The Great Turtle Race

Sorry I haven't had time to post. Working 70+ hours a week is a pain. All I do is run simulations one after another. In between simulations, I work on writing my thesis. I now have 5 pages of what is to become an 150-page blabber of why I deserve a Master's Degree. At least that's how I see it. Anyway, this is a little late but the The Great Turtle Race has begun! Go to the website below and choose your turtle. Try to avoid peeking at the race standings before you pick the winning turtle because that would be cheating. By the way, my turtle decided to abandon the race...ha ha!

Today is also my daddy's birthday! Let's have a cyber-celebration! I bought him a bunch of stuff here in HI. I hope he likes them. Happy Birthday Babee! Here is a cyber-birthday card for you. Just for the record, I didn't design this one :)

Winning FOOD

I thought the award winning days were over when I finished undergrad. Ah, those days were all about honors and awards that would get you into a reknowned college for a Master's Degree. Well, except for the partying and drinking that also got you into trouble. Until yesterday, that was what I believed to be true.

For the past few weeks, I have been busy preparing for a conference knowing that I would be doing a poster presentation because I love graphic design. (I shoulda' gone into a design school instead). Then my friend in the lab convinced me to do an oral presentation because it was much less time consuming. Since I was scramming to finish my research, I had no choice but to take that option. I am usually very calm for class presentations. I also talk and act very "natural" if I take a shot half an hour before my presentation. By shot I mean alcohol...imagine that! I walk up to the front of the class, look at everyone with a smile, when I start feeling happi, I know the alcohol is doing its thing.

I went through the same routine on the day of my conference presentation. The conference room was quite empty when I arrived. After 10 minutes, it was filled. Then my entire lab came. I said to myself, "These are just people, not monsters. Relax and concentrate on the alcohol." When it was my turn, I could feel myself shaking because I was so nervous. That damn alcohol didn't work! In front of me were over 10 professors and 5 judges. How in the world am I gonna get through this!

Well, I did and I won 2nd place for the best M.S. Oral Presentation at the CTAHR Student Research Symposium. I am not bragging...ok, maybe a little. Give me a break, I haven't won anything since 2003! I deserve to feel a little pride, just a little. Ok, it was just a student presentation, nothing important. Pride gone, but still cofident :) The best part, I get to spend that award money on FOOD. Yup, I'm gonna buy myself a nice sushi dinner, bring it home and eat while watching my favorite TV shows. Ah, what a prize.

Life is NOT full of surprises

It's been a month since I last posted. Amazing I didn't even post my endless complaints of anything and everything that goes wrong in my life. If only I had the TIME! Yup, I have concluded that time is THE problem.

Since college (which was 6 years ago), I have never had a REAL vacation. Spring and summer breaks were all excuses for the professors to dump more work on the us because "Oh, you have the entire break to finish the project" seemed to be a popular phrase among the educators.

Finding a job was the only thing occupying the minds of the recent graduates because no job, no $$$. Ever wonder how stressful and painful it was to write down EVERY single frakin' achievement over a four year period on your resume? YES, really painfull because there were none and I was stressed of my incompetence.

Ah, finally found a job with a decent salary. Let's just chill and relax after work. Yeah right! As a community representative, I was on call almost everyday. Checking emails, working on last minute projects, attending meetings while trying to understand what the meeting was about because my head was screwed from the 50 meetings in the past week.

I needed to get out of this hole so I moved to the land of paradise - Hawaii. Beautiful beaches, handsome lifeguards, just full of life and energy. Oh no, where do I live, how do I support myself, work or school, my head is exploding! So I deceided to go back to school and get a Master's degree in something, anything that made sense to me. Lucky me, I was hired to be a TA and then RA so my tuition is paid for. Now I have to graduate, AGAIN, for the fifth time!

Well, I did have one tiny vacation two days ago when my professor took the laptop for a conference. I had absolutely no work to do from 7PM to 12PM the next day because all my work was on the laptop. I felt so relieved and my muscles were very much relaxed. Now that I have my laptop back, everything is back to normal routine...no surprises.

Childhood snacks

I am so happy today! As you all know already, the only 99 Ranch in HI is closing in 2 days. That means I have no source for my favorite chinese snacks. My sister is so understanding and absolutely fabulous! She neatly packed a box of goodies and mailed it to me across the gigantic ocean. In this box contains my most favorite childhood snacks that are not even sold at the 99 Ranch here in HI. They are only available on the mainland 99 Ranch stores. The first bite of the chocolate fingers was total nostalgia. Before I knew it, I was on to my second choco finger while reminiscing of the good ol' days when I was still a piggishh brat (now I am only piggish baby). I still remember my first time chewing on the regular finger biscuits as if I was smoking. Oh, and my favorite grape FRUTIPS!!! It's like a cylinder shaped jelly belly coated with sugar crystals only that it taste much more fruity without the sugar overload. If you are on the mainland, you must try these snacks. They are so damn good!

