’s another one of those JPL mysteries I cannot solve. They get to stay at Caltech all summer. Man, I get to stay at my lousy dorms while you guys get Caltech? Just the experience of living there is worth the visit.
While waiting for the orientation to start I played some sudoku. The following is how I am not a nice person. This tall white guy came over and sat down on the bench next to me. He looked at me, smiled and said, “Might as well sit down since we’re waiting.” I smiled meekly. I continued with my puzzle. About 5 minutes later he glances over my shoulder and says, “That’s one of those sudoku things huh? I only just started playing them a couple months ago.” He had a heavy southern accent. “Yeah,” I replied. I wasn’t exactly engrossed in my puzzle or anything. I was just being unfriendly. Another 5 minutes pass and he says, “So you download those things off the web?” Alright, I’ll break out of my mold. We actually had a nice conversation after I started opening up. His accent was a bit a difficult to decipher. I think he said he is from a small town in Arkansas. I guess I’ve never really met someone who spoke like this before using words like “daggum” or “ahma” instead of “damm” or “I’m gonna.” I was half expecting him to bust out with a punch line. I only hear this type of speech in movies like Joe Dirt or comedy skits about hicks on SNL or maybe from our president. In contrast, I wonder if he had any trouble with my “Cali” accent, using words like “like” or “that’s awesome dude.”
My expectation of the demographics of JPL was simple. We would have the basic nerd stereotype with his pocket protectors and greasy hair either slicked back or in a pony-tail. Females would be an endangered species and those that do exist would wear thick-rimmed glasses and sport a modest mustache. Boy, was I wrong. There isn’t anything in the world more attractive than a brilliant woman that is pretty to look at. The women here have tall slender legs with athletic profiles. Some wear the little black-rimmed glasses I find so cute. Now I may be biased towards intelligent women but I’ve just been mesmerized by the beauty here. JPL employees also seem to be more healthy than say CalstateLA students. People’s bums here are small and pert here while CalstateLA are gargantuan and hardly fit into desks. The men are also not as homely as I thought they would be. They don’t all seem to have high squeaky quivering voices.
Safety and security is of the greatest importance here and it’s a pain that it took me a week to get a badge that allows me through the front gates without being questioned by security patrol. It took a week to get an email account setup. And I still don’t have a phone. But isn’t all bad, I got a place to work and put my things down. They make you go through a lot of training to start any kind of work. I had to do lab safety training because my work area was in a lab. Even though there was nothing much in the lab besides a desk and a chair and a few electronic gizmos, I wasn’t allowed in until my 4th day.
The cafeteria reminded me of Google. Not as many choices but a good variety nonetheless. I was disappointed that food cost money but at least it’s about 50% less than what it would cost outside. I stuck to salad because if I kept a good balance I could pile it on sky high and still be charged for just a side salad. Good stuff.
The place isn’t all clean rooms and people in bunny suits in white tiles rooms. This isn’t Intel. The place is rather shoddy. Some buildings are nice but others are not. I guess it is a government run facility after all and they don’t have to make the place look nice. Their work shows their worth and everyone knows the work of JPL. So we don’t have fancy offices with glass windows and tall ceilings. We’re caged in tiny cubicles with loud AC units in the corner rattling the metal filing cabinets. Dell computers litter the PC landscape. I thought the people producing Stargate had some kind of deal with Dell or something. The logo is shown on almost every episode. But I guess the government uses Dell. Can’t argue with that, they make good reliable stuff. I have a Dell of my own. Now if only I can get them to pay me for my endorsement.
The weather up here is killer though, hovering near 100 everyday, sometimes going over. I have to go from building to building every day to do meetings. To make matters worse, my lab is set 40 degrees under outside ambient temperature so I freeze my butt off everyday. I am wearing a turtleneck and shaking as I write this.
I am having the time of my life.
First Day
It was not as I expected. It took a little longer than I thought to drive the 11 or so miles to JPL. I met up with another CalstateLA student while we waited for our mentor at the Visitor’s Center. He picked me out of the crowd and knew my name and everything. I had no idea who he was. Turns out we just Astrophysics 411 together last quarter. (10 total people in the class) Goes to show you how much I remember people’s faces. It was a bit of waiting around even when my mentor arrived. It seemed there were some issues up at the badging office and we won’t be receiving ones for a little while. The three of us spent the day trudging from meeting to meeting. Seems that’s all my mentor does is go to meetings. He gave us a pair of laptops to set up with the IT guys on campus. Let me tell you, that was quite an adventure to get setup. It seems JPL has gotten so tight on security that even their IT guys have trouble setting up new users. That’s just wonderful isn’t it?
