It Made Sense in my Head

Update, update

2007-08-27T00:42:00.000-07:00

I'm still here, I swear!
Update on my busy life:
(1) Med school is good. Histology sucks. I start anatomy tomorrow!
(2) Went to San Diego to visit my sister Katherine this weekend. Also saw some MSTP friends who came down also. Made a lame attempt at partying, and just ended up ordering 5 orders of carne asada fries and eating them late at night (not just me, all of us!).
(3) Going back home (to NorCal) next weekend, for the holiday.

I will post pictures sometime, but Kristin and I haven't gotten a couch yet, and are embarrassed by our bare living room. I'm also incredibly lazy.

School has started...

2007-08-13T17:16:00.001-07:00

Just got through my first day of (real) medical school. The past week has been orientation, just a bunch of administrative stuff and explanations. Today I had my first real lecture, which was mostly review, but still interesting.
Matt was visiting the past few days (I still haven't found my camera so no pictures there). He was basically only here for one and a half days, but we crammed in a lot of stuff--we went to a med school event at a bar, walked in Santa Monica, went to Venice Beach, walked around Westwood, etc. Overall a great weekend, although now I think I'm sick or have terrible allergies (hopefully the former).
I'm still settling in (and haven't found my camera), but when I have time (ha ha) I'll post pictures of my beautiful apartment in Westwood, my awesome roommate, and my classmates. I think I'm going to like med school :-).

I'm in LA!

2007-08-03T23:52:00.000-07:00

And I finally got my internet working. I've spent the past few days buying furniture, unpacking, and stocking up my apartment. I'll post pictures once I get everything arranged satisfactorily! I love Westwood though, and can't wait until classes start on Monday. I'm going to San Diego with my parents tomorrow, and should be back on Sunday. More after my life is less hectic!

Dum Dums

2007-07-30T01:28:00.001-07:00

Where can you buy Dum Dums? According to the Dum Dum website, they have them at Safeway but I went to two Safeways today and neither had them. Anyone know?

Road trip part I: Driving, West Yellowstone, and some of Yellowstone

2007-07-28T00:46:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting my life in order! I finally did my laundry and started packing, so hopefully I'll be ready for my move on Wednesday.
Anyways, I'm trying to post up some of the best pictures from my trip in chronological order. We spent the first two days driving across California, Nevada, and some of Idaho. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of Elko, Nevada, where we spent our first night. Elko was pretty weird--a little town full of hotels, small casinos, and Basque restaurants. Apparently they have an annual Basque festival there. We actually ate at one of the Basque restaurants on our way back, but it was mostly American food and omelettes. In Idaho we crossed the Snake River (for the first of about 10 times--that thing crossed the freeway so many times!) on this really cool historical bridge that we wanted to take pictures of, so Matt actually made a U-turn on the freeway. Luckily we were on a tiny freeway in Idaho with no one else, so this wasn't actually dangerous. We were expecting the river to be shallow, but it was in this crazy ravine that looks sort of lame in the picture. It was actually quite high (hence the fence preventing people from climbing down).

Other than the river, Idaho was pretty boring, just lots of flat farmland. When we got to Montana, the terrain changed a lot, and we saw more animals. Right away, we saw two pronghorn antelope, and at our motel in West Yellowstone, we saw a yellow bellied marmot! We didn't know what it was at the time, but we took pictures and looked it up online. It was sitting in the garden of the lady who owned the motel (she lived in the back), and we didn't know if it was her pet, or was wild. It wasn't afraid of people.

We spent two nights in West Yellowstone and one night camping in the park. Probably the coolest part of the sightseeing we did was on the first day, when we hiked around a bunch of geysers and pools. We were really lucky and saw the Grand Geyser go off, which is relatively unpredictable and only goes off twice a day. It shot water up about 200 feet!

My favorite thing was the Emerald Pool, which was a hot spring that was a neat shade of green.

There were also a ton of these funny signs warning people to stay on the paths, since the area around the hot springs were geothermally active. The best part isn't the kid getting his feet burned, but the woman to the left (his mother?) who's upset about it. Every time I saw this sign I wanted to laugh.

That's all for now! I'll post more Yellowstone pictures later!

Yes, I really did go to Yellowstone

2007-07-23T23:37:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my trip! I got back early yesterday evening (just in time to watch a show on pygmy elephants! neat!). Today I've just been doing crap like unpacking, cleaning, and buying things for my move down to LA. I have a ton of pictures from the trip, but here are just a few to prove that I actually left, and wasn't just hiding out at the mall, hehe.

This was our "welcome" to the park--a huge buffalo on the road! The traffic had stopped a few miles into the park on our first day there, and as we were wondering what was going on, we saw this guy walking up the road. He was going really slowly and didn't seem to notice the long line of cars following him.

This is me in front of one of the pretty pools that were all over Yellowstone. They were a mix of blues and oranges and browns, and some were steaming or bubbling.

Finally, this is a funny geyser that was squirting right onto the walkway. We happened to pass by when it was going off, and everyone got really wet. The weird thing was, even though the air coming out of the geyser was really hot, the water was freezing cold. It was a really hot day so it felt nice, though.

That's all the pictures I'm going to post for now, but I'll definitely try to get more up later. We took a million pictures of different pools and everything, so I'm going to have to sort through them all.

Still on my trip

2007-07-21T07:59:00.000-07:00

I'm on the last leg of my Yellowstone road trip. In the past week or so, Matt and I have driven across Nevada and part of Idaho, visited Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and driven to Salt Lake City. I'm still in Salt Lake City right now, but we're leaving in a few hours to hopefully spend the night in Reno, then come back home early afternoon on Sunday. I have some great pictures, which I'll hopefully upload when I get back.

Goofy graduation pics

2007-07-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, I really did graduate! I was busier here at EPGY than I thought I'd be, or maybe I've just become lazier. At any rate, I've finally uploaded pictures onto my computer!

Here's my favorite picture from the day: it's right after Commencement (for Wacky Walk, I was boring and wore my bathing suit under my robe. Matt was wearing board shorts & was carrying half his broken surfboard (Sam had the other half).

Then, at the individual diploma ceremony, someone took this funny picture of Joe (my labmate and fellow BMC/MD-PhD-er) and I.

I'll put up more pictures as I find them. I'm leaving EPGY tomorrow, and hanging out with Katherine on Saturday. Then, Matt and I will be leaving Sunday morning for Yellowstone. We should be gone about 10 days, depending on how long we take driving back. I should have internet in some of the hotels we're staying in, so if I'm not too lazy I'll post pictures.

D&G Lab Goggles

2007-07-09T01:27:00.000-07:00

I was browsing the sunglasses on neimanmarcus.com and found these ugly things:

I guess they have full UV protection, but what's the point of clear sunglasses? $250 from Dolce and Gabbana--I guess my lab won't be getting these babies any time soon.

Sunburn!

2007-07-09T01:14:00.000-07:00

I didn't know sunburned skin peeled off afterwards. I think my entire back peeled off. You all really needed to know that.

Random thought

2007-07-03T00:51:00.000-07:00

It's funny to see, over the years I've been at Stanford, who's gotten fat since freshman year. Somehow I get infinite satisfaction from seeing that perfect, bitchy, pretty girl get a big ass.

Camp is good... the kids are pretty cool, and my class is going well. I get to teach a rubik's cube workshop tomorrow with 30 kids, which should be interesting. Other than that, not much is going on. Um, I bought pants this morning. I'm going to bed.

I'm moved in!

2007-06-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

The kids get here on Sunday! I'm teaching materials engineering! I get to build a radio!

In other news, I got a new phone (and new phone number, which will become my new number on July 13). I'll post my new number on facebook, and probably call a few important people. And maybe post a reminder on IM. Hopefully this is the last time for awhile that I'll have to change my phone number (although it sure does help with shaking off the creepy weirdos you don't want to talk to ever again, ha ha!).
Anyways, I got a Motorola SLVR L7 in silver. I wanted pink, but it didn't come in that color--sometimes, life sucks, you know?

Mmmm... food at home is wonderful

2007-06-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm back at home for a few days, lying around, unpacking, going on errands with my mom, and eating lots and lots of good food. Since I have to move out by the end of this week for EPGY, I'm eating up all the perishables at my house, since my parents don't really snack, and my mom usually eats leftovers for lunch. So today for lunch, I had chicken liver pate, and lox--yum! Tonight we're going to Hotaru for dinner which is also exciting. Also, I promise that once I'm in EPGY, and especially over the summer when I take my Yellowstone trip and move to LA, I'll get better about posting pictures, and writing about things besides what I ate for lunch.

