giving thanks

A: are you going to make garlic mashed potatoes?
Bro2: i can help
A: who are you going to help?
B2: ... okay, i'll make them

bahaha! happy thanksgiving!

how to save a life

the fray at the galen center, usc

mindfulness

I attended a workshop last night about Finding the Balance in self, work, family, and community. This workshop was focused on balancing competing priorities in relationships, with others and with ourselves. Nothing new, but they introduced some tools to help us ask for what we want and say no to those we don't. I just like being able to identify what I'm feeling or what I'm doing.

The first thing we talked about was about being mindful. I think of this as present-time consciousness or being in the moment, focusing on your action or another person without distraction. Next, in being effective in interpersonal (and intrapersonal) relationships, we need to identify our priorities: to get your objective, to maintain your relationship, or to maintain self respect. If we want all three, it requires a balancing act and practice.

They provided some exercises which I will try, but my favorite tip: whenever possible, try to remove the following words from your vocabulary when talking about what you want: sure, fine, OK, maybe. Instead, try the 1-10 scale. From experience, I have seen this work very well. A group of 5 friends were trying to decide what/where to eat. One guy asked each person, how hungry are you on a scale from 1-10? The ranges varied and we decided on a place that everyone was happy with :).



i like to be mindful of my food and beverage. don't bother me, i'm eating :P

green tea latte from urth caffe

gooey sweetness

since returning from italy, i've been obsessed with fresh figs (not fig jam or fig newtons). i must eat them as soon as i get my hands on them. people have been kind enough to share with me their homegrown figs--soft, ripe, and oozing with gooey sweetness. thus, i am SO over the unevenly ripened, bland store-bought ones.

my cousin said she expected me to post pictures of them soon. i love pictures, but i guess i love figs more. i only remembered to take a picture after i had eaten the ripest of the bunch. sadly, these pictures are portraits and not group shots :P.

training

When I told my mom I ran 8 miles, she said, "oh yeah, Bruce Lee used to run 10 miles EVERY DAY." She's been watching "The Legend of Bruce Lee" and is totally obsessed.


Hong Kong actor Chan Kwok-Kwan plays Lee in the series.

the pacific

I needed a vacation from my vacation, so I headed down to San Diego.


la jolla













oyster shooters from blue water seafood market & grill, a great place for large portions at a reasonable price











crab & artichoke dip












fish (grilled tilapia) & chips served with their own tartar sauce and cole slaw. this was my favorite dish.

we also tried the salmon sandwich, sea bass sandwich, and sea bass fish taco. everything was fresh and grilled to perfection. next time i'm going to try the ceviche the couple next to us ordered :).

italy

a week of sight seeing in rome, florence, cinque terre, and pisa prior to the wedding week festivities.








tuscany ... where the real vacation began. this is where i called home for a week at tenuta il cicalino (farm of crickets)



























fresh ingredients make italian food different from what we get in the states. we loved going to the coop (co-op). besides regular groceries, we were able to get varieties of fresh pasta, pesto, olives, anchovies, bread, cheese, meat, pizza, etc. when we weren't dining out, we ate at home or packed tasty sandwiches for our excursions.















the bride and groom met at the tennis club and made sure there were lots of tennis times scheduled for their wedding guests.

it was so fun to play on a clay tennis court! it's slippery and i had a hard time stabilizing myself before hitting the ball, but it made me focus on my footwork and hit the ball earlier. the balls bounce so much higher on clay.

hats and fascinators are customary for european weddings. think "4 weddings and a funeral" or opening day.

it was my first time as a bridesmaid and i got to wear a specially designed, hand-made fascinator! the two on the bottom were for the bridesmaids. the one on top with the mini veil was for the bride. the hat belonged to one of the guests.










an event within "the event." cantucci (biscotti) tasting, after the wedding, of course. my fave was the one with the gold seal on the far left, artebianco. great almond taste, dry and light, but not hard. can't believe i struck gold in 2002, as that was the only one i tried back then. it did make me give up biscotti made in america ... until someone introduced me to trader joe's soft bite biscotti.

also, i became a mature coffee drinker on this trip. double espresso black each morning. i've started using my italian espresso maker at home again.

mud

10 things I learned from the 2009 World Famous Mud Run:



















1. leaving at 4:30am is way too early and unnecessary, unless you want to see the sunrise and get decent parking
















2. camp pendleton is a nice place for a hike














3. duct tape (a la macgyver) is great for keeping your shoelaces tied, your soles from detaching, and the gravel out of your shoes (but not your socks)



















4. tip-toeing/swimming through a lake during a run is refreshing, until some guy starts doing the breast-stroke and splashing everyone in his near vicinity





lake o'neill (not the one we swam through)









