Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone!

I live near Times Square, but I am sure as heck not standing out in the cold right now. (As you can see by the fact that I am posting...) First of all, you'd have to get out there so early to stand in the cold; I don't know how people go to the bathroom and eat. Second, it's such a mess. I was running into all the people in their 2006 glasses and top hats all over 9th Avenue and the crowds and loud people were already making me crazy. Best if I stay away from crazy screaming people, I think. Did you see those pictures of how crowded it is? I realize it's not as cold as it was some years in the past, but it's still not very warm!

So, a little later than I had hoped, I'm going to put together my 2005 recap and some resolutions for 2006.

Movies I saw in the theaters in 2005:

• Kung Fu Hustle
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• Star Wars Episode III
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Vacations in 2005:

• Cruise to Freeport and Nassau, Bahamas with a short stay in Jacksonville, FL
• Connecticut
• Hong Kong

Big events of 2005:

• Taking and passing 2 bar exams (phew)
• Graduating from law school (finally)
• Starting my first real job
• Moving from Chicago to NY
• Spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with Alvin for the first time
  

Resolutions for 2006 (let's see if I keep them - I'm posting them here in order to try to keep myself accountable):

1. Exercise at least 10 minutes a day (c'mon, I'm being realistic) and at least 3 hours a week total.
2. Try to eat healthier and keep a food diary .
   
3. Try to sleep before midnight every day, with exceptions for special events (I'm so bad at this).
4. Put away/clean up at least 5 things a day.
5. Read at least 1 leisure book per month.
6. Keep in touch better. (I know this is one of those vague resolutions, but still...)
7. Keep a more organized budget book.
   
8. Post a randomly selected picture on the blog every time I sign on and have adequate time to do so.
9. And the whole bunch of resolutions I make every year that I can't really quantify: be happy, be more patient, be nicer to people, be more organized, etc. I mean them, but honestly, they're hard to keep and how do you tell whether you've really "achieved" them? They seem more like life goals than a resolution that you can either keep or not.
10. Take enough time off to stay recharged and refreshed.

Have a happy, healthy and wonderful 2006! Stay in touch. :)

Annoyance

I was having a good day despite waking up late - finished Order of the Phoenix, cleaned up a little, watched Naruto - until I got annoyed by the disappearance of my iTunes free credits. First of all, I'm annoyed that I don't remember Lexis saying on its rewards page that they would expire within the year, or I would never have picked them to begin with, because I don't download songs that quickly. Second, I am annoyed because I wrote down that my expiration date is December 31, which means I am either wrong (entirely possible, and in which case I feel stupid for being such a waste) or they screwed up.  I need to get over feeling annoyed before the new year, because that is not how I want things to begin.

Clouds

Everyone always sees different things in the clouds. In this picture, the first thing I saw was dirt getting sucked into a vacuum cleaner. The second was a robotic hand. If I had to pick out another image, it would be a quickly running person. I love looking up at the clouds. What do you see?

Tracking II

6 minutes ago, my package arrived in Maspeth, NY! It's almost here!

Fishersville

I looked up "restaurants near Fishersville, Virginia" because the blank map just wasn't doing it for me, and the first one on the list is McDonalds. So's the 4th one. A cafe, a pizza place and Wendy's round out the list, and the rest are all listed as being in Staunton or Waynesboro.  Interesting. I'm very sure I've never been in that part of Virginia before. I wonder why TAR 8 didn't go there. :)

Tracking

I love watching tracked packages.

 

In Barnes & Noble's online megasale ($1.00 books? seriously!) this week, I ordered a whole bunch of stuff. Enough to get the free shipping for orders over $25.  Only, it's coming in 3 shipments. Apparently, one of the books is not available for another month, and then 7 shipped together by one service and 2 shipped together by another service.  I wonder if they ended up getting delivered from different warehouses?

 

Anyway, one of the shipments has two books that were $1 each. And the shipping is still free because I spent enough and said to ship it all together. I love it. :) A $2 book shipment. Heehee!

 

Topic. Watching tracked packages. I could check UPS and FedEx all day to track my packages (and did, in law school).  This morning, when I left for work, I saw that my shipment had left Memphis the night before, and was en route to somewhere. But where would it go?  Now, the mystery is solved. It's in Virginia. Fishersville, Virginia. I don't know where that is, so I'll probably look it up on a map as soon as I finish this post. I like maps. I would have loved that map task at the end of TAR 8.

 

I wonder where the package will be tonight!

Ouch

Ouch. The huge papercut that I was supposed to wrap up in a bandaid last night but forgot is really starting to hurt. And while putting away a big folder into a packed redweld, I think I managed to cut the papercut again! What do you call a double papercut? Argh....

Patatas

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you might notice that I have actually posted this picture before. But no matter, it's what came up during my random photo selection and it goes into the post. (At least it's a clear picture and one that I took myself - the 2 requirements - unlike the first 4 that I pulled up yesterday!)

The potatoes in the picture were from a dinner a little over a year ago at Cafe Iberico, one of my favorite places in Chicago and my favorite tapas place (especially since another one closer to my apartment literally kicked us out for wearing sleeveless inside after never telling us that we could not... long story). They're good. Although I like the patatas bravas (the smaller cut potatoes with a zesty sauce) a little better than these big potatoes. But I like how the big potatoes are really soft. It reminds me of the potatoes that they give you at Greek Islands. And now I'm starting to miss all my favorite Chicago restaurants. I guess that's what happens when you live someplace for 3 years. You develop all these connections that are just never the same afterwards. Sure, it happens in college too, but I think a lot of the connection I have there is to college life itself, less so living as a resident of a city. It's nice having favorite restaurants. The only problem with NY is that there are so many places to try, I think it will be so much harder finding favorites!

Renovations

I'm trying out a new blog feature with the new year, and figure I might as well start it early so I can get in the habit of doing it, and maybe keep a new year's resolution. Any day that I log onto my computer at home (and it's not every day, since I'm on the computer all day at work) and have a free minute to do so, I will post up a random photograph and then force myself to talk about it. Sort of my pseudo-Daily Themes project for myself (see the Accountability link in the sidebar, I'm too lazy to link to the post).

This photograph is from one of the classrooms at my old law school from June 2005. My parents had come in for graduation and we strolled around the school so I could show them what it looked like. I don't remember if they had ever actually seen more than just the outside, but they certainly hadn't seen it after renovations. We ended up running into the very nice person at the law school who is in charge of facilities and he took us on a little tour and we got to go into the courtroom and everything. It was a nice touch and my parents definitely enjoyed it.

If any of you were reading this back in early June 2005, there was still a lot of "am I going to graduate?" drama going on. It was on this day, I believe, that during our stroll of the building, the registrar's office dropped off the final transcripts. Producing relief and glee at knowing that I really was going to graduate and that I wasn't stuck in school for another quarter!

Graduation feels like a really long time ago. It was, of course, but it feels like it's really far in the past, unlike when I started work, which feels like a combination of just yesterday and ages ago. (Do you know what type of feeling I mean? Feels like I've been there for awhile and am getting comfortable, but the time has also flown by.) I don't really miss school, but I do kind of miss the long Christmas break. This is the first Christmas break when I haven't had like a week off to do absolutely nothing. It just feels odd.

The law school definitely looked better after renovations. But now, with my nice big desk at work, this picture reminds me even more of how hard it was to fit everything on the new tables. When the room was full, it was difficult to fit the laptop, the big casebooks and everything else on the tables. But it sure beats the old way of crawling all over the floor trying to stick plugs into outlets. Once the current class is gone, no one's going to remember what it was like. No wireless or IM during class (at least, nothing reliable)... crawling on the floor trying to find an outlet... wooden chairs instead of comfortable swivel chairs.... this is making me feel old. :)

And that's all I have to say about that. I wasn't really telling a story, so I have no way to end it. It's just all rambling. Lots and lots of rambling. (Hmm... I should think about that and this theme and how that's going to work...) And in that picture, it's my dad saying hi. :)

Merry Christmas

and happy holidays to all!

Hope that your holidays are filled with lots of fun, food, family and friends, and that Santa brings you all the

that you want this year!

***

Tonight was the second year that we put our own twist on the Christmas Eve tradition of eating seafood for dinner.

The best part is that I think we even made it "seven fishes"! (Tuna, salmon, yellowtail, whitefish, shrimp, crabmeat and eel... we did it!)

Hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday! I'm off to bed... you know who is coming soon :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas Quizzes

I promise, the new year's resolution I entered had nothing to do with gummy bears (love Haribo ones though I do)...

