helen is retarded for tagging me with this shit and i am stupid for actually doing it.  but hey, when u are sitting at your desk after coming back from a wonderful 5 day weekend and don't feel like doing any hwk, this seems like the best outlet.

Game rules are simple. You should begin by dropping down the name of the attacker (the person who sent you this chain post) on your own blog (xanga). Then, try to think of five (5) of your strangest habits and write them down on the blog. After you reveal your "odd", you may pick 5 people (the next lucky winners) who you think may join/inherit this game. Write down those names (with the link attached) in your own blog. Then, leave a comment on their blog (xanga) such as "You have been tagged." and attach your blog link as well. Those 5 lucky winners who are tagged will repeat what you did and propagate the five strange habits chain.

Tagged by: Helen

My 5 strange habits:

1)  I don't like even/pretty numbers when it comes to time.  For example, I would set my alarm clock for 7:03 instead of 7:00 or 7:05.  And when I am late or meeting someone up, I don't like saying "I'll be there in 10 minutes"...I prefer 6 instead. 

2) If the bed is big enough, I like to sleep diagonal and flop around.

3) I like to run fast for a long time because I like the feeling of being out of breath and peeling over, gasping for air

4) I hold conversations with myself. heh. 

5) Flat soda tastes better to me than carbonated soda

I want to tag:

1) ty12tle52

2)shaojr

3)beariebird

4)ellenhunny

5)jiggaf00

sitting in class e190 bored out of my mind and trying to not think about the stench floating my way from the dude sitting next to me because he probably hasn't showered in over 3 days...so what do i do?  xanga!

ok, so i know its been a while now...but allow me to politely inform you of who has returned....

HELL YAH!!! THE BACKSTREET BOYS!

and guess who got center, 8th row at the concorde pavillion????!!!!! ME!!! muahaha.  they were so close, sooooo close.  *sigh*. 

heavenly i tell you, heavenly.  i <3 nick and brian

i was in india when they released their "never gone" cd and so i didn't really know any of their new songs...but wow, was i blown away.  it's really superb!  i like the new style and they sound sooo great (as if they didn't before!!!)  if you haven't downloaded/bought their cd yet, i suggest you do it NOW.  "i still" and "siberia" are my favs, though all the songs on the cd are all really good.  

i was sooooo close...and then the power went out.  bleh.  yah, that sucked ass.  we waited around for an hour but then they couldn't do anything about it and so an hour into their performance, the show was stopped and everyone had to leave.  sooooo sad....and soooooo PISSED!!! i've never had seats that close to anything before and geez, the one time i do, the f*ckin power blows.  WTF?!!!!  i was so quite the mad...our tickets were accepted at the next day's show in Marysville (1hr past sacramento) and felicia and i actually drove out there (2.5 hours away from berkeley) because we are such die hard fans.  though we weren't given the same seats and we were a lot farther from the stage the second time around, it was still very worth it! the entire show lasted for about 1 hr and 45 mins. 

here they are, singing to us acappella with speaker phones since the power was off and they felt bad.  it was sooooooooooooooo cute and they are soooooo talented.

i love you BSB.  they are truly, never gone.  *sigh* 

Wow.  Xanga re-designed itself.  Interesting.  Anyhow...Here's what I did at the end of summer. 

I.  Jon's 22nd BBQ

Let's just say that Emery's boyfriend knows how to cook bomb ass steak...it was wow...explosive! hahaha.  So damn good!  I had like 3 pieces...go fig...c'mon, I still feel a lil bit beef deprived b/c of India. ahaha.  They were just so medium rare-y and juicy...who can resist???  Definately not me.  There were also yummy sausages, hamburgers, fish, and oysters!!!  Then we had really good razzberry mousse cake.  YUUUUM.  hehe.  It was funny because all of Jon's friends were single and he was like, "See anyone you like?  Pick one!"  ERRrrr....thanks for the offer but I'm quite good in that department for now .

top: emery, jeannie, jen  bottom:  yuki, erica, me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

me playing on the tube swing on the playground in the park. hehe

look who else knows jon??! ang ang!  so weird.  she calls me up and asks what i'm doing and i'm like, oh yah, just at some friend's bbq in alameda...and then she's like jon??? and i'm like wtf? how do you know him? hMMmmmmM...apparently ang gets around   jk jk

