Possibly the Worst day ever…

Yesterday and today had to be one of the most Harold and Kumar like kind of day ever; it has been full of obstacles and horrid events to the point where my head was going to explode but in the end ended okay. So, in preparation for studying for my midterm which was today [Thursday], I had been keeping up with the readings [even ahead of the lectures at times] from the beginning of the school year. Yet when I went through the 2nd problem set and the practice test and the horrible review session , it was only then I realized that all I really should have done was re-watched the lecture notes online. In summary, I typed out a 22 page [10 font, single spaced] study guide based on the book for nothing! Literally, 90% of the study guide was null from the lecture notes [and as I found today, in the test as well] So yesterday, I watched 8 lectures in a row [8 hours of lectures] in the clubhouse study room; but upon listening to the 7th and 8th lectures, some of the residents started watching something in the clubhouse theatre at full blast which went through the wall making me move to the empty lounge room, but then some the RA’s [3 girls] started talking about their lives so loud and drama to the point where I couldn’t hear my lectures through even the headphones >.< Ice SCREAM!! So then I went home and finished the lectures and called a friend to go through the practice test. Interestingly enough the practice test was fairly decent in difficulty but had a lot of repetition as in the same question being asked 10 questions later… like I would forget the answer 10 questions later or something. So we were to either assume, A) this practice test was a compilation of questions of the past tests [hence the repetition] or B) the professor is really lazy and can’t write questions very well. It turns out, it was the latter. After the test was over, I started talking to some of the students and a lot of them thought the questions were so ambiguous, wrong or had subjectivity. I’m inclined to agree, but I feel a bit satisfied in that a lot of the answers we discussed for consensus were in my favor. I originally thought this test would be the biggest of my worries but I was wrong. Last night, I took a nap and woke up early this morning to finish studying, but as I was leaving for school in my car, foolishly I forgot that I turned on my headlights and [being broken and not notifying me my headlights were on] they remained on throughout the entire day. So after the test, I was deadbeat tired but I went to lab anyway and thankfully I met Julie, whose totally nice and smart. We allocated vials of BAL for E.coli plating then blended mouse livers. I hope I didn’t mess up her experiment, but I’m really thankful she took me under her wing and that we had a good conversation about medicine and research and ourselves. I hope I get to work with her in the near future and won’t be known as a blumbling person. Anyways, although it was definitely an awesome time, I was dead tired the entire time so when I left for the Bus I took a nap and almost missed the stop. Fortunately one of the other passengers asked to get off at Roswell so I didn’t miss it. So today’s oncology lecture was hecka long and confusing. I think he was explaining the mechanisms cancer has to bypass to become immortal and dividing, but oh my goodness, he had a heavy European accent, his powerpoint slides were animations [our packets are paper… no motion] and ahhh it was horrible. Then after the lecture was over, I went outside to get to the bus but as I exited the building, the BUS WAS LEAVING! Arrrrgggghhh. So a lot of us waited for the bus, but apparently they have new drivers they happen to have no idea where they’re going. It took us 50 minutes to get back, it usually takes 20. Ugh. So when I finally get back to campus, I get to my car and find it out of power. Then I remember that I left my lights on, so I call AAA and he comes 15 minutes late [their guarantee is within the hour, hence for me it was actually 1.25 hours I was waiting]. So he finally gets there and charges my car, but then I stupidly try to fix my radio and not drive my car around to charge the battery so the car engine dies again and I had to call him again. Another 30 minutes elapses and I had to apologize, and apparently when your car is restarted, the radio requires a code, if you input the wrong one it locks up. So guess what, yup my radio is locked up cause me not knowing it required a code, I pressed all the buttons… sigh! Oh throughout this day and for the past 2 weeks, I’ve been craving to go to Ted’s hot dogs. They serve pretty good hotdogs, but their onion rings are the bestssteststest. Anyways, today I didn’t eat anything. So imagine all this going on, whilst I’m hungry and dead tired. Yeah my head was about to explode. So I thought to myself, “oh I can just go out and get Ted’s after the last lecture, but NOPE all this other poo had to go on. Then on top of that, the GPS can’t locate anything, so when I input “Ted’s hotdogs” it made me drive to a mall 15 miles away and it wasn’t there. So I was like uhhh what the Q… so apparently some of the places it lists are closed down so I was tricked. But I was crazie enough to explore and find it 4 miles away from my home. Ugh… when I got into the hotdog place I was like, “I made it… I MADE IT!!! 1 foot long and 2 onions plz!” Bwahahahaha, insane? Yes… delicious? Yes… Anyways, I’m just glad it’s over, and am looking forward to Friday night fellowship tomorrow. Time for bed, toodlas!

Update: What am i eating? What’s the schedule like? And more backdrop history…

The two days before I left for NY, I had lunch with my g-ma would tell me to do what any good g-ma would tell their grandson:  Stop eating chips and Study.  At this moment I’d have to say that I’m executing both objectives quite well as I’ve only had a hand full of chips in my 3 weeks of being here.  In fact, the majority of my diet actually consists mainly of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch [which I’ve forgotten 5 times already at home] and baked beans + hamburger patty cooked via Foreman grill.  It’s not much in terms of being America’s best chef, but considered that I’ve happened to create smoke from attempting to boil water and that I had almost destroyed my microwave through “cooking corn” by inserting the corn inside the can into the microwave, I’d say that the fact my apartment hasn’t burned down yet is a feat on its own. 

