101 Things to do in 1001 Days

Oh no! Summer is almost over and I am still trying to look for a full time job–a job that will start off my career. Anyways since summer is almost over (and my life as an undergrad too) that doesn’t mean the fun should stop there, so I decided to make list of 101 Things to do in 1001 Days. Pretty ambitious and I know this is going to require massive amounts of money but like I said, I would like to finish as my as I can. Coming up with 101 things was a lot harder than I thought because I have done so much before college but yet not so much. Since I was sooo busy in college I’m bummed out that I wasn’t able to go the things I wanted to do in college i.e. study abroad, go to New York with classmates and neighbors, go to Nicaragua for public health but I am going to over-over-overcompensate that by making a list of 101 things and so should you fellow graduates.

Day: August 30, 2009 (I started on this list yesterday but didn’t publish it until today)
End date: May 27, 2012 (from timeanddate.com)

From DayZero

The Mission:Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Legend:
In progress
Completed

1. Keep this blog by the end of 1001 days
2. Get a full time job
3. Pay all my credit cards
4. Finish as much of my students loans as possible
5. Eat at least one piece of fruit per day
6. Eat at least one piece of vegetable per day
7. Go to New York City
8. Go to London
9. Go to Chicago
10. Go to the Phillippines
11. Get my pictures professionally done (for some reason a lot list said that)
12. Go to a country who has a poor healthcare system and contribute i.e. giving medical equipment and textbooks etc (since I wasn’t able to go to Nicaragua)
13. Buy my own car
14. Move to a new apartment/flat/room when I get a full time job
15. Sing for Lawrence and Mike
16. Take a class on photography, planting, or writing or some leisure class
17. Recycle paper more often and other recyclable too.
18. Put $1 (or more) in savings for every task completed
19. Visit my penfriends (New Jersey and Kansas)
20. Make my LinkedIn Account complete
21. Write and publish one article per week (0/143)
22. Watch 25 movies from the top 250 on IMBD.COM (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. The Shawshank Redemption. Shichinin no samurai. Fight Club. The Usual suspects. Memento. Up. Taxi Driver. Lawrence of Arabia. Wall.E. The Pianist. Das Leben der Anderen. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Slumdog Millionaire. Raging Bull.Gran Torino.The Aparment. Hotel Rwanda. 500 Days of Summer. Donnie Darko. Kill bill: Vol 1. The Graduate. Gandhi. V for Vendetta. Little Miss Sunshine)
23. buy my own coffee maker/expresso machine
24. Start saving up for retirement
25. Start up my emergency fund (not sure how much I’d like to make)
26. Set a budget and stick for it at least 6 months
27. Buy a new digital camera (point and shoot)
28. Get an SLR
29. Finish a marathon
30. Help plan a wedding
31. Participate in a wedding (as a bridesmaid or flowergirl)
32. Give unwanted clothes to Salvation Army
33. Host a dinner party
34. Read 50 new books (0/50)
35. Quit saying “like” “um” and “you know” so much (instead of swear jar, create a slang jar)
36. Donate 5 dollars for every item not completed (got that from http://susans101.blogspot.com/)
37. Attend a Broadway show
38. Go to Italy
39. Learn about at least 2 cultures
40. Create a network
41. Volunteer
42. Have all my cleaners be green
43. Learn 20 different cooking recipes
44. Learn 20 different dessert recipes (from http://thylayzeepanda.tumblr.com/post/163749006/101-goals-1001-days)
45. Learn 2 more languages (I already know French so that doesn’t count)
46. Do the 365 day photo project
47. Go to NYC for New Years
48. Visit San Francisco
49. Do 10 random acts of kindness
50. Consider graduate/professional school to move myself up in the career ladder
51. Visit 3 new states (0/3)
52. Grow my own garden
53. Tutor a subject
54. Stretch and exercise 4 mornings per week
55. Get a plant for my room
56. Get a new cell phone
57. Take 20 minutes of my day and just organize (do this 3 times per week)
58. Study something i’ve never studied before i.e. comparative politics
59. Finish a novel in a foreign language (been done but would do it again)
60. Donate 100,000 grains of rice (http://freerice.com/index.php) (30/100,000)
61. Participate in a Kiva loan
62. Revisit France and go to Southern France
63. Revisit France and visit Caen and cross the English channel
64. Go to a Farmer’s Market
65. Pay back my parents for supporting me in school
66. Make my own candles
67. Read the news everyday
68. Begin a green regime
69. Find 101 quotes that inspire me (0/101)
70. teach someone to play the violin (and pick up my violin)
71. Attend a music festival
72. Attend at least 3 concerts
73. Watch 12 foreign films (0/12)
74. Take a random roadtrip
75. participate as an audience in a television show
76. Plant a tree
77. Finish a cross stitch
78. finish two craft projects (0/2)
79. Go to a vineyard
80. Visit 10 different beaches (Santa Monica doesn’t count bc I went to school there 0/10)
81. Meet a celebrity
82. Visit 20 national parks/musems/buildings/monuments (0/20) — ones I’ve never been to
83. Buy a bag of free trade coffee
84. Buy something from Etsy.com
85. Climb to the top of a water tower
86. Visit the original Starbucks (Visit the Seattle Underground and Pike’s Place too) in Seattle (one of my favorite cities in the world)
87. Go to a comedy club (bonus points if I do it myself)
88. When I’m travelling and if I know they live there, just let them know you’re in the area to meet up.
89. Play 5 Rockband songs on Expert (from eopgina.tumblr.com)
90. Go out to dinner with girlfriends and dress up to the nines
91. Do the Journal Quilt Project
92. Write down ten or more negative things and burn them (from laceandivy.wordpress.com)
93. Attend a local play
94. Be an extra on a film set
95. Go to the Eastern side of Canada
96. Buy a pair of TOM Shoes
97. Watch the sunrise at the East Coast
98. Register 6 dollars on wheresgeorge.com (from http://101thingsforzach.blogspot.com/)
99. Go to the real New Orleans
100. Start composting
101. Start this trend to at least 5 people (0/5)