II.  Marilyn's 881-881 (aka bye bye, farewell, going to boston) Dinner

Following tradition, we headed out to the place we always go to for some reason...macaroni grill!  it was very fun because I got to see a lot of the people whom I haven't seen in a really long time.  not to mention having a coupla drinks at the bar before dinner was nice too. hahaha. 

karen, jen, and moi

the other side of the table

our side of the table (yes, it was a very loooooong table...and yes, both john and marilyn were on both sides of the table. hahaa)

not all of the girls...( julia, marilyn, and tracy are in here this time) missing ang and sarah

ooH...here they are...(and that's alan on the right)

so yep, that was that before i returned back to what would later become a very SAD and DEPRESSING and BORING and PAINFUL but thankfully last semester at Berkeley. 

i <3 you all.  come visit me... 

OR ELSE!

i'll cry and be even more sad.  you don't want that, do you?  *sniff sniff*  

 here are some pictures from my LA-Extravaganza trip from aug. 5-18...yah, i was down there for a while.  got to see tons of people from school as well as many of the EAPer's.  thanks for taking me out and about and/or meeting up with me!  it was so great seeing all of you guys!

angel brewer and erik swanson's wedding on aug. 6th in pasedena.  they look so happy!!!

tracy, the bride, me and the hau-ster.  and yes, i am wearing the saree. hehehe.  see, i said i would wear it to the wedding!  wow, still can't believe she's married...

awwww..."don't sweat the small stuff" classy broad Hau. hahaa awww i miss you!!!

eating $15 all you can eat korean bbq with the closet slut, jane lee. hehee...jk jk.  i was making up for the lack of beef eaten in india for the past 2 months-all i ate was the marinated beef hahaa

hung out with sammy, who is being a dork here, at his new house being built in santa monica...which is soooo crazy phat.  haha yah...crazy phat. hahaa

won a free meal at the lee's sandwiches in irvine and i didn't even know. hahaa.  yay me! MmMmm vietnamese sandwiches, how i love you so!  okok, so i had to document it and take a picture!  it's only cause i NEVER win anything!!!

hanging out at newport beach with manly manly! ahhhh...the oc...gotta love it!

yaaaaay newport beach!!! hahahhaa.   phoebes joined us later on

10 hours of shopping everywhere in irvine with alice + stuffing ourselves crazy at soup plantation.  fun stuff!

outside of 1020 in arcadia with helen.  here is our best CAPTAIN MORGAN pose.  hahahaa.  apparently, that stance is really hard to do when you are a lil tipsy, but we were able to pull it off.

eating HELLA GOOD korean food in k-town for the second time at the same restaurant with the other 1/3 of the roomates:  calliea, tina, and andy (not pictured)

hanging out with angels!!!  i haven't seen her since i left her behind in taiwan.  haha this is a picture of us after we had a few drinks in the afternoon while taking a break from shopping on melrose.  heh.  good stuff

my sad attempt at taking a nice picture of the hollywood sign.  well, at least angels and i got really close and got to look into the nice houses up there on the hollywood hills.

chilling with sarah and the jae bear (not pictured) at santa monica pier

hanging out with the other 1/3 of the roomies at andy's cousin's bachelor pad house in redonda beach.  dude, that sofa was THE BEST sofa i've ever sat my ass on.  the big flat screen t.v., slide down movie projector, as well as fully stocked bar wasn't too bad either.

eating mango ice at guppy with dave.  do you see how huge that mango ice was?!!! we had to fight over who had to finish the last pieces of mangos...stupid dave kept putting it onto my side.  hmph!  oh yah, and dave loves that pink shirt he's wearing. on the front, it says "monkey life". hehe fob pride for life yo!

saying bye to the bkptc-er in life plaza in rowland area.  he's off to taiwan and then to london for god knows how long to study chem-e. ewww. haha

also got to hang out with lucy, when we went to lunch at damon and pythias...but i forgot to take a picture then.  sorry lucy!!!  i think that's about all the people i hung out with down in so cal.  sorry if i forgot anyone!

alright...after reading Ye's xanga, i decided that its long overdue for my Hampi entry..so here goes... this place is called Hampi, pronounced like humpy.  you can imagine what they do all day here.  ahahhaa j/k j/k.  it was another overnight train thing, left work on friday night and came back early monday morning.  very tiring...yes, but very fun-like keeping our entire train compartment up all night playing card games as well as seeing how many cockaroaches we could kill with guillaume's shoe on the way back to bangalore.  haha.  good stuff.  gooooo india railways!

a short verbatim description of the places we went taken from the travel guy, harry. ...haha too lazy to type all this out, sorry: 

Badami:  Badami is famous for its four cave temples –all hewn out of sand stone on the precipice  of a  hill. The exquisite sculptures and the rust red sandstone cliffs tell many a story.the North Fort,Mahakuta and the Banashankari Temples are not to be missed.

