Where am I?

Ok, good news. My computer works again. My motherboard wasn't working because I screwed up the BIOS. I bought another one, because I can't wait to get my old one fixed.

I feel like I'm in another country (which has an economy that's the 5th largest in the world). I've noticed that there are some current trends around campus. First, retro bikes. They're like curved and have these huge handle bars. And no gears. Everyone rides them. And that's a lot of people considering probably like 40% or more of USC students ride bikes. Another thing. Skateboards. I have never seen so many people skateboarding in my life. Gotta be a SoCal thing. Also, pleated miniskirts. The first week of school, all I saw was the same girl around campus. Blonde hair, pleated miniskirt, riding her bike. Oh, and the other girl, Asian, pleated miniskirt, riding her bike. Our school was full of twins that week. Not anymore, though. Everyone is wearing long pants and stuff cuz they think it's so "cold". Whatever, Southern Califonians don't know what cold is.

Another thing I've noticed is the prevalence of laptops. Everyone (almost) at church has one and they just bring them to each other's houses and use the wireless. Actually, I've found that students in Taiwan are very computer savvy. Even the girls. It was very surprising. People in California are too, but that's probably because of Silicon Valley. People in Ohio aren't so much. Interesting.

I went to Fry's Electronics today to buy a motherboard. This is another reason I like California. Yup, because of a computer store. That's how great it is. Man, I wish we had those in Ohio.

Presidential Debate #2 tomorrow night. Hopefully I can sit down and watch the whole thing, unlike last time when I had to babysit for Tabitha, Kayla, and Garrett (Joe's kids). They are way too wild and energetic to let me watch TV.

Off to SCUBA class. I'll go pee first....

Just pee in your suit!

Our men's group played poker last Wednesday. $5 buy in, and you can buy in again once within the first hour. Winner take all. As we were getting in close to the first hour, lots of people started going all in so they could buy in again. Anyway, I won, but I'll spare you the details since I think only Stan knows how to play poker and I already told him about my miraculous win.

Saturday, we went to the beach again. Boogie boarded, but the waves were really crazy. Big and unpredictable. We played volleyball again, and went to eat dinner, then watched Garden State. Pretty good movie, lots of good memorable quotes about life. I'm glad I found people who like to watch indie films. A lot of times, they are much better than your standard action flick/chick flick/comedy/adventure movie that is peddled to the masses.

Anyway, something I noticed at USC. There are a lot of asians, of course. And a lot of them are from Taiwan/China/overseas. One thing you'll notice if you go to a foreign country (Taiwan) is that the girls hold hands a lot. They walk around hanging on each other's arms, giggling and stuff. Very....uh.....different. But when I was walking around campus, I saw it here too. I think someone should tell them that isn't an "acceptable" practice here in the States.

I went to my first SCUBA class yesterday. We basically learned the basics of pressure/volume/density and all that good stuff. Lots of precautions you have to take to make sure you don't pop your eardrums, or make your lungs explode. But the best part is this: (quote from my teacher) "There are two types of divers, those who pee in their suits, and those who lie about it." Great. So basically, you are diving, right? And you're underwater for like an hour. And the water pressure increases so it makes you want to go pee. What do you do? Go to the surface and find a bathroom? Nope. You just go right there in your suit. That's why he said we would all want to get our own booties (SCUBA shoes). The pee just goes down, and has nowhere else to go, so it just sits in your booties. Doesn't that just make all of you want to learn to SCUBA dive? I know I do!!!

First SCUBA session in the pool today. Hope I don't have to pee. We don't actually wear our wetsuits until the 4th pool session, but still.

Dave and Busters tomorrow for men's group. Maybe we'll play poker again. Maybe I'll win again. Nah.

Anybody watch the Presidential debate? Anybody gonna watch the VP debate? Didn't think so.

Forbes

If you look at the Forbes top 400, out of the top 10, if you exclude the Walton family (who inherited the Walmart fortune), the rest are self made billionaires. All but 1 are in the computer industry. All but 1 dropped out of college. The only one with a graduate degree is Warren Buffet, who made his riches from the stock market.

Really makes you think. The old adage, education = success is no longer true. (was it ever true?) If you read books like The Millionaire Next Door you'll see that our common idea that education will guarantee wealth is not true. In this day and age of information technology, a college degree or graduate degree has a different meaning. The people who are the richest are not those who have the highest degrees. They are the ones who found a great opportunity, weren't afraid to go for it, and persevered. How many of us are willing to go outside our comfort zone and take a risk that might have a big payoff? This has parallels in our spiritual lives as well. Interesting.

