People are so in love at this time of the year.
Excitement, fear, anxiety. When does commitment start?
Suspicion, warning, worry. Who can you trust?
How do you know s/he is right for you?
When you expect someone to make you happy, you are never happy unless the person is around.
Be confident in yourself. Be happy with who you are. Then you are always happy even if you are alone.
I believe joy of life doubles when you really like yourself and someone is there for you (even if there's an ocearn between the two).
How can someone love you if you are not comfortable with who you are?
Thanks to you, I started liking myself again.

Wish all of you a sweet summer day, everyone!

Coffee Week: celebrating the invention of instant coffee in 1938 and the end of WWII coffee relationing in 1943.

On Sat I attended neuroling talks.
There were three speakers, namely, Susan Garnsey (my prof), Kiwako Ito (my post-doc researcher) and Mieko Ueno (a Ph.D student at UCSD and might come to Garnsey's lab for post-doc).
Susan's talk taught me some little facts I didn't know about ERPs in language studies. Kiwa talked about an auditory ERP study I have been helping. It was great to know what was going on with the data I collect, but very shocking to learn that Susan and Kiwa had decided to drop data of 16 subjects because eye movements had swamped around the brainwaves. It's waste of Susan's grant money and my time, you know... (16 subjects= 320 dollars and 50 hours!) Also, it's hard to find native speakers of Japanese who are willing to dedicate their scalp and time for us.... So, I felt we've wasted so much resource. It takes so much effort to find even one subject in this community...
*a big sigh* At least there are some findings, so I feel better, though.

I came back to Chambana around 2pm today. It was really bad when it started pouring in Chicago.
I am so glad that I went to Michigan this weekend! It was fun and educational!

I'm at MSU in East Lansing, MI this weekend. I thought it would take more than 5 hrs, but I made it here just on time around 1pm ET. :)
The traffic was nice except for passing Chicago area.
A friend of Mine, Ichiko who went to the same "jyuku" (so-called cram school) in Osaka, goes to MSU and lets me stay with her in her nice apt.
Just in case you wonder why I went to jyuku in Osaka although my home is in Kobe... In order to prepare for TOEFL and SAT, that jyuku was the closest from my home
when I was a high school student.
This weekend, I wanted to see her and also to attend talks during Japanese sentence processing workshop where my prof and pos-doc researcher are going to give a talk.
I was planning on going to some talks today, but I got tired after lunch and took a nap. Later Ichiko took me around the MSU campus, and I saw major parts.
MSU seems larger than or as large as UIUC.

I am so pround of a friend of mine who has created such a memorable CD-ROM!!!

I'm still in vacation mode... so lethargic... Traffic was very nice when I came back from Chicago today.

Kat, nothing happens in my life! That's why I cannot write on this journal every day. *sigh*
Greg, thanks for checking out... But you don't have to tell me what I write...

I stayed at Becky's on Thursday night. We were in a good traffic until we came about 20 miles away from Gurnee exit. The clear nice weather disappeared as we got caught in a heavy traffic. We made it to Becky's after 4 hrs. After dinner, Becky and I went to rent a movie. We checked out Minority Report. Because of the long drive, my legs were so tired and I was even feeling pain. As some of you can predict, I tried really hard to concentrate on the movie, but I fell asleep... I really liked the movie, though... *sigh*

On Friday (today) Becky and I went to Illinois State Beach Park in Zion. I was impressed to see the ocean-size lake! It was really good to be there on a hot day. :)

When she headed off to her work, I left for Kat's. I took Rt 59 to the South. Mapquest direction was kinda confusing, and I almost missed the exit to Rt 59 from Rt 59 S. After Rt 59 became Barrington Rd, I arrived in Hoffman Estates. Phew. I haven't been in a high-pressure drive since the drive to Arlington Hgts in April. I was nervous, but Craig David helped me relaxed. :)

Kat and I went to see Legally Blonde 2 on Fri. I think I enjoyed the movie more than Kat did. The movie was fun!!!

Surprise surprise. I stayed awake throughout two movies last night. It's a record.

Phew... reading reading reading... So many interesting things I want to examine...
My prof. Susan has suggested several topics to me, but I still want to come up with my own original idea... gah.... just have to keep reading dozens of articles until I encounter "Eureka!" moment...

Out-of-town weekend:
Becky's house in Antioch, a small town right below IL-WI border
Kat's house in Hoffman Estates

I didn't plan to visit Becky's house, but because Danielle cannot give her a ride any more, I'll be her schaufer. ;)

I missed the MLB All-Star game last night. *sigh* Though I am not a big fan of baseball, I really wanted to see Ichiro and Matsui play in the field. I am so looking forward to being able to watch TV in a month. Yes, moving moving moving in a house with awesome girls!

