Wii New Year's Eve

The Wii Dance thing is so fun! And, a lot of exercise!

LF invited me for Eve dinner with her family and fed me a lot, phew. After dinner, we started chatting and her daughter got bored. She wanted to play Wii. I had played Wii only once long time ago, tennis or something. Anyway, we started doing the dancing stuff. I had thought it'd be all about swinging the controller. No way. I was wrong. I got exhausted after a song. But, the little lady played a song after another. Oh man, my right arm hurts. I will get muscle pain tomorrow. But, it was great exercise after a big meal. I didn't expect I would do that much exercise on New Year's Eve. Hilarious!

A happy New Year in three hours!

Christmas Gift

DS and her family gave me a couple of bottles of wine and a wine glass on Christmas Day. I was so grateful for their gift, especially the wine glass, because I just broke my cheap wine glasses in a row, two of them.

Today, I tried the wine glass and realized it's huge, bigger than my old wine glass. 13 ozs.? Gigantic. And, you know what? I overdrank. Man, I should've been careful.

iPad doesn't Help Newspapers?

Um, this survey shows iPad won't be a savior of newspapers. Most respondents (a.k.a. iPad users who participated in this survey) were well-educated, upper-middle-class businesspeople, so survey results don't reflect the general population. But, I assume that this group of people consists of the core of the readership of newspapers. This is not a good sign for newspapers anyway.

Major issues of iPad are the price and the infrastructure. iPad is a fancy product. Kindle and nook are much more reasonable but not as stylish as iPad. What is worse, Kindle is black and white. Forget it.

To get back to another issue of iPad, the infrastructure. Wi-fi may be available everywhere in big cities, but it is not the case of rural areas. Wi-fi is quite rare. iPad is a product for people with disposable income living in big cities. In this regard, digital divide because of socioeconomic class may be widening. Mm, this is not good for society.

Hot Pot

My stomach has been upset for a while, probably because I've been drinking a lot and eating the same amount though I'm not doing enough exercise. So, I decided to make hot pot to calm down my stomach. And, I found a great recipe of hot pot soup. Here it is:

4 cups of soup stock
2 tbsps. of sake
2 tbsps. of mirin
1/4 cup of soy sauce
salt

This is really good. Even you want to finish the soup completely.

Get Real, Buddy!

Oh, ho, ho, this is hilarious, sadly.

Tempeh Sloppy Joe

S took me to this beer place. She is a sweet person, and we have a great time to chat around over beer :)

I hadn't been there before, so I didn't know what to have. Well, I know what to have in terms of beer always, IPA, whoo-hoo. But, I didn't know what to eat. So, I just chose something sounds interesting, which is Tempeh Sloppy Joe. Sloopy Joe?! What's that?! It turned out very good with beer! I just fell in love with it. Probably, because it was cooked with tempeh. I'm not sure I liked it if it was cooked with ground beef. Mind you, I'm not a vegetarian, but I don't simply like cheap beef.

I found a recipe, thanks to the Internet :)

200g tempeh, crumbled
2 tbs. vegetable oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 celery stalk, dices
1 tbs. soy sauce
100g barbecue sauce
4 buns

Wisdom Teeth?!

My doctor friend kindly asked his dentist friend about my symptom, jaw pain. That dentist suspects that my wisdom teeth are coming out. I am at quite good age, but I have had none of my wisdom teeth taken out. An X-ray that I took a while ago shows all of my wisdom teeth are horizontally lying under gums, and they do not seem to come out. That's why I have bad teeth order. Anyway, I wonder now they are causing my jaw pain and ear pain. I may need to see a dentist. Ahhhh, unexpected expense!

Temporomandibular Joint Disorder?

My left jaw joint hurts, terribly hurts! Even this pain echoes to my ear, like my left eardrum is beating loud. I can't sleep at night because of this pain. I remember the same left jaw hurt a few months ago, but I let it be because I thought it was just a temporary pain and my ear didn't hurt back then. And as I expected, the jaw-ache was gone in a month. But this time, it seems more serious. I hope it's just because of the stress and pressure that I'm feeling from my dissertation. My D think is giving me a headache, oh well, jaw-ache.

American University Education

I have felt students (mostly freshmen) this term are really bad in terms of their attitudes and intellectual capacity.

Here is a premise. The class had the final at night. Now, here are things that I experienced only today.

This morning, I got an email from a student by saying that she wanted to know what grade she got on her writing assignment. My question was, "So, what happens if she knows her grade on her paper now? Is she going to study hard for the final? Or drop the class in this finals week???" Of course, I didn't tell her her grade because grades of paper assignments were not open yet. I don't know what she did because she didn't respond to my email. That's the way of students. They are rude.

Around 4, I got another email from a different student. He wanted to have answers for study guides for two days that I assume are days he missed class. Man, too late. And, those days were a month ago. If he really wanted to know the answers, he could have visited me during my office hours, much earlier, not like three hours before the exam. Give me a break. I emailed him back, but I didn't give him answers.

During the exam, I was asked several stupid questions. That happens all the time. The most brilliant one is, "Um, I just want to make sure federal is nationwide?" What?! Don't you know what "federal" means?! Are you really from a country governed by a federal government? Are you a citizen paying federal tax? Have you watched police movies and TV shows in which people are wearing jackets with the sign of FBI? Who are those FBI people? Jeez, she doesn't deserve college education.

Zumba!

Oh, I love zumba!. It's hard dancing and sweating. Latin, salsa, reggae, and what else? I usually go out of my breath from dancing zumba. But, it's really fun. I love it!

Because I love this class and this particular instructor (she is awesome!), I went to her zumba class at a different fitness club tonight :P Oh, this class was much better because it was not crowded at all. Also, the studio has a stage on which the instructor dances so that even if you are in the back, you have a clear sight. It is not the case of my fitness club. Her zumba class at my fitness club is always crowded, actually packed with people, which is stressful. Because the studio doesn't have a stage, if you stay in the back, you can barely see her movement. But, in terms of atmosphere, my fitness club is better. People (oh well, including me) are whooing throughout the class. I love it!

Rewrite!

I knew it! I knew it! I knew that I had to rewrite, ughhhhhh! I'm fed up with revising my writing, but at the same time, I'm kind of getting used to it. No! It's too bad!

Anyway, I saw my adviser this afternoon for his feedback on my two chapters. He was happy about my method chapter, which is good. And, it should be satisfying because I had already rewritten once and revised once. But, he was not happy about the introduction chapter at all, AT ALL! According to him, what I described in my introduction should be in the background chapter, which I didn't expect to have. So, I will end up having the background chapter and rewriting the introduction chapter. Ugh!

To my adviser's credit, he is a good person who is trying to help me. He is patient and approachable. I'm very much appreciating that. And, I'm pretty happy to have him as my adviser.

December ...

Geez, it's December already ...