Target in Hawai`i???

Now, all I need is an Ikea too and I am set!

Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, February 17, 2007

Target Corp., which is looking to expand to Hawai'i with as many as six new stores, has pulled out of a deal to locate an outlet in 'Ewa Beach.

But the nation's second-largest discount retailer is still interested in opening a store in the fast-growing Leeward O'ahu area, said Art Howard, president of Hawaiian Asset Management & Investment Corp.

Howard's company and San Francisco-based Bristol Group Inc. are developing the 260,000-square-foot Laulani Village retail complex in 'Ewa Beach. Howard said a deal to sell the 20-acre property to Target fell through last month.

He said his company is now in talks with other potential buyers, which he declined to identify.

Roger Lyons, a local real estate broker who represents Target, declined comment.

Target, a popular shopping destination for local residents traveling on the Mainland, announced last year that it was interested in expanding to Hawai'i.

Target told city lawmakers and local real estate executives that it was interested in as many as six locations in Hawai'i.

Opihi Pickers

As always, my Saturdays are full of fun and exciting activities. At 11am, we hopped over to the Punahou Carnival to chow down on some crunchy malasadas and juicy teri burgers. Since this year was Greek theme, I thought I should try Gyro for the first time in my life. I wasn't disappointed :) In the afternoon, we played soccer. I was so happy because I scored on HappyOblivion! In the second half, I made a couple good passes that led to many more goals. HappyOblivion was mad because everyone scored on him :( At night, we visited the carnival again but this time wasn't as pleasant because there were so many people! We managed to make our way to the Hawaiian Plate area where the entertainment was held. We enjoyed the performance by Opihi Pickers. I even bought a CD, got their signatures, and took a picture with the cutest guy on the band. Oh my gosh! I like have a crush on a totally hot dude from like the most popular band. I feel like a teenager again. This is totally awesome! (How am I doing on the teenage/valley girl impersonation?)

Honolulu Design Center

I went to the Grand Opening of Honolulu Design Center a few days ago. Of course I was looking for free stuff - food, coffee, chairs, sofas! Well, turns out they only had this stinkin' magazine for you to take home that makes you wonder why you bought that cheapo functional futon from Walmart instead of a $10,000 white Italian leather couch that only sits you and your fat orange stains after you junk on Cheetos. Despite the big price tag and the fact that 70% of Oahu residents cannot afford such luxury, I did find some things quite interesting. The Cow Chair is for my cow-loving sister xP

Cloud Fight!

This picture is taken right outside my lanai.
The Hawaiian phrase "You like beef?" means "You wanna fight?"

Wine or Beer?

I am never really much of a wine person though I like it more than beer. Beer taste disgusting except for Honu Beer and Corona (definitely with lime). I remember going to the Napa wine tasting tour and I didn't like the taste of red or white wine. The cheese and chocolate brownies were excellent! I did find one wine that I LOVE and it was Robert Mondavi's Moscato, a dessert wine. It was so sweet, like chinese dessert but with alcohol! Unfortunately, Moscato is only available in Napa so I can only dream of the taste here in Honolulu. Then my friend introduced me to Beringer's White Zinfandel which is available in Costco at 2 for $10. Cheap ey??? One taste and it brought me back to Moscato...it was great!!! I absolutely love it - the price, the taste, the color, the smell, everything! I urge all of you to try this if you haven't already.

