As of writing this note, I have successfully moved out of the City of Los Angeles, and settled down in the city of Campbell, a beautiful, charming, and quiet city in Silicon Valley surrounded by creek parks, Campbell historic town, and of course, bunch of tech companies. I was fortunate to find a nice one bedroom apartment within two days after moving.

Now that I live alone, I have to say that I miss you all my roommates for the past three years at UCLA, and let me have this opportunity to remark some of the good or bad memories we had together:

Thank you Hamid Ameli for putting up with my cleanliness habits for the first year, and I know that it was harder for you to deal with it for an extra year, and I hope that was the only reason you moved out, and I apologize to you on behalf of our prudent friend who made this situation to a long-term drama by stepping into it unwisely. Besides, I am very happy that we are back together.

Scott McDevitt, I don’t know if you ever come across this post, but I am glad that I was not rooming with you for more than two months; I really not appreciated you drying your dirty shoes in my oven which I used for cooking and leaving your fealty spaghetti dishes all over the kitchen, and by the way, please don’t break into my apartment and step on my bed ever again! Other than that, I wanted you know that you were a cool, and funny guy, and I missed you putting so much sugar into your tea every time.

I owe Stanley a lot for being someone more than a friend; he was a good supporter, and listener. I am sorry that I made fun of you sometimes; you should know that half of the fun in that apartment in Ashton was because of you. I’ll see you around sometimes in the Bay Area.

Michael Ma, all I knew about you the first year was that you are an IEEE project member. But I am happy that we lived together. If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t have known some great people today like my feature lawyer Mr. Bruce Almighty, republican spokesperson Kara Cockerill, feature artist and singer Tenisha Williams, Kristina and Joey, Fiona, and Amy Yiu who I am sure is going to become the next Mother Theresa in the history except that she is not Albanian.

Yen Chen, you are someone special! One day I guess I have to pay $70 to come and watch your competition in Guilty Gear, Star Craft, or whatever game you were playing. I have seen a lot of it; thus I can testify it is worth bidding on your gaming skills. Secondly, if you ever open a restaurant and you become the chef, I’ll be your customer on hourly basis. Your oregano flavored poultry will always carry your signature with it. By the way, thank you for cleaning the room two weeks before I move out, it meant a lot to me.

Nathaniel Roberts, you are a great friend, though, I want you know that one day you make a really good father. It was your help and advice that helped me move on regardless of some tough feelings I had; your experience was a mirror giving me a reflection of myself with a wider spectrum, making it easier to see. If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t have been happy in San Jose now. By the way, I suggest you be cautious with Persian girls because they might distract you too much, and you end up being at UCLA for 10 years.

Daniel Nguyen, welcome home! I know the first few days were awkward with my life packed in boxes lying in the living room, but I want to let you know that you have great roommates. Enjoy your time with them as much as you can. Don’t forget to take advantage of rooftop view and Jacuzzi; it was something I often forgot about.

Last, but not least, the greatest goofy of them all, Mr. Kamran Afshari. You are a great man and relative, but a sneaky paparazzi; for sure one day I am going to be very famous and then you can make a use of your recorded material and pictures, but unlike your intentions, I will benefit from exposure of those materials to public since my definite career is very related to the performances in those pictures and videos. “Yo baastad” left me out! I am the only uncle living here, and I’ll have to make up for your uncle duties too. I’ll make sure that your nephew doesn’t learn anything about you. Hey! Stay strong and keep the ‘V’ card. It won’t lose its value. And if you got an academia opportunity, you better go for it! I hope we all stay tuned and in touch. Leaving LA shouldn’t mean anything except being 320 miles apart. Otherwise our hearts will stay young and beat together.

Respect.

A friend of mine at the registrar’s office told me a story yesterday which I could not resist from publishing it.

Roughly three days ago, on March 29th 2007, the second largest database security bridge of the year was reported by UCLA Registrar’s Office IT personnel. This database which contained student records was altered by a very sophisticated computer hacker who intentionally locked all administrator accounts, disabling them from accessing student records in any way. System Administrators have taken necessary steps to restore backups and bring up the system to the previous step, but according to an IT specialist who declined to state his name, the source of the attack is unknown and it seems that all backups are also infected with the virus or rootkit that hacker used to attack the systems. As a result, there is no way to bring the system back up to its operational state except performing a clean install on all systems located at registrar’s office. What this means is that all student records and course information apparently are lost and not modifiable, thus all of these information must be rebuilt and collected with the help of current and former students, faculty, and staff. The current system running URSA Online only holds the recent information for the spring quarter and some may be inaccurate so students are encouraged to frequently check their registration status.

