under my umbrella

...i still get wet.

it is currently monsoon/typhoon season, and of course, that means seasonal summer rain.

today, i went biking with michael, robert, allen, and jeff with the intention of going to Hengchun to get hair cuts, supplies, etc. but right as we left the gated area of nmmba, the skys opened. i was literally dripping water from my arms and legs as we rode back the 500 meters back to the lab to get ponchos and plastic bags for our stuff. then of course, as we rode back out, the skys were clear, for the moment. bike ride literally took about 1 hr, considering the strong wind resistance and the rain pouring down... fun.

didn't do much in town except eat some beef noodle soup, buy a few random things, and a mahjong set (felt jipped; i paid about $499NT for a miniature set... then i went into a bookstore today and saw a nicer set for $10NT more D=)

after getting back at 7:30pm and riding in the rain for another hour, i went to take a shower in the apartment. first thing i see, a centipede. hmm... hope they aren't frequent visitors.

let's see.. i got roommates over the weekend. melissa and annie, both are PhD students at SIO and UCSB respectively. they both pretty nice and awesome, but now i'm sleeping in the living room, on the sofa... haha. it's ok, i've gotten used to it, plus it's almost like having a room to myself, whereas annie and melissa are both in the room.

michael, robert, and i met up with cindy zheng of SDSC and tony tuesday while we were in taichung... and with hank too. psh, awol hank decides to show up and feign intelligence to our mentor and a few important spokes people.. lameass. anyway, we all went back to kenting together (except for hank).

of course, because cindy was there, us PRIME kids got pampered for a day... went to the tourist portion of the aquarium, had our lunch and dinner paid, and we to the kenting night market for the first time. blah. it was fun though.. while it lasted.

anyway, my experiment finally seems to be starting up now, but of course only because cindy was there and voiced some of our concerns to tony... *sigh* we'll see how everything comes along in these next couple of weeks.