It is all about food...

When traveling to large cities like New York and Boston, there are usually two main attractions - the city itself and the food galore they offer. Ping was recently on a road trip to the East Coast with a bunch of chinese M'sian friends. The main purpose of the trip was to attend Jay Chou's concert at Mohegan Sun, Connecticut but since we were heading towards that area of the State, we decided to do the rest - starting with New Jersey (which we only spent one night), New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

While Ping would have opt to try more of the local specialties and different types of cuisine busy cities have to offer, but a trip with M'sians who have not been home for a long time and craving for homecook food had us making more frequent trips to chinese restaurants.
The first was at New Jersey - our first stop. We drove straight from East Lansing, MI, passing by Ohio and Pennsylvania to get to New Jersey. The entire trip took us 12 hours. We could have arrived a little earlier if not for the traffice jam (which reminds Ping of Federal Highway during peak hours). We went to a restaurant serving both Chinese and Thai food and had the special treatment 'coz ZT knows the 老闆娘 pretty well - Golden Palace Restaurant, Kenilworth, New Jersey. Ping was pretty excited initially as we were just snacking on junk all day. The first dish was a huge pot of hot chicken soup...then came the curry chicken and tau eu bak (Ping's favorite!)..then the pad thai noodles (another one of Ping's favorite!)...then more dishes came flowing out. It came to a point when there are way too much food than all 8 of us can finish in an entire day! An entire table full of food!! This is definitely a luxury! Even harder to come by - an entire fish! With the head and tail! Now this is what we call real fish, as oppose to all those fillets we get from Meijer.

The next day, Ping took off by herself to New York to meet up with her lil bro at tiptup's apartment at Roosevelt Island. It was when Ping was in NY that Ping get to try non-Chinese food. Thanks to tiptup's recommendation, we went to the Five Guys for dinner. Totally American! Simple! They make really good fries too! The fries was super addictive that by the time Ping got her hotdog, Ping was half-full.
The next morning, tiptup and dk brought us to brunch at Queens. Like NYC, it is very cultural, with shops of Italian, French, Korean, Chinese influence. Ping can't remember the name of the restaurant we went to..although it has a very simple name that Ping was so sure Ping would remember it..anyway, Ping had spinach, mozerella and tomato toast - all three of Ping's favorite!! Don't ask why they serve fries with it 'coz Ping thought it was weird having fries for brunch too!!

After the brunch, dk drove us to Flushing to drop Ping off so that Ping can meet up with the gang. Flushing is a HUGE Chinatown! It is like Petaling Street. Like Chee Chong Kai. Ping missed out on the M'sian grocery store though. But we did go to a Korean bakery that reminds Ping of Jaya Jusco bakery. The photo is a little blurry since Ping took it without focusing as Ping wasn't sure if they allow photo-taking there. You know lah..Asian a bit more im chim one. Too bad Ping didn't stay long enough to try any M'sian food there. Seems like there are tons M'sian restaurants there.

We didn't try anything unique at Connecticut. Ping was too excited to see Jay to be sitting down and eating anything. The moment we arrived at Connecticut, Ping was already 'jae beh tiam' and 'chiak beh luk'. Hehe...just like when Ping was back in M'sia, waiting to see Jay for the first time!! Plus, we were in Connecticut for only two nights and a day and we spent the time sleeping most of the day after Jay's concert which was at 2am!!

Cool gifts

Ping is not big on giving birthday gifts or any gifts at all. It is only when Ping see something and Ping thought of a certain someone then will Ping get it. It is probably because when growing up, mum and dad was never big on giving birthday presents. It was more spending time with the family and having a nice dinner somewhere or home cook dinner by gee kim. The other thing about gifts that deter Ping from giving is that you don't really know what the person wants or need.

Recently Ping found out about this program by Heifer International. While most organizations simply bring food and send their volunteers to help out people in the third world country, Heifer International actually help the people take charge of their own life. They preach sustainable development. Have you heard of the Chinese proverb "給他一條魚, 你餵他一天, 教他釣魚, 你餵他一輩子" ? It literally means "Give the man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach the man to fish, you feed him for life". In the ancient Chinese, it used to be "授人以魚, 三餐之需. 授人以漁, 終生之用" which basically means the same. This is the basis of their programs. Instead of giving money donations, you buy the family a cow or ducks or some kind of food source animal. They have volunteers all over the third world countries to help them start their own farm so that they can feed themselves. Pretty cool!

