soup and bread

Ping skipped salsa dancing tonight to finish writing Ping's second hypothesis...so decided to take a break and blog.

While it's great to be in a Big Ten school, it's not very fun to deal with all the game days and traffic. Ping loves cheering for our basketball team, ice-hockey team, watching the soccer games but when it comes to football...it's pretty frustrating. First of all, the football stadium is smack right in the middle of the campus. That means no matter where on campus you are, you have to deal with the traffic and tailgaters. The basketball court is at Breslin, which is on the East side of the campus so Ping never did realize when the basketball game is if Ping doesn't check the schedule because the West side of the campus is not affected.

Second, tailgating starts 5 hours before the game!! That one also tak cukup, parking lots are closed from 7am onwards!!! Last weekend, Spartan played against Notre Dame at 8pm. Ping thought that if she makes it to campus before 10am, she'll be fine with getting a parking spot. But guess what...they won't let Ping park!!! So Ping had to whine about having to work and need to get the experiment done that day and they let Ping in, promising them that Ping had to leave by 1pm, which is when the official tailgating time. Can you imagine just sitting out there lepaking for 10 hours???? In the end, Spartans lost to Notre Dame...there goes the entire day. Not that Ping don't want to support them but Ping just thought it's a little too much that the entire campus just freeze for the game. Even the buses don't run when the game ends!!!!

Ping was kinda pissed off after that whole drama at 8am in the morning, Ping went to Panera Bread to cheer herself up. Ping got their soup in sourdough bread bowl. They have quite a few choices of soup too - Ping got the Tuscan Vegetable and Ditalini soup. Love it although Ping never finishes the bread. The first time Ping tried soup in bread bowl was at a Delifrance in Beijing...hmm..talking about Delifrance, wonder if there's still Delifrance in Penang. There used to be one at One Stop, Pulau Tikus but can't remember seeing it the last time Ping was back. They have really got seafood sandwich! Ah Kong loves their pastries too..we would usually go there for afternoon break whenever dad is around to drive us.
Today we played against Illinois, which we lost!! Ping can't believe it!!! How could we have lost to Illinois which sucks big time???? Anyway, it was an afternoon game so Ping took the bus instead of driving there. Thankfully, when Ping got there at 8.30am, it was already packed with people who 'siow eng bo ming kia cho' want to stand out in the cold.

fruits

While Ping was visiting New York City late summer, tiptup and diddykong brought Ping to the Chinatown. Ping got the impression that NYC Chinatown is the best in US but Ping kinda prefers the Chinatown at San Francisco. There was more stuff to see and more like 'teng nang keh'. NYC Chinatown is more similar to Chicago Chinatown, just larger and busier. It is also blended in with the Little Italy.

The one thing that Ping was really excited about while at NYC Chinatown is the fruit stalls!! Definitely something that you won't get in Michigan or even Illinois. It's like those fruit stalls at Petaling Street or Campbell Street. The best is, they were selling lychee, rambutans and jambu!!! Tropical fruits!!! DK bought us some lychee and cherries. The cherries was requested by Ping since it's the cherry season and it's very expensive here in MI, which for some reason, is not a big producer of cherries - still considered imported fruit.
Back to Michigan, it's all apples. :( Definitely not Ping's favorite fruit. But when Ping first got back here, there was still quite a bit of cherries around. Kinda expensive...but but but..nice leh and we don't get it in M'sia.
And the next best thing...strawberries!! Haven't tried those from Fraser Hills or Cameron Highlands but the ones they sell here are really sweet and juicy. They can be pretty cheap on certain days too, depending on the seasons.
During the winter, Ping's fruit source is oranges! There's not much choice during winter unless wanna buy imported fruits like Korean pears. There is definitely more choices in tropical countries since there are different fruit seasons all year long. Some of the fruits like 'ampela', 'ia' (coconut), 'ong lai' (pineapple) and 'bok kua' (papaya) can grow all year long too.

clock

This is what happens when you leave the lab for 8 weeks. Your crazy labmates decided to leave you a 'lovely' present...
How did that happen? Just before Ping left for Woods Hole this past summer, Ping dropped the clock and broke the hook that allowed us to hang the clock up on the wall. Ping and Steph tried to glue it back but it didn't work. So we got another clock and Ping left this on her desk, not really knowing what to do with it since it is still functional. But sometime during the summer, Steph and Big K decided to decorate it up and found a place for it by Ping's lab bench. Definitely a conversation starter whenever Ping gets a visitor by her lab bench. *grins* And ohhh..the bulbs are all the bulbs Ping had to replace for the spectrophotometer within the past 1 year. Yeah..that's how much growth curve Ping have been doing...and more to come.

