Miscellaneous happenstances

The past few weeks have been filled with horrible, awesome, wonderful, and fun events and activities.

The horrible: my beautiful cat, Ginger, went missing on July 15, 2013.

This cat is one of the sweetest, smartest, friendliest creatures you are ever likely to meet.

While I haven't completely given up hope, I've come to accept that she's probably not coming home.

The awesome:  I had an opportunity to spend a week of my life as a camp counselor for a fantastic organization that reunites siblings separated in the foster system for a week of activities. 

Camp to Belong was both one of the best and loneliest weeks of my life.  The camp organized typical summer camp activities such as archery, bb guns, swimming, and zipline.  But it also organized special events that separated siblings don't often get to do with each other such as birthday shopping, a joint birthday party, a trip to the beach, and a carnival. The kids also got to make pillows for each other and scrapbooks for themselves to remember the week.

I can barely wait for camp to begin next year.

You can watch a segment produced by NBC news about it here.

The wonderful: I adopted two kitty cats from the animal shelter on Thursday!

I've tentatively named the black one "Sheytoon" for now, which means "mischevious" in Farsi.

 I've tentatively named the brown one "Hassood," which means "jealous," since he likes to do whatever his brother does.

They are both incredibly sweet and loving.  I have a feeling that Sheytoon is going to be a handful, though.

They both let me sleep throughout the night, which a welcome surprise.  But started running around and exploring the moment I opened my eyes. 

 Sadly, I'm not keeping both of them.  I'm most likely going to keep Hassood and give Sheytoon to my boss.  While the cats will live at our respective houses, we'll both bring them into work each day so they can see each other and play.

  
The fun: I bought a spinning wheel!  While it was a little challenging at first to remember how to spin (I took a class close to two years ago), it came back to me relatively quickly and easily.

I've got about three hanks(?) of yarn ready to be washed to set the twist.  I just haven't had the time/energy to do it yet with this crazy work week.

I can't wait to spin some more!

Goodreads

 I recently signed up for Goodreads, a social networking sites for bookworms.  Although I've seen it pop up occasionally over the years, I was never terribly interested since I've rarely obsessed about books for more than a few weeks at a time.

I finally joined up when I realized that I've gone about five months with voraciously reading everything in site, partly due to bookclub (which I'm terrible at attending even though I read 90% of the books) and the discovery of a few favorite bookstores in the LA and La Jolla areas.

Goodreads isn't for everyone but I'm enjoying it right now.  And since one of my goals for 2013 is to read 26 books this year (which I am way ahead of schedule for), it seems like a fun way to do so and get other book recommendations.

Happy Reading!

Books Books and More Books

One of my goals for 2013 is to read at least 26 books this year.  Although I would love to read 52, some weeks, I would rather veg out to Babylon 5 and knitting or spending way too much time learning Spanish through Rosetta Stone.

I've made pretty good progress on this goal so far: Books read in January:
City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte       (thumbs down)
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn                       (thumbs up)
Bring Up the Bodies by Hillary Mantel * (thumbs down)
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake              (thumbs