geometry

I recently got a job through the UA as a middle school math tutor and my first day was yesterday. My family all asked me if any of the kids asked if I was their age, and even though one of the 7th grader's moustache was way better than I could ever grow (kind of like this one), I can still indignantly reply that to them I am definitely a cool college kid. I'll have to fight off those 6th grade girls, that's for sure. Don't worry Sharon, if they make any advances I'll blind them with my ring and tell those fiends to back off.

The 7th graders were learning geometry, and I realized that I had forgotten quite a bit since those days. One question asked the kids about "regular polygons" and I had no idea what that meant. I realized a good trick, though, to reviewing something I had forgotten. Simply ask a smart kid. I approached what looked to be a smarty pants (he wore glasses and was smaller than the other kids) and said:

"Hey buddy, let me see what you know, tell me what a regular polygon is"

"Well... it's a shape that no matter how you turn it, it always looks the same"

"Bingo! You nailed it"

Haha, those kids actually think I'm smart :)

music for robots

While at the library Thursday night I had a sudden yearning for some new music (probably instigated by a desire to waste time and stop doing homework). I did a quick google for "MP3 Blog" and found this one: Music for Robots. It's more of an indie/underground site and he posts MP3's fairly regularly.

I think you will all like this one by Neko Case: People Got a Lot of Nerve

Holiday Hiking

Monday was MLK day, and Sharon and I went for a hike in the morning. On the way down, Sharon had to go to the bathroom. Thus, my sexy wife ran down the mountain at ludicrous speed and I followed her down in 1/3 the time it took us to get up. I realized that I love trail running.

Wow look at that pose!
OK now look at my pose. I started to turn into a bush.

Tucson looks so green! I think I messed with the colors too much on this one.

Us at the top of the hike at an old abandoned gold mine.

Then, some strange things happened and we lost color.

The next time you see us, don't be surprised if we're still silhouettes.

Back to the real life

We finally came back to the real life after the wonderful wedding and honeymoon, for those who are wondering, I'll give you some scoop...

Last Sunday night I called my mom in China, after talking about the wedding and honeymoon stuff, the first thing she asked was "Do you know how to cook?"... I said" Yeap, mom? I had a lot practice in Beijing. " Secretly, I was thinking sadly, mom, you don't have faith in your daughter! Well, I cant blame my mom though, I probably seldom cooked at home since I left my hometown for high school. And before high school, I probably had no idea how to cook. The conversation about cooking finally ended because my mom asked " Does Sam know how to cook?" I said, "yep, mom, he's way better than me!" So, she finally knew that we won't starve to death, and she was relieved.

Since Monday, I've been trying to cook following the recipes, because I don't want to make my poor husband to eat chinese food everyday. Though we didn't have all the ingredients we need, but the chicken drumsticks turned out good (at least not too bad ). Sam complimented a lot about that, which made me happy and pumped. Way to go, Sam... Haha :)

Sam suggested that we made cookies and gave to neighbours. So, Tuesday night, I started to bake cookies the second time of my life. You might notice I used "the second time", the first time the cookies were really good with the help of Kendra, my co-worker Kyle's wife. This happened even before I started dating Sam. This time, Sam wanted to use mom's recipe. I told myself, that's not a big deal, if I can follow the protocols to do experiments in the lab, of course I can cook in my kitchen!

You probably know how the cookies turned out, I almost cried a couple times. Sam said some of them looked good to him, even though some didn't look good, they have a beautiful inside. But I thought it was totally NOT TRUE!! In the end, I blamed the cheap $2 pan we bought from "Save A Lot" to make me feel better.

Last night, we finally gave some cookies to our neighbours, and also got to buy some nice pans from "Bed, Bath & Beyond". So, next time, I don't know what I'm going to blame for my cookies... Oh, well

Married At Last!

The Chinese babe and the American gangally guy finally came together and got married. Yeah! Thank you mom and dad for all your work planning the wedding, to Stacy for a delicious wedding cake, to Kerri for helping Sharon with her makeup and making her even more beautiful than ever, to Joedy for helping Sharon get ready, to people in the ward for helping with flowers, to all my family and friends who came to the wedding, to everyone who gave us gifts so generously, and to everyone else who I can't name. Everything about the wedding was perfect, and it was a night Sharon and I will every be grateful to have shared with everyone.

Here are a few pictures to prove how amazing things were:

Sharon, the angel, descending down from above. You might have noticed my eyes get misty when I saw this.

Her walking ever closer to be my wife.

Man and wife!

Man and wife again! Actually, this was taken right before the ceremony. Man and almost wife.

Beautiful bride.

And my great family.

The honeymoon was great, and as a bonus we even got free tickets to Disneyland. On Sunday, we dressed for church and were going to the Hotel lobby to check a phone book for a church address. On the way down in the elevator, we talked to a man and his daughter and made a joke about him holding some pink slippers in his hand. He said they were his wife's, and said we could have them. I told him he couldn't give out his wife's slippers like that. 5 minutes later, in the lobby, he approached us and said he had two tickets to Disneyland they couldn't use (in other words, he asked us if we wanted $150)! We were amazed and grateful. Disneyland was fun, I've never heard Sharon scream so much. Aside from this, good sea food, tandem rides on the beach, chilly dips in the ocean, and camping on the way home made for a great time.

Now it's back to real life, but as Grandma told me: life is sweeter when you have someone you love to share it with. Can't wait.