On the side, Ping acquired another Snow Patrol cd!!! - Final Straw but Ping prefers the new one - Eyes Open.

Qian Qu Nar Li?

Ever wonder where did all your money go to by the end of the month? It's not exactly the end of the month yet..well, close..but Ping was looking through how much she spent the past couple weeks and realized that it was more than what she usually spent. So where did all the qian went to? Haven't been shopping for clothes since early summer and nor did Ping got any new props for her scrapbook.

Then the song "You Could Be Happy" by Snow Patrol started playing on Ping's iTunes. Ah-ha! Ping has recently 'acquired' several cds. Not too long ago, Steph brought Ping to Flat, Black and Circular. It is a music store that sells both new and used cds for a pretty reasonable price. The older ones can be as low as USD 3, which was what Ping paid for the older Jewel and Matchbox 20 cds that Ping never did get a chance to burn from BK before we went our own separate way. Recently Ping got some Green Day cds for USD 9. The newer ones are cheaper from iTunes but sometimes it's nice to have the real cd and the cover even though we can print album artwork from iTunes now.
And the other source of where Ping's money been going to is Malecon! Weekly salsa dancing at Malecon can be pretty expensive by the end of the month. But Ping won't be going anymore, at least for a few weeks until the paper is finalized. It's lots of fun but Ping is starting to feel guilty for spending so many hours dancing instead of staying home reading or writing. It's getting closer...

Thai dessert

Being brought up in SouthEast Asia, we have a taste buds that are adapted to various different types of food. One of Ping's favorite is Thai dessert. Most of their desserts are made up of sticky rice, coconut milk or mango and these three ingredients do taste pretty good together. In fact, Ping prefers them to our Penang desserts like ice-kacang (although people from all over the world comes to Penang to try them), cendol and leng chee kang.

Few weekends back, Ping learned this from Nok - Khanom Nang Led. But the one we made have a slightly different recipe. Instead of using watermelon juice, we used lime juice, which would suit Ping better anyway since Ping does not favor watermelon. As for the dippy, it is made of coconut milk, minced pork, cilantro and of course, chilli! It became more of an appetizer dish than dessert since it's not very sweet and there's pork. It is probably not very healthy since it's deep fried. But it's delicious! It's a little too time consuming to make lots of it too.

breakfast

McD might be offering breakfast all day!!! Yeehah!! Ever had their Egg McMuffin? It's delicious! It reminds me of McEgg back in M'sia. Unlike in M'sia, Egg McMuffin is only served during breakfast, which is over at 10am. Ping just couldn't eat that much for breakfast unless it's a lazy day or Ping skipped dinner the night before. Plus, it is kinda out of the way to drive all the way to McD just for breakfast when Ping can have Cheerios and Silk chocolate soy milk for breakfast.

BUT, if McD will be offering breakfast all day, that means Ping gets to eat Egg McMuffin for lunch!! Steph and Ping was checking out the nutrition facts for Egg McMuffin and managed to convince ourselves that it is a pretty healthy meal. There's only 12g of fat and most of it are from the egg, which is still considered healthy fat since we don't really eat meat. Of course, while we're looking through it, we were tempted to go to McDs for lunch. And nope, we were good today as we both brought our healthy lunch. *grins*

Talking about McD, Ping kinda miss Fillet-O-Fish but haven't really taken to liking the ones served here. You would think they taste the same right? But for some reason, the fish here has a soapy taste. Wanted to go to McD for their Ceaser wrap, which is one of Ping's fave at McD here in the States but already had dinner prepared...Boca Vege burger sandwich with Swiss cheese on multigrain bread and carrots on the side. It was pretty tasty too! hehe..

hmmmm...

