Life after Graduation

Living la Vida Isla Vista

2011-07-30T15:54:00.000-07:00

Sup. I'm Ann and I live five minutes away from the beach. No biggie. So close that I, who can barely run a lap at the ARC, can run there. Glorious.

This can be my view every morning, if I had the ability to wake up a bit earlier than I need to go to work, and run for 2 minutes. Ridiculous.

In all honesty, Santa Barbara is absolutely gorgeous. Cold, but when the sun comes out, it is absolutely breathtaking. I love Isla Vista. Maybe not so much when I was trying to finish up my two soil science papers and neighbors blasted music from 8-5...ish. (YEA. Who gets up at 8 to blast Party Rock Anthem?? Oh wait, I do! I belong here.)

Today I went for a nice Saturday morning run, and just seeing everyone walking around IV to get to their favorite breakfast place/ doing the walk of shame/ hungover was just so...peaceful! There's something really special about this place, and I'm excited to explore more of it.

IV is how I imaging Berkeley if it was near the shore...and slightly more relaxed...with a tad less crime...and less homeless people. OK. Let's just say it's like, downtown Davis near a beach, but way more ghetto. And apartments everywhere. And it's not 100 degrees in the summer. :( Boo. There's a chance for thunderstorms today!! CRAZY. As I type, I'm hiding underneath the covers...in a sundress. I dressed very optimistically today. And also, since I don't have to work today -- no lab wear! Yayy.

Anyways, I tried taking some pictures of Isla Vista that would really capture the atmosphere. I decided that riding my bike + taking pics at the same time was an excellent idea, and this poor skateboarder in the picture fell (literally, seconds after I took this picture), and I totally ran over her. Ahahahaa....

She's ok. These Isla Vista folks are resilient. Probably should work on their skateboarding skills but whatev.

IV. Palm trees everywhere!

I was extremely lucky in getting a bike so quickly. After the uh, unfortunate incident with my mini van and a parking lot pole, I immediately headed straight for craigslist to find a bike that won't fall apart. I managed to get this black, super ghetto looking, cruiser from a guy who just got his PhD in History! And he's from San Jose! MY PEOPLE. It's a tad too tall for me; I'm going to have to figure out how to adjust the bike seat. But it gets the job done. :)

That's it for now! Here's some pictures of my favorite ocean.

Food time.

2011-06-02T02:18:00.000-07:00

A combination of eccentric taste buds and never eating out as a kid made me incompetent in recommending food eating places. Luckily, my first cousin, once removed, AKA UNCLE GARY (yesss even though he's only 4 years older than me, I will reserve the right to make him feel old. Right back at ya, patriarchy.) is out to remedy that.

First off, investigative journalism at its best. We went to some tasty smoothie place, but they wouldn't let me take pictures, so all I got is the menu before they started yelling at me.

I got the coconut and grass jelly drink to the right (SUPER TASTY.) and Uncle Gary got the watermelon coconut grass jelly. I think mine tasted better. I didn't get a chance to remember the name of the place though, but I know its somewhere in Chinatown, haha. Just know that it existed in May 2011. :D

Another tasty place is this:

Hehe, I feel like Stefon from SNL. Except less creepy and enthusiastic. Feel free to read the rest of the post in his voice though - that's exactly what I'm doing.

The restaurant, according to Uncle Gary, is owned by Koreans, but they make Northern Chinese food! Not that I know anything about what those northerners eat, except that they don't eat copious amounts of rice like we do.

I ordered the house special, which was noodle fried in sauce, I think. Again, can't read Chinese. I am useless. D:

But I can tell you it was delicious. There's sauce you add to it (obviously, from the picture) and it is amazing. MMM. The noodles are all soft and chewy, and ahhh now I'm getting hungry. I think it's a midnight snack time. Plus there's tons of side dishes that came with the noodles. Kim chi, some onion thing, mmm.

Wiliwilinui Ridge Trail

2011-05-22T23:58:00.000-07:00

[disclaimer. I started writing this...before Saturday. What a procrastinator....]

Oh my goodness. If the world ends Saturday, I am SO HAPPY I got to see today's Giants game.

Speaking of which, look what I saw on the bus today:

Awesome. It got to Hawaii too. Good thing I practiced for this by doing a zombie apocalypse Choose Your Own Adventure Book. (Although I managed to survive by being a wimp...and ending up as part of a military experiment.)

Anyways. Last Saturday we (me, my cousin, my aunt, my aunt's cousin, my great aunt. 3 generations of badass-ness) decided hike the Wiliwilinui Ridge Trail. I had told them I really wanted to try a hike that uses ropes, and apparently this is the easiest one.

The trail starts at the top of this super fancy gated community. I wish I wasn't so sleepy (we had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 7 AM. Yup, I'm going to be screwed once I start school again), otherwise I should have taken pictures of the houses. I think it's one of the most expensive places to live in Hawaii.

This sign makes me happy. There's a cute little scrubby thing for your feet. It reminds me of Matt H's fancy nanotech lab where there's this sterilization room you have to go through before entering the lab.

The first thing you run into are a bunch of strawberry guava tree, a highly invasive, but tasty, treat.

Mmm. Tastes like guava. And guilt. It's so bad that the 1954 soil book I'm reading complained about it, while praising the virtues of bermuda grass in the same sentence.

