Tralalala

Awwww!

My Saturday started at midnight as I carried my Friday into this morning.  It's been a while since I've done a full overnight shift and I wasn't completely used to it.

After having a nap after work, I came back in for another 2 hours at noon.  Surprisingly, I wasn't as dead as I thought I was going to be.

The real saving grace was remembering that I didn't have to work again until 10pm tonight.  For a while, I thought I had to come back at 6.  That would have made the day slightly tiring.

Because I spent so much time at work today, there wasn't much going on in my life.  Well, you can't always be partying and having a good time.  Look at the bright side, I like money!

Fatigued Friday

It was somewhat hard to get up this morning because I only had about 4 hours of sleep due to the fact we got back from Manti late in the night.  Having 8am class did not help at all.  Needless to say, I struggled to stay awake in class.

Lab work was relatively quick since there wasn't much to do.  I'm actually kinda glad I don't have to do anything about extractions this up coming week.

I went on a date this afternoon.  Went to the art museum and kept it simple.  It was a first date after all.  Generally, I don't mind what the activity is as long as the girl liked it.

Tonight will be the start of the longest work day this weekend.  I start at 10pm and goes to 6am, only to return at noon to 2, followed by my normal 6pm to midnight shift.  Sounds horrible?  Indeed.  Looks like I won't get any sleep this weekend.  That's too bad, I guess.

Manti Trip

This entry is supposed to be for Thursday.  I missed it because it was late when the ward got back from Manti and I was simply too tired to care, especially when I have a 8am class.

The trip to Manti was somewhat long.  It took us 2 hours to get there.  Along the way, we had the company of the orange sun since there had been some fires going around the Utah Valley.  Bishop Lewis started a Twinkies eating contest on the bus.  I was glad I didn't get to participate in it...

We arrived in Manti a little under 2 hours before the pageant.  So, we looked around the street vendors, etc.  Obviously, there were a lot of anti-Mormons out there, but they were relatively mild compared to the hardcore ones I've seen on my mission.  I definitely pulled a Carly Rae Jepsen on one of the anti girls by doing the "call me maybe" thing.

Essentially, I trolled around the streets with Jim until it was time for the main event to start.  We had great fun together.

I picked up 2 cool items from the pageant.  One of them was a flask that used to contain root beer.  The other was a hat with the Monster Energy Drink logo M on, but it says Mormon.  I think all the antis started flocking to me when I started wearing that hat.  It was quite amusing.

The pageant itself was awesome!  I've never been to one before and I'm glad to say that I wasn't disappointed.  The lighting and the stage directing was simply incredible.  Now, if I ever get the chance...I need to attend some other ones as well.

The Trouble of Long Days

It certainly wasn't the first time I've done a long Wednesday.  It was definitely not the last either.  Why did I choose to work tonight?  Because I want to go to the Manti Pageant tomorrow.  I've never been to a Church pageant, so I wanted to go to at least one and see if I like it.

The funny thing about using the fume hood at the labs is that back in Spring, I had to wait for my turn.  Now, the cord blood package doesn't arrive on time.  Making the whole "no on is using this in the mornings now" completely pointless.

Dr. Berges, Anne, and I watched the Euro Cup semifinal game.  Between Spain and Portugal, I couldn't care less about which team wins, but for Anne, it was a different case.  She really wanted Portugal to win, but alas, penalty kick didn't favor Portugal and Spain won 4-2 off of PKs.

I missed the bulk of BYU Football's Media Day.  That's okay, I didn't want to deal with the high-profile visitors and the crowd anyways.  The upcoming football season should be interesting.  I'll be looking forward to it.  It's almost time for another year of no All-Sports Pass because I get PAID to watch live sports!

Too Hot To Tell

Looks like I've kept up my Tuesday routines.  I went to class, saw the devotional, and went to the weight room.  It's always nice to see people I know there.  It makes exercising a lot easier.  I suppose we are all nervous around strangers who don't seem to want to talk to you.

Spent hours doing o-chem homework... turned on the AC for the first time in this apartment only to find that it doesn't work very well.  Looks like Cam will have to put in a work order for them tomorrow.

I met with the bishop today.  I went just for fun and I received something I needed to know very much for a long time.

