ReNe: genetics retreat

On Friday morning, I went to the Genetics retreat. It's basically a one and half day event at some nice resort couple of hours out of town, where various senior students present their work in talks and posters. The really nice thing is that everything's free. =)

[On a side note, since the retreat started at 10:30am, and my ride's at 8:30am over at the Danforth campus, I had to wake up at 6:40am! That's the earliest time I've woken up since coming to the US.]

Overall, it was a great experience. A little daunting, when looking at the quality of the work presented, but also inspiring.

Very nice room. I'd say the place, Cedar Creek Conference Center, is at least a 3-star. Basic toiletries were provided.

When I wasn't indoors listening to talks or doing homework (yes, I actually brought homework to do during the 'free time' as these retreats are attended on our own time and the profs wouldn't give us leeway because of this), I was out walking. The resort brochure claimed that this is a hiking trail, but as the picture shows, it was hardly arduous. And yes, I did see some horses.

Looks nice, doesn't it? The lake's man-made though, so that takes the shine off it a bit.

Apparently, one can go boating...

Very 'wild west' in theme, the conference center...

After the poster session at night, it was party time. One of the salons was opened for us, with a free bar (beers and soft drinks only though). At first I sat outside, where a bonfire was set up. It was pretty fun, actually. Some people brought a guitar, fiddle and banjo, and they were playing reels and jigs. After a while, it got quite nippy so I went in. A different sort of music was playing, and people were dancing, playing cards, or shooting pool. Even the faculty joined in, and that was really cool.

MiKE: (self imposed) house arrest

For the last few days, since Tuesday afternoon, I have been staying at home. I did not leave the place. Not even to throw my trash at the outdoor dumpster (no rubbish chute). Amazing, but true.

Till this morning, when I had to go meet someone at OISE.

The thinking was such: I was feeling poor, my stipend payment had not arrived yet, and going out meant, in one way or another, spending money. I had all the groceries I needed to eat in (and I did so), and I did not need to go watch a movie/buy clothes/buy CDs/shop/whatever. And I think I get spoilt by the knowledge that there are three 24 hour grocers within 5 minutes walk from where I am, so I don't have to rush to make sure I have my food items before the sun sets and the shops close.

So I stayed at home, cooked my own food, and entertained myself watching videos on the computer. And I did not notice that the garbage, even meticulously tied up in the corner of the room, was starting to emit malodorous fumes. Until, of course, I left the room, and came back.

It seems like this will be a new habit of mine - to stay indoors for days at a stretch, unless, of course, I need to go to OISE for my GA duties which have not been assigned yet. Not the best thing. Because one only gets that much exercise sitting and photosynthesizing before a LCD panel. Because one only gets that much sunlight in a day.

Right now, I feel a bit more relieved, since the funding payment has been made, and I am feeling like I should be going out to get stuff - like replenish the diminishing stock of rice. But I am feeling lazy, and also, I am feeling like I should save as much money as possible, and spend only when I absolutely have to; and there's still the brown rice, dried udon, dried soba, and spaghetti.

So I think I'll stay indoors for more...

MiKE: soul moving music

I was introduced to Ryuichi Sakamoto during my undergraduate years, when I was selecting music for some event which I participated in. Someone loaned me SoundBytes, and never asked it back. Soundbytes was much more electronic, but later albums I bought included 1996, MotoTronic, Smoochy, and Beauty. Stumbled upon videos of his live performances on youtube, and was reminded again why I love his work so much. Oh, you need to be seated patiently in a somewhat contemplative mood to 'get' this. If you are in a rush, don't bother.

"Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence"

"Bibo No Aozora"

This last one is actually based on an Okinawan folk tune (Asadoya Yunta). The other day when I went shopping for Japanese groceries here, I actually heard a version (not his, obviously) played on the sound system in the store.

And lastly, who could forget the haunting melody from The Last Emperor:

30 hrs on one assignment

When I think about it, it's staggering. It's a difficult assignment, yes, but not particularly so.

The assignment was due Tuesday. On Sunday, I spent 8 hours coding, and on Monday, an astounding 10 hours pecking away at the keyboard. To be frank, the code still has bugs but I think I've put in a good effort so I simply turned it in.

