ika

SPRING!





Also, first billboard I saw upon landing in Chicago:



SINGAPORE WE SPECIAL YES? We know where got jam!

Today's a really intense snow day. I thought I might show you my walk to school! Also my office.

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Okay I'm actually going to have to do school-type things now.

So, hey, my skype name is gwynnelim.

I'm back in Singapore, yay own bed, humidity, warmth, water pressure, ratty clothes that are thin and have holes, parent A that show up with hot soyabean milk without too much sugar (<3<3<3) even though it's 1 a.m. and she sleeps at 10 sharp every night, other parent that was still up cooking and prepping for tomorrow's reunion dinner (wtf), cars that have the driver's seat on the right, the lack of necessity to have a diet that is 70% orange juice, cheap bananas, anticipation of fishball noodles tomorrow at some point, work that can be done without being hassled around AT LAST.

So this is it. Seeya around.

Yay NYC! Saw Grand Central this time around. The New York Botanical Garden is super pretty and has everything everything.

OMG Cornell is officially the most beautiful campus. I hear Duke has great architecture but omg waterfalls! lakes! bridges! farms! what.

Choices so hard! Body so frail! I'm falling apart but my cold is over! I'm not going into specifics because I know at least three people reading this will freak the HELL out, so too bad, you guys.

Okay I just spent an obscene amount of time locating this movie, so watch it because it's fantastic. If you like food and mindfucks, omg this is so for you

http://www.yesasia.com/us/deadly-delicious-vcd-hong-kong-version/1013076699-0-0-0-en/info.html

Due to preemptive combination of rest, vitamins, hydration and old wives' tales "Feed a cold, starve a fever" (had a stunningly good sandwich at Darwin ltd, a Goodman consisting of grilled asparagus, provolone cheese, fried egg, sliced tomato, pepper for breakfast, a drink of citrus water until I reached New Haven where I was saved by Fatham bearing amazing grilled veggie wrap, then later a chicken florentine soup, half a massive carrot cake, and an apple), I am feeling much better than I thought I would be. Now to just avoid booze like plague (hard since I'm going for dinner again with a lab).

Prettiest campus so far has definitely been Berkeley, no fight. New Haven is...really kind of a dump. However the prof here has been appallingly charming, even though all we've done is talk over the phone.

Right back to my papers.

Sleep deprivation to bitchiness curve = Exponential.

So Harvard is amazing, and they are really making a hard sell, and I can't resist hard sells. But apparently I'll see another one tomorrow so let's see. Also good god their equipment is a million years old.

So science! Not only something I can do while drunk, but also while my personal energy reserves = 0.

Also I am so amazingly sleepy it is not funny.

Self has to buy a bus ticket back from Cornell to NYC tomorrow, and also call the person I'm supposed to at 7p.m.

My phone bill will be astronomical.

I had a yoghurt parfait with darjeeling in the morning, a small big apple sandwich (brie, turkey, apple, honey wasabi mustard, crusty roll), peach white tea in the afternoon, and wild salmon with apple tartar, brussels sprouts, garlic and a potato pancake and mint tea in the evening, followed by more bites than neccessary of an absolutely appalling shortbread chocolate chunk cookie and a chai latte that was mediocre.

I am sorry that I did not try the hot chocolate. Maybe next time.

Oh hell I think I'm in love.

San Francisco (and Berkeley, and UC Berkeley) is just full of unicorns and rainbows. You'd think it might just be new people enthusiasm, but everyone has been amazing, honestly truly without a single shred of cynicism, insincerity and sarcasm that characterises like, just every speech and thought pattern I've ever had.

There's a lot more applied than I'm used to, and just more exploring (aka farting around except we call it Science aka the real spirit of science) than focus, and initially I was like this is all rubbish let's get to the systematics but now I've been bitten by their mind leech and it's beginning to sound sensible.

So I met up with a stunning number of people today, including Tari!!!! (Hi Tari!) and gave her her present. It was great talking to you, I hope I didn't come off as too nuts or loud or what. In terms of people at Berkeley PMB, half of them were doing things so unrelated to what I want to do it's funny (corn paramutation???!?!?! transcriptor repression and activation of immune responses/pigmentation what? Environmental microbiology???) but they explained everything to me nicely and I just got excited everywhere by how new and shining it all was. I was so yay it makes me sick.

Starbucks (Where I met Tari) was actually cheaper than that in Singapore today, I got orange blossom tea (green tea, orange blossoms, wolfberries) for 1.99. Otherwise it was just lots of food all day provided by the university and/or faculty/grad students. Let's see...I ate a poppyseed bagel with cream cheese on one side and strawberry cream cheese on the other, some fruit salad, yoghurt with berries, fruit juice in the morning, half a turkey and cheese, most of a pickle, fruit salad and a chocolate cookie that I ate in installments for lunch (also I lost my water bottle at this time), and for dinner we went for a potluck thing at a prof's place where I had roast chicken, cornbread, some vegan spicy tofu mushroom thing that sucked (it had potential, and squandered it most shamelessly), and pasta with sausage.

Also I drank wine because it was the closest thing around and I was shouting, and since it was good, I drank a little too much and yes well. Do you know I get even more excited about science and unable to follow a single narrative thread when I'm tipsy? (As you can sort of tell from this post)

The Berkeley campus is very nice. Magnolias are flowering. Fat tame squirrels everywhere. Lots of appallingly fashion-forward young ridiculously attractive people.

Tomorrow = walking tour and creole food.