And yes, you heard me right, I will be spending summer 2010 in Ha Noi, where I left 9 years ago and last visited 5 years ago. An amazing opportunity somewhat fell into my lap a few weeks ago: I will be one of the first interns with McKinsey & Company in Ha Noi. I'm not quite sure what the project and the team will be like yet, but nonetheless can barely contain my excitement. Next week will be my last time (knock on wood!) analyzing crazy auction rate securities at NERA, and that alone is a reason to celebrate. The great summer internship is only dampened by two inconveniences: first, my family is in Ho Chi Minh City, so I would have to fly back almost every weekend to visit. My grandparents for sure would not be amused by me living and roaming Ha Noi alone, though the fact that I will be staying with a trusted friend's family, working for a trusted firm, and working with a friend whose family they have met, should provide enough security. Second, I sadly will have to leave Muggy alone in New York for 10 weeks, spanning over our move to a new apartment in Columbus Circle. We were both quite bumped about the long distance. Mugg was supportive, and I am extremely grateful for that. Depending on his job, he might be able to make a trip to visit China this summer, when either I will join him and his family, or he will drop by Viet Nam for a tour. Yuko was also interested in coming, so we're trying to work out a Japan - Viet Nam trip, which turns out to be quite tough since tickets all ran out so I couldn't book a stop over, and the internship won't leave much time for travel afterwards. Regardless, it is gonna be a over-the-top full summer. On the way back, I will land in New York on August 24; and law school orientation starts on Aug 25. Now, the books I've read all recommended settling in at least a week before school starts to get a feel of the land. I know that the summer schedule will leave me tired and jetlag for the first days of law school, but orientation goes on for a whole week, so hopefully by the time classes start I will have regained my energy.

Talking about law school, the final decision is NYU School of Law, where I will be entering as a Mitchell Jacobson Law & Business scholar on full-tuition scholarship. That means I turned down the equally generous Darrow from Michigan, and the prospect of an UN externship at Columbia. I never expected to be in love with NYU (I live uptown and run in the park - the unmarked Columbia's territory, after all), but the wonderful professors who administer the Jacobson totally melted my heart. Not to mention the sparkling-eyed students whom I met at the Jacobson reception, whose enthusiasm for the greater good and positive experience at the law school and genuine happiness left me quite speechless. Since I insist on staying near Central Park - the center of calmness, Mugg and I decided to move down 10 blocks to Columbus Circle, where we both can take advantage of the express train that should get us to Washington Square and the World Trade Center in less than 20 minutes and half an hour, respectively. It has not yet dawned on me, but I get visibly more and more excited for law school each day. The only problem is that there is no way I could finish the summer reading load as planned, given the new internship which supposedly runs from 8AM - 7PM each day, excluding weekends. Reading however is a great excuse for lingering forever at Ha Noi's numerous, hole-in-the-wall coffee shops, where black drops of caffein drop at the slowest possible speed down to a glass shiny with condensed milk. Hmm, I can already imagine many hours wasted there, under the shade of a towering tree, consuming unhealthy amount of coffee, dosing in legal doctrines.

The first book on the list is "Getting to Maybe", written by two law professors, who liken reasoning in exams as "forks in the roads." Given its ambiguity, the road to law presents confused and nervous law students with many 'forks', to which a good student should point out yet choose the most likely one to elaborate upon. As such, the law is the opposite of a definite answer. Instead of trying to get to a definite conclusion like yes or no, students should strive to "getting to maybe" - where 'maybe' with its flexibility and gray shade might be the best solution. This summer, to me, was like a fork in the road. I pondered for a long time if I should stay put at NERA, collect my half-year bonus, be happy with Mugg, train for a fall marathon. Or I could attempt to work for the first time at home, in a city that has changed so much that I will most definitely become a stranger both in work culture as well as habit. Ha Noi in my hazy memory was a dusty one, where I paddled my bicycle daily in sweat on a six-laned highway parallel to the train track, packed with trucks and motorbikes. And dust from used bookstores, where I spent many afternoon and entire breakfast budget on classic novels of knights and secret corridors in the Louvre. Ha Noi was a great city for childhood. How that I am grown, I wonder if there is a place for me there. Just in 10 days, I will get an answer.

Today, I made Mugg's favorite sha jia mien, a Chinese noodle dish that I learned from his mom, while he pored over a pile of CFA books. We had dinner together, fed each other sweet black cherries, and watched our favorite sitcom According to Jim. The daily routine seemed such treasure moments, now that my departure date is approaching. We often found ourselves looking at each other, repeating an assuring statement, "It is only 10 weeks, and we will speak everyday." 10 weeks indeed can go be very fast...

