New Year's Eve: Namaste

Is it New Year's eve already? Why do I not even notice that?

Christmas- Nathalie's house

I am grateful that Nathalie, a Zimbabwean mom, invited me and Taimour over to celebrate Christmas. Or my Christmas this year would've been a bummer. Taimour and I bought some sugarcoated cookies for Nathalie's family. We rode our bikes all the way from the north to the south of Davis, which took us some 30 minutes.

We  were welcomed with open arms by Nathalie and her husband Fongye. And we also got two know two homestay students who are from China and would stay with them for a quarter. It was really nice to spend time with them, eating delicious food, watching NBA playoff, chatting away, playing games like "Taboo"- a word party guess game, and just relaxing and rejoicing over this Christmas night.

Solo trip to Sacramento 12/15

Dixon Corn Maze

Wow...The world's largest corn maze. It made it into the Guinness World Records book. So, I gotta check this out.

At around dusk, we gathered at DCF house and departed for Dixon to try the maze in the dark. It was another first-time experience for me, and I was realy pumped about this, especially knowing that it was gonna be pitch-dark all around.

Upon arrival, we got to a wooden house where we paid 10 dollar for the pass and were given a map like this

Making Pizza

One of my housemates, Samuel, is a really good cook and baker. Today, he decided to make pizza from scratch with our aided efforts. We got all our ingredients, including but not limited to green and red pepper, olives, and mushroom, from the nearby Safeway store. As Sam said, the prep work was the main and time-consuming part of making pizza. We cut our vegetable into pieces and knead the dough till the texture was smooth and elastic Then, we sprinkle all the veggies, mozzarella cheese, sauce on top of the pizza dough. When everything was about done, we put the pizza on the pan into the oven, and then we just waited for 30 minutes or more. As the smell of pizza wafted through the air, we couldn't wait to dig in. Finally, the pizza was ready and each of us got like 4 slices of pizza as there were two. It tasted a lot better than it appeared. And it was great joy to see all our sweat pay off. Good job, guys!!!

Making Cookies

First Day of School

9/22 Apartment Inspection, Student Desk, Activation of Debit Card, Textbooks, Barbecue

    My housemates are all here in our house now. Taimour is a Freshman from Pakistan, and he is majoring in Economics. Samuel is a third-year local student, and his major is computer engineering. Karan, a mechanical engineering major, comes from India, and he's got his master's degree in Michigan University and is doing his Phd here.

9/20 Campus Tour and Pre-rally Barbecue

9/19 Trip to Sacramento

9/17 Shopping at Walmart

9/16 Shields Library Tour

9/15 Shopping in Woodland

Thanks to Jack, I got my chair, book shelf, T-shirt, hangers from Target. He is a friend of Will, who is a DCF(Davis Christian Fellowship) director and also an organizer of this shopping activity. Actually, we ought to take a bus to Target(a large retailer), as required by our school.(for some reason I don't know) Nevertheless, Jack still drove us to a nearby Target. There were, in fact, only three people joining this activity, Taimour, Sarah, and me. Peter, a member of DCF came along with us, too. He was originally from China, and it was great talking with him(in the picture below.)

SF Trip (9/18)

    What a day I had!
    The night before I called the trip organizer, Jeff, saying that I'd like to join this trip to San Francisco for international students. To my delight, I could still come along with them. But, the problem was I needed to get to Davis Amtrack station before 8 a.m. and there were no bus in the early morning. Given the distance from my place to the station, I decided to take a taxi there. I'd taken note of the phone number to call for a taxi and thought I would do just that in the morning.
    That morning, I got up at 7:30, a lot later than I should have. Going quickly through my morning routine, I called the taxi but it would take 10 minutes for it to come and another 20 minutes to reach the station. In consideration of the time I had, I chose to run instead. And about halfway to the destination, I called Jeff as it was 5 minutes to 8 and I was afraid I couldn't make it. Thank goodness!! They were actually leaving at 8:30, which meant I still had some time. Eventually, I barely made it there, and as soon as I arrived, I got on the bus as Jeff's bought a ticket for me.
    On the train, I sat at table along with Sarah, Hide, and a co-organizer. We talked about pretty much everything. Looking out through the window, I took in some  pretty spectacles as shown bellow.

Orientation Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    It's orientation day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so much looking forward to new international student orientation in UCD for the past few days. I really wanted to meet other international students and to have some fun together. However, I didn't sleep quite well the night before partly because I was pretty excited about it and partly because I actually took a long catnap that afternoon.

Boring afternoon..............

     I had nothing to do this afternoon. In fact, I had a number of things on my mind. I haven't opened a bank account, haven't got a desk, a bike, a cellphone, and etc. However, I couldn't do any of these things on this weekend because Bank of America wasn't open and still worse, I don't have a car to drive to the nearest store to get what I want. So, I decided to play basketball outside with Taimour.

