cd of the moment: nelly furtado's Folklore. Brilliant! Get it even if you don't like her single, Powerless. her songs are so diverse, from ethereal love songs to catchy ethnic beats. i am totally not doing her cd justice, but it's a good one.

today was a total down-day for me, a vacation from my thanksgiving vacation. : D i was so exhausted, i felt like i had been driving straight for the past two days, which is somewhat true. it was fun though! a great thanksgiving weekend. it stinks now that it's over, finals is hovering around the corner. i was so exhausted today i took two naps today. yes, i'm serious.

i made nigella's blond mocha sauce to go over ice cream. it was so easy, very yummy! that was my dinner, all my meals were pushed back about two hours so i wasn't hungry. maybe i'll be hungry in a few hours and heat up some turkey. yum.

it was a gray day today, maybe that's why i slept so much today (yeah, that's gotta be it :). rainy, more than usual, and very gray. sad, sarah left today, so my sisters are gone. last night, we went over sarah's head shots. it was so fun.

happy thanksgiving, everyone! i hope everyone ate themselves to full thanksgiving bliss.

on the biggest shopping day of the year, i finally got to do what i've been wanting to do for a while - go shopping in downtown SF! it was so crazy, we woke up at 6:30 am to drive to Berkeley, where we picked up our other cousin and rode the bart into SF so we wouldn't have to park there. it was so fun! i finally got to check out two of my fav clothes stores, A/X and French Connection, for the first time in a long time. one of the benefits of living in LA is that there are so many stores like that around, unlike in sacramento. it got pretty crazy later on in the day, and we drove back, exhausted and shopped out and a lot poorer. but happy. :)

sarah is still sleeping, sleepyhead.

this morning, i also got up at 5:00 am to drop off my other sis. all the cars that were on the road at this unsightly hour were driving to the airport, i think, like we were.

finals in two weeks, eek! too bad studying is the last thing on my mind on this holiday weekend. :D very happy I got to do normal holiday things, despite my moving into a new place, like watch the Macy's thanksgiving parade (a bit fuzzy thanks to antenna reception) and eating lots and lots with my cousins and aunts and uncles and sisters. i'm appreciating more simple things these days, like an extra two hours of sleep after waking up at 5:30 am.

i just made a perfect cup of coffee! not an easy task, since so many variables are at hand (coffee grinds, sugar, cream). i haven't gotten the formula quite right yet. usually it's too weak, too bitter, too sweet, or not sweet enough. i usually don't like starbucks coffee, but since deena started working there, I got a bag of Cafe Verona, which I think is the best one. It doesn't taste burnt, like the house coffee does.

Yesterday, I had the funniest time... I got a TV at CompUSA except they charge an extra $59.99 for delivery! And so I just did it. I called the only friend that was left in town, and the two weakest girl in the class moved a HUGE tv. We kept on giggling so much we almost dropped it several times, it was so hilarious that WE were moving. what an accomplishment! we now have bragging rights. muhahahaha.

yay! Free day today, to hang out with family and shop for furniture and unpack a bit.

i am so excited for thanksgiving!!! my aunt has been baking cookies since last week. So much food, so little time.

After Thanksgiving though, the storm of the comprehensive anatomy quiz and finals begins... it's probably not a good idea to procrastinate, but I feel like not-studying is inevitable. :) Helen would be proud.

i moved into my new place! i love it, mostly cuz it's my comfortable space and not someone else's. furniture and a place to sit would be nice though, but no complaints.

can you believe the holiday season has been thrust upon us?

playing pictionary with med students, you get guesses such as:

mid-sagittal plane (the word was "half")
auricle
vestibule (as in the larynx)
synaptic cleft (it really looked like a synapse!)

anyways, kathleen's potluck was a blast, had a lot of fun. I'm glad I still have time to hang out with people in my classes, it's nice to see people out of their scrubs or not falling asleep in biochem and not so serious all the time.

so many people have commented on the huge truck i was driving for the past two days. yes, it was a rental, and no, it's not my car. and yes, i do suppose i look small and kinda funny in it. this truck fits more people than my car does! amazing. i was higher than all SUV's and other trucks on the road.

but i finally got my car back. :)

hm, another weekend open with possibilities for studying... let's see if I take it. labs have been mercifully short this week. the word "frenulum" got stuck in my head though.

