Here's the funny Asian guy singing at the karaoke bar on ship. I like the song. The audience was quite impressed.
You'd think imminent death would be a deterrent to my slumber. But as with hunger and the call of nature, I have a hard time choosing the right thing to prolong my life. I woke up today not from choking smoke but from a bladder that wouldn't leave me alone. Both had been bothering me but neither was able to get access to my well pampered legs until now. Either pee in my pants or pee in the toilet. I wouldn't mind the former so much but that would require extra cleaning of the sheets. If the ultimate goal is sloth, this cannot be a viable option. So as I opened the door to a wall of rushing opaqueness, I could just make out my roommate blissfully enjoying a cheeseburger and a basketball game. I thought for a moment that I may have mistaken my cloudy eyes as a resultant fresh nap not as actual death charged black smoke. Normally, I'd shrug and trudge my way to the restroom to relieve myself. Fast to toilet, fast to sleep, I say. But at that very moment an angel told me to take my ground turkey out of the freezer so that I can make some lasagna tonight. "Fine!" I told her quite annoyed. As I neared the kitchen I found my vision become more bothered. I could barely see the window on the other side. That's when I noticed the billowing darkness centered around a glowing orange ring on the stove. I turned it off. I came around and looked at my roommate in disbelief and proceeded to sarcasm him to death. "You don't notice the TV is a little blurry? Kinda stuffy don't you think?" Not sure why the smoke detector didn't come off. But I guess it could've been worse.
How many guys does it take to fold a lawn chair after a bonfire? Five. Four to fold the chair and one to hold the flashlight. We ended up breaking it by the way. Here's a nice foot getting toasted. I watched them get painted on Wednesday. It was very smelly but educational. No not the feet, the nail polish.
My dad was talking to me the other day on the cruise ship. "You're graduating in June. So the degree you're going to get is sort of like your sister's from UCR right?" Geez, dad, it's not sort of the same it is the same thing. I guess he got confused that I am getting my diploma in two years while my sister took four.
Mandy Mandy Mandy. You had such a good pose, then you had to do the peace sign... sigh*
Let me do some bad science today. The past couple of weeks. I've been extremely exhausted. I haven't done anything especially strenuous. I've gotten plenty of sleep. I always have trouble sleeping. I'd lie in bed 2 or 3 hours before I fall asleep. The last couple of weeks, I just fell down like a stone. It was spring break last week and I enjoyed doing nothing. I actually fell asleep on Nam's couch while trying to burn a CD. What's going on here? What could be the problem? Oh yeah, a little more than 2 weeks ago, I did a double blood unit donation. That must have sapped all my energy. They say it could take up to 2 weeks for you to replenish the lost nutrients or whatever. Yeah, I never felt like this on the regular donation. So that must be it. Never again. I didn't hear both alarm clocks I set. And if you've ever heard Y-Y's alarm clock, there's really no way you can miss that. So I don't know what happened. I missed one of my classes today. I can't afford to miss important things like that. No more double donations. If I wanted to do bad science that's the conclusion I would come to. So I really don't know what's up with me. I guess I will just try to catch up on Zzz's.
Cake is difficult to give up. You're addicted before you can even speak.
I attempted to be pretentious again today at Dolcini's. I sat outside trying to enjoy what little sun poked through the clouds. But I was forced to go to the library by stupid people who still smoke. As soon as the guy lit up, everybody's eyes came on him. He acted all nonchalant and everything smiling and laughing. "I'm sorry if this is killing you people." BASTARD. I really don't understand why a perfectly intelligent human being would choose to smoke nowadays. There's so much peer pressure to not smoke especially for young people. My classmate Kevin just quit last quarter. He did so while his wife continued to light up. Now that is good will power.
All ya do is sit around and eat all day. Plenty to do but no need to do any of it. Here's me rock climbing. Even if you can't see my face, it's fairly obvious who I am in the picture. I'm never been so pampered in my life. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner can be done at the buffet or it can be done at the restaurants where you get 4 star treatment. People pushed in my chair as I sat down. They helped me with my napkins. Constantly came around to make sure I am completely comfortable. All this for the cost of my cruise! And the food? It's as good as what you get at the best buffets in Vegas. Not spectacular but still pretty darn good. I ate maybe 5 or 6 times a day. Free room service. I mean, these are the luxuries I always shy away from because of the price. But here, it's included so room service to your heart's content! Luckily, there are 12 decks on the ship. Food is on deck 11. I'm located on the "Fiesta Deck," deck 2. Even with 6 elevators I got frustrated with the wait times and ran myself up and down. Hopefully, that and rock climbing killed off a few calories. There are musicals and dance performances. There are game shows and stand-up comedies. There's just so much to do. Of course, I saved some time to lounge in front of the pool and watched scantilly clad females run around splashing water on each other. There were more than a few bachelorette parties going on. Girls seem to go on cruises in packs. There were more of them than guys on board which made sightseeing all the more enjoyable. I was thinking that this would have been more fun if I had a group of friends come with me. There are so many activities to participate in. Let's see if I can get more people interested.
