Eyjafjallajokull (what a word to say), an Icelandish volcano, spewed ash yesterday. I just wanted to note that huge word. But I do wonder now, it's been a long long time since we've had disasters caused by different acts of nature, right? And now that China had another huge earthquake this past week (that again resulted in deadly collapses of concrete buildings), instead of standing in shock, we're finally pulling together a country, or almost the whole world, to do something about the consequences. So, is it that difficult to pull together again to solve something we started way back when the Industrial Revolution started? Rather than blaming someone (as in the way you can't blame someone for causing an earthquake or a volcanic eruption), why not just think of ways to solve what the problem is? Yeah, people still find someone to blame for the consequences of a natural event (especially when the results of the disaster could have been less in magnitude), but we find what problems there were before and work to fix them.
Anyway, less blame and more solutions? Meaning that blaming is not a solution.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
LIX : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 13
This week was horrible up until Friday night because I had a Physio exam on Friday. I realized how much I despised having big exams on Fridays because of this week. I work the hardest for Physio, and I dread Physio tests the most, but I completely enjoy all the things Herrera teaches in Physio. Anyway, week 13 was a tough week mentally and physically. Apparently, I had been lacking proper nutrition because my lips were super dry and the skin kept flaking off, and on top of that, I felt like my lips were slightly swelling outward such that they were getting thicker-like. It was horrible, but I bought some Emergen-C (which I was surprised that it didn't just contain Vit C! It has a bunch of the Vit. B and necessary yummies) and took that toward the end of the week. I'm glad that my body's feeling much more normal, but not completely just yet. It might be due to the strange weather here, too. Hot and then so cold!
Random little cheer-upper while studying:
Super tiny red velvet cupcake! :)
Its deliciousness in one bite revived my motivation to study longer. yay for sugar!
Anyway, studied my butt off and then the weekend came! Relay for life, where I donated 9 inches of my hair, but it was measured from the longest strand, so I kind of cheated. I probably averaged 7 inches... whoops. The minimum was 8 inches. :P I still had shoulder-length hair that night when I went to badminton training. And I don't know how to capture my feelings for the badminton team members, but I love how hilarious some of them can be. We went to a pretty expensive Hong Kong-nese restaurant (Sea Harbor Seafood Restaurant or something) because we wanted to try it out and use some of the club money~ social event y'know! It disappointed us when the waiter kept coming back to tell us "oh, we ran out of [blahblah]" for at least 3 dishes that I could understand (why so many cantonese-speakers on our team?!). Also, the dishes were so small! 13 of us went and we each paid $16 for that dinner... but many of us went to In-n-Out afterward cuz it really did not fill us up. I was too tired to eat even though I was only "satisfied," so I just hung out with them since my driver wanted to get a burger. I found out that I get excited talking about science-y topics. He asked me "So would you get atrophy if you only ate 1 meal one day?" But apparently you eat normally for the other days. And we talked about the physiological conditions that go with just having a meal one day of the week. No problem for the body, right? It just super uncomfortable to feel your stomach gurgling all the time.
Then, on Sunday, I went to visit my friend's apartment in Alhambra, which I'll be next year! I am going to USC Pharmacy School!!! :D *proud to be a complete Trojan* And then, that night, I started studying for my Monday Pchem exam... but I felt chill about it. So weird. I wish I could feel chill about all my exams even when I know I haven't completely studied for it. But, unfortunately, I freaked out studying for Physio. when it was only Monday. and the exam was Friday. *sigh* Our mind and body are WEIRD sometimes.
Random little cheer-upper while studying:
Super tiny red velvet cupcake! :)
Its deliciousness in one bite revived my motivation to study longer. yay for sugar!
Anyway, studied my butt off and then the weekend came! Relay for life, where I donated 9 inches of my hair, but it was measured from the longest strand, so I kind of cheated. I probably averaged 7 inches... whoops. The minimum was 8 inches. :P I still had shoulder-length hair that night when I went to badminton training. And I don't know how to capture my feelings for the badminton team members, but I love how hilarious some of them can be. We went to a pretty expensive Hong Kong-nese restaurant (Sea Harbor Seafood Restaurant or something) because we wanted to try it out and use some of the club money~ social event y'know! It disappointed us when the waiter kept coming back to tell us "oh, we ran out of [blahblah]" for at least 3 dishes that I could understand (why so many cantonese-speakers on our team?!). Also, the dishes were so small! 13 of us went and we each paid $16 for that dinner... but many of us went to In-n-Out afterward cuz it really did not fill us up. I was too tired to eat even though I was only "satisfied," so I just hung out with them since my driver wanted to get a burger. I found out that I get excited talking about science-y topics. He asked me "So would you get atrophy if you only ate 1 meal one day?" But apparently you eat normally for the other days. And we talked about the physiological conditions that go with just having a meal one day of the week. No problem for the body, right? It just super uncomfortable to feel your stomach gurgling all the time.
