Terminally Me

can commit collusion.

Here’s the full disclosure:

As much as I love snow, shoveling it is an absolute bitch, especially considering that we have one of the longest driveways in the neighborhood. As if that isn’t bad enough, every time there’s a big snowstorm, residents of Plainsboro are forced to play the what-is-the-snowplow-driver-going-to-do-now game. Oh, and the bad news is, he always wins.

The biggest irony of snowplows is that they help out the greater good by increasing the suffering of each individual. It’s kind of like Communism, except the problem is bad engineering instead of poor ideology. Here’s the issue: every time that stupid snowplow comes around it basically pushes half of the snow on the road right in front of your driveway, undoing whatever hard work you just put in trying to create a path out of your house. But being smart people, we’ve learned to adapt, and instead of shoveling the whole thing, we leave the bit at the foot of our driveway and just wait until they come around before clearing everything out. At the end of the day, it’s probably the same volume of snow, but at least you don’t feel like crap watching your labor being undone.

Granted, this system isn’t ideal, but it works. The problem is, well, when your snowplow drivers in your township decide to collude.

At around 2pm today, after a couple hours of hardcore shoveling and sidewalk path-making (it’s an art!) on my part, our gracious township snowplow driver decides to show up. Never mind that he is about 6 hours late and caused several hundred families to miss work, but he also decides to shovel every street except for the half of Dogwood Dr. that my house is on. Being the lazy efficient person that I am, I decided to just wait it out. A few hours later, the street was still uncleared, and we were all becoming concerned. While I didn’t have to leave the house (do I ever?) any time soon, my mom still had to go to work tomorrow, so we decided to clear the 10 feet of snow (about 12 inches thick) that still remained between the middle of the street and the bottom of our driveway. But my job wasn’t done yet. As things stood, our Nissan Quest was outside and the Volvo inside the garage. My mom has this issue where she has to drive the Volvo to work or else she doesn’t feel safe. Paranoia increases during the winter season. Whatever. So we had to move the cars, which basically meant I had to move the cars. (Sorry, but to the stereotype that Asian women can’t drive is true. After watching my mom reverse into a snow bank repeatedly for a good minute or so, I decided that I needed to take over). The entire ordeal took about 10 minutes, and we were just about to circle back and park the van in the garage and leave the Volvo outside, when the MOTHERTRUCKIN (literally) snowplow comes back, literally shovels only a 50 feet strip of snow on our side of street (thus causing collateral damage and blocking our driveway), and leaves. At this point I was pretty pissed, and not wanting to clear the driveway again, I basically muscled the van back onto the driveway and into the garage. Predictably, my mom was not so lucky and got her car stuck in the snow bank at the bottom of driveway. So we had to shovel the driveway, again, until I finally got the car safely on driveway. Mission accomplished.

So what’s the theory behind the colluding snowplow drivers? Basically the township guy from the afternoon purposely left a little strip of snow on the street for the mothertrucker (contract guy, not township) who showed up later. It was very suspicious for the first guy to leave the strip of snow because he had spent a good 20 minutes clearing the other half of the street before mysteriously disappearing. He leaves the snow for the second guy, who can basically cash in on an hour’s work (I presume he’s paid by the hour) by doing very little work. Easy money for them, while residents suffer. Next winter, I’m buying a shitload of salt.

make up my mind. Seriously, when it comes to course/major selections, I’m as indecisive as can be. There was one point when I wanted to do Computer Science, then Materials, then Chemical Engineering, then Digital Media Design, and now it looks like I’m right back where I started: good ‘ol comp sci. After a couple of weeks of elementary drawing, I realized that virtually everyone else in my class had some kind of experience before, and I was the only person who was clueless half the time. So now I’m taking a math elective (also needed for my minor) that meets a total of 3 hours less than drawing! It’s a win-win situation for me. That being said, I’m not really looking forward to next semester, when I hope to get most of my core Wharton courses done: ACCT101, MGMT101, MKTG101, STAT430, CIS121, CIS240…some people I talked to recommended taking the honors version of MGMT101 and MKTG101 (better curve), so if I can get into those classes, then it should be significantly better.

David and I also applied for housing in one of the high-rises next year. If we get it (and there’s a good chance that we will), then we’ll be in a quad with two singles and a double (I guess the occupants will switch off after fall semester). But it’s significantly better than Hill, because besides the three bedrooms,  there’s also a common living room and kitchen. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited about this change…if everything works out, I’ll also be a lot closer to Huntsman, so it won’t be a pain in the ass to walk to all my classes (although conversely, going to engineering classes is now going to suck). Either way, I’m considering bringing a bike on campus.

