AJ, Sahng-ho and I had a fun night. We went to playing putt putt golf owned by Old Orchard in Savoy, ate at Chili's and played Scrabble at Ragamaffin. :)

I'm now checking readings for the summer workshop in a week. They have assigned eleven short and looooong articles... I dont have to read them in advance, but I should skim them by next Fri. *sigh*

I've slept soooo much these days. Sleeping is always good for my skin, anyway.

Tonight I went to bar Brass Rail in downtown Champaign with Mariano and Miho because a girls' punk rock band from Osaka, Japan performed there. I've never heard of the band Mummy the Peepshow, but I guess they are kinda famous in the punk rock world because they are touring in the U.S. I am not a big fan of punk rock, so I'm not sure how good they really are, but they were the best among the three bands that played at Brass Rail tonight.
Though I went to talk to them, their response wasn't very friendly, so I simply conversed a few words with them.

After not talking to anybody for 24 hrs, I get a little depressive. However, it was very delightful today.
I pushed my heavy butt up in the morning and made me do some work at a Psych lab.
Under the nice weather, I just sat in front of Quad and watched people for about an hour.
When AJ stopped by, I dragged him to Jarling's custard cups. :) yum yum. I love waffle cones.
Oh then, Natalie, yes, Natalie who is superbusy, called me for dinner. We had a tasty dinner at Mandarin Wok.
I hadn't talked to her for a long time, so I was so happy when she made some time for me today. She is just so funny all the time.
After dinner, I enjoyed watching TV shows at Meghan's. I happened to watch the Bachelor after the final rose . All I think about those bachelors is that there has to be something wrong with them. If a guy is wealthy and cute to some extent, he should be able to get his lady without appearing on a national show... hmm... my prediction: the 2nd bachelor will soon end up breaking up with her as the 1st couldnt make it last long.

I wasn't active at all on Memorial Day.
I didn't feel like going outside, so I stayed in my room alone and read lots of books.

Seattle Report Cont'd

5/21

The University of Washington was only 15 mins away from downtown Seattle by bus.

The campus was pretty! It looked larger than UIUC campus, but according to Cecille, my fellow linguistics friend and a Washington-native, it is actually smaller than UIUC.
Anyway, the school was still in spring quarter (summer quarter?), so there were many studious students in the library. Hmm... I don't remember why I didn't apply for UW as well.

Highlight of this day was Locks Cruise!

It was an awesome 2.5 hrs cruise! A guide narrated history of each places as we sailed along the bay, and it was very informative. I got to see the floating house that appears in "Sleepless in Seattle." Those floating houses are so pretty that I want to own one in the future! It must be so cozy in summer.
This cruise was worth the price.

I really liked this "evergreen" state!

Photos will be uploaded some time during the break when I feel like scanning them...

US Best Family Outings

Mariano and Miho made delicious sandwiches for me!

I talked to Kat and realized how clueless I had been about what my friends were up to. Now I know the source of information who looked so non-gossiping guy to me. I shouldn't have underestimated the amount of information he had.

Seattle Report

5/19

Fei and I flew in Seattle-Tacoma Airport around noon and headed off to a hotel nearby downtown Seattle.

Seattle resembles my hometown Kobe so much! Out of the window in the bus on the way from the airport to downtown, skyscrapers lied inbetween an ocean and a mountain range. No wonder Kobe and Seattle are sister cities.

An economy hotel we stayed was located in a convenient place, which was a walking distance from downtown and only two blocks away from Space Needle.

Without taking a break, Fei and I walked to downtown. I felt it so far away. We could've taken a monorail, but we chose to walk instead... (After knowing the routes, downtown wasn't so far from the hotel.)
We first went to Pike Place Market. It was such a great market that sold fresh seafood and vegetables.

Seattle is a hill city. Street level is flat, but you have to go up the slope when moving toward the mountain, and go down the slope when moving toward the sea level. The reason why each street is set 35 feet high toward the mountain was revealed during the underground tour on 5/20.

Also, there are the countless number of coffee shops in Seattle!!! Unfrotunately, we couldn't stop by the first store of Starbucks. The caffeinated city, of course, had other coffee chains, such as Seattle's Best Coffee and Tully's. I would love to live there, but I probably shouldn't.

We went back to the hotel once to wait for Soojin. She arrived in the city in the early evening.

5/20

We went to International District, aka China Town and the Underground Tour.

I was sorta disappointed at this China Town. I like China Town in Chicago better. China Town in Seattle wasn't fully awake even aroud noon, and only Uwajimaya, the largest asian grocery chain store in the Northwest America, was crowded.
I encountered one Japanese lady who has traveled in the US alone there. She said she was studying sandwiches. She is brave. I wouldnt fly from Japan and travel alone by Amtrak in the US.

