greetings from hk

internet access is back...sweet. the earthquake in taiwan busted internet connection all over hong kong for most of the week. service is now coming back slowly. apparently hong kong felt some of the tremors from taiwan. i hadn't arrived in hong kong yet when the quake happened. as i watched the news, i couldn't help but remember that irenieweinie was in taiwan this week. i hope she and her family is ok.

coming back to hong kong was such a comforting feeling. it's like seeing a familiar face again after a long time apart. it was really nice to feel the sea air, the mountains, and walk amongst the busy people. the transportation is my favorite. its so efficient and fast that i can go whereever i want whenever i want. our apartment is old as ever, but carries the same sweet and musty smell.

i met with lily the afternoon that i arrived and had a snack with her. i was able to catch her during her long breaks from work. i had to buy underwear for her on friday. she was going to vietnam this weekend, but the laundromat where she left all her clothing was closed. since i didn't have anything much better to do, i bought her underwear. buying underwear at deparment stores in hong kong is terribly awkward. for some reason, they put so many more sales ladies in the underwear section so that every customer gets special, um, attention. they're so pesty! they hover over you and ask one question after another. "did you find your size? what's your size? what color do you want? do you see your style?" i think i just mumbled aggitatedly under my breath until i quickly found what lily wanted and left. after i gave lily her "present", we went to throw at the bus terminal. i don't know why i was afraid of the disk. so unfortunately, i got hit in the face, again. i had a little bit of a fat lip, but it healed pretty quickly. i practiced stepping into my catches and keeping my eye on the disk.

after that episode, i had an hour to kill. i thought i should do some shopping, since hong kong is all about shopping, but i was quickly bored. i couldn't really find anything i liked in the stores around the area. besides, the sizes were horrendously small. the largest pants size they had were about 29 cm. if i tried wearing those pants, i would have to tuck in my stomach so much i would never be able to laugh. instead, i walked around by the harbor and the ferries. the fresh air was nice.

i then went to lynda's apartment in cyberport. her place is in a brand new development and it is gorgeous. it's on a steep mountainside and looks out to the water and a mountainous island. the sun sets right behind the island. the facilities are like a ten star hotel. they have a pool, an arcade, very nice fitness equipment, and an indoor basketball court. oh yes, they had one of those climbing treadmill things! we played badminton for an hour or so, and then showered. even the shower was a stand up jacuzzi, with several jets of water shooting out from the wall. while i waited for her to finish showering, i took the ten minutes to do some lifting. i've hardly been keeping up with the ultimate workouts, so i felt at least a little better after that bit of lifting. we then went to the mall to ate some japanese noodles...mmm. it had lots of vegetables and mushrooms and two pieces of clam to top it off. afterwards, we went to the arcade and played pool.

yesterday, i saw karen! it was so exciting. she even gave me yummy cookies :):) i hadn't seen her for almost ten years...since my two weeks at delia school of canada. we decided to go to stanley for food and fun, and because the bus terminal was right there. we talked about everything, from being back in hong kong and what MIT and USC were like. i found it extremely hard to put into words how painful MIT is, but at the same time so rewarding because of the people you meet. while we were talking, she mentioned she wanted to be more active and find a sport to play in college. she thought about fencing and some other stuff, but of course i told her to play ultimate. and surely, after lunch i took her to the beach to throw. even some random chinese girls came over and asked if they could join us. so the four of us threw on the beach and i was happy to be outdoors and throwing. the wind was just right so my discs floated graciously in the air. and by the end, karen's throws were definitely looking better.



i'm tired of writing...more to come later

back at one, home

harvard sucks for making me work during my break. i have to write an essay while i'm on vacation! maybe i'll work on it tomorrow. i'm glad my sickness went away. i don't think another day of just prunes and orange juice would've been very bearable.

topsy tuuuuurrrvy

thank goodness the last day of classes is over! whew...i don't think i could've handled another day of sleep deprivation. i even missed practice on monday! i never miss practice! on tuesday, i walked into chinese class as usual, only to my surprise...we had a test! it was the first time i had ever had a test without an ounce of studying. good thing it was only chinese and not a science/engineering subject. i would guarantee a zero on a science/engineering test.

yes, last week and this week was very unhealthy and unhygienic (sorry to disturb you, but i really was). i didn't think i would ever experience so much pain as sophomore-year-end-of-term again. by the end of wednesday, i couldn't write another word.