Wow, the last week seemed to fly by. We drove with another family to Florida on Christmas Day, spending the night in a hotel along the way, and boarded the boat at around 5:00pm the next day. We had gotten pretty lucky when we booked our tickets; although we originally booked a room with just an ocean view, we got upgraded to a suite with a balcony, which was really nice. The cruise boat itself, the Costa Atlantica, was magnificent. I had never been on a boat before, so I was pretty amazed by all the facilities that were available on board. From a casino to several theaters, to a modern gym and a miniature jogging track, the ship pretty much had everything. The whole place was like a miniature floating city.

We spent the week visiting four locations: Key West, the Grand Cayman, Roatan, and Cozumel. We usually docked in the morning and left in the afternoon, giving people a good 6 hours or so to explore each destination. Since I’m not a big fan of the beach, my favorite places were Cozumel, (a Mexican Island) and Key West, although jet skiing in the Grand Cayman was one of the funnest of most exhilarating experiences I’ve ever had. Nothing like holding down the throttle and going 50 mph on the open water (I’m surprised I didn’t fall off the boat, haha). Aside from that, I found the informational tours at Key West and Cozumel a lot more interesting than simply walking around in the sun. I didn’t realize that Key West had such a rich history, and I was equally impressed by Cozumel’s “Discover Mexico,” a tourist destination showcasing Mexico’s history through miniature and accurate models of some of its most significant structures and places (both modern and historic). The really cool part was seeing the “miniature” versions of the Temple of the Sun and the Aztec temples–the 50:1 models themselves were several meters across, giving us a good sense of just how massive these things are in real life.

When we weren’t off exploring our island destinations, we basically spent our time alternating between eating and playing cards (with Chinese people haha). I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much food in the span of a week before, and I’ve never seen such a variety of meals among all the ship’s buffets and restaurants. It’s astounding to think that they can even fit and prepare that much food for two thousand people (not including the workers and the crew) over the course of a week and still have leftovers remaining. If I ever get the chance to, I’d love to take a tour of the lower decks just to see how a cruise ship manages to sustain itself on a voyage (lot’s of recycling, I imagine). I also didn’t get seasick like I thought I would. In fact, it was pretty smooth for the entirety of the cruise except for one night, and I still managed to get through it without vomiting.

But now that I’m back in New Jersey, I’m actually appreciating the cold weather. Call me crazy, but I’d much rather be in cold weather than in extremely hot weather. (The mild temperatures of Key West were perfect.) With a little over a week until school starts up again, I don’t really plan on doing anything besides eating, sleeping, reading (I’ve decided to reread The Da Vinci Code), watching movies, and playing PS3 (just ordered Metal Gear Solid 4 from Amazon Prime, haha).

Ah, so it’s been a stressful week, with two midterms, one test, and various club activities. I’m also really sore from working out on Thursday and playing tennis for two hours yesterday. Even though it was the fourth time I was playing tennis, I feel that I’m improving pretty quickly. My swings feel better, and I’m hitting the ball more consistently. I’ve also been able to return some harder shots that I normally wouldn’t have gotten just a couple of weeks ago.

The first week of classes were good. My schedule is extremely chill–I have exactly three classes everyday, and I have ample time to eat lunch everyday. If I get into my Chem Lab, however, it’ll add 4 hours of class to my workload every week, but even so, everything seems manageable. I’ve always found that the easiest way to excel in school is to always stay on top of your work. That doesn’t mean doing all your homework the day they are assigned, but it means planning well and making sure you understand all the material before tests and stuff. So far, I haven’t gotten too much homework, but I expect there will be a lot of reading in my classes, and a lot of MGMT100 work.

Anyhow, today being Sunday, I was able to sleep-in. Yesterday, David and I played pick-up basketball for a couple hours. This, along with the workout I did a couple days ago, made me so exhausted that every muscle in my body felt sore. David’s parents were also kind enough to drive over and bring us some winter clothes and food, which I’m sure we’ll be using in the very near future. I’m also excited that Nadal lost Del Potro, since I’m a huge Federer fan. Speaking of Federer: 22 straight semifinals in majors dating back to 2005. (To put that into perspective, the next longest streak in men’s tennis is 10.) The record is mind boggling, and is a huge testament to the consistency of the Maestro. Sure, he has his weaknesses, but now with Nadal out of the picture, Federer only two wins to obtain a record-tying 6th straight U.S. Open (crazy!). Personally, I think that Federer’s confidence is at an all-time high right now, coming off back-to-back wins at Wimbledon and Roland Garros. And now with Sampras’ record out of the way, he’s playing with almost no pressure. As long as he maintains his focus and doesn’t let up like he did with Soderling, Federer will very likely emerge victorious in the end.