So Tuesday night was hard, but it's gotten easier. I really think us being long distance helps because I am used to being alone and being independent and filling my time. So I'm trying to focus on that, and on the future.
So I did go swimming Tuesday night and that was great. I ended up swimming 32 laps! Met my goal of swimming a mile (and then some)! It was exhausting but really rewarding. Was proud of myself. Glad I was able to take advantage of the pool and do some swimming in the park this summer!
Then I road around the park on my bike Wednesday evening - did my 10 mile bike! I do love riding around the park - it's very pretty. And I did laundry that night - very exciting. But was feeling up and more confident.
So Thursday the office shut early - they are shutting down the whole building and networks and everything for the 4 day weekend ( we got Friday off!). So although it was sad to see Shan Shan and Emina at IBM for the last time, it was nice to leave early. I went to a fun dance thing in Central Park that was fun - learning to Disco dance! There were good dancers as our teachers, and a neat DJ. Danced to Stayin Alive. I got a big grin on my face when "R-E-S-P-E-C-T" came on :-). I mostly danced with some older black women - trying to get down the quick-quick, slow-slow pattern (back right, front left, front right, front left). I kept wanting to do jitterbug instead. But got a few fun male partners that were neat to dance with - made me happy to dance and just hang out. The guys were very turny - sometimes I had a hard time keeping up. But yeah - people watching and chatting with the older black ladies was fun :-). So good adventures in NYC. And then I actually rode my bike over to the east side to check out a possible place to live for the fall! It was interesting - a place in "Dormandy Court" where everyone is fresh out of college. I actually felt a little old and mature compared to that place! The apartment was cute, apartment with 2 other 24 year old girls. Was ok, but not sure it's the area I want to move to.... So will keep looking, but it's exciting that I might get to know a new neighborhood in Manhattan!
So my off day - Friday! Went down to farmers market in front of my house which was fun. Love the fresh stuff! Made me a little sad - thinking of Naveen going all these weeks for us. But then I went to Central Park to take advantage of pool for the last time before it closes on Labor Day! Did only 20 laps this time - it was getting hard and I think I need a bit of a break from swimming for awhile! But glad to get the exercise... Then went downtown to meet Shan Shan and Emina for lunch - ate at a cute French place. Love those girls - we have fun conversations about the stress of Comp Sci, having kids, living in the city, boys, everything! We get along great :-). I feel lucky to have made good friends up here, but know it'll be sad to go to work next week and have them not be there... Then walked downtown and went shopping! Went to a place with discount designer clothes - Loehmans. That was really fun! Bought a new purse because the girls convinced me I need a bigger one to hold an umbrella, camera, everything as things don't all fit in my current purse. Then bought some cute shoes - black flats sorta like ballet shoes! Then found 2 dresses (1 green, 1 black and white) I liked and 1 wool skirt (brown)! Was really excited to find these things and fun to shop with the girls. Really good day. And some good prices :-). We met up with Emina's fiance and walked around a bit, then we met up with some of Emina's friends later for dinner. Had a nice dinner at a cute little place. Then went to a bar. Actually invited another friend of mine from the city - that guy that gave me a ride home from softball who also works at IBM but is finishing law school. So it was good to see him again and have another Manhattan friend. Nice to sorta get to know him, and also have Rishi's number - Emina's good friend from college. So went out drinking for awhile and had a good night on the town! Drank a little too much, unfortunately, but made it home ok :-).
So have some fun plans for the rest of the holiday weekend - going on a bike ride now down the river. Going to check out another possible place to live. Tomorrow I'm meeting Shan Shan for Dim Sum again - in Chinatown. Then think I'll head to Coney Island to check it out! Unfortunately Shan Shan can't come because she has to go back to Boston because of a death in the family :-(. Then the softball friend - Mohammed - said he has tickets for the US Open on Monday, so I guess I get to go twice - really looking forward to it!
Happy Labor DAy weekend everyone! Have fun. I'm blessed with wonderful family and friends!
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
P.S.
Alright I lied. I am sad, and I am lonely, and it's hard. I'm just trying to make it through this. On the up side - I went to the library, got a New York library card, and successfully checked out Harry Potter book 6. Nothing like getting lost in a good fun book :-).
Culture out the ears
Hi all. Thanks for all of your support about Naveen. I really appreciate all your nice words, encouraging statements, and advice. I do feel loved by special people :-). People are always amazing that way. Let me just say I am fine. I actually think although this took awhile for me to understand, I had been slowly getting less vested in the relationship as it required me to be more independent anyway. So although I have cried some, I really do feel, on the whole, strong and confident and excited about my future. I already have my continuing lists of what to do in the city updated. And I feel fairly happy and I know I'll be ok. Here, btw, is the current plan:
Labor Day Weekend: Spend last bits of time with Emina and Shan Shan while they are here. Go to Coney Island. Sleep!
Sept 7 + Weekend: US Open + Christine and Jeff visit! Yay :-).
Sept 15 Weekend: Go to Boston to visit Emina and Aled - yay :-).
Sept 22 Weekend: Weekend in NYC! Do last bits of summer activities - park concerts, storytelling, maybe kayak? Wander.
Sept 29 Weekend: Mom visits - nuf said. Yay :-).
Beginning of October - move somewhere. Also see fall colors.
Mid October - visit Christine in Maryland? Or convince her to meet me in Philadelphia which I've never seen?
First half of November - work hard before PLDI conference deadline which is Nov 15.
Thanksgiving - maybe go visit Grandma?
December 1 or 15 - move back to Austin - yay!
Christmas with the fam.
So that's the plan, and I'm sticking to it. I think the time will fly by. And it'll be interesting to see this city in different seasons!
So, with the culture update. Although there were a lot of chaotic emotions going on, Naveen and I decided to make the best of his last weekend in New York. As I say, the breakup was amiable.
Friday night we went out to a Greek place in West Midtown suggested by our doorman George. It was tasty! Got an awesome cheese and shrimp baked appetizer. I got the traditional Greek Mousaka - kinda like their lasagna which was really tasty. And Naveen got their lamb kabob which was good. I heard their fish is good and I gotta go back for spanikopita sometime!
Saturday was a sleep in day. But finally got up and went to the pool since the weather had been crummy all week and I hadn't been able to swim. The water was chilly, but I forced myself to swim another 26 laps! Was slower, but still proud of myself. And the laps were in the middle of the pool so slightly longer than my normal lap so woohoo! Gotta love the swimming. I'm bummed the pool closes Labor Day. Also met a new friend there who I hope to see swimming this week at the pool - a girl who just moved to the upper east side and does investment baking. Yay maybe I can make friends in the city! So got a late start on the actual day, but finally left the house and took Naveen to the MOMA - Museum of Modern Art. Although neither of us are big fans of modern art, I heard it was a must-see. So we saw modern art. Some was cool - I really liked the architecture section with funky chairs and lamps and functional things. It was neat to see some of the artists whose pieces were there - Picasso, Miro, Matisse, Mondrian, Monet, van Gogh. But I really am not a big fan of the "red canvas with white stripe" being real art. I could've done that! But it was good to go and see it, even if we didn't need more than an hour and a half to see it.
So we actually decided to catch the Riverside Park's production of MacBeth on one of it's last nights and lo and behold it WASN'T raining! So saw MacBeth which was very well-done actually and enjoyable. Nice company. Small crowd. Then we decided to head back down to Grand Central for the famous Oyster Bar Restaurant down there - friends had recommended it. It was nice with wood panels and such. I had some New England clam chowder which was really tasty, and enjoyed 1 of Naveen's oysters. It was a bit fishy. Then we got some fried scallop dish which was ok, and a sampler of 4 seafood salads which was fun. Crab meat caesar salad, poached salmon, squid marinated and on top of a bell pepper, and jumbo shrimp. Pretty good :-). I'm really broadening as far as seafood!