Graduation

2007-06-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

This whole weekend has been a graduation-fest. First I had my sister's medical school graduation on Saturday, then I had my own ceremony on Sunday. Graduation is fun, weird, and sort of stressful. I have a ton of pictures (mostly not on my own camera) but I'll try to steal some from Facebook and post them here.
I'm moving out of my dorm room now, and spending a few days at home. On Thursday I'm moving into EPGY housing for the next three weeks.

Success!

2007-06-15T02:48:00.000-07:00

Dear Megan,

I am pleased to inform you that your application to graduate has been approved for the BS in Engineering: Biomedical Computation for Spring Quarter 2006-07. You have satisfied all University and departmental requirements for this degree.

If you have any urgent questions about your degree conferral, please contact the Office of the University Registrar service windows in the Harold modular located at 630 Serra Street, Suite 120 on Friday, June 15^th between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Please note that the Office of the University Registrar will be closed on Saturday, June 16^th.

Congratulations on your successful academic career at Stanford University.

With best wishes,

Roger O. Printup
University Registrar

Shorts

2007-06-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

I bought shorts. This is not big news, but it's sort of a big deal for me because I haven't bought (or worn, for that matter--except to the gym) shorts for a good 5 years. I think somewhere in high school I decided that shorts looked stupid and I hated my legs and decided to stick to jeans and skirts. Now that I've got you all wrapped up in my life, I'm going to go back to studying.

Wristband

2007-05-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

If you see me in my room typing (or sleeping) with a gray sweatband around my wrist, it's not because I'm working out, or sweaty, or trying to look sporty! It's because I used my new laptop about 12 hours a day when I first got it and strained my wrist. Lame, right! Ha ha, I was trying to use the little eraser mouse instead of the touchpad, and I think my arm was reacting to some combo of my hand being stretched out and the mouse having too much resistance. My mom suggested I wear a stiff sweatband while I use the computer and sleep (sort of like a brace), and it's helped a lot. And makes me look retarded.

Freeway Driving

2007-05-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

I'm finally learning how to drive on the freeway! (Doesn't that thought scare you?) Uhh, I think I was going somewhere with that, but I lost that thought...

Three and a half more weeks

2007-05-23T21:44:00.001-07:00

I hurt my wrist using my new laptop too much.
I have a billion projects to do.

Complain, complain, complain. I can't wait for the summer to start...

Exotic Erotic? + sumnmer plans (not exotic or erotic)

2007-05-18T20:25:00.000-07:00

It's the night of Stanford's annual "Exotic Erotic" party, where girls have a minimum of two articles of clothing; guys are limited to one. Supposed to be the craziest party of the year, where people get creative with nudity, etc (last year someone wore a trumpet?). Sadly enough, I've never gone in my four years here... it's always cold and there's a huge line, and people from Berkeley try to sneak and. Here's to another year that I don't go (although this year I'm being a particularly huge loser and programming)!

Oh, and by the way, I'm working at EPGY again this summer! (did I already post this?) Unfortunately I can only do one session, so I don't know if I'll be able to be a residential counselor (even though I really really want to...), but nonetheless I'll have some funds for silly shopping expenses next year. After 3 weeks of EPGY, I'm taking a trip to Yellowstone with Matt, and then bumming around my house for a couple of weeks before I move to Los Angeles (ETA: August 1st).

Would you approach me if I looked super pissed off?

2007-05-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

Today I had 9 am section (the most ungodly thing ever... on a Friday to boot!!!) and fell asleep when I got back home at 11. I lamely slept through lunch, called up Matt and was not very nice to him (hungry + sleepy = grumpy, but still no excuse), and half an hour later was in Tresidder getting a slice of pizza, with a look on my face that clearly said "I HATE EVERYONE". As I was walking to my seat, this scrawny asian dude gives me this really creepy dorky smile, and I instantly look away. Not soon enough, it seems, because five minutes later he sat down at my table (even though there were about 20 empty tables around me) and said "Excuse me, do you mind if I join you for lunch?" in a voice that was probably about an octave above mine.
YUCK! Wow, I really didn't want to talk to anyone at that time--certainly not some weirdo who tries to pick girls up in Tresidder. I stared him down and left, saying "sorry, I was actually just leaving" and retreated to the Lair (heavenly study area on the 2nd floor of Tresidder) to finish my lunch in peace.
Now, I don't want to rag on ALL asian guys, because I've met a lot of cool ones, but seriously: there were quite a few white girls in the cafeteria, including one who was sitting next to me at a table by herself. Why did he pick ME (ie the only asian girl in the place) as the target of his creepiness? I HATE how a lot of loser asian guys assume that because I'm asian I'm somehow "eligible" for them to hit on. I can't tell you how many times some asian guy will meet me and, within the first ten minutes of the conversation, say "so, I was wondering: are you Korean, or Taiwanese, or Chinese?" The last time someone said that I gave them a confused look, and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, I was born in America." This may sound bad, but I identify more with the American culture than with my Chinese--maybe because I spent my entire life here! Okay, maybe our grandparents might have come from the same continent, but it doesn't mean you can bother me more than any other girl. In fact, the idea that you're using our supposed "connection" as two asians as a crutch so that you can introduce yourself to me is pathetic. Get a life, stop playing WOW and DDR and wearing clothes that your mom bought you in 1995, and for the love of god, leave me alone!

Best site ever!

2007-05-14T22:54:00.000-07:00

I Can Has Cheezburger is my latest obsession. Weird pictures of cats (and other things) labelled with engrish = instant stress relief. Plus they update multiple times a day!

My favorite: the "corm" hamster:

(photo stolen from icanhascheezburger)

Parking ticket in Berkeley

2007-05-13T02:02:00.000-07:00

Wow, the meter maids are on the ball in downtown Berkeley. I got my 1st parking ticket there. Literally seconds after my meter expired (I thought I had until 2:45 but the ticket was issued at 2:44? wow.. more like 2:44 and 59 seconds!). Bad, bad luck.

Good news: I scored some Miss Sixty jeans for $10, and Matt got J Crew slacks for $12 and dress shoes for $20. And he's splitting the cost of the ticket (which was $30, so I'm only out $15), since we were both too lazy to run back to the meter and guard the car when the clock was ticking down.

But seriously, did the guy see our meter at 1 minute and just sit there waiting for it to expire?

Garbage can mouth!

2007-05-11T08:28:00.000-07:00

So, lately Matt has been making this funny face that I dubbed "garbage can mouth" where he makes his lips go away, and the way his mouth/teeth shape remind me of the way the lid on a garbage can meets the top of the can. Weird, but that's what it reminds me of, and I didn't like it when he made that face at first, so I called it that so he would stop! Anyways, I was playing around with my big Tom the other day, and noticed that he also can make the "garbage can mouth" so of course I made him & Matt pose together.

Damn you, caterpillars!

2007-05-11T08:22:00.000-07:00

Stanford is absolutely CRAWLING with little hairy caterpillars which I used to think were cute, until I found out that what I thought were bedbug bites are actually an allergic reaction to their hair! Hmph, now I'm all covered in itches and little bites... not cool :-(.

Spiderman 3

2007-05-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

Went to the midnight show of Spiderman 3 last night (note lack of retarded "Spider-Man" spelling). Made me think of two things:

(1) Why does everyone hate Kirsten Dunst so much? I used to think she was okay, but sitting next to a bunch of Kirsten haters last night, I started to get annoyed with her too. That girl needs to get her teeth fixed.
(2) I'm going to miss college... going with 30+ people to a movie at midnight, driving back at 3 am and going to class at 9 am.... okay, maybe I won't miss college that much... but it was still fun!

Overall though, the movie was pretty awesome, with some good villains (although one of my friends pointed out that all the "sandman" scenes stole majorly from The Mummy--but they were still cool!) and a good sappy ending. Aww.
(The best part of this overall experience was that when I walked into my 9 am section 10 minutes late (which the professor of the class happened to be leading that day--oops!) and said "sorry, I was up until 3:30 watching Spiderman 3 with my dorm mates last night" he was like "ah, okay, no problem." I love school.)

Another reason why Microsoft is evil.

2007-04-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone uses PowerPoint, right? They always include it with the "base" version of Microsoft Office, right?
Hmph, I just found out today that my $129.00 version of MS Office had everything BUT PowerPoint, and to get it I had to shell out another $119.00 to buy "Microsoft Office Small Business"! The annoying thing is that, along with PowerPoint, I have to buy a bunch of small business software (like publisher and some finance stuff) which is totally useless to me--all I want is the freaking PowerPoint!
Bah, this is like when you buy a car and want the nice drink holders, but they only come bundled with the sunroof and the leather seats.

Ok. I've finally made my decision

2007-04-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

So, guess where I'm going to be next year???
UCLA!

