Last night, our family hosted a holiday party (more like a dinner with friends). We went to their place the night before and had dinner/played Balderdash with them and we reciprocated by hosting a dinner on Thursday. Whenever we get together for dinner, we always play board games; Wednesday was Balderdash, Thursday was Ticket-to-Ride. Two funny things that occurred while playing Balderdash:

1. My mom was the host (meaning she was the one that held the card with the correct answer). She rolled strange laws and we had to write down what we thought was illegal to remove in theaters in Winnetka, Illinois. Most people wrote down shoes, socks, shirts, etc., which my mom read, and then she read the option “riding your bicycle into a swimming pool.” umm….okay. Sometimes we have really “out there” answers to throw people off (since some of the real answers are oftentimes really out there) but this one was just…so odd. ONE person picked riding your bicycle into a swimming pool and we were all kinda laughing (I mean, it didn’t even MAKE SENSE) and when we were tallying up points, my mom gave the guy TWO points for getting it right! Then my brother, who was sitting next to my mom, looked at the card and realized that two cards were STUCK TOGETHER! hahahaha - it reminded me of the Friends episode when Rachel makes the trifle with beef, peas, and mashed potatoes because pages in the cookbook were stuck together!!

2. We had to re-do a bunch of the cards because people weren’t following the rules so we just discarded the piles of notecards where we wrote our definitions/weird laws/movie themes/etc into a middle pile. James, who was sitting next to me, was the host and read two of my cards, so I asked if he had read every person’s definition of a word, to which he responded, yes. I asked if he was SURE, and he said YES, and then he showed me the card (which was my old card) and it was because Albert, James’ dad, crossed out MY name and replaced it with HIS! He didn’t care enough to think of something new! I could not stop laughing but I couldn’t tell anyone at the table because then we’d have to redo the card (and we’d been redoing cards ALL night).

On Thursday, we hosted a party at our house and had hot pot (similar to what we had at our aunt’s house in Raleigh). Here’s the set up:

We also had edamame and while my mom was preparing it, I asked, oh, is that edamame? And my mom responded, “no, it’s already made.” Sometimes my mom is just too funny!!

I also made MAGICAL cookies and a delicious chocolate cheesecake for the party:

The cookies are cream cheese based and to find the sprinkles, we had to drive to THREE different grocery stores (are those sprinkles just not popular?) I like the sprinkles we bought because I feel like they’re a bit crunchier than the jimmies that are easily found in grocery stores.

The chocolate cheesecake I made was SO delicious and it took FOREVER to bake because our terrible GE oven kept locking (and has been since we purchased it). Everything was made from scratch - even the crust! It was made from fresh oreo cookies (I licked the cream off every single cookie :)) Basking the cheesecake actually took around an hour total (including the crust). Here’s the final product:

After dinner, we played Ticket-to-Ride, one of the coolest board games EVER. James and I were on a team and we were thisclose to winning (if we had only won the extra 10 points by getting the longest chain). My brother, who played by himself, WON, with 112 points, James and I came in 2nd with 105, my mom and Shane came in 3rd with 89, and Albert and Cindi came in 4th. Here’s the final board:

Today (Friday) we watched The Devil Wears Prada, Mission Impossible 3, and The DaVinci Code (we’re taking advantage of the Blockbuster online rental plan, obviously). I also managed to highlight my hair (it’s much darker now) and I’m getting a cut tomorrow. We’re also headed to Raleigh tomorrow and on Sunday, we’ll be heading to Cindi and Albert’s for a New Year’s Eve dinner!

Today, my family drove to Chapel Hill to have lunch with my aunt’s family. David, my brother, flew into Chapel Hill last night (Southwest doesn’t have a hub in Greensboro) and we met up this afternoon to have a Chinese style Christmas (hotpot!) A picture of my family:

Do you like my new cashmere sweater set my mom bought me for christmas? Those two pieces are one of the TWENTY (seriously, TWENTY) cashmere sweaters my mom bought for me. My mom was telling me that she was trying to stack up the sweaters but there were so many that they kept falling over! My brother’s also wearing one of the new cashmere sweaters he got for Christmas (umm…I have to rotate my old cashmere sweaters to sleepwear now).

