*906 - common sentiment

Previously, as students: Could not imagine how one could survive the dreaded "nine-to-five" work hours.

Now: We do quiet celebratory dances and sneak guiltily out of the office if we get to leave by 8 pm.

Welcome to the world of market research (well, just at this particular company, probably).

Oddly enough, one adapts surprisingly quickly to complete lifestyle overhauls. I no longer bat an eyelid at 50-hour (barest minimum) work weeks, though I still panic mildly at the news of several colleagues staying till 3 am (that's ridiculous by any standards).

It amazes me that in addition to being brilliant and thoroughly dedicated to their work, everyone here is young, cool, and mostly awesome. You would think that people like that would have a little more of a life than we do!

The verdict is that I'm happy enough now, with expectations of becoming even happier in time, after I've scaled the obligatory steep (and somewhat cumbersome) learning curve.

:)

(And no, "overtime pay" does not exist in our books! If it did, we could be rich!)

*905 - my lamentation #2

What could I possibly have been thinking earlier today as I lamented about frivolities such as being tall, slim, and fashionable, when my true anguish lies in ...

... LAUNDRY.

Moment of Misery #1

10.08 pm: I put cooking of dinner on hold and rush down to the laundry room to move my clothes to the dryer, 20 minutes late (and everyone knows that the longer you leave wet laundry in machine, the mouldier your clothing smells).

10.10 pm: Washing machine says “3 minutes left.” Evelyn is puzzled but happy that she wasn’t in fact late.

10.13 pm: “2 minutes left.” Machine must be a tad slow.

10. 20 pm: “1 minute left.” Machine is asdfjkl; slow, but how long can a slow 1 minute last?

10.25 pm: “1 minute left.” Counts change in purse to kill time. (7 quarters, 3 dimes, 1 penny.) Tours the laundry room. Ponders upon perm press vs. brights vs. colors.

10. 30 pm: “1 minute left.” Asdfjl;kafsliaOL(H#nga. Jiggles nearby coin return buttons to kill time. Does plies, grande battements, developes. Tries to make conversation with washer.

10.35pm: “1 minute left.” ASDFJL;KAFSLIAOL(H#NGA. Sits in front of washer and attempts to get hypnotized by spinning clothing. Endures many a false alarm as washer goes through various stages of its last “1 minute” (gurgling, spinning, rocking, being silent).

10.40 pm: Machine stops HALLELUJAH remove clothing load clothing rush back to apartment more than half an hour after leaving and inhale cold dinner.

Omg.

But! That was not the end.

Moment of Misery #2

11.30 pm: Trot happily along to laundry room to collect laundry.

11.32 pm: LAUNDRY ROOM IS LOCKED.

Impending: Wake up at 7.30 am tomorrow morning to retrieve the wrinkliest clothing in the history of Wrinkly Clothing WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DISPLEASE THE LAUNDRY GODS do I not get good karma for never leaving undies behind, cleaning out my lint filters, etc??? No???

Nooooooo.

(And no, I do not think I am being overly dramatic.)

*904 - my lamentation

Paired with heels and enough of an attitude, being tall and skinny turns bizarre outfits into high fashion.

Case in point: so many of these! I do revel in their bold choices and live vicariously through their fashionable lives, while I (sadly) pick out the same lacklustre grey skirt and one of my many nondescript tops as I get ready for work ...

*903 - banana + chocolate

Seven weeks into work, and I'm getting a serious case of the Monday blues. Dragging myself to work after the best weekend ever was painful, probably (hopefully) because it was the best weekend ever.

But! Monday's over, and this means that we are one day closer to the weekend, and this means I am one day closer to when I will next see you (when?).

To celebrate, happy pictures of my specialty: banana muffins with chocolate frosting. "They are precious," the colleagues exclaimed. I like that the sound of that :)

Behold, my precious banana chocolate muffins. Fit for a wedding and fit for a fundraising bake sale in the office.





With love,
The Bakerina

*902 - I like it, though.

Chewing brown rice makes my jaws ache.

*901 - little kiss, big kiss

Besito, besote.

:)

On a related note, I noticed that my bananas were labelled "chiquita" (a prominent brand of banana, apparently, Google reveals), which reminded me of your mom/Casey and, by association, you.

