Five Years Time

Disclaimer: this was meant to be posted in mid-January, the 5-year mark of my departure from everything I knew.

Second disclaimer: Photos are not actually anywhere in HK, but were taken on travels during my time abroad.

The day was cold and biting, the night before bittersweet and tear-stained. I regretfully left the side of my sister and brother-in-law to pass through the cold, metal gateway to an escape from my life.

I had a difficult year behind me, the self I had known disintegrated before becoming viable again. I needed an escape: new scenery, new people, new adventures. A naive, 20-year-old with waning confidence and a nervous demeanor, I boarded an airplane with two acquaintances who would eventually grow to be my best friends. 

To get through the 14-hour flight, we started conversations and played games. David and I poured over the pages of his puzzle book, competing to find differences between two seemingly identical photos. After bouts of being entertained, bored, anxious, excited, restless, sleepy and sad, we finally touched down on the foreign land we were to call home for the next five months. Hello, Hong Kong.

David, Jeff and I made the mistake of not learning the name of our university in Chinese. We scrambled for any address, logo, document we could find that would bear any sort of clue to where we needed to be. Weary and drained, we finally were able to communicate our needs and were promptly packed into the boxy red taxi en route to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Macau

I had been in the city before, but had little memory of just how massive and daunting it was. The millions of people sardined into high-rises were a spectacle; the rolling hills, surrounding water and striking cityscape all juxtaposed to form one, beautiful, chaotic reality.

4am is no time to get lost in translation, much less check into your residence with hefty eyelids. I managed to forget the sequence of communications, but in the end, we barrelled up to the 2nd and 4th floors to our respective rooms. I dropped off my suitcase, then descended to see Jeff and David again. We woke Jeff's roommate, Jake, and he stayed coherent enough to make introductions and chat. I love to look back on the first time I met someone - the impressions, reservations, excitement all eventually trade themselves in for familiarity, memories, inside jokes and a deep connection. 

Angkor, Cambodia

After tiring ourselves out once again, our sleep-deprived bodies stumbled to bed. Not expecting the historical cold front in a tropical land, I had little with which to sleep. I snuggled with my travel pillow, a towel and a hoodie the first lonely night and eagerly awaited a feeling of rest and a looming trip to Ikea with the boys.

Fast-forward to five years later, and I'm sitting in my bed in Minnesota, longingly remembering all of the shopping trips, dim sum and sushi dates, ditching class, practicing yoga in Times Square, bottle service, Engrish, Ebeneezer's, and trips to Shenzhen, Macau, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Xi'An and Beijing. What has stuck with me the most is the confidence I gained from living on my own in a foreign country and the amazing, driven, intricate people I have met.

Studying abroad was one of the best decisions I have ever made, and I strongly encourage it for anyone who has the opportunity. If I could go back, I'd do it again and again. 

Sapa, Vietnam

Here's to you: Jeff, David, Rahul, Jake, Sebastian, Michael, Arne, Kevin, Jeremy, Eva, Jocelyn, Davina, Kristen, Frances, Juliet, Alex, Dan, Jennifer, Laura, Lisa and the whole lot. 

I miss you and am so glad to have met you!

Brotips [On dealing with people]

Hello friends! I'm glad you are my friends. Do you have people in your life who you could stand to shake? Ones who create all of this negative energy around you and consequently drain you? Ones who you feel obligated to be around, even though they drive you absolutely insane? Think about this:

Life is too short to spend time with people who you do not enjoy spending time with. Granted, life is also too short to hold grudges. I know many people (I'm not excused*) who spend time with people out of obligation. It's just something we do. Hopefully your weekend is full of people you luuurve!

*This is not aimed at anyone really, especially anyone reading this blog. I just saw these and liked them.

Letter to my 30-year-old self

I've always loved the idea of writing letters to my future self to see how things were and if they've changed. Chances are, they have.

With three 30th birthday celebrations this month, I thought "What will I be like when I'm 30?" Who will be in my life and where will I be professionally, socially, life-ally, etc.?

