Ack! Technical difficulties...

(This is the 5th time I've tried to republish this post. Hopefully, this time it will work.)

It's been a while since my last post but I've had a busy couple of months. Here's a quick recap:

In May I had my last Taekwondo belt test. It was an all-day affair consisting of a written exam, forms, punching/blocking/kicking combinations, self-defense techniques, and finally the infamous board break. The break that was required for this particular belt level was a jump-flying-sidekick! And yes, it is as hard as it sounds, especially for someone like me who can barely get my feet to lift off the ground by even two inches. I basically had to start at one end of the studio, run down a length of maybe 15 feet, jump and sail over the stack of aerobic steps, and break the board at the end. In the picture below, I am sizing up the board which is being held by 2 blackbelts.
















Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of me actually breaking the board, since the photographer didn't press the button on time, but you'll just have to take my word for it. ;) After passing the belt test, I received my red belt, which means 2 more tests until a black belt.

In June, I took a week off from work and went off to Vegas and LA with a bunch of friends. Vegas was tons of fun. Our typical day consisted of getting up at noon, laying out by the Venetian pool (where we stayed), stuffing ourselves silly at the buffet, playing (or in my case watching) at the black-jack tables, then hitting up the clubs at night. Here's a pic of me and my friend with our "blue steel" look.

We didn't get to do too much in LA since we were there for only a few days but we did check out Hermosa beach, K-town, and Six Flags and also got to help my boyfriend's sister's boyfriend move apartments. Unfortunately, I didnt' have enough time to meet up with Jeff and Yao in Westwood (sorry guys!) .

In July, I moved to a new apartment that is closer to school and also quit my job and went down to Hawaii to vacation for 10 days. It was my first time there and it was as beautiful as everyone says it is. I stayed on the island of Oahu and spent my days either on the beach, or hiking, or shopping. (This picture was taken along one of the beaches on the Eastern shore.)

I must say though, my favorite part of the trip was the food. Not only was the local Hawaiian food delicious, but so was all the other Asian cuisines (Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, etc.) I highly recommend the shaved ice from the Waiola store as well if any of you are ever in the area.

Well, now it's the end of August and I just started school yesterday. Everyone is super nice and friendly and not as dorky as I imagined (it is MIT you know...) =p I did find out that we have students in the class with funny names like Thor, Ben Hur, and Austin Martin (everyone calls him Aston Martin). Well, I hope everyone had a great summer! Let me know what you've been up to.

burger king's new chicken fries

at alice chen's request, i went to check out burger king's chicken fries today. in case you don't know what chicken fries are (i didn't), here is what they look like:

the first choice i was faced with when ordering these fries is whether to get six pieces or nine. only wanting a snack, i ordered the six. on opening my to go bag, i noticed i didn't have any sauce, so i demanded that i get some. the chicken fries come with buffalo sauce by default, but you can substitute them for any of the other typical chicken sauces (honey mustard, ranch, barbeque, etc). while i was hungry, i didn't want to eat them in the car, lest i create a mess of chicken and sauce. this actually turned out to be dumb, because the entire thing was designed to be car friendly. the box fits into a cup holder, and there's a slot on the inside of the lid to insert your sauce of choice for dipping.

anyway, when i finally arrived at my cube, i opened up the box to be greeted by six fairly small sticks of chicken. if your AIM handle begins with "A" and ends with "725" you might want to get 9 or more, but for my snack purposes, six was enough. the chicken sticks were basically three inch strips of processed chicken that has been battered and fried. by themselves, the chicken fries were rather unremarkable. they tasted pretty much like chicken nuggets, with a mildy spicey outer coating in stead of the rather bland normal chicken nugget batter. however, once combined with the buffalo sauce, the chicken fries were quite tasty. the sauce was mostly yellow in color, suggesting a cheesey flavor, but i found them to be more buffalo than cheese--hence the name, i'm sure. with the sauce, they were fairly spicey, but not overwhelmingly so.

overall, the chicken fries were an enjoyable experience. though due to the nature and quantity of the fries, i think they are better suited to snacking rather than mealing. after all, who gets full on a few fries?