still alive and kickin'

I'm baaack. 

Gawd!! I kinda feel like Natalie Tran from Community channel (shout out). 

In case anyone doesn't know her, she makes funny videos on youtube. Recently she's not making videos very often. She makes a video after a long break and then she takes another long break. But I still wait for her updates because she is hilarious.

I just thought this was kinda relating to my blog. I used to write weekly blogs that went on for a couple of months then I stopped in mid November ‘010, then after a month I wrote another post named "Back" stating that I'm back and here to stay. Now after almost a whole year, here we are.

Well updates...

Yeah a crap ton of things have happened since my last post. I don't think mentioning everything would be a good idea for anyone reading so I'll just mention some of them. Maybe more will appear the next time I write.

Going back to KTM was a pretty freaking amazing. It was kinda hectic because of the sort stay and my gigantic amount of relatives we needed to visit. None the less I got to go to Chitwan, which is an amazing region of Nepal. It was my first time there and definitely will not be the last time. Next time with the family!!! I can’t wait to go back again.

I don't recall a whole bunch of stuff from the spring after I got back, so whatever.

The summer was pretty exciting. Started things off with going to Achala's graduation in NC. Had a great time there, enjoyed the graduation ceremony too. Now I kinda want a outdoor graduation. Anyways got to see a lot of achala's friends and got to meet Nikhil dai. Achala's significant other :)

Then came back and spent the summer in Cedar Falls

And BTW now I live in the Asian house, have been since the summer started.

Had a great time during the summer. Became a Coordinator at UNI Catering, had nothing else to do than work(a lot) and enjoy myself the rest of the time. I had great time hanging out with the catering friends outside of work. All those nights hanging out at the Library (which is a bar not the place with the books and such).

We also had a grill out at our place which was supper fun. It included me and Mandy Paris being not so sober and going around putting the word "city" after everything. Annoying every living thing we could find.

I also went to Nashville, Tennessee for a CASE ASAP conference representing ISP(international student promoters) and UNI along with SAA(student ambassadors association), ESP(ethnic student promoters) and CATS(connecting alumni to students).

I noticed there were a lot of abbreviations in that sentence. By the way why is the word abbreviation so long when it means a shorter version of a word?

Anyways, Nashville was pretty awesome. The people I was with, the Country hall of fame, the Titans stadium, the conference and just the city itself was something. I would definitely want to go back someday.

After coming back from Nashville, I was a peer adviser for international student orientation. That was fun too. Met a lot of new people, ripped my pants while playing soccer with them on the first day, had loads of fun. Kinda reminded me of my orientation. Oh how time flies by, it’s been more than 2 years since then. 

Then fall started and so far so good. Celebrated shared birthday with Ramya, finally became 21(woohoo!!), celebrated Dasain with all the Nepali students here at UNI, learned how to play marriage and falas(card games), face painted again for Halloween but this time accompanied by an afro wig and clown theme, followed by some bar hopping and people scaring(there seem to be a lot of people scared of clowns). so fall’s been pretty good.

Also Fred, our ISP is not here anymore, we have a new adviser Wilson from Chile and I'm president now :) ISP got new polos that I had been nagging for since long ago.

You know what I think this is long and boring enough for one post. so I'll continue with my shenanigans next time.

Till then Shockyab out \m/

Back

Woo wee, that was a long break, huh?

I have a perfectly rational excuse for the absence.

Laziness.

Yes I admit it I have become increasingly lazy since winter struck.

I haven't been doing nothing.

Its just that, the time I had had for leisure activities had been compromised by lifeless resting with my head on my desk or sometimes snuggling in my blanket while taking breaks from doing papers and studying for finals.

Study, work, same old same old.

Until my savior came along, "Thanksgiving break"

But turns out it was just a teaser. Went by too fast.

My sister was in town for Thanksgiving break, so it was fun, but I doubt she's ever coming back to Iowa. It was freezing cold when she was here, so Cedar falls didn't really make an awesome impression to her.

Anyways from then to now a lot of things have happened.

Most of which is studying for finals, so I won't mention that again.

There was the ISP holiday get-together. We exchanged gifts, and got new ISP Tees :D

Then after that there was the international holiday dinner. 

I noticed the word international is very involved in my college life. Any ways moving on.

Some of my friends already left for home and I'm next in line.