Sunday we got up earlier to meet friends at Dim Sum - this time at a place in the west side. It was fancily decorated with mesh coverings over lights in the shapes of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. Interesting. It was more hoisty-toity and expensive than our Chinatown place which I liked better. And they tried to force some food on us that we didn't want. Weird. But the food was generally good and the company of course was fabulous - Emina, Aled, Shan Shan, Naveen and I. We definitely nerded out, but also talked about clothes and products too! It's fun to hang out :-). Then we went our separate ways, and we made it down to Battery Park - Naveen and I - because I wanted to see a free modern dance festival I had heard about down there. Unfortunately we got there a bit late and I mostly got to see south Asian dancing - troupes from India or American troupes doing some modern/Indian mix. There was 1 cool group that did a sort of martial arts modern combo with storytelling which was interesting. But I missed the true modern groups which I wanted to see. Oh well. Naveen and I meandered through the city for the rest of teh afternoon. We finally ended up at the famous Carnegie Deli for dinner. Sorta commercial, but the pastrami sandwich was tasty, and the knish - yum. We took home a cheesecake with strawberries on top for later which was really tasty. Yum. And the appetizer - how can I forget - it was a bowl of pickles! That made me happy right away :-).
So all in all it was a good weekend if a bit of a rollercoaster. Naveen was pretty emotional and psycho-analytic while I was sort of trying not to think about things. It was odd, but I'm glad we got to spend time together and talk through some things about the relationship which was good. Nice last times of our era. It was sad to realize we had to split - don't get me wrong, it was very necessary. But we were compatible and had fun in a lot of ways. So yeah, sad. But the right thing.
Monday was another day at work. I need to get back into work - I've been so unfocussed lately and distracted. But it was Emina's birthday, so we went out to a nice dinner for that to a Portugese/Brazilian place with lots of seafood. It was wonderful! So much "enjoy life and good friends" type of conversation. I was the American, and then there was the German+Turkish couple, the Bosnian, and the Chinese girl. Very interesting conversations - about pets, marriage, children, parents, culture, education. Random things. It was so much fun, though - we all got along well. And I somehow was the "enlightened American". Seriously. They all advocated moving away from your parents/family to another state to go to college - thought it was so necessary to growth that you leave your family and get some freedom and not be so under their noses. I think you do need freedom to some extent, but I said that kind of movement was erroding our American family because there is no more extended families and there are only small family units. Then they also argued that we should just standardize and everyone should learn English. But I said that was very arrogant as English speakers, and there's something to languages being part of culture in parts of the world and it's good to learn many languages. They said that since they all had English as a 2nd language, it wasn't arrogant for them to say - it would just be arrogant if I said it :-). Very funny. So again, good people, good conversation. We were at dinner for over 3.5 hours! And don't get me started about our lunch conversation about religion and money and suicide bombers. But anyway - I live for these discussions :-). And the food - Emina and I shared a shellfish rice traditional stew thing - was good (scallops, mussels, clam, shrimp, lobster). I liked their ceremony - they brought out bread and sausage automatically before the meal, and grapes to finish. Fun :-). So I got home late and Naveen and I had some time to say goodbye before he our short sleep and him leaving at 5:30am. I was bleary-eyed and in shock, but it really was good that he finally left. I'm sure it'll take a bit of getting used to, but really - I'll be ok. I know how to fill my schedule :-).
Tata and hope all's well.
Labor Day Weekend: Spend last bits of time with Emina and Shan Shan while they are here. Go to Coney Island. Sleep!
Sept 7 + Weekend: US Open + Christine and Jeff visit! Yay :-).
Sept 15 Weekend: Go to Boston to visit Emina and Aled - yay :-).
Sept 22 Weekend: Weekend in NYC! Do last bits of summer activities - park concerts, storytelling, maybe kayak? Wander.
Sept 29 Weekend: Mom visits - nuf said. Yay :-).
Beginning of October - move somewhere. Also see fall colors.
Mid October - visit Christine in Maryland? Or convince her to meet me in Philadelphia which I've never seen?
First half of November - work hard before PLDI conference deadline which is Nov 15.
Thanksgiving - maybe go visit Grandma?
December 1 or 15 - move back to Austin - yay!
Christmas with the fam.
So that's the plan, and I'm sticking to it. I think the time will fly by. And it'll be interesting to see this city in different seasons!
So, with the culture update. Although there were a lot of chaotic emotions going on, Naveen and I decided to make the best of his last weekend in New York. As I say, the breakup was amiable.
Friday night we went out to a Greek place in West Midtown suggested by our doorman George. It was tasty! Got an awesome cheese and shrimp baked appetizer. I got the traditional Greek Mousaka - kinda like their lasagna which was really tasty. And Naveen got their lamb kabob which was good. I heard their fish is good and I gotta go back for spanikopita sometime!
Saturday was a sleep in day. But finally got up and went to the pool since the weather had been crummy all week and I hadn't been able to swim. The water was chilly, but I forced myself to swim another 26 laps! Was slower, but still proud of myself. And the laps were in the middle of the pool so slightly longer than my normal lap so woohoo! Gotta love the swimming. I'm bummed the pool closes Labor Day. Also met a new friend there who I hope to see swimming this week at the pool - a girl who just moved to the upper east side and does investment baking. Yay maybe I can make friends in the city! So got a late start on the actual day, but finally left the house and took Naveen to the MOMA - Museum of Modern Art. Although neither of us are big fans of modern art, I heard it was a must-see. So we saw modern art. Some was cool - I really liked the architecture section with funky chairs and lamps and functional things. It was neat to see some of the artists whose pieces were there - Picasso, Miro, Matisse, Mondrian, Monet, van Gogh. But I really am not a big fan of the "red canvas with white stripe" being real art. I could've done that! But it was good to go and see it, even if we didn't need more than an hour and a half to see it.
So we actually decided to catch the Riverside Park's production of MacBeth on one of it's last nights and lo and behold it WASN'T raining! So saw MacBeth which was very well-done actually and enjoyable. Nice company. Small crowd. Then we decided to head back down to Grand Central for the famous Oyster Bar Restaurant down there - friends had recommended it. It was nice with wood panels and such. I had some New England clam chowder which was really tasty, and enjoyed 1 of Naveen's oysters. It was a bit fishy. Then we got some fried scallop dish which was ok, and a sampler of 4 seafood salads which was fun. Crab meat caesar salad, poached salmon, squid marinated and on top of a bell pepper, and jumbo shrimp. Pretty good :-). I'm really broadening as far as seafood!
Sunday we got up earlier to meet friends at Dim Sum - this time at a place in the west side. It was fancily decorated with mesh coverings over lights in the shapes of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals. Interesting. It was more hoisty-toity and expensive than our Chinatown place which I liked better. And they tried to force some food on us that we didn't want. Weird. But the food was generally good and the company of course was fabulous - Emina, Aled, Shan Shan, Naveen and I. We definitely nerded out, but also talked about clothes and products too! It's fun to hang out :-). Then we went our separate ways, and we made it down to Battery Park - Naveen and I - because I wanted to see a free modern dance festival I had heard about down there. Unfortunately we got there a bit late and I mostly got to see south Asian dancing - troupes from India or American troupes doing some modern/Indian mix. There was 1 cool group that did a sort of martial arts modern combo with storytelling which was interesting. But I missed the true modern groups which I wanted to see. Oh well. Naveen and I meandered through the city for the rest of teh afternoon. We finally ended up at the famous Carnegie Deli for dinner. Sorta commercial, but the pastrami sandwich was tasty, and the knish - yum. We took home a cheesecake with strawberries on top for later which was really tasty. Yum. And the appetizer - how can I forget - it was a bowl of pickles! That made me happy right away :-).
So all in all it was a good weekend if a bit of a rollercoaster. Naveen was pretty emotional and psycho-analytic while I was sort of trying not to think about things. It was odd, but I'm glad we got to spend time together and talk through some things about the relationship which was good. Nice last times of our era. It was sad to realize we had to split - don't get me wrong, it was very necessary. But we were compatible and had fun in a lot of ways. So yeah, sad. But the right thing.
