We moved into a place called Amherst Court. I thought it was the nicest

Amherst Court

of the University apartments. John and I moved in first during the summer since we had summer classes. The rest of them were going to move in at the end of summer. We decided to share the place during the summer with these two guys(no names mentioned) to cut down on costs. They were both frat boys whose only concerns were smoking pot and getting laid. They brought over numerous

Our Apartment

skanks, hoping to get lucky. Well, they were actaully living at the apartment before John and I moved in. They had a frat party the night before we moved in and the apartment was a hideous mess. There were bedsheets soaked with puke in our bathtub, and our bathroom sink was clogged up with more puke among other things. And the bathroom was just a mess in general...hair everywhere. That took a week or so to clean up. And to top it off, there was a huge hole in our bedroom wall. Supposedly someone was really pissed off and decided to take it out on the wall. Anyways, we didn't really get along with them. I had a few unpleasent confrontations with one of them. Suffice to say, I was glad when they moved out.

When the summer ended, everyone else moved in. Me and John took one room, Josh and Mike took the other, and Lover took the living room. When John and I moved in, there was already a bunkbed left in our room by the previous tenants(a friend of ours). It was a homemade bunkbed. Very sturdy. I took the top bunk and since John had a futon, he decided to use that. So I ended up removing the bottom bunk and putting my desk down there. It was a

The bottom bunk

nice set up. Sorta like a psuedo office. I spent most of my time studying at my desk, until a certain event took place. On Columbus day(Lover was Canadien), Lover and John were celebrating by drinking wine. They had this HUGE jug of wine. Well, John was pretty wasted. He went to the room and passed out on his bed. A few hours later, while I was sleeping, I heard a huge *thud*. Felt like something hit my bed. I yelled out, "John...what are you doing?" He replied, "Nothing." So I ignored it and went back to bed. A minute later, I heard another noise, this time coming from underneath my bed. I yelled out again, "John, what the hell are you doing?!?" Got the same response, "Nothing!" This time I jumped down off the bed, and hit the lights. To my shock, John was standing under the bed at my desk...eyes closed and all. He had pissed all over my desk, and didn't even realize it. I hit him on the shoulder and when he woke up, he had a look of disbelief on his face. Apparently the *thud* was John hitting his head against the top bunk. Guess that wasn't enough to wake him. It was funny as hell, but after that, I could never study at my desk again. Had to go to the library.

Lover was the oldest of the group. He was a super senior(5th year

Lover & the toilet

senior). He was definitely an interesting guy. He was the nerd of our group, but he was a cool nerd. He liked to drink beer and have fun. He got plastered a few times, as shown in the picture to the right. After I took this picture, he gave me the bird and told me to fuck off. :) The funny thing about him was that it was hard to tell when he was drunk, because he was pretty erratic when he was sober. He didn't like sports much, but he'd always watch games with us and give his two cents worth. You could basically stike up a conversation about anything and he would join in...even if he didn't have the slightest clue what he was talking about. He was a pretty amusing person to be around. Very friendly. He very rarely became angry, but when he did, it was a site to see.

Josh was cool. He was in his 3rd year studying criminal law...or

Josh

something like that. He was from the bay area so he was a huge fan of the San Fransisco 49ers and Giants, as well as the pathetic Sacremento Kings and Golden State Warriors. He was pretty quiet for the most part, spent a lot of time in his room studying. I think he spent more time studying than the rest of us combined. He was probably the cleanest and most responsible one as well. He liked to drink as well, but I never saw him get drunk. His favorite was Fosters. Always saw him in front of the TV with a can of Fosters and his pretzels and cheese. His claim to fame was beating me at 13 straight games of Bomberman on my Super Nintendo. He never would let me forget about that. He was quite the bragger. :)