The gypsy song returns to my head:

Indeed, it's time to wakeup. And to start packing.

Happy 2010! Would you believe it, it's another year already. Given the fact that the Lunar New Year was just last weekend, I had an excuse for not turning the apartment upside down and taking care of all my bills by January 1. The Vietnamese believe that all old business needs to be settled in the old year; else bad luck ensued. Needless to say, on February 14, Mugg and I were furiously doing laundry, folding clothes, casting checks, wiping everything spotless. One thing I could not do was sweeping, since it's believed that I might as well carelessly sweep "luck" out. We then decided to... vacuum instead. I'm not sure what the consensus stands on this one, but technically since no "dirt" left the house, we should be okay lol

2010 promises to be an exciting year - Mugg has just started his new job downtown, I will be stepping a first toe into law school. Nonetheless, I was sad to see 2009 go. It has been somewhat of a watershed year for us. In the summer, Mugg and I moved in together after 16 months dating. It was my first attempt to cohabit with the not-so-neat sex, so I was of course terrified. I'm happy to report that the arrangement has worked really well so far. Being home and cooking for two has in fact become my most loved and peaceful moments.

Last May, Yuko and I ran out first marathon in Ottawa - the start of a running addiction. I haven't planned for a marathon this year yet, but am aiming for a 4-hour finish (9 minute/mile average pace for 26.2 miles). Two weeks ago, I finished my second half-marathon in 1:55'' - a 15-minute improvement from my first attempt. Speed training really does wonder. Only if it's less painful!

On the law school front, the latest news is that I'm in at Columbia, and have been awarded a full-tuition plus stipend scholarship (the Darrow) worth $150,000 from Michigan. UMich is flying me out to Ann Arbor during the last weekend of March for their Admitted Students' Weekend. I really look forward to the midwest's fresh air - certainly something that runs low in NYC.

On the first day of New Year, I took a long, relaxed run in the Park and entered the apartment with wet and muddy shoes. Just then, it dawned on me that I had just "opened" the apartment for us! This ritual is called "xông nhà" where the first visitor of the year is deemed to influence one's fortune that entire year. For this reason, the first visitor is often picked carefully. She has to be born in a good year, do well for herself, have good character and sometimes even needs a good-sounding name to make the cut. Given that the choice was between me and Mugg, and Mugg was still sleeping, I guess that qualified me :D

To "open" the kitchen for a year of good food and happy meal, and to celebrate Valentine's Day, allow me to introduce to you this amazing recipe for chocolate soufflé. As soufflé means "puff up" in French, you can imagine already that this dessert involves the ariest, prettiest, fluffiest cloud of dark chocolate, sprinkled with powdered sugar or dark cocoa. The rising of the cake is due to whipped egg whites, which incorporated air. When baked, those air bubbles expanded and rose, showcasing the amazing lift of the cake. Having heard many horror stories on deflated souffles, I had a nervous vision of introducing my kitchen to the New Year with a disaster. But no worry, as the trick to success lies with the whipped egg whites (which I have learned the ins and outs of during the macaroon class), I will be sharing with you some tips to make this a fool-proof recipe.

Chocolate Soufflé
Adapted from Eat My Cake Now, in turn adapted from Dori Greenspan's "Baking from My Home to Yours"

80 g (3/4 cup) of a good, dark chocolate, up to 70% cocoa - I used Lindt
90 g (1/2 cup) sugar
70 ml (1/3 cup) milk at room temperature
3 egg whites at room temperature
A pinch of salt
A pinch of cream of tatar
Butter (1 tbsp) + a dash of sugar and cocoa to coat the ramekins
Extra powder sugar or cocoa powder to sprinkle the tops

Ah, the French macarons - a baker's Everest. Those tiny little cookies, made from barely four ingredients, are deceptively cute. Their smooth top, and surrounding mysterious 'feet' in fact summon utmost care in technique and countless crossed fingers. The shells, as you might be able to guess just from looking at the picture, are extremely fragile, and absolutely hate moisture and uneven heat, unfortunately two things that bakers have minimal control over (the weather and the oven's temper). We try nonetheless, shoving off alarming heeds, sticky fingers and rising fear - for what a slap to the ego it is to be defeated by tiny little cookies! But we simply can't resist, we must whip those egg whites fluffy and grind our almond flour, because what a heavenly moment it is to bite into a perfect, colorful little macaron, through the soft, crunchy shell, into a chewy texture of meringue, into a bittersweet mocha ganache with a hint of orange zest. It's the one supreme moment of satisfaction and accomplishment that justifies the toil, frustration, and sweat (really, a lot of sweat!)

