HELLLOOO Tuppaware!

My tuppaware is sitting on my desk. THANK YOU THANK YOU! YAYEE. Where is my head these days? Sign of old age I guess.

Yesterday I consumed 1464 calories. Oi! and I even skipped dinner!!! How will I get down to 1200 calories? Eating healthy food has NOTHING to do with eating lower calories!

From logging my food I have learned that my kellogs special k almond cereal with soy milk is 375 calories! 375 calories just for cereal! I considered cereal a snack! It can no longer be a snack! It is now considered a meal. If cereal is consumed in the morning WITH fruit or toast, that's like 500 calories! OI!

I also learned that my "healthy" stir fry with veggies, tofu, and ground lean turkey meat is 369 calories for about 1.5 cups! Well I kind of guestimated the calories. I looked up the nutrition info for each of my ingredients. And then added it all together. So I have no idea if that is correct.

Also Edamame is high in calories.

I will have to rethink the foods I eat. I need lower calorie foods so I can eat MORE!

Today is MY friday! Off to see SORA tonight!

Where's my tuppaware?

I didn't get to upload my other lunch pictures from this week.  
This is my turkey burger lunch with namul that I put into the sandwich. The eggs are for my breakfast. For snacks throughout the day I have frog melon again, edamame, and a doritos 100 calorie snack pack.
Eggs with saracha for breakfast again. edamame, white nectarine, and 100 calorie cheetos snack pack for my snacks throughout the day.  My lunch is this is a stir fry I made last night.  I used HY's recipe...which is....throw everything into the pan and add fish sauce!  Awesome! mine includes broccoli, shitake mushrooms, zucchini, tofu, chunks of a turkey burger patty.  This will also be my lunch tomorrow.  

I left my tuppaware at work today. =(  I know I packed it all up to bring home.  And then I get out of the car at home and NO TUPPAWARE BAG! =( I am SO SAD!  I don't know if I left it on my desk or in the BATHROOM!  OH NO! I HOPE I left it on my desk.  =(  I am SO SAD! I love that three divider tuppaware!  It is PERFECT and was a little pricey.  PLEASE be on my desk oh you tuppaware.

So I guess I blogged to the limit today. But it will make up for my weekend silence.  I will be hanging out with the love of my life!  SORA!  my dog.  woof woof. haha.  

CHEERS!

Day 64 in LA: Love my hands

I love anything that I can create with my hands.  My friends call me Ghetto Martha.  I just love doing anything "martha stewart" but it never comes out so great.  Hence...the ghetto.  But I just love when something is created with blood sweat and tears (exaggeration).  

So...hand creation one: STILL violining!  I still sound horrible of course, but still practicing.  I only end up practicing for about 10 minutes everyday. But it is not because i don't want to. I would like to jam all night. But I feel bad for my neighbors that have to listen to the sound of my squeaky violin.  Here is my attempt at The Can Can. This is a version from a book that I bought that comes with an accompaniment CD.  That's why there are so many pauses and breaks in it.  Also I messed up a few times of course. After lots of practicing I will attempt to play WITH the accompaniment.  But right now, the symphony on the CD goes so fast that I cannot keep up.

Hand creation two: Hye young randomly wanted to decorate cupcakes.  And my boss is having a bake sale at work tomorrow to help someone on our team to raise money for Kids with brain tumors.  I think she is doing something called ride for kids. Where she rides on her motorcycle.  COOL!  We made french vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  They are VERY GHETTO.  Cream cheese frosting does not have the consistency like buttercream frosting does to decorate.  So trying to get melting runny cream cheese frosting to hold any sort of shape is very difficult.  We don't know how those cupcake people make thick cream cheese frosting.  Next time I will try to chill the frosting before attempting to use it.  We were running out of frosting, so some of them had to just get a thin layer to cover it and some nuts on top for aesthetics.  We ended up putting it in the freezer also because there was no room in HY's fridge.  Even though they are not so great looking, they do taste delicious!  I am once again cupcaked out!

