Et in Arcadia, ego.

!!!!

2007-02-08T05:36:36Z

I JUST GOT BACK FROM THE DIR EN GREY CONCERT AND IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME!!!

More about this later, too excited to write coherently now!

LALALA

2007-01-27T06:05:10Z

IGNORE THE FACT THAT I HAVEN'T POSTED IN SEVERAL MONTHS.

Hi, how are you doing?

Um, yeah, so here begins the last semester of my college career. Can't really say anything long because I'm not even on my own computer. *cough* *pokes at Erica*

Classes for next semester!
- 350
- P-chem
- Econ?
- Kitchen Chemistry?
- Something else?

Goals:
- Exercise more!
- Get off campus more!
- Stop vegetating!
- Post more!

Hello!

2006-09-11T01:13:58Z

Back to school for Nana! It's her senior year at WC and therefore her last. :( Lots of her friends left her last year so she's left with slim pickings for people to hang out with. But that's okay, because she'll be busy doing her schoolwork, earning money for her trip to Japan to see Gracie, and also playing a certain game. :3

This semester I'm taking Proteomics, doing a 350 (independent research) with my biochem professor, and fufilling my Art req with Landscape & Gardening. I'm actually pretty excited about all three courses as I loves them all. (I will be less than excited, however, next semester when I have to take P-chem to finish my major.) Anyways, my room is about 90% finished organizing.. just have a ton of books left to either try to sell or somehow get rid of. I've sold four books already (though none of them being my uber expensive science texts.. ;-;) but it's still a nice feeling as I haven't been as productive in that area in previous years as I should have.

In other news, I'm learning how to drive and hopefully finally get my driver's license. I took 5 hours worth of driving lessons with Brookline Driving School and I really enjoyed it. I highly recommend the class. The instructors you get will be a toss up - I enjoyed the first guy the most because he was very relaxing. The second guy was one of the owners of the company and he had this Russian accent that was slightly hard to understand. Anyways after my five hours, I was able to drive to & from WC when moving back to school so I think I did pretty well. I've always had a perpetual fear that I would crash into someone/thing and wreck the car or kill myself but I think I'm getting over that.

To kill the little time I had left before school started, I've been watching Sapuri, a Japanese drama with Kamenashi Kazuya and Itoh Misaki. I'm really enjoying it so far. :3 Although I usually don't like the younger man/older woman type dramas this one is really nice. Anyways, it's about this woman who works at an advertising agency who becomes involved with new assistant/errand runner. I've watched about eight episodes so the plot is about to draw to an end soon. I hope it's a happy ending! :D Also apparently Kame's doing another drama next season so I'll be sure to watch that as well.

All about lab!

2006-07-31T19:51:00Z

Top Nine Reasons why I love Lab:

9) Shakers - Aren't they fun to watch? Especially when they're at max speed and the machine just looks like it's having a seizure.

8) Ethanol Spray - Applicable to cell culture rooms and anywhere else one needs to keep things 'sterile'. But I abuse the spray I must admit, especially when I'm spraying something to bring it under the hood.

7) Cold Rooms - Fun in short amounts of time, because if you stay there too long you'll freeze! Or worse, die of hypothermia. But seriously, the lab is like one big cold room because it's *always* so cold here. x_X

6) Pipette Drums - Up & down.. up & down! Sometimes I get the buttons mixed up in my excitement and confuse the buttons. And then I get bubbles. Lots & lots of bubbles, whee!

5) Dry Ice/Liquid Nitrogen - I especially love playing with the liquid nitrogen cell storage tank. Ahem, did I say playing? I meant.. using. Right. The highlight of freezing cells! And well, dry ice, everyone's pretty much played with that so I won't go into it further.

4) Disposable Gloves - I have a huge propensity for wasting these babies. It's because I keep on putting them on, thinking that I'll be doing something.. decide that I don't really have anything to do, take 'em off and throw them away. Sometimes, sometimes when I feel like being resourceful I'll reuse them. But usually they get tossed into the garbage.

3) Incubation Time - Come on, who doesn't like incubation time? Especially 4-hour long incubation times.. like the one I'm in the middle of now whilst typing up this entry.

2) Kimwipes - <3 Thou doest not know how thee loves Kimwipes. They are good for everything, especially for getting glass sparkling clean. I want to steal a box and use them for my glasses.

