Going to the gym...

Hi! So today, I went with Nick to the nearby 24 hour fitness and signed myself up for a membership...I'm being added onto his membership, so now we have a family membership, yay! Now that means that I have to go to the gym and start losing all this weight that I've gained in the past 8 months. I'll let you know how that goes...

On thursday, our office went to Go Kart World for a day of go karting! It was a lot more fun than I had expected. We reserved the three big tracks, so once we were done with one track, we didn't have to wait to go on another track. I did get hit from behind and forced into the wall once, but that was the only major accident I had. There was a slick track which was a small oval track with very slippery turns. Because of this, we all hit each other many, many times, in fact, we hit each other so much that at the end of the race, we were lectured by the operators about using the brakes and that they would start kicking people out. The next day, many of us found bruises on our back and were sore.

Nick and I saw "stick it" yesterday, and it wasn't that bad. We especially liked some of the lines from Joanne, the ditzy gymnast. And my new goal is to get one of the Hale girls to perform the worm on the beam...that would be cool.

Ok, that's all for now. Hope you're doing well...BYE!!!

Jerry Liu

Kylie and cheerleading

Hi! So, Nick and I were watching the national cheer and dance competition on TV (actually, I was the one watching it, Nick was in the living room and watched part of it, against his will), and the reigning dance champions, BYU, were up and I immediately recognized their first song as the intro. to Kylie's "Limbo." I thought it was an interesting choice of songs considering that it isn't well known at all, but it worked since it is a very upbeat song. Anyway, they won the competition again, and they deserved it because they really did look better than all the other teams.

Nick left for Seattle today and will be working from the Kirkland office this next week. It'll be lonely again, but at least he'll be returning Friday night, rather than some later date. This Thursday, Google's going to have a company outing. We're going to go go-kart racing at a park about 30-45 minutes away. Nick isn't going, which made me not really want to go 'cuz I wasn't sure who I would know. My manager's going, so at least I'll know one person. But, i did find out that three of the raters are going, as well as some of the recruiters, so I'll be able to hang out with non-engineers. YAY!!!

Last Thursday night, the company had an in-office happy hour where we invited a pool pro to show us some trick shots and teach us a few things about pool. It was really cool to see him perform the trick shots, but it was really great to learn how to hit the ball, how to bank balls, kick at balls, and just generally improve our pool game. And at the end, he seemed genuinely thrilled that there were 15 or so people left who had stayed and watched him until the end, and we were all very honored to have him in our office. It definitely motivated more of the Googlers to play pool.

Nick and I bought some ping pong balls for the office ping pong table. For some reason, we seem to lost ping pong balls very quickly. Some get damaged, but other just disappear. It's very odd, and very frustrating when anyone wants to play ping pong only to find out that there are no balls. Anyway, we got a 24 count package of ping pong balls...but I held onto 6 of them, so there are 18 balls available for general use. I hope they last for at least 2 weeks, but I don't have such high hopes for these poor balls.

Oh, and I'm excited that Alias has come back, but I have no idea what's happening in the show...it's all very crazy, but i'll still watch the last 5 episodes.

Ok, hope all of you are doing well...does anyone still read this blog? BYE!!!

Jerry Liu

benign positional vertigo

Hi! So for the past few days, I've been feeling a bit dizzy...not soo dizzy that I was nauseous and not so lightheaded where I felt like I was going to faint, but it was very annoying to work through such a sensation. Today i went to the doctor and told her what was going on with me, and she said that since my symptoms were rather subtle, that I could have one of two things. She decided that for now, she's going with the diagnosis that I have "benign positional vertigo." She said that there isn't any treatment for it, and that it should go away after a while, but that I shouldn't be surprised if one day I wake up and my vertigo is very severe where for 24 hours or so, I feel like the whole world is spinning. I really hope that this doesn't happen. But for now, she told me to take some medication to treat the symptoms of dizziness...the only problem is that it could make me drowsy. I think I'll take it tomorrow morning and see just how drowsy I get and to see if I feel better.

Oh, and I had some blood tests and the doctor said that my results were fine, but that she didn't ask me whether I drank alcohol. According to her, my liver test showed signs of some effect of alcohol. Considering that I don't drink, this was very surprising news...so I guess this is a good reason for me not to drink if my liver isn't all that healthy.

In other news, Nick arrived Monday night. He was supposed to arrive late Monday night, but he took a much earlier flight and was in the apartment when I arrived. It was a wonderful surprise since I was getting incredibly lonely at night. He's staying for this week as well, but will be going back to Kirkland next week.

Yesterday, we went to a party hosted my Marija, another Googler. It was nice to sit around and talk about things other than Google projects. One of the other Googlers was surprised to hear that Nick and I met each other before working at Google...I guess it's easy to assume that we met at work and not anytime prior to that.

