Cookie Bake-Offathon

hehehe this post is full of pictures of cookies. :) i'm telling you, it's impossible to watch my weight with these dessert-baking contests going on in my workplace. yes, so my lady boss came up with a series of "bake-offathon" she calls it - baking marathon - geddit? :) and for a superb kick start, what is better than everyone's favorite all-time snack, the cooookies!!! the rule of this contest is that no one is allowed to use pre-packed ingredients where adding water and/or eggs, butter is all you gotta do. Nooo! not so easy! you gotta start baking from scratch! they're graded by the tasters on originality, presentation and of course, taste. no reward for guessing if i'm the taster or the baker. :P

vanilla cookies with dolce de leche filling. covered with powdered sugar.

Baghlava. this is a greek dessert, i think. ingredients: almond, pistachio, cumin, milk and egg.

peunut butter chip, american's favorite. :) my brother will like this, it's very crispy.

orange shortbread. one of my favorites. because of the marmalade filling i think.
haven't had those marmalade for the longest time...

charlie cookie baked by a guy named mike. actually he cheated - he said it was his kids who baked for him. -.- this is snicker doodle. charlie is just a name for us tasters to refer to.

this is... uhm. i totally forgot what it was. not oatmeal. toffee something. okay i gave up.

but it's baked by my lady boss. :)

choco-mints, which is a little too sweet for my liking. but it's my 3rd fav. :)

both has coconut fillings in them. but 'Lima' has cream cheese topping. very creative.

this is my #1 favorite!!! everybody let me introduce you to green tea cookie
with dark choc dip and white choc topping. are you salivating yet? :P

moi with my fav cookies. :) minus orange shortbread. (someone took it back to the office.)

guess who's the winner? it's this pretty lady up there, name shall not be disclosed. isn't she pretty? she's good in almost everything, AND she's a sports freak. she runs 9 miles, thats her "normal" run; she cycles to work every day, she participates in volleyball tournaments, and she goes biking on weekends. and the list goes on. but sorry guys she's taken. :P so back to the cookie contest, her prize is that apron, and 47 bucks reward (from all the tasters, $3 each). guess which one is her cookies?? yeppp my fav! the green tea one!!! :)))) dont i have good taste. :P

our 2nd runner up on the left, hers was the one with dolce de leche filling.

and our 1st runner up on the right, with the cream cheese coconut filling cookies.

Thanks everyone, for the wonderful cookies. :)

Quake Afterthoughts

so... regarding the previous post.. the quake really didn't last that long. some people said "oh it's nothing, quite boring actually, it only lasted less than 30 seconds", and they were quite right. but this statement is only valid after the whole incident. i mean, when it was happening at that instant, how on earth would they know it'd just last for a few seconds??! and when they said things like that afterwards, quite frankly, it irked me a little to hear those words because when it happened, like i said, they didn't know - just like the rest of us - how long it would last. and after the mini shock, they didn't seem to appreciate what disaster we've all escaped. that itself is something to be thankful for. instead of being taken for granted.

i might sound a little paranoid, or even exaggerating, as if i've just gone through a devastating disastrous tragedy, but all i'm saying is that a little 'event' like this should be enough to remind us how lucky we are right now, and appreciate everything and everyone we've had, more than ever. i for one don't need a full blown earthquake, tumbling buildings and bloodshed (think: Szechuan earthquake) to remind me of that. unfortunately, i honestly think there are a lot of people out there who could really use that kind of life-shaking (literally) experience to make them realize that.

ah well. at this point i think i sound rather unsympathetic, but i'm actually not like that ok. no one was reported hurt; Brandon's lab equipments was destroyed, that's the damage i've heard so far, other than that all is well. :) thank god.

now to show that i'm appreciating life more than ever, i shall go out and get some green tea ice cream as my late night snack, and meanwhile enjoy some jasmine milk tea and spicy popcorn chicken hehehe. ;)

Holy Schmoley, It's Earthquake!

uh, how should i put this. my first experience of earthquake. wasn't fun at all. for a second there i thought i was gonna die. the first the that popped into my head? i won't get to sit for my mcat. -__-"

seriously!! what the heck was i thinking. if this had lasted more than 10 seconds, i should be worrying about my safety!! and my brother's! speaking of which, i tried calling him but all the calls were dropped. i hope he's doing fine. i heard it's a 5.4?! hope all my friends in pomona are all good too. call me if you guys see this okay!

