Whales, Cape and Grape, Oh My!

It looks like another half year has past already since my last post. Haha, I was just reading my friend Paula's blog, and she is definitely much better at keeping her blog updated. I'm so jealous that she and Carlos are zooming around the world on their two-wheelers right now, taking such great pictures of everything big and small:P

Let me rewind to my trip back to Boston. Of course I was pretending not to be sad that morning of my departure, but something cheered me up...

I GOT BOOTED UP TO BUSINESS CLASS.

Woohoo.

I feel like I've climbed up to the the princess status from a peasant. My legs could actually stretch out straight in front of me. And of course I enjoyed every second of being able to see my toes. The seat was awesome too, of course. It was like leaning back into a la-z-boy. The only flaw was I didn't get my first choice of the menu--a menu--but I can deal with it.

I went to attend our Simmons Children's Literature conference, of which the theme was "Crimes and Misdemeanors"--MY idea, thank you very much (no, really). Crime was my suggestion for the next theme that I put in on the survey for the conference before. And the professors mentioned several times that the theme this year was submitted by a surveyer, so who else could it be but awesome me? I never realized how much power I could have over poeple, after they put my idea into action, of course.

After that weekend, it's job searching of course. But who says I couldn't still enjoy life? So I went on a whale watch where I saw a mother whale and her calf (and where I puked a bit), and went to Cape Cod (this time I wore seabands, which miraculously worked on me) and visited a couple of beaches and Provincetown. And after my German roommate came back, we went camping for three days on Grape Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands. Aside from me loaded down with like 15 kilos of camping stuff I borrowed, almost getting lost and near tears as I tried to bicycle back to my place, and loaded down with the same stuff to return afterwards, it was plenty fun and relaxing. We got to do yoga in the morning with a ranger (I shall never do yoga in a crowded, musty room again, maybe), did rock painting, had a small campfire and smores, saw a lobster trap, and the best part, kayaked in the sea. Now I'm in love with kayaking. If I had nothing to do I would kayak 24/7, excluding nights.

Then it was back to reality and I did get a job, thanks so very much to a fellow classmate. So now I'm happily sorting/shelving books, doing cash reg, helping customers find books, etc. at The Harvard Bookstore. We are not affiliated with the university in any way...we're independent. And book people certainly are different from techy people. Pay is not so good, but I love running around the store so much more than dragging equipment around. And everyone is so friend;y and helpful. I really could stay in the store all day.
AND.... we just got a BOOK MACHINE! It can print and bind books (paperbacks) in less than 4 minutes! Gives authors another option who want to self-publish. It's so cool. I haven't really seen it in work it, but I've rung off a book from the machine, and it really is "hot off the press". The book physically feels warm when you touch it.

What made my day today was I got to talk to some Chinese people from Beijing University--possibly professors. They wanted to talk to someone who could speak Chinese, and I was the only one. So it was a nice change, even though I could hear myself chatting with a poor Beijing accent. Weird how that heppens. And one said I was pretty and looked like Lin ChiLing (hahaha), and another actually took a photo of me. A little later, I was on reg, and I turned my head once and was taken aback at this huge camera staring at me. Guess that guy was from some kind of media here for the book machine, and probably was the only bookseller behind the counters. Great timing they have. I happened to have a slight cold these days and definitely will not look good in those pictures. I also set up my first children's section display! I couldn't think of any other good themes for the season-we already have banned books, books made into movies, back to school books, etc. So guess what? I pulled in the theme of "crimes and misdemeanors":PP Hope it looks all right. I will have to remind myself to take pictures of it and the new theme sections.

Till next time.

Good things happen from good doings

This happened a while ago that I keep wanting to jot down.

One day as I approached school, I saw a student ID lying on the ground in front of the library building. So I emailed this person and got it back to her. A short time later, I was heading toward the Brookline Library branch near me, and saw someone's driver's license lying in front of this library. I think the librarians managed to get it back to him since he is a patron. Between these two findings, I had dropped a new, beloved glove at Walgreens. I had purchased it on sale, as I had lost a glove to an older pair, and none of the other gloves I had were warm enough. I was carrying many bags and in chaos dropped that glove. Funny how on that day I found the driver's license, I went to Walgreens hoping that someone had found it and saved it. Otherwise I did know where else I could have dropped it and lament my loss in great grief, although giving me excuse to buy a new pair. THANKFULLY. I went in, asked, and there it was, lying patiently behind the counter. Good, good people.

Lost and all found.

