In honor of racial slurs...

It's been a while since we've updated, so it took a reallllllly smaggy event to remind me to post.  A few smags and I were grabbing a drink at a really sketchy local bar down the street that I like to call "Anna's."  While walking back toward Smag #1's car, a few boys lounging by their car called out to us, "hey ladies... Hey Ladies!..."  and when we didn't turn around, one of them started yelling:


"I NEED A PEDICURE!..... I NEED A PEDICURE!.... I NEED A PEDICURE!...."


and all i could say in response (hopefully loud enough for them to hear) was, "wow. what @ssholes.  I bet he really does have gross feet." I mean, he wasn't even original!  I'm not sure why they do that -- clearly their lady-prospects were thin from the get-go.  Yelling weird offensive things (mostly that insult our intelligence) will do NOTHING to get girls.  In any case, it reminded me of the smaggy lines we've heard in our time in the city.  A selection of those lines follows:


- Of the straightup creepy variety: "Hey... hey... do you speak english?  ... do you need a greencard? ... just get in my van..."  (on 5th ave in front of Bergdorf's... and he actually had a van!  Needless to say, I did not react very calmly.)
- Of the 'other minorities hitting on smags' variety: [while walking in LES with another smag, a young guy from that 'hood is following us] "... DAMN girl... look at that BACK!... ni hao MA!"  (it is notable that "ni hao ma" means "how are you?" -- so I take it that this weird emphasis was meant to sound like the chinese for "how YOU doin'?")
- Of the joking/cockblocking variety: "So... what did you get on your SATs?"
- Of the 'young people need to figure out what's NOT offensive' variety: [while walking through Times Square at 3am - where all the uptown teenagers hangout, apparently] "CHICKEN CHOW MEIN!" (and grabs for smag friend's waist)


Really. I'm not sure what encourages people to do this.  This isn't even catcalling like most weirdo men do in the streets. It's a targeted harassment, just for fun (#2 wasn't so bad.  I'd have been flattered if we weren't on a dark street in a ghetto neighborhood) - although #1 was actually really dangerous and gross.  And I hope there weren't already immigrant asian women in his van after I/we cussed him out and stalked off.  Any ideas on why people do this?

Thank you notes from second-graders

In honor of tomorrow being the first day of school (well, today is the official first day for all you teachers), we have a very special post. I'm doing on behalf of Lydia, since she's too modest to post these herself. You may remember that a few months ago, before she landed her awesome job, Lydia spent a lot of time as an unofficial teacher's aide, helping Jenn with her second-grade class, down at P.S. 2 in Chinatown. "Miss Lydia," as the kids called her, chaperoned trips to movies, plays, libraries, zoos, South Street Seaport, the Brooklyn Bridge; helped out around the classroom with reading and math games and an after-school cooking class; and most memorably, assisted the kids with their weekly swimming lessons at the local Y--not just Jenn's class, but Lea's bilingual class, too.

We think it's great that learning to swim is part of the curriculum at Jenn's school, especially since growing up, our summers revolved around our town's pool and rec. park. As an avid swim team member, Lydia basically lived in her swimsuit for entire summers at a time (no, seriously...she *always* smelled like chlorine). I'm a far inferior swimmer myself, but I can get by--as in, not drown, which is always a useful skill. Sadly, based on our friends and people we've met here, Asian city kids seem to be an underrepresented sub-group in the swimming population at large. So, way to go, P.S. 2. Most importantly, though, Lydia came away from 'swim time' with some hilarious stories involving hydrophobic children and swim noodles, and a batch of the most amazing thank you notes we've ever seen. Here are a few of our favorites...

It almost looks like a poem, or some sort of chant. Love how it lapses into Chinese.

Hearts and butterflies were a recurring theme. Slight indecision near the end, but this one's very sweet.

This girl wants to make sure that Lydia knows exactly who this card is from.

Too adorable.

The last line says, "and can me swim and a not scared". And it's all thanks to Lydia. Aww...

This one depicts the girl giving Lydia her thank you note. Unintentionally post-modern...?

Nice of him to provide an either/or option.

