More food

Choco-covered strawberries, from that chocolate fest that time ago.


Oooo, this one is a doozie. Raspberry flavored brownies, with a raspberry swirl cheesecake topping. But here's the catch. On top of that, there's a white chocolate shell... again from the choco-fest.


Ghirardelli choco-chip cookies, baked about an hour ago. Yes, I realize it's about three in the morning. So what?


The first raspberry cheesecake brownies that Peo and I made, this time with a raspberry syrup/jam thing on top.


White chocolate macadamia nut cookies. One of my favorites.

So as you can CLEARLY tell....
I need to do more cooking and less baking.

Measure of a man

How do you measure a man?

Do you measure him by his silver and gold? Is it by the number of awards he collects? Is it by a magic quotient on a sheet of paper?

Sure, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, nor the richest. When my graduation rolls around, I won't be wearing a million cords and tassels and medals and bells and whistles.

But what does that tell you about my college career? That it wasn't successful? That it wasn't meaningful? While all of those things may be significant for that one moment that you walk across the stage, after that moment is over, those medals and tassels will go into a box and, for the most part, forgotten. After all - forewarning of a big shocker - your graduation isn't the end of your journey. But maybe that's not a bad thing, because after the big gaudy show, you're left with the memories. And doesn't that count more anyway? So think about it... what means more to you? That someone hands you a piece of paper saying what you've done? Or that, at the end of the day, you can remember the good and the bad moments that you've had along the way? You can remember all of the people, all of the inside jokes. And some of the outside jokes too.

No, I'm not trying to devalue graduation (although a number of people will agree that it's just a show we put on for the parents). So rather than , measure a man by his friends. Measure him by his deeds. You know, the journey, not the destination. In fact, for a lot of people I know who are only here because it's the halfway point to another goal, they tend to be less happy.

Maybe this is just my way of coping with the fact that, for me, these past three years have gone by in a flash, and I'm not sure that I'll be ready to leave at the end of the fourth. And even if they want me out, I want to make sure that I have something to show for it, and not just a degree. Hopefully you all feel that way too.

Congratulations, class of 2006.