now that i have a life again...i get to think about all the things i can do! i want to read meself some good books soon.(notice how i keep avoiding the fact that i have a final in medical imaging)

wednesday night during the sleepover, we watched the sound of music! katya and some others made some great desserts...apple cinnamon stuff, apples and walnuts, wilg goodies. the movie was so perfect, everyone was singing along to all the songs. i'm glad there were so many singers, it drowned out my horrible voice. if asgard had been playing music that night, i think we would've been some competition. then after the movie, we played 'never have i ever', and you know how that always goes...

on thursday, i went to see the Nutcracker at the Boston Opera House! 2007 class council sold tickets to a celtics game and the nutcracker for 5 bucks! so this is what i pay tuition for. i thought the ballet was awesome. it could've partly been because i haven't seen the nutcracker since i was 6 or 7. there was this one part where the nutcracker fires a shot at one of the mice, the mouse falls, and then the other mice come out with a red cross stretcher! Hahaha.

For those of you who want to know, here is my schedule for the holidays/january:
next wed-058 final
fri-nyc home
fri to mon 12/25-ski trip?
12/25 to 1/9-HK!!!
1/11-back to boston
1/18-harvard final
1/19-EUROPE!!!

wooooot. sweetness. i'm sad that i don't get to do iap though. i wanted to do winter school/snowboarding/sustainable energy at some point. i guess i'll have to wait 'til what life after MIT brings

i am sixteen going on seventeen

a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down! the medicine go down! the medicine go down! in a most delightful way!

i don't know why i'm in such a singing mood, especially the sound of music and mary poppins. i think the sleep deprivation over the last week is catching up to me. aiyaiyai. i've discovered that medical imaging is a very hideously painful subject. i've been working on the lab report nonstop over the course of last week. frequencies, offset frequencies, pulses, gradients, echoes, decays, attenuation...ahhhhh...there is no hope for my understanding of such things.

i'm pretty much screwed next week. we have elections meeting tomorrow, which is going to take like 5 hours. 033 draft is due, 058 pset, chinese essay. i guess singing joyous children songs is an attempt to make the week seem less threatening. i don't know why i put myself through so much pain. i don't punt, i don't give up, i stay up and work until it gets done the way i want it to be done.

i'm glad the term is coming to an end though. i can't wait till kriti and i have a slumber party--we're going to watch the sound of music!!

Regretfully they tell us, but firmly they compel us, to say goodbye...(Cuckoo) to you!

didn't i, didn't i, didn't i see you cryin'

i can't comprehend how some people are just so awesome.

talia, dorri, dorri's friend (shirin), and i hung out friday night. we went to this delicious place in harvard square called veggie planet. the resturant is rather small, and definitely hippy. it was amazingly flavorful for the price and amount of food. i had a "thanksgiving pizza", which was cranberries, mushroom gravy, and some other random things topped on pizza crust. oh, and the waitress had an avacado tatoo on her ankle. i need to go to harvard sq more often. it seems that everytime i go, i discover some new place that sounds delicious.

after dinner, we went to a baha'i fireside. One of the GRTs at harvard hosts a fireside session every friday night (i think), to introduce and discuss the baha'i faith. basically, there is a speaker who gives a general overview of what baha'i is about, and then a discussion follows where people ask questions and we all talk nicely. the environment was friendly, welcoming, and even comforting. it's like a bunch of strangers coming together just for a nice conversation. i enjoyed the fact that baha'i seems to be rooted in civil discussion, rather than argumentative debates. the session also got me thinking about things i never thought about before...what religion is, and whether humans can globally unite and understand each other.

it was so awesome to hang out with all of them. the fireside also had amazing food. there were gingerbread and chocolate cookies. then there was cake and tea. the cake was one of those with a hole in the middle. it was soft, spongy, and filled with cranberries. last but not least was flatbread and THE hummus...the best hummus i have ever tasted in my entire life. it was a bit smoother than the hummus in the house, had more spices/flavoring and contained the magic ingredient of cayenne pepper. it was so good, after a long night of discussion about global unity, the three of us concluded that hummus was the answer to uniting mankind.

