I just purchased 8 new CDs, and I'm extremely psyched about them.
Yes!
Back when I was a little kid and my family went to Disneyland for vacation, I was very afraid of roller coasters, especially the ones with big drops. So even though Splash Mountain isn't a roller coaster in the standard sense, it was probably the ride I was most scared of when we went to Disneyland. The worst part was always right before the big drop, when you're on your boat going up for what seems like an eternity. And you know that the higher you go, the longer you're going to be dropping. The peak of the low, if you will, was right when the boat in front went down and you could see them falling oh so quickly. They always survived of course, but that was never any comfort to me.
Today, I found out that all the third years passed their written prelim exams. In a sense, I am now in the boat on Splash Mountain, nearing the top and getting that familiar, sick feeling in my stomach. True, I have just witnessed my friends a year above me survive their drop, but that isn't too much consolation for me. At least I have a year to study.
I had a great birthday yesterday. Tiff came down for the weekend (well, for Saturday, basically) and I had a really fun water balloon fight party with my friends yesterday. There were 15 people over at my house throwing water balloons at each other for a couple of hours. It was awesome. My idea of having a "seige" style with attackers and defenders even worked out pretty well. A friend of mine brought a pirate flag that we used as the thing the attackers were supposed to capture. I guess the system was a bit imbalanced since the attackers won each round, but it wasn't a big deal. After all, the main point was to throw water balloons at each other!
For next year, it'll be important to get more water balloons (something like 1000) and get only the cheap ones. The more expensive ones can be filled with more water, but they don't shatter as easily when they hit someone! Either that or they shatter the instant you throw them.
Saturday night was good too. Tiff and I went out to eat at a nice Ethiopian restaurant close enough that we biked there. I give the place two thumbs up! Especially for the price you pay.
Today was a pretty good day too. Unfortunately, Tiff had to leave early in the morning, but I got a couple of hours of work in at the lab around noon. Then, for Anime night, Eric and I made a good quesadilla dish from a recipe book my Dad got me for my birthday. Plus, the anime was pretty good too!
On the todo list: buy a nice foam mattress and wood bed frame to go along with it; read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix; buy a VCR; get windshield on my car replaced.
Here I am, posting again with very little to say. I've been kinda stressed lately about the prelim. The prelim that I'll have to take in a little under a year from now. So I really shouldn't be stressed about it at all yet. Nonetheless, with my friends a year above me dealing with it recently I have felt the impact.
It's been a great trip so far. Unfortunately, my flight out of here leaves at 7pm, so I haven't got too much time left. I really do enjoy Berkeley. It's definitely a place I could see myself being happy at in several years. Of course, that's way down the line.
I'd say I'm about 50% done with my homework. However, I'm not particularly worried about it. I may work on it on the plane a bit, I might work on it after I get back in town, or I'll get as much done as I can tomorrow morning before I have to turn it in. It's just homework, after all.
I'm in Berkeley for the weekend, visiting Tiffany. So far it's been great. Once Tiff wakes up from her deep sleep we're going to go out for dinner. Maybe Nepalese food. Maybe Indian. We'll see.
After a quick check of my cell phone plan, I realized that receiving text messages is in fact NOT free. Each message costs something like a dime, which isn't so much, except that I've probably been getting something like 20 a month for the past several months. That's still not a whole lot of money, but it irritates me that I didn't know about it. The bottom line here is that I disabled the aim feature where I receive instant messages on my cell phone.
While watching the US Open has led to the joyful experience of seeing great tennis, it has also meant enduring one particularly asinine commercial related to Andy Roddick. The commercial is for American Express, but the only way you know that is from the AE logo being plastered all over the set. The premise behind the ad is that people have been saying that Andy has lost his mojo, and that's why he's been doing poorly lately in tennis. So the brilliant people in the AE advertising department came up with the idea of having some person give a press conference as "Andy's mojo" and defend Andy by saying things like "If Andy has lost his mojo, then what am I doing here talking to you guys right now?" and "Andy told me, 'mojo, I'll be seeing you in practice tomorrow morning!' Like I said, the commercial is retarded. It's even more ridiculous in light of Roddick's departure from the US Open in the first round.
I'll make a rare Sunday post. I played well at times and shitty at other times. That adds up to busting out in ninth place on this night. Naturally, I'm talking about poker. As if I do anything else that's interesting. Or think about anything else that's interesting either.
Ok, one other thing. I'm watching the US Open tennis tournament when I can. I saw the end of the Taylor Dent - Lleyton Hewitt match. It was fantastic -- a great demonstration of athletes going all out to achieve greatness. I was rooting for Dent, since he was the underdog, but I actually like Hewitt's style. When reporters question his ability to play by asking things like "How are you able to maintain your confidence level when you consistently lose to Roger Federer?", he responds by saying something like "Well, I guess that's why I'm sitting here and you're sitting there." Reporters asking athletes dumb questions is a major irritation for me. I'm guess Hewitt feels the same way!
Played ultimate on Sunday and last night. Will play ultimate tonight and tomorrow evening. That's four times in one week! Now that we play poker on weekend nights I have an extra weekday night free, which is actually quite nice, I'm discovering.