Heads up! SFMOMA this week - O'Keefe and Adams!!!

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all having a great weekend, I am!  Now that the semester is over for me at San Francisco State, I am finally able to organize my home and even socialize, and it feels great!

For the students who were in class last Thursday, I hope the library outing was enjoyable.  I personally found a new eco magazine, called World Watch, that I like a lot.  I checked out a few copies so we can take a look at them together in class.  Be prepared to share what you checked out from the library.

This week is the free day at the SFMOMA, and I know we have been there a lot, but I am also sure that the current exhibitions are a "must-see."  One is Georgia O'Keefe, an American woman who is an icon in the U.S. - a terrific painter - and the other is another icon, this time a photographer: Ansel Adams.  Check out the current event at the following URL:

http://www.sfmoma.org/pages/exhib_events

The exhibition is called Natural Affinities - still in our theme of loving nature and paying respect to our mother earth!

OK, see you all tomorrow - looking forward to class - OH - recipes - bring those to class too!

D

PS - look someone else is onto the flowers are mandalas:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mandalas.com/images/Lrg_image_Pages/Flowers/Georgia_O%27keefe_8.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mandalas.com/FlowerGallery/Georgia_O%27Keefe.php&h=576&w=576&sz=404&tbnid=TxNMwbu6Die3TM:&tbnh=134&tbnw=134&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgeorgia%2Bo%2527keefe&usg=__NqxRm9OEomauZV_8r--S0NoYmxo=&ei=tPsiSpLEEpXstAOHzvz4Aw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image

My recipe (pim)

Hi everybody,

I decided to to choose one of my favorite foods to present to the class. When somebody in my family is sick, especially my father, my mother likes to make rice soup for the family. I like every kind of meat with which she makes it. But the best is fish. It's quite simple. Now, let's get this show on the road.

First we have rice, of course. Thai jasmine rice is the best choice because it's very soft and smells wonderful. First you boil the rice with a little bit of salt-- just enough to be able to taste it. It takes about forty minutes for the rice to be soft enough. And that means you have time to prepare the other ingredients. My mother would slice the fish and put some salt or a little soysauce in it and it let sit for about 20 minutes or more (if we can wait), to give the fish time to absorb the salt and the sauce. While waiting for the fish, she prepares some fresh vegetables. We need a lot of strong-smelling herbs to kill the smell of the fishy fish. So we need to chop some green onion, cilantro, celery, fresh ginger, and a bulb of garlic (yes, a whole bulb, not just a clove!). As soon as you finish with the ginger, put it in the rice pot.

Next step is to fry the chopped garlic at a very low temperature, otherwise you will get black bitter garlic instead of brown sweet garlic. Oh don't forget to glance at the rice every once in a while to check if it's doing okay. You don't have much to do with the rice except for when it boils over then you need to turn the temperature down.

Frying the fish, you also need very low temperature. Cook the fish until it looks yellow or very light brown and it looks dry enough (enough to leave the smell out). When the rice is ready, first turn the stove off to make sure that you don't waste energy. Now it's time to serve. Put as much rice as you want into a bowl and then some green onion, cilatro, celery, and fried garlic in. Thai peple like spicy food so they put some vinegar, roasted powder pepper, and some more salt. Not for my family. Because it's best the way my mother makes it, we can't make it better. The soft rice with some tender fish with no fishy smell and some green herbs and the nice smell of ginger just go with each other very well.

This kind of food is very good for somebody who has a cold or flu or even any kind of disease that makes your stomach weak. The smell of the herbs will make your stuffy nose clear. And also because it's hot so it can keep you warm. Also it's very mild for your stomach and very easy to digest. And you can eat a lot without having to worry about your weight because it's very light in fat and carbs.

Newlyweds!!

Hey there!

Here is a little picture of my wedding. I'd like to introduce my new husband, Tony! You might see him around at lunch-time now that he is on vacation.

It has been a perfect day, exactly as in our dreams! It was a chance for us to get married in the US, where you can really "design" the ceremony as you want it. In France, you have to go to the City Hall (it's completey charmless) and/or to the church (but we are not religious). Here, we rented a house with a big sundeck with a view on the ocean. The ceremony took place on this deck; we were facing the sea; the weather was great; we had a friend of friends officiating the ceremony; and there were only 25 people. Thus, the atmosphere was very friendly and intimate. It was wonderful!!! but it went so fast! We are happy to have some pictures and a video. The video is also very important for our families who couldn't be there.
See you tomorrow in class!
Cecile

Hi - Jeff here!!

