Awesome Match, Andy!

Andy played so well today, I was just amazed! In the beginning of the tournament I never would’ve thought Andy would be able to beat someone like Djokovic. But man! Good job on all that hard work and weight loss in the off-season. He didn’t even seem like he needed to lose weight but his physique is impressive. He was very springy whereas Novak had a hard time standing up and walking to the service line. The court temperature reached 131 degrees F! And on top of that, their running around increases their body temperature. It’s incredible to be able to perform in that kind of condition. And it’s what caused Novak to retire this match, so the final score was 6-7, 6-4, 6-2, 2-1. Andy’ll play either Federer or Del Potro in the semis. Give it your best Andy!

 

Visiting Sanger

I’m at my parents’ house this weekend. Monday is Chinese New Year. It’ll soon be the year of the Ox. It’s raining a lot here and I heard a lot of loud thunder. It’s too bad that we can’t play tennis especially since I got my new racket. I just ate a complete foot-long sub. o_o I’m so full that I’m getting sleepy.

 

It’s been so long!

Yes, I know I haven’t blogged for like 3 months. After coming back from Japan, I have been super busy at work, putting in a lot of overtime. Actually, my whole team was doing over time so it wasn’t so bad. I have some short posts offline from my trip to Japan. I’ll try to upload them later and include some pictures too.

Yesterday, I caught some of the inauguration on the live streaming websites, but I couldn’t watch all of it at work since I had work to do. I’m excited for our new president! I don’t think changes will come fast but I’m still optimistic even if improvements are slow.

This week the Australian Open started. It seems like I’m more likely to blog when I’m watching tennis. Well, I don’t usually watch the first week of matches.. I’ll try to catch some replays on tv. Next week will be exciting. I read some article that said some people think that Murray is favored to win this one… and I’m thinking “WHAT? You’re kidding…” Who knows, maybe I’ll wrong, since I don’t know much about Murray’s tennis, but it seems like the focus should be on the top 3 right now. I have not heard anything about a potential underdog, but then again, I am not that up-to-date on what’s been happening these few days. I hope that Nadal won’t be troubled by tendonitis, and that Federer maintains his composure. I’m excited for what’s to come!

 

It’s halloween but…

This year, I did nothing for halloween. I’ve been very busy getting ready for my trip. I guess I must’ve procrastinated, since it seems like everything is so last-minute.  Tomorrow I’m leaving for Japan! I’m so excited!

 

I feel lighter :)

I got a haircut yesterday. I saw a barbershop when I was downtown walking to my car, and I decided to give that one a shot. The lady was nice and she had a movie on (“The Great Debaters”) while she cut my hair. We talked a lot so I didn’t really pay attention to the movie. I asked for 3 inches to be cut but she cut more than that. It’s pretty much shoulder length now. But at least she did what I wanted to it. I just wanted long layers and to have it thinned out, the latter one more important. Also she gave it a wispy look towards the bottom and I kinda like it. The only problem is, it looks uneven if I don’t completely straighten my hair (like today).

 

A Big Silver Lining

So, today didn’t start off well. I woke up a little before 7am, and did my morning routine of getting dressed, straightening my hair, packing my lunch, eating breakfast, and then driving to work. After exiting the 680 in San Ramon, I got pulled over by a cop on supposedly running the red light. My car was completely in the intersection when the light turned red, but whatever.. I’ve been researching and it seems like the law says if a car is already in the intersection when the light turns red, then it is not a red light violation. So, I’ve already decided to fight the ticket! :) I already wrote the details down right after I got to my computer at work. Anyways, so back to the time of the incident.. I made a left after exiting the 680. A second later I see the police officer turn on his lights. I don’t think its called ‘lights’ but I don’t know… there was no siren or any kind of sound. I thought there would be, and that he would give me directions of where to pull over, but he didn’t. I was close to work, and I was feeling embarrassed thinking about my coworkers seeing me pulled over by a cop. It’s good that I know the area pretty well. I led the officer to a parking lot of a small business that is blocked by a lot of trees. It was kind of early in the morning so my mood was less stable… I had to be careful of how I reacted. The officer handed me a notice to appear for court. This was my first time pulled over by a cop, so I was surprised that I didn’t get a ticket with a dollar amount. This ordeal only took about 8 minutes. I quickly left after he handed me the ticket, and as I was heading into work, I kept thinking, “is this a dream?”, because it really felt like one. I remained pretty calm during the whole thing.