I guess in the first place, I was just rather rusty with C -- it's been *years* since I last used C (7 years in fact), and the very first thing I had to do was to install the compiler on my laptop... and the very first error I ran into was a 'bus error', which I had never seen before and upon googling it, found out that it was 'system dependent'. Now that's so helpful. I didn't know whether it was my compiler that installed wrongly or that it was my code. Turned out that it was my code.

Another big problem was that I didn't really understand the problem (and theory behind) very well, so, it's basically GIGO (garbage in and garbage out). There was a lot of wasted effort -- the electronic equivalent of balling up a paper of scribblings and throwing it away. Many times.

And that's just a *weekly* assignment.

MiKE: mosquito graveyard, and strange burbling

I cannot be sure what caused it, but given its correlation with that single incidence of heavy rain about a week or so ago, I am pretty sure the mosquitoes did their breeding in, you know, what the propaganda in singapore had been advising - those upturned containers and stuck drains where stagnant water can pool. Oh and by the way, when I say heavy, I mean, yes, by singaporean standards, cos that's the only one I know. I also know that most of the time, rain here is mild in comparison, and unusually short lived, even though I live within a mortar bomb of the lake.

And the other thing I did when I cleaned my windows was to not replace the fly screen. Big mistake, though I still do not feel like replacing them, cos I think that to do so cuts down the amount of light, and makes the windows look like a prison cell of sorts.

So. The mosquitoes have been invading, in the night. But the strange thing is that these mozzies do not bite. Either I am not labelling them correctly, or I have been consistently getting a huge swarm of male mosquitoes, or mosquitoes in Canada do not leave itchy bites. They seem to be attracted to the 100W equivalent CFL bulb that I have beside my desk; and like moths to the flame, somehow either get blinded, burnt on contact, or both, and they land on my desk, in a somewhat neat pile. Like this:


Well, I did some organising to make sure they "line up correctly" for camera, but it's not as if I went out and trapped mosquitoes for this photo shoot. How do I know they do not suck blood? Besides me having no itches, I accidentally crushed a couple of these bugs, and there was no blood (hurray!?). Gross eh?

And then this morning, I heard a gurgling, burbling noise. Sounded like pipes were being filled with water, against their wishes, and there was some bit of choking, air being displaced, that sort of thing. The last time I heard it, I was in serene's apartment, and the waste pipes had choked, the kitchen sink backflowed and started to flood with generally icky stuff. So, I had reason to be worried - Could it be that the pipes here were also getting clogged? I started to get worried, especially because yesterday there was a scheduled water supply interruption.

Turned off Aunty Beeb (BBC world service) streaming off my computer, then listened carefully to find out the sound coming from this:

(the slipper is there for scale purposes!)

And then I started to get relieved. And then worried again. And then relieved. And then blasé. Let me explain: Initial relief was that I found out the source of the noise. Then worried that, since this meant that they were filling the radiators (with water) that meant that they (the landlord/property managers) were expecting the cold season to be coming soon. Then relieved that - hey at least at this place, I'd be warm.

Then I decided to be blasé about the whole thing - it's not as if any amount of worry on my part can change the weather. The last few days have been simply brilliant: bright cloudless skies, 27C noontimes, 50-55% humidity, coming together to give luscious azure blue skies and deep golden sunsets when viewed from OISE building which is one of the taller buildings in the neighbourhood.

If it's going to be cold, so be it.

ReNe: b***** shoe cubby

So I saw the above at Goodwill and thought it was a good idea. Currently, my shoes are all laid out in my closet, on some plastic bags so as not to dirty the carpet below. And at $9, it wasn't too expensive. I don't know what it originally retailed for, but it definitely should have been a lot more than $9.


After an hour, that's ONE hour, I got something like this. Hands were aching... I know all that advice about not using your hands as tools, but what tool could you possibly use to shove pieces of plastic together?? But never mind, that's done...

...and then I realized I should have worked on the planning a bit more, because unlike most other women, I don't have small pumps, I prefer boots... And I have size 9/10 feet... So a bit of knocking about and breaking apart of the structure to re-arrange bonds and another hour later, I got the above end result. And my shoes didn't all fit into the cubby nicely; one cubby is too small for both shoes.

