Gobble Gobble!

So I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving 2006!

Mine was pretty typical.

Dinner at my mom's house on Thursday (thank goodness my mom didn't invite more guests than our immediate family-- it woulda been too crowded), some shopping with my family on Friday (which forced me to skip my usual high school friends' get-together), and a typical weekend after that (although I should mention that I visited the former bain of my existence-- Stuyvesant High School-- on Saturday and it was pretty boring).

This year, we cooked our Thanksgiving turkey breast-side-down and it came out especially well! We had a bunch of dark meat immediately available to us and it fell RIGHT OFF THE BONE!! I just finished some leftovers I took back to my apartment.

Otherwise, though, this weekend has been incredibly lame.

I'm thinking about taking the GMAT's (i.e. the SAT's for business school) sometime soon, so I've been doing this workbook each day and it's been making me feel worse than I normally do.

I feel like my life is back to studying and evaluating myself all the time. And I worry that my score won't be high enough-- especially considering that I've very little to differentiate myself from other candidates and NEED a perfect score to be considered by the schools I'm considering.

Right now, my target is to have this done by the time I'm 25 and apply for the entering class of 2008... =/

In other news, I had a shitload of work last week, but I didn't get most of it done and now I'm a bit stressed about tomorrow's day.

I think I should go to bed now and wake up at 5AM, so that I can get some extra stuff done tomorrow.

Oh wonderful job... =(

A week of good news and fulfilled prophecies...

So there seemed to be a bunch of good news this past week!!

First, the Democrats won both houses of Congress-- which I consider to be wonderful news, since Bush has been creating an incredibly divisive atmostphere in this country. (Not that I'm a die-hard Democrat or anything, but I'm REALLY glad to see that our country is going in a more moderate, balanced direction.)

Next, I read something cool about one of my longtime crushes/role models-- Michelle Kwan has been named to a diplomatic role!

Although part of me finds this kinda disturbing (since she's going to be "promoting American values" around the world-- which is one of the reasons that many countries in the world hate the United States), I'm so proud to see that a fellow Asian American (who has really shown tremendous grace, stength of character and perserverence) has been selected to represent the United States.

And the final bit of good news is that Kevin and Britney are splitting up!!! (i.e. K-Fed becomes Fed-Ex! hahahahahah!)

Although this is the most un-important piece of news this week, I also feel that it's the one that everyone will probably understand as being good news. And moreover, it made me realize something about my favorite cartoon from the late 1990's/early 2000's: "MTV's Daria" PREDICTED THE FUTURE!!!

Exhibit A: Kevin and Britney

On the show, there was a couple named Kevin & Britney (probably spelled differently, but whatever...). Kevin was a jock with a ton of confidence and no brain, while Britney was this blonde cheerleader with big boobs and also no brain. Just a coincidence, or a parallel with Kevin and Britney Federline???

Towards the end of the show, Kevin and Britney would fight all the time-- with the two eventually going their separate ways (him to another year of high school, and she to a crappy college) and likely breaking up on the last episode.

Exhibit B: One of the main supporting characters-- Trent Lane (i.e. Daria's crush for most of the show)-- is the cartoon embodiment of my favorite musician, Ryan Star.

Look at this comparison of the two performers:

Trent is pretty much a charicature of Ryan!!

And also notice the lyrics to this one song that Trent sang:

Icebox Woman

"You're an angel in black,

You sure have a knack,

For putting my heart on the shelf in the back!

I've waited my turn,

Oh, when will I learn?

My poor heart, you're giving it freezer-burn!!"

Does anyone else see the striking similarity with Ryan's "Psycho Suicidal Girl" song?

I think we need to continue to look towards MTV's Daria, if we want to discover the future of pop culture (i.e. waste time)... ;-)

Happy Hallo-WEAK!

OK, this Halloween has been pretty lame...