Aihole & Pattadakal:  Aihole, with most of the 'Shikaras' in  Indo-Aryan style.A tranquil village on the banks of Malaprabha river. Aihole is  renowned as the cradle of Hindu temple  architecture.

Pattadakal : the richness  of the Chalukyan architecture is writ in the cluster of ten beautifully chiseled temples.Visit to the rock-cut temples temples of Pattadkal where the evolution of windows and pillared halls made the  temple  more  decorative  and larger. Visit Virupakha Mallikarjuna, The Jambulinga temples,The Kadasiddeshwara, and other temples.

Hampi: Hampi, the beautiful capital of Vijaynagar empire.It is suitated on the banks of the river Tungabhadra in the region of  Bellary , is a  vast site  of  monuments and ruins, a mute witness to an era of glories,triumphs  and tragedies.
Visit  the temple of Virupaksha, Lotus  Mahal Palace, The Vittala Temple with its famous stone chariot, musical pillars and incredible  sculpture  work.  The  Hazar  Rama  Temple depicts the story of Ramayana in great detail.

*yah, shudda skipped all that and gone straight to the pictures.  hahaa. 

mMMmm...masala dosa's for breakfast.  the june crew were scarfing them down like none other whereas the newly arrived july batch still had difficulty eating only with their right hand...

on the train with brianna and eric...listening to some xmas tunes in july. hahaha yah...so i missed on the past christmas, can you blame me for making up for it now? hehe

so i start to blank out after having gone on so many different guided tours so don't kill me if i'm not completely descriptive. this is some queen of some time period's summer palace.  hey!  gimme credit for remembering some things, yah? heh. 

...somewhere in hampi. hahaa

wall carvings

more wall carvings...

and my favorite wall carving...hehehehe...can you see why???

wow...look at the knockers on that babe.

hehehe...me and my ADD kicking in while the guide was talking. haha this picture is of ye listening very, very attentively and me....putting bunny ears on his head...and patrick looking at me like i'm crazy. ahhaa

another one of those palace things...man, i can't even get the tourist thing down right.  *sigh*

hmm...the dancing shiva!!!

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

hehehe...yes, there are 2 fingers in this picture-one belongs to me and the other one is patrick's.  hehe.  hey!  we wanted to be in the picture too!  haha

guillaume, me, and patrick

same view over a different edge...

maura and i outside of some caves with carvings in them..very cool!  oh, and also where there were a bunch of people killing monkeys there. no seriously, they were people killing monkeys!!!

the whole group in front of the caves

brianna and i again...but this time, somewhere else in hampi!!!

can you say...a crazy bollywood movie starring americans! hahaa

stone chariot...must've been hard to transport people in this...hmMmmmmm...stone wheels

the hotel we stayed at...pretty cool.  too bad there were hairy sheets...oh well, what can you do?  choose another hotel that's for sure...but hey, for like $6 a night, i'm not complaining. 

the entrance to a temple...or maybe its just an entrance to somewhere else....hmm....

MmMMmMM...lingaaaaaaaaaaa. hahahaha sick!!!! hehe...errr...inside joke.  all of us on the hampi trip were quite the fascinated with the lingas...they were a symbol of worship that represented the joining of the male and female reproduction organs...can you say, fallic????!!!!  ahhahaa.  i have a miniture one that i pray to nightly. hahaaaa j/k j/k 

patrick and me in front of more ruins!

ruins...ruins...and more ruins!!! yippeee  kinda cool how there are so many boulders there!  gooooo CE70!!!

and that folks...was the hampi trip.  hehe.  it was one of my fav!

alright.  guess what time it is??? picture time!!! yaaaay!  i'm a lil behind so bear with all the photos, yah?? 

this was the weekend that was paid for entirely by Infosys.  it was a "conference" but more of a relaxing weekend getaway for the June and July interns.  we stayed at this 5 star hotel called the Taj Malabar and wow...was it great!  it was the first time i got a full body oil aruyvedic massage...and when i say full body, i mean full body. heh.  use your imagination.  and NO, my masseuse was not a man.  stupidhead. hahahaha