reads of the week

Do you live off of sandwiches? Then try these refreshing recipes–I always make the PB&J with Bananas but the Hum Yum looks good.

I try to be green by changing my cleaning products because I hate hate cleaning with bleach. But I hate ketchup too.

And this week, an American icon has died.

…And DJ AM too.

Dear Mr. Obama, you promised us healthcare.

A lot of my friends and classmates are pre-med and they are not a big fan of the healthcare reform. I look at the future of the next batch of pre-med student is going to be different and less cut throat and more passionate about what they are doing not so much about making money. By the time they are done with med school and are doctors, they are going to be making a little more than mechanical engineers (keep in mind it takes 4 years for Mech.E’s to make that much money and 8+ years in total for a student to become a doctor).

How to answer the infamous “What are your strengths/weakness” question. Also my dad e-mailed me this article on social networking sites do’s and don’ts.

Some neuroscience to throw too: Brain is not fooled by sugar substitutes – in other words, it does not curb your appetite.

The weather is so dry in Westwood because of the fires. Usually when it’s hot, it’s humid not desert dry.

4 years ago…I went to Paris part II

Previously:
Paris Part I

Warning: it’s been 4 years since I published on the web, I will try to remember as much as I can.
Stay tune!

Theme: (Random) things I’ve seen on the streets

More Paris 2012 Campaign…

What is that? Look’s like a picture of a flag

Random neighborhood.

Just walking through Paris felt like breathing history as in 500+ years ago worth of history.

August 2009 overview

This is my first month blogging. It was first inspired by a classmate to start a hobby and blogging happened to be it under the name NuRhoGirl. So far it’s been a lot of fun, I started off the blog by listing my short term goals and then I posted random stuff from where I go job hunting for a full time job to caves I’d like to check out and an alternative way to get your groceries–don’t buy them! Work for them! In some posts I do like to reminisce for examples–my trip to Paris four years ago (There will be more pictures on a weekly basis and I’ve been to more cities too) and my encounter with a fellow high school classmate aka my high school valedictorian.

Sometimes I like to think of myself as an anthropologist.

Can’t believe summer is almost over. I am going to leave West LA soon–another chapter.

Also I think what makes blogging fun is that I can vent about whatever is going on my mind. I feel I can express myself and it can keep me sane during the transition times. Welcome to the quarter life.

Sadly I won’t be able to post pictures of the OC fair until I find my charger .

Dear Mr. Obama: Healthcare, you promised

From LATimes

Iam afraid there has been a misunderstanding since that election in 2008, during which 66,882,230 Americans cast their votes for you. Perhaps one of your trusted advisors has given you bum information. Maybe they told you that we voted for you — walked, marched, prayed, fund-raised and knocked on doors for you — because we hoped you would try to reunite the country. Of the total votes cast that long-ago November day, I’m guessing that about 1,575 people wanted you to try to reconcile the toxic bipartisanship that culminated in those Sarah Palin rallies.

The other 66,880,655 of us wanted universal healthcare.

