An Update!

It would be impossible to cover everything well in one post, so instead, I'll comment on various things that have happened recently:

1. Earlier this week, a few people decided to take over a building on campus to protest the education cuts. It must have been a big deal, with three helicopters flying over over the school, but only about 100 people showed up to their National Day of Action to Defend Education out of 30,000+ students.

2. It might not snow here, but it gets cold. Afternoons are around 60, and nights are 45 or so. In other words, it's not cold enough to wear a winter coat, but a little too cold to be comfortable wearing only a sweatshirt.

3. Skateboarding is a popular form of transportation around here. On the other hand, more than once I've seen somebody hurtling down Bancroft on a skateboard, only for their face to have a sudden and unfortunate meeting with the pavement.

4. Considering all the ultra-neurotic people at Boalt, which is supposed to be one of the most laid-back law schools, I wonder where they all came from, since I don't really ever remember meeting any neurotic people at Yale. In fact, the only other Yalie I know of is also pretty laid back.

5. I bought 26 oranges for about $5 a few weeks ago in Chinatown. Produce in Chinatown is so amazingly cheap. I don't know when I might finally eat the last orange.

6. I also bought four lemons for a dollar, except that I didn't know they were lemons. They're the biggest lemons I've ever seen, bigger than an orange. Now I have no idea what to do with them.

7. After months and months of delay, I finally bought a new computer. Then it got recalled. They cancelled my order, but didn't bother cancelling the warranty that came with the computer. Bastards.

8. Besides my computer ordering troubles, I've been having computer troubles with my current laptop. About two or three weeks ago, the computer suddenly started bluescreening constantly. At first, I thought maybe it was a problem with some corrupted OS files. But it wasn't that. I was afraid it was a hard drive failure, but then thought it was the CPU overheating. But it wasn't that, so I thought it was the motherboard failing, which would have been really bad. But it wasn't that, so I thought again that it was the hard drive failing. But the hard drive had no errors. I really had no idea what might be wrong. Finally I decided to test the RAM, and after taking out a stick of RAM, the computer has been running fine since then. Unfortunately, with only half the RAM as before, things are running much more slowly, but at least it isn't bluescreening. In my usual procrastinating manner, I've been putting off buying new RAM, mostly since I haven't completely confirmed that that stick of RAM is defective... even though my computer hasn't been bluescreening since. One day I will get some new RAM, I hope.

9. Gas is higher than ever. Unfortunately, I'm now driving more than ever. Gas is nearly $4 a gallon here, and most places either don't take credit card, or they charge higher prices for using a credit card. So I have to withdraw money from my account constantly. It was pretty rare to see a place on the East Coast do that, but it seems to be pretty common here on the West Coast, or at least in the Bay Area.

10. I still don't have a bed. Or rather, I still don't have a mattress. One day, that might change. One day.

11. I met someone from Cambodia today.

12. Did you know you can file your taxes by phone?

13. I would promise to update more often, but I shouldn't be making promises I can't keep. Under-promise and over-deliver.