Just like that, another year has past.  Quite a lot has happened over this time, both good and bad.  I think I’ll be a little cliche and make an end of the year list of the best and worst things that has happened in my life in 2008.  I’m just going to put down things that were directly related to me though.  Otherwise, I would have to put down hits such as Rafael Nadal becoming the new #1 player in the world and winning Wimbledon, Barack Obama winning the election, and Lost becoming good once again, to name just a few haha.

Note:  This is a pretty lengthy post, so I will understand if you just skim through it .  I really don’t expect anyone to read the whole thing.  This is more so for me to remember the year.  Also, if I had written an entry about an item on my lists, I will link the item to the original post so you could read more about it if you’re curious.  Otherwise, you can just glance at my brief thoughts about each item on this post.

My Greatest Hits of 2008 (in no particular order):

*Graduating Magna Cum Laude from UMBC (link) – I can’t believe I almost miss the ceremony!  I’m still surprised at how well I did in college.  I actually got higher grades in college than in high school, which is unusual. 

*Getting my first tennis-related trophy (link) – It may not be as big of a deal for some people (especially since it’s only an runners-up trophy, aka first loser trophy haha), but it felt really good finally getting one, especially with my friend Kevin as my doubles partner. 

*My club winning the Most Improved Team award from (the now defunct) CollegeClubTennis.com (link) – A wonderful way to end my time running the club tennis program.

*Meeting Vince Spadea and getting tons of autographs at the Legg Mason tournament (link) – Vince Spadea is a veteran tennis pro btw (in case you didn’t know who he was).  He wrote a book about his time on the tour (which was one of the first tennis-related book I’ve read), so it was nice to actually meet and take a picture with him.  Also managed to score autographs from other tennis pros such as  John Isner and Tommy Haas.  Good stuff!

*Being featured in a TennisLife magazine article (link) – The article was related to finding love on the tennis courts.  Big surprise huh?  =P

*Visiting Hong Kong (links to part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5) – First time I’ve gone back since I was 2 years old.  Loved it there!  Anyone wanna go there with me in the near future?

*Visiting Las Vegas and Hollywood (link) – Wasn’t nearly as fun as I would have wanted since it was a family trip there.  I definitely want to go back to Las Vegas with friends next time.  There were so many things I wanted to see and do but couldn’t because I was babysitting my little brother .  Still, it was nice finally seeing places I always see in movies and such.

*Visiting New York (link) – Been a long time since I visited here.  I want to make more road trips like this one in the new year.

*Visiting Virginia Beach (link) – What a relaxing time.  Great vacation after my job woes (see later below).

*Having my old high school buddies and current tennis club buddies celebrate my birthday (link) – Having everyone there for me means more than they would ever know.

*Seeing my best friends from high school all graduate (links here and here) – I can’t believe we’re all finish with our undergraduate experience!  The next steps in our lives will be very interesting.

My Greatest Misses of 2008 (in no particular order):

*First time experiencing the death of a friend (links here and here) - This was an unbelievable shock to me.  Jamie Heard, you are still missed.  Wish you were still around.

*Losing my brand new digital camera (link) - I’ve never lost such an expensive item before!  I lost it after about a month.  So mad at myself for being so careless.  Haven’t lost anything like that ever since.

*Not getting the offer to my dream job of working for the USTA…3 times! (links here, here, and here) – I had three chances this year and lost out to all three after reaching the final interviews of all of them.  Pathetic!  Oh well, the experience has it’s silver lining; I now know not to take getting a job for granted.  Things won’t always come easy to me.

 

*Failing to get even my back-up jobs (links here and here) – What a humbling experience.  The second failure was just embarrassing.  There are way too many Alex Chans in the world -_- .

*First year I didn’t have a girlfriend since back in 2001 (no link) – I was chatting with a friend when I realized this crazy fact; ever since 2002, I’ve had a girlfriend for at least some part of the year up until this year.  Not saying that I didn’t date any girls this year, but I haven’t had anything long term like I was used to having over the past 5-6 years.  I guess I lost my mojo haha.  Well, I hope to find it soon so I can have it for this upcoming year.  I need to end this drought .

