BRRR... it's so cold. It rained briefly for a while a few minutes ago. It's been raining a lot these days. Yesterday was crazy. and i heard it was hailing this morning. wow.. i've never seen that before, but I was asleep so I didn't get to see it.

Somehow it just struck me at this moment that I am learning a language other than Chinese. haha.. silly.. but YAY!!! It's so exciting! hahaha.. heard Kelly's sister is going to Italy.. sigh... I hope my dream to travel Europe will come true someday, I don't want to sit here and dream. Today we wrote answers on the board and one of them was "Dove viaggi?" Where do you travel?

All of us had to pick one question to answer and quickly I picked that one and happily wrote that answer on the board. "Viaggo alle Highlands in Scozia." and went back to my seat with a grin. I really really do wish that will happen someday. Travelling to the highlands in Scotland. SIGH.... and of course Italy too. I want to go Italy being able to speak Italian. like how fun is that???

Italian class is so funny today. Our Italian teacher has always been funny! He's a great teacher. Normal Italian class goes like this: The moment he comes to class he will say "Giorno!" very quickly and gruffly. He's actually saying buongiorno, but it always comes out as giorno. When he calls us to open his textbook, he'll start flipping the page and if he can't find it, he will start mumbling to himself in a comical way or start to sing. it's so hilarious. then he'll like read a sentence from the textbook, so he'll read the first few words and then mumble the rest inchorently and say "Next page!". It's so funny! then when he's giving back homework, he will say "compiti coming back". and at the end of class, he will always always say this: "Gotta see me, see me. don't gotta see me, don't see me." haha.. then some people in class will always imitate him after he says it.

Well, today, he started drawing this funny looking thing on the board. it's like this round thing, looks kinda like a bowl, but not really. and then he used another color and drew a small little thing inside the round thing. and the class was starting to laugh and wondering what it is he is drawing. then he wrote "Cameriere! C'e una mosca nella minestra!" It means, waiter, there's a fly in the soup. We all started laughing like mad cos the drawing is just so hilarious!

Then, he wrote another sentence. "Cameriere, ci sono tre mosche nella minestra". Waiter, there are three flies in the soup. then, he added two more flies on the bowl of soup. AHAHAHA.. so funny! Later, he wrote down the reply of the waiter: "Che fanno? Nuotaro?" (it means, what are they doing? Swimming?) haha... so funny. he was trying to teach us "there is" and "there are".

Anyways, just a little description about how my Italian class goes. Gotta do lots of stuff now. Including the dreaded Anthropology. He gave us a study guide and it is sooo long. I tried writing answers to some questions he gave in the study guide. One question filled up almost 4 sides of paper, it's crazy! I'm quite worried about the anthro test really. And also the Italian test this friday. I'm not very good at preposizione, sigh.. hopefully I'll do well.

Oh and just want to talk a little bit about Math. I admit it can be pretty easy, but I'm starting to learn quite a number of things. In the past, I can safely say that I have never ever really paid attention in math class before. I can say that one of the reasons why I flunk maths so bad is because i NEVER listen in class. I really mean never, or at least almost. Most of the time, I am just reading my textbook just to get by. Plus I slack while reading textbook also, that's why I flunk so bad. I guess, now that I am actually listening in math class (when he teaches stuffs at least) , i'm starting to learn new methods to doing things. I'm sure I've been taught all that before, but it's like somebody just erased my whole brain. so i feel like i'm learning new things and new methods, which is pretty good i guess. some of the methods of doing things are novel to me and i guess it's good to start with no other methods already in my head. it will be confusing otherwise.
but yeah, this must be a really bad case of amnesia. cos i know i have been taught this things, but they all escape me. i don't even know how i did those questions in the past anymore. hah.

Well, I seem to be fantastic when it comes to wasting time. Supposed to be doing work but have been wasting time all day long and yesterday too. Finished reading Memoris of a Geisha. It's all right, I suppose. I bought "I capture the castle" book on ebay. would have liked the movie more, but I guess the book will do. it cost me 4.26. The book was actually only 89 cents, but shipping costs more. but it's way better than buying it for 13 bucks at Borders. Hopefully it will arrive soon.

