Thank you very much for all the wonderful birthday greetings! The warm wishes, ecards, and beautiful birthday graphics brought big smiles onto my face :)

So this marks my final year as a 20-something. The next "decade" definitely doesn't feel as intimidating as it used to be, and looking at my life right now, it's so full of blessings that makes me believe 29 is a very good age to be. *g*

- I am more or less "settled" by definition of a single individual living in a large city full of other non-married people. The apartment I just moved into is shiny and sparkly (and shall remain so with my OCD-level obsessive cleaning of the place). I have my own place, and as a rent-stabilized apartment, it's conceivably a place I can stay in for a long time.

- I have a steady job that I love. Not many people can say this about their profession, especially during this time of massive lay-offs and economic downturn. I dove in head-first into a field I initially knew nothing about and have come to like it very much. There are tedious, hair-pulling, frustration-worthy moments, for sure. But by and large, I have really enjoyed working at and learning about the field of community and economic development.

- I enjoy and have a fun-filled outside-of-work life that still allows me to have introverting time for my own. I'm still getting used to living by myself (it's weird not to be watching TV with

sunnydlita during evenings and getting nervous over reality TV eliminations), but I have plenty of social activities to keep me busy :)

All in all, a very good start to a new birthday-year. Here's to hoping for a wonderful 12 months ahead!

Current Mood: happy

It's been a month full of many activities for me. Work has eated my brains as usual. On top of that, I've been gradually moving into my new (and very shiny) apartment, corresponded with and interviewed about 10 people until I finally found a subletter to take over my current lease, furnished my new apartment from scratch (i.e., many trips to random people's homes buying cheap furniture via Craigslist), had to go on three business trips in the span of a month, and did a bunch of family things with my mom visiting from 3,000 miles away.

Tomorrow is the D-Day of my apartment saga: new subletter is arriving in the morning with her movers. This means starting tomorrow, I will no longer be straddling between two apartments in two different boroughs of NYC. I will, for the very first time since, well, ever, have an apartment all to myself.

Said apartment does not yet have Internet connection. I shall have to remedy that asap.

Part of me fears that once the initial rush of moving house is over, I'm going to feel at a loss of what to do. Every day for the past two months, I've had something to do after work until well into the evening, be it going to Home Depot to pick up tool-y things or scouring Craigslist for the piece of furniture I had needed to acquire. Between house stuff and hanging out with friends and family, I literally have not had a moment to myself. I'm utterly exhausted, but have never felt so productive in my life.

And now the only items left on my "To Get" list are two A/C units and some bookshelves. After that, I might really have to buy the Wii Fit to keep me busy. *g*

See you all on the other side of getting Internet access at my new apartment!

One of my two sponsor children have graduated from her program. And here I thought some random life circumstances had forced her to quit. Nope. The life circumstance that happened was that she grew up. She's now 17 (!). For some reason, I still think of her as perpetually 12.

From her letter (translated, of course):
"...I am very thankful to you for your help, love and all the good things you have rendered to me... I have developed in spiritual, social, physical and educational activities through your help. I am self supported only with you [sic] help. I shall never forget your help in my life. My parents conveyed their hearty thanks to you."

I'm getting teary-eyed just by typing this.

Good luck, formerly sponsored child!

Current Mood: drained

Got three weeks' worth of laundry washed and dried, and it's not even 10 a.m. yet! Ah, my day is done ;)

A little update on my lottery apartment: I went to see it, and it's beautiful! A real one bedroom -- not like the ones they advertise on Craigslist. All new appliances, temperature adjustment thingy in each apartment, spacious living room/kitchen area, closets, laundry on-site, live-in super... all those nifty things. I'm still not going to consider the place "mine" until I have the signed lease in my hand. I'd hate to be disappointed if for whatever reason the deal can't close as planned.

This means I'll need to look for a subletter to take my place starting May 1 or so. Maybe I'll stagger the move just like I did when moving out of 6K. I still feel like I've just moved and don't really fancy hauling everything from one place to another again. Having a month-long moving period makes it look less daunting to me somehow.