My aunt prepared a huge lunch for us (hot pot, where you continuously cook meats, vegetables, and other things in a pot of chicken broth) and my cousin, Mimi, brought a bunch of desserts for us to enjoy. Mimi, my cousin, lives in Washington, D.C., and my other cousin, Teddy, lives in California. Mimi and I have seen each other a bunch of times because when I used to visit Bill at GWU, I would always fit in a dinner with her. Teddy, on the other hand, I have not seen since I was…two. HA! Now I can officially say I’ve met all of my immediate cousins (Teddy was my missing link).

Here’s a picture of me, my aunt, and my brother:

So, on a completely unrelated note, I’ve decided that it’s time to cut my hair. Recently, I’ve noticed that my hair is getting uncontrollably long (it’s all in my FACE) so, here are some ideas for my new cut:

1. My hairstyle from sophomore year in college (don’t you love my outfit?!):

2. Haircut from senior year:

3. Keeping my hairstyle from Christmas:

Any ideas?

Also, when I lived in Champaign, one of my mom’s friends mentioned that I looked like an actress from China, Gong Li. I never saw the resemblance, but recently, Joe and Brian have mentioned that I look like her (maybe because she’s Asian and she’s going to be in a new movie?). Here’s a picture I found of her online:

I tried to do a face recognition on myheritage.com, but…I won’t post the results because I think it’s really off…

Tomorrow night we’re headed to our friend’s place for a dinner and Thursday night we’re having a party at our place, which means there are TWO more opportunities for pictures! It’s so great having my Canon back!

This week was possibly the best week ever (even though I write that every week, this time I really mean it). I only went to New Jersey on Monday (and worked in NY the rest of the week), I went out to dinner with Jen and Leena in K-town (and had kimchi chigae every other day the entire week), my company hosted our annual holiday party, AND my office is closed until January 2nd, so I’m home in North Carolina.

Since I worked from NY during the week, I was able to keep better hours and I met up with Jen and Leena for dinner on Tuesday night. (Did I mention that I had dinner by myself for the first time…EVER? I felt so…grownup). I’m going to start making my own food because I recently acquired a rice cooker and Jen (who’s Korean) taught me how to make kimchi chigae, the dish I usually order when I go to K-town. (It used to be bibimbop, but Angie, my ex-roommate, brought kimchi chigae back one time and I’ve been in love ever since). The recipe seems pretty easy and the most important thing is the kimchi (which you can buy in any Korean store), then the red sauce is what adds the spice/taste, and then you add pork and that’s about it. Not too bad! Once I move out in February, I’ll make it (or so I say, now).

On Thursday, a bunch of the new hires and seniors met up with our partners for a meeting about our overall strategy for the year/happy hour. Our meeting started at 3PM (when we started drinking) and continued until around 2AM, when our holiday party ended. This year, our holiday party was held at Cipriani’s:

The place is amazing! It has 65-ft ceilings and it was decorated really beautifully for our event. Also, when you walked in, servers greeted you with bellinis (the most amazing drink ever - peach puree with Prosecco and champagne) and directed you to the huge assortment of sushi, appetizers, meat, jumbo shrimp, etc. There were five bars (at least) set up around Cipriani’s and lots of areas for food - my favorite was definitely the sushi rolls (although the Cipriani roll, which is a roll that’s deep-fried, was extremely heavy and not good). David lent me his sister’s camera for the night because I REALLY wanted to take pictures of the event (but…when don’t I want to take pictures?) She has a Sony cybershot and the initial pictures turned out like this:

umm…SLOW SHUTTER SPEED, anyone? I am still looking for a new camera, but I think I’m going to stick with Canon. Once you get a Canon, you really can’t go with anything else (I tried Nikon, Lumix, and Sony…and they all don’t even COMPARE to Canon’s quality). A lot of the pictures turned out the same way (SAD!) BUT, I did get some good pictures from the night:

A little better, but the background is still really fuzzy,

The best picture from the night (my favorite, at least).