Deer and snakes roam the JPL landscape as if were their own national preserve. They don’t seem to care for the humans busying around. They told us during orientation that one employee a couple years back struck a deer on his bike and was killed. Yes, beware of the animals.
My partner was given the task of secretary to follow my mentor around and help him with little tasks. I wanted to do some hands on work building things so he assigned me to work with someone who would build the testing apparatus for the mirrors that would go on the telescope. Oh did I tell you? My project is called SIM PlanetQuest.
The goal of the project is to find earth-sized planets around other stars. To that end, we send out a probe that has 3 pairs of telescopes. Two pairs are used as anchors, and the third pair is to do the actual measurements. Why in pairs? It’s a bit technical, so I’ll put it in simpler terms. Basically, it uses interferometry to combine data from two telescopes. By calculating the time, wavelength, frequency, etc of one telescope to receive the light versus the complementary telescope, you can get all kinds of juicy information. This is because the other telescope will receive the information just a tiny bit later and a tiny bit off in phase from the other telescope. How tiny? Well, the telescopes are about the length of a small school bus apart. So we’re talking about 10 meters here. Light travels 300 million meters per second. So precision needs to be pretty high. A speech given to us later in the week said that the SIM probe has to be precise enough to see a patch of sky equivalent to the width of the side of a nickel placed on the moon when the probe is on earth. How in the world is that possible?
The day before Monday
After coming home from the bonfire I continued to fight for rest. Luckily for me it wasn't so bad. I didn't have too much trouble staying awake while driving home. My dad decided he would continue driving the truck leaving me with the corolla. I scolded him for being an idiot and wasting literally hundred dollars a month plus causing hinderance to my sister and my mom because he keeps borrowing their cars to work. I want him to take the corolla because his truck slurps up gas like no tomorrow. I don't go very far down here so it doesn't bother me much. I just don't understand why Asian men are so obsessed with big cars. "I want to have it in case I have to move big stuff." Idiots. I need to get rid of this truck soon. He's always late paying me back yet perfectly on time to gas up his hog of a truck. I need to think of something to get that truck next time. Y-Y rang again to go out for tea. I don't know why. Is it fun? It rarely is when it isn't just the two of us. Like when Jennifer is there and they go girl talk on me. It's just less personal. I obliged because what can you say to someone who would detour so many miles to see you. Besides I said I would make an effort. So here I am.
This is the end of my 3 day vacation and I should be happy. And I am but my body is refusing to celebrate. I'm just so tired. I got 17 people to go on my rafting trip plus 15 more on So's side. This will be fun. I come home to my roommate asking to fix spyware on his computer. Once again I say to him, "I am not your tech support." I start up my laptop and I get an im from Nancy saying she needs help with spyware on her computer. Dammit people. I am not your tech support! I just came home from my 3 day weekend fixing computers and you want me to fix more? So with my weekend being slightly above average, I went to sleep looking forward to my first day at work.
I am hiking God!
I am a better hiker than Nam.
Ying-Ying's Graduation
She said I didn't have to go. I know I didn't have to go. I didn't want to go. But I went anyway because I would want her at mine. I'm enough of a hypocrite as it is, no need to "fire top add oil." There's a Chinese phrase for you. Too lazy to type it out in characters. So fresh off 3 hours of sleep, her parents showed up in the back seat of Jack's diminutive M3. That's just great and of course I'll take the front seat, although her mom probably should've taken it. Not trying to hint on anything but everyone would've been more comfortable that way. In the ensuing silence that is her parents we arrived safe and sound at Calstate "Ebay" freezing our tushes off. Great view but lousy wind chill factor.
I ended having a better time than I thought due to engaging games of sudoku I played with her parents. While Jack was dozing off, her dad was telling me his ultimate strategy and how her mom was doing it all wrong. Her mom thought I was a wimpy amateur at first disregarding me for taking so long to get only one number written down. But once she got a taste of that particular overly difficult puzzle, she understood why I had trouble.
We had lunch later at Cousin Cafe. She really is her mother's daughter. They order the same appetizer. Afterwards, we watched a really unbelievable Japanese anime where a little 7 year-old girl in the early 20th century had to go to work as an indentured servant. I had to take a short nap during because Chinese people really suck at dubbing voices or they don't pay enough for the job.
Normally, I would take up anyone's offer at going out to meet new people. But my eyes were heavy and I don't like sausage fests. So Y-Y went to have dinner with Sonny and Jack and some other guys. I decided to stay home and nap. But fate wanted me awake that day. I have now been awake for 12 hours and the rolls under my eyes were bulging. I drove up to Castro Valley to pick up an upright piano for my sister. Heavy mother trucker. When I got home a friendly voice said it was time to go bonfire at the beach. No, not yet. I have two more computers to fix. Joy.
