i live a supersized life

of bbqs and bikes

2008-06-10T09:42:00.002-04:00

a couple of weeks ago we invited some friends over for a bbq at chateau folchang (f thought it would be funny to combine our last names).

as the bbq was underway, we got a knock on the door. at the door was a man too old for our crowd. turns out he is the landlord of the building.

landlord: hi i am the landlord.
fede: ok
landlord: are you having a bbq outside? you are not supposed to be out on the roof.
fede: ok
landlord: it is illegal to have an open flame on the roof.
fede: ok
landlord: please make sure you get rid of the fire and no hanging out on the roof.
fede: ok. sorry we will take care of it.

by taking care of it, fede meant that we would continue bbqing our food and hope mr landlord leaves. so we took care of it.

another knock comes about 30 mins later.

landlord: i see the flame is still going (he can see the fumes i guess)
me: oh yes, we are just cooking everything up quickly and we will bring it in after
landlord makes a face and says: make sure
me: yes don't worry- we will.

and we continued grilling til evening.

a few days later we got in the mail a letter from the management office.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
RE: Roof

Dear Tenant(s);

We have been informed that you have been using the roof for personal entertainment. We are writing to inform you that the roof is off-limits to personal use. No Barbequing or hanging out is allowed on the roof at any time. It is a Fire Hazard and a violation of your lease. If you have any bottles or garbage of any kind on the roof, please be kind enough to clean up after yourself.

If you have any questions or concerns please call your Management company at the number above.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

we had also been locking our bikes on the first floor next to the stair-railings (the tenant from 1st floor apt also does the same) and one day we come home to find that a sign has been stuck onto the wall above our bikes:

All bikes that are left for more than 24hours will be deemed abandoned and removed.

it seemed like the management company was going on a personal tirade against us but hey, we ride our bikes everyday so technically the bikes are never left for more than 24 hours anyway. (of course, this is before our bikes got stolen that fateful night we went to watch indy jones.)

the sign was taken down after a few weeks (while we were in italy and the caribbean we stored our bikes in the apt) so now that we have replacement bikes (exactly the same ones as before), we are locking them back where they belong!

not worth a bad movie

2008-05-28T08:49:00.000-04:00

last night we went to see indiana jones. i fell asleep in the middle of a fight scene because it was so ridiculous anyway. it was a terrible movie and i only went because fede put me on a guilt trip saying he had watched so many bad flicks with me so i should put myself through a blockbuster for him.

the only problem is that we biked there, but had to walk back.

yes- the bikes were STOLEN. BOTH. we parked them right outside a pizza shop where it was well-lit and all along the block there were at least 20 other bikes locked to other poles or racks. i guess our screamed "nice and quite new!" so they fcking bastards came along and clipped our cable chains and nicely made away with nearly $1400 worth in bike.

they were definitely professional bike thieves these guys. they must have seen us walk into the theater and wouldn't be out for the next 2 hours. it was right on 2nd ave and there was non-stop foot traffic so these guys must have been pretty darn smooth. now our poor bikes are probably somewhere in brooklyn or queens getting traded away.

we will probably buy replacement bikes but this time we will get huge-ass kryptonite chains (i read that the weakness is in the padlock) + 2 other locks. i also want to get a bike alarm or maybe install some kind of thief crocodile that snaps at anyone who gets near the bike.

i need a dishwasher and other stories

2008-05-22T17:54:00.000-04:00

i need a dishwasher because i spend too much time at the sink washing the dishes. and when i have finished one load of washing, just a few hours later, another load somehow piles up and sits happy in the sink waiting to be washed. i thank viola (my other roommate) for buying these hot pink rubber gloves that i snap on each time i have to get through the dishes. the upside: fede says i look hot in them *wink wink* - but then again he would rather lie and have me do the dishes than do them himself.

speaking of washed - fede asked me the other day, "have you washed the plants?". "you mean watered?". ROFLMAO.

speaking of water - i am not altruistic about this whole save water, save the earth thing. when i ask people to not leave the water running unnecessarily, it is quite selfish in fact. you see i have this little anxiety problem and need to know water is somewhere close at hand. i try to always carry a bottle of water with me and when i don't have quick access to water, i get a little edgy and feel unbearably thirsty even though I might have just had a drink 10 mins before. like when I get into my seat on a flight or watching a movie, i get a little panic attack if I know I'm stuck in my seat for more than an hour without water. so i am one of those annoying ones who will ask for water before the attendants come around with their drink carts.

because i have this need for water constantly, i don't want the world to ever run out of it (fresh water is only 3% of total water). people (like my bf) think oh, I'm not paying for this water so I will waste it or oh, we don't have water shortage problems here so I won't worry about it. but at the end of the day we are all part of the same big ecosystem and whatever happens in the water cycle in one place will have its effects in another. so please, for the sake of your friend here, turn off the tap while washing your dishes or maybe skip the shower once in a while- it really isn't so bad.

getting frumpy

2008-05-06T16:57:00.000-04:00

as kibum predicted, i my desire to dress up has faded. i sit in my tights or baggy pants all day, no make up, can't care less about how my hair looks.

my nails are a mess too.

yesterday we went to see roman de gare and since i had been sitting around in my aladdin pants all day i saw no need to change out of them to go to the theater. so i threw on his aspesi jacket and flip flops for a real oversized look. as i came down with my bike, my bf looked shell-shocked. this was a new look he had never seen.

"are you going to the movies in your peejamahs?"
"what"
"what the f are you wearing?"
"who cares"

well, anyway, we stopped at whole foods to get theater-dinner. someone in line asked me, "can i ask where you got your jacket? i've been looking for one exactly like that for the longest time!"

see- i obviously make oversized stylish.

baby steps, but together we can!

2008-04-22T15:54:00.000-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20wwln-lede-t.html?ei=5087&em=&en=76d14e551d4461fb&ex=1208923200&pagewanted=all

homeworking

2008-04-22T14:43:00.000-04:00

working from home isn't as fun as people think. first of all, being in PJs all day is not as fun as dressing up in nice clothes. so today i met kibum at mercury dime (cafe in the east village- i cannot reveal more for fear it becomes an afternoon watering hole for college kids) and i was wearing a pretty top with jeans and heels (and i had biked no less- but i bike in heels all the time anyway so no biggie).
k: what are you so dressed up for??
me: i have all these nice clothes and no where to wear them to anymore!
k: don't worry that anxiety will fade soon
me: i don't want to be one of those women who has let it all go... (slightly depressed at the thought that in a year i might be frumpy and not care)

second, it gets boring sitting at home all day by myself. which explains why i was out at mercury dime. but also because i had to meet our new intern who just moved to NY from spain. she is working with us a few hours every week and for two days, we will meet to work together.

third, it is a lie that home-workers have it easier. i wake up at 7.30am and start work almost immediately (after a quick breakfast that is... i cannot do without my morning meal). no luxury of day dreaming or leisure reading in a subway or bus. and although i take the liberty of "finishing" early to beat the after-office gym crowd, work is sort of simmering in the worldwide web, waiting to envelope me when i come home. since home is also office, and the business is my own, the if-i-don't-do-it-who-will / why-do-it-later-when-i-can-do-it-now impulses are much stronger, and the tendency to act upon them also much higher.

fourth, no benefits. no insurance. no more corporate perks. so no tickets to tribeca film fest or pretentious galas. but i saved a box of my old business cards so i can use them for museum admissions. heh heh.

fifth, i have to constantly keep the house clean (ok somewhat clean) so it's bearable to work in. which means i spend at least 40 mins a day doing some household chore. when i was working at an office, i could ignore dishes left in the sink and bread crumby table tops. now no longer.

sixth, my bf thinks that just because i work at home i have more time so i have been assigned the terrible task of watering the plants on the terrace (which he endearingly calls "our garden").

seventh, there is a lot of admin-type stuff that needs to be done- a system to create, infrastructure to build. just very basic things to help this organization function more smoothly, but which take a lot of time and effort at the beginning, with hardly any real immediate gains to show for it.

but i enjoy this new life. i bike around everywhere i go and save on the bus and subway fares and especially cab fares. i can eat more healthily and work out more frequently. i get a change of environment whenever i feel like i need it, and if i did feel like sleeping in one morning, i wouldn't have to call in with an excuse.

it takes discipline, this homeworking thing, but i think i can do it.

genial

2008-04-22T11:15:00.000-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20Live-a-t.html?pagewanted=all

In the above article, under the Sweat Equity section, Hong Kongers are literally peddling energy. Funny enough about 2 years ago Fede suggested that all gyms should be equipped to harness energy from its members as they work out. I laughed it off as one of his great ideas because the efficiency would be low and storage would be a problem. If this project is viable in the long-run, I will have to say that my bf can sometimes be quite "genial".

2008-04-11T00:53:00.000-04:00

I am back in NYC and have conquered jetlag. bf surprised me with homecooked nouvelle cuisine (seared scallops atop mozzarella buffala and topped with marinated sundried tomatoes- quite heavenly). he kept urging me to take a shower and when i finally agreed (i mean, what, do you think i smell bad??), i pull open the shower curtain and in the tub is a trek bike and in the bottle holder is a small bottle of champagne. i have to hand it to bf, he has swept me off my feet for the second time.

the bike is the best present i've ever received. i have been dying to get a bike since i lost his (it was stolen when i parked it outside barnes and nobles due to torrential rain- i couldn't bike it back!!). but for fear of getting it stolen again, plus it was getting cold anyway, i put off the purchase month after month. he did not scrimp on this one too. i was willing to spend about $100 for a second (maybe third, fourth or even fifth) hand bike off of craigslist. but he got me a spiffy stree bike with titanium body (who cares if it's not- it just sounds cool) so it's light enough to carry up the stairs in our building.

riding around the city is like traveling in a parallel universe. you notice things you never would have. like most streets do actually have bike lanes. like there are many more bikers than one notices when just a pedestrian. like the streets are terribly pot-holed. like the awnings of stores look different than when walking past them on a sidewalk.

the best thing about biking is that i actually CAN get EVERYWHERE in 10 mins. i usually think i can get everywhere in ten minutes on foot- but as everyone can attest to, that is a gross underestimate. but with a bike, i foresee that my chronic lateness will become less of a problem. for example today, i left my place at 12.45 and told flo i would meet her on the other side of the williamsburg bridge at 12.55. i had never biked across the w'burg bridge so i had no clue if 10 mins was enough time. but hell yeah, i got there in 9 minutes and was early!

now every errand seems a breeze to run and my efficiency is doubled thanks to my new bike. also, i will no longer pay for the smelly subway and crowded bus, plus my carbon footprint is greatly reduced. what a marvelous gift!

2008-04-09T07:58:00.000-04:00

truly a paradise to behold, sipadan is like a dream island. as the boat approaches the island, one can see the waters change from a deep blue to a bright aquamarine. the atoll wall is a plunging 600m and the reef around the island is not large. the water is unbelievably clear and visibility is easily about 30m.

my father did not dive but came on every boat ride to snorkel on the surface. he was intrigued by what he could see even from the top- reef sharks, green turtles. he even swam in a school of barracuda and a school of jackfish.

i dived and so was able to see much much more. of course turtles were a regular sighting- they were often resting on the coral wall or sometimes swimming up for air. we saw some reef sharks and a family of white tips which was fun. swimming among the colorful and very plentiful reef fish all along the coral wall was like diving into a fantasy aquarium.

we met some nice friends from germany and sweden and my father, as a true blue singaporean, always wonders how they manage to afford taking weeks on end off from work. i tell him people just choose to live life very differently, not take up too many obligations which will tie them to their desks too much. sometimes i think he fears i might become a wandering, traveling vagrant for the rest of my life.

letters from Sabah - #2

2008-04-02T14:19:00.000-04:00

I am heading to Semporna, the town from which I will be catching a
boat to Mabul. The drive from Sabahmas (the name of the estate I had
been staying at) to Semporna is 3 hours and as I have explained in my
first email, there is nothing but oil palm plantation in the
landscape. This explains why I am eager to write. (also, I am a litte
tired of reading a fiction book about a Ukrainian family in the UK. It
is not bad, I am just bored)

Plantation life is somewhat colonial. The oil palm industry was
previously dominated by the British (of course-which industry wasn't?)
so even though the estates are now owned and managed by Malaysians,
life there still smacks ever so slightly of old colonial ways.

In general, the Malaysian Chinese are the men that run the show from
the top. The office staff is mostly Bumiputra. Mid-management is
mixed-Chinese, bumi, kandazan-dusun (indigineous peoples). At the
bottom of the organizational chart are the field laborers, and they
are mostly immigrants from Indonesia because the work is too lowly and
menial for Malaysians. I wonder where will we all turn for menial
labor when the third world (someday) becomes first?

Colonial practices continue. Among the mid and senior management,
meals are almost always eaten together. Every morning at 7am we gather
out on the guest house verandah and someone calls us in when breakfast
is served. This is not just a toast and butter breakfast. We get
noodle soup, sometimes poori and dahl or even curry noodles. Then we
break off to do our work. Mine was not laborious by any means. I was
attached to the ecological management unit and they were tasked on
doing an internal audit in preparation for the external "sustainable
palm oil" audit and certification. We spent time in the field watching
how harvesting was done, how they apply fertilizer to prevent surface
run off and water pollution (like we learned in geography class) and
make sure these procedures are safe and environmentally friendly.

At 12.30 we break for lunch and unlike the rest of us city rats, they
eat slowly, chit chat, watch TV for a bit and resume work at 2. At 7,
we all come back from our various areas of work and at 730 dinner is
served again in the common dining hall. After dinner we adjourn to the
same verandah that overlooks the vast expanse of oil palm and drink
beer while cracking jokes and peanuts.

Last night we went boar hunting. There is an overpopulation of wild
boar that feeds on the oil palm fruit so they have to be culled. I had
the privilege of joining on one such expedition. I sat high up on the
elevated seats of the land cruiser with the estate manager. A few
ex-hunters who are now on the estate's payroll stand in the back with
their spotlights trying to spot the glint of the animal's eyes. We
spotted about 12 in total but killed none in the end. They were hard
to target from the land cruiser and the ground was too muddy to run
after them. So we ended the night/early morning with no prize but I
think it was the first time I had ever seen and heard a gun being
fired.

