other things I love here

-Hole-in-the-wall restaurants with menus like this:



-cheap Chinese food (where $6 gets you three meals!)
-music
-people in my office
-international students
-cathedrals
-a light breeze at dusk
-hymns
-ukeleles :P
-red doors
-blue doors
-green doors
-red trap doors
-racial diversity
-the fact that I don't really notice racial diversity anymore
-energy
-parks
-Late to Work (the game)
-my dear friends
-unexpected situations
-a new spiritual environment

I've reached the point where every day is just every day, now. I don't notice things as passionately anymore. I think this is okay. It was wearing me out. At the same time, my time is short, so I notice some things with more interest because I know the city well enough now to know what I want from it. For instance, part of my birthday present is a visit to a high-end jazz club. That's worth SO much to me. Oh:

-subway t-shirts
-availability of high-end jazz clubs
-two stores in particular
-an office that's okay if I get lost in the city on accident during my lunch break
-bottle vendors on the street

Also, the ballet was fabulous. Yeah, a long time ago. But I felt the need to update. Fabulous. Ended with some good conversation and a hot little dessert spot, with continually good music and great lighting. So pleased.

Bottle I bought for $12 for my bottle collection:

and she's back!

Man, I'm glad I put that disclaimer by my "promise." Hahhaa. Sorry I'm so lame.

Let's see, a good story.

I have adjusted. I have taken a break from noticing all the little things so I can obtain a big-picture view. I like the place much better that way, right now. There's such a thing as becoming too nitpicky of a thinker ... for me, that leads to self-absorption, and that makes for less happiness:)

More later. I'm going to a ballet tonight!

Oh, by the way. It was my birthday between now and when I posted last. This led to me bringing home flowers (mostly daisies ... mm, my favorite - my parents ordered them for me because it's - gasp - my first birthday away from home) today, so they don't die over the weekend in the office. They're nested happily in a glass bottle on a shelf in my room. (I collect glass bottles. Drink bottles. From non-alcoholic beverages.)

Mmmm. Daisies. Mmmm.

Beautiful lyrics of the day -- "Bridges and Balloons," by Joanna Newsom. (Sorry, Uffish - "Bridges and Balloons," not "Cassiopeia" like I said today.)

"I can recall our caravel - a little wicker beetle shell with four fine maste and lateen sails
Its bearings on Cair Paravel."

"Are you going to Narnia, [Olympus]? Or, daughter of Eve, are you already there?"-Castle in the Sky

Tuesday (sorry, chronologically out-of-order)

Field Below
-regina spektor-

I wish I'd see a field below
i wish I'd hear a rooster crow
But there are none who live downtown
And so the day starts out so slow
Again the sun was never called
And darkness spreads over the snow
Like ancient bruises
I'm awake and feel the ache
But I wish I'd see a field below
I wish I'd see a field below

I wish I'd see your face below
I wish I'd hear you whispering low
But you don't live downtown no more
And everything must come and go

Again the sun was never called
And darkness spreads over the snow
Like ancient bruises
I'm awake and feel the ache
I'm awake and feel the ache
But I wish I'd see a field below
But I wish I'd see a field below
I'm awake and feel the ache
But I wish I'd see a field below
I'm awake and feel the ache
But I wish I'd see a field below
I wish I'd see a field below
I wish I'd see a field below

--

Yesterday (Tuesday), this was how I was feeling. For instance, it affected me way more than I thought it would to see a big painting of the Nauvoo Temple on its peaceful hill, surrounded by grass and a little town and a big river.

Later, I walked by a pretzel stand. It smelled like a campfire, which for a split-second I thought would make me long for a good, big campground.

It didn't. I remembered that I love a good, big campground, but that I'm here right now, and I won't be able to get this back as easily as a good, big campground.