Now I would like to summarize what I felt after living alone for about a year.
Pros & Cons of one-bedroom apt life:
Pros - do whatever i want at any time
- cook/eat something that does not always smell good for non-Asian people
- occupy the bathroom as long as i want
- no worry about someone eating my food secretly

Cons - the dark room when i go home at night
- nobody to immediately help me out in case of emergency
- cannot share fresh products with anyone (i cannot finish even a small pack of meat myself)
- no ethernet and cable TV
- sometimes gets too boring or lonely
- nobody to wake me up when i fall asleep unintentionally

Another dream occurred to me around 8:50am this morning.
A maintanance guy came in without knocking the door and started doing something in the bathroom.
I sneaked out of the bed and peaked in the bathroom he was working on.
He was trying to fix the slight space between the window frame and the window. I was relieved to see it being fixed. "No more bugs from that window"
I went back to get ready to go to work. After finishing the window job, he went to another room (which is a storage space in reality). Because I knew there were only shoes, I went to see what he was doing in the room. He jumped out of the room in a pretty waterblue dress. Surprise, surprise. Even more surprisingly, he tried to assault me! It was rather intimidating.
Then my REM sleep period ended.

I guess I have too much REM sleep these days.
These dreams stories are real! I'm not making this up!

My dream last night was so wierd and vivid that I still remember it after 12 hrs.
Craig David stole my wallet, which was in my car at the time of the theft.
There were all the IDs and cards in my wallet, so I got so panicked and chased after him.
But I lost him somewhere.
I called my bank, but the phone line was disconnected, and soon after that, I ran to Consulate General of Japan to contact my parents. However, they didn't handle my prob and kicked me out of the office.
(of course...)
While I was in a panic and struggle, the bank and the police officers didn't help me solve any problem and Craig David spent some thousand dollars on my card.
I woke up before seeing the end of the incident.

Why Craid David?
Craig David appeard in my dream because I listened to his songs for more than 2 hrs yesterday...
I didn't expect him to rob me of my wallet, though...

Dear phooze,
I hope you still consider me as a friend of yours... Please forgive my sleepyhead!!! I never intended to oversleep your important night.

This weekend is okay. The weather has been really nice.

Man, that thunder must have struck on some house in Urbana.
It was really loud as if it were the last thunder the sky had to drop tonight! And it was indeed the last one.
Phew, it scared me off.

Thunders and lightenings are worse than typhoon.

What a waste of money.
I didn't know I paid $4.95 a month to pay bills online until the BankIllinois emailed me about its free-of-charge bill payment system starting this month.
Dah... I check monthly statements, but I never saw the fee! Maybe I didn't pay it. Hmm... Did they email all customers or only the users? Is there any BankIllinois customer among readers of this journal?

The season of thunderstorms. There was a thunderstorm warning and it was pouring in Champaign when one subject had to come in. I thought he wouldnt come, but he came. :) No-shows are annoying, so please do not skip any expt you make appointments. Oh my god, a thunder is groaning. I hate it! I hate it!!!

Today is Tanabata, a Japanese festive summer day in which Hikoboshi and Orihime meet once a year. As this annual dream of Hikoboshi and Orihime comes true, people also hang their wishes on banboo trees.

This weekend was nothing special.
I had a relaxing Sunday.

This humid hot weather really sucks in that I sweat a lot, but it's nice in that beer tastes good. ;)

The Taste and Fireworks in Chicago on the 3rd.
Fireworks in Elgin on the 4th.
Thanks for your hospitality, Meghan!

It was really hot and humid in super-crowded Chicago, but fireworks were good.

Now, the sky is groaning... The sky was growing gold and purple with lightenings while I was driving to Wal-Mart, so I came back...

Anna found a better apt today and signed the lease. :D
When I came back from Beckman at 9ish pm, I was so surprised at the condition of my room.
It is CLEAN. CLEAN. Amazingly NEAT now. If you have been inside my room, you know how messy it was.
However, oh my godness, it is just so nice again. Since I'm going to move to a new place in 5 weeks, I didn't intend to organize my room so much. But Anna fully cleaned up and organized my room while I was out.
I feel really bad and ashamed, though...
I will do my best to maintain Anna's good work! I cannot thank her enough...

Independence Day

I am going to enjoy the Taste of Chicago and fireworks in Chicago!

Anna ended up staying at my place for two nights. Since she occupied my bed on Mon night, I was so sleep-deprived on Tue.
I don't mind her staying with me at all, but I couldn't do any lab work done for the last 2 days...
I'm glad that she found an apt for next year. :)

My senior year project is finally going to start. I talked to my prof yesterday and we are going to begin discussing possible research topics along with current literatures. It's not gonna be so easy, but I'm happy.

Wow it's already July...

Anna came to Chambana and stayed at my place. :) It was an unexpected stay, but I had a fun night with her. Hope she finds an apt for next year soon...

This is why I often take a nap. ;P