The path was initially very nice, and along the way we found a walking stick for my great aunt. I like it. She looks like Gandalf or something on our adventure.

And oh, now that trail starts. Awkward.

Along the way we saw a bunch of tower material. I'm terrified of electricity, so yay.

This is my new favorite fern! (fern?) I like the dichotomous branching. :D

And now I know why there are cell phone tower equipment down in the beginning of the trail. There is impeccable cell phone reception up there:

This is a koa baby leaf. It turns long, like the yellowish leaves in the background when it gets older. WILD.

I took a lot of pictures of it because I thought I discovered tree AIDS or something. And then wikipedia crushed my dreams.

Hehe, this is less puzzling.

This plant though, I'm sure has something wrong with it. There's definitely two plants here...

Hawaiians have this term called ahupua'a, which is basically a land unit that's like a pie shape, starting in the mountainous forest and extending to the ocean. From up where we were hiking, it was very easy to see where this land division came from. It just seems natural with all these ridges slicing the island into delicious pie shaped ecosystems.

This is naupaka. There's two kinds in Hawaii: ones found on the beach and ones found in the mountain. They have really cute half flowers (I don't know if this picture does it justice). According to legends, the two naupakas are separated lovers...one who is in the mountain and one who is on the shore. Awww, adorable.

And kind of sad...

Not naukapa. Probably an orchid?

Aaannnd now the trail starts. Woopeee.

This is definitely the part that is ranked moderate in the hiking scale. The original plan was to leave my great aunt behind so she can do sudoku on a bench, but she's too badass for that. She followed us up on the stairs.

That's her! BADASS.

'Ohi'a lehua. This is the Big Island's flowers because it's red. For the volcanos. And Pele.

Down there's Hawaii Kai, I think.

On the ridgey part of the ridge hike. I can't imagine going through this when it's muddy and feeling like you're going to plunge to your doom any minute. But that's just me.

Another lehua picture. They must be a big deal because my relatives were super excited to see them.

This place is just spectacular. If you guys are ever in Hawaii, I highly recommend it.

Cook pine. Probably from the Cook Islands, but no one really knows. Or well, I don't know. It's disconcerting to see a coniferous tree on Hawaii, but they have such awesome needles! Look that that!

Yellow lehua. Weird.

Then we got to the part where you have to rappel yourself down with a rope once you get to the top. Now we left my great aunt down to take pictures of us.

I was SUPER excited.

Unfortunately even though there's a sign there's still a tourist made trail. That's probably why the death rate hiking on the ridges is so high. Boo. Along the way we heard some guy talking to the police about hearing some guy's call for help though. Spooky.

You can literally see half of the island at the point. Ridiculous. That's the north east side, where the trade winds come from. Mmm.

That's the north side. I think Chinaman's Hat is there. It's an island that looks like a hat.

After the hike we went and picnicked at the beach. The disgusting beach filled with sludgy brown water, probably waste runoff from the storms a couple of nights back. There's an ocean naupaka that's half submerged in the water there. Fate was really unkind to it.

I read books.

2011-05-06T03:10:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to Eva M because I told her I'd make a list of books and I finally did.

I live 10 miles away from campus, but our lovely bus takes about an hour and a half to reach campus. In other words, I've had plenty to time to do some reading.

Here's some I liked (there might be spoilers! Although most are non fiction, so I guess I'll be spoiling you with facts. Hehe.)

The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography by Stephen Hubbell.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.I don't like this genre of English literature, but since Jaime says good things about this book, I decided to check it out. I liked the beginning a lot, and Heathcliff and Catherine together were adorable. And then it just got weird in the end. But, still good. I used to really like tragedies though, so who knows. I don't know how Jaime manages to read this every year though; it's so long.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. This is a fiction book I actually like so I'll be careful not to spoil anything. It's a really really good dystopian novel. That's all - go read it. After a quick google search, it's apparently a movie too. If you don't like it, you should watch it, cause this concept is really interesting. Plus today's May Day so I should be excited about it. Well, May Day Lei Day, not Mayday, but heh.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I love this series now, and I can't believe it's taken me so long to read it. It's so short! Everyone should at least read the first book. I have an irrational, but almost paralyzing, fear of aliens, so I try not to read books with creepy aliens on the cover, but this was totally worth it!

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Such a guilty pleasure, but if it helps, I read this while stranded in the Seattle airport, and then had to finish the rest of the series, because I'm not a quitter. I wouldn't recommend the third book, but the first two were ok. The writing isn't that great, but it's written for teenagers, and I got through Twilight fine (no regrets) so whatever.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. I unsuccessfully tried reading this book so many times in the past and then finally I realized that 1) prologues are boring and I really should stop reading them and 2) he's explaining why there is unequal distribution of guns, germs and steel. Ah. Anyways, a must read if you ever wondered why there are third world countries, and why Western Europe is so powerful.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. This is the the library book I awkwardly left in North Carolina. Many many thanks to Wake Forest for getting it back to me before the due date. One thing I realized about Jared Diamond is that he is very thorough. So most of the book, though it is very thick, repeats itself. I think there's 5 case studies, and I only read through a couple of them. I think the first couple of chapters is enough if you want to know, well, why societies fail or succeed (PS it has to do with the environment. And the population.)

