Besides the ridiculously long plane ride, KOBE IS FREAKING AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm loving it here!!! Plus, the hotel even prepared yukatas for us!! ^_^. After we checked into the hotel, we too a stroll around. OH GOD, the scenery is freaking amazing. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures today. But I will upload some tomorrow...PROMISE!!!!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Year in Japan: the arrival
FINALLY!!!! I am in Kobe, Japan. A BIG THANKS to Oswald Company for their atrocious planning. When I arrived at O'hare, I almost missed my flight to San Francisco. Hmmmm...maybe it has something to do with...arriving at the airport 1 hr before the plane to San Francisco take off. I spent near 20 hrs on the road between August 31st and September 1st, it really blows.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Catching Up on Things
FINALLY AN UPDATE FOR THINGS!!!!!!!!
Since April, I've been quite busy with college - final exam, scholarship applications, Year in Japan applications, and senior design projects. I finished everything in mid May, now I am relaxing and enjoying my summer vacation. Over the past couple of months, I really understood a few things - such as hard work will ALWAYS be rewarded and don't ever work with "jags" on projects. Hmmm...what do I really mean by that? well, you will soon find out...haha
For senior design, we were given the tasks of designing an optimized chemical plant for the production of Maleic Anhydride or Quinone. The choice is based on the research of price and world demand of each production. Also things we need to taken into consideration are optimization/design strategies, material of construction, and economics (yea...it really was a lot of work). We have a 4 member design team, in actuality, it was more or less a 2.5 person team (3 person on a good day). We worked on our design close 4-7 hrs a day for the past 4 weeks. I was very glad that we were able to finish everything (2:00pm monday) before the final due date (5:00pm on monday). Our report was longer than anything I've EVER WRITTEN....153 pgs....
But due to our efforts, we got the 2nd highest grade in the class...congrats to everyone on the One World Chemical design team (Buy More Chemical is such a lameass name...)
Luckly, this semester I only have 1 final exam as opposed to the usual - 4 finals. The Japanese final went very well...at least I thought so when I walked out of my exam. Man, there were some amazing people in my class. Somebody (Choo-san) actually finished that exam in ~35 min... no seriously...35 min...WTF, that exam was designed to be probably around 1.5 hrs. She's too smart haha... But I checked my grade afterwards...got a 97/100. Who thought that I'm actually good at something other than math and science? Soon after I finished my Japanese final, my roommates and I went out to celebrate. Our celebration consisted of drinking (none of us got wasted), eating, gaming, and karaoke. KARAOKE, I always wanted to try it. It's actually FUN, but PAINFULLY expensive - $35/hr (what the hell!! $35/hr = my high school tennis lesson fees). My roommates and I had an awesome time there - it would be even better if Mike had agreed to sing/rap P.I.M.P by 50 cent. Well the song selection is basically Japanese or English. Majority of the songs I sang was in Japanese...yea, I do listen to chinese songs...but I don't have a voice of a girl so I gave up on chinese songs before we even started. While singing, Mike went into an "Arashi"mode...he picked out all the songs sang by Arashi and told me to sing it...I almost lost my voice that night....but it was awesome. Within the next couple of days, I turned in my passport for Year in Japan.
Speaking of Year in Japan...OH GOD, I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS...I am looking forward to this amazing opportunity. I never thought about going abroad to study since I am so busy with Engineering stuff, research, and internships. This will be amazing!! Even though it is a language intensive training program, I get the feeling that I will enjoy it - to the fullest. Recently I just received my airline information - I will be leaving August 31st and returning sometime in May 2010 (probably after Kaori's Wedding). I guess this blog will be my Japan updates/diary - I will try to keep it update daily or weekly.
Enough ranting about Japan, continuing with my other rants...After the final exams have finished, I decided to lose some weight by running...and...I'm out of shape...which is REALLY BAD. I hope to get back in shape this summer though. Anyways, I left the campus on May 17th - the day of graduation. Congradulations to all my friends that are graduating this year! I will be right behind you guys...in 2010... After the whole "Nan not graduating this year" thing, something funny happened... I actually got a "congradulations on graduating Chemical Engineering" letter in my mail. Well, that was for certain A SURPRISE. More or less, I was freaked out about this mail. So I called LAS and my department. It turned out that my department did not update the graduation list (I sure hope so...More panicing will come if I discover my dipolma in the mail at the end of July).