1. Last Thursday, I saw the 3-D version of Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas.

I love LOVE LOVE the movie, but I was disappointed with the "3-D"-- it just never popped out at you. (I will admit that I still can't get the "Kidnap the Sandy Claws!" song out of my head, though. =))

2. Then on Saturday, I attended this party at the Princeton Alumni Club (it was an all-ivy event--I went with some Harvard alum friends). It cost $60/head and it was in their library, of all places. :-P

The crowd was pretty small (probably about only 50 people) and most of the people were pretty old. My cool friend, who was dressed as Marilyn Monroe (and looked smokin' HOTT!), kept getting ogled by these old men-- one of whom kept asking her to sing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend".

Moreover, the dumb "Halloween Ball" ended at 1AM-- which after daylight savings went into effect was really midnight. So we barely got to take advantage of their silly "open bar" (which only included wine and beer) and "buffet" (which was basically a selection of tiny cocktail hors d'oeuvres)-- not to mention the fact that it was supposed to go on until 2AM (false advertisement, anyone?).

Needless to say, it was a total bust. =P

3. On Sunday, I went to Sleepy Hollow (i.e. home of the headless horseman) to visit a "haunted" Philipsburg Manor.

Instead of an actual haunted house, though, it was just a bunch of small outdoor displays-- none of which were scary. And the headless horseman never came over to our end of the fence-- so I got slightly irritated at the fools who made us wait 30 minutes for the hoseman to show up. >:O

4. Finally, I went to work today-- not dressed in my ninja costume (as I lost my black belt and nunchaku over the weekend...)-- and our Halloween events were nowhere near as exciting as they were played up to be.

About 5 women were dressed as witches (isn't it time to retire that idea as a costume, already? =P) and probably the best costume was this guy dressed as a member of Def Leopard.

I do want to mention, though, that last year's winner of the Halloween costume competition was a pregnant lady who went as a pumpkin farmer and actually painted her stomach like a pumpkin, which was exposed to the world! But sadly, she was part of the quintet of witches this year (although it was kinda funny that she brought in her baby-- who was dressed as a pumpkin today). =(

So tonight, I stayed in to avoid wasting any more time on lame Halloween events.

Thumbs down to what was a pathetic Halloween 2006.

Blah! =P

r. star = ROCKstar!!

So last Tuesday, I went to this concert for my favorite musician/rocker-- Ryan Star (www.rstar.net).

It all began over this summer, when I was randomly invited to a Corrine Bailey Rae (a superstar in the U.K.-- whom I had never heard about) concert by one of my bestest friends at the Bowery Ballroom. Ryan was the opening act.

The crowd was fairly small and needless to say, I was BLOWN AWAY by Ryan's talent-- and lucky enough to get my hands on his CD, "Songs from the eye of an elephant", and also chat with him for a few seconds (really nice guy, by the way...).

So after that night, he ended up making it onto this reality TV show called Rockstar: Supernova, where he finished 6th and gained legions of fans.

Last week was his triumphant return to New York (he's originally from Long Island) and the Bowery Ballroom was PACKED!

I think Ryan's somewhat of an anti-war activist too. He was wearing a green t-shirt that had the words "Where is the love" in backwards letters and he sang a song called "Somebody's Son"-- which was an obvious protest against George W. Bush. And as the sweat got onto his shirt, it kinda looked like he was wearing camoflage. Weird stuff, huh?

His lyrics also really speak to me. Here are the words to one of his songs, "Psycho Suicidal Girl", that pretty accurately reflects my relationship with this girl in college:

Everyone knows, you're wasting my time.

So why don't I ask you to leave?

And if you should go, I want you to know

That everything wasn't for free.

I'll be charging for time, I had you on the line,

We talked about the ills of this world.

Now I'm praying for time, so I could see you die.

You're a psycho suicidal girl.

Brilliant, eh? ;-)

My spiritual life...

So last week, I went to this "New Life Expo", which was basically a convention of all these new age organizations.

Some of it was total garbage (e.g. these $5,000 crystals supposedly from Tibet that would change you energy fields), and some of it was pretty cool (e.g. this mixture of 30+ dried fruits and veggies from Wholefood Farmacy, www.wholefoodstore.net).

But there were a few things that I actually spent money on that I was particularly curious about...although they were kinda the same thing.

Basically, I had an "energy healing" and a photo of my aura taken. And both of these analyses seemed to reveal the same things.

