thanksgiving morning

Happy Thanksgiving!

Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Yesterday, Alexa and I went to the Hollywood and Highland Mall, on Hollywood Boulevard, where the Kodak Theatre and Chinese Theatre are. It was our "two of the few people left on campus making the best of it and having fun together" time.

And it really was fun! We wandered around and window shopped for a while, and I couldn't help but want to take a photo with this beautiful mannequin right here:


Question; am I fatter? My shoulders seem really really broad in this picture. It's kind of disconcerting.

...Anyway, I also had an Auntie Anne's pretzel, which made me extremely happy (maybe that's why I'm fatter, I love food too much).

It's the second Auntie Anne's I've had since coming back to America from Europe, so... yay! It still has massive novelty value. ^^

I'm going to a USC hosted Thanksgiving dinner at Parkside today, so I'll come back and tell you what that was like in the evening. [:

As for the moment, I must run and work on a some term papers.

A bientot!
x

an obscenely long post about birthday stuff and the DMV. and an obscenely long title to go with it.

That's the walkway down to the oceanfront at La Jolla in San Diego at high tide. I was so excited to see the ocean, as I haven't seen it in ages; furthermore, I've never seen the Pacific Ocean before. It's beautiful.

The people who went with me to San Diego were Rachelle (an American girl from New Orleans), Elie (short for Eleanor, another American girl, this time from a suburb of Washington DC), Jai (an Indian guy from India who's been living in Virginia near Washington DC for the past two years), Jason (my platonic soulmate, who you already know about), and Ivanna (my roommate, who you also already know about).

Here, this'll let you put faces to names:

From left to right, that's: Jai, Ivanna, Elie, Rachelle, and Jason.

We left campus early Friday afternoon, taking the USC-Union Station shuttle at 13h, and then catching the Union Station-San Diego Amtrak at 14h.

We arrived at San Diego around 16h30, and went to Jason's house; that afternoon and evening, we just stayed at his place, ordered pizza, watched stand up comedy, and relaxed.

On Saturday morning, we went out to this diner place for breakfast.
IT WAS INCREDIBLE!


I ordered something called the "Upside-Down Pineapple Pancake", and what was described on the menu as a "Huge, beautiful muffin fresh out of the oven". The muffin wasn't huge, nor was it especially beautiful, and it surely wasn't fresh out of the oven; but the pancake was simply breathtaking. That had to have been one of the best pancakes I have ever consumed, ever.
This diner restaurant thing was called "Beach Grass" or The Beach Grass or anyway, something along the lines of Beach Grass. I'd greatly recommend it to anyone planning to visit San Diego at any point.

During the main part of the day on Saturday, we went to La Jolla, which is the beach-like area in the photos at the beginning of this post. A lot of walking was done, heh, around beaches, parks, fields, that part of the town, and it was great. Oh yes, and; there's one part of La Jolla which acts as a tourist attraction, and basically people come to see...


The seals! I saw wild seals, finally, for the first time in my life! They were really very adorable, though for the most part all they did was lie there and sleep.

For dinner we went to a sushi place called "Tsuruya Sushi". Simply put, their sushi was some of the best I think I've ever had. THEIR SHRIMP TEMPURA! It was to die for.
I also, on top of the sushi (which everyone shared), had a "Dinner Combo". For this, I ordered Korean bulgogi, with a California roll. They gave me rice, salad, fried dumplings, and miso soup with that. I was extremely satisified afterwards, and then we ordered dessert! The desserts weren't amazing, but still very nice, and I must admit, rather cute.

^_^

Oh and ach, Jason paid for my dinner, even though I told him not to, he said (and these are his exact words), "NO! Michelle, you will not pay for your dinner at your birthday meal."

After dinner we explored downtown for about an hour, then went back to Jason's house.
We hung out for a while, watched more stand up comedy, played some Wii, blasted some Michael Jackson and sang and danced to it, then went to bed.

And on Sunday, we woke up and went back to USC.

By the way, quick side note;
Jason has one of the most beautiful houses ever. It's like it's straight out of one of those home modelling magazines. The interior is huge and extremely tastefully decorated, and the outside... Well.

I love his house.

So, that was my amazing weekend in San Diego. It doesn't sound like much here, but believe you me, it was fun. Oodles and oodles of fun. [:

Moving on to yesterday; my actual birthday!

