Thursday, April 26, 2007

Arabian Nights


It's funny when I tell people that I have been in Africa.

"Really?! Which country have you been to?" they ask.

"Morocco."

"Isn't that in the Middle East?"

Our perception of Africa is dark-skinned people in tribal nations hunting lions or zebras. I always have to clarify, "Yes. Morocco is on the North-west side of Africa. It is a mixture of Arabic people and Berbers."

I laughed at their ignorance until I realized my own.I fantasized Morocco to be like Arabian nights or something straight out of Aladdin. So when I was actually there and realized there was no square filled with flame-swallowing, snake charming, gypsy like people, I was disappointed.

Ok Ok. I should have actually read up on more stuff before I actually booked the trip. I was very ignorant on the culture but at the very least, I learned alot. This is one important lesson I learned, adding salt to dishes does wonders for flavor.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

The News

After hearing about the shootings that occurred at VA Tech, I felt so sad. Honestly, I was not all that shocked because after Columbine, this type of violence is not unexpected. But I hate what the media is already doing. They are already spinning the fact that the shooter, Cho Seung Hui, emigrated to the US. They are trying to show that he was an outsider. They write about how Koreans are ashamed they are from Korea because of what happened.

I am not ashamed that my family is from South Korea. He has no bearing or consequence of who I am or what I do. I feel sad for all the families that lost someone during this horrific experience, but I am not to blame because of what he did. Don't try to make me feel bad for who I am.
When the shootings at Columbine occurred, did the media write about white people feeling ashamed that white kids turned and shot their own peers?

I know the media is trying to sensationalize the story, but it's always at a cost of alienating a group of people. WW II, Iraq, 9/11, and these shootings at VA Tech are no different.

I was at dinner and heard a story of how a guy's friend working at an all Chinese company heard a guy (obviously white) exclaim, "Don't shoot me." when he realized he was surrounded by Asians.
You know you can only hope for change until reality hits you square in between your eyes and tells you to wake up.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Flushing Meadows

Signs. I think God was giving me signs all week long about NY.

It starts off on a sunny Thursday morning. I get up do my usual and finish packing. Except, I realize I am running late and slurp down my udon as fast I can get those squiggly noodles down. I realize my cab driver is waiting for me outside to take me to the airport. I rush to finish the last of everything and manage to get out of my place by 10:30. Aren't cabbies always late?

Anyways, I am two hours too early for my flight. So I sit and read. I read and read and read. Around noon, I realize I should get something to eat but as the udon still sits in my belly, I get a scone and a cup of coffee at the restaurant that also serves niman ranch products. Its supposedly Peets coffee, and its not half bad. But that scone, I can't say the same for that scone. Pure cardboard. After three bites, that thing ended up in the garbage. No music was played at its funeral. It deserved the ending it got.

After the five and a half hours of flying over the US, the captain's voice comes over the intercom, "JFK is congested, we are advised to fly around NY until we are able to land."

I grumble. Strike one JFK!

We finally land at 10pm. I was guided to carousel 4 to claim my bags. I stand and patiently wait at carousel 4. As I watch bag after bag glide by me, my patience starts to wear thin. Finally, it stops. A few others are staring in disbelief, bordering on panic. I keep muttering to myself, 'it better not be lost.'

A girl exclaims, "its on 1." We all rush to carousel 1 and there I see my lonely red bag going around and around.

STRIKE two JFK!

I wander around looking for my driver, when I realize he's nowhere to be found, I call the number on the email the HR person sent me.

"Go to Area B, your driver will meet you there."

Ten minutes later, ten minutes shivering later,

"Go to the departure side, Cross the street, go through the building to the other side, your driver will meet you there."

Twenty minutes freezing later,

"You Miss Chang?"

Strike Three JFK.

The driver was extremely nice, chatting the whole way. Really working for his tip. I tell him how I didn't have any dinner and he told me that I had the car for the rest of the time and that he could stop by to a place and I could grab food. "What kind of food do you want?"

I told him that it was ok, I know he wanted to get back home as well. I told him I would order up some room service.

