Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Best Part of Me Was Always You

Happy Birthday to my sister!


Thursday, February 18, 2010

Storytelling at its finest

Every night I'm glued to my TV watching the Olympic coverage. So I know compelling TV... And this little thing just kills me! (Also, her bob with bangs is so French!) If only I could tell stories like this...


Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Happy Tiger Lunar New Year!

Ok this is inexcusably belated but I just wanted to share how good of a Chinese girl I was this year: 2 weekends ago, I celebrated with Alice and her friends and family with cucumber salad, seaweed salad, Taiwanese savory sticky-rice cups, Korean noodle salad, miso salmon (fish is a homophone for abundance, although it's usually served with the head and tail symbolizing abundance from the beginning to end of the year. Hm, we just had the filet...), dumplings (for wealth because of their resemblance to the old gold currency), TWO impressive hot pots, sticky-rice balls with peanut sugar, coffee brownies with cream cheese frosting, Chinese egg tarts, and green tea bubble tea.


This past week with my own family, I had Mom-made glutinous rice cake (nian gao is a literal homophone for "high year" or to grow higher each year) dipped in egg, a stir fry of 10 vegetables, oranges (homophone for gold and wealth), and first thing the morning of the new year, a chocolate covered oreo so that all things leaving my mouth this year will be sweet. However, I'm still waiting on my Hong Bao...


Happy Year of the Tiger!

PS. Also belated, hope everyone in relationships, out of relationships, or anything in between had a Happy Valentines Day. There's so much love to celebrate.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

2010 Winter Olympics Begins Tonight!

I love the Olympics. In every one, there are home team favorites, Cinderella-story underdogs, surprise upsets, and victories that defy all odds. That for two weeks we can set aside cultural, political, religious, and any and all other differences to celebrate in camaraderie all that the human spirit can accomplish is astounding. It makes me at times hold my breath, then cry, then cheer, and then makes my heart ache with pride.


(vintage Olympic skiing photo by Frank Scherschel)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Fashionable Friends

Here is some lust-worthy photography by the fashion genius Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist. Maybe it's because I was just snowed in by the Snowpocalypse, but I think that the winter is always a little bit warmer with great clothes and great friends. And this is so fortuitously perfect with one of my own fashionable (and witty, and hilarious, and so, so talented) friends starting her new blog!


PS. These two boys' picture is part of Schuman's work for Burberry's Art of the Trench Campaign. And since adulthood, I always knew my first big-time purchase would be a Burberry trench...

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Memories of the Southwest

I remember the summer I lived with my cousins in Phoenix as one of the most life-affirming summers of my life. My cousins were physicians in a hospital-affiliated out-patient clinic, and Tiffany and I spent the most sweltering months of 2006 shadowing them and their colleagues in the range of specialties and services offered... and also playing with our seriously cuter-than-life baby nieces XinXin, AnAn, and Jingjing.

My cousin was pregnant at the time and I inherited the daily driving responsibilities to and from work. The surroundings were totally different than the developed suburbs I was used to and I remember being struck by the dry and cracked red clay that made up some of the roads, the fighter jets that seemed to race with me as they would glide through vibrant blue hundreds of feet above, and the piercing sun that would already be high in the cloudless sky during our 7:15am commute. But it was one of the rare mornings I didn't drive that I first noticed the dusty local roads we used actually bisected seemingly endless fields of corn plowed by farmers and their donkeys. I loved fixing my eyes and letting our speeding car turn the crop into a sunbathed golden-green blur.

However, as the summer progressed, I slowly lost pleasure in that cloud of color. Maybe it was because at the clinic, I was no longer blindly following along. Without realizing it, I had gained insight into the world of patient care and I could understand some of the common diagnoses, numbers, and acronyms thrown about in passing conversations between the staff. Tiffany and I could discuss topics we learned with each other, and then with our cousins over dinner at night. And every time I passed those same fields during our commutes, my eyes would dart quickly from point to point making me slightly carsick with the frequent lateral cycling of my eyes. This made me never desire to skip my driving duties anymore. Anyway, I had seen all the familiar sights and grown used to the familiar roads we used nearly every day. And mostly I had become much more eager to get to the clinic to see the less familiar sights and travel the less familiar "roads" of medicine and healthcare.

But there was one last time that I didn't drive. And that particular morning I really looked at those fields again. Like before, the speed of the car caused the fields to blur, but this time I found that if I happened to fix my eye at just the right point, as we passed it, I could see straight into the horizon through the space in between each straight row of corn. Though we'd quickly drive by and the rows would blur again, for that split-second before, my view was so gloriously clear and my path was so completely straight and unhindered that I felt I was invincible.


(photos from Flickr)

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Sister Winter

The rare but brilliant sun makes these winter temperatures bearable. Curses to you, Groundhog Phil. I hope dear Spring will sweep in early despite your shadow.

(Title by the amazing Sujfan Stevens, photo by Teika.)

Monday, February 1, 2010

Emma on PBS


PBS's Masterpiece Classics (though to me, it will always be Masterpiece Theatre with the Rondeau from Handel's Watermusic playing as the opening theme) is remaking yet another Jane Austen Classic. I'd be lying if I said Emma was my favorite Austen protagonist, but I can't help but grow attached to this bold yet endearingly unconventional Austen heroine. Afterall what is it in people that I love so much if it isn't non-conformity and quirky idiosyncrasies? Plus, BBC and PBS always do such a beautiful job of staying close to the original writing, choosing to make a 4 hour miniseries rather than sacrifice even a morsel of plot.

On top of that, the visual imagery is stunning while the characters are refreshingly subdued. Oh, and because I'm such a member of the literati and not shallow at all, the boys are quite aesthetically pleasing and their British accents aren't too hard on the ears...

You can stream them online commercial free. Run, don't walk!