Six Thousand Nine Hundred Thirty Two Miles

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

December 4, 2017

So today started off pretty early, because there was quite a bit that we wanted to do. However we didn’t actually get to fit most of it in… LOL So we started by going to Damnoen floating market. This floating market was actually really far from our Airbnb, it’s about an hour and a half car ride there. But it was pretty worth it in my opinion. The first floating market that we wanted to go to, I think it was called amphawa was closed, so we had to go to Damnoen. We were split into two boats- Josh, Crystal, Vincent, and I were in one, Katie, John, Bonnie, and Ryo were in the other. The market was set up so that there’s just shops set up along the riverbank, and if we wanted something we would just tell our boat driver to stop and we could get off to shop around. I ended up buying a pair of elephant pants there, and ugh I regret it because it was 350 Baht, and we could have found it for so much cheaper if we waited haha. Vincent and I both bought a pair because we were the only ones who didn’t have any because everyone else bought it while they were in Phuket. We also stopped along one of the restaurants for lunch, and hmm I wasn’t the biggest fan? I got the shrimp sautéed with basil and chili over rice. I just thought some things tasted funny, and I really didn’t want to risk anything so I didn’t really eat. Oh this is also something super random, but the soda here tastes different… a good different but different… LOL I cant put my finger on it, but it just tastes so good. After lunch, we just continued along the mini river and it was an overall relaxing experience. We also stopped at a temple, so we took a few pictures there. They’re pretty strict with the dress code here, so when I got there, one of the ladies gave me a scarf to put over my shoulders because I was wearing a dress.

Oh gosh, it’s times like these where I get to spend a lot of time with Josh do I realize how much I’m going to miss him when we have to leave. I have less than 20 days with him and it’s insane to think about that. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so close to someone like him before. He’s not exactly the person that I would be willing to tell everything to, but he is someone that I am extremely comfortable around. It’s like I grew up with him or something. Maybe because I know that he’s gay? So it just makes me more relaxed around him without a guard? Idk. But gosh im gonna miss him so much. He’s also so considerate so he always takes care of me. Like whenever we get on and off the boat, he’s always the one to steady me to make sure I’m okay, or if im getting attacked by flies he’s the one that will fan me. He treats me like his little sister and it just makes me happy haha.

Anyways! After the boat ride, we took an uber to go back. And overall the uber costed around 80 usd roundtrip. Which is not that bad, like 20 dollars per person for an hours drive? But hmmm a bit pricier than I would be happy to pay for. We were all so tired though, we all knocked the fuck out LOL. And the traffic back was horrendous, so we were stuck in traffic for about 2-2.5 hours. SMH. That’s also why we didn’t have time to go to the temples on the same day. Which is fine, but I just wish that we didn’t have to waste so much time on transportation.

After that we went back to our Airbnb to just relax for a bit, and I ended up falling asleep for like 45 minutes. I guess a powernap never hurts anyone, especially someone who has been consistently running on 4 hours of sleep ugh save me. After that, we went to the Asiatique Waterfront. Basically it’s like a boardwalk almost? A bunch of shops, more shops than we had time to walk around, and there’s a ferris wheel and a carousel there as well. Pretty cool. We had dinner at a random restaurant there, but ugh it was kinda disappointing. The bill turned out to be around 350 per person, which isn’t bad but the portion sizes were so small I feel like no one was full at the end of the meal. My favorite thing that I tried there had to be the pineapple fried rice though. Then we all walked around some more, took a few pictures before splitting up. A group of us went to go find the fish spa- basically you stick your feet into a tub of water that’s filled with fish that attack you and eat your skin. LOL ok that sounds a lot scarier than it is because they only eat the dead skin cells off. It was honestly such a weird sensation though, and we were all screaming when we first put our feet in because it’s just SO STRANGE. It’s like a thousand tiny little nips that are ticklish. Hard to explain but LOL it was so cool though. It was like 3 usd for 15 minutes. After the spa, our feet felt so much softer. I would definitely do it again haha. It was also nice because I think a lot of them ate the skin off of calves where my bug bites were so hopefully it’ll help with the scarring?

After the fish spa, we walked around some more and did some souvenir shopping! I bought these really cute pouches that say “Thailand” on them, and also elephant pants for ssgc. LOL this is why I thought it was such a rip off to buy them at the floating market because I got them for 150 at these markets. I paid over 2x the price for my first pair… smh smh. I also bought an extra pair IN CASE you would like them. If not, then yay another pair for myself. LOL But I figured they’re super comfortable and if you’re willing to wear them it’d be pretty cool.

Then we just met up with everyone else at around 11:30 pm, and we headed back to our Airbnb. HOWEVER, the night wasn’t over yet. Because some pretty freaky shit happened at our Airbnb. So one thing that I didn’t mention yet is that our Airbnb has some wacky locks. Like you know the design of keys in necklaces? How it looks like a fairytale key, yeah that was the key to our front gate. I don’t even know how it works, I just know that if we stick it in it works? LOL but then there’s also 3 more layers of doors to the front door. One of the layers is closed with a padlock… yeah you just literally lock a padlock on it. And the last one is this seemingly normal lock in the door, only it won’t lock from the inside half the time. L o l. ok anyways. So freaky thing number 1- the lights in the hallway flickr… a lot. Ok scary shit number two: Bonnie was showering and afterwards she came downstairs laughing telling us that we were being lame. And we were like what? Because Josh, Vincent, Katie and I were chilling at the second level living room, and they were with me the entire time. And she was like “one of you guys kicked my door hella hard” and we were like …. Wtf no one did. And she just kept laughing and saying I know one of you guys did just stop. And it just got freakier because she was so sure that it was one of us when we all knew that it wasn’t. And then she took us upstairs to demonstrate how loud the bang was and it was extremely loud and there’s no way that it would’ve been caused by wind. Ok scary shit number 3: josh was like “im going to go upstairs to check on crystal” and then he walks up stairs and we all heard a really loud bang and he came downstairs and said that while he was walking by our room, my door suddenly slammed hella hard. LOL like wtfffff

Ok yeah so a bunch of freaky shit happened so katie and I packed up our stuff and we were about to sleep downstairs, but after we all calmed down we decided that it’s probably ok to just sleep in our room lol but yeah it was pretty freaky. Other than that it was a really fun day haha. Pretty cool to see the city.

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

12/3/2017

Day 2 of Davis tournament

Once again we left for the gym around 8am. It was funny when we got there because we walked in as a group and some girl at the check in table was like “Excuse me you need to check in.” I said we already did yesterday and kept walking. And she’s like “oh you have to do it again today” and I replied with “Someone will do it for us” and kept walking. Now that I think about it, it was kinda rude LOL. Our team was laughing cause Thinh, the guy from yesterday’s dinner, was like damn Derrick literally just shut that girl down like she has no say in anything. Oops :P

Doubles day! I was excited for this because it’s my strength. Van and I first started playing our entire B flight, which only consisted of 2 matches. We started off against Max Kam and Dexter Vu. Van said he has never beaten Max before and that his arm is a cannon. I feel like Max and Dexter weren’t warm yet because we beat them fairly easily in 2 games. Next we played Calvin Dai and Tim Tong, who actually ended up winning BMD. Gdi Tim is, even though by small increments, getting better every time I see him. Van and I call him “The Gatling Gun” because once he hits 1 drive, he keeps pushing forward with rapid drive shots and nothing will get past him. Like it is nothing I have ever seen before. Calvin would literally take like 10 steps every rally because he either starts with a smash followed by Tim’s drives or Tim’s drives are so pressuring that someone lifts and Calvin kills it. Stupid strong pair.

I won CMD! But this was a disappointing victory if I may say so. We “played” 5 matches to win first. Destroyed some nobody’s in the first round who somehow beat Lawrence Chen if you remember who he is. 2nd round we played Pho Ly if that name rings a bell. Never played him but I’ve definitely heard of that name at our tournaments. All the D men’s players on our team was like dude you have to beat this guy. Prove that he isn’t a B player like most people say he is. And show him that his smash isn’t as hard as people say. It was funny cause once we got on the court, Pho and his partner asked Van if I speak Viet in Viet…and then they started having their own convo. Would have been miserable if they started counting score in Viet too LOL. Super intense game and my hardest match of the day. The entire team watched us win 14-21, 21-12, 23-21. I mean I threw my racket at the end so you get the idea. Quarters we played Tommy Chiu and Matthew Hsieh. Their drive game was troubling for us especially with Tommy’s fast cut offs and Matt covering in the back. 2-0 them.