5. climbing over a 5-foot wall is like jumping up on the kitchen counter
6. i'm short enough to squat-walk through a tunnel
7. being able to run 7 miles is enough training for the mud run, if you plan to walk the hills














8. it takes a minimum of 5 rinses to get the mud off clothes after the run
9. i like tiaras, especially when they look like wonderwoman's and are made of water-proof foam
10. marines are not soccer moms, or so i was told when i commented on how the oranges were (not) cut

thai

The latest culinary adventure with my beloved ebelskiver pan . . . Thai coconut pudding (khanom krok) , a sweet and savory treat!










some of the batter and cream ingredients










cooking in the pan

filling ingredients: corn kernels, green onion, and cilantro












you have your choice of filled or plain








usually they are plated in pairs, one on top of another

hand-jiving

This past weekend, some friends and I went to see the musical, Grease. Most of us dressed up for the occasion. None of the girls had Pink Lady jackets or poodle skirts, so we improvised. My friend, the Grease fanatic, cut pink poodles out of felt and we ladies applied them to our skirts with double-sided tape. I wore my pink cardigan and tied a scarf to my ponytail. Voila!

I didn't know Grease was a musical before it was a movie. I thought the performance was fantastic, but the movie has so much more that they couldn't include in the musical. I also didn't know that Taylor Hicks was going to play Teen Angel. The crowd went wild. However, I found it awkward and self-promoting when Taylor performed a song from his CD after the show and they announced that his CDs would be sold in the lobby. Still, it was cool to see him up close when he was signing autographs.

space

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Open House, May 2-3, 2009


full-scale model of mars science laboratory rover scheduled to launch in fall, 2011








spacecraft assembly facility "clean room"

the yellow tape is an insulator and keeps the lab free of FOD (foreign object debris)







spacecraft fabrication facility












quality assurance. they use autoCAD to make sure all parts, like this rover tire, are ready to go. QA is tough. that's why the MSL project was delayed 2 years

oahu

I've always said I'm not much of a beach person, but that was before I stepped foot on a beach in Hawaii. Warm, clear water, soft, fine sand . . . I love the beach! And that's not all. I also like shave ice with ice cream, waking up early, running outdoors . . . maybe I just like vacation :). Words cannot describe and pictures don't do it justice, but here's a snapshot of Oahu.

















lanikai beach













waikiki beach at sunset


















magic island (but as far as i'm concerned, all of hawaii is magical)













view from diamond head crater



















hiking up manoa falls













hibiscus














u.s.s. arizona memorial, pearl harbor



















king kamehameha statue, downtown











6 kinds of poke, poi, spam musubi, taro mochi, kahlua pork, lomi salmon, lau lua, and shave ice, alicia's market













spicy shrimp plate, shrimp truck in the north shore













banana pancakes with macadamia nut sauce, boots & kimo's


















malasadas, leonard's bakery

LA

My dad's a huge Lakers fan, so to celebrate his birthday, my family (minus Mom in Taiwan) went to a game. Despite the blowout against the Atlanta Hawks, the game was fun and eventful. A fan made the half-court shot to win the jackpot of $165,000, the Lakers kept the Hawks to under 100 points getting everyone a coupon for 2 free tacos at Jack-in-the-Box, Gasol got a triple double, and we got to see Brown, Morrison, and Powell play.













luke














fisher

the vet's office

I love my job because of the interesting people I meet, but today was really a highlight. I got a behind-the-scenes tour of the cat and dog hospital that just opened a couple of blocks from my office. I stayed to see a dental extraction performed on a cat ... everything from the shaving, heart monitor, IV catheter, and anesthesia to the two extractions. I knew vet school was challenging because the doctors need to know about all animals, but they also need to do labs, surgeries, and dental work.

When I was in school, I volunteered in a hospital in telemetry, post-op, labor & delivery, and ER, so I've seen all kinds of procedures, but never on a cat or dog! They said they'd call me if anything really interesting came in, like a splenectomy. I said I'd take them up on that offer :).

joshua tree

This weekend I got the chance to rock-climb outdoors for a change. The weather was unexpectedly pleasant for January, but I still learned that rocks are cold in the morning, brrrrr! I'm way too delicate and thin-skinned (got lots of cuts and bruises) and afraid of heights for this sport, but I'm totally addicted and can't wait to go again.

Afterward, we hiked up Ryan Mountain for a 360 degree view of Joshua Tree.















joshua trees for which the national park (and u2 album) is named




















my first outdoor rock-climbing adventure















view from the summit of ryan mountain















view from the dashboard