I started playing Archmage again. I tried it once in 10th grade and thought it was the dumbest thing ever, hahaha. But my friends now think it's so cool, and they said I "played it wrong" before. Oh well, I guess I'll give it another shot.

Man, our big compsci lab was due today, and I sucked it up big time. =( It pissed me off really bad, cuz that's like the first time that I wasn't even close to getting a lab. Well, that just knocked me off my high horse. Geez... Stupid pointers, stupid sparse matrix, stupid Marine Biology Case Study! GRRRRRRRR!!!

Man, I think the initial novelty of blogging is beginning to wear off...

At last, lion dance season is finally over! haha, what a relief- I'll actually be able to do stuff on weekends again. =) Yea, I invited like 8 of my friends to watch the show, but only 2 of them actually showed up. =/

After the second show of the day, they took us to CiCi's Pizza (again). I had 20 slices of pizza! Man, I was sooooo full, hahaha. I always get sleepy after I eat, so I was ready to konk out afterwards. But since it was like the first night off from doing lion dances, I wanted to do something.

I ended up going to see Queen of the Damned with my friends. I thought it was a really cool movie. Well, I think 99% of stuff involving vampires is cool, hahaha- vampires are like right up there with ninjas and bipedal robots on my list of cool things, hahaha. And surprisingly, it wasn't scary at all, which is good cuz I get nightmares after watching anything even remotely creepy. (I was temporarily seriously afraid of the dark again after watching part of 13 Ghosts.) Oh, and I liked the music too. Went to Java afterwards.

*I bought the QotD soundtrack the next day. Man, that's seriously the first CD I've bought in years. I didn't think I'd ever buy a rock/alternative CD again. Wow, what a surprise. But dang, it cost $20; now I remember why I stopped buying CD's, hahahah.

My school district had the day off from school, but my kung fu school found out and sent us down to A&M (College Station) to do a lion dance show. Uggghhh... It's like a 4 hour drive down there. There went like my entire day. The only high point of the trip was getting to stop off at Freebirds (World Burrito). They make like these super huge burritos (kinda like at Chipotle, but better)- that's like the only TexMex food I like.

I've had a sore throat all week, like ever since doing that show at Liquid. Oh, and to make things worse, I went to school in wet pants today. It's like, I took 'em out of the dryer, and they felt hot, so I figured they were dry. I put 'em on, and the insides were still damp. =( But I was in a rush, so I wore 'em anyways.

I've been sitting online not doing my hw for hours now, hahaha. And I bombed a physics test today. Hahaha, man, senioritis has got me bad.

Oh, and we finally delivered the order for martial arts club t-shirts today. Took forever, and it may take longer- they say there's problems with our design.

Man, my teeth are still messed up. And I just noticed recently, that the gap between my 2 front teeth is considerably larger than before. It's really annoying: I can shoot a steady stream of water, and blow bubbles with it now. Blehhhh...

I find myself doing like 'temp' blogs a lot recently. Like, I'll post the phrase "temp" as a blog entry just for the sake of the timestamp, then writing the actual entry later.

I had to meet with my government group today to compile our research citations. I'd been really busy this weekend, so I woke up, and was scrambling to finish my work; I got to the meeting like 25 minutes late, hahaha. We met at a Starbuck's on Park & Preston; man, I had no idea there were 3 Starbuck's at the same intersection! I swear, Starbuck's is gonna take over the world one of these days! =P But yea, the one we met at had a drive-thru and a really awesome interior- I think I might make that my new hang-out spot, heheh.

Ummm, yea, the meeting finished a lot earlier than I thought, so I had some time to kill. Tony and I decided to go to the Chuck E. Cheese's across the street, HAHAHAHA! Man, I don't think I've been in one of those since they were called ShowBiz Pizza- a loooong time ago. Heh, it was fun- a "real cool place to be a kid!" =P

Later, we did kung fu/lion dance at Truong Nguyen supermarket today- I had to skip Chinese school to go. John and I did jumping/eating again. Man, I like doing the jumping and stuff, but I get pampered way too much now that I do it. It's like, I barely perform any kung fu now, and they never want me carrying anything heavy- cuz they're afraid I'll hurt myself. Pssshhhh... I feel so useless. Oh, and I didn't even do the main lion dance form today either. I feel so useless when I walk away from a performance not tired at all. =/

I did lion dance aaaalllll day today. We did a show at Nam Hung supermarket- it was my first time (lion) jumping on pots/benches; didn't do any super-cool jumps. Then I went to a show for an auto shop. We designed a new show jumping around tires and stuff; we didn't have enough time or experience to do anything amazing, but it was fun, just cuz we'd never tried it before.