I get to the front desk, "Do you have room service?" "No. There's continental breakfast in the morning though."

*****************

I suddenly wake up the next morning, I look at my cell and it reads 9:55. I shot up, 9:55! I have to be at the office by ten! I throw on clothes and call the front desk asking if they could order me a taxi. They tell me to come to the front desk and some one will arrange it.

I get to the front desk and ask, the guy tells me to go outside and hail a cab. Furiously annoyed by that answer, I wave him off and start rushing off to the office. I started off on Broadway, getting closer and closer to the numbers. Somewhere in between, I realized the numbers were off and I was on Sixth Ave, Avenue of the Americas.

I start running back to almost where I started and realized that Broadway broke off in the other direction. I cross the street and run up six blocks on Broadway and finally get to the office. I am twenty minutes late.

The receptionist tells the VP that I am here to see her. A couple of minutes later, I see a blond woman pop her head out and tells me to come in. I follow her through a narrow corridor and end up in her brightly lit office. I sit at the round table and stare at this woman.

She's very skinny with weathered skin. Her lips look recently injected and her skin stretched tight over her narrow face. She starts talking to me. Asking me the same questions and telling me the same things I hear over the course of seven people. Seven VPs all telling me exactly the same thing. I wonder if they were given a sheet in preparation of what they should tell me once they met with me. I had no real questions for them.

24 hours since I last eaten, my director takes me out to lunch. Giggles. I almost died in french fries bliss.

My director, completely enamored with the city, has a light gait, and turns to me "Isn't there an energy to this city? It's just electric." I nod secretly thinking otherwise.

After a long day of talking and walking, I end up in my hotel room, which is the size of a walk-in closet in the good old California. I kick off my heels to see two fat blisters on the bottoms of my feet.

I change into some jeans and head out to meet my Director for dinner. I get to Bryant Park early so I walk around. It was nice to walk in solitude. It wasn't exactly a picturesque park. But I had a good time walking around, alone in my thoughts.

I see my Director, we talk for a few minutes. She brings up Gis, and we smile awkwardly in silence. She's leaving, she found a better place, can't we just leave it at that?

She, another Director and her husband, and I end up at Koi, a super chi chi restaurant right by Bryant Park. We ate appetizers and entrees and desserts and drank wine. By the time were done, I didn't even want to know the damage. She just handed her amex card over and the company took care of the rest. Ahhh, living off the company's dime is nice.

I met up with Tanya later that night. She took me to downtown and we ended up at some Japanese tapas place with some good sake. Two bottles of sake and many tapas later, we start wandering around. We walk to the Lower East Side, peed in a bar packed with frat boys from out of town, bought some pastries at an italian bakery, and tanya and I ended up at a Starbucks talking until the early morning. Tired, extremely cold, we ended up taking the taxi back to my place and she got the taxi driver to take her back to Queens, which she tells me they hate taking her back to Queens from Manhattan because its far away and they don't get the fare coming back.

The next morning I met up with my brother's wife. She took me to Times Square, Fifth Avenue, up to Park Avenue, we had lunch at the Whitney Museum's cafe (which was pretty darn good), by Battery Park to see the Statue of Liberty, and ended up in Soho. I bought some jeans from Uniqlo (which is the Japanese version of the Gap but better).

We end back by my hotel, which is in the middle of Koreatown, and sat at a cafe and I drank some chai tea (which wasn't the best idea of after downing two cups of coffee earlier). My car company calls me to let me know that it is there waiting to pick me up. I grab my suitcase from the hotel and run up an down the street harassing all the black car drivers until my sister in law found my driver. I run to him and throw my suitcase in the trunk. Throwing me an annoying glance, "Are you done? I am blocking the street." I steal a quick hug to my sister in law and thank her for taking me around and jump into the car. I take swigs of my water.

Twenty minutes later, I feel the sharpest pang to pee. I try to think of anything to take my mind off peeing. We get stuck in traffic. The car lurched forward, the seat belt pressing on my bladder, I silently cried. I started to breathe heavily. I tried everything to make the pain go away.