Mike was in his 3rd year as well. I believe he was undeclared as far as a

Mike

major goes. He was a major sports nut too. He loved to play baseball...he was the backup catcher for the UC Irvine baseball team. He was a huge Pittsburgh Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins fan. He was also a big supporter of the Boston Celtics. We often got into heated discussions about who would win another championship first...the Lakers or Celtics. He kept insisting the Celtics would...because they had a greater tradition of winning. I guess we will have to wait and see about that. :) But I'm willing to bet everything I own that the Lakers will do it first. Anyways, Mike was a devoted employee of Disneyland. He worked there two or three days of the week. He got us all into the park for free once...that was the best. He was a very clean cut and conservative looking guy...mainly because he had to adhere to Disney's strict policy. I think Mike fit the mold of what a perfect Disney employee is supposed to look like. Towards the middle of the year, Mike hooked up with Allison, this girl that he met at work. She spent a lot of time at our place. We finally found out what a sap Mike was. :) He was gaga over this girl...they would celebrate monthly anniversaries, and talk about getting married, which the rest of us got a kick out of. Anyways, Mike participated in the beer drinking with the rest. Very talkative guy. Very cool to be around as well.

John was a cool person to live with. He was full of surprises. Pissing

John

on my desk was just the start. I didn't realize what a wild person he was until we were roommates. He probably drank the most of all of us. He was only 19 at the time, so he always looked to me or Lover to buy his beer for him. So yes, I did contribute to the delinquency of a minor. His favorite was Samuel Adams. When John got drunk, he got very loud. He thought he was the king of the world. :) One time when he was drunk, he challenged me to a fight outside. I was pissed that night cuz I was trying to sleep because I had a test the next day. Well he woke me up and made the challenge, so I graciously accepted. I was putting my shoes on when all of a sudden his senses must have kicked in. He changed his mind...said he was just kidding around. :) Anyways, John wasn't a big fan of the NBA, but he was really into college hoops. He was a big North Carolina Tarheels fan. He also loved the Toronto Bluejays. When John wasn't busy screwing around, he was studying off at the library. He was probably the smartest of the five of us. He ended up finishing school after the second quarter that year. Unbelievable...only took him two years and two quarters to graduate.

With most of us being sports fanatics, throughout the entire year we would bash on the everyone else's favorite teams. Sometimes someone would take offense to this and would either curse out the other person or just ignore them for a day or two. Things really got bad when we started playing sports video games(NHL and NFL) on the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis. Everyday after we'd come home from class, we'd spend a few hours playing. We were all super competitive. When someone challenged you to a game, you either had to except or have the other person repeatedly call you a pussy. We would become extrememly pissed when we lost...especially when the other person would rub it in, which happened after almost every game. The winner would gloat while the loser usually blamed it on a bad joystick. :) We were all very competitive.

Well, after living in there for a month, problems began to arise. Lover was a fifth year senior and he was starting to stress about school. He really wanted to graduate. Well, around 10pm he would come home from school and announce to everybody, "OK...it's 10 o'clock, time for bed." And he would turn off the TV while we were watching. He thought because he lived in the livingroom, he dictated when we had to turn the TV and lights off. This mostly pissed Josh, Mike, and John off. John would be all, "Fuck that shit!" And he would turn the TV and lights back on. This was happening almost every other night. Several times I thought that a fight would break out. We basically told Lover that since he agreed to living in the living room, he would have to deal with all the shit. He put up with it for the most part, but eventually he couldn't take it anymore. He told us that he was moving out. He found a couple of grad students who were looking for a roommate. We bid him a farewell...we even helped him move his shit into his new place. Well to our surprise, the very next day, we woke up and there he was...eating breakfast in our living room. He said he didn't like his roommates bacuase they were boring. He told us he was moving back in. Well, we weren't about to let him off so easy. We told him that we all have to agree to let him come back. We basically agreed that if he was going to come back, he would have to pay 1/5 the rent, instead of the discounted rate he was paying for living in the living room. And we also told him he would have to put up with all of the shit that we gave him. He agreed, so we let him move back in. Well, it took a week for us to piss him off again. He was getting to stressed out. So a month later, he moved out again. This time he moved into the dorms. We gave him shit for that. We kept telling him that nothing is more pathetic than a 5th year senior living in the dorms. But he was happy there. Things were a lot better without him there anyways. We were sitll cool with him tho...he still came around once in a while.