The Underground Tour was very interesting! There was a big fire in Seattle long time ago, and the city of Seattle decided to clean up sewege mess at the same time they had to organize the city. The first party of people came from Cherry Grove, Illinois to cultivate Seattle. Since Seattle is inbetween the Elliot Bay and a range of mountains, the city was a mudplace with sewege system problems. For example, the input comes down from residence on the hill while high tide pushes up sea water. The pressure caused by the input and the tide brokes the sewege pipe and often resulted in a dirty flush-up into the air for hours.
By the way, the toilet inventor Mr. Crapper came to Seattle 10 years after the invention. Then, people in Seattle finally started using toilets.

The city kept sinking on a muddy ground, so the city decided to raise the street level for 10 feet after the fire.
They first built walls to make curbs without filling in the street. It means that stores lost entrances on the first floor and people started doing business at the originally 2nd floor. At the end, the city raised the each street level 35 feet higher than the original and didn't fill 4 out of 32 downtown blocks with fire debris. That's how an idea for the Underground Tour came up. It was a great opportunity to learn history of Seattle.

After the Underground Tour, we stopped by Seattle Art Museum. The museum was not large, but had the same sort of the major exhibitions like Chicago Art Institute. I think it has a better collection of Japanese art works than Chicago Art Institute.

The 2nd day in Seattle ended with a beautiful night view from the top of Space Needle.

5/19-5/22 In Seattle with Fei and Soojin.

SARS landed on Japan... damn the Taiwanese doctor who joined a tour in Kansai area, knowing his symproms. Kobe is now so vulnerable to SARS.

Happy Graduation, Danielle!!!

I am so happy that you are still going to stay here in summer!

Warning:

The last post is not aimed at anyone particular! I post this kind of thoughts last year, too, as J and Anita might remember.
This feeling occurs to me every year when I reflect the year.

3 years of night-outing dilenmma.

I try to go to as many events as possible when my friends invite me, but there is one thing I cannot keep up with, namely, outing to bars and dance clubs.

As I stated below, I don't have power to go wild on Fri night after dealing with so many things all day for the whole week. My part-time job was very physical and made me very tired every day, in addition to doing my best on course work worth 19 hrs. You should work there, then you will know how it stinks...

Anyway, going wild late at night is just not a my thing. Many of my friends don't understand how come I don't find it fun and appealing to go to Highdive and C-Street while I wonder why my ways of enjoying weekends are not welcome to them. I've always experienced those unwelcome reactions from my friends for 3 years. I often like a type of music those clubs play, but it's a different matter from a reason to go there. I've been trying to understand how fun it is to go dancing with friends. I am struggling with it. Whenever my friends go to bars and clubs, I feel so isolated and excluded from college society and the circle of friends. I get afraid of not being able to hang out with them any more if I dont come along. Fortunately, most of those bar-going friends are still nice to me. It often seems to me that college weekend night life is justified only by going to the club and bar crawl. That's not so enjoyable to me for some reason. After all, I am one of people who prefer spending $3 on a rental movie instead of cover charge, and I cannot stay up late drinking and dancing under a loud music. 1) I need to sleep at a certain time because I like waking up ealier than 9 am without feeling tired and having hangover. (dont call me a weirdo!) 2) My skin is really sensitive to something different. So, whenever I stay up really late or push myself too hard on doing something I'm not used to, it appears in the following morning. This is kinda off-topic, but I realized that I really shouldn't see any movies with friends after midnight. It only makes my impression worse. hmm... When you are lucky, you can successfully take me to the bar and dance club about once or twice per semester.

Thus, here I am at home. The last weekend of the semester is quietly passing as usual, as I wished, after feeling so guilty of not going out with a group of friends.

Sorry if my way has ever screwed up your weekend plan or disappointed you. Some day I want to be able to enjoy your weekend life, too.

Friends have left and are leaving Urbana-Champaign. I always wish I had a home to return 3 hrs away.

This week I seriously consdered flying back to Kobe at the end of June and surprising my parents at my sudden return, though.
Since some friends are staying here, I will be fine. I am usually a loner, anyway, even when many friends are around on campus during the semesters. I choose to be a loner particularly on weekends just because I need to take a breath from hectic weekdays.

I quit my part-time job (yeay!!!) today and feel so good. :) I am looking forward to spending time on reading books and catching up whatever I haven't done. I'm so happy that I no longer have to go to classes, smelling like the food (hey, it REALLY sucks), and eat the same old food every day. A friend of mine described the work environment as a Vietnamese work camp... Although it's not really that bad, there were indeed times I didn't enjoy working there. The owner is nice and well-educated, yet she was sometimes too picky and bossy at which I secretly got pissed off many times. I will miss the 2 other ladies who shared the same feelings.

I need time more than money now. I am still waiting for a reply from an FLB lab for a summer position.

