Our new home, but with someone else's stuff in it.

The following are a few pictures of our new home in Lima, Peru. Boy, do I EVER hope that single roll of toilet paper is still there when we arrive.

Feels like forever

Anthony and I celebrated our four-year anniversary by going hiking in Shenandoah National Park. I don't know if it means anything, but .25 miles from the parking lot, the heavens opened and we were totally deluged with rain.

Crossed fingers

I hope no one is waiting breathlessly for an account of the past few weeks. There has been much to do, and there is still much to do. And in the blink of an eye it appears we will be in Lima. I am still working on nailing down my Spring semester so I can finish graduate school, and Anthony and I are attempting to figure out what the hell it is we are doing with this whole move, but visit our families first schedule. And Saturday I leave for Colorado to try to relax – you know, by climbing the Rockies or something (whatever it is that Eric has planned for Marilyn and I). Then I have less than 2 weeks of work, we travel to NC for almost 2 weeks, we pack out of our condo, we travel to MA for almost 2 weeks, we spend some time in the NYC area so we can see the Dropkick Murphys and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and then we drive to Miami to catch our flight to Lima. If you have magically, mystically been left out of the schedule, I am SO SORRY, but the planning has been left up to Anthony and by that I mean, very little planning is being done and we are flying by the seat of our pants. Perhaps you could call me to tell me how much you love me…? While I still have a telephone, that is.

So if you missed me, here’s the quickie update: I am well, Anthony is well, the furry children are well, and the extended family is well. All’s well.

Great, now I can get back to work….

Thoughts

My paternal grandmother passed away last night from cancer. She lived in Florida all my life and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever seen her. You could say, without exaggeration, that we were not close.

Gram is the grandmother that walked away from her family of six children when my dad was (I believe) in high school, so the relationship between her and the rest of the family was always strange, and always difficult. She was the kind of grandmother that you didn’t develop intimacy with, who was just as enigmatic as people named Cher or Prince – familiar enough to be called a single, one-syllable name, but so distant as to remain a question mark on the family tree. I really didn’t know her at all, and I can’t say that she knew me either.

Gram remembered my birthday because I was born the year that she vacationed in Germany. Yet if you were to collect all of her grandchildren into one place, she probably couldn’t differentiate one from the other.

Yet I never felt a lack in my life because my grandmother wasn’t there. She just wasn’t. No harm, no foul – things happen; people lead different lives; not all families must be close. So with her death, I don’t feel much personal loss.

However, at the same time, I feel genuinely saddened by her passing. Cancer is a horrible, horrible disease that I would not wish on anyone. And I am sure that she developed close bonds with other people in her life, who are devastated by their loss.

It's a miracle - I'm writing again! (And this time it's not for grad school.)

I spent my last 2 hours and fifty minutes in a classroom on Cinco de Mayo. It would have been ten minutes less, but my professor wanted to keep us late to talk about Aristotle. But the fact of the matter remains – I never have to enter another classroom again. Yes, I still have two courses left to complete for my degree, but I won’t be entering a classroom to complete them. It is a minor victory, but a victory all the same.

My final two classes are electives that I can take in Spring 2009. I intend for them to be an independent study and an internship. Which is why I’m taking an intensive Spanish class when I arrive in Lima this summer. Something about the fact that all Peruvians speak Spanish…

Since the last time I wrote, I also failed a couple of things (not class – three more A’s, thank you very much!): the State Department Foreign Service WRITTEN exam (that was a first for me) and the Boren Fellowship (my application was not selected). My neighbors are going to cohost a FAIL Party with me, since Katie also failed the FS exam. We’re thinking mid-week, and we’re thinking lots of bubbly. And in case you’re overly concerned, don’t worry, it’s not as big a deal as getting that B+ in stats last semester which totally ruined my 4.0 GPA and made me cry. I am still upset about that grade, but the FS exam and the fellowship are hardly a blip on my radar. Neither outcome is affecting my next steps in life anyway.

So, what is next, you ask? Well, let me just plonk myself right down and tell you! To start, my little sister, Preyasha, graduates from UVA on Sunday. Which means that da’ Momma and San are currently fighting traffic to get to DC. They are crashing at my house until Tuesday. We only have to make that hellacious trip out to Charlottesville on Sunday, so the rest of the weekend will be spent eating, eating and eating. Oh, and da’ Momma will be snuggling with her favorite grandchild, Grace.