:) :)

*900 - my little home :)

One would have thought that the 900th post would have been of something terribly significant/interesting/memorable but no! It is merely a display of my newly clothed pillows with my freshly constructed little table: a pauper's temporary alternative to a sofa.



Also, the decorative shelf filled with everyday items/stuff I already own that had some sort of aesthetic value: breathing fresh life into my ancient pointe shoes, shells and pebbles we gathered from the beach, our favorite Rosa Regale, Mary Poppins & Alice in Wonderland as a reminder to stay young and keep dreaming, pretty body lotions and perfumes that belong more on my dresser than on a shelf in the living room but oh well, their fault for being pretty ...



Ineloquent from sleepiness. Off I go to bed!

*899 - not cool.

There's a first time for everything.

Today's: Going to church so hungover that I puked in the middle of the sermon.

Time to sleep it off.

*898 - suddenly i see

Last night, I dreamt that I found a little green blobby plush monster whose name was KT Tunstall.

Just thought that was worth mentioning.

*897 - time to dance

One of the best dance classes I've taken recently: today, at Green Street Studios, Cambridge (not that it matters to anyone). By some sort of miracle, I managed to leave work early at 6.30 pm today (I felt like a criminal of sorts prancing out of the office at that time) in order to make it for a two hour long modern jazz class. It turned out to be more modern than jazz, to my delight.

Lovely choreography: emotive, but not in a cheesy way. Strong, but still pretty. Challenging, but not overwhelming. Quirky improvisations with unabashed dancers, conceptually stimulating--reminded me of dance in Cornell. Every bit of her choreography felt foreign and fresh and put together in a new and wonderfully quirky way. None of that pas de bourree --> pirouette prep --> triple turn stuff, or the usual showing off of who has the most fabulous split leaps. (I'm not saying that's all bad; in fact, those are terribly fun and fulfilling; this is just fun and fulfilling in a different way. The type of dance I studied here and the type of dance I used to do back home occupy two very different realms in my brain.)

But first of all, today was an anomaly and I will probably never be able to leave work so early again. And second of all, she was a substitute teacher and generally teaches exclusively in BU. Very sad indeed!

-

One of the worst dance classes I've ever taken: Sunday, at a studio near my place. "Lyrical jazz". Actually, I don't even want to talk about it.

Hahaha.

-

Searching for a dance studio to settle down into is like hunting for a church. Both processes are long-drawn out (Sundays only come around once a week, and I don't have time on weekdays, in general, to dance), involve hits and misses and everything in between, are mostly enjoyable, rather exciting, and generally make my day--but one does want to settle down sooner rather than later!

*896 - gore and food

I have never had much tolerance for scary movies/shows/literature, and refusal to engage in anything horrific has not helped my situation at all. My weekend was filled with visions of gore, spent quivering at every creak and weeping over the phone, and plagued by 1.5 nightmares because of the two episodes of Dexter (Season 1) that I watched.

The gore isn't what gets to me, really, it's the psychological mind tricks that do.

-

Anyway, food photos from a long time ago--when we first arrived in Boston! Actually, it has barely been six weeks ... so much has happened and changed since then that it feels like an eternity ago. Yet, everything's still so foreign that I can barely believe I've already been here for six weeks. What contradictions.

Food food food in Boston! I love cities for their food. As a point of comparison, I've eaten at practically every good restaurant on my checklist of "To Eats" in Ithaca and would have to drive long and far to try out a new, good restaurant. In big cities, the choices are endless. Endless!! :D

Anyway, what follows is not an accurate documentation of what/where we ate over the course of a week. Just a scattering of pictures that now, a month later and while missing him, have much nostalgic value :)

The Ikea staple: Swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce. We went to Ikea three days in a row (I think) and had this twice! Yum yums.



One of our "traveling to a new place that has a Chinatown" staples: dim sum! They had the biggest siew mai I had ever seen (fuzzy, in background). I've chronicled so many of our dim sum adventures photographically, so I decided that the less photogenic and, hence, less photographed cheong fun deserved a shot this time.



Caprese with arugula salad at the cutest little Italian restaurant down the road. Empty during lunch but insanely crowded during dinner.



What gets Mr. A all excited: fried dough! An impromptu mid-day picnic on Boston Common.



Clam chowder in a bread bowl at Quincy Market, of course.