Monday was another day at work. I need to get back into work - I've been so unfocussed lately and distracted. But it was Emina's birthday, so we went out to a nice dinner for that to a Portugese/Brazilian place with lots of seafood. It was wonderful! So much "enjoy life and good friends" type of conversation. I was the American, and then there was the German+Turkish couple, the Bosnian, and the Chinese girl. Very interesting conversations - about pets, marriage, children, parents, culture, education. Random things. It was so much fun, though - we all got along well. And I somehow was the "enlightened American". Seriously. They all advocated moving away from your parents/family to another state to go to college - thought it was so necessary to growth that you leave your family and get some freedom and not be so under their noses. I think you do need freedom to some extent, but I said that kind of movement was erroding our American family because there is no more extended families and there are only small family units. Then they also argued that we should just standardize and everyone should learn English. But I said that was very arrogant as English speakers, and there's something to languages being part of culture in parts of the world and it's good to learn many languages. They said that since they all had English as a 2nd language, it wasn't arrogant for them to say - it would just be arrogant if I said it :-). Very funny. So again, good people, good conversation. We were at dinner for over 3.5 hours! And don't get me started about our lunch conversation about religion and money and suicide bombers. But anyway - I live for these discussions :-). And the food - Emina and I shared a shellfish rice traditional stew thing - was good (scallops, mussels, clam, shrimp, lobster). I liked their ceremony - they brought out bread and sausage automatically before the meal, and grapes to finish. Fun :-). So I got home late and Naveen and I had some time to say goodbye before he our short sleep and him leaving at 5:30am. I was bleary-eyed and in shock, but it really was good that he finally left. I'm sure it'll take a bit of getting used to, but really - I'll be ok. I know how to fill my schedule :-).
Tata and hope all's well.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The End of an Era
Hi all. Sad news to say today. Naveen and I broke up - we are no longer dating. I really do feel like this is the end of an era. The reasons are complicated. We are amicable towards each other, which although rare, I believe is a good thing. Basically we grew apart. He got very ambitious with school about a year ago, to the point where he didn't have time to invest in the relationship and demanded a lot of me that I wasn't happy with. Then I began to resent all my sacrifices for him. We had arguments, and had to compromise on a lot of things. In the end, though, I broke it off because he was no longer making me happy. Quite the opposite - I felt misunderstood. I was not being supported and unconditionally loved, rather judged by his high expectations of perfection. He was very critical, and not able to be emotional himself. He hid his emotions and judged mine harshly. He wasn't able to empathize we discovered, and sympathy was hard for him. Instead of saying things in encouraging, loving tones, it was in critical, stern terms. Anyway, I don't want to bad mouth - he is a very nice guy, a loyal, honest man. Also an ambitious man. He can be caring, and he holds to his promises. But somewhere we went astray. It is sad because we thought we'd be together forever. And we have a lot of fun doing things together - similar interests, and future dreams together. But it was not meant to be. I do want to be with someone who knows I am a wonderful person and can show me that daily, who can be supportive and emotional with me. Who can make me happy again.
So that's the short of it. I might write more later, but I wanted to tell people. I will need your help - I am scared of being in NYC alone. For all my love of the place, and all my bravado, I don't feel completely at home here and next week my 2 closest friends leave too. So I am left with only acquaintances. And I know I will be lonely. And because of other events this week - my advisor is now at IBM - I might be here until/through December. She wants me to stay here. It is hard, it might be the right thing to do for my PhD, but it is hard for me. We will see where the road lies. Naveen is leaving on Tuesday and I am not going to Belize with him over Labor Day. I will value my friend and family visits all the more now. And I know I can be strong - I am a strong person - and there is a lot to look forward to out there. But there are always hard times too. So please remember I need you now more than ever.
More on the weekends events later... *Love*, Jenn
So that's the short of it. I might write more later, but I wanted to tell people. I will need your help - I am scared of being in NYC alone. For all my love of the place, and all my bravado, I don't feel completely at home here and next week my 2 closest friends leave too. So I am left with only acquaintances. And I know I will be lonely. And because of other events this week - my advisor is now at IBM - I might be here until/through December. She wants me to stay here. It is hard, it might be the right thing to do for my PhD, but it is hard for me. We will see where the road lies. Naveen is leaving on Tuesday and I am not going to Belize with him over Labor Day. I will value my friend and family visits all the more now. And I know I can be strong - I am a strong person - and there is a lot to look forward to out there. But there are always hard times too. So please remember I need you now more than ever.
More on the weekends events later... *Love*, Jenn
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Pictures anyone?
Hey. So I finally uploaded and organized all my pictures from the summer! Sorry it took so long, and I know there are a lot, but if you want to see some I put on Snapfish leave a comment or email me and I'll share the photos with you. I shared the pictures I took with particular people with them, and shared all of them with Mom and Grandma, but let me know if you want to see others or any of them! I like pretty pictures :-).
Ciao.
Ciao.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
It finally caught up to me
I finally got sick... had a sore throat at the end of Friday and my cold started. Bummer. But it wasn't bad - Echinecea helped!
So I came home from work on Friday - we were going to go to a Shakespeare play in the park, and of course it started downpouring and spoiled our plans. Bummer. Actually, come to think of it - it's been raining for the last week almost. I guess Saturday it didn't rain, but every other day it has! Sorta dreary... But we went out to dinner instead with our guests Bret and Allison who are fun people. They wanted to try some "Best Burgers in NYC" place down in Greenwich Village. I think it was called Corner Bistro - lots of places here have very generic names! Funny that. But this place was packed - small place (everywhere here is small because space is so expensive) with a bar. They only had grilled cheese, hamburgers, and chicken sandwiches on their menu. But I have to say, their burgers were very tasty. Not the best burger in my life, but good :-). So we had some fun times - walked around Greenwich Village and came upon that cupcake store whereupon Bret said it was outrageous to pay $2 for a cupcake. Is it really that crazy? Hmmm. Then we ended up going home and just chilling on our own with banana margaritas Allison made us - pretty tasty! With rum, banana liquer, triple sec, and margarita mix.
Saturday was a long day - one of those "away from home walking around town for close to 12 hours" days. And I was a bit sick. But it was fun - we went back down to City Hall area and saw all the courts, then made a trek from out guidebook across the Brooklyn Bridge which was awesome. Neat bridge! And beautiful views of the skyline - especially the lower Manhattan tall buildings. Altho it was a long bridge. I took a lot of pictures - actually almost got run over by a bike when I took a picture. It was sorta my fault - I was trying to cross the bike road, and I got entirely chewed out by the biker behind the actually biker I ran into! Harangued! I felt bad :-(. But I made it. We went to the recommended fabulous pizza place in Brooklyn when we got there, but of course everyone else had the same book as us so we waited in line over 45 minutes. But the pizza was actually worth it! Pretty simple, but fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce and basil go a long way! Yum :-). Then walked down to the recommended ice cream shop on the pier with all-nature ingredients - also in the book and also a huge line. But faster than pizza. Very tasty - I got vanilla chocolate chunk. I guess they make their own cream. And the pier had some beautiful views - I saw at least 3 bridges there taking pictures :-). But we saw some billowing black smoke as from a fire rising from lower Manhattan and were afraid. Sorta scary - and it smelled metallic when the smell got to us. We found out later that a building by the World Trade Center that was being torn down had caught on fire! Crazy...
So we walked around the Brooklyn Bridge park which was really pretty, and decided we were going to walk back on the beautiful Manhattan bridge because we like the exercise :-). Another mile at least! There were a lot fewer people on that, though, and we made it - dumped back into Chinatown which is always interesting. We walked Bret and Allison through Little Italy (which has all but been encompassed by Chinatown which has expanded a lot). Then we veered over to NYU and Washington Park for a rest. Interesting park - very gritty. Very interesting people watching and lots of performers out - musicians and magicians. I wondered how you get a piano into the park everyday! If only he'd just play the piano and not sing! But it was nice to relax - we saw chess players too. But yeah - there could be hustlers and shady deals in that park too... So from here after awhile we decided to walk again, and headed to Union Square which I like for some reason. We suggested going to a brewery (Naveen loves these), but decided on caffeine instead in the form of coffee - it'd been a long tiring day! Just relaxed in the park with our coffee for awhile - no one felt like dinner. Then finally we just went home and made homemade black bean and corn salsa and ate chips for dinner! How funny... And played Eucher - a fun card game. Good friends, fun times, good company. And they left at like 4:30am on Sunday! But Bret looked up the distance we had walked - a good 7.5 miles! Go us :-).
