I ♥ CS (and other things)

Mama is Here!

2012-01-23T00:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't written here much, so you probably don't know that my mama came to visit us in August. It was awesome and we had a lot of fun. So, we decided to do it again! Yay!

The second night she was with me we decided it would be a good idea to make pelmeni. Hm? They're like ravioli filled with meat. This is a really Russian dish and I don't ever make it myself. The last time I had it was when I was back there the summer of 2010. These take a long time, so we decided we'd make it even longer by grinding almost 9 pounds of meat (pork and beef) ourselves.

Anyway, I won't bore you with details, but here is what we ended up with.

I don't know if you heard me counting, but we made almost 900 of these. WHAT?! Yah, we made over 400 the first night and then we finished the other half of the meat mixture the next morning.

And this is what they look like when they're ready to eat. You just boil the frozen pelmeni in salted water and they're done.

Right after we finished making all these Vova picked up my mom so they could go see a Cirque du Soleil show at the Kodak theatre. We ended up having a bunch of leftover dough (which is basically a pasta dough), so I made pasta!

And that's how we spent our Sunday!

Movie Date with Myself

2012-01-17T12:51:00.000-08:00

It's not as dramatic as it sounds. I had plans to go to the movies with someone - it's a long story, but I ended up in a movie theater by myself along with 6-7 older couples. It was quite cute, actually.

I went to see The Iron Lady.
I loved the movie. Meryl Streep is amazing. She can say so much without saying anything at all. I knew a little bit about Margaret Thatcher just from history classes and such, and this movie showed a more personal side to her. The movie follows her in her present state with flashbacks that show her as a young woman getting into Oxford to her resignation. I don't know much about movies (how they are written or directed or what have you), but I thoroughly enjoyed this one.

Margaret is a truly amazing woman. She worked hard and held her ground. So many good quotes. The movie covered the Argentinean invasion of Falkland Islands and how she handled it. The letter that she wrote to the families of troops that died as a result of the war was heart breaking. Her reason for fighting for the islands, even in the midst of poor economic performance in the country, was hard to not stand behind - "We will stand on principle, or we will not stand at all."

One of the scenes in the movie is her getting questioned by a doctor about how she is feeling. And she says that too many people are concerned with feelings, and not enough people are concerned with thoughts and actions. Thoughts are what matter. She says

Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become... habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! What we think we become.

I could not agree more.

How I Feel

2012-01-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

JB: "Let's kick it. I'll say "Kick it," and you'll just kick it with a tasty groove, ok? One, two, three, kick it. Kick it. Come on, god DAMMIT. GOD, KYLE. COULD YOU ONE TIME KICK IT, WHAT THE FUCK?"

Cats are GREAT!

2011-10-16T20:02:00.000-07:00

Getting a toy and playing with it in my bed is one of their favorite ways to wake me up. It's not very fun (although I prefer it to getting my nose tickled by whiskers). So, instead of getting pounced on I decided to play fetch with them until I was ready and get out of bed.

Panzanella

2011-10-13T23:10:00.000-07:00

If I could define this past summer with one recipe it would be the recipe for panzanella. So many things happened the summer of 2011, but what I'll remember is that the summer of 2011 is the summer I learned to make panzanella. And where has it been the previous 21 summers?

Well, the answer isn't so dramatic. It has been in my life in one form or another. In fact, I attribute my love for mayonnaise to a very similar combination of tomatoes and cucumbers. And there is nothing wrong with the mayo version of this salad. It's just that I'm kind of ashamed of my love for mayo. It seems that it has fallen out of fashion. Aside from deviled eggs (which also seem to be "nicht nicht"), nobody cooks with mayo anymore. I remember seeing a recipe for a chocolate cake with mayo in the list of ingredients. I am too much of a chicken to make it.

This salad is awesome because it's tasty! (Even Young Weezy wanted to get a taste. Silly Tigger, vegetables are not for cats.) And it takes no time to make. I know it's the middle of October, but Los Angeles has been really hot the past few days. I have no AC. When I get home I can't bring myself to turn on the stove. So, panzanella it is. You do have to turn on the oven to make the croutons, but I usually make a big batch in the evening after it has cooled down.

It's so simple, it seems silly to type out the recipe.

4 cups of tomatoes

2 cups of cucumber

1 small onion

1/4 cup olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

1/2 pound bread

1/4 cup basil

salt and pepper

Chop it up, toast the bread, toss it all together.

No one is probably going to make this, but just in case here is a word of advice - if you're the only one eating, don't mix all the bread in at once. I keep the bread separate until about 15 minutes before I am planning on digging in. It does need to soak for a little bit, but no longer than 30 minutes, really. For the love of kittens, don't leave the bread in the salad overnight.

An Addition to the Family

2011-10-10T12:29:00.000-07:00

Meow, meow! I adopted 2 cats from Kitten Rescue!

(from the left: Moosya, Tigger)

Meet Moosya and Tigger. They are both girls. I know, I know. It's confusing I named a girl a boy name. My rationale is that they're really "it"s. They've been neutered. I often say "he" when referring to Tigger. If Tigger could talk, I think she would forgive me.

I love these cats. I've always wanted to have a cat and always knew I would get one when I got my own apartment. When I was apartment shopping I was definitely keeping cats in mind. My requirements were: gas stove, no tiled counters in the kitchen, window in the bathroom and kitchen and vaulted ceilings and big windows for the cats. Apartment shopping was a pain in the ass, but I'm really glad I didn't settle and found this perfect one. It was the LAST one I looked at and it met all of my requirements. How lucky is that? (You might say "meh", but you'd be surprised how difficult it is to find an apartment with a gas stove.)

I am just noticing that I keep saying "cats" as if I knew I was getting two cats all along. The truth is I really wanted one cat. But Kitten Rescue really did not want to give me one cat (unless it was an adult that would rather be alone) because I am at work most of the day. I struggled with the decision for a long time, but I had grandiose training plans for the cat and I wanted to be sure she'd be on board. It ended up working out OK and I knew what I was signing up for, but man, it's a lot of work. I love them both and couldn't part with either one at this point, but it would've been a lot easier with just one kitten.

So, anyway, after reading two kitten books and a ton of online materials I ventured out to look at cats at an adoption event. I originally thought I was going to get tuxedo kitties and I probably would have if they weren't so sleepy that day. I picked these two sisters because they were trying to catch a fly in their cage, and that's just the kind of playfulness I was looking for.

The next week was the WORST! I had to WAIT. After 10+ years of wanting a cat I had to wait one more week?! They're crazy. I kept myself busy by doing various home improvement and getting cat accoutrement. I wanted to put up shelves for them to play on (I read that they like to have a vantage point), JT helped me put them up. They really love the shelves. They can get a running start from the kitchen, hop on the couch, first shelf, second shelf and then the top one. I'd like to put carpet up there for traction. I keep thinking they are going to slide right off when they're going so fast.

I have a lot more to say about cats, but I think this is enough for today. I'll leave you with this adorable picture.

Aren't they cute?

A Triumphant Return to Blogging

2011-10-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Hey, there! It has been a while. I'm not good with apologies, so if it's alright with you I'll just skip it. Anyway, HEY! How is it going? Is anyone still reading this? What's new?

Well, a lot is new on my end. Let's start with the obvious.

1) I got a job. I've been working at Final Draft, Inc. for almost 4 months now! I love, love, love, love, love it here. I am on the iOS team (I get to develop on iPad app). I still can't really figure out how I landed such an awesome job. I have the best team. They are supportive, they are fun, and we get shit done. I work with these oafs.
(from the left: HB, J-Money, SB, yours truly)
I don't really know what else to say about it other than how much I love it. I am learning so much here, and couldn't possibly have a better team to work with.

2) I am renting my own apartment in Thousand Oaks. That was a weird change.
What I love:

- I can play music when I'm cooking

- not closing doors

- fridge/freezer space!

- control over lights (not worrying about waking people up)

- my yellow kitchen

What I hate:

- rent is expensive

- can't share food!

- can't cook for anyone (and my favorite pancake recipe makes pancakes for 2)

- lonely :-(

I'll post a picture of the kitchen soon! Stay tuned for the biggest news of all news.

I've Graduated!

2011-06-23T13:11:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how much I've let this blog go. I blame the convenience of putting food pictures on Facebook using iPhoto. So, 450+ food pictures (that I didn't put up on this blog) later, I've graduated!

It was a very, very exciting morning, one of those mornings you wish you could put in a glass jar to remember the feeling. Vova, A, JT and I got only about 2 hours of sleep the night before. I slept soundly with A in her ivory tower until she nudged me awake at 7:17 am. This was a graduation just for the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. That's why we all have orange tassels. I got to sit next to one of my best friends from high school, Michael S. And one of the coolest people I met at UCLA, David W, sat behind me.

I am so happy these guys came. It meant so much to me. I kept turning around and waving. Magali was also there, but she left soon after the ceremony. (I think she got even less sleep than we did.) I was really sad my parents couldn't make it to my graduation, but I got to call and talk to them while I was sitting down waiting for my turn to walk.

JT and his family were there! We walked around campus and took a few pictures after the ceremony. I did the traditional dip of the hand into the inverted fountain.

I've been in the midst of moving, job hunting, apartment hunting the past couple of weeks, so it still hasn't really sunken in that I'm done with school. I just wanted to thank everyone who came (and mama, papa, and babulya who were there with me in spirit) and cheered for me. It was the best graduation present ever, and I really, really mean it. I love you all.

The Royal Wedding

2011-04-29T03:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I am watching it.

Also, Prince Harry is far more attractive than William. William looks like such a dweeb in comparison.

Strawberry Shortcake

2011-04-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

I made strawberry shortcake today! This is A eating it.

It was really good.

On Interviewing

2011-03-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

It is done. Just like that the trip that I was so worried about is over. I am on the plane back to Los Angeles.

Allow me to give you a condensed version of my trip. It was a lot of stress followed by a lot of sleep followed by more stress and sleep. I'll elaborate.

I got to Austin the night before my interview. SmartBear offered to pay for a hotel but I chose to stay with my good friend, N. (N is probably the oldest friend of mine who I still keep in touch with. He knew my brother and I before we even moved to the US.) As a result of the 2 hour time change and excitement of seeing my friend we ended up staying up until 2 am. I was so nervous after i had gotten up, taken a shower and gotten dressed. Suddenly I was sitting in a half dark room all dressed up reviewing my answers to questions regarding each of my projects on the resume -- it became real. I swear, if given a choice of eating a turd straight out of the toilet bowl or proceeding with the interview i would have looked into the first less painful option.

They asked me to come in to the office at 10 but N needed to be at work earlier so I figured I would just get dropped off and wait around for an hour or so. MISTAKE! They took that opportunity to grill me for an additional hour. The first person I met at the office was Will - the guy who interviewed me on the phone. So I felt a little more relaxed. We talked for an hour mainly about the classes I've taken, projects, things I like and not like about CS and such. He explained that we are waiting for Cody to do the technical part of the interview. By the end of the hour I had gotten pretty comfortable. That feeling completely disappeared as soon as Cody walked in. My heart sunk into my stomach and I was ready to run far, far away from Texas.

I stayed though (cause I am tough like that). Cody was a total softy. The actual coding questions weren't all that hard. I was really scared i would get a binary tree question because i am not that great at those. It took me a little while to reverse the linked list but I got it in the end. I had one mistake. The way I implemented it, the while loop condition needed to be head != null but I had it as head.next != null. Oh well. The questions following the actual coding part were a lot more tricky. But I did well, or so they said. They actually prefaced one of the questions with "we've never heard of anyone getting the answer to this before but think about this...". I had an idea and started answering and Cody pointed out a glitch with my method and was like "but you are dangerously close, I got scared for a second". That made me feel good but in all honesty, readers, when they told me the answer I wasn't close at all.

I had an interview with another pair of people (Eric and Tiffany) right after that. That was a little more relaxed. But I feel like I was so drained and relieved that I didn't appear to be enthusiastic. From what I gathered the whole team at the office is 10-13 people. They are all engineers so it would really kind of cool to be a part of such a tight knit group. Tiffany is from Alabama and she was the only one out of the bunch who had an accent. She was absolutely adorable. (Left = "layft", talked about going to the rodeo. You get the idea.)

After that we went out to lunch - the whole team + the manager. Where did we go? None other than a texan BBQ joint. Daggum. That was so much fun. A lot of laughing, good food, southern accent and humor. The manager wanted to drive me back to the office and he told me that the team was pretty impressed with me. I wanted to squeal, get out of the car and run circles around the guy in celebration. He drove me back to N's place where I changed and slept blissfully until N came home several hours later.

The next day I had my phone interview with Google. That didn't go as well but it still wasn't the utter failure that I was preparing myself for.