As I put the finishing touches on one computer the M3 beckoned at my driveway and I was whisked away into the moonlight. Jack drove slow for Jack. Goodness knows why. I enjoyed Y-Y's excellent restraint on yelling at the both of us to just choose a place and park the damm car. We were wandering around for a little over an hour. See, I was on a mission to find that place Jack and I went to a couple years ago. Jack seemed to be on the same wavelength. Y-Y just wanted out of the car. She found solace in her cigarette. I found admiration in her composure.
Fire. I like fire. One of the four ancient elements. It's inside all of us and everything around us. It makes me feel so simple when I stare into the flames. It peels me like an onion taking off all the complicated layers. Inside is just me the same as any other person in the world. Came home around 5:30. Great, awake for 24 hours when I am trying to rest from finals. It was an odd night indeed as the 3 of us struggled to get sleep and found ourselves wet with dew. Talk was brief. It's always like that when one person sits like a stone on the side not paying attention. I chose to follow his example since the emotions just weren't there to keep anything going. Thumbs down for this event. But we we did get a great striptease from Ying-Ying. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: It's not really her in case you are stupid enough to believe she would let me show this video if it were her. Uncanny resemblance huh?
Friday June 9th, 2006 Part 2
I called up Hoang one day to inquire about her birthday party. Sad to say, she's one of the rare people who celebrates it on the actual day rather than on a convenient weekend. Thus, I was unable to attend. She asked me what I would like to do when I come back from school. Dinner maybe? You know, some of my fondest memories are of playing Cranium and putting together a puzzle at Jack's house or watching a movie and playing Taboo at Kim's place among a small group of close friends. I just find that sitting in the comfort of someone's house, better conversations results and people can be themselves more or less. So I voted to have a little potluck get-together at Lee's house. Everyone went along with my idea. It feels good to be loved.
The aforementioned "ditching" turned out positive because, lately, Y-Y hasn't been able to delegate sleep in any reliable fashion so she had little energy to see me. I ended up staying at Lee's place until 3 in the morning so it was a good thing I didn't have to leave early. Had I not a graduation to go to the next day, I probably would have taken up her offer to have a sleepover. That's the second thing Lee said to me when I came over, "We're gonna sing till the sun comes up right?" Sure thing, I hope you can keep up. She's an even bigger karaoke fanatic than me and she sings really well so I was at the disadvantage here. The first thing she said to me was, "Wow, you're on time." It was 6:30 PM. I was on time but an hour too early in asian time because no one else was there besides me.
She was cutting fruit and I didn't know what I could do to help. So I went out to her backyard. I saw a porch swing chair and sat down and relaxed. I need to get one of these when I buy myself a place. It was just so comfortable sitting there with the setting sun gently shining down on me. The quiet trickle of the koi pond was in the background. There was not a care in the world. Studies were over. I had nothing to worry about except the feast that I would be partaking in, in just a few moments. Lee already started cutting a wide assortment of fruit, from strawberries to mangos, all the way to cantolope and watermelon. I love fruit. Life felt good.
During dinner a few people I didn't know showed up. What a welcome surprise. I get to meet new people as well tonight. Later we played mahjong but my heart was at the microphone.
One thing that I thought about during dinner was that all my friends were coupling up. I mean Hien and Hoang are getting married. Even Lee is seeing someone. What am I doing? I am still lonely in the world. I felt so left behind.... actually I wasn't left behind. People moved on and I lingered, which is even worse. I don't drink so I decided to drown my sorrows in song instead. I picked up the mic and just sang and sang to my heart's content. Lee's cousin, Andy, saw me and couldn't resist joining in and we basically sang song by song on each vcd. He's a great singer too. I wonder if it runs in the family? It wasn't until I saw Andy and Son in pajamas that I realize that it might be time to go. Lee is a great hostess. She said, next time we will definitely sing till morning.
Met new people
Met old friends
Good food, good company
Found out my mandarin skills went up a notch
Had a fantastic time
A perfect evening
Friday June 9th, 2006 Part 1
I stayed up late watching TVB when I came home. I wish I was rich enough to afford the Chinese channel but oh well, I get a taste of it everytime I come home. I woke up to the sound of Andrew crying at around 11. I'm still his favorite uncle. Jack ims me to go have lunch but I have to drive my aunt to work. Phung asks me later to go have lunch with Quynh at Google. Good thing too because my aunt said she didn't need a ride afterall. Free lunch at Google is much better than fighting Y-Y and Jack for the check in which I always lose because I am too lazy to fight. This might be my last lunch at Google since my sister isn't going to stay. I find out she googled my name and found this blog. She said I write good stories. I do?
