Cook or Dine In?

Today, I was craving for some deep fried squid and shrimp with pepper. I had this very good dish before, but only the Chinese restaurant call Fortune in Milwuakee offer this dish. So it was to far just to go down there to had just this particular dish. I decided to go online (Youtube) and look up this dish and luckily they had the instruction for this dish. After watching the video of how to make it, I went off the the Asian supermarket to buy all the needed ingredients. I did everything exactly according to the video; measured everything carefully, mixed the ingredient, fried it.
The smell of it is wonderfully amazing while deep frying the the shrimp and squid dip in flour, black pepper, salt and a special spice. After that process, stir fried the ready fried shrimp and squid with jalapeno pepper, onion, and garlic. Now the smell is every more amazing but the house now smell like it. When its time to taste the dish, it was very good just like how it smell but the house still smell like it after 3 hours and spending $30 dollar for all the ingredients and labor. Overall, it was a very good experience. Considering the time and money spent on it this craving dish, I would rather dine in considering its only $13.99 and all you have to do is order, wait and then eat.

Wow! What a weekend. I haven't eat so much like this for a long time. This week, its eat, eat, and more eating. Saturday started out by going to work at 8am in the morning and ending it at 12:15pm in the afternoon. Got home 12:20 pm and eat what I call breakfast and lunch since I don't usually eat breakfast in the morning. Me and the fiance went shopping right away for all the items that are needed to prepare for my fiance's birthday party later that day. Got back from shopping and started mixing all the ingredients together to make some what we called, "kho phia" which consist of mixing two different type of flour with hot boiled water making into dough. Roll the dough into thin sheets and cut it up in small strips and then boiled it in hot water again along with chicken and some chicken broth power for flavor.
Kho Phia was so good I had three bowl after having a big piece of ice cream cake with some chips and soda. I was so full from eating this Saturday night I could not sit still while watching the Mayweather and Mosely boxing fight on the big screen television.
Sunday, its a repeat of Saturday....eat, eat, and more eating. Got invited to a few relative's house that day for their gathering which is a good thing because this weekend beside Saturday I didn't have to worry about cooking. I had four meals on Sunday from one house after another and didn't get home until 11:15 pm at night. I guess this weekend is like a full time job without getting paid, but getting fed. I feel like I must of have gained like 6 to 7 pounds this weekend alone by the feel of my stomach.

Reverse Racism

Everyday we hear about racism against minorities being treated unfairly and differently from the majority. We don't often hear about the "majority" being treated unfairly or differently from the minorities. It that it happens everyday but we just don't pay much attention to what is considered reverse racism.
Tonight, as I was switching the channel on the television and decided to watch the News for a bit. I came across the "Hannity" show on FoxNews. He and two of his sports colleague had a debate on the controversy about Tony Gerhart, the running back from Standford University not getting drafted in the first round and was drafted in the second round behind four other running backs from other colleges which had worst statistic numbers than Tony Gerhart. But because the other backs were black and Tony was white, those NFL teams that drafted the other backs didn't drafted him based on his talents because white running back were know not to performed as well than blacks in the NFL.
There was also a controversy about this 20 or so years ago when Warren Moon didn't get drafted into the NFL. He outplayed every quarterback during that year and was the MVP in the Rose Bowl that year. Because quarterbacks were mostly if not all white, he was no drafted. He had to go to Canada to play football to proof that he can play. Later NFL team drafted him.

The two cases are similar only in reverse. The Warren Moon case is what you see everyday against minorities and the Tony Gerhart case is what I call reverse racism, minorities against the majority (white). I think that it is unfair for the for teams to pick other players over other players based on the color of their skin just because some color are know to perform better than others. We should pick players based on their performance and talents on the field instead of assuming that certain color players can't play certain positions. If they perform well, they should deserve the spot and to be pick first in order to help the team to perform better to win games regardless of their skin color.

My perception of research and writing has changed over the last several week. I used to think that research is about going to the library, using charts and statistics, and etc. to writing a good paper. What I don't know is that research involves both primary and secondary research. Before this class, all was taught in high school as far as I remembered is mostly secondary research which required a lot of going to the library and finding as many facts about a certain topic as possible. This class taught me and hopefully most if not all students to use primary research which required one to actually go out and gathered most of the information and experienced it first hand. Primary research had made most of my paper a tad easier and much more fun to write. Not only primary research makes the paper a good paper, it makes the paper more interesting because our readers are reading a personal experience which the author experienced it first hand.