So we were supposed to have another guest come in Saturday morning to Monday evening, but his flight got delayed again, and for that short of a trip it wasn't worth it, so he didn't end up coming. But that ended up being ok! We were tired Sunday and just wanted a down day. Chilled, watched TV, organized my pictures. It was rainy again or I might've gone to a play in the park. I did treat myself to a pedicure :-). Fun to pamper! And good to relax... Especially after all the company.
Monday was another dreary day - as I say we've had dreary days since Friday... Back to work and my advisor from UT showed up at IBM. She'll be here all fall on sabbatical - it's weird to have her here actually! But it's nice. I ended up leaving early to catch the last movie in the park at Bryant Park in New York City. Bryant Park has the big public library with lions and it's near Time Square. Beautiful park, really - perfect flat lawn for a movie setup. It drizzled a little bit, but we made it through the movie - an awesome one I hadn't seen - Hitchcock's "Pyscho"! Fun to see on the big screen. A bit scary, but of course a classic. Glad to see it! And the audience had mostly seen it because they laughed or clapped before predicted scenes - like when she gets in the shower everyone knew what was going to happen! Most classic scene ever. So very fun. And we bought sandwiches to picnic with :-). I love these little New York experiences like this - free movie in the park. Fun stuff.
Yeah, Kathryn (my advisor) thinks it's very cold here because she came from Austin's 100 degree temps to this week it's been in the upper 50s, lower 60s! Brrr. I'm ready for it to get back to summer this weekend! I want to swim again!
Gave a 15 minute presentation on my (semi-failed) project today at work. Went well - I was told it was well explained which is good. Short talks like that are hard - hard to actually explain the meat or "interesting" part of the research in such a short time. But I made it :-). I need to get into my new project, but I have to admit I'm a bit downtrodden lately. A little scared that everything I do just fails. A little sad that my friends will leave next week and then I won't know people here and will be lonely. A little nervous about starting a new project partly in the database world that I don't know much about. I need to just dive in, not resist it, but it is hard. Here's to generating momentum!
Have a great week - I miss everyone.
So I came home from work on Friday - we were going to go to a Shakespeare play in the park, and of course it started downpouring and spoiled our plans. Bummer. Actually, come to think of it - it's been raining for the last week almost. I guess Saturday it didn't rain, but every other day it has! Sorta dreary... But we went out to dinner instead with our guests Bret and Allison who are fun people. They wanted to try some "Best Burgers in NYC" place down in Greenwich Village. I think it was called Corner Bistro - lots of places here have very generic names! Funny that. But this place was packed - small place (everywhere here is small because space is so expensive) with a bar. They only had grilled cheese, hamburgers, and chicken sandwiches on their menu. But I have to say, their burgers were very tasty. Not the best burger in my life, but good :-). So we had some fun times - walked around Greenwich Village and came upon that cupcake store whereupon Bret said it was outrageous to pay $2 for a cupcake. Is it really that crazy? Hmmm. Then we ended up going home and just chilling on our own with banana margaritas Allison made us - pretty tasty! With rum, banana liquer, triple sec, and margarita mix.
Saturday was a long day - one of those "away from home walking around town for close to 12 hours" days. And I was a bit sick. But it was fun - we went back down to City Hall area and saw all the courts, then made a trek from out guidebook across the Brooklyn Bridge which was awesome. Neat bridge! And beautiful views of the skyline - especially the lower Manhattan tall buildings. Altho it was a long bridge. I took a lot of pictures - actually almost got run over by a bike when I took a picture. It was sorta my fault - I was trying to cross the bike road, and I got entirely chewed out by the biker behind the actually biker I ran into! Harangued! I felt bad :-(. But I made it. We went to the recommended fabulous pizza place in Brooklyn when we got there, but of course everyone else had the same book as us so we waited in line over 45 minutes. But the pizza was actually worth it! Pretty simple, but fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce and basil go a long way! Yum :-). Then walked down to the recommended ice cream shop on the pier with all-nature ingredients - also in the book and also a huge line. But faster than pizza. Very tasty - I got vanilla chocolate chunk. I guess they make their own cream. And the pier had some beautiful views - I saw at least 3 bridges there taking pictures :-). But we saw some billowing black smoke as from a fire rising from lower Manhattan and were afraid. Sorta scary - and it smelled metallic when the smell got to us. We found out later that a building by the World Trade Center that was being torn down had caught on fire! Crazy...
So we walked around the Brooklyn Bridge park which was really pretty, and decided we were going to walk back on the beautiful Manhattan bridge because we like the exercise :-). Another mile at least! There were a lot fewer people on that, though, and we made it - dumped back into Chinatown which is always interesting. We walked Bret and Allison through Little Italy (which has all but been encompassed by Chinatown which has expanded a lot). Then we veered over to NYU and Washington Park for a rest. Interesting park - very gritty. Very interesting people watching and lots of performers out - musicians and magicians. I wondered how you get a piano into the park everyday! If only he'd just play the piano and not sing! But it was nice to relax - we saw chess players too. But yeah - there could be hustlers and shady deals in that park too... So from here after awhile we decided to walk again, and headed to Union Square which I like for some reason. We suggested going to a brewery (Naveen loves these), but decided on caffeine instead in the form of coffee - it'd been a long tiring day! Just relaxed in the park with our coffee for awhile - no one felt like dinner. Then finally we just went home and made homemade black bean and corn salsa and ate chips for dinner! How funny... And played Eucher - a fun card game. Good friends, fun times, good company. And they left at like 4:30am on Sunday! But Bret looked up the distance we had walked - a good 7.5 miles! Go us :-).
So we were supposed to have another guest come in Saturday morning to Monday evening, but his flight got delayed again, and for that short of a trip it wasn't worth it, so he didn't end up coming. But that ended up being ok! We were tired Sunday and just wanted a down day. Chilled, watched TV, organized my pictures. It was rainy again or I might've gone to a play in the park. I did treat myself to a pedicure :-). Fun to pamper! And good to relax... Especially after all the company.
Monday was another dreary day - as I say we've had dreary days since Friday... Back to work and my advisor from UT showed up at IBM. She'll be here all fall on sabbatical - it's weird to have her here actually! But it's nice. I ended up leaving early to catch the last movie in the park at Bryant Park in New York City. Bryant Park has the big public library with lions and it's near Time Square. Beautiful park, really - perfect flat lawn for a movie setup. It drizzled a little bit, but we made it through the movie - an awesome one I hadn't seen - Hitchcock's "Pyscho"! Fun to see on the big screen. A bit scary, but of course a classic. Glad to see it! And the audience had mostly seen it because they laughed or clapped before predicted scenes - like when she gets in the shower everyone knew what was going to happen! Most classic scene ever. So very fun. And we bought sandwiches to picnic with :-). I love these little New York experiences like this - free movie in the park. Fun stuff.
Yeah, Kathryn (my advisor) thinks it's very cold here because she came from Austin's 100 degree temps to this week it's been in the upper 50s, lower 60s! Brrr. I'm ready for it to get back to summer this weekend! I want to swim again!
Gave a 15 minute presentation on my (semi-failed) project today at work. Went well - I was told it was well explained which is good. Short talks like that are hard - hard to actually explain the meat or "interesting" part of the research in such a short time. But I made it :-). I need to get into my new project, but I have to admit I'm a bit downtrodden lately. A little scared that everything I do just fails. A little sad that my friends will leave next week and then I won't know people here and will be lonely. A little nervous about starting a new project partly in the database world that I don't know much about. I need to just dive in, not resist it, but it is hard. Here's to generating momentum!
Have a great week - I miss everyone.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Long week of fun
It's been a busy week - surprise, surprise. Done something everyday - many experiences.
