damn craving

i also had a strange dream last night.

i dreamt that tony was getting married and carlin, mark, gordon and i were staying in this one hotel room the day before the wedding. anyway, everything that happened in the dream was a bit fuzzy, but here's what i remembered.

1. i didn't bring a suit to the wedding.
2. realized i have to go buy a suit.
3. mark suggested that there was a place near where we were staying.
4. decided to take a shower first
5. for some reason, carlin got pissed at me while i was taking a shower.
6. gordon was trying to give me a dollar to help pay for the suit.
7. i got out of the showers.
8. tony then came by and he was a much different tony (in a good way).

that's it, i woke up. i don't know what it means... but there's some strange shit going on in my head.

the va doesn't allow you to go to recreation/entertainment sites on the web. that's why it's great having vpn so you can use ucla's connection to go anywhere. and i mean ANYWHERE! take that va.

i need to run to class now. this is how stupid i was this morning. before i left for the va, i had a craving for a toasted bagel with cream cheese. when i got out to the westside, i made a stop at the western bagels on santa monica and berry and did just that. two of them in fact.

well, doh! fucking dairy in cream cheese... and i'm not feeling that great right now. i hope it's gonna be a quick class tonight.

diatribe

a thought occurred to me just now, as i'm reading, the american community college (cohen & brawer, 2003)... well, actually, many thoughts occurred to me when i read, i have reading ADD unfortunately.

anyway, my thought was this: in the first meeting of my community college class, the instructor told us that as far as he's concerned, everyone in the class is going to be getting either an A or a B. from that statement, it's pretty obvious that we're gonna have to work at getting anything below that grade.

okay, so here's my point: why would a grown man wear denim overalls?

okay, no, that's not my point. but it is a bit disconcerting, isn't it?

so, i remember mark telling me that that's what graduate school is about. getting A's and B's isn't very difficult. but you really have to fuck up to get C's and D's.

as much i would love to believe that, i have to disagree. i think getting A's requires a bit of work. granted, it may not appear to be the case with my horrific work ethic, but still, you can't just churn out papers after papers without doing a good amount of reading and have the ability to write at a graduate level.

this is where most of my friends, mark included, would wonder then how the fuck did YOU get that ability? personally, i think as far as grammar is concern, i'm not terribly good at using it. i get my tenses all mixed up. sometimes, i fuck up my word usage and sentence structure. that's why i've made it a point (in graduate school) that every paper i write will be proof read by someone other than me. i think last year, i had one paper that i had to proof read myself, and that (thankfully) went okay.

those are my weaknesses. my strength, and this is me talking, is in formulating the idea of the paper. i think more so than undergrad, i am able to clearly put down my thoughts in a coherent (case in point, i put cohesive manner originally... but it didn't sound exactly right to me, so i looked it up) manner. certainly, if i was that bad a writer, as some people make me out to be, i wouldn't be doing this well in my classes.

then there are those who believe that 'sc is a second-rate institution of higher education. maybe they are right and maybe they are not. but how much value can you put on those who never experienced matriculation at the graduate level?* who is to say that getting a masters in physics is more difficult than getting a masters in english? who is to say that being in a graduate program at harvard is much more difficult than that of long beach st.? certainly, it depends on an individual's ability to determine such things.

mind you, i'm not talking about prestige. maybe learning physics at long beach st. is much more difficult than studying english at harvard. who knows? this is a pretty subjective matter.

anyway, i think that there are things we are good at and things that we are not so good at. if i were in a physics graduate program, i would for sure fail miserably. like someone once said... you just need to be good at one thing. you don't need to be good at many things. just one.

so i make it a point to be good at my one thing... being rude and obnoxious.

*this is not a knock on those who having been to grad school. the point i was trying to make is how can a person be knowledgeable about something that they've never experienced? and please don't make the drug comparison...

selling out?

dude, what the fuck is wrong with this picture?

i'm not sure if i'm liking this commercialism here. i'm sure once upon a time, i would have bought it without a moment's hesitation. but seriously, this is unacceptable. check out the description:

Take Morrissey to bed with you, let him cradle you as you dream, and let his words ring as true as ever, printed in a large cursive script on the topsheet. Sheet set includes fitted and flat sheets as well as pillowcases.

