The power was out in the bathroom, but I reaaaaaaaally had to go. It was nearly pitch black, and add to the fact that it's Halloween. Man, soooooo freaky! Seriously, if there had been any spooky noises or anything I woulda totally freaked out. Cuz like in the movies, you always feel for the guy who dies on the toilet, know what I mean?

I went and worked out at Gregory Gym today after wushu. Man, that's only the 3rd time I've gone since school started. Blehhh, I gotta get my act together. But yea, my stamina's down.

...but hey, what's the deal with those people who are all anal about word choice, like, "Stamina's for horses! People have endurance!" or "Dogs are trained, people are educated!" geez... why they gotta be so darned picky about it? They're synonyms for crying out loud!

*I helped decorated one of the halls in my dorm tonight as part of a contest. It was moderately amusing, and a good way to avoid doing anything of significance (i.e. hw), haha. But yea, I've never been much for spirit or that sort of thing. Actually, in terms of school spirit, I guess I'm making a little bit of progress. It's always been low cuz I've never had any choice of where I go to school.

But what is "spirit" anyways? Seems like it's just a good excuse to say you (and whatever you're associated with) are good, and everything else sucks. Hah, like I've got "engineering pride," I guess you could say, and I needlessly bash the other majors, even though in actuality I don't reaaaaally have anything against them. I also like calling people the enemy, even when I have no sound basis for any kind of animosity.

For example, I often refer to Japanese people as "the enemy" (albeit jokingly) despite the fact that I've got several Japanese friends and no real reason for hating Japs. But the Koreans... as a whole, they've not given me a very good impression. But it's like, deep down, I know I shouldn't be judging an entire ethnicity based on the actions of the few. And seriously, why should Asians be hating on other Asians? We all need to stick together... so we can team up against the white man!!! =P j/k. Ok, no, but seriously now... I'm going to make a resolution to stop expressing any anti-race sentiments, especially towards other Asians. Maybe it'll branch out from there.

"Whether they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet."
~Jack Handey

Man, you know how sometimes, you have to waste a certain amount of time before you can focus on your work? Yea, I get that a lot- it's like necessary braindead time. Like, I mean, I guess I could try to work before braindead time, but wouldn't get a whole lot of work done cuz my mind would wander. It's kinda like you have to prime your brain for efficient operation. So I guess in sense, it's not really "wasting" time, its more like getting the obligatory mind wandering out of the way before hw.

The exception to this is when I'm imminently screwed. Ok, like, you could say that I've got a penchant for procrastination. But when it's crunch-time, I can really kick it into high gear. Errrr... at least I used to be able to; my ability to function without sleep seems to be waning these days. =/ (I think it's cuz I don't get enough caffeine in my system these days.) But yea, generally, I work best when I can feel the noose tightening around my neck.

Ok, so my mom (being the problem solver of the family) thought of a way to take care of my defective computer situation. Apparently, credit card companies have a service for preferred customers where they'll try to get your money back for you on exceptionally substandard purchases or something. Yea, so hopefully I'll be able to get a refund on this piece of crap. But yea, ok, here's my warning to consumers:

WARNING! Do not buy computers from CyberPowerInc. They've got a very bad company history. Don't be lured by their low prices. Go read some customer reviews. Occasionally, they'll get things right, but they've got a high incidence of shipping out defective systems. Not to mention that their tech support is awful- expect to be put on hold for around 20 minutes, and just try getting in touch with the manager. But if you decide to order from them anyways, don't bother with the express shipping, because it takes them weeks just to "process the order." I've had nothing but problems since I got my computer. And they stick parts in their computers that they claim their company doesn't use a month later (e.g. power supply).

I just spent like the last 2 or 3 hours planning out my schedule for my entire 4-year stay at college- every single class. Man, it's not until you really sit down and think about everything that you wanna take that you realize how short four years is. Well, in addition to the required aerospace curriculum, I'm gonna go for the business certificate, which is like the "weaksauce" version of a BBA I guess. I know, I know, "business is for after you wash out of engineering!" =P But hey, it's supposed to look good on a resume, and if it rakes in the big bucks, hell why not, right?

