The End Of A Year...

2008 draws to a close today. I can't say I don't welcome a new year, as 2008 was full of ups and downs for me. Predictably, the highs were so high, and the lows painfully deep.

When I think back on the last year, change is the word that comes to mind. Change happened on a variety of levels - I graduated college, moved across the country, and started a new job within 2 short (so very, very short) weeks. I enjoyed successes and felt the hurt that comes with failure, laughed often, and cried my part. Today isn't a day to recap the lows of my year - I am (sometimes acutely) aware of them, and I feel ready to accept them and move on.

The many highs are sometimes too much to count, but a short list includes...

Graduating college
Getting a job!
Getting the women's team back to Regionals
Visiting my family in Germany
My mom's visit back in September
Wildwood!
The party at Will's house after Regionals
Froggy's on graduation night (despite the fact that I ended up crying)
ABC
Thanksgiving with my family
Obama
Finding my book club
Taking a leap and moving across the country

I won't take this chance to talk about 2009, as it is not yet upon us (although mere hours away). 2008 deserves recognition as the year of incredible growth and transition. I don't think I've learned as much about myself in a year as in the one about to pass, and for that I am both grateful, and maybe a bit exhausted as well. I didn't make any resolutions last year..at least not that I can remember..so I don't have to submit myself to self judging in regards to what I did and did not do. That can wait for a year from now, I guess.

For now, I wish all of you a wonderful and happy new years eve. I hope 2008 was kind enough to you, and that you are looking forward to the next year with hope and anticipation.

See you in 2009!

In The Spirit of the Holidays

And my love for LoLCats

Time to Reboot

An excerpt from Thomas Friedman's recent op-ed:


"My fellow Americans, we can’t continue in this mode of “Dumb as we wanna be.” We’ve indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can’t afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world’s best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours."

Here's the link, read the whole thing!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/opinion/24friedman.html?em


Merry Christmas everyone! I'll soon be putting up pictures from Germany, but for now I hope everyone has a relaxing day with the people you love.

Döötschland

No, it's not how you spell it, but I'm on a german keyboard, so there.

now iäm going to stop tzping normallz...german kezboards are set up differentlz, get used to it.#

Anzwazs, just posting to saz that iäm alive and well, and that i made it safelz to the continent. little sisters are adorable, stepmom is awesome as alwazs, and mz dad gets in from amsterdam todaz.

thatäs all folks. if i dont post again while iäm here, merrz merrz christmas!!

20 Minutes Left on a Friday

So what do I do?

Blog a wee bit.

First, please watch this video. It is amazing. Edit: I stole this off Anna's blog. There, happy?




Second, this is a public plea for my roommate not to leave San Francisco and stay in our happy home forever (or at least until I'm gone, she's free to do what she wants after that). Alex, stay! Who else will I watch GG with, providing snide comments in the hopes that they'll make it into your live-blogging post? No one. Don't go breaking my heart like that.

Third, the Bay Area is expecting lows in the high 30s this weekend, as well as lots of rain. Happy I just bought some rainboots, not happy for the weather. I haven't seen that kind of cold in what, 8 months? I guess it's cruel preparation for Germany, which is a mere 7 days away! I guess 6 if you're counting down when I actually leave, but I'll be traveling for close to 24 hours. Brutal.

On tap for the weekend: dinner at RNM tonight, tomorrow is massage (!!!)/movie/xmas-and-dress shopping/cocktail-and-holiday-sweater party, and Sunday is probably recovering from Saturday, with some laundry and Germany prep-work thrown in.

That's the quickfire update of life right now. Not really sure how animal battles fit in, but I'm sure someone could make a really deep analogy and it would all work out.

If You Were to Ask Me How Life is Right Now

I'd say something to the effect of.....it's pretty damn good.

Tonight I went to bookclub, which was kickass because people seemed to get way more drunk that usual, annnnd we had a white elephant gift exchange and clothes swap. Besides coming away from the evening with:

One frog-esque piggy bank (gift exchange)
One Zara purse
One pair of cheap pearl earrings
Two old copies of Lucky magazine
(treasures, all of them!)

...I also walked away feeling great about life, friends, and the future. My job is getting much better...it seems the growing pains are subsiding and I'm settling in well with my clients, responsibilities, and skills. And when jobs get better, life seems to get better (a sad, but accurate, correlation). I'm getting back into the habit of going to the gym, reading more, listening to music more, talking to and seeing friends more....it's just more more more of the intangible things that keep me going and allow me to put my head down and get through tougher times. I'm incredibly grateful for the friends I'm making and the ones I already have, and I'm thankful to have a family that loves and supports me, especially my mother, whom I can call crying and, 45 minutes later, hang up feeling calm again.