As for the rest of my weekend...

Friday - went to good friday service at a new church.  Huge korean church.  I liked it.  Went to get boba on Sawtelle.  Not that good.  I think the place is called Volcano Tea. Won't be going there again.  Should have gone to yogurtland across the street!  And I also got some cool lunch containers at the cheap japanese store next to it!  Then came home and tried to stay awake as long as possible watching tv, but fell asleep around midnight.  

Saturday - Went to my first training session!  Did crazy ab workouts.  Then went to costco and krn mkt with HY like ajumas.  It was very tiring.  Came home and cleaned and finally saw slumdog millionaire!  good movie.

Sunday - Woke up TOTALLY soar!  OUCH.  my stomach muscles ache like crazy. hurts when I move and even cough or laugh.  How will I train tomorrow?  Went to Easter service at same new church. I like the pastor. I think I may keep going to this one.  Need to find a small group.  Oh and I packed my lunch in my new lunch containers =D!  Which is what I will end today's blog with.

Hand Creation Three: Making tomorrow's lunch!
On the left: Little container has 3 hard boiled egg whites with saracha sauce. This is for my breakfast which I ill have with a wheat blueberry kashi waffle.  Also, edamame to have as a late afternoon snack.

On the right: two little containers of fruit for snacks during the day.  The fruit is called 'keguri chameh'! Have you ever heard of that or seen that? Translated to English it would be FROG MELON!  What the?  But it tastes good!  It's a mix between honeydew and chameh (don't know english name) which is a yellow melon normally found at the korean market.  My lunch portion is the bulgogi and veggies next to it.  Under the bulgogi is a bed of red rice.  The veggies consist of many different kinds of 'namul' (I don't know how to say that in english - basically veggies like dicon radish, bean sprouts, spinach, some kind of roots, etc) and some ggochoojang (red pepper paste) is hiding in there too. This is for none other than...BIMBIMBAP!  YUM!  I also have two 100 calorie snack packs.  

I am starting to try and eat healthy again. I don't know if this is considered healthy, BUT every other time I try to be healthy I go to the extreme and then I can't take it anymore eating "healthy food" 24-7, that I start binging a lot. So this time I decided to eat sort of normal food, but in smaller portions.  And whenever possible, substitute healthier foods if the taste is still good.  i.e. Michi told me to get 100 calorie snack packs.  My weakness is chips!  At costco I found 100 calorie doritos brand chips!  It includes sunchips, cheetos, and something else.  So I can still have my chips but I will eat the 100 calorie kind for a small satisfaction instead of binging on a whole bag of chips after trying so hard to "diet."  

And....another week begins...

Bring BROWN DOWN!!!

Hyo Jin sent us this article today. Can you pronounce that? I'll help you. YO with an H on the front. and Jin like Gin the drink. HYO JIN. Got it?

Watch IT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9hdVUzMeDw
READ IT:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/09/brown-asian-names/
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6365320.html


For those of you who do not like to click on links: here is what the article says

Texas lawmaker: Asians should change their names to make them ‘easier for Americans to deal with.’

On Tuesday, State Rep. Betty Brown (R) caused a firestorm during House testimony on voter identification legislation when she said that Asian-Americans should change their names because they’re too hard to pronounce:
“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.
Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”
Yesterday, Brown continued to resist calls to apologize. Her spokesman said that Democrats “want this to just be about race.”

My Comments: Why does she say YOUR CITIZENS? we are all the same citizens!This is so ridiculous that I have no words. but this is my favorite comment from the article made by Brian Crooks: "My first girlfriend’s last name was Jaroszenko. The second one was Theodossiades. The third was Li. Tell me which one is easiest to pronounce."

Violining

So I have been practicing my violin. After 14 yearsof the dormAnt violin...this is how I sound. I can't believe I even remember, but it doesn't even sound like a violin! My goal is to sound as good as Hye Young by the end of 2009. Wow...will I ever make it?

