A Little Here, A Little There

Inuit Throat Singing

Sorry for my lack of writing. It's been an interesting couple of weeks. Anyways, I won't bore you with details but I wanted to let you know about something cool I stumbled upon the other day. I was looking into Iceland and all that it offers as far as tourism, then stumbled upon Bjork (naturally!). Then, from Bjork's website, I stumbled upon an Inuit Throat singer called Tanya Tagaq. I have never heard Inuit Throat singing before nor even knew it existed. I have to say it's one of the most amazing, primal, cool, and exotic forms of music I have ever heard. Check her out: http://www.ccca.ca/inuit/english/tanya1.html and http://www.tanyatagaq.com/.

It's just amazing what you can find on the internet. Although the internet doesn't beat actual adventures to new places, it's a great way to find amazing new things in between vacations.

Back In Action

Okay, it's been another hiatus from the blogosphere. Last week was a really crappy week with everyone being sick. And it's really hard to take care of two babies (actual baby + husband) when you are sick. Then came the weekend and we were totally busy with Halloween stuff. I was kind of bummed that I couldn't find any good haunted houses around here. Plus, Halloween is just not Halloween when it's like in the 70s. Urghh...

Anyways, this Halloween was mainly focused on our little budding flower but next year I'm determined to get either a Pirate Costume or a Greek-ish Costume or an Egyptian Costume. The costumes are sort of non-sexy but if I'm to take Alexay out to kid-friendly places, I'm sure they wouldn't want to see me dressed like this. I'm actually tempted toward the Pirate costume because that's one costume I have never worn yet in my 25 years of life. I'm even contemplating Alexay wearing this, so we'd match.

In other news, we've booked our annual 1 week trip to Squaw Valley. I'm a big skier and I can finally get back into the racing season this year since I was preggie last year. We always stay at Squaw Valley Lodge and Squaw, in my opinion, has the best terrain in the entire Lake Tahoe region. I really want to go up to Vancouver for some skiing someday. We've also decided that Greece will be our destination for next September. Now I just have to buy tickets, reserve hotels, and figure out what we are going to do. But, I definitely want it to be low-key. Last time when Karan and I went to England, we stayed for 2 weeks and did so much that we came back to the States 15 pounds lighter and in need of another vacation.

Bon Voyage in the Works

This past weekend my parents mentioned how they wish they could be closer to us so that they could spend more time with their grandson. After about a half hour listening to why we should move back to Wisconsin, my mom said that Karan and I should take a vacation next year and leave Alexay with them for a week or two. Now, that got the wheels in my head turning and I decided that my mom had an extremely brilliant idea.

So, Karan and I are now planning a 14-day vacation somewhere in Europe. We have a number of options (in no particular order):

1. Visit Prague, Poland, and Budapest. Both are inexpensive places to visit and I'd have the bonus of visiting and staying with my family there and seeing a lot of my old haunts. Poland is a beautiful country and Eastern Europe in general is passed up by many who venture to southern and western Europe instead.

2. Greece - I've always wanted to visit Greece. I'm thinking of an itinerary like this:

• Fly into Athens and then spend two days of exploration there
• Take a boat down to Santorini and spend a glorious and relaxing 3 or 4 days in Oia. I'm thinking of us staying here: http://www.chelidonia.com.
• Take a ferry down to Crete and spend 3 days there.
• Take a ferry back up to Athens
• Excursions to Olympia and/or Delphi
• Fly back home from Athens

3. Italy - I'm not sure about the itinerary here. We're thinking of Venice, Florence, Tuscany (i.e. like visiting the medieval village of Siena), and Rome.

4. Turkey or Egypt - these are places I have to visit before I die. Karan is not sure now is the right time to go because of all of the things happening in the world in regards to terrorism. Oh hum....

Of course my in-laws in India are begging us to go and visit. Karan hasn't been back to visit his homeland since 2000 and his nanima is calling us everyday and asking us when we are going to come. If we go to India, we would have to take our little Alexay since they are all dying to meet the grandson (and great-grandson in the case of nanima). Karan is Indian and has no worries about vaccinations, etc but when I saw the list of vaccinations I (and most probably Alexay) would have to get, it makes me cry. I know we have to go there eventually since that is where my in-law family resides and Alexay also has to see where part of his heritage is.

Anyways, lots of options and it's too difficult to decide. We're aiming for next year September. Although it seems like plenty of time to prepare, I really want everything booked before the new year.

Any suggestions?

Infantile No-fly Zone

It's 2:44AM and I can't think anymore. So I decided to watch some CNN news feeds and saw that a Robert Johnson is on the terrorist list. I really am so tired that I couldn't even make a facial expression to demonstrate my anger. It will be interesting to see what happens with our little boy Alexay. This is one scenario constantly running through my head:

TSA Official: Umm, your 9 month old is on the terrorist list since his first name sounds like someone from the Russian Mafia. He's dangerous and we cannot allow him to fly since there is the possibility of him distributing rogue Soviet weaponry to groups that may be invovled with terrorist activity.

Me: I'm not sure what my reaction would be but knowing that I'm quite a passionate person, the situation doesn't look too good. My reaction might find me behind bars..hah hah

Oh, by the way, I heard there was a 2-month old that got rejected from boarding a flight due to being on the terrorist list. What's happening to this world?!?!

Finally Assimilating...

...into the 21st century by getting an Apple iPod Nano. I can't believe it! I've been going back and forth as to whether or not I should get one for quite a long time now. After rehabilitation from the Apple website for 5 months, I relapsed and took a look at the website last week and saw the new nanos. One look at the sexy new iPod Nano in pink and I fell in love forever! Sure, I could get the 8GB iPod Nano or the 30GB iPod but I'm all about pinkness and sleekness baby! Now I just have to get the pink Razr and hope that they someday make a pink PDA! Here's to flaunting feminity in pink!!

What's even more exciting about this purchase is that I'll actually understand friends and family discussing podcasts, ipod gear, etc. because I'll have one of my own! :-)

Excellent New Entertainment

Sorry for my tardiness in posting; I've been up to my eyeballs with work! I now digress and want to tell you about some great new albums coming out. The first one is Bat Out of Hell 3 by Meatloaf. You can check out the new video It's All Coming Back To Me Now. Meatloaf has one of the best voices I've ever heard in rock'n roll. I remember when I was very small and dad and I used to sit and listen to all his different records of Meatloaf, Queen, The Moody Blues, Led Zepplin, Iron Butterfly, etc. Then, of course, we would switch to music like The Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison and then switch to Mozart and relax ourselves with classical music and opera. My dad was awesome in making my sister and I appreciate and love ALL kinds of music! I remember singing to the Meatloaf song Bat Out Of Hell from one of his earlier albums - what a great singer! I get teary-eyed thinking about my youth and having fun with my family. When we get together now we still listen to great music but you still miss being young and seeing the excitement on your dad's face when he introduced you to the favorite songs he grew up listening to. Now it's my sister and I introducing new music to mom and dad.

The other artist coming out with a new album is Evanescence. I absolutely love her voice. It's surreal that there are musicians out there that have amazing voices without the help of digital technology. I feel that anyone can become a singer these days if Paris Hilton could. It's ridiculous.

Okay, on to movie news. There is this FANTASTICALLY AMAZING movie coming out next March called 300. Check out the trailer. It's based on Frank Miller's (think Sin City) graphic novel that he based on the Battle of Thermopylae. I love ancient history and especially seeing ancient battles on TV. It has a great cast and Gerard Butler plays King Leonidas (and looks sexier than ever). You'll also notice that all of the men in this movie (especially the Spartans) are fit as hell (this is not digital touch-up folks). I sometimes wonder if the ancient sculptures and pictures and today's movies are correct in depicting that the ancient peoples were very fit. It's hard not to believe that. Too bad we live in such a lazy fat society. Another reason this movie is going to be absolutely thrilling is that it's made in the similar manner to Sin City, which I thought was an absolute masterpiece in filmography. I also get excited watching battles in ancient times. Call me weird but I find the use of shields, arrows, and swords beautiful and elegant. Speaking of swords, I need to sign up and learn fencing one of these days. I've been eaching to learn how to fence for ages.

Anyways, I'm actually going to try and find some literature on the Spartans and ancient battles since it's been a long time since I read up on all of that kind of stuff. Once I get the book, I'll just have to figure out when I'll have the time to read it! Oh hum...

My Aspirations for the Future

I'm closer to reaching my goal of Pharmacy School and I've firmly decided I want to obtain a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics. I love the research environment and my personality fits that type of environment. I love expending intense intellectual effort towards something I am passionate about and I have not been able to do that since graduating. I'm very self-motivated and I have an intense amount of curiosity in Pharmacology and Genetics. I've always had a very deep passion for helping people live fruitful lives healthwise. I remember the times when I was younger and volunteered at the Children's Hospital in Milwaukee in the neonatel intensive care unit. It was such a wonderful experience for me and I felt so good and fulfilled in helping little humans in whatever capacity I could as a teenie-boppie volunteer. I'm not saying all this to talk about myself; rather, this is what has been churning in my head after many years of thought on why I need to change my career and go to get a PhD.

I'm not sure what happened in college that I pursued the absolutely WRONG major (i.e. Computer Engineering). I think I went mental and pursued something that was advertised as being a great profession that garnered lots of money and job opportunity. Then, I decided to try out business (i.e. marketing, product management) and that was also the complete opposite of what I should have done. I seemed to have always been running toward the money + job opportunity part of the equation when I should have been focusing on what will give me true self-fufillment and happiness. Oh well, I suppose it's never too late.

Now that I know what I want to pursue, I have been looking around at different schools. UCSF (University of California-San Francisco) is definitely THE school to go to for the PharmD degree. It's also the top school on my list for PhD. However, I've also been looking at other PhD options. Here's the list:

1. UCSF (San Francisco, CA)
2. University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK)
3. John's Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD)
4. University of Maryland, Baltimore
5. Cornell University (NY)

Let's see what the future holds!! But I'm super happy that I finally have a plan in life and I won't be subjected to utter boredom each and every day. I'll actually be making a difference to people's lives!

The Beginning

It has come to my attention that I should start a blog that doesn't revolve around my baby boy Alexay. Although I love him and he will continue to have his own blog, I require to have a place to retreat to in order to dump out what's on my mind. Hence, A Little Here, A Little There has been born. Join me on my journey of madness in this crazy world.