Did my rounds around the ward and now I'm tired.  This 8 o'clock class thing is killing me.  I hope I can at least do decent in Chem352.

I Be Trippin'

Not being to fall asleep until 2am had its downsides, namely, feeling dead at your 8am class.  The fact that Dr. Ham, who was subbing for Dr. Peterson was funny made it almost bearable.

I had lunch was Sam, Zac, and Jesse at the Cannon Center.  It actually took some drastic measures on Sam's part to get me to go with them.  I like the food there for the most part and almost wanted to play a silly prank on some of the freshmen there.  Unfortunately, I did not have a pen to write the silly note on a napkin, so that idea came and left quickly.

Spending the afternoon trying to study for o-chem while half comatose was definitely not productive.  I think I had a documentary about whales playing in my head while I was semi-out-of-it.  The funny thing is, I've never watched a documentary about whales before.  That was a sure sign that I was tired...when I'm starting to dream up things that never happened.

To remedy that, I took a 90-min nap.  Seemed to help because I'm still here at work and awake.

Eh, Mondays...

What To Think...

Oh...woe is me.

I felt disconnected all day.  My home teachers, Ben and Joe, came visited us before church this morning.  Lucky for us, Blake was around as well, so they got our whole apartment.  Joe offered to assist me in home teaching (since my companions were not readily available).

I had to skip church today because it was my turn on the rotating shift.  It kinda sucks, but I still have 2 more to go this Term.  Work on Sundays is extremely boring because nothing happens after noon.  I stayed there until 6pm anyways.

While I talked to people today...I couldn't seem to relate to them or connect to them on a level that I normally could.  Everything seemed patchy and disorganized.  Maybe I'm just over-analyzing things, but it was still this awful feeling of I think something was wrong.

Maybe I just need more sleep.  It's been a long week and it'll continue to be so for some time.  I don't know what to think.

I didn't even enjoy tunnel singing because my mood was so severely altered.  Oh well, next week will be better.

Ultimatum

Heihachi Mishima: King of Iron Fist

Lately, I've put a lot of thought into the things around me.  I have set physical fitness goals and academic goals, etc.  There are times when I doubt my ability to keep up with all the standards that have been set up.  To be honest, I wondered if I even made the right choices.

Amidst this uncertainty, my mood became somewhat affected; hence, I talk to people in ward to alleviate and help me put those concerns in the back burner.

Self-esteem and confidence are funny things.  I'm sure most of us are not satisfied with our appearance or even our status in life.  They make us depressed and depreciate motivation levels altogether.

After pondering the subject for quite some time, I felt inadequate because of the way I am.  I simply did not meet my full potential.  Before the self-pity started, I remembered the "Yao Ming face" (the "screw that" attitude).

Honestly, I don't care.  I do what I want and hope to achieve the best.  I want to be as fit as Heihachi Mishima even into my old age.  I want to look young and be successful in my own terms.  All those while I maintain my integrity in the Gospel.

In the path to eternal progression, it's not a matter of "if", but what matters is "when".  I may not like how flimsy my body is right now or even where I am at in my academic career (can you say 10 more years of school?).  I'll work on it until I get it.

The Lord may give use the "ummph" to get there, but we still need to put forth the effort.

Lego Madness

Well, after a week of having 4 hours of sleep, I finally get to take it easy for a bit.  I have lots of homework that I would like to get ahead of by the end of the weekend.  At the same time, I need to balance that between work and more work.

Not much went on in the labs today.  All I did was passage some stem cells and shared some of my cultures with Wittnee.

I did my usual runs around the apartments and talked to people.  We have some great folks here in the ward and I haven't met them all yet!  Did my martial arts routine for 30 min.  In addition, an interesting feat that will become story of another day.

I realized that I've been working everyday this past week and it's not going to stop until Tuesday.  Well, you gotta do what you gotta do.  Life ain't easy, but it's worth in the end.

Sam organized a great birthday party tonight with Lego blocks as its main theme.  A good number of people showed up.  We had timed competitions involving building things with Legos and had pizza while we conversed and enjoyed the company of each other.

I couldn't stay the whole time because I had work, but oh well.  I was there!

Guess what?  I get to sleep tonight!  I'm totally gonna give myself 8 hours tonight.  I'm not gonna wake up unless someone texts me.