And also, as things stand, I plan to dabble around in a little bit of Chinese and some quantum physics (but no double major or anything). Ok, the deal with the Chinese is weird; like I took the placement test and am eligible to receive A credit for like 18 hours, but I'd rather go back and take some easier Chinese classes. I just wanna learn; I mean, it's not like I need the credit anyways. And I'm having second thoughts about the extra physics; you have to take a bunch of annoying junk before you get to quantum mechanics. =/ My alternative is to take more aerospace electives and possibly a couple graduate-level courses; I've got my eye on Orbital Mechanics and Satellite Navigation. Man, auuuggghhhhh... so much I wanna do, so little time! =(

UT recently got a batch of defective popsicles. How can a popsicle be defective you ask? Well, this brand prints jokes on the sticks, and usually the exposed part is on the handle part, and you have to eat away the popsicle to get to the punchline. Yea, well this batch has the punchline exposed instead... weird. But yea, I've eaten enough popsicles that in most cases I can guess the joke from the punchline, hahaha. Am I good or what? Heh, naw, that probably means I just eat too many popsicles or something. =P

In other news, my computer sucks... with a vengeance! In addition to the fact that it usually reboots itself in BIOS about 3 times (on average) before it'll load the OS, I found out that the CD burner doesn't burn! Agghhhh... OH, and don't even get me started on the tech support. They sent me a new power supply cuz they thought that was the problem, and they told me to send my old one back. Well, a couple weeks later, they mail it back to me, saying that they don't carry this brand. So I called them and was all like, "If this part doesn't belong to you guys, THEN TELL ME WHAT IT WAS DOING INSIDE MY COMPUTER!!! What else is inside my computer that you can't account for?" And the tech guys had terrible English, so I asked to speak with the manager; they put me on hold for like 20 minutes before telling me the manager left 10 minutes ago. So I decided to call again this afternoon. They put me on hold for 20 minutes before I had a chance to even ask for the manager. I waited as the clock ticked past 7:00 (or 5:00 PST, where the company's located) when the manager leaves, but I decided to stay on the line just to humor them. At about 7:25, they hung up on me. geez... this company's trying to scam me. Arrggg... I was such a chump to be suckered in by the low prices; I shoulda known it was too good to be true. =(

The fire alarm went off just a sec ago. No fire. Man, some jerk pulled the alarm and made us leave the dorm for like 30 minutes. Ugggghhh... how annoying! I hope they slap this person with a heavy fine.

*There was a TASA meeting today, and I got suckered into like, bobbing for gummy worms in whip cream as like part of a contest. I was pretty hesitant at first, but it turned out to be quite fun. When my face was submerged in the Cool Whip, I couldn't help but think, man, this really wouldn't be a bad way to go- drowning in a pool of whip cream. Heh, if I ever find out I've got a terminal illness, I'll have to keep that in mind. =P

I was talking with Amit & Ashwin at lunch today, and we agreed that it'd be pretty funny if the Onion wrote an article about the ACLU making a case for the Trix bunny. Heh, but yea, you really gotta feel for that bunny. Man, kids can be so cruel! =P I think there was an episode of Fresh Prince where Carlton mentioned feeling guilty about never being able to do anything for the bunny. "Why couldn't they just let the poor bunny have some cereal?!?!" AHAHAHA.

My math teacher, Professor Guy, is really wacky. The funny thing is, I don't think he intends to be. He's like what Mr. Gander would be like once he goes senile, hahaha. Yea, it's pretty fun being in the class, other than the fact that I'm not really learning anything. But yea, this Dr. Guy has a lot of funny sayings and expressions. Recently, he said something like, "The function e^x can't be roughed up (meaning its derivative/integral is itself). It just sits there smiling at ya." Amit & I got a kick out of that. Amit took it to the next level and said, "yea, that e^x is a real bad@*$!" And ever since, we've been occasionally using that as our slang, like "yea, he's a real e^x." (Heh, yea yea, I know it's geeky; ask me if I care.)

But yea, we make up (or rather, I make up) slang a lot. I can usually get my closer circle of 5 to 10 friends to use my invented vocabulary, but it usually doesn't spread beyond that. My most widespread creation has been the term "scoobydoo." I'd say there are around 30 people who know the term. The phrase has different meanings, depending on its usage. It's pretty ambiguous actually- it can have both positive and negative connotations; it can be a noun, verb, or adjective (e.g. "That party was scoobydoo." "I got scoobydoo-ed by that test." "Man, that guy thinks he's the scoobydoo." "What's a scooby gotta do to get some service around here?" etc.). It's most common usage is as a term of comraderie: "Sup scoob?" which is rather fitting, cuz Scooby is a dau! I dunno, it's weird- I don't know why I started saying this one; I don't even LIKE "Scooby Doo, Where are You?" In fact, I hate it, but I love saying the phrase... weird.
(One of my more recent synonymous slang terms for scoob is "ninja," as in "What's up my ninja?" or "Where my ninjas at?")