Coffeelicious

So Dorothy came up from SD this past weekend. Hit up chinatown - nothing there. Checked out LaMill coffee. AWESOME. Highly suggest going there. Rating = TRUE RELIGION! Best coffee shop ever. Whatever doro got was so good.

Then we picked up some california chicken cafe. Rating = GAP. It was aight. Another bostom market/chicken out/kookooroo type deal.

We watched marly and me. SO SAD. Cried and cried.

Sunday went to church. Then I headed to HG's baby's 1 year birthday celebration. So cute. the decorations were AWESOME. the girls went hiking.

Then we met up and ate dinner at some kabob place near HY's house. um...zoooba chicken? zooya chicken? It was aight. Rating = GAP. Moby Dick's is so much better. BUT dorothy's steak pieces were definitely good. I had the falafel. It was NOTHING compared to falafels in the village in NYC. Then doro and I headed to Beard Papa's and yorgurtland. Yum. chatted at home and she left for SD.

Tomorrow will be DAY 60 living in LA. It will be my first work out session. Have an appt with a trainer at the psycho priced gym. You will see many more blogs on my progress.

Goal = 40 pounds by Hawaii - Leaving July 27.

No more blogs about food. Now I must blog about my new diet. Tofu meals - here I come!

Girls Visit LA

I am finally blogging about the girls trip to LA. Yoojung, lisette, and sungsill decided to visit us (me, hye young, ruth, and dorothy) in Cali. One day they called and said they were coming. I was definitely excited after starting to miss Nova. I don't know what brought on urge to come out here, but no complaints here! It was a crazy weekend - well longgggg weekend.

Wed: Picked up Sungsill from airport. Dropped me back off at work. Took the car. Got lost. Tried to open the door to my apt for a long time. Finally left because she was frustrated and I was in a meeting. She must not know how to use a key. She picks me up from work. We go home. She realizes she was in the WRONG APARTMENT. she was across the street. But the apartment looked identical. What an idiot. HAHAHHA. We then took a walk and went to Santa Monica beach trecking down the long stairs. We laid on the beach for an hour or more watching the sun set. Then we start heading back because HY was on her way. Find this cool place that sells churros with creme fillings. Xooros. Like beard papa, but churros. I had orignal and it was good. Sungsill had some WERID bacon chocolate thing. EW. so sweet. EW. don't get that. Then we stopped at a bar. I made her down this strong drink. Got kookooroo with HY. went to my place. ate it. NASTY. SS passed out on the couch sitting up cause she was so drunk. HAHAHA. What a first night.

Thurs: SS took me to work. Then she went back home. Ran to beach. Picked up yooj and lis. Stopped by my work to say hi. Then they headed to chinatown, fashion district, and then we all met at the Grove. Ate. Walked around the grove. Then went home.

Fri: girls went boarding. I worked. Then when they got back, we got ready and headed to hollywood. Went to cabana club hollywood. UH most embarresing time ever. don't ever want to talk about it. HATE LA nightlife. We left. Went to club sushi and grabbed a drink. then we drove around because sungsill and yooj desparately wanted to see some club from the Hills. HAHAHA. I had nooo clue what they were talkin bout. We passed by it. Then went to pink's hot dogs. Then Went to kogi truck in Venice. We almost missed it, but ruth begged and begged the guy to give us some kogi tacos! and he complied. Then there was this other girl later. OMG sOO FUNNY! she was begging them and they said no they were closing. And she wanted anything. some white chick. and she starts begging for annnnything. she said "i'll buy ANYTHING. some kimchi. some orange slices. annnnythinggg" and then she goes "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I AM A BLOGGER." (uh ok...who the heck are you. sorry gal dont know who you are). and then she turned to her friends and was freaking out saying "OMG HE DOESNT KNOW WHO I AM. IM GONNA BLOG ABOUT THIS. I NEVER HAD A KOGI TACO. HE DOESNT KNOW WHO I AM" HAHAHA. we were crackin up. i wish we had it on video. HILARIOUS. and then went home. HAHAHA

george's ocean terrace - downstairs

george's ocean terrace - up top

yummy burger

yummy panini

yucky salad

carne asada plate at coyote cafe. yum

tamale yummm

GIANT strawberry margharita.  delish!

