Meanderings

The clock strikes five and the my day is over. I exit Dwinelle and start walking home. The sky's a brilliant mix of colors, a canvas of blue embellished with a vibrant ribbon. At times like this, I rue the fact that I've only my camera phone. Sure, its a trade-off, one that I gladly made and would do so again - still, theres always fun in being a petulant unsatisfied arse.

And this is the place I call now call home. In Berkeley, there really is no predominant theme to the architecture. As Grace would say, its the trees that hold this place together. And the squirrels, you really can't forget the squirrels. They're everywhere. And this place, Unit 1, for all I ever so self-deceptively rave about its funky architecture and about how every rectangular patch of green is ever so different (save those three swathes of grass), is mainly concrete. I'd like my place to look wooden in a Balinese fashion, or be composed of Modernist glass-and-steel, or have the pastel colors and clean lines of Ikea. But I have concrete.

Which of course, is really no basis for complaint. I'm here in California, land of beaches and sun-tanned babes (though that would probably apply more if I were in SoCal). I could have been stuck somewhere frigid or somewhere scorching or *gasp* be back home listening to UMNO-putra rhetoric. But the soul always longs for something more, something greater, something that doesn't bore. Perhaps happiness can only exist after that part of us has been hacked off by reality. But what price happiness. So hey, what's a guy to do when he's bored here?

STUDY!!!

*Warily looks around for signs of parents and of Astro minders* Nah, San Francisco is so close by and it only costs ~$3 from Berkeley to the Powell Street Station near Union Square. There're plenty of trains and public transport will actually get you places here. I guess I'm just a dork, but I was actually screwing up at the darned automated ticketing machines. All my paper notes are so crumpled up, and I had to slowly smoothen them before I put them in. And these darned American notes are so crappy. For one, they're all green. Every single notes. Yeah, American greenbacks. C'mon we could do with some color here. And number two, they're not like cool plastic-ky Malaysian money.


Anyway, we first went to eat pho - some Vietnamese dish, 'cause Kevin my floormate is Vietnamese. He made that very clear to us for the rest of the day by showing us his stereotypical "Vietnamese speaking English" accent. Blargh. Terrible. And then we went of to Harrison's home, 'cause he needed to get some money from his mom.

Well, the houses in San Francisco are tiny. I don't ever want to live there, more so since public transport there is readily available. At least the roads are wide.
We actually stayed at Harrison's place for a while, and watched reruns of American Idol. 'twas the first season, with Kelly Clarkson still in the group stages at the early rounds of the auditions. Seeing all of us happily lambast the participants for the most trivial of matters, made me realize how pathetic we all were. But owh well, here's to being human and flawed. And then we got to Japantown, mostly because white Shaun wanted to get some shaving cream that he had in Japan once. I call him white Shaun not because I'm racist but because I'm just to lazy to remember his last name. There a chinese Shaun as a well, who doesn't live on our floor but is always around 'cause his girlfriend does.
Being in Japantown was so awesome, mostly because there was so much sashimi around, all the Japanese food that I couldn't eat 'cause I'm Malaysian and poor (by American standards). That I could eat. Well, I guess that makes it a little less awesome. Maybe that makes it suck. Gosh, I swear that I shall get rich just so that I will be able to gorge myself with all the sashimi I want some day. Well, the afternoon swept by quickly and it got dark and I went back home.

And I still haven't been on the Golden Gate Bridge yet. I seriously got to get that done sometime. Hmm, I'm leaving for Tahoe in an hour's time. Pictures of me snowboarding when I get back.