sights and sounds of the library

6:30 PM

6:54 PM

7:15 PM

7:34 PM

7:57 PM

8:16 PM

8:24 PM

8:32 PM

8:40 PM

9:07 PM

Location: Powell Library, reading room
Time: 2pm-11pm

The time at this very moment is 7:10 pm. The sun is still out, although it's starting to lower into the horizon. As reliable as the hands of a clock, the trees are starting to cast long shadows against the red brick of UCLA, signalling the end of another school day. At this point, everything that isn't shielded in the darkness of a neighboring object is covered in a warm orange glow, that same one that, ironically, is caused by all of the LA pollution that we've become so used to. Yet, at the same time, the inside of the library still looks just the same, whether it's the evening or whether it's daylight. Except for the last lingering shadows creeping up the side of the drawn shades, the white fluorescent lighting still evokes a sense of diligence; tired minds and tired bodies have trickled into and out of the reading room, but now, they mostly trickle out, save for the most dedicated and the most caffeinated (and the premeds). Outside though, Royce Hall still looks as majestic as ever, maybe even more so under the contrasting light and shadows that chase each other around its pillars. From the inside looking out, the open air coaxes us with its promise of freedom: freedom to run and jump and play; freedom from the crushing pressures of work and school; freedom to leave. It's still warm out, though. Very warm. The lure of the summer's breath beckons, and I'm tempted to follow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2pm: My shift at P1 starts. Nothing spectacular to note, except that I don't have a second person here working, so I'm all alone. The jamba juice that I had picked up earlier is starting to melt, so my raspberry smoothie is now raspberry juice. Yet, it's still too busy in here to actually enjoy it, whether liquid or slush. So rather than wait any longer, I drink the rest of it in two or three big sips. And it's still good, even if it's melted.
~~~~~
4:00 pm: As I head over to YRL to start a shift there, I see a fairly large group of kids wading in the fountain just above Janss steps. Their shoes and flip-flops are nowhere to be seen, and most of them are only little more than ankle deep in the water. Some sit on the edge with their feet dangling into the base of the fountain; others stand as the rush of water flows 'twixt their feet. Further along the way. I run into Christal and Cindy, both with whom I stop and chat with for a little while.
~~~~~
6:37 pm:
After returning to my post in Powell, the building seems to have emptied somewhat. Either that, or in comparison to the rush earlier today, it definitely wasn't as bad. A girl previously seated in the study booths stands up and starts doing her makeup. Peering into her mirror, she adds more powder to her already smooth and pale complexion. Once. Twice, ever so carefully. She brushes a fallen eyelash away. She's surprisingly attentive in her examination of every minute detail on her face, checking herself one more time in her round pocket mirror before she folds it up and puts it away. Meanwhile, a rather stout bald guy slouches back in his chair at his own study booth; with a laptop in front of him, he barely moves from his chair as he is entranced by a dark box with moving colored lights on the screen. It appears that he is immersed in what looks to be a video game. Such is expected of someone who has probably spent the last eight hours studying, so perhaps it's best not to judge him. Besides, flash games are cool.
~~~~~
7:00 pm: By now, the group at the fountain disperses. As we near summer solstice, it's not suprising at how bright it is outside still. It's still bright enough to get the rays of the sun in your eyes if you look directly west. Mmmmm, blinding pain. By now, a bunch of people i had checked laptops out to the prior 2pm-4pm shift have returned. A lot of them ask for renewals too. They're pretty studious, aren't they? I wish I had their dedication. Outside, three guys and a girl gather on the steps of Royce to chat, and I wonder what their conversation is about. Are they making some grand plans for tonight? Discussing the merits and the shortcomings of Nietzshe's theory of master-slave morality? Complaining about dining hall food?
~~~~~
8:13 pm: The guy who was playing video games on his laptop finally stops. Weary eyed, he returns his laptop to me. I wish him luck on his final tomorrow. Still though, I have the feeling that before he gets a good night's rest, he'll return home to prepare for Undie Run later that night.

I don't want to know.

Ouch

In LS2 (intro to cells, tissues and organs for all of you non-UCLA folk) last week, the students that I teach had to dissect rats. I overheard one group (girls, of course) exclaim:

"Screw, it, let's just cut off the testicles."

Mind you that this is the weeder class for premeds. I'm sure they're frustrated by the whole dissection process. Yeah, the rats don't smell great, but still - for the sake of my genitals and that of my male brethren - I pray that those three never become surgeons.

Lazy Sunday

Alternate title: "Why David should NOT be left alone in the apartment"

Davidl1114 (11:23:12 PM): I heart my books too
Davidl1114 (11:23:17 PM): I used my physics book today
Davidl1114 (11:23:26 PM): to crush the macadamia nuts
maidenhair123 (11:24:03 PM): HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
maidenhair123 (11:24:06 PM): those books sure come in handy
maidenhair123 (11:24:11 PM): i used my ochem book this weekend
maidenhair123 (11:24:15 PM): to hold open the door


So having been deprived of the kitchen for the last week or so, I thought that it was time that I baked something. Anything. Hell, why not two things? Or three? Or four? Yeah!

It all started innocently enough with cheescake tuxedo brownies. After having poured about a third of the cheesecake batter on top of the brownies, I thought... wouldn't it be cool to do raspberry swirled cheesecake brownies instead?
And so with the rest of the batter, I threw in raspberries, blended it up, and added that in too.

Hmmm, more batter left.

And so into a graham cracker pie crust it went, with more raspberries topping it off. But after baking the entire thing, ewww, it looked kinda funky coming out of the oven. Just not as aesthetically pleasing as I thought it'd be. I mean, I'd still eat it, and not that there's anything wrong with the taste.... I'm not trying to poison anyone.

Don't give me that look.