Anyways.. Have another Italian exam next week. Hope I'll do well. I don't much feel like typing actually. My hands are freezing (it's raining outside) and my stomach has been making funny noises all day. Somehow my host family never seem to cook on weekends and we end up eating a lot of junk or not eating at all. Last sunday, I didn't eat all day till dinner and boy was I ravenous.

Actually I'm really too lazy to blog about anything at all if Kelly had not pestered me to update. Well, um, yeah. what can I say. My life is boring. My school life is worse. My only entertainment is anime. And i think I've been having a stomach upset since last week. sigh. Anyways, I better continue my essay and go on living the life of a boring nerd who never gets out of house except to go to school.
ciao.

STUPID STUPID unpredictable weather. Last week it was nice and warm and I can walk around in my tees and shorts. These few days however, is CRAZY COLD! My math teacher even said that it might snow in Mt Diablo and nearby mountains.

Today especially. It kept raining from morning and the wind is crazy cold. My fingers are numb if I do not put them in my pockets. And when you breathe out, you can see the smoke coming out. so funny. I've planned to go out with housemate to buy stuffs today, so we did, despite the horrible weather. We walked to Target cos she wanted a Digital Camera. And we couldn't find what she wanted. So we gave up, and walked to Barnes and Nobles. I helped her find a grammar book that she could practice cos she wants to pass her ESL test. (English as second language test) and it told her to get a notebook and start writing journals in english to improve her writing. (wahaha.. i've become a tutor)

And at Barnes and Nobles, I got soooo excited cos I saw this book. I know i know that Kix will love it. I wanted to buy it for her and give it to her. but WAAAAHH she's so far away!!! I just know for sure she will love the book. Plus it's new arrival, so I bet it's not out in Singapore yet.

After that, I said I wanted to go to Borders. So we took 109 to Borders. Brr... cold cold cold. I saw kids happily blowing smoke out of their mouth. haha so cute. Normally those kind of things happen only in early morning. But today is just plain cold. and the rain wouldn't stop either. Browsed throught some book and decided to pick up a Piers Anthony book cos I promised the kid me that I would collect every single one of his Xanth series. Saw "Wicked" and it's one the bestsellers, but i think I'll just buy it another time. And actually I wanted to buy Sword of Angels since I've been waiting for it since last year. but the paperback's coming out in June and it's much much cheaper. I guess I'll wait till then.

i wanted to take the bus home cos it was so darn cold. But that would mean taking two buses to transfer. Then Michelle said it's not too far to walk home, she said she walked before. I was really apprehensive about the distance. Especially with the rain and the horribly chilly winds, I thought it was best not to walk. But we walked anyways. and GOODNESS GRACIOUS ME! It was so darn far. We were out there walking for half an hour in the cold and rain. My nose was dripping and my ears were cold and my hands were numb. I told my housemate NEVER to walk home again in this weather. It's like we'll catch Pneumonia or something soon. WHen I got home, I was soo afraid I'll get sick. I can't afford to get sick. So quickly, i drank hot chocolate. Took a nice and warm bath, poured funny smelling medicated oil on myself, drank vitamins, and took a nap in my nice warm blankets. (but I couldn't really sleep cos the stupid cat was mewing non stop)

Well, so there. The terribly cold day. And I'm so happy about my new Xanth book. :D I rarely buy books so i'm like :D Oh and I got an A for Italian. YAY! YAY! Maybe crapping with PP and kiki works while studying. I scored higher than the previous test, which is odd. Cos the previous test I had two mistakes and I got a 98. this time I got three mistakes, but it was a more difficult test and the teacher divided the total number of mistakes by 2 to get a new number. so in the end, I only had one mistake. and i got a 99. Ahaha.. I think he did that cos some ppl got a lot of mistakes and if he doesn't divide it by 2, they're going to fail really badly. I think quite a number of people in my class got Cs.

BUT BAD NEWS> I got a bloody B for English. I can rewrite for an A. But she gave a feedback slip. and my slip says she likes my essay, the conclusion and my thesis are strongly supported. But i need to correct my citations and commas and quotations. That's all? You mean if I do those small things I can get an A??? I don't need to change content or anything?
HAIZ I dunno. I need I need I need an A!!

2 tests down for the week. One more to go! And a holiday on Monday. Thank you Washington! Buon compleanno!