*sigh*

and, i'm pretty sure that the quote on the sheets, last night i dreamt... that somebody loved me, is from a smiths' song, not morrissey's.

rubbish.

stye in the eye

yesterday, while watching the 40-yr-old virgin, i developed a stye in my left eye. well, it wasn't exactly then, but i started becoming cognizant of the problem. it's a bit swollen right now, and hurts when i blink. all of this makes it somewhat difficult for me to read. i feel like i've been punched in the eye. and there's nothing i can do except put a warm tea bag over my eye for 15 minutes.

on saturday, we had a birthday/bon voyage party for jay and rob. it was great fun, even though i ended up with my head in the toilet. for some reason, i get really loud and passion about education when i'm drunk. and like many people, my sense of time disappears after a number of shots of 151 and jagermeister.

i was buzzed, i was tired, i was sleepy, and i wanted to go home to deidra. so i drove home, even though the rational, sober voice in my head was screaming, "what the fuck are you doing?" but it wasn't that bad, i was able to get gas even. like a wise man once told me, when youre intoxicated, drive within the white line (thank you, shawn).

once i got home, i didn't even bother turning on the light. i climbed straight into bed and curled up in the warmth of a stirring deidra. i fell asleep immediately, and unfortunately, woke up 4 hours later. i felt like shit. you know, the kinda shit that shots of hard liquor and minimal amount of sleep would do to ya.

downed two tall glasses of oj. rehydration is wonderful. still felt like shit though, but much, much better.

so anyway, today, i'm trying to finish two chapters in a book and i'm having the hardest time trying to concentrate. fucking eye.

what's the big "fucking" joke?

there's this article on yahoo today that reported how british tourists are going to the small town of fucking, austria and stealing its signs. yep, that's right. FUCKING, AUSTRIA.

said one officer of the town: "It may be very amusing for you British, but F---ing is simply F---ing to us. What is this big F---ing joke? It is puerile."

said a local guide: "The Germans all want to see the Mozart house in Salzburg... Every American seems to care only about 'The Sound of Music' (the 1965 film shot around Salzburg). The occasional Japanese wants to see Hitler's birthplace in Braunau... But for the British, it's all about F---ing."

said a guesthouse boss: "Just this morning I had to tell an English lady who stopped by that there were no F---ing postcards."

some of you are probably asking your-selves, where is fucking, austria. well, it's in europe, stupid. haw, haw, haw!

seriously, it's northwest of salzburg, in upper austria. there's your geography lesson for today.

finally, some photos

my sister email me this morning with a link to some of baby gaby's picture. he looks more chinese than i'd imagine. cute little baby gaby, eh? those are funky baby gloves. for being a week old, this guy has a shitload of hair.

so happy together

hey baby, happy three month-versary.

canto-fran

right now, i'm in my canto phase. that means that i'm enthralled with everything and anything hk.

once in a while, i get into these cultural phases. i'm interested to learn if anyone else is like that.

like back in college, i was totally in my japanese phase. took a number of japanese history courses. watched japanese mini-series on ksci (channel 18 in the LA area). listened to japanese music. dreamed about returning to japan for holiday. i loved everything japanese.

after college, i was in my english phase. of course, some of my close friends would argue that i've always been in my english phase, and they are correct. but i think it was more prevalent after college. loved brit pop, so that's nothing new. got into bbc tv series such as "couplings" and "as time goes by." got an english flag (not the union jack but the actual english flag - white background with a red cross) to hang up at home. i went as far as to get little english flags to put on my car antenna during the 2002 world cup.

so now i'm in my hk phase. it hasn't been too wild though. i mean i am from hk, so it's not like i'm doing anything out of the ordinary. but i've been listening to cantopop more. that is... old school cantopop. not that new shit by the cantonese versions of a britney or an ashley. hey, i'm even into cantonese food. hahaha.

i think the souvenirs i brought back from hk were a big hit. people seemed to enjoy the little hk taxis and light buses. it's funny how no one wants the buses though. i mean, come on! a double-deckered hk bus and a bus that goes to the airport? priceless.

i have half a mind to learn cantonese. i really do. but christ, chinese characters are a fucking bitch to learn/memorize. speaking isn't too much of a problem. when kimmy, tiffany, bi and i went out for chinese food two nights ago, the waiter asked if i was from hk. he said that he could hear my hk accent by the way i speak. i don't know how much stock you can put on his comment, but according to most people i've used cantonese on, i don't have much of an accent.