Was walking down the stairs a few weeks back and saw this grasshopper attached to the glass window. It's a crappy image 'coz Ping took it with her Sony Ericson T610's lau iah camera. But Ping just though that it's kinda interesting because it looks like the grasshopper had enlarged itself, trying to conquer the world. We're all in some 'Honey, I Shrunk The Kids' moment. *grins*

it's still warm and sunny!!

Wheeeee...Ping is still wearing tank topsm shorts and slippers..in mid-September!! Isn't this awesome?!?!?! Makes Ping wanna be outside doing stuff instead of in here reading and writing. *bleh*

No worries, Ping had a chance to go up (down?) to KBS to meet with Dr. L and also to do some sampling with UL. The meeting with Dr. L was at 10am but this is the first time Ping driving down there by herself, Ping left at 8am just to be sure there's enough time to figure out the roads if Ping gets lost. Ping printed out the directions from Yahoo! instead of from the KBS website...mistake! The directions from Yahoo! took Ping almost 2 hours to get there!! The roads are not very easy to find either because there's all these tiny farm roads. Ping was soooooo glad she left at 8am instead of 8.30am. It was totally a different route from the one Steph took when she drove us there last summer. Grrrr...but never mind. By the time Ping got there, the moody weather went away, replaced by a sunny and windy day!

After meeting with Dr. L, Ping wanted to go to Frona's for lunch but Ping lost her way again!! Arghgghg!! Next time Ping should go get a compass and bring along whenever Ping has to go to rural areas like that. All Ping saw was lakes after lakes (and Ping thought there was only Gull Lake there!!..another mistake - didn't look at the map before leaving) and farms after farms. So Ping ended up at some little cafe selling sub, which was pretty good because Ping was soooooooo hungry. Then as Ping drove around according to her instinct, Ping saw interstate M-43!!!

Drove back to the LTER plots and met up with UL. Spent the entire afternoon sampling with UL. This year, the crops are soybeans, which is a lot harder to walk around than when it was corns last year. But since Ping and UL went separate ways, Ping was kinda glad to be around soybeans than corns. Ping would definitely feel claustrophobic with corns that are taller than Ping! It is also harder to see any deers with corns - yeah, definitely don't want to bump into any of them. It was just lovely out there. It's like you just left everything behind, only you and the fields that lies in front of you acres after acres. Just Ping and nature - the greens, the warmth of the sun, the clear skies, the chirping of the birds, the rustle of leaves, the squirrels...simply wonderful.
Ping got home around 6pm and decided to skip the work-out session since Ping kinda did her work-out out in the fields (errr....kinda *grins*) and driving always makes Ping tired. So Ping stayed home and did some cleaning and guess what! Ping's chilli seeds has germinated!! When Ping was at tiptup's home at Boston, Ping saw her chilli plant and was surprised that it grew pretty well (Ping thought they could only grow in hot and humid Malaysian weather). When Ping came back, Ping just burried some of the chilli seeds into some rich soil...that was about a month ago. As the weather has been pretty fluctuative, Ping wasn't sure if the seeds were going to germinate, especially when some nights the temperature drops to 50F and sometimes the sun is covered by the clouds all day. But it did!! Ping got a new baby to take care now!! Will bring it to the lab (which Ping usually keeps around 25C) once it gets colder outside. The orchid seemed to grow fine so maybe the chilli will too. It seems like a suitable place too according to this article.

Edy's Ice Cream

Ice-cream..mmmm....who can resist them? Well, unless I'm full to my neck or ODed from milk. Was watching Serendipity on tv (yeah yeah..it's an old movie but Ping is yet to be bored of that movie), and saw an ad on Edy's new ice-cream - Dibs. It's bite-sized ice-cream! No sticky stuff running down your fingers or ice-cream that are too hard to dig in. Haha...it was definitely a good ad since Ping totally succumb into getting it the next day. Unfortunately, it's not something Ping can get very often because it's EXPENSIVE!! One of that small box costs USD3.80! For that, we can get 1.5 box of the regular Edy's ice-cream already. But it's good though..*grins*
Whheeeeeee...life is awesome these days!!! What more can Ping ask for? But gotta slow down though..before Ping gets too much on her hands. Need to prioritize!! blogging definitely hasn't been very high on the list...maybe Ping will start doing it again. hehe..

