Well hello Xanga! It's been a wonderfully long time since I've written something in here, but since I'm sitting at Starbucks here in bright, sunny (please... note the sarcasm) Hong Kong, I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts and musings along the way. Excuse the blurbs and the random-ness, and hopefully you'll find these ramblings slightly amusing at least.

Stealing a family's seats on the plane ride to Tokyo. Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking, what a horrible thing to do right? In reality however, I bet that almost all of you would've done what I've done thanks to the, shall we say, 'asian' blood that runs in all of us. Allow me to paint the scenario for you: I sat in row 32J on our first-leg to Tokyo's Narita Airport next to a nice, old Japanese woman. Both rows 30 and 31 were empty. Now, needless to say, when it seemed that no further persons were boarding the plane, I jumped at the opportunity to sit in the empty seats. Only a few moments later, a family of grandparents, parents and the most adorable little boy came scrambling along down the aisle, and guess where they were seated? Yep, I had to move. Most unfortunate you would think, right? Nope. (Yes this story is full of twists and turns) The family, as I found out later while eavesdropping (great, huh?), was traveling to Manila but that's not really the important part, so I'll move on. Throughout the entire journey, the little boy would occasionally poke his head up above the seat and stare at me, and no matter how disfigured my scrunched-up face looked, he managed to giggle and drool just a bit, always leaving a bit of a stain on the seat cushion. And then there was peek-a-boo, when I hid my face behind that nasty-smelling pillow and moved it up and down, each time showing a different disturbing-looking expression. How I got him to laugh is beyond me, but at least it killed time for both of us right? Anyways, what impressed me also was the fact that the baby didn't actually occupy a seat. Believe it or not, he actually sat on his mother's lap for the entire 11-hour trip to Tokyo (well, he sat on his father's lap too but you get the picture) and only God knows how many more hours until they get into Manila from Tokyo. I don't think I'd ever want a 30 lb. weight on my lap for some 15, 16 hours, because I think I'd die from the experience. That or my legs will be numb for life. Besides that, the long flight consisted mainly of sitting, peeing, eating strange tasting airplane food and watching old films on demand, which is some sort of privilege I guess. All in all, flying to Asia... not that fun. Time changes are messy, the weather is, well... iffy and it's time for dinner. So until next time, so long!

(Title stolen from owner with permission) Question: Guess who(thought of the title)?

To say the least, this week has been one awesome week! First was Leadership Summit, and really, it's nice to know that even though it was my third time going, I continue to learn more and more about leading, or rather learning all the stuff I fell asleep on or forgot about the past couple of years. Hearing Peter speak again was actually really refreshing, since many times I have found myself completely lost in the depth of his sermons. Seeing all the Cupertino kids was definitely refreshing, meeting some new people and seeing all the familiar faces was definitely worth it! Anyways, I won't say much more since I still have some stupid paragraphs to write for that darned Shakespeare book, so I'll leave you with some pictures of my weekend:

My roomies for the weekend, some very awesome people to say the least (: (Notice Jimmy's fingers! Room 2!) Oh and Eric, sorry for bombarding your take-out box with those random blurbs, hopefully you didn't mind my writing too much!

Julie with the San Jose guys. I like this picture, partly because the picture itself looks so strangely funny and as Matt stated earlier and I discovered, I look taller and bigger than like everyone else in the picture, which I pretty much never do if this had been taken at eye level. Thanks Natalie!

And lastly, thanks for the super cool encouragement notes you guys! I was actually so excited to read them that I forgot about my motion sickness, so as you probably concluded, I was a bit "woozy" the whole way back. But yeah, reading through the notes was really quite something, so thanks again! (:

Here's my dad, after letting me in:
Dad: You had Chinese food there?
Me: What?
Dad: The take-out box?
Me: Oh, it just has notes and candy inside...
Dad: But what's the point of the box?
Yeah.. it was.. weird (:

And then there was today, Memorial Day. So I decided to go hang out with this cool kid I know in "A-Town". Needless to say, we found some pretty "ghetto" places, one of which he has already documented and I'm sure many of you have already seen. So without further ado, allow me to share with you this:
 
Thanks for hanging out with me in the afternoon Matt! 'was quite the refreshment I needed to get me ready again for the last couple days of school. We ended up playing pool (but let's not mention that right?) and I got a mini tour of "A-town". I think it's just nice to be out in the sun and just enjoy being in the company of an awesome friend. Thanks again Matt!

Alright, well, that was my weekend in well... as much as I want to tell you, I suppose. Anyways, good luck with these last days of schools, whether it'd be finals or project or whatever!

T.T.F.N. (: