I am heading to Canada next week. Yes, Canada. I so do not want to go to Canada, but I am attending the conference there. The conference will be held at Niagara Falls, and I do not understand why they have to have a conference at such a touristy place. I get to see friends from other schools, and I know I would have some fun. But, I still don’t wanna go to Canada. I am a giving a presentation, but I am so not prepared and I am so not ready.

I was making maki-sushi for dinner today cos I wanted to eat something Japanese. And, I realized that I suck at making sushi. I couldn’t roll the sushi well. Speaking of sushi, people often ask me to teach them how to make sushi. That’s because I am Japanese, it doesn’t mean I can make sushi. Indeed, I don’t know how many Japanese actually can make sushi. I think if you live in Japan, buying sushi is probably cheaper than making one. Well, I guess it depends where you buy sushi though…

I was reading news about a woman living in some dude’s closet for several months. She was homeless, and she happened to be able to get inside his room cos the door was unlocked. And, this dude did not realize someone was living and wondered why foods kept missing from his refrigerator. Well, he finally found out after the security camera (which he set it up inside of his room) caught this woman getting in and out of closet. Hmmmm, I just cannot imagine someone is living in my closet, and I even don’t know. That’s kinda creepy. At least, she didn’t kill him or anything, so I guess that’s good. Maybe she was like Doraemon…

I am still working on my presentation. I did practice presentation in this morning, and it was pretty bad. My advisor was not happy at all.

I said, “To be honest with you, I just don’t care about my presentation because I didn’t do this study.”

My advisor replied, “Well, I totally understand, but you agreed to give a presentation.”

I replied, “Excuse me? You added my name in the symposium without my consent!!”

My advisor was surprised, “Oh, really? Did I? Hahahaha! Don’t worry, the study isn’t that interesting.”

Bullshit.

So, I was in Niagara Falls between 6/4 – 6/8 for the conference. I was very reluctant to go to this conference because I hate Canada!! Well, hmm, no, no, I don’t hate Canada. I didn’t wanna go because I had to give an oral presentation about the research I didn’t do. Well, I kinda helped analyzing the data, but I wasn’t the one ran the experiment. But, since I had to give a presentation anyway, I wanted it to be good. Since my advisor did not like my presentation, I was working on it in the last minute. I just wanted to make sure my powerpoint didn’t stop the flow. Anyway, I think I did ok job. My advisor liked it, and some professors who were in my presentation said they liked it, so I was happy about my presentation. Also, I was able to become friends with graduate students from other schools, so it was really cool. But, I must say Niagara Falls sucks. It is so touristy, and everything was expensive. $7 for tap Guinness was not cool at all!! Although I had an intension to go to see the Niagara Falls, I ended up not seeing it. Well, I did see it from outside of the hotel, but I didn’t go to falls. Eh. My friends went on the boat tour, but there was a key note speech I just couldn’t miss, so I didn’t go. Too bad for spending so much money going there and not seeing almighty Niagara Falls. I failed to be Japanese!! But, I did take a picture. And this is the only falls picture I took.

When I was walking to the conference hotel from my hotel, I saw the gift shop that had a Japanese banner. It was strange… It said, “Kyosen’s OK gift shop.” I didn’t go inside, so I am so not sure what kinda stuff they have…

I like French toast a lot. I mean I really really like it. I used to make French toast all the time when I lived in Chicago. I used to buy a loaf of brioche and made French toast. I think if you are making French toast you gotta use brioche! French toast I used to make was super eggy and fatty and I am pretty sure it would clog my artery if I ate every single day. After I moved to Minneapolis, I stopped making French toast because I couldn’t find brioche anywhere… And, I started having fun with making waffles after Marc got me waffle maker couple years ago. So, usually, I make waffles in the weekend. I actually never had a waffle nor French toast before I came to the U.S., and when I first time had them, I thought I was gonna pass out cos they were sooooo goooooood. I was gonna make waffles for Sunday brunch, but I realized maybe I should make French toast instead. So, I bought Challah (I think this is the second best bread to make French toast) and made French toast. Hmmmmm, I really should start making French toast more often because I forgot about how good they are.

I was watching HSN as usual and saw GreenPan. GreenPan is supposed to be the next generation of non-stick pan, and it doesn’t contain any PTFE (a.k.a. Teflon), aaaand it has high resistance to heat. I thought about getting the cooking set, but since I am super broke right now, I decided not to. But, if I have this GreenPan, I don't have to use lots of butter to make French toast, and I can be healthier!! And also, foods will taste better because it's organic friendly!! And and, production of GreenPan use 50% less energy than regular non-stick pan!!......well, according to HSN though... I need to stop watching HSN…