Akeelah and the Bee

Wheeeee...Ping's car just reached the mileage of 99999. Went out to rent a dvd and get a snack. Realized that the mileage was at 99997 so by the time Ping got back on campus, it just hit 99999. And Ping got her camera with her!!!
Drove to Hollywood Video to rent Akeelah and the Bee. It is a really good movie. Definitely highly recommended as a motivational movie. If only Ping had such a good coach when she was taking her GRE. Ping could hardly remember any of the word Ping studied for GRE right after the exam ended. Just like Akeelah's coach said, it would be easier to understand if learn how the word is used. But Ping only had a little more than a month to elucubrate and that wasn't full time GRE either since Ping was still trying to finish up her senior thesis. Anyway, Ping still got thru to grad school...so maybe the words wasn't all that important. Kekeke...

Snake

Three guys and a snake...



What a laugh!

Labor Day

It's Labor Day = public holiday. Ping just woke up at 8.30am. Maybe Ping should just stay home and be lazy. Or maybe Ping should go run. Or maybe just go to the gardens and lepak. Hmmm...but Ping has a culture waiting that has to go through a growth curve at 30 degrees C!!! That's gonna be A LOT slower than at 37 C. Grrrrrr...

But maybe it's not so bad 'coz Ping gets to wear shorts to work since Ping will be in the 30 C room most of the time. But but but...Ping wanna be lazy. Alright alright..the weekend is over, have to gear up for Monday. But Monday is a holiday. Hmmmm..... it is a lovely weather outside. The gardens are so tempting right right?
Haha...who am I kidding? I'll end up at work.

Potbelly Sandwich

This weekend passes by pretty fast, which is good in a way. Spent most of yesterday afternoon washing and polishing the car. Cleaning the windows and vacuuming the seats and floor. Ping's treasured Honda is then shining and clean.
But the front is now kinda dusty. The windscreen is decorated with dead bugs that got hit when Ping was driving along the freeway. Went to the temple earlier this afternoon with TT. There was more people than usual as the Sri Lankan Student Organization from Wayne State had some blessing sessions there. So TT and Ping tumpang receive blessings too. Ping always feel better after the Puja session and Metta Sutta meditation. If only the temple is closer, Ping would definitely go every week.

After going to the temple, we went to try out the new place on Grand River Ave - Potbelly Sandwich Works. It opened about two weeks ago but everytime Ping pass by, there are no seats available. JG doesn't wanna get take out. So Ping decided to wait till the initial crowd dies off to try it. Today, Ping wanted to try the other new place on MAC but it was closed when TT and Ping dropped by. We walked over to Potbelly and we saw a few empty spots. So we decided to try it. Ping had their Tuna Salad and TT had their Italian sandwich. We both liked the sandwiches. Ping tapau half of her sandwich but it doesn't look as good as when it was still warm. Ping also got their chocolate shake and it's chocolicious!!! It is likely to be one of Ping's favorite place now...as long as there's places to sit. They also put little biscuits with their straw but Ping didn't eat the biscuit for fear that it was left out for sometime over the night or that it was touched with fingers that were also messing with the cash register.
Ping had wanted to have dinner with TT today 'coz TT is leaving for Beijing tomorrow and headed back to M'sia after the conference at Beijing. Ping is soooooo jealous of TT. Ping wanna go home too. But not just yet..wanna enjoy the lovely weather in Michigan now and get through the nightmare-ish comprehensive exam first.

