Been a busy past few days! 

Thursday was my graduation, and it started off with an adrenaline rush…why?  Well, I thought we had to get there by 12:30 and the show would start at 1pm.  When I re-read the details, I found out that i actually had to get there between 11:30-12 and that it would start at 12:30pm!  When I had read that, the time was 11:40, so I quickly rushed over to baltimore.  There was uber traffic and no parking close by, so I had to park near my old work place and run a few blocks to make it to graduation on time haha.  Everything went rather smoothly afterwards.  Graduation was looong, but thank goodness the girl next to me was very cool so we talked throughout the ceremony to remain awake.

Me shaking hands w/ Freeman Hrabowski

With Gabbi, the girl sitting next to me that helped me last the whole ceremony

My friends that came to watch me (thanks guys!), along with Jeff

My family that watched me graduate

On Friday I spent most of my day with Timmy and his family to celebrate his graduation.  After watching his graduation over in CP, we ate lunch before I went back home to start my very long process of unpacking everything.

Yea…ended up not cleaning up too much before Saturday.  From Saturday to Monday, I was down in Salomon’s Island for a local tennis tournament.  A large amount of my tennis club friends were down there and we all stayed over at Jon Ly’s house.  It was kinda bad timing though, as a lot of Jon’s family was over in the house as well.  There must have been like 25-30 people in the house at one point, all sleeping there.  Those mornings were not quiet at all haha…but it’s okay.  The weather was lovely, so I spent some time in the pool along with playing in the 7.0 doubles tournament with Kevin.  To my surprise, we ended up making it to the finals before losing in 3 sets to the champions.  Ah well, all I wanted was a trophy anyways . 

Runner up trophy for the 7.0 Men Doubles

All tan/burnt/tired, I came back Monday night and was planning on resuming unpacking Tuesday, but instead I ended up spending most of my day hanging out with Crystal!  It was a pleasant surprise haha…we shopped for a bit (Esprit is now open at Arundel Mills!) and watched two back-to-back movies at Muvico (What Happens in Vegas… and Indiana Jones).  Yea…a lot more fun then cleaning up haha.

Anyways now I need to start unpacking.  My parents are complaining because my stuff has taken over the basement.  I want to get all of this done by this weekend, when I will probably be heading up to New York for a couple of days!  Haven’t been up there since I was a kid, so I’m excited.

Alright, back to cleaning up and watching the French Open.

Four years later
Time goes by fast
Got my memories
And they will last

Most of yall have probably already seen this over on Facebook.  I was so excited after finishing up my last exam yesterday night that I decided to make a picture slide with pics from the past 4 years.  It’s my first time making one of these, but I think it came out pretty well.  The song I used was I Will Remember You by Ryan Cabrera.  Hope you like it!

College 2004-2008 picture slide:

I will remember everyone

All you can do is try
to know
who your friends are
As you head off to war

-The Call by Regina Spektor (for those people who found this entry through googling the lyrics )

Urgh, not good.  I’ve become rather pessimistic these past few days.  It all started on Thursday, when I found out that USTA decided not to offer me the position .  I was first runner up to someone else, who must have been an amazing candidate because I thought I impressed my interviewers.  Now I don’t know what I’m gonna be doing after graduation.  I could work at Bello Machre, the place I wanted to work at before I became interested in USTA, but I’m thinking about maybe taking a month or two break to gather up my thoughts, go on a road trip, and do some more job search.  Maybe I can find a government job working for NSA or the CIA, something that isn’t non-profit haha.

So yea, USTA not picking me really bummed me out and made me think about a lot of other things (which I’m definitely not talking about in here).  Luckily, some of my friends and I decided to do something later that night to cheer up all of us .  It didn’t really work for me overall, but there were some hilarious memories from that night.

is how I’m still feeling now.  I want to get out of this rut soon please. 

Life was a lot funner when I had someone to go to on the weekends. 

–EDIT–

Moral of the story:  I need to learn from my failures.  mhmm.

O man, it really hit me today:  I’m gonna be leaving UMBC very soon!  Ahhhhh!!!!  After I finish up this take home exam, I’m gonna try to enjoy my last week as a UMBC student.  Time flew by way too fast.

Today was study day…however, I ended up spending most of my day at the tennis club awards, then Korean BBQ afterwards (yum yum!)  Here are some shots from today:

Watching over Kevin’s shoulders as he reads off some team member’s stats.

Picture with the man with the best serves in the club, Shane Yap.  Why we look so silly/cheezy?

Picture with the fastest player in our club, Marvin.  He’s been looking a bit different lately…

Presenting Jeff a collage I made for him, to wish him well when he goes to AZ for graduate school.  The club would not have been as successful as it has been the past few years if it weren’t for him, so I owe him a lot.  Thank you Jeff.

Feasting at a Korean BBQ place afterwards.  Soooo good!  Love my meat!

Ahh, and the new officers for next year’s tennis club are:
President: Kevin Chiong
Men’s Captain: Marvin Martinez
Men’s Co-Captain: Brian Scaduto
Women’s Captain: Tiffany Hodges
Women’s Co-Captain: Judy Cao

They will do great…I hope (Kevin, if the club disappears by this time next year I’m coming after you!!!  haha)

Man, I really need to talk to some people before I leave.  Got some stuff to get off my chest…

*Edit*
Love rules my dreams too often…it’s great!