Ooh, and hopefully tomorrow, we'll have our landline so that we can actually activate our Direct TV receiver. It'll be great to actually watch cable...especially considering that we've been paying for it since we've moved in.

And that's all for now. BYE!!!

Jerry Liu

faulty washer/dryer

Hi! So last weekend, I placed a service request for my washer/dryer because it wasn't drying well at all. Like, once it was finished "drying," I would take out the clothes and still have to hang dry it for hours until they clothes completely dried. Well, the repairmen showed up this morning to fix the motor, which was the problem, I guess (I actually don't know why it wasn't drying). I actually had to leave while they were fixing it because I was going to play tennis with another Googler, Mark. When I got back home, the washer/dryer was claimed to have been fixed, so I ran a load of clothes. Well...it appears that something is wrong with the draining mechanism 'cuz the machine won't drain at all. So right now, my clothes are sitting in soapy water, and I can't take them out to dry them 'cuz this is a front load washer, so in order to take my clothes out, I would need to put something under the door to collect all the water. Since I don't have any receptacle that big, I'm just going to leave my clothes there until the repairmen show up tomorrow morning. And thus concludes the story of my faulty washer/dryer.

In other news, I went to the mall today to buy a bath rug and also to get a copy of Kingdom hearts 2. I watched most of the opening sequence (I needed to cook dinner, which is why I stopped it partway through), and listened to Utada Hikaru's english version of the theme song for the game, "Sanctuary." It's the first time I've ever heard the entire version of the song, and I think I prefer the Japanese version.

Nick was planning on returning to Santa Monica this weekend, but it appears that the movers aren't arriving until tomorrow morning, so he's planning on returning tomorrow night. I can't wait until he arrives...the nights have been incredibly lonely :(.

I visited the main office on Thursday to attend a presentation by my mentor, Teresa. I was also there to be introduced to the other key people on our team, Jason and Mike. Initially when we arrived, Teresa got an e-mail saying the two of them weren't going to be at the presentation, meaning that I wouldn't be meeting them at all. But then, they were able to schedule a meeting while I was still there, so I finally was introduced to them, and all was well.

And I think that's all I have for now. Hope all of you are doing well. BYE!!!

Jerry Liu

New apartment

Hi! So last weekend, Nick and I moved out of the condo and into our new apartment in Santa Monica. The movers were supposed to arrive Saturday night, but I guess they were running late, so they postponed it to Sunday morning. The good thing about that was that we could sleep in our bed for one more night, as opposed to on the floor in our new, but unfurnished apartment.

Nick drove his car to our house in Kirkland this weekend, and hopefully he's there right now. We're not sure when the movers will arrive with our stuff, but Nick will be there this week waiting for them leaving me by myself in our apartment for the entire week. i mean, I do have Kitty, but right now she seems more interested in sleeping in her cat bed which, by they way, she has never slept in during the year and three months we've had it. i have no idea what prompted her to want to sleep in it now, but it's sooooo cute!

Anyway, since we did move everything of the condo to Kirkland, we had to do something about the new apartment, so we decided to rent furniture. They delivered it on Monday and when we arrived after work, we found the furniture neatly arranged and in very good condition. I didn't tell them that Nick and I own a cat, and we didn't think it would be too much of an issue, but Kitty seems to really like scratching the corner of this couch. I wonder how much of the deposit we'll lose?

I've completed my second week as a linguist, and it's been a lot of work (not like I expected it to be easy...). I did become sick during the middle of the week, and had to stay home on Thursday, but I think I've recovered from whatever it was that i had.

I lost to my manager's manager at work in the ping pong tournament. I thought I played rather well, but he was returning almost every shot that I hit, including some slams. For some of the shots, I basically thought I won the point, but he returned it and left me in shock and totally unprepared to continue the point. Seriously, he should not have been in the loser's bracket...

There might also be a pool tournament once the ping pong tournament ends, and I think i fare a better chance of doing well in that tournament. I played against a few other Googlers during the past week, and I was doing well--winning something like half of my games. Nick realized that even though i lost on Friday, he did say that even me on an "off" day is better than most of the office. Now if only I could learn how to do a jump shot.

And since Direct TV isn't working, most likely because we don't have a landline which is probably necessary to activate the receiver, I'm watching very basic cable. Right now, i'm being entertained by the cinematic masterpiece, Mortal Kombat. Sadly enough, i think this is my third of fourth time watching this movie. Oooh, and the actress playing Sonya Blade is Pete Sampras's wife.

And on that note, I will end this entry. Since Nick isn't around to distract me, I'll try to update again this week. BYE!!!!

Jerry Liu