so, the question is how much time and effort am i willing to put into doing something as difficult as learning how to read and write chinese? i don't even want to get into the learning mandarin business. somehow, i think that's a lost cause.

it's august, right?

freaking a, it's 96 degrees out here. i'm dying. i ended up hiding out inside a starbucks.

water is a must. water... water... water...

i've been training the last couple of days. i miss hanging out at starbucks on the weekdays. haven't done so in a long time.

at my new gig, all they use are macs, which i don't particularly like. but i suppose i'll have to get used to using an apple rather than a pc.

the cool thing is that i'll be working with a MRI machine at ucla. there are all these safety regulations that you need to know and be tested on before you can actually use the machines. last friday, some fucking idiot (without certification) decided to bring in a pair of metallic scissors into the room with the MRI machine. of course, the scissors comes flying out of his hands and shatters into a million piece when it hit the machine.

luckily, the subject was unharm or else the whole operation would have been shut down. which means i would be out of a potential job. fucking dumbass. having said that, i have a feeling that i'll be absentminded someday and bring in something metallic. let's hope not.

i've been trying to find some stuff on danny chan online, but so far have been unsuccessful.

saw jonathan, my hk friend, on wed-nesday. we met up with his girlfriend, melinda, at the grove and had lunch. he gave me some good info on going back to work in hk at some of the international schools. we'll see how well the pay is and how well they subsidize for housing/flights back to la.

my left big toe hurts for some reason. everytime i stretch it upwards, i get this sharp, annoying pain.

i have a feeling that i won't be able to graduate until the end of next fall. luckily, if everything works well, i will still have this job until then. of course, i need to get a student affairs job on the side so i can actually get some experience in my field.

earlier in the week, i got a hold of my advisor and he suggested that if i was interested in working in a foreign country, i should NOT take the international education course. his reasoning was that since i want to work outside the country, it's better to be familiar with the american higher education system rather than that of foreign countries. that way, i can bring something new, fresh to the proverbial table.

so now i'm taking a course on community colleges, which looks to be pretty interesting. half of the students in that class are from the Ed.D. program and the other half are from my program. i think with the doctoral students, some of whom are currently working in community colleges, the discussions in class will be highly enlightening.

the master's seminar class hasn't met yet. but i already know that there are going to be five books involved. it's feels like there's going to be a good bit of reading involved. yay!

go, go, go bruins!

well, i'm a bruins kinda guy. granted, i'm currently going to usc to get my masters in education degree. however, i love the bruins. grew up watching them. sister went there for her B.S. and M.S. in electrical engineering. got my B.A. in history.

so you can understand how i'm a little disturbed by the fact that this year's incoming first-year class at usc scored higher (on average) on both the SATs and has a higher GPA than that of the incoming first-year class at ucla.

The average SAT score for its entering freshman class is now higher than it is at public cross-town rival UCLA or at the University of California flagship in Berkeley. And its football team has won or shared the national championship two years in a row.

further on the article:

USC's ambitions have led it to reduce the size of its freshman classes, thus raising admissions standards; move the core general education requirements back into the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, to restore rigor to those classes; undertake hiring 100 senior faculty members for that college; urge students to minor in subjects unrelated to their majors; stress interdisciplinary teaching and research; increase diversity among the student body and faculty; and co-sponsor many programs in the immediate neighborhood.

from a pragmatic standpoint, that bolds well for me. as 'sc's reputation for being a quality institution of higher learning grows, the more my diploma will be valued. however, when you talk about emotions... damn it, ucla, what the fuck?

no food for hong kong

yes, finding food in hk is a bit difficult. deadly bacteria in pigs, high levels of pesticide in vegetables, poision in fish, bird flu in chickens. not many choices left on what's for dinner. the difficult part is regulating how food is produced in china. the government doesn't really give a fuck since there's so many mouths to feed and without all the chemicals, hormones, etc., there's no way to produce all the food needed.

"Compared to many other food exporting nations, regulations in China are just not good enough," said Chu Hon-keung of the conservation group Friends of the Earth.