I can't quite explain how aura photos work, but the final output is this photograph of yourself in a cloud of color-- like so:

(and I also had photos of my chakras taken...).

For me, my aura turned out to be indigo-- although other energy fields around me where different colors.

A few things in my analyses that kinda surprised me

• They say that I'm stressed, which might or might not be true, depending on the day and the situation I'm in.
• They also said that the side of my spirit that is open to embracing new friends is very strong-- which I don't think is really true, considering that I haven't really made any new friends recently. =P
• And on the flip side, they also said that the side of my soul that tries to hold people back is very weak. So I get taken advantage of-- which isn't really the case, since I tend to drop friends more than most people I know.
• Overall, they also said that I have low energy-- something that I also disagree with.
• BUT, I'm very intuitive-- which I'd like to think is true. ;-)
• AND that I'm a "great lover". Hahahahahah! =D

So overall, I have no clue whether or not I actually trust this stuff...

Nevertheless, I also saw this cool new aerial yoga technique that I'd really LOVE to get into-- if only I could ever afford to have this type of contraption in my home (which will also require me to build a big exercise room =P).

I can definitely see this kind of exercise becoming big-- as long as idiots don't go about foolish lawsuits when they get hurt. Check out the website for this new exercise, though: www.omgym.com.

And I do have to also say that I got a really good feeling from these guys who were selling meditation mats (they just seemed to have good "auras"), so I might get into that sometime soon.

I finished reading the Dalai Lama's "How to Practice a the Way to a Meaningful Life" recently and I really see some value in promoting kindness and compassion to the world. Some describe this belief as "the force" (from Star Wars), and I really hope that I and other people will be able to embrace this to make a better world.

With that, I think I am going to burn some incense and reflect on my fortunate life, before going to bed tonight.

Thumbs up to the extra hour of time this weekend! =)

Roar! And giving back to the less fortunate-- with the elite crowd

So I've long finished mouning the loss of the Mets... =(

And I have to say, I went into the 2006 World Series as a Cardinals hater-- since they barely squeaked into the playoffs (not to mention, beat the Mets) and were grossly incompetant just 2 years ago, when the Red Sox--who barely made it into the World Series that year and had an 80+ year old CURSE on them!!-- won the World Series (I mean, couldn't they just beat the Red Sox in ONE game??? ).

Anyway, now the Cardinals are officially the world champions.

So I give props to the Cards and I have a new team to hate-- the Tigers.

Those fools from Detroit got into the World Series after basically giving the Yankees an ass-whuppin' and became the clear faves for to win-- some even thought they'd sweep all 4 games.

But instead, they lost-- badly. Granted, they were an underdog team-- but everyone was putting their hopes on them and everyone had been saying all season long that the American League was a billion times stronger than the National League, so it seemed destined that the Tigers would have a shining moment in the sun.

When it counted, though, they made constant fielding errors and lost against the incompetant Cards.

So to the Tigers: ROAR to you!!

---------------------

Anyway, I wanted to talk about how after 2 years of giving nothing back to the rest of the world (besides interviewing kids who wanted to go to my college, and the random monetary donation here and there-- for example, the tsunami and Katrina victims), I FINALLY did some actual community service last weekend.

It was an event called New York Cares Day and I spent my morning and early afternoon helping clean out this school in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.

We had put together an alumni team from my college and were ready to work at 9AM on Saturday morning.

The NY Cares Staff wasn't particularly well-organized (we had to wait over 2 hours, before actually getting to work) but with our ideas and teamwork out overstaffed team (NY Cares had more volunteers thav they needed), we were able to finish our task in even less time than needed.

We were supposed to clear out this closet on the 3rd floor and move the contents to a storage room in the basement, so we came up with this idea to do an almost assembly line-type formation-- and we finished about 2 hours earlier than expected!

Yay us!

But what really shocked me was how annoying and high-strung some of the alumni I met from remain.

After we finished, some of them were soooo eager to do more work (since they feel incredibly antsy/anxious when they're not being productive-- I'm not kidding, these are their own words), that they decided to "help" out this guy who was busy painting the grating of a radiator...

