Happy New Year!!

It's less than 6 hours to the New Year and it doesn't feel like the year is coming to an end. It's so quiet out here there's just nothing to remind me that a new year is coming. But coming online and opening Mozilla, the first thing I see on my Homepage - CNN.com - is the countdown celebration at Sydney, Australia. Wow..that sure looks like lots of fun. Fireworks, party, intoxication, music, chaos, etc...

So what have I done this year? Dad used to tell me that we have to celebrate everyday instead of when there's a big celebration, that we have to make every little detail in our life an accomplishment because it's a step towards our goal and it's learning how to life the moment. So let me rewind back my days of 2005.

- managed to maintain summa cum laude
- finished constructing the plasmid required to test my hypothesis
- travelled to Atlanta, GA, Chandler, AZ, and the latest, San Francisco, CA
- started my holiday scrapbook
- recovered very well from the breakup a year ago..yeah..it takes a year but hey, I did it!
- get to know a few more friends here in Lansing
- learned to format my laptop!!
- survived a car accident...yeah, this is definitely something to hurray about
- read the most articles ever!

...and few other little things. Now, what's my goal for this year? Not gonna set any resolution this year since my resolution last year only lasted 3 months. But the reality plans are...

- have my first committee meeting in April
- improve my teaching skills by the end of the semester
- overcome my driving phobia especially when turning left
- have both fun and science at Woods Hole
- pass my preliminary exam by November

... and of course, the little things too. But what to do to spend the rest of 2005 away? No party, no getting intoxicated..well, maybe a little Marguerita before I go to bed (*wink), no crazy atmosphere, no hot, sexy dude (not like there has been any.. *blush*) but guess what I can do...finish reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Yup! That's what I'm gonna do while people all over the nation countdown to 2006. Have been meaning to read it for quite sometime but never did got my hands on it. While I was at J's place, I saw it sitting on his bookshelf and asked him about it. But he gave it me instead so now there's no reason that I should skip it again.

So while the busy cities celebrate the night away with fireworks and loud parties, I'll enjoy my peace and having the time to read. I will not let anything interfere...everything else can wait till tomorrow.

Tour Guide

Just got back from California yesterday. Still in holiday mood when I was back home but coming in to the lab did boost my nerdy spirit a little. Refreshed all my cultures to get them going again for experiments I plan this coming week.

Back to my trip to California..the plane ride there wasn't very fun because I was really tired from the night before so I slept all the way. But the moment the plane touch down at San Francisco International Airport and I saw fresh green grass, I was so excited. That's the sad thing about being here in the MidWest - you only get to see fresh greenaries half of the year. From the airport, took the Bart Metro System, which is the subway system in San Francisco Bay Area, to Montgomery Bart Station, which is right in the middle of the town area. Walked from there to Broadway, which is where Green Tortoise Hostel is located. In the afternoon, it's a boring place. Not many of the shops are open so I walked to Grant St., which is the main street of Chinatown. The picture below is the popular arch in Jackie Chan movies. It's at the main entrance into Chinatown section of Grant St.


While walking along Grant St., I feel like I'm in Hong Kong. Everyone speaks in Cantonese and it seems like the Americans there are the foreigners instead of the other way around. There are shops with Chinese characters, shops selling the traditional medicine similar to those in M'sia, shops selling clothes that are really low prices, Asian markets that sells all kind of vegetables - brinjal!! - seafood restaurants, dim sum and shops selling electrical goods like cameras. The electrical shops kinda remind me of HK and the way they con people. I wonder if they do that here too. hehe..

I also saw this little tour guide here. It is called the GoCar. It can sit 2 people and it has a Global Positioning System (GPS) that brings you around the town. J and me were walking around at Golden Gate Park and we heard this GoCar that tells you about the place that you're at. Initially I thought it was a speaker from the park. But J saw the car and we figured it's the car. Isn't it cool? But I'm sure it must be costly to rent that. I also wonder if it is powerful enough to go up the slopes of SF. All the roads there are very hilly - kinda like the road near SM Taman Sea in PJ.



From this picture, you can also see the shop selling traditional chinese costumes. There are lots of shops that sell these costumes and fans, clogs, chinese-themed furnitures and decors.

More to come...

just zipit

I found this bag, called Zip-It, in the mall a couple of weeks ago and have yet to use it. It came in a small roll of zip and I thought it is kinda unique. When you zip it up, it becomes a bag or a small coin purse, depending on how long the roll of zip is.

I got the one that I can sling across my shoulder and can zip it up. I bought a few coin purse too just because I think it can be a nice gift whenever I would need one.

I will be going to San Francisco for a short trip tomorrow and I thought of this bag. It's small enough to be carried around and large enough for me to fit some necessary stuff like camera, purse, maps, hand lotion, lip balm, napkins, keys etc. It's also easy to carry since I can just sling it across my shoulder.

