Category: General

You know I realized it’s not the 8 AM classes that are bugging me, it’s the back to back labs.  It means I actually have to go to class and hand something in, in order to get credit for it.  Not only that, but spending 4 hours in one class certainly doesn’t make things any easier.  Oh well, part of the job (though not exactly the part I enjoy).

So I hosted an improv comedy night over at my frat, last Friday.  It was pretty funny at times, particularly the drinking games (and the jokes made about me).  Perhaps putting in more of those two will make the night go better next time. 

The next day was construction day, where we decided to fix up a lot of the house.  Granted a lot of the projects weren’t done, but it was still a bonding experience and very rewarding.  The reward came in the form of a pool party the next day, where everyone (except me) swam and enjoyed themselves on a hot day.  I find it weird that it’s mostly my friends who seem to be enjoying what the frat has to offer, as they come over for events like this and the improv.  That’s pretty cool.

Speaking of water, it reminds me that I met a varsity swimmer from MIT last week named Chris Lucas.  He was visiting and stayed at our house for a while, interviewing for a graduate position in psychology.  He’s hoping to do some research involving language learning and computers.  I hung out with him for a while and I hope he gets in. Personally, I think it’d be cool knowing a grad student in the psych department in Berkeley.

Finally, I got back from a little get together at David “Lucky” or “Flipper” Singer’s new apartment.  It just occurred to me that he’s switched addresses in between every fall and spring semester, so I always have to see his new place.  I hope that trend doesn’t continue, as it’s getting harder and harder to come over.

Extra, Extra, Read all about–See Astrophysicists in Captivity: Do you know what an astrophysicist does?  If not, head down to New York and see them on display at an exhibit in the American Museum of Natural History.

I don’t get to see a lot of movies and when I do see them, I rarely write more than three sentences about them in my journal.  Well I thought I would make an exception just this once (yeah I don’t really have much to write about).  With that, here are my thoughts on Kill Bill, Volume 1 and The Passion of the Christ.

–Kill Bill, Volume 1: Yeah I know it’s been around for a while, but finally saw this movie over at Wheller Hall a few weeks ago. I must say it does impress.  First off, a side note, I never thought of a mace as a cool weapon until I saw this movie.  I personally loved how they told the story of this movie, as it goes in an order that isn’t exactly chronological.  There is one main problem with the movie is that is a lot of action and not a lot of story telling.  However,  there is plenty of style with an awesome sound track and killer moves.  A great movie for people who enjoy the action more than the story.

–The Passion of the Christ: I will say that I didn’t find the film anti-Semitic at all, but then again I’m not Jewish.  I saw this on Saturday with some of my Christian friends, and I must say I had a bit of a different feel for this movie than they did, though I’m not sure exactly how it was different.  This movie is a good one that I will recommend if you’re not scared of blood and punishment.  There is a lot of it in this movie and plenty of it so that you may want to look away and definitely makes you not want to pay for admission.  If you’re not afraid of gore though, it’s worth seeing, but I expected The Passion to be a better film than what I saw.

Extra, Extra, Read all about–Mark Fiore columns: The internet’s own set of liberal political Flash animations.  I particularly like The Rovers, a rather amusing take on the race to be the Democratic candidate for president.

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While checking out Calstuff the other day, there was a link to a publication called California Voice.  It’s a small publication that comes out ill-frequently (there are no regular distribution dates), which I believe is either caused by the magnitude and scope of the magazine or just laziness of the creators.  I tend to believe the former, as the magazine tends to go quite in depth into an issue it discusses.  However, the infrequency of its publication maybe why their readership is so small, and why the latest issue is online only.  Not exactly the best thing to do when you’re a fairly unknown publication.  It shouldn’t be that way though, as I’ve read through a couple of the articles and feel that it has got to be one of the better publications at Berkeley.  Check them out.

Funny Quote-“God forsaken smack”-Me when things don’t go right(don’t ask me why that’s funny)

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Feature Photo: Leaping Around in Downtown

Protesters of leap year block the intersection at Shattuck Avenue and Center Street. The protesters threw oranges at and spit on Downtown businesses.

Only in Berkeley. (By the way, that photo is way too blurry.)

cross posted on

-Number of times I’ve been asked if I was a tutor at the SLC this year: about 7. Of course I’m not, but it’s nice that people ask anyway.
-Some people actually recognize me from my livejournal icon. It sure does make me wonder who actually reads this thing.
-My hit counter says some 290+ people visited the journal. Again, it sure does make me wonder who actually reads this thing.
-Why do I keep seeing couples snuggling in the middle of lecture? I mean I know it’s hard to focus, but cozying up with someone isn’t going to make things easier.
-Anybody see that big puddle in from of Pimentel a few days ago? The one in front of Lewis? Walking on both of them sure wasn’t fun.
-8 AM midterm on Monday at Genetics and Plant Biology Building for Bio 1A. Hmm, that’s on the other side of campus from where I live. Man does that suck.

Funny Quote-“Okay so make sure you know the emergency evacuation plan when there’s an emergency. Notice how I said when and not if.”-My Chem 3B GSI

Here’s something I found in an old Parade Magazine. It was in the Ask Marylin section, where readers write questions to the woman with the highest IQ in the world and she answers.

Q: Child prodigies excel in the hard sciences, like math, physics, and chemistry. Why are there no 10-year-old economics or political science or philosophy prodigies?

A: Because, despite our joking to the contrary, children cannot be wise. No matter how bright, they haven’t yet learned enough about themselves (which is learning not available in a book) to see how their own particular nature and nurture have interacted to produce the way they think. Only after maturity-and only if they take the time and energy to begin to shed their biases-do they have the opportunity to eventually become wise.

How very true. I mean after all you can learn advanced mathematics as a child, yet knowing a lot about the way people and the world itself takes a lot of life experience.

Err…My subprofile was accident deleted. I had so much good stuff on it too, from jokes to links. I’m so annoyed by that, I’m not even gonna bother making a new one.

Anyways, back to Valentine’s Day and why I sound like the Scrooge during this holiday. I don’t know I guess to me everything about this holiday feels, well phony. I mean come on St. Valentine? That doesn’t even sound like a real saint. Then there’s the idea that we have to make sure that someone you love knows you love them too. Come on. Love is something, as corny as it may sound, that happens all year round. There doesn’t need to be a day for that…

Okay, I just realized I added nothing original to the argument against Valentine’s Day. I suppose I’m just a bitter about it, since I never really shared a Valentine’s Day with anyone. Would they change my outlook on Valentine’s though? Probably not, and neither will three Spirits who would supposedly visit me tonight if I’m still a Scrooge.

It’s not only this that feels phony to me, but in this society, so many things just don’t feel real. I guess that’s why I can be callous sometimes; I sometimes just don’t know when people get hurt of how to sympathize with some people. Now really I’m a sensitive person, but there are times when I just don’t care about things and I just can’t get attached to some things. So really, I guess it’s hard for me to make connections that I feel would last. I’d like them to, but I guess I’m not the kind of person who likes to work at it. I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. I guess I’ll leave be.

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Last Saturday, the bros of ADPhi and I went over to Tahoe for a little fun in the snow. I didn’t get to ski or snowboard, but I did go sledding, which was fun. There was a lot of other stuff that happened, that I shouldn’t say in order to avoid incriminating myself; let’s just say it was one of the few times we actually lived up to some frat stereotypes. It was a great weekend, overall, with a lot of brothers bonding and such.

Super Bowl Sunday came around, and the matchup between the Carolina Panthers and the New England Patriots was actually a good one. Given the combination of Janet Jackson’s boob, the Streaker at the game (CBS did not show this), and the fact that the game was good makes this one of the best Super Bowls ever.

Back at Berk, classes were waiting and such. I actually find them a lot of them interesting this semester, except for the tedium that is the laboratory. Taking two long labs on back to back days was probably not the best idea in the world. Oh well, at least lectures are interesting. The seminars I am taking are also startlingly informative. I’ll leave you now with some Interesting Facts I gathered.

Interesting Fact-The average student who lives in the Cal dorms showers for an average time of seventeen minutes. (source: Environment Science 84)
-Last year, the department at Cal with the highest percentage of people who get accepted to med school has a 100% acceptance rate. Which department? Political Science, which was 1 for 1. (source: Physics 84)

Well folks, I guess my life has been eventful in the last few days. ADPhi has had a few events over the last few weeks. Last Friday, we had Broomball and boy was that awesome. Surprisingly, I managed to score three goals that night (much to the chagrin of Steve, who I had scored 2 goals of my goals on), despite falling down so many times. Saturday, our “Let’s Get It On” Party became “Let’s Get Our Game On” as we had board games, poker, and DDR for the event. Surprisingly, people were telling me they had a lot of fun; heck, Vicky even decided against going to another party for ours. Man, it feels so good to hear people say they had fun over and over again.

The next week I went to see Arj Barker and a couple of other comedians over at the Bear’s Lair on Monday. Man, that was so funny with the Lord of the Ring Jokes and all. In particular, I liked how Barker made fun of people I knew from David Duman, frat bro and chief editor of Squelch, Billy Mack, another frat bro, and of course, myself, for checking my watch an excessive amount of times. Speaking of knowing people, it’s great that we had free tickets thanks to the frat connection, but shame we couldn’t give away the extra tickets we had. Then, just yesterday, I finally met livejournal buddy Mihai and his friend Alyn at our Shakespearean Kegger. It wasn’t as good as it was last semester when the Cal Snowboarding club came over, but I think people had a good time (at least those people who were there).

So all in all, I’ve been having a fun time with the frat, but interestingly enough, I’m not in a particularly good mood. Perhaps, it’s because of the schedule I hate so very much with the 8 AM classes every morning and all the gaps in between. I guess it reminds me a lot of the Spring of 2003, probably what I would call my least favorite semester here at Cal so far. The more I look back at it, the more I realized how much I really didn’t like that semester. There was just so much in what amounted to sheer drama that semester and it sure didn’t make things very fun. Well, I’m hoping things don’t go that way, but some feeling keeps telling me something is going happen and I am not going to like it. Oh what am I saying? I mean I’m having fun, aren’t I? That’s something I’m going to have to ponder a bit. Good night.

Funny Quote–Henry Lew: “So, were you flattered when Amanda called you cute?”
Jennifer Lew: “Well, I would have been if I didn’t know she likes to eat stale cookies and drink flat soda.”

Ah the first week of classes and I have to say, 8 AM classes everyday hasn’t honestly been as bad as I thought it would be (though, it has been only two days). I wonder how long I can keep it up though, but with no lecture webcasts for both my morning classes, it looks like it’ll have to be “early to rise, and early to bed” (much to my chagrin). Oh well, at least I know a lot of people in my morning classes; they are the same people I’ve been taking the MCB classes with for a while and it looks like I’m getting to meet some new people too. Hopefully, some of them can turn into potential brothers of my fraternity, which is currently having a multitude of events. Check my aim profile for more details or just ask me.

Funny Quote-“You mean this isn’t Math 1B…oh f***,” some guy who went to my Chem 3B lecture by mistake.