back at wilg: this week, the 3rd floor held a bop language study break. for those of you who need some therapeutic relief, try speaking in the bop language. to speak in this language, you spell out a word by saying the vowels and adding op to the end of consonants. for example: bowl-- bop-o-wop-lop; water-- wop-a-top-e-rop. isn't it great? we were laughing hysterically.

this evening, wilg had a girl's night in. we watched 10 things i hate about you while eating lots of cookies and junk food. during the middle of the movie, we realized that we got jipped by blockbuster because the dvd was scratched up and kept skipping/stopping, and that was blockbuster's only copy of the movie. it stopped working at the best part too--when heath ledger sings in the soccer stadium. in the end, we went to hollywood express and got a ghetto vhs version of the movie.

we all decided that 'cameron' should've been an mit student. he's incredibly cute and has just the right amount of awkwardness and nerdiness. i have also decided for myself that this is probably the only movie where i really like and respect heath ledger. and of course, we sang along to the songs, especially our favorites, letters to cleo: cruel to be kind and i want you to want me...

and now, back to the busy busy weekend, if i don't want to overly suffer this week and the week after.

I am a real environmentalist. Real environmentalists support nuclear energy. Are you?

done with the partying, down with the work

long weekend is pretty much over. the formal and smite party are over, which means the rest of tonight and tomorrow are down to business. gotta work on that thesis, 033 design project, 813 final project, and figure out what's going on in 058. oh, it's going to be fun.

the weekend was awesome. on thursday night, rashida, sheena, maria, kate, and i went to ihop for a late night snack (~11 pm). we got lost on the way (again). but those belgian waffles and chocolate chip pancakes were definitely worth the trouble.

the formal was great. we got pretty wine glasses. i didn't go swing dancing because i didn't have a date and didn't want to dance with random sketchy guys. instead, laura, karen, and i went to see josh perform at a local arts festival. it was more of a live band thing than a performance, but either way it was cool. of course, we went to tosci's later in the evening and had josh make a milkshake for us. coconut almond chip + cocoa pudding. really hit the spot. since we have all decided josh is so awesome...we're planning on taking him out to dinner soon. josh also joined us for the fondue part of the formal evening at wilg. we had a good time, especially in making english a tonal language like chinese. yes, it's possible. pictures are on facebook: http://mit.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2017478&l=59309&id=700409

the fourth floor posse (yuki, irene, jingwen, me, and occasionally inna) planned on going out for lunch, but didn't end up going. i love our posse, we are definitely the only part of the house that starts the party every night. we procrastinate by moving from room to room and drinking tea...oh yes, and who can forget? FLOSSING! because most of us sleep rather late, we often socialize at wee hours in the morning...unless some strange noises down the hall ensue, and then we all close our doors and hide.

the smite party was fun. we ate lots of pasta and dessert (brownies, ice cream, and shortcakes), followed by a long game of apples to apples. and of course, we got awards!

a rare thought

you would almost never hear me say this...but i am so full; my tummy hurts. i had 3 big bowls of chili (with added cayenne pepper of course) and jalapeno ice cream from tosci's! who knew?!

huck a hunk last weekend was bundles of fun. for the longest time, i couldn't get the name right. i first thought it was "huck a pumpk", short for huck a pumpkin. and then people laughed at me, then got me all confused :) what is it? hunk a pumpk? hunk a hunk? hunk a huck? it's all good, i finally got it. huck a hunk.

i was extremely excited because i didn't get hit in the face at all. i still had some problems catching disks, but i mostly blame it on the weather. it was pretty cold in the morning...so my hands were cold and the disk was rather hard. i managed to catch at least a few disks in the game and one in the endzone again. woohoo! there is definitely room for improvement on those backhand throws though. gotta get more spin on it and throw it consistently TO the person.

the one thing i think erika forgot to mention at huck a hunk was her attitude when she's standing up for herself. you should've seen her. she was really fiesty. normally people would become scared, very scared, but we just laughed and thought it was awesome. in the wellesley game, first, there was argument over who caught the disk. erika firmly believed that karen had both of her hands on the disk before another girl put her hand on the disk while coming down from the jump. erika saw it with her own eyes, so she yanked the disk out of the wellesley girl's hand and put it in karen's hands. and when people wanted to talk about it, she was rebellious and stubborn. everything out of her mouth had that "don't give me that bullshit" connotation.