And it’s surprising how easy it is to make pbnj sandwiches.  I can make 5 in the time I wait for the burger to cook whilst cooking beans and vacuuming my floor!  Talk about multitasking    It’s weird because I can make pbnj sandwiches but the sandwich I just made and bit into [consisting of turkey, chicken and lettuce] turned out rotten… and now I feel kind of sick… I might need to wash it out with McDonalds.  Haha jpjp.  It’s already 7pm here and I dare not venture out of the complex this late at night.  And goodness, since having my own place and paying my own bills, I think I’ve become even MORE frugal than I ever thought possible.  I keep track of my finances via excel sheet and I’d have to say that my intake has drastically decreased since my arrival.  Unfortunately if there was a Lucky Chinese food place here I’m sure that my frugality would be wasted entirely.

Speaking of which, I had stumbled upon a sad dream this morning:  From what I can remember, it consisted of me w/ some of the people at home coming with me to Lucky Chinese food, but for some reason it changed the name to Orientals.  The place [instead of being red] was blue and there were giant piranha like fish in the cups.  It was very bizarre but for some reason I just thought that I was home and it felt great.  Moments later I awoke, only to remember that I am here, in Buffalo- on a Monday morning where school was about to start again in an hour.

I don’t think I’ve ever had the stamina I have now to study as long as I have.  It’s a bit irritating in that the workloads of the courses I’ve signed up for are ridiculously high and seemingly never ceasing.  To top it all off, more work will soon be coming as I need to start working on my research project and attend Princeton review for four hours twice a week.  ATM I’ve taken a break from studying to write this but I’m studying for the midterm I have on Thursday for the biochem class.  @ UCI it was biochemistry I despised the most and here I am in Buffalo, taking it again.  A sick sense of irony is what I smell.  SPEAKING OF SMELL… Today while driving to school there was another dead skunk on the road [the same road there was a dead skunk a week prior], and OMGOODNESS it smelled awful and spanned over a 500 foot radius.  UGH.  I think one of the houses b/t where the skunk died in the road… they must be raising skunks for like skunk fights or something… @.@

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!

Oh yeah so if you didn’t catch what I fb walled to Daniel, the city of Buffalo is kind of under a weird poverty/revival state.  In the city and the south side of campus, there are a lot of abandoned businesses and houses.  It’s interesting to see though that these buildings are a bit a shell of once thriving economies as the structures themselves are beautiful, it’s just the atmosphere and vacancy within reveal the true infrastructure of the city.  For my friends and family who live in California, you don’t know how good you got it till it’s gone.  Walking in LA is a joyride versus going out at night here in the city.  It’s like gangsters everywhere, hearing of muggings, robberies, murders, assaults, etc etc.  It just doesn’t stop, I feel like I wanna hide in my room forever.  The only places that are safe is the cancer institute, the complex where I live [except for some of the people], and the schools north and south campus.  It’s interesting to see the diversity b/t the schools and the city itself.  [And may awful enforce a stereotype].  The schools [undergraduate, graduate and professional] demographics consist mainly of Caucasians and Asians while the city is 80%+ afro-American.

There are a lot of churches here though, most of them are catholic or methodologist or something to that extent [cathedrals], but the church I’m attending is BCCC- Buffalo Chinese Christian Church.  The English group is really the hybrid of a Kaleo + ROCK group- both profession/grad students are in the same group as the undergraduates.  A bit of a coincidence I suppose considering I was just goodbye’d from ROCK no more than a month ago.  The rest of the church is Chinese, as in 1^st language Chinese, as in I don’t understand what they’re really saying… Chinese…  This church has a lot of similarities to FCBC: they only have one pastor and are looking for an English pastor; the English group meets on Sundays, Friday nights and Wednesday night [prayer meeting].  The only real noticeable difference is the lack of a basketball court… [Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo], but other than that, their teaching is scripture based for the most part and they really pride themselves on community.  Despite the fact I’ve only been here for 3 weeks, I feel pretty close to the group already- we talk about all the cool stuff like America’s best dance crew, what things are like in CA vs. NY, and OMQ we played BANG! For the first time on Friday night… we were up till 3:30AM playing it… bwhahahahaha.   So now everyone thinks [and some know] that California is like a ridiculous paradise and now they think I’m a spoiled pants.  [Which I am to be sure].   This Sunday, the pastor [Sunny] just started a Series on Genesis called “in the beginning, God…”  It’s supposed to bring us back to the roots of creation, explaining and foreshadowing God’s mercy and Christ’s love.   I feel kind of bad cause I have no access to a piano, so when I go to church on Friday or Sunday, I dabble in it as much as possible to get my fix… my PIANO FIX @.@   .  Hehe anyways that’s all I got for now, gotta start studying, the girl behind me is thinking… what the heck is that guy working on?   Hope things are going well in CA guys, miss you a lot and don’t have too much fun without me    Cheers!

