Sketch, Fish, and Stuff

This is dedicated to my two physics buddies. We make a good team, in terms of having fun with a not-so-fun topic. In terms of getting a good grade...not so much.

Oscar Suen--the sketch. Birthday: June 22nd 1991. Awesome guy. Easy going and loves to talk. He loves cars, but I don't know anything about cars, so I don't know anything about his passion for cars. All I know is, he loves them. He has the most interesting logic. Whenever we are in a conversation, one thing leads to another, and before we'd know it, we'd end up with a mutual agreement, a conclusion. But about three seconds after we'd reached our conclusion, we'd notice how amazingly sketchy our conclusion is. And after another 2 seconds, we'd agree to stick to our sketchy conclusion. Hence, he is the sketch in Team Sketchy. One other thing about Oscar that makes him the sketch is that he loves to sketch! He loves cars and loves to sketch, so naturally he'd be good at sketching cars. Go look in his physics notebook if you don't believe me. Oscar loves to talk. Bring anything up to him, and he'd use his sketchy logic to turn a 2-minute conversation into a 20-minute conversation. It's generally a very good quality, because it makes the topic at hand seem so much more interesting. But the bad thing about it is that our walk from class to Lot 4 is rarely long enough for us to reach a conclusion. And sketchy conclusions are fun. One last thing about Oscar, he loves God, has a huge heart for his peers, and loves to serve.

Jonathan Hui--the brain. Birthday: August 30th 1991. Another awesome guy. Mean, but deep down, is nice and generous. He is the brains of the group. Not only is he smart, he also works very hard, and studies. He's the go-to guy whenever we have physics problems. He's generally mean to me, and with him, every lab sucks out about 37.9 hours of life out of me. I'm pretty sure it sucks out life out of him too. But don't be mistaken, I enjoy labs with him. He makes sure we collect good data, makes sure we're doing things right, and makes sure we understand stuff, if we don't he'd yell at us until we do. I get on his nerves sometimes, but that's just what friends do, get on each other's nerves. I say that he's generally mean, but in truth, he's very very nice. He let me sit at the smart seat for the first midterm, of course he got to sit there for the rest of the quarter, but still. He helped me with C++ whenever I asked and whenever he could. He bought me my Alpha. Unlike most guys our age, he's oddly thoughtful and careful in choosing words to not hurt other people's feelings. I admire him for those qualities. Jonathan loves fish. He has a whole bunch of them. One betta and a bunch of other tiny fish and a few ghost shrimps. In my opinion, his fish aren't the best looking, but that's just me, he loves them. Speaking of which, he says I'm just like his dad, I guess his dad's pretty cool then. Anyways, underneath all the meaness, Johnathan is really genuine and nice.

I'm so lucky to have such great people to go through physics with. I thank God everyday (okay, maybe not everyday. but, definitely after every lab) for giving me such awesome buddies. We make a good team. Two more quarters to go and I'm already starting to miss them.

9'ers

My old man and I went to the 49'ers game yesterday. They played against St.Louis Rams.

As I mentioned earlier, I had wanted to get into sports more, because my old man was really into them. He's been a fan of the 9'ers ever since he came to USA, when the 9'ers were actually really good. So I bought the tickets as a gift for my old man for his birthday.

I had my eyes on two tickets vs. the Buccanears on ebay. They were really good seats, and for an incredible price, so incredible I almost thought it was a scam. When the bid ended, the highest bidder won by $1.15. I was the second highest. :( Thank God I wasn't the highest bidder though. Not only did I get Rams tickets for the same price, I got to know the seller, who turned out to be an awesome guy. Super nice, helpful, and generous; a true authentic 49er's fan. It was a real pleasure doing business with him.

On game day, my old man and I left at 11am planning to get there at 12pm and get in-n-out on the way. I was rambling along, as usual, while my old man was driving. Before we knew it, we had missed the in-n-out exit. So we set our new via point to Mc.D's on my GPS, which was the same exit as the Candlestick Park. Turned out we couldn't get to Mc.D's because all the roads were blocked for traffic control for the game.