Italian test was so tricky. Hopefully I can still get my A. I think I made some grammatical errors without realizing. I'm a very careless person. and for math, I took so long to do everything so that I won't get anything wrong. and the teacher doesn't believe in time limit, so we can take as long as we want to do the test, which is good for me. but we had an hour limit as the next class is coming in. (and since our math class is actually 50 minutes, we had like 10 minutes extra)

I was looking through my work carefully and realized that I made so many careless mistake. I changed the question just in time before teacher said we have to go cos the next class was coming in. If all goes well and I do not make anymore stupid blunders in the test, I am hoping to get full marks.

And Pyschology test tomorrow. I should go study now. There are many questions and Psychology is still foreign to me.

So ciao!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! ERIC OVERDOSE!!

HEHEHE :D Supposed to be studying now.. but I was searching on my stupid English. We have to find 10 problems in DVC or our community and write up about it. BLEH! and somehow the search led me to Dan Southworth and a lot of other things.. muahahaha..

Found this funny site. they were like linking songs to people from PR and it's so funny! The songs they link to RICE are like "good guys don't always wear white" HAHAHA.. he hardly ever wears white!! you can see the lyrics here it's so cute. and another song lyric here

ehehe.. then the best thing was they made a kind of MTV for RICE. they took many different scenes and put it into an MTV kind of thing and matched it with a song. It's like FOUR .. FOUR full minutes of rice. BWAHAHAHAH! See how delirious I am now?

oh and in the midst of writing this, I just found another Eric/Taylor vid.. wahah and a few Wes/Eric slash.. as usual..
oh by the way
Happy V day ppl. Don't care much for it. but i woke up today and there was a red heart shaped balooon tied to a bar a chocolate outside my door.
aww

so sweet of them. :)

Taking a break from reading Pscyh textbook. Goodness.. one chapter is so darn long. I took an hour just to read HALF a chapter. I think it's more than 30 pages. PLus I have another chapter to read, which I probably will do tomorrow. Plus I have to make some notes too cos the test's on Friday.

and I just found out I have Italian test on Thursday. At first I got so disorientated and stressed cos that would mean 3 tests this week. I couldn't really concentrate in Italian and I was feeling rather tired and all, and he started teaching Plural grammar (which I never learnt on my own before) and I was totally lost cos I was half listening. Then I had no partner, and the Italian teacher sat in front of me and decided to be my partner. and he was like talking so fast and I was like ???? I got so confused and he made me panic. So I thought.. OH NO. I'm going to fail my Italian test.

Got to English class, and the teacher was saying those who didn't get an A have a rewrite option. and at the end of the class, she told some people they don't need to rewrite anymore. She didn't tell me anything, so I guess I have to rewrite. SIGH. I feel so sick just thinking about writing that darn bloody essay. I rewrote it 4 times for goodness sake. That's like a lot more times than other people in my class. Others only rewirte it once. I really don't know how to further edit my essay. But I need to get a Bloody A. My sis says if I want to get into colleges like UCLA, it's best that I get a perfect 4.0 GPA and I can't do that unless I can all my As.

Well, so with all the panic and sadness, I trudged home. Opened my Italian book to look at the horrible grammar I found so confusing in class. I looked at it, and in less than 5 minutes, I learnt it all. HAHA. I felt better immediately. Actually it is so darn easy.. haha.. I think I was too flustered in Italian class to realize it.. hahaha.. then I moved on to Psych.

Of course, nothing is going too smooth yet. Gonna study for Math and make sure I get an A, and Psych so I get an A. plus I have a workshop that will end at 7 tmr. and another workshop day after tomorrow. I need to go for them to get extra credits for Psych. Hopefully I'll still have time to study for test. and i have to do some research for Italian cos the teacher told us to learn about some Italian places and people like Marconi and others. And I still have to make anthropology notes.. (sigh...) Anthro lesson is soo boring today my eyes were closing by themselves.

My butt is so darn SORE!!! AHHHHHHHH!!!

Woke up at 5 am today. Big rush.. run to the toilet take shower and stuffs. Then rushed down where my sis' friends ' car was already parked. Sat and slept in the car. not very nice because it's rather squeezy. One whole seat of the back seat was occupied with ski gears and snow board and stuff. I was stuck in the middle and uncomfortable seat and the ski gears keep poking me. After about 3 1/2 to 4 hours drive to Tahoe, we finally reached.

