it's been a busy two days - i probably drove around 300+ miles in 48 hrs, but it was a great time. on thurs night, i went to SF to see jeremy denk perform with the SF symphony and michael tilson thomas. it was great - i loved jeremy denk's transparency and his love for music - he completely embodied the music. it was also a treat to see michael tilson thomas play the piano. i had some problems with the programming (trying to capture mozart's life in two hours?) but in general, it was great to get a sampling of mozart's choral works as well (and to watch a few choral members falling asleep during the orchestral moments...). i also realized how mozart was really great with the clarinet, out of all instruments, listening to the woodwind serenade, in combination with the famous one and only clarinet concerto he wrote. after the concert, i also got to meet jeremy denk - what a treat! it's always fun to tell someone how much you enjoyed their performance, the only fear is, of course, sounding like a giddy gushing fan and not as an intelligent human being. ^^ i told him how i loved his hilarious story of the "I love NY" umbrella he accidentally bought. probably every new yorker's nightmare, the horror!

i was hoping to take it easy on friday (it's been a hairy week) but ended up going back to my alma mater again, to go to the stanford shopping center and to the church which i wasn't able to visit earlier. memchu (as it's known to students, short for stanford memorial church) is definitely on my list of my favorite places. so many memories there as well.


a place of prayer, esp before organic chemistry midterms...

friday night, i went to see my sister in King and I again for the second time - the performance was just as charming the second time around, and I picked up on a lot of things that Sarah had told me about, the inside jokes, of secret snickering in the back, etc. ("et cetera, et cetera~") there are two casts of children in the show who play the royal children, and five child actors who weren't performing that night were sitting in the row behind me. they preempted all the actors' lines about 2 seconds before it was said on stage, giving everything away. miguel told me i should have punched her out. ;) my favorite part in the play is the ballet of uncle tom's cabin - maybe i do like dance better than musicals after all??

it's such a joy to watch my sister in a great theater piece, but surprisingly, it was just as fun experiencing the joy of the audience in the people around me, as they enjoyed the performance just as much as i did. The two women next to me cried during "We Kiss in the Shadows". i also made a brief appearance at the cast party afterwards before driving home in a record time of an hour and twenty minutes.



the evil simon of legree (danced by michael balderrama) in the ballet of uncle tom's cabin

what a great weekend. reality set in when as soon as i woke up this morning, i got a call from work saying that i need to go in right away while i was in the middle of making myself a big batch of pancakes made from scratch. i guess my "weekend" had to end sometime.

i'm going to steal jen's blog muse. muhahaha

it was hilarious meeting up with r - one of jen's good friends, when we first met, his face was flushed for a full ten minutes and he couldn't take his eyes off my face b/c he thought i looked so similar to my twin sis. i don't think he blinked for ten minutes. i was trying to convince him, "I am Jennifer". haha. I don't think we're that similar. I'd heard so much about him that i felt like i'd known him for years, and he might take me for my first time clubbing in castro this weekend, if i can bring myself to drive out to the bay area again.



see? we're not that similar.

a lot of theater in the past few days - i finally saw sarah's much anticipated show in san jose, king and I, starring debby boone (singer of the 70's hit, "you light up my life") and the hilarious francis jue. it was so fun, and so odd to see it when your sister is in the show... i kept on scouring upstage at the ensemble members to try to catch a glimpse of her. it was a really great show, but the best part was the cast party afterwards - i really thought i'd be really bored at the cast party, taking pictures etc. but i had the best time. i talked to broadway insiders and gossiped about broadway stars and who are the divas, who aren't, etc. etc. oh so much fun! there was a guy who had danced in movin' out, and i got the skinny on rasta thomas from him. he calls rasta the only true ghetto ballerina (ballerino?). i would have loved to have seen rasta thomas in movin' out.

then more locally, i saw sweet charity with molly ringwald tonight. the fosse-esque dancing was amazing (how do they hit the poses like that?), and my favorite is "Hey Big Spender". just tons of fun. i really really love how actors from broadway come as locally as our neighborhood, so we get high quality theater here as well.

jeremy denk in san francisco on thurs - finally getting to see michael tilson thomas conduct the sf symphony. looking forward to a dash of mozart -

i love fridays

so relieved it's friday. maybe castro did a number on me? it's been a good week tho - getting good work done in lab, still laying the groundwork for groundbreaking discovery (i hope). my boss is expecting his child next week so he'll be gone for a bit after that...! wonder how things will be in lab after his second child.

it's going to be a full day tomorrow! driving back down to the bay area to see my siser in her big production of King and I (apparently a staple in every Asian actor's muscial theater resume, according to A Chorus Line). Very excited to see good theater again, with a cast party thrown in for good measure. Maybe an opera or two on Sunday, a coffee with some old friends that i need to catch up with, and some shopping at H&M thrown in for good measure??

random read of the day: quoting from Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot:

"Say something," Didi quietly pleads.
"I'm seeking," Gogo replies.