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Friday, July 31st, 2009
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10:09 am - Save the Moreland Woods bunnies!
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The Mercury News just ran a series of articles about the rabbit population in Moreland Woods. First, the rather discouraging "Who's killing the bunnies at San Jose's Easterbrook School?", then today's "Help on the way for bunnies in San Jose's Moreland Woods". As you can probably guess, it's not at all an ideal place for rabbits, since there's no grass (pretty much just dirt) and people routinely bring their dogs to the track and the field right next to the woods; many of the bunnies have been killed by cats, dogs, and BB guns, and the longer that neighbors come to see them as a nuisance, the more acceptable it may seem to kill them.
If anyone is up for fostering or adopting some of these bunnies being rescued, please do! They're also looking for donations and volunteers to help with their care. I'm struggling with whether it would be feasible to foster any of them for the next month. I hope that maybe some of you would be available to take home some of these sweet, gentle pets.
Links to the rescue organizations involved:
Save a Bunny
Paws for San Jose Animal Care and Services
The Rabbit Haven
And for any potential bunny-scaring miscreants: the neighborhood watch has its eye on you! And, err, if that doesn't work, you're in for some cosmic justice.
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| Sunday, March 1st, 2009
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11:05 pm - How to Become an Economist
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"Rule No.5: Write Well
I think of myself as a mediocre writer. I do not come by my
mediocrity naturally. It is the result of hard work and
determination. This may seem like a small accomplishment, but
I reassure myself with the fact that most economists do not live
up to this standard."
Greg Mankiw's Modus Operandi (PDF)
Today, I did my taxes so I complete my FAFSA by tomorrow's CA deadline. Two steps closer to grad school! :)
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| Friday, February 20th, 2009
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12:14 am
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| Thursday, February 12th, 2009
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11:51 pm
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Ah, got home from work after Jon Stewart was over... hopefully asleep at the end of Colbert.
I wore huge earrings today, which almost carried me away in the tremendous winds (both on the way to and from work). I feel in even closer solidarity with my big-eared friends: the bunnies, the elephants, and Barack Obama.
My tart was beautiful AND yummy. (2/3 eaten by coworkers yesterday, 1/6 eaten by me today, 1/6 lying in wait for me tomorrow) And it survived my commute safely, thanks to all your advice and encouragement. :) I Was Told There Would Be Cake, on loan from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) xse99, turns out to be a treatise on tarts (in part):
Unless you are a professional, you will find the tart to be a high-maintenance, unforgiving whistle-blower of a pastry. If they could sprout sexual organs and mate, they would go extinct on the jungle floor. Chocolate chip cookies, impossible to fuck up, would breed like deer. Tarts are the red pandas of the baking Amazon. They are all about what you're not allowed to do. The crust alone: don't knead it too much too fast, don't sprinkle too much water, not that much butter, cool it first, don't cook it too long. This is a polite pastry. A civilized pastry.
current mood: tired but tarty
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| Monday, February 9th, 2009
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1:33 am - Pie Transportation!
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Any advice on taking a pie (tart, really!) for a trip on the subway would be greatly appreciated.
(If only there were a pieman I could consult!)
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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12:33 am
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I'm feeling far better than this morning, and I'm taking steps to make sure I don't dry out again when I go to bed tonight.
Today's excitement took place in the kitchen! Here are the recipes I made today:
Tuna Salad
Combine a forkful of mayonnaise with a 6 oz. can of tuna, drained.
Casserole
Boil pasta. Fry onions (and ground meat as available, draining fat). Open can of stewed tomatoes. Cube cheese. Combine, and zap in microwave until cheese melts.
Failcakes
Whisk together two egg yolks, a bit of flour, a tiny bit of sugar, and a splash of soy milk. Realize while the outside burns in the frying pan and inside remains uncooked that it didn't work.
Raspberry Muffin Tops
These turned out well! The best part is, the batter is safe to eat because there are no eggs! (I hope there's not a difference between whole wheat flour and whole wheat pastry flour... I didn't see any variety of "pastry flour" at the store...)
