Whole Earth Festival(5/8)

    The day before Whole Earth Festival, I met up with Mercy, who was my PAL(Partner in Acquiring Language) this spring quarter. She told me there was going to be Whole Earth Festival, and mentioned it featured hippie culture, sustainability, frugality, green products, etc. That day also, I'd noticed there was some preparation going on at UC Davis Quad area.

Thunder Valley- Casino(5/7)

Today is Carlos' 21th birthday. He invited me to go with him to the casino near Reno, a city to the east of Sacramento. Turning 21 in the U.S., is a big thing. Not only is it the legal drinking age, but it marks the beginning of the official adulthood. Given this, his mom decided to take him to Tundervalley casino, where he could drink for the first time in his life and enjoy a bit of gambling and food. For me, it was going to be my first time to gamble in a casino, so I was sorta looking forward to this.

Meeting my PAL

    This morning, I woke up at 8.30, feeling a bit inert and sleepy. Taking a quick shower, I hopped on a bus to school, where I were to meet my PAL. I got there at around 9.30, which was when we were supposed to meet. Yet, she wasn't there, so I texted her and got her text back saying that she was returning a book and would see me soon. Therefore, I sat at a table at Co-Ho, waiting for her to turn up. Then, I saw a friend whom I used to have the same class with last quarter. He was having his burrito there. Seeing me sit there by myself, he came over to me and we had quite a bit chat before my PAL appeared.

To the West

It was Saturday afternoon when I went biking with Tim to the west of Davis. It was really nice weather, neither too hot nor chilly. Along the way, I enjoyed the breeze and  the country scenery.  There were mountains far away, trees and shrubs beside the roads, and some farms, horse corrals, vineyards on our way to nowhere. And once again, I got to experience the vastness of the U.S.

The Passion Experience

    This year, Easter Day falls on 24th April. The week before Easter is called "Passion Week" or "Holy Week."  Jesus was crucified on Friday that week and then resurrected 3 days after his death(which is Easter Sunday). I've been to a church in Davis for quite a while, and I was told to sign up for "The Passion Experience," an exhibit in the church. The exhibit shows what leads to the crucifixion of Jesus as from the perspective of various characters in the Bible, such as Judas, Chief Priests, Pilate, Peter, and the crowd). It took about an hour to finish the Passion Experience. Basically, I was guided by the narrated audio from MP3 player through 5 booths that feature events causing the death of Jesus. I lingered at each booth, picturing how Jesus went through all these sufferings and thinking about how I was like those biblical characters that either betrayed, disowned, tested, or crucified Jesus. The part that really got me crying is hearing Jesus being flogged and then picutring  Him nailed to the cross. This is the worst way a man can die. To me, "The Passion Experience" was really impactful since I got to know how Jesus has taken all our sins upon himself and how He has gone through all the physical pain and spritual as well.

Picnic Day 4/16

    It's this time of the year again(sounds like I've been in Davis before LOL). There is this "Picnic Day" event in UC Davis, which is one of largest student event in the U.S. From what I heard, there is gonna be a lot going on, such as animal events, exhibits, parades, club demonstration, student-organization faire, multicultural children faire, and such. UCD is proud to present Picnic Day as this showcases its richness, diversity and achievement and also nearby communities' contribution as in different arenas, such as teaching and campus life. Yet, this Picnic Day is not all sunshine and roses as over the previous years, the daytime patrol or policemen in general had made several arrest on the account of public intoxication and drunken driving. Also, the campus became littered with beer cans and garbages. As a consequence, the Picnic Day came under fire and a cancellation threat had been issued last year. Thus, this year's Picnic Day is very crucial as it's trying to save the Picnic Day. For that reason also, the theme of the Picnic Day is "rewind." And students are encouraged to sign a pledge to act responsibly during the event.

First time to donate blood (right before ESL)

     

    There was a blood drive(and actually a marrow drive as well) going on in Freeborn Hall at UCD campus this past Thursday. I remember back in Taiwan, I had been thinking about donating blood, yet my thinness always got in the way of me doing just that. Yet, this time, at the the urging of Hide (and with the lure of a free T-shirt), I  stopped by the Freeborn Hall and made my blood donation for the first time in my life. I got there at around 1 o'clock, right after having a heavy lunch. And I thought it wouldn't take long and I would be able to make it to the ESL class at 3:10, but it ended up taking me up to two hours to go through the whole process.

Hanging Out (4/1)-Filipino food(Lumpia)

  It was nice of Carlos to invite Hide and me over to his place this Friday afternoon. This was the first time we got together after the spring quarter started. I really like the Lumpia he fried for us, and with some Filipino sauce, it tasted yummy and went well with the rice. It was similar to the Chinese fried spring rolls, and as such it didn't really surprise me when he told me it actually originated from Chinese pastries. And lumpia are really popular in the Philippines. Following the pleasant late lunch, we sat on the couch, played some ps3 games, and just talked.

Road Trip Day 1- Driving to Mt. Shasta

    It was sad that I got a final for Introduction to Winery on Saturday afternoon, or my spring break would've started earlier. After my final, I got picked up by my buddy, Karan, who'd rented a Nissan car, and then we picked up Henry at his place. Tim actually backed out of this trip for his sister's wedding was on Wed. that week and was called to attend the reception. This was frustrating at the beginning and almost disrupted our trip. Next time, I am going think more about any worst-case scenarios.
      A picture of me and Karan in front of our car:
 

Board Game Night (3/8)

I had a great night with my fellow brothers at T house. I especially liked the board game called Saboteur.

Birthday Party & Indian Dancing Night

   
    My buddy Karan threw a B'DAY party today for himself. I, for one, was invited to the party, yet I also doubled as a helper, taking pictures of him and his friends.

Queen Sheba- Karan's B'DAY

Today is my Indian bro's birthday. I was thinking hard about how to celebrate it. Then, eating out came to my mind or actually, it was the first thing off the top of my head.

Walking across the Golden Gate Bridge(2/20)

We were planning on biking across the Golden Gate bridge to begin with, yet we later chose to walk instead as it was hard for us to bike to the bridge from SF downtown.

When we got to SF from Davis, it was already a little over 1 o'clock. So, we came to this Greek restaurant, and I had a Greek sandwich, which had a strong taste of cheese.

Sacramento City College

Today, I accompanied Taimour to Sacramento City College, where he was gonna register for his sister. The campus was really dwarfed by the UCD campus, but the tuition of this community college is a lot cheaper than than that of UCD.

Happy Birthday to Me- Fuji Sushi Buffet

Thank you, Hide and Carlos for celebrating my birthday.....A bit offtopic: I am gonna miss the all-you-can-eat sushi buffet in Davis.

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.

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!!!

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.