Nutrient Cycling and Limitation: Hawai'i as a Model System by Peter Vitousek. Yea. I read it. And I actually understood it, which is good because otherwise I don't know what I had been doing in Davis. The first couple of chapters serve as a good introduction to biogeochemistry and Hawaii, and then it gets hard. But read the first chapter. It's fun. It made me remember why I love Hawaii so much. :D

A Bunch of Books about Ender and his Friends by Orson Scott Card. I know 'about' is a preposition but it feels so weird leaving it uncapitalized. Anyways, after Hitchhiker's Guide, I decided to give aliens a chance, and I had read Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow before and liked it. It's cool seeing what the kids are up to after their Battle School days, but it's also more serious and not as fun (not that sending little kids up to space to become military masterminds isn't serious, but they're kids! Little people!) The books with Ender had aliens in it, which still creeped me out, but Bean's stories are ok...until it got depressing.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan. Good thing I was reading this book at the time and not one of those Enders books because one of the questions University of Wisconsin asked me was what book I was reading. I really liked this book and it made me think about food, which is nice. (Mmm I think it might be time for a midnight snack!) I'm not sure what the four meals were, because if I can remember correctly, it was 1) normal (aka corn. Thanks subsidies) 2) organic and 3) foraging. I like this book, but I never read books again if I can help it, so someone will just have to read it and tell me. Yay.

The Botany of Desire: The Plant's Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan. I'm becoming one of those people who read books by the same author! Good for me. This was a fun book. He tracks the social/evolutionary history of a couple of plants: the apple, the tulip, the potato, and marijuana.

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. Basically what the titles says. And it's a lot like the next book:

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcom Gladwell. Fun examples about the subconsciousnes playing a part of our every day lives. I read these books back to back, so I'm having a hard time remembering the differences. The perils of hanging around the library and just pulling random books off shelves...I get too excited and just take home an entire section. I must warn you though, the ending is very depressing. The book is filled with stories of stereotyping and first impressions, which is cool at first, cause it's about trumpet players, and other not as intense stuff. Then he busts out the Amadou Diallo Shooting, which everyone should know about so I can infect you all with the despair I felt reading about it. There is hope though. According to Gladwell, people who were exposed to positive figures of a minority groups have better feelings towards that group. Which makes sense, but the only way I see that happening right now is through sports. Yay sports! This justifies my hours spent watching baseball...

The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu. I thought it'll be cool to learn Chinese by reading this (because I just didn't learn from my last attempt of learning Arabic by reading the Quran). I quickly gave up and read the English version. Hehe. For those of you who don't know, this is the teachings Daoism is based off of. It's very...middle way. Hah.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. The first half of the book was pretty interesting, and what I expected. And then, the second part just got really really weird. And boring. Really boring. :( For those of you who don't know, the book written from a pedophile's (not to be confused with soil pedons!) perspective, which I guess was the ground breaking part of the book. It actually starts out pretty witty and charming. Unfortunately the bus I take is filled with little kids and I feel really awkward reading it.

Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology and Evolution by Alan Ziegler. One of the first books I read on the island, I was pleasantly surprised it was the one book professors suggested I read. It concisely summed up Hawaii's environment, and not too hard to read. I liked it.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. A fun book that explains science through eccentric stories. I liked it. :D It reminded me why I got into science in the first place. He goes through subject by subject, charting its history and the drama that follows. It's like Gossip Girl, but for science!

Seeking the Sacred Raven: Politics and Extinction on a Hawaiian Island by Mark Jerome Walters. The 'alala is a bird endemic to Hawaii and is now extinct in the wild. The story follows the state's actions in trying to protect it through their captive breeding program, and the rancher who owns the land in which these birds are found. I actually didn't know the status of the 'alala before hand so I was super depressed afterwards. They grew on me.

The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why by Richard Nisbett. I picked this book because the word geography was in the title, but it was actually pretty interesting. Most of it is common knowledge now (that Westerners are more independent, and Asians are more communal, and Asians born in Western areas are mixed), but it also delves a bit into why (the geography!) and has fun little stories (apparently some Asian countries uses tangram puzzles as quizzes instead of...real...quizzes...). It's an academic book, so it's not easy reading, but it's still pretty interesting.

The Growth and Collapse of Pacific Island Societies: Archaeological and Demographic Perspectives by Patrick V Kirch and Jean-Louis Rallu. Hawaii currently has a population of 1.2 million people. Hawaii pre-European contact is said to have 3 million. That's a lot! Especially since right now we have skyscrapers and are importing 95% of our goods and a bunch of technology. How did they do it? I read this book to find out. This book looks into those claims with a lot of science. It pretty much says we don't really know how many people were here before Europeans came, but we know it was probably more than 1 million. Or at least over 500,000. There is no consensus. It also doesn't saying how they did it, but that's because I don't read the titles of books well enough...

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Five words: We've got some major issues.

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner. I adore this book. I think this was the campus book for class 2012, so many of you guys might have heard of it. It's about a reporter's search for the happiest place in the world. But it's so much more than that. It's such a happy feel good book. I really really like it. Everyone should read it. I want to move to Iceland now.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcom Gladwell. Maybe it' because I sat next to a creepy person on the bus while reading this, but I didn't like this book as much as Blink. The book's about well, the tipping point. There's certain conditions that makes certain things cool. For example, in Brooklyn, by reducing graffiti and cracking down on people who abuse subway fares, they managed to drastically lower murder rates. Pretty neat.