The Tsan Family in all our glory. It's been a wonderful cruise. I'll go into more detail when I am not so tired. I can say one thing, though. If you're going to be stuck on a boat with your family. Make sure it's a big one. Luckily, Monarch of the Seas just fits the bill. I almost escaped unscathed but 3 nights and 4 days was enough time to get off a few words with my middle brother and sister. The eldest that got married and the youngest I get along with just fine. Don't mind my shoes. I'll hopefully get them shined for the next wedding. Although I said that the past 3 weddings already.
I'm almost proud of this picture. I captured the reflection from the sunlight off the ribbon in her hair just right. Darn Mark had to get in my way. Hmmpphhh....
Nam and I finally finished Resistance. I absolutely love that game. Nam and I have gotten really good at it. He and I seem to compliment each other so well. He's a master at using the LAARK rocket launcher on big tough monsters. I'm good at standing back and slowly sniping hybrids from afar. He's good at rambo-ing into the fray and taking out the enemies. I'm good at finding safe places to hide and staying alive in case he runs into a particular tough baddie. Do video games reflect any real human emotions? Meaning Nam is more reckless and headstrong in social situations while I am the shy guy standing there holding a heineken hoping to be noticed?
I have to admit, I wasn't expecting much from skiing this Spring Break. After all, it's been one of the warmest and driest winters on record. Still, Kim was able to secure a couple of free tickets. So what the heck. Even if snow was scarce, she's one of the easiest persons to talk to. So I set my heart on a good chat with her to catch up on everything I've missed while away. Even if skiing sucked, I'd have a good time. I was pleasantly surprised that snow was quite forgiving for such thin cover. You'll notice that the background is a little too green for winter. Kim has advanced incredibly on her boarding skills. Still can't keep up up with me. But honestly, who can keep up with me this side of an Olympic medal? She kept saying that we're always sitting on the chair lifts again so soon after getting off at that top. All the runs seems so short. Yeah, that's how they are when you don't take 25 minutes going down every run. Welcome to my world.
What's odd is that traffic conditions favored me too. Morning rush hour in Sacramento was thin. when we came up. Going back, there are two ways to get home and both are about equal distance. On a whim, I decided to take hwy 80 back home instead of my usual hwy 5. I saw a line of cars lining up 5 just as I passed the exit. How lucky I didn't get caught in that. I borrowed my Bro's Corolla instead of the WRX because the weatherman said snow was unlikely. So I got 35.5 mpg on that efficient little sucker. 443 miles total without a single refueling. Amazing! Could've done better but who can resist going 90+ on open highway? We had dinner at Sendai. I don't do sushi. So this place is cool with it's bento box. They leave out the sushi and charge you less. Perfect!
Wondering what's been going on with me the past week? Let me give you a quick recap since I won't be around for the next couple of days. I've just been through one of the hardest quarters I've ever had here at CSULA. 3 tough physics classes coupled with a pair of astrophysics classes left me quite fatigued. As fate would have it, God decided to reward me in a grand way with vacation cruise to Mexico to celebrate my sister's wedding.
I normally come back Thursday after finals but this quarter I stayed until Saturday afternoon to celebrate Clara's birthday. Sunday's kayak plans were awash but we all had a good pow-wow session over at Nam's. 90's Trivial Pursuit rocks! I'm impressed with Y-Y's sense of "whatever word I can't think of right now." Basically, she plays with us even though at a deficit. It's like me betting money playing Texas Hold'em. What a good sport. THAT'S THE WORD! Got to do a nice long easy hike with Kim in the morning.
The first time I met Clara, She came over and gave me a hug. This made me uncomfortable.
But her eyes screamed LOVE. And her voice saw me LOST. I said hi to her meekly.
But no! Clara does not like responses like that. And her cheeks start to bounce life. Her dimples waltz rhythmically to her enigmatic monologue. Her arms sway in motion to my rising tension.
And without knowing it, I became ensnared In her tangled web of Goodness and wholesomeness. How do you do that Clara? How do you do it? How do you pick me up from despair and drop me off on LIFE?
She tells me there is good in me But that may only be from her chocolate.