1) Last.. but definitely not least, parafilm! PARAFILM. Whoever invented this deserves an award or something. It stretches & clings, and is strong. Words can not express the hours of entertainment parafilm can provide. :D Parafilm cranes are one of my favorites.

- Nana, slave to the cell culture room!

Yay!

2006-06-14T16:34:16Z

...to being able to drink legally!

Nay to not having the ID to prove it. :P

Oh well, eventually I shall get driver's license. :)

Pasta Neopolitan

2006-06-08T16:35:04Z

I got this recipe off the trattoria bambina subsection of the おいしいプロポーズ (Delicious Proposal) website, which is a drama currently airing this season starring Hasegawa Kyoko and Koide Keisuke (who is not *gaspgasp* a Johnny's boy!!). The premise behind this dish is the character that Keisuke plays, Haruki, is taking his older brother's former fiancee Saori (Kobayashi Mao) to dinner for her birthday. His elder brother is dead, hence the former. Haruki is actually in love with Saori but she doesn't feel the same way about him. Anyways, they go to the trattoria bambina for Saori's birthday dinner and Suzuko (Hasegawa Kyoko) makes this dish for them. At first Haruki is really upset at the simplicity of this dish, but it turns out it was a dish at Saori's favorite restaurant when she was a child and she has fond memories of it.

So without further ado, here it is.

Pasta Neopolitan
Makes 2 servings

200 grams of Spaghetti (1.9mm)
1/2 Onion
1 Green pepper or Pimento
4 Mushrooms
2 Thick slices of bacon
2 Tbsp White Wine
Salt and Pepper to taste
4-5 Tbsp Ketchup
1-2 Tbsp Cream
Few drops of Salad Oil

Toppings:
grated cheese, hot peppers, and parsley (finely chopped)

Directions:
1. Chop up the bacon, onion, peppers, and mushrooms into fine slices.
2. Add a dash of salt into a pot with water and begin to boil the spaghetti.
3. Add salad oil to a fry pan and stir fry bacon on low heat. Add the finely chopped onion, peppers, and mushrooms to the pan and stir fry on high heat. Add the white wine and cook together.
4. When the spaghetti is almost done, add to the fry pan. Afterwards add ketchup and cream, combine well. Add salt and pepper.
5. After serving, add toppings to your liking.

Notes:
You may substitute bacon with sausage or ham.
You may substitute cream with milk.
You may substitute salad oil with salt-free butter.

I've been in the kitchen! (recipe notes)

2006-06-07T16:20:45Z

Last night I tried my hand at making Leslie's wonderful chocolate chip banana bread. :D It turned out quite well despite a few "mishaps" along the way. Too bad I can't share a piece with all of you.
I wasn't sure how to "cream" butter so I had to look that up online, then when I added all the wet ingredients together it looked kinda.. weird, as if it hadn't been emulsified correctly (which makes sense because butter = oil). My parents also misplaced my vanilla extract (and we had two bottles of it!!) No idea what they did with that.
I also made a few substitutions, and from my memory it didn't really change the end taste:
1) Instead of 1 1/4 cups sugar I used 3/4 white sugar and 1/4 brown sugar. (taken from Leslie's notes)
2) I used 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of regular all purpose intead of 1 1/2 cups of all purpose.
3) My parents misplaced my vanilla extract so I couldn't add that in.
4) The only yogurt I had was from the "fruit at the bottom" kind so I just used the top of one of those.
5) My parents don't like me using the oven and prefer the toaster oven (which is a wee bit tiny) but surprisingly all the batter fit, but since it's smaller and more compact it cooks faster and I baked for about 20 minutes at most. I'm just glad the batter didn't overflow when it was rising.

On an completely different topic, I've been catching up with my Fruits Basket chapters. Can you believe there are only 2 more chapters to go before the ending?? I first started watching /reading this anime/manga my senior year of high school. Back then there were only a few volumes of the manga out, now there are more than twenty! The manga will end at chapter 130. There have been some rather surprising plot twists and I think this manga has the most number of canon pairings I've ever seen (but then again, there are quite a number of characters too.) Towards the ending it has also become rather twisted; I read on a anime/manga weblog an image captioned "Fruits Basket has turned into X" and I can't agree more. That specific chapter even had the birds flying around and feathers floathing around. I wonder if Takaya Natsuki planned this from the very beginning.