Books!

If you guys have read any of these books, we must discuss! That's my favorite part about reading. :D

Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden

2011-04-26T02:38:00.000-07:00

My mom always say looking at green things is good for you, so take a break from symposium prepping and look at plants growing in Hawaii. No guarantees about them being native though...

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Ho'omaluhia Botanical Garden with my cousins. It was the first time this trip for me to go to the windward side, so I was excited (and bundled up.)

The garden is basically a buffer zone built by the Army Corps of Engineers to provide flood protection for the people downslope of the place. Aww how nice. They also have hikes there, nature talks, a bunch of little kids fishing with twigs. I'm still convinced that volunteers are sticking fish onto their hooks when the kids aren't looking. The lake there is disgusting.

The visitors center had some kind of watercolor gallery that week. My cousin enthusiastically took my camera and meticulously (well, as meticulous a 12 year old can be) took pictures of "his favorite paintings" (in other words....all of them. I ran out of memory before we even got out the visitors center!)

Cousin likes his flowers.

Grandma walking around confused. Behind her is a Florida Thatch Palm. I would never know this in real life.

Hi, I'm a mountain, and I'm really pretty. Look at my clouds. Tee hee. I'll rainshadow you, leeward side!

Here's a shorter palm tree. It's called the Arikury Palm. It looks just like that other palm tree.

I don't know what this is, but it's pretty!

That's a mountain.

This is called Panama-Hat Plant. I'm just going to hazard a guess and say that their leaves are used to make hats...in Panama. The little sign says it's from South Mexico, but eh, same thing. They're right next to each other anyways...right? (How did I get into a Geography program??)

This one I actually know. Sealing wax palm, or lipstick palm. It's an ornamental brought in from Malaysia. It doesn't make lipstick, or wax. Boo.

I think this is the poisonous bulb plant...or something like that. One thing I learned in Tropical Ecology - don't eat anything you didn't see someone else eat first. Plants make some crazy stuff.

...Or maybe it's just guava. Let's just say I should never be a guide in the wild. Or anywhere.

"walk to your doom!!"

Those giant things are Imperial Bromeliads. They're from the mountains of Brazil, and will make a giant stalk when it's 20. And they're AWESOME looking. And probably host hoards of mosquitoes.

This is the fruit of the lipstick plant, which actually makes lipstick. Or the red dye, at least. I don't really know what goes into lipstick. Pig fat?

Pig fat. Wikipedia confirms.

The rubber tree. Fun fact - the ball in that one Disney movie about the Aztecs is made from rubber from that tree. The one movie where those two friends have a ship and are looking for gold...

Anyways, here's a cool website where you can adopt a rubber tree. Super cute.

Here's a cocao tree. MMM. Too bad there are signs everywhere telling us not to pick one (or touch one! My hand's there for...scale.) Not that I'd have any idea how to process it. Apparently the leaves are poisonous, so stay away from that. -___- According to wikipedia, cocao beans were used as currency as late as the 1840's. Love it.

I just love how big the plants are here. Hi giant leaf! My cousin cut out his brother. I lack basic photo cropping skills.

This is the needle flower tree. They say they're looking for the AIDS vaccine in it's bark, but I even tried google scholaring it and couldn't come up with anything. For reference, the scientific name is Posoqueria latifolia. Weird.

Here's a plant. I don't know what this is.

This has got to be my favorite tree: the cannonball tree. When the fruits matures, they falls to the ground, making a super loud noise, and then 'exploding.' Then they sit around smelling bad.

They're EVERYWHERE!

That's it for now. For the people presenting, ROCK IT. It's going to be awesome.

Ancestor Praying Month

2011-04-17T13:51:00.000-07:00

So I'm sure there is a way better translation out there, but this will do for now, since it reminds me of that scene from Mulan.

My fundamental religious views and values are pretty much shaped by Disney.

Last week we went to the Manoa Chinese Cemetery. It's a ridiculously gorgeous site with the ultimate feng shui, according to the giant monument erected to honor all the ancestors (in other words, the one for the lazy people who don't want to pray for every single one, hehe.) I didn't bring my camera though, but it's surrounded by three mountains, North, East, and West, which represents one of those Chinese guardians thing (I know there's a Dragon and a Tiger or something somewhere), and then the South is opened to the ocean. Back in the day when Chinese immigrants first came to Hawaii, they didn't have a site for a cemetery so they hired some feng shui expert to wander around the island for the perfect spot. He declared this place was and all the immigrants pooled their money and bought it. AWww teamwork. Except now I think they're selling away plots since land is scarce and lots of money is to be made.

Back to the good old days. Because their families were still in China and sometimes they would die here, the Chinese decided to form associations, usually encompassing a hometown, where they would prey for each other until their families come to Hawaii (and some usually don't.) The event I went to last week was for the people of Lung Doo, which is where my po po is from. There's a bunch of us here - I think everyone from my great grandfather and down managed to find their way here.

This was a while back, but they had a reunion and we took over an entire banquet restaurant. Insane. Mayors and government officials were all there. Even those beauty queens paid us a visit.

The whole event ended up being a family reunion for me, which is cool. I never realized I had so many second cousins! Apparently one of my mom's cousin is an art professor at UH Hilo (really....we have that and they give me smack about soil science??), and from a lot of difference marriage links we have Senator Akaka. We're everywhere.