But at least my shoes are organized now.

MiKE: disneyland with a death penalty

Came across this term before, somewhere, but never really read the source article. Turns out that it was published in Wired magazine in 1993. Here are my choice excerpts:

Failing to find any wrong side of the tracks, one can usually rely on a study of the nightlife and the mechanisms of commercial sex to provide some entree to the local subconscious. Singapore, as might be expected, proved not at all big on the more intense forms of nightlife. Zouk, arguably the city's hippest dance club (modelled, I was told, after the rave scenes in Ibiza), is a pleasant enough place. It reminded me, on the night I looked in, of a large Barcelona disco, though somehow minus the party. Anyone seeking more raunchy action must cross the Causeway to Johore, where Singaporean businessmen are said to sometimes go to indulge in a little of the down and dirty. (But where else in the world today is the adjoining sleazy bordertown Islamic?)

Everything painted so recently that it positively creaks with niceness, and even the odd rare police car sliding past starts to look like something out of a Chuck E. Cheese franchise... And you come to suspect that the reason you see so few actual police is that people here all have, to quote William Burroughs, "the policeman inside."

They're good at this stuff. Really good. But now they propose to become something else as well; a coherent city of information, its architecture planned from the ground up. And they expect that whole highways of data will flow into and through their city. Yet they also seem to expect that this won't affect them. And that baffles us, and perhaps it baffles the Singaporeans that it does. Myself, I'm inclined to think that if they prove to be right, what will really be proven will be something very sad; and not about Singapore, but about our species. They will have proven it possible to flourish through the active repression of free expression. They will have proven that information does not necessarily want to be free.

MiKE: erm, hurricane Humberto?

the last weekend was cold. unusually so, speaking of nights which went down to as low as 2C, and days not higher than 16C.

Today, and for the rest of the week, the forecast is back to less cold temperatures, about 13-30C range.

And i recently read and watched news reports concerning the arrival and destructiveness of Humberto. It struck the US Gulf region, but, seeing how close that area is to Toronto, I can't help but wonder if it could be the cause of the recent cold snap. Ideas, anyone?

ReNe: comparing workloads

So Mike and I were comparing course workloads. Heh. I guess it's inevitable. He has a lot of reading but I've a lot of assignments.

If I seem like I've a lot of time here to go festivals, etc... not really. I'm really quite swamped by work; up to my eyebrows in assignments. I've assignments for both courses every week, and
they're not simple stuff that can be done in an hour or two; often they involve a bit of programming or simulation runs and then a write-up. I'm barely keeping up as it is. When I started the term, weekends were spent not doing any sort of school work... but last weekend, I actually sat down on Sunday to finish some homework that has to be handed in today.

Sigh.

MiKE: my room at night

This is a shot of my room at night, with all the lights off. The light you see is coming from a sodium vapour lamp from the access road downstairs to the parking garage for the next block (the light gives a characteristic orange glow, which has been converted by the white balance algorithm in the camera to look less orange). Anyway, the interesting looking thing near the bottom of the picture is the LED internal illumination of my humidifier, quietly giving me 80% humidity in the air, while giving me a strange blue glow. I'm not too disturbed by it, since the orange of the lamp dominates the lighting into the room. And beside it, the little green lights are those of my internet modem/router/wireless base station.

MiKE: Guess what's in my lunch?

This is what i cooked for lunch today. Guess what's in it, and if it is tasty... :P

MiKE: Fun meter low

For those of you who have played the Sims, you'd know what i mean. For those who don't the game is a life simulator where you make your family of Sims go about their daily home lives, from going to the bathroom, to preparing meals, and even making woo-hoo.

There is no set objective to the game, but one of the ways one can tell what is going on in the family is the status bars of the residents at home - there is one for hunger, another for bladder, and a few others for aspirations, comfort, social interaction, and, fun. The player can also adjust the parameters of the game to better suit his/her objectives for the Sims. Well adjusted Sims, with great home environment, enjoying their lives and achieving well, in their careers and all else, will have consistently high status bars.