Anyhoo, while it was chilling in the fridge last night and earlier today, I realized what I could do to top the cheesecake and the brownies. Melted white chocolate layer, with semisweet chocolate drizzled over. Mmmm... didn't really take a picture of it, but you'll see the final product later. When the battery on my camera gets charged.

In the meantime, what to do with the raspberry cheesecake? Meh, whipped topping on top of it, and maybe raspberry sauce/jam? Well, I finished the whipped topping, but before I got to the raspberry sauce, I was still working on melting the chocolate - and I'd melted too much.

And so I had a little fun.


Why, 'ello, mister goldfish cracker!


Gee, what a lovely day for a swim! Watch out for that ship, maybe it's trying to catch you and eat you. Swim away, little fishy!


Chocolafied-triscuit


Choco-triscuit next to his garlic triscuit cousin.


Raspberry cheesecake with whipped topping and more choco-decorations and such.

More pictures to come! Be excited!

skype

is anyone on skype? my screen name is captainwhatshisname =D So uhh, if you guys want to talk... without using cell phones....It's actually kinda interesting, cuz there's video too, so I hear.

Complete six course meal

Cooking is a lot of fun when you're doing it for a lot of really cool people. If you ever need any ideas, here's something that I did last Friday night. Not bad at all for a college age student, a male no less.



Candles... always a must to set the mood.


Course 1: Roasted asparagus bruschetta with garlic and olive oil.


Course 2: Strawberry Spinach salad in a sweet vinaigrette dressing


Course 3: Roasted Asparagus in Lemon Butter (ok, so I didn't get a picture of this one, but yeah, it's more or less the same thing.


Course 4a: Wild mushroom risotto


Course 4b: Sauteed scallops and shrimp



Course 5: Grilled Steak Filets in a Red Wine Sauce (again, not my own picture: the sauce looks like the same one I made, but I didn't make green beans or mashed potatoes (wanted to though). I did have a garnish that Grace took a picture of:

Cool huh?


Course 5b: Grilled Portabellos in olive oil, with a bunch of tiny tomato rose garnishes already done.


Course 6: in the making: Strawberry shortcake. Mmmm, pretty. The cake, I mean. Though the girl is cute too.


Me, pretending like I know what i'm doing in the kitchen.


Lastly, add sparkling cider to make for a classy night.

So exhausted at the end of the day, but all of that planning and labor was completely worth it. Too bad I didn't get pictures of any of the food (most of the above were courtesy of Grace).

I can smell a premed from a mile away

Alternate title: Super flaming fisticles of anality

So right now, I just got out of a midterm. For Thermo Chem. Yeesh.

I'm chatting with a guy in the class, excercising our right to complain, when lo and behold, this really annoying (really annoying) girl comes up ands taps me on the shoulder. I recognize her from somewhere, and not just as the really annoying girl who sits at the front of the class, yapping at the professor when he lectures. By the way, her voice sounds like that of a seal. Being fed to a meat grinder.
Oh, right, she's in the LS 2 discussion section that I help teach, I remember now. Whatever.

Her:
Hey, I didn't know you were in this class.

Me:
Uhh, yeah.

Her:
*small banter, maybe a word or two, until she inexorably busts out asking:* So how'd you do on the midterm?

Me:
Didn't we just get out of that midterm?

(My god she's asking and badgering already)

Me: (with a sudden realization)
You're premed, aren't you?

Her:
How'd you know?

(Because, I can smell one from a mile away)

Completely fits the profile. As expected, she's the really anal type who would ask everyone about how they did on the midterm, then gloat that she thought it was easy. Super overachiever, took Quantum chemistry last quarter (she's a first year: most people don't take quantum until their third or fourth), and decided to take it "easy".

Eh, sure, whatever floats her boat.

Ok, so it's not to say that anyone who is premed is extremely uptight and overworked, nor does it mean that anyone who isn't premed is uber lazy either. After all, I understand the value of hard work (I'm working on pg.9 of a fricking 20 page lab report due at 5 this afternoon), but there's always time to just relax and chill. On a Friday. After a midterm.

