Lappies

January 4, 2010 At Yunnie's: A playdate for our Aspire Ones

You are wearing my scarf and pushing our acers around. :) They look so cute together. Mine is more sparkly though.

Fireplace

January 4 | Yunnie bubble tea place

After you met my friend Chris Raa (ha ha) after CSE 322 today, we went to Yunnie's to chat. The fireplace is fake, but it's a good fireplace nevertheless.

It's sad that you're leaving tomorrow. But have a good trip and enjoy your island for the next semester.

City

January 3, 2010 Lights in Bellevue

I really like seeing lights. I don't know why. The funny thing is I hate light pollution. But city trees with lights make me happy. And decorative snowflakes. I like those.

Rabbit

January 3 | My cul-de-sac

This is the rabbit that we saw today while you were dropping me off. Today was fun.

Stairs

January 1, 2010 Seattle City Hall

I celebrated the first day by making sandwiches, cutting things, serving food, walking up-then down- six elevated city blocks, and taking surveys in the cold. My friends and I passed by City Hall, and I admired the stairs which look long. It's very interesting passing by foot and not taking a bus. We walked from near Pioneer Square to under the I-5 freeway; so, of course, Pioneer Square is always a colorful place to pass by.

2010

January 1, 2010

This is our New Year's dinner. Traditionally (in our family) dinner follows the Russian President's New Year's address, which we play 11 hours after it is aired in Moscow. That is, shortly after midnight.

We also had a fir-shaped cake that my mom only makes for New Year's. (At other times, the cake is normal, circular.) And then I finished my collage.

Happy New Year!

Belated

December 31, 2009 Neighbors' house

I would have done this picture a while ago, but they stopped turning on their Christmas lights after Christmas. But they are on today. Fancy. :)

If my camera hadn't been demented today, we would have had a nice picture of someone or some people ice skating. My camera enjoys malfunctioning though...

Well, the end of a decade is upon us, and it leaves me to wonder what will happen in the next ten years. I'm nervous. I used to love planning, but now I know there are too many things I can't predict. Oh well. Unexpected events can be good, right? I met you.

EDIT: Igor disagrees that a decade has ended, but being my philosophical self, I'm redefining decade. :P It's the beginning of the 10's IMHO, and therefore, a new decade, by my definition of decade. The Gregorian calendar can suck it.

Panera

December 31 | Panera in Redmond

We came here after ice skating at Kingsgate. We are still here.

This is my last post in 2009. I will wish you a Happy New Year when it comes. That will probably be around 1am tomorrow.

Ingrish

December 30, 2009 A deterministic fortune cookie

This was not my fortune, but I thought it was fantastic. I've never seen worse grammar in a fortune.

Sky

December 30 | UW, CSE Atrium

This is the roof of CSE, and the sky on which we looked as we studied, I - my qMech, and you - your mCats. You should be on your way home now. Right?

It's been two days since you took me to your house, and we baked cookies. Two pictures from that day sit on our blog.

Together

December 28, 2009 Igor and Jessica sitting on Jessica's bed and taking a picture together

Baking was tiring and difficult. So, we needed to take a break. Mmmm naps. Here we are in our poor-picture-quality, happy-and-smiley goodness. If you look closely enough, you may or may not make out hands being held. Whoa. Today was a good day.

Baking

December 28 | Jessica's kitchen

We baked these today... what are they called again? We baked two dozen, actually, but four of them disappeared before I could take the picture. They were good cookies.

Sugar

December 27, 2009 Before the beautiful disaster

Sandra came over today, and we made crème brûlée. This is before torching. After torching was not so beautiful, the brown sugar was catching on fire and not glazing the way we had expected. So, after torching most of them (7 of 8), we went back and removed the brown sugar layer to replace with a white sugar layer instead (an excuse to consume burnt sugar and burn more fuel).

Progress

December 26

This is the puzzle as we left it. I worked on it some in the evening and expect to work on it more in the coming days. Strangely, my parents aren't helping. But it will get finished, certainly.

Globe

December 26, 2009 So painful

This was sitting under my bed, and I looked in the box. I thought it wouldn't take long to restore because it was already in strips. It took me around 2 hours! I'm just glad there weren't any missing pieces. Let's not ever do these. :) Countries and seas kept collapsing on me. Not very encouraging. But the numbers on the back make it so much easier.

Christmas

December 26

It's the day after Christmas, and we are taking a break from puzzling. On this Christmas season, the best and biggest present has been you.

Holiday

December 24, 2009 Hot pot dinner

Here is dinner. Raw food + pot with meat stock. The bowls aren't set in this picture because I hadn't gotten them yet, but everyone needs one. And everyone needs chopsticks and an extra pair to be sanitary. And everyone gets a little dish for sauce making. It's like a little game. You put in what you want cooked and grab it later without stealing someone else's food. Or you could take other people's things, but that would be confusing when they go fishing for their things.

School

December 23, 2009 Back to start

Today we saw a play that I have been waiting to see for at least two years. :) And yes, I enjoyed it (Twelfth Night) very much. I think the addition of music, more so than was scripted, was fun and engaging.

Later, when we came back to UW and you want to the bathroom, I took this picture. It's a nice building. Nice open space. Clear-cut hallways and stairways. Nice couches. And unnecessarily large white boards. A screen that does...nothing, but kind of reminds me of a digital waterfall. Maybe that was the intent.

Oh, mother. Blurry picture. I had one with flash, but it didn't look as interesting.

Tea

December 23 | Tokyo Garden

For a short period of time, we are together. And today we've eaten at the two places that I missed the most. Except, why did everything change so much since 4 months ago? At least the tea was good.

So, I came back. Thank you for coming back also.

Roland

November 22 | Home

So much to do when I came home! For example, this is my piano. It's small and electronic, and the keys don't feel very real. I found that I have a hard time playing it.

My UPASS was waiting in the mail. It is active since Dec 11, so I can use it. In a few hours, I will return to the public transit system that I haven't abused in 4 months, so we may see each other again. And this time, for real.