My brain is so crammed full of esoteric information, most of it useless to me right now. I must purge some of it soon, and make room for more interesting thoughts and ideas I've had over the past couple of months. I must find my life again...

Oh yes. It's gonna suck so bad. I'll need sympathy soon.

Studying on a Friday night... Bummer. But this may very well be the last time I ever say that again.

Except I'm not working as hard as my friends...

Natural beauty and elegance. Two simple characteristics with so much power.

I'm not sure if I should start crying now or next week. In any case, the pain will be over in exactly one week. *sniffle*

I'm pretty good at lingering. It's almost like a skill.

This morning, I woke up way too early to help out at a Taiwanese American Engineering conference hosted at a hotel in San Jose. In the adjacent conference rooms, the leadership sessions sponsored by a Vietnamese American organization caught my attention. Later that afternoon, after meeting up with Nancy in San Francisco, I discovered that she was in town as a speaker for that conference. Talk about a coincidence.

With Nancy and friend Christine. APA activists with heart.

Cheers!

Tim visits the Bay area crew.

I woke up early, ran some errands, went to the hospital, chatted with some friends there, settled at cafe #1 and studied for a few hours, brought lunch back for Kari, settled at cafe #2 and studied for a few hours, picked up Gina, ate a BBQ dinner on the deck, met up with Betsy, June, Amin, settled at cafe #3 and studied for a few more hours, came back home, chilled with Kari, watched some TV... And there you have it, a day in the life of me...

I need simplicity.

My head hurts.

In celebration of little Justin's baptism.

Justin has the coolest hair ever.

The old roomies.

I thought it was a 24 hour flu, but now it has lasted three days...

Unbelievable. I was practically speechless.

As I was just about to sit down to do some reading at the local cafe, I made eye contact with this familiar-looking guy at the table next to mine. Apparently we both haven't changed much because he uttered my name first. I was still stuck on "heyyyy..."

Tony, originally from Cleveland, was one of my first TAF camp friends from when we were high school kids exactly 20 years ago. Over time, I just lost touch with him and his sister Jenny. Now he's a physician, too, and has been living and working in the Bay area, and doing some research work at Berkeley.

I'm still shocked and having flashbacks from the 80's.

Cafe studying. With distractions.

HoChie71: where did my day go?
ad0rkablejoey: it went to yesterworld

Inspired.

Yesterday, I laughed at my friend Gina when she told me she sneezed everytime she walked out into the sunshine. I thought that was just silly and there was no medical or physiological reason why that should happen. "Psychologically related," I said.

Today, my google searches and Wikipedia have proven me incorrect: "Photic sneeze reflex (also whimsically called ACHOO, a backronym for Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst) is a medical condition by which people exposed to bright light sneeze."

But I was somewhat correct when I jokingly guessed that she probably had some short circuit where some of her nerve paths cross. "Overstimulation of the optic nerve triggers the trigeminal nerve, and this causes the photic sneeze reflex."

Dr. Ho Chie gets 1/2 a point.

I guess I'm like a freelance pediatrician... Bum by day, doctor by night. Yea, that's about right.

I suddenly have this craving for gourmet dark chocolates. Mmmm... I know they're good when after a bite, they make me sneeze. Strange quirk.

*blank stare*