Mochi ice-cream and pastries

Lately, whenever Ping goes to the Bubble Tea shop on Grand River Ave, Ping craved for the Mochi ice-cream. But Ping refrained herself from getting because they sell 3 of the Mochi balls for USD 3.50. Can you imagine that??? So last weekend, Ping went to Oriental Mart to get one box of the chocolate Mochi. It costs Ping USD 4.25, which is still very expensive for 6 balls of ice-cream but it's way cheaper than buying them from Bubble Tea. Ping can also take her own sweet time savoring the 6 balls instead of having to eat them all at once.
There are various different flavors but Ping's favorite is the chocolate and coffee flavor. The ice-cream is actually nothing special. The fun part is the chewy texture of the glutinous rice flour coating the ice-cream. It is actually the flour that is known as 'mochi' in Japanese.
It is the same ingredient used for most Japanese desserts. When Ping visited NYC with TT and DK, TT brought Ping to Minamoto Kichoan on Fifth Ave. Ping quietly took a picture of the Jonamagashi. Ping couldn't resists because they look so lovely and cute! Don't think it should be eaten lah. TT bought Ping a rice cake type Wagashi - a red-bean paste filled mochi pastry. Yum yum. No wonder Doraemon likes to eat it so much. *bleh* But don't think Ping could take too much of it because it is kinda sweet and sweet things always make Ping jelak.
TT also bought us a box of green tea Kasutera. Ping thought the Kasutera was pretty good but tt had higher expectations as tt thinks it's not very fresh. But Ping don't know a whole lot since that's only the third time Ping had Kasutera. As long as it's not made by Ping (who is disastrous at complicated baking recipes), it will be tasty. Kekeke...
Aiks..all these Japanese desserts blogging is making Ping think about Konnyaku Jelly. It first became popular in M'sia when Ping was in college. There are stalls in Sunway Pyramid, Prangin Mall and 1 Utama selling these jelly that costs 50cents for 2 jelly!! Ping bought it once from Pyramid after whining daddy about how special the jelly is. Later, tua ee started making them and Ping got the ingredients and recipe from tua ee. Ping brought it here to the States that first time too. Ping would make them with lychee or peaches. But ever since then, Ping hasn't brought back more. Definitely have to place that in Ping's list for the next trip home (which is soon!!! and hopefully before ee ee goes to Vietnam? Cambodia?...errr...somewhere).

an eventful day

Just a little after 8.30am, SE arrived and she realized Ping is kinda glum (apparently Ping gets quiet when Ping is unhappy...hmmm..). So we kinda joke around a little and Ping felt better. But as lunch time approach, Ping's spirit soared higher as KH is coming for lunch with us! This will be her last lunch with us but at that time, the sadness has yet to set in because Ping and SE were just excited to see KH again.

We went to Thai Kitchen since KH's favorite food is Thai food. DoubleD, Brain, UL and JG also came along. It was definitely a fun time with all of us back as a team, talking about all the old jokes that only we could understand. It no longer matter that in few months, it'll just be Ping and UL and everyone will be on their own new journey. It was a moment to be treasured. After lunch, we drove to Starbucks for our regular coffee/chai/cookies. Since the boss won't be back later in the afternoon, we decided to be lazy and hung out outside of Starbucks.

After work, the girls went to JG's place and hang out in front of the TV. We were switching between Rachel Ray's 30 minutes meal (which was pizza today and Ping wasn't totally interest in it as it looks messy to prepare and eat) and Stargate. Just a little past 6.30pm, we drove to Celebration! and watched Little Miss Sunshine. I am totally recommending everyone to watch it when they are upset and need a little...a lot...of laugh. It's been sooooooooooo long since Ping laughed so hard that Ping's throat actually felt dry after the movie. Initially Ping thought that it would be a family comedy but I wouldn't recommend kids watching it though...it's kinda creepy if a little kid decided to replica the dance move. *shudders* Hopefully not. But it's a very funny movie and definitely did cheer us up. Even while we're on our way home in the car, we were still chuckling and laughing over the funny plots.

Ping is gonna miss the three girls but Ping is definitely happy for them. Therefore, Ping will treasure what little time Ping has with them before they take off for their post-doctoral journey. For now, Ping gets to sleep in tomorrow morning!! The first football game is tomorrow so almost the entire campus will be tailgating starting at 8am through 5pm. That's good enough of a reason to not plan experiment for Saturday..kekeke.