Phew. Finally made that decision. I've been going back and forth for so long, and as you probably all know, I had a great time in Houston at Baylor and met some really awesome people. The thing is, I really don't want to leave California (especially for 8 years!!), and SoCal is practically a new state. I mean, everyone here is a lot weirder than up north, and they don't have Safeway--it's just like the east coast, right? The biggest part of my decision was ultimately the school. Grad school is all about research, and the research at Baylor in biocomputation just can't compare to the UCLA program. Besides, UCLA is starting a bioinformatics department next year, and I really wanted to go to a school where I could get a true bioinformatics PhD, and not just some random genetics, cell bio, or translational medicine degree that included computation.

So I'm super excited, the people I met here were also very cool (of course we all bonded at some random bar at 12 am, per all other med school revisits), and LA is a fun city with more shopping than you can shake a Marc Jacobs bag at. Now I just need to learn how to drive on the freeway better, and I'm all set.

Google Desktop?

2007-04-17T00:39:00.000-07:00

I just installed Google Desktop, so that I could access my Google Calendar without having a web browser open all the time. It's pretty neat, but it's really hogging my memory, and my (decently fast) computer is struggling a little bit to keep up. Has anyone else used this/is it worth it? I guess when I get my new, faster laptop in a week or two, this won't me so much of an issue.

Horse head!

2007-04-15T20:34:00.000-07:00

Horsey horsey horsey.

I should have bought this horse head when I was in Arcata... it's pretty much the best thing ever, even though you can't see anything out of it (you have to look through the nostrils, and have zero peripheral vision).

Chocolate Bunny

2007-04-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

I got a chocolate bunny the day after Easter! I love chocolate bunnies.
The one problem I have with them is that I feel weird about eating something with a face and appendages. I didn't start eating it for a few days because every time I tried to bite into it, I felt bad about "killing" it. Does anyone else have this problem?
I should go back to Safeway and see if they have any more... hmmm...

What did I get myself into?

2007-04-08T00:41:00.000-07:00

So, my [awesome] final paper for my Russian lit class got nominated by the professor for an award, and I blithely agreed to revise some parts of it before submitting. Now I'm sitting at my desk writing about mimetic desire while my friends are having fun. Blah, I am regretful. Oh well, it's my fault for putting it off.

And, I got into the Baylor MD/PhD program! Super exciting, so now I have two programs to choose from.

UCLA!

2007-03-19T23:35:00.000-07:00

I got into the UCLA MSTP program!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wahoo! I'm like, bouncing off the walls right now.
I was supposed to start working, but I guess this is a legitimate excuse to party and put off my work a little longer?

About halfway done with finals stuff

2007-03-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

So far, I've done two presentations, and had a final. I still have two reports, a take home (done, but not typed up yet), and a final draft of a paper.... How I handle these next few days entirely depend on how much Nintendo I play.

A lightbulb goes off

2007-03-12T23:54:00.000-07:00

I figured out why Ibuprofin always kills my headaches better than Tylenol. It's because I've been inadvertently taking twice the recommended dose of Ibuprofin.
Oops.
Oh well, if it was that dangerous, they wouldn't let you buy it in bottles of 100 tablets.

Matt got a job!

2007-03-08T01:26:00.000-08:00

Yay, Matt just got the best job ever!
He just got hired by Triage Consulting in San Francisco; they're a consulting group that helps hospitals get back money from insurance claims. Or something like that. Anyways, that means he'll be working at hospitals all over the west coast (plus they send people out to the Texas Medical Center, which is where Baylor is), so there's a good chance that, if I end up at UCLA or Baylor, I'll see him all the time! Otherwise, his company will either pay for his flight (or give a discount) back home on the weekend, or to anywhere he wants. So if I end up on the east coast, he can fly out to see me on the weekends for really cheap.
Yay! Poo on all the people who asked me "so, are you breaking up with Matt after graduation?" Anyways, breaking up with someone (after 3 years, no less) just because you're moving away from college is lame.
I hear back from Yale soon. I'm nervous.

More news from Baylor

2007-02-26T01:59:00.000-08:00

Update on my life: I got into Baylor grad school also, which means I'm still in the running for MD/PhD. I'm going to their 2nd round interview (called "Candidate Review") in the beginning of April to get wined and dined and visit a ton of professors. Should be fun...

Valentine's Day

2007-02-14T22:56:00.000-08:00

Happy V-day, everyone! I didn't end up doing anything fun/interesting today because I'm getting over this flu that I conveniently got after coming home. I blame the flight back from LA- they made us sit in the plane for an hour without the air circulating, while they were waiting for our pilots to arrive (they hadn't even LANDED yet!!! I hate LAX...). Anyways, Matt and I are planning on going out to one of our favorite restaurants on either Friday or Sunday night, or we'll probably get lazy and not go, and then the next random time we go out to dinner we can say "hey, this is for Valentine's day." I think Valentine's day is sort of hyped up because most normal couples (especially ones that have been going out for more than a year) don't celebrate much.

Also, Saturday is Chinese New Year. We're going back home for dinner, and that should be exciting.

Yay!

2007-02-09T02:20:00.000-08:00

I got into Baylor med school!
This means that my MD/PhD application will be forwarded to the graduate school, and if they let me in, I'm about 99% in to the MSTP (Medical Scientist Training Program)! However, I was mostly worried about my medical school acceptance, and am decently confident that the reason I got in was due to some people in the graduate school that really wanted me to come work in their labs. So, I would be surprised if I didn't get into the grad school as well. This is exciting.

As an update, I just got back from Yale and UCLA (both MD/PhD interviews). I have to say that I LOVED Yale and very much hope to get in. I remember being struck by Yale when I was applying for undergrad, and going back to New Haven renewed my enthusiasm. The school is beautiful, the students are happy, the faculty is amazing, and I would love to go there. UCLA was also a great place, maybe not as appealing since it's in California (and I have a vague idea that I want to leave CA for awhile), but that's not to say I wouldn't be on top of the world if I got into that school also.

So, now that I've gotten my 2nd acceptance, I feel pretty good. I would be totally happy going to any of these places, and can't wait to hear back from more...

Where have I been?

2007-02-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

Sunday though Tuesday, I was travelling to/from Yale for an MSTP interview. I'm leaving again tonight for an interview tomorrow at UCLA (also MSTP). Hopefully I'll be able to keep up this energy level for a little while longer...
Afterwards, don't expect to see me for awhile since I'm going to be making up the ridiculous amounts of work I put off to do interviews.

Today has been epic

2007-01-28T20:30:00.000-08:00

First, I got into UC Irvine MD/PhD! Yay!!!! So now I know I'm definitely going to grad school next year!

Second, we beat UCLA in basketball! The fans stormed the court afterwards and it was amazing.

I've just discovered sandwich heaven

2007-01-21T00:03:00.000-08:00

Today we missed dinner at the dining hall because of an inconveniently timed basketball game (we won, by the way) and decided to eat out at Lee's Sandwiches, a Vietnamese chain with an awesome reputation. We drove all the way to Cupertino, and man was it worth it. The most delicious sandwich I've had in a good month (and I eat a lot of sandwiches). I had barbecued pork, and it came with jalepenos, pickled veggies, and cilantro... mmmm. I also picked up some fresh spring rolls with spicy peanut sauce which were also divine. And the best part is, I spent a grand total of $5.50 on a huge sandwich and three big spring rolls. I need to go back there!

Going to the Gym

2007-01-17T20:46:00.000-08:00

I've started Gymming again, so if anyone wants to join me, they're welcome to!

Also, classes are going great, and I really like my Russian literature class... I'm still amazed that you can read something FUN and talk about it, and that counts as going to class. Why didn't I major in the humanities?

Me, Matt, Bird

2007-01-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

Matt's parents have the cutest cockatiel bird named Chloe (although it's actually a male, but they named it before they knew) who spent a lot of time hanging out with us.

I think we were just about to go to dinner, and were playing with the bird. Chloe is usually really friendly, but this visit I won him over by feeding him walnuts every day, which are his new favorite food. When he eats them they get shredded all over the place and I'm not sure how much of the nut actually makes its way into him! Later I reached into one of my pockets and found shredded nuts in it.

Back and ready to start school

2007-01-07T22:28:00.000-08:00

Just got back from my Humboldt trip. Pictures to be uploaded soon. In the meanwhile, here's a gem stolen from my sister Katherine's website:

It's the ugliest dress ever, times two!
After awhile, this actually started growing on me.. it could be pretty fabulous with the right accessories... maybe?

Oh hey, I remembered about posting pictures

2006-12-24T00:03:00.000-08:00

Sorry, I just realized that the boringest thing to do is not post pictures. Unfortunately, this quarter I've just been filling out applications, writing essays, and doing research (not very picture-worthy), but here are two old pictures I found on my camera (new to everyone else though).

This is me... imitating either a large slug or a delicious blue eclair.

And here is Matt.. unwisely mixing two different striped patterns (tsk tsk).