Semi-finals, the one I think you’re happy to hear, was against Anjo and Patrick Tsai. Literally one of the most disappointing matches I have ever played in my years of badminton. It ranks up there with my NCS with Chris against Robert and Justin from Logan. 21-2 and 21-10. Like we had a score conflict in the first game and we won the argument making it 5-1 and then next thing I knew they got a point making it 2-18. Before 2nd game, I spoke to Danae in Canto that we won 21-2 and she was like WTF and everything in Canto. Thinh who was sitting next to her looked super lost so Van spoke to him in Viet and we all started laughing LOL. 2nd set they showed why they lost. They are good individuals but a horrible pair with no chemistry and communication. Patrick is left-handed. Considering that these 2 play together so often, I would expect better rotation. Van just kept pushing left and right and they kept crashing into each other. He also told me to just keep smashing to the middle and their rackets kept clashing.

Finals, we played Max and Dexter again. That was short lived. They pushed themselves so hard in semi against James and John (the twins) that Dexter collapsed with a cramp after 4 points. I offered him rest time, Gatorade, and even said we have PT people with rollers who can help. They forfeit in the end as we predicted. And that’s how I walked away with a 1st place LOL check out the pics tho. Too bad the one with Randy is somewhat blurry but I thought it’s pretty nice.

After we left Davis, we went to BJ’s. Almost an hour wait because we were waiting for another group of 25 to leave and they were just chilling. Some people wanted to drink such as Van and Peter. Van I didn’t say anything because he’s driving alone. Peter said he’s ordering something if Van is and I’m like aren’t you driving. He said just 1 and I’m like but there are people in your car. And he’s like that’s true and took it back…Daniel Wong ended up being the only person who ordered a beer and shared it with some people. I ordered a prime rib and my god this is actually the saddest steak I have ever eaten. I ordered medium rare and I think it came out medium well. Chewy and dry and I have never had a steak over-seasoned. Super salty. At least the monkey bread pizookie I had in the end was good. Oh yea! After we ordered our drinks, Randy and I saw our waitress, who was super nice, sip one of the drinks she was putting on the tray and took it to our table…not sure who’s it was but that was awkward LOL. I also secretly told the waiter that it’s actually Thinh’s bday in a few days and was wondering if we could include something for him. He was super surprised wit his pizookie and also said kinda gave a thank you speech before we got into our cars to head home. I actually found out his bday at the HK cafe but he said to keep it down because he didn’t want everyone knowing…I hope he wasn’t upset or offended in anyway but I just wanted to do something for our teammate :P

The drive home was horrible mainly because every ptfo so I had no one to talk to. We set our destination at the Shell near Van’s house to gas up. So here is where a rant begins. Basically all cars arrived at Shell at different times because some people, such as myself, dropped off people who lived in Milpitas before arriving. CJ, who is already the slowest driver, dropped off someone in Union City and also had to drop Aliza near Great Mall. He said it’ll take him another 30 minutes to get here. So I thought heck instead of everyone waiting in the cold, the fact that I’m driving a van, and also I’m not paying for gas, I could just drive a bunch of people, drop them off on campus, then come back. This way drivers won’t have to be going out of their way later and I can just do 1 trip while waiting for CJ. Everyone liked the idea so I took people who lived on campus and people who had rides waiting at school. Randy is one of the drivers. After I called out who lives near campus, Daniel Wong asked if he can ride with me. I mean I knew he was an asshole but this is far out there. Even Van called him out for it over text and he’s usually the one who tells me to chill about him. I’m like wait aren’t you going home with Randy? He said if I drove him, he could shower and sleep 30 minutes earlier. I’m like so you’re just gonna leave your housemate here? He gave me a glare and was like fuck it fine I’ll stay. I’m like ok fine wtv so Daniel muttered something under his breath and went to get his stuff. Randy literally double flipped him off and mouthed “fuck you” right behind Daniel and most people saw. Then as I was loading the van, Danae was sleeping in the passenger seat. I was 2 seats short so I asked if she could stay here with the others. She tackled me with questions which I got super pissed about: “Why do you need to take them back? Why can’t they wait? Why do you have to be the one to take them back? Who am I waiting with?” Like I had to answer everything and people hear this. And she was complaining when she got out of the car. Daniel Wong eventually got the hint we were short on seats and reluctantly just grabbed his bag and got out without a word. I’m like seriously you two?

While driving back, I couldn’t help but think Danae has actually caused more trouble than anything on this trip. And it just really pissed me off. Even while driving people back to school, they jokingly said dude Danae looked like she’s gonna murder us. I’m like dude these people barely know you but I feel like they can judge you accurately. She caused a fuss on Saturday morning because she thought someone was gonna go get breakfast for the team. I asked her if she coached anyone during this tournament and she’s like no because she didn’t have breakfast so she can’t think straight and in the middle of the day between her games, most people lost already so there’s no point. I’m like dude, you’re a coach. Take some damn responsibility. She also got breakfast on Sunday morning and didn’t offer to get me any. I didn’t mind but knowing her, it is surprising. And I was swerving a bit on the way back from Davis because I was sleepy but not once did she offer to drive. I hate to admit it but she’s just leeched on this trip. Just pissed me off the whole drive from Shell back to Fremont.

When I got home, I jumped in the shower and crawled into bed asap because I was too dead to care for anything else in the world LOL what a trip :)

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

December 3, 2017

So today started off about 4 hours after my last one ended… LOL lacking sleep if a perpetual thing for me now sigh but I met up with Vincent at like 7:45, and we took a taxi to the airport. It’s pretty clear to me when someone doesn’t really know how to travel by the way they pack/organize their stuff. Not saying that he’s inexperienced, but HAHA. But anyways, the flight to Bangkok was from 10:45 to like 12:30. So we stopped by Burger King at the airport HAHA omg I haven’t had burger king in so long, I almost forgot what it was like :’)

Everything went pretty smoothly, and we were boarded pretty quickly. We were seated separately unfortunately… but its okay haha it was supposed to be a pretty short flight. However, our flight was delayed in taking off for almost an hour, so we didn’t land in Bangkok until like 1:30. I had organized a driver to come pick us up, and I told them we were supposed to land at 12:30, so it was a bit worrying for me. Another thing was while we were going through immigration, we all had a card to fill out and I did it on the plane and before we got into line I forgot to remind Vincent to see if he had one. Turns out because he was sleeping he didn’t get one, and didn’t know about it. So we had to leave the line after we were at the front =__= On top of that, while we were In line, there was a mainland tour group behind us, and I literally was about to punch the lady behind me. Like the amount of squishing and pushing they do is insane. Like bro if you push past me, you’re still stuck in line so just wait your damn turn -__- I was like mildly stressed because of the timing but it was nbd.

After we got past immigration, I picked up a sim card and also exchanged my hkd for some baht. Ugh what’s a bit troubling is that my Charles schwab is running dangerously low for travel, and I couldn’t transfer more money over because the service was down lol. Running low on cash while travelling is the worst feeling, thank god I can rely on my friends if I needed anything. But anyway we met up with our driver and he took us to our “villa” which was essentially just a house.. LOL but it was a 4 story house. The first floor was the dining room, second floor was the living room and the first bedroom, third floor was 2 bedrooms, and the last floor was one more bedroom. Total of 5 functioning bathrooms, so that was pretty nice. Bangkok is so hot holy. The mosquitos here are also insane, like the house was just infested with them lol. Vincent and I chilled for a bit in the house before we went to a place called Siam Paragon? And it’s essentially a mall with a huge food court and an aquarium. We were there for the aquarium, but we stopped by a thai restaurant for our first meal. there were actually a good amount of American brands or international options, but I FOUND JAMBA JUICE LOL. I didn’t get one because it was ridiculously expensive but holy jamba will never leave me.