*I'm starting to get some of my midterms back. I guess I didn't do as badly as I thought. On the statics test that I screwed up on, I got an 84, but the class average was in the 40-50 range, so I think I'll be ok. And I got a 100 on my aerospace test, but I get the feeling they might have misgraded it. *wink wink*

Ok, I just got prankcalled. Man, if it weren't for the fact that I'm usually up at this hour anyways, I would have been quite pissed. But seriously, geez, prankcalling is so immature! Grow up, people!

So I went "clubbing" last night... ummm, yea... bad idea. Ok, to clarify some things, I came to college with the idea in my head that I wasn't going to drink- what drinking I'd done had been done in Taiwan where it was legal, and that it wasn't gonna happen here in the states. Yea... everything goes out the window the minute you get to college. And it's not like I don't feel guilty about it- I do. I mean, I was in STAND in high school and had turned down alcohol many a time, but it's like the peer pressure is 10 times greater here or something, I dunno, hard to explain. I wouldn't say that the stereotypical college kid is an alcoholic but a binge drinker. But ok, here are my thoughts on alcohol: when used wisely and in moderation, it can allow you to have more fun than you typically would if you were sober. I'm reminded of the proverb used in Jackie Chan's Legend of Drunken Master: 水能載舟,亦能覆舟 "a boat can float in water, but also sink in it." Basically, there's a very fine line between using alcohol effectively to enhance your fighting ability (or dancing/partying ability, in our case) and just plain getting wasted. Tread carefully.

Anyways, going back to last night, I think everybody had just a liiiiiiittle much to drink. That's the most out of it I've ever been before- like beyond just not being able to walk. Here are some things to think about: Women CAN sexually assault men. Sexual assault is any contact of a sexual nature without the victim's consent (this includes unwanted kissing and groping). If you are under the influence of alcohol, you are unable to give sexual consent. Use of alcohol impairs your ability to fend off unwanted sexual advances. Ummm... yea... think about that... =/

Well anyways, back to more lighthearted things. I started to finally sober up when my group reached 6th Street (the clubbing district), but several of the others were only beginning to feel the effects. The majority decision was to forget clubbing and just go home, but Kent and I decided we were sober enough to have some fun. So we approach a club and get to the bouncers, and they tell me, "Sorry man, I can't let your friend in. He's too drunk." That happened at a couple more clubs before we decided to walk it off. We stopped at a convenience store and grabbed a gatorade (which I personally recommend as a way to help prevent hangovers) to rehydrate ourselves. Then we headed over to Paradox and they let us in, but there were literally only 3 other people on the dancefloor, so we decided to leave. Then we went to Platinum-X, which was a slight bit more happening. We chilled for a bit before Kent told me to leave him sitting down and go have some fun. So 10 minutes later, I go back to where I'd left Kent but he was gone. I made several frantic rounds of the club searching before it occurred to me to look outside. Yup, he'd been thrown out for being too drunk, hahaha. We decided to wander around a bit before going home. Not exactly the best night of clubbing I've ever had, but I still managed to have some fun.

I decided to finally investigate the pass/fail policy in depth, and I found out that I was eligible- test credit counts too. But yea, it was a close call cuz aerospace is one of the few departments in engineering that lets you take required electives pass/fail. Anyways, I changed my Intro to Western Music class to pass/fail, which is a humongous burden off of my shoulders. That was seriously my hardest class, no joke. You know, it's funny- the advisors are always like, "yea, take some fine arts or something. If you take just a bunch of technical classes, you'll get bored." But just like in high school, it's those frufru non-technical classes that I HATE going to and are hardest for me.