The part of the mob willing to wake up super early.

Gorgeous!

Yesterday we prayed for the people in our immediate family, so it was a smaller event, though there were still tons of people I don't really know. I'm going to have to make a family tree diagram to help me navigate future awkward encounters.

I think our great grandpa is here. Physically he's buried in China, but when my family came, they immigrated the little plaque with his name on it to some Buddhist temple. Apparently it's around 8k to put your plaque here. Crazy.

So instead of Picnic Day at Davis, we had a picnic...at a cemetery instead! Great fun. Miss you all. <3

I'm in Hawaii.

2011-04-07T00:35:00.000-07:00

In case people don't know. Haha. I kept trying to make a post about this, but then I would get distracted by way cooler events like tsunamis and receiving new packages.

But yes. After I graduated in December, I decided it was way too cold in California, packed a carry on worth of clothes and books, and bought a one way ticket to Oahu. I was not going to leave until I got into a grad school with an advisor I liked.

Good bye cold world! HAHA.

Luckily for me I got into grad schools, like all of my prospective advisors, and picked one that would let me work in Hawaii (UCSB). It's going to be awesome.

I'm thinking about going back to Davis by graduation. People from semester schools, message me if you're going to graduate! I want to see y'all graduate. I'll (most likely, still need to work it out with my advisor) be taking SSC 205 - the soil science field course, SoCal version. So expect me to be back in Davis in the summer! And I hope people are still there when I'm there..haha.

So what am I doing here in the meantime?

Pretty much...hanging out. Haha. I'm volunteering at the University of Hawaii Manoa. The people there are super nice and I'm learning a lot. Currently I'm working on three different projects. There's a wildlife lab there, and I'm working on making a cat diet database. Lots of reading the literature, which is actually kind of fun. It's nice to have time allotted where I have to sit down and just read. And I pretty much hate felis catus now. There's also a soils lab where I help out on various projects. Hawaiian soils is really different from mainland soil, so it's nice to get a feel of them before starting my PhD project. And then there's a fire ecology project I'm helping a grad student on.

Here's one of the views of the field site:

So pretty! I also try to attend seminars, but I always hear of them after the fact. Boo. Apparently Holly Doremus was here a couple of days ago! Drats!

UC Davis, You're Adorable.

2011-04-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

Look what I found waiting for me when I came home from a weekend of fun and adventure (and a crazy taekwondo tournament!) with my cousin.

Yay, I love boxes.
When I was a kid, that would be my favorite present. I'd hoard them like a crazy mofo. We had a little area underneath our stairs (kind of life Harry Potter's room, but way more badass) behind the TV and that would be where I would store them. I don't think I did anything with them. I just liked collecting them and trying to fit in them.

A box from the Evolution and Ecology department?? What?

And inside the box is a super cute bag. I think it's hilarious how many packages are needed for their graduation gift. And then I think about someone actually going out and getting the little colored tissue paper, scrunching them up all nice, and then putting it in a bag. Then I imagine them meticulously cushioning this bag with tons of those little bubble things (the ones that little kids like to pop and stuff...packaging goodness. I gave it to my cousins, even though you're never too old to stomp on things that makes loud noises).

I've always wondered who would have so much pride that they would go out and buy a Davis license plate cover cause I would see them everywhere! Now I know. (Not that I'm complaining. It's going to be the first thing I do to my future car! HEHE.)

One quibble - I've been getting so many (well, like...1) offers on stoles and medals for graduation, but it's so after the fact that buying one is kind of petty, unless I want a new paperweight, or some shiny fabric to use later on. If you want to wear fancy graduation things, graduate in the Spring. (I did get to take home the Major Leader badge, but that was because I was the only Soils Science major graduating. Shhh.)

There's magic in the air

2011-03-17T00:02:00.000-07:00

Or, at the very least, a magical invisible dragon blowing gust of winds at up to 30MPH.

After the tsunami, I've decided to give my grandparents more credit, and when they told me not to go out for a nightly jog, I've decided not to do it. Good thing.

From our lovely weather.gov:

A WIND ADVISORY MEANS THAT WINDS OF 30 MPH AND GUSTS OF 50 MPH
ARE EXPECTED. WINDS THIS STRONG CAN MAKE DRIVING DIFFICULT...
ESPECIALLY FOR HIGH PROFILE VEHICLES. USE EXTRA CAUTION. BE
PREPARED FOR FALLING TREE BRANCHES AND LOCAL POWER OUTAGES.

My cousin: "It's strong enough to blow away a small baby."

This picture was taken at Nu'uana Pali Lookout, an area famous for it's high winds. Clinton told me it's usually 15MPH.

Anyways, I decided to tell Dr. Anderson, the professor at Wake Forest I applied to, that today was a day as good as any to talk. Everything went well, but man, was the wind super strong! Halfway through he has to ask if I was in a wind tunnel. Actually, maybe I was. Wind and courtyards baffle me. He also recommended me a super cool site on African soils. I can't wait to intersperse reading cat papers by browsing through this. :D I think I've read every technique available on stomach and scat content analysis by now.

Back to the wind. I'm not sure how 30MPH compare to Davis winds, since I checked the Davis weather station, and it said at maximum it gets to 31. Is that still bikeable wind? I remember one time I actually got blown over while biking on the sidewalk. Super awkward.