Then I have two days to clean and re-sort the condo before all hell breaks loose and the entirety of UPenn class of ’01 comes to stay. I’m housing Michelle, Tom, Nicole and Mel (and Estee, once she makes up her mind!), and we have a bunch of wedding and non-wedding stuff to attend. Melanie and Johnny will be representing Florida over at Andrew’s pad, Lisa will be representing Philly (can I get a woot-woot?) over at Ben’s, and Eric will be representing Colorado (in all it’s hippie-ness), also at Ben’s. It will be kind of like our Vegas trip in ’05 (was it really three years ago???), only it’ll be called Reunion ’08. Let the good times (and the bribery photos) begin…

Shortly thereafter I am traveling with Marilyn to visit Eric in Colorado and then things should roll down-hill from there. I finally decided to forsake my Peace Corps dreams to be with my “family” because I feel that I can make a Peace-Corps-like experience happen in Lima – and still be surrounded by the ones I love (not to mention my stuff)! So once June rolls around, I’m quitting my job, packing up the condo, picking up a renter, making the last rounds with my DC crew, visiting my family in MA (and some friends along the way – hiya NYC crew!), visiting Anthony’s family in NC, and then driving to Miami (and probably meeting up with friends in the greater FL-state area) to catch our flight.

So really, nothing much is happening in my life. As things progress, I will try to keep you informed though…

My internet personality

My Personality

Neuroticism	1
Extraversion	51
Openness to Experience	1
Agreeableness	44
Conscientiousness	98

You do not experience strong, irresistible cravings and consequently do not find yourself tempted to overindulge, however you rarely get angry and it takes a lot to make you angry. You get overwhelmed by too much noise and commotion and do not like thrill-seeking activities. You prefer facts over fantasy and are more interested in what is happening in the real word. You dislike confrontations and are perfectly willing to compromise or to deny your own needs in order to get along with others, however you do not particularly like helping other people. Requests for help feel like an imposition on your time. You are well-organized and like to live according to routines and schedules. Often you will keep lists and make plans.

Take a Personality Test now or view the full Personality Report. PureAwakening Jewelry.

But whoever said I was normal?

Normally, when I go on vacation and have a really great time, the first thing I do when I get back is clean up my six thousand or so photos (thank you, Photoshop) and post them on the internet for all to mock. Then the second thing I do is write about it here.

So, since I didn’t immediately sit down to my computer and type out a few words after my trip to New York over Spring Break, but instead sat on my lazy arse and did nothing but watch movies for the rest of my school-free days, Martha totally called me on it. She’s all like, why aren’t you posting? If I can find the time between my Microbiology midterm and my three other exams to blog for the world, so can you.

You can basically say that she’s guilted me into this. That damn girl and all her peer pressure…

Now, where was I? Ah, yes, New York. Two weekends ago, I was in New York. The basic outline went a little like this:

Friday: arrive way too early to hang out with my girls and spend a couple hours wandering around the West Side waterfront, talking to my mom and reading Becoming Jane Austen, before meeting with one Dave “I’ve got a new job that includes – get this! – benefits!!” K. for lunch. Eat at Chelsea Market, and have some non-Jewish stranger butt into our conversation because I couldn’t remember the word “yenta” (yeah, who knew I could work that into conversation?) and then call Dave out for not being Jewish enough to remember it himself. Then said stranger immediately begins making out with his girlfriend. Totally awesome lunchtime entertainment.
Then Dave shows me his cubicle in one building, and the front door of his office in the company’s other building. I saw walls made out of hockey pucks and tennis balls. And then I see how adorable Dave is, because he wallpapered his cubicle with pictures of his Penn friends. Awwwwww…

Pick up Mel at Penn Station and cab our way to Estee’s place. Eat again, this time at Café Arte, where one kid butts into our private conversation about Batman and then pukes in his napkin, and another kid stands behind Mel and Estee, staring vacantly at a mural on the wall behind our table. She doesn’t even respond when I start talking to her. Very weird, but didn’t even remotely slow down our eating of all things Italian and drinking of all things wine.

Saturday: beginning of the end for all the edible cheese of Manhattan. Eat cheese for breakfast. Stand in TKTS line, pass on partially obstructed views of Spring Awakening, and let Mel talk us into A Chorus Line. Eat at Juniors for second breakfast (yes, we’re hobbits). Have cheesy grits. Yum. Play at Dave & Buster’s – both Mel and Estee kick my sorry bum at the basketball game, we all score some major ticketage at the trivia game, I royally suck at skeeball, Estee and I are amused by Mel’s dance/stomp moves, and then we turn in our apparently miniscule number of tickets to get two Care Bears for Estee’s twin cousins. Then I watch Estee, who clearly works too much, sleep through A Chorus Line. But she tells me she loved it. Mel sings songs from A Chorus Line for the rest of the weekend.
Next we attempt to find this wine bar in Estee’s neighborhood by calling the concierge at one of the Times Square hotels that Mel has pre-programmed into her phone. As expected, without knowing the name or location of said establishment, we and our new concierge friend are completely unsuccessful. However, Estee saves the day by using her Blackberry for good. We find a great place on West 54th called Casellula’s, where we feast on (you guessed it) cheese, meats, beet salad, and wine. It was glorious.
Our evening was spent making fun of Mel for her crush on Daniel Radcliffe while watching Harry Potter 5. Oh yeah, and eating cheese pizza from this awesome pizza parlour across the street from Estee’s apartment (Estee, you SO need to send me the name of that place so I can tell all my friends about it).

