Fall Semester 08 Pictures

D-Chi, Winterball, Retreat, Chi-O Mixer, Security, all that good stuff.

ΔΧ
UMass Colony
Founding Class Fall 2008
#13 "Sonic" 

NYC

This past weekend took a trip down to New York City with another friend at Umass to visit… more friends from UMass. I was shocked to make it to her house in Eastern Mass to be honest, usually not really good at driving the city and its boroughs. Traffic was a mess that day, and after I got to her house and met up with her, took another hour or so just to get into the city and to Chinatown’s South Station, where we caught the 7:00 PM Lucky Star bus to NYC.

The bus ride was peaceful with the Chinese driver pushing the bus to like 80 mph the entire way there, and we got there around midnight or later. Passed the long bus ride by watching an episode of Coffee Prince, and just sleeping and listening to iPod. Steph, Tracie, and a friend of theirs from Rutgers, Ray, picked us up on Grand St. and we headed back to Steph’s place in New Jersey. Seriously people need to learn how to merge lanes, because it took about an hour and half for a football length’s amount of cars to merge into a single lane. We finally got into her town like around 1:30 AM or so and everybody pretty much knocked out right away cause we were suppose to get up at 7:00 AM to head to Corona Park in Flushing for the 18^th Annual Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival.

I wake up next morning and it was like 9 or 10 already, and after everyone got ready it was like nearly 11, and we didn’t even get to the park until about noonish. We parked on the opposite end, and on a humid day, it was a tough walk over. I was in awe, I had never been to a Dragon Boat race before, and the atmosphere was electric, much better than the ones on an Ultimate field. We managed to catch Steph’s old team, NJ Dragons in one of their semi-final heats. They had a good lead until about 50 feet left, where HSBC’s team just went berserk and torched everybody in the final stretch. Steph caught up with her old teammates and we just wandered around before all going back to the car, by then it had gotten really dark, and just as we stepped into the car, there was lightning and rain started coming down.

We drove to Times Square, intending to park near there and do some shopping, hit up Korean Town and China Town. It was bad because there wasn’t any parking, and the garages were around 50 bucks for just 2 hours. So instead us 4 drove to Manhattan’s Chinatown and just parked there for 40 dollars till midnight. We then went to Great NY Noodles, where I had some of the best thin string spicy beef noodles. Some really tall (like 6-10) Chinese dude came in and sat down next to us, pretty sure he looked like the Zhang guy who was on the Chinese Basketball National Team last year and the one who played with the Knicks Summer League team this past summer.

Anyways after this we met up with another kid from Bronx, Kai. Apparently he goes to UMass and lived in the same building as Jenessa, but I’d never seen him. We 5 went to the Elizabeth Center for some Sticky Pics!!! And I ate again at another noodle place with Kai because he was bitching that he was hungry, the girls went and got bubble tea. We also called up another friend from Smith College whose family owned stores in Chinatown, and she came over and caught up with us before headed one of her stores. We then took the subway over to Times Square and started shopping for clothe for that night’s dinner, we were going to Blue Fin, a fancy restaurant right in the middle of Times Square.

Shopping sucked, stuff was way to expensive, and after hours of many stores I settled on a Nautica navy polo with white and red stripes, which interestingly matched my 3 UMass bracelets. We walked over to Blue Fin and the place was pretty impressive, there were even bathroom attendants who wiped your hands for you. The food was expensive as hell too, as expected from such a high class place. I ordered a Philly Sushi plate and Yellowtail Ceviche, and the Ceviche was something new, wasn’t too bad, and surprisingly filling. The bill nearly blew my mind; I don’t think I’ve ever had such an expensive meal, with the bill coming to nearly $200 for the 5 of us. After pulling together money we went to Westin Hotel and chilled at their bar, the people there were extremely friendly and we just chilled, drank, and Tracie and I just watched Steph and Jenessa argue with Kai on how insensitive he was.

Kai left after Westin to chill with some other people and we took the Subway back to Chinatown and headed back to NJ for some drinking. We would have hit up the clubs, but Steph and I are just a month or two from 21. So we basically just went back to her house and got drunk (Steph was out after like a beer and half, Jenessa was downing shot after shot of Absolut though).

Next morning we woke up around noon again and drove about 5 minutes to Minado, the Sushi buffet. My god I was like a little kid in a candy shop. My eyes lit up when I was looking at the huge assortment of sushi, any kind you can think of! Had two huge plates filled with sushi, then some dynamite seashells, and topped it off with strawberry cake and green tea ice cream. Bill was in the triple digits and I paid for it, but it was worth it. Then Steph drove us a couple town over for the bus to New York, and we chilled in the car and blew bubbles. After hugging and saying good bye to Steph, Tracie, Jenessa, and I hopped on the bus, and it was crowded. We (along with like 20 others) had to stand in the middle the entire way from Jersey into Port Authority, pretty sure that’s illegal. From there we took a train to Chinatown and Tracie walked us to the Lucky Star stop at Grand St. where she took a train back to Brooklyn and we hopped on the bus.