So here, 30-year old self, a letter:

Dearest Jennifer,

I hope you're reading this on your blog "She Knows This Much is True" that you started in 2011. If you're not, you're a super-genius because this is the only place you're putting this. So you should keep blogging because otherwise the Google Gods will probably take your site away and then you'll never read this.

Anyways, I hope you're married by now, to that boy Zebulon and that you've started a band called Jenulon or Zebbifer. Just kidding on the second part. I hope you're thinking about having kids if you don't have any already. And I hope you dress them up real cute like those J.Crew ads you always admire a little too much. Seriously, stop ripping out pictures of that little Asian girl in Crewcuts and giving them to your sisters as inspiration.

I hope everyone you love is still around. This means your family, your friends, your puppies. Maybe some of the wuppies will be gone, but if they aren't, you are one lucky bizzo! I hope you're still saying bizzo. And I hope you're still stealthily taking photos of bizzos in public who shouldn't wear see-through clothes to a baseball game.

I hope you've changed positions in work and are working hard with your sisters to make your dad's company even better than it already is. I hope you feel happy in what you do daily and that you don't have carpal tunnel from all of those crazy data entry stints. Maybe you've got JB Data Collection down to an art form. I hope so! Right now it's still just a dream. I hope ISO audits are the breeziest and you don't tear your hair out over them. 

Are you still blogging over at T & L? I hope so. I hope you've met friends there and are happy with it and inspired by it. Remember, you wanted to start it to express yourself, but also to meet people who shared your interests. Have you met any of them? Or do you just tweet with them? Are you still being run by a computer? 

Did you ever run that 1/2 Marathon? Did you run more of them? Anything crazier? Do you feel healthy and look healthy and feel good about how you look? I sure hope you do. You always struggled with that. I think you're becoming a better you already though.

I have a feeling you are still the same way when it comes to packing your schedule with every possible thing you can. Do you still do nerdy things like craft and send letters? I hope so. If not, get on that, girrrl.

Have you had a reunion with your HK buddies yet? Have you gone back to Asia? You should go back to Asia, yo roots. Did you make it to Ireland or England? Also do that. Have you worked on your fake English accent anymore? Hope so, it needs a little work.

And last, Jennifer, I hope this leaves you feeling happy and accomplished and super schmawesome. I also think it's time you write to your 35 or 40-year old self. KTHXBYE. (Do you still say that? KTHXBYE?) Yahahhaa. (Or how about that?)

xx
Yo self

The weekend, in le nutshell

Hi friends, can you even believe it’s already another week? It’s already in the later part of May?! It’s already almost summer?! Gahhhhhhhh. If I resonate with anything in The Happiness Project, it’s that “The days are long and the years are short.” So, so short.

ANYWAY...

How were your weekends? Mine shaped up nicely! On Friday I teetered between going out and staying in and finally chose the former and was glad for it. It took me an hour to drive through detours from St. Paul to Uptown, then I had dinner at Stella’s (crowded, terrible service, mediocre food, good drinks) and felt extremely underdressed in pants and a tank top. I should have worn a body-con dress with cutouts, stilettos, and shimmery everything. Just kidding, but seriously. Then we headed to William’s Peanut Bar (always a good time in my book) and played some Skee-Ball and ate peanuts and met some rather interesting characters. And I took a photo of this girl, who was downing a pitcher of beer and dancing wildly at a table by herself.

I went back to my car to find a parking ticket (gotta read ALL of the signs, Jen) but since I didn’t really drink and I had such a good time, it was all worth it.

Saturday, I had a car appointment and caught up on reading the news and my book club book while I waited. Then it was time for Art-a-Whirl, which I wrote about here. Then, croquet at the boyfriend’s brother’s house for his wife’s birthday. But then it started thunderstorming and hailing like a banshee, so instead, we played cribbage to our hearts’ content. We love cribbage. Like, a lot.

Sunday was the graduation ceremony of my BFF, Jessica. She had to attend a “hooding ceremony” which was Catholic Mass in disguise, then we had a breakfast reception, split up, and reunited for the regular ceremony. The student speaker was a young student from Uganda, graduating Summa Cum Laude, a scholar of all sorts, head of everything, the only student member of some fancy board, etc, etc. She has a job lined up with the government working in Uganda for public health, but first, she must train for a bit at Yale. Then she’ll return for grad school. And she was funny and metaphorical and delivered a perfect speech. Sigh. What am I doing in this world? This girl has accomplished in University what most people hope to accomplish in tens of years.

