Pneumothorax

First I'll give those who don't know what pneumothorax is a place to gain some knowledge.

So after you've read the wiki-article, you should know a bit more about pneumothorax. I wouldn't be telling anyone to read about it without a good reason, so here's one, I just had a pneumothorax attack on Tuesday.
Honestly, I haven't felt anything that painful in my 16 years. I had just got on the bus and felt a slight pain in my chest, at first, I didn't think anything about it. Than as the pain slowly increased, and felt sharper when I breathed, I thought of pneumothorax. Since three people in my church had been sick with it, I'd heard of it before, and since I fit the description(According to Wikipedia" Primary spontaneous pneumothorax is most common in tall, thin men between 17 and 40 years of age, without any history of lung disease.") of the high risk group, they said that I was probably going to be the next.
So, when I got to school, by which time it was hurting like hell, I called my parents, they picked me up at school and drove me to the emergency room at the NTU hospital.
Once there, my suspicions were confirmed, and to cut a long story short, I waited until 13:30 and got a minor surgery done. Basically, the doctor just injected some anesthesia in my chest, which is not something I'd like to go through again, and stuck a tube into my chest. He then used a syringe connected to the tube in my chest to suck the air , a total of 1350 ml, out of my chest cavity. But to be safe, I had to stay another 5 hours(Which in the end was aprox. 7 hours) and get two more chest X-rays(bringing the total number of X-rays taken up to 3) to make sure I was good to go home. So in the end I spent about 12 hours in the hospital.

I guess I could say that it was quite an experience since I hadn't felt any pain as strong as this and I did learn a lot more about the disease.But these still don't make up for it, which is obvious, so I guess that's the end of that....(What kind of sentence is that??)

The Test

I've just finished my first Senior High"Monthly Exam" in Taiwan, it's as hard as it gets....
I guess I totally screwed up on my Math, I'm not sure if I can even pass it(which takes 60)
I think I'm gonna get something in in the 70s or 80s for my Chinese, but I'm not really sure.
I'm not sure about my English, I hope I can get a 90+, but may not be able to get that which won't be good news for me.
I got a 81.9 on Earth Science, which was higher than I expected, and it is above the class average(73) so I guess I deserve a pat on the back for that one.
As for the last subject, Geography, I'm hoping for a 80 to 90 + percent on that, since it isn't very hard and I finished it in less than half of the time provided.
So I hope I'm gonna get a 70~80+ average this time, and I have faith that I'm going to get it.

School(And all the other stuff that I "should" have written)

Ok, I haven't posted anything for a long long time, my bad. I've just been lazy, and haven't really wanted to take the time to post stuff. So now I have tons of stuff that I have to write about to fill in the blank.
1.Back to Taiwan
After half a year of easy life, running around, visiting people on both coasts of the US, and basically just enjoying my life, I've returned to Taiwan. I kinda have mixed feelings about this, like, I miss a lot about Taiwan, friends, church, a convenient store on every corner..... That kind of stuff. But returning also means leaving the easy lifestyle(especially the school part) behind and getting into the heavy workload of Taiwanese high schools. Fortunately, it's not for me to choose, so I'm back here.
2.Jianguo Senior High School
For those who don't know, Jianguo High School is the top boys' high school in Taiwan, accepting only the top like half percent of the students participating in the high school entrance exam, so naturally it's known for it's academic excellence. Somehow, I got in. So I started school there yesterday, since I missed a whole semester. The other it's known for is it's relative freedom in the sense of students' rights compared to other high schools in Taiwan. It's quite a good school in a lot of ways, and I'm happy that I'm in it. I guess I still like it since all the heavy workload hasn't caught up "yet". And I went to the school's fellowship today, two of the guys in my same year at church go to it, too. I enjoyed it quite a lot and think that I'll be returning next Monday.

That's about it.

Huntington Library&Newport Beach(1/17&1/18)

1/17
Yesterday we went to The Huntington Library. It isn't like the libraries you usually see, it's more like a rare book and manuscript library, it has approx. 6.5 million manuscripts and more than a million rare books in it's collection. There were a lot of old books and manuscripts, a few of which date back to around 1275. There were also a lot of scientific texts, most of which were either original manuscripts or first edition copies, from Newton, Galileo, Pasteur, Hooke, Tesla, Edison and so on, it was so cool to see all these books there. BTW, we went there with my aunt, she is currently doing research there so we didn't have to pay the admissions fee, which was 20 bucks per person.

1/18
Today we went to Newport Beach, a city in Orange County. We went to the beach there, rode bikes there, and went to a mall afterwards. The weather was great, typical south California weather, and felt more like summer than Winter. We had dinner at Jonathan& Tim's house, pizza, and watched a NFL game. It was brutal, two guys had a full speed,head-on collision, literally, and one of them had to be sent out on a stretcher. It was crazy, football really is a crazily dangerous sport.

Universal Studios(1/16)

Yesterday, I went to Universal Studios with three of my cousins, Jonathan, Timothy, and Michael. Same as Disneyland, I haven't been there since I was maybe 2 or 3, so it might as well be my first time there, too. We got there around noon, went on a couple of the attractions, and then went on the studio tour, which was my favorite part. The studio tour featured a lot of cool special effects(water, fire, earthquakes, explosions.....), it basically used a lot of stuff that is used in filming movies, and although I felt that I had sat on the "wet" side of the show(JAWS, the flood in the subway station) and constantly got sprayed by water, it was still a great experience. BTW, Waterworld is great too, if you go there, you have to see it, just remember not to get to the show late or sit in the front unless you want to get wet.
I enjoyed it over all, and I think that I actually like Universal Studios better than Disneyland.
(I'll write about today's trip to The Huntington Library tomorrow.)

Disneyland

Disneyland, one of the biggest attractions in LA, if not the world, is where we went yesterday. The last time I went there was when I was a few years old so I don't really remember anything about it, so it might as well be my first time there. The park wasn't too crowded since we went on a Wednesday so we didn't have to wait "too long" in line, 10~20 minutes at most. Since I'm too old to appreciate most of the kids' stuff and I don't like roller coasters, it was only OK for me, but if you're either a kid, feel like a kid or enjoy rides, Disneyland is a place you definitely have to visit, it is, after all, a part of American culture.
In the evening, we saw the show"Fantasmic" there, it was good, they made the whole presentation quite nicely. It was quite a pity that it was hard to take pictures of it since it was so dark.
My little sister enjoyed it quite well, she is 6(What 6-year-old wouldn't?), except for Space Mountain, which was too dark, fast, and scary for her. My cousins also enjoyed it a lot(I guess.), we basically tagged along with my sister. Overall, it was a nice day.

LA

We arrived at LA last Wednesday and have been staying at one of my uncle's house(I have two uncles who are in LA). It's really hot here, in the 20s, especially since we just came from Toronto, which is freezing at below zero.
I've basically been having no life for the last week or so, playing computer games, reading novels, and going out occasionally, not much of a life. I did go to fellowship with one of my cousins(I have four here in LA), Timothy, it was nice, we went to Applebee's for dinner afterwards with some of the people at the church and got home at a little after midnight.
I've ordered books, music& computer games from eBay and have them sent here, so I've been getting all those and been happy about it:), since it isn't often that my parents let me buy books and the last time they let me buy computer games was a few years ago. Some still haven't arrived yet and I hope I can get them before I leave LA.
I haven't visited any of the "major attraction" here but I'll be starting tomorrow with Disneyland, there'll be five of us, me, my little sister, Michael, Timothy, and Jonathan(Three of my cousins), so it'll be four guys looking after a hyperactive little girl. I also believe we'll be going to Universal Studios on Friday.