Urban Caving

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Last Saturday, a bunch of us were stuck for something to do . . . so we went caving. Underneath Lincoln. Guided by our fearless leader, Josh, we explored some of the water drainage pipes underneath the streets. It was pretty cool. It's not the first time I've explored them, but it is the first time I've popped out of a manhole cover. That was pretty fun. We didn't really know where we were going to pop out, but it happened to be in the median in the middle of a usually busy road. Fortunately, it was about midnight, so there weren't many cars around.

On the first day of Christmas . . .

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So, I know this is a little bit late, but . . . .whatever. I've accepted the fact that I'm not a consistent blogger. I tend to blog in bursts. Anyways, here's some snapshots of my Christmas.

This is the Lincoln crew posing for a 'family' picture at our potluck Christmas feast. Chester is there too (notice his leg in the bottom left corner.



This is another Christmas party in Lincoln. The theme was "The worst Christmas gift ever." Everyone tried to bring a horrible gift. Then everyone picked a random gift, and sat in the spinning chair and turned in circles while opening their gift. Notables included a rubber seal for a toilet, a carrot, a framed dead toad, and a plastic cactus. Of course, some people didn't get the memo and actually brought good gifts: a bottle of sparkly for example. Kristina even ended up with a pet fish.



This is the annual decorating of the (w)ham at home. Christmas just isn't quite Christmas without the wham. Mmmm, it's so good. This year my dad got a little creative and decided to make the wham look a little bit more like a ham.




This is Kevin, Jackie, Justin, and Diego snowshoeing. Well, except Diego. First time I've ever been snowshoeing. It was pretty cool, although the conditions weren't the greatest. Our property is on what used to be a gypsum mine, so there's a bunch of old foundations and mine structures. We found one of them while out there, we think it might have been a cistern, or maybe an old outhouse? We're not sure. Anyways, that's me, in it, looking around.




I didn't feel like wrapping my presents traditionally this year. Plus, I didn't feel like buying more wrapping paper. So I used some rubber bands (I used to collect rubber bands, so I have a lot of them sitting around) and some foam board to wrap them instead.



These are pictures from Christmas with my dad's side of the family. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of Christmas with my mom's side. Here's my mom opening her present. Then there's my dad and all of his siblings with the matching t-shirts that we got them (they spell OKIMI, from oldest to youngest). Then there's my grandmother opening my brothers' and my gift to her. She said she needed a new swim suit . . . we actually got her gift certificates to get a new swim suit, but thought it would be funny if we also got a her a neon bikini.





This is a bunch of friends hanging out playing games in the New Year, up in Oshawa, where I went to highschool.

grow, grow, grow

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Last semester, I worked on a project with Heather Dickman, for my Mammalian Physiology class. We worked under Dr. Vener Cabana, without whom, I think we would have been completely lost. Except for the fact that we got started kind of late, and were unduly pressured by deadlines, it was actually pretty fun. First we grew cancer fighting cells from a rat. This was the hard part, trying to keep everything sterile, so that our cells didn't die. But with the help of a lot of 95% ethanol, we grew them without any bacterial or fungal invasions. Then we gave them doses of a Chinese medicinal herb Scutellaria barbata, and then we tried to kill them. And finally, we treated them with a staining agent to see if the herb had increased their survival rate. Well . . . our results were inconclusive, and a couple of our data points were inconsistent, so we think we messed up somewhere, but it was still fun to do, and we learned alot about cell culture and the process of scientific research.

oh, my legs!

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This post is about biking, although there's no pictures of bikes. Or the trail that we rode one. Only two pictures. One is of the side of the trail. It was a beautiful day, when we started. Sunny and clear (I think it was at the end of November). By the time we were done, it was ready to rain and very, very cold. And my legs hurt. A lot. We went about 30 miles, and apparently, my legs didn't like being used for so long. I forget how long it took us, but it took quite a while. The second picture is of Melanie taking a nap by the side of the road. I'm pretty sure she didn't need one, and could have biked the full fifty miles if she had wanted. But she took pity on me and went slow, so that I could keep up :) There's still another 5 or 6 miles of the mopac trail that I haven't seen, and hopefully I'll bike the whole thing before this semester is over.

buffalo gap

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Ah. I love camping. I really need to get out and camp more often. I spent Thanksgiving Break in Buffalo Gap National Grassland, an area of wide open prairies, bordering the South Dakotan Badlands. It was beautiful. Wide horizons, blue skies, golden grasses. I really want to come back in the spring and see it when everything is green. Here's a brief synposis of my trip.