On Clara's anniversary The only gift I can give her is Letting her know that her friendship sparkles Volumes of experience.
She is two years my senior and I am magnetized by her spirit.
I can't believe it! They do double blood units now. Did you know that? If you are healthy they can hook you up to this ALYX machine which sucks out two pints worth of red blood cells from you. Effectively, it's a double donation. And since it's twice as bad for you, you're out for 4 months instead of 2. That means I have to wait until summer before I get my Olive Garden. Darnit. They did a good one on me. Sent out a cute Asian chick, "Do you know about the ALYX donation?" So smooth. You want more blood from me? Sure thing! I'm big and buff, our children will be big and buff too. Grrr... I'm so pathetic. That machine took its sweet time sucking out my blood. I was there an hour and a half. Poor Mark had to wait outside the theater for me. I missed the beginning of that snoozer of a film "Amazing Grace." I could care less but I'm sure Mark wanted to know what happened those 1st 10 minutes. All this because I can't say no. All in all, not a good day. Boring movie and no Olive Garden. The only thing I can look forward to is spring break and a Royal Caribbean Cruise to Mexico. Take a good look at the expression on my face and you'll see how much my life suxors.
Pretending to be artistic. I need an SLR badly. I can't seem to focus well enough and I didn't capture enough light from the setting sun through the branches but I did get the admiration of the pretty girl walking behind me. "Are you a photographer?" Damm straight I am!
There's nothing quite like killing off the last of your finals and basking in the light of the afternoon. It's around 2 PM and I don't have a care in the world. I'm sitting outside Dolcini's with my laptop trying to be pretentious.
But I don't think anyone is watching me.
The only thing I can think about is blood. I was originally going to start doing platelet donations at USC. The main driving force would be the $25 gift certificate at Olive Garden. Also, I can do it every two weeks vs two months for whole blood. The only problem is that they link you with two tubes like a dialysis machine. They clean off your blood of platelets and give you back what's left. You can imagine that this process is more painful and time consuming. Which is why you get more gifts I guess. So anyway, that was the plan for donations this year. But something happened to change it:
I can't say no to people.
I am that precious type O blood. Universal donor. Lucky for me the US population tend to be type O. So I don't have to worry too much about not having blood for myself when I need it. In other countries like Japan, that would be different as O is more scarce. If you don't know what I am talking about then you need to brush up on your physiology. Or not since it doesn't really matter either way. Suffice it to say, they want my blood, as much as they can get. So I get a call from the Red Cross every month to remember to go donate, even though I can only donate once every two months. I guess they are making sure there are no overlaps. I conditioned myself to say no to them next time because I want to do platelets and get a good dinner out of it. But gosh darnit, on the phone she said, "We're at a critical shortage..." FINE. I'll go donate you blood hungry vampires. My free donation sweatshirt hasn't even arrived yet from last year's donation promotion. Grrr...
And here's the focus at a distance. Which is better? Neither.
That's the official count. It's the official count of how many hours I was awake the last couple of days. It's actually 41 hours but I think I snuck in a couple of 30 min naps. Why do I torture myself like this? Because I am a complete and total Raca. But then again, most of my finals are done now. I can rest now and worry about how my professors rate my pathetic progress. I'll take Jeff's words to heart though. No matter what happens, it's where God wants me to be. Knowing that is somehow supposed to make me feel better. How? Well, let's delve into the neurotic mind of Pung to find out:
Sorry about that. I shouldn't talk in the third person too often. Anyway, if I don't get my degree then I am screwed. I either have to spend more money to take the classes over again or give up. Two very depressing options wouldn't you say? OR I can believe that God has a plan for me. Oh no, don't get me confused with religious nuts out there. No offense to religious nuts out there, I might become one of you later. What I am stressing here is that I don't have enough faith to put all my eggs on God.... that sounded a little weird. So let's say God has a plan for me. That by me not graduating, I befriend someone who will make my dreams comes true and allow me to accomplish tasks that make me a worthwhile human being. If I did graduate, I would have joined the rat race and become just another sheep... (That is what I want by the way.) I would never have met that someone who would allow me to become more than just another sheep.
I think of life very logically. It may be false logic but if it semi makes sense to me... most importantly, if I can believe it. It's good enough for me. In other words, it's a small leap of faith. So I can either push my burden onto God that He has a plan for me or take a chance on myself. With my burden on God, I don't have to worry about "making it" or not "making it." That's 100% . If I put the burden on myself, something I'd much rather do (Ask if you want to know why), then I have a chance of failing. Less than 100%. So I am going to be selfish and let someone else bother with the misery. I can spend more time hiking. And isn't that what life is all about? If Kimberly and Ann makes it over the loose rock I strategically placed in front of them without falling. I'm sure they'd agree with me. And if only that had happened, I would have had a hilarious pic for you guys. Too bad, you'll have to live with the contradiction in this post instead.