You inherited a country that was in the most desperate shape since the Civil War, or the Depression, and we voted for you to heal the catastrophic wounds Bush inflicted on our country and our world. You said that you were up to that challenge.

We did not vote for you to see if you could get Chuck Grassley or Michael Enzi to date you. The spectacle of you wooing them fills us with horror and even disgust. We recoil as from hot flame at each mention of your new friends. Believe me, I know exactly how painful this can be, how reminiscent of 7th-grade yearning to be popular, because I went through it myself this summer. I did not lower my bar quite as low as you have, but I was sitting on the couch one afternoon, thinking that this adorable guy and I were totally on the same sheet of music — he had given me absolutely every indication that we were — and were moving into the kissing stage. Out of nowhere, I thought to ask him if he liked me in the same way I liked him.

He said, in so many words, no.

And Mr. President, that is what the Republicans are saying to you: They are just not that into you, sir.

This may have thrown you for such a loop that you have forgotten why you were elected — which was to lead your people back to the promises of our founding parents. Many of us no longer recognized our country after eight years of Bush and Cheney, and you gave us your word that you would help restore the great headway we had made on matters of race, equality and plain old social justice.

People, get ready, you said; there’s a train a ‘coming. And we did get ready. We hit the streets. We roared, whispered, cried, whooped and went door to door, convinced that even if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had not specifically dreamed of you, his dream of justice and equality and pride might come into being through your vision, your greatness, through the hope that your words gave us, through the change you promised.

He dreamed of a leader like you. Just like you. And something in the deepest part of this country’s soul heard.

After eight years of Bush, and then the Palin nomination, we were battered and anguished and punch-drunk. But in rallying behind you, we came back to life, like in Ezekiel when the prophet breathes the spirit of bearing witness and caring onto the dry bones, and those bones come back to life, become living people again, cherished and tended to.

We did not know exactly how you would proceed to restore our beloved Constitution. It seemed beyond redemption, like my kitchen floor did briefly last week after my dog, Bodhi, accidentally ate 24 corn bread muffins. You said you would push back your sleeves and begin, that it would take all of us working harder than we ever had before, but that you would lead. While acknowledging the financial and moral devastation of the last eight years, you said you would start by giving your people healthcare. You would do battle with the conservatives and insurance companies. You said in your beautiful way many times that this was the overarching moral and spiritual issue of our times, and we understood this to mean that you took this to be your Selma, your Little Rock.

I hate to sound like a betrayed 7-year-old, but you said. And we believed you. Now you seem to have abandoned the dream. That is why moderates and liberals and progressives like myself all seem a little tense this summer. It is time to call your spirit back. We will be here to help when you get back from vacation. We want to help you get over the disappointment of Mr. Grassley’s cold shoulder, of Mr. Enzi blowing you off, even that nice Olympia Snowe standing you up. We can and will take to the streets again, march and hold peaceful rallies, go door to door, donate to any causes that will help get out the truth of what a public option would mean. But we need you to shake off the dust of the journey and remember the promises of Dr. King, and we need you to lead us toward what is no longer so distant a shore.

Do it for Teddy Kennedy, boss. Do it for the other Kennedys too, for Dr. King, for Big Mama, for the poorest kids you met on the trail, the kids who go to emergency rooms for their healthcare, do it for their mothers and for Michelle. Just do it.

Trusting you, Mr. Obama

Anne Lamott

Anne Lamott’s latest book is “Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith.”

“There isn’t any formula or method. You learn to love by loving – by paying attention and doing what one thereby discovers has to be done.”
Aldous Huxley

two more weeks

I am still trying to experiment with layouts and what not.

Today I called a few jobs for follow up. I am currently looking for jobs near my hometown since i am going back there in two weeks.

Two weeks until I have to leave my student job and leave the co-op. I just hope I get a full time job by the end of two weeks *crosses fingers*.

I can’t believe this summer is almost over. I really gave my all this summer. I feel I’ve work a lot harder this summer than I have before. That’s pretty crazy since past summers in college I’ve taken summer school. And summers in high school I had summers readings for my AP classes coming fall. It’s ironic how I am finished with school and I have no assignments and no classes but yet exhausted, shouldn’t I be relaxing? Well I wish I could say but on top of my part time job, I am working extra hours at the co-op to pay less rent. It kind of con about working credits is that you won’t see the credits until a month later. Also I am writing and selling articles. I write as a hobby because I love to write and I love to teach. I like to express my opinion. I write for Associated Content to earn a couple dollars or so for every article I write. I also like to write things that I’m not familiar with so I like to learn and write about what I just learned. I’ve been so busy that I haven’t found the time to go to the gym either. I do exercises in my room first thing in the morning for about 15 minutes but I would like to go to the gym more and use the cycling machine or the tread climber more.

