Ran the resevoir loop today, for the first time. Running in the park is a little depressing, owing to the fact that I basically zip through the largest loop in the park in about 20 minutes on a bike. Still, it was good to chat with Joe while running around in the park, and I might actually make that run part of my exercise routine almostmaybesorta.

So I am having a Very Good Year. I have decided that I am looking for throwaway furniture with friends for the next little while...we found these samples of Silk Trading Co. (ABC Carpet and Home's little fabric outpost) paint and I will be hunting out a few tiny pieces of furniture to sand and repaint into a decent color. Good quality wooden furniture, of course...the kind of stuff that's all dinged up from some UES brat having kicked it throughout their useless lifetime but has a lot of life left as a reupholstered spankin' hot chair (or something or other). It is about high time my apartment became a real home.

Also, I bought a merino-cashmere throw today. Hotttttt.

So upon finishing up my orgo test last Thursday and suffering inhumane sleep deprivation all week prior and all weekend since, I have come to the conclusion that I do not belong in medical school.

The clouds in front of my eyes are slowly breaking down and the more I look and think about the situation, the less justifiable it seems to be to me, personally, to study something so marginally personally rewarding as figuring out what is wrong with a patient. It seems to be a lot of years of expensive schooling. It doesn't just *seem* that, it IS that. Four years at fifty thousand dollars a year to be earning another forty five thousand dollars for the five years after that seems to me to be the worst use of the best and most active years of my life that I can come up with, short of cross-stitching my way across America. Whose moronic idea was it to design a 10 year plan which involved coming out and staying broker than they'd started at the beginning?
It may not at all be about money but seeing that the "changing people's lives" aspect is limited at best, I can't come up with any other reasons which seem attractive as of yet.

So it looks like (and it just looks like this right now....It may look very different tomorrow) I will be joining the workforce after I graduate from good ol' Columbia and putting to use this wonderful degree in BS. I haven't even yet decided where or how I plan to get this "job" but I know that ultimately what I want to do is sit in a cave of books somewhere reading and writing papers. But really this is just a nice way of saying i don't quite know what I want to do, because I haven't found a maximally effective use of my skills and years. What I would really like is an academic reference or two willing to say that the work that I've done at college is really good enough to let me read law in England, but I think I've missed the boat on that aspect - I haven't had a seminar in over a year (fucking Columbia core got in my way as did my Sinai requirements) and probably not a whole lot of professors who remember my brilliant contributions anyway. I don't research and I don't want to research and that is a large-ish obstacle to getting a recommendation, it seems.

A part of me still screams that I should be looking into ski bumming for the rest of my life. I opened up a magazine the other day while I was on rotation and there was this big splashy profile on Whistler and the guys who lived there (guys, because it was a guys magazine). There was a pro downhill biker, a ski patroller/DJ, a bona fide ski bum turned videographer for Matchstick Productions and just a whole bunch of other wholly enviable types who graced the pages of "I want to be a man like that" magazine (I forgot the name of it).

Also, reading K's blog makes me itch a little bit. Maybe I'm too comfortable in where I am right now...I have long since stopped clubbing with any semblance of regularity (throwback to the HS days, where I used to do it incessantly), only sometimes go to parties, haven't thrown one in forever, and, it seems, am perfectly okay with it. Most of the time. Reading about psychotic escapades with champagne and clubs and bars and lounges makes me want to pretend that I am single and run amok in cities more exotic than New York with hot twenty-somethings (who are more than likely willing to exploit my asianness) who are spending off their trust funds. I don't know what to do, whether this is serious or not, whether I actually really think that kind of thing would be "fun" at all, but there are parts of my conscience telling me that it could be, given that this time around I am actually legal while attempting all this. It probably would not be all that much fun given I could not be thoroughly ridiculously drunk doing it.

I also have bills to pay, which sucks.