The food was good! The portions were a bit small, but enough to fill me up ^__^ I got the shrimp fried rice and the deep fried shrimp egg rolls. Thai cuisine is pretty similar to Viet cuisine imo, or at least in certain areas. I enjoyed it ^__^ overall around 15 dollars for my meal. More pricey than I would have anticipated but that’s okay. After dinner we went to the aquarium! And oo that was nice ^_^ like ugh I really hate zoos because I feel like it’s wrong to keep animals in captivity, but aquariums, especially the ones that promote ocean conservation, and ones that have healed animals are okay with me. I know a lot of the larger fish in the aquarium were either breeded, or they were caught because they were injured and then nursed back. This aquarium I would have to say is on par with Monterey, maybe it even tops it haha But that’s just because they had a lot of glass windows that allowed us to get really close to the fish haha. They also had this one tunnel that we could walk through, and we would just be surrounded by the fish and sharks. Probably my favorite part ^_^ Vincent was also patient enough to take enough pictures for me thank god LOL. One thing I did notice though is that he refuses to put his arm around me for pictures LOL. Which is fine, I don’t mind but it’s awk when I reach to put my arm around him and he doesn’t reciprocate, or when we take the picture I’m just awkwardly next to him HAHAHA I don’t really care tho I just noticed it to be random.

After the aquarium, we were both a bit hungry again so we walked around the massive food court and ok I swear there’s at least 20 restaurants in the area. But we ended up choosing mcdonalds LOL They had something called “party sized french fries” so I got it and I was DISAPPOINTED LOL because it literally was just like a large size in the states HAHA. But they also had fried chicken wow that was bomb af LOL I think it’s one of the best fried chicken I’ve had in like fast food style chains. So succulent, I would’ve eaten more if I wasn’t full.

After that, we headed back to the Airbnb, and we just relaxed there – playing music and planning for Tokyo for a bit. I actually really like the fact that Vincent sings ^__^ I think its relaxing to listen to, we can sing together, and I like that he’s comfortable enough around me to sing LOL. Maybe cause I just don’t have that many guy friends who sing… I don’t think Van counts cause all he sings are his Japanese/Korean songs… or despacito.. LOL. He did freak me out for a bit though ugh. So basically I was on the third floor in one of the bedrooms, and I thought that he was in the room next to me so I called out his name and he didn’t respond. So I went out to the stairwell and called his name a few more times with no response… and then I heard like 3 really loud bangs. And I got sooo scared LOL but like I told myself it was probably nothing so I went down super slowly and called his name out one more time when I was on the last staircase, and he answered =__= omg the amount of stress.

The rest of the crew arrived in Bangkok from Phuket at around 1:30 am, and they just quickly unpacked, showered, and we all went to bed around 2:30. So that concludes my first day in Bangkok, and all I can say is damn it was an experience LOL

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

December 2, 2017

So I spent my day with Mel, and we explored the Tsuen Wan area of Hong Kong. This is actually an area in hong kong that I’ve never been to before, so that was quite cool to be able to see what it’s like. It’s definitely not very touristy, and reminds me a lot of what Beijing is like. The streets and the set up are all very urban, but it was surprisingly cleaner than what I expected!

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a place on campus called Garden Café, not bad! It was my second time having it, and I just like to get the panini which comes with ham, cheese, and cucumbers? LOL I mean it’s whatever, but not bad considering the other options on campus!

Then we took the MTR all the way down to Tsuen Wan, which is on the end of the red line, and then this was where it got a bit confusing LOL Because we had to take the minibus to the temple- we went to a place called Western Monastery and Yuen Yuen Institute. And neither of us could read the signs, at least I couldn’t, so it was just a struggle LOL. It was also weird because the bus doesn’t stop unless you yell out to the bus driver to stop, but then there’s like no designated bus stop? Except the pickup and drop off points… so you just yell stop at any point I guess? LOL I still haven’t completely figured it out. Thankfully when we were going, someone stopped the bus driver because I was looking at the window and then realizing that it was where we were supposed to be, and I didn’t know how to stop. But wow the temple/monastery were insanely gorgeous. I am always in awe with temples, especially in Asia because all of the stuff is hand painted, and extremely ornate. I also love going with someone like Mel because she is really patient when taking photos or videos, because she can be picky too, and idk she’s really sweet haha we also have a lot in common so it’s easy for us to joke about certain things.

The two places were right next to each other, so we were able to explore them fairly quickly. Then we took a minibus down the mountain back to the main city area and it was the same struggle of stopping the bus in the right spot. When we were back down in the main area, we wandered a bit and went to a shopping mall called Tsuen Wan Center? It’s like one of those malls that have a bunch of little tiny shop that are all self owned, and bargainable? Really “local” place imo. Didn’t see any foreigners haha. While we were at the mall, we met up with a few of Mel’s friends, and although they were nice imo it’s too late in the game to make super close friends haha. Both of them knew the area quite well though, because one of them was local, and the other couldn’t get campus housing so ended up getting housing in Tsuen Wan LOL

I also got a bit hungry from wandering around, so we went to this Korean place that I forgot the name of, but that’s okay because it was pretty bad LOL. I never had such bad rice from a Korean restaurant before… the chicken was alright pretty juicy but the sauce was weird.. LOL I also ordered kimbap, and that was pretty good and I finished half of it and saved the other half for later. Then I also went to Sushi Express, and they have this thing where you can buy by the piece? With each piece being 3HKD It’s a pretty good deal overall. I just got like 3 pieces of shrimp nigiri, and 3 pieces of imitation crab nigiri. I ate it and it didn’t give me food poisoning so hey that’s a plus!

Then Mel and I headed back to campus, because omg it didn’t occur to me how much I had to do in regards to packing and getting ready for Thailand. I also had to organize a driver to pick Vincent and I from the airport because apparently it’s pretty sketchy to get into a random cab from the airport. When I got back to my dorm, I put my laundry into the wash, and also went to take a shower. Then I met up with Mel in my common room and we were just relaxing together and doing some work quietly. I was making a packing list to make sure that I would have everything I need for 2 different locations. The struggle is so real, because Thailand and Japan literally have polar opposite weather, and I have to fit this into a carryon suitcase… smh aiya.

I also spent an hour trying to figure out how to import pictures from my phone to the computer, for some reason either my phone is glitching or my computer is and it’s preventing me from being able to use the “import pictures” button. But yeah I finally got that done, and I went to bed at around 3am.. LOL nbd it’s not like I had to get up at 7 to get to the airport or anything HAHA

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

12/2/2017

Day 1 of the Davis tournament.

We were supposed to leave the motel at 8am so the first alarm went off at 7am for Aliza…CJ, Peter, Daniel, and I didn’t get out of bed until 7:50 LOL. And we were all done before her too so that is to be expected. All the other rooms were also ready to leave on time so that’s a plus.

We got to the Davis gym around 8:30 and many started warming up. Randy, Daniel, and I talked to the Davis people to finalize everyone’s events such as add ins and how much we need to pay. I’m pretty glad I told Randy to message Davis to ask if they can make a separate list for us and give us a grand total; this way we can hand them that amount when we get there to check everyone in at once. This saved both our teams from any stress and headaches.

While most people were warming up, I saw one of our teammates talking to Aliza in a corner and she was crying. When he left her to go warm up, she sat alone so I approached her and asked her what’s wrong and this is where I’m super happy that you and I are dating each other LOL. Basically back at the motel, after I confirmed most people were ready to leave, I drove off with the other cars following me. I didn’t know CJ’s car didn’t leave yet because Aliza left her wallet in the room…with the one and only room key in her wallet. So CJ and Aliza had to ask the front desk for another key and when they were in the room, Aliza was scrambling around looking for her wallet. After she found it, she remembered I told everyone to bring all electronics with them such as laptops and game consoles even if they aren’t going to be using them. She saw CJ’s Nintendo Switch just sitting in front of the TV so she told him he should pack it and take it with him. He said no it’s fine just leave it. She insisted and he was stubborn which eventually led to her trying to grab it and take it for him but ended up dropping it. And I guess that triggered him and he got super mad and I guess they argued for a bit? This was all while the 2 other people who were in CJ’s car were standing at the door of the room, one of which was the guy who was talking to Aliza at the gym. So I’m sure that was an awkward car ride to the gym. Aliza was explaining to me how she thinks that CJ is thinking too much as an individual rather than as her significant other. Like when she was looking for her wallet, he was just standing there and rushing her. She feels as if he thinks and takes care of himself so she should do the same. CJ has confirmed this with me too because in the middle of the tournament, he talked to me and I guess wanted to justify his side? He saw me talking to Aliza when she was crying. He said that he’s fed up with always being late to badminton stuff because she’s slow to get ready. And that she should get ready earlier if she is going to take so long instead of worrying about him, who can get up late but still be ready when we were scheduled to leave. I was telling him how because they are a couple, he should help her when she needs it. Possibly even wake up earlier to help her just because. All in all, she actually gave break up a thought because she’s tired of this always happeneing….we’ll see where things go from here?

