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June 1, Tue
+ Weekend in Washington
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09:01 PM
We got back to Santa Clara from Washington late last night. So I just spent a night at Tim and Beth's, and Beth took me back to Santa Cruz this morning. The trip was fun. We didn't arrive at Washington until late Friday night. I hung out with Beth's family most of the time. We went shopping a few times, and I got three CDs and a DVD 'cause they were all on sales. I got Sugarcult's new CD Palm Trees and Power Lines, Good Charlotte's The Young and the Hopeless, Yellowcard's One For the Kids, and the movie Stand By Me. We watched Shrek 2 on Saturday night. It was so funny; has a lot more adult humors than the first one. In my opinion, it is as good as the first one if not better. Did I mention that Beth's mom is a great cook? She cooks the best food ever, seriously! Saturday night we had homemade pizzas, and they were delicious! And we had barbecue on Sunday, and Beth's mom made those strawberry-pies... oh my gosh, I don't even know how to describe them. I was totally in heaven! We played Cranium after dinner that night. It's a family boardgame that combines four different games into one. We had a great time and a great laugh. We headed back down to California late Monday morning. I bought a FM-transmitter for my iPod so we were listening to it the entire way down. Anyway, I had a great weekend. I'm so not ready to come back to my final exams and paperworks for university and such...
I have posted an ad on the UCSD Off-Campus Housing website a week ago, and I got several phone calls this weekend. None of them were really exactly what I was looking for. They were either too expensive or too far away from school. This afternoon I got this call from a girl named Jennifer. She and her friend are looking for a roomate, and I talked to her on the phone for a little while. They sound like pretty cool and nice people, like someone I would actually wanna hangout with. At least we're both looking for similar things and such. The rent won't be too expenisve but the place might be a bit further away from school. There's also this guy in my Calculus class whose friends are going to UCSD right now, and they're looking for a roommate too. Their apartment is really close to school but the rent is a bit high, and they don't really sound like my type of friends. Well, not that it matters much anyway; I've been living with 3 roommates who're not exactly my type of friends for 2 years now, so I'm not too worry about that. Now I'm more concern with the rent and the location. We'll see how that turn out.
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June 3, Thu
+ 7 Hours Straight Studying
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11:59 PM
I didn't start studying for Java Programming until yesterday afternoon like 3 hours before the exam. I only went through the most important stuff 'cause there wasn't enough time, and the exam turned out to be quite easy, so I was lucky. I think I got all the programming questions. At least I knew how to do them all and was pretty confident about them. But I wasn't too sure on a few multiple choice questions. Oh well, I know I did pretty good overall, so I'm not too worry about it. I should be able to get an A out of that class. Then I got home and did a 5-page research paper for my roommate. I'm such a nice guy, am I? Well, no, he paid for it, so ya. LOL I didn't have much sleep last night 'cause I didn't get that paper done until 3am in the morning, and I needed to wake up at 9:30am today. I had an English final at 10:30am. Well, it wasn't too much of a final; we just needed to be there. We didn't have any exam or anything, instead, we had a potluck. I didn't bring in any food though, but I sure did eat a whole lot of other people's. We also watched a video about how advertising and consumerism would bring about the end of the world and such. It was pretty interesting and it did make some valid points, but it was also a bit extreme I must say. Afterward I went to study for Calculus with Rafael, Stephen, Peter, and Dustin (Just my friends from the class). Because the final exam for Calculus is cumulative, so we went through all the materials all the way from the beginning. We started at around 1pm and we didn't finish until 8pm tonight. Crazy, wasn't it? Well, at least now we got pretty much every down, so I feel pretty good about the exam. Wish me luck on that.
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June 5, Sat
+ The Prisoner of Azkaban
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06:48 PM
I'm finally done with all my finals and my last semester at Cabrillo. My Calculus final went alright, not as good as I hoped, but alright nonetheless. I knew that I've missed at least two problems, but I think I got the rest. Besides, I had an A in that class and I don't think the final exam is bad enough to pull that down, so I'm not too worry about it. Now I've a week of free time left before I head back to Hong Kong.
After the exam, I went shopping with Vladi. I had this $60 gift-certificate to O'Neill from my last birthday that I never had a chance to use until now. It was only good for the stores in this area, so I wanted to use it before I leave. I bought a pair of swimming shorts for $38 and a polo shirt for $26. The total was about $9 (including taxes) over the certificate, but I hardly get anything from brandname stores, so it's cool. Besides, I really needed a new pair of swimming shorts for the summer anyway.
Afterward we went to a drive-in theater near our apartment to watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It was awesome! I absolutely loved it. They changed the director, and the new director wanted the series to be more adult-like. So this Harry Potter is very different from the first two. The general feeling of this one is alot cooler, and it's also the darkest among the three. The computer animations are way better (and I mean WAY better), and the kids have all grown up. I also think that they adapted the book pretty well in the movie, especially since those Harry Potter books are getting longer and longer. One thing is that the feeling of Dumbledore is really different than the previous one (In case you're not a big Harry Potter fan and don't know yet, the actor of the original Dumbledore has died after the filming of the second movie, so they picked a new actor for this Dumbledore). I mean, not that this one is bad or anything. I guess I just need to take some time to get used to this one. But overall this is my favorite of the three and I hope they keep using this director and all the actors for the rest of the Harry Potter movies.
