High Class

Monday there was a New York undergraduate biomedical research conference on the 50^th floor of a building near the World Trade Center. This place was so high class haha, I felt very rich. There were about 200 undergraduates doing research in the city, we all gathered together, and had a panel of 5 people give us advice for the future. The advice was definitely needed, but mostly geared towards MD/PhD and biology labs than what I want to do: clinical neuropsychology. It definitely made me feel a lot better about the GREs, even though it’s still very important because I want to get passed the first cut of people.

Tuesday night I went to “The View” restaurant with Alice, Susana, Tina, and Victor, which is probably one of the most expensive places I’ve ever been. Talk about high class! The place was at the Marriot and it was located on the 50^th floor right by Times Square. Each 3 course meal costs $35 because it’s restaurant week, I also got a pina colada (and they didn’t even ID me). Honestly though, the view was great, the food probably wasn’t worth THAT much money but it was really delicious. The restaurant was two stories and it rotated around, so you can see the view of entire Manhattan and some of Queens/Brooklyn. I ended up spending $65 on my meal, waaa, but so worth it.

It’s so frustrating working in my lab sometime because Denis honestly just doesn’t care. Plus, no one is ever there, except for the grad student, Sarah. I dunno what I’d do without her, I’d probably go crazy because I can complain to her about him haha. My presentation is this Friday and he hasn’t even seen it yet. Most of the mentors have gone through it 5-6 times with the other students. He didn’t show up to the practice one, made me summarize in words during lab meeting (of course I can summarize it, that’s not what I’m worried about), and I don’t think he’ll even see it on Friday. I’m totally fine with him not seeing my powerpoint because I honestly just don’t care at this point. I did the program for the experience, money, and a recommendation letter and I’m leaving with 2.5 so I’d say that’s an A- in my book haha. The people in the department all know him and before I even say anything about what has happened they can guess which lab I’m in, which is really sad that his reputation goes that far. If anything happens on Friday, questions I can’t answer/mess up on talk etc., I think ultimately it’ll make him look bad and not me.  

At night, the program went to “How to succeed in business without really trying” broadway show. They bought the tickets for us and our mentors (how nice)! The show starred Daniel Radcliffe so I was excited just for that reason. Compared to Wicked and Bengal Tiger at Baghdad Zoo, this was my second favorite. The only problem with this was that the songs were that great or memorable, the actors were not great singers. However, the dances were the best I’ve seen, they threw around boxes, jumped around, tap danced, did weird things, and it was crazy. Also, the plot was very very clever. I wanted to wait for Daniel Radcliffe at the end, but everyone in my program left already. So…I went to Jane’s place to go cut her hair like I promised. It turned out better than I thought, I’m pretty proud of myself hahaha. Then I told her to cut my bangs, just a straight cut and she ended up cutting too much so now it’s short L Oh well, it’ll grow out. She gave me some clothes though so it all made up for it hahaha.

Thursday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Yichen for the Alexander McQueen exhibit. I’ve heard about the first day I came to NYC and just kept hearing from random people about how good it is. Finally, I decided to check it out. His clothing…is art, I can’t describe it. He’s so creative, but dark. I would describe his pieces as frightening masterpieces (look up Alexander McQueen on youtube or something for his stuff, it’s AMAZING, words cannot describe this).

Friday was the symposium for the program, so everyone in the department + outside people were invited. Of course, my mentor didn’t show up so no one I knew was there, which made it a lot easier for me. I’m so proud of everyone in the program for going through this 9 weeks so far! I still can’t believe that I was 12 out of 500 people selected for this. Preparing for this presentation truly taught me a lot (even though my mentor never saw the finished product).

Friday night, Anthony, Alex, and Willie came to town so me and Nita had dinner with them at a Pho & Shabu place in St. Marks. I had a Vietnamese sandwich and it was ok. I think once you go Num Pang you just can’t go back. I then dragged Nita and Alex along to a roof to take pictures of the NY skyline, but it kinda failed cause my tripod wasn’t high enough, was fun though.

Saturday I went to Flushing with some Rochester people and finally had Picnic Garden! For $20, all you can eat Korean BBQ. It was definitely good, but not as good as China (expected). However, I loved the marinated ones, just not the sauce as much. Overall, it was definitely worth the long hot walk there. Did I mention NYC is currently in a heatwave? 100 degrees with lots of humidity = I don’t wanna go outside

Sunday I had brunch with Alex at a cool place that was really good, but totally maxed out on amount of eggs I can eat per day. I totally food coma’d after. But…had to make room for dinner with Jay and Yi at Soba Koh, which is the best soba noodles I’ve ever had, definitely recommended! I haven’t seen them for a while, so it was nice catching up (and practicing my Chinese).

Manhattanhenge, End of an Era, and Poker

Tuesday was Manhattanhenge, something that occurs only 2x a year. I was lucky enough to be around and take pictures of this awesome day! Let me just tell you, this is THE CRAZIEST photo taking experience I have ever been through, hands down. It made it totally worth it to ride that subway from 14^th - 42^nd street ($4.5 subway fare zzz). 

