Alphabetically...

Ambitious... Well, as a rather positive person, I always think that things gonna be better, or, it could have been worse. But, something really hit me big time, the fact that, after 3 years +, things are not better, and I think it's hard for me to even imagine if it is possible for it to be worse. I'm talking about the situation at somewhere. I think it's really hard to see the whole picture when ones eyes and ears are covered.

Black Friday... So, on Thanksgiving day, many of us hung out at my apartment, watching Forrest Gump, til 3am, I went to bed at 1+am, and woke up at about 3am, and then, Wei Ping, Jason and I went to Meijer for Black Friday's deals. I was there to pick up a Wii. And true enough, and fortunate enough, there weren't a huge line by the time I got there at 3.15am. I was 8th in line for a Nintendo Wii, and they promised to have at least 30 systems. So, I'm happy. After waited for 2 hours +, plus thanks to inefficient checking out and the floor manager was really dumb. While waiting in line, I talked to some of the people, and many of them were actually there to buy a system and turn around to sell it on eBay. Due to the shortages, I think by doing so, they can earn about $75 - 100. Come to think about it, I'm not sure if I'm willing to sacrifice a good sleep for that.

Credit card... Credit card companies have been flooding my mailbox with pre-approved account. Thanks, but no thanks. I already have 3 credit cards, I only used 1 and the other one serves as a back up, and the 3rd one is virtually dead. I never got the card, and I requested for the card to be resent to me, but never got it. It's a Old Navy, GAP and Banana Republic credit card, and since I don't really shop there much, I didn't bother to ask them to resend it again. Well, maybe I'll ask them to resend it to me just for keep-sake. Also, I read that, on average, American adults have 6000+ credit card debts. That's a lot of money. Imagine with more than 100 million adults in the States, and that's an average figure. That sums up to more than 600+ billions of credit card debt. The interest charges that these people are paying huge. Guess that's why I'm getting so many credit card offers as it's a lucrative business for these banks.

Deers... How often do you see a deer? Well, if you live in the woods, you will see it all the time. Here in Northwood, my apartment place, I think I've encountered them like more than 10 times now. Last Wednesday, they were right in front of my apartment building and I managed to take some pictures.Are those stars?
Nope... deers!!! What a nice formation.
Them scurrying away...

End of semester... It's December already. In 2 weeks time, I'll be done with classes and finals, and not before long, it'll be my very last semester as an undergraduate student here at the University of Michigan.

Football... Capital One bowl... Orlando, Florida on New Year's Day. Guess that's how i'll be spending my 2nd half on my Christmas break, visiting my friend in Florida and go to Capital One Bowl.

Guitar Heroes III... The picture below only shows the 'guitar', and if you pay a closer look, you can actually see the game and the box of it. So, this is what had been consuming my life lately. I'm ok at that game, just OK. Have 2 songs left on Hard, and beat 4 songs on Expert so far (prolly after 20 hours clocked on the game). I did have about 20 hours worth of experience on Guitar Heroes:I, but that was quite sometime ago. But, this version is definitely much harder than the previous 2.

Heroes... The other thing that had been consuming my life was Heroes, the TV series. Well 2 different heroes are consuming my life. Guess, I'm destined to be a hero. :)

Inefficient...

JPA...For those who knows, enough said. For those who don't, well, it's better that you don't know.

Krispy Kreme... Doughnuts' holes are amazing...

...

Mountain Dew

N

Orange Juice... It's actually really good. Not only does the two mix well, the fizzling OJ + caffeine really give a good kick to my tastebud.

Running... So, I ran for 7.5 miles the other day, and 4.5 miles the next day, and my left knee ached for several days... And today, I ran for 8 miles. :) And my left knee is aching again... I could have pushed for another 2 miles and make it 10-mile run, but I figured I can do it on Thurs.

Sleep... So, even though I can afford to sleep more right now, somehow, I just don't do it. And still only getting on average 5 hrs of sleep.

Thanksgiving dinner... I had 4 Thanksgiving DinnerS this year. First one being in the cafeteria, the 2nd, at my buddy's house, which I prepared a Sweet Potatoes Casserole. It was my first time preparing it, but it turned out rather well. Well, it's hard to screw up something like that. :)
Boiling the sweet potatoes...
Mashed and baked...
Marshmallows to top it...
And also, I brought a mini-keg to the dinner... It's a 5-liter baby Heineken draught keg. :)


Wii...
The system!!!
The focus...
Wii... = Muscle Sore...