The first home-cooked meal (hurriedly tossed together in hunger, if I recall): gingered stir fried chicken and baby bok choy.



Smelly tofu at a really good Taiwanese place nearby: Mr. A, forgiveably, did not enjoy it. Everything else was really good, though, and leftovers fed me for three more meals.



Another obsession of ours: bubble tea. I never thought much of bubble tea in Singapore, where one could get it for a dollar a cup--all the craze with the cutesy schoolgirls, back in the day. Here, bubble tea may be served in swanky glasses for USD$4 a cup.



The best frozen banana I've ever had--a very clever purchase at the Italian North End festival, because a frozen banana will not melt even in the heat.



Waiting in trepidation for his very ... first ...



... raw little neck clam. (Flavorful, but slightly gritty.) At an oyster bar at the same street fest. I was nervous but we suffered no tummy ailments :)



Um, cabbage. The same cabbage featured a few posts below on the same night with the same drunken delight. I feel like I have been eating so much cabbage, so endlessly over the past month or so, that I can barely believe I only just finished it a few days ago. It also amazes me that it stayed fresh and edible for more than a month. Is that normal??



End of random food post :)

*895 - skype date

This is what long distance relationships are built upon: Skype wine dates at night :)



And because I miss you.

*894 - fresh vs. processed

Russo's: my favorite grocery store, almost like a farmer's market (think little cardboard containers of baby tomatoes; little wooden baskets of apples), with the freshest produce and the hugest variety (e.g. six species of eggplant to choose from)--well worth the 15 minute drive.

Today, I spent a happy hour prancing up and down every single aisle, contemplating different varieties of the same vegetable or fruit, choosing the shiniest, brightest, firmest. A handful of sugar snap peas, a duo of vine-ripened tomatoes, a loaf of fresh baked bread. I buckled under the weight of my purchases and filled my fridge up to the brim, as always.

Total cost of more than a week's worth of fresh fruit, veggies, meat, and eggs: $25.

Other Generic Supermarket: because Russo's sells none of that processed stuff (or if it does, it's an organic and very expensive version that's out of my budget), I had to pop by a more "typical" supermarket on the way home.

Total cost of two boxes of cereal and a bottle of pasta sauce: almost $15.

Just thought that was interesting. And maybe a sign that I should move towards eating more of the fresh stuff vs. the processed stuff.

But how can I give up my cocoa puffs for breakfast!! :(

*893 - a letter

To my dearest baby potatoes,

I'm sorry you started to rot. I was looking forward to having roasted potato chunks for dinner.

Love,
Evelyn

*892 - gluttony

I have been endlessly, endlessly ravenous the past few days. The generally health-conscious me actually now craves unspeakables like fries, chips, and pizza on a daily basis and has been filching the aforementioned off colleagues who are too full to finish their own lunches.

I have breakfast (cereal, or nutella on bread, yum) before I leave for work, need to silence a rumbling tummy by 11 am with Snack #1, count down the minutes to lunch at 12.30 pm, require Snack #2 near 5 pm, munch constantly on Snack #3 and 4 and et cetera until I leave work at 8-ish, charge home like the wind to whip up the quickest home-cooked dinner possible, and munch munch munch on Snack #n and (n+1) and et cetera (today: an egg and Post's Great Grains) till it's time for bed.

And this is while leading a very sedentary lifestyle indeed. My total daily movement pretty much consists of walking to and from my car.

What can I do to silence this tummy??

*891 - faintly

My right speaker has developed a mind of its own. It is currently humming "Bittersweet Symphony," very, very quietly. And now it's "pa-pa, paparazzi!" This happens even with all browser windows closed.

It was exceedingly unnerving for a few scary minutes, until Mr. A assured me that some speakers do pick up radio signals.

I'm not sure what the resolution is, but for now, I guess I'll sit back and enjoy ... John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change." It's not a bad radio station, really.

-

With reference to the below post: the impulse Amazon buy was perhaps my best impulse decision yet!

Step 1: Decide on the most fertile spot on your bedframe


Step 2: Watch your plant grow tall, tall, tall


Step 3: Watch the leaves and the flowers sprout


Step 4: Invite the birds!


I now have a tree and little birdies that watch over me as I sleep :)


In case you didn't spot the special little bird perched on the mirror!


THIS MAKES ME VERY HAPPY INDEED :D