I'm homesick. Miss shared experience. Adventure by oneself, while still adventure, gets old after awhile, old and lonely. Some people say you learn the most about yourself, grow, when you are alone. I think I'm the opposite. I sorta shut down. I think I'm more challenged by other people...
More on today later - it was a pretty good solo adventure day.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Afterthoughts
Yeah ok - so 2 things I didn't put in my blog from last night. I'm still annoyed about having gained weight and having issues with food. I wish it wasn't so easy for me to gain and so hard to take it off. Ugh - feeling fat :-(. Why is food so complicated? Why can't it just be enjoyed? I really do love food :-). Although my oral fixation doesn't help - I really need to chew on something all the time. Gum is my friend.
Also, I'm still confused about guys. They are confusing, see. I know I'm in a vulnerable place now and that doesn't help. But lately I've been really enjoying talking with Naveen. Is that bad? We shall see...
Ok bye again. Going to enjoy rainy New York.
Also, I'm still confused about guys. They are confusing, see. I know I'm in a vulnerable place now and that doesn't help. But lately I've been really enjoying talking with Naveen. Is that bad? We shall see...
Ok bye again. Going to enjoy rainy New York.
Friday, October 26, 2007
I like Montreal
So I'm back in New York now. But I was in Montreal for the last 6 days! And I had a good time. It was a bit of a nuisance to travel, but also nice to get out of the city. And awesome to discover a new place - love adventuring :-). And the conference went well...
So last Friday I went in to work because a colleague from UT was visiting. Was a productive day with research - lots of meetings and maybe a new direction. I really hope we can capitalize on this work before November 15 - our new deadline! But anyway - got a ride back to the city, dropped off money to secure my new place next to Union Square for November, made a few nice phone calls. Then went to dinner at a place my carpool guy (Ramon) had recommended - Florent. Looks like a diner, but had sorta French good. Treated myself to good french onion soup, then a sort of cous cous stew with chicken and sausage and lots of veggies - it was Moroccan, sorta spicy. Different and nice. Then went home and packed. Nice to be in the house alone - of course my roommate and I go out of town on the same weekend so neither of us can enjoy the solitude!
Had to get up really early Saturday to get to Penn Station for a 7:45 train. Sorta out of it, but I got a nice bagel :-). Met Mike a bit up the track. I ended up sleeping for a couple of hours - very nice. And then Mike and I got food and spent awhile in the observation car (on the 2nd level!). The scenery was just GORGEOUS - tried to get some pictures, but don't think I did it justice. The fall colors were beautiful, and we went through the Adirondack Park so past some beautiful lakes too. Wow. It was worth it. It was really nice to chat with Mike and catch up - he told me about his engagement. So train ride was supposed to take 10 hours, but it ended up taking more like 11. We were stopped on the border being inspected by Canadian border people for over an hour! They were intense - asking where you were going, for what purpose, what you have in your luggage, and they even were looking under seat cushions. Weird. Oh yeah and throughout the ride this older Lebanese gentleman wanted to talk to us (he said he wanted to talk to the pretty lady). He found out we were Computer Scientists and kept asking us questions about it although he knew very little about the subject. Ugh. But we finally made it and walked to the hotel.
So I went out to literally every meal up in Montreal (except breakfast). So this will be the food paragraph - summarizing :-). Had some awesome food. That first night I convinced people to walk to St. Laurant street where there were a ton of restaurants. I got a nice savory crepe stuffed with food of "mer" - seafood stuff. Scallops and shrimp and stuff - and cheese - don't forget the cheese. Sorta heavy but really tasty. Next lunch we went to a close place to get Dim Sum in Chinatown which was next to the conference center. Dim Sum was good (and free - Intel paid), but I am sick of it - the consistency is just...slimy. Things that aren't so good for me and make my stomach gurgle a bit. So don't want it again for awhile... Then for dinner we went to Old Town which was close to the conference place. Old Town street was really cute with lots of art and stone buildings. We went to a slightly fancy place called Pyrennes - so French/Spanish food. Got wine, and very slow service, and small portions for a lot of money - got tasty braised lamb though :-). Love lamb. Next lunch - back to old town - sat outside in a courtyard and it was a beautiful day. Got an awesome green salad, then salmon with pesto sauce and bean sprouts. Yum. Fancy meals... That night we had a reception for the conference, so I basically ate finger foods and vegies they had there. Then I convinced people to walk to St. Denis street - another one with a ton of restaurants. A bunch of us went to a pub (they have good ones here), and got some tasty local beers and a cheese and pear plate - yum :-).
