-- a summary of the year taken from journals 48, 49, and 50

19 Jan :: She said the survival rate for that situation would be in the single digits because he [Monty] has a pre-existing valve condition, etc.

11 Feb :: I still remember May and I would do "concerts" to the songs on that [Whitney Houston] CD Daddy had.

29 Mar :: From the first class I also learned that a marriage between a Catholic and an unbaptized person isn't recognized by the Catholic Church.

11 Apr :: Amara "learned" waving (hello and goodbye).

28 May :: I thought I should write something about the wedding but I was too busy this weekend and honestly even now that I have a spare moment I'm not quite sure what to say about it.

05 Jun :: We have barely any furniture.

19 Jul :: Ten years later I'm still trying to change lanes into other cars.

01 Aug :: Edmond Yuan born at 9:30a

17 Sep :: And DinTaiFung three times.

31 Oct :: Sally Nguyen born 3:31a: 5 lbs, 19.5"

22 Nov :: Monday I started thawing the 9.2 lb. turkey.

25 Dec :: Christmas with the Whites.

Wow, it's been a crazy year. Way more exciting than 2011...

I had this idea that I wanted to write some advice for future Caltech students, things that I learned the "hard way" so to speak. But I looked around on the internet and there doesn't really seem to be a demand for such things. I guess most people who went to Tech were prepared, unlike me. And there are some forum topics on CollegeConfidential for current students who have specific questions on classes and majors and such.

So I guess I just didn't do my homework properly, or at all really. Seems like the story of my life. I never seem to be prepared for the things I attempt to do. *facepalm*

I'm reading a book titled Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century... which sounds really boring, but has actually been surprisingly enlightening. For someone who doesn't know (or rather, retain) much regarding history, it's been pretty educational.

Every time I look at the cover of this book and recall the title, my brain tries to run away. But when I force myself to sit down and open the page to my bookmark, I always enjoy it, to my surprise.

I admit, like most of the "educational" non-fiction books I read, it is extremely repetitive. Bugs the heck out of me. But I'm taking this book in such small doses because of the revulsion the title gives me that it actually hasn't bothered me that much, even though I can recognize practically whole paragraphs that are pretty much just repeated. -.-;;

It's taking me a long long time to get through this, given the way I'm hacking away at it. But I'm hopeful that it'll move past WWII soon and touch on other topics.

I like to have one book of poetry on my "currently reading" list at any given time. Mostly because it's a change of pace, but also because poetry can usually be a one or two page thing that you can read quickly and then fall asleep thinking about. I've never stayed up until 2a because I really needed to finish that book of poetry.

Usually I like the images and word play in poetry. However, the poems in "Cloud of Ink" are maybe a little too abstract for me? The poet uses a lot of scientific and mathematical words, which usually tickles my fancy, but in this case has almost always fallen flat. I don't know if it's something in me that's changed or something about this collection. *shrug*

I'm not quite finished with the whole book yet though, so maybe there can still be a pleasant surprise for me.

So last year, I came across a really easy recipe for "pumpkin muffins." (Okay, I just searched on Google for the original page I saw, and I think it was this: Easy Pumpkin Muffins).

The recipe involves
- a can of pumpkin puree (that you normally use to make pumpkin pie)
- a box of yellow cake mix (any brand, I assume)
- spices.

Around Halloween this year, I made a batch. I used 2 teaspoons of "Pumpkin Pie Spice" (by McCormick) instead of recipe's combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. The back of the spice jar says it includes cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice, so...yeah.
Bake at 350F for 20-25 minutes. It makes your apartment smell really good. I recommend baking them on the longer side because they do end up a bit... over-moist?

Today, I'm making it in a loaf pan instead. I have no idea how it'll turn out. I set my timer for half an hour. XD

Oh yeah, and Bowen's always saying the cooking posts need pictures, so I'll try to remember to do that too.