Your New Year's Resolutions

1) Get a pet rooster 2) Eat more gummy bears 3) Travel to Spain 4) Study time travel 5) Get in shape with Dance Dance Revolution

What Should Your New Year's Resoluton Be?

I think puppies are cute, but I don't want to take care of their waste ;-)

Your Christmas Stocking Will Be Filled With a Puppy

Well - one cute, soft, cuddly puppy... And a very soiled Christmas stocking.

What Will Be In Your Christmas Stocking?

Strike Thoughts

I was up early today (for me). I woke up all on my own to my Blackberry alarm and the TV alarm without a problem. It was rather shocking, seeing as how 6 alarms usually can't rouse me from slumber on an ordinary day.

 

Despite being awake early, and despite my exercise program being shorter than I had planned (oh well), I still got to work around the same time as always.

 

Why?

 

Because I was watching all the local channels about the strike! I don't know why I am so transfixed by these things. It's odd.

 

I wasn't really impacted by the strike, so I didn't have any strong opposition to it other than that it would make everyone else's lives difficult.  But then actually watching first hand interviews with these people who, unlike me, wouldn't get paid if they can't get in, can't telecommute, might lose their jobs because they can't get in to work... I started to feel really bad.  Sometimes I forget just how fortunate I am with my circumstances. I walk to and from work every day. Many people aren't so lucky.

 

So I kept changing the channels... NY1, CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC.... over and over again. I couldn't pull myself away from the TV as I slowly ate my bagel.  I noticed how different stations were handling the news coverage. NY1 replayed lots of clips over and over again.  CBS was interviewing people in cars (who clearly wanted to be on camera). I don't think I caught much on NBC besides commercials.  Instead of saying "transit strike," Fox chose to say "MTA not running."  And then to interview a security expert to see if the terrorist threat is now higher because the union decided to strike. (Semi-legitimate question, but quit trying to tie everything in the world to terrorism! And if the President stopped saying that open discussion of law helps the enemy, that would help too. But anyway...)  ABC had pretty good coverage, although one of the news reporters on the Upper West Side said that people were taking their frustrations out on her. Poor lady.

 

Once I finally left for work, it was kind of eerie how empty the streets were on a non-holiday workday morning.  It made me feel like it was really early, even though it was like 10:30. 9th Ave, usually packed with people trying to get into the Lincoln Tunnel, was quiet. Barely a horn blowing and certainly no city buses passing by. Or trucks for that matter. It was really quiet. 8th Ave was pretty quiet too. Times Square was a little more crowded, but nowhere near how it usually should be. Taxis were honking, but I think they were just frustrated and overworked. Overall, it's pretty quiet. Would have been the perfect morning to run errands at the bank....

 

At work, it's fairly normal. Lots of people are here, probably some people working from home. But not so abnormally quiet that you would realize it was a state of emergency.  Not like the streets.  Usually there are constant choruses of horns that you can hear from my office. It's pretty mild right now.

 

For those people outside NY, I guess I should explain why it's so quiet.  Until 11 am, no commercial vehicles and no passenger vehicles with less than 4 people are allowed over any bridge or tunnel into Manhattan, or on a bunch of highways in the city.  Likewise, Manhattan is also completely shut off below 96th Street to any vehicles with less than 4 people (I think, unless you originated below 96th, because then you wouldn't need to cross any checkpoints).  So outside of 96th Street, in upper Manhattan, there's gridlock. Some highways aren't moving, but some (like the ones to get into the city from SI) are actually better than usual.  But what I worry about is what happens after 11.  When the floods of cars come into the city.  And even worse - what about the afternoon rush hour? All these cars are going to have to leave at some point...

 

(Of course, it's now after 11... but I started this post before 11. How was I to know it would take me so long? Also, it should be noted that I do work from home often in the mornings. In case you were wondering.)

 

All we can do now is wait and see.  Wait and see...

Christmas Cheer

You Are a Cranberry and Popcorn Strung Tree

Christmas is all about showcasing your creative talents. From cookies to nicely wrapped presents, your unique creations impress everyone.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

"Unique creations"? Hmm. Not sure this fits...

You Are Socks!

Cozy and warm... but easily lost. You make a good puppet.

What Crappy Christmas Gift Are You?

Socks. Ha. Dumbledore liked socks in Book 1.

You Are a Classic Martini

You area sophisticated drinker, who knows that simple quality is over-rated. You're a knowledgeable drunk, but sometimes you're a know-it-all when you're blasted. You should never: Drink and gossip. You tend to forget who's standing right behind you! Your ideal party: Has a real bartender. But no one mixes a better drink than you. Your drinking soulmates: those with a Chocolate Martini personality Your drinking rivals: those with a Margarita Martini personality

What Flavor Martini Are You?

I don't think I like martinis anyway....

Apprentice 4.13

My only current thought about the Apprentice finale, until I've had time to process it more:

WTF was up with that ending? It was absolutely ridiculous. And quite a... non-ending.

Anyone else watch?

Haribo-Induced Irritation

I went to my second Duane Reade in 2 days looking for a little Haribo gummy bear fix, and was thwarted for the second time.  Last time, I settled for Sour Patch Kids and had a huge sugar crash at work. This time, I settled for Swedish fish "aqua life." 

But after not finding Haribo gummy bears, it seems like one thing after another was irritating.

First, I was on line to check out and was standing behind this guy as he finished paying and turned to leave. The exact way in which he turned was where I was, so I nicely got out of his way and said sorry. But I didn't expect such an attitude from him! He was like, "You need to look around. You're in the city now." (Or "you're in the city, you know" or something like that.) It wasn't very loud, it was sort of half under his breath, but it was in a very patronizing tone as if he were talking to some little girl who was gazing around at the sights and walking into people because she didn't know what she was doing.

All it got from me was an eyeroll, because I was tired and just wanted to get my second-tier candy and go home.  But what was playing in my head? "Yeah, I know I'm in the city. I live around the corner from this store. Maybe your little know-it-all self should have realized that I was getting out of your way because you turned and were going to walk directly into me."  Whatever.

Second, I get the mail and inside is an envelope from the law school, saying "Welcome to ____ Law School" on the envelope. My thought? What the heck! I just LEFT the law school, why are you welcoming me TO the law school?!  (Yes, I knew it was probably an alumni thing, but why welcome alumni to the law school itself when they just extricated themselves from it?)

Third, I found myself confused and starting to think about Supernatural and ghosts when I saw a very large lipstick print on the mirrored wall of the elevator.  Entirely covered in lipstick, very full lips, etc.  Who was kissing the mirror?!

Now, to watch Apprentice and do work. Lalala.

Strike

Is it funny or sad that a fair number of people are looking forward to the strike like a snow day? :)

TAR 8.11

For the first time since TAR2, the team that I wanted to win from early on won! Yay!

(For the record, the Linz family is the first of my favorites to win since Chris & Alex. Since then, there's been Dave & Jeff, Colin & Christie, Kris & Jon and Rob & Amber. It's been a long wait. I had no TV during TAR3, but I guarantee you I would not have been rooting for Flo.)

The season has been sort of lame with the barely leaving the country and not having very hard tasks bit, but the ending was worth it. I can't wait for TAR 9! They look like they go to fun places!

And I have to say that my favorite part of the whole thing was the geography puzzle. Alvin and I both started screaming, because that task is one of the few that would be great for me. (We usually try to pick who would do which roadblocks were we on the show.) I mean, I read maps for fun. I just wish they had shown us the Weavers doing the puzzle. I mean with the whole, "is Pennsylvania a state?" thing from earlier in the season, that would have just been great. Yay for a smart challenge!

Yay! Finally a good finale. The 2 teams I liked made it to the end as 1 and 2. (There were other teams I liked too, but they got kicked off early on.) And now we get on with the real TAR!

HP

I love the ABC Family Channel for playing so much Harry Potter over the weekend. The best part is that it seems to be the "extended" editions with all these scenes not in the original movies. Are those scenes in the deleted scenes on the DVDs? Or are they only in the TV version? Having just finished Book 2 again recently, I'm in HP-overload, in a very, very good way.

Yesterday, Sorcerer's Stone. Today, Chamber of Secrets. Re-reading, Prisoner of Azkaban. Last full movie seen, Goblet of Fire. Me, happy.

Family Feud

Are you kidding me?

Family Feud question: "Name an occasion when people get sentimental."

My answer and the answer of one of the buzzer contestants? "Graduation."

And it got the big red X!

How can none of the 100 people surveyed get sentimental at graduation?

What would your answer to the question be?