Hi, my name is Jeff. I'm from Malaysia. Today is my first day in class. I just checked out our blog,  and i want to say you guys did a good job! This is the best blog that I have seen...

@Brentwood cherry picking

Hello, everyone

Last Sunday I went to Brentwood with my friends. We drove a car around one and half hour for picking cherry. That day the weather was fine but a little hot. The cherries were tasty and very sweet. I ate it so much so I forgot to keep it. The cherries that have a black-red colour are better than the red one. After we finished from that place, we went to Thai cuisine. The foods were delicious and reasonable price. I enjoyed very much for my weekend.


Weng,

Botanical Garden

We biked ot the UC Botanical Garden on Saturday. It was just cold the whole time we were there. I don't have much to talk abot this but I have tons of pictures to show you guys.

These cacti are mostly from South Africa. Just think about how pleasant it would be if you are travelling in a desert, thirsty and hopeless. Then you see these plants, it must be very encouraging. There is life around you, you are not the only life in the desert. It can cheer you up. ^_^

And these plants are in a greenhouse called the Fern & Carnivorous Plant House. I enjoyed looking for the spores of the ferns. They are good at hiding their spores.

Look at the flowers above, those are carnivorous plants. They use the colorful flowers as their bait to trap the insects. And the hairy one is also carnivorous. It has those hairs for a reason, to trap the prey. Nature is complicated and very beautiful. I still have a lot more pictures but I am afraid you guys will be bored seeing too much from me. Anyway for more info about the garden you can check it out online at http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu/

The long weekend

Hi everybody, I hope you are having a fun weenend. Mine is so far so good. Yesterday we biked to the Botanical Garden. It was miserably cold but it was very good for taking pictures because I didn't have to worry about the light, I mean the shade. When it's sunny, it's hard because I have to use my head to block the light if part of the picture is in the shade. So even though it was very cold because we didn't plan to stop biking and walk around it was quite good. Okay now, let me show you some pictures I took from there. By the way, every Wednesday we normally walk Nina, my boyfriend's friend's dog. So let me introduce you to Nina first. Nina is very sassy and jealous. First I really did not like her but now I like her much better. She is quite human. I don't know, she cares about you even though she doens't like you very much. This picture was from when we took her for a walk up Berkeley hill, Strawberry Canyon. It's our favourite place. But for her, everywhere with my boyfriend is her favorited place. Now I know why people love dogs. They don't care, they love you no matter what. I finally decided to upload a picture of myself. I think this one is quited artful so I chose it. This spiral thing is on one of the highest hill tops. You really have to climb up high to see it. there are two of those but the last time we were there some people had been there already. So I can't talk the picture of the whole thing. Next time.

This picture was taken by my boyfriend. You can only see the silhouette of me like the one above it. Cool huh? And those were my Wednesday evening activities. What about yours?

No school on Monday the 25th of May

Hi everyone - don't forget that there is no school this Monday for Memorial Day - Have a great weekend everyone ;)

@Rose garden

Hello, everyone

Again, the trip at Rose garden. This is my first time here. The weather was a little bit hot but the garden was beautiful and romantic place I think. That time was not good for taking a photo I think it should be in the morning or sunset time it will be better. There were a very very big roses that I have never seen it before and it was awesome flowers.

Ok, enjoy ^^


This picture the background was so great!!! Can you see it ???

Professional photographer!!! Ahaaa

The big rose that I said.

@Cheese Board Pizza

Hello, everyone

We had a trip again !!! In that day, the weather was so good. First picture was in cheeseboard pizza. The pizza was very tasty and inside of the restaurant always has a live jazz music. The music was soft and smooth. The sounds were compatible with the rhythm of beat of drum and guitar.

My first field trip

Hi everybody, my fisrt field trip was so cool except for the part that we didn't have everybody from our class. I missed the very first part though. It was a misunderstanding, never mind.

At The Cheese Board, I took several pictures of some children. And this one is the one I like the best. Isn' she cute? What do you think? It was so crowded there. The pizza was good. I like the flavour(spelling?) because it's light, lots of vegy but it was too greasy as always. The music was good too.

