Big update on my life aka Making decisions about the Future:

A couple weeks ago, I decided that I would apply for graduate school this fall. Maybe for some it seems like an obvious decision, but I’ve always had problems deciding what I really want to do, and whether or not it’ll really make me happy. It’s important that I do something I enjoy, you see, because I don’t want to end up wasting years of my life on something that doesn’t satisfy me.

Okay well it’s not that big of a decision to apply, but the big deal is that I’m going to apply to primarily Industrial/Product design programs. I’m not leaving out engineering just yet, as I’ve looked into a couple of fun-sounding Masters programs (Sustainable Energy Technology @ Delft U, the Netherlands) and still want to give it a chance. I’m not considering any PhD programs, because I don’t think I can handle more than three more years of school. But I am definitely considering out-of-country schools (I’ve been wanting to study abroad since forever).

I started with this list of top design and business schools. I cut out the business schools (because my plan is to become a starving successful artist) and have been doing research on the rest of the schools. Things like, when applications are due, what kind of portfolio is required, how many recs are needed, if I need to be fluent in Portuguese… Right now, my list is 22 universities long. After combing through it one more time, I’ll post the considerations and keep thinking.

I think I’ll be riding on the excitement of actually doing what I want to do for the next couple months. It feels great, and I love it.

So for the last two months, the fridge in our apartment has been broken. Sick. Dying. Symptoms were as follows:
- icicles in the refrigerator
- melting ice in the refrigerator (What??)
- half frozen ice cream (gelato consistency)
- smelled like shit and febreeze (the latter was my own faulty solution)
- bad vegetables in three days
- dried out everything
- it was a POS

At least the freezer froze meat. But for the most part, we used the freezer as a fridge and the fridge as a compost.

It got to the point where the refrigerator wasn’t even cold when we opened the door. I borrowed ice packs from Stanley and put them in my fridge, ice box style. They melted in half a day, so I put them back in the freezer to re-freeze. They took four days to freeze. What the crap.

It was ruining our lives. So we decided to do something about it. Here is where things get exciting! After surfing/responding to ads on Craigslist, we decided it’d be too difficult and inconvenient to buy one off someone and have to take care of transportation. So we went to Home Depot and found the cheapest one, $399. But it was out of stock, so the guy told us to get this other Energy Star one, that was $449 with 10% off (for being Energy Star), so we were like, sure. And so we were following through with payment, and accepting Home Depot’s free delivery…the guy mentions that California is doing this cool Cash for Appliances thing, where anybody who buys a new Energy Star fridge and recycles their old one gets $200! So we’re like, WOW AWESOME. That’s like buying a new fridge for $200, which was the average price for used ones on Craigslist! So then we say HELL YES and continue on with our transaction. And the guy who’s ringing us up says, “Hey, btw, if you’re with LADWP, they’re also doing a rebate right now for customers who buy new energy saving refrigerators and recycle their old ones. Not sure how much you get, though, so look it up online.” So we look it up online and it’s a $100 rebate! Which means our fridge will only cost us $100! And w’re like, sweeeet. And then we check our receipt and the fridge we thought was $449 was actually $399! So assuming all our rebates go through…

$399 - 10% + tax - $200 - $100 = $95!

If we sell our fridge after a year for anything more than $100, it’s like WE’RE getting PAID to use the refrigerator! Which is fantastic. Which I love. It’s amazing. I’m really excited to eat ice cream and vegetables again. It’s been way too long.

Also, I got a tumblr, which I’m still trying to figure out (like, do I want to update both twitter and tumblr? Or just one?) but for the most part, I’m using it as a phone blog. Miniature snapshots of my really interesting life. Yeah. Okay. NEW REFRIGERATOR MAKES ME SO HAPPY

Let’s start with some history: Last July, I decided I would learn how to type in Dvorak. I knew it would be hard, because of my being forced to type in QWERTY on school computers, etc., but I persevered, and a year later (which is now), I type at a consistent 95 WPM. My speed with QWERTY previously had been about 105 WPM for a long, long time. So 95 is really not too shabby for just one year of practice.

If I had read the full wiki page on Dvorak last year, I may have reconsidered my attempt to be nerdy/unique. You see, I registered for the GRE last week. The GRE is a computer-based test. There are two essay questions on the GRE. The GRE does not allow test takers to type in Dvorak.

Unfortunately, it was too difficult for me to keep up my QWERTY while learning Dvorak. This morning, I attempted a typing test with QWERTY, and averaged 25 WPM with 85% accuracy. Immediately afterwards, I performed the same test in Dvorak, with a result of 95 WPM and 95% accuracy. Now, it’s time to somehow eliminate my muscle memory, at least temporarily, until I take the GRE in mid-September. I’ll only be typing in QWERTY from now until then.