So soon enough, about 10 Penn alumni were crowded around this guy, telling him how he was doing his job wrong and how he should be doing it better.

Can someone say "obnoxious"? =P

Hooray for elitist, type-A Penn alums who always think that they know better than anyone else!!

Haunted week...

As my hometown team slowly tries to inch its way to the World Series, it begins to rain.

Will the season end the way it began? or will they disappoint and forever be known as New York's secondary baseball team?

Seeing the way my week has gone, I have to guess that they stand a good shot of losing-- although my luck has turned around a bit...

On Monday, I woke up just before I was supposed to head off to work and I had a fairly crappy day. Lots of last-minute work requests and I just felt really annoyed and unmotivated. Oh, and I was also reminded of a presentation due Thursday that I completely forgot about. =P

As I was heading home, I was getting really tired of waiting in traffic, so I detoured onto bumpy service road in the Bronx...

Little did I know, the bumpy road would put bumps into my car...

And so, I got up at 5AM on Tuesday to get to work early (so that I could finish a bunch of last minute tasks before an 11AM meeting), but my car was wobbley and I couldn't control it!

Turns out, the rear control arm holding my back tires was dented-- so my wheels were outta alignment (thus, the swerving). And of course, it started to rain.

I drop my car off at my mom's friend's garage in Flushing and figure that the repair will be expensive.

I take my mom's car into work at 3PM and stick around until 9PM...

The rest of the week wasn't much better either... =P

I'm thinking that my karmic debt has been paid for this week and Endy Chavez just made an AMAZING play!

Let's go, Mets!!

tragic accidents...

So yesterday, we all heard about Cory Lidle from the Yankees crashing his plane into an Upper East Side Building.

And of course, all the typical thoughts ran through my head: terrorism? the Yankees pitcher?? if only they had won against the Tigers!!! the weather was bad, so why was he out flying??? wait, why isn't there better air security in Manhattan?????

But today, I started to remember an old classmate of mine from Penn-- Abraham Huang.

I had met Abe after he transferred to Penn from Perdue and he lived a few floors above me in the dorms. I didn't really know him too well, but I remember that whenever people found out that he rode a motorcycle, they were always concerned about his safety. And he always told them that it was perfectly safe-- the same way Cory Lidle always touted the safety of piloting his own airplane (despite the famous airplane deaths of John Denver, Yankees captain Thurman Munson, John F. Kennedy Jr. and more).

In December of 2001, Abe died in a motorcycle accident on a Philadelphia highway and we were all shocked. =(

I guess I don't really have a point to make, but it just seems like these risky activities just aren't the best idea for extracurricular activities-- and I understand the hipocrisy of my saying this, as someone who just recently jumped out of an airplane. =P

Baseball players have it written into their contacts that if they get injured while taking these risks, part of their contract will be voided. And sometimes, I wish they would take the hint and just not do these things.

I just hope that everyone out there realizes the fragility of life and is more careful before they drive a car, fly a plane or ride a motorcycle.

Rolling through the streets of New York

So I just had an ENORMOUS "Woody Allen" (i.e. corned beef + pastrami) sandwich-- followed by a strawberry cheesecake-- at the Carnegie Deli, and I think I'm going to die.

I spent all weekend around Manhattan with my mom, checking out different places from the Open House New York and we rewarded ourselves with the HUGE Carnegie Deli dinner tonight.

I think I won't be able to eat for a few days... =P

We walked all around New York, during the Open House...

We went to a number of places on Saturday-- include this teensy Catholic church in Chelsea (of all places), some super-lame architectal firm in the Garment District, this Museum of Art and Design (next to the MoMA) and the townhouse of Paul Rudolph (which was AMAZING!! I want my house designed by someone with this man's vision).

We also tried going to this place called Exit Art in Hell's Kitchen, except it was unexpectedly closed for renovations. These nice strangers we met from Long Island actually gave us a ride back to the Upper West Side after we all discovered that the Exit Art place was closed.

So a BIG THUMBS DOWN to Exit Art!!