Sometimes the simplest, most direct message is the best.

Innovative Yankee Cheers...

So another smag and I were at the Yankee game yesterday afternoon.  I've been to a fair share of Yankee games, and have done my fair share of cheers, but yesterday was a standout cheering day.  Besides the fact that the Yankees beat the A's 5-0, some middle-aged redneckish lookin' dude in the next section over (who was clearly trying to liven up the game a little bit) made up the following cheers (a sampling of the funny ones).  Imagine them in his rough carrying voice.  And imagine us saying, "what? what is he saying?" followed by a lot of laughing.


1. "When I say WHORE, you say HEY! Jor--Ge! Jor --Ge!"  (Jorge Posada, right before his homerun)
2. "When I say LANCE, you say ALOT! Lance-alot! Lance-alot!"  (Lance Berkman... we didn't get this one til it got to Lancelot ... which helped for his next cheer which went something like...)
3. "When I say SIR, you say LANCELOT! Sir--Lancelot! Sir--Lancelot!"  (funny to squeeze in the syllables there)


and my favorite...


4. "When I say VEGETABLE, you say GARDNER! Vegetable--Gardner! Vegetable--Gardner!" (Brett Gardner)

An Educated SMAG's Love-Hate Relationship with Youtube...

This cartoon sums up everything I hate about Youtube.  And most other online forums, really. Wish I wasn't so addicted to Youtube.  It would keep me from having to accidentally read these stupid comments.  Sometimes, if we stumble across a particularly good one, Alex and I will send it to each other to laugh at (and resent for their ignorance and lack of grammar skills).

It's official.

As of today, these SMAG's have lived in the city for four years. It's crazy to think that we've now been out of college for the same amount of time as we actually spent there. Four years, man. Who could have predicted that the girl who I only knew as "that other Asian girl" up until the third grade, when Lydia dressed up as Ping for our library class project and I was Jemima Puddleduck, and we eyed each other suspiciously as we stood in line to give our presentations (Lydia dressed all in yellow, me in a shawl and bonnet, both of us with fake beaks strapped to our faces), would become my four-year roomie and one of my best friends?

We've been through a lot together these past 4 years, including:

- 2 apartments located within 2 blocks of each other, including 1 crazy uncle, 1 non-functioning kitchen, multiple creepy neighbors and asthmatic dogs, 1 pidgeon-infested/owl-guarded balcony and 1 pidgeon home invasion, followed by a floor-to-ceiling steam cleaning of our entire place

- 3 jobs apiece, and at least 3 certifiably insane bosses, total

- 2 boyfriends, half a dozen other persons of interest, and at least as many cringe-worthy pick-up lines (i.e., "hey shawwwwty" and "what's your SAT score?")

- 2 surprise parties, all the decorations we still haven't dismantled, plus at least 2 cake-ings (Lydia only), 1 involving a diaper

- 1 bottle-service birthday and all the rest at Cheap Shots, including an immeasurable quantity of free bday drinks

- one too many mostly Asian birthday parties of friends and friends-of-friends, with 1 occurrence of dancing near/around Governor Paterson and 'that really tall aide guy who was later arrested for assault'

- 2 run-ins with homeless men, resulting in what are now known as "The Corndog Incident" and "Happy Easter!...No, thanks."

- 2 roadtrips, plus 1 trip to D.C.

- 3 Secret Santa gift exchanges

- 3 Halloweens (surprisingly, I only wandered away and got lost once), 2 terrible costumes and several blackmail-worthy pics

- 1 especially memorable stay-in New Year's, with 2 bottles of champagne but only 1 person drinking them (hint: her name rhymes with 'chlamydia')

- countless concerts, BBQ's and Yankees/Mets/Rangers/Knicks games - most notably, 1 Mets game where they clinched the NL East, and 1 Yankee World Series win (ok, so we were at a bar for that second one, but it still counts!)

