There was a party at our place

Mum put up a big party for 16 people yesterday. She cooked 3 kinds of fish: steamed fish, soy sauce fish, and fish pieces. She also made two soups, a roast duck, and some other meat dishes. Her guests brought rice noodle, Chinese vegetable dishes, a roast chicken, and dad's friend came to make Chinese bread at our place. It must have been fun for them to entertain so many people, and there was drinking, talking and laughing. I am glad that mum and dad had a good time.
I just discovered that I have made a mistake in my experiment. This time I am going to ask someone before I start my experiment to prevent error and save time and money. Richard and I went for lunchtime walk yesterday, but I had to leave very quickly. It was so hot, and I had trouble walking fast. My legs are still not working properly from the accident. I decided not to walk to Richard's work in the afternoon because my legs were hurting.
Erin, Kelly and Natalia were also there. Natalia is from Brazil, she's doing her masters there and have come over to visit her mother. She works in the chocolate factory! Fantastic.
I should talk with Fuzzy. I have no idea about how she's doing because she leaves home before I go to work, and is already asleep when I get home.
I wrote to Jo and Suk, both overseas. I hope Suk's India trip is going well, haven't heard from her at all. I haven't heard from Jo, either, but I have receive her Christmas card kind of late. It's a cute green card. I have a feeling that she will not come back very often to New Zealand because her life is in Scotland now, and I know she will miss her life here. It's difficult to leave a beautiful country like New Zealand, and when it's the place you were born, it's even harder.
Mike came to visit. Richard and I went to BK with him.
I am daydreaming about my future, and it's filled with flowers for some reason, haha.

Sorbet

Depends on what kind of fruit is in season, you can make strawberry sorbet or lemon sorbet. You can add all sorts of berries, lemon, and mango to the mix.
Dissolve half a cup of brown sugar in 1 cup of water, and boil the sugar water until all sugar are melted. Add half a cup lemon juice, and a cup of fruit. Mix the solution and put this in a shallow dish, and refrigerate until the liquid mixture is solidified.
Beat two egg white with the harden mixture until everything is mixed. Serve with your favourite fruit, and this can be kept in the fridge for a few days. You can also make green tea sorbet if you have green tea powder.

My beef stroganoff recipe

Beef schnitzel 250-500g
Onion
Two tomatoes
Tomato sauce
Sour cream 250g
Seven mushroom
Serves 2
Defrost and cut beef schnitzel into strips. Chop onion, tomatoes and mushroom into small chunks. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil, and fry onion first, then add the meat and cook until the meat colour changed from red to brown. Add tomatoes and cook for two minutes, then add choppe. Turn the heat down and add tomato sauce and cream, mixing the meat and the vegetables all the time. Serve with rice.

The Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift

Richard and I watched this movie last night. The Fast and Furious franchise continues to showcase fast car, hot girls, and boys and girls who get the thrill out of speed.

I love driving. I don't even have a pimped up car, but I love driving on a country road in New Zealand, the scenery is great, I can go fast, and you don't have to worry about anything.

New Zealand has a speed limit of 100 km/hr, and to be honest, we don't have good quality European car or road that's good enough for some serious fast driving. My boss who had moved away said that in Dubai you can drive up to 160km/hr, and when you take a driver license test, you have to maneuver your car at that speed. Fair enough. If you want to drive that fast, you have to know what to do in an emergency and you should practice driving at that speed to learn how to control the car.

Sean is a troubled teenager living with his mother. He moved around a lot because he's a boy racer. His mum had enough of him so she sends him to live with his father in Tokyo, a naval officer living in a small house in the big city.

Welcome to Tokyo. Culture shock is spelled out with wearing slippers in classroom and strange seafood lunches to Sean. These are not the hardest thing to get used too, though. Racing in carparks, on the windy mountain road, or in the fishing harbour, you have to use a new style of driving: drift, which Sean doesn't know in the beginning.

Han took him under his wing and teaches him how to control the car in tight corners, even the fishermen know that he can't drift! The American jockeys are replaced by Japanese gangster kids, and blonde bombshells are substituted by fallen angels. Teenagers spend their time modifying their car for racing, finding thrill in speed in a place where space is gold. They don't want to live a routine life like all the other people, they want to go fast when they are young and live life to the full. This movie is about people who have potential to do the right thing, to focus their energy on something that doesn't have to be bad. I think that people who likes to race should be trained as professional drivers, and perhaps that's too mainstream. Maybe they just don't like rules. However, if you want to drive a fast car, then why don't you drive a formula one? If you like adventure, why don't you get trained as a soldier? These professions are there for people who seek danger.

I think I am little bit too old for fast car, but I am not going to give up my little gray Toyota Corona. It's not very fast, but if you want to drive it, you can drive it well.

To all the car lovers out there: drive safe and enjoy.

