What's in a name?

So I came across this article in today's NYT about how Nevaeh has become a really popular name for girls in recent years. It's "Heaven" spelt backward and has apparently overthrown names like Sarah and Vanessa from top spots. I don't know, it seems pretty, but how do you really say it? Somehow giving my kid a name that people might have trouble pronouncing doesn't seem like the kindest thing in the word to do. That and maybe really long names. When Sam was in kindergarten, she would get really upset that her name had eight letters and so many "a"s; her best friend then was a girl named Gail, and Sam always came home complaining that she was taking too long to write/ spell her name, plus getting the "a"s in the wrong places...

I'm personally partial to shorter names- Kate, Seth, Emma, Liam, although I'm sure Liam will just get massacred in Singapore. I figure older folks are just going to pronounce it "leeaam" [monosyllabic, drawn-out], which means "sticky" in Hokkien. If we name our son Liam, he will no doubt wither, shrivel up and endure a mortifying, excruciating existence in a Singaporean school, especially if he has a Chinese teacher as his form teacher...

I've actually had an interesting experience with my name here in the States. Apparently, Americans categorically don't name their daughters Serene; it's always Serena. Which could be a good or a bad thing: on the plus side, I always get compliments on how pretty my name is; on the minus, no one at Starbucks has called my name correctly yet. And when I say my name to strangers, they always think I'm a complete moron who doesn't know how to pronounce her name properly. These days, to save myself the grief, everytime I say my name to someone new, I always go, "Serene, as in the word." (and try not to roll my eyes in frustration...)

This is a completely novel phenomenon for me; back home in Singapore, Serenes are everywhere. When I was secondary school, there were 5 Serenes in my cohort alone, and another Serene Koh at that! Apparently it was a unique name when my parents named me, but I guess every other parent of daughters born in 1976 felt that same way. The funniest thing anyone has ever said about my name was my secondary school teacher who once asked me whether in light of my effervescence, it was a mere prayer when my parents gave me my name. It took me a while to understand what she meant (and to also figure out what the heck "effervescence" meant- I was a 14-year-old with an under-developed vocabulary...). When it dawned upon me, I was not amused...

I actually love Jude's name. Simple, short, and interesting enough without being obtuse. If you look at this interactive graph of baby names (it's a time-suck I'm warning you...), you'll find that his name was really popular in the '70s, no thanks to John Lennon I'm sure. For Jude, his thing when people ask him for his name is always, "Jude, as in the song." The most interesting thing anyone has said about his name was when my professor said, "When I think of Jude, I think of Thomas Hardy, not the Beatles." I think Jude would rather be associated with a song than with a character who gets pig entrails flung at him as a love token. Predictably, he was not amused either...

What's up?

Nothing much except that I've been sick for the past three days and the weather's turning crummy again... A manifestation of the inner turmoil of my digestive system no doubt. Basically, two words, bad shellfish.

Wednesday night:
- Weather starts to turn cold and rainy. Here we go...
- Celebrated Libby's birthday with happy hour $2.50 mussels at The Earle and dinner at Grizzly Peak after. It was good while it lasted but tummy became queasy just as we got home.
-Knew something wasn't right, took some medication and went to bed early.

Thursday:
-Definitely something wrong. Couldn't sleep all night, tossed and turned in bed, all woozy and weak. Tummy was hurting like someone kicked me in the gut. Thankfully, no constant bathroom action, just aches and profuse cold sweat.
- Had half a bowl of chicken soup for lunch. Couldn't take much else.
- Dying for a cup of coffee, wrongdiagnosis.com says no. I always listen to the Internet of course...
- Had homemade pho for dinner. Actually felt slightly better. Then tummy started aching again after watching The Dave Chappelle Show. No connection I hope.

Friday
- Didn't sleep much better. Doses of Alka Seltzer didn't seem to be helping.
- Realized only other thing I can keep down apart from pho is nutella toast, and more nutella toast.
- Acquired new appreciation for sweetened milk tea. Infuse fruit or floral tea in half-cup of heated milk (microwave), top with hot water. Sweeten with honey. So soothing and comforting. Reminded me of how we used to take our tea at home.
- Whole body still feeling like jello. Spent the day watching the Food Network. Do you know that only onions grown in 22 counties in Georgia can be called Vidalia onions? Thanks Alton Brown!
- Discovered the miracle of Bismag. Popped two tablets and slept like a baby through the night. Tummy felt way better.

Saturday
- Maintained dosage of Bismag through the day. Felt better enough to help Jude massively clean the house. As in under-the-couch-between-the-window-sills-and-behind-the-shelves clean.
- Successfully drained my system enough to warrant an afternoon nap.
- Rewarded ourselves with Art School Confidential. Not much of a reward. Ghost World was much better.
- Weather just turned even more cold and wet. Darn...

Think I'm close to recovering completely. Sitting here with a steaming mug of milky sweet tea (I haven't had coffee in three days!!!), way past mignight (which I also haven't done in three days), and rushing a report for my professor. Yup, life's about back to normal again...

Five

What would you do with...

Five minutes to yourself: Catch up on one of the half-read books or magazines that we always seem to leave all over the house.

Five bucks to spend right now: how would you spend it? Fresh flowers to celebrate the arrival of spring!

Five items in your house you could part with, right now, that you hadn't thought of already: 1) the dust that has settled in areas of the house I haven't dared look at, like behind the stove, in the corner of the basement..., 2) one of my indoor rose plants that isn't going to survive no matter how much water I give it, 3) the "dead" cell phones that have been lying in the drawer for ages that we haven't brought ourselves to throw out, 4) the clothes which have ink stains on them from the time Jude's pen "exploded" in the dryer, and 5) an old computer monitor that Jude insists on keeping for reasons he has yet to suitably convince me of.

Five items you absolutely, positively could not part with in your house: first things first, does a husband count as an item? If not, then it'll have to be our sturdy scarlet couch, our espresso pot, the table/bench we inherited from Dave and Jen, the brocade patchwork sheets my parents got for us for Christmas and our Tivoli table radio.

Five words you love: serendipity, cadence, hodgepodge (I love the symmetry of the word), desideratum and tangerine (try pronouncing it- you can't say it without ending in a smile).

Five people you're tagging: Any five people who read this, especially Terri who I know is surely going to wreck her brains to limit her favorite words to only five :)

What you don't see on the news

What you never see on the news
Originally uploaded by Yun-shan.

So, Singapore just completed its general elections. And as usual the incumbent (and omnipotent?) ruling party, the People's Action Party, was ushered back into power. This is nothing new. What is new though is the rising public interest in the opposition parties that have contested in this elections. I have not seen such large crowds (see pic) at political rallies in Singapore before. Perhaps it is because we were encouraged to be apolitical when growing up and that getting involved in politics meant 'rocking the boat". I am rather surprised at my fellow countrymen's willingness to be present and make apparent their intentions to get involved in this year's elections. It was heartening to hear that, despite the brusque dismissiveness of the citizenry by the powers that be, the opposition parties made a strong showing. This diversity in politics, I believe, is something that will stand the country in good stead in the years to come.

On a work-related note, I have been using various blogs and discussion sites to keep track of what's happening during the elections. The mainstream media(MSM) back home is completely useless for any sort of objective reporting. Take a look at the following comment that I came across on the blog of a fellow singaporean in the US:

A friend, Ivy League graduate and scholar, and now a journalist with the national tabloid, wrote an email to her friends a few days ago. She signed off with the following words:

"…help spread the word that a lot of us in the Straits Times are sorry that we can’t do the job we want to. It may not mean a lot to you, but it sucks for us that with every day that passes, and with every pro-PAP election story that we write, people’s opinions of the Straits Times are falling. Many of us in the election team are putting our names on stories that we don’t want to write, on views that we don’t believe in, and on headlines that make us want to throw up.”

The government back in Singapore has traditionally been very insecure about the media and has sought to stringently control the various outlets for expression and opinions. In fact, during the elections there was a blanket ban on podcasts of a political nature. However, despite the ban, the great number of individuals have resorted to using the internet to disseminate news, pictures and opinions that you will not see in the MSM. And I think that this alternative source of information on the internet is making its effect felt during the elections. You know that this is the case when the ruling party is calling for a review of new media like blogs and podcasts and their effects on the views of the citizens. Channelnewsasia reports the following:

Impact of Internet on General Election likely to be studied after polls

SINGAPORE : The impact of the Internet at this General Election is likely to be looked at by the relevant ministry after the polls.

Information Communications and the Arts Minister Dr Lee Boon Yang said this is to assess the scale at which the new media, like blogs and podcasts, were used to influence views and shape opinions.

Dr Lee said this after his Jalan Besar Group Representation Constituency (GRC) team toured Queen's Street market as part of their campaigning on Friday.

The People's Action Party (PAP) team said it was looking forward to good support from voters, because of its track record over the past five years.

It's going to be interesting to see what the conclusions of this review will be. Maybe there'll be a job for me back home after all...

Notable blogs to read about the elections:
Mr Wang Bakes Good Karma
Talk Rock
Air-conditioned Nation
SG Rally

It's camping season again...

I wake up this morning to an empty bed, Jude's side of the bed cold and unslept in. The house is all quiet and I don't hear him anywhere. I go downstairs to check since he sometimes falls asleep on our couch after working late into the night, and what do I find? Not only is he sleeping on the couch, he's sleeping on the couch in our new sleeping bag from REI.

I think this is his idea of breaking in the new equipment. It's a really comfy goose-down sleeping bag too so it's not like its a chore or anything. Testimony to that? He's still asleep as we speak... :) We spent the most of yesterday shopping for camping stuff- an extra sleeping bag, inflatable sleeping pads, lantern, gas stove, etc... We haven't really decided where we're going yet, but it's a toss-up between the Red River Gorge in Kentucky or the Sleeping Bear Dunes up north here. We were in RRG with Adrien, Pam & Olivier last summer to rock-climb but this time it'll be more hiking and we're going with Rick, Emilee and their new puppy Kumo! Jude's been to the dunes and he says it's gorgeous and so much like Australia. I'm actually really looking forward to that. Considering how much we're investing in the camping equipment and how much time we have, I think we'd like to do both places, one in early June after New York, and another later in August just before term begins.

