The Year in (Quick) Review

It's January 5th! I go back to work in two days! Quick! Let's review the year.

January - Cammy came out from Fort Collins to throw me a tiki-themed bachelorette party at the Tonga Hut, which was AWESOME.

February 18 - Ari and I got married at the University Club of Pasadena. It was (slightly) more AWESOME than my bachelorette. We did a "mini-moon" to Palm Springs right after, which was delightful.

March through April - Finished up the spring semester at USC. Taught in the Master's Prep program for both fall and spring of 2018.

May - HONEYMOON! Israel with the whole fam (in-laws, sibs, cousins, aunts, uncles) and then a little side-trip to Amsterdam (our airline, KLM, let us have a free stopover there). Beautiful weather the whole time.

July through mid-August - Taught ESL at my old job, the Columbia ALP, for Summer C session. Went pretty well for the most part and it was wonderful being in the city during the summer. Hot and sweaty but fun. Plus, Ari came out for the last week of work and that was nice to see him!

September through December - kept things low key around here. Presented at CATESOL in Anaheim with my mom, which was fun. Stayed local for Christmas (but went to Youngstown, as usual, for Thanksgiving). Missed Leah and Urbain because Leah is currently in Australia (through the end of January).

New Year's Eve - Ari's dad came out for four days, arriving on NYE, in order to go to the Rose Bowl game, since Ohio State was playing. Ari, his dad, and my dad all went. (Tickets cost $450 each!!!!) On Jan. 2, Ari also did an informal recital of a Mendelssohn piece for his dad and my family with his LA Phil coworker, Lucy, accompanying on the cello.

So, I honestly can't complain about 2018. What a great year! 

My favorite films of 2018

I managed to see a lot of films that came out this year, thanks to the miracle of MoviePass (that has since mostly expired...although I still have a membership and continue to hold out hope that it will get better).

All in all, I saw about 50 movies, not including Netflix comedy specials, that came out in 2018. Here are my favorites, in no particular order:

• The Favourite
• Roma
• Blackkklansman
• First Reformed
• Shoplifters
• Tully
• Minding the Gap
• The Rider
• Private Life
• Sorry to Bother You
• Eighth Grade
• If Beale Street Could Talk

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I also posted them on my Letterboxd account.

I think I'd put Roma and The Favourite in the top two slots (I don't know which I'd rank higher!), closely followed by First Reformed and Sorry to Bother You. I haven't yet had a chance to see Cold War or Leave No Trace, which I have high hopes for.

Man, I'd say this was a good year for movies!

image via 

I tried for a hot second to be vegan for the month of January (aka "Veganuary"). I didn't even last more than a day. Man, I'm weak this year!

Wrapping Up 2017

Hey look! It’s the last day of 2017! I guess I should put something up here. I’ve got free time. I've got motivation. So! Here are my year-end thoughts, for those of you dying to know.

This year started off kind of rough for everyone in the U.S., but it felt especially so for me and Ari, because we were still living with my parents, after moving in with them *temporarily* in September 2016. It took us until March to feel comfortable looking for our own apartment. We hesitated mostly because Ari was having trouble finding a music teaching gig (or any kind of gig). But then he got a job he really likes, working with kids in downtown LA through the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles.

The first couple of months of the year were rough politically and personally. But then we moved into our cute lil apartment in Pasadena (with a balcony! My dream!) and we both were working, and things started looking so much better. So much better, in fact, that I decided to propose to Ari in the summer (July 15^th to be exact, our 8-year anniversary), since I felt like things were pretty darn good. He’d moved to California pretty much just for me, and we had finally kind of found a place that we felt comfortable in. So, he said yes! Our wedding is Feb. 18, 2018! And totally coincidentally, the number 18 is the numerological representation of the word for “life” in Hebrew, so it’s considered an auspicious date, which is kind of cool.

I guess those were the two kind-of memorable achievements of this year for me – moving into our own place (20 minutes’ drive from my parents! Who’d have thunk I’d ever agree to THAT?) and getting engaged to Ari. I still miss New York City quite a bit sometimes (mostly the people; sometimes I miss the snowy, wintery weather), and I know Ari is not sure if he’s OK with living out the rest of our days in the Sunshine State. I am open to the idea of moving again when we decide to buy a house. I just really would like it to be somewhere that has indie movie theaters and doesn’t get snow…..

