No hong bao this year...

The notion slipped from my working memory that I actually had a blog...so that's why I forgot to update in the past five days.  My bad!!

On Tuesday night, I went to my first (and probably last) book launch!  My Social Psychology professor, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, has just written a textbook called The Psychology of Personnel Selection, basically a bunch of stuff about making choices for hiring and firing.  The launch was held at 6 Bedford Square - there was finger food and wine, beer, and soda...!  I'm about to announce to the world: I had my first glass of wine that night!  Albeit, I mixed it with 7Up.  And it was only about one-third wine anyway.  But, whatever, I'm classy.  I also learned that I have very very very low tolerance for alcohol.  I'm also very Asian...yeah.

The party itself was quite interesting.  First, David Rubin (director of NYU in London) spoke a bit, then my professor's PhD professor spoke a bit (about how unfair God was being when he distributed qualities in Tomas: smart, handsome, charming...yeah, God was definitely being unfair), and then my professor thanked the crowd and plugged his book.

Unrelated: Yesterday was our Architecture trip to Westminster Abbey!  That was always on my Places To See In London list, so I was glad I got to go (for free, because NYU footed the bill...YES).  There's something about the exterior that is very pleasing to my eye.  Usually I don't like too much clutter on the outside of a building.  For example, no matter how much I love Il Duomo in Firenze, I think the facade is way too busy, what with all those white and green stripes.  The facade of the Abbey is completely verticals, verticals, verticals in the Gothic style of course.  It is also busy-looking, but I really like it.  I also love cathedrals' cross floor plans; I think that is the most ingenious thing, to build your building in the shape of your representative symbol.

The inside of the Abbey is...slightly anticlimactic?  It's dark inside.  There aren't many soaring windows, or maybe it was cloudy when we went inside.  The Lady Chapel, where Henry VII is buried, is very nice.  It's got the same fan vault pattern as in Bath Abbey (but I think Bath Abbey is, on the whole, so much more beautiful!).  We also saw where Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I are buried!  That's actually a motif to the Abbey, there are bodies underfoot everywhere.  Westminster Abbey is known for its coronations and its dearly departed.  I wish we had been able to wander around more, but my professor had us sit down and sketch the north gate.  I was quite proud of my sketch, but he came over and told me I was being too neat (to me, there's no such thing as too neat...), grabbed my pencil, and started drawing on my sketch, flowing lines and then dark hatch marks.  Why didn't he just stab me in the eye?

Another unrelated: Sunday is Lunar New Year/St. Valentine's Day!  I've been to Chinatown here twice.  It's TINY, but kind of cute and kitschy.  It's so small that they can afford to string up those round red lanterns across the whole of Chinatown.  It's mostly restaurants that compete for the same business (they have the same menus, there's no debating that).  I haven't brought my camera there yet, but I'm itching to do it in the coming week!

Also, my friends and I are doing Secret Valentine on Sunday, and then a potluck dinner of hopefully mainly Asian foods.  Mom told me that they are having a big dinner on Sunday night, and I became unexpectedly jealous.  You don't know what you have until it's gone, or until you study abroad and don't have people to cook dinner for you...I miss Chinese food a little!  I miss crispy pork and cha siew and oyster sauce and bao and lobster sauce and the garlic shrimp my aunt makes and the list goes on.

Anyway, gong hay fat choy!