There’s my recap of this year’s greatest hits and misses.  I’m sure there’s more items I could put on both list, but I can’t remember them at the moment.  I wonder what I have to look forward to in 2009?

Sorry I’ve been away for a few days.  The holidays, work, as well as playing with my new iPhone and Rock Band 2 have been giving me plenty of distractions .

Christmas was at once not special and special this year.  My family didn’t set up Christmas decorations nor a Christmas tree, and we also didn’t give out wrapped presents this year.  Perhaps it was laziness or maybe we just aren’t big Christmas spirit people.  Nonetheless, we still got each other presents.  I got my parents new tennis rackets, got my brother Rock Band 2, and I got myself the iPhone with the money I received from family and relatives.

The thing that surprised me was that the best thing that came from Christmas day was when my parents, my brother and I all went out to the local tennis courts to play tennis as a family.  We rarely get together nowadays like that, so it was so refreshing.  I don’t know why that memory puts a big smile on my face, but it really does.

I had to get up at 4:45am for work the day after Christmas, so I got ready for bed by 8pm and watched Love Actually right before sleeping.  You know, I think I’ve actually (har har) watched Love Actually around Christmas every year recently.

Is it super cheesy, sappy, and completely unrealistic at times?  Hell yes!  However, it’s also amazingly hilarious and a great feel good holiday rom-com movie that I can watch over and over again.  It has a great cast and many awesome cameos, as well as a fantastic soundtrack.  For a rom-com, the movie was surprisingly very crass with a lot of adult jokes that could almost rival certain Judd Apatow comedies.  Funny enough, I can also relate to a lot of the self-deprecating ways of a lot of the characters in this movie.  I definitely have had silly arguments with myself outloud while walking away from something I wish I could have done differently.

I’ll admit I’ve had quite a few influences from this movie.  I noticed I’ve started to say “right” and “rubbish” more often than before.  And of course, I may have “borrowed” ideas from one particular character in this movie.

 

I know it’s not the perfect movie.  It runs pretty long and I wish they could have shortened or cut out a few of the subplots, but overall the movie really works for me.  My favorite story has to be between Jamie (the writer) and Aurelia (his Portugese housemaid).  That entire plot is so hysterical and romantic (although even I think that ending was way too overtop haha). 

This scene rocks me each time, especially the last part:

[neither understands the other's language]
Jamie:  [in English] It’s my favorite time of day, driving you.
Aurelia:  [in Portuguese] It’s the saddest part of my day, leaving you.

Yeah, I think I’m gonna keep the tradition of watching Love Actually near Christmas each year.  It has way too much charm to it that I can’t stop.  As the little boy Sam says in the movie, “Let’s get the shit kicked out of us by love.”  Sure, why not?  (don’t answer that btw )

I wasn’t planning on writing another post so soon, but I feel the urge to write this after reading so many blatantly racist comments being made on Theif’s Datingish post. 

Personally, I don’t have as big of a problem with the post itself.  Reading through it, I thought the post was funny and that Theif has her heart in the right place, but perhaps the execution could have been a bit better.  I’m glad she pointed out that there are indeed normal Asian guys who are many good adjectives and I can understand how her experiences have made her think a lot of Asian guys lack initiative or what not. 

However, correlation does not imply causation, and that’s where I think the post could have been improved on.  Are there timid Asian guys?  Yes there are, but there are also timid Black guys, White guys, Hispanic guys, etc.  Asian guys come in many shape and sizes as well.  Just because you’ve met a few Asian guys that are timid and not confident does not mean the next few Asian guys you meet will be the same.  There are so many factors that plays a part in determining a person’s character.

I went to UMBC, which is one of the most diverse colleges in the nation (there’s a reason why people joke around that UMBC stands for “U Must Be Chinese” ).  Trust me, I’ve seen a whole variety of characters within different races and I find it extremely hard to characterize one race as always having certain traits.  Gentlemen and assholes exists in every race and ethnicity, and you’re only fooling yourself if you think one race has more of one type over another.