I am happy to be done (at least for now). I still need to apply to more places. This was a good first experience but hopefully not the last. It's not so scary! Oh, who am I kidding? Interviewing for a software developer position totally is the scariest and the most stressful thing I've done since performing. Hopefully I'll be able to wind down and relax before I start my last quarter at UCLA.

Bye-bye, Texas!

Trying to Become a Smart Bear

2011-03-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving for Austin, TX in a few hours. Tomorrow is my interview with SmartBear. I'm super nervous or excited -- can't tell.

My suit still fits though.

DIY Tile Coasters

2011-03-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to make these for a while now. I saw somewhere on the internetz a lady made coasters with classic Winnie The Pooh on them. I really liked them and I tried to find her blog to no avail. I made these silly ones instead. There are a million step-by-step instructions out there, and here is another one!

Supplies:

Tiles

Elmer's glue (not washable kind)

Sponge brush

Paper

Polyurethane spray (I used the glossy kind)

Roll of adhesive cork board (optional)

A little patience

1. Wash and dry tiles. Cut the paper to the right size and shape. Water down the glue to somewhere between heavy whipping cream and milk consistency. Apply the glue-water to the tile.

2. Put the paper on top of the glue and apply more water-glue. Wait for it to almost dry and then apply another coat. I think I did 5 coats, but that may have been excessive.

3. Admire your soon-to-be coasters.

4. After the last coat of glue-water has dried completely spray polyurethane on them. I did 4-5 coats of this also. The tiles will be sticky (and your room will be stinky) even after several hours. I was really worried, but the stickiness went away after about a day.

5. Cut squares out of the adhesive cork board and stick them to the backs of these beauties.

I adore these. I saved one for myself and gave away the rest as presents. (Mine is the green cat one.) I've had it since December. I put 3 cups of hot mugs of tea (sequentially, not at the same time) on my coaster daily and it is yet to show any signs of abuse. I wipe it down every once in a while. That's about it.

Here are some links to other people making coasters:

- cute

- crazy

- cool

Sigh of Relief

2011-03-17T22:01:00.001-07:00

I just finished my finals! This winter quarter I took the following:

CS 131 - Programming Languages
CS 118 - Computer Networks
CS M152A - Digital Design Lab
EE 115A - Analog Electronic Circuits

I had 2 finals on Saturday and 2 finals today. Each final is 3 hours, and both days they were back-to-back. I hate tests, but I usually do surprisingly well on them. These last two exams were HARD. So glad it's behind me now. I'm glad that the two Professor Eggert classes are over! I might never have to take his class again. He is a wonderful professor. I love his lectures, but his assignments are time consuming.

On a different note, this past weekend I noticed that Jasmine is blooming again! It's all over UCLA neighborhood with it's wonderful scent. I had picked a tiny branch on our street a few days ago with Amber. Today after the finals I ventured back to that spot to pick a larger branch. Ah, it smells so good!

I wish we had one growing on our balcony.

I am officially on spring break! How exciting.

A Gift

2011-01-20T13:32:00.000-08:00

Vova went to Russia for his Winter break. We've always talked about getting grandparents a computer one day. Ever since the iPad came out (and we saw this video of an old woman using one) we thought we might give them one. Over a few months we've decided that a computer would be a better choice because we couldn't video chat on an iPad.

Naturally we went to Apple products. We contemplated getting an iMac, but making Vova and his gf (E) carry that was too much hassle. We decided to get a Mac Mini! After much hassle at the Apple Store (ugh, bank of america) we finally left with a brand new Mac Mini (but without Vova's driving license and my Chex Mix).

Vova and I set it up with Russian language, got them gmail accounts, AIM screen names, Skype names. I installed English Rosetta Stone, put pictures in their iPhoto and configured their Safari to have bookmarks they would enjoy. In Russia Vova got a monitor, keyboard and webcam. It was all ready!

Grandma cleared out a corner to put a little hacked up desk-like structure. And FINALLY, E (Vova's gf who also went to Russia) took this picture. It warms my heart. I love it! Look at them using that trackpad.

Today the microphone on the camera stopped working. (Actually, I don't know when it stopped working. I just found out that Vova tried Skyping grandpa and Vova couldn't hear him.) We got on iChat and I requested to share his screen. The mic showed up as an "Unknown USB device". I looked online for people having the same problems and they said to go to Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup. That's just what I did and it looked like the mic was muted for some reason. Apparently Logitech webcam does that sometimes. I got it fixed and was able to hear him from then on.

Yaaay! So glad we did this, Vova.

Los Angeles, You Suck (EE, you do too)

2011-01-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

It's the middle of January. I recently purchased a space heater. Got my thick comforter and sweaters out for the winter. A and I were planning on making lots of soups, stews and casseroles. I sewed a soft cover for my heating pad. We were all ready for winter.

We used the space heater for 3-4 days the first week of school. It has been like shave-your-legs weather the past couple of weeks. I waited as long as I could, thinking it would go away and cold will settle in. No such luck. I finally gave in, took care of my legs and I was glad I did.

Today I walked to campus wearing shorts and a t-shirt and I was sweating like a pig. Came back and checked the temperature on our outside thermometer. 86.5 F. WHAAAA? In the words of A, "Are you shitting me?"

I hate this! I want to wear sweaters, thick socks and mukluks. I want to make a hearty minestrone soup! I want to wear my peacoat or down jacket to school. I want to cuddle up with my newly covered heating pad. But nope! LA has us turning on fans instead of space heaters in January.

On top of it all I walked to school for NOTHING! I was struggling with my EE 115A homework and wanted to go to office hours. But guess what? My TA didn't show up. Gaaaaah. Just when I thought I couldn't dislike Electrical Engineers more.

Dirty, dirty, dirty dog.

Oh, Google

2010-12-31T11:18:00.000-08:00

Well done.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T21:47:00.000-08:00

From rainy California to wherever you are, I hope you are having an awesome end of December. I still have a week of my break left and I already got to play some ultimate in the mud AND reconnect with my friend.

This is the whole mud ultimate crew. Before picture.

It rained quite a bit here in Southern California this past week. James and I were noting how much fun it would be to go out and play some and then Monique invited me to this game. Ahhhh! It was the most awesome. You could not change direction, accelerate or slow down without eating it. Our team lost pretty bad. But we were playing against the team who had Gabe, Melissa, and James. Those three are BEASTS.

James guarding me. NO BREAKS!

I had to leave after an hour and a half, so I'm not in the after pictures but this should give you an idea of how the game progressed.

Another game on the 29th! Yaaaaay! Merry Christmas.

Break!

2010-12-17T00:20:00.000-08:00

Oh, yes. This is A, she captioned this "mmm bigfoot like hashbrowns".

You know, it has been a week since I finished finals. I have done nothing but cook and wallow in self-pity because I'm not going to Russia. Well, guess what. I am going to man up, go on an overnight drunk* and then do the following:

1) learn to use vi like a real man (none of the "lll"-to-go-to-the-end-of-a-word and other such bullshit)

2) finish my iPhone app

3) try to do a Dropbox puzzle (you should try too!)

4) learn to make sounds with my mouth (from this book)

5) finish my resume and get the awesomest job in the world

5) ~~complete all the jigsaw puzzles in the universe~~

Well, mainly the first two. If at all possible, I would like to do all that while giving Tillie a walk like so. (She is the sweetest dog in the world.)

I know mouthsounds shouldn't be my priority, but man do I want to learn how to whistle to this song.

* This is a reference to Life Aquatic. overnight drunk (for me) = cheesecake drowned in sweetened condensed milk. I don't drink, you know.

Babulya is 69 (Happy December!)

2010-12-01T12:58:00.000-08:00

My grandmother's name is Lidia. She is probably the best grandma anyone could ask for. She lives less than a kilometer away from my parent's apartment. We often walked over there, and on weekends V-rock and I would often stay overnight at her and grandpa's apartment. She would roast sunflower seeds and cook something awesome, and we would chill and play with the cat. (Cats lived and died, but they all had the same name - Moosya. It's quite peculiar.)

Here is V-rock, I (being weird) and grandma (being awesome). She came to the U.S. to visit us a few years ago.

Let me give you another example of grandma being the best grandma in the universe. To this day she takes vacations (usually in September) to go to the Black Sea. (Black Sea? I'm not sure. It may be Sea of Azov.) Nowadays she goes with a girlfriend, rents an apartment for a couple of weeks and swims every day she is there. When I was born, in 1990, she took my brother (who was 2 at the time) with her on a vacation. How many grandmas would take a 2-year-old child on their only vacation of the year? She is a saint.

Gah. I look like an idiot. But grandma...grandma is a fox - has always been and always will be.

I love babulya and miss her every day. Seeing parents complain about grandmothers "momming" their kids makes me appreciate how much I lucked out with parents and grandparents. Happy 69th, grandma! I can't wait until the day you move here.

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving!

2010-11-28T17:00:00.000-08:00

This was snapped (by my sweetheart) while I was working on my last lab report ever! I had a really good weekend. How about you?

Uh. My Head...

2010-11-18T21:28:00.000-08:00

...feels like a dog's balls.

I need to periodically do something other than sit on my ass at my computer all day.

Score!

2010-11-17T00:46:00.001-08:00

Two things:

1) I just finished the design project for my Operating Systems class. We implemented a file system in the last lab. We have to do one design project (it's like solving another problem in addition to the lab) and I chose crash testing the file system that we built. Another lab is due on Friday and I haven't even started (GAH!), but I'm glad this is over with. It is Week 8. Where did the time go? Our Digital Systems design project is still in the works and I will be heading over to the lab tomorrow for the day.

Anyway, design project on file system crash testing - CHECK!

2) I had a first pass for my classes yesterday and I actually used it. (I usually forget when to sign up.) I signed up for CS 131 (Programming Languages) and EE 115A (Analog Digital Circuits) and I'm glad I did.

I was going to switch sections, so I just checked the enrollment options. Look at this. All of them are closed! The enrollment hasn't even gotten to Juniors yet. Agh.
I believe it has to do with who is teaching the class. I had the option of taking it this quarter but I opted out because Professor Abidi was teaching it. (Check out his reviews.) He literally failed 30+ students out of his 60 student EE 115A Circuits class Spring quarter. So, I think we all breathed a sigh of relief and hurried to click Add Class when we didn't see his name.

On the other hand, it's an 8 am class. Ouch.

R2D2 vs. Breadman

2010-10-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

So, for my birthday James gave me a bread machine. It looks like R2D2, so that's the name it goes by now. However, earlier in the year Sue had told me that she had this Breadman laying around and that I could have it. In order to pick one to take to the apartment with me I decided to give these two a whirl. (This was in August.)

The test bread was brioche! I used The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook recipe. I saw it involved a lot of butter folding. It couldn't disappoint.

Results:

Breadman finished in 3 hours and 20 minutes.

R2D2 finished in 4 hours and 10 minutes.

Breadman's rise cycle was significantly shorter. R2D2 started baking when Breadman was just about finished. However, R2D2's cycle did include cooling down. I'm not sure this is a good thing, but R2D2 seems to blow cold air around the pan to cool it. So, the two loaves were cooled around the same time.

Another point worth noting is Artoo dances around the counter a lot. Last weekend I was making a sourdough loaf and neglected to put away the container of milk that was standing next to bread machine. The milk got knocked down on the carpet by Artoo during its kneading cycle. I was a huge mess. Ugh.

Taste test:

I couldn't get enough of Artoo's brioche. No butter required. Breadman's wasn't as good. Too much crust? I decided I would make bread pudding using Breadman's loaf and save Artoo's for eating brioche plain. It was really good.

It made excellent french toast a couple of days later too.

And guess who moved in with me to my apartment? It's my little-naughty-milk-knocking-off friend Artoo.

Oh, and how addictive are these stupid ass jigsaw puzzles? This was completed the August, the same day I did the bread machine testing. This panda kept me from checking on the bread every 5 seconds. (And that is very hard to do. It's like I'm expecting to see little gnomes kneading away in there and folding little pockets of goodness into the dough. Ugh, such an annoying habit.) The Bees, over here, helped me finish this panda-jerk. The white fur was just not cooperating, but we put it in its place.

Homemade Noodles

2010-10-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

I've never made fresh pasta. I wanted to make it when I was in Russia. Unfortunately I never got to it. But mama did. I think I was sick when she did this. (I got this awful sore throat and fever when I was there. Agh!)

People in Russia don't even know there is such a thing as chicken stock. No doubt it's an awesome thing to have around. But dudes. Chicken soup started with just chicken and water is really good. I was eating this when every swallow was awfully painful but what happened in my mouth before every swallow was completely and totally awesome. To top it all off: fresh noodles.

The FAM (plus a friend of the family). Grandma is already working on that soup. So cute. Gotta love papa's satisfied face and ULTRA-bright shirt. Grandpa is looking fab, as always.

WE LOVE CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP! Thanks, mama.

