more LA County Fair pics

tablescape contest!

more Venice Beach photos

don't even need a title

It IS that hot!

meteor shower

I heard the news that there will be the Perseid meteor shower tonight. I stepped outside my apartment a little after 11 pm, when the meteor shower was supposed to peak. Of course I saw nothing but a few stars. I'm not gonna see anything with all the bright lights around my apartment. I guess I was just being naive lol.

I woke up this morning feeling cold, really really cold. I was all curling in my blanket thinking how it could be this cold in a summer morning. I fell asleep and woke up again at around 8. It was just SO COLD. I decided to get up and see if it would be any warmer in the living room. As soon as I opened the bedroom door, I heard the AC blowing. Good Grief I forgot to turn it off. It was blowing all night and look how much electricity I had wasted! And I was so stupid that I didn't even realized the AC was on the first time I woke up.

I punished myself not to use AC today. It was 102F outside lol.

called AAA today

Since that 'tire incident' last month, I decided to apply for the AAA membership. I was glad that everytime I had a car trouble, it happened either in (or close to) my apartment complex or in the school parking lot. I know I won't always be that lucky.

This afternoon I was gonna drive to the gym, and I found my car wouldn't start. I immediately knew what happened. It all started two days ago. I was driving home from Ralphs and felt there's chewing gum on my shoe. Both my brake and accelerator got that piece. It was around 9:30 so I had to turn the light on to clean it. Then...I forgot to turn it off! I didn't go out the next two nights so I didn't realize it was on the whole time. The battery just went dead.

I tried to call my neighbor J for help but apparently he wasn't home. So I called AAA. Their service was FAST! It was only after about 15 minutes and I was still watching the Sharapova match when the guy came. They must've had repair people on the road all the time so they could come right away.

I have to say I was still lucky this time. At least I was waiting in my apartment, which was way cooler.

Leave

My neighbor got a new doormat. It hurts to finally know his true feelings...

Paycheck

I watched a movie called Paycheck last weekend on TV. Ben Affleck plays a so-called 'reverse engineer' who looks into the latest technologies and finds out how it works. He then invents something that's even better. When the job is done, all memory in this working period is erased. One day his childhood friend and billionaire Jimmy offers him a job he can't resist. It takes 3 years and the pay is a huge. When he gets his paycheck, he learns that he actually gave up all the money (90 million dollars) in exchange of 20 items that seemed worthless. He must use these items to reconstruct his memory, cuz someone is trying to take his life.

A typical John Woo (吳宇森) movie to me. There are several scenes with 2 people pointing guns at each other, and his trade-mark white dove flying in slow motion. Can I just say stupid? That was just so old.

However, something struck me a little bit. In the movie, Rachel (Thurman) asked Michael (Affleck) if he believes in second chances. (He doesn't, but somehow it's what saves his life.) Do I believe in second chances? Have I been given second chances in our life? Should people be given second chances?

Everyone's got his own answer, I think.

Do cucumbers go bad?

I bought two cucumbers the other day. I made shrimp and cucumber salad with one and forgot about the other. Today I went through my stuff in the fridge and saw it, so it was about uh, maybe a week old. However there's some sticky stuff on the surface, which was kinda gross. Well I usually peel and seed the cucumber so it didn't really seem to matter. I just wondered what that sticky stuff was since cucumbers are usually waxed on the surface. Yuck~

late afternoon in the parking lot

Lot 13 at 7 pm. 91 degrees F. Hot.

I must've been really bored.

tire-some

I had my tire repaired this morning.

Monday evening, when I was driving out of the parking lot, a lady yelled out loud, "Your tire is really low." I stopped my car, and told her, "Yes, I noticed. Thank you." Actually I didn't know it was my tire. I only noticed the rattling sound from the side of my car.

I then decided to go to Sears Auto Center to get the tire fixed before it actually went flat (or it would be the 4th time in my life to have a flat tire lol). I drove very slowly; pulled over several times to let other cars pass. It took me about half an hour for this 10-minute drive. When I finally got to Sears, the front girl told me, "We're closing. We only do body parts now. Sorry."

It felt like the sky crushed me. I must have been really devastated. I drove all the way here and now you wanted me to go back? I don't even know if my tire could go through this again. I came up with this idea that maybe I could inflate the tire and hopefully the tire would stay good long enough before I had it fixed. I then drove to the gas station and tried to get the air machine going. I had to call M to make sure how to use the machine correctly. I've seen people use it but to be honest, I wasn't sure I could do it right. Luckily, it worked! My tire just looked like normal! I could finally drive home without worries.