I'm going home after attending the Graduation ceremony this semester. 

The people graduating this semester; Yogendra dai, Sujan dai, Jon and Nat.

So have to be there for all of them.

After that going to spent the night at Jon's parent's house in Cedar Rapids, celebrating an early Christmas.

Then driving to Chicago and leaving for KTM.

Ahh, home sweet home. This expression doesn't seem so far fetched now.

Now hopefully I'll resume writing regularly.

I'll try to write another post before I leave for home.

So until next time. SHOCKYAB out \m/

A week in one day.

Today was awesome.

Usually I'm not the type of person who loves being busy.

I'm not lazy, I just like having nothing to do, which doesn't seem to happen very often in my life.

But today, after a gloomy and un fun weekend, I had this day. This day with a whole week worth of stuff jammed into one.

But I loved it. 

Oh and whatever happened today happened in Daura Suruwal.

My National cultural dress.

So today started with being a bit late for World Geo, then I decided to go help out at the ISP display table instead of Karate class which seemed kinda impossible in these tight pants.

So I talked to master Briggs.

Had a bit of a conversation with the master when the question where I was from popped up..

I told him I'm from Nepal.

To my surprise, turns out he's been to Nepal once every year since 2003.

We talked a bit about his adventure there and plans to return next April.

After that went and helped set up the ISP table and also with prep for ISA the fashion show.

Then wrote some people's names in Nepali on the back of bookmarks that we made yesterday.

Waiting for the fashion show.

Leading up to which I tried looking for the awesome thing that I call my flag, which was no where to be found. So had to carry a banner with Nepal written on it.

No offence to the person who made that, but I'd rather had had the flag instead.

Anyways, The show.

"It was fun" would be an understatement. It was grand, awe inspiring,  from start to finish.

After the show, helped with the ICBS event "Focus on Brazil"

This was great, lots of people showed up, personally learned a lot of stuff about Brazilian culture, got interested in capoeira, was too shy to go try it when asked for volunteers.

Anyway then got interviewed along with Khidir by Cat.

Then went to the screening of "7 years in Tibet".

I can't believe I hadn't seen this movie, especially since most of the people who find out I'm a mixed Tibetan talk to me about it. About the movie, I'm no reviewer so I better keep my trap shut.

Anyway met Yogendra Dai and Junu didi there too.

Well that's pretty much it. I just wanted to shorten my blogs since I've been ranting too much recently.

Oh almost forgot to mention ISP is now official.

Will be looking forward to the birthday next year.

3 days till break and 5 days till Achala!

So until next time, Shockyab out \m/.

cold november rain...

Sounds corny but that's what happened the whole weekend.

So I was in no mood to go out, Friday or Saturday despite some encouragement from some random people I talked to on the elevator.

So Just stayed in the whole gloomy mundane weekend.

Worked on a presentation, did some school work, worked 4 shifts at Rialto made some greens :)

There was at least some activity on Saturday. We had a momo party for Dhargyal la.

This is Dhargyal la

He's been here for almost a year and is going back to India this winter.

The momo party was at Acha Yeshi's place.

From my place to her's is actually a straight walk, but now there's a humongous construction site in the middle of this path.

And to add insult to injury, it was raining as I mentioned earlier.

And then to top it all off it was dark as death.

Then put in a large pool of quick sand into the equation, and voila ! you get a drowning kid with new converse and clean jeans covered in mud.

Not a pleasant sight.

But I'm still alive so, no worries.

Anyways, went to the momo party, canged to Acha Yeshi's sweat pants and pink flip flops (oh yes i did).

Then its Sunday.

Sunday not really a fun day, just another rainy day-off.

Worked almost the whole day, then took pictures to promote "Focus on Brazil"

I can't believe that was a weekend.

But next week Achala is gonna be here.YAY!!

Hope it doesn't rain the whole week.

Anyway so until next time, Shockyab out \m/

College kicks ass!

College kicks ass!!

of college kids to be precise.

It's been kickin' mine for quite some time now.

I find little time between school work, work work, organisational stuff and a bit of a social life.

That time I spend either wasting on you tube videos or listing to music.

This week started out nice.

No tests, few reading assignments, just 1 quiz and just a little busy preparing for "Focus on Brazil".

The "Focus" series is a chain of events that ICBS (International Club for Business Students) an organisation that I am involved in organizes.