What I saw: 2 coyotes, 4 hawks, 4 pronghorn antelope, 7 somethings (probably antelope, but they were too far away to be certain), 2 rabbits, 3 other birds, and hundreds of prairie dogs, expansive vistas, the badlands formations, grasses, forbs, yucca, junipers, a dry creek bed, the milky way

What I heard: lots of coyotes, some owls, wind, silence, prairie dog alarm calls, a couple of planes

What I felt: bitter wind, warm sunshine, warmth from a cow chip fire, sore feet and shoulders

What I smelt: pretty much nothing

What I tasted: ramen, lipton's instant thai noodles, whole wheat bagels with fresh havarti cheese, raw tender bits, nature valley crunchy granola bars, instant oatmeal

Unfortunately, I left behind my 35mm camera due to weight considerations, so I couldn't get any decent photos of the animals that I saw, but I did take quite a few shots of the scenery. Here's a few. If you want to see shots of some of the flora, visit biophilia.

Squash night!

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This Friday night was squash night. I'm not even sure how we came upon the idea, but Ellen and I both love squash/pumpkin soup. So we decided, hey, let's make some! Besides Creamy Pumpkin Soup, we had several other squash related dishes, as well as a few non-squash dishes: Cranberry Apple Acorn Squash, Steamed Asparagus with Walnuts and Browned Butter Sauce, Pumpkin with Peas, Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Bars, Hot Spiced Cider, and Fresh Hot Rolls. I usually cook by the recipe, at least the first time that I make something, and it was pretty much the first time for all of these. Keri, on the other hand, the creator of the pumpkin and peas, pretty much just threw some ingredients together and created a new dish (no recipe available). I told Keri, I normally don't get into a cooking mood, but when I do, I like to go all out. So I tried to. I think most things turned out all right, thanks to all the help I had in the kitchen. Although, I forgot to salt and pepper the acorn squash before I baked it, so the apple cranberry filling was good, but the squash left a little bit to be desired. Oops. Apparently I started to look a little stressed as we got closer to supper time and things (namely the pumpkin for the pumkin soup) weren't ready yet. But, appearances can be deceiving, since I wasn't technically stressed out, just trying to think about 6 things at a time. Anyways, the only slightly stressful moment was when the pumpkin soup flowed out of the pot and onto the stove. But we still had plenty of soup left to eat. Overall, I think it turned out well. Maybe I should get in these moods more often . . .

10 kilometers = 6.21371192 miles

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This past Sunday (not today, a week ago), Katie, Mel, and I ran 6.21371192 miles, give or take a few 100ths of a mile. CABL sponsored a 10K run, so we decided to do it just for fun. It wasn't too difficult, so while we ran, I helped Mel study for her Chrisitan Beliefs test. It was kind of funny, running and trying to look at a bouncing blurry review sheet at the same time, while inventing mnemonics involving frisbees, snowfall and churches. Apparently she did pretty good on her test though, so it must have helped at least a little. My knees haven't been bothering me for quite a while either, which is nice, so I'm thinking about maybe running the half-marathon this spring. Who knows. (In the second picture below, no one else is around us, because they had already left. We were just running for the camera's sake; and the orange ribbon around Katie's neck is the marker at the halfway point. We thought we were the last one's passing it, so we figured we might as well take it).

Fall!

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I love fall. I love trying to snatch leaves out of the air as they swirl down from the trees. I love that the air is crisp and I can wear my hat and mittens. I love that it means the snow is coming soon. And I love making a big pile of leaves and playing in it with friends. You might not be able to tell from the pictures, but the pile was huge. It was almost as tall as Melanie by the time we were done. And we didn't even have a rake. Just a broom, a couple of bags, and a tennis racket or two. I think we must have spent almost as much time making the pile as we did playing in it, but that was half the fun. I'm pretty sure people were looking at us kind of funny as we were running and back and forth around campus carrying large leaf-filled bags over our heads. But whatever. We did convince a few of the people who passed by to join us for a while though.

The last picture makes me think of a bunch of Greek gods and goddesses with their leafy halos. Except, I don't think I've even seen a picutre of Greek deity laughing so much.