Those who know me and love me dearly know too that I've never been an outdoorsy person (I'm sorry, the most outdoorsy things I used to do in Singapore were picnics, which were perfect- out in the sunshine and involving food. Anything that requires me to give up a real bed and a warm shower everyday... not so much...) But here, the natural landscape can be truly breathtaking. Just the shrubs and trees lining our streets have been turning these insane rosy spring colors, and the different shades of verdant green everywhere. Can you imagine the cliffs and dunes in a less cultivated environment? Crazy gorgeous!! Definitely worth sacrificing my bed and personal comfort for. Besides, that's what the comfy down sleeping bag is for!... :)

CHI2006 Social Tagging panel

CHI2006: Social Tagging panel
Originally uploaded by jyew.

I realized that I have not posted anything from CHI2006 and thought that putting some of the notes that I took during the conference may be useful to a number of people. Plese feel free to add to my notes as I may have missed out on something or have misrepresented what was said. Also please excuse the notetaking skills as I found it rather difficult to keep track of the conversation during panels) In general, I thought that the tagging panel was interesting and raised the fact that much more thought and work needs to go into Social Tagging. To echo what Eric said about the panels, I thought that they may have dwelt too much on the fundamentals of tagging resulting in too little time for the meaty issues of the subtle differences that resul from making minor tweaks Social Tagging systems. But all in all it was good to have heard from the people whose articles I have spent the last couple of months reading. I have followed up the session with writing email questions to both George Furnas and Rashmi Sinha. There were a number of issues that I needed to investigate further about the cognitive aspects of tagging. What I learn from them will be posted here as well ... so stay tuned.

Panelists:
- George Furnas (U. of Michigan)
- Caterina Fake (Yahoo) absent
- Luis von Ahn (CMU) absent
- Joshua Schacter (del.icio.us)
- Kevin Fox (Google)
- Scott Golder (HP Labs)
- Marc Davis, Cameron Marlow, Mor Naaman (Yahoo)

The panel sessiong began with a discussion of the question "What is a tag?"
- no agreement with regular folk
- is it too technical a term?
(Shinha)
- tags are loose associations of words and objects
- could be culture based
- some kind of association comes to mind
(Fox)
- a rich way of describing something
(Furnas)
- history of tags = library of alexanndria could marked collections with metadata
- 1980s text based interfaces = looking at what is essentially taging
- tagging as creating new handles to get at something
- how much are those new handles helping?
- but people come with an unintuitive broad variety of words
(Schacter)
- distinction between tags and metadata = additional layer of attention
- more attention
- different proposition for recall
(Davis)
- why didn't tagging take off in the early days of the internet
- tags have always been around
- but community sharing aspect is the new thing
- different from tagging with the intent of recall

- by definition flickr is not tagging = for other people and not for yourself
- there's a spectrum of behavior in the system
- who the intended receipient of the tags in flickr?


What's the difference between tags and categories?
why do tags get adopted by so many people?
- because we've put more information on the internet
- more social usage of the web
- tagging has been adopted because the cognitive cost is low
- digital categorization is inherently difficult
- simpler way of storing digital information

Discounting decision making during tagging?
- large amount of decision making
- fundamentally categorizing

What are tags used for? And do they work?
- works well for personal recall
- ok for distribution
- works better with more people
- both for personal and social purposes
* that's why you have the long tail
* ref to wisdom of crowds
* when do things in front of others = not presenting true self
* but with delicious = initial decision is made alone

motivation to tag something that other people will find = digg spam
human component to creating the tags
personal aspect is very important = self-referential aspect (newcar, jobsearch)
these tags weren't for other people
task oriented nature of tagging

there is not communication within delicious, it mostly happens outside of the system = personal and small group

Schacter originally built delicious because he had thousands of links in a fun file
can have a small minority who are bulding roads for other users on the system

tagging is a fundamental part of the UI now
allows pivot browsing'
- the way tagging relates to search needs to examined more
- tagging something with the tags in the text is very different from tagging something that doesn't have the tags in the text

furnas: what is the ultimate value of tagging?
- access subsequently
- graphic = probability of recalling
- even when you have up to 20 tags, there will still be failures of recall
- want to work to diversity of tags for recall instead of consensus tagging
- Coases's penguin paper
-- analysis of common space peer production
-- theory: when human endeavours organize themselves into markets or firms
-- large number of people need to be organized
-- various aspects of information goods allows a diversity of motivations

is tagging going to make it outside of the community of computer users?

