Crash

So for the past three weekends I have had at least some sort of automobile accident. Three weeks ago it was fender benders on each end during a snow excursion. Last week it was swiping someone at a gas station. This week it was me on my bicycle crashing into this man's pimped convertible. He was so pissed, I swear he was going to kick my ass. But the guy was just too angry and then he jerked his hand and said "go - just go," and I hauled my ass out of there. Now my knee hurts, but I'm not complaining

This week is just awful. I have exams today and tomorrow, and I am constantly sleep deprived. This past weekend I went on a Rebuilding Together project, and while I got a free t shirt and a free lunch, I shredded my muscles landscaping. We had to weed and uproot the entire front lawn for eight hours. I voluntary got up at 6:45 am (the night before I was at the "amazing" Viterbi Engineering Ball until 2:45) to go and upend a front lawn. But it was worth it because now I can say that I've "landscaped," plus I have the sore muscles to prove it

I know, I haven't updated in a while. I guess because there's nothing really to update much. I continue to acquire a vast music collection. I am currently listening to Sufjan Stevens' The Avalanche, and I finally succumbed to peer pressure and got the Colbie Caillat cd CoCo. Yesterday was the Academy Awards, and I was severely disappointed that Enchanted (the soundtrack which I actually purchased, hah) lost in Best Song to "Falling Slowly" from Once. To be fair, that soundtrack is phenomenal, but I would have still loved it if "That's How She Knows" won or something. And who knew that Jon McLaughlin - "So Close" - was so attractive? Certainly not me

Anyways, I need to continue reading and studying for quizzes and such. I'll post sooner, I promise

Blue Screen Of Death

Currently listening to - "Time" Timbaland feat. She Wants Revenge

Oh man. What a weekend. President's Day did NOT disappoint. Over the course of the weekend I went to a basketball game, tour of an aerospace company, loafed around, and homework of course. And I got into another car accident. God. I scraped this lady's car and she was understandably upset. Thankfully, after I pulled over and explained to her that I was completely at fault and that I would definitely own up to it, she calmed down, even telling me (in a rather matronly way) that I should be more patient. Maybe I should make her some brownies or something

Sheesh. Talk about the wheel of fortune. The moment you are riding a tremendous high, everything comes crashing down, only you emerge from the ashes, relatively unscathed but nonetheless very perturbed

Recent Activity

Soooooo three day, President's Day, holiday weekend. Glorious. THANK GOD. That means I can fuck around (not that way) on Saturday and not have to suffer the consequences the next day. But the weekend is pretty epic. The schedule pretty much looks like this -

Friday: Go to work and do things mundane to the common civil engineer but are incredibly interesting to the intern. Die in rush hour traffic. Purchase blank cds to encourage my ridiculous music habit. Eat PB&J for dinner. Go out with friends to UCLA to stir up trouble. Just kidding, we went to get frozen yogurt. Watch movie on laptop. Collapse on bed from exhaustion

Saturday: Go to beach for clean up, a requirement for Date Auction. Meet people from SWE. Pick up bottle caps and cigarette butts, but stay clear of the syringes and condoms. Realize it's a warm day and you're on a southern California beach, one of the best places in the world. Go for brunch in a restaurant reminiscent of the Rosarito restaurants (with the prices to match!). Have lots of fun. Spend time writing on blog (right now). Go to gym afterwards to burn off 5000 calories ingested from the "Baja Burrito." Be a Rock Star while drinking wino and cavorting to 21 Choices in Pasadena. (MAYBE) Stand in line for the UCLA USC game the next day

Sunday: Stand in line for USC UCLA game. Watch USC UCLA game

Monday: Attend Northrupp Grumman's Shadow Day (out of curiosity). Have meeting for E-Week boot camp

Yes, E-Week is next week! Finally! I need to send a reminder to our supplier for the liquid nitrogen ice cream, as well as purchase supplies and make sure everything is organized. I'm really excited for the whole thing, especially because this is the first time that I've been so actively involved in its coordination. And of course, yours truly is being auctioned for the Viterbi Ball this Thursday. That should be interesting. For the event, we were supposed to choose three songs to be playing while we are being auctioned

Lily's three songs that she is being auctioned to -

1. "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" also known as the Kill Bill theme song
2. "Sensual Seduction" Snoop Dogg. Because apparently sex sells
3. "More Than A Feeling" Boston. Guitar never sounded so good

Runners up - "Danger Zone" from Top Gun, E-40, "Good Life" Kanye West, "Relax Take It Easy" Mika

I'm pretty excited. Not only because I'll get to go to the Viterbi Ball for free, but because I'll have a date!

