tarigwaemir

Blair Hall Apts., on the Feast of Ste. Angela Merici

A day in advance, but I thought I'd post before I forget: Happy Lunar New Year to everyone! ^_^

I got home exactly a week ago and have been unsuccessfully pretending to be productive ever since. The summary:

1. I cut my hair. For the past two years I've been going around with long hair down to the middle of my back, despite my mother's attempts to persuade me to cut it. I told her I'd adopt a short cut once I graduated, but for some strange reason during exam period, I decided I wanted to cut it very short. For a full two days after the haircut, my mother kept calling me "our son" because yes, it's that short.

tryogeru tells me though that she had no problem recognizing me and that I'll never get mistaken for a boy because the style is still more feminine than not. Appearances aside, I'm pleased because I don't have to use as much shampoo, I don't need to spend as much time brushing or combing, it dries out more quickly, and putting on men for kendo will be a lot easier.

2. I say that I hate shopping, and for the most part it's true, but apparently all it takes to bring out the inner impulse shopper in me is to put me in front of a whole string of gaudily decorated trinket shops. Met

tryogeru in Chinatown on Monday and ended up buying: a writing brush and ink ($3.25), a keychain ornament in Zangetsu's bankai form ($5.00), and as a New Year's present for Tryogeru, a Prince of Tennis tarot card set ($2.00). She bought for me a Calcifer plushie ($6.00), which is the most adorable thing ever. I should post up a photo of it. ^_^ Self, do not go anywhere near Chinatown when you're broke.

3. The rest of the week was spent preparing application materials for a summer undergraduate fellowship grant and studying for the subject GRE. By "studying", I mean reading through my two test prep books and course outline, not actively making an attempt to memorize material. >_> Still, I remember more than I expected. If only I knew how much detail I'd be expected to know off the top of my head for this exam. -_- I drew up a study schedule and realized the GRE was only two months away. I wouldn't be so worried if it were the general test, but the subject test requires in-depth knowledge, and it doesn't help that there are no specific prep books out for the Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology test. (Right now, I'm making do with prep books for Biology and Chemistry in addition to the Biochemistry outline.)

4. Apparently last March, my hosting service (Surpass Hosting) changed all their DNS servers. I don't remember receiving an email about the change, but of course knowing me, I probably deleted it as spam before looking at it closely. Anyway, even though the notice came out last March, I haven't had any problem accessing my site until now. -_- I've changed the DNS settings but it takes up to three days for the changes to take effect, which is why my book blog and writing site are currently unavailable. Plus anything else that was ever stored on the server. Argh.

5. Finished The Club Dumas and The Charterhouse of Parma, which in retrospect was a nice juxtaposition of books. I had quite a few thoughts on both books but it seems I'll have to save that post for later since I probably should return to reading about protein sequencing methods. Oh the excitement. -_-

Yours &c.