And today, we saw the Mount Vernon Motel-- a 1700's country club from early in New York's history, a Russian Orthodox Cathedral and these 2 Marble Cemetaries in the East Village (the New York CITY Marble Cemetary was the obvious better of the 2) and the Scandinavia House in Murray Hill.

Overall, a pretty good weekend! =)

Everyone should definitely check out the next Open House New York!!

Politicians who screw the gay community...

So I got photos from this past weekend.... Here's my Pictionary team, consisting of (from left to right): my Stuy friend's girlfriend, RyT, me and the dyke (yes, that IS a girl...):

And here's a picture of everyone:

Notice the lesbian couple making out on my lap and RyT's girlfriend, sitting next to him.

Speaking of gay issues, I just wanted to say how disgusting I think this Republican Florida Congressman, Mark Foley is being.

After being outed as a pedophile (who had numerous inappropriate IM's with his underage congressional male pages), Foley's lawyer made some statement on his behalf about how he was "molested by a Catholic priest as a youth", is in rehab and "is a gay man".

Obviously, he's looking for sympathy, but my question is: What the FUCK does being a gay man have to do with ANY of this??

The fact that he happens to be gay is completely incidental to all the shit he's pulled. And I hope the gay community tells this fool that they don't want him.

I think it's really disturbing that politicians like Mark Foley and Jim McGreevey decide to come out AFTER they're caught doing something wrong.

Why didn't you freaks come out when you were in office??-- rather than after you were forced to resign!!

This just casts a completely negative light on the gay community and I hope that Americans will not relate these bad apples to the gay community at large (although who knows how stupid Americans will be?). =P

Sad, sad night...

I just got back from a completely wasted hour at Cosi's. =P

Last time, I was able to use their wireless internet and get some work done (unlike when I lounge around in my studio), but this time I couldn't even get connected! >:O

When I got home, I noticed that Ponce-- one of my building's staff members-- had his photo up behind our mail desk. When I asked about what happened, I found out that he had died! Apparently, he didn't leave his apartment (also in my building) for a while and they found him dead. They're still not sure what happened to him...

His family is coming up from Florida to settle things in the next few days. Hopefully, they'll have a memorial fund set up soon.

To all of his family and friends, my thoughts are with you...

=(

Skydiving buddy...

My Don Juan friend mentioned that I'm mentioning my skydiving buddy a lot and she just sent me her skydiving pics, so I figured that I'd post 'em up (as I said I would, weeks ago...).


Here she is, parachuting down the sky with her instructor. A runner/partyer extraordinaire, my buddy is also demonstrating that she's got abs of steel, as you can see her legs extended at a perfectly straight L-shape in front of her body.














And here we are after she survived her dive. Notice how I have a "DANGER" sign on my back-- perfect warning for all those who dare jump out of a plane from 14,500 feet off the ground. =P









CHEERS! =D

A very lesbionic weekend...

So on Saturday, I got to meet my old high school friend, RyT, and his girlfriend J.

The snatch here is that RyT used to be a girl, but NOW he's a guy (well, at least living like one...). So things were a bit different than I woulda imagined 6 years ago.

J. was loverly and coincidentally enough, the girlfriend of one of my boyz from high school was also there! (RyT went to the same college as my boi and his girlfriend).

There was also another lesbian couple there-- this dyke*, who works with J. and this femme, who has 2 teenage children. Together, this couple has almost 30 tatoos (including each others' names in various languages) and made out on my lap. hahahahah.

And on Sunday, I saw this show in the East Village called "Fallen", which was basically a female private high school version of "Lord of the Flies". (Think "Gilligan's Island" meets "Heathers".)


I thought that an all-girl production about women in the wilds of the jungles would mean at least some girl-on-girl action, but I guess the gay director didn't share my vision. =P

One of the characters was this crazy girl, who was beautiful!!-- and shoulda totally made out with the expressive-eyes girl in the poster.

Disappointed... :-(

Not too bad a show, though.

