Weekended
Wow, I was so busy this past week/weekend.
Work has been really hectic, so I haven’t been making any social plans, but things kept coming up so I was able to be human and actually talk to people other than the little code monkeys in my head.
Sometime during the week (I think it was Tuesday?) we had an impromptu dinner with Holly at Mekong Garden on Piedmont Ave. Everything we ate was delicious, and I especially loved the dry fried salt and pepper squid. Yum! Mc & Holly were awesome company and we had a great time.
Wednesday, I think, we had Uyen over for shabu-shabu, but her meat was not very tender, as she’s been working out like crazy for her upcoming half-marathon. Ok, we didn’t eat her. It was a good time. Since the weather’s been getting cold, I think we’ll be having soups and stews more often.
Roopa came into town on Thursday! I didn’t see her until Friday because she was here for work, and I obviously also have been busy with work, otherwise I would have taken the day off while she was here. 🙂 We went back to Pearl Oyster Bar & Restaurant on College Ave, and this time, every dish was awesome, unlike last time when we were sort of torn on the food. I’m sure we’ll give it a write-up at some point in the near future.
After a most delicious dinner (thanks Roopa!), we headed over to Jaguar Karaoke (formerly known as Music Box Karaoke) and sang for 4.2 hours (or so the time sheet said when we paid up)! My throat was so raw Saturday morning. Holly, Leila, and Lindsi joined us for the ridiculous sing-a-rama, meaning Seppo was trapped in a dark room with only five ladeez for hours and hours. Dun dun dun! Lindsi makes a really great air guitar partner, I have to say. 😀 I think we are the only ones that knew *every part* of the Bon Jovi songs and the New Kids on the Block songs, including the random backup parts. LOL!
It was interesting to observe the varying tastes of our friends. I tried to think of how I’d order us by similar musical tastes, and the best I can do is this:
Me -> Lindsi -> Holly -> Seppo -> Leila -> Roopa -> Me
Lindsi & I overlap in everything from the Motown era to the late 80s. Lindsi & Holly overlap in the more contemporary areas, I think. Seppo & Holly also do, but in different music than Lindsi & Holly overlap. Holly is key to the group because of her very diverse musical tastes, I think. Leila & Seppo have Radiohead-like music very much in common. Leila & Roopa definitely had music in common, but I had a hard time putting my finger on the exact subgenre. Roopa & I have a varied assortment of music in common, also not easy to categorize.
It’s been a while since I’ve sung Pearl Jam and Roxette at the top of my lungs within a 15-minute time span. 😀
Saturday morning, I woke up thinking that my cough & cold had returned from the week before, but luckily, it was just that my throat was raw from all the singing. Roopa and I headed over to Piedmont Ave and had yet another delicious meal together, this time at César (this is the second location; the original is in the Berkeley Gourmet Ghetto). Man, we were on such a great food roll. It was really great to sit outside at a nice restaurant and eat great food while chatting with a dear, missed friend about life and nothing in particular.
Seppo and I got spiffed up after lunch to attend Claire & Nick’s wedding. After weeks of griping that they had nothing to wear, Uyen & Becky turned up looking like hot stuff indeed, and I looked like their matronly spinster aunt who had come to chaperone them. Hahaha. Anyway, it was a really pretty wedding with some very personal moments. Joe, of course, was the life of the party and danced up a nice older lady, who I’m sure now wants to make him her boy-toy. Watch out, Joe! 😉
Sunday was thankfully empty of engagements, since I had to catch up on some work so that I could be back on target. I managed to get some work done but it took much longer than I was hoping for.
I took a break from work so that we could go grocery shopping. I think that I’ll be experimenting with spicy chicken & potatoes for as the next item in my Korean recipe refining series. 😀
I got a call from a college friend this morning! She is in town for a few days, so I am going to try to catch dinner with her tomorrow night. 🙂 Yay! So busy…
Fearless
I hung out with some of my high school friends at a karaoke joint following our dear friend Rye-Jin’s wedding this past weekend. It was a truly wonderful time for me. I was hopped up on the adrenaline rush of seeing friends, a beautiful wedding, good food, the blinding disco lights, and the loud familiar music we sang.
