A definite "my life rocks" day

It started with as a gloriously sunny morning.  I go to Chinatown with the grandparents for some dim sum (mmm).  I am quickly becoming an obsessive fan of rice and those little pork things with the bones inside. It's called 排骨, or "pai gu." I don't know the tone but it is worth whatever you gotta do to order it.    

I'm ridiculously delicious! 

The restaurant is conveniently located at the bus transfer point to get to the university, so after eating my fill, I bounced and headed off to lab. Because I'm currently volunteering in three different labs, it's hard to find time to do soil stuff that takes two days (like figuring out soil moisture content). As a result, I usually stick whatever I need into the oven Friday, and pop in on Saturday. I'm doing all I can to make good use of my $60 monthly bus pass (so expensive! I really should start lying and just say I'm a high school student. But I'm a die hard supporter of public transportation. Damn you morals...). 

Remember how in Germany (for those who...went to Germany with me, haha!) the europass or whatever was only like, 40 euros a month! And you got the trains and stuff, and could cross into different counties. Those were the days. =]

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Down memory lane: 

Kristian and I would just hop on random trains when we'd get tired of walking around Freiburg.  This one time we ended up at Schluchsee lake!  

It's kind of gorgeous.  I know these aren't Hawaii pics but I get nostalgic!

Mmm speaking of pork, this is also delicious.  I think we got pork steak?  I ordered with limited German knowledge.

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Books for next week!

Anyways, nothing went horrifically wrong in lab, which is good.  My initial plan at campus was to go to the library afterwards and read this one book, but apparently the university library closes on a Saturday!  Where would the students study??  So I ended up going to the Hawaii State Library.  It's gorgeous. There's a little courtyard in the middle, and shaded areas to read book.

The ultimate bibliophile in tropical areas' heaven.  

It ended up being an excellent visit since I needed to grab some reading material for my trip to California.

Speaking of books, here's a pleasant surprise that arrived today:

I left the book in a grad student's car in North Carolina.  But now I got it back before the due date!  Whew!  THANKS WAKE FOREST. 

And holy shoot, look what I else I got for my birthday?  (Yea, a non late library book is an excellent bday present.)

!!!  It's so tiny!  Haha.  Reminds me of a certain song!

"I will be your father figure

put your tiny hands in mind

na na na na preacher preacher

something something...da da da."

Despite having the song on repeat, I still have no idea what George Michael is saying. 

Hopefully with this, I'll be inspired to run more.  I feel like I'm obligated to do some of the famous running events, just because I'm in Hawaii.

Yay!  My cousin and I are 7 years + 4 days apart.  Haha. 

And Jay does not disappoint this year:

x22!  Thanks little bro!

And lastly, 

Mahalo everyone for the birthday wishes! <3  I'm going to make this year rock.

A trip to the East Coast

I don't know if the area is intense enough to warrant capitalization, but that's what a quick google search told me.  East coast?  east coast?  Ehhh.

Anyways, this week has went by too fast - I was supposed to write up a review of the campus while it was fresh  in my mind, and funnily enough, I've been contacted by all four of my schools this week, including an acceptance to the UCSB Geography MA/PhD program! (More on that later.  Focus.)

Wake Forest.

After a very cold red eye flight, two transfers (LA and Cincinnati), and all around sleep deprived day (I started experiencing vertigo when I woke up at some point and got too scared to wake up, so I tried fixing that by...not sleeping), I landed in one of the most beautiful state in the east coast.*

*This is the only state I've ever been to on the east coast.

BTW, Wake Forest University isn't actually in Wake Forest, the city.  It's actually on the other side of the state, in Winston-Salem, a cool city with a hyphen in it.  

I obnoxiously took many pictures throughout the car ride to the hotel. The graduate student who picked me up does her field research in the Andes.  Badass!  According to her, this is the traffic people there complain about.

So one thing I realized I sorely miss are seasons.  Look at the leaf less trees!  Aahhh deciduous trees.  One thing that really hit home was the lack of our coniferous friends.  I've only heard about their absence in myths and tales!  And um, textbooks.

Yup, I'm not in the Bay Area anymore.  

Winston-Salem has a glorious skyline, something I'm a big fan of.  I have a feeling most of the skyscrapers are  banks, and not apartments though.   This was my view for almost 30 minutes.  Turns out, I did experience real life traffic that day.  However, that was because there was this crazy car crash (~7 cars in a row) right before our exit. That, and the fact that the other prospective student getting picked up with me had a delayed flight, made us really late.  Late enough that I had to be introduced during dinner, and had everyone actually remember my name!

Inside the actual city.  The streetlights hang from little cords.  How quaint!

