LVII : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 10

Spring break week! :) Too bad it's the end of it and tomorrow classes start again. But the good thing is, if it is a good thing, I will be getting things done because classes are starting soon. I thought break would be productive, but unfortunately, it wasn't too academically productive.

I started it off going home on Friday night instead of Saturday night because I thought Bay Area Open would happen, but it was canceled the week before the event was scheduled. Apparently, San Jose State couldn't rent out its gym to BAO... so I didn't get my badminton during break. Instead, I agreed to go skiing with my friend on Saturday. Just a one day ski trip. My mom drove us to Milpitas at around 4am. We went with a bus [from NACSKI.COM] to Sugar Bowl. I want to remind myself now, never do this again. A one day trip is just not for me. I need time to "get into the zone" as in, I need time to get adjusted to the snow (I had been wearing shorts to sleep before going home!) and start feeling like I really do want to ski, which means I have to stay in that kind of ski-lovely weather for at least a day. Anyway, I went really trying to enjoy myself. The slopes were beautiful, I must admit.


But in the end, after not skiing for 3 years, I really forgot how scared I was of the moguls. It took me who-knows-how-many-years to get used to going down them, and just 3 years to get that fear back. And, I'll just complain now, it really irks me when someone repetitively says "Weren't you better before?" in different ways. Why keep thinking that what was before is the same as now? Sure, some things really don't change, but if you notice that something HAS changed (and it isn't anything dangerously bad), why keep focusing on that bit negatively? *sigh* I feel like I shouldn't get annoyed because people's perceptions are just that different from each others, and I understand how shocking it is if one's perception for so long is proven false.

Anyway, got back tired, but had a little bit of fun... falling in the comfy soft snow and losing my skis each time. I still have that special ability to go over that last bump before the slope evens out, and fall terribly. Very skilled.

Sunday was I-get-to-drive-around day! My mom let me take the freeway to the mall where we went shopping-- my mom, dad, and me. I love hanging out with my family and I wish I could find the time to do so more when I'm back home.

Skip a few days, and Wednesday, the day before I come back to LA, I met up with USC friends in SF. I didn't know that the buses had these for the disabled and old people:

I watched curiously as the platform came down, the bus tilted a bit, and an old man got on and the platform was brought up like an elevator so that the old man could just walk straight into the bus. Then the bus tilted back again and I took a pic of the platform receding back into the bus. Public transportation can be might cool. If only LA had such transportation... *hopes*

We ate at a friend's parent's restaurant of Asian Fusion-ness, called The Home. Cute name isn't it? :) I felt warm when I read the name of the store. haha. And the place mats (paper) had a little house hole-punched in the bottom-middle of it. So cute. Food was awesome as well. This was the Sea Bass special, so wonderfully decorated and presented:

And this is what I got, the Unagi and Avocado Sandwich:

Delicious. And for dessert, we had so many things--apple pie, strawberry (?) pie, creme brulee, mango pudding with tiny pearly things (picture below), and heavy chocolate cake slice. So mouth-watering, so delicious, so full afterward.

I love food outings and badminton-ing with my badminton friends. Although it's rare that we eat together without having played badminton, I cherish it. I'm hoping I won't lose these college friends, but I know it'll be hard to stay in contact with them once we all go on after our undergraduate studies. I wonder where we'll all be? I wonder if we'd still be able to eat randomly together? Love really revolves around food easily. I love it.

