Firstly, I'd like to report that I've completed my senior honors thesis and will graduate with honors!  My classes during my last semester weren't the most difficult ones offered at Cal, but I wanted to go back and do what I should have been doing all along and take some courses for fun!  My class schedule for my last semester at Cal is as follows:
 

Class	Units	Grade	Description
Japanese 1A	5	A	Elementary Japanese
Asian American Studies 20A	4	A	Introduction to Asian American History
Psychology 1	3	A	General Psychology
Psychology 14	3	A	Psychology of Gender
MCB H196	4	A	Honors Thesis
MCB 200	3	A-	Advanced Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
TOTAL	22		GPA=3.959 (semester) ...Hao, you owe me dinner!

I truly enjoyed all my classes and got the most out of them by fully devoting my efforts to understanding, appreciating, and integrating the materials presented in each and every one of my classes.  MCB classes aren't fun per se, but I couldn't be a total slacker my last semester.  I took MCB 200 to help me prepare myself for my MD/PhD plans.  Nick Cozarelli, Don Rio, and Jeremey Thorner were all great instructors and showed me many cutting-edge research and firther piqued my interest in science.

Since I was taking 6 classes and 22 units, it's not surprising that I didn't have a chance to party too much.  So most of the stories I have must certainly involved people I met in class.  One such story involves two very fascinating, intelligent, and popular gals.  Winnie was my Japanese 1A study buddy.  She is totally cool because she aced the class and got an A+, while I only got a measly A.  One interesting fact about Winnie (you can check out her webpage under my "Family and Friends" section) is that she really enjoys singing and sings really well as evidenced by the fact that she can even make my attempted guitar playing sound somewhat decent.  Connie was someone nearly, but not quite, as old as me in our Asian Am class.  In a class that is filled with almost all freshmen, it was nice to know that I wasn't alone with those wide-eyed, eager, and naive freshmen.

I guess the story really illustrates the small world we live in and how amazingly interconnected we are to each other.  Now for interesting part of my story.  Winnie and Connie are alike in that they are both in the Haas School of Business.  I just never realized how closely their lives were intertwined until after the semester of over.  Since Winnie and I studied together for our weekly Japanese quizzes and saw daily in class, I got to know her fairly well.  I didn't get to know Connie that well until the end of semester and finals, so she's still a bit of mystery to me.  There's gals certainly fit the mold of businesswomen, always busy, on the go, with things to do, places to go, people to see.  I guess you could say that they are like two peas in a pod.

I was invited to birthday party at Pyramid Brewery for Connie and her two close friends, Jessica and Jaime.  If I had to guess, I would say that 50+ showed up at various times.  That was a great party for me since I hadn't partied much all semester so it was wonderful to celebrate and relax after such an ambitious semester.  It felt great meeting and talking with so many new and interesting people.  A large group of people went clubbing afterwards, but I didn't have it in me to go dancing with them.  I 've only gone clubbing once, so you should honored that went clubbing with you Teri.

I finally learned about that Winnie and Connie knew each other during a dinner conversation between Winnie and myself during finals week.  I was relating to Winnie the events of my final semester at Cal when I started talking about my Asian Am class.  As it turns out, Winnie and Connie knew each other from a few years back.  Apparently, Connie was Jaime's (the Jaime at the party) roommate during Winnie's freshmen year.  Jaime as it turns out was Winnie's very close and dear friend when they both went to high school in Hong Kong.  Winnie told me a really cute story about how she met Connie, but that's Winnie's story to tell.  What a small world we live in indeed!  In my final semester at Cal,  I take two totally unrelated classes just for the heck of it and look what an interesting story I have to tell now!

12/24/98