I've been feeling sick all week. Caught some sort of a stomach bug Monday and couldn't keep in anything I ate... except oatmeal. My body seemed to have declared oatmeal its bff over the past few days. Slept a lot and paid a lot of visits to the bathroom. I finally felt better yesterday and began to eat normal food again. Even managed to try some of the meatloaf that

sunnydlita made!

Every once in a while, I'd surf random articles on Yahoo HotJobs or similar sites, just for fun. Lately I've been reading some articles on how to have a good interview. I suppose I was trying to do my "homework" now that our organization is trying to hire development staff and I get to interview potential candidates. Boss Lady still does 90% of the interviewing, but I don't want to sit next to her feeling like a third wheel intruding on a two-person dialogue.

There are always lighthearted articles on what to do/not to do at interviews. I'm always amused by the anecdotes that HR experts share in these articles about disastrous interviews, and would think something along the lines of: "Nah... who except for a few special cases would sabotage their own interviews like that?"

I think you can all see where this is going. I now have a Very Odd Interview Experience story of my own to share, featuring one potential part-time job applicant who committed a hefty sum of job interview faux pas and in the end still believed they were perfect for the job. It was a painfully awkward interview, trying to get the applicant to give anything other than a one-word answer, to share their experience, to give a reason other than "I need the money" for why they want to work at the organization. I know when Boss Lady and I look for new hires, we try to find someone who would be a good fit personality-wise as much as skill-wise. The person's tendency to overuse large, intelligent-sounding words (when small words would more than suffice) aside, I just... didn't get a good vibe about their self-portrayal as someone whose only goal in life seems to be to collect trophies and go for what is conventionally accepted as "good" without giving thought to whether that particular something matches their ultimate goal in life.

Anyway. I'm still processing the experience ("odd" was the first word that came to mind as soon as it was over), but my gut reaction from the interview was similar to Boss Lady's, so I don't think I was being overly critical. More than anything, really, I'm just amused. In a headdesky-for-the-job-applicant way.

Current Mood: calm

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

I have today off (w00t!). It's been a nice weekend spent in NJ. Not much going on except lots of food and TV, both of which are always nice. I don't think I've had so much candy in a long time ;p

Work is still consuming the majority of my time. Most of the time it's challenging and fun, with new projects and possibly new staff joining (yes, our organization is hiring!). But this also means it's been very busy -- new contracts means lots of new reports, meetings, performance "quotas," etc. The good news is that our phone has been ringing off the hook with new clients. The bad news is that many of these clients are seeking foreclosure help. Sigh.

On the home front, I've finally started playing my Christmas present -- Animal Crossing: City Folks! I've named our town New NY, in a humble tribute to the City in which I live and to another City in the far, far future, where a beloved Doctor and two of his companions had traveled. New NY is currently inhabited by about 10 animals and two humans:

ziasudra and

sunnydlita (a.k.a. SunnyD). The ubiquitous Tom Nook is still scamming money out of us all, but it's a good town, with fishes and fossils and K.K. Slider airchecks. Does any out-of-towners want to visit us? *puppy eyes*

In Real Life, I've been trying to catch up with different friends in the City. The l00bs met for a weekend a few weeks ago, which was a lot of fun. I'm also hoping to finally get together with

so_severus and

sparkly_stuff sometime this week, after months of having vastly different (and incompatible) schedules.

So, Happy Lunar New Year to all! I hope the Year of the Ox will be a good and joy-filled one!

Life has been mostly taken up by work lately... looking at working part of yet another weekend, eep! At least this time I'll just be tweaking a proposal from home before sending it off to a consultant. I love it when we use our consultants :)

In happier news, I am moving! I will be living with

sunnydlita and her current housemates in Astoria, Queens! Moving out of Manhattan is definitely going to be different, but I think it'll be a good change. I've already stayed 4.5 years in my current apartment -- practically a lifetime in terms of New York City rental length of time.

Roommate A is getting married in a little over two weeks. She and her fiance went to get their marriage license today, so technically they're already married! Wow, hard to believe that not even two years ago, Roommate A was still single and talking with former Roommate D about dreams of getting married. (Which was a conversation I didn't bother to join, heh.)

