so last night i dropped keith and leith off at the airport, so i have the place to myself now. it was kind of shocking how it all happened because we all kept thinking when they were leaving friday at midnight that we had until the end of the week. i got a call from leith at the dentist, realizing it meant THURSDAY night is midnight, so he spent the day washing clothes and packing. strange how i keep getting things mixed up at the airport. now i have this permanent fear that i’ll arrive by train at the wrong airport for my flight or something.

anyways, so i think i’ll keep it short at work today, do a little shopping and run some errands. i plan on having a slow weekend to myself to get my thoughts straight, stay away from work (i’ve come in the last 2 weekends), and enjoy myself. i’m babysitting the twins tomorrow night and spending time with sarah, who’s in town, but that’s it for plans, other than the farmers market, lots of time with my books and some lounging. i’m readying myself for the fall and lots of work and travel.

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this week really made me feel like a workaholic. i came in both days last weekend, focused on preparing the events module for reunion registration, partially to try and get as much done before my mom came in town. i didn’t work too much when she was here, but i squeezed some in now and then and yesterday i finally finished! it still needs to be tested by all sorts of people, but it feels like such an accomplishment to be done. when i went back through and looked at all of the different elements, i was proud to have put it all together.

i had to work a lot over the weekend, but we still squeezed in some other activities, heading to kristine’s birthday barbecue and catching a giants game. the discount tickets were primo since our seats were excellent and the game was actually exciting. that caltrain needs to be a little more considerate though - the train situation was nuts, with people packed in shoulder to shoulder both ways!

my mom’s visit was fun. it started with me losing my mind a bit. i arrived way too early for her plane visit on accident and then forgot directions to the restaurant, but we ended up finding our way and the japanese food was amazing and a value. i’d wholeheartedly recommend kaita if you are in the san jose area. we spent the next couple of days exploring california’s outdoors, hiking at rancho san antonio, smelling the flowers at filoli gardens and being near the sea in monterey. it’s always wonderful to pal around with mom and show her my new digs.

this weekend is completely uneventful (with the exception of my weekly farmers market visit), which is good for me. i’m in recovery mode, sleeping in and staying around the house. if i’m lucky, i might even start on a puzzle. :)

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i know, there’s really no excuse for a 1 month hiatus from the blog. what a summer though! i remember when summertime meant slowness and relaxation, but that’s not the case in 2008.

so let’s see where do i begin?

when i left off, i was about to start all of the craziness. i flew to princeton for the ivy plus alumni relations conference and it was quite a trip. it was pretty exhausting because of the typical conference schedule, the distance from the hotel to the campus and the plane delays, but certainly worth the trip. i was able to bond more with people from stanford and share a lot of program ideas and best practices with colleagues from other schools. the plane delays were a bummer, but i did fly through my travel books for prague.

a day of work, unpacking and washing and then leith and i were off to prague. the flights over were long and we ran to make connections, but it was still a fun experience and were were surprised and delighted by the service and food provided on the european airlines. i would definitely fly and recommend swiss air in the future. prague is a fairytale city and easy to navigate in english. i never got over feeling a little bad for not delving into the language, but there wasn’t much time. the only moments we had any language difficulty was on the rail system, but we were lucky and able to figure things out to do 3 short excursions out of the city and inside the city, public transportation was ideal and easy. i miss hoping on and off of the metro and busses so easily. we saw cathedrals, castles, churches, and as you’ll see from our pictures, we had a lot of wonderful food. towards the end of our trip, my ESS friends arrived and i still can’t believe it’s been 10 years. there are changes here and there, but when it comes down to it, just seeing each other and spending time catching up was really priceless - i’m so glad we made the trip for it. i hope that our next meeting is at the 15 mark and more of us are able to travel.

the plane trip back wasn’t as ideal and this is now my second bad experience with both lufthansa and dulles airport - avoid them at all costs! i’ve also written off united airlines and i’ll avoid flying them as much as possible. 2 stand bys and 2 delays later with a lost bag, we made it home at midnight. at least my bag was found 2 days later, but i also ended up with a mangled library book.

