I don't think I watched the last Summer Olympics as much as I've been watching this time. There's something about watching it live. So exciting.

I was blown away by the 4x100 men's relay and obviously the 100 butterfly. It was so incredibly exciting, I screamed at the end. I was totally confused by the end of the 100 butterfly, because it was hard for me to figure out what was going on. Phelps won by 1/100th of a second! But the electronic pads don't lie and can't be rigged.

In the end, it's really not that hard to see how it happened--Cavic was gliding under the water, riding the previous momentum from his last stroke and stretching his arms out. And Phelps was bringing his arms over the water, through the air for another half-stroke, and slammed into the wall. Over air beats under water in this case, only because Phelps brought his arms around freaking fast. I think in most other cases, that just wouldn't happen, as Phelps himself said.

The funny thing was that while watching, I had this feeling of inevitability, just like in the 4x100 relay, even when Phelps was behind, that it was going to happen and he would win. I've almost forgiven him for that DUI now.

I was a little confused (maybe a little bothered) by the fact that Cavic was born, raised and grew up in southern California, has US citizenship, went to Cal (not Cal-Berkeley like the NBC commentators said, or "California-Berkeley" like this NY Times article said), and swims for Serbia. His parents had to leave what was then Yugoslavia for the US. But I googled around and found this article where he says, [“There’s no way I’m going to bad mouth the U.S.,” Cavic said. “Everything I have is because of the U.S. We got away from the war. I didn’t have to sleep in a bunker.”]

Very nice. So why didn't he swim for the US? Turns out, he's another Becky Hammon. He wasn't going to beat out Phelps or Crocker at 2004, so he chose to compete for Serbia and Montenegro. Interesting.

Speaking of "Cal-Berkeley," another swimmer I've been following, Natalie Coughlin, was also a star for Cal, and has had another amazing games, getting a gold in the 100 back (I'm partial to the back :), and collecting silver in the relay and bronze in the IM. Too bad not that many people are noticing due to the Phelps love.

Something else that I thought was really funny. There was a big rivalry in the 100 breaststroke between Kosuke Kitajima (Japan) and Brendan Hansen (US) that goes back to the 04 Olympics. During the semi-finals, they swam in different heats, Kitajima going first and then Hanson. After Hansen finished, they showed a shot of Kitajima checking out the scoreboard from that heat, looking at the times that his competition did (in the final, Kitajima blew Hansen away, who finished off the podium, but graciously swam over to congratulate Kitajima).

Now, the same thing happened in the 200 IM semi-final. Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte swam in different heats, with Phelps in the earlier one. And after Lochte's heat (where his time was slightly better than Phelps), Phelps was checking out the results, looking at the times--and he had the exact same kind of focused, aware look on his face that Kitajima had when checking out the scoreboard. Very interesting. (And Michael Phelps also blew away everyone in the 200 IM.)

I'm almost nostalgic for my swim team days, but then I remember the terror that went through me when my race was about to begin. But I had fun, mostly on JV, when I managed to train hard and did well. Glad that's over and I have a few good memories.

Happy birthday dad! :) We hope you enjoy your present. We thought long and hard about it. :) :) :) It should be fun.

Love,
Joan (+Sohyun, +Janice)

I really like this recipe from Mark Bittman on how to make sauteed pork chops.

I didn't have any white wine handy--I was looking for it at the supermarket to no avail, and I finally realized that liquor and wine cannot be sold in grocery stores. Sometimes, I think New York is a really weird place. So I just made it without it.

The first two times, I end up overcooking the pork, so it wasn't that good. But today I made it perfectly. I also threw in mushrooms, and during the last five minutes, I put in a whole bunch of spinach which cooked really well in the chicken soup. Does that sound weird? I'm not sure, but it made the spinach a whole lot more appealing to me.

The soup/sauce turned out really well in the end, each time. It was yummy~.

Anyway, life is good and busy, but that's it from me now.

