Every Once In A While...

Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 9:29 PM
...I feel very aware of my alone-ness. What made me realize that was the absence of any night time activities (the bar.) this weekend. A few friends happened to be out of town this week, and another friend who was supposed to visit couldn't make it to town, so I ended up having no real plans. Even though I was satisfied with the things I did this weekend (eat BBQ, workshop, motorcycle), I still felt twinges of not belonging anywhere. Hence, my feeling of loneliness. I guess most people feel like they have their family? I don't really have that feeling for my family, and I've always believed the disconnection isolated me from everyone around me. In any case, whenever I feel lonely, there's a desperation in me, to find a place where I belong. Of course, the reason I feel lonely in the first place is because I don't feel like I belong. So I end up shutting out everything beyond myself, and after a short while I don't feel lonely anymore. I guess self-focus is important here.

I'm about to doze off right now, so I'll finish the analysis later. Or more likely, not. I had a workshop today about my research area, which was really enlightening. I met people that had a similar area of study as me. It was also really good to talk to people one on one, to find out what they do. I get a stronger sense of belonging (there it is again), which makes me more motivated.

I also rode 20 miles to MIT Endicott House in sub-freezing temperatures. Man, that was cold; I think I still felt cold at lunch time. The people at the workshop kept commenting on my bike. They thought I was crazy for riding in these temperatures. Guilty as charged. I was seriously questioning my reasoning for riding that morning. ZZZzzzzzz......*sleep*

- Howitzer

Bleeding Maize n' Blue

Monday, March 21, 2011 at 6:57 AM
I went back to Ann Arbor to visit this past weekend. Actually, I'm still here, but I'm leaving in the evening for Boston. Being back is in some ways stressful, because I have to struggle to schedule time to meet friends. UM isn't on spring break right now, and so the people here are only really free during the weekend. Also, I never feel completely "at home", mostly because there's the constant need of filling up my time with activities. That way I don't "waste" my precious time here.

Still, I love this town, and I love this university.

Memories of the Media Union, Art Museum, South University, State Street, Ashley's, Yost Arena, and north campus in general. Sometimes I wish I could turn back time a few years, and go back to being an undergrad. Then I see actual undergrads walking around, and I think that they're kids.

Japan Crisis

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 8:30 AM
This turned out to be pretty serious, after all. I remember when I woke up the morning of the earthquake, the headlines quoted "dozens" may be dead. Today, five days after, the news reports show more than 10,000. Not to mention, there's an enormous nuclear crisis now, which is what I'm really scared of. Tokyo is only a few hundred miles from one of the nuclear plants. It doesn't take much radiation to make an area unsustainable for life. Imagine if the life expectancy in Tokyo were dropped 10%, due to cancer and other radiation related hazards. Who would want to live there? Unsustainable radiation levels could cause Tokyo to wither and die off in the long term. What a tragic thought. Tokyo is a massive mega city, basically multiple major cities combined into one big metropolis.

Boiled Dinner

Sunday, March 13, 2011 at 11:07 PM
In the spirit of St. Patrick's day coming up soon, Starmarket is having a sale on everything you need to make a boiled dinner. $1.49/lb corned beef, and similar prices for 5lb bags of potatoes and carrots. It's ridiculous. I think I just may have 4-5 meals for about $8.

The first time I had a boiled dinner was from the Blue Leprechaun in Ann Arbor. One night, I suddenly remembered hearing about this "boiled dinner" as being someone's favorite meal. I thought it was interesting, since the meal certainly didn't sound that great. It wasn't. The boiled potatoes, carrots, and cabbage were tasteless. I'm pretty sure they boiled it in water, and heated up some corned beef for me. I was pretty disappointed, and never thought of the boiled dinner again.

Until last week, when Starmarket began having their aforementioned sale. Saturday night, after drinking at the bar, I popped over to the grocery store (open 24/7). What a bad idea. As I walked around, seeing the boiled dinner sale, I caved in and bought things to make a boiled dinner on impulse. As soon as I got home, I started to regret myself. "Never again am I going shopping after drinking."

Well, today, I actually made a boiled dinner, and I have to say, the smell of corned beef in my apartment is driving me crazy. The stuff was freaking amazing. The potatoes and vegetables actually have the taste of beef in them, because I cooked them with the corned beef broth. Oh man, I'm having such a hard time going to sleep right now, because I want to eat the food I just finished making. So instead, I'm writing a blog post about it.

My first meal from the corned beef will be lunch tomorrow. I'm hoping my Bostonian labmate will see what I'm eating.