what are some of the incentives for people to use flickr or delicious?
- done around sharing = to get people looking at your photos (flickr)
- delicious is different = social function of tagging:
-- distribution
-- does the social network affect the linguistic effort
-- if you are connected to other people your terms are more common

looking for a specific item or a genre of items

localized dialects = for leveraing small groups with a specialized vocabularies
- no present tool to map between local and more generalized vocabulary
- tools and systems that help mediate between vocabularies

furnas = can imagine tags as collaborative filtering devices
- need to regress to the norm at the beginning before you can get specific information about particular issues

perceptual differene between calling it tags, keywords or labels

sinha
tagging is self-expression and social expression

when myspace has tagging = it's going to be commoditized
tags are going to be very differently used
tagging people is very differnt from tagging objects = difference between self presentation and real self
- going to be a lot more opportunity for tension

does tagging work for certain applications only?
- sinha thinks that its an interface and design issue
- it was too busy
what are the design choices to make to facilitate participation
too egalitarian?
it wasn't personal
tagging that is done through the normal task that someone has done

does tagging scale to more than one group?
schacter thinks that this is more about community making rather than ...
things like delicious needs to put in ways for groups with in the system to occur
too many users in the system
nature of humans = doesn't scale
need to put in some mechanism for social proximity
- motivation for introducing pools or sets
- people in close social or ideological proximity are in that group


- there is a fundamental tension between the individual and the social uses of tags
- for eg. photos on flickr tagged as tokyo = difficult to comprehend outside of the individual context

flat tagging space and that of architecture
get a very rich set of social relationships
question of scale
what determines the tagging terrain such that it is no longer flat

does anyone have data on the length of tags?
can media be used to tag other objects?

Oh happy day!

So we get a call from our friend Nathan yesterday and he tells us to cancel whatever plans we have today. Because why? The man's getting married! We just got back from the dinner reception and I have to say, there is absolutely everything to love about a small, intimate wedding with just a handful of friends. So what if it only took two days to plan and prepare? It was a sweet and lovely Spring ceremony at Gallup Park just at the cusp of sunset. Nathan's a professional photographer and his eye for lighting was impeccable (well, you would think so, especially for his own wedding), so he picked the exact spot where the setting sun would cast the most gorgeous rays as he and Anna exchanged their vows. Our photos don't do it justice; we'll have to wait for the ones Sadanori took with Nathan's professional camera.

Everyone at the ceremony were close friends (each armed with their own camera no less, so on more than one occasion, it looked like the two of them was being attacked by a really well-dressed mob of papparazzi...); I think that makes a whole lot of difference. It shouldn't matter how many people are in attendance, what matters is who they are...

Anna cried from the moment the minister starting reading the blessings right till we were taking photos later- it was really really sweet... People who were exercising at the park all stopped to offer their congratulations and some even asked if they could take pictures with Nathan and Anna, so that was very cute.

This got me thinking about wedding ceremonies and the fuss that goes into the planning of it. Jude & I planned our wedding in 7 weeks- extremely modest by Singaporean standards (modest might not even be the most appropriate word...). We didn't have a huge Chinese banquet, we got to invite everyone we wanted to invite, and we could say with some amount of certainty that we knew 99.5% of the 200 people who came to our church ceremony (a miraculous statistic considering how people sometimes end up having to invite long-lost twice-removed cousins and other fleeting acquaintances...). Ultimately, does it matter if you plan your wedding in 2 days, 7 weeks or 2 years? What difference does it make whether it takes place in a church, a country club or by the beach? My uncle wisely told me this just before he got married years ago, that at the end of the day, it's not the wedding that counts, it's the marriage.

Congratulations Nathan and Anna!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Dancersize

Guess who did the chicken dance and the hokey pokey today?

I was doing a school visit and it was part of Governor Granholm's All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) initiative, an attempt to get children to stay fit and enjoy exercise. Between 1pm and 1.15pm today, every school-going child in Michigan was exercising at the same time.

It was fun for about 5 minutes; after that, I felt like I was stuck in some alternate dimension between a 1980s wedding and a retirement home...

À la maison

We've been home almost 24 hours and I still feel exhausted. There's just something about a 10-hour drive that's really not for the faint-hearted. The journey took us 4 large strong coffees (thank god for Tim Horton's), 2 generously luscious buttery pastries from Premiere Moisson (this was my third visit there this trip alone, but there was one just at the border of Montreal- I couldn't resist...), a large bottle of water, 4 driving shifts, 2 fuel stops, Jude's iPod on shuffle (Cocteau Twins is the perfect driving music my friends), a whole ton of patience surviving the horrendous traffic outside Toronto, and thankfully, each other. I think I would go insane if I had to do the drive on my own...

