A Belated Fourth of July Update

Warning: bodily functions ahead.

I am skeptical of Large Group Things. Like concerts, movie openings, and crowded clubs. Something so many people like must not actually be very good, my logic goes.

I am not sure where my logic comes from, but that is another story.

This is before all the doom and disaster happened. Just finish reading this post.

Anyway, my friend Evan decided he wanted to float down the Charles River to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. I gamely agreed. Meanwhile, my brain was thinking: “WTF. How lame. Fireworks and a boat? I’ll fall asleep and get shit on by a bird.”

Evan carrying the boating equipment

But it ended up being surprisingly fun. First we blew up the boat using an air pump. Then I practiced my rowing skills.

So skilled! Yah.

Evan and his Olin College alum friends waved to some fellow Oliners floating down the Charles on… couches. Don’t ask me how they got couches to float. It’s those crazy engineering students.

Bad things were about to happen.

The sunset was beautiful – and there’s nothing like a sunset that totally surrounds you and reflects off the water. I paddled along, careful not to get overturned by the wake of larger boats.
Meanwhile, I wondered if I was incredibly boring. Evan was not replying to any comments I made. Occasionally, I’d crack a joke and he’d just be silent.

My questions were answered about half an hour into our journey. The two of us were crammed onto a tiny, inflatable boat, so it was very obvious when leaned over the side and began vomiting the contents of his stomach.

I patted him awkwardly on the back, and dug frantically through my tote bag for tissues and mints. He continued throwing up, then washed off his mouth with some of the lake water, looking pale and fragile.

“You must feel so much better!” I said, filled with optimism. “I’m sure you’ll be fine now!”

“Yeah,” he said, not sounding convinced. “A little bit.”

Half an hour later, we were floating in between giant boats, the periphery of where the fireworks were going to go off.

He leaned over and began retching again, except this time, it was just dry heaves.

The very nice lady on a neighboring boat offered us some Coke.

We decided, at that point, to paddle over to the dock. It was around 9pm and the banks of the Charles were teeming with tens of thousands of spectators. The teenaged Asian girl, who must have staked out her spot hours before, tried to chase us away.

“You’re not allowed to bring boats here,” she said.

I almost believed her, especially when I heard a police boat yell at someone on a megaphone to move away. “Is that at us?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

Evan, poor soul, had his eyes closed and was doing breathing exercises.

I figured out she was lying, and ignored her. Evan and I sat on the edge of the dock for another hour until the show started. We had stolen front row seats, thanks to our water route. He no longer felt seasick, and the fireworks were indeed incredible. Especially since they timed them to Katy Perry.

After the show, the streets of Boston looked like the zombie apocalypse had hit. People were climbing over barricades and spilling across the crosswalks. The streets were littered in trash. Evan and I packed up the boat and decided to have some dinner at a sushi place in Back Bay.

The sushi ("pink lady" roll) was not that good, so the restaurant is not being named for lack of remarkability.

I am proud to report I neither fell asleep, nor was soiled by a wild animal.

My Post-Harvard Life, Part 1

Dear Internet,

WTF. I owe you an apology for never posting – or maybe you’re thankful I haven’t besmirched your walls with more image-laden food posts. (Then again, 4Chan and Space Ghetto really have me beat in the besmirching department. I’m not linking to them for a reason.)

My college roommate Felice, on Space Ghetto: “Don’t look! It’s a dead woman… in a bathtub… [redacted]”

Me, covering my eyes in genuine terror: “Oh my god! Tell me when there’s a picture of a kitten.”

What has happened in the past… oh, 6 months?

WIth the inimitable Quincy House masters, Deb and Lee. Thank you for the incredible support and being totally candid about life/the universe/42/evil people.

For one, I’m now a “real person.”

My last semester of college was a blur. I took 3 computer science classes and ran a full-time freelance web design business. Mostly to test the theory I’d be able to support myself without a real job. (Verdict: Can definitely afford my sub-$500 rent on my Allston sublet. Rock on, Craigslist.)

