Goodbye Oatmeal!

bye bye oatmeal! hello cereal!
My two good friends: Gangsta F and his homie, JD  

The Knife and the Scissors

I don't know why this is so funny to me. Marc Johns has some "serious" drawings and they always make me laugh inside.. in a weird way.

France

No, I did not go to France, but my awesome friend did. Notre Dame! :)

Mice!

So it's going to be my dad's birthday, but we decided to celebrate it a little early. Since his zodiac sign is a mouse, we made a bunch of little mice to hide around the house. We planned to make 52, since he's turning 52, but there wasn't enough time to for that! And he didn't really look for the mice anyway, but it was fun.

the mouse I gave my friend

the mouse my mom added eyes and whiskers to

we put him on top of the trap, where my dad catches real mice

mice in the pantry 

mice in teacups

mice chillin out with a monkey

more mice in cups

mice reading my dad's books

mice playing with the Wii 

A huge wrapping paper mouse checking out some files

another huge wrapping paper mouse playing
board games

Mini Golf at the Museum

Today I went mini golfing at the National Building Museum with my good archie friend! It features 12 courses designed by architecture firms around here, including Skidmore Owings & Merrill, and STUDIOS Architecture/ OLIN. Sounds like it'd be a fun charette type project/ design build type thing.

Check out the site and check out the museum if you have a chance!

SOM's, inspired by topography 

This one's inspired by Daedalus's Journey
Looove the concrete, plus the golf balls bounce on it

this one was practically impossible...

Pottery!

This post is long overdue. I found the pictures to the pottery we made from the Snake Kiln post. They had a DIY make your own pottery on the wheel thing, so we all tried it. AND I SOOO WANT TO DO IT AGAIN, so I've decided I will take pottery lessons when I have the chance.

The feeling of that cold, wet clay shaping and spinning through your fingers is a rather spiritual one for me.

I had too much fun

all the little bowl thingers we made! I made the two bowls on
the far left + the plate.  

The plate I made. There aren't any close ups of the bowls..

Later, they fired the clay and painted it for us! Then, they sent them to my cousins and they actually look real good. I'll see if I can get pics of them.

Lord Nibbler

For the past few weeks I have been working on this stuffed animal of Lord Nibbler, from the show, Futurama. I followed this pattern on Ravelry by Elizabeth Jarvis for anyone who's interested/has a Ravelry account. 

Basically Lord Nibbler was found on the planet, Vergon 6 by the delivery crew. He is and acts rather adorably as the crew's pet, even though he is able to speak and is quite intelligent. As Earth's ambassador from his home planet, he has saved Earth a few times, but erased people's memories so that they don't remember and still treat him as a cute creature. 

He will eat ANYTHING. Viciously.

He also excretes dark matter, which weighs a ten thousand pounds and can be used to power the space ship. 

Well that's the basic introduction to the little feller. Here is my knitting of him! 

before he was born

before the cords were cut

Lord Nibbler on his throne

eating yarn

And today I gave him to my very good friend! :)

TP

Guess what everybody? I'm feeling a lot better.

..and I also revived my love for naan. Also Malai Kofta is amazing too.

These pictures are from websites, but just so you know, my friend and I will make a store with all the good things in the world-- naan, ice cream and yarn. -- THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE FUTURE. LOOK OUT FOR "ALL THE GOOD THINGS IN THE WORLD" STORE NEAR YOU! 

and I also found out that TP stands for toilet paper!!!

This picture is also from a website, but wow..

I am wise no longer

Ok, lame wisdom teeth removal joke, but I am wise no longer as of today. You may actually believe that I was not wise in the first place. I think the only thing I've ever said that was perceived to be wise, was not intentionally so.

After final reviews (for anyone that doesn't know, final review week is the most horrible time in the world. Spend 20 or more hours a day on one project, drawings and model for a week.. you know you'll be screwed up internally)

Student 1: Yay!! Final is over!! It feels so great! Like the sun came out.
Me: ha ha. no. YOU came out to the sun! The sun was always there. (referring to spending 20+ hours in dark computer labs)
Student 2 took this very metaphorically and hence it sounded very wise
Me: *surprised* ohh yeah, wise.

Well I've been living off of blender food. Not sure exactly what goes in, but it's purdy healthy if it comes from my mother. I know I had chicken soup at one point and this delicious purple soy milkshake type thing. And I've mostly been sleeping.


I saw this ice packing superhero today too...

Origami Shelter

Something of more substance than my last post..

I saw this come up on my Google Reader! Since I've been playing around with some origami, I found this design to be intriguing.

Many origami designs can be pressed, flatly before you make it come to life. This design uses that principle to help people in disaster situations by allowing large quantities of it to be shipped around, efficiently!

This picture came from here. Please click for more interesting
images! 

We're Making Loud Music

Oh Michelle Branch, how I miss thee!!!

That is all.

Humpback Rock

On my last day in Charlottesville, my good friend and I went to Humpback Rock for a quick hike before going home. It's located about 40 min away from Charlottesville on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The parkway itself has some nice views of the Shennendoah. Here is some info on the hike if anyone's interested in going. It was a pretty steep one mile hike uphill and we had to stop a few times before getting there. Though I think going down was worse for me.

The trail is well shaded and since we went in the morning, it was nice and cool.

There were a lot of cute families on the hike and we also a dad taking his two (2 or 3 or 4 year old) sons on the hike. I saw them and was thinking.. Ah, if these kids can do it, so can I! But then a few yards up the trail, one of the kids started crying and the dad carried him all the way up the mountain.

We also saw a group of volunteers fixing up the stairs along the way! Sounds like it'd be pretty cool to join them.

There were 3 or 4 milli or centi ? pedes on the way!

looked like a rusty piece of metal at first! 

at the top.. first you see the sky between these rocks

then you climb the rocks and the land below slowly appears

the view! 

a mysterious tree with striped bark. 

meadow by parking lot 

don't forget to click on the photo for a larger view!

Fan Qie Chao Dan

Tomato and Eggs! Deeeeeeeeeelicious. Good with rice too. I made this for dinner with my good friend today and ours was not quite as soupy as we wanted it to. Apparently after asking my mom, she said that you need to add half a cup of water and then put a lid on the pan to let it steam in the pan a bit. Ah well, still good!

Xiao Hua Juan

These are basically green onion rolls from last week as well. Not too hard to make, and easy to store in the freezer to heat up again!

the dough is mixed up in a bread machine.. I missed this part kind of

roll out the dough, sprinkle green onion over some salt and oil

roll it up! press in the ends

chop it up! 

press the middle with a chopstick and pinch the bottom together.
it's supposed to look like a flower, hence the "hua juan" (flower..swirls)

and, sorry I did not take pictures of them, but afterwards you steam these little thangs and they are ready to eat!

Luo Buo Gao Making

This is way overdue..My mom and I made this last week and I have just uploaded the pictures. Luo bou gao is this cake made with radish (luo buo) I posted about eating it for breakfast earlier. But here are pictures of it at certain steps in making it. The process of making food is both interesting and important to understand, especially if we are to eat healthily!

the radish, in slivers + onions + garlic + bacon bits + mushrooms
all stir fried up 

adding tapioca powder and mixing

into the rice cooker! 

after taking it out of the rice cooker and pan frying it