To all of you premeds... fricking turn off those premed genes every once in a while. Your life will be better for it.

mmm, food blog....

http://www.ablithepalate.com/

untitled

hehehe, oh man, how true.

I wouldn't call it Mac envy...

...but rather a marriage of two estranged families. The way I figure, I'm familiar enough with both macs and pc's to be able to use both with ease. I like gui for macs (oh-so-trendy), but I feel like I'm much more in control of with PCs. I mean, I actually like having the start button that leads to everything that I could possibly need to access, all from one place (I guess you can't see it here). Quicklaunch and the dock probably aren't both necessary at the same time, but the good thing about quicklaunch is that the rest of the programs not shown can appear from the dropdown. The good thing about the dock is the big icons, it doesn't get any simpler to access programs. Though really now, it's almost condescending, as if users wouldn't otherwise be able to find their own apps. "Ooooh, I push big button now. *clap hands* It open! It open!" And after sticking more than ten programs on the dock, it starts to feel cluttered. Fine for people who use only a few programs, like Word, Firefox, iTunes, Photoshop maybe. But see how there's already 14 programs on the dock? What about the ones that aren't down there? On a regular Mac, it really isn't any simpler than a PC, cuz then you've gotta open up Finder, then Applications, then open the folder for the application, then the program itself. Kinda wish that I had the expose thing though... that alone is worth the extra money to buy a mac. In the meantime though, I rather like the change. My desktop feels much bigger now too. Like I said, the best of both worlds.

Then again, I may have also created a monster... urgghhhh.... Frankenstein...hungry...for Apple....pie... sitting on the Windows....*oh-so-lame*

I miss dorm omelettes

But the good thing is that I can make my own. But the bad thing is that I have to make my own. Nothing fancy here, ham, cheese, and bacon bits.



I'd have never imagined it, but Hormel, the same guys who make SPAM(r), have a surprisingly thorough knowledge base. It tells you a lot about things like wine, napkin folding, garnishes. You'd think that they'd try to push their products this way, (like "Try Spam with white wine!") but actually, it's fairly useful information. It's worth a gander.

Total Foodage

Hehe, this is what I made for dinner tonight! Mmmmm.



Recipe courtesy of Tyler Florence, but slightly modified. Why is it that a surprising number of great chefs are men? Oh wait, it's cuz women watch cooking shows. Actually, I guess guys do too. I mean, I heard this guy fawning over Rachael Ray once. It was amusing, but creepy all at the same time (the guy was 15 years old). I think I'll stick to browsing recipes online when I'm at work.

Music recommendation: Rachael Yamagata. Reminds me of something that I can't quite put my finger on.

Watch out. Emo post ahead.

Seriously, I'm warning you, you may not want to read this.

Ever had that feeling, at the end of the day, where you can't help but think to yourself, "Fuck, this can't be my life," and then have the inexplicable urge to crawl into a hole somewhere and wait for everything to stop or blow over? Yeah, that was me today.

I mean, true, our lives aren't easy, but when you're trying to please everyone all of the time, there's no time to just sit and relax. I'm not putting myself through all of this stuff for other people, am I? Or is this all something that I'm doing for myself?

