The state of my hair


Whoaa....I'm concerned with the current status of my hair. At this rate, I would probably gone bald in a couple of years... Anyone has suggestion on how to prevent hair loss? Does Rogaine or some other external therapies work [ wig is not an option ;D ]? Should I eat some herbs, medicine, exotic food, etc?

Weekend: Elderlies visitation


On Saturday of last week, a couple of us visited the elderlies in a nearby hospital. The front part of the building has 3 cages full of screaming budgies & cockatoo; at first I thought that we entered the wrong building, it sounded just like a vet hospital :D. But really, it is a nice, clean place with a circular center sort of like a centcom for nurses & doctors. There are 5 wings of bedrooms spread from the center centcom. The place has one dining/entertainment hall equipped with piano, electone, bingo machine, tv and a medium-sized industrial kitchen. The 20 x 20 ft bedrooms are sunny and clean and have indoor restroom. There were pictures & names of the people occupying the room on the outside wall of each bedroom.

Average age of the patient is around 70. We helped them playing bingo, sang couple of songs, and presented them colorful carnations and fruits. At lunch, some of the patients wanted to eat in their room. I, particularly, helped a nice lady in the wheelchair went back to her room. Her husband was sleeping on the other bed. The room was full of pictures their kids & grandkids, a nice little sanctuary. She asked me to put some water on the vase from the bottom of her dresser. I left her eating her lunch. On the way back to the dining hall, I saw a room with a bed without any spred and blanket. It turned out that the occupant just died that morning. "Another one bite the dust". Meanwhile, some of the patient had family visiting. There was a middle age woman spoon-fed her father, her daughter was in the room, watching the Saturday morning cartoon.

It was a nice experience to be there, to see some of them were so happy with the visit. It was depressing to see some just starred blankly, living on their own world with those needles & tubes. This whole thing made me realize, we all should think about the old age ahead.

Miss Lala Land USA


Have you supported your candidate for Miss Universe 2003? In the spirit of the competition, I, chichesterblue, is the fictitious newly coronated Miss Lala Land USA. Here are the actual questions on the Miss USA pageant video interview (courtesy of http://www.missusa.com):


If you could have any special power, what would it be?

Wow..[starry eyes, excited mode]...I'd love to be Spiderwoman. Clinging the NYC buildings defeating traffics, KO-ing the bad guys,.... and let's not forget the wet scene.

My definition of success is?

My definition of success is able to wake up from a good sleep in the morning and sleep on time at night, while actually accomplishing all of the necessary thing in the to-do-list in between.

If you could be any of the historical figure present or past what would you be?

Ehmm..this is kind of hard. I..will probably be Ms. Elizabeth Bennet. You know, with all of the arranged married in the old days, Ms. Bennet truly found the love of her life. She just did the right thing, to fight and to conquer.

What do you think is the greatest invention ever?

Transistor. Can you imagine, w/o transistor there will be no reasonably sized faster computer, and thus there will be no internet, ultimately people will never think of blogging. How can we share our life stories as convinience as this.

Tell us your life story in less than a minute

There's no way I can fit that in less than a minute..."maybe I'm just a silly old girl..ahahha....."

Who was your first tv crush?

David James Elliot, aka Lt. Cmdr. Rabb of the JAG.

What is your worst addiction?

[starry eyes, excited mode]...absolutely, nutella with dry cereal...I could devour both packages on 1 seat. You should try it.

TGIF

i'm happy people. it turned out that the I-V machine is okay. the problem was with this bnc connector, john changed it, problem solved.
i spent the whole night measuring plate M5. thesis writing...here i come...

when the night was still young (around 8, thur), i called my bro if he cooked something for dinner. it turned out that he is cooking stuff at jem's...so i was excited (hungry level: 7/10). "i'll be home soon", i told him. he said: "there is also some chips, i bought". it turned out i need to stay longer, the measurement just become so beyond my wildest expectation (good result, that is). if only i knew, the chips were from taqueria arandas, the best mexican restaurant ever. they have this green salsa thing, i'm not sure if we can called it salsa verde, since it doesn't have that many green tomatillo. this green stuff is the yummiest thing, we are guessing that the ingredients is avocado, habanero, some tomatillo,...hmm....so it's quite hot, but tangy. and the chips...are the best, crispy and not to thin. i could go on and on about this resto. i'll put the pics and some more stories later.

