Bucket List

We have a work off-site in a few weeks, and, since so many of us in the office are relatively new, my boss came up with the fabulous idea of each of us coming up with a Getting to Know You Power Point. Obviously, lightbulbs started going off in my head the moment she said it (scrapbooking and general arts and crafts freak that I am), so I was trying to come up with ways to make it more creative. Once of the ideas I had was to talk about my bucket list, which I thought would actually be something fun to blog about! I would love to hear about some of your bucket list items, and here are some of mine:

-Living in France again (DUH...we all know I fantasize about moving back to France daily. Moving on...)
-Learning Arabic (I use a couple of Arabic phrases that some Arabic-speaking friends have taught me quite often in daily life, but I only know a handful of phrases)
-Traveling to India (I always get a particularly strong urge to travel to India after watching Slumdog Millionaire or eating Indian food, so since the bf and I did the former this week, I’m very much in “India NOW” mode)
-Running a marathon (the goal for this year is to run a half, but I eventually want to run the MCM)
-Doing the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg. It has been one of my lifelong dreams to frolic in the Austrian Alps (which, contrary to what they say in the movie, lead not to safety in Switzerland but, rather, to Germany), singing and dancing in clothes I made myself. I have actually heard from people who have taken the tour that it is quite disappointing, but I still want to go. Also, Molly’s presence would be required, since she would be the only person to go all-out and fully embrace the spirit of the tour with me.
-Rediscovering my French and Spanish fluency
-Planning a wedding (obviously my own wedding eventually, but also for either a friend or as a real wedding planner for a stranger)
-Visiting all of my various ancestral homelands
-Making it to all 4 tennis Grand Slams (I’ve been to the US Open 5 or 6 times and Roland Garros once)


Happy Friday to everyone! I’m heading off to my cousin Ashley’s wedding in NY this weekend, so I’m sure I’ll be writing about that (as well as the one-year anniversary of Kate and Dave’s wedding!) sometime next week!

A Sign of the Times...

Pure bliss :) How can you not believe in true love after witnessing a day like that?! (Photo courtesy of people.com...CLARO)

So it is now more than two weeks after the royal wedding, and, since I've essentially been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I have been remiss in writing about it. Since we all know that my posts tend to get a bit lengthy, I'll just say a few words about it. The wedding day was, for hopeless romantics such as myself, the most magical of days. Kate was, I believe, one of the most stunning brides that I have ever seen. I would not necessarily wear her dress myself, but it was perfect for the location and the tone of the occasion. William was simply dashing (the scarlet uniform definitely didn't hurt!!!), and he and Kate looked like they are madly in love. I know that, to some people, it is so frivolous to care so much about an event that actually cost English taxpayers money, but, with so little happy news these days, to be able to witness the crowning (no pun intended) day of a beautiful love story is a breath of fresh air. I truly do hope that the newlyweds breathe fresh air into the often-stuffy monarchy and do things by their own rules.

Three short days after the wedding, I awoke to the news that a team of U.S. Navy SEALS had killed Osama bin Laden after a near-decade-long search. I can definitely say that I had a mixed opinion about the event that so many used as an excuse for revelry. On the one hand, I certainly agree with President Obama's statement that "justice was done" and that his death may serve as some comfort to the families of those for whose deaths he is, be it indirectly or directly, responsible. The man was a monster and distorted a religious doctrine to the point where it no longer resembled the spirit of that religion. However, he was still a human being, so the fact that so many people my age flocked to the White House and fêted his death seemed to me to almost make light of his death. I am of the opinion that celebrating the death of another human is simply tasteless, and, in fact, debases those who celebrate it to bin Laden's level.

Anyway, enough of current (or, rather, recent past) events. The reason I entitled this post "A Sign of the Times" is that I've been feeling a little bit out of my element. For the past few weeks, I have been feeling so overscheduled and exhausted that I feel like time is just flying by without me really taking the time to appreciate it. Whereas, in the fall and winter, I liked to take at least a night or two after work to relax and do something for myself, like read or watch a movie, now I find that I have something scheduled every night. 'Oh, poor little whiney girl, can't appreciate how good she has it,' you may be thinking, and don't get me wrong, I don't want to whine, but I guess I feel like I'm having trouble balancing everything, that I literally can't live without my planner because I can't keep everything straight. I guess I want to make sure I'm enjoying everything I'm doing, not simply running from one event to the next. On Saturday night, I took a detox night and went and stayed with my parents at the new house. Don't misunderstand me, it was wonderful to be able to stay with them and relax, but it shouldn't get to the point where I need to extricate myself from my normal environment to get a good night's sleep. So my goal heading into what will likely be a busy summer is to choose after-work activities that truly bring me joy and be in the moment so as not to take those experiences for granted.