Well now that all of that abstract crap is out of the way, let's get on with the story. I woke up a little to get to get coffee before class, so as expected, there was no high before the crash (kinda like _/\___). It was just flatline (more like _____). I'm really surprised that I made it through the day. So after two classes in which I fell asleep, next was lab, trying, once again, only not to fuck up too badly or to get in anyone's way. The problem with Fridays is that we have a group meeting around noon, which cuts into the middle of lab. And with the meetings lasting close to two hours, this lops off a significant portion of time to get anything done. Usually, this isn't a problem, I'd just stay a little later, until 6, maybe. But the kicker was that because of President's day weekend, the UA class had its meeting rescheduled for 4-6 on friday afternoon, when usually we meet on Mondays at 1-3. When I told my grad student about having to leave at 4, he responded, "Tell the class, 'Well fuck you.'" If it were any other class like a lecture, who knows, maybe I'd do just that. But for a class whose grade depends solely on attendance, I'd have to think about it. I mean, the class wouldn't be meeting if it wasn't important, right?
So at 4, I slip out, feeling guilty and nervous all at the same time, since my experiment was still running at the time. The good thing though, was that the class lasted for an hour fifteen, rather than the full two hours. I got back to lab at 5:20, thinking that the grad student would be pissed or something. I should probably have known this by now, but he doesn't give a shit. I don't think he gives a shit about anything. Whatever. So even after coming back, there's still not enough time to finish everything I was supposed to have finished, so I'm heading back during the weekend.
On the way home, I notice that something's going on inside of Pauley. It was some men's volleyball game. So I meander in, probably looking really lost and confused. I'm assuming that the lady at the door noticed this, and she must have felt sorry for me and told me to go in. Didn't even bother to check my ID, though I'm sure it was a safe assumption that I'm a student. I don't even like volleyball.
Rather than pay attention to the game (which I tried to, I really did), I just kind of stared off onto the court. The inside was really brightly lit, but you'd notice that only because there were so few spectators. During, say, a basketball game, the larger crowd would draw your attention from this fact. After the end of the second game, I walked home in the rain.

Quick update before the drudgery of the week commences

It's been a while, huh?

Oh well, what is there to say? School has been unbelievably busy, I'm tired all the time, and I wish I had more time to spend with the cool people all around me. I guess it only makes me appreciate these people more, I suppose.

So quick update:

RSS Retreat, Jan 20-22nd
A long, long drive up to Joshua Tree (29 Palms really, but who's keeping track?) but the trip was worth it. The unmarked, unpaved dirt road that led to the house was ridiculously difficult to find, but I'm glad everyone made it there and back in one piece. Rock climbing was kinda scary at times, but it was one of the most exhilarating things I've done in a while. (See Facebook or Flickr for pictures. There are a few kinda artistic (or wannabe artistic) shots to check out.) It's a bit scary that every other building in the town of 29 Palms was a military barbershop, and all fo the others were churches. Really now, how many people live in this little town to necessatate so many barbershops? And churches?

Yearbook Retreat, Jan 28
Sorry, don't have any pictures of the trip to Universal Studios, but perhaps it was all for the better. The rides themselves were alright (there were only three of them), but I guess it's to be expected with such a small theme park. The most intriguing parts of the park were the studio tours. There's an interesting dichotomy that the movie industry creates by trying to keep people in awe of the magical process of film making (you know, so that people continue to want to watch movies) yet at the same time trying to humanize the entire process to show that everything is just the figment of some special effect. By the end of the day, the latter sort of won out. Not that I've lost an appreciation for the tremendous amount of work that goes into film making, but more that I've lost the appreciation for the glamour and fame that the stars derive from such a simple, humble tradition of play-acting. I mean, in ye old, olde, olden days, acting certainly wasn't the noble profession that it is today. The whole trip kinda exposes the doldrum behind the smoke and mirrors, because, in a sense, actors are a lot like putty - molding and changing themselves to become the image of our collective imagination. Perhaps our existence is enriched by the presence of such cultural icons, but after all is said and done and the movie is over, there's still the drama, the sorrow, and the dulcet moments that unfold in our own lives.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish


The English say basil, we say basil.

It sucks to be you! (On Avenue Q)
Sucks to be me! (On Avenue Q)
Sucks to be you! (On Avenue Q)
Sucks to be us
But not when we're together!
We're together here
On Avenue Q!
We live on Avenue Q!
Our friends do too!
'Til our dreams come true!
We live on Avenue Q!

In the name of all that is crappy...

Ok, so I should have a little disclaimer or something. Monday afternoons aren't really jammed with three committments all at once. LS192 was posted for 4 oclock, but it's really at 1 oclock (designated where UA class is). And I have no idea where the lecture for 30BL on monday afternoon comes from.

Me: This quarter is gonna suck so bad!
Jennie: Oh c'mon, be a little more optimistic.
Me: Ok. This quarter is gonna suck so good!