so.. everyone at work freaked out, yet some were complaining that it was too short!! "not exciting at all", "boring.." said those crazy nutheads. hellooo??? i for one do not need this kinda excitement in my life, especially not right now! anyway. i hope it's not coming back. take care you people out there! stay safe.

i am still in shock. will write more later.. :/

The Tale of a Keychain

it's a keychain of a little black taxi. and i love it very very much. it's one of the most precious gift i've gotten, because it's from someone special.

on my sad days, i'd take a ride in it to the little alleys of London city, to the street in Vienna along the Danube river, until the road comes to an end and i can no longer drive alongside the beautiful blud Danube. i'd take it to the French suburbs where quaint little cafés and nice people exist at the same time; and to the countryside of Germany where you can see lots of greens and wallflowers and tulips and bikers in their hot tight pants, and maybe stumble upon a little bakery with the most scrumptious brownie served hot, with ice-cream topped with caramel syrup. on windy days, i'd take a ride to the red light district in Holland and experience it for myself before it's too late (it's not doing very well these days). maybe if i see one that seems like a nice person, i'd offer her a ride around the city and ask her about her life as a, you know, a girl behind the window.

in the world where there's only my little black taxi and i, anything is possible. it's me and my imagination that puts magic to work - in my little world of infinite possibilities and randomness, where order and logic are not expected and demanded - and i get to stay away from the realities of Life. and when i'm recuperated, i shall come back to reality and fight my war. :)

so you see, that taxi means so much to me, only because i attached it the person who gave it, of whom meant a great deal to me, hence i put the little cute gift into good use. yet i cannot recall who that person is!! i can't believe i totally forgot who gave it to me, yet still able to know that the giver is important to me. how weird is that?! so does this mean that person isn't so important after all?

for some reason, this thought upsets me. maybe this time i should take a ride to never-never land where unhappiness doesn't exist, and pay peter pan a visit.

Ten-Thousand-Layer Deep

some scars still burn when you touch it.

blood dried off, wound cleaned and taken care of, but memories that fused with the incident stays as fresh and raw as the meat in the wet market. as if it just happened yesterday.

4 years ago i made a choice that eventually landed me here. one decision that changed my life drastically. i could've been one of them today, wearing the square caps and celebrating 6 years of hardship and earn myself a Dr title.

i didn't regret my choice, yet i can't help feeling the pricks - not the strong intense pain as if someone punched you in the face (or for guys get kicked in the balls), but more like having a cactus sticking in your bosom. not enough for you to cry out loud yet just enough for you to be completely aware of the irritation/discomfort. which in a way is worse than the intense yet short pain. i'm not even sure if i'm making sense now, eeesh. :/

all the finger-pointing, different viewpoints, wrongful accusations, adamant self-convinced beliefs, disapproving looks, disappointed expressions, liters of silent tears. all of those are just as fresh as the basil and mint leaves my 'surrogate momma' brings in from her garden right before she wants to prepare a meal. those are spools of memory threads that are hard to forget.

i take a deep breath and tell myself not to remember.
eyes shut. tight. i'll count to three and everything will dissipate. or will it? i'll count to five, just in case.
focus on right now, focus. i can do it. or can i?

you see that girl in that quiet corner, squatting down with her arms wrapped around her knees and face buried in the little hole she made for herself? that's me. insecure insignificant and invisible. (well almost.)

I'm Weird Like That

That's right - what you see is what you get!! That IS cereal (those you eat for breakfast) in herbal soup!! I made herbal soup some time ago, with the prepacked herbs my mom gave me, and decided to 'spice' it up a little. by adding some colorful little crunchy cereals. hehehe. just because! :)

HEY. Don't you dare judge me. after all, no one says that cereal has to be eaten with milk and milk only and that it's a crime to not do so. besides, life would be too boring if it's lived by the book.. good day, peeps. :D

the big and small things and the question-marks in life

every morning, at that last intersection before i turn left into the street where my workplace is, i have to wait precisely 4 minutes 30 seconds for the light to turn green. and whilst i'm stationary - the lanes to my right are for cars to go straight ahead, and that light is green for the first 2 minutes of my wait - i can close my eyes and tell you exactly how many cars have zoomed past me. that, my friend, is no black magic; it's merely the gentle rocking of my car each time a car passes by that allows me to do that. in fact, not only can i feel it, i can hear it too. no kidding! that's how fast those cars fly by me; and every morning i fear for my life. because, honestly, the rocking of my whole car isn't very reassuring, it feels as if my car's gonna be blown 5 feet away. that's the only time i wish i had a bigger nicer car. oh well.