Attending a graduation ceremony makes me wish I was in school again, which is kind of funny because all of the people in the ceremony are just glad to be done. On another note, I didn’t realize how beautiful St. Kate’s grounds are!

Hope your week is fabulous. I am sure it will fly by like a mothereffer.

The weekend, in le nutshell

Ah, we meet again! The weekend was much too short but filled with lots of happiness and celebration!

On Friday I celebrated my friend's birthday by going to Comedy Sportz and then to William's Peanut Bar. We had a lot of fun playing skee ball and eating peanuts.

Saturday, I stopped in the middle of the road for two wild turkeys and after driving for a bit, decided I needed to turn around and follow them. They waddled pretty slowly to Party City and I snapped some photos of them and watched as people came out of the stores and realized there were two turkeys on the sidewalk. Hehe.

I spent St. Patrick's Day first at Stella's eating oysters and fish tacos, then hopped on my first-ever party bus, aptly named the Busweiser. We drove all around town and I had somuchfun with friends.

{Creative way to litter}

I

{The boyfriend and his best friend}

{Some of my bestest in the Midwestest}

We all donned our green in some shape or form. Mine was on the bottom, so it's hard to tell in photos.

{Most of the kids}

I guess some of you might know that I like to creAture watch. This means I make fun of people who wear, do or say things in public that they shouldn't. I know this is mean, but, honestly:

{Her shirt was slashed horizontally all down the chest}

{The end}

And one more thing before I go...

{Same same but different}

Happy Birthday to Mr. Nathan!

Nathan is my brother-in-law whom I have known since I was in elementary school. We share a love for baseball, brew, espresso (although mine is heavily sugared), sarcasm, travel, TV shows, and music. Many years ago, I was in a really low place in my life and ended up basically living at Nancy and Nathan's house. It took a lot for me to get out of bed and finally, Nathan had had enough of my self-pity and made me go to yoga with him. Yoga healed me mentally and emotionally and I am a completely different person because of it. And it all started with Nathan (and that wife of his). Happy Birthday Mr. Nathan!

A birthday tribute

I keep going through this cycle: work all week hoping to get to a relaxing weekend, fly through the weekend, feel icky on Monday because it’s the week again, work all week hoping to get to a relaxing weekend… I mean it makes sense that everything is a cycle. It just feels so robotic and routine, even when my activities are always changing. So now, we are at the part where I’m excited for the weekend! 

This weekend has an improv comedy show in store, along with spring cleaning, crafting, celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, and more crafting. 

{Me and the birthday girl, dressed as Christmas presents}

Happy Birthday to Ms. Ashley! 
Ashley is the one of the nicest people you will ever meet. I was lucky enough to meet her my freshman year of college at the U of M in our Bailey Hall dorms. Being in Bailey Hall meant a few things, one of which was that you often stayed in and hung out with your hall mates rather than deal with the stupid connector bus that took you to all the fun in Minneapolis. Soon, Ashley and I found out that we had two lectures and two discussion sections together. So naturally we studied together, then ate meals, exercised, went to concerts, watched tv, and spent every waking moment day together. Since then, we have been best friends and shared many nefarious adventures. We share a love for so many things and I'm lucky to have such a sweet friend who listens to my (and everyone else’s for that matter) ramblings. Happy birthday Ro! May this be the beginning of an even better year for you.

The weekend, in le nutshell.

Today is merry simply for the fact that I do not have to go to work and type up my 700 TPS reports all day. (mycoworkersaresuckers.com!) <---I made it up, don't go to it.

This weekend was fun! I had dinner with my girlies at Ginger Hop in NE Minneapolis. The atmosphere was great, the service was ample and the food was delicious. I had a bowl of Tom Yum -- my Thai go-to dish and it was perfectly sour and spicy, like it should be. The only problem is that whenever I eat at a Thai restaurant, this is what I order. Maybe I should step outside of the box, or the soup bowl, or whatever, sometime. Afterwards, I went to my sister and brother-in-law's house to celebrate the unveiling of their forthcoming brewery! Lease signed, press releases released, and all of social media aflutter! You should probably check it out and get excited for this summer when it all comes true. Indeed, it will be worth it.

