| Life at home |
[20 Dec 2009|05:05pm] |
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Lately I've been remembering my dreams. I pretty much never did in Japan, and don't remember them all too often in Cambridge. I think it has something to do with the lack of an alarm clock here. Still somewhat used to Eastern time, I've been going to bed around 10:30-11 not too long after my parents and waking up around 9 am not too much earlier than my sister. It's the best of both worlds. In last night's dream, I realized (all of the sudden) that I was 7 months pregnant, and started freaking out because it would seriously mess up some things to have a baby in February. Mom was calm, and my belly was huge. But then all of the sudden, I realized that it really doesn't make sense for me to be pregnant now, burped a few times, and my belly shrunk back down. What a relief. (It was also funny, because I was like "Mom!! We told the swine flu vaccination nurse that there was no chance of me being pregnant!" and she gave me this look like 'that is definitely the least of your concerns...' At least I don't drink or smoke...)
When I do wake up, there's not much to do but have a leisurely cup of tea, and enjoy Fresno's delicious produce (yay for oranges and persimmons), play some piano (it's always surprising how well your fingers can remember some pieces, without having played them for a long, long time), read (currently on my second book, but it's not as good as the first so it's stalling). Mom has a queue of foreign movies from the library she's been showing me. In stark contrast to the so-called "snowpocalypse" on the other side of the country, it's quite warm here, so I've been enjoying daily jogs around the neighborhood. It's pretty nice. I'm eating more chocolate than I should. Koike chastised me when he saw me bring the box of See's chocolates up to the computer, haha.
Today after In-N-Out lunch, Mom taught me how to make the English toffee that she makes every year. I made some for Koike. Now we have stew on the burner and Dad's making bread.
Basically, it's awesome to be at home.
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| Question for a physicist and/or chemist |
[19 Dec 2009|04:06pm] |
I have some wild rice. The instructions on it say to boil some water in a saucepan, stir in the rice, cover, reduce heat to a simmer, and wait a while. When I stir the rice into the boiling water, I also stir in some butter and a spice mix (sugar, powdered soy sauce, onion, sesame seeds, garlic, and some other stuff). I mix everything thoroughly, cover it (so I can't see what happens), reduce the heat, and wait.
When the rice is done, I uncover it, and all the sesame seeds are in a ring around the edge of the pan. The ring is maybe an inch thick; the pan is about 8 inches in diameter. The butter and sugar are mixed throughout and not clustered in any place, but the other spices, like the sesame seeds, seem to be in higher concentrations in the ring and lower concentrations in the center of the pan. I have a gas-powered stove, if that makes a difference.
Why does this happen?
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| Today |
[16 Dec 2009|10:53pm] |
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mood |
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Things that were nice about today:
-oatmeal with gingerbread
-having nothing to do for the first time in months
-reading for pleasure, also the first time in months...
-being able to run outside without freezing
-free samples at Costco
-being able to see mountains again!
-salmon for supper
-fitting into clothes I haven't worn since graduating
-seeing a movie in the theater for the first time since coming back to America ("Up in the Air" is good)
-chatting with friends
-driving for the first time in who knows how long... I seriously can't remember the last time. And I didn't crash!
-the fact that only the grades from 7.81 are already posted, so for a few hours my GPA is 5.0.
Things not so nice about today:
-stepping in manure while wearing what used to be my gym-only shoes. Drat.
Last night I had a dream that MIT had some passage that connected to a certain floor of Parco. My first thought was "Sweet! Now I can go upstairs to Loft and buy Kapibara-san things!" My next thought was "Woah, if I just got out on the first floor, I'd be able to visit Shizuoka anytime I want!" I guess my mind is still trying to grasp the fact that I went from MIT to Fresno in just a few hours, so why not from MIT to Japan in a matter of minutes?
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