It’s funny how fast time goes by when you’re busy doing absolutely nothing. My friends and I stayed at my older sister’s apartment in downtown NYC on Thursday night. It was my first time there. Her apartment was huge! Of course my friends and I had to go to Century 21. We conveniently went at 5:00 pm, which is when everyone gets off work in NYC. Century 21 was so crowded. I felt so stressed out in finding something good. We went to the shoe department, and it was crazy there. I couldn’t deal with the people. We then went to the women’s department and I found a couple of cute swimsuits. As my friends and I waited in line at the fitting room, I remembered that the rooms did not have doors and basically you are changing in front of strangers. After debating the pros and cons of trying on these swimsuits, I decided that I did not need anymore swimsuits, and just walked around while my friends tried on their items. We left the store after about an hour of madness. I really don’t see why people say Century 21 is so awesome. I’ve been there twice, and I have yet to purchase anything that isn’t a “steal”. The clothing may be marked down, but usually instead of $150 for a pair of jeans, it’s $60, which is still too much for me.

The whole purpose for my trip to NYC was to see the Counting Crows perform. My friends and I arrived at Rockefeller Center at around 7:15 am on Friday. To our disappointment, there were already plenty of tourists waiting. We couldn’t even see the stage. We were hungry and tired, so we decided to get some breakfast. We came back to Rockefeller Center at 8:30 am, and the Counting Crows began their mini concert. I’ve noticed that whenever I go to concerts, I realize just how short I am. It seems that all the people in front of me are always so tall. My friends and I couldn’t even see any of the members of the band. Near the end of the concert, people started to leave, so I finally saw Adam Duritz and his moppy hair. They sang the song from Shrek 2 and a bunch of older songs. I was excited when they sang, “Big Yellow Taxi”. After the short concert, my friends left for Grace’s house upstate. I decided to go home because I was so tired. To my luck, the F train was having “signal” problems, and therefore it took more time to arrive at 179th Street. By the time I came home, it was already 11:30 am. It took about 2 hours to get home. How lovely it is to live on Long Island.

I finally got to see Shrek 2. I had to drag my little sister to it. She kept saying she didn’t want to see it. It turns out that my entire family absolutely loved it. It was so entertaining. I loved the cat. I don’t want to spoil it for you guys. Let me just remind you that Antonio Banderas is in the movie. His character was so fitting. Just remember that “happiness is only a teardrop away”. Go see the movie if you haven’t yet! I give it two thumbs up.

Lastly, I would like to inform my readers that I was lucky enough to go to Trader Joe’s today. I called to make sure they were opened today, and they were! My parents and I drove to Plainview and I bought all this wonderful food. I bought hummus, pita, soy chips, soy tortilla chips, chicken burritos (no chicken fajitas ), peanut butter, sugar free biscotti, low carb biscotti, flaxseed cereal (my mom), peanut butter filled pretzels, and a ton of other stuff I can’t remember. I love that store. I’ve been trying to convince all my friends to shop there. The oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are really addicting. Good thing I resisted buying a tub of them. Go me! Basically, if you’ve never heard about Trader Joe’s, I feel bad for you. It’s a cheaper Whole Foods specialty store. I bought natural peanut butter for a mere $1.99! I specifically remember that a jar at Whole Foods was about $4.99. Anyway, I just thought I’d update everyone about my boring yet semi-busy weekend. I hope everyone had a good Memorial weekend.

We just got the newest Newsweek yesterday. Today I read the long article about the third Harry Potter movie that’s coming out in June. I had no idea that there was a new director. Gone is Chris Columbus, instead the director of the ever controversial and racy, “Y tu Mamá También“, Alfonso Cuarón, has taken over. Although I was not a fan of his film, I think Cuarón will make the necessary changes to keep the devoted Harry Potter fans devoted and satisfied. It is hard to make a trilogy keep its audience captivated. Look at Star Wars for an instance. After the original three movies, the prequels were disappointments to me. Anyway, I thought the first two Harry Potter movies were highly creative. It was great to see all the creatures and characters that were mentioned in the books to take an actual 3-d shape. I’m hoping this new addition to the Harry Potter series will be less lengthy and more exciting. Most importantly, I hope my younger sister, who is also a Harry Potter fan, will agree to see the movie with me rather than say she’ll wait until it comes out on DVD or on cable.

