current clothing: UCLA T shirt and board shorts
current mood: stressed ant restless
current taste: none
current hair: ponytail
current annoyance: having too many things to do
current smell: none
current thing you ought to be doing: running
current jewelry: jade pendant
current book: none
current favourite refreshment: tea
current worry: committee meeting
current longing: to do nothing
current music: Verdi Requiem
current wish: to be done with the committee meeting
current lyric in your head: Dies irae, Dies ila...
current makeup (if you're a girl!): none
current undergarments: the usual stuff
current regret: should have started preparing for the committee meeting earlier
current desktop picture: Atticus in catbed for Cizgi
current plans for tonight/weekend: eat, watch some tv, stress about committee meeting
current cuss word du jour: none, amazingly
current disappointment: hmm
current amusement: momo and atticus
current IM/person: none
current love: you know who
current obsession: knitting, organising
current avoidance: toxic relationships
current favorite book: none
current favorite movie: none

committee meeting

That thing called a committee meeting is looming over my head now. It's scheduled for 6/9, which is still a whiles away I guess, but I am really starting to get stressed about it. I still have some embryos to score and some data to analyse, not to mention all the other things I need to prepare for the meeting, such as making sure I've got some papers read and the presentation prepared, paper outlines written. And tomorrow I have to teach J how to microinject. I have to admit that while I don't mind teaching normally, at this moment I would have liked to not have that responsibility. All in all though, I was glad to have this long weekend at this time. I managed to get the house cleaned and errands ran, and was able to even get some work done! Perhaps I have time to go for a run. I am a little tempted to go to echo mountain. I know I will feel quite dead tomorrow, but boy does it feel good when I get 2.5 miles up the mountain and can see the LA area from up above!

Met up with Terence last night for dinner at Houstons in Century City. Though there is one in Pasadena, I hadn't been there a long time. But I really like the place, with the dark atmosphere and food. Had ribs last night, not something I usually eat, but somehow I had a craving for it. Terence is one of my friends from NJC, and he had just graduated from his MBA program at the University of Michigan and is taking a road trip (If I am not wrong this is the second one since graduation) across the US before heading back to Asia for some travelling/scuba diving before starting at job at San Francisco. It was really good to see him again, and I'm glad that he will be moving to California. Now Deb and I can crash at his place when we go visit! Later Eric and I caught a late show of the latest star wars. I hadn't seen such a late movie since my college days, most theatres around here don't have midnight showings, whereas it is normal for have late shows on the weekend in west LA. It was surprisingly empty for a friday night movie, my guess is that everyone is going out of town for Memorial Day weekend.

Wearing Roger's birthday present 

Terence, myself and Eric at Houstons in Century City 

Take the quiz: "What Star Wars Character Are You?"

Anakin Skywalker
Watch out for your temper...it could get you into trouble the way it did Anakin. You have enormous potential to be a great Jedi, but stress has made the dark side seem that much more inviting...

This weekend

Cat bite

Cat bites are nasty things, second only, apparently, to a human bite. The first antibiotic they put me on (Augmentin) didn't really help, so I had to make another trip to the doctors today (where I waited for 2 hours) and they told me that in a small number of the cases that antibiotic I was on doesn't work because of a species of resistant bacteria. So I get another prescription for a different antibiotic. Hopefully this one will kill the bugs. Of course now Atticus is back to his normal friendly cat self and was rubbing agains me and purring.

Welcome Maya!

Paola gave birth to a little girl today, Maya. The parents wanted to give the little one a name that can be pronounced in the same way in both English and Italian, and I think that Maya is a fine choice. Too bad the grandmother was not here for the event. She was supposed to fly from Palermo next week, but the little one couldn't wait and arrived a little early! Will probably try and go to the hospital tomorrow/friday to see the mother and the little one.

Was awakened last night by a crazy Atticus attacking Momo again. Managed to put Momo in the bedroom this morning, and when I walked past Atticus he came at me and bit my leg hard enough to out in a few puncture wounds. So I had to go to the health center and get antibiotics and hope the it doesn't get too infected. But it is starting to hurt now with the swelling.

Soprano II/Alto I?

