bitter magnet

so yeah, i finally graduated (was on Friday). parents & my tia flor were able to come and watch me get my diploma. was fun, went to a number of restaurants and did the trolley tour thing. unfortunately joe had to go out of town on Sunday for work. he's still over there, and won't be back till Sat morning, which *sucks* since it's so close to moving day (less than 2 weeks away). eek.

and just because i'm done with thesis etc doesn't mean i'm chillin' out--in fact, soon after the thesis was turned in things have gotten even more hectic! the morning after turning in my thesis, we got on a plane to Maui (ok, that trip *was* somewhat relaxing & fun, but it was only 4 days and there were a few stressful things about it, including the really long flights, having to deal with a dead car battery on our rental car, getting sunburned--but i digress). and the very day we got back from maui (the 30th) i got a bad cold, so i just stayed home for the next few days and worked on our wedding invitations (was a lot more work than I thought!) and rushed to cleaned up our apt. then my parents & aunt came, and there was the hooding ceremony & graduation etc. my parents left on monday afternoon, but after that it's not like i have gotten any time to chill. the past couple days I had to deal with a *ton* of stuff, mostly relating to our move to LA and wedding-related plans (of ALL the weeks Joe had to be out of town and basically unreachable, it HAD to be this one...) . i also had to get hardcopies of my thesis printed, and today i went to pick them up and realized that in all 8 copies there were a number of key graphs that were totally messed up in (despite giving them the PDF file which looked fine on their computer). Argh! I had to rush back and and ask for the CopyTech ppl to figure it out and fix it before rushing off to an appointment. Oh, and did I mention that I have a paper deadline on the 22nd (and we're moving out on the 25th!!) So, relaxing? Naw, it ain't happening yet! Maybe on our honeymoon....

so today's my birthday...woo. one year away from the big 3-0. whatever. anyways joe and i celebrated tonight by going to Brasserie Jo, in copley square. it's a really nice French restaurant. i ordered sauteed scallops w/ angel hair pasta, and it was really good...sauce was really rich & creamy. for dessert we got this strawberry thing with almond ice cream...was *amazing*. hmm, i really wish i knew how to cook such delicious French food every day. of course though, if i did, i'd probably be putting on the pounds even faster. :( i swear, i think i must have gained at least 10 lbs over the past couple months, due to all the stress & lack of exercise. and we're off to maui in a week...perfect timing, no?. well at least there's still time to get fit for our own wedding (5 months). hopefully in LA it will be a bit easier to get into the whole fitness mindset. at least NorCal is like that...whenever i visit my parents i always notice the larger abundance of whole food stores, diet-friendly menu items, etc. Also, the weather is significantly more conducive to things like jogging...you pretty much have nice weather 11 months out of the year, as opposed to maybe 2 months here in Boston (3 months, tops).

Well my thesis defense was on Thursday (the 10th), and all went well (woo!). So I'm basically done (still have to turn in my thesis, though). I do have a draft finished but I still need to update some figures and include a bit more stuff in it. Though it should all be do-able by the 24th (that's the last day I can turn it in, because we leave for Hawaii on the morning of the 25th). Crazy, huh. The timing of this trip was perfect...the day after turning my thesis, get to hop on a plane and have a relaxing 4-day vacation in Maui. It'll be cool because we'll see lots of Joe's friends there (we are going for a wedding).

Anyway, right now I'm just trying to relax for a bit before getting started on the thesis editing tomorrow (Monday). I just want to chill as much as possible this weekend, because the next few weeks will be quite busy. Over the past six years at MIT, I've come to learn that things always tend to come together at the last minute, especially when it comes to thesis writing. :-D

in case anyone i know actually reads, this, i haven't posted lately as i'm too busy writing my thesis. working on chapter 4 now. only have a couple weeks before i need to have a draft, plus i still have some additional experiments left to do. Eeek. でも、頑張るぞ！

well, this morning I decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls, using the recipe from allrecipes.com (called Ooey-Gooey Cinnamon Buns"). The recipe as is makes 15, but I halved it and ended up making 9 slightly smaller ones. Anyway, even though they did take about ~3 hours to make (since it uses yeast, you have to wait a couple times for the dough to rise) it was really worth it! 美味しかったよ！They were especially tasty right from the oven...Joe ended up eating 4 of them right then and there!! :) Anyway, this recipe gets 5 stars from us! I think the next time I make these, I'll probably make the dough, filling, etc everything the night before and so the next morning you just have to bake it.

このごろ、ボストンの天気が凄く寒くなっています。今朝、−８C（feels like -23C)でした。その寒さといったら、言葉にできないほどでした。そのうえ、どこも氷があって、凄く滑りやすい。昨日、雪が降って、それから氷になっています。だから、今朝車がstuckでした。どうしても、車が動けませんでした。We were stuck for about an hour and a half. Joe tried to shovel the ice while I was behind the wheel trying to put the car in drive, then reverse, then drive again to get it unstuck. Poor thing could do nothing but just spin its wheels. 可哀想。 I then tried to google "how to get your car unstuck from the snow" and came up with lame tips like "Put your car in 4-wheel drive, if it has it." Well duh--I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place if I had 4 wheel drive!! Arg! It also said "try to remove most of the snow around the tires." Hah. Well i could, if the snow wasn't FROZEN SOLID!! Argh. 大変でした。結局、動き出しました。Somehow we got it out of there. I think it was like 9:45 am when I finally got to work (we had first gotten in the car around 8am).

Well, maybe I won't miss the snow after all. カリフォルニアに帰りたい！

well, finally Boston sees some decent snow!! Went outside this morning to see maybe ~6? inches of snow on the ground. Joe had to scrape off the windshield etc but it wasn't too bad..still no shoveling necessary (maybe we'll get away this winter without ever having to use it!). LOL. :)

Anyway, the other cool thing about snow is that it's not as cold...now apparently it's a whopping 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Woo. Much better from the 9 degrees it was yesterday (brr!). Yesterday I had to walk to work, since Joe had to go in super-early. It wasn't too bad except for in the end my face felt like it was frozen off!

さて、私たちカリフォルニアに引っ越ししたら、雪が懐かしくなるでしょう。But that's about it...I won't miss all the other winter days when it's below zero and it's so damn cold you ask yourself again, "WHY did I move here again???"

BTW, I don't know if the Japanese above is correct. I basically just wanted to say that if we move to California we will probably miss the snow. Not sure if 懐かしくなる is the right phrase to use here...i'm not exactly sure how to say I will "miss" something. Oh well..if anyone out there knows, let me know!!