9.30.05
I watched a Mark Morris performance at Zellerbach. I liked All Fours and Cargo but Four Saints in Three Acts seemed to drag on forever and I couldn't really understand what they were singing.

9.21.05
I had dinner with Amy, Cynthia, and Leslie at Sushi House in Alameda. I haven't seen Cynthia in ages and she was teaching little first graders in China. Right now she's attending grad school at San Jose State. It was great catching up with all the Europe girls.

9.18.05
I had dinner with Katie and Sandy at California Pizza Kitchen. It was a nice moment of catching up, just hanging out with the girls, and of course celebrating Katie's 25th birthday, a tad late though. Sigh, so many important decisions to make about our careers and the scary unknown of what's the best thing to do. Anyway, I'm going to NYC with Sandy in October, so exciting! I borrowed some books from Katie that I've been wanting to read: The Rule of Four which is supposed to be kinda like the Dan Brown novels and the Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing.

9.17.05

I watched Raise the Red Lantern performed by the National Ballet of China at Zellerbach. It's a ballet based on the famous movie by Zhang Yimou that starred Gong Li. The costumes and scenery were so rich and elaborate. The performance was an interesting mix of Chinese culture and Western dance. The ending was very powerful; I got chills, with the striking red marks signifying blood and wounded flesh. Here's the Chronicle's review of it.

Afterwards, I had dinner with Emily and Stephanie at Ruen Pair for some yummy Thai food. We ordered the Pad Thai, Pad Prik King (sauteed green beans with beef), Thai Jungle Curry, and Fried Bananas. We're doing this monthly get together where we try new restaurants around the East Bay, away from SF with all the Bay Bridge construction going on.

Ruen Pair
1045 San Pablo Ave.
Albany, CA
510-528-2375

Emily travels lots for her consulting job; right now she's working in Denver. Stephanie already started working at College Prep in Oakland and seems to be enjoying the work there. We're supposed to all get together some day and cook dinner together. I have to make my famous Apple Bread. Heehee.

9.13.05
I'm taking a new sewing class because I want to make my own clothes and be able to make adjustments to some of the clothes I already have. I told my coworkers about it and they joked about how I might be expecting to meet cute guys in my class. =p I was a bit wary that it would be a class with old ladies but was surprised to see so many women in their late 20s. Many are young mothers or petite like me who are tired of going to tailors to alter their clothing. Our first project is a pair of pajama pants.

9.11.05
Jennifer and I had a picnic lunch at the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. It was such a nice day with tons of little kids running around. It's been awhile since I saw an opera so I thought going to the SF Opera in the Park at Sharon Meadows would be fun. Haha, but I realized I don't enjoy opera as much because it's difficult for me to stay interested if I don't understand what the performers are singing about. So we only stayed for about 45 minutes of it but it was really popular event with about 20,000 people attending. Read more about it here.

Afterwards, we wandered around SF some more and then had dinner at Cheesecake Factory. Grrr, I hate how there's always a long wait there.

9.03.05
I went to the Oakland Art and Soul Festival to watch some bands play:

Minipop
Dredg
The Lovemakers
Pinback

Four really good bands and for only $5. I enjoyed this more than the BFD concert. I dunno, for some reason the sound was better and it was less crowded, not too much pushing and shoving to deal with. Minipop is still an unsigned band but really good, very chill music. Listening to the Lovemakers' set was awesome; you could tell the crowd all wanted to start dancing. And they're a local band too from Oakland. I liked how Lisa Light plays the electronic violin. Anyway, check out their music and buy their cds.

We also watched some of the dance performances and walked around the vendor booths. Someone was selling very cute wooden flip flops with a Hawaiian flare but I wasn't sure how comfy they were. I had a yummy bbq pork slider for lunch.