Anyways, the pics are up on Flickr. They're really a pastiche of photos from a bunch of people. We took some pictures of our own, but there are also some I hijacked from Eric, Amy, Andy Peterson and Brian (who amazingly took tons of pictures at the SV party while managing to dance groovily at the same time...) Speaking of dancing, that party was awesome! As someone astutely observed, from a usability perspective, all the music the DJ played that night was effectively 20-years worth of successfully user-tested music guaranteed to make anyone and everyone dance (Jude needs to so upload the video of Gary Olson dancing to "Holla Back Girl"). C'mon, New Order, the Grease soundtrack, and Toni Basil's "Hey Mickey"? Talk about being a great usability engineer- the guy definitely knew how to design the ultimate user experience... :)

All the travelling this year has been great so far D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Montreal- and we have a few more to do in the next few months: Kentucky in mid-May to camp and hike (I know, me, camping? Stop the presses!!), New York at the end of the month (I'm still debating if I'm looking forward to 8-hours straight of Sesame Street- if I come out of it speaking in the third-person like Elmo, kill me. Please.), Indiana in June (Jude has another conference, this time in a place I know nothing about so that'll be interesting), and Chicago again in July for the Pitchfork Music Festival. I'm not complaining of course; I just wish travelling didn't cost so much, and make me so tired...

And sleepy...

What would you do for a job at Yahoo?

To those of you HCI people who want a job at Yahoo, I wonder if you want it as badly as this Japanese dude...



Watch out for the bit in the massage room- it's hysterical!

Ya-HOO!

A few things...

1) I love my weekly Metro pass. I think in the past three days, I've used up the face-value of the card by zipping back and forth through the city. Serene Koh, jet-setter, subway style...
2) And by virtue of 1), I love public transportation. You big-city folks, please don't take public transportation for granted. To be able to catch the subway at 12.30am is a luxury the car-culture of Michigan has long forsaken and also one of the things I miss about Singapore.
3) I have developed calf muscles I never knew I had. Montreal is a lovely walking city and apart from taking the subway to further away places, I'm sure I've walked more than I have in the past year in Ann Arbor put together.
4) Sambuca is very sweet. In a gung-ho attempt to take a shot of sambuca (mostly at Shibani and Stan's goading), I took all of a microcosmic sip. Deeply intense, sweet and heady. I could get used to it (read: I should never have it again...)
5) It has been proven again that in Montreal, if you crave the authentic French bistro food experience without burning a catastrophic hole in your wallet, only one word suffices- L'Express. We had it the last time we were here, but if it's actually possible, the food was even better this time round. Simple and exquisite.

Take Montreal and pour it into a pot. Slowly turn up the heat and start reducing. As the city bubbles away, we are down to the Latin Quarter, to rue Saint-Denis. Keep simmering until we have reduced Montreal to its essence, a dozen or so long blocks between Mount Royal and René-Lévesque. Now, in the final stage of demi-glace, the heart and soul of Montreal emerges. It is the restaurant L'Express.
-montrealfood.com restaurant review

The Platonic crème brulee

So how wonderful is this? The sun is finally out here in Montreal (although it’s still not warm enough to go walking at the Botanical Gardens), and I’ve just watched a matinee at our favorite movie theatre, Ex-centris (where buying a ticket is what Jude likes to call a HCI experience...). Am now sitting in a cafe along Ste. Laurent (that doesn't appear to have a name) enjoying a deep dark coffee with what can only be described as the mother of all crème brulees, the Platonic crème brulee, the crème brulee that all crème brulees look at in envy before curdling up in inadequacy. The custard was chilling in the display case and torched just as I ordered it- golden and crusty on the outside, rich, smooth, creamy and cool as silk on the inside. Unspeakably marvelous... I think I’ve found my death-wish dessert** (this and my sister’s warm chocolate pudding). The only thing spoiling the whole experience is watching this old man in front of me unceremoniously gulping down his coffee (with four creams!) in between large mouthfuls of his baguette. Mouthfuls. Very large. At least have the courtesy to close your mouth as you chew sir…

The movie was good- Barbiers: Une histoire d’hommes. I made the mistake of not really checking the language it was going to be in and it ended up being in French with no subtitles. Amazingly, I understood more of it than I would have imagined, not because of any language abilities on my part (my French vocabulary is limited to food items- surprise, surprise- “please”, “thank you”, “exit”, and “sale”), but great camera work and cinematography that really captured the heart of these simple men. And here you thought you couldn’t have a genuine film about real men without the horses, guns or cars. The 20 percent I understood was a fascinating insight into the dying trade and a group of men who still think of their job as a craft. It was a portraiture that was sometimes incredibly sad (one man faithfully leaves his shop open from 7am to 7pm everyday only to be lucky to have two customers a day) but mostly heartwarming, especially the scenes where they all come together and talk about how no one really understands the skill to do what they do, and what finesse it takes to trim a person’s eyebrows and nose-hair…

[Status report on crème brulee: I’m on my last spoonful- of if my taste-buds had emotions, they would cry from sheer sadness. I wonder if anyone would notice if I licked the dish…]

Going to walk along for a while more. Want to see if I can find a good second-hand book store to find something to read. All along the Latin Quarter of Ste. Laurent and Ste. Denis, you can find wonderful gems of bookstores and vintage clothing places which are a refreshing change from the larger and sometimes more jarring establishments on Ste. Catherine. It’s a bit of a hike from anywhere and there isn’t really a Metro station nearby, but the weather is good- I’ll survive.