Last night was kinda odd. I got a call from Mike that he was coming over to drop off my homework that he borrowed yesterday. I looked at the clock and it was 8:30 PM. Wait a minute. He should be at Life Group. Why is he leaving so early? Besides, I already finished it, and don't need it until class on Tuesday. Khai calls him right as he walks though the door. He sounded hesitant about going back. So I told him I would go with him. What is going on?
I thought I had taken every turn that could possibly come from my name. I thought my hang-ups were dependent on the creative ways people can link my name to something funny. Last night it took me a couple of minutes to tell someone my name. And he still managed to get it wrong. He introduced me to his wife as "Pong." Let me look on the bright side. At least now I know why I have a problem with it. Sometimes you're up and other times, you're way down.
Someone said I don't have enough pictures of me on my blog. So here you go, happy? This is me at Griffith Observatory last Saturday. My teeth showed up pretty nicely. Glad all the pain and money was put to good use. Hair could use some work though.
Nice huh? You can almost see Lucy, Cameron, and Drew getting their curvaceous butts kicked by Demi. The dome in the back houses a state of the art planetarium. What is a planetarium? Go wikipedia it yourself lazy butt! This place reopened two months ago after a 4 year renovation.
Hollywood Hills is in the background. The front lawn reminds me of Return of the King when the steward jumped off that small flat plateau at the top of the city. Anyway, there's no nicer place to jump off of when you come to LA. Before you make the leap, be sure to check it out.
Here's the requisite sunset pic. Nothing too fancy. In the shadow below, if you look real close, you'll notice Nam walking out of a shop on Rodeo Drive. He just told one of the shop assistants, "You people work on commission, right? Big mistake!"
And on the other side of the hill is hazy Los Angeles.
I wish I had a hot date up here. I can't tell you how many young couples I saw up here. Something about twinkling lights at night just screams romance. We've got city lights and starlights and planets galore. Oh yeah, I finally learned enough about stars in the sky. I am now one of those cool guys who points up at the sky and says, "That is the constellation of Taurus, and those two stars over there are the twin Geminis. They look like points of light but they are really gigantic fireballs..." and so on and so forth. And then the girl looks in my eyes and is just so enamored by my wisdom that she can't help herself but fall madly in love with me.
Verizon Wireless Navigator, YOU ROCK! And I should be paid for my endorsement. Here's the exact location of my room according to satellite information from Verizon Wireless. Aim your missiles here if you want me dead. Too blurry? Too bad! $10 a month or $3 per 24 hour usage seemed expensive at first but when you consider the cost of built-in navigation system for your car, you'll realize the cost savings. You can pay for 10 years worth of service for the initial cost of in-car service. Even cheapo me is unlikely to drive a car for 10 years. (Current car is a 1998 model, I might have to eat my hat on this one. We'll see.) Portable systems that retail for as low as $400 dollars require you to load maps onto an sd card. Which do not hold the entire state of California which means you have to transfer them from CD first. Also, your maps will grow old with time. Verizon Navi will be continually updated.
Anyway, why did I part with my precious $3 today? Uncle's car broke down at Wamu in Pomona. I have no idea where that is and his navigation skills is quite poor. I was at church, so I can waste some 30 odd minutes and fuel costs to go home with internet or I can whip out VZNavigator. I arrived to help him get his starter replaced. No, I couldn't call Wamu, they're closed on Sundays. So were all the local auto repair places I got from VZNavigator. I could've called Nam for directions but I don't want to call him just because I want something.
My sister used the system a couple of weeks ago when she came down here to check out her cruise site down at San Pedro. I was impressed with the service then as well. We were able to find all our destinations with little difficulty.
Only caveat is that the system sucks major battery. The phone is always on as if you're calling. So we're looking at 2 hours or so battery life. The screen stays on, obviously, so operating time is even shorter than advertised talk time. Car charger is definitely recommended.
I read on someone's blog awhile back when her odometer read 111111. She called it an auspicious day. So I am borrowing her words here. I wonder if I can get this car to the 3's. And I know someone is probably going to comment on it so let me save you the trouble. Yes, I am driving at the moment. Yes, I shouldn't be taking pictures while going 74 mph. And finally yes, I am speeding. But hey, you try to take a steady pic of your odometer while maintaining a constant speed. There I saved you guys the trouble.