we got ourselves together and the next day picked up our keys to start the moving. by the time we caught our breath, keith showed up the next day since he’s spending a month with us and the moving began! i’m glad we gave ourselves 9 days to do all of the moving because it wasn’t too stressful and keith was a big help with cleaning and getting all of our stuff over to the new place. it’s only been a few days, but i must say that it feels like home already. i’m really happy that we made the move and this place opened up. we’re still halfway in boxes, but i’ll have to clean things up so we can have people over and prepare for my mom.

so that’s where i am now in life. i’m super busy at work since we’re hiring 4 positions as quickly as we can. i’m really trying to get on top of things since my mom arrives in about a week and i want to keep my few days of vacation off to spend with her. we had a fun but nerve wracking trip to alameda yesterday. i only say that because bay area roller derby is completely violent and angry. i swear there were no rules! the texas rollergirls from austin should really be upheld for their professionalism and skill in comparison. we thought were were taking keith to a fun experience, but it turned out to show a side of society that also craves boxing and wrestling, so no thanks. we had done some fun things, catching movies and seeing friends. plus, we’ve all been reading around the clock and i’m happy with how many books i’m plowing through this summer.

that’s it in a nutshell. i think i’ve gone on for too long now, but i promise to write more frequently. have a good weekend!

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what happens when you’re at a really busy time followed by some travel is a sandwich week and that’s where i’m at. i’ve got a bunch of meetings and things to accomplish between all of the commencement stuff (now over and it happened wonderfully) and the upcoming ivy plus conference and our vacation to prague. this week is full of seeing friends, packing, planning, cleaning and meetings. i think we’re handling it with grace. somehow we’ve gone hiking, i’m getting far on organizing classes without quizzes and today we had friends over for dinner and i made spinach roll-ups (basically a funner version of vegetarian lasagna). it’s been great. i love weeks like this where the weather is good and the lists are getting crossed off. i’m going to continue doing what i’m doing and i’ll post some pictures from the commencement events soon so you can see what i’ve been up to.

oh - and i forgot to mention that we got the apartment, so our move in date is right after prague when keith comes to stay with us in the summertime. good timing, huh? we’re just moving next door for those of you not in the know, but we’re excited about it. the landlady there is super super nice and the place seems very clean and spacious. we’re happy to get away from our big, but spidery apartment where the property management company is lackluster. it’s busy for summer, isn’t it?

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i’m working a lot these days, but it is commencement week.

there’s a lot of travel coming up for me! i have a week break, but then a conference in princeton, a trip to prague and maybe then an apartment move? cross your fingers!

it’s really hot here. i was sick on sunday - stinks to have a cold in the summertime…but i’m 100% better now and ready to stay late to work senior dinner on the quad tonight. :)

our friends meredith and webb moved to menlo park from austin and it’s nice to have good people close by. last night they taught me croquet and had us over for barbecue. it was good times. (that’s totally a nada phrase…)

i feel like i’m being recruited at work lately and it’s a nice feeling. it’s performance review month and i felt good about mine. that coupled with the meetings i’ve had about other possible jobs lately tells me i’m doing a solid job at the workplace.

in my sickness, i completed a bizarre 1000 piece puzzle in 2 days. i haven’t done that in awhile. doing puzzles always reminds me of doing them with my grandpa when i was little at the kitchen table. i think i should do them more often.

i finished another book this week. my next trip to the library needs to include a couple books about prague so i can plan my trip and get ready to see my old ESS buddies from 10 years ago. i can’t believe it’s almost reunion time! i can tell i’m reading a lot because i accumulated $10 in fines last week, which was kind of a bummer.

the farmers markets have become amazing. shopping in super markets growing up, you really miss out on seeing distinguished seasons of fruit come and go. one day when the stalls of mandarin oranges, sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts were replaced with peaches, cherries and strawberries, it was the great surprise to start moving to something new. plus - the asian farmer has some okra we’re going to try out tomorrow! it’s been exciting.

so that’s it, or at least, that’s all i have time to go through right now. i need to get into work and see what i can get done today. my big breakfast for 700 is early tomorrow morning and my big lecture for 5,000 is on saturday, so wish me luck!