[Status report on crème brulee: It’s all gone. I think I’ve scraped the dish as clean as humanly possible with a spoon. Body parts would have to be operationalized if I want any more of the residue custard…]

Okey dokey, think I should get going. There’s no point in sitting here pining over the empty crème brulee dish- it’s not like it’s going to magically refill itself. Right? No? Please? More?... Till tomorrow if I find time (and the connection) to blog, this is the mournful dessert fiend reporting from Ste. Laurent, Montreal, Quebec!

** My way of describing the dessert I would want to have at my death-bed, the absolute last thing I want to remember this world by, a.k.a. all that is gastronomically sweet, good and pure.

Bonjour de Montréal

So how depressing is this? Here I am in my favorite city in North America and what happens? The weather has been nothing but grey, crummy and wet. It rained the moment we got in the car on Saturday, all through the 10-hour drive here, and continued to pour all of yesterday and it's still raining as we speak!... Of course as luck would have it, I had packed in anticipation for spring, with a bag full of skirts, sandals and t-shirts. Do I have water-proof jackets and good shoes for walking in the rain? No. Could I do with at least a pair of sneakers and a windbreaker of some sort? Yes. Should I wear a hat and a scarf? Double yes. Do I have them? No. Have I been a stupid packer? Most definitely. Were the $199 I spent all those years ago on my leather Birkenstock mary-janes the best $199 ever spent? God yes.

But testimony to how much I love this city, despite this all, I'm still having a whale of a time. The food has obviously been great (we've made our friends undying devotees of Pho Bang and Schwartz's), but also hanging out with our uncle (he's still the coolest 60-something year old I know), meeting all the SI people again, and just soaking in the heady vibe of being in the city, rain or no rain.

Jude's at his conference right now and I'm sitting here in this cavernous multi-colored conference center stealing the wireless. I'm going to have to do some necessary shopping in a bit (read: waterproof shoes and a raincoat), but maybe something less commercial tomorrow. I'm thinking of a themed-day perhaps, tim-sum for brunch and the Chinese Botanical Gardens after- mmmm...

What can I say? j'aime Montréal...

Free Cone Day 2006

Was walking down State Street the other day and this popped out at me- it's going to be Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's on Tuesday! So guess who's going to be looking out for the nearest B&J's and having herself a treat? We'll be in Montreal by then but I've already scoped out the nearest B&J's at Ste. Catherine and De Maisonneuve :)

BROWNIE BATTER! You scored 81% SWEET, 66% CHUNKY, and 55% UNIQUE!

brownie batter ice cream with a rich brownie batter swirl Mmmm....you are a very sweet mix indeed! You are warm, loving, and caring to all those around you, but you're not boring in the least! You have a wild streak and a creative, unique streak, too. You are a great friend, an interesting person, and you know how to have fun without ending up crouching over a toilet bowl. Nice!

The Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Flavor Test

Spicy comfort food

I don't make mac & cheese alot- I think there's something about being Asian that doesn't predispose us too much to dairy, and mac & cheese is probably not high on the list of favorites in your regular Chinese household. The SI people had a potluck today and I've been promising to make my spicy mac & cheese for the longest time. Yes, SPICY mac & cheese. I think the tangy spiciness cuts through the richness of the cheese sauce and makes it less cloying. Which is also why I use green onions instead of regular white or yellow ones. They're really fragrant and together with my secret ingredient, I think they give the whole dish a more flavorful depth than just dairy and starch.

After frying the chopped green onions in olive oil and butter, add 4 tablespoons of all-purpose flour to make the roux. I know, it looks a little suspect, but you need it to thicken the sauce later. And questionable as it sounds, it actually smelled really good because of the green onions and butter. You have to keep stirring it around so that they don't go all clumpy or burn.

This is the hardest bit for me; everything has to move really quickly because you're working with dairy and don't want things to mess up and go yeeky and gooey in the wrong way. Add the milk to the roux and stir it gently so that the roux gets incorporated. You want to heat the milk but not boil it. Once you see the milk beginning to get really hot (but not bubbling), add in the cheese bit by bit, and stir while you're at it so you don't get clumps. Add the sambal oelek now, as well as salt and pepper. I add the sambal oelek to taste or at least until the sauce turns a pretty salmon pink (the color of cooked salmon, not raw). For the cheese, I suppose you could be traditional and stick to just sharp cheddar, but I use shredded mixed cheese (monterey jack, cheddar and mozarella). I like the more varied taste to the sauce and it also doesn't look all Agent Orange... When I was home and made this for my sisters, I used a mix of gruyere, swiss and fontina. But only if you and your wallet are feeling a little indulgent...

Once the cheese has all melted, incorporate into your dish of cooked pasta. I used mini-penne (pennette), but anything tubey works, like regular elbow macaroni or cavatappi. Then top with more of the shredded cheese you used in the sauce, a generous sprinkling of grated parmesan (I didn't use it in the sauce because it can be a little overpowering, but perfect as a crust), and breadcrumbs for that toasty crunch.