Carrots and Raisins

2010-10-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Carrot cake is one of my favorites. It's not too sweet, you can put raisins in it and the frosting is pretty delicious with it. I made this the night before leaving for Russia this past summer. I was trying to decide what recipe I should use. I had The Joy of Cooking and Baking Illustrated (America's Test Kitchen) recipes in front of me. I decided to use America's Test Kitchen's recipe. It was really easy and turned out really well.

The recipe is straight from Baking Illustrated. (It is an awesome book.)

Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups (12.5 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1 pound (6-7 medium) carrots, peeled

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed (3 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups canola oil

Directions:

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position; heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 by 9-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and spray the parchment.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

3. Grate the carrots (should turn out to be about 3 cups).

4. Add the carrots to the bowl with dry ingredients and set aside.

5. Use a food processor (I used a mixer. Cleaning the food processor is too much work.) to mix both sugars and eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined. With the machine running, add the oil through the feed tube in a steady stream. Process until the mixture is light and color and ell emulsified, about 20 seconds longer. Scrape the mixture into a large bowl.

6. Stir in the carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no steaks of flour remain.

7. Pour into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the pan from front to back halfway through the baking time. Cool the cake to room temperature in the pan on a wire rack, about 2 hours.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened but still cool

5 tbsp unsalted butter, softened but still cool

1 tbsp sour cream

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups (5 ounces) confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1. When the cake is cool, process the cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla in a clean food processor until combined, about 5 seconds, scraping down the workbowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the confectioners' sugar and process until smooth, about 10 seconds.

2. Run a paring knife around the edge of a cake to loosen it from the pan. Invert the cake onto a wire rack, peel off the parchment, then invert it again onto a serving platter. (You might not have a serving platter big enough for the cake, but everyone should have cardboard boxes and foil. I took a box and covered it with foil and used that as the platter.) Using an offset spatula, spread the frosting evenly over the surface of the cake.

3. Cut into squares and serve.

Eleanor: Good-bye, Steve.
Steve: Don't say that, even if it's true. Don't say that. It's too painful.

Eleanor: What do you want me to say?

Steve: Say bon voyage.

Eleanor: Bon voyage.

The Fire

2010-10-17T01:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I can't believe I've been living in the U.S. for 7 years. Part of me thinks I've been here my whole life and part of me can so vividly remember the first few months here that I can't believe it was that long ago.

My brother listened to a lot of Eminem at that point and, simply because we spent a lot of time together, so did I. (I was listening to Britney too and somehow Eminem and Britney just complemented each other in my brain.) I remember really identifying with Eminem's lyrics and being inspired by them. Everything was new and kind of scary. Plenty of embarrassing experiences came out of my first year in the US, and the way I think I dealt with those was through Eminem's songs.

Lose Yourself, Sing for the Moment, Love Me after failures, when I needed to get back up and keep working. Without Me, Just Don't Give a Fuck, When the Music Stops when I accomplished something I was striving for. (Add the Beg for Mercy G-Unit album to the I-feel-pimpin' playlist. "If you don't know who I be you better AKS someboooooody about me..." Ha!)

I guess I couldn't really relate to Eminem's songs in the past few years but this past summer I reconnected to them again with the Recovery album. My goals have changed so much from what they were 7 years ago, but what makes me stop wallowing in self-pity and get back to work hasn't. The Marshall Mathers LP, The Slim Shady LP and The Eminem Show are awesome albums and definitely take me back to the old days, just like I think Recovery will always take me back to Summer 2010 when I was getting the fire back in me.

This 60 Minutes story brought a tear to my eye. I wish I could shake this guy's hand.

I Miss Her

2010-10-04T00:31:00.000-07:00

I used to have the bestest-best girlfriend. We haven't talked in over a year. I need to make it right.

Meow

2010-10-02T20:49:00.000-07:00

I want a kitty massage (or any other kind).

Alton Brown Can Suck It

2010-10-02T14:26:00.000-07:00

I made it through week 1 of Fall quarter! I submitted my first CS111 (Operating Systems) project last night. Granted this was the easiest lab that we'll get but I'm proud of myself for finishing it a day early. If I could only learn to focus and debug my program at the apartment WITH my roommates around I would have finished it 5 days early.

It's amazing. I probably dicked around with my code for at least 3 hours on Wednesday night at my desk. But A and E were around and I kept getting distracted by conversations in the background even with my headphones on. AGH!

Trust me. It's impossible to not turn around and chime in when you hear "vagina dentata" and "hair clip" in the same sentence.

I ended up getting frustrated with myself not being able to fix my bug and going to sleep. Next morning I went to school 30 minutes early so I could walk with A and E to campus. Spent 25 minutes in the library and fixed the function that I was working on the night before.

And that happens all the time. My productivity decreases exponentially with the increasing awesomeness of my roommates.

Quite possibly our second favorite thing to do, after distracting each other from getting real work done, is to cook. A has been telling us all about this No Pan Pear Pie recipe and we wanted to try it out. Let me first tell you that I've never made an Alton Brown recipe successfully. That is not to say that he doesn't make delicious food, it's just that I NEVER have everything that he calls for and I'm not as accurate with temperatures as I think he assumes we should be when we follow his recipe. A waffle recipe requires all-pupose, whole-wheat flour and buttermilk at room temperature, mind you.

For this No Pan Pear Preposterous Pastry Pie (ahhhh alliteration) A and I were expected to use a SPRAY bottle to moisten our crust. We were also supposed to put a frozen cookie sheet on our dough when it got a little too warm. Of course we neglected to do either and just sprinkled apple juice concentrated with our fingers (freezing them off). It was a crumbly mess. I've never made such horrible dough. If I was working on it myself I would've given up and started over. A convinced me to keep sprinkling moisture on the crust as she finally shenagled the crust in a circle-resembling shape.

Here is A working on getting the filling to stay inside and plugging up holes with her hands as I'm laughing at her.

Did I mention the filling contained a butt-load of balsamic vinegar, we needed butter separated in 3 different batches each at different temperatures and the crust had corn meal?

I admit, the filling tasted much better than other pie filling that I've made before. But, you know, I think it's due to A being there keeping me and my sugar doubling tendencies in line, not this particular recipe.

The final product. This was Wednesday night. By Friday lunch-time it was gone (along with 1/2 gallon of Costco vanilla ice-cream).

♥ kick-ass time in the kitchen badmouthing Alton Brown.

What the Heck Does This Look Like?

2010-09-24T06:59:00.001-07:00

E and I were at Costco and we were like, "Whoa. Cheap salmon. Sweet!" Upon examining the package closely it turned out to be Steelhead. Neither of us knew what Steelhead was, but we got it anyway.

When we got home I busted out my Joy of Cooking book. Steelhead is apparently a variety of trout. Who knew? It was delish.

My life officially ends today as "...unlike other classes, lab work will get started off with a rapid run, as opposed to a slow jaunt." Thanks, CS 111.

First Day of School

2010-09-23T09:10:00.000-07:00

Ah. I can't believe it's happening. I feel like I never left and summer never happened. I have new roommates and they are AWESOME.

Allow me to introduce:

(from left to right) M, J (roommate from last year), E (V-Rock's gf), A, me. This picture was snapped right before the middle three headed out to school. (They have a 9:30 class. What's up with that?)

Rewind an hour and a half. I made a german pancake for breakfast!

E cut strawberries.

Man-handling the cake in the PAN.

This is A. She is so demure.

Yum.

AHHHHHHH! I have been anxious about this day for weeks.

See You On the Other Side

2010-09-17T03:01:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. I'm about to embark on my journey back to the states. Ah. There are so many things I'm feeling. I can't even make sense of all of them. The main is that I'm scared. I'm scared of leaving, scared of starting a new school year, scared of living with my friends, scared of flying, so on and so forth.

I'm told that I might not even make it past customs in Moscow. I'm missing a stamp in my passport. Ha! Wouldn't that be something?

Here we are with the lilly that grandma gave me when I arrived. Nobody is showing teeth. :-(

I know this one is blurry, but I like it best.

I'm packing up my computer now and we are heading to the train station. Ciao!

PS. Should my plane crash (which wouldn't surprise me coming from Aeroflot), I would like Florence + The Machine and Chopin played at my funeral.

Penza Pizza

2010-09-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

Mama and I made pizza! Dad crashed our pizza making party for a little while, but then quickly left. He didn't want no stinkin' pizza. Oh well. It was pretty good.

Mom insisted on putting weird spices in our tomato sauce. It was funny. I would see her get out a packet and sprinkle some stuff in as she was stirring it. It would go something like this:

me: What is that you're putting in?

mama: It's [insert Russian name for a spice].

me: Oh, OK.

*wait a minute, I don't know the names of spices in Russian*

me: Let me smell it.

mama: Here.

me: Eww! You just put nutmeg and cinnamon in there!

It surprisingly turned out well.

Mama and Grandma Make Blini

2010-09-15T05:51:00.000-07:00

I just love these things. They don't taste like crepes. I keep thinking I make blini when I'm in the US. Nope! I make crepes. These are different.

The ingredients are simple, but it's never the same when I make it. Maybe it's because I don't use full fat milk, maybe the milk isn't spoiled enough, maybe it's that I don't have the same sour cream to eat it with. I don't know.

1 egg

salt and sugar to taste

.5 liter of spoiled milk or kefir

1 cup of flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

I love, love, love, love, love the sour cream here. It's the dollop on the right. It is soooo thick and creamy. I'm sure such sour cream exists in the US, I just don't know where to find it.

Yum. I am going to miss breakfasts here.

Kitchen Scale (Eeee!)

2010-09-08T01:48:00.000-07:00

Oh, my word! I have not been this excited about a product since I got my first iPhone.

(My disappointment with iPhone 4 is a subject for a post of its own.)

I've been looking around for a food scale and stumbled upon this review.

"Why does a stick of butter weigh a little more than a quarter pound? Because the wrapper is still on the butter." It's on par with "I'm on a horse" Old Spice commercials.

"It has 4 buttons...backlight - I guess for when you're cooking up a conspiracy in the dark." Ahahaha! I am going to looooove it. This review is almost as quotable as Tourette's Guy and It's Just Like a Mini-Mall.

E, are you as excited as I am?

Aeroflot Makes 24 Hours Into 35

2010-08-30T03:44:00.000-07:00

I don't like being in an airplane at all. Flying a Russian airline is probably one of the most torturous activities I can think of. It's right up there with getting my cuticles cut off with those curved scissors and watching Bachelor/Bachelorette. It's just painful.

I actually don't know which is worse, actually getting on the plane and sitting in an enclosed vessel with the humidity of a Sahara dessert for 13 hours or knowing that you are going to have to do it in a few days and stressing out over it.

The nightmare began Friday, August 27th when I walked through the doors of the international terminal at LAX. I knew I was at the right check-in counter when I saw fat men in tracksuits, and women in tight-fitting clothes and high heeled shoes. When I finally got to the counter they told me my backpack was too big.

Mens asses.

I specially packed everything into my carry on because I wouldn't have time to wait for the baggage. So, checking the bag in was not an option. I have taken exactly the same backpack on exactly the same flight during Christmas time, no less, and it has never been a problem. Now, all of a sudden, they won't let me on the flight with the bag. The woman claimed that the bag doesn't get smaller if you take stuff out of it. What? Maybe a hard-case suitcase doesn't, but this is an adjustable backpack, fucko.

I had to stuff it into their little metal check-to-see-if-it-fits-in-this-space thing to prove to her that it's a carry-on size. She finally gave me a boarding pass. Whew. Never mind that nobody else had to stuff their shit into that thing. I specifically checked a bunch of people's suitcases that they put in the overhead bins to see if they fit vertically. Nope! None of the ones I tried could fit depth-wise like my backpack had to. Inconsistent bastards.

Of course, because it's Aeroflot, the time that the plane is supposed to take-off is completely disregarded. They didn't even start boarding people until AFTER the flight's departure time. We finally took off 68 minutes after the scheduled time.

The flight was long. It's 13 long hours. I will say one good thing about Aeroflot, they got a new plane with pretty cool personal TVs on which you could watch a bunch of pretty recent movies. I don't get to go to the movies often, but I do watch previews. So, there are always movies I want to see but never do. They had Valentine's Day under the recent releases and I immediately jumped on the opportunity to watch a movie for free! Yay! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Jennifer Garner and Julia Roberts are so cute. I just love them.

Chick flicks are good, but a movie only lasts 2 hours or so. Being able to sleep on the plane is of paramount importance to remaining sane. I'm sad to say, readers, but I think I've lost my mojo. I used to be able to sleep anywhere, in any position, and with any amount of noise and light. On this flight I just could not get more than 30 minutes of sleep. I was really frustrated with myself.

A couple of hours before landing the captain had the nerve to tell us that "we are going to be landing at 6:55 PM, basically without delay." Say what? Since when is arriving 30 minutes late arriving "basically without delay"? Did I miss something? And it would be fine if they at least stuck to that, but at 6:55 we were still at 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) altitude. Is 5 km off the ground Aeroflot's landing altitude? Is that another memo I didn't get?

