Hello from Mongolia!

Here I will once again try my hand at the art of blogging. Each summer I attempt to blog, with different levels of success. Let's hope this time I manage to post more often than twice.

So, hello from Mongolia! Mongolia is basically everything and nothing like what I imagined it to be.

I arrived in Mongolia on Thursday, May 31st, just twelve days after graduation. Of those twelve days I spent 4 in LA/Santa Monica, 5 in Seattle, 1 in Vancouver, and 1 in Beijing. Needless to say, by the time I arrived in Mongolia I was burnt out, exhausted, and horribly jet lagged. I also failed to pack anything useful, such as socks. The Chinggis Khan International Airport is the smallest intl airport I have ever been to. Apparently they're building a new airport, which all I can say to that is: about time, considering how much traffic UB has gotten and will continue to get as its economy and mining industry continue to boom.

My host mom picked me up from the airport and took me into UB to the family's city home. We had a nice lunch of traditional Mongolian dumplings, and I got to meet my host dad, 14-year-old sister, and 7-year-old brother. My host family is incredibly wonderful and gracious and good to me. I really could not be happier. After lunch we packed our things and drove about 25km north of UB to the family's summer home in the countryside. Having a summer home is a pretty common thing here in Mongolia, as families do not like spending more time than necessary in UB. This is understandable--UB is among the most polluted cities in the world. I am spoiled rotten here. My living conditions are modern and pristine, my host family feeds me epic amounts of food (meat meat and... more meat!), and the Mongolian countryside is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

I am here with six volunteers--3 hailing from Georgetown, one from Stanford, one from Brown, and one starting his MBA at UCLA in the fall. They're an awesome, flexible, and easy-going bunch. I really could not have asked for better volunteers. Four are teaching at a private, not-for-profit school in UB, and two are south of UB in Zuunmod. I hope I am speaking for everyone when I say that even though we have only been here 1.5 weeks and there have been many ups and downs, it has been an extremely rewarding experience. I can definitely see this program expanding to many more volunteers in the future. Mongolians love to learn English!

My days pass by quietly and peacefully. During the week I commute into UB with my host family to the Sant School, where four volunteers are teaching. While I don't teach, I have plenty to keep me busy--running LE being my biggest time sucker (what else is new?). After school I usually have lunch with my host mom and sister, and then we go back to our summer home for a restful, quiet evening. On the weekends we go to the family's farm, deep in the Mongolian countryside where it becomes clear why Mongolia is the least densely populated country in the world. It is majestic and beautiful and wonderful there, and the views just take your breath away. It sounds cheesy but it is so true.

I am enjoying myself far more than I expected to here. Throughout the day I have so many hours to unwind, relax, and lose myself in natural, untouched beauty. Being out here really reminds me of how distracting being in a city like DC or a school like Georgetown is. For four years, I constantly felt like I was sprinting a marathon, always on the look out for the next big thing, always working hard to be the best. While it was productive and I do feel like I accomplished a lot in my time at Gtown, I can't say that I hope to return to that lifestyle anytime soon. There is just something so serene and beautiful about my quiet life here. I'm surprised that someone as Type A as I am can really enjoy it. But I am. I feel like my soul is being healed, my heart filled, and my spirit rejuvenated.

If you ever get the chance, do not pass up the chance to come to Mongolia. It is worth it.

Cilantro-Lime Chicken with Savory Brown Rice

Cilantro-Lime Chicken
Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 chicken breasts, 1in cubes
• 1/4 cup of Cilantro-Lime Dressing  

Directions:

1. Marinate chicken in cilantro-lime dressing for at least 1 hour but for no more than 4 hours.
2. Heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute until golden.
3. Add the chicken, cook on each side for 2-3 minutes until golden-brown and the insides are cooked.

Makes 2 servings

Savory Brown Rice
Ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3/4 cup uncooked brown rice
• 1 3/4 cups low sodium, low fat vegetable broth (can substitute for water)
•  2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• (optional) 1 teaspoon garlic salt

Directions:

1. Heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute until golden. Add the uncooked rice and saute for 2 minutes.
2. Add the vegetable broth, bring to a boil, cover and lower the heat and cook for 30 minutes. Add the spices. 

Makes 6 servings

Enjoy! 

Wonder Diet

My diet has recently undergone a bit of a makeover. Earlier this summer I posted about having some GI issues; now, I'm officially gluten, sugar, and dairy-free, which makes eating somewhat difficult. However, I've learned to get by (with a lot of adjusting and a couple of bad indigestion days...) and I figured I'd share some of my recipes here on this blog, for anyone interested in making some healthy yet also yummy choices as far as the food they consume goes!

One of my all-time favorite salads as Sweetgreen's Guacamole Green salad. However, not only is the price tag a bit hefty, I also don't know what goes in to the chicken or dressing, so this afternoon I thought I'd be a bit crafty and make my own at home.

Verdict: homemade meals > mass produced food, no matter how "local" Sweetgreen claims to be.