Then, the guys dropped me and my sis off. and we went to rent snow boards and went for Beginners' classes. My sis has been there once before, so she's pretty good. Bah.. got the boots on, which was so hard to walk. and was dragging my snow board all around. We got assigned to this New Zealander instructor. By the end of the lesson, most people said he didn't really know how to teach. but oh well, SNOWBOARDING IS SO DARN DIFFICULT! At least for me.. I was the most lousy out of the few beginners. I couldn't walk, I'm always the last in line and falling behind in everything. SO Pathetic. Later we took the lift up the slope and goodness.. so scary. We were slowly going down the slope and half the time I coudln't even get up without the instructor helping me up. And it was the easiest, beginners slope. There are those crazy steep slopes for experts.

Anyways, we finally got down. and I found out I lost my goggles (which was my sis' friend's) and she got pissed. and I got pissed too. and we got up the lift again and went for a second time. I was like falling off the lift all the time. So stupid. then since my sis knew how to do stuffs, she went off snowboarding. and I was like uff uff... slide slide down. Fall.. Roll over.. slide down a bit.. Fall. I fell like goodness knows how many dozen times down one slope. and i took so long just to get down the slope cos half the time I'm just sitting down and trying to get up again. My bum hurts. I got to the bottom and took the lift again. and went through the whole process of falling again.

I have absolutely NO IDEA how to stop the darn snowboard. It's like, half the time I'm cruising down at top speed and I feel like I'm going to crash into someone soon and I want to stop but I can't so I let myself fall. and Since I'm going at such a high speed, the impact is horrendously painful. GAH. and I can't go slow either.. i don't know how.. so I'm like sliding down really fast half the time. But there are times when I just stay at the snowboard for quite a long time. Then it felt soo good, a little like flying. of course it all ends with a huge crash. and my sis says the snow is harder today. The previous time she went, it was softer so that the fall was less painful. T_T

After a while, I decided the toil on my butt and knee was too much. So I stopped. =P so tiring. and really dry too. My skin are like all cracked now, my lips too. and my poor bum..i can't sit and stand very well. i feel like tying a nice soft cushion to my butt. HAIZ.

YAY! Tomorrow's a holiday! Actually it's kinda today cos it's past midnight and I'm sleeping late today.. hehe.. I just realize that DVC is the only one having holiday. Lincoln's birthday on Mon or Tuesday.... hmm.. no idea. but good anyways.

Well, this morning, I took the bus at 10.25 (that's the latest bus I can catch to go for an 11 am class) Since I will be like 20 minutes early for class, I stopped by Burger King (BK!!) to get a cup of coffee. The BK guy was pretty nice. cos I went there and the coffee was a buck and 7 cents and I was looking at all my coins and going????? then i picked up a quarter and started staring at it like an idiot cos I wasn't sure it was a quarter. SO stupid. Then he was like patiently waiting for me to fish out the correct coins. then finally i found a dime and 2 cents. and took back my quarter dollar. hahaha.. i better learn to read coins. and maybe it was me, or he wasn't speaking very clearly, but most of the time I couldn't understand what he was saying and it made it seem like I can't speak English very well. SIGH.

Then I took me coffee and walked to school. Goodness gracious me was it warm! Peeled off me jacket and walked to school cos I was going to be late. Went to the building... ITALIAN CLASS CANCELLED!!! EEEEEEEEEEEE :( oh well. ANyways, I have a New Italian penpal. Hope he sticks. this time he found me, which is quite surprising cos I'm normally the ones going out to find Italian pals.

Wasted time by typing my Psychology homework, which is sooo darn easy. In fact the teacher even gave us a study guide and told us everything inside will be in the test. like giveaway man. yup.. then went to language lab and did some Italian work. Met Michelle and we went to the Counseling Center to set up an appointment with the counselor.

Well, I bought the summer class schedule. GOSH! There are sooo little classes for summer! i guess nobody wants to study in summer, but I do. SIGH. No second term Italian, which means I can't take Italian. Absolutely no German class. WTH? In fact, there isn't a lot of classes. Plus the classes range from 3 weeks to 6 weeks to 7 weeks long. That is so darn short. I was thinking of taking math classes, but then.. 7 weeks of intensive math (it runs 3 hours plus from monday to thursday for 7 weeks) I think it's too much. Imagine learning a math in 7 weeks. NUTS.