I looked out the window and saw the sign 'Flushing Meadows.' I would have laughed if I wasn't crying. It reminded me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes to NY to retrieve his car with all the parking tickets. He has to stay by his car until the policeman comes. He waits and waits and a bus rolls by with the sign Flushing Meadows. He day dreams of running through a meadow filled with toilets flushing.

After another jarring movement, I almost cry out. It becomes more and more torturous as I sit and wait to get to the airport. When I see signs to exit to the airport (40 minutes later), I ask him if he has change for a twenty and tell him to keep ten, he starts warming up. I was too busy thinking of the bathroom to notice that his manner had changed as soon as money was exchanged.

He gets my suitcase out of the trunk and I thank him and run towards the bathroom. I almost sang out in a full rendition of Hallelujah.

******************

As the plane took off, I saw the lights of the city. The lights became smaller and smaller and I said goodbye to all those lights that I did not recognize.

When the plane descended into the Oakland Airport, I was glad to be back. I was glad to see the same old dingy airport I left 48 hours ago.

Monday, April 9, 2007

Herman the Cist


me: omg i am laughing so hard
but its true
Sent at 1:50 PM on Monday
Giselle: wait what's true...
i forget what we were talking about
me: hahahhaahahahaha

omg
Giselle: wuaaaaahahahah
me: the ovarian cyst
with hair and teeth and nails
Giselle: DAMMIT
see i blocked it out of my memory
soooo DISTURBING!!!
me: can you imagine?
Giselle: YUCK
me: what if it bit your ovaries
?
or scratched them
Giselle: what if i have one and don't even know
i'll name it herman
me: they would through your pap smear
HAAH
HERMAN?
you know this is going in the blog right?
muahaha
Giselle: Herman the cist
me: Cyst
Giselle: with tiny teeth and tiny hair
me: omg stop making me laugh

i feel ill
Giselle: you know what i mean DAMMIT
me: haha aok
this is going in the blog
Giselle: great i'm just incriminating myself more and more
me: i am setting up the thing now
Giselle: i'm going to shut up now
me: hehe you can't
Giselle: :
me: its in your nature to talk
Giselle: hey
?
i think i just threw up a little

I heart-attack Indian food

I'm having a mild heart-attack as I type these words. Giselle (my co-worker) took me out to lunch. She decided on Tabla, a little Indian restaurant near work. Too much naan and butter chicken later, I am sitting at my desk, my head is feeling dizzy and I feel sweaty. My metabolism is functioning again.

Why does (americanized) Indian food feel so heavy in your stomach? I love love eating it, but I always don't feel quite right afterwards. It's like a tasty death. I mean if I had to choose a last meal on earth it would consist of Indian food and three different types of cheesecake. Oh and my roommate's Icebox cake. Take that death!

Anyways, I think I will rest my head for the rest of the afternoon.

Hmm. Just got my itinerary for New York. Bastards. I get into NY at 9:35PM on Thursday and leave NY at 6:15PM on Saturday.

How can you tell if you like a place if you are there for barely two days? What the hell can I do in a day? Actually half a day?

Friday, April 6, 2007

welcome ever-ee-bod-ee!

The office is so quiet. Half the team is here today. I turned on some music to help me from falling asleep while working. One time I caught myself from crashing my head into the keyboard. It would have made a funny pattern had I fallen asleep that way. The 'S' key would be jabbing my ear.

I guess that shouldn't really surprise me since I did fall asleep on the toilet at work once. I only woke up because my head crashed into the stall door. I woke up with a 'bang.' A painful not funny at the time 'bang.'

But then again it is in my nature cause I'm Korean and legend has it we came from bears. And bears like to sleep. I do that very well. I curl up on my multiple fleece blankets and fall asleep watching the many programs recorded on --- (the best invention on earth since peanut butter) --- Tivo.

I'm going to be in NYC next thurs to sunday.Checking out my company's digs there on Broadway to see if first I like it, then if they pay me enough to go.

Before and after that, two interviews lined up. Running out of excuses to go to actual interviews. I mean how many Dr. appointments/sicknesses/etc... can one person have in a month?