The first night was cocktail hour and a dinner at the hotel.  I didn't make it in time for the cocktail hour because I was too awed by my super fancy hotel room.

The living room. 

Looking into the bedroom. 

The view the next morning. 

Dinner was excellent.  I feel like all the department's prospective students were there, but we sat with our own department.  Biology took up two tables, but I heard Cell Bio took up half the room.  There was a professor sitting at each table, who's there to answer our questions about the department.  Afterwards there were presentations about Wake Forest itself.  I felt a common theme they've continued to emphasize at Wake is that while they are a small college, they have big ideas.  Awww.  That, and everyone just seems to love the place.  Not sure if it's a recruitment thing, or they're just unreasonably happy.  Me gusta.

I obnoxiously took pictures on the way to campus in the bus.

!!!

I think the people from North Carolina was amused by my excitement.  One offered to take a picture of me. :D  Now they know what I have to deal with living in Hawaii.  (Actually, I'm still that person taking lots of pictures, so uh, yea.)

The bus that took us to campus.

Random parts of the campus is in the woods.  It's so crazy.  

Looking through my pictures, I don't think I took any pictures of the actual department.  We had a quick tour around campus on the way to the Biology building.  After a brief orientation, we followed our personalized schedule.  Since Dr. Anderson was out in Tanzania, I hung out with his graduate students all day and got to attend a lab meeting.  I even got to help plant African grasses in heels!

Everyone else had interviews with several professors, and some didn't even know what their project will be focused on.  My day was substantially less stressful than theirs for sure.  I did get to talk to one faculty member, but he was the token aloha professor, and we pretty much talked about Hawaii...Good times.

"For humanity"  What a badass motto. 

On Saturday most people left, but the cheapest flight required me to fly out Sunday morning at 6.  The SAGE lab grad students (Savanna And Grassland Ecosystem, hehe!) graciously let me hang out with them, feeding me and showing me around town and their apartments.  One of them lived in what looks like a mansion that has condos in it!  Crazy! It was soo pretty.  I tried googling it, but I couldn't remember the name.  Boo.  

Small world event: the person who drove me to the airport at 4 in the morning (she's amazing!) is one of the professors at UH's daughter!  In fact, I think we're in the same building...

Deacon Tailgate Town.  It's apparently some restaurant, not, as I had initially hope, a permanent tailgating party.

Winston-Salem is apparently the birthplace of Dunkin' Donuts.  I don't think I've actually ever had a dunkin donut, but my eyes are opened.  

I leave you with a picture of one of the most badass sinks I've ever seen in my life. 

Yuck. I got a migraine halfway through this post. Can you find the transition? 

Mystery Picture!

Besides a layover in Toronto at night, I've never been east of Texas before.  Flying from LA to Cincinnati, I saw a bunch of unidentified flowing objects (UFO!):

Is it snow??  Some sort of salty deposit? Are those little rivers?  Houses?  How sleep deprived am I??

Here it looks like there are grids.  Agricultural fields?  Roads?

I'm pretty sure that's a river there.  But the white stuff...it's weird cause you don't see them on the mountains.

I had fallen asleep during the trip, so I'm not sure what state I was over, or what.  Anyways, this haunted me, so I took many pictures.  I wish we had the little screen on the backs of every seat that tells you where you are flying over.

Sleepless in Seattle. HAHA.

So I'm starting up a blog.

Why? Many reasons.

1. I'm being abnormally productive because I'm “procrastinating.” Except nowadays, it's not assignments I'm putting of, it's sleep.
2. I've been getting vertigo lately on plane rides, and it's usually when I wake from a nap. It's probably due to lack of sleep, but I can't get over that fear and thus try not to sleep on planes now.
3. I left Collapse in North Carolina, so I have nothing to read and there's a huge layover + delay in Seattle.
4. So far I've been recording what's been happening to me in postcards. Which I've sent out to various people. So I realize most of what I write in the postcards might not make too much sense, and that I don't have a record of what I've been doing.
5. And it was a new year resolution. Which I had managed to postpone to the Chinese new year. But if I wait any longer, then I'll just be a slacker. (I have been keeping up with my books though!! Double digits already!)
6. Oh yea. I miss everyone back in California and want them to know what I'm up to besides through vague facebook status updates. ;)

So yup. Here I am in lovely North Carolina/ airport in Seattle, sitting in my super fancy hotel room googling “how to start a blog.” Hopefully this will not be the only blog post. Let's say once a week minimum. I have no school, and therefore no excuses!

So fancy.  I felt bad for just sitting in a bed watching TV, so I moved over to the living room to write this post. 

PS.  I've never actually seen Sleepless in Seattle and know nothing about it.  A quick google search tells me it's one of those movies where the main characters cheat on their significant others to be with one another.  Boo.