This was a Triumph!

At 4:30 pm EST today, I passed most likely the second to last exam of my academic career: The Doctorate Candidacy exam. It's been a long road in graduate school with its up and downs, and there were times when I thought of quitting, but with the encouragement of family and friends, I stuck with it, and now I'm another step closer to finishing up.

Time to hit up research again and get that thesis going...

Blizzard '08

When I went to sleep the night before, I had no idea that there was an impending snow storm coming, so I was really surprised to wake up the next morning to see almost a foot of snow on the ground through my window.  The snow wasn't really coming down hard, and the flakes weren't that big, but the the snow just kept on coming at a steady pace and continued to accumulate throughout the day till maybe about 4:30 pm in the afternoon.  The blustery wind also made the sight quite a bit more intimidating to watch through the window.  Strangely enough, once the snow stopped, the sun came out and the sky cleared pretty quickly, so it was actually quite nice to step outside after the snow passed.

For some reason that morning, I foolishly thought about driving out to get some groceries, but after seeing the 2 and a half foot mound of snow behind the Kungmobile, I turned around and went back inside...

The copious amount of snow reminded me of a blizzard back when I was in high school.  Not only was there 3 feet of snow on the ground, but Mother Nature decided to make the situation extra difficult with a 1 inch layer of freezing rain on top!  Needless to say, my brother and I had that entire week off from school, but we had the time of our lives playing and sledding on the ice (once we dug out of our house).  It was like the Jade Sea in Guild wars, except it was all white :)

Big Red Leap

While I was at Cornell, there wasn't much to cheer about in terms of sports like here in Ohio State (ok, people cheered for hockey, but the team never seemed to be as good as people made it out to be :P), so I was pleasantly surprised to read on the ticketer on the bottom of the ESPN channel this morning that the Big Red basketball team is the first team to punch a ticket to the Men's NCAA tournament by having a perfect record (so far) in the Ivy League conference. I remember back in the day when I could go to a basketball game for free and there were like 10 people in the stands, but that's not the case this year. It'll be interesting to see what seed they get in the tournament, and I'll be rooting for them to win at least one round :)

This year's American Idol contestants are lucky...

that this girl isn't competiting in the competition...



Seriously...how does a little asian girl sing like that...

The Next Evolution of Dun x 5

I found it pretty funny you can sit people on the plane wings and shoot people down :P

Lunar Eclipse

I managed to capture some so-so pictures of the lunar eclipse at around 10:30 PM EST at the back of my apartment.  Thanks to Dragon with the camera stand he got me for Christmas, I could set the exposure a bit longer to capture more of the light.

Conan vs Stewart vs Colbert

I haven't watched any of the three shows lately, but it looks like with the writer's strike continuing, they've resorted to violence to keep viewers watching :P