jueves, marzo 16, 2006
Back in NYC
( 5:11 PM )
So now i'm sitting in the second floor of Stern Business School, NYU trying to read my book on Applied Regression Analysis. Not quite working, so i had this strange urge to blog after not doing so for months. Poor bloggie... It's strange being back, doesn't feel quite the same. I feel a little detached from my surroundings this time. I'm waiting for my friend to finish work so we can meet up for dinner. Business school somehow wasn't like what I imagined exactly, from an outsider's perspective it seems kinda cold here... Besides it's spring break and there aren't many people around.
Tomorrow is Saint Patrick's Day! So there'll be this huge parade midtown where people will be dressed up in white and green. Kinda cool huh? Hope A. doesn't get in from Boston too late so we can meet up to see the parade. But tomorrow will be quite a day of walking. A pity it's so chilly out here. But at least there's no snowstorm. Just 3 days ago in minnesota we had a foot of snow in a day. It was crazy. All the school offices closed for the day.
Funny how I don't seem to have much appetite for food now, and I feel so bad cos my dear friend is trying her best to look up great asian restaurants for me here - and invited a bunch of people i know along as well. Ah... what to do... I had been missing my friends but funnily right now i don't feel like facing the bunch. It's one of those, after a relatively long absence you don't really know what to start off saying...
Oh well, gotta go finish hw. Still kinda tired, the 12 hours in transit instead of 5 due to the screwed up American Airlines is still taking a toll on my body...
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miércoles, agosto 10, 2005
national day nostalgia
( 2:35 AM )
The past few days have been about singapore. On Sunday we had the annual Singapore Chilli Crab and Tiger Beer St Fest in DUMBO, and yesterday we had a reception for singaporeans at the Singapore Permanent Mission to the UN. I was initially really excited about the Chilli Crab thing, and i even invited a malaysian friend. However it was pretty disappointing, just one street and not much other south-east asian food as advertised. The bands were a lil' strange too, one was called "Go-Go Ga-jin", and K mentioned that they looked part wonder-woman part show-girl. As for the reception, that was nice as i got to meet more singaporeans. A lot of people showed up, some guy mentioned that there are 400 plus registered singaporeans in NY and a ton other unregistered ones (like myself). But as usual there were the "artsy" singaporeans, from theatre works and stuff, that somehow were a lil' superficial and weird, as well as this over-aggressive lady who was supposed to be responsible for marketing tiger beer in the US. Kt mentioned that she's kinda unpractical, trying to tap the asian-american market. why the .... would asian americans be interested in tiger beer? white americans might see it as exotic, but other than that...
I think two weekends ago i was in little Italy, where it was really nice at night. We were walking near Houston St and taking in the sights and sounds of the city at midnight, where some clubs and restaurants were open until really late. But before that i was on 14th st, greenwich village and i admit i felt a lil' freaked out to see so many gay couples. Maybe about 60% of the people i saw that night were gay couples, openly holding each others' hands walking down the streets. There were some probably transexual people too, as they dressed and acted really strange and i couldn't make out if they were male or female. I mean East Village has a ton of great restaurants, but i don't think i'll ever live there as the crowd can be somewhat too crazy for my taste.
Back to Little Italy, they were having some sort of street fest that lasted until like 2am, and G and I found a nice italian street side cafe and had some dessert. It was nice to sit at night and watch people walking by, tourists taking pics and stuff. Really quaint and beautiful. Then I somehow insisted on trying some rice pudding, as i've never had that previously. Big mistake. It tasted strange, and he ended up trying to finish most of it for me until i decided to get rid of it. You know it's one of these things when you go into a store and ask for food samples, and once you do so you fell you're kinda stuck and have to buy something from there - regardless of how bad the samples are.
