Just an update on the job search for anyone who may or may not care (i hear whispers of my brother yelling "shut up" from the bathroom, jk). So far i've interviewed for six jobs. Two at Columbia medical center, two at the Aaron Diamonds Research Center, and two for MIT over the phone. I've already be rejected for one at Columbia, and told by the other five that they were interested in hiring me if I make a two year commitment. So two year commitment it is! For goodness sakes I do need a job and I would like it soon so I can write on my applications that I am actually doing something worthwhile in my spare time.
In any case, I've got and have been working (thinking about) my secondary essays and whatnots and will hopefully finish those soon. Oops, the housecat is here. Time to go. More updates later.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Happy
Korean Thanksgiving! Or Autumn festival whichever one you chose to follow. Go eat songpyeon and/or mooncakes and have a blast. Its and excuse to eat and do whatever you feel like.
Last night my brother and I made songpyeon actually. It was interesting because we've never made it without my mom before. In essence, I was extremely worried about messing everything up and/or the mung beans (yellow sweet beans) getting messed up as well. Because of this I wanted my brother to do the beans and I would work on the dough (I thought that maybe I knew how it felt better than my brother would). Anyways, my brother added sesame oil to the mung beans which made them more wet than needbe, however, everything ended up fine. The dough came together after it sat for a few minutes and the mung beans were quite tasty if I do say so myself. I'm listing the recipe below which I got from mangachi but added a few notes in case you wanted to try it yourself.
Ingredients:
Frozen Rice Flour
White Sugar
Dried Skinned Mung Beans (split ones are nice)
Salt
Water
1. Dump your dried mung beans into a bit of water to let them soak.
2. Set 2 cups of water to boil.
3. Sift the flour through a strainer or sifter to weed out some of the coarser grains.
4. Add 3 table spoons of the boiling water and a pinch of salt for every 1 cup of flour.
5. Knead the dough until it sticks together well and doesn't have too many cracks.
Note: If it keeps cracking and is hard to keep together in once piece after 15 minutes of kneading then add a half a tablespoon of water.
6. Cover the dough in saran wrap and turn your attention to the mung beans!
7. Drain the water from the soaked mung beans and add the equivalent amount of water (1/4 cup of mung beans = 1/4 cup of water) to the pot.
8. Set the mung beans to simmer, but remember to stir often.
Note: The beans might look a little dry but that's fine. Just leave it and keep stirring.
9. Allow the pot to simmer for 25 - 30 minutes before removing from heat, crushing the beans with the back of a spoon, and adding the equivalent amount of white sugar.
10. After the filling is mixed, start making songpyeon!
Note: If the dough is STILL to dry or breaks apart really easily when you try to knead it again add another 1/2 tablespoon of water and knead that in.
11. Take a ping pong amount of dough and work it gently with your hands. It's usually a little cracked, but if you have inconsistencies in the dough at this point then you will have more trouble when you steam it.
12. Make a small indent with your thumb in the middle of the ping pong ball and keep depressing the spot until you have a small cup.
13. Fill the cup with filling (but not too much) and seal the top by pressing the two edges together.
Note: Seal this properly otherwise all the filling will fall out while steaming.
14. Set water to boil in a large pot with your steamer over it.
15. Wet a cheeseclothe or paper towel or new, clean rag and put it at the bottom of the steamer rack (not in the water, in the thing with holes!)
16. Stick your songpyeon in here for 25 - 30 minutes to steam.
17. Rinse the finished sonpyeon quickly in cold water with a little bit of sesame oil dripped in and then enjoy!
Last night my brother and I made songpyeon actually. It was interesting because we've never made it without my mom before. In essence, I was extremely worried about messing everything up and/or the mung beans (yellow sweet beans) getting messed up as well. Because of this I wanted my brother to do the beans and I would work on the dough (I thought that maybe I knew how it felt better than my brother would). Anyways, my brother added sesame oil to the mung beans which made them more wet than needbe, however, everything ended up fine. The dough came together after it sat for a few minutes and the mung beans were quite tasty if I do say so myself. I'm listing the recipe below which I got from mangachi but added a few notes in case you wanted to try it yourself.