"For money, producers cut corners and use banned substances at the expense of public health. The stuff they produce is not food, but curses for future generations in Hong Kong and the rest of the world, especially with globalization," Chu said.

my father was telling me how japan grows eel in china, which they then import back to japan so they can stick the damn "made in japan" label on it so they can charge more. well that little plan backfired, didn't it?

shows that i'm hoping to watch this season: weeds, barbershop, gilmore girls, and the l word.

"weeds" is about this suburban mom, whose husband died suddenly, and in order to continue to continue to live the lifestyle she's accustomed to, she is forced to deal weed (duh!) within her community. mary louise parker, the mom, is really good in it.

"barbershop" is basically a series based on the movie (the one with ice-cube). the first episode was pretty funny. and there were a lot of cussing going on, which is ace in my book. fuck anyone who hates the curse words.

"gilmore girls" is well... lauren graham is hot. that's all you need to know.

"the l word" has gratuitous nudity, enough said. of course, there's that whole storyline about jenny (mia krishner) that baffles both deidra and myself.

so hopefully, i get to watch them. but with the way things are sorting out... looks to be a really busy semester. *sigh*

first day of class

there's a certain satisfaction in doing dishes, i've discovered. especially when there's a crapload of them in the sink and they're starting to stink because you've left them soaking for several days. then other times, there would be a thin layer of greasy film on the surface of the water. nasty. having music piped into the kitchen definitely helps when doing something as banal as dishes.

yesterday was the start of the new quarter for me. but before all that, i had several objectives i had to complete.

first, i had to go get my car windows fixed. so i called goudy honda to see if the parts i ordered on saturday came in. thankfully, they did. i went down and picked up the parts. took it to marco's. unfortunately, they were a bit busy so the guy there told me to call him at 2pm. that's fine. i walked home. made some dumplings... well, many dumplings actually, while watching the second disc of lord of the rings: the two towers.

since i was interested in and wanted to get into that international education course, i decided to give it one more try. i called the masters program office and the receptionist told me that i should talk to my advisor because he has to sign off on the d-clearance form. great. i shot an email to him, but he didn't reply.

at around 2pm, i gave the guy at marco's a call. he said, it's not ready yet. come by in half an hour. okay.

so 30 minutes later, i went to marco's. got my car, windows were working great. then i drove to school. traffic was not bad at all. got there in about 20 minutes. as i was walking to WHP (waite phillips hall), i passed by the lyon center (student recreation building) and they converted one of the basketball gyms to an area where all the student services (financial aid, student health, cashiers, etc.) were. i decided that since i was early, i should go pick up my financial aid refund check. i also had to turn in my student health fee waiver since i have insurance under deidra now. luckily for me, it wasn't crowded at all, and the student health services booth was right next to the cashiers. got in and out in about 15 minutes.

that left me with a little over 20 minutes before the international education class that i wanted to check out. so i went up to the masters degree office to see if my advisor was in. luckily he was. so i went and spoke to him about adding that class. we had a very rewarding conversation in which he told me that i shouldn't take that class if i was interested in going back to hk to work. basically to sum up the conversation, he told me that i should go back there with the knowledge of the american higher education system. there's no point in learning about their system since my niche is knowing how the system works.

that seems really reasonable to me. i'm glad that i went to discuss this matter with him. certainly helped clear some stuff up for me. event though he said this, i decided since i had 3 hours to kill until my community college class, i was going to go check out the class.

here's the thing. first day of classes, no lecture, right? WRONG! i figured that the professor was basically going to go over the syllabus and then i could leave. oh, no. spent 2.5 hours there in class... a class that i'm not even going to take. crazy. though the class was interesting, i think her concentration was in comparative education and mainly in latin american countries (she's from peru). anyway, so i needed to email her today to tell her that i'm not taking that class.

after that class, i went to my community college class. there were ten people in my class, half of whom are in the Ed.D program. a bit daunting being in a class with doctoral students, however, they were incredibly nice, and down to earth. the professor is the dean of LATTC, and he had a lot of interesting stories. as great as that is (getting a practical point of view from an old school professional), the class ran long. also, several people from my cohort (richard and sonia) were in the same class. that definitely made things easier.

oh, another thing i've discover is that going into my second year, doing introductions is so much easier. i had a really hard time doing it last year and i hated it. but last night in the community college class, it was pretty easy. he asked us where we went to high school, and when i told him south pas, he said, "oh, yeah. home of the tigers. i know since i worked at occidental." really cool.