I brought some strawberry angel food cake home with me. It was so good. Jack starts playing middle man between Y-Y and me because she's on AIM and I am on Yahoo. I decide to play around with him by being completely oblivious. You see, I had made previous plans to have a little group get together at my friend's house for friday night. Last night on the phone, Y-Y and I were talking. I asked her what she was going to do friday night. She said she would be going out with her 老死 (old friend). That's good. I thought she would want to spend time with me. I was busy. So it works out. Then I thought about it and said, "Oh, you mean me." She started saying something like her chinese sucks. I'm thinking I understood you fine. But "OK, whatever." She then proceeds to talk about how her dad is taking the better room away from her and that she will have to live in the smaller stuffy room. And I wanted to slap her and say, "You had your own room for almost your whole life." I had to share most of my life and I have a living room right now. But I couldn't get a chance to say anything because she was talking up a storm. I also wanted to ask her if she wanted to go to my friend's place and sing karaoke. She did tell me a while back she wanted to go. But I never got the chance to because she got a more important incoming call.
So this afternoon, Jack ims asking me what I'm doing tonight. I say I am going to see my friends. Then he says Y-Y is saying I am ditching her. And then I say, no I am not. I am going out with my friends. I wonder why he's playing the middle man so I poke him harder by being more vague. Since when do people enjoy relaying messages? He doesn't give up though, and asked me to just tell him what I mean just between the two of us. Yeah right, guy, I believe you. I'm not going to tell you anything.
I didn't make any concrete plans with Y-Y, so how is that ditching? Anyway, she'd likely ask me what I would like to do. And I would say, I want to sing, "A Whole New World" with you. You be the guy, I like to sing the girl's part. The guy's part sounds gay. In the end, fatigue got to her and she spent her time awake doing something else more interesting. I, on the other hand, came home and found someone had eaten all my cake. Grrr...
2 year marker
Alright 2 full years of academic torture is now over. I told myself a couple of years ago that all I had to do was hang on for two years and I would be good. Damm me for being so optimistic. I still have a long way to go. Still, it's an accomplishment worth celebrating. I will do just that by sweating in the hot sun squinting as I try to make out a blurry person among a sea of robes. What's the point?
Monday starts my internship. Yay! Every friday, there will be a special seminar for they encourage all the interns to go. Free lunch and get paid to listen to people talk about astronomy? Sounds good to me. I feel like a bowl of pho.
Mes amies
My patience was tried today and sad to say I succumbed to it. As a friend I can take quite a beating I think. But when successive things come in triplets, I find myself beaten. Is it worth my time to pursue friendship with someone inconsiderate? Obviously, no. But it seems like Y-Y's words are becoming more clear. She said it was easy to make friends when we are young. It's tougher when we grow up. When we are young, we tend to put up with more things. People taking advantage of you. Not keeping their word. Or do other sorts of nasty little things. But when we are older we tend to be more critical of other people's actions. There's no way we are going to tolerate nonsense. The innocence is lost. You are no longer carefree. When you are older it seems everyone is out to get you. So you should 帶眼識人. Be careful who you get involved with. It's come more than a full year here in Los Angeles. I've yet to find myself a "bosom buddy." Or a "kindred spirit" in
Anne of Green Gables talk. Is it time to cut my losses?
Koreans do it best
I don't know how they do it. Those Koreans really know how to write a good story. Everyone needs to check out
Il Mare. Otherwise known as
The Lake House. I don't know how the remake will be but the story is simple enough that the overall theme won't be messed up. It stars the girl from
My Sassy Girl. Which makes it kinda hard to watch since she is so loud in that movie versus this one. The story is about a woman who moves out of a lake house and somehow starts sending letters to someone who lived in that same house 2 years ago. For some reason her letters are traveling back in time 2 years before. Both of them are lonely in the world and their letters are sources of hope. Will they be able to meet 2 years later? I don't want to give it away but this is a Korean movie after all. They apparently do meet in the American version because you see Keanu Reeves embracing Sandra Bullock. Two thumbs up. Way up!
Dear Life
Thank you for today.
Nam didn't misinterpret me, he understood me.
I've approached the line with Y-Y.
Let's see if friendship is strong enough to overcome the repulsion.
Michael said, "Hey thanks for backing me up at the banquet last week."
"What are you talking about?" I said.
He said I helped him when the other people at our table was ganging up on him.
