HOAGIE TIME!

Even though I was in Delaware/Pennsylvania over a month ago, it was one of the best trips I've ever had!  It was so refreshing to escape for a weekend.  It was perfect timing because I remember feeling like I was starting to be too overwhelmed by all the school/work/activities.  

We rented a car and stayed with Mike's aunt and nanna, and it was just what I needed after the chaos of NYC!  They live in Brandywine, Delaware, and Mike's grandma's house is right on the border of DE and PA!  But no tax in DE so that's where the house is ;)

Suburbs on the East Coast are so different than West Coast ones!  All the houses are bigger, brick-ier, and have giant front yards and back yards (I mean GIANT), and also MASSIVE TREES!!!  Like you could hold a small festival in Mike's aunt's backyard.  Mike's aunt's house was the cutest little two story in the whole wide world, and reminded me of a cottage.  

We explored, we ate, we drove around, we got some drinks with his uncle!  And I think he made mike rake some backyard leaves with him haha. 

We went hiking!  This was the open field right before we entered the woods.  I kind of felt like I was in a Twilight movie, there was so much shrubbery just 10 minutes away from where his aunt lives!

We had quiet time and peace.  Ok not really quiet time... but definitely peace.

We ate at the cutest diner, the waiter was SUPER friendly!  Everyone was chatting and eating gigantic pancakes and waffles doused in syrup :D The menu was simple and straightforward.  No fancy food fads and fusions and gastronomics here!  The waiter was way too cheerful to have ever experienced the impatient rush of NY customers. 

We went out to eat with Mike's nanna, and she had to eat exactly at 5:30 pm. early bird specials!  We asked if she recommended anywhere cool for us to try in the neighborhood, and she said we are going to Applebee's because that's her favorite restaurant.  Adorbz!  Well, she struggled between Applebee's and Chili's.  Funnily enough, there are a billion Applebee's in LA, but I've only ever eaten there once in my whole life!  I kind of have an aversion towards chains, but the happy hour food was actually not bad!

We found this awesome hoagies restaurant, Casapulla's (on Yelp) since Mike's aunt and nanna didn't really know any non-chain restaurants in the area... to be honest, there aren't very many!  But we discovered this one, and it was PARTY IN MY MOUTH delicious!!! Mike kept talking about how much he craved hoagies and how many he ate as a kid, and that if he couldn't eat one then he wanted to watch me eat a giant one.  Luckily, we found gluten-free hoagie buns in a super market (only in philly) and the little restaurant was super nice and made it for us!  They were the size of our heads!!! And believe it or not... mike ate 4 of those babies. I kept challenging that he wouldn't be able to do it, especially cuz he looked nauseated after the 3rd one, but when he did, I kinda felt grossed out for him.  And impressed :)

And he got 2 more of those the next morning before we left.

Delaware seems like a wonderland, it's so completely foreign to me!  Mike thought I would hate the suburbs cuz I love living in cities so much and kept warning me I would be bored with his family for 3 days BUT I LOVED IT.  

His grandma ALWAYS had snacks for us!  And her idea of us spending time with her was watching rerun movies on Lifetime.  She also has a serious love for "Marley & Me".

We might try to go back in December, or we might drive around New England instead!  It'll be snowy though. you know what that means... New England Snowmen!

slice of home/heaven!

Blogs without pictures are no fun to read... yes I'm aware of that even though my last post was basically a mini novel.  I'm attempting to revive this blog again with more pictures and updates, and less vague posts!

Writing, even shallow surface posts like the ones in this blog, always helps me feel a bit calmer and at peace, as if life is rearranging itself just because I wrote about it.  And since as of late life has been more than hectic, I'm going to force myself to sit down and write more, both in here and elsewhere.  And even if sometimes it's just through a single picture and a tiny comment, I'm going to make sure it doesn't get lost into an abyss of memories.

And I'm attempting to create some sort of focus/theme around this blog, so it's not just a splattered scatter of random tid bits... ok who am I kidding, it's never really going to have just one complete theme.  But I shall attempt!

First and foremost, I was home in LA last weekend! Although NYC has its appeal of whirl and hustle and bustle, LA has unique charms and maybe just nostalgic memory attached to almost every location since I spent much more time researching LA city and culture than I have since I moved to NY. and basically every single person that I love resides in LA. Well except for the people who are in NY ;)

So! LA. There was lots of mexican food involved.  AMAZING.  It was basically every meal I ate. almost.  Sometimes I didn't even eat it, I just bought way too much of it and looked at it and though about old times when I used to eat it.  I don't think I really enjoy the process of eating a gooey quesadilla as much as the idea of eating it.  I'm drooling on myself right now.

There was also sushi!

And more sushi.

Actually, there's a lot more but I'm not gonna bother posting it because it will just make me hungry.  I'm jealous I can't build a time machine and travel back to last Friday and relive this goodness all over again!

I think we ate the entire population of a small pond.  I know, I know, these sushi are from salt water fish, don't get all scientific on me!

And don't worry, there was 11 of us.  I'm not that much of a champion.  But they are!

Of course, the beach made an appearance.  Even though it was freezing.  I didn't jog to it, but I had to see it!  

We biked instead!  This was one from the 2 out of 4 days that wasn't raining!  So weird to be able to see the sky in it's entirety... I don't think I've seen that for a solid 6 weeks.  It was strange.

Note me wearing Mike's mom's running shoes with a dress and giant coat... sexy biking gear.

There was also lots of wine and cheese and margaritas and chocolates and all things that make life happy and worth living <3

 And lots of time with family.  Meet the greatest people alive on earth:

Oh, and also somewhere in there was a 10k in the rain with Brenda that made me really sick but I had a good time catching up with her! 

And flowers and tea were brought during an impromptu visit by Tizia :)

I need to get better at taking pictures of things besides food and people at restaurants.