Travelling to the East is nice

2006-12-23T23:54:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to appreciate my occasional trips back East, because jet lag seems to be the only thing that can get me back to a "normal person" schedule. Having been in college for three and a third years, I have slowly migrated to being awake from 11 am to 2 pm. Waking up early for class is painful, to say the least. I sort of miss my high school days when going to bed at 12 am was "late" and, while I didn't like waking up at 7 every day, I could do it and still act like a normal person.

Now, with both my trips to Central time (2 hours ahead), I adjust to being on that schedule so when I come back to California, I get sleepy around 10 pm and can wake up early. It's amazing--after coming back from Texas, I spent a good week waking up before 10 am. It's liberating being able to act like a normal person for once...

Speaking of getting up early, tomorrow I'm waking up at the ungodly hour of 8 am to volunteer at Arbor Free Clinic (I'm an interpreter). Even though it's Christmas Eve, the clinic is still running, and being a local, I've guilt tripped myself into helping out (we're probably going to be understaffed anyways). It should be fun though, and maybe this will earn me brownie points with Santa (too bad he doesn't exist... oh well, it'll improve my karma anyways).

Back from St Louis

2006-12-19T21:58:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, I just got back from my interview at WashU (in St Louis, as they love to point out constantly). I really liked the school and everyone there seemed really nice. And Missouri wasn't that bad... I did go there during an unseasonably warm winter (it was about 40 degrees outside--not bad for the Midwest in December) but there were lots of California people there to convince us that the transition wasn't terrible. I ran into a lot of Stanford people, which was nice, and caught up on sleep the night before my interview, which was really nice. Now no more travelling (until I hear back from more schools) until February (when I go to Yale).

Want to hear a funny story?

2006-12-16T12:50:00.000-08:00

Sooooo apparently when I wrote my last post, I didn't realize that my UCI interview was on THURSDAY, not FRIDAY. So my plane tickets were definitely for the wrong day, and I figured that out at 5 pm Wednesday evening! The good news was that I made it on time, and the interview went great (I loved the place, and apparently they really liked me too). But now I feel completely retarded and my parents think I'm irresponsible... which I probably AM, plus I was in the middle of finals/group project finishing up for the past two weeks, so I wasn't about to think about stuff a week ahead of time when I had things due the next day.
Anyways, I'm done with finals finally (had to take a makeup exam this morning, which was really hard!) and can relax until Monday when I'm off again to St Louis.
And, I just found out that I'm getting a sink in my room during winter quarter! Woohoo!!

My crazy schedule for the next week

2006-12-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

I just finished a pretty easy Medical Spanish final and the end is in sight. After spending 6 long hours in the Tresidder Lair yesterday, my bioinformatics group project report is done, and all I have left to do is study for a (hard) final I'm making up on Saturday. The finals are not what I'm worried about though, it's my crazy travel/interview schedule that's going to be keeping me busy for the next few days.

Today I have to pack up my stuff and move back... I also have to do some laundry, which is irritating. Then, I'm going to leave for UC Irvine tomorrow (MSTP interview), and I'll get back on Friday. I have my final on Saturday, and will have one day of rest before I have to fly again on Monday, this time to St. Louis for a WashU medical school interview. By the time I get back on Tuesday night, I'm going to be exhausted.

I have figured out what I'm taking next quarter though, which is exciting: I also am about 99% positive I can graduate on time (which is always a good thing!). Here's my proposed schedule:

CS 103A: Discrete Math (this looks boring but is supposed to be easy.. blah requirements).
BMI 211/CS 271: Introduction to Biomedical Informatics: System Design (also a requirement, but looks a little less boring)
BMI 215/CS 275: Translatonal Bioinformatics (This class looks like it's going to rock!)
SLAVGEN 146: The Age of Transgression: The Great Russian Novel

I'm most excited about taking the Russian lit class-it's only the 4th I've taken at Stanford, which is a bummer. It might end up as death for me because it's a Russian majors' WIM, so next quarter I might be complaining about writing a million papers. In the big scheme of things, papers aren't bad though. I used to be good at writing papers (maybe I still am, but all I write nowadays are grant proposals), and when you're done writing a paper you don't have to go through debugging and error testing.

I also wanted to take CS 108 this quarter (not as a 5th class! in place of another one of these... I'm not that crazy), as I've heard that your Stanford CS experience is not complete until you do. Unfortunately, it conflicted with one of my required classes. Oh well, now I can continue to blithely hate on Java.

Finals week

2006-12-10T15:31:00.000-08:00

Yay, I'm done with my structural biology website/final project! I finished on Friday afternoon, narrowly dodging disaster with a laptop death and elaine crashing. Now all I have is a relatively easy Medical Spanish final (Wednesday), a group report for my BMI project class (Thursday), and a final for Cardiovascular Bioengineering (Saturday). I'm taking the BioE final late on Saturday because I have a medical school interview (UC Irvine) on Thursday/Friday.

My weekend was pretty laid back. On Friday, I went shopping for three hours (BUT didn't buy anything but tights...) and missed dinner (I've been doing this too much lately-sad) so I ate leftovers at Matt's eating club and hung out with him/his friends. The funny part was that I randomly mentioned "Man, I want to go shopping again... the mall is open until 12 am, you know" and all his drunk friends suddenly wanted to go to the mall. Drunk people are... weird. So they ended up running to the mall (in the rain, no less) at 10:00 pm, where nothing bad actually happened (surprisingly). On Saturday I went with Matt and my parents to a Christmas musical ("A Christmas Carol") and out to dinner. Now (Sunday) I'm just sitting with my BMI project group, trying to fix a bug... actually, they're fixing the bug and I'm just sitting here. Heheh. Um, time to go.

I never thought I'd say it, but...

2006-12-08T01:17:00.000-08:00

I actually think I'm getting burnt out. I think the combination of taking on too much this summer (research plus a hard class) and having to work through all my breaks on medical school application stuff has made me really, really tired of school work. I've been terrible about doing things on time, and while I haven't been turning in assignments late, I've definitely been waiting until the last minute to do everything. I used to be the person who started assignments the day they were due, and now I'm waiting until the night before to even look at it!
Next quarter I'm going to take an easy, non-stressful courseload full of nice things like mindless problem sets. I'm really tired of stuff like unstructured research or classes with huge assignments which you have four weeks to complete. I'm looking forward to Winter break more than anyone can imagine. Heck, I'm looking forward to this weekend--my last Structural Biology project is due today at midnight, and I'm nowhere near done.

On a happier note:

Thank you, Auntie Brenda. My aunt is incredibly cool, and even if she didn't like to take me shopping for ridiculously expensive things, I'd still enjoy visiting her and riding around in her tofu truck and eating huge dinners at Chinese restaurants until the wee hours. (I am continally blown away by the great selection of Chinese restaurants in the Houston area, and if I get into Baylor I'm going to get FAT! The only thing I like more than shopping is EATING!)

Baylor MSTP interview

2006-12-04T22:07:00.000-08:00

Just got back from a nice "vacation" in Houston (right before finals, which is clearly the best time to leave).
I flew out to Houston on Thursday, apparently just 12 hours after the weather went from 80 degrees to 38. Fun. Went to a dinner at the MSTP director's house (informal) and basically zoned out because I was tired from my flight. On FridayI had my interviews (8 am to 7 pm!) which went pretty well. Then I got picked up by family members and had a nice relaxing weekend.
Um, I don't really have much more to say other than I loved Baylor and am sort of burnt out on work and stuff. Can't wait until finals are over...

Thanksgiving break

2006-11-20T00:44:00.000-08:00

I have a week off for Thanksgiving break. I'm still not sure how I feel about this extended break thing... since we have a week, all my friends have gone home, but no other colleges get such long breaks, so my high school friends won't come home until Thursday, if at all.
Anyways, I started off break by sleeping only 4 hours because I had something due the Friday before break. Stayed up late doing it, woke up early to finish, and felt generally terrible. On Saturday I had a fun day: went to Berkeley in the morning to go shopping at Jeremy's with Matt, hung out with Mike (at a Brazilian sandwich shack, no less), then went with Matt to SF. Among other things, in SF we got tangled up in nasty traffic (the SoMA area is ridiculous with its one way streets, short lights, and obnoxious drivers who all know what they're doing), went to the OTHER Jeremy's (I admit it... I dragged Matt to the SF one also!), and went to the top of Twin Peaks. I've never been up there, and we saw a really nice view of the city. I also wanted to hang out on Castro Street, but realized that the only good thing to do there was shop at thrift stores, which would just be cruel after Matt was nice enough to take me shopping elsewhere. Then we drove back home and saw Casino Royale, which was awesome.
Now Matt's on a week long surf trip in SoCal (which is lame... lame!) and my sister is visiting. Hopefully this break I'll get to sleep a lot and go to some cool places. Unfortunately my camera's been neglected in my drawer, so I haven't been able to take/post pictures for the last month or two. It's my way of hiding the fact that I have no life and spend my days doing lame things.