Valentine's Day was on Thursday. It was nice. I went out for the first time ever with my friend. We ate burritos (very romantic) and saw a bunch of couples walking around holding hands. It was nice

If you can, download Timbaland featuring She Wants Revenge "Time." It'll blow your mind. Anyways, I'm out to the beach now. Live the good life!

Outlook Express

Grooving to: "Sunday Morning" K-Os

Happy Valentine's Day! I have one love in my life - my incredible music collection

I consider myself a very lucky person. Lately there's been a million things happening to me that at the time just made my life look like the embodiment of Murphy's Law, but somehow everything turned out okay. For example, the two fender benders in the course of twelve hours. No one was hurt, and even better, the situation has been calmed. And in another case, I thought I had lost two hundred dollars for the sorority (and would have to pay for it out of my own iPhone pocket fund), but I ended up finding it (so the fund is still intact). Two days ago, I thought I would absolutely die from the homework and obligations that I still had to do (I was and still am carrying around a receipt with a massive sixteen point To Do list on the back), but I managed to survive that, and tomorrow / today is my last school day for the week, so I can relax

Maybe I'll sneak onto campus and watch 27 Dresses using the computer's fast T3 ethernet to satisfy the romantic in me

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. As I mentioned, I've been running around completing my To Do list on my receipt. A couple of the things I have had to do (as read from the list): buy shampoo, Valentine's Day Cupid gift, return Smart and Final, clean car, clean room, laundry, return brother's snow pants, Arup homework, mail letter, you get the picture. But I do have some highlights

Let's see. The sorority is going well. I try to run a tight leash, but not too tight, and I've been getting positive response from everyone. There's still the drama regarding the class naming thing, but the active members have already voted and are done with it, so all the alums can do is bitch and moan about how we "disrespect" them, which we DON'T because we have done nothing wrong from the constitution and the bylaws. We are having a plethora of events. Tonight a bunch of us went to In & Out for dinner (in the golden land of southern California, I&O is king). This weekend we are going shopping (I will not be there, but instead will be cleaning beaches and scrubbing sand). Then on Sunday we are going to the basketball game with Sigma Phi Delta, which I am really excited. We're playing UCLA! But our starting point guard may be out for the rest of the season. The game starts at 7:30. I'm getting in line at 5:15.... but I may go earlier because I hear that people are

Now listening to Simple Plan, Simple Plan. Yes, the newly released album. And I actually like Simple Plan! "Welcome To My Life" is my anthem. Their new album is actually pretty good. The cover is downright hot. "Your Love Is A Lie," which I'm listening to right now, is a royal musical mess though, sampling hip hop, country, and pop beats

Next week is the uber-cool Engineering Week! This is the first semester that I am pretty involved in its organization. Since I'm president of the sorority, I have to go to Viterbi Student Council meetings. We are doing a liquid nitrogen ice cream event with another organization on Wednesday and on Friday. On Wednesday, the event is for the school and on Friday, the event is for 300 confirmed middle schoolers coming to develop an interest in engineering. There is no way that we are going to be able to make enough ice cream for 300 people. But it'll still be there

OH. For Engineering Week, the council throws a formal dance party at a secret club, and YOURS TRULY (me) is going to be AUCTIONED as a DATE. It's being thrown by the Society of Women Engineers, and the whole thing is to raise money for charity. You can find the link to all the auctionees here . Yes, that is me at the top. Try not to laugh too hard, my (male) friends have been snickering for the past week and a half. At least I get a free ticket to the Viterbi Ball wheeeee. God

Okay, I'm done, I'm going to finish listening to Simple Plan and then hope to have a simple rest of the week

Log Off

Album in situ: Gorillaz, D-Sides
Last album listened: (tie) Kate Nash Made of Bricks; Step Up 2 OST
Songs on playlist: "Is It You" Cassie; "Nobody's Perfect" Hannah Montana

I finished a linear circuits lab today, with minimal help from the electrical engineers. The labs involve one of the scariest, foreign things known to man, the proto-board. It's this huge white board with about five hundred holes lined up in them, and you have to attach wires and maintain voltages and attach resistors. The whole concept of parallel and series becomes confusing and in short, whack. But my BME friend and I were able to finish it between each other, although she admittedly did more work. I'm learning though, so give me a break

Man, the weather is perfect. At least seventy degrees again today, and it's supposed to be winter. This reaffirms why I'll definitely be staying in southern California upon graduation. What, Northern California is my home? Unlikely. The weather is unimpressive. If this weather maintains, then I can definitely hit the beach this weekend

Ugh. Today was also quite unimpressive. I have a monster to do list (at least ten to-dos) and I've done probably four of them. But I'm determined to get through most of them

Speaking of unimpressive, yesterday's Grammys was whack. I mean, Herbie Hancock? Are you serious? The LA Times said it perfectly: "What, did Amy and Kanye's voters cancel each other out?" Both of them KILLED their performances. Especially Amy. That is true talent. And who knew that was really Daft Punk? I didn't. But they looked good. And "Hey Mama" is always a good song. I'm a huge fan of Kanye, the man can do no wrong with his music, style, and attitude. He was especially wronged for Album of the Year, and I'm sure he knows it

Okay, work time!

