clean bill of health

today we had a health fair at the office and everyone on the desk went to get certain biometrics checked, as well as flu shots. biometrics taken included total cholesterol, HDL (good cholesterol), LDL (bad cholesterol), triglycerides (fatty acids), glucose (blood sugar), blood pressure, body mass index (weight to height assessment), and body composition (muscle to fat ratio).

i think most of the guys on our desk did pretty poorly (although for the most part, only one of them appears to be obese), and everyone was trying to get information from each other, without giving up their own results. jokes were flying left and right so i decided i'd give it a shot and get my health assessed.

i was a little nervous at first because we had a desk lunch print of expensive greasy chinese food from shunlee and i had topped it off with a few kitkat bars for dessert. miraculously, my glucose level was still in the optimal range. in fact, i cleared every single category in either the "optimal" or "off-the-charts optimal" range, and my analyst and i were the only ones on the desk to qualify as "athlete" range for the body composition.

i wonder how the results compare with previous years ... i'll have to dig around to see if i can find my 2013 results. the only assessment i didn't get a chance to do was the bone density, which would actually be interesting since women are at a higher risk for osteoporosis. but given the fact that 90% of bone density in females is amassed by the age of 20, it's probably too late to do anything about it now anyways :p

we had a quiet night which consisted of 7.5 miles of fartleks down my new favorite route along kent down to the brooklyn bridge park and a lasagna dinner at the apartment accompanied by a few episodes of 30 rock. i love tina fey and alex baldwin is pretty funny too!

7.5 miles of fartleks

best: leftover lasagna + broccoli + 30 rock after a long day/run. our lasagna is actually pretty healthy! aside from the cheese, it's tomatoes, carrots, celery, grass-fed beef, and noodles. and it totally hits the spot ...

worst: lost my pebble+ step counter so the walkertracker office challenge is officially over for me. bummer. at least i can stop annoying kevin and all my friends with all the crazy talk ha!

smile: a duane reade pharmacist served me with a smile today :) yep that made my day!

game over

boo ... i lost my pebble+ tracker walker today on the way to work (probably on the L-train since we were crammed in there like sardines), so i guess it's game over :( bummer. it was fun (and highly competitive ha!) while it lasted!

here are my last active snapshots:

daily steps from sep15-oct15

office challenge chart, oct 15

tech eggs

facebook and apple will cover up to $20k in egg freezing expenses? i think it's great to offer women this option, although the way it's been publicized is a little too glib for my taste. and for people that have been bashing the new option that facebook and apple female employees will have, i think you're going a little too far as well.

it's great and i applaud these tech companies to be amongst the first that i've heard at this point to offer this benefit for is existing female employees and to attract future talent. i think the announcement does need to be taken with a gain of salt, however, as there are risks for pregnancies at a later age. it's definitely a step in the right direction though!

here's an interesting nytimes view on it and the comments section is especially interesting: http://nyti.ms/1DaC0Nl

with that said, wednesday was otherwise not too eventful. after work drinks at parker & quinn for my analyst, peter, who is heading back to the bahamas to work for his father's fund, and dinner at extra fancy, a cute looking restaurant which fancies itself on its raw bar and cocktails. while the restaurant interior was very nicely done - dimly lit for ambiance, lots of people and music for a positive vibe, great looking bar and seaside-shack feeling decor overall, i thought the food was just average.

we ordered a dozen east and west coast oysters, which were tasty, but nothing compared to maison premiere, as well as the cornbread, ipswich clam slider, portuguese kale soup, and grilled shrimp & mussell perlou, with a glass of white wine. the soup was probably the tastiest part - the perlou looked delicious and contained potentially delicious ingredients (shrimp, mussels, sausage, fried egg, rice), but to be honest it was just satisfactory. the slider was tasty (on a hawaiian roll with pickles yum!), but the clam was fried so it could have been a french fries in between the buns and i wouldn't have known the difference. overall extra fancy seems like a fun place if you've got a rowdy group of friends, but for a tasty dinner for two, we probably won't be going back.

after dinner, got sorely caught in a deluge of rain and after five minutes of scrambling in the downpour, high-maintenance me requested a taxi to get back to the apartment. yes, we cabbed within williamsburg - i know it sounds silly, but i was SO tired.

west and east coast oysters, geographically placed

grilled shrimp and mussell perlou

best: is there anything good about muggy warm days in the middle of fall? jk. i'll try to turn something negative into something positive. had a surprisingly fun time getting drinks with the team!