Eventful week

Our new SOM (School of Management) building was just on fire. At least, the fire alarms were going off. People were milling outside, public safety was telling everyone to get away from the building, sirens are sounding, and I could see the alarm lights flashing. No smoke though, so not sure if it's a true or false alarm.

Yesterday I saw the oddest thing. This guy with a backpack was kneeling in front of the SOM, facing the Palace Road building, and kowtowing with his arms stretched out. He did that a while, then got onto his hands and toes, and proceeded to crawl forward. Then he started kowtowing and crawling. After a few minutes he stood up, and started running. Who knows where. I wonder what religion it is. I even thought maybe he was putting a curse on the campus:P Which actually might be true since the norovirus is going around, and now the SOM is on fire.

Speaking of norovirus, we got an email from Public Safety last week telling us a student had it, and made it sound like she was quarantined. This student turned out to be a fellow classmate in my YA class. And this morning we were notified that a few more students were infected too. Yesterday, someone was carried away in an ambulance from Bartol Hall.

Fun things have happened too. I finished my last class presentation on Tuesday, and totally enjoyed Avi's lecture afterwards at BU. The topic was religion and being an atheist, his son and wife laughed hysterically because they thought he was the most spiritually lacking in this sense.

Yesterday was April Fool's! I'm glad I was working because I got to witness some pretty awesome pranks. So first of all, a pro staff (Autumn) had hidden ALL the pens. I mean, everyone's, including the huge bundle at the front desk. Another pro staff (Amy) was searching high and low for them, because obviously we need pens! Autumn had left only a highlighter on Amy's desk. It's so funny. Finally Amy called Autumn, and found boxes and boxes of pens and markers and pencils all locked in the fines safe. Jim, another pro staff, in retaliation switched her mac keyboard with a dell one, taped a fork on her chair, and taped her water bottle to the ceiling. I think he did a few other things but I didn't catch on. Haha it was fun anticipating Autumn's reaction. And yup she yelled at him. She told us some of her other ideas, one which was taping a sign over the door saying everyone is laid off and to go home, and another which was unplugging everyone's keyboard and mouse.

Last night I babysitted Jessica for a couple of hours, and it was fun as always. She tricked me saying that I had something on my shirt, and I tricked her back telling her she dropped some popcorn. We played a few games, but I think she's getting tired of the Chinese game I invented just for her. I hadn't really intended to tutor Chinese last night, but I just randomly asked if she would like to learn how to write her name in Chinese, and she actually settled down for a few minutes copying my strokes. I was happy and impressed. That went over real quickly. While she was putting on her pj's and brushing her teeth, I drew some squares on a piece of scrap paper, and wrote the strokes for 'yang' on the side, doubting she'll really practice writing the character and maybe just write one and scribble or tear up the paper in no time. But SURPRISE! After she came back down, she started seriously writing that character in all of the squares, and wanted me to circle the one I thought was the best. Finally, some progress with this hyper kid in Chinese. I actually can't wait to draw more grids for her.

So this is my pretty eventful week, or half week, so far. Ok, I better get back to writing my novel that I need to turn in tomorrow and that I'm so far behind on. Saturday should be fun too, cuz I'll probably be having dim sum with a good friend, finally carrying out our plan that we had made almost a year and a half ago.

Gobble gobble

Two days ago, I spotted 5 turkeys in a yard.
This woman named Betty saw them too, and she took out her phone and took pictures. Too bad for me, I did not have my camera with me nor did I have my phone (a lazy thought had passed through that morning, "I probably won't need it today." Pheesh=.= murphy's law at work). With envying eyes I glanced from her phone to the turkeys, and the turkeys back to her phone again. It's not everyday you get to see these legendary turkeys that are said to be spotted waddling around the streets in the Brookline area. I've only seen one toddling beside the road one early morning, but that was it. And the one day, the one day I don't have a photographic device with me I see five: five plump turkeys strolling in someone's backyard (which me and Betty trespassed to get a closer look), pecking at the grass. Betty gets a blurry photo of them, which she kindly offered to send to me and I of course accepted. Except that she didn't really know how to work it and I didn't really get the photo after all.

And nope the turkeys did not gobble.

Peak of the Week

This totally made my day yesterday.

A girl walked into our office at around 2pm, all panicky.
She couldn't find her class, and demanded our help. Yes, demand.
I wasn't at the front desk, but a pro staff and a fellow worker were in charge. Instead I was huddled in the corner with a media assistant computer, my back facing the door, but on a swiveling chair which allowed me to observe as I pleased. A safe corner away from the tempest that was about to break out.

And break out it did.

When the pro staff did what little he could to help, excluding calling the professor (as we probably really can't do that), she was even more agitated.

