Sunday, February 17, 2013
Test
I'm trying this new thing where I blog by dictation like a doctor, so I feel pretty hard-core doing this but we'll see whether or not this works out.
Catching up
I saw a friend from SF / work today after a year or so, and it was really nice to catch up. We went to a cute cafe in the Loop where we had great French sandwiches in a beautiful old building (I meant to take pictures when I went to the bathroom but I forgot my phone) followed by a French biscuit (not as good as Southern biscuits). I definitely enjoyed catching up with her, and we talked about how much we love Chicago. I still don't know if I could ever live here because of winter, but it's a beautiful, beautiful city. There's gorgeous old buildings with amazing detail and architecture, and then super-industrial bridges. It's a very cool juxtaposition (again, no pictures but I promise to take some soon).
I also caught up with my dear friend shopping. I went into the Macy's since it was on the way back to the L station (no, really, you enter the L station through the store). The Macy's in SF has been my favorite Macy's (maybe even favorite department store) because it's huge, has amazing food (yes, I choose my shopping based on what food is around), and has a ton of great brands and watches. Sadly, I have moved on to a new favorite Macy's -- this one in the Loop. It carries all the same stuff as the SF store, but also has true designer clothes like Jean Paul Gaultier (not that I'm in the market for that any time soon) AND it has amazing architecture. The make-up section has a ceiling with a brilliant blue tile mosaic, the first floor has huge pillars with elaborate, curlicue molding, and the outside is the old Marshall Fields building and still has the original design and store sign. Again, I will take pictures next time. Or if you come to Chicago, I'll take you to see it in person :)
I know it's not the most exciting business school adventure, but it's a start. I definitely hope to explore more of Chicago as the weather warms up (with a camera in hand).
I also caught up with my dear friend shopping. I went into the Macy's since it was on the way back to the L station (no, really, you enter the L station through the store). The Macy's in SF has been my favorite Macy's (maybe even favorite department store) because it's huge, has amazing food (yes, I choose my shopping based on what food is around), and has a ton of great brands and watches. Sadly, I have moved on to a new favorite Macy's -- this one in the Loop. It carries all the same stuff as the SF store, but also has true designer clothes like Jean Paul Gaultier (not that I'm in the market for that any time soon) AND it has amazing architecture. The make-up section has a ceiling with a brilliant blue tile mosaic, the first floor has huge pillars with elaborate, curlicue molding, and the outside is the old Marshall Fields building and still has the original design and store sign. Again, I will take pictures next time. Or if you come to Chicago, I'll take you to see it in person :)
I know it's not the most exciting business school adventure, but it's a start. I definitely hope to explore more of Chicago as the weather warms up (with a camera in hand).
Thursday, February 7, 2013
I'm back!
I had this misconception that I would show up to business school and I would magically have all this free time to dress cute and document my outfits and fabulous life in this blog. I was very wrong. The first three weeks of school were crazy with orientation, a pre-term leadership class, and making friends. And then I had two weeks to get used to classes before recruiting started. And now, I finally finished recruiting, and I have emerged victorious to start hanging out with people again -- and updating this blog.
You'll definitely see a lot more of me and I will have more exciting stories than I did during the last few times I wrote. For example, here's a sampling of fun stories I would have shared with you over the past couple of months had I had the time:
My more recent exciting story is about an exhibit on Maharajas at the Field Museum. It was really cool, and I got to see college friends after a long time. There were all sorts of sparkly pieces of jewelry, fancy saris and men's gowns, and furniture. Fun fact: In the late 1800s / early 1900s, Indian royalty took buckets (well, hopefully not literal buckets) of jewels to Cartier to have jewelry made. They were also huge fans of Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre watches, so much so that JLC made Reverso watches with Indian gods like Rama and Krishna painted on the back (the watch face could be flipped around to protect it during war, and so the back was often decorated). Also, there was an Australian nurse who married a South Indian prince, so she was referred to as Rani (Queen) Molly and wore saris and hung out. Indian princesses (even those of Indian origin) visited Europe often and bought fashionable clothes and wore elbow length opera gloves with their saris. What else... Oh there was a queen named Chand Bibi in the 16th-ish century who apparently led armies and defended her land.
I am excited to share my life with you again :)
You'll definitely see a lot more of me and I will have more exciting stories than I did during the last few times I wrote. For example, here's a sampling of fun stories I would have shared with you over the past couple of months had I had the time:
- Recruiting events: Standing around and networking with recruiters, trying to shake hands and sound intelligent while balancing a glass of wine and a plate of food
- Going out in Chicago: It's really cold!! Especially when you're waiting in line forever because you took too long to eat dinner and the wind is blowing and your ankles are freezing because you thought it would be a good idea to wear ankle-length skinny jeans and wedges rather than wool tights and boots.