worst: random muggy warm days in the middle of the fall! what's going on today? it's 70-73F and 85% humidity. walk outside and you'll automatically need a shower. definitely going to put a damper (haha no pun intended) on the walkertracker challenge :D

smile: heard that a close male friend has been in a relationship for a couple months now! :) i can't say who it is right now, but i am very glad to hear it. and looking forward to meeting her in the near future!

shack track & field

this evening we attended our first shack track & field group run! it's a group run on the second tues of each month which meets at the battery park city shake shack. they've partnered with jack rabbit as well so there were some legacy jackrabbit runners as well as a JR liaison there. 

it was my brilliant idea to bike down from the office, but it really wasn't that pleasant, even with the bike lane going all the way down ninth ave. i think we were actually taunted by a non-citibike cyclist on a fixie blasting music from the boombox over his shoulder - what the heck! i always thought we cyclists needed to stick together, so much for cycling camaraderie. also there was a decent amount of horse dung on the bikelane (thanks, nypd) and a lot of left-turn only signals for cars going down ninth ave. with that said, i'm not sure the west side highway would be much more pleasant!

after 45 minutes of trekking downtown through the commuter cyclists, delivery guys, and car traffic, we made it down to tribeca. unbeknownst to us, the director of shake shack operations in the nyc-philly-dc area who started the shack track & field program in 2013, allan ng, came up from dc to join us for the run! kevin and i got a chance to chat with him and learned that the dc-metro area shack t&f runs usually consisted of +200 people, and they would do relays from the different shake shack locations and meet at one at the end of the run for high-fives and drinks. so cool!

it was a warm and muggy evening for a run (70F, 73% humidity), but a gorgeous night with fun company. we also got some advice about the 110th to 90th st portion of the nyc marathon, so we may have to go practice up there soon.

at the end of the five miles, shack track & field had a nice refreshment table set up with jugs of water and beer. and we even had our own separate line (NO LINE!!!!) for ordering! below are some of the highlights from the evening:

shack t&f runners don't do lines :p

monster dinner after a light run :p

best: browsing for cards at papyrus with daisy! i love stationary and i can  spend hours just taking in all the pretty designs, materials, and trinkets in stationary stores.

worst: i got seven bug bites while chomping on the shake shack - sitting outdoors. if you're friends with me, you don't ever need to buy mosquito repellent again!

smile: the other top contender in the office walkertracker challenge, michael freel, called me at my desk yesterday! i had given him "points", which are a way for employees to give positive reinforcement to each other through the challenge, and he had tried to give some back to me, but couldn't figure out how to do it. he left me with a few startling words: "it's not over yet ..." dang! i guess this means he's bringing up the heat!

architecture and oysters!

saturday was rainy and cold in the morning, just like last weekend! i'm not a fan of too many rainy weekends ... it makes getting around the city totally not fun - difficult to walk and impossible to bike, so everyone's just crammed with their wet jackets and umbrellas into subways. bleghh.

we started off this past saturday just as lazily as last. kevin went out to get coffee while i putzed around the apt :D then when i finally made peace with the fact that the rain was not ending anytime soon and we wouldn't be able to get a morning run in, i put on my size XS compression tights (oooh they feel great on sore calf muscles) and endive-colored raincoat and we headed to soho for the dwell on design exhibit at 82 mercer!

although the exhibits were not as compelling as i'd hoped, the talk we attended was very interesting: "preservation nation". three leading nyc architects (sherida paulsen of pksb, morris adjmi, and alex gil of spacecutter) discuss the challenges and their experiences in converting historic landmark buildings to modern structures. many of the buildings presented were ones we've seen in the city so we felt closer to the subject. in the end, it seemed like while the architects would often run into difficulties and obstacles with preserving the historic landmark buildings, they welcomed the challenge to design spaces given certain requirements.

i thought for a few minutes (somewhat seriously) - what would life have been like if i had pursued a degree in architecture?

then after some window shopping in soho and a quick lunch in chinatown, we stopped by the chelsea apartment to check on the remodel. the island countertop has been cut and set, the hood partly installed (yay, it's going to be an external blower - no more internal circulation), and the radiators installed. looking forward to the next two weeks when we will hopefully see the rest of the counters, medicine cabinets, bathroom fixtures, and lights installed, as well as floor finished and sealed. here are a couple photos:

our stove with a hood w/external blower - my nyc dream :)

simple radiators!