As I feel most of my friends (and the strangers I follow on Instagram) have been saying at the end of 2017: This year was a pretty terrible year for the world, but personally it has been pretty good. I guess we’ve all gotta keep fighting the good fight against this T character, but we can all love and laugh and enjoy life somewhat while we’re doing it, right?

OK, that is pretty much my wrap-up for the year, except for one more thing. I think I did a pretty good job of seeing new movies this year, so I have compiled a shortlist of my top five of 2017, in order.

1.     The Florida Project

2.     Call Me By Your Name

3.     Lady Bird

4.     The Big Sick

5.     Get Out

Honorable mentions: The Beguiled, Good Time, Logan Lucky, Wonder Woman

Overrated: Baby Driver, Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049

Still want/need to see: Phantom Thread, The Post, Your Name, Personal Shopper

I wish you all a wonderful 2018! 

I think it's summer

Fresh pesto, snap peas from the farmer's market, and a grapefruit La Croix.

Look at what I did!

So, as I am unemployed for the foreseeable summer (hoping I get some substitute jobs, but so far I've missed two subbing opportunities due to not checking my email frequently enough). This extra free time, with limited $$$, means improvements on the new apartment!

Please admire my work lining lots of shelves:

As you can see, I have truly achieved "adult" status. 

Also, below is a panorama I took for a coworker who asked for an update on the apartment. It is unedited (read: no trash/detritus removed) for a totally authentic look: 

It's getting there!

Valbirthentine's Day

I had a good birthday + Valentine's Day this year, not least because my birthday was on a Sunday, and I forgot how wonderful it is to get to sleep in on one's birthday!

My birthday fortune in the LA Times. Not sure it makes sense.....

Ari made me birthday muffins! 

FREE Starbucks drink on my birthday! I got a molten chocolate latte with whipped cream. :D

Ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins with mint chocolate ice cream. By special request. Thanks for fulfilling my dreams, Ari! 

 On Valentine's Day, we had dinner in K-town and went to see Angel Olsen perform at the Wiltern Theater. My first time at the Wiltern; it really is a great venue. Unfortunately, we DID have to stand for over 3 hours to see the whole show, and that was pretty tough to do after a full day of work. There were two opening acts: Chris Cohen (psychedelic rock) and Jonathan Richman, a zany, ridiculous singer who is apparently is a living legend. He was definitely a lot of fun to watch!

But wait, there's more! On Thursday 2/16, we had a belated swing dancing birthday party at Lindygroove, which is where Ari and I take swing dancing classes every Thursday night. If it's your birthday, you get invite up to 10 guests for free, AND they give you chocolate cupcakes at a reserved table. So nice! So my parents and sister and my Aunt Liz came out to dance and/or watch people dance. It was really nice. 

We took this after Aunt Liz left. Oops. 

In case I ever get to walk the red carpet

I have found my dress. I'm not kidding. I mean, I guess Nicole wore it first, but I can deal with that. 

Takin' some action

I couldn't make it to the LAX protest today, so at least I can do this. (They postcards are dirty looking because of our wonky printer, but I like the homemade feel it gives them.)

Reading the news during class and wanting to cry.

That is all for now.

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

I, Too

Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides, 
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

Taken from poets.org.

Highlights from the end of the year (November 2016 - January 1, 2017)

Pictures!

First, camping in Cottonwood Spring, in Joshua Tree National Park. (November 5-6)

Dad, Ari, Aunt Liz, Me

Watching the sunset from the car while driving back from Jumbo Rocks

Important sharing of Hello Kitty filter on Instagram. My dream come true.

Heard David Sedaris speak for the first time, at the Pasadena Civic Center. (November 15)

Saw an NBA game for the first time on November 23rd. Go Cavs! (In Cleveland with Ari and his brother Ben.) 

With the Kessler family for Thanksgiving, in Mill Creek Park, Youngstown, Ohio.

Half-Marathon Weekend  (December 3-4)

Anja makes delicious crepes the day before our big half marathon, using her parents' awesome crepe-making tool.

Lunch and a tour of the Presidio with Alicia

Sunset over the Sutro Baths. 

The actual run! (This was right near the beginning). 

We all finished it in under 4 hours!! 

Nessa's wedding in Jersey City, December 10

Speeches

View of Manhattan from the Jersy City Hyatt

Christmas/Holiday stuff

Arty blurry photo of our tree (before it inexplicably started smelling bad...) 

Ari's parents visited and we joined them for a rainy but fun trip to Catalina Island on December 20.

