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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'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:

• 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 :)

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 =)

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 =)

Avenge of the Nerds

I like action movies, so when the husband invited me to watch Avengers with his company (they rented out a theater the first day it came out), I agreed to come (not that I really had a choice).  I was even excited, since action movies are fun and I like free stuff.

So the husband and I got to the theater ahead of the bus from the office so we could get good seats, we got some nachos and diet coke, and we were good to go.

And then the movie started.  The first scene opened with Black Widow, and everyone clapped.  Then she went to get the Hulk, and everyone clapped again.  And again and again as each new Avenger was introduced.

Every time something funny happened, everyone clapped.

Every time the Hulk punched someone, everyone clapped.

Every time the Avengers shot down an Norse alien attacker, everyone clapped.

By the end of the movie, I was crossing my arms every time people started clapping.  It got really annoying!  I couldn't hear the dialogue (yes, it's an action movie, and yes, I still want to hear what they're saying).

It was a free movie though... so I suppose I can't really complain :)

Food

I go through phases where I eat out all the time, and then I regress into eating only simple homemade dishes like pasta with marinara sauce, homey Indian dishes, and my personal favorite, mixed vegetables with cheese (no, it's what you think it is -- frozen mixed vegetables with shredded cheese, and of course, lots of crushed red pepper).


I'm trying to get into a phase now where I homecook fancy foods.  I was on a risotto kick for few months recently, and I made a cauliflower puree two nights ago (or if you want to be fancy about it, purée de chou-fleur).  I even found a food blog with recipes for Indian food that I'd previously made only with store-bought mixes (lemon rice is a huge favorite of the husband, and we used our last MTR mix a month ago, so I had to resort to making it from scratch -- it wasn't hard at all, by the way).  And after eating a roasted vegetable quiche from the cafe at work for breakfast, I made a huge batch of quiche with leftover fajita vegetables so I can pack my own every morning.  My crowning glory is homemade lemonade.

If I were a stay-at-home wife in the future, I would start making everything from scratch... bread, jams, crackers, cookies, ice cream.  Sounds like fun... maybe.

Crazy Week

Last week was crazy busy, and I've been busy the last few weeks as well, so I haven't done anything interesting enough to post or had time to post it if it happened.

Things are back to normal, and nothing interesting has happened recently... So I'll try to write something interesting, but I can't promise anything.

The Jason Wu clothes I wrote about in the last post turned out to be an epic fail. The materials felt really crappy and most of it didn't fit well. One dress is almost a keeper -- it doesn't fit perfectly but it's so cute. I still haven't decided whether or not to keep it.

Image from Target

Since the last post, the husband and I took our first trip together to hang out with our friends in San Francisco -- it was our first trip to hang out together with our friends since we moved from SF. It was a lot of fun, and it made us realize that it's hard to recreate that sort of group of friends in LA. We have a lot of history with the people in SF -- Manu's known one of the guys since he was 4, one of the girls since middle school, and another guy (the girl's fiance) for 7 or 8 years. I've known these people since Manu and I started dating, and there's another girl who I've known for 4ish years. It's hard to expect that kind of history when we first move to LA. I think it'll take a few years for us to get to the same point with our friends in LA.

And of course, while in SF we ate a lot of tasty food -- Burmese food, Indian pizza, Chinese food, Israeli food... hard to go wrong with that. I'm looking forward to Vietnamese food during my next trip up there.

Jason Wu for Target

I tried to be cool, I really did. I showed up at Target about 20 minutes before they opened, was about number 50 in line, and I had my list of items I wanted to try on from the Jason Wu collection. And then they let us all in and all the tall people ran over me and reached over my head so I couldn't get any of the items I wanted.

I grabbed a few things in my size, none of which I really liked or that fit me well. I did manage to grab a purse from my list. However, I realized, I probably would never carry the purse and decided I didn't want it. Rather than hanging on to it to use as a bargaining chip to get the dress I wanted, I gave it to a random girl who offered me a bunch of random stuff in my size -- none of which I actually wanted. So that was a waste. Clearly I'm not a good negotiator, but at least I learned what to do next time -- grab everything I can and hunt down people I can trade with.

Not that I'm going to go to the store next time. I might just sit on my computer at midnight and constantly hit refresh until the items I want pop up online. Showing up in person = totally not worth it. I could have slept in, and not woken up at 7 am to drive 15 minutes to Target. Or I have to send my sister -- it looks like the clothing collection was much less popular at Atlanta Targets.

I did refresh the Target website several times today, and one of the dresses I really wanted came back in stock. I'm eagerly waiting for it to show up but I'm expecting the sizing to be weird. I'm almost hoping it doesn't look good so I can return it and spend my money on something else, but I have to give it a shot.