So we come to Tuesday. Ate some Mediterranean food - beef and chicken shwarma in the conference center. Really rude waiter. Btw the service in general in Montreal is slow, and you have to ask for the check because they will never bring it! Then for dinner joined a bunch of people for Thai food down the main shopping street (St. Catherine). Had tofu red curry - it was odd, had pumpkin squash in it. OK. Then went out to the British pub street for a beer afterwards - Crescent street :-). Got most of the street recommendations from Ramon who went to undergrad at McGill up there. Beautiful campus, but I'll get to that. Then Wednesday I broke down and though we were at a fancy-ish French place I got pizza. Had to put red flakes on it as Naveen taught me :-). Then that night I sort of invited us out with David Bacon - guy I work with at IBM and program chair for the conference. So he's a big wig. And my advisor was going too. But David is a food snob, so we went to a very fancy French restaurant and spent $50 per person! Got some red wine, of course, and had some good leek soup and duck. The duck was a bit chewy but I like the veggies. The dessert (we got one of those fixed price, including soup and dessert and coffee) was horrible. I think it was supposed to be carrot cake, but it was more like carrot brick with random nuts in it. So yeah - sorta overpriced for the restaurant. Oh well. Ok, last day of the conference - Thursday. Went to a fancy French place for lunch by happenstance, but it was awesome! Also on St. Laurant. Another price fix, but way underpriced. And they even give a complimentary little appetizer and dessert even if you don't order anything. This place was small, but ceremony and plating was everything - very gourmet! Everything was so delicious - small quantities, but that was all you needed. Yum. Had a pumpkin and ginger soup. Then had sea bass special over apple pieces and with a cider sauce - yum. Fun find. Last meal with the gang was back in Old Town - we went to Indian! And nice enough Dave Grove bought the meal for us on IBM's dime! We did family style - got samosas, good local beer. We had 4 dishes (plus naan of course): lamb vindaloo, chicken korma, lamb saagwala (me of course), and chicken tikka masala. Love Indian food - reminds me of Naveen. The tikka masala was awesome, and the saag was good. The vindaloo was HOT!! Like just a little bit burned your mouth. Fun to eat. We had a lot of jokes about the vindaloo - burning one guy's ears :-). Fun group. But for some reason I got made fun of for saying silly things - I really didn't drunk that much I promise! But we had fun and went for another beer afterwards - rounded out the conference nicely!
So much for food. The conference was fun. The first 2 days was a specialized conference for just my field - Memory Management. I loved those days - I knew most of the crowd there (pretty small - 60 people?) and it was easy to talk to people. And the work was largely interesting. So fun times. Felt charged again. Sometimes I get down on research, but conference sort of cheer me up - like I do belong here! I know what's going on, I understand the trends, and I can throw around creative ideas with people. Not just in your own little world doing your own research :-). It's fun to go to conferences and hang out with people. Anyway. The actual conference OOPSLA, or ooPSLA as they are calling it now, was less in line with my research, so I didn't go to as many sessions. It's just a really broad conference, and there's lots of industry people and tutorials and other things going on. And boy did they suck with food and refreshments this year! But something fun - ran into a friend who I went to undergrad at UA with, and a lecturer at UA who I worked with when I did undergrad-TAing. Fun to see them again! And saw my groupmate (Mike) give his 2 - yes 2 - research talks there. Sigh. Wish I could get 1 paper in once, somewhere! It was fun to be at the conference, but felt a little sad that I really didn't have my own successful, solid research to talk to people about - to have people come up to me and interested in my stuff. When is it my turn? Why do I feel like I've gotten the short end of the stick for a long time? I hope it works for me, and SOON!
