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spent several hours this morning in belmont disassembling my bedroom, putting things away in boxes, and moving them into the car. i felt this back-to-school nostalgia, the annual move back to college, except in my case, it was to my new house. in a way, it is kind of like going back to school, where i'll be learning how to live on my own for the forseeable future. i ended up not moving a lot of personal items, and more infrastructure things, like a dresser and a pair of wire shelves. a heavy box of books and my college day box stereo was all the personal things i took with me on this run.

after stopping at the cafe to pick up the venetian blinds i bought yesterday and to get some lunch, my father and i went to my place and moved all the stuff inside. i also brought my cable box from belmont to try it out on the cambridge cable system. cambridge is served by at&t, and at&t only offers digital cable. my fear was i'd need to rent a digital box for each television i had in the house, just to watch cable. so i was curious to see if my preexisting cable box would work, even thought it's an analog box. i was pleasantly surprised and relieved to see that it works fine for the first 100 channels, which i read online are usually analog channels. i haven't tried connecting the coaxial cable directly into the cable ready television though (that seems like the logical first step), i'll give that a try tomorrow. in between helping my father assemble the wire shelves, i was busy in the living room slowly stripping off the tape. although i finished painting the living room two days ago, it's going to take another day before i'll finish detaping.

later i went with my parents and sister and my grandmother to do some sofa shopping on route 1, where there's a bunch of furniture showrooms. we got there late and only visited one place, some sofa discounter store, but right away i knew i wouldn't find what i was looking for (essentially a red fabric sofa with legs). the whole yang family then had dinner at friendly's. the restaurant was crowded with parents with kids and senior citizens. it took a long time for us to get service, and when we did, it was slow, which made everyone sort of tense and we took turns sniping at each other in that passive aggressive way families are known for. i ended my dinner by eating my grandmother's free sundae that she got with her fajitas. my sister drove us home, i sat scared in the front seat but didn't put on my seatbelt because i wanted to show i wasn't afraid, despite the fact that i involuntarily clenched up into a fetal position on a few occasions and kept on trying to step on the phantom break.