Let's call it a night

It was yesterday that I finally felt the fresh start of new year 2007...with a little sacrifice, of course. At mid-day around 2PM, I made a smashing discovery in my own research coupled with a new model that I re-created. After 2 hours of fiddling with my newly discovered theory, I went to Kapiolani Park to play European Football (Soccer). It was intense, fun, and painfull. I was battling to gain possession of the ball but got pushed down. I landed really hard on my left wrist and now I could barely type or move my hand. Two hours of kicking and screaming did wonders on my legs which are now sore btw (ouchy). So what do you think came next on the agenda after burning all those calories? FOOD of course, gotta replenish those precious fat calories! I ordered the Chicken Tan Tan Ramen at Goma Tei Ramen Restaurant. It was delicious, especially the chicken which was cooked in sake. I also tried the Chicken Tatsutage (so tender and juicy) and the Gyoza (normal). After dinner, my friends and I went to see the chinese movie, Curse of the Golden Flower. I knew it would be graphic, sad, and lots of blood. However, I didn't expect it to be weird. The design of the palace was unreal. The exterior was gorgeous but the interior was RETRO! The colors clashed and the palace was glowing with all the colors on the color wheel. Yes, lots of gold but come on, hot pink, retro green, MSN blue??? Aiyaaa, not good! Then there was the ambiguous ending. I wanted to see everyone go coo coo but NO, they showed the stupid but beautiful dinner table with all the delicious chinese food. If only I could smell them, Doh! What else? The youngest brother who suddenly went crazy at the end and tried to kill his dad. He was happy throughout the movie, or maybe too happy... Anyway, everyone was coo coo from beginning to the end. My friend got sad after the movie (because of the blood) so we had to eat desserts to cheer her up, which was fun. I guess we can call it a night yeah?

This morning, I woke up with a purple hand. My left hand is really messed up x(
PS. Mame and babee, don't worry. I am OK :)

Testing Testing

I have been testing the new camera by taking random pictures. This picture of cutie oranges is very nice. They also taste super sweet and easy to peel. Snack sized fruits are the best when you are trying to avoid junk food.



This is a picture of Don Pens, the mascot for Don Quijote. I refer to it as Daiei because it was Daiei before it was bought. Since the one and only 99 Ranch in Hawaii is closing soon, this will become my major source of Asian foods. ~sigh.

Simple is Best

Last night after we bought the camera, we went to Walmart to look for a small and compact camera case that didn't cost $30 like the original Canon camera case. There wasn't any that was "perfect" so we decided to wait. Today I went to a cute Korean/Japanese store inside Daiei and I found the perfect case for our camera. It is actually a pouch for Kleenex but who cares! Simple is Best right? This is the MonoKoro Boo's moto. I am thinking of buying another one xP

We did it!

We finally did it! Since our old camera kinda went coo coo, we have been looking for a replacement. Our old camera was the Canon A70 that takes 4 AA batteries (Yeah, kind of a HUGE camera but we love it). It went lots of places with us and had a great life until one day, it bonked its head on the ground and went coo coo. If you are lucky, you may be able to get its lazy butt to work for 5 minutes. So we found a camera that we (or the whole world) love and that's the Canon SD800. It has wide angle, 3.8 optical zoom, a huge price tag, and NEVER in stock. It came out around December and the price never went down. There is even a shortage for this thing, can you believe it? Yesterday, we stumbled on a $40 off coupon at Circuit City. Since they told me on the phone that the SD800 was out of stock, we had to go there and reserve it. When we were at the store, the lady told me they had the camera in stock and I can pick it up immediately. I wanted to hug her and kiss her because after 2 months of taking fussy pictures with the coo coo camera, I went coo coo too myself! It was the best day of my life...maybe one of the best days x)

Blazy

Blazy - a new word created by ME. It means busy being lazy. That's what I have been doing lately. I am still in the vacation mode so all I want to do is to go shopping or eat out. However, we have to save money for a new camera so we went to Daiei and bought groceries instead. I can't believe school started and I have HOMEWORK due next week. Good thing I still have one more day to goof off, thanks to the three day weekend xP

The CW network is finally available in Hawaii's DIGITAL CABLE!!! For those who live in apartments that have regular cable supplied with the apt complex will NOT have that channel. So this news is actually not GREAT to us! On the contrary, this makes us (or only me) super mad. We deserve to have all our favorite channels because we are passionate TV addicts! Oceanic Cable owes us!!!

A weekend of eating and shopping

A weekend of eating and shopping, what a life! Just yesterday we were invited to a Turtle art show in Chinatown with FREE chinese pupus! They were definitely oily but how can you resist free food x) Then afterwards we went to Farrell's for ice cream and more oily foods. The ice cream was great and I think I would enjoy it more if I didn't eat so much at the farewell party at my school prior to the art show. Today we are going to the grand opening of Satura Cakes where they serve FREE samples! I think if you do a research of all the places that offer free food, you can live without ever having to cook. Itsn't that great?

The Waikele Outlets on Oahu is similar to the Gilroy Outlets in CA. There was Coach, LeSportsac, Osh Kosh, Clarks, etc... Anywho, I went to the hugest Sports Authority there and bought 2 freakin pairs of shoes. I bought a pair of really cool New Balance running shoes because I suddenly fell in love with running. They had the buy one get the second 50% off so I had to choose a second pair (like any normal shopping freak would do). So I bought a pair of Privo sandles that were only $20!!! I love my Privos!