Sometimes I feel like what I write about here is something of a broken record...things are great, then awful, then great again. It has, admittedly, been a very difficult 6 months. The post-college transition was taxing, and being in a new city made me feel especially isolated at a time when all I wanted to do was run home for the weekend or into the arms of loving friends. Now, I am so, so excited for 2009. I have resolutions to make (yes, I'm doing them, and yes, I plan on keeping track of my progress here), and an entire year laid out in front of me where I am transition-less. How I welcome it! Ask those close to me and they will tell you that I am a planner by nature. I love thinking in the long term and dreaming up new ideas, trips, career paths, even what I want to cook. Now, I can have a year where I can plan to my heart's content, but with the comfort of knowing that, no, I don't need to act on this immediately. For the next 12 months I get to settle in, relax, and see what this whole growing up thing is about.

To bring it all full circle, I'm the baby of my book club by about 4 years. Tonight I told a few of them "If I'm anything like you guys when I'm older, I'll be more than happy," and it couldn't be more true. If growing up means turning into someone more comfortable in my own skin, more confident in my abilities, and more willing to cut through the bullshit then I'll take it. They're a lovely group of girls, and if that's what I have to look forward to, so be it.

This is a Nothing Post

1. I go to Germany in 10 days. I am very, very excited.

2. Go see Bond. It was awesome.

3. New Britney CD = awesome.

4. New (to me) Black Keys CD = fantastic. Get it.

5. Office holiday party was a success!

6. I had a great conversation with Maggie tonight, and it made my day. Why have we been neglecting the phone so much!?

7. Chuck Bass baby. Chuck. Bass.

Exciting Things are Happening

Kind of.

To start, my brain has quieted down quite a bit the past couple weeks. I'm no longer on the verge of a major freakout regarding life, and I'm feeling pretty good about things. I've decided to stay in San Francisco for all of 2009 for various reasons. The city itself is beautiful, I'm meeting great people, and my job is actually getting much much better. More responsibility, less boredom, and a lot more appreciation from my coworkers. The casual dress code and work from home days don't hurt, either. Nor does the 65 degree weather when the rest of the country is ice ice cold.

I also need to have a non-transition year. College was always busy, and there were always plans to travel home, summer housing and jobs needed taking care of, and it was just go go go. 2008, of course, was a huge transition, with graduation and moving across the country. So in 2009 I'm looking forward to feeling a little bit more settled in a new place. I'm also planning on kind of recentering myself through a couple of ways, including maybe taking some art/ceramics classes and getting more into writing again. I've just felt incredibly scattered the past few months and, more than anything, rootless. It's hard to know where home is after having just graduated and left behind a lot in DC and then so suddenly moving somewhere utterly new. Slowly, though, little roots are forming here, and while they might be delicate and easy to tear out, why not let them grow a little deeper? The decision to stay has left me with a deep sense of calm, the kind that comes in a moment of clarity where suddenly an invisible burden lifts off your shoulders.

2010 holds big plans for me, but luckily nothing that I need to worry about, at least for now. The time for applications and essays will come soon enough, but right now I'm enjoying the respite of thinking ahead and just staying in the moment more.

Other recent/future happenings:

• Thanksgiving in Chicago. Delicious food and my beautiful family led to a relaxing week filled with lots of sleep, long walks with Buddy the dog, and much-needed family time. I'm always amazed how a conversation with my mom can refocus me and calm me down. I think it's something only moms really know how to do.
• B-B-B-Britney! Yes that's right, in March I'm flying to Nashville, roadtripping to Atlanta with Caitlin and Anna (!!), among others, and seeing Ms. Britney Spears in concert, 12 rows back. Think I'm lame? Don't care. I get to spend a long weekend in Nashville with my best friends, get back to my hometown (because let's be honest, Nashville is home), and get back in touch with my 7th grade self, the one who saw N'Sync in concert (TWICE) and may or may not have an autographed picture with LFO, that terrible boy band who sang the Inspector Gadget song (who else is in the picture? YUP, Anna and Caitlin).
• Germany in 2 weeks, where I get to meet my tiny baby sister and see my not-as-tiny other baby sister. Christmas in Germany is sure to be a vision of gingerbread, steaming mugs of chocolate, and long walks in snowy fields and along icy rivers. I'm also ready to spend time with my Daddy and stepmom and see their new house outside Heidelberg.
  

That's all for now. I've noted everyone's comments on great inspirational sports movies and will be adding them to my Netflix queue. Any other movie suggestions are always welcome.

Oh, and happy holidays everyone! I hope the turkey was nap-inducing and that the coming weeks see you full of yummy holiday treats and keeping your head up amongst the dismal economic forecasts. It's the time of year for snuggling into warm blankets, drinking warm drinks, eating candy canes, and holiday parties! I, for one, will be doing all of the above, and I hope you are, too.