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i know you’re thinking that vacation recovery means it’s because i had a wild time with my family, but the real recovery exists because of the immense amount of work to return to afterwards. i finally put up my denver photos, although captions aren’t there yet. and perhaps i’ve fully recovered now. :) denver was a lot of fun and i think 4 days was the perfect amount of time to allow me to escape work for a little and share some time with my family. i didn’t check email or think about work and i completely focused on spending time with lily and mom and having a good time. we ate well, saw the beautiful colorado scenery, tried to prevent ourselves from buying everything from those colorado artists and experience snow! for me, the highlights were taking the cog railway up pike’s peak, experiencing the garden of the gods and visiting the celestial seasonings tea factory.

otherwise, i’m still trucking away at work and wondering if 10-12 hours are worth it. i think i share the experience of many people my age where i’m putting in serious hours, but unlike them (in those kinds of industries), that’s not the case of everyone else i’m working with. luckily leith doesn’t mind continuing to talk through these things at home, as i find myself constantly at points where i’m making career decisions. i’ve got it on the brain i guess.

we spent yesterday thinking about the summer and it’s really a lot. i might attend a conference, there’s a work trip to OC, we have that unbooked prague trip, he’s visiting family in minnesota and of course, keith’s coming. it’s a logistical challenge just to figure it all out and book flights. :)

okay, i’m done with my cereal, so it’s off to changing and work and life. i hope you all are well and happy. my bike to work team is doing well and we pulled back into the lead for our building. go two wheeled wonders!

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at least that’s what it seemed to me like on monday. i drove to work since i had a meeting with them late at night and she cancelled on me earlier in the day, so driving in was a total waste, costing me $4.50 for the parking pass and precious bike points. it’s bike to work month and i’m team captain again. this time, my team name is two wheeled wonders! i’m not raking in the points because if you are a regular bike rider, your points aren’t worth as much, but there’s something about the whole effort that i like either way. going on vacation will affect my numbers and today, since i’m getting dropped off at work - the schedule is different since our department has a fun off-site planned.

i’m pretty impressed that last night i worked until 7pm, came home to make enchiladas and then washed 3 loads of clothes with leith. it’s hard to get those kinds of things done sometimes that late in the day. i have a little more vacation planning to do - maybe an hour? and quite a bit of work to finish today so i keep my sanity on vacation. i’m excited about denver and i’m just going to relax and really enjoy spending the mother’s day weekend with my mom and sister, just shopping and eating to my heart’s content. :)

let’s see, what else happened this week? the job i was working on didn’t pan out as i had hoped, but i still got far in the process and was approached about another job, so i still feel loved either way. our office held their annual cookie contest, and although i didn’t win, i did venture into the difficult work of creating bar cookies and my plate was one of the first 5 to be empty, so i take that as a good sign. we’ve been eating healthy and i made 3 roasted beets with a salad this week and it was just a standout meal. otherwise, i’m just trucking along as normal. my couch has become a little bit of a disaster area, so i need to get that cleaned up before heading out of town. and leith and i might catch a movie if i’m on top of my stuff today. happy mother’s day weekend out there!

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i’m thinking of writing a book on expectations some day. i’ve always found in interviews that it’s been difficult to describe the quality that i bring to my work and i think that’s a big part of it - meeting expectations, setting them, setting them even higher, etc. it’s a quality completely passed down from my mom, who never promised my sister and i anything that she couldn’t deliver. unfortunately, what that means is that the bar for us gets set pretty high and it’s difficult for other people to have that same kind of quality.

switch gears to this morning and i see that i’m going to have one of those weeks. check-in meetings were set every day this week at 8:30am. this is a bummer because although those are my work hours, it’s rare for me to get in exactly on time. i thought we had one on my monday and breakfast was accompanying the meeting, so i purposely skip breakfast and rush in. my mistake - no meeting the first day. today i do much of the same, come in a few minutes late and the meeting is postponed and no breakfast. these type of constant disappointments (although small i realize - over a muffin and a meeting nonetheless!) are the exact reason why my mom raised us to know to depend on no one but ourselves.

i realize i’m extrapolating this from a small thing, but i truly believe that the small things are what tend to make the difference these days. i mean, i am completely annoyed by it.

on a more positive note, yesterday afternoon i saw that kid beyond and michael franti and spearhead were having a concert that day. leith and i impulsively went and although the organization of it and the venue/crowd were pretty lame, i’m so glad we went. MF & spearhead were really amazing live and i felt all of this positive energy after attending.