My games for the day were not bad. Destroyed some teenage training kid 13-17 without even trying. Then I lost to Cote 23-21, 16-21, 20-22. I was both disappointed but proud of that match though. Disappointing because I came back from 12-18 on the 3rd set and still lost but proud that I think I played really well that game. Our team didn’t do so well today because most people don’t play singles or aren’t sure how to play mix not matter how much they think they do (Daniel Wong said he wants the girl to stand as close to the net as possible because he doesn’t trust her…then don’t play mix gdi). After we all finished, we went to some HK cafe where I sat with PJ, Peter, and a new guy named Thinh who is our mixed 2. I ordered for our table and we got 2 family sets, which is 3 entrees and rice for each set. The waitress asked me 3 times if I’m sure I wanted that much because she thought we were also sharing with Danae’s table which was next to us. I said yes I’m sure. We destroyed that shit like 4 vacuums at a table. In addition, we also finished a sweet and sour pork which was meant for Danae but we didn’t know it wasn’t ours LOL. Don’t underestimate hungry boys after a tournament. 

We got back to the hotel around 10. Everyone split and showered. Some came to my room to play poker for a bit but we ended earlier today because everyone was actually tired. Before sleeping, I told Daniel that I wanna gossip LOL. So he crawled into the bed between me and Peter. While he was thinking of a topic, I told him that if he didn’t think of one soon, I might fall asleep. He told me the next morning that Peter and I started snoring literally 20 seconds after I said that :P

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

December 2, 2017

So I spent my day with Mel, and we explored the Tsuen Wan area of Hong Kong. This is actually an area in hong kong that I’ve never been to before, so that was quite cool to be able to see what it’s like. It’s definitely not very touristy, and reminds me a lot of what Beijing is like. The streets and the set up are all very urban, but it was surprisingly cleaner than what I expected!

We grabbed a quick bite to eat at a place on campus called Garden Café, not bad! It was my second time having it, and I just like to get the panini which comes with ham, cheese, and cucumbers? LOL I mean it’s whatever, but not bad considering the other options on campus!

Then we took the MTR all the way down to Tsuen Wan, which is on the end of the red line, and then this was where it got a bit confusing LOL Because we had to take the minibus to the temple- we went to a place called Western Monastery and Yuen Yuen Institute. And neither of us could read the signs, at least I couldn’t, so it was just a struggle LOL. It was also weird because the bus doesn’t stop unless you yell out to the bus driver to stop, but then there’s like no designated bus stop? Except the pickup and drop off points… so you just yell stop at any point I guess? LOL I still haven’t completely figured it out. Thankfully when we were going, someone stopped the bus driver because I was looking at the window and then realizing that it was where we were supposed to be, and I didn’t know how to stop. But wow the temple/monastery were insanely gorgeous. I am always in awe with temples, especially in Asia because all of the stuff is hand painted, and extremely ornate. I also love going with someone like Mel because she is really patient when taking photos or videos, because she can be picky too, and idk she’s really sweet haha we also have a lot in common so it’s easy for us to joke about certain things.

The two places were right next to each other, so we were able to explore them fairly quickly. Then we took a minibus down the mountain back to the main city area and it was the same struggle of stopping the bus in the right spot. When we were back down in the main area, we wandered a bit and went to a shopping mall called Tsuen Wan Center? It’s like one of those malls that have a bunch of little tiny shop that are all self owned, and bargainable? Really “local” place imo. Didn’t see any foreigners haha. While we were at the mall, we met up with a few of Mel’s friends, and although they were nice imo it’s too late in the game to make super close friends haha. Both of them knew the area quite well though, because one of them was local, and the other couldn’t get campus housing so ended up getting housing in Tsuen Wan LOL

I also got a bit hungry from wandering around, so we went to this Korean place that I forgot the name of, but that’s okay because it was pretty bad LOL. I never had such bad rice from a Korean restaurant before… the chicken was alright pretty juicy but the sauce was weird.. LOL I also ordered kimbap, and that was pretty good and I finished half of it and saved the other half for later. Then I also went to Sushi Express, and they have this thing where you can buy by the piece? With each piece being 3HKD It’s a pretty good deal overall. I just got like 3 pieces of shrimp nigiri, and 3 pieces of imitation crab nigiri. I ate it and it didn’t give me food poisoning so hey that’s a plus!

Then Mel and I headed back to campus, because omg it didn’t occur to me how much I had to do in regards to packing and getting ready for Thailand. I also had to organize a driver to pick Vincent and I from the airport because apparently it’s pretty sketchy to get into a random cab from the airport. When I got back to my dorm, I put my laundry into the wash, and also went to take a shower. Then I met up with Mel in my common room and we were just relaxing together and doing some work quietly. I was making a packing list to make sure that I would have everything I need for 2 different locations. The struggle is so real, because Thailand and Japan literally have polar opposite weather, and I have to fit this into a carryon suitcase… smh aiya.

I also spent an hour trying to figure out how to import pictures from my phone to the computer, for some reason either my phone is glitching or my computer is and it’s preventing me from being able to use the “import pictures” button. But yeah I finally got that done, and I went to bed at around 3am.. LOL nbd it’s not like I had to get up at 7 to get to the airport or anything HAHA

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

12/1/2017

First day of Davis trip! So exciting!

But we aren’t leaving until 5ish so first off, I went to Mango Garden with gramps and Danae. I don’t know why we still go to this place every now and then even though the food is sub par compared to the many other Thai places around Fremont. Danae and gramps just had a sudden craving for skewers and roti. The pad thai was whatever. I still think Sa-By Thai is my go-to Thai restaurant.

After lunch, Danae and I went to school for open gym. I set today as optional because I’m pretty sure not many people wanted to come for a shortened open gym. And some people even go out of their way to come to practice. It was just a light hitting session. I just hit around a bit, drilled with Danae as warm up, and played a few pick-up doubles matches just to make sure I wasn’t stiff before the long-ass drive and the tournament. We ended club around 4pm. A few of us when to 7-11 to grab snacks, energy drinks, and whatever essentials we still needed for the trip. We met up with the rest of the group at 5pm. Surprisingly, majority of the people were actually on time. This team is much more coordinated than our previous years…possibly because its the newcomers vs. our old members who were always late.

At 5:30 we we packed all the cars and set our destination as Fenton’s, an ice cream place but also a diner? Never heard of it but Randy apparently knows it pretty well because it’s in his area. The drive was actually kinda grueling…I’ve never sat through the 680 traffic from beginning to end before because usually we exit the Mission Blvd for Warm Springs to avoid traffic…quite an experience that I don’t wish to go through again LOL

We got to Fenton’s around 8:30 which was to be expected. We also had our reservation set up, which I called for before we left. It was a funny phone call because after I said I would like to set up a reservation, the hostess said the minimum head count is 8. I said aite we got 25 and we are planning to arrive in about 4 hours. There was a brief pause on the phone followed by “oh ok…” LOL I’m sure that was a shocker for her. Fenton’s was whatever. Like their ice cream was kinda normal. I got a liverwurst sandwich because Randy told me to. At first he said it as a joke but didn’t think I would actually order it because it’s liver. Please, this is my childhood LOL. After dinner, we took a group photo at the Christmas tree at the front of the restaurant. The moment we walked out, Daniel Bi demanded that we take another group pic at the bigger tree. We saw some guy with a pro camera taking pics of his gf so we’re like oh thank god we have someone who knows pictures…yea turned out he doesn’t really as you can tell by the picture quality. But I thought the pics were still nice :)

We arrived at Motel 6 around 10:30 and this is one of the worst parts of any group trip…idk why motels now ask for ID from everyone staying…its a super long process. Like isn’t it enough to have 1 ID per room? I kinda just grabbed about 7 IDs and got it done. Everyone was super tired so I’m sure they just wanted go to their rooms and sleep…or so I was told…

10 minutes after getting our rooms, I called a team meeting. Imagine 22 people crowded in 1 room. I basically went over some basic tournament stuff such as supporting the team, watching their own match times, and any in game mentality. It felt super official LOL which was good. And right after that, people went to their rooms, showered, and about half the team decided to crash my room. I had a headache dammit. Half of them were playing games while the other half was doing facial. So I thought hell why not. If I can’t sleep with all these people in my room then might as well not try. So I started a game of poker. My first time winning! Went through a lot of bluffs or small hand wins. Never had anything big so that was a highlight of the night. I didn’t sleep until 4am LOL

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

December 1, 2017

I started my day off quite late today actually, I don’t think I got out of bed until literally like 15 min before I was supposed to meet Mel, so I literally just went in my sweatpants and tshirt. We made plans to go to lunch + shopping in Mongkok at 12:30, but I pushed it back to 1 because I just did not want to get out of bed at all.