there is something that's been on my mind lately. but i can't seem to put them in words. intelligence and the ability to think is a dangerous thing, sometimes you lose track of your thoughts and go deeper and deeper and deeper until you reach that point where there's no turning back. and then you formulate your own ideal world, your set of rules and dogmas that you hold so true to, that you forget to look beyond yourself and your little world. that's how extremists are. the radicals who believed, so staunchly, that they'd do whatever to "set things right". and so we claim that those people, terrorists included, are bad and evil because of their actions that were due to their beliefs. but aren't we all, to some extent, behave that way too? (by 'that', i meant doing something according to our beliefs, and that at times those actions were considered to be 'wrong' in the societal norms.)

anyhow. i can go on and on bout those nonsensical talk, in an attempt to spell out what i was thinking for the past few days. but i'd rather not. i'll save it for another time, when my words can come out more coherently. :) good day, you all.

Randomness and Fireworks

watched the male single finals of wimbledon 2008 yesterday, i gotta say, my heart goes out to Roger Federer. the poor guy who tried everything to win his opponent yet to no avail. :( it's okay, buddy. there's always the next year! i'm with ya!

i'm getting a clearer picture of why we're doing what we do in the lab. so that's good. :) need to glue myself on the chair more to study though.. AND not switching on the laptop! (because this right now is obviously what happens when the laptop is on). -_-

those annoying flies still visit me every day, and last week i had 4 dead flies lying around, i have no idea how they're dead. it's like, quote brandon, my room seems to be the flies cemetery where those flies just come in and die. i thought that was funny. :P

my coworkers are fun people to be with, and they're really funny too. every wednesday lunch time they have this frisbee game out at the parking lot! last week i joined them for my first ever ultimate frisbee game! :))) hella fun, but the next day my whole body was so sore i couldn't wake up in time for work, hah. that's what i get after months of not working out! :/

on 4th of july when everyone's out by the beach or having bbq somewhere or attending parties or watching fireworks, i stayed in my room trying to study but the fireworks outside is just too loud to be ignored. sooooo. i ended up surfing the net, blog-hopping, and doing mindless stuff. bleh.

if i were a movie director, i wanna make a movie full of random stories in an orderly way. :) and i'm cooking up a storyline for my novel too. :) or not. heeee.

Mental Block

I've tried, time and again, to write my personal statement for my med school application, but failed utterly. how do you tell your story in a way so that you'd stand out from the rest of the tens of thousands of applicants when you yourself don't even know exactly what was the thing that fuel that passion to such intensity? does it make sense to not know the reasons for wanting to do something yet is extremely certain about that thing? does the failure to craft out the reasons punctiliously make that certainty less credible? i'd say, no to the first question and yes to the latter. and i'd bet you my right hand that the admissions committees would think so too. :( perhaps it's not so much of me not knowing why i wanna be a physician, but more like i don't have the ability to put it down in words with such clarity that would blow their minds away. how do you get your point across in less that 30 seconds and capture their attention, convincing them that you're a steal? i need help, i need ideas. anyone who care enough to give me a few tips? i'd appreciate it a lot.

Square Caps and Heat Insulating Gowns

Umm. Yeah more pictures. Because our graduation commencement was in the evening, we couldn't take good pictures in the dark. So Brandon our official photographer volunteered to help us all take family photos - under the scorching cancer-causing sun. Thanks Brandon!

Mee and Dee in front of the newly renovated library.

Meng and his parents. Brandon at work.

Roomie and her parents posing for the camera. :)

Everyone's waiting for their turn to have that few moments of fame. :)

i'm glad i wasn't the pro photographer, because if i was, i'd get unnecessary tan.
not that i haven't already. it's hard not to get tanned over here in the sunshine state,
unless you don't go out at all or you're naturally dark-skinned.

The men. And, one boy. :PPP

V and his father.

