Gatomonchy Blog

Hi blog, it's been a while.

2023-10-10T11:13:00.001-04:00

Ahoy! And I'm back.

Looking at my last post, it's been about 10 years since I write in here again.

I've had a desire to casually blog again. It's funny to look back on my old posts, and I hope my feature self will look at this and laugh at them too. I hope my writing have gotten better in the last 10 years.

This morning, I listened to the podcast, "Life Kit" episode titled, "How to actively heal from an injury or illness". There was a part where the guest talked about how being healthy is a balance. Something that is healthy for one may not be so healthy for another. So, I hope to pay more attention to being healthy in this part of life, as I sense that it's needed in my aging self. I hear that major health scares happen in people in their 30s.

It's also important for me to have a place for somewhere to casually leave some thoughts around. Unlike 10 years ago, it's quite common now to see content online that are strategically planned, money generating, and it's like, 'who know what's real or not'.

So, here we go again. Let's have fun, be real, be weird, because who cares? It's just a blog.

Photography from the 80's

2013-11-08T21:16:00.000-05:00

I just find this really amazing to see:

Mall Photography from the 80s

Just wonder what it's like to live in a different time period. Hmm...

This Week

2013-11-08T20:49:00.000-05:00

I just finished my third week at my new job.

It's going pretty fast. I have nothing to complain about this job.

But moving and dealing with everything else has taken a toll on me.

The process has not been so great.

It's looking for a place after another and fearing for the move in day.

Long story short, I will stay in the old place until the end of the month.

I can't wait until I get to settle down.

It's just in many occasions recently, I am feeling the worst I ever felt in my life.

Lots of sadness and tiredness.

Today however, was an interesting day.

I talked to interesting people, and enjoyed a great company lunch.

It'a amazing how people connect to others, and that's eventually how you end up somewhere.

I think what we shouldn't forget is to take care of yourself and others. Perhaps equally.

Upcoming New Life Style ?

2013-10-17T15:38:00.002-04:00

My search for a job may just have just ended.

I just need to reorganize what is about to happen.

Actually it's going to be two new jobs.

I'm not sure how everything will go.

I shall see what happens next week when it all starts.

Late Night Post

2013-10-09T04:19:00.002-04:00

Instead of trying to find places to apply for jobs or look for a place to move (need to move out and move in to a different place in 20 days...)

I used my time watching videos on YouTube.

Including the music video to new Britney Spears song, "Work B**ch".

And the song keeps repeating in my head, round and round and it goes "You better work b**ch"

LOL

Interviews and Onions

2013-10-08T12:19:00.000-04:00

Interviews are like onions, there are so many layers.

I just got off of the phone with an interviewer. It was a phone interview.

I don't recall if I had any phone interviews before, so that would make it my first, I guess.

The interviewer said that they will be calling back for the second interview. It sounded more like it will be a gathering of applicants to see how they work together, and then there will be a third interview.

The applying and interviewing for jobs are stressful! It sure ain't easy.

So the interview process begins for me again after not getting an offer from a (disclosed!) place last week. For that one, it was such a long process, I think one month? Perhaps more. It included 3 interviews and freaking hard questions.

How do people go through this apply-interview process? Do most people get the jobs they want?

Hello Blogger!

2013-10-07T18:24:00.001-04:00

Hello Blogger!

I see that you have changed the format quite a bit.

I came to start blogging again after...33 months?

Yes its been quite a long time, but here's the story:

I'm needing to start a new journey.
I'm needing to learn little bit more about my self so I can know what to do from now on.
I've finished school, desperately looking for work, concerned about my status to stay in United States, and so many worries here and there.

So in hopes of getting inspirations and such, I've decided to start my new blog life.

I'm needing to write again.
:)

Happy New Year!!

2012-01-02T02:58:00.000-05:00

2012 is here!
I had been abandoning this blog for sometime now.
This year, there is so many things I want to to do.
I haven't had the urge to do this many things before.

Sorry but I will not write my new year resolution on here haha.

I think it's a good idea to write your resolution on a paper though.
I always remember what one of my professor said.
All of his wishes, about 100 of them, that he wrote on a paper all came true.

It's more like a life-resolution instead of new year resolution.

