I can't believe that I've been in medical school for more than a month now. Here at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, Kansas City, Missouri, I've been learning everything from anatomy, biochemistry, embryology, histology, immunology, microbiology, pathology, pharmacology, and physiology. With my Molecular Toxicology background, most of the subjects come to me quite easily. The hardest ones for me are Immunology and Anatomy. I've never been good at blatant memorization (Anatomy/Microbio). The end part of immunology is great for me because we learned alot about apoptosis and necrosis (yay death domains!) with NST 110. For anyone with a MolTox major, take an extra upper div class in Immuno. Microbio in medical school takes a semi-different perspective from the Microbio I had (the PH one~one of the two microbio major req fullfilling classes that we have as a MolTox) since that one was more about etiology and currently in med school we're going from the lab test perspective. I did my first Gram stain two days ago. The hardest part about being well prepared for med school is... LAZINESS. I had my buddy change my facebook account pswd because I was getting ... sidetracked. We have a final on Tuesday (and another on Thursday). ^^ hahah. yay..... ::cries in the corner:: I'm sure y'all at Berkeley don't have any exams until the end of this month right?

Have fun meeting people still while I suffer here.

Miss y'all.

Pray for me!

Posted by K. Lee at 1:03 PM | Permalink

Did I ever mention that I applied for med school and now I'm in? School began for me at KCUMB on August 3rd. I moved to Kansas City on the 1st of August. Boy, is Missouri different from California.

Just wanted to mention how awesome it is to be in class and already know microbiology and pharmacokinetics stuff from being a molecular toxicology major. =)

Posted by K. Lee at 8:25 AM | Permalink

I'm now in Taiwan after four day of being in Japan which was after 12 days at home. I'm here on an internship. I went to my future workplace, The National Museum of Science and Technology in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Three mosquito bites so far. Not too bad.

While in Japan, I visited my old dormmates and church friends. Our dorm of 50 years is closing down this summer to make room for a larger complex. There was a great big reunion where over 100 of the old dorm women came back. Some came with their kids and others were 80 some years. It was great fun and just an amazing legacy. I helped guide the women through the dorm and explain things. The rooms that we used as doubles used to be quads! And, one woman asked us why there weren't any phones in the rooms anymore. We all have cellphones now. ;) Amazing.

Posted by K. Lee at 11:51 PM | Permalink

View image

We graduated!!!
The tox major was first separated out from the NutriSci umbrella in 2005, when my class entered.
And now we're done!
Yay!
Hip hip horray!

Ultra coolness, no?

Posted by K. Lee at 8:15 PM | Permalink

Take a look at this video. UCLA baby squirrel. It's a big squirrel teaching a baby squirrel how to get over a wall and some nice people help out. I just wonder though... how will the squirrel get back over the wall from the other direction? O.o

More than that though... how in the world did this guy have this much time on his hands??!!! Isn't it supposed to be midterm season down there? Anyways. Go watch. =)

Posted by K. Lee at 10:44 PM | Permalink

I only have one more final left, just physics. i saved it for last. =) After I got accepted into med school, I had to take physics 8b for med school prereqs before matriculation. You don't have to take the pre-reqs before you apply, just before you matriculate. Thus, I decided to delay taking physics until I had gotten in because physics is definitely not my forte.

Posted by K. Lee at 1:00 AM | Permalink

Some of the things I've learned over the past few years from police or other is:

-Bring only the things you need to school. This means leaving your credit cards, driver's license, debit card at home if you're not using them. (Helps you save money too from not making unnecessary shopping)
-Don't use a laptop case, put it in your backpack. What they can't see, they won't take.
-Put your wallet in the very back of your backpack, not the easy-to-access front pouch. How many times have you been able to put notes or funky things into a friend's front pouch without them noticing?
-If you have a purse, make sure that it zips close on top and has a zipper side pouch inside.
-When you're eating, or studying, or sleeping, never put your backpack next-to, behind, or under you. Always have it on your lap or on the desk or something in front of you.
-Have a list of phone numbers from your credit card companies/etc at home. If anything happens, you can call them right away. It's alright if you don't have your account numbers with you. They can find it for you.

Posted by K. Lee at 7:36 PM | Permalink

One of the best things about MolTox is the people that you get to know and they way you spend time with them--academically, in laboratory, and outside of brain-work. This time, my MolTox buddies and I ventured out into the world, away from Berkeley, to just hang out. Our mission was: PAINTBALLING! Only one of us had ever been, so we were all excited and somewhat fearful of the pain. (not that the guys would admit it). Thus, 9 MolTox seniors went to American Canyon (30 min north of Berkeley) in order to train our bodies and to engage in teamwork, since it had been more than a month from the time we last had a project where any of us worked together. Unfortunately, we forgot that its spring break for many high schoolers, so the place was packed and there wasn't enough rental equipment at a reasonable price. So what to do?

Fortunately, American Canyon is located in Napa County, so there was something else for us to do. What else in Napa but wine-tasting! So we merry Molecular Toxicology comrades went off to an adventure. Adam, with his 3G Apple iPhone, was the navigator. Luckily, Adam had visited Napa before so we followed a trail that his parents had blazed out.

Continue reading "Adventuers of the Molecular Toxicology Major" »

Posted by K. Lee at 9:01 PM | Permalink

May's just around the corner and you got to make your decision before that. You have family, location, cost, education, fun, but most of all your future to factor in.

Where do you want to go from here? It all depends on you actually. Your actual school won't make a difference in letting you reach your dreams. If you're diligent enough, you'll be able to find opportunities in the emptiest of places. So what kind of person are you?

At Berkeley, we have all the opportunities you could ever desire. Med school? Pharmacy school? Environmental something? Or you don't know? Then you better come here, because you'll have all the opportunities you need here to decide if the future path you want to be on the the one that is actually right for you.

I'm not saying that it won't be hard. It will be hard. Count on it. There's 5000 other people in your class, and a lot of them have the same dreams you have. A lot of them will be putting in 1000x more effort than you. If you thought you were good in high school, think again. Yet, what's the purpose of going to an "easier" school and misleading yourself into thinking that you're actually good. It's better to come here, find out that you aren't the best, in order to work with the best in getting better.

Sleep. Study. Social Life. As they say, pick two of the three, but I think you can actually get all three if you just learn to time manage. The first semester, do as much as you can, cuz that'll be your easiest semester to have "excused."

Berkeley's not for the people who want things handed to them. We make things easy for you, but the problem is, we have so much going on everywhere, that you'll need to sift though our plethora of opportunities to get to what you want.

Anyways. For me. It's my last semester here. I'm finishing up my four years. I spent my third year abroad in Japan. This August, I'll be going to medical school in Missouri.

I reached my dreams through Berkeley. I'm sure that you'll be able to, too.

Best Wishes to you Class of 2013. =) Too bad I won't see you around. I'm sure you'll do fine.

Posted by K. Lee at 11:49 PM | Permalink

It's getting to be the season for applying for scholarships and stuff for next year. I'm finding a lot of scholarships that ask for payback in time. There's one health scholarship by the NHSC were you serve for 4 years after residency in an underserved. It seems quite nice as they pay for everything...but they restrict you to family practice, internal medicine, OB/GYN, and pediatrics.

Posted by K. Lee at 2:47 PM | Permalink

During this time of banking failures and to misappropriation of funds, I thought that I would share with y'all another type of "personal banking."

Stable, institutional, banks are quite a new thing in non-Western countries. Back in the old days of Taiwan, banks didn't offer loans to common folk. If someone needed a loan, they would have to find a pool of friends that were willing to loan money. The number of people in the pool equaled the number of months that the pool would continue for. Each month, people would put in a set amount of dollars. Say.. $10. Then, each person would go around and say what percent interest they would pay to get the pool of money for that month. A offers 10% interest, B offers 20% interest, C offers 30% interest. C wins and becomes a "taker". So then everyone except for previous takers takes back $3 (cuz that's 30%), and C takes all the money left. The next month, the cycle repeats, and people who have no yet taken can bid for the new pool of money. So the later that you decide to be a taker, the less interest you will usually need to pay. Also, the first taker, who is the person who set up the pool, gets the money with no interest. One of the dangers of this system is that it is built on trust (therefore everyone must trust the pool maker enough to jump in on this. If anyone person decides to just take the money and run for it, people normally stop paying in. In addition, the pool maker must repay the rest of the people who did not have their turn--which is why there was no interest req for the pool maker. Anyways, I just thought that this would be an interesting psychological game for the X-labs to carry out. ^^

Posted by K. Lee at 1:42 AM | Permalink

What's with this?? (this is just some from 2008 that went through) http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2008

$245,000 by Senate appropriator Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) for construction of the Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center in Prosser, Washington. According to its website, the Culinary Center’s purpose is to educate and promote the areas of viticulture, enology and culinary practices, showcase the quality of Washington’s wine industry, and increase the state’s tourism industry. The website also states that wine in Washington is a $3 billion industry. Taxpayers should not be soaked for a new wine center.

$295,470 by Senate appropriator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) for renovations to the International Peace Garden in Dunseith. Spanning the border of North Dakota and Manitoba, the International Peace Garden boasts 150,000 flowers, terraced walkways, and the 120-foot Peace Tower. In September 2007, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) offered an amendment to eliminate this earmark from the Senate version of the transportation bill. Sen. Coburn argued the money would be better spent on road repairs, calling it “morally wrong” to spend money on wasteful projects while citizens are dying on the nation’s roads. Unfortunately, the amendment failed by a vote of 32-63.

$328,300 by Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) for the Big Sky Economic Development Authority, for historic preservation of the Cobb Field facility in Billings. Home to the Minor League Billings Mustangs, Cobb Field was built in 1948 and is currently undergoing modernization, including a new scoreboard all paid for by taxpayers. A September, 2006 article in Satisfaction Magazine noted that owning a Minor League Baseball team can be quite profitable: “But a well-run baseball operation can turn a net profit of 5 percent to 10 percent a year, according to interviews with team owners and consultants. Then there is the equity play: Minor league teams have been appreciating in value by 3 percent to 5 percent annually in the past decade, with some instances albeit rare ones of owners selling for 10 times their original investment after holding the team for just five years.” According to the Mustangs’ website, 95,309 people attended a game at Cobb Field in 2007. An increase of $3.45 per ticket would have removed the burden to the taxpayers.

$49,000 by Rep. Michael Ferguson (R-N.J.) for Woodbridge Township for construction of a Woodbridge Historical Museum.