UCLA’s Chancellor-elect, Dna Cube, said in a meeting that they are not going to address all the risks involved with the information bridge to the UCLA community, but this time they are going to take a more strategic way in handling such situation. Apparently, by accessing registrar’s database, other personal data can be pulled out from the records meaning that the hacker could have accessed student and faculty’s Social Security Number and addresses and telephone numbers, thus, introducing a big risk to the UCLA Community. “We think that our community has already notified their credit bureaus about the previous information security bridge which happened during last year. So, we are confident that there is no need to inform people about identity theft, and we are going to focus on how to get our information back,” Cube said.

But first things first, how they are going to retrieve the lost information? “We are going to introduce three methods for boosting the retrieval of the lost information. Students can either create a complete portfolio of their academic records or mail it to the registrar’s address by July 1st 2007, or professors can resubmit the final roster of the classes they have thought during past 12 years. As an alternative, we strongly recommend those who are interested to reapply to UCLA using UCLinks website and this time their admission is guaranteed, and the entire coursework must be repeated at the increased tuition fees,” Cube said.

Apparently FBI in a visit yesterday was able to trace the source of hacker to be from East Los Angeles near one of the most dangerous gangster neighborhoods. UCLA police department is going to issue a warning soon to notify the community to watch their neighborhood for any suspicious activity since the hackers group may attack individual trash cans and personal clothing. “The hacker’s intention for getting information and disabling the database is not clear yet. Despite issuing a warning soon, we also hired more officers from LAPD and replaced our ~100 Amp taser guns with ~200 Amp taser guns so that one shock will kill the person and thus there would be no after math or lawsuit of whatsoever regarding the usage of taser,” Sergeant Ching Chung Cho said in the same meeting, “we will kill those hacker bastards,” he added.

For more information about this issue feel free to email bridge-info@register.ucla.edu.

Humans do not typically hibernate in winter season, but tonight is significantly different. I myself, who was alone at the apartment, came to Coffee Bean to study. Despite that last night I did not get enough sleep, I haven’t slept since I woke up this morning. The weather is crazy as usual. Two days ago, the temperature was above 80 degrees Fahrenheit and today it dropped below 50s. As of typing this blog, the temperature is 45 degrees and it is getting lower. I have been observing people and wondering if humans hibernate in cold.

The answer is maybe. I have been in touch with most of my close friends today, and during the day everybody was motivated to plan a hangout for tonight. As of now, which is 11:10 pm, most of them are sleeping, but I am sitting in coffee been and am eavesdropping on others. Well, I called one of my friends at 10:30 and realized that I had waked him up by calling him. Two of my other friends were going to bed and three others on the way home and thus to bed, and another one hibernating inside a room on campus taking a nap not being aware that the cold weather might have affected him to fall sleep.

And inside The Coffee Bean, there are many people enjoying hot beverages. Few walked in, pieced off that why it is so cold? They we two girls dressed in skirts and open tops and a jacket. I mean what do you expect; it is 45 degrees out there and you have it open; of course you will be cold. It is funny how people order drinks to keep their hands warm and not enjoy the taste. These couples sitting in front of me are cutely speechless. They are sitting next to the entrance door; as people enter, wind from outside brings a new flesh of cold air inside, and these two couples who are constantly holding their hands together, separate and hold their tea cops. Then they crouch and hold their knees, and after the cold air went away, there are back into the cuddly mood. Their actions are really harmonic and nicely tuned together. For a moment I was thinking whether cold weather causes bonding or causes separation. Last time I heard them, they were talking about how to take it into the bed tonight!..

And Jews are still cheap in cold weather. A Jew man walked in the store 15 minutes ago. He went to the counter and asked if he can have a large iced-mocha for a buck. Large iced-mocha is typically $4.60. He starts the bargain that it is cold and no-one buys cold drinks, and since he wants it, he must get it for cheaper. I this case I concluded that this dude’s mind has already hibernated even though he is physically up.

From O’Hara’s bar across the street I have to say that they are losing business tonight. Every weekend after 10 you usually cannot get in because it gets full, but tonight the front door is still open.

My favorite food places are also very slow because they have outdoors service area. But what would people eat in cold weather? Not iced-mocha! Thus people’s stomach hibernates too.

So in conclusion, cold weather affects human and its functions. Watch out people, it is cold season, make sure you same stuff inside just in case you did not feel like going out to cold for eating or shopping.