I am so happy... T0T

Today when I got out of class, it was snowing.... snowing hard... Seeing the snow really made me felt horrible because I am really tired of the cold weather and wish it would get warm soon... So, my mood wasnt too good on the way home... I got home and as usual I checked my mailbox to see if I got any mail (I never get any real mail except from ads and stuff... so sad...) To my suprise I got a mail today! It was mailed from Taiwan by my family! I was so excited and when I got home I opened it quickly. In it was a New Year's Card! I was so touched when I was reading what my family had wrote for me in the card. All the encouraging words made me felt a lot better and totally forgot about the snow that was still going on outside! Thanks for the card mom, dad, and big sis! I love you all! :D

inconsiderate morons...!

Right, so this time I'm posting from lab again, not because I've had a shitty day, but because eric, alex and myself are sitting in the grissom lab working, and there're some people either speaking portugese or spanish, and they're being RIDICULOUSLY LOUD. it's the most irritating feeling, and I'm starting to get so ridiculously annoyed at these inconsiderate asses. geez,I wish I could just head over with a roll of strong packing tape and tape their mouths shut, and maybe give some of them tracheotomies (sp?) in order to keep even their muffled whinings at low volume. Where's an unethical surgeon friend when you need him/her?! oh well... at least rant-typing silently has made me feel somewhat better. Cheers, folks. Shriram out.

Boredom...

As of now, I am sitting down in the MBA office in the Administrative Assistant's chair and on her computer, doing nothing but being bored for the next hour. All of my work has been done, and... I am now trying to figure out what to do for dinner. But hey, it's not so bad getting paid $7 an hour for doing your homework or surfing on the Web right? Too bad I don't work that many hours a week (6 to be exact). Other than that, life at Valpo is just ho-hum. Found out they have a badminton club, but it was just created this semester, so I'm not expecting much. Visited the courts for 10 minutes and it seems like mostly recreational players, but at least it's something. There's a tournament on Feb 23-24, maybe Alex and Eric would like to join? Anyway, I'm going to do research on old school RPGs, so I'm off.

My Helmet

Well today I got out of class pretty early and both Alex and Shriram are still in class... Because there was nothing for me to do I decided to clean my helmet and finish applying some decals that I planned to put on the helmet. I think it turned out pretty nice! hahaha... The helmet is an Arai 岡田忠之 (Okada Tadayuki) Replica. Tadayuki raced in the WGP GP500 class from 1996-1999 on the Honda NSR500. He was 3rd overall in the 1999 World Championship with 3 wins.

Almost Done!

Finally today my group has reached the half way mark of our 100 hour/annual inspection on the PA-40 Piper Arapaho. I am really happy to be working on the Arapaho because there were only 3 Arapahos ever made and the one that we are working on is the only one left in the world! The inspection we are doing is basically done after every 100 hours of flight or every 12 calender months. So, everything that can come off will be off the aircraft and a complete inspection of the aircraft will be performed. Both engine's inspections are complete and the engines are in the process of being put back together. The airframe still has a little more to go before we start putting back together the body panels and the interior.

right, so this is just plain stupid.

Okay, so I got myself on campus and bothered jibai-kun and ero-jiji (lol, Peng Wang as it's written on his scholarship certificate hahahahaha) to get here, and once I get to the MATH lab to do my prelabs, I realise that none of them can be done here... and more importantly, my hardest prelab CANNOT BE DONE WITHOUT A TA PRESENT, because I need to finish the previous lab first. This, apart from being rather ridiculous for a non-entry level class, is just plain frustrating, because it means that I won't get to sleep properly on tuesday, and my lab on wednesday starts at, oh right, 7:30 in the morning. Oh well, let's hope for the best. Cheers, Shriram out.

Winter Break Japan Trip Review (Day 2)

The second day of the Japan trip was touring the 長野 (Nagano) area. The area we were in were mostly filled with Western buildings becuase it was an area where a lot of the foreigners would stay in the early days. We visited an old church in the area and also shopped at the surrounding stores. I came across a store that sells all kinds of stuff about Totoro. Totoro is a character from a famous Japanese anime called となりのトトロ (My Neighbor Totoro) by 宮崎駿 (Miyazaki Hayao). I remember watching it when I was a kid so it brings back a lot of memories going into the store.

After shopping we came to a very famous coffee shop in the area. The coffee shop is called 茜屋珈琲店 (Akaneya Coffee Shop). I was told that this coffee shop was John Lennon's favorite when he was in Japan. I dont like coffee so I ordered red tea and a chocolate cake. I usually dont like sweets but the chocolate cake they have there was really good! The taste matched up really well with the tea.

Lunch for the day was at a British resturant. I felt really strange to be in a British resturant knowing that the trip was in Japan but the food there was good, so I am not complaining! :P I was really full after lunch because my parents are vegetarian and the main course for lunch was pork... I know I didnt have to eat everything but I didnt want to waste the food so... haha... Well, after lunch it was more travelling as there was quite a bit of distance between Nagano and our next destination for the following day.

weird day...