I don't remember saying anything for you.
"Oh? Then I must be imagining it. Forget about it."
What are you talking about?
"Forget about it, it's nothing."
You bastard, you tease.
You don't do that to people.
You don't start a story and then end like that.
鄧麗欣 is for Jack.
I should have known better than to link to graphics on another server.
I don't like the colors of this layout.
This is Life
Today was just another Friday. It started with the usual Chem class. Brenda looked even hotter today because of the 90+ degree heat. She had to wear a tank top today. Nice. Same old boring research meeting. But, I've started looking forward to Fridays now since I've been going to Life Group. Today's meeting was a little different than normal because Rebecca and Paul were going to give us a farewell speech as they make off to India for missionary work for 5 years. Isn't it nice to find someone you love and go off to a wild foreign country to do charity work? In light of this blessed event, all the Life Groups would reassemble into one and send them off. So there were originally 3 groups huh?
Anyway after the session we had a couple of pizza boxes leftover so Ernie, Grant, Michael, and I decide to go take a walk outside old town Pasadena and see if we could do some "pizza missionary." I thought we would be wasting our time. At the first inersection a brand new black ferrari pulls around the corner. There's no way we were gonna find any hungry individuals in need of cold pizza. I was pleasantly surprised.
1. We pass by a a beat up van with an old man and woman inside. They seemed to have been parked there for hours. "Hey man, can you guys spare some change?" the old man asked. No, but we do have some pizza. Ended up, he just needed change for the meter but took our pizza just the same. We talked for a bit. He was an artist and the woman inside was his subject. It's a tough life living in a van, not knowing when your next paycheck would come in. He said he was a christian man so as to somehow identify with us when we told him we just walked out of bible study. Then Grant threw the question, "Oh what's your favorite book in the bible?" And we were doing so well. As we walked away, we prayed for them.
2. We passed by a club on Colorado, which happens to be about two blocks away from Yardhouse where I had eaten last week. A pair of 20 somethings guys nicely dressed were standing outside smoking cigars. "Hey man, can we get a slice of pizza?" Man, holding a box of pizza is a good ice breaker. People just come up to you. Those two were so surprised we
actually wanted to give them a slice. We chatted and they told us that they had 7 gorgeous chicks coming by in a few minutes and since we were so cool we should join them in the club. Of course it was all in jest but it's incredible how we mingled. But again the bible talk screwed it up as Grant got a little to aggressive. Even when the girls arrived he wouldn't let up. One of the girls had to actually drag the guys away.
3. We saw an old man sitting at the bus stop. "Hey you wanna slice of pizza free?" Again pizza gave us the window to strike up a conversation. The guy was going to do a marathon tomorrow morning at Memorial Park not 3 blocks away from where we were. I didn't get the end of the conversation as Michael needed to go home.
Although I thought Grant was being too pushy with the Godspeak. He did make a good point in that he probably made a lasting impression on that guy. He'll probably remember the man who gave him a slice of pizza and then got dragged away by a girl. It may not be positive. But it's lasting. Who knows, maybe one of their friends will say something to them about God later on. And they'll think what a coincidence, some guys with a pizza just said that to me. Maybe I should start listening and go to church. But eh, I'm realistic, those two guys will probably think twice before asking for another slice of pizza. Who knows what may come attached.
Summer prelude
Ahhhhh.... another sigh of relief. It feels good to do a lot of work and just relax a bit. There's very little left on my plate so I can pretty much wait until doomsday. Then come home and enjoy some pampering by family. Isn't that nice? Then I will come back here and start my internship. What could be better? I could brave some rapids next month as well. I guess I'll just call up the place tomorrow to make sure space is still available since everyone wants to move it to the weekend after. It's all shaping up quite nicely. I chose to go with Nam's advice the other day. I am a little bit wary of my decision but I guess it's for the best. I mean, everyone knows I can't keep secrets well. So I don't want to have information that could be beneficial... or detrimental to anyone else. Unfair yes, but my hands are tied. Meanwhile, I sorta set up a study session with my friend so that he could get the information he required to write his final paper. I already know what I need to do so it was really just for his benefit. He called me 30 minutes after our appointment time to cancel. His reason? Go see X-men with his dad. I don't know. Do I still take time out of my busy schedule to help someone who doesn't want to be helped? At least he called, it's a step forward.
See the not so subtle difference between the top envelope and the bottom envelope. See the very very very important part of "addressing" an envelope that is missing in the top letter? If this was an isolated incident I would go sure whatever. But two people actually emailed me asking me about it. Is that really your address? It doesn't look right. What is so hard to believe about my address?