after running a few errands at home depot (roller shade materials and colors selected!) and around union square, we headed back to williamsburg for an afternoon of 30 rock. love tina fey! :)

in the evening, we had a last minute gathering of friends for dinner at maison premiere! and the biggest shocker of all ... they all came sans kids! (thus all arriving 15-20 minutes early). we were seated at two petite tables in the garden which is really magical feeling! dimly lit, strung with small lights, and under a tent, the garden would be totally perfect for a bridal or baby shower of some sort. definitely keeping that place in mind for future gf's bridal showers :D 

the oyster menu was very extensive, with over 30 types of oysters available from all up and down the east and west coast! we tried 8 oysters each, choosing mostly ones from new brunswick, nova scotia, washington, and british columbia. though i have always been a bigger fan of west coast oysters like kumamotos, i was surprised that i love love love the east coast ones at MP!!!!! we also ordered the warm olives, sea scallops chilled on ice, mussels, and butternut squash soup. ALL excellent ... for dessert, the cheesecake made with creme fraiche, and topped with marcona almonds and hot chocolate ganache is not to be missed!!!

we will definitely be going back! i think we all felt it was a pretty darn magical and relaxing evening ...

best thing: spotting the most beautiful wooden table at a store in soho, and kevin pointing it out that he loved it as well! :) i love it that we have such similar taste in home furnishings.

worst thing: my girlfriend, elyse, was feeling sick today so she wasn't able to make it out for smorgasburg or dinner with us in williamsburg. she has a lot on her plate right now with a busy job, a 2 yr old child, an entrepreneur husband who has been traveling internationally for work for the last few weeks, and a big move coming up. oh, and she's 8 months pregnant! my thoughts are with her and hope she's feeling better soon.

smile: on the L-train back to williamsburg, while i was totally engrossed in the lately crate and barrel fall catalog, a young woman sitting across from me on the train started talking to me! she was intrigued by what the black thing on my shoe was ... hahaha ... i was a little surprised at first that someone would randomly interrupt me with such a random question, but i guess she really wanted to know. lol. i explained to her the pebble+ step counter and my office challenge.

game on!

so i did a little simple math and backed-out how many steps i'll need to walk/day, taking into account long and short runs, and our taper before the marathon. GAME ON !!!! i will not be beat by a +200lb +55yr old guy when i am training for a marathon! no more trains or uber - everything is by foot or bike until oct 31.

bummer that the challenge ends two days before the 26.2 big ones ..

my excel back of the envelope estimates

charter vs public

my introduction to charter schools was the launch of the central queens academy (CQA) charter school, a tuition-free public charter middle school which started in the fall of 2012. one of my friends from college, grace, is on the board of trustees and has been intimately involved since the birth of its idea, while my involvement has been limited in the form of donations.

from my point of view, any education system which offers opportunities and challenges students, and whose students' positive performance and upward growth can be measured, is a school worth having. especially if funding comes from those with deep pockets!

however, for reasons i'm still trying to understand, mayor deblasio is a strong adversary against eva moskowtiz's success academies, which from everything i've read, have produced consistent top scoring students on state and local standardized exams. while these exams are not the only measure of a student's success, it's a good start. it would also be interesting to see what percent of these students continue on to study in a 4-year university, seek graduate degrees, and where they ultimately land upon graduation.

some of the controversy i've read about the success academies (not confirmed) are that they screen out severely-disabled and english-language learning students; utilize a funneling technique in which less competitive students are "counseled" or "weeded" out before graduation; employ non-unionized faculty.

it seems like i still need more facts and figures about these screening processes and techniques to understand the success academy's student demographics and profile and come to a more clear conclusion. with regards to employing non-unionized faculty, that's a whole different issue which i have very little understanding of, but will try to read up on.

ny magazine writes: "moskowitz’s network hires non-union teachers, who are paid well but can be fired for non-performance and provide their students with extended learning time." employees who are paid well based on performance and who provided their students with additional learning time sound like a pretty good system to me. isn't that an issue today with teachers at public schools? no checks in place and not enough good teachers?

there was one extremely strange fact that i read a couple months ago which confused me about the success academies, and i more recently read in the nation: "of the thirty-two eighth graders to finish at success academy, twenty-seven took the competitive exam to enter one of new york city’s prestigious specialized high schools. despite their excellent scores on the state test, not one of these students gained admission to a specialized school like stuyvesant or bronx science." 