Being the routinely creature that I am, one would think that I would get really stressed about this kind of thing, and dwell on it for a long time. But, I didn’t! I’m surprised myself. I only spent about an hour writing all the details down and researching the traffic laws. After that, I went on with my day as I had intended. I’m working on a small GUI application for my team and I’ve been really into it. So, thanks to my super enjoyable work today, I was able to forget about the traffic ticket.

Tonight I wasn’t sure if Joseph was going to call me to hang out. I doubted it though, since he didn’t mention it. Kanako and I had a cooked dinner and wine and watched some tv. I’m cooking to save money now! The economy isn’t pretty, and I need to save some more money for Japan, so… COOKING. Tonight’s dinner plus tomorrow’s lunch costed $3.19. It was cheap because the ingredients were cheap: tofu, sweet bell peppers, green onions, and mushrooms. I just threw them all in a pan and stir-fried the heck out of them. I threw some soy sauce on and it tasted good and looked good too (colors: green, brown, tofu-beige ;P, orange, and red). After dinner, we decided to watch a move and I suggested a Korean movie called “My Sassy Girl”. My co-worker (and ultimate frisbee organizer! ^_^) lent it to me and I really liked it. Kanako liked it too.

Overall, I had a great day despite the bad start.

It’s midnight, and I’m really sleeeeeepy now. Goodnight!~

 

Japan

I’ve been pretty busy lately. Work is good, I have fun things to do. Currently I’m creating a utility program as a sort of side project for my team. I like these kinds of things. Also I’m learning how to use Swing to create GUI’s! Anyway, enough about work.

Next month, I’m taking a 2 week vacation in Japan! ^_^ I’m so excited! I’ve been planning it little by little. I’ll be staying at my roommate’s home in Tokyo for most of the days. For 4 days, I’ll be visiting Kyoto so I’ll probably look to stay at a Japanese style inn (ryokan). I need to remind my self to buy a small dictionary and a phrasebook… I know I’ll need it. I have been practicing my japanese though, I think it will be hard when using it in reality.

 

Words That Are Difficult to Pronounce

I’m starting to study Japanese again to prepare for my upcoming vacation. Whenever I study another language I always compare it to English. In the case of Japanese, it’s pronounciation is much simpler than English’s. For instance, I always have difficulty saying ‘rural’. It’s easier to say it by itself but in a sentence, it becomes ‘rrral’. Luckily, all of the times I’ve used this word, I was understood.  Also some words with consonants next to the ‘th’ are hard. Like ’sixth’. Anyway, even though spoken English is sometime hard, writing it is so easy, since we only have 26 letters of our alphabet. Writing Japanese is hard because of the Kanji (Chinese characters). I’ve always wanted to learn to write Japanese though, because it looks so pretty and cool. Haha… I guess it’s a superficial reason to learn a language.

 

Bad Monkeys

I just finished reading this book called Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff. A friend from work lent it to me. I think it’s labeled as a psychological thriller. Probably the first of it’s kind that I’ve read. Anyway, it was an interesting story and a pretty good read! It really made me think a lot about what was happening, trying to figure out what the reality of it was. I’ve now learned that these kinds of books are fun. I don’t know of any other books or authors like this though.

 

Weekend Support

For both Saturday and Sunday this past weekend, I was on support. I just had to be within 20 minutes of my computer, so that if I get a call to fix a high severity defect, I would be able to get to it quickly. Fortunately, I didn’t get any call this weekend.

I had lunch and dinner with Joseph on Saturday. We had Jenova’s Deli for lunch and Nama Sushi for dinner. Other than that, we didn’t really hang out.

On Sunday, I didn’t have much to do so I spent about 3 hours cleaning my room and bathroom. I even when through and reorganized my clothes. It was a good idea because I found clothes that I didn’t even know I had. I have to remember to either get rid of the multiple boxes in my room, or unfold / flatten them and save them under my bed. The space in my room is already limited as it is.

During the weekdays, my team is working on shifts. So for this week, I’m on the early shift, which is 7am to 4pm. Luckily this isn’t really different from my normal schedule. Next week I’ll be on the 11am to 8pm shift.