A Dave Chapelle's quote comes to mind. "You ask, why treat our customers that way? Because fuck 'em. That's why."

They didn't let me out of that airplane until 7:24. The last train through Moscow that mama and I could catch to get to our train to Penza was at 7:30. I was the first one through customs and we ran through the whole airport just to watch the doors close right in front of us at the platform. Missing that train meant spending the night in Moscow, spending the night in Moscow means sharing metal seats without backs with drunken bums at the train station and paying to use a bathroom that is basically a hole in the ground.

We tried to find a cultural way to spend our night, so we went to check out this newly built monument next to the train station.

I saw a drunk man with an eyepatch dripping blood who was pissing right on the monument, so we quickly left. I will spare you the description of the rest of our night, but it followed a similar theme.

Here we are at the train station in Moscow.

There were no trains to Penza until late the next day, so we took a bus. Somehow drivers think it's totally cool with everyone to smoke on the bus. No big.

I saw the most majestic lion and tiger at a stop somewhere between Moscow and Penza. We quickly snapped a few pictures:

I'm holding up an ice-cream. It says CCCP (USSR) on it. It was yummy.

13 hours on the plane, 12 hours in Moscow, 10 hours on the bus - 35 hours later I was finally home.

I'm Sorry. What?

2010-08-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

What? What? What? What? What? WHAAAAA?

What grades did I get in Computer Architecture and Algorithms? A- and A? Is this some kind of a sick, twisted joke somebody is playing on me? An A- from Professor Tamir would be something of magical origin. This is not right.

I am going to go down for a nap. If I wake up and this post is still up (indicating that this wasn't a dream) I am going to poo my pants.

(Or maybe it is, I just haven't woken up from this level of dream/indirection. Ahhhhh. I just don't know. Inception reference.)

Soup, Soupy Soup! (Pasta e Fagioli)

2010-08-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

I used to not like beans. I don't think my mom cooked beans often, or cooked them at all. I remember my handling uncooked beans and thinking how on earth can somebody eat these hard pebbles. Well, I've been kind of obsessed with beans over the past few months. There is something really neat about cooking beans. You have to soak them overnight, so you have to plan ahead.

Unfortunately this whole "planning ahead" thing is not something I do often. I didn't cook my own beans for this soup. My point was I like beans now. I'm pretty sure this soup had everything to do with it.

Anyway. I used Giada's recipe because somebody who cooks delicious food loves Giada. I decided to give it a shot. It did not disappoint.

Ingredients:

4 sprigs fresh thyme
1 large sprig fresh rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup chopped onion
3 ounces pancetta, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
5 3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 (14.5-ounce) cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
3/4 cup elbow macaroni
Freshly ground black pepper
Pinch red pepper flakes, optional
1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Wrap the thyme, rosemary, and bay leaf in a piece of cheesecloth and secure closed with kitchen twine.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil and butter in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion, pancetta, and garlic and saute until the onion is tender, about 3 minutes.

3. Add the broth, beans, and sachet of herbs. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat, then decrease the heat to medium and simmer until the vegetables are very tender, about 10 minutes.

4. Discard the sachet. Puree 1 cup of the bean mixture in a blender until smooth.

5. Before putting the puree back into the soup, add the macaroni and boil with the lid on until it is tender but still firm to the bite, about 8 minutes.

6. Return the puree to the remaining soup in the saucepan and stir well. Season the soup with ground black pepper (and red pepper flakes).

Do use low-sodium chicken broth. Pancetta gives the soup all the salt it needs. Yum. ~~Hello, post-bean flatulence. Ew.~~ Enjoy!

Here is the whole L. Canyon Crew: S, B, and Grandpa-J.

Done

2010-08-14T14:09:00.000-07:00

Dearest Readers,

It is my greatest pleasure to inform you that as of last night I am done with Summer School 2010! Words cannot describe just how amazing this feels.

I had two finals yesterday. First Computer Architecture and then Algorithms. I felt good about Computer Architecture. Algorithms was hard, we got a really hard Dynamic Programming problem, but everyone felt the same way I did. I conked out as soon as I got home and woke up with a sore neck. I got a neck exercise from all the studying and exam-taking I had done yesterday. Who would've known that Algorithms is such a workout?

To celebrate JT and I went on a movie-date to see Inception. My only complaint - it was too loud, I was covering my ears the whole time. I'm quite unaccustomed to movie theaters I guess.

Summer school is hard, my friends. I thought it was hard last year, but that was cake compared to this. Two more upper-div CS classes in the bank. Next!

I've been absent from the blog ever since summer school began, so get ready for a post diarrhea some time soon.

Olga

PS. It feels soooooo good to leisurely make breakfast in the morning and to be able to play the piano while the muffins are the oven instead of reading a boring-ass chapter on Virtual Memory. Mmm.

Florence + The Machine is my latest obsession.

If

2010-08-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build them up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

- Rudyard Kipling -

I am 20 years old (and 6 days)! Agh.

Eaten Too Fast

2010-07-17T09:36:00.000-07:00

I made Mom's apple pastry a couple of months ago. I just found the pictures I took for it, but there are no pictures of the final product. I remember I had to leave for ultimate while it was still in the oven, but I have no recollection of what happened next. Either somebody already ate a piece, or I was really hungry when I came back and ate it without thinking twice about a picture for this blog.

All the apples were cut while I was sitting at the computer watching a House episode. No cutting board (a la Mama G).

(These were also the apples from Costco I was carrying when I ate shit on my board.)

It was noted in the previous post's comments that "food" label has surpassed everything else (by a wide margin). Even JT. GASP!

JT and I made ice-cream sandwiches a while ago.

YES!

I have two midterms next week. Algorithms is on Tuesday and Computer Architecture is on Wednesday. Summer school is hard and I certainly didn't get the easiest professors. (I did get one REALLY good TA.)

Check this. Multi-cycle implementation of a processor has been omitted from the newest edition of our textbook. We were forced to buy the new edition, of course. Professor Tamir thinks multi-cycle is so important that he is emphasizing it on the midterm. Last homework on multi-cycle was so hard, I nearly cried. I'm sure he has his reasons. He is extremely smart and is a really interesting person to talk to during breaks. But I can't help it but be upset because multi-cycle implementation is the only material that I don't fully understand and now have to study.

It is study time. Only break this weekend = making Pasta e Fajioli!

My fourth most-played song on iTunes.

I Miss Russia (Not)

2010-07-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

What I really miss is mom and grandma's cooking, mama, papa, gammmmma and grandfather. (Although I would miss them even more if they had a kitty-cat. Hint.)

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing like a hearty pot roast with rice and thin gravy compliments of Sue to make me go "Mmmmm". That's something I can only get at the Bakalor's household. I don't know of anyone else who slow-cooks meat drowned in Coca-Cola. My point is, you can't really win. When I'm in Russia, I miss the US; when I'm in the US, I miss being in Russia.

I've been craving Russian dishes lately. Last week I made borscht. (It's really "borsch". No "t". I don't know why Americans stick "t"s where they are not needed.) Mom sent me two pages of instructions that I followed the best I could considering she doesn't use any measuring devices. I was really skeptical as to how it would turn out, but it was awesome. I mean, it was really good. The picture does it no justice.

That satisfied my craving for something Russian. But only for a week. I got the recipe for cabbage pie from mom a couple of days ago and made it today. It's still in the oven. I tasted the filling though. It's so good. Here is the recipe:

Cabbage Pie

Dough

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup of milk

1 egg

2 tbsp yeast

2 sticks of butter (cut up a little)

750g of flour (4-5 cups, I'm just guessing. I weighed mine.)

1 tbsp sugar

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast in half of the milk heated to about body temperature. Add a little sugar to the milk/yeast mixture. Give it a stir.

2. Sift flour into a food processor. Add the butter and pulse. (You can also just sift the flour in a bowl, add the putter and cut it up with a knife.

3. Add egg, sugar, the rest of milk and the milk/yeast mixture. Mix until a dough forms. Cover with a towel and get started on the filling.

Filling

Ingredients:

4 hard-boiled eggs (I used 5 because I looove 'em)

1/4 head of cabbage (I used 1/2 because I love cabbage)

1 onion

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp butter

1/2-1 cup milk

2 tbsp butter

Directions:

1. Cut and saute onion in 1 tbsp of oil. Cut cabbage and boil it for 3 minutes.

2. Drain the hot water. Now we need to squeeze water out of the cabbage and put it in the pan with the onions. Pour a little cold water over the cabbage so as not to burn yourself. Saute cabbage and onions together.

3. Add 2 tbsp of butter and a little bit of milk. Cover and let the milk evaporate.

4. Peel the eggs and cut them into the pan with cabbage and onions. (My mom and I always try to dirty as few dishes and counter surfaces as humanly possible. I've always been conscious of that, so you will always see me cut things in my hands right over the pan. Mom can even cut potatoes really thin like. I don't do that unless it's just to quarter them.)

5. Mix everything together and salt. The filling should be a little over-salted so that some of the salt gets absorbed by the dough. Filling is done.

Putting it All Together

1. Once you're done with filling, punch down the dough and divide the dough almost in half. (That's confusing. We want the dough on the bottom to be slightly thicker. So, make one "half" a little more than half. 5/8 to 3/8 maybe.)

2. Butter a 9''x11'' pan. Put the slightly bigger "half" into the pan and start stretching it to fill the bottom. Spread the filling on top of the bottom layer leaving the thickness of your finger on all sides uncovered.

3. Roll out the rest of the dough and transfer to cover the filling. (Hopefully yours will work out better than mine. Press the two dough layers together. Make incisions in the pie so it doesn't explode.

4a. Put the pie in the oven at 110F (40C) for an hour. (Sue's oven has this really cool setting called "Proof". I didn't know it existed in the 5(?) years that I've been around. Today was the day. After it's done "proofing" turn the oven to 375F (200C) keep checking on it until it's golden brown.

4b. (optional) I looked at it after about 20 minutes in the oven. It looked a little dried out so I did a basic egg wash just in case. I don't really know if it was necessary.

5. Take it out, cover with wax paper and a towel. Leave for a while.

Egg wash much?

After I finished I took two pictures of my excited self. I got a haircut, but you can't really see my hair. It's pretty neat.

Woooooooolf Parade is awesome.

Cake and Two Pies

2010-07-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

I have a 4th of July tradition. I make cake. I did my research ahead of time and decided on the cake. It was so awesome. I could hardly wait to make it. Because I don't really like cake (to eat) all the much, I decided to also make a cherry pie. I didn't have a good experience with a cherry pie the last time I made one. I wanted to try two recipes: one that used fresh cherries, and one that used canned cherries. Here are the results:

The canned "sour cherry" pie.

The fresh "bing cheery" pie.

I really wanted the fresh cherry pie to taste better. (Hence lattice pattern on it and burn edges on the other one. If only good looks equaled good taste.) It turned out way too sweet. I did put about two times the amount of sugar the recipe called for. Sigh. I really need to stop doing that. The sour cherry, although didn't look as good, tasted better and also required almost no work. The crust is really all the work that a cherry pie requires.

We decided to skip the overrated fireworks hoopla and stayed in to eat cake, pit cherries and watch The Majestic. (Which is, by the way, one of the best movies I've seen.) I love that picture of Grandpa-J.

And finally, I give you the 2010 Independence Day Cake!

(All pictures were taken with an iPhone 4 and Ms. Shaky Hands.)

Summer is One Week Long

2010-06-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

I had a week to relax and catch my breath after Spring quarter. Summer school has started. One week down, seven more to go. It's not bad, I am taking really interesting classes, but let me tell you, my week off was nice. Lots of sleeping in, piano, reading, dancing, cooking and beach-going. My best compadre, JT, even endured a shopping trip with me. (He got yellow crocs!) On my last day off JT baked me blueberry muffins and we rented Youth in Revolt.

Have any of you seen this spectacular movie? It is great. I first discovered it at the $2 movie night at UCLA. E, V-rock, Jay-Z and I went. We didn't have very high expectations but it was super awesome. I had forgotten how explicit it was when I asked if M, JT's little sister, wanted to watch it with us. So, for all of you virgin eyes and ears, don't watch it. The rest of us can appreciate the humor in "Oh, I see. You're putting counter-rotational torque on the rod." At some point JT was laughing so hard, he was bouncing his butt on the couch and it broke! One of the underlying boards just cracked.

There was also a lot of Tillie-dog playing the last day of my summer.

I love that last frame where she jumps to catch the ball in her mouth. What a good girl!

I got a new dress!

I love it. I love dresses in general, but I especially love this one. It's from J.Crew.

DANCE, Tillie, DANCE! I love dogs (and cats, and foxes, and raccoons, and JT).

And as if all that wasn't enough JT made me the most delicious turkey burger on the planet with lots of avocado. Mmm.

