Nyanko's Basket

Shamelessly stolen from chibi_nasu:

JUNE: Thinks far with vision. Easily influenced by kindness. Polite and soft-spoken. Having ideas. Sensitive. Active mind. Hesitating, tends to delay. Choosy and always wants the best. Temperamental. Funny and humorous. Loves to joke. Good debating skills. Talkative. Daydreamer. Friendly. Knows how to make friends. Able to show character. Easily hurt. Prone to getting colds. Loves to dress up. Easily bored. Fussy. Seldom shows emotions. Takes time to recover when hurt. Brand conscious. Executive. Stubborn.

( The 12 months )

So, uh, steal this if you want? :P

But first, a random weird meme!

( How weird am I? )

I ended up not being able to go for the go-karting event like I planned because something important/urgent (in work terminology, a priority 0) came up at work at the last minute and I was stuck there the whole afternoon. :( But that was more than made up for by a wonderful birthday dinner at Blue Ginger with itsacz and another friend. ^_^

I'd had 육개장 (yook gae jang) the last time I went (which is very delicious and filling, and just the right level of spicy), so this time we decided to do a grill instead. We picked a table which had a flat grill, not a curved one, so that limited our choices somewhat ^^;; But the server was very helpful and offered us suggestions on which meats we could cook on our grill, so we ended up cooking boneless premium 갈비 (beef kalbi) and 돼지 갈비 (pork kalbi) the first time, and the second time with 불고기 (bulgogi). We also experimented with things like cooking seaweed and radish on the grill; it was interesting, but the seaweed still tasted like seaweed even after it was grilled. ^^;;;

Of course, since it was my birthday, we had to have a toast, so my friends bought a bottle of 소주 (soju). It had a pretty nice flavour, being slightly sweeter than normal rice wine yet not too sweet, and it went down quite well. ^_^; At 14% alcohol content (by volume), it was also pretty mild, which was good, since I was being driven back home. ^^;;; Reading the Wikipedia article may also be quite enlightening. I also now have an empty bottle in my kitchen. :P

One of the things that amused me greatly was that we ran into my Korean teacher while we were there. ^^;;; He wished me a happy birthday and told us a little bit about what he was going to cover next week. I'm really looking forward to the beginner-continuation classes that'll be starting next week and going on for the next 10 weeks! It's definitely cheaper than going to UW's summer classes ($500 per credit hour >_>) and in a way it's also much more fun being in a relatively small class (right now our class has about 10 people).

Today's my first driving lesson and I'm somewhat nervous about it because it's the first time ever that I'll be driving a car, but at the same time it's also something I have to do a very useful skill. I'm probably not going to give up cycling to work, though, in spite of what everyone says. ^^;;

고양이가 등을 화살모양으로 둥글게 구부르다~ 고양이가 야옹 울다~~ 고양이가 목을 가르랑거리다~~~!! <3

Weather when I set out yesterday: 43 F (feels like 36 F)

I had a great cycling experience (at one point, I was doing about 15 mph) until I met the first hill on NE Inglewood Hill Rd. That hill was a 12% grade -- which I didn't know before trying -- and it was way too steep for me to manage to cycle up more than a few feet without my legs aching severely, so I had to wheel my bicycle up the hill. ^^;;;; There were several more hills that were also pretty steep, but after the roundabout I was gradually able to get back onto the bicycle and cycle to my destination. My ride there took almost 2 hours, both because of the hill and also because I forgot something twice and had to cycle back to get it, which added about another 5-10 minutes of delay each time.

I still can't believe I cycled almost 9 miles each way, and didn't die anywhere on the way (which would've resulted in me having to find a bus or taxi, or hitchhike). ^^;;;;

I had a lot of fun at itsacz's house (even if I kept dying or getting both of us killed :P) and I was sorry to leave. ^^;;;

The ride back was fun because I went down Inglewood Hill Rd in almost total blackness, except for my bicycle lights and the occasional car behind me. The situation was pretty much the same on the road I turned into from there, although it was slightly better because there were more vehicles and headlights. They should build more overhead lights more often...

