Mrs. Worry Worry

My mom is Mrs. Worry Worry. She is worried about everything includling things that I think do not worth worrying.

She emailed me this morning (she is not good at emailing, you know, she is old anyway), by saying, "T is diagnosed as having duodenal ulcer. I'm too worried to get sleep last night."

Let me explain. T is my youngest brother. I talked with him before he talked with our mom. He told me that his regular checkup had found suspected duodenal ulcer, and that he was suggested to have a recheck. In other words, he is NOT diagnosed as having duodenal ulcer (yet). And, duodenal ulcer is a curable illness, not a fatal disease. In my opinion, finding a suspected illness in an early stage is good, and ignoring it or leaving it without noticing is bad because it would progress and get worse. My mom and I have complete opposite ways to see illness/diseases.

So, I emailed her back by saying the same as I mentioned above. And she emailed me back fast (which is rare for her) and said, "Oh, I envy you. I wish I had the nature of yours." Mom ... such a worry worry.

Gift of Organic Vegitables

N is now supporting my diet :) She is sweet. She gave me vegetables from her garden. I made simple salad from them, and I sprinkled some goat cheese on it. The dressing was also simple, which is just a mixture of extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt. I like the chemistry of balsamic vinegar and goat cheese. It is really yummy.

Girls DVD Night

AL organized a girls DVD night tonight. Girls, and, therefore, "Sex and the City." I didn't understand this logic, but I do now. It's a chick movie, well, a movie for girls in their 30s or over. I was so ignorant about this movie and TV series that I did not know they were huge hits (among girls, of course).

Simply put, this is a happy-ending movie as the majority of Hollywood movies are. It's fine to me because it is Friday and I needed some entertainment, but it was not to AL. It should not end happily!, AL says. AL knows the whole TV series. Given the TV series, this happy ending of the movie is impossible. I see ...

One thing that I was annoyed in the movie was product placements, tons of product placements, including Starbucks, garment brands, to name a few. Oh, there is another annoying thing. The movie is all about the upper-middle class. Girls with career and money live in an expensive condo, wear highend clothes, eat at fancy restaurants all the time, go exploitative vacation, etc., etc. It's not realistic, especially poor Ph.D. students, sigh ...

Japanese Sweets!

YO is funny! She sent me a surprise box again. When I opened the box, I found the box was full of packs of tissues. "What?! This is funny. But, YO wasted her money to send me lots of tissues?!" Then, I took out packs of tissues. Ta-da, daifuku (bean cakes) was there! Sweet red beans are one of my favorite Japanese sweets.

But anyway, YO is funny, very funny.

Nasubi Lunch

Yummy! I'm admiring myself.

Narcissism?!

My nails are now long and in good shape, which doesn't last long. My nails are fragile and easy to break. So, while they look good, I took a photo of them. Ah, they are beautiful ...

Vegitables from Home Garden

My aerobics friend gave me fresh vegetables from her home garden. I don't remember the name of this tomato, but it was rich in taste. It went well with beer, mm, yummy.

She also gave me nasubi, not egg plants, which suck. I'm looking forwarding to cooking them tomorrow :)

Lazy Person's Must-Have Item

Yea! Finally, I bought a bedrest (or reading pillow?)! I'm glad that it was on sale.

I have a habit to read (and solve sudoku) in bed. The problem was my pillows were not supportive. So, I wanted a firm, supportive bedrest like this for long. Now, I can comfortably read in bed. Zzzzz ... ?!

Johnny!

The only reason that I saw this movie tonight, even though it is long (141 mins.!), is that Johnny Depp is starred.

The theme of the movie is kind of timely. It is about bank robbers in the 1930s--the Great Depression. We are now experiencing the worse depression than the last one. The main character that Johnny Depp plays was a hero among financially oppressed people, so he was not caught easily. Meanwhile, FBI was frantic to catch him because they felt their reputation was hurt by him. At the end, Johnny was shot to death by FBI ... Well, to be honest, the story was boring. And, too much gun shooting made me tired.

But, Johnny Depp was cool as always.

Think Critically ...

Well, I always have a hard time to think "critically." Today, again, one of my advisers pointed out that my reading style is very narrative, not critical at all. Yeah, I knew it. Thanks for reminding me.

But he is great. He did not only criticize me but gave me specific ideas of how to ask questions (to myself), and how to look at things from where to answer the questions, which is very helpful.

It is really interesting and eye-popping to me that he suggested to me to connect the concept of "imagined communities" and newspapers. Imagined communities, newspapers, nation-state ...

