Words to Live By

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

This is a phrase that I like to say but I haven't exactly been living recently in regards to this blog and a great many other things.

I had all sorts of grand plans when it came to this blog and I wanted to capture all of the change that has gone on in my life over the past year but I have instead sat back and watched everything swirling around without documenting it. Granted, some of that has to do with the fact that I am trying to document such a huge time in my life while also balancing my need to be introspective and long-winded with my need to remain somewhat private online and still get some sleep.

I'm not exactly a perfectionist in the traditional sense-- my room is a bit messy and my handwriting is atrocious, but there are areas of my life that I obsess unnecessarily over. This blog is one of them.

I couldn't post initially because I didn't have a great name for the blog. Then, I wanted to set up my own domain which, to my credit, I did. It just doesn't point to my blog yet as I couldn't decide which platform to use. Then I started to have these great ideas and I couldn't motivate myself to write the post because I wanted to go back and take pictures to accompany the post. I also have a habit of writing novels instead of blog entries because I have an inability to edit myself. Basically, in order to craft the perfect blog post I was getting... nothing. I didn't even have a mediocre blog to show for all of the thinking and obsessing I was doing over minuscule things. If you write a great story who cares what your title is or if it is on Wordpress vs a napkin in a bar.

New York is wonderful. It is weird and scary and expensive and enchanting. I cannot wait to share my newest adventures with all of you.

Los Angeles, I'm Yours

Remember when I promised to update regularly? Well in what seems to be a trend lately, my technology is failing me and Aperture has taken all of my pictures from Montreal hostage, which of course I hadn't backed up yet. We'll see how this all plays out on my laptop that crashes every 20 minutes.

But, onto LA! Considering I'm headed back there next week, I figured I had better get this post up before then! In September I went to Los Angeles to visit my good friend Veronica as well as to treat myself to a little vacation from unemployment (which, as you may not know, is very stressful). I’ve never been to California, so with a place to stay for free and plenty of time on my hands I booked a flight!

I booked the tickets before I had moved to CT, so I drove up to Boston that Wednesday afternoon to visit some friends and park my car before my flight the next morning. My car picked an unfortunate time to stall at a rest stop on the Pike but as soon as the tow truck showed up it decided to start. The tow truck guy accused me of having a car that would start all along, which was mildly embarrassing but I can rest easy knowing that I know what a running car sounds/acts like and mine certainly wasn't.

Day 1: Thursday
The Pacific Ocean!

I flew out of Logan obscenely early and arrived in LA around 11am, where my cell phone didn’t work (standard AT&T) but I was able to find a shuttle to meet Veronica at work. I stole her car and drove to Manhattan Beach for the afternoon, seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time and browsing the little shops. Once V was out of work we went to Venice for dinner, where we had Mexican food at a rooftop restaurant and watched the sunset. Veronica and I tried to stay up to watch Jersey Shore at 10pm, since we met in NJ and have a soft spot in our heart for it, but we fell asleep pretty much as soon as we laid down.

Day 2: Friday
Santa Monica Pier Ferris Wheel

While waiting for Veronica to get out of work (we love half day Fridays) I went back to Manhattan Beach and walked on the strand to Hermosa, about 5 miles round trip. The walk is gorgeous, watching the surfers and checking out the multi million dollar real estate.
After I picked Veronica up from work, we went to the Santa Monica pier:

It has an amusement park, so obviously we had to ride the Ferris Wheel to check out the amazing view!

That night I got to meet some of her CA friends, we went out to sushi happy hour and to a bar in Venice called The Brig. The only noteworthy thing about The Brig is that is where I saw the only (moderately) famous person while in LA! I decided that seeing a famous person is the thing to do when visiting LA, but if it hadn't been for V I wouldn't have recognized Kellan Lutz at the bar (so I'm not sure if it counts if I don't know who he is).

Kellan, who apparently always wears a hat


Day 3: Saturday
Volleyball Setup

Saturday we went back to Manhattan Beach (notice a trend? It is V’s favorite beach, so as my travel planner we went often) to hang out and watch the Men's US Open Volleyball Tournament.

Later that night the LA crew was having a going away party (which I totally crashed) for a friend of theirs who was moving then we went to the Underground, a bar that was both a sports bar and dancing bar- something for everyone!

