Happy 19th birthday to me!

I'm now 19 years old. It's hard to believe this is my last year as a teenager. As mentioned in the previous post, my parents got me a new Dell Dimension 3000 desktop as an early birthday present. I actually just finished setting it up. :-)

The day was otherwise uneventful, although my mother bought a large box of chocolate chip cookies for me to share with my suitemates. Everyone definitely loved them. Thanks, Mom!

Currently reading: Chemical Principles by Steven S. Zumdahl

new Dell Dimension 3000

Because the computer I've been using is now six years old, my parents got me a Dell Dimension 3000 as an early birthday present. The new PC has a 3 GHz Pentium 4 processor, 512 MB of RAM and 160 GB of storage. It's much faster than anything I've ever had. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

I'm considering joining a distributed computing project, probably either distributed.net or the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. This will allow me to put the idle CPU cycles to good use. In any case, I can finally retire my old Pentium II box after all those years. :-)

Currently listening to: Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J. S. Bach

Happy birthday to Casey!

Our family friend Mei's son Casey just turned 10 years old. She had a big party at her house and asked us to come over. It was just me and Mom as Dad has to work and couldn't take the day off.

Aside from a few high school girls, the guests were young children and their parents. Though I mostly played games on my laptop, the party was lots of fun. I'd definitely like to thank the Lees for having us over. Summer has been great so far, especially considering that my family just came back from an awesome trip to the Pacific Northwest earlier this month.

Currently listening to: Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by J. S. Bach

so I'm legal now...

I just turned 18 years old. In other words, I'm now legally an adult. Of course, that doesn't mean I'll stop listening to my parents - after all, they can kick me out of the house anytime. :P

As for celebrations, my family went to Pizz'a Chicago for dinner last weekend. Though we hadn't been there in several years, the pizzas were really good as always. It's hard to believe how fast time goes.

In other news...

I reached 1,200 skill total in RuneScape two days ago. You can see the screenshot here.

Currently playing: RuneScape

new graphing calculator

I got a TI-89 as a belated birthday present from my parents. It's something I've wanted for a while. Considering that my Casio CFX-9850G has started to show its age, this was the perfect time to upgrade.

From my first impressions, the TI-89 has a lot more features and functions. Also worth mentioning is that the built-in programming language is far superior. I can see why everyone says this is a great calculator. It's basically a handheld computer. But the best part is that my math and physics classes are about to get easier. :-)

Mom has told me to be careful as these devices are often stolen. I hope this doesn't happen to me. One thing for sure is that I'm going to have a hard time concentrating in class. :P

Currently playing: Phoenix

17th birthday report

I had a nice birthday celebration with my parents. It's hard to believe how fast time goes. Sometimes it still feels like I only turned 16 not too long ago. In any case, happy birthday to me!

So my folks took me to a Mexican restaurant in Mountain View called Fiesta del Mar for dinner. It's always fun to try out new places. Everything we ordered was delicious, especially the seafood enchiladas. I want to go back there, that's for sure.

We also went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch with my grandparents a while ago. Although it wasn't my first choice because we regularly eat Chinese food at home, Mom wanted something everyone would enjoy. I agreed to it because family is number one.

Currently listening to: "Fotografía" by Juanes and Nelly Furtado

on turning 16

I'm officially 16 and old enough to drive. However, this isn't something I've given much thought to. Because school is within walking distance, there's no reason to get a license at this time. Although I do plan to eventually get one, that's to worry about later. You can only do so much without a car.

Of course, no birthday is complete without presents: my aunts Jill and Cynthia gave me red envelopes containing $100 each. I'm blessed to have such wonderful people in my life. Jill and Cynthia are both very generous. But damn... this makes me feel guilty because $100 is no pocket change.

I'm 15 now!

I'm now 15 years old, so happy birthday to me!