I am obsessed with health and finance lately. I keep grabbing books on those subjects from work. My latest: The Complete Diabetes Prevention Plan and Debt-Free By 30.

I am pretty sure that I am not at risk for diabetes (at least not yet), nor am I in debt, but there is no harm in making sure that I don't get diabetes or get into debt, right?

I am thinking about freelancing again. I used to freelance back when I first moved to New York. But after I got a regular job, it got to be too much for me to handle, so I stopped.

I don't really, really need the money...but I would like the money, especially with the big trip to Japan that my college friends and I want to take. It would be very useful for the savings that I should be accruing, the Roth IRA that I would like to start, the deposit for when I move into my own place. It seems like everyone at work freelances, so if they can do it and still enjoy life, why can't I?

Happy birthday mom! I hope you enjoy your new present. Sorry that the surprise was ruined, but we hope you like it. ^^

As for the Superbowl, I'm happy. And totally stuffed. Grace and Ze came over with Korean meat, mochi and broccoli, and then we ate, ate, and ate.

We started off with chips (Tostitos with lime, my favorite), and salsa/guacamole/sour cream. Then I cooked dumplings until they were nice and crispy. After those were gone the spicy buffalo wings were ready. After that we couldn't eat for a while, but we did eat a bit of ice cream mochi and ice cream chocolate bon bons. Grace bought strawberry mochi which was really nice because I know she prefers green tea but she knows I'm not the biggest fan. :)

Later I cooked mool neng myun (only 2 servings split into 3). Then we couldn't eat again. But eventually we did get hungry again so Grace cooked the pork, I cooked the beef using the electric frying pan that Sohyun gave me, and Ze cooked some broccoli. Grace and Ze brought the broccoli because apparently I don't provide green vegetables. It was a really big piece of broccoli. Like, the biggest piece I've ever seen. I ate one chunk of broccoli, which is one more than I usually eat.

We were done with eating by the second half, which was when the game got really exciting. Woo hoo. I was not a Giants fan before but I loved what they did this past month. Most exciting last two minutes ever in any Superbowl (that I've watched). I bet the neighbors heard us screaming. That was a great ending. Loved it.

So, I was thinking about eating healthier and I have finally made a few changes in that general direction, sort of. Actually, not so much eating healthier as eating a more balanced and diverse diet.

I bought a ten-pound bag of brown rice, and I am going to eat it all, gosh darn it. Yes, I have finally converted from white rice to brown rice, and the change is really not that noticeable. I'm not sure why, when I was younger, when my parents first started mixing in a little bit of brown rice with the rice, I initially rebelled and would sit there picking out all the bits of brown rice. Ah, youth. Anyway, this is a good change for me since I eat so much rice.

I bought a bag of salad. I am not a fan of salad. I have tried to do the salad thing before, and successfully finished a bag or two, then would let a bag go bad. We'll see how this turns out. I think I'll just put tons of salad dressing, croutons and parmesan cheese over it. The important thing is that I get green veggies into my body, right? Right.

Finally, I bought a box of Mark Bittman recipes from his book How to Cook Everything. I was looking at it in the bookstore and was impressed that his recipes were simple, didn't use 10 different exotic ingredients for each recipe, and covered all the basic types of food that I like. A friend also has his cooking book and highly recommended it. So I decided to go for the recipe box and I really like it. After reading it, I went out and bought all the basic stuff one should have for cooking his stuff: garlic, lemons, onions, butter (!), olive oil. I really don't incorporate a lot of fresh produce into my meals, and that is bad.

I tried making his linguine with fresh tomato sauce and parmesan. I was a little disturbed by how much butter goes into it, and I didn't have any basil (it was optional)...I threw in mushrooms because I love mushrooms...oh and I used thin spaghetti noodles instead...but it turned out, not too bad. Different, but not too bad at all. And I ingested two fresh tomatoes, which is again, not bad. I was too lazy to take the seeds out so I ate those too. I'm not giving up my favorite Prego sauce, but it was a nice change to cook and eat something made from scratch. It really didn't take that much extra effort.