Words II

Take the last post and substitute Boykrazy's That's What Love Can Do.

 

Listening to the radio is fun.

Words

Is it sad that, approximately 13 years later, I am sitting at work getting all the words right to Shoop?

Another Song Association

All 4 One: I Swear

 

Junior high school. Senior Banquet. Yes, we had a "prom." Some people came in limos and did a post-party at the beach and the whole thing if I remember correctly. I showed up in a friend's minivan (my mom was chaperoning anyway) and we went to the diner afterwards. Kind of glad we had a "prom" since I didn't go in high school, but over 7.5 years later, I still don't regret not going. And since for some reason I have better memories of junior high than high school (hence, my issues with law school social structure), I guess I went to prom when it counted.

 

Share. Please? :)

A Real Lawyer

It's official! I'm a lawyer!


Well, in New Jersey anyway. But at least it's not really a lie to say "attorney" as my profession anymore. Kind of exciting. :)

(I was originally going to post a post-ceremony picture of me with the judge who did the swearing in, but I felt weird not asking for permission before posting something like that. So I won't.)

It doesn't feel that different now, mostly because I can't do all that much more now than I could do before this afternoon. But it's nice to actually be admitted somewhere. Pretty good reason for being out of the office this afternoon. ;-)

Reunion

Am I setting myself up for disappointment?

Reason I ask is because I watched 4 episodes of Reunion today. But I suppose I should start the story from the beginning.

When a new TV season starts, I usually try to give all the new shows that interest me a chance. (And there's usually quite a few.) After a few episodes, if I have no desire to watch, I tune out.

This season, it was a little complicated. Fox starts its season early, and they started most of their shows during the time when I was moving from Chicago to NY. As a result, I had to tape a lot of shows at my parents' house, but never got to watch the tapes before work started.

I had taped Prison Break, Reunion and the O.C. Since I kept missing the O.C. anyway because of all the Thurs/8pm time conflicts, I just watched when I could and didn't worry about not seeing the first episode. The other 2, since they're so serialized, I didn't want to watch the later episodes without seeing the early ones, especially since they were new shows.

Once we set up DVR (mid-Sept), I started recording Prison Break and Reunion. As of this morning, I still hadn't watched the videos, so I still hadn't seen any of the episodes. And they were taking up enough room on the DVR that I figured I would just start watching Reunion, even though I hadn't seen the first episode on the tape yet.

Only problem with that? I already knew this morning that Fox had cancelled Reunion earlier in the week. That it was going to end at 13 episodes. That the producers said that the mysteries probably wouldn't even be solved because it wasn't going to be a full season. That it was basically going to end in February.

But I watched 4 episodes anyway.

One might ask what the whole point of that is. Why watch a show that's already been cancelled?

I wanted to see what the concept was like. It had intrigued me from the beginning and I wanted to see what it was all about. And there was nothing on today except the ANTM marathon and I wanted to be entertained while I was cleaning up. It's not the greatest show, I've realized, but it's definitely fun. And I'm sad that Fox doesn't take enough of a chance to let it play out for the full season before killing it. At least the WB did right by Jack & Bobby even if they didn't renew it (sadly).

I always knew Fox was the show-killer network. I'm still just really disappointed in CBS over Threshold. Stupid successful CBS.

Lime in the Coconut

City Lobster, 3 December 2005

Allure

I'm tired.

I think the fact that the sun doesn't shine in through my bedroom window in the morning (I face west) is getting to me.

When I think about what I want to eat before a meal, nothing sounds appetizing and I don't feel like eating. In sharp contrast to previous weeks where I wanted lunch at noon, I now don't feel like eating until close to 2.

Although I don't have much appetite for what I want to eat, once I get the food, I eat a lot of it. (see: tonight's Chinese food delivery and the fact that there is no more chow fun left)

Of course, it's 12:15 am and being awake now isn't helping.

That's why I ate chocolate.

Maybe I need one of those sun lamps. Not like a tanning bed, but one of those lamps that tries to naturally wake you up with sunlight. SAD therapy lights, probably. I'll try anything, because for the past couple of weeks, until this week, I had been setting 6 alarms in the morning and still sleeping through all but my Blackberry.  Now I can snooze my Blackberry in my sleep, although it does have the most annoying vibrations of all the alarms.

I want lychee flavored hard candy.

And a nap.

At least Music Choice is playing. One of my problems is that I'll be listening to 90s radio on the couch late at night, when they play all the good songs I haven't heard in awhile, and then I'll just keep wanting to hear the next song, and the next song, and the next song, and before you know it, it's 2 am and I'm still sitting on the couch.

My eyes hurt.

Does anyone know anything about those solar lamp alarm things? Like which are good, which are recommended, what to buy? I am seriously considering the investment.

As I listen to Color Me Badd. I adore mi amor....

More Songs

Anyone who walks into my office right now would see me silently singing along to "Whatta Man" and reminiscing about 8th grade. I love 90s radio.

Frustrating News

So the rumors are flying, after last night's time-slot switch and bad viewer numbers, that Threshold has been cancelled.

This makes me very annoyed.

The critics like it. Many think it's the best of the new sci-fi shows this season. The people who like it are loyal. But clearly, we're not important enough, and stuck on a stupid network that has enough shows doing well that they're not willing to take a chance on a good one that happens to just not be reaching high enough levels for them. If Threshold were on NBC, it probably would have been given a full season order already. Dammit CBS!

Sigh.

I wish I could boycott CBS for killing my favorite new show of the season but I can't. I like Without a Trace. And Survivor. And I couldn't go without Amazing Race. And Numb3rs is fun. I can't give those up out of spite. It wouldn't hurt CBS. It would hurt me.

Stupid ratings system.

All I can say is that I'll be cautious the next time I get really into a show on CBS if it isn't an instant CSI-type numbers blockbuster. Why get my hopes up if it's not going to be good enough for them? Stupid CBS. Wealth of procedural riches and no diversity. Even Law & Order hit its saturation point (see: Trial by Jury). You just wait until all this CSI crap comes back to haunt you. (For the record, I don't watch CSI. It bores me.)

Yes, I'm feeling bitter.

I've had shows that I liked fall apart in the past and get cancelled early. (It was usually Fox, and they're doing it again with Kitchen Confidential.) But, although they were shows I liked and felt weren't given a chance, they weren't shows that I was immensely attached to, like Threshold. Now I really know how all those Firefly fans felt. Friday time slot of death, eh? I guess the curse has moved from Fox to CBS. Sad.

Fine, CBS. Make me upset on Thanksgiving. You're evil. And Survivor and Without a Trace are still on tonight, and I'm going to have to suffer through staring at your stupid eye logo everywhere. And yes, I use the word stupid a lot when I'm frustrated and there's nothing I can do.

This was one of the best ensemble casts for new shows on TV this season. And the characters were written to be smart. Arrrrrrrrrrgh.

Another Test Post

Can someone comment and let me know if this worked as I intended it to look?

 

I thought this picture from my Dems newsletter was hilarious, and wanted to show the world:

 

Shock

The part of wearing a wool sweater, fleece blanket and computer headphones that sucks is when you move the blanket around without taking the headphones off and get 5 electric shocks in your ear.

 

And then you remember that this happened the last time you wore the fleece blanket and computer headphones at the same time, and wonder why you're so dumb and forgetful that you let yourself get hurt again.

Candy

I had always bought all those fruit gummies from Asian grocery stores.  Lately, however, my favorite flavor candy seems to be lychee (although some candy brands spell it "litchee" which to me looks like "itchy").  Last time I went to this grocery store, I bought a bag of lychee-flavored fruit gummies, lychee-flavored hard candies, and lychee-flavored pudding-type snacks.  I didn't intentionally do it; all the snacks that interested me just turned out to be lychee. (Sort of how I go into a store and end up trying on all black clothes in the fitting room... I don't do it on purpose!)

 

Anyway, all that to say that Kasugai lychee hard candies are getting me through this dark and foggy-minded day. Yay for lychee!

Connections

When I hear the song Lady in Red, I think about weddings.  Slow dancing and waltzing around the floor with twinkling lights overhead.  The bride twirling in a red cheong sam as guests look on, smiling and cheering. It looks so much like a beautifully choreographed romantic movie.

 

What do you think of?

 

Maybe I should start this song connections thing as a recurring feature. After all, I listen to the radio all day at work and songs always prompt memories for me. This could be fun.  I could tell you what I think of, and then you can comment and tell me what the song makes you think of!  I love shared stories. :)

 

 

Official News

There was mild relief Tuesday night. A satisfying birthday present Thursday morning. And now that I have finally received the official word in the mail, I can finally tell you that...