And I started piecing together my schedule for next semester, and quite frankly, I'm very depressed. Most classes are only offered in one time slot or something. Yea, so my MWF's are gonna be absolute hell: starting at 8:00 in the morning, and a total of like 5 hours of class with no lunch break. Geez, this sucks... a LOT, blehhhhh. =(

Ummm, in other news, I was signed up to be in the VSA date auction (held in conjunction with TASA, I suppose). But yea, I got an e-mail today saying they got too many entries, so I'd been rejected as an auctionee- prematurely ending a possible career as a man-whore, hahaha. I'm reminded of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo; that movie was classic. I'd rate it among my favorite comedies ever.

I'm going clubbing in a bit. I've never clubbed on a school night before. I guess this'll be like my litmus test for whether or not it's a good idea at all.

What's the deal with dining halls (& restaurants) serving food on absurdly hot plates? I mean, are they trying to keep the food warm? ...a little too warm, I might add. Or maybe they're trying to fend off bacteria or something. I dunno, what's wrong with plates at room temperature? Geez... grrrrrr, I'm quite bitter cuz I burned my finger on a plate of pizza tonight at dinner.

I was downloading Lilo & Stitch over Kazaa a sec ago... or so I thought. When I opened up the file, it was some crazy movie like "Embrace of the Vampire" or something... weird. Man, seriously, file misnaming is a pretty big problem on P2P networks I think. I really don't get the rationale behind it... I mean, the only reason that I can think of that you would intentionally misname something like this (...cuz I'm pretty sure there's NO way someone could confuse "Lilo & Stitch" with "Embrace of the Vampire") is that you don't wanna be caught (by the Feds? or the movie companies?) with a particular file. HAH! As if what we're doing isn't illegal enough already, hahaha! Yea, P2P networks- good stuff! =P But anyways, this little mishap cost me a significant chunk of my bandwidth for the week, blehhhh.

Feeling lost, feeling aimless... having one of those "the world depresses me" moments... life lacks direction, seems pointless... The world is lonely, I don't fit in here... no one understands... existential angst.

I'm lacking the motivation to get up (reasonably) early in the morning these days, so for breakfast I usually just down a nutrigrain bar in my room. But occasionally I'll still go to the cafeteria to eat. But the dining halls have a policy of: "after 9:00AM we serve 'continental' breakfast." I think that's supposed to mean that they can't (,or rather, shouldn't,) serve us like eggs, sausage, meat, and all the other good stuff. Now, usually, they're pretty cool about it, and will give it to you anyways. Heh, but Nien & I always joke about how we'd sweet-talk the senoritas behind the counter to get the hook up if we had to, hahahahahaha! But yea, today, I went in around 9:40 and they had the food for lunch already out & prepped. There was some tasty looking meat, so I was pretty excited, but then like the cafeteria manager or something sees me eyeing it and is all like, "That's not for you!" in a gruff voice. I'm like !?!?! (speechless) I mean, geez... why they gotta be such soup Nazis about it? It's not like it'd be a very big deal or anything. Geez... a growing boy's gotta eat, ya know?

There's a quiet air about the campus tonight since we lost the football game to OU. I mean, people here are pretty football crazy to begin with, but this is our big rivalry game, so it's especially significant. The entire city of Austin is pretty somber after the loss. They dimmed the lights on the tower; to give you a sense of the significance, the only other occasion I've ever seen the tower lights dimmed was in memory of September 11- yea, we're that sad.

In other news, my parents came down to Austin today. We had dim sum for lunch and steak for dinner. Mmmmmm... steeeeeaaaaaak. =P~~ (*drooling*) Yea, in addition to my sweet tooth, I've got a meat tooth, heh. But yea, they just don't serve good meat very often in the cafeterias here. And even when they do, it's a far cry from a real steak. Gone are the days of steak once or twice every week. =( That's gotta be one of the things I miss most about home. Seriously though, I don't get enough meat here; I can see/feel my muscle mass decreasing, blehhhh... I'm shrinking! =(

Aggghhhh... My ear has been stuck, unpopped for like 12 hours now- overnight. Geez... this is seriously distressing- it's like going partially deaf. Do you go see a doctor for this kind of thing or something?

*Man, I'd been downloading this file over Kazaa for like 2 days, and I had gotten about 500M/650M, and then the guy I was getting it from just up and logged off. Arrggg... it weighed so heavily on my mind that it caused me to have 2 dreams/nightmares about it last night, hahaha.

My dorm got a new fire sprinkler system installed (over the summer), so there's pipes running through everyone's rooms now. Ok, but I'll come back to this...