So far we have done "Focus on Japan" 

No complaining. I took it with my cell phone camera. Not too shabby for a 2 mega pixel camera.

And next week is our second event "Focus on Brazil"

We also have a couple of other events thought up, Focus on Russia, which we'll be talked about soon, Focus on Malaysia, Focus on Nepal and Focus on Khidir.

The last one's a gag, just so you know.

These events are basically exposures to the general cultures of these countries, although we try to focus on the business culture because our group is made up of business students.

Anyway moving on.

On monday I was given an unexpected chance to represent ISP in front of NISG which is our school government. I had to talk to them about why our organisation is beneficial to the university and the students. I prepared for it before hand with some much needed help from Khidir again.

The talk went smooth and they said they'd let us know about their decision later in the week.

Before all this, on sunday my friend Shang was working at Smore's the ice cream place, which I just so happen to pass by. On that occasion he offered to surprise me with an awesome cone, which I couldn't refuse.

Can't really say that I was surprised, but this is what I got.

A five scoop monstrosity (which I had already started devouring by the time I took this picture.)

Base scoop of orange sherbet, toped with scoops of coffee, cookie and cream, birthday cake and finally a scoop of heath bar (I think)

It's fun to have friends in high places, hehe.

Speaking of high places one of my friends from Nepal found himself in a high place when he bought a new Ibanez 350DX.

Beautiful :")

BTW the guy who got this is Biplav or Lapey as we call him

I just realized I haven't talked much about my friends from back home.

Will have to dedicate some post to them, miss them :(

Any ways another thing reminding me of home these days are these clouds. 

Iowa does't have mountains. 

I'd be lying if I said I don't miss the mountains surrounding Kathmandu.

Here in Iowa these clouds (which I was too lazy to try and find pictures of) lingering in the horizon give me the false impression of mountains surrounding a valley.

Anyways, coming back to reality

Have a Karate grading tomorrow, and then need to look forward toward next week. 

Which has Focus on Brazil, International fassion show on campus for which I will be modeling (-_-') then the screening of 7 years in Tibet at the International Film festival on campus, then 2 tests,1 paper,1 quiz and also preparations for Achala's visit the week after. 

Holy Crap that's a lot of stuff I need to take care of.

So until next time, Shockyab out \m/

off track for something meaningful.

This is highly unusual of me, getting off my routine and writing another post even though no mentionable current events have occurred since my last post.

Any ways I dedicate this post to La Familia.

Theres a lot of stuff going on concerning my family right now.

First thing. 

This past week in Nepal was Tihar (तिहार) which is also know as Diwali (in India), the festival of lights

.

I love it, the bright lights, children singing Deusi / Bhailo (something like Christmas carols), firecrackers, good food, just the festive feeling in the air and being with the family.

If you want to know more about Tihar here a link to a wiki page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tihar_(festival)

Second thing.

Its thanksgiving!! 

And my sister gonna be here in Cedar Falls!

I am excited about this, have the whole week planned, sorta.

Last year I went to North Carolina for thanksgiving and had an awesome time, so need to repay the debt :)

Third thing.

I'm going home!!

When winter strikes its sickest winds, bears its blizzardous (yeah I just made up a word) fangs, I'm gonna pack my bags and be true to the saying "when the going gets tough the tough get going."

This December It's back to the motherland, and accompanying me on this journey is Jon.

This will be the first time for Jon traveling out of the Americas or the western hemisphere.

Gonna be staying there for about 2 weeks, Chitwan, Pokhara, Nagarkot, Dhulikhel, you name it we'll be there.

Last thing.

Construction.

I despise construction and renovation, but my parents seem to love it. 

They are building a new house right now so, they're going to be a bit occupied when Jon and I get there.

I  also recently heard that they are adding a couple of rooms on the roof of our current house for me and Jon to stay in.

 Totally unnecessary, I'd say. But its pretty awesome.

Thanks aamla pala.

Well thats all I had to blab about.

I'll be continuing with this, the next time anything interesting comes up.

So until next time, Shockyab out \m/

lost count, but still writing.

Never had I imagined that I would write so much, I'd end up loosing count of how many pieces I wrote.

Well its all in good fun, spilling my emotions, writing about the stuff that goes on in the life of a not so normal college kid in the middle of the Iowa

Any way, let's pick up from where we always do, Friday.