"In England they would make the call for me," she exclaimed.
"Well this is America," my fellow worker replied.
That sparked it.

She took it as a racial attack, which she had experienced in England probably not too long ago. "Why are you looking at me like that??" she cried. She dropped her bookbag and stared down at my poor fellow worker.

All attempts from the pro staff failed to calm her down. I debated whether to try to help, but also worried that the girl might take it the wrong way, thinking we were ganging up on her. And then our manager stepped in. Whew.

Our awesome manager, the "Ultimate Supervisor", took her into her office, shut the door, and all screams let go. We could hear her muffled tantrum, and I was located two cubicles away (maybe like, 10 to 20 feet away). Quite an interesing display.

Not long after the screams quieted down, and from what I later learned during my conversation with our awesome supervisor, she helped her call the professor and found out where the class was. Apparrently this girl was extremely worried she would fail and get kicked out of school if she missed even one class. She was even calm enough to come back and extend an apology to my fellow worker, claiming she's a very nice person.

orz to our manager.

New Experiment Yum Yum~~

Cucumber stuffed with ground pork, steamed.
Ground pork cake with an egg on top.

Yum yum . . . experiment successful!

Harvard Conference

During our first pilates-turned-taibo meetup, my friend Ashley told me she was going to attend the Harvard Business School 2009 Social Enterprise Conference. I took a look at the website, at the schedule, and even though I had no idea what social enterprise is and what the conference was about, I was tempted to go because there were many sessions that sounded interesting. Plus, a HARVARD conference at $40 including breakfast and lunch + a career fair? Our Child Lit program's summer conference costs like $400 for three days! Not a bad deal. For Harvard, I mean. So I signed up too. My first official, professional conference that hundreds were to attend.

The day before the conference I had planned to go shopping with Ashley because she wanted to get new clothes for the event. Never happened. My poor friend came down with the flu that week, and could not get better in time for the conference. We were both terribly disappointed because she had been looking forward to it for a long time, and it wouldn't be as much fun to go by myself. Of course I still went though. I dressed as professionally as I could, wearing the new shirt I my grandparents had bought me, a long vest that was my mom's, dark grey or black slacks (I couldn't tell), and Mary Jane's. For outerwear I wore the black coat that my aunt and uncle gave me last Christmas. Although, when I changed my shoes after the conference ended, I realized the metal plate at the bottom of one of my heels was missing. Which explains for the hollow sound I thought I heard when I walked. Thankfully I brought another pair of shoes . . . toddling around in heels for 12 hours is not my idea of comfort.

I got up before 6am, still debating whether to take the T or the bus. I finally decided to take the train when I go and take the bus when I come back. At the Harvard T stop I walked down JFK St., crossed a bridge, and the business school was at my left.

This is the walkway I randomly entered.


I only had the vaguest idea of where the Spangler Center was, and when I came upon an important-looking building, I went in, thinking maybe I would hit the spot. If not, maybe find someone I could ask.



It tunred out to be a library. It wasn't Spangler, but I was right that it was an important building. Lucky for me a woman came in from the other side and knew where Spangler was.


The other side of the library.

The Spangler Center.

Ah ha.

Nice, isn't it?

Where we register

and have breakfast!

Sure is professional. Totally worth it.

I was secretly hoping for scrambled eggs and sausage . . .

but I'll welcome pastries anytime.


This is the building where the keynotes are held.

In the auditorium.

Settling down.

Where the panels are held.

Burden Hall. It was starting to snow.

My first panel.

Nice bathroom. I feel like a bumpkin.

Talking about global health and the challenges of delivering to the needed.

Second panel.

A peep at the snowy scene. Sure feels different from Simmons.

Mid-morning snack! The banana bread was delicious, the other one I wasn't so fond of.

Second panel. Introductions. Talking about food as an agent for social change.

The restrooms are in the left hand corner.

Second keynote.

I calculated that there were probably around a thousand people sitting in the room.

We had a brown bag lunch, nothing fancy. I had a turkey sandwich, lay's, and a cookie.

I don't know whether it was the monotone of the speakers, tiredness, or food coma, or maybe all, I was nodding off, and noticed that I wasn't the only one. The woman sitting mext to me was definitely asleep. Haha.

There were two people that I met who left an impression in me. One is actually a Simmons alumn who studied economy, and the other is a Chinese girl who I happened to meet at the bus stop on our way back. She was very chatty and admitted so, and I was surprised that she shared about her experience on a ski trip and how this guy was interested in her. She even told me what her professor just told them about accepting students: apparently, one of their policies is to accept a balanced amount of fast learners and slow learners. (Hmm...I'm a slow learner, so how come I didn't get in?:P) Anyways. Cute woman. (By the way, the ride on the bus was half as long as that on the T @@)

Third panel. The influence of media.