$3,000,000 added by the Senate for the Kimberly Process. According to the Global Policy Forum (GPF), the Kimberly Process was initiated in 2000 to set up “an internationally recognized certification system for rough diamonds and establishing national import/export standards. In November 2002, 52 governments ratified and adopted the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, which was fully implemented in August 2003.” The GPF called the system “flawed from the beginning ” because it is voluntary and self-regulated. Both the Word Diamond Council and governments that signed on to the certification process have failed to monitor and regulate the diamond trade, according to the GPF.

Posted by K. Lee at 10:23 PM | Permalink

This is how some of my peers double majored in both MolTox and MCB.

Apparently, out of the five tracks, two the the tracks Cell Developmental Biology and Immunology (either Immuno Track 1 or Infectious Diseases Track 2) work well with Molecular Toxicology.

Note: Double Majors don't need NST 11 for some reason. Only two upper division courses may overlap and be used for both majors.

Legend:
Green - classes for both majors
Yellow - classes for MCB
Red - classes for L&S breadth
Blue - classes for MolTox

Click here for Student A's schedule - MolTox & MCB-Immunology

Student A specific Notes: Plans on attending pharmacy school. She took a lot of extra math classes because she was originally MCB w/ Math minor.Could have graduated as MCB in 3 years.

Click here for Student B's schedule - MolTox & MCB-Infectious Diseases

Student B Notes: Doubled in 4.5 years. Waived out of NST 171 by using 6 units of research. Check with department before doing so. Started as an Engineer major, then switched to MCB. Added MolTox later on when he realized the coolness of it. Plans on attending graduate school. VSET is a volunteer summer English teaching program that teaches in various Asian countries. Student B volunteered for and was sent to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Student B was the hydration technician and sports medicine intern for the football team.

I asked David (Student B) some questions.

Q: Why did you double major?
I decided to pursue double major because I found to both MCB and Molecular Toxicology to be very interesting. One of the advantages of having a dual degree is that it allows for a greater understanding of biological mechanisms. Another advantage is that the combination of both degrees helps you stand out from other undergraduates. In addition 2 majors = 2 graduation ceremonies, it helps when you friends/family can't make it to one. Completing two science majors is challenging. One thing you will never have enough of is time.

Q: Would you do it again if you had a second chance?
A: If I had a second chance I would do it again. Even though it was challenging but the sense of accomplishment afterward makes it worthwhile. One thing I would have differently is to make the decision to double major earlier and plan better.

Q: Did you matriculate with MCB in mind?
A: As an incoming freshman I had hoped to transfer into Bioengineering, but multi-variable calculus helped change those plans.

~Special Thanks to Student A and David W. (Student B) for providing me with their schedules~

Posted by K. Lee at 3:52 PM | Permalink

Many people don't start as MolTox majors. We have more people graduating with MolTox than we have matriculating into Berkeley with a MolTox major. In my sample size of 10 from my NST 171 class, only 20% were entering MolTox majors. 20% were MCB majors who had added MolTox to double major. The other 60% were either undeclared or ex-MCB majors. Moral of this story? Become a MolTox major. =)

Reasons why:
1) It's a good conversation starter.
2) You can actually see the professors in your classes--instead of using binoculars.
3) You can actually make friends with classmates because you'll see them again in other classes.
4) You won't need to climb the hill since the College of Natural Resources is on the lower North-West end of campus.
5) You can always change to a different major if you don't like it. (According to this article, 50% of people change their majors at least once during college. It may or may not be lower at Berkeley since L&S matriculates are technically undeclared.

My biased opinion: If you start with an interesting major, you're more likely to explore. And, what is college if not to explore?

Posted by K. Lee at 2:49 PM | Permalink

Do you like Table Tennis? Do you think you're good at it? Then check this out and see if you're good enough to beat Bruce Lee at it. ^^

Awesome Bruce Lee ping pong match/a>

Posted by K. Lee at 2:47 PM | Permalink

This is an explanation of how I did Molecular Toxicology and completed my pre-med reqs in basically three years. I spent 4 years at Berkeley, but one of those years was abroad in Japan where I did nothing related to Molecular Toxicology. And, I did not use those years in Japan to fulfill my breadths, because I had already completed those.

There were certain things that helped me finish in at the pace I did. I completed the math requirements and breadth requirements before I entered college by taking those through community college. Instead of taking AP calculus in high school, I took it at the junior colleges. I passed my UC Entry Level Writing, American History, and American Institution requirements during high school, which is common with most students. The American Cultures was fulfilled through music in multicultural America which I took during the summer as an online course though Foothill Community College while doing research in Taiwan.

1) TAKE MCB 32 during your Fall frosh year. It's a fall only class.
2) MCB 32 is considered a biology class by many medical schools, so you won't need the other semester. I also took Bio AP and got a 5 so that counts as a second semester bio class by some med schools. It didn't bother me that I could not apply to some specific med schools.
3) I'm taking second semester physics my senior year because physics is not my strong point and that way I will have gotten into med school by that time. It's also not a required class for moltox so I wasn't taking a extra class that I disliked if I had changed career plans by then. Sure... I wasn't as prepared for the physics part of the MCAT, but I was still a bit above average on the MCAT on the physics portion... so I guess it didn't make that much of a difference. If you're an ultra-gung ho person who's only goal in life is to get into an extremely competitive med school and become a dermatologist.. this advice is not for you. I was sure.. but still shaky on my plans for life.
4) Going abroad is a good GPA booster... unfort... that's only if you're good at languages and if your grades come in time by the time you apply. Note.. they probably won't.
5) If I could have done things differently: It's nice to study abroad. Apply during your freshman year to go abroad in your sophomore year. =)
6) Choosing a different major?: No. I love this stuff and I'm staying with it. I came in as a MolTox. yay MolTox power!
7) Other advice: I heard that NST 171 won't be offered to all students. You'll be able to use research NST 199 (6 units) to fulfill the same req. So.. do research NOW!. And remember, you can always get units for research as long as you aren't paid. Even if you aren't sure that you'll use it to fulfill the req, you should still get the units anyways. They'll come in handy if you're short a few upperdiv units at the end.

Continue reading "How to do Molecular Toxicology in Three Years" »

Posted by K. Lee at 1:14 AM | Permalink

Read the title.

Posted by K. Lee at 1:37 PM | Permalink

This

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/toxicology/

Is a toxicology blog called

In the pipeline.

I love everything toxicology related... this is quite awesome as it makes tox more relevant.

Now.. back to studying. ahhahahahha....

Posted by K. Lee at 10:02 PM | Permalink

This article http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081129/ap_on_re_us/toy_worries talks about how parents are writing to toy companies to try to get the companies to strop advertising to the children and to switch the target to parents. These parents say that it is unfair of the companies to make the children have the desire to have something that the parents cannot afford. Also, the parents are loathe to let their children feel different at school because they lack an item. I believe that these parents are strongly misguided. If the children are being made fun of at school because they don't have something, they should teach the children that its okay to be different. By simply delaying this lesson, the kids are only going to have a more difficult time adjusting when they hit puberty when life becomes so much more difficult. If the children are being made fun of because they don't have something, society should be stepping in and teaching them that material wealth is not what makes happiness. These parents are just as misguided as their children and believe that material things will being their kids real joy over the course of their lives. In the article, there is a example of a mother being willing to prostitute herself in order to afford certain toys for her child. What in the world!??!!! That's just teaching her child that prostitution is alright...indiscriminate sex is alright...for the sake of instant gratification. What happened to teaching about delayed gratification? It's... sad how our society is completely warped. Somehow...I just don't feel sorry for these families who can't buy as many toys for their children as before. They can still afford toys. If you're able to afford these excess items, you're still doing pretty well in comparison to the rest of the world.

Posted by K. Lee at 12:23 AM | Permalink

There was a recent blood drive...Cal vs. StanfUrd. The.. other school won. ::shakes head::

Anyways. Take this season to GIVE some blood. 1 out of 3 people has O blood, but the Stanfurd blood center is still low on O. You O people out there! Let's give some blood! Don't let those B+, A+ and AB+ people beat us. And you B-, A-, and AB- people, don't have an inferiority complex to those pluses. Come give blood. Check out the inventory here. http://bloodcenter.stanford.edu/news/inventory.html
We'll have eaten lots of food and meat... high on nutrients, so we definitely have enough blood to give. Blood banks are open all this week. Just head in with your family and friends. Make it part of your Thanksgiving tradition. Go for it!!!!

If you feel like... oh.. you don't want to give so much blood.. then give plasma! then... by the time winter vacation rolls around, you'll can give again! yay!

Posted by K. Lee at 8:14 AM | Permalink

Our 44th's president has been elected. =) . I guess we have an interesting 8 years to look forward to. (and I say 8, because as long as I can remember, the president's has always been re-elected. .. I guess that also shows my youth. hahah)

Posted by K. Lee at 12:45 AM | Permalink

This is under the Suggestions and Advice category because I'm advising you to NOT ingest things in unreasonable quantities. Just.. don't.. do.. it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081024/lf_nm_life/us_taiwan_contest;_ylt=AnL2crbI67Fu3YBKoNZhhQmek3QF

According to Reuters, an unwise student decided to unreasonably ingest food during a competition which caused his subsequent death. Anything can kill you given a dose, though mechanism of action may not always be obvious. For example, a piano can kill you by dropping on you. Or, a spider could scare you to death.

So the main point is.... don't over eat fast food, don't over drink water, don't do those 21 shots of alcohol during your 21st birthday, don't drink 48 cups of coffee in 10 min...etc.

Stupidity (e.g. showing off, peer pressure) kills.

If you do want to put something into your body... go get a flu shot for free this tuesday (Oct 28) through the Berkeley public health clinic. It's free! It's not dangerous (but you can pretend it is). and.. its good for you/community.

Posted by K. Lee at 10:37 PM | Permalink

Read a Book.
Read a book not required for an assignment!

I've been working down this optional reading list for Public Health Microbiology.