Since I'm home now, nothing interesting had happened. I can't really do retarded stuff, that'll just drive my parents into thinking "the child I nutured for 22 years is a retard". So the recent news is...GRADES...YAY...boring... I did well this semester and I might actually have a shot at making the dean's list (I pray...I pray...). Aside from that, I've picked up my racquets again...AND I've been running 2-3 miles everyother day. Hopefully I will lose some weight by the end of summer ^_^.
Since April, I've been quite busy with college - final exam, scholarship applications, Year in Japan applications, and senior design projects. I finished everything in mid May, now I am relaxing and enjoying my summer vacation. Over the past couple of months, I really understood a few things - such as hard work will ALWAYS be rewarded and don't ever work with "jags" on projects. Hmmm...what do I really mean by that? well, you will soon find out...haha
For senior design, we were given the tasks of designing an optimized chemical plant for the production of Maleic Anhydride or Quinone. The choice is based on the research of price and world demand of each production. Also things we need to taken into consideration are optimization/design strategies, material of construction, and economics (yea...it really was a lot of work). We have a 4 member design team, in actuality, it was more or less a 2.5 person team (3 person on a good day). We worked on our design close 4-7 hrs a day for the past 4 weeks. I was very glad that we were able to finish everything (2:00pm monday) before the final due date (5:00pm on monday). Our report was longer than anything I've EVER WRITTEN....153 pgs....
But due to our efforts, we got the 2nd highest grade in the class...congrats to everyone on the One World Chemical design team (Buy More Chemical is such a lameass name...)
Luckly, this semester I only have 1 final exam as opposed to the usual - 4 finals. The Japanese final went very well...at least I thought so when I walked out of my exam. Man, there were some amazing people in my class. Somebody (Choo-san) actually finished that exam in ~35 min... no seriously...35 min...WTF, that exam was designed to be probably around 1.5 hrs. She's too smart haha... But I checked my grade afterwards...got a 97/100. Who thought that I'm actually good at something other than math and science? Soon after I finished my Japanese final, my roommates and I went out to celebrate. Our celebration consisted of drinking (none of us got wasted), eating, gaming, and karaoke. KARAOKE, I always wanted to try it. It's actually FUN, but PAINFULLY expensive - $35/hr (what the hell!! $35/hr = my high school tennis lesson fees). My roommates and I had an awesome time there - it would be even better if Mike had agreed to sing/rap P.I.M.P by 50 cent. Well the song selection is basically Japanese or English. Majority of the songs I sang was in Japanese...yea, I do listen to chinese songs...but I don't have a voice of a girl so I gave up on chinese songs before we even started. While singing, Mike went into an "Arashi"mode...he picked out all the songs sang by Arashi and told me to sing it...I almost lost my voice that night....but it was awesome. Within the next couple of days, I turned in my passport for Year in Japan.
Speaking of Year in Japan...OH GOD, I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS...I am looking forward to this amazing opportunity. I never thought about going abroad to study since I am so busy with Engineering stuff, research, and internships. This will be amazing!! Even though it is a language intensive training program, I get the feeling that I will enjoy it - to the fullest. Recently I just received my airline information - I will be leaving August 31st and returning sometime in May 2010 (probably after Kaori's Wedding). I guess this blog will be my Japan updates/diary - I will try to keep it update daily or weekly.
Enough ranting about Japan, continuing with my other rants...After the final exams have finished, I decided to lose some weight by running...and...I'm out of shape...which is REALLY BAD. I hope to get back in shape this summer though. Anyways, I left the campus on May 17th - the day of graduation. Congradulations to all my friends that are graduating this year! I will be right behind you guys...in 2010... After the whole "Nan not graduating this year" thing, something funny happened... I actually got a "congradulations on graduating Chemical Engineering" letter in my mail. Well, that was for certain A SURPRISE. More or less, I was freaked out about this mail. So I called LAS and my department. It turned out that my department did not update the graduation list (I sure hope so...More panicing will come if I discover my dipolma in the mail at the end of July).
Since I'm home now, nothing interesting had happened. I can't really do retarded stuff, that'll just drive my parents into thinking "the child I nutured for 22 years is a retard". So the recent news is...GRADES...YAY...boring... I did well this semester and I might actually have a shot at making the dean's list (I pray...I pray...). Aside from that, I've picked up my racquets again...AND I've been running 2-3 miles everyother day. Hopefully I will lose some weight by the end of summer ^_^.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
This might be a little late, but I just realized it this weekend...I absolutely need my sleep, or else I will turn very violent...