This seems a little mean

2006-11-15T17:01:00.000-08:00

Check out this ad for Sarah Jessica Parker's perfume, "Lovely."

If you can't read it, the words across the middle say "lovely on the inside." Which, in my mind, sort of implies that poor SJP is not lovely on the outside--which I'm sure has crossed everyone's mind at one point or another. I can't really believe she approved of this ad.

Corn Nuts

2006-11-15T00:10:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it, one of my gross snack weaknesses is Corn Nuts. I never got to eat them when I was little because my parents were convinced that they broke your teeth, but ever since I tried them at a Girl Scouts meeting, I was hooked. Anyways, I just bought (and finished) a bag of Ranch, and noticed that the wording on the back is a little Engrish.

It says:

"Corn Nuts. Eat it, Great Corn Taste
Giant Roasted Corn Kernels
Taste It, Extraordinary Flavors
Mmmm, Different."

Different????

Back from being sick (again)

2006-11-13T00:41:00.000-08:00

I got sick again, with bronchitis that apparently is an after-symptom of the flu I had awhile back. I'm just getting over it, so I don't feel terrible, but still cough a lot at night and in the morning. I'm sort of mad, because I was sick during the Nordstrom's Half Yearly Sale. And although it's still going on, every hardcore shopper knows that the best stuff was gone in the first twelve hours of that sale. I'm not going to go there now that it's been like, five days since the start, only to realize that I found a great deal that's only available in size XXS and XXL. Anyways, I already did some online shopping the instant the sale started and grabbed a pair of shoes that I've been coveting for awhile, so that makes up for being too sickly to leave my room.

Two random thoughts:
(1)Today I ate at the Cheesecake Factory for the first time. For the price, I'm certainly not impressed. I had a chicken and avocado club sandwich that was good, but not worth eleven dollars (come on, I'm cheap! You can get pad thai or pho for way less than that! Or sushi for about that price.). Also, we got a spinach dip appetizer, and it came with tortilla chips. For nine bucks, I sort of expect bread with my dip. Come on! I probably will never go there again, unless someone pays for me (as they did tonight--they gave us a gift certificate for working on the reunion party), and even then I will probably try to persuade them to take me somewhere else.

(2)I want to try funnel cake and cesos (brain) tacos. Not at the same time. I am looking for people who are brave enough to come with me to Tacos el Grullense to eat brain tacos before finals. I'm just curious what brains taste like. And funnel cake looks good.

Jagshemash!!

2006-11-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

I went to go see Borat tonight with my hall + Matt! It was good fun, and hanging out with the frosh was nice. They're all cool people, and it's awesome to remember what it was like in the good old days before we had responsibilities/social distinctions. Other highlights of the night included going to Chipotle (although they ran out of pico de gallo--what the heck?) and setting up a shopping adventure with Terry and Tabari tomorrow. Yay!

First floor woes

2006-11-02T21:40:00.000-08:00

Living on the first floor can be pretty sweet. You don't have to trudge up flights of stairs after a tiring day, moving is ridiculously easy, and, if you're lucky, you can use your window as a door. However, I've just found one huge downside to living on the first floor: smokers outside your window. I keep having to yell at idiots who smoke outside my window because they think they're sufficiently outside to swathe themselves in carcinogens. Stupid construction workers or--worse--even more retarded Stanford students who are blissfully giving themselves high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, and emphysema. Plus, they're making my room smell like smoke, which is just disgusting.
Although, maybe it was sort of mean for me to yell "Smoking gives you cancer so don't do it near my window!" at the people smoking outside my room. But you know, they sort of deserved it.

You say you're going to bed early...

2006-10-25T02:22:00.000-07:00

...and two hours later you're eating instant noodles and wondering why you haven't started going to bed yet.

Forget an alarm for waking up. I need one that tells me to go to bed.

My latest obsession

2006-10-22T17:29:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've spent SO much time on ebay, which is funny, because I've only bought two things in the time I've been a member (a subscription to Lucky magazine and a Hobo International purse). I have my eye on a cashmere hoodie which is cheap right now, but those things always shoot up in the last twenty minutes or so. Anyways, I really need to cut back, and I'm trying to think of other things to keep me busy. So far, I've been reading books (I got a bunch of mysteries from the library, and that's been slightly successful), going shopping for real (been doing that a lot, hehe, better than ebay because I'm limited by when I fall over from exhaustion), and looking at fashion blogs (which is probably worse, because then I get obsessed about something and have to look it up on ebay). I need a new hobby, ideas please!

I've probably been ebaying so much because I've been sick this past week. I think I'm finally better, and am looking forward to being more active. I'm also almost done with medical school applications--and I got an interview! I bought a suit for it (look retarded, but whatever) and wonderful wonderful beautiful shoes:

They haven't gotten here yet, but I tried them on in brown and they are the most comfortable heel I have ever worn. I'm serious, try a wedge heel pump, it's ridiculous in terms of walk-ability and wearability.

Ok, well I'm trying to do more exciting things, so I can take pictures of them and blog. If anyone took a picture of me the past two weeks, all you'd see were my pajamas, messy room, and the mall. (Ooh, and Tofu House, we went there last night!)

Russian literature shouldn't be read past 10 pm

2006-10-18T02:47:00.000-07:00

So instead of finishing my medical school essays I decided to read Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych. And now I'm really depressed, and want to write essays about how life sucks and we're all going to die painful deaths. Alone.

God, I need to go shopping. Good thing Sophie's Choice was checked out of the library, otherwise I really wouldn't be able to handle my life.

I want to get better!! Aurgh.

2006-10-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

I'm slowly getting better. I've barely left my room the past few days, and am getting restless. Yesterday I had to miss tutoring and I felt really bad about that-it was the first class of the year, and I had already called Manuel and told him I was coming. I figured it wouldn't be too good for me to go running around at midnight though, and really didn't want to get him sick. Oh well, I'll see him tomorrow.
I really hope I'm a lot better tomorrow, because I have my Arbor Free Clinic interview at 7. I haven't spoken prolonged Spanish for about three weeks (I was hoping to get practice tutoring last night), but hopefully I won't suck too much (I'm applying for a Spanish interpreting position). Interpreting sounds fun, I just need to remember to stay warm if I'm going to be in contact with sick people-these past few days of being sick were terrible. I don't think I've been this sick for a year, at least.

This weekend

2006-10-15T14:34:00.000-07:00

I worked at the homecoming reunion a lot this weekend. On Friday, I helped out at the 1971 class party at McArthur Park, and on Saturday worked the tailgate. Overall it was fun because I got to dress up (for the party on Friday), eat nice food, and talk to alums. The sucky part is that I caught a cold from Matt on Thursday which I didn't know about, then sat around in the cold all day Friday and Saturday, and ended up with a bad flu and fever. The only thing worse than being sick is having to do a bunch of homework when you're sick...

SPOON Breakfast Cook

2006-10-10T00:52:00.000-07:00

This morning (although it seems like days ago) we had our quarterly breakfast cook for SPOON, the Stanford Project on Hunger. I'm a coordinator this year, so we have to participate in our own activities and start the quarter by cooking breakfast for a homeless shelter in Palo Alto. I'd never done anything like it before, and it was fun to (1) cook for so many people--try cracking and scrambling 180 eggs--and (2) to serve it and meet the people at the shelter. I'm not quite sure if our breakfast actually helps anything (actually, some of the people were like "man, if they feed us like this, why would anyone get a job?!?" --cringe but smile--), but it definitely was nice to do something nice and see it make someone's day.
Two random things happened because of it, though. First, I took a nap when I got back home at 9:30 am, and had the weirdest dream about the maintenence people being in my room, only to hear the maintenence guy knock on my door. I couldn't answer because I was in that weird half asleep where you can think/hear but not move. After a few knocks, he came into my room but I was hidden behind a dresser so he thought no one was there. Then I finally mustered up enough wakefulness to pop up, but I think I scared him. The second thing that happened is that I have a terrible craving for scrambled eggs right now. I wonder if they make them at late night...

EDIT: I went to late night and got an omelette without the cheese & meat (aka scrambled eggs). I had the hardest time convincing people that all I really wanted was eggs with salt and pepper. In the end it was $5.50 but it didn't matter because I paid with my points, which I never use up anyways.

Guess what this is.

2006-10-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

Non-New Year's Resolution

2006-10-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

I've been to the gym three times this week. That's my new resolution, trying to go to the gym. It's also the reason why I haven't been blogging.

Also, I've already turned in eight med school apps. God help me, I've written more essays than I care to count.