Had my bi-annual choir audition this last saturday. Well, it says bi-annual but in reality they had on instituted this policy for a couple of years so this is the first year I've had to re-auditon for this group. When I was in the Occidental Chorale, Jeff used to have everyone re-audition every year, which added to our anxiety around May or so. Especially when we go into the audition with the knowledge that some of us will get axed the following year. Don had meant for the auditions to be more laid back, just a way of "checking how we are progressing" rather than weeding people out. Considering that my initial auditon as rather fast (it was 10 minutes before start of rehearsal and his mind was clearly on something else) I wasn't quite sure that to expect, though I knew that the dreaded sighting reading would be involved. Now, for those who do not know what sight reading is, it involves singing a passage from notes (the first pitch is given, of course). And for those of you who know me well, you will realise that my musicianship is "not very powderful." I usually sit there clueless when people talk about from this major key to that major key, the minor third etc, and pretend that I actually have an idea of what they are talking about. And I had unknowingly signed up for the very FIRST audition spot, and had assured myself of a position when Don was still fresh and alert. On the flip side, that meant he was in a good mood, which might not be the case towards the end of the day.

I arrived at UCLA at 10:50am, ~10 min before my time slot. While I was sitting outside the rehearsal room waiting for my turn, I thought I saw someone from the Occidental Chorale. For I brief moment I thought I was on crack or something, but then Jeff said Hi (I was rather blind and didn't see him at first), I had a little chat with him and discovered that the choir is doing a Mahler concert with the American Youth Symphony the following evening at Royce. It finally made sense, I was seeing my friends, but their rehearsal was starting and I didn't get a chance to chat.

I ended up going second (the lady after me had a wedding to go to so I happily obliged). I believe that these things are set up to be somewhat intimidating, though that wasn't necessarily the intention. I think the point was to make it seem like an audition for a professional group (which we are supposed to be, we just don't get paid :P). So Don was sitting at the piano, with Rae at the door and John (our assistant conductor) sitting at a desk with a note pad. But I did okay, the dreaded sighting reading passage wasn't as hard as it could have been, and Don was rather helpful with giving me the intervals, though we got stuck briefly on some dotted quarters. Don also told me that I am a soprano, and that he would like me to switch to a SII from an AI starting in the Fall. I am left confused as to whether I am a mezzo or a true soprano. Having sung all the women's parts except SI, I was starting to be unsure of which voice part I actually do belong to. I had been told that I was a Mezzo and a soprano by different voice teachers, and the belief I now hold is that I could be either, and only time will tell....Regardless, it would be fun to sing the soprano part for a change. We will be doing the Messiah in the Fall; I already know the alto part, so this will be a new challenge for me.

I heard via Qiang that Alex (our new German postdoc) might be joining our room. That sent shudders down my spine. This guy is a Physicist and his way of asking questions just doesn't work well with me. I'm not sure if it a language issue or a personality issue, but I am not really looking forward to him in my room. Perhaps he will go to Gab's desk instead.

Just one of those days

I had planned on going running after our weekly lab meetings today, but the time came for me to change and I realised I left my shorts at home. What to do? Just funny.

Went to yoga at the Yoga House in South Pas with Julie and Elly yesterday. Having said that my previous yoga experiences were rather boring, I was a little skeptical about this place. After the 90 min class (I didn't realise it was THAT long), I have to say that while the whole sitting and breathing thing is rather new agey for me, part of the class was surprising difficult. And while I wouldn't say that I am now a convert to yoga, I do believe that it would be a good complement to the muscle tightening activity that I normally participate in, ie running. And it gives me an opportunity to work on upper body and core strength, parts of my body I normally ignore. Then we went to Tasty Choice in San Gabriel to pig out. I can never get over ther Hainanese chicken rice. While the rice is not as good as what I can make and find in Spore, the chicken is to die for. Never have I tasted chicken breast that is sooo good (and mind you I hate chicken breast). I almost would say that it is succulent.