Anyway. I am feeling like my fun meter is quite low now. I have a bit of a headache, after not sleeping enough on Monday morning, and not so well this morning. And there is some stress coming from having 3 courses to prepare for, with quite a lot of reading to do. The stuff is interesting, and I like the readings - it's exactly the kinds of texts that I want to read, but right now, i think i am feeling overwhelmed. I'm on the computer, at the desk, and I browse the web idly, looking for something that will up the Fun meter.

ReNe: cold weather gear haul

Today, I thought to go down to the thrift shops to look for some warm clothing (I'm confused -- is it warm clothing or cold weather gear?) as the temperatures have been dropping sharply recently.

From past experience, I knew that the stuff at the thrift shops are pretty good (mostly) and definitely cheap, so I didn't think too hard -- whatever I liked, I threw into the basket. Then I tried all the stuff in the basket and discarded those that didn't feel comfortable or didn't fit well. Everything else... well, you can see the haul below.


Cost of everything above? $73.

Item count: 1 waterproof anorak ($8), 4 sweaters ($1.50 each), 7 long-sleeved tops ($2-3 each), 7 thinner long-sleeved tops ($3 each), 1 pair of black jeans ($3), 2 pairs of boots ($12, $6), and 2 items for Mike ($3 each, bottom left hand of picture). The reason why the sweaters were so cheap as compared to the long-sleeved tops was because I got the sweaters from St Vincent de Paul and the long-sleeved tops mostly from Goodwill, and SVdP is a cheaper thrift shop than Goodwill (sounds funny, ain't it?).

It was all incredibly cheap and the only reason I didn't get any more was because the stores were closing. I arrived at SVdP at 4:20 and it closes at 5; then I walked across the street to Goodwill, which closes at 6. But it was a good thing -- I barely managed to struggle back with this haul as it is.

Another incredible thing is the condition of the clothes -- some of the tops were practically brand new (tag from original store still attached; I suspect these are overstocked items donated by the original stores), and the sweaters, well, they were washed and worn to a comfortable softness. True, the boots were a little worn, but then, I think the leather will last. One of the boots, btw, is Nine West. Most of the brands I don't recognize, though I have bought brands such as DKNY and Ralph Lauren from thrift shops at a couple of dollars before.

Right now, I'm still basking in a post-shopping satisfied gloat. =D

I really regret buying a pair of sleep pants and long-sleeved top from Target on Sat, where 2 items cost me about $29! So I think I'll return those 2 items...

ReNe: tar-pow

Unless I can arrange a free meal (and that subject on free meals is near and dear to every graduate student's heart, right down there at the stomach, something I should write about later), everyday I pack my lunch to school.

That is because (1) I haven't found any cafeteria on the medical campus yet, and (2) even if I did, it's probably tastier, healthier and cheaper to pack. Observation (1) is probably not true; I did hear that there was a cheap canteen in the Barnes and Jewish Hospital. Observation (2) is based on the one cafeteria I tried on the Danforth campus; the chinese food was rather expensive and not too good, and everything else (the western food) seemed the same. The local students think that paying $5 for a lunch is rather cheap...

Some days I pack leftovers. That picture above showed enough fried rice for 2-3 days worth of lunches -- I normally bring in the smaller purple-topped container. Sometimes I also bother to chop up a salad as well (left a bottle of salad dressing at the lab).

Some days I'm too lazy to prepare something and just throw whatever I find in the fridge into a bag. In this particular bag, there is a yoghurt cup, a packet of korean soy milk (black sesame flavored), a doriyaki and a peach.

And probably one of the best ways to save money -- iced coffee. I make my own cold-brewed coffee on Sundays, enough for the week, and then leave a bottle in the lab's bar fridge. There is a coffee pot in the lab pantry, but it's not coffee; it's sludge that's been sitting there for the past few hours. There's Starbucks but it's $3.10 a cup and I don't even need that much. I really should work out how much a cup of home-brew costs, but I should think the ballpark figure is around $0.70. Maybe $0.80.

All this tar-powing of lunch reminds me of school days, and I mean like secondary and primary school... I haven't eaten packed lunch in years and years... But I guess, monetary issues aside, it is healthier to pack. The chinese food I tried here? It's one-third rice, one-third overly seasoned meat and one-third overly sauced vegetables. At the biochem happy hour last week, where the menu was chinese takeaway, one local student was commenting to me, "Wow, I guess there's a lot of fried food in chinese cuisine." I pointed out that, no, dumplings, wantons and spring rolls back home aren't normally deep fried.