So the past 2 weeks i've caught 2 movies. The first was on thursday night with M, where we saw 'the island' somewhere in times square. The only reason i decided to go with it was because it starred Scarlett Johannson and Ewan McGregor. I like them both as actors, but personally the show was kinda disappointing. Scarlett has huge potential though, she's only 20 (on a side note i remember D. said he went to high sch with her brother Adrian, and he looks great too). Then last week I saw 'March of the Penguins', which was really good. I mean they filmed the show in a place with -80degF temperatures -- and those penguins are really cute. I think they're one of the most docile and gentle creatures. The penguin march across miles to the mating ground, choosing a mate, taking turns to protect that one egg and later their chick was really spectacular though. Imagaine - the male penguins go four months without food, just to protect their egg under a flap of belly skin from the harsh winter storms while waiting for the mother to return with food.
On another note, Bergen St has some really neat cafes. I had ice cream from Uncle Louie's, which was the richest choc ice cream i ever tasted - at midnight. There is also this really nice tea place called tea lounge, where it's so cosy, with cushions and mats all around so it's a very informal setting. The main light was dim so lil' side lights added color and there were swaying palm fans and stuff. Also the tea is served in a small kettle with honey sticks and sugar sticks at the side, and it's pretty cheap too. It's a great place to hang out and chat - just to drink tea and relax.
It's a little sad for me now as most of the fellow interns are leaving. K is going back to Georgetown for sch, J is leaving for Portland tomorrow and T is leaving on thursday too. I wish i could have gotten to know some of them better, but then again i've come to accept here, that i've met so many people i'll probably never see again - or at least for a long while. But life has strange twists and turns - you never really know what to expect next.
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martes, julio 26, 2005
singapore girl
( 12:59 AM )
I shall try to recant the events of the past week. You know initially you feel the inertia when it comes to blogging, but then you know you have to get it written down somehow or else a few months from now things will just be a blur, and you might forever forget some special events.
Or ironically some not so good but still significant experiences. I've never watched 'sex and the city' before, but i believe i can write a mini version of it. Some guys here can be assholes. For instance it's not uncommon walking along the streets when some leery guys stare at you and give you the creeps, or how someone who walks past you mutters the 'ching chang' or 'konichiwa' stuff and makes you so annoyed, or how when the subway drives by some train conductor sticks his head out of the car and waves madly at you. Harrassment comes in many forms and degrees, and i'm a little fed up with what i've been subjected to just walking around normally and minding my own business. On the topic of jerks, i met a huge one last sunday. Maybe i shouldn't write it down as it's a bad memory, but i can't believe an MIT grad can be so annoying. He's smart and i give it to him, but he was so stupidly smug and his jokes were so not funny. And he even said i looked filipina? I think that is as close as saying he comes from tibet. Not that i've anything against the filipinos but the analogy is just ridiculous. And to keep twirling that stupid umbrella - i felt like just snatching it from him and throwing it away.
During the week i attended a bible study group in strawberry fields in central park. It's just a lovely name for a lovely place, and in strawberry fields there is this 'imagine' circle where people often place roses to commemorate john lennon. Anyhow central park is a really nice park, in fact on tuesday i attended the NY philharmonic concert in the park. It was lovely but unfortunately the weather was kinda hot and i was too far behind to be able to hear the music very clearly. But the people-watching was really interesting - people bring picnic baskets and tables and even wine and candles. Talk about chilling out to classical music on a clear, starry night.
On Friday went to the Asian American Film Festival as they were showing 'Many faces of Eve', a compilation of short films from across Asia. Two films were made in singapore, one by Colin Goh, founder of talkingcock.com, and another by someone else i didn't know. It was really funny hearing the singapore accent again in its exaggerated form, and the first film was about a singapore girl choosing to date an american over an egoistical singapore guy called 'ah seng'. The seond was about a young singapore girl who became an air stewardess, and faced a struggle between her career and staying true to her singaporean boyfriend who works in a coffee shop. It was kinda funny, seeing Hosann Leong teaching the SIA girls-in-training how to squat properly and make the customers happy. The SIA girls looked incredibly bimbo-ish on television. From this you may think the singapore films weren't great, and sure enough K was viciously attacking them at the end of it. However, the other films weren't any better. I guess it's because they were amateur film makers. K was really dissapointed - he expected better of singapore films. But none of us were any surprised - thinking 'chicken rice war' and other film flops does not give you much to expect in terms of our film industry. But still the short films did make me a little nostalgic about home.