Ingredients:
Frozen Rice Flour
White Sugar
Dried Skinned Mung Beans (split ones are nice)
Salt
Water
1. Dump your dried mung beans into a bit of water to let them soak.
2. Set 2 cups of water to boil.
3. Sift the flour through a strainer or sifter to weed out some of the coarser grains.
4. Add 3 table spoons of the boiling water and a pinch of salt for every 1 cup of flour.
5. Knead the dough until it sticks together well and doesn't have too many cracks.
Note: If it keeps cracking and is hard to keep together in once piece after 15 minutes of kneading then add a half a tablespoon of water.
6. Cover the dough in saran wrap and turn your attention to the mung beans!
7. Drain the water from the soaked mung beans and add the equivalent amount of water (1/4 cup of mung beans = 1/4 cup of water) to the pot.
8. Set the mung beans to simmer, but remember to stir often.
Note: The beans might look a little dry but that's fine. Just leave it and keep stirring.
9. Allow the pot to simmer for 25 - 30 minutes before removing from heat, crushing the beans with the back of a spoon, and adding the equivalent amount of white sugar.
10. After the filling is mixed, start making songpyeon!
Note: If the dough is STILL to dry or breaks apart really easily when you try to knead it again add another 1/2 tablespoon of water and knead that in.
11. Take a ping pong amount of dough and work it gently with your hands. It's usually a little cracked, but if you have inconsistencies in the dough at this point then you will have more trouble when you steam it.
12. Make a small indent with your thumb in the middle of the ping pong ball and keep depressing the spot until you have a small cup.
13. Fill the cup with filling (but not too much) and seal the top by pressing the two edges together.
Note: Seal this properly otherwise all the filling will fall out while steaming.
14. Set water to boil in a large pot with your steamer over it.
15. Wet a cheeseclothe or paper towel or new, clean rag and put it at the bottom of the steamer rack (not in the water, in the thing with holes!)
16. Stick your songpyeon in here for 25 - 30 minutes to steam.
17. Rinse the finished sonpyeon quickly in cold water with a little bit of sesame oil dripped in and then enjoy!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Give Me A
job already!
Sorry for the long wait between updates, I've been pouring my efforts into finding me a job/purpose of life in New York and applying to medical school. If you've got a cousin thrice-removed who is a Principial Investigator, help me out here and send him an email. I will even give you my resume and cover letter.
On a less depressing note, the weather is finally getting colder. To my dismay, I gave all my warmer clothes to my dad a few weeks ago so I went shopping for a new sweater to go underneath my happy green jacket (my polo jacket). Also, no shoes. Gave those to my daddio too. So I'm stuck wearing chucks and high heels and running shoes. Oh well. Drop me a line if you want to catch a meal, I'm bored here.
Sorry for the long wait between updates, I've been pouring my efforts into finding me a job/purpose of life in New York and applying to medical school. If you've got a cousin thrice-removed who is a Principial Investigator, help me out here and send him an email. I will even give you my resume and cover letter.
On a less depressing note, the weather is finally getting colder. To my dismay, I gave all my warmer clothes to my dad a few weeks ago so I went shopping for a new sweater to go underneath my happy green jacket (my polo jacket). Also, no shoes. Gave those to my daddio too. So I'm stuck wearing chucks and high heels and running shoes. Oh well. Drop me a line if you want to catch a meal, I'm bored here.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Chinatown kinda sucks.
and by kinda i mean really. Its very gracious of my brother to have let me stay in his apartment and not kick me out so far, but the family that lives upstairs drives me nuts. The little kid runs back and forth with such persistence that I think that they should medicate that kid heavily. On the other hand, the couple themselves + whoever else lives with them (I suspect their grandparents and whatnots) argue like the devil wants one of them and they can't decide who they will give up. That is also assuming that they would stick up for each other in such a case.
Anyhow, I did wonder how long it would take for the people who live together in such close quarters before they would argue.
Anyhow, I did wonder how long it would take for the people who live together in such close quarters before they would argue.
