Random pic of the day : the envelope in which I sent in my graduate application a year and a half ago

Me in 1.5 years

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants



I just bought and read the entire book in less than a day. It's one of those young teen books that I used to read voraciously in my younger, even nerdier years. The movie starts June 1 and I might just go see it by myself that day, if just for the beautiful views of Santorini.

So, the book is a pretty good one, a very fast read and somewhat predictable as most books of this genre are, but I really was interested in each of the girls' stories.

The books tells the stories of four girls and how they found a pair of magical pants that could fit each one of them perfectly, even though they are all obviously of different builds. They are all separated for the first time that summer and promise to take turns with the pants and send each other letters. The pants binds them together and gives each one courage in whatever she is doing that summer. This idea is great and all except for the fact that they NEVER washed the jeans! It was one of their sisterhood rules and that is the thing that most bugged me. The jeans ended up all over with dirt, blood, sweat, etc and that just grossed me out. =) And it was secondhand to begin with!

Anyways, briefly the four girls are:

Tibby : she's the only one staying at home in the summer, she decides to make a suckumentary and reluctantly becomes friends with Bailey, 12 yr old girl with leukemia, she's the one played by Joan of Arcadia star Amber Tamblyn

Bridget : she goes to soccer camp in Baja California, seriously tries to seduce Eric, a soccer coach there and fails, she's the tall blonde one played by Blake Lively

Carmen : she's the one who finds the pants, she's half Puerto Rican, goes to visit her dad but ends up being mad at her dad and his new wife and kids, she's played by Real Women Have Curves star America Ferrera

Lena : she's the beautiful one who goes to Greece to visit her grandparents, she gets to paint everyday in the gorgeous island of Santorini and falls in love with the Greek boy Kostos, she's played by Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls (Alexis, by the way, is not Greek and didn't bother to learn any Greek for the movie, on the other hand, I did learn some Greek from the book)

Because of the Greek in the book, I also found out the names of some of the food I ate at Kan Zaman a week and a half ago. Spanakopita is the spinach pastry that was sooo good and dolmades are the stuffed grape leaves that I couldn't figure out what was inside.

Anyhoo, I feel so old reading that book. All the girls are fifteen, I can't remember if I did anything that fun at fifteen or even fall in love. But overall, I liked the book, it was something to do during my break. Also, it made me want to travel so badly. Why didn't I have grandparents in cool places like a beautiful island?

You know that we're growing up when we really go our separate ways and have to schedule hangouts every few months or so. It was so nice back then, we'd see each other everyday in class, eat lunch together, see each other on weekends for tennis... Then comes college, at least I was lucky enough to live with Tammy for four years, so we still tried to meet up on campus for lunch and dorm dinners and see each other at night, and we'd meet up with Linda and Cynthie on weekends. Now we're really gonna more separated when Tammy goes to med skool oh so far away... then she's gonna meet a hot guy there and never come home during breaks! Oh noo! Wowee, all four of us are really doing our thing now. Tammy is doing her med skool thing, Linda is doing her high skool teaching thing, Cynthie is doing her bio phd thing and I'm doing my stat phd thing. =) Are we really adults now?!? I don't think I am... but at least we'll still all be friends til we retire from doing our things.

Today at Speedzone and CPK was fuuuun! Too bad Floey and Robert were in Texas and Eugenie was in Taiwan. Cynthie is a NASCAR driver-in-training! Good thing she's too polite to bump, otherwise in the real races, all we'd see is flames. =) And Linda is quite the action photographer! She caught all of us racing by.

(Haha, I know I write like a little kid, I could take the time to compose eloquent blog entries, my English ain't that bad, but who cares?? No one told ya to waste time reading this anyways! =) )

Statistics Commencement 2005 Photos

Thank goodness for my large butt. I fell again from rollerblading and it saved me! No bruises, no aches, just minor scratches on my palms. =)

I realized yesterday that I've really moved on. I visited UCLA and it doesn't feel like it used to when I was an undergrad. Even if Evans Hall, my office and Berkeley in general aren't as nice and white as the MS building and Westwood, I feel more at home at up there than I probably would have if I decided to stay at UCLA. So what does this mean? I guess I can't plan my life that much at all, so who knows where I'll be after I (hopefully) graduate from Cal. Perhaps postdoc on East Coast? I realize now that I can't get attached to something that much, always better things out there... Of course, this won't apply to future husband, no returns or exchanges! Anyways, so... because of yesterday, I know I must let some things go. I know I'm still a little girl in many respects, but I should feel okay with what I've done in the past and just move on from there. I guess I'm still learning so much about life.

Theoretical Stats : A
Applied Stats : A-

I'm really happy! I guess those late nights working alone in my office sorta paid off. The weird thing is that I thought that I'd do worse in my theoretical stats class; that was a pretty hard class to understand. Anyways, that sorta eases my mind about my chance of being kicked out after next year.

One more thing I forgot to mention:

I had a great time today at Kan Zaman in San Francisco. My officemate David planned a first year dinner at this Middle Eastern restaurant where we all took turns slipping singles into the belly dancer's skirt.

Ooh! I forgot to mention I had totally hot hair today. ;o)

My roomie Jasmine offered to curl my hair and she did a hell of a job!! Damn, it was like in a magazine, nice shiny waves, curls and tendrils floating softly on my head. Too bad I had to wash it gone just now. I love it when people play with my hair, it's so relaxing, unfortunately nobody's done anything to my hair in a loooooong time til today.

Life is great once more! =) I LOVE GRAD SCHOOL!