I basically had a normal day of classes. Other than academics, though, the following things occurred:

- I donated blood (which I talked about in the post right before this one)
- I had lunch at Denny's for free
- I had a ridiculously good dinner at a Korean restaurant

The lunch at Denny's was great!
One thing I really enjoyed was a strawberry milkshake, which looked pretty and tasted good as well.

mmmmmh.

And then I had some sort of Grilled Rib Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich, which, after the blood donation, was great to eat. I could feel the blood regenerating in my bones, woohoo.

The most memorable meal of the day would have to have been dinner, though.
Jason, Ivanna, myself, Alexa, Cameron (an American guy from Massachusetts, sort of near Boston), and Akshay (I think I've mentioned him before? Well, if not, he's an Indian guy from India) went to what is advertised as "the best Korean restaurant in Los Angeles". It's called Soowon Galbi. It is indeed nice.

At this point in time though, I have to stop and once again, praise my wonderful roommate. I had no idea we were going to this restaurant until the morning of that very day, when she told me, "Hey, I know you love Korean food and really wanted to go to a Korean restaurant, so I found a place that we're going to tonight for dinner. It's supposed to be really good, I think you would like it." Ivanna had looked this place up beforehand and made a reservation to eat there, rented a car out, and everything. She's really thoughtful, I'm honestly blessed to have her as a roommate. We're planning on living together again next year too, since we get along so great. [:

Oh and before I continue; despite my vehement protests, Jason paid for my dinner. Again. His justification was, he has the money, so why not spend it on his platonic soulmate's birthday dinner?
"But Jason, you already paid for my birthday dinner!"
"No but you see Michelle, this is your real birthday. I'm going to pay for your dinner. You are my platonic soulmate. I want to. Okay?"

I had nothing to reply to that with. Poor Ivanna, she really wanted to pay for my dinner, so her and Jason were arguing over who would pay for me, haha! Jason won, I don't know what he said, but she at one point just goes, "alright, fine", puts on the grumpy face, and lets him pay.
haha!

I love the two of them, they're good people.

[:

At the restaurant, I ordered "수원 왕 갈비 (Soowon King Galbi)", 불고기 (bulgogi), 잡채 (japchae), and 돌솥 비빔밥(dolsot bibimbap). They didn't have dumplings, but it was okay; what I ordered ended up being more than enough for the six people who were there.

Oh yes and they gave us so many 반찬(banchan); it's been so long since I had a real Korean meal like that. What's shown in the photo below was only half of the banchan they gave us, the other half was on the other side of the table.

와~~~!

GALBI AND BULGOGI! FINALLY!

I was extremely joyous while cooking and eating these foods.

SO GOOD AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

:D

(By the way, this is Cameron. I taught him how to use chopsticks over dinner last night. :D ... Hmmm, I look very fat in this photo. Ah well. Tee hee ^^;)

The Korean dinner was so great. I was extremely happy.

And to top it all off, after that we went and had delicious frozen yogurt at the amazing frozen yogurt place next to campus, called "21 Choices". Last night, coincidentally, was Customer Appreciation Day, so they were serving yogurts for free. I got free frozen yogurt for dessert on my birthday!

Ahhhhhh happy. ^^

So that was the end of yesterday, my birthday, and the amazing Korean restaurant I ate at for dinnner, thanks to my lovely roommate and my wonderful platonic soulmate.

Today, nothing much to say. I ran for an hour to try and negate the extreme calorie intake from yesterday, and I'm going to run a lot this week, I think. Nothing better to do, everyone is gone from campus and I'm going to get bored from constantly studying and writing final term papers and such.

However, I did go to the DMV to get my California Identification Card made. My appointment was at 14h15, but I went early, just in case; and found out that when I have an appointment, I shouldn't arrive until 5 minutes before the appointment time. As it is, today I went to the DMV at 13h and ended up receiving a form and then being told to come back after an hour and ten minutes had passed. The form took me five minutes to fill out, and for the next hour and five minutes I listened to music and stood against a window that the sun was shining into really strongly; so in fact, I had a very nice hour at the DMV. My back was warm and I had good music, so no problem. It was sort of like being at a personal sauna, actually. I liked it.