And props to my lady Guenivere-- who assistant stage managed the production! ;-)

*After a few comments from some friends, I just wanted to put a short disclaimer: The person whom I called a "dyke" was a self-described (and pretty obviously) one, so that is why I used that language. Let me just state for the record that I tend to throw around some words, such as "dyke", very loosely and in a jocular manner. In no way do I mean for it to be derogatory, so apologies to anyone who is offended!! I keed, I keed!!! :-)

Really random night...

It's past 4AM in the morning and I just felt like writing about this random night.

I had a pretty tough day at work, with a zillion things due-- but I still left at 5:30 in order to make a family dinner in Flushing (and let me also mention that the annoying associate--whom I mentioned in an earlier post-- is being even more difficult now, in order to cover herself =P).

Afterwards, I went to help my wonderful skydiving friend move into her new apartment and along with our other Penn friend, we went to some bar on the Lower East Side.

Strangely enough, we ran into one of my coworkers at the bar-- which I totally wasn't expecting, since this girl lives in Connecticut!!

And we also saw some Penn kids. Specifically, this douchebag guy (i.e. the former president of our Vietnamese Students Association) came over to us and told my friend how he knew "Doug"-- which he thought was my name, for some weird reason.

Some people never seem to stop ticking you off... =P

Anyway, I might be doing a 1-miler race in the morning, so I should prolly get to bed.

Goodnight, world!

My vision's back!! No longer seeing "Grey" on Thursdays...

OK. My "dilemma" from last week has completely solved itself.

Tonight's crappy episode of "Grey's Anatomy" has convinced me to completely drop that show from my Thursday night lineup.

So from now on, it's going to be an hour on the treadmill to watch "Survivor" on Thursday nights!!

"Grey's Anatomy" was so stupid tonight that I couldn't believe it. I have no clue what the heck anyone sees in the annoying, whiney, indecisive Meredith.

It was always terribly obvious that the writers create ridiculous scenarios in order to try to drive the plot-- but now, they're recycling some of these near-impossible medical conditions!! (A kid impaled by a tree branch??? C'mon!! You did the impaling thing in the train wreck episode last season!)

In summary: the show SUCKS.

On "Survivor", they mixed members from all 4 tribes into 2 large tribes (which was similar to an idea I had before this season started airing), but now that all the races are together, things look a ton worse than before and the problems are really starting to boil.

This white man named Jonathan is being a total bigot, as he keeps referring to the non-white folk as "the Asians" or "the black guy". I really hope he gets kicked off soon.

And moreover, the Koreans are being really exclusive among themselves-- which was something I really hoped would not happen. I mean, couldn't we just all stick together as a big, unified group-- for ONCE??

I thought it was waaaayyyy too soon for the tribes to combine-- this was only the third episode of the season!

But nevertheless, I'll continue to watch.

To my Asian brothas and sistas on "Survivor": continue to perform well and make us proud-- but stop being exclusive!! =P

ROAR!!!

OK, they finally posted the results of the Tunnel to Towers Run and my "official" time is 34:40. I finished 385th, out of 796 timed male runners-- which puts me in the top 50%, but I'm still PISSED!

The reason I'm annoyed is because I know the time is wrong!!! >:O

I got to the starting line of the race at 10:10AM (the race started at 10:00AM), and I got to the finish line when the clock read 37:XX-- so my time should have been closer to 30:00 minutes or less!!

I did an aquathlon this summer-- .5 miles of swimming, followed by 3 miles of running, and my split was 07:32 and 31:28 (I'm sure the swim was probably mistimed, since I'm really not that fast...).

But anyway- if it takes me just over 30 minutes to run 3 miles AFTER swimming half a mile in the Hudson, HOW CAN IT TAKE ME NEARLY 35 MINUTES TO FINISH A 5K ON A REGULAR DAY???

Grrrrr....

I just really hate to face the fact that I'm getting old and slowing down... =(

(And for the record, I also did a 5K and a 4-miler in March, along with another 5K in May and in all of those races-- I did well under 10-minutes/mile!!)

Now I'm signing up for a 1-miler on Saturday, just to see how slow I really am...

I'm kinda nervous, cuz there are going to be actual athletes (from the Olympics and stuff) in this event-- but my gym buddy's hoping to run in it, so I'll be the supportive teamster.

Results to be posted after the event...