Anyways, I hope year 2012 will be full of awesomeness for everyone.
And I hope to upload more pictures and stuff on this blog :D

Chinese Bakery Near by Me

2011-11-05T00:38:00.000-04:00

I haven't written in my blog for nearly a month already!
This year has been pretty struggling for me. I need to distress a little bit.

Anyways, last month, I visited a Chinese bakery near where I live called Marry Anne Bakery House

I took pictures and ate them while in the car ><

When I went to the bakery, mostly there was cakes and other sweet baked goods in the display. It seemed that all the bread was in warmer (oven? ) behind the display. They had curry bun (the one I got), Pork bun, read bean bun, some others I forgot. The bun was warm when I got it, but I'm not sure if they always keep the bread in the warmer.

The Curry bun was, in my opinion, just okay. The bread was kind of dry for being in the warmer, and lacked some fluffiness. It was not very impressive. Curry filling was not bad though.

Egg tart was pretty good! I believe they were $1.50 each. The bun was around $1.25.

I also had a chiffon cake that was in a cone shaped. Those were less then $1.

The cakes looked pretty good, I would like to try their cake next time I go there.

I am missing the Sun Pearl Bakery in Orlando. I wish that there was one down here :(

Cookies at Night

2011-10-06T01:45:00.001-04:00

When I was chatting online with My dad tonight, he was telling me how he got free cookies at Starbucks because they are celebrating their 15 years in Japan.

After I heard that, I wanted to eat cookies so bad. Even though it was around 10:30 at night.

I started to look up recipes online and found one with just 4 ingredients. It was my first time making this type of cookies, but they turned out pretty good. It's very simple and fun to make.

I had some shaped cutters that I bought from Japan. The cutters are actually for vegetables so all the ones I have are really small. They do look and function like a cookie cutter so they worked. The biggest size cutters I had produced mini cute cookies. Plus a mini smily cookie.

September Cooking & Baking

2011-10-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

Here is September cooking & baking that I missed writing about:

Mabo Dofu with no chili paste or sauce !

I don't have any good spices/condiments stocked up yet, but wanted to eat mabo dofu.

What I used is what I had: Paprika powder, ketchup, soysauce, left over packet of chili powder from a instant noodle, tofu, meat, garlic, etc...

This was pretty awesome and fatening.

"Minchi Katsu" Ground meat katsu. Basically, fried ground meat!

It has some chopped cabbage in it, which makes it a little healthy.

The second picture of the inside have cheese in it. The inside picture doesn't look that great, but it tasted good.

It's good with just some Worcestershire sauce poured on, or with other sauce. One that I made is just ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, mayonnaise, and mustard.

Attempted to make some bagels.

Bagels are hard to make!

Especially the shaping part.

These didn't turn out so well.

Bread! Attempted to imitate the rolls you get at some steakhouse places.

This was pretty fluffy.

WT and I were talking about okonomiyaki and I decided to attempt it.

I needed to find "Nagaimo", a some type of yam.

I found "Malanga" which I thought was yam but I now think it's not.

I think this okonomiyaki turned out pretty well.

I still need to find where I can get Nagaimo.

I am trying to practice making melon pan for a bake sale this week.

I used a recipe from Cooking With Dog on youtube!

This one is just a roll. Used the same recipe form Cooking With Dog melon pan.

Still trying to practice.

For the past few days the weather is becoming really cool!

It just means that summer ended for sure.

But not too long ago, it was still pretty warm outside.

So sometimes I put the bread dough outside to rest.

Being in the warmer temperature, the dough rises faster.

I was thinking there was something positive living in the hot weather in September.

That is gone now, I have a feeling the weather is just going to get cooler from now on.

Hamburg!

2011-09-22T01:07:00.000-04:00

Inspired by runnyrunny999 on youtube, I made the hamburg last night!

It was really good, especially the sauce!
I didn't have panko here, so I used crumbled Ritz crackers instead.
I was very happy with how It turned out.

I almost thought it has too much fillers because the mixture was so soft, but it was just right because it poofs during cooking! Whenever I made hamburgs before, I didn't put enough fillers...now I know what I was doing wrong.

Well thank you runny for the Hamburg video haha.

Painting Nails at Night

2011-09-20T02:18:00.001-04:00

I don't usually paint my nails often, but when I do I often do it right before I go to sleep.
It's around 2 AM now and I decided to paint my nails. The reason why I do this is this because in my theory, I think it's time saving to let them dry while sleeping. Therefore, I end up painting my nails in the dark, maybe with one light stand on, and use my not-so-good-during-the-night eye sight to paint.