So like I said, the OP didn’t bother me so much as a lot of the comments I saw.  I would cringe each time I came across a comment that pretty much says “Asian guys suck.  White guys are so much better which is why I only date them”.  When you make a comment like that, you are basically saying that one group of men is inferior to another group of men based on their race.  Yeah, that’s literally the definition of racism right there.

Imagine this.  Let say you heard on the news that some employer was not hiring Asian people in public relations because they believe they are way too timid to do the job well.  Their defense is that in their past, they were friends with Asian folks that happen to be shy, so they conclude most Asian people were like that.  Thus, they only hire White people for public relations because they believe they are more confident in general and in turn will do a better job.  What would be your opinion of this employer?

Now I can understand if you have a preference for dating one race over another, just as long as you don’t completely exclude an entire group based on stereotypes of one’s race.  For example, I find that I prefer dating White and Asian girls.  That being said, I would not mind dating say a Black or Hispanic girl.  All that can be said of my preference is that I have the tendency to go for White or Asian girls more often.   However, if a fine, confident, funny girl comes into my life then race would be the least of my factors for determining whether or not I want to date her. 

Conclusion.  If you’re not already, please start judging the merits of a person on a case-by-case basic and do not judge an entire race of people based on preconceived generalizations.  Stereotypes are just that, stereotypes.  Correlation does not imply causation.  Keep an open mind and don’t assume personality traits based on one’s race.  Lets make this world a happier place

P.S. I highly recommend checking out franksabunch’s post “It sucks to be an Asian guy.  Well, if you believe everything you read“, which was one of my main inspiration to write this post.  He practically said all the things that were needed to be said.  I just wanted to add a bit of my take on this issue.

I’ve been working at my new job for the past couple of weeks and I gotta say I love it so far.  Working at a tennis & fitness club is a lot of fun and I’ve met so many interesting folks there.  Today was the first day I haven’t been over there for the past two weeks because even on my off days I would go there just to play free indoor tennis (love that perk!).  I can’t wait until I start getting more hours because I’m part-time as of now.  I want to make it as full-time as possible because I need to save up a lot of money if I ever want to buy a new laptop (probably a Mac) and save up for graduate school. 

Speaking of graduate school, I feel awful that I still haven’t finish writing up the essay part of the application.  I guess part of the reason is because my application is technically not due until March, so that’s making me put it off.  I do have an outline of what I pretty much wanna say, but I just keep on procrastinating on actually finishing it up.  I’m gonna try to finish up my application by the end of this week, or at least by the end of the year.  Come on Alex, the essay requires less words than some of your recent Xanga entries!  Geez just do it already fool!  haha.

Today I was up at the University of Maryland to watch two good friends I’ve known since high school graduate out of college.

I got to admit, I’m a bit jealous of my friends.  I’m such the black sheep of the bunch.  While I decided to go to UMBC and major in psychology, they all decided to go to UMD and major in engineering (be it mechanical, electrical, or aerospace), a major which practically guarantees them a good job and is virtually recession-proof.  I absolutely don’t regret I majored in psychology because it has made me a much more compassionate, understanding person and I really don’t see myself being happy doing any other major.  However, at times I wish that I have had a passion for something like engineering or computer science.  It sure would make finding a good job a lot easier!  Having said all that, I am genuinely happy for all my friends.  I’m glad things are working out for them.

For now, I’m gonna stay on track and try to get a masters in industrial/organizational psychology, which currently has good job prospects and good income potential.  It’s not the type of job I’ve always dream of doing, but I can see myself enjoying it.  Whatever the case may be, I hope I will be successful at whatever I end up doing.  I know I have the ability to do so many great things, yet I’m still so worry that things won’t work out for me, especially after my past job-related epic fails this year.  Have you ever felt afraid that you won’t live up to your potential?  I find myself thinking about that way too often lately.  Boo you, recession!

Note:  this post is gonna have a slightly different tone than most of my previous ones.  After having the most heart-wrenching dream I’ve ever had not too long ago, I feel like writing about my dad.

