oh what to do?

so while i dont have the same obvious frustrations as alice is having these days...i'm having some of my own.

so my cousin (one of many who got engaged last summer) and the last cousin of mine to get married (my sister and I will be the lone singles after this wedding) has set a date for his wedding. and its going to be in mid-July....this year....in Las Vegas of all places. now, i love Vegas (actually i haven't been back since I was nearly 12 and I really really want to go back), but who gets married in mid-July in the middle of a desert? even if there is air-conditioning and i'm sure it'll be a fun fun fun wedding (it is Vegas)....why would you want your guests to melt on their way to and from the airport? and this dear cousin of mine certainly didnt get the drift when his older brother got married a few years in Hong Kong...again in early July in 105 degree weather...and while I didn't attend that wedding (since it was very very last minute), i did see the pics and everyone looked like they were going to melt right then and there. why do that to you guests? and why July of all months? and while I love Vegas...i find it so strange since the bride and groom are both from New York....know a TON of people in NY...and they could easily fill two reception halls if they had the shindig in NY....and i know their guest list has to be at least several pages long...so why make everyone fly to Vegas??

one of the reasons why i'm venting is that i thought this wedding was going to be for September...or even later. and i'm of course thinking of me since i'm hoping to get some time off in may to go to my 10 year high school Reunion and see my sister graduate from med school (totally freaking me out....she'll be a bona fide doctor!) and of course see my friends....and since I just starting working again and i know i'll have barely enough days to cover the trip in may (that is if my manager is nice enough to let me go...it'll be right after my trial period = in france, you arent hired for sure until your trial period is done)....so i dont know how i'll be able to do the july wedding...(again, another vent...why make everyone fly during one of the peak seasons of the year??? in the summer? when flying is pure hell??) first off, its going to be super expensive and the boy and i try to not to take any vacation days during the summer when the rest of france is taking days (especially people who have kids and who are on summer break). its just too crazy to get them approved by HR and its just plain stupid to go anywhere in july or august if you can help it....everyone in europe is on the road....

i feel better now....apparently the dates are set in stone as they haven't signed the contracts yet..but still. good lord....i just dont want to have come back in may and then do another expensive quickie long weekend trip in july. and what really really makes me mad is that i had to find out about the dates through the dear cousin's older sister....people, you need to send a "save the date" card out! especially if its january....and you are getting married in july! maybe i'm neurotic....but still....people have plans...and start getting invited to more weddings....its not when we were 22 and one person we knew got married in one year....stuff happens!

ok...its all out on the table....it'll all work out...

what a week...

so if i ever forget when i started working at my current job, all i have to do is remember when:

1) a young rogue trader at the second-largest French bank managed to lose 5 billion euros (7 billion USD) in the European markets...practically equivalent to the GDP of Slovenia or Qatar in case if you are trying to figure out how much 5 billion euros is worth..

2) the talented and very handsome Heath Ledger left us...i dont want to sound like a silly fan and i'm not, but my heart stops whenever a young and talented twentysomething dies unexpectedly...especially before the world got to see what he could have really done. and i dont stop think about his little girl Matilda....growing up without her father

3) AND i was hoping to add that my dear and frantically expecting friend, carrie, gave birth to her long-awaited first child....but alas, her little one has decided that mommy's belly is the place to hang out...for now.....maybe next week! when is the next full moon? i used to think it was an old wives' tale....but i'm a believer now!

what a week....

i love canal+

so one of the reasons why living in france is so great is because of canal+. canal+ is a digital cable decoder that you pay for and in addition, you get 5 special cable channels....sorta like hbo or showtime. we mainly subscribe to it because its the only way the boy can watch his football matches (real football...not american). apparently, sporting events are not broadcasted on free national tv stations in europe, unless its a championship league match of some sort. bizarre i know, especially how in the u.s., everyone lives for monday night football on abc (or whatever channel its on)...but i guess the difference is that american broadcasting channels survive only on advertisement (not the case in europe). anywho, now while i sound like a serial couch potato blogging about it, canal+ is one of my favorite things.

now the reason why i like it so much is that unlike american cable channels, canal+ broadcasts a wide variety of movies and tv series that are not just strictly american productions. lots of great foreign films and fabulous BBC productions (tv and movies) and for my benefit, some very very highly entertaining tv series. Some of my new favorite movies are BBC productions like Mrs. Henderson Presents (wonderful performance by Judi Dench) and Separate Lies (Emily Watson).