Anyways enough rambling of what I did this summer. Since I’ve got two more full weeks to go, I should be productive and do things I like. Goals for the next two weeks:
- go to the gym at least two times a week (but still
- declutter to make my move easier (and there are so many ways)
- still job hunt
- eat more fruits and veggies
- take my lunch to work
- be more green

Job hunting update #2

In three more weeks I have to leave my part time student job and I have to move out of the co-op.

Good news is that I found a job opportunity near my hometown and I hope I can get it. In fact, I hope to find more near my hometown too. Never thought I would say this either.

Since I am leaving in three weeks I am going to try to get my job hunting on turbo and be as productive as much as I can whether it would be working for credit, writing articles, decluttering, just anything to make my move easier. It would be really great if my move ended with getting a job too.

Before it was…high school graduation

Today at work I bumped into a classmate. He actually recognized me first he says “Hi Julie” and I said “Hi” and he goes “You probably don’t remember me” actually I knew he looked familiar but I had to think about it and I saw said “oh wow you’re Floyd–how are you? You use to be really skinny/scrawny.” Anyways he’s currently working at UCLA medical center.

It’s funny how fast years come by because the last time I talked to this person was at high school graduation. It made me realized how many people I haven’t kept in touch with since high school graduation but that’s just the way it is.

You know you’ve worked too long in a lab when (From Facebook)

You know you’ve worked too long in a lab when

1. You wonder what absolute alcohol tastes like with orange juice

2. You can tell what cheap and expensive white coats look like

3. You can’t watch CSI without cursing at least one scientific inaccuracy

4. You use acronyms for everything and never stop to elaborate

5. Liquid nitrogen is only about a 1/3 as dangerous as you thought

6. You always seem to use the microscope after the person with the impossible close together eyes

7. Accident reports are a badge of honor

8. You’ve wondered why you can’t drink distilled water in the lab – It should be clean?

9. You give the lab equipment motivational pep talks “Work for me today or i’ll reprogram you with a fire axe” is my favorite

10. You’ve worked out that a trained chimp could probably do 90% of your job

11. When a non-scientist asks you what you do for a living you roll your eyes and talk science at them until they’ve loss the will to live (mainly for fun)

12. You have to check the web to find out what the weather is outside

13. You realize that almost anything can be classed as background reading

14. People wearing shorts under a lab coat disturb you slightly as they look as though they might be naked underneath

15. Although all cooking is a glorified chemistry experiment you just still can’t seem to get it right

16. Safety equipment is optional unless it makes you look cool

17. Warning labels invoke curiosity rather than caution

18. The Christmas nightout reveals scientists can’t dance, although a formula for the movement of hands and feet combined with beats per min is found scrawled on a napkin by a waiter the next day

19. You know which part of the lab you can chill out undisturbed on friday afternoon

20. You decide the courses and conference you want to go on by the quality of the food served

21. You are strangely proud of the collection of junk you’ve stolen from vendors at trade shows

22. You’ve used dry ice to cool beer down

23. No matter what the timings in the experiment protocol there is always time for lunch in the middle

24. As has been pointed out to me on several occasions – You can no longer spell normal words but have no trouble with spelling things like immunohistochemistry or deoxyribonucleic acid.(Cheers Lesley)

25. Burning eyes, nose and throat indicate that you haven’t actually turned on the fumehood/downdraft bench

26. Your slightly too fond of the smell of (pick one or many) Xylene/Agar/Ethanol/Undergraduates/Alcoholic handwash

27. You’ve left the lab wearing a piece of PPE (personal protective equipment) because you forgot you had it on

28. You bitch about not being able to pipette by mouth any more (Not me but i’ve worked with people who do!)

Signs from others in the group (04-07-07)

29. Security come round at 2 am wondering why the lights are still on only to find you with your arms up to your elbows in a glovebox – Cheers James

30. you have made some kind of puppet out of a nitrile glove and kept it as a pet (I know this isn’t just me!) (Putting dry ice in makes for a rapidly expanding if short lived pet – DS) – Cheers Rachel

31. When at a Fall Out Boy gig you wonder why everyone is going round with Faecal Occult Blood (FOB) written on their head!!!! -Just for you Sarah

32. You have an irresistible urge to rip your shirt off superman stylie cos it has press stud fasteners just like your lab coat…..Most often occurring as you walk through a door just like exiting the lab…. (The worlds of strippers and lab workers collide, not pretty- DS) Thanks for that Carrie

33. You still get amusement out of “freezing” things in liquid nitrogen! – Not just you Tracey

A Few more from me (12-07-07)

34. Blinking real fast has saved your eyesight on more than one occasion.

35. You’ve removed your gloves to find a small hole which has left you with either – wrinkly old person hands, a brightly coloured finger (histologists especially) or a burning sensation and dermatitis and some point.

