I just won a mountain bike!

Our residential hall at Berkeley holds a meeting every Tuesday to plan student activities, such as dances, movie nights and fundraisers. To encourage attendance, raffle tickets are given out at every meeting to anyone that shows up.

Well, today was the last meeting of the semester and the raffle. The grand prize was a Mongoose mountain bike. I was told that I had seven tickets while the runner-up had five. Armed with this information, I bid six tickets when the bike was put up for auction. Instant winner!

This is definitely really exciting. I still cannot believe I won such an awesome prize. A quick Google search suggests that similar bikes cost around $200. I'm hoping it doesn't get stolen before I could take it home. *crosses fingers*

a Thanksgiving without a turkey (well, almost)

Thanksgiving was pretty fun as my aunt Cynthia invited us over for a hot pot dinner. It was a great meal even though we didn't have a turkey this time. I'm sure PETA would be proud. :-)

The party was overall quite enjoyable. It was definitely nice to see Connie and Cathy again. Only a few more weeks until Christmas!

On second thought, I just remembered I still have that turkey sandwich I bought at Berkeley the other day. So this wasn't really a "turkey-free" Thanksgiving. Sorry, PETA. :P

Veterans Day weekend report

The midterms are finally over. It was great to get some rest over the long weekend!

Speaking of which, I slept in on Friday and didn't get up almost 1:30 p.m. That was incredibly satisfying. Even though I got up very late, my family still went hiking in Stevens Creek County Park after a quick bite.

Having had lots of rest, I didn't get up too late on Saturday morning. Therefore, my parents and I took a stroll to the Starbucks in downtown Mountain View for coffee and snacks. The three of us also checked out the nearby mineral shop; this reminded me of our family vacations as mineral shops are quite common in tourist areas.

The highlight of the weekend is that our family friend Mei invited us to her house for dinner in the evening. It wasn't just us as the Lees had several other people over. All of the kids loved playing The Incredible Machine 3 on my laptop.

The Veterans Day weekend was overall quite enjoyable. Oh yeah, and there are less than two weeks until Thanksgiving. :-)

Currently playing: The Incredible Machine 3

three midterms in four days :\

It turns out I have three exams in the next few days: Physics 7B tomorrow evening, Math 53 (multivariable calculus) on the 9th and Economics 100A (microeconomics) the day after that. These definitely aren't easy subjects. So wish me luck - I'm going to need lots of it!

On the bright side, there is no class on Friday because we get Veterans Day off. Thank heavens for small favors.

Currently reading: Calculus: Early Transcendentals by James Stewart