A Day In The Life

I woke up about seven or eight
And got ready to face my fate.
Nine o'clock o-chem recitation,
We have another date...

Once I got classes done,
I decided to go have some fun.
Trekking through Provo streets,
I did a 2.5 mile run.

Studying gave my head ache,
So I decided to go take a break.
I learned some good news and bumped into a friend
And pleasant conversations did we make!

Alas, it was time, again, to hit the book.
An hour of break was all I took.
Of course, I had to work tonight.
I put it down and started to cook.

Work has been great,
Except Randy's strange debate.
Hours went by between him and Simon...
Until it was getting late.

And now, I wait until midnight.

Zzzz

Coming off of work at 2am this morning, I didn't quite get home and ready for bed until 2:30.  Considering that I had class at 8am in the morning, it was imperative that I rise at 6:30.  I did, but I was fairly tired.  Having the 8 o'clock Chem352 was not too kind on my mental alertness.

After a 2-hour grind, I went back to the labs to carry out a protocol comparison experiment Dr. Berges had in mind.  The process took roughly 4.5 hours, granted me some time to chill at my apartment before work at 6pm.  I'll be here till midnight.

Yeah, I am definitely done for the day.

Time Jam

I felt like I did a lot today.  My day started with recitation session at 9am.  Funnily enough, I had Gledi for  TA again.

After the only class of the day, I had the opportunity to go see the devotional for the first time this Term.  I might start doing that from now on.  Jenn and I went to the weight room around 1pm.  Now, she knows where it is and can go there whenever she wants to.  The best part?  It seems that a good number of my friends go there around that time.

I spent my afternoon getting some sun while I did my o-chem homework.  Ammon later picked me up and we went to Macey's to get some stuff for the week.  I desperately needed contact solutions, a fact I didn't realize last night.

The rummy night was good, I met Simon's brother-in-law, the Thunders lost, and we had some great times with friends playing games.  Cam should definitely make a ward "casino" night.

Well, I can't quite recall why I chose to cover the 10pm-2am shift tonight, especially when I have class at 8.  Oh well, money is money.

Headache Already

Having organic chemistry is already bad enough.  Having it 8am in the morning is worse.  Luckily, I knew a good number of people in the class, including the TA.  Even Ben is in my class!  Well, since it's my only class this Term, I better make the most of it.

It was somewhat amusing to watch Dr. Berges hide from the students because they were probably going to talk to him about their grades in MMBio240.  I've never seen this comical side of professors before.

I had the opportunity to show Jenn and Lizzie the fastest way to trek on foot to go to Macey's.  I think it might be better for them to ask some of the people in the ward that have cars, should they wish to do a bigger shopping spree.

Took a nap and read some stuff for class and winded up at work.  I'll be skipping FHE for the rest of the semester because of that...I'm not sure how I feel about that, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you need money.

Father's Day

Looks like fluff...

Well, happy Father's Day to all those out there.  I definitely sent my salutations to all the important male figures in my life.  All I'm missing is an older brother, which I don't have.

Despite of 7 hours of sleep, I was still as tired as heck.  Church was great!  I had actually discovered something in the scripture passages I've read countless times before.  It's always a good feeling when that happens.

After church work went smoothly and Brother Westover learned the system very quickly.

Overall, I felt it was a very social day.  I got some home teaching done and managed to make some new friends.  It's especially nice to find other Pennsylvanians here in Provo.

Class starts tomorrow, time to row!

Long Day

Like a boss!

So, I had 12 hours of work today.  That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, especially when I had nothing planned for the day.

I don't even know if I passed the cleaning check or not...

A random event happened while I was at work.  Katie brought back the crutches she had borrowed from me.  Unfortunately, I was not at home, so she thought it would be perfectly fine putting them outside of my apartment in plain view.

I didn't quite understand the logic behind that because anyone could have taken them.  I can't answer why anyone would take crutches, but those things still cost $30.  In the end, I used part of my dinner break to go home and put those things back into the apartment (still didn't check if I passed the cleaning check).

There were some Spectra Logic issues at work this afternoon and caused some unnecessary file transfer issues, but they were corrected in good time and the operation resumed.

Well, my weekend is basically over...

Keeping It Busy

Boss bunny

Nothing uses more of your time than dealing with a cleaning check.  Cleaning the kitchen alone took a good 3-4 hours because I had to make sure everything on the list was good to go.  The Riv can fail you sometimes when you are not careful.  They have arbitrary standards that vary from checker to checker.

I made a partial payment to the short-term loan I made with BYU.  I think I can get it all paid off by mid-July with plenty to spare.  I do have the means to pay it all off right now, but I don't like the idea of living on the edge.

Afterwards, I talked to Kennedy and Laura just for fun and tried to run a few errands here and there until Krysta's party at 8pm.  The party started a bit slow, but picked up around 9 when more people showed up.

I came home around 10:30 and did a few things here and there.  Then, I decided to visit Ana and Luiza.  Interestingly enough, I managed to set up some home teaching things and then some.  They are great folks, make sure you say hi to them!

Since this is the last time I can chat with my uncle at this time, we figured out a new schedule that we could both follow, so all is good in the life of Art.

The Day After Yesterday

I totally slept for over 8 hours today!  Had a good 90 min work out.  Sarah gave back my O-chem book and we had a good chat.  All I'm missing now are my crutches which Katie still possesses.  I just found out today that Katie and Sarah aren't roommates for Spring and Summer.

Cam and I received some great bargains from residents moving out of Helaman Halls.  Cam got a comfy chair and I scored some nice cleats.  I've been wanting a new pair now.  I felt very blessed today!!

I got my finals back today!  I definitely got an A in MMBio241 and an A- in PDBio360.  Looks like this semester ended up fairly well.

I also visited Kelli at her place.  It's always great to talk to her.

I spent my evening at Ammon's place.  We had Domino's for dinner and played co-op on Half Life 2.  Then, we watched a few episodes of Cowboy Bebop, a classic anime.

There are still lots of errands to run tomorrow, so I'll call it a night.

Freedom!!

For now... (if only Manisha was here to read it, she would totally get the reference; too bad she's still on her mission).

I took my Cell Bio final this morning with a semi-disappointing result.  Let's just say, if the current top grade persons don't score higher than an average of 91, I can still get an A- in the class.  An A?  It would take a miraculous 76, which is highly unlikely since it's lower than I scored.

Lab work was a tad confusing to say the least.  I was having a bad day in there it seemed.  My efficiency dropped like fly.  I'm not sure how much I like next week's work because Dr. Berges chose to not do the all-out quality check this week.

I realized that my blog has reached 3000 views!  Thanks for reading, especially those who comment from time to time.  I hope this blog has not bored you to death yet.  Maybe there will be more followers on this blog in the near future with more comments?  At any rate, thanks again!

Summer Term will start on Monday.  And then, everything will be interesting once again.  I'm still looking forward to Fall.  The real party will start from that point.

Reading Day Revisted

Let's see, I woke up this morning to go to work.  The scheduling meeting when surprisingly well.  We brought back the rotating shift for Sundays, so each of us would only have to miss church once in a while.  I got most of the shifts I wanted and I'll have 24 regular hours during the Summer.

Watched a bunch of Futurama episodes today while studying.  You can be the judge on whether or not it was effective studying.

Went to Wendy's for dinner with Jim and bumped into Emily and Kendra there.

Helped Emily moving her fridge with Jim later and kept studying.

Take my final tomorrow and go to the labs, then be free by 6 hopefully.  I need to get my chem book back from Sarah.

Mistake

The more I think about the consequences I'll have to deal with for the choices I made for this week, the more I realized that they were probably bad ideas.

1. Work part of the overnight before the work meeting at 9am.
2. Taking final during the day of stem cell extract
3. 12 hours of work this Sat

But then again, there are plenty of things to look forward to this week as well.  I just hope I survive long enough before I go insane.

You know something?  I'm sick of Provo.  I need a short trip outta this place.  The fundamental Utah culture here is killing me.  I'm suffocating slowly to a death by stagnation.  Then again, I probably won't give a dang the morning I wake up and continue on with life.

Meanwhile, watching Futurama...

Fiasco

I'll leave this to your imagination

Waking up at 4:45am in the morning, I must admit, my head kind hurt and I was still tired.  Nevertheless, I went to work until Shannon came in at 10.  Glad she was feeling better.  It was a tough spot for all of the supervisors to be in because there just aren't enough of us in the Spring to deal with all the shifts that are around.

