my mental meanderings...

Jeannie works at NCR and Cindy and Tim are still in school at Georgia State. Tim told me that they have a Hope Scholarship program in Georgia where if you maintain a B average throughout high school and college, all your tuition if you go to a public college in Georgia will be covered. So basically all you have to pay for is your books. I think this is to encourage students to stay in Georgia as well as continue their education. Too bad they don't have something like that in California. Although with our current budget crisis I don't think there would be a way to do that without increasing either taxes, tuition or both.

Anyway, so this was my first time visiting Georgia. The weather is so completely different from California. It rains in the afternoon, and I mean it really pours. Thunder, lightning and pouring rain. Not to mention it's hot and muggy, much like many Asian countries, which is probably why my uncle chose to go to school in Georgia. On the plus side though, Georgia has a lot of greenery. Everything is very lush, not dry and brown like in California. Every other street in Norcross has Peachtree in it's name, so it gets very confusing.

Other things I noticed is that gas is a lot cheaper than in California (duh!). The cheapest I saw when I was in Georgia was $2.12 compared to our $2.39 when I left, which is now up to $2.49 since I got back. Not only is gas cheaper in Georgia, but so are the houses. And you get so much more house for a lot less than what you would pay for a condo in California. Take for example my cousin Jeannie's house which is about 10 years old and she only paid $240,000 for it and it has 4 bedrooms. You can't get anything in California for that price. In California a house that size would easily be $1 million or more.

In Atlanta there isn't a high concentration of Asians, actually there are very few. Their "Chinatown" is only a small strip mall. On the other hand, there are a lot of African Americans in Georgia. They all seem very friendly and somewhat well educated, perhaps this is due to the religious nature of the south. I wouldn't have thought of this, but there is also a large spanish speaking population in Georgia as well. I think it might even be larger than the asian population.

They are definitely more conservative in the south. You don't see all the outrageous skin bearing outfits like you see in California. Everything is very clean. No litter or graffiti anywhere. Little or no tricked out cars, saggy pants, colored hair, tattoos, piercings or swearing. People actually slow down and drive with caution when it rains. Few establishments serve alcohol on Sundays or are even open. And I'm sure a lot of you already knew this, but southerners really like their fried food. Lots of fried chicken, fish, and shrimp. Even fried ochra and fried batter that they call "hush puppies." I was told that a shopping cart is called a "buggy" and any kind of soft drink is called "coke."

So while I was there, we checked out the "Underground," Coca-Cola World, CNN, and Centennial Olympic Park. We also took their MARTA rail system, which is kind of like BART, but much cleaner, nicer, and cheaper!

On a side note, my cousin Cindy and a friend of hers took my bro and I to a Karoke bar the last night we were in Georgia, and I must say the Vietnamese people at the bar really took the Karoke seriously as if they were trying out for Vietnamese Idol or something! Even though I couldn't understand what they were singing since it was in Vietnamese, they were good!