You might have also noticed that I finally got around to photoshop-ing my ghetto-ass looking banner. Yay.

Phoebzers Got an Oil Change

2010-06-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

I don't blog about Phoebe a lot. It's a shame. Phoebe is my trusty car. It's a Saturn Ion 2003, purchased for $2550 (after some price shanagling) of hard-earned street performing money in October, 2009. I decided to name it Phoebe after looking at the names of Saturn moons.

Did you know Saturn has 61 moons? It's true.

One of the bigger ones is named Phoebe. Also, one of the characters in The Catcher in the Rye is named Phoebe. So, the name stuck.

Phoebe has only been to the mechanic once; a day or so after I purchased it to fix air-conditioning. (The cooling worked, but it wasn't blowing very hard.) I got ripped off $80+ just so they could replace something that wasn't broken in the first place. Asses. I can't believe it. Then they had the nerve to quote me $400 something to get another part that they thought was going to fix the blowing mechanism. Barry then found the part for $32. I bought it, JT installed it and it has been working well ever since. And I don't know if I'll ever trust a mechanic again.

JT and I have been doing all the maintenance ourselves. (By "JT and I" I mean mostly JT.) Phoebe needed an oil change, so that's what we did. It's not as hard as it seems. It's actually quite fun. I enjoyed it.

I'm watching the oil drip down into the pan.

My fave project partner, JT, bringing me just the right tool to unscrew the filter.

The old and the new filters. See how black the oil is? It's almost clear when it goes in.

Reflection in the oil.

We Be Ballin'

2010-06-18T22:35:00.000-07:00

This was a few days back. We broke out the ball after being inspired by game 3. Disregard all the green we are wearing. This was an oversight on my part.

M is going for a 3-pointer jump shot. Look at that technique. Fisher in the making. (Tillie is in the background refereeing the game.)

I can't play basketball, but it's so much fun to try.

JT runs for that fast transition.

I am dating this superstar of a boy.

Tillie refereed with her duck. (Bark twice if you see a foul.)

I Love the Lakers

2010-06-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

We did it again. (Yes, I wrote "we". I attribute this victory in part to myself for cheering on my favorite team from the couch.) Such exciting 7 games of the NBA Finals, especially the last game. MAN. I lost all hope in the 3rd quarter and decided to make brownies in which to drown my sorrow. 1st quarter was awful. Kobe was so disappointing in the first 2 quarters. And those free throws! Was it 3 for 8 in the the first quarter? Agh. We pulled it out in the 3rd-4th quarter. But barely. I feel like most of the 4th quarter points were free throws. I don't know why the Celtics are so foul heavy.

Most inspiring player this season for me was Derek Fisher.

He seems to always be there during the fast transitions. He manages to stay on D pretty well. But mostly, I think he is a really cool guy. Yes, yes. I deduced that from his interviews.

One more thing, the Spaniard is AMAZING. All those rebounds! That accounted for a lot of Laker points and it's all thanks to Gasol. He also happens to have the biggest mouth (physically) and looks like a madman every times he shoots or scores.

Is anyone else strangely attracted to this madman?

Anyway, LA Lakers are the superior team and I couldn't be happier today. What a way to end my 1 week off school. I am dancing again! It's so nice. Ballet started this week (JT already dropped out) and two summer CS classes are starting on Monday.

Finals Time (and the Living is Hard)

2010-06-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

Good news: only two finals left.

Bad news: the hardest two finals are left (CS 124 and EE 110)

Terrible news: my last final is on Friday. Agh. I've never had a final that late.

The end of Spring quarter is always bittersweet. There are summer adventures to look forward to, but I'm also moving out and saying goodbye my graduating roommates. I don't like to think of myself as sentimental, but I really think I am. I am the worst nostalgist. It wasn't even all fun and games. There have definitely been rough patches - from having to clean dishes that lovely roommates have left in the sink for over a week to having hard-ass shit fall on my foot when opening the freezer and then spending 20 minutes playing tetris trying to fit it all back. I'm sure I wasn't the perfect roommate by any standard either. I sing when I study. Enough said.

All in all, we had an awesome year. Here are some ladies of Belle Chateau (our apartment).
You've already seen this cat. Jay-Z. She has the most obnoxious loud laugh. She is also my favorite laTTTTTina, the person I've shared all my secrets with and she can probably effectively blackmail me with all the dance videos we've made.

This is I, Jay-Z & Tall-J. Tall-J and I shared a room. Our room is our neat haven, it is the place I would sit and weep softly to Tall-J when somebody would use my pan and not clean it for 6(!) days. In the spirit of roommate honesty I will also say that she frequently smoked me out of my room using excessive amounts of hairspray early in the morning. The moment our bathroom door opened and the hairspray hit my nostrils I would either have to evacuate or stick my head out the window and continue sleeping.

Roommates not pictured are Tiny-J and Elusive-E. I believe I've posted pictures of tiny-J before, but I do not have a single picture of the Elusive-E (hence her name).

Update:

Barry and I just watched the 3rd NBA Finals game. Lakers won! COCKASS! I was getting a little worried in the 3rd quarter, but they definitely came back at the end of the 4th. Lots of good calls from the refs (a lot of which weren't in our favor). Rondo is big douche. Fisher was on top of his game. LOVE HIM! His interview right after the game was so touching I almost cried. Pau-Pau is not as hott this year. I don't know. He is more cute than hot.

A Midas Cake!

2010-05-27T18:53:00.000-07:00

Midas had an end-of-the-year banquet last week. I made an Apple Spice Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. The cake was pretty good, but the frosting was too sweet for my liking. (But I generally think that about all frosting. If something is too sweet and I eat it fast I start sweating a lot. Is that weird?) The cake was kind of like carrot cake. I love carrot cake but I didn't feel like sitting around grating carrots that day.

I was originally going to decorate it as our frisbee disc design but I ran out of time. (Banquet was on a Monday and EE homework is due on Tuesdays. What's a girl to do?)

I didn't take pictures of my outfit before I left due to the lack of time. (I wore a J.Crew shift dress. It has pockets! What what?) Here are some pictures from the banquet. It was a lot fun. I enjoyed seeing all the gorgeous ladies of Midas dressed up. I usually see them in shorts and t-shirts with hair pulled back.

This song = how I feel about Midas.

I Use Flour (Lots of It)

2010-05-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

I recently acquired a 25 pound bag of flour from Costco. $5.89, suckas. Cha-ching. I was so stoked. I used to get the 5 pound bags but I kept going through those in a matter of a month. So now I totally don't feel bad about using my flour (or about roommates stealing a cup or two). Cookies? Sure! Banana bread? No problem! Pizza? Don't mind if I do!

So, I've been making pizza a lot. My favorite is lamb pizza. No surprise. When I was at the Bee's a couple of weeks ago I tried making the dough in a bread machine. It was a lot easier but didn't work out. The dough didn't stretch as well as it did when I made it by hand. I don't know. I probably screwed something up. It was my first time using a bread machine. I know a lot of people make pizza dough using the bread machine and the crust is fantastic.

Basic Pizza Dough
makes 2 crusts

Ingredients
2 1/4 tsp dry yeast
1 1/3 cups warm water
3 1/2-3/4 all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar (optional)

Directions
1. Combine yeast and water and let stand until yeast dissolves (5 min).
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix by hand or on low speed.
3. Knead for 10 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer to a bowl lightly coated with olive oil an turn it over once to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume. (1-1:30 hours)
4. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. (Hottt.) Grease and dust 2 baking sheets with cornmeal (I never have that but always wish I did.)
5. Punch the dough down and divide in half. Roll each piece into a ball and let rest, loosely covered with plastic wrap, for 10-15 minutes. (This is when I remember that pizza needs a topping and try to come up with something. Takes me much longer than 15 minutes. It seems to be OK.)
6. Flatten each ball of dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch round. (I don't have a rolling pin, so I just stretch it. It's really easy.)
7. Place each dough circle on a prepared baking sheet. Left the edge and pick it to form a lip.
8. To prevent the filling from making the crust soggy, brush the top of the dough with olive oil.
9. Let rest for 10 minutes before topping. (This was news to me. I just top it.)

I made a desert pizza once when I didn't have enough topping for two crusts. It was a disaster. I still ate it.

More pizza!

What the Heck is Scampi? (It's still May)

2010-05-24T21:46:00.001-07:00

Wikipedia has the answer. It's a culinary name for some species of lobster, more exactly Norway Lobsters or Dublin Bay Prawn. Dublin Bay Prawn in Italian is "scampi". Why "shrimp scampi" then, you ask? I've been wondering that myself. It's like calling a dish "shrimp shrimp". Even that is a stretch.

Regardless. Shrimp scampi is delicious. Seeing as the quarter is ending and I have to move out of my apartment in the next few weeks I busted out some shrimp from the freezer. Surprisingly it was very easy to make. You can't really go wrong with butter, garlic, shrimp and lemon juice.

(By the way, the last time I made shrimp it was absolutely revolting. I was under the impression that my shrimp was shelled and deveined. In my haste to finish making dinner I just skewered and grilled it. Oy, oy, oy, oy. It tasted fine, but boy do you lose your appetite quickly when you have to take off the shrimp's little legs off before you eat it. I almost threw up. Hence my leftover shrimp sitting in the freezer, oh, since January.)

Ingredients

1 1/2 pound jumbo shrimp, shelled and deveined

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/4 cup dry white vermouth

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 teaspoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

1/4 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Directions

Put the shrimp on a large pie pan or plate and pat them completely dry with a paper towel. Arrange the shrimp so they lay flat and are evenly spaced.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper. Add the butter to the skillet. When the foaming subsides, raise the heat to high, and invert the plate of shrimp over the pan so the shrimp fall into the pan all at once. Cook the shrimp, without moving them, for 1 minute. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute. Turn the shrimp over and cook for 2 minutes more. Transfer the shrimp to a bowl.

Return the skillet to the heat and pour in the vermouth and lemon juice. Boil the liquid until slightly thickened, about 30 seconds. Scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. Stir the zest and parsley into the sauce. Pour the sauce over the shrimp, season with salt and pepper to taste and toss to combine.

Yum. It was good. Don't skimp on the lemon. It really helps offset all the butter.

In other news I crashed on my board. I ride my longboard every single day. So far I've been able to avoid any serious crashes despite Westwood's horrendous streets. (I could write a whole post about the streets surrounding UCLA. It's maddening.) I had just parked a few blocks from my apartment and was skating back. Most of my stuff was in my backpack but I had 11 apples in a package in my arms. I was on Veteran. I skate to and from work on that street every Tuesday and Thursday but it was dark. I hit a crack in the sidewalk and landed on my right elbow. It sucked. My board shot back, apples flew everywhere. I don't know how long I sat there scared out of my mind. I picked everything up and walked home. It turned out to be not that bad; the pain subsided, I have a few scratches. I am a little worried because it has been 24 hours and the pain is not in my elbow anymore but in the forearm and fingers. It's just a dull ache. I'll get it checked out if it doesn't go away in the next week or so. I wonder if I hit the funny bone.

It's a Poll

2010-05-22T15:38:00.001-07:00

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it has been a year since last Mother's Day. I very clearly remember typing out a post for last year's Mother's Day. We did pretty much the same thing this year - Souplantation for breakfast and dinner at home. This is what I ended up wearing. I got this dress for free as a hand-me-down from Sue's friend's daughter. I wish I had taken a picture with E because she was dressed very pretty.

No earrings still. I got hit in the ear with a frisbee disc while I was wearing earrings. The earring pierced the back of my head and tore up the pierced hole a bit. It's pretty much healed by now but I'm scared to wear earrings now.

For dinner Mark and Barry made 3 different kinds of ribs and I made a raspberry cheesecake. It turned out really well.

On a different note, I played scrabble and got 74 points for the word "alumnae". Very proud of myself.

Found My Niche

2010-05-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

When 38,000 other (strange) people attend your school sometimes it's hard to feel like you're part of it. I've been at UCLA for a year and a half now and I am happy to say that I have finally found my niche. I tried a sorority and didn't like it, I tried Ultimate and loved it! (Second time is a charm?) I've been playing since September - learned lots of neat things, ran a lot, got gnarly black toes (from cleats), and most importantly made some bomber friends. I am sad the season is coming to an end. Playing ultimate with friends is pretty much the best and I am going to miss Midas over the summer.

(All photos were taken by JT who came to all but 2 tournaments.)

Love Was Definitely Found

2010-04-26T23:19:00.000-07:00

I have 3 midterms this week. Agh! I'm already done with one (CS 124). I think it went very well. EE homework is due tomorrow, ENGR 110 midterm on Wednesday, and EE midterm on Thursday. I am not working or going to ultimate practice until Friday. Just studying and eating tuna-egg-salad melts and ice-cream.

M, JT and I jumping into a non-heated pool at the end of March. It was freeeeezing!

Is it summer yet?

