this little girl is at the top of my list of kids i want to kidnap:

what's fuzzy, has googly eyes, and eats laptops?

cute thing of the day: meet winston, the laptop bag, who came to me as a surprise package from kenton. this bag manages to combine many of my favorite things into one-- including googly eyes, monsters, and fuzziness. i've been wanting a laptop case for a while now, but until now couldn't find one cute enough for my mac.

p.s. doesn't he look like cookie monster? maybe they're cousins.

i have recently discovered this interesting phenomenon of not needing a reason to be happy. i guess a lot of my life is centered around waiting for things. waiting to go to japan this september. waiting to be done with this semester and graduated. waiting to hear back from places i've applied for summer internships. when i finally get these things, boy will i be happy. but how about in the meantime?

why am i sitting here, in my quite messy room, a pretty chilly tuesday in april, my thesis still needing diagrams and my code needing more testing, feeling totally satisfied? there are times lately when i've discovered that i'm just happy with things exactly as they are. these particular moments, i don't feel happy because the situation is going exactly as i want. and it isn't saying that i'm not striving to do more in my life. but neither precludes being happy and embracing the moment for everything that it is.

say i run into acquaintances that are pleasant and funny and enjoyable to be with. of course i'd like to get to know them better, but who knows if i'll run into them again, and how many people in our lives do we actually get the pleasure of knowing really well? but in the meantime i enjoy the brief conversations we share-- it's not just small talk, i really want to know the answers to the questions i ask-- i appreciate the time they've taken to talk to me, i enjoy getting to spend this moment with them, without thinking "oh, why does it matter when maybe i'll never see him/her again."

down Mass Ave towards Central Square there's this spot that smells like peppermint creme (by that i mean not a biting peppermint smell but a sweet one), from a candy factory close by. whenever i walk past that spot, i feel so happy, even if it's a freezing day, even though that area looks so shady and is always under construction. i just enjoy that single moment of smelling peppermint creme.

Speaking of delicious things, last week I went to the (i suppose newly re-opened?) Cherry Mart on Newbury Street-- a tiny Japanese grocery store. I found some cute snacks that I wanted to try out.

"Strawberry and Netadecoco Yogurt Dessert"



Delicious. The consistency was between jello and pudding, with a creamy strawberry flavor, just a tiny bit sour like yogurt. Surprise cubes of more solid strawberry jello at the bottom of the pudding (I guess that's the netadecoco). i liked how i could see strawberry seeds in these cubes-- verification that there were real strawberries involved in the making process. Will definitely get again.

"Dorayaki", as in Doraemon's favorite snack.



How could I not try Doraemon's favorite snack, the snack that could lure him to perform all kinds of mischief? They taste pretty taste exactly how they look-- like mini pancakes stuffed with sweet red bean paste. Yummy, but not something I'd crave.

Just what you wanted I'm sure-- a plate of zen with dessert on the side!