hilarious~ conan is officially the funniest guy on late night. all my favorite tv shows made it! except for project runway. ^^ anyone want to see conan on the runway? anyone?

two more days til the written! this was a nice break.

kitten-sitting


my friends' new 3 month old kitten. she was so adorable.

nostalgia

reading my past blog entries... so interesting! ^^ it's like reading a letter written three years ago. that's a long time - when I first came here, Dr. Park, who was an anatomy TA of ours, his baby Jubeen was just born. I saw her today running around, talking, and being her very cute self, and she's three already! She's super tall too.

written in response to my first set of midterms in med school.

"if i were in the peritoneum, i think i'd be a retroperitoneal structure - nailed to the posterior abdominal wall by the pressures of the peritoneum and other organs."

i think my blog's changed a lot - it's become more about "things", rather than the simple things in my life and my thoughts. or maybe not so much, but it's slowly evolving. survival of the fittest, even in blogosphere.

final week

actually, final week before the written portion of my qualifying exam on Aug 31, and then another week before my oral exam.... this drags on forever! i'll try to look at it like I have more time to study. ^^

so on top of cramming like mad and the anxiety and stress and officially getting used to the idea that I'm getting sick (i think it's the cold, hopefully not the flu), somehow, i still am very grateful for a lot of things and things can definitely be a lot worse. I spent 3 hrs with my professor today, as he quizzed me in the oral exam setup. it was good, i'm very thankful to have this sort of support from my boss and labmates.

my mom told me to take the day off so i can get better - but alas, it's too close to quals. :P i took a little bit of time off today tho, so that was nice.

home stretch! need to keep the momentum going before i fizzle out. can't wait til sept 7.

wow, random college memory: a friend who used to live across the hall from me, was listing some dance styles and the memories connected to them: "The Chicken Dance. I still remember doing this during stress weeks at the dorm in Kimball." hilarious. i remember that too.

Who am I anyway?
Am I my resume?
That is a picture of a person I don't know.
What does he want from me?
What should I try to be?
-A Chorus Line

When you describe yourself to someone, where do you start? Do you start with your resume/accomplishments, or do you describe someone with who your friends are? Do you describe yourself to someone according to where you've lived or gone to school? Do you describe yourself with your interests, how you pass your time, your obsessions? Do you describe yourself by prioritizing how you spend your time and your money? Do you describe yourself in pictures?

i definitely study at night - maybe i should just sleep during the day. very grateful tho, to have full days to study and organize my time.

i studied in the morning, went to a three hour review session and I couldn't take it any more so I hung out with two of my friends for dinner and camaraderie and good ice cream (haagen dazs mocha almod fudge, yum!). felt slightly guilty (for the ice cream and procrastination), but i needed it. very grateful for friends who continue to call me even tho i don't return ur phone calls. took some time off tonight to call them all back.

studying is slow. i'm very behind, but if I can study biochemistry in one night for the final, i can do this. ^^

PR

ah... i love wednesdays, project runway gives me something to look forward to in my nail-biting days of quals prep. eek, about two weeks left... that's really scary. finally got to wrap up most of my experiments for now (one day of work next tues, not bad) so now i get to study late into the night and wake up late so i can do the same thing the next day. yay. i'm glad i can focus on my studies. sleeplessness has started to set in - altho I think i'm not bad compared to the fellow first year grad students who have cried in front of their PI (hehe, my PI's REALLY scared I'm going to cry in front of him...) or have had panic attacks. I'm not there yet. ;)

wow, i am SO not agreeing with the project runway judges this season. (ck, don't read on if you haven't seen the marathon yet...) as much as i love michael (he's one of my favorite designers) and thought he was a strong contender for the win, my favorite outfit was uli's. (the challenge was to make an outfit using recyclable materials at a recycling plant)


uli's outfit

alison should not have been out!!!! her dress wasn't that bad, and vincent or angela NEED to leave. are the judges blind??

this show is disappointing me. but still wildly addicting. ^^ alison here and here.


bye, alison!

i vacuumed the inside of my car for the first time since i bought my car five years ago (it's not that dirty - i've been keeping good care of it! wow it's already been five years) - j and k made me go out for a study break to wash my car at the hand washing place near my place. it was a nice study break and i even got to wax my car with their help. my car is all nice and shiny.

i need to convince myself that from studying, stuff like cleaning my house, making dinner, going to exercise, are just as necessary as studying light phototransduction in the retina. two more weeks til the quals... eek.

ran across some cute pics of my cousin. her expressions are so transparent, she was goofing off in the middle of dinner. ^^ missing her~

  

rachel pally

i made a last minute trip down to LA last weekend - my parents convinced me to come down to see them, and since I had a free ticket, I did. :) It was tons of fun, as always, with much needed rest. It's always nice to get away.