Let's see what happened this weekend... I went to bed quite early on Saturday, but I was woken up around 4am by random noises... Since then, I couldn't go back to sleep until 6am...what did I do? I punched the wall as hard as I could - this resulted relieved stress + 3 injured fingers. As for this morning, I could not wake up on time...well, this resulted "a minor headache with 60% chance of violent mood swings". But I slept after my Japanese class, so everything is good and well now.
Japanese class...lol...well, I was half out of it so I didn't really pay attention to things. Exam is coming up...so it's probably a good idea to start pay attention in class. My current obsessions are ice cream, haha...I really shouldn't, but I've been eating a TON of ice cream. There goes my goal of losing 15 pounds and getting in shape for the tennis season.
Let's see what happened this weekend... I went to bed quite early on Saturday, but I was woken up around 4am by random noises... Since then, I couldn't go back to sleep until 6am...what did I do? I punched the wall as hard as I could - this resulted relieved stress + 3 injured fingers. As for this morning, I could not wake up on time...well, this resulted "a minor headache with 60% chance of violent mood swings". But I slept after my Japanese class, so everything is good and well now.
Japanese class...lol...well, I was half out of it so I didn't really pay attention to things. Exam is coming up...so it's probably a good idea to start pay attention in class. My current obsessions are ice cream, haha...I really shouldn't, but I've been eating a TON of ice cream. There goes my goal of losing 15 pounds and getting in shape for the tennis season.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
today is the last day of my spring break!!! Wow....did one week already gone by? I didn't do much over the break...except for finishing my applications. Fun right?
Two days ago, I went up to Lansing, MI, with my friend Mark. It was a very interesting day...MSU campus is HUGE...I mean...HUGE. You have to take the bus to everywhere - completely different from Champaign. Well, we got lost several times while driving AND we had a GPS...LOL - this might be my fault, I hit the thing several times because it startled me.
Anyways, the MSU visit was AWESOME. I met up with my old HS friends and hung out with them. I also played a little tennis with chris (tennis is awesome). I always forget my camera at home...I'll make sure to take some pictures and post it on this later... OH yea, I heard Alex had a flat tire...and it was a privilage watching his mind at work-this might be related to that he's a Electrical Engineer or mechanically inclined...HAHAHA
I got back on campus last night. The weather SUCKED...I mean it WAS HORRIBLE. After getting dropped off at Follet's Bookstore, I decided to grab some dinner. So I ordered an carry out. As I carried out my dinner back to the aparment, IT STARTED PORING...so basically I got owned by the rain. The good side is, I didn't get sick ^_^
After my vacation, I think I'm prepared for this final 6 weeks of struggle.
Two days ago, I went up to Lansing, MI, with my friend Mark. It was a very interesting day...MSU campus is HUGE...I mean...HUGE. You have to take the bus to everywhere - completely different from Champaign. Well, we got lost several times while driving AND we had a GPS...LOL - this might be my fault, I hit the thing several times because it startled me.
Anyways, the MSU visit was AWESOME. I met up with my old HS friends and hung out with them. I also played a little tennis with chris (tennis is awesome). I always forget my camera at home...I'll make sure to take some pictures and post it on this later... OH yea, I heard Alex had a flat tire...and it was a privilage watching his mind at work-this might be related to that he's a Electrical Engineer or mechanically inclined...HAHAHA
I got back on campus last night. The weather SUCKED...I mean it WAS HORRIBLE. After getting dropped off at Follet's Bookstore, I decided to grab some dinner. So I ordered an carry out. As I carried out my dinner back to the aparment, IT STARTED PORING...so basically I got owned by the rain. The good side is, I didn't get sick ^_^
After my vacation, I think I'm prepared for this final 6 weeks of struggle.
Monday, March 23, 2009
I finally finished watching "Ichi Rittarou no Namida" (1 Liter of tears) yesterday. While watchig it, I spent quite a while thinking...Why does this happen to someone like her? Of billions of people on earth, why her? Because of this disease, she had to give up many things that she treasures in her life. While giving up, she continued to fight it while knowing that it is incurable...WHY? For her remaining life, she continued to struggle - for the purposes of wanting to live and to enjoy her life.While watching this, a lot of things went through my mind. This show definitely had a big influence/impact on me... "1 Litre of Tears" is based on Aya Kitou's diary with the same title. It's pretty amazing...
