There was hardly anybody at work today; in fact I think there were more people at work yesterday. Now that I've started working on weekends and holidays, I've realized that most grad students don't work all the time. During my first year here at MIT, I felt guilty for not working 7 days a week and for visiting Patrick during long weekends. I thought that everybody but me was slaving away while I relaxed. But now I know better. Sometimes people work on weekends, but they also take the time to enjoy their lives (well, most people do; some people seem to always be at work, which makes me sad for them). So, it's good to know how things really are and not feel guilty for enjoying my free time.

In other news, I realize an exhaustive listing of what I ate for dinner won't interest too many people, but I want to keep track of which Indian dishes I like and don't like, for future reference. So, on with the boring stuff!

So yesterday, I ordered Indian food for dinner (from India Pavillion, via Dining In again). I just couldn't eat any more spaghetti for dinner, and I didn't have any ingredients for real dinner. There's a $15 delivery minimum, so I ordered enough for two meals, so now I have leftovers to look forward to tonight! Here's what I got:

Top row: mysterious condiments (the one on the left tasted sweet and a little fruity; the one on the right was kind of like salsa), rice, rasmalai (dessert; homemade cheese in a sweet milk/pudding that tasted like coconut and pistachio). Middle row: vegetarian appetizer "platter" (vegetable samosa, cheese pakora, veggie pakora, aloo bada), tandoori chicken. Bottom row: dal? (it came free with the meal, with "DAL" written on the container; it contains chickpeas, I think), mulligatawny soup, naan.

It was all good, but if I had to rank the meal in terms of my most favorite part to least favorite, it would go: naan, veggie samosa, tandoori chicken/rice, rasmalai, veggie pakora, cheese pakora, aloo bada, dal, mulligatawny soup. I think I would've preferred a saucier entree (like Chicken Tikka Masala or Bhindi Masala) to make better use of the rice and naan. But the tandoori chicken was tasty all the same.

The rasmalai was described as "A delightful pudding made from homemade cheese, served cold with sweetened milk". I liked all of it but the cheese itself, which was too bland and unexciting. I think next time I'd get kulfi instead, except I'd worry about it melting during delivery.

All in all, it was a good meal, and not too expensive. It's fun trying out new things!

I had a good day at work today. I got results that actually make sense! And I think I even know what I did to make them better, so I can keep doing it and make my results more reliable from now on. Too bad I didn't figure it out a year ago, but oh well. So anyway, assuming I continue getting good results, I may very well be done with research in two weeks! If that's the case, it'll take me maybe two more after that to polish my thesis and the journal article (or maybe two) that Anne requires of graduating students, give my thesis presentation, and pack. Okay, so maybe two weeks to get all that done is an overly optimistic estimate, but a girl can hope :)

I fed little birdies pieces of bread today while eating my lunch outside. Of course, that probably messes up the circle of life, and then there'll be too many birds and more bird poop and then who knows what. There are signs explaining the whole vicious cycle in the Boston Public Gardens, with regard to the geese that live there. Anyway, the birds were very cute :)

I'm watching Raiders of the Lost Ark right now on TV. It's my second favorite Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is my favorite). Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was on last night, and I watched it, even though I (and Patrick) think it's inferior to the other two movies. No evil Nazis? What were they thinking?

P.S. This guy likes Temple of Doom the best. It's nice to know that each movie has its fans :)

Okay, that's it--no more forcing myself to write every day; I'm only going to write when I have something say. We'll see how that goes...

Here's a picture of the progress on the building outside my window:

I'm thinking of redesigning my website, or at least using more CSS (like switching to divs instead of tables). Of course, I had the same idea about 6 months ago, and nothing ever came of it. So we'll see. I spent some time today looking at sites for inspiration, and I really like some of the designs over at CSS Zen Garden, a site that Patrick pointed me at a while back. I'd say this one is my favorite design so far. I like spring :)

I made myself pizza tonight. It turned out pretty tasty. I used this crust recipe, then I topped it with cheap pizza sauce, roasted garlic and eggplant (done at 450F for 20 minutes), fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and real mozzarella!

If I were going to make this particular pizza again, I'd use less basil and mozzarella (a whole pound is a little overwhelming) and bake it a little longer to make the cheese more golden and bubbly (I had to use the shared kitchen oven since mine's too small, and there were other people in there eating dinner, so I wanted to skedaddle and leave them alone as soon as possible). But I'd say the crust is improved since the last time I made pizza, so that's encouraging!

And for dessert? Sliced strawberries with whipped cream! I love fresh produce :)