The staff address everyone as Mr so and so. If it is an english name,
it is Mr Jeremy or Mr Philip. If it is a chinese name then it is Mr
Foo or Mr Chang.

Plantation life is simple and good but one would have to get used to
giant milipedes and locusts that hover around and sometimes bump into
you.

Ok, I have arrived at my destination. So long folks!

letters from Sabah - #1

2008-04-02T14:17:00.000-04:00

Writing from sabah. I flew to kota kinanalu and from there to sandakan
where I was picked up and we continued on a 3 hour drive to lahad
datu, the nearest town to the plantation I was headed for. For almost
the whole 3 hour journey, we were driving past plantation after
plantation. The whole landscape of this part of the state is dominated
by the oil palm trees. Before palm it was rubber. It is the resource
curse.

The plantation I'm at is quite comfortable. All the guests are out up
in the guest house where we have air conditioned rooms. the problem
here is insects. They are all over and come in all forms. At any one
time there will be fruit flies buzzing around my face and houseflies
settling on my forehead and fingers. I am slightly paranoid they will
enter my respiratory system whenever I inhale. There are moths of
strange colours -pink and white- one of which landed on my leg this
morning to my disgust. I thank goodness I felt it before I saw it and
so brushed it off thinking it was a fly. Had I seen it first, I would
have jumped out of my chair. I have to keep my cool as I am the only
female in the company of these plantation men.

Then to add to the log of crazy insects, today I saw a foot-long
milipede. Think our garden ones times 50. Definitely a strange sight.

Mozzies are everywhere and I seem to be their only victim. My first
night, I had just arrived and was being introduced to everyone, after
standing still for only 5 mins, my whole left forearm was covered in
red welts. They also like attacking my eyelids for some reason. I wake
up in the night feeling itchy and my eyelids are heavy. In the morning
I look like I have cried my eyes puffy the night before. Hylexin does
not help in this case.

Then there is this nervous lizard that lives in my room. He has brown
grey striped translucent skin and is fat from all the bugs he can feed
on here. He is nervous because unlike the cool ones that sort of stick
around on the walls, this guy scampers whenever I enter the room. My
first night I was given a cool reception as I opened the bathroom door
and he ran across my bare feet. A sensation I would rather never
experience again.

But other than that, the food is great and I have been eating my heart
out as usual. Tonight we might go on a night safari and find the
nocturnal critters as they go about their nightly routines. I hope we
can hunt down some wild boar as I love the meat.

Spent some time touring the palm oil mill as well. It is amazing how
things are created behind the scenes. We have never thought about the
process of how our food gets to the table, but over here, I am
reminded everyday.

On Friday I head off to Semporna where we will be taken by boat to
Mabul Island. I am going to get my advanced cert and hopefully get to
see some great sights in Sipadan.

debunking the entrepreneur myth

2008-03-18T23:38:00.000-04:00

i will most likely be poor but maybe happy i work for myself.

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jan2008/sb20080123_809271_page_2.htm

why we love thailand

2008-03-17T03:38:00.000-04:00

so far the trip had been idyllic. we spent 2.5 days in bangkok eating our hearts out (when have we not) and walking our feet sore- we were looking forward to relaxing on our little paradise of a hotel on phi phi island.

from krabi town we made it to ao tonsai on our illegally overloaded ferry. upon landing at the pier, we found two men waiting for us, one holding up a sign that said "phi phi relax beach" - the name of our little hotel.

we followed the other guy (who turned out to be our boat driver) to the longtail boat. we waited for some other guests but they never showed. phi phi relax was located on pak nam beach, a small stretch of beach on the other side of the the island of ao tonsai. it took us about 30 mins to get there but at every beach we passed, fede would pipe "i think this is it" - it happened about 5 times until i told him to stop guessing. when we finally pulled in towards pak nam beach, he said "i knew this was it! our's is the nicest!"

after we checked into our little eco hut (no AC, no electricity until 6pm, no heated water) i realized my new dior necklace (from my mother- i would never buy my own) was missing. we looked back at photos to see at which point i might have lost it and i made frantic calls to the hotel in krabi town to see if they had found it. and to my great delight, they had! but they refused to send it to me, insisting i had to go back and pick it up. (so we spent all of the last day on a ferry from phi phi to krabi then from krabi to phuket where we were flying out of early the next morning.)

after the 30 mins of panic and finally locating my dior necklace (what was i thinking even bringing it with me??!!), i felt like i could relax and we went for a quick swim to cool off. after about 10 minutes, fede, who is in huge deficit of attention, decided we should hit the main village for a meal and night out.

the only way out of our beach was by longtail boat or an hour's hike up the hill into tonsai village. we decide on the latter to get a workout since we were preparing to stuff our faces yet again. so we took an easy hike up the hill (spend a few minutes at the peak that has amazing views of the island) and down into tonsai village. as we head down we saw signs that point the tsunami evacaution route.

in the village we opted for a pizzeria called cosmic. the vibe in the village is very backpacker. lots of dutch and scandis in their braided hair and lobster red burns. we did our share of haggling for sarongs and shorts and by 9pm we were tired and in need of rest. we made our way to the pier and asked for someone to take us back to pak nam beach. as if in some collusion, everyone said no cannot too dangerous. winds very strong, waves very big (in friendly thai-accented english).

we upped the fare we were willing to pay but still no takers. we upped again and finally one guy said ok i will take you. he brought us to the beach where his friend's boat was tied - how he can tell one apart from the 30 boats there beats me but we got in anyway.

we drive out and it seems to be ok. as we exit the bay, the water gets more choppy and soon we are smashing down on the surface of the water, the waves rocking our frail longtail left and right. the driver pushes on and fede moves to the front to stabilize the bow. fede shouts back to ask our driver to turn on an indicator light and our driver just laughs - no light. more smashing and rocking. i am gripping the soggy wooden plank which is my seat and looking around for life vests. i see none.

more smashing and rocking. i squint to see if maybe life vests are tucked under something but i am pretty sure i don't see them. by this time i am a little more nervous. our driver keeps going as though we have a modern speedboat.

more smashing and rocking. by this time, we are somewhat fearful- i can tell by the way fede is sitting at the bow- his legs tense. he turns around and tells me to tell our driver to turn back.

we turn around. about 10 mins in, the engine starts sputtering. then it stops. our driver yanks on the ignition trying to resuscitate it. we ask what's wrong and he says water in engine and laughs dismissively. the boat is still being rocked left and right.

he declares our engine dead after about 5 mins. we ask earnestly what we need to do now, can you call someone for help? he says ok no problem and proceeds to whip out... a pack of cigarettes. instead of a an sos call, he lights up his cigarettes!!! fede is losing his patience for this guy and demands that this guy calls for help. we wait and wait but no one comes. thankfully the current is pushing us back towards the bay. we wait and wait some more but still no one shows up - maybe because we don't have an emergency flare light and our driver's friend cannot find us??? soon we are pushed all the way back and it is shallow enough for our driver to push us in with a pole.

we beach the boat and head back to shore thankful we are alive. our driver hooks up up with a friend who has another friend who has another friend who knows of a vacant room for cheap. we are tired and just grateful to be alive so we don't care. we get to the guesthouse, douse ourselves with fresh cold water. as we lie in bed, i wish fede happy valentine's.

bleak

2008-03-14T05:34:00.000-04:00

http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jan2008/sb20080123_809271_page_2.htm

everytime someone says "oh you are starting your own internet business- wow remember me when you get rich!", i will point them to the above.

i will be poor all my life!!!

2008-03-13T21:40:00.000-04:00

so the other day i went to get my eyelash extensions removed. i know, gasp! i actually had them extended, but i was so lazy to curl and mascara them every morning i thought to hell with it, let me try this thing that everyone is raving about. so i went and got the individually glued on ones, and i specifically asked for "as natural as possible". anyway, back to getting them removed...the lady sat me in her dentist chair and took a look at my eyes. she asked "eh, you got insect bite under your eye ah?"

"er no... that's just my eyebag."

she chuckled a little (btch) and proceeded to unglue the plastic lashes while i fell asleep.

the end of cheap food

2008-03-12T21:36:00.000-04:00

THE END OF CHEAP FOOD
Dec 6th 2007

Rising food prices are a threat to many; they also present the world with an enormous opportunity

FOR as long as most people can remember, food has been getting cheaper and farming has been in decline. In 1974-2005 food prices on world markets fell by three-quarters in real terms. Food today is so cheap that the West is battling gluttony even as it scrapes piles of half-eaten leftovers into the bin.

That is why this year's price rise has been so extraordinary. Since the spring, wheat prices have doubled and almost every crop under the sun--maize, milk, oilseeds, you name it--is at or near a peak in nominal terms. THE ECONOMIST's food-price index is higher today than at any time since it was created in 1845 (see chart). Even in real terms, prices have jumped by 75% since 2005. No doubt farmers will meet higher prices with investment and more production, but dearer food is likely to persist for years (see article[1]). That is because "agflation" is underpinned by long-running changes in diet that accompany the growing wealth of emerging economies--the Chinese consumer who ate 20kg (44lb) of meat in 1985 will scoff over 50kg of the stuff this year. That in turn pushes up demand for grain: it takes 8kg of grain to produce one of beef.

But the rise in prices is also the self-inflicted result of America's reckless ethanol subsidies. This year biofuels will take a third of America's (record) maize harvest. That affects food markets directly:
fill up an SUV's fuel tank with ethanol and you have used enough maize to feed a person for a year. And it affects them indirectly, as farmers switch to maize from other crops. The 30m tonnes of extra maize going to ethanol this year amounts to half the fall in the world's overall grain stocks.

Dearer food has the capacity to do enormous good and enormous harm. It will hurt urban consumers, especially in poor countries, by increasing the price of what is already the most expensive item in their household budgets. It will benefit farmers and agricultural communities by increasing the rewards of their labour; in many poor rural places it will boost the most important source of jobs and economic growth.

Although the cost of food is determined by fundamental patterns of demand and supply, the balance between good and ill also depends in part on governments. If politicians do nothing, or the wrong things, the world faces more misery, especially among the urban poor. If they get policy right, they can help increase the wealth of the poorest nations, aid the rural poor, rescue farming from subsidies and neglect--and minimise the harm to the slum-dwellers and landless labourers. So far, the auguries look gloomy.

IN THE TROUGH
That, at least, is the lesson of half a century of food policy.
Whatever the supposed threat--the lack of food security, rural poverty, environmental stewardship--the world seems to have only one solution:
government intervention. Most of the subsidies and trade barriers have come at a huge cost. The trillions of dollars spent supporting farmers in rich countries have led to higher taxes, worse food, intensively farmed monocultures, overproduction and world prices that wreck the lives of poor farmers in the emerging markets. And for what? Despite the help, plenty of Western farmers have been beset by poverty.
Increasing productivity means you need fewer farmers, which steadily drives the least efficient off the land. Even a vast subsidy cannot reverse that.

With agflation, policy has reached a new level of self-parody. Take America's supposedly verdant ethanol subsidies. It is not just that they are supporting a relatively dirty version of ethanol (far better to import Brazil's sugar-based liquor); they are also offsetting older grain subsidies that lowered prices by encouraging overproduction.
Intervention multiplies like lies. Now countries such as Russia and Venezuela have imposed price controls--an aid to consumers--to offset America's aid to ethanol producers. Meanwhile, high grain prices are persuading people to clear forests to plant more maize.

Dearer food is a chance to break this dizzying cycle. Higher market prices make it possible to reduce subsidies without hurting incomes. A farm bill is now going through America's Congress. The European Union has promised a root-and-branch review (not yet reform) of its farm-support scheme. The reforms of the past few decades have, in fact, grappled with the rich world's farm programmes--but only timidly. Now comes the chance for politicians to show that they are serious when they say they want to put agriculture right.

Cutting rich-world subsidies and trade barriers would help taxpayers; it could revive the stalled Doha round of world trade talks, boosting the world economy; and, most important, it would directly help many of the world's poor. In terms of economic policy, it is hard to think of a greater good.

WHERE GOVERNMENT HELP IS REALLY NEEDED
Three-quarters of the world's poor live in rural areas. The depressed world prices created by farm policies over the past few decades have had a devastating effect. There has been a long-term fall in investment in farming and the things that sustain it, such as irrigation. The share of public spending going to agriculture in developing countries has fallen by half since 1980. Poor countries that used to export food now import it.

Reducing subsidies in the West would help reverse this. The World Bank reckons that if you free up agricultural trade, the prices of things poor countries specialise in (like cotton) would rise and developing countries would capture the gains by increasing exports. And because farming accounts for two-thirds of jobs in the poorest countries, it is the most important contributor to the early stages of economic growth.
According to the World Bank, the really poor get three times as much extra income from an increase in farm productivity as from the same gain in industry or services. In the long term, thriving farms and open markets provide a secure food supply.

However, there is an obvious catch--and one that justifies government help. High prices have a mixed impact on poverty: they hurt anyone who loses more from dear food than he gains from a higher income. And that means over a billion urban consumers (and some landless labourers), many of whom are politically influential in poor countries. Given the speed of this year's food-price rises, governments in emerging markets have no alternative but to try to soften the blow.

Where they can, these governments should subsidise the incomes of the poor, rather than food itself, because that minimises price distortions. Where food subsidies are unavoidable, they should be temporary and targeted on the poor. So far, most government interventions in the poor world have failed these tests: politicians who seem to think cheap food part of the natural order of things have slapped on price controls and export restraints, which hurt farmers and will almost certainly fail.

Over the past few years, a sense has grown that the rich are hogging the world's wealth. In poor countries, widening income inequality takes the form of a gap between city and country: incomes have been rising faster for urban dwellers than for rural ones. If handled properly, dearer food is a once-in-a-generation chance to narrow income disparities and to wean rich farmers from subsidies and help poor ones.
The ultimate reward, though, is not merely theirs: it is to make the world richer and fairer.

power and pleasure

2008-03-11T21:20:00.000-04:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/nyregion/11cnd-scandals.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

spitzer

2008-03-11T04:58:00.000-04:00

Poor Spitzer.

i think prostitution should be legalized for medical and social reasons and hey, if the dude needs a break from his wife, so let him be.

not that i condone extramarital affairs but we don't know the situation in the bedroom and after all, it seems like he couldn't get his wife “to do things that, like, you might not think were safe.” (see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/nyregion/11spitzer.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th)

seems like while the hotties in hollywood are getting into trouble while driving under the influence, people in government are busy getting caught in the act.