For the longest time, I thought my baba (father in Cantonese) was such a huge enigma.  He seem to have a lot of friends in the Cantonese speaking community here in Maryland and in fact his nickname amongst them is “Big Mouth Chan”, given because he usually talks and laugh the loudest at social gatherings.  If you were to see him at a party, you’ll see he’s always going around chatting with people, making tons of jokes, and laughing up a storm.  You’ll probably also notice where I got my laugh and walking style from.

Anyways, what confused me so much as I was growing up was why my baba never acted in that friendly, sociable way when he’s with me or my brother.  At home, he tended to be very quiet, intimidating, and looked a little annoyed to be honest.  I don’t think my dad and I ever had a real serious conversation.  At most, we may talk about elementary things like where I wanted to eat, what job I got, how to fix something on my car, etc.  We never talked about any personal things that I see dads on television talk about to their children all the time. 

It really made me wonder whether or not he was truely happy with me.  All his actions made it seem like he didn’t really care about me and that I was more of an annoyance than anything else.  Growing up, I didn’t really see him that often because, at the time, my parents were running a restaurant and were always there working.  Sadly, I think the most interaction I would get from my dad is when I was being punished by him.  He didn’t try to talk to me or explain anything; he would just spank me silly and yell at me until he felt I had enough. 

As this trend continued, I really started to loathe my dad.  “He never acts like a real dad to me!” I thought.  I barely respected him for the longest time.  I still listened to him but only because I felt obligated to.  So many times, I told myself that when I get older and have a child, I would treat him with the utmost care and respect a dad can give to one’s child.  I wanted my child to love me and that meant to be nothing like my dad.

However, I started to see him a bit differently after a rather long conversation with my mom some time ago.  She was giving me a haircut one day and while we were chatting the subject of our conversation turned to my dad.   In the conversation, I learned so many new things that I never knew about my dad.

She told me how my paternal grandfather left my grandma, my aunt, and my dad to go to the Philippines to make money, but in doing so he ended up staying there for the next 17 years without returning back to visit.  My dad didn’t have any contact with my grandfather until he was 18 years old, and by then my dad had already learned to take care of himself.  In fact, he had to drop out of school at age 15 so he could work and provide for the family. 

My mom told me my dad loves me more than I will ever know,  he just has a different way of showing it.  While he doesn’t show it verbally, he shows it by working extremely hard so that he can provide my brother and I a better life and more opportunities than he ever had as a child.

I began to hypothesize that one of the reasons my dad doesn’t really talk to me about things and why it’s always a little awkward when we are together is due largely to his childhood.  He didn’t really have a father to teach him things or to talk to him when he was down or whatever, so it makes sense that he doesn’t know how to do those things with me. 

After seeing my dad in a new light, I went back to a lot of my old memories of him and realized how much he has actually done and sacrifice for me.  I really felt bad that I used to think such bad thoughts about him.  Although not the most emotional, empathetic father, he really has provided for me in so many ways that I probably owe him a lifetime of favors.  Still, with all that being said, I still wonder if I really loved him. That answer came to me in a dream I had about a few weeks ago. 

In my dream, I’m walking down a long hallway.  Soon enough, I see my parents standing in front of me, looking very worried.

I don’t know how I came to this conclusion based on that, but I suddenly realized that I had died and my spirit was in the process of leaving Earth.  Somehow, my parents were able to see me one last time before I departed from them forever.

Can’t remember too much about what we said then, but what I really remember is the sight of my mom crying hysterically and my dad looking grim as I told them how much I will miss them, my brother, and everyone else I’ve ever cared about.  I didn’t want to leave, but I knew I could only stay for so long.  Suddenly, I began fading away and started yelling out loud “No!” frantically. 

In the last image of my dream, I’m looking directly at my dad.  He had not said a single word the entire time, yet his wretched, teary face said so much more to me than words would ever convey.  I just kept staring at him, meeting his eyes, and started weeping.  With the last ounce of my strength, I manage to yell out for him one last time before I woke up.

That was the first and only night I have ever woken up literally sobbing and gasping for air, with my heart pounding so hard that I thought it would break through my chest.