I passed the bar!!

Yippee! The relief that the online results produced has now turned to glee. The envelope from NY arrived this morning, officially ending the whole bar exam process. (Now to get admitted...) I'm going to be a real lawyer soon! And I shall now resume dancing around the room. :)

Names

I was supposed to wake up early, exercise and clean/work from home.  Instead I am reading the entire list of names of the people who passed the NY Bar Exam and cheering for every name I recognize. This includes people from high school that I haven't seen or heard about in 7 years. And I'm only up to C...

Music

2 days ago, I went through all different stations on my Windows Media Player - DogCatRadio, BombayBeats, RadioBangkok, Latin Pop - until I found Kpop on Live365.

 

Yesterday, I listened to Kpop on Live 365.

 

Today, I listened to jazz on Music Choice at home, then jazz on WMP at work, then classical and relaxation music, and now I'm back to my good old standby of Club 977.

 

I have such a short attention span.

Stuffing

Fulfilling a 2+ hour stuffing craving is magnificent.

 

Especially when you get a decently large rectangular sized take out box of stuffing for only $3.

Balmy

It's a gorgeous 68 degrees outside (or thereabouts).  Mostly cloudy, but still! Almost 70 degrees! That's like.... balmy!

 

In other observations on my walk to work, I absolutely hate people who are unaware of themselves that they stop in the middle of a crowded sidewalk almost causing their own pedestrian accidents. It's rude.  The people who stand talking and taking up the whole sidewalk so no one can pass. All the teenage girls clustering on the sidewalk outside MTV.  Okay, I don't hate them but the fact that they take up the whole sidewalk annoys me. I guess I don't really hate any of these people. They just annoy me.

 

But it's almost 70 degrees! Beautiful!

Cheese

I've been dreaming about cheese-related foods ever since I saw a recipe for a spinach & cheddar casserole this morning.  Since then I have been craving, at different moments and moving fluidly from one craving to another: cheez waffies, chicken hard shell tacos topped with chihuahua cheese or cheddar cheese, salad topped with Mexican blended cheese, Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits, cheesy chewy breadsticks, restaurant-style macaroni and cheese (with bread crumbs), etc. There was a random chicken pot pie craving in there too. But notice, no pure cheese. I guess I'm just not that into plain cheese. But then at Artisanal, they have these awesome gougeres... mmm.... I want.

A Completely Useless Post

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fire drill.

 

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Dreams Come True

OMG, that internet radio station is playing SES - Dreams Come True! I was just sitting here dazed and confused about other things, and was like, "I know this song!" Nice.

Words

bored.

 

distracted.

 

disillusioned.

 

tired.

 

anxious.

 

zoning out.

 

back to work.

Reliving the Past

Back in undergrad, especially the first half, I listened to a lot of Asian pop music.  With the whole mp3 crackdown, it became a lot harder to learn about Asian pop music, mostly because I didn't know where to look to find out more. I pretty much only got familiar with the theme songs to anime (Alvin watched a lot of Inuyasha back in Chicago, where it was on earlier because of the time difference).  Now, I'm heading back to the past, as I've found a K-pop Live365 station to listen to at work. Yay!

 

And as a side note, I may go blog-silent until the weekend, because I'll be wrapped up in a little bubble.  Some of the stuff happening is, I think, better suited to my handwritten journal (which I'm resurrecting).  It's not that it's something that doesn't deserve to be public, but considering the way I've compartmentalized my writing topics over time, it's something that I'd rather put there. At least that's how I feel now. It may change. If you think I've gone crazy and have no idea what I'm talking about, ask me on IM.

Bright Lights

How bizarre. I was sitting here at my desk (which doesn't face the window) and all of a sudden, I felt like a high spotlight was shining onto my desk. At first, I freaked out because my first thought was that it was one of those big spotlights from a police helicopter. But I didn't hear a helicopter, and why the heck would they be shining it into office windows anyway? It was really bright! I went from sitting in artificial light to a blazing bright light from behind. And what was it? You probably already guessed it, but it was the sun. Reflecting off the building across the street and straight into my office. The sun was probably the most logical answer, but here I am, sitting here thinking it was a police helicopter. Fabulous.

Autumn Hues

Autumn is here.

The trees have taken on colorful hues. They shine amber in the bright sunlight or blaze red in the middle of a sea of green. But the tones are a little subdued, which makes me sad. There is far less of the deep and vibrant color that usually characterizes peak season for fall foliage because of the endless October days of rain. But in the perfect moment, you can still catch a beautiful autumnal glow.

At one time in my life, I used to pick up leaves that I thought made beautiful imprints on the ground. The ones that fell even though they hadn't turned brown and crispy, the ones that still retained their reds and oranges and golds. They never really lasted for long, because I didn't really have anything to do with them, but they were fun to look at. Part of the celebration of the season.

I don't remember if I've ever addressed the favorite season question on this blog. I waver back and forth because there's so much I love about each of them that it's hard to choose. Sometimes people wonder how you can like autumn, a season where leaves die and fall from the trees, it turns cold, it gets dark early. But it's also a season of color, brisk refreshing breezes, new beginnings and warm and fuzzy feelings inside. The first times it's cool enough for hot apple cider, the days when humidity has left the air leaving for a pleasant cool night, the coziness of curling up in comfy pajama pants with hot chocolate. Fleece blankets, deep and dark colored clothing, comfort food like stuffing and mashed potatoes.

There's a lot of things I love about autumn. And it's best to leave this on a happy note while I've still got that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. What's your favorite part of autumn?

Amazing Thrills

Unless you're a new reader to this blog, you probably know that I love watching The Amazing Race.

I've seen almost all of the episodes (they're now in Season 8, if you don't watch). I think I missed a few episodes of S1, and unfortunately, I missed S3 because I had no working TV. But other than that, seen them all, and some more than once. I love the show and am so glad it won the reality show Emmys. (Take that, Trump! Yeah!)

The only thing that disappoints me (well, not really disappoints, but don't know what other word to pick) is that when they go to different areas of the world, I never recognize any of them. (Well, I might recognize them, but not from personal experience.) This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it makes it lots of fun to see new places and dream of where I want to go next, but there's definitely something fun in the recognition of a place you've been.

The closest I've gotten is when they're in the US - traveling around NY, SF, Chicago. But I never really counted those in my recognition tally before. (But now, I'm thinking maybe I should have, with the way Family Edition was going!)

But I've been watching (& DVR-ing) the repeats on GSN (I love GSN) and they played the Hong Kong episodes of Season 2 over the weekend. They're some of my favorite episodes of TAR (and the early seasons really were better (real clues!)- if you don't know what I mean and want to see them, buy TAR1 on DVD!) and there was also the added layer of "I know where that is!" It was lots of fun and also brought back memories of the recent trip. Last time I saw these episodes, my memories of places in HK were a little more hazy (it was also a family trip, so I wasn't doing much navigation on my own, and it was back in the mid-90s), so it was like watching them in a whole new light.

This is truly one of the only reality shows that takes you off to a whole new world. I wish they'd get back to the best parts of the old seasons (FF strategies, get rid of the NEL money-taking, real clues), but even in its current state, it's still one of the best shows on TV. This post is really supposed to be about watching HK but if it makes you want to watch the show... even better. :) Although maybe you should rent or buy TAR1, then TAR7 at Christmas and start off with TAR9...

Arts and Crafts

Arty Kid

Whether you were a drama freak or an emo poet, you definitely were expressive and unique. You're probably a little less weird these days - but even more talented!

Who Were You In High School?

Hmm. Yearbook, newspaper and lit mag? So, maybe...

But I never thought of myself that way.

Oh well. It was the most interesting of the new quizzes, so I just thought I'd post it.

Radio

Not that anyone would have any way of knowing this, but yes, I do listen to DogCatRadio.com at work.

Sushi

I'm reading the menu for Raku on Seamless Web, and is it bad that I'm so amused by some of the roll names? For example, the Morgan Stanley roll (spicy tuna with avocado topped with eel, red and white tuna, salmon and yellowtail - sounds SO good, which explains why it's $15) and the Proskauer roll (spicy ebi, cucumber, crunch, white tuna, whitefish and salmon in a soy wrap, also $15). I'm not ordering either one of them, but they're making me crave sushi a whole lot!

Cravings

Bizarre cravings are back. (As if they ever leave!)