Dinner after that was great. Went to an Afghan restaurant on the Upper East Side where they had amazing kebabs and tandoori chicken. The rice was really tasty too - better than the tibetan-nepali fusion cuisine i had in minnesota. The thing about the good restaurants in manhattan is that they are often 'hidden' and and true food 'gems'. They may not look very inviting on the outside or have only a small entrance - but the food is amazing.
On Sat I took the metro north up to Stamford, Connecticut to visit a friend. The great thing about being on the East Coast is that you have so many nice cities close by. Anyway, Stamford is a beautiful small town in Connecticut with scenic waterfront housing, lovely beaches and a nice suburban-looking downtown. You might not be able to tell that it is third in terms of corporate headquarters in the US - and there's this UBS building with a nice green glass facade right smack downtown. It's so different from manhattan, at the same time it looks like a nice place to live as it's quieter, safer, more spread-out and still only 45 minutes from Manhattan. Then driving up to Greenwich town you see more trees and cover. Greenwich is a place for the rich and famous - i think it ranks third in the US in relation to the price of real estate. Amid the small roads and tree cover are those huge, beautiful houses, some with pools, awning lawns and basket ball courts. The houses are really huge - I know David Letterman and Mel Gibson both own houses there. And in Stamford there are also those flashy car dealers - ferrari, porsche, BMW, Bentley. For a city with 117,000 people you wouldn't expect all these cars on exhibit, unless of course there's a market for it. I've never driven by so many flashy cars in one day.
So yeah, it was an interesting weekend. I think i'll go to bed now. My office got us free tix to a Yankees game tomorrow. And guess what - it's vs the Minnesota twins.
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~a different sorta life out here
( 12:34 AM )
I have become more pensive over the last weeks, thinking over many things. I realized that i have grown accustomed to life in NY, it's so different from that in MN, and i really don't know how i'm gonna settle back into school life. Here the people i hang around with are all in their late 20s-early 30s, it's also such a different crowd and honestly somehow i feel more comfortable around older people - as long as they don't mention the age difference. Also, maybe it's the vibe of the city or something, but i've tried things i normally wouldn't have/ wouldn't have the opportunity to do elsewhere. It can be difficult to keep perspective when sometimes you feel that you're living in a bubble of some sort, and it's scary to thing it'll suddenly burst and i'll land real hard on my back. Sometimes you wish there was someone you could share everything you're going through with, but then again you know no one will really understand, and although NYC has millions of people and i have friends around, you feel how lonely it can be in the big city. People come into your life and pass out of it like a whiff of smoke, you try to grasp it but it slips away, the air clears and you wonder if those special moments really happened...
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domingo, julio 17, 2005
life's complicated
( 4:48 AM )
So i haven't been writing for a while. Actually i just got back my ibook from apple, after sending it for servicing where they shipped it to texas. One of the reasons i've been trying to make an effort to update my blog more often than in minnesota is so that i manage to keep track of what's been going on...
So 4th of July was nice as i managed to meetup with an old classmate, who has been studying in michigan. Actually i ended up having to have lunch with his mom and older sis too, and was kinda reluctant at first, but they both turned out really nice. Then my friend and i went for a walk across the brooklyn bridge, bought some ice cream at the famous ice cream factory at Dumbo, and basically walked at lot. Brooklyn heights is a nice place - just across the river from manhattan with spectacular views from the promenade. It's really nice to catch up with a friend after so long, we were thinking, maybe we should have a class reunion in NY a few years from now. But i seriously wonder how many people would show up.