Lastly (and then I will end this long entry), this weekend marks the one-year anniversary of my graduation from Georgetown. I have dreaded May 22nd for quite some time, because, at that point, I will no longer be able to say, "I graduated in May." I will now be forced to say, "I graduated in 2010." Despite all of my anxiety over the fact that friends have become more scattered, some friendships have fallen by the wayside and memories from the Hilltop have started to become less relevant, I feel so blessed for everything I have. Molly and I were saying today that, if you had told us at this time last year that everything that has happened to us in the past year would happen, we would have laughed in your face. For better or worse, good changes or bad, this year has been one of incredible growth for me, a year in which I've gotten to know myself, others and my city more than I thought imaginable. I owe this continual journey of self-discovery to my incredible family and friends old and new, so thank you, dear readers, if you have played a part in it. Finally, HOYA SAXA and GEORGETOWN FOREVER!!!!!!

I am still in disbelief that this was a year ago. I love all of you so much <3

The Mother of All Royal Wedding Hype

Thanks to the magic of Facebook, I stumbled upon this Tumblr feed, and it is HILARIOUS...

Enjoy!!!

My First Mid-Atlantic Easter and The Royal Wedding

One thing I love about working at a Jesuit university is that we get Good Friday off! (hence the blogging during the day on Friday). I will be splitting the weekend between my parent's new house in Alexandria and my grandparent's in the Shenandoahs, so I'm really looking forward to a weekend of pure relaxation after thoroughly running myself ragged in the week leading up to Welcome Weekend (and then paying for it this week by getting really sick).

In other news, the event of the century (the royal wedding, naturally!) is almost upon us! Come next Friday, the 29th of April, millions of eyes will be turned to each respective nation's BBC affiliate to catch a glimpse of Kate Middleton's much talked-about dress and, hopefully, a glimpse of a royal kiss on the Buckingham Palace balcony.

In Sarah Lyall's April 21st NYT article, she says of Kate that, "she is like an old-time Hollywood star, full of mystery, a canvas onto which the world can project its fantasies." I think that, in a world of TMI when it comes from everyone to celebrities to politicians, Kate is a breath of fresh air: someone who is content with what life has handed her but doesn't feel the need to make an exhibition of herself because of it. I think that the poise and grace with which she handles herself is incredibly admirable...and damn it, she has an amazing wardrobe that any girl would be silly not to envy!!! PLUS she's marrying the arguably better-looking of the princes! I don't really buy the rags-to-riches story that the press so often attempts to construct for her; yes, her parents may have had humbler roots, but they are still upper-middle-class Britons, so to refer to Kate as a "commoner" sounds demeaning in a way. If she's a "commoner", then what does that make the rest of us?!?

I was thinking the other day about what it is that I find so intriguing about the royal family, and I guess I can trace my interest in them back to when Princess Diana died. I vividly remember the day: I was 9 years old, we were up at the Lake for Labor Day weekend and I was in bed, sick as a dog. I remember hearing, even in my groggy state, someone exclaim from downstairs that Diana had died. From then on, I was a sponge, learning everything about the royals that I possibly could. I guess you could say that my interest in the royals was my gateway drug into my current People magazine-obsessed world. They were the first "celebrities" that I took a real interest in, and I suppose some of that had to do with the fact that I, like so many little girls, wanted to be a princess.

Molly and I are planning on having a sleepover the night before the wedding and waking up early to watch it, complete with a breakfast of homemade scones, strawberries and cream and English Breakfast Tea. I obviously wasn't alive for Charles and Diana's wedding, so I couldn't be more excited to watch this one. While the press has been attempting to unravel the truth about what will happen that day, frankly, I would prefer to be surprised (so hopefully they don't spoil it for me by digging up every last detail!).

Since I have seen so many ridiculous wedding-related things in the past few months, I thought I would post a few of them here for posterity's sake:

- People had a gallery of the most ridiculous wedding-related memorabilia
- The Kate Middleton doll's adventures around London
- The William and Kate Lifetime movie
- The T Mobile Royal Wedding ad
- Papa John's Royal Wedding pizza
- Dunkin Donuts Royal Wedding donut
- Royal Wedding-inspired food and drink
- Design-your-own Royal Wedding stamp

I'm sure there are more ridiculous things I'm missing, but I'll add in any more particularly humorous ones that I find!