Life in New York
So I've been here for about a week so far and life in New York has been interesting. Aside from the strange coordinating sleeping arrangements around my brother and Tiger's schedule, its been pretty quiet. The kids that live above my brother's apartment are ridiculously loud all the time and I wish that I could smack them, but I realize that this may be against the law. On a lighter note, Kimmy came to visit this past weekend and we had a blast wandering around, hanging out, and going to the US Open for Tennis. We ended up seeing the Roddick v. Isner match on the big screen outside the stadiums (we were waiting for the stadium to open up for the night sessions), the Safina v. Kvitova match and like 5 seconds or less of the Blake v. Roberto match. While I love tennis, live tennis is much MUCH better than on t.v.
Anywho, I tried doing laundry today and ended up going to a laundromat down the street from my brother's place in Chinatown. Its clean and there were a lot of little old ladies just wandering around doing laundry. I guess I can deal with that. The only problem is that laundry costs 2 dollars a load so you need at least 6 dollars in coins to complete every set. (2 washers and 1 dryer). Aside from that there are some old school arcade games that I thought I could resist, but ended up falling prey to so I dropped a couple more dollars whilst doing laundry. Silly me. No income means that I should be saving my moolah.
Anywho, I tried doing laundry today and ended up going to a laundromat down the street from my brother's place in Chinatown. Its clean and there were a lot of little old ladies just wandering around doing laundry. I guess I can deal with that. The only problem is that laundry costs 2 dollars a load so you need at least 6 dollars in coins to complete every set. (2 washers and 1 dryer). Aside from that there are some old school arcade games that I thought I could resist, but ended up falling prey to so I dropped a couple more dollars whilst doing laundry. Silly me. No income means that I should be saving my moolah.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Philadelphia Review: Activities
The food in Philadelphia is quite good for the price, but how about the activities? As any of you know (assuming my friends and some of my sorority sisters are reading my blog) I love sports and in general being athletic. Its kind of my thing. It came as no surprise when I got to Philadelphia that I sought out almost any and every area for sports. Soccer, Tennis, Running, indoor, and outdoor sports are my thing but surprisingly Philadelphia responded quite well. Though my comparison mostly comes from New York (as another big city with lots of activities), There are only some negative similarities.
Running - City running is always tricky business. Stop lights, pedestrians, traffic all hinder the normal scheme of city running especially when you are trying to run a good distance. Philadelphia is about the same as any large city with one exception. There are two nice long stretches where you may run for miles without stopping. Those areas are right on the water from near the Delaware river and along the Schuykill river. I would recommend the east side of the Schuykill river as it has an actual path and is relatively uninterrupted by traffic. The Delaware river path, however, is right next to a major road and thus often noisy and dirty.
Tennis - Tennis was a bit tricky at first but soon became and easy occurrence. Because you need a court to play, its a bit awkward positioning courts in the city, but there are enough in Philadelphia to satisfy any avid tennis player. There are six courts at UPenn (32nd and Walnut), two at Drexel (Arch and 34th), two at Seger Park (10th and Lombard), two at Fairmount Park (23rd and Walnut), ten at JFK Park (All the way south on Broad st.), and two up near the Queen Lane medical campus. For a city as small (or as large) as Philadelphia, this is enough courts for people who play during the weekdays but not quite enough for the people playing during the weekends. Expect lines of one hour or more on the weekends. Come early, play early, and limit your court time to one hour out of courtesy. If you need any tennis equipment, head over to 12th and Sansom for friendly service at "Everyone's Racquet"
Soccer - Disappointingly, Philadelphia has a lot of small sized parks. These parks are definitely not large enough to play soccer, and I can safely say that there is no good location to play soccer inside the city. The closest area with a field is up off of the R3 an hour and fifteen minutes of out of Philadelphia. Another grass field is located near Pat's and Gino's Cheesesteak places (the two most famous ones) but its usually full with local soccer leagues that range from 80 - 120 per season. aka much to much money for the casual player and/or the starving graduate student.
Indoor sports - To my surprise, the indoor sports have a good following in Philly. The dodgeball league is fun and usually a good way to hang out, while the fencing clubs (just one in the area) are well rounded and pretty nice. If you have a hankering for trying a martial art, either do it through the school or hit up center city aikido between 7th and 8th on Market street. Its cheap and the folks are rather nice.
