the second part (of 3) of friday

after seeing the campus and meeting some people from the department,
i was supposed to meet up with this vanessa person about renting a room.

she tells me to call her from the burger king by beretania and king street.


i was hungry, so i decided to go there early and eat dinner there.

while eating and working on a math problem,
peter from the math department shows up with his roommate matt.
(a coincidence like this is very rare from my experience)

while having a nice conversation,
matt asks why i was at the burger king.

i told him i was looking to rent a room,
and this was the place where i was to meet up the person to see the place.
(specifically, i left out gender references)

then matt asks, if the person's name was vanessa;
(i couldn't understand how he would guess the person was female,
even more, the same name of the person i was to see.
if you could see me, you might have been able to see the question marks floating around my head...)

i say yes, and ask how he would know.

peter tells me the place i was to see was their old apartment.
(i would say this was a coincidence on top of coincidence)

so the 3 of us go to the apartment to meet up with vanessa.
while we were talking, brian, peter and matt's other roommate shows up.

brian is a rocker type with all kinds of piercings;
he notices my squaresoft messenger bag, and asks where i got it.
i told him i used to work for them before they became square-enix;
i tell him my name is on the credits on the games like final fantasy 8 and 9;
he asks about vagrant story; i say yes.

brian reaches for the top of the tv to grab final fantasy 8 and vagrant story;
i flip through the manuals to show them my name in print on both of the games.
he was impressed; as a default, he wanted me as the roommate;
however, brian lived in another place with no need for another roommate.

the roommate interview with vanessa went ok;
she was to see another candidate, and she would decide after that.


peter wanted to talk some math over some coffee,
so we headed over to the coffee shop nearby.

some people from the math department

the next day, i went to the UH campus.
i met some grad students:
john, james, and peter (the names have been changed)


john is working with the same professor with whom i plan to study.
my impression of john:
pretty quiet, above average smarts, and (probably) diligent



james is planning to take the same qualifier exam i plan to take this november.
my impression of james:
relatively well adjusted and (good) normal for a math guy;
i'm glad to connect with someone that's studying for the analysis qualifier
(praise God)



peter has passed his exams, he's technically ready to start his thesis.
however, similar to my situation a few years back in ucla,
he's taking some time off, and planning to finish his doctorate in the midwest,
where he is from originally.

my impression of peter:
he was ranting something about the qualifier exam, and for the fact that i was planning to rock the exam in november, he was saying that i was his hero for such a mind frame; i'm alright with that...

there's more to this day,
but that would be a lot more writing than i intend for the time being...


--

the trip

due to some mechanical problems with the plane,
the flight from lax was delayed in a big way;

it was supposed to depart at 10:30am,
instead we took off at 6:15pm.


during the hours of waiting,
the airline gave food vouchers;
i got some nachos at the cantina, along with some beer.

the arrival time was about 9pm local time;
from there, "the bus" line #19 took me from the airport to the hotel

i was tired, so i went to sleep immediately...