Church was different today.  We got a new bishopric and it was somewhat emotional to see Bishop Hart, Brother V., and Brother Fisher released.  I'm sure the new bishopric will be just as good.

A minor point of frustration, since the new bishopric do not have accounts set up in the MLS, we couldn't do tithes today.  That certainly put a monkey wrench in the works.  I think Sam and I spent hours trying to put things together, but alas, to no avail.  We did manage to do some pruning on the membership records, though.

By 9pm, I still haven't eaten and Cam was nice enough to let me finish the half-pot full of Pastaroni so I didn't have to spend more time dealing with stuff in the kitchen.  I made some strawberry banana smoothies afterward and shared some with him.

I did manage to participate in tunnel singing.  It's kinda strange to see all the young folks that are there.  I found it a tad rude when all they did was talking and walking around when others were trying to have a spiritual moment.  Either they are just freshman or still high school.  For whatever reason, I felt tunnel singing didn't live up to its expectation tonight.

I have more work hours this week on top of finals.  Wish me luck!

Vladurday Revisited

Yes, it's true

Since I received an unexpected work call, I won't be taking time to write up a marvelous blog post. (Are they any good normally anyways?)

So, I decided to revisited an ongoing trend on the Internet called Vladurday .  Vladurday is named after the Russian leader Vladimir Putin.  For those who doesn't understand the humor, please search around online.

It's meant to have a satirical tone to it.

To sum up my day: I had 8 hours of sleep, went on a date which turned into a group date because our friends showed up at Sub Zero Ice Cream as well.  Overall, I thought it was successful.  Then, I went to work...and I'll be at work again by 6am, so I'll keep you posted.

Drowsy...

I finished one of my finals for the Term.  That felt good and I only have one more to go on Wednesday.

I didn't do much lab work today, but Dr. Berges did meet with me and lent me in on some of the quality checks he wanted to do in the lab.  Looks like we may have to make some modifications to some protocols on Monday and put them to the test this Wednesday.

Other than that, the day has been a drowsy one for me.  I exercised, but I still felt somewhat tired.  In fact, I'm dosing off as I'm typing this write now.  I seriously need to get to bed earlier so I would have enough stamina for another Term.

Well, it's Friday!

So It Begins

FINALS!  Except, it's the Spring Term and they are not as gruesome compared to Fall or Winter.  After all, I really only have 2 finals that I have to worry about.

[For those of you who have no idea what a Term is, it's like a quarter, or half a semester.  Here at BYU, there are two Semesters (Fall and Winter) and two Terms (Spring and Summer).  Taking classes during the Terms are optional.]

I feel the MMBio241 final won't be too bad.  The PDBio360 final might be slightly challenging despite of the fact that Dr. Evans is giving us some leeway to make it easier.  The good news is, I am pretty confident I'll get at least A-'s from those classes.  The bad news is, I am very close to getting A's in those classes and I don't want to settle for less.

Somehow, I'm grateful that I didn't have to hand in anything for research lab...yet.  I wish I could get paid working there the upcoming fall so I don't have to dump 20 hours at my current job on top of 16 credits of classes.  I could save up to 6 hours a week if I could work at Dr. Berges lab vs. taking it for credit.

I bumped into Nate and Christine today.  I haven't had a decent conversation with them for months!  Looks like they got a LAN party going on in the Talmage Building next Thursday.  I think that should be fun.

Well, since there was no ward activity tonight, Kendra organized a game night at her place.  We played rummy for a bit.  I didn't win any bit of it, but it's nice to chill with folks every now and then.

Oh yeah, Kelli Lewis totally rocks!  Just saying.

Something to Think About?

Waking up early in the morning to study definitely helped me today.

Everything went fairly smoothly and I was glad I made it to at least one review session.

Haha right...

One thing that came across my mind today was a conversation I had with some friends this weekend.  Basically, we were referring to how we felt about people older than us back when we were younger.  For example, we used to think missionaries were the mature spiritual giants when we were teens.  However, when we became missionaries, well, totally not the case. (Please refer to the picture on the left to see how we really felt.)

In essence, I doubt that feeling will go away when we get married or even when we are parents.  Well, I guess I'll find out when I get there.