I only stayed half an hour for this one, because I was anxious to get to the career fair which would end when the last keynote ended. Choices, choices, choices.

The career fair was held in the room where we had breakfast, and boy were there a lot of people. There was a snack table in the middle of the room, with fruit, cheese, crackers, bread, and most yummy of all, Newman's Own all-natural pizza. They sure know h0w to advertise. I forgot to take pictures though. My hands were full of my resumes and company brochures.

Third and last keynote. About Ebay's World of Goods.

Not a lot of people left. Many left I suppose, and the rest are definitely still at the fair.

LOOT!

They gave us each a bag full of goodies: a conference tote,

Whole Foods tote, a t-shirt, Newman's Own Almond cereal,

Good Mountain tumbler, tea and teabags, hand-made triple

chocolate, heart-shaped cookies with pink icing and sprinkles,

a balance cookie-dough bar, a Nature Valley honey and oats bar,

a book, and a magazine. I took a Harvard Business School napkin

and a white plastice plate for souvenirs. I also grabbed some candy,

pencils, and pens. I couldn't get another bag for my friend, so I grabbed what I could at the career fair for her.

Meals+snacks+connections+knowledge+treats+nice campus=40 bucks. Not a bad deal, huh?

Operation Goose Attack

So. The new School of Management Building is up, and we can finally see patches of grass on our campus, which has been under construction ever since I came here. The green green grass is certainly a welcome change of scenery, but what do you know, it became prey to . . .

The Geese.

(don't know why the grass looks red in the picture)

They waddle in, in a very laidback manner: settle among the grass, bathe in the sun, peck at the green, quench their thirst in the melting snow. . . it's as if they own the place. The Simmons new campus has become Goose Villa. What a sweet life.

Except for their doo doo littering the pathways, I love seeing them around. Too bad they have to be chased away by a black-and-white dog our school employed. The dog does his job well by not harming them, but I will always welcome them back, even if it means sacrificing the little bit of green we have.

Wowee...

My last day before I fly. I decided to go to "Bodies: The Exhibition." I was so looking forward to it, and I was not disappointed. However, it wasn't until I got there did I realize I had confused this with Body Worlds, which is the one I have been wanting to see forever. But this one was cool too. It features real human bodies from China that are preserved, and lets you explore the composition and workings of the human body. I learned a whole lot, which I will list below for my own reference. Part of it I copied on tissue paper, and a worker there gave me two pieces of blank paper to take notes. Wasn't that thoughtful of her?

-Deltoid
-the tongue has 16 muscles
-cramps are involuntary contractions of skeletal muscles that don't relax
-th body's smallest muscles are found in the ears
-there are three muscle tissues:
skeletal muscle: moves the bones
cardiac muscle: moves the heart
smooth muscle: moves blood, food, and fluids through your body
-the brain is 80% water
-girls' brains: 2.5% of body weight
boys': 2%
-depression is thought to be caused by a combination of brain chemistry, thinking
patterns, and traumatic experiences
-Eating breakfast can improve memory
-the size of eyes does not change between infancy and adulthood, so children's eyes
are large in comparison to their brains and skulls, giving them that wide-eyed look
-dura mater 硬膜
-the thumping sound of heartbeats is the sound of heart valves shutting
-pulse is the artery wall stretching with each heartbeat
-jejunum 空腸
-ileum 迴腸
-cecum 盲腸
-colon 結腸
-spleen 脾臟
-every drop of blood in the body passes through the heart once per minute
-there are 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body
-the brain requires 20% of the body's total blood supply
-veins have valves to prevent blood from flowing backward
-"The heart is the king and the lungs are its ministers." Hwang Ti
-when a breast-feeding woman eats garlic, her baby will suckle longer
-people are born with innate preferences for sweet or salty
-tongue: 4 taste regions--sweet, sour, salty, bitter
a 5th region?--umami, a taste similar to MSG (味精)
-omentum 網膜
-your body is shortest at the end of the day and longest just after rising in the
morning
=> body weight and gravity act on the vertebral column, then the intervertebral discs
become compressed and flattened; during sleep, the discs spring back to their
original shape
-stomach growl is peristalsis in action (蠕動)
-Meckel's diverticulum 梅克耳氏憩室/ 迴腸憩室
-duodenum 十二指腸
-To digest:
Ingest
Chew: 10-30 times
Swallow: 4-8 seconds
Churn: 2-4 hours
Absorb: 3-5 hours
Compact: 10 hours to several days
Eliminate
-it takes about 24 hours to digest, from mouth to anus
-A woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have
-A man continues to produce sperm throughout his life
-the male sperm is the smallest cell in the body, and the female egg is the largest
-transverse 橫向
-sagittal 矢狀切面
-uterine 子宮的
-fibroid 纖維瘤;子宮肌瘤
-placenta 胎盤
-By the 11th week, all major organs of a fetus have formed
-femur 股骨
-lymph 淋巴
-polymer preservation
-ectopic 異位,異常