And I discovered two of my absolute favorite comedies on canal+ : How I Met Your Mother (a CBS production) and Weeds (Showtime). Both are a two thumbs up from me....if you've never watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother, definitely get caught up on the CBS website (the full episodes are available for free online) while they are on hiatus due to the strike. Great show...great writing...and a fabulous performance by Neil Patrick Harris. Yes, the former and now gay Doogie Howser does a great job as the friend you always wished you had and hoped you never dated if you ever went bar and club-hopping in New York :) Its one of the few comedies I laugh out loud to.

i get a good selection of both tv shows and films over here in france because of canal+ and its partly because canal+ has to be pretty selective over which productions they decide to buy the rights to and then consequently dub and/or translate subtitles. so already...it has to be pretty good in the first place.....and while i do miss out on all the new shows in the u.s., though a lot of them are freaky reality shows, i can rest assured that if something is a hit in the u.s., it'll be on canal+ at some point!

me so sleepy!

omg....i need some help! i've been having some serious sleeping problems lately and this is so NOT me! i'm still someone who believes in adult napping....in the middle of the day. i dont know if its delayed jetlag since i had nothing pressing the week after i came back or if this is going to be the "medical issue" of 2008, sorta like how gastro problems were "the problem" for 2007.

so guess how i spent the night before i started the big job: tossing and turning and wide awake. i even got up before the alarm went off. NOT FUN! and plus you know the feeling when you start getting stressed out about falling asleep because you know you need to sleep but that backfires and you are even more wide awake? and then your head starts spinning with all sorts of strange thoughts? not a good way to start the first day of work...but at least i completely passed out the following night at around 9:30 PM...and slept like a baby!

oh and the job! so far...its looking pretty good and everyone is super nice and i'm actually having a rough time adjusting to working in such a flexible, friendly working environment (ie American) again! is that bizarre or what? like the job from hell actually brainwashed me and there were so many rules to follow and now i'm a bit loss when everything is so free and open! well, i'm sure i'll get over that pretty fast and i'm just happy to have my own cubicle again (sort of). at the job from hell, we all sat with our laptops at a long table with no privacy and no work space and we all shared phones and everything had to be locked up in our cubbies when we left for the day. its nice to have a real desk. strange what little things make you happy....and i'm VERY happy to not be on billable hours anymore (which is what i was on at the job from hell) and being under so much pressure to make sure that every hour of the workday could be potentially billed to a client. ahh...nice relief.

now...off to bed...well, trying to get back on a good sleeping schedule. i think the insomnia the other night helped a lot. any and all suggestions are welcome though!

weekends in january...

so i follow a bunch of people's blogs...and lately, i feel that i'm on the same wavelength with my fellow bloggers. i've been having some rather unproductive blah january weekends, like david lebovitz, though i did just take the gmats and was back in the U.S. last week. but i blame jetlag and real sleeping problem this week. i had incredible insomnia last night and fell asleep at 6 am and of course woke up at around 1pm today. and i'm under some serious pressure since i really really need to get back on a good sleeping schedule...because...i start a new job on tuesday! yay!!! i am super excited....i wont mention the name of the big Fortune 500 company whose international headquarters i'll be working for (check out my facebook page later this week for that), but i am pretty happy with the situation. and at least this time i'll really be working for an international team (as opposed to my former employer who was just pretending) and my new manager will be american. but more details on that later...

and like carrie, i had a rather productive saturday yesterday too. again, off sleeping schedule...but i finally mastered a good recipe for hot spinach and artichoke dip...something that the boy absolutely adores and loves...yes nothing fancy..but super yummy....and after some haphazard attempts and finding the right ingredients (not so easy in france)....i've finally got it down.

and while i have been home for the past 2 1/2 months after my last job ended (and after spending nearly a month in the U.S. and then another 2 weeks earlier this month), the boy and i finally had a nice date night. sad, but true. but the last 2 1/2 months of not working actually went by super fast and we were really really busy! i was cramming for the gmats, and then there were a bunch of family incidents/dramas, and then of course i decided to have a holiday/belated housewarming party (in the middle of all the madness!) and consequently spent a few days making a big mess in the kitchen...but at least my american-style appetizers were a big hit! and then we were away in nantes for a week...which btw, i still need to blog/post pics from....

