one year of blogging

Today is my blog's anniversary. Overall I am glad that I started this blog. It helped me remember what happened in my life, good or bad, since my memory is not reliable at all on this subject.

In the mean time, I will probably stop writing anything for a while. I want to be more concentrated on finishing up my degree, and be less sentimental. Also, I have been working on my self-control, so this would be a good chance to test that.

I am sure I will be back. It's just a matter of time.

Congratulations, Rachel!

Tonight I went to my friend Demoree's birthday party and got doubled joy, because another friend Rachel just got engaged before the holidays.

Since I made her promise to invite me to her wedding, that will be my first time ever to be in an American wedding. How exciting is that!

I can't help thinking about which dress I am going to wear...

dreamgirls

"Dreamgirls" is not that kind of movie that would get me emotionally involved, but I enjoyed it very much. It has good music, good acting and good plot.

Jia and I were talking about the possibility of answering the committee's questions during her defense by singing them out. We did some demo in the theatre after the movie. Since we are not really good at singing, we went with the free-style rap.

It was something like this: "Hmm, hmm, yeah, yeah! That is a very good question! You know what?! You got me, you got me!"

how stuff works

During my interview this past Wednesday, I was asked this question: "how is water pumped up in a coffee maker?"

Of course, I did not know the answer and I was totally honest about it. Although I have used coffee maker for a long time, not even once did that question come across my mind. Probably vaguely, and I thought it was simply the condensation of the steam.

After coming back to Michigan, I asked my fellow PhD students this question. No one seemed very sure about it either. So I looked up the web "how stuff works" and got the answer. It actually has something to do with a one-way valve, a heating tube with certain diameter and surface tension of bubbles.

Yesterday I was washing my face with some self-foaming cleanser. Then I suddenly realized that I didn't know how this self-foaming thing worked either. I know it has something to do with the pressure, but where is this foam coming from?

Luckily the website has answers for everything. But I am still fascinated by how many years of study I took in school and how little I know about real-life products.

Hmm...another reason not to go academic.