Three pounds heavier and substantially better nourrished than the week previous, I am officially done another week at Sinai. The gustatory offerings this week were courtesy of various sources (Relatives, Pfizer, Stipend, etc) and it would be a shame not to list them out, considering I haven't had enough of a "break" to truly reflect on what I've eaten. Here we go:

Sunday Night: Balthazar's
No appetizer
'Le Balthazar' - a three tiered behemoth containing cold steamed fruits of the sea of all different sorts
The Balthazar strip steak - It is of note that the steak was bullshit because it was TOUGH. obviously cooked far too 'early' relative to my intended consumption time, it probably sat under the heating lamp becoming a piece of leather. Assholes, proper protocol is to THROW OUT the plate once it has sat under the heating lamps for five minutes. Thomas Keller does, so should you.

Monday Night: Lupa
Prosciutto di Parma Grand Reserva, monster portion - absofuckinglutely deliscious. None of the mishandling during the shipping of it to the US (improper fridge temperatures cause condensation within the meat which a) makes it much tougher than it should be and b) makes it considerably saltier in taste than complex. It was perfect, the best I've had. Ever.
Oxtail and Mixed Greens - I'm sure it had a name but the perfectly cooked paper thin oxtail in a tangy port sauce coupled with some good ol' veggies was very good.
Pork shoulder ragu tagliatelle - Fresh, eggy and not drowned in the appropriately spiced sauce. The mushrooms were nice but not necessary.
Pork Ossobuco - Interesting! It was not covered in the gross brown sauce that most places cover the otherwise crispy, thin, tender filet of meat in (traditionally veal), but it was a very nice variation on a theme. The bok choy on the side that it was served with was a little suspect...
Pork Shoulder - Melt in your mouth fatty goodness which I swear was responsible for at least half a pound of weight gain alone. The sweet yet sharp glazing over the crisp outer which hid the fork-tender threads of meat and fat was original and very interesting. I normally don't like sweet meat, but this was fabulous.

Tuesday Night: A break, mercifully.

Wednesday Afternoon: Hokkaido
Shrimp Tempura bento box - everything was of very high quality given the price (9 bucks or so) and really, it was worth listening to a little schpiel on Aricept for. I would write more about it but it was neither terrible nor particularly memorable, so blah.

Wednesday Night: Churasscaria Tribeca
Every fucking thing in the restaurant - It was a veritable feast and honestly every single thing in the restaurant was of extremely high quality except the Sushi. But i mean who the hell goes to a Brazilian steak house for Sushi? It was Excellent all around and I will be sure to go there with the boy when he comes back in September. This most definitely rivals even the "best" establishments in the city for steak, and dare I say challenges Peter Luger's (though the two are very different, I admit). Definitely worth the money/person, unlike Nobu, the overpriced junkyard a few blocks away.

Thursday Night: Mark's Restaurant (the Mark Hotel)
Mozarella and Tomato Salad - Nothing special, nothing terrible
Lobster and Crab Squid Ink dyed Raviolo - Good, very good even. Fairly satisfying on the whole, nothing I would pay an excess of what we did ($35 prix fixe) for.
Lemongrass Creme Brule - The Creme Brule was neither crispy nor free from graininess though it DID taste like a hint of lemongrass. Mediocre at best.

And now it is Friday and it is the Sabbath. So i did not go out to eat (no, I don't actually observe the Sabbath, but I thought it was a fitting end to an incredible week).

Adventures with the blender, Part 2:

After wetting my feet with smoothies last week (and killing off the rest of the yoghurt this weekend by doing much of the same), I am off to make the pride of French Summer cuisine: Vichyssoise.

I am armed with a billion leeks and the knowledge that Balthazar's and Lupa are in my very very near future (Monday and Tuesday night). I hope the gaggle of restaurant week people don't ruin my dinner.

I am busy, life is good. I leave you all with one nugget of wisdom:

It is time to starve North Korea out of its Kim Jong misery. STARVE THEM. It should be obvious to everybody by now that whatever "aid" is being provided is being squandered by crazy Kim and his short, impotent missiles, attested to by the throngs of North Koreans dying of starvation. No mercy.