Although it's rather old fashioned...
HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!!
1. May 2007 be cheerful, optimistic and, er, educational without being too costly(cos my dad says that e-d-u-c-a-t-i-o-n is very important, HUZZAH!).
2. May the good, wise and sincere get elected to govern (however unlikely, one can still hope).
3. May Greenhouse effects and global warming be admitted, addressed and somehow reversed, or at least stopped (see #2).
4. May my family, immediate and not immediate, by blood and honorary, find health and safety, and love.
5. May Grey's Anatomy quit trying to be the soap-opera-that-cannot-not-whine. yay!
my new year resolutions, in order of importance and inverse order of fun,
1. Graduate!!
2. Learn enough French to read the original Little Prince/Learn enough Japanese to read any book of Haruki Murakami.
3. Take up drums again! double yay! and master those ever elusive but highly essential offbeats.
Cheers!
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Ho Ho Ho!
Merry Christmas all, and a Great 2007 ahead!
Just came back from a trip to Arizona with 2 old friends - it was a blast! the host was big hearted and eager to please in his usual gruff manner, and the companion ever entertaining and funny.
and, (and I've got to type this in caps), WE HIKED GRAND CANYON!!! well, not all the way down, but maybe about 10 or 20 miles.
.....
ok, it was more like 3 miles. but that itself took more than 3 hrs, going down towards the canyon floor and then hiking back up to the rim. and the view...how can i describe it...to coin T's phrase, it was so breathtaking that we needed to puke, in a good way (it's more descriptive translated to cantonese). The view from the hiking trail was MAGNIFICENT. So Magnificent that the word not only needs be in caps, but bolded, underlined, highlighted and decorated with flashy neon light, except that i don't know how to do those fancy things within blogspot. Comparing it to the tourist convenient, camera friendly, shuttle accessible rim is like comparing boiled unsalted liver pate to penang's char kuey tiao, or bush to gandhi, or me to albert einstein. They are not only incomparable, they're not even the same species.
photos coming up soon!
Just came back from a trip to Arizona with 2 old friends - it was a blast! the host was big hearted and eager to please in his usual gruff manner, and the companion ever entertaining and funny.
and, (and I've got to type this in caps), WE HIKED GRAND CANYON!!! well, not all the way down, but maybe about 10 or 20 miles.
.....
ok, it was more like 3 miles. but that itself took more than 3 hrs, going down towards the canyon floor and then hiking back up to the rim. and the view...how can i describe it...to coin T's phrase, it was so breathtaking that we needed to puke, in a good way (it's more descriptive translated to cantonese). The view from the hiking trail was MAGNIFICENT. So Magnificent that the word not only needs be in caps, but bolded, underlined, highlighted and decorated with flashy neon light, except that i don't know how to do those fancy things within blogspot. Comparing it to the tourist convenient, camera friendly, shuttle accessible rim is like comparing boiled unsalted liver pate to penang's char kuey tiao, or bush to gandhi, or me to albert einstein. They are not only incomparable, they're not even the same species.
photos coming up soon!
Thursday, December 21, 2006
my claim to a famous friend
Tan Chui Mui's 1st movie "Love conquers all" won awards and accolades! go watch go watch!
http://www.nanyang.com/index.php?ch=15&pg=224&ac=679213
tan chui mui, goh tze hui and i used to hang out a little, organize some activities and once made a stupid bet in secondary school (Who won? i think i did. but i don't see any1 paying up!). she lives 2 blocks away from me. we're no longer in touch, but it's good to see that she's receiving recognition for her work! :) She is really talented, and it showed even when we were all young and naive (well, still naive now, but no longer young). she won us a chinese society's magazine regional championship(i'm pretty sure that's not how to translate it, cos it now sounds like american football now), and wrote really enjoyable articles.
i would surely go watch if i were back home. You could see that i'm excited about this because I've used not one, not 2, but THREE exclaimation marks up to this point!
and, I'm gonna add kuantan to my profile. maybe because it's now gonna be a famous birth place of a famous director, but most probably because reading about her, and watching her shorts on youtube.com brought back fond memories about the crazy and stupid and mundane and oh so crude things me and my friends did back home. i think i would like to recognize that.
