you ring just like a xylophone

Today was a fantastic day (so apologies in advance to my brother, in case you lost a kidney or something due to our inverse luck). I went to work, had some meetings, and then skipped out for a bit to have dim sum with Tammy. We went to the Hong Kong Flower Lounge, as we used to do every single weekend; it was just the two of us this time because Claude already had plans and Shedletsky wasn't responding to emails, but it was a great way to bid Tammy a fond farewell before she left for San Diego. We had all the old favorites - shrimp dumplings (aka shrimp families; the chinese name is 'har gar'), deep fried shrimp in bean curd, deep fried shrimp with mayonnaise, rice noodle with shrimp, steamed bean curd with pork and shrimp, and barbecue pork bun. The only thing we missed was the egg custard bun, but that was already a ton of food for the two of us, and the custard would have thrown me over the edge. As it was, I was struggling when I got back to work; I had a meeting as soon as I got back, and I was having trouble concentrating because I was on the verge of a shrimp coma; the symptoms of a shrimp coma are an overwhelming urge to rub one's belly and hum contentedly, right before falling asleep for a couple of hours. Alas, I had to stay awake, and it was v. difficult :(

But, seeing Tammy in our old favorite haunt was fun; I've really missed those weekend brunches, since my weekends don't really feel complete without a three-hour brunch extravaganza. I've had them for what feels like forever; Dad's Sunday brunches at home were some of the best parts of growing up, and when I got to Stanford, I continued the tradition by spending several hours at brunch each weekend day. This slid seamlessly into a weekly dim sum trek, followed by Sunday brunches at the Taj hotel in Hyderabad. It's only in the past six months that I've really lost the brunch experience, and I miss it terribly. I also miss Tammy, so it was fun to see her this past week. Yay for friends.

So, I wrapped up my meetings, and was going to skip the team meeting because I hadn't prepared for my writing class tonight, but two different people strongly encouraged me to go to the meeting despite that. I went to the meeting, and got a delicious surprise--they had previously announced that they would be giving out some bonus awards this quarter, and I ended up being one of the twelve people in my department to win the top level ('platinum') award. I didn't quite feel like I deserved it, because I felt like I was slacking tremendously this quarter, but I suppose anything would feel like slacking compared to the amount of work I was doing in Dublin. Now I can buy a lovely TV *and* go shopping to replenish my fall/winter wardrobe! This is key, since I'm going to start looking like a hobo at work if I keep wearing my oversize Irish sweaters, and the hobo look will not help my career trajectory.

After the meeting, I promptly left to go to Stanford for my creative writing class. I got there early enough to write out my critique of some other dude's story, and I was also able to read the assigned short story, so I was able to participate in class. I was really pleasantly surprised by tonight's session; the first session had left me feeling rather apprehensive about the rest of the class, because the people seemed rather uninteresting and incapable of writing, and the first meeting had been really unenergetic. Tonight, however, most people were making interesting points, and some of the read-aloud writing exercises were really good. That's not to say that I am currently interested in making friends there, but I'm much more excited about the rest of the class than I was last week. That's a good thing--I have to write a story for next week, and I have no idea what to write. Hopefully inspiration shall come to me this weekend.

I'm going to cap off this lovely day by crawling into bed and sleeping for ten hours...mmm. Goodnight!