Considering that I'm too old to be having a birthday party every year, my parents did not invite anybody over or anything. On the other hand, Mom gave me a beautiful sweater she had knit herself. The sweater took countless hours to make, and I really appreciate the effort she put into it. I'm truly blessed to have such an amazing Mom.

a ruined 14th birthday :-(

So I'm 14 years old now. The ironic thing is that the day didn't end too well, even though my "unlucky" birthday was supposed to be last year.

If you really want to know the details, here's what happened: my friend Moonway and I went to a family entertainment center in San Jose called the Jungle. Moonway's mother Angela had recommended the place because it offered free admission to people on their birthdays.

Angela had picked me up at my house and taken us there, so many thanks to her for the ride. It wasn't just me and Moonway as his sister Sarah and one of her friends also tagged along. I didn't catch the name of Sarah's friend, but I think it was Michelle or something. Angela left after paying for the admission, so it was just us kids.

Our day at the Jungle had a great start. Moonway and I checked out the tube maze and the redemption games while Sarah and her friend explored the place on their own. The Jungle was huge; there was just so much to do. But it wasn't long before the afternoon turned sour: the girls got hungry and ordered a pizza. This wouldn't have been a problem, except they didn't have enough money to pay for it. Uh-oh.

Moonway and I were then called to the front desk, but neither of us had any money at all. Angela was out on some errands, so it would be quite a while before she came to pick us up. The people at the front desk didn't really know what to do either. It was certainly an awkward situation.

The Jungle staff eventually let the girls have the pizza at no charge, but they also canceled our admission to cover the cost of the pizza. In other words, none of us were allowed back in unless the fees were paid again, and my birthday offer was unsurprisingly no longer valid. We weren't too happy about the whole situation, so we just sat in the lobby and waited for Angela to pick us up. I guess there's really no such thing as a free lunch - or pizza in this case.

Angela didn't come back until the late afternoon, so none of us wanted to pay the admission fees again. I did rant to the staff on how stupid their policy was, although I understand they were just doing their jobs.

Back in the car, Moonway kept scolding Sarah and her friend for ruining our day and vowing to never let them participate in our activities again. Neither of the girls would apologize, which made him even more upset. However, I felt all of us were somewhat at fault. For one thing, Sarah and her friend should not have ordered anything without checking their budget. They could have at least shared the pizza with us!

But to be fair, Moonway and I had both made the mistake of not bringing any spare change, which is admittedly a bad habit. Other than that, Angela probably shouldn't have left us alone in the Jungle, considering that children under 13 weren't technically supposed to go inside without adult supervision.

In an attempt to make the best of the situation, I asked Moonway if he wanted to come back to my place after dropping Sarah's friend off, but his mother wasn't interested. Oh well.

Let's hope my 15th birthday will be better!

I'm officially a teenager + new computer!

Well, I just turned 13. In other words, I'm now officially a teenager. I'm aware that 13 is considered an unlucky number, so here's to hoping I won't have too much bad luck for the next year. *shrugs*

Speaking of which, this birthday was a little different. I figured I was getting too old for annual birthday parties - not to mention that my mother was getting tired of always having to invite people over - so I did not have one this year. After all, parties aren't the only way to celebrate a special occasion; I'd imagine a night at the movies or a dinner at a nice restaurant would be just as fun. But that doesn't mean I'll never have another birthday party again - I just might save one or two for those very special ages.

On the other hand, I got a brand new desktop PC in the evening. The computer has a 400 MHz Pentium II processor, 8 GB of storage and 64 MB of RAM. It came with a nifty wireless mouse, too. Pretty impressive, don't you think?

I should mention that the computer was never intended to be a present. I'm not that spoiled, mind you. Rather, Dad had ordered it a while ago, and it just happened to arrive on my birthday. It's funny how things tend to work out. Perhaps I won't have so much bad luck after all. ;-)

Oh yeah, and my friend Moonway's mother knew I used to be an avid map collector, so she gave me two high-quality maps a few days ago. One is a world map, and the other is a map of the United States. Thanks, Angela!

Currently playing: SimCity 2000