did you know that there are 109 community colleges in the state of california?

i didn't get home until 10:30 and ended up eating some more dumplings. deeeelish!

did i tell you that washing the dishes is rather satisfying?

new semester

yeah, just wanted to say that fall 2005 has officially started for me. funny thing is i have no idea what class i have tonight. i guess i'll have to check tomorrow.

i can remember how nervous i was last year, not knowing what to expect as i walked into my first graduate class. stats. i don't like stats. stats is evil.

what a difference a year makes. now i'm just wondering when i'll have time to make dumplings. well, that and also when i can drop off the fee waiver form for student health insurance.

and no, i still haven't cleaned out the computer room yet. my plan for tomorrow is to chill out at starbucks in the morning, pick up the parts for my car windows at around 10:00am, bring it to marco's autobody after that, get my window's fixed, go get an oil change (it's somewhat overdue), and probably by that time i'll have to go to class depending on if the class i want to get into is dropped or not.

this week looks to be really tedious... with training for my new job on wednesday, thursday, and friday. this is only because tiffany is leaving at the end of the week. *sigh*

i'm going to take a shower and go to bed now. good night.

morrissey is still surprisingly good

two fridays ago, deidra and i went on a shopping spree thanks to the state of california. (you don't need to know the details.)

so we went to best buy to buy some cds and dvds, all on the state. being the not-so-big-morrissey fan anymore, i was surprised to find that he has a new live album out. i wasn't too impressed with his last album, "you are the quarry." that's probably cuz i only listened to the two singles and didn't bother with the rest of the album. anyway, there was a live version of "there's a light that never goes out" on this new, live album, so since we didn't have to pay for it, we got it. (or should i say, the state of california got the new, live morrissey album.)

first, if you think that we're wasting california's taxpayers' money, you should know that a terminally ill patient in her unit loves morrissey (so it was purchased for him, and well... for me as well).

so i've been listening to the live album and it's actually pretty good. some of his new stuff... the "you are the quarry" stuff are pretty decent. but think lyrically, they are definitely far below his smiths' and early morissey stuff. but it did get me to listen to the "you are the quarry" album after ignoring it for so long.

we also got the new coldplay album, some st. etienne compliation cd, the byrds super hits, and super hits by blue oyster cult. those, as well as a number of cds and dvds for her patients.

beethoven was deaf... now that was an excellent live album.

speaking of morrissey, a little birdie told me that mark has been listening to a little smith's in his room. can we say, closet smiths fan?

fuck 'sc

it happens every year, so i'm not exactly sure why i'm bitching about it. but of course, the damn fucking university of southern california raised tuition again. at least this year, i won't have to pay the ridiculous student health insurance fee. i just have to remember to send in the waiver form and the proof of having private insurance.

as far as classes are concerned... i got back my master's seminar class the day after i accidentally dropped it. i wanted to take this international education (elective) class, but for some reason, i can't get the d-clearance for it. i called the office twice and still nothing. hopefully they won't drop the class cuz right now, there's only two people in that class. i think chances are slim that the department will keep it, but we'll see. if they still have the class (which meets tomorrow), i'll definitely go and check it out.

i got a part time job at the VA hospital in westwood. i'll be taking over for tiffany, who's leaving at the end of the week. with all the bureaucracy and red tape at the VA, i'm not going to officially be working for the feds until sometime next month. although the job is in west la, which means a bitch of a commute, i do get to work on an MRI machine at UCLA. so it's something cool i can put on my resume. we had a scanning session on saturday, which was really interesting. of course, tiffany told me that it would be from 11-1pm, but we didn't leave until 4:30pm.

here's my tentative schedule for school: master's seminar, community college, and fieldwork. the fieldwork isn't so much a class, but rather you work somewhere within the realm of postsecondary administration and student affairs and write a paper on your experiences. so i have this paying gig lined up, but it's not for certain, and the lady never emailed me back. if that doesn't work out, i'll need to go find some volunteer work, which sucks since it probably won't pay anything. so it definitely looks like it'll be a pretty busy semester.