Read on to see how you make my version of Sweetgreen's Guacamole Greens! I encourage everyone to try to buy organic and local, whenever possible. Food definitely tastes better!

Cilantro-Lime Dressing (modified version of this recipe)
Ingredients:

* 2 medium jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
* 2 cloves garlic
* 3/4 teaspoon minced fresh ginger root
* 1/2 cup lime juice
* 1/4 cup honey
* 4 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
* 1/2 teaspoon seal salt, or to taste
* 1/2 cup packed cilantro leaves
* 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

(Directions taken from the above recipe)

"Place the jalapeno pepper, garlic clove, and ginger into a food processor or blender; pulse until the jalapeno and garlic are finely chopped. Pour in the lime juice, honey, balsamic vinegar, and salt, add the cilantro leaves; pulse a few times to blend. Turn the food processor or blender on, and slowly drizzle in the olive oil until incorporated into the dressing. Season to taste with salt before serving."

I would suggest adding less of all ingredients and then adapting quantities to taste. Personally I found that 1/3 cup of honey was much too sweet for my tastes, and I also like my dressing to be extra tangy, so I added much more lime juice.
Makes 6 servings

Spring Mix Salad
Ingredients:

* 2 cups mesclun salad
* 1/4 cup grape tomatoes, halved
* 1/4 red onion, diced
* 1 avocado
* 1/2 cup gluten-free tortilla chips, lightly crushed
* (optional) 1/2 cup roasted chicken breast, cubed
* (optional) 1/2 lime

Mix all ingredients together.
Makes 2 servings

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Try making it at home and let me know how it goes! I promise it's actually scrumptious, and not at all healthy-tasting. This is coming from the girl who would choose a Five Guys burger over pretty much anything, at any occasion. I've never been a healthy, "granola" American, but I'm slowly learning that you don't always have to sacrifice taste for health!

There's always room for more nerdy posts!

I'm taking a break from my serious biz real life musings to make a post consisting entirely of GIFS to express how I feel about "A Dance with Dragons," as well as having to wait what will probably amount to another ten years for the next GRRM book. I finished the book a couple weeks ago, but wanted to wait until I had my emotions fully under control before making this post.
NOTE: my emotions are totally, fully under control. It's not like I have incredibly vivid ASoIaF-inspired dreams every night, and wake up crying. Not at all.

***needless to say, this post will contain spoilers for the entire ASoIaF series***

Recently I came across this interview with EW:
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So why did you kill Jon Snow?
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN: Oh, you think he’s dead, do you?

GRRM is the biggest troll on the internets.
Thank god I don't live near Santa Fe, or he'd be getting one of these.

I can't EVEN. Like I can't even talk about this. LALALALA Jon is not dead whatever I don't care what you think or the evidence against me. I DON'T CARE. I'm totally apathetic.

 Basically as apathetic as I was about this one dying.

........

..........

Oh you freakishly beautiful man. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

 

.......Okay maybe I'm not totally apathetic.
BRB while I burn all of my books in my grief.
(So you know how I originally said this post was going to be about how I feel about ADwD? I lied. It's about a beautiful man named Jon Snow.)

that awkward moment when you realize you weren't meant to be an economist, after all

I probably spent the last three years in college studying the wrong thing.

You don't know how hard it was for me to type that.

I've always been the model Asian child--academically, at least. I did well in elementary school, middle school, high school. I rocked the SATS. I got into my first choice school. I did well in college. Obediently, I bought GRE books and even signed up for a test date: Friday, September 23rd.

But now I'm kind of thinking. Wait a second. Why am I taking the GRE? Where am I going to apply for grad school? What kind of programs am I interested in? Do I want to study more? If so, what am I going to study?

Economics??

Oh boy. Economics. Everyone I know makes fun of me for being an econ nerd. Not because I am an econ nerd (I'm not. Not at all. I don't even have a favorite obscure microeconomic theory). But because everyone at Georgetown who isn't an econ major hates it with a fiery passion,  people in the SFS who choose to be International Political Economy majors are deemed as insane masochists.

They might not be too far off the mark concerning the last part, at least when it comes to me.

I came into college wishing, like the majority of SFS kids, for my 2 years of mandatory econ classes to be behind me. My worst grade in college was in macroeconomics. Yet, somehow, during that important season of my sophomore year when it became time to choose my major, I realized that the only classes that challenged me were my econ classes, so instead of taking the sane way out (majored in something that came much more easily, such as IPOL or RCST), I signed myself up for the most difficult thing I could: IPEC.

I would be lying if I said I haven't regretted it since. I've regretted it a lot. I regretted it through every PECO-201 lecture, with every page I turned in my econometrics textbook. I regret it each time I look at my transcript and my eyes zero in on my GPA. I regret it every time I see/hear/smell/taste the words: GRETL or STATA.

There are things, of course, that I don't regret. My awesome relationship with Dean Kaneda, hands down the best professor I've had at Georgetown. Reading Hal Varian's "Intermediate Microeconomics"--the funniest textbook I've read to date. TAing for International Trade. Meeting equally insane IPEC majors who would eventually become some of my best friends. And I'm sure there are other good things that I can't quite remember right now.