Saturday was full of cleaning, organizing, purging old beauty products, and then rushing out of the house to get to a comedy show. I went with a few friends to Joke Joint in Lilydale, MN which is basically a weird part of St. Paul. The comedian, Chris Barnes, is one of my favorites (I haven't seen that many) and my face was sore after the night of laughing hysterically. We headed over to Downtown White Bear Lake to spend time with the boyfriend's friends and brother and had a really fun time at small, unpopulated bars. My kind of night.

On Sunday I ran errands, went for a run (outside!) and then headed over to my sister's house to watch the Super Bowl. Just kidding, I didn't watch it, but the party was fun anyway. Only mistake? Not bringing stretchy pants. Glamorous - for sure.

My head is kind of all over the place today and this was more than a nutshell, but whatever. I guess it's the whole nut and that sounds pretty weird. You know me! Have a weird day!

Hecticity.

So I don't think that's a word, but I'm going with it. That is what my life feels like. How in the WORLD is today Friday?! Whhhaaaaaat?! (Well, yesterday was Thursday, and tomorrow is Saturday, so I guess that's how). Even Rebecca Black could answer that. Boy, do I miss her.

Anyway, the past four days have been crazy at work with a coworker gone and much to do before the end of February. But it makes me more productive and more amped up. Seriously, Friday? Tonight is my cutie pie friend Laura's birthday bash. In celebration of her golden birthday, I've decided to revisit the wonderful cake balls from Christmas. This time, in golden birthday form.

One problem. I added too much frosting to the mix and didn't think it was a huge issue. Until I coated, decorated, chilled, cut, and was disappointed by the mushiness of it all. I guess I learned my lesson: don't get overzealous on the frosting. I thought about scrapping the entire thing but after the resources spent on the project, I figure people who are drinking keg beer won't mind semi-mushy cake. Right?

I've also decided to do a short little thingy about my friend's birthdays this year on this blog. I realize I might be digging a hole in case I forget an important birthday or don't happen to post around that time. Please forgive me in advance, I'm trying.
Here is thingy number one.

Happy birthday to Miss Laura!
Laura and I met briefly during freshman year of college at a Halloween party. We didn’t meet again until we had the class “Intimate Relations” together - it’s okay, you can make fun of us. After that, we saw each other here and there, had another class together, and then thought, what the heck? Let’s move in together. Yeah, we took the fast track. And we’ve been besties ever since, sharing crazy nights, lots of gabbing and shopping, and Vietnamese food. Laura and I are now travel buddies on top of that! Happy birthday to my beautiful, optimistic, strong and courageous friend who has more friends than anyone I know. 

Birthday, belated.

Hi friends! It's been rather hectic around here so it's taken me a few days to write about my best birthday ever. I've never had a bad birthday. Maybe it's the hype I give it to ensure that my day is great. It might sound self-centered, well, it kind of is, but I think it's important to celebrate birthdays, no matter your age, and so I make it a point to do just that.

It started out a couple of weeks ago, when my coworkers got together to celebrate the January birthdays. They set up an awkward scene of eating cake at 10am break time in the shipping department after a rendition of "Happy Birthday" with the lights off. Nonetheless, I appreciated the gesture 100%.
Then came last Wednesday, where my boyfran and his mother gave me awesome gifts and we watched Moneyball. Love that movie. One of those gifts was a beautiful indoor plant (this is important to have during a dark, MN winter) and the other was a fantastic camera for which to blog with. Oh, and to capture life's moments.

Then came Friday! Flowers in the morning, a gift, a cake, a birthday song, a balloon, time to myself to clean and exercise, then a fun night at the boyfran's apartment which included the first beer I had in nearly a month. (Trust me, that's a long time). 

