i cooked today!

yup, you read it right. i actually cooked today! following yan can cook's quick and easy cookbook, i made ginger chicken, bok choy, and carrot and pineapple rice. couple of things: it's not that quick and easy. it easily took me over an hour. secondly, although yan can cook may disagree, i don't think that carrot should be cooked into rice.. it's just.. WEIRD. however, the bok choy came out rather well. the chicken was not very well marinated, but i'm sure i can figure out something to fix it if i want to try to make it again.

my mom was gracious too. it was her birthday today, hence today's cooking experiment. she said it was "different" and "colorful".. i like how both of those adjectives don't specify whether it tasted good or not. =P but everyone finished up their food, and there were hardly any leftovers.. so that's a good sign. anyway, we finished up dinner well. i got a mango mousse cake from sogo and that's always a winner! =D

hmm.. i'd like to practice cooking more. just trying different flavors and making different sauces is fun.

finished behind a demon

Another View of the Devil
Originally uploaded by SeenyaRita.

this is from 2005, but i'm pretty sure this is the same dood from yesterday. he had wings this time, though.

i could've beat him! if i just went a little bit faster...

bay to breakers

Running Roman
Originally uploaded by jmmorton.

i was running at pace with this guy during most of the bay to breakers yesterday. i kept telling myself that if this guy can run wearing FULL ARMOR, certainly i can keep up with him. he kept a bottle of water hidden behind his shield too. i thought that was amusing.

that, and i finished right behind a guy dressed as a demon. he got into the finishing chute right before me. as we were coming out, some guy commented to him, "i thought i died."

only during the bay to breakers.

=D

just to let people know, i'm officially in the nursing program. good sam in san jose offered me a hospital sponsorship, so i'm finally official. no more wondering what i'll be doing in two weeks! i'm super-happy, but now i have so much stuff to get done: immunizations to get, insurance to purchase, books to buy, cpr certifications.. the fun never ends!

eep.. that, and i have a final tomorrow.

and if someone knows, please answer this question: how the heck is one supposed to clean spilled soap out of a carpet?? it just foams more and more and gets worse and worse. =*(

i am loving pandora. check it out, uber-cool.

since i'm a sucker for cute

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

“It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a ‘mother’,” ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

“After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together,” the ecologist added. “The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,” Kahumbu added.

“The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years,” he explained.