 

Yeah, I think I love my dad, my baba.  Hopefully one day, I will have the courage to say that to him.

I don’t normally do these type of things, but after seeing it on BrittMiles27′s page I got curious on what my picture would be so I ended up doing it.  Here you go!

The object of 4th picture tag is to:

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer

2) Select the 4th picture in the folder

3) Explain the picture

4) Tag 4 people to do the same… And if you read it… You’re tagged!

Guess who’s this fine guy is .

This picture was in my fourth folder titled “Scans”. I remember scanning this photo a couple years ago because I wanted a new profile picture and thought this was a cool little shot of me back in the day.  I think I was around 5-7 years old in that picture.  Digging my matching sweater and pants ?  This is probably one of the few times in my life where my head is actually too small for my hat haha.  I have no clue what I’m trying to do in this picture.  Perhaps dancing?

As far as the four people I’ll tag, I’ll just pick the first four people who commented on my last entry.  They are:

1.  skillusionz
2.  TheCheshireGrins
3.  mysteriousromantic
4.  MegaxGurls2

Feel free to do this as well even if you didn’t get tagged.  Enjoy!

p.s. I’ll add a real update relatively soon, promise

In my Relationship post, you may remember me mentioning something about an a cappella surprise that I planned for an ex that ended up not working out.  I don’t remember if I ever wrote about it when that happened a couple of years ago because I was so disappointed at myself for not pulling it off.  Previously, all my other silly romantic plans I’ve concocted went as plan, so I was extremely confident heading in.  How could I have known all the extra variables that were going to show up to rain on my parade (literally)?

I don’t remember why I decided one day to do this, but perhaps it was after watching Love Actually (which, btw, was also where I got my idea for the thing I did to win my ex back later on in the relationship, but that’s a story for another time .  Hint: it was similar to what went on in the Love Actually scene above). There was a scene in the beginning where all those band people popped out of nowhere to play that song for that girl at the wedding.  “Hmm, that seems like a good idea!” I thought, so I went out to prepare for this surprise.

Seems simple enough to pull off…what’s the worst that could happen?

Initial Plan:

First thing was to figure out who would be the ones to pop up to sing for my then girlfriend.  At the beginning, I was actually thinking about doing it myself.  I had even talked to two friends of mine who agreed to play guitar and violin while I sang Collide by Howie Day.  I quickly scratched this route because…well, no one wanna hear me sing haha.

Instead, I decided to ask my college’s all male a cappella group to sing for her.  Apparently, I was the first person to ever ask them to do something like this, so they agreed for the hell of it.  So far so good.

I gave my girlfriend an alibi for coming up to my college.  I forgot what it was, but it involved meeting up with a few friends at my student union first before heading out.  When she walked into the cafeteria area, I would give a signal to the a cappella group to come out from random places.  I wanted as many people to be there to make it even more embarrassing for my girlfriend, so I figure I would get a lot of my commuter friends to hang out at the cafeteria when this happened.  After the group had finished their love song medley, I would take her out for a lovely date instead of going out with a group of friends.  Perfect!

[Puts on a gleefully evil smile] 

Or so I thought.

What Actually Happened:

A lot of the guys in the a cappella group had to be somewhere afterwards, so they could only perform between 4-4:30pm.  Now that wouldn’t normally be bad, but my girlfriend had to drive from her college to mine, which takes about 45 minutes without traffic.  Her last class ended around 3pm that day, so the time table was very small.  What made matters worse was that the Canada Heavens (previous post reference ftw! ) decided to open up and it was pouring, which in turn created tons of traffic.

You starting to see where this was heading?  As 4pm slowly turned into 4:30pm, everyone I got to take part in this surprise was growing restless.  I kept on telling them “she’ll be here any minute!”, but alas that didn’t happen.  The a cappella group ended up just doing a few performances for the crowd (since they were already all there) and left around 4:30pm, but not before the main guy put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a sullen “I’m sorry man” look.  I guess I wasn’t doing a great job hiding my disappointment.