So when you are not sure what to give someone for their birthday, buy a flock of geese under their name.

Buatan Malaysia

Ping and Pei went shopping at Meijer this weekend. Actually more like Pei teman Ping go because Ping has to go buy stuff to clean the carpet and bunch of other stuff for the apartment. Almost got everything except the curtain (which is so hard to find the right size!!!) and a tv (which Ping is still not sure if we should get one since Ping don't watch it very much...will wait till the lil bro get here).

As we were walking pass an isle, we saw this box that says 'Product of Malaysia'. Haha...the two Penangkias got super excited. It is not very common to see 'Malaysia' in Meijer. Usually barang buatan Malaysia are electronics (like Ping's new laptop!) or crappy gloves or Adidas clothes. So what is this stuff that is made in Malaysia? Canned crab meat!! Haha...how come I didn't know that Malaysia has canned crab meat? Still prefer the frozen one. But if Ping is in M'sia...the fresh one is even better!!!

Ping's lab

The lab Ping is working in has gone through quite a lot of changes this past year. People leaving, new people joining, stuff being moved around, new equipments, and bunch of other stuff.

Ping's most recent desk arrangementThe writing area is kinda tight now but Ping have been going to the library or going home whenever Ping has to do writing. Ping gets to see the sun set and rises everyday and the lovely view when it is snowing.

The desk at the end of the bench is Ping's original desk. It is now moved to this side of the lab to be the gassing station (which is an area where we exchange the type of gas in the headspace of a flask/bottle that we are using to grow our bacterial cultures. The glove bag will be an anaerobic glove bag for culturing bacteria from hyena paste. Unlike mammals, some bacteria can only grow or grow better when there is no oxygen - known as obligate or facultative anaerobic bacteria. To provide them with the right condition to grow, we grow them in a glove bag that has the oxygen gas in the headspace exchanged for nitrogen. Sometimes people use a mix of other gases such as hydrogen or carbon dioxide. We have also used helium gas in the lab before too - this is a fun one!!!
This area used to be our gel electrophoresis area. However, we have moved the gel station near the entrance of the lab (below) and this is now the bench of a postdoc who joined us just a few months ago.
The gel area is where we run gel electrophoresis to separate out DNA, to determine size of our DNA of interest, to determine the length of our DNA amplification reaction (polymerase chain reaction, PCR), and anything else that requires the visualization of DNA.
This are used to be Steph's bench and the lab computer for everyone's use. The computer is now moved to the end of the desk (can see the chair facing the wall? That's where the computer is. ) and the desk and bench is now used by a post-doc who joined us sometime middle of this year. She's been a really nice addition to the female population in the lab but Ping still misses having Steph around, especially during the nights and weekends.
Here are two more glove bags. The one closer is a new one we recently bought for isolating bacteria from the human gut (using colonoscopy samples) and the further one is for isolating bacteria from soil. These are in a smaller room somewhere across from the main lab.

Pretty cool, eh. Ping is lucky to be in a pretty complete lab, having most of the stuff that Ping needs or would like to explore with.

The Little Nyonya

It has been a while since Ping watched Singapore drama series. It is easier to get access to Taiwanese drama than S'pore drama since the piracy regulations there are a lot tighter. The last S'pore drama Ping watched is the Parental Guidance 2, which was two years ago now or some where there. Lately, Ping started checking back to see what's going on (since the Taiwan drama going on now is not as entertaining). Found a new drama that Ping will most likely continue to follow - The Little Nyonya (小娘惹).

The story revolves around the life of a little nyonya who went through all the hardship during 1930s through the World War II. They bring up the issues of interracial marriage, complicating family trees, the exchange of young girls for money and so forth. Unlike unrealistic Taiwanese dramas, S'porean dramas tend to relate more to the lifestyle people actually experience. Just watching the first episode broadcasted a few days ago, Ping remembers all the story that ahmah told Ping - how she escaped the chaotic WW2 from Penang to Malacca, the complication in her family with family members being sold to other relatives, the unique lifestyle of a nyonya and so forth. While at times, it was annoying have her talk non-stop, Ping acknowledge that those are the information that is pretty rare to come by.

