Symbol-wise:

"It's not a Christmas tree, it's an Advent tree, it's decorated in purple."
"It's not a Christmas wreath, it's an Advent wreath. It has four candles, three in purple, 1 in pink rose, we'll light up one candle each week."
"Purple used to be THE royal color."

Btw, the whole family will have a Christmas Eve by the beach this year. Couldn't wait, couldn't wait.

...and good luck on Black Friday.

With the holiday spirit, the cloudy sky, and the rainy days (and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason), I'm just bound to feel a bit romantic.

You've got to give a little, take a little,
and let your poor heart break a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love

You've got to laugh a little, cry a little,
until the clouds roll by a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love

As long as there's the two of us,
we've got the world and all it's charms.
And when the world is through with us,
we've got each other's arms.

You've got to win a little, lose a little,
yes, and always have the blues a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love

--Glory of Love, written by Billy Hill, performed by Jacqueline Fontaine

In the morning, I ran a record high of covering four miles in 47 minutes. Not bad. It was a pleasant running around campus with temperature in the 60-s and the cloudy sky.

On the way home while cooling down, I stopped by the newly dedicated Bonfire Memorial. It took two years before the plan to erect the memorial finally is realized, three years to design and build it. There was a sudden chill to the spine as I walked on top of the gravelly pathway while reading the carved memories of each of the twelve victims.

Then, it was off to the Red Cross to donate. My blood pressure hit the low 108/72, the pulse was normal.

In the afternoon, Ndoro Yadda & I cooked a perfectly satisfactory chicken-sausage Jambalaya for dinner. So perfect, it almost tastes like Hebert's.

And tonight, I'm going to a free concert at church given by the ever angelic voice Korean choir. They will mostly sing in Latin.

It's not a disaster really, cause in the end everybody was happy and jumpy. Here goes...

Ndoro Yadda is up to her baking mood again. Last night, she and I tried this pecan pie recipe. Now, pecan pie is my all time favorite pie. I mean, you just couldn't go wrong with pecan pie. Some other pies, namely apple, cherry or blueberry, require the right prepping of the filling, so that in the end, a balance between sweet and tangy taste is achieved. Not the case with pecan pie. The recipe calls for a no brainer mixture of light corn syrup, mollases, sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla and pecan pieces.

All those into the store-bought crust and then the would-be pie was proceeded to baking at 350 for 25 minutes and freezer-cooled for at least two hours. At the end of those two hours, I went down happily to the kitchen to slice some of the sugar heaven. Turned out the syrup were mostly still in their liquid state. It was still great, though. The crust was perfect and so were the pecans. It was just our sugar level went sky rocket high after a while.

I'm planning to bring some homemade pie for the annual Thanksgiving lunch at the advisor's. Let's see if we can fix this liquid problem before Thursday. I guess baking at longer time will make it work.

So the birds have been pardoned, it's Thanksgiving in a week's time, and then comes a trinity of nightmare consists of a final exam, a paper and a project, all due around mid December. And then I'm flying home the next day, baby. Couldn't wait, couldn't wait.

I still need to squeeze in some time in the schedule for passport renewal, an eye exam, and binding a copy of my thesis for home. Well, maybe that last one is unnecessary. The passport thing is critical (of course) and that eye exam is for contacts. I figure it would be nice not to wear glasses all the time again. The last time I had contacts on was almost five years ago. How time flies.

It's been raining here these last few days. The sky is gloomy, the sun never shines, luckily, the temperature is back in the 80-s again.

I've been putting a hold on jogging for quite sometime now, but not to worry, the routine climb over 8 flights of stairs everyday should do the trick.

How's life treating you guys lately?

That was my Sooner friend, Yase, complaining about the left tendency of the previous layout. So, this is a temporary one, at least for now. I'm bored with that old one anyway.

Oh, what do I know. Eid is coming (tomorrow?). Good tidings to those celebrating.

The computer guy gave so much crap about me using personal computer for research and refused to register me to the network without permission from the advisor and other bureaucrazy stuff.

Sometime this week, I'll march myself to Surplus to get one of those school used computers so I can be legally connected again instead of manually copying the other guy's setting and using such higher end of an IP address number.

On a lighter note, the office is fantastic, the chair is ergonomic, and there's a working microfridge inside. I'm sharing the office with another student. There are no windows here but when the door is opened, I can directly see some view of the campus and southern horizon of College Station. At night, lights are twinkling everywhere outside, it makes you feel like you're in one of those airport towers.

So here I am, thinking of the many years will be spent here studying, writing papers, pondering life as we know it.

Ha rekan-rekan, ini pertemuan para Blogger TX pertama. Pink, kita kapan dong?

We finally have moved all equipment (to the hallway) of the new building. Alas, we've found new problems come up on our every attempt entering the clean room. Reports have been drafted and submitted to the department, and they are working with whoever is responsible for the building now to resolve the problems. In the meantime, they want to keep the status quo. So still, we couldn't set everything back to order.

The clean rooms were claimed to be "built to spec". They also have passed inspection and have been issued with a Class # certification. I wonder who's responsible for the specification in the first place. The advisor? The building architect? Also, how the rooms could be certified considering there have been mountains of visible particles on the floor plus the existence of those wooden furnitures inside. Wooden furnitures inside a clean room ???

..ehm.. *cough*, that's 2 out of 2. I should've entered some "unofficial" bet of some sort, would've won big time. But anyway... *singing "Congratulations, Mr. President" to the tune of Marilyn Monroe's Kennedy birthday song*

Today, inside of a trash can outside the new building I saw an opened to-go box full of Pad Thai. For a while, I pondered about picking the box out have something festive for the dinner tonight. But then, naah. I'll just heat up the microwave wings and tortillas, and maybe, if I am not too lazy, I'll prepare some fresh salad.