I hope my Dvorak speed/skill doesn’t just disappear after a month. Because that would totally suck.

(Good-ish news: I’ve been in QWERTY all day, and just took the test again and got 50 WPM with 90% accuracy. This blog was also typed in QWERTY, and I only blanked out on words/letters a few times.)

I wasn’t going to blog so soon after that last one, but today was an awesome lecture day, despite my first prof being annoyed that none of us were participating and my second prof being flustered about having her notes mixed up. It was awesome because the material that I’m learning in the two classes I had today (150A - Intermediate Fluid Dynamics and 105D - Transport Phenomena) matched up almost perfectly. In fact, I really turned to Yuko during 105D and said, “Mechanical engineering is awesome!” during class. So just to share my (almost sudden) amazing appreciation for the concentration, here are pages from my notes from today!

This is from 105D! We just started a new topic today, convection, and it’s really crazily similar to fluid dynamics. Because the way that convection (conduction + advection) works is through bulk motion, which is generally caused by the flow of some fluid or other mass.

This is from 150A! Actually these are my notes from last week, but today we just went into deriving formulas so there weren’t any cool diagrams. Look at the velocity profile in the middle! It’s exactly (almost) the same as the one from 105D! Also, check out that airfoil. It’s SO REAL.

In 150A today we basically derived the definition of viscosity (via the viscous stress tensor) and in 105D we’re doing other things like temperature/concentration gradients and stuff, but they’re both talking about the same thing. They’re both just solving the boundary layer conditions between the surface of an object and a free stream. I love how applicable these things are. It’s fantastic.

Okay, that’s all. I’m done nerding it up, now it’s time for my third nap of the day. (I am sick and I have a midterm on Wednesday. I’m cutting three classes tomorrow to sleep and study, woot.) Oh yeah and sorry that the photo quality sucks, but I was really excited to blog today, haha.

My mom bought of of those six-pack things of chicken thighs from Costco. But don’t be decieved - each pack had 4 thighs in it. Intense, right? As a result, I got a few quick tips on cooking chicken. I love this fast-paced photographed spur of cooking lessons from my mom, they’re really funny. But I digress!

When you wash it, be sure to get rid of the yellow junk stuck on the skin and (if you want) the big chunks of fat. Cutting them off with a pair of meat-designated scissors works best. Sometimes there are bits of the feather stems stuck on the skin as well, they come off easily. Pat dry before doing anything to it.

That day, we were preparing the chicken for a BBQ, so we marinated it in a mixture of pepper, garlic powder, and soy sauce for as long as you want. (The stronger/longer you marinate it for, the more flavorful it’ll be, duh.) Those are the three easiest ingredients to marinate with (for Asian-style foods). For cooking chicken atop a stove, they can also be cooked plain, relying on the natural taste/flavor of the chicken. In a pan, put them skin-side-down to use the chicken meat’s natural oil instead of using “EVOO” (haha). In an oven, place the chicken skin-side-up, so that the heat from the top of the oven doesn’t dry out the chicken as much. In an oven, cook time is about 30-45 minutes, while stovetop deliciousness can be ready in 20-30 minutes (chicken cooks relatively quickly).

I also got directions from my mom on how to cook hong shao ji (紅燒雞), which is definitely one of my favorite things to eat at home. First, just put the (clean) raw chicken skin side down in a pan/pot. Wait for it to brown slightly, then flip. (Leave it not completely cooked so that it doesn’t get overcooked during part two.) Add soy sauce and water (to looks) to cover the chicken half way in the pan/pot. Keep it at medium heat for at least 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened to what looks normal. (Haha, normal to me, at least.) Serve, and save the sauce because it is super delicious mixed with rice

For chicken soup, the Chinese way… first let a pot of water come to a boil, then add the chicken. Put a slice of (skinless) ginger. Make sure there’s enough water to cover the chicken (so flipping is unneeded). Optionally, add (rinsed dried) shiitake mushrooms and a bit of rice wine. Keep it at medium-low heat, and let it simmer for about 45 minutes. Nomnomnom! For noodles, use super thin Asian noodles and cook them separately, before mixing with the chicken soup individually.

Here’s my barbeque-ing skills at their best! Haha, I’m using a shovel to add/mix more coals to the BBQ, and a pair of tongs to guard the chicken. They were sooo tasty. (I forgot to mention the sauce I always make for when my dad and I BBQ things. It’s gotta be applied every ten minutes after flipping until finished, which is usually about three or four times. I use an ad-lib mixture of honey, lemon juice, soy sauce, and whatever else I feel like at the moment.)