My Pictures

I went snowboarding today. My friend and I got into my car, drove 200+ miles total, went to Big Bear mountain, and had quite the adventure. Depleted gas tanks, two fender benders, three hours of waiting, four hours of sleep, twisted feet, dangerous winter encounters, gaining an edge, and the allure of older men, to say the least. All the while making sure snow doesn't fall into my pants and making sure the chair lift doesn't get the best of me

Currently listening to: Chris Walla Field Manual
On the road: Peter, Bjorn, and John
Wishful playlist: "Year 3000" The Jonas Brothers

Do you like the picture? The camera has a very neat tool that allows for color isolation. Simply focus the lens on a color and press the "display." In this case, I focused on the snowboard, which allowed the camera to filter in solely that color. I'm pretty much going to do this with all my pictures from now on. Amazing

Okay, so for me to completely relay my snowboarding adventures, I feel it necessary to tell you what I did yesterday. Yesterday I went to SPD, Sigma Phi Delta, the engineering frat. The day before, Thursday (also the day of the Conversations With Alums professional event), my apartment's courtyard was having a smashing party (three very beautiful words: Sierra Nevada keg), and when my roommate and I went, we saw all the SPD boys. I actually got a personal invitation to their Area 51 party, so I decided to check it out. Friday is work day though, so I didn't get home until 6:45 PM. After that, I went straight to Happy Hour at Mick & Schmick's with my brother, and some of my fellow sorority people joined us. I then went home and COMPLETED MY ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING HOMEWORK (so help me, linear circuits). I then submitted it and watched the ending to a movie. When party time came around, I grabbed my phone and walked right out of the apartment. Immediately after the door closed I realized that I did not have my keys with me, and so I call my roommate to come over and unlock the door for me (boy did I feel stupid)

At the party, however, I was able to meet more of the engineering frat boys (I know most of them, but not all), including their pledges, so that was pretty cool. They were giving away glow stick bracelets, so I took a couple because they were pretty. I went to sleep at 1:30 AM, but I had to wake up at 5:00 AM. Which I did

So today I woke up at 5 to take a shower and pick up my friend. Well, while backing out of the ridiculously crowded garage, I swiped a car. However, since my car is silver and shiny, the scratch obviously appears on my car, a two foot long gash. I curse my inability to drive and go to pickup my friend. The car ride there wasn't that bad, except the highway up to Big Bear was especially precarious. There was soon snow (thus, cold weather), and worse, ice on the road, were very narrow and difficult to navigate. It also took me two hours to get there! But truth: I haven't seen snow in about twelve years, so that was exciting, even if I heard rumoring that it was all fake and such

At the mountain, my friend and I end up waiting there for about one and a half hours for the others to venture from their cabin (we did not stay with them overnight), and when they finally arrived, we learned that we were at the wrong mountain (we were supposed to be at Bear Mountain, and we were at Snow Summit), and so we had to take the shuttle there. But we got there intact, and after three hours of getting there and renting equipment and strapping ourselves on, I "hit the slope" for only the second time in my life. There was a ridiculous amount of people on the mountain! Well, the weather was perfect (not cold at all!)



Snow culture is incredibly interesting. Everyone has a gorgeous snowboard. Snowboard pants are a MUST, along with a thick snow jacket. Goggles distinguish the regulars from the newbies, who wear sunglasses like me (speaking of which, my sunglasses BROKE on the slopes, so now I need another pair as well). Snowboards are incredibly pretty, with their colors and shapes and images. Snow culture is very similar to the gym culture. I guess all cultures are somewhat similar. For example, you have the hardcores, whom you can distinguish because their equipment is very beat up and well used. Also there are the poseurs, who have top-notch, spanking new equipment that looks hardly use, and they walk around trying to look knowledgeable. You have the newbies who are quite timid and hesitant to go anywhere. That's me

Luckily we had the help of our alum's friend, who wasn't bad to look at either for an older guy. He was very patient in helping us take timid steps / slips down the mountain, which was probably at an incline of something like 10 degrees. Pathetic. He explained the concept of an "edge," and how we had to "get the edge," which I guess meant maintaining your course. That is very hard, since we have to travel down the mountain with our feet anchored to a board threatening to go out from under your feet with no way of stopping. I guess you would have to do it several (or more) times to get the hang of it. Towards the end we were just giving up trying to snow and simply falling down to stop. But I was like a toddler, giggling and getting back up every single time. Plus, the pleasant weather allowed me to not be cold at all, only a wet shirt on the back from always falling on the ground