A week of rabble-rousing, two days of graduation ceremonies, one 6 a.m. wakeup call, and one red enveloped diploma later, I am a Harvard grad. I have a degree in Social Anthropology, and it’s actually kind of useful as a designer and business person. Eat it, doubtful Asian parents! (Not my own, they didn’t care what I majored in.)

Dat's right. Hot dog fried rice.

So now I’m subletting in Allston, cooking Thai food in the sticky, poorly-ventilated kitchen, reskinning a little corner of the Internet for mostly startup clientele, as well as working on a website concept with some friends. Who knows what will happen at the end of the summer, but I have a nice setup for now.

I drink bubble tea everyday and cook Pad Thai for my friends. We don’t have a living room, so they have to eat sitting on my bed and drink out of foam cups.

One of my two pairs of heels (~$20 from Forever 21), an American Apparel lace print dress worn under a skirt with zip back from China.

I only brought along 5 pairs of shoes, 2 pairs of jeans, 5-7 shirts, and a few dresses. I don’t have a hair dryer. I clip my nails with my Swiss Army Knife scissors, a graduation present. I clean floors, dishes, and toilets; it’s great. My only luxury: borrowing $300 Bose sound-canceling headphones from my Belgian friend… indefinitely.

Coco the Rat ISN'T SHE CUTE!

My roommates are also eminently likable, another Craigslist victory – Chinese nationals heading into consulting gigs who are charmed by the pet rat in my room (I am pet sitting Felice’s white rat Coco Chanel) and who blankly ignore my attempts to use Mandarin vocabulary. When I break out coconut milk or tamarind pulp to cook, they are fascinated – as I’ve brought home a chimp speaking in a particularly idiomatic Queens accent.

Sometimes there are particularly unfortunate translation problems.

Anna (name changed): Do you have any uh, I don’t know how to say this… wei jing?
Me: Pads? Don’t have any. I do have tampons.
Anna: What?
Me: I have tampons, do you want one?
Anna: What?
Me: Are you talking about your period?
Anna: What?
Me: You know, li jia [Chinese for period].
Anna: What?
Me: [Finally dawning on me] OH. YOU MEAN MSG.
Anna: What?
Me: [Grabbing a jar of Ajinimoto MSG off the shelf] Here. MSG.
Anna: Ahh, yes. What do you call this in English?
Me: Uh, monosodium glutamate…

I’m glad she doesn’t understand everything, so I can get away with pretending I didn’t embarrass myself.

Despite my spare closet, I still manage to put together some outfits from what I had on hand for a graduation photoshoot (taken by my friend Sam and his trusty Nikon):

SWINGS! I hurt my hands on them in elementary school... today, no improvement.

One of those well-timed hair-adjusting moments.

"Ok, done weaving my hair into the flower bush. Time to pretend I'm in a perfume ad." ...

... OR THAT I'M COCO THE RAT. (Body con dress from Bebe)

While I was taking some of these photos on Widener steps,an Asian tourist kept very obviously circling around Sam and me. Gotta love them and their urine-soaked John Harvard's foot touching ways.

Something I was supposed to have done more of in college.

Side note: I’m in love with the Urban Renewals thrift store in Allston. I got a cute yellow Abercrombie skirt (wool and cashmere blend, with a silk lining) for $2! $2!!! I spent $4.76 buying a drink from Starbucks! That’s like, two skirts and a pair of sunglasses! Unreal.

So to take us back to the food topic of this blog:

I had a really nice dinner recently, sponsored for media, at the newly opened Nubar in the Sheraton Commander (Harvard Square). Outside of the swordfish being a bit bland, the other dishes were great: creamy, rich polenta topped with spinach and fried egg, its yellow yolk oozing; lobster arancini with morels, arriving as a softball-sized vehicle of joy. Arancini is one of my favorite dishes (rice! fried! with cheese! you can’t go wrong).