And to sum everything up, dragons! Click them if you want, but I'm just posting them to gather unique views. You guys looking at them with your unique ISPs are their food :)

( dragons behind the cut )

Back from (former) Roommate D's wedding. Looking out the window, I see that the sun is rising already. Strangely enough, I don't feel like passing out on my bed at the moment.

Wedding was nice. Wedding was big. Wedding was in the middle of Pennsylvania. I took the Amtrak from NYC to PA, and everything was perfect. Nice roomy seats, train leaving and arriving on time, and there was even a bathroom in the train car in a good enough condition for me to change from jeans to my wedding attire.

Traveling back was not so nice. I'd bought a ticket for the 11:45 p.m. Greyhound bus. Arrived at station early as recommended, just in time to see the last Greyhound staff locking up and leaving her post. Apparently the last bus was scheduled to come later than her shift, so passengers were left on their own to wait for he bus to arrive. Okay, not a problem. Still 20 minutes until the bus arrives. Not too bad, right?

We all waited. And waited. And waited some more. At 12:15 a.m., the station security guard's shift was over and had to herd us outside the building to wait for the now half an hour-delayed bus. Undisclosed city in Pennsylvania apparently didn't want to expand their budget to employ a third shift security guard. According to regulations, the guy had to kick us out of the bus station. Contract requirement, he explained. He looked apologetic. Fair enough, we all headed outside.

At this point the constant drizzle turned into a downpour. The roof extended out long enough to keep all of us dry, but the outdoor seats were all wet. Someone called the Greyhound 800 number and was basically told "the bus was delayed but we don't know by how much, because call center staff can't contact bus drivers". Right. So we waited and waited again, straining our eyes at every hint of a headlight to see if it was the bus or just some late-night partygoers getting lost driving around the city grid.

Clock ticked 1:20, and finally the bus arrived. Yay. Except not quite, because it had already made stops elsewhere so the only available seats were toward the back of the bus, where the lavatory was. I sat close enough to the lavatory to catch a whiff of something here and there. Ew.

Bus dragged along. Bus was slow because of rain. Bus arrived Philadelphia to refuel, two hours later than stated time (which meant we lost another half an hour of travel time due to slow driving). Everyone had to get off the bus, so I took advantage of a real bathroom inside the Philly bus station and freshened up a bit there. Greyhound staff continued to fail by letting new passengers onto the bus before all of us original passengers got back on. We barely realized what they were doing waving unfamiliar faces through the gate when we stopped them and demanded to board first, right before the bus was going to run out of spots.

The good news was that the staff fail meant everybody played musical chairs, and this time I got a seat in the front of the bus, far away from the lavatory. The last leg of the trip went well. I got to sleep some, the rain stopped, and the driver kept time and we arrived NYC two hours later than scheduled time, which meant no time lost from Philly onward.

All in all, both Amtrak and Greyhound got me to where I needed to go. But as far as quality of traveling experience goes, the point definitely goes to Amtrak.

Current Mood: tired

( TMI about womanly things. Pass along... )

Current Mood: sick

1.
I had this huge craving for steak, raw fish, and deep-fried food today. Steaks are expensive, so I compromised and had a burger with calamari for lunch, then later walked to the local Japanese convenience store to pick up brown rice sushi and bubble tea. *checks calendar* Yup, it's that time of the month again.

2.
Yesterday I was walking around the markets in Union Square, and randomly ran into my roommate M from college and her now-husband A! I think the last time I saw them was at my other college roommate's wedding a year ago. I followed them to dinner and met up with new friends and some other people I also knew from college. Nostalgia, that.

3.
Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I believe this is available for free online viewing until midnight today, so go watch it if you haven't yet! And it's Joss Whedon! :D

4.
The Dark Knight. Saw it, loved it, would see it again on DVD though probably not in a theater unless it's IMAX. Christian Bale is a very, very good Bruce Wayne (and Batman too, but I like his Bruce Wayne persona better). All the hype about Heath Ledger's performance is true -- his Joker was one-of-a-kind. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart are love. And Gary Oldman for the win! He totally brought the comicverse version of Commissioner Gordon to life; I can't imagine another actor playing the role as well as he.

