I had leftover potsticker wrappers from cny, so I made this:

I call it fusion gyoza. And yes, they are supposed to be burnt on 1 side (the original recipe said so...sounds so dodgy, right?) It's fusion because I used green peas and mayonnaise inside to replace bamboo shoots and soy sauce mixture, and they are served with tomato sauce. It actually came out quite good. I tastes like comfort food.

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Huh...guess what...it's been rainy instead these past few days. Rainy ever since Valentine's Day. Maybe it's the accumulated emo-singles cloud above San Francisco that is causing it. The catchphrase these past few days has been "I'm dating myself", most often heard from female uni students when someone asks what their plans are for Valentine's Day. In contrast, people in relationships have been displaying their snuggling at much more frequent levels than is usual.

That's all for weather, and now over to sports.

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Next Monday, we can start registering for intersession,Summer and Fall classes, which feels so fast. It's as if I just finished 1 term and now it's time to think about what to do for my final project(I plan to take preproduction class in Fall). Nothing concrete yet, but I think I will be skipping intersession this time and using the time to do some studying by myself (reading up old notes, watching/reading tutorials from online and the library),it's shocking how rusty I get in such a short time. And then take 1 subject for Summer. I think Summer classes are 2 times a week per subject.

So...what subjects to take for Summer and Fall? I think I might be able to waive 2 subjects(hard surface modeling and basic texturing and lighting) from the list of required subjects given to us, and replace them with another 2 (animal anatomy and Z Brush classes sound good) Preproduction and Cross Cultural Understanding finish off the pool of 4 subjects; 1 for Summer and 3 for Fall.

Oh yeah...time to set appointments with the Animation department director and Student advisor to plan my schedules. How romantic!*sarcastic*

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In other news, I went to see Avenue Q last Tuesday! It's quite a simple story and I've sort of memorised the lyrics already, so it's not like it blew my brains out, but it was still interesting to see how they economised on cast and backdrop, since they only have 7 cast members and 1 set piece, but have many more characters and locations. The main actor and actress for Princeton and Kate were really good though. Eventhough they were performing with puppets, their facial expression and body language was what you should be watching. Plus it feels more fun when you get to laugh along with the other audience, it feels more funny.

Only drawback was when the uni bus came late to pick us up and the theater security tried to shoo us out into the rain so they could close up for the night.

It's been a sunny Winter, so it's good weather to go jogging even around the city. It so funny because I passed maybe half a dozen iconic sights and tourist attractions on my rounds.

Lombard street crooked road. At last I got to see it. Not really much actually, it's just 1 block long with some plants at the side.It was pretty cute to see a smart car drive down the road though...
Fort Mason. Used to be a navy dock, but now it's more of a park. Downhill from here, you can see the docks. Can jog and hear the sound of the ocean.

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More CNY photos!
My new table layout. Finally got the card from my parents. Thanks! Also, some Japanese sweets from Xiao Wen and Gi, and a pumpkin pie shaped candle from Desiree from last Christmas.
The food we had for CNY dinner. I made the potstickers. Xiao Wen and Gi made pork curry, Chad made the salad, Mandy made jelly, and Justin brought drinks.

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And more food experiments.
Tried to make my version of black pepper chicken and cheese that used to be sold at Asia Cafe. It used to be about the best thing you could eat there, but it was comparatively expensive, so that stall chap lup. For my version, I tried substituting white rice for a combination of red rice, red beans, lentils and pumpkin seeds, and oyster sauce, black pepper and sour cream for the black pepper sauce. Dunno how the stall people make theirs so creamy though, mine turned out dry, maybe it's the type of cheese, or type of sauce... or method of cooking.
Tofu noodle. Very healthy, because it's just boiled vegetables and noodles, but what makes it nice is the fried tofu and chili oil.
Here's a picture of a mixture of grains. I'm so fascinated, I don't think they sell many varieties of rice in Malaysia, eventhough we are neighbours with Thailand. But anyways, this is red rice, black rice, and some lentils to make things prettier. There's also stuff like sweet rice, sweet black rice, wild rice and quinoa sold here. Apparently black rice is very nutritious, and is called forbidden rice because it used to be only for the Chinese emperor to eat.

Yay! New favourite artist. Richard Macdonald.I found out about him because someone in cgsociety made a 3d model after one of his bronze sculptures. I really like his series of Cirque du Soleil performers sculptures. His work has a lot of the unbalanced dynamic poses thing going on that make sculptures look graceful, and the expression and gestures are really beautiful.

I was curious about the Lion KIng on Broadway, so I looked up a Youtube preview. Before this I heard comments that it is very good, but I thought it would be wierd to translate an animation, especially with animals, into a broadway show. But it looks pretty good, i think, I like the costumes, and the additional songs written for broadway are really good too.

Hah. First week of classes is done. It was pretty much what I expected, which means it'll be a lot of work to do. Not impossibly a lot, but still will keep me occupied continuously.

Advanced texturing and lighting class: very fast lecturing.Hope I don't get lost halfway. Must make sure to get a good nights sleep and go to the toilet before class starts. It's like KFC's class(ok, maybe a teeny bit less demanding), except we are using software that we are familiar with. Lucky it's a 3 hour class and not 5, or my brain will be transported back to my dorm in little pieces.

Organic modeling. Probably will be an easier class than texturing. The lecturer made it clear that he prefers Maya over ZBrush, even though we will be using both, so I'm ok with that. I have to take ZBrush slowly, seeing that I've never used it before. Either way, ZBrush will be studied deeper in organic modeling 2. Looking forward to next week's class when we get to see each other's portfolio.

Ecorche. Nice small class. Amusing lecturer. He's one of the elder lecturers in uni. Don't know if it's just a coincidence, but the elder lecturers that I've gotten, even in TOA, tend to be more amusing and philosophical, like David from photography.

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So my plan of attack is to

1) review my old Maya notes

2) review the online tutorials that I have and also check out the video tutorials from the library

3) visit CGsociety more often. I'm a bit behind on the inspiration department currently

which is a lot to do, feels slightly overwhelming when I think of the stuff that I planned to do, all the extra reading for the subjects that I took last semesters, and the fitness regime and field sketches which I might or might not be able to cram in.