Hanging and Bruce and Kathy Carter's house on Christmas Eve. 

Fiddler on the Roof singalong at the Laemmle on Christmas Eve

Mexican Train dominoes after brunch on Christmas 

Hike to Henniger Flats on December 28 with Erik, Cammy, Dad, and Aunt Liz (and her dog Axl) 

New Years with Ari's siblings visiting from Ohio

One warm day of sunshine! (But the water was FREEZING)

Everyone! At the park. We asked a stranger to take a picture of us and he asked us to hold onto his dog while he took it. 

Rainy San Clemente Pier on New Year's Eve

San Juan Capistrano Mission on New Year's Day

"Worth a Visit" -- Indeed, it was! 

My lame-ass attempt at wrapping up 2016

So, as has been widely discussed on the Internet (and among real people), 2016 was not such a great year, speaking generally. I agree with this assessment, the biggest downer of the year being Trump's election. I was so conflicted and upset about it that I couldn't come up with a blog post about it, even though I wanted to write one. I couldn't decide if I wanted the post to have an optimistic, sad, or angry tone. I still don't know which tone to strike when I think about Trump or talk about the future of our country with friends. So...yeah. Time will tell, I guess?

Bowie's death was the celebrity death that meant the most to me this year, although Debbie Reynolds was a close second, due to my longtime love of Singin' in the Rain.

In happier, more personal news, this year Ari and I moved to Los Angeles. This was a change I'd been pushing for since 2013! I really didn't know if I would ever be able to convince Ari to do it, but I did. We gave away 90% of our stuff (we kept no furniture) and drove cross-country from New York to Monrovia, arriving at my parents' house on Ari's birthday, August  31st. As I type this we are still in Monrovia, living with my parents, partly because it's been hard for Ari to find work as a music teacher (he wants a full-time job) and also because my bosses at USC waited till the last week of the semester to tell me whether I was hired back or not (I got hired back! Yeah!).

Four months in to California life, Ari and I are still figuring out how to live in Los Angeles, and hopefully finding our own place to live in the next month or two will help make us feel more settled. It's going to be expensive, buying all that furniture. grumble, grumble. But so far the lack of true winter weather has been wonderful, and I love being near my parents and family. Ari's parents came out for a visit a couple of weeks ago, and his brother and sister joined us at San Clemente for New Year's. A lot of our closer friends are still in NYC or in northern California, but I know Ari and I will grow more comfortable and build our own community here, with time.

Other highlights from 2016:

-Visiting Cuba! Went to Havana for 5 days with my parents and my good friend Alicia as part of a people-to-people guided tour, before Cuba totally opened its borders to U.S. travel.

-Visiting Mexico City! This was an unplanned trip that I adapted to travel by myself after a trip to Acapulco with some work friends that fell through when there were shootings in the tourist area, and I couldn't get a refund on my ticket. Leah ended up joining me for a few days, and it was a great experience overall.

-Completing a half marathon! I ran it with my friend Anja in the Marin Headlands, in northern California. Beautiful weather and REALLY difficult, hilly terrain.


Now, onto my lists of the year!

Favorite books read in 2016 (not necessarily written in 2016):

• Under the Skin, by Michel Faber
• Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
• The Color of Water, by James McBride
• Pictures at a Revolution, by Mark Harris
• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Nix, by Nathan Hill
• You'll Grow Out of It, by Jessi Klein 

Favorite new music from 2016 (I made the effort to listen to some new stuff):

• Lemonade, by Beyonce. Duh. 
• Skeleton Tree, by Nick Cave
• My Woman, by Angel Olsen (Favorite musician discovery of 2016: Angel Olsen) 

Favorite 2016 movies* (loosely organized in order): 

1. Manchester by the Sea
2. Everybody Wants Some!! 
3. Moonlight
4. One More Time with Feeling
5. Certain Women
6. La La Land
7. Hell or High Water
8. Arrival

*My FAVORITE movie of the year was definitely The Lobster, which came out in the U.S. in 2016, but is technically a 2015 film, since it took so long to reach us.

Happy Halloween!

Please admire my self-created Halloween nails (made from $1.99 glitter from Michaels)!

Also, I just noticed this is post #1,001 on this blog. Crazy, right? 

Irrational Fear #436:

That the sun won't come up one morning.

Thanks to reading this book when I was about seven years old.

