I’m sitting at my computer right now and I can hear the sound of rain and sleet pounding against my window. Though I’ve been stuck in my apartment for 3 days reading papers in preparation for my PQE, I’ve still managed to keep up my daily allowance of movie-watching. Here’re my thoughts on the movies I’ve watched this week:

Spider: David Cronenberg is crazier than Ralph Fiennes who’s crazier than the crazy main character

2 Fast 2 Furious: 2 pretty cars, 2 bad actors

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind: kudos to Sam Rockwell as a convincing TV producer/CIA assassin

Down with Love: colorful, sassy, and incredibly charming

Underworld: never thought Kate Beckinsale or black leather looked good until they were put together

Happy New Year! This day marks the 1-year anniversary of the initial launching of Xephalon.Net. Looking back, though it’s certainly been a rough year at work, it has also been an eventful year which has brought new and wonderful changes in life. I hope the new year will bring even better fortune. The official date for my PQE has been set for January 26th, so back to reading I go!

Hope everyone enjoyed their holidays! Melody and I spent some time in NYC this past week, where she got to meet my folks for the first time. We also met up with most of my closest friends from elementary school through college, and of course played pool with every single one of them! Mwahahah!!! We also watched The Return of the King as well as George Ballantine’s The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center, one of those holiday traditions that incidentally, neither of us had experienced before. I also got a chance to introduce her to the carnivore’s dream palace, the Churrascaria Plataforma, a pricey yet immensely satisfying Brazilian rodizio buffet with a huge selection of grilled meats ranging from sirloin steak, flank steak, and prime rib, to lamb chops, ham, chicken, sausages, turkey wrapped in bacon, and a most delicious salmon filet. Even the appetizers, which included some mouth-watering salmon sashimi, was more than enough for our money’s worth. We pretty much just chilled for the remainder of her time back in Boston, doing a bit of grocery shopping and catching an afternoon show of Big Fish, which was not only heart-warming but incredibly imaginative as well, created by none other than the master himself, Tim Burton. Anywayz, now that Melody’s gone and my prelim exam is quickly approaching, I’ll have to hit the books again. 🙁

Since Melody’s in town for vacation, I decided to organize a holiday dinner with several friends this evening. Together, we cooked up a feast with a steamed striped bass, snow pea sprouts, and her dad’s famous pot chicken (which despite its deceptive name, does not actually have any pot), along with some sushi Bob brought from Oishii and a cake from Finale, courtesy of Leo. Dinner was followed by a hilarious documentary called Trekkies that details the sad but true stories of costume-wearing, klingon-speaking fans of Star Trek. That’s right, true geekiness knows no bound. By the time things were over, however, it was already near midnight. Desperately in need of clean clothes, we ended up tip-toeing down the stairs to the basement to do our laundry, hoping to avoid the grumpy old man downstairs who yells at anyone who attempts laundry after 10:30pm. Luckily, we avoided the encounter, though it did make for a rather exciting night before our trip down to NYC next morning.

This week was marked by holiday parties and last-minute get-togethers before everyone leave for the holidays. Despite all the fun and free food, I had to suffer through presenting a 2-hour lab meeting yesterday. Interestingly, it wasn’t really my late night spent collecting data, or having to skip lunch to prepare the Powerpoint presentation that made it so upsetting, but how much of my effort went unrecognized. I will not expound on the details of the meeting, but I’ll just summarize with a photo of something my colleague in lab had constructed to symbolize our angst. =P

LOL … this is just too much. I just found out today that someone has actually built a real-life model of the Simpsons house out in Nevada (where people actually have that kind of time). Check out the article here at the Las Vegas Sun. There’re photos of almost every room in the house! It’s been otherwise another boring weekend with yet another winter storm blanketing us with 6 more inches of snow. Having spent both days working in lab, I can only look forward to some reprieve with the upcoming holidays…

This weekend’s noreaster dumped almost 2 feet of snow onto the city of Boston, making this probably one of the most severe snowstorm I’ve experienced since arriving in this city. My parents had unfortunately picked what turned out to be the worst weekend to visit me, and we ended up spending nearly 2 hours shoveling snow and trying to push the car out of a snow ditch. One interesting thing I noticed today while walking to local stores to find some shovels, was how nice morning people tend to be. Almost everyone said “good morning” to me! I think that night people are grumpier in general. When’s the last time someone walked pass you around 3pm, smiles, and greets you “good afternoon”? I wish I could be a morning person, but alas I have neither the willpower, energy, nor pleasantry to do so. =(

I had to give lab meeting this past Wednesday, which was pretty painful given all the obscure negative data I had to present. On a lighter note, and I know you guys have all been waiting for this moment, my review article has finally been published! It appears in the October issue of Current Opinion in Neurobiology. And since you must be dying to read all about the signaling mechanisms of myelin inhibitors, here is a link to the abstract. Enjoy!

Stepping off the plane after spending a weekend in Los Angeles, I was greeted by a gust of freezing wind reminding me that I have indeed returned to Boston. My third trip to LA this year felt a little bit too short, mainly because it WAS too short. I flew there just Friday evening and returned on an overnight flight arriving a little past 6am this morning. Over the course of the two days, we spent our time mainly eating, sleeping, and playing pool (what did you expect?). We tried out a new Dim Sum place called Hong Kong Palace which the LA times had the gall of considering the “Best Dim Sum in town”. Perhaps by “town” they meant “within a half-mile radius”. We also ventured into the outskirts of South Central to savor some authentic BBQ pork and beef ribs at Philip’s Bar-B-Que. We also spent some time at The Grove, an upscale outdoor shopping mall which features a “Red Car” trolley as well as a musical fountain. Though I wish I could have stayed longer, I’ve got a stack of 170 midterm exams to grade, a recitation section to teach tomorrow, and a lab meeting on Wednesday to prep for. Man! The fun just keeps on coming!

Waking up this afternoon after 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep, I realized how much I’ve missed a good night’s rest over the last couple of weeks. I looked out the window through my squinting eyelids and noticed that it was already getting dark. Yet despite how unaccomplished I felt, it was truly revitalizing. Overall, the week’s been relatively uneventful, though I was able to get a lot done, cleaning the apartment with Jeff, doing my groceries and laundry, and most of all, installing Windows and reconfiguring all my software on the new harddrive I got for my laptop. I even got to check out my very first full lunar eclipse last night on the way back from the local Stop & Shop. Though less dramatic than the solar eclipse I witnessed back in college, it exhibited a rather subtle beauty, the kind I tend to appreciate a bit more. It was too bad I didn’t have my camera with me at the time, so I will leave you with a picture of all the fun I had with the computers instead. =)