- Snow: It didn't really snow until the beginning of February, but now, a week later, the snow is still on the ground and it has no signs of disappearing until March or April. I guess I'll be pulling out the rainboots a lot.
- The cold: I'm getting used to it. It was 19 and sunny the other day and it felt warm only because it wasn't windy, gray, and 6 degrees. It's snowy and 36 degrees today and it feels absolutely balmy. It's always nice to go back to LA and see the sunshine though!
My more recent exciting story is about an exhibit on Maharajas at the Field Museum. It was really cool, and I got to see college friends after a long time. There were all sorts of sparkly pieces of jewelry, fancy saris and men's gowns, and furniture. Fun fact: In the late 1800s / early 1900s, Indian royalty took buckets (well, hopefully not literal buckets) of jewels to Cartier to have jewelry made. They were also huge fans of Cartier and Jaeger-LeCoultre watches, so much so that JLC made Reverso watches with Indian gods like Rama and Krishna painted on the back (the watch face could be flipped around to protect it during war, and so the back was often decorated). Also, there was an Australian nurse who married a South Indian prince, so she was referred to as Rani (Queen) Molly and wore saris and hung out. Indian princesses (even those of Indian origin) visited Europe often and bought fashionable clothes and wore elbow length opera gloves with their saris. What else... Oh there was a queen named Chand Bibi in the 16th-ish century who apparently led armies and defended her land.
I am excited to share my life with you again :)
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Dance
I miss dance. I really do. I can go for weeks without thinking about it, but as soon as I hear the right music I feel a strong urge to dance.
In college, I did South Indian classical dance (Kuchipudi) every Sunday and went out dancing at least once a weekend. When I moved to Seattle, I didn't go out much the first year since I didn't have any female friends to go dancing with and I felt awkward going dancing with single guys when I was in a relationship. By the second year, I had an awesome group of girlfriends and we went out once a month or a little more often, which made a huge difference in my life. I got to get the dancing out of my system every so often then.
After I got married, the husband and I moved to San Francisco, where we didn't have a lot of friends. We didn't want to go out clubbing by ourselves, so we only went dancing a handful of times. We moved again -- to LA -- right after all our friends moved to SF and had dance competitions on the kinect without us.
LA has been even harder, because most clubs are sooo far away and the lines at all of them are so long (I'm just used to getting in free in Atlanta after a max of a 15 minute wait, but maybe things are different in real big cities!). I almost made it out one night in LA, but we waited in line for over an hour, so we gave up. Hopefully business school will give me a chance to relive those fun times.
But it's not even clubbing dancing or salsa dancing that I miss. I really miss Kuchipudi, I miss the occasional Indian dance I did in high school, and I just miss dancing in general.
Maybe I just need more evenings alone when I can dance to the iPod by myself =)
In college, I did South Indian classical dance (Kuchipudi) every Sunday and went out dancing at least once a weekend. When I moved to Seattle, I didn't go out much the first year since I didn't have any female friends to go dancing with and I felt awkward going dancing with single guys when I was in a relationship. By the second year, I had an awesome group of girlfriends and we went out once a month or a little more often, which made a huge difference in my life. I got to get the dancing out of my system every so often then.
After I got married, the husband and I moved to San Francisco, where we didn't have a lot of friends. We didn't want to go out clubbing by ourselves, so we only went dancing a handful of times. We moved again -- to LA -- right after all our friends moved to SF and had dance competitions on the kinect without us.
LA has been even harder, because most clubs are sooo far away and the lines at all of them are so long (I'm just used to getting in free in Atlanta after a max of a 15 minute wait, but maybe things are different in real big cities!). I almost made it out one night in LA, but we waited in line for over an hour, so we gave up. Hopefully business school will give me a chance to relive those fun times.
But it's not even clubbing dancing or salsa dancing that I miss. I really miss Kuchipudi, I miss the occasional Indian dance I did in high school, and I just miss dancing in general.
Maybe I just need more evenings alone when I can dance to the iPod by myself =)
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Band of Outsiders
The husband's brother got married recently. The husband is Indian, and of course so is his brother. The fiance however, is Chinese-Cambodian, so it was a very interesting mix of cultures.
Two weeks ago was the Chinese-Cambodian wedding in LA, and last weekend was the Hindu wedding in Detroit. The Chinese-Cambodian ceremony was really interesting. There were a lot of parallels with Indian weddings, which I found fascinating. I was still confused most of the time though -- instructions were given in their language, and people were joking around and laughing in their dialect of Chinese. I had no idea what was going on. As the husband and I liked to quip, we felt like white people at an Indian wedding.
