Adventures in Texas: Day 1

Today marks the first day that I travel to a different state. It was so exciting that I couldn’t sleep! Though that’s some what of a lie ahaha. One of the reasons why I was able to stay up all night was mainly because of the fact that my father needed a new computer for his work. While I was working the night before the flight, I had called a few of my friends to see if there was an extra tower that they had that they would separate for about a hundred dollars. My friend Narunet had just that so I asked him to bring his parts to my place when I finished work. We actually had a few cases at home that could possibly had worked. To my dismay, the motherboard that he had brought was too long for both the cases that I had. Narunet actually had a case that he could have given but didn’t mention it because he said it was disgusting. So as we went to his place to grab it, I caught up a little with Chrissy and then went to see the case. I immediately could see why he had said it was disgusting; the case was full of cat litter and hair. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was but it had startled me. Anyway, after catching up, we had went back to my place to put everything back together. The funny thing is that once we mounted the board back, we found out that the video card that he had brought was the wrong one and didn’t fit the motherboard that he had brought. One more trip to his place to grab the video and finish putting the computer together for real. By the time we had finished, it was around 1 o’clock in the morning. It doesn’t help that we were catching up and talking for most of the time in the night. So we went to see if the computer worked. The good news: it worked! All the parts were functioning correctly. The bad news: the OS was randomly corrupt. The good news: I still had the flash drive Narunet lent me to reinstall Windows 7. The bad news: It wouldn’t work. More bad news: Nothing we did worked including a copy of Windows XP that I had. By this time it was 4 o’clock in the morning. While I figured that he would probably have stayed up this late anyway, I apologized to him but he said it was alright. Narunet didn’t mind since we managed to talk a lot during that time and the quality of our discussion was valuable. He’s a good friend of mine and he’s got a good head on his shoulders. While he may have been one of those guys who didn’t do much at school, he’s also a guy who knows how to think and can do so more than most. This concludes the prelude to my journey to the flight.

When the time had reached 5:45am, I woke my mother up. It was supposingly a thirty minute drive to the airport so I wanted to wake her up fifteen minutes before we left. Boarding was at 6:45am and the plane would depart at 7:15am. As we left the house and went onto the freeway, it was a bit startling and worrisome at first since it was crammed and not moving for a bit. After a while, we had started moving at 50mph. It took only a few minutes to get back to moving to the normal speed limit of 60mph. We managed to get to the airport at the planned time of 6:30am. My mother said her farewells and insisted that I would shed a few tears wanting her back with me. I can assure you that was not the case and still is not… for now. This was my first time at an airport so I was a bit nervous. Fortunately it was very easy to navigate and I managed to find the direction I needed to go. As I approached the line where we would put our items through the belt of doom, I simply followed what everyone else was doing. I heard what the employees were reminding. They kept saying to separate any sort of bottled liquid we had. The unfortunate thing was that I did not know that you could not bring large bottles of any liquid thing. I had brought my whole thing of liquid soap only to be disposed when one of the employees had seen it. The asian in me was screaming at myself and the man for even considering on throwing it away. It was going to cost $20 for a bag check or something so for the sake of saving money, I asked to discard the liquid soap. It was sad but it was needed.
When I finally boarded the plane, I was a bit excited. I had a small childish smile in the corner of my mouth for quite a while as I walked to my row. It was nice to finally place my duffel bag in the overhead storage; the duffel bag was heavy and it started to hurt my shoulder. I sat down right next to the window and began to wait. I took out the laptop and headphones thinking that these two items would be the main electronics that I’d use for the rest of the trip. I couldn’t really use them during the intial departure, but I really wanted to see if there was wifi in the plane. I saw a small sign saying that there was wifi in the plane. I was thoroughly excited to think that I would have entertainment while I was on the plane. Priorities first though. I kept watching outside the window the entire time the plane started to move. This was the real reason why I was so excited to be on the plane. As we began to start approaching the take off stripway, I was impatient and wanted to leave as soon as possible. I was a complete child at this point (though surprisingly was able to contain my excitement). When we finally took off, I had the biggest smile I have had in the longest time. I began to see things get smaller and smaller as we began to gain altitude. It was the first time I have ever seen anything like it. The rollercoasters in Wild Waves were nothing in comparison to everything I was seeing! Since I wasn’t sure of when I was able to use any of the electronics, I decided to take a short nap. Surprisingly, I wasn’t really that tired. I only took an hour nap and woke up feeling completely refreshed. Perhaps it’s because I’m just that excited. So now here I am, typing this entire thing out on a Microsoft Word document. Yep, that is where I initially wrote this blog entry. I’m borrowing my sister’s laptop since I will need it when I post something for class. So my sister made a guest account called Lame Loserhead using the foreveralone.jpg image as the profile image. I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit when I saw that. That’s something I would expect out of my sister. Another thing I expected from my sister: my account was given NO access to anything. So all I have are the main programs and internet explorer. I know, please refrain from gagging and preparing some kind of witty comment in response to that. Not only that, I wasn’t able to see what networks were available in the plane so no internet. I’m going to call my sister when she is finished with school in order to get internet. So now here I am, typing in this laptop to pass the time. Luckily it has taken me thirty minutes to type this entire entry up to now. I take a look outside the window and I see a lot of mountains. In fact, there’s a startling vast amount of brown. Something I’m definitely not used to seeing. I’m confused about one thing though right now as I type this. In the email, it had estimated that the flight would take about four hours. Before I left, the application on my phone suggested it would take 3 hours and 50 minutes. When I boarded the plan, they insisted it would take 3 hours and 10 minutes. So perhaps I will be able to get to Dallas sooner than I had originally planned. This could potentially be a good thing and a bad thing. I guess we’ll just have to see. For the time being, I will turn the laptop off to conserve energy and continue listening to my awesome music.
Alright so time for an update. Not so much of an update for you guys since I am putting this in one entry but I figured that I could do this to kill the time. Right now, it’s 10:50am PST but in Dallas it’s around 12:50pm. We’re right above the landing strip but we’re not landing. I’m not too sure of the reason but I just heard that we’ll practically be circling around for an entire hour. I am not too happy about that. That’s an entire hour of being right above the destination that I want to be. At the very least, I want to be able to watch the plane descend. I think that’s what disappointed me the most honestly is the fact that I won’t be able to see the plane descend for another hour. Though it is a bit of an inconvenience for my friend who’d pick me up around that time too. Nightmaren does have a lot of things to do and I don’t want to cause an inconvenience to my friend in any way. It’s a bit saddening but as a wise man once said, “It is what it is.” C’est la vie as they say. So now I’m on my sister’s laptop… just trying to kill time. I really don’t know what else to talk about at this point because I have most of it covered now. I guess I could start off on just how brown it is here. I’m used to seeing a lot of green given the fact that I live in the Evergreen state. Though I guess I’m a bit worried upon leaving the plane. I’m afraid that I will melt as soon as I step off the plane. Though I’ll only know once I actually get off. Honestly though I don’t see why we have to circle for another hour. The only possible explanation I can think of off the top of my head is that there are other planes that are descending and they are taking their sweet time with everything. Who knows. I sure as hell don’t. At least