Blow away your finals! HAHA. Three more days left! <3

Tsunami Week

2011-03-13T01:20:00.000-08:00

tsunami (tsʊˈnæmɪ) — n , pl -mis , -mi

1. a large, often destructive, sea wave produced by a submarinenearthquake, subsidence, or volcanic eruption. Sometimes incorrectly called a tidal wave

2. a sudden increase in or overwhelming number or volume of: the tsunami of Olympic visitors

--dictionary.com

First off, my heart goes out to the people of Japan, and anyone with loved ones in Japan. Google has a person finder for the people affected by the tsunami. Hopefully that helps. And mad props to Japan's strict building codes and level of preparedness. It could have been a lot worse, and all of us living in areas vulnerable to natural disasters should look to Japan as an example.

Hawaii is fine. I'm old and go to bed super early now, but was woken up by the most obnoxious, high pitched sound I've ever heard in my life. After sleepily glaring at the general direction, I was told by my grandparents that it was the tsunami warning.

Boo for being ridiculously hard to find. Apparently the map is in the yellow pages, but who keeps those nowadays?

Luckily we're not in the inundation zone. I do live within running distance (and for me, that's probably...2 miles) to the airport, which is. I don't think it suffered from water damage - the reason why the airports in Hawaii were closed was because they didn't want to clog up the roads leading up to the airports.

Waikiki was definitely evacuated and I think a lot of tourists had to go up passed the 4th story of their hotels. I think parts of Hawaii Kai was also evacuated, and most of the schools were closed Friday. (Although the lovely public school systems already had Friday as a furlough day, so who knows.)

I didn't have an ocean view, so I decided to not stay up until 3, which is when the tsunami was going to hit. I think there were some damage the next morning, but luckily no one was hurt. The buses didn't run early morning because the tsunami warning was still in effect. On the news there were tapes of people waiting forlornly at a bus station for a bus that wouldn't come. It was sad, yet kind of funny to watch.

Anyways, I decided to call it a day off, and went jogging to see if I could see any tsunami related events at the airport. Nothing spectacular. Of course, as soon as I come back, they removed the tsunami advisory but by then I had made plans. :)

The UH campus was also closed (and I wish I had taken a screenshot of their website!), saying that non essential employees should stay home. I wonder how many grad students went?

Anyways, it's finals week and I know you guys are busy so just know - I'm alive and well. Didn't get into Stanford, btw, but I'll feel like a douchebag complaining about that in light of these events.

Good lucks with finals!

UC Stanford Barbara Trip

2011-03-07T23:21:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm a day late from my self imposed deadline, and I actually feel really bad about it. Not going to lie, it was kind of a crazy trip though, and I was exhausted by the end of it. (And had super fast onset of SAD. HAHA)

To bring everyone up to speed: Stanford invited me to visit their campus back in January for this weekend. Then UCSB invited me to their campus on the same weekend. After a lot of emails, I decided the best plan of action was to take a red eye out Monday, arrive Tuesday at SFO, Amtrak bus it down to SB, spend a night there, take the train back up, interview at Stanford, go back down to SB for a BBQ (SO WORTH IT.)

Sunday I rested (heh) and Monday morning I flew back to Hawaii. Just another week in the life of Ann Tan. No big deal. I do owe the planet a gazillion trees now though.

Anyways, I don't think I should have even unpacked from Wake Forest. I brought pretty much the same things, but with macademia nuts:

So colorful! MMmm chocolate covered macademia nuts. Originally I was going to buy one for Dennis for letting me stay in UCSB, but then they found me a grad student to stay with. Luckily the only way to buy the boxes from Costco is in 6's. So I had enough for my sponsor and for my host! And since I was already accepted and got a fellowhip, it was not bribery.

I was totally knocked out during the red eye, which was glorious. I think the secret is to just wake up hella early and be sleep deprived beforehand. Me gusta.

Some pretty pictures early in the morning. The Amtrak bus is surprisingly comfy. Fun fact: according to the person I ordered my tickets from, Amtrak lawyers found a loophole for train companies that allows them to provide bus services as long as part of the trip involves a train. So one way down was by bus, and I had to take the train back up.

I got picked up by my sponsor, Oliver, and pretty much hung out with him the whole day. I got to see one of the job talks (and apparently, one of his former students is trying to get a faculty position at UCD!), some biogeosciences lunch thing, and eat dinner at a very cool beachy restaurant. Kind of funky because the faculty candidate from the job talk was seated right behind us. Apparently that's where all the faculty hang out.

No pictures of SB though, because I wanted to seem cool in front of a prospective advisor. :( And cause the weather wasn't all that great when I visited.

Anyways, there's some pictures from Stanford, when I was away from judging eyes.

Fancy! I like the name tag. Teehee. And the pen! It's a really nice, rolly one. Doesn't get stuck like mine does.

I must have crossed this bridge over 20 times. Wearing heels was definitely painful, and coupled with this, kind of an adventure. It's one of those metal mesh bridges with holes everywhere for your heels to get stuck on.

That's the building where the Stanford Prison Experiment took place!

These have to be the most glorious pillows I've ever slept on. First purchase once I get my stipend.