my car window is jacked again. this happened when i went to dinner on wednesday (korean bbq, and that's a picture of jay) and the valet lowered my window all the way down. normally, when that happens, i take it to marco's autobody shop to get it (or them, depending on the windows) fixed. marco's is great since they never charged me for fixing the window. however, i've done this so many times now that they know who i am. and it's really rather annoying that i can't lower my windows all the way down, which i love, especially when it's summertime. so i've decided to get the damn thing fixed right, which means shelling out $240 to get different parts for both windows. the only solace is that marco's will install the new parts in for free. FREE!

last tuesday, deidra found a dead opossum in the backyard and woke me up to get rid of it. i'm not sure what happened, but i ended up continuing to sleep. i really hate when she wakes me up to do something that can wait. okay, looking for an escaped hamster, i can understand. but to dispose of a dead (DEAD!) corpse, that's not right. and it wasn't even rotting or anything. next time, leave a note.

our tomato plant is finally bearing fruit. we ate our first tomato on saturday, and it was pretty delicious. my dad told me to naturally fertilize it, but i don't think that's going to be happening since i'm planning to eat the damn things. we do throw wellington's old bedding (with his little poopies) on the tomato plant in hopes of giving it some nutrients.

today has been a good, somewhat productive day. i couldn't get motivated the past few days. today, i got the laundry done, went shopping for more ingredients for dumplings, and did the hoovering. now the only thing for me to do (well... the only thing left that i set out to do this weekend) is to clean the computer room before school starts. it's not especially messy, but it's definitely going to take some time.

so, should i make dumplings tonight? or should i not bother and just make sandwiches instead?

perceptions

a new study suggests that asians and north americans see things quite differently.

excepts:

Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene...

the reason for this?

"Asians live in a more socially complicated world than we do," he said in a telephone interview. "They have to pay more attention to others than we do. We are individualists. We can be bulls in a china shop, they can't afford it" (Richard Nisbett, co-author of the study).

The key thing in Chinese culture is harmony, Nisbett said, while in the West the key is finding ways to get things done, paying less attention to others.

And that, he said, goes back to the ecology and economy of times thousands of years ago.

In ancient China, farmers developed a system of irrigated agriculture, Nisbett said. Rice farmers had to get along with each other to share water and make sure no one cheated.
Western attitudes, on the other hand, developed in ancient Greece where there were more people running individual farms, raising grapes and olives, and operating like individual businessmen.

So differences in perception go back at least 2,000 years, he said.

Aristotle, for example, focused on objects. A rock sank in water because it had the property of gravity, wood floated because it had the property of floating. He would not have mentioned the water. The Chinese, though, considered all actions related to the medium in which they occurred, so they understood tides and magnetism long before the West did.

so the obvious question is how about asian americans? or asians who grew up in the states?

Reinforcing the belief that the differences are cultural, he said, when Asians raised in North America were studied, they were intermediate between native Asians and European-Americans, and sometimes closer to Americans in the way they viewed scenes.

now i'm interested to see which group i fall under. or maybe i'm just an inbetweener.

"oh, hey, look... jessica alba is wearing a green dress and there is a guy wearing a blue shirt with light blue text holding a video camera behind her. this must be at some movie premiere. "

yeah, that's what i see when i'm looking at this picture.

little baby gabie

my father called several minutes ago, and i'm officially an uncle to a healthy 8 pounds 3 ounce baby boy.

welcome to the world, gabriel leung.

and when you're old enough to appreciate it, i'll let you into the world of the smiths and morrissey.

i'm so happy. i'm uncle fran!

apparently, the baby has a big head, just like his uncle.

i'm a dumbass

i hate the stupid usc registration program.

i accidentally dropped my master's seminar class and now i have to wait for it to register that i've dropped it before i can add it again (since i'm took the last spot in the class).

so now i have no classes registered. really smart, fran... really smart.

and then one of the other classes i registered for is canceled. so now i'm screwed. happy days.

we interrupt this blog for a special crime alert

oh, this one is a doosey...

On Sunday, August 14, 2005 at approximately 12:05 AM, a suspect took an unsecured bicycle from the lawn of an apartment on Shrine Ave. The owner of the bicycle and four of his friends confronted the suspect. The suspect pulled out a blue steel revolver from his waistband and fired one shot into the air.The suspect then fled to a teal Ford Expedition that was waiting. The suspectfired four more shots prior to fleeing in the vehicle.