With an empty stomach and full of exitement, we got into the park. The parking lots were already full with people tailgating. Eventually though, we got too hungry and gave in to the hot dogs in the stadium in 3rd quarter. The weather was perfect! Hot, but not too hot. The game was awesome with a  lead, behind, come back, tie, and then overtime. Our seats were simply great: Lower East Stand: Row 6, Seats 6 & 7. We got to exit through the field when the game ended, where we took this picture:

We had a great time at the game, and ended the wonderful day with a wonderful dinner at Olive Garden. We didn't know alot of the things to a NFL gameday, but we will for sure do better for the future games we go to.

*On a side note: My Betta has a name now--Alpha Chen*

Betta

Thank you, Jonathan Hui. You're so nice.

Beginning of October
Me: I want a fish for my birthday.
Jonathan: When's your birthday?
Me: It's coming up.
Jonathan: When is it?
Me: Nov. 8
Jonathan: How is that coming up? Remind me when it gets closer.

Got a new addition to my room today. I've been expecting it for a month now. To welcome it home, I cleaned up my whole room so that it'd like living here, and so that it'd actually have a place to live. My water heater was moved. Was actually expecting a fish bowl, but the purple fish tank is way better. My filtered water and cups had to make way. And my desk is now missing its desk light.

Planned on naming it Fishy, but after actually meeting it for the first time, I realized it's not a Fishy at all. Don't have a name for it yet, I'm sure it'll hit me soon though.

1/5 Century

It is my one-fifth century birthday. not a teenager anymore.

It's a very nice birthday this year. I've celebrated twice so far, and I'm expecting twice more. :) 1st: at the Halloween costume party with 4 other birthdays. 2nd: at Vita/Darren's with hotpot, black forest cake and 三國殺. 

And, speaking of Vita/Darren, they just got married last Friday! I skipped part of my friday physics class for it. It was definitely worth it. According to my classmates, someone complained about the online homework for 3/4 of the class, and they looked at some waves for the 15 minutes left. I'm glad I missed it. 

It was definitely a birthday week for me. Thursday night, my old man and I went to Walmart to get a king-sized purple case for my king-sized pillow (from Jessica) that's been living in a twin-sized pillow case until now. Then we watched 1/4 of Lord of the Rings 3 (we'll finish it when our eyes aren't half-closed). I was so excited for the new pillow case that the first thing I did when I got home was laundry.

Went to Joshua on friday night for most of the other Calebians were at the Warriors/Jazz game. We talked about: don't steal. What I learned: part of what stealing means is not giving someone else what is rightfully his/hers, which can apply to so many things that I've never thought of as stealing before. Stealing the truth from others, aka. lying. Stealing from God, aka. not tithing. I enjoyed the samll group very much.

Saturday was Albert Liu and Vicky's wedding. It was in Sacramento, so my old man, Yi and I took a one-day road trip. We left at 9 in the morning. Of course, the wedding wasn't in the morning, but we wanted to get there in time for the opening of a Japanese seafood buffet. Man, it was exactly what I've been craving for for the longest time. Yi's a pretty cool guy. The wedding was really pretty, the food was awesome--shrimp and scallop, and prime rib. Vicky was gorgeous. and so was Emily. It was an absolutely enjoyable day, partly because the wedding was nice, and partly because Emily was there, but mostly because I got to spend some time with my old man's friends: Yi Luo, David, and Alex Huang. Thanks be to God for the ending of daylight savings to be on Sunday. One more hour of sleep after our late return from Sacramento.

For my birthday, Sherry gave me a set of lip balm and exfoliator, my mom gave me Aloa (she gave it to me last year, but it counts as a present for all the special days for the rest of my life) and she also bought me a cake, she also offered me a new phone but I declined because don't think I need it, and my old man gave me a new comforter and case. My bed just got a makeover with the new king-sized pillow case and my awesome new comforter. It looks much more mature with the darker purple--very suitable with my new age!

Thanks to all my lovely friends and family for sharing the 20 years I've had so far on this planet. Praise the Lord for breathing into me 20 years ago on this day. Pray that God bless me and use me in my 21st year of life all the more.   

Halloween

So, Halloween has passed and the Giants didn't win on Halloween day. But it's alright, that means we'll get to watch more of those wonderful games.

Strike?

Nope!