and then, it was her against "ralph". oh man, ralph was mad...real mad and annoyed, especially when she yelled that erika kicked her in the head. erika didn't contest it, but it wasn't erika's fault. then, they had another argument towards the end of the game. erika just responded with "you tripped on yourself." it could've gone on, if we weren't in the middle of a game. i could tell that girl was ready to have a fist fight or something like that. oh, the drama.

i'm rather proud of myself this week. i completed a thesis proposal and a lab report. i was very productive the last few days, and nothing better than topping it off with a three day weekend! smite has an end of season party on saturday. woot!

more procrastination, no regrets

i finally discovered the reason for my unproductiveness this semester. i've been obsessively checking email and reading about ultimate. somehow i always end up putting schoolwork behind these two tasks. you can now see where my priorities lie. and frankly, i don't feel bad about it.

i tend to get a burning headache whenever i think about schoolwork now. like today, in chinese class, i couldn't answer the teacher's question because my head contained a concrete slab, not a brain that can think. my hypothesis was, maybe it's because i haven't been drinking enough water (silly reason, i know). but alas, once i start thinking about anything other than schoolwork, my giant headache goes away.

and it's wonderful! i like reading ultimate blogs; it educates me in all the things you can do as an ultimate player--like the moves and the strategies. i'll read about some ultimate technique, and then really want to try it out. i usually fail in carrying it out in practice or at the games, but it doesn't hurt to try.

one of these days, i'll become both productive in academics, AND a more useful ultimate player.

today = grumpy mw

sometimes you just know from the moment you wake up that the day isn't going to be so hot. i had that feeling today--sleepy and groggy for some unknown reason. then i check my email and it gets worse.

mind me for venting my frustrations. i feel very underappreciated as House Manager. I suppose this position is known to be underappreciated, but people need to stop yelling at me for things I have no control over. Someone asked me if there were extra rooms in the house because her room is too cold. Look at the house map, there are no empty rooms. why are you asking me?

But even more frustrating, is that I put in a lot of time and effort to be the house manager. i spent all frickin summer measuring storm windows so that we can actually get something done on the storm window project (rather than delay it for the 7th year). and what do people say to me? "why don't i have storm windows? where are my storm windows? why haven't you gotten storm windows yet? my room is cold. i'm sorry, but the project is not as simple as a touch of a magic wand, and i'm also an mit student which means i'm not a full time house bitch.

i'm sorry if i hurt anyone's feelings. i figure not many people read my blog anyways. if you knew what it felt like, you would give me some sympathy and stop it with the "do this, do that".

ah, the joys of senior life

I'm liking this schedule. lots of class on wed and fri but nothing much on mon tues thurs. i think our design project for 033 will eventually start gaining headway, as well as work on my thesis. enjoying life is pretty sweet right now. today, i spent all day hanging around the house and talking to people. irene is quite funny with her daily "i'm so stupid. why can't be smarter at course six?" schpeel. yuki makes funny faces. and inna is great to chat with while heading to a coffee shop. tonight was the first time we have ever been to burdick. the hot chocolate was scrumptious!

My legs hurt. And my feet. They just don't really like me right now. Thankfully there isn't practice until Monday. furthermore, I need to learn to stop getting hit in the face by disks. Or I might loose all my teeth, make my nose crooked, and in general, become a very pitiful looking soul.

mark you calendars! mw is coming to hk dec 27 - jan 9. i will need company. let's eat curry fishballs together! i can't wait to eat all those unhealthy munchies off the street.



Lily, this was the conversation at the fondue party last night when we were watching old smite videos:
Jess (a freshman): who's that smite girl and what she doing?
Catherine: We had some very strange characters on the team last year.
Doris: You mean...lily.
Catherine: Yeah, we had A very strange character on the team.