Suspect is described as a Male Hispanic, 5 feet 10 inches tall, 160 lbs. There were 2 male Hispanics and 2 female Hispanics in the vehicle.

hmm... all that for a damn bicycle? seriously?

updates

just a reminder that i updated my hk2005 blog with new pictures and entries. i'm not completely done yet, but will be doing it on and off until the start of the new school year... which i'm still not certain when it starts.

collision

did anyone see the clip of mets' outfielders, mike cameron and carlos beltran, colliding in the outfield during their game against the padres last night? man, it was pretty bad. and now i read that cameron will need reconstructive facial surgery. that's insane. i respect the fact that athletes strive to perform their best when they are out in the field, but honestly, it can get pretty dangerous out there.

said cliff floyd, the other outfielder for the mets, "i knew those guys were so competitive. you try to block that out when they run together, two center fielders. they're taught to chase the ball. they're taught to give it everything."

we love debt

to put ourselves further in debt, deidra and i bought a car on wednesday. what started as an outing to shop for cars, ended up as an outing to purchase a car.

this started when her POS geo tracker's clutch started acting up several weeks ago. since we had already spend several hundred dollars on it fixing it's leaking radiator two months ago, we decided to scrap the damn thing and get a new car for her.

personally, i was hoping we didn't have to do so, but honestly, it's not worth putting more money in that fucking piece of shit. so we decided to get a cheap japanese car... something that is really reliable and won't be a money pit (aka: fords).

so we went to goudy honda on main st. in alhambra to look and to make a long story short, we ended up getting the car that you see on the left. a honda civic lx special edition in magnesium metallic. given that it's a manual (cheaper in price), i'm not going to be doing any of the driving. deidra keeps saying i should learn, but i'm not too interested and i don't want to learn using our new car. no thank you, very much.

the only reason why we got the special edition and not the regular edition is because they didn't have the regular edition at the dealership. i'm not certain if it's a ploy or not, but the special edition is pretty cool and it's only a bit more in price.

it has a rear spoiler, a 6-cd changer (mp3 compatiable), some sort of special rims. unfortunately, it doesn't have a moonroof, which would have been thousands of dollars extra (civic ex). even though we'll be paying a shitload of money per month (well for us, anyway), it's really important for me that deidra has a reliable car that she can drive around, especially for her practicum this year in the valley.

as with anything new, especially something as expensive as a new car, i'm freaking out about it being destroyed or harmed in any way. but that's something i'll just have to deal with.

so yeah, we're a honda family now.

baby gabe

my sister sent me some sonograms of my nephew, gabriel, today. this is him in june of '05. looking mighty spiffy, doesn't he? my sister says that the doctor told her that he's about 2-weeks ahead in size and weight. ah, just like his uncle fran.

there's a saying in chinese about how nephews are very similar to their maternal uncles. poor sis. hahaha.

it looks like the delivery day is coming up really soon. i think in a couple of weeks. everyone in my family is pretty excited. as my uncle ele said, "everyone is moving one level up after the birth of the baby." i'm becoming an uncle, my parents to being grandparents, and my grandparents being great grandparents.

my dad was telling me that when my sister told my relatives about the news, my uncle ele got so excited that he went over to citysuper and got several plates of sashimi to celebrate the good news.

it's really strange... becoming an uncle. i'm really excited. but it's a bit strange. maybe it's because it's another sign that i'm getting older and have to be more and more responsible.

that's one of the things that bothers me when i go back to hk to visit. in hk, i don't have any worries. my parents would treat me like a little kid, taking care of everything like a place to live and food. to top it off, i had nothing to do except hang out with my parents. no obligations, no responsibilities.

but then when i get back to the states, i have all this shit to deal with. school, money, finding a job, etc., etc., etc. i'm not saying it's a horrible life since i have a wonderful wife and brilliant non-human children. but it's the adjusting to reality that's a bitch.

but i'm slowly getting back on track. got two of my classes registered for, got a job lined up (i hope), and spending time with my love. so it's not so bad.

fuck, i'm going to be an uncle. it's going to be interesting.

adding insult...

i hate small dogs. everytime i see one, i want to punt it like a football.