So anyways, when I first moved here, every once in awhile, I'd find these drops of brown gooey looking stuff on things in the room. It looked a LOT like caramel, and on many an occasion, I was very tempted to have a little taste just to make sure it wasn't. =P Well, I really had no idea what it coulda been; I theorized that it was probably spilled food or some odd form of bug guts or something. After awhile, I noticed that the "caramel drops" were occurring in the same places over and over again. It was kinda like in those movies where someone or something is hiding on the ceiling and other people walk in & out of the room and don't notice. Yea, it never occurred to me to look up. When I did, I noticed that the piping of the sprinkler system had gooey brown sealant on it, hahaha.

Man, good thing I never ended up tasting the caramel sealant, hahaha, I bet that stuff's pretty killer on the digestive system. Hahaha, I bet it's one of those products where on the can, it's got a warning, like, "Warning: do not ingest." And when you're looking at the can, you're thinking Man, what kinda idiot would eat this stuff? Well, now we know... hahaha! Man, dang it, what's with dangerous products looking like tasty foods? Heh, like I bet more than one unsuspecting kid has eaten that pink insulation stuff, thinking it was cotton candy... *raises hand* AHAHAHAH, naw, just kidding, I've never eaten insulation before... but I've certainly been tempted. Heh, seriously, my stomach's gonna get me into trouble some day.

I went to a meeting of the UT anime club today for the first time. No membership or commitment or anything; you just show up and watch whenever you feel like it. Anyways, it was pretty amusing- they just showed random episodes of different anime series. First, they showed an episode of Prince of Tennis. Parts of this were really hilarious, cuz the writer (and/or artist) seems to have little to no knowledge about the game of tennis. It's like, "Wow, I've never seen anyone ever pull a drop shot before!" Or like, this part in a flashback where they're thinking about this awesome player and trying to show off his amazing talent- they were trying to show him acing a guy to win his match, but if you pay attention it's actually a fault, hahaha. Funny little stuff like that. Heh, well, it was pretty amusing.

Next, we watched some of Ayashi no Ceres (Ceres: Celestial Legend). I didn't find it very impressive, but I've heard really good things from my friends about this series. Maybe it's cuz they showed an episode from the middle, and I had no idea what was going on.

And finally, they showed some Kodomo no Omocha (Child's Toy). Man, this series is absolutely hilarious. It's like the same oddball/wacky humor of Sailor Moon, but a lot more of it. The humor is just so unpredictable; it's like wtf??? But in a good way, you know? Hahaha.

Man, my sleep schedule is all messed up... I sleep late at night, and then the next day I'm tired and have to take a nap during the daytime. Then that night I'm not tired, so I can't get to sleep until really late. It's a vicious cycle...

You know how when people say they're "pre-med" or "pre-law," you automatically think in your mind that they're pretty hardcore? Well, I got to thinking... isn't pre-law just a crock of BS? I mean, with pre-med, there's the obligatory biology classes you oughta take if you don't wanna die later on. But for pre-law, there's like nothing that will particularly help you more than anything else. Like, you could be engineering, nursing, or even social work, and it wouldn't matter. So, I think from now on, I'm gonna be like, "Yea, I'm aerospace engineering/ pre-law." Heheheh.

*Note: I have no actual intention of going to law school, mind you.

dang it! I've got the munchies... and I just finished dinner like 30 minutes ago. Cursed food and its siren's call, agghhh.

My ears have been popping a LOT recently... nyaaaagggggghhh, annoying!

I've got a love/hate relationship with my computer. When it works, it's a real beast, but when it doesn't (as is frequently the case) it causes me soooo much stress. This computer has problems left & right. Ok, at first, it appeared to be completely defective, crashing like every 5 minutes, even in BIOS. I called tech support and they thought it was something to do with my power supply. So they sent me a new one, and I switched it out, but it still had the same problems. Then they told me to move my RAM board from one slot to another; after that, the comp was moderately functional. If I left it on for too long, it would occasionally lock up in Windows. The Microsoft recommended fix (downloading a new display driver) didn't work, but when I downloaded a new beta version of the driver fron nVidia, it seemed to fix it. Now, I occasionally get a message when the comp's loading up (in BIOS) saying I've got an FDC failure. I called tech support again, and they told me I'd have to send my computer back for them to check it out. I was like, "uhhhh... maybe I'll try it out some more to see if it happens again." And tonight, after tweaking with some of the hardware settings, I managed to cut down the boot time of my comp significantly by telling it not to search for hardware that I don't have. Unfortunately, something went screwy and it kept saying my LAN cable was disconnected. I tried like EVERYTHING, and finally, after turning it off & on about 20 times, it suddenly decided to work. *siiiiiiigh* geez... my comp causes me undue stress... =( Computers: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