Proud students of the Kellogg's Honors College, and rightly so! :P

my powderpuffs and i, minus jessoms. but she's there with us, in our hearts. :)

the group photo.

this seemed to be a must-take photo of every graduation. the caps were cut off though. :/
it's been a great 4 yrs. congrats, everyone. :)

First Milestone of the Many to Come :)

Whazzat that am I talking about?? :D Graduation of course! duh, no surprise for you!! :P If you ask me, I don't think it's that big a deal - obtaining just a Bachelor's Degree (if one is in the Sciences) is almost insignificant in this society that we're living in; but of course, having said that, albeit its trivial significance, it's still an essential stepping stone for one to reach for higher goals. But since everyone's hyped up bout it, I decided I should play along and be cheery bubbly and happy. :)

That's my brother and I. Finally, we're freeeee! Well. At least for now. :P

A toast to the man that made all these possible. Cheers! Thank you, dad.
(And of course, to the woman who has nurtured us all our lives, even before we were born. Thanks, mom.)

Standing under the hot sun on a summer day wasn't fun at all. I thought I was gonna faint due to the heat and my pounding headache. That's the lot of graduates waiting to march down the path to our seats. Kinda like marrying couples walking down the aisle :P minus the romance, plus the heat multiplied by 'n' ('n' being infinity).

That's the stage where later on everyone would be walking up to get our fake diplomas and shake hands with god-knows-who.

My homies, I love you all. To my 3P girls, I love every moment spent with you. Thank you for being part of my life. (And you all better still be part of my life even after graduation, or else!! :P:P) To Sheena, who listens to my rant patiently and who knows I'll do the same for her too. Love you babe, I'll always be there for you if you need me. To bro, thank you for loving me in your own way (and of course, for all the delish' meals you cook!). To V, if you know me as well as you claim, you'd know what I have to say. :)

To my fam, my support. Thank you. (That includes you too, lil bro. sorry you couldnt make it)

my source of energy and the feeling of invincibility (is there even such a word?).

To Peng Chuan, whom I've known not for a very long time, yet seems very much so.
Love you! And thanks for the balloon!

To Kevin, for being a friend and inspiration.
Thank you for your words of encouragement. :)

To those whom I didn't get to take a picture with on that day but has been a great friend all this while, I thank you all too: Nick, Paul, Sounjew, Poy, Lily, Nivea, Choon, Raudee, Aaron, Isaim, Yung, Brandon, Meng, Loong, SEAN!!, Ayass. To Roy, whom I've grown very close to over the past year yet for some tragic reasons we're separated by the greatest canyon in the world,... I don't know what to say. Because saying what I really felt is, apparently fake, ironic, and hypocritical to you. So I guess I'll just say thank you, and sorry.

The Itch to Write

Sooooo.. I'm not supposed to be here blogging. But I've been refraining myself too long a time I felt I've accumulated a whole lot of toxins in my body if I keep stopping myself from doing what I've been wanting to do since a few weeks ago. And since I thought that would've been a disgrace to cause myself harm by not allowing the 'Qi' to flow as it wants, I'm thus here to purge my mind. :) Phew! What a whole lot of words for an opener of a blog entry!! -.-

Anyway. I forgot to mention about the Honors Conference two months ago. So here's a photo of me presenting my senior capstone project on Brain-Computer Interface. It's one of requirements of the Kellogg's Honors College, all graduating seniors have to do it. Mine's about this really cool procedure, or rather a technology, of inserting a chip in one's brain which will pick up the electrical impulses from the cortex of the brain and sends the information to the computer to be processed and analyzed, converting them to signals to operate electrical appliances or computer programs connected to that computer. This is really helpful for the paraplegic patients for them to gain control of their lives to a certain extent, by using this technology to control movements of computer cursors, switching on and off lights, TV, etc. Well there's more to it, but that's basically the main idea of it.

On a side note, did you know that John Harvey Kellogg, the guy who came up with Kellogg's cereal that we eat all the time was a medical doctor who was once a strong advocate of sexual abstinence and zealous campaigner against masturbation? He actually believed that the more sex you have, the more your health will deteriorate. And!!! He believed that eating a healthy diet, especially one with lots of grains and wheat, will reduce sexual desires!!! Hence the creation of Kellogg's cornflakes!!! No kidding! Don't believe me? google him.

Umm. I know this is random. But there's this fly that's in my room all the time and it just won't go away! Irritating the heck outta me. grrr. :( ooooh. I moved out from the campus residence! Am renting a room near my internship workplace, living with my landlady. :) Pictures of my room will be up, either after or before my graduation and california tour posts. Right on. stopping here, will write bout my graduation and cali tour with my parents. soon! :P