mission beach

Sat: Went to SD. met up doro in La Jolla. Ate at george's ocean terrace. AWESOME. went to mission beach. laid around for a long time. cloudy day. went to coyote cafe in old town. DELICIOUS. BEST tortilla's ever! then went to extraordinary for desserts. great lemon bars. then lisette drove us all back to LA. everyone else was passsed the freak out.

Sun: Got ready and went to cupcake challenge. PRETTY CUPCAKES. NASTY FEELING AFTER! wanted to PUKE. then ate korean food. yum. got boba. can't remember what we did after that. nothing?

Mon: ELLEN. got jipped. saw flo rida. Nic's Martini Lounge. AWESOME. Matre'd was very cool. Lobster something something was so good. Girl with hot lipstick brought us into vodbox and she was very cool. Great happy hour on monday nights. Martini's and and appetizers are 7 bucks. Martini's are sooooo good! I could have drank 10. Then had yogen fruz and made a ruckus in there. It was aight. but the cool thing about the place is that they make your own flavor yogurt! they take the tart yogurt and blend it with whatever fruit you want! I had green tea lychee. It was um...too green teay. But they did have strawberry mochi. AWESOME. Then ate kyochon. then went to kogi taco again.

Tues: girls left =( so sad.

Trip over. See you girls in MAY! VEGAS!

Yes the fire alarm works.

Fire Alarm. Woke me up so I could deliriously try to turn the TV off to stop the awful sound even though it was not my tv. Search for pants in panic when I realized it was the fire alarm. Grab phone. grab keys. run out. Don't know what I'm doing. Scared to go down stairs. But finally saw other people and went. Saw neighbors all outside. all delierous. all awoken from sleep. all grumpy. all have doggies. Fire truck comes. Hot firemen. find out some idiot burnt toast. Thank you idiot on 3rd floor for testing out the fire alarms for us.

ShuShu

Dorothy, Hye young and I went to Neimens in Beverly Hills this past saturday. My first 'real' beverly hills experience. It was like pretty women...not her first trip down rodeo drive...but when she goes shopping with Richard Gere. We walk to the door and there are guys there to open the door for you. Wow - fabulous. Then Doro and I look for baby clothes for a friend and look at the price tag and run away. We find HY at the LeMer counter. I have no idea wat La Mer is. But HY had a coupon for a free blush. And she uses Le Mer. She said it's very good for dry skin. and I have dry skin. So we try the creme. You must rub it between your fingers to 'activate' it and then tap it onto your face. I was rubbing it all over my face and the lady scolded me! Oops. It was invented by some guy who had burns on his face and was trying to get rid of it. So Dorothy and I got suckered into buying the new sunblock they have for $65. Dorothy describes it as the size of your index finger. But it's a little bigger than that! But - yes close to the size of your index finger. We sOOO got suckered.

However we did get a nice sample of the face creme. I started using it on sunday. Today is tuesday. and actually my skin is REALLY better! It's less red and smoother. WOW. it's pretty good. I just might go back and buy it. But I will buy it in arizona for 7.5% tax instead of California with 10% tax. If possible I might sucker one of the girls in VA to get it for me there for 5% tax. HAHAHA. oh yes the price...$230 for this small dinky jar that supposedly lasts you 5-6 months, but HY uses it in 4 months. uh....yeah after i'm done with the sample my skin better look bangin'! the sales lady was super good though. Those people at neimans are well trained.