Part 2

Ok, last time on Mozo...

"The funniest thing that happened was when we were playing Halo. Me and Eliah were the best, so we got put on a team vs. everyone else. We were playing capture the flag 2 on 3, and the other team was up 2 to 1. Timmy is on their team. Timmy is Leonard's brother, and Leonard is Liz's (my cousin) husband."

So we were in the middle of the game, it's like 2:00am and Dennis says "If we lose this, that's gonna be really sad." Dennis is on the other team. All of a sudden, you hear a *snore* and we all turn to look at Timmy and he's asleep. We all bust out laughing. "No wonder they keep capturing our flag!" hahaha. That's awesome. Timmy can sleep anywhere. Doing the projector slides, during prayer meetings, anywhere.

I've been busy this week with projects, midterms, and stuff. Thursday night I played football with some KCM people. It's a Korean Christian Missions group on campus. Friday night we went to see "Napoleon Dynamite". If you haven't seen it, you HAVE to go see it. It is the funniest movie I have ever seen. You'll want a T-shirt of a liger, too.

Yesterday we went to the beach and I learned how to boogie board. It was fun, but the board I was using was really rough and it tore up my stomach and chest. My front is really sore now. When I say 'front' I really mean my nipples. Yes, I have man-breasts, Just. Man, living close to the beach, and when I say 'close' I mean in the same state, is really nice. It's gonna be hard contemplating living somewhere where there is no beach.

Don't you hate it when...

Ok, I'm finally done with that project and my midterm today. I stayed up late studying for the midterm, trying to watch the recorded lectures online. It turns out, the midterm is only 4 questions and probably only covers about 20% of the class. Great. I'll still probably do bad though. I went home after the class and took a nap, only to go to my afternoon class and sleep through that too.

Ok, here's the lodown on the retreat. "The Exodus 3rd annual retreat" was held in San Diego. We rented a beach house on the bay. It was NICE. 3000 sq. ft., 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, 2 outdoor patios, and it's right on the bay. You walk out the back door and there's sand. Oh man. I'm really getting addicted to beaches, sand, and water. No wonder more than 50% of the world's population lives close to some coast.

We met the owner on Friday to get the keys, and he was like some guy in his 50s. He owns the entire building (4 or 5 beach houses) that we stayed in, and from the looks of it, he just takes walks along the beach with his dog everyday. He probably owns some really nice house right on the ocean and just maintains his properties. That's a pretty rich life. Just think, all you need is couple million dollars and you could have it too. Too bad we're not all born with $1 million to invest.

Anyway, we spent the whole weekend hanging out, playing poker with official weight poker chips that Timmy just got for his birthday the day before, playing 3on4 Halo, beach volleyball, kayaking, BBQ's and singing worship songs in the morning and at night. What a nice weekend getaway. And people actually live in places like this. Wow.

One thing I've noticed is that the more you're exposed to things, the more you want them. For example, I'm sure everyone in Ohio wants a beach house. But nobody talks about it. But in California, where beaches are just a 30 min drive away (or walk, depending on where you live) you'll hear lots of people say stuff like, "I want to get a beach house someday," or "I want to live in a muti-million dollar mansion," "I want to get a boat," "I want to scuba dive," "I want to be a professional actor/actress," etc. Very interesting how the mentality of people is totally different.

At the beach house, the bay is used a lot for sailing lessons apparently. We keep seeing tons of sailboats sailing around. We kept rooting for them to crash or flip over, cuz it would have been cool. Not cool for the people, but cool for 12 Chinese Americans staring at them through the dining room window.

The funniest thing that happened was when we were playing Halo. Me and Eliah were the best, so we got put on a team vs. everyone else. We were playing capture the flag 2 on 3, and the other team was up 2 to 1. Timmy is on their team. Timmy is Leonard's brother, and Leonard is Liz's (my cousin) husband. Ok, gotta go now, but I'll finish the story later. And put up the pictures.

My brain has overheated

Sorry, no updates yet. Just finished a project due today, and now studying for a midterm tomorrow. I'll update about the retreat when I have time.

"Retreat"

No updates for the next few days b/c I'm going on a "retreat" to San Diego with my church. It's not a formal retreat, cuz we're not having speakers or anything, it's more of just a getaway where we can hang out and stuff. We rented a beach house for the weekend.

I have a midterm next week. Should be fun to study after I get back. Yeah, right.

a mile a day.......keeps the starting line away

Ok, I'm waiting to go eat at some Korean place, so I can update a lil bit. My legs are so sore. I haven't played any sports for like 5 million years (back when I was chasing dinosaurs) and it's not cool to just jump right into playing basketball. It was fun though.