Then, on Sunday, I went to visit my friend's apartment in Alhambra, which I'll be next year! I am going to USC Pharmacy School!!! :D *proud to be a complete Trojan* And then, that night, I started studying for my Monday Pchem exam... but I felt chill about it. So weird. I wish I could feel chill about all my exams even when I know I haven't completely studied for it. But, unfortunately, I freaked out studying for Physio. when it was only Monday. and the exam was Friday. *sigh* Our mind and body are WEIRD sometimes.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
LVIII : Last Semester of Undergrad - Week 11 and 12
Whoops, I fell behind in my weekly updates for this supposed-to-be awesome semester. Week 11 was class stuff on weekdays, which had this surprise me on Tuesday:
Extra large agar plates! Compared to Week 9's extra tiny agar plates.
Other than that, the only really exciting event was Saturday (3/27). CHIP (health club at USC, Community Health Involvement Project) had it's own health fair set up for the first time, and I volunteered to help keep it organized by being crowd control, directing people to the site, and helping just move things along. At first, we were worried that people wouldn't be coming because we started at around 10am and there were no crowds on campus (we were situated inside campus, unfortunately a bit). I helped trying to get people interested, and we were lucky that other events were happening on campus. One was the Easter event by the volunteering program at USC, and their advertising was much better than ours at getting community families to come. We got the volunteers there to direct the families to our health site afterward so they could get free blood pressure screenings, free blood glucose screenings, information on health issues and what you can do to avoid them, and fun kids activities revolved around health. In the end, I say it was a success. There were finally crowds of people by noonish, and we provided lunch which was probably one of the incentives to coming to the health site. Food really is a powerful object/notion. Very powerful. Beware of food.
Week 12, however, seemed much more fun, and much faster. On Monday, I had a micro exam, so I skipped physio lecture, which meant that when I went on Wednesday to physio lecture, it had been a whole week since I last sat in on my physio class. I'm positive I was not lazy. Wednesday was canceled though the prof. pre-recorded the lecture for us, Friday I always skip except for next week, and Monday's time was used very wisely. I hope. We'll see how well I did because for the first time ever, I started studying for a big exam the day before the exam. Yipes. I hope I learned my lesson and gained this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Horrible one.
Wednesday was Physio lab, and I wish I could post my video up! We looked at the leg muscle of a frog. More frogs were killed two-ish hours before we cut them apart. It was gruesome and gross having to pull the leg away from the body and cut the skin off (pretty much rip it off) to expose the muscle, tendon, and nerves. Sometimes the frog's leg was impulsively twitch because the organs and nerves were still functional. The frog was only brain-dead. It blinked sometimes while we were cutting it's body apart. Horrid. It was like watching a bloody gory film to me. yuck. But watching the dissected muscle twitching was awesome.
Just yesterday (Friday, 4/2), I went to the Ahmanson Theater in LA to watch the musical Dreamgirls. We met the female singer of The Miracles, and I wish I knew more about American pop culture. Unfortunately, I know very little. Extremely little. To give you an idea of my knowledge: I know Diana Ross only because she sang "If We Hold On Together" for Land Before Time, which I love. From there, I researched a bit about her and the Supremes. I know nothing more. Anyway, it was an awesome musical, very audience-engaging. Loved it, and hope to watch the movie some day soon. Here is the hallway to a building across from the Ahmanson, where we listened to the lady speak. She was a great speaker. One person from our group told her she was a legend in her eyes and just wanted to let her know. Hearing that was touching to me too, even though I knew nothing about the speaker. Fans truly are amazing as well.
Last thing for this week is today's Post-Season. It was the last tournament for this badminton season, and was held at UCLA. I'm sad that so few people attended, but I still enjoyed my games. I only wish I could make it further into the winners bracket more often, rather than always having to end up in cons or losing my second game. I enjoy the main bracket games more. Intense, frustrating, yet rewarding. I will miss badminton because I know I will have to play it less and less, eventually having to put badminton into my schedule rather than scheduling around badminton. Also, I will miss team dinners and lunches, or rather, I will miss the team gatherings. I can't express how much I love my team, but I hope that the team will always be here, though the members will keep changing. We ate together at a Persian restaurant called Sherazade(sp?) in Westwood. I ordered a Lubio Polo or something. Chicken kabob, rice mixed with beef and stuff... yellow long rice too. Anyway here:
It was a large plate, but I finished ALL of it. Cleaned it. Delicious, filling, but a bit too pricey for me. I paid $17 (Dish was $14ish). I'm satisfied for this week. Now to wind up and focus on studying for a week, before continuing to have fun outside of studying. I will try my best to not let loose until finals are over.