[edit] Added 10 more minutes in the oven. The loaf pan may not have been a good idea, because the dough is not very stiff after it's baked, so it's hard to serve? I had to basically dig it out of the pan in crumbles.
But here's a picture:

So I was chatting with my sister today and she mentioned that her butter wasn't soft enough. When I asked her what she was making, she sent me this link: Mint Chocolate Candy Cane Cake.

It reminded me of when I was at Tech and when the holidays rolled around, we would go to Coldstone and get the "Mint-night Snack" shake, which had the seasonal dark chocolate peppermint ice cream blended with Oreos. Yum! It tasted like a blended Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookie, actually not very peppermint-y (mint mint vs candycane mint). Erin (White) and I were in love with the stuff.

And it also made me think about how Torrey doesn't love sweets in general, but we used to go to Coldstone for ice cream or shakes and he would get that cake batter shake. I think it had graham cracker crust in it or something.

Anyway, the whole Coldstone thing makes me think of Tech. Erin, Torrey, Rene, Aimee, Bill...
which makes me think of other places and people: Corner Bakery and Tanya, Robbie and Akshay being silly at Denny's, Svenge blasting "Sound of Silence" through my wall...

Good memories, honestly. I don't have that many negative memories of Caltech, which is surprising given my general trend of memory-keeping.

But yes. Chocolate and peppermint. Holidays. Warm memories.

Hope everyone is well. :*

So I sort of created a queue of future posts for this book-a-week thing, and then I forgot about it since I've pretty much fallen off all my other New Year's resolutions too. But I actually did read a few more books, I just didn't want to have to use them as my book count. But I noticed today that this week is actually empty, so I thought I'd fill it in quickly with the last "The Mortal Instruments" book that I read, which is City of Fallen Angels, book 4 in the series.

So the series is actually getting kind of...used up? The storyline is becoming a soap opera, and what reviewers had said about the first book (that it's predictable and the characters have been done, etc.) is really really starting to come out and bother me. I have a copy of book 5 on my computer right now, but I think it's saying something that even though I read the first four books straight through, at the end of City of Fallen Angels I was actually loathe to start City of Lost Souls (book 5). And I think there's actually a sixth book that's supposed to be coming out soon that wraps up the series?

So lately, because of the hype about the upcoming movie, there has been an explosion of edits/gifs/quotations from Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones on my Tumblr dashboard. So I finally got off my lazy butt and located a copy of the book. There's one blog that I follow in particular which has recommended several books in the past which I have read and enjoyed: Angelfall, Delirium, The Fault in Our Stars.

City of Bones is the first in a series, of which the Tumblr-rec actually told me through PM that they couldn't really get into until the second or third book. But I did enjoy book 1 and had the foresight to locate a copy of the other books in the series before starting. (I hate waiting for the next book when I get into a series's story.)

The weirdest thing about it is that even though none of the story felt particularly familiar, when I got to the major plot twist, that seemed familiar. I wonder if I read a clip of the story somewhere else? But who would go around posting just the plot twist to the public? Seems like a jerk move. But that section seemed...so familiar.

Anyway, one annoying thing about reading City of Bones is that with all the movie stuff I couldn't get certain faces out of my mind. And so I just read the whole thing with the shadow of a movie looming overhead. Clary was Lily Collins of course, but oddly Hodge was the new Dumbledore in my mind (just re-watched Half-Blood Prince recently), and Luke was Alaric from "The Vampire Diaries" (weirdly, there was another character in the book named Alaric, who was connected with Luke, so that just strengthened the image). I think I had an actor in mind for Simon too but his face has faded, so oh well.

More generally, City of Bones sits partway between Angelfall and "The Dresden Files." It has a lot of magical/myth-y stuff, and the premise is that "all the myths are true." And then the main band of characters are demonhunters (Shadowhunters is what they call themselves). Only Clare has mixed in the myth of nephilim as well, which is what reminded me of Angelfall.