 It seems like the only stuff I write about is the weekends. But you gotta understand that I'm in college, I cannot come up with witty one liners, jamming my head into an International Relations book.

Any ways, Friday.

Friday was Khidir's 2 year anniversary of being married to the gym. 

For this special day he wanted to rejuvenate the spark with his soul mate. 

So he basically wanted to celebrate it with an intense workout which needed a bit of motivation.

So me and Jerome offered our valuable (NOT!) assistance.

We kept him motivated by doing them along with him, which did not turn out to be such a bright Idea for me, because we didn't have much time to warm up. 

So I ended up cramping my hamstring again. But I still managed to follow the craziness.

Then Jerome decided to run, so me and Khidir went to play some ping pong.

We were later joined on another table by 4 pros 2 Nepali and 2 Chinese.

They were pretty awesome.

While we on the other hand we weren't exactly playing ping pong, it was more like kicking the gods of ping pong in the groin. 

I mean we are Asians, we are suppose to be good at this crap, we were so bad that our game was entertainment for some kids near by.

Moving on, After that we headed to the Mauker Union, the place were things go down, because most of the union is underground. 

Lame? Ah don't complain its 1:20 in the morning, you can't possibly expect Eddie Izzard from me.

Any who, we went to the union where there was a huge multicultural event going on.

The African, Hispanic, and Black student unions combined for a ginormus event showcasing their culture.

We stayed there for a while and then decided to pull off the once failed mission of watching "A Bug's Life" at the Asian house.

We succeeded, so there we were again, watching another Disney classic at the Asian house.

After the movie we walked the ladies home, and thats all for friday.

Saturday started with work, then continued with a well deserved swim. 

Then some school work and work again, 

Well actually today I went to work at UNI catering after a long time. 

I worked for an hour, I t was fun because I got to work with Yogen Dai(Brother in Nepali).

This is Yogen Dai.

After that I got went to a party at the house where Shang, Yujin, UJ, Adam, Randy and the chinese professor reside.

There met a lot of familiar faces I hadn't seen for a long time, experienced a real rap battle, played cards, and then went and got chinese take out.

So here I am, in my room, with chicken fried rice on one leg and my lap top on the other, writing this thingy.

Oh and one thingI forgot to mention Today we started daylight saving, so we wind our clocks back 1 hour, which means it is technically 1 50 right now, even though my watches are showing 2 50. 

Holly crap this is late, better get to bed.

Until next time, Shockyab out \m/

Reporting from the asian house.

I've stayed over countless times at the Asian house.

So, it's no surprise that I am writing one from this place.

This week Halloween!! aka all hallows eve.

The week leading up to the ISA Halloween dance was erm... kinda normal.

Classes, assignments, quizzes, etc, etc.

Then there were the practice sessions for THRILLER!!

Those were always fun.

At the last possible moment we got 2 more people Ramya and Becca, to join in with the dance. 

So the end line up for the dance was Me, Cat, Jerome, Ramya and Becca.

Guiding our path was our fearless leader Acha Yeshi who couldn't be the dance.

And then there was the preparation for the dance decorations.

We painted a huge piece of cloth as a background for people at the dance to take pictures which turned out pretty good.

We set up the venue for the dance on friday and all was good.

Then it was time for the costume which I hadn't really given much thought to. 

I bought some face paint a day earlier, but was thinking somewhere along the lines of a mafia theme.

In the end I turned out to be some scary variation of joker or beetle juice with the help Khidir's hat.

Here's my alternate costume for the performance complete with the awesome iron maiden T.

The dance was awesome, had fun, met a lot of friends. Failed to reorganize some because of their awesome costumes while some friends showed up without costumes.

Here's some pictures from the dance.

Korean trio, Hyesu, Serena and So Mang.

Musical chairs by HLSU.

The cha cha slide dance.

Fox (Codye) and Cat.

The thriller dance.

The scary bunch: me, Yujin, Jerome and Aung.

Yujin, Erii, Shang and Kazuki.

Polina, Codye and me.

Ladies.

Me and Shefei with our usual madness.

Then after that I helped clear out the decorations and clean up after everyone left.

Then we Me, Cat, Nat and Shefei went to Perkin's for a midnight meal.

Thats it for Friday's Halloween party.