Books....
The Andromeda Strain
Fever, The Hunt for a New Killer Virus
Microbes and Morals
Rats, Lice and History
Magic Mountain
Earth Abides

I just finished Earth Abides. It's a futuristic novel of a ravaged earth, where author George Stewart makes a social statement about association of disease with the selfishness of mankind, its need for companionship, and its ability to survive. A pandemic infectious disease eradicates the world of mankind. Only a few are left, and even in that few, many die through non-infectious diseases.The knowledge or mis-knowledge of certain diseases caused people to accept and dismiss certain people. Mental diseases are viewed as genetic and sexually transmitted diseases as the end of the line. It was first published in 1949 and thus strongly reflects the opinions of the time. But... more importantly, you can observe the influence of diseases on humans. Try reading it. =)

Yes, I'm recommending that you read a book outside of your class. You'll never regret reading, but you'll never miss what you never experience.

Posted by K. Lee at 9:41 PM | Permalink

I'm now working at the Bjeldanes lab where I'm researching P-Met and DIM. It interesting how most of the research on DIM was produced from Bjeldanes.

One of the weird things I'm getting used to is called Bjeldanes, Len. After Japan, where I call even just classmates by their last names...now calling a professor by their first name is... whoh weird!

I really appreciate Prof. Dale in NST 171. It's the MolTox lab. Turns out that he's a prof at UCSF but serves as an adjunct prof here. He teaches really clearly and you know what's happening.

In NST 171 we rotate through different modules and are taught by different profs. Adapting to the new styles adn expectations of every profs take a bit of time to get used to.

I'm spending 20+ hours in lab every week. Life.. is.. really lab filled.

Posted by K. Lee at 9:55 PM | Permalink

Junior year is a great year to study abroad. After two years at Berkeley, you've gotten the hang of things. Going off in your junior year allows you explore and get to know the students at the other schools. You're mature enough to know how things work. And, the students you're hanging out with aren't those job focused seniors.

A year abroad is long enough for you to get settled and long enough to really absorb the culture. A semester has often been said by people that its just long enough to settle...and then you have to leave. So if you're going... just go for a year!

However, if you're planning to apply to med school, being gone during Spring semester of your junior year can hurt. It means that you'll need to take your MCAT before you leave for study abroad. You have many study abroad things...physicals...shots... forms.. to get filled out before you leave. Do you really have time to study? Also, your grades don't get back to you until 90 days after the program ends. (I'm still waiting for my Japan program grades to get on my Berkeley transcripts...only a couple more days... hopefully.) Many schools (like the Texas system) require that your spring grades be in before they consider you. You''l need to get letters of recommendation from professors before you leave. Thankfully, the Letter Service is a great way to store the letters.

If you're planning to take a gap year after graduation, then it'll work out for sure. But if you want to go straight to med school... you may be risking your top schools a bit. Many med schools work on a rolling admissions basis. Your application may be slightly hurt by the wait in transcripts.

Posted by K. Lee at 8:57 PM | Permalink

Last Friday, Prof. Timiras passed away. She had undergone heart surgery in the Spring of this year and was not teaching classes this semester as a result. I met her through a friend and she agreed to allow me to work under her supervision on research in Donner (a LBL building). She was one of the most encouraging professors that I have had the honor of working with. I was planning on working on a friend's neurobiology research project, but Prof. Timiras was encouraging me to start my own project to work with curcumin and the anti-carcinogenic effects of it. She told me that research can go only as far as ones imagination, so one should develop that imagination. I regret that I will be unable to carry on her work, but I'll remember her words and the things she taught me in the short time we knew each other.

Thank you Professor Timiras.

Posted by K. Lee at 6:56 PM | Permalink

For the first time in my Berkeley Career, I'm taking classes that are dominated by Toxicology majors. One of them, NST 171, Toxicology Lab, is restricted to senior moltox majors. In the class of 30, we have 10 people in each team. I'm in Team C. And, we were encouraged to come up with a team name beginning with C....so after Jason's suggestion, we became the CareBears! Hahaha.

We've begun cell culturing, a painstaking process of keeping sterile. Adam and Marisela are pros in this as they're involved in research that has required them to work with these. Next week, we'll begin on real stuff and work on stuff relating to the endocrine system.

What is also kinda nifty is that Michael, Gary, Marisela, and Karen are also in my NST 110 or PH 162 courses. I shared a class with Lena in the past...but we're not sure which one it was. ^^

Since we're the carebears, we just HAD to take the CareBear test to see which carebears we are. Interestingly, Lena, Alan, and Karen are all Tenderheart Carebears.

The best thing about molecular toxicology is that everyone in the major has a different background and how they came to the major is different. The 10 of us came with different backgrounds, different reasonings, and went through different choices to land together in this class. Some of us went through three different majors before landing here. Others are transfer students. Some began with Toxicology from the start, and others added on Toxicology when they learned how cool it was. ^^ What's also awesome is that my group is exactly 1/2 male and 1/2 female. Most of the classes I've been in have been highly skewed one way or the other. So its nice to have an even distribution.

So.

To: Jane, Lena, Marisela, Karen, Gary, Jason, Alan, Adam, and Michael,

Let's make it a good year Carebears!

Best Wishes,
Kristin

Posted by K. Lee at 10:39 AM | Permalink

Have you ever checked out http://www.toxicology.org? If not, you should. Head to the site and see what your Molecular Toxicology major can give you. It explains more about our awesome major (so that you can clearly explain to other people what you learn).

In general, there are six types of toxicologists: clinical, environmental, forensic, industrial, mechanistic, and regulatory. The CNR Mol Tox people are generally more environmental and clinical.

Continue reading "Mol Tox - Society of Toxicology" »

Posted by K. Lee at 9:56 PM | Permalink

Anyways, these couple of days back at Berkeley have felt like I never left it. I moved back in with my old roommates, I hung out with my old friends... same old same old stuff. Yet, I'm dreading the weeks to come as I find out about more and more things that my roommates/friends experienced while I wasn't there. As a non-huge e-mailer, I rely more on AIM/GTalk for contacting people. the difference in timezone meant that when I was available to talk to people, the people here were either sleeping or in class.

In conclusion... I'm excited to be back, but dreading feeling left out of their lives. I did skip out on them for a year though.

Wish me the best!

Posted by K. Lee at 7:50 AM | Permalink

I'm back in the USA. ::hugs the ground::
After Japan, I went to Taiwan where I taught English to aborigine kids.
Common Q: Aren't aborigines in Australia?
Answer: Well.... yes... and .. no. aborigines is the word for people who were the original people living in an area. Thus, the aborigines in the USA are native americans.

So Taiwanese aborigines are of Polynesian decent. They're related to Filipinos and Hawaiians.

The vast majority (85% of the total pop) of ethnic Chinese Han people in Taiwan moved to Taiwan 300-400 years ago. (Whoh! We established the USA in less than that amount of time!). "Taiwanese" usually refers to this group of people. "Mainlanders," when used in the context of Taiwan, normally refers to the group of people that Chiang Kai Shek/Republic of China, brought over about 50 years ago in the fight between Commies and Nationalists in China.

Anyways, the aborigines have been a pretty oppressed group of people. Aside from intermarriage with the Taiwanese, they were also actively killed off (genocide) when the Japanese took over Taiwan. Working with the aborigine children was quite a different experience than working with the Taiwanese children. (Taught one week with Taiwanese and one week with the aborigine). The aborigine children are so much more innocent...like the Taiwanese kids use to be about 5 years ago. They're also less educated and have a lesser tech knowledge. It's... very different.

Posted by K. Lee at 10:47 PM | Permalink

Today, I helped a friend edit his presentation for work. While talking, I learned that his major had been Political Science. It turns out that he wants/wanted to change Japan and open it up more. I asked him why he was working as an ordinary worker instead of being involved in politics. His reasoning was that he didn't want to run against his cousin who is the politician in his district. His granduncle had been Keizo Obuchi, a past prime minister of Japan. He explained that politics is a sort of family run affair where there can only be one heir. On a similar note, I've been watching a drama called CHANGE which is about this guy running in the elections in Japan. ^^ Educational. Watch it.

Posted by K. Lee at 7:20 AM | Permalink

I was chatting with my organic chem professor over at International Christian University where I'm currently studying abroad. Somehow, we got onto the topic of alcohol, and he asked me I like sake (Japanese liquor). It turns out that a graduating student of his gave him a high quality bottle, and he doesn't like sake. He prefers good old German wine. ^^. Anyways, he ended up giving me the bottle of sake for me to take home and drink with my father. ^^ He made me promise to drink it with my dad. ^^ We'll see how good it is in a month or so when I finally see my family. Yay! I'm heading home in a month! It does sad to be leaving Japan. Maybe I'll be back in the future. Who knows?

Posted by K. Lee at 2:43 AM | Permalink

There are two digital book reader devices out there: Sony's Reader Digital Book and Amazon's Kindle. Amazon's device is much better marketed than Sony's. Since Amazon is where one tends to go for books, it is a natural extension of Amazon. When we think books, we think Amazon. Sony's audience is more tech based. From its website down to its design, it is designed for the more digitally inclined group. While Sony allows one to load ones own personal files onto the device at no extra charge, the device requires hook-up to a computer to manage the digital library. Amazon allows this all to happen directly from the device. Sony's is more a a peripheral device for the computer while Amazon's is a stand-alone device. Yet the extra charges that Amazon loads onto its device are annoying. It makes things so easy to do because it snips charges away from at every step. Amazon also has a larger capacity for book storage and for battery charges. Sony's advertising isn't great. During the video explanation, the advertiser says that the device costs around $300. The actual pricing is $299.99. By saying $300, they lose the pricing advantage that they had. People realize that $299.99 is basically $300, but it doesn't hit the pricing point when it is $299.99, which makes it seem more affordable.

This, and other marketing mistakes really hurts Sony. They may win with the Blu-Ray, but they're definitely loosing on the digital reader device.

Posted by K. Lee at 9:08 AM | Permalink

It's amazing how much English I have lost. I haven't written a critical thinking essay since I left Berkeley. Writing one recently wasn't easy. Trying to recall words and spelling was like... whoooohhhhh. You know.. that word...that you want to use...but you can't recall. It's so frustrating. >< Hopefully with more practice, I'll be able to remember soon. :")

Aside from that, I was able to do a homestay with a family in Takahagi, Ibaraki-ken, Japan. Seeing how they lived, even though it was only one night, was quite interesting. Maybe more on this later.