Some of you must be wondering what is Ping talking about. What is nyonya? Let's start with Peranakan. It is a Malay word, literally meaning 'descendents'. Peranakans refer to the descendents of Chinese immigrant from Fujian province, China, (mostly) who married local Malays (mostly within the region of Straits Settlement - Malacca, Penang [at that time known as Prince of Wales Island], Singapore). Ping is not too sure how the British fit into the whole Peranakan origin but it all started when Emperor Yong Le (永樂) of China sent his daughter, Princess Hang Li Poh ( 汉丽宝) to marry Sultan Mansur Shah of Malacca (unreasonable, but I guess people at that time thinks that this is okay, especially since female is almost invaluable to the family...hmm...wonder why her last name is Han...or does all the Hans have Han as their last name?). Does that mean that we are somehow related to her since she is part of the source of Peranakans? Hmmm...

Peranakans typically still maintain their Chinese culture (they celebrate all the traditional festivals like Chinese New Year, Moon Cake Festival, etc.) but adopt the local Malay language and customs to try to fit into the local community. During 'adopting the language', a new dialect evolved - the Peranakan language (or is there an official term for it???), which is a combination of Malay and Hokkien (since most of the Chinese were from Fujian province who speaks Hokkien). So Nyonya refers to the females while Baba refers to the male. Ping loves listening to the language. Like the Chinese language of the olden days, they love to use poetic terms...can't think of any right now though. Ahmah has a book written in the peranakan language somewhere in her stash of stuff that Ping used to love flipping through just to know the language. Hopefully she/daddy (although more like daddy..hehe) still keeps that book since it is a treasure now. The easiest way to pick the difference between the current spoken Malay and the peranakan language is the way they address themselves - saya (or the more commonly use, although rude - aku) for Malay while Peranakan calls themselves 'gua'. 'Gua' actually has a Chinese origin - from 'wa' (我) in Hokkien. Besides Hokkien and Peranakan, most Peranakan can also speak fluent British English since the Straits Settlement are regions where the British have residential officials. So Ping's ahmah can actually speak pretty fluent English (although her pronounciation can be a little off sometimes) and she reads the English newspaper everyday too!

So how does Ping fits into this culture? Err...not too sure actually. If not mistaken, Ping's paternal grandma is a nyonya with 50% peranakan...and Ping's maternal great-grandma (ah chor) has a little bit of it??? But since both Ping's parents are not, Ping is more chinese than peranakan. Ping loves the food and the culture, but no idea how to speak the language, although Ping can understand it to a certain point. Ping does look like one though since Ping is often mistaken as a Malay. Chinese typically has a fairer skin tone while the Peranakans have darker skin tones, looking more like a Malay.

Due to the combination of background, Peranakans have a rich culture. Ping loves their 'baju kebaya', which usually consists of a 'sarung', an inner tank top (wonder what they used to call this?) and an outer blause that is typically slight transparent. Ping is still hoping to get one for herself someday. They are mostly on the higher end of clothing choice these days. Everytime Ping walks into the store, Ping can only manage to nudge mum and say, "mummy ar, that one nice hor". Another thing that is unique to the Peranakan is the 'chiki pai'. It is similar to mahjong, but in the form of cards. Ahmah used to teach us (ahboy and Ping) how to play them but Ping can barely remember how anymore. Definitely one thing to make sure we learn from ahmah. Wonder if the cards are still available in the market. Of course, not to forget the lovely manik shoes that mum makes. Just from the details on manik shoes, one can tell the amount of effort the nyonyas spent on their apparel. By the way, mum is really good at sewing maniks and making new designs. She's working on a hand bag currenty so if anyone wanna get a pair of manik shoe or want to learn how to make them, she's the person to go to!! They might be more expensive than some simple high heels but comparing to what people 'normally' pay for a pair of factory-made shoe, the manik shoe is definitely more worth it.

Thinking about it now, it seems like Peranakans might be have pretty upscale lifestyle...not too sure though. Anyway, that's Ping's spill of Peranakans. Will definitely be looking forward to the drama. By the way, why is it called 小娘惹? Is 娘惹 the translation for Nyonya?