Then came Saturday. Wasn't much of an exciting day. Got up half day, did some studying, went to work.

Then found out Khoon injured himself while playing racket ball.

So I went to the Asian house, finished up my homework and watched Pocahontas.haha.

Then the other guys from the asian house came back so we started playing cards and talking nonsense.

Watched some youtube videos and ended up going to bed at 5 in the morning. 

Then woke up freezing in the living room at 12. and started writing the blog at 1 30 and finishing it at 3 30.

So until next time. Shockyab out \m/

homecoming weekend continued....

The last post was really long so I decided to divide homecoming weekend into 2 halves. This one's the second.

We continue from Friday night. So again I end up at the Asian house. 

That night we played cards and just hung out. 

I got to meet Corkey, Larry's moms pup. He's six but I still think he's a puppy because he's so tiny.

I just realized I don't have a picture of him.

He kinda reminds me of Brownie my dog back home, who compared to Corkey looks huge, hehe.

I miss brownie. No picture of him either :(

I forgot to bring my contact lens case that night, so had to take my contacts out in a glass of water.

Well my contacts survived that. So all's well.

The other night I walked like 5 hours so I had some major bruises on my sole. and was pretty tired but still went to work.

Then there was the UNI "panthers" vs the Illinois state University "Red birds" homecoming football game.

This was a total obliteration of the redbirds. 

Our panthers ended up chewing the red birds with a awesome score of 42 to 14. 

At one point of the game we were leading 35 to 7, thats like 4 more touchdowns. haha.

Before the game my friend Shang lost his cam on the way to the dome, so we went back to look for it. 

We missed a bit of the game.

To my surprise we found it just lying there on the grass near his house. 

Right there I realized how safe cedar falls is.

Then after that I went to the Asian house yet once again and carved pumpkins for Halloween. 

My good friend Khidir got a pumpkin as rotten as his luck last night. 

If I remember correctly one of his friends quoted "Your pumpkin smells like ass."

Any way all of us accept for Khoon who chose to carve Garfield finished our carving.

I found out there were some real artists hiding amongst us :D

Mine had a scary face, a Nepal flag, and a thunderbolt (just for ventilation for the candle)

Then comes Sunday.

Sunday usually is not that special so, today was good. 

I studied the whole day until 4 when I had dance practice. 

We figured out all the steps we wanted to put in the dance but there's always room for improvement.

Then after that had dinner with the guys from my floor.

Then My friend Abu called me to check out a new soccer ball he got. So I played soccer, after almost 2 months. Really felt exhilarating.

  

Thats about it. A nice weekend all in all. 

Now I'm looking forward to next weekend, which is Halloween weekend.

And also the day of reckoning for our dance skills.

So until next time, Shockyab out \m/

This past week was UNI homecoming.

Time to unleash the Panther within? 

Yeah right, had 2 awesomely life-force draining tests till Thursday, sleepless nights and all that too.

But after that everything was rainbows and butterflies. 

Hehe, kidding. After Thursday everything really was fun. Had my tourism class canceled on Friday, our IR professor let us out fairly early, and my ex roommate Jon drove up to town, well actually he was here from Wednesday but just got to hang out with him on friday.

  

This is Jon with mini.

Well, me and Jon are going to Nepal this winter together. So, on Friday we went to the mall to find something he could get for my parents.

Got some UNI stuff for pala and thought of getting an Iowan cook book for aamla.

Then after that I had a dance practice. 

We are doing MJ's Thriller at a Halloween dance event. 

The practice was good and I was quite impressed by the amount of dance steps we figured out without the video and also within little more than an hour.

Then after that me and Khoon decided to go get Cold stone. We ended up going to a bunch of places and spending about 5 hours walking around. WTH?!!

Then came back to UNI and went to see the homecoming fireworks.

This one kindda freaked me out.

I was like "is that suppose to be happening?" 

Turns out they call it the fire ball and thats the exact reaction they are looking for from first timers :)

Well after that there was Campaniling. 

This is just a homecoming tradition where couples gather around the clock tower(called Campanil) in the middle of college and kiss at midnight. 

Well we go there every year with a bunch of friends and just hang out.

After that I went and hung out at the Asian house again.

All this was just the one day experience of friday. 

Will post about the rest of the weekend since this one's too long already

So until next time(which might be in a couple of minutes), 

Shockyab out \m/