We have a food problem

2008-03-09T21:42:00.000-04:00

Rising food prices is a cause for concern. While we in the developed world feel a small pinch in a few cents, imagine those few cents being a large percentage of the income of those in the developing world. If this rise in prices does not stop, what will happen in parts of the world where people just cannot afford it? Here's an article that provides so food for thought. From the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/business/worldbusiness/09crop.html?ex=1205726400&en=1683a25369291f6c&ei=5070

2008-01-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

last sunday we woke up and thought hmm it's about time to get some shelves for the kitchen. but i wasn't about to get huge shelves without a new dining table because the current setup + new shelves just wouldn't fit.

so we surfed around on crateandbarrel.com, cb2.com, and westelm.com. too expensive. why do we have to pay more than $800 for a dining table and another $150 for shipping??? so an hour and a half later we found ourselves at to ikea.com (actually, it was ikea, elizabeth, NJ) via uhaul.com. i had driven no less.

after our microwave tasting meal at the cafe *puke puke*, we bumped and shoved everyone in our way and filled up two carts with new shelving units, a spiffy island dining set and some misc stuff that one of us felt would be necessary.

i had to mad rush it back to return the uhaul by 430pm. other than speeding, we made a good choice taking the GW bridge rather than the lincoln tunnel. thankfully we didn't get caught in traffic, but being stuck on a bridge is much less claustrophobic than being stuck in a tunnel. a speedy drop-off and i uhauled my ass to the uhaul location at 430 on the DOT.

the uhaul guy came over to inspect the gas levels and look for any damages. i was on a quarter tank of gas when i got it at 3-eighths, meaning $30 in refuelling charge and $4/gallon. fuck. i pulled a sad face and he said, why don't you just hit me up with some cash and i'll take care of this for you. ok. i gave him $10 and we were both happy.

so far so good. we got back safe and sound and before night fell.

then as we were fixing the stuff up, fede held up a box which contained one of the new chairs and asked- why is this chair taller than the others?

FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

see i am not wrong about italians

2007-10-05T12:59:00.000-04:00

see link above for the whole story, but this is the part i want to highlight so you understand what i deal with everyday.

From the NY times

Since 2002, the number of Americans supporting tighter immigration curbs has declined slightly, as it has among Canadians. Support in Britain and France for tighter immigration limits also declined slightly.

But in Italy, which has struggled with a steady flow of illegal immigrants, many arriving by sea from Africa, the number backing tighter immigration laws rose to 87 percent, from 80 percent in 2002. In Italy, 20 percent said that immigration from the Middle East and North Africa was good, while 67 percent said it was bad. Only 26 percent of Germans called immigration from those regions good, while 64 percent said it was bad.

Support for tougher immigration rules also soared in Jordan, which has faced a huge influx of Iraqis since the war started in 2003, rising to 70 percent, from 48 percent in 2002.

The survey found Americans more likely than most West Europeans to believe that their culture was superior; 55 percent of Americans said so. The only European country with a higher degree of self-belief was Italy, where 7 in 10 respondents proclaimed cultural superiority.

CULTURAL SUPERIORITY??? just because everyone loves pizza and pasta? god!!!

alimerda

2007-10-03T23:27:00.000-04:00

trip to italy was great. would have been better if it did not rain 247 for the 4 days we were there, but i have no complaints because it made me feel ok about sleeping in every morning.

giovanna and diego were warm and welcoming- my pre-visit fears were unfounded apparently. we communicated through fede and also kibum's (elementary) translations, gesticulations, real-life charades and lots of laughter and smiles. i wish i spoke some italian to ask them questions and tell them more about me but oh well.

porto valtravaglia is fede's hometown (population 500) on lago maggiore. the lake is surrounded by mountains and is absolutely beautiful. the town is quiet and quaint, cobblestones, pasticceria and all. funny that my urban snob bf grew up in the boondocks- i wonder where he developed that sensibility. we drove to the monastery on the lake, climbed (in a city slicker way) a mountain, and ate too much.

it was great food, great company, great scenery, everything was perfect until we checked in at malpensa.

the flight was overbooked and of course, tough luck, the 3 of us (kibum, fede and i) just happened to be the last three not able to get on the flight. after a big fuss (which i caused) we got re-routed via paris and given a 600 euro compensation. would be nice if we actually get it. i have emailed alitalia and delta everyday since coming back but only receive a canned response. fucking assholes.

in paris, we try to board the flight back to ny. we are asked by the agent for our tickets but we have none i told them. the agent in milan just gave us the boarding passes. so yet another fuss and scramble but thankfully the french are less incompetent than the italians and manage to get us on the flight in time.

we arrive in ny and wait at the carousel for our luggage only to find out they were stranded in paris. double fck. i swear the italians-just give them some fabric and they will cut it into a designer piece but they do a royally great job of fcking up any logistical matter. the bags finally arrive 48 hours later. the can of oil is dented beyond recognition, pasta spilled all over the bag, tuna juice and everything else messy and gross

2007-09-21T14:34:00.000-04:00

this monday i stopped by the gym but i didn't work out (got there and decided i was too lazy). ended up walking home and on the way i saw a poster for the chemical brothers playing at mccarren park pool. thought- oh how nostalgic. i remember the days when xiu and i were really into electronica. the chemical brothers, prodigy, tha jackal soundtrack, crytal method, SPAWN. we went blading around singapore with our discmans and headphones in our backpacks.

then on tues we stopped by the gym again and ended up not going again (fede forgot his shoes). so i went home, put on my chemical brothers cd and jumped around like a madwoman for 40 mins. fede thought i was nuts but boy what a work out. three days later my calves are still sore from it.

tomorrow i will be going to see the chemical brothers at mccarren park pool. all because i came to work on wed morning complaining about my aching calves and why they got that way. he said i'm going to see them on sat you should come. i was like, woah i feel so old- watching the chemical bros play??? that was like when i was 14. dude, the chemical bros are classic now. haha.
but i decided it was all too karmic to ignore so i just bought my ticket and tomorrow will be busting out my bedroom moves to all of hipster brooklyn that is still revelling in classic electronica.

2007-09-12T21:59:00.000-04:00

an update on my efforts:

1. i have been diligently using my patrick starfish mug (fede bought me from orlando airport. quite cute/ugly but serves a purpose) at work for the last almost 6 months now. it is drawing quite a bit of attention from my other colleagues i guess maybe partly because it is quite ridiculous looking. but in any case, it gives me 1 min to tell people why i use it and challenge them to do the same. some people have said cool yeah i should, but have not acted upon it, others think i'm a little nuts but oh well.
SO today i went and ordered 15 mugs and will give them out to those who have said oh yeah i should do it. let's see if we can start an office movement. (and dear anonymous 731 lex colleague, why don't you join me in this too?)

2. i have been pretty good about re-using my plastic bottle. until i somehow lose it or some waitress clears it from my table before i notice. so in two weeks i have used maybe 3 bottles as opposed to 5 a day before.

my next step is to try and convince/coerce those closest to me to do the same.

2007-09-07T18:19:00.000-04:00

when it comes time to study, i do everything but.

this blog started about 3 years ago in my desperation to get away from studying. i was trying to study for a final in the middle of the night and because i had no one to talk to to distract myself, i thought oh maybe i will start writing down my rantings.

so i started my first post.

three years on and things have not changed much. i am trying to study for the gmat which is on monday, and while i should really be trying to understand permutations and whether X squared is greater Y cubed, i am ranting once again because there is no one at home to distract me.

so i used to have a chocolate chocolate chip muffin for breakfast every morning (from the ray's deli on st marks and 3rd). since we no longer pass by that deli, i have resorted to dry toast or special k from work. but my point is that a good double chocolate chip muffin is hard to come by. i like the ones loaded with choc chips. not the fake ones with just a few chips sprinkled on top. i love to dig into a muffin for the huge chunks of half melted chocolate. and of course the muffin top is crucial- the muffins at ray's were not only HUGE, they sprinkled sugar on the top so that it caramelized nicely when baked and makes for a crisp muffin top. crisp and filled with chocolate chips- DIVINE.

speaking of chocolate, i walked by the godiva store at grand central and i see the chocolate covered strawberries. so i think- what the heck, i'm studying hard tomorrow so i deserve to eat a chocolate covered strawberry. so i walked in and asked for a chocolate covered strawberry. the cashier said $6.50 please. inside me i balked- WHAT $6.50 for a choc covered strawberry???? that's the price of a lunch!!! and unfortunately the chocolate coating was too thick, hard and artificial tasting. i might as well have bought a strawberry and eaten a piece of chocolate separately. godiva certainly chose their namesake right- GO DIVA. go diva, buy my chocolate.

2007-08-30T09:08:00.000-04:00

adele sent me an article the other day about bottled water and what a waste it is. and i cannot agree more.

i used to be good and drink out of a stale smelling nalgene in jc and college, where i could fill my bottle from the coolers in the library. then i started work at Bloomberg and the abundance of free bottles of Poland Springs made me unconsciously dump the big red perspex bottle for smaller disposable Poland Springs that would fit nicely into my work bag.

i also used to diligently filter tap water in the brita jug at home, but after moving i did not get a new one and so grabbing a couple of free bottles per day from the work kitchen became a little more convenient.

while the bottles are recyclable and bottled-water is relatively affordable, the energy spent in manufacturing, distributing, collecting and then recycling each bottle is far too high. and once you factor in the environmental costs, each bottle of water would be more like $3 not $1.50.

SO now it is time for change. especially since i claim and try to be green. i will go to patagonia (the store) this weekend and buy my self a hardy little nalgene and boycott bottled water unless absolutely necessary.

anyone want to join me?
and to hold me accountable, please ask me in two weeks how i've done.

china and pollution- whose problem is it anyway?

2007-08-30T09:06:00.000-04:00

Today we have answers to your questions from Orville Schell, the author of nine books about China – including “Virtual Tibet,” “Mandate of Heaven,” “Discos and Democracy” and “To Get Rich Is Glorious.” Earlier this month, Mr. Schell traveled to China and met with Chinese experts and officials to discuss global warming.
Given that the greenhouse gases from the large number of coal fired power plants China plans to build in the coming years will counteract many of the efforts by the industrialized world to reduce its CO2 emissions, have you seen any evidence of Chinese officials making attempts to curb the number of coal fired power plants that are scheduled to be built in the next decade or two (or move towards cleaner coal technologies)? — Lou Miller

This question gets to the heart of several matters.
Of all the environmental problems which confront China, there is none greater than that presented by the country’s abundance of coal. On the one hand, this bounty of coal has provided China with an ready source of energy with which to stoke its extraordinarily rapid economic growth rate (10-11% annually). Indeed, some 70% of China’s energy is derived from coal. And, because China is no longer self-sufficient in petroleum supplies - those felicitous days ended about a decade ago - it is ever more dependent on coal - on soft, dirty bituminous coal at that. Moreover, as the cost of oil rises, China becomes even more reliant on coal, especially in such industries as electrical power, cement, aluminum, and steel, which are all very energy intensive. (And approximately nine times less energy efficient than Japan and four to five times less efficient than the US).
To feed all this new development, China has recently been building in the neighborhood of one new conventional coal-fired power plant every week. (Never mind all the cement, steel, aluminum, etc. plants that are also coal fired.) And, it has been very difficult for the Central Government in Beijing to control this proliferation, because the logic of every region is that it will find a way to build as many power plants as it needs to compete with every other region, never mind if the Central Government disagrees and has not authorized them to do so. In this new world of hyper-development kultur where economic growth trumps just about everything else, and certainly trumps environmental imperatives, it is very difficult for Beijing leaders to slow down this process.
What is particularly depressing about this state of affairs is that each of these new “conventional” coal fired power plants will be operating for another thirty to forty years. Most will not easily be retro-fitted with conventional pollution controls, much less carbon capture. So, we not only see China writing a scenario for it’s short-term environmental fate with these plants, but also for the globe’s long term fate.
There are two problems with coal:
First, it produces myriad forms of “conventional” pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide (the famous SOX and NOX twins); mercury; and much particulate matter.
Second, the mining and burning of so much coal also produces and abundance of green houses gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.
While there are remedies (albeit, ones involving an added cost) for the former, there are as yet no practical or cost-effective ways to “capture” and then “sequester” carbon. So, carbon and methane continue to spew into our atmosphere adding to the “green house effect” with which everyone is becoming increasingly familiar through films such as Al Gore’s informative “An Inconvenient Truth.”
Chinese officials at the national level are becoming increasingly aware of this double barreled dilemma. But while they have begun to take measures to deal with the problems of “conventional pollutants” from the burning of coal, they have as yet eschewed responsibility for the problem of greenhouse gases. They argue that since the West’s “historical” contribution to the world’s “carbon load” is far more than China’s, and since the West had a right to “develop” during the Industrial Revolution, therefore China now must also be afforded an equal right to give its people a better material life.
In essence, the Chinese have thrown the issue back on the developed world, saying, “It is not fair to penalize our development as a remedy for your past indulgences.”
There is a certain logic to their argument. We would like to see a parity in solving the problem today, but they look at our historical account and see a pattern of excessive abuse and would like to be given the same rights… even if it melts the polar ice caps.
Instead of seeking out a common remedy whereby the US might lead the world in searching for and then formulating some plan to pool resources and allow China to continue to develop, albeit in a “clean” manner while still limiting both conventional pollutants and carbon emissions, the US has used China’s obduracy to opt out of any solution altogether, including the Kyoto Protocols.
The result is that while the US hides behind China, China hides behind the US. We find ourselves in a world where the two largest polluters are sitting the game out, even as our common globe becomes increasingly warmed, with all the attendant consequences.