anyway, since coming back from hk, my sleep schedule has been a bit of a mess. yesterday, i took an afternoon nap from 4pm-8pm, then went to bed at 2am and woke up this morning at 7:30am. everytime i come back to la from hk, i really want to wake up at 5am for some reason. i love being awake when the sun rises. strange, eh? i'm sure i'll get over it like i always do.

i haven't washed my car in a long time, and it's really dirty. it's nearly impossible to look out any of my windows. so today, when i went to get gas, i decided to clean all of the windows in my car. as i was doing so, some asian chick filling up behind me came over to me and asked if i went to ucla.

being the friendly guy that i am, i said yes. then she started telling me about how she got accepted there for grad school and wanted to know how it is (she went back east for undergrad). so i started telling her a little bit about ucla and how classes are generally pretty big and it's difficult to interact with professors... well at least for undergrad courses.

so she tells me that she teaches a SAT prep course out in arcadia, blah, blah, blah. then she asked if i was korean. oh great, i thought to myself.

"no," i answered her, "i'm chinese."

"oh, really? i'm chinese too."

about this time, i was ready to leave. so we shook hands and i left. i had a feeling she wanted to contact me to talk about school stuff. but there was a car behind her and so she said

"it was nice meeting you."

"yeah, same here," i replied.

so i drove off and went to do some recycling at pavilions. when i went inside to cash out, i saw her again at the starbucks there.

"oh, hey."

so we started talking again. she apologized for mistaken me for being a korean.

"it's okay."

she explains that i have certain korean characteristics... my eyes and my complexion. of course, i'm sure she was thinking about my big head.

i told her that i'm from hk, and so was she. her parents met in hk and she came to the states when she was 4 yrs old.

happy days.

then all of a sudden, she started talking about how her church (one that's across from pcc) is having some sort of free film screening for this david lynch film.

"oh, uh-huh..."

"do you have a lot of friends?"

"ah... yeah"

"oh great, if you're interested, you can invite them to it."

"yeah, that seems interesting."

WHAT THE FUCK?

i was pretty much ready to get out of there. of course, i wasn't thinking about going out with her or anything. but i was genuinely interested in talking to someone about graduate programs in education. then she went psycho christian on me. i mean seriously... that's just messed up.

and as if that wasn't bad enough, as i walked out of pavilions, i twisted my ankle. luckily, it wasn't too bad. it's a little tender now.

happy days.

jacqueline

for those of you who don't visit shawn's blog, here's a picture of his girlfriend, jacqueline. she's really nice, though the last time i visited, i totally kicked her ass in the chinese drinking game.

shawn's blog is linked to the right.

trusted

i'm still a bit shocked that peter jennings passed away yesterday. i grew up watching him and even though i hardly watched the news the past 4 or 5 years, anytime i watched him report the news, i felt that i could trust what he was telling me.

big shoes to fill.

RIP.

call the po-po!

once in awhile, i get these crime alert emails that inform me of random crimes that occurred to other SC students around school. here's one i got today...

On August 3, 2005 at approximately 12:20am two students, a male and a female, were walking in the 600 block of 30th Street. A parked vehicle, occupied by two Asian males was in the alley. One of the subjects exited the vehicle, pushed the female to the ground and grabbed her purse. The suspect reenteredthe vehicle, which then fled east on 30th St. out of sight.

IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION ABOUT THESE CRIMES, CALL THE DEPARTMENTOF PUBLIC SAFETY AT 740-xxxx OR LAPD SOUTHWEST ROBBERY DETECTIVES AT(213) 485-xxxx.

wow, asians committing crimes. how bad is the economy?

nerd

this is me...

causeway bay, happy valley, & central

my mum and i went to my grandmother's final resting place today. afterwards, we went to jusco, another department store, and got some gifts for people. we saw the deluxe hong kong monopoly game for the same price as wing on. so instead, i settled for the normal, regular, plain-jane version of hong kong monopoly for HK$152 (US$19.00).

after dinner, with my dad washing the dishes, mum and i played a short game of hk-opoly. it was fun, especially cuz i won. :)

my dad, seeing us playing, shook his head and said, "a 30-year old and a 50 something-year old."

see what i have to deal with?

biscuit arse biscuit

if biscuit in england means cracker in the US (according to this), then do black people in england on occasion call their white contemporaries, biscuit arse biscuit?

food for thought.