LVI : Scammed

I got back on Thursday, and while I was updating my resume, some dude knocks on my apartment door. At first, I thought it was a good thing I opened it because I had forgotten my keys still in the doorknob and he pointed it out to me. So nice of him, I thought. Then he kept talking and I really had no idea what he was saying in the beginning, even when he handed me some brochure with a bunch of magazines on it. It wasn't until he handed me some more brochures that I realized he wanted me to buy some magazines to fundraise for his trip to London, which he emphasized he had never gone before. Apparently, he was a communication student trying to get an internship there and wanted to build his resume. Sure, sounds like a college student, and because (I emphasize the BECAUSE) he kindly pointed out about my keys in the doorknob, I had a reason to believe he was sincere. So I decided, sure I'll get that Yoga Journal at $51 for three years. And though I thought I was doing something good in return for his kindness, there was still that lingering doubt about what he was doing. It wasn't until today, this morning, that I decided to check up on this so-called "Powerhouse Marketing through Marquis Fulfillment Agency" that I found a website that people had listed scams that happened to them, and this unfortunately was on it. I read through the scams and the situations were all the same-- some person or two come up and say they want to go on a trip and need fundraising (sounds like band, which makes me iffy about the company we were fundraising from) money. They would try to find similarities in whatever you do (the guy I talked to called himself Chris Barber and his uncle was a pharmacist, but coincidences can happen). Anyway, he said I could cancel the check within three days of the transaction, but added that he wouldn't get the trip points. Still, even if he were sincere about this magazine-selling fundraiser for his trip, I am finally fully convinced that it is untrue. If you see this address:
P.O. Box 2243 Buford, GA and this customer service phone number: 770-831-7722, then don't believe it. But then, should we even believe such fundraisers anyway? Luckily, I canceled the check before it was processed.

I'm sad for the Chris guy who goes around making up stories about his life. If he doesn't feel guilty about it, I wonder why.

Lesson learned: don't forget your keys in your doorknob and just say no to any person doing such strange fundraisers as band did. Shucks, it's because of band that I didn't question this guy's intent too much. I wonder if Kraft was conned too? My aunt did say before that she didn't receive all the magazines that the subscription said it provided...

Tut, why, people? Why the scamming? Why the lies? Why take advantage of sincere fundraising?

BTW, please let as many people as you can know about this certain scam. The more details, the more likely you'll recognize it right?

LV : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 9

So, apartment buildings are all new-looking, having been painted over with various colors of poop-- healthy dark brown poop, diarrhea light brown poop, normal in-between colored poop. Yeah, great color choices. And though this is an update during break (week 10), the inside hallways are not blue-colored anymore, they're orangey-brown colored. It's easy to see the dirtiness of the floors now, but ah well, I'm not going to complain about the landlord's choices.

Tuesday's microbiology lab surprised me with some cuteness:

The tiny agar dish! Just to show bacterial transformation, but isn't it CUTE?!

Anyway, highlight of the week was Wednesday's (3.10) tour around Baxter, a pharmaceutical manufacturing company. The LA one dealt with proteins in human plasma, so we learned about how those proteins were fractionated and what these fractions look like. I got to see the packaging part and the quality management part. The latter one was more interesting to me since that's where most of the chemistry happens. They had rooms titled Biochemistry, Chemistry, and other sciencey-names I forget (Microbiology might have been one of them). The people worked to determine the efficiency of the fractions. Something like that. And to make sure that there weren't any foreign contaminants that could be potentially dangerous. For this trip, I dressed up, but I only remembered pictures after the tour. So here I am, in the bathroom before going to Physio lab. With the jacket:

Without the jacket:

The rest of the week was spent in anticipation for SPRING BREAK, which is ending too quickly!

LIV : Last Week of Undergrad - Week 8

yay, I'm finally done with studying until spring break. :) So, last week's events were to prepare for the first three days of this week (9). I made cucumber and meatball soup! And it was a success~ close to one at least. I had seen my dad make it before and for some reason, I had a craving for it last week (I wonder how cravings get started). So I bought cucumbers for the first time and ground beef for the first time as well. And I rolled the beef up with small chunks of purple onion and Memmi soy sauce. Then I dropped it in boiling water that had a chunk of ginger in it. After letting the meat cook a little, I put it on low heat and then added cucumber chunks cuz into U's. In the soup, I also added the small leftover can of chicken broth I had, but I don't think it did much because I still had to add soy sauce in the soup to make it taste. The good thing is, that after about three days (I made a big pot of this), the ginger taste got into the soup and I didn't have to add soy sauce to make the soup taste. :) Delicious.


Before I forget, I took this in the middle of Feb to remind me of how long my hair is:

and that's all for that one.