I've spent the last 2 hours poring over my options for the rest of my college schedule. I came into UT with a hell of a lot of AP/test credit: 93 hours, by my last count. To put that into perspective, each year in college is approximately 30 hours, so if I chose to claim all my credit, I'd be classified as a senior. Unfortunately, most of this credit is worthless towards an engineering major, so I only have about 30 credit hours towards my degree. At any rate, this buys me about a year of free time, assuming I don't decide to slack off and that I'm gonna stay in college for 4 years (; which I intend to do, because that's how long my scholarship(s) last for).

Anyways, that's the nature of my dilemma: trying to decide what to do with my extra year. I really wanted to double major, but aerospace engineering is so incompatible with other majors. The closest things I found were B.S. Physics (Option IV: Space Sciences) and B.S. Mathematics (Option II: Applied Mathematics, or Option III: Mathematical Sciences), but doing any of those would mean a living hell for 4 years straight, not being able to take any other classes that interested me. I also looked into the qualifications for the liberal arts "Plan I" major, and I think that's a pretty viable option that wouldn't require a whole lot more work on my part. Also could look into a possible major in Chinese. But yea, it sure would be nice to put all those useless AP/test credits to some use.

*Also, I noticed that I started my last 5 entries with the word "man," hahaha. Says something about my conversational tendencies, doesn't it?

Man, I messed up while setting my alarm last night, accidentally changing the time of the clock instead of the alarm. =/ That's the chance you take when you use digital I suppose. Well, anyways, I woke up an hour earlier than I had intended to, so I ate breakfast for the first time in like a week and a half. The cafeteria recently introduced soy milk to go along with the traditional cow variety. I was pretty curious, thinking it'd be something like Chinese [doh-jiang], but alas, it tasted just like milk. The only discernible difference was the slight yellowish color. Man, the Americans have got the fake-milk thing down.

Man, I was just thinking about the art of human conversation and how formulaic it is. Like, a lot of times, it feels like you're just having the same conversations over and over again. In Intro to Western Music, we're studying Vivaldi, and since he composed all his pieces in a similar style, people say that he didn't compose 800 pieces, he composed the same piece 800 times. I think that's how human conversation is- like, we run through a similar process of inquiry and response over and over again. You can change the topic, but essentially, isn't it just the same formula?

And I got to thinking... isn't that the fate of mankind? For each individual to ponder the same questions about existence, to have the same thoughts & dilemmas? I bet like every thought you've ever had has at some point been through the mind of someone else in another place, another time. I don't think philosophical thoughts are unique to one person or another- it's more like some part of a collective subconscious or something. I dunno... it's hard to explain. Man, I feel like there's so much I wanna say, but I can't express it in words... *sigh* Oh well, I'm sure some more eloquent person out there has found a way to articulate these thoughts in my mind.

*sigh* man, I got owned on the statics test today. =( And I had such a good track record going in that class too- 100% on every single quiz to date. Before, I was all like, "yea, statics is like the only class I'm like 99% sure I'll get an A in," and then I go and suck it up. Blehhhh... Right before the test, I was talking to Allen, acting all cocky and stuff; I said, "Yup, time to separate the men from the boys." *sigh* I guess I'm still just a boy... =/

Man, laundry is such hell. I've gotten a bit smarter about it, so it doesn't take me all day anymore, but it's still a very time consuming task. And I no longer sit on top of the machine (im)patiently waiting for it to finish (; hah, I actually did that the first time- man was that silly, hahaha). But it seems like I can't be productive when I've got a load in the wash. There's always that feeling of something weighing in the back of my mind, like an unfulfilled promise.

And the laundry machines here suck too. The washing never removes any stains at all. Seriously, if it weren't for the fact my clothes are damp when I remove 'em, I'd think they weren't being washed at all. Geez... good grief.