So I went back to Sears this morning, had my tire repaired, and also did the alignment (which I should've done a long time ago). I'm a happy man again!

mad

I know being mad is not healthy. Recently I've been in some gloomy mood. It felt like nothing was done right. I was physically and mentally very tired about what was going on in my life. This morning something came up and it just made me really mad. Surprisingly this madness turned into some kind of energy. I started doing stuff that I listed but never thought I would finish. It feels really good in a way.

So is my anger gone? Maybe.

the moon

taken just outside my apartment

arson?!

I was really surprised this kind of thing would happen on our campus.

Today you could see university staffs and students sending out flyers saying that early this morning, there was an arson event near Life Science 1500 building. The building is right next to where the Commencement is taking place. Just now in the afternoon, the school announced that all the finals this afternoon and this evening were cancelled. Today's Commencement Ceremony was also cancelled.

Stepping out of our building, I could see several police officers sitting around the lawn. They'll probably stay there all night.

The university is taking this very seriously, especially after recent tragedy in Virginia Tech. I wondered who would ever wanna do that? Ruining thousands of people's finals and graduation is gonna do any good to you?

final glance at Toronto

Post Office on Adelaide Street


Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, a newly lauched structure in Royal Ontario Museum. The official opening was on June 2. Too bad I didn't catch free admissions on June 2 & 3.


Queen's Park Circle

more random shots

CN Tower, looking from Front Street, on the way to the convention center


inside Union Station


corner of Yonge-Dondas Streets


Yonge-Dundas Square


inside TTC subway train


King Street, on the way back to the hotel; caught in heavy rain

random shots in Toronto

St James' church


King Street


corner of Front & York Street


Ontario Legislature at Queen's Park


the subway

candidate chalk talks

I had a little chat with my professor yesterday. We talked about this recuitment of our new faculty. I asked her about the chalk talk since it's not open to the public. I originally thought it was like a test to see if they could teach. In fact it was something totally different.

Basically only the literally 'chalk talk' part is as what I expected. The candidates were given a dry erase pen and a whiteboard. They were asked questions as if they were in the qualifying exam or thesis defense. They were also asked about their 5-year plans and proposals if there were to be one of our faculty members. I told my professor it was way more scary than I thought.

meeting faculty candidates

Our department is recruiting a new assistant professor. We have 6 candidates this time. Of course we students have no power deciding which candidate is to stay. We are, however, privileged to meet with each candidate at lunch time.

So we have one candidate coming to campus every 3 to 4 days. This candidate talks to (or I should put 'is interviewed by') our faculty members for 30 minutes each. Then we take him to lunch. After lunch, he continues his interview session, and then gives a seminar by the end of the day. There's also a chalk talk the next day, but it's not open to the public.

We have had 5 candidates so far. I was actually pretty struggling whether or not I should go to the lunch meeting. I know it's a great opportunity for me to meet with the candidates, to learn how these postdocs or young researchers think about their own career, since I'm close to getting my degree. The only problem was that I was still a bit too timid to talk to new people, especially faculties, and well, in English. I also knew not a lot of students would be interested, so there would be maybe, 3 or 4 going. Then I would have to speak a lot, I mean, A LOT. Anyway I still went, and now I'm really glad I did.

So far I managed to go meet 4 of them. The only one I didn't go was the one when I had to go to the Canadian Consulate to get my visa. We had one American, one Dutch, two Chinese and one German (of course they had at least their PhD degree or postdoc experiences in the US). The meetings were very casual. You didn't even have to talk science or ask difficult questions. In fact, all our candidates are immunologists or neuroscientists, and I know nothing but the knowledge on the immunology textbook. The conversations were partly about our work and the candidates' work, but most of the time we talked about other stuff like food, Southern California, traveling experiences. One time I even mentioned my recent failure on making desserts.

I was very thrilled by the whole process. The candidates had very distinct but amazing personalities. Most of them were very friendly and outgoing. I was also glad that my fellow students, J and R, went almost every time. They could just easily mingle and talk to people about whatever was brought up. That's the kind of quality I don't have but should really have. I kinda realized if one day I happen to be at the position, how knowledgeable and enthusiastic I should be.

I'm still very far from that point.

Sometimes recipes don't work (on my hand).

making kasutera

I always like to try new recipes, especially dessert recipes. Most of the time the outcome is great, and I am more than happy to share them. However sometimes the taste is just not that impressive. It could be that the recipe itself is bad, change of some ingredients makes it bad, or the person who is cooking it (that's me) is bad.