Day 4: Sunday
V & me on Rodeo Drive
Sunday started with us heading to the Beverly Hills Farmers Market to try and see some famous people. While we didn’t see anyone of note, we did get some amazing peaches and food for our dinner that night. Then we headed to Rodeo Drive and browsed for what V is going to buy me when she is a big shot supply chain director some day. We grabbed some brunch then headed over to Venice for a street festival where the main attraction was food trucks- yum! It was about 100º, so I opted out of the grilled cheese truck (as amazing as it looked) and went for a diy ice cream sandwich instead:So many options!
My prediction is that diy ice cream sandwiches are going to be the new frozen yogurt (aka it will be in Boston in about 5 years). Also, Boston needs food trucks!!

Monday Veronica was back off to work, so I did some ultra touristy things on my own. I was warned that the stars and Hollywood is pretty boring, so once you add in the 113º weather (highest temps on record in LA ever) it made for a quick visit.

After that I drove up to the beautiful Griffith Observatory, where you can see the Hollywood sign and amazing views of LA:


Finally I met up with a friend from Northeastern, Dan, for lunch in Downtown LA. We saw the Staples Center and sampled some local beers with our lunch.

Once V was out of work, we picked up In-N-Out to go and ate dinner on the beach at sunset- what I decided was the epitome of CA.


Thanks so Much to Veronica for her wonderful hospitality and I can’t wait to drive cross-country with her next week!

Many more pictures from LA

Fall Vacation

It has been 2 months since I left Boston and started what I'm now affectionately calling "the summer vacation I never had in college" and I haven't written a single post about it. For that I'm sorry, as it has actually been a surprisingly busy 2 months. A recap is in order, then I solemnly swear that I will update on a semi regular basis for my regular readers, Mom and Grandma.

So as I mentioned I never had a summer vacation in college, between study abroad and coops I might have a month off here or there, but after 2006 I never had the leisurely break that most college students are used to. I've done my fair share of sleeping in and lazy days watching daytime TV, but I've also been having fun!

Manhattan Beach, CA
Los Angeles

Free time plus some leftover coop savings equal travel time! I went to Los Angeles in September to visit my good friend Veronica who is working out there until December. I'll have a post dedicated to LA soon, but for now there are more pictures here.

Notre Dame Basilica, Montréal, QC
Montréal
My next trip was courtesy of Joe, as he had a week off from Law School and wanted to get out of the house. Montréal is only a 6 hour drive from NY but feels like you went much farther in terms of the culture. I'll do a full post and pictures from Montreal soon!


Upcoming: Cross Country Road Trip!
The upside of unemployment is that I am the go-to girl for last minute travels, so when Veronica called and asked if I wanted to drive with her from California to New York in December at the end of her time in LA, of course I said yes! The above picture is our route, I am so excited for the adventure and for us to reunite with our favorite Southern Belle, Whitney, in South Carolina! If you have any suggestions as to where we should stop let us know!

I've seen the Roger Waters: The Wall concert (amazing, post in the future), spent plenty of time in NYC and Boston, developed an affinity for daytime television and finished my Christmas shopping very early! I've had time to catch up with my wonderful friends from my childhood and high school who are still in CT who I sadly did not get to see as much when I was living in Boston full time. I spend half of my life in Starbucks as I have dial up internet at my parent's house (yes, it still exists!) and to be quite honest, I haven't been looking very hard for a job at all. That all changes now, as my money is starting to run low and I think it is time for my fall vacation to come to an end, but so far unemployment has been a blast :)

Don't it feel like sunshine after all?

After a week of preparing to move, getting into a car accident (it was a taxi, but despite me not being the driver I was still hurt/shaken up) mere minutes before a job interview (guess how that went? awful), still working full time and not having a bed to sleep on because I prematurely sold mine, this has been a rough week. I've been tempted to just be the most miserable person and complain at every turn. Since that does nothing buy perpetuate the cycle of unhappiness that I am trying so desperately to forget, I made a list of things that made me happy over the past few days:

The woman in Sbux who overheard me talking about my bus ride back to Boston and gave me her magazines to read.
The random person on the subway who gave me their unlimited all day ride pass to use.
The really nice taxi driver who listened to me spill my guts after said awful interview and told me that everything would be ok.
The outpouring of positive support I received from my colleagues when I put in my 2 weeks notice.
Running into acquaintances on the street during lunch who give me hugs and tell me how much they are going to miss me.
ATT texting me to tell me I'm about to go over my data plan instead of just charging me overages with no warning.
Going home to CT, sleeping in my own bed, and hopefully seeing my family visiting from HI.
The boy getting to Seton Hall when I was ready for him to be in Miami for the next 3 years.
The weather is starting to feel like fall!