Posted by K. Lee at 6:10 AM | Permalink

As well as you try to prepare, you can never be prepared enough. I like to think that I'm a pretty well prepared person. Before I went abroad, I tried ensure my own graduation safety. I made sure that I finished my freshman to junior courses all in my first two years. That way, when I went abroad, I wouldn't have to worry about getting credits for my major. I thought that that kind of preparation would be a worst case scenario. Thank goodness I did though, because that was just what happened. I was unable to take a single course towards my major. One of the issues upon returning from abroad is unit conversion. As you know, eight of the UCs are on a quarter system. Thus, the Educational Abroad System uses a quarter unit system. These quarter units are converted to semester units for Berkeley (and I suppose Merced). If the school abroad you are at is a quarter system, then you mostly don't have any complaints. The issue comes in when the school abroad is a semester system. Instead of direct semester to semester transfer, it is from semester to quarter to semester units transfer. For example. I'm taking a 2 unit Organic Chemistry I class here. This becomes 2.5 quarter UC units. This will finally become a 1.6 semester Berkeley units. That missing 0.4 units is a painful thing and can often mean the difference between a course being accepted as equivalent and not.

Another issue is the course schedule. Before coming, I had planned on taking a dozen or so courses in international studies, humanities, and Japanese. Yet, all Japanese courses are 2nd and 3rd period every day of the week. Most of the classes I was interested in fell into 2nd and 3rd period. Unlike Berkeley where one may sign up for time conflict classes, you may not do so at ICU, nor is there any way to override the system.

Thus, while I enjoy studying abroad, don't expect to get any major or requirements done while abroad. The only thing you may be able to get fulfilled are your breadths, and you may not even be able to do that unless you have advanced level Japanese. If you have beginner to low intermediate level language skills, the course and scheduling restrictions will keep you from doing so.

But note, I would still study abroad again if I had to do it all over. The experiences you gain here are worth more than the difficulty in getting credits.

Posted by K. Lee at 10:45 PM | Permalink

We all know that we get ripped off on our textbooks. Looking at that lovely organic chemistry textbook of Vollhardt's that costs $163.95 on Amazon is painful. Salt is just poured on the wound when I realize that I can get the same book new on Japan Amazon for $100. What's with this difference? (Not that we use Vollhardt's book here at International Christian University. We use Solomons where there is a $100 price gap.)
It's the exact same book being published in the exact same location. It's not even an "international edition" that is marked "not for sale in North America."
Science and education subject books are cheaper in Japan.
On the other hand, literature, law, and history books seem to be more expensive in Japan.

What's with this disparity? Hum....

Posted by K. Lee at 6:02 AM | Permalink

I don't mean that BBC News is rewriting history in a good way. As some may or may not know, Taiwan is holding their presidential elections tomorrow, March 22. This, along with the coming Beijing Olympics, has caused more news to be written about Taiwan than normal. Thus, the proliferation of incorrect and suggestive sentences, strongly biased towards the People's Republic of China, has increased.

Sentences and Formatting that Greatly Irritate Me:

(1) "China says that Taiwan is part of its territory, although the two have been separately governed since 1949."
Tibet focus for Taiwan election

(2) "Taiwan broke away from the mainland in 1949, when the Communists took over."
China trade links are key in Taiwan poll

(3) Interactive History BBC News Interactive History

Rebuttals:
(1) This sentence completely ignores the fact that beginning in 1895, Japan had formal control of Taiwan with the Treaty of Shimonoseki. And it was only in 1887 did the Manchu Empire (the Qing Dynasty who ruled China) declare Taiwan part of China. Actually, when the Taiwanese heard that they were to be part of Japan, they declared a Taiwan Republic. A couple days later, when Japan came in, the republic was taken over. Check out these maps:
Taiwan is not part of the map here in the Qing Dynasty, nor on this Ming Dynasty map (the dynasty right before Qing). Taking into consideration history, one must remember that possession is eleven points of the law. Immigration between the mainland and Taiwan was also quite fluid as they are located close to each other. (Currently the closest territory of Taiwan is less then a mile away from China, but the main island is at least 80 miles away.) Control of Taiwan varied throughout history with different empires ruling over portions of it at different times.

Continue reading "BBC News Rewriting History" »

Posted by K. Lee at 7:10 AM | Permalink

After church at Berkland Baptist Church, Tokyo, I went to the park behind Korakuen with some people. For only a 300 yen ($3) entrance fee, we got to tour the entire park. It's plum blossom season and it was beautiful. After, we left and went towards the Korakuen Department store. Parked outside was a bike with a kid in the backseat. No parent to be seen. We stood there for 25 min before we decided to get help. Two people went in to ask the station master what to do. He said it wasn't his jurisdiction and to get the police to handle it. (Closest police station is a 7 min walk down the street). Meanwhile, the kid's dad finally came back. He unlocked his bike, patted his kid's head, and rode off. It was like.. hum...
Tokyo's safe, but not that safe. There are often kidnapping reports (according to the Japanese people-church-friends).

Posted by K. Lee at 11:59 PM | Permalink

It's been one and a half weeks into my lovely vacation. Japanese universities have March off....and some even have February off too. I only have March off [International Christian University]. During this month, I've moved in with my cousin who is located in central Tokyo. The apartment is near Tokyo University [a.k.a. Todai].
Yesterday was quite productive. I finished my HTML final project for the UC Berkeley Extension class Creating Websites with HTML. http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/ Since I could do everything online, I had started in October. One has 6 months to finish an online class. Haha.

Continue reading "A month of Vacation" »

Posted by K. Lee at 5:39 PM | Permalink

Monopoly is coming out with a new world edition. You can help vote to put cities on the map..

Go nominate Taipei, Taiwan at http://www.monopolyworldvote.com/en_GB/world !
You'll have to register for an account, but... just do it!

If you look at the countries, they don't even list Taiwan. So go out there and nominate Taipei, Taiwan...then starting on the 29th of Feb, vote for it!

and.. yay! Kosovo has independence!

Posted by K. Lee at 6:30 AM | Permalink

Studying abroad means that one ought to take all the opportunities possible to improve one's language skills. One way that I do this is my watching dramas. I prefer to watch them once without subtitles, then once again with subtitles to catch the meanings I didn't get the first time. If the episode was fascinating, I might watch it once more without subtitles. For proper language skills, I would recommend that one not watch anime (Japanese cartoons). Many Japanese people mention that those to avidly watch anime talk oddly. They have a comic accent.

On an awesome note, as I was watching a drama, this guy with this shirt pops up.

Go UC System!

Posted by K. Lee at 12:17 AM | Permalink

The Washington State University's sports coach Willy and five athletes (golf, baseball, and athletic related majors) visited International Christian University, Japan, where I am studying abroad. As a member of the baseball team (manager = girls pick up balls, bring tea to the players, etc. [not quite as cool as what a manager means in the USA]) I went for the welcoming and closing parties.

I'm quite amazed at Japanese hospitality. They took care of U of Washington's people quite well.

On the other hand, I found out that Berkeley has a baseball team. Did you know that? I only found out when the U of Wash captain of the baseball team, Simi, remarked on his experiences at Cal. Heh. Also, when they joked about Cal and the Pac-10, all I could really do was smile and nod. You see, all I know about Cal athletes is football, we hate StanfUrd, and we're in the Pac-10. That's not very much information.

By the way, W Dub =/= Washington State U=WSU
And, now I have a WSU hat.

Yay! Come back and visit again WSU!

Posted by K. Lee at 5:48 AM | Permalink

A girl in my dorm is taking an English class on Bioethics presented me with the following case.
A scientist/doctor in Japan has transplanted 42 cases of kidneys into patients on dialysis. The issue with these kidneys was that they were previously diseased but had the diseased portion cut out before transplantation. In none of these cases did complications arise. Due to the situation in Japan, the scientist was unable to present his findings/paper in Japan. Yet, he will be bringing the paper to present in the USA this month (or perhaps he has already presented it this month).

She asked me about my thoughts:
Q: Is this more acceptable in the USA? The USA is probably more open about presenting abnormal, groundbreaking, cases. However, this does not mean that the situation would be more acceptable in the USA.
Q: Would you give your diseased kidney to someone? No. I don't want to deal with liability issues our legal system makes it easy to sue. Even with liability waivers, it is still possible to sue.

Continue reading "Bioethical Issues on Kidney Transplants" »

Posted by K. Lee at 7:24 AM | Permalink

I've never seen it snow before! It's 1 AM and my UC Irvine buddy texted me. I went outside to see for myself. Holding my hand out, tiny white droplets fell. Snowflakes!! They only lasted a second.. but.. SNOWFLAKES!!! As you can see, I am excited. :)

Posted by K. Lee at 8:00 AM | Permalink

It's still vacation for Berkeley, but I'm in the middle of my second trimester here at International Christian University, Japan. Thus far, I've learned about international representations.

When I think about America, I think about immigration. It's a soup bowl of people. It may be a melting pot or a salad, but either way we're a unique culture of combinations. There is truly no uniting force in the USA except that we are ... here by accident or by purpose (whether our own or some other force). Going overseas, we represent this conglomeration of cultures. Yet, because it is a glop of cultures, when we represent, we are unable to represent the entirety. We do not have a common history, ancestors, or thoughts to bind us together. The question of what is an American is a difficult question.

Continue reading "Representing" »

Posted by K. Lee at 12:59 AM | Permalink

According to this article and according to a little slip I received from the emigration officer when I was leaving Japan for a visit to the USA last week, beginning Nov 20th, I will be fingerprinted (and my picture will be entered into a database) every time I enter the country. Frankly, I feel quite...uncomfortable by this prospect. My fingerprints are my own, unique. I don't want them in some database especially since I haven't done anything. Sure, if I forget to turn on my bike light when I'm biking in Japan, take my fingerprint oh police-dude! (True thing. They take your fingerprint because foreigners normally don't have the I.D. stamp with them (hanko)). However, before I've even committed something is a bit... ... ... hum.

In the article, it talks about foreigner visitors to the USA needing to be IDed and photoed. Can anyone verify that? None of my relatives recall going though that, but it has been a long time since any of them visited. Maybe it depends on which country you come from and the Visa requirements?

Posted by K. Lee at 1:39 AM | Permalink

It's been quite fun here in Japan. Last weekend, the "Canada House" (one of the men's dorms) had a "Canada House Ball." I can't believe the effort the guys went into for the dorm. The theme was Indiana Jones...but I didn't see anything vaguely Indiana Jones-ish except for the entrance in.

Here I am with my classmates. All international students.

Over the weekend, I went to celebrate with my Baseball Club because we'd gotten 2nd in our league. Here's part of the team. The team is quite close. Even ex-members continue to come to practice and hang with the rest of us. =)

Then here's the yummy food we had.