Now that summer has started, I’ve been checking my Google Reader much more often and compulsively. I’ve been surfing design blogs and came across Public School, a group based in Austin, Texas. From what I gather, they’re really into print-based media (posters!) and have a really cute logo that I was tempted to buy, just because I have public school pride. (Yeah, so what if I went to a private high school for two years?) I added them to my RSS feed a few days ago, via which I chanced upon this really beautiful illustration by Álvaro Domínguez Gámez. Unfortunately, I can’t read his blog (it’s in Spanish), so I can’t tell you more. Just that his style is full of puns and simplicity - I especially love the facial profiles and universal imagery :]

From what I can gather (read: my very limited vocabulary skillset), it’s called Flood (Inundacion). The spot coloring and textures make me want to frame it and put it somewhere where I can look at it all the time. Alas, the best I can do is make it my desktop background…

This morning I went to “hang out” with my mom at the local farmer’s market. On the way over there, I got the genius idea to take notes on how to pick and choose the BEST fruit. My mom is a super foodie, so I always ask her if a fruit is okay to buy or whatever. But it’s a bit inconvenient to bust out my phone and describe different fruit to her while I’m at Ralph’s, so I’m getting special advice and archiving it here so I can be awesome at picking the sweetest fruit like her, too

Plums! Notice the ripeness at the stem end, if it’s too light, then it won’t be sweet enough. The natural white powdery stuff on the fruit means that not a lot of people have been touching them Slightly less ripe plums can sit at home for 2-3 days and ripen themselves.

Cauliflower! Less smudgy brown spots is better. Like broccoli, it’ll be less bitter if the buds are tighter and not yet bloomed.

Peaches & Nectarines! White peaches/nectarines tend to be sweeter than yellow ones. The all-around redder color tends to be better. It should be less green by the stem, maybe white/pinkish.

Mushrooms! These are button mushrooms. They should be firm, and not opened at all. You shouldn’t see any black from the inside of the mushroom. If they’re fresh, just cut off a bit of the stem (the brown part) before cooking.

Zucchini & Squash! Soft and squishy is bad. Too white is bad, because it means it’s overgrown and old. They’re a bit naturally shiny.

We also bought strawberries (Fresher, green leaves/stems, smell) and mangoes (kidney shaped ones, wrinkly means they’re ready to eat/ripe, sometimes sugar comes out at the stem). I wonder if I should find a Chinese supermarket for Asian vegetables, or if I’ll just rely on salads for my greens…

I’ve been taking a million pictures a day of the stuff in my room while I’ve been unpacking and packing. I’m cleaning up my room so I can take (almost) all my furniture down to Los Angeles. I’m really excited to be moving into my own place!

PS. I decided that taking pictures of stuff against a granite countertop is NOT aesthetically pleasing.

Last weekend, I headed down to San Diego with my family to attend my cousin Gina’s (very) small wedding ceremony/reception. There were only 24 attendees, the majority of whom were my own family members. As the youngest in my generation on my mom’s side of the family, I’m used to being babied, but this time might have been the first time I really felt as if I was taken seriously by my aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was good seeing everyone together again, as the last time we were all in the same place was probably the summer before I started college (almost two years ago), when my other cousin Sara got married.

Even though I don’t have any experience with event photography, I was enlisted (rather than hired, haha) as a photographer for my cousin’s wedding. It was good practice, and a good excuse to bust out the ol’ D40, but seeing how the majority of my photos turned out was a bit disappointing. I’m proud of only a few of them, so I figured I might as well share. The wedding took place at Trattoria Acqua in San Diego. It was set to begin at 5 o’clock, but was delayed due to a few important family members being stuck in traffic. While we waited for them to arrive, my dad (as wine connoisseur) perused the restaurant’s wine collection to choose which white and red wines would be served during the reception.

I wandered around shooting portraits and candids. Here’s my uncle (the father-in-law) and my dad. Both of them legitimately tied their own bowties. Note: I hate the internet for tinting my photos cold.

Of glass-clinking there was a-plenty, and hence so too were photo opportunities. This was my favorite shot of the many. Congratulations, G&G!

And onto other things in my life… I was looking at my Wordpress dashboard today, and realized that a third of the blogs that I post on Thyme are private. I blog much more rarely now than I used to, but whether that’s because of how busy I am or lack of things to say, I’m not sure. I guess things have fallen to such a pattern that don’t feel the dire need to share my experiences, or maybe, I just don’t deem them important enough to be archived. But there are a few thoughts I’d like to write down and save for a less rainy day.

I’m not one to really think about my future, when it comes to career, education, or family. The only permanent goal that has stuck with me throughout the years has been to find happiness, and of course, I’m constantly taking steps towards it, or towards finding out how to reach such a dreamy goal. At each moment in my life, what I’m doing is who I am, and the future? Well, it’ll get here inevitably and eventually, so I don’t trip.