Monday: Naveen's friend Elise was still in town on business, so we went down to Houston St. for sushi. BTW, it's pronounced House-ton, not like the city in Texas - very confusing. So we met her and her cousin there - it had good sushi. We had some good conversation too. It strikes me that Naveen is very close to his friends - her really does treat them like family. He was already sharing dinner with Elise before I had determined what I was getting last weekend! So that was pretty fun.
Tuesday: I worked. Let me just say for those that wonder if I get anything done - I do work from 8:40 to at least 5:15, sometimes till 7pm everyday. So there. But today I went home early to go swimming. And I did 26 laps! I was so proud of myself - it was wonderful. For some reason it was an easy day, and I just flowed. I got a bit tired of the frog-stroke, but was awesome at free-style (that's the one with the regular kick, right?). I just chugged ahead. I gave myself 45 minutes, and when I had completed my goal of 20 laps, there was more time, so I just kept going. And made it to 26 in just under 45 minutes - go me. So that was the goal I set for myself. Now I looked it up - officially 1 mile is 29 laps (about), so now I'll go for that goal in the next 2 weeks while the pool is still open (closes at Labor Day - boo :-(). I love swimming. Then went home, got a quick shower and dinner, and Naveen and I headed to a concert of "Badly Drawn Boy" at Spiegeltent down on South Seaport. It was awesome - this semi-large tent (but only held maybe a couple hundred people) set up on the pier for concerts. Nice atmosphere - dark curtain-like material and booths lining the side, then a wooden floor in the middle in front of the stage. And the pier outside also was right on the water and had a bar and tables and a beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bride! Great spot! So we listened to the band and the guy from Manchester was just fabulous. Really into his music - emotional, passionate. He was in a funky mood, but he seemed to just play what he wanted and had fun with teh music. I liked his songs about wrestling with life. Naveen and I sorta bonded over the music. And the guy played several different guitars, harmonica, piano, and sung lead. Awesome. Just good fun. I sat and wondered - why Naveen likes somewhat melancholy music (lots of emotions and talking about the hardships of life and love) when he doesn't tolerate negative emotions in real life. I asked him after and he said it was just more poetic. And some of the songs of this guy made me just want to experience life more - that's when I really wanted to go and live in another country for awhile. Although I have to say, I'm doing a pretty good job of experiencing life now. :-). For some reason I thought Matt would've really liked the concert. It was just good stuff. Made me happy.
Wednesday: Work again. Stayed late, but got home and rushed out the door again to meet our guests for dinner - Bret (Naveen's roommate) and his girlfriend Alison. They are really fun people. They had seen this guy try this Kabob place on that show "No Reservations" where a chef travels around the world trying whatever food wherever, and tries to appreciate it. So we went to the place from the show in Queens. Sorta darker than Manhattan - a little different feel. But wow was the restaurant neat. Tiny place - like 5 tables crammed in a 8 x 25 foot place. Colorful eclectic art all over the walls. We sat down and asked the guy behind the counter if there was a menu. He said (in an accent) "I'm the menu. You nice to me, I give you good food, you not nice, you get no food." Ok then! We asked for drinks - they have no water. You have to order something. He listed a bunch of things that they had that day for food, and we said yes we like lamb, and then he said he'd just bring whatever he wanted for us and we'd really like it. Which was true. We had this awesome hummus and falafel place to start with pita bread. Then he brought 4 huge plates of meat sauteed with vegies and some were over rice. 1 was hunks of lamb (on the bone), one was beef ribs, one was beef kabobs, and one was chicken, rabbit and duck. They each had their own vegies which I loved - okra, squash and eggplant, tomatoes, greens. I don't even know about some of them. All was just so tasty - so much food! We were very pleased :-). Crazy place. As with a lot of places in NY I don't know the name and only vaguely know the cross streets of this place :-). But it was a great experience. And the company was fun too!
Thursday: Work again. But briefly this time - Naveen came to work with me and gave a talk at IBM - a fabulous talk, by the way. Went well. Then we left at lunch because a guy in my department organized a large paintball match for IBMers that afternoon. We had to drive 45 minutes to get to the paintball place in the middle of the forest. Holy cow. Paintball is a bit intense. I'm glad I tried it, but wow. So we put on all this camoflauge gear and we had a protective mask thing, then our paint-guns. It was a hot day and I had 2 layers of clothes on and heavy boots. So we sweated a lot. And we were just running through fields or trees shooting at each other, hiding behind little obstacles set up. Dude, I couldn't do real war - too scary. And believe me, it hurt to get hit with paintballs. I wasn't very good at first. Well, to give an example - although I bruise easily, I found 10 welts on my body when I came home - most larger than golfball size, even though the bullets are like quarter-sized. Ouch bruises. Naveen couldn't find any on him. His team won most of the time, and he definitely killed more people than I did, and ran more because he was in the game longer. But I had fun, and I felt like I was getting more tactics down by the end, but it maybe is more of a guy's game? Don't know - a bit intense really. We mostly played capture the flag on various fields. It was fun to play with work people, though, and we took pictures - I'll post them sometime I promise!
Today is Friday! I actually got 8 hours of sleep last night so that was fun. Our guests are here until Sunday morning, but another guest comes tomorrow (Sat) morning and leaves Monday afternoon. So I'm sure it'll be a full weekend of city things. Tonight we are supposed to go to see MacBeth in the park :-). And I'm sure dinner after that.
I've been having a ton of conversations lately about life, computer science, career, work/life balance. I'm slowly figuring things out, but it's hard, and there are always unknowns. I still really feel fortunate to have met some of the friends I have here - especially Emina and Shan Shan. It's fun to have these long conversations with people in a similar sitution. Awesome people. But basically I'm not cut out for cutthroat research. I don't know if other fields are like this, but often it seems like Comp Sci people - really successful ones - sacrifice their life for their career. And that just won't make me happy. In several ways I don't quite fit into this field - it's competitiveness and all. But I think I can still do good work and I can't measure myself by other's standards. Now I'm actually thinking of industry - I guess working for IBM basically. Industry does afford some work/life balance - more so than some academic jobs. And the culture is great here. But I wonder if I'd miss teaching. It's really that, or going to a lesser place to teach - not so stressful. Or moving to some random country and working at a coffee shop :-). We'll see. At least I'm evaluating things and it's nice to have these conversations!
Alright - enough for now. Happy weekend from NYC!
Monday: Naveen's friend Elise was still in town on business, so we went down to Houston St. for sushi. BTW, it's pronounced House-ton, not like the city in Texas - very confusing. So we met her and her cousin there - it had good sushi. We had some good conversation too. It strikes me that Naveen is very close to his friends - her really does treat them like family. He was already sharing dinner with Elise before I had determined what I was getting last weekend! So that was pretty fun.
Tuesday: I worked. Let me just say for those that wonder if I get anything done - I do work from 8:40 to at least 5:15, sometimes till 7pm everyday. So there. But today I went home early to go swimming. And I did 26 laps! I was so proud of myself - it was wonderful. For some reason it was an easy day, and I just flowed. I got a bit tired of the frog-stroke, but was awesome at free-style (that's the one with the regular kick, right?). I just chugged ahead. I gave myself 45 minutes, and when I had completed my goal of 20 laps, there was more time, so I just kept going. And made it to 26 in just under 45 minutes - go me. So that was the goal I set for myself. Now I looked it up - officially 1 mile is 29 laps (about), so now I'll go for that goal in the next 2 weeks while the pool is still open (closes at Labor Day - boo :-(). I love swimming. Then went home, got a quick shower and dinner, and Naveen and I headed to a concert of "Badly Drawn Boy" at Spiegeltent down on South Seaport. It was awesome - this semi-large tent (but only held maybe a couple hundred people) set up on the pier for concerts. Nice atmosphere - dark curtain-like material and booths lining the side, then a wooden floor in the middle in front of the stage. And the pier outside also was right on the water and had a bar and tables and a beautiful view of the Brooklyn Bride! Great spot! So we listened to the band and the guy from Manchester was just fabulous. Really into his music - emotional, passionate. He was in a funky mood, but he seemed to just play what he wanted and had fun with teh music. I liked his songs about wrestling with life. Naveen and I sorta bonded over the music. And the guy played several different guitars, harmonica, piano, and sung lead. Awesome. Just good fun. I sat and wondered - why Naveen likes somewhat melancholy music (lots of emotions and talking about the hardships of life and love) when he doesn't tolerate negative emotions in real life. I asked him after and he said it was just more poetic. And some of the songs of this guy made me just want to experience life more - that's when I really wanted to go and live in another country for awhile. Although I have to say, I'm doing a pretty good job of experiencing life now. :-). For some reason I thought Matt would've really liked the concert. It was just good stuff. Made me happy.