But the nice thing about not wanting to go to a lot of the conference is that I had time to exercise everday, and time to walk around the city which was awesome! I used my cute hotel's gym 4 times, snuck into the Hyatt (conference hotel) once morning to swim - yay!, and ran outside with some other students another day. Felt good about all the exercise! And swimming was fun - did I think around 1200 meters in about 38 minutes which I think is good, but it's harder in warm water! That was the day that it rained all day too. The first 2 days (when I was at the conference the whole time), it was warm and beautiful and sunny. Then it rained all day Tuesday and got cold, so the high was in the 50s the rest of the week. But after Tuesday it was sunny at least, and I liked the fall days! So after the conference started, I walked around a different part of town everyday. Tuesday I walked around St. Catherine - the shopping street, and through the really pretty McGill campus. Had lots of fall colors - red, orange, yellow and green leaves. The campus is at the foot of Mont Real - the "mountain" in the middle of town. And some of the buildings are pretty - made of stone with the green patina roofs - sorta castle-like. Neat to blend in too :-). So that was a fun walk. Then Wednesday walked around Old Montreal and the port area. Also nice - some fancy churches and buildings passed. Some pretty parks. That was also where me and some others (I was the slowest and the first to quit running) ran later that day - pretty :-). 50s is good for running! Then Thursday I left after lunch and went to climb Mont Real! I highly recommend that - beautiful walk up the mountain, altho the path is long and winding. Wish I had a bike like a lot of other people. Pretty trees, again, then at the top (after several flights of stairs), there was a lookout area. Beautiful cityscapes! You could see for miles and miles - the downtown area, the river, bridges everything. Of course I took pics :-). Fun times. Liked that walk the best. Walked down through McGill - was a lot faster than taking the winding path because you basically walk down stairs straight down the mountain.
Today was my last day. Was sad most of my city-seeing was by myself, though I really enjoyed it. I love exploring a new city, especially when it's fun and easy to walk and it's pretty and good weather. I skipping seeing museums and the like... Prefer to be outside! But yeah, was a little lonely. Although I had fun going out drinking with my work buddies just about every night, I was a bit empty - like no one really asking how my day REALLY was. No one really knowing me... I guess it's par for the course, but it struck me when I was coming home today on the plane and they announced it would be late and we could call quickly to notify people in NYC that no one cared what time I got home... But I made it home ok! Had a lazy day today actually - let myself sleep in until 9, then did free continental breakfast and workout, some email checking. Got out of the room finally, then went out on the town - took the metro to the Olympic Stadium because apparently that's a big landmark there. It was neat, but not much to see. There was a Biodome and Botanical Garden next to the stadium, the their entrance fees were > $10 each and I only had an hour and a half, so I passed. I just strolled around and ate lunch and enjoyed the trees and all. Felt peaceful. Felt nice. I feel very versatile now - am able to be dropped in any major city, find my way around, see things there is to see, use public transport, and enjoy myself. No problem! Even those like Montreal where the main language isn't English! (It's French). So fun... Only Canadian city I still need to see is Toronto I think :-).
So, finally got home after an interesting airport trip in Montreal (tried to take the bus, then it sucked so I took a taxi, and slept most of hte ride to the airport). Then my flight was switched when I got to the airport, and it was delayed. But it was all ok. Just wish it wasn't so hard to get to Laguardia! Took a bus into the city, then the subway to get home, then of course had to walk 10 minutes in the rain to actually get home. Was glad to be back, "home" as it were. Familiarity at least, although again feeling a little empty. But hope to sleep well this weekend and have some fun. Hopefully it won't keep raining! Did treat myself to sushi tonight - with a seaweed + edamame salad before which was tasty. Then got a Magnolia Cafe fresh cupcake for dessert - yum :-). Yay accessibility!
Well, this is long and I should get some sleep. Hope you all have a fun weekend planned! Later...
So last Friday I went in to work because a colleague from UT was visiting. Was a productive day with research - lots of meetings and maybe a new direction. I really hope we can capitalize on this work before November 15 - our new deadline! But anyway - got a ride back to the city, dropped off money to secure my new place next to Union Square for November, made a few nice phone calls. Then went to dinner at a place my carpool guy (Ramon) had recommended - Florent. Looks like a diner, but had sorta French good. Treated myself to good french onion soup, then a sort of cous cous stew with chicken and sausage and lots of veggies - it was Moroccan, sorta spicy. Different and nice. Then went home and packed. Nice to be in the house alone - of course my roommate and I go out of town on the same weekend so neither of us can enjoy the solitude!
Had to get up really early Saturday to get to Penn Station for a 7:45 train. Sorta out of it, but I got a nice bagel :-). Met Mike a bit up the track. I ended up sleeping for a couple of hours - very nice. And then Mike and I got food and spent awhile in the observation car (on the 2nd level!). The scenery was just GORGEOUS - tried to get some pictures, but don't think I did it justice. The fall colors were beautiful, and we went through the Adirondack Park so past some beautiful lakes too. Wow. It was worth it. It was really nice to chat with Mike and catch up - he told me about his engagement. So train ride was supposed to take 10 hours, but it ended up taking more like 11. We were stopped on the border being inspected by Canadian border people for over an hour! They were intense - asking where you were going, for what purpose, what you have in your luggage, and they even were looking under seat cushions. Weird. Oh yeah and throughout the ride this older Lebanese gentleman wanted to talk to us (he said he wanted to talk to the pretty lady). He found out we were Computer Scientists and kept asking us questions about it although he knew very little about the subject. Ugh. But we finally made it and walked to the hotel.