* SPOILER WARNING*

Here are the rather startling plot twists:
1) This is THE number one plot twist. I was super shocked. Are you ready? Okay... AKITO IS A GIRL! WHAT THE? But now everything makes sense, the super intimate postures of some certain characters *coughcough* with Akito, why Kureno was always with ~~him~~her. Which leads to our second revelation..

2) Kureno has slept with Akito! Again, sex? I'm surprised at the rampant mention of sex in this series. Which, brings me to my third point.

3) Shigure had sex with Akito's mom, Ren. O_O Oi..

4)And now for the kicker, Shigure is in love with Akito. AHHH. I can't get this out of my mind. I mean, all those sinister Shigure looks were because he was in love with Akito??? He also had sex with Ren because he was jealous that Akito had sex with Kureno. (I wonder how old Akito is...)

5) Actually now that I think about it, quite a number of the Sohma family members are in love with other Sohma family members. There is also quite an age difference in many of the couples presented in the series, I wonder why in society it is unacceptable but in a manga it seems perfectly alright.

6) Tohru & Kyou is confirmed. :)

But anyways, I still can't wait to see the ending of Fruits Basket even though I don't want it to end!

Well, that's the end of that. Off to go watch King's Man/The King and the Clown. :3

GRADUATION!

2006-06-02T00:56:37Z

To my dear dear friends who are leaving me behind! ;_;

Warmest wishes to (in no particular order) Gracie, Taline, Leslie, Steph, Mimi, Abby, Xinxin, and of course Anita the Mew. ♥ It will be a lonely year next year (come visit me and come to my graduation!!) but I only need to look at my hoop (and all those pictures!) to remember all the great times we've had this past year and before. Good luck to wherever you may be next year, be it as close as Boston to San Francisco to Taiwan, and Japan. I love you guys and I hope we see each other soon!

I also can't forget Yi, who's finally graduating from high school. :D Ah, I still remember when we first met you back in junior year of high school. You've finally made it through the six years of BLS and I know you'll excel in Harvard next year just as you've done at BLS. ♥

Even though we are all constantly moving, you all will be forever in my heart!

What is this...?

2006-05-17T15:45:41Z

What is this outside...? It's so bright.. and blinding. @_@ The sky seems so vibrant. And that thing in the sky that is utterly too bright. What has the world come to? I'm afraid... it's too intense outside.

Dun dun dun..!

2006-05-17T08:40:11Z

The curse of the non-existent red flags!! :(

Maybe I should take this biochem exam Thursday? (But then I'd just feel miserable ~~tomorrow~~ tonight as well.)

*continues incessant rambling*

Honey, a garland~~*

2006-04-21T18:22:07Z

My skin is really hating me these days. It's dry, flakey, itchy, red, and pimpley. :( I'm not sure what happened, but I do know part of the reason. While in NYC I woke up with my entire right cheek swollen & red. I think it might have been due allergic reaction to some bug bite because it was only that portion of my face and it was itchy. I was hoping it'd go down by the end of the day but it has persisted! I'm keeping it on ice and hopefully things will return to somewhat normal by the end of this week.
Secondly, because I had a really bad breakout recently (the worst I've seen in a long time)I've started the Acne.org regimen. I've used bp before but haven't in a few years and my skin is really unhappy about this. BP has definitely contributed to the flakiness and dryness of my skin, but helping with the pimples so that's okay! Here's hoping things get better by the middle of the summer.

Now that you all have been disgusted by my skin, onto the good stuff!

Day I
aberrant_data and I went to NYC for Easter weekend. We stayed at a rather ghetto hostel (but I suppose all hostels are ghetto :P) in the Upper West. It was actually a pretty nice neighborhood. My bus on the way there was this really nice *new* bus with *leather* seats and pulldown tables. It was super comfy. We arrived in NYC early afternoon and head to our hostel to check in. Afterwards, we went to Kenka at St Mark's to eat Japanese food! Ek brought us here when I was in NYC the past summer with flores_salicis and I really wanted to go again since we can't get things like okonomiyaki and takoyaki in Boston. The atmosphere of the place is really unique! The tables & chairs are really small and their specials menu was covered with S&M pictures. One was of a woman clearly being ravaged by an octopus. The walls were decorated with mid 20th century artwork while the old Japanese music blasted (and I do mean blasted) from the speakers. There's a "confinement" area where they have low benches and a taiko drum protruding from the wall. Both Yen & I were curious as to what this area was used for and we found out as people began smoking in it. :P Pretty neat idea to make both the smokers & non-smokers happy. We ended up sharing one bowl of Ramen, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, sukiyaki, oden, and of course carbonated Calpis.

