2 weeks to the end of a chapter in life (almost)

I'm exactly 2 weeks away from defending my PhD thesis. It's really crunch time now, and I'm resisting the urge to freak out because there's still so much to do. First on my list: get this presentation of mine into a much better shape! Following closely in second place: finish writing chapter 5 of the thesis!!! I've already decided that science writing is not my thing :P I'm really a more hands-on kind of person. I'm happiest doing experiments and dissecting what the results mean. Writing it up? Not so keen. Ah well, it's all part of the package, right?

So the thesis defense is really a platform for me to show the world what I've done with these past 6 years of my life. And to thank the people that helped me along the way. And really, there's only a very small chance of me failing and having to redo it (*push scary thought out of head*). But it's still a really scary thing to do. Public speaking plus being expected to know every single thing about my topic = scary shit. I think I need to start mustering up my confidence now, since that's the thing I lack most.

Enough venting for now. Back to work. JIA YOU!!!

Officially Mrs Wong

I'm a married woman now! haha... sounds funny to say that. Somehow being married makes me sound older by default. A friend recently said that I have a married look now. I don't even know what that means. Everyone knows that the pregnant look is glowing and happy. A married look? Radiant and happy? Or huang2 lian3 po2 (yellow-faced old lady)? I guess it depends how long post-wedding it is.

The wedding was wonderful, everyone had a good time, and I was not a bridezilla. I'm so thankful to have good friends and family help me deal with the details on the day itself so I could really enjoy the party (well, other than the part where I ran into the house to write a check for the caterers). The weather was great and Stanford even won a football game against Washington U on home turf during the wedding (we could hear the cheers and airhorns during our vows). I guess those are good omens... haha :)

The post-wedding trip to Sonoma and Napa for wine tasting was enjoyable, though hubby and I couldn't really have our own time yet, since my family and family friends were traveling with us, and I was doing the driving. It was still good fun :)

The real honeymoon started when we flew off to London. Hubby bought premium economy seats on Virgin Atlantic, so we had a good time drinking champagne and alcohol, eating better food (I think), and watching the wide array of movies. I couldn't sleep much even though we had more seat space (not that it matters much to me).

We had a good time in London, meeting friends for lunch at a pub near Hampstead Heath, and also traveling around England for a week. Hubby has more details on his blog, which he "kope"-d from my emails to my family. US visa renewal also went fine despite a bit of excitement regarding getting my passport back by courier service in time for my return flight.

All-in-all, a crazy month of pre-wedding activity, traveling, hanging out with friends and family, eating lots of good food, and spending precious time with my beloved hubby. Now it's back to reality and thesis writing. And the Long Distance Relationship status resumes. Well, at least the Californian weather is good :P

7 days!

Exactly one week to the wedding! Woohoo! The parents fly in today from Singapore via Tokyo. I decided to wake up a little earlier today to get my car washed and go into lab a bit to do some writing. I've been feeling guilty about neglecting my writing to do wedding planning and planning fun activities for my parents, but I think it's understandable that my priorities are a little skewed right now. I only see my parents on average once or twice a year, so I should spend time with them.

Last night I was busy cleaning the apartment and doing my laundry so that my mum doesn't start nagging about the mess; I felt like a domestic helper. I cleaned the bathroom and kitchen floors and surfaces, vacuumed the carpets, rearranged boxes/bags/papers to make more space, and washed my bed linens and clothes. It was quite a good workout!

But still, I'm super excited that they're arriving, and that we'll be able to spend time doing fun stuff together. On the list of activities: Dim sum, tea party, Stanford Golf Course, shopping, preparing favours for the wedding guests, visiting Filoli Garden & House, buying flowers in SF etc etc. Yay!

Wallace and my bro arrive in 5 days... can't wait!

11 days!

I really should be writing my paper now, since I left lab to come home to "write" and nurse my sick body into better health before the wedding. But I'll just blog a little first ;)

It's only 11 days to the wedding, 4 days before my parents arrive, 9 days before my brother and W arrives, and 10 days before my FMIL arrives! I have a stack of wedding and visa renewals to-dos on my table, but I've to focus on writing this paper so that I can give my boss something decent on Thursday :P

The girls YN and XH threw a wonderful bachelorette party in SF this weekend. A room at the Marriot, pre-dinner martinis at The View on the 39th floor, drunkenly making our way to dinner at First Crush, eating chatting drinking with 7 wonderful girls, getting a flashing tiara and pink feather boa, salsa-ing the night away and drinking sangria at Cafe Cocomo, dodging sketchy guys at the dance floor at Harry Denton's Starlight Room, getting take-out supper at 2am at Lori's Diner, drunkenly eating supper in the room and soaking my sore feet in the foot spa, waking up at 10am to use the hotel's pool, jacuzzi, steam room and sauna, and finally getting lunch at a Thai noodle place. It was great :)

My sore throat was "cured" by the alcohol but I'm still left with a runny nose and iffy stomach, so it's better for me to stay home. Ahh... I guess I should get cracking on that paper now...

More updates in the next few days! So excited :)

26 days!