Anyways, I realized I should not get so much sparkly nail polish. I have 4 sparkly polish and 3 of them seem pretty similar.

I only have 2 polishes that are opaque color. I want to get some more opaque so I can use the sparkly ones on top. But When I do, I will probably end up not painting my nails that often. Should I have a goal of changing my nail color weekly? I don't know if I can follow that routine.

Last week, I cut my hair by my self!

It needed a hair cut very much, so even though I was kind of nervous cutting it, I'm glad I did.

I used to cut my hair by myself a lot, I think because I don't always trust the hair dresser.

It's fun to cut hair too, and even if I mess up, I can only blame myself.

I think this time I did a pretty good job :D

Only one person, one of my professors, noticed my hair change which was kind of funny!

First Post From iPhone!

2011-09-13T17:20:00.001-04:00

For the last post about the Bzzagent, I wrote it from my iPhone thinking since when was I able to publish blogs on blogger on my phone?

Before, blogger was not smartphone capable. Today, I am able to publish from accessing the blogger site on Safari on the iPhone.

Hmm theres gotta be an app for that.

And there is!!!!

I am using the blogger app right now! This was an awesome discovery. I wonder when did the app become available?

I was hoping someday I could write on blogger from my phone. I'm glad google was able to do so. Thank you!

Bzzagent campaign for Cuisinart Stick Hand Blender

2011-09-13T17:03:00.000-04:00

Bzzagent started this new thing where people can express themselves in why they are interested in joining a campaign. Today, there is a campaign for Cuisinart hand stick blender, and I want to join this and try it out!

So this post is dedicated to the Bzzagent campaign.

Why I want to try this Cuisinart Stick Hand blender is because I want to get back to cooking right now. I just moved to south FL, and during the move to here, I wasn't able to cook that much. Now that I am finally settled in a new apartment, I want to have fun cooking! I have some things in mind for what to male with a stick blender: creamy corn soup, fruit sauces, fruit smoothies (!!), salsa (!!!). I think salsa and tortia chips fit very well here in South FL.

What to come next

2011-09-12T20:52:00.000-04:00

Has it really been 3 months since my last post? :0

Well, new semester has started now at university, and I am taking 4 classes.
It has not been an easy breezy time lately.

Hopefully I will get back to baking soon.
Since I moved here to south Florida, there is much more bakeries around.
I can rely more on bakeries than before, which is good for now because I haven't got the urge to bake yet.
It will be fun to check out what some bakeries offer around here! And I will post review on here :D

Last few of May Baking

2011-06-04T00:48:00.002-04:00

Hello and Happy June :D

I have two baking episodes from May to update!

This is the corn-mayo bread that I made with WT. It turned out really nice! And you cannot tell from just looking that this took 24 hours to finish. Yes, 24 hours. The reason being, we started to make the dough late at night, and wanted to finish it the next day. So we put the dough in the refrigerator for us to finish the next day.

The type of recipe WT showed me to make this bread was very different from the other recipes that I have been using. It requires two type of dough, which means it requires the dough to proof 3 times, instead of the normal 2 times.

I'm not yet sure what this process of using two doughs does to the finished product, but the bread sure turned out very soft and yummy. It is worth the time and effort, and I can't wait to make a bread with this recipe again.

Well, I was hoping to make bread with the recipe used above, but I felt very lazy and decided to make bread with the usual one-dough two-proof recipe.

This is my first time making Naisu bread! Naisu is more common in Taiwan, and the only place I can get Naisu bread is from a Taiwanese bakery in Orlando. I originally thought it was cheese, but it turned out that it was made from egg, butter, sugar, and milk powder.

This texture of the bread was similar to a cinnamon bun. Maybe because I rolled the dough like the way cinnamon buns are made. The bread didn't have the texture like the bread from an Asian bakery. So in conclusion, the recipe that requires two types of dough like the one used in the corn-mayo bread creates more of an "asian bakery" texture.

There is more to learn about making bread...

As I am writing this blog, I am in the process of making french bread.
It's been years since I made french bread! I remember reading through the Fresh Loaf Website for tips and recipes.