finding a ladybug on his computer:
"There she goes just walking around the edges of things, enjoying the brink of life’s subtle detail. So small she finds the rim of the lampshade to be massive and brilliant.... Do you think this ladybug cares she lives in Michigan? She is orange but still parades her polka dots as if they were surrounded by red, pretending to pay no attention to the attention she secretly adores." -Jason Mraz

i keep on thinking today's a saturday! i used so many minutes on my cell phone today cuz I thought it was a weekend. whoops. maybe my cell carrier counts veterans' day as a holiday/weekend. i'm not sure. also, thanks to some weird scheduling, tomorrow's class is postponed to another day, so no class tomorrow either! yay~ another day to play and catch up on studying and housecleaning.

what a fun night in the city! a low key gathering of friends for dinner (korean bbq) in San Francisco, and then irish coffees at buena vista. i play way too much. a few friends are trying to convince me to go clubbing with them on saturday in SF. i dunno... i think i am playing too much. i saw on dr. phil a statistic that average first year med students are in class or study for 77 hours a week. I couldn't believe it. I think I average about 30, and most of that is spent in class. not counting midterm or finals week.

can you believe that christmas is only a month and a half away?? i can't believe it.

am tempted to go back to SF tomorrow to go shopping, esp at my favorite store, Lush. sigh. I will be good and study the pharynx.

i found sarah mclachlan's cd, mirrorball! very happy, listening to it now.

had such a crazy day. woke up at 5:30 am in San Diego (yes, i was there again, no fire this time), rode the train for three hours to LA, then hopped on a plane to Sacramento. And here I am again, safe at home. it is good to be back. relaxing with a cup of white tea. i accidentally put two teabags in one cup. what a waste. there's nothing like relaxing with tea though. it helps me slow down a bit, take a deep breath.

San Diego is such a special place, will always hold a sunny place in my heart. we ate at saffron, a thai restaurant. my sister discovered it after watching the owner on the martha stewart show. then we had gelato, which is right next door. i swear the gelato is better here than it was in venice. chocolate hazelnut gelato, yum.

Psalm 23 Antithesis

My job is my dictator, I shall not rest.

It makes me lie down only when exhausted.

It leads me to deep depression.

It hounds my soul.

It leads me in circles of frenzy for activity’s sake.

Even though I run frantically from task to task,

I will never get it all done, for my "ideal" is with me.

Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.

They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule.

They anoint my head with migraines; my in-basket overflows.

Surely fatigue and time pressure shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration forever.

-an excerpt from Keith Zafren's sermon at The River.

what a beautiful november morning! it actually feels more like fall in the mornings, and then turns blistery winter cold later at night. haha, remember, this is from a girl who's lived in California all her life, so blistery is like... 50 degrees? When it gets that cold, it's a cue for us to whip out our hats, scarves, cashmere gloves, and knee length coats. I'm not kidding either!

Halloween was spent exactly "my style", low key with a few friends. Costumes would have been fun :) but it was fine without it. We went out to dinner, met people's significant others, and I stole off to see Pilobolus (more on that later) and then came back to join my friends playing pool and watching the losers do fifty pushups in the pool hall. And it was an early night. And I got to eat some chocolate. Perfect. :)

Pilobolus was... I think I expected too much in that I had no expectations. I should've expected a modern dance concert, since Pilobolus is a modern dance company. To my defense though, they advertise themselves as "different", although I should have known better. For a modern dance show, it was great - very smooth, athletic, laden with symbolism. So they're famous for their acrobatic poses - carrying each other's weight (like men partnering men in really strenuous positions, like having another guy walk and carry another one at the same time). But since they were accompanied live by the St. Lawrence Quartet, I also feel like their dancing was limited to the type of music that quartets are limited to. Live music is great - an added bonus, but I'm not the biggest fan of quartets.

Their symbolism lied in using their weight to symbolize different things - in "My Brother's Keeper", weight was used as a coincidence, a chance happening that people used to interact with each other in ways that the dancers seemed oblivious to. This, of course, symbolize how people interact in this world in coincidental ways, often in ways that people are oblivious. It belies of a strange balance of dependence and independence. It was very Merce Cunningham. In "Sweet Purgatory", weight was used interestingly. Dancers stopped other dancers, carrying their weight and stopping them from doing things in mid-air, like jumping and reaching out for an unseen star or pulling back a running dancer, stopping them. Maybe I read into the title too much, but Jean-Paul Sartre's quote kept on coming into my head, "Hell is other people", how people stop each other from doing what they will. With the boundaries of the other dancers, however, the dance grows more comfortable, and in the last pose, where three dancers are floating high, held up by other dancers with their arms splayed, symbolized a type of freedom, found at last, even within the small boundaries of "purgatory". If this is what purgatory is like, I don't think I'd like to be there - however, watching it was a mesmerizing and beautiful fight of will and freedom.