So, Monday was the dreaded Physio exam 2. I had to study about smooth muscle contractions, the pancreas, the hunger hormones, the thyroid gland, the GH stuff, calcium regulation, the adrenal gland stuff, and the reproductive system stuff. And here's one of my notes that scared me when I was studying:

So much writing! Reminds me of when I started taking notes like crazy way back in 8th grade science class. I have to thank Dr. Ricks for scaring me early on with how much knowledge science classes require us to learn. Seriously. I still can't believe how many bio classes I've taken that repeated the same information, yet I still have to relearn it each time. Yipes, I'm scared but excited to learn new pharmaceutical stuff in pharmacy school.

And, to wrap this week up, I have this: Wholeheartedly thank people for whatever they do that makes you a better you.
There's no way I can not think about the past from time to time. So it's impossible for me to forget those ties I had before but are no longer as strong now. I don't believe in the forget part of "forgive and forget."

LIII : Let Me Be Nerdy

Facebook led me to this wonderful chemistry-love shirt site. and I used about an hour going through many many images. I laugh, I laugh. But I'm sure after this year, I might not remember why I laughed because I might have forgotten everything. So sad to have knowledge no longer stick like before. I think the most clever one is the "Uracil-y person" with the uracil molecule drawn out. Clever clever.

LII : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 7

So much to catch-up on, I basically spent all week 7 trying to catch up on classes, but I couldn't make it. Other than trying to read chapters for physio, forgetting about a pchem quiz, and scheduling time to finish everything, I did some fun stuff.

For anime class, I worked with my group on Neon Genesis Evangelion (presented today), an old anime series that came out around 1996. I never thought it would be so thought-provoking. When I got into anime around the same time as getting cable in junior high, I knew about NGE, but I never started it. And I had to made time to finish 26 episodes in order to do my presentation. Two weeks, but really 4 days, to watch 26 episodes. It was worth it, in a way. Our presentation was mostly on Judeo-Christian symbolisms in the animes, but there were definitely some psychological issues that the series dealt with, one main one being the value of self. Anyway, I'll leave it at that. It was a good anime, but a quite unexpected ending that wasn't really an ending to the storyline. But in a way, it is. haha.


Oh yeah, at the beginning of the week, we found out our checks for the February rent got lost in the mail and never reached our landlord person, Betty. But Betty didn't e-mail us or let us know that she didn't receive it at the beginning of February (we're good at sending our checks in before the new month starts), so we didn't know she didn't get it. So she called my roomie, Ari, last week and said we didn't get our checks in and she's about to take it to the legal department (what the heck?!). So we had better get our checks in TODAY (which was Mondayish). This makes one more reason for me to feel good about leaving this apartment complex this year. Also makes me feel like telling others not to rent this place because the landlord person is mean. I feel like she puts blame on us if anything goes wrong and makes sure that we understand that we are in the wrong. Things happen and we're okay with dealing with solutions, but just blaming someone for something won't get things done. In fact, it could make things worse. She's just lucky that we don't have the time to fight her, as we found out with our fire incident. Whatever. We're all leaving this apartment after this semester. One further note that annoyed me was this: my roomie wrote a check for the whole rent because Betty had insisted she needed it that day, but Ari couldn't find our on-site landlord-ish person and the building manager wasn't in until late that day, so when Ari told Betty that she would get the check the next day, Betty said "oh, that's fine" in a nicer tone. WHAT THE HECK

And I'll just put in this week so far. The residents here all got an e-mail from Betty saying how she was shocked to see the gate propped open and front doors taped shut rather than locked. As a result, people will be punished if they did not properly close the gates and doors. But the thing is, the buildings are being cleaned and painted right now (which they didn't let us know until this week in an "as you can tell, we're doing renovations" e-mail), and yesterday, the workers propped the gates open with cones. It wasn't us.

I saw this over the weekend and went "????!!! who died?" And then saw workers around. As for doors being taped, I didn't see any in my building, but who knows. I really don't think threatening someone will give the kind of results one plans/wants to get.

and whatever. I had a great weekend last week~ Linty, Ari, and Joy finally had their performance with TCDance. I loved their choreography, and I think their first attempt at Mulan was a success. Instead of just having dance after dance after dance, half the show was specifically Mulan, in dance form. Awesome. Loved it. Enjoyed it. Made me wish I still danced, kinda. I do wish I were more flexible though. Hopes on yoga.