Polenta and FRIED EGG.

I think the polenta is a stiff contender for favorite topped-with-fried-egg-appetizer in Harvard Square. The former title holder being Russell House Tavern’s crispy poached egg on brioche. Nubar’s appetizer is closer to entree-sized, and sufficiently heavy-handed with the fat content in the polenta that it renders any prior distaste for polenta superfluous.

Rock on, appetizers. Just don’t confuse the MSG with tampons… that would be bad.

Why Being An Artist is Uncreative

I received an interesting message from a reader about my How to be Your Own Tiger Mother post.

Ronald asks:

I found myself surprised by the end of the article. I agreed with it all the way until the very end, when you said “that it’s not about picking the most creative field. It’s about being the most creative one in your field.”
To me, that sounds like justifying a less intrinsic life route. That makes me question, are you willing to negotiate your true passions to appease what society tells you? Or were your passions too flimsy to withstand the test of time (it doesn’t matter what your teacher said, if you love art, you love art; that’s the way my experiences have been at least).

My response:

“Creative” fields can be paradoxically uninventive. You might love fashion and want to pursue it… but find that the vast majority of all designers actually copy higher end brands who have done all the creative thinking beforehand. Working in film may seem creative, but chances are, you’ll be executing someone else’s vision down to the letter if you’re not the head honcho. And even if you are at the top, it’s not necessarily “creative” – the nature of creative fields is that they’re still businesses that need to be run profitably, and this means that risk taking if often cast aside in favor of another reality show or formulaic action flick. Yes, you might find smaller opportunities to be creative – a buckle here, a piece of a scene there – or the work fulfilling, but the point I’m trying to make is that the gross distinction between “creative” and “noncreative” fields is somewhat illusory.

For the record, I’m glad I never pursued a fine art degree. Yet, I still love to doodle on my iPad during class. (All the illustrations were drawn in iPad’s ArtStudio and Doodle whilst in computer science class.)

Let me relate a story: a friend of mine once wanted to be a novelist. He majored in literature, worked as a journalist for many years, published a biography, and even obtained a masters in creative writing. Finally, he had a novel he began shopping around with a top agent. The marketing people at publishing houses turned it down, saying it wouldn’t appeal to women (who buy 80% of books). Disillusioned, he got into a top law school and began practicing law, figuring he’d still write on the side. To his surprise, he loved it. It challenged him and fulfilled him. Maybe he’ll write that novel one day, but for now, he’s perfectly happy.

Which is why I don’t believe that just working in the field of your purest creative passion is necessarily the right career choice. I believe that you should always pursue that passion in some form or another, but for many, navigating the networking/marketing/financial realities of a creative field will distract or ruin a perfectly good thing.

And you know what? I’m now working as a web designer. I have freelance work up to the gills, and I love it.

I think my creativity is not in web design (which I don’t plan on doing in 30 years time), but in constructing empty spaces in my life for creative projects to grow. The future is awash in planned uncertainty, and I refuse to compromise on that point.

Should Cafes Ask Customers to Leave?

My favorite cafe asked me to leave last week. For the second time.

I’ll tell you why I feel sad: when I first found Crema Cafe two years ago, I fell in love. I spent so much time there, my sweaters absorbed its scent, an inexorable melange of lattes, carbs, and indie-pop Pandora playlists. The owners described it as a place between home and work; I took that quite literally. I proudly told my friends I was considering moving in.

Over the past two years, I’ve spent so many happy hours in that cafe. I love bringing my laptop to do work on the upstairs level. I’ve forcibly dragged friends there and bought them my favorites, just so they could be converted. I’ve blogged about them, plugged them on Serious Eats, posted photos to various food sites. When I signed up for Mint.com, I budgeted a very liberal portion for “coffee.”

If you ask me for restaurant recommendations, you’ll likely hear raves about their turkey-avocado-jicama-slaw sandwich or their baked-fresh-from-scratch pastries.