Man, last night (or rather, early this morning) I finished my shower only to realize that I had forgotten to bring my towel. It was like, awww CRAP, hahaha. Yea, the only options that came to mind were: 1) to dry off with my dirty clothes and thus render my shower useless, or 2) to get my pajamas all wet. I decided to go with the latter option. It wasn't until afterwards that it occurred to me that I really had a third option: to streak back to my dorm, hahaha. It was really late, I doubt anyone would have been out in the halls at that hour anyways. Haha, naw, but seriously, I think I'm a little too conservative with my body to ever streak... But I do see how it could be quite exhilarating. =P

*In other news, I think my counter is busted. =(

**Oh yea, and this weekend was the second time I've been told I look like Chris Klein. hmmmm... seriously, I don't see the resemblance at all. But yea, I was discussing with a friend the other night about how you never see the resemblance yourself when people say you look like someone else. It's probably cuz you're too familiar with your own face to ever get it confused. I dunno... hard to explain.

In one of the stalls of our bathroom, there's some funky cryptic message in either a foreign language or some kind of code carved into the wooden door amid the usual obscenities. But I get the feeling it probably has its roots in like that goth/vampire worshippy stuff, cuz there are some goths in the dorm. I've got no real background in linguistics to speak of, but I think I'll make a goal out of translating it before the end of the year. It's unusual; maybe it's cuz it's an "honors" dorm or whatever, but only that one out of four stalls has any marks of vandalism. But anyways, back to the mystery message, one of the biggest clues I have is that the last word: (D, I, zero, sideways Star of David, !) vaguely resembles the word "DIOS" followed by an exclamation mark. The fact that that means god in spanish (and probably some other Latin-based languages) gives me more reason to believe the message is gothic in nature. And another word is a single character (a star), which I believe is "a"- either the indefinite article or roughly 'to' in Spanish. But, ummmm... yea, that guy from Disney's Atlantis really knew his stuff. This is gonna be tough...

I went to a dinner banquet type thing with Nien tonight for a Texas state representative running for reelection- Ann Kitchen. Well, it went alright I guess. I dunno where I stand in terms of politics. At times, there are a lot of things I want to see done/changed, and other times I'm very much apathetic. =/ I guess I just don't feel like a lot of the key issues hit very close to home at the moment. Things'll change, I'm sure... But yea, I think the Asian American population as a whole is generally quite inactive when it comes to politics. Which is a real shame because if we'd only unite and voice our collective opinions, I think we'd have quite a say in government. The hispanics and blacks got smart about it, and now politicians cater to their special interests. But I dunno... what is it that we would want? hmmm... that's one to think about...

*In other news, I got my first haircut here at UT today. There's a place on the Drag that cuts for $6.99. Yea, anyways, it was the quickest haircut I've gotten in my life. Seriously, the whole thing took like maybe 5 minutes... for the whole kit & kaboodle! And it wasn't half bad either; I was quite impressed. When I was paying, the lady seemed so surprised when I tipped her. I bet college kids are all cheap and don't tip, haha.

Okay, I've decided to do a fill-in blog, where I'll mention everything that I kept meaning to write about, but never did. (Needless to say, this is gonna be a really long entry.)

I got sick like right after getting to UT. Seems most of my friends did too. My brother says it's "freshman sickness" and that everyone gets it. I got over the worst part of it, but I've had this lingering cough. My brother had the same symptoms, and his cough lasted him the entire school year. Blehhh, hope that doesn't happen to me, but so far it's looking like it will. Just recently, the illness seems to have flared up again. Yea, I haven't been feeling well- I've skipped breakfast for three (school-) days in a row now, which is like totally unprecedented. =/ Yea... me, not hungry? That's a problem, haha.

The 1st floor Andrews bathroom has a phantom hand blower. You know, the thing used to dry off your hands. All hand blowers turn themselves off, but this one turns itself on too, and seemingly at random. Like you'll be sitting in a stall, thinking (/knowing) you're by yourself in the bathroom, and suddenly you'll hear the rush of air and be like, what the... It's quite disorienting. Yea, I'm not a big fan of the whole communal bathroom thing. I can't [concentrate] on my [business] when there are other people around, haha, to put it politely. Same goes for showers kinda; like back home, long showers were good for unwinding, but here, showers aren't relaxing at all. =/ Yea, contributes to my stress. But at least I'm taking shorter showers these days- as opposed to like my hour-long showers back home. (Ok, that's a slight exaggeration, but they were really long, as I've probably mentioned before.)

