bertlai_bt's Xanga

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 04:32:58 GMT

I have decided that I am not going to post on my blog anymore. So, this is going to be last post. Thanks for all the interest in the past. And, don't worry. You know where to find me :)

Friday, July 29, 2005

Fri, 29 Jul 2005 23:59:47 GMT

Sudoku... extremely addicting! I got my first puzzle from a pax on our LHR ORD leg and it was just bad! This is all I want to do! The game involved a 9x9 grid. Here is a sample:

http://www.fingertime.com/sudoku.php

Again. It is super addictive. Consider yourself warned

Monday, July 25, 2005

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:44:40 GMT

Jokes of the week:

1) "There is that one Newnham girl that did not get fingered"

2) "U-la" while papa Ags was trying to say "umlaut" in front of an Austrian

3) "Jack Fruit" turned into "Jerky Fruit"

4) Cra-sians

5) Rambutan

6) and as always, everytime when you hang out with the Ags, you will get the classic line "I am not going to no emergency room tonight"

Monday, July 25, 2005

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 14:41:37 GMT

We are back from an awesome 50-hour (from the plane touching down and lifting off in London) trip! It was super fun. The flight from LAX/xSFO/LHR is very smooth. We got to LHR 30 minutes early. Since we are in the first rows in coach (yes. I swear I was breaking out in hives), we got through immigration and custom very quickly. London traffic was pretty bad as they close off some freeways. So, we had to take the slower bus to Cambridge. For some reason, we were not that tired. The overwhelming sensation is defintiely the coldness there. We had some very tasty Turkish and hung out with the Ags. The Ags is, as usual, extremely hilarious. Had a couple of beer with them before heading to sleep.

GRADUATION DAY was next! Woke up an hour late because Saucy's cell phone was still set at GMT instead of the summer time. So, we ended up sleeping in because of that. Beni and I went to pick up the hood for Saucy while she went around town to get tickets for the ceremony. Everyone got all dressed up and we then went to King's for brunch after the 'rehersal' (it was more like a briefing). I had my black pudding (Excuse me... black pudding is TASTY!) and beans. Then, we needed a caffeine boost and off the graduation ceremony we go. They only allowed 3-4 tickets per graduate and so Beni and I had to sneak in. The ceremony was pretty short as that particular session only has 4 colleges in it (Sidney, Girton, Downing and Newnham... HAHAH NEWNHAM!). It basically includes one esteemed faculty in each college to present the graduates in Latin while each of the graduate was holding onto one of his/her finger (so they can only do 4 at a time). Then, you have to kneel in front of the chancellor (Duncan Robinson, aka santa as he was wearing furry robe and has a big belly sitting in a throne). Then, he cupped your hands as your hands are in the prayer position and he again said in Latin something about how he is now a Master in philosophy in the name of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost (and of course, you can ask them to skip the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost part). And then, you are officially a MPhil. Cantab.

Went out for some Thai in apparently Stephen Hawking's favorite restaurant. Rumors say it that he will get drunk there and he will autopilot his wheelchair home. How true is that rumor? doubtful. But, I was secretly hoping to see him drunk. hehe

Since everything and their mother were closed on Sunday in Cambridge, we had to get a Subway sub for the bus ride down to LHR. It was a fun ride despite of the heavy traffic here and there because the Ags are also on the bus. As always, terminal 3 in LHR is not fun to battle as United is all the way to the end of the terminal. So, we had to fight the crowd that are coming out of Emirates or some mid-eastern airline counter until we reach ours. The operational upgraded us to C (thank god!) and we were slipping champagne an hour later on our way back to ORD. The service on board was okay. I was happy because I got my free booze and my favorite tea sandwiches and scones.

Then the funny farm begins. Got to ORD and had no problem with the immigration line, although the custom man was really weird and had some issues with me and Saucy (he said to Saucy that I am goofy). We transferred ourselves from the Internataionl terminal to the domestic terminal. We then got on the ORD LAX flight. They then announced that they had problems with loading the luggage and we ended up logging in a one hour delay. To make matter worse, once we get into LAX, there were no gates available to us. We had to wait for the gate before we can start heading there. Then, we head to wait for that plane to leave the galley before ours can go in. So, we finally got home at midnight, exhausted but happy... GREAT TRIP!

(thank you Ireland for the late night ride... really appreciated)

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 16:52:04 GMT

Again... It is time to fly...

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Wed, 20 Jul 2005 13:27:47 GMT

United is doing a sale to Hong Kong for the next 2 months for 650 bucks... maybe I should take a long weekend to go to Hong Kong?

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Tue, 19 Jul 2005 04:57:15 GMT

Have been working through the past 2 weekends. But, it is really okay. I am extremely looking forward to skipping town this Thursday. It is going to be super fun. I am ready. Jet me to Europe NOW!