Then we did a show for the Jesuit-Ursuline Asian Students Union, but I performed like next to nothing- they keep thinking I'm really tired for some reason. Jessica (C.) & Frankie (Frances) were there at the banquet, even though they don't go to Ursuline. They let me have their desserts, so I stuffed myself on these cream puff thingies, mmmmm.... soooo good. =P Didn't get to chill for long though... =(

I was originally supposed to perform at Liquid again tonight, but they let me go home early. Roofie invited me to chill with her posse, but I finished at kung fu too late to do anything. =/

We performed lion dance at Club Liquid tonight. As to why a club would want a lion dance is beyond me, but it was amusing nonetheless. That's the first time I've ever been inside a club. With the lions, we were playing with the people, and when I was head, I think I accidentally knocked a cigarette out of a guy's mouth, hahaha. And these guys kept sticking beer bottles under the lion, trying to get us to drink! And everyone was [violating] the lion, men and women both... let's just leave it at that... *shudder*

Oh, and the air was so thick with smoke that it was like fog (; maybe they have it like that intentionally, though). Even after I left, it was like there was a layer of ash lining my throat. I felt like I was gonna throw up.

*It's the next morning. I just threw up.

Still working on the paper... auggghhh... not much time left.

*The paper was worth 5 test grades, and as usual, I'm putting it together at the last minute. Oh well, it's honors (as opposed to AP) - they treat us like idiots, so I'm betting I can turn in my PoS paper and still make a pretty good grade, hahaha.

**And I gotta go sell bagels again for LASER early in the morning, blehhh...

*sigh* Valentine's Day always makes me feel more lonely than ever... It's a reminder to all single people of how alone they are in the world. =(

But oh well, I don't think many seniors from Plano West will be celebrating Valentine's Day anyways. Everyone is swamped with homework tonight. Orchestra concert, AP English paper proposals, honors English senior paper due.

I did a kung fu/lion dance show at Steel Restaurant downtown tonight. I messed up really bad again on Nangun, but it didn't matter, cuz no one was watching, hahaha- everyone was just drinking/eating. But yea, it was kinda freaky cuz that's reputed to be the "gay district." I wasn't paying attention so I didn't see anything too unusual, but Tommy said it was messed up. =/ Oh well, I'll take his word for it.

We had a Chinese New Year feast at my house tonight. It was reeeaaaaaally good. We're technically celebrating a day early- it's New Year's on the other side of the world in Taiwan...

I performed lion dance/kung fu again tonight, at UTD. I messed up soooo bad during the kung fu part; I was doing Nangun (Southern Pole) and like 1/5 of the way through the form, I forgot what I was doing. So I went on for a looong time, completely winging it- I made up more than half of what I performed, hahaha.

Anyways, lion dance wasn't so great either. Jason & I were paired up as a team, and we were supposed to open with a head jump. He didn't jump high enough, but I still tried to get him on my head. I struggled, but failed and fell. I was really disappointed cuz that's the first time I've messed up in a real show like that. So later on, during the freestyling part of the show, when Jason suggested that we do the head jump trick again, I said ok without hesitating- it seemed like a way to "redeem myself" to the audience. Well, Jason jumped bad again, but I forced myself to keep him up... I was struggling really hard, but at least the audience loved it. Now my neck is killing me.

Bee talked with me later; he said it's not worth it to struggle like that- it's just not worth it. He knew exactly how I felt... it's like you're so close to success that you can taste it, and you don't wanna give up. But we're not invincible, if we push ourselves too hard, we end up getting hurt. *sigh* I guess it's just hard to know your own limits sometimes.

*Oh yea, and my parents (and grandparents) came back from their week-long vacation tonight. FINALLY! I won't have to do the dishes myself! =P

I performed lion dance alllll day today. We started with a show at a Vietnamese supermarket. That show was a disaster. Bee & Jason were doing a jumping show, with pots, benches, and everything. They botched all their jumps, and then on the big finale head jump, Jason missed and they both fell off the stacked benches. Bee hurt his shoulder really bad; he was kicking his legs and spazzing/squirming like crazy for about 15 seconds. I was afraid he broke something.

