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Chronicles of a Girl
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About Me
I am a nerd. Well, a nice nerd. Some say I'm a cute nerd. Sometimes I'm a happy nerd. Sometimes I'm a sad nerd. I can be a perky nerd. Or an emotional nerd. Sometimes the raddest nerd ever. But nonetheless, a nerd. Previous Posts
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Thursday, January 29, 2009
Random solutions for random problems
These tips have come in rather handy for me recently, so I thought I'd share them with the world.
1. Removing red wine from carpet: at least for fresh stains, a 10% (white) vinegar solution works very well. Dampen a towel or a paper towel with this solution and rub. 10% vinegar is also an excellent multipurpose cleaner especially for the kitchen. It's cheap, natural, and anti-bacterial. It's good at removing most stains, even stubborn grease and tomato stains from the stove top. 2. Removing red wine from wall: this was much more tricky. Vinegar just did not do the trick. In this case, use a dilute bleach solution (20% to 50% bleach) with warm water. Dip a towel into this solution and wipe. It was like magic watching the red wine disappear from the wall. 3. Getting the scroll button for the Apple Mighty Mouse to work again: This happens every so often, as the mouse usually stops scrolling in a single direction (e.g. up). While it sometimes goes away with some aggressive scrolling/clicking, this time, it didn't go away for me for over 2 weeks. To fix this, use some 70% ethanol (I'm sure isopropanol, which makes up most rubbing alcohol solutions will work as well) on a paper towel and rub. It's like magic! Hope this helps someone, sometime in their life. Tuesday, October 14, 2008
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake...
Go ahead and leave me.
I think i prefer to stay inside. Maybe you'll find someone else to help you Maybe Black Mesa... THAT WAS A JOKE. (HAHA) FAT CHANCE. Anyway. this cake is great. It's so delicious and moist. Look at me still talking when there's Science to do When i look out there. it makes me GLaD I'm not you. I've experiments to run. There is research to be done. On the people who are still alive PS: And believe me I am still alive. PPS: I'm doing Science and I'm still alive. PPPS: I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive. Thursday, July 10, 2008
This is what happens when I can't sleep
Everyone once in a while I wake up at 5 in the morning and can't sleep. This mostly happens when I leave the window open because it's hot and the stupid birds keep chirping because they're hot and horny and chirp chirp no sleep for Xiao. So I decided since I was up, I would test whether GPS's are actually accurate in terms of measuring distance. Answer: most definitely not. One of the guys on the Wednesday night skate claimed that we skated 13 miles last week. We did do some extra sideroutes, but 13 seemed a little long, so I decided to plot the route out on Gmaps Pedometer. Well, the route came out to be about 10 miles. Alas. Maybe if you add in where we go up this garage and down it. But that probably adds like another .25 mile. Here's the route we did, which is the Hills version of the Wednesday night skate, includes the option hill on Santa Ynez, going up and down a nice long hill on Lomita, and the "Fun path".
 A 10 mile skate is still respectable. Besides, according to the GPS, which tends to be more accurate for speed, we were clocked at going 35 mph down the big hill on Hanover. I don't go as fast as the guy with the GPS, but we're pretty close, so I would estimate that I go at least 30 mph. Hmm...I really should wear knee pads shouldn't I? Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Prince Caspian
Omigod, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is totally coming out! And Ben Barnes who plays Caspian is soooo cute!
 So way tempted to go see midnight release on Thursday night even though it may be by myself...hmm... Sunday, May 11, 2008
Everyone should try Spam Musubi!
So I've been taking my new bike out for rides while Louis skates along, and it's been fun! Last Thursday I did 15 miles which included going up Sand Hill. It was the first time I did hills that weren't just short hills and man that was tough. My legs were totally burning, although with my new bike, I was at least able to move and make progress. On my old bike, I would have it on the easiest gear and like barely be able to peddle. Today I biked throughout Berkeley but mostly among the waterfront, so it wasn't too hilly, but it did get so windy at places it was difficult to move ahead. My goal was to do 30 miles and I did! I did like 31 or 32. The last part, we went through Campus so we could go to Top Dog and eat totally delicious hot dogs, and man, having to do some of this hills on Campus after about 29 miles was definitely not easy. My next goal is to do either 30 miles with hills or 40 miles without. I think throughout the week, I'm going to ride either my old bike to work or skate to work because it's much more of a work out than riding my new bike. I'm totally starting to see and feel a lot of definition in my thighs and calves which makes me so happy! Oh and my bike now has TWO water bottle holders which is amazing because my old one had NONE since they didn't really fit. I also have a cute little thing in the front which is called a bento box which is so funny because every time I see it, I totally want delicious Japanese food! I don't know if anyone has had Spam Musubi, which is popular in Hawaii and essentially comprises of rice and spam with seaweed on the outside. It looks like this.
 Anyway, it totally reminds me of the food that anime characters eat, and it looks like it would totally fit so well inside my little bento box! Then once I learn to ride my bike with no handle bars, with no handle bars, with no handle bars (sorry, I actually don't really like the song, although it does get stuck in my head), I could eat my Spam Musubi to keep me energized for my long rides! Yay! Now I must to back to working on presentations since I somehow managed to sign myself up for TWO different journal club presentations for the same week without thinking about it! So now, I suppose I should go actually read the papers and try to pretend that I'll know more than the other people in the class. Blah. Sunday, April 27, 2008
I'm an official PhD candidate!
Yay! So I passed my quals on Thursday, which was intense, but not so bad. The parts I got grilled on were more issues that pertain to the entire fields of C. elegans and aging, so for example, ensuring my RNAi experiments are actually efficient or controlling for infection as a possible confounder to lifespan. So even though I felt like I stumbled on some parts, my committee commented that I did well in terms of thinking on my feet. So yay!
Since then, I've been mostly playing video games, and working out. Louis bought me Final Fantasy X2, which mmm...is not nearly as good as X, which is soooo sad! I mean I know it's gotten bad reviews, but I also have low standards. I also started playing Phoenix Wright 2: Justice for All, which is better than the original! Well, it's pretty much exactly like the original but they introduced the feature of unlocking people's secrets, which makes the gathering evidence phase more interesting and the store not as linear. You don't always have enough evidence to unlock secrets in which case you need to stop and explore other parts of the story. I've also been working out, sort of. Today I went running for the first time in a while, and even though I'm in decent aerobic shape (yay!), my calves were totally dying by the end. I also went hiking yesterday at Arastradero Open Preserve which was more like fighting off bugs and finding my allergies getting progressively worse. I guess I know now that I'm extremely allergic to grass? And I biked to lab today on my new bike! Apparently Louis and my parents conspired to buy me a bike  It's like at least 33% faster than my old bike! And it's closer to the ground so it's not nearly as awkard getting off. And it's so light! I totally passed this guy in spandex today on Sand Hill and I also stayed ahead of him until I needed to turn. He must have felt kind of retarded getting passed by a girl in normal clothes who's got the straps on the pedal facing downward and making a funny noise every time it hits the ground because she can't figure out how to put my feet in, and who also can't figure out how to change the gears on the bike yet. By the way, Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is coming out Friday and I am soooo way going to the midnight release! Yay! Monday, April 21, 2008
Under the sea...
It's gotten cold again recently. Last night temperatures dropped to the 30's again, and when I had pee in the middle of the night...brrr!
Wishing I were back in the warm waters of Hawaii...but not on this particular trip to Molokiki because it was an aweful boat ride out and I totally threw up on the boat and I could see all these fish in the water swarming to my throw up. Ew. 
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