2007-08-09T19:06:00.000-04:00

i have come full circle.

i remember about 2.5 years ago when i decided to stop by for a few months to try my luck out in new york, i asked peiru to check out an apt on the lower east side for me. a little ghetto-ish place on attorney st (up til now, frequenters of the les still don't know it's right next to clinton st!). she said- hmm not so sure about the place- it's kind of in a shady neighbourhood. i couldn't be bothered to spend more time looking so i said aiyah, just take it.

well, two months into it, i realized my landlady was a non-bill-paying, anorexic, free spirited transcriber-aspiring-musical writer. i flipped out and left. should have listened to peiru when she said "she's a little... well... loopy"

so anyway, 2.5 years later, attorney st still lies undiscovered in the shadow of its hipper neighbour, clinton st. but i'm moving back to the LES to end my time here with a bang!

this time a much nicer apt, on allen and rivington where it's all at. not a dark and dinky sublet with strange mannequin busts hanging from the ceiling. have lots of light and a cool "terrace" as we endearingly call our roof with a huge ac unit sitting in the middle of it.

i like to tell people i'm next to the hotel on rivington- how swanky

2007-08-09T18:28:00.000-04:00

pinkberry will be the death of me this summer.

some korean import phenomenon, which isn't even such an amazing idea and not much different from yami yoghurt, has driven almost everyone to chronic cravings.

they have only two flavours- green tea and original. they charge a buck more for green tea (i don't know why- maybe the antioxidant power of green tea commands a premium??) then then have these fresh fruit topping and some regular oreos, capn crunch, dry stuff. there is absolutely NOTHING special about this concept and the fro-yo we've all tried before so i remain perplexed as to why i CRAVE pinkberry every day, and thousands of others do too.

the standard evening text msg to the girls : PINKBERRY?? we skip dinners just so we can have the 8oz with 3 toppings.

we're not the only cuckoos- in the spring st branch, hundreds of people line up everyday. the turnover is tremendously high. and even models, yes models, get in line for this miracle froyo. we love people watching at pinkberry and do that at least 3 times a week now.

then of course since we pay so much for the damn yoghurt, we scrutinize their production line. after swirling your serving of yoghurt into the cup, the server proceeds to WEIGH it. WHY AND WHAT FOR??? no clue. what- are they going to re-swirl if it is off by 0.1oz? maybe one night i should ask to see the weight of my cup to verify it is indeed what i am paying for.

very annoying also is that the cashier is at the beginning of the line. you give her your order and you have to choose the toppings before you pay. she then prints your order on a label and you walk down along the topping bar. why can't we just choose our toppings as we make our way down along the topping bar and avoid the pretentious paper wasting labels???

i hate how inefficient and silly everything is at pinkberry- even the modern-tacky decor bothers me. but i cannot explain why i wake up everyday and think about when i can have my next cup of green tea yoghurt with mango, mochi balls and blueberry.

lip gunk

2007-07-29T22:44:00.000-04:00

lip gloss is a messy affair.
i have a little wand-in-gloss stick i carry around which i got for really cheap at zara in dubai. the problem with cheap gloss is that it is often too viscous and sticky. so after the glam slam smother and smack, suddenly a gust blows and your hair flies onto your face. but rather than being ad-worthy windblown, too many strands of hair get stuck in my just-applied, overly viscous lip gloss. fuck. then as i try to pull my hair out of my lips, the gloss pulls onto my face also, which i have to inconspicuously wipe off. TAT GLAM.

facebook fantasy

2007-07-19T07:29:00.000-04:00

so i was recently re-introduced to facebook due to some unfortunate incident.
that prompted me to log into my account after 6 months and to my surprise, i
found a nice pile of 22 friend requests which made me feel suddenly very
popular. *pat on back*

i decided to get with the social networking program and acknowledged those
friends/acquaintances that remember me.

one day i logged in to find that i was TAGGED in some horrendous looking
pictures. TAT GLAM SIA. how the f was i supposed to get rid of something that
didn't belong to me?? i asked my facebook guru colleague and he showed me how to
remove tags. so i started eliminating those terrible caught in the middle of
something unglam shots but had to deal with the painful reality that while they
were out of sight for me, they still belonged to someone's album to which i had
no reach.

i started out only knowing how to get to my inbox and replying to messages, but
for a week i was perplexed as to how to see ALL my friends?? i kept
clicking on the FRIENDS button (naturally) only to have the ones who had
recently tagged a photo or bought someone a martini show up. finally my
colleague came over and showed me on the drop down i could select ALL FRIENDS.
ahh what revelations that make your day.

new to the social networking game, i started prying into my friends' networks
and felt like a little voyeur. how do i get more friends i asked myself.
following fede's lead when he started adding my friends to his network, i
started taking the liberty of ADDING FRIENDs from other friends. i wondered if
people minded that i was circumventing them to meet their friends. but facebook
was now my shield- i could now add/poke/message someone whom i had never spoken
to in person for more than 10 minutes, all without the awkward small talk and bs
of really caring. PLUS i add to my growing network of friends and i feel a
little more popular each time. *more pats on back*

i just added a Where I've Been application on my profile/wall/account(??) - go
check it out, my newly made friends!

2007-07-13T07:57:00.000-04:00

Distorted by today's political lenses, European historical memory selectively focuses on past violence perpetrated by Muslims and either forgets Europe's cultural borrowings from Muslim societies, or regards them as unimportant remnants of a closed chapter in European-Muslim relations.

Fourteen European countries have been wholly or partly under Muslim rule for at least one of the last 14 centuries. With the exception of Spain, national memory in all of these lands either minimizes this experience or portrays the era of Muslim dominion as one of unrelieved oppression and barbarity.

Violence is the dominant motif of Western histories on Islamic relations. Everyone is reminded on a regular basis that a Muslim army penetrated deep into northern France in 732 before being heroically stopped by Charles Martel at Tours, and another Muslim army laid siege to Vienna in 1529 before being turned back by bad weather and heroic defenders.

And they are similarly reminded that their own Crusader ancestors seized Jerusalem from the Saracen unbelievers and held it for almost a century. That Crusader conquest and rule might have involved oppression and barbarity is generally omitted from the story.

From episodes like this, today's ideologues concoct a myth of unending and merciless hostility between Islam and the West.

But even the military tale is selectively told. Who recalls that France's Renaissance monarch Francis I allied with the Muslim Ottoman ruler Suleiman the Magnificent to fight against his Christian rival Charles V of Spain? Who remembers that many generations of Muslim Tatars fought for Christian Polish kings against their Christian foreign enemies?

Closer to the present, Europeans are slow to recall the tens of thousands of Muslim soldiers from West Africa and India who fought and died on the Western Front in World War I against what the French and the British then thought of as the "barbaric Huns"? And who chooses to remember the reliance the United States placed on Afghanistan's Muslim warriors in their struggle against the "godless atheists" of the Soviet Union in the 1980s?

Muslims who have fought on behalf of Western political interests have been forgotten. Muslims who have confronted the West militarily are remembered. Not only remembered, but taken as examples of an imaginary eternal opposition between Islam and the West.

Meanwhile, the diverse and long-standing peaceful side of European-Muslim relations remains in shadow. When you arise in the morning, your toothbrush and the hard soap you wash with are borrowings from the Muslim world. At breakfast, your orange juice and coffee come from the Muslims, and so does the sugar you put in your coffee and the clear glass and glazed coffee cup you drink from. You read your newspaper. Both paper and the idea of printing are borrowings from Muslim society. What do you do later? Play chess? Eat pasta? Play your guitar? All from the Muslim world.

Beyond daily life, of course, there are myriad other borrowings from Muslim societies, particularly in the areas of medicine, chemistry and philosophy. Today these are normally treated as irrelevancies from a long ago time. But that seemingly irrelevant long ago time was actually the time of the Crusades that so many think are still highly relevant. The languages of all European countries contain hundreds of words of Arabic, Persian or Turkish origin, mostly dealing with science (alcohol, algebra), consumer goods (sugar, coffee), and elegant living (lute, damask).

How is Muslim culture enriching us now? Through the phenomenally popular poems of Rumi, one might answer. Through story characters like Aladdin, Ali Baba and Sinbad the Sailor, who have become stock figures in popular entertainment. Through contemporary Iranian films. Through the spiritual experiences of people in the West who convert to Islam. Through the working lives of the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who, despite anti-immigrant sentiment and religious hostility, choose not to give in to extremist appeals.

Europe needs to come to grips with its past. This could best be done by a multinational commission charged with reviewing every aspect of the history of Muslims in, and versus, Europe. The parallel history of Europeans in, and versus, Muslims outside of Europe is of equal importance; but that has already been addressed in hundreds of books devoted to imperialism and its beneficial or baleful consequences.

There are two reasons why this urgent chore needs to be addressed internationally. First, a number of countries - Serbia and Bulgaria come to mind - have built a myth of demonic Muslim occupation into nationalist ideologies that no longer ring true, however serviceable they may once have been during struggles for independence. These myths need to be re-examined outside the nationalist context.

Secondly, Muslims must be granted a role in reconsidering their history within Europe. Modern efforts at reconciliation around the world have amply demonstrated that disputed histories cannot be clarified without participation by the parties concerned.

Throughout contemporary Europe the debate over Islam and Muslims proceeds at a fevered pace. But without a comprehensive understanding of the past, all sides in the debate build on weak foundations. Working internationally to build that comprehensive understanding will serve the future as much as the past

Richard Bulliet is professor of history at Columbia University and author of "Islam: A View from the Edge" and "The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization." This article was distributed by Agence Global.

Buying Into The Green Movement

2007-07-11T08:40:00.000-04:00

Alex Williams of the NY Times talks about the dilemma that plagues me everyday because i am such a consumer:

HERE'S one popular vision for saving the planet: Roll out from under the sumptuous hemp-fiber sheets on your bed in the morning and pull on a pair of $245 organic cotton Levi's and an Armani biodegradable knit shirt.

Stroll from the bedroom in your eco-McMansion, with its photovoltaic solar panels, into the kitchen remodeled with reclaimed lumber. Enter the three-car garage lighted by energy-sipping fluorescent bulbs and slip behind the wheel of your $104,000 Lexus hybrid.

Drive to the airport, where you settle in for an 8,000-mile flight-- careful to buy carbon offsets beforehand -- and spend a week driving golf balls made from compacted fish food at an eco-resort in the Maldives.

That vision of an eco-sensitive life as a series of choices about what to buy appeals to millions of consumers and arguably defines the current environmental movement as equal parts concern for the earth and for making a stylish statement.

Some 35 million Americans regularly buy products that claim to be earth-friendly, according to one report, everything from organic beeswax lipstick from the west Zambian rain forest to Toyota Priuses. With baby steps, more and more shoppers browse among the 60,000 products available under Home Depot's new Eco Options program.

Such choices are rendered fashionable as celebrities worried about global warming appear on the cover of Vanity Fair's ''green issue,'' and pop stars like Kelly Clarkson and Lenny Kravitz prepare to be headline acts on July 7 at the Live Earth concerts at sites around the world.

Consumers have embraced living green, and for the most part the mainstream green movement has embraced green consumerism. But even at this moment of high visibility and impact for environmental activists, a splinter wing of the movement has begun to critique what it sometimes calls ''light greens.''

Critics question the notion that we can avert global warming by buying so-called earth-friendly products, from clothing and cars to homes and vacations, when the cumulative effect of our consumption remains enormous and hazardous.

''There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we're going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,'' said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues.

The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one's consumption of goods and resources. It's not enough to build a vacation home of recycled lumber; the real way to reduce one's carbon footprint is to only own one home.

Buying a hybrid car won't help if it's the aforementioned Lexus, the luxury LS 600h L model, which gets 22 miles to the gallon on the highway; the Toyota Yaris ($11,000) gets 40 highway miles a gallon with a standard gasoline engine.

It's as though the millions of people whom environmentalists have successfully prodded to be concerned about climate change are experiencing a SnackWell's moment: confronted with a box of fat-free devil's food chocolate cookies, which seem deliciously guilt-free, they consume the entire box, avoiding any fats but loading up on calories.

The issue of green shopping is highlighting a division in the environmental movement: ''the old-school environmentalism of self-abnegation versus this camp of buying your way into heaven,'' said Chip Giller, the founder of Grist.org, an online environmental blog that claims a monthly readership of 800,000. ''Over even the last couple of months, there is more concern growing within the traditional camp about the Cosmo-izing of the green movement -- '55 great ways to look eco-sexy,' '' he said. ''Among traditional greens, there is concern that too much of the population thinks there's an easy way out.''

The criticisms have appeared quietly in some environmental publications and on the Web.

GEORGE BLACK, an editor and a columnist at OnEarth, a quarterly journal of the Natural Resources Defense Council, recently summed up the explosion of high-style green consumer items and articles of the sort that proclaim ''green is the new black,'' that is, a fashion trend, as ''eco-narcissism.''

Paul Hawken, an author and longtime environmental activist, said the current boom in earth-friendly products offers a false promise. ''Green consumerism is an oxymoronic phrase,'' he said. He blamed the news media and marketers for turning environmentalism into fashion and distracting from serious issues.

''We turn toward the consumption part because that's where the money is,'' Mr. Hawken said. ''We tend not to look at the 'less' part. So you get these anomalies like 10,000-foot 'green' homes being built by a hedge fund manager in Aspen. Or 'green' fashion shows. Fashion is the deliberate inculcation of obsolescence.''

He added: ''The fruit at Whole Foods in winter, flown in from Chile on a 747 -- it's a complete joke. The idea that we should have raspberries in January, it doesn't matter if they're organic. It's diabolically stupid.''

Environmentalists say some products marketed as green may pump more carbon into the atmosphere than choosing something more modest, or simply nothing at all. Along those lines, a company called PlayEngine sells a 19-inch widescreen L.C.D. set whose ''sustainable bamboo'' case is represented as an earth-friendly alternative to plastic.

But it may be better to keep your old cathode-tube set instead, according to ''The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook,'' because older sets use less power than plasma or L.C.D. screens. (Televisions account for about 4 percent of energy consumption in the United States, the handbook says.)

''The assumption that by buying anything, whether green or not, we're solving the problem is a misperception,'' said Michael Ableman, an environmental author and long-time organic farmer. ''Consuming is a significant part of the problem to begin with. Maybe the solution is instead of buying five pairs of organic cotton jeans, buy one pair of regular jeans instead.''