For lunch I took her to that one place I always go to with the fried rice and lemon tea LOL it’s some place in ladies market and I have yet to learn the name of it. But it’s good! Good and cheap. Haha Then after lunch, we went shopping around ladies market for the Fjallraven Kanken bags. The thing with these bags, is that there’s no reason for them to be so expensive. Theyre not leather, they’re made with the same material as like jansport backpacks, so in this case getting a real one is just not worth it to me. I like shopping with Mel because she’s just as patient and just as picky as me, so she doesn’t mind walking the entire Ladies Market, before going back to the booths that we marked. We found this one booth that had both the sizes that we wanted and the colors, and originally the big bag was 180 and the small one is 140, but we managed to get 2 big and 2 small for 280. So 140 from each of us. WORTH IT! LOL the bargains are realllll

After getting our bags, Mel took me to Argyle center, which is really really cool! It’s indoors and it’s like 4 stories, and each floor has a bunch of little stores and shops with clothes, earrings, and stuff. Pretty nice to walk around and just look. We didn’t really shop for anything in particular, just walked around but when we have more time in the future I’ll probably come back.

Then I headed back to school to meet up with Katie for a bit, because she was leaving for Thailand at like 6pm and I wanted to wish her safe travels. I WASN’T GOING TO SEE HER for like a day which is the longest we’ve ever gone in like a month LOL She just came over to my dorm briefly and we chatted and talked for a bit. She made a mini video with all the pictures we took from Taipei, and it was cute! ^__^

After she left, I fell asleep while editing my daily vlog, and when I woke up I got two texts from Vincent and Mel asking if I ate already. I FELT SO LOVED, but like I was 1.5 hours late in responding. Surprisingly, they both didn’t eat yet so I just told them to meet at 9:30, and we would go to Festival walk together. This is like the first time the two of them are actually meeting and talking, and hmm it was an experience. Mel can be a bit aggressive sometimes, and is a bit ignorant when it comes to politics in the United States. So I think she got on Vincent’s nerves a little bit because he’s not into politics at all but she kept pressing certain topics. I just don’t think they completely fit well together haha Vincent is too passive, and mel is definitely not LOL

Dinner was good though, I got yoshinoya because pepper lunch was closed, and I also tried a BIG MAC for the first time ever ^__^ I just took a bite out of mel’s because I’ve actually never had one before? What a monumental moment…. And now I really miss in n out LOOL

After dinner it was like 11, so Vincent came over and we looked over what we were going to do in Japan. We didn’t get much done in terms of planning our itinerary, but at least we have like a pretty solid list of things to do! ^__^ I’m very excited for it all haha. Vincent had to leave at like midnight, but Mel and I stayed in the common room just working a little bit. Then I also got to skype my bb for an hour. ^___^ seeing you always makes me smile!! I also made myself a cup of hot chocolateeee! Haven’t had a cup of this in a long while… I’m writing this right now while its 4am, and after this im going to be going to bed hehe but yeah pretty slow day, nothing too much happened. LOL

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

11/30/2017

Today was an eventful but average day. I woke up around 9 to add in last minute details to my powerpoint presentation. My team didn’t really meet up to talk about who is talking about what. They just said we’ll each talk about the slides that we made but I’m not sure if they considered that our slides may still share the similar info. I set an alarm for 9am so that I would have extra time to prep and get to school. I still managed to almost be late LOL I walked into class about 2 minutes before class started and my group was already up front waiting for me. We were presenting first. Good thing is that there are 10 teams in the class. Our company choices were General Motors, Honda, and Tesla. We were 1 of 2 teams to choose GM and also first to go. So we had more room for error and we wouldn’t be in the awkward position if our information clashed with the other team because we went first. There was no tax class today so I left school early.

Van was coincidentally leaving school at the same time because he had some stuff to do. We ended up getting a bite at Chipotle. I haven’t had it in so long and omg it’s so good! What have I been missing out on this past semester? Look at that beautiful bowl of deliciousness…mmmmmmmm. We hit the gym shortly after. First time we both went to the gym but worked out separately. I wasn’t expecting to run into him at school today so I had my own workout plans. I was just going to work out all my muscles lightly so they aren’t tense or tight before the tournament and I did just that. Van’s plan was to work out lightly such as push ups and sit ups. Left him for about an hour and came back to him panting and sweating…idiot did a legit work out and his knee is already bad gdi. I seriously hope we’ll be fine on Sunday LOL

My plan after getting home was to put up the Christmas tree but my dad had already done so. I told him last night and this morning that I would do it after I came home but I guess he wanted it out of the way? Oh well, less work for me.

Dinner was pretty good! There were sweet and sour pork ribs, one of my favorite foods at home. Mood was fine until dad started talking to me. Basically he’s talking about how I should study more about taxes because it’ll be one of my essentials when I start being a real accountant…keep in mind he doesn’t know how I’m doing in class. And then he’s like shouldn’t you find this stuff interesting if it’s your field? Do you find it interesting? I’m like no…no one in accounting class finds tax interesting. We are taking it because we need to. Then I guess he kinda snapped and was like so why are you studying accounting then? And all this bs about how I should do what I want and that I need to work harder. Something along the lines of if I wanna take life easy, I should move to Hawaii because jobs are basic and income is low but enough for a simple life…idk and a bunch of other bs where I just wanted to snap that I do things a certain way because I care about what he thinks of me. And I am held back on certain years because I decided to work for him or Costco because he told me to. And I just wanted to storm out and scream. And then he said stuff like why don’t you come home earlier at night and also wake up earlier. You’ll accomplish more this way. Stop spending your time with losers. They’ll only drag you down. That’s when he got up and started cleaning up the dinner table. I did a bit but I think a tear was about to fall from my eye so I just walked away. After he went upstairs to his office, I texted Peter, Jhoii, and Lara that I was going bowling and stormed out.

I ended up just bowling by myself. Peter was already at open rec. Lara wasn’t feeling well. Jhoii was getting food with her friend. Not that I minded I guess. I could chill there with a cup of 805…that first game of 205 and that shitty frame pissed me off. I bowled about 6 games until my finger was swollen and basically wouldn’t go into the ball anymore. And then Jhoii ticked me off when I told her I was leaving. She asked if I could buy her wine. I didn’t mind and she’s like oh I don’t think you’re gonna make it to Walmart because they’re closing soon. I’m like ok well what’s the plan. She’s like idk lemme know if you find anything that’s still open and sells wine. I’m like woman…I ain’t your bitch, your bf, and you are about to lose the friend part if you keep this up. I just told her idk any and went home…

Started packing for Davis when I got home. Don’t remember what it’s like to play a tournament lol. I forgot how many shirts I should be packing and what else I need to bring. That paper you see is the form for me to be authorized to drive…yes after 4 years on this team, I am finally one of the drivers…and of all places to fucking Davis.

Can’t tell if today was a bad or good day…I guess it just averages out…

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

November 30, 2017

So today was my vlogging day! So here’s my vlog for the day ^__^ but some highlights that I didn’t include… the Korean bbq omfg LOL it was like pretty good quality meat, everything tasted good but holy crap the service and the way it was set up was just so poorly. Like we would fill out this order form every time we want more meat? But each time they would only bring this really tiny sized plate, and then it would be like 2 pieces of each meat we ordered.. and at some point they lost 2 of our order sheets so were just sitting there for like 15 min with no food… pretty frustrating.