One of my friends (I'm not entirely sure if she can be called a friend, we had spent a good deal of time together when we first got to grad school but hadn't really talked to her for >3 years now) G defended her thesis today. I had meant to go, but 10am was just too early for me so I didn't make it. If there was a focused grad student she was it. Sagar was telling me that some Chem labs require their incoming grad students to sign a statement to say that they will work 80hr weeks. And based on the analysis of how much us bio people work, we decided that that was the reason chem people tend to graduate soon......one needs to put in a certain number of hours before we can generate enough data for a Phd. Yeah dorky I know, but Sagar and I are both self professed nerds, and we don't really care what others think anymore. But thinking about G, I realised that perhaps I could be in that position if I had worked as hard as she did (which was all the time), but somehow I find that too great a sacrifice. I still enjoy chatting with friends, going out for dinners, movies, running/exercising, hanging out with Eric, knitting, watching TV and of course, choral singing. And yes I enjoy reading books and magazines not just journal articles. Is giving up on all these things worth a year or two less in grad school? Somedays I feel it is, but the other times when I look around and realise how rich my life is, I believe that I would not change a thing. Besides, what is one year in the grand scheme of things? Certainly I don't believe that they ask the newest faculty member at any college the dreaded "How long did it take you to get your PhD?" So sure, could I have worked harder/done more experiments/chatted less? Sure, but would I change a thing? I don't think so.

Small World

I was settling in last night to watch Everybody Loves Raymond, one of my favorite shows, when my brother was surfing through the channels to watch 24 (he likes that, but I always win the battle for the remote) and I saw her name among the opening credits. It's weird, I hadn't heard about her for years (basically since my days at UCLA), but we used to belong to the Sporean/ M'sian club on campus. Turns out that Gwendoline is now an actress in Hollywood, and is doing quite well (as far as actresses go). She's had quite a few speaking roles on TV and made for TV movies, some indie films and loads of commercials. Of course now looking back she has the perfect disposition for being an actress, always super outgoing and confident. Apparently she went to St Nicks too, but she is a couple of years younger than me and I didn't know her. But as officers of SMILE (the Sporean club on campus) we spent a great deal of time together, including outings to local M'sian restaurants and a trip to Disneyland.

Committee Meeting

T had his committee meeting today, and the story is not unlike Roger's meeting recently. It involves the student (who wants to graduate badly) proposing the work that needs to be completed before the defense. And then EHD would suddenly throw a curve ball and say "What about this thing?" Ugh. Eventually the issues are somewhat resolved, but I get the distinct feeling that EHD is not going to make the defense process easier. In a way I am glad that I have rather assertive committee members who are not afraid to stand up to EHD. But all this makes me a little nervous, for I have no idea what he will say during my meeting a month from now. On a positive, I think my experiment worked. The curve was a little wacky, but the preliminary signs are positive. I just need to look at the other batch of embryos and see if the curve is more like what I predicted.

Q told me that his wife saw my knitting site and was so inspired that she went out and bought the supplies. Ha ha, didn't think that I held that kind of power over others...

Mother's Day

Went to Napa Rose at Disney's Grand californian Hotel for mothers day. We did the planning rather late so we only managed to get a dinner reservation. I pigged out and had bacon wrapped shrimp, ribeye steak and banana turnovers. The food was good but it wasn't spectacular. But we had a good time and I didn't feel too guilty as I got a long run in today.

Found out the Eric's sweater is going to be far too small based on the gauge I had. So that means I have to undo the whole thing and start over. Good thing I really hadn't gone very far.

The parents-to-be with all the presents 

Paola's cake for the shower. I love the llittle decorations! 

Went to Paola's baby shower today. She opted for a less traditional shower that is more like a party instead. So that means no games, which is good as I don't particularly care for them. Michael barbecued, Paola brought some salad and cheese and chips and salsa. In all it was fun, I love the part when the mom to be opens all the presents. It's so much fun seeing what's under all that wrapping paper. Also found out that V is pregnant with her second child and is due in November. Seems that my life revolves around many who have kids these days, which is strange. 5 years ago almost no one I know have children, now I know all about what you should not feed a child for fear of food allergies in the first year of life (eggs and strawberries) and potty training. Certainly added some variety to my usual saturday routine, which includes:

changing the water in the fish tank
cleaning the turtle tub
cleaning the house (somewhat)
go to work for a little while

as you can see my saturdays are usually spent catching up on the things I am too busy to do during the week.

Lab Meetings

Lemon cheesecake for Jill and Levi 

In Las Vegas