All right, a movie review: This weekend I watched "Bend It Like Beckham". I know, everyone else saw this film a year ago. So I'm behind the times. I thought the film was thoroughly charming. The performances and the story were great. I don't know if it's because I am the child of immigrants myself, or because as a student at Hopkins my friends were from so many different cultures, but I find it really gratifying to see movies like this and My Big Fat Greek Wedding and American Chai -- stories about children of immigrants struggling to reconcile and integrate their heritage with their everyday Western lives. It's funny to me to see how the experience is so often similar, whether your family is Korean or Greek or Indian or Romanian (as in my case). Anyway, I really enjoyed this film, though the recipe for aloo gobi included on the DVD is way too complicated for me to handle. Damn!