Photography

Ping was at a photography workshop this Saturday. Ping learned her photography skills from dad, starting with the super huge manual Canon that we had a long long time ago. When Ping got her first digicam (Canon S410), Ping knew some of the stuff that you need to adjust like the ISO, exposure and of course, flash/no flash options. Ping never took the time to figure out the new features that come with digicam.

At the course, Ping learned about white balance and the effects function. Took a photo of the Red Cedar River on the walk back to Ping's car using the vivid effect. The one on the left is taken with no effect while the one on the right is taken with the vivid effect. On such a cloudy day, Ping always have trouble capturing the right contrast between the green leaves and the blue of the water. The vivid effect sure does a really good job with it.

The other thing that Ping learned from the workshop is the white balance. The indoor lighting in US are typically yellow light. Sometimes it makes the subject unnatural. Ping typically use flash to offset the yellow lighting but sometimes the flash is way too bright, especially if taking a subject at close distance. There is one function that can be selected to reduce the yellow lighting. This is the white balance function. The photo on the left was taken with auto function while the one on the right is taken with the fluorescent function. The fluorescent function is like adding a fluorescent light to the subject. Looks better right??

After the 'lecture' part, we went out to take some photos in the botany greenhouse. That was the first time Ping went into the greenhouse. They have quite a lot of stuff with various theme. Ping's favorite is the tropical theme - reminds Ping of home!! Caught quite a few interesting stuff...

A Monkey cup! Ahboy, remember the one we found at Tasik Kenyir?

Banana!! Not one of Ping's favorite fruit though...unless it is pisang goreng from the roadside vendor on the way up to Batu Feringghi!!!

Morning glory @ Bunga seri pagi (牽牛花). It reminds Ping of bunga telang. Wonder if they use the morning glory to make the blue seri kaya kuih or not.

Carnivorous pitcher plant. （食蟲植物）Haven't been seeing this as often in M'sia. Might have to go deep into the tropical forest to see it. Definitely not in areas like Penang National Park since we didn't see any while we were there.

Halloween Party - a belated post

Just felt like posting some of the stuff we did for Halloween. That was the last time Ping really hang out with the gang - we had a little gathering after dinner at Ping's place and watch ghost movies. The next gathering will be the road trip to go see 杰倫 at Mohegan Sun!!! Time sure past fast when Ping is crazy busy. This couple weeks will definitely be fast too as Ping is back in lab!!! Got lotsa stuff that Ping wanna do!!!

That day was a pretty happening day as it was the last home football game (finally!!! Ping is surely not a fan of home football games!) After spending most of the day in the lab, Ping went to pick ah Pei up and we head over to Meijer to get some stuff to make some snacks for the evening gathering.

We had....a bunch of sugar loaded snacks. Sure made Ping avoided sugar after that night. But hei, it's Halloween!!

RIP Cupcakes. ZT and Ping did the decor for this.

Spider Cupcakes. The girls decorated this. While Ping thought it looks like spider, the majority thought it resembles 螃蟹 (pang2xie4, crab).

Then there was the Ghost Pudding. It was just plain chocolate pudding (mum's recipe) with melted marshmallow...not as successful though. But MC and ah Pei had fun melting the marshmallows.

The creepiest looking one is the eyeball egg. But it was good!!


















Another creepy one is the Bleeding Toe.

Lastly, we had a Pizza Face!

We also watched two ghost movies - JuOn (the original Japanese version of the Grudge) and another cantonese movie that Ping can't remember but apparently is a pretty well-known movie once upon a time. Ping watched clips of JuOn a long time ago so it was nice to finally be able to understand what is going on with the movie (with different opinions from different people...hehe). The best part was seeing PH being creep out and yet, still wants to sit right there hiding under the blankie.

Technorati Tags: halloween

Short, short, short.

Ping needs to keep her sentences short. Gotta reduce using words like while, then, hence, therefore, which will be,....

This should not be that different from the weekly report Ping writes up but why the thought that Ping is applying to NSF makes it all so much more tense. Seriously, should I even be submitting this? Gosh...can't imagine how it would be like when Ping finally starts writing up the BGE chapter for her dissertation. Scary.

8 more days to go.

Boo...