So we start walking out with our $65 dollar plus 10% tax purchase and that is when we meet ShuShu. Shu Shu is the perfume sales lady for Clive Christian. She is korean with madd plastic surgery, huge botox lips and looks like cleopatra. Cleopatra hair and all. But she was the best sales lady I ever met in my life and very friendly. She stops us to try some perfume. I HATE perfume. I said no. but dorothy and HY get some. Then she goes on for 10 minutes about this perfume. Things I learned from Shu Shu about Clive's fragrance:

• Made for kings and queens - hence the crown cap
• Makes your boyfriend go BANANAS (exact word was bananas) in bed
• All celebrities wear it. Katie Holmes wore the huge diamond gold one that costs $5000 on her wedding day
• They pick a thousand petals at dawn every day to make this perfume
• There are 170 flowers in each drop
• Most expensive perfume on the market
• Koreans love it
• Price - $310 for green bottle. $350 for black bottle. $865 for gold bottle. $5000 for bottle katie holmes bought with diamonds on top. Why do you need diamonds on your perfume bottle? Can't you use the money to feed the people in tent city in Sacramento who lost their jobs and homes and have to live in tents on a field by the railroad tracks?
  

But the sales pitch did not stop there. She walked us over to the counter to show us the NEW travel kit they have with all three for ONLY $310. yeah right. PUHLEASE. but i will tell you that she made us feel so beautiful, and elegant, and all three of us probably would have bought that darn travel kit if we stayed any longer. If any lonely depressed woman talked to ShuShu...they would be out the door with thousands of dollars of perfume. Dorothy just said "I don't have american express." HAHAHA.

So we then run out of the store before someone else tries to sucker us and again...men who open doors give us a nice goodbye.

Please visit the Beverly Hills Neimens for a good time.

Making my way to the Hollywood Bowl

photo from nowpublic.net

so i started playing violin again. i am so obsessed. i got it out of the closet in arizona and made my mom bring it with her when she helped me move in. when i took it out of the closet i started trying to play and our dog got so scared he ran down the stairs like there was a fire and hid behind the couch. HAHAHA.

my violin has been collecting dust since 1995. all the strings sounded like the same note. so sungsill tuned it for me. and then when the girls were here i played twinkle twinkle little star. it was HORRIBLE. ahahah. poor girls. i made them suffer through it. but to my surprise - not one person told me to stop. how sweet. i thought i forgot everything and i even forgot how to read music and asked HY to give me some refresher courses because she is really good. But it was like riding a bike. amazing! i opened up my suzuki volume 1 and everything just came back and i started playing. CRAZY. Don't get me wrong though, i am absolutely positively HORRIBLE. Every morning and every night I play a few songs just to get the feel of the violin back in my fingers. i haven't had a real practice session yet because I have been getting home late this week.

This weekend me and HY are going to treck to the music store to get new strings for our violins and guitars. My guitar will be happy to see some daylight as well. I also need a new bow. And rosin. And a music stand. And a soft case for my guitar so I can bring it to the beach for our beach jam sessions. That's for guitar, not violin. However, we are gonna jam on our violins also. We will attempt to play a Canon in D duet for our youtube debut. We're waiting for someone to ask us to play at their wedding...hint hint miriam...jisun. PUHAHAHAHA!

Golden Miss

Today on the way to work Hye Young taught me some new korean pop lingo. The term 'noh chunyuh' or 'old miss' (better known in the US as old maid or spinster) is now...'golden miss.' The beginning word has changed from old to golden because unmarried women are not just old, but are now independent and make their own dolla dolla bills. This can maybe be translated as 'cougar.' Even though the word 'golden' seems a little more appealing than 'old' it means the same old thing...can't get a daym husband.

According to our friend Wikipedia this is the definition of an old maid/spinster/old miss/nochunyuh/GOLDEN MISS:

A spinster (or old maid) is a woman or girl of marriageable age who has been unwilling or unable to marry and, therefore, has no children. Socially, the term is usually applied only to women who are regarded as beyond the customary age for marriage, and is generally considered an insulting term, more degrading than the term "bachelor" for males. While men can continue to have children into their 70s or 80s, women generally become less and less able to bear children as they get older. So the term "old maid" is only applied to women who are past a child bearing age but have never married.