how can this be and what does this say about the students? are they groomed simply to excel on the state standardized exams? so this leads me to wonder - are charter schools models for public schools? or maybe they are just different with their own sets of issues, but can serve as a form of competition for public schools. a little healthy competition, in my book, never hurts.

i'm sure i'll broach on this subject again when more interesting articles or related events arise.

here are some of the articles related to the subject which i've found interesting:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/why-do-teacher-unions-hate-eva-moskowitz.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/the-battle-for-new-york-schools-eva-moskowitz-vs-mayor-bill-de-blasio.html

http://www.thenation.com/article/181752/secret-eva-moskowitzs-success

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/nyregion/mayor-agrees-to-accommodate-4-larger-or-new-charter-schools.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/03/nyregion/thousands-of-charter-school-students-and-parents-rally-in-lower-manhattan.html

http://online.wsj.com/articles/higher-rent-for-success-charters-1412643454


anyways, wasn't feeling that great today so i treated myself. three times. :) here are a couple photos of my treats, including the delicious yakimochi i wrote about a few entries ago. yakimochi is one of my favorite snacks so it's likely this will not be the last time it's mentioned.

yakimochi from cafe zaiya
(sweet red bean paste wrapped in a savory grilled sesame mochi)

cheese bread and brownie from maison kayser
(cheese bread is probably not the bread's marketed name)

best thing: lunch time walk and catching up with my girlfriend, daisy, who has been on the go for the last couple months! she was traipsing through france for a week in september and along the west coast and in hawaii last week (yes!! amazing!!) she seems to be in a great place these days and i can't help but feel excited for her recent travels and all the great things happening for her lately. large spicy meatballs at diginn doesn't hurt either :p

worst thing: i guess the worst thing was walking down from the office to union square yesterday, and only totaling 7,832 steps (4.8 miles). im back in fourth place in the walkertracker challenge! these guys are insane - first place walked 19,216 steps, second place walked 15,012 steps, and third place walked 17,092 steps yest. are these guys all training for an ultramarathon or something? i commute from brooklyn and i can't even get that type of mileage in. my guess is that they must wear shoes in the house and count all those steps :p i would do the same, except my pebble doesn't count steps when im not wearing shoes. need to ramp up my game ... 3.5 weeks to go!

smile: while i was waiting for my girlfriend to buy lunch at the corner of 40th and sixth ave, an italian tourist and her teenager son came up to me waving a piece of paper her hands - "can you tell me where d'napoli's is (pointing to the name of the restaurant on the paper)? we have been walking up and down this avenue and people keep telling us to go in different directions!" she seemed so frustrated! since i had my iphone out, i looked it up and directed them - they were just three blocks south of the restaurant. her son also had a smart phone out so i took a look wondering why they had trouble finding the restaurant with a GPS phone in hand. it turns out the GPS wasn't very accurate and it was showing them one block off from where they actually were standing. that is pretty frustrating ... :/ anyways they seemed to understand my instructions so i hope they found their way!

first place (for a couple hours)

guess what ???

after our half marathon at the park this morning, i came back to the apartment and logged in 34,140 steps, skyrocketing me from 4th place into 1st place in my office walking challenge! *GRIN* of course, this was only temporary as MFreel had not yet logged in any steps for the day yet. after dinner, i checked and im back down to 2nd. but it's alright - at least i'm improving and getting closer! :D

first on the leaderboard (for a couple hours)!

so back to the meat of our day, today was another long run day and we were slated to get 18 miles in. since we had a race at central park, we decided to run up to the park to supplement the 13.1 mile race. the weather was great - 46F and 58% humidity at 7:30am. it was a bit nippy actually, but we got warmed up after a couple miles and kevin pushed the pace on the way up, averaging 8:05-8:15 minute mile pace.

grete's great gallop half marathon was a great course - two full clockwise loops around the park and one partial bottom loop. we ran it as a training run, so were not pushing the pace to set records, and finished around 1:48.

best of all, after the race we got to see some familiar faces as our friends jordan, forest, ed, and ed's kids were at the finish line! forest and a friend of theirs, daniel, were also running the race. forest finished in 1:27 ... pretty insanely GOOD. and this is after coming off a 4-6 month hiatus from a hairline fracture in his shin. i haven't seen jordan in a while since she left nomura in may and has been traveling the world since. it was also really nice to see ed and meet his kids, samantha and matthew (who are ridiculously sweet and adorable!), especially since ed (we call him "coach" around the apt) has been grooming me for the upcoming 26.2. we all have the running bug lately!

nyrr grete's great gallop 13.1 runners

my good friend, jordan, and matthew and samantha

and last but not least, here is a photo of Grandma's Lasagna that we made last night - we gobbled down four slices for lunch. it was pretty darn tasty, and relatively healthy ~ full of tomatoes, carrots, celery, onions, beef, ricotta, and mozzarella. we made a large batch so will freeze some for later this week!