Afterwards we went to a Japanese desert place and I had a slice of green tea cake. They had a grocery store downstairs so we stocked up on Japanese snacks (and more Calpico - this time non-carbonated peach.) I also saw a magazine with KAT-TUN on the cover and immediately thought of enyi but I couldn't find the article inside nor where there any posters of Kame so I didn't get it. :P

(Sorry for the absence of pictures! I didn't take pictures that day as it was raining.)

Next post I promise you pictures though! And kittens! There might be a lamb, goat, or bunny stuck in there somewhere along the way too. :P

*Title of the post is in reference to when Adam made a garland for Eve in Paradise Lost. My professor did this cute imitation, "Honey, a garland~~" and I could just imagine the scene in my head from her tone of voice. :D

Midterms, Indian Food, and Laundry, Oh My!

2006-04-13T16:51:59Z

I made it through my biochem midterm! On 3 hours of sleep, yay! It actually wasn't bad -- I finished, checked over my answers, and still had a bit of time to spare. (I did spend about 8 hours studying for it though..) Anyways, this makes me absurdly happy because now I don't have to worry about anything until I get back from NYC on Sunday. :D

Also, the saute at the student center today was Indian! I definitely did a double-take when I saw what was on the menu today. I wasn't particularly hungry but decided to try it out anyways because I wasn't sure when they'd offer it again and today was my last chance this week. It was actually very good & tasted like Indian food! There were four sauces you could choose and four side dishes that automatically came with the meal. I think this is my favorite one yet (but that might just be because it's new.) But whatever! Indian food == good in my book.

Now, off to collapse in bed whilst I do my laundry!

Fire drill!

2006-04-11T02:33:42Z

There was a fire alarm in the science center today, my first one! Once you get to college, you start to dread (dorm) fire alarms when the "Yay, we get to miss class!" feeling becomes "Oh god, I have to put on shoes and a coat and go out into the freezing weather because of this damn drill.." (especially when it's at odd hours because of an idiotic person who decides to make (and subsequently burn) popcorn at 4:30 in the morning (no joke). But, today's fire alarm was fun! It was during biochem class, and since we're located on the side of the building past the labs, the classroom actually had an emergency escape.. see the bright orange staircases in the picture above? I've always wanted to go down one, and now I finally have!
Our entire class trooped down, only to be blocked by the door at the bottom, which wouldn't bulge. Turns out it was because it hadn't been opened in forever and a fellow classmate finally kicked the door open. (I thought we were trapped for a bit there...) So we missed the last 25ish minutes of class, wee! :)

aberrant_data and I are going to NYC this weekend - Fri, Sat, & Sun. No real agenda as of now, but we're going to eat lots of good food and do lots of shopping. (Have any places to recommend for eating or shopping, please let us know! :D) We'll possibly go to the MOMA and catch a musical, if we can get tickets..

Spring break! (and all the trimmings)

2006-03-17T19:26:17Z

While Leslie and I were walking back to the dorm from the science center at 6AM this morning (details later), we saw deer! A family no less, three of them. They were small, I think, grey and had (in my opinion), extremely long white tails. I've heard of deer on campus before, but I've never seen them, especially right IN FRONT of the science center. They were basically meandering where the path from Stone-D to the science center reaches the side door of the science center. When they saw us, they quickly moved to the smallish field area next to the path from Freeman to the science center. At one point, we were about 10 feet away from them. I've never more regretted not regularly carrying my camera around with me at this moment. I hope someday I'll see them again! Two of them looked smaller in stature than one, so we're assuming that they were two fawn with their mother. Upon googling deer species in the Northeast, I believe what we saw were White-tailed Deer. (Well, the name makes sense, doesn't it?)

Back to why we were AT the science center at 6 AM.. both of us were working on the same assignment - a glycoprotein lab report. It shouldn't have taken so long, except that we were mostly data hunting for data that was not easy to find and extremely time consuming. It must have taken me 10+ hours to find all thd data I needed for the conclusion table. (I think it's my first allnighter this semester.)

Anyways, I'm officially DONE!