State of Kerala, City of Cochin

everyone at the train station...i don't think we stand out too much, do you? haha. pictures with the foreigners...5 rupies please. 

me and megha posing next to the train stop sign

it took an overnight train to get there.  this was 2nd class AC (air condition).  it was me, brianna, shiling, and megha.  fun times =)

right when you entered the hotel, they gave you a drink in some kinda of coconut i think and a dot on the forehead.  yipppee!  thats me and nitin

the backside of the hotel

the backside of the hotel facing the open water to the arabian sea

 hotel...

one part of the hotel lobby

more of outside the hotel...ok, and the reason for all these hotel photos is because it was a really nice hotel and i haven't been in a really nice hotel for a while. hahahaa.  this is a shot of everyone walking to the boat for the boat cruise. 

and this was the boat since you can't see it too well in the picture above...

and this is the view of the hotel from the boat

mMMmmMm...purrrrrrrrrdy

and you have to check this out...its  called the infinity pool for a reason-it goes on forever and ever and ever and ever...

okok, maybe not...hahaha...but the pool was still quite the awesome. ahhaa. mMMM. yah, really nice 

we were in Jew town when it suddently started pouring rain.  Yah, according to the tour guide, there are only about 14 Jews living here (white people *gasp*!!!) and "its a tourist attraction because they are a dying civilization".  wtf.  hahaa.  oh man...

i thought this was hilarious...yuuuummmm-aye.  edible oil, anyone? hahaha. 

the chinese are everywhere!!! EVERYWHERE!!! mauahahhaa.  chinese fishing nets at cochin

later on that night, we rented out the boat for a "boat party on the party boat"~such a clever saying created by yours truly .  it was great..2 hours on a boat out on the waters at night while bumping bollywood music and drinking some KINGFISHER for only $7.  can't get better than that...

Thank you, Infosys.

i think i need to read more books.  after being here on the internship and seeing a many liberal arts kids reading books on the long train rides we take whenever going anywhere or just busting out a book whenever there is a quiet time, i realized that i do actually miss casual reading and how i haven't read for pure pleasure since high school...well, thats if you don't count harry potter, a great literary feat might i say. hehe.  i feel my vocabulary is dying...or rather, it was never quite alive to begin with, and i dunno..i guess i get so tired from "reading" for school that i just don't want to do it in my spare time.  i'd rather watch the o.c. hahaha.  hmmm...this is what engineering school does to you...bleh.  hopefully that'll change next semester. 

is it sad to miss your cellphone?  because i think i miss mine...alot.  =(  i wish i could be calling people right now and talking for hours and not worrying about not having enough minutes

i also miss my bed.  i miss my wonderful, wonderful bed.  its tough going back and forth from a twin to a full (twin in france, full at school, twin in taiwan, full at school, twin in india, full at school).  maybe i should double up my two twin beds in my room and see if that works and stuff the cracks with pillows.  hehe i think i think when i get back home, i'm going to live out of it for a week.  company is welcome. 

this map was on my xanga a long time ago, but i've made 2 new additions to it since then:  vietnam and india.  =)

create your own visited countries map :  visited 10 countries (4%)

hm...so i've only been to 10 countries, but i've lived in 4 (meaning staying in a place for 8+ weeks) countries up til now...so i guess thats pretty awesome.  maybe now my hopes of becoming an international spy will come true. 

so these are the states that i've been to.  hm...never been to anything in between the west and east coasts...but then again, whats there anyway?    all you need is california and ny...hehee j/k j/k.  hopefully i'll get to hit up some more states (seattle???illinois???georgia???texas???) in the near future. 

create your own visited states map :  Visited 5 States  (9%)

so i know i should have done this earlier, but if you are interested...this is where i slept, worked, inhabited for the past month or so.  i hope infosys doesn't kill me for putting up pictures of their campus in my xanga...ahhaa hmmm..never signed a NDA...

conveniently called "lotus" or "opera house" by the interns, officially called B18 or "building 18".  its where we frequent to eat lunch.  this is just one of the eateries here on campus

some more buildings...

and more...this is the library

another shot of the library

this is the pool

the other part of the pool...haha

Food court 1...aka Dominos food court cause there is a Dominos pizza at this food court

my room...with two beds for me to choose on whichever one i feel like sleeping on for the night. hahahahaa i love room service!

yup.  so thats infosys, bangalore.  well...some of it at least.