The next time someone calls you a golden miss...do not hesitate and just go for the face slapping action.

Who can compete with Yelp

I love yelp. I never eat anywhere new until I read yelp and see what's good and what's nasty. I decided I should start yelping too, but lisette insisted I write it on my own blog instead. So here is the start to my own reviews on eating, playing, living, and anything else in Sunny California. I will attempt to go back and review all the places I've been to so far to start off.

Get this party started!

So the girls have all arrived! But I am at work slaving away. Wonderful!

Will have a great post next week!!!

Disappointing Loss

Gosh KOREA! Why did you lose? Why did you let that ichiro get all those guys home? UGH! UGH UGH UGH! After a brilliant save in the 9th inning. you just disappointed me.

but i will have to say that ichiro is pretty good lookin! and the japanese players are way better looking than team korea. but still. KOREA! UGH!!!!!

did you notice how they kept showing the stadium in korea? what was going on in japan? glad i didn't go to the game! I woulda been more upset! KOREA!!!!! GOSH!

Going Bananas

So my mom has been here since last friday helping me move in. it's great! my mom said she is like my pachoolboo. well she used a different word but i can't remember. jangmo?

so she packs my breakfast and lunch every morning and makes me coffee.

when i went to az last week my mom was making sandwiches. do u know what she made? banana and jelly! what the! hahahahaha. i said "UMMA it's supposed to be banana and peanut butter not banana and jelly!" and said "we dont have peanut butter" So i made fun of her all day.

so right now i open my lunch. and im excited for my turkey and swiss on croissant sandwich. and guess what else is in the middle! just guess. BANANA! WHAT THE! OMG my mom is obsessed with banana in sandwich. and so i just called her and said WHY is there banana in my coissant?!?!!? and she just laughed and laughed. so i had to pick out banana. AHAHHA. not even normal banana. the baby banana. so my sammy is a little sweet today. puhaha.

I'll start posting pictures and updating more about cali when i'm all settled in and mom leaves.

***THANKS Rob and Jin for helping me move in!

Orange County

So I finally went to the OC last night. Deng it's far! I went to Aliso Viejo. Is that even considered the OC? but it's nice! I love OC. just like FFX. It's like LA is baltimore and OC is nova. great - i live in baltimore. G-Hetto! I definitely cannot live there though. This morning i left at 5:30am. It took one hour with no traffic and driving 80 miles an hour. No thank you! I don't know how in the world people live in winchester and front royal and work in nova. There were even people at my old job that lived in WV. ew. HAHAHAHA.

Speaking of jobs. I love my job! It's not fun and exciting or anything but compared to my last job where I was for six months it is 1000% better! I feel productive and feel like what I do is somewhat meaningful. My last job i did JACK! Did what I had to do in 2 days when they gave us 20 days. Sat there for 18 days a month doing jack. and the stuff I did do, no one even looked at it! I hated that job with a passion.

Today is move in day! YES!!!!

First month in LA review

So it's been one month since I've moved to LA.   Above is a picture at santa monica beach when I went with Hye Young.

So views on Cali so far...

Cons: 

-still living out of a suitcase till saturday

-everything is expensive

-everywhere seems ghetto.  nowhere like fairfax

-traffic everywhere - can't tell if it's worse than nova. just more lanes and more cars

-less friends. no booral chingoos

-no ARA

-california taxes are INSANE!

Pros:

-beach

-mountains

-farmers markets

-diddy riese

-close to home and sora

-meet new people

-more culture than DC metro (not better than NYC). Lot of people chasing their dreams. It's inspiring even though I will probably stick to my safe salaried job

Those are my thoughts about Cali so far.  Nothing too impressive or too disgusting.

I think things will fall into place once I finally move into my apartment and settle in.

Here's to California!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHI!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHI! This post is just for you!

AND I started this blog because you told me too!

Thanks a lot dina for including me you BEEP!