http://www.nanyang.com/index.php?ch=15&pg=224&ac=679213
tan chui mui, goh tze hui and i used to hang out a little, organize some activities and once made a stupid bet in secondary school (Who won? i think i did. but i don't see any1 paying up!). she lives 2 blocks away from me. we're no longer in touch, but it's good to see that she's receiving recognition for her work! :) She is really talented, and it showed even when we were all young and naive (well, still naive now, but no longer young). she won us a chinese society's magazine regional championship(i'm pretty sure that's not how to translate it, cos it now sounds like american football now), and wrote really enjoyable articles.
i would surely go watch if i were back home. You could see that i'm excited about this because I've used not one, not 2, but THREE exclaimation marks up to this point!
and, I'm gonna add kuantan to my profile. maybe because it's now gonna be a famous birth place of a famous director, but most probably because reading about her, and watching her shorts on youtube.com brought back fond memories about the crazy and stupid and mundane and oh so crude things me and my friends did back home. i think i would like to recognize that.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
A chapter is complete
When you've just finished the final final-exam on the last course in your graduate studies, and you think the best way to celebrate is to go grocery shopping, and then cook up some yummo chicken and multi-mushroom dish, and then do the dishes, and, and then blog,
...is it time to concede that the wild days are over?
...is it time to concede that the wild days are over?
Sunday, December 10, 2006
a good man
Today, I am touched, inspired and saddened by the life of James Kim - loving father, devoted husband, senior editor at CNET, supreme gadgeteer.
James Kim and his wife, Kati Kim, and their 2 little girls - Penelope, 4 and Sabine, 7 months, went for a family road trip after Thanksgiving. Along this trip, on a snowy night, they took a wrong turn and got lost. Then, decided to follow a shortcut on the map, and being unabled to read warning signs obscured by snow, the family got stucked on a deserted backcountry road in the Mountains of Oregon; a road that was supposed to be gated and locked in the winter, but wasn't. They were out of range for all electronic gadgets, and could neither call for help, or be notified of a search and rescue party. The parents ran the car heater for warmth, and when the gas ran out, burnt the tyres, first the spare, then the rest. Kati breastfed both daughters when food ran out, while James hardly ate. After a week, James decided to go out on foot to seek help for his family, aiming for a village which they thought was 4 miles away but was actually 15. The plan was for him to return after 5 hrs if he couldn't find anything. He never did.
Kati and the girls were rescued 3 days later by helicopters hired by Jame's father for the search, the same helicopters that dropped sacks of food, warm clothes and letters in the mountains, in the hope that they will provide sustanence for James.
But James never had a chance to stumble across the packs. He was found, 11 days later, in a river bed, dead of hypothermia. He stayed alive for 2 days, and walked for 11 miles before he fell; rescuers had problems with 5, even with all of their gadgets and supplies. It was later found that the lock to that accursed road was vandalised.
I cannot imagine what it was like for the James and Kati, who tried to portray the whole ordeal to their girls as a camping trip. Were they at first hopeful that help would arrive in a day or 2, or thought that they could drive out of the hell hole eventually? Did a day or 2 turned into 5, then 7, with no sign that any search was under way? When the fuel ran out, how did it feel to realize that with that died the possibility of driving their own way out - that their fate were left in the hands of others, who might not even be aware that they were missing? What words were spoken before James decided to strike out into the wilderness, out of desperation to save his family? How did Kati bade goodbye, knowing that he was doing this for their sake, and that he might not be coming back? How did he feel when he kissed his daughters possibly for the last time, weak from hunger, yet strong with the will to protect them? Were the girls puzzled and troubled, yet not fully comprehending the heart breaks that they could feel in the air..
I can't express my feelings well enough, but he does.
http://sweetjuniper.blogspot.com
I choke up everytime I read about James. Because I know, that my father would do the same, were we ever in the same condition. And so would I.
James Kim and his wife, Kati Kim, and their 2 little girls - Penelope, 4 and Sabine, 7 months, went for a family road trip after Thanksgiving. Along this trip, on a snowy night, they took a wrong turn and got lost. Then, decided to follow a shortcut on the map, and being unabled to read warning signs obscured by snow, the family got stucked on a deserted backcountry road in the Mountains of Oregon; a road that was supposed to be gated and locked in the winter, but wasn't. They were out of range for all electronic gadgets, and could neither call for help, or be notified of a search and rescue party. The parents ran the car heater for warmth, and when the gas ran out, burnt the tyres, first the spare, then the rest. Kati breastfed both daughters when food ran out, while James hardly ate. After a week, James decided to go out on foot to seek help for his family, aiming for a village which they thought was 4 miles away but was actually 15. The plan was for him to return after 5 hrs if he couldn't find anything. He never did.