Blogging from Windows Live Writer. Just got the new toy - XPS M1530 and wanna try out some of Windows Vista's new stuff. Kinda like the gadget stuff at the side...almost like the Mac...still like the Mac one better.

Can't install Asian language input yet as haven't install MS Office. Too distracted to install anything or personalized anything. All Ping can think of right now is BGE, BGE, BGE. Can't seem to get my hands on a really good 'model' relating C:N ratio with BGE yet. Dateline is only 9 days away. Scary. Feels like writing my own prelim proposal all over again. Limited preliminary data. Not knowing where is this going. But at the same time, it feels more exciting because this is something that Ping really wants to do (okay, so the ribosome stuff was exciting too but it feels 'less achievable').

Alright..back to writing. Curious to see how this comes up.

周杰倫 Collection of Jay’s works.

Woooohoooo!!!我終於拿到了!! Can't help checking the mailbox every day since Ping saw that it was shipped on the 16^th. It is actually earlier than expected because initially, they were going to ship it out on the 20^th. Ping had plans to finish reviewing for a quiz on Monday and get groceries on Saturday but when Ping saw Hobie posted that she got her cd on Friday, Ping knew it was gonna get here that day. So Ping finished up all the stuff that she had to do in the lab and head home…there goes the plan to review and go to Kroger. *Phew* Caught the postman just in time!!! After an entire year!!! We finally get to see Jay again!!

After listening to the album, Ping decided to take a photo of Ping's Jay collection. Was listening to the album while cleaning up the room too! Had to clean the room 'coz the room was super messy to the point that there is no floor space to arrange all the albums and stuff. This weird working hours that Ping is going through right now makes Ping tired every time she gets home and she just shower and crash.

Starting from his first album in 2000, with songs he wrote that were rejected by other artists. From then on, it was one album every year, all songs that he wrote himself. Yup, he wrote EVERY SINGLE song in ALL his albums. Most of the lyrics were written by 方文山 (Vincent) but in every album, there will be at least two songs that are penned by Jay himself. While his albums stayed pretty constant in style throughout 依然范特西 (Still Fantasy) released in 2006, the drastic change occurred when he started his own company with his lyricist (方文山) and manager (揚峻榮) – JVR Music (杰威爾) for Jay, Vincent, and Rong. Probably because now he can do whatever he wants, as long as 方文山 and 榮哥 agrees to it. Oh, and of course his mom too! Ping didn't start collecting the originals until 2004…when Ping had some extra money to spend. Hehe…Ping's favorite is his second album – 范特西 (Fantasy), especially the EP, where he wrote and penned 3 extra songs. But he's the only artist that has no song which Ping does not like.

While he started as a singer, like most Taiwanese artists, he eventually stepped into moviedom. Although not as active as others, and started out as a minor (Hidden Track, 尋找周杰倫), he did acted in 3 of the Asia's top movies – Initial D (頭文字D), Curse of Golden Flower (滿城黃金甲) and recently, Kung Fu Dunk (功夫灌籃). In addition to that, he also wrote, directed and acted in his own movie, Secret (不能說的秘密), which was pretty impressive. He's currently writing the script for Secret 2, which apparently is not related to Secret at all so we'll just have to wait and see what the storyline is about. Like these are all not enough for him, he have also had 3 world tours, in 2001, 2004 and 2007, which is still going on – Ping got a chance to see him in M'sia earlier this year and, yup, AND, will be going to see him again in December at Mohegan Sun, Connecticut. Ping is still missing his Curse of Golden Flower movie and KFD EP.

Ping also got quite a few of his merchandise. Not as complete since there is not much that Ping feels is worth keeping or spending the money on. The first black shirt on the left and the handphone strap are from this year's concert. So are the 2^nd black one and the white one but they are from Jay2U, rather than the official concert merchandise. The black one is for the VIPs while the white one is for regulars. The black bag from his 2007 concert in LA was given to Ping by TT, who did go to the concert (Ping wanted to go too but since Ping was already planning to back to M'sia, decided that it would be more worth it to go to the one in M'sia, which it really was because Ping was sitting at the third row from the front!!!). The rubik cube and poker card is the added gift with this year's new album – Capricorn (魔杰座). Ping's favorite piece of all is the AUTOGRAPHED KFD photobook. Yup! It is AUTOGRAPHED by Jay himself!!! Thanks to SM for spending all the time and effort to get it for Ping.

