Our Little House

Last Thursday, as I wrote in earlier posting, our plan for the day was to send off Keti and Ricad to SFO. However, we didn't plan to meet them at the airport, we're supposed to pick them up and help them with their baggage. Since they lived in Milpitas, my husband - who is currently working for a client in Milpitas - told me to go with him so that he didn't need to go back and forth. While he worked, I could enjoy myself in Milpitas library. So, that was what I did the whole noon from 2 p.m. to around 6 p.m.    Often, people ask me how I can survive all day reading in the library. Hmmm, that's an easy one. I enjoy reading book a lot. It's a treat for me. When I was in Indo, I used to spend my money borrowing books from book rental. Although I think most private schools have library in Indo, I have never heard about their public library. Now in the US, I don't have to spend a dime! Can you imagine how happy I was when I first visited a library in the US? Not t...

Hmm.. today I don't know what to do, so I just stay home. I'm thinking of buying a tea jug ... well its actually a coffee press like this one here:  I've been wanting to buy this thing ever since we moved in to our new place. Moreover, i just got these dried tea leaves from my friend. They smell so good... I can hardly wait to taste them.  So I guess I'll wait for my hubby to come home and then we can go buy the tea press or coffee press. Hmm.. I might need to ask him to go home early since we are going to send off our friends at SFO tonight. We will also send off our other friends tomorrow night. This year's Christmas will not be as fun as last year =(    

When I studied for my gruesome finals last week, every time I felt that I couldn't focus anymore, I thought about what I would do during the winter break. One thing that I wanted to do was to update this blog =P I also thought about how breaks seem to end so fast. Sometimes when the break ended, I wondered what I've been doing during the break. So this time, I thought it would be a great idea to write a journal during this winter break. In the next 8 months, whenever I'm struggling with my MBA program, at least I could look back and assure myself that I already did my best to enjoy my break. However, when the break is finally here, I feel reluctant to write as usual =P That's why I missed recording the first day.  Anyway, this was what I did yesterday: cooking for my friend Keti who will leave California this coming Thursday. She is a very nice person ... and I will miss her a lot. However, I believe this decision is the best decision for both of keti and her husband...

Hi! I know it's been a while ... I've been very busy with school and moving ... So many things happened and i really don't know where to start. Let me begin by giving you this cute picture of our balcony: So yeah, this is our new place and we love it! The size, the location, the serenity ... it's just perfect! =) Looking back, our apartment hunting was not fun. It was frustrating. I was in my final weeks - well it was two or three weeks before final when we started looking intensively. So in addition to busy weekdays, i also had hectic weekends. My typical weekend was like this : Saturday morning we went apartment hunting, around 1 PM I had group meeting until around 6 PM ish ... Sunday after church, we visited 1 or 2 prospective places before my hubby drove me to King Library for another group meeting or study session. Before we decided to choose this apartment, we almost rent another apartment in North San Jose. After further consideration, we canceled our booki...

Gosh, I've been super busy lately. A lot of life changing events happened this month. Unpredictable... yes. Hard... yes. Meaningless? No. I just want to take all this as an opportunity to learn and to grow. Anyway, my MBA One has started last week. This means I'll be even busier throughout this year. Basically until the program ends August next year, I'll have no "me time." Vacations and all sort of fun stuffs must be postponed because this program will be my first priority. I know this will be really really hard... especially when your friends are planning to go to interesting places that you really want to visit... Tough luck, I need to postponed those travel plan for a year then.   I will only hope that I could do the best I can do. I want to put as much effort as i can into the program because I'm hoping to get as much as I can fro...

Hi.. I've been really busy lately. My life was in such a frenzy ever since the beginning of spring quarter. I made a mistake by choosing an ECON class taught by a Stanford Professor. Also by squeezing two ECON classes in one quarter. I thought since I've taken it before during my undergraduate study, it will be easy for me. Turns out many things have changed in world economy ... and now I'm learning ECON from America's point of view so in a way it is really different! Anyway, so here I am, trying to cope with endless exams and quizzes... Just two days ago in the midst of all this frenzy i received a good news. Last night I got another convincing email but I'm still waiting for the formal letter. Hopefully this is another miracle that I've been waiting for =) 

A long due post about my cooking attempts during Spring Break. This is the ingredient for "Quail soup" ... I got the idea from here . Since I didn't have chicken ready at that time (and to lazy to buy one =P), I substituted it with squid balls and meat balls! LOL That's something that I always have ready in my refrigerator. I shaped the carrots like little flower. Eniwei, my substitution decision turned out to be a disaster. I forgot my husband doesn't even like the smell of squid balls. He complained that the soup tasted fishy =( Well for me, this was still a good soup, but I might be biased since I like all kind of soupy dishes. Next time, i will stay true to the original recipe and use chicken. I want to know the original taste. Oh, i forgot to take the finished picture =P The second recipe here, come from a very talented little chef which happens to be our friend =) Bacon Wrapped Asparagus   Ingredients: asparagus (2 stalks for 1 pers...

I just got back from my first U.S. camping trip. This trip is the highlight of my 2011 Spring Break. Happy? Yes. Tired? Of course! What i really really want to do right now is sleep... Well, but first i need to look up for my schedule online and copy it. Or else I'll be clueless tomorrow. Tomorrow is the first day of the new quarter in De Anza. It is also the rush week for bookstore. In addition to two classes, i'll have a long shift tomorrow up until 10 PM...gosh ...I'll be super tired. But you know what ... when i look up for my schedule, right below the link there was this check my grades link. I checked this link several times last week but nothing was there. Somehow i was swept by intense curiosity at that time and i clicked it. Surprise~! The winter quarter grades were available!! And God ... amazed me once again just now. That's why despite I'm feeling so tired right now, i feel the urge to write this down right away. I really don't want to forget t...