On a related note (this part goes waaaay back), I want to thank my fellow SMAG for introducing me to the SMAG-ier things in life, like hot pot, lychee jellies, Pocky's, bubble tea, Sanrio, cheesy photobooth pics, H.O.T., Gen X Cops, congee, DDR, cherng fun yuew don and for teaching me everything I ever needed to know about Koreans. I'll never forget sleepovers at your Chinese church, or playing in the orchestra for all those Chinese New Year celebrations. Or your badass grandma killing that garter snake with her dustpan by chopping it up into little pieces.

It's been real fun, HLM!

**Edit from Lydia: Al, you forgot: 1 evicted neighbor family who had a kid that was horrible at the saxophone; 1 World Series game (Game #4 - 2009) AT Yankee Stadium, watching them in Philly via jumbotron; 1 smelly refridgerator; a bajillion long black and dark brown hairs all over our cream carpet (cuz we shed like animals); 206 total netflixes; 4-7 new TV Series obsessions on DVD - including Veronica Mars, CSI:NY/Miami, Chuck, HIMYM, and Arrested Development; 5 lockouts - split between me and Alex; and probably a total of 5000 votes between the two of us for American Idol, SYTYCD and ABDC.

Lydia's top 20 favorite albums

With the exception of a few random selections, my list will make up for the anti-smag list Alex just posted.  In the end, we average out in smagginess.  These are listed roughly in the order they impacted my LIFE (since clearly, I have "no musical taste") - if just favorites, BSB would be #1... I'm not ashamed!  Also, unlike Alex, I didn't restrict myself to any cutoff date, and I even included compilations.  Here goes:


1. Janet Jackson - "Rhythmnation" (1989) or "Janet" (1993) - it's a tie!
3. Beach Boys - "Pet Sounds" (1966)*
4. Backstreet Boys - "Millennium" (1999)
5. Chris Tomlin - "Arriving" (2004) <--- requisite twinkie-christian album
6. Original London Cast - "Crazy For You" Soundtrack" (1993?)
7. Kelly Clarkson - "Breakaway" (2004)
8. Missy Elliott - "Under Construction" (2002)
9. Alicia Keys - "As I Am" (2007)
10. Taylor Swift - "Fearless" (2009)
11. The Fray - "How to Save a Life" (2005)
12. Queen - "Greatest Hits" (1981)**
13. Shakira - "Donde Estan Los Ladrones" (1998)
14. Harry Connick, Jr. - "When My Heart Finds Christmas" (1993)
15. Chris Brown - "Chris Brown" (2005)
16. MIT Logarhythms - Natural Logs (2006)
17. Cheap Trick - "(Live) At Budokan" (1978)
18. Carrie Underwood - "Some Hearts" (2005)
19. Backstreet Boys - "Backstreet Boys" US release (1997)
20. Jay-Z/Linkin Park - Collision Course" (2004)


* Note: I was actually looking for a release that had the same songs from my favorite audio tape as a little kid - but I don't know if it exists - couldn't find it.  Will settle for "Pet Sounds" cuz it was pretty awesome anyways.  Otherwise it would be "Sounds of Summer - The Very Best of the Beach Boys" (2003) because that one really had every song.  It's a good road trip album.
** Note: no single album has encapsulated all of my favorite Queen songs just yet, but I have hope it'll come out soon.  All the Greatest Hits compilations come close, but the 1981 US release is the closest.  In an un-smaggy move, I've declared "Fat-Bottomed Girls" as my personal anthem.


I chose most of these albums for being the best sing-along type albums, but here are some other notes about my selections: Janet and Missy E helped me find my inner hiphop (which makes me wish I was more BFABB - go watch Step Up 3 if you have no idea what I'm talking about).  "If" was the first song I ever did a 'choreographed' dance to, and "Gossip Folks" was one of the audition songs when I made it into our dance group at school.  See? Big things.  #5, #7, #8, #11, #15, #16, and #18 really bring me back to college days and fun times, so I know they're albums that will stay on the list, even if not so deserving as time goes on.  (Also #15 is an MIT a capella group that I loved while in college, yes... very SMAG of me.) I also feel bad for still loving Chris Brown, but I will always love that first album. How's that for smag-iness? A mixture of pop and pop-hiphop and some old school rock... I think that sums it all up.