MiKE: view from my window (more)

So, as I wrote in the previous post, the view directly out of my window is not very attractive; it sorta reminds me of the side of people's park complex or something in Chinatown singapore, which is not well maintained. Anyway, here is a couple of shots:

Me, reading and then getting distracted, taking a shot of my feet propped up on the generous window bay area.

If you see carefully, you can observe in the lower right corner, the building that was featured in the previous post. Now you understand what I mean when I said that the building was off to one side of the view.

And of yeah, the windows are quite dirty. The upper pane is not open-able, and the lower ones I did my best to clean, even removing the sliding panes and bringing them to the bathroom to wash with Krud Kutter®. But a recent shower managed to wash a lot of dirt onto them, negating a lot of my effort.

Totally unrelated to these images, here is a shot of what I had for lunch today: Stir fried Kale with green bell peppers and pork with oyster sauce, Tamago - Japanese styled omelette, brown rice, on a seaweed mat. Nice?

MiKE: I need a mobile blanket

Just spent the last hour or so in asleep, but before that in bed as I was feeling cold indoors (seems like the landlord is not about to turn on the centralized heating till October, while outside temperatures are in their teens now). I was initially reading, felt cold, had cold feet, hid under the blanket to warm up, felt comfortable and fell asleep. At least I managed to finish reading the paper I was supposed to discuss tomorrow. In that one hour, I got very warm and comfortable, then got up to go to the toilet, and had my feet shocked by the cold bathroom tiles. The wooden floor in the main living area was not so bad, but the tiles!

Now I get why people have carpeted floors, wear slippers/shoes indoors, and wear thick heavy clothes outdoors.

Mobile blankets. So one does not have to be constrained to one position indoors...

How smart.

ReNe: the great forest park balloon race

Well, it's more than a race. It was apparently an entire weekend event, but I only went to see the 'hare and hounds' race. I didn't quite know what to expect but in the end, I quite enjoyed myself.

The event was well attended. It was crowded but the temperatures were cool and so it wasn't so bad. There were quite a number of vendors and I also saw groups who brought their own picnics.

Found the field where the hot-air balloons were being inflated. Above, the energizer bunny (the 'hare') is being inflated with, if I recall correctly, a 3000 BTU heater. Energizer is one of the main sponsors for this event.

Fully inflated, about 15-20 mins later, it was a rather striking and impressive sight.


And take-off. There was appropriate music playing, some oldie song about hot-air balloons, and kids were yelling, and it was all rather fun actually.

Making a U-turn... can see the ears flopping as the bunny's losing a bit of air there...

But it quickly recovered.


Meanwhile, the other balloons (the 'hounds') were getting ready. These were, as far as I could tell, corporate or sponsor balloons. They were suppose to launch about 15 mins after the bunny has taken off.

Spot of trouble with a couple of the balloons there. The breeze was blowing some of the balloons into the others, and when you think about the flame burners that were being used to inflate the balloons...

One by one as they inflated fully, they started to take off. No, they didn't all take off at once. Though it was supposed to be a race, it's not a race of whether or not the 'hounds' could catch the 'hare' in the air, but whether or not the hounds could catch the hare when it lands. Sorta predicting where the hare would land... Frankly, I can't really see how that is done and I didn't hang around for the race to conclude.


I counted over 30 hot-air balloons, not including the bunny.


Run bunny, run!

ReNe: forays into baking

Further food preparation adventures.

One of the biggest difference between this kitchen and the one I had back in Singapore is the oven. Wow. I haven't used one in over 8 years...

I don't have 'proper' baking equipment or ingredients -- mostly I make do with a serving bowl, wooden spoon, measuring spoons and a lot of pre-mixes. You know, the kind that goes, "Just add water/eggs/milk!"

Some of the stuff I baked was an attempt to get rid of the overly ripe fruits. I tend to buy like, 3 peaches or 4 bananas only at a time, but occasionally their ripening gets ahead of me.

A first attempt at peach pie. It sucked, mostly because I tried to 'cheat' and use biscuit pastry (which I already had in the fridge) instead of pie pastry.