Randomness

2006-10-02T02:21:00.000-07:00

I've just submitted three medical school secondaries (for a total of five total), which means only ten to go, hehe. The good news is that, after you've written about 15 small, rather pompous essays on life-shattering events, you can start re-using them. Hopefully by the time I finish my last one, I'll have enough essays in my bag of tricks so I can shamelessly cut and paste.

Well, I had some pictures, but photobucket is being frustratingly slow, so I'll put them up tomorrow.

My cardiovascular bioengineering class is making me lose weight. Ever since we had a doctor bring in diseased human aortas into class, I can't stop thinking about gross fatty plaques growing in my body. I've actually started eating healthier and exercising more, not so much because I'm afraid of dying, but because the damn things look so GROSS! (I would post pictures, but again, photobucket's being stupid.) UUUUUUGHGHHGHhhghgghpht. I also didn't realize that smoking is such a big cause of heart/artery disease. I definitely knew it in the back of my mind, but it's like, one of the major causes why people get heart disease. I thought smoking just made your lungs disgusting, but it also makes your arteries all nasty too... hmm... more evidence that anyone from an educated country should not be smoking? I need a diseased artery to carry around with me that I can throw at the smug emo kids lighting up outside Pizza My Heart.

Oookay, sorry I'm getting belligerent/angry here. Must be time for me to go to sleep.

Funny YouTube video

2006-09-30T23:02:00.000-07:00

Check out this video... it's one of the funnier things I've seen that looks at the "issue" of asian girls dating white guys. Acting is terrible, some of the jokes are cliche and hokey, but it hits some really good points.

"You know why the white guys get the asian girls? Because it's Friday night... and we're playing DDR."

HAH. Brought to my by my asian female friends (who by the way are all dating asian guys).

I don't get the GRE

2006-09-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

There needs to be some serious recentering done with the GRE. I got my score report back today; observe:

Quantitative: 800/800, 94th percentile
Analytical Writing: 6/6, 96th percentile
Verbal: 730/800, 99th percentile.

So sure, those are all good scores, but what the hell? I get perfect on two sections and that's only around 95th percentile? The fact that many engineers I know consider anything less than perfect on math as a "bad" score clearly means that the test is too easy. Getting perfect should be extremely difficult, or else it's a useless test. And what's up with my verbal score? Usually, 99th percentile means mostly perfect, but I scored 70 points below a perfect score! To me, this means that the test is too hard, since it seems like barely anyone is scoring above 700.

Whatever, I'm not complaining. I heard that GRE scores are barely considered, and as long as you're above a threshold no one cares what you get. And at least it's not the MCAT, where the highest score is 45, but barely anyone gets over a 40.

Tofu House

2006-09-28T22:53:00.000-07:00

I went to Tofu House in Palo Alto (on El Camino Real, next to Fuki Sushi) for the second time tonight, and I have to say that it's becoming one of my favorite places to eat. They have really good Korean tofu soup, bimbimbap (sizzling rice dish), and decent barbecue. I like how everything comes to your table either sizzling or boiling, in a cauldron-like bowl (supposedly made of stone?) with a raw egg that you stir around in it that gets all cooked and mixed with everything. Totally exciting... you all should come with me!

And how awesome is their sign?!?! With the chef soybean guy??!?!

Matt's room

2006-09-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

Matt lives in Suites this year, and they got these really high ceilings (like, at least 16 feet high). They all built lofts in their rooms, and they're pretty cool...

I'm being bad about blogging. But basically: I like class. I have no morning class. I'm working on secondaries. (whew!)

Here's me & Sweetie Pea in Matt's room. You can see the bottom of his loft.

Ahem

2006-09-26T16:55:00.000-07:00

I have pictures, and things to say that aren't whiny... but for now I'll settle on saying that my new over-the-door shoe caddy is amazing and expect a bigger post later.

Bad year to live in Roble again

2006-09-24T00:37:00.000-07:00

Today I showed up at Roble to move in, and my beautiful, cozy room that I had picked out in in-house draw had been taken away from me. Unfortunately, the remodel meant that the disability room next door had its sink and closet taken out to make it wheelchair accessible, so the guy who drew disability into there (who needed a sink) got my room, and I got moved into his room.

I've probably never been so upset in my life.

I have no sink, no closet (and no mirror). Just enough space to move my wheelchair into the-----OH WAIT I DON'T HAVE AN EFFING WHEELCHAIR.

One of the most important reasons why I picked Roble was because of the sinks in the rooms. Plus, since the rooms are supposed to have sinks, the bathroom (which is on the other end of the hall--ohhhh so convenient) only has one sink, with no counter, and a small mirror. I have to share my toothbrushing/contact lens facilities with people who wash their hands after taking a crap. I am pissed off.
Aurgh--this is a terrible year for Roble. First they had to reshuffle a ton of people and cram two people into the singles. And then they assigned a disability room to someone whose disability necessitated something that the room specifically didn't have--which was taken out because it was a disability room. It's all really messed up, and I can't help but feel like I got royally shafted in the process.

AIM

2006-09-20T22:48:00.000-07:00

Even though I'm always signed on to IM, I haven't messaged anyone or responded to a message for like, months. So that's why I haven't been responding. If you want a real response, call or e-mail me.

Oh, and I'm in Monterey right now. I got like, four and a half hours of sleep last night because of band run/packing, so I got super fade-y at the poster session and went back to my room early and fell asleep. And now I think I'm going to work in my room, and be antisocial.

Band run!

2006-09-20T02:06:00.000-07:00

I went on band run! I was hanging out with Matt in his new room in Suites (which, by the way, I have pictures of--he built this really really nice loft in his room.. just need to get the pictures off my camera) and we heard shouting and the band playing. So we ran outside and saw everyone in the FroSoCo courtyard. We followed the band to Lag, but then I had to go tutor (and explain to Manuel what "band run" is, and why there were mostly naked people running around). Later, I met up with the band run folks again in the new Stanford Stadium. The stadium is SO nice, although it doesn't have that rickety, campy feel that it used to. Then we went to newly renovated Roble, and I saw my future room, which is awesomely big, single, and has a sink.... mmm, sink in the room: you have NO idea how nice that is if you don't have contact lenses.
Now it's 2:00 am and I need to pack... blah. The rest of this week I'm going to be in Monterey for another conference. This one won't be as nice, because I don't think there will be wireless in the lecture room (so I'll ACTUALLY have to listen, boohoo). The conference ends on Friday morning, and my parents/Katherine are going to pick me up so we can spend a day in Monterey/Carmel. This is sort of sad, but we're going to this scone place in Carmel (The Tuck Box) because I saw it on a Food Network show.

Alright, I better get to bed because I have to leave relatively early tomorrow morning. Can't wait until the school year because I have NO MORNING CLASSES. Imagine that.

Gory murder, two-page autobiography, twelve-hour fast

2006-09-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Matt and I saw The Black Dahlia on Saturday, and it was annoyingly disappointing. The book by James Elroy is very good (although it's pretty trashy), so I was surprised at the low Rotten Tomatoes rating (about 30%, with a ridiculous 13% for the cream of the crop) and thought, "well, how bad could it be?"
It was bad.
Boring at times, convoluted, confusing plot that left in about half of the book's story lines but didn't explain them enough, and a ton of really creepy, disturbing images. Overall it was decent fun, and I don't know if there's anything else out there that I'd want to see right now, but it's too bad it didn't live up to the book. (Or stand up on its own-Matt hadn't read the book, and he disliked it more than I did, because he couldn't follow the plot).

In other news, I'm still writing my two-page autobiography for my UCSD application. Tons of fun that. And tonight/tomorrow I have to go through a twelve-hour fast because I have to get blood tests done. In my mind this is just adding insult to injury: not only do I have to get blood drawn, but I also have to starve. The hospital's only saving grace is that it's close to TJ Maxx and Marshalls, and I'm definitely hitting up those establishments after my traumatic hospital experience (and maybe stopping by the Taco Bell to end that fast).

The summer's ending...

2006-09-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

How sad. Although I'm sort of excited about school starting. Matt just moved into Suites today (he has a business program so he's going in a week early), and in a week I'll be moved in too. But first I have to go to two days of work, have fun in Monterey... and pack.

Here's a mostly decided schedule of classes for the fall (for those of you who care, or are too bored to stop reading).

ME 284A: Cardiovascular Bioengineering (very cool. and supposedly not that hard.)
SBio 228: Computational Structural Biology (some online course that fulfills a requirement.)
SpanLang 121M: Spanish for medical students (I'm verrrrry psyched about this. go Spanish!)
CS 272: Introduction to Biomedical Informatics Research Methodology (WIM. not so thrilling, but should be cool anyways.)