I stopped on the way at a Subway to buy some dinner, then cycled back through Marymoor Park. There were almost no lights, and very few other cars, so it was a very quiet, somewhat winding and flat stretch. I was glad for the peace and quiet because I could just cycle and feel my legs push me forward without having to concentrate too much on the road ahead (I did have to concentrate just enough to make sure I didn't cycle into the sidewalk or into Lake Sammamish, obviously :P It would have been quite the story for a basket (of cats or otherwise) to fall into the lake, especially if it wasn't drunk)

After that, it was smooth cycling for about 0.3 miles until I hit the next uphill stretch (the start of the Bellevue-Redmond Road and then the turn into NE 40th Street). This one wasn't so steep, but it seemed to take forever, and my legs were beginning to cramp so much that I gave up cycling and walked up about 95% of the hill, with minor pauses for me to try and cycle and pant heavily (and fail). :P I definitely need to go to the gym stat

I got home around 7:40 pm, about an hour and a half 45 minutes after I left, and was quite tired. ^^;; I felt really great, though. :)

Today was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that I cycled back home in a mild drizzle and consequently went much faster than I wanted to (around 20 mph in some places, I think). There was a scary part when I was turning out of campus where I nearly skidded while making a left turn, but other than that I was okay and fortunately nothing happened. :) There was also some frustration at work, but I won't talk about that here...

And finally, some random links. :P

Open Source (May not be funny if you don't understand)
Total CRACK (in Spanish). I think nakaemi might find this doubly hilarious. :P
High Pi I hope they really don't have a phobia about llamas...
Magnificent Steinway B Grand Piano, 6'10.5" mint - $49000 I so want to buy this. Pity I won't have anywhere to put it or the money...
Nerdy in Seattle (or, what happens when geeks meet broken coffee machine)

Because I was Listed by itsacz...

Here are ten things I've done that you probably haven't:

1. Gone on a speedboat ride across the Brisbane River while it was raining


2. Performed in a paying (as opposed to free/invitational/publicity) concert


3. Stroked a cat and heard it purr


4. Been pounced by a cat


5. Getting thrown into a pool


6. Worked at Citibank, even if it was only for a month :P


7. Broken three piano strings in succession ^^;;;


8. Played ragtime \o/


9. Flown to the United States by myself and settled in


10. Had surgery on my ankle to reconstruct the ligaments

Now that you have read this, you are compelled to list ten things you've done that others probably haven't. May the List be with you.

Yay~ 2,000 comments posted on LJ!

I think the 2,000th one was in itsacz's most recent entry. :P

Also, I got tagged by sbsneech, and apparently I can't tag her back, so... here goes? ^^;;

( 10 weird habits/things/little known facts )

Besides the # entries/comments received/posted meme which I did a few entries back, here are some others that I thought of:

- How prolific are you at commenting? (# comments posted/received) If this number is greater than one, then you give more than you get. If not, then the reverse is true. :P

In my case (as of today), I've posted 1,978 comments and received 1,722, so that works out to a ratio of 1.149 comments posted for each comment received. I guess this means I give a lot? ^^;;;

( How many tags do you have and how often do you use them? )

And cats has only been used as a tag 17 times. That needs to change and I hope it will. ^^;;

Sorry for all the spam today~

From chibi_nasu, yet again, we have another meme!

Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one (or more) reason(s) why I like you. Then put this in your own journal, and spread the love, baby. <3

I was targeted encouraged by chibi_nasu to re-post this meme, so... here goes :P

( 36 questions meme )

Taken from chibi_nasu:

You all know the meme... the year-in-review. Where you post the first sentence or two from each month's first entry?

This probably sounds even more incoherent than the post I took the meme from. :P

Damit's Year-in-review

Write down 5 quirky habits, then tag 5 other people who have to do the same. .. I was going through the Animesuki forums and for some reason I decided I wanted to read the "Thigh shrinking XD" thread... .. For the concert, since I wasn't able to find two original copies of the score (only one), we were using photocopies all this time during coaching, practice and peer review. .. 09:55:55 <&basket> YUO, is it a trap!? 09:55:56 <@PyRC> basket, it is a trap. .. I'm leaving for the AUDC - Asian Universities Debating Championship 2006 which is being organized in Manila this year by Ateneo de Manila University. .. I really do! Even if you cause my fingers to break out or curse you sometimes when they make mistakes. .. "You are in a small crypt. Images of mp3s are carved into the walls." .. I'm going to Malaysia for a debating tournament on Friday afternoon and will be back on Sunday afternoon, so I won't be around during that time. .. Apparently my other laptop's hard disk (the one that I use most often) has died, and I didn't really back up very much of the things on it. .. These are links which I felt didn't need their own post or much explanation: .. I got an email today that made me very happy. :) .. I'm kind of nervous. :P But I feel that I've done my best. We'll see how it goes...