Posted by K. Lee at 5:22 AM | Permalink

One disadvantage of studying abroad is that I have no resistance to their diseases. I've never been sick this often in my life. My entire Japanese class (minus the teacher) has been sick at least once in the past two months. We have a test tomorrow and we were trying to think of ways to get our professor sick...but since our Japanese class is taught by 6 different professors...we decided that it would be too difficult to get all 6 sick by tomorrow. ;) mwahahah.

Posted by K. Lee at 5:35 AM | Permalink

The Study Abroad Office asked me to answer some questions for Cal guy interested...so here are my answers just in case you were interested.

1. How intense was the school's Japanese language program?
2. How effective was it? (were you able to speak at the native level by
the time you returned home? Could you read books, watch tv, etc. How
proficient did you become in Japanese?
3. What level of Japanese did you take at UC Berkeley before studying
abroad.

I'm currently a Junior (Molecular Toxicology
Major) studying at ICU for the year. The Japanese Language Program (JLP)
can be quite intensive. There's a required summer program that is about
3.5 hrs a day 5 days a week. It was fast but doable. It's the "normal" JLP
classes squeezed into 7 weeks. During the normal year, there's a "normal"
JLP class (12 hours/week) and an "intensive" JLP class. Intensive is..
really intensive at 4 sessions of 70 min classes a day 5 days a week (23
hours). It's basically 2 levels of "normal" JLP classes squeezed into one
semester. It's recommended that you do not take any additional classes
aside from that. I think that one class on top of that is doable. ;) I'm
taking Intensive right now.
2&3. I've been in Japan for 3.5 months now. I entered with basically no
knowledge of Japanese. I had not taken Japanese at Berkeley. The last time
I touched Japanese was in sophomore year of high school where I took one
years worth of Japanese at the community college. Living in the school

Continue reading "ICU Japan Questions" »

Posted by K. Lee at 11:07 AM | Permalink

Today, I visited the laboratory class of Prof. Kobayashi of ICU. It was pretty awesome. They were doing a laboratory on progesterone and its effect on fish sexual behavior. I got to inject progesterone into fish. We watched the bipotential brain of the fish and the spawning behavior.

Then, we studied the the fish immunological system each student implanted fish scales from different types of fish and from clones of fish. It's not as easy as it looks. =)

Overall, I learned quite of bit from the class. The different teaching style, laboratory layout, and student to teacher interaction was also different. The single professor teaches with two helpers, a GSI and a post-doc. There are about 20 people in the class. The small class size and teacher to student ratio really allows for thinking and questions. The lab report that they were assigned for this lab was unusual in that it was an open ended question, "What follow-up question do you have? Design an experiment: Intro, Purpose, Materials, Procedure." Kobayashi-Sensei said that he wanted to train the students to critically think. I'm glad that I went even though I was dirt tired. Professors at ICU are pretty nice and welcoming. =)

Posted by K. Lee at 1:33 AM | Permalink

I joined the baseball team at International Christian University - Japan as a manager. In Japanese clubs, managers are the girls who pick up the balls, clean the equipment, do odd jobs, and perform first aid. What's nice is that one of the players actually lived in my hometown for a few years. =)
Anyways, today the university was getting a head count of all the players so everyone showed up. Since the equipment was out already, they started playing catch, practicing swinging, and helping to scrape the field. The thing is that everyone came from different places. First you have the people who were practicing earlier in their baseball uniforms. Then there were the people who just came from job interviews wearing their suits. The people who came from classes were still wearing their trendy clothes (e.g. tight red pants with a rolled up shirt, or the guy with the sports coat and jeans). Their enthusiasm for baseball really showed. It was awesome!

Not related to the baseball team, I was able to help a dorm mate check the English translation for a Japanese sex-ed book she was hired to translate. It was pretty interesting and the differences between the Japanese culture and American culture showed. I made a few cultural changes and grammatical changes. It was fun discussing it and learning about the differences. Ex. 1. The Japanese say that there are 10 months of pregnancy. (The lunar calender probably accounts for this difference.) Ex. 2. The penis is drawn the other way up in Japanese sex-ed books.

Posted by K. Lee at 3:02 AM | Permalink

One: It takes exactly 3 months to use up a 40 mL bottle of mosquito bite anti-itch medicine. That's plenty of mosquitoes causing me pain in order to reproduce and produce more mosquitoes that will cause me future pain. Irony.

Two: The best time to take a shower in the communal girl's shower at International Christian University - Japan 's 1st Women's dorm is between 12:30 A.M. and 1 A.M. That is when the showers are normally full and you are trapped with people that must talk to you. :) It's good practice. When else are you going to talk to people for a full 15 minutes without using your electronic dictionary?

Posted by K. Lee at 9:28 AM | Permalink

Give Blood. Mwahahhaa.
At Berkeley, there are often blood drives going on in MLK. You should see this guy in a blood drop suit during those times.
In Japan at ICU, there was a blood mobile. It was pretty awesome. I gave 400 mL today. whee~~ Hehe. It was my first time giving blood. The people were really skillful. I remember when I needed an IVP at the Tang Center. It took them 3-4 tries (2 people) before they got a hold of my blood. And.. that was painful. But the blood drive people do this all day for a long time. They're really skilled and in one shot, the nurse got my blood. They know how to angle it so that it doesn't ache. Thus, its pretty much painless except for the pinch at the insert-tation. (Is that a word?) It was faster than I expected. yay! blood! It didn't even hurt when they removed it.

GO GIVE BLOOD! And sign up for Bone Marrow Donation at those Bone Marrow Drives.

Posted by K. Lee at 9:30 PM | Permalink

Until April 30th, Microsoft is selling Office 2007 for $60 to university students. That is really cheap compared to the $150 Home/Student Version. For y'all out there with the illegal/free/downloaded/key-hacked version, this is your chance at becoming a good cit. (And for y'all out there who are saying that "it doesn't hurt anyone" you know that that's just plain BS.) Along with the Deal, there is also a blog contest going on. Thus:
This blog is part of the Microsoft “The Ultimate Steal” Blogging Contest. Go to www.theultimatesteal.com for details.
How would I use Microsoft Office for? As students, we've been living off of Word since birth. The Word 2007 lets me: word process my labs and research papers; manipulate my documents; and create nice looking pamphlets easily. Sure, I could probably make nicer looking pamphlets with Photoshop or something, but it’s just more instinctive with Word for me.
Then there's PowerPoint with which I can create awesome presentations. While people really want to learn about sarin, dioxin, or one of the other toxins in my Toxicology class, people also zone out fast. With interesting animations to maintain interest my professor will be awake enough to give me the decent grade I deserved. Also, with the main points on the PowerPoint, I don't have to deal with people saying "Can you repeat that?"
Ah. And finally Excel. Excel 2007 brings a higher powered calculation masterpiece. I can create my graphs, compare data, input data, calculate calculations, and basically analyze my data in every sort of way with Excel 2007. Even fuzzies (humanities majors) need Excel! E.g. History: calculating the mortality in a war or something.
Office 2007 will enable me to dynamically excel in my academic studies. I can’t imagine life before Office at all. Were those the Notepad days?

Posted by K. Lee at 7:01 PM | Permalink

Until April 30th, Microsoft is selling Office 2007 for $60 to university students. That is really cheap compared to the $150 Home/Student Version. For y'all out there with the illegal/free/downloaded/key-hacked version, this is your chance at becoming a good cit. (And for y'all out there who are saying that "it doesn't hurt anyone" you know that that's just plain BS.) Along with the Deal, there is also a blog contest going on. Thus:
This blog is part of the Microsoft “The Ultimate Steal” Blogging Contest. Go to www.theultimatesteal.com for details.
How would I use Microsoft Office for? As students, we've been living off of Word since birth. The Word 2007 lets me: word process my labs and research papers; manipulate my documents; and create nice looking pamphlets easily. Sure, I could probably make nicer looking pamphlets with Photoshop or something, but it’s just more instinctive with Word for me.
Then there's PowerPoint with which I can create awesome presentations. While people really want to learn about sarin, dioxin, or one of the other toxins in my Toxicology class, people also zone out fast. With interesting animations to maintain interest my professor will be awake enough to give me the decent grade I deserved. Also, with the main points on the PowerPoint, I don't have to deal with people saying "Can you repeat that?"
Ah. And finally Excel. Excel 2007 brings a higher powered calculation masterpiece. I can create my graphs, compare data, input data, calculate calculations, and basically analyze my data in every sort of way with Excel 2007. Even fuzzies (humanities majors) need Excel! E.g. History: calculating the mortality in a war or something.
Office 2007 will enable me to dynamically excel in my academic studies. I can’t imagine life before Office at all. Were those the Notepad days?

Posted by K. Lee at 7:01 PM | Permalink

This is aka hazing week over in the Japan ICU dormitories. Each newbie in the dorms must wear a costume for the entire week. Mine is keropi. I have a kangeroo friend and a yellow power ranger friend in the other dorms. ^^ I'll try to get a picture up.

For clubs, I think that I will join the Baseball and Golf clubs. I've enjoyed Golf since my Wii days. (yes, that's the Nintendo Wii.) I've wanted to try out the real thing, but its quite expensive in the USA. At ICU, they transform the baseball diamond (not really transform) into a golf range, so it is free to practice. So I'll be around the baseball diamond a lot. I'll elaborate on this post later.

Posted by K. Lee at 10:35 AM | Permalink

The typhoon is coming so we have canceled classes tomorrow. yay? It would be yay...except we're trapped inside...and that also means more work next week. Well, it's interesting at least. heh.

Posted by K. Lee at 12:58 AM | Permalink

I moved into my new dorm on Saturday. I have a huge room shared with a roommate. Nice. Imagine...a room double the size of the average Foothill room. Ahhh. The room was badly designed though. The closets are unmovable and in a sucky location. It's a long room so there is much wasted space since each person is lined up against the side. Wide rooms are preferable for shared rooms. Anyways, they have lots of sockets... YAY! I have 10 sockets just to myself. =) Good design.

Continue reading "A new dorm life" »

Posted by K. Lee at 6:24 AM | Permalink

I had two weeks off, so I went to Gunma and worked for a farm family through WWOOF. It is a work for food/housing thing. Since I do not have a work permit, that was pretty decent. I worked at the food stand at Asama National Park and at the cabbage farm harvesting cabbage.