Next on Ping's list is the DVD with MVs for all the songs in 魔杰座. Another thing he does very well is directing MVs, with the exception of 我很忙, all his songs have MVs, which he usually add to EPs but it seems like it'll be sold individually this time as the 龍戰騎士 MV is a super expensive MV and will be a pretty long one, kinda like a short movie which he used to do quite a bit when he wasn't so active in movie-making.

Off to bed, while listening to 范特西…開不了口…只能遠遠看者一直到老.

Colors of Fall

The temperature is starting to drop. Ping's red sweater is no longer enough. But Sunday was pretty sunny that it felt wasted to be spending the entire day indoor. So Ping, Jo and TT went to Hawk Island County Park for a walk. Initially Ping wanted to walk the new trail towards Potter Park Zoo but we ended up at some residential playground somewhere in Lansing. Will try out for the Potter Park Zoo direction next time. We have gone to the park several times for bbq but only Ping had ran the park trail a few times over the summer. We have also explored the Potter Park Zoo last summer - definitely nothing compared to Zoo Negara! At that time, we drove there but this summer, Jo and Ping discovered that it is actually pretty close to walk to by following the river trail from University Village, just right outside campus.

We started at the trail in Hawk Island County Park, heading into Scott Woods Park and exit at East Greenlawn Avenue (TT, you're right...there is a health care center right there. It is the building that was on the other side of the playground). Most of the leaves have already fallen but those that are still hanging out have pretty colors.

Ping like this a lot - colorful leaves with blue skies. It was cold but the sky was clear that afternoon.
The red ones are the ones that stand out most...
but Ping's favorite is the apple green, even when Ping was a kid, Ping also pick this green when coloring trees.
This is Ping's favorite scene! A simplicity that can bring lots of fantasies! Doesn't it remind you of a scene in Disney's Snow White? or Bambi? Imagine a deer standing by the creek, a world of its own, untouchable, away from disturbance. Nature is still the prettiest.
Just before we left the park, we saw this cute little thing here (although looking at it made Ping felt itchy!). Not sure what kind of caterpillar it is but it reminded us of the 'cheng'. Remember when we had to clean our white shoes back in school every weekend? When we clean, we had to use the black cheng which is very hard and Ping preferred the brown one that is smaller and softer. Wonder if the person who created the 'cheng' got the idea from seeing this little creature here?

It has been a while...

Ping is currently taking a class on "Human and Ecological Health Assessment" to fulfill the Environmental Science and Policy program requirements. The structure of this class is pretty unique - one that Ping have not experienced before. We are required to do a lecture recap and self-evaluation at the end of every class. Initially Ping thought it was kinda useless but after the third lecture, it is actually pretty useful because Ping was basically writing down a summary of the lecture that will be easier to study for exams (actually, more like quizzes since they only count for a small percentage of the total score). In addition to that, it was also to remind Ping of what she needs to improve and what area she's totally blur. This is done right after class and written on a form that the professor prints out for us. In addition to that, there is also a form for us to evaluate our group members (we are divided into groups when it comes to case studies) this week, at the same time, getting an evaluation for ourselves from them.

This week, we are suppose to meet with the professor for an evaluation and also to know what areas we should improve before the end of the semester. Before we meet with the professor, she sends us a summary of our evaluation so that we can think about it and prepare questions if we have any. Ping just got an email from the professor and this one sentence brings back tons of high school memories, can't help laughing out loud...

"You have also done a good job in evaluating others. (Can you try to write in bigger letters? Thanks.)"

Geezzz!!! Ping would never imagine getting this now...in graduate school...more than halfway through her PhD!!!! Ping's friends who have gone to school with Ping would know that Ping's handwriting is tiny but it has evolve to a larger font over the years, especially now that Ping is too lazy to write super neat after class (since Ping have weekly meetings with Tom right after class), the writing is definitely bigger than before. Yet!! Ping gets this comment. Hmmm...how big does people usually write??????? As far as Ping knows, Mei and mum's handwriting is as small as Ping's!!! Daddy, do you still have the photos you took of my handwriting for my high school notes when you were cleaning up in KL?? That was definitely way smaller and Ping could understand why Ping's BM teacher in Form 4 refuse to grade her first ujian bulanan. Took Ping a long time to finally write big enough for her to start grading them...don't even talk about SPM man!! Super tired by the end of all the essay papers! (Mei!! I can't remember who taught us BM in Form 4!!! Die edi! Can you???? She's like the best BM teacher we had in all our schooling years and I totally blank out on her name!!!! I can remember how she look like and all but can't think of her name at all!!!!)