Wednesday: Work again. Stayed late, but got home and rushed out the door again to meet our guests for dinner - Bret (Naveen's roommate) and his girlfriend Alison. They are really fun people. They had seen this guy try this Kabob place on that show "No Reservations" where a chef travels around the world trying whatever food wherever, and tries to appreciate it. So we went to the place from the show in Queens. Sorta darker than Manhattan - a little different feel. But wow was the restaurant neat. Tiny place - like 5 tables crammed in a 8 x 25 foot place. Colorful eclectic art all over the walls. We sat down and asked the guy behind the counter if there was a menu. He said (in an accent) "I'm the menu. You nice to me, I give you good food, you not nice, you get no food." Ok then! We asked for drinks - they have no water. You have to order something. He listed a bunch of things that they had that day for food, and we said yes we like lamb, and then he said he'd just bring whatever he wanted for us and we'd really like it. Which was true. We had this awesome hummus and falafel place to start with pita bread. Then he brought 4 huge plates of meat sauteed with vegies and some were over rice. 1 was hunks of lamb (on the bone), one was beef ribs, one was beef kabobs, and one was chicken, rabbit and duck. They each had their own vegies which I loved - okra, squash and eggplant, tomatoes, greens. I don't even know about some of them. All was just so tasty - so much food! We were very pleased :-). Crazy place. As with a lot of places in NY I don't know the name and only vaguely know the cross streets of this place :-). But it was a great experience. And the company was fun too!
Thursday: Work again. But briefly this time - Naveen came to work with me and gave a talk at IBM - a fabulous talk, by the way. Went well. Then we left at lunch because a guy in my department organized a large paintball match for IBMers that afternoon. We had to drive 45 minutes to get to the paintball place in the middle of the forest. Holy cow. Paintball is a bit intense. I'm glad I tried it, but wow. So we put on all this camoflauge gear and we had a protective mask thing, then our paint-guns. It was a hot day and I had 2 layers of clothes on and heavy boots. So we sweated a lot. And we were just running through fields or trees shooting at each other, hiding behind little obstacles set up. Dude, I couldn't do real war - too scary. And believe me, it hurt to get hit with paintballs. I wasn't very good at first. Well, to give an example - although I bruise easily, I found 10 welts on my body when I came home - most larger than golfball size, even though the bullets are like quarter-sized. Ouch bruises. Naveen couldn't find any on him. His team won most of the time, and he definitely killed more people than I did, and ran more because he was in the game longer. But I had fun, and I felt like I was getting more tactics down by the end, but it maybe is more of a guy's game? Don't know - a bit intense really. We mostly played capture the flag on various fields. It was fun to play with work people, though, and we took pictures - I'll post them sometime I promise!
Today is Friday! I actually got 8 hours of sleep last night so that was fun. Our guests are here until Sunday morning, but another guest comes tomorrow (Sat) morning and leaves Monday afternoon. So I'm sure it'll be a full weekend of city things. Tonight we are supposed to go to see MacBeth in the park :-). And I'm sure dinner after that.
I've been having a ton of conversations lately about life, computer science, career, work/life balance. I'm slowly figuring things out, but it's hard, and there are always unknowns. I still really feel fortunate to have met some of the friends I have here - especially Emina and Shan Shan. It's fun to have these long conversations with people in a similar sitution. Awesome people. But basically I'm not cut out for cutthroat research. I don't know if other fields are like this, but often it seems like Comp Sci people - really successful ones - sacrifice their life for their career. And that just won't make me happy. In several ways I don't quite fit into this field - it's competitiveness and all. But I think I can still do good work and I can't measure myself by other's standards. Now I'm actually thinking of industry - I guess working for IBM basically. Industry does afford some work/life balance - more so than some academic jobs. And the culture is great here. But I wonder if I'd miss teaching. It's really that, or going to a lesser place to teach - not so stressful. Or moving to some random country and working at a coffee shop :-). We'll see. At least I'm evaluating things and it's nice to have these conversations!
Alright - enough for now. Happy weekend from NYC!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Places I have lived
Here is a list of the places I have lived (not visited - although if there's interest I could enumerate that too - it'll just take longer). It's in order because I like that :-), although I only list places once.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Scottsdale, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Madrid, Spain
Durham, North Carolina
Austin, Texas
Portland, Oregon
New York, New York
Very fun. More to come I believe - I have the exploration itch.
In other random tidbits - I believe I am an engineer at heart. And women here mostly wear skirts or sundresses (out and about) - maybe it's a good Jewish girl thing. I need to find more good skirts.
More about how awesome last night was later (26 laps + Badly Drawn Boy). Good thoughts to you all.
Salt Lake City, Utah
Scottsdale, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Madrid, Spain
Durham, North Carolina
Austin, Texas
Portland, Oregon
New York, New York
Very fun. More to come I believe - I have the exploration itch.
In other random tidbits - I believe I am an engineer at heart. And women here mostly wear skirts or sundresses (out and about) - maybe it's a good Jewish girl thing. I need to find more good skirts.
More about how awesome last night was later (26 laps + Badly Drawn Boy). Good thoughts to you all.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Free at last
Phew - I'm finally coming up for air after my paper deadline! Feels good :-).
Some highlights of the last week - swimming 22 laps! Going to restaurant named "Hell's Kitchen" and seeing new Die Hard movie. Sleeping a lot. Department picnic up at mountain resort way north - with some great hiking (aka rock scrambling). Dinner at Tunisian place. Going to Bodies exhibit at South Seaport (old pier/harbor/port). Dinner with friends at a Mexican place, then dessert at a bonafide Chocolate Shop! Then (failed) attempts to play tennis.
So unfortunately we didn't submit the paper that I was working so hard on for weeks. Lovely to work that hard, then have it come to a not-so-satisfying conclusion. We decided to kill it the day of the deadline too. I don't regret working hard, and I think the project came a long way in those last weeks. And I think I proved myself to some people. But it's sad that we didn't get good enough results to submit the paper. We still believe in the project and will keep working on it to get good enough results to submit it to a future conference. But this research thing - it's tough, and draining on a person. Ups and downs. And now I might actually switch gears and work on some different project with IBM for the rest of my internship - we'll see. Luck is cyclic, right? (Because there is an element of luck in research) I'm bound to have 1 project work out if I wait long enough, right? :-). But I have to say Naveen was so good to me during the paper deadline. He saw how hard I was working, and although he was working just as hard, he tried to help me by making dinners and cheering me on. So nice to have that support - yay!
So I came home Tuesday and went swimming in Central Park to work out frustrations. I swam 22 laps and it felt great! Was very proud of myself :-). Still love that. Then Naveen and I crashed and slept 12 hours that night! Ah sleep :-). Wednesday we took it easy on ourselves - staying around the house in teh afternoon and cleaning a bit (so our place wasn't a cyclone). Then we went out to a movie! We saw the new Die Hard which was pretty entertaining. Then went and found a restaurant to eat at - we ended up at "Hell's Kitchen" which was very interesting. I had some tasty fish, and Naveen had spicy pork.
