Happy Valentine's Day!

It's kind of been our standing joke that we'll one day go to the Hobnobbin' Pub on Vassar Road, a modest-looking building that bills itself as "A non-posh drinkeatery."

Well, today after much debate, turmoil and strife we finally got ourselves over to the Hobbinglobbin for Valentine's lunch! It's our third year of doing Valentine's day as a group of 4.

First, this was an attempt to get all four of us in the picture:
We thought that the sheer absurdity of this shot conveyed more than an inclusion of Jo's face ever could. If you'll notice, we got a corner of his sleeve, though. And I think that's his hand poking Stuart's gut.

Then the couple shots:



Our waitress was so nice! We had a lot of fun at the Hobgoblin, and we're planning on going back as soon as we can!

Oh, and the desert was amazing too:



Poughkeepsie area people, we recommend the Hemoglobin Pub! The waitress even gave us chocolate kisses with our receipt!

Her age is a multiple of 11 for the second time in her life

Our dear Michelle turned 22 last Tuesday. And, as per her request, I made tiramisu! It's a miracle it came out as well as it did. I followed this recipe (as closely as I follow recipes, in any case) but instead of brandy I used a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream, and I also added another shot of eggnog to the custard. Mmm.

That's Kyun's dish that we never returned from Winter Break :)

There was some drama over this party, wasn't there, Michelle? But it's all rectified now. Whew. Here are more party pics!

새해 복 많이 받으세요!!!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Despite my inability to carry out simple preparations (sorry Michelle) we had a delicious dinner of sushi, kimbap, pork dumplings, and fried fish thanks mostly to Michelle and Tian An, with help from Grace and Irene.

First, Tian An fried the fish while Grace, Michelle and I folded dumplings using the dumpling skins Grace bought from the city and the filling (pork, cucumber, cilantro) that Michelle had prepared. Then we moved on to rolling sushi and kimbap, while discussing the differences between the two.

These are the sad kimbap I made:

And here's mine next to Grace's.

Here are our delicious ingredients: the bag of kim (upper right), the soy sauce (lower right), our big-ass freaky Asian knife (middle right) and on the cutting board: daikon, avocado, smoked salmon, and chopped cucumber, next to two beautiful sushi rolls Irene made with her special sushi-making mats.

And an action shot:

Irene has lots of better pictures that I'll try to procure (I thought of using that word because I initially mistyped 'picture' at the beginning of this sentence!).

One last note--the dipping sauce for the dumplings and fish was delicious: soy sauce, sugar, and chopped ginger and cilantro.

Chung mung nam moi!

24 Hour Visit Updates

Back home at not-Vassar! Just wanted to post some pictures of our adventures. The real deal begins this Sunday with the Return of Grace!


A picture of us at Kaleidoscope! It's hanging on the bulletin outside ResLife on the first floor of Main!

Michelle takes a nap on Scott with my super-cool monogrammed track blanket. Because I was a jock in high school. Truth.

Merry Christmas!

This is my first blog post off the Vassar campus! I just wanted to wrap up the semester. Jo and Grace left campus Wednesday of last week--Stuart and I drove them down to the train station together. Then we came back and did the dirty dishes that Jo and Grace left for us! :D

I left last Friday, leaving Stuart the last Steward of TA37 (how etymologicaly apropos!). And now, even though I'm home in Connecticut, I couldn't resist fiddling with the HTML one last time before the year ends.

Luke 2:10-12: And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."

Gotta love the King James, right?!? Merry Christmas, everyone!

It's the Penultimate Countdooooown!!!

I was going to title this post "final countdown," after the rockin' awesome song, but really it's not 'final' for us, is it? The next finals, now those will be the real deal. Eponymously final.

Ah, anyway, we've had a fun past 24 hours preparing for penultimates. Last night, the four of us had Family Time for the first time in a while. We finished chapter 9 of the Book of John and then debated blindness and seeing. But mostly we talked about how we've been doing this semester and touching base with each other again. I tried to think of a pun about 'touching base' but everything that came to mind was too Jo-worthy to publish.

Anyway, today Grace, Jo and I schmucked around the house working on papers while Stuart was at work. About two pages and two episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series into my architecture paper and I had pretty much lost it. Utter madness ensued. Finally Grace and I fled to the library to reestablish our work ethic. Hoo boy. The 5pm deadline was met, but there were casualties.

Anyway, at 5pm was a Taize prayer service that Jo organized. Then at 7 was a DELICIOUS meal cooked for us by Michelle. She baked chicken with five spices: anise seed, turmeric, cloves, ginger, and something. She thinks cinnamon. Then topped with onion, garlic, fish sauce, sugar and salt. And there was rice, roasted butternut squash, and, of course, kimchi. For dessert, because the banana bread was burned, we finished 'poppy chow' that Grace made yesterday. It's 'puppy chow' but with popcorn. And it's fan-friggin-tastic.

Overheard after dinner:

Grace: "Wow, NYU is like a hipster factory!"
Jill: "I can't believe I just ate all that poppy chow..."
Jo: "I kind of wish I was a demigod. You know?

ANYWAY, after dinner Michelle found a Christmas songbook and started singing some carols. When she got to "O Christmas Tree," however, Goseph leaped to his feet, urging her to be quiet lest he, in his words "hurt the bush's feelings." He was referring to our beautiful Christmas Tree, which, if one is wishing to be botanically accurate, is more of a 'bouquet' than a 'tree' but is in no way a 'bush.' Jo tried to compliment the Tree, but all he could come up with was "I like how it's...post-symmetrical." "Three sizes too small..."

Well, the singing continued:



ANYWAY, good luck with finals and penultimates and all sorts of crazy cooking adventures, and happy holidays! Here's to hoping we'll finish Boys Over Flowers one of these days...

ADDENDA:
1) Michelle would like it to be known that she and I are totally gangster. Homey.
2) Grace and I were talking today about starting a "TA37 Dictionary" page, which I just did! I'm compiling words to define first, then I'll get set on defining them. The link is in the upper right hand part of the blog, or you can click here.

Elmo, Christmas Trees, and Old Man Jo

It's been an eventful Saturday evening, friends. Tian An is here to visit, and he confirmed what we have long suspected: Grace is Elmo. Just listen:


It's uncanny, isn't it?

Next, I've been working on a Christmas Tree made of collected branches. A picture is below:

Grace tied the bow on top. And though you can't see it very well, the container it's in is from the centerpiece from Ming and Jeff's wedding! The sight of our beautiful Christmas Tree (because although for it isn't a 'tree,' it is a 'Christmas Tree,') melts my heart. Not Jo's, however.

But I got my revenge. He's headed off to Catherine's orchestra concert, and Grace and I gave him some fashion advice:
He left the house like that.

Anyway, now Grace is making more cookies (peanut raisin chocolate chocolate chunk (!!!)). This is her third batch, the second being delicious ginger-molasses cookies. I'm up in my room waiting for cookies and working on my thesis, my Christmas-scented candles burning away (don't tell ResLife!). I'll try to get better pictures of our Christmas Tree when the lighting's better and the decorations are more complete.

Happy December!