A special thing I did was go to a Rachel Pally sample sale, that was held at Rachel Pally's house where she grew up (her parents' house). Wow, what an ordeal! It was really fun - her famous dresses/outifts were from 40-70% off, and I had such a blast. It was very casual, informal, but also warm - Rachel Pally herself went around to everyone to make sure everyone was finding everything and teaching people how to wear her stuff. All the rooms in her house were open for dressing rooms, and her entire family was there, including her grandmother, who was trained in how to teach others how to wear her clothes. Her clothes are so casual, oh-so-comfortable, wearable, with a hint of sexiness and fun. I had too much fun there. It really made her clothes accessible to people who normally can't afford her clothes, like me. :)

below are two of my purchases - minus rachel bilson.

  

my next two purchases - her mexico dress, above, and her jumpsuit which rachel pally was wearing when i saw her at her sample sale. very cute. i love the length on both these outfits.



jessica simpson in her mexico dress - jessica simpson is one of her most popular clients, as is sarah jessica parker, lindsay lohan, kate hudson, hilary duff, etc.


rachel pally herself, with carmen electra wearing the same dress, tied in different ways! i love how it's like having five outfits in one.

paying rent on broadway

i've always wanted to know this, so here tis:

"The economic incentives are strong [on broadway] if, by some standards, relatively modest. The minimum Broadway salary negotiated by Actors Equity is $1,465 a week for 2006. (Off Broadway is substantially lower.) But established actors in supporting roles can make as much as $300,000 a year, and stars, several times that. A long run has a significant impact on matters like pension, 401(k) and health insurance.

“One of the first things other actors say to me,” said George Lee Andrews, who has been in “Phantom” since it opened in 1988, the longest run of any of the show’s performers, “is, ‘Your pension must be terrific.’ ” "

interesting, they mention victoria clark and felicia p. fields as well. the practical aspects of theater is so interesting - you rarely hear about it.

article here

a really funny article about a non-dancer, learning how to dance in a dance week in london.

"I also have to catch my partner in mid-flight, spin her round and put her safely back down. Fortunately, Lea is only 11 and fairly slight, but that does not make it any less terrifying. I imagine having to call the emergency services: "Yes, a child. I have broken a child." Thankfully, Lea makes for an excellent, forgiving dance partner. I nearly drop her only once."

after ballet class: "Had I not sweated out every drop of water from my body, I would have shed a tear."

article here. ah there's nothing like dancing~

the light, rekindled

i went to the opening night of the first national tour of the light in the piazza, a groundbreaking musical that's been playing at the highbrow lincoln center for the past two years. it felt like a history-making night - the writer, adam guettel was in the audience, as were the producers and the important ppl. the director made an announcement at the start of the show - he looked like he hadn't slept in days. he said there is a slight possibility that the show may stop and have to restart at any moment, and that the actors have just arrived in san francisco just a day ago, and he invited us to laugh loudly at the funny parts and to cry uncontrollably at the sad parts, b/c he himself will probably be crying uncontrollably backstage. ^^ aside from the sudden crashes backstage and a few flubbed lines, it was a great show - so glad that they haven't relaxed the standards of the broadway show that now it's on tour.

what a great show - so sweeping, so beautiful - really famous musical writers and authors and artists seem to love this show the most. one playwright said that this musical wasn't a musical but more like a place. i agree - the florence, italy, of my dreams.

below is a clip of the original leads in the broadway production at lincoln center, the legendary kelli o'hara (that harry connick jr. so fell in love with) singing the title song.



more clips: my favorite love song of all time: here, when after clara finds out that all her life she grew up in a lie, where she is "not normal" and tells her fiancee that he mustn't love her.

their love song: here

Love's a fake
Love's a fable
Just a painting
On a ceiling
Just a children's fairy tale

Still, you have to look
And look
Through the eyes
On a bridge in the pouring rain
Not the eyes but the part you can't explain
For the arms you can fall into forever

For the joy that you thought you'd never know
For here at last away you go
To a man who looks for you

Can you find in the world
In the wide, wide world
That someone sees
That someone loves you

 
talking to david burnham, who was the understudy for the original lead in the Light in the Piazza on broadway and currently the lead on the national tour - my signed program, and two publicity photos released from the show.