After 30 minutes in a 375F oven, it should come out all golden and bubbly. The house smelled so delicious, you almost couldn't believe it's really at the end of the day a simple dish of cheese and noodles. It was really hot though and the fact that I used a 15 x 10 Pyrex baking dish (meaning the whole thing- with pasta and cheese- probably weighed about 8 pounds) made it really hard to handle. But we survived and got it to Rick and Emilee's safely with the help of two sections (yes, you're reading right, two whole sections) of the New York Times, and even then I could feel the heat through my hands...

All in all, I think Serene's Spicy Mac 'n Cheese went down well. It duly fed about 20 people, wasn't too spicy to scare people off, but enough bite to keep them coming back for seconds.

Like I said, I don't make mac 'n cheese often; but when I do, I try my best. I'm glad people enjoyed it as much as I had fun making it :)

And so it begins...

Four and a half months of vacation, here I come! Had my last class for the semester today and it's spring/ summer break from here on :) It's been one of the lest infuriating and more gratifying semesters so I do feel a little wistful that it's ended. Not that there won't be work from now till September, just under less demanding circumstances and in more forgiving temperatures. In fact, I've a whole ton of stuff to do over the next few months: am still continuing on my Sesame Street project, have a publication to churn out, a training manual to produce, will be working on my pre-candidacy paper, got a research/ writing job with the National Center for Children in Poverty based out of Columbia's School of Public Health, and other various random things I promise myself to get done like organizing my notes (and academic life in general) and dignifying my professional website to look less like a glorifed Powerpoint presentation.

To kick things off, we'll be in Montreal this weekend for CHI and also to spend some time with our uncle. I'm desperately looking forward to it and it'll be so much fun! I've said it so many times, but it's worth saying again, that Montreal's one of my all-time favorite cities, and this time, they'll be friends around to share it with: a bunch of Jude's classmates will be there, Eric, Amy & Finn, Stan & Susan, and maybe even Jonas. Woo-hoo, it'll be like a field trip!

Oops sorry, I forget, people are actually there for the conference... ;)

In summer, the song sings itself."
-- William Carlos Williams

Blessed

So how lucky am I? Barely 24 hours after I talk about mangoes being my favorite fruit, and I come back to a lovely surprise treat from my wonderful husband- mango and sticky rice with a sweetened coconut-milk sauce from Bahn Na!

This girl is happy :)

Paul Gauguin, Woman With Mango

10 Things About Me...

...That I Think Haven't Landed on The Blog Yet but I'm Too Lazy to Dig Through the Archives to Be Sure

I've been tagged with this meme. And only because I'm upset that I'm squandering a perfectly gorgeous day by sitting here, writing away in a windowless room, I'm going to defiantly put off doing work and respond to this instead:

1. I have no wisdom teeth. The dentist took them all out when I got braces at twelve.
2. When I was 17, I had to skip a day of school to be with my mum at the hospital the day she planned to deliver Sam. When I told my teacher, she said I would have to think of a better excuse than that to stay away from school.
3. I try not to have to say "awry" in public because until today, I'm not sure how to pronounce it.
4. I don't eat carrots unless they're too difficult to remove, like in spring rolls or coleslaw.
5. When I was six, I danced in my kindergarten "graduation" ceremony. The song was "Morning Has Broken" and I was a purple orchid.
6. Accord to a personality assessment report, my literary counterparts are either Hero in "Much Ado About Nothing" or Dr. Watson in the Sherlock Holmes series.
7. If I had to choose one food to eat for the rest of my life, it'll have to be sushi.
8. Jude and I first bonded over "The Virgin Suicides"- the novel, not the movie.
9. My first Hollywood crush was Ke Huy Quan, the little boy in "Indiana Jones: The Temple of Doom" and "The Goonies".
10. My favorite fruit is the mango.

Sesame Beginnings

Ok, so Sesame Street may be about as far from MySpace as Elmo is from dana boyd, but I came across something that perhaps not-so-obliquely piggybacks off Jude's post about MySpace yesterday. Read in the NYT today that Sesame Street has produced a new DVD targeted at children between 6-months and 2 years old, "Sesame Beginnings". Apparently this has gotten a Boston-based advocacy group all huffy and puffy, and they've come out publicly to criticize what they see as the psychedelic warlordism of fluffy muppets and the larger apocalypse of The Television's terrorizing hegemony.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that all you parents out there go run and get a TIVO-enabled, cable-ready, 40-inch TV just for your little tot- in fact, the work I'm doing with Sesame Street right now isn't persuading me very much that TV alone helps children's learning...- but I do think that there's something to be said about being overly rabid and paranoid. Can't people let kids just enjoy themselves anymore? Does everything have to be about a cause, or an issue that has to be advocated and debated over? I felt the same way with the furor over Teletubbies "corrupting" children and Rainbow Brite being demonic- hello?? And I'm sure Mr. Potato Head is a actually a diabolical vegetable-only fiend in disguise, bent on taking over the world and making spuds the official food of the universe.