5.
My computer's been sick since last, last Thursday. At one point I couldn't even do a simple Google search in IE or Firefox. Thank goodness I still have an ancient version of Netscape installed on my computer. But even with that, I've had trouble getting online most days since last week. :(

6.
Next week and the week after are New York City's Restaurant Week. I've already made a dinner booking with the l00bs at a fancy Japanese restaurant. Lots of good places to check out, especially those otherwise unaffordable places that normally have $90 prix fixe menus or averages over $75 per meal per person.

7.
I'm finally getting my own business cards, yay. For the past year and a half, I've been taking Boss Lady's cards and writing my own name and email in the white space. So the client got two lovely contacts for the price of one! Now I'll have my own stack of ~~placeholders~~ ~~bookmarks~~ cards that I'll never use up, not if Boss Lady who's worked at the organization for sixteen years still has hundreds of hers.

8.
I've been trying to leave birthday greetings in people's LJs but have been slacking recently. So happy belated and early birthdays to all you second-half-of-July babies:

thescarletwoman,

lampblack,

tanechigai,

sra_black, and

dove95!!!

ETA: #9: "If there are one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal."

Current Mood: thirsty and craving weird food
Current Music: Dr. Horrible -- Everyone's A Hero In Their Own Way

Firstly, thank you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes! I had a wonderful day :)

Three-day weekend coming to a close. I've managed to fool my body into thinking that it should be on vacation mode. I'm going to have sooo much trouble waking up for work tomorrow :p

Friday night was dinner at Turkish Kitchen, the bestest restaurant in NYC for Turkish food. Seriously, every single time I went there was a good experience. The food is always delicious and the staff there is courteous. Even at close to midnight, when we were the last large table left and talking loudly about rather unconventional topics, they still didn't try to kick us out ;)

The night was made extra special with

cedarlibrarian,

midnitemaraud_r,

paranoidsistah,

so_severus,

shipchan, and

sparkly_stuff. We ate and talked and ate some more, then talked some more. After Turkish Kitchen we meandered into a Dunkin Donuts so we could look at the latest Torchwood magazines.

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent recouping. I had Japanese food Saturday and had an unusual craving for salad today, a testament to just how much rich food I ate at Turkish Kitchen. BUT! My roommates baked me a chocolate cake covered with icing, complete with multicolored smiley faces! So whatever light diet I'm intent on keeping went out the window to make room for cake *g*

It was a good weekend. Too bad it's almost gone. *clings*

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Lakers @ Celtics

Haha, I'm dense. Boss Lady & co-workers gathered the entire office to go have dim sum for lunch today and halfway through the meal I asked the person who organized this, "What's the occasion?"

Turns out the lunch was to celebrate my (almost) birthday.

Heh. Never mind that I've co-planned many recent office birthday surprises myself. Apparently I'm gullible enough to fall for things right before my eyes. *is oblivious*

I'm going back and forth between beaming and headdesking right now. And falling asleep from food coma. Mmmmm... Chinese food. *burps*

ETA: Obliviousness x 2! We installed a new TV/computer system in the conference room today. Boss Lady lured me and my intern in to "check out the new TV." While I was distracted with searching for old Chinese pop songs on YouTube to show her, the entire office came in and there was cake. Cake! For me! Eeee, I'm soooo full now ^_^;;

Current Mood: full

1.
It's official. Both my housemates are now engaged. The first one got asked the question a couple of months back, and has already set a wedding date in late September. Roommate A was engaged Thursday night. She came home squeeing and bouncing while Roommate D's already-high voice jumped up another octave in cooing. I'm definitely happy for them, but you won't hear high-pitched cooing from me ;)

This means at some point over the next few months, I'm going to have to look for another place to live in. I could technically stay at my current apartment and become the pseudo-landlord. But I'm reaching the point where I'd really just want a place of my own. Housemates are good for short-term living arrangements, but my introvert meter (think Sims, with that little meter thing floating on top of my head) has been drained almost to empty over the last few years.

2.
As a follow-up to my last post, I've been doing some research on who to give aid to in response of the Myanmar cyclone. I got an email from MoveOn.org the other day, urging people to donate to avaaz.org, a group that's "raising funds for the International Burmese Monks Organization, which will transmit funds directly to monasteries in affected areas."