Dinner was buffet style and the penne pasta wasn’t cooked, but if it had been, it would’ve been really good (the marinara sauce was delish). They also made veal ravioli (there wasn’t any taste) and steak (which was the best choice from the buffet). The dessert table was AMAZING - tiramisu, dark chocolate cake, cheesecake, fruit tarts, gingerbread cookies, sorbet with fresh fruit, ice cream, and SO many other options! I wish I took pictures of the food, but the camera had a low battery, so I only took pictures of people (mostly me).

I’m not sure what the theme for the night was, but there were appearances by Austin Powers, Madonna, and one other look-a-like. They announced the winners of the raffles (which included at $250 gift certificate to a nice restaurant in NYC, 2 tickets to any Broadway show, and other food certificates). The party was really fun and it was really great seeing everyone at the event (especially since so many people travel all the time and never have the opportunity to go to the office). John Kim, my peer buddy, flew in for the event and I haven’t seen him since I started, so it was really nice running into him:

After our holiday party, almost everyone headed to Bogarts (39th and Park) for an after party. Audrey, David, and I decided to take funny pictures:

1. Disgruntled Youth:

2. A normal picture:

3. Fresh off the boat:

4. We’re scared…of David the…hamster?

5. We’re thinking…but David already had his lightbulb moment:

6. Me and my girlfriend, Audrey (Sorry Nai, she’s MINE!):

The night was amazingly fun and I had a great time - what a great way to end the year! Now I’m back in North Carolina spending time with my mom and brother - and I’m not heading back to New York until NEXT YEAR! When I get back to New York, I have to start looking for a new apartment (if you have any suggestions, please let me know). Happy holidays, everyone!

On Thursday, we headed to our family friend’s house for a great Thanksgiving meal and board games after dinner. We played this awesome game, Ticket-to-Ride, and I WAS going to take a picture of the final board, but my mom threw all the pieces together so we couldn’t count who won (obviously it wasn’t her team). After Ticket to Ride, we played Cranium (David and I CRUSHED the competition because we’re so awesome at drawing with our eyes closed and spelling long words backwards). We didn’t end up going to the black Friday sales since we stayed at our family friend’s so late playing games, but on Friday, Shane, David, and I played tennis (Shane was my tennis instructor over the summer).

Initially, the weather in North Carolina was rainy and really gross, but then on Wednesday, the sun came out and it was around 70 degrees for the rest of the time David and I were in NC. When David and I arrived in NC, my mom started telling us about this cat that comes to the house and just walks around, telling her how beautiful the house is. I thought she was just making things up, but on Friday, look who showed up:

We nicknamed him Snowball and he really DOES talk! Everytime I asked if he liked the house, he would meow at me. We used to have cats back when we lived in Pittsburgh and for some reason, we still had catnip in our house, so we gave it to Snowball to see if he’d go crazy:

After we gave him the catnip, he kept coming back to the house for another fix, but we don’t give it to him for that long because he’s declawed (and an outdoor cat, how mean of his owners), so he is basically just rubbing his paws raw.

On Saturday, we threw our own dinner party since our family friend’s invited us over for Thanksgiving. My mom cooked up a feast (as usual) and David and I made this bundt cake:

After stuffing our faces, we played another game of Ticket to Ride. This time, I was lucky enough to capture the final gameboard (only because my mom won and didn’t find the need to throw her board pieces everywhere:

According to amazon.com, Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure where players collect cards of various types of train cars than enable them to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. We also played Scattegories (which I won) and poker, which I also won simply because Shane’s brother, James, helped me cheat.

Now I’m back to reality and it’s another month before Christmas break. We’re spending Christmas and New Years in North Carolina (I think we might head to Biltmore around Christmas to see the lights!)