From that site, I learned that pre-fermenting is good when making french bread. They call it "poolish", and it takes overnight to make it. I hope my french bread will turn out good. Thinking of french bread reminded me to get a really good knife to make the slits on the dough! I had trouble making the slits before, but I did have a good practice of making slits when we made the corn-mayo bread. The slits were perfect and the oven spring was awesome! Now I am more confidant in making slits on the dough.

Fun trip & My far away bread pan :(

2011-05-14T03:45:00.000-04:00

I completely missed out on writing and reading blogs for a little while now. I have been *busy* being a tourist for a week. Busy meaning going to places and playing around. I haven't had this kind of trips for a while so it was awesome.

Sorry for the sudden change of topic, but I've wanted to get a bread loaf pan from Japan. I've asked my dad to bring it when he came back from Japan last week, but he came back with no bread pan. However, he did bring back some Manneken waffles instead.

There was two kinds of waffles inside, the original and chocolate. The original waffles are definitely the best. I love Manneken waffles, I wish they sold them in U.S. :(

Forgot to add, they are the best when toasted in a toaster !

I had a second attempt of asking for a bread pan last month, when our family friend had come to visit. Their visit is the reason why I had been a tourist for few days. This attempt of getting the bread pan also failed, because of timing, location, and etc.

Instead, I got some nice souvenirs. One of it was some kasutera (カステラ). We got both original and strawberry one. It was my first time to try the strawberry kasutera.

I didn't really like the strawberry kasutera. I guess often times anything "original" turns out to be the best.

Ah I feel really hungry now from writing about food.

Bzzagent Covergirl Natureluxe Foundation & Gloss Balm

2011-04-20T00:48:00.000-04:00

Last week, I got my very first bzzkit from bzzagent!

I joined bzzagent recently, and was invited to the Covergirl Natureluxe campaign. :D
Bzzagent allows people to try out products for free, review on the product, and spread the word about the product. It's a pretty fun concept!

I had already tried the Covergirl Natureluxe foundation before joining bzzagent, so I knew a little about the product already. Natureluxe is a new line of products by Covergirl, and what attracted me to buy the foundation was that it has jojoba oil and cucumber water in it. The shade I bought was the lightest shade out of them all, which is the alabaster. Alabaster is a little bit too light on me now, so I was very delighted when I received a shade darker, flax, in my bzzkit.

The founation feels very silky when applied to face. It feels light, but stays on pretty well. I think Covergirl made an awsome new line of product. Natureluxe, with it's "natural" concept, made me want to try a Covergirl product which I had not used for years. I really like the Natureluxe foundation. :D

The bzzkit also came with the Natureluxe gloss balm in clay argile. I really like the feel of the gloss balm when applied to the lips, but I am not too found of the color. Clay argile is kind of like red/pink bronze color. It's fairly dark, and I think dark lip color don't suit me very well. I'm not too found of the smell of it also. The smell reminds me of some lip balm I used when I was in Elementary school. The gloss balm gives a glossy look but not the glossy feel, which is pretty cool.

This was a very good and happy first bzzagent campaign experience!

Bling out the phone!

2011-04-14T22:10:00.000-04:00

This was my project for the last 2 days. It took a total of.........................

.......................................

...............drumroll....................

...............................................

5 hours!

This is my old phone that I took out to be temporarily used until my iPhone is ready to be used. This Samsung t339 had scratches, color fade, and just looked old school. I should have taken a "before" picture, oops.

I think it's more common to bling or decorate phones in Japan, and after seeing some "デコ電"(deko den) or decorated phone, I wanted to bling out my phone also. I googled for some ideas, and went out to get some supplies. I didn't find any cute charms at the stores, but I did find some unused hair accessories and necklace charms in my room.

The flower almost doesn't match the rhinestones, perhaps it's too bling? It was my first time decorating so I can't expect too much from myself. I had fun decorating it, and basically you can add anything. I should have been more careful when using the glue though. Some of the rhinestones are covered in glue, and doesn't look good. The glue I used was "Elmer's craft bond ultra stick all". I wasn't sure which glue was the best for decorating phones. I might look for a different bond next time. My next planned project is to decorate the iPhone case! Hope it will turn out better than this one.

Baking galore!

2011-04-13T00:12:00.001-04:00

I am uploading pictures from my phone now and update my blog on the computer. Why didn't I think of this before? This way is much easier!!

