Dumpling Making (Chinese New Year)

I posted those photos on Facebook, but they could only be seemed by group members so I'm posting them here so other people can see them. Those are not all the photos, though.

February 16, 2013: Chinese New Year celebration - dumpling making with oSTEM

It took a long time just to cut the pork and the cabbage.

We enjoyed it. One of the girls said, there is not a thing we added in the dumpling that I don't like.

I was so prepared in my Chinese shirt. I was teaching ancient Chinese secret! LOL

I think he really had fun chopping the pork.

Good arm exercise. :D

Why that expression? LOL

My friends were amazing. We made about a hundred dumplings. It was their first time making dumplings, they learned it by just watching me once, and none of the dumplings broke after boiling.

"My mind just had a little imploding (when I saw how a dumpling is folded)," he said.

It was so delicious! I was so happy and proud! :D

I let them try different sauces. I had soy sauce, white vinegar, sesame oil, chili oil, and spicy bean sauce. They love it, even the spicy bean sauce. It must be a very different taste to them.

She was vegetarian, so she made a batch of vegetarian dumplings.

I think dumpling making is a great New Year tradition to carry on, isn't it?

Student Organizations

I'm excited! There are some student organizations that sound very interesting. Some of them are old; some are new. I'll try my best to see which ones I could continue participating.

Besides continuing going to AHA and oSTEM, there's a new group called electronic music production. The group leader is a DJ and people there are all EDM lovers, who may or may not know how to produce music on a computer. Though the majority are male. I don't know how much time I could actually devote into trying the sound manipulation software, but I go there to make friends (lots of dubstep, house, and trance-lovers), and at least learn about the terminology, so I can understand people's conversation on electronic music production.

There is another group that doesn't have meetings, but the leader will arrange you to pair up with a woman in Kenya. Those women are poor people who are learning sewing as a living and English as the second language. Their English might be good or very elementary. If just writing a letter to a person once every few days or few weeks is helping a poor person with limited resources to learn, that sounds like something I'd love to do.

I visited the International Socialist Organization's meeting today. I was curious, and people there seemed to have some interesting ideas and debates. They were friendly too. I might stop by some time during the semester.

There's a Cheese Club that meets every three weeks. They teach you about cheese varieties and let you taste samples. Sadly it conflicts with my other meetings. Oh and the Cyclist Club. It sounds awesome to ride bike with people around Madison for the sake of exercising and relaxing. I could get to know some other parts of Madison too. Of course, we'll have to wait until the weather gets better.

Science Cookies

There are some epic cookies that a member of the student organization, oSTEM, made for us. We get together every other week just nerding out. The ones in this picture are beaker, test tube, and flask cookies. There were some very pretty orbital-model atom cookies (you can see one on the corner) and others too. I think all science and non-sicence majors should be jealous!