The best soy latte that you ever had

Bonus points if you know where that lyric comes from!

The Great Tofu Dessert Mystery might be cleared up now thanks to you guys and Google. While a Google search in Chinese may not work so well, in English it is da bomb! I plugged in "Chinese hot tofu dessert" and one of the first results I got was from Wikipedia. Which also rocks, by the way. What a fantastic resource! At any rate, looks like this dessert can be eaten cold or hot and can come with a variety of toppings. I think I've only had it with the syrup, and no other toppings.

On a more serious note:
Today I made a conscious decision to get my priorities straight.

When I decided to go back to school to get that degree in Computer Science, part of me knew I was going back to what I do best - learning in an academic setting. When I was at Caltech, the absolute-number-one most important thing I learned was *how* to learn. I didn't figure it out until my junior year, but after that I was unstoppable. I felt like I had been let in on some great secret. I love school, love learning, and still love programming. I had signed up for a difficult course - really the first "hardcore" CS course in the program, intending to start next week. I'm already taking an online self-study statistics course at UW to fulfill a prerequisite I was missing. (Can you believe I have a B.S. from Tech and somehow didn't take a statistics class?! Two weeks ago I finally learned what standard deviation really is! Amazing.)

Aaaanyway, I did some thinking, and realized that I always seem to make work, and now school, top priority, because they're things I'm good at. I know how to succeed and of course, everyone likes to do what they're good at. That's all good, but in the meantime, my eating habits are horrendous, I'm lucky if I get to the gym twice a week, and even the dogs are getting fat. In addition, one of our biggest expenses is food because we eat out so much. Anyway, I'm not (sadly) a young 20-something anymore, and the extra goo is a huge health risk for me, plus I'm seriously sick of having clothes in my closet in (no kidding) 4 different sizes. I'm good at starting the "weight loss project" but not seeing it through. (Like you guys haven't already figured that out!!) Plus, in May, I have another customer event coming up, and can't afford to gain an extra 10 lbs like I did with the last one.

So I dropped the data structures/discrete math course from my schedule (sorry Prof. Stiber!), and will pick it up again in the fall, once I've established a better, healthier daily routine for myself. I'm keeping the stats course since I've already started, so I'm not totally idle on the school front.

I'm somewhat embarassed, since you'd think someone with a Master's degree (in biology, for cryin' out loud) would have figured out how to work the calories in/calories out thing and managed to stick with it. I will admit to being a foodie, but that doesn't excuse all of the non-gourmet garbage I've been eating.

Anyway, I know I sound like a broken record, but I'm hoping some of you out there will keep me accountable to my plan. If you're in town and want to hang out, invite me out for a walk, or for coffee. This eating out thing is really my downfall, I think. I don't want to turn food into the enemy, because I genuinely like trying food from other cultures, and TJ and I are starting to learn about wine, but I think fewer trips to the Claim Jumper would be a good start.

Thanks for reading my rants. I know most of you out there don't have to worry about this stuff so I appreciate you reading and leaving comments anyway. :)