Then came Saturday! Spa date in the morning, followed by a shopping extravaganza, then coffee, a date for a manicure with a birthday-twin (well sort of, her birthday is the day after mine), a rush to the movies to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close with book club and other friends and to sob aloud. And then...this:

This video was created by my tubular friend, Micah, with the amazing efforts of Carrie, Nancy, Nathan, Mary, Linda, Zeb, Ashley, Jessica, Leigh...well, you can read the credits. It features everyone in my family (even the babies!), a HUGE chunk of my best friends, some of my favorite artists, some of my favorite retailers, and even my yoga instructor! Can you believe it?! I can't. I was in so much shock that I kept exclaiming, screaming, tearing up, etc. the first time I watched it and I hardly remember what was going through my head that first time. Since then, I have watched this video multiple times a day and pretty much know the ins and outs of it. I couldn't believe that I could receive such a thoughtful present that took so much work. I love it. From the bottom of my heart, I love it. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this piece I will cherish forever. 

After the video reveal, we rushed to Barrio in Downtown St. Paul to have my favorite type of food and imbibe on yummy drinks. I certainly felt the aftershocks, but it was well worth it. And it didn't stop there. Sunday, I received even more gifts, and Lunar New Year gifts as well. (Double-whammy!) And today, Katrina took me to dinner and gave me a wonderful gift. And then I got home and saw a package from Davina with the Tiny Book of Tiny Stories that I mentioned here! Tomorrow, the boyfran's parents have a dinner planned for me. Then I think it will all be over and I will revert to the non-birthday portion of the year. Whew.

I received a ridiculous amount of birthday love and I am so grateful. I never expected this to be as amazing as it was and it would never have been this way without all of the seriously cool people I know. Even those facebook friends who I haven't talked to in months. I am still grateful.

Thank you!!!!! Now let me celebrate your birthdays!!!!!

End of the Year Recap Part 1

Can you even believe 2011 has come and mostly gone? Our moments are short, so it is important to remember and savor them. (Or as Gretchen Rubin from The Happiness Project reiterates, "The days are long, but the years are short.") Luckily, I have a good memory, a camera, and two blogs to help me out. Since it is the end of the calendar year, I would like to take a few posts to reflect on the highlights of each month of 2011. Bear with me, I had a good year.

January: I basked in my birthday weekend with a slew of my best friends in Chicago. We ice skated at Millennium Park, shopped along Michigan Avenue, ate tasty food and imbibed at some recommended bars. Plus, three of my HK friends joined in on the festivities. HK reunions are hard to come by, so when they DO work out, it's a good feeling. I started a blog with the details of Chicago as my first post, and after two more posts, abandoned it. At least I have you, SKTMIT, to ease the heartache! :P

February: I, along with a big group o' people, welcomed our friend Laura home from Korea, where she spent the last year teaching. My boyfran and I spent a night in Fargo, ND to visit two of his best friends from college and join in on the plaid brigade at Trampled by Turtles. I also attended a 30th birthday, a 40th birthday, and a 50th birthday in that order! I love numbers and sequences, so that was right up my alley.

March: I traveled to Oahu, Hawaii with another great group of friends. We snorkeled at Hanauma Bay, hiked up Diamond Head, swam in the Pacific Ocean, toured Pearl Harbor, and ATVed through the lush hillside that has served as the backdrop for many-a-movie and one of my favorites, LOST! I tried savory, authentic Hawaiian foods that I wish were available in Minnesota. I definitely morphed from not being a beach-vacation-person to being a beach-vacation-person. Add to that about five birthday celebrations in one weekend, and that was March.

I'm going to pause there. A year is a sizeable thing to consider, so I'm breaking it up into fourths. This week is a short one (at work anyhow) and I'm hustling and bustling to cram as many activities in as I physically can. Still left on the plate before I head up North on Friday morning: running errands, baking at my sister's house, packing, working, hitting up an ugly Christmas sweater party/reunion and getting the last of my Christmas gifts in the mail (destined for Minneapolis, Toronto and Vienna). Have a happy Wednesday!

Merry Monday

Happy Monday! (Is that an oxymoron? Heh.) Unlike about 78.1% of my weekends, this one seemed to last forever, in a very, very good way. Thanksgiving started perfectly with a Turkey Day 5k (an easy-breezy-fun-run), Friday was a very long day at work (mainly because I was thinking about the people who weren’t at work), but I ended it with a couple of games of pool and Big Buck Hunter (yep) in Uptown. 