Pictures of the filming

As promised...

Celebrity Sighting!

I know, I've had a dry spell when it comes to celebrity sightings. Luckily, my coworkers were nice enough to let me know that "New Girl" was being filmed right outside our building. I took a quick break from work to go watch. I saw Zooey Deschanel and Dermot Mulroney! May I just say that he looks much better with some gray in his hair. And Zooey is sooo pretty, even in real life. I didn't try to zoom in and get a good picture of her for fear of being kicked out and not allowed to watch the filming. But I did see her eating lunch and eating an apple (she looked great eating an apple... I only wish I looked as cool and un-awkward as she does).

It was also really exciting seeing the filming. The set medic came over to offer us some sunscreen and he chatted with us for a few minutes. I could see the set people driving cars around to set up the scene (it was a scene where Zooey's car breaks down).

While I don't actually have a picture of the celebrities I saw (my coworker was brave enough to ask to take a picture with Zooey), but I hope to soon post some pictures of the filming.

I am so cool... (part 2)

... and I'd like to think this outfit fools people into thinking I am.

The husband told me I can try to dress cool, but I usually end up doing something spastic (hence the blog title) or something silly or something ridiculous. None of the above happened when I was wearing the outfit. I didn't fall down, I didn't spill food on my white shirt (yay!), and I didn't break anything. I think that counts as a success.

Unless you count the fact that I had to tuck my shirt into my tights to keep them from coming untucked every time I move. But we'll pretend I didn't share that information.

And here's an upclose picture of the fun textures I tried to play around with -- subtle houndstooth wool and stripey/netty tights. I kept everything else plain white and black to compensate since the shorts and tights combo was outside my comfort zone.

I am so cool...

Or at least I'd like to be. I found this recipe for vada pav on the Wall Street Journal website, and I really want to try it. It would be so cool to recreate street food at home (recreate being used loosely, since I've never eaten this before). I'm a little scared to deep fry, but maybe my mom will make this for me when she visits. Little sister, be very jealous.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204879004577111220920814462.html?mod=WeekendHeader_Rotator

Recipe pasted below from WSJ website.

Vada Pav

Serves: 4-8

Hands-On Time: 1 hour

Total Time:1½ hours

For the green chutney:

2¼ cups cilantro leaves, tightly packed
1/2 cup mint leaves, tightly packed
2 serrano chilis
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a food processor with ¼ cup water. Process until a thin sauce forms. Add more water if necessary to achieve a slightly watery consistency.

For the red chutney:

1 cup dried unsweetened coconut
10 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons red chili powder
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
Pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients in a food processor. Process until a sticky powder forms with the consistency of wet sand. Add more oil if necessary.

For the batter:

1 cup gram (chickpea) flour
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon red chili powder
Pinch of salt

Whisk together ingredients in a large bowl. Continue to whisk while adding ¾ cup water until a thick, smooth batter forms. Let rest at least 15 minutes.

For the potato mixture:

2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes (approximately 5)
1 quart plus 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1½ teaspoons black mustard seeds
6 curry leaves, torn
2 teaspoons puréed garlic (finely minced is acceptable)
1 teaspoon puréed ginger
1 serrano chili (or more to taste), seeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt (or more to taste)
1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro
8 seedless hamburger buns

1. Peel and halve the potatoes. Cook in boiling water until fork tender, approximately 20 minutes. Drain. Mash using a potato masher until smooth with a few lumps.

2. Heat 2 teaspoons oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add mustard seeds and curry leaves and cook until the seeds start to pop. Add garlic, ginger and chilis and cook briefly. Stir in potatoes and salt. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro.

3. Divide potato mixture into eight equal portions and roll into balls. (Both chutneys, the batter and the potato balls can be stored overnight, covered tightly with plastic wrap, at this point. The green chutney will oxidize slightly.)

4. Heat 1 quart oil over medium-high heat in a wok or Dutch oven until it reaches 325 degrees.

5. Roll the potato balls in the batter and add to the hot oil one by one. Cook, turning occasionally, until they are golden brown, 3 minutes.

6. Spread red chutney on one half of a hamburger bun, and green chutney on the other half. Place hot potato vada between bun. Press down to flatten slightly.

Vogue Profile of Asma Al-Assad

Wish I hadn't thrown away that issue of Vogue...

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/01/the-only-remaining-online-copy-of-vogues-asma-al-assad-profile/250753/

Robotics girls!