Midnight Madness

It's Friday night!! Ping and Pei already had a plan – movie spree! We had always wanted to watch "無間道" (Infernal Affairs) from the first to the third all in a row since we had forgotten the first story line when the third one came out (which Ping actually haven't seen either). Ping was gonna take the 6.30pm bus home and have dinner before heading over to Pei's place with the movies and the cable so that we can hook up the laptop to the TV. But just as Ping was checking her email before leaving lab, Ping found out about Midnight Madness – a public event held by the Men's Basketball team to introduce the season's players and to start their first game at midnight (NCAA rules – they can only have official game practice after Oct 17). They were going to have an autograph session too!! So we decided to hold off on Wu Jian Dao to go to Midnight Madness.

Drove over to Pei's place just before 9pm. The Midnight Madness was held at the Breslin Center. They opened the door at 9.30pm but will not start until 10.30pm. We drove out around 9.30pm but took us a while to find a parking spot (too cold to walk there!). By the time we got to Breslin Center, all the lines for autographs from both the men and women's basketball team were super long. We really wanted to get the poster for the men's basketball team but we didn't want to miss the starting of the event. So we went to look for a place to seat – way up on the third tier. It was definitely the furthest Ping has sat and wish Ping could get hold of Tom's season tickets instead of the student session upper bowl tickets.

The best part of the night was watching the players dancing around in the 1979 uniforms (super tight jersey and super short pants). Tom Izzo (the coach) also came out in a hippies theme costume - pretty wild, eh. It was suppose to be a welcoming gift for Gregory Kelser – an alumni MSU basketball player and ex-Seattle NBA player who is currently a broadcaster for Detroit's Piston. After a bunch of performance from the MSU Dance team, MSU Cheerleading team, and MSU Marching band, the women's team played for 10 minutes followed by the men's team. Sparty is super cute!! It is definitely fun to see the guys play again although Ping kinda miss watching Drew Nietzel (currently playing for German's Artland Dragons) play. But, am pretty sure it will still be an exciting season with Lucas Kalin appearing more on court. Go Spartans!

Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children

Charity. There are times when we see a news clip in the newspaper, a coverage on the news channel, the headlines during our daily visit to cnn.com or even in our daily conversations with friends, we wish we could do more to make things better. Not being a millionaire (or more like billionaire these days) with tons of money to splurge on luxuries, we feel that we are pretty much useless. Is that true? NOT ＡT ALL!

The Members Project is an effort made by American Express to support projects that help make a difference in the world. Nope, you don't have to make any donations, all you have to do is vote. AMEX had compile a bunch of projects and through several discussions and voting cycle, they are now done to the last 5 projects. The winning project will be given USD１.5 million to implement it. It may just be a vote but your vote will count towards which project gets the money they need to help make the world a better place. What is in it for us? A good deed token. That is all. You don't even have to be an AMEX card holder to cast your vote. Out of the 5 projects, Ping chosed the one to help save the lives of malnourished children. There definitely is a need to provide the right kind of food to malnourished children. If it is only 'we did donate food', do you think that is much help? Maybe. But what if they are not getting the right kind of food they need? They can't be eating white rice everyday. (Sure, we always say 'boh lui lang chiak pek pui' but that is not helping them at all!!) To help them whole-heartedly, it has to be the right kind of food. This way, we solve two problems at once - starvation and malnourishment.

More information below...do what you think is right!

