Stalking

One of the biggest reasons why I decided to get off facebook years ago was because one day I spent over two hours in lab stalking friends when I had no less than 5 important things to do.  Now, things are a bit better, but sometimes I get a craving to peek in on other people's lives.  One of my friends, Richard, once posted a link to a blog by Lee F. who's living in Korea at the moment and pursuing a PhD at Seoul National University, the school where I did research over the summer.  I felt really bad for the guy because he basically had to start over again because some narcissistic postdoc started strangling him, but the prof wouldn't fire the perpetrator.  I was planning to try to meet up with him over the summer and give him sort of gift to express my condolences, but never got around to it.  But Lee, I feel for you.  I'm inspired how you keep on trucking.  I really enjoy reading your updates, and hopefully someday I'll get to meet up with you and thank you in person.  Keep it up, and all the best with your baby on the way!  

Lee is the reason that I have the globe in the right hand corner over there.  It puts down a dot every time someone stalks you.  My goal is to get all the continents.  But I feel I'm off to a pretty decent start.

One of my friends did a great job in lighting up all of the UK. 

In fact, here she is now.  Note how she's also lighting up all of lab with the inundation of pink accessories.

Props to Joseph for signing in once in Australia.

Also thanks to all the guys from India for being good sports.

And finally, I have to vent a little bit about the US.  Who the heck is this guy/girl from Owosso, Michigan?  It's seriously got to be a server or something, maybe the computer where the little globe thingy gets all it's information, because it's ALWAYS blinking, mostly when I'm on the computer, but also occasionally when I'm not.  WHO ARE YOU?  Drives me nuts.

I was about to head home, but realized that I haven't updated in over a week, so I stayed late just for this.  Now, time for a break.  

See you next time, Owosso.

Late Night Arirang

Well, it's not really late night, but it seems like it because the sun goes down so early these days.  Here's the quad at 5 PM.  Sparsely populated, but only for a couple hours more.

Beloved Green Street.  Where I eat lunch almost every day.

And Arirang, that oasis of delicious Korean cafeteria food, twice as expensive as in the real Korea, but still deeply satisfying.  Many Honda and Hyundai vehicles out front.

On the way back to lab, paying homage to Alma Mater.

Somehow these leaves decided to stay on their tree despite the weather.

Back where I started, circa 6:30 PM.

Typical Weekend

Today was pretty exciting for me.  Since it's a national holiday, all the parking meter guys get the day off, meaning that all of us graduate students can indulge in free parking campus-wide, except in handicap spaces and lots that are rented out 24/7.  All those Mon-Fri, 9-5 lots?  OURS.  University meters?  OURS.  I didn't get to work today until around 11 AM, but it still didn't matter.  There was so much parking I almost cried.

In stark contrast to this incredibly atypical Monday, my weekend was about as typical as they come, which doesn't mean that it wasn't awesome.  One of the great things about the weekend is having a better chance of eating with the guys.  Although most of us are (relatively) decent chefs, the best is when we all feel like getting something incredibly unhealthy all at the same time.  Since there was some pretty important football happening, we all opted for Hooters wings.  Six of us guys went through 70 of those no problem.

We actually did do a lot of cooking for ourselves, though.  Soup one meal and pasta another.  BD had the most popular concoction, however, with his first attempted multilayer dessert: lemon bars.  This is what the contemporary bachelor's kitchen looks like.  No recipe book, just the internet.  Our mixing bowl is tupperware.

I meant to ask BD whether the recipe actually called for the flour to be shaped like a volcano or not.

Here is the man at work.

Incredible crust pressing technique.

And finally, several hours later, the finished product.

BD trying to be emo.  (Didn't have to try too hard...)

Me, with the opposite reaction.

While not watching TV, eating, or sleeping, I spent the rest of my weekend reading on the lazy boy, the throne of the grad student suite.

It's perfect, because I can only read about 20 pages before I get exhausted and need a nap.  I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say with that face, but probably something like, "Man, don't you wish you had a chair like this?"

Just pull that little lever and you're good to go.

It was a great break.  Alas, all the students are back tomorrow.  Back to crowded mayhem.  

