a taste of my childhood

Throughout my 3rd grade year I had a couple of daily rituals involving food:

In the morning, I went to a shabby convenience store close to my school – P.S. 145 – where I bought exactly 10 “sour powers” (aka. sour straws). It was the breakfast of champions…

And after school, while walking home/to my grandma’s school, I’d stop at one of these Papaya places and get a papaya drink. I really loved those drinks.

yum

Today, during my daily mid-day walk, I went to Gray’s Papaya and got one of those awesome drinks. It was super tasty… and I experienced a brief moment of nostalgia (3rd grade was my favorite year of grade school). No, that’s not the same location I went to back in the day, but it’s close enough.

in 5 years…

I had a lot of time to do some personal reflection this past weekend in North Carolina. One of my least favorite questions that actually got me thinking (this time) was, where do you see yourself in 5 years?

There was a catch, though. I wasn’t allowed to talk about my job. Surprisingly, that makes the future a little harder to explain.

So, this is what I came up with:

• In 5 years, I’ll be 29. Yikes.

• Maybe I’ll be married (scary to think about) or perhaps engaged (also scary to think about)… I just don’t want to be single.

• I definitely won’t have kids (If I do, that will be quite the surprise).

• I’m thinking I might be back in DC at this point. Or maybe a suburb of Northern Virginia?

• Hopefully, I would’ve done much more domestic travel by this point in my life. There are so many US cities I’d like to visit before settling down.

• I’d be fluent in Spanish (again?) – and fairly proficient in another language (Italian?)

• My ukulele skills will be pretty awesome

• I would’ve finally traveled to Costa Rica. FINALLY.

• I would have a really cool pet, like a miniature pig. Or a chinchilla.

• I’d have very few regrets about the past 5 years.

And that’s about the most I can think of right now. It’s good to have goals to work towards. Five years seems so far away… but I’m sure the time will fly by.

Scary.

true life: i work now

My work life has officially begun. I signed my offer letter to work and now all is right in the world.

So, my first day was rather uneventful. No big lavish parties – just a lot of meetings. Three meetings, to be exact. In a way, I jumped right into things. In the same way, I didn’t really jump into things.

Of course, I was given a quick tour of the office and was introduced to my new fellow employee buds. Then, after all the meetings were done, I sat. And sat some more. And began introducing myself to the 2008 Fellows by reading their profiles online (while sitting).

And then I continued to sit…

Then it was time to go. Good times.

BUT – OH MY GOSH. I left out the coolest part of my day:

My parents sent me flowers :) It was completely unexpected and it made me so happy! My parents are awesome.

Atlanta and me

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a week-long seminar on Poverty and Prosperity (run by the Institute of Humane Studies) at Georgia Tech.

I’m a nerd awesome. Don’t hate. I’m just trying to save the world.

Anyways, it was a lovely time. Besides the fact that the seminar room was a steady 50 degrees every day, the food we ate was 100 times worse than any cafeteria food I’d ever eaten, and I didn’t really learn many new ideas, I’m really glad I decided to go. At the very least, I got to see my good friend Peter, who I hadn’t seen since January. That was a good time.

I made a lot of new friends (my facebook friend count went up 457 to 474) – many of whom were international students. It was a little weird being in the minority as an American, but it was welcomed. I learned a ton from my new buddies.

Luckily, I didn’t spend all week sitting in lectures – they gave us an afternoon to explore Atlanta (which wasn’t nearly enough time). Of course, I made it into a photo adventure.

Of course we went to the World of Coca-Cola. I’d been there before, but it was still a new experience.

Doesn’t it look like she’s flicking someone off? She’s probably saying, “F you; drink coke.” Anyway, I thought it was funny enough to take a picture of.

Yes, that is a picture of the “adorable” Coca-Cola bear eating my head. That thing was frightening – and its teeth kinda hurt. I should sue Coca-Cola for that insanity.

Worst. Drink. Ever. I hope whoever concocted Italy’s Beverly was immediately fired and punched in the face.

The Coke museum was the extent of my photo adventure. Oh well.

Now I’m back in Connecticut with one more full day of freedom before I become a working adult. It’s nice to have a life with purpose again.

a little more detail

THANKS to all for the congrats on my new job :) I’m super excited – and nervous – about this new endeavor.

Good bye, grad school*. Hello, the rest of my life… yikes.

What I’m most excited about is the fact that I’m working for an organization whose methods and ideas I fully support. My unofficial title is “Recruitment Associate Extraordinaire”. I’ll just call myself an RA – like in college; except not. Anyways, I haven’t started yet, but I’m pretty sure my job involves the recruitment of their fellows (I love self-explanatory job titles) among many other tasks. Fun stuff.

I start on Monday. We go to North Carolina on Thursday to meet the new 2008 Fellows. Then, who knows…

I am so ready to start making money. I’m also looking forward to vision and dental insurance.

AND, on top of that, I can start saving for my move to New York City. Booya.

——–

* My grad school still hasn’t mailed out diplomas (I only graduated almost 2 months ago), so I guess I’m not really done with it.

good news

So, I’m still in Atlanta and I wasn’t planning on posting until I returned to Connecticut… but something so significant occurred I just couldn’t resist:

I GOT A JOB.

My job hunt, for now, is done. Someone finally realized how awesome I am.

Booya.

watch and smile.

Rarely do I smile for 10 minutes straight.

These videos are amazing.

