Death Valley photos
http://www.imagestation.com/6127277/3920310110

Yup I went to Death Valley, 2 weeks back, over the weekend, no special occasion, except that Jason finished his Qs, grad sch's tough man.. Death Valley, quite a few different environments there, the cooler high altitudes, the freakingly hot lower altitudes near and below sea level, the sandy desert, the rocky mountains, the few oasis with salty rivers, the plains of salt.. Very interesting. We hiked, I slept somewhere on the slope of the mountain instead of going to the peak. We slept outside in the open air cos it was way too hot, we talked loads of crap. In short, it was a great trip, I finally saw a real sandy desert! And company was lots of fun. Check out the photos =)

People always tell me that sun yanzi's chinese is not good. The other day I was listening to a long interview with sun yanzi and I realise that I speak like her. In other words, my Chinese is going down the drain..

Hosted senior house last sat. I was lousy. I can't talk and make sense to so many people. I should just strike a deal with whoever i'm hosting with next time for me to be the planner and he the executer.

Honours banquet. I actually know quite a few people this time. People from my dorm last year, from classes, TAs, professors.. Too bad too bad too bad that there wasn't any professor at my table. Perrin was real fun last year. Think there are much more students this year. So speakers talked about the Renaissance man, the Revelle philosophy and reminded me what on earth I want to get out of college. I wanted to learn all sorts of things when I just got out JC, I wanted to have a basic knowledge (at least know that something exists) of many many things. And the doctor, I forgot his name, was right, if nothing else, Hum taught us how to read. I'm in the middle of my undergrad life now, I shall save the conclusion of Revelle life for graduation.

Honours banquets are always a wake up call, a jerk to alertness and a call for evaluation of where exactly am I in my life, where am I on the path to any goals, how far have I achieved wrt expections from others. It also shows what others have done, and what's possible to be done. Of course it's also a practice of socialising skills, half an hour of pre-dinner mingling and dinner table conversation need skills. It might be lucky that my table is purely undergrad, we talked about student life instead of about chemistry and nuclear energy like we did last year. And I know my Hum professor was talking about Kafka with his table and Caldwell was saying that he was tempted to ask us all abt categorical imperatives. Revelle profs. Haha. Interestingly, the only person that looked sincerely happy to see me was john. I should go talk to him some day. Probably after I'm done with this Hum series.