Christmas gift

It appears that Santa ran out of coal by the time he visited my laboratory in Champaign, IL, this Christmas season.  I knew that my prospects of being on the "Nice" list were pretty low, but I wasn't expecting this.

Since there's a slight chance that Santa was not the culprit, I immediately launched into a forensic examination of the evidence to perhaps reveal who the perpetrator was.  Initial analysis revealed the hand-writing to be extremely poor, of the 3rd grade variety.

However, after the administrative coordinator's son was ruled out, it appeared that there were no other options besides grown-ups.  I immediately thought of my undergrad assistant, since he has a fairly substantial criminal background in this sort of thing, but again, the trail went cold.  There were absolutely no misspellings, ruling him out.  The only other option I could think of was a fellow grad student who had written the note with his/her non-writing hand.  But that hardly narrows it down at all.  

Matt had no idea who it could be either...

Seems that there's some subtlety I'm overlooking.  

So anyways, left in this unfortunate situation, there was only one option I had left: re-gifting.  

Problem solved.  On to other news, we finally received our trophies (T-shirts) for winning the spring season city soccer league.

Not too bad.  And they definitely don't leave out any information:

Not redundant in the least.  Only had to wait several months to get them.  So now I have a championship t-shirt from the fall intramurals and the adult city league.  Only missing the men's intramural indoor.  Let's see if we can get up to a three-peat by the time I get out of here (Plenty of time).

DRIC

While waiting for an experiment to finish up in lab, I came across this old image that I made several years ago for a student group, Deeper Roots in Christ.  To me, it kind of seems like a mash up of Halo, Casting Crowns, and Guns 'n Roses.

Not really part of the group anymore, but really enjoyed playing with the DRIC guys this past fall in intramural soccer, even though we didn't advance.  Thanks guys.

More random pictures from Korea

Many things I do start off with a bang but die out quickly.  I have a feeling that blogs are particularly susceptible to this kind of death.  So, in the spirit of New Years resolutions, if I fail to make a post once every week this year, the first 3 people to catch my slip will receive a free lunch at my expense. 

I mainly watched TV this weekend (what's up with the Big10?, ouch), so I'll have to post a couple pics that got overlooked previously.

Rusted thing on a pier.  Jeju Island.

Top of a sleeping volcano.

 Being tired on the top of the volcano.

Bridge between islands.

Traditional Korean village.

Wood shavings from traditional lathe.

Yellow parallelogram.

Shingles.

 A tiger...

...having one drink too many.

Radar (maybe).

Spooky mist.

Back to Champaign

Happy New Year everyone!  As I reflect on how all good things must come to an end in order to make way for better things in the future, I also reflect on how our awesome time in Florida came to an end.  On Christmas Day, we had a lovely time doing absolutely nothing, finally.  No road trips or long lines, just food, the Hallmark channel, and a stroll out to the park.  Couldn't believe that the rangers were working Christmas Day, but I thank them because it definitely took an edge off that TV lethargy.

I don't believe fishing was legal, so the fish were especially friendly.

Or maybe it's just the fact that Minho is a real friendly guy.

I thought it was kinda cool how still and clear the water was.  It caught the blue sky pretty decent.

And then the next day, we headed back.  Almost forgot my winter jacket in Grandma's closet, which could have been disastrous.  You could tell which people at the airport were seasoned winter warriors.  The guy behind me had probably 7 layers behind me capped off with a bears jacket.

I always think it's cool when you take off and are just about to break through the cloud cover.  I guess it never occurred to me why you don't see a lot of airplane-window pictures at that stage though, because you're still in take off mode and can't turn on personal electronics.  I was about to whip out my camera and take one without thinking, but then my brain turned on and decided not to send us to prison.  It was still a great day to have the window seat.

Ugh, these clouds look like snow.

SO FLUFFY!

Minho is a Sudoku master.

This one must still be in Florida, cause there's no snow on the ground.

This one you can see we're back in Indianapolis.

Many thanks to Grandma and Aunt Jackie for showing us such a great time with such little notice.  I'll miss you, but don't worry, I'll be back.  Probably when it's a tad warmer though.

Hello 2011.  Nice to have ya.