Thank you to the New York Times for telling me about this Matt guy and his videos on youtube.

and the outtakes

You’d best believe I downloaded that song from the first video. If you’re curious about what the song is in English, I did some searching:

“Praan”
Bhulbona ar shohojete
Shei praan e mon uthbe mete
Mrittu majhe dhaka ache
je ontohin praan

Bojre tomar baje bashi
She ki shohoj gaan
Shei shurete jagbo ami
(Repeat 3X)

Shei jhor jeno shoi anonde
Chittobinar taare
Shotto-shundu dosh digonto
Nachao je jhonkare!

Bojre tomar baje bashi
She ki shohoj gaan
Shei shurete jagbo ami
(Repeat 3X)

“Stream of Life”

The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.

- translated by jobaga on youtube

I love it.

Oh – and totally check out Where The Hell Is Matt? The “About Matt” section is hilarious.

a series of unfortunate events

I’ve been in Connecticut for 8 days and I’m still unemployed.

…what else is new?

Aside from applying for jobs and going to a couple of interviews in NYC, it’s been kinda difficult to fill my time. Most of my time has been spent:

• watching movies
• watching the ABC Family channel (shoot me now)
• playing Brain Age 2
• reading Guns, Germs and Steel
• organizing and reorganizing my temporary room
• reading all the entries in my google reader
• talking to friends on gchat
• “window shopping” on amazon.com

Luckily for my sanity, I had a the chance to break from that routine and join some friends in NYC for an All-American 4th of July celebration.

After couch shopping for a hot minute, Adam, Ryan and I went to a very American restaurant (Wildwood BBQ) for a very American dinner. One whole chicken, pulled pork, sausage, 2 pitchers of beer, mac and cheese, corn on the cob, and $150 later, we were mostly full and satisfied… although, I don’t think I’ll ever eat there again. Anyways, after dinner we met up with a friend of Ryan’s and made our way to a very casual party-shindig to view the fireworks. Fortunately, we had a pretty clear view of the sky:

Unfortunately, as soon as the first fireworks went off, the combination of smoke, clouds and rain put a damper on the rest of the show. Lame. It didn’t matter anyway because everyone was beginning to really enjoy (I didn’t) the extreme liqour supply at the party-shindig.

Saturday with Adam and Ryan began with a delicious breakfast and a bake fest gone wrong – a little worse than the one Adam and I had in May. On the whole, our banana bread and blueberry “cornbread” turned out okay, kinda… Eventually we ventured away from the apartment to attend the free NY Philharmonic concert on Governor’s Island. Of course, the event was canceled as soon as we got to the ferry. It had been raining all day.

We didn’t have the best of luck this past weekend.

To pass the time, we went to Governor’s Island anyway and took a look around:

A little history lesson…

I have no idea.

I really like taking pictures of flowers.

One of the waterfalls around NYC.

Extreme T&A… and another statue I can’t explain.

To top off our not-so-fortunate day, we had dinner at Pizzeria Uno – the last mishap of the day. Service was terrible and our pizza was bad. Go figure.

Eventually, my NYC vacation and all-American weekend came to an end. Despite all of the unfortunate events of July 4th and 5th, I still enjoyed hanging out with the guys. Now it’s back to the Connecticut grind until I make my way to Atlanta next week.

I’d rather not…

If there’s one thing I don’t have patience for, it’s clothes shopping. Ideally, when I go shopping for clothes, I go with an idea of what I want, and I stick with that plan. Today I went clothes shopping with my aunt and 13 year old cousin, and I needed shorts. What could’ve been a 20 minute visit to Kohls (it didn’t take long to find shorts), actually turned into a 1.5 hour visit because my cousin likes to shop. I wasn’t happy.

Anyways, after venting my shopping frustrations to my cousin, she told me that I needed to have more patience when shopping… Actually, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Ohmigosh, I really don’t like going shopping for clothes. It’s such a hassle. I’m so impatient.

Cousin: Why are you so impatient?! You can’t be that way! You’ll never find anything.

Me: When I go shopping, usually I’m looking for a certain thing – if I don’t find it almost immediately in a given store, I leave the store and search elsewhere.

Cousin: That’s stupid! You’re passing up so much here! You need some patience…

Me: Ugh. But I hate looking through clothes! I’m so picky… and poor. I want my clothes to be easy to find.

Cousin: You need to calm down, Deva. Patience. That’s what you need. And you need a new wardrobe. I’m calling What Not To Wear…

I have a feeling that won’t be the only shopping trip I take with my cousin in the next couple of months. Anyways, my wardrobe can definitely use a mini-makeover. I will need to take my 13 year old cousin’s advice and grow some patience. Until I can hire someone to find the clothes I want, I’ll have to fight the crowds and search the stores on my own. Or I can just become rich and buy whatever I want.

My Samson

Samson is my 12-year-old chocolate lab, and he’s the coolest.

I got Samson for my 12th birthday and I was completely shocked because I never expected to get a dog. He was such a little ball of chocolate adorableness :) My parents decided on a name before even handing him over to me because they were afraid I’d name him something weird (personally, I don’t think Snickers would’ve been a bad name, but whatever). The name “Samson” worked for everyone.

Twelve years later, Samson is still adorable but not as chocolate as he used to be – he’s more of a white and chocolate lab now. It almost breaks my heart to see my old puppy struggle to walk up and down the steps and even walk back and forth along the (very long) driveway. I still remember the days when he was so full of energy he would drag me on our walks. I even remember when a lot of my friends were all afraid of him because of his size and hyperactivity. He was never a mean dog, though. As a matter of fact, Samson would’ve made a crappy watch dog since he mostly barked at air.

Anyways, he’s pretty old and much less energetic, but I love him just the same. He still burps in my face when I pet him and farts in the middle of the night when he sleeps in my room, but he’s awesome. Every time I leave him, I’m afraid it could be the last time I see him… which really pains me. I hope he’s still around when I go to my parents’ house in a few months.