Or that's what I'm trying to convince myself. It's too late to change my major, regardless. If I could do it again, I would've studied education policy or education administration--things I'm passionate about. But Georgetown doesn't offer these majors, so I would never do it again even if given the chance: one thing I absolutely do not regret is choosing to go to Georgetown. That choice, at least, was right.

So I went to the right school but spent my years studying the wrong thing. s'not so bad, come to think about it. One day I'll look back on these years and laugh over all those tears spilled over bad econ grades and impossible problem sets. In the end I still learned a few things: the value of friendship, to truly believe in the power of my little hands, how to accept defeat gracefully. You know. The important stuff.

It's like freshman year all over again

My absolute worst grades by a longshot in college came my second semester freshman year. It was a difficult pill to swallow, especially being an overachieving 4.0 student in high school (like every other Georgetown kid), and somehow managing to pull the same my first semester in college (those days are long gone). I do have an excuse. A feeble one, maybe, but one I will stand by to the grave.

I got the swine flu.

No, seriously. May 2009, when swine flu was still mostly just a huge internet joke and didn't actually happen in the US, I came down with it, right during finals week. I refused to go to the doctor, partly because I'm awful about going to the doctor but mostly because Georgetown's student health center is absolutely garbage. I waited until I was safe at home in Seattle, feverish, and too weak to walk unaided until finally agreeing to let my mom haul my sorry ass to the hospital, where I found out that not only did I have swine flu, I also contracted a healthy case of pneumonia on top of that.

I could have died. You would think I learned my lesson. Google sure did:

(I wish this picture were a joke. It's not. Try it in your own google browser!)

I didn't learn my lesson. Just this past semester, I got a sinus infection, and instead of going to the doctor to get a simple round of antibiotics (been there, done that, many times), I thought this time I'd "tough it out". Unfortunately things never work out as planned. I got bronchitis, on top of my severe sinus infection, and couldn't leave my bed for a good ten days. How I did not fail out of college in the process is still mystery to me.

Today is July 18th, 2011. It is not second-semester freshman year. It is also not second-semester junior year. It's "you're about to be a senior in college and people are going to start expecting you to act like an adult" year. Oops.

I'm pretty sick. I started getting really sharp pain in my abdomen area on Tuesday and thought I'd just tough it out (though I have good reason this time--I am constantly plagued with stomach aches of all kinds due to a poor digestive system). It got worse. I reluctantly went to go see my doctor. Appendicitis, he said, and sent me to the hospital to get a CT scan. Drank an ocean's worth of godawful contrast fluid. Got hooked up to an IV. Results: the area where my lower and upper intestine meet (aka where my appendix is) was inflamed, but they couldn't see my actual appendix on the scan. According to my doctor it's rare for someone to have appendicitis without the appendix showing up as inflamed on the scan, no matter how small. Apparently I have a very small appendix (or an appendix on hiatus... where to, no one knows). So the radiologist literally shoo-d me out of his office, and I went home.

Home is where I am now. If I don't get better, I'm going to have to get another CT, and then maybe even a colonoscopy. In light of that, I'm forcing myself to feel better. For now, at least, I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to curl up in bed with some decaffeinated tea and inhale the rest of George R.R. Martin's epic "A Dance with Dragons." I've learned rather personally this summer that life is always better when you make happiness a choice, rather than a result of circumstance.

And, hey. There are much worst things in life than my current deal. GRRM could've hit a severe writer's block and published the 5th book in his series next year. That would have been real pain. Not this silly mummer's farce of a sick girl.

grass does not exist on the other side

Okay I suck. I got back to Seattle midday Sunday after driving non-stop from Arches National Park for a good part of the night. I realize it's Sunday. I've decided this writer's block is from my inability to describe how awesome and incredible my roadtrip was, so I'll just say this.

The best part of the trip may have been waking up Sunday morning, just hours away from home, to see evergreen trees, rushing, clear rivers, beautiful deep brown soil heavily littered with sinuously soft green, GREEN--did I mention green?--grass. None of that coarse, painful yellow-brown stuff they call grass in the SW, or dusty, red-dirt that gets caught in your nose, your ears, and eyelashes, even. Or those prickly angry little shrubs people who live down there like to call "trees".

Just kidding.

The southwest was amazing. I got to watch the sun set in the Grand Canyon, hike down into the canyon, and almost die of dehydration on the way back up (note to self: you can never have too much water). I saw unbelievable Navajo pueblos at Navajo National Monument--how they're still preserved to this day is a beautiful mystery. I was smitten with flirty National Monument, so easy to love, so hard to part with. And at Arches, I had the opportunity to stand beneath the shade of Delicate Arch and wonder at its beautiful majesty.

Do yourself a favor and go visit the SW if you ever get the chance (only after you've visited the NW, obviously). I know I'll be back soon. Interested in hiking the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim? Let me know, I want to make a trip of it within the next year.