So I wisely volunteered for farm work. As a result I am in pain... Cabbage cutting was painful until I adopted a sit on trough and cut. Move cabbage. Scooch forward. Repeat. Much easier on the back. cabbages are heavy. Really heavy. From the second day though, we needed to move faster, so I could not do my sit scooch thing. AHRGH PAIN.

Continue reading "Farming. Gunma. Japan." »

Posted by K. Lee at 11:34 PM | Permalink

I went on my first trip outside of Tokyo today. It was quite fun, but tiring. Two Japanese students led six overseas students. We went to Hakone, which is known for its hot springs. Our youth hostel had its own hot spring water, so we bathed at night and in the morning there. We also went to this classes onsen (hot spring) place. They had six pools and a sauna on the girls' side. It was weird in the beginning bathing with all the other women...but I got used to it after a while. (Swimming suits not allowed.) I stink like sulfur now though.
Then we went up on a Rope Way (cable car ride) to the top of the Hakone Mountains. There, we got to see the steaming sulfur pools and eat the black sulfur eggs. Quite interesting. The legend is that if you eat one egg, you gain 7 years, and if you eat 2 eggs, you gain 14 years to your lifespan. Eat more than that...and there are no guarantees. I've attached a youtube video link for you to see our mountain hiking trip. Enjoy. It's very simple.

Posted by K. Lee at 3:13 AM | Permalink

So here in Japan, they have fun with watermelons. They blindfold a person, spin them around, and verbally guide them to a watermelon that they have to crack with a stick. The point is not to smash the watermelon, because you waste watermelon that way. It's just to crack it so that you have a cutting point for your knife. Yummy Watermelon. Funny people. mwahahah. Sticky hands.

On the other hand, we learned yesterday in UC Orientation that... you should never do what your Japanese classmates do. In Japan, grades for your Japanese classmates don't matter. There's no GPA, so they don't care if they get a C. On the other hand, that would be painful for us UC students. There was this story of a cocky UCB student who decided that he didn't need to go to classes. The entire grade was based on a final paper. Yet... when the final day came and he was to turn in his paper, his professor would not accept it. Evidently, there was this 4 letter word in Kanji that means assumed attendance. You have to attend classes. He'd missed 10/13 classes. He got an F. Professors here don't mind giving out Ds and Es (what we would say are Fs). It doesn't hurt the student here... but since everything transfers back... one would say that all you can do is cry if you're in that situation.

Posted by K. Lee at 12:02 AM | Permalink

So bike registration was relatively easy. The housing assistants brought us down to the police station and we turned in our paperwork. Since we're "bimbo"s, or "poor," the nice police civil worker waived the fee for us. so ta da. I'm done. Now I don't need to be worried about being stopped by police.

Interesting Fact: It's illegal to drink and bike.

Posted by K. Lee at 6:20 AM | Permalink

Before entering Berkeley, you'll get an online alcohol knowledge seminar and a mini test. While I'd love tell you to take it seriously, it is hard to take that 3 hr long seminar seriously. I was reading/surfing the internet while the powerpoint was running. Click click click. Use the info for your safety. There is a lot of alcohol available all over campus and off of campus. Drink safely, and wisely. I would rather say, don't drink, but I know that it isn't reasonable for all people. Always go with a buddy, and leave with your buddy. If your buddy doesn't want to leave the party, get someone else to watch over your buddy, then call bearwalk and have them walk you home. Bearwalk is a free service. You call the number, and a person in a bright yellow suit comes to pick you up. There are dark blue suited people too, so if you don't want to walk next to a bumblebee, you can request a non-bumblebee. ;)
As far as sexual harassment... people don't think that you're as funny as you think when you are drunk. They're laughing out of awkwardness. Don't do it.
If you get sexually harassed, report it. Don't just be like, "Oh, it's okay, I don't want to make a fuss." People that sexually harass rarely stop. They just move onto the next victim. Don't let there be anymore victims. Even if the school can't do enough on the first report, they will be able to if a few report it. So, report it! http://ccac.berkeley.edu/ It's nice that UC Berkeley is pretty on top of things and actually cares. So, don't be scared to report it. We're at Berkeley so that we'll make a difference in the world. Blending in and becoming like grass for people to step on isn't really a way to make a stand in the world.

Posted by K. Lee at 9:40 AM | Permalink

Before coming to Japan, I was thinking, "where in the world is Carmen San Diego!" no... haha.. but, "how am I going to bring my money over and manage it?"
I'm a Bank of America loyalist... I've been raised in the good old American bank. Ever since my first ancestor came to the USA, we've always relied on Bank of America. However, banks have changed. They aren't as customer friendly as before. Doing my research, I found one awesome credit card / bank that didn't charge extra for international transactions:
Capital One. It's a small bank in SoCal that has a good internet presence. I have a money market account and credit card with them. It's awesome in that they pay out of their own pocket the 1% Visa international charge and they don't have any other charges. The same with withdrawing from ATMs. They don't charge anything. So where Chase, WaMu, and BoA would have hit you with up to 7% in fees.... I don't pay anything. So I'm living a happy life here while everyone else is having a hard time accessing moolah. Oh yeah. I also have a Citibank account which worked fine, but some people have been getting hit with a 1% fee at non-Citibank ATMs. Since the nearest Citibank is a couple cities away, I've just been using my CapOne. Since I also earn miles/points on my CapOne credit card, I've been using my credit card whenever possible.

Posted by K. Lee at 1:38 AM | Permalink

The post offices here are AWE-some. In Japan, post offices have semi-banking ability. You can open a post office savings account to store that lovely cash sitting around. There really isn't an interest rate though. Since there are post offices all around Japan in every nook and cranny possible, you'll always have access to the PO ATMs. Note however, PO ATMs are only open during specific hours and aren't accessible on the weekends (fact check?). I had an interesting experience trying to open one, but you to can do it with basically no Japanese speaking/understanding ability. The best part about PO accounts is that even if you leave the country, you can still keep your account. ATMs aren't just depositories however....

Continue reading "Going Postal in Japan" »

Posted by K. Lee at 1:26 AM | Permalink

Yesterday was a national holiday, but we were lucky and had the opportunity to take a midterm. whohoo! There was also a earthquake in a nearby prefecture. We were able to feel it though. shakeshakeshake. Quite similar to the Berkeley shakes. Ah. which reminds me. Non-Californians should learn about earthquake safety before they come to Berkeley. Quite important to know how to duck and where the safest parts of structures are.
Classes are quite intense. Three tests a week. 2 vocab, and one section/midterm test. It's a fast

Continue reading "Week two of ICU ILP study abroad" »

Posted by K. Lee at 10:32 PM | Permalink

It's been a crazy intensive first week already. whohhhh. Think intensive x5. 12 unit class. >< wah wah wah. haha. Two vocab quizzes for the two chapters that we've covered. We have a test on teh coming Monday. At least tomorrow will be a nice break. I'll be going on a field trip (wow! field trip! I haven't been on one since middle school!) to the National Theater in Japan for a Kabuki event. That should be superb. I'm not sure if I'll like it, but it'll be an interesting experience.

Homework has been quite heavy and tiring. I have not taken Japanese in four years, so I'm quite a bit rusty. Wish me the best!

Posted by K. Lee at 8:20 AM | Permalink

The campus is flat and wide. Well, flat except for these two lumps of hills in the middle of campus called Baka-yama and Aho-yama. (Stupid mountains) People who cut class tend to go there to sleep and hang out when they're cutting. There are lots of large tall trees. They're right outside of my window so its quite nice. My window faces the east which allows me to wake up with the sun on my face at around 8AM naturally! Isn't that amazing? Or maybe that's the jetlag waking me up. hahaha.

Ah, and the free bike. There was a drawing for 4 free bikes and I won one. yay! Now I have a bike to get around and I don't have to buy one. I was planning on buying a bike to get around for the year, but this is much better. Now I can spend the ~$100 on food. Food is expensive. It's not more expensive than UC Berkeley campus food, but eating that everyday adds up. I went grocery shopping a few days ago so I've been cooking for myself mostly. Thus far, I've spent 10152 yen (~$88). That's not too bad as a week in itself, but I've actually only been spending money for 2.3 days. Now it gets scary.

A nice thing I've noticed is that my skin feels nicer. It doesn't feel dry and scaly without lotion anymore. yay.

Posted by K. Lee at 7:58 PM | Permalink

Die mosquitoes. DIE!
I just got these two mosquitoes while walking through the foyer of the Global House, the dorm I'm living in. Yesterday, while walking I got 5 insects bites. I'm fully covered in long sleeves, long pants, sneakers, socks, etc. Yet these mosquitoes still find my skin in the tiny exposed crevices when I'm walking!
I took the three hour placement exam this morning. It was quite grueling. Even with the review I've been doing, I've realized that I don't have much listening nor speaking experience. I have reading and writing, but aural listening and speaking are simply...impossible at this time. I hope to become decent and be able to carry on a conversation by the end of this summer. Dream high, reach high.
Orientation. While the other, non-UC, participants of the summer program got a school tour, the UC students had Orientation number one. We learned about safety, the law, and safety. Follow the rules and you'll be okay. Don't follow them and.... good luck.
At the end of the orientation, we received our housing placements for the fall. I got into my first

Continue reading "Day Two - Japan - ILP" »

Posted by K. Lee at 1:20 AM | Permalink

I hopped on the train to Mitaka and took a taxi to ICU. If you're considering ICU, take the taxi if you're coming with luggage. It makes life so much better to not have to lug luggage around. Everyone who's living on campus stays at the Global House for the summer. It's 4 little rooms set around a sort of living room. There's a washer, shower, bathroom, mini kitchen, fridge, etc. in the suite. It's lovely! Each room has a personal balcony. It overhangs to lovely greenery.
I went out today to get my Alien Registration, Certificate, National Health Insurance, and cellphone. You need the Alien Registration to get the certificate and the certificate to get the NHI and cellphone. They make copies for you at the place for free, so you don't need to bring your own copies of stuff. If you don't have pictures already, there is a kiosk at the City Hall where you can get them taken. By bus 01 from ICU, its a 10 min bus ride. At first, I took the

Continue reading "Day One - Japan - ILP" »

Posted by K. Lee at 6:39 AM | Permalink

I'm now in Japan. I left on the 3rd, arrived on the 4th, slept overnight at my cousin's church place, and in a few hours I will be heading to ICU. We took the Keisai Skyliner from Narita airport to Ueno before traveling by taxi. The taxi service was interesting as you press a button and a taxi comes zipping around the corner. I was a bit confused about the seatbelt usage though. The driver didn't put on his seatbelt until 6 minutes into the ride. In the backseat, there was a sign that said to please wear your seatbelt for safety. However, there weren't belt locks for the window seats. I suppose safety is optional.
I didn't have a problem withdrawing money with my Citibank atm card at a Citibank machine. I had an exchange rate of 122.2 which isn't the best since its been at 123 these few days. I can always withdraw later I suppose. I didn't get hit by a transaction fee nor exchange fee which was nice.
At my cousin's place, her roommates made us some nice cold soba and salad. The salad consisted of white turnips instead of the lettuce that we're use to. The sauces were light but delicious. Much better than the ranch but not as sweet was the poppy seed dressings.
Temperature wise it is hot and humid though its said that it doesn't get really hot until August. I suppose that's reassuring? It was a bit rainy yesterday and the skies are gray. Ahh.
I met the burnable vs. non burnable trash today. Paper = burnable. Plastic = non burnable. Except there's a PET plastic that is burnable. What is PET? I'll have to figure that out some other time.
Research. One of the professors from ICU replied to my e-mail regarding research. He seemed very open and welcoming. He told me to drop by his office when I get to ICU. =) I'm not sure if I'll drop by during the summer or wait until the normal school year. We'll see.
Internet will be spotty for a while. Until next time.