Speaking of biscuit pastry, I was pretty obsessed with biscuit pastry for a while because I loved the crispy ones McDonalds in Singapore used to serve for breakfast when I was a kid (now they don't), and I kept thinking the next (frozen) roll I buy from the supermarket will be it! I gave up after a few attempts and now there are a few tins still sitting in the back of my fridge...

Banana nut muffin. This was better. I won't say it's excellent, but it was decent for a second attempt at muffins. The first attempt was corn muffins, which sucked cuz I didn't have a proper measuring cup and had to guesstimate. I bought a spindle(?) measuring spoons after that.

Meat pies. In the first attempt, made when Mike was still here, we followed some online recipes but they turn out too wet. Also, at that time, since the only pastry I had was biscuit pastry. Like the attempt for pie pastry, biscuit pastry does not work for pies. After that, I bought a small packet of pie crust mix (it's about 49 cents a box and it makes a huge pie or 6-8 of these small pies). This time round, the filling was much better though the crust was too flaky and dry.

But pies and muffins were hard, especially pies. The pie crust, in particularly, was impossible to shape. I mean, I cut out this circle and very quickly, I realize it's impossible to move from a 2D circle to a 3D bowl without having excess dough folding up in creases. Even resorting to curry-puff styled pies didn't work because the crust was not pliable enough to shape properly.

What was pretty easy, though, were cookies. I had tasty cookies on my first try, and since then, I've never bought another box from the supermarket. Probably because it's 'freshly baked', but the home-baked cookies always tastes like though from the boutique shops like Mrs Fields or Famous Amos, i.e. damn good. At least I've one success story.


I buy them as cookie dough from the supermarket, more expensive than making from scratch I'm sure, but cheaper than buying a box of of ready-made, and definitely much easier as it comes ready to bake. I usually mix in nuts, seed and/or oats before popping it in the oven.

The reason behind the colorful cookies above was because while triple-choc cookie dough sounds decadent, I realized it was quite impossible to tell when it was done baking -- my first batch was a bit too burnt. I thought of including regular cookies on the pan so I'd know when it's done (going by time alone isn't enough because the thickness and size of the cookies vary from batch to batch), and then I got the brilliant idea of mixing them.

MiKE: view from my window

Well, this is the view from my window. Not directly out my window; I face another building (looks like the office floors of a taller block) which is not particularly pretty, but as my windows face north I am glad for the building's existence as it reflects a lot of light into my room, even though the walls are somewhat grey and not the most well maintained.

A few things about this picture though: firstly, the buildings are University of Toronto property, as you can see (or not, sorry, saving space) from the blue sign in front of the building. I dunno what department uses these buildings.

secondly, this picture was taken some days ago, but right now as I am writing, the view looks exactly like this, or brighter. And the time now is 5:11, and it will not get dark for another 2 or so hours. And this is somewhat related to the previous post: You'd think that with this degree of solar illumination, that the place would be somewhat warm, or, at least, not cold. A couple of hours ago, I went next door to post off a mail. Well, cold is relative I guess, but the temperature now is in the low 20s. Which is quite comfortable. But when the sun goes AWOL behind the clouds, for example, this temperature quickly drops 5-10C. I'd never thought that I'd miss the sun so much.

Thirdly, this has been the view for me for the last few days - I've been lazy, and not wanting to go out to eat because it's expensive (more so than if I cooked for myself) and it is a trouble having to put on clothes to go out. No, not as if I spend my days naked in the room, but the downer of having to go out is also having lots of clothes to wash. And did I mention that I was lazy? Yeah, so if I did not really have to, I've been staying at home. Which is a better place, I think, than some other rooms I've seen, like Graduate House, or a friend's rental room, which are just rooms, with a small porthole of a window.

Now I think I am getting how people can get SAD, and I am not talking about being unhappy, but what is known as Seasonal Affective Disorder.

MiKE: err, ya. Cold.

Chiming in to serene's previous post. Yes, it is getting cold here, nights are getting colder, as low as about 11 C now, and it's getting harder to get up in the morning, cos of the cold. But, as I've been learning, it is important to make the most use of the afternoon, when the sun is shining, and the temperature is at its maximum. And also, to just get out there, walking to wherever, to get the blood flowing and the calories burning, to keep warm.

