It's been a while...

Dear all,

As I write this post on this nearly forgotten blog, I am drinking chicken noodle soup. I have a very unfortunate cold. Since my last post, many things have changed. I am now in Boston in hopes of finding a job (that very very elusive job. My dear readers in Boston, if you know of any job opportunities please let me know). I am not longer subscribed to Netflix. And I am eating a lot more canned soup and frozen food that are on sale. To follow my journey through chronologically organized photos, please click here!

On the movie front, we all know that the Golden Globes and SAG Awards took place. Congrats to my favorites in winning: Laura Linney, Glee, Modern Family, Temple Grandin. And although I put my Netflix account on hold, I have seen a few movies since moving away from home.

The Savages

Such wonderful performances by both Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's a quietly emotional and subtly funny film. A more polished, well-scripted version of The Squid and the Whale.

The King's Speech

Fantastic performance by Colin Firth. Absolutely loved Helena Bohnam Carter. Her performance as the Queen Mother really puts into perspective what a wide range of roles she can play. I loved the lightheartedness that Geoffrey Rush brought to the film. But I can see how this film won't win the Best Picture at the Oscars this year.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

What an imaginative film! Totally not what I expected. Love the displacement of time and live-action animation. The closest film I can think of similar to Scott Pilgrim is (500) Days of Summer, but it really doesn't even come close.

The Eden Project II

Over a month passed since my first post on my vegetable garden. Here are some new photos!

The peas have gotten really tall. The trellis I set up isn't quite enough, so I found them all bend over one morning. The peas have been blocking the sun from reaching the sweet potatoes on the left. Those little guys aren't doing as well these days.

They're quite pretty, aren't they?

The first pea!

Tangled

I'm going to harvest the lettuce when I get the chance.

The beets are peeking through the soil.

I watched a Youtube video on Fibonacci numbers and how they apply to nature the other day. I can't help but think of how they're applied to these carrot leaves. On a different note, I think they are almost ready for harvest!

Tomato blossoms

Tomatoes--I'm quite surprised that they are growing! Oh California weather.

Guava

Some lemons are ripe. The lemon blossoms smell really good.

The Eden Project

So I finally took some better photos of my garden project that started this summer. There was a patch of land in my backyard with some poorly grown sweet potato, a dead persimmon tree, and a small section that was unused. So I plowed the land and reworked the clay-heavy soil by adding some mulch, manure, and compost in hopes of making the soil better. And now I have some carrots, onions, beets, lettuce, peas, and sweet potatoes growing. Along the way, some random plants popped up too!

One thing I learned about beets is to not transfer them; they usually die after transferring. One beet seed usually gives multiple seedlings so just pluck out the extra ones.

4 rows of carrots, 2 rows of onions, 3 rows of beets, 2 of lettuce, 1 of peas, and 4 sweet potato plants

My camera's humble attempt at capturing a butterfly flying.

Tomato plant that grew by itself.

Squash/melon plant that grew naturally. Not sure what kind it is yet.

This was literally in my face when I saw it while plucking weeds. It may take a few seconds to see it...

Follow me.

Move over smart

This

is

the

brand

new

Aston Martin Cygnet

Follow me.

Helsinki, December 2009

Follow me.

Ai Weiwei

Sunflower Seeds

Unilever Series

Turbine Hall

Tate Modern

Utterly incredible. Follow me.

Too bad it can't be walked on anymore.

Follow me.

SNOWMAGEDDON!

Alex Lai reporting live from Narnia. After 36 hours, the snow is still coming down furiously. The snow has turned from small pellets that hit you face like pricks of needles to large, soft snowflakes. The snow fall is so heavy that it was enough to cancel classes this morning. Sadly, this only benefited the 5-10 people who have classes at 8:40 am. Anyways, I am hoping that the snow will last till next week so maybe I can enjoy a snow day. Hit us, snowmageddon!

View from the safety of my basement home. The white bump in the middle ground is a car covered completely in snow.

Icicles! Weapon of choice in Narnia.

I am quite thankful that the sidewalk was cleared for the most part. Thank you to those who probably cleared the road at like 6 am and then again at 10 am.

Not many people are going to class.

Hopefully, my friends and I will go sledding down the Libe Slope later today. More updates to come!

Winter Madness!

All this snow came down in Ithaca pretty much overnight! I was really hoping for a snow day but it would never happen with like 6 inches of snow. It would take like 4 feet of snow for that to happen. While the snow makes walking, traveling inconvenient, it makes your clothes wet, I still love the snow. It's cold and dirty, but it's also magical and different from just having the sun all day.

In the middle ground is one of the two infamous gorges on Cornell campus. Sorry, you can't really see it from this picture.

Eddy Gate, the original gate going into Cornell campus.

This is the parking lot behind my house. I made it back without slipping. I was so deadly afraid of walking down the hill to my house. I took tiny baby steps to ensure that it would not happen. I slipped last Friday, and I was really scared of slipping again. Slipping on the hill is my worst fear of living at the house that I live at.

Pretty crazy eh?

Dirrrty New York Part I

I took the weekend to visit NYC because I did not have anything due for class the following week. This is what happened on the first day.

My friend's apartment. I felt like I was visiting an elder in Shanghai. The apartment is in Chinatown, and it smells and looks like old Shanghai.

Breakfast. I've been craving smoked salmon egg benedict at Clinton Street Baking Co &

Restaurant. It was good but the biscuit instead of English muffin was not quite what I was looking for. Sarabeth's smoked salmon egg benedict, on the other hand, is pretty good.
Hello Kitty from Opening Ceremony for Jenni.
Soho. I liked the doodling on the wall. It looked like it was painted from a giant crayon. Walking through Soho, we saw this building with all its windows shattered. We thought it was a gas explosion. The next day all the windows were covered with plywood.
Zucchini and potato focaccia from Balthazar's bakery. It was bad.
A building in Chelsea. I liked the little alien on that grey thing.

Baohaus. It was interesting.
We tried to go to a bar but it didn't work out. So we ended up back at the apartment and drank Veuve Clicquot. It gave me major stomach ache. I can't drink anything expensive.