I wanted to take other stuffs to. but that 7 weeks thing just put me off. I'll have to think about taking computer science in Fall too. Gotta ask my counselor all this complex stuff. Most of the summer classes run about 3 hours or more. So I can't take many classes too. Maybe I'll take first term Japanese, Film comparison and Speech. Sounds easy enough to handle in 7 weeks (other than Jap that is.. imagining learning all that kanji Hiragana and whatever in 7 weeks) Was thinking of taking Karate too. But it's on a Saturday and since the bus doesn't run on Saturdays, I have to walk to school.. they say it's about 3 miles or so... but i think it's longer than that.

Gah.. I'm sleepy. Nite.

I'm eating ice cream again. Not Godiva though, it's just some regular ice cream. but it's still creamy and thick nevertheless. I can only eat Godiva at my sis' place, plus I don't really eat ice cream at my homestay place cos it's os cold. But today, is a special today. It's warm today! YAY! I was actually rolling up my sleeves and the sun was shining so bright today. It wasn't scorching though, that word is reserved for Singapore sun.

Today's a pretty good day i guess. Tuesday and Thursdays are good days cos I get to wake up at 9 as my class starts at 11. (unfortunately bus comes at 10.15) Had Italian today. We got to see this video, which was a little bit propaganda-ish. The beginning was so funny, cos it went something along the line of: if a friendly alien landed on Earth, one of the places you would want to show it is Italy. Then the begin showing you all the places in Italy, Rome, Sicily, Milan, Venice, Verona etc. It's wonderful! Makes me want to go back to Italy and visit all those places again. Going with a tour is no fun cos it's so restrictive. You can't get to see some places and stuffs. Can't wait to go backpacking someday.

mm. eating kettle chips now. so darn good. It's so ex in Singapore I never dared to buy any. So I kinda eat a lot of that here now. In fact, I EAT a lot here. so haha... I've grown into a fat turtle.

Essay due tomorrow. Have to work on it. SIGH. Have to consider peer response too. This guy asked me questions in my peer response that isn't even in my essay. like only make things difficult for me cos the teacher will consider my essay on how I respond to the peer response. PLus I don't think he even read my essay cos he just said "they like the city life and busy life". first, the word "they". excuse me, it's MY essay. cos he read a previous essay that was written by this Indo girl who also studied in SIngapore. so he just lumped us as one. And i did not say I LIKE THE CITY. goodness. I dun like busy cities, I like hills okay. nice little quiet country like SCOTLAND! HMMPH!

I want to get an A for English. but it seems a little hard cos the teacher isn't only judging based on what you wrote. SIGH.. Maths and Psychology exams next week. :S BUT Friday is a HOLIDAY! YAY! I'm glad Lincoln was born so we have holidays. hehe

I am currently savoring Godiva ice cream while typing this. It's so soft and it melts in your mouth. and there are small chocolate heart inside the ice cream. It's like mmm heavenly. Just in case you didn't know, Godiva sells gourmet chocolate, so the ice cream is like wow wow wow.

Well, I just came back from SF. Went to watch the San Francisco Ballet. It was on swan lake! YAY! We were late cos there was a jam, so we missed half of the first act but it's ok. The dancer for the swan is superb. The way she moves, she's like almost boneless and as the black swan, she did so many pirouettes or whatever it's called. And when the dancers jump, I kinda have the feeling that they're flying and they look so light. Yep. it was cool. I liked it.

mmm.. my ice-cream. haha. it's 11.54 pm now. still haven't finished my homework. Shucks. still have 10 more pages of essay to go. and anthro notes to write. and psych stuff. so little time so much to do. plus I was hooked on Bleach today. It is so darn good. I love it already. and I just watched this funny episode where there was this exorcist that will put both his arms over his chest and laugh "Bwahahahahaha" it is sooo funny. and everyone else was copying him cos he's famous. so today I kept putting my arms over my chest and going "Bwahahahaha" and my sis is like =_= siao.

