Memoirs of a CPUNERD

Seriously. I was looking in my hall closet the other day, and I swear, if the world ever gets ravaged, just come to my place if you still want to play sports. Most guys have one or two things, like a football and maybe a basketball… but damn, I didn’t realize just how much stuff I actually have.

Shakeh and Verena are having a bit of trouble getting an apartment. On Monday, the three of us went out to lunch at Zia’s (which was splendid as always), then over to the University Square office to check on apartments. Mind you, Shakeh has been checking for openings for a month now. The manager JUST NOW tells her and Verena that even though there is no wait list, if they fill out an application and leave a check to pay for the processing, they will be on an unofficial wait-list. Seriously, how messed up is that? Grrr…

Anyways, back to sports talk. We had our second game of ultimate on Monday. This one went much better for several reasons. First of all, we actually scored! It was great, the half-time score was 4-3, but the final score was 5-11. But again, we actually scored! The other reason why this game was much better is because we had way more people there. Abhi came, both the Italians (Piero and Cristian), and more. The Italians especially were great because they were cheering constantly from the sidelines, cussing at the other team, and singing. Cristian also did something that I thought was hilarious. We turned the disc over, and immediately, Cristian runs up to this girl who was probably thirty or forty centimeters shorter than him. He then counts to ten as fast as he can while flailing his arms wildly. The girl then proceeds to look scared and confused, and even though Cristian runs away and she is left open, makes a bad throw and a turnover.

In tennis on Tuesday, I played a guy named Joel who used to play for his High School. I got worked, which I guess I was expecting. Later Tuesday night, Rachel came over to study. My room was ridiculously warm, so Rachel and Shakeh studied out in the living room for awhile.

Wednesday was the first Girl’s Night at someone’s place instead of at a restaurant. Sara hosted it at her place, and things went really well. Verena and Claudia couldn’t show up, but pretty much everyone else was there. Shakeh and I ended up staying at Sara’s until almost 23:00. I guess that we used up two much social fuel on Girl’s Night though, since we didn’t really do anything on Thursday.

On Friday, I finally got Verena to come to the GSA Bagel Day! Shakeh and I biked to school together first though. After bagels, Verena and I ran some errands on campus, then went over to the MU for lunch. I got to talk to Chiara again! She seems to be doing alright. Not really good or really bad, but hopefully she will find some more things to make her happy back home. Club-I met at Chipotle for dinner, and we ended up staying there until 22:30! We took up the entire patio, which I guess made me feel bad, but oh well, it was a lot of fun.

Saturday morning I played tennis with Franci, which was awesome. I had her reeling at 5-0, but somehow she came back with three straight games and we finished the set 6-3. After tennis, I came home showered, relaxed for an hour, then went to the Farmer’s market with Shakeh. After the market we went to watch Meet the Robinsons. Shakeh left after that to go have dinner with Verena, and I stayed to watch Grindhouse with Tony. Grindhouse was alright. It was basically exactly what I was expecting. When I got home though, poor Shakeh was getting drunkified by Verena = )

Sunday was just a really nice, relaxing day. Shakeh and I ran some errands in the morning. We went to Big 5 first so I could buy a racquetball and squash racquet, as well as another headband and a new backpack. After Big 5, we went to Dos Coyotes for lunch, then to Wal-Mart so I could buy some more workout clothes. We then just went home and relaxed the rest of the day. It was great.

So some friends who shall remain nameless had this ingenious idea. They would take a scaled down version of the Eiffel tower, wrap it in tinfoil, then ceran-wrap, and then poke a hole in it and blow smoke into it. Ummm… yeah, for them, let’s just say it didn’t quite work out the way they were hoping. But it did make it look like it was on fire from the inside. Oh well, luckily I was far, far away during this whole debacle.

Speaking of debacles, I played my first real matches in my tennis class and with my IM frisbee team. I lost the tennis match 3-6, 1-0. I have my reasons for losing obviously (like the fact I’ve only been playing for two weeks, etc). Frisbee though… man, it was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad (but fun none the less). We lost 0-13. I’m on a coed team with a bunch of friends, many of whom are international students. Out of the ten people we had, seven had never thrown a frisbee before, and five had never played ultimate before. But like I said, it was still a blast = ) The team we were playing against was really nice and helpful to all of our new people. They were good sports and didn’t stall count some of our poorer players, and just doing other good things like that. All in all, even though we didn’t score a point, it was still a good game and we walked away happy, and definitely driven with a goal in mind… Score a point! = )

But back to tennis. Being as I’m in both the MW and TR beginner classes, I’m getting a decent amount of playing time. And the important thing, I’m getting actual playing experience. So instead of only learning how to hit, I’m learning how to hit, serve, and getting a good idea for court strategy, all at once. I played a girl named Jessica, and I won the set 6-1. The scores seem rather convoluted though, being as in a beginner’s class, the range of skill levels varies drastically, and can change day-to-day.