For the most part, the critiques of green consumption have come from individual activists, not from mainstream environmental groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network. The latest issue of Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, has articles hailing an ''ecofriendly mall'' featuring sustainable clothing (under development in Chicago) and credit cards that rack up carbon offsets for every purchase, as well as sustainably-harvested caviar and the celebrity-friendly Tango electric sports car (a top-of-the-line model is $108,000).

One reason mainstream groups may be wary of criticizing Americans' consumption is that before the latest era of green chic, these large organizations endured years in which their warnings about climate change were scarcely heard.

Much of the public had turned away from the Carter-era environmental message of sacrifice, which included turning down the thermostat, driving smaller cars and carrying a cloth ''Save-a-Tree'' tote to the supermarket.

Now that environmentalism is high profile, thanks in part to the success of ''An Inconvenient Truth,'' the 2006 documentary featuring Al Gore, mainstream greens, for the most part, say that buying products promoted as eco-friendly is a good first step.

''After you buy the compact fluorescent bulbs,'' said Michael Brune, the executive director of the Rainforest Action Network, ''you can move on to greater goals like banding together politically to shut down coal-fired power plants.''

John Passacantando, the executive director of Greenpeace USA, argued that green consumerism has been a way for Wal-Mart shoppers to get over the old stereotypes of environmentalists as ''tree-hugging hippies'' and contribute in their own way.

This is crucial, he said, given the widespread nature of the global warming challenge. ''You need Wal-Mart and Joe Six-Pack and mayors and taxi drivers,'' he said. ''You need participation on a wide front.''

It is not just ecology activists with one foot in the 1970s, though, who have taken issue with the consumerist personality of the ''light green'' movement. Anti-consumerist fervor burns hotly among some activists who came of age under the influence of noisy, disruptive anti-globalization protests.

Last year, a San Francisco group called the Compact made headlines with a vow to live the entire year without buying anything but bare essentials like medicine and food. A year in, the original 10 ''mostly'' made it, said Rachel Kesel, 26, a founder. The movement claims some 8,300 adherents throughout the country and in places as distant as Singapore and Iceland.

''The more that I'm engaged in this, the more annoyed I get with things like 'shop against climate change' and these kind of attitudes,'' said Ms. Kesel, who continues her shopping strike and counts a new pair of running shoes -- she's a dog-walker by trade -- as among her limited purchases in 18 months.

''It's hysterical,'' she said. ''You're telling people to consume more in order to reduce impact.''

For some, the very debate over how much difference they should try to make in their own lives is a distraction. They despair of individual consumers being responsible for saving the earth from climate change and want to see action from political leaders around the world.

INDIVIDUAL consumers may choose more fuel-efficient cars, but a far greater effect may be felt when fuel-efficiency standards are raised for all of the industry , as the Senate voted to do on June 21, the first significant rise in mileage standards in more than two decades.

''A legitimate beef that people have with green consumerism is, at end of the day, the things causing climate change are more caused by politics and the economy than individual behavior,'' said Michel Gelobter, a former professor of environmental policy at Rutgers who is now president of Redefining Progress, a nonprofit policy group that promotes sustainable living.

''A lot of what we need to do doesn't have to do with what you put in your shopping basket,'' he said. ''It has to do with mass transit, housing density. It has to do with the war and subsidies for the coal and fossil fuel industry.''

In fact, those light-green environmentalists who chose not to lecture about sacrifice and promote the trendiness of eco-sensitive products may be on to something.

Michael Shellenberger, a partner at American Environics, a market research firm in Oakland, Calif., said that his company ran a series of focus groups in April for the environmental group Earthjustice, and was surprised by the results.

People considered their trip down the Eco Options aisles at Home Depot a beginning, not an end point.

''We didn't find that people felt that their consumption gave them a pass, so to speak,'' Mr. Shellenberger said. ''They knew what they were doing wasn't going to deal with the problems, and these little consumer things won't add up. But they do it as a practice of mindfulness. They didn't see it as antithetical to political action. Folks who were engaged in these green practices were actually becoming more committed to more transformative political action on global warming.''

2007-07-08T20:18:00.000-04:00

now that im studying for the gmat and taking the princeton review classes (stop mocking me. i am just not a good test taker and need the extra help), i find myself scrutinizing tenses, whether the verbs match, am i using parallel construction? am i using the correct prepositional phrases and idioms? i am spending much more time than i thought i ever would and i haven't picked up a book or magazine in more than 3 weeks (other than the In Touch's and Us Weekly's i get at the nail salon).
because last week was crammed with moving and writing my final paper for my other class, i had to resort to hiding out in the office bathroom to do my gmat homework.

i am so conditioned to think about gmat that when i got too annoyed by angelina jolie's terrible accent on alexander, i actually flipped open my books and started doing some problems. either i am slightly off kilter or angie's acting was simply too repulsive.

on the topic of alexander- it is possibly one of the worst epics i have ever seen. the costumes shine so brilliantly everyone looks like they are in a broadway musical, not in ancient greek times. the dialogue is so inane and mindless i feel like they take the audience for fools. the actors are horribly cast and really do themselves as well as the characters they play such injustice. jared leto for example is the gay companion and loyal warrior to alexander- why when he would make a much better villain?? and colin farrell as a king? he lacks the presence and the stature and looks fucking ridiculous and unconvincing in his tacky wig and costumes. angelina is perfect as lara croft but there is only one pouty smoky expression she ever has and unfortunately she played out more like a jealous lover than a possessive mother to alexander. plus that terrible russian prostitute accent- god, it will be torturous to watch her with her french accent in a mighty heart.

and i cannot forgive the music that anticipates for the audience what is going to happen in the next 10 seconds. like victory music playing before the battle is over. ugh. horrendous movie. i rank it as low as the island.

2007-06-13T20:32:00.000-04:00

one day i'm at home, curled up in my couch with a movie in the dvd player... then i smell wet dog. i'm like whats that wet dog stench?? i look around, sniff a little. then realize the wet dog smell is coming from my feet. ugh.

2007-06-13T19:58:00.000-04:00

annoyances in ny:

1. heels getting caught in cracks/gaps of badly paved streets. it rips up the heel and looks fucking embarrassing.

2. getting caught in the rain. there are no underpasses and buildings are not built with nice shelters and awnings. streets are filthy and roads are uneven so puddles collect and splash all over me when cars drive by.

3. going out and having to get in line or open a bottle. the worst is being a big group of asians because we're in general not glamorous looking and no matter how the bouncers try to be as colour-blind, they don't want their club to develop the reputation of being the asian playground (just like all-black hip hop places attract only black people). fede puts it nicely- HAH! how do you feel being rejected by a BLACK bouncer.

ny loves:

1. abundance of movies!! netflix and moviebank (my recent discovery and saviour from lonely nights in my mice-filled apt)

2. good cheap sushi EVERYWHERE

3. woodstock farms dried mango from st mark's supermarket

4. treadle machines at crunch gym at union sq

5. green tea cookie custard bun from panya

lotion schmotion

2007-05-26T18:35:00.000-04:00

call it female instinct or plain delusion. we all know that cellulite cannot really be treated but i still buy the bogus cellulite reduction gel in the futile hope of someday achieving the legs of the model in that skimpy white bathing suit chosen to be the face/body for this gel precisely because she doesn't need to use it. fuck the world is unfair.

then i also am a sucker for these yummy smelling body butters so i buy a tub of those every now and then.

but cocoa butter is really good for those stretch marks so i buy a bottle of that too.

in addition, i have to moisturize my feet after every shower because otherwise they get dry and crack like the desert ground.

i have so many different tubes, tubs, bottles of these different lotions, i don't have the space for them all on my skin, and i don't know the best way in which to rotate their use to maximize the promised effects.

what do you do when you fall prey to the evils of marketing?

2007-05-17T00:19:00.000-04:00

i've been on a rampage lately for summer dresses so naturally my curious eye spies all these cute dresses on other girls and i think oh now if only i had that...

so yesterday i am walking down broadway towards my house and i see this girl wearing a cute tunic dress with a brown print. i am thinking oh how pretty i wish i had something like that too....until 2 minutes later i turn onto houston and i lo and behold - the same dress, but on a bus-stop poster ad for TARGET- tarjay!! and as i walk by the next bus stop, the same tunic dress! i cannot decide if it is worse to be spotted in the same thing as someone on the street or to be spotted in the same thing as an advertisement. not so bad i guess if the ad is say gucci, but TARJAY... even me, self-proclaimed budget queen would get a little red in the face if i saw my reflection in a busstop ad for a discount retailer.

pictures from mexico

2007-05-17T00:18:00.000-04:00

2007-05-10T21:33:00.000-04:00

messico was amazing. we landed in cancun and went straight to the car rental shop. after half an hour of paperwork etc we finally get into our car, with me in the driver's seat because fede lost his license. i start the engine and move my right hand to the gearbox only to realize that FUCK this car has manual gears.
so exasperatedly fede teaches me clutch/accelerate, clutch/accelerate, enough for me to make it out the gates where i jerkstop on the side of the road and we switch places.
he was determined to make me learn on the trip but i was even more determined to make sure i never left the passenger seat because i LOVE to fall asleep in a moving car. there is something about the soft whirring that is like a lullaby for me.

so we drove from cancun to merida which is a beautiful colonial town. ok, not beautiful, more like quaint. with pretty colonial buildings, squares and churches. we walked into a church where a wedding was going on and we happily joined in the festivities.

next day we went to chichen itza which was beautiful and the photos will speak for themselves.

we then made out way to tulum, a beach town on the caribbean coast. unlike the rest of riviera "disney" maya, tulum was peaceful and tranquil and left to its own. there were eco lodges dotting the beach but each lodge had only a few cabanas so there was no overcrowding. we got a cabana right on the beach and even slept on the beach under the stars one night (the wind actually kept the mosquitoes away)

went cenote (cavern) diving one day and lay on the beach for hours. bliss. i cannot understand how anyone can enjoy a ski vacation after being on a beach holiday. ski trips for me are like fucking torture because you fall again and again down the slope in freezing temperatures, your feet get soaked in your boots, you have to bundle up 24/7, your nose is about to fall off from the cold and you eat like a monster because you're always starving.

last stop before leaving was playa del carmen which reminded me of a phuket or bali. but we stayed at hotel basico which was boutique but unpretentious.

pictures to follow.

2007-04-18T23:30:00.000-04:00

fede speaks italian, spanish and english. some lessons in english i have learned from him:

1) one time he figures out a problem and exclaims joyously to me, "i am so GENIAL! just GENIAL!"
erm- do you mean genius?

2) andres' clothes got wet in the bathroom and he asks around why and who got them wet. fede shouts out, offering his explanation, "it's a fucking CONSPIRATION!!"

3) today as i am cooking he says
oh we should buy google.
what?
google! for mexico.
huh? what do you mean?
googles!! (uses fingers to make spectacles around his eyes)
OH- GOGGLES!

so where did you go now- the federico school of english??

adventures in egypt (from a few months back)

2007-04-11T23:22:00.000-04:00

2007-04-09T12:33:00.000-04:00

before you say wah jia en now is a greenie, i will say i've always held my green/do my part to save the world mantra- where do you think my compulsion for finishing up all the food on the table comes from? and yes, i'd like to da pao the quarter of the pad see-uw that's left (to which hang will roll her eyes in embarrassment). but with the knowledge that food shortage around the world is a logistical problem that cannot be resolved by me stuffing my face with all that's served, plus it is very bad for my waistline and double chin, i have stopped being a pack food rat. but still we need to solve a problem that is much bigger than my waistline.

and when we were younger, my sister and i would bug my dad to turn off the tap while brushing teeth and soaping/shampooing. this worked and he is in turn bugging my mother (partly because my sister and i no longer live at home).
now that i'm older, i just bug the bf when he is brushing teeth, washing dishes etc. now he knows and does turn off the tap while brushing- even if only when i'm around. if i have 5 more bfs before i settle down *shudder*, at least i know i can convert 5 more people

2007-04-08T09:31:00.000-04:00

for all my talk of being green and caring about environmental and social issues, i am unfortunately and hypocritically still very much a consumer. i guess that's why i don't believe in charities or goodwill- being green has to incentivize me the same way as zara on sale does.

so while i consume cheap spanish clothing, i thought i should at least share some ideas from time to time about how we can easily embrace the green lifestyle.

1) don't take a shower EVERY day. you really don't have to- especially if you live in temperate climate. in fact, not showering all day every day is to be kinder to your skin as it lets the natural oils moisturize and do its work.
and even if you HAVE to, you should be limiting the showers to quick wash rather than a long, hot bath. good for the environment, good for you. see what the doc prescribes:
http://web.mit.edu/medical/mithealth/winter2006/stories/story1_1.shtml

2007-04-06T22:40:00.000-04:00

true to my instincts, i came home and checked behind my baskets under my makeshift coat closet only to find a dead critter lying in the exact same spot its friend/relative died a few weeks ago. makes me suspect that there must be a patch of roach killer right there for the fatality to have happened twice in the same place.

seems the trend is whenever the weather takes a turn for the bitter cold, the roaches come into the warmth of my apt. but alas, there is no food or dirt so they end up starving to their deserved death or perhaps they suffocate to death within the radius of the mysterious roach-killing patch.

i've had enough this time and have offered hang and kr a drink if they will make the 6-flr ascent and help me with the removal of the carcass.

2007-03-31T14:04:00.000-04:00

my dress code of late has been my black danskin capri tights with anything comfortable and roomy on top.

what started out as comfy and practical-for-the-fall workout gear soon planted its roots in my wardrobe as my homewear, going-out-to-brunch wear, walking-around-soho wear. basically my so-i-never-have-to-think/never-have-to-get-up-and-change wear. so entrenched in my life are these tights that i decided i had to have 4 identical pairs- and i think i will be adding more to my spring/summer/fall/winter collection very soon.

so now, when i am out and about and have to meet fede at the gym, all i need is for him to bring my shoes and a t-shirt (instructions simple enough that guys won't fuck up hopefully) and i'm all ready to walk at high speed and high incline on those treadles!

on the topic of fashion, i have always been sort of a late follower of trends. like i never really got into the skinny jeans or denim mini minis, and i only got my hair rebonded after everyone was already on the curling bandwagon. so on fede's prompting this week i bought my very first pair of converse sneakers- many years behind everyone else i believe. i had always refused to get a pair because i was convinced they made my already big feet look more ronald mcdonald-ish than they needed to look, and also because i'm not a casual shoes person- if i'm going to wear anything comfortable on my feet, they will be slippers (and of course, consistent with my habits, i have more than 5 pairs of black flipflops). but yes, i have succumbed, even if a bit late, to converse sneakers which i will have to try and carve a new style out of. my only consolation is that they were a product(RED) product so i felt like i HAD to do it for the greater good anyway.

