12:17 Milo, the neighbor cat is in a battle outside, right now

By the way, I had more interest in watching my dog* go through the REM phase of his sleep than writing this blog haha.

So, I cooked dinner tonight. With the help of my father and his cooking skills, I have mastered the art of frying! Let me tell yah, it’s not as simple as it looks. But it’s much simpler and quicker than other dishes out there. For your benefit, I am going to be providing you some images to go along with this blog, sorta like a children’s book.

Ddori was chilling out in Claire’s. This is totally irrelevant to the topic but I felt like it was necessary only because *Ddori is going back to his original owner on Saturday. And at the same time, this sort of picture-perfect puppy image doesn’t come around so often for a energetic dog.

Anyway, today I wanted to be productive. So after an entire morning-afternoon of literally web surfing and relaxing (getting my R&Rs like there is no tomorrow), I had to do some house work to make up for all the over-excessive restoration. I had some frozen chicken, fish, and shrimp in the freezer, and everything I needed for my Secret Sauce (only a select few know what kind of sauce I am talking about). Took everything out of the freezer to defrost and thaw, e.t.c…

I was beginning the cook-off, but something was terribly missing. And the nerves in my body were signaling me towards the radio. MUSIC. I popped in my family’s most beloved kitchen music, cafe de Paris. Oh yeah, some of you know this album and have requested it, so I’m going to post the link to Amazon and you can check it out there! Putamayo Presents Paris.

So I had the music, and I had the primary ingredients ready. All I needed was some motivation and the secondary! I began looking through the freezer, found some more edible things for later, snacked on some sweets. (I realized when I stay home, I tend to binge on snacks, a LOT).

By the way, you may remember one of my tweets a while back. I wrote, “I love when my mom and dad heat up the kitchen floor with their dance moves”. This is ONE of the albums they dance to. A joyful mood (usually) and a hint of upbeat tunes is a perfect combination for any tired, hardworking, immigrant parents to dance away their troubles. I recommend it! Buy it for your mom/dad, give it to them just out of the blue. They will really appreciate it.

Okay so, back on track. The secondary ingredients needed were:

1. Flour (specifically I used 곰 밀가루) funny name eh?
2. Beaten up eggs, and beat ’em good
3. Bread crumbs (another Korean brand)

Put them side by side, and get ready for some dipping and transfer action. Next I heat up some vegetable oil in the sauce pan, almost like a wok. At the same time I started to make my Secret Sauce. It’s not really a secret because I learned it from another chef from a restaurant I used to work at.

There was more work for me to do as I kept going further and closer to getting the final product. I wished I had a third hand, or another set of hands so that I could take pictures as I was cooking.

I washed the fish (Tilapia fish) and shrimp, which was precooked from another meal before. Frying is a good way to get rid of, or rather, eat food that has been kept for a bit.

As this was happening, I was washing the chicken, slicing it to thinner pieces, and then tenderizing it with a tool that looks like it comes from some RPG game. (Tenderizing Hammer)

So the oil was heating up, the fish and the shrimp were ready and in went the first batch to the mix. 1-2-3, fry. 1-2-3, fry. 1-2-3 fry. This process went on for a while and then came out the final products. (I know I need to work on my presentation, but I didn’t care at this point because I was ready to eat!)

Shrimp w/ the Secret Sauce, boring looking chicken cutlet, boring looking fish cutlet…

So there you have it. My nooby cutlet special. I’d say I did a pretty good job. Next time I’m going to try seasoning the chicken and fish before frying them. I hear that my friend Dan makes a sick chicken cutlet. So does SePort Deli in Port Jefferson, NY (5-10 mins from Stony Brook). Try their “Gasm” sandwich. It’ll keep you busy for a day.

Anyways, it wasn’t all butterflies and daisies with this meal. There were consequences for having used so much oil to cook a one time meal, as well as feeding five hungry adults.

With wrinkly fingers I end this entry.
Good night, 1:51am
-Kyu

1:34 am; So you’re here to see where it all comes from?

Going to make this a fairly quick one… well, we’ll see how it turns out.

One of the labs I’m assisting in uses the fMRI machine (by the way, did you know the MRI machine was invented in our very own Stony Brook University? Yeah!) to study the functional activity of the brains of participants. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging. It’s actually sort of crazy. We are still under construction with getting all the program down to make sure the timing is right with the machine and our study (our lab does not own the machine, it’s extremely extremely expensive. 1 run with the machine costs you a whopping $500) so we get couple of freebies. I was able to pilot one of the scans and boy, was it an experience.

In the beginning, I lay there not really knowing what to expect. Not until I actually went into this tight hole did I think, ‘I am going in a tiny little small hole, where I won’t be able to budge one bit’. After one mistrial with the program, I began to feel a little droopy. I did have a long night the night before, and didn’t get much sleep. So without even knowing that I was drifting to sleep, I would wake up thinking, ‘when did I fall asleep?!’. One after another, mistrial after mistrial, the clock finally hit almost 40. When the loud noise stopped, I was really hoping for some freedom. So I woke myself up entirely, getting ready to exit. Then, the MRI speakers uttered what any MRI patient would fear, MRI: “You hangin’ in there?”, Me: “Yep!”, MRI:”Okay, we had some miscalculations, just going to be a little bit more okay?”, Me: “..okay” That last okay out of my mouth triggered panic in my body. That nightmarish claustrophobia began creeping up my spine, then into my head, then into all little nerves in my body, even to the tiny little cells in the tip of my fingers. I had to move, stretch, and breathe, AHH. I quickly squeezed the get-me-out button. Although the data was incomplete, I could not stay in there longer. I gave up….. I got out, but thankfully our researcher quickly volunteered to complete the data, so we could get the pilot over and done with.

Good news is, I got to see some parts of my brain! It’s kind of weird when you see your brain for the first time, you don’t really know how to react actually. How would you guys react to seeing your own brain? It’s kinda cool ain’t it? Well without further ado, here is where it all happens: (Be my guest, you can snoop around any other place besides my brain. I personally like my sinus area for some odd reason)

2:05
My shift is over, but up there it’s 24/7
Good night ya’ll
Kyu

12:36

Credits to Claire who found this for me. I love my sister’s sense of humor.

Well this is an exaggerated and stereotyped version of the Kiwi accent. I love it. Reminds me of my NZ days bru. Sweet as, or rather I’m beached as bru!!!

Do you know what else I loved? Tonight’s summer night run. I was so pumped. Loved it, loved it, loved it! I didn’t know praying and running at the same time energizes you so much. I should go shower now… and pray haha.

I’m back tracking my day as I’m writing this…
Went to go watch Up with the posse
Played some intense game of Halli Galli Deluxe while eating some potato chups with the gang
Hit some shuttle cocks with the pack
Morning

Now I’m parched as! I need a hose bru, I need to get wet bru.

The result

See you again Tuesday

My Mom

(Beautiful Mom + sunny weather + church + delicious BBQ) – papers = a perfect Sunday?

Since today is Mother’s day, lets talk about my mom. I woke up this morning 9am to bring her breakfast-in-bed. I think I woke up too late. After about 10 minutes of ravaging around the kitchen, I heard a familiar footstep with creaks on the wooden floor. I slowly turned, hoping it was dad, but nope. She walks past the kitchen pretending she doesn’t know what’s going on. (I haven’t woken up to make my own breakfast since…..can’t remember!) Anyway, it became breakfast-at-table and she enjoyed it.

The barbie is going to be good today (and Tuesday!)

The following are pictures of mom preparing for it:

I love you mom