It was such a carefree, soaring, unmitigatedly happy time for me. I feel like I haven’t been that giddy and free in a long, long time. One of the things I feel like is substantially different about this particular group of friends and the inherent dynamic is that there is a sense of reckless abandonment when we are together. Ok, so one or more of them are going to read this and go, “Huh? Whatever, girlfriend,” but I feel it; can’t you feel it too? 😀
I love the way they just stepped up to the mic in front of strangers (the groom’s friends) and just wailed on the songs, not because they were the best singers (although some of them are truly awesome), but because of this, “Screw inhibition! We’re gonna have fun!” mentality that just doesn’t get in their way. I’m talking about karaoke now, but it’s really something that I feel carries over in other ways.
I think another of the reasons that I hate being pushed or pulled by peer influences is that when I hung out with these friends, we just did as we wanted. No one had to really talk anyone into doing anything they didn’t want to, no one had to push someone else to do something, because we were and are so lively and bold. And at the same time, we are all so responsible and goody-two-shoe and have always been. 🙂
I hate the bonds of the civil, conformist society. When I’m with these friends, I never feel judgment or fear. Maybe that’s why I feel like everywhere I’ve been since then is less freeing, more enclosing, more conforming as a society.
Most of them live within 2 hours of each other. One of us in MA (we didn’t get to see her), one of us is in Korea (she was able to fly in), and I’m out here. I feel so grateful and blessed that I can still be friends with these amazing human beings when they could easily have kept in touch with just each other, while I lost touch in the west coast.
They are brash, unique, beautiful, crazy, mature, dependable, loving people. I love them so much. I miss them so much.
And they love Bon Jovi like I love Bon Jovi. 😀
Run! Rush!
Wow, I am back at work and still exhausted. It feels like we’ve been gone for weeks!
Thursday:
6:30pm Arrive at home from work, rush to pack.
7:50pm Get a ride to Bart from Joe.
9:00pm Arrive at SFO
11:00pm Fly to JFK
Friday:
7:10am Arrive at JFK
8:10am Arrive at Perlick’s apartment via AirTrain, LIRR, and walking.
8:30am Think to selves, we should go out right away.
10:45am Actually leave apt.
10:55am Go to the biggest camera store ever known to humanity (or at least, myself).
11:30am Eat ok pizza at local pizzeria, take subway.
12:30pm? Arrive at the Met after wandering a bit through Central Park.
2:30pm Leave the Met.
3:20pm Meet up with Titi for “lunch” in Koreatown.
4:50pm Meet up with Perlick back at his apt.
7:00pm Head out to dinner
7:30pm Get seated for dinner at WD-50.
10:00pm Finish eating dinner, call Titi to try to meet.
10:10pm Realize we can’t meet Titi, because we have to head over to Penn Station relatively soon to catch the train.
10:40pm Arrive back at Perlick’s apt, pack, and leave.
10:55pm Meet up with Pete who is heading out from Penn Station on our way to Penn Station.
11:15pm Say good-bye to Pete and get on train.
Saturday:
12:25am Arrive at train station closest to Seppo’s parents’ house to be greet by the parents.
2:00am Sleep like the dead after reading the baby diary that Seppo’s parents kept of him when he was born.
10:30am Wake up, shower.
11:35am Drive to Patchogue for lunch at Louis XVI.
2:00pm Finish lunch and go back to house.
2:50pm Drive to Philly.
5:35pm Drop by my old neighborhood.
5:50pm Arrive at church where my friend will get married at 7pm. (We were supposed to arrive early for pics.)
7:30-8:15pm? Traditional Korean Christian Ceremony.
8:15-9:15pm? Korean feast in church. Delicious!
9:30pm-1:20am Move party to karaoke joint nearby, sing the crap out of everything.
Sunday:
2:00am Arrive at Hajeong’s place.
3:00am? Maybe later? Sleep.
8:30am Get up.
9:05am Start drive back to Long Island.
10:20am? Stop for coffee & Roy Rogers fried chicken, and gas at the Woodrow Wilson reststop on the Jersey Turnpike. 😀
10:40am? I don’t remember the exact times, but the stopover was about 20 minutes in any case.
12:00pm Get within 0.5 miles of Seppo’s parents’ house. We missed a turn.
12:10pm Arrive at house where kerowack (internet friend) is chatting with Seppo’s dad. Surreal.
12:30pm Get to White Castle! Delicious.
2:10pm Get back to house to pack up all our stuff and chat w/ parents for a little bit.
3:50pm Get ride to airport from parents.
5:00pm Arrive at gate.