That felt good. Out with the bad, in with the new.

Unaccustomed Earth

Just ran across an apropos quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Custom-House:

"Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth."

Everything can look like a failure in the middle

--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, via @HBSNews

I'm reviving the blog and I promise I'll try to keep things interesting if you wish to follow along as I figure out this next exciting step in my life (oh, and I guess you can read about my adventures in China, considering I've written twice since 2008.)

Today I put in my two weeks notice at work.

Throughout my life I've always been the kind of person to stick it out- wait until the end of the movie, even if it was awful or I fell asleep (W, anyone?). Even if I never returned to Irish Dancing, Rowing or Chemistry, I stuck it out until the end of the year/season/class simply because I had always been raised not to "quit" anything. We Zs, we finish things (including everything on our plate.) It is just the way I was raised- you don't give up on things.

I find myself coming to the end of a long summer of promises and expectations that I have been building up for myself. I told myself that I had until September to find a "real" job or I was moving back home. Also, I went from being in a long distance relationship of the 1,500 mile variety to a boyfriend living in a city I've always been fascinated with, New York City. Also, it is safe to assume that I am less than thrilled with the current job I find myself in. So instead of sticking it out I'm sticking up for myself and I'm leaving to find a better job and living situation.

Somehow the stars aligned such that my lease is up a mere 3 days before my last day of work. I'm looking at apartments in NYC (though who knows what will happen in the end in terms of employment) and in the interim I will be taking a little vacation in CT with my wonderful parents to refocus on applying for jobs, running, cooking and enjoying my life to the fullest as opposed to settling for the job I had in Boston.

I pinky swear to update more and to write shorter updates with more pictures. My warning is that this blog will probably have very little focus-- some job hunt here, fashion there, technology another day, perhaps a sports musing or two (did I mention I'll have TV again in CT?!).

Cinderella

I am a proud member of Northeastern’s Class of 2010. On May 7th, I received my diploma and took the obligatory pictures in academic garb and dined with family and friends in this great city that I have come to call home over the past 5 years. The logical next step for most people would to be to find a job as soon as possible. While logic is something I rarely ignore, heading into the worst economy of my lifetime I couldn’t help but feel that I shouldn’t waste this opportunity of a fresh start on just any job. I have been anything but lackadaisical in my job search, but the fact that I am still jobless in August is more a testament of my desire to find the perfect fit, m proverbial glass slipper of a job. A position that excites me when I wake up in the morning, where I enjoy what I do, where I actually enjoy the people I work with in social settings, and where, to paraphrase Google, I feel that I am doing no evil.

I started my job search way back in September, applying for all of the cushy corporate “Leadership Development” programs and had my heart set on two at different points over the fall. One program was canceled, the other I wasn’t selected for due to the cruel disadvantage that is phone interviews. This left me in an interesting position: I wasn’t so much interested in the corporate LDPs anymore, but most companies don’t want to hear from you until a month or two before you graduate, so I sat back and let the rest of my senior year unfold. As March rolled around I brushed the dust of my resume and got back into the swing of things. April came and a few mentors of mine reached out to help me, as well as a “Life Coach” whom I met at an alumni event. I sought out so much advice that it all ended up to be contradictory ("your resume needs to be 2 pages!" and "Your resume should never be more than 1 page!" type stuff). I realized that as in many of my job endeavors before, you need to stay true to yourself and I ended up disregarding a majority of the advice.

My former mangers and family members all pushed me to work in their respective fields, however subtly they though they were doing it. Others whom I asked for (and genuinely wanted) help from became hard to get in touch with.

Along the way I met a wonderful woman during senior week who got me a temp position at NU. I had a lot of fun, and when that position ended another one popped up in another department. I find myself now in the position where I can take my time in finding the perfect job because I have the "just for right now" job in the bag. I don’t need to settle for a job I feel lukewarm about, because I already have one and they don’t expect me to stay any longer than until I find my next big adventure. Am I completely satisfied? No, which is why I am leaving at the end of the summer, but for the past few months I was able to pay my way living in Boston while I’m looking for my proverbial glass slipper.

I guess my point is, there are amazing jobs out there and I'm sick of people telling me to suck it up and take a Servant to the evil Stepsister type of job when I just know that there are still a few Princess positions out there.