So I went out to literally every meal up in Montreal (except breakfast). So this will be the food paragraph - summarizing :-). Had some awesome food. That first night I convinced people to walk to St. Laurant street where there were a ton of restaurants. I got a nice savory crepe stuffed with food of "mer" - seafood stuff. Scallops and shrimp and stuff - and cheese - don't forget the cheese. Sorta heavy but really tasty. Next lunch we went to a close place to get Dim Sum in Chinatown which was next to the conference center. Dim Sum was good (and free - Intel paid), but I am sick of it - the consistency is just...slimy. Things that aren't so good for me and make my stomach gurgle a bit. So don't want it again for awhile... Then for dinner we went to Old Town which was close to the conference place. Old Town street was really cute with lots of art and stone buildings. We went to a slightly fancy place called Pyrennes - so French/Spanish food. Got wine, and very slow service, and small portions for a lot of money - got tasty braised lamb though :-). Love lamb. Next lunch - back to old town - sat outside in a courtyard and it was a beautiful day. Got an awesome green salad, then salmon with pesto sauce and bean sprouts. Yum. Fancy meals... That night we had a reception for the conference, so I basically ate finger foods and vegies they had there. Then I convinced people to walk to St. Denis street - another one with a ton of restaurants. A bunch of us went to a pub (they have good ones here), and got some tasty local beers and a cheese and pear plate - yum :-).
So we come to Tuesday. Ate some Mediterranean food - beef and chicken shwarma in the conference center. Really rude waiter. Btw the service in general in Montreal is slow, and you have to ask for the check because they will never bring it! Then for dinner joined a bunch of people for Thai food down the main shopping street (St. Catherine). Had tofu red curry - it was odd, had pumpkin squash in it. OK. Then went out to the British pub street for a beer afterwards - Crescent street :-). Got most of the street recommendations from Ramon who went to undergrad at McGill up there. Beautiful campus, but I'll get to that. Then Wednesday I broke down and though we were at a fancy-ish French place I got pizza. Had to put red flakes on it as Naveen taught me :-). Then that night I sort of invited us out with David Bacon - guy I work with at IBM and program chair for the conference. So he's a big wig. And my advisor was going too. But David is a food snob, so we went to a very fancy French restaurant and spent $50 per person! Got some red wine, of course, and had some good leek soup and duck. The duck was a bit chewy but I like the veggies. The dessert (we got one of those fixed price, including soup and dessert and coffee) was horrible. I think it was supposed to be carrot cake, but it was more like carrot brick with random nuts in it. So yeah - sorta overpriced for the restaurant. Oh well. Ok, last day of the conference - Thursday. Went to a fancy French place for lunch by happenstance, but it was awesome! Also on St. Laurant. Another price fix, but way underpriced. And they even give a complimentary little appetizer and dessert even if you don't order anything. This place was small, but ceremony and plating was everything - very gourmet! Everything was so delicious - small quantities, but that was all you needed. Yum. Had a pumpkin and ginger soup. Then had sea bass special over apple pieces and with a cider sauce - yum. Fun find. Last meal with the gang was back in Old Town - we went to Indian! And nice enough Dave Grove bought the meal for us on IBM's dime! We did family style - got samosas, good local beer. We had 4 dishes (plus naan of course): lamb vindaloo, chicken korma, lamb saagwala (me of course), and chicken tikka masala. Love Indian food - reminds me of Naveen. The tikka masala was awesome, and the saag was good. The vindaloo was HOT!! Like just a little bit burned your mouth. Fun to eat. We had a lot of jokes about the vindaloo - burning one guy's ears :-). Fun group. But for some reason I got made fun of for saying silly things - I really didn't drunk that much I promise! But we had fun and went for another beer afterwards - rounded out the conference nicely!