Thursday, luckily, my whole department at IBM was at a dept picnic not at the office! We spent the day at a beautiful Mountain resort up north. Mohonk for those in the know. Beautiful grounds, good food. Too bad we couldn't row or swim in the lake - that was beautiful. But we went hiking up to the Skytop which had a great view of surrounding green valleys. Well, so hiking actually meant climbing over and under rocks - big boulders. It was pretty fun. Then we got to "The Crevice" or "Lemon Squeeze". Basically there were places it was hard to squeeze through - especially with a backpack on! Between a rock and... another rock. And we went on narrow ladders up small canyons, then walked back into the canyon that wouldn't fit more than 1 person across, then had to rock climb out of this canyon! Scary, but a good workout :-). We had fun. And I have to say again, the 2.5 hour ride up and back with Emina and Shan Shan were my favorite parts! We totally geeked out and giggled and got to know each other. We talked about everything - morality, religion, science, women in Computer Science, boys, life balance, career, marriage. They kept referencing New York Times articles, so man do I have to read those more :-). But it was all very interesting and fun. We also talked about Naveen's latest theory that finding your one true passion - the thing you choose above all others - leads to maximizing happiness. And about criticism of people you are close to... It all makes a person think.
So it was a great Thursday away from actual work which was nice for me. Friday I actually went back to work for real :-). Although was in talks most of the day... But we are working on where I'll go next with my work with IBM - could be exciting. Friday night Naveen and I walked back down the 30 blocks to find the Tunisian place again and we found it! It was sorta like Moroccan food we thought. We had a great appetizer of brik. Which is like this egg and tuna and potato concoction in crispy phyllo dough. The for food I had the b'stilla which was awesome. Its this nice pastry thing filled with chicken and good stuff, with a little powdered sugar on top. And Naveen had some lamb chops, merguez which is lamb sausage, and some Mediterranean salad and salsa - both tasty.
Saturday we headed down to South Seaport for some fun, and the Bodies exhibit. I like the seaport, although the shops are basically mall shops. But there are a lot of eateries, and there was a brewery which Naveen likes, and some neat old sailing ships that you can tour. Some street performers too. So we saw the Bodies exhibit - woah did my head spin. Sorta literally. Maybe it was dehydration, but I came out of there a little off-balance - like after a rollercoaster. So if you haven't heard of it, it's an exhibit with real human bodies that shows one system at a time - skeletal, muscular, nervous, circulatory, digestive, urinary and reproductive, then fetal development. All real people, preserved. You walk around them and read all about how amazing human bodies are. It was really cool, but you can see the creepiness factor in it too. The last room had 2 bodies sliced - one vertical slices, the other many many horizontal slices. Very cool, and odd. You just have to desensitize yourself to it :-). The exhibit I think is a very good teaching tool. So after that, we needed some beer - so we got some at the brewery :-). Then we wandered up through the lower east side, China town, and then the East Village leisurely. It was fun just to walk, though a bit tiring. We got egg rolls off a street cart in Chinatown - 3 for $1 - awesome! And in East Village we found a ton of neat restaurants and drinkeries. We met friends for dinner - and I gave in to Mexican finally (Naveen's been wanting it). But it was a really cute place. Naveen's friend from college Elise was visiting, so she was there, as well as Emina and fiance Aled. Good times. For dessert we decided to head to Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar a block away. Emina LOVES chocolate :-). We all shared the Chocolate Mess for 4-6 people. Wow was it true to it's name! Sort of chocolate cake underneath with strawberries, whip cream, ice cream on top, and we could put our own toppings on top - sauces and sprinklings of different chocolates. Holy cow. Sugar rush. We were definitely satisfied.
Sunday was definitely a sleep in day. I definitely caught up on sleep from Tuesday night on last week :-). This day contained the many failures of trying to play tennis. We walked over 20 blocks to the 119th courts in Riverside Park (they were hardcourt whereas most in the area are clay). Along the way we stopped at about 6 stores searching for tennis balls, to no avail. Thinking maybe we could borrow some, we still went to the courts. We could've gotten a court for a little over an hour later, but we didn't have tickets. We thought we could buy passes at the actual courts, but no - we need to go to the courts at Central Park to get passes. Ugh. Then we decided to just cut our loses and run a bit around Central Park (after walking another 20 blocks back home). We did that, and checked out the courts at Central Park afterwards (drenched in sweat). They of course said to get courts there you had to show up when they opened at 6:30am to get a court for the same day. And if you didn't get there 15 minutes before your court time, the Tennis Mafia would steal your court - no joke. So yeah - playing tennis here is a bit tough! So we retreated home, made a fabulous dinner of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and fruit salad, and did chores around the house that evening :-). We have lately been addicted to this Iceroad Truckers show on TV.
So this is definitely a long enough blog! I am a little more well-balanced now. And looking forward to fun - we have guests this week/weekend. I wonder if I'll get to a real point of relaxation someday. I really haven't had a day of doing nothing for months I think. Maybe that's why people say reading about my activities exhaust them :-). But there's just too much to do now! Hope all's well...
Some highlights of the last week - swimming 22 laps! Going to restaurant named "Hell's Kitchen" and seeing new Die Hard movie. Sleeping a lot. Department picnic up at mountain resort way north - with some great hiking (aka rock scrambling). Dinner at Tunisian place. Going to Bodies exhibit at South Seaport (old pier/harbor/port). Dinner with friends at a Mexican place, then dessert at a bonafide Chocolate Shop! Then (failed) attempts to play tennis.
So unfortunately we didn't submit the paper that I was working so hard on for weeks. Lovely to work that hard, then have it come to a not-so-satisfying conclusion. We decided to kill it the day of the deadline too. I don't regret working hard, and I think the project came a long way in those last weeks. And I think I proved myself to some people. But it's sad that we didn't get good enough results to submit the paper. We still believe in the project and will keep working on it to get good enough results to submit it to a future conference. But this research thing - it's tough, and draining on a person. Ups and downs. And now I might actually switch gears and work on some different project with IBM for the rest of my internship - we'll see. Luck is cyclic, right? (Because there is an element of luck in research) I'm bound to have 1 project work out if I wait long enough, right? :-). But I have to say Naveen was so good to me during the paper deadline. He saw how hard I was working, and although he was working just as hard, he tried to help me by making dinners and cheering me on. So nice to have that support - yay!
So I came home Tuesday and went swimming in Central Park to work out frustrations. I swam 22 laps and it felt great! Was very proud of myself :-). Still love that. Then Naveen and I crashed and slept 12 hours that night! Ah sleep :-). Wednesday we took it easy on ourselves - staying around the house in teh afternoon and cleaning a bit (so our place wasn't a cyclone). Then we went out to a movie! We saw the new Die Hard which was pretty entertaining. Then went and found a restaurant to eat at - we ended up at "Hell's Kitchen" which was very interesting. I had some tasty fish, and Naveen had spicy pork.
Thursday, luckily, my whole department at IBM was at a dept picnic not at the office! We spent the day at a beautiful Mountain resort up north. Mohonk for those in the know. Beautiful grounds, good food. Too bad we couldn't row or swim in the lake - that was beautiful. But we went hiking up to the Skytop which had a great view of surrounding green valleys. Well, so hiking actually meant climbing over and under rocks - big boulders. It was pretty fun. Then we got to "The Crevice" or "Lemon Squeeze". Basically there were places it was hard to squeeze through - especially with a backpack on! Between a rock and... another rock. And we went on narrow ladders up small canyons, then walked back into the canyon that wouldn't fit more than 1 person across, then had to rock climb out of this canyon! Scary, but a good workout :-). We had fun. And I have to say again, the 2.5 hour ride up and back with Emina and Shan Shan were my favorite parts! We totally geeked out and giggled and got to know each other. We talked about everything - morality, religion, science, women in Computer Science, boys, life balance, career, marriage. They kept referencing New York Times articles, so man do I have to read those more :-). But it was all very interesting and fun. We also talked about Naveen's latest theory that finding your one true passion - the thing you choose above all others - leads to maximizing happiness. And about criticism of people you are close to... It all makes a person think.
So it was a great Thursday away from actual work which was nice for me. Friday I actually went back to work for real :-). Although was in talks most of the day... But we are working on where I'll go next with my work with IBM - could be exciting. Friday night Naveen and I walked back down the 30 blocks to find the Tunisian place again and we found it! It was sorta like Moroccan food we thought. We had a great appetizer of brik. Which is like this egg and tuna and potato concoction in crispy phyllo dough. The for food I had the b'stilla which was awesome. Its this nice pastry thing filled with chicken and good stuff, with a little powdered sugar on top. And Naveen had some lamb chops, merguez which is lamb sausage, and some Mediterranean salad and salsa - both tasty.