Hmm, so today was a weird day... Last night, being sick, I decided to go to sleep at about 7pm, and wake up by 2am to do my prelabs, homework and such... and I woke up at midnight, decided to try to sleep (stayed tossing and turning until about 1am), when I finally got to sleep, I set my alarm for 4am, because getting sleep is a really good feeling... and after hitting the "Snooze" button ONCE, I blinked and it was 7am... and my lab was at 7:30.

Literally rolling out of bed into my shoes and running to the bus stop, I found out that not finishing the prelab wasn't an issue, so long as I could get the prelab AND the lab done by 10:20. Finishing that without *too* much incident, I went to my next class. While taking notes, I started doing the homework that I had for the class at 12:30. After hastily finishing that, I started working on my prelab after my class, during the hour break, where I talked to a classmate of mine, and found out that the homework that I was really not looking forward to submitting, was due next week.

Unable to login to my account to do my prelab, and incredibly stressed, I went home after class to pick up my evaluation sheet to submit during my lab, and when I got to my lab... ALL THE ACCOUNTS WERE DOWN! As a result, I was able to submit my prelab at the end of my lab period (5:20), and the lab itself is due next week.

Interesting, is all I can say- shitty from the get go, and suddenly taking strange turns as I got my work done slowly, ensured that the day started and ended rather pointlessly- all that stressing for nothing... ma ii ka. cheers, folks- Shriram out.

SuperGT 2008 GT-R Unveiled!

The GT-R that will race in the 2008 SuperGT season was finally unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon! It will replace the 350Z which has been racing in place for the GT-R during it's redesigning period. The 2008 GT500 class GT-R will be raced under a new color scheme and is already in it's testing phase. With the GT-R also planned to participate in other race series like the Super Taikyu, 2008 looks to be a very exciting season! I cant wait!!

(Pictures from SuperGT.net)

Winter Break Japan Trip Review (Day 1)

This past winter break I went to Nagoya, Japan with my parents and grand father. I finally got to uploading the pictures that I took onto my computer... haha... I will be posting based on the days we were there, so today I will post about Day 1 of the Japan Trip Winter 2007!!

The first day was mostly a travelling day. I had to get up at 4:00am to get to the airport which it self only takes about 40 minutes and the flight was at 7:00 am. The reason I had to get to the airport so early was because we are going with a package tour group and they wanted us to get to the airport early so they could gather the group and "brief" us with some rules and what to do in cases of emergencies. I was quite excited when I found out that the plane we are taking was EVA Airway's Hello Kitty Jet! I personally dont like Hello Kitty because of all the pink... but there are only two Hello Kitty Jets probably in the world and I was quite happy to be able to fly in one of them (Hello Kitty Jet II). Later on I found out that we are to come back to Taiwan also on a Hello Kitty Jet (Jet I this time!), hahaha... so I get to fly with both the jets in one trip~!

When we arrived at Nagoya, our first destination was Magome (馬籠) of Nakatsugawa (中津川市). I was told that this place was built in the 1600s basically as a rest area. The place is mostly hotels and places where people can stay over night due to it being on a popular travelling route that merchants and other travelers take during that time. The place was full of traditional buildings and the atmosphere was great! I had a look at the water sewer systems along the road and was amazed at how clean it is! The water was crystal clear and some of them even had small cages where fishes live. It was great walking around and looking at the different shops who mostly sell traditional Japanese wooden things like cups, chop sticks, etc. After Magome, the group headed to our hotel where we will be staying for the next two days. That was basically the first day which was mostly a travelling day and an introduction for what is to come in the next few days of the trip.

Here we go again!

After a brief winter break, the new semester has started! Once again I will be back to life with almost no proper sleeping schedule and waking up for 7:30am classes.. T0T.... Today is the end of the first week of classes. I am glad that all of my classes are interesting and labs are fun! I am at the point of my major where all of the stuff I learned in previous classes are being combined and applied in actual practices, so it is finally time to see some real action! :P hahaha... For one of my labs, my group is assigned to Purdue's Boeing 737-200. The aircraft is in really bad condition due to it sitting out in the "wonderful" weather of West Lafayette for a number of years.... By the end of the semester we are suppose to make the aircraft taxiable again! It would require a lot of work but I am really looking forward to it!

Above is the Boeing 737-200 I will be working on!

Isn't it cute?! hahaha...

This is the other transport category aircraft Purdue owns.

A Boeing 727-100 donated by FedEx.

Its shy, so it was trying to hide behind the building! haha...

Happy New Years!

Heyyy- I'm here in Portland, Oregon; and although this is much later than anticipated, I've been crazy busy with all sorts of stuff (mostly with my two little munchkin cousins- photos will be posted later). Man... my uncle's friends came by to chill for a sort of new year's cocktail party sort of thing, and I was thinkin through at least half of that, how if things had gone differently, I'd be in Taiwan, spending New Year's with you two, or if Thanut wasn't busy with they-who-shall-not-be-named (lol, jkjk), I'd be spending New Year's with him. Ma ii ka, I get to chill with family, and I got to see my sister (who left today) who I hadn't seen since... June?

Anyhow, lemme know what you guys did to celebrate your new years night!

Oh yeah, how did the dinner with your parents and kannoujo go, jibai-kun?

Anyhow, once again, a happy new years to everyone, and I'll be seeing all of you in West Lafayette in a bit- some sooner than others :)