Satura Cake Feast of Sweets

As I mentioned in the previous post, today is the grand opening of Satura Cake in Ward Shopping Center. We just came back from there and we ate soooo much desserts. We had a 20% off coupon so we went crazy buying cakes and pastries. Here is a list of what we bought:

Kona Coffee Blancmange - light and creamy, semi-sweet and bitter.
Mille Crepe - 14 layers of light and fluffy crepes with custard in between.
Lilikoi Cream Puff - citrusy and creamy lilikoi enclosed in flaky crunchy puff.
Mango Tiramisu - speechless, very delicious.
Mango Corone - the cream is so light and mangoey!!!
Mini Almond Chocolate Croissant - still in box, have yet to try.
Berry Danish - still in box, have yet to try.

All of them were to die for! We are planning to go back and use our 10% coupon for another batch of heavenly desserts.

Still in La La Land

I am back from vacation x( Yeah, I don't sound too happy because 1) I miss my family at home - the lovely yummy food and the cozy atmosphere with a beautiful christmas tree, 2) I am still lazy from all those days of doing nada in San Jose, 3) I contracted a cold from HappyOblivion so I couldn't play with my niece and nephew for the last two days, grrrrr, 4) I finished all the yummy chocolate almond cookies my sister made for me, and 5) SCHOOL. On the good side, I bought a bunch of crap from CA and I had a fun time unpacking and redecorating my apartment xP.


A set ot Le Creuset spatulas my sister got me for Christmas.


New quilt cover from Ikea that only cost $25.


A set of mini-hampers for my many many private-wear (sorry, no details)


A cube set to stick in the corner for all my stuffed animals.

No more Billie in Doctor Who x(

Even though I read the stupid TV Guide spoiler, I was utterly depressed when Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper) left the show for good. She is so cute and energetic, a perfect match for the Doctor. I read on the BBC website that the next partner for the Doctor is played by Freema Agyeman, which confuses me because she was transformed into a cyberman (or cyberwoman) in the season finale. All the Cybermen and Daleks were sucked into the VOID and assumed to be trapped forever in nothingness. Did she somehow managed to escape the VOID using the fat nonexistent sphere (which by the way is totally mesmerizing...don't you think)?


Oh how I LOVE David Tennant. He is so gosh darn sexy and charming! I don't know what I would do when it's time for him to regenerate into a new appearance. Who will play the next Doctor Who? I notice that the Doctor's tend to become more and more handsome. I guess that's a good thing for the gals :P Although I don't mind having David Tennant as Doctor for the next...100 episodes???

Dazed

Hmmm, this little guy expresses my feelings really well. My workload has finally gone down. My giant poster just went into press today so a GIANT load off my shoulder. I studied most of the final materials, another load off. I have a presentation tomorrow but that should be a piece of cake since I have presented so much already. Then the paper to write...maybe on the plane ride to CA. After all that is over, I have to worry about the little things like paying my Spring 2007 tuition, register for classes, make appointment to clean teeth, etc... Then after conference I have to work on a grant that is due January 17th. Grrr, I am stressed again!

You see the "bed" that beep and bop is lying on??? IT'S A FREAKIN' AIR HOCKEY TABLE! I can't believe my friend bought us an air hockey table for Christmas! I was speechless because that thing is huge and to carry that from Walmart to the car is a lot of work, not to mention the crazy 5AM thanksgiving sales and the long lines. I have been playing that as a destresser. For some reason, HappyOblivion has never won a game :P I guess I am just too good xP

Oh I almost forgot. I am officially the webmaster for my Hydrology Lab website. I am so excited! Here is the link: http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/faresa/. You know how google is very festive with the holidays and put cute little graphics just to make things more exciting? Well, I am gonna do just that for the Lab website. Oooo, I can't wait until Valentine's Day :P

Close to being DEAD x(

After 2 years of having this blog, I am finally brave enough to post a picture of me ... sort of. Well, she looks a little too green which speaks my alien instincts for food, whoahahahaha! And maybe a bit dead which is true by the way, especially now that I am super busy with school and research. The horns are, you know, the little big devil me :P Hmmm, no clue about the tongue. Maybe I am more dead and lethargic than I thought. I don't get it. I have two classes now and I am busier than when I had 4 classes in the first semester! One more week of school left and I still have a couple papers to write, two presentations, and a poster to design. How in the world am I ever going to graduate? I ask myself that everyday and I will continue to do so until the day I defend my thesis. Oh and sorry for not posting for a long long time ... because SOME PEOPLE ACTUALLY HAVE WORK TO DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ~ sniff x(