At 14h10 I went up to the information desk, the lady gave me a number, and I started waiting. I thought I was going to be waiting to be called for an hour or so, but actually it was only twenty minutes. I gave the man at the desk my passport and my form, he fiddled around for a bit while I ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had brought with me, and then he gave me a 'receipt' and told me to go to the camera, get my photo taken, and then I was done!

So, off I go to the camera, where I waited for about ten minutes, and then the kind lady working at the camera place took my photo. When she saw the address I had written on my receipt, she said, "my goodness, you're a trojan!" and ran off for a bit. She came back and handed it to me, and across the top in big red letters, she had written, "FIGHT ON!" I laughed and thanked her, since she really was a very sweet woman, and then I was out of the DMV, at 14h45. If I had gone there at 14h10 like I was supposed to have done, then I would've been out in 35 minutes. Hence, I think from now on, whenever I want to do something with the DMV, I'm going to make an appointment online first. It makes everything much quicker and easier.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention! I am now a registered organ donor with Donate Life California, so if and when I die, my organs can be used to save someone else's life. It's really quite cool, in fact, that there's a program like that, and I'm more than happy to be signed up as a part of it.
Furthermore, I am now registered to vote! [:
I am trying to take full advantage of my status as an adult and contribute the 0.000000001% (or whatever it is) of influence I have on what happens in this nation.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY I AM AN ADULT.

Haha, how un-adult-like of me. Whatever, it doesn't matter. Everyone knows that if you love being a kid, you never really grow up inside. ^^

So, I'm supposed to receive my ID in about three weeks, which puts it around December 15th. That's perfect; I hope it arrives here before I head off to New York, because I'm not sure if the USC dorms accept mail and hold it for you over the Winter Break, since no one's going to be here. At least, that's what I think.

Hmmm.

Well, wow, at this point I think it's time for me to stop, before I develop arthritis from so much typing. That is all for now, my one avid reader, and I shall post more later, when more happens in my life!

toodles, xx.

birthday post

Today I am an adult by law.
23 November 2009;
Michelle Kwon has reached the age of majority.

I can now do the following without parental consent, as an eighteen year old resident of the United States of America.

I can vote.
I can own property.
I can obtain a driver's license.
I can serve on a jury.
I can buy cigarettes.
I can get a tattoo.
I can gamble.
I can buy lotto tickets.
I can get married.
I can get an abortion.
I can donate my body to science.
I can bear arms.
I can join the military.
I can be put into an adult prison.

But!
I cannot have a beer.

Heuh.

SO.
Considering all of those things that I can do now that I've reached the age of majority, what out-of-the-ordinary thing did I choose to do today?

In fact, I chose to donate blood.
Yes, ahm, on the 18th anniversary of my birthday, I hopefully gave a bit of life to some unknown person out there who needs it.
I was feeling altruistic.

It really wasn't bad at all, considering the things I've heard can happen afterwards; apparently, some people even faint. Eh. I felt slightly nauseated for about half a minute, then I just got up and nothing was wrong. They gave me some cheez-its and a bottle of water; I had that, then left. I wasn't even woozy, I just longboarded away and to my next class.

I actually felt really good about myself, during the whole process. It was sorta weird; while the nurse was putting the needle into my vein I kept smiling, and accidentally let out a chuckle at one point. She probably thought I was insane. Ah well.

Other things I've heard about blood donation is that you can 'feel' the blood coming out of you. However, I didn't feel a thing. And I understand that everyone is different, blah blah blah, but seriously, a lot of that must be in your head. I sat there and didn't feel a thing. I didn't feel like "part of me was being stolen", I didn't feel like "some of my body warmth was draining away", and I didn't feel like any part of the process was "creepy" in any way. These are things people in my classes told me. I didn't know about this beforehand, so I went in with no expectations or apprehensions - and felt nothing bizarre or strange. Just the pinch of the needle, of course, then a dull sort of soreness until it was over. Nothing more.

:P

The minimum physical requirements in order to be able to donate blood are that one be at least 17 years old and 110 pounds. I'm 18 years old today, and 128ish pounds, so I'm more than eligible for blood donation. Woohoo.