I tried 2 recipes that turned out to be not so good. One was kasutera (カステラ, a kind of Japanese sponge cake). I got this recipe from a dessert cookbook I recently bought in Tokyo. Basically it's just eggs, sugar, honey and flour, and it's very simple to make. What surprised me a bit was that it called for 100g flour, which to me was too much (we only needed 3 eggs in this recipe). The result was just as what I expected. The taste was good. It has very delicate honey flavor, but the texture was awful. The cake was chewy because of the flour.


berry strata

The other was berry strata from Giada's show, Everyday Italian. She is one of my favorite chefs and her dishes are always big hits on the table. However, this time was not the case. A strata is kinda like a bread pudding. It's also very easy to make. I happened to have most of the ingredients on hand and I really wanted to use the frozen berries that had been in my freezer for a while. The only thing I needed to get was ricotta cheese. So as soon as I saw this episode, I decided to make it. The strata baked beautifully, but it was the ricotta cheese that ruined the flavor (I think). The ricotta cheese didn't really blend in the whole eggy fruity flavor. Instead it tasted a little like some sweet lasagna (ricotta cheese is the major ingredient in lasagna). It's still sitting in my fridge now. I probably won't finish it.

stop sending me junk!

I receive about 10MB of forwarded mails per day, mostly from one source, my former boss. I don't mind if people forward mails to me. I'm happy that I'm not forgotten. I'm a bit concerned this time because it feels like it's the wrong person (a principal investigator, or to be easier, you can call him a professor) doing the wrong thing.

This started a little over 3 months ago. I sent a Christmas card to my former boss like I did every year. I then received an email from him about two weeks after. He wanted to make sure this was the email address I normally used and he would like to send me a manuscript about the experiments we did a few years ago. I replied promptly. The rest is what you see today: an average of 10MB forwarded mails every day! I opened and read each mail in the beginning, hoping that I didn't miss any important information he might leave in the mail. Not long after I got tired. He's not gonna send me the manuscript he claimed he had. Yesterday I checked my mails through Outlook, and I found I had over 200MB unread. I know I should be a bit more appreciative, but this is a bit too much.

I guess you need some luck to see cherry blossom

I think I'm a little too obsessed with the whole cherry blossom thing. I basically travel to Tokyo (on the way back to Taiwan) every year and usually it's in winter. The original plan of my latest trip was to go last December, but I was so busy that I had to postpone my trip twice. I finally made my decision because Ayu's Taipei concert was announced. I decided to go back in March.

I never saw cherry blossom in Japan before. Actually the only cherry blossom I saw was from the backyard of our old house. We had a cherry tree. This was the first time I was so close to see that in Japan because of the warm winter this year. The weather bureau estimated the cherry trees would bloom on March 18th. However, there's sudden drop of temperature during my visit. It was very cold like winter never left. My dream of seeing cherry blossom was therefore shattered.

Here's a picture of ONE cherry tree we saw in Yasukuni Jinja (靖国神社). We were supposed to see sakura fubuki (桜吹雪)!



Anyway, I'm now back to the US. What I can only do is to have some sweet sakura tea and look at my little souvenir lol.


sweet sakura tea. It's got real cherry blossom in it!


little souvenir from Yasukuni Jinja. Look how pretty it is.

one of a kind

I am finally back in Taiwan. This trip to Tokyo was fantastic, although my Japanese wasn't much better than it was last year (lol). This time I tried to take my time to listen to what people said instead of freaking out. I found at least half the chances my guesses were right. When they started to look a little confused, I would just say "日本語が あまり できないです". That's probably the best expression other than smiling (lol).



When I first arrived at the hotel in Shinjuku, I saw this and couldn't help laughing. There was a huge line in front of a store, and it was Krispy Kreme. A lot of us Taiwanese people are big maniacs of Japanese stuff. We have the latest Japanese trends. We can probably find any kind of authentic Japanese food in Taipei. Many are even big fans of Japanese celebrities and dramas. About two years ago, a donut chain, Mister Donut, started their business in Taiwan. It was a huge hype. You had to wait in line for hours to get into the store, and most people usually bought 20-30 donuts at a time. Then I just saw the same thing. Tokyo people were in line for donuts! The only difference was they were after an American brand!



The next morning we stopped by the nearest Starbucks and tried to wake ourselves up. There was still a line. I started to wonder how long this hype would be.

bad timing

Weird things always happen untimely. I probably have been in my 'freakin out' mode for the last couple days. In order to feel less guilty while getting on this trip, I've been doing lots of experiments. My professor also wanted to resubmit a manuscript (I was the second author), so there was endless discussion and proofreading. I just felt exhausted. One good thing is that she is going on a vacation too and serendipitously, our vacation times are almost the same. I feel even less guilty (lol).