Craving That Oh-So-Good Square Lattice

2010-04-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

JT here. What was I craving today? Waffles.

Here is the recipe from the back of a Bisquick box:

Ingredients:
2 cups Original Bisquick mix
1 1/3 cups milk
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 egg
Directions:
1. Stir ingredients until blended.
2. Pour onto center of hot greased waffle maker; close lid.
3. Bake about 5 minutes or until steaming stops. Carefully remove waffle.

When I read this I imagine a dense piece of particle board. No thanks.

Twice this year, I have had the (mis)fortune of attending get-togethers around campus where someone decided waffles would be a cool item to serve. Waffles that reminded me of a two-way concrete slab, like that used in the Washington DC Metro tunnels. The kind that even if you drenched it in the high fructose corn syrup they provide, it would still resemble a batter briquette. I felt sorry for the hosts at these parties, especially after one of them declared herself as a "chef" and touted her waffles as "the best." Frankly, it was almost as dense as pewter and tasted like baking soda. It was no surprise though, I had seen the batter, it was thick as bread dough and was caked on irons, countertops and bowls like mortar.

The following recipe is my own. It is one that you can make for your guests and they might actually enjoy them (no guarantee,) might even crave them days later. Perhaps this summer, you might be throwing "waffle frolics" like the homies of Thomas Jefferson did.[Citation needed]
(Not just for breakfast, works well for dinner too. Your batter will look bubbly, not runny but not solid, a good liquid batter.)

I've been making them for Olga since early last summer. Waffles have remained one of our special treats and it is a pleasure to make them for her. (Moosetracks ice cream rolled crushed breakfast cereal or graham cracker crumbs declined to comment.)

Without further ado, I humbly present my secret recipe for you to decide whether to crave them and experiment with it:

Ingredients:
2 cups Bisquick
1 1/2 cups milk (maybe a little more)
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 egg
2 tbsp sugar (white or brown)
1 lemon/lime/orange/tangerine OR 2 tbsp juice
2 tsp baking powder
A dash of ground nutmeg, ground cinnamon, salt, cream of tartar
1 tsp of vanilla extract

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, mix Bisquick, 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder, 2+ tbsp of sugar, a pinch of salt. Create two depressions in the dry ingredients. In one, splash some vanilla extract and squeeze in a generous amount of citrus juice. In the other depression pour oil or melted butter, nutmeg and cinnamon as you'd like. Consider grating in some citrus peel.

2. Separate the egg. Place the whites in a small bowl and the yolk in the depression with the butter/oil. (The yolk serves as an emulsifier to keep the oil/butter from separating, so it is important that the yolk goes in with the fat.)

3. Add a tiny pinch of cream of tartar or baking powder to the small bowl with the egg whites and beat until they are fluffy and whipped.

4. Dump the milk into the large bowl, flooding over everything. Mix until the mixture resembles a batter. There are going to be chunks. Leave them alone. Do not over-mix. Mix in the egg whites.

5. Now is the time to add some goods: bananas, cherries, strawberries, blueberries, chocolate chips, bacon bits. Be creative (and don't over-mix)! Rest the batter for 10 minutes.

6. While the batter is resting plug in the deep "Belgian"-style waffle iron, and lightly spray with oil.

7. Once hot, use a ladle or a measuring cup to scoop batter and dump into the center of the maker. The iron bottom should be around three quarters filled. Be sure to get some of those add-in goodies, like the sunken chocolate chips, into each scoop.

8a. Choose your toppings: sweetened condensed milk, sliced fruit, Nutella hazelnut spread, sunflower butter, maple syrup, agave nectar, honey, preserves, powdered sugar. Whipped cream is an excellent addition to all and any of the above.
8b. Top with plenty of scrambled eggs with bell peppers, cheese, slices or dices of a meat (ham or maybe chorizo), salsa or hot sauce, hash browns or potatoes o'brien. Fold in half to make a delicious waffle omelet slash breakfast burrito.
8c. Combined with fried chicken, Bam, you get the Roscoe.
8d. Along with full English with plenty of fried tomato, Streets style.

Well, what are you waiting for? Go make some waffles!
The pictures are Olga's.

Guest Contributor, JT

O-o-oral Hygiene Regimen

2010-04-21T12:24:00.001-07:00

1) Crest Glide Deep Clean (click here to get ripped off, or buy a 6-pack at Costco for $12.99)

I always start with flossing. I've thought long and hard about what to do first, brush or floss. Tried both. I've come to the conclusion that you have got to floss first. It is more satisfying that way. You get all this junk out of your teeth and actually feel like you're accomplishing something. Flossing after brushing is just not the same.

2) Crest Pro-Health - (buy this and never look back)

I don't know how many of you out there use Crest Pro Health, but I am convinced it is the only toothpaste that does it right. I've always wondered if toothpaste actually did anything for your teeth. I mean you brush your teeth at night, it tastes minty, you feel clean. Then you wake up in the morning and your breath smells like you've been licking a dog's ass all night. What if it's just as effective to brush without toothpaste? Well, Crest Pro Health convinced me otherwise. I know this stuff works because a half-hour after I brush my whole mouth sheds a layer of skin. I thought it was just me, then I looked online and there are a whole bunch of people it does that to. It's awesome. Also, morning breath after using this doesn't smell like Big Foot's dick.

3) Listerine Total Care (here, or buy a 3-pack at Costco for $3.16 each) (lookie what I found for you)

I used to use ACT and I still prefer it, but it's too expensive. It's over 3 times as expensive as this stuff. And don't let the color fool you. It might be purple, but it doesn't taste like nasty grape flavor. And for the love of karelian bear puppies and surprised kittens, don't rinse your mouth with water after using mouthwash. It defeats the whole purpose!

More GIF Fun

2010-04-16T18:08:00.000-07:00

This is how I spent my Spring Break.

Woo!

Korean Culture Night

2010-04-16T17:21:00.000-07:00

Hey, hey! What do you know? I found a place to wear a dress. Finally. I have a million pretty-pretty dresses and no occasion to wear them. E, one of my roommates, was in a play, so Jena, Jen and I decided to dress up and go to the play.

Check out this sweet "attitude". I miss ballet.

Happy roommates! I've had my share of problems with my flatmates. Thankfully, Jena and I, have had no major disagreements. Our room is like our neatness haven, and we love it. Jen stayed up all night to make pancakes for her boy-toy and ended up not dressing up, that's why she is not in the picture. (Pooper.)

CAP (Chicken Asparagus Potatoes)

2010-04-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

This is from a while ago. But it's Friday and I'm done with class, so I'm catching up!

Jen and I made breaded chicken with asparagus and potatoes in the beginning of March. I'm just getting around to posting this now. I have actually been defrosting some chicken for tonight and this looks pretty good!

In other news, classes are going really well. I'm really happy. I thought I would hate the EE class, but I really like it now. I started sitting closer to the board and asking questions and the professor is actually pretty cool. We already had a quiz. It was pretty weird, unlike the homework. I think I did well. This week professor Gupta gave us a homework break and the class actually applauded. It was awesome.

Spring Quarter is Here

2010-04-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

It's week 2 of a new quarter and I'm already swamped with work. I am taking Circuits II (EE 110), Computational Genetics (CS CM124), and Technology Management and Economics (ENGR 110). Circuits II is, by far, the hardest class. Probably the hardest EE class that I will have to take. I'm glad it'll be over with after this quarter.

Ultimate has been great. Midas made it to B-team Nationals. We're very excited. (I forgot my cleats in Agoura last weekend. I've been using Rho's running shoes and sliding around on the field when cutting.)

Jena and I have also been working hard on getting somebody to sublet our apartment for the summer. The only pictures I have from this quarter are my meals. So here. (I'm sure this is really exciting for all of you.)

Everything bagel with cream cheese, green onion, avocado and hard-boiled egg. Ahhh. Best breakfast EVER.
Spaghetti with basil tomato sauce, my own meatball (yaaay!), attempted to grate jack cheese (bad idea), french bread, fresh mozzarella (the most expensive item on my grocery list every week, but I must buy it) and tomatoes.
I finally learned how to make crepes! 3 of them have Trader Joe's raspberry jam inside. Yum.

PS. I know I haven't written anything about my spring break. It was awesome; kite-flying-ocean-swimming-indian-food-making-old-friends-ultimate-playing-Tillie-spooning kind of awesome. Here is just a glimpse of it.

Finals Stress Relief

2010-03-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

Tillie is the silliest dog in the world. I like to confuse her by trying to look like a dog and chasing her around the yard. She likes to give kisses in return.

I have my EE 102 final at 8 am tomorrow. Can't wait until 11 am! I really don't like that class. Business final on Friday and then Hello, Spring Break (and new classes).

I can't believe another quarter has gone by. It seems like I was just taking last quarter's finals.

I Pledge My Honor That I Will Never Forget You, CS 181

2010-03-12T16:36:00.001-08:00

Formal Languages and Automata Theory is over, friends! This was my favorite and most difficult class this quarter. My only regret is missing the first two lectures while I was in Russia. Professor Sahai was awesome. I think he only teaches this class Winter quarter because it's the "advanced offering". (I'm not really sure I got my causality correct here. It could be that Winter quarter is advanced because it's the quarter Professor Sahai teaches is.)

Class description from Professor's syllabus:

This course deals with some of the most fundamental philosophical questions surrounding computers. Is there such a thing as a "generic" computer? How powerful are computers? Are there fundamental limitations on what computers can do? It turns out that these questions are also very important philosophical questions about mathematics. For instance, are there theorems that are true but cannot be proven? What is the nature of infinity? In this cause, we will embark on a systematic mathematical study of computation and try to get some answers to these and other questions.

Ahh. I get goosebumps. We used the Sipser textbook Theory of Computation. It is, hands down, the best CS book I have ever laid my eyes on. I usually don't even bother buying CS textbooks. This one was like bedtime reading. If you are interested in computers and their limitations you could probably just read the book and teach yourself. It's that awesome.

Over the course of 10 weeks we were assigned 6 homeworks and I am pretty sure I cried while stuck on a problem from each one of those. I don't know why it bothers me so much.

I just skated over to campus to turn in my take-home final exam. That, also, did not get done without tears. I got stuck on 1b. (1b!!) It was worth 10 points out of 175 and I could not get it. I still am not sure my solution is correct, but after spending literally 4.5 hours straight on a 10 point problem I felt pretty hopeless, like I didn't learn anything. Mind you, I was only supposed to spend 10 hours on the exam. By the time I finished 1b (25/175), I was already 6 hours into it. (I took longer than 10 hours to do the whole thing. I'm sorry, Professor Sahai.)

I typed one problem because my hand was tired from re-writing the solutions from my drafts. Just for the sake of having a picture I'm going to put up my solution.

The last lecture, Wednesday March 10th, was optional. Professor talked about a topic of his choice and it happened to be Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem. We proved it using Turing Machines. It was so simple, yet the implications of the theory are mind-blowing.

My favorite quotes from this class:

"You're going to love this class" - JT after attending lecture for me while I was in Penza.

"What's a fudge factor" - An (asian) student from the class

"Let's call this machine SHT." - Professor

"We're going to be battling infinity here." - Professor

Professor enacting a conversation:

A: "You can only be in this club if you cannot be in this club."

B: "Can you tell me who is in this club?"

A: "Of course, not! What does that even mean?"

And last, but most certainly not least,

"I will never give up on soundness." - Professor Sahai

Strawberry Roll-Out Cookies

2010-03-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

Check it. You can make cookies using cake mix. Whaaaaa?! I first saw this in the Y household, but apparently this is the new cool thing to do. You can find a million versions of drop cookies from cake mix, but for some reason nobody is doing roll-out ones. I think roll-out cookies are fun because you can cut out different shapes.

Ingredients:

1 box of cake mix (strawberry!)

1/2 cup of softened butter

1 egg

Some vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Incorporate butter into cake mix. (This is much easier when the butter is soft.)

2. Mix in an egg.

3. while (dough not sticky enough to roll out) {

4. Add a glug of vegetable oil.

5. Mix.}

6. Roll and cut!

7. Carefully put on a cookie sheet. Bake at 325F for 4-8 minutes depending on the cookie size.

These are some break points in my algorithm:

But, most importantly, my algorithm returned LOVE!

The Monster

2010-03-08T19:35:00.000-08:00

It all started with this seemingly innocent burger. This puppy is stuffed with goat cheese (not my all-time favorite) and sauteed mushrooms. JT and I made this a few weeks back.

We froze the leftover ground beef in these tupperware burger-patty-maker things. I took those out today and unleashed THE MONSTER.

Whole wheat bun, ketchup, onions, tomatoes, avocado, jack cheese. I did not finish the whole thing.

Resurrected

2010-03-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

"Frah-gee-lay. That must be Italian." - Ralphie's father in the film, A Christmas Story.

