We finally closed on the condo this afternoon! Of course, the transition from dorm life to living alone will take a lot of adjustment… the first being the need to buy furniture. I didn’t realize how much it’ll cost to furnish this place until I started visiting furniture stores this afternoon! Kinda made me relieved that I didn’t invest in a bigger apartment.

Melody, Jeff, and I revisited Embassy Friday for yet another night of top-notch hip hop/reggae/top 40’s dance mix. This place is quickly becoming my favorite clubbing locale as both the attractive Asian crowd and mind-blowing, immersive dance music help redefine Friday-night-out for me. I did have a run-in with the bouncer that night when he told me I was dressed too casually, and almost didn’t let me in. Fortunately, after a bit of jedi mind trick, I was able to join my friends and dance the night away. It was almost a difference of night and day when comparing the experience with last friday night’s annual HST formal at the Charles Hotel. Though the hor d’oeuvres (can anyone actually spell this?) and Jazz music were quite enjoyable at the beginning, the dance afterwards totally blew. The music consisted of some rather bad Latin techno/trance stuff that wasn’t really possible to dance to. Oh, we also caught a showing of “Better Luck Tomorrow” last week. The movie received a lot of hype at the beginning ’cause it was the first major film starring an Asian-American cast that DIDN’T feature martial arts or other cultural stereotypes. Personally, I felt it was an above-average film though certainly not groundbreaking in any way. My Asian friends from Cali did remark how much the setting of the story reminded them of home. I guess it was quite different from my childhood growing up in Brooklyn. Of course, having gone out so often recently, I’ll really need to haul ass in lab now…

My exciting highlight of this week was finally signing the Purchase and Sales Agreement for the condo I’ve been after! In other words, I put 10% of the agreed price down and assuming no other problems, I should be able to close in a month! it was pretty nerve-racking signing the biggest check I’ve ever written! While the rest of the week was my usual work-eat-sleep routine, I did manage to have some fun on Friday, when my friends and I attended a showing of the film “Hero”, featuring an all-star cast including Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung, Donnie Yen, Zhang Ziyi, and Cheng Dao Ming. From the director of Raise the Red Lantern, Zhang Yimou, the movie takes place in the Qin dynasty and follows the account of a warrior claiming to have defeated three great assassins who had sought the life of the tyrannical emperor for many years. Overall, I found the movie beautifully-shot and impressively picturesque, but not really plot or dialogue-driven. The focus was on a stylistic representation of martial arts, where almost any scene could be freeze-framed to become a beautiful painitng. I spent the rest of the night with Melody and Bob clubbing at Embassy, which interestingly, was jam-packed with Asian-Americans that night. The music was a good mix of Hip Hop, Reggae, and Top 40’s, and the crowd was young and lots of fun. We tried to hit it up again on Saturday at Pravda where we signed up for a guest list to get us in for free. Unfortunately, the music was some trashy Euro techno and the crowd was definitely much older and sleazier. We left early and redeemed the rest of the night with food in Chinatown – the fail-safe backup option.

After a pretty long week getting the home inspection and mortgage applications together, I decided to take it easy and enjoy my friday. After finishing up a few experiments in lab, I headed over to the HST TGIF over at Boston Billiards where my friends and I kicked back with some buffalo wings, mozarella sticks, and a few games of pool. We then went across the street to B B Wolf for some ribs to celebrate my dear friend Melody’s birthday. We finally headed back to Vandy for a few more games of pool with a couple of friends before calling it a night.

After many days of negotiations, I finally signed an offer agreement with the condo sellers today!!! Within the next few days, I’ll have to get a home inspection and hunt for a good mortgage company. It’s all kind of scary making a decision on such a large investment. Hopefully, I’ve made the right choice. The unit belongs to a couple, and interestingly, the wife is actually a children’s book writer. She even has her own website! Check it out!

I went to a free-screening of the movie “The Core” this evening, which was possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen … maybe second to a couple of B-movies. I guess it’s kind of tough trying to rescue a movie based on the premise of traveling to the inner core of our planet. I almost broke out in tears laughing at one point when the ship was stuck near the inner core and the crew members actually decided to walk out of the ship in space suits! HAHAHAH!!! After the movie, my friend Mary and I had dinner at a little cheap restaurant in Chinatown called Quality Cafe before heading back home.