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life feels like it’s just propelling me forward these days. i’ve been at a lot of decision points and i think it’s a good thing…it’s always nice to have options.

this past weekend leith and i volunteered at habitat for humanity with stanford engineering alumni. it was a lot of fun. we took the train out to redwood city, walked a few blocks to the site and were surprised to see how high it was - i think 4 stories. habitat in texas is a whole different enterprises - or at least it was when i volunteered. you weren’t expecting to jump up on scaffolding (better described as wooden planks laid over thin metal poles) that swayed in the wind and reacted easily to weight. i’m glad there was that element of challenge and although i didn’t jump for the opportunity to work on the roof like leith did, i did work on siding on the third floor. i found out quickly that i’m one of the worst hammerers on earth, but my group was pretty patient with me and i met some truly interesting people. we were out on the site until 4:30 and i must say that my hammering improved some.

i gathered myself together this weekend and finally mustered up the time and energy to start planning a little family vacation for my mom, sister and me. we usually go in the summer, but with my trip to europe this fall (please prices, go down soon so i can buy my ticket!) i was worried we wouldn’t get to go anywhere and threw something together for mother’s day weekend. good timing, huh? so we’re off to colorado for 4 days. i think it’ll be fun and hopefully it’s enough time to explore what we’d like to see. plus, it’ll satisfy my mom and sister’s ever love of riding trains, which we already have tickets for.

my job is still a lot of work and it’s been interesting to get perspective from others unsolicited. last week i was around someone that i very peripherally work with and she told me something like - don’t be insulted by this, but when i first met you, i liked you a lot and i could tell that you were in a job that’s beneath the level of work you’re doing. there are things that i really love about my work, but when i constantly hear this kind of feedback, it really wears on the spirit when i’m already telling myself that on some level. i haven’t worked in a corporate environment, but i wonder if the type of attention focused on retaining top employees is drastically different or if every business struggles with balancing retention and the other work of HR. i want to work in a place where morale is higher, and i’m not just talking about mine.

i took a day away from work yesterday to attend this GTD (getting things done) seminar with david allen and it was pretty good. i wish the focus was more on his presentation and less on fielding the barrage of questions from the audience, but either way, i think it’s always a good thing for busy people to take stock of the way they are working and prioritizing and see what’s working and what’s not. giving ourselves that space is so necessary these days and the big group of people in that room with less than a week’s notice about the training is pretty impressive. i’m definitely trying to look at my things to do a little differently and i felt pretty productive yesterday, even though i only did about 4 hours of actual work. people were really focused on differentiating home and work life balance, etc. and i liked how he mentioned it’s all the same in that you still have to get it done. that is how it is and i experience it as research daughter all the time. planning a vacation is planning a vacation, but there are all of these to-dos associated with making that happen, and it can be just as time consuming and deadline-oriented as work.

we also went to see sandra day o’connor last night. it was impressive to be in the room with her and see the big turnout, but in the church, sound was very difficult to hear - i think i only got about 60% of what was said. plus, she didn’t relay a lot of personal feelings or issues. it was more interesting to see her feisty side come out in the Q&A. today we’re seeing another speaker, so i’ll report on how that goes.

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so it’s been two weeks and i cannot find my watch. i’m completely upset about it because i look at it more than anything else and it’s my seiko watch from my uncle hsien long. i’ve had it for 11 years and somehow i’ve misplaced it after all this time. i believe that i’ve been in denial, so i haven’t made a move yet. i’ve thought about purchasing a cheaper watch in hopes that it will resurface, or maybe i should just go about getting another seiko, which i love. oh well.

a lot has happened and i haven’t written much about it. the STARS assembly is over. my perception is that things went very well, with a few hiccups here and there. for the most part, I think it was a great learning experience for our team and i believe the attendees had a good experience overall. it was long hours and i took the monday off afterwards to recuperate. it let me respond to emails from home and leith and i went hiking at rancho san antonio open space preserve, which was just beautiful. i’ll try and put up a couple of pictures later.

it was a super busy week (leith would say - when is there not one of these for you at work?) and more busy because friday i went to do a site visit for an event in may, so that made my week shorter. i’m glad i went to see the space, because it helped rethink logistics and i fit in a visit with my dad for a couple of days. we went to a movie on the base (for only A DOLLAR - i still can’t get over that), fishing and a korean bbq place. we stayed at a casino since myung’s mom was staying with them, and the temptation of the slot machines was not too terrible, plus i even won some small change on sunday. i’ll have to post a picture of us at dinner later.

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