Kimchi making and my second ever oil painting

My second proper blog took place in the new year of 2020. Now that I think about it, I did name my site very appropriately.

In order to earn my pretend Dr title in procrastination, I have recently made a batch of Kimchi (which I have done twice before), and painted an oil painting with a friend (which I have done once before). I guess procrastination makes you adventurous. Although I have to say, Kimchi is one of those things that you make once and can eat for two years (and you can repeal your partner from the dinning room easily with it when you want - my recipe especially). The lack of my Kimchi-making experience is not a reflection of how risky I am feeling.

I am actually a decent cook. I make a lot of Asian food and has attempted baking many times. They are usually rather complicated and I use them as my personal theraputic time. If you do want it to be theraputic though, you might want to leave cleaning up to the day after. Saying that, Kimchi is actually decently easy to make. Here's an image of me wearing gloves while rubbing the sauce on chinese leaves (bai cai) - a very sensible choice derived from painful past experiences I might add.

Making Kimchi

One thing I don't think a lot people get is that Chinese speakers are often very insecure with their listening skills (believe me this is revelent). Not just for English, even for Chinese. Growing up, I remember the only thing EVER on TV without subtitles (in Chinese) is the Chinese new year Gala, because it's live. Even that, on the subsequent days when it is replayed (oh it is replayed for many many days after new year's Eve), a subtitle is speedily added. So when I was a kid and didn't want nap time when my parents did, I use to watch TV on silent with just reading the subtitles next to their room. This means I get very uneasy going to the cinema in the UK or watch TV without subtitles due to the fear of ‘oh my god I am missing something SO IMPORTANT on TV’. And to finally come back to why this was relevant. Everytime I embark on a rather long cooking voyage, I have to find the perfect Chinese TV show/movie, preferably one I have watched already, to make sure I am not bored (I don't get bored when I know what happens, just when it's dead silent), or stressed out trying to rewind it every 5 minutes. Long story short, I had to search for the perfect already-watched-chinese-show for almost an hour to start making my Kimchi, which probably took less time than my show hunt.

Another attempt that I took was oil painting with my friend after new years. She came over for the weekend after my birthday and we did arts&crafts. We don't know many people around us that likes it, so we have been doing them so much these couple of times we met up. We made candles and soaps last time and printed/painted canvas bags. And we had A LOT OF wine. I have not finish 4 bottles of wine in a night with another person for a long long time. I had a very sober sick which was odd, kind of reminding me that I am no longer second year in my undergrad. Her dog kindly checked on me when I was sick….Not a very cute moment to be witness by him. But that's last time. This time when we met, we each painted an oil painting, which is my second every attempt. Hopefully you can tell in this image, which was my first and which was my second attempt.

My two oil paintings

With me always thinking I suck at painting and anything art related, I think I had a lot of fun mixing and blending to get the colours I want. I was so excited that I showed my parents and they were thoroughly amazed. I don't think Asian parents assume talents of their kids much? But my mum was so excited she already commissioned me to paint for their new place. She has mentioned big names and ridiculous paintings even when I said she should really only expect a lowsy wobbly replica of Mondrian. I really started to get in touch with the pain of people in design and art. My mum has mentioned she wanted tranqil sea, and has the most bizzar standard of what's tranquil. When she said she also won't mind a big stormy sea, she showed me a GIF of an actual storm at a beach, and told me I should do the exact moment the wave hit the tree.

???

I'm just gonna paint whatever. She's starting to get a feel for modern art, I will just say whatever I did, I did after Picasso. I will aim for Remberant though - she will never know.

I do still want to remind myself that I am more than half way into my 3rd year PhD (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!). I did do a lot of proper work these days too! I counted dopamine neurons while watching (listening to) Friends. For those of you who are curious, this is what it looks like…

Image of stained dopamine neurons in a rat midbrain

Basically I use a software to click on each black dot that I think looks like a neuron, and count how many is in a rat's brain, and correlate that with behaviours of our interest. It sounds fancy in my PhD offer letter, but really I'm doing mind-numbing labour while watching TV. Bet my funding would be glad to hear this is how I would describe my work… Now that I go back and think about my interview, it was like a big game of bluff….

But I guess any job can be named a glorified … if people want to make self-deprecating jokes about their lives. So, funding body, if you see this and think you know who I am, I am doing amazing research and loving life and think I will make ground-breaking discoveries in my last year and half!