I have been waiting all month for this trip. I've been wanting to go to SF for quite some time but never did have the money for it and don't really know people around there. So now that I am earning my own money and have been working so hard all this year, I figured that I do need a good break, just to get away for a while, to relax and refresh myself. I'll be staying at a hostel and travel by myself so it would still be within my budget. Furthermore, the hostel I'll be staying is right in the middle of the city and it's walking distance to most of the places that I want to visit. At the same time, I get to visit J whom I haven't seen for almost 7 years I think.

~excited~

MSU vs. CSU

What to do on Friday night after finals is done? Initially I planned to stay home and watch movies but guess what..I got free tickets to the MSU vs. CSU basketball game!! Would I pass that up? Of course not!

My boss had to leave town for some meeting and his boys have their own basketball game to play in so he gave me and BC each two tickets. I asked MW to go with me and it was fun to have BC and his room-mate there because they knew all the 'rituals' to the game. They taught us how to clap to the Spartan Fight Song, to some of the cheerleaders songs and some of the cheers like the 'Go Green, Go White'.

Initially, the game was kinda confusing because the CSU Vikings were green and I'm used to seeing us in green. But eventually I got the hang of it when I realized which numbers were our players. We started out good but the guys start to miss hoops and drop the ball towards the end of the first period. Sometime during the second period we starting winning and ended at 83-75.

After the game, we brought CY to Denny's for his last American meal. He should be in KL by today.

~funtimes~

last exam

The snow have been around for a while now. The fresh falls are always pretty and refreshing but after staying down for a couple of days, they start to get annoying and depressing. Yesterday was one of the days..the temperature was not low enough for them to stay frozen so lots of them starts to melt and it makes the road slippery because the snow now become like a slush. Imagine someone spill 10 cups of 7-Eleven slush on the floor and we would have to walk over it. It doesn't get better later in the day when it started snowing again because the snow melts once it touches the ground. Walking on such weather is the worst but it's one of the days when I have lots of errands to run too..but hey, this is Michigan. Cycling is even worse because all the dirty snow will be splashed around and dirty my back. You would think I'm used to it by now but some things we just can't seem to adapt to..especially the cold skin-slicing wind.

Just finished writing my cheat sheet for Statistics exam in 4 hours. It's my last finals!! Don't have to go through general classes anymore!! I do enjoy the class but sometimes they just require so much attention that I have to sacrifice some of my research time and it makes me frustrated that research is going so slow. But I've come this far, 4 hours is worth the wait. I'll be soo relieved after this exam I can start concentrating on my research and hopefully I can get enough stuff done to be able to go to Woods Hole next summer.

~anxious~

he appears again...

August of 2004 was when I first saw him. I walked into class on the first day and he's sitting right there, leaning back on the chair with a face so cheerful that you can't help feeling delighted. As the semester passes by, we exchanged only a few 'hi and bye' kinda conversation. But having him in the class was a plus because it just brightens my day even though we never really talk.

When the semester ended, I never did see him again as he's not in my department. May 2005 came and off to Atlanta I went for the ASM Conference. It was there in Atlanta, during the MSU Mixer session that I got a chance to really talk to him and get to know a little about his work here at MSU. But that was it. We never exchanged any contact number or e-mail.

Yesterday, we had a seminar by the environmental microbiology candidate, Dr. Gemma Reguera. She already started her talk and the door opened...it was none other than this cute guy. But the one thing that touched me was - he looked my way and said hi! Not only that but after the seminar, as we were leaving, he looked back before leaving and waved again. That sure made my day!!

Isn't life amazing? How can a simple gesture like that made my day? When I hardly know that person? How can just being near the person makes me want to know him more? But will I ever get to know him more? We're from two different world..he's in the most prestigious lab on campus..not that my lab is not a great place, it is..but compared to his..it looks small. Does he ever think about me? Does he know that when he's around the corner, he lights up my day?

~bubbly~

Koala's Chocolate Cookies

Ever get addicted to a particular food? I get that often. I will crave for that food and keep eating it for a few weeks and will eventually get bored of it. Then I'll start to find something else that I become addicted to. Lately, it's the Koala's March chocolate filled cookies. I saw it at one of the oriental mart here in Lansing and wanting to keep some biscuits at home, I bought it. There are 10 small packets in this big box. Each packet has about 10 -15 cookies. After my first packet, I couldn't stop eating it. I just had to grab another packet. I managed to stop myself after the third packet...and there goes my lunch because I'm too full of junk food to eat lunch. But I've managed to keep my hands from getting more during the weekday since I only grab it when I get on the bus. That way, I won't have more to grab.

Wonder how long this craving will last before I get sick of it....