That's all I have to say. For now, it's probably a good idea for me to stay away from those sad dramas... ... ...
Saturday, March 21, 2009
YAY!!!! spring break finally began!!!
Last week was HELL, now I can finally relax for 1 week...hmmmm....what should I do?
Just finished my Taxes shortly after my arrival in MI. Now, I don't really have that many important things to do. I probably should finish my VISA applications to Japan and probably my VISA applications to China. but, I'm too lazy right now....haha
I took the plane home today...it was a very interesting experience. To begin with, I had to wake up pretty early to get a ride from Ryan to the airport - that's when "good" things begin to happen. Apparently, there was an air leak somewhere on the rubber seals of the wind shield. It got quite loud - loud enough that we can't hear our music. So we try to "fix" the solution, can you guess our solution? that's right, TAPE - the most ingenious/creative solution came up by 2 and half chemical engineers from one of the finest engineering institutions in the world. In addition, it's not normal tape, it's the 88 cents scotch tape from wal-mart...haha...it was fun. It took us about 30 minutes to patch that thing up.
We got to the airport 4 hours before our flights - a LITTLE bit early..haha...so jorge and I spent 3 hrs exploring/wondering around the different terminals. After 3 hrs and 30 minutes, I was able to board the plane. Quick question, where is your favorite seat on an airplane (besides 1st class and business class)? Window? aile? (I'm sure no one wants to be squeezed in between 2 people. ) Anyways, I was fortunated enough to receive the seat of my choice - aile. But, some guy sitting next to me kept on snorting...he was so loud that I couldn't go to sleep...so I ended up playing games on my MP3 player instead... >.<
As I mentioned before, right after I touched down in MI, we went to our accountant and finished our taxes for 2008. Then we went out to eat, that chinese resturant we went to was awesome!!! (shanghai based cuisines!) The food looked fantastic AND it tasted great!
Hmm...Then I began my movie/drama marathon for spring break. I watched Death Note and some of 1 Liters of tears. 1 Liter of Tears (Ichi Rittarou no Namida) is...really sad...by far one of the saddest shows I've ever seen - I didn't finish the drama and I'm already ________. (you can fill in the blank). Well, since I can't go to sleep right now...I'll try to finish watching Ichi Rittarou no Namida - CHECK IT OUT!!!
Last week was HELL, now I can finally relax for 1 week...hmmmm....what should I do?
Just finished my Taxes shortly after my arrival in MI. Now, I don't really have that many important things to do. I probably should finish my VISA applications to Japan and probably my VISA applications to China. but, I'm too lazy right now....haha
I took the plane home today...it was a very interesting experience. To begin with, I had to wake up pretty early to get a ride from Ryan to the airport - that's when "good" things begin to happen. Apparently, there was an air leak somewhere on the rubber seals of the wind shield. It got quite loud - loud enough that we can't hear our music. So we try to "fix" the solution, can you guess our solution? that's right, TAPE - the most ingenious/creative solution came up by 2 and half chemical engineers from one of the finest engineering institutions in the world. In addition, it's not normal tape, it's the 88 cents scotch tape from wal-mart...haha...it was fun. It took us about 30 minutes to patch that thing up.
We got to the airport 4 hours before our flights - a LITTLE bit early..haha...so jorge and I spent 3 hrs exploring/wondering around the different terminals. After 3 hrs and 30 minutes, I was able to board the plane. Quick question, where is your favorite seat on an airplane (besides 1st class and business class)? Window? aile? (I'm sure no one wants to be squeezed in between 2 people. ) Anyways, I was fortunated enough to receive the seat of my choice - aile. But, some guy sitting next to me kept on snorting...he was so loud that I couldn't go to sleep...so I ended up playing games on my MP3 player instead... >.<
As I mentioned before, right after I touched down in MI, we went to our accountant and finished our taxes for 2008. Then we went out to eat, that chinese resturant we went to was awesome!!! (shanghai based cuisines!) The food looked fantastic AND it tasted great!
Hmm...Then I began my movie/drama marathon for spring break. I watched Death Note and some of 1 Liters of tears. 1 Liter of Tears (Ichi Rittarou no Namida) is...really sad...by far one of the saddest shows I've ever seen - I didn't finish the drama and I'm already ________. (you can fill in the blank). Well, since I can't go to sleep right now...I'll try to finish watching Ichi Rittarou no Namida - CHECK IT OUT!!!
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