2007-03-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

potty-mouthed me. i'm one of those who only really started saying fuck after i could watch r-rated movies in singapore. now i say fuck for everything and i love the sound of it because it's so succinct and gets the point across.
i even say fuck in front of my parents now because they've used it in front of me.

so my habit of not really watching my mouth wouldn't be so bad if i didn't spout off everything that went through my mind. like the one time i was out at a meeting with my big boss. we were making small talk about stuff and started talking about yoga.
me: i just do yoga for the exercise. i think it's a great workout, but i don't get the bullshit that these yogis talk about like getting to another level and that they feel liberated of their hurt and anger and all this other huff. i think it's just taking it a little too far.
boss: well, actually i've started reading a few books about organic living and spirituality etc.
me: oh really? why?
boss: my wife is really into this alternative lifestyle- she teaches yoga.

FUCK

was at my client's desk and he was telling me about a trip he was planning to china. we chatted about great hotels and places to see etc.
me: i've been very lucky because my parents love to travel and are pretty adventurous in their choice of destinations
client: that's great that you travel with your family so often
me: yes- my mother plans everything all the time- she creates the itinerary and tracks everything on a spreadsheet because she is a NUTCASE and loves being in control.
client: oh- i create spreadsheets too. i just don't trust anyone else. (he then proceeded to open it up and show it to me)

FUCK

at some group dinner one night a not very good looking guy brings his even less good looking gf. the gf was not very either- the type that wears sneakers/tennis shoes with jeans.

someone: our prom queen was quite pretty
me: ok lah. not bad. but tak style leh.
someone: what do you mean?
me: i mean, eeyer, who wears jeans with snea..-- aiyah, she's just ok lah.

FUCK

entomophobia

2007-03-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

today i enter my apt and to my horror see a roach lying dead on its back. my stomach did a hurl and i let out a weak yelp. i had to go back and open my door so i'd have a quick escape if for some reason the dead cockroach suddenly resurrected.

why the fuck do these insects have to die where we live??? i had to tear some subscription inserts from my glamour magazine and sweep the dead thing into a paper bag. the feelers were still long and intact and caught onto the handles of my paper bag and flipped over back onto the floor. i screamed in pain and fear and i calculate how fucking terribly fucked i'd be if now that the creature is the right way up, it will suddenly scuttle off, or worse still decide to run up my arm into my coat sleeve. oh shudders.

i quickly finish the task and double bag it. i proceed to put the bag which holds the creature outside my apt because i am paranoid about the evilness of these things.
as i reach behind my makeshift coat closet for a skirt, there lies ANOTHER dead roach!!! WTF. perhaps there was some territorial battle over my apt while i was gone??? FUCK. why are they on the 6th floor in the first place???
so after another mission roach sweep, i quickly changed, gathered my clothes and hurtled out. i am now officially afraid to go back home by myself.

2007-03-10T10:56:00.000-05:00

inspired by last week's brunch (where me, karla, shanaz and hang at cafe cluny, were offered drinks by an old french man- he said he loved that we were so happy and laughing the whole time), i went out and bought granola, yoghurt and berries to make my new york brunch at home/fede's home. i had been craving fresh granola and yoghurt all week because the one at cafe cluny was by far the best i'd ever tasted so even though it meant i had to change, put on shoes and walk around the block, i was determined to have it this morning. of course i also had to buy a baguette because i love to break off the end and chew on it in the supermarket.

2007-03-07T00:37:00.000-05:00

chinese new year at home- late night dessert, hanging with the fam and playing with the mutant giant koi.

must see

2007-02-21T22:34:00.000-05:00

great movie: the lives of others
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lives_of_others/

another great movie: the devil's backbone
guillermo del toro has a fascination for child protagonists, their vivid imaginations and wild fantasies, and the spanish civil war.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/devils_backbone/

disneyworld- where dreams come true! and fat people get fatter

2007-02-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

back home

2007-02-20T22:47:00.000-05:00

my throat is hoarse from all the durian i've been stuffing my face with.
the first thing i did once i set foot at home was open the fridge and exclaim "i smell durian!". i proceeeded to wipe it all out very quickly.
the first thing my grandma did when she saw me was to ask "got boyfriend?"
my whole family has been asking the same thing, pretending they don't already know.

glover the brown dog has heartworms. poor boy has been reduced to a scary skeletal state. my parents wish him dead because no one can control him when my sister is away. i urge my sister to take him to the vet but she says my parents will refuse to do followups after she's gone and he gets no love from anyone else at home but her. putting him down would be kinder because he will eventually die a slow death, eaten from the inside by worms, but she cannot do it because it is too painful for her.
i have always thought it would be easy to decide for someone when their lives should end if they were suffering and incapable of thought. but this is proving to be much more difficult than i had ever imagined.

2007-02-11T12:45:00.000-05:00

for all the csr/sustainable development i have thought about and talked about, i feel helpless and unresolute as to whether to pursue or not. whether my skills and talents (yes, i do have some!) would be better put to use trying to make people understand that capitalism is good and if the world's poor can be given a hand at it, might be able to extricate themselves...or would i be better off with my entrepreneurial dreams, decorating houses and travelling the world at my leisure.

after watching blood diamond yesterday, i realized how media, specifically hollywood, if it chooses, can be so effective at relaying a message. the diamond monopoly and its evils are not something new or unheard of, but nothing is as impactful as a visual deluge of a beautiful continent and its people torn apart by the greed of the rich world. millions of dollars into the film's budget and a few months of toiling have achieved what agencies and its workers strive to accomplish in a lifetime.

once again i am launched into my thoughts about my role in this world, what can i do as an individual who cares (what philip labels bleedingheartliberals) and will it make any difference in any case?

hard-to-kick habits

2007-02-06T20:27:00.000-05:00

when i was younger i thought my snacking habit would go away when i got older because older folks seemed to have their eating habits more in control (less out of impulse, more out of need). but after about 10 years of hoping that age would kick my bad snacking habit out of me, i realize i was naive.one of my hard-to-kick habits but also one of my favourite things to do at a supermarket is to buy a nice, crisp-on-the-outside, moist-and -tender-on-the-inside loaf of baguette and snap off the end and chew it as i stroll the aisles for my other needs. once in a while i think that maybe i am too old now to be eating something without first paying, but then i contend with myself that as long as i don't have kids of my own, i'm not old enough yet to stop. and if i were old enough, then i guess my desire/habit for instant gratification would cease to exist in the first placeanother supermarket favourite is ripe red cherries. starts off as testing a batch, then once i have made my choice of the best bag in the pile, i tear off an extra vegetable bag to use as my pit receptacle. i munch through about a quarter of the bag by the time i'm done and i have to circle back to grab a new one

2007-01-15T21:57:00.000-05:00

disney is one big fat wonderland of big fat people. everyone in the happiest place in the world is fucking OBESE. no kidding. coming from the city of drugged-out skinnies, being among these fatties makes me feel like i'm swimming in yellow wiggly fats cells. now when i pick up that lindt truffle or golden wrapped rocher, i think three times, three hundred pounds and three thousand cellulite dimples- then unwrap the chocolate and pop it into my mouth anyway. i will work it off i tell myself.

i haven't seen one decent looking person in this place and fede and i feel like supermodels.

amazing how america is very good at creating economies out of nothing-orlando from swamp to swamped with mid american tourists. vegas from desert to decadence. palm springs literally bare land springing palm. everything is so fake, manicured and deliberate it is painfully unstylish. but you gotta hand it to them for having the creativity and entrepreneurship to create a worldwide attraction of simply land, concrete, some lights and music.

and while i will probably never come back to disney world, i am glad i came because it cemented my desire to not have kids (not for a while) - nuh uh, i am not standing in line for 2 hrs because my little brat wants to sit in the dumbo the flying elephant ride or running to the bathroom and have to unwrap dirty diapers when i could be on my second round of space mountain.

2007-01-14T02:20:00.000-05:00

back from egypt and ready to rock and roll. but first a little about the trip.

thought i might go mad being in close proximity with family for extended period, but i think we've actually all been able to come to a comfortable point of knowing just how to get each other right to the edge, but just careful enough not to push anyone over. so thankfully no horrid fights and crying, only lots of warm egyptian bread, too many lecherous arab men, and three sisters dancing like superstars to all the latest music videos on mtv.

egypt is truly a wonder in many ways. one expects the sphinx and pyramids of giza to be magnificent, and standing at the base, being drawfed by their sheer magnitude, they are nothing but magnificent. but less talked about are the graeco-pharoahnic temples which seem to be monuments of opulence that somehow have sprouted out of nothingness- column after beautiful column after beautiful column and then you start to think erm dudes, i think you're overdoing it- since there are no roofs to support anyway. walls are carved from floor to ceiling by hand and a craftsman probably dedicated his whole life to one wall (and you thought your job was boring?). what got me thinking the most is the paradox that egypt is- the very same river and resources that bore a great ancient civilization 4000 years ago, now runs through a laggard state no where near its glorious past.

i prepared myself for egypt by buying a lonely planet guide which i saw all over the country- clutched preciously onto by other american tourists trying to take the road less travelled. and i thought i would educate myself with a little egyptian literature so on mr media mogul's recommendation, i also armed myself with the cairo trilogy by naguib mahfouz (nobel prize winner no less) - which turned out to be quite a gem.

most of the time my sisters and i were being harassed by egyptian men who would call out to us as we walked by. when we did stop, they would come up, take our hands and ask how many camels in exchange for each of us. of course they would offer the most for jia wen because she is 19- young and nubile, age of ripeness and unspoiled by time. i was probably way past my prime for them and jun still looks too young and isn't voluptuous enough for their taste. they behaved that way with foreign women and i'm sure they would never take such liberties with their own women. this, and the fact that we hardly saw any women walking around or working, made me realize how true the subjugation of my sex is in the arab culture (which i've always tried to believe was getting better).

we did the whole cruise up the nile and spent a day at the red sea which was beautiful and i regret being sick and not diving, although i cannot think of a better reason to return now.

we then headed to cairo where we spent 3 days mostly stuck in traffic and smog. there is no sense of order, if only that everyone understands the disorder. everything operates in sh'allah (in god's will) in egypt- from how long do you think it will take us to get to so and so? to how much does this cost? we hardly ever got a solid response and mostly were told "as you wish", to which the fastidious asian in us are like wtf?? just fucking tell us already!! cairo is a city of almost 20mln and there is no space for cars to park. so they literally line themselves up bumper to bumper, and in cairo the convention/rule is to NEVER engage your handbrake because your car WILL get hit on the bumper as someone nudges his way into ANY space he can find between two cars parked parallel to each other. oftentimes, cars will even park perpendicularly in front of another, blocking it from coming out of its lot...but never fear because the owner of the blocked will simply push the obstacle out of his way.

2006-12-17T19:30:00.000-05:00

promotion most of the time is a good thing. the downside to mine is that i will no longer be travelling to chicago so that's the end of my cumulation of miles and hotel points. expenses now will skyrocket because no more fancy meals on the company, i'll have to purchase groceries and i will actually live in my apt so my water and electricity bills will go up too.

New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants

2006-12-05T22:17:00.000-05:00

a few weeks ago the NY times reported that restaurants have to ban trans fats in their menus so as to help in the battle against the obesity epidemic!!

how about that sounds fucking ridiculous???!!

how is obesity an epidemic?? getting uncontrollably fat is very much by choice and people who know how to eat trans fats in moderation should not be banned from it. i mean, being the calorie-counting queen that i am i should be rejoicing at this new law because it will help my cause, but i am also pro-choice and this is government intervention to the nth degree. how can we sit back and let lawmakers who cannot do their regular jobs right dictate what we can and cannot eat??

read this or click on the title for the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-restaurants-newyork.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

trip to miami

2006-12-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

fede's birthday dinner at jewel bako

2006-12-05T22:03:00.000-05:00

2006-11-04T20:24:00.000-05:00

today we stopped outside balthazar in our car on the way to chinatown. i told fede- this is the brunch place your friends were talking about. then i see a familiar asian girl standing outside and all of a sudden i realize that she is the model on the saks 5th ave ads where she has a black chick in one arm and a white chick in another for political correctness and wider racial appeal. i squealed in excitement so much that she heard me through the cab window and turned and smiled. it was sort of a mona lisa moment.

2006-11-04T20:21:00.000-05:00

update on date with media mogul. lupa was all booked up and since i am afterall a mere mortal, i could not get a reservation on a monday night at 7pm for dinner at lupa. he said it's ok, let's keep the day and try for something else in that neighborhood. we ended up going to da silvano which was overpriced italian food that my own italian man could whip up. but of course he picked up the $100 per head tab so i cannot complain.

we talked about his work, his adventures in the amazon, cruising down the nile, snorkeling in the galapagos, safari-jeeping in the serengeti and best of all being
in the same room chatting with FIDEL CASTRO. in fact, fidel even signed his cuban stamps, time magazine covers that featured him, and a few weeks later sent over some cuban cigars and rum. how fucking cool is that.

he told me about how he would buy a trip for any of his grandkids that turned 10. that's when i heaved a sigh of relief because i knew he was not intending to get in my pants- being a grandfather isn't exactly sexy.

so after dessert i asked him how he was getting home. he said he drove and "i will walk you back home and then to my car." yikes. so we walked and commented on what a nice night it was.

we got to the door of my building and stopped. WHAT was to happen next??