Anyway I’ll start from the beginning, I looked up good places to take pictures of this day and everywhere pointed to Tudor City (42^nd and  1^st) bridge. So I was thinking of going 45 minutes early to grab a spot, not too early because I didn’t wanna be a loser and wait by myself. When I got there around 7:30pm (sunset is at 8:20pm), the bridge was PACKED. I have never seen so many people, tripods, expensive lenses + bodies (I’m talking $10,000+), all in one place. I can’t even describe how packed it was!! (Search tudor city manhattanhenge on Flickr). So that was obviously out of the question. I decided to go to 42^nd and 2^nd to take some pictures. Of course, people were already shooting away. The funny and most fun part was, you had to wait for a red light, step to the middle of the street (along with 30+ photographers), snap snap snap at different exposures/bracketing, get honked at by cars for blocking their way, clear the road because it’s a green light, do it all over again. This was the case for the first half hour, and it was just beginning to get fun. When the sun actually started to set (~8:15pm), there were too many of us at one intersection that every person kept stepping up a bit. For example, if someone is blocking me, I would go around them and take a spot ahead of them. If I’m blocking someone, they would walk ahead of me. Basically, we didn’t care about blocking cars at that point. Every single photographer (100+) were in the VERY middle of the street to take that perfect/symmetrical shot. We basically formed a single file line that probably goes across Manhattan. If this is JUST 42^nd street, think about all the other ones as well.

Honestly though, photographer-fest and it was crazy awesome experience. I’m waiting for photos to be uploaded so I can find myself in some of them haha. I managed to take 300 photos in 30minutes, high score.

Wednesday I had dinner with Jane and Sining at Saigon Shack. Their sandwiches were ok, I liked Num Pang better. But this place was very cheap (my huge sandwich only $5, I ate half and was full lol)

Thursday I went to the Streb Human Fountain free performance at the World Finance Center after work today. However, we totally missed it and caught the ending Q&A…lol fail #1. It was very interesting to see where the World Trade Center used to be though. The event never effected me personally since I was so far away and knew no one close, but seeing this up close definitely brought back memories.  Anyway, we decided to head to Wah Fung in China Town for their $2.50 (I think now it’s $3.00) cha shao rou over rice lol so Hong Kong. We got there around 8:30pm and it closed…fail #2. Jane wanted to go to a bubble tea place close by but…it was closed again fail #3. We then went to a tea place called Yum Yum, not really bubble tea, but their drinks were delicious. The place next door was still open for food, and we went there to eat. It was just ok. On the way back, I got off the wrong stop…fail #4 lol. Anyway, that’s the last of the fails.

At around 10pm, some SURPies and I started lining up for Harry Potter THE LAST ONE. I didn’t know how to feel because I don’t want it to end. After the movie finished, I was totally in shock. The ending was great, but the fact that I didn’t want it to end made it…very very sad. This is definitely the closing of a chapter in my life. Maybe after this I will finally feel grown up.

Saturday I went to Atlantic City with Manuel. We both love to poker, so thought…hey, why not? I woke up at 9am that day for the 10am bus, we both tiredly headed to the terminal and got on our 2.5 hour ride. We got off at Caesars which gave us a $25 voucher to play at a slot. However, you have to play everything. Basically, I won $55 from the slot, so $35 profit. I thought of this as getting my round trip bus ticket back. We then wandered around the boardwalk/beach, very upset that we didn’t realize AC actually had a beach and we weren’t dressed appropriate. We had a Nathan’s hotdog, which was delicious. Then…it was poker time. I was so excited, yet nervous because I was such a noob. We went to I think it was Tropicana and played 2/4/6 limit poker. We were both split up into different tables because there weren’t enough seats. I was so intimidated at first because everyone at my table was 50+ years old. The terms like ‘option’, etc, I have never heard in my life. But anyway, I got the hang of it after a while.

I always thought that playing poker wasn’t against the house, so I felt better with the losses. However, I quickly realized that the casino takes 10% of the pot PLUS you have to tip the dealer every time you win (about $1 for our table, which is about 5-10% of what we win). This is so dumb because when we cash out we could’ve been 15-20% richer, but I guess that’s how they gain money…why have I not thought about that. I played there from 2-5pm, bought in with $100, was as low as $35, and ended up cashing out with $95, with almost a heart attack. So basically, that was no profit, which was cool because I had fun.

I then went to the outlets before it closed, bought a $5 sub, window shopped until 8pm, $5 gelato and met up with Manuel again. We then played some random slots to get free drinks lol, after many slots played at 3 different casinos (win and loss sums up to 0 profit again), quick loss of $10 at blackjack, we were on our way to check out the night life. There was a beach party that costed $10 to get into, we were like…whatever, we’re here. So we went, danced to a couple of beachy songs, and left to play more poker.

