My American Accent

I could never sound like a Standard English speaker because of my Japanese accent (I cannot even speak Standard Japanese!), but I guess this quiz shows that my brain knows what Standard English sounds like.

It's true that I got used to calling carbonated drinks "pop."

Do this quiz.






By the way, a patient asked me if I was Vietnamese. That's a new one I can use to disguise my country of origin.

Turkeyless Thanksgiving

This year I am not feeling so much of Thanksgiving.
A friend of mine who is a wonderful cook prepared a Japanese style dinner and I brought an apple crumb pie. The pie was baked at the bakery on a ghetto street near the hospital, which made me worried about the quality, but the pie was fantastic!!!

Today is Black Friday and I went to see Kmart and Macy's on the way to work. (yes, I worked and I was the only one in the institute bldg!) Nothing I wanted was on sale and there were a lot of kids and families you wouldn't normally see in Center City at 8:30am. I wish I could've driven to Wal-Mart to participate in the holiday shopping frenzy.

I feel this is a normal weekend partly because I have to work on certain things at the last minute.

On Sunday I am invited to Allison's potluck. I guess I should go to Reading Terminal Market to find food to bring.

Being Hygienic

I had my lower wisdom teeth extracted on Wednesday.
People scared me with their experiences of seeing a doctor hammering on their teeth, etc., but thanks to general anesthesia, I slept through the whole procedure except for the moment I slightly opened my eyes in the middle.
My post-op experience is both good and bad. It has been great that I have been pain-free and my face got swollen only on the 2nd day. The downside is that I sticked with liquid food, e.g. apple sauce and pudding, for 3 days and I was so malnourished and felt nauseous by the end of Friday.
Anyway, I am fine now and hope to stay free of molar gum pain.


Shifting gears...
Have you ever thought about the toilet trip lever?
I have been wondering why the trip lever seems to be located on the right side on all flush toilets (on the left side when you face it).
See?
My quest to learn the history or background behind the universally lateralized position of the lever has been unsuccessful.
In the meant time, you can read everything else about a flush toilet.

Silence is beautiful.

A stinky homeless man got on the train this evening.
Rather than him, it was more disturbing that two middle-aged ladies repeatedly bad-mouthed him because of the odor he bought in, while 50 other people quietly tried to ignore it.

It's been three days and a quarter century since I was born.
Getting older than 24 is simply not exciting! No wonder my mother didn't remember it until today (yes, for real). On the birthday night I was going to borrow the power of alcohol to write up some important documents, but I opened half a bottle of white wine and consequently fell asleep on the couch.

On Sunday, Ai took me to Figs for brunch, which served delicious food.

Don't bring your dog

to a restaurant/coffeeshop you work for!

I stopped by this local coffeestore to get a cup of egg nog latte.
It happened to be a time for shift change, and a girl came in with her short-hair dog. To my surprise, she brought her dog to the counter/kitchen, and the dog briefly sniffed on cups at the bottom of a shelf. Yuck!!! Then she tied the leash pretty close to where coffee is made and food is prepared...
The yuckier fact is that she didn't wash her hands before making my latte.

Althoguh she may not have touched the dog and do not touch directly on coffee beverages and food, I found it very disgusting that she took her dog inside the store and didn't cleanse her hands.

What's worse, this egg nog latte tastes like crap. Should've gotten a small one.

I really liked that cafe, but they lost my business.

The ultimate nerd beer

Brains Beer, brewed by SA Brain & Co. Ltd in Wales :)

My supervisor brought this back for me and a post-doc when he was in UK last month.

It was a bit bitter, but nice and smooth.

42 more years

I have only 42 more years to enjoy my life. What am I going to do once they are gone!?