"ok, this is me!" i piped
"ok- well, it was nice to see you again"
"yes, thanks so much for dinner"
"you are welcome"

and then he leaned over... and we bisous-ed twice on the cheek a good night.

so unfortunately nothing scandalous to report or lots of money to sue for, but only good company to keep and influential friend to have...no? oh well i guess no sugar daddy-o for now and i will keep the pauper of the italian man i have for now (which isn't all that bad because he is cute and cooks well).

2006-10-24T21:05:00.000-04:00

In the last 10 months I have consumed more carbs than I probably have in the last 10 years. How about that to celebrate my devotion to the south beach diet.

I keep telling the italian man that I am not made to eat as much pasta as he eats- My body type will not deal with it the same way. He says bulls and that he has never had as much asian as he has had in the last 10 months either that he is spewing raw fish from his ears.

2006-10-23T19:34:00.000-04:00

the best and worst thing about flying every week to chicago is you never know who you are going to meet.

one time i was at the gate waiting to get on standby since my original flight was delayed yet again. there's a douchebag at the counter getting hasty and sharp with the agent at the counter and i was thinking oh what a jerk. (though i cannot fault him completely- flight service people for domestic flights must have graduated at the absolute bottom of their training class). then turns out this jerk gets a seat right next to me on the plane.
i give him a cool reception as he gets into his seat and i try my best to not bump his elbow on the armrest throughout the flight, but i manage as usual to fall asleep terribly- head-bobbing, drool etc. i wake up when the plane touches down and i call for car service. i had to give my name to the car service company and when i hung up, this jerk turns to me and says:

do you work for bloomberg?
yes in fact i do...*wave of fear comes over me*
hi, i am bill doyle from W asset management *omg...*
oh hi! how are you? funny that i end up meeting you on this flight when we couldn't find the time to meet in chicago! *fake laughter ensues and a wave of shame comes over me because this is my client who saw me head-bobbing and drooling in my sleep!*

thankfully, soon after the embarrassing episode, a new team member took over the account and i would never have to face Bill ever again. however, the takeaway from here is that always be nice to people you meet on planes because you never know who they turn out to be.

Heeding my own advice, on yet another day of delays at o'hare, i get up to the gate for the next flight to la guardia and try once again to get on standby. this time there is a harmless looking old man waiting and i ask him if this is the flight to la guardia and if they are allowing standbys. we start talking about how terrible it is to fly out of ohare and other random things. he tells me he works for fox-the president of fox tv. i thought oh ok, cool, maybe he runs a station. i give him my business card and we spend the next hour running from gate to gate trying to get on the next flight. in the end, i get on the earlier flight and forget about this friendly old man.

three weeks later, i am at my desk and who should call but this friendly old man from the airport. he asks if he can take me to lunch and i oblige. who would refuse a free lunch and who knows maybe this old man who runs a tv station can get me a job. after we get off the phone i get an email from his secretary with the details of the lunch reservations and i start to think wow this guy must be a bigger shot than i thought.

the day of the lunch, i casually mention to my colleague tha i am meeting a president of fox tv for lunch. she asked for his name and lo and behold here's what came up from her google search : http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6276873.html?display=Hall+of+Fame

wtf- i then scramble and print out some articles about him and his work ten minutes before my meeting to not seem like a total fool, the whole time cursing myself for not doing this in advance.

during lunch, we talked about travels, his experiences, and although i knew he graduated from the university of illinois, grew up in springfield, gave oprah winfrey her big break, moved from NBC to Fox and was an overall big wig, i pretended to be surprised when he told me he was in the marines, grew up in the midwest and championed the olympic bid for new york last year. we talked about dinner at lupa (the restaurant below my new apt on thompson) and the book the world is flat by thomas friedman that i was reading at that time (and in fact, still reading because i am lazy).

a couple of weeks later, i get a call from this old guy again and he asks if i have moved into my new place. i said, oh yes, i just moved in this past weekend! he then asks if he can take me to lupa for dinner because we talked about it the last time. sure! sounds good i reply, and we set a date for our next rendezvous.

now i am a week away from the lupa dinner with media hotshot and i am getting nervous because everyone including my dad has said all this guy is trying to do is get in my pants. but why, and how can he?? he is about 70 years old and looks a little like santa claus and he has such a high profile, why would he do something stupid like that? my father said being high-profile, rich and old never stopped anna nicole smith's late husband.

like i said, you never know who you are going to meet at the airport, so always be on your best behaviour. i will let you know what comes of my next meeting with mr media man.

2006-10-02T23:32:00.000-04:00

today we had a little debate about what the people from guam are called.
guamESE?
guamIAN?

i checked on the CIA factfile and turns out they are GuamANIAN. just like panamANIAN. most guamanians are ethnically Chamorro or of Filipino descent.

"are they guamese or guamian?" is now a great conversation starter, and i have to be the first to admit i think if a guy used that as a pickup line for me, i would be pretty damn knocked off my socks.

another geeky turn for me must be the name-the-capitals-of-the-world game.

2006-09-25T22:53:00.000-04:00

andres hooked up with a girl a couple of weeks ago and he said boy she has big titties man- i LOVE it! but i don't think they're real- they're a little too hard to be.

this past weekend the girl stayed the night and when i introduced myself the next morning in the living room, all i could see were the boobs. they were round and massive for a thin thin girl, and very obviously fake because they looked like they popped right out of her chest. but she had a plain face and without the juggly jugs she would have been completely unattractive (think a red-headed olive oyl with a sharper nose and oval face), but armed with those massive melons she was almost hot.

i could not stop staring because she is the very first person i know by name with fake boobs. i felt a little like austin powers and the mole because all i could not take my mind off them for at least ten minutes and was dying to ask - how many CCs did you fill? so you went up two cup sizes? how much did you pay for them? did it hurt like shit right after? where the heck did you get the money from?? what did you tell people when you went on vacation and came back with a huge chest?

don't worry baby, no judgements- i just need to know for when i go for MY own boob job.

2006-09-25T10:28:00.000-04:00

a headhunter's office reception area is about the most uncomfortable i have ever had to spend ten minutes.

first of all because who knows who you might bump into there- ex classmates, mere acquaintances or worse still perhaps another colleague.you already know what everyone is here for so no pretending or acting will be necessary- and these days, who doesn't put up a show? i guess maybe you could strike up an awkward conversation starting with

oh i guess your job sucks too?

if you're lucky enough not to meet anyone you vaguely remember (or who remembers you), you try to keep you eyes down and not make eye-contact with other people in the waiting area because i mean, what kind of bullshit small talk would you make?

oh i guess your job sucks too?

and of course you are the only over-dressed fools in the office- the recruiters aren't meeting clients today so they are in business casual and it's like oh my god what a fucking pretense this whole corporate bullshit.

thank goodness i've managed to avoid/not have the bad luck to come across yet the above-mentioned awkward situations in the headhunter's office reception (other than the part where i'm thinking to myself that this is all corporate bullshit but still participate anyway).

so on to the next reception area which is a space just as awkward but allows room for more imagination. This is the reception area of The NY Dermatology Group with its celeb/celeb-like clientele and swanky facilities.

the best/worst thing about meeting someone here is that you know they are getting treated for something aesthetic/cosmetic and you really want to find out so you can tell everyone that she got a nose job. but should you be rude enough to ask "oh so what are you here for?" or just pretend all is swell and ask oh how was your weekend? even though it's already thursday and you already know she was probably partying it up at pink elephant or cain.

my last visit there to get the stitches out of my newly removed cyst, i saw the french girl my friend had dated for a couple of months. she was pointing to parts of her face as she talked to the doctor and waited for her medication to be brought out and my mind was racing through the possibilities- botox to the creaselines on her forehead, laser to smooth out her complexion... doctor can you reshape my nose?
however, being the chicken that i am, i pretended not to see her and spied her through the corner of my eye from behind the magazine so i could avoid the awkward small talk that would ensue if i had gone up to say hello.

i went back to my friend the next day though and told him i saw her at THE NY DERMATOLOGY GROUP *hint hint* and he told me- oh yeah, she gets her lips injected with collagen. AHA! I JUST KNEW IT!!! NO WOMAN IS PERFECT. HAHAHA. she might have slender legs and a great sense of style- BUT WAIT- her lips are thin!

2006-09-25T09:54:00.000-04:00

back in michigan i remember daniel amy and kairui were vitamin water crazy. they would buy em by the truckload and i never understood why because it was just badly flavoured water with cool candy colourings and wiseass-philosophy packaging. at that time i snubbed it and swore i'd never be a victim of such a well-marketed bad product.
then recently the company kitchen started stocking the beverage coolers with bottles of vitamin water and of course i threw all my principles out the window and took 2-3 bottles by the armful each time i saw them. i kept an ongoing inventory on my desk at work and the bottles provided a rainbow coloured distraction to the sanitary white workspace. i applauded myself when i managed to shamelessly rake the count up to FIVE bottles on my desk and was quite the proud hoarder of office freebies. my moment was not to last however. the very next day i came to work only to find that my FIVE bottles had been wiped down to just ONE- the only one i had opened to take a sip out of!!! WTF.
i swear the culprits must be the eastern european cleaning ladies who were the only people around my floor when I left that evening. those ladies must've snitched my precious vitamin water while they chowed down on the pizza they usually get from patsy's at around that time.
or perhaps it was the hand of god- finally punishing me for my unprincipled and prideful looting and hoarding.

2006-09-16T01:22:00.000-04:00

got an ergonomic toothbrush as a gift a couple of days ago. it is three times the sizes of a regular toothbrush and the actual brush is so large it scrubs my teeth and gums without any circular or up and down motions. it is a cute candy turqoise and quite a quirky device. perhaps it was in response to my recent cavities or perhaps bad breath?

certain facts of life

2006-09-07T22:36:00.000-04:00

i go to the tailor across my apt building on 14th st to get my stuff altered all the time. today i am getting a dress which is way too big for me taken in on the sides. my korean seamstress looks at my chest as she is pinning the sides in and comments "ah ...you are very flat eh!"

erm yeah, thanks for the reminder.

2006-09-05T21:11:00.000-04:00

my face looks like it was pummeled. all we did was sleep with the windows open because the weather has gotten cooler and the a/c was taken out. but because it rained the day before, we had mozzies swarming all over but by the time we realized, it was too late and the mozzies had made a feast of my face, legs, arms and whatever else they felt like. and now i have these ugly red welts all over and they itch like a bitch too. this seems to happen to me pretty damn frequently.

i also seem to bruise easily so any damn thing that hits my leg causes a big black and blue. last week i had to wear black opaque tights to work wed to fri because of these unsightly discoloured patches on both legs. and the ones on my arm make me feel a little abused but i think they are from my laptop that sticks out slightly from my shoulder bag and hits my inner arm.

doctor visits

2006-09-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

this week i took a break from traveling and decided to fix everything, if anything, wrong with myself so i made an appointment with the dermatologist and the dentist. the dermatologist for the cysts on my legs (they don't look quite as scary as they sound- really), and the dentist because i hadn't seen one in about 2 years.

so my first visit was to the dermatologist on 19th and 5th. the office turned out to be really swish- clean, spacious, modern and minimalist. it felt like i was visiting the plastic surgeon's because i saw an older lady who was obviously there for her weekly botox shot or maybe yearly facelift. hmm.

wait my turn and finally get shown into a sanitary room with frosted glass doors. wait some more while i read a brochure about atypical nevus which are possibly skin cancers and wonder if any of my moles could be atypical and cancerous. the doctor finally comes in and he looks buff and well kept under his scrubs - kind of like that plastic surgeon on Dr90210. show him my cysts which he told me were harmless and in fact i could google "dermafibroma" to find out more about my affliction. i told him they did not hurt but had grown from when they first appeared (fede told me to say that so that everything would be covered by insurance and i did). so i will be getting them removed two weeks from now. i've never really had a procedure performed on me and i am sure it will be very strange.

a couple of days later i went to the dentist. dentists must have such a laugh behind their face masks because they get to stick all sorts of stuff into your mouth to pry it open in weird positions and watch saliva collect in puddles in your cheek. he took some xrays and cleaned my teeth with some kind of superfast spinning device which i thought he was going to drill right through my teeth the way he was going. you don't even know how many freak scenarios ran through my mind those 5, maybe 10 minutes of cleaning because you have absolutely no idea what the dentist is doing while your mouth is cranked open. i imagined he was sharpening away and giving me pointy teeth; i imagined blood spewing from my gums if he only slipped a millimeter, missed my teeth and the drill plunged into my gums instead.

as if that wasn't horrific enough, he then lit up the xray films and pointed out 3 cavities in the back of my front two teeth! i thought cavities were a problem of kids, not a 24 year old who brushes twice a day!! and how fucking strange is getting cavities in my two front teeth??????

a couple of days later i went back to get the cavities cleaned and filled and this time it was even scarier because as he drilled, all these miniscule particles were flying out of my mouth, and i couldn't tell if it was water or enamel dust. i won't even mention how fucking painful the anesthesia jabs were.

the next day i am drinking a can of diet pepsi through a straw like i do every morning and my front teeth hurt because the straw ends right behind my two front teeth. suddenly it became clear how i got those cavities! now i have to figure out how to
drink soda without sipping it through the straw in the middle of my mouth or turn to coffee as my alternative caffeine source which will turn my teeth yellow. so which is the lesser of two evils??

2006-08-24T02:34:00.000-04:00

we love having the conversation about where we would work on if any of us got plastic surgery. i told my mother she will be paying for my liposuction if she wants any grandkids.

2006-08-23T02:19:00.000-04:00

i did actually end up going to the gym and brisk-walking on very high incline for 30 mins while watching project runway and thinking i really need to do something creative and make money off of it. perhaps i should invest in a better than toy-sized sewing machine (i bought one on ebay two years ago and it was about 10 inches big- i should have guessed from the buy-it-now price of $9.99)

last week my mom found out about my sister's love affair with ahmad and she called me when i was in the minivan on the way from fire island with fede. she was pretty damn distressed and she asked where i was and who with. decided it was not the best time to tell the truth so i said oh, on my way back from fire island with fede AND andres AND kibum.

this honey and shea butter moisturizer smells so delectable i feel like eating myself.