My Official Induction into the Running World

Christine and I just after our race!

Those of you who know me best will remember that, despite a couple of phases of infatuation with running in college, during which I would want to run every day for a month or two until the passion fizzled out, I would say that I hate running. I think that, when I was in physical therapy last year for a freak knee injury and was told I couldn't run (HA, not that I was a runner anyway), I really wanted to start again, so start I did once my physical therapist gave me the green light.

Throughout the fall and winter, I put the miles on, built up my speed and, yes, even grew to tolerate the monotony of the treadmill. My New Year's Resolution (I feel like it's better if I share it, since then I will maybe force myself to hold to it) was to run a half-marathon, and I soon set my sights on the Historic Half-Marathon in May. Well, my body had other plans; it seems as though every time I run, some confused combination of knees and ankles decides to get injured, meaning that I don't think I've ever run more than 9 miles.

However, a friend told me about the Hurry Up 4 Health 8K that was taking place on the towpath along the C&O Canal last weekend and I couldn't resist. 'What a perfect foray into the world of running races,' I thought, so I hurriedly signed up. Well, my poor, broken body had other plans for me, because I did something to tweak my right ankle during a run on Tuesday, and then a run on Thursday further exacerbated it, leaving it swollen and incredibly painful to walk on. On the day of the race, I gave myself a lazy day (even though I easily run the same distance several mornings a week 15 minutes after popping out of bed with no lazing-around time...but that's beside the point) and met my parents down by the Potomac (where my dad, ever the crew enthusiast, had dragged my mom to a crew race and looked like a little kid in a candy store). They had (adorably) decided that they wanted to watch my race, so we walked over together. It also turned out that my friend Christine was running the race, so we decided to be running buddies.

I was surprised at how nervous I was before the race; for all intents and purposes, this was a "normal" race for me, but it was my FIRST race, and damn it, my ankle hurt. I resolved to run until the pain became too much to bear, even though I knew, in the back of my mind, that I wouldn't let myself quit (my mom often uses the word "headstrong" to describe me, but, in the context of exercise, I don't really think she gets where my self-discipline (or maybe masochism) comes from). Surprisingly, my ankle didn't bother me at all during the race, although having to dodge rocks, puddles and the occasional root certainly made me nervous. It was a lot more enjoyable because Christine and I were pacing each other the entire time, and we ended up finishing two seconds apart, me at 41:08 and her at 41:10. Despite the fact that I didn't finish with the blazing speed (just over 30 minutes) of the guy who won, I was pleased with my time for the first race. As I crossed the finish line, where my beaming dad stood taking a picture on his phone (only to fail at saving and sending it...oh well, he tries) and slowed down...oh, God, ouch, my ankle was killing me, and suddenly I couldn't put any weight on it. The only justification I can come up with is the runner's high that I must have been on (I can fully attest to the fact that it does exist), and I think the adrenaline just kept me from noticing the pain.

Nearly a week later, my bothersome ankle is still swollen (perhaps because I tempted fate and run on it again yesterday), but I can now say that my first race is behind me. Hopefully 2011 will be the year that I do run a half-marathon, even though so much of it is conditional upon my body and the extent to which it lets me train. Stay tuned...the next one I'm considering is the Rock 'n Roll Half in Virginia Beach, which I believe is in the fall. Otherwise, I'm hopeful that I can get myself in shape for the National Half-Marathon on the same day as the MCM. Thank you all for humoring me!!! I'm sure you could probably care less about my 8K, but it was a victory for me (I may have shed a tear thinking back to elementary school, when I was the girl with asthma who couldn't finish the Mile Run because she had an asthma attack every time), and it is hopefully a building block to bigger, better races!!!!

A Very D.C. Reunion

CAKKEEEEEEE
Beautiful friends
What we do best
Hail o Georgetown alma mater...back where it all started

We all know how I feel about reunions. As the resident sap of my friend group, I am the one who insists on regular Skype dates and reunions as often as possible so that I can see my beloved friends, whether virtually or in person. Our little group has been coined by a friend of a friend as the Ya Ya Sisterhood, and I think that is a reasonably good estimation of how close all of us are. As I have said before, I am so grateful for my experience at Georgetown for so many reasons, one of the principal ones being that I had the opportunity to meet better friends than I ever could have imagined.