After the pizza place we went to the first Peets Coffee and Tea. I didn't go in becuase I am not a fan of coffee or tea. I do have some pictures from there but they are not that good so I decided not to post it. And after that we officially started the walk. On the way we got to see some Aboriginal Art from AU, cuased by Guliza's(spelling?) curiousity about olive trees. The paintings are very unique. I haven't seen that kind of painting before. I am so pround of them that they can concerve thier traditional wisdom and bring it to the worlds' eyes.
The way to the Rose Garden was a good exercise. Also the weather was so beautiful. Again, I do have some pictures from the side walk all the way there but they are not that important, not enough to use the blog's space. And then we finally made it to the Rose Garden. I have to say I was surprised by how beautiful it was. I was there before for a few times but I didn't especially like it because of the timing (meaning the season). I enjoyed taking pictures and smelling the roses a lot. The metal rose is from a little thing right next to the creek. I put some dry petals next to it to take some pictures of it. I can't help trying to be artful when taking pictures, it's in my blood ( I mean I was born to try but maybe not to be a good artist). The kind of orange or pink one is the only picture I took that has me in it. Where am I in this picture? Well it was a nice trip afterall. Thank you Denise for taking us there. And Nicole, too bad you didn't come. We all missed you.

We had a great field trip!

We went to the Cheeseboard before we went to the Berkeley Rose Garden.

We each ordered a piece of pizza and drink there. Brunch was very good and we could enjoy a Jazz Combo`s playing. The musicians played very well and they made us exhilarated.

Let`s enjoy their concert again!

I went to Tanpopo last Friday.

Tanpopo is a Japnese restaurant located in Japan Town.

It has a meaning "dandelion" in Japanese. It is a Japanese movie`s name also and

a subject of the movie is a ramen.

A restaurant owner got an idea in this movie.

I ordered Karamiso ramen. The ramen was little spicy but not greasy and I could enjoy.

If you visit Japan town some day, I`d like to recommand this place!

My Weekend

I had a miserable weekend. It was veryyyyy hot. On Saturday we went on Oakland Walk. It was about Oakland history. I learned something. I could have learned much more if I was born here because the person spoke fast and used advanced vocabs that I don't know.

This is the city hall of Oakland. It was in the 1989 earthquake. I am not so sure about the year. It got damaged but now it has very cool metrofit. There is a big piece of rubber under it so next time it will move along when the earth moves.

Then we went to Lake Merrit and a park. Here are some cool pictures from the lake and the park. These pictures are from the lake. I took the picture of a building in the water and the other one is my bike.








A pretty flower from the park next to the lake.
And some little berries in a palmetom.










I tried so hard to take a picture of this little guy. He didn't move at all. He was staring at me all the time. I came back to check him out after a few minutes I didn't see him. He was there just for me to take a picture.


In evening, my boyfriend heard a siren in front of our house. We live in 56th street. He said "wow those guys must be very dangerous so they have four lolice cars chasing after them. Then we went to a little park around the nighborhood to play with Spunky and play frizbee. While we were playing we saw a helicopter flying round and round. We went to see what was going on. There were three cars on Martin Luther King. The one you are seeing was totally damaged and the death body was still in the car. The news said four guys shot somebody and tried to escape from the police cars ( the cars that my boyfriend talked about) then they tried to cross MLK and hit the black car from one side of the road to the other side then killed a person on the side walk. It was ................. I don't know how to say. Two of the merderors are aressted but the other two are still missing. I hope the police will find them before they hurt somebody else.

On Sunday we went to San Ramone I'm not sure about the spelling. We went there to find a black shirt. It's a long distance from our house. I didn't get a shirt afterall. Sunday was just miserable for me. We watched Lawrence of the Arabia but we couldn't finish. I liked it though.

Our class!!!

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Hello, everyone

Last Wednesday we had a field trip out side again. We went to the museum at U C Berkeley.
In the first picture, I took it at the People cafe' we had a brunch here before starting to museum.







This picture was in front of Sather Gate at U C Berkeley. We asked someone to take a photo for us and then we went directly to the museum. Unfortunately, the officer at the museum did not allow us to take a photo inside. The exhibition is awesome and seem to be a abstract idea. In this meantime, there are no more people because the program is changing schedule which will begin on next month. Finally, Thank you for Dennis Love, the director of the museum, who give us for a good experience.
I hope next exhition we will go together again.


Weng,