She ended up not getting to my college until closer to 5pm.  As I waited outside in the rain for her, I was debating whether or not I should tell her what just happened.  I ended up telling her after I couldn’t come up with an alibi for why we weren’t meeting up with friends anymore.  She felt pretty bad about missing the surprise, but she still felt extremely appreciative of me anyways for going through all the trouble to plan that surprise for her.  She later told her parents about it, which gave me a lot of brownie points with them.  So yea, it wasn’t a total lost I suppose. 

Maybe one day I’ll try something like that once more.  I pretty sure I’m foolish enough that I would try that again haha.  At least I know now what to watch out for next time!

P.S. I know; I’m extremely cheesy X_X

  

So you may be wondering why you’re seeing a horribly sketched picture of North America.  I’ll get to that, but first let me tell you a little back story about how this sketch came about and how it relates to my um, “interesting” grandmother.

I know my grandma really cares about me and only want me to be well.  She has taken care of me throughout my life and has pretty much been my main provider of food over the years.  I’m glad she was there for me all this time, helping my parents raise me and such, and I am thankful for that.

That being said, my grandma is one of the most nagging, hypocritical, and just crazy person I’ve ever known. 

To give you an idea, here’s an example of an annoying trait of hers.  She will ALWAYS assume you’re hungry and will keep on offering food to you no matter what you say.  If you’re unlucky, she may have the food already prepared for you and thus forces you to eat.  If I ever brought my friends over and they said they weren’t hungry, my grandmother would believe I was being mean and denying them food. 

She apparently also thinks I don’t know how to use a microwave or stove, since everytime I’m in the kitchen she will proceed to give me step by step directions until I interrupt her.  Sometimes, I would already be finished with making what I was going to eat and she would STILL tell me directions like a freakin’ automated machine.  I’m usually a very patient guy, but I get driven loco to the max!

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.  There are a ton of little stories I have about my grandma (i.e. her cure-all soup, me looking for her lost tooth, her extremely hypocritical stance on what she thinks you should eat and what she actually eats).  If you wanna hear more then maybe I’ll write another entry in the future about her. 

Now, let me tell you about the Canada Call Story.

Note:  if you see a sentence <like this>, that means the words were said in Cantonese in my story.  If you see a sentence (like this), it means it was a thought in my head.  If you see a sentence *like this*, it means it was an action.  FYI, my Cantonese speaking ability can be pretty pathetic at times.  Cantonese is my grandma’s second language, as her first language is some obscure dialect of Chinese.  Also, she speaks extremely little English.  All of that adds to the wonderful miscommunication I’m about to tell you about.

Not too long ago, I was getting ready to go to a job interview.  I figured I should let my grandma know that I was going to leave.

Me:  <Grandma, I’m going to my job interview!>
Grandma:  <Are you hungry?  If you are, I’m already cooking rice and I can cook up some eggs, spam….>
Me:  <I’m NOT hungry!  I told you I’m leaving soon!  Why would I want to eat now?>
Grandma:  <Okay okay.  Before you leave, can you tell me who called me earlier?>

I had some time to spare, so I go to the caller ID to see who called.  There was no name, but the ID said “Saskatchewan”.

Me (Shoot, how do you say Canada in Cantonese again?  I’m pretty sure it sounds like the English word.  Whatever, I think my grandma would at least know this word):  <Someone from> Canada <called>.
Grandma:  <Where?>
Me (in the most FOBish accent I could make):  CA-NA-DA.
Grandma:  Canada?  <I don’t know what that is.>
Me:  <I know you know this place.  We went on our last family vacation there!>
Grandma:  <I don’t know.>

At this point my frustration was starting to build up, so I put down my portfolio and took out a piece of paper.  I quickly sketched the image at the top of this entry, minus the circles showing New York, Maryland, and California.  Those showed up later as we mentioned them.  keep reading, you’ll understand.

Me:  <This is the United States, right?>
Grandma:  *Nods*
Me: *Circles where MD would be* <This is> Maryland, <right?  Where we live, right?>
Grandma:  *Nods*
Me:  *Circles where NY would be* <This is> New York, <right?>
Grandma:  *Nods* New York.
Me:  <Good.  Now if you kept on going up, where would you be at?>
Grandma:  California?