This time was at Taj because the bus left from there at 4am. We started at around midnight. This time was more friendly/young people, but they definitely played different. It was 2/4 limit and I bought in with $80. At about 3am, I was going up and down staying around $30-$40, which was killing me since I planned to get out of AC without losing money. This was when I realized the value of money. I was willing to throw away $50 for food, but yet when I lose just $50 in poker, it felt like $300. Anyway, in the end, I got a 4 of a kind and managed to cash out with $125. We got back at 7am that day, almost 24 hours of gambling.

So in summary…I wrote a lot of money stuff here because I wanted to figure out how much I ACTUALLY earned in AC (just for fun of course). And I think with all the food/transportation/random slots/tips/blackjack, my profits comes to 0. Which basically means…a free vacation!

Sunday was the world cup final: Japan vs. USA. I woke up at 3pm just in time to watch it. USA was definitely the better team, more aggressive, better team work. Japan was more strategic and defensive, not to mention their team’s average height is a mere 5’4’’. In the end, Japan always managed to come back from defeat and it ended up at PKs. USA missed the first there shots and Japan took home the title of the championship. It was a good game, but I guess I still prefer the men’s world cup a lot more based on the aggressiveness. I guess athleticism just can’t compare? Kind of sad. For dinner I went to Zhou Jia Zhuang and it was delicious, very authentic Chinese food!

Poreoticsssss....or not.

7/4-7/10

Monday, July 4^th, I went with some friends and lots of friend’s friends to an Italian place called Maria Pia. This was the first time I’ve had Italian food after going to Italy. I must say…it just isn’t the same. Afterwards, we headed to the roof again and watched the fireworks. Even though it was a bit short (30 minute display), the fireworks was amazing. It was across the Hudson river with a two mile distance, so it was basically a panel of synchronized fireworks.  

Wednesday I went bar hopping with some SURP people, we also hit up Pommes Frites, a Belgian fries place. The sauces were amazing, but the fries were just okay! I don’t see why it has 3000 reviews on Yelp honestly lol.

Thursday I went to Lombardi’s Pizza with Jane and Stephen. It is NY’s first pizza place and it was sooo good. This is definitely gourmet pizza, and very expensive too! They don’t sell it by the slice and it’s actually real mozzarella on there. I love it!

Friday I went to Circle club at Korea Town. It was very interesting because it’s an Asian club! They played mostly pop songs, but also some Korean songs. The original intent was to go to watch Poreotix. However, I think we got the date wrong or something because they never came. So…we just ended up dancing. I had lots of fun except after 2 hours, my feet REALLY started hurting. I think it was so moist that day so it kept rubbing in my shoes, but honestly it’s never hurt so much in my life. It was soooo bad, but I got a good jelly foot wash afterwards hahaha. 

On a side note, I'm freaking out about the GREs. I have so many presentations, program events, plans with friends that I feel like it's going to ruin all my studying time. Ugh, I wish I would put GREs first sometimes.

House of Cards

6/27 – 7/3

Tuesday Kang Xuan and her family was here so I had dinner with them at a nice Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. It was so nice to talk to some people from home and catch up on stuff.

Wednesday I went to Cafasia for Alice birthday. The food was pretty cheap and just okay but it made me so full, I think I ate like 20% of it. We then went to Spot dessert again because I recommended it and ended up at BonChon chicken, which I think is one of my favourite places in St. Marks so far because of the nice yummy drinks like watermelon soju and MAKOLI (I must remember that name…had it with Bruno and was gonna get it there too but forgot zzz)

Thursday I had Num Pang AGAIN but they ran out of pork belly AGAIN ughhh, when am I ever going to try what they’re famous for?! Maybe this is how they make money haha.

I know I haven’t been talking about it much, but every Friday we have a lecturer from the department talking about their research. Today was Wendy Suzuki and her current research is exercise and memory. To make it interesting, we first did an hour of Inten Sati, which is a combination of kickboxing, yoga, and cardio. While you do these moves with the music, you yell out positive words. It was really fun but so tiring! She then talked about the positive correlation between exercise and neurogenesis. So this made me wonder…is there a difference between a big city life (where you walk everywhere) and small town (drive everywhere). Would people in the city have greater hippocampus function or is just walking everyday not significant enough? Is this why they are able to work all these hours compared to small cities where they barely work? Anyway, I tried the Setagaya Ramen at night with Stephen (after 2 years ago with Jane and Sining). It was good, but not as good as I imagined.  Now I really want to try Ippudo.

Saturday I had Ess-A Bagel for brunch because it was just a few blocks away. Compared to Murray and H&H, it was definitely better. However, maybe I’m just not a bagel person (though I always thought I was). None of those three famous places really stood out to me, like WOW I have to take people here. They just tasted like bagel…it wasn’t THAT chewy or THAT tasty, but it was a lot better than what I’ve had, that’s for sure. Next time I’m going to try Dunkin Donut bagel (with my declining) to compare. At night, I went to celebrate Victor’s birthday in Flushing. We had Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao which was AMAZING and then went to karaoke (for 4 hours…lol). I was going to head to Jay’s afterwards for his party, but I think I’m getting old. I got tired around 2am and went back home instead.

Sunday I went to TJ Max, Marshalls, and Macys…like 6 hours of shopping. Yeah, that is all I did.