I still haven’t seen Shrek 2. I must be the only person in the US who wants to see it and hasn’t seen it yet. Is it bad to want to go to the movie theater so I can gorge myself with movie popcorn? Maybe it’s a good thing that I haven’t been to the movie theater in awhile!

Speaking of food, my friends and I are making yet another trip to East Buffet. This time, we will be visiting the one in Flushing. I’ve only been there once for lunch. It offers and even bigger variety of food. I hope they have some mini pork buns (chao shao bao). After we stuff ourselves, I really have no idea what we’ll be doing. My older sister is out of the country, so I asked her if it would be okay if my friends and I crashed at her new apartment for a night. This way, we don’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn to go to the Today show to watch the Counting Crows perform. So that’s where we’ll be staying tomorrow night. I have no idea what we’ll be doing for the rest of the weekend. If I don’t post before Memorial Day, I just want to wish everyone a great Memorial Day. Go to the mall and enjoy the sales! Get your grill and have a bbq

Oh yes, I finished Sushi for Beginners. It was very good. I admit it was a bit slow at the beginning, but the plot became very interesting by the middle of the book. It made me want to work at a women’s magazine like Cosmo or Allure. It would be pretty cool to work in such a high fashion industry. I have moved to my next Marian Keyes book:


Rachel’s Holiday

Well this weekend went by quickly. Being the genius that I am, I was finally able to hook up our new high-tech DVD player to our antiquated TV of 18 years. At first, I had no idea hos to hook up our DVD player with our VCR, cable box, and TV together, but after some extensive research via Google, I had some guidelines in how to hook everything together. I managed to get sound but no picture Thursday night, and I grew very frustrated. My friends kept asking me if I hooked up the wires correctly. I knew I had. On Friday, I realized that I had turned the Progressive Scan switch on, and then I decided to turn it back to the default setting: OFF. Wah la! The DVD player started to work! It was great. When my parents came home at 7 pm, I showed them my victory. I put in “Office Space” and we started to watch it. That movie is so hilarious. I never really appreciated the movie until I interned at an advertising agency last summer. The scene where the characters beat up the fax/copy machine is so funny. There were times when I wanted to kill the copy machine at work. After laughing through the entire movie, my family and I decided to go to Baja Fresh. We got our food amazingly fast.

On Saturday, my mom and I went to Costco to go shopping. I got myself a new Venus Divine. We also bought a ton of food. I’m so happy because before our fridge only had eggs and Polly-O String cheese. We had some yummy turkey burgers and fish for dinner that night. Oh yeah, I must have had a pound of strawberries. Mmmm!! They are very low in sugar, so it’s all good.

Sunday, my family and I went to Flushing. We went to eat dim sum at KB Garden (it has a new name now). We went a little too late, so I didn’t get to eat my baked pork buns. I was disappointed, but that’s life. I love dim sum so much. It’s so exciting to see little Chinese ladies pushing silver carts full of steaming food. My favorites are: xia jiao (shrimp dumplings), xia chang fen (shrimp in these long rice skins), chao shao bao (pork buns), sticky rice, and a bunch of other things. You know you’re at a good dim sum place when all the dishes are nice and hot when they arrive at your table. A sign of a bad dim sum place is when you see little English cards on each cart. I went to a very bad dim sum place in Chinatown, and there were like 3 carts and everything was labeled in English. Also, all the food was cold. I was so disappointed. The point of this paragraph? GO EAT DIM SUM!!

Well, I need to get back to my laundry. Just thought I’d update you with my exciting weekend on Long Island! Oh yeah, the Lovely Bones was a very good and sad book. I highly recommend it to all you chicklit fans. Now I’m reading:

Sushi for Beginners

I love Chicklit!