Very Short Sightseeing

My conference session was 8:30-9:30 this morning. Phew, it was so early that I missed coffee and breakfast.

Presenters at my table were nice people, and I enjoyed talking with them. It is my first experience with this conference and this type of presentation, but I think it was good. It was informal, and provided opportunities to get to know people in a better way.

So, after finishing my session, I took to the streets (?!) to get some coffee. It is interesting that there is a Starbucks almost every corner in San Francisco. In other words, it is hard to find coffee shops other than Starbucks.

Fifteen minutes later, my stomach was settled down with a tall size soy latte (Starbucks, not to mention). It was little past 10:00. My flight was scheduled at 12:50. Even given the time to get to the airport, I had 30 minutes to hang around the town (only 30 minutes!).

I thought of taking a cable car to get to Fisherman's Wharf, but I thought twice, and concluded it would be impossible to get there and come back in 30 minutes. On top of that, there was a loooooooong waiting line for the cable car. Instead, I took a photo of the cable car (as a piece of evidence that I was in San Francisco), and got on BART.

Man, I just spent several hours in San Francisco. What a short trip it was!

SF Newspaper

Good, the San Francisco Chronicle is still alive. Right?!

End of the Summer

It is not quite the end of the summer, but it is the end of fun and distractions. Geez. All my trips are now over. I have to study for big exams at the end of the summer break. Urgh, I need more fun.

Horizon Air

Horizon Air is nice.

Firstly, they changed my destination without extra charge.

I was scheduled to fly Portland, kill three hours of downtime, and fly to Oakland. As soon as I got to Portland, I asked a gate agent to put me in an earlier flight. Actually, I tried twice. By the second try, I realized that my original flight would be delayed an hour. Geez. But the gate agents told me that there was no flight to Oakland before my flight, and that flights to San Francisco were overbooked.

By the way, there's no much difference between flying to Oakland and flying to San Francisco as long as you go to downtown San Francisco. Downtown is located between those airports (see the map above).

Giving up, I took a seat at the bar to have beer. When I finished my beer and left the bar, it was almost 7:40 pm. Then, out of blue, into my beer-filled brain, an announcement came. "There are a couple of available seats in the flight to San Francisco. Those who want to fly to San Francisco, please come to the podium at Gate ..." I didn't think I could change my destination, but anyway, I went to the podium. "Excuse me, may I get a seat in the flight to San Francisco? My original flight is to Oakland, though." "Sure!" So, easily enough, I got a seat, and arrived in San Francisco one hour earlier. Good job, Horizon Air!

Secondly, they served free beer!

During the flight to San Francisco, they served complimentary beer and red wine. Viva, the local airlines and local breweries! On top of that, flight attendances were so nice that they came to me each time I finished my beer by saying, "Another refill?" Sweet.

Familiar Faces

I arrived at the SFO before 10:00 pm. I called SC who is already in San Francisco. She told me to come over to Hilton where she is staying with her friends (, drinking that time). So, I got on BART to get to downtown, which seemed to take forever. Finally when I got to Hilton, it was 11:00 pm. Geez.

SC was at the lobby, as I expected, drinking. She was with her friends from her department. I was delighted to see them (I knew two of them). It's kind of nice to see familiar faces in different locations. Though I am in an unfamiliar town, I can feel that I'm not alone. Kind of? We chatted for a little while about ridiculous stuff, and I left there around 11:30 pm because my conference session will be 8:30-9:30 tomorrow morning.


San Francisco is a tourist town so that I found it is quite safe to walk alone at night (it would depend on the street, though). My hotel is few blocks away from Hilton. I walked there, but I didn't feel scared at all. Nice.

Handmade Skin Lotion

I didn't tell you that my lotion was confiscated at the airport because the lotion was over 3 oz. Who decided the maximum amount should be 3 oz.? Geez. Anyway, I needed to buy another bottle of lotion to moisturize my skin.

I always get lost at the cosmetic section, wondering what brand I should buy. It is very tiring to read instructions, effects, ingredients, and stuff. So, I made up my mind to make lotion instead of buying mass product lotion!

I browsed several websites to figure out how to make lotion. They said it is very simple. Just mix purified water (whatever it means) and glycerin. Simply enough, I can do this.

I went to a drug store, and asked store guy what purified water is. He took me to the bottled water section, and told me those drink water is basically purified water. Wow, it is easy to find.

After coming home, I mixed 200 ml of bottled water and 2 teaspoonful of glycerin into this blue bottle. After shaking well, I applied it to my face. Yeah, it is OK. My skin retains moisture. No chemical, other than glycerin, is in there. Thus, it is natural and healthy, compared with mass product lotion. More than anything else, it is cheap. The bottle of glycerin is $5, the bottled water is $0.5, and the blue plastic bottle is $3. Nice.