If you’ve noticed, I only update in spurts these days (sorry!). Mostly because I’m too tired during the week to even THINK about updating. Also, it takes a while to upload all of my pictures, so when I update, I usually like to have something interesting to say. That being said, I have been doing some fun things recently! A couple weeks ago, my engagement partner gave my team tickets to the NJ Devils hockey game at Continental Arena. They played the Carolina Hurricanes and it was a pretty awesome game - it ended in a shootout after it was tied in overtime! Here’s the winning shot:

That week was full of happy hours; we went to a nice dinner before the hockey game on Wednesday, Thursday was a pre-night before interviews (open bar) and then our own happy hour, and then Friday was happy hour for our technology group. whew…so much drinking! On Thursday, my senior, Ray, invited us to a bar on 38th and Madison, that was rented out for a goodbye party:

David, me, and my senior, Ray. I’m actually thinking about chopping off my hair so it would look like what it looks like in the picture above, but I’m kind of scared. Maybe I’ll do it during my Christmas vacation and then start the new year fresh…I’m still contemplating whether or not it’s a good idea.

On Friday, we went to Bogarts, where we rented out the first floor for a huge happy hour with the entire technology department. Someone once said to me that it seemed like all I did was go out with my company, but in reality, that’s not entirely true. I just take pictures when we have our monthly happy hours, not when I’m sitting at a client site. I love going to the happy hours we have because since I’m never in the office, it’s hard to keep in touch with the people you work with. Everyone tries to make it to these happy hours to stay up-to-date with our co-workers. Here’s a picture of a bunch of the people in my department:

Michael, Grace, Remy, and me. Michael is working on a project with Maulin and Remy was my instructor during training in Florida! And another picture:

Me, Maulin, and Elsy. The three of us hosted a superday and went to Tao for lunch (the seabass is amazing there, the meat, not so much).

After that happy hour, Michael, Maulin, Grace, and myself went out and ended up staying out until 4AM. It was such a long (but fun) night!

Besides the large amount of happy hours I’ve been attending recently, I’ve also been keeping myself busy by going to see movies (Borat and The Departed), seeing Russell Peters perform (hilarious), and watching dvd’s (specifically The Office and Arrested Development).

I’m taking the week of Thanksgiving off and I flew to North Carolina on Saturday (November 18th). My brother also flew in for the week and it’s great to be home, even though it’s SO different compared to New York. On Sunday, we went to a Pottery Festival (umm…yeah). Here’s some of the pottery:

Actually, those are smaller than the size of my hand!

Needless to say, we walked away empty handed, although we did see a lot of country people, including witnessing an amazingly awkward auction that took place in an elementary school gym:

We had to drive about 45 minutes to get to this town because my mom read about the pottery festival in some newspaper or something. Anyway, we sit down for the auction thinking things won’t be that expensive, but the auctioneer started EVERYTHING at $50 (at LEAST). Some of the things, though, weren’t even worth $50 total. Most people, in my opinion, were thinking the exact same thing because when he started at $50, NO ONE bid. He had to bring prices to around $30 before people reluctantly raised their hands. In my opnion, I think most people ended up buying their own pieces.

Also at the festival was a broom maker, which reminded me of Arcola’s festivals from way back in the day:

Some things you just don’t see in New York City.

Today, we hosted a dinner party for some of my mom’s students. They recently had a baby girl, Miriam, and my mom invited her students and their family for a nice dinner at our house. Here’s the setup:

I made a butternut squash lasagna (it was DELISH), chick peas with curry, asparagus with shrimp, tilapia with pesto, and chai tea. I helped make everything for tonight’s party and everything turned out well. I was kind of worried about the butternut squash lasagna because it didn’t look great going into the oven.

Here’s a picture of Miriam, who is 4 months old:

It’s my favorite picture because it looks like she’s doing pilates. She really likes taking pictures (how cute) and I took a bunch of her after dinner. This week, we’re going to a party on Thanksgiving and then we’re hosting another party on Saturday. I head back to New York on Sunday morning and then it’s back to being a working girl (not THAT kind) on Monday. We might make a trip to Biltmore Estates, but I think that might be postponed until Christmas since we’re coming back again and we’ll have more time then. I’ll update with more pictures throughout the week!

PS - TopCoder has its Collegiate Challenge last week and I was looking at the pictures - it looked like so much fun!!