That year, I was introduced by my roommates to Tommy's World Famous Burgers.

Tommys

I was hooked from day one. We ended up going to Tommy's every Thrusday night after watching Seinfeld. It was almost a ritual. We all even made sure that we did not take a class on Thursday night so we could go to Tommy's. Everytime we went there, I would leave feeling slightly ill. The chili was pretty overwhelming. I don't think I've even eaten anything in my entire life that has as much grease as Tommy's chili. Pretty potent stuff I tell ya. But it was worth it. There's no more enjoyable way to clog your arteries than to eat a Tommy's chili cheeseburger with chili cheese fries. One time we went there for breakfast and got the breakfast sandwich. That was overwhelming as well. It's a sausage patty with eggs, cheese, pickles, onions, tomatoes, mustard on a english muffin. To top it off, they put their artery clogging chili on it too. Pretty scary stuff. We weren't feeling to good after that. After that we never ate breakfast there again. It was sort of taboo for us to eat Tommy's for breakfast. :)

Well, during the second quarter, Mike decided he was going to transfer to Cal State Fullerton, so he was going to move out at the end of the quarter. We were pretty bummed. His reason was because he wanted to go into accounting and UC Irvine didn't have an accounting program. We all knew the real reason...his woman was a student at Cal State Fullerton. Josh kept going off about Mike and how pussy-whipped he was and how he was thinking with his little head. We tried to convince him to stay, but he was intent on transferring. So at the end of the quarter he moved out, and we were left with me, John and Josh. The housing office let us move into a one bedroom apartment. That helped us cut down costs. This time around, Josh volunteered to live in the living room. I thought there would be problems, but the rest of the year went pretty smoothe.

Towards the end of the year, I joined the Laotian-Thai Cultural Club at school. I was kind of dragged into it by my friends Darin and Ann. I really had no interest in any ethnic clubs at that time. I was a member of Tomo No Kai(Japanese club) for the past three years and I was growing tired of the cultural club scene. But I enjoyed being a part of this club. I got along with the people there. Two people who I met thru the club that year that I have become good friends with were June and Sunny. June was a very cool and spunky gal. She was fun to hang around with. Sunny was also pretty cool. Sunny and I had two common interests which is why I think we got along so well....sports and gambling. Anyways, at the end of the year the five of us(Darin, Ann, June, Sunny, and myself) were elected officers of the club for the following year, so we ended up hanging around together a lot that summer getting ready for our officership. :)

As for school, I pretty much coasted through the year despite all of the distractions. I raised my GPA a few points, but nothing drastic. After you've been in school for so long, it was very hard to raise your GPA. Bad grades would totally screw up your GPA, but A's hardly had an effect. So I was content just getting B's. I didn't study that hard at all that year. I started out the year taking Japanese 2A. I figured since series 1 was so easy, I wouldn't have any problem with the second year. I was sorly mistaken. I ended up with a C that quarter and I stopped there. I couldn't keep up with the pace. Learning the Kanji(Chinese characters) and their stokes really stressed me out. I figured my Japanese wannabe days were over.

One of the highlights of the year(for me at least) was making ammends with my friend Elliot, who I had not spoken to for almost two years. When we went our own ways after moving out of the dorm two years prior, I was intent on never speaking to him again. But then I ran into him at the Irvine Marketplace on my way to class. He stopped me and asked me if I wanted to go to dinner or something. After giving it a thought I agreed. I figured it was time that I forgive and forget. I didn't think our friendship would be the same as before. Things were sorta awkward for a while when I was around him, but then I realized that he was truly sorry about everything that happened back in the dorms. Eventually things got a lot better.

Well, like I said, this was definitely my best year while at UC Irivne. I remember the most from this year. Of all my years in college, this is the one I look back at the most. I miss those days.