I've taken my midterm, handed in my lab report, and did my presentation (in the opposite order.) Now I can enjoy my spring break. :D

I'm not actually going or doing anything special for spring break, but here are the things I want to get done this week.
(1) Finish reading Paradise Lost, books 3-5
I really enjoy reading PL and I think Milton is brilliant.

(2) Work on lab project and update lab notebook.
My partner and I have been having serious issues with doing our DNA binding assay. And I need to seriously update my lab notebook. I haven't worked on it since the first week of lab.. *cough*

(3) Knitting!
I've almost got the back Sunrise Circle Jacket done. I have yarn awaiting Clapotis. I have a scarf fringe to block and pieces of a sweater to re-Kitchener back together. I have the makings of a single sock. ==_== I'm never going to finish all of this. (My mom would scream in horror if she saw all my yarn, sigh.)

(4) Needle felting!
I got a kit off eBay because I want to try felting some stuff. I think I'll try a simple flower first. :3

(5) Clean my room.
'cause my room is not fit for human consumption right now. Also need to do laundry.

(6) ~~Eating~~ Hanging out with Yuan. :D
Heh heh, who said gluttony was a sin? (Speaking of which, DIM SUM next Saturday, the 25th!)

I also have to go into work two days next week.
I probably won't be able to hit all the items on my list but I need to do (1) and (2), and should really do (5).

I'm actually kind of tired and would like to sleep but unfortunately I'm awaiting a call, hopefully to schedule an interview for a summer internship.

Edit: LJ's increased userpics! SO awesome! Now I don't have to think about buying the 100pics extra thingy. (I was kinda tempted.) But now I have 34. ♥ I love you LJ. Seriously.

I can't stop buying yarn!

2006-03-08T05:19:02Z

Ahh, this is so bad. Last night, on account of "boredom" (actually it was more that I couldn't fall asleep until 4AM because I took a nap earlier that night), I ordered 7 balls of Noro Kujaku in colorway 02 to make a Clapotis. About three weeks ago I ordered 10 balls of Karabella Soft Tweed to make the Sunrise Circle Jacket and two hanks of Hopyard Spinnery's Summer Spun, a silk/cotton/wool dk yarn in a variegated yellow/light green/reddish pink colorwar. I think this friday I'm going to check out my favorite LYS (A Good Yarn) in Brookline and see what's on sale there. I want to pick up some Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock or Koigu PPPM and some dk weight merino for an argyle vest. I'm also thinking of making a really large scarf/shawl type thing that I can be completely protected against biting winds -- will probably use 3 balls of Malabrigo and do a short row pattern. I'll probably pick up another ball of Noro Kureyon in a green/blue/purple colorway for my planned felted bag. This is *not* good for my bank account. :(

But I really need a pick-me-up and buying yarn makes me absurdly happy.

At least most everything I buy is on sale! The Karabella and the Kujaku were about $5 a ball (with a really great deal on shipping.) *_* I also get 10% off at the LYS that I usually go to (not my favorite one, but good enough...) *tries to justify purchases* And I haven't bought that much other stuff... *sigh*

Not pictures that I took (I can't seem to find the cord that connects my camera to the computer)but one's off the web. The colors are pretty accurate.

Karabella Soft Tweed:

Summer Spun:

Noro Kujaku:

If I find anything nice, I'll ship some off to treehaus or glace! :D Maybe some needles for azureflight too...

Why, hello again!

2006-03-06T02:02:32Z

If I'd only thought of something charming to say.

This is the tale of epoxide, formally naixin.

I've decided to move my LJ over here because I needed a change, and I didn't quite want to bring over my other entries with me. So here I am, fresh -- a new start.

This journal will be mostly public. I'm going to be friending everyone from naixin's list over here shortly (because I like you guys :3), so if I've missed anyone please let me know. I hope you guys will also add my new username to your lists. :) I'll be keeping naixin however, most likely as a journal to practice my chinese in. You're welcome to keep naixin on your FL if you wish.

This is my first "real" LJ layout & layout using s2. Ah, such a bitch to use. But I think I've conquered *most* of what I want to do, so I'm placated for now. It has a slight glitch in IE (but I don't care! *glee*) Everyone should be using Firefox anyways. :P Anyways, tell me if you're getting major errors in other browsers besides IE & Firefox and I'll do my best to fix them. (No promises though.)

Edit: Ah, what is "epoxide"? It's a three membered cyclic ether. Think of it like a triangle with an oxygen at one end. :D