Kati and the girls were rescued 3 days later by helicopters hired by Jame's father for the search, the same helicopters that dropped sacks of food, warm clothes and letters in the mountains, in the hope that they will provide sustanence for James.
But James never had a chance to stumble across the packs. He was found, 11 days later, in a river bed, dead of hypothermia. He stayed alive for 2 days, and walked for 11 miles before he fell; rescuers had problems with 5, even with all of their gadgets and supplies. It was later found that the lock to that accursed road was vandalised.
I cannot imagine what it was like for the James and Kati, who tried to portray the whole ordeal to their girls as a camping trip. Were they at first hopeful that help would arrive in a day or 2, or thought that they could drive out of the hell hole eventually? Did a day or 2 turned into 5, then 7, with no sign that any search was under way? When the fuel ran out, how did it feel to realize that with that died the possibility of driving their own way out - that their fate were left in the hands of others, who might not even be aware that they were missing? What words were spoken before James decided to strike out into the wilderness, out of desperation to save his family? How did Kati bade goodbye, knowing that he was doing this for their sake, and that he might not be coming back? How did he feel when he kissed his daughters possibly for the last time, weak from hunger, yet strong with the will to protect them? Were the girls puzzled and troubled, yet not fully comprehending the heart breaks that they could feel in the air..
I can't express my feelings well enough, but he does.
http://sweetjuniper.blogspot.com
I choke up everytime I read about James. Because I know, that my father would do the same, were we ever in the same condition. And so would I.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Just another pain in my behind (nana, you want to skip this entry)
I've just received email that we're REQUIRED to decap rats now.
decap as in decapitate.
Skip the rest of this entry if you don't want to know details.
Before you get too horrified, it's part of the procedure for kind+thoughtful handling of lab animals. And unusually, I don't mean that sarcastically. Because decapitation is done on rats that are euthanised with anesthesia, to make sure that they are really dead before getting placed in a freezer prior to being disposed. you know, so that, just in case it didn't really expire from the anesthesia, it doesn't wake up in the middle of the night in a sub 0 degree freezer with a box full of dead companions in paper bags, and freeze to death while trying to call 911.
THE RULES require decap, but I've always avoided it by having my technician break the neck after it's supposedly gone to rat heaven via a huge dose of anesthesia, which is supposed to be as effective as decap. Now, however, some people were careless in obeying the rules, and THE COMMITTEE is insisting on STRICTLY obeying the rules.
I have a hard enough time when I'm forced to put them to sleep, or when i accidentally make them bleed, and now I'm required to cut off the head?
Could I plead cultural immunity, because asians traditionally respect and wouldn't dream of hurting dead bodies?
my mama, she-hero who captures, kills, de-feathers, cleans, and cooks running, free-ranged, live chickens with one hand tied at the back is probably wondering if babies when i was born.
decap as in decapitate.
Skip the rest of this entry if you don't want to know details.
Before you get too horrified, it's part of the procedure for kind+thoughtful handling of lab animals. And unusually, I don't mean that sarcastically. Because decapitation is done on rats that are euthanised with anesthesia, to make sure that they are really dead before getting placed in a freezer prior to being disposed. you know, so that, just in case it didn't really expire from the anesthesia, it doesn't wake up in the middle of the night in a sub 0 degree freezer with a box full of dead companions in paper bags, and freeze to death while trying to call 911.
THE RULES require decap, but I've always avoided it by having my technician break the neck after it's supposedly gone to rat heaven via a huge dose of anesthesia, which is supposed to be as effective as decap. Now, however, some people were careless in obeying the rules, and THE COMMITTEE is insisting on STRICTLY obeying the rules.
I have a hard enough time when I'm forced to put them to sleep, or when i accidentally make them bleed, and now I'm required to cut off the head?
Could I plead cultural immunity, because asians traditionally respect and wouldn't dream of hurting dead bodies?
my mama, she-hero who captures, kills, de-feathers, cleans, and cooks running, free-ranged, live chickens with one hand tied at the back is probably wondering if babies when i was born.
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