After looking through the reasoning behind the campaign -- that monks are the only ones already established in various communities to start giving out aid right away -- I'm inclined to give this group a try. Unless any of you have heard negative things about Avaaz or this campaign (I'm all ears, since potential aid money is at stake here). Maybe I'll split my donations between this group and something more reputable like the Red Cross. This way, part of my money can start going into immediate relief while the other part can eventually be used toward long-term rebuilding under the hands of an internationally established organization.

Current Mood: determined

It's been one long MONTH of coordinating with Very Important Organization to get their Very Important Representative to come over for a pre-site visit (actual site visit to take place over three days in mid-May). VIR is currently meeting with our CFO, picking his brain on all the finance-y matters. I'm taking this chance to heave a (temporary) sigh of relief before getting back in gear to prep the entire organization's Directors and Senior Managers to meet with VIR.

As I've re-discovered, the timeless schmoozing tactic that always works — food.

♦ Breakfast for VIR and CFO. Check.
♦ Lunch for VIR, CFO, Managing Director and staff. Check. (Let's hope the food actually arrives...)
♦ Dinner for VIR, Executive Director and Board of Directors. Almost-Check. (Reservation at restaurant done)

If VIR likes the food, then things will go well. *g*

*goes back to chicken-without-head running around*

Current Mood: busy

♦ This? Is amazing. And judging by the other painting shown at ~6:22, it seems like the elephants have a certain degree of artistic license to draw whatever they want ("I feel like flowers today" or "I feel narcissistic today"). So does this mean they choose what color paint to dab onto their brushes as well? I'm not sure, as the video doesn't show it.

♦ The fourth season of Doctor Who airs tomorrow! In UK, alas, so I'll probably be quite behind in viewing, even if the signal detector on my TV suddenly decides to pick up BBC America.

♦ Boss Lady loves food. She also owns a Chinese fast food cafe (think spam and egg instant noodles, "office" sandwiches) a block away from our office. For the past week, she's been bringing me congee/porridge for breakfast. Today she gave me spinach soup (no MSG!) and rice for lunch, and packed another quart of spinach soup for me to take home for dinner. She also gave New Co-Worker stir-fried beef and chicken to take home. I might be working at a non-profit, but I definitely ain't going hungry!

♦ Former Roommate J was in town and slept over at 6K last night. I couldn't talk, so we used G-Chat to "talk" with one another. It felt just like my student days, when we'd be in the same room, me working on my essay and her typing away on her computer.

♦ NCAA Final Four and Championship games coming up in the next three days. Three of my Final Four picks are still alive, now let's hope my chosen winner goes all the way.

♦ Still no voice, although I've "improved" today in that if I try really hard, I can squawk out something rather cacophonous for half a second :p

Current Mood: hungry

I'm sick. I'm so sick that my intern sent me home early today, begging me to go home, stop straining myself, and rest. (*pets young little teenaged intern* She's great.) It's been three and a half days of losing battle with my sore throat, and now I'm not only voiceless, but I suspect I'm sporting a fever as well :\

Time for bed...

(No, this is not an April's Fool joke. But Happy April's Fool Day to everyone!)

Current Mood: sick

I feel compelled to post today, since February 29 only comes around once every four year, and who knows where I'll be four years from now.

Currently, I am home in NJ, "listening" to Girl Cousin playing the drums on Rock Band. I was playing it earlier, but after finally passing Green Grass & High Tides on the drums, decided I needed to take a break if I want to keep my sanity (and a functioning right foot). When Boy Cousin comes home later tonight, our "band" will be reunited and there will be much Rock Band-ing.

Mom is also visiting, so it's a full house at NJ. Her visit won me a few unofficial days off courtesy of Boss Lady. Whee! I haven't had a five-day work week in over a month. First it was two short weeks due to Chinese New Year, and then it was Presidents' Day, and now this. Days off are love :D

So... Happy 2/29, everyone! And now, back to Rock Band... *g*

Current Mood: full

Well, winter's finally arrived, it seems. It's been steadily snowing/ice-raining here for pretty much the entire day.