Anyway, the photo above shows the t shirt the Red Cross gave me for free as well as the bandage they put on my arm after I'd donated. I also got a coupon for a free ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery, which I suppose I will use one day in the near future.

Later in the day, a group of friends and I went to the Denny's across the street from campus, and I had my $10 discount on my meal that they give you on your birthday. I had an amazing sandwich with grilled rib meat, melted cheese, onions, and ahh it was so good! I also had a strawberry milkshake which was equally amazing :D .

Tonight, my friends are renting out a zipcar and we're going to what is advertised as "the best korean restaurant in Los Angeles". I'm excited! This is going to be the first time I'm having real korean food since starting school in mid August.

So;

YAY!

Alright, I'm off to get ready for dinner. I'll post again later, and tell you how San Diego was.
[:

San Diego, here I come!

I'm just saying this now quickly, I'm heading to San Diego in an hour and I won't be back until Sunday evening or early Monday morning. I'll take many photos while there and let you know how my birthday weekend went!

[:

receipt, fuzzy, and my schedule

Look what I found in the pocket of one of my sweaters that I haven't worn in ages; it's a receipt from the eating area at Assi Plaza in Flushing, Queens. It dates from 8 August 2009. I don't really know why I thought I would mention that, but I just found it to be interesting, and perhaps noteworthy enough to appear in this blog. I miss New York sometimes. I also miss Korean food sometimes. Heh. When I go back in December, I'm going to eat Korean food until I burst.

Anywho, that really has nothing to do with the main body of this blog post, I just thought I would mention it.













So first off, I'd like to discuss in brief, last Saturday. Fuzzy Festival 2009!

It was simply amazing. The music was great. There were a lot of DJs, and all of them were awesome, but the ones I remember for being particularly amazing were Thomas Gold, Le castlevania, and Showtek.

This actually isn't any of those people, but I thought this guy's shirt was pretty cool. Bahaha. So, I took a photo. :P

All in all, the night was wonderful. Great music, great atmosphere. Everyone was so happy, the happy feeling was contagious! And at a rave, no one really looks at how you dance when you're in the crowd, so everyone just did what felt natural to their bodies in response to the music. Like I said in a previous post, the bass makes me feel like I'm listening to the pulse of a giant, and dancing to that is amazing fun. ahhhhh yes. Booming house music in a crowded room of extremely happy people. Nothing quite like it.

Next: gosh. That post that I did about my computer battery reaching the end of its usable life?
Yea it turns out my computer wasn't kidding about that. My battery life has been reduced to about 45 minutes, and this value is rapidly declining. GAHHHH I emit noises of frustration at it.

As soon as I have enough money, I'm getting myself one of this, this, this, or this.

Windows 7 is having a deal for students where they can buy the OS for $29.99 before New Years, detailed here. I'm hoping that I can take advantage of that. *fingers crossed

The last thing I want to mention before I run and get ready for class is; HAHA my schedule for next semester is second to nothing in terms of awfulness.

My Wednesdays: start school at 9h, no break until 17h, and finish the school day at 20h.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
It's okay. I'll carry around food and coffee on those days.
It's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay it's okay. Yes.

The classes on there are:
CHEM-105BL; General Chemistry
BISC-220L ; Cell Biology and Physiology
MATH-125 ; Calculus I
CLAS-280g ; Classical Mythology (General Education, category 1)
FREN-220 ; French semester 3

... 20 credits.
I'm a masochist.

Alright, I shall post again later. For now, I really must run.
Later :]

meh.

I'm writing an essay, this will be extremely short but;
my computer just told me, "Your battery is reaching the end of its usable life."

... Ah great.
:P

quick post

I have class in ten minutes, so here's a very quick post;
I just wanted to say, that yesterday I think I accomplished a milestone feat in my life.
Yesterday, I was the most truly athletic that I have been, ever.
Woohoo I won't grow fat when I'm old!
Anyway, what happened was,
I got onto a treadmill,
and ran for the next hour.

Well, to be specific, here's what I did, in order:

5 minutes of walking
10 minutes of running
5 walking
5 running
5 walking
10 running
5 walking
5 running
8 walking
8 running
5 walking

So in total, it was an hour and a minute exactly.
Oh yes and by the by, each period of walking was 2 minutes of placid walking followed by 3 minutes of powerwalking.
The great thing about the treadmills here is that if you place your hands on a metal bar thing, it records your heart rate for you; so during the walking periods, I could make sure my heart rate didn't go too high. The display also helped me figure out at what rate I should breathe so that my heart and diaphragm don't start going into spasms.