—UPDATED—
Urgh, my tonsil is flaring up!  I’ve been up since 5am this morning because my throat was bothering me too much and keeping me from being able to sleep.  And I was hoping to get a nice solid 8-10 hours of sleep today .  Oh well, at least it was interesting seeing people on Saturday mornings.  There are surprising a lot of people at Giant at 6am on Saturdays haha.

Anyways, I hope this soreness goes away soon.  I never should have eaten all that spam yesterday haha.  Started feeling my throat right after eating a can worth (I was craving it!) .  Ahhhh….oh well, it was delicious .

Alright, back to studying philosophy and possibly start on my child psyc take home exam.

…And I still am now haha.  Seriously, I did absolutely not school-related work in the past few days.  I should be studying right now for my Aggression psyc exam tomorrow, and I should probably be doing my Advance Child Psyc presentation articles, but instead here I am haha.

Well let me explain what has been keeping me busy.  On Friday I went down to VA for my USTA interview, which I think I did really well.  I had a good talk with the people whom interviewed me, and from what they described of the job I think I’m very well qualified for with all my tennis club experiences.  I hope I get this job…the only really big downside to it is that I would have to (for at least the first 2 months) drive down to the VA office, which is about 45 minutes w/o traffic but closer to an hour and a half drive w/ traffic.  Yuck…but hey, I would have to make due.

I participated in my last tennis club match on Saturday.  We played against College Park and unfortunately we lost overall.  It wasn’t too bad though; there were 4-5 close matches that really could have changed the results.  It was the first time I’ve played in a match since when I played against Towson last semester.  I played doubles #5 w/ Salmaan and we won 8-5 (shoulda closed it out at 7-2 ahh) and later won my singles #10 6-1, 6-2.  I am not completely sunburned from that day.  It was FREAKIN hot on the courts.  After my singles match one of the MD girls asked me how I was only playing at 10th spot, since she thought I looked too good to be playing at that position.  Haha thank you…that put a smile on my face .

Some shots from Saturday:

Then Sunday…first gotta talk about a dream I had the night before.  I see this girl walking by and it’s a girl I know of that I’ve always thought was cute (not gonna mention who she is because I’m pretty such she has a xanga and might see this).  Anyways, she walks by and I’m smiling and sorta staring, and I guess she noticed me too because she starts to smile.  Before I know it, I ended up being too distracted and walked into some shopping carts (don’t know why they were there…).  So I’m on the ground, feeling embarrassed, and she comes by laughing now but beings making small talk w/ me.  Is it weird that I stutter in my dreams as well when I get a little nervous?  Haha…so that was the main part of the dream.  I woke up really happy…must have really like that scenario .  Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to experienced that lately…but who knows.

So back to today…I headed back home to celebrate my mom’s birthday.  A lot of Wii Sports with the family and Chinese food yum yum.  Stay a bit longer than I thought I would because I was talking to my 18 year old cousin about his future.  I talked to him a little about what he should be doing his senior year and a little bit about college, so hopes that helped him out. 

Now here I am, still updating at 1am instead of studying.  Now I’m tired, so I think I’m just gonna head to bed and study tomorrow before my exam at 5:30.  This week shouldnt be too awful of a week, school-wise.  Just got a presentation on Thursday…ew.  Oh well, in a few more weeks I will be done w/ all this school stuff…

Tonight I went to Jamie’s vigil.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, seeing as this was the first time I’ve been to one.  Never had a friend passed away, so it has been pretty weird all week.

The place was packed when I got in.  I knew he had a lot of friends, but it was amazing to see so many people show up and support Jamie.

The event lasted until about 9:15, and I never wanted to leave.  I saw some people walk out early; maybe they were too sad or they had work to do (very understandable), but I personally wouldn’t have felt right leaving.  The vigil started off kinda sad at first, with speakers reminiscing on all the good things Jamie has brought to everyone.  It got more light-hearted in the middle, as some of his closest friends talked about the silly times they’ve had with Jamie.  It made the crowd smile and laugh, which felt really good.  I think Jamie would have wanted us to be happy anyways. 

The mike was later passed around the crowd, and it was cool hearing all the personal stories people had with Jamie.  Listening to them made me really wish I could have spent just some extra time hanging out with him while he was at SUS desk, or anywhere else I would find myself bumping into him.  They had a picture slideshow later that made me wish I had a chance to have a picture taken with him, possibly during the time when we were Woolies or on the SGA spring formal cruise last year.  The slideshow got to a lot of people…I know I felt it.

After the ceremony was over, we lit candles and took a walk around campus.  I wonder what people thought when they saw a mile long line of people with candles passing by them haha.  If nothing else, it showed how many people Jamie has touched.  If I ever get even just 1/8th of the love that I saw tonight, I would die very happy.  Truly remarkable.

A part of me still believes that I will see him (like I always do) whenever I walk around or to the spot.  It’s a very odd feeling…he’s gone, yet I feel like he’s not.  Either way, I’m gonna miss seeing him around.  I’ll see you later Jamie.

I’m feeling alright now.  For w/e reason, this song has been cheering me up:

*Yawn* tired now.  Got my USTA interview tomorrow, my very last tennis club match on Saturday against Maryland, and a ton of school work to write up and study for next week.