Stanford interviews were a lot of fun. A bit intense because I think I did my homework a bit too well, and regarded all the professors as these mystical academic beasts with awesome papers. We were scheduled to interview with 5 professors for 30 min each over the course of two days. That gave us a lot of free time, and after exploring a narcolepsy lab (So cool! Apparently only people of a certain type of tissue can get it, and they think it's autoimmune.), I decided to go rogue and visit the earth sciences people. They were on the other side of campus so it was a lot of walking, but worth it! The Stanford biology program is definitely molecular based, which is cool, but I'm not. :)

Some home sweet home pictures.

Bookcase! I miss you. I'm slowly packing parts of it to my carry on. I got my environmental law book in Hawaii now - can't wait to start reading it!

And a new car! This is actually kind of a depressing story. My beloved car (17+ years) got smashed from behind by some truck when my mom stopped the car to let some guy in a wheelchair cross the street. She's ok (thankfully!) but my car isn't. Don't tailgate, y'all. Well...not when you're...driving...

To end this post on a happier note, here's some fun coincidences:

I'm reading Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, who lives in Greensboro NC! What! That's where Wake Forest University is! (Or uh, in 1992 he did)
There's a building called Y2E2 on the Stanford campus. It's short for Yang and Yamazaki Environment and Energy building. The Yang = Jerry Yang, alumnus of both my middle and high school, and co-founder of Yahoo! And I think the lab I might get into is in there too!

A definite "my life rocks" day

2011-02-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

It started with as a gloriously sunny morning. I go to Chinatown with the grandparents for some dim sum (mmm). I am quickly becoming an obsessive fan of rice and those little pork things with the bones inside. It's called 排骨, or "pai gu." I don't know the tone but it is worth whatever you gotta do to order it.

I'm ridiculously delicious!

The restaurant is conveniently located at the bus transfer point to get to the university, so after eating my fill, I bounced and headed off to lab. Because I'm currently volunteering in three different labs, it's hard to find time to do soil stuff that takes two days (like figuring out soil moisture content). As a result, I usually stick whatever I need into the oven Friday, and pop in on Saturday. I'm doing all I can to make good use of my $60 monthly bus pass (so expensive! I really should start lying and just say I'm a high school student. But I'm a die hard supporter of public transportation. Damn you morals...).

Remember how in Germany (for those who...went to Germany with me, haha!) the europass or whatever was only like, 40 euros a month! And you got the trains and stuff, and could cross into different counties. Those were the days. =]

Down memory lane:

Kristian and I would just hop on random trains when we'd get tired of walking around Freiburg. This one time we ended up at Schluchsee lake!

It's kind of gorgeous. I know these aren't Hawaii pics but I get nostalgic!

Mmm speaking of pork, this is also delicious. I think we got pork steak? I ordered with limited German knowledge.

Books for next week!

Anyways, nothing went horrifically wrong in lab, which is good. My initial plan at campus was to go to the library afterwards and read this one book, but apparently the university library closes on a Saturday! Where would the students study?? So I ended up going to the Hawaii State Library. It's gorgeous. There's a little courtyard in the middle, and shaded areas to read book.

The ultimate bibliophile in tropical areas' heaven.

It ended up being an excellent visit since I needed to grab some reading material for my trip to California.

Speaking of books, here's a pleasant surprise that arrived today:

I left the book in a grad student's car in North Carolina. But now I got it back before the due date! Whew! THANKS WAKE FOREST.

And holy shoot, look what I else I got for my birthday? (Yea, a non late library book is an excellent bday present.)

!!! It's so tiny! Haha. Reminds me of a certain song!

"I will be your father figure

put your tiny hands in mind

na na na na preacher preacher

something something...da da da."

Despite having the song on repeat, I still have no idea what George Michael is saying.

Hopefully with this, I'll be inspired to run more. I feel like I'm obligated to do some of the famous running events, just because I'm in Hawaii.

Yay! My cousin and I are 7 years + 4 days apart. Haha.

And Jay does not disappoint this year:

x22! Thanks little bro!

And lastly,

Mahalo everyone for the birthday wishes! <3 I'm going to make this year rock.

A trip to the East Coast

2011-02-20T02:14:00.000-08:00

I don't know if the area is intense enough to warrant capitalization, but that's what a quick google search told me. East coast? east coast? Ehhh.

Anyways, this week has went by too fast - I was supposed to write up a review of the campus while it was fresh in my mind, and funnily enough, I've been contacted by all four of my schools this week, including an acceptance to the UCSB Geography MA/PhD program! (More on that later. Focus.)

Wake Forest.

After a very cold red eye flight, two transfers (LA and Cincinnati), and all around sleep deprived day (I started experiencing vertigo when I woke up at some point and got too scared to wake up, so I tried fixing that by...not sleeping), I landed in one of the most beautiful state in the east coast.*

*This is the only state I've ever been to on the east coast.

BTW, Wake Forest University isn't actually in Wake Forest, the city. It's actually on the other side of the state, in Winston-Salem, a cool city with a hyphen in it.

I obnoxiously took many pictures throughout the car ride to the hotel. The graduate student who picked me up does her field research in the Andes. Badass! According to her, this is the traffic people there complain about.

So one thing I realized I sorely miss are seasons. Look at the leaf less trees! Aahhh deciduous trees. One thing that really hit home was the lack of our coniferous friends. I've only heard about their absence in myths and tales! And um, textbooks.