I'm so proud of the robotics girls! I coached a team of Girl Scouts in a robotics competition, which was today, and they did awesome! We won an award for resilience -- which basically meant they felt bad for us. But oh well, I think the girls were excited that their hard work was recognized. Especially because they survived three major problems:

1. One of the girls got sick and wasn't able to make it. The girls had written a skit to perform in front of the judges, and so one of them had to play two roles to take the place of the sick girl.

2. About half an hour before the second round of the competition, the robot started freaking out and didn't do what it was supposed to. One girl, who had done most of the programming, tried to fix it but gave up and programmed the whole thing from scratch. In 30 minutes. I was so proud!

3. The robot's battery was dying. This actually may have caused #2 above. Not sure. But we couldn't change the battery because it would have required disassembling the robot, unscrewing the back, changing the batteries, screwing the back back on, and putting the robot back together. I don't know which engineer decided that design was a good idea. I'll have to remember to work around that as I coach next year's team with their robot design.

In terms of fashion, it was really hard for me to be fashionable while wearing a bright pink t-shirt over my nude blouse and brown linen pants, but I figured no one cared. I do like the fact that the t-shirts stuck out though -- the other teams had blues and greens. The neon pink stuck out like a sore thumb... especially because sore thumbs are generally pink. Anyway, I think jeans and a long-sleeved tee under the t-shirt would have been a better outfit. Another thing to note for next year.

(Note: The girls' faces were grayed out to protect their anonymity)

Arts and Crafts

We went to this pottery painting place for a work outing last week. It was really nice just doing something relaxing and creative for the first time in forever.

I debating painting something useful like coasters or a box to hold jewelry, but I ended up painting a shoe that is currently on display in my closet. I'm a little disappointed with the way it turned out. They recommended 3 coats of the paint, and I thought I got 3 on there, but it still turned out streaky in spots. I'll do better next time.

Speaking of which, I've had trouble finding activities to do with female friends so we've always just gone to get our nails done. I think the painting thing is a really good alternative -- a little cheaper and way more relaxing. And as we all know, I love spotting celebrities, and apparently Suri Cruise tends to hang out there.

Latest celebrity sighting

Bouchon, a French restaurant in LA, is great for celebrity sightings. The husband and I have only gone during Restaurant Week, but apparently famous people go then also (I don't think they bother with Restaurant Week though).

We went last Sunday night with a coworker of mine and his girlfriend, and inadvertently ordered the same food we had last Restaurant Week. But it was still really tasty.

The real highlight though was seeing Michael Caine, who I love as Victor Melling, the pageant coach, in Miss Congeniality (one of my favorite movies ever, tied with Legally Blonde and the Oceans movies). The husband recognized his voice -- yes apparently that's the way he talks in real life -- and so we all looked, and sure enough, it was him. Exciting!!

Camo colors

I've bought a lot of clothing recently in dark greens and browns -- almost like in camo. I think those colors were popular in the summer and are now on sale all over the place.

I put together this outfit just by putting together everything I own in those colors. I admit, it's not the most exciting outfit and it's really safe in terms of the color palette, but at least it matches? Also my skirt kept rotating around so the back zip migrated to one side. Not sure how to fix that except to stop moving around.

Cotillion and Conan

This post is long overdue, I know, but I finally had a break from work and other stuff.

A few weeks ago, I attended the first meeting of the school year for the Girl Scout troop I am mentoring. Get this... the meeting was at a country club. The leader who's a member (well technically her family is a member since her grandfather was a founder) tried to tell me that the club used to be kitschy and only became fancy in the last few years. But still.

The oddest part about the club was the cabanas. It was in Malibu on the beach, so each family had a beach facing cabana where they could hang out. But the cabanas reminded me more of storage units you can rent by the month -- complete with metal roll-up door and no windows. About the same size too. But it was nice!

So the reference to cotillion. I had always thought cotillion was something done only in books and movies. I know it's Southern, but I didn't think even people in the South still had cotillions. But no, the girls in the Girl Scout troop are in the process of planning their cotillions. Crazy! I'm hoping to get invited. It sounds fun and fancy :)

And the reference to Conan... I dropped my car off at the gas station to be washed, and I sat in a Starbucks for a while and did work. Before picking up the car, I decided to walk over to the bank and get some cash for tip. On my way back to the gas station, I noticed three people walking backwards while taking pictures. I was trying to figure out what or who they were photographing. I saw a guy walking with his son, so I assumed they were famous. I stared at the guy for a while, and I realized it was Conan O Brien! It was so exciting! I did feel bad for him though since he was just trying to go on a walk with his son and they were being photographed like crazy by the paparazzi.

I knew there was a reason I liked her...