Saturday we headed down to South Seaport for some fun, and the Bodies exhibit. I like the seaport, although the shops are basically mall shops. But there are a lot of eateries, and there was a brewery which Naveen likes, and some neat old sailing ships that you can tour. Some street performers too. So we saw the Bodies exhibit - woah did my head spin. Sorta literally. Maybe it was dehydration, but I came out of there a little off-balance - like after a rollercoaster. So if you haven't heard of it, it's an exhibit with real human bodies that shows one system at a time - skeletal, muscular, nervous, circulatory, digestive, urinary and reproductive, then fetal development. All real people, preserved. You walk around them and read all about how amazing human bodies are. It was really cool, but you can see the creepiness factor in it too. The last room had 2 bodies sliced - one vertical slices, the other many many horizontal slices. Very cool, and odd. You just have to desensitize yourself to it :-). The exhibit I think is a very good teaching tool. So after that, we needed some beer - so we got some at the brewery :-). Then we wandered up through the lower east side, China town, and then the East Village leisurely. It was fun just to walk, though a bit tiring. We got egg rolls off a street cart in Chinatown - 3 for $1 - awesome! And in East Village we found a ton of neat restaurants and drinkeries. We met friends for dinner - and I gave in to Mexican finally (Naveen's been wanting it). But it was a really cute place. Naveen's friend from college Elise was visiting, so she was there, as well as Emina and fiance Aled. Good times. For dessert we decided to head to Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar a block away. Emina LOVES chocolate :-). We all shared the Chocolate Mess for 4-6 people. Wow was it true to it's name! Sort of chocolate cake underneath with strawberries, whip cream, ice cream on top, and we could put our own toppings on top - sauces and sprinklings of different chocolates. Holy cow. Sugar rush. We were definitely satisfied.
Sunday was definitely a sleep in day. I definitely caught up on sleep from Tuesday night on last week :-). This day contained the many failures of trying to play tennis. We walked over 20 blocks to the 119th courts in Riverside Park (they were hardcourt whereas most in the area are clay). Along the way we stopped at about 6 stores searching for tennis balls, to no avail. Thinking maybe we could borrow some, we still went to the courts. We could've gotten a court for a little over an hour later, but we didn't have tickets. We thought we could buy passes at the actual courts, but no - we need to go to the courts at Central Park to get passes. Ugh. Then we decided to just cut our loses and run a bit around Central Park (after walking another 20 blocks back home). We did that, and checked out the courts at Central Park afterwards (drenched in sweat). They of course said to get courts there you had to show up when they opened at 6:30am to get a court for the same day. And if you didn't get there 15 minutes before your court time, the Tennis Mafia would steal your court - no joke. So yeah - playing tennis here is a bit tough! So we retreated home, made a fabulous dinner of blueberry pancakes, bacon, and fruit salad, and did chores around the house that evening :-). We have lately been addicted to this Iceroad Truckers show on TV.
So this is definitely a long enough blog! I am a little more well-balanced now. And looking forward to fun - we have guests this week/weekend. I wonder if I'll get to a real point of relaxation someday. I really haven't had a day of doing nothing for months I think. Maybe that's why people say reading about my activities exhaust them :-). But there's just too much to do now! Hope all's well...
Monday, August 6, 2007
Highlights
I'm braindead and running on adrenaline. And coffee. Yay! I'm really hoping this paper comes together... So tenuous this research process.
But - before I forget: highlights. Thursday: swam 18 laps - yay! But it was tough that day. Also stayed home and got sleep - very yay. Always feel very cheerful and worthy after exercise too. Went for ice cream as a pick me up at Tasty D Lite at 11:15pm (yay NY) - Naveen and I both got Snickers soft serve. Yum.
Friday: Low on sleep. Everyone keeps telling me I look a little whiley or harried. What is up with that? Anyway - made it through the day - stayed until 7:45pm at work. Rode train home. We went to Artie's - an awesome Jewish deli for dinner. Got pastrami reubens PILED high with meat, layer of cheese on top and underneath: sauerkraut and Russian Dressing. On rye bread - open faced and huge. Ooooh so tasty. Yum. And pickles to go with. Got a spinach knish that we had for lunch the next day - yum. Walked home in TORRENTIAL rain - very fun, but very wet. Story. Everyone looked as us funny - they all hide in doorways when it's like that until it stops, which of course it did shortly after we got home :-). Yay all 15 blocks.
Saturday was catch up on sleep day - woohoo! Slept in, then took a nap later. Sooo nice naps. Working, working, chugging along. We ended up going to dinner at Asian fusion close to our place - Ozen. Very tasty. We had 1 drunken noodles chicken dish which was awesome. Brown sauce. Other dish - breaded fish in a tangy, slightly sweet curry with eggplant and vegies. Also very tasty. I was very satisfied! Also got green papaya salad to start - can you guess if I liked it? :-)
Sunday - Naveen was up all night, went to bed in the morning. I slept semi-reasonable hours, so got up and went and got bagels from a nearby place. Tasty. Then went on a 10 mile bike around Central Park - love that place. So happy and peaceful. Actually saw a nun in habit riding her bike around on the bike road too :-). Made me smile. Good to get out. Worked, worked. Naveen and I decided to take a break at night and go see Henry V in Riverside Park! I can't believe I tore him away. It was actually fun, though my mind raced. We brought food from close Caribbean place - whole roasted chicken and fried plantains. Play was good - very impressed with main actor - King of England (Henry), but was long and hard to follow at parts. But good to get out again. Worked late (again).
Monday - almost there! I can make it! Just gotta keep telling myself this. And God, please help my results to shine. Go PFGC :-). Research is scary and does scary things to people. That is all - have a good week. More when I am sane...
But - before I forget: highlights. Thursday: swam 18 laps - yay! But it was tough that day. Also stayed home and got sleep - very yay. Always feel very cheerful and worthy after exercise too. Went for ice cream as a pick me up at Tasty D Lite at 11:15pm (yay NY) - Naveen and I both got Snickers soft serve. Yum.
Friday: Low on sleep. Everyone keeps telling me I look a little whiley or harried. What is up with that? Anyway - made it through the day - stayed until 7:45pm at work. Rode train home. We went to Artie's - an awesome Jewish deli for dinner. Got pastrami reubens PILED high with meat, layer of cheese on top and underneath: sauerkraut and Russian Dressing. On rye bread - open faced and huge. Ooooh so tasty. Yum. And pickles to go with. Got a spinach knish that we had for lunch the next day - yum. Walked home in TORRENTIAL rain - very fun, but very wet. Story. Everyone looked as us funny - they all hide in doorways when it's like that until it stops, which of course it did shortly after we got home :-). Yay all 15 blocks.
Saturday was catch up on sleep day - woohoo! Slept in, then took a nap later. Sooo nice naps. Working, working, chugging along. We ended up going to dinner at Asian fusion close to our place - Ozen. Very tasty. We had 1 drunken noodles chicken dish which was awesome. Brown sauce. Other dish - breaded fish in a tangy, slightly sweet curry with eggplant and vegies. Also very tasty. I was very satisfied! Also got green papaya salad to start - can you guess if I liked it? :-)
Sunday - Naveen was up all night, went to bed in the morning. I slept semi-reasonable hours, so got up and went and got bagels from a nearby place. Tasty. Then went on a 10 mile bike around Central Park - love that place. So happy and peaceful. Actually saw a nun in habit riding her bike around on the bike road too :-). Made me smile. Good to get out. Worked, worked. Naveen and I decided to take a break at night and go see Henry V in Riverside Park! I can't believe I tore him away. It was actually fun, though my mind raced. We brought food from close Caribbean place - whole roasted chicken and fried plantains. Play was good - very impressed with main actor - King of England (Henry), but was long and hard to follow at parts. But good to get out again. Worked late (again).
Monday - almost there! I can make it! Just gotta keep telling myself this. And God, please help my results to shine. Go PFGC :-). Research is scary and does scary things to people. That is all - have a good week. More when I am sane...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)