Weekly Summary

I noticed that I'm coming back and write on a weekly basis. That's probably the largest difference between life as a graduate student and that of a professional. Weekend use to mean little when everyday feels like weekend and yet weekend feels like weekday. Graduate student aren't supposed to break their week down to working time and rest time. :-)

Every week in New York is full of changes and surprises. The biggest change this week--I moved from my luxurious 72 street apartment 50 block west to the current place near columbia (you do the math). New roomies are from TaiWan. They are as soft spoken as many other girls from TW. We had dinner together on the day of my arrival. We became friends after the meal.

Then there's the surprises during the week. I met the head of the muni strategy group and had great talk with him. I got in contact with Leanne, my SFI buddy now teaching at Queens. Then I saw Sriram and Anna at the MSCF cocktail party...

On the family side, I got the unexpected msg from my old buddy when I was a girl that my parents caught flu and she saw them in the local hospital. Called right away and felt really bad that none of me and my sis was arround when they need us. On the other hand, the day after, when they couldn't reach me by IM or phone call or Ed, they went into panic and thought that I was kidnapped and wanted to call the NY police from their home in China! Such is the kind of love that is truely unconditional.

Ed and I went through some difficult times. Everytime, we revisited the holygrail of marriage blues. In the heat of any argument, we couldn't spare the harsh words to gain the upper wind of it. We have much to learn and adapt.

Ed is moving back to Hartford today. We had precious memories in the Brookville apartment that he is leaving. We felt like a real family when we lived there and do all those things that couples do together. I was cooking a lot and loved it. Ed took me for some most exotic trips in and around the town. We watched drive-in movie in the "moonlite" theater in our comfie SUV, and we went to see the philly predicting the winter. Those were sweet days.

I don't know what is ahead of us as the long distance continue. I know to a large entend I have to change to make it work. Will I achieve this?

Test Drive the Book

There are many reviews about the macbook now. This is my Windows convert's version after less than a day's experience.
The mac keyboard feels great. I had been long endulged by the acclaimed thinkpad keyboard, never knew that mac keyboard feels even better.
The laptop tend to over heat, not suitable for long hours lapsitting on a hot summer day. I have to move it arround a bit to spread the heat.
The display is unbelievable. Things looks prettier on this screen.
Installing software on a mac is not as hard as I thought, it's actually straightforward.
iSight definately make the whole video integration perfect.
Havn't figure out how to do voice conferencing over yahoo yet. Yahoo Messenger for Mac seems to look dumber. No tabs, huge fonts, and voice malfunction.
Some of the shortcut in windows actually have their twin brothers in Mac. Simply substitute ctrol to the apple key, you are ready to fly.
The mac is preloaded with python and emacs. How cool is that?
Havn't really tried the iphoto and iDvd yet. My RAR zipped file can not be extracted here without some effort. Still hunting for the correct package to do it now.
The battery life is noticably longer than my tablet.
The waken up process is amazing in a mac, and much painful on the tablet.
All in all, I'm super pleased with the self indulging spending....//grin.

iSplurrrrge

Yesterday I joined the "sex and the city" on location tour. It wasn't as exciting as the "Film and Movie New York City Tour" that I took with Ed. Partially because I was a lonely bird on the bus. The tidbits of behind the scene story was still interesting. Like Kim Cattrall was born in Canada and came to New York to study theater at the age of 16, Sara JP found out that she was pregnant when she played "Joy for two for one". The visit to the "pleasure chest" was a bit of a shocker. "The rabit" was at a special price for us from the "sex bus". I picked out a sexy postcard as a souvenir, its actually very cute. The tour itself was less than spectacular, that's why after getting off the bus on fifth and 59th, I was not in a hurry to find the subway and head back.

A huge building with an apple sign strike my attention right at the corner of fifth, opposite the Pulizer Fountain (for those of you not familiar with the fountain, its is the one behind the openining credit of Friends). Following the spiral staircase down the glassdoor of apple, I was amazed at the size and "cool" environment created there. This is the biggest apple store I have ever visited! (as it later turn out, it's brand new, opened only 6 weeks).

I had long contemplated the idea of trying my hand on an apple. Last time when I couldn't decide upon a "thinkpad tablet" or "macbook pro", fear of the unknown made Ed and I decided to get a tablet. I'm glad that we didn't get the "pro" at the time, as it turned out, the new "macbook" is much more affordable and just as sleek. The educational discount plus the nano printer sweetener make the deal almost irresistable. Knowing that I have a big of a thing for gadget, Ed didn't try to persuade me from such a splurge. Thus, on Jul 8th, I took home my first apple laptop, a macbook (white) with 2G processor. The 4th computer and 3rd laptop I now own.

Introducing, my sweet macbook.....