Mom was supposed to fly in, but like hundreds of others, her flight was cancelled. So now I have a weekend of completely no plans. I could go to work tomorrow -- we're organizing a senior citizen function at a local school, featuring Cantonese opera, magic shows, and raffles. But I didn't leave the office until 7 today and feel like I've already spent too much time at work. Weekend's my time to de-tox, so to speak.

While I'm on the topic of work... behold! The Small Business Event of d00m (TM) is over! This was an event that I stepped into work one day and found out I was the coordinator responsible for inviting guest speakers and information table participants. I still don't know how I got roped into taking on certain projects at work.

Well, we got good press, and the Congresswoman's office is happy. For those of you who can read Chinese (or just like to look at pictures), here are links to three articles about the event -- we managed to get a full color page of stuff written about us! Linkity -->

1: http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-ny-news.php?nt_seq_id=1674238
2: http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-ny-news.php?nt_seq_id=1674239
3: http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-ny-news.php?nt_seq_id=1674240

Current Mood: lethargic
Current Location: unfortunately, not NJ

Squee 1
Firstly, before I procrastinate any longer, a SUPER THANK YOU to the following awesome-ful people who sent me postcards/artses/holiday cards! They arrived safely, thank you :)

♦

alafairnadia, thank you for the lovely postcard! I hope Ecuador was lots of fun.
♦

chaeche, your card arrived! It gave me the squees when I saw mail coming in from the Netherlands.
♦

jin_fenghuang, thank you for the gorgeous card and the even gorgeous-er ART!!! It's being displayed at the wall in front of my desk, high up above my bulletin board :)

Squee 2
Congratulations once again to

tanechigai and

sad1225! It was a lovely wedding, and I hope your honeymoon was fun as well. And nice seeing you again,

luciechan!

Squee 3
So the other day one of my grad school departments emailed me asking: "What's the deal? I thought you're taking another semester, but seems like [Department #2] already approved the papers for your graduation." I was like, "Huh?" No, I don't know what the deal is, but one of my departments approved me for graduation!!! This means the other department will follow suit and I can has graduation nao, kthx! :D

Squee 4

Go Giants!!!

I missed the beginning of the game, "saw" most of it online reading the play-by-play, and caught the important moments at the huge TV in my apartment (did I ever mention someone gave us a huge 51" TV for free? It's ginormous). The party in my apartment was a bit too crowded for me, but I still had fun reading/watching the game.

There's cheering in the apartment, cheering in the streets, and I swear, cheering from the apartment building across the street from mine. w00t!!!!ONE!!!!!11!!!!1!!!!!ELEVENTY!!!! :D

Squee 5
Job squee. Well, it's a mixed squee, but really cool nonetheless. The Assistant Director in one of the affiliates of my organization took a leave back in November, and 1) he's still not back yet, and 2) I don't know if he will be. This means for the past two and a half months, I had been shouldering a large chunk of his work responsibilities. I want him back, or someone to fill the equivalent of his position, because right now, I feel like I'm barely keeping the operations of the Assistant Directorship afloat—and I'm only a measly Development Associate, not even in a managerial position (and I don't want to be).

So, even though I've officially been full-time for less than the 6-month probationary period, my boss approached me the other day and let me know that I was included in the annual staff bonus memo! Honestly, I knew the fiscal department was divvying up annual bonuses, but never in my dream did I think I'd get one, 4.5 months into the job. Not that I mind. Oh no, not at all *g*

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Music: TV -- whatever they're playing after the Superbowl

Thank you,

luciechan and

mingbutterfly, for your beautiful cards (and the beautiful words written inside them)! :D

Had a late start today, but I'm excited about going to Lisa's for the l00bs Christmas party. (Lisa, if you're reading this, I plan to take the 12:46 train from Penn Station.) There will be exchanging of gifts, eating of cake, and just general t00bing around in celebration of a belated Christmas and early New Year.

Oh, and guess what I found in my building's garbage room today? An upright lamp in good condition that someone had thrown away -- and it WORKS!!! Merry Christmas to meeee! It's now standing proud and tall in my room where the old lamp was, next to other furniture my roommates and I had salvaged from the garabage room in the past: a bamboo chair and a nice little night table.

