Weekend of Asians
September 28, 2009 § Leave a comment
Korean pop has officially become my comfort music. This past week when I was feeling overwhelmed and utterly hopeless from the sheer amount of schoolwork I had to complete, downloading some new Korean music lifted my spirits significantly.
Even though for the past two weekends I’ve tried not to plan anything so as to give myself time to do homework or apply to internships, I have successfully neglected my work both times due to unexpected activities. These past days were an enjoyable juxtaposition to the depressing hell that was Monday to Friday.
On Friday evening I had dinner with my friend NM at the Korean-owned Geisha Sushi Bar; I had been inexplicably craving sushi for a few weeks, and the newly opened restaurant is within walking distance. It was only my third time actually eating “real” sushi at a restaurant [California rolls don’t count], and sushi is a culture I have resisted [due to both price and perceived overratedness], and NM didn’t even know how to use chopsticks, so we were both kind of at a loss for what to order.
Chocolatey Peanut Butter Goodness
September 10, 2009 § Leave a comment
As I sat down on the couch on Monday with my breakfast/lunch of Reese’s Puffs in skim milk, I glanced at the back of the box for any interesting reading material. It featured a checklist of “18 Things To Do Before You Turn 18.” I didn’t realize cereal could be age-ist…eighteen seems like so long ago.
I turned on the TV and noticed that Fairly OddParents was playing on Nickelodeon — my favorite cartoon! To my delight, it was an episode I hadn’t seen yet. During a break in the program, a commercial for Reese’s Puffs played, starring two teenage boys consuming the breakfast food. It was then that I realized I was watching cartoons geared toward pre-adolescents while enjoying a cereal I am officially too old for. A sad revelation, but not one that stopped me from eating my fill while finishing the show.
I’d also like to note that Reese’s Puffs has more vitamins & minerals than the Kashi Strawberry Fields cereal I was eating before. Sure, there’s a lot more sugar in Reese’s Puffs, but I was surprised that the Kashi cereal [despite having all those whole grains] did not have any more vitamins than the paltry bit it contained. Therefore, I shall stick to my sugary indulgence!
This Made My Day
August 5, 2009 § Leave a comment
After a long day of traveling for a total of 9 hours by car & plane, my family finally arrived home. As I walked up the stairs, I noticed a package by the front door, and figured that it was just more parts for the computer that my brother is building [AKA the computer he is paying my cousin to build for him]. When I came downstairs later, though, Larry had taken the package to the kitchen and was asking my dad what it was.
“I don’t know,” my dad replied. “This has my name on it, but I’m not expecting any packages.”
A bomb? I thought idly as I loaded laundry into the washing machine.
Dad read the return address, perplexed. “San Francisco baking company?”
He told Larry to stand back as he cut open the packaging tape. I vaguely imagined the box blowing up in our faces as mother picked cucumbers out in the backyard. What a way to die…
Upon opening the package, we were faced with another box.
“It’s upside down,” Larry said, observing the This Side Up arrows on the side. Dad flipped the box over and out dropped a flimsy cardboard box of…pastries.
After I ravaged the contents.
I suppose the “baking company” was a hint, but we couldn’t help but wonder who the hell would be sending us a box of cookies without any notification. They looked delicious, though, and I blocked out thoughts of poisonous baked goods as I reached for a chocolate chip cookie.
On the lid of the inside box was a name, address and phone number. The intended recipient of these cookies turned out to be Yanling Yin from Downers Grove; my father’s name is Yanling Li.
Too bad, I thought as I munched on a blueberry muffin. These are mine now…
For food that was 6 days old, everything inside was surprisingly delicious. Mother ended up calling the phone number, but it was apparently the number to an office, and Yanling Yin was out of town until the 10th. I’m not exactly sure why this package ended up at our house, but I am enjoying the spoils nonetheless.
For The Love Of Fat
July 6, 2009 § Leave a comment
“America’s Unhealthiest Meals,” my mother read off her laptop screen. Ever since our cable broke, she has resorted to perusing the ABC News website for her daily dinnertime news fix. Engrossed, she read parts of the article to me and Larry.
“Deep-fried macaroni and cheese, quesadilla burger, and mega-sized deep dish sundae,” she said, skewering the pronunciation of quesadilla. “Is macaroni and cheese normally deep-fried?” she asked.
“No,” I responded. “Stupid Americans just love to deep-fry anything.”
“Hey, deep-fried stuff is delicious,” Larry interjected.
“Like I said…”
I rolled my eyes as mother continued reading aloud. Really, ABC News? What health magazine has not already covered the country’s most fattening meals, when you’re just now jumping on that bandwagon? OMG AMERICANS EAT LOTS OF CALORIES WHAT A SHOCKER!!111! This is no longer news; it’s a fact of life that can no longer be reported on creatively. Subjecting yourself to a 6,000 calorie meal for the sake of journalism? You really didn’t need researchers from the University of Maryland to tell you that it will corrupt your diet and arteries [also, wtf is a quesadilla burger?].
“The article says that ‘the USDA recommends that adults our age eat roughly 2,000 calories per day,’ but your friend XZ told us that for our size, we should be eating around 1,500 calories,” mother told me.
I absolutely hate being told information that I already know as if I don’t already know it. This is one of the things that annoyed me the most when XZ went on a food-deprivation-and-hyper-exercise diet a month ago. As she became deeply entrenched in her new obsession, her enthusiasm for calorie counting could not be contained, and she lectured anybody who came within hearing distance, from me to my mother to anybody who would listen, really.
I gave her my attention the first time just to hear out what she had planned for herself, but it was all information that I knew already. I mean, I took advanced health class in high school because I’ve always had a keen interest in nutrition [I even chose dietitian for my career project in 8th grade], and I only stopped reading nutrition & exercise blogs because I felt like I already knew all the practical information I needed.
When XZ came at my mother with her “a pound of fat is 3500 calories and 2000 a day is too much” knowledge, my mother saw fit to recite it back to me whenever she thought it relevant. Not only did I despise the attitude of self-loathing and incessant caloric calculations that XZ was inspiring and aspiring to, I really did not appreciate my mother treating me as if I didn’t know anything. Really, the interactions we usually have leave me feeling unhappy enough; I will not be made out to be a blundering idiot in this area as well.
auradis 