 

I came downstairs from the library and saw someone eating a bag of those Snyders honey mustard and onion pretzels (which I love). I then started to crave pretzels. A second later, a Twix bar. And then another second later, the one which totally confuses me - I started to want chocolate covered pretzels. But I don't even like chocolate covered pretzels!

 

And what am I eating? Another mini bag of Skittles. Sigh. I also want mozzarella sticks, but that's definitely not happening here and now.

Test Message

I am posting by email. (If you didn't notice by the time and day of this post.) I am curious as to whether any of the styles come through on email. So if you see this post and the words are appropriately stylized (by what they describe), please comment and let me know. I just want to know if it's really bolded or italicized or underlined. Thanks!

Post-Halloween Candy Fest

I look forward to the day after Halloween. The same way I look forward to the day after Christmas and Easter. All the holiday themed candy goes 50% off and I can stock up on all the individually sized candy bags so that I can put my sugar addiction under portion control. (In the interests of full disclosure, the post-Easter candy sale is myfavorite of the 3.)

On my lunch break, after being thwarted by a 20 person teller line at the bank, I went to the Duane Reade near the office, and started picking up large bags of candy. Crunch bars, Pumpkin Patch M&Ms, Skittles, put back the Crunch and picked up the Kit Kat, and then a last minute impulse buy of Twix. I noticed that the 50% off Halloween candy signs hadn't extended all the way down the aisle, but since all the candy was stored in large cardboard Halloween designed boxes, I figured they just ran out of tags. After all, they had used so many inthe first half of the aisle.

I was wrong. The candy was not 50% where the signs were missing. But why?! The candy was clearly shipped to the store for Halloween. Granted, there were not huge Halloween designs on them, but there weren't on the Skittles either and those were 50%. Needless to say, I ended up not getting the Kit Kat or Twix because I wouldn't pay full price (yes, it's the day after Halloween and I feel entitled to a discount!), but I picked up the M&Ms and Skittles. Maybe I'll try another Duane Reade to get some bargain chocolate. I was so lookingforward to an afternoon pick-me-up of a Twix bar.

But all the disappointment of not buying chocolate went away when I got my lunch. I've been intending to go to one of the street food vendors right by the office ever since I started (actually, I've been intending to try a few of them, but this one I pass on the way to work all the time). But between interview lunches and either busy times or bad weather sending me to the easy and lazy choice of Europa, I hadn'tgone yet.

The cart I went to today has newspaper clippings up of all the times the cart was featured in the news as one of the best street food carts in NYC. And it's really good. I used to go to the street food carts downtown all the time during my 1L summer. I had a $5 lunch budget and the carts made it really easy. (It was 2 years ago, but they're also a little cheaper downtown I think.) So, I'm a pretty good evaluator of chicken pita sandwiches. This one was definitely good. Made all the pain of no-Twix go away really quickly. In fact, I didn't even thinkof it until I started this entry. I was filled with chicken pita love.

Back to work I go. I'm so glad that cart is just across the street. It's really no wonder that there's always a really long line.Definitely worth the (short) wait.

Ad Aware

For months now, I haven't seen one of those sidebar ads on Gmail.

I use my Gmail plenty, but I guess they didn't have the ad function built into the Italian language mode.

But the ads are back! I don't really mind that they're there, since they always used to amuse me when I was back in English mode. (Let's see what ads we can make come up next!) But I kind of wish the ads would show up in Italian instead of English. That would be so much better. Then I'd welcome the ads for a chance to learn more words in Italian!

Yes, my Gmail is in Italian. I happen to think "posta in arrivo" is nicer sounding than "inbox." And "aggiorna" is better than "refresh." And it's more fun for me. My cell phone is in Spanish. If I had another device, I would like to put it in either French or Portuguese. Just for fun.

If you're wondering, I don't speak very much Italian at all. Very basic words, introducing myself and asking "how are you." And thanks to Gmail, email commands too.

Darn, 23 minutes past bedtime goal. Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween! I can't believe it's already November. I've been employed for one full month and it's seriously flown by. Why does time move so much faster as the years go by?!?

Maple Syrup

For those of you who may be outside the NYC area and haven't had the pleasure of either first-hand experience or constant exposure to the local news, it smelled like maple syrup all over the city on Thursday night.

I came home from work and my first thought when I walked into the door of the apartment was that it smelled like cookies. I couldn't quite place the scent; it wasn't as distinct as the chocolate chip cookie smell that used to pervade Streeterville in Chicago periodically, but it smelled sweet. Alvin told me that he thought he smelled maple syrup around the table, and then it all clicked - that was what the smell was! Maple syrup!

But it was so bizarre - I hadn't smelled it outside at all (probably because I was rushing home and it was cold; on the way home, I also think I walked by Jai from QE on the street), but it was so strong in certain parts of the apartment. I was so confused - I don't own any maple syrup! And all the windows were closed, so it was a big mystery.

Yesterday, I started finding news stories about the "maple syrup mystery." Apparently, the scent stretched all the way from lower Manhattan to Harlem. That's a huge area for a single smell to pervade! It's actually kind of alarming, and with everything going on in the world, I did have a thought that maple syrup might be the perfect way to cover up some sort of biological agent or something. But apparently the authorities have determined that it is nontoxic. Who knows. No one knows where it came from still. How could this still be such a big mystery?

Eleemosynary

Is it just me that didn't know or are there others that didn't know
the word "eleemosynary" existed?

I don't think I've ever seen it until reading this no-action letter right now.

Why can't they just say "charitable" instead? Is there a difference?

(7:45 pm)

Frosted Toes

Note to self: when you know it's going to be in the 40s all day, when you know it's the coldest day of the fall so far, when you see your breath in the air in front of you as you walk, when you know that there is a freeze and/or frost warning for areas north and west of the city that night, and when you see all the people walking on the street in warm winter coats, that is not the day to wear a light and airy skirt, just because you "don't feel in the mood to wear pants."

Aiya.

My legs were numb by the time I got to the bank this morning. It was such a mistake. But I was hostile to the idea of wearing pants this morning even though I knew it was cold outside. I don't know why. And I knew I was going to have to walk around in the afternoon to go to the doctor, yet I still didn't want to wear pants. What's wrong with my head?

I must keep warm tonight and not get sick, because I have a flu shot tomorrow. Wheeee.

My toes are still cold, even though I've been sitting under a blanket for about 20 minutes. Coldddddd.

Sleep

I was supposed to go to sleep early last night. But then I was
watching baseball. I tried to stay up until the game was over, but I
did not succeed. I think I fell asleep somewhere in the 13th inning.
And what was the first thing I thought of after I finally got up? "I
have to find out who won!" Sad. I watched Sportscenter to find out
the score before I went to go take a shower. Ha.

Dining Out

Tonight I went out with a few people for dinner at david burke & donatella. No, I don't normally go out for fancy dinners on Tuesday evenings. It was a summer candidate that we were taking out for a "second look" at the firm. It was lots of fun. I had been to db&d once last summer for lunch, and this was my first time back.

(Note: I don't have any pictures, unlike the last restaurant review, because that's not really a thing to do during interview season. Maybe next summer.)

The meal started with an amuse that was a small duck spring roll with a teriyaki-type dipping sauce. It was small, light, and good. The thing about db&d is the presentation. They're really big on making the presentation creative and different. This one showed up spiked on a small fork that was standing straight on a flat red plate.

For appetizer, I got the parfait of yellowfin tuna tartar and salmon tartar. It came topped with some sort of buttery type spread and came with a few pieces of bread. It also had 3 different sauces, but I don't remember what those were. The tartar was nice and light. Not sure where it falls on my tuna tartare scale from last summer though. I'll have to think about that.

My entree was mustard-crusted tuna teriyaki. It was slices of crusted seared tuna, and it came with seaweed salad and two little sushi roll type pieces that were stuffed with peanut sauce soaked soba noodles. (Or something like that.) I think the theme of the night for me was food that was "light." This definitely fit the bill. I wasn't crazy about the soba noodle sushi pieces, but the tuna and seaweed salad together were wonderful. I loved it.

Since most stuff I had was light, I wasn't really weighed down by the time dessert came around, so I figured I would try something. We didn't get cheesecake lollipops like last summer at lunch, but I got their version of a strawberry shortcake. It was a light white spongecake topped with lots of chopped strawberries, a strawberry consomme and lychee sorbet. Yummy, sweet and light.

Dinner was wonderful. Good food, good company, nice design. The only bad thing was that when I emerged from the restaurant, it was freezing, windy and starting to rain. It seems like we skipped straight from late summer to early winter. Where was fall?! No doubt lost in the endless days of rain last week. I have all these fall jackets that I never got to wear on walks in the park as a brisk cool breeze flowed through the trees... Nope. All there was was rain, rain, rain.