Ummm, I watched the entire anime series X/1999 the other week. Yea, that was my addiction for like a week. The story started off really really cool, but then towards the end everything was rushed and they killed off like everybody in 3 episodes. But it was pretty good overall; the protagonist, Kamui, ranks pretty high up there in my list of all-time coolest anime characters, heheh.

For awhile, there was a guy who made up an AIM screenname remarkably similar to mine and started messaging up some of my friends. Umm, yea, that was weird. Heh, I've been "Endy-ified" or "IceCooler-ed," hahaha (inside joke, I suppose). I don't know if they were necessarily posing as me, but it was odd that something like this would happen. I added the SN to my buddy list to [interrogate] them if I ever saw them log on, but I guess they've since discarded the SN. Oh well, works out better for me I suppose. Yea, so to clear up any possible confusion, I've only ever used one AIM screenname.

I started using Kazaa Lite recently, and it seems to work much better on my computer than the real Kazaa. I don't know what exactly was wrong (I bet it's cuz I got a bum computer), but whenever I ran Kazaa, it would crash any program that I tried to type in (excluding AIM). So I couldn't type in URL's, log-in to check e-mail, fill in text windows, or rename files in My Computer. Yea, quite the pain in the butt, but Kazaa Lite doesn't have this problem, so I'm quite pleased. And add to that the fact that they got rid of the pop-up ads, and you've got quite the sweet deal. I guess the only problem is that it's kinda against the user agreement for the original Kazaa. Heheh, oh well, not like they'd really ever know. =P

I was walking back to my dorm the other night and there was like a mannequin leg sticking out of one of those storm drains along the road. Haha, someone had obviously placed it there as a joke- it was hilarious. It looked really realistic too... I had to lift it up by the pant leg to be sure it wasn't a real human limb, haha. I was laughing so hard. I was walking with Minnie and she like freaked out- adding to my delight, hahaha.

Oh yea, and I kept forgetting to post up my class schedule:
ASE102 - Intro to Aerospace Engineering; W 10-11
M308M - Multivar. Calculus-AP-Engr Hon.; MWF 11-12
MUS302L - Intro to Western Music; MWF 1-2P, TH 1-2P
CH301 - Principles of Chemistry I; MWF 2-3P
EM306 - Statics; MWF 3-4P, M 5-7P
ME210H - Engr. Design Graphics: Honors (drafting); T 5-7P, TH 5-8P
PED105T - Beginning Judo/Self-Defense; TTH 10-11:30

Man, I only took Intro to Western Music cuz my brother said it's supposed to be easy, but apparently only his teacher (Gavito) is easy. I'm not doing so hot in that class right now. =( Sucks... I was looking into the possibility of changing it to a pass/fail class, but I heard that freshmen can't take classes pass/fail! CRIKEY! Arrrrgggg, I mean, it's not worth it to get a B in an elective, you know? Blehhhh, I guess I'll just need to study my butt off then. =/

Aw CRIKEY! I just spilled water all over my keyboard. Ummm... if it stops working sometime in the very near future, we'll know why.

Man, I spent like 3 hours frantically reading my textbook for drafting today, only to get to class to find out that nothing in the book was on the quiz. Yea, that sucked. And Lockheed Martin was holding an info session during my class, so I was like rushing through my work to get out of there and to the info session. In my frantic powerwalking, I failed to realize that I was headed for a patch of wet cement. Hah, yea, so my shoeprint will forever be enshrined outside the UT Alumni Center, heheheh. I guess you could say I'll leave my footprint here at UT, hah, ok, dumb pun.

But anyways, they told us to bring our resumes, so I had whipped one up that afternoon. Man, it was so piddly- it was only half a page long. It's frustratingly how nothing you did in high school matters once you get to college. No one cares about your SAT score or (former) class rank; no one cares that you were in dozens of clubs and extracurriculars; no one cares about your former prestige... nothing matters if it isn't directly pertinent. =( *sigh* Yea, science fair/research (related) stuff made up like half my resume for colleges, and now it's been reduced to like 3 lines- merely that I've got "former work experience" as a research assistant. And I doubt any aerospace company would care, since my research was about soil. =(

Anyways, I just got back from a showing of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at the Student Union. It was free, and they had food too, so it was hard to refuse. It was good for getting my mind off of things.

*They ended up laying tile over the wet cement, so no more shoeprint. =/