I was tired of not doing anything fun while working on the supercomputing submission. Hence, I decided to take Shakeh out on a small date, dinner with the two of us, and then a movie with some friends. We went to El Mariachi, and then saw “Blades of Glory” with Sara, Sunny, Verena, and Jeremy. The movie was surprisingly good, though unsurprisingly stupid = )p

I had a coach-inspired epiphany in tumbling on Wednesday. I’ve been struggling with (well, everything, but specifically) round-off rebounds. I either can’t get my feet together or I land with bent legs. John critiqued me and said that I was turning way too early, practically when I start my lunge. I tried waiting as long as I could, and the difference was amazing! Not only could I successfully round-off, but the force with which I could do so was at least double that of before.

For girl’s night (on Wednesday now), we decided to go to the Farmer’s Market. We had a large turnout again. We ran into a bunch of others as well. After the market, we all went to Ben & Jerry’s/Border’s/Jamba Juice. We ended up loitering in the Border’s entrance for an hour or so, then went home.

Thursday was free pizza day! YAY! I got to Woodstock’s about ten minutes early, and no one was there. I didn’t see any soda cups out, so I bought one, only to find out three minutes later that the staff was simply late in putting out cups… ramex0rz. Anyways, by the time the first round of pizzas were out, a grand total of five students were there. Soon tough, Ananya and Harry showed up around 18:15, followed by Shakeh, Verena, and (with some encouragement) Justin, Frances, Till, and BJ. After some good (and easily attained) pizza, I dropped Shakeh off at her lab, then took Verena back to my place to let her listen to “Three Point One Four” by the Bloodhound Gang. Needless to say, she approved = )

Of course, on Friday, I had no PE classes. I just to GSA bagel day with Shakeh (and met up, as usual, with Elena, Marilena, and Christian). After Shakeh was out of classes, we went to Dos Coyotes for lunch. We ran into Dan Coming there, so we hung out with him and discussing summer plans for the majority of the time. Shakeh had to leave for the Bay Area right afterwards = ( Later that night, I went to Crepeville and Ciocolat with Club-I. It’s always a pleasure when you have a disasterously large crowd, big enough to take over half of the restaurant and create a mess of tables so large even Jabba the Hut would be impressed.

Saturday started out on a different note than usual. I think this was the first time in more than two months that I didn’t go to the Farmer’s Market! Bee-sar-o. I needed to go shopping, and Verena needed to as well, so we met up around 10:30 and went to the Wal-Mart in Dixon. Obviously, I was a bit hesitant about this very brave deed, simply because everyone knows that Wal-Mart is a massive time-sync, ten minutes morphs into one-hour with virtually no mass-energy transfusion in the universe. It’s as if flux-capacitors come standard in all Wal-Mart entry doors.

Shakeh has been telling me for a long time how much she likes KFC. Obviously then, this presented a slight dilemma for me, as Verena wanted to go to lunch at KFC. I said okay and prayed that Shakeh would have mercy on my soul = ) After we got done with lunch, I went home, put away all of my groceries, and then worked for awhile.

Elena’s birthday party was on Saturday, and she was hoping for a pool party. Unfortunately though, the weather in Davis was all rain. I met up with Sara and Sunny on the way to Elena’s, and then hung out there for another two hours, eventually leaving at 18:00. I went back home and tidied up (man, it had been a long time since I last dusted). People started showing up for the movie around 21:15… forty-five minutes later than asked, Verena ; ) We ended up watching “In July,” a German romantic-comedy that was pretty good.

On Sunday, Shakeh got back from the Bay Area. I was tired (not sure why), and she was exhausted from hours of *cough*playing games*cough*… excuse me… as I was saying, she was exhausted from hours of studying. We just hung out at my place and enjoyed each other’s company for the rest of the day.

As is always clear in the waning quarters for friends of international students. Simon left on Tuesday, so in celebration (or mourning, whatever), he had a going away party at Crepeville. Go figure that we ended up blocking basically the entire restaurant entrance since we had so many people. And as it turned out, Lee came down so I got to chat with him for awhile.

ARGH!!! I rolled my stupid ankle again! This time it was in badminton. Luckily it wasn’t as bad as it was the previous two times. For dinner, we had Girl’s Night at Steve’s Pizza. Wow, talk about getting lucky off of incompetence. So Shakeh, Justin, and I get there at the same time. We decide to order food together. We’re waiting, and in the meantime, Sara, Sunny, and Jeremy get their food (which they ordered fifteen minutes after us). I go up and ask, and it turns out that their printer jammed and our receipt didn’t get printed. So they rushed out our pizza (and gave us free salad). The pizza comes out, so Shakeh and I immediately dig in since we’re starving. Justin goes to grab a piece and discovers the pizza isn’t made right, we ordered half-vegetarian, and this had meat on all of it. We ask about this, and it turns out that the pizza they gave us went to another table. Since we already started eating it, they let us keep it, and gave us our pizza (which came out really soon thereafter). YAY incompetence! Anyways, after dinner we went to Baskin Robbinn’s, where poor Sunny got assaulted/scared by basically everyone.