After that i met another group of friends to watch the Macy's 4th of July fireworks from Dumbo. It was beautiful, but lasted shorter than i had expected. So yeah, independence day was a nice one, and what was better was that my office alone had another day off on tues. So i went walking around the financial district on tuesday, and caught Denzel Washington filming on Wall St. Wonder what production he's starring in next...
Ever since the London attacks, there's been double the number of NYPD and MTA officers in the subway stations. It's scary, how terrorists are now attacking the subways. Just a few days ago the uptown train service was cancelled in the late morning and people were getting worried about terrorists again, but it ended up that some building just collapsed on 100th st. Thank god no one was seriously injured. Collapsing buildings do cause some paranoia in this city considering events of the past.
Then yesterday something bad happened. My friend was waiting for me at a cafe after work, and she lost her wallet there. She said she probably left it on the counter when paying for the food, and was distraught as it was a LV wallet with her credit cards, cash, driver's license and even social security no. in it. That's dangerous as you run the risk of identity theft. So the owner of the cafe called an NYPD officer, who basically pretended to take a few notes, then said that's he was sorry he couldn't do anything for us. He suggested that we checked the trash cans nearby as the thief might have thrown the wallet into one of them. We did that for a few thrash cans, but i mean it's an LV wallet, there's not much hope someone would have gotten rid of it just like that. This incident has made me even more cautious about my stuff. Considering the numerous thefts happening every day - the cop said that almost every cafe on the lower west side report such a theft pretty often - i'm keeping my things closer to my chest.
Today was nice, went out to watch Charlie and the chocolate factory was a friend, then went for some korean food. Tried some unique Korean noodles, that ended up being too feeling. Afterwards met G who showed me around Astoria, in Queens. That's basically Greektown, as many Greeks live there and there are many interesting coffee shops and bars. Had a Greek frappe, which was pretty good in some cypriot coffee shop with a nice interior decor, until like 1am. Then we wanted to go to another place but it was so difficult to find parking. Peak hour of the nightlife scene actually starts at like 130 am. So we gave up and headed back to Manhattan, but his GPRS system was a lil difficult to navigate with - he always misses the impt turns - so ended up back at 14th st only at like 3am. It's really funny though, cos i saw some 24 hr grocery shops in Astoria as well as in Manhattan, imagine selling fruits and vegetables at 3am!
The frappe's keeping me up awake through the nite, which is why i'm still online at 5am. Need to force myself to get some sleep though, there's church tom. By the way, the Brooklyn Tabernacle is really an awesome church, and they have a grammy award winning choir. I really love that church. On another note, i've been recently left to ponder - why sometimes we know we shouldn't be getting involved in certain things, yet personally really can't help it... Wish life were simpler.
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lunes, junio 27, 2005
Noch einander Foto
( 1:09 AM )
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Guy in set is actually "Bush"
( 1:08 AM )
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Mermaid parade
( 1:07 AM )
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domingo, junio 26, 2005
reflections
( 11:59 AM )
So this week didn't turn out to be as busy. It was ok i guess, up and downs. The down was the continued miscommunication with my boss - now he has the "not one minute late" policy, that sux. Especially since i always have problems waking up early. So on friday there was a major subway delay (disruption on 66th st and so i got in 1 hr late. My fellow intern from Queens actually was delayed for 2 hrs). And so the inflexible boss of mine naturally got upset, and so prepared to give me the late lecture again. Until i told him about the subway delay thing and expressed how upset i was about the situation, including his mistrust. So yeah, that day i definitely let out some steam. But at least we agreed to start afresh next week.
