reading about junk food on BBC for Chinese practice, came across this fun fact: 明治 is meiji, but add a three 三 and it becomes 三明治 sandwich !

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In my defense at not recognizing “sandwich”, I was totally waylaid by the idea of a “fourth generation sandwich.” Turns out there is actually an “Earl of Sandwich” !

The phrase then reads “England’s 4th Earl of Sandwich” (according to wikipedia you use “4th” and not “Fourth” here??).

Been feasting on tofu snacks lately, as well as lychee jellies. I bought them to give for friends in Boston but now my travel there is delayed (flights were full even on Wed!) and I haven’t been able to resist

Built up a “racecar” track, surprisingly fast with two people. just used an exacto on the yellow dotted lines. for the edx duckietown self-driving cars class

ate some tomatos finally?!

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the succulent seedlings are coming along nicely.

there seems to be a real difference in seed viability between 5 year old seeds and 1 year old seeds.

news lately: miami surfside collapse 🙁 at miamiherald.com. india pandemic seems to have eased from height (those awful pictures of rows and rows of funeral pyres… almost anyone Indian I know has family members who passed 🙁 ), yea just a lot of talk about the delta variant (it took about a week for the name changes to sink in for everyone) and it’s transmissiblity and impact on China, Australia’s former covid free zones. vaccination has slowed in the US which was a bit depressing to see. now you can get vaccines without an appointment, walk-in. trying to see about getting a covid test since i will be traveling; seems like it’s only covered if i have symptoms. been kind of hypochondriac after going to the dentist. in fact after i went to the hmart nearby and was in there and realized i’d just gone in there to kill time and i didn’t actually have anything i actively needed to buy! and the intense heat waves in seattle and canada killing dozens of people (boston was at 99F this week). the volcano in dr congo.

double rainbow — did you know the second rainbow is always reversed?

will be on a flight to boston in 5 days or less,
feels difficult to think about, i have enjoyed my time here and feel like there’s still so much i want to do. still with phones and internet, it’s so easy to keep in contact. and try to remember, that there’s lots of things i can do in boston that i cannot do in GA. maybe i will be excited and find passion in something again.

i am starting to think about things i would be happy to work on.

• disinformation – i forget exactly now, but there’s lots of stuff that would be… less evil to work on
• us-china relations – jeez i don’t even know it’s such a huge topic
• ocean and sustainability – robot boats for science? being more in nature (ocean) would be nice

things i used to like

• teaching, i hate it now. i guess i forgot the part where i never had a happy relationship with my classes in undergrad, and teaching while having no stability in life was awful and i’m so bitter about it

went to costco saturday

croissants, so many croissants

huge sign saying “if you’re vaxxed you don’t have to wear a mask, also be law we cannot ask you for proof of vax”

also “only police allowed to have firearms inside”

it feels different. i’m less aware of my 6 ft bubble of personal space. more just paying attention to people wearing/not wearing masks. can’t keep up with changing social norms.

i guess it’s not possible to replicate this experience in the future (discounting another pandemic). everyone around you has to be in on it to. we cross the street when we see someone coming our way on walks on the neighborhood, and maybe wave, but no offense is taken. people understand.

getting an ebike. excited. sold at at costco. found it refurbished online for cheaper. hopefully the battery isn’t too worn out. but i guess most things i should be able to fix myself.

we bring packages inside same day now. and mail, it doesn’t sit in the garage for 2 or 3 days and get lost. coming back from costco i didn’t shower right away. in fact I didn’t even change clothes.

we also aren’t so careful about spacing out visits. we used to aim for 2-3 weeks between visits where we have to go inside a store.

all this when the fully vax rate in GA is something like 30-40%. (in seattle it’s 70%+)