I finally got to play some serious squash on Wednesday. After all of my classes were over, I went back to the ARC and met up with Dana. She brought two friends, and we played for an hour. I had a lot of fun, so much better than racquetball. Anyways, it’s a good thing that I had so much fun, because Thursday morning, I didn’t get to go to any of my classes. Brian grabbed me from the gym at 08:00, and I was in the IDAV lab until after 12:00.

There was a party on Friday night for Gianluca and Antonio that I was planning on going to, but I got screwx0red with work and wasn’t able to make it. To top off that crappiness, Picnic Day was basically a wash. I got up in the morning, got some bagels with Rachel, and then it just started POURING! After the parade was over, Shakeh and I went home, dried off, then met my parents at Bistro 33 for lunch. Afterwards, I proceeded to work all night (until 02:00). This was somewhat good though. One of the biggest problems I was having was that my rendered was fairly slow. In order to pass the time, I just played Chrono-Trigger while the renderer was going. That worked out really well, and I ended up beating the game on Sunday morning.

Yep, that’s right, Florida won the NCAA basketball championship again. Florida is now the first team in fifteen years to repeat back-to-back as Basketball champions. They are also the first school even to hold the Football and Basketball titles for the same year. Yes, they already held both at once, but not for the same calendar year. Wonder if their (typically superb) football team can repeat as well.

I got to meet up with my Master’s adviser, Dr. Harris on Tuesday. He and a few of this students came to Davis to check out the VR facilities and talk about potential collaborations. None of the girls wanted to go to dinner (first real week of school got them down I guess), so Justin, Abhi, and I just went to Baskin Robbinn’s for dollar scoop night. We hung out for a little bit, and then I got a ride home from Abhi.

Mark your calendars! Wednesday, April 4th was our four month anniversary. For it, we went to Buckhorn steakhouse in Winters. As it turns out, the town actually has a really cute downtown area. It’s smaller than that of Davis, but still very quaint and fun to be in. Dinner was AWESOME! Man, it had been way too long since I had a real steak (Filet Mignon, mmmm).

I’ve decided that I really need grip tape for my badminton racquet. I’ve been playing with a glove, and it just feels weird. Why that is so, I’m not sure. I play racquetball with a glove and it doesn’t bother me. Oh well. After I got home, Verena came over (funny story, I was actually sleeping the first time so she sat outside my door, knocking for ten minutes) with MU cake. I gave her some DVDs, then we sat around for a few minutes before she had to go. I completely forgot about my meeting shortly there-after, and was reminded two minutes late (by the way, thanks for the email again). I biked as fast as I legally could to school.

Shakeh had to leave for the Bay Area early (as in on Friday), so we went to Zia’s before she left. I worked at home for awhile, then got really stir crazy and decided to go out with Club-I to Pluto’s and Ben & Jerry’s. Saturday, I went to the Farmer’s Market solo, then just went home and worked all day. Oh oh oh! I found out that Kevinn (yes, that’s how it’s spelled) Pinkney got picked up by the Celtics. I hope he lasts. Saturday night, Tony and Dan came over, and we watched “Chinese Ghost Story II.” Holy crap… it was awful. But it was funny awful, not unwatchable awful.

That’s right, after a whopping four-day Spring “Break,” classes were set to start on Wednesday. I really was just burned out from working, so I just rested on Monday. You know what? The whole idea of actually taking a day off and doing nothing is really nice. Man, now I can’t wait until the end of the summer. I start working at Google immediately after the spring quarter ends, so I won’t have a chance to relax for a week like most sane people.

A lot of people were still getting back into town from their mini-break, so for Girl’s Night, we just decided to go to Baskin Robbinn’s for ice-cream. Probably a good thing since I’m kinda broke, that and school started the next day. Speaking of which, my MW classes are racquetball, tumbling (with John again, yay!), and tennis. My TR classes are frisbee, badminton, and tennis (yes, I’m taking two tennis classes).

You know what really sucks about hanging out with international students? They all LEAVE! Luis had a party on Thursday night that I wasn’t able to make. Then to make matters worse, Simon had his going away party on Saturday (which I did make). Seriously, what the heck is wrong with my friends? Can’t they just become illegal immigrants and stay in Davis = p.

Oh yeah, Shakeh and I watched “Children of Men” on Friday. It was actually pretty good, and I would recommend it to most people. The premise is interesting, “What would happen if all women became inexplicably sterile?”