Catch-up Montage Sequence

Sorry y'all! I've been gone so long! Too much to catch up on so I'll just focus on some highlights from the holidays in this post. Imagine this as a fast movie montage sequence. By the end of it, you should feel like you totally know how the whole months-long experience of my life went :) j/k

I found this ridiculously awesome Paul Frank fleece adult onesie to bum around the house in around the holidays. Bonus: it has pockets! It makes me so happy that I so don't care that Ev laughs at me every time he sees me wearing it.


Ev's Holiday party was at the sci-fi museum (Cee Lo Green was the main entertainment). But I also totally geeked out at the Battlestar Gallactica exhibit they had going on. (Wearing Betsey Johnson dress I picked up when I met Ms. Betsey Johnson herself!).





Took funny family pics


I love seeing my grandma in these pics! I'm so happy she's still doing so great at 91! I really cherished the time I got to spend with her over the holidays.

Caught up with some wonderful friends

I adore this toothy grin!

I miss my bestie so much since she moved to the East coast!

ha! This guy in back did an awesome photobomb



Last week, I got my very first bowtie! and I even learned how to tie it! I bought it for $2.49 (including shipping!) on ebay. Next I want a cute plaid one!
here's an early morning shot at the bus stop. I was so cold (and pale... ok I'm still pale). And my lips were too chapped to smile!

I took this one at home when I got back. I gotta get my tripod set up again. For now, mirror pic!


I also have been crazy bogged down with writing. With the holidays and the lack of exercise, I've gained 10 lbs in the past six months! I'm still crazy busy, but I'm announcing it to y'all now that I'm gonna work those 10 lbs off (ideally by summer!).

Anyone have any weight loss tips? I've tried keeping a food journal on my phone, but I'm bad at keeping up with it. I've fallen off in running (was due to cold weather, but now it's just due to lack of time and lots of inertia).

"Galileo why are you so suprised?"

As promised, here are pics from the weekend of me in a poofy hat (apparently called a tam - different from the typical undergraduate mortarboard because it is eight-sided and poofy).

These robes do wonders for the figure. Really.

Thank you for all the congratulations. The hooding ceremony was pretty nice. We all gave speeches. I cried. I made other people cry. There were 19827392792392 photos taken.

Here's one with my advisor and my BFF (also in poofy hat garb).

About a third of us going through this year's hooding still have to defend. That's me too. It will likely happen in end of Summer, early Fall for me.

Beneath the purple-y robes was of course Anthro!

My husband couldn't quite get over how much he thought I looked like Galileo (although we can't find a pic of Galileo in this type of hat). So whenever I made a face like this at him:

He'd say "Galileo, why are you so surprised?"

Hope y'all had a wonderful weekend!

Snippets from Cali!

There. Did you catch them all? All the food, all the fun with friends and family? It was epic. And yes, we also have Chinese food at our Thanksgiving. It's delicious and a tradition!

I've been writing like a mad scientist (a mad scientist who needs grant money and needs to publish papers, lol), so my pics from last week in California got somewhat backlogged.

In between bouts of writing (luckily my family goes to sleep earlier and wakes up later than I do), I had a jolly good time with people near and dear to me.

On Monday last week, my family headed up to Geyserville (where Ev and I got married). We specifically made a trip to Meeker winery. It's one of our favorite wineries and we had a lot of their wine at our wedding. Here I am with my mom and her mom (my grandma).

Their tasting room is in an old bank, and they actually keep all the wine in the big vault!

What the heck am I pointing at? I think I was just pointing for the sake of pointing :/

Wine tasting OOTD Specs
Calvin Klein red zip-up dress ($50)
Martin & Osa black seamless core turtleneck sz L/XL ($8 sale)
Xhilaration raspberry pumps (thrifted NWT $7)
Black tights ($8)


Later in the week, my fam exchanged some early Christmas gifts since Ev and I will be spending xmas with his family this year. My bro got this African mask from my Auntie and cousin. I proceeded to act normally with the mask. *ahem*

Ooh and look, I had heard there was a field game cardi look-a-like at TJ Maxx on various blogs, but I hadn't had a chance to visit one. There is one near my parent's house, and I found this one on sale for $20. My mom said I looked like a candy cane.



Ev also finally opened up his Kinect that work gave him. The whole family had fun playing with it. My favorite moment of Thanksgiving weekend was seeing my 90-year-old grandmother elated to play virtual ping pong on the Kinect. Priceless. I want to be like her when I'm 90.

And finally, my favorite pic of the week. You might be able to tell which side of the family I got my silliness from...

This blue and beige dress was my Thanksgiving outfit. It's a BCBG Paris dress I got at the outlets near my cousin's UC Davis wedding (I think it was about $50). It's got a great poofy skirt, a vintage vibe, and pockets!

Paul Piff on All Things Considered : NPR

My friend Paul, a fellow social psychologist (at Berkeley), was recently on All Things Considered for his work on social status and charitable giving. In a nut shell, he found that the lower one perceived their status, the more charitable they would act. And this effect was mediated by feelings of compassion (i.e., the lower one's self-perceived social status, the more compassionate...). They also found that you can put yourself in a lower status frame of mind (by imagining someone higher in status than yourself) and you will act more charitably.

Check out this segment on NPR

Also see his work featured in The Economist

Girls night

Last nite my friend Jenna's MIL threw her a pre-wedding girls night party. We all got mani/pedis and then went to a creperie (very appropriate because it was Bastille day and because shes marrying into a French family). Apparently I got the most 'out there' fingernail polish. OPIs 'hey! Get back in lime!' I didn't think much about choosing colors at the time but the green seemed very fun and fresh. I think I like it a lot tho :)


a pic of me and the groom's sister at La Cote in Seattle