Also, another fascinating part of the snow culture is simply how so many people go on several runs and then spend the rest of the day at the bar drinking and hanging around. That's what a lot of people in the party did

The snow really is quite beautiful though. The air is very fresh and clean, and the trees stand there in the open sunlight. Aside from the hoards of excited snow people, you could say the whole experience is very peaceful

Coming home, the traffic was awful. It was bumper to bumper descending from the mountains for at least sixteen miles. I was incredibly bored, and attempted to use my phone's wireless internet options. Doing so, however, distracted me and resulted in me crashing into the SUV in front of me. Luckily, I had only released the break, so I simply rolled into him, and luckily his car suffered no damage (since I was at fault). Still we, exchanged numbers and such, but thankfully he seemed pretty chill, saying "shit happens" (he was a college student too). Plus, he was driving the SUV, and thus my car had more damage. There is a not so beautiful crack on my front bumper. So in the period of one day I had a fender bender on each end of the car. Just beautiful

Also, my car is an incredible gas guzzler, and by the time I raced home, there were few ticks of the precious fuels, precariously balancing on the "low fuel" count. Thankfully I refueled, and was even able to go to UCLA and Westwood twice to enjoy dinner and cookies and frozen yogurt. Delicious. I went home and passed out though, so here I am today, sore and exhausted but feeling pretty good from an excellent weekend adventure



UCLA through the eyes of a USC Trojan

Control Panel

Life is always about taking control of yourself right? When the going gets tough, the tough get going? I don't know. I'd like to think that I was in great control of my life. In fact, that was how I was raised, that you were responsible for everything around you. No money in the bank? That's YOUR fault. No job? That's YOUR lazy fault! So I pretty much take responsibility for everything I do. I don't really blame other people, but at the same time I think this compels me to take a lot more responsibility, to say "Oh, I can handle it," and then I overexert myself and give myself unnecessary stress, and then I bitch out at people

Today was the Conversations With Alums dinner that I had been working on for the past two months. It was jointly held on behalf of the engineering sorority Alpha Omega Epsilon (of which I am the president!), and the Society of Women Engineers, and the Women in Engineering program. We invited a bunch of alums to come and speak about some advices about their careers, their undergraduate work, etc. There was a free dinner, and I gave Hershey's kisses to everyone. Aside from a few snafus (I ordered the wrong tables, we didn't need the chairs at all), it was a great success, with both the undergraduates and the alums enjoying their time. I want to make it a yearly event (my legacy! gasp). But anyways, everything was well, I got balloons from the supermarket, and drove around with balloons in my back seat all day (I couldn't see through the rear view mirror!)

Linear circuits is pretty my "ridiculous" class of the semester. On one hand, I can understand the concepts (voltage, capacitance, Thevenin, mesh current) well, along with the sign convention and a wicked grasp on matrices, but on the other hand I have trouble envisioning the concepts. For example, today we did some open amps with feedback (whatever the HELL that means), and the picture looked seriously like a triangle with lines emerging and converging into it (oh, one of the highlights of the class is being able to draw squiggly lines as resistor representation and linear circuits), and I was getting the right answers, but I really did not know how I was getting them. Oh, and today, my classmate and I assembled our first proto-board circuit ever. It was a major accomplishment, considering that I had never seen one of those things before entering college, and I barely understood how they operated. At least the TA is attractive. An electrical engineering TA who's not fugs - amazing!

The gym is going pretty good. I still haven't stepped foot on the campus gym - I'm seeing how long I can hold out, and so far I'm thriving. I'm going to the mini luxury gym our apartment complex made for us, and it suits me, with an elliptical and some free weights. I'm no longer bulking that much anymore, but I'm still using the weights. This weekend, I'm going to see snow for the first time in 13 years, as I go with some alums to Big Bear. I am pretty much scared because 1. I have no appropriate clothes, 2. I might need snow chains, 3. I'm pretty much guaranteed to make an ass of myself

Tomorrow is work time. I'm looking forward to it. I'm finishing up my electrical engineering homework right now so I can relax a little. Okay, back to drawing squiggly lines

Current airplay - Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. It's pretty good, but I spent the entire day listening to Pepper, Just Jack, and Sublime, so it's kind of grating. At least I'm no longer listening Hannah Montana (or openly admitting to it)

Current song obsession - "Tradewinds" Pepper, Kona Town. Download it. Seriously. The band's from Hawai'i, and the song is actually a beautiful gem hidden amongst sexed romp music