Saturday was the loveliest day of all! It started out with a breakfast at Grandview Grill (my new favorite breakfast joint) to reunite with my friends from high school. Then my sister and I headed over to the new Anthropologie on Grand and did a bit of damage. Afterwards, we had dinner at Punch Pizza (also a favorite spot) before buying macarons at Surdyk’s (sub-par) and heading to First Ave. to catch The Pines and Mason Jennings. Mason was amazing, as always. He played a good mix of songs from his latest album, Minnesota, some from the album before that, and some from the 7 albums before that. He threw in a couple of covers too, which I was all for. After the show, we headed a block or two over to Kieran’s to meet my friend David who I studied with in Hong Kong three long years ago. And you know, I might have stayed up until 4am getting beat at card games. 

Sunday I headed to the mall with some girlies to do a bit of birthday shopping (thanks family for having holiday birthdays) and then bolted out of there to go to yet another Thanksgiving dinner, complete with cribbage and football.

Okay, so you might not care about the ins and outs of my weekend, but when I write about what I did, it not only serves as a little bit of a record, but also a moment at least to reflect on it and appreciate it before moving on. Sooner or later though, I’m going to be reflecting on something a minute or two after it happens…hmm…

Anyway, I’m super glad I had a couple of reunions this past weekend and can’t wait to have more over Christmas! But for now, it’s Monday, there’s a LOT to do this week at work (not so much socially), and I am, as usual, tired. 

What should I think about today?

1. Cyber Monday. Some might say I like to dabble in shopping. 

2. Running. I did surprisingly well at both Thanksgiving dinners, only eating one plate, minimal desert, and barely anything else those days. Still, I feel a bit guilty and am going to go running after work.

3. Connecting. Sometimes when I have reunions, I get addicted to the idea of them. Especially because David wants to go to Toronto together to visit all of our HK friends. So now I'm thinking about every possible reunion I can muster up.

Was your weekend long or short? Was it hard getting up for work today? (Yes over here!) Anyway, I hope your Monday is super-cali-frag-i-listic! 

I am so thankful.

Obviously I was going to post today. There are so many things to be thankful for, and since a lot of this blog is dedicated to recognizing and appreciating those things, it's only natural that I write about them today!

Where do I even begin?

For starters, there are things that I am thankful for every day and while I don't discount them, they go into a short list here:

1. Health.

2. My five senses. 

3. Freedom.

4. Shelter, food, clothing, a car, a job.

5. Love and happiness.

Now on to the main event: people. None of the aforementioned blessings would matter at all if it wasn't for great people in my life. And here they are:

Family. I love my family! This year we have the addition of Mr. Kevin and it's pretty exciting to have a new brother. At the end of this year, we'll have yet another addition in the form of an itty bitty baby!

Boyfran. See this post. (Also his awesome, welcoming family!)

The girls. I’ve known these ladies since I was 9 or 10 years old. Enough said.

The girls. These are the people who made college so exciting. We shared school, parties, and Stinkytown Dinkytown. I even got to live with…all of them.

Show-goers. Music is the air I breathe and since I have the need to go to a bazillion shows, it’s been awesome to have accomplices.

HK boyz. These are the people who I spent almost every day of my time abroad with. They are all hilarious and insanely smart. I’ve gotten to see some of them since we’ve been back, but I’m still waiting for a reunion with the international ones.

HK penpals. After three years, these girls still write to me! You don’t know how great it is to get mail from them, adorned with silly Hello Kitty stickers. 

HK people in general. Reunions are my faaavorite and it's super fun to have friends around the world.

Bookclub. My fellow nerds literary aficionados keep my brain sharp and are fun to meet for dinner every month. Still waiting on that magnum bottle of wine.

You. Whoever you are.

Every person has added to my life in such a special way, and I really am grateful for each and every one. (Also the ones not featured here, who I maybe haven't seen in a while). Here is to more communication, more reunions, and remembering the awesome times we’ve shared. Happy Thanksgiving people, you rock my world. 