Thank God my housemate woke me up....

Today I didn't get up until 11 o'clock, and if it were not for Taimour, I would have slept until nightfall. Then I may have just one meal(, which is actually a good way to save my money).
We had our brunch together. I fried some chicken thighs, toasted some toast with peanut butter on top, and then I just sat down and enjoyed my breakfast, also with a glass of orange juice with pulp. I think I've never got this mighty serious about breakfast before. Most of the time in the past, I would often eat bread and milk for breakfast or even have no breakfast. But , here, breakfast is not something I can have for the asking, so I have to prepare it for myself.

"Eat your breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day!"..............................

A long walk to UCD campus

Sept. 11 2010- I woke up early this morning, probably at around 3.30, and then I couldn't fall asleep again. I became so conscious that my mind was wandering. So, I decided no to force myself to sleep, as my experience told me that the tension may rise as the fear of not being able to sleep begins to take root in the pit of my stomach, which would only make it harder to sleep.

To Infinite and Beyond....

I spent a total of 19 hours travelling from Taipei to San Francisco, inclusive of flight time and quite a long time to transfer. In the following are some picture taken during this period.

Waiting in line to board through Gate B8...........................

I got up late... very late

Sept. 10 2010

I got up very late today. Actually, it wasn't until 3:20 pm that I woke up. I remember I did woke up once at 8:20 am. because I was feeling very cold. The light blanket(or quilt) I brought with me from Taiwan didn't seem to keep me warm. So, I rolled out of bed to put on a heavy coat, and quickly went back to sleep.

Drinking a cup of milk for breakfast(afternoon tea?), I went to Safeway in the Marketplace to buy a money order so that I can pay $548.36 for my security deposit and first month's rent. When I got to the office of Chaparral Apt., the manager wasn't there. She left a notice on the floor that said she'll be back at 4:30, so I just waited at the study lounge. I took out a map of UCD campus, and tried to pointed out some buildings I'll visit in the following days. At around 4:40, I paid the manager for the rent. Then today's mission completed.

Now it's 6:39 pm. I'm going home to cook my dinner.

Welcome to California

Today is September ninth in California. Since I crossed the international date line, I arrived at San Francisco Airport(SFO) on the same day I flied to Korea to transfer to another plane bound for SFO. Rwight now it is 18:15, and later I would have to feed myself for dinner. (In Taiwan, it is 9:15 now.)

9/9 seems a long long day to me, from the teary(or not) airport farewell in Taiwan to now settling down in Davis, U.S. This time, I am going to be away from home for ten months.

My concern revolves around buying a rolling luggage.

With only a few days left my trip to the US, I still have a lot of things to get done. First and foremost, I must find a stronger and lighter wheeled luggage, in which I can put my stuff. Actually, I already have a luggage medium-sized luggage, which I took with me to Australila. However, I will stay in the U.S. for ten-month this time, and I don't think the luggage can hold a large number of items. That said, I am now in two minds about whether to buy a bigger one or not.
I've been seeking information online, have asked some friends for advice, and discussed it with my family. At last, I realized that most airlines only permits a maximum of two checked in bags and one carry-on piece. Furthermore, each check-in bags should weigh no more than 20 kg.(23kg in the case of flying to U.S), which amounts to 40 kg in total.
So, here's my strategy of carrying things given the requirement. I decided to check in two bags, one rolling luggage and one duffel bag. Hopefully I won't have to dump things due to bag overweight.

PS: While I surfing the internet, I happened to marvel at the newest luggage, featuring a built-in scale to let you know when your bag is overweight. Isn't that amazing? But, as you might already know, it is super expensive.


website:
1.http://www.luggageonline.com/
2.http://www.luggage.com/
3.http://www.samsonite.com/home/index.html

Early Morning Walk

I came back to my hometown, Kinmen, last Thurseday with my sister. I should have gone home much earlier, yet I had a tutoring job that didn't end until August and still, I had already decided to pass the driving test in Taipei. By the end of July, I found someone to take over my job, and much to my delight, I passed the road test and got my driving licence. That was a close call, I have to say. If it were not for the tester, who was so nice and helpful, I would not have obtained my driving license and would have to spend another 15 days practicing driving and wait a whole morning for the test. I was in seventh heaven when I was told by the amiable tester that I passed. I was gratefull and sorta unbelieving at the moment. Anyway, every thing seemed to went as I expected, which I was really pleased about. And this roughly explains why I am in Kinmen now.

Are there still loose ends dangling?

It's about time to get back on track. Last week, I travelled around Taiwan by train, and had a great time with my teammates. But this week, I have to get something done as I was told by Mom not to put off anything that should be finished earlier.