6:00pm Sit in plane while we are told about delay to takeoff.
6:50pm Take off.
9:15pm Arrive at SFO.
9:30pm Meet up with Uyen & Charles, who give us a ride home. Yay!
10:00pm Arrive at home.
10:30pm Take some Tylenol PM and Pepto Bismol and fall asleep, not to wake until 9:15 the next morning.
Whew. Tired.
Meme
Describe yourself in one word.
From niralth.
ETA: It appears that the purpose is that you describe yourself in a one word comment to me, then you post on your own blog to have others describe themselves in a one word comment to you. Oops! I did it wrong the first time around. So maybe the word should be “clueless”. Anyway, go hit up the link above to see what I answered, and leave your answers for yourselves here.
October
It’s October already. October is the month when I obsess about NaNoWriMo. November is the month when I actually do it. Then December becomes the month when I dissect my progress of November.
Any new people interested this year? Andre? Roopa? Click on the link above and join us. 😀
Head cold!
The attack of the head cold is on! My sinuses are stuffed and my nose is runny. Boo-urns. I do enjoy the unexpected huge sneeze that threatens to blow the roof off my house though. Hee hee.
Personal finance
I’ve been doing some reading on personal finance for the last six months or so. These are the ones I read almost everyday.
The biggest new pieces of advice I’ve learned from these are:
- Ask for a lower rate for practically anything.
- Pay yourself first; no one will fund your retirement but yourself.
After months of reading about it, I just called my credit card company and asked quite nicely for a lower rate, and they nigh-instantly decreased it by 5%. I don’t carry a balance so it’s just a theorectical gain, but still, it was nice. And really, really easy.
Do it!
Before submitting this entry, I called our joint credit card and they did not reduce this rate. But they said to call back in a month. Ok then! In a month, we’ll be in our second year with this card, so maybe something will open up.
Update: I just got our Comcast cable bill reduced from ~$81 to $62! I just said I’d like to either reduce my package or keep the package I have but get a discount. Even though I offered them a choice, they wanted to keep me on the same level of service, but for cheaper. Weird. I was very friendly and mentioned that I had been doing some competitive analysis and that Dish & DirecTV had cheaper offers. This discount is good for 12 months. Nice. Now, who else can I call?
Saying versus Being
Sometimes, I say jerky-sounding things that have nothing to do with what I really mean inside my head. There can be a huge disconnect between how I meant to say something and how I actually ended up saying it.
Sometimes,I am a jerk. Last weekend, I was in fact an actual jerk. I could have said, “I acted like a jerk,” or “I behaved like a jerk,” but both of those statements leave wiggle room to claim that my behavior did not bear out my internal state of mind. I could blame stress, but it doesn’t change the fact of it: I was a big jerko. I not only said a bunch of highly arrogant things that were insulting to another individual who was present (for whom I had no ill will), on reflection it is clear that I actually believed what I was saying at the time.
Afterwards, I agonized over my words and my actions (worse to the recipient of said words and actions) and my state of mind (worse to my self-regard). I don’t want to be arrogant. I don’t want to be a jerk. I don’t want to try to make others feel bad. I don’t want to say things I haven’t thought through and cause collateral damage in the process.
I don’t mind insulting people on occasion — not always, but there are times when I mean it and want to. However, I DO mind when the person doesn’t deserve it at all and I didn’t even think it out enough to realize it would be insulting. It should have been obvious before the fact though.
It’s made me look at myself in a new light. I’ve always been very confident about my own abilities, but I don’t know what drove me to boast and be insulting, and I want to fix that.
Bumps ahoy
My work is raining expectant moms. Last year, we had a run of expectant dads (now, they are dads), but this year appears to be all about the expectant moms. Yesterday, in the span of one 10-minute period, I ran into four pregnant women.
Whoa.
For my expectant friends (or to-be expectant? unexpectedly expectant?), here is a short article from CNN Money that discusses four money-related myths about having a baby.
On a money-related note, I’m trying to find ways to cut recurring costs, but Green Dimes might be something I might sign up for. For a dime a day, you get other people to take you off mailing lists (I’ve signed up with the national registries already, but still), reducing your incoming clutter as well as reducing paper production/processing/delivery costs. In addition, they will plant a tree for you every month you are enrolled. That’s pretty awesome for $3 a month, about the cost of a single coffee drink. I am going to look into who they are and who funds them first before signing up though.