School and academics are, of course, at the front of my mind day-in and day-out. Classes at UCLA have consistently kicked my butt, and I often end up questioning my major. Today, I talked to my friend Anna, a third year Electrical Engineer major. Curious, I asked her why she chose to study EE. She answered exactly how I’ve heard myself respond to others, with a “Why not?” We talked about it for a few minutes, and well, I realized that even if it’s difficult, and even if the best I can do is a C in each of my classes, it’s worth it because I’m doing it. Anticlimactic reason, maybe, but well, it’s true. I’m getting through it, barely, but I am. The Mechanical Engineering department hasn’t scared me off yet with failure, just a handful of “average” grades. And in all honesty, I should try to do better to keep in mind how well “average” is, when one is studying a really, really difficult subject at a really, really good university.

The second major thing that comes to mind when I look at my life right now is what I do for BruinLife yearbook. Because of the Pledge Referendum that recently passed, a helpful sum of money is going to be added to our (ASUCLA Student Media’s) monies. I’ve been meeting with the Communications Board alongside the Editor-in-Chiefs of the Daily Bruin, other newsmags and General Manager of UCLA Radio to discuss our strategies to most effectively utilize this new income, and well, I’m surprised to learn about how the other publications run. The few meetings we’ve had so far have taught me to really appreciate the organization and structure that BruinLife retains as a serious publication of UCLA. I’m proud to be the head honcho of BruinLife again for next year, and I’m excited for the challenges I know I’ll get through. No doubt I’m afraid of how much it’ll hurt me, but by now, it’s become so big a part of me that my responsibility to see things through is nothing short of the moral thing to do. But I think this is a topic for another blog, for some other time.

For now, it’s time for a nap. After that, EE100 homework and my last Physics4AL lab. Rejuvenation, here I come!

I meant to blog about this ages ago, but by the time I remembered the half-finished post in my blog drafts, the exhibition was already over. Even so, I guess I’ll finish it up, because this is a pretty cool concept.

From February 12-24 this year, there was an exhibition of four BMW Art Cars at the LACMA. My boyfriend Stanley likes cars (that’s an understatement) so he sent me a few pictures from the exhibit he found on the Internet to test my contemporary art recognition, haha. I researched a bit more online and discovered that there’s a reputable collective of BMW Art Cars; a panel of judges chooses an artist to whom they bestow the honor of designing/creating one of the BMWs. Since 1975, 16 BMWs have been utilized as canvases for various famous artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. I looked up the most recent one, and it’s so intense. Olafur Eliasson created his car by creating a metal frame and slowly layering water to freeze over it. It’s exhibited in a giant freezer.

His concept embodies a pro-alternative energy type of mobility, as the BMW he chose for his piece was the BMW H2R oxygen-powered prototype race car. He decorated it with an ice and metal chassis, representing the relationship between the production of automobiles and their effect on the environment. It’s a really specific concept, totally extreme and different than most approaches. Which makes me really like this BMW art car collection - such a broad field with specific approaches.

When I was at RISD this summer for my industrial design classes, I came across Shepard Fairey’s OBEY campaign a few times both in the dining commons and at the RISD:works store (where they sell things created/designed by RISD students/alumni). I remember the OBEY poster being popular when I was in school in Beijing, but didn’t really know what it was about until more recently, when I saw it displayed/advertised at a few skate stores.

Shepard Fairey was born in 1970, which makes him nearly 40 now. I don’t know when he started his Andre-the-Giant-has-a-Posse thing, which led to the OBEY stuff, but seeing how universally renowned it is now, I can’t help but be amazed. Its a simple enough concept, yeah, which caught fire to the masses quickly and easily. Social strata (I’m using the word stratum way wrong but I can’t think of the word I’m looking for) is complex enough that most artists can’t avoid it. It’s the way we think and feel that affects, well, everything in life, which in turn leads to the creation of artwork.

But I’m getting off topic. I was surfing NOTCOT archives and came across Colbert’s interview with Fairey. (Source.) I had no idea that the guy behind the OBEY campaign also designed President Obama’s HOPE poster! I wish Colbert asked him more about the HOPE campaign, and how he did it, where the idea developed from, but I guess Colbert’s interviews are always just specks of hilarity and bits of information. I like they way Fairey described OBEY in a few sentences though, I wish I could boil my concepts down like that. Here’s the interview:

Welcome, President Barack Obama.

I haven’t watched the inauguration yet, but I did read the text of Obama’s speech. I never put in effort to foster any particular interest in American politics, but now that we have an amazing speaker as President, I’m sure I’ll be following the US government’s actions more closely. Plus, this is our generation. I’m ready for it, and so excited, too.