This *should* be a relatively light courseload, since the spanish class only meets once a week, for two hours. So, I decided to also apply for a position interpreting at Arbor Free Clinic! This will fit awesomely with my spanish class.
Tutoring with Manuel is not looking so rosy: he changed buildings, so now he has to take his lunch break from 11 to 12 am (for random but very valid reasons). Now I have to decide if I'm dedicated enough to tutor at this time...

Hotarational

2006-09-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

Matt's parents are in town for a few days, on their way down to the Monterey Jazz Festival. Last night I had dinner with Matt and his parents, and when they couldn't decide where to eat dinner I was like, "Duh, let's eat at Hotaru!", which of course everyone agreed to. I lurrrrve the Nabeyaki udon at Hotaru; I haven't gotten anything else there the past 10 times I've gone. It's so exciting how it comes out in a little cauldron, and the soup seems to take the grease away from the tempura shrimp.
If you've never had a Nabeyaki udon, it's hot udon noodles with vegetables (usually napa cabbage, spinach, carrots, mushrooms), chicken, fish cake, an egg, and topped with tempura shrimp. The thing that's so exciting about it is that the soup is so hot it cooks everything else in the bowl. The chicken and eggs are put in raw, so you can take them out when you think they're cooked enough, and I've had some of the most perfect soft boiled eggs this way. This is what it looks like, although at Hotaru the noodles don't look so dismal:

Also, Matt's mom (who just got back from Iceland, Sweden, and Finland), got me a funny pillowcase with Moomintrolls on it! They're this weird Finnish children's book series which I happened to have read a little when I was in middle school (we had this thing called Junior Great Books, and we read a few stories from them).

This is what they look like: the "Moomin" are the purply things that look like hippos. My pillowcase has a moomin, the evil looking little girl, and the guy in green on it. Matt's mom said she was looking for a stuffed Moomin, but no one seemed to have one. I think the pillowcase is really cute anyways.

Hop on Pop

2006-09-14T10:47:00.000-07:00

I loved Hop on Pop when I was little. It's full of ridiculous characters doing really stupid things, and the looks on their faces is priceless. The other day, I brought it to my English lesson with Manuel, and I was totally suprised to see how much he liked it. I mean, lots of people have told me that Dr. Seuss books are one of the best for learning to read-even for adults-but Manuel is like... old, and serious.
The book was pretty awesome, though. I like how it has silly situations and nice drawings to engage young readers, but it has a ton of repetition and continually uses the same, simple words in different contexts to really hammer them in.

GRE

2006-09-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

I took the GRE general test at Thomson Prometric in South San Francisco. The facilities were really nice-right on the bay next to a yacht club! I finished early so I went walking along the water, and it was pretty relaxing.
The test was without issue (730 verbal, 800 quantitative-no complaints here..although I feel so *unspecial* about the perfect math because ALL the grad students in my lab were like "yeah, I was perfect on math too"). Three tiny gripes:

(1) The girl sitting next to me sighed loudly every five minutes. I didn't want to brave the greasy headphones to block out the sound... eventually it stopped distracting me. Lots of knuckle-crackers in the room also.

(2) I got the SAME IMPOSSIBLE word in two DIFFERENT problems! Once I had to find the antonym of it, and the other time it was used in an analogy. With all the tough vocab words that exist, they shouldn't have to resort to using the same one twice. I'm just a little annoyed because I had to guess on both of them, which could possibly have lowered my score by 20 points or so.

(3) When I was finished, the computer asked me if I wanted to cancel my test or report (see) my scores. After clicking "report", I then had to click it again when the computer asked me if I was sure, and AGAIN when the computer asked me if I was REALLY sure! I was expecting them to pop up the first time I clicked "report" and had braced myself, but by the third click I was a quivering, emotional mess.

So, another grad school milestone passed... now I have to figure out how to report the damn things.

There is a twenty degree difference between outside and inside

2006-09-12T11:01:00.001-07:00

Why are office buildings always so fricking cold? The place I sit in to do research (which is a computer lab, so we don't need to keep living things at a specific temperature or anything) is always around 60 to 65 degrees. Outside it's a gorgeous 75 degrees, going to get up to 80--however, on days I work I have to wear a sweater, and sometimes a jacket. Hmph, my summer clothes are all going to waste.

Matt decides he likes the cat

2006-09-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

Matt never had furry pets growing up... his dad had a parrot, who was really cool and interactive but not a cuddly, cutesy sort of pet. I don't think he fully "got" why people keep pets like dogs or cats, and I think he was sort of grossed out by the shedding. However, a little while ago, Matt started paying more attention to my cat; he would walk up to him and say hi, then sit next to him and pet him. He even started picking him up! The other day I asked him why he liked the cat all of a sudden and Matt said, "I didn't know he was so soft." Now he wants to touch the orange cat, although that one's not so tame (or soft).
Ha, figures.

Memory leak!

2006-09-11T01:03:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else have a D-link wireless adaptor? AirCFG is some application that comes with it, and it has serious memory leak issues. At start up it'll run at 2,000 or 3,000 K but after about a day it'll be at 30,000! I always go into my task manager and kill it, but sometimes I'll forget and suddenly my computer will start lagging because AirCFG is taking up 100,000 K or something ridiculous like that.
I don't even have problems like this with my freeware... grrr.

EDIT:
Wow, just noticed that this is the one-year anniversary of this blog, and I chose to write about a DORKY MEMORY LEAK.
I was also going to write a post about a Marc Jacobs clutch that I would stab a small child for (but scrapped that because people already think I'm violent enough). I guess that pretty much sums me up?

Wow, adults really suck

2006-09-10T22:55:00.000-07:00

For med school, I needed five recommendation letters (four of them were from professors), and I'm probably going to ask for a sixth. I asked for all these letters in early June, and as of last Thursday, two of them had not been turned in. AURGH! This after I had harassed one of the people for like, two weeks before. The thing that really makes me mad is that I like all these people, and I had to be constantly popping up in their offices for about two weeks, and I hope they don't think I'm irritating now.
Anyways. Hopefully it'll all be sorted out soon. Because my earliest application is due on the 22nd, and that's not giving me too much time...

Two other totally unrelated things:
Matt had never seen the Monty Python Spam sketch, so I showed it to him and he loved it. The part where they show the viking ship really cracked us up.

Also, I saw a Macy's ad where this model was wearing god-awful Seven for All Mankind skinny jeans (with zippers on the bottom! God help us all!) and she looked FAT. That made me laugh. Anyone with the tiniest bit of thigh fat should stay away from this terribly unflattering trend. I refuse to touch the things.

"Oooh! Let's spend $170 so that our legs will look terrible! Wheee!"

Opinionated

2006-09-07T17:20:00.000-07:00

I'm fed up with women who dress pretty well but wear ugly shoes. There is no excuse!!!

Also, I'm addicted to online crossword puzzles. I do about four a day, which doesn't sound like that much, but keep in mind that I'm working 8 hours a day and then doing med school applications in my spare time. And hating on people's shoes.

EDIT:
Let me add, I DO NOT mean high heels or even shoes that are bad for you! What I meant was that there are plenty of cute, inexpensive shoes like Keds, nice running shoes, all sorts of moccasin things (that are under $50) that it's annoying when someone spends $100 on ugly granny shoes. That's all. I think heels are stupid if you're just walking around.

Facebook needs to lie down and die

2006-09-07T12:26:00.000-07:00

Facebook (myspace type network) is starting to make me annoyed. I'm on it so that people can see my phone number and screen name in case they really need to get ahold of me, and I have a few pictures on it, but other than that I've stopped caring about it. They just added a "feed" which tells you all of your friends' activities, like what they added to their profiles, who they've added as friends, what pictures they've added, etc, and it's just visual vomit. If I wanted to know all this information, I'd spend my loser life finding it out for myself. What's next? "Megan clicked at 4:45:00. Then she moved her mouse at 4:45:05. Then she clicked again. Then she clawed her eyes out because Facebook is retarded."
Dude, put yer basic contact info on it, and that's all.

Orange Kitten

2006-09-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

We had an orange cat that lived outside (not really our cat, just a stray we feed), and a few months ago he brought a teeny orange kitten along with him. Now the orange kitten lives in our backyard and sleeps under our deck all day. If you go outside she'll follow you around. She's not totally keen on petting, but if you play with her or feed her you can do whatever you want.

Look at the cute orange spots and funny crooked tail! Her tail's always been like that, some raccoon probably took a big bite out of it or something.

Eeeeeeeh

2006-09-05T22:48:00.000-07:00

Bah, I have to upload pictures for my lab presentation tomorrow, so this is why I'm updating.
If you haven't figured it out yet, I'm back from a nice vacation in San Diego, where I did zero work for a few days (and went to a conference for a few more, where I didn't do real work, but learned a lot and talked a lot) so now I'm feeling super unmotivated. San Diego was VERY fun, the conference (Automated Function Prediction) was interesting, plus it was nice to hang out with my labmates in a new place. Plus, I got to hang out with my sister Katherine! We went to the outlet stores (oooo Dooney and Bourke outlet...), the Wild Animal Park, and the flea market.