I'm so out of shape. The other day, Benny (go buy his cd here) was talking about how he has to work out just to keep equilibrium. If he wants to get in shape, he has to work EXTRA hard. I started laughing, and he was like "You're still young, so you don't know yet. But once you get older, you'll see." Man, I'm only 22 and I'm already starting to get fat........ter. fatter.

I'm almost gonna start taking SCUBA lessons. I'm waiting for Joe to teach a class so I can take it with him. I have this whole packet that he gave me. There's a book to read, a test to fill out (open book), a video to watch (Kathy said it was really boring, she fell asleep after 40 min) and a CD. There is so much gear to buy. And the classes are like $200 something. Plus each time we go in a pool (4 times) it costs another $100 or something. Man, this is gonna get expensive. Good thing Joe's gonna lend me his stuff. I can't wait. If I die in the next few months, you'll know that I died while I was having fun. Or a shark got me.

Also, today, we had this presention done by this PhD guy at USC. He was a bizarro-Kyle. First of all, he's a robotics guy ("my girl robot"), he's white, tall, has short brownish hair, and all his mannerism are the same as Kyle's. The way he talks, the way he stands, the way he thinks, man, it's all there. Man, I miss Ohio. Speaking of which, I met a Korean girl who is from Ohio. She went to Upper Arlington for high school and is good friends with Angela Chung. That's the only person we could figure out who we both knew. Anyway, I'm looking forward to going back for the Rongster's wedding. Still need to buy tickets, haha. Ok, I'll do it today. I'm such a slacker. Speaking of which...

I have this one class in the mornings on MWF. I never go. I went to probably the first half of the classes we've had so far. Then I found out the classes were videotaped (for off-campus students, like people who have jobs and such nonsense). I was happy because I could review the lectures at my own leisure. Now I realize, that is the worst thing you can possibly tell me. Now I just don't feel like waking up, so I'll get up late, and I won't feel like walking into class late, and I'll tell myself, "I can just watch it later on the internet." And my whole trip to school that day gets cancelled. Yeah, I only have one class most days, and I don't go. I'm such a slacker.

In other news, ..........no, wait. That's it. I have nothing else.

So tired....

Just got back from eating dinner and playing basketball with Exodus people. So tired....I'll update the blog tomorrow.

Another great thing about living in LA. Chua bing (shaved ice). Oh yeah.

Something's Afoot

So I went to see Sam's new musical yesterday. It's called Something's Afoot. It's a spoof on the typical murder mystery. You know, 10 people go to a mansion, there's a storm, they start dying. It was pretty funny. I was sitting in the first row, but Sam had on these really thick glasses so he didn't even notice. I wonder if he got a headache from wearing those. Seriously, he looked like a cartoon, his eyes were so big. He was playing a doctor, but it was stereotyped for an asian. So he had on big glasses, and he spoke with a broken English accent.

Later as I was driving home, I got annoyed that the CA highway signs are so non-informative. They only tell you which was is North, or South, like 3 signs before you exit. All the signs after that only say "Los Angeles" or "Pomona". Man, if I didn't know that I was heading toward LA, I would have got on the wrong freeway. California really needs to revamp their traffic system. It sucks. Really bad. I think that is the only reason that I wouldn't consider living here.

In other news, I'm opening an account with an online broker. Since I have no job, and I have lots of free time, I've been learning a lot about stocks and investing recently. We'll see how I do. Or I guess, I'll see how I do, you will only read about it.

I found some old pictures from Taiwan that I never posted. I hope you enjoy going to 7-star and eating some KLG chicken. Notice the KFC sign above it.



Oh yeah, today is the anniversary of 9/11. I don't know if I should say Happy 9/11 Day or just be solemn and sad. I still remember what I was doing when I heard the news. I was driving my car home cuz I was getting ready to move (yeah, I moved on 9/11) and I heard it on the radio. I thought it was a joke and I had to think what day it was to make sure it wasn't April Fool's day.

The Complex Malibu

Just finished watching The Complex: Malibu. It's not that great. If you've never watched it, it's about 8 couples who are split up into two teams and they have to refurnish two luxury apartments. Whoever's team adds the least value to the apartments, they get to vote a couple off. Not great TV. Ever notice that all these imitation reality TV shows just are not good?