Well, as they say, "the show must go on." So Tom & I head jumped and ate the green. We had to do the same thing for the rest of the day. Man, it felt wrong, filling in for Bee like that- it's like he puts in all that effort to lift Jason, who's really heavy, and gets hurt; then I'm here doing the same trick with Tom, who's really light, and taking all the credit. It just doesn't seem right- the public has no idea how much effort he's put into it, and then they think I'm all good cuz I can do a scaled-down version of the same trick... It's just not right.

*Oh, and my nail that got cracked on New Year's Eve got partially torn off. It didn't hurt though, cuz it was coming off already anyways. Man, seems like I've been getting hurt a lot recently.

I tried to save myself some effort by using a dishwasher instead of handwashing the dishes. Well, apparently, I don't know how to use a dishwasher, hahaha. The water wouldn't go out of the machine, so it started like overflowing and leaked out all over the kitchen floor, hahaha. Suckage.

I watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics tonight and dyed my hair again.

*Oh, and I found out that I'm a National Merit Finalist today. Money in the pocket, heheheh. =P

I woke up at 2:30AM and have been scrambling to type up a 4-page paper for English. Man, I keep like drifting in and out of sleep. I think I'm just barely gonna make it to turn in at 8:00AM.

I had to perform a lion dance at Maxim's tonight- nothing special. Arg, I hate having to do that kinda stuff on school nights.

I had a 2-hour dinner tonight, watching tv while eating. I had cup ramen with curry; I got the idea from Misato in Evangelion. It was alright I guess- not bad, but I wouldn't go to any great lengths to make it again.

Man, this was the first time I've just sat down and watched tv for months. It was like I was just in my own little world, oblivious to the utter hell that is my life right now. (I'm stressed to the bone, and there's no end in sight, and more than 6 hours of sleep a night would feel soooooo good right now.) But yea, anyways, I watched Gilmore Girls and Smallville. Hey, you know? Gilmore Girls is actually much better than I expected- I'd never watched it before cuz I thought it was some frufru show for girls, but it turned out to be rather interesting. And well, Smallville's always cool, heheh.

We had our school science fair today. Man, sucked it up. Instead of actual ranks, the judges gave us a ranking from 1 to 3: 1 being good, and 3 being not so good. Yea, I got a 3, hahaha. Well, I guess I shoulda expected it- we (my partner & I) only had about half of our data. But I dunno, you know how sometimes you like to have people think you did better than you really did? Yea, it was something like that.

Oh, and we got (melting) snow today! A rare sight indeed. It snowed all day and there's a whole inch on the ground now, hahaha.

My cousin came over tonight and made curry for some reason. It was pretty decent I guess, haha.

I couldn't concentrate on hw since my brain was fried from sleep deprivation. So later, at like 10:00ish, he took me to Java and we chilled there for a bit. He bought me a muffin to celebrate my late birthday and even managed to get a candle too, hahaha.

Man, I downed half a pack of chocolate covered espresso beans today at school and still managed to fall asleep in statistics. Seriously, I must be almost immune to caffeine now. Anyways, Stephen was telling me how caffeine is toxic to people in large quantities... just like how chocolate is bad for dogs. Oh yea, and I heard that squirrels die if they eat coffee beans, hahahaha!

omg, life is hell... slaving on science fair, and no end in sight...

I had to wake up at 5:30 to drive my parents and grandparents to the airport. They're going on yet another cruise. Yea... great, just great.

Oh, and did I mention that today was my birthday? Yea, 18 now... I don't feel any different.

At kung fu, we're starting to train up for Chinese New Year's shows. Yea, this year, I might actually get to do some cool stuff- Jason and I get to do lion dance jumping. Anyways, part of our show involves him jumping, and landing on my head. After class, my entire back and neck were killing me. I'd practiced the same stuff with Nien before, and I couldn't move my neck for a week afterwards, hahaha. Yea, I guess it's not as bad this time. =/

Worked on science fair tonight. Kevin came over, but we didn't get a whole lot done. We took a break and went to Wings of Glory for some chicken wings. Man, I expected so much better; I was rather disappointed. Well anyways, I'll hafta slave on science fair tomorrow night for sure, uggghhh... all-nighter probably. And I have a lot of other hw too... arrrgghhh, suckage.

Man, my 2 front teeth are starting to turn purplish/gray... so not cool! =( Yea, my mom said I'll probably hafta get fake teeth. *sigh* false teeth at the age of 18... how pathetic is that? =/

In other news, I did the CSS PROFILE thing tonight. Uggghhh... what a pain in the butt: it's like the FAFSA but like twice as bad.