Friday, July 15, 2011

Oops, some mad procrastination happened

I guess after not really procrastinating this last quarter, I was due. It's not like I haven't also been busy though, I have. Fortunately, even though this post covers a whole month, I will be able to keep it relatively short. You might not even be reading this post anyway, but if you are, thanks! I leave for Korea on the 16th of August and I plan to make one last post before I leave (probably on the 14th or 15th). When I'm in Korea, I'll try to get back to updating more often because I'm probably going to have a lot to talk about. I think I'll be able to hold myself to every other week. I'll repeat myself in the next post and I'll probably tell you all in person too just to make sure you know so you have a way to keep up with my shenanigans over there.

Turning 21:
I was excited to finally turn 21. The ability to drink and gamble is cool, but what I wanted the most was my new license picture and to remove my corrective lenses restriction. Thankfully, I got both of those done. On another cool note, I won the bet! I have proven (to myself at least) that not all kids drink illegally without their parents' knowledge (or some combination of those words) before they turn 21. I get nothing other than a sense of satisfaction from this in case you were wondering. I basically just stuck with this because I am stubborn as hell.

Starcraft:
I've been mostly playing 4v4s with Keir. Occasionally, Peter will get in on them with us which has also been really fun. We maintain a roughly 50% win record which is fine, but not as good as we want. It's difficult because my ranking is artificially high (I should be ranked lower, but the bnet ranking system is too generous). Hopefully for the next season, I will get ranked lower and we will have more success. A recent example of this ranking system comes from earlier tonight when I started doing 1v1s. I lost a game in less than 5 minutes (my computer froze and I disconnected T__T). When I got back on, I had been placed into gold (middle of the pack ranking). I should have been much lower. Oh well though, it seems I'm holding my own in that league so I'm happy for now.

Vacation:
My aunt and uncle were having their 35th anniversary recently. Last summer when my uncle did the marathon, he set in motion this grand plan to have them renew their vows in Maui this summer. It was not until long after this whole vacation was sorted out that I decided to go to Korea. Had it not been a function with the entire family, I might have tried to get out of it because I had(have) a lot of stuff to do before I leave in one month. It was nice to get to see everyone though. My little cousin has become obsessed with the Green Lantern and repeated the oath ad nauseum throughout the trip.

The first seven days of the trip were spent in the timeshare we have on the west side of Maui. Most of each day was spent just relaxing around the town, but there were some other cool events such as watching some family members get surfing lessons. There was not much to tell about that part of the week. The unfortunate part was I had the garbagiest Internet connection at the place. It would take an hour to load a youtube video with a length of four minutes. In fact, the entire time I was there, I could not stream games which was kind of frustrating because there was a lot of good Starcraft I wanted to watch. And it would have worked out especially well too because my parents did not adjust to Hawaii time very well and would go to bed around 9-10pm, leaving me to stay up (if I go to bed before midnight, I take at least an hour to fall asleep). In that time, I wound up just studying Korean as much as I could.

For the final few days, we moved to this house in the middle of the island. What we didn't know about the house was it was more rustic (well actually it was a palace as far as I was concerned) than they advertised. Many cockroach encounters happened which led to many freakouts by all the girls. For the guys, we just hung out all night drinking. My cousin's husband who is a hardcore drinker got Patron at the grocery store (he's kind of a Patron hipster, not liking how popular it has become (mostly because of the price)). The two of us along with dad and my uncle just stayed up late each night taking shots until we got bored and went to bed. Even on the night where I had 5 shots and 2 beers, I did not get drunk. I have now decided that it is definitely not economical to get me drunk and will probably not try anymore.

On the last full day, I finally got to do what I wanted to do which was hike the Haleakala crater. Dad and my uncle came with me. They forgot to bring warmer clothes (it gets cold up at 10,000ft), but we read the trail we were taking was only 9 miles, so we figured it would be about 3-4 hours and thus, coldness would not be a big problem. It turns out, we kept a much slower pace due to dad and my uncle and in addition to that, the trail was 14 miles instead of 9. At the end of the day, we wound up taking 6.5 hours to do the whole thing. The first four miles consisted of a 2,000ft descent and then it was flat for a while before a 3 mile 1,500ft ascent to the end of the trail. It was pretty amazing scenery (not that the other two noticed it, they were really tired). By the end of the hike, they just plopped down in the car and I had to drive home. The women had freaked out again because we took a lot longer than expected, but all was well. They had me to scout the trail and carry all the stuff we brought, so it worked out fine in the end. I would gladly do the hike again, but I'm pretty sure dad and my uncle are not up to doing that ever again.

So since I've been back, it has been just Starcraft and some Korea stuff. I anticipate my life being mostly that before I leave. I'll post again in about a month, so until then, peace out.

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