hello again, blog. i'm out of my crap-i'm-screwed-with-a-lot-of-work funk for now. slept several hours (a couple more than i meant to) last night/this morning, so i'm feeling a-okay.

last friday, i drove down to LA with deb and david (tim, james, and ling caravan-ed down with us). it was quite fun =) saw many, many msj people again--yeung, chris chee, anita, james hausman, alisa, amanda, kartik--and also met some very cool people =) yeung and anita were kind enough to show me around campus on saturday (the others went to magic mountain). and i did not completely believe that NASA story! really! =P UCLA's a nice place...although i must say some of those engineering buildings are butt-ugly. we walked around and i saw a "potato tree" and where they filmed a lot of movies (like the store where reese witherspoon buys her iBook in her playboy bunny suit in legally blond!). we played some pool down in ackerman, and i must say i am continually amazed at just how much i suck at pool. yeung and i racked up an amazing 5 games that ended when one of us eight-ball scratched. woohoo! didn't even think that was possible ;-) that takes some sort of skill, right? the guys also challenged the girls to massive games of taboo...just admit it. the boys will never win. "seed dust"! haha! it got all hardcore the second night too! "you can't say the word 'the' because it's on the card!" police ling...geez. =P we also had dinner at BJ's the second night...pazookie...yum *drool* i also discovered the beauty of 25 cent diddy riese cookies. i had a very fun time at UCLA, and a big, big thank you goes to my girls, chi and jacquelyn, for letting me freeload kato-style in their dorm rooms =)

sunday morning, chi, deb, david, and i set out for san diego to take cherry to the zoo...whee! the san diego zoo is huge! my feet were about to fall off because i'm just weak. anyhow, we saw a panda, rhinos, duikers, primates of all sorts, birds up the wazoo, tapirs, pigs, giraffes, elephants, pythons, koalas, tree kangaroos, lions and tigers and bears, oh my! there were plenty more, but i don't remember all their names since i had never seen them before. speaking of lions...that was rather disturbing. i don't know how to put this delicately, so i won't--we saw gay lion sex. yessir, just like prison...if only i could record david's interpretation of it and play it here since that would do a much better job of explaining the situation than anything i can type. so these two male lions (let's call them felix and sid) are just lying around when sid gets up and starts er...humping felix. felix just takes it for a while, but he finally decides enough is enough, and sid has had his fun. he tries to move away, but sid is *ahem* a little put out, so he starts roaring, and felix starts roaring, and you expect them to get into a brawl when felix suddenly stops and cowers by the wall. yeah...wasn't the most comfortable thing to watch, but the one amusing part is that these obnoxious guys with too much big blinging jewelry behind us who were making comments like "give it to her!" and "yeah, baby!" finally realized something: "hey guys, uh...don't female lions not have that hair around their necks?" yes, very bright, you dolts. male lions have manes, and you guys have been cheering on gay sex...hah! how does your testosterone like that?! hehehe...it was just sort of amusing. after the zoo, we all went to islands for dinner with chris chen! we celebrated her birthday a wee bit early while cher and i polished off our huge burgers...and chris's cake =X she said she couldn't finish it though! the secret is to just not stop eating, otherwise you lose momentum. the passionfruit iced teas were rather passion-less, but the food was good. my hawaiian burger was yum. david's lemonade had a dead bug in it--twice. "must be the machine," said the waitress. um...ew? then we all trooped back to cher's apartment and watched some good ol' "whose line is it anyway" and laughed our asses off. we were much tired from our long day at the zoo though, so not much energy that night. smita dropped by to say hi--hi, smita! and then we slept.

sunday, we went back up to LA to drop off chi and say a final goodbye to the LA folks (except i kept missing yeung by a few minutes...your clairvoyance is faulty!). we grabbed some lunch at noodle planet and some of us ate ice cream sandwiches at diddy riese. headed back to campus, and there we had the usual prolonged goodbyes (hug, hug, hug, no wait, need to hug you again...and you...and you...) it was especially difficult because there were so many couples that had to say goodbye =P cute, but with all those hugs and arms around each other, all i could do was hug myself on the way back to the car...haha. then deb tried to put her arm around me, but *cough* there were height differences, to put it lightly... hahaha. after literally giving tim's car a nice jump-start, we merrily headed back home to norcal, which means i slept. yeahyeah, i know that's all i ever do in cars, but i can't help it! it's my sleep debt, i tell you!

tim and ling dropped me off on campus around 9:30...then i had a meeting to go to at 10:00. and so it began all over again =P

* * *
Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head
~Burt Bacharach, Hal David

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin' seems to fit
Those raindrops keep fallin' on my head
They keep fallin'

So I just did me some talkin' to the sun
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done
Sleepin' on the job
Those raindrops keep fallin' on my head
They keep fallin'

But there's one thing I know
The blues they sent to meet me
Won't defeat me
It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me

It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red
Cryin's not for me
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I'm free
Nothin's worryin' me