Oh yeah, last thing: Bloody Monday (and season 2) is an incredible drama. I'm sad it's over and I have no Japanese drama to follow now. I will find one eventually, I hope. I'm getting more and more picky. ;)
Extra large agar plates! Compared to Week 9's extra tiny agar plates.
Other than that, the only really exciting event was Saturday (3/27). CHIP (health club at USC, Community Health Involvement Project) had it's own health fair set up for the first time, and I volunteered to help keep it organized by being crowd control, directing people to the site, and helping just move things along. At first, we were worried that people wouldn't be coming because we started at around 10am and there were no crowds on campus (we were situated inside campus, unfortunately a bit). I helped trying to get people interested, and we were lucky that other events were happening on campus. One was the Easter event by the volunteering program at USC, and their advertising was much better than ours at getting community families to come. We got the volunteers there to direct the families to our health site afterward so they could get free blood pressure screenings, free blood glucose screenings, information on health issues and what you can do to avoid them, and fun kids activities revolved around health. In the end, I say it was a success. There were finally crowds of people by noonish, and we provided lunch which was probably one of the incentives to coming to the health site. Food really is a powerful object/notion. Very powerful. Beware of food.
Week 12, however, seemed much more fun, and much faster. On Monday, I had a micro exam, so I skipped physio lecture, which meant that when I went on Wednesday to physio lecture, it had been a whole week since I last sat in on my physio class. I'm positive I was not lazy. Wednesday was canceled though the prof. pre-recorded the lecture for us, Friday I always skip except for next week, and Monday's time was used very wisely. I hope. We'll see how well I did because for the first time ever, I started studying for a big exam the day before the exam. Yipes. I hope I learned my lesson and gained this once-in-a-lifetime experience. Horrible one.
Wednesday was Physio lab, and I wish I could post my video up! We looked at the leg muscle of a frog. More frogs were killed two-ish hours before we cut them apart. It was gruesome and gross having to pull the leg away from the body and cut the skin off (pretty much rip it off) to expose the muscle, tendon, and nerves. Sometimes the frog's leg was impulsively twitch because the organs and nerves were still functional. The frog was only brain-dead. It blinked sometimes while we were cutting it's body apart. Horrid. It was like watching a bloody gory film to me. yuck. But watching the dissected muscle twitching was awesome.
Just yesterday (Friday, 4/2), I went to the Ahmanson Theater in LA to watch the musical Dreamgirls. We met the female singer of The Miracles, and I wish I knew more about American pop culture. Unfortunately, I know very little. Extremely little. To give you an idea of my knowledge: I know Diana Ross only because she sang "If We Hold On Together" for Land Before Time, which I love. From there, I researched a bit about her and the Supremes. I know nothing more. Anyway, it was an awesome musical, very audience-engaging. Loved it, and hope to watch the movie some day soon. Here is the hallway to a building across from the Ahmanson, where we listened to the lady speak. She was a great speaker. One person from our group told her she was a legend in her eyes and just wanted to let her know. Hearing that was touching to me too, even though I knew nothing about the speaker. Fans truly are amazing as well.
Last thing for this week is today's Post-Season. It was the last tournament for this badminton season, and was held at UCLA. I'm sad that so few people attended, but I still enjoyed my games. I only wish I could make it further into the winners bracket more often, rather than always having to end up in cons or losing my second game. I enjoy the main bracket games more. Intense, frustrating, yet rewarding. I will miss badminton because I know I will have to play it less and less, eventually having to put badminton into my schedule rather than scheduling around badminton. Also, I will miss team dinners and lunches, or rather, I will miss the team gatherings. I can't express how much I love my team, but I hope that the team will always be here, though the members will keep changing. We ate together at a Persian restaurant called Sherazade(sp?) in Westwood. I ordered a Lubio Polo or something. Chicken kabob, rice mixed with beef and stuff... yellow long rice too. Anyway here:
It was a large plate, but I finished ALL of it. Cleaned it. Delicious, filling, but a bit too pricey for me. I paid $17 (Dish was $14ish). I'm satisfied for this week. Now to wind up and focus on studying for a week, before continuing to have fun outside of studying. I will try my best to not let loose until finals are over.
Oh yeah, last thing: Bloody Monday (and season 2) is an incredible drama. I'm sad it's over and I have no Japanese drama to follow now. I will find one eventually, I hope. I'm getting more and more picky. ;)
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