Overall was a really good day, may have spent a bit too much money than I should have but… LOL I really needed converse because my vans have been ripped with holes smh

I’m really gonna miss this place haha

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

11/29/2017

Hey baby! It was so nice to finally be able to talk to you over video call today! I missed you so much!

After we ended our call, I went out to check on the van’s tires because if I’m going to be driving to Davis, I would prefer not having it break down on me especially when Danae said the tire pressure warnings went off. After a good pump, the warning disappeared but just to be safe, I’ll still be bringing our pump on the trip.

I went out to get lunch with my gramps and Danae. We went to Asian Pearl and I suspect that they switched chefs because the food was passable before…not I’m just like ok just close down lol. It’s not like we order anything special either. We order the same dishes of dim sum wherever we go and they are all the basic popular dishes in HK culture. So if a place can’t get those right, might as well lol

Danae left for work in the middle of lunch. After gramps and I finished eating, we went to Marina for groceries. I think he and I can both agree it has been a while since we last had a conversation together because when we were alone, he had a lot to talk about such as things he saw on YouTube, the family, and how I’ve been doing. It was nice for a bit of a catch up. After getting groceries, we picked up Danice and went home. 

I worked on my group presentation for tomorrow. This is going to be 1 of 4 final projects for my graduating senior class…It’s kinda dumb when I think about it. We have a presentation for our industry, a paper for our industry, a presentation on our company, and then a paper on our company…like both presentations and papers are answering the same questions except the focus is different…yea my group is as dumbfounded as I am LOL

Van came over around 5 and our original plan was to get Texas Roadhouse. He pointed it out about a month ago and we were super sad that they were closed temporarily for renovation and the announced re-opening date on Yelp was yesterday. We went today and we found out they extended their closed dates all thew way to January. This is actually one of the most disappointing moments of my semester LOL we ended up going to Chili’s instead and as you can tell, there was a shit ton of food. We barely finished all of it. Like halfway through, I looked up at Van and he was giving me a glance. I said “Dude if you say you’re full now, I’m going to stab you with my fork.” He looked back down with a smile and quietly muttered, “Dammit.” And he was also having trouble eating because was falling into a food coma, super full, and also somehow managed to get tipsy all at the same time. Weak

We went to Mr. Green Bubble for tea because it was close by and we also had about 40 minutes to kill before hitting the theaters. It wasn’t as good as I remembered. The pearls were slightly under cooked and the milk tea is the most bland tea I have ever tasted. I’ve never asked for a tea to be remade before but I asked if they could make it sweeter. He gave me a surprised look, turned and added what looked like a few drips of syrup to it, shook it up well, and then handed it back to me. I was about to ask if he could just give me a cup of syrup LOL. Maybe they thought they added a lot of syrup already but actually forgot about it? Idk what happened but kinda disappointing.  

We were originally going to watch Thor but at the last minute we changed to Wonder which I suggested. Basically it is about a kid who born with physical deformities, gets bullied at school, and finds himself to fit in. My favorite part about it was they would play his point of view and at some point, switch to the sister’s point of view through the whole story because she was depressed that her parents were so worried about her younger bro that she felt like she wasn’t important. And then the story would change to the sister’s friend and so on. Van definitely cried at least 10 times because every time I looked over, he sniffled…Great movie though. I give a 8.5/10.

That’s my Wednesday bb. I can’t wait to hear about your day. I love you!

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

November 29, 2017

So my day started off today by being blind. LOL because I freaking didn’t put on my contacts on. But I was still feeling myself today. Idk the glasses just worked for me today, and I liked my chill outfit. I was wearing the giant green hoodie but with black tank and black shorts. Comfy casual. I met Mel at around 11:30 for lunch, and we went to Teawood to try it out! It was actually good! This time I changed my order, so that I would still get the same noodle soup, but instead of getting beef brisket as my meat, I would get popcorn chicken? This worked a lot better for me just because I would never really eat the beef in it… so yay! But lunch was quite nice, I really like Mel! She has a very stereotypical viewpoint on how Americans are like, and although it can get a bit frustrating at times, I can accept it. She’s overall very sweet and I enjoy spending time with her. She’s also good at not being on her phone at all, and just being very in the moment. We also run on similar wavelengths, so I feel like we understand each other pretty well.

After lunch, we decided to walk around the mall a little bit, and we ended up going into H&M, and LOL I fucked uppp, I decided to get ANOTHER jacket, this blue one, and then this black sweater that’s the exact same as the pink one that you said you liked, and also a pair of boots. To be fair though, everything I bought was on sale! So the jacket was 100 HKD, the sweater was 70HKD, and the shoes were 100 HKD. So I mean.. I think it was a pretty good deal!!

When we finished shopping, I headed back to my dorm to drop off the stuff, and I ended up changing into something that was much more presentable and cuter… LOL then josh and I went out to go get dessert from Mongkok!! We went to a place called He She Eats, and even though we call it dessert… I obviously ordered French fries. LOL I don’t think im that big on desserts unless it’s my own raspberry cheesecake… LOL but he did get this cheesecake thing, that came with like a bunch of whipped blueberry cream cheese and omg he took my fries and started eating them with the whipped cream cheese… It was surprisingly not as bad as it sounds, its kinda like dipping mcdonalds fries into the soft serve? LOL We bonded and talked for a bit, but omg when we had to pay it was a bit awk because he only had card, and I didn’t have enough cash for the both of us on me… so I had to leave and go find an ATM to get cash for this lol yeah awk

Also awk because I couldn’t find the place for the longest time, and so I asked a local, and they were like … it’s right there. LOOOL and it was literally like 20 steps from me, just a bit hidden from sight. SMH

After dessert, Josh and I walked around Mongkok some more and we explored the areas we were in, and walked around some of the shopping centers and stumbled upon this kbbq place, and we were like ok lets come here tomorrow!!! Then we went back to the MTR and took the red line to Sham Shui Po, because we were meeting everyone else there for dinner!

Dinner was sooo good! This restaurant was like the authentic style, with tables outside, with plastic covering, family style dishes etc. This is a must try in my opinion, it had some of the best food I’ve tried in HK. Haha IT was a total of 9 of us, and usually I have a say in what we order but this time I just backed off and let them do the honors. I was more or less in charge of wiping and cleaning the bowls and utensils. I think its like a habit now for me to just always wipe everyone’s utensils and etc down for them when we go out to eat. LOL but yeah we got a bunch of dishes, but I think the best one was the potatoes and steak and the razorhead clams. Both were really flavorful and worth getting again! The tab turned out to be 100 per person, which is super cheap for the amount of food we got.

Then after dinner, we went to go get dessert, and omg LOL we went to 3 different spots, because the first two were both too crowded for all 9 of us… but yeah the dessert place was pretty bad. I think I only liked mine because I could eat the fruit on top, I didn’t touch the “pudding” that was on the bottom of mine, idk wtf it was but it wasn’t pudding LOL. We chilled there for a bit just talking and relaxing, before we headed back to campus.

When we got back to campus, katie and I saw the pingpong room open downstairs, so we ended up playing together for about an hour. She doesn’t really know how to play, but a pretty quick learner so it was fun! Then we sat and chatted about Chris and his gf Yuki, because it’s like this huge secret that only us know, so we were just discussing it. Because we think it’s a bad idea, because it’s their both first relationship, its going to be long distance for a year or more, and they have a month together to set a foundation. I’m sure that it could be fine if they worked for it, but it just seems like a lot of obstacles, and Chris is going to be attached very easily. But its not my place to say anything, I just don’t want Chris to get hurt haha.

Then after that we just went back to our respective dorms, and that was the end of my day! ^__^

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

11/28/2017

Today wasn’t such a great day. Short and kinda sad actually. When I woke up in the morning, I was just really upset with how I’m doing in school. Like I am letting one obstacle stop me from going any further and the hardest part is, I actually thought if I put in the effort, the results would show…

I didn’t have class for my graduating senior class today because last day of instruction for that class was about 2 weeks ago. We are currently just focusing on our final papers and presentations. I went to school for tax class. We were just going over new material and honestly I felt like my stomach was churning in the class. I just wanted to walk out but knew I should stay because the final will be cumulative gdi. Also, it was a good thing I didn’t leave because there was a pop quiz just as Van had predicted. I think I did ok on it? But honestly, that has never happened in this class. I always think I did ok…

I asked the professor if he was still having office hours today after class and he said yes. I had about an hour to kill before that so I went to Starbucks and tried a eggnog latte? I couldn’t really taste the eggnog but at least it was warming in this cold weather? I went up to the professor’s office hours at 5 which is when it opens and his TA’s were still in there. He asked if he could get 15 more minutes so I waited outside at a desk. And then when he came out he was like sorry I need another 10 minutes and went to a different office…ok LOL don’t post this as your office hours if you can’t meet at these times.