Chocolate-Blueberry Tart
Mmmmmmm.... The very first crust I ever made turned out well! (However, in this recipe as well as the previous, I had to add some emergency extra liquid ingredients to incorporate all the dry ingredients.) The chocolate-melting step was my favorite part! At the very end, I made a heart out of white chocolate shavings. It's totally gonna win the Valentine's Day bake-off at work (raising money for the American Heart Association). :)
Yesterday, I finally went swimming! (I learned AFTER the fact that there's a direct passageway between the locker room and the swimming pool that doesn't go past all the people lifting weights and doing yoga.)
Funniest locker room conversation / best spontaneous zeugma:
[Someone near me is taking medicine, but drops a pill onto carpeted floor]
Me: Oops! Five second rule, right?
Her: That's not even the worst! This happened to me once at a busy deli, and I dropped it on the floor where everyone was standing. I took it because, hey, better to get bacteria than pregnant.
current mood:  amused/accomplished/tired
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| Sunday, February 8th, 2009
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9:47 am - Feeling bleh. Diagnosis?
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So, I woke up (after about 6 hours of sleep) with my head swimming as I tried to look around the room. The lovely radiators had been on all night regardless of the recent "warm" weather (45 degrees outside!), so it was over 80 degrees inside, and I'd been sleeping in a sweatshirt and fleece pants. My forehead was vaguely clammy and my temperature was 97.2 degrees (slightly warm for me, I think, as I've measured in the 96's some of the other times I've checked).
Sitting up in the bathroom (which had a window cracked open all night, so it was a little cooler) helped slightly, but not a lot. I feel a vague nausea associated with motion or standing, but not anything that suggests a problem with digestion. I've opened some other windows, turned on the A/C, and drunk some water.
I don't think I could completely dehydrate overnight, since I drank quite a bit in the last half of yesterday (drinking fountain after swimming, water and half a bottle of raspberry-acai juice with dinner, then at Nana's birthday shindig, one glass of dessert wine, one glass of milk, and several glasses of water). I also had a number of cookies/banana bread pieces/brownies at Nana's, following my dinner of restaurant leftovers, but I doubt that has any bearing on this.
Scary things I have "tested" for:
<b>Meningitis</b>: I can touch my chin to my chest without a problem, and I got vaccinated before college.
<b>Carbon monoxide poisoning</b>: The carbon monoxide tester in the kitchen blinks its "I'm on" light every once in a while, and it beeped when I pressed the "test" button. Not a gas leak, either, as both pilot lights below the stove burners are lit, and the apartment doesn't smell like anything. I woke up Miao, but she's feeling OK.
My room's down to about 70 degrees, and I'm starting to feel cold (having changed clothes at the beginning of this). I'm tired, and still feel vaguely brain-function-impaired, but if I move my eyes around the room, they now register my new focus immediately, instead of loopily sliding away. I might have a slight headache now. I don't think that the traffic outside was any louder than usual (I didn't notice it once I was awake, and it's completely blocked out by the A/C). I think my thoughts have been coherent throughout (I started this logical-diagnosis game as soon as I woke up), but if this post is scarily non-grammatical when you read it, then please let me know.
My current guess is that I got too hot overnight, which I've hopefully addressed. I'll try turning off the A/C (but leaving the fan on) and going back to sleep. Still, I'd appreciate any suggestions of what might be wrong, as well as advice on what to do and what to avoid.
current mood:  ick
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| Thursday, February 5th, 2009
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11:20 pm - Things that don't substitute for other things
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So, I've been learning so much recently:
Men's tailored dress pants are not the same as women's tailored dress pants. (Discovered ruefully after a J. Crew sample sale with ridiculously low prices, but apparently jumbled men's and women's racks and with a "no-trying-on" policy.)
Tablespoons are not the same as teaspoons. (I'm looking at you, cake in a mug recipe... If I had been making you in a mug instead of in a big bowl, I really would've been in trouble! I don't think all those tablespoons of stuff would all fit in one mug! (Would they? 19 tablespoons is 1.19 cups, not to mention the egg...))
Also, olive oil is not the same as oil for said recipe; it made my microwave cake taste a bit like the crepes I make on a good day. (Making this recipe was today's most exciting achievement.)