General Outdoor Sports - Outdoor sports are things I would consider like playing football, tossing around a baseball or frisbee, kayaking and the like. Unfortunately, Philadelphia lacks the space for most of this stuff and the space they do have is littered with broken glass and in general the filthiest of filthy areas. Drexel has a nice outdoor turf field and a little stretch of grass for some beach volleyball, but it is often occupied by campus events and students that may or may not welcome you. Give it a try though, this area is better than most. Another area for some of the more relaxed activities is the open field on UPenn's campus at Walnut between 33rd and 32nd. They have a random open field which has a plethora of sunbather's but looks like the perfect area to strap on some boots and kick a ball around. I would still recommend Drexel because the area is restricted (thus clean), but you also need a card to get in.
That's it for the review on sports! Hope it was interesting enough. I'll get back to writing personal entries soon. I just want to finish writing this stuff on Philadelphia before I forget completely. Have a good labor day weekend!
Running - City running is always tricky business. Stop lights, pedestrians, traffic all hinder the normal scheme of city running especially when you are trying to run a good distance. Philadelphia is about the same as any large city with one exception. There are two nice long stretches where you may run for miles without stopping. Those areas are right on the water from near the Delaware river and along the Schuykill river. I would recommend the east side of the Schuykill river as it has an actual path and is relatively uninterrupted by traffic. The Delaware river path, however, is right next to a major road and thus often noisy and dirty.
Tennis - Tennis was a bit tricky at first but soon became and easy occurrence. Because you need a court to play, its a bit awkward positioning courts in the city, but there are enough in Philadelphia to satisfy any avid tennis player. There are six courts at UPenn (32nd and Walnut), two at Drexel (Arch and 34th), two at Seger Park (10th and Lombard), two at Fairmount Park (23rd and Walnut), ten at JFK Park (All the way south on Broad st.), and two up near the Queen Lane medical campus. For a city as small (or as large) as Philadelphia, this is enough courts for people who play during the weekdays but not quite enough for the people playing during the weekends. Expect lines of one hour or more on the weekends. Come early, play early, and limit your court time to one hour out of courtesy. If you need any tennis equipment, head over to 12th and Sansom for friendly service at "Everyone's Racquet"
Soccer - Disappointingly, Philadelphia has a lot of small sized parks. These parks are definitely not large enough to play soccer, and I can safely say that there is no good location to play soccer inside the city. The closest area with a field is up off of the R3 an hour and fifteen minutes of out of Philadelphia. Another grass field is located near Pat's and Gino's Cheesesteak places (the two most famous ones) but its usually full with local soccer leagues that range from 80 - 120 per season. aka much to much money for the casual player and/or the starving graduate student.
Indoor sports - To my surprise, the indoor sports have a good following in Philly. The dodgeball league is fun and usually a good way to hang out, while the fencing clubs (just one in the area) are well rounded and pretty nice. If you have a hankering for trying a martial art, either do it through the school or hit up center city aikido between 7th and 8th on Market street. Its cheap and the folks are rather nice.
General Outdoor Sports - Outdoor sports are things I would consider like playing football, tossing around a baseball or frisbee, kayaking and the like. Unfortunately, Philadelphia lacks the space for most of this stuff and the space they do have is littered with broken glass and in general the filthiest of filthy areas. Drexel has a nice outdoor turf field and a little stretch of grass for some beach volleyball, but it is often occupied by campus events and students that may or may not welcome you. Give it a try though, this area is better than most. Another area for some of the more relaxed activities is the open field on UPenn's campus at Walnut between 33rd and 32nd. They have a random open field which has a plethora of sunbather's but looks like the perfect area to strap on some boots and kick a ball around. I would still recommend Drexel because the area is restricted (thus clean), but you also need a card to get in.
That's it for the review on sports! Hope it was interesting enough. I'll get back to writing personal entries soon. I just want to finish writing this stuff on Philadelphia before I forget completely. Have a good labor day weekend!
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