Posted by K. Lee at 3:24 PM | Permalink

My passport arrived from the Japanese Consulate last Wednesday. It took them 3 business days to process and one day for the postman to bring it to me. I'm heading off this Tuesday on United Airlines, arriving on Wednesday, and beginning school on Thursday. There's this nifty video that teaches you how to buy a Japanese subway ticket. I found it quite informative. Here it is if you're interested. http://video.aol.com/video-detail/id/2428858945

Posted by K. Lee at 9:22 PM | Permalink

It's great that Japan and the USA are buddies. There was not a Visa application fee for USA nationals. It was a simple one page form with a required 2x2 passport (I just printed one out from my computer) picture. My certificate of eligibility arrived yesterday (June 20th) from Japan by DHL. I went to apply for the student Visa this morning at the Japan Consulate in San Francisco. The guy said that he had had four other ICU people go through the office these couple days. That's quite exciting. I hope to meet up with them over the summer. The visa will take three days to process. With overnight shipping, I should receive it by the 27th. That's cutting it close, isn't it.

Posted by K. Lee at 9:51 PM | Permalink

I took the 1:30 pm MCAT on Friday, June 15th.
When they say to get there early, they mean it. I recommend getting there 50 minutes early to deal with check in and things. The test is proctored by Thompson Testing Centers. They administer multiple tests which overlap. I had to wait 40 minutes before a computer and locker opened up so that I could begin. Since each computer has its own timer and everything, it isn't an issue. You want to get there early so that you get to your writing section about the same time other people do. The typing is just crazy loud in that quiet room.

Physics: died
the rest: relatively good.

=)

They did a good job in choosing interesting passages.

Posted by K. Lee at 7:22 PM | Permalink

We're getting our house exterminated. What's awesome is that I actually know what they're talking about. The pesticides, fumigants, sprays, etc. I know what they're talking about! It's awesome. =) I know the dangers, application, usage, mechanism of action, and toxicity of each chemical. yay!

Posted by K. Lee at 5:42 PM | Permalink

It's summer now. I think some of the incoming freshmen have gone to Calso by now. That's the orientation for incoming frosh. You get to learn about options you have at Berkeley, gain friendships, and register for classes.

REGISTER FOR CLASSES
yes. that scary thingymabob.
So I hope that you've registered for the earliest possible date.
Berkeley's a large school. You're trying to get the best possible schedule that enables you to get the most sleep, best grade, or best social life (choose two of the three). Since incomings cannot register for courses until they come to Calso, having the earliest Calso gives you a lift-up.

Good luck with class registrations!

GO BEARS!

Posted by K. Lee at 9:30 PM | Permalink

More than two years ago, I was a h.s. senior eagerly looking at Berkeley. I was visiting Cal a week before Cal Day. I'd looked up the Toxicology building, Giannini, on the website. Walking up those beautiful marble steps, I was wowed. The elaborate details and elegance stood out. As my parents and I walked down the hallowed halls, a professor came out.

She asked, " Can I help you?"

That in itself was amazing. I'd expected Berkeley to be this enormous and impersonal place. Instead, there was an engaging, friendly, professor. She took the time to answer my questions. There was an enthusiasm I'd never seen before. Before we parted ways, she offered me her e-mail address so that I could ask any questions I had later.

That day was the day I decided to go to Berkeley. My worries of being lost in the crowd dissipated. Now, I'm not sure about the rest of Berkeley, but its hard to be lost at the College of Natural Resources because the people there care.

Posted by K. Lee at 1:27 PM | Permalink

I had my last final on the 14th and I returned home on the 15th. There's been many changes since last year.
1) The mailperson is now different. The lady that was there ever since I was a weee lil tot is gone. Postage is up to 41 cents.
2) The Los Altos Garbage Company has new trucks. They have this claw that can go in all 8 directions. It comes forward, reaches out, angles for your garbage bin, clamps down around the sides, moves it up and over the top, and replaces it. How's that for really nifty? The guy doesn't even need to get out of the truck...unless he accidentally tips over the bin. Be careful to not put your bins too close to each other, or he'll have a hard time.

Posted by K. Lee at 10:07 AM | Permalink

Q: I'm thinking of going my sophomore year, what do you think?
A: The problem with Japan is that the deadline is early compared to most other countries. I'm glad that you're thinking early.There's a great program in Japan that is only for people in their sophomore year, so you may want to look at that. The deadline is in early November compared to Jan for countries like England. I had wanted to study abroad off in my sophomore year, but I missed the application deadline. Also, I just wasn't too sure I was mature enough to take care of myself. Also, if you're a science major, you'll have a difficult time taking your science classes in Japan. Nothing is going to transfer into my major for me because there just isn't suitable equivalents that I can take with my basic Japanese.

Q: How hard was it for you to apply?
A: Quite easy, slightly tedious. Writing the essay was the hard part. It's not difficult, but get someone to proofread it. Also, you need a recommendation. Since the deadline is early for the Japan program, you may not be able to get a recommendation from a professor to submit. Thus, if you're thinking of it while you're still a H.S. senior, go online, print out the recc. form, and ask your teacher to write one for you. When I actually did apply, I got a recc. from my academic advisor/past prof. I had done well in his class, so that was helpful too.

Continue reading "Study Abroad Q&A I" »

Posted by K. Lee at 1:48 AM | Permalink

Today, I recieved in the mail several documents:
-Letter of Acceptance to International Christian University Summer Courses in Japan. App No UC009.
-Good Conduct Surety: I promise to do my best, not disturb the social order in Japan, and stand personally responsible for payment should I go in debt. Hum...that doesn't seem to hard. The guarantor is the International Educational Exchange Office of International Christian University at 10-2, Osawa 3-chome, Mitaka-shi, Tokyo 181. I'm officially an exchange/Invitee student.
-Housing Status Form: I'll also be staying in the Global House, which is the only co-ed, undergraduate dorm at ICU. It's more of a suite format than the rest. Interestingly enough, residents are not allowed on floors designated for the opposite sex. So does that mean that you would be unable to visit a different gendered friend? Probably. Well, I've agreed to not disturb the social order in Japan, so I guess sneaking into the other floor would be a "no-no."

Continue reading "Study Abroad Progress" »

Posted by K. Lee at 2:13 PM | Permalink

http://www.uhs.berkeley.edu/Students/insurance/

At Cal, students are automatically enrolled into SHIP. It's about ~$600 a semester for undergraduates. In order waive out of SHIP, you need to submit the waiver online before mid-August.

The decision of whether to waive or not waive comes down to how you like to gamble.
You're young, relatively healthly, and have other insurance, then you may want to waive it.
If you're active, you may not want to waive.

Personally, I waived out of SHIP. I'm covered under my father's health insurance (not a very good plan...that makes me pay out of pocket for nearly everything) which covers less than what SHIP covers. Yet, I think that I won't use ~$1200/year in benefits. This year, I realized what a pain it is to not have ship. I was diagnosed with microscopic hematuria during my physical for my study abroad program. I had to do tests...after tests...for three months. It added up. Yet, when I finally got cleared to go (it seems like I'm one of those ppl that just have microscopic hematuria) I'd racked up ~$600 in medical bills at the Tang Center. So I'm still in the clear. But not by much if ship was on a semester basis.

However, if I had gotten seriously sick and needed treatment, you can bet that I would have wished that I was covered by SHIP.

The good thing is, you can always opt back into SHIP any time of year. Since the only requirement is that you need to be a student, if you get seriously sick, just waive back in and use the benefits.

About 1/2 of the people I know who are covered by parental insurance are also covered by SHIP. SHIP covers alot and is very convenient to use with the Tang center.

Don't forget, even without SHIP, you can still use the Tang Center.

So its up to you. How well do you think you gamble?

Posted by K. Lee at 9:57 PM | Permalink

One great site to always keep in mind is comegetused.com .
You can sell your books to other students and cut out the middlemen. ^^
If you don't want to deal with that, go to Ned's or the student store to sell back. Remember to do it early. If they have too many of a book, they won't buy yours. If your book won't be used next semester, they won't buy it back (despite the advertisement on Ned's that says "we buy back every book!"

Posted by K. Lee at 7:51 PM | Permalink

Berkeley hosts awesome speakers that Cal students can attend for free! Actually, in this case, only Cal people can attend.
Former President Carter will be coming next week News Article Link Here to talk on his new book.

Awesome eh?

So tickets are limited... they started giving them out at 10 AM today. I got in line at around 12:45. So at 1:30, my friend who is ~30 people ahead of me in line comes and tells me (after he has his ticket), that there were only 10 tickets left at his counter. I start panicking...
So as the people count down, the woman at the front is checking how many they have left. I'm now at the front of the line.

"What's the ticket count left?"
"I have three left."
"I have one left."
"Alright, so that's four more people."

I'm second in line at that point.
~whooosh. I barely squeezed in and got a ticket.

Thank God.

