My internet connection is back, which makes me very happy. Below are some entries that I wrote while the connection was down:
20050721
Last night, my students took me out to eat for my welcome party. It was a traditional Japanese restaurant, so the table was about 30 cm off the floor, and we had padded mats [...]
Today, on the 15th day after I arrived in Japan, I moved into the apartment in which I will be spending the remainder of my year here. It was a bit hectic getting packed and ready, but I’ve really just been living out of my duffels for the last two weeks, so it wasn’t too [...]
If it matters, you can now see why I’ve been busy recently. Add in homework and food, and I’m really running out of hours in the day.
There is nothing quite like opening a forgotten freezer to own food that you had forgotten that you owned.
Especially while it is still edible. And you had been due for a shopping run anyway, which could now be postponed.
The essential problem with shopping: it’s impractical to buy for more than a few days because food goes bad quickly. At the same time, it’s impractical to buy for less than a few weeks because the best prices are on bulk items.
On an unrelated note, I greately appreciate peer-to-peer networks which allow me to pull down [...]
Over the years, my tolerance for spicy food has been slowly growing as I try more exotic cuisines. It is therefore a pleasant surprise when I encounter a food spicy enough to bring tears to my eyes. Such a food I had for lunch today; I quite enjoyed it.
I’m sure you’re all thrilled to know [...]
Well, someone finally called my bluff, so I ended up making General Tso’s Chicken tonight for dinner. It actually came out pretty well–the only thing I think I need to change is the doughy stuff between the meat and the sauce. It turns out not to be a simple mixture of flour and oil. At [...]
Although I haven’t written about it for a while, I’m still working on the IQP. Somehow, it’s not as fun now that I’m doing serious codework as it was when it was all conceptual. But no matter; it’s going to be over soon, and with it another of the major hurdles they put in front [...]
So, Valentine’s was good.
It’s the first time I’ve actually had a girlfriend for this holiday, so we enjoyed ourselves. Picture something very romantic: rose petals strewn over a picnic spread, with food I made, etc… Then, double the saturation, so that everything is insanely overdone, and the overall effect is as much comic as romantic. [...]
So, Planetes books 1 and 2 came in today. They’re really quite enjoyable. It gets hard for me to find new science fiction in bookstores these days… the only complaint I have is that, being graphic novels, they read through really quickly. Between the two books, there are nearly 500 pages of content, yet I [...]