In closing, these last couple paper has given me the opportunities to go out and experienced first hand with a few of the local professionals such as; Studio of Houa, David B. Lee Dentistry and Maywood Environmental Park. Not only I get to experienced it first hand, I am also learning it at the same time which makes the whole experience more fun.

Have you ever had one of those weekend that takes your whole weekend away and you barely had anytime to do anything? With over a hundred families of relatives not including in-laws and friends here in Sheboygan. A few families are converted to Christian, Lutheran and Catholic; the majority still keeps their cultural and religious beliefs. Well, this weekend was one of those weekend. Seven close family relatives decided to do their religious cultural festival this weekend, I mean in the same weekend. So this weekend I spent most of my time running around from one family to another to help out with everything; from cooking, cleaning, preparing food, waiting and greet guests, etc. With these religious festival, you want as many people to attend as possible. I just don't understand why everyone had to do it on the same weekend. They clearly know that when a lot of families do it all at same weekend, only a few will attend and it would kind of worthless.
With the Hmong cultural, helping each other means a lot. If you don't help out others, others will not help you in the future. So being that its my close relatives that is hosting the religious cultural festival, I had no choice but to help out. It pretty much take up my whole weekend and here I am just got home typing up my blog on a Sunday night.

Are you guilty of stereotyping?

Have you ever been asked this question from a stranger, “Where are you from?” I’m sure most of us have been asked this question at bars, night clubs, streets, and strangers we met throughout life. Most likely you would answer with the city and or state you are from. And how often do you get asked that question twice from the same person in the same conversation? Rarely, right! I’m sure you don’t ask that question twice unless they are asking a non-Caucasian. I’m an American of Asian origin and I get asked this question a lot.

When most Caucasians asked me this question, they want to hear me answer that I’m from Asia. Today I volunteer at Maplewood for a community event open to the public and an attendee asked me where I’m from? I replied that I was from Sheboygan. He continues to asked, “Are you from Laos? Laos is country in Southeast Asia. I looked at him in silence and confusion. I replied with a warm smile, “No I’m not from Laos.” I don’t find it offensive. I am just puzzled by how stereotyping people are without knowing it. With that said how many of you find yourself in this situation where you expect an American of Asian origin to answer with an answer that includes a county other than the United States? Many people have this stereotype that all Asians are from Asia and all Hispanics are from Mexico without knowing that they are stereotyping. While most Asians will agree that they don’t have this stereotype of Caucasians are from Europe or other countries besides the US.

As an American of Asian origin (notice I did not say Asian American) I find it depressing that most Caucasians that I have encounter think that I’m not from this county. I am a citizen and I am from America. I am an American and proud to be a part of the Asian Race. Just because I’m part of the Asian race, this does not make me an Asian citizen. I don’t ask a Caucasian what part of Europe he or she is from unless I have a reason to do so.

It is very depressing to see that many Americans are still COLOR blinded. What makes America rich is the diversity of people. We are a country dreamed by many because we are full of life and that life is made up of the diverse races of the world. Although America, according to the census, has a higher percentage of Caucasians, does not mean that only Caucasians are from America. America is like a delicious salad. Mainly full of iceberg lettuce, a couple slices of tomatoes, some spinach leafs, some colorful slices of bell pepper, cucumber slices, mushrooms and other vegetables. All these vegetables are from different regions. It doesn’t really matter what region each vegetable is from, they all make up this delicious salad call America.

Money Power

Everywhere I go this weekend, I here about people talking about the Power Ball being at $200 million. People are pooling in money and buying Power Ball tickets and hoping to hit the Jackpot. What would you do if you won the Power Ball this week? Would winning the lottery change everything, if anything?
It would change in some ways, but not all of it. It would change financially because you have the money to do as you would please; travel to places to where you want, buy the luxuries as you please, do good things to help others in needs, etc... Sometimes having that much money can change a person even though they think that they cannot be change emotionally and psychologically. It changes them because it lessens the stress of being in debts and their daily needs and wants. Psychologically they are being selfish; building big homes, buying nice expensive cars, luxuries items, boats, etc. Everything is about for themselves and being selfish without knowing it. At the end, those people think that they have everything and making them happier, but it just makes them more selfish and turns them into a different person unconsciously. Does money really make people happier?