I just checked the Weather Channel. It's 40 degrees. No wonder it was so cold. I was only wearing my rain slicker. Ick. And I like autumn!

Time to watch baseball and relax before heading to sleep. Hope you're a little warmer!

Goblets

Is it bad that I've already been on Fandango contemplating what time I
want to buy tickets for the Harry Potter movie that opens in 3.5
weeks?

Boots

I was re-reading my previous entry about rain slickers and all I could think about was Paddington Bear. I love Paddington Bear.

Rainy Again

Raining again. As if the 8 straight days last week weren't enough, there's a nor'easter heading this way that's going to smack straight into Wilma or something and create a whole big mess. Great.

I felt stupid walking to work this morning in my blue rain slicker. The sun was peeking through the clouds, and there wasn't even a huge dampness to the air. But I felt pretty good about the decision as it was lightly raining when I left work. And as it was heavily raining by the time I reached my door. Go rain slickers! Now if only I had rain boots to go with it.... I was supposed to get some last weekend, but then it rained on Saturday and I didn't want to go out. Not like there's going to be a huge availability of rain boots in the rain either.

I love that GSN replays old episodes of TAR. Helps me dream about races that are better than Family Edition.

Going to take Tylenol PM and try to sleep early. Good night!

White Sox

I'm rooting for the White Sox in the Series. (If you care.)

And I totally forgot, until I flipped the game on tonight to see the winning home run, that I've actually walked on that field! We played a softball game against Northwestern during 1L in the outfield of Comiskey (sorry, should I call it "The Cell"?) and the primary reason I played was to be able to walk onto the field and be there. Only major league baseball field I've ever walked on... so I definitely won't forget it. I think having a personal connection with the place is one of the reasons I actually like the Sox. Ha.

Woohoo! Go White Sox! :)

Barça 18

This evening, Alvin and I went with my parents for dinner at Barça 18. It's this new (less than a week old) Catalan/tapas place run by BR Guest, taking the place of the departed Park Avalon restaurant in the Flatiron District. During restaurant openings for BR Guest, if you go during a designated period of time, you get a 20% discount on your entire meal. (I don't remember if it used to be 15%, but it was 20% tonight.) So, of course, we took advantage of it. I haven't been to a BR Guest opening since Blue Fin years ago, so I've missed the fun. But this was definitely fun.

We started with 4 tapas and a pitcher of red sangria. The sangria was wonderful. The patatas came drizzled with spicy and mild sauce, but this was my least favorite dish all night. It was good, but the spicy sauce was quite hot, and outside of the sauce, it was sort of ordinary roasted potatoes. I much prefer the patatas bravas at Cafe Iberico in Chicago.

We also got atun en escabeche, seared tuna (picture above) garnished with carrots and onions, and all soaked in aged sherry vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. (Thank you, online menus.) This was really good. The tuna had perfect flavoring and texture and the flavor of the whole thing was great. It was also pretty creative because it looked like a sardine can when it arrived on the table.

We also got almejas tiernas, baby clams and white beans in salsa verde. Those were pretty good, but not too substantial since they were baby clams. The flavor of the green sauce was good, but more white beans would have been better. (I am sure I must have mentioned white bean dip on this blog at some point.) The last one of the tapas was calamar, described as crispy calamari with spicy romesco sauce. The calamari was perfect - it was soft, fluffy, tender - and the sauce was a great complement. (Not that I don't also love it with marinara-type sauces.) Yum. I'm a huge fan of fried calamari.

We also shared two entrees: rodaballo ("rosemary & thyme scented halibut and asparagus cooked on slate with warm herb vinaigrette") which was amazing and the paella barça, which came with chicken, shrimp, mussels, clams and calamari. The paella was also very good. The calamari there was the perfect texture too. But the halibut was my favorite part of the entrees.

Dessert came, and we split 3 more. (Hey, when it's 20% off, you feel a little more liberal when you're ordering, I suppose!) I got a sorbet sampler, which came in passion fruit, green apple and berry. It was light and refreshing and the flavors were good. My mom's choice was the pan con chocolate, a flourless chocolate cake with chocolate ganache, toast and maldon sea salt. (No idea.) That one wasn't too heavy (I just had blackout cake on Friday, so I'm glad!) but it was very very chocolatey. I only had about 3 bites because I was concentrating on the sorbet. Alvin's choice was clafoutis, a brandied cherry tart with vanilla ice cream and candied walnuts. I think it was the prettiest dessert on the table.

So what's the verdict on Barça 18? I liked it a lot. The flavors of the dishes were good, and as far as pricing, for restaurants of its type, I think it was actually pretty affordable. Atmosphere is nice, and I like a good one, but it's lower on my priority list than taste and price when I'm paying for it myself. I think the 20% off dinner promotion ends tomorrow, but the lunch promotion will start up soon. Yummy dinner. :)

Sunday

It's a slow sleepy Sunday.

I watched an episode of Boston Legal and 2 episodes of Survivor. I'm totally sucked into Survivor Guatemala. But what makes me sad is that Gameshow Moments Gone Bananas isn't on again. I caught the end of it yesterday, and looked on DVR to record it because it made my stomach ache from laughter, but it was nowhere to be found. How sad.

I'm still recording Supernatural (oh yeah, I watched another episode of that today too, the 2nd one), but while it's a good show, I'm wondering how long I can last with it before it totally freaks me out. I didn't watch the X-Files because it was too creepy, and at first, Without a Trace was too eerie for me (I saw the episode where the person disappeared and they still didn't know what happened to them by the end of the episode), and these 2 episodes of Supernatural have really made me jump. Like jump backwards on the futon and scream. But I'll stick with it for now until it really freaks me out.

I emptied out 2 boxes in the apartment today and put the stuff away. (Although, one box was law school books, so those either went into a bag to bring to work, or another box of books to store/get rid of, so it's only sort of unpacked.) I'm proud of myself, as I haven't emptied a box in a long while.

The Redskins game was ridiculous. Thank goodness FOX had enough sense to switch to a different game halfway through. 52 points?!

I need to order prints from Snapfish so I can finish the picture collage on my office wall. It's only part done, so it's kind of lame right now. I intend to alternate pictures of food/scenery/things with pictures of people, and hopefully put together two rows of prints. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for putting up with a totally random entry. But they're all that way, aren't they?

Note

When you see a post where the paragraphs don't look very spaced apart and when it looks like I am incompetent at hitting the space bar between some words, you'll know I posted by email. I am not that incompetent now, am I?

And a side note for people in law school, although I highly doubt anyone comes here for advice: If you're thinking about possibly going into transactional work, I highly recommend Securities Reg and secured transactions classes. They always say that class has nothing to do with what you do at work, but I can tell that you that if I didn't take those, I'd be about a hundred times more lost than I am right now. Just the background info and the terminology makes such a huge difference.

And with that, I have some work to do.

Jewel

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Thank goodness... although it did take me a lot longer to do these than it probably did back then. Although, maybe that's because I was only doing them in my head...

Kelly Clarkson Shares Your Taste in Music

See her whole playlist here (iTunes required)

Which Musician (or Group) Shares Your Taste in Music?

Funny, considering my obsession with one of her songs.

Awww, and now the 90s channel is playing Stevie B, "Because I Love You." I don't know what this song reminds me of, but it makes me feel all fuzzy inside. :)

[I just looked down at the "change time & date" thing on Blogger, and OMG, is it really Oct. 22 already?!? Where did the month go?!?]

Flavor Explosion

I've ordered from the same Chinese restaurant on Seamless Web at least 4 times now. They respond quickly via email; they deliver really fast. And the food is pretty good. Both the sushi and the Chinese food.

I ordered the chicken chow fun once before, but as soon as I started eating it tonight, I knew something was different. It was definitely a different cook, because this time there were shiitake mushrooms. In chow fun! I was pleasantly surprised. It's a very different flavor, like an entirely different noodle dish. But it's really good (despite being so greasy), and I have eaten more of it than I should have.

But just now, I took a chopstickful from a certain area of the noodles, and oh my goodness, the flavor is exactly the same as these dumplings my grandmother makes (souy gow, I am so bad at Chinese transliteration from Toison). I think it was the crunchy cabbage + the shiitake mushroom + the chicken, and oh my goodness, I am dreaming of those dumplings and want to go home to make them even if I don't know how.

I have got to put the noodles in the fridge so I stop eating and just finish up what I've scheduled for tonight so I can go home. One more bite first. Or maybe two.