Sunday: Our only reason for climbing out of bed was to eat brunch at Josie’s (well, Estee had Hebrew lessons, too, so she got up at the buttcrack of dawn – ON A SUNDAY). Mel and I are mysteriously the only people to arrive on time (15 minutes early if it must be known) for a one-o’clock brunch. Knowing that Josie’s doesn’t take reservations, we (wrongly) assumed that everyone would be on time to get a table – because they don’t seat parties until everyone has arrived. So Estee makes it to the restaurant around 1ish, but the boys, well, they weren’t even close. Jordan was fifteen minutes late, and just as we convinced the waitress to seat us at 1:30PM even though we weren’t all there, our own little New York socialite, David R., makes an appearance. Apparently the party was ready to start.
I think we gave Estee the best brunch of her life, because our conversation broke all barriers of the PC world. We talked religion, politics, and racism. The racism comes in when we learned that Mel’s law school actually makes minority students take a type of Ms. Manners course. She tried to explain it to be far less prejudicial, and claim all sorts of excuses on their behalf, but we find it really adorable that her school wants her to fit in so much that they’re willing to teach her how to wash her hands before eating and other such handy tidbits. In fact, she even taught us a thing or two about “work hugs” and the “work kiss.” I don’t know what these things are, but I think it’s safe to say that the “work kiss” is something that my boss would make up just so he could touch the female employees without getting fired. It’s a dirty, dirty world, my friends. And don’t you even try to think otherwise.
Post meal – which for me included homemade oatmeal (I dedicated my breakfast to you, Martha!) – Jordan escorted us to Zabar’s, where we bought (surprise!) cheese and bread for our afternoon of George Clooney. Cuz that’s right, boys and girls, we ditched Jordan after the wine shop and spent the rest of the evening watching Ocean’s 13 and Michael Clayton. Part of the evening also included playing such games as Six Degrees of George Clooney (Mel can get there in only TWO setps!). Then we ordered another cheese pizza from the awesomest pizza parlour in all of NYC. (Yeah, I said it. Go ahead and try to prove me wrong.)

Monday: Mel (I take no credit for this) convinces Estee to go into work even later than the 10AM time she already expected. Mel eats more cheese for pre-breakfast, to kind of line her stomach for the greasy goodness to follow. Cuz we ate at some diner a block away from Estee’s apartment. This is where we learn all about Estee’s pro bono political asylum case. This is the kind of thing that makes me even remotely interested in that whole lawyering business. You can actually do SOME GOOD in the world with that law degree. Amazing stuff really.
Estee and I also discovered that the skills I developed when conducting criminal investigations for the State Department overlap with the skills she’s developing as a lawyer. I wonder if she’s heard of the READ technique for interviewing…? Anyway, that was a cool discovery.
Like the two proud mommas we are, Mel and I then helped Estee onto a bus and stood on the sidewalk waving until a) Estee noticed we were still there, and b) the bus drove out of sight.
Then it was back to Penn Station for the train-ride home. Mel and I hung out under the arrival/departure sign until her train prepared to board and we had to say goodbye. And I heard her cry, ‘ere she drove out of sight, Merry Spring Break to you and to all a good night!

*****
Had I known I was going to lay like a vegetable for the rest of Spring Break and not get any of the papers done for school that I planned, I would have staid in New York longer. Instead, I sat around waiting for Comcast to fix my DVR (which suddenly stopped showing a picture for any of our recordings, and which I furthermore fixed myself becaue Comcast was apparently too busy to bother showing up for any of our appointments), watching movies, playing with the dog, celebrating Marilyn’s first annual 29th birthday, catching a stupendously spontaneous dinner with Jeff and Liz (we didn’t even have to plan it out three months in advance), and cooking Andrew a nice, traditional St. Paddy’s Day dinner (which, by the way, he totally failed to mention in his Georgetown blog; I feel so snubbed).

This week has therefore been a round of catch-up at school. Things are going well enough, but I really have to get cracking on some of those papers that will start raining down on me hard and fast in the next couple of weeks.

At the same time, Anthony’s dad is training up to DC from Charlotte today so we have company for the weekend. If you’re in the area, and you’ve always wondered where Anthony got his strong, masculine build from, this is the weekend to drop by my place. Otherwise, I will be hiding in the coldest, darkest, dankest, quietest hole, madly dashing out papers and presentations.