Anyways, I have been going back to baking lately. Here is some stuff that I made recently. Okay it's only 2 things, but what the heck. : D

Rising of bread, poof!

Shaped and ready for poofing.

I actually forgot about these poofing in my kitchen when I was busy with something. I remembered about them, and went back to the kitchen to see them already poofed up!
I made slits on them, put mayo & ketchup on and into the oven they went.

Forgot to put egg wash before putting these into the oven. They were not shiny but still soft and alright. : )

A cake masterpiece! Smoothing the whipped cream is definitely a difficult task. Made this cake with L, and used a different recipe then what I usually use. I got to use her turn table which is very useful when putting whipped cream. I am thinking of buying one my self! This is made from a chiffon cake recipe.

Cute! The design is stolen from another baker online. Sorry, but it is too cute to not copy!

The cake is put into a box that I had saved from a croissant box from BJ's. I will save a box again whenever I buy those croissants. Two uses in one! So economical : )

Baking

2011-04-06T03:17:00.000-04:00

The baking season is here!!! (on which calender..? I don't know)

It's just me baking some stuff again.

Sometimes in life, there is old mushy bananas laying on the counter.

When there's old mushy bananas laying on the counter, they usually go into muffins or smoothies.

So, today I decided to make some muffins!

Mmm the smell from the oven was so yummy.

I googled for a recipe and came to this: Banana Crumb Muffins .

I tweaked it a little bit because I knew my old baking powder won't have any power.

Instead I changed the following:

Baking soda to: 1/4tsp baking soda + 1/2 c sour cream (got the conversion from another site)

Bananas to: 2 bananas

Butter to: 4 tbsp butter

Worked pretty well. But somehow I screwed the crumb topping. You can see the blots of butter on there, and the crumb was so crumbly, perhaps there is too much flour.

It was fun baking, looks like I will be going back to baking.

Late night days

2011-04-02T05:58:00.000-04:00

My sleeping pattern has been screwed to the point I don't know how I can sleep and wake up at normal hours anymore.

So what is normal sleeping hours? My ideal would be waking up between 7-9 AM, then going to sleep around 12AM.

For the past week I have been up until morning (around 5 or 6 AM) and then waking up around 3PM. Seriously, not good.

So today, I decided to not sleep for over 24 hours so I can fall asleep at night and not morning.

It's almost 6AM here now.

I will give my self 1hr at most for nap during the day. I hope this will work.

Anyways, I tried to eat healthy for one day and then I went back to eating bad again.

I've cooked something with vegetable in it the other day.

Yesterday, I didn't eat any vegetables at all. I don't even remember what I ate.

Ah, maybe I should sleep.

My brain probably needs some sleep because it can't remember things.

No, I can't sleep.

I must get back my normal sleeping pattern.

Crunch 'n Munch

2011-03-30T03:17:00.001-04:00

I often struggle to find late night snacks.

And I happen to have difficulty falling asleep when I'm feeling hungry.

I grabbed this "Crunch 'n Munch" from the store the other day thinking I will eat this when I have a snack attack.

The name isn't so appetizing to me. But I like the idea of caramel and popcorn.

So it's around 3AM now, and I decided to eat this.

It's pretty good, but I'm not sure if it's good as a late night snack. It's a little too sweet. But it will do for now...

By the way, I didn't eat that great lately. Today wasn't the most nutritious day.

For breakfast, I ate a croissant & coffee, egg fried rice with Indian spices, Whopper Jr., and then the Crunch 'n Munch.

I think I should start cooking more...

Home made naan and Indian curry from paste!

2011-03-29T04:23:00.001-04:00

I went to the world market the other day to buy some nice coffee beans, and while I was there, I also picked up a packet of Indian curry paste.

Along with the curry, I decided to make naan... from scratch!!

I saw couple of youtube videos about making home made naan, and made a little twist on the recipe from one of the videos.

I even used my brand new rolling pin (yeeeeea!).

Originally, I was planning to use the oven to bake these, but at the end decided to use the grill instead.

There's grill marks on them, and they also had some grill flavor.

Turned out not bad, but next time I would keep in mind to not make it too thin. Fluffy naan tastes much better then crispy naan.

So the tip I got from youtube videos is to have soft dough, bake at high temperature, and butter it at the end.

I love naan, and I want to make these again whenever we have Indian curry for dinner!