Beverly Hills

Speaking of songs, this is the 3rd or 4th time I've heard Weezer's Beverly Hills today and I'm still bopping around to it at my desk. Not as much as I bop around to Holiday though.

I printed out a Sanrio calendar for October. Deery-Lou is staring me in the face.

Songs

I really like that Kelly Clarkson song, "Because of You." So much so, that I almost started singing it aloud right now. Too bad my office door is open...

I got headphones from supplies so that I can listen to the radio when I work. My officemate was out for the holidays for a couple of days so I'd gotten used to playing the radio through my computer with the office door closed. Couldn't go through a day of silence again.

I used to bring my iPod last summer when I was working, but I really hate the earbuds and need to find better headphones (maybe I can use these!) and I need to find my iPod charger.

I'm eating a granola bar. No, that has absolutely nothing to do with songs.

Back to work.

Happy Boxes

Songs that have been in my head since work this afternoon:

• Jingle from the Uno game commercial
• Some jingle from a car commercial that I think has the words "magic carpet ride" in it
• Hamtaro theme song
• Grey's Anatomy theme song

On the topic of GA, with last week's episode (not this past Sunday, but the one before), it officially passed Desperate Housewives as my favorite show on Sundays. GA took a bit of time to grow on me; I had actually been hesitant to watch the very first episode. All I could think was, "another medical show?" And since I'm not a huge fan of ER, I didn't think I'd be in the mood for another medical show.

But I was pleasantly surprised. I stuck with it because it interested me and because I was watching DH. But now... I think I like GA better than DH. Yes, DH is ridiculous, but it's supposed to be ridiculous. But last week's episode of GA actually made me feel for the characters. I could feel their pain. And not a lot of TV shows can actually make you feel the pain of their characters. That was the clincher for me.

And speaking of good writing... I'm still on the Threshold kick. I think I like the writers because they read my mind. For example, they were questioning this Korean guy, and they asked him if he knew a guy named Park. His answer in Korean was, "I don't know anyone named Park." My answer (aloud): "Yeah RIGHT." The linguist character then said something like, "What Korean person doesn't know someone named Park?" Excellent. Reading my mind. It's happened a couple more times since then too.

It's a great show. Which makes me perplexed as to why it doesn't yet have a full season order. CBS ordered additional scripts, which is good, but c'mon. It's on Friday nights, it's doing fine in its time slot. And it's good! And if you'd actually gotten the pilot done in time for the reviewers, there would probably have been more critical buzz and they might have raved about that instead of Invasion. (Which, by the way, I've stopped watching. I would start watching episodes, and never finish them on the DVR. So I just quit. Besides, Drawn Together starts on Wed. Yay!)

But Bones did get a full season order from Fox. I'm happy about that. And that means that they can finally start promoting it as much as they do Prison Break. I'm happy about that too. Angel lives!

Going to sleep. It's always past my bedtime. But at least I haven't been saving emails as much tonight, so tonight it's not my RSI that's keeping me from sleeping. Need more hours in the day!

Spree

4,559.

And yes, the question really should be, why am I still awake.

OCI

I've been reliving OCI (on-campus interviewing) lately. First, I've been doing interview lunches at work with candidates for the summer program, and that brings back a lot of memories. Second, I've been saving emails from September and October 2003.

And then I realized... it was exactly 2 years ago today that I had my callback with the firm at which I now work. Funny.

I liked OCI, so saving all these emails hasn't really dredged up very many painful memories. There's a whole bunch of reasons why I liked it. One is the sense of class togetherness. It was like 1L in the sense that there was this shared experience that every person in our class was going through at the same time. There wouldn't be another moment of that type until graduation. It was like one last hurrah. Also, with everyone in one building, it was easy to see people and talk to acquaintances that I never ended up seeing for months once everyone split apart for different class tracks and activities. And it's always fun to meet so many new people in such a short amount of time. Each interview, a new beginning. Not to mention the fact that in those couple of weeks, you feel like your entire future lies ahead. It's pretty exciting!

But enough about OCI. I've got more emails to save! My inbox is very close to 5000. I've made decent progress, I suppose.

Love Connection

I'm watching Love Connection on GSN and OMG, this girl he picked to go on a date with is a total BITCH. He suggested all these dates, but "from the sound of his voice, I could tell I wouldn't get along with him" so she didn't want to have a long car trip. And then she complained about what he picked, how she had to plan the whole date (after she turned down all his ideas), his table manners, his ears, his height, etc. Ewwwwwwwwwww. She's such a bitch!

Take it Back

I admit it. I was wrong.

Back on February 11, 2004, I wrote this in an email to Alvin:

"wireless is so unreliable in class
it's so disappointing
i doubt they're ever going to fix it"

But they did. We went from having a very unreliable connection in only a few rooms in spring 2004 to having full strong wireless in the building in fall 2004 with the renovation. I never thought they would do it, because they even talked about how the professors didn't want internet in the classrooms, but I guess they thought they needed to do it so that it wouldn't be a negative distinguishing point between schools.

Going to finish saving this day of emails, and maybe another, and then do a little exercise. My parents' roof is leaking from all this pouring rain and they just got their roof fixed last year! (Yes, I know those 2 sentences are unrelated.) For those of you in the rainy northeast, I hope you're keeping dry!

Tired

I'm tired, but as it stands right now, I get tomorrow (well, today) off as a holiday, so I can sleep in! Well, sleep in a little bit and then actually work out. Yay!

But for now, more thinking about Lost, more saving email and some quiz posting!


discover your jack-o-lantern face @ quiz me


find your inner PIE @ stvlive.com
(I'd love a trip to Florida right now...)

You Should Get a JD (Juris Doctor)

You're logical, driven, and ruthless. You'd make a mighty fine lawyer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

(Well isn't that a relief? The quiz came up with the same answer for the one I already have!)

You Are Warm Nights by the Fire

Peaceful and romantic. The best part of fall.

What Part of Fall Are You?

(It was actually kind of chilly outside today - cold, dark, rainy, damp, gloomy. It hasn't stopped raining since Friday night or Saturday! And it's supposed to keep raining for a couple more days! Yet I forgot to get the hot chocolate at work for the weather... at least I got scallop potato chowder for lunch...)

It really feels like a Friday but there's no Threshold on ... I'm annoyed with CBS because they haven't picked up Threshold for the full season yet but they picked up Ghost Whisperer. Sigh.

Reality

In February 2003, it seems I had an obsession with Joe Millionaire.

Not the guy, but the show. I'm forwarding some of my sent mail, and it seems like the majority of the emails have to do with Joe Millionaire. Of course, we were writing our Bigelow (legal writing course) papers at this time, so I was probably looking for distractions, but it looks like an obsession. I was emailing about every promo I saw!

And on the topic of reality tv, I was quite disappointed with this leg of TAR:FE. Both the result and the structure. It was left entirely up to chance with 4 teams arriving at once and trying to grab numbers, and barring something terrible happening to an earlier team, there really wasn't much ability to make up any time. Having the pit stop be so close to the roadblock with that much lag time between teams just didn't feel fair. Or maybe it's because I liked the family that had to go home.

Back to emails. Need to sleep; it should be a decently hectic day tomorrow.

Alarm Clocks

Inbox is close to 9,500. At least I'm under the 10,000 mark. That makes me feel slightly better... but only slightly.

Back when I needed to wake up for class in law school, Alvin used to give me wake up calls. Especially when I was tired, I never heard my alarm, or would snooze it or turn it off in my sleep without ever realizing it, and I only seemed to wake up to the phone.

On May 28, 2003, I sent Alvin an email saying something like, "did I really miss your 1st call?!" Apparently, I had slept straight through the phone ringing and Alvin leaving a message without hearing a thing, and didn't have any idea that had happened.

Fast forward 2 years.

There was a time this spring (or perhaps it was during Barbri) when I missed 17 straight calls. Granted, this was on my cell phone and not on a landline, so it was more melodic and less of the loud intrusive ringing, but that's still pathetic! 17 calls! And to think I was so horrified back in May 2003 at missing one call!

But I was right about one thing at the time I missed that one call. I had said that it was a bad thing because me not hearing alarms or the phone could only get worse. So, so true.

Deja Vu

I feel like I'm running across the same emails over and over and over again.

In December 2002, our school email servers crashed. It was during exam time and mail was virtually unaccessible. (Since it was our first law school exam period, this was stressful, to say the least.) When mail came back on, they said everything was restored and no mail should be lost.