Things I love here include:

subways
opportunities
bookstores
libraries
walking
(jay)walking (way worse than Provo)
finding my own way
lamb gyros
other food
hearing more languages
seeing missionaries a lot, randomly
the temple
my job
the history
landmarks
high places with a good view
dollar store cereal
good photo-ops

--

I am excellent at loving and embracing new things, for about a week. Then, I get bored of being excited and long for the familiar.

I vote let's quit that and be like krebscout's mom, always looking forward.

I already feel like it's almost time to leave, so it's hard to want to try and settle in. Mom says six weeks is a long time to feel that way. I agree. I want to go out tonight, and take life "by the horns," as the expression goes, and disregard any uncomfortability. It always takes awhile of being uncomfortable before you settle in -- call it dues. My life in Provo was full of awkward moments inside of me at first, as I tried to learn everyone's inside jokes and work my way into the crowd, which I would later realize to be ridiculously accepting and nothing to worry about. Still, having to feel a little weird sometimes is okay. As I was told yesterday:

"I understand transitions -- when I went from [former career] to [current career] it just about killed me... But such experiences stretch us and make us better as we receive them meekly."

Here's to meekly. Time for some crazy fun.

monday

It will be nice not having to be someone's director straight off. I like being able to direct things, but it will be much nicer to take the backseat for a few years and just learn from people's already-quality institutions as I get into my field.

sunday

My second cousin is in my stake:)

saturday

I was in a group with a married girl, on our exhausting free-gelato day on Saturday, and as we were five or ten minutes away from Point A (on our way to Point B, after that, which is about four blocks south and six blocks east of Point A), her husband called to say he was leaving Provo for St. George.

We arrived at Point B. A few minutes later, the girl's husband called to say he'd arrived in St. George.

::shrugs:: We got library cards, free gelato, street vendor food, tablecloths, and dollar store cereal.

yeah, I know

I "promised." Not "I promised."

I'll catch up. Tomorrow. Let's just say that today was ridiculously lots of walking, but that I saw lots of fun things. Hooray for free samples of gelato, by the way.

r.a.d.

From the window of the plane on the way over:




Tonight I was telling Uffish about this picture, and she said, "YOU asked that question!" I didn't! But I did take these sweet photos.

Awe. Some. I've never seen that before, and I thought sunshine would be pleased to have them. (I can e-mail you high-res copies if you want them and this isn't good enough.)

Uh, sorry to everyone who's confused. You should probably read the Board on Monday.

cost-conscious Olympus adds up her day

boston cream pie i bought that i didn't really want = $2
dinner i ate (leftovers) = cents on the dollar (all I paid for was the bread and honey I had with it)
hot dog I didn't buy=$2
movie night=free

sleeping in a bed with a fitted sheet=priceless.

yesterday

I didn't like this place too well yesterday, so I didn't care enough to think about my day. (I think a lot of it had to do with my level of tiredness.) I didn't even go salsa tonight, like I was going to. Instead I started getting ready for bed at 9, talked on the phone awhile and was asleep by 11.

I walked home from work yesterday, looking at the people, the birds, the cars and the buildings thinking, "OK, I'm over this city. I'm done being excited and looking at all the new things, and I'm ready for a good old-fashioned something-I-know. Let's have a movie night.

So we're having a movie night:) Tonight. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. There are a lot of people here who haven't seen it - it wasn't even my idea, they just knew I had it edited and someone suggested. I am only too happy to provide:).

K, I'll try to post for real today, too.

existential thought of the day

There's no such thing as larger than life. Everything that we could ever see, observe or experience is part of life, and no one is exempt. Including the straight-faced woman on the train, who isn't a straight-faced woman on a train at all, but a mother wondering if her daughter got the rest of the kids home okay tonight, and thinking about how she forgot to buy the cake for her son's birthday in two days, and how she'll have to work that into her schedule tomorrow. Oh, and here's her stop. Excuse me, sir.

A city isn't a city, per se. It's a group of individuals, just like me. Paris isn't the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame. It's where he lives; where she works; where that man's business just failed; where that couple just got married; where that kid just got out of school.