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June 9, Wed
+ Packing for the Summer
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10:25 PM
My room is such a mess right now, since I'm in the process of packing. Well, I've been packing since Monday night. I just have a shit load of stuff, and the thing is I don't know what should I bring back to Hong Kong with me and what should I leave here in the U.S. Well, I've packed up most of my books, CDs, and DVDs. Now I'm just packing up clothes. I'm just gonna bring some summer clothes with me. I'm so not gonna bring all my clothes. I mean, even if I want to, there is no way, I just have way too much clothes.
I went to school last two days to sell my textbooks back to the bookstore and to fill out one of those forms to have my final official transcripts be sent to UCSD. I got about $160 back for the books, which is pretty good. Besides that, I've gone to the beach with Vladi a couple times this past several days. I gotta enjoy the few days I've left in Santa Cruz. I'll be flying back to Hong Kong Friday morning, so this is probably my last entry before I leave. But I'll be on way more often once I get back to Hong Kong though, since we have cable internet at home.
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June 16, Wed
+ Back in Hong Kong
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04:22 PM
Last Thursday night Tim went to Santa Cruz to pick me up to Santa Clara, and he took me to the airport early Friday morning. I had a connect flight in Los Angeles and a stop in Tokyo. I got to Hong Kong late Saturday night around 9:30pm HKT. My dad, my sister and my brother, and two of my friends went to the airport to pick me up. I haven't been doing much ever since I got back. I went to get a wireless provider for my cellphone on Sunday. My friend Neo and I were gonna go to Shatin to watch a movie, but there wasn't one that we both wanna watch and haven't seen yet. Anyway, there was a new Starbucks opened in the mall, so we ended up going to there and chatted for a while. I've unpacked luggages most of the time last several days. I haven't really set up my computer yet, so I'm just using my sister's new computer right now. I'll probably be online more once I have my laptop setup and get a router.
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June 20, Sun
+ Seeing Old Friends
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01:09 AM
I've been seeing quite a few friends this week. This past Thursday I went to lunch with Sing, a fairly close friend of mine. And I just got back from dinner with a bunch of my old female friends. Most of my friends are working now, so it's kinda hard to hang out with them during the week. So one of my friends, Anita called up three other friends of mine for a get-together dinner tonight. I haven't seen them for a long time and it was nice seeing them all again. We stayed at the restaurant and talked until pretty late. I'm so not used to the heat in Hong Kong. Every time when I go out, I start sweating after a few minutes. I just can't stand the heat. Well, I haven't been back for more than two and a half years, so I guess I just need to let my body adjust to the temperature.
Besides seeing old friends. Most of the other time I've spent helping my little brother with his studying 'cause he's having final exams these two weeks. And I've spent the rest of the time online downloading Six Feet Under. I've yet to watch any episodes I've downloaded but I'm definitely enjoying the high-speed DSL internet we have.
My stupid college was suppose to post our grades on the 18th, but they've yet to put them up either on the web or on the phone-system. I just hope that they'll send my final official transcript on time. Talking about university paperwork, I'm still waiting for my dad to get me the financial statement... errr... so many things I still need to do. We'll see how that goes.
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June 22, Tue
+ Scout's Honor
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11:58 PM
I went shopping in Mongkok with my friend Neo on Sunday. Then I went there again yesterday, but it was with Stephanie, my best female friend. I watched two of the VCDs I bought last two nights. One of them was Edge of Seventeen, which I thought was okay. Hm... the main character's confusions and emotions that caused by his coming-out experience were bitter and a bit heart-breaking. But I think overall, the movie was too stereotyping the gay community and too dark in nature. Then last night I watched Scout's Honor, which is a documentory about how a 12 year old boy scout named Steven Cozza launches a campaign to overturn the Boy Scouts of America's anti-gay policy. I understand that the BSA is a private organization and therefore, the government has no right (and shouldn't have) to prevent them from banning gay people. However, the Boy Scouts shouldn't be an organization to teach the young generation to discriminate. I do think that even though the Scouting for All movement wasn't too successful on the ground of legality, it did successfully bring the issue to the eye of the nation. It was a really thought-provoking documentory, and I highly recommend it to everyone who hasn't seen it, gay or straight.
Today I went biking with my Dad, my sister, and my brother. We left right after lunch at around 12:30pm and we didn't get back until 4pm. It was fun and I'm a lot more tan than before. I'm gonna go on a trip with a few of my friends next several days. We've rented a house in Lantau Island, one of the bigger islands in Hong Kong, for a few days. We're leaving tomorrow afternoon and we won't be back until Friday late afternoon. I hope it will be fun. The thing is, there're about 6 people going besides me, and I know them all from secondary school, but I'm only fairly good friend with a couple. Oh well, there shouldn't be a problem if they invited me to go. I should just stop worrying about stupid things like that and just enjoy the trip. Anyway, I'll be back on Friday and I'll definitely let you guys know how it goes.
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