Balikbayan Boxes

Ate Mahal sent me this hilarious video about the Filipino tradition of balikbayan boxes. Unfortunately, the video is all too familiar to me. Enjoy!

Finals Week Update

Tuesday: Physiology complete
Wednesday: Nutrition complete
Thursday: Speech Pizza Party canceled
Saturday: Statistics complete

Freedom!

Studying for Statistics

My statistics book has some interesting facts scattered around the margins, seemingly to keep one interested in the largely un-interesting subject of statistics.

Unusual stat: There are 1,929,770,126,028,800 different color combinations for Rubik's cube and only one correct solution.

Scientists think that a person is never more than 3 feet away from a spider at any given time.

Sixty-three percent of people would rather hear bad news before hearing the good news.

Tofu Ice Cream

A la Chabuya. Yum-o.

Christmas Pictures

We finally decided to use this one for our Christmas card.



Check out my dad's cool hat. Can you believe he's 52? He's diligent about maintaining his youthful appearance.



Andrew, our reindeer friend, and me.

We went to the Avenue of the Peninsula outdoor mall to take some pictures for our family Christmas card. We didn't exactly decorate the house for the Christmas season this year, so we had to find a cheerful, holiday scene elsewhere. I like the cool reindeer they have sitting on the benches throughout the mall.

This year we decided not to get a Christmas tree, opting to bring our 25-year old ficus tree inside as a substitute. I recently learned that my parents bought this ficus tree when they moved into their first house in Gardena, where I grew up. I remember my mom scolding Allison and me for tearing off its leaves to make our backyard "soup" for the chickens.

It was difficult to refrain from buying a fresh tree, but I decided that we're usually so busy with finishing up the fall semester that we hardly have enough time to put into decorating. I was considering purchasing a plastic tree that I could reuse year after year. However, after some research I decided against it because (1) many fake Christmas trees contain PVC, and plastic is of course, a petroleum byproduct, and (2) they don't have that fresh Christmas tree smell.

In the course of my research I came across a new trend in the Christmas tree industry: renting. Some companies will dig up a tree, roots and all, plant it in a pot, and deliver it to your house for the holiday season. When the season is over, they'll come back for the tree, bring it back to their farm, and re-plant it so that it can continue sucking up carbon dioxide and supporting local ecosystems for another year until the holidays come around again. How cool is that?

But for now, our family ficus tree will suffice.

Excessive Highlighting

Like most poor college students, I try to save some cash by buying used textbooks. I carefully go through Amazon to find books that are listed as "like new" or "no writing/highlighting." When I purchased my nutrition textbook, Nutrition Now, I was sure to do just that.

To my great disappointment, I turned to read the final chapter for my exam to find that some idiot has mistaken highlighting with coloring. The whole page is practically colored green, with the exception of the few parenthetical references.

Isn't the point of highlighting to highlight significant information? How can someone quickly find what is important if the whole page is highlighted! Not to mention it makes for some strained, uncomfortable reading...

Xena and Sonic's Breakfast

For the first time in a couple nights now, I was finally able to sleep well. This restorative sleep was unfortunately interrupted by the ravenous appetites of Xena and Sonic.

The two mischievous dogs decided to help themselves, once again, to whatever they wanted in the house. Today their breakfast included:

1 box of Cuties tangerines
1 bag of roasted peanuts
6 bags of Neogori packaged soup
1 loaf of tai san cheese bread
1 mini loaf of zucchini bread
1 bag of tangerines from Michelle and Dan's uncle
1 carton of eggs
1 Starbucks Halloween coloring book
1 set of crayons
1 House, M.D. Season 3 DVD set

Meanwhile, Ace sat in his house watching the other two destroy the house, yet again. Next time, a little warning would be nice, Ace.

Finals Week

Tuesday: Physiology complete
Wednesday: Nutrition complete
Thursday: Speech Pizza Party canceled
Saturday: Statistics

Freshia Market Part Deux

The secret for beautiful, porcelain skin? Naive skin cleanser for enhancing one's naïveté.

Who knew a platter of sliced beef tongue could be so elegant?

The Crab Lollipop