Finally, Boston

My flight is 6ish this evening. What a hectic trip it is! Anyway, I decided to take a look at the city until my flight. At least, I needed to say hi to Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams because I came to Boston. So, here's Benjamin Franklin (above) and Samuel Adams (below). Nice to meet you.

East Coast

Wow, I feel I'm really on East Coast. See this sign saying, "New York." Wow.

The Esplanade

Sitting along Charles River, relaxed with comfortable breeze ... an oasis in a big city.

Boston is nice to have this kind of public area such as the Esplanade and Boston Common.

There are a lot of first things in Boston. This public library is also the first thing of the kind. This is gorgeous.

Poster!

So, as scheduled, my flight arrived in Boston around 3 in the evening. My session was scheduled to start at 5. I didn't know how long it would take to get to the conference venue. So, I skipped lunch (domestic flights do not serve free meals anymore), and rushed to the venue.

I'm glad that the public transportation system is good in Boston (not like Japan though), which makes it easy to get around in town.

Fortunately, I arrived at the hotel (conference venue) around 4. I posted my poster and other stuff on the board as fast as possible, and went to the nearest shopping mall to grab some food. Yes, I was hungry.

The session was OK. In fact, I think poster sessions may be better than presentation sessions in which some audiences would get bored. In the poster session, only interested people drop by, so you enjoy more talking with those people.

On Sale

Boston Globe is now on sale.

Geez, this news must be harsh on the employees because they just recently agreed with the New York Times Company to accept concessions in order to avoid a possible shutdown. I want to talk with Boston Globe employees about how they think about their situation. Dehumanized work relations ...

T

I thought the Boston subway system, T, is good (yeah, I remember I said this in the post above). But I found it is not so good.

My hotel is in Cambridge, which is several stations away from the conference venue. To get to the hotel, I was supposed to take one line and get off at the terminal station of that line.

I got on the subway at the nearest station to the conference venue. The train ran a couple of stations without problem. And I heard an onboard announcement by saying, "This train is taking out of service." What the hell?! Man, I thought I could take a shower and go to bed in 10, 15 minutes. See, I was tired after a long flight and conference. I didn't expect that I had to get off the train halfway through.

Complaining does not lead to anything. So, I waited another train coming. But, next train was also out of service. Train after train, they were all out of service. People were still standing at the platform, waiting. Finally, the station announced that there was an electric issue at somewhere, and no train would go farther from this station. Damn. I cursed Boston. You know, I'm tired!

I was told to get to the ground and take a bus. But which bus? What number of the bus? This guy said, "It doesn't matter." Really?! Skeptical about what he said, I climbed up the stairs and got out of the station. Ta-da, there was a bus, sitting next to the station! The signboard of the bus said, "Lechmere," which I was going, yea! It turned out to be a shuttle which the subway arranged.

I usually don't like buses because I don't know where they take me. Well, it is not exactly right. They have their routes, so passengers know where they take them. But, you know, I don't know with what timing I should ring the stop button. And there are other stuff which makes me nervous on the bus. Anyway.

Tonight, I was comfortable on the bus because I knew where it would take me and where I would get off. Also, I enjoyed a short but free sightseeing. Nice.

Noooooo, United!

Y is sweet, he gave me a ride to the airport. The problem happened after he drove me off.

It is a small airport so that it takes, say, 5 minutes to get to the gate. So, I was at the gate one hour before the flight, which was scheduled at 8:30ish tonight. Then, a gate agent announced the flight delay because of a visibility issue--foggy San Francisco, which was my first destination, not the final destination. I needed to catch a connecting flight in San Francisco.

I talked with the gate agent. She punched the computer and found no later flights today from San Francisco to Boston, which is my final destination. I need to be in Boston by 4 tomorrow. Conference! My session will start at 5 tomorrow!

The agent gave me the only option for me: Fly to San Francisco tonight anyway, and take the 6 in the morning flight to Boston tomorrow, which will arrive in Boston at 3ish in the evening. Of course, because this is a delay because of the weather, United has no obligation or responsibility to put passengers in hotels.

Well, I didn't have another choice.

Finally, I got to San Francisco around 11:30ish. I was wondering during the flight: "Well, I will arrive in San Francisco almost midnight, and take a flight early in the morning. Is it worth taking a room to stay four hours?" Guess what? I chose to stay at the airport. Geez, I cannot sleep on these uncomfortable chairs in this freezingly air-conditioned airport.