Maybe I should go home in July...

Seeing all those students loading their stuff with parents makes me want to go home.

What I did for the past 2 days:

I love midnight-outing at cafe or restaurant.
On Monday night AJ and I went to Steak'n Shake and had a good time over strawberry and chocolate malts.
yum yum yum ;D It was a great kick-off of the summer break.

On Tuesday (yesterday) I saw Anger Management, starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicoleson.
It was not the best, but one of good movies I saw this semester.

For the first time in my life, I sent a gift to my mom on mother's day. I ordered carnations at a Japanese flower store. I'm glad that she was happy today. :) However, she is the one who will see the bill for the flowers, actually... -_-;; I wanted to pay from my bank account here, but the flower shop didn't take a credit card linked to American dollar, so I used a card from Japan... hehe, I feel I did both good and bad things. Sorry, mom, but I'm sure you know how thankful I am to you!

I had free lunch and dinner today! yay!

Supervisers of a psych lab I worked for took undergrad assistants to Mandarin Wok for lunch. :D

For dinner J-Net officers had the last gathering at Great Impasta. :D
yum yum yum. I'm so full now.

Oh my godness. Too many thunderstorms. It was quite scary last night.

Advice for good memory:

As long as you sleep *right after* learning something, your memory for the learned material won't hurt even if you pull an all-nighter next day.
So, I bet some of you are determined to stay up all night to cram, you should get some sleep!
To my surprise, rehearsal once a month results in better memory than rehearsal 4 times a month.

I'm just so happy, when I see friends, and cannot stop talking even if I have to study really hard... That's why you don't see me in the Union during exam days. ;)

Midnight Tira Mi Su is so yummy! hehehe... I celebrated the end of big exams tonight.
It was great to talk over coffee and take a walk with you, AJ!

Done with the 4th final.

I studied all day for this SPSHS final today. Fu~, I did just fine.

Now I have to work on 2 papers and Chinese.

Tuition Hike:

I took ISG's survey regarding the possible tuition increase just now. One of reasons I chose UIUC over other universities was affordable tuition. Now it has increased about $500 per semester over the past 3 years. Due to the state budget crisis, they are going to increase tuition again... Of course, I answered NO to both 8% and 10% increases! I don't think BOT will consider students' opinion even if majority is against tuition increase, though. I don't want faculties to get fired, but my parents are already paying a lot. aiya- unbelievable.

In short, I did a shameful mistake this evening...
Shame on me, shame on me, shame on me...
I totally lost their trust on me. Still can't believe what I did.
Seriously, I think I have problem with the ability to stay awake.

I thought I can submit a paper next week, but have to do it by Sun night... It can be less than 5 pages, and my prof allows me to stop writing whenever I like (weird?), though.

Three finals down.

Women's health

I did a stupid thing ever. I was supposed to send my SSN and date of birth to this lady at another university, but I instead sent it out to the whole group of people by inadvertently hitting the wrong "reply" button. It's so insecure to let them know my SSN and embarassing to show off my 1111 birthday to people who don't know me...

aiya... I need a hole to hide.

Two finals down. Two more to go this week.

We made a play by ourselves and did review for the final exam in Chinese class today.
No more Chinese class this semester~~~. :)

All I have to do is to caffeinate myself!

I found a better place to study.
Don't look for me! I need to be alone for another 5 days!

Tonight I joined birthday dinner for Yoko-san.
I got to know a couple of new people there, and food was, of course, great!

Mandarin Wok rocks.

Note to myself: shrimp with XO jan, fried fish with sweet and sour sauce, #96, egg fu yon, spicy squid.

Janice called me last night!!!

I was so surprised when she called me all of sudden. Actually, at first I thought she inadvertently hit my number on her cell phone. (Janice was in the same floor of the dorm and now works for SuperValu in Minneapolis.)

We talked about some mutual friends, work, school, etc. Janice is still the same old fun Janice. :)

Her phone call cheered me up.

Oh boy, I sound so sick in the last post. I was indeed sick, but I feel better now.
I think the loss of appetite occurred due to the constant change of the weather.

My Chinese class was cancelled today. My TA always seems to seek an opportunity to finish class as early as possible or cancel class. good TA, huh?

I met a wonderful person a week ago. However, I myself decided not to see him until we finish all the stuff for this semester because he and I enjoy keep talking to each other and don't get things done in spite of the vast amount of uncompleted school work toward the end of the semester.
Now I feel I am the most selfish person in the world... But I should stick to my regular studying style, and I believe we have concentration to finish this semester with satisfactory grades after all.

I have 3 finals next week (2 psych and 1 SPSHS). Psych 200-level courses tend to set finals on the last day of class... If I look/sound unfriendly/unhappy/grumpy over the next week, don't worry, please treat me a cup of coffee... ;P