The costume party was pretty fun. Caleb/Genesis made our costumes the day before. We wanted to have the theme of Lord of the Rings. But we didn't know which characters to be, and we wanted easier costumes. Thankfully, Johnson thought of the perfect theme--easy and funny.

As motivation, I bought two bags of chips and a bag  of skittles, Vita  bought a bag of chocolates, and Raymond provided us with iced tea. So we took a couple of hours to make costumes for 12 people. It was tiring, but I still enjoyed it. And though we only wore the costumes for about 10 mins on saturday, it was worth it. Special thanks to Charles Lin for being our bowler and Ryan for being our ball.

Some other costumes were Joshua: sushi and Galilee/Jordan: sheep and shepherd, Angela Ha and John: Taylor Swift and West. They were all great costumes, ours was the best though (subjectively, of course).

The food was awesome! My favorite: Don's fried chicken. The five of us scorpions got to enjoy the best cake ever! Fanny's mom made us two green tea and red bean cakes. They were the bomb. If you ever want legit awesome chinese food or dessert, Fanny's mom's got them.

Don't doubt. I'm naturally tall like that.

Giants

Been getting into some sports lately. Mostly because my old man (as Sabria calls him) is really into them; I'd like to know every aspect of his life. And partly because the SF Giants are just AWESOME!

My old man was telling me how baseball is very slow paced and can be super nerve racking at times. I didn't quite understand it until the bottom of the 9th ending at the 6th game of the NCLS championship the past saturday. Every second from Wilson getting ready to the actual pitch was like a gazillion minutes, and at least a million minutes from when the ball left his hand to Posey catching it. Waiting for those gazillion minutes was worth it in the end. I asked my old man "I wonder how many people from church was watching the game?". He said "everyone, probably".

He was proven right at church the next day. Kevin wore his SF cap, even Kang watched the game, I can't manage to walk around without seeing a SF shirt or cap every 30 seconds, and Wolf: "Philadelphia has Philly cheese steak, we have the World Series! Go Giants!" Black and orange--perfect colors. especially at this time of the year. Let's have faith for the 1st game on wednesday.

I've got to admit, sports is kind of fun.

Another chance.

I've probably tried this 10 times already. So far, haven't been successful at all. Well, technically I've only tried journaling, so this is the first, I guess. Writing blogs isn't easy, but keeping it updated is probably even harder. I'm going to give it a try anyways...so here goes!

It's the end of October of 2010. Many things to look forward to, and many things to dread.For one, there are 5 birthdays among my close friends in the upcoming two weeks (this is the exciting part). And then there's Halloween. It's not so much the actual Halloween that's exciting. Afterall, though I wish I do, I don't have my little cousin Angus as an excuse to go trick-or-treating anymore. It's more of the excitement in people that excites me as well. It's my neighbor's spider web, pumpkins and skeleton decorations, it's the signs that says "HALLOWEEN COSTUMES" at Diddams, and the moms buying bags and bags of chocolate at Target. Enough about Halloween.

Months of October and November have a very particular meaning to some particular people--UC applicants. Remember thinking "Man, wouldn't it suck to do this all over again?" two years ago, and here I am once again. Two years ago I finished my application over this one night. This time, how should I do it? All nighter again?

Onward to birthdays. My is also coming up in two weeks. I used to not be a birthday person growing up, my family didn't really do the whole birthday thing. Of course, we'd still get a cake and sing happy birthday, but that's about it.The Lins are huge birthday people, and everyone's birthday was so fun that it was exciting for everyone, not just the birthday boy/girl. On my birthdays, everything was about me. I got presents, I got to decide on things, and heck it was just my freaking day. I became a birthday person, and there was no turning back. People around me aren't as big birthday people as I'd like them to be now, so it got me thinking...

Why celebrate birthdays? It is the day that I was born, it is also the day that my mom labored to bring me into the world. So...celebrate mom then? Now that I've thought about it, I know my answer: It's the day God created me and breathed a breath into me. I'm sure God and the angels celebrate God's creation too. So yeah I am going to keep celebrating your birthdays because, man am I glad God made you on that day so that you can be in my life now. And my birthdays, because I was fearfully and wonderfully made on that day.