Happy Hanukkah! Also, Christmas times...

Just wanted to shine my light for Hanukkah... tonight is the first night!

My dad sent me a Hanukkah gift set in the mail so I could celebrate it from over here. It came with a menorah, some candles, some dreidels, some gelt, and some little handouts explaining each thing, like the history of Hanukkah, some Hanukkah songs, and how to light the candles and play dreidel. My housemate and I are going to play dreidel one of these nights after he has had some practice spinning the top. So, it's going to be a simple but nice Hanukkah.

Meanwhile, everyone's getting into the Christmas spirit. Downtown, there are street musicians playing Christmas songs on flutes and french horns. There's this event that has been going on for the past few weeks called Christmas in the Park, and it's kind of like a carnival mixed with a Christmas display.

There are rides, and popcorn/hot dog stands, and stands selling all kinds of other food... churros, hot chocolate, burgers, Hispanic food, and more.. and also a bunch of Christmas trees, and little dioramas with dolls of various themes, the trees and dioramas designed by different community organizations. Also there were fake snow, lights, and Christmas music in the background.

Loved this gingerbread house!

Pretty trees...

The Nutcracker :)

A choir singing...

And a big tree of lights right at the front!

It's nice to know that San Jose gets into the spirit for Christmas. Whether you live in a big city or a small town, Christmas is all around.

P.S. My final project is finished... check out the finished product if you wish :)
http://senna.sjsu.edu/aparsons/corobj/finalprojectmain.php

So busy, but here's another video!

So, I'm still wading through finals... and trying to keep up with my second job.... but for my computer class I made another video so I thought I would share it.



I am building a website about medieval literature. I will post the link here when I finish it. It will be featuring all the authors in this video. I will enjoy revisiting all these classic greats.

Another sneak peek:
http://senna.sjsu.edu/aparsons/corobj/france.php

I can't believe it's just 3 weeks until Christmas. Thank goodness my finals will be over after this week so I will have a little more time to start preparing and enjoying the season.

Video!

Hi friends!

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share a video I made for my web design/programming class. It features fun stuff I've done in the bay area so you've probably seen all these pictures before but it's still a nice video and I chose pretty music for it from this jazz soloists cd I like :).



So, enjoy, until next time when I have time to write a review of the book I just finished! :)

Halloween & CLA

So, fun week/weekend. At work we had our halloween party and people had fun costumes. I was a penguin.

We also got delicious catered Chinese food, and candy. There was a costume contest and the winner was the guy who dressed up as a revolutionary.

This weekend was the California Library Association General Conference, CLA for short, here in San Jose. I had a great time.

I went to a session on social media, a panel of mystery/crime authors, some lovely receptions where I met some new people, and a little evening amusement called CLA Battledecks which mixed slideshows and improv. I also saw lots of fascinating posters from different companies/libraries and enjoyed perusing the exhibit hall. Great weekend, and I still had time to meet with my study group and finish all my homework.

Here's a picture of a bunch of "swag" or fun exhibit hall freebies I got. Some flyers, bookmarks, pens, post-it notes, candy, a free picture of myself as a "Library Scientist"...

 ...and some books, including a free one I picked out about pirates.

I also bought a book by one of the authors at the panel I attended. She writes crime novels set in Paris, and she actually goes to Paris on a regular basis to do research for her novels. She signed my book for me, too :). I will be reviewing the book here when I finish it. At the suggestion of one of my new conference friends, I think I will occasionally start reviewing books here on my blog, because I really want to get back into reading more and that would give me the motivation to do so.

Happy November!

Fun times

So, last weekend I went to the Ferry Building Farmer's Market in San Francisco with my cousin, and it was a really nice day. I got pomegranates, red potatoes, kale and some apples... and with some of my ingredients I made this lovely soup.

It's got kale, potatoes, white cannellini beans, carrot, vegetable broth, a little garlic, onion and salt, zuchinni, and a little shredded cheddar ontop. Definitely a keeper!

We also went inside the ferry building where we made a visit to Miette, a cute little pastry shop where I got an amazing chocolate lavendar macaron...

...and also Blue Bottle for some coffee and cookies.

This weekend, I went to the San Jose Flea Market to search for inspiration for my Halloween costume. As I observed all the fun animal hats, I recalled that they sell a lot of those at anime conventions too... so I decided I'd buy one and be an anime convention attendee. I even have my old badge from 2011 with all the buttons I've been collecting ever since I started going to conventions. Next post I will post a picture.

They had a farmer's market at the flea market too, where I got some more pomegranates, tangerines, and avocados.

After the flea market, I visited Japantown and got some pocky to go with my costume.. and no visit to Japantown is complete without a Hawaiian shave ice.

This time I got blue raspberry and green tea. A little boy and his mom shared my table with me, they were from Campbell and super nice. We talked about legos and farmer's markets.

Pretty relaxing day so far, went to get some things at Whole Foods and just relaxing now. Hope everyone else is having a nice weekend too! :)

Friday night scene

Tonight on my way home from work I remembered that there is a food truck night-- locally referred to as Moveable Feast-- at the Curtner light rail station. A bunch of gourmet/street-food trucks get together and sell every kind of food you could want....

....from sushi, to shrimp, to burritos, to curry, to ice cream, to espresso drinks, to sandwiches of all kinds... and tater tots and french fries. Not just any fries, though. Sometimes there is also a poutine food truck.

I went to Moveable Feast last week looking for Little Chef, but it was not there. Luckily this time it was! My coworkers rave about poutine, so I thought it was about time I tried it, especially because I have two fantastic friends in Canada-- you, Meesh, and also my other friend Christian in Vancouver. :)

What is poutine, the uninitiated may ask? Well....

"A dish of french fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. Origin: 1980s, Canadian French, either from French pouding "pudding" or directly from PUDDING."

Now, I don't really get the "pudding" part, but a lot of different countries have different ways of defining pudding....

Anyway, this was what I got to enjoy: the classic poutine with gravy and cheese curds. They also had poutines with shredded short-ribs or duck confit.

It was quite delicious, with a delicately flavored gravy to enjoy with every bite and the perfectly melty cheese curds to enhance it even more. Add a gourmet banana white chocolate and snickerdoodle ice cream cookie sandwich and it was a lovely Friday night meal.

I think I'll start going to Moveable Feast more often! It's really a pretty nice little setup. They put out these red buckets for people to sit on as they eat, and they play music, and if it's cold out, they put out space heaters or bonfires.

Stay tuned to hear about my visit to San Francisco tomorrow :).

A Fall Weekend

This weekend I am celebrating fall. Today my housemate and I went to the Emma Prusch Farm Park Harvest Fair & Exposition. They had a bunch of neat booths, a pumpkin patch, music, and the occasional chicken wandering around. 

This hen and her chicks in front of the pumpkin patch attracted much attention from the kids. We think she was teaching her chicks how to peck for bugs or seeds. :)

Here is a glimpse of the park. It would be really nice to come here some weekend and just enjoy nature with a book and some fruit as a snack.

Here's another chicken. It's fascinating to see the different patterns of feathers that chickens have. This one is almost like a zebra chicken.

I picked out a pumpkin at the fair, and my housemate helped me hollow out the pumpkin so I could make a pumpkin stew like the one I made last year with my family. This one came out just as tasty. Later on we will get 1-2 more pumpkins, so I can make a soup or we can just have one as a jack-o-lantern.

I also went to Walgreens and picked out some Halloween themed pencils for the kids I tutor. They always need pencils to do their homework, so if they are extra good, they get to keep the pencil at the end of the day. :)