Hmm... I've definitely stumbled across some more of these recently, but I guess I haven't learned as much from these mistakes as I thought. Feel free to volunteer others! :D
"Don't put off until tomorrow what your team of personal assistants can do today." --Stephen Colbert, exhorting me to wash my dishes before bed
current music: One of These Things Is Not Like the Others
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| Monday, January 26th, 2009
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11:37 pm
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I join a glorious tradition, as hallowed in the writings of novawolf.
Be one of the first five people to comment here, and I will make you a present and send it to you. The catch (or the fun part!) is that you need to make the same offer in your own LJ.
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year. No guarantees when, it will be a total surprise!
- You have no clue what it's going to be. I may draw or paint or knit something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
Bwahaha!
current mood: generous and mischievous
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| Saturday, January 17th, 2009
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11:08 am - 2008
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How to sum up 2008? Amazing, grueling.
My big accomplishments in 2008 were learning to swim, organizing my company's Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day from scratch, finally watching "The Daily Show" in person, seeing "Avenue Q" twice more, "running" a 5K race, taking the GRE and applying to grad school in economics, meeting Haruki Murakami, being splashmary's bridesmaid, and helping file about a half dozen expert reports for various cases at work. I also volunteered (esp. in the primary) and voted for Obama, attended the Comedy Central election night party (winning a game of Plink-O! Woo!), and generally had my spirits raised by that. Getting addicted to "House" and "Dr. Who" may or may not fall into the "accomplishments" category, but falling in love with Kimya Dawson's music certainly does. :)
This was actually an amazingly social year, looking back on it. I greatly enjoyed spending time with family (including a rather unexpected family vacation to Disneyland, and a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving with everyone for the first time since high school) and meeting some amazing people, in particular through xse99 et al. and zwol. Through systematic stalking (encouraged and occasionally abetted by rthecuban), I also met a lot of adorable adoptable rabbits. I found two new churches (before and after the move), the latter of which is the best fit yet in NY (and has strong ties to my college church, surprisingly). I began to appreciate the finer points of hospitality, blessed with many opportunities to be a guest and to host guests; I hope to continue this trend in the next year (hopefully blahamanas will get a chance to reschedule this weekend's visit!). This was also my karaoke-ing-est year to date, with at least 6 outings I can recall offhand and many more instances of playing Rock Band; this really inspires me to learn to sing in 2009! :)
Less exciting was a lot having to do with the mechanics of daily life: getting locked out of the apartment for two nights (door accidentally chained), getting locked *in* the apartment twice (due to an idiotic mechanism and a knob that fell off), having to clean up a horrendously grimy kitchen upon moving in (as our super lay dying, we later discovered), and dealing with real estate brokers and moving companies with varying levels of scruples and competence for the third year in a row. Between time constraints, lack of nearby grocery stores, and an odd fear of my new kitchen, I pretty much stopped cooking in the last half of 2008, but at the end of December I cleaned it again, redecorated a bit, got an infusion of utensils and baking supplies from a friend leaving NY, and resolved to actually plan healthy meals and manage to eat the leftovers in time.
Work also had its share of challenges, including a few months with a bigoted jerk of an officemate (thanks, everyone, for your sound advice on that) and several other months of long hours and little appreciation. However, I got assigned an awesome new mentor and got my old officemate back after his sojourn abroad, and I have greatly enjoyed getting to know the two classes who have started after me. I also greatly appreciated the advice of coworkers who have been through grad school and the support of my two supervisors writing recommendations for me.
Requisite song from "Rent"
Requisite song from "Avenue Q"
current music: "For Now" - Avenue Q
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| Saturday, January 10th, 2009
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12:41 pm - 2009: Egypt and Beyond!
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Back from Egypt! Hopefully a more detailed update will come later, but I had a lovely time and learned bits and pieces of Egyptian Arabic. ("Anna mabsuta" is "I'm happy"; "shukrun owie" is "Thanks very much!"; and "maalish" is the frequent refrain akin to "C'est la vie.") I also rode a camel, was mobbed by Sudanese refugee children who wanted to braid my hair, and survived Egyptian traffic (think MarioKart, where everyone's going in the same direction, but trying to get there first).
