Sunday, August 29, 2004

California, what to say....

Well, now that I've been in LA for almost a month, here is my current opinion.

PROS
The weather is awesome. Everyday is sunny and warm.

Very diverse population here. There are so many indians, blacks, asians, latinos, etc. on campus, and everywhere.

Beaches. 'nuff said. I have pictures to make you all jealous.









CONS
Traffic SUCKS. Rush hour is 3pm - 7pm. And Rush Hour doesn't mean lots of cars. It means lots of cars bumper to bumper and you crawl along at less than 5 mph. Even in off hours, there are just random patches of traffic where you have to wait 10 min to go like 1 mile. This is all highway of course, but you have to utilize the highway to get anywhere almost.

The air is dirty. Not as bad as Taipei (where you walk outside and there is just a stench), but still bad. You know those window cleaning squegees at the gas stations? I've used those like twice in my life before California. But here, EVERY time I go to gas up, I use them. Why? Cuz my windows have a brown nasty film caked on them. Which brings me to my next con.

It almost never rains. Some people might think this is good, but not me. I depend on the rain to wash my car. And plus, this is the reason almost nothing grows in California. My cousin (Andrew) was telling me when some guy from Taiwan first came to California, he started drawing GREEN mountains (this was like in elementary school). All the kids laughed at him and said the mountains are BROWN. It's true. So sad. Taiwan has pretty mountains though. I miss grass. Not dry, crunchy desert grass, but real, long, flowing, green grass. Ah, Ohio.........

ok, now to my rant.....

My roommate today decided to clean the bathroom. No biggie, we're gonna take turns each week. So what does he go and do? He takes the floor mats (carpet kind) and THROWS THEM IN THE WASHER. I didn't realize this at the time. Later when he goes to get them out, he's like "Oops. I guess I shouldn't have done that." All the stuff on the back of the carpet (white rubbery material that holds it all together) was coming apart. There's like chunks of it in the washer. Man, who does this sort of thing? The only person I could think of is Hoan. Which is a funny thing, cuz Hoan is Vietnamese, and guess what my roommate is? Yeah, Vietnamese. I sense a pattern here.....(note: just making an observation, not saying anything bad about Vietnamese)

The other thing is that everytime after he takes a shower, there is a huge puddle of water on the floor. I don't know how he takes showers, but I'm thinking he doesn't use the shower curtain or doesn't close it all the way. Weird.

Saturday, August 28, 2004

Super Roaches

Back in Ohio, you don't see too many cockroaches. I don't think I remember even seeing one. As you all know, Taiwan has LOTS of roaches. And they're BIG. I never knew how big til I came to California. I just thought, "Cockroaches, they're supposed to be big right?" You know, comparing them to the roaches I see on Fear Factor or whatever. But no. There are also cockroaches here in California. (I'm guessing the cold in Ohio makes it not suitable for roaches) But the roaches here in California are SMALL. I will take a picture of one. But they are about the length of a dime, or a quarter (they range in size). That makes the roaches in Taiwan look like giants! Those super roaches are scary. I'm glad I was exposed to the super roaches before the regular ones or I probably would have freaked when I went to Taiwan.

We're all family....

Ok, so this morning I was woken up by my girlfriend calling from Taiwan. After my cell phone battery almost died, we got online, and I was explaining to her who everyone in my family was. *sigh* It was pretty tough. I sent her some pictures and was going through every person, who their parent's were, who their siblings were.....it took like an hour just to get through one picture. And we're not even done with my Dad's side yet. So anyway, I'm thinking of making a family tree to show her who everyone is and how we're all connected. I'll probably put it on the web somewhere. Then everyone can be mortified when they see exactly how big the Wang/Lin monster really is.

Aren't big families great?

Friday, August 27, 2004

Annoying idiosyncrasies

I've noticed one thing that really annoys me in class is people who nod their heads. You all know them. As they listen to the professor, they nod their head in agreement. For some reason that just really annoys me. I can't concentrate if they are in my field of vision.

In other news, HP has started selling iPods.

Monday, August 23, 2004

USC

Ok, I haven't updated this blog in a while. Let's get up to speed. I'm currently in LA, going to USC (school started today). I've been going to The Exodus (http://www.theexodus.org/), a "mission plant" from Harvest LA.

This Sat, I'll probably go to the beach with some of the people from EFC LA (Harvest LA) and then head over to a friend's house to watch the USC football game. Later, we're going to a concert put on by Benny Mao. He just released his first solo album (http://www.bennymao.com/) and we're going to support him. You might also know him from the Exodus Worship CD (http://www.exodusworship.com/).

In other news, I have been hit with 3 parking tickets over the past week, $35/each. One was at USC, I overparked my meter by like 5 min (!) and they gave me a ticket. The two others were because I forgot that the street in front of our house has street cleanings on Monday and Friday (one side each time) and I kept parking on the wrong side. Doh!

Oh, I'm also trying out the freeipods.com website (http://www.freeiPods.com/default.aspx?referer=8164924) to see if I can get a free i-pod. I still need to refer 4 friends (thanks Soph!) to see if I get one. If in doubt, read this http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,64614,00.html. It seems like this is legit, so we'll see.

Oh yeah, Stan got engaged two days ago to Melissa. Congratulations to them. I'm gonna be the best man! When's the wedding? Everyone is excited to come see Ohio, so hurry up and start planning, haha.