USA! USA!!

So, I ran a 5K race today with my wonderful friend who accompanied me to the wedding and skydiving last week.

This was the annual "Tunnels to Tower Run"-- which is held in memory of Stephen Siller, a firefighter who died on September 11th, 2001.

The run basically recreates every step that Stephen took that day, when he ran all the way to Manhattan to help out the victims. And the proceeds from the event benefits orphaned children (Stephen Siller was also an orphan) and fire departments.

Interestingly, we actually ran into people from the London Fire Department today-- who came all the way from England, just to participate in this!! Can you believe that?? There were 80 of them (men and women)!! And they were really nice too!

There weren't any female police officers (at least not from what I saw), but many male officers held banners for each of the nearly 400 men in uniform killed that day. They high-fived us as we ran through the tunnels.

I'm not sure what my time was (it'll be posted sometime soon), but my sister tells me that she might've seen me on TV passing the finish line-- which is really cool!! And I know that I dashed past this huge group of guys from the army towards the end-- and they were a super-quick team!

Here's a pic of the two kids from Penn with whom we ran, next to my skydiving buddy and ME (I get the orange tag, since I paid an extra $5 for a timing chip)-- at the FINISH line:

Props to the London Fire Department for supporting their firefighter brothers in the United States of America. And thanks to Mayor Guiliani, who (along with his many contributions to New York City) also came to make a speech at this event!!

I think I'm going to go back to sleep now. I haven't been getting enough rest lately!!

Dilemma...

So one week ago, I spent an hour on the treadmill-- watching the racist edition of "Survivor".

Basically, I knew that I wouldn't be able to get home in time to watch the whole thing, so I stayed at the office til' 8, so that I could head directly to the gym (just a few miles from work) and watch from there-- while also running 5 miles and burning 700 calories.

HOWEVER, tonight was the season premier of "Grey's Anatomy", which started right after "Survivor"-- so I had a conundrum...

Can I handle BOTH these diverse groups of people, while still making it to the gym??
AND...





??










So I could either stay at work until 8 and spend two hours at the gym, or just leave work early and go home-- completely skipping the gym. =P

I chose the latter option and I have to say that I was disappointed. Although my fellow Asian Americans are doing me proud on "Survivor", the episode was just plain boring.

Meredith was being her usual annoying self on "Grey's Anatomy". And a plague outbreak??? Come on!!!

I don't know if I should keep planning Thursdays nights around the telly anymore. =/

To my credit, I did go to this track in Westchester to do a few laps after work, but the groundskeepers started locking in the gate when it got dark and I had to jump the fence. =P

Oh the things we do...

High School Physics haunts me again...

So weird!!

I left work after 8PM again (I had arrived early at 7AM today), and as I was walking back to my apartment just a few minutes ago, I run into one of our old Physics teachers, Dr. Rappaport, from Stuyvesant High School!

What a trip!!

Surprisingly, he actually remembered me and told me that he left Stuy in 2001-- a year after my class graduated (it figures that he lost hope after my wonderful class graduated). He's been teaching at a New York private school for the last few years and now he's going off to Washington D.C. to teach at an inner city school!

The New York City public school system really did a number on him, I guess. =/

He kinda rolled his eyes when I told him that I'm a marketing research consultant, but I guess he hears that a lot from us Stuy grads. =P

Dr. Rappaport also grabbed my business card, before we parted-- since I mentioned that I'm still partially involved with Stuy and I guess he still cares about improving my old high school.

Oh, the memories...

P.S. Arrrrgggg!!!!!! Happy International talk like a pirate day, ye mateys and scurvy wenches!! =)

Mondays are a bitch...

Geez, I can't believe that this week started so badly.

I can't quite pinpoint what made today so annoying, but the entire day was just awful.

Thank goodness for Cosi's, though. I just had a grilled chicken with fresh mozarella and wasabi mayonnaise sandwich and I'm feeling a bit better--sure beats the leftover ramen I had from Momofuku's (which was EXCELLENT when it was fresh and hot) for lunch.

I'm going to go sleep away this day now. I need to wake up at 5AM to get to work, anyway. =P