I mean, this actually isn't such a strenuous run for the majority of people; it just makes me really happy because first of all, I've always been extremely unathletic, so I'm happy with myself for having worked my way up to this point, where I can powerwalk/run for an entire hour. I would never have been able to do that as little as three months ago. Hence, I'm proud of my progress, and pleased to see the tangible evidence that exercising is actually doing something to benefit me.
Furthermore, I always assumed that because of my asthma, I couldn't do anything athletic. This wasn't just a superficial belief, it was because every time I started doing something active, I would start wheezing and the asthmatic symptoms would come back.
Yesterday during that hour of running, I actually did not wheeze at all, and was able to even consciously control my breathing the whole time!

Even more than the act of running, that fact made me ridiculously happy.
I feel good.

[:

the Good, the Bad, and the Random.

I have some random stuff to discuss, which may be divided into the categories of GOOD, BAD, and RANDOM. Random, as is implied, denotes 'neither, but still of interest enough to be discussed in this post.'

When people tell me they have good news and bad news, the inevitable question that's always asked is, "Which do you want to hear first?"
My response is always, without exception, "the bad". So here goes, I'll tell you the Bad, then the Good, then the Random.

:P

THE BAD

My gums hurt! I have an inflamed spot on my gums under one tooth, here's a photo (as disgusting as it may be, at the very least I'm being informative, as that's the purpose of this here blog) :


The inflammation is really obvious, you can see it straight away on the left side of the photo there. Also, it's bleeding a tiny bit, which gets a lot worse whenever I brush my teeth. AHHHHHHHHHH MY TEETH ARE FALLING OUT.
Heh, kidding.

Well, my gums on that spot are revolting, and I'm hoping that given enough time, it'll go back to normal. I'm gonna intake as much vitamin C as possible >_>' .
This gum inflammation has made me realize that as soon as I'm working and have a stable income etc, I need to get some teeth pulled and my teeth straightened out. I think this inflammation, which is probably an infection, occurred because bacteria/microscopic bits of food got stuck between those two really crooked teeth (the one pushed really far back, and the one bulging out), which have literally zero space between them. So if something gets lodged in there, there's no way it's coming out. Some bacteria probably got stuck there and then worked their way down to my gums and attacked it. Ach. So disgusting. It hurts, itches, and is tender too! Ehhhhhh. Hopefully it doesn't develop into something ridiculous like periodontitis or... something along those lines. I'd like to keep my teeth, please and thank you. ^^

The next Bad Thing.
Some stupid kids in the building must've been drinking last night ("Thirsty Thursday", as it's called here, is party night at USC) and decided that it would be really fun to... Break some windows! Today, as a result, I got a couple of emails from USC saying, they have no idea who did it, but since this damage occurred in the New/North building (which, as an unrelated side note, is known as the party dorm), the cost to repair the windows ($1148 in total) is going to be split up amongst and charged to all of the building's residents. I mean, I suppose it's not that much per person then, probably about $20, but still, I'm not happy with the fact that everyone is having to pay for the mistake that a few stupid drunk kids made. Ah well. I have no idea who did it, and the people who did it definitely aren't going to take responsibility. Nothing I can do at this point, so I suppose ultimately it's better to just forget about it.

The third Bad Thing.
You know those two exams I studied for for three weeks?
Well, I scored less than the average score, on both of them. For Biology, just a little bit less, and for Chemistry, a lot less.
I don't know why I can't succeed. This is ridiculous. Okay, I'm not a genius, but I'm not dumb. I should be able to average a B, at least. What's going on??? Why is it that the other people here, who seem to party every night of the week, apparently are doing pretty well in school?
I get sick of this. I think at this point I won't be able to transfer anywhere either, as my GPA is too low. Maybe I'll just go back to New York and work for a year serving or something, save up some money, then go back to college at SUNY and start from the beginning all over again. And hopefully pass.
I hope I don't fail out of college this semester. I don't know how I'd move all my stuff back to New York on 17 December.
It's frustrating, because I know I shouldn't be complaining, it's no one's fault but my own that I'm not succeeding academically, but... I just feel like something is wrong. I don't even know what. Probably something to do with myself, and that's probably why I get so ridiculously frustrated. Because I should be able to change so easily, but I don't know how. Or can't. Or subconsciously don't want to? (as counter-intuitive as that sounds.)
AGH I'm going to have to stop contemplating this, I get really angry every time I start thinking about school and my performance.