My reunion in Chicago with Allie, Kate and Kristin was, as I described in a previous post, everything I could have imagined. I had unadulterated free time with some of my best friends exploring a brand new city, so there really wasn’t anything I could complain about. Saying goodbye at the end of that visit was certainly difficult, but, like with our goodbyes after graduation (which, granted, given the finality of the end of college, were decidedly more teary), we knew that we would be seeing each other again in just a few short weeks. In the case of graduation, we knew that the weekend of June 12th, Kate’s wedding, would bring a reunion of epic proportions (it more than lived up to the hype!), and this time, we knew that we had Reunion/Birthday weekend to look forward to.

We figured that, with my birthday on the 24th, Kate’s on the 28th and Molly’s half-birthday on April 1st (as well as Alexandra’s actual birthday on April 9th), that gave us a great excuse for a weekend-long reunion. Our friends traveled in from far and wide (Alex took the train down from NYC, Kate DROVE 747 miles from Columbus (the winner for distance!), Kristin flew 660 miles from Chicago and Allie flew 522 miles from Ann Arbor), and what ensued, unsurprisingly, was a sappy, nostalgic reunion weekend that I can only think of one word to describe: perfect. We took one big walk down memory lane this weekend, beginning with a pre-birthday dinner (this was just me, my dad and Tim) at Tombs—on what happened to be Chimes Night!!!!! I had, shockingly, never been before, and was thrilled to be there.

We had a delicious birthday dinner on Thursday night with the people who were in town (Molly, Lauren, Kate, Katherine and Joelle) in what started off our weekend of gluttony. I had decided to give myself a dispensation from my no-sugar Lent for the weekend, a decision that I definitely came to regret on several occasions throughout the weekend. I had decided to take the day off on Friday so that Kate, Molly and I could run errands and not have to eat into our time with our friends to rush to and from the grocery store before the party on Saturday. The highlights, though, were when we met up with everyone (minus, Allie, who had a later flight) for dinner at Tombs. I know, twice in one week, I’m starting to sound like my 99 Days self! There were a few tears shed over being back in the place where so many of our senior year memories took place, and I know some girls who couldn’t have been happier to munch on their first Southwest Chicken Salads in nearly a year. After dinner, we went back to Molly’s apartment to gab, eat (claro) and watch Gilmore Girls, an old standby. Once Allie arrived, the reunion was complete!!!!

On Saturday morning, we schlepped over to Eastern Market in search of a brunch locale. Unfortunately, Belga, the delicious Belgian place that Lauren and I so love, wasn’t able to accommodate so large a group, so we ended up finding another restaurant. Following our yummy brunch, we wandered around the market, ogling the jewelry, pictures and other wares and fulfilling our fruit quota for the day with the free samples in the farmer’s market. We then ventured over to the Tidal Basin (despite some hesitation on my part, as I feared it would be a mob scene during the first weekend of the Cherry Blossom Festival) to take in the GORGEOUS cherry blossoms. We were glad to have gotten a look at them, because we knew snow was in the forecast for Sunday morning (yikes!!!!) and we didn’t know if the blossoms would survive.

On Saturday night, we had a bunch of people over for cake, and then met up with the bulk of our group in Adams Morgan at Brass Monkey/Peyote Café for karaoke. As usual, we impressed ourselves with our superior song choices that set the tone for the evening (we essentially pulled out 80s hits like Don’t You Want Me, Don’t Stop Believin’, Sweet Child of Mine, Total Eclipse of the Heart and, of course Your Love- I think the latter may have to be retired though, because, even though it is my ALL-TIME favorite song/go-to karaoke song, I think others are beginning to get sick of it!!!). It was hard to have a really sustained conversation with any one friend, as I was flitting between friend groups as well as singing, but I just felt so blessed to have so many wonderful friends there, both local and long-distance. When we arrived back home at around 3:15 (a reasonably late night for us!), we rehashed the night and how wonderfully the weekend was going.

We made our way back to Georgetown on Sunday morning for brunch at Martin’s Tavern, and then indulged in the cornerstone of our nostalgia, a trip to campus. There were tears…oh, were there ever tears. I said to each of my out-of-town friends, “Welcome Home,” because that’s what Georgetown is to us: home. It is the place where our friendships with each other blossomed, and, no matter what our walks in life, where we’re living, what we’re doing with our lives, we will always share that special place and the memories that we made there. Fittingly, we ended the weekend all together with a trip to Baked & Wired (down with Georgetown Cupcake!) and further gorged ourselves on sweets. When Allie and Kristin caught a cab down by the waterfront to head to the airport, we all gave each other the biggest of hugs, ended with a ginormous group hug and a “Ya Ya!!!” cheer (we must have thoroughly freaked out the cab driver) and parted ways.