but i'm digressing...so the boy and i had wonderful date night last night. we dressed-up a bit...i tried out my new makeup from bare minerals (thank you alice!..fab stuff!) and we went out and saw Charlie Wilson's War. so i dont want this to be become a film blog....but, two thumbs up for this movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman was absolutely marvelous and so was Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. the movie focused on a very political topic..but at the same time wasn't too political and long and slow (unlike The Good Shepard with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie) and very witty and comedic during some parts of the film. love it...the boy loved it too (he loves this type of films). we went for sushi afterwards, took a big walk around town (our car was parked pretty far away), talked about we were wanted to go for vacation this year, and we were home by 10:30 PM. are we 65 or what?? too bad they dont have early-bird specials here....and for france...we were super early-birds...i tried explaining the early-bird special thing to the boy but he didnt quite get it...

ahh january....usually not my favorite at all, but this year its turning out ok. and i'm actually excited about starting this new job and hopefully erasing all the painful memories of my previous working experience and creating more positive working experiences in france.....and looking forward to the months ahead....we have a stream of visitors who should be keeping us busy and then a bunch of birthdays and other events going on....i'm staying positive for 2008!

is it just me?

so i was on a pretty good role there....blogging everyday and then i sorta fell behind. jetlag is partly to blame... i've been having problems falling asleep lately and been taking melatonin for the past few nights....and then that just totally knocks me out for a good nine hours straight. and then i get a late start in the day....a vicious cycle.

so last night, the boy and i saw Superbad on dvd and needless to say, i was disappointed. the boy had tried to warn me about Superbad after he fell asleep watching Knocked Up a while back. and while these were supposedly the huge blockbuster comedies of 2007....is it just me, but am i only the one who did not find these movies that funny. i mean, both movies had some great lines and rather funny scenes, but they were just too long (nearly 2 hours long each!) and showed some bizarre vulgarity (ok, i sound like a 40-year-old mom now). and i just felt that both movies didnt have a good flow to it. i mean, both had lots of potential, but for me, i've seen better. or maybe i'm just lacking the gene that finds these movies funny. The 40-Year Old Virgin was the same thing....lots of potential and even had some great scenes and plotline....but i didnt laugh as much as i thought i would. and the title of the movie drew us our interest since we actually know someone in that particular...er...situation.... (ok, thats enough information for now)...

and the boy shares my disappointment for these movies. lucky for us, we didnt spend 20 euros at the movie theater for these movies...but still! or maybe i just have a different taste for comedy now...i should listen to the french film critics more. all of the french critics bashed both Superbad and Knocked Up and i thought it was because the movies got lost in translation, but now i know better! now i'm not saying that french movies are better (they have their share of bizarre love triangle dramas), but they do a pretty darn good job on comedies..its a different type of comedy..but its at least pee-in-your-pants comedy...or maybe its just me and i lack a specific funny bone.

gluten-free is for good for me!

so one of my goals for 2008 is to stick a gluten-free diet (to the best of my ability). i decided to try it out for several weeks in december after one my doctors in the U.S. suggested that i try it and after talking to several gluten-free pals of mine. and needless to say, it changed my life. i only went off of it when the holidays came about and i didnt want to add additional stress and work for the boy's mom, who was making christmas dinner and then of course, i was back in the U.S. for a few weeks...(yummy chinese food!)

its a very hard diet to stick to, especially in baguette and croissant-laden France...but I am going to try. even if it means that i have to bring my lunch to work now. there are lots of bio, or organic markets, popping up in Paris and i pretty much stick to rice these days. it works for me...i joke that part of it has to do with being asian and having eaten rice nearly all my life. baked goods just dont agree with unfortunately....but i find that i dont miss it too much either...and gluten-free bread is expensive!! holy moly!

now i havent been diagnosed with celiac disease or anything, but for pretty much all of 2007, i has the worst gastro problems of my life. i looked 4-5 months pregnant half the time (to the point that even indifferent parisiens took one look at my belly and gave up their seats for me on the metro) and constantly felt exhausted and bothered and disturbed about my digestion...in pure numbers, i gained a significant amount of weight even though people dont believe me when i've told them that i've gained xxx pounds since 2006.

so i'm going to give it a try...and hope that one of the unintended results of going gluten-free will be shedding those xxx pounds!

its a small world?

a few signs that i travel waayyy too much (its even less now that i'm now working full-time and dont have as much time to go back and forth to the U.S.):

1) the gate agents for Continental Airlines at Paris-Roissy airport have started to remember me and now ask "you again?"