*breathe*

Okay then.
Enough of the bad stuff, it's awful, now I'm in a terrible mood. Moving right along then, dear reader, let us discuss all the GOOD STUFF that's going on! :)

THE GOOD

First of all, this weekend, on Sunday, I'm going to see the Cirque du Soleil in Santa Monica! I know I've talked about this already in a previous post, but I just wanted to mention it again because I'm very, very excited for itt ^_^. I've heard so much about le Cirque, that now that I'm actually going to see it, I almost can't believe it. IT'S GOING TO BE AMAZING!!!
I will bring my camera and take photos, and post a couple on here so you can see the incredible, formidably awesome show that will take place, and what it was like. hehehehehehehe.

Next weekend, on Saturday 14 November, I'm going to another rave. I had so much fun at HARD, and it was such an amazingly excellent stress reliever, that if there's another rave for a reasonable price and I can a) find reliable transportation and b) get friends to go, I will most definitely be in attendance! The rave on 14th November is called The Fuzzy Festival; if you want to have a look at the website, it's right >>> here <<< . The line-up looks great, and it's not huge like HARD, but big enough to make for a good time; the venue fits 4000 people. HARD was 18000. I'm going with two friends who go to the California Institute of the Arts (I met them while they were visiting USC's campus), and one friend from USC. The friends from CalArts are a guy and a girl, and my friend from USC is a guy. Equal numbers are always good :) .
AHHHH FUZZY FESTIVAL WILL BE FUN AND GREAT AND AMAZING I LOVE RAVES!!!
I think what I love about raves specifically, is the music; when you're standing there and the bassline pounds relentlessly out of the speakers and through your chest, up your throat, and into your brain, it's like feeling the heartbeat of the Earth. I know that sounds kind of odd, but it's really true. At least, for me it is. So at a rave, I lose myself in the pulse of the music, and really, nothing else enters my mind while the music is playing. That must be why it's such a good stress reliever; everything gets washed from my consciousness for hours, leaving only that happy feeling you get when you haven't a trouble in the world, and can feel free to feel good.

Furthermore; I've made an appointment with the DMV, I'm finally going to get my California State ID made. Finally! So, at 14h15 on 24 November, I'm going to the DMV at 3615 South Hope Street (0.4 miles from my dorm, according to Google Maps) and filling out some forms and hopefully getting the process for creation of my ID started! Woo hoo!
However, I wonder what address I'd put on the ID? ... My dorm room? But then I'd have to get that changed at the end of the year... If I even stay here.... Heuh. Ach.
Well for now, I'll put my dorm room's address. I can always get that changed, whatever. It's not like it costs a fortune.
But ahhhhhhhhhhhh yes finally, I will have official identification that isn't my passport! I always felt a bit unsure about travelling around without any official ID whatsoever. And of course, I'm not going to carry my passport around everywhere with me. So yay for ID :) .

What else is good?
Ah yes, Jason and Ivanna have their permanent places of residence in San Diego. Ivanna saw that I had written "birthday" on my calender on 23 November, and now apparently I have to go to San Diego with them on the weekend before that, since I can't go home for my birthday. I think they're trying to get a lot of other people to go as well, but I have no idea what's going on with that. All I know is, they're being really very adorable and making plans to help me have a great birthday weekend. Sweeties. I love having friends :) . And, haha, I love Ivanna. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but I got really lucky; Ivanna's an awesome roommate, and we get along really well, she's definitely one of my better friends at USC now. So I'm thankful that I met her, and that we got put in the same room. If I'd been roomed with some of the other girls in this hall, I can tell that it would've been a miserable year for me. But Ivanna is so similar to me, that living with her is just so ridiculously easy; it's great. So she's really excited to get me down to San Diego to meet all of her friends, who she says are cool and who I would like. Hehe.

