The Crossroads (klin84)

I got 2 surprises in the mail today. One was my credit report, and the second is….this wonderful card and “present” from my favorite cousins julie and jason! Thanks!!! And yes, they got me a girly card which is signed and marketed by taylor swift!!!! Now that is just awesome! Anyways, life is exciting and busy, as I am counting down towards the end of my second rotation I am thinking about how much I would love to stay and see the culmination of the project. I am worried about my 3rd rotation because it will be out of my comfort zone. Sometimes I wish I was a better engineer and I could solve electrical engineering problems more easily! But aside from work I am feeling kind of numb, maybe the dentists drugs has a mental effect on me :)

So, it was a tiring but fun-filled day.  

1. Started with archery!  This is the first time i’ve shot an arrow since middle school! I must say, I have the worst aim in the world but it is really satisfying to hear the arrow hit the target.

2. We decided to hike in the 93F Phoenix heat, in the dead of the afternoon.  Originally, this was supposed to be training for the backpacking trip, but even though the back-packing trip is in jeopardy, we decided to do the training anyways.  we came across a bunch of wildlife on the trail - the giant lizard with the red tail, hummingbirds feeding on the ocotillo plant, and i fed one of my grapes to a squirrel.  it is the first time i have seen a squirrel eating grapes!

3. Drove up to south mountain to see the sunset, then ate at Lin’s buffet!  my cousin and i took a picture there and didn’t eat there, so this time we got the opportunity to!

Where is my laptop? It got confiscated again :( I have been consciously locking it every morning when I come into work, I must have forgotten this morning or something. Maybe I was preoccupied about thinking about other things. I am so so so dumb.
. I wonder to myself, how do I let this happen? I never forget to lock my car doors or the doors to my apartment, but apparently I forget to lock my laptop. :( . . . But at least “wish” is still here. I should train “wish” to remind me not do forget things or to do dumb things.

Sunflowers are growing up nicely. There is a tiny bud in the middle of the sunflower sprouts. I am excited to see the buds! Since the valley of the sunflowers project spawned my interest in sunflowers, I am tempted to revisit the site on Sunday and volunteer some more of my time. Anyways I think I will keep on talking about happy things that happen in my life on a day by day basis. I think it will help me….. here it goes.

1. Meetings. Meetings at work keep me sane and I had a lot of interesting meetings today, including quite a few 1:1s, lab cleanup, talking with an intel fellow about 3rd rotation opportunities, and talking with my manager.

2. My focal review with my manager. At the end of the focal review I summoned the courage to ask my manager if I could skip the next fifo training session to dance for the phoenix suns game on behalf of intel. And he insisted that I go to the dance session and he wanted video evidence of my dancing! I am so grateful to have such an understanding and awesome manager. Also, we had a nice time chatting and I learned many things … “everything happens for a reason”, and now I am trying to find “the reason”.

3. Hair cut at sports clips! I treated myself to a haircut after focal review, and I really like sports clips because they know how to cut my hair well. And also, you can watch sports games while cutting your hair. The knicks (and j. Lin) were playing against the 76ers while I was getting my hair cut, but with my glasses off I can only listen. Well, at least, I could listen.

4. My phone chat with vilas, my former roommate. There are few people who think like me and understand me like vilas, and I am very grateful that we had a nice long honest chat and I am very grateful for that.

5. Crytography lectures and wine! Though there is an inverse relationship between how much wine I drink and the amount of cryptography lectures I understand, I am still enjoying myself!

This has honestly been one of the most difficult weekends of my life, but I think all the words that need to be said were said…….life is difficult trying to be an adult in this world

But the happy moment in the tough weekend is watching “tangled”, and here’s to hoping for a happy disney ending… :)

Went on a bikeride along the chandler canal and kept running into ducks. Apparently ducks pair up as a couple during the springtime :)

Sometimes I get funny things in the mail. My cousin julie bought us linsanity tshirts! Hahahaa its really funny, maybe I should wear this when playing basketball :). Also, I got automobile magazine in the mail and the acura nsx is the front cover!! . Anyways, I had a great time watching wicked yesterday, the soundtrack and the visual effects are amazing! It is funny I had forgotten most of the plot since the last time I watched it, and I had even forgotten elphaba had a sister! So the first act of wicked is around 1.5 hours long and the whole time I am wondering if they combined the 2 acts into 1, then I remembered thinking the same thing the last time I watched it too. I think I am a weird romantic person, so I liked the romance in wicked between elphaba and fiyero…(yes, even wicked witches have lovers) but kinda felt conflicted when fiyero left glinda.
. I also finished the hunger games trilogy! I am somewhat conflicted with the third book, and as my friend says, it seems like too much happened and they tried to end the book too quickly. But I think the biggest point I got from it is that new is not necessarily better than old, its different. I was so shocked when the new government suggested a hunger games again for the capitol children. Revenge is not the answer!

Day 2 of Skiing in Colorado!  Today we explored other areas of Loveland Ski Resort.  

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It is so novel to ski at 12,000 ft, right next to the continental divide, and looking at the I-70 tunnel!  The bottom picture is a track of some of our runs in the afternoon.

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During the last run, i was involved in a high speed collision which resulted in bent ski poles!  luckily everybody is okay.

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After skiing we went back to idaho springs to watch the superbowl and enjoy a buffalo burger.

Lift tickets sitting on my desk. I can’t wait to go to colorado this weekend! My biggest fear is that I will forget to bring the lift tickets and leave them at home…

The metaphorical two green dumplings.  These two green dumplings tell a tale.  No matter how alone you may feel in a sea of dumplings, may you always find a buddy, someone likes you who understands you. 

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We had a dumpling making party yesterday at ZZ’s house.  Which resulted in lots of yummy dumplings.  Thanks for hosting ZZ!

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Anyways, dumpling making reminds me of my childhood.  My mom would grow chives in the backyard and we would hand pick them, sort out the weeds, mix it in with ground pork, and then dumpling away!  There are only a few things in New Jersey that will grow and won’t get eaten up by ground hogs.  chives is one of them, probably because they smell so weirdly to the ground hogs.

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Another interesting thing about yesterday was that…i learned the word “chives”.  You see, I ate these things all the time growing up, and I knew they were called “goo chai” in Taiwanese, or “jiu chai” (excuse my bad spelling) in Mandarin.  But I never knew these were called “chives” until yesterday.

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That reminds me of cilantro also.  From a young age, I knew cilantro to be called “en swee” in Taiwanese but I didn’t learn the english word until college.  haha. 

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Happy lunar new year everybody!