2) i have started to recognize certain flight attendants who do the Newark-Paris route...especially the daily 10 PM flight...i guess some of them are already slotted for the Paris flights since they speak French (though i have absolutely no clue on the logistics of flight crews)

3) i have memorized the flight schedules as well as the seat configurations for all Continental Newark-Paris flights (EWR-CDG)

tooo crazy,huh?

oh also...i've learned that its been a pretty rough flight if the flight attendants know your kid's name by the end of the 10 (!) hour ordeal...oh yes, my flight back on the New Year's Day took nearly 10 hours. A 2 hour delay due to catering problems and a malfunctioning door and then an additional 8 hours to get to Newark because of heavy tail winds. In contrast, it only takes about 6 and 1/2 hours to get Paris...and I arrived early yesterday! the boy was still at the apt when we landed!

in any case...10 hours over on a 757...tiny airplane for a transatlantic flight (seat configuration 3 by 3 with just one aisle) which is supposed to be most fuel-efficient ....completely full and at least 10 young kids on board. one of them kept running up and down the one aisle...bumping into the drink carts and one of the parents kept yelling his name....its no surprise that everyone know little Nico's name....

you go girl!

i'm back in paris...just got in this morning...still bleary-eyed and jetlagged...but its definitely nice to be back in my own apartment vs. my parents' house in NJ....something about having my own place...

so i saw something very cool and very comforting this morning as we were deplaning and boarding the shuttle bus that took us to the main terminal. as we watched the cabin crew emerging last from the plane, we were all pleasantly surprised to find that the pilot/captain of our flight was a woman...a hot tall blond too!

now blond stereotypes and feminist ideas aside, i can say i've never been prouder...and i only hope one day this will not be considered an anomaly but more the norm. and i can say with great confidence that you can probably only see such cool woman power on a U.S. airline....

a grain of salt

again..with the procrastination...or maybe i'm just really sick and tired of doing review questions (i've gone through about 4 gmat prep books...)..

anywho, one of the remarkable things i've noticed whenever i come back to the U.S. is how everything tastes so differently here. one of the biggest shockers on my taste buds is how everything is so salty! everywhere i go, i'm guzzling water and drinks because everything just tastes like someone threw in the entire salt shaker...and this is everything...chips, crackers, pasta dishes, pizza, chinese food,..everything that obviously has salt, but just waaay more here in the U.S.! and one of the biggest differences is that i guess is that in france, people dont leave the salt and pepper shakers out on the table, even in restaurants (this is a give or take). this is especially true when we are at the boy's family's house....everything is seasoned while cooking and there is no salt and pepper on the table...and i guess i've gotten used to it.

another thing that is quite different is the intensity of certain flavors. in france, the boy lives on this chocolate-y cereal by nestle called chocopic (it doesnt exist here in the U.S.) of which he claims has all sorts of vitamins and minerals...huh-huh. anyway, he's tried several chocolate cereal equivalents here in the U.S. and has claimed that all of them are waaay too sweet and too chocolate-y for his taste. funny since he practically lives on chocolate-y snacks...even certain desserts are too much for him. i once made yellow cupcakes with betty crocker chocolate frosting and he could barely finish one. a bit ironic since he is french and lives in a country famous for its desserts!!

back home to the mothership.....

i know i'm a bad blogger...but i am back visiting my parents in NJ this week and i've been super busy with super important things like shopping around the mega post-holiday sales for the perfect black wool/cashmere blend coat for the boy's upcoming birthday in february and then catching up with fun and fabulous people like my friend celina, my big cuz karen, and some of my old-coworkers in Princeton. and then there was the one-day sale at macy's yesterday....

so these are all good excuses...and good excuses for totally not preparing for the gmats. i totally want this exam to be over with..even if i'm not prepared. its in exactly 3 days....the funny thing is that my career aspirations have sorta changed since i began preparing for the exam so we'll see where it takes me....