2006-08-22T21:23:00.000-04:00

i should be at the gym while waiting for my food but instead i am glued to the tv and sex and the city reruns in my hotel room, rationalizing in my mind that i should not eat too late and if i go to the gym now i will not have time to do what i want online. so here i am trying to do too many things and possibly not achieving much at all by the end of the night.

i am thinking of what color to paint my new apt. i was all set on this idea of a pale robin egg blue up until last week- now that colour just seems a little unfab. perhaps because the weather's cooled down a little and now the light, refreshing flea market look is not as appealing as it was when it was absolutely sweltering. all day and night my mind is just splashing my apt walls with different colours and imagining how it would look with my brand new old sofa.

today in the airport bathroom i was thinking about how we think that no one is ever perfect. so the beautiful girl must be stupid and if not, she must have hidden backne, and if she had a smooth back, she must have stinky feet, and if her feet are fine, maybe she has uneven boobs. but maybe she is perfect and intelligent and simply wonderful and really who gives a shit if she does in fact have stinky feet because even us less perfect humans also probably have stinky morning breath in addition to unfragrant feet. so yes the world is never fair- some people just have it better.

2006-08-17T02:45:00.000-04:00

so maybe is just me growing older or something very strange happening to me, but in the last two weeks i have been to ann taylor loft TWICE in chicago and bought a boatload of office wear from there. i never thought i'd ever come to this ann taylor phase because that's what my mum was wearing not so long ago. erp.

remarkably glamorous- no?

2006-08-17T02:43:00.000-04:00

picnic on the terrace of beach shack

2006-08-17T02:42:00.000-04:00

2006-08-17T02:41:00.000-04:00

2006-08-17T02:37:00.000-04:00

our share-shack on fire island

2006-08-17T02:36:00.000-04:00

2006-08-16T07:38:00.000-04:00

fire island was pretty awesome for being only 2 hours away from new york city. we were in a share-house/shack right on the beach for a 100/person for the whole weekend which was quite a steal. lay on the beach and got a tan during the day and at night was attacked by mozzies because i think they liked the scent/taste of my honey and shea butter moisturizer. yum.

went sailing last week on lake michigan which was pretty awesome for being right next to the city too. amazing how much i've forgotten about sailing- sheets?? gybes?? cunningham?? what??

wish summer wasn't ending in two weeks. i've only just started having fun!

2006-08-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

my left bunion hurts like a mofo i think because i wear heels all the time. time for another foot reflexology session???

heat wave here and the warm clammy still air just envelopes you once you step outside. the subway is like a microwave.

my ipod still has the same 20-30 songs that were originally uploaded into it by dan when he first gave it to me something like 2 years ago. it's like my very expensive cd when i am in the mood for the doors, jamie cullum and third eye blind because i don't know how to get the existing songs out and into i-tunes.

2006-08-01T23:08:00.000-04:00

other than having a sucky two weeks at work, everything else has been ok. just ok.

i love to ask my sisters to "cook" with me and then have them wash the veggies, clean the crockery, put stuff back into the fridge...do anything but cook really. and now i know how they feel because whenever fede cooks and i ask to help, he makes me do the inane things like wash the salad bowl, toast the bread and toss the f-ing salad. he won't even let me make the dressing because i scrimp on the EVOO-extra virgin olive oil and he loves everything smothered in it.

so truth be told hang and i were very serious about selling our stuff at the young designers market this week. the problem is that she just found out it will cost us $120 for a day. hmm. now what do we do with all these t-shirts and lace and bric-a-brac we have??

big night out

2006-07-26T00:07:00.000-04:00

last saturday night i felt in the mood to boogey. after we got turned away from pink fucking elephant because we had too many guys with us yet again, me, winnie, hang, peggy and edmond from singapore who used to work in ny but now works in hk who also really likes hang decided to hit up marquee after the other 5 boys wizened up and went to eat instead.

a couple of glasses of champagne later i ventured onto the dance floor by myself thinking it might not be such a bad thing. i see the two cute guys that winnie and had eyed earlier on. they both had dark hair and dark deepset eyes, were about the same height and i thought fuck it- nothing to lose. so i (under the influence) boldly ask "are you two brothers?" (which is kind of lame but blame it on the alcohol).
"no- actually we are a couple" (WHAT THE F!!!)
"well you guys make a great looking couple then!"

so my first pick-up attempt was a terrible failure and my gaydar is obviously very weak. it all makes for a funny story though.

2006-07-13T23:46:00.000-04:00

Please look at my LINKS on the left... go visit WWW.DEEPMARKET.COM. If you create a link to deepmarket.com from your blog, the owner of deepmarket.com will work with carbonfund.org to offset a ton of carbon.

let's do our part for the environment peeps. here's a few steps we can all start taking immediately:

- tell the store you don't need a bag if you can put your new purchase in your bag. that's one less plastic bag you'll have to lug around on one arm and i mean, who wants to look like a bag lady anyway??
- if you're buying your lunch to take back to the office to eat immediately, refuse the plastic bag that you know you're just going to toss into the trash can once you're at your desk. even better- because you can carry less without a bag, you restrict yourself to only that one box of chicken rice- no ice-kachang or extra indian rojak we don't really need. ;) good for earth, good for you.
- everyone knows this from science/moral education classes in primary school, but just a reminder to not leave the water running when you are brushing your teeth. the extra gallon of water doesn't make your teeth any cleaner or your breath smell any better.
- ask for no rice if you're not really going to eat it. i need to get better at this because i am a big food waster when i pick at the carbs then stuff my face with dessert later.

with our powers combined - we are captain planet!

2006-07-10T00:25:00.000-04:00

so we did end up setting up shop to sell our unwanted wares. last saturday adele kibum myself and leon (who carried the display table) hauled our stuff five block down ave A and put up our merchandise right outside tompkins sq park.

10 mins after we had established proprietorship over that 5sq ft outside the park entrance, some grungy kids rolled a couple of supermarket carts filled with sandwiches and fruit over. they were a group called food not bums and they would collect near expiration food from supermarkets and make sandwiches etc to give away to the homeless in the neighbourhood (who all happen to live in tompkins sq park btw)

a huge crowd/line grew next to our stall, and kibum who had just come back from buying a smoothie was slightly disappointed to find out that all these people were not in line for our stuff.

we put up hand-marked posters: $10, $7, $5 and below... and for a whole hour and a half we had ONE customer. by 6pm we were like fuck it let's just sell what we can for a buck each. and once we put up the everything for a dollar signs, we suddenly had a rush of people who couldn't care if they didn't fit the clothes because it was so damn cheap anyway.

i made a grand total of about $17 by the end, but not sure if the money was worth my time and effort. nonetheless it was something to do and it was a funny couple of hours of talking to the anarchist food distributors (they insist anarchy is their overarching philosophy), chatting with a customer who talked so fast that she was definitely tripping on crack, videotaping a crazy polish man who kept calling america garbage and whose pants fell off while he danced in front of the camera.

i will soon post videos up on youtube.

score!

2006-06-29T22:12:00.000-04:00

this trip in chicago was particularly productive. the usual morning routine- get into the cab "111 south wacker please" (the office in chicago). the cabby as usual(because cabbies love me for some reason) is checking me out through his rear view mirror. he asks where are you from miss? singapore i reply and then i explain how i ended up in chicago. I ask what about yourself? how did you end up here?

turns out mr cabbie is a grad student at de paul, doing a masters in management and science, obviously driving illegally on the side. so we talk briefly because i have arrived at my destination and before i get off i tell him i would like to interview him and he laughs. i take his email and phone number and promise to call him because i would really like to find out how he does this since he's not the only moonlighting student cabbie. he says sure miss- we can talk, you want to know our political views? sure we can talk. this will be my first interview he laughs.

awesome. after some practice in english i think i can muster up enough guts to interview my chinese masseuse too

2006-06-26T22:54:00.000-04:00

how the heck do i create a link on my sidebar??? i tell you i am not stupid and have looked through the help pages and trust me i have done exactly as instructed but surprise surprise as with all technology and me, i have had no luck whatsoever. if anyone can help me out please do!

i am trying to create a link to deepmarket.com because if someone has a link to this blog, the owner of deepmarket will offset a ton of carbon through carbonfund.org. this costs nothing, so if you are smarter than me, please go and create a link and tell deepmarket.com blogger that you have a link and he can go and offset a ton of carbon. and really how difficult is this that i work in a technology company and cannot fucking add a link to my sidebar???

2006-06-21T16:03:00.000-04:00

i feel like a traitor that i have started drinking diet pepsi instead of diet coke. honestly pepsi does taste better.

what carbon footprint??

2006-06-20T06:36:00.000-04:00

2006-06-11T03:21:00.000-04:00

wasn't kidding when i said that chinese massage was an indulgence. i went for it TWICE this week, making it the biggest expense after food. imagine that. i like alice because she has really strong hands and uses good pressure and really knows how to hit those trouble spots. today i was late for my appointment with her and she had to leave for another appointment a couple of blocks away. so i ended up getting 30 mins of massage from a DUDE. it was so strange because i had to take off my jeans and only had a towel to protect my dignity. then even stranger- he pulled the curtain across my legs so that only my knees and below were exposed to him. but he really did not know how to work it like alice. he was far too gentle and it felt like he was moisturising my feet more than giving a massage. after my half hour was up, alice had apparently come back so i relented and asked for 15 more minutes so she could work her magic. one of the things i hate most is leaving a massage feeling like i was not knead like dough.

i want to ride your bicycle

2006-06-07T22:56:00.000-04:00

indulgences:

1) ronny brook mango flavoured drinking yoghurt
2) company-paid-for jamba juice in chicago
3) pad see ew from UN
4) fusion sushi from umi and the likes of
5) chinese massage -> this is really quite fabulous the day after yoga

yesterday i borrowed fede's bike. a terrible wreck of a machine, but it was about the funnest thing i have done in a while, cycling around the city. made me feel rather invincible for one because i felt like i never have to spend another cent on a cab and i can go just about anywhere i need with a bike in quite a flash. also before this i never noticed how many cyclists there are around. but when i am cycling, it is almost like i'm in a parallel universe and see only other people on bikes while pedestrians are almost phantasmic, just bodies that get in the way of me and my speed machine.

but the uneven roads and sidewalks make for a bumpy ride and you know the painful result of that.

2006-06-01T23:17:00.000-04:00

once again the time of year when our apt becomes an asian refugee camp. six of us squashed into a tiny place sharing one bathroom.

2006-05-31T10:09:00.000-04:00

i wonder if it is better to have a mirror that makes you look fat or better to have one that makes you look slim. the former would frustrate me to no end and i would always be depressed at how fat i am. i would be less confident, less smiley, and generally a less happy person.
OR i could be deluded into thinking i was slimmer than i actually am, and be quite happy and oblivious to reality.
but maybe the fat mirror will push me to get off my ass and work out. and the slim mirror will make me complacent and eat a little more because i can afford it!

the little dilemmas of life. tsk tsk.

2006-05-29T19:10:00.000-04:00

whenever my sister is around we end up watching brainless reality tv on mtv. like, oh my god!!

FOILED

2006-05-25T19:47:00.000-04:00

unfortunately as i was getting my wares ready to sell, my mum calls me and asks what i'm up to.
i'm packing.
for what?
oh just selling old stuff.
where?
i dunno, maybe set up a table somewhere or something.
what?!! like an immigrant by the roadside?!!
no lah... just sell near the flea market... nothing wrong
are you in financial trouble?
NO
then why do you need to resort to selling your things on the street like a beggar?
i just need to get rid of my old stuff! you guys are overreacting.
come on, you have a good job and we are all living comfortably... if you need money, let us know... no need to go sell your stuff by the road. if you get caught, we can't come and help you... why jeopardize everything you have because of a few hundred dollars?? will you promise us to not sell? your father is very worried now. he thinks you are in trouble.
ok ok fine i won't sell my stuff on the street i promise.

so taking the conversation as a bad omen, i decide i cannot set up my table because if i did, knowing my luck, i'd get into trouble and my parents will think "see told her already...always never listen". i was so bitter that day but thankfully it rained hard later on so it made me feel a bit better that i took heed of their warning.

2006-05-16T23:32:00.000-04:00

being the entrepreneur that i am, i put up my stuff on ebay. but to my great dismay, two weeks and about $26 later (the cost to post) there was NOT A SINGLE bid for my BRAND NEW BCBG BLAZER AND ALMOST NEW SISLEY PEA COAT. eh, branded leh!! i guess mid-market just doesn't cut it for the world wide web and it definitely will have no value at all at mauro's consignment store. SO my grand plan this weekend is to set up shop on the streets of the east village like a true blue capitalist. i will pick a store that is closed on weekends and hijack the street in front of it with my home depot foldable table and bags of goods.

i am not sure if i need a license and maybe i do, but then there are always these african mystics selling their incense and bongs on the street and i highly doubt they went to the chamber of commerce or what have you to obtain permits for that. well, it's worth a shot and i'll make sure to be close enough to fede's apt to run in if the need arises.

coffee talk

2006-05-13T23:46:00.000-04:00

low fat double shot sugar free hazelnut latte
caramel macchiato extra drizzle, low fat, not too hot
light mocha frappucino, extra shot espresso, no whipped cream but i'd like the chocolate drizzle please
coffee with room for cream please

coffee has become such a complex beverage and you had better get with the program baby. better get that starbucks jargon down so you don't embarrass yourself in front of the guy behind you because he knows all the fucking combinations you can create with milk and ground beans.

sometimes when i'm in line i practice my order just so i sound like a regular and i really know what i want. i think if there is a hint of inexperience with the coffee ordering, the barista will fuck you over and make you a full cream latte and not soy like you asked for. so i always pretend to look at the snacks when i get up to the counter, but in fact i am reciting in my head low fat sugar free caramel latte please. "can i get a sugar free caramel latte please. oh yeah, can you make that low fat?" F. i screwed up the flow of my order. now i am paranoid she didn't hear my request for skim milk and that the barista who is making my coffee doesn't give a damn and squirts three pumps of non-sugarfree caramel which would be a blow to my diet plans.

i hate that i am a franchise whore. not just starbucks, but target, chipotle and whole foods! i am a slave to american commercialism and i am truly somewhat ashamed! but the cafe next door doesn't use skim milk and doesn't have sugarfree caramel syrup.