DC Domain

long time no see my blog!  since i actually got home early tonight (yes, it's 8:15p and I am actually sitting down to have dinner) i guess i will write something...

 

like everytime after the drive from LA/SJ, i'm pretty tired but as soon as i remember that CRG is bringing me to Taiwan for the first time next week, i get all excited!  i'm dying to eat the local night market food and to have our wedding pictures taken :D  i really hope the pix will come out nice!  another thing that will make me feel the drive was worth it is when i look at my cute little niece's pictures, she is soooooo adorable (and chubby!).  i always bring my dslr home to capture her precisious moments because she grows so fast!  it is so miraculous how much joy a baby can bring to a famly, love you Arissa!  <3<3

The American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco finally came to an end today.  The past four days went by like a breeze   I spent the first 3 days attending diffierent talks, and my last day exploring SF.  I woke up everyday at about 6:45am, walked to the bart station in downtown Berkeley and arrived in downtown SF at 8:10am.  After a brief walk, I would stop by one of the many cafes on Market Street to get my daily fuel (coffee), then my day finially officially starts at 8:30am when the first talk begins.

 

Wednesday was by far the best day!  I bought a cable car/muni one-day pass, hopped on and off to visit the many different corners of SF.  I went to House of Nanking for lunch, found the Golden gate bakery that Mike highly recommanded but it was closed for their annual days-off!!  I guess I'll go there again in the near future.  I spent some time shopping in China Town with Judy, which was a lot of fun :)  I will definitely go back there again before the end of my internship!

Wow, time flies!  It's almost the end of August!  I'm now quite familiar with everything at work :D  Our secretary, who's office is right next to mine, is from Hong Kong!  We've been chatting a lot and she is very nice to me :)  My office-mate is a post-doc from VT, we've been lunch and coffee buddies :D  Today, like the past few days, we swung by the cafeteria around 4pm for the "free 4pm coffee", and to our surprise, there were cake and starbucks coffee (note: not generic coffee!!).  So we tried to figure out what the deal was because there was a large group of old people.  It turned out that it was some guy's retiring party and not our regular free-coffee time.  We stood there pretending we were waiting, then we decided to just "rob" the coffee+cake and go (hehe...).  that was fun.... 

 

Work has been going alright, not ideal, could be better.  I am now learning polymer chemistry, which really isn't much different than regular o-chem.  My temporary mentor is a "highly regarded" post-doc who is an expert in this area.  I guessI should really take advantage of this opportunity :D  Gotta work harder!!!

"Congratulations!  Join the club!"  That was exactly what my boss said to me at 3:30pm on 7/17, after I went through the VERY LAST and the most important exam in my life!  I had such a great day on monday, it was unbelieveable.  My goodfriends took me out to BJs for dinner, during which I was forced to have my first beer.  Then they figured since it was such a special occasion, they took me to Maloney's on Gayley and forced me to take 4 shots (apparently they were trying to get me drunk), however I had to stop after 3, the white Russian totally killed it.  I had so much fun last night, I'm so gonna do it to my other friends when they pass their oral :) hehehe....  Now, my next goal is to graduate soon! 

I used to complain all the time that you never bought me enough flowers...  On June 10th, 2006, witnessed by the Pacific Ocean, on the romantic Laguna beach, you kneeled down and surpised me with the most beautiful diamond flower engagement ring.  I was very touched to tears by every word you said, and everything you did to plan for that memorable moment.  Thank you baby.  I love you, forever.

Judy came to visit me in LA on friday March 3 and stayed for the weekend, so I took her to some of the tourist spots in LA.  We talked all night until 3:30am and then woke up at 10am saturday morning so needless to say, I was already tired when the weekend  begins.  Our first stop was, of course, the UCLA campus.  It was a beautiful  day so we took plenty of pictures.  After the brief campus tour, we went to Westwood for some Thai food for lunch.  After we filled our stomach, we went to Hollywood to see the Walk of fame and the red carpet for the Oscar's!  We saw Owen Wilson in his limo on our way there.  He was right next to me on the road as we were all stuck in traffic .  For the first (and probably the only) time, I was happy because of the terrible traffic in LA.  We spent a good afternoon taking pictures and seeing interesting things.  I bought some cream puffs from Beard Papa and they were delicious.  If you like custard cream, I recommand you to try this.    We finished the night with some Tomodachi sushi, yum... :)  On Sunday, we went to Venice Beach  in the morning, and then had lunch at the Farmer's Market on Fairfax, followed by shopping at the Grove and the Beverly Center.  After two days of LA tours, I was seriously exhausted.  Perhaps I'm really getting old.....

The game last night was great, and the post-game was even better.  The five of us squeezed into Jeff's little integra and off we went to La Brea for some Pink's hotdogs!  I ordered the "millenium dog" and that was the biggest hotdog I've ever had and surely it was goooooood!  But I must say it was so heavy that I can't imagine having a second one within a week .