Anyways, I'm officially done with my first year!!! I can't belieeeeve it, I think I survived, yes I did!

One down, four to go!

Song on repeat :

Mariah Carey - I Wish You Knew

I've got to see you
Wherever you are
And I've got to be there
I'm wishing on stars
I've got to reveal what's inside of my heart
But the words escape me
And I'm paralyzed
So helpless when I
Look into your eyes

[chorus]
And how I wish you only knew
What I feel inside for you
You probably haven't got a clue
But I wish you knew
How I love you baby

Honestly I know it's silly of me
To want you so badly
But keep it concealed
See my inferiority complex kicks in
And the words escape me
And I'm paralyzed
So helpless when I
Look into your eyes

[chorus]
And how I wish you only knew
What I feel inside for you
You probably haven't got a clue
But I wish you knew
How I love you baby

PLEASE LET ME FINISH MY FINAL!

TOO MANY DAYS OF PRESSURE

ONE QUESTION I TRIED SOLVING TODAY IS STILL NOT DONE AND I'M ON THE 5TH PAGE, BOTH SIDES!

WHY, OH WHY, AM I A GRAD STUDENT?

fine, actually, i am lucky to be a grad student, especially in a great place like berkeley, i don't deserve to be here.... but still!!!! i want my final to be over with...

i guess this is one of the times in life that i wish i had someone to take care of me and give me support

on a sorta related note, i'm apparently not girly enough, hehe, what else you expect from a nerdy grad student? my uniform is jeans, t-shirt, hoodie and sneakers, but i think i can be sorta cute if i tried, ha! maybe that's why no one wants me, i gotta be more girly? anyways, i'll be girly on thursday, my friend made me buy these girly hoochie clothes to wear for graduation and dinner, heels, makeup, hair, the works, ha! yeah right.... i'm rambling on and on and on, there's really no point though since i'm not interested in anyone in the department and i haven't met anyone outside of the department, note to self: must go to those grad social events

and the only guy i like right now doesn't care, so there's nothing for me to do except go back to doing my final, 23 pages handwritten and counting, wish me luck and companionship....

calories/miles/time(min)/pace(mph)

elliptical : 134/1.3/13/6
treadmill : 409/3.29/41/5

this is the first time ever i've run 3 miles without stopping

i don't think i've run 3 miles even with stopping before...

i'm kinda glad i'm getting in better shape, hopefully this is why i'm feeling great nowadays, despite the usual academic pressures in life

anyways, i remember i used to be able to only do 3 minutes straight on the ucla treadmills at 3.5-4mph, today 41 minutes!! =)

hopefully, i'll keep this as a routine not a phase, like my cooking phase, hahah...

It's amazing how healthy I'm getting during finals weeks:

* I get plenty of sleep, I get at least 8 hours everyday at reasonable times, usually 11pm-8am.

* I get plenty of exercise, I run over 2.5 miles 4-5 days a week, yesterday I did 2.75 miles in 30 minutes and hoping to increase it to 3 miles.

* I get plenty of nutrition, since I don't have time to cook, I eat at the dorms everyday, but I eat healthy, plenty of vegetables, steamed brown rice, grilled chicken breasts, fish and lots of milk!! =)

So yay! This is all done to save my mental health and I feel great, besides the fact that I can't do my theoretical stats final at all. And b/c it is finals week, of course I load up on ice cream and dark chocolate, but that's my only bad thing. =)

And speaking of theoretical stats final, my TA was nice to give me a hint that one of the problems was in the textbook... but where?? Me being a very patient and persistent person started flipping through it from page one since the question was so hard that I couldn't even narrow down which section or chapter it might have come from. Anyways, woila! I found it! And I didn't have to flip through the entire book, now my big problem is trying to understand it!! How sad is that? I can't even understand the answer, how the heck am I supposed to do the other 3 problems on the final? Just lovely! =P

it's working!!!

here i thought, i was stupid, i've actually learned something this year!! i'm gonna be a true statistician, i'm reading this paper and i've understood everything and i realize how bad the paper is! and how who ever did the analysis and wrote the paper really ain't a statistician... dude, 3-d histograms?? how lame and wrong is that? only non-statisticians would think a 3-d plot would be "cool" enough to use, at the cost of actually getting the correct information conveyed, (due to the angles at which these plots are, you can't compare things accurately), yet this paper got published...hmmm.... well, i'm glad i know stats and will be able to really help the field and improve the analysis =)

this has made me feel just a little better ...it's finals season and it's really get me down... i've been working everyday in my office til 10-11pm, so i'm wondering sometimes why i signed up for this, being voluntarily cooped up in my office on saturdays and sundays while everyone else is enjoying the great weather, sigh..... oh wells!

Athlete Lyrics

Half Light

The sun got stuck, as it's making it's way back down,
We find ourselves, in a familiar part of town

And all that I've seen means nothing to me without you

So when I see you next we'll make the most of it,
Tell the sun to start moving again,
The taste of your kiss I still got on my lips,
And ill take you there with me

My head crashed down, and conditioned myself to sleep,
The great night out, that will continue to the end of the week

And all that I've seen means nothing to me without you

So when I see you next we'll make the most of it,
Tell the sun to start moving again,
The taste of your kiss I still got on my lips,
And ill take you there with me

It's you and me connected to a satellite
It's you and me love through a machine
It's you and me connected to a satellite
It's you and me love through a machine

So when I see you next we'll make the most of it,
Tell the sun to start moving again,
The taste of your kiss I still got on my lips,
And I'll take you there with me