Boyfran Birthday!

Today is a very special day - the day my boyfran! was born. I am very lucky to have this guy in my life, so I thought I'd write a post to tell you why.

Why he's cool in general:

1. He cares a lot for his family. He makes it a point to spend time with them and go on trips with them, even his extended family.

2. He cares a lot for his friends and is always there, especially in times of need.

3. He cares a lot for strangers. Just kidding. But he can become friends with almost anyone within five minutes of meeting them. 

4. He's rugged and manly. He does physical things all day, plays basketball, kayaks, camps, hunts, catches fish with his teeth...okay, maybe some of that is untrue. Heeeheee. 

5. He's an "old soul."

6. Despite the love for brew and "za," he cares about his health.

7. He ran a marathon because he wanted to and had the discipline for it; and then he decided not to run one again because he didn't enjoy it that much and it took a toll on his body. I like that he recognizes what he likes and doesn't like and does what he wants to do.

8. He's really friggen cool, but he doesn't act like he knows he's really friggen cool.

9. He's silly.

10. He's extremely fun to be around.

Why he's cool with me:

1. The boyfran is chivalrous. Even after three years, he still opens my doors, holds heavy things, walks me to my car, and puts my jacket on for me. I like to think of myself as pretty independent, but even I can't turn these gestures down.

2. He knows how to change it up and takes me on dates to see funny comedians, will stay in for a game night, go to a musical, a sporting event, a day trip, a shopping trip, anything!

3. He gives thoughtful and creative presents. (Ice skates, running kit, handmade cribbage board...)

4. He has an impeccable taste in music and is the best concert buddy even though our heights make it odd to position ourselves in a room.

5. He doesn't mind that I extended this list to 5 to meet the needs of my OCD.


And he makes things like this for me:

And best of all: he loves me! :P There are about 80 billion other things, but we'll save those for another day. So boyfran, today is your day. I love you (and so do all of my family and friends, which kind of makes things awkward).

Also:

Happy birthday!

Are we too connected to be connected?

Well obviously today is special because I like numbers and 11-1-11 is pretty neat. Just wait for ten more days and I might throw a party for the date! (At least in my head I will). 

Anyway, I've been thinking. Is social media bringing us closer together or further apart? Let me explain.

Today I saw that I had some new followers on Instagram. I was instantly excited and thought, now we can share our little moments with each other via photographs. But then I thought, well why not show each other things in person? Why not talk in person? Why not call each other instead of rely on each other's blogs or social media sites to find out what's been happening? 

Well there could be some reasons:

1. It's easier to check for updates on your phone than to schedule a date and block out hours of your night to hang out during the week.

2. With the internet, you can see (at once) what many people are doing rather than one person or a small group of people. 

3. With blogs, you get a larger sense of what is going on at a particular time. When you meet someone in person, you don't talk about all the little things that go through your head when things happen. 

4. You get to see another side of a person that sometimes is difficult to capture in real life.

5. You are essentially still having alone time, while being sort of social.

But then again...

1. We hermit ourselves.

2. Internet can be impersonal and you miss the body language, tone, pitch, everything that physical, real communication gives.

3. You read things so you already know what's going on, so you don't feel as much need to ask.

4. Sometimes people don't sound like themselves in writing and you wonder what the deal is. This is why I particularly enjoy reading  blogs where I can hear the person saying things out loud. (She's pretty good at sound effects).

5. It's a double life. In my case, a triple life. (This one, the other one, the real life). But I try to be genuine in all of them. I keep thinking of merging my blogs so I don't have so many selves, but then I couldn't go deep into thought like I do on this one, and I couldn't focus so much on fashion and music as the other one. So there. I gotta keep 'em separated. 

In any case, I obviously enjoy being online and getting the inside scoop on people I know, and sometimes people I don't. (The people I don't have a lot to offer in terms of style, projects, insight).  Who knew that you didn't need experts to tell you everything, but instead, real people who do things and see things and write about them?

Whatever you do, make sure you step out of the virtual life and into the one you've led up until before you had all of these technologies. And then go sit down at your computer and keep on reading. :)