Shortage of oil, Aisan style

Dad told us that there's a shortage of cooking oil in Malaysia and we are planning on getting some cooking oil in our emergency stock, after we have stocked up rice from Australia a while ago. It was a great move because Australia had a pretty bad flood this year and with 70 kg of rice, we don't have to worry about the hiking rice price this year. I am just wondering whether other people know about this news and are doing something about it? We can be seened as some lunatic trying to buy lots of oil next the few weeks, but when the price of cooking oil goes up in New Zealand, we will be well prepared. I just hope it won't go up, though.

Asian countries are preparing for the upcoming Lunar New Year in February so cooking oil price is going up, and the subsidized oil is exported to foreign countries so people can't buy them easily in Malaysia. When you try to control the economy, the economy can come back and bite you.

It's unpleasant to see the petrol price rise, too, but you can't store petrol. Don't try to buy lots of petrol because it's so volatile. I guess the best way to save money is either drive a car with a smaller tank, ride a motorcycle or don't drive at all. The greener alternatives of walking, taking a bus, ride a bicycle, or even rollerblading to work are all good ideas, and will certainly give you a more shapely body in the summer. Also, if you ride a motorcycle, you will look very cool indeed.

Therefore, I will put a motorbike picture here for you all to see.

Car trouble

My little gray car is out of action today because the garage is replacing its suspension, and I don't know what they will do to fix the signal light. Dad's Lucida Estima has trouble starting this morning so we took the other gray Toyota Corona to work. Fuzzy and I live so far away from work that we have to be dropped off or drive otherwise we won't reach our destination on time. It's not energy efficient to drive everyday, but that's the price you have to pay if you live far away from work.
Richard picked me up on his motorbike yesterday and it was drizzling. Ah, I felt so good because the rain had finally come to Hamilton, but it was still very stuffy and warm in the afternoon. I thought the rain will make the atmosphere better, but that's not to be. I am glad that I work in an air conditioned lab.
My experiment went fine, but the yield was low so I have to repeat the procedure today. Are we having a meeting? I have no idea, and noone is at work yet so I can't ask anybody.
People are coming back from their Christmas and New Year holiday gradually, some are coming back at the end of this week, and some are coming back next week, and some lucky ones are coming back in February! I think you better enjoy the sun while it last, and take as much holiday as you can because life is for living, not for working.
I sincerely hope that we will be able to sort out our car soon because I miss driving my own car. You have the freedom to go places when you want to, and sometimes you can't do that when you don't have a car. You can't go to the bank without asking other people to take you. You can't do grocery shopping. You can't get to work.
I better start my experiment and finish early today. There's endless possibilities now that the procedure worked. I am very happy.

Something that I'd rather forget

The fiasco at the bank will be the thing that I'd rather forget. I am not sure whether I should ask mum to give me some money back because I have overpaid her, it will have to wait a while since I didn't get the chance to talk to her this morning.
Work went pretty well, my boss almost forgot to add one ingredient last night and I remembered it. It's going to work this time! I hope that this experiment will go better than the one that we did last year so we can go to the next step in the experiment. If this experiment doesn't work, I will have to repeat it again and try another approach to increase the yield.
Richard made me dinner last night, and he won't have much food left to cook this week. We have to do some grocery shopping today or tomorrow. Dad is going to send my gray car to Warrant of Fitness today at 1 o'clock in the afternoon so I will be able to drive my car again tomorrow. Yay! However, I like riding with Richard on his bike. It's so cool. I don't care if it rains because it will be cooler. It's been so hot lately, and some rain is appreciated.
We played world of warcraft after dinner. I am now a Level 25 Human Mage, still doing lots of quests so I can gain experience. I also trained in cooking last night, making lots of crab pie and other seafood. The WoW character reflects the real life me, I really love cooking.
Carole showed us the skirt she croqueted over the summer holiday. It's really pretty with purple, pink and blue threads, also a nice flowery tie on the top. Her daughter Brooke also wants one. I better make something nice and finish it for a change. The problem with my project is that I also start one and never finishes it! I get very enthusiastic then lose interest and start doing something else quickly, which is not a good trait.
I wonder what Fuzzy is doing. She's working today. I hope she's writing her report so she won't have to rush to the finish line in the near future.

First day back to work

I couldn't get on blogger at home last night so I didn't blog. Today is the first day back to work and I've already been very busy sorting out unfinished business from last year and new experiment preparation for the next few days.
Richard came and pick me up in Skyline. Dad is going to help me sort out the Warrant of Fitness for my gray car, but that may take a few days so meanwhile I will ask Richard to take me to work on his bike.
It's so hot that you can't wear just short sleeve top anymore, you have to wear tops without sleeves. You have to wear shorts and sandals as well, otherwise your feet are too hot. I hope it will rain soon otherwise it's just going to be very stuffy. However, summer is normally quite dry so it doesn't rain very often.
Richard put up his new drawers yesterday and they look very pretty and tidy. His things can be stacked up nicely and I hope a clean room will prevent his asthma attacks and my itchy eyes.
I better sort out this DNA sequencing order form and find more things to do.