It's tax season and I still haven't received my W-2 form (It's the form that tells you your total income and the amount that is withheld). Instead I got a 1042-S form last weekend. You get a 1042-S form when your income source is only scholarship or fellowship (Now I'm working in the lab as an RA, which is more like a job), and there's no withholding. It said my gross income was $10,054. I never got this money! I would be really happy to pay tax if I had extra 10,000 dollars, but I didn't! I'll probaby pay $1,000 tax for the money that was never in my pocket.

I wrote to our personnel assistant and told her about the situation (not getting W-2 and getting this weird 1042-S). She gave me a weblink so I could log on and download my own W-2. That part was solved. She also said she had no idea about the 1042-S and suggested me to ask the payroll office. Since I really had my hands full that day, I decided to go there in person first thing the next morning.

The trip to the payroll office lasted only 15 seconds. People there were nice, but they wanted me to ask the Graduate Division. What the heck.

Fortunately, before I went to the Graduate Division, I got an email from the International Student Office. They said that the Graduate Division and payroll office found possible mistakes issuing 1042-S forms and wanted us not to file tax return at this moment.

Well, alright. I was kinda hoping I would find a $10,000 check in my mailbox (lol).

winter's gone

The temperature hits 90 degrees three days in a row. I guess it's not gonna cool down until next winter comes. It's the typical southern California weather. There's no distinct spring or fall. It can be really cool one week, and the next week it'll be hot just like today.



By the way, what the heck is happening to the gas price? I understand the gas price was going up because of the cold weather in the east coast. But over $3 a gallon? You gotta be kidding me! The crude oil is not even as expensive as what we had last year.

Now I miss the past winter more. At least the gas was cheaper.

Why is everybody coughing?

LM didn't come to the lab yesterday. I realized she got a cold. She came in today because she had some big experiments to do. she looked pretty sick and was coughing all the time. And since she had to do stuff here and there, she was literally coughing everywhere. That make me concerned. The cold was passed on one by one in the lab, and more than half of the members got it. I really don't wanna be the next one.

I made some hot chowder tonight. I also took some echinacea and had lots of liquid. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

behind making chocolate mousse

I made Ellie Krieger's 'dark chocolate mousse' last summer (see my other blog). I liked it a lot. It was tasty, and chocolate and tofu matched really well. However it's just not the real thing.

I came across this chocolate mousse recipe from the Food Network website. I happened to have some leftover whipping cream (from making mashed cauliflower, which was very delicious) and decided to make it. My only concern was the fat content from the cream cuz I suffered a little indigestion from that cauliflower.

Anyway, I made it, and it was a big success. It was chocolaty and creamy (evidently), and the texture was just like what you got in a nice restaurant (see my other blog). I actually hesitated a little bit before tasting it. One reason was that I was somewhat lactose intolerant, and the other reason was the use of raw eggs. The eggs were not really 'raw' raw. I whisked it over a double boiler. The steam was supposed to cream the egg mixture and heat it up at the same time. The recipe called for a 3-minute whisking and I think I did more than 10 minutes. I hope that was enough to kill all the bacteria. It's been a few days, and I think so far I'm alright.

Maybe I should persuit my career as a pastry chef (lol).

not in my best mood

I'm just not in my best mood today. I was planning on doing some experiments over the weekend, but our technician took the culture room key and forgot to put it back. I had my cells plated, drug treated and was ready to do something. Now I have to dump all the cells and start over again. I can't believe my time was just wasted. I guess I must have looked really upset whole day.

Well tomorrow will be better.

Reserved for Chancellor?

I usually workout after my Saturday brunch (or let's say after watching a whole morning of Food Network shows lol). However maybe 4 out of 5 times there are some events in the Rec Center, and they take away most of the parking spots. I then have to park at one of the remaining spots (about 5) and there's often none left. Last week there was this 'Homecoming' event and some sports competition was going on. I wasn't surprised at all that they blocked the parking lot again, although most of the spots for the event were not even taken. What surprised me more was they also took one of the remaining spots and designated as 'Reserved for Chancellor'. I guess it's because it was closer to the front door. I had no choice but park at the Red area (which I shouldn't have). Luckily I didn't get a ticket.

That was just hilarious.

Mark starts to bite!

I've thought about starting another blog for a while. I love my original blog "Orange Blossom in Riverside", but lately I feel it's kinda lacking something. It's now more like a place where I share my recipes, travel experiences and maybe some new cool gadgets. I feel I have to put pretty pictures or even some videos to make a good article. Sometimes I just wanted to share some of my feelings from work or everyday life and putting it onto my original blog would seem awkward. So I decided to start "Mark bites".

To make things a bit different, I'm going to write this blog in English (Your comments always welcomed and they are perfectly fine if in Chinese^^).