Purple valley or Orange mountains? Either way, it's pretty out there

since i built up hype about it, i guess i should write about the highlights this weekend at purple valley:

while i slept through the entire drive up to the tournament, i had a really bizarre dream. I dreamt that when I looked down the hairpin turn, I saw a whole forest of palm trees with huge purple leaves! And beyond this forest of palm trees there was a sparkling blue body of water. When we got to the parking lot, another car pulled up beside us and out came the crew team! I said "What are you guys doing here?" And they said "oh, we have a race here. And you?" "I play ultimate now. We have a big tournament this weekend." As if this dream isn't weird enough, when we were driving back to Boston yesterday, apparently five minutes past the hairpin turn, there was a town called Florida! And the sign had palm trees and a snowman on it. Hmm...how strangely coincidental.

the first day:
we played williams B, yale, cornell, and northeastern. it was frickin' cold and windy!

meri has hands like velcro! we were at the end zone, and someone couldn't receive the pass, so then i tried to get the disk, but instead, it bounced off my shin. somehow the disk then went right through jenny's hands but managed to land in meri's hands! that was pretty amazing. but meri really just has the knack for catching disks.

yale pulled zone d on us all of a sudden in the middle of the game. since the majority of us are new ultimate players and had no idea what zone was, we were all running around the field yelling pouched and being really confused. you could imagine what a racket that was. it was quite a silly scene. on top of that, no one knew if you could call a timeout during hard cap. alas, the rules said you could.

after we played williams, they cheered "see you tonight, smite!" of course, after that there was no question that we had to make our presence at the party that night. the party was holiday themed, so we dressed for Patriot's Day. Catherine brought a red sharpie marker to embellish our arms with "Yeah America!" "USA!!!" "US Rocks!" and such. But we also wrote "America! Go MIT!" on a bunch of condoms that Darlene brought along. When we got to the party location, there is a huge mob of ultimate players who couldn't get in. Catherine pushed through the mob and got in by pretending to be a williams student who lived there. darlene, jenny, and alisha got in through the side window. Although the rest of us couldn't get into the party, Darlene really made our presence known. She gave out the embellished condoms to random people and used the red marker to write "We love USA. (Heart) MIT" on other people's arms! She wrote on everyone she talked to, some of them she knew, others she didn't. I bet people were convinced MIT made a scene when they woke up hung over with (Heart) MIT on their arms. Feel the MIT love.



Second day:

we played dartmouth, williams B, wellesley

williams kept scoring on us pretty badly using their horizontal stacking and hucking. but during the second half, we really pulled it together from low spirits to hold them off. we impressed darlene!

i caught a disk in the end zone for the very first time (even though i failed the first time i was given the chance to) ! i also finally caught a pass and threw it to someone else who also received my pass! yay, it was so exciting!



for bad pictures of me, here are karen and jenny's photos:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=1335nc74.1a1jokus&x=0&y=-ns0iv4

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=935231161613233780/l=216931663/g=5301247/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

wee frisbee, it rhymes, sort of

i'm suprisingly very excited about our tournament this weekend. i was quite disappointed when i realized the WILG 70s party was going to be this weekend too. but then i found out that there's going to be a party where our tournament is (not that every game isn't a party)! i'm not a party-goer, but oh boy (as gilbert strang used to always say), it's so great to be absorbed into music and dancing all crazy.

yikes, i can't even survive 5 hours of sleep anymore. my brain shrinks until it ties all my nerves into knots and i can't do anything. guess that 058 test tomorrow with an 813 assignment will have to wait. i must be reaching my limit for college sleepless hours.

climbing!

my love for climbing has resurfaced! the view at the gunks last weekend was the most beautiful thing i have ever saw. being above the tree line, you can see a plane of bright colored trees and mountains in the distance. not too far away, there was a small, peaceful pond reflecting all the lively colors of the surrounding trees. blue skies and a blazing sun covered the landscape above. i was only at the first pitch of the climb, but i felt like i was on top of the world. for once, i was above the world that controlled my life; i was more powerful than the world that gave me stress and frustration. if i were given a choice, i would have stayed there forever. at least down on the ground, you get to buy things like harnesses and climbing shoes so you can experience that rejuvenating feeling once in a while. i got my very own harness and climbing shoes! they're so pretty...

i hope i get to go climbing at the wall at least twice a week this year. i wish it was as easy as sophomore year when we ditched psetting for climbing. we somehow managed to get the pset done by the deadline. now, it seems as if no matter how hard i try, i can never get anything done. *sigh* i'll be out of here in less than a year.

to hong kong or not to hong kong for christmas?

right on gershon...