The two strongest impressions I have were of great hospitality and dignity despite deep poverty. When entering tourist sites, our driver would say we were Australian, but we would tell people we were American if they asked, which usually got a smile and "Obama!" Even in the poorest places we went, children and even adults would wave and say, "Hallo," and they wore well-cared-for clothes, even if they lived (literally) above a trash heap.
Surprisingly (or not, perhaps), we didn't hear much news while there. We certainly saw police and military on the streets, guarding entrances to even podunk tourist sites and mobilizing near possible demonstrations, but their presence was not as heavy as this NY Times article suggests. Though it does not surprise me, I had not known about the scapegoating of Jews that the government is ramping up to try to deflect anger from its people for tacitly allowing Israel's invasion of Gaza. Because Hamas and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood opposition party are related, Egypt's government is probably hoping that Israel will decimate Hamas before it is forced into a truce on Gaza. I hope that resolution will come as soon as possible, as there have been awful atrocities even during these few weeks, on top of a cutting off of many supplies necessary for basic survival. Although I don't agree with all of Khalidi's assertions, this op-ed adds some interesting details about the situation.
Hopefully I'll also be able to post about 2008 wrap-up and 2009 goals soon! My immediate task is wrapping up a few more grad school apps. :) Hope you're all well and looking forward to a wonderful 2009!
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| Saturday, December 20th, 2008
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2:09 pm - Tipping doormen -- any advice?
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A sign wishing everyone happy holidays and listing the names and shifts of the 6 people who work for the building appeared in the elevator. Any suggestions of what's expected?
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(14 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
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3:34 am - Democracy, Liberty, Opportunity, and Unyielding Hope
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There has been an amazing spirit of community everywhere I've looked today. As we spent an hour together waiting to vote, I chatted with two strangers/neighbors; one was traveling to Pennsylvania to monitor the election after voting here, and the other came from a military family that was, for the first time, leaning Democrat.
At work, I got quite a bit done, but my focus deteriorated as polls started closing, and I briefed my officemate on what to expect from the election. (Slight hyperventilation.)
After work, I met up with xse99, holmes_iv, and some other friends to watch the returns come in. With CNN, we counted down the seconds to 11 PM and discovered (to our delight) that the moment the California polls closed, the network officially called the election. Many fist bumps, hugs, and squees ensued. We watched in admiration as Sen. McCain conceded, praising Sen. Obama and encouraging his supporters to work toward compromise.
Then I headed to the Indecision2008 after-party (thanks to the multifaceted generosity of zwol's friend who has an in; she only had one ticket and didn't want to desert her b/f, and I looked sufficiently like her (and was of the right gender, if not the right height) to pass for her on the guest list). I arrived just in time to hear our President-Elect's speech, punctuated by cheers, applause, and chants of "Yes, We Can!" from most assembled there. I followed that up with some Presidential Plinko, mingling, and brownies. Clearly an amazing night!
Walking back to the subway, I reveled in the goodwill everyone displayed; all of us walking along or sitting on a front stoop greeted each other, sometimes with some cheering; a man headed home with a bouquet of a dozen red, white, and blue balloons; spontaneous chants of "Go Obama! [clap clap, clap clap clap]" were shared across subway platforms; drivers going down the street would honk and cheer; a city worker propped a late-breaking edition of the Daily News (with Obama's beaming face) in the windshield of his street-sweeper.
In the same sort of spirit, while waiting for the subway, I talked with 20-year NYC resident from Senegal. He mentioned after a little while that he was upset with the moral turpitude of New York City (motioning toward two men who kissed each other on the subway platform (in Chelsea, for goodness sakes!)); I pointed out that there are probably many people across the country and around the world who wish they could express their love like that in public, but they face the threat of even physical violence if they try. I think we'll both be thinking about that conversation for a while.
************
America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. ... I will ask you to join in the task of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in this nation for 221 years. Block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.
...
[The change we seek] cannot happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice. So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in, and work harder, and look after not only ourselves but each other.
...
The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.
...
America, we have come so far and seen so much, but there is so much more to do.