^_^

Ah, the good stuff makes me happy. Yes. And I believe that that is all for the good, at least for the moment, so now I'll move on to the Random.

THE RANDOM

Interesting background info before the story of Random:
USC thrives on three-letter acronyms. Every building has a name and a corresponding three-letter acronym that it will be referred to by. This makes for anextremely confusing first week of school, as us confused new students struggle to locate buildings whose names we try to decipher things like "RRB", "RTH", "JHH", and "NCT". The buildings in which I have class are SGM, THH, ZHS, WPH, VKC, SAL, SLH, and sometimes BOV. The funny thing is, after enough time at USC, people come to know all of these acronyms, and they roll off the tongue easily. And when you say them to another Trojan, they will understand you perfectly, and know which building exactly you're talking about.
ANYWAY. "EVK" is the three-letter acronym for "Everybody's Kitchen," the dining hall right below my Dorm building, which by the by, is called New/North. Today I was at EVK for breakfast, and one of the food options they were serving was quiche lorraine. I always think of quiche lorraine as, you know, quiche lorraine. Simple. But when I looked at the little label they attach to all of their foods, it read, "Lorraine Quiche". And I know that in English, that makes grammatical sense, but I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous that sounded. I mean, that sounds like a quiche that has something to do with someone named Lorraine. Maybe, made by someone called Lorraine?
... I have other ideas, but I won't mention all of them here.

Ho hum.

Oh yes and another Random, last thing before I go. I have biology lab sessions every Thursday morning, and yesterday morning we did dissections of various organisms. We dissected a perch (normal fish), a bullfrog, a lab rat, a dogfish (which is a kind of shark), and a lamprey (a parasitic leech-like fish with a skull but no backbone! How interesting, right?). It was really very fun, except it was so sad cutting up the rat. I love rats. I actually couldn't look when Brian, one of the people in my lab group, opened up the rat. It was awful. Poor rat. Why not use a mouse, eh? Why a rat??
Bah but then we get into the whole debate of why do animals of higher intelligence have more rights than those of lesser seeming cognitive ability? So I guess in the end I shouldn't have felt bad, but... still. Poor little rat. I love rats.
ANYWAY, the point of this bit was just to say, we did a lot of dissection and I had fun! I love dissections.

:D

Alright, whew, that's definitely enough for this post.
I shall blog at you again later ^^

HARD

Here's a quick post before I go eat breakfast.

I'm sorry I didn't post all of last week, I was incredibly busy. For the past three weeks I was studying for two exams I had on Thursday and Friday. After that experience, I realized that I shouldn't waste so many hours every day studying when the best I can do is pray that I pass anyway. So henceforth, I'm going to try and balance study, sleep, and relaxation time. Because up until HARD, I had been stressing out really badly; my skin quality completely deteriorated and I was running on fake energy derived from caffeinated drinks, because I was stressed and wasn't sleeping. So from now on, I'm just going to spend a reasonable amount of time studying, maybe two hours a day, then just relax and sleep. Otherwise I'm going to fail out of college, and that would be really very bad.

Anyway, that's what I was doing last week. Yes, I know, uneventful. Well, life can't always be fun and games, can it?

HOWEVER.
Saturday evening was the ultimate, best stress reliever I have ever, ever experienced.
HARD HAUNTED MANSION 2009!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I think that evening, I had one of the best times of my life.
If you have a look at my youtube page, I've posted some videos I took during HARD that you can have a look at. Oh yes, and here's a photo of my costume, which I rather like.


So, from left to right, that's Ivanna, myself, and Alexa.

THE NIGHT WAS SO MUCH FUN!
It was ridiculous, eight hours of music, and really really good music at that. Ivanna was somewhat reserved, but Alexa and I just went crazy because we were so happy. She (Alexa) is also a science major and had been having the same stresses as me, so when we finally cam to this rave, we were both hysterical with joy and suppressed partying energy. :D

Excellent night. Excellent, excellent night.
Oh but apparently, while we were gone, our American football team went and played an away game at Oregon and lost miserably. Twenty something to seven, apparently.
Ouch.

Anyway, I'm going to go eat lunch now, I'll write more later when I think of more stuff to talk about :) .

A bientot, mes amis!

Happy Birthday, Albert! ^^

Happy Birthday, little brother. :)