Statistical analysis using MS Excel 2007

Ping learn something new today!! 今天本來是不會很productive的, 因為有兩個seminar,又要去買bas pass (怪這個馬馬虎虎的我, 不小心弄不見了!!). But as Ping was looking at the tons of different measurements of BGE that she has, wishing that something that can gives a definite answer will jump up at her, Ping simply typed ANOVA into Excel help. Didn't expect anything to come up because the last time Ping checked, the most robust statistical test you can get from Excel is ttest. Not anymore!! Excel 2007 could really do ANOVA for you! High five to Microsoft!! Ping was starting to get disappointed with MS Office 2007, where they change all the file formats and the program looks more like a software for little kids to start learning how to type. It also became less intuitive to find stuff. Basically, Ping had to learn all the functions again! Some of the old VB codes Ping had won't work on it either!!

Now that Ping figure out about the Data Analysis ToolPak, Ping is glad to have Excel. No more waiting in line for computers in the library to use SAS for Ping's stats analysis!!

MS Excel Data Analysis ToolPak

Rainy Weekend

It started raining sometime Friday night and it has not stop till a short while ago. Not a very fun weekend at all. Ping went to lab on Saturday morning, thinking there wouldn't be as many people tailgating (basically having a bbq or picnic before a football game) since it was raining heavily. But guess what, the people here are super hardcore about the game because there are as many people tailgating as any sunny day.

Later that night, we had a steamboat session at Chang-Wee residence to celebrate the Mid-Autumn festival (中秋節), also known as Mooncake Festival. We wanted to go lantern walk after that but unfortunately, the rain did not stop at all, even after we ate all the mooncakes. By the way, green tea mooncake is yummy!!! Ah Pei brought some back from M'sia and that's the first time Ping tried it. Thanks 親愛的!!!

Spend most of the morning reading for ESP's assignment on animal agriculture. While on it, Ping realize that the local community here play a pretty big role in decision making and they definitely take the initiative to be heard. It is such a big difference compared to the M'sian culture. If the same issue is happening in M'sia (the negative impact of Confined Animal Feeding Operations, CAFOs), people are more likely to just brush it off or gossip about it during the morning market gathering. While sometimes Ping agree that there is no point in making a fuss about small stuff, issues like the CAFOs need to be taken seriously. Someone has to take the initiative to make the communities opinion be heard by the authority and residence should be part of the stakeholders. M'sia has a long way to go until the people take action. We are still very use to the 'whatever lah' and 'all talk but no show' attitude. Now Ping is curious on how they assess the risks of CAFOs in M'sia.

This is definitely a weird weekend. Michigan rarely get rain continously for two days. The rain are usually not more than a few hours. Feels like rainy season in M'sia. 感覺悶悶不樂的. Hopefully the rain will stop when Ping needs to get to campus tomorrow morning. It is definitely not fun waiting for the bus under the rain. But at least Ping's plants are very happy!

Sunny Sunday afternoon

It was rainy and gloomy early this morning. But as the Sun rises higher, the rain went away, and the sky started to clear. It was then when Ping started to 三心二意 (lose concentration), looking out the window after every paragraph Ping read - was reading on the significance of BGE measurement in modeling the net C flux between ocean and atmosphere (at the same time kept wondering why is it so hard to obtain similar measurements for soil environment...grrrr!).
Alright, no way is Ping staying indoors when the weather is so lovely outside! So off Ping went, planning for a picnic at the Rose garden. Unfortunately, the gang were not interested. So Ping ate her cheese, cucumber, turkey cold cuts with crackers while watching bits and pieces of 籃球火 - 小豬 is super kawaii!!! The basketball scenes just crack you up!

Went back to reading stuff for class and not too long later, Ping started looking out the window again and felt that it is just so wrong to be indoors when the Sun is shining so bright out and the weather is just lovely. Ping managed to get Jo to accompany Ping to take a walk at the MSU Perennials Garden and MSU 4H Children's Garden.

The bright yellow color always catch the eye, they look like bees buzzing all over the place.
A cute one. Double Japanese something...nope, Ping is not good with flowers. They remind Ping of sunny-side up.
A perfect rose!

Ping's favorite is the lavender colored flowers!!!!

Mummy, is this daun kadok (lon kaluk, the one that we use for nasi ulam) that air itam ahmah used to grow at the back corner of the house? What is the daun kadok called in English ar?
A nice quote at the garden entrance.
We ended the afternoon with a walk through the Sanford Natural Area. Thanks a bunch for the walk Jo! It was refreshing! Am glad we didn't waste the precious sunny Sunday afternoon.