things i think about while powerwashing 110

Shortcut to anonymous subscriber submission link: https://forms.gle/2MABf8jNr2V8kEY87

UPDATE: SORRY BOTH SUBMISSION LINKS WORK NOW!

Happy year of the snake everybody!

It is indeed a new Lunar New Year and to celebrate, I did some very Chinese New Year things!

As far as I can remember, the last time I celebrated Chinese New Year in Taiwan was probably when I was in second grade. I don’t think celebrating here or in Taiwan is toooo much different but I’d like to try it at some point!

I guess the only difference is that in Taiwan, we’d get together with family and here in America you can just get together with your friends!

There’s honestly something really cool though, about celebrating your culture amongst friends. For those that don’t know, they’re introduced to it for the first time and it’s great review to see if you remember everything. For those that are in the know, it’s the ability to fall in to familiar patterns with maybe unfamiliar people — something that connects us all in a fun way.

Maybe the act of sharing is the most powerful way of connecting with one another!

Anyway, some important dates to know for Chinese New Year, specifically:

• night before Chinese New Year is the traditional big dinner for us Chinese culture people!
• Day of Chinese new year: make sure you don’t clean! Or else the luck will all go away
• 15th day after Chinese new year: the lantern festival!

~11.5 pounds of frozen chicken breast

Sorry everyone, despite asking for a lot of recipes I ended up just cooking some sauted chicken breast! Work has been a little busier so I've been resorting to the easier stuff haha!

museum of the week

Now that I'm a few months into living in New York, I finally decided to get my library card! And as such, I decided to re-visit the New York Public Library Bryant Park branch's museum!

They have fun stuff like one of the original Gutenberg press bibles. I'm getting a sense of deja vu from writing this? Anyway Walking into the library felt exactly like walking into a grand museum — but on a gentler, smaller scale. The sweeping marble (?) staircases felt like a fairy tale, and inside and out of the library I saw a lot of couple shoots happening. Reading sure is romantic, isn't it!!

I walked by a glass case and look inside to find one of the world's oldest surviving cookbooks. I tried reading the text ... but nothing gives! I found it interesting that it was just continuous lines of text as opposed to line by line instructions! In a separate cookbook I found, it looks like they had pictures of kitchen tools. You know, just in case you forgot what a spoon looked like!

There was also some type of Winnie the Pooh exhibit that everyone was crowded around but honestly I didn't find it very interesting!

I think one of the coolest things I found was a mini-sized Quran that was written using gold leaf ... on leaf-shaped paper!!! It was super tiny and I could not make out a single word (despite my 40 day Duolingo streak!).

To make sure my time at the library was not for nothing, I took my book to one of the reading rooms on the top floor. I was focusing and having a good time reading until I heard a series of three rapid clicks, and I looked up to see a guy with a camera! It's definitely funny to be on the other side of a camera sometimes.

anonymous subscriber news

No submissions this week :(. Submit below!

Submit here: https://forms.gle/2MABf8jNr2V8kEY87

animal of the week

This one comes from esteemed subscriber Sydney Greenwood! Thank you so much for this wonderful picture of Bartlet helping open presents!

Send me your animal photos at ryan@torrtle.co!