Yeah .. i finished my last final just now! So excited for spring break. For sure we'll be camping in Big Sur next weekend. Also, we'll be experiencing Hooters this Saturday. On weekdays however ... i still need to beg my hubby to take day off so he can accompanies me to Napa or Sausalito or Golden gate park =) There's a big chance i might succeed though *winning smile* ah ... life is sooooo good! =) PS: another good sign that this spring break will be awesome: for weeks we've been worrying about camping in rainy weather, but the weather forecast bode that it will be sunny from april 1 to 3! woohoo! Let's just hope the forecast is right =)

Last week, although i really really want to try hooters, we ended up having dinner at BBQ Kalbi truck . That day the korean taco truck was parking at some intersection in Mountain View. We decided to try the Kalbi (Beef) Burrito and Daejee (Spicy Pork) Burrito. My hubby loves his Daejee burrito. I love their sauces especially the sweet wasabi. The overall eating experience was not that enjoyable though. Somehow that night was cold and very windy. There was no line too. So at a time, we were the only customers eating there. Anyway, we found out that the intersection where BBQ Kalbi parked was so close to the famous Castro Road. Incidentally, my hubby has been wanting to go to the used book store there. He didn't find the book that he wants, but ...  i found an old friend =) I found the complete edition of EA's Sims fully loaded with all its expansion packs! I played this game since i was in high school up until college. It's actually one of my siblings' favorite game. S...

Fiuhh ... I finally finished the hardest class for this quarter, EWRT 1A. The final was an eight paragraph in-class essay about Toni Morrison's award winning novel, Sula. The begin with, I'm a really slow writer. So i dread in-class essays. Moreover, this is quite a long essay so i need a really strong thesis. The problem is, to get a really good thesis, you need to spend time ... to think! But of course i don't have the luxury of time in an in-class essay =( Anyway, i passed the deadly final already =P I'm not really sure about the result ... well at least i tried my best. So I'll just leave out the rest to God =) The good thing is ... somehow i managed to finish my essay exactly in 2 hours. This has never happened before. But i do admit that maybe my thesis is not strong enough ... because i kind of hurrying myself to start writing when i did the outline. O well ... there's nothing i can do to alter it anyway. I couldn't think of any other sophisticated ...

*sigh* getting really nervous about the final week especially for my in class writing final. The teacher plan to do the in class final one week sooner than its schedule. In a way I kinda like her decision, i just want to get it over with quick .. and then focus on accounting. Anyway, the in class writing will be so difficult and there's nothing i can do to improve my bad writing skill =( So, i just hope i can do better in accounting, which is possible since i just need to put some extra effort learning all those online practice at Wiley. so nervous ... hope everything will be alright.  

This is what we normally do at weekends: 1. Food Hunting after suffering for my bad cooking and instant food in weekdays, weekend is the right time for us to enjoy food. Usually i have certain craving for each week, so we always have destination =P When i craved for japanese ramen, we would usually go to orenchi or santouka. I personaly like orenchi better. Yet, most of the time we go to santouka instead ... maybe because it's nearer. Santouka is one of the two food stall inside Mitsuwa department store. It is usually very crowded during lunch and dinner hours. It closed at 7 PM though, so it's an early dinner ... This is what santouka looks like one of their set menu My regular bowl : shoyu broth     You better come early if you want to eat at santouka though, the line is quite long. I think we waited for around 30 mins that time before we could enjoy our ramen. 2. Enjoying the Wea...

 Some random photo updates: Brazillian Cheese Bread  This is my almost failed attempt of little teochew's Easy Brazillian Cheese Bread. It smells delicious though! I made this around early December last year. prawn in tofu skin roll? There is a dimsum to go store near our place called Taipan Dimsum. This is where I satisfy my sudden dimsum craving =P I've never tried this prawn roll before because i usually order their famous crispy shrimp ball. It turned out to be just okay. Based on my past dimsum experiences, this kind of roll usually filled with just seasoned shrimps ... so i was surprised to find greens, radish and shrimp filling inside of taipan's prawn roll. I think seasoned shrimps is still the best filling for this kind of roll. Pork and thousand years egg     This is also one of the regular items that i order at Taipan. Pork and phitan egg porridge. I really like this porridge. Every time i feel like eating comfort food, this is what i buy. I'v...

I was kinda reluctant to begin this new quarter ... a three weeks holiday was really not enough. That's why I'm so thankful to be able to visit LA and Las Vegas during the christmas holiday. At least we did something fun and memorable on the-really-short year end holiday. Anyway, so here I am, back at school. This quarter I take three classes: Accounting 1B, Peachtree Accounting and English Writing 1A. All of the classes are interesting, but i worry for the english writing 1A. The instructor seems so fake to me. She's kind on the outside but i do really think she's just pretending to be kind. Well, hope I'm wrong... Anyway, no matter how hard I try, this time there'll be no A+ for the english class. The teacher said so in our class' first meeting. I am really hoping for an A ... but we'll see. Three out of class papers and one in class essay seems difficult, not to mention a numbers of journal to be m...

Happy new year everyone~! How's ur holiday? Mine is too short =P I'm so not ready to start school again, so does my husband ( work in his case instead of class). I notice that everyone else is posting new year resolution in their blogs. Me? Hmm.. somehow i find it so hard to make a resolution this year. So, instead ... let me post these two beautiful verses that we got from our church's service last sunday. Mine: "And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men" - Colossians 3:23 My hubby's: "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work" - John 9:4 My verse brought inspiration for me to start this new year =) I dunno about my husband, but i think he might got a sort of direction in this new year too from his verse... what a way to start an awesome year!