This reminds me, there were babies and siamese twins in the exhibit too, from really tiny ones to ones several months old, and a few were abnormal.

It's really hard to believe that all the specimen are real because they don't look real to me, rather like they were molded from plastic or something, but they totally are. Except for the eyes. I learned that eyes are hard to preserve as they get gray or something (the lady who gave me the paper told me) and get disgusting.

All in all, although it was a bit pricey even with a discount, it was totally worth it.

More helpful people

Just a quick note on more people who were helpful.
So there was a girl who helped me carry my heavy suitcase downstairs in the subway; a guy who helped me open my bottle that I had screwed on too tight; and another (fairly cute) guy who helped me carry my suitcase upstairs one flight in the hostel the first day we moved in.

Nice, nice people. So people in New York aren't too busy to help.

Hours for one second

Whoo...today was my first, and very possibly last, time to count down to New Year's in Times Square. I arrived at 42nd st to meet my friend, but so many streets were barred by the police and I could only enter from 52nd st. I barreled my way to 51st st. and Broadway, and was stuck in the crowd. Little by little the crowd--impatient and getting mad about not being able to get through--managed to push their way through to 50th, 49th, and finally midway between 48th and 49th. And that's where we stood for several hours, until around 11:30pm when the police finally opened the gates and let us through to the next "bin". Yip, that's what the police called it. We are animals being controlled and herded from one pen to another, and you can't even return to the same bin if you want to go out and get coffee or go to the bathroom. I was at the front edge of our bin, and that's where all the goodies stopped. By goodies I mean those funny-looking blue Nevea hats, pom-poms, and even scarves. And I could only stand in the freezing cold, watching the people in the bin in front of ours grab for these free items. Then came the blue Nivea balloons with silver streamers. Thankfully, some people were nice enough to pass on some of those to us, and that's how I got mine.
It was exciting to feel the human pulse amidst the crowd, as it was like a rippling effect, both physically and spiritually. Spiritually because you can feel the mounting anger (when we were too far to see the ball), impatience, but also the people's excitement building up to a climax that effects you; physically because you're sandwiched between people and don't have total control over your body except try to maintain your balance. In both aspects it is easy to be affected by the crowd, and I finally have first-hand experience on how dangerous a mob, when turned angry, can be.
It was also sort of annoying how you really don't have total freedom and domination over your own body when you choose to stay and wait for that climactic moment. For the climax of the event you must choose to yield your desire for food, beverage, warmth, and the luxury of the restroom. The police keep you shut in an area like a pig penm, and you can't choose to move forward. Also because there are so many people behind you, you can't really move backward either. But if you choose to give up the strike of midnight, you can immediately leave the pen and have all of this freedom back.
Despite all of the above, it was fun and I would say it was worth it for the first time, but man I am never going to do this ever again. Once was enough.
Funny how I just went to the zoo during the day and was herded into the pens in the evening...

Poor Goose

Today was just a long, long walk. I went to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which was a pretty nice break from the crazy and chaotic Manhattan. There weren't many people, and there was a lovely little lake. When I saw the patch of blue, I scurried down the hill to meet it. I came to its side, and what do you know among the flock of birds--geese, pigeons, ducks, etc.--a goose came waddling right up to me. It wasn't shy or afraid, and I guess it expected me to feed it. Too bad I only had a 6 inch sub, my dinner, so I couldn't give that up. I took a picture of it though, and when I looked at the photo closely, I realized that it was missing half of its top beak.


The poor little thing. I felt a little bad I didn't give it anything to eat.
Here's one view of the little lake:




Next I went to the Botanic Garden next to the park, and it was nice too but I bet it is much lovelier in the spring and summer when the flowers are all blooming. Then I rushed over to the Museum of Natural History, and for 2.5 hours I breezed through the galleries, allowing myself half an hour for each floor. I should've headed over earlier, but I couldn't help lingering in the park since it was such a nice day. Hopefully tomorrow will be too, cuz I plan to head for the zoo.