Random pictures:
My PI, postdoc, a grad student, my fellow undergrad, and I went running around Pacific Beach on Thursday night. There's a roller coaster there called the Giant Dipper, which Matt told me is exactly the same as one in Santa Cruz. Weird. I wonder which one is the copy. I didn't want to ride it, because I'm a sissy. Russ said it made him feel sick, so maybe it's better that I didn't.

Here's everyone on the ride:

And here's everyone being weird later on... they're in the bushes outside the roller coaster, if you can't tell.

Here's a shot of the wild animal park. I didn't get any really good pictures because I was mainly looking at the animals. I did get a shot of three awesome rhinos (there were a ton of rhinos, about 20 of them).

I also got this cute condor chick:

They sold it at the wild animal park and I thought it was sort of cute, but I didn't get it. Then, the next day at the flea market they had it for a dollar! Score! It's awesome and a lot more round in person.

The sausage tree! My sister talks about it more on her website (scroll down to bottom of page... and there are more pictures of it here).

Obviously we are excited about the tree. And are touching the sausage.

Also, I would like to point out that Matt cleaned my room for me yesterday. And dusted.

Lag in blogging

2006-09-05T10:05:00.000-07:00

I feel totally apathetic, so don't expect me to upload pictures or post much anytime soon. Just really really busy with lab and studying and applications.

Blogging during my conference

2006-08-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting through hour 3 of the second day of my conference and sort of zoning out. Conferences are interesting (get to hear a lot of current science, get to meet a lot of people, etc) but 8 hours a day of talks can get really tiresome. Like one of my postdocs said, "Even if I wanted to hear all the talks, I definitely wouldn't want to hear them one after another." Hear hear.
Anyways, today I'm working on my medical school secondaries and listening to the talks with half an ear. A lot of the talks today aren't particularly pertinent to my field anyways.
But the point of my post is to say that I'm conflicted about Gov. Schwarzenegger. Yes, he's a republican and a lot of people voted for him because it would be "funny" and he doesn't really have any politcal merit other than marrying an heiress, but I sort of like how he flagrantly goes against a lot of Bush's policies--and even against his republican constituents. Just today in the news, he's apparently involved in a plan to reduce greenhouse emissions, which the White House refuses to address. I consider myself really ignorant politically, so I'm not sure if he's actually doing a good job, but I appreciate the gesture.

Off to SD

2006-08-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm going to San Diego until Sunday. I'm spending Wednesday through Friday morning at the Automated Function Prediction Conference at UCSD, then I'm going to stay with Katherine from Friday to Sunday evening (hopefully seeing Angela for awhile also). Going to the flea market and the wild animal park! Also studying for the GRE and doing more work on my medical school secondaries...

Following the Doritos truck home from work...

2006-08-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was following a Doritos truck down El Camino, and between random cravings for Doritos (and a crazy plan to ram the truck with my car to see if Doritos would spill out) I had to stare at the sign painted on the back of the truck, which said "Frito-Lay: Food for the fun of it!". Which clearly is an acknowledgement by Frito-Lay that "yes, we fuel the wave of junky snacks that makes two-thirds of Americans overweight, but what the hell, it's FUN!".
If you go to their website, you see a different (maybe newer?) slogan, which reads, "Frito-Lay: Good food for the fun of it!". Hmmm... sneaky. Are they implying that the food is good for you? Or just good as in tasty? Either way, I think it's a bad slogan and I'm glad I didn't end up ramming the Doritos truck, because although it would have been pretty FUN eating those chips, I don't think I want to consume anything whose manufacturer openly admits is crap.

Lab outing

2006-08-24T11:05:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I went to Malibu Grand Prix with my research lab for our annual "day of fun". I think the last time I went there I was seven or eight years old, which explains why I thought it was next to the Century Park 12 movie theater and had to call people for directions when I couldn't find it. I guess I wasn't paying attention that last time I was there... We raced the go-karts around the track, played mini golf and arcade games, and then went back to Russ's (my professor) house for a barbecue.
Am I the only person who hasn't driven the racecars around? I feel like I was super conservative when I was racing because I had never done it before, my car handled like crap, and I don't like driving that fast anyways. Overall it was pretty fun, but at $5.00 for ONE trip around a half mile track (which lasts from a minute to a minute and a half), it's a little pricey. I did, however, get the sweetest car ever:

I'm the highway patrol. Oh yeah.

And I wasn't here to see this, but apparently my professor was playing DDR (these aren't my pictures, my camera battery died in the middle of racing the cars).

After the barbecue, I went with Matt, Angela, Terry, and Robert to see Snakes on a Plane, which was of course awesome. Other than that, I've been having a really boring week. Just studying for GREs and contemplating starting medical school secondaries in between doing research. Matt's going away camping this weekend, so I'm probably going to spend most of this weekend sleeping and shopping (both of which I need to catch up on!).

Two things that made my day:

2006-08-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

1. Some POS blue van in front of me sprayed winshield wiper fluid in all directions (literally--forwards, to the sides, all over) when they turned on the cleaning/wiping function, and they were doing it all down the road and laughing their heads off about it.

2. The weirdo next to me in my final brought a towel and actually was wiping his face off every 15 minutes.

"My life needs a rewind/erase button"

2006-08-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

("and a volume control" -- here's another obscure quote for you all)

So I was definitely bad-mouthing someone I know (who happens to be a fat ugly whore, but that's another storyyyy), and as the words "he only likes her because she puts out" were leaving my mouth, my PI (Principal Investigator--the professor and head honcho at my lab, not Private Investigator) walked into the lab. Oooohhhhh sh*t. Good thing he ALREADY turned in my letter of recommendation for medical school, huh?

Snakes on a ... Do I even need to say it?

2006-08-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, I was at the beach studying for the GRE when I saw a propeller plane flying along the coast. It said "snakes + plane = 8.18.06". Apparently Keenan (Matt's roommate) was in SF the other day, and he saw it also. Is the studio really trying to hype this movie up so much that they'll hire advertising planes to fly around? This movie has gotten such ridiculous buzz that even though it sounds retarded, I sort of have to see it now... I think I'm going with Robert after he takes his MCAT, and everyone else should come too!

By the way, good luck to everyone taking their MCAT on Saturday. I won't be enjoying my Saturday either--I have a final in the most retarded/boring class ever.

Am I really that silly?

2006-08-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

Today I was complaining about how my huge lab issued laptop is hurting my back to carry it around, and one of the postdocs asked me, "why don't you buy a new one?". I'm definitely going to buy a new computer (about 99% sure it'll be a laptop) when I graduate, but it never occurred to me that I would ever get one before then, especially since my desktop works fine. I answered, "I don't know... a laptop just seems like the last thing I want to spend money one right now." Because a fast, small one is what, like over a thousand? To which he replied, "what, clothes are more important?"
Hmph! Do I really come across as someone that obsessed with my clothes? Everyone should know that (besides the $5.00 skirt I found at American Eagle two weeks ago), I haven't bought clothes for months. I got a skirt at Abercrombie but got grossed out by the idea of shopping at Abercrombie (and the fact that the store smells like B.O.!) and returned it. I suppose my mom bought me khakis, but I didn't ask for those.
Of course, I'm not half as good as I'm making myself out to be, because I still have a major weakness for shoes and accessories. But those are NOT clothes. There's a difference, so THERE.

On the bright side, I'm graduating from a fledgling nerd into one who knows enough to be a useful nerd. Somehow the wireless got messed up at Matt's house and I sucessfully "hacked" their wireless router and re-set it up so it didn't keep kicking people off the internet. Now everyone in that house thinks I'm a computer science major or something. Because I fixed the internet.

Also, if you want to know where I spend all my time (besides TJ Maxx, of course.. or maybe not..), here's a picture of my spectacularly messy workspace in lab:

To be more fair to myself, a lot of that electronic clutter is not mine. I just sort of moved my linux box onto a desk which was already becoming a dump for all the electronics that no one wanted anymore.

EDIT: Now I am just realizing that my laptop definitely has weboggle on it, instead of work. I really do work... a lot... when I'm not ... blogging... or playing boggle.

I have a funny cat

2006-08-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

Ever since my parents went to England for two weeks, my cat has started the habit of coming into my room late at night and sleeping on my bed for an hour or so. Sometimes if I've gone to bed already he'll come in anyways, and try to wake me up so I can pet him before he goes to sleep. Imagine waking up to this:

It's sort of scary.

And shoot, I need to get my rear end into gear and start filling out those med school secondaries :-(.

NOT?

2006-08-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

What does this mean???