Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Poor man's Guitar Hero

Check out JamLegend, which gives you the GH experience just with your keyboard. What's especially funny is if you tried to play the songs "jam style" as they suggest :P

Things to fill free time with...

Now that I've crossed the finish line and finished all my degree requirements, I have a lot more time to myself after work, and since I don't want to be a couch potato, I began thinking of things to do.

1) Reading for leisure: I think the last time I read a book for leisure was the last Harry Potter book, and that wasn't really for leisure since I was speed reading through it so that I wouldn't be left behind in all the HP discussions :P Any good suggestions out there?

2) Get my butt in shape: The funniest reminder to me that I need to get back in shape came this past summer when Dragon and I tried to do some suicide runs on the tennis court, and we were pumped up to do this across all four courts. Needless to say, we gave up after only going halfway across one court and just collapsed to the ground with laughter at how pathetically incapable we were -_- The issue with this is that I don't like going to the gym and would rather play sports to stay in shape. I'm thinking of looking into maybe joining a local tennis club or something because I have an itch to get back onto the courts after hearing about KiraTomato's attempts to take over as the number 1 tennis veggie :P

3) Finish video games that I bought: Yeah, I know I said that I wouldn't be a couch potato, but I want to get full value from all these games that I bought!

4) Take a trip on weekends to someplace different: It'll be hard for me to get lost in the Kungmobile, so I figure to try to plan a weekend trip somewhere interesting. Might lead to some interesting blogging and some photography practice.

5) Read up on investing: Might as well put the $$$ I make to work for me.

6) Learn to cook: Frozen foods just don't cut it taste-wise...

I'm sure I'll think of more things to do since I hate being idle and doing nothing...

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Crossing the finish line

As of this morning, I am officially DONE with grad school! :) All the paperwork has been turned in, all fees have been paid, and my dissertation has been submitted. Fortunately, the dissertation submission was done online, so I didn't have to make another trip all the way to Columbus to turn it in myself. And yes, =VGI= has been incorporated into the acknowledgment section, so people who these crazy people are when they read my thesis ;)



But seriously, I want to thank everyone for all their encouragement while I was in school :) You all helped pull me through!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

The End of a Journey

It's hard to believe that back in 2003 that I would have found myself going down the graduate school path towards a Ph.D. (especially when people had asked me before whether I would go for more studies, and I vehemently told them that I wouldn't), but now the path has started to turn its last corner, and I'm coming down the home stretch. My defense is next Tuesday on the 17th, which happens to be St. Patrick's day. Hopefully I won't need that much luck, but a little bit helps :P

The presentation slides are almost done, and I'm debating right now whether I should reference the veggies in the acknowledgment section by their veggie name. I don't think too many people will be looking at my thesis in the future, but apparently my thesis will be archived in variously Ohio Libraries and the Library of Congress, and I just think it would be funny for someone to randomly pull up my thesis, read the acknowledgment section, and wonder "who the heck are these people? Cucumbernator? GrapeofWrath? Catnipped? jOrangeJuice? Kiratomato? ..."

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Support Blue Orca!

My friend Blue Orca entered to win a dream photography assignment to photograph orcas, and she needs your help! She needs to get into the top 20, and right now she's on the bubble, so if you can go here and submit a vote for her, she'd appreciate it :)