- Howitzer

Sucked Under

Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 8:54 PM
Sometimes I'm working on classwork, and I'm really just not understanding the material. I read the book, I see the equations, and somehow it just doesn't make sense to me. And finally, after a lot of stumbling around, I ask someone for help, and the explanation makes sense. I get a "duh." moment, and I start to wonder why it seemed so easy after hearing the explanation. To make matters worse, the equations start to make sense, but in a bad way. It's as if you were dyslexic, and were trying to spell the word "Physics". It just doesn't come to you, until suddenly, it does. This is a very frustrating feeling.

Even worse, I start to think that I'm having a hard time because everything at MIT is so esoteric, and requires extremely smart people to understand it. I guess I put the people and the school on a pedestal. This is a bad situation to be in, because I start to second guess myself, and I'm unable to be creative and think for myself. I think it also hampers my ability to read the questions and take what they ask for at face value. I'm always grasping for second meanings behind the literal meaning, which leads me in the wrong direction.

Sigh.

- Howitzer

Motorcycle Battery = Resurrected

Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 7:49 AM
Turns out after leaving my "dead"motorcycle battery on the battery tender for 3 days, it was finally fully charged. Not sure why it took my battery tender so long to charge up my battery. The tender charges at 750mA, and the battery has a capacity of 14A, so I figured it would just take 18 hours to do a full charge. In any case, I have an extra battery coming in the mail, along with a torque wrench and Harley muffler :D.

I've also been listening to some older punk rock that I used to listen to in middle school. sum41, Bowling for Soup, Yellowcard. Listening to this stuff now reminds me of memories from highschool. Some people associate smells with places and past memories, but I associate music with those things. It's nice, because I can carry all my music in my pocket.

Motorcycle Battery = Dead

Thursday, March 3, 2011 at 8:45 AM
Gah..charged it all overnight, and it only reads 7V, instead of 12V. I need to order a new battery now, and it won't get here until at least next week. At least it's going to rain 3 days this weekend...*sob*

- Howitzer

Left the Lights Running = Dead Motorcycle Battery

Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 3:28 PM
Yesterday, as I went out for a late snack (~10pm), I shockingly realized that I left my keys in my motorcycle. Worse, I left the lights on all day, and the battery was dead by the time I got to it. Oh man...I was stuck at school with my poor motorcycle gasping for juice. Crap. To make matters worse, I had to meet a friend back at my apartment, because he was staying the night while visiting Boston. Crap.

I ended up waking up at 6:30am today with him, because he had to catch a flight. Meanwhile, I left for school with my battery tender in hand, hoping to get my motorcycle charged up quickly. I tore down the bike, pulled the battery, and linked it to the battery tender to be charged. Today was supposed to be a warm day, in the 40'sF, so I wanted to get in a good ride in the afternoon. 3 hours later, I check the power light, and notice that it's still charging. Dang. The voltmeter showed only 6V, with 12V being fully charged. After further research online and some calculations, I realized that it can take a long time to fully charge a motorcycle battery. Specifically, 18 hours using the combination of my battery tender and battery. Crap.

I'm now in motorcycle withdrawal mode. I have to take the subway back home tonight, and tomorrow morning. At least now I know, it takes a long time to charge a motorcycle battery.

Edit: It ended up taking 3-4 days for my battery to fully charge to 12.6V, using a 750mA battery tender. Afterwards, from researching online, people told me that battery tenders are not built for fully charging a battery, hence the long recharging times. Also, jump starting my motorcycle battery with a car engine was NOT RECOMMENDED. Something about likely destroying the puny motorcycle battery with too much current.

-Howitzer

Pasta with Pesto, Green Beans, and Potatoes

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 at 2:44 PM
I made this dish following the recipe below on Sunday. It was a simple, yet filling dish. I didn't add enough green beans, and the potatoes need to be diced up into smaller pieces. I think the red potatoes I used didn't have enough starch. The commenters on that website recommended against using Idaho or Russet potatoes, but I might try that next time. Also, I think adding some Italian sausage to this dish would have been perfect. Not sure how that would mix with the pesto though. The spiciness might overpower the basil in the pesto.


In other food related news, I recently discovered apple butter. Browsing through the bread spread section at the grocery store, I noticed a jar of this stuff sitting there. Hm..butter + apples I thought..it sounded delicious. Actually, apple butter doesn't contain any butter, but is rather a concentrated sauce of sugar and apples. That didn't prevent me from spreading butter first on my toast though :) The combination of hot toast, butter, and apple butter is delicious.

- Howitzer

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