A list of ten
Jun. 12th, 2006 08:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarigwaemirDeWolfe Apts., on the Feast of St. Leo III
My life, as of late:
1) World Cup. I've been spending my days at MIT's Whitehead Institute, measuring plants, while watching soccer games in Spanish broadcast on a tiny black-and-white TV. My mentor is German and the post-doc I work with is from the U.K. Soccer, or rather I should say, football fever is in full force here.
2) Measuring plants all day long. See above.
3) Reading Victoria Finlay's Color, a history of how paints and dyes were made, written as a travelogue. I'm not very adept at reading nonfiction unless it is idiosyncratic and told in the form of a story. This book matches both conditions. Also making the acquaintance of Mynheer Peeperkorn in The Magic Mountain.
4) Daily agonizing over what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have however begun to use the timer function on my rice cooker to great advantage.
5) Watching the first few episodes of various dramas and not feeling enamored enough to continue. I managed to get into the fourth episode of 소문난 칠공주, which is a family-centred drama focusing on four sisters who were all brought up by a truly neurotic army man. I rather liked the second daughter who is the only one of the four to enter the army as an officer, as her father had hoped. (This man gave his poor daughters toy guns when they were children and constantly told them that they should grow up to be generals.) That was amusing enough but I'm awfully bored by the love triangle between the two middle daughters (who are actually fraternal twins) and the main romantic interest, who is handsome in a clean-cut way but utterly boring as a character. Also, I think the second daughter (who likes Boring Romantic Interest but is seen only as "a soldier not a woman") should stop pining after him and pay attention to the subordinate in her company who seems to worship the ground she walks on. Forbidden!relationship with subordinate = much more interesting plot than predictable love triangle between two sisters who resent each other (thanks to years of favoritism from callous parent). Anyway, at the moment I don't feel interested enough to go download the rest. You know, I think part of the reason why I have high drama tolerance is because my parents usually rent the entire series on VHS: you feel much more willing to continue watching when you've already shelled out money for it.
6) Failing to write. -_- I'm in a slump.
7) Not studying for the general GRE. At the moment, my excuse is that I haven't registered for the exam yet.
8) To tell the truth, I had initially worried about our roommates for the summer, since they were total strangers to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schwimmerin and me. From their facebook profiles, it seemed that they were the extroverted, partying types, and I've always felt uncomfortable around those sorts of people. Anyway, one of them moved in the same day I did (schwimmerin and the fourth person are coming later), and she's proven to be a very sweet person. Also, she talks to me first, which I find rather relieving since I'm awful at initiating conversations. Once she even asked me for advice on what outfit to wear, which tickled me because...well, someone (who isn't my mother) asking my opinion on fashion! She's pretty much furnished the entire living room so that the place looks like a real apartment now, with a TV and couches and lamps and tables. She's been so nice that I haven't minded in the least the somewhat chaotic state of the apartment...and to my astonishment, I came back tonight to find everything in perfect order. It warms the heart of my inner neat freak. ^_^
9) I need to work on my thesis proposal. ::sighs::
10) Did I mention World Cup? South Korea vs. Togo, tomorrow at 9 AM EST. 대~한민국!
I need fic recs. Preferably along the lines of guilty pleasure reading.
Yours &c.
Post-script: Ah, forgot to mention, the Whitehead Institute is sleek and new and just generally awesome. Now I'm glad that MIT is on my list of grad schools to apply to, despite rumors that its grad students are all stressed out and unhappy. Kendall Square is such a nice district, not at all like the factory warehouse impression I had of the area around MIT near Central Square. The really cool mechanical chimes (named after Pythagoras and Kepler) in the Kendall Square subway station may be biasing my opinion somewhat.
My life, as of late:
1) World Cup. I've been spending my days at MIT's Whitehead Institute, measuring plants, while watching soccer games in Spanish broadcast on a tiny black-and-white TV. My mentor is German and the post-doc I work with is from the U.K. Soccer, or rather I should say, football fever is in full force here.