I love it when my neighbors decide to redecorate their apartments with new furnitures. Now if only the neighbor decides to throw away a second upright lamp... *g*

Current Location: NYC -- will be in LI soon!

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it!!!

The weekend has been a blur of playing Rock Band. Boy Cousin is the resident "Expert Level" guitar player (though I hasten to add: I'm better at the real guitar than he ;p). Girl Cousin and I switch off playing the drums, but mostly I'm relegated to singing because I've figured out how to change pitches to match the arrow going up and down on the screen. This doesn't mean I actually know how to sing any of the songs. Oh, and I've found out that singing "la, la... blah, something... blah" is just as effective as singing the actual words *g*

I hope you're all enjoying a peaceful and restful holiday... or just a Tuesday that you have off!

Current Location: NJ
Current Music: Bon Jovi -- Dead or Alive (Rock Band edition), with Girl Cousin on drums

Tuesday, November 14, after dragging myself to work from the red-eye flight I took on Monday night:

ziasudra: *stumbles into office, half alseep*

Boss: Go online and book a ticket from New York to Cleveland right now.

ziasudra: Bzuh?!?

Boss: Mr. Executive Director wants you to go to the conference. Other Guy In The Organization is going too. Just book a ticket and hotel and call Mr. Executive Director when you arrive.

ziasudra: Okay...

So here I am, in Cleveland, Ohio, attending a conference. So far, so good. I've got a couple of free Cleveland Cavaliers swags and have thrown my name in for a free ticket raffle for the Cav's Friday night home game. At the reception tonight, there was a big cardboard cut-out of LeBron James right behind the French fries.

Oh yeah, and I also went to conference sessions on community development-related topics. No, this isn't a basketball conference ~~unfortunately~~ ^_^;;

Current Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Current Music: Annoying guy talking on the phone loudly in the hotel room next to mine

I don't think it's a secret to anyone that I don't really like midtown. Especially the touristy areas. I'd rather squeeze my way through the crowds in Chinatown than through groups of out-of-towners in Times Square. So I usually avoid that part of the city whenever I can.

Yesterday, however, was a day spent in Midtown. Kinokuniya, a Japanese chain bookstore, was opening a new branch in 1073 Avenue of the Americas. I got to hang out with

paranoidsistah,

shipchan, and random people I met at the grand opening there. There was a nice little cafe area that served bento boxes and very yummy-looking desserts (though I didn't order any). Afterwards, we listened to a panel presentation about the making of manga books in the American publishing industry. I still have to rummage through my goodie bag of free graphic novels and a gigantic poster *g*

After the bookstore, I went ice skating at Bryant Park. This was my first time skating in an outside skating rink. I haven't ice skated in soooo long, but I seemed to have retained all my basic skating skills (move, stop, avoid bumping into people). I must have been there for two or three hours, during which the ice was cleaned twice, and it got dark enough for the lights to come on. And now my feet feel like they're about to break into pieces... ;p

Before heading back, I stopped by MTV in Times Square and tried to see if I can catch

sparkly_stuff. Alas, no luck. Maybe next time?

Current Mood: Wheee, +1 hr daylight savings

1. A very Happy Halloween to all!

2.

ebonyserpent, I got your absolutely LOVELY Halloween card! Thank you! ♥

3. I was walking around the city after work, and already people are out and about in all kinds of costumes. Roommate is planning to go to the Village Parade. I'm not sure if I want to go, but I do, I'll re-don my dragon costume and go as what's supposed to be a Welsh Green Dragon, but what in reality looks more like a Yoshi ;)

4. Went to the

otw_news Halloween party this past Sunday, dressed as above-mentioned dragon. It was great hanging out with friends and meeting new people. A very fun night of good munchies and drool-worthy fanvids *g*

5. No NaNo for me, but I'm chugging away at fest writing.

Today's post is about Glen. I don't know if I've posted about him before... I think I have, back a year or two ago. Back then, he was just another person in the street who stopped me for food; but now, I actually look forward to seeing him. And over the last three weeks, I've missed him.

Glen had, in the past year, become my "regular" just as much as my morning Starbucks customers had been my regulars. I've worked virtually every Sunday morning in the last 13 months (except when I'd specifically requested off), and at the end of my shift, I would always walk down Broadway, with drink in one hand and a bag of expired pastries in the other.