One evening, last August, Olga's iPhone 3G gravitated to a particularly hard patch of asphalt. The impact fractured the glass and bruised the LCD. For many weeks after it's unfortunate injury, it soldiered on, reading Atlas Shrugged to her, providing directions and placing calls.

The first attempt to restore it damaged the new LCD in the process. Below is what it looked like when she first gave it to me, three weeks ago. I assumed that was a hint, or maybe a challenge; can you fix this?

The second attempt has proved to be a partial success.

Seen here are the shielded communication and logic boards, then the gasket and LCD's chassis and some of my handy tools. The folks at Apple even numbered some of the connector locations with stickies for us.

Everything works but the normal earpiece speaker, because I accidentally severed a connecting ribbon. I do not know how to repair this, yet. Besides, there are at least two simple work-arounds: use loudspeaker mode (which uses a separate speaker) or plug in earphones to hear callers.

The front glass panel also needs to be fixed in place. A semi-permanent adhesive will be decided upon and applied soon. It came with a double-sided tape holding it down, flush with the bezel.

Gasket material can be seen still hanging out the cracks.

Note: I used a ball point pen for some of the important crowbar prying steps; not recommended.

It is back to life, for now. Neither Olga or I are willing to pay for a cellular data plan. It will have to settle for weakness, only a text message and a dial away from becoming it's less capable little brother, Touch. Much like Ralphie's father, the hard cussing furnace fighter, I feel proud that I fixed the existing problem, disappointed that I created a fresh one, but I will claim a tiny victory, regardless. Definitely not a Kobe, more like a MacGyver.

Guest Contributor, JT

I Got a Haircut

2010-03-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Here are some other things I got:

A gnarly sore throat
A headache
CS M152A {not}

Uhhhh. Is it Friday yet?

White Fish is Boss

2010-03-02T08:38:00.000-08:00

It's a beautiful morning in Southern California. Today we are going over to Simi Valley to attend the unveiling of the stone for Grandma Rose. I can't believe it has almost been a year.

Barry made us all eggs this morning. Grandma Rose would never pass up an opportunity for a scrambled egg or two. I am having a bagel with smoked white fish in honor of Rose. She liked smoked fish and so do I.

Sue's sister, Sharon, is here. I think we are also going to get to see Wendy, Rich and Zoe today. This is nice.

Happy 200th, Chopin!

2010-03-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

Dear Frederic Chopin,

Today was supposed to be your 200th birthday. Unfortunately you died over 160 years ago. It's a real shame you can't be here to celebrate. I wish we had invented some kind of a miracle potion that would make you live forever and create beautiful music. But mostly I wish you could read this Wikipedia article. You were quite a playa.

Anyway, I've been trying to learn this Nocturne of yours.

I know you are most likely turning in your grave at the sound of this atrocity. You probably can't even recognize your own composition, but I'm really trying. Maybe don't make it in this stupid key next time. (Chill. I'm only kidding, it's perfect.) With any luck by the time you are 201 I'll be able to play the whole thing well. (Don't hold your breath.)

I wish I could shake your hand,

Olga

PS. You know they found this piece on your desk after you died? You break my heart, Fred, you break my heart.

Oh, Pancakes

2010-02-27T12:28:00.001-08:00

You are all my favorites. I love the original pancake, the french pancake (crepe), the swedish pancake, and, of course, my dear friend german pancake over here.

Ingredients
3 large eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk, preferably whole
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (optional)
1/2 cup fruit jam (optional)
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Directions
Heat oven to 400° F. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs to combine. Add the flour and whisk until smooth. Add the milk, salt, and vanilla and mix until incorporated; set aside.
Add the butter to a large cast-iron skillet and transfer to oven until the butter melts. Remove from oven and quickly pour the batter into the hot skillet. Return to oven and bake until the pancake is puffed and golden, about 15 minutes.
Drizzle the lemon juice (if using) over the pancake. Spread the jam (if using) evenly over the top. Sprinkle with the confectioners' sugar.

That's what I had for breakfast this morning over a few math puzzles from the awesome puzzle book pictured above.

Welcome, Copernicium!

2010-02-24T23:31:00.000-08:00

JT and I made cheapie-cheap steak sandwiches. After spending $75+ on the lamb dinner for Valentine's Day I decided it was time to scale it down a bit. Lamb was $20/lb, this steak cut is $3.99/lb. We got a block of cheddar cheese, french bread ($1.49) and a bell pepper. I had onions and barbecue sauce. (Sue, I used my favorite, Claim Jumper barbecue sauce that you gave me, for this sandwich.)

It turned out really well. JT cut the steak and bell pepper into strips and pan fried the steak. I cut the onions and sauteed those along with the bell pepper. Bread was toasted with some olive oil and voila, you have a delicious steak sandwich.

Other news:

I am participating in SS12, a coding challenge, this weekend. I'm really nervous because I don't feel like I can contribute to my team. I'm sure there will be people who are a lot more experienced than I am. I hope it's not a complete fail and I can feel good about it. For now, I'm trying to find excuses to back out. (Just kidding. I've decided I am definitely doing this, even if that means I have to shit a brick and burst into tears while feeling completely useless.)

Atomic number 112 was officially named Copernicium last week, February 19th 2010, on Copernicus' 537th birthday! How exciting. I, personally, think that Copernicum would've been a better name. Alas, nobody consulted me. (Fools.)

Orange You a Raisin

2010-02-23T22:12:00.000-08:00

I made cookies last night. They were supposed to be Orange-Cranberry, but since I didn't have cranberries I used raisins. Works for me. I like raisins better anyway. Here is the dough.

Ingredients:

1.5 cups of flour

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar

1/2 cup of butter (softened)

1 cup of packed brown sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons of orange zest (or MORE)

1/2 cup of cranberries

Directions:

1. Mix together flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.

2. Put butter and sugar in the food processor and pulse until combined (20 seconds).

3. Add the eggs and orange zest and pulse until combined.

4. Add the dry ingredients and pulse JUST until combined.

5. Fold in cranberries by hand.

6. Drop spoonfuls of the batter on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

7. You can cool them on a rack if you want, but most importantly stuff your face with as many as you can.

(I think this is right. I'm typing this from memory.)

(This apparently is the post of idiotic picture faces. Golly!) I just got back from ultimate and literally ate 6 cookies typing this up.

In other ultimate related news, I had a good time at the Oxy scrimmage last weekend. Some of those girls were super good. We lost, but we were also playing the A team. I went to the doctor for my knee and she said I had Iliotibial Band Syndrome. She gave me 3 pages of exercises to do and also referred me to sports medicine. Today at practice we learned Trap Zone defense. I got to be the trap once which is fun because you get to yell "TRAAAAAP" really loud.

Muddling around in MATLAB

2010-02-23T16:48:00.000-08:00

Guest Contributor, JT

You may ask yourself, why is "I ♥ CS (and other things)" being commandeered by some douchebag known as JT?

This is a legitimate question. I have even asked myself the same question, minus the douchebag part. Along with, do I even know what muddle means? Kind of. Do I mind using it in a way that makes very little sense? Not at all, it sounds like a fine title. Anyways, I wasn't planning on introducing myself. Instead, I am going to write about a current event in Olga, the author of your favorite blog, and I's life.

It just so happens to be, learning the basics of the technical computing application, MATLAB. Her EE102 Systems and Signals professor, Balakrishnan, assigned a project that required it's use.
We proceeded by first, scratching our heads, to relieve a nagging itch of course.

This is the assignment sheet:

What did I experience when she shared this with me? I saw a differential equation and some piecewise functions, and almost immediately I could smell the oh-so-familiar odor of a dusty room. The accumulation of dust in the mathematical quarters of my mind was as thick as the snow on the ground back east. It made me feel like the abandoned Ford Pinto that lives in a field of the side of Interstate-5 along the grapevine grade, rusty and broken-down. Luckily, Olga is an excellent mathematician so she was the brains behind Team Zissou. I was the code-monkey, and away we go. (Which, by the way, is an excellent film. Perhaps Olga will publish a review of it someday soon.)

Our final m-code came out to be this:

When executed, rendered this awesome plot figure:

and produced a sound like a quick low knock at a door or a little bubble in chewing gum popping, that was supposed to be this waveform:

Unlike some of her classmates, who got duped by a button which printed MATLAB's Command History window, her program printed nice and neatly, because I worked on it the entire time as a saved .m file.

As a disclaimer, neither she or I, know for a fact that this solution is correct. It was just our best effort. There is much more to explore in this powerful application and I look forward to using it in the future. I need to update my resume now and get ready for the phone calls from all the text-to-speech companies who want to produce popping and knocking noises.

Host and spellchecker, Olga

ucla university california los angeles computer science electrical engineering 102 balakrishnan matlab speech vocal voice synthesis tract cord signal system second order differential equation impulse step response tf convolve conv fourier coefficient plot stem angle abs cascaded soundsc

Meet JT

2010-02-22T19:14:00.000-08:00

So, you might have noticed I haven't been blogging that often. I asked JT, my pet dino, to guest blog about our team projects. I do a lot of fun things with JT that are worth blogging about. He is really great; although you do have to bear with his run-on sentences. Here we are, doing what we do best - karate.
"That's fucking teamwork." -Jables

Battling Infinity

2010-02-17T23:10:00.000-08:00

This morning I made waffles and used my brand new waffler that JT gave me for V-day because he is THE BEST! Kate and I having been coveting Villaware wafflers. They are on the pricey side, but totally worth it. I know it because Kate wouldn't spend an extra dime on things and she splurged for this one. (You can get your very own Villaware baby here)

I used Alton Brown's recipe:

Ingredients
4 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 1 cup
4 3/4 ounces whole-wheat flour, approximately 1 cup
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 whole eggs, beaten
2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
16 ounces buttermilk, room temperature
Vegetable spray, for waffle iron

Directions
Preheat waffle iron according to manufacturer's directions.
In a medium bowl whisk together the flours, soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar. In another bowl beat together eggs and melted butter, and then add the buttermilk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until combined. Allow to rest for 5 minutes.
Ladle the recommended amount of waffle batter onto the iron according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Close iron top and cook until the waffle is golden on both sides and is easily removed from iron. Serve immediately or keep warm in a 200 degree F oven until ready to serve.

I didn't have buttermilk, or any milk for that matter, so I used water. It came out really liquid-y.

I added some flour to make up for it. I'm also really into nutmeg lately, so I added a lot of that also. And it did not disappoint! Check it.

I love that I have a Villaware waffler. It's really great. I ate the waffle with grandma's strawberry preserves while I was filling out my FAFSA.

After breakfast I went to CS 181 (Formal Languages and Automata) and it was one of the coolest lectures I've ever been to; mind you I went to every single lecture of CS 181, each outdoes the previous. We were battling infinity and trying to figure out what Turing Machines couldn't do. A Turing Machine has the capability of any machine in the universe and even it cannot recognize some languages. We proved that the number of TMs is countably infinite and the number of languages is uncountably infinite.

Then I had ultimate field practice for an hour and a track practice. Astro swiped me in to ultimate dorm dinner! Thanks, Astro!

Good day today.

USC-B v. Midas Rookies

2010-02-16T10:41:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the USC B team vs. UCLA B team (Midas) scrimmage! Hooooo.

Last week and today was rough. I'm hoping we will destroy USC and I can go to bed smiling.

***UPDATE***

Valentine's Day!

2010-02-16T10:19:00.000-08:00

At 19-years-old I finally had my very first Valentine's Day with a loving boyfriend. Hey-yo!
We made lamb while V-rock ate bananas just the way he likes to eat bananas.

It turned out really well. Check it out! We used this recipe from epicurious.com; it used cocoa powder and cumin to season the lamb.

Vova and Elyse crashed our dinner as we were finishing. Favorite quote of the day:

O: We have some lamb left, do you want it?

V: Yeah, I want to try.

E: So, you're too full to eat candy but you're not too full to eat lamb?

V: This is MAN candy.

Job Fair

2010-02-10T22:41:00.000-08:00

So, I went to a Job Fair at my school. I was hoping to talk to DirectTV to try to get a summer internship like the one V got. I got my resume ready and all dressed up and it was awful. I didn't see anybody I knew. I had no idea what to do or what to say. Everybody was super confident and I couldn't even convince myself that I would be of any use to a company. I started getting clammy and shaky. I left after 20 minutes and it was the longest 20 minutes in my life. As soon as I left the building I felt really useless and started crying. Then I talked to JT, Vova, Bees and my parents (in that order) and felt a little better.

At least my suit still fit. Funny, that was the only thing I was worried about after my CS midterm that day. I thought I had gotten fatter since I got it a year ago. Nope. Fits just the same it did last year. V said it looked "pimpin'". I agree.

Suit: Banana Republic

Shirt: J.Crew

Four Meat Sandwich

2010-01-21T13:24:00.001-08:00

I'm at work taking a lunch break! JT made me an everything-bagel-four-meat sandwich. It was so big that I had enough for two days.

