baking upon arrival

My roommate wanted to bake cookies for a cookie party at her work and enlisted my assistance. Kudos to those who bake from scratch for cookie parties, rather than resort to default pansy maneuvers like buying from store. If you buy from a bakery, that is a step up. I wanted to be adventurous and made these five spice cookies. I really liked them, and I think that was the consensus of those who tasted them too. 

 M selected this peanut butter, chocolate chip number. They were also tasty, but I think our first couple batches could have stayed in the over for a little longer. They were more crumbly than the above variety. We ended up with a lot of cookies.

decked out

New York City is like a tourist trap for much of Manhattan below 59th Street. Due to mild winters, I think it must not deter tourists from approaching in the winter. Oh, the hoards of foot traffic obstacles! I cut my losses this last year I'm here to check out the festivities near Rockefeller Plaza. For this holiday season, there were sleazy Santas, heightened security, extra fences, and photos aplenty.

                       

 

school events

This building is normally closed at night. I figure if I can walk through looking like I know what's going on, no one will be any wiser. These school security guards are pretty on top of the ball. Fundraiser for children somewhere. If you're going to make a pretty walkway, do you really expect no one to walk up?

train track art

Love the colors in this. Waiting for the last express purple line into the loop from Evanston. It's like Siberia out there. But it was completely worth it. Had a grand time with my brother! He's the best.

cheaper in NJ

On the off chance I'm forced to go to New Jersey for a class field trip I can't excuse myself out of. There's a bunch of the buildings downtown that are all connected with bridges starting from the train station. So if you work in one of those buildings, you literally never need to go outside. There's food courts and vendors in there too - so really - never have to sully your shoes with NJ pavement. But we did go outside to visit the City Hall. We stopped at an intersection outside the train station to breathe in the bus exhaust. This is the intersection with the most public transit activity in NJ. And they told us to excuse their messy upkeep, because they were in the middle of filming the next DARK KNIGHT!

seasoned my first wok

super duper smoky! make sure to have excellent ventilation!

somewhere in Brooklyn

I'm doing site visits to record parking habits. I've passed this Pikachu 16 times today. Pika pika.

study time

So many copious notes! I am the queen of smart sounding large worded papers! Haha. Haha. Oh, please. You should know me better than that. 

monkeying around

I understand monkey bread is just about the least healthy thing ever for any living thing. But, my goodness, it's so worth it. And since livingto100 is telling me I'm living to 100, I'll take whatever I can to shorten my number of years taking up space on this fine planet.

brother sushi

 This is what happens when my brother visits. Outside of watching too much tv and rotting our brains, we make sushi. Now I'm not sure if he even likes it that much, but we make sushi quite frequently when both of us are present - like when I come home, and I guess when he visits me. Brothers and sushi just make a nice pairing. Mostly I like making it, so he can eat it. Never underestimate the stomach capacity of a Chinese boy to eat lots of rice. Regardless, we always have leftovers. Sushi is one of those things I haven't quite figured out how much of everything to make so that there are no limiting factors. But I think we overestimated every ingredient in this case. A ended up taking sushi for lunch all week.

My brother is the best. Happy travels!