The highlight of thie week was the Coney island mermaid parade. It's this annual thing whereby there's a parade of people dressed in all sorts of maritime costumes on Coney island. it was really fun looking on, but i think it would be fun to participate too. Body paint and funky costumes, parading down with a ton of other people would be an experience. Coney island itself is beautiful, awesome beach and sea view. It's home to the Brooklyn cyclones stadium too. And the famous "cyclone" ride in Astroland, the world's first ever roller coaster. So i was actually deliberating the coaster ride by none of my friends were up for it. K said she got bruises the last time she went on with her german pen pal, who actually came off it excited for more.
Today was the Billy Graham crusade at Flushing meadows corona park. I think something like 150,000 people turned up - last time the famous evangelist was preaching in America. So the bands at the crusade were awesome - mercy me, the gaithers band, brooklyn tabernacle choir, michael w smith. The music was the best ever. Billy Graham himself only spoke for like 30 minutes, stuff about noah's ark and tying it to revelations. But yeah, it was incredible being in the midst of so many christians. However, as this is America, there were some stupid people holding signs around saying stuff like "Billy Graham leads pple to hell", "Jesus kills", even "God caused the tsunami". I think such attacks are outrageous, at least give the old guy the respect he deserves. And those giving out brochures about "misinterpretations of the bible", quoting the bible and stating it's "contradictions". Talking about false prophets indeed.
So after dinner i went to check out Flushing in Queens. Man it was really like Queen's chinatown. 98% Asians i think. My friend previously mentioned Flushing had better chinese food than manhattan's chinatown, which so far had been disappointing. However the fare i had did not raise my opinion of chinese food here in new york. So far the food i have had is below standard. I do miss singapore food, so cheap and so much better. But that's only for the chinese food. The jap, italian etc have been pretty good.
So time to gear up for the week ahead. And plan for what to do during the 4th of July weekend.
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sábado, junio 18, 2005
Interesting week (my posts are begining to take on similar sounding titles)
( 2:00 PM )
So Monday was Broadway under the Stars - a public concert in Bryant Park at Union Square. Was ok - but i mean my friend and I went there 2 hours early to get a good seat - so by the time the concert started he was actually almost dozing off. It was decent i guess, considering it's free Broadway, but the weather was too hot and humid.
On Wednesday went down to New Jersey (near Hoboken) with my supervisor for some meeting. NJ is really different from NNY, looks more suburban. And the NJ transit doesn't come close to the NY subway. However, on the way back we passed by Bergenline Avenue, also known as the shopping mile, where they have a wide variety of shops. Maybe i'll go back sometime. NY boutiques are just for window shopping.
On Thursday went to see the Broadway Show called "Brooklyn". It's really nice cause T. got me free tix. The show is actually about a girl called Brooklyn and her journey to find her father. The singers were all really good.
On Friday went with a group of Singaporean friends to see the JVC Jazz Festival at Prospect Park. Frankly i'm not a fan of jazz, its normally puts me to sleep. But it was really nice out in the park at night, there were maybe like a thousand people on the park grounds watching the concert - really impressive showout. Bad Plus (a jazz band) was pretty good though, and it was relaxing lying in the park listening.
Today finally was pressed to do laundry as was running out of clothes - discovered how to operate the neighborhood laundromat machines for the first time. Then in the evening went out to see "Badman Begins" with D and then to an Italian Restaurant thereafter. Liam Neeson put on quite a good show, but Katie Holmes was disappointing. I think she only gets all the press because of the fiance Tom Cruise. Then D. was really nice to show me around the "meat-packing district" in NYC, around the W13 street area. 5 yrs ago the area consisted mainly of meatpackers, but today it's mostly really trendy bars and some designer stores. And restaurants that will make a hole in your pocket. But some vestiges of the old meat packing warehouses remained and it was a rather strange juxtaposition against the new fashion stores and bars.
So it'll be a challenge to get up early tomorrow for church, and I hope i can get some rest tomorrow before another activity-filled week comes up. But at least the weather's nice now (low 70s) and will remain so for most of next week. Man how i have come to hate the heat.
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