Grandma's Lasagna

best thing: seeing my friends after the race! jordan and i used to work on the same team and i didn't realize how much i've missed her until i saw her today! it was difficult when we were separated after our team's restructuring in september 2012, but since she left nomura altogether this summer, it's been difficult pinning her down. looking forward to a good catch up session soon :)

worst thing: unreliable trains :/ the L train was halted at bedford ave after some rail issues at sixth ave. we had rushed out of the apt after lunch to get into the city to check out an open house in our new building, but just ended up spending 15 minutes sitting on a halted train. since the conductor had no idea how long the repair would take, we just decided to go home. this is the third time in over a week that we've been delayed/affected by train issues on the L.

smiles: during the race, we were running around the same pace as an achilles volunteer guide and an achilles runner (legally blind), joined by holding a 12-14" rubber rope. about halfway thru the race, a third achilles volunteer guide joined them and took the place of the volunteer guide in leading the runner. we finished altogether. it's amazing to see the product of mutual respect, commitment, and teamwork. and to top it all off, the volunteer guides were a man and a woman no younger than 65 years of age. inspirational! i hope we can give back to the community like that one day, sooner rather than later.

rainy monthiversary

today was the rainiest day i can remember in a long time. it rained at least from 6:30am (the time i awake and started reading various news source apps on my iphone as not to wake kevin) until 2pm. and it made me feel very sleepy and lazy all day!

a grey velvet blanketed the city and a cool mist enveloped us on our morning stroll through the new neighborhood. kevin grabbed a coffee from black brick coffee, just around the corner, which was pretty tasty. the pastries looked nice as well, although i held back in anticipation of the giant complimentary brunch we were going to have at the boathouse. the ceiling was lined with wooden crates, which went well with the rest of the reclaimed wood decor. overall, a dark chill spot to hang out.

then we spotted the dingy laundromat next door, most likely where we'll be spending our sunday afternoon. we also spotted the upbeat north brooklyn runners heading down kent ave in the light rain, and took a short walk along the promenade. it didn't feel like brooklyn anymore over there. it felt like ... battery park city? fancy new construction floor to ceiling glass paned massive apartment complexes with kids' playrooms on the first levels.

the rain got very hard so we hurried back to the apartment and watched a couple episodes of 30 rock, putting aside our original plans to stop by an 8:30am rope jumping class on 14th st and a light swim at the pool. we were being ... SPONTANEOUS!! muahaha

finally headed into the city for our one year monthiversary brunch at the boathouse before noon. we had the butter lettuce salad, crabcake (DELISH), fried eggs and sausage, quiche lorraine, and salty caramel chocolate peanut butter dessert with caramel popcorn ice cream. and they topped us off with champagne! the food was very tasty and the service was impeccable.

here is a photo of our dessert - yes it was as good as it looks:

salty caramel chocolate peanut butter tart
with caramel popcorn ice cream

in the evening, we made a delicious looking lasagna. i wrote delicious "looking" because it actually took so long to prepare that we decided to eat something else tonight, but prepare the lasagna for tomorrow night. i will snap a pic tomorrow when we taste it and update. 

sorry for all the rambling tonight. right now i am extremely sleeepy ...

best thing: early morning walks in the rain.

worst thing: wholefoods union square has a bad habit of mis-charging for particular items and double charging for others. i can count on two hands the number of mistakes i've found on my receipt due to errors at the cash register. tonight they charged me twice for my $8.99 package of pre-cut pineapple. the bright side is that their customer service is helpful and willing to reverse the charge upon notification. note to self: always keep an eye at the register and review receipts!

smile: our waiter at the boathouse was quite the comedian. he welcome us to the restaurant and proceeded with, "my mother-in-law works in the kitchen. very ugly woman. very nasty woman. but makes wonderful food. what can i get for you?"