It was the first time we felt out of place and lost at a wedding. The most exotic wedding I had been to before this was a Greek Orthodox wedding -- a long way away from Chinese-Cambodian. The Greek Orthodox wedding was mostly in English, so at least I could follow along. Anyway, it was definitely a really interesting experience and I have a lot of sympathy for all you white people who felt confused at my wedding =)
Some of the highlights from the Chinese-Cambodian ceremony were:
- The bride's and groom's multiple costume changes. However, the husband's brother was wearing what looked like a kurta top with a Nehru collar, a gold brocade bottom that looked very Indian, but black socks and clunky black shoes. The husband joked that his brother looked like he belonged in the era the British raj with that combination. Although maybe that's not actually funny.
- The bajillion plates of food, including exotic fruits (see below), tamale-type dishes, and desserts
- The exotic fruits (the rambutan is seen below, but we also had mangosteen and lychee -- by the way, i always associated lychee with the canned stuff sold in Indian stores, which I find too slimy and sweet, but fresh lychee is amazing)
- The breakfast of hot stirfried noodles (made vegetarian for us) with a fried egg and sriracha on top. The best part of the noodles was the fact that they were being stirfried as we watched, so they were amazingly fresh.
- The Cambodian donuts (or maybe they were Chinese) that tasted like beignets. I only wish there was powdered sugar to dip them in but Sriracha was as always an undisappointing substitute
Some downsides from the wedding
- As I mentioned before, the fact I was confused most of the time (but maybe that's not too different from the way I am usually)
- The chicken curry. I thought about trying some to be adventurous, but then I took the lid off the pot and looked in and found myself staring at a chicken foot. I lost my appetite for chicken after that and went back to the vegetarian dishes.
- Losing my car. The husband, his dad, our friend Vijay, and I were driving to the reception and we got involved in a 4 car accident on the free way. We didn't get hit that hard, but our car was smushed at both ends, yielding it inoperable and unsalvageable (Poor car! My parents gave it to me after I graduated from college and so there's a lot of sentimental value there). We had an interesting experience though, being the cars causing the traffic rather than the ones stuck in traffic. The upside is the road ahead of us was clear, since we were the bottleneck, so we made excellent time to the reception once everything was straightened out. The other upside is that the husband and I have to go back to carpooling to work (yay for hanging out an extra 15 minutes each way every day!)
Anyway, that's the end of the long rambling post on the wedding. I'll write more about the Indian wedding soon =)
Two weeks ago was the Chinese-Cambodian wedding in LA, and last weekend was the Hindu wedding in Detroit. The Chinese-Cambodian ceremony was really interesting. There were a lot of parallels with Indian weddings, which I found fascinating. I was still confused most of the time though -- instructions were given in their language, and people were joking around and laughing in their dialect of Chinese. I had no idea what was going on. As the husband and I liked to quip, we felt like white people at an Indian wedding.
It was the first time we felt out of place and lost at a wedding. The most exotic wedding I had been to before this was a Greek Orthodox wedding -- a long way away from Chinese-Cambodian. The Greek Orthodox wedding was mostly in English, so at least I could follow along. Anyway, it was definitely a really interesting experience and I have a lot of sympathy for all you white people who felt confused at my wedding =)
Some of the highlights from the Chinese-Cambodian ceremony were:
- The bride's and groom's multiple costume changes. However, the husband's brother was wearing what looked like a kurta top with a Nehru collar, a gold brocade bottom that looked very Indian, but black socks and clunky black shoes. The husband joked that his brother looked like he belonged in the era the British raj with that combination. Although maybe that's not actually funny.
- The bajillion plates of food, including exotic fruits (see below), tamale-type dishes, and desserts
- The Cambodian donuts (or maybe they were Chinese) that tasted like beignets. I only wish there was powdered sugar to dip them in but Sriracha was as always an undisappointing substitute
Some downsides from the wedding
- As I mentioned before, the fact I was confused most of the time (but maybe that's not too different from the way I am usually)
- The chicken curry. I thought about trying some to be adventurous, but then I took the lid off the pot and looked in and found myself staring at a chicken foot. I lost my appetite for chicken after that and went back to the vegetarian dishes.
- Losing my car. The husband, his dad, our friend Vijay, and I were driving to the reception and we got involved in a 4 car accident on the free way. We didn't get hit that hard, but our car was smushed at both ends, yielding it inoperable and unsalvageable (Poor car! My parents gave it to me after I graduated from college and so there's a lot of sentimental value there). We had an interesting experience though, being the cars causing the traffic rather than the ones stuck in traffic. The upside is the road ahead of us was clear, since we were the bottleneck, so we made excellent time to the reception once everything was straightened out. The other upside is that the husband and I have to go back to carpooling to work (yay for hanging out an extra 15 minutes each way every day!)
Anyway, that's the end of the long rambling post on the wedding. I'll write more about the Indian wedding soon =)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)