Anyways, when I finally got to see him, I basically asked if it’s still possible for me to pass the class. I said and played every possible card I could. I told him I’ve been trying super hard but the effort doesn’t translate to the exams. I’m graduating this semester and that I’m doing fine in every class except this one and it’s the only one stopping me from graduating…and my final chance before I’ll have to switch majors. He wouldn’t budge which was no surprise. I asked him if there was any extra work I could do to boost my grade and give my final more breathing room. He said that’s why he made the homework so many points and is dropping my 2 lowest quizzes…In the end, he recommended me to cut time from where I can such as work, other classes, or even sleep if I must to spend more time focusing on this class…ok lol all in all, I need a perfect score on everything coming up to pass with a 75%. Excellent :)

The drive home was bad. Not so much of the traffic but mostly just my thoughts wandering off. I just really wished you were here in person for me to talk to. When I got home, the rest of my family was getting ready to go out for dinner. We went a place called Gourmet Palace. It’s next to Ranch 99 where Causeway Bay used to be…I’ve been to that shop 3 times and all 3 times were different restaurants. Yea this one is probably gonna close down soon lol. 

Danice and I went to Happy Lemon afterwards. Honestly I don’t know why I keep coming back here. Like Gong Cha is right there and there’s better tea places in the area. I tried the milk tea with salted cheese and I guess this time the drink wasn’t so bad? We also dropped by Austin’s house (the one from MSJ badminton) because Danice wanted to dropped one off for him. He bought her t4 last time. We got there, he came out, I handed him the drink, he said thanks. I said dude aren’t you cold in shorts and a t-shirt. He said, “Oh yea these are actually my boxers. They’re just longer so they look like shorts but these are actually just boxers lol.” Um ok….

After coming home, I had a Skype call with the other officers…basically end of the year headache/closing/planning/and me trying not to blow up. We haven’t ordered trophies yet and our tournament is next week. They are still not settled with how we want to pay for Davis. We don’t have enough cars or rooms yet. We underestimated the amount of people going. Competition proposal hasn’t been submitted yet. All the credit cards are maxed out on their limit as of now. Shirts haven’t been ordered yet. Yes I’m trying not to blow up here.

Babe…things are pretty much hopeless without you here. LOL sorry I feel like that should be a compliment but at the same down it is also sad to see how incompetent some people can be. I need you to massage my stress out :(

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

November 28, 2017 So today was the day of reckoning, I had a paper due and two presentations all in one go. I had a presentation for social media marketing and also consumer behavior. Oof it was a struggle. I wasn’t too nervous for social media marketing but I was like terrified for consumer behavior, because I had a really long part that had a lot of theories that I wasn’t completely smooth in, so it was a bit of a struggle haha.

But I dressed up all cutely today!! Even though surprisingly none of my professors required professional dress. In a lot of other classes I know that they require professional dress. I guess I got lucky because i don’t actually have dress shoes here…

So after my first presentation I hit up Josh for lunch, and we just got a quick bite at Homey’s kitchen, which is like right outside our halls. The food there is alright, I wouldn’t pick it normally, but it’s one of the better places to get food on campus. Josh was really supportive and he kept me calm and was just very encouraging. I really really appreciate him :’) he is truly one of the best people I’ve met here. Then after that we went back to my dorm, and I wanted to take a nap and he apparently fell asleep at my feet but I woke him up by kicking him LOL oops not my fault I cant control my movements while im sleeping.. LOL

After that I went to meet my group an hour before class at around 2, just so we could run over the presentation a few more times. And thankfully everyone seemed like they knew what they were doing. They were both locals, so their English wasn’t the greatest. I was extremely nervous for the Q&A session for this class because the teacher tore the groups from last week apart with her questions and etc. We were the third group to present, and holy shit I was so nervous. Like my friend Lisa was asking me if I was ready, and I just grabbed her hand and she felt how cold and sweaty my hands were LOL

But imo, our presentation looked really cool. Because our first page was what Josh helped me design, and it looked so cool LOL But yeah we got a few murmurs from just our title slide. The presentation went very smoothly overall, we all got through our parts clearly. For my part, I thought I presented it well, I used my notecards a little bit too much, but overall I think I did well. I had the analysis portion of Tesla’s marketing strategies, and it was the part the professor cared about the most, but it seemed like she was nodding and agreeing with what we were saying. After the presentation was the sweetest part, because she started off by saying “I quite like this group, quite nice” and it is legitly the highest praise I’ve ever heard her say tbh. Because she was so critical about all the previous groups. Then the question she asked us wasn’t questioning our logic, which was what I was worried about. Instead it was more about one of our recommendations and how we could expand upon it. So it was more constructive than actual critique. Then she said after we answered her that we were “quite nice”. And even Lisa’s groupmate pointed it out to us when we sat back down that she said it. LOL so YAYY we did well ^__^

After the presentation, I felt this huge weight off my shoulders because I was free!! I was finally free from all the presentations and also the papers that we had to do.

It was honestly a very bittersweet feeling. Like haha idk one hand it was great to finish all my work and be done with it, but on the other hand the fact that my time here is limited is becoming much more real in my mind. Because now, I was done with all my lectures and all that I have left waiting for me are my finals. Time seems like its ticking down on me day by day, and it really makes me sad to think that I’m going to have to leave all these people that have become my family, and this city that I’ve grown close enough with to call home.

But anyways, after I was done, I ditched my last tutorial class for stats because .. welp I already ditched like half at this point I don’t think it matters if I ditched the last one. I made plans with Vincent and Katie and Chris to go out and get ramen as a celebration dinner!! Cause Katie had the same presentation just a different class, so we were both essentially finished!

We went to place called Ramen Bari Uma, which was in TST. And it was actually pretty good! Not the best place I’ve ever had, no where has yet to top Tsujita, but we’ll see after I go to Japan hehe. I got the spicy tonkotsu ramen (I think) and also an order of fried gyoza! We just chatted and ate and I thought it was a nice experience! After dinner, we went to the ice cream place called Emacks and ____ I forgot, and we got a scoop and then we sat on the steps to just chill and talk. And it was just a nice way to rewind and relax. We were talking about stupid topics, but I still enjoyed it all. Haha I think Chris, Vincent, Katie and I have this cute little bond now, because Chris and Vincent are roommates, and Katie and I are hallmates and we spend a ridiculous amount of time together, and we’re just all close with each other. It’s hard to explain but I love it haha.

We stayed there for maybe an hour or so to chat and talk, and then after that we headed back to our halls. We were all pretty exhausted so I just wanted to go back to my dorm and have some time to myself, so I did just that! I also found this new drama that I’m probably going to start watching, it’s called Lost Loves in Time. But yeah I ended up falling asleep on my bed without wearing contacts… and by the time I woke up again I was like too lazy to put it in LOL

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

11/27/2017

Today started fairly late because I was just too tired to get up. I thought that because I slept so much yesterday, I may have trouble sleeping last night or might wake up earlier this morning. Nope didn’t happen. Didn’t wake up until 12.