mmm...i wonderful dinner with jingwen, dorri, lizzie, talia and her parents! that's been the best dinner since a long time. and then we had tea and coffee with mike's pastries. pistachio macaroons are the most extraordinary dessert. talia's parents are so socialable and fun. i think MIT doesn't give you much of a chance to enjoy life like this. but then again, i probably wouldn't have appreciated it as much if i didn't have torturous work here. friends are the most amazing part of life; and i think it was wilg that taught me this fact. if i didn't have people like yuki and inna to listen to my silly stories, i don't think i would be sane at MIT.

i have decided that saturday morning is my favorite time in the week. i get to sleep in and even with a lot of work ahead of me, i feel like i can do it. it's really the only time in the week that i can have a normal schedule, a normal life. i have time for a nice breakfast and tea, or i can go running with nothing to worry about.

next week: 058 pset, 058 test, 033 research, chinese homework & essay, thesis assignment. 058 really needs to give me a break. thank goodness for friends like jen who pity the helpless souls like me who stare at matlab for hours in lab and get frustrated rather than getting anything done.

:) life is hard, but good.

i have made my decision...

I am determined to go to Europe next year, after I graduate. I haven't decided if I'm going to continue taking classes or get an internship. I guess it all depends on what kind of internships are available. At this point, I'm leaning more towards getting an internship for a year or so. If I like it, I might want to stay there forever. Something about the comfort zone in the US is unsettling. I want to be always adventurous and carefree; that way, i can tell everyone about my stories and people can laugh at my silliness. As my high school senior quote says, "i mean, a lot of people say differently, but I just like having people smile for me...it's so great..." I can hear Yuki's voice, "MinWah, you're so silly!"

Even more exciting, though, is that I'm going to Europe this January with my faaaaavorite wilg people. And we might go backpacking in the Alps (if we don't freeze to death?) I still have to solve my dilemma of whether I want to go to Hong Kong this Christmas. I want to see my friends from KCC and windsurfing, and Lily is also there!

hmm, I think I should stop thinking and focus on studying. After all, I'm not done with the MIT monster yet.

iris and i are starting the "not-so personal hygiene club". do you want to join?

we sit around, scratch our heads and floss our teeth. our cause is to promote harmony

I Absolutely Love Better Than Ezra


The concert was too priceless to describe...

feeling time floating by

keeping in touch with friends is one of the most wonderful activities in life. it gives me a sense of place in this world--my place in time, in greater society, and among the people i know. my favorite moment feeling of reassurance that the world is filled with awesome people and life isn't so bad. i always instantly forgot all my worries. and it's like their living life with you everyday.

watching how others lives unfold is so fascinating i feel like i'm watching a tv series. who needs high strung actors and celebrities when you have so many friends leading such different lives? maybe i'm being nostalgic, but i don't think i am.

on another random thought: facebook needs to stop wasting my time.

summer's end

my last two weekends in nyc...so much fun that i will surely miss:
last weekend i only came back for a day. inna and i hung out the entire day, quite literally 12 hours. i must say it was one of my best days back in nyc since i went off to college. we walked all around downtown--eating, talking, and walking. we stopped by a soprano competition in little italy where we heard the most amazing italian opera from young people like us. liz would've loved to be there. afterall, she often resonates wilg with italian opera. at around sunset, we came across a ukranian folk band playing at battery park. we watched the ukranian folk dancers perform and teach others how to dance. the scene was a merry one. all the kids were dancing, or rather, doing cartwheels and hobbling around. there was one kid with no pants or underwear on trying to do headstands, and yeah, you saw everything. he was only 5 though. the best part was when he walked up to the stage and one of the band members said "hello there, nice outfit! goodness gracious" ah, the joy of being little.

this weekend i spent with the family. my dad convinced me to go hiking (again). it's not that i don't enjoy the hiking part, it's the waking up at 6 in the morning that sucks. in the end, despite the pain, the 13 mile hike gave me a sense of accomplishment. we talked a little more about our trip to hong kong this dec/jan. i'm super excited, but can't decide when to go yet. there are too many things to worry about senior year.

things i still need to do before the end of this week:
finish writing my paper
buy supplies for work week

i have officially changed blog sites. msn spaces was doing just perfectly until it became "windows live spaces". now the formatting is messed up because the site can't read html properly. apparently if i used internet explorer, this wouldn't be a problem, but i dislike using internet explorer immensely. if you enjoy hearing what i've been up to lately, you can still read my old posts at spaces.msn.com/miniwahwah