Today was White Day and Pi Day, but I didn’t eat white chocolates or pie.  Instead I was waiting in line for day-of tickets for the otherwise sold out POLYSICS show at the Budokan (which can seat 14000 people).  I really wanted to see this show because I keep missing chances to see them live, and because Kayo is my favorite member, and it would be her last concert with them.

It was SO worth the wait.  Being in line seemed like no issue because the crowd was amazing.  Almost everyone was wearing some kind of orange- tights, shoes, hats, or in the case of the girl right next to me, perfectly normally dressed but with orange nail polish with perfectly painted stylized black “P”s on a few random fingers.  And of course, orange boiler suits.  There were mini (5 years old) and micro (baby) POLYSICS in orange boiler suits. Kids in Japan are always SO cute and make me feel like making babies soon, but these children were BEYOND just normal cute.  Gah!  And as for boiler suits on adults, it would be a lie if I said that they don’t do a thing or two for me.

The concert itself was incredible.  I’ve been to my share of concerts but no one I’ve seen has ever put on a show in the way that POLYSICS did.  The energy was contagious and endless- I was screaming and jumping up and down and dancing but just got more excited over time rather than tired.  The lighting and effects were perfect (psychedelic background animations, explosions of glitter and balloons).  Even the few of their songs that I wasn’t so fond of became amazing live.  I read in an interview that they’ve never played in such a large venue just by themselves, but I wouldn’t have guessed it.  They had such good chemistry with the whole crowd– the interaction was so natural and easy.

Kayo was so freaking cute.  She led the crowd in little hand dances, played the recorder and the keytar, and at one point she broke out golden pom poms.  Hiro was INSANE in a great way.

It was bittersweet at the end.  There were 3 rounds of encores.  Kayo announced “Thank you for everything up until now.  I love POLYSICS,” in a robot voice.  Everyone was screaming her name, and the group gave her a bouquet of flowers, and she bowed so properly.  Even though I’ve only been a fan for about a year, I almost felt teary about all of it.

What a day!  Best wishes Kayo, we love you, and you will be so missed!

When I was in the 2nd grade, my best friend and I would have sleepover parties in which we played with Barbies.  We’d have Barbie beauty pageants which mostly were contests of creative styling as all the Barbies were identical in face and body.  Then once, when we asked her dad to be a judge, he asked science questions for the interview portion and the pageant slowly evolved into a science bowl, which if I recall correctly, we were just as excited about.

It’s an oft mentioned topic among feminists and women in the sciences, but I can’t give you much information about how Barbies affect girls’ self image.  Even though I had Barbies growing up and played with them regularly (as described above or as characters in whatever stories I was making up) I’ve never even in my lowest self esteem moments wished I were more blonde, busty, or hourglass-waisted.  I’ve always seen Barbies as representing a certain kind of beauty, among the many kinds of beauty that exist among people.

So when my friend told me to vote online for Barbie’s next career, of course I did!  And of course I voted for computer engineer.  But I was doubtful of how it would be done.  Unlike, say, for a microbiologist, it’s harder to think of props.  A computer?  But everyone uses one.  What’s a computer engineer’s uniform?  Would she wear sweatpants and coffee stained tshirts?

And though yes, Computer Engineer Barbie won (no surprise because it was an online contest) it’s a bit as I feared it would be.  It’s like the time our CS department wanted to start a program for incoming fresh-women and asked one of my friends for advice, dead seriously, “Should we include a shopping trip?”  Apparently Mattel even worked closely with the president of the Soceity for Women Engineers when designing Barbie’s outfit.  So how come Barbie looks like she works as an IT Helpdesk person instead of looking like she just wrote her own video game?  Maybe it’s that terrible bluetooth headset.  Maybe it’s the sparklypants.  Maybe it’s that she’s smiling a little too widely.

So I tried my hand at designing a computer engineer Barbie.  I tried to draw it in the 80’s Barbie art style.  My own version comes with a soldering gun, wire cutters, and a crimper.  She wears a nerdy t-shirt (other contenders were “read the f*cking manual”, “ctrl-z”, and my own favorite “Six Chicks”).  Most importantly, this Barbie looks like she’s thinking.  I’d buy this computer engineer Barbie.  You know, I might even buy the original Mattel computer engineer Barbie.  I appreciate the effort, and it’s ridiculous.  I like ridiculous.

As a last note, moms and dads, it’s nice and all to buy your little girl things to remind her “You can be anything you dream of.”  But don’t stop there.  Be sure to provide her with all the power tools and electronic parts she needs so that she can make anything she dreams of.

One of my favorite things about traveling with my brother to his various swim meets around the state is trying out all the local restaurants.  A favorite whenever we go to Cleveland is called Airport Grocery, that’s dark and smokey and has interesting decor and serves really good crawfish pasta.