Between 10th and 11th Streets, on the right side of Broadway going southbound, would be Glen, greeting passersby with the enthusiasm of a street evangelist. "Hey, how ya doin'?" "Good day, sir, got a few dollars?" "Hello there!"

It was probably four or five months ago that I started taking along a few pieces of expired pastries after work specifically for Glen. On days when there wasn't any expired stuff I'd hop into the deli on 10th Street and buy him food, but he seemed to like the pastries whenever I had them with me. The selection varied from week to week: donuts, bagels, apple fritters, cinnamon sticks, muffins, croissants, etc.

It's been three Sundays since I'd last worked at Starbucks, and today, I found myself missing Glen terribly. So I went back to my store (I'd been there earlier this morning to get coffee), bought some AM pastries, said hi to everyone ranging from fellow baristas to the District Manager who happened to be in the store to Dean of the "Joan & Dean" I wrote about in my customers appreciation post (Justin & Mike were there too, but I didn't get to say hi to them)... and walked down Broadway looking for Glen.

He was happy to see me and took the entire bag of pastry. That sent another wave of nostalgia crashing over me: I've missed this, still miss it, this job I loved and everyone associated with it, including Glen at Broadway between 10th and 11th Streets.

I can't recall how many times I had paused in the middle of pouring coffee to realize how much I loved my job. It isn't just a Starbucks thing either. I loved working at the Chinese restaurant in New Jersey, and before that, I loved working at McDonalds. These are supposedly "lowly" jobs, but... I loved them. I feel like I've traded my passion for normalcy, turned in what I really love for the temptation of a better salary. Sometimes I feel like a part of me has gone missing and I'll never be able to find that piece in the corporate world. Sigh... I'm definitely in mourning, and it's going to be a long mourning process.

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about Glen. So I've decided: from now on, I will try to stop by my Starbucks on Sundays to say hi and buy pastries, then walk down Broadway to see Glen. *nods* Good plan, that.

Current Mood: listless

1. I miss working at Starbucks :(

2. New Job is going well. There's a Proposal of d00m due this Thursday — the same day as the Board of Directors meeting, which I need to prepare all the handouts, programs, minutes, etc. for — I can already sense what a long week it's going to be.

3. I did manage to be more social now that I have weekends off. Two weekends ago it was hanging out at

so_severus' apartment with the New Kitties! So cute ^_^ Oh, and

sparkly_stuff,

apythia, and

tjwriter were there too, and we watched an unreleased movie called "The Search for John Gissing."

Last weekend it was going to the Brooklyn Library for the Harry and the Potters concert with

alafairnadia,

bradamant, and a bunch of their neighborhood board friends.

so_severus was there too, but we didn't get to hang out afterward.

This weekend was birthday dinner/hang out with one of my ex-fellow Starbucks openers and a bunch of her friends. We ate at Aunt Suzie's and then went to the Brooklyn Promenade. The lighted Manhattan skyline against the dark night was beautiful — how have I missed seeing this all these years?

I have this urge to do nothing but play hermit for this coming weekend. An introvert's gotta be antisocial every once in a while or else risk implosion, right? Let's see if I can manage that.

Current Mood: social meter maxed out

ziasudra

Counting Down to the Big 3-0

How is it the end of May already?

Time Flies

Happiness is fresh laundry snuggled warm in your arms.

Year 4707 (or around there) and Counting...

I can haz new home nao, plz?

Amtrak, 1; Greyhound, 0

Rainy day

Various Randomness

Bye-Bye, Weekend

Special Lunch... Y/Y?

On wedding bells and world aid

On Very Important Representative and Food

Laundry List of Unrelated Items

sick

February the Twenty-Ninth

Snow, Snow, Snow...

Post of Squee

Go Giants!!!

Cards & Party | And proof that one man's trash is indeed another's treasure

Holiday Cheers to Pass Around...

Greetings from Ohio

Saturday: Wherein ziasudra actually spent time in Midtown

Happy Halloween!

Broadway, between 10th & 11th

Where'd the weekend go?

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January 2011

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