Anyway, yesterday, some people from church went out on a mission. Some guy, let's call him Joe, who used to go the church is going to law school and has moved into a house. But his room doesn't have air conditioning. So we decided to buy him one. And when I say 'we', I mean they. So we go to Home Depot and they laugh at us and are like 'all our air conditioners have been sold out for weeks.' Great. So we head over to Target, (ya know, the French store) and we're like, does Target even sell air conditioners? So we're looking around at 9:50pm, 10 min til it closes, and we don't find it. They have fans, humidifiers, and air filters, but not air conditioners. So we're about to give up, when, lo and behold (when have I ever said lo and behold before? Weird), we spot them. And when I say 'we', I mean Timmy. It's like sitting in totally not the right section, and there's only 3. So anyway, we go over to Joe's house and install it. He lives in a really bad area of town. We were really scared to look at people in the eye. So the air conditioner is one of those that sit in the window, but his window opens horizontally. And there's no brackets that come with the air conditioner. So basically the air conditioner is sitting on the window sill that is probably only like 5" wide, screwed into the wall, with a piece of cardboard on top to keep out the outside air. It's a job well done. Next week, we'll probably do something just as crazy. If you're in the LA area and need some home improvements done around the house, give us a call. We can't guarantee it'll work, or be pretty, but we'll have fun doing it.

O.C.

The O.C. doesn't start til Nov 4. What's up with that? Anyway, all this info can be found on www.tvtome.com. Good site for TV schedules and episode guides.

It's weird. I can actually go to Orange County now.

Father of the Pride

Does anybody watch Father of the Pride? Do you like it? I saw the premiere, and I was disappointed. But then I downloaded yesterday's episode (I forgot it was on) and it was a lot funnier. I wonder if it'll make it. Joey and Apprentice start on Thursday. Smallville starts Sept 22, two weeks from today. Alias will not start until Jan 2005. I don't know if it has anything to do with J.J. Abrams writing Mission Impossible 3. He's also writing Lost, the new TV show, so maybe he's just busy.

I can't believe how many people watch Alias. Like all the cousins. Weird. They're all gonna be disappointed when it doesn't start til next year. To quote Kathy when I told her, "What?! Nooooooooooo!" It was something like that anyway.

Joan of Arcadia starts Sept 24.

I have to study for a quiz. And I don't have my calculator. To quote Stan, "Boo."

Voting

Oh, I almost forgot. We all know we should do our patriotic duty and vote. (What? You didn't know? Who are you? Am I your friend?) Well, there is a site that is using a sweepstakes to try to get people registered to vote. Check out the link on the right. You enter for a chance to win $100,000 and $100,000 for the person who referred you. They promise not to use your information for advertising and stuff. Oh, you have to be a registered voter in order to be eligible to win.

USC, ants, Latin Grammys

Ok, I just got back from my class. My professor has this weird thing where a little spit will collect on the left of his mouth (facing him left, his right). It's so weird. It's like a ball of spit that just starts collecting there. It's so obvious too, cuz it's white. So strange.

Another thing I remembered today. USC has no bells. Or tones. Or any signal whatsoever to tell you when class ends. So basically it's up to the professors and the students to remember. AND THERE ARE NO CLOCKS IN THE ROOMS. I don't think I've seen a single clock on campus. You would think a rich private school like USC would provide us with clocks. Guess not.

In other news, I have a colony of ants living in my closet. I found them like 3 days ago, but I had no idea why they started to invade my room and climb on my desk and stuff. Well, last night, I found a dead cockroach on the floor underneath my desk. So I guess that answers it. But even after I moved the cockroach and cleaned up all the ants, more are coming out. I hope I can find some way of getting rid of them. Wait....what I MEANT to say was I hope I can find some EASY way of getting rid of them.

Stan, nice comments. It's Emily's birthday today. She turns 30. Happy Birthday Emily! We're gonna have a BBQ tonight at a church friend's house.

I finally got my car washed after it was shipped over here. On the way from Columbus to LA it collected like 30 pounds of dirt. It was pretty nasty. I went driving around and found one of those do-it-yourself car wash places. Pretty cool. It only costs $1 for 3 min (you can switch from soap to foam to rinse to wax). After time runs out you need to put in more money. They also have a vacuum (another $1, just like the ones at the gas station) so I finally got the sand out of my car after I gave people a ride home from the beach. Yeah.....that's right....I can go to the BEACH. =]

Oh yeah, I forgot. I couldn't buy a parking pass at USC, so I had to buy a pass across the street at Shrine Auditorium. It's where the Oscars and other award shows are held. The Latin Grammy's yesterday were held there. They didn't let us park there. There were all these signs that said "Limo, Red Carpet ->". They have these super long parking spaces that at first I had no idea what they were for. I thought they wanted people to double park or something. Then I figured it out. It's for all the limos. Yeah, pretty dumb of me.

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.

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?

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.

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.