My first attempt with the macarons came one bored weekend browsing Tastespotting, a haven for wanna-be cooks. I stumbled on the macarons queen, Tartelette, a French pastry chef who made picture-perfect desserts. Not knowing any better, I decided to give it a try, pulsed my almond silvers in a blender (gasp!), hand-whipped my freshly cracked egg whites (double gasp!), and of course failed miserably. The products, which I didn't bother taking pictures of, didn't taste bad. In fact, they tasted a dream for the sweet-tooths. But alas, the macaron experience is at best half in taste; a heavenly moment is consumed by devouring by eyes first those beautiful creatures, only after that by taste their layers of textures and flavors. Without the oohs and aahs of admiration at their round dome and spreading feet, well, it's just not the same.

My chance to conquer the macarons finally arrived. Upon learning about ICE's upcoming macaron class, I promptly signed up. It was AMAZING! If you are a serious amateur cook, or a beginner looking for more refined technique, I highly recommend their recreational courses. My chef, the formidable Kathryn Gordon, who left a Wall Street and consulting career to pursue her passion in pastry, is a the utmost enthusiastic and patient instructor, not to mention years of producing perfect macarons with the Rainbow Room and Le Cirque. With her help, my chef-partner Jaqulin (an art history professor at St. John) and I produced these little mocha-flavor caps, soon to be swooned over by classmates and pronounced "best and picture-perfect!" by Chef Gordon:

A closer look at the pretty domes and feet:

Yummy! The best part of class is always the sharing at the end. Among the 12 participants, we made hundreds of those little sandwiches. My partner and I made two batches using two different recipes - one mocha-flavored shells hugging chocolate ganache fillings (above), and one ginger-flavored shells with caramel fleur de sel fillings. I freezed a dozen of those goodies awaiting Mugg's return, and will be bringing the rest to the office for a sugar-high Wednesday.

Can I let you in a secret? I am actually not that crazy about eating macarons (!!!) I know, I know... I'm just more of a creme-caramel kinda girl. I am, however, crazy about making these handsome and tasty French desserts. So if you are ever in New York when I'm rapping those macaron pans, count on having a lot of them to bring home!

Last weekend, New York was stranded in a snow blizzard. Mugg was so extremely lucky to jump on a plane to Miami at dawn on Sat morning, as a heavy veil of snow crashed down on the trees in front of my windows that night. The said teenagers, who had never seen so much snow in their lives, got considerably excited, and we went out for a quick snow fight. The trees lining Columbus Avenue, leading all the way up west from Columbus Circle, have all been lit up. A few houses have adorned Christmas decorations; laurel wreaths with big red bows are everywhere. As the kids raced one another into snow piles, I wiggled my frozen gloved fingers, and sang to myself the favorite tune of Love Actually: "I can feel it in my fingers, I can feel it in my toes..."

By the next morning, New York has been turned in a white, slushy spinster. Now I really regretted declining the open invitation from Mugg's parents to join them in Miami. Argh! This year, we decided to get Mugg's parents Christmas gifts together - an endeavor more rigorous than I was prepared for. After endless hours of brainstorming and debates, we finally settled for two awesome gifts - Shiseido's cream for mom (my go-to product for female giftees which has earned raved reviews from my mom, grandma and aunt), and an elegant two-time-zone watch for dad. Mugg said they opened the gift today and were smiling a lot - which, seriously, is a huge expression practice for Cultural-Revolution-era Chinese lol

And surprise surprise, I finally realize today that I am so consummated by law school admission! I guess the moment came when I looked at my Wish List for Christmas, and behold, they are ALL law school books. Books that I'm actually so looking forward to reading! It was a rather funny moment when Mugg - the more academia-cultivated of the two of us - refused to buy me any book and instead get me a gift certificate to the best Pilates studio ever. Yes, I am a proud Pilates addict, ever since a few classes fix my back pain and prep my legs for distance runs. I guess Muggy knows me best :-)

Back to law school obsession: make no mistake, everybody is obsessed. It's like being admitted into a cult-like, egocentric club where people half worship, half yearn to devour one another. Somehow the mindset reminded me of schooling in Vietnam - there are simply too few shining stars for an overcrowding class. Only this time, the language is one that I don't understand, the readings are a hundred times thicker, and the debt - no comment necessary on the debt.