BWAHAHAHAHA

Yuna is no longer my desktop background, not that I no longer like her. But I've changed it to Alphonse and Edward Elric! YAY!
I just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist movie and I am soooo happy and excited!! :D :D :D
It's so darn good. I LOVE IT! YAY! I knew there was going to be some parallel to the Nazi world cos the FMA world is so much like the WW2 world. esp the Fuhrer and the driving of the people in the east. as I watched the anime series, I thought of how alike it was and true enough, the parallelism is there.

I LOVE THE MOVIE!!! Teared at a few parts. hehe.. I love the two brothers. esp. Alphonse of course. hiks hiks. shall not spoil it for ppl who are still watching the anime and haven't watched the movie. and for those who haven't watched the anime, WATCH IT! It's one of the best out there, trust me. Even if you're not a big fan, you will love it. I didn't like anime that much until I watched FMA. There are so many deep analogies in there and that's what always make a Jap anime great. Some of them really make you think deeply. Like in the movie, Edward said that all he wanted was to see Al and vice versa. and all Noah wanted was a home. nobody wanted war and in the end, it caused a war. it's true in the world context. all we want is perhaps pride for our country (in the case of Germany), economy to improve and stuff. nobody wanted war, but a war happened.

Anyways, watch the anime people. after you finish all episodes (50 plus... hehe) watch the movie! It's worth your time. I'm recommending it all the way.

Hiks. the two brothers made me cry again. I LOVE FMA! and here's a most beautiful picture that I found:

Today is a day where I met up with a few friend I've made not so long ago. Let's start from morning.

Morning, I go to school. Decided to get off the bus and walk the longer route so I can get to Anthro class faster. You see, I needed to borrow notes from someone and i thought I better get to class quick. Usually i just sit in the bus till the end (it's a shorter walk, but i'm normally late). anyways, on the way to class (which was a pretty long walk), I met Andy. that's the Malaysian boy, the first friend I ever made at DVC during Orientation. Yep, so we said hi and talked till i reached my class. Was telling him i was taking Italian and he shocked me by saying something like he went to italy or whatever and he can speak Italian. i was like O_O !!!

Anthro class. Sat down. the quiet cold class again. haiz.. i wonder if i will ever make friends here. asked the dude next to me for notes and his handwriting was a bit the .... had to ask him a few words here and there. teacher came in, talked a whole lot that is pretty hard to understand and quite boring too. After that, usual routine, Psych class. then Italian class. the italian exam is so darn easy. I think can get A. but the map bit was quite tricky. u see, the teacher told us to learn 5 regions in Italy. But he didn't put in the map, so we had to draw our own map. I memorised the region by the area of where it was in the map, and my own hand drawn map looks a bit confusing, hopefully it's ok.

English class. UGH. MORE homework. now we have to do 3 interviews with ppl plus I have to write 3 essays drafts (minimum 5 pages) on how the town I lived have impacted me. Erm.. I've liked here 2 weeks or so.. how much impact can it have? i like Berkeley better actually. and then maths, where i was once again, falling asleep. SHEESH.

After school, i called Megumi, that's the friend I made at orientation. and we went out for lunch together at this Cafe Milano. we went there and there was NOBODY. felt so weird. and we went in, ordered. the food was quite ex.. ur.. so we didn't eat much. she ate pizza, i ate pasta. which is soo cheesy creamy and soo good. Left, quickly went for the International Students' Club meeting which we were late for. Got there, and well, the club seems pretty nice. The people looked nice anyways. Variety of nationalities, and their previous activities were barbeques and stuffs. and the leader guy was saying he wants camping this spring break.. haha.. sounds fun. and he also suggested washing car to fund raise. hehe.. i remember the last time i did that for SFC, the gross dirty bird-shit car. YUCKS. but fun though.

The problem is that the meetings are every Wednesday. But I have to go for workshops every Wed starting next week. the workshops aren't compulsory, but everytime I go, I earn credits for Psychology. and i WANT credits for Psychology is I'm majoring in it and if I want to get good grades so I can go UCLA. so yeah... hopefully I can work it out. cos the club really looks pretty fun.

I wanna work hard. I wanna get As. but there are so many distractions around. I wanna watch anime, the Fullmetal Alchemist fever is back. YAY! ARUPHONSE ROCKS!!!!!! i want a son like him.. haha and i've been in the mood to write short stories these days, but I never do get around to doing them. SIGH