ps. im third on the walking challenge leaderboard (barely). hopefully tomorrow i can secure my third place with some solid steps during our run+race. we are aiming for 18 miles (which could be around 35-40k steps).

pps. tomorrow we will be running grete's gallop 13.1 race at central park! it's actually the same race that took place on our wedding day last year :)

20-miler complete!

kevin and i have been training for the ny marathon since july, though we were only doing 5-10 miles/wk in july and upping it to 10-30 miles/wk in august. overall, the workouts haven't been as consistent as either of us would have hoped, but i think we may finally be getting into the groove of things, especially with his princeton ironman 70.3 out of the way now (completed on sep 21st)! we have been logging about 15-30 miles/wk in sep, though i think ideally i'd like to bring it up to 35-40 miles/wk, with swimming and plyometrics as XT on the off days. what do i really know though ... but i do feel guilty on the mornings that we sleep in and don't get a workout in.

anyways, today was our longest run to date - 20 miles! starting at 5:45am, we ran from 14th street up the west side highway to the start of our nyrr bronx 10-mile race at 168th street by yankee stadium. who is crazy enough to suggest running at 5am as to beat the sunrise? ME. who is the sweetest, most caring and considerate husband in the world to appease my insane request? kevin, hands down.

the first ten were basically in the dark, so absolutely divine for sun-allergic me, also quite peaceful. the latter ten were a bit too sunny, but it was great to be running amongst 10,000 fellow runners and the crowds were cheering us on! there was also a "fun" hill on 155th st coming off the WSH. we took it nice and easy, but i wouldn't mind going back and owning it. repeatedly.

our awesome 20-miler today!

with just three more weeks left for long runs (oct 5, 12, 19) before we're supposed to taper (oct 26), hopefully we can get some nice weekday tempo runs in and nice long weekend runs as well. we may try to check out the north brooklyn runners at mccarren park as well!

and finally, our dinner tonight! spaghetti with homemade bolognese sauce, parmesan reggiano, and maison kaiser cheese bread. soooo delish and pretty easy to make so we made a big batch which we'll be able to save for a couple dinners later this week.

tomorrow morning will be our first day of commuting from williamsburg to work in the city! hope the trains aren't too crazy ... 

best thing that happened to me today: not hurting my knee or ankle on our long run! YAY

worst thing that happened to me today: in the company of a girl that i was once friends with, but had a falling-out with a couple years ago. we have some mutual friends so we do bump into each other from time to time. i personally want to just forget about what happened, but her de-friending me from FB leads me to believe she feels otherwise. lol. it just feels like unnecessary drama!

someone who made me smile: kaira, my friends' susan & hode's baby girl who turned 1-year old on friday, in her gold polka-dotted shirt and bright pink tulle skit and matching bright pink hair piece which mom also handmade and sported herself! kaira also started walking on her own on thursday, the day before her birthday - happy birthday, lovely girl! i can't wait to watch you grow up :)

ps. i logged in 43k steps on the walkertracker, which put me in 3rd place overall with 207k steps. first place is coming in at 232k steps, so even more reason to get those morning runs in and catch him!

welcome!

welcome to the first post of my blog. i've always enjoyed journaling and have told myself countless times that i want to jot down some of my thoughts in hopes of preservation or possibly even passing down some of the interesting stories and ideas i've stumbled upon. so here it is!

another motivation for this blog was a walkertracker challenge that my company recently introduced in which employees wear a pebble+ (a small device which tracks the number of steps taken) and include a short entry with submit a photo for each day. i've enjoyed this exercise immensely so i wanted to try to incorporate that journaling here along with any interesting articles, videos, or talks i've come across.

today in nytimes fashion & style section, there's a great article about amy cuddy's tedtalk from 2012. she talks about how non-verbal body language shapes those around us and ourselves, and the importance of "powerposing". i think most of us could benefit from a bit of powerposing (myself included).

best thing that happened to me today: realizing how great working in the city with my teammates and plethora of delicious lunch options is

worst thing that happened to me today: caught in 50F rainy weather with my pink birks! eek cold!

someone who made me smile: shahid, our desktop support guy, who is somewhat eccentric, but very kind and always has a smile on his face. he told me a story about how his wife scolded her son for getting a B on his exam. "B is for bad" she said. and when he told her to go easy on him, she said "if i go easy on him now, he'll come back with a C+ next time." i love the unwavering immigrant mother values.