Yup, I'm not in the Bay Area anymore.

Winston-Salem has a glorious skyline, something I'm a big fan of. I have a feeling most of the skyscrapers are banks, and not apartments though. This was my view for almost 30 minutes. Turns out, I did experience real life traffic that day. However, that was because there was this crazy car crash (~7 cars in a row) right before our exit. That, and the fact that the other prospective student getting picked up with me had a delayed flight, made us really late. Late enough that I had to be introduced during dinner, and had everyone actually remember my name!

Inside the actual city. The streetlights hang from little cords. How quaint!

The first night was cocktail hour and a dinner at the hotel. I didn't make it in time for the cocktail hour because I was too awed by my super fancy hotel room.

The living room.

Looking into the bedroom.

The view the next morning.

Dinner was excellent. I feel like all the department's prospective students were there, but we sat with our own department. Biology took up two tables, but I heard Cell Bio took up half the room. There was a professor sitting at each table, who's there to answer our questions about the department. Afterwards there were presentations about Wake Forest itself. I felt a common theme they've continued to emphasize at Wake is that while they are a small college, they have big ideas. Awww. That, and everyone just seems to love the place. Not sure if it's a recruitment thing, or they're just unreasonably happy. Me gusta.

I obnoxiously took pictures on the way to campus in the bus.

!!!

I think the people from North Carolina was amused by my excitement. One offered to take a picture of me. :D Now they know what I have to deal with living in Hawaii. (Actually, I'm still that person taking lots of pictures, so uh, yea.)

The bus that took us to campus.

Random parts of the campus is in the woods. It's so crazy.

Looking through my pictures, I don't think I took any pictures of the actual department. We had a quick tour around campus on the way to the Biology building. After a brief orientation, we followed our personalized schedule. Since Dr. Anderson was out in Tanzania, I hung out with his graduate students all day and got to attend a lab meeting. I even got to help plant African grasses in heels!

Everyone else had interviews with several professors, and some didn't even know what their project will be focused on. My day was substantially less stressful than theirs for sure. I did get to talk to one faculty member, but he was the token aloha professor, and we pretty much talked about Hawaii...Good times.

"For humanity" What a badass motto.

On Saturday most people left, but the cheapest flight required me to fly out Sunday morning at 6. The SAGE lab grad students (Savanna And Grassland Ecosystem, hehe!) graciously let me hang out with them, feeding me and showing me around town and their apartments. One of them lived in what looks like a mansion that has condos in it! Crazy! It was soo pretty. I tried googling it, but I couldn't remember the name. Boo.

Small world event: the person who drove me to the airport at 4 in the morning (she's amazing!) is one of the professors at UH's daughter! In fact, I think we're in the same building...

Deacon Tailgate Town. It's apparently some restaurant, not, as I had initially hope, a permanent tailgating party.

Winston-Salem is apparently the birthplace of Dunkin' Donuts. I don't think I've actually ever had a dunkin donut, but my eyes are opened.

I leave you with a picture of one of the most badass sinks I've ever seen in my life.

Yuck. I got a migraine halfway through this post. Can you find the transition?

Mystery Picture!

2011-02-13T17:46:00.000-08:00

Besides a layover in Toronto at night, I've never been east of Texas before. Flying from LA to Cincinnati, I saw a bunch of unidentified flowing objects (UFO!):

Is it snow?? Some sort of salty deposit? Are those little rivers? Houses? How sleep deprived am I??

Here it looks like there are grids. Agricultural fields? Roads?

I'm pretty sure that's a river there. But the white stuff...it's weird cause you don't see them on the mountains.

I had fallen asleep during the trip, so I'm not sure what state I was over, or what. Anyways, this haunted me, so I took many pictures. I wish we had the little screen on the backs of every seat that tells you where you are flying over.

Sleepless in Seattle. HAHA.

2011-02-13T16:17:00.000-08:00

So I'm starting up a blog.

Why? Many reasons.

I'm being abnormally productive because I'm “procrastinating.” Except nowadays, it's not assignments I'm putting of, it's sleep.
I've been getting vertigo lately on plane rides, and it's usually when I wake from a nap. It's probably due to lack of sleep, but I can't get over that fear and thus try not to sleep on planes now.
I left Collapse in North Carolina, so I have nothing to read and there's a huge layover + delay in Seattle.
So far I've been recording what's been happening to me in postcards. Which I've sent out to various people. So I realize most of what I write in the postcards might not make too much sense, and that I don't have a record of what I've been doing.
And it was a new year resolution. Which I had managed to postpone to the Chinese new year. But if I wait any longer, then I'll just be a slacker. (I have been keeping up with my books though!! Double digits already!)
Oh yea. I miss everyone back in California and want them to know what I'm up to besides through vague facebook status updates. ;)

So yup. Here I am in lovely North Carolina/ airport in Seattle, sitting in my super fancy hotel room googling “how to start a blog.” Hopefully this will not be the only blog post. Let's say once a week minimum. I have no school, and therefore no excuses!

So fancy. I felt bad for just sitting in a bed watching TV, so I moved over to the living room to write this post.

PS. I've never actually seen Sleepless in Seattle and know nothing about it. A quick google search tells me it's one of those movies where the main characters cheat on their significant others to be with one another. Boo.