Okay, I stopped there because we were about ready to land. Looks like we ended up landing in time. The only problem is that my friend came a bit later than expected but it was okay. Let me tell you… it’s really weird to meet an online friend that you’ve known for a long time in person. It’s weirder because it feels natural and not as awkward as I would imagine it being. Once I actually put thought into it, I realized that it’s almost unnatural to feel that way but I think it’s okay. There are bonds that one can develop over the course of time regardless of distance. The thing is that it’s difficult to create that kind of bond. I don’t mean to be on my high horse when I say this, but I am very confident that I can be the person that everyone has known me to be. I don’t change the way I am just because there’s a computer between me and my friend. Though I will admit that text based conversations are a bit harder to read into when it comes to my behaviour. Anyway, when my friend picked me up, we went right on to find my motel. It took about an hour just to find the dang place! It was ridiculous. It was also in an inconvenient spot BUT it was worth it in the end. The room came out to be worth the 40 dollars I spent booking this room. Fairly wide, king sized bed, table with two chairs, sink, bathroom, flat screen television, and just nice space. You’ll see them soon in the pictures attached. After I got settled into my room, I went into the Fuddruckers that was near by (only a few meters away) and had a burger. My brethren shall be remembered for his sacrificed.

After I had finished eating, I went to proceed to hanging out in my room for a little bit. I took a shower and began to sketch. Shortly after, I asked my sister for the password to her account. Once I got in, I started to post in the classroom discussion boards. Then I began to sketch after Nightmaren called me asking if I wanted to hang out while helping out in the lab. Night came in and hung out for a short time and gave me a figure of Kud from Little Busters. I was instantly happy. I then thought about Wizzy and how much he loves Kud. I’ll show him eventually. Anyway the work was a lot of fun because there was thirty minutes between each time Nightmaren would sonicate the experiment’s chemicals, Night would give me a tour of the school. Nightmaren only did it twice so we had a total of about an hour touring the entire campus. It was a lot of fun and it was fascinating on what the students of the school had contributed to the school. Not only that, the designs of the buildings were very well done as well. They were even renovating some parts of the older building! Just goes to show that they mean business. I was hoping that I could purchase a lab coat but I misunderstood my friend and found out that I couldn’t. I’ll get one eventually. After that, we went to Walmart because I needed to get a few things. After I got travel toothpaste, shaving cream, shampoo and conditioner, I decided to also get some instant noodles. Can’t have food without some drinks as well. When I say that, I only mean Caprisun and Arizona tea. The good stuff. On the way back however, there was a terrible lightning storm that came out of nowhere. To think that my area’s weather was bi-polar; Texas’ weather was that on an entirely different level. On the way back to the motel, I would try to catch the lightning but that didn’t work. I ended up recording it while I was in the car.

That pretty much concludes my day and I’m going to spend the rest of it just chatting away and sleeping what would normally be 3 o’clock my time when it would be 5 o’clock here. Until then!