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