26 days to the wedding! Let's see how long I keep up with my pre-wedding blog posts :)

A new pet peeve (or two):
1) Lab mates (well, more like a particular one) who have their current boss/Professor as their Facebook friend. Yes, my boss has a Facebook account too but I will only add her when I've graduated and left Stanford.
2) Said labmate who updates her facebook status to say that she is in lab or will be in lab on a weekend/holiday/ungodly hour. Even if she is not. And I can attest to that because I've been IN lab on Labor Day (today) since 11:30am to 7:30pm. So unless she was here from 10+am (status update time) for an hour and left before I came in, or is planning to come in tonight, then she was NOT IN LAB. Also, being in lab for one hour does not count as being in lab. Nor warrant a Facebook status update.

Anyway, maybe I'm just bitter that I don't have the courage to add my prof as a Facebook friend and use my status updates to suck up to her. I still think it's too tacky. And if our professors really spend that much time on Facebook and use it to check on their students, I'd be pretty worried about the state of academia.

I guess I had a fairly productive day since I did wedding preparation stuff and also cleared my email inbox of scientific paper updates, and downloaded/archived/printed a bunch of journal papers. Now I just have to read them :P But first, time to go home and have dinner!

29 days!

It's only 29 more days to the wedding! How time flies. I have most things planned out already, so I'm not too worried or anxious. Maybe when it gets closer to the date I'll be a little bit more frazzled... hopefully not too much. I'm mostly excited to be seeing W and my family, and the wedding will probably feel like a gathering of family and friends. At least that's how I'm envisioning it :)

Anyway, I haven't really been updating my blog. Mostly just lazy and since I do most of my reflecting/talking over webcam/email/msn with the family and the boy, it seems like a chore to repeat it on the blog. Maybe I should just post random thoughts here instead.

Ok then, random thought #1:
I was biking home from lab around 7:45pm yesterday and the sun had just set. The sky was a wonderful purple-blue with tinges of salmon pink, but the most gorgeous part was the bright full moon hanging low in the sky. Since I was biking eastward, the moon was right in front of me. The Stanford campus looked quite magical and there were so many points in my journey where I thought, "This would make a good picture". The two nicest points was when the moon was framed by the trees and the red Clark Center (the only thing spoiling the picture was the everlasting construction on the sidewalk), and when I was biking down Serra Mall with the moon hanging between the sand-coloured Main Quad buildings and Hoover tower on the right, and the open space that is the Oval on the left.
As I was enjoying this scene and biking in the perfect summer evening weather, it occurred to me that it was the 7th lunar month. And a full moon means it's the 15th. And the 15th day of the 7th month is supposed to be when the gates to hell are fully opened right? Ahh... interesting contrast of thoughts. But I didn't let it spoil my appreciation of the scenery, because my next thought was that my wedding was in exactly one month (happy thoughts). Will the moon be as round and beautiful on my wedding day? I hope so :)

Mission "healthy lifestyle"

I'm bringing one of my New Year's resolutions to a new level. At the beginning of the year I had resolved to "stay healthy" (i.e. eat healthily, exercise more, sleep more). The eating healthily part hasn't been a problem, since I don't have many bad eating habits (thanks, ma!). I've just had to curb some sugary/salty snack attacks, and I'm phasing out the snacks from my apartment (I'm still slowly munching on those CNY snacks!). I've stocked the fridge with more fruit, vegetables, low fat milk and yogurt. And for lab, I have dried fruit, mixed nuts, tea bags and some Taiwanese cereal/green tea sachets stashed in my drawer as mid-morning/afternoon snacks.

But the latest addition to my "stay healthy" plan is jogging. I've never really liked jogging because I don't like going round the track (reminds me of the NAPFA 2.4km run), and spending more than 30min on a treadmill or elliptical surrounded by sweaty people has never really appealed to me. I've attempted jogging outdoors a few times, both in Singapore (too hot!) and London (too cold!), but I never stuck with it. Jogging outdoors in the Bay Area is much much better, temperature-wise and scenery-wise. I've walked/jogged Stanford's famous Dish hike maybe 3-4 times since I've been here in Fall 2005, which sadly averages to less than once a year. Mostly I'm turned off by the jog from my apartment to the entrance, since it's a slight uphill and I've choked on pollen/dust more than once on that trail.

But two weekends ago, I put on my running shoes and jogged to the Dish, around the undulating Dish trail and back in 1h 15min (6.2 miles, 10km). It was a gorgeous Saturday after weeks of cold and rain, so I was determined to not waste the wonderful weather. I felt so accomplished after the run. And despite hurting for the next 4 days, I decided to go jogging again the following Sunday. Again there was lovely weather, but I decided to scale back a bit and ran just 3 miles (about 5km) just around campus. It was my first time jogging around Stanford's Campus Drive (it makes a 4-mile loop around the main campus) and it didn't feel so bad. I must have been on a runner's high for the past week, because I jogged again this Tuesday and Thursday evening (3 miles and 3.5 miles respectively). I'm aiming to complete the whole loop soon. I hope to keep this jogging schedule for next week, but it'll probably have to change to just a weekend run once my dance practices resume on Tue and Thu nights in April (this week is finals week and next week is Spring break, so dance practices have been cancelled). But I dare say I like jogging now. It gives me a chance to be alone in the outdoors, not be distracted by email/internet/work, and lets me challenge myself in a different way. Not to mention it will help me keep fit and toned for my wedding - a strong motivator :)