It's a bit on the mixing sweet and savory side, but that's OK. It's really good. It has brisket, smoked turkey, salami and prosciutto (my favorite) in it.

In other news, it's 3rd week of school. I am taking 3 classes, 2 of which I really like (CS 181 - Automata Theory, and ENGR 112 - Engineering Entrepreneurship).

Ultimate is going really well. Though this week's field practices have been getting cancelled due to rain. So is this weekend's tournament. (Poop.) I've been doing a lot of running in the rain and feeling pretty badass.

I'm Awake and Feel the Ache

2010-01-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

Saying goodbye is the worst feeling in the world, especially when it's to my two favorite women in the world.

And my piano.

Stereotypes - Always True

2009-12-23T12:43:00.000-08:00

I love lists. (I wonder how much of this blog is me professing my "love" for things.) This love turns into hate twice a year: once a couple of weeks before New Year's and once a week before my birthday. I start making lists of things I wanted to accomplish last year but didn't and lists of failed goals continuously in my head. It's maddening. So, I'm always on a lookout for more fun lists around this time a year. Here are two that made me laugh tonight:

1) Stereotyping people by favorite author

Highlights:

Thomas Aquinas - premature ejaculators.

Alice Sebold - people who liked Gilmore Girls (even the first season).

2) Stereotyping people by favorite indie band

Highlights:

Death Cab for Cutie - girls who quote lyrics as their Facebook status.

Radiohead - everyone.

Brilliant. I saved the best for last. (I should also probably note that I don't know a lot of those authors and music bands, but the ones I do know are, for the most part, funny.)

Guess what is not going on my list of failed goals this year (I know you are all anxious to know):

- Finally play Nocturne Op. 72, No. 1 the way Chopin intended it to be played.

- Get further in learning Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2.

I am taking lessons from my old piano teacher in Russia. $6.50/hour. WADDUP, yo.

JT is Neato

2009-12-22T15:19:00.000-08:00

and I just wanted to say that...

It is day 11 in Russia. I am learning Photoshop.

Nothing to Blog About

2009-12-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

It is day 5 in Russia. I have a side-braid, yo.

This is what has been running through my head all day.

Stop Cubans Table, Seriously

2009-12-15T20:32:00.000-08:00

Have I ever told you how much I love Google voice? I love it a lot. It's pretty awesome. It transcribes all your voicemail and can transcribe your phone call if you press 4 during the call. Their transcription algorithm does a really good job and when it doesn't, it provides endless entertainment with its interpretations of people's speech.

Here is an example. My parents left me a voicemail in Russian and this is what Google thought they said:

On a slightly less fun note, I'm in Russia. On a not-so-slightly less fun note, somebody is breaking my heart.

Almost There

2009-12-10T13:19:00.000-08:00

This is what I do while e-studying for my software development (CS 35L) final with Sparta. Taking pictures of myself wearing a ridiculous outfit, braiding my hair, and drinking orange-cream soda. Give me a break, it's my last final.

Flannel: Patagonia Fjord (here) (JT got me the last one in this color, had to get it shipped from Chicago. SUCKAAAAAS!)

Shirt: Threadless (here) (Gift from Mark a few years ago. Thanks, Mark!)

Cords: J.Crew (here) (Sue bought these for me at the J.Crew outlet a few years ago.)

Socks: J.Crew (here)

Did I really just mix argyle and plaid and take pictures of this atrocity, you ask? Yes. Yes, I did. I wanted to record what happens when Olga runs out of clean socks. (To make matters worse, these socks are knee-length.)

So, guess what happens tomorrow after my CS final. I leave for Russia! My final ends at 2:30 and my plane takes off at 6. I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm going to be there until January 8th. (That's a week after winter quarter begins and the day we leave for our first ultimate frisbee tournament. Sa-weet!)

I leave you with this song that I've been trying to teach JT, and which, consequently, got stuck in my head.

Moo.

Meet Mars

2009-12-04T00:27:00.000-08:00

My parents have named me Olga. I am now Mars for all my Ultimate Frisbee teammates and other Ultimate people.

The initiation was SO MUCH FUN! It is 12:30, I just got back. It started at 8. Now I need to finish my Digital Systems project.

And this is what my not-finished project looked like. I couldn't do the whole thing using this software, so I did it by hand, but this gives you an idea of what my (really weird) design for Single-Precision Floating Point Multiplier looked like.

(I loved CS M51A. Professor Nahapetian is the bomb.)

Lemon-Chamomile Shortbread

2009-12-02T17:21:00.001-08:00

It's week 10! We're getting close to finals which means I have to study. What's conducive to studying, you ask? Eating crazy amounts of bread, butter and sugar is.

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
grated zest from 1 lemon
1 teaspoon loose chamomile tea
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

Heat oven to 325° F. Combine the butter, sugar, and salt in a mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Blend in the lemon zest, loose tea, and flour until smooth. Press into an 8-inch square cake pan.

Bake 30 minutes or just until the shortbread begins to turn golden. Cut into 9 squares, then cut each square into 2 triangles.

Cool completely on a wire rack. Remove the shortbread cookies from the pan.

This is pre-pink eye. I had time to clean the kitchen and take a shower while it was in the oven. It's good! You should make it.

Pink Eye Is Not So Bad

2009-12-02T15:22:00.000-08:00

My coughing has slowed down today. My side stomach muscles are sore from all the flexing that they had to do to facilitate the persistent coughing.

Coughing has been replaced by PINK EYE! I have to say, readers, that it is much less annoying than coughing. In fact, it's kind of fun.

My eye is not irritated at all, it just looks weird. Fun thing is nobody wants to be anywhere close to you. Even MORE fun thing is roommates will not get anywhere close to your food. Knowing that fact I went out and got myself a 1/2 gallon of gelato that I started eating straight from the carton. Mmmhmm...and, oh, the comfort of knowing that nobody is going to be eating my ice cream when I'm in class.

SICK of Being Sick

2009-12-01T00:40:00.000-08:00

It all started with a sore throat Tuesday night. I had a salt water gargle marathon.

Wednesday morning I woke up weak, nauseous, with a slight fever and a headache. I was mainly frustrated at how weak I was and barely shuffled to class. I had no sore throat by Wednesday night.

I felt a little lightheaded on Thursday.

My cough ensued on Friday.

I lost my voice on Saturday night. (I think it was from squealing during JT's tickle attacks. Totally worth it.) It was discovered on our ride to Griffith Park Observatory when I couldn't sing "ahoowooo" during Shakira's She Wolf.

My voice has gotten better since then, cough has gotten worse.

I made a makeshift humidifier in hopes of helping this terrible cough. No such luck.

***UPDATE***

I have viral pink eye.

I woke up with sleepies glueing my left eyelids shut. This sucks.

Still coughing. UGH!

The Mangoes are Ripe

2009-11-24T01:45:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday Jay-Z and I got mangoes. They were on sale at Ralphs for $1 each. By Friday I decided my mango was ready to fulfill its destiny. You see, I love mangoes, but they are such ass pain to eat. You have to peel them with a paring knife making sure you're not taking off too thick of a layer; you have to cut around the pit; then you get the threads stuck in your teeth. That's why I rarely get mangoes unless I find a volunteer to cut them into bite-size pieces for me.

I am growing up and running wolves! Look at me. This is clearly the only proper way to eat a mango.

Mmm... check out this pit, nicely cleaned by yours truly. Can a knife do this good a job of getting every last bit of mango off it? I think NOT!

I am only not showing teeth because I was pretty sure I had a huge piece of mango thread stuck between each pair of teeth. Let me tell you, I had a very satisfying floss session right after this picture was taken.

No Rolling Pin

2009-11-18T20:06:00.000-08:00

Last week was a little hectic, as was the weekend. (I had my first 2 day ultimate tournament!) I only saw Jay-Z briefly during the week. I knew that her grandpa had suffered a stroke last week and was in the hospital but when I texted her on Sunday to ask how he was doing he was gone. So, I made sugar cookies for Jay-Z as soon as I got back.

Sugar Cookie Dough

3.5 cups of all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 sticks of butter (room temperature)

1.5 cups of sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1. Mix the dry ingredients together.

2. Beat sugar and butter until fluffy. (wee!) Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.

3. Add the flour mixture and beat until you have a smooth dough. Refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

I then rolled out the dough (without a rolling pin, mind you) and sprinkled the surface with sugar and cinnamon. I rolled up the sugared sheet in a log and refrigerated it until it was "cuttable".

YUM.

Tuna at Midnight

2009-11-18T19:27:00.000-08:00

So, I've been super busy, so not blogging as much. Oh, but you just wait. Break is coming soon and I am going to Russia. You know what that means? A blogging diarrhea where I let out everything I've been meaning to say for the past quarter but never had the time.

But for now look at me have delicious tuna steak and potatoes at midnight.

This picture is time stamped 11:53 PM. I kid you not. You see, I had a paper due today. So, I had been procrastinating ALL day on Tuesday just so I could stay up all night and turn it in at 11 AM on Wednesday. Oh joy. At 11:30 PM I realized I hadn't had dinner, so I had this!

My roommates, especially one particular one, are extremely relieved that I had finally used all my potatoes. I buy a lot of potatoes in the beginning of the quarter and just use them over time. I think they taste better after they had been sitting out for a while. Well, last night I finished my beginning of the quarter batch.

Oh! Paper is Kobed and I'm actually proud of it. I think it's good. Slept all day today though.

Reckless Abandon

2009-11-12T20:10:00.000-08:00

a moment, a love

a dream, a laugh

a kiss, a cry

our rights, our wrongs

a moment, A LOVE

Kitchen Aid Christening

2009-11-07T15:33:00.000-08:00

I love cookies. I love making them, I love smelling them, and I LOVE eating them. Here, at Belle Château, Jay-Z and I embark on this task of making/consuming cookies quite often. Oh, and we do it well, we do it very well. (Especially I.) I've been using this chocolate chip cookie recipe since high school. It's the Neiman Marcus $250.00 cookie recipe. It uses espresso powder, and since J and I love coffee we jack up our cookies with that stuff. This was the first time I used my Kitchen Aid mixer, hence the title. I am very excited. It's my very first mixer. It's not a standing one YET, but it's lovely.

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup light brown sugar

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons instant espresso coffee powder

1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1.	Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cream the butter with the sugars using an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy (approximately 30 seconds)

2.	Beat in the egg and the vanilla extract for another 30 seconds.

3.	In a mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients and beat into the butter mixture at low speed for about 15 seconds. Stir in the espresso coffee powder and chocolate chips.

4.	Using a 1 ounce scoop or a 2 tablespoon measure, drop cookie dough onto a greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart. Gently press down on the dough with the back of a spoon to spread out into a 2 inch circle. Bake for about 20 minutes or until nicely browned around the edges. Bake a little longer for a crispier cookie.

2 tips:

- Do not over-bake.

- Do not put too many chocolate chips.

(I am addicted to sugar, so I always try to slip in more chocolate/sugar than the recipe calls for. You really don't need to do that for this recipe.) (Well, maybe just a couple of extra tbsp of sugar.)

Delicious cookies make for happy roommates!

Is This Mama?

2009-11-06T14:41:00.000-08:00

So, I was doing this iPhoto faces thing last night. It's supposed to learn faces of people to the point where you can just search for a name and it will show you all the pictures of that person. It's kind of cool. It does really well. I only had to tag a few pictures of Vova for it to identify most of the other ones. I am not tagging myself in any of the pictures just because I rarely go to my iPhoto to look for pictures of myself. So, iPhoto keeps trying to identify all these pictures of me as Mama.

Silly computers. I do not see the resemblance of mom in these at all. (Check out Vova's suaveness though. That was taken on September 1st, 1997. My first day in 1st grade.)

Jessica, how is your iPhoto faces thing doing? Has it learned that Ayn Rand on Vova's t-shirt is not a real face yet?

Run It DOWN

2009-11-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

I got back from San Jose this morning. (Feels like weeks ago.) It was an awesome weekend. The best one I've had in a long time. Lots of laughs, delish food, frisbee, tree climbing, longboarding and other shenanigans with JY. Now it's BACK TO WORK time! School is great. I have a lot of work to do, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. I have a Digital Logic (CS M51A) midterm on Wednesday. I think I'm adequately prepared. Most importantly I need to catch up on my Linux projects.

Today was ultimate practice. It was a gooooood one. Awesome hard drills topped with 30 minutes of scrimmage time. My left foot hurts like a biatch. I'm making an appointment at the Ashe Center. So, one of the drills was a modified Huck drill. You run deep with defense on you. I was on the offense, Omega was D. I tapped her shoulder and ran for the disc. It was far in front and I sped up to catch up with it. I caught the disc way in front of me, my legs failed to keep up and I slid with the frisbee in my hands scraping both of my elbows, my right knee and right hip.

It doesn't look very bad and it's not. But it buuuuuurns.