I like the recipe box and hopefully I'll continue to use it. I wouldn't mind being a person who could cook dozens of different meals from scratch. This is not a New Year's resolution thing, this is just me trying to slowly--slowly--improve my lifestyle. I'm feeling pretty good about it.

My last six weekends:

Dec 29-30: Bay Area with my friends (flew back Monday)
Dec 22-23: Burbank with my family (flight got in at 9:30 AM Sat)
Dec 15-16: Moved apartments
Dec 8-9: Flew back from Bahamas
Dec 1-2: Flew to the Bahamas
Nov 24-25: Thanksgiving in Burbank

So, this was the first weekend spent relaxing, without having to fly/pack/travel/unpack/move. I must have had a sleep deficit or something as I slept in pretty late both days. It felt really nice. Ahh. And now it's over. So sad.

I'm catsitting at Grace's again before I go home for Thanksgiving. Grace and Ze are off in Paris! Lucky bugs.

I'm very grateful that Grace and Ze let me crash at their place, as I love being in their warm, spacious, television-filled apartment, and I have Ashes to keep me company. Slightly shorter, and definitely less-crowded commute in the morning.

Before they left, I came over and brought cupcakes from Buttercup Bakeshop. I brought 3 cupcakes: red velvet, chocolate, and vanilla. We split each one into halves and Grace said Ze wasn't interested, so we divided it between us. Of course, Ze WAS interested, so he and Grace had 1 1/2 cupcakes, while I could only eat two halves, leaving one half on the plate. I offered it to Grace but she said no. Then she asked if I was going to save it for later. I debated with myself honestly and decided no, we should just throw it away. Then Grace said, ok, I'm going to eat it, but only after she had made sure that I really didn't want it.

We also had dinner from L'Annam, which was super yummy, and I had leftovers the next day. Thanks Grace and Ze!

Hmm, what else? I'm moving apartments. Again. This time to Queens! I'm borough-hopping. It's much fun. In a little over two years, I've lived in Harlem, Manhattan, Brooklyn and now Queens. Yahooo. It's a good thing I don't change jobs as often, or my resume would look crappy.

I haven't blogged in a really long time. I'm sorry! Work was very busy, and then life got really busy, etc...

Today I met Grace at the Museum of Modern Art, where I picked up free tickets thanks to my company. The place was jam-packed full of people. I've never seen so many people there, and it was actually kind of distracting. Grace and I didn't have many chances to just stop and look at a piece of art--there are always people moving around. We only stayed inside for an hour, but it felt like it took a lot of effort to maneuver around the crowds. But anyway, we saw the Seurat exhibition. One of the things I liked seeing was a tiny "study" that he did for his most famous work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (not there).

Afterwards, we sat in the garden and chilled (literally). I tinkered with this huge pair of chopsticks that I guess was art.

Grace and I then went over to her place, where we had sushi from East (yum), watched the Giants-Cowboys game, and melted chocolate to pour over frozen creampuffs. That was really yummy, and fun.

Yay for having a good day. :)

Yesterday, I went to the Bronx Botanical Garden. It was gorgeous outside and my friend and I walked over the entire garden. We had free grounds admission because it was Museum Day...of course, that didn't give us access to the tram, conservatory, etc. But you know, whatever, it was good exercise.

The Bronx Botanical garden is just...huge. I think I prefer the Brooklyn Botanical Garden better, it's a more manageable size. But, it would be nice to see the Bronx Botanical Garden in the spring.

Pictures here.

Aside from the flowers, I saw black squirrels, chipmunks, and a bunny rabbit! I love bunnies.

Today: I got a whole bunch of stuff done. Went to Target, the Korean market, did laundry, and other numerous errands...and I am so totally wiped out. I could use another weekend! Next weekend I'm back in the Bay Area - yahoo~!