Posted by K. Lee at 9:11 PM | Permalink

Telebears Season.
Well, it has been for the past month or so.
DSP students get super crazy priority- they get theirs on the first day.
Then grad students, upper divs, lower divs.
You priority is determined based on which category you are in (1st year, 2nd year, etc) which is determined by the number of units you have. For example, once you hit 30 units, you're a 2nd year, and once you hit 60, you're a 3rd year. However, there is no difference between having 30 units and have 59 units. Within each category, the actual day and time you get is assigned randomly. Telebears are assigned every 20 min. 9 am, 9:20, 9:40, etc. and you get one hour to complete your telebears.

Good to have great priority.

Continue reading "Mol Tox Progress & Telebears Priority" »

Posted by K. Lee at 2:45 PM | Permalink

Virginia Tech: Thirty-two dead. 21 wounded.
Treating each person as one, and not as a statistic just to be counted, may each one lost rest in peace.

I can't imagine the terror that they went through when they heard, felt, and realized what was happening. I can't imagine that of the families as they waited for the news.

May we keep them in our prayers.

Continue reading "Remembering" »

Posted by K. Lee at 7:02 PM | Permalink

Berkeley has many many many bathrooms. Below, you'll see dots at the locations that I frequent. The ones with a lil 2 on them mean that they're on the second floor. Orange means 1st floor. Blue means basement floor. And the pink without a number is on floor E, female bathroom.

If you continue on, there is an expanded image.,

Continue reading "Campus Bathrooms" »

Posted by K. Lee at 5:00 PM | Permalink

I'm blogging from class. What? I'm not listening to the professor? Yes, I'm still listening to the prof. Multitasking, my dear Watson. "Suuuure you are," types my buddy Matt. Well, that shows how he's paying attn too.

I just thought that I should show off the magnificient internet connection that is present everywhere on campus. We call it "AirBears." Awesome eh? You can be downloading, e-mailing, and AIMing in class. Not that anyone ever does that though. ^^

For deaf students, closed caption is shot over this web connection to their computers. Thus, it actually is important for students to not use it in the larger classes because it'll slow down closed captioning. That's another topic for another day.

Posted by K. Lee at 11:26 AM | Permalink

Spring break has ceased on April 1st. What a cruel joke. ><

I spent spring break back at home on jury duty. I was on call for the entire week. Calling in twice a day and being unable to go anywhere is un-fun. Not that I have any complaints about doing my civic duty, but it would have been nicer if they could divide the group up into two and have them call in on alternate days instead of having everyone call in twice daily. Well, its over now and it'll be at least 12 more months until jury duty possibilities.

Midterms commence tomarrow. whee~~~~
Allergy season seems to be hitting particularly hard this week.

Posted by K. Lee at 5:56 PM | Permalink

Parking spaces in Berkeley are like raw diamonds--rare, ugly, and worth something. As students, especially Berkeley students, it is our duty to take public transportation. Thankfully, we have this magic .75 in x .75 in sticker on our ID cards that says, "BUS PASS." This magical sticker costs only ~$65, and the fee is included in our student fees. Wonderfully useful, the sticker will take you anywhere you want (as long as the places you want to go are covered by AC Transit buses. Since it is considered a sunk cost, it will cost you $0 to get across the bay to S.F. City. Or, you can hop on the bus and ride around campus in a clockwise motion on the Perimeter, counterclockwise on the Reverse, through Campus on the Center, or up from campus to the top of the Berkeley hill to the Space Station on the Hill. So if you're tired from lugging your backpack that is easily 2/3 your weight, just mosely along over to a bus stop and ride up the hill. Or, if you are too far from a bus stop, you can stop anywhere along the route and flag down one of the school's buses. The bus drivers are normally really nice and will pick you up.

Continue reading "Transportation" »

Posted by K. Lee at 10:27 PM | Permalink

Any Californian knows what to do in the event of an earthquake. Duck and Cover. Every couple weeks, there will be a rolling, quaking, minor shaking. A couple of seconds will go by and you'll hear some idiot screaming. Note: if an earthquake lasts longer than five seconds, MOVE UR ASS and get out of there. I was sitting at the dinner table and conversing with my buddies. We talked about the respective earthquakes we've lived through. 1994 Northridge for Joe, 1989 Loma Prieta for Matty, .... We were 8, 3, & 2 back then. Matty was 8 and organizing his baseball cards for the world series. He remembers when 5:04 pm when Loma Prieta hit. Joe doesn't really remember anything. I recall sitting at the dining table when it hit, then walking back in afterwords.
Anyways, get earthquake insurance for your home. The next one will hit, and it'll be painful.

Posted by K. Lee at 8:44 PM | Permalink

Up on the UC owned hills, there's this huge C. It's normally colored yellow, but at times it will change to red(Stanford ppl secretly paint it at night. Then the Cal band paints it back to yellow.) It's a 20 min climb from the very bottom. When you reach the Big C (and it's tradition to climb it at least once), you'll see this memorial plaque embedded it. It's written in memory of the rush of 1905 between the soph and frosh classes. I climbed the hill to the Big C this year again to watch the sunrise with some friends. If you climb it, stay for the sunset. Also, around 5pm everyday, a gentleman will arrive and he'll ask you if you know the story of the Big C. If you don't, he'll tell you the story. If you happen to miss him, then read the story here: Big C Story

Posted by K. Lee at 6:37 PM | Permalink

One activity I've pledged my life to is Alpha Phi Omega. It's a community service fraternity. (Yes, I'm a girl, and I'm in a frat.) It's co-ed.
Q: Why didn't they just make it a community service club? Why a frat?
A: Because if we're a frat, we get to have a secret handshake. ^^ Well that part is true, but originally, APhiO (as we like to call Alpha Phi Omega) was begun sort of as an extension of the Eagle Scouts (as in boy scouts). Later, we became unassociated, and now assist the Boy Scouts once in a while.
Q: What makes APhiO different from the other community service clubs?
A: AphiO is a community. You get to know the people that you serve with. You don't just serve with them, you also hang out together, eat together, and have fun together. It's a lifestyle. Mandatory fun is fun.
Q: So what do I do if I want to join?
A: Pledge next semester. It's too late now. mwahahhaahah

Posted by K. Lee at 10:14 PM | Permalink

A wise EECS major once told me, "You're the one that chooses how great your Berkeley years will be be. You'll get out only as much as you put in."
When you come to Berkeley, it's quite easy to stay uninvolved. No one forces you to talk to your neighbors. You don't have to leave your room. You can stay isolated (perhaps miserable) if you so desire. People who say Berkeley sucks tend to be those that have no passion. On the other hand, you can be a person who has drive, ambition, and passion. You can jump into things at Berkeley. Join a club. Talk to the people older than you. Learn, live--really live. You might not have drive, ambition, or passion. That's fine too. Many of those people are actually a bit scary. ^^ j/p.... However, explore and find something that you like. Volunteer. Sing. Dance. Act. There's so many opportunities here. It's up to you to get started yourself. You're here, independent, and you get to mold yourself.

Posted by K. Lee at 7:25 PM | Permalink

Being a guinea pig pays well above minimum wage. There's two routes to go, the psychology way or the social sciences way.

Psychology: This is with the RPP or the RSVP labs. Go to http://rsvp.berkeley.edu to check it out. They pay $10/hour and you normally get out within an hour. (Cash payment)

Social Sciences: This is with the X-Lab (sounds nifty eh?). http://xlab.sona-systems.com They normally pay $15 an hour but things run for 2 hours. You only do stuff for the first hour. The second hour is for payment processing. Sometimes you get to also keep the money that you win in the projects. (Check payment)

Posted by K. Lee at 9:58 PM | Permalink

Even since being accepted into the study abroad year program in Japan, I've vibrated between excited and worried. I'm a detailed oriented person, so I've been trying to figure out and plan for when I go abroad. I'm not impatient, I'm just focused. There's an orientation meeting for Japan study abroads in April. That's a couple months away and many things need to be planned for in advance. For example, money exchange. It's forecasted that the dollar will weaken against the yen in the coming months--in fact, it already has. Where it was 120.+ yen to the dollar, now its at 119.+ yen to the dollar. Sure, what's a yen difference. It makes quite a bit of difference when you're talking about the USD$20,000 estimated cost of the trip. While a portion of that is paid directly to UC Berkeley to pay to ICU (International Christian University), much of that will become Yen (the Jpn currency).

Continue reading "Preparing for Japan Study Abroad" »

Posted by K. Lee at 5:09 PM | Permalink

When we moved into our apt, one of my roommates found this small table the size of an ottoman. We never used it because it was too short. It was sitting in my closet taking up space. Finally, I asked my roommate if we still needed it. She said, "No, you can throw it away." Immediately, I grabbed my keys and took the table outside. As I was walking back into the apartment building, I hear a squeal, "Ooh, this table is so cute!" I look around and there's this girl walking to the table. She pushes on it to make sure that it doesn't wiggle (it doesn't, it's quite sturdy). Then she picks it up and walks away. Golly, it didn't even last five seconds outside. =)

So yup. You get most of your student furniture from the streets.

Posted by K. Lee at 2:35 PM | Permalink

I'm taking five courses this semester, four of them for my major, one for fun.
MCB 102 Survey of the Principles of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
NST C114 Pesticide Chemistry and Toxicology
PH 150A Epidemiology (the study of diseases)
UGBA 96 Personal Finances
Chem3BL OChem Lab

Guess which is the fun class....Personal Finances. =) That's the great thing about Molecular Toxicology. There's so much room to explore since our only breadth requirement is 22 units in the Humanities, Social & Behavioral Sciences, Philosophy & Values, or Foreign Language. That covers pretty much everything you would want to study. Actually, it doesn't cover my Personal

Continue reading "Classes I'm taking Spring 2007" »

Posted by K. Lee at 4:14 PM | Permalink

Heya. I'm a Molecular Toxicology major. What is MolTox? It's the study of toxicology at a molecular level. What's Toxicology? It's the study of adverse effects of substances on life. So why MolTox? I have two answers, a short one and a long one. To make things short, when I was applying to colleges back in high school, I didn't think I would get in anywhere. I did the "spray and pray" method. I applied to a total of 27 schools. At every school I chose something that seemed interesting. At Berkeley, it was MolTox. I figured that 1/2 to 2/3 of college students end up changing their major. It couldn't be that difficult to change majors. If I chose a safe major, I wouldn't take the chance to experiment and try new things. So MolTox.
For the long answer, read on:

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Posted by K. Lee at 5:14 PM | Permalink