Yes, there is something that's definitely not right when parents use television as a substitute for human interaction and stimulation, and in replacement of other activities like reading or playing outside; but when that happens, should we point the accusing finger at the box, or should we ask ourselves why these parents think that using the TV as a babysitter is acceptable in the first place? I don't think that all children's television is good- a purple dinosaur and floating gelatinous sparkies comes to mind- but I know wonderful parents who use TV as just another tool, like books, to bond with their children, and help them develop positively, on top of other things they do together like hiking, playing at the playground, going to museums, or simply just spending quiet, quality, media-free time at home. With the right scaffolding, some children's programs can help children learn language better and faster, and also introduce them to a world their sometimes sheltered lives cannot.

[steps down from soapbox]

Ok, having said that, a particular googly-eyed, ruby-clothed muppet still annoys the heck out of me. And even worse when he starts to sing...

...this made me realize something about the experts in Boston. They were more than a little Luddite in their opposition to "Sesame Beginnings," as if technology itself — a screen of any kind! — would harm children, who ought presumably to gaze only at sunsets, shake wooden rattles and cuddle corn-husk dolls. This seemed unrealistic, to say the least, and possibly even discriminatory, like the old anti-disco edict that decreed that good music could be played only on fancy guitars and expensive drum kits. The drum machine — like the television — strikes music snobs as lazy and unwholesome. Good parents don't rely on crutches like television, which delights babies without enough parental exertion. I didn't buy it."
- Virginia Heffernan, NYT

Storm in a teacup: it's their space!

So, ok ... unlike Serene, I have never had the occasion to blog about the work that I do. However, that occasion has now arisen (I am volunteering to be a Real Time blogger for CHI2006) and I think that it would be a good idea to start putting my thoughts into the blog and maybe even start making my research ideas more explicit and intentional.

Something that has been occupying both my professional and personal attention lately is the tempest in a teacup over the social networking site, MySpace. I know a lot has been written and debated about the issues that have emerged over MySpace. In fact, today's news highlighted the fact that MySpace recently hired a security monitor- who was a former prosecutor from the Justice Dept, and who helped Microsoft in a similar fashion- to develop online child-safety strategies and educational materials about online sexual predation. (Intriguingly it was interesting to find out that MySpace is owned by the conservative Fox media group…) Don't get me wrong, I certainly think that MySpace's actions are certainly warranted given the knee-jerk reactions of the general public and the level of propositioning that is going on in MySpace. However, I think that simply sanitizing MySpace does not help us understand how young people socialize. And in fact, I think that such actions will drive them away from MySpace.

This whole issue about MySpace has got me thinking about the role that online social software plays in the lives of the young people today and the implications that it may have for educators in the future. I think that the general public has very little understanding of what goes on in MySpace. What is perhaps not appreciated is the fact that the online sociality generated by social networking sites like MySpace helps create a layer of relationships that overlay existing personal social networks. Some of you know that I’m currently in the midst of a study on the use of blogs/social tagging system in the classroom. One of the things that emerged during my interviews with the students is that they were very happy to use the system in addition to class work, because it improved the relationships within the classroom. To paraphrase the interviews, because the ideas that were shared online were public, it was as if everyone was given a glimpse into the inner thoughts of everyone else, and this enabled the creation of some level of social empathy of sorts. Everyone not only knew each other better, but also had a better appreciation, and hopefully respect for each other's point of view. I don’t think enough people, especially educators, value the fact that networked technology can add this layer of sociality. A recent article about a law school professor who banned the use of laptops in the classroom simply indicates to me how much work there is to do in this area to create a heightened awareness for the positive uses of these kinds of programs. I think people are blaming the technology without fully understanding it, and instead of overcoming their ignorance, are blindly indicting the program, instead of the use of it, which I think are two different things. In fact, I was appalled to find out that there is yet to be research done on the effects of the use of technology in classroom. We simply don't know what the effects on student learning are when there is the use of laptop computers while class is being conducted?

And I don’t think that educators are the only ones who don’t know enough about these new technologies. Coming back to MySpace, I recently came across a talk that danah boyd presented to AOL staffers. I thought that danah was highly insightful in her identification of the age stratification that is going on with particular kinds of media and websites. She highlighted the fact that there is an age trajectory in terms of the use of these sites. MySpace appeals to younger teens from age 13 upwards; the 16 - 18 year olds aren't well represented, and from 18 onwards they tend to gravitate towards Facebook. This has a lot to do with the financial and physical mobility from age 16 onwards- car culture takes over, and being highly mobile, you don’t need websites like MySpace (or even want to be associated with the young ones). So, my personal take on this age-divide is that it mirrors the socialization patterns that occur when you are growing up. From age 13 onwards, all you want to do is make more friends, 16 – 18, you only want to hang out with your closest buds; and from 18 onwards - when young people are thrown into the working world or college, socialization becomes important again, but of a different nature. I think that danah's talk gives focus to a larger issue of the lack of knowledge of the parents, media and schools about where and how young people socialize. Perhaps things have changed such that the way young people socialize no longer fit prior conceptions? And perhaps parents- and the general public- shouldn't be blaming MySpace but try to get to know their children better.