Over with the presentation!

YEAHHHHH----!! It's finally time to relax a little. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be, but I forgot to use the laser pointer. A nutritionist who attended my presentation came up to me and asked me more details about my project. She told me that my presentation was clear and even someone who is not familiar with the topic could understand my project, so that made me happy. And she actually thought I was a PhD student! I told her I'm an undergrad and she was like, "Wow, really?" I don't think I'm at that level yet, but I'll gladly take...

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Not Ready

Okay, today's Friday and I'm so not ready to leave New Jersey. I drove back and forth to Philadelphia on Thursday (supposed to be on Wednesday but the weather sucks and my brother didn't let me drive his car under such a bad weather). Took me a total of 4 hours of a round trip there. Managed to find two different apartments that I kinda liked but I still can't decide which one I should lease. One choice: in the middle of the city, Philadelphia. It's much more expensive for a smaller size apartment. The facilities aren't that great since it's...

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Spring Break!

Spring break doesn't feel like spring break when you have lots of stuffs to do. I'll have to look for housing in Philadelphia simply because after reading the news Camden (the town I will be working at) is rated the most dangerous town due to the unbelievably high crime rate. Beh. Tried using SAI to draw. It's a pretty gloomy fanart :( Hetalia Axis Power: Japan and his bloody path of Greater Asia I suddenly remembered how in WW2 Japan actually...

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Pastaaaa

Unexpectedly bumped into my friend and then somehow ate lunch together and all of the sudden the conversation became monstrously heavy. It's enjoyable; it's definitely a food-for-thought conversation for me. I left home with depression after that, and I fell asleep although I was supposed to calculate some statistics using SAS for my presentation tomorrow. And yes, I have never used SAS throughout my life so it's like figuring out codes. It's not...

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Freedom! Haiku Haiku Haiku Haiku!

Glad to know that my professor's relatives are safe in Japan. This Ikebana arrangement was made out of the following haiku (Japanese 5-7-5 poem): Yellow flower of spring The sun in the west The moon in the east A difficult poem indeed. Should have chosen a simpler one >.&...

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Ponzu Pasta

I tried making spaghetti with soy sauce as the base flavor, and it failed miserably. I thought pasta was never to be prepared with soy sauce, but I was so totally wrong. So the problem was that I used whole grain thin spaghetti. I always thought whole grain pasta has pretty much acceptable texture with increased health benefits, but no. No, the texture was completely different than durum semolina (or the normal) pasta. Even though I still have...

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Beef Tataki

I bought Ponzu sauce quite some time ago so I tried cooking beef tataki with the wrong ingredient. I used beef stew meat, which is waaaay too chewy. The texture is definitely wrong :(And somehow using frozen-thawed meat makes the color of the meat rather ugly (deoxymyoglobin! Heh!). But the sauce is good. Yum. Anyways, just a little thought on the earthquake disaster in Japan. I shouldn't say it's surprising but it's still a little surprising...

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Pray for Japan

"Last night when I was tired out waiting for the train at the station, the homeless people gave me one of their cardboards to prevent the cold... even though we usually ignore them in daily life... So warm." I read this from prayforjapan.jp/tweet_en.html It moved me to tears. I checked out the twitter channel, and it's really encouraging how people don't give up despite their terrible situation. It moved me a lot, and I feel like I should be praying for them more and more. But it got me thinking again. When my country was hit by earthquake, tsunami...

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Ikebana

Oh yes I forgot to tell you guys that I'm taking Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) this semester! It's an awesome class, and I am learning great deal of information about fine arts and Zen Buddhism ideals. As a Christian, I feel that I have to agree with some Zen teachings. The nature is great, and that's why we have to respect them. Although in Zen Buddhism it is believed that each natural existence has its own god, I believe that we have to...

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Earthquake in Japan

I received a call from my mum in the morning and she said there was a huge earthquake in Japan. There were wsunami warnings in Southeast Asia, Australia, Russia, and several other places including San Francisco, US. And that's where my brother is right now. Just for today. She asked me if my friends in Japan are okay. I know at least one is safe, but I don't know about the rest. And this stupid me doesn't remember her friends' email addresses and...

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Restaurant Crawl

It was my last Restaurant Crawl before I graduate. We went to Seven Saints for appetizers, Jupiter's for main course and then to Cakes at Walnut for dessert. The weather's been a little harsh during the day, but it wasn't that bad during the crawl so THANK GOD! :) This year, I went with a totally different group of people. Which is good to see that there are many non-senior club members who are still active and are still looking forward to participate...

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MMD Project Hetalia

And so finally it's done up till the end of the chorus! Took me Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday... So that was 5 days. Yes. I didn't spend that long during the weekends just because I have exams and homework to do. The song is called "I Heart You" (instead of I love you, yes) by SM*SH. My friend suggested me to use this song when I asked if there is any Indonesian song that is catchy enough to be used in a modern dance choreography. So, here it ...

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Hetalia Effect

I got the wrong idea when I first saw Hetalia on YouTube. There are so many BL and yaoi things going around Hetalia and I thought it was just another harem anime. But it isn't. In fact, it's probably one of the most interesting manga / anime I've ever encountered. So I came to know a lot about the cultures of other countries (even though they may not be really accurate), including the foods. There was one Drama CD where Lithuania said "Russia...

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Lapcheong Craze

For the past week I've been intoxicating myself with all the fats from lapcheong (Chinese pork sausage). It's so good, and it reminds me of my days at home. It goes well with rice, egg noodles and kwetiaw (flat rice noodle). It's full of flavor. And if you can get the good quality ones, it's also juicy. Fried rice... Fried kwetiaw And fried rice... And fried rice again... I love lapcheong...

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Fasting and Abstinence

This is a really tough challenge for me. In my whole life, I always failed. This year I promised to skip Facebook for 40 days. It's one of the greatest challenge for me. Somehow I always have time to post something on Facebook, be it just a wall post, a comment, video, pictures... I wasted so much of my time being online. I haven't told my parents but I've been going to bible study sessions. I know I've been pressing my switch on and off; sometimes I'm really eager to search the light and sometimes I just prefer to be in the dark. Right now I'm...

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Braised eggs and my ego

This event was last month. I did indicated that I wanted to help out with cooking for the event, but 4 days before the event, I was suddenly asked to be the coordinator of all volunteers in the cooking section. I couldn't turn down the request because of several unspoken reasons, so I did become a coordinator. By the way, I was in charge of making telor kecap (hard boiled eggs braised in sweet soy sauce). Pretty easy to make when you have 20...

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