Good times, good times Pt. 1

The afternoon of my departure left a strange tinge in my mouth.  A feeling that I would not be returning the way I came, in the sense that should I ever return to this place, the place I called home for the past five years during my college life, I would not be the same.

The week prior to my arrival in NY I was in San Francisco, retrieving my soon to be permanent mode of transportation, a Blue 2004 Honda Civic.  While I was there visiting my sister, I ran into one of my old childhood school friends who was there doing a PhD in the biochemistry department.  Having never moved away from my parents, I inquired to him the process and feelings he felt prior to leaving the confines of his home.  He told me “The week before leaving was really the hardest.”  Nothing could be more truthful than that.  Once I returned home, I reminisced on anything I had taken for granted earlier.  The friends I met, the things I did, and all of it came flooding back to me.

I tried to leave my home with good memories, the great times I’ve had hanging out with all my friends in ROCK as well as many of my schoolmates.   My last meeting with my school mates happened over a quite hilarious movie called “Kung Pow: Enter the Fist”.  If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a parody by Steve Oedekirk [who did Jimmy Neutron on Nick] about the ridiculousness of some Kung Fu movies.  Afterwards we headed out to Denny’s just to talk about the old times and our near future plans.  Josh going to Peru with Kevin +gf for adventure, Steph heading off to Dental school, Tim going back to John Hopkins for his PhD… Retrospectively, I guess it didn’t hit me till I actually arrived in NY how much a drastic change this expedition would be, but while it’s only been two weeks since then, I guess I can’t help think about all the good times we had back in school: the laughs, the experiences, the shared times…

Going to church on Friday was no doubt one of the greatest things I looked forward to during my last week.  It wasn’t a usual ROCK Friday night mind you, it was the VBS: austrialian Boomerang Express’ closing ceremony where the kids n staff really showed the parents and company what they’ve learned for the past week.  I’d have to say, I was quite impressed with everyone’s performance, especially the counselors: Rachel, Rudy, Chris, Tony, Tony, Tiffany, Joe, Cowie, Kristina, Jonathan, and that other guy.  It looks like they had a great turn out and really put their all into the program.  Praise God.  I regret not being able to participate in the program [as well as having my name in the program when I don’t think I did anything to merit it].  I can honestly say, I have confidence that ROCK will only be getting better as the new academic year rolls by.  My one greatest regret is that I won’t be able to return, but we kids gotta grow up sometime right?

Hehe, looking back at THAT particular weekend, really makes me laugh.  Saturday was the guys sleepover and just remembering what happened, I don’t think [at least for me] it was the quality of what we did that made it memorable, just the fact that we fulfilled tradition and the fact we got to hang out.  As some of you  [and obviously those who were there] would know, I had developed this horrible headache, fever, backpain, coughing, the works the day of the sleepover.  Although I made it at 3pm, I thank God we didn’t start till 5:30pm.  I’d like to thank God for inventing Advil b/c once I took two of those puppies, hot diggady I was ready to scarf down some heartattacks on a strip.  Hanging out with Joseph and Yi at Wingnuts [with delicious parmesian and bacon ranch strips] + Yogurtland afterwards was awesome.   Afterwards Shinn, Josh and Garrett came over and then we watched like ¾ of Rattattoui, 1/6^th of a Chuck Norris Movie, ¼ of another movie [I can’t remember ATM] and 40/100 most memorable events of UFC UFC [Ultimate Fighter].  By the time we got to moment 20, we all figured we’d want to watch it until even 1 and besides Garrett, none of us guys watched  UFC more than a few times, and Josh fell asleep after moment 2 and missed the final one >.<  .   Ahh good times.  One unfortunate thing which came from the sleepover was the lack of sleep all of us had arriving at church the next Sunday morning.  I totally remembered what Tiff and Sabrina said during their presentations on Bolivia and China missions.  Sounded like the experiences were most rewarding  . The second service was a bit of a blur…

Later having the honor of eating at Bah Marche’ – the best Japanese Curry Chicken w/ ½ capsule of Parmesean Cheese w/ a lot of the Rockers was pretty cool… of course that’s negating the fact that I was exiled from the guys section and placed into the girls section.  Awkward starfish…  I’d have to say though, the girls did have a lot of things to talk about… a LOT OF THINGS @.@ , but Camille, Tiff and Lynnette gave some pretty good advice on what to do when I meet people here- like set the tone, be outgoing, don’t get into fights, etc and Priscilla was making kookie faces.  Thanks for putting crazie faces of yourselves in my cell guys, it really means a lot to me.

Afterwards, the basketball w/ D-Wu was totally awesome, but OhMy Lemur, Yiiiiii is too tall… who can jump 8 ft high?  I can’t legally… but fortunately I think I’ve been getting better at shooting, I’m making more than 1 a game now XD.

There’s so much more to say, but I gotta sleep… first day of school tomorrow!  :O  More to say later guys… don’t laugh too hard plz.

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