Airport Grocery is described in these Amazon CD reviews of “Live at Airport Grocery” as “a small Bar-B-Q juke joint in Cleveland, Mississippi. It is one of those places we have all seen, but often overlook; a great place to get some hot food and see live performances from some of the best kept secrets the South has to offer.”  And “Eating there, you can almost hear the ghosts of the great bluesmen who have sat on that stage and filled the room with the sounds of the joys and pain that are part of living in the Delta.”

I’m taking every opportunity to eat Southern food while I’m still at home– I will have a few more weeks than I thought in which to do so, since there have been some visa delays.  Still, all is well since my visa documents will be arriving shortly!

My mom, brother, and I took a trip to Jackson to shop, eat, and watch the Princess and the Frog.  (Incidentally, the little girl who voices the main character as a child is from Jackson!  Her 5th grade class took a field trip to watch the movie last month, aww!)  We shared a bag of buttery popcorn, and laughed hysterically through the whole movie.

When I was younger, I thought of one day making my own CG version of the Frog Prince, as Disney hadn’t touched that fairy tale yet.  Oh, but they beat me too it anyway.  They’ve added their own twists to it of course, and as soon as I heard the entire premise, I thought it very clever– by setting it in the Louisiana bayou, they made the frog part seem natural (frogs are a plentiful down here) and opened up a world of possibilities for evil magic via voodoo.

And by setting it in Louisiana, the story could draw from the personality of the whole region.  I love New Orleans.  It took me many visits and marching through it in a marching band for Mardi Gras to conclude this but now I do.  It’s strange.  It’s old.  It’s spicy.  This movie captured the personality of the city really well and featured everything I love about it: Gumbo, Tabasco, crawfish, beignets (if I can call myself a Southerner, it is 99% in terms of the food), jazz, and old architecture.  Visually it was gorgeous.  Storywise, it was charming.

The reason I’ve always been drawn to the Frog Prince is that I like the fairy tales about ugly things.  You know, there are so many fairy tales about beautiful princesses & princes.  *Yawn*  So naturally, my favorite Disney fairy tale story as a child was Beauty and the Beast.  Disney princes usually have no personality.  The Beast was (and is) my favorite prince by far (arrogant and bitter is still a personality!  Plus, he had that library with shelves that went all the way to the ceiling!)  Well, sadly that wasn’t the case with this Disney prince– you’d think that he’d have to be amazing inside to make up for his warts and slime, but his personality was so blah.  I sort of wished that this Disney princess who was unusually hardworking, practical, intelligent, and ambitious could’ve found someone to be her equal instead of someone who was merely a prince.

I won’t be overly critical though, I still thought it was a great movie that could stand next to the old Disney cartoon classics, and would recommend it!

The Palo Alto bus station is lit up quite colorfully yet elegantly for Christmas!

I got back from the Bay Area a few days ago.  I got to see some of my favorite people, and it made me so happy!  It was worth the interview stress.  So was seeing the building where I was interviewed– the front was graced with with giant statues in the shape of: a cupcake, a donut, an eclair, and a robot.  (No, I wasn’t interviewing to be a pastry chef… though, hmm I sort of wish!)  And being put up in a hotel that provides an etch-a-sketch in each room.

My first night there, my friends asked me where I wanted to eat.  I thought about it and said, “Maruichi!“  It’s a ramen place with a few locations, that makes their noodles daily.  “But… aren’t you tired of Japanese food?” they asked.  But you see, this is a special ramen place.  Let me explain.  My friends and I used to go to this ramen place often.  I tried all of their different broths, but my favorite was “No. 1 Kuro Ramen”– a broth made black by burnt garlic.  When I was in Japan, I was eager to try this kuro ramen at its source.  I asked my coworkers to recommend a place to get kuro ramen, but you know what?  They had never even heard of burnt garlic ramen.  In shock, I told them about the kuro ramen place in Mountain View, and I must have made a pretty compelling description of it, because in a month’s time, after the senior engineers at Honda went to the Bay Area for a conference, they came back to tell me that they had sought out the kuro ramen place that I had raved about.  And that it was delicious!  The best!  That they’d definitely go again!  When I told my friends, they were proud that our favorite ramen place had stood the test of real Japanese ramen connoisseurs.

Also, I ate delicious Singaporean food, and also I finally got to see UP!  Now I am home, and it is almost Christmas!

These days I can’t get enough of 80’s movies.  Sixteen Candles is so cute.  John Cusack makes an adorable geek.  The geek boys in the movie are ridiculous and hilarious and endearing.  Give me a Bryce or Cliff any day over a Jake Ryan.

Do you remember your 16th birthday?  I didn’t do anything special to celebrate mine but it still felt like a big deal.  Firstly, it was at the start of my senior year.  Also, I got my braces off!  That morning I French-braided pigtails into my own hair, and and I remember my favorite teacher at school made the class sing for me while I blushed.  When I blew out my cake candles with my mom, dad, and brother, I knew amazing things were going to happen that year and they did.