Look at the huge motion while Keng Yang and Wei Chieh were playing Wii Tennis... No accident from Wii yet... hopefully it will stay that way. Guess we can really get 'fit' by playing.


Work... I've been working a lot more recently... Well, since I've some free time. Why not?

Alright, this posts is weird... Trying to hard to fit it alphabetically is not so good an idea... :)

No Wii for C...

So, after a lot of thinking, and also many failings on my several attempts to get a Wii, I decided to not buy a Wii this semester, well, at least not to buy it before my Exam 4/C.

And I've finally decided that I will take Exam 4 and I started studying for it, with more effort.
Woo hoo!!!

Last week was a less hectic week. Well, it always feels that way once I get the routine going.
But I did something rather stupid on Monday actually, where I forgot that I had another class at 4pm, that, I took a bus back to North campus, heading back to my apartment at 3.40pm. Fortunately, I remembered and got off and took another bus, and got to the class just 5 minutes late. Not too bad.

What other 'highlights' of the week? Well, last Sunday, I cooked my favorite dish for the very first time, and it turned out to be quite OK. It's a double-cooked pork, first deep fried and then, stir fried over sauce.Deep frying...Stir frying...
The end result... delicious...

Also, yesterday, Michigan finally won their first match of the season. A good 38 - 0 win against Notre Dame. It was a pretty good game, but, there's still a lot of things that Michigan wasn't doing right. And for the upcoming week, a game against Penn State really got me worried. Not to say that I don't have confidence in my own team, but really, to be realistic, it's just not going to be easy. After the game, Quang and I went to Macaroni Grill for dinner. The food was amazing. The Shrimp and Artichoke dip as appetizer was just so good. I actually smiled and felt great after taking my first bite. To top it off, I went back to my apartment and started studying. Welcome to the life of an actuarial student.

This afternoon, I finally got around buying a new pair of running shoes. I went to the running specialist store and professional they were. First, the guy asked me to walk down the aisle, and back, and then, measured my feet size, (by the way, my left feet is half a size bigger than my right), and he went into the stockroom to grab 3 pairs of shoes for me to try on. Alright, the first pair of shoes was great. Then, I tried on the 2nd, and then the 3rd. The 3rd one was just sooooo good. Without any hesitation, I bought the 3rd pair, and then, 'hangat-hangat tahi ayam' (in Malay), 3-minute heat(direct translation from Mandarin), because of this 'newness', in the evening I went running, and really, it was really a different experience altogether. It felt so much better, and my leg didn't hurt at all after 4 miles of running.

Also, forgot to mention that at 4.45pm, I learned that Target was having a clearance sale on futon, so, I rushed to the Target store that I knew, just to find out that it's at another Target store elsewhere, and drove there, and fortunately, there were still 10 futons left. As it was only $25 (original price of $100), I bought it without a doubt. And then, spent the next 1 hr + 15 minutes assembling it. That's right before my running.
Oh yar, on Thursday night, I played soccer for Student Actuaries @ Michigan (SAM). It was kinda sad that only 6 of us showed up. It was really saddening. We can actually play, but, well, with only 60% of full force, we got killed by our opponent. But, after we forfeited ourselves, and had a couple of players from the our opponent to play for us, we started winning. And I was actually doing not too bad a job as a goalie. Really, sorry for blowing my own trumpet here, but, I found it surprisingly hard to believe too.

And, on Tuesday night, it was Student Actuaries @ Michigan (SAM)'s mass meeting. A lot of people showed up, and it was good. Everything went rather smoothly, other than me forgot to mention Kai as Social chair until later. Sorry! :)

And I'm getting tired of Dell. I contacted them many times about my faulty DVD-+RW rom, and I've yet to get them to send me a new one, or to have them to take some action.

So, that's about it, my week, all jumbled up. In a nutshell.
Monday: Work, class, to the wrong bus, class.
Tuesday: Class, class... more class, and SAM mass meeting
Wednesday: Work, class, work, class
Thursday: Class, class... SAM IM Soccer
Friday: Class, Work... some drinking, studying...
Saturday: Studying... Home game vs Notre Dame... Dinner... Studying
Sunday: Studying... shoes shopping... futon shopping... futon assembling... running... Emmy awards... Studying