After I mentally smack my head, I decided to keep on trying to explain to her that someone from Canada called.  I’m almost starting to not care if I’m late for my job interview.  I feel like if I didn’t somehow make my grandma understand, I would go crazy.  So I kept on going.  How foolish of me.

Me:  <No no, California is over here.> *Circles where CA would be*
Grandma:  <Oh yes yes>, San Francisco!
Me:  <Yes, that’s there too.  Okay now back over here.. you see> New York?  <You see this large country up here?  If you were to drive past> New York <and go higher up, you’ll be here.  This is where the call came from.  What is this place called?>

My grandma took a few seconds to really think about it.  I even wrote down the word “Canada”, hoping she would somehow recognize it from her past.  After what seems like minutes, she finally gave me her well thought out answer.

Grandma:  <Heaven?>
Me: 

Me:  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Grandma:  <What?>

*SWOOOF*

That’s the sound of me picking up all my interview things and running right out the door. 

Why oh why would she think I was referring to Heaven??  Perhaps when I said “go higher up”, she thought I meant up in the sky.  However, that still doesn’t take away from the fact that her initial question to me was “who called?” and that “Heaven” would no way have been the right answer (unless God has a funny new way of reaching out to people).

Later, my mom explained it to my grandma and we all had a good laugh (well, my mom and I did.  My grandma was still a little confused).  Oh grandma.  Has any of your grandmas or grandpas ever frustrated you like this incident had for me?

Now you know part of the reason why I’m trying to relearn Cantonese

Quick life update:  I’ve been a bit busy with my new job recently.  I’m currently working part time at a local tennis & fitness club as a desk staff and a racket stringer.  So far, the job is alright.  Not too hard and people I work with are nice enough (although some can be as crazy/silly as me haha).  I volunteered to do a few morning shifts, which requires me to get up early and get to work by 5:45am!  It’s actually not that bad.  I kinda like working early to get it out of the way so I can enjoy the rest of the day.

I’m still waiting on a response from the child care place I applied for that my friend recommended to me.  It’s near where I currently work and if I work there I can get benefits, which would be quite awesome.  Unfortunately, the lady in charge is apparently very bad at calling people back (according to my friend that works there), so I have no clue what’s my status is with that job.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get that job (or something else) so I can stay pretty busy until next fall, when I will enter graduate school (assuming I get in of course).  With the economy the way it is, now is probably one of the better times to go back to school haha.  Anyone else feeling the impact of our economy yet?  I’ve definitely been screwed out of many job opportunities because of that X_X .

Anyways, just for fun I was wondering; do any of you (especially my new subscribers/friends) have any questions they want me to answer?  They could be either personal questions about me, my opinion on something, a question asking me for advice about whatever, or just something random.  Maybe it’s the psychology major in me, but I do enjoy listening and helping others whenever I get the chance.  Perhaps one of your questions will inspire a future post I make!

I will probably post up a response post either Wednesday or Thursday.  I will actually attempt to answer most (if not all) of your questions in the comment section below (don’t feel like dedicating an entire post for just answers).  I guess if I only get one question it would be pretty easy to accomplish that .  I’m generally a pretty open guy, but if a particular question is too personal I will either just message you my answer instead or just say, “no thanks, can’t answer that” .

Looking forward to what you have to say!

p.s. I was going to write up another post with a completely different topic, but I just don’t have the time until later this week.  Plus, my brain’s still trying to get adjusted to my new sleep and work schedule O_o.

Okay as promised, I’m going to finish up explaining the rest of the factors in my theory.  As a reminder, these were the six factors I mentioned in my previous post, “My (Im)Perfect Storm Theory“:

1.  Bad Timing
2.  Distance
3.  Being Busy
4.  Social Circles
5.  Standards
6.  Friend Effect

I already talked about the first two (Bad Timing and Distance), so allow me to finish up explaining the remaining four.  Shall we?

