For the first time ever, I was on a DELAYED flight on southwest. But unlike my experiences on America West and other airlines, the flight attendants kept us entertained. They made jokes about the entire thing. One attendant said outloud, \”Anybody who can guess why we are delayed gets a free drink.\” Meaning a cocktail. One guy said outloud, \”You\’re waiting for a flight attendant!\” And that was true!

In fact, we were delayed because a previous plane took very long to takeoff and blocked the gate for 30 minutes. Then the flight attendant apparently came from another plane and we had to wait.

So instead arriving at 8:25 pm, I arrived more than an hour later. My poor sissy almost got a parking ticket because she didn\’t want to waste gas by circling. Pat lady!

so now, I am sitting on the floor of my sister\’s room. Things about San Diego always amaze me. NICE APARTMENTS. A single room for less than $600! And everyone drives. And boba! Even though it\’s probably my fifth time to UCSD, all these little things.

Thanks to my sissy Doreen\’s bf who gave recently gave her season one of Sex and the City. Then suddenly (after downloading all of season six) she had an epihany to my question of platonic relationships. \”What does a friendship really mean between a guy and a girl? Does it mean you are led on or leaned on?\”

I am leaving for San Diego tomorrow evening! To visit my sissy! Her 21st b-day!

Sometimes when people say \”Internet is down\”, it means that even if I ask them if they checked if everything is plugged in, I will arrive and find out that an ethernet cord had fallen out of the hub. So I put it back and Internet isn\’t down anymore.

Also \”computers are broken, everything is down!\” also means \”the printer is out of toner, bring a replacement cartridge part q1338a\”.

I never liked cowards.

I remember my former best friend who was so afraid of everything. She was afraid of getting a bad grade, afraid of not achieving her goals, afraid of authority, afraid of disobedience, afraid of seeking her independence, but most of all, she was afraid of…being kidnapped. Years later, I think that I probably projected everything I disliked about myself onto her. So is that why, she grated on my nerves so much at the end of our \”friendship\”?

Anyway, I thought about today how I always thought the nuances of new people I meet were just…very \”cute\”. How one person would laugh at almost everything. How one person would swing their arms like hitting a baseball. How a person\’s voice would squeak when they get excited. But these are only at first, some of these things get so annoying later.

One of my friends commented a few months ago how my mom didn\’t seem like the typical passive Chinese woman. It was obvious to her that my mom was the assertive type. And surprisingly after decades of my omnipresent social anxiety, I am very assertive too. Sometimes to the point of controlling. I would hate the idea of having to be dependent on anyone. The idea of relying on someone to drive me to places is so appalling that I know I would rather walk or take public transportation. I don\’t want to be that someone who is afraid of those big bad cars.

By the way, today must have been the 1000th time I heard someone say \”I don\’t know anything about computers\”. :(

In just over a month, I\’ll be leaving for Pittsburgh, PA to start the next phase of my life at CMU. Sometimes I imagine myself like Holden on top of a hill (perhaps at the Big C), trying to figure out a way to say goodbye to Berkeley. Then run down wildly down the hill, because I felt like it.

There are so many places we leave never knowing that we may never return. It\’s also the same with people, a polite \”see you later\” may just mean…a \”i see you never\”. There will be some people that I will miss seeing and there are those that I wish to never see again. So it goes, right?

After such a long time struggling to figure out my place, I feel like I almost found it this summer. Even though it\’s not everything I wanted, it\’s ok for now.

I got two debit cards (why two?) from the new account I opened in Pittsburgh this week. I also received a bill from CMU for a total of more than $15,000 for the fall. My checking account barely breaks 8k now. :(

Did anybody notice that I accidentally whacked my nose on my laptop monitor yesterday? Nobody commented on the red mark I have at the top of my nose. It happened when I was too excited at work. I had stood up. Then in a futile response, I just bent my head forward and hit my nose on my laptop. Do I need a rhinoplasty?

Interestingly during the summer, I have too many things on my to-do list:

Even though I want to keep myself occupied this last summer in the Bay Area, sometimes I feel like I have spread myself too thin. Especially this month.

This morning, my dad made a big deal about a tv show he watched last night. It was about how life changed in a split second. A woman was driving her new BMW at 50 mph, but suddenly in the opposite direction a car at 50 mph drove into her. The drunk driver survived, but she also suffered major damage to her face. From the accident, she figured there were only two things that changed: 1. allow others to change your llife 2. let yourself change

And as a result, my dad recommended that I drove the old \’88 Acura Legend rather than the new 2004 Toyota Corolla. For that purpose? I grumbled about how it didn\’t have enough energy to accelerate as I was merging on the freeway. And not to mention, I hated how long the Acura was. Since I was accustomed to the Integra, I always tended to misestimate parking space and think there is more room than there actually is. Also, sometimes the Legend wouldn\’t start (according to a mechanic, it was because the ignition would stick), so I would have to set the car into neutral and turn the ignition again. So i was doomed to the Legend again (this is not to say I am spoiled, but just the fact that a story about split-second life changes has me driving an old car rather than a new car doesn\’t make sense).

And the irony was that when I lost my car keys. Because the keychain of the Acura\’s keys were slightly loose, it didn\’t stay on my lanyard. The Toyota\’s would have stayed. So I spent a good 30 minutes moaning around the CKC campus looking for my car keys. Or rather, I looked very pissed off and \”glistening\” as I walked back and forth. Eventually, I left my phone number with the front desk. Fortunately, they called me two hours later that someone had turned in the keys.

Still.

Today, I must have walked more than 5 miles. First I walked all the way from my car on Southside to Soda (a 20 minute walk). Then to Foothill (a 5 minute uphill walk). Then to CKC (a 20 minute walk). Then to the office (a 10 minute walk). Then to Foothill (a 20 minute walk). Then to CKC (a 20 minute walk). Then to my car where I picked up the video camera case (a 10 minute walk). Then to the art studio (a 15 minute walk where I was brreaking my back all the way). Then to a Southside restaurant called Epicurean (a 10 minute walk). Then to my car (a 10 minute walk) Maybe I complain, but my feet hurt and I am exhausted.

Working as a summer rcc takes up more time than my technical coordinator position. And I didn\’t realize how many foreign students come to Berkeley during the summer. I have seen computers in German, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean for the last two days. It\’s not that enjoyable to navigate a computer by memory (remembering which icon means my computer, which menu is tools in IE, what dialog boxes say). It\’s odd how during the year I didn\’t think I read that much when using a computer…but that shows how dependent language is in a computer.

But the worse thing is how I feel a slight tinge of regret that I didn\’t learn any languages during college. And even worse, I am beginning to feel embarassed about how I can\’t speak Cantonese that fluently. I can understand the language, but what comes out of my mouth is broken and very accented. Today while fixing a computer, I heard a group of Hong Kong girls complaining in Cantonese about how I was so slow and how it took forever. I suddenly said aloud (in English) that their compromised computers NEEDED a lot of time to be fixed. *cough*