Well, I thought since I've been griping so much on my Xanga site, I might bring back my Nice Thing of My Day page. This is actually inspired by Alice Kim. I was talking to her earlier today and I was reminded of a conversation we'd actually had before--about how I'm already writing in my journal about my frustrations and my bad days, and how she writes in her journal about her good days and when she's feeling happy. Good idea, huh? So just to remind myself that life isn't all bad, here we go.

This is actually from last week--I dropped by to visit Kato-sensee, my Japanese professor from undergrad. I had a really good time talking to her, as usual (despite my deteriorating Japanese speaking ability =p). On my way out, this student stopped me, asking if I was "Kim-san." I said I was, and the student (uh oh..i forgot his name already. jim?) told me he'd recognized me from the pictures on my Tokyo/Yokohama super short tour-guide website. wow. He actually wasn't even taking Japanese at UIC, and aside from meeting Kato-sensee once to take a placement exam, he hadn't even talked much with her. So how he got to my website through her website is beyond me, but I'm flattered. Someone is reading a website I made! (I think I should go fix the messed up Akihabara kanji on that site now....) He even recognized me from the picture. imagine that.

5/24/03

Hm guess I've been neglecting this end of my website a bit. I suppose the inocuous minutia of my life is kept at my Xanga site. This means that if you came from there, you probably already read about my nice thing for today. Actually, it's from a couple days ago, but it's giving me a better outlook for the summer so I think it's definitely still worth writing about. Alright, now that I've built it up, my nice thing of the day is simply the fact that Kai, the lab guy that I work with at the VA, told a funny story. I don't really remember all the details of the story...something about the warnings on light bults that say "do not place in mouth" and how a guy actually tried it and got it stuck somehow. He cabbed it over to the hospital to get it removed. He apparently amused everyone in the ER, who, had seen the warning and thought this guy was an idiot. The story ended with the man finding another guy in the ER with the same problem--the cab driver had presented with a lightbulb stuck in this mouth as well.

Ok, so the story wasn't all that funny...but coming from a guy who I had thought was rather unpersonable and unapproachable, it was a start. I think it was from that point that I felt more comfortable with the idea of spending the next 8 or more weeks with him in the lab--so for me, it was a very welcome gesture.