This past weekend was certainly interesting. We got a free meal at Chipotle (aka McDonald's Mexican style) for no reason. (we were confused most of the time becuase it was our first time in Chipotle. But, we were satisfied with the service) We went to MOCA for a weird exhibition. I love comtemporary art. However, they are featuring an artist who has a lot of rage. Most of his paintings consist of words and words and words. It was humorous at first because you are laughing at the word "erotica" painting all over the place. But then, it starts getting old really fast. I was glad that the usual collection they usually have is much more to my taste (aka, squares, weird video/3D displays etc)

Harry Potter 6 came out this weekend. I pre-ordered mine and then decided to start reading it while I am not at work. The problem is that I don't really have the patience to find out who is hooking up with whom and who died. So, at 1:30am last night with intense sleepiness overwhelming me, I read the last 2 chapters and they gave me the answers that I need. Now, I can go sleep and maybe read the rest on my plane ride LAX/xSFO/LHR.

I got a phone call from credit card people today about a weird purchase showing up on my credit card. It was a 1400 dollar purchase made today. I would defintiely remember if I spend 1400 bucks in a place. I don't have I have even spent more than 1400 bucks for anything (except Tedo the car). I think there is only like once that I have spent more money than that for a plane ticket (winter 2003 BWI/xSFO/HKG/xSFO/xSEA/ANC/xSEA/xORD/BWI). I am glad that my credit card company is more alert than I am about my credit card. Anyways, that purchase did not even go through and I was not even responsible for that charge at all. (now, we have that weird identity fraud commerical from citibank right now) phew!

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 04:49:26 GMT

Yay! Group meeting is done and over with... phew!

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Wed, 13 Jul 2005 08:38:35 GMT

Oops. Again, there has not been much interesting things happening. I have been feverishly working on my group meeting for the past week. The problem is that it takes quite a while to get a presentation ready every time you start a new project. It has been quite a pain to pick out the data that I think is worth presenting. Then, I had to make them look pretty before slapping it on a slide. This is the problem for playing with a lot of spectroscopic instruments. All they do is spitting out tons of numbers for you. I have to be the one who processed them all so that it will make sense to people. The process is usually pretty dry. It gets pretty monotonous after a while. But, I do prefer that kind of boredom once and a while as the result cannot be adjusted and everything is really straight forward. It is very predictable as the data-workup process is always the same. It is not like when you are playing with lasers. It could be all nicely aligned one day, while the next day, it could go all out of whack for you.

Saucy bought a book recently and I have been trying to read it. It is called "Wild Swans" by Jung Chung. It is the story of the author's family for 3 generations. The writer started the story from her grandmother being the concubine of a warlord in China at the beginning of the 20th century all the way through the late 1970s. I am always intrigued by 20th century history (western or chinese). However, I have never read anything that depicts modern Chinese history through personal experience. The book covers a lot of dramatic changes in China in the 20th century. The change from emperial China to a democracy government, the second world war, the rise of the Communist party, the Cultural Revolution.

The book is written in English (The author moved to Britain in 1978 and stayed there ever since) and I read the Chinese translation when I was really young. Back then, it was very interesting to me as I got to learn all these history. But now, the feeling is completely different. I have only finished the prologue and the book is already resonating in me. She talked about her exploration in the new world when she first moved to England. Everything was so different for her and she was soaking every moment up. Then, she was saying how much cultural adjustment she had to make. In China, one would greet each other by asking others "have you eaten yet?" or "where are you heading to?". She was saying she would greet people with those exact lines when she first moved to Britain. I don't think anyone has described cultural shock better than this. Looking back the past 5 years, it has been quite an interesting journey for me. I remember when I was first being introduced to the line "what's up?!" when I was a freshman. I was soooo awkward, uptight and out-of-place back then. The transformation process has not been easy. It was painful and humilating at times. But, I learned so much during the process, and I think (at least I hope) it made me a better person. Overall, I think I have become more open to new things, much more adventurous and loosen up. I feel so blessed for having so many friends who have been teaching me so much (not only in the past 5 years, but ever since high school. I was even a bigger piece of mess back then) and love me for who I was, who I am and (hopefully) who I will be.

I am looking forward to reading the book next week when I will be on some form of transportation tool for a very long time. Harry Potter 6 is coming out soon too. It is going to be a tough choice of which one I am going to read first.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Mon, 04 Jul 2005 06:03:40 GMT

After a pretty crazy week, the long weekend is here! I love it because nobody is in lab and I get to sign up on as much instrument as I want. So, I am considering myself to pre-work for my future vacations.. hehe

So, about that wedding, I don't think anyone can do a better job than giving a description to what happened... courtesy to ID. Here is the link:

http://www.blogwaffe.com:8000/2005/06/28/302/

Group meeting is in 1.5 weeks... ah... I need to press that panic button soon to get my talk ready...