Oh man, I've been working a lot...and killing my health too. My officemate, after a couple months off, came back earlier this week only to pick up her stuff and leave the company. The stress of the job was getting to the point where it was taking a negative toll on her health....something I worry about doing to myself often. Too many times in this past month I ate lunch after 3pm or dinner after 10pm. I don't know why...but I really need to watch out for myself.



For a couple of weeks now, I've been looking for a cat. I thought it was about time that I took responsibility of another small life. Plus, selfishly, I wanted to really have a good reason to want to leave work and be home early. I looked in several shelters...and last weekend, I found a cat! He's probably about 1.5-2 years old, grey with white paws and a white belly. Came with the name Smokey but I've renamed him Misha....and he's so beautiful. He has the most gorgeously silky coat of fur and is so fun to pet. He's been using the litterbox like a champ and been so well behaved. Yay! so so cute....



The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) just passed. All in all, I saw 5 movies: Valentin, Musa the Warrior, Infernal Affairs (which I just found out was picked up for American adaptation with Brad Pitt to star), Ping Pong, and Traces of the Dragon: Jackie Chan and His Lost Family. I really want to somehow get a copy of the last documentary (on Jackie Chan) and send it to my grandparents to watch. It was truly fascinating to get a better sense of what they perhaps went through, having lived in China and fleeing to Hong Kong after the Sino-Japanese war. They sometimes talk about some "lost" brothers and sisters in China..and this documentary makes me want to learn more.



I need a vacation. Hmm.



Pierre's racing at Regionals this weekend---can't wait as this'll be my first time seeing him row!



I have the condo bug again. Should I?

A friend of mine sent this over to me yesterday--- the new Honda Accord commercial, which is so fascinating to watch. It's even more fascinating once you understand the engineering feat it took by reading this article.



After almost 4 years of living in Seattle, I've never traveled up to the San Juan Islands--for shame. Today, I will finally do so---Pierre and I are just heading up to Orcas Island for a day to get away from the city and check out island life...really looking forward to it.



Went to a party last night at Stephane's Spanish teacher's place, whose roommate is the belly dancer in the group, Children of the Revolution--most of the group was there. It was such a fun party to be at--with such creative, musical people---there was live music, belly dancing, flamenco dancing, shisha going--Pierre was in heaven!

Damn, it's been a long time since I've written in here. And so much has happened: We've had a war, I witnessed a friend getting shot in Iraq on Fox News, my project slipped by a month, I got a paycut, then got a payraise so that I would make as much as I did last year, got food poisoning from one of my favorite Malaysian restaurants, flew home to surprise mom for Mother's Day, discovered that I'm taking salsa classes with one of the conductors of the Seattle Symphony, Kansas lost to Syracuse at the National Championships (boo hoo), a tornado hit my hometown for the first time in over 20 years, found out a childhood friend is now engaged (congratulations Becky), exercised my stock options for the first time...the list goes on. It's been a busy month...mainly because of work. Most of my friends (especially Phoebe) have wondered what has happened to me. I'm really trying to get that work/life balance going right so that I don't go crazy. It was pretty bad last month.



I'm not sure why I'm up right now. It's late. I'm just thinking a bunch. Specifically, I've been thinking a lot about the relationship I'm in and the happiness it sometimes brings me. I know something's there when, no matter how angry I can get with him, it all goes away when I hear his kind, gentle voice again. It's just hard. Relationships are hard.



I'm also at that weird point when I'm thinking about what I want to do with my life. See, my lease is up in a few months...and I'm once again debating whether or not to buy a condo. Naturally, in contemplating such a major move, I've been thinking about how much longer I want to be at Amazon..and in Seattle...and how happy I am in my job. It's no doubt a very challenging job...and that is the main reason why I've stayed here. But I've no idea what it is like elsewhere....or what it would be like to just do something totally different....like arts management or setting up my own small business---two things I talk about often.



I need to sleep.

Kansas beat Duke tonight!!!!! Heh heh!!!!! Yay!!!! Next up: Arizona...



work is killing me.



wade from kansas is coming to seattle this weekend. random. i haven't seen him in YEARS. i first met this guy when i was maybe 11 or 12 because he worked for my parents. fast forward 13 years. we're actually friends now. funny the people that you stay in touch with throughout life.



omg, i forgot to mention: CONGRATULATIONS LINDA SIU!!! i can't believe that girl is engaged now.



argh, i really need to get a freakin' emissions test for my car. it's the one thing that's prevented me from easily mailing in my annual check to renew my tabs. and the fact that the closest emissions testing station is, like, in the middle of nowhere doesn't help. argh.



i miss singing.

WAHOO!!! Adrien Brody won Best Actor for The Pianist...how exciting! Ever since I saw that film in Paris, I've been cheering it on. If you look at my desktop wallpaper right now, you'll see Adrien on there playing the piano--it's been like that for a couple of months now. Wow. How satisfying to see such a brilliant performance rewarded like so. Yay Adrien!



Weekend was pretty ho-hum...but I welcomed it so...as I've been away for the last 3 weekends in a row. Friday, Pierre and I went to see Bowling for Columbine---I'll have to agree with everyone I've talked to that it's good. If you haven't seen it yet, go. Although Michael Moore is usually quite blunt and direct with his statements (as many of you may've witnessed with his acceptance speech for Best Documentary at the Oscars), he's very good at stepping back here and leaving a bunch of open questions for the audience to ponder. On Saturday--oh what a beautiful day it was--I went to see Aaron Copland's Exhuberant Symphony No. 3 with Fred at Benaroya. Damn. Great performance. It left us breathless. We also got to see Hilary Hahn, a young 22 yr. old violinist perform a Meyer concerto. Her accomplishments were impressive: already a Sony Classical recording artist, she had her professional debut at the age of 11 with the Baltimore Symphony.

this is funny



while i had a great time at whistler, it wasn't the powder heaven that i was expecting it to be. All the snow went up top, creating a crazy snowstorm with winds so strong that it closed most of the peak lifts. saturday was okay but we couldn't go any higher than the top of the gondola. and sunday...well, i'll admit that after 3 straight days of snowboarding the weekend before and the experience on saturday made me lose my motivation and energy to get up early for fresh tracks. that said, by the time we went up to seventh heaven, we had to jet down because the winds were knocking us over and visibility was next to nothing. a bit scary. regardless, i still had a really fun time with all the people I went with.



otherwise, i've just been bogged down at work. ugh. this project is on a tight, super aggressive schedule and it just overwhelms me. very exciting--but it overwhelms me. i just can't wait to take a nice vacation in the summer...although my sense of travel has been augmented by the suggestion of war lately...



just found out that Wil is definitely heading into Iraq next month. :-( I wonder if Aaron is still in Kuwait....

i had an AMAZING time up at whistler last weekend...the weather was just perfect and we hit powder almost everywhere we went. The most memorable time was on Sunday, going through the backcountry of Creekside with Jigna, Matt, Sri and Noemi---it was just a winter wonderland! [sigh] Check out some of the pictures I took. I got a chance to meet Tito, Pierre's best friend from Montreal--really great guy. Anyhow, loved it so much that I'm going back up AGAIN this weekend. Check out the snow report though--it's sick:



New snow: 11 in.

24 hours: 19 in.

48 hours: 47 in.

7 days: 61 in.



Powder powder--here we come!



This whole "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" thing---it's stupid. I can't think of anything more ridiculous. This is an amusing article: English Sans French



Jeff B. was in a helicopter crash last week---read about the pilot!