So much for food. The conference was fun. The first 2 days was a specialized conference for just my field - Memory Management. I loved those days - I knew most of the crowd there (pretty small - 60 people?) and it was easy to talk to people. And the work was largely interesting. So fun times. Felt charged again. Sometimes I get down on research, but conference sort of cheer me up - like I do belong here! I know what's going on, I understand the trends, and I can throw around creative ideas with people. Not just in your own little world doing your own research :-). It's fun to go to conferences and hang out with people. Anyway. The actual conference OOPSLA, or ooPSLA as they are calling it now, was less in line with my research, so I didn't go to as many sessions. It's just a really broad conference, and there's lots of industry people and tutorials and other things going on. And boy did they suck with food and refreshments this year! But something fun - ran into a friend who I went to undergrad at UA with, and a lecturer at UA who I worked with when I did undergrad-TAing. Fun to see them again! And saw my groupmate (Mike) give his 2 - yes 2 - research talks there. Sigh. Wish I could get 1 paper in once, somewhere! It was fun to be at the conference, but felt a little sad that I really didn't have my own successful, solid research to talk to people about - to have people come up to me and interested in my stuff. When is it my turn? Why do I feel like I've gotten the short end of the stick for a long time? I hope it works for me, and SOON!
But the nice thing about not wanting to go to a lot of the conference is that I had time to exercise everday, and time to walk around the city which was awesome! I used my cute hotel's gym 4 times, snuck into the Hyatt (conference hotel) once morning to swim - yay!, and ran outside with some other students another day. Felt good about all the exercise! And swimming was fun - did I think around 1200 meters in about 38 minutes which I think is good, but it's harder in warm water! That was the day that it rained all day too. The first 2 days (when I was at the conference the whole time), it was warm and beautiful and sunny. Then it rained all day Tuesday and got cold, so the high was in the 50s the rest of the week. But after Tuesday it was sunny at least, and I liked the fall days! So after the conference started, I walked around a different part of town everyday. Tuesday I walked around St. Catherine - the shopping street, and through the really pretty McGill campus. Had lots of fall colors - red, orange, yellow and green leaves. The campus is at the foot of Mont Real - the "mountain" in the middle of town. And some of the buildings are pretty - made of stone with the green patina roofs - sorta castle-like. Neat to blend in too :-). So that was a fun walk. Then Wednesday walked around Old Montreal and the port area. Also nice - some fancy churches and buildings passed. Some pretty parks. That was also where me and some others (I was the slowest and the first to quit running) ran later that day - pretty :-). 50s is good for running! Then Thursday I left after lunch and went to climb Mont Real! I highly recommend that - beautiful walk up the mountain, altho the path is long and winding. Wish I had a bike like a lot of other people. Pretty trees, again, then at the top (after several flights of stairs), there was a lookout area. Beautiful cityscapes! You could see for miles and miles - the downtown area, the river, bridges everything. Of course I took pics :-). Fun times. Liked that walk the best. Walked down through McGill - was a lot faster than taking the winding path because you basically walk down stairs straight down the mountain.
Today was my last day. Was sad most of my city-seeing was by myself, though I really enjoyed it. I love exploring a new city, especially when it's fun and easy to walk and it's pretty and good weather. I skipping seeing museums and the like... Prefer to be outside! But yeah, was a little lonely. Although I had fun going out drinking with my work buddies just about every night, I was a bit empty - like no one really asking how my day REALLY was. No one really knowing me... I guess it's par for the course, but it struck me when I was coming home today on the plane and they announced it would be late and we could call quickly to notify people in NYC that no one cared what time I got home... But I made it home ok! Had a lazy day today actually - let myself sleep in until 9, then did free continental breakfast and workout, some email checking. Got out of the room finally, then went out on the town - took the metro to the Olympic Stadium because apparently that's a big landmark there. It was neat, but not much to see. There was a Biodome and Botanical Garden next to the stadium, the their entrance fees were > $10 each and I only had an hour and a half, so I passed. I just strolled around and ate lunch and enjoyed the trees and all. Felt peaceful. Felt nice. I feel very versatile now - am able to be dropped in any major city, find my way around, see things there is to see, use public transport, and enjoy myself. No problem! Even those like Montreal where the main language isn't English! (It's French). So fun... Only Canadian city I still need to see is Toronto I think :-).
So, finally got home after an interesting airport trip in Montreal (tried to take the bus, then it sucked so I took a taxi, and slept most of hte ride to the airport). Then my flight was switched when I got to the airport, and it was delayed. But it was all ok. Just wish it wasn't so hard to get to Laguardia! Took a bus into the city, then the subway to get home, then of course had to walk 10 minutes in the rain to actually get home. Was glad to be back, "home" as it were. Familiarity at least, although again feeling a little empty. But hope to sleep well this weekend and have some fun. Hopefully it won't keep raining! Did treat myself to sushi tonight - with a seaweed + edamame salad before which was tasty. Then got a Magnolia Cafe fresh cupcake for dessert - yum :-). Yay accessibility!
Well, this is long and I should get some sleep. Hope you all have a fun weekend planned! Later...
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