Since spent 15 hours on campus today, the rest of the evening was short.  I did get some important work done, so that was good.  At any rate, I am totally ready to get this term over with and start the next round of hell.

Crashing...

Behold...today will be the first time I go to bed before 11pm in ages!

Why?  Because I am so tired and I'm tired of studying for the Cell Bio test.

I'll try again in the morning.

Oh, Blake is awesome.

Sore Thumb?

Hmm...work?  Not much was happening.

Lab?  Well, I kept the cell line running and talked to Dr. Berges about how we are doing the mentored research in the Summer.

FHE?  Bowling!  I won via a pathetic 86 points...I only got 1 strike and 1 spare the whole night...  I also played pool with Sam.

Talked to my uncle and realized how much crap I need to remember for the test on Wednesday.  Yup, life is sore all right.  I need a break.  I can't do this any more...

Luckily, we have a few days between Spring and Summer before hell starts all over again.  I can't wait until August when I actually have some time to relax and just forget the world.

Sunday Bunday!

Cute little bunny!

Yes, I haven't mentioned anything about Bundays in a while.  I haven't mentioned anything about Vladturdays for the past couple of months as well.

Today had an interesting start because I had to void 30 checks in my checkbook because I had no idea where to find them.  Luckily, I got that taken care of quickly so I won't have any unauthorized use of those checks.

Church was interesting since I was not exactly the sunshine and ray of smile as I was meant to be.  Of course, I changed that as the day went on.

Break the fast was cool and we had "walking tacos".  I got to know some of the new move-ins of the ward.  They are both from Romania and my buddy Cameron know them.  In fact, he baptized one of them!  It's a small world when it comes to Mormon-dom.

I spent most of my evenings talking with friends and later went to tunnel singing.  After that, we finished the movie Penelope.  The plot twist caught me off guard.  Nevertheless, it was a good movie.

The moon was shining so bright tonight!  There's also a sense of euphoria coming to me that I haven't felt in a while.  It's gonna be a good week.  :)

Just Another Day

Look how happy it is!  :)

Just another good ol' day at Provo.  No, I'm not being sarcastic.  The weather has been nice and the laid-back attitude filled the air.

Despite of the fact that I work the bulk of my weekly hours on Saturdays, I am content.  You could say I was as happy as a chinchilla.

Anyways, work was super unproductive due to the continual network issues caused by the OIT update.  The problem relapsed this weekend.  Emails not working and now Y-time servers not synced up.  With no email capability, it was impossible to get any information to the relevant departments about missing files and whatnot, especially on a weekend when nobody is in the building.

There were two showings of Divine Comedy that lasted all evening, past 11pm.  I'm not sure how I feel about having people here late at night because a lot loitering happen during that time.

I did get myself a burger at DQ's because I was hungry after work.  Bumped into Krysta and said hi.  My life hasn't been very people-centric lately and probably will be so for the next 2 weeks until final is over and before next Term starts.

Overlooked

The problem with remembering how grumpy you were the other day is that you forget the good things that happened that day.

For example, I actually took time to walk through the Islamic Art Exhibit at the Museum of Art of BYU.  The ornaments and vessels were absolutely fascinating.  I also loved the different embroideries and carpets that were on display.  All of them had ties to the religion of Islam.  If there's anything I admire about the Muslims, it's the way they treat their scriptures.  Their copies of Qur'an were all beautifully decorated and kept.  How many of us actually feel this way toward our scriptures these days?

Some of the quotes I caught on the different vessels:

"The best people are those who do good for other people."
"Modesty is from faith and faith from paradise."
"The taste of wisdom is first bitter, then sweeter than honey."

Great sayings.

Lab was very short today.  We only spent an hour on it.  I didn't even do anything for Dr. Berges today because all my cells were fine.

I visited Kelli today!  I caught her on Kelli's Day!!  We caught up on things happening in the past few weeks and went down to the market.  I can't begin to describe how wonderful she is because words fail me.

I spent the rest of my evening playing Minecraft with Ammon.  Okay, it sounds a bit lame, but this is the first time I actually sat down and played 3 hours worth of it.  It's all right, but I don't think I have the patience for it every time.

Since it's Friday, I always talk to my uncle over Skype.  Of course, other relatives as well.

The rest is history.