So tonight, let us ask ourselves, if our children should live to see the next century... what change will they see? What progress will we have made? This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many, we are one, that while we breathe we hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubt and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: "Yes, we can."
current music: This Will Be Our Year (Took a Long Time to Come) - OK Go
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| Monday, October 27th, 2008
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11:33 pm
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Firstly, happy birthday to lqmyfault! And in apology for this being slightly late, I guess I'll just have to go see you in California in about 3 weeks. :)
Hmmm... I'd been thinking of an entry, but it evaporated about halfway through the Colbert Report.
current music: Yo-Yo Ma on the Colbert Report
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, October 18th, 2008
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1:08 pm - A post worthy of my new user icon
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| Saturday, October 11th, 2008
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6:05 pm
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First, happy birthdays to lastclearchance, ladybird97, auburnfox37, annexse, arikatt, spiffyman, and topaoooxxx! (I think that's everyone... it's been a while!)
So, taking a page from John's hurricane pancakes, I ended up making pancakes shaped like what I'm afraid of: failure. I think next time I will not assume that orange juice will substitute for milk, and I will try to avoid the billowing smoke that accompanied these pancakes. (Any suggestions from the pancake-savvy?)
A few wonderful things: bananaprincess came to visit last weekend! We went to "Avenue Q" and saw a cool art exhibit ("Night of the Sleepwitch" was her favorite, while "Dreamtime Spring Hijack" was mine). We toured the Chrysler Building Lobby in an exclusive tour, stopped by the blessing of the animals (seeing the bunnies, though we missed the reindeer and the camel), and greeted Haruki Murikami at his book signing (though his talk was sold out in eleven minutes). We also had brunch, Japanese BBQ, pizza, and cupcakes (which come far sweeter in NYC than elsewhere, reversing the normal order of things). We walked around Columbia, 30Rock(efeller Center), the Met (where she told me the semi-scandalous past of Madame X) and most of the rest of the city. :)
Also wonderful: My officemate came back this week! And I may have a chance to go to Egypt! Squee!
I'm less enthused about stress at work and the vagaries of grad school admissions, but I think I'm making progress...
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| Sunday, September 21st, 2008
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9:42 am
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| Monday, September 8th, 2008
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12:28 am
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| Friday, September 5th, 2008
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1:15 am
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| Monday, September 1st, 2008
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10:00 pm - Happy Labor Day!
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Just a brief update, welcoming holmes_iv, novawolf, and un_petit_mot to the city! I saw two of them just before getting locked out of my apartment. (Sick roommate arrived home first, unthinkingly chained the door, turned her phone off, and went into a deep sleep. Argh! This contributed to dire exhaustion.)
The next night, xse99, holmes_iv, and a few others shared n-2 chairs to watch Barack Obama's acceptance speech in a packed house. What I valued in the speech was not the specific policies he mentioned but the values he laid out ("Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility, that's the essence of America's promise.") and the consistency of his platform with those values. (As lastclearchance alerted me, Obama may be searching for the Rainbow Connection.) Anyway, this was fun, but exhaustion+1.
On Saturday, katalina55, sherwood2, and K (hadn't seen her since the wedding) visited to see the Temple of Dendur and my apartment.
Over the weekend, I did get a chance to rest, so exhaustion-2 again. :)
Finally, today I went to the U.S. Open with people from work, and saw a women's singles match (Safina vs. Groenefeld) and two men's doubles (one of which (Lindstedt-Niemenin vs. Nestor-Zimonjic) was extremely hard-fought, especially as tempers rose during the second set tie-break). However, the drama of the day was when something flew down my dress; I thought it was a bee, but it turned out to be a ladybug (still scary!).
***
A dream a few nights ago put me back in college, apparently coming back after summer vacation, pitching a senior essay idea to my sophomore advisor (for some reason, one of a dozen people lounging in a set of in-ground philosophy department hot tubs), though my only memory of the topic was what I had written the previous spring: "Carmen Sandiego". The meeting was interrupted by a vivid midmorning sunrise/set that everyone went to the roof to watch. At some point I realized that I'd already graduated, but enthused by my new topic (I'd turned it into something about globalization), I started figuring out a way to enroll to write the essay.
current mood: 14 days to GRE
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