Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Ever seen a Grammy Live and In Person!?

What would have normally been a blah Monday, turned into an exciting once in a lifetime opportunity.  But, we must start at "the beginning, the beginning of our story" (two points if you know where that is from?).

Breakfast
The last [ :( ] of our WW chocolate pancakes + coffee

I was sad to see these go Buh-Bye, but it was sooooo delicious, I couldn't just let it sit there and stare at me with all that delicious gooey organic chocolate chips.

WORK WORK E-MAILS E-MAILS E-MAILS . . .and LUNCH
(Can you tell I'm trying to speed through this post!?)

Lunch:

A mini version of my "I Am Spartacus" Dinner.
On this plate:

  1. Tabouli

  2. Hummus

  3. One dill pickle

  4. One grape leaf

  5. Four thin slices of capicola salami

  6. Two slices of Kasseri cheese

  7. One slice of Polish bread
WORK WORK E-MAILS E-MAILS E-MAILS . . .end of the day comes around!

After work, I attended a dinner for Asian/Pacific Islander (A/PIA) Faculty and Staff. This dinner, hosted by the A/PIA American Studies, was to connect A/PIA faculty and Staff together to create a network for students, faculty and staff and discuss future plans for the department and for the group on campus.  

I have to admit, while I am first-generation Filippina American and even though both my parents speak in their native tongue, I:
  1. Have never been to the Phillippines.
  2. Do not speak the language.
  3. Have not been a part of any Filippino association.
In fact, all of my life, I have lived and went to school in a predominately white community.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but as I grew older, I do feel a little disconnected to both my ethnic heritage and to the white population.  Now finding this community at the university, I feel like I can start to learn more about my heritage.  I even found some faculty and staff who are sort of the same situation that I am.  It will be nice to connect with them. 

Dinner:
Dinner was catered by Saigon Garden

My plate:
Rice, beef low mein, a tofu dish, string beans, muenster cheese and fruit.

Not going to lie, I did go back for a second plate, but I stuck to the vegetarian choices. 

For dessert:

 
Imagine a Lychee flavored jello shot (sans alcohol)! 

It was delicious.  I took some home, but Marcin and I devoured it!

So, you are probably wondering about the Grammy . . .well, here it is!

Real, genuine Grammy!

Former director of the A/PIA American Studies program Amy Stillman is a Grammy-Award winning producer.  She produced a Hawaiian Music Album with Tia Carrera and Daniel Ho.  Since Tia and Daniel won for Best Hawaiian Music Album, a Grammy is also given to Amy as the producer.  She was very proud of it and was even letting everyone hold the Grammy!

It was a very good evening of discussion great discussion and good company  I'm very excited to get more involved with the A/PIA community on campus!

On the healthy living font:
There has been a sort of international theme to the foods I've been eating lately.  I'm pretty used to it since I grew mostly eating Filippino food.  I actually had a very hard time when I started going out with friends to American restaurants (Applebee's, TGIF's, etc) and finding a good (cheap) meal on the menu.  To me, American food tasted bland.  I was used to flavorful spices.  I had a little bit more success in the ethnic themed restaraunts (chinese, mexican, etc) because of the flavorful spices incorporated into the food.  Don't get me wrong, I do have my go to's for the American restaraunts, but I will always perfer something of the foriegn nature.

On the fashion front:
Ran late to work so I only have a group picture from the dinner to show what I wore on Monday:

Can you find me?  Probably one of the few times I DO NOT stand out in the picture!  I'm in the salmon colored polo shirt in the front left (next to the Grammy Award winning producer - to my right obviously)

On the active living front:
No run for me on Monday because of the dinner.  Instead, I did laundry and attempted to pack.  However, Marcin was distracting me, so packing was done.  I intend to run tonight after work.  My schedule calls for a 2.5 mile run, so if the weather holds, I will run outside again and do my musical interval run on my 3 mile track. 

5 comments:

TKennedy said...

Have you ever read "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri? It's a wonderful story about a first-generation Indian-America and it discusses a lot of the internal "conflicts" of being caught between two cultures, especially being disconnected from one's native culture. I used to be engaged to an Indian guy and I was very familiar with all of the cultural innuendos, so that probably made it especially exciting for me.

Matt said...

What is your all time favorite asian dish?

Courtney said...

Ha! I didn't know you were Filipino! My step-mother is. Her and my dad never had children though. I know a couple of words in Tagalog (mostly profanity) but it's a lot like Spanish in some ways.

Elina said...

That pancake looks fabulous... and I want some of those lychee candies :)

Just Jay said...

@ Tiffany - Thanks for the book suggestion. There's actually a movie called "The Debut" that portrays being a First Generation filippino trying to balance an American way of life with a traditional parents. I will look into the book though!

@ Matt - My ULTIME favorite asian dish is a filippino soup called Sinigang which is made with either beef or fish.

@Courtney - LOL! I used to know the profanity . . now I know "I love you", water, and eye boogies . .yes we have a phrase for eye boogies

@Elina - I will find out where to get them for you! :)