When I came back from Spring Break, the most frequent IM I got was, "You're alive. o.o" just like that. WHAT KIND OF RUMORS WERE GOING AROUND, ANYWAY!?
At the end of finals week, doctor concluded that I had a cough, and that it would go away by Monday. Next meeting (the following Monday), the doctor concluded that, because of the conjunctivitis I had contracted, I must have some kind of common cold and that it would go away in two weeks, and that I would feel better later. However, cough medicine didn't work; after a phone call a week later, the doctor concluded I should change cough medicines from the syrup kind to some kind of swallow pill thing (I had never swallowed medicine before, so this was an experience). Now, three weeks after contracting the cough, he has concluded that, thankfully it's not pneumonia, but I may be suffering from asthma, and so now I have an inhaler! Next appointment: April 26.
And for the crazy evil hideous "Which one is a lie?" thing that some people actually guessed on, The Fundamental Law of Minhchau applied. When in doubt, the answer is FOUR. Therefore, the lie was that my favorite hand-held console puzzle game was Tetris. In fact, my favorite game was Columns for the Sega Game Gear, and it still is (to some extent), with Tetris ranking third, just below Yoshi's Cookie. And that's probably more than you ever wanted to know!
I have yet to beat any of the Nintendo Super Mario games. I have beaten Super Mario World for the SNES, just as an FYI. But yes, this one everyone seems to know. o_o I can't get past 8-1! But then, you know what? I bet if I went back now to play it, I'd actually finish the game. But, for now, I'll be me and not actually beat it because it leaves something I can always say to weird people out. Especially when I take over the world. "I took over the world, but Super Mario Brothers kicked my ass."
I never finished the second grade. I started it but never finished. Around December, I was transferred to the third grade; because I'm an October baby, that means I was suddenly two years younger than everyone and stayed that way. When I got to college, somehow a rumor got started that I was fifteen (and I was in AV 1020, otherwise known for being full of upper classmen)... luckily, this was right after my sixteenth birthday, so I got away with dispelling the rumors just fine. o_O Man, how in the world do people find out this information?
Religiously speaking, I'm a non-temple-attending-Buddhist. This was supposed to be a dead giveaway question, since I'm obviously not Christian, definitely not atheist, and I know way too many Buddhist stories for my own good. o_o But, for those who considered the idea that I'm not a Buddhist, that's okay. :D I'm not very vocal about my religion, especially since it's a touchy topic for darn near everyone I've met, and assuming some other dominant religion (Buddhism is pretty non-teenager-ish in the United States, for some reason) makes good sense.
Tetris on the Gameboy was my favorite hand-held console puzzle game as a child. We've already gone over this, but... I used to play Columns for hours and hours and hours as a child. I was more addicted to it than Crystal Warriors, but eventually I stopped and moved onto other games, like Solitaire Poker (since my dad was playing it, too, so we could share strategies) and eventually became the big RPGer than I am today. And all this started with a love for Columns, and of course, Dragon Warrior.
I've only needed surgery twice in my entire life. The only interesting thing about this is what kind of surgery - I had kidney surgery when I was really young, and eventually oral surgery to prepare for orthodontics. Unfortunately, according to a Chinese yin-yang medicine doctor, the kidney problems haven't completely gone away and may resurface again when I'm older (estimating around 30-40) and cause health problems. O_o Again, maybe that's too much information.
Tamaki Nami's singing voice reminds me of a girl I used to like, hence the obsession. Her name was Antoinette Tan. o_o Hands down, she was the prettiest Asian girl I've ever met (we're not going to count models that I've never met, because that's just unfair), but in particular, she had a really cute voice. It was deep, but not quite matured deep, and my memory of it frames it like Tamaki Nami's voice, except a little higher (in other words, how I might imagine Tamaki Nami's speaking voice). So, Tamaki Nami's mix of maturity and childishness is how I remember Antoinette, and I obsess over it because of that. :D I haven't heard from Antoinette in years... who knows where she is?
For clothes-on-girls obsessions, my white blouse obsession exceeds my white turtleneck obsession. I don't really like white turtlenecks that much (black turtlenecks are better :D), but white blouses... now that's something else. Most importantly, a girl with a white blouse is considering what she's going to wear for pants/skirts, and it almost always looks semi-formal; even the jeans tend to look nicer when you have a blouse on. The thing is, though, the blouse requires that you have Asian cup sizes or else look somewhat awkward (because the buttons or unbuttoned-ness stands out); the blouse is essentially God's gift to women with seemingly underdeveloped breasts and the curse to all others. I'm very conscious of fashion! I'm just not very vocal about it.