Van asked if I wanted to go gym. It has been I think almost 2 weeks since I last went to the gym? And it’s one of those things where I keep putting off because I’m always tired but because I’m always tired, I never end up going. It’s a repeating cycle and I’ll have to force myself to get back into it. Van asked me to meet him at 3. I got to the gym around 2 so that I could put in some extra work and my god…keeping/gaining muscle is hard but sitting around and losing that strength is so easy. I was barely able to keep up with Van. Luckily he’s sore from the tournament and couldn’t go 100% but I could already tell the gap between our strengths has widened because I haven’t been going lately while he has been active everyday. I wanna make sure I have at least a decent body when I meet up with my baby in Hong Kong :P

Gym took super long because we first focused on chest and then Van suggested we do shoulders too because Davis tournament is this weekend and we won’t be able to gym hard later on this week. I was super hungry halfway through the workout because I hadn’t eaten anything beforehand. Pizza was the first thing that came to mind. A perfect, freshly-made Mountain Mike’s and a side of buffalo wings sounded amazing. It’s kinda ironic that I was ordering pizza during my rest time at the gym LOL

We ate at Van’s place with the intention of watching a movie but his computer keeps dying on its own so that plan went out the window. We decided to play some games which turned out kinda stupid because some of the games had super bad glitches in them and others were kinda dumb lol. He’s not even sure why he still has them. We chilled until 8pm and then left for open rec.

I think it’s been about 2 years since I last went to Open Rec and today reminded me of why I don’t go anymore. It’s super dead. There were only a handful of us guys from club: me, Van, CJ, Peter, Jeffrey Shih, both Daniels, and another guy named Jeffrey Lo who is apparently the eye candy of club. It was also super cold tonight and I don’t play well in the cold. Everything feels stiff and slow. I got a few good games in before sitting out for the last hour. I was talking to Peter and we’re like dude club is going down the drain super fast because of the incompetency of the offices. Davis is this weekend and if we didn’t bring up the issue of registering drivers, no one would have. Our tournament is next week and we still have yet to order trophies…yea things are not going well at all LOL and to make matters worse, I have asked them about these issues every week for the past 3 weeks or so.

After Open Rec, we all went to Jack in the Box for some late night muchies. As expected, the food was whatever. Everyone was just hungry and we had some good company so the food was able to slide by. It was a chill guy hangout after a workout. We all parted ways around 11:30. Funny thing was when I dropped off Van, the guy just naturally strolled away from my car, forgetting that his keys, wallet, and badminton bag were all in my car. Took him quite a bit of time to realize that he couldn’t get into his house LOL and of course to mess with him, I started to drive away.

A chill day; both in events and temperature.

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

November 27, 2017

Oof, so today was the day right before my final two presentations, which means loads and loads of stress. I didn’t leave my room all day. Yes I did have class, but I just didn’t think it was worth it to go. So yeah I was just holed up in my room until like 7 pm correcting the grammar and formatting of my consumer behavior paper. Both the paper and the powerpoint are due tomorrow.

However, Josh really made my day hehe he brought me fried chicken wings from KFC and also green milk tea from gongcha :’) He even remembered that I don’t like boba so he got me only the milk tea. He is so sweet to me haha I love him to death. I think the best part about him is that we’re so completely platonic, but he treats me so well like his little sister. He is truly one of the best people I’ve met here.

He also came over for a bit and we just chilled in the common room together working/talking about stupid shit/stressing together. While we were chilling together a bunch of mainland students came in and started cooking/being really loud. And although I know we were in the common room, it’s pretty rude to just barge in when people are already there studying. But it was hilarious because Josh started speaking Spanish to me and I obviously had no fucking idea what he was saying so I was just replying to him in gibberish or repeating exactly what he said to me LOL I still have no idea what he was saying to me. But it was just a really hilarious moment.

Then at 9 I had to head out for a late group meeting and it was actually a pretty productive meeting, we ran through our presentation a few times and covered a lot of stuff. Happy with that. The hard part is now going to be memorizing the extremely long part that I have, lets just say it’s 720 words total, and most of it is with theories. Ughhh but its ok.

Yesterday for some reason I was looking like such a scrub with my pajama pants, hoodie, glasses, and gross face, but I was feeling cute HAHA Josh took the pictures for me and he was like you are the most extra person sometimes. And I was doing this one pose where I stick my tongue out with my eyes closed, and he took the picture and started walking away and it was just really funny haha

After my group meeting, I met up with Vincent and we went on a walk together to just clear my head. I just wanted to chat with him and distract myself from everything. We took a path that we both have never walked before and I honestly don’t even know where we were headed to, but we both were just walking very slowly and talking about our projects, work to do, etc. It was nice. I also apologized for getting annoyed at him over the jacket. He is a pretty practical and mature person and doesn’t deal too well with my immaturities so I wanted to apologize. I think what’s nice is that it does seem like he enjoys talking to me like I asked him if we should take the shortcut or the long way, and he was like oh lets take the long way, and even though we got back to his dorm he still stayed outside to talk to me for another 20 something minutes. But my god his mind is so hard to understand haha. He was talking to me about Katie again, and how he might not be over her because she’s not as irritating now?? LOL idk whatever, I’m not here to figure out his love life, but I will try to offer my advice.

After I left Vincent, I went to my common room again, and Katie came over to do work and eat cup noodles with me LOL. She was stressing over her work, because she thinks that her group mates did the work wrong, which is very likely because when I looked over her presentation, it seems like she approached it wrong? Idk but she was irritating me LOL like I think she can just be a really bad listener sometimes. I told her in the beginning that I didn’t leave my room all day and I haven’t eaten anything besides the fried chicken. And then twenty minutes later she asks me if I had dinner, and if I went out with ______ and im like ??? no I literally just told you I never left my room LOL it’s minor, but it just reminds me how often it happens like shes always a little bit not paying attention. I get it when we all have stuff on our minds to worry about but my gosh LOL I’m also really stressed so that small stuff really ticks me off bleh.

But yeah I slept at 3 am!! Which is the earliest I’ve ever gone to bed I’m so impressed. Jk I still have to wake up in 5 hours for my first presentation.. aiya

[sixthousandninehundredmiles]

11/26/2017

Hey babe! So this morning we were supposed to have a video call scheduled at 9am. And I actually set up like 7 alarms to make sure I didn’t oversleep due to coming home late last night. However, around 8am, my mom walked in asking if I could go to the warehouse with her because my dad wasn’t feeling well. Not sure what happened but my mom said he was had a really bad headache and was exhausted from work. Usually he goes in the morning to help the truck driver from LA unload the shipment so that the driver could leave. My mom was kinda in a hurry because the driver had already arrived in Hayward. So I quickly got up to shower and dashed out after texting you about the situation.

I got to the warehouse and the truck was already there. I opened up the loading dock and basically unloaded pallets one by one with a pallet jack…haven’t done this in years so I’m kinda rusty with controlling the pallet jack. It’s hard to explain but I never went in “sideways” before so I was struggling and the driver saw I was a noob so he helped me out a bit lol. Took me about an hour to unload and another 2 hours to put everything into the coolers. My mom complimented me on how I was able to fit everything neatly in line even though I haven’t done this in years…I feel like she’s just saying things like that to kinda motivate me to help out more? Not sure but just a feeling.

After clean up was over, we went to the HK cafe that our team went to after the ZBTC tournament. I ordered the same baked fish filet with white sauce over rice. I only finished half of it because I felt more tired than anything and also the sauce was super thick and heavy for an early lunch. My mom was talking most of the time during lunch about a variety of topics such as BBC coaches, Colin’s dad, my dad’s work, and also how my dad said I looked kinda sad these past few days. She was also trying to joke a bit I guess to raise my spirits up a bit even if she doesn’t know what’s wrong? I appreciated that but I’m still unsure of how to tell my parents that I’m currently failing school. My dad obviously will just turn it into a lecture because he’ll think I didn’t put in enough effort. I had already somehow told him that I would need another semester to finish school…this is getting me really depressed lately because I’m not sure what I should do. I plan to my professor and adviser this week to see if I can work something out but my chances don’t feel too high…

After lunch my mom said I can go home so I did without hesitation. I got home, stripped, and ptfo in bed. It was around 1 when I got home and I didn’t wake up until 6ish. I woke up to text you a bit until I unknowingly passed out again until dinner. I think lack of sleep is really catching up to me. Like my dad always says, “Sleep is like a credit card.” I’m currently paying back with high interest.

I would have included a picture of dinner but by the time Danae woke me up, the rest of the family was already eating except Danice, who was asleep upstairs with a headache…seems like everyone is getting sick these days. I was quiet for most of dinner and then my grandpa brought up that I had a postcard that has been on the homework table for about 2 days. I was confused at first but when I saw it, I think my spirit lifted for the first time today. You’re so sweet bb. This card made me smile and I basically disappeared from dinner for about 5 minutes to snap and text you about it. Thank you so much. You’re the best!