I have a crazy taxi story to tell about the day I flew back to NYC, but we can save that for another day.  There are way too many things backlogged to blog about!  For right now, this will suffice.   

Till next time, eat some tacos or some yummy black-sesame dimsum balls for me!

I am absolutely loving SIPA right now.

It is everything I wanted from grad school and MORE.  I knew I wanted something that was academically rigorous, but would also allow me to participate in current events and happenings outside of school, and expose me to opportunities I wouldn't be able to experience on a regular basis.  I think it helps that SIPA is located in NYC, because it has opened up doors that would simply be unimaginable in LA. Besides the millions of conferences, speakers, symposiums, career panels, and ideas being thrown around every second, Columbia and NYC in general, is where people come to make things happen.  And its so much easier to be part of it when I'm thrown in the midst of it.

And even within the classrooms, my professors (most of them) are amazing, and I'm learning things in class that are making me see the world in ways I never could have thought of, and getting me even more excited about learning more!

Things are just starting to settle down a bit now that midterms are over, and I have time to actually digest what has been happening to me, and am getting into the groove of balancing 2 internships and all my classes.

To sum up, right now I'm interning at UNDP's Crisis Prevention and Recovery Bureau.  My internship is great in that I can go into the office whenever I want to, but I can also work remotely if needed (like during midterms).  They only recently allowed me to do that.  I even have a UNDP email account :)  Working from UN Headquarters is pretty cool, but it takes about 45 minutes minimum to get there from where I live.  each way.  So I mostly work remotely whenever I have the chance to.  I really enjoy the work and it forces me to be constantly updated on current events (albeit mostly crisis) around the world.  My boss is super nice and personable (I've been lucky to have wonderful bosses for the majority of my work experiences)!  I've always thought it would be my dream to work at the UN before I came to SIPA, and this internship gave me invaluable insight into how the organization works.

My other internship right now is at Acumen Fund.  I actually got this internship through pure luck.  I was up one night stressing over being stressed (yes that happens a lot in grad school) and thinking about all the things I want to do in the future and what I've been exposed to thus far at SIPA, and researching all these ideas bouncing around in my head when I stumbled upon this organization.  I took one look and knew I absolutely wanted to be a part of what they were doing.  I had just started to be flooded with Social Enterprising opportunities at SIPA and was extremely interested in this new field.  The crazy thing is, 4 wks before coming to SIPA I would have no idea what social enterprising even was.  But being in NYC, the center of all things entrepreneurial, I scoured the website for the right people to contact, and drafted an email about why I want to help with their work and how my experiences are relevant to what they're doing.  I honestly did not think I would get a reply, seeing as Acumen Fund is the current leader and pioneer in the field of social enterprising, and their Fellows come from top B-Schools.  But lo-and-behold... my efforts went through!  Within a few days someone from Acumen Fund contacted me and said that Acumen Fund almost never responds to random emails since they get a ton of people trying to work there, but the Communications Head just happened to need someone with editorial and communications experience at that moment, and thought it was incredibly serendipitous that my resume came through right when they needed someone! It was serendipitous for both of us :)

I was hesitant at first to accept the position after the interview because they wanted someone who could start this semester even though I had inquired about Spring, since I was already interning at UNDP.  I thought long and hard about whether I could balance this much work with school, but I knew if I passed up this opportunity right now, it wouldn't come again.  So I took a leap and knew that no matter what, all I could do was give the best I can, and be honest with them about my time commitments.

What I've learned so far from being here is kind of what I've always done, but it's been more fruitful here at Columbia and NY than it ever has before.  It's to take every opportunity and chance you have. Go for every idea that crosses your mind.  Even if you think it is absolutely outrageous and you don't stand a chance, it doesn't hurt anybody if you try, and only hurts yourself if you don't.  Explore every possibility.  If you want to learn more about something, research it.  Find people to talk to about it. Discuss ideas, throw them around, talk to people who you think can help you out with useful information.  Learning more about something is the best you can do.  And when you feel like it's what you want, go for it.  And that's all, and everything, you can do.

And I know this is slightly contradictory, but so far the difficulties at SIPA for me is really to try to hold myself back from not doing EVERYTHING, and understanding the necessity to prioritize.  Because literally everything sounds exciting, and I want to be part of it. SIPA is a microcosm of the entire world.  There are events and people represented from every country, ethnic group, interest group, vocational field, etc. You can basically learn about anything you want, the world at your fingertips.

AMAZING.  I'm constantly trying to soak it all in.

Undoubtedly, out of everything I've ever attempted, I've been rejected countless times. And this will happen, and it will be super depressing the first few times, but then I've learned to get over it and try again.  And put your heart into what you really want. And although no one likes to fail, eventually it gets less depressing and dejecting.  And out of all those failures, there are always bound to be successes.  I've made just as many wild leaps that have taken me beyond what I could have ever hoped for.  And if suddenly too many things happen to work out, which is never the worst problem in the world, at least you have the option of deciding for yourself and choosing which ones to turn down.

Truthfully, in the midst of all my midterms only last week, I was kind of drained and overwhelmed by all my obligations and responsibilities, and the lack of time to even sleep for more than 4 hours a night.  Things looked bleak for a while and I smacked myself for being overeager.

But ultimately, that's the reason why I'm here, and why I wanted to be here.  All these opportunities, all the chances to see, feel, understand as much of the world as I can in its entirety, to be at the front lines witnessing and participating in what's happening now.  I can't take for granted the boundless opportunities I've been presented, and whenever I pause and think about how amazingly lucky I am to be here, it wakes me up a little bit and reminds me to never stop learning and exploring.

Being at SIPA is just a starting point for greater things to come.

Just remind me of my enthusiasm again when Finals roll around :0)