So I disappointed when I was asked to leave during a busy Saturday afternoon to make room for other customers. I’d been there for a little over 2 hours with my laptop, and had planned on taking a seat closer to a wall outlet when one of the owners stepped in. (I had polished off a medium coffee and a chicken sandwich.) He had promised that table to another customer; since I had headphones on, I hadn’t seen the line forming behind me.

He was apologetic. As I was leaving, he apologized again. And this was the second time – a month before, a different owner had asked me to leave, but relented when I bought another sandwich. I’ve generally tried to share my table or buy another pastry during marathon study sessions, but I know I’ve overstayed my welcome in the past.

And I understand why they’re taking a more aggressive tack. Mostly. They charge reasonable prices for freshly made food. They have high labor costs and rent; they depend on table turnover and volume to pay the bills. I ended up chatting that owner for about an hour about the trials of the business world and how to solve the problem of being too popular.

I’m happy Crema has done well. It clearly has no problem attracting loyal customers and long lines. But I’m disappointed that the same place that I cheered for and championed feels that its success is dependent on asking me to leave. Are the two really at odds?

Perhaps this Seth Godin (a well-known marketer) post about “best customers” summarizes some of how I’m feeling:

If you define “best customer” as the customer who pays you the most, then I guess it’s not surprising that the reflex instinct is to charge them more. After all, they’re happy to pay.

But what if you define “best customer” as the person who brings you new customers through frequent referrals, and who sticks with you through thick and thin? That customer, I think, is worth far more than what she might pay you in any one transaction. In fact, if you think of that customer as your best marketer instead, it might change everything.

If you’re a cafe lover, do you think cafe owners should ask customers who have finished eating to leave?

Cafe owners, how do you deal with slow table turnover?

This is the Pancake of Your Wet Dreams.

Google “pancake recipe” and you get nearly 3 million results. How do you sort through the mess, if you’re just lusting after a syrup-sodden flapjack of joy?

Enter MyStack. This is an entirely fictional Pancake Search Engine – the Google of pancake recipes – that allows you to delicately tweak ingredients, mix-ins, calories, and costs. It even calculates whether a pancake is qualitatively “sweet” “hearty” or “fluffy” using ingredient ratios.

Its backend, if it were ever built, would feature a hell of a lot of data parsing, web scraping, and hopefully tap into existing recipe database APIs, should they be made available.

Again, this website does not actually exist. I drew up this mockup in Photoshop (in a record 1.5 hours) for my CS171 Data Visualization class.

The Pancake Challenge prompt:

Mon Feb 7 – The Pancake Recipe Challenge

Google the words “pancake recipe,” and you will get more than 1 million hits. Looking more closely, there are actually many ways to make such a simple thing as pancakes.

In this exercise, we want each breakout group to pick some tasks that have to do with the variety of pancake recipes and to sketch a visualization that supports as many of these tasks as possible. The list of possible tasks includes, among others:

1. I have some ingredients at home, which pancake recipe can I make?
2. Which is the most diet friendly recipe?
3. What recipe will require the least amount of money?
4. How will pancakes turn out for the difference recipes? Taste? Texture?
5. To what extent do recipes vary? How much deviation is in the various quantities?
6. I am making pancakes — I wonder what recipe my friends recommend?

You can also come up with your own tasks. Note that the data is many pancake recipes and not just one, so your interface should scale to billions of pancake recipes (just kidding – but you get the point). At the end, you will present your design to the class and explain how the visual elements and possible user interactions are supporting the tasks you chose.

Unfortunately, I’m going to be out of town on Monday when the project is due.

This probably the one time I’ve ever wanted to present my homework… but I figured I’d let it into the wilds of the Internet, in case anyone wants to build the mythical MyStack and turn it into syrupy reality. (Slice and dice the full size mockup here.) What the hell, let’s throw in a handful of blueberries and add “tortilla” to the database.