A little "Awwww" for your Sunday night

“I was born in Venezuela. I moved here two years ago. I want to be President of Venezuela to change things and make better the world. Did you know that sometimes in Venezuela people shoot each other on purpose? I will change that. Also there will be rules against pushing people or thinking bad thoughts about people. I will make a rule so that there will not be too much cutting or killing of trees. And there will be a rule against killing too many animals because animals eat insects, and we can’t have too many insects. I will also make sure that we don’t waste water or food. Or if there is food left over, we have to be sure to put it in the trash. I can’t be president now because I’m only eight. But I did skip first grade.”

Taken from Humans of New York. I just had to copy this exactly because it warmed my heart on a rainy Sunday evening. 

Every teacher's worst nightmare

OK, I phrased that title dramatically, but today I experienced a less intense version of every teacher's nightmare - a health emergency during class.

I've been teaching at the USC International Academy for five weeks now, and it's been going pretty well. I'm teaching the master's prep program, which is pretty intense (the students are all conditionally admitted to master's programs at USC, they just need to get their English skills up to snuff by taking this one semester of classes and passing it with a B average), but the students are so motivated and generally so easy to work with, it makes the job pretty enjoyable.

Today, we had a grammar quiz at the beginning of class, and one of the women (girls, really - I'd guess she's in her early 20s) didn't look so good. She took the quiz really fast and then asked if she could go to the restroom. When she came back about 5 minutes later, she literally walked in the door to the classroom and then fainted onto the floor. It was very dramatic! All the students gasped and I immediately ran outside the room to tell someone at the front desk, who then called the campus equivalent of 911. I wouldn't have been that stressed, to be honest, because it didn't seem that serious overall, except that she was pretty unresponsive to anyone talking to her while she lay on the floor. She was breathing, but not communicating at all.

So a tense 5 - 10 minutes passed (I think? It felt like forever.) while we waited on the paramedics to come. They finally arrived and asked everyone to leave the classroom so she could have some privacy, so we all walked awkwardly into an empty classroom, where I wondered if I should try to have the students do work while we waited. I ended up giving them a handout on APA citations to read and work on if they wanted to. Most of them opted to stare into space or go on their phones.

The girl seemed to be OK after a few minutes with the medics - they were able to get her to sit up and respond to questions, and I honestly suspect she just hadn't eaten in a while. So we all filed back into the room (after she had been wheeled out in a wheelchair) and I tried to continue the lesson as usual. It's such a difficult balance, trying to show concern for the student who just left in a wheelchair, and check that everyone else in the class isn't freaking out, AND try to make sure that we don't "waste" class time!

In the end, I think the whole process went OK. We did manage to continue the lesson, and I got a text from the girl's friend later in the day saying that she was doing well. Phew. Thinking it would probably be a good idea to take a CPR class though, just in case.

Sad but good

I just bought this CD (a real I can play in my car). I love Nick Cave's music no matter what, but this album was created partly as a way of dealing with the unexpected death of his 15-year-old son. When I heard the news about his son, it really hit me in the gut. I almost felt like a friend of mine had lost a child. 

I was afraid of buying his album at first because I thought it would be too heart wrenching, but it's okay. It's dark and angry but also melodic and hopeful. Looking forward to many listens on my future commutes. 

Last Days of Brooklyn

Queens Comfort with Jacky

Intentionally unfinished Gerhard Richter painting at the Met Breuer (took my classes).

Roxanne Gay reading at the Franklin Park Reading Series

Last day at Columbia, with a "surprise" going away party. (I wasn't sure, but suspected something.)

Photo with my last class at Columbia

Ari eating an edible balloon at the Museum of Ice Cream

Speaking of ice cream - crazy sundaes at Black Tap with Natalie. 

Cedar Beach on Long Island with Megan and a few other coworkers/friends. 

Megan's mom bought us pens!!! Only teachers will understand how thrilling this was. 

Favorite spot to wait for the Q train at Union Square with Captain Baby. 

Sneaky pic of Ari and the boys of the subway. 

Ari waves farewell to his favorite sechwan food at Legend Restaurant. 

One of my favorite views-crossing the Manhattan Bridge on the Q train. 

Various items of mine to give away that I hung in front of our apartment. These were all gone in about 10 minutes. 

Most of our worldly possessions. 

Walking through Washington Square Park in the rain in my last day in the city. 

Drinks at Vol de Nuit on our last night in town (with Megan and Carol).

LAST MEAL: General Tso's!!!!