Not looking forward to winter term...

ReNe: who left the fridge door open?

It's hard to believe that it was over 100F (40C) just 2 weeks back.

It had rained on and off over last weekend, lowering the temperature to about 80F. By Monday, the rain stopped and the skies cleared to a cloudless blue, but the temperatures continue to fall. Yesterday, it was in the sixties, and today, when I woke up, it was freezing. By now, I had already pulled out my new microfleece comforter but I still sleep with the balcony door open. Pulling the door close as soon as I got up this morning, I checked the temperature. Since I don't have a thermometer (yet), I checked the weather forecast on my MBP (MacBook Pro).

49F (9C)! That's actually 10 degrees lower than Toronto right now! According to the forecast, the temperature today will range from 43 to 77F.

This is rather disconcerting. I keep thinking my internal body thermometer must be broken or something because it's brilliantly sunny outside.

I need a thermometer.

MiKE: Speakers Cornered

Just watched Speakers Cornered; someone brought over a copy.

My response: I am terribly ashamed to be associated with such a country. Really. There is nothing very much more to be said about it. Please watch it if you get the opportunity.

A trailer:

MiKE: Stressed(?)

I think I am feeling stressed: lots of admin things to do, courses to sign up for, which may or may not turn out to be what the course description in the bulletin says it is supposed to be.

And the problem comes when one tries to put together a suitable course selection that will be helpful for one's thesis. Or else one has to do so much more extra reading to get everything glued up together.

So, my stress comes from, right here and now, having to come up with a suitably productive research question that I can take with me for the next 4-5 years, and will allow me enough substance for a study that can give me a PhD thesis.

Any ideas?

ReNe: forays into cooking

Friends who knew me back in Singapore knew I don't cook. Or that I didn't cook. Whether it's because chemistry skills do not readily transfer to the kitchen or because it's just so easy and cheap to eat out in Singapore or because it's a feminist issue (Mike's opinion) or because it's bad for my skin (drying on the hands)....

People have expressed worry about whether I could feed myself once I'm in the US.

So far, no smoke alarm has been set off, no case of the runs. (The former is actually a valid concern; a classmate of mine who stays in an apartment just down the hallway from me actually did set off the alarm before.) The menu has been a little monotonous but simple is also good. Can't afford the time or money to make elaborate multi-course meals...

Some early attempts:
Fried rice. Possibly one of the simplest things to cook.


Yaki soba. Er. It tastes as appetizing as it looks... In fact, it tastes like yaki 'instant noodles'.


An attempt one night to finish the stuff in the fridge, hence the odd combination of bread and dishes that normally go with rice. I actually like this; it's rather 'creative'. The bread was the kind that I bought half-baked, that is to say all the yeast rising had been done, and all I had to do was pop it in the oven. Even though it was 2 weeks past expiry (and THAT problem deserved a blog post all on its own, about how half the stuff I have is past expiry), it was pretty tasty still. Very tasty in fact. Probably because it was 'freshly' baked. The asparagus was also withered but unlike the bread, it was beyond recovery. It tasted terrible. The pork and mushroom dish, to be honest, wasn't too good either.


Pasta. Another simple dish.

Salad. What I usually have for lunch. This was taken before classes started. These days, I pack the same thing in... doesn't look quite as nice.

What I had one night when I got back past 9 and was too tired to contemplate cooking. So I simply popped a biscuit (at least what they call a biscuit here in the US; it's a puffy pastry-like thing) into the oven, peeled off a couple of lettuce leaves and turkey ham.

Later attempts at cooking:


Fried rice, a few attempts later. Looking and tasting better now. The reason it seems like a lot is because I was making enough for lunch the next day. Turned out I made so much I had enough for lunch the next day... and the day after that... and the day after that as well.

Pasta. Also improving.

And now, my dinner tonight: rice; beef and peppers; and brussell sprouts, broccoli and carrots. I'm trying to finish the beef, brussell sprouts and broccoli (1 week old) and bell pepper (2 weeks old). The rice is fresh though. But though the ingredients were a little old, I rate tonight's dinner as more than decent.