Most of the girls I've been physically attracted to have been Chinese. Entirely true! A close second are girls from Singapore (including Antoinette, mentioned previously <3), with Japanese girls being third (because Japanese models are so pretty o_o like Rei's actress in PGSM, and Ichikawa Yui!), with Vietnamese girls taking up fourth (good number!) place, just because... well... I'm still Vietnamese after all. Korean girls rank fifth, and Filipinos rank sixth, and the rest of Asia is pretty much "Eh..." in terms of attraction. I'm racist, so sue me?
My favorite anime females tend to have obsessively long blue hair. ... If you don't know this one, you haven't heard me rant about anime or RPGs. For example, my ever-beloved Lucia has long blue hair. You know, the same Lucia that KATE TRIED TO DESECRATE THE EVIL HIDEOUS WOMAN. And who can forget Nayuki, who stands as my wallpaper (angel wings!)? And Ryuuzaki Umi, one of my first avatars for LJ (which was then succeeded by Mint, who does not have blue hair). AND ARIA. Aria, mo... kusu! <3 Cutest thing ever. Not to say I don't obsess over other girls (like Mint or Minako), but the ones I do obsess over tend to have blue hair.
I tend to argue the less popular side of a debate, whether I agree with its points or not. Top 10 reasons why one should not argue with Minhchau, this should be on there. :D Especially the reason why I post in CTA; I don't like seeing an argument go too far one-sided; maybe it's some Lancelot complex. Who knows? I know for sure, going in, that I'm going to lose the argument (way too far outnumbered o_o), but it just feels wrong to just sit on the sidelines and say nothing, you know?
PHONE NEWS. Missed calls over the last two weeks for people not trying to be a missed call included Jen (twice) and Kelly. That means I have a pretty good track record! I'm missing the same people over and over again... I felt really bad for missing Jen, though. O_o Maybe because she almost guilt-tripped me afterwards! But I haven't seen her online since. Maybe I'll call. I'm calling Kelly tomorrow/today! :D I called Charisse last week, on my way home from school, and it wasn't to tell her to go to sleep! Although I did do that several times over the course of the conversation.
SERIOUS SCHOOL PLANS. I'm skipping this coming year, no matter what result I get and I'll visit! To help out with ACM because I've always wanted to see what it's like from the coaching room. I'll also be learning to cook (or just cut vegetables) and taking a part time job (or two) to save up for the next year. :D Then, I'm going to apply to several locations after taking GRE subject tests (and maybe retaking the GRE), just because that's the way I want to do it... doing it the way I did undergraduate work (you know, just one school) was a bad idea, and it makes me feel like I'm not trying very hard to be a desirable candidate.
First, applying to the University of Michigan, because THEY HAVE RESEARCH IN SOFTWARE LEARNING. My exact area of research! And it's like... several people in the school, dedicated to that research. I'll love it there. Then there's BYU! ... Right, that BYU. o_o Looking at the CS program there, I'm nothing short of scared and stunned and anxious because it all sounds wonderful, especially the OSM group (I've fallen into SE and I cannot get up, and not even my love for algorithms will save me o_o) and the fact that they have an ACM team; the school's mission statement really appeals to me, too. And the super 1337 labs! I was sold.
That failing, I'll fall back on UCI or UCR, which are close to home, places I know by heart, and if nothing else, I'll be able to take fun classes on the side, and get to know more professors and students that I've already known before, and basically continue what I've been doing, with a year off and maybe more experience to say more, do more, and basically take my research farther than I ever could now that I'm almost graduating. That failing also, and I'm staring at the degree in Informatics that UCI is offering, and thinking about going back to undergraduate stuff, doubling in Informatics and English with a possible minor in cognitive psychology. :D Those are my school plans.
Final verdict on Eternity: fun to rent, wouldn't recommend buying on DVD (who buys these things, anyway? O_o). The ending was weird... I liked the way the romances turned out, and the movie ranks as the most quotable Chinese series EVER. From the quote at the end where the fox spirit says, "If I'm not meeting you again, what's the point of another lifetime?" to the statement about how a part of you loves someone, but another part doesn't, and then coming to accept that you're actually both parts and accepting that you love that person... man. O_o Sappy romance series, very quotable. Worth the rent.
Verdict on Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: Cutest game EVER. Almost no strategy involved, the game played like... an anime. As very well it should, with all of the character interactions being anime-wallpaper style with dialogue underneath. AND THERE'S VOICES. I'm glad I started this game before Final Fantasy X-2, though I'm considering starting that game someday soon, just because I want to see the most awesome FMV ever. I agree with Thi: really cute game, really hard to put down for reasons which are hard to understand. It's like, "Why am I still in Item World?" The dubbing isn't bad, either. :D It's decent-quality dubbing, like Thousand Arms. Must play! Good stuff. That concludes the final verdict.