My condo-hunt resumed this weekend with my parents coming up from NYC to help me attend various open-houses today. I was actually especially interested in a two-bedroom condo located about 15 minutes from where I work. It’s in a great area in Brookline, with an assigned parking space and a beautiful courtyard setting. The place is on the small side (713 sq ft), but comfortable. I’ll hopefully give the sellers a call tonight to make a verbal bid…

The last two weeks have been a very busy, yet interesting mix of fun and work. Last week, I had to suspend all my experiments to prepare data for lab meeting. In the course of two days, I had to take hundreds of pictures from a fluorescence microscope and quantitate the data, before finally pulling an all-nighter and presenting at lab meeting last Friday. Saturday was my day of recovery, as I started out with some lunch at Dunster house and meeting my pre-med advisees there, followed by an afternoon matinee show at the Hasty Pudding theater, a Hawaiian dinner and luau at Quincy house, and finally ending with a late-night St. Patrick’s Day party at John Greenland’s place. The Hasty Pudding theatrical show this year, entitled “It’s A Wonderful Afterlife”, was both visually stunning and gut-wrenchingly hilarious. Particularly memorable were the name of the characters: Curtis Interruptus, Lyla Kadog, and Werma Hosat. The luau was enjoyable as well, though reminiscent of last year’s show. Finally, we arrived at John’s apartment, which featured green decorations and green drinks. A few friends and I tried to spice up the party a bit by converting his sitting room into a dance floor, though we were too tired to stay for long… While Saturday was my day off, returning to lab on Sunday provided me the horrible reminder of my departmental journal club for today. So in the last few days, I pretty much spent all my time preparing the powerpoint presentation and reading up on background materials. Yesterday, I actually practiced my talk with four different people in lab, including a grad student, two post-docs, and of course, my PI. Fortunately, the presentation this morning went very smoothly, and I was especially flattered when one of the audience members came up to me and told me that my talk was the only one she stayed awake in since January. The afternoon was much more relaxing, as I got to listen to Kevin’s thesis defense seminar, attend an after-party in our lab kitchen with cake and ice-cream, and have dinner with my lab at Sichuan Garden in Brookline Village, which served some authentically spicy (maybe a bit TOO authentic) Szechuanese cuisine. Hopefully, I’ll have a little time to relax this weekend before re-embarking on my course of experiments.

What a weekend! After spending the morning and afternoon at lab on Saturday, I had dinner with Brenda for some Japanese udon at the Blue Fin restaurant at Porter Exchange. Afterwards, I walked over to Harvard Square and crashed the BBS recruitment social at the Fogg Art Museum, mooching the fondue stand and various treats while checking out the art collection there. There was a small but very good collection of French impressionist paintings from Monet to Cézanne, as well as an African, Renaissance, and modern art collection. Around midnight, some of my fellow MD-PhD classmates at the event headed over with me to Club Caprice for Raj’s birthday. Unfortunately, the place was completely packed, and realizing that we would not be able to get in, we went our separate ways which, for me, turned out to be a night at the Roxy. I’ve been to the place once for a Harvard Grad party, but this night’s crowd was completely different, with a lot more meat-grinding than I’ve ever seen in other clubs… On Sunday, I got a chance to play laser tag for the first time in my life with a bunch of HST people at Good Times Emporium. The place itself appears to be a warehouse that has been modified to house over 200 arcade games, 71 pool tables, batting cages, basketball courts, and a laser tag arena as well. While the games were cheap, the place was very run-down and seemed more of a white trash hangout than anything. Alas, I arrived a bit late and missed out on the first game, and since we didn’t get briefed during the second game, I ended up trying to learn the game while playing! It was quite an experience and a lotta fun shootin’ my friends in the back =P

Happy Valentines Day! Unfortunately for those of us who are single, this evening was just like any other friday night. Of course, refusing to conform to the sad notion of staying at home, I called up a couple of friends to hang out. I spent the early portion of the evening busting my back helping Bob carry home a 32″ TV he just bought this afternoon. We chilled out a bit at his place and then grabbed some food at Punjabi Dhaba. Of course, realizing afterwards that we were burping up curry breath, we quickly stopped off at a 7-Eleven to buy some chewing gum before going to what was supposed to be an Asian party over at Limbo. Unfortunately, the place was rather small and the crowd didn’t seem like our type, so we decided to head over to Wonder Bar for a drink before calling it a night. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise, as I got a chance to meet some very interesting people there.