3.  Being Busy

One thing I really appreciate about being single is that I have more time to develop myself in other areas of life besides my love life.  I sorta see myself doing things similar to what the main guy from My Sassy Girl did during the two years he had to wait for his girl (except in my case, I don’t have anyone specific to look forward to ).  Like him, I got to focus more time on my other interests such as my friends, family, and tennis.  That’s why despite all I say about preferring to be in a relationship, I’m somewhat glad I am single just so I can accomplish some other important things in my life.

Unfortunately, in doing so I kind of sabotaged my own chances of meeting someone.  Because I was studying more, spending more time doing Tennis Club stuff, and worry about the things that come with graduating, I didn’t have much chance to really meet new girls.  Since I spent a lot more time doing Tennis Club stuff, I ended up hanging out with mostly people from the club.  This leads us to the next factor:

4.  Social Circles

I spent the majority of my free time hanging out with people from the Tennis Club, who were mostly guys.  The small percentage that were girls were off limits due to the 1st factor (aka they were all taken), so nothing was going to happen with that. 

Hanging out with the Tennis Club people more took me away from other social circles I used to hang out with, like my friends at the Chinese Student Association.  There was nothing wrong with them, but since almost all of them were commuters and I lived on campus there wasn’t much time we could hang out sadly. 

I still did hang out with other people outside my Tennis Club circle of friends, but alas cliques can be a powerful thing.  There were some people I could see myself falling for throughout the past couple of years, but because they rolled with a different crowd that became a big obstacle to overcome.  If I didn’t have to worry about graduating and running the Tennis Club, I think I could been able to jump that hurdle.  Oh well.

5.  Standards

After being in a few long term relationships, my experiences have shaped me and made me discover what type of girls do and do not work for me.  I could go on and explain my preferences, but that could probably take up its own entry.  I guess if people really want to know I can write about it later.  For now though, I’ll just say I’m a bit more picky when it comes to a girl’s personality, yet less picky with appearances (although I prefer certain things of course). 

Because of my standards, that has limited the pool of fishes I would want to catch.  My standards would be a tad more relaxed if my main objective was to just find any girl to fool around with or something.  However, finding a girl that I could see myself being in a relationship with is a whole other story.  I think when I do find someone that is that special, it will be more than worth the wait.  “The sweet is never as sweet without the bitter”, I use to always say to myself.

6.  Friend Effect

Ah the friend effect.  Well since I was in one relationship or another for about 4 years straight, I made quite a few good female friends over the years.  Now that I’m single, that has kind of bit my ass since many of them have friend zoned me or vice versa.  There’s this one girl (let’s call her Saffron) who fits all my standards and quite attractive to boot!  Sadly, I think we both have friend zoned each other over the years and it just doesn’t feel exactly right if we got together, even though from the outside it seems like we would fit quite well.  “I’m just mad about Saffron, Saffron’s mad about me…”

Yes…I hate the friend effect with a passion haha.  It’s one of the factors that’s affecting me in my current situation (I’ll spill more details in the future).  It’s crazy how something like this can cause your confidence to waver at the last minute, right before you plan to make a move.  Anyways, I digress.

So with that, I’ve finished describing all the factors that are in my (Im)Perfect Storm Theory.  I think I’m going to be good with talking about relationship stuff for a while .  Relationships are great and I would definitely prefer to be in one, but I know it’s still just one of many great pleasures in life.  It sure is fun to ponder about though!

*******************************************************

Last night, some of the Tennis Club people (big surprise huh?) and I went out to Macaroni Grill to celebrate my friend Jon‘s 20th birthday (he’s the guy w/o a tie below).  Ah, next year’s 21st should be really fun .  Afterwards, we went back to UMBC and played this group game called Salad Bowl for a while.  It got pretty late, so I decided to sleep over.  I’m sorry for taking your bed Kevin!  I appreciate you for letting me have it for the night!  I’ll make it up sometime soon I promise.

Here are some pics from the night (click to enlarge):

Btw before anyone ask, I have noticed that my club is predominantly Asian haha.  I’m not sure how it ended up that way.  p.s. See if you can spot something “odd” about one of the pics above.

Good luck to everyone who have finals coming up!  That’s one thing I definitely don’t miss