After Mass, Kate, Molly, Lauren and I went to Dukem, one of Lauren’s and my favorite Ethiopian restaurants, for Kate’s birthday dinner. Since today is her 23rd (HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATE!!!!!!!), she wanted to try a kind of cuisine that she had always regretted not trying while in DC. Understandably, it didn’t disappoint, and we topped it off with the rest of the birthday cake when we got home. Kate and I got up for a much-needed workout early this morning (she got a taste of my morning routine- I think the 5am wake-up may have been a little bit of a shock to her system!) and got to enjoy each other’s company for a little while until I could no longer evade reality and had to head out to work. Our goodbye was so bittersweet, because, on the one hand, we had just spent the perfect weekend all together, but, at the same time, God only knows the next time we will all be together like that. My vote is to go to Austin next year once Kate and Dave are settled there (I’ve never been to Texas, and have just heard amazing things about Austin!), but the new reality, the reality that we won’t all be seeing each other every day, is downright depressing! I have to believe, though, that our commitment to our friendships can transcend distance and that we can still take an active interest in each other’s life developments even if we’re not a room away. With sisters, you can really never stop caring…

A Very Chicago Reunion

I bought myself two things when I got my job: a pair of Tory Burches, which I had been lusting after for four years, and a plane ticket to Chicago to visit my friends. We all know that I have issues with separation anxiety, so, rather than spend my money on things I don't need, I decided to spend it on something that would lead to the creation of lifelong memories (pause for awwwwwing). This trip really had been a long time coming: I had seen Kate twice since the wedding (once when I traveled down to Columbus in July and once just before Christmas), Kristin once (over Christmas break) and Allie not at all since the wedding, so a reunion was definitely necessary. Not to mention the fact that both Kristin and Allie were on spring break, both happened to live in Chicago (Kristin lives and goes to school there, and Allie's parents live there in a GORGEOUS apartment), and Kate and I were badly in need of some time with our girlfriends. Put all of that together and you have an all-out lovefest!

We all remarked that, while we saw and did a lot (including a 5 1/2-mile walk on Tuesday as we traipsed all around the city, up and down the Magnificent Mile, to the Navy Pier and back- it's a good thing, too, because it helped offset the Cake Shake from Portillo's, gourmet hot chocolate from the Ghirardelli store, and all of the other decadent food we consumed on the trip (I also thanked God for the fact that both A & K's apartments had gyms)), the pace was not overly frenetic. We really listened to ourselves; if we were tired, we ducked inside a coffee shop or a restaurant, out of the cold late February cold, and chatted up a storm. We regaled one of Allie's law school friends with our debaucherous tales from the wedding, and spent a lot of time in general rehashing our last few months all together.

All in all, I really loved Chicago. Don't get me wrong, I could never live there because of the weather (I rarely took off my down coat all weekend, even when indoors- I guess that's what you get when you have bad circulation!), but boy, was it a cool city. It definitely had a bigger-city feel than DC does, but the neighborhoods, at the same time, were really distinct. I loved the architecture throughout the city, which was really showcased nicely for us when we went up to the Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of the Hancock Building. As we sat there sipping our overpriced (but tasty) cocktails (really, you're paying for the experience, so it was fine), we were just in awe of how beautiful and expansive the city looked from up there. It was the perfect activity for our last night, and naturally the conversation turned reflective and sappy- it really was an all-out lovefest during which we all spoke to how blessed we felt to have such incredible friends and the means to be able to see each other like this, halfway across the country for Kate and I. Of course, there were tears (mostly on my end, claro), but it all comes down to the fact that I feel so incredibly lucky to have this group of friends in my life. I told all of them that, having grown up around Georgetown people thanks to my Dad's continued involvement there and already-strong network of friends, I had high hopes for the friendships I would hopefully make while on the Hilltop. The friends I made completely exceeded my highest expectations, and I have no doubt that, even if we are not in each other's physical presence every day, as we had become so accustomed to as undergrads, we still love and care about each other so much that we WANT to stay dialed in to each other's lives, and we WANT to go visit each other in our respective cities (I'm super-psyched to visit Kate when she moves to Austin!!!!!). So I think "blessed" is the most appropriate word to describe how I came out of the weekend feeling.

I can't WAIT to see all of the girls in exactly three weeks for BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!!!!!!