However, once I started looking through old mail, I realized that, on occasion, some emails had been spliced into pieces and some had randomly attached themselves to other emails. Still others were duplicated. And not always one after the other, but 200 emails apart in the system. It's making forwarding emails right now into a very long and slow process.

Not to mention the fact that I think in the crash (and I never noticed before) my sent mail folders from September, October and November 2002 vanished. At least they're nowhere now. They were my best hope at recreating a "journal" for myself of what happened during 1L, since there was a limit to what I was willing to post online and I was terrible at doing the handwritten thing anymore. Hopefully it will be some other people's quoted messages. I hate when I feel like I've lost part of my past.

I think I'm going to forward about 10 more emails and then finish handwashing the shirt in the sink. Wheeee. So much laundry to do. But I'm taking it back to SI instead of paying $2 for each wash and dry. Laundry can get really expensive!

Ha

Email from Jan. 17, 2003:

"i also need to clean out my email box this weekend. well... start at least. :) i really dont' want to get to 5,000 messages... i'm so close..."

5,000? I guess back then I never thought it would balloon to 20,000... and that's just the inbox!

Scents

It looks like I've made no progress on my emails because my inbox is at the same level; I've been deleting from folders. My goodness, there are so many emails!!

Anyway, my bedroom smells like vegetable egg rolls. I certainly didn't fry or microwave any. Must be one of the Thai restaurants on street level.

Numbers

I just forwarded an email from December 2002 with the subject line "815 815 815."

My first reaction?

"Oh no!! It's the numbers!!"

Right...

Anyway, I am not under 10,000 emails yet. But I'm getting close. I had thought most of the emails left were from my conversations with Alvin when he was at work, but I was wrong. I just discovered entire screens full of emails from fall 2002 that are still there. And I do want those, especially since it was my first quarter of law school. It will be nice later on to see what I was like. So more forwarding is in store! Wheeeeeee.

test

subject: forgetfulness, 5:50 pm, 10/6

Testing, testing. I used to do email posts before and they used to
work, but then I tried again a few months ago and they didn't. So I'm
trying it again now.

There has been 3 days of work this week and it's already been 5 times
that I've forgotten my ID on the way to the stairway. (You need it to
travel the stairway between floors.) Luckily, 4 of the 5 times I
remembered it before I locked myself in the stairway. Once, I locked
myself out, and then couldn't remember ANY number of anyone in the
firm. There were 2 possibilities for the reception number in my head,
but of course, on my first try, I called the one that was really the
fax number. What a mess. Why do I keep forgetting my ID? I didn't
forget at all during the first 2 weeks.

Let's see if this posting method works.

Days Off

It totally feels like a Sunday because I had the day off from work. (Rosh Hashanah is a holiday at our firm.) Now I'm going to be all confused tomorrow, thinking it's Monday, and thinking that it's October 3rd so that I have even more time to save emails.

To celebrate my day off, I got up earlier than I normally do for work and went with my mom for today's taping of The View. (It's too bad that I found out later that the entire first half-hour was preempted for the idiot's press conference.) It was a show all about weight loss. I left thinking a few different things: (a) I really need to get back in shape; (b) It's been ages since I've done yoga and I hate that fact; (c) Maybe I should go on a fruit diet; (d) I need to eat better and exercise more.

And I also left with some presents. The past times I've gone to the View, there's been no gifts. But since it was Tuesday, we were hoping for the Cinderella DVD but I didn't want to get my hopes up. They came out with it and put it on the table during the last segment, so I started to get excited. Then they announced what they were giving away to the studio audience - a Swiffer WetJet, a Disney-inspired CD, and the Cinderella DVD! I was so happy! We've been wanting a WetJet for awhile, and now I don't have to buy one myself! And I got the DVD! It was fantastic. And kind of funny watching many people all walking toward the subway and down into the subway station with big purple rectangular boxes wrapped in blue bows. I bet people were wondering what was going on. Yay for Swiffer!

Going to attempt to sleep before 1, unlike all the most recent work nights when I've stayed up saving emails. Right now, I'm at 12,078. It goes so slowly...

Email Update

October 4th. Email still works. Down to 12,278.

Edit: Oh my. The first time I published this, I wrote, "October 2nd. Email still works." Sad.

Weekend Update

I've decided to stop doing the Week in Review feature, and will replace it with Weekend Update. I figure that this makes more sense... after all, if I continued to do WIR, it would start looking like, "Monday: work; Tuesday: work; Wednesday: work," etc. Boring, right? At least for readers...

Even though it's called Weekend Update, it won't be only about the weekend. I'll talk about anything interesting from the weekend and also anything good from the past week. But I won't have to do a real full WIR. I think this is better.

Last Wednesday, I did an interview lunch at Osteria al Doge. It was pretty good, although for some reason, I was cold throughout the whole meal. Like almost teeth-chattering cold. But it wasn't that cold in the restaurant and I was even wearing a pants suit. It was weird. Anyway, it's a very inviting atmosphere and I liked it. For appetizer, I had the tuna carpaccio, and for entree, I had salmon that came with spinach and roasted potatoes. Yum. No time for dessert, but the fresh berries looked good.

On Friday, to celebrate the end of my first "real" week of work, Alvin and I went for dinner at Meskerem, an Ethiopian restaurant in our neighborhood. Yum yum yum. We split the vegetarian sampler, which had 7 different dishes, and a chicken dish (the boneless one). We left feeling extremely full, but very satisfied. I look at the picture and my mouth starts to water.


This weekend was both relaxing and full of events and errands. I spent Saturday recuperating, but on Sunday, we went down to the Lower East Side to check out the Pickle Day festival that I had seen online. It was great. There was so much free food. Lots of pickle samples. I liked the half sours. And the Korean booth was the best. They had rice cakes, kimchi pancakes, japchae, 2 types of kimchi... all for free for sampling! It was fantastic. Ran a couple of errands at Target, which always makes me happy.


Ended the weekend with dinner at Republic and a walk in the beautiful warm fall weather through Union Square. Weekends are so short!

Fall TV

I think I've finally set my fall TV (ahem, DVR) schedule. It is unbelievable the ways in which DVR has changed my life. I always said I would get it once I got out of law school, and not only has it been amazingly practical because of the hours I work, but it would be great even if I were home all the time to watch TV. For example, I was watching Family Feud on GSN yesterday (can I also say how much I've missed GSN? Haven't had it since junior year of college), and it was this old CBS v. NBC one, and had lots of soap opera stars and I thought, hey, I'll tape my live TV. It was great.

Anyway, my fall TV schedule (I also put in whether or not I've seen the episodes of the show, in case you wanted to discuss them with me):

Sunday
5: Supernatural (seen zero, but it's on DVR)
9: Desperate Housewives (up to date)
10: Grey's Anatomy (up to date)

Monday
8:30: Kitchen Confidential (up to date)
9: Prison Break (seen zero, but it's on DVR & tape)
10: Medium (up to date)

Tuesday
8: Bones (first ep on tape, seen the rest; I'll end up watching GG in repeats/DVD)
9: Amazing Race Family Edition (up to date)
10: Boston Legal (on DVR); SVU (up to date)

Wednesday
9: Lost
10: Invasion
(I had the first ep of Martha on tape, still haven't seen it, but now it's getting moved around anyway.)

Thursday
8: Alias (up to date); Survivor Guatemala (missed 2); The OC (missed the latest one)
9: Reunion (seen zero, on DVR & tape); Apprentice (up to date)
10: Without a Trace (up to date)

Friday
9: Threshold (up to date)
10: Numb3rs (up to date)

Saturday
9: Naruto (up to date - at least I think it's at 9)

It's easy to be up to date for shows that have only had one episode... and can I just say that I'm glad the Fox shows are going on hiatus for baseball? It will give me time to catch up.

It disappoints me that I don't have a show in every time slot, but I suppose that's not a bad thing since I shouldn't really watch TV all day/night. And I guess it's not really that different from before when I said I had a show in every time slot. Here, I still have a show I could watch in every time slot (ex.: Wed, 8, So You Think You Can Dance) but I'm not willing to tape them all. Same was true last year, except I was supposed to be studying so I was always in front of the pretty box.

TAR 7 is on GSN now and my TAR 1 DVDs are on the way. And if you like Gilmore Girls, the S1 and S2 sets are only 18.88 at Target this week. I guess you can tell what I did today.

It is way past my bedtime. I hope I'm functional tomorrow. I blame Snyder's, because I had this strong craving for honey mustard & onion pretzels for 2 hours and then I finally gave in and ate them for way too long. And here I am, 1:30 am.

Good night!