SRW

i entered this Student Research Week competition. as a self-described true proscratinator, i did not practice up until the last hours. it was supposed to be a 12 minute presentation. since i thought there was really not enough time to talk about everything, i had to throw away couple slides (total slides before: 33, on the real presentation: 24) while in the same time i had to make it logical enough for the lay people to follow. my session called engineering vii, had 6 people presenting, i was the 5th one to present. honestly, i don't think i did a decent job out there. i had good eye contact and confidence, though. there was only 1 judge, an outside lady. she came up w/ the same question for each presenter: "what is the application of your research in the real world?" ....oh my, i need more challenge...the main reason for me entering this was for the thesis defense exercise....better presenting in front of the chem-es next year... anyhow, there was this cool research from a man in aerospace dept, their project called the "STARNAV", was actually on board of the sts-107. fortunately, they got everything transmitted before the accident. for more info about the project, please visit their site.

I-V measurement gives funky result: impossible pos current with neg bias....hope this is just a calibration problem. i need to graduate sooonnnnn.....
on the brighter side: chiller works ok (ss=42deg w/ extra circulation). last night, trying n2 plasma 32 minutes, raising 1.5 deg.

March Madness

ha..so i decided to start writing my daily occurances here, paragraph style.

last week found that i have spring allergy (what am I? american? no offense...) towanna said: "welcome to the allergy country of the world".

still in this alergy business: i had this phone conversation w/ a nurse in beutel while trying to make the doctor appointment:

nurse: what's your symptoms, hon?
me: i have scratchy throat and runny nose.
nurse: i'm sorry, what? you have a scratchy toe and runny nose?
me: no, it's my throat.
nurse: oo...i'm glad, i thought it's one of those foot and mouth desease....lol...
me:....wauuahahahha....

so then the doctor prescribed this allegra-d. couple hours later, i felt really good. the downside: i stayed awake for 24 hours!! also, allegra is soo expensive, somebody suggested claritin (over-the-counter-can-sleep-at-night medicine).

Sched

1:00 measuring mbox
2:00 measuring mbox
3:15 went to chem-e grad lab, to print ucok's current schedule for the ins trip tomorrow, replying endi for sofa, went home
4:00 watch some ch 57,58,59, weird movies: cheng & chong in french revolution era, a white lady's journey to free osme children in china
5:00 fall asleep w/ tv on
10:00 W.U., ucok's call from zach, pay apt
11:10 school, finish tax return, online car registration payment failed
12:00 cleaning pecvd for leo's p+
15:00-16:15 measure mbox, leo finished m4, rie looks great, sinx etching too much barely any tft alive (at most 10)
16:15-18:45 chat w/ dini
18:45 start leo's p+
20:00 continue flash tutorial

10:00 W.U.
10:45 breakfast, mie
11:00 rain but not that cold!! start rain's intrinsic's helium purge
12:00 to do list: summer job, phd application, proposal, srw : March 24-28, thesis, p+ paper, proposal, tax return 1040 EZ, car registration renewal, pay apt, deposits checks.
13:00 submit timesheet, dr. kuo is out of town, ninette's info: chem-e's w2 is together with ee,
14:00 rie samples to leo, install flash, finished tutorial lesson 7,
15:00 looks like sinx still on the subs, etch more, total 8 minutes, stripping, heat up oven to 250 (setting # 9)
16:00 start rain's p & p+ n2 purge
17:00 helium purge & p, p+
17:50 start annealing, checking rain's sample's thickness, problem with rainbow effect & non-uniform thickness
18:50 finish annealing, blogging
19:00 home for dinner
20:00 L&O
21:00 L&O
22:00 L&O
23:00 Back to lab, take out sample, wet etched 3 layer, testing Mbox. Behavior: no flat
24:00 still at lab