36. You’ve bent down to pick something up off the floor only to scatter the contents of your top pocket under the largest machine in the lab – Common problem i believe

More From you guys (19-07-07)

37.When you rejoice when grabbing a handfull of eppendorfs/bijous/anything and it turns outs to be the exact number you needed (always strangly good andy)

38.You can`t wait for lab clean-up coz you get to do random pointless “experiments” to figure out whats in all the dodgy unlabeled bottels (Sniff test is a bit of a gamble Nadia)

39. You hate having to change your lab coat to a new one because ‘it just won’t fit right’ and because the wrist bits are way too tight (They never get my ‘cut’ just right either Tom)

40. You know you have worked in a lab too long when you actually threaten your cells whilst waving a bottle of virkon (All been there Becky)

41.Your nose invariably itches when you’re doing mucky stuff with your hands so you develop the habit of scratching it on your upper arm. Unfortunately you sometimes carry this habit over to real life, where it looks like you’re sniffing your armpits (Trying to find a clean bit of lab coat can be fun as well, cheers Kate)

42. When as the senior of morphology you threaten each new registrar on their first day that oil and x10 dry objectives do not mix and will result in violence (Cheers Nichola)

43. when you say goodnight to your microscope on a friday night and tearfully hug it goodbye as you won’t see it all weekend (Cheers again Nichola)

44. When you start making patterns in your pipette tip box as you take the tips out. I made a beautiful spiral today (Could have been an art student Vicky)

45. When you wonder how much it will hurt if I pour just a smidge of this phenol:chloroform/trichloroacetic acid/any random chemical on myself (Best try it out on some one else first Mike)

46. You’ve seen how far away you can hit a target with a squirty water bottle or seeing how far away from the bin i can fire pipette tips. (Pinging gloves is also fun Ed)

47. The fire alarm ceases to bug you. You only evacuate when you see the fire. (Hand on the floor to check for heat is a good indicator)

48. You know when you’ve been in a lab too long when you make 6 litres of medium, but wonder why no one makes “high” or “low”.(Cheers Tom)

49. When you organise your kitchen cupboard contents the way you would your chemicals..all labeled in alphabetical order (Cheers Anggia)

50. When you’ve got that callus on the side of your thumb from opening PCR tubes (Cheers Chani)

A few more sent to me by a colleague, dam that’s another one – you call your friends colleagues “my colleague is just getting the beers in”

51. You open the toothpaste with one hand.

52.You wash your hands before and after using to the washroom.

53.When you hear tween, you think of the surfactant not the age group.

54.For you, media is something which increases your culture.

55.You can identify organs on road kills.

56.You have a callus on your thumb.

57.You use the word “aliquot” in regular sentences.

58.Sometimes you momentarily vanish from social activities because of a time point.

59.You’ve never worn a clean lab coat.

60.You don’t fear rodents, rodents fear you.

61.You say “orders of magnitude” in regular sentences.

62.You flinch when you hear the word “significant”.

63.Showing up at 10AM and having a coffee is a productive day.

64.You can’t stand god-like physicians, while secretly wishing you had their job.

65.You’re very good at diluting things.

66.You’re also very good at transferring small amounts of liquid between containers.

67.You are fed up of people saying alcohol, when they mean ethanol.

68.You say “conjugation” instead of “sex”, and “pili” sounds dirty.

69.SOB is not an insult; it’s what you grow your bugs in.

70.You say “mills” and “megs”.

71.No-one in your family has any idea what you do.

72.You can make a short film in power point.

73.You consider a green laser pointer to be science bling.

74.When your fruits go bad and you get fruit flies, you can’t help but check their eye colour

75.You own invitrogen t-shirts and actually wear them.

76.You refer to your children as the F1.

77.You’ve suffered carpal tunnel from the pipetman.

78.You’ve used Kimwipes as Kleenex.

79.A timer clipped to the hip is not only practical, but dead sexy.

80.You’ve played Battleship using tip boxes.

81.The front page of Science is your light reading.

82.You think the following is a quality insult: “I’ve seen cells more competent than you!”.

83.The scent of latex reminds you of work, not play.

84.You’ve used, “I’d like to get into your genes” as a pickup line.