How Many TITech Students Does It Takes to Bake Gyouza?

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The answer is three, and the gyouza was still overcooked. That was based on the party at Vashek and Klara’s home. Go was bringing gyouza for us to eat (some of them was even made special for me because I can’t eat meat), but none of us had the experience of baking gyouza. It ended up with Go, Kazue, and Klara experimenting with them, and even though the result wasn’t perfect, it was still good enough to enjoy as we talk about all kind of things.

Actually, if you ask the question somewhere else, the answer could be different. If you happen to be lucky enough and land in my lab, the answer would be one, and the gyouza would be professionally cooked. However, if you’re not, there’s a probability that the answer might reach infinity and all you can get is some USO (unidentified smoking object :-) ).

So, what is the thing that set the difference between my lab, party at Vashek and Klara’s, and ‘somewhere unknown’ that can only produce USO? Well, my lab has several ‘semi-professional’ chef (most of my lab mates are either like cooking or ever work part-time in a restaurant); at Vashek and Klara’s we have some experienced ‘cooker’, but no one experienced in gyouza baking; while ‘somewhere unknown’ doesn’t have any single person experienced in cooking.

I think the message is clear enough: it is often dangerous if you’re daring something that you know nothing about. At least a little bit preparation will do the trick (and escape you from the likelihood of having USO :-) ).

Lift Up of The Day

I got this Captain Hook from Wendy on my first week in Japan (She said that he looks a lot like me :-) ). The captain has a knob on his back, and by turning the knob, he will swing his arm around. Simple thing, but by watching the swing, sometimes it can help me lift my mood up...
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Do you ever feel that your mood influences your day? May be not all of you ever feel that way, but at least I, and some of the people that I know, do. Here’s one story from my lab (at first it might not look directly related to the topic, though...):

One afternoon several weeks ago. The fifth game of Hawks vs. Marines in Pacific division of Japan Baseball league, and the winner would go to the Japan series. Makii (one of my junior), as one of Hawks’ fans, became restless all afternoon and kept on checking the internet for the preview of the game. By the way you saw her at that time, you’d believe that she herself who would play for the game (or, as she then corrected: “as if my own kids who’ll play for the game”). Tan who sits next to her couldn’t help asking whether the game was really that important.

Well, perhaps most of normal people - who have good sense and can cope with their feeling well - would not understand it, and would think that it’s silly to get carried away for something so trifling like that. However, I could understand it very well (which actually implies that I’m not normal and don’t have good sense :-) ). And I’m clearly not alone here. Yanagita (my other lab-pal, who’s like me, a little bit abnormal and doesn’t have good sense :-) ) was supporting Makii by saying, “It’s sure important. It’ll help giving you some spirit in doing research the next day if your team wins”. (By the way, if you’re thinking that it’s only happen in my lab, you’re wrong. You can check it in Harry Potter 5 and see that Harry and Hermione once argued about Harry and Weasley’s twin’s care about the next Quidditch game, and the argument was ended by Hermoine’s saying that at least her happiness didn't depend on Ron's goalkeeping ability).

Back to the topic - and as Yanagita mentioned - some of us do have problem dealing with mood. When your team loses the game, or when your plan doesn’t go as you wish, it can turn you blue and consequently the next thing that you do also tends to go awry (may be that’s why they say “It never rains but it pours”; it’s not the problems themselves that come in group, it’s the mood that makes everything looks wrong). If you happen to be this sort of people, well, I can’t tell you ways to control your mood yourself (since we’re in the same ship :-) ), but fortunately, because our (yes, it’s our) moods are easily influenced, we can use those around us to turn the day around. For us mood is contagious: when the people around us are happy, they tend to lift us up with them, and when they’re feeling down, we tend to feel for them too. So, whenever your mood lets you down, just look around and find someone who can hook you up. It can be your lab mate who’s yell ‘ohayou’ when they enter the room. It can be just a cheerful dove that lost his way into your lab (it did happen once in my lab). It can also be some people from across the street that beaming around despite the cloudy weather. It’s just everything, everywhere.

Anyway, may be it’s better if I scream ‘ohayou’ when I step in my lab today. Someone might need a little bit lift up. Who knows?

Is It Not The Right Time?

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The next research report meeting is looming ahead and you have thrown all of your data in the previous presentation. It means that you have to start get busy or you’ll end up reporting a blank sheet. (Sounds familiar?)

While some might advise that it’s not the right moment to waste time by doing trivial things (such as filling up blog :-) ), I even feel the temptation to write here more than usual. Should I discard the lure and keep strict with my research, or should I follow the feeling? Well, it might look like the choices are left between the two, but if I give it a second glance, actually there’s a third choice (and perhaps also the fourth, the fifth, and the options can still grow): I can do both (or not doing either, or etc, etc - you can make an complete laundry list here).

Sometimes the question is not on the matter of ‘which left to choose’, but more to on ‘what else that can be chosen’...