2) Measuring plants all day long. See above.
3) Reading Victoria Finlay's Color, a history of how paints and dyes were made, written as a travelogue. I'm not very adept at reading nonfiction unless it is idiosyncratic and told in the form of a story. This book matches both conditions. Also making the acquaintance of Mynheer Peeperkorn in The Magic Mountain.
4) Daily agonizing over what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have however begun to use the timer function on my rice cooker to great advantage.
5) Watching the first few episodes of various dramas and not feeling enamored enough to continue. I managed to get into the fourth episode of 소문난 칠공주, which is a family-centred drama focusing on four sisters who were all brought up by a truly neurotic army man. I rather liked the second daughter who is the only one of the four to enter the army as an officer, as her father had hoped. (This man gave his poor daughters toy guns when they were children and constantly told them that they should grow up to be generals.) That was amusing enough but I'm awfully bored by the love triangle between the two middle daughters (who are actually fraternal twins) and the main romantic interest, who is handsome in a clean-cut way but utterly boring as a character. Also, I think the second daughter (who likes Boring Romantic Interest but is seen only as "a soldier not a woman") should stop pining after him and pay attention to the subordinate in her company who seems to worship the ground she walks on. Forbidden!relationship with subordinate = much more interesting plot than predictable love triangle between two sisters who resent each other (thanks to years of favoritism from callous parent). Anyway, at the moment I don't feel interested enough to go download the rest. You know, I think part of the reason why I have high drama tolerance is because my parents usually rent the entire series on VHS: you feel much more willing to continue watching when you've already shelled out money for it.
6) Failing to write. -_- I'm in a slump.
7) Not studying for the general GRE. At the moment, my excuse is that I haven't registered for the exam yet.
8) To tell the truth, I had initially worried about our roommates for the summer, since they were total strangers to
schwimmerin and me. From their facebook profiles, it seemed that they were the extroverted, partying types, and I've always felt uncomfortable around those sorts of people. Anyway, one of them moved in the same day I did (schwimmerin and the fourth person are coming later), and she's proven to be a very sweet person. Also, she talks to me first, which I find rather relieving since I'm awful at initiating conversations. Once she even asked me for advice on what outfit to wear, which tickled me because...well, someone (who isn't my mother) asking my opinion on fashion! She's pretty much furnished the entire living room so that the place looks like a real apartment now, with a TV and couches and lamps and tables. She's been so nice that I haven't minded in the least the somewhat chaotic state of the apartment...and to my astonishment, I came back tonight to find everything in perfect order. It warms the heart of my inner neat freak. ^_^9) I need to work on my thesis proposal. ::sighs::
10) Did I mention World Cup? South Korea vs. Togo, tomorrow at 9 AM EST. 대~한민국!
I need fic recs. Preferably along the lines of guilty pleasure reading.
Yours &c.
Post-script: Ah, forgot to mention, the Whitehead Institute is sleek and new and just generally awesome. Now I'm glad that MIT is on my list of grad schools to apply to, despite rumors that its grad students are all stressed out and unhappy. Kendall Square is such a nice district, not at all like the factory warehouse impression I had of the area around MIT near Central Square. The really cool mechanical chimes (named after Pythagoras and Kepler) in the Kendall Square subway station may be biasing my opinion somewhat.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-13 01:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-14 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-16 01:50 pm (UTC)anyway. Korean won 2-1! MYAHAHAA~~ There's some article that says the Korea and Germany are the best performing teams in the World Cup so far.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-16 01:57 pm (UTC)Yeah, Korea won 2-1. But the article is very wrong. Score-wise, Spain, Czech Republic and Ecuador are far ahead; skill-wise, Korea was really evenly matched with Togo and will be far outclassed by...a heck of a lot of other teams. The only thing that Germany and Korea have in common is that their opponents got red-carded.