It's been a while since my last update! A lot happened in the last month, but I'll just give a short version. Early August my parents, Ivy and I went to Taiwan. We were unfortunate to be greeted by Typhoon Morakot. It's my first typhoon that I have any memory of. It was pretty bad and it happened on Aug 8th, the weekend that we were meeting with Ivy's family. A lot of plans changed because of the Typhoon, but we did get to meet. I felt bad for the loses Taiwan endured. 
My trip to Taiwan was unexpectedly extended by about 4 days because I got bumped from my flight. I received $5000 NT compensation, but I nearly spent it all on the high speed rail + meals to meet up with Ivy and her friends at Kaoshiung.After returning to LA I was mostly busy studying and also house hunting. Apparently this summer was a seller's market because of the $8000 tax credit for first time home buyers. Home prices got jacked up, which was defeating the purpose of getting the $8000 tax credit. I'm mostly looking at homes in the Walnut area, which seems more valuable than Rancho Cugamonga or Diamond Bar. Although houses at Rancho Cugamonga are nice and new, they are in the middle of the desert (literally at the outer fringe of civilization). Maybe in the future the area would boom, but as of now it seems inconvenient for simple day-to-day stuff.
For Labor Day weekend I went to Santa Barbara and one of the Channel Islands. The trip was pretty cool. I didn't know we had all those islands off the California coast.
We did get to see some dolphins on the trip to the islands. 
We step foot on an island that's only one square mile. At the top of the island you could see ocean on all sides. That's a pretty gnarly feeling.Next week a couple of my cousins and then later an uncle will come visit us from Taiwan! It looks like my mom has planned out their visits. My uncle is actually here for business, but has one day free. My cousins will be here for 2 weeks. They will stay at our home for the visit.
