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.