The bus ride back wasn’t as pleasant. We watched another episode of Coffee Prince, but there was so much traffic again (people’s inability to merge into one lane!) that cost us another hour or two, no to mention the obnoxious and immature people making prank calls at the top of their lungs and laughing and jumping up and down. We left at 6 on the dot, and didn’t get into South Station until about midnight. We called Jenessa’s sister, and while waiting ate at some Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown, some of the best smoked chicken, duck, and pork with price I’ve had in a while. Since it was late, we decided I would sleep over at her house (surprised her dad allowed it), and so we just chilled and talked after getting back to her house before passing out around 4 or 5 AM.

Left her place around 10 AM and intended on driving to Worcester to pick some stuff up. Think I got on I-93 in the wrong direction thought because I ended up in Cambridge somehow. Managed to find my way back on the highway and was looking for landmarks that I knew how to get back from. Ended up headed in the Logan/Winthrop direction, and from there easily found my way back on the Pike and eventually got to Worcester, picked up stuff and ate lunch, and then drove back to Amherst.

All in all I had an amazing trip, and despite spending so much money, I’d do it all over again in an instant because it was so much fun. Steph turns 21 on September 15^th and we’ll all probably head back into the city for some partying. In the meantime need to start prepping for school again, I have training I think in two weeks or so, and then school starts.

Maybe I'll post pictures later, maybe not.

Feet Injuries

Today’s Thursday, SULA day, but the left foot is still sprained and bending it still causes excruciating pain. This made me think of all the feet-related injuries I’ve had in my life, and oddly I can only think of 3, probably a good thing.

First time I severely sprained my ankle was when I was still going to elementary school in China, I fell down a flight of stairs and rolled all the way to the bottom (this was the stairs leading up to a huge platform 4 stories high).

Second feet-related injury was during junior year of high school. We were practicing for breakdancing club during gym and we were doing backflips and handstands. I propped onto a handstand and attempted to flip backwards onto my feet and kind of missed it. Ended up someone jamming my right foot diagonally into the ground, dislocating my toe. Went to the hospital and after like 2 hours the doctor finally popped it back in place, or so she said. The next couple days it hurt like hell (I was on crutches), so I went back to my own doctor, who was also my friend’s dad and team doctor for the UMass football team, and found out she didn’t fix it, but made it even worse. I got this shot in the foot to numb it, which hurt like hell, and then he just grabbed the toe and snapped it back into place.

And then there is this summers’ sprain. Making the in cut and slipping on the wet grass, hearing a huge crack and that moment I thought I’d broken my ankle or something. Got carried to my car from practice and drove to the hospital (thank god for automatics), and the nurse initially diagnosed me with a broken ankle, later to be determined as a severely sprained ankle with a partial fracture.

So while not being able to run, have been going to Golds Gym on a consistent basis, and noticed that I’ve been able to improve my bench and lifting by about 15 pounds since the beginning of the summer. Need to find some way to do some form of cardio because all this weights are only making me bigger, whereas I am aiming for a leaner but stronger figure.

Also, paid 808 the money for the Downtown Brown jerseys, damn they are just absolutely sick. As for heading out to California for a week or so, that’s looking kind of not happening. Not only is money an issue, but time too. I have work this weekend and next weekend, then I have to visit friends in Boston and New Jersey (for at least a couple days each). By then it will be August and who knows what. Plus tickets are over 200 dollars and I am not guaranteed a place to stay anymore due to my friend over in Irvine being evicted and whatnot. But who knows, it might happen it might not, it’s a 50/50 thing right now.

SULA + Ohio

So I finally contacted SULA and got all this sorted out, and found my team and got my captain and all that. Too bad can't go to the games today, because I'm sitting about 750 miles away. So I was just going to spend the 4th of July weekend either sleeping or going to the city, but instead my Dad calls me and figures we'd go home, so we drove from about 7 PM to 6AM and now we're back.

So good to be back. 808's Downtown Brown and YR jerseys are absolutely sick and will be great to get them.

Westward bound..?

So I don't know what the deal is with SULA, pretty sure the league's started, but I haven't gotten any notices from captains or anybody. I can't play because the ankle is still swollen and bending it hurts a lot, but would still be nice to know that at least there is a team to go to once it's all healed.

Planning for a trip out West in late July. Was entertaining the idea of going back to China. Axed. Going to Australia/New Zealand, not enough money. There is a chance I might not even have enough money to head out West, but we'll see. If I go, it will be flying from Boston to LAX or Long Beach. If I go to LAX, maybe spend a day or two there before headed to Irvine, then SF. If I go to Long Beach I think one of my friends from Irvine will pick me up, and I'll use his house as a base of travel. Maybe hit up LA, then SF, and maybe head North to Davis or something, who knows.

Also the gym workouts have been good, been noticing some subtle changes in tone and stuff. Got to keep it up the entire summer, eat healthy, and hopefully I'll be back up and running soon.

HA-HA! Broken!

First practice with Jiggle the Handle, a competitive mixed club team out in the valley. During inter-team scrimmages, I planted with my left foot, rolled it on the wet grass, and my ankle snapped. Within a minute it was twice the size of my right foot. Splendid way to start off the season and the summer.

Workout

Man, I honestly say I can't remember the last time I was this tired. Did a campus loop followed by a series of sprints up a hill next to my dorm... after that last set I could barely stand up straight and had to rely on a metal rail that led up the hill to get back up to my dorm. After getting into the dorm I couldn't get up to the 4th floor and had to sit on the stairs for several minutes before dragging myself up to my room. Really out of shape... guess this is the first step in a long series of steps to get back into shape and whatnot. In like 5-6 hours, going to head to Gold's Gym.

2008 Graduation

Last Saturday was Class of 2008's graduation. Most of friends like Steph, Jenessa, and Tony went home couple days earlier, but all of them made the trip back, even Steph from Jersey. Lin, Amy, Seth, along with Hoson and Justin (ΛΦΕ) were all walking. Saw bunch of other people graduated too. My good friend Cynthia's husband John was honored as the top student at UMass is going to MIT for his Ph'D in astronomy or biochemistry next year, crazy stuff.

Planning to get a haircut on Tuesday cause pretty sure the shops are not opened on Monday. Its starting to get pretty hot and working out with long hair isn't very comfortable. Also been slowly packing my room, it's going to take so long to move. Classes at HCC start 6/2, two online classes (Biology and American Literature II), and a Biology Lab. Also wonder if there is still enough time to sign up for SULA (Summer Ultimate League of Amherst), since there aren't any teams in the valley anymore, figure should try to at least keep the rust off the throws.

Chilling with ZooB

Kickball

Ah well today was the Annual Southwest North Kickball Tournament. My first semester our cluster barely lost to eventual champions James-Emerson like 4 runs to 3. Then I missed last year’s tournament due to Western New England Sectionals, but from what I heard we lost big, like 15 – 0 and the mercy rule had to be implemented. This year’s tournament we wanted to do better, and I wasn’t the only one. We had several soccer players, my teammate Max and I, but the rest of our staff aren’t really sports material. We are a mix of undergraduate and graduate staff; therefore we are not a cluster filled with athletic undergraduates. Two of our graduate RA’s are like sub-5 feet tall Asian girls who are no more than 100-120 pounds, and others were grossly overweight. We actually were missing like 2 or 3 RAs who had work/lab.

So this year the tournament was held at the Intramural fields, but not the grassy side, unfortunately the ground was hard and literally no grass. It reminding me of the Vegas fields, it looked like a desert. Our first matchup was Melville-Thoreau, and they got off to a hot start. I was surprised because majority of our staff didn’t even know how to play kickball. I guess being international students might have caused this. MT got like 4 runs in the first inning, but we settled down a little bit more.

During one defensive inning, I was playing shallow 2^nd base, and their kicker popped it over our pitcher to this open gap. I ran backwards and laid out over my shoulder. I caught the ball but somehow when I landed my left elbow jammed into my ribs and it hurt, bad. I don’t remember much, but I think I was rolling on the ground for a while before being lifted off the field. At first I thought I had broken a rib or something, but turns out it was bruised. I returned to play couple outs later, though the half inning I was out MT scored 3 more runs, and we ended up losing 7 – 0. Only after the game ended did I realize, I didn’t kick once!

After the game the adrenaline kind of wore off and everything started hurting. My ribcage area hurt like hell whatever I did, whether it was walking, talking, eating, or simply just breathing. After the loss we thought it was over so we just chilled and ate burgers, hot dogs, and chips from the barbeque. Turns out we weren’t done and were scheduled to play Coolidge. However they forfeited and left and we were instead given a bye and was to play for the 3^rd place game.

Max finally showed up (he had concert band). The team we played (I think it was Kennedy) were a bunch of punks; I guess you could say they had bad spirit. They were taunting our senior staff, and I ended up charging at one of them trying to pick a fight and had to be restrained by Pierre. We played and I had several catches, several tag outs, and one hit and a beautiful slide. Other than that we lost again like 2 – 0 or something. Kind of sad seeing that we didn’t win a single game, nor score a single run. We stayed, ate some more, and just relaxed and watched the final between Melville-Thoreau and defending championships James-Emerson. Melville-Thoreau managed to pull out a close one, and we just packed up and headed back.

Other than that I checked up on some Regionals results. It was mostly the expected results, but I was kind of hoping in the Metro East Penn and Maryland would have gotten to Nationals, but it ended up being Pitt and Delaware again. Next weekend is New England Regionals, so hopefully Zoo will be able to do well and make it to Nationals.

GO PINK!

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