Good news nonetheless: I received a super nice phone call for UPenn welcoming me to the class of 2013. The paper letter came today, accompanied by a thick, colorful viewbook tooting UPenn's great-looking professors and faculty. I like how nice it is, but wish they go green like UMich with an USB. Being unsentimental, I don't keep things for keeping things' sake. Even pretty viewbooks.

More good news: I was invited today via email to apply for the Darrow, UMich's most prestigious merit scholarship which provides up to full tuition AND a stipend. Wohooo! As excited as I am, I'm seriously overwhelmed with the essay ass-kicking to do in the next two weeks:

- 500-word Darrow scholarship essay for UMich

- 500-word Dean's scholarship essay for Cornell

- 500-word International Law essay for NYU

- 250-work (evil) free style rant for Yale apps

Notwithstanding, I can't wait to go to my macaron class tomorrow at the Institute of Culinary Educaton! You see, those cute little sugar-heaven sandwiches have driven me crazy in the last month, after a miserable failed attempt that resulted in my bitter and eager for revenge zeal. We'll see how it turns out tomorrow. I have promised my mailman and Fatima some macarons goodness, so those cuties better turn out perfect!

Time to sleep. Merry Christmas everyone :-)

After many months of long cold winter, the sun has finally returned to New York, perching ambiguously behind the shiny top of the G.E. building at first, but slowly sneaking out and beaming through the shaded windows behind my cube. Taking advantage of a slow Friday, I waited impatiently for the clock to strike 6, slipped on my running shoes and bolted out of the door before any watchful boss could catch up. The pavements of 6th avenue were flooded with people, particularly girls in colorful dresses showing off bare long thighs and freshly-painted toes peaking from open sandals. In Central Park, runners crowded the paved roads, snaking around lazy horses and tuk-tuk drivers. The cement glistened under the sun, and I felt my feet lighter, my calves excited, my thighs ready for a good work out.

After the first two miles, the shin splints kicked in and it became quite unbearable to keep going. The gatorade fortunately helped, and by mile four the pain faded away. As the training goes on, I have started to feel more and more of my body. With every strike on the ground, I can feel now the vibration it sends upward through my legs which swing like a pendulum in the socket of my pelvis, and the twitching quad muscles striving to keep up. I can feel the pores on my face opening, releasing sweat, breathing, panting. It is as if the whole body aligns in its motivation to move forward and swallow the miles. There are, of course, times when I feel my body succumbing under fatigue, and falling out of alignment. My pelvis sit back, creating a kink between my lower body and the rest of the spine. I have attempted to fix my posture unsuccessfully, until taking a Healthy Running workshop with Julia Pak of Balanced Runner (www.balancedrunner.com). The exercises though simple worked like a charm. As she puts it, sometimes we unknowingly disalign our bodies, creating cross-motivation which impedes the overriding movement of running. Think of our arms and legs as pendulums, swinging from our hip and shoulder sockets. We want the pendulums to swing most efficiently. That means eliminate any unnecessary weights and movements by curling the arms up rather than down, tilting forward rather than backward, landing on the middle of your feet rather than the heels. I cannot wait to try out the new running form tomorrow!

April sun is here. The city is warm and glowing, like a girl in love. 

According to the training calendar, I'm due to run 6 miles tomorrow morning. Luckily the route to Brooklyn Bridge roundtrip provides just the mileage plus the great view of East River. In the earlier weeks, when the medium route reaches only 5 miles, I usually run one-way to the bridge, cross it to Brooklyn and return, then catch the subway back home.

The cold refreshing air stung my bare lower calf as I jogged hurriedly towards the park. "Hitch" playing on TNT, and Mug's warm embrace, had - like always - kept me at the cozy apartment longer than expected. The timing however worked out perfectly. Just like me, Yuko was often running late. As an implied code, we had learnt to show up 15 minutes later than the agreed time.

As I reached the park entrance, Yuko emerged from the nearby subway station, shivering slightly. We had layered up with long-sleeved thermal shirts and fleece jackets, but none were wind-proof. Since our muscles were already stiff, we decided to skip the traditional stretching warm-up at a park bench to prevent muscle tearing. Instead, we jogged slowly for the first mile and exchanged small talks. As I now spent three to four days a week at Muggy's, I didn't get to see Yuko as often, and was glad to catch up on our weekly long run. Her boss had warned all employees of the company's unstable financial situation; a mutual friend had just been laid off; another mutual friend was eight-month pregnant. We agreed to call the first friend to express consolation, and wondered if the second was planning to get married to her long-term boyfriend. Soon, the talk trailed off as we needed to concentrate on our own breathing. While the cool air swept off sweat quickly and prevented us from steaming, its dryness made breathing quite difficult. Not many runners or bikers ventured out today, allowing us ample room to pace ourselves. I counted the usual marks - a sign East 90th street, an entrance to the Jackie Kennedy trail that circumnavigated the Reservoir, the steep curve leading to the west side. After two miles, I started to feel the tightening of my inner thighs, the mild ache in my left rib, the soothing numbness of my toes. I could feel my calf muscles quenching at each landing, and the balls of my feet striking the hard cement in monotone beats - one... two... one... two - like the counting of a ballet exercise. The endorphin instantly kicked in. My mind suddenly went blank, focusing on nothing but the faint smoke of my breath and the winding miles ahead.

At the fifth mile, I reached for the ipod shuffle and turned on "Atlas Shrugged". Beating my expectation, audio books had turned out to be a great blessing. Much better than music, they distracted me with the narrator's warm voice and the novel's intriguing plot. I had picked "Atlas Shrugged", partly thanks to Mugg's enthusiastic recommendation, partly due to its 60-hour length, which I figured would last me till marathon day. As I was engrossed in the Taggart's railroad empire, Columbus Circle soon appeared, marking the final curve toward Sixth Avenue where we closed the six-mile circumference of Central Park for just under an hour. Though the time was short of spectacular, I felt a sense of relief that we could still run six miles with relative ease even after a two-month hiatus. I made a mental note of my 12-mile inventory this week, and projected a 15-mile goal next week.

We walked slowly to our favorite Egg Benedict restaurant (whose real name Mugg and I never bothered to learn) on Second Ave for a much-deserved hearty brunch. Amid good food and lively conversation, Mugg reached for my hand under the table and gave it a slight squeeze. Today was the first day of our second year together. My heart felt warm. It was a peaceful New York sunday.

(picture courtesy of www.beckermanphoto.com)

On the eve of 2009, I declined an invitation to join middle-school classmates to opt for a peaceful night cooking at Mugg's. Not because I disliked any of my middle-school friends; in fact I was eager to see them again and curious to gauge their changes. They have all stayed much more connected to home than I did - a realization so poignantly revealed when I was the only one unable to remember the Vietnamese term for random words like "equator" or "lava." We had met the night before to muse over Vietnamese food, dirty jokes and old memories. I found the moments fond, but rather painless. The craving for familiar cuisines, humors, and semantic expressions of early New Orleans days has, for better or for worse, completely vanished. In a way, the self-identity quest has simply been resolved. This feels like home.

As soon as that night, as I labored over dense reading passages and logical nuances on the LSAT, I felt again the glass ceiling of the American Dream. After seven years of teenage angst and college transformation, words still do not register. I couldn't feel it: images, lyrics, flow that I once internalized from reading Dumas, Nam Cao, Hugo in Vietnamese hopelessly slid off my mind, like water on a duck's head, without even a trace of recognition. All of my neurons desperately try to rebuke the idea. After all, I've studied the language since I was five, and have completely submerged in it since 15. How long does it take to internalize a language, for something a bit complex but not terribly sophisticated like the LSAT? I feel like dragging on a long, solidifying clay track.

On the eve of 2009, Yuko, Mugg and I cooked, watched Kathy Griffin annoying the hell out of Anderson Cooper on CNN, and toasted champaign in paper cups for yet another year. Despite economic downturns and unsolved problems of the world, life has been specially kind to me in 2008 - runs were finished, tests were passed, laughters were brisk, and hands were held in sleep. I am nervous and excited for 2009, a busy year to come:

- Jan: a jampacked month of studying
- Feb: taking the LSAT
- March - May: run run run, Bollywood dance recital
- May: trip to Canada, visa renewal and first marathon
- June: Mugg takes CFA, Yuko takes exams in Japan, time to start law school application/ retake the LSAT if need be
- July - August: law school research and essay, law seminar in The Hague, home (?)
- September - October: sending out applications for law school
- November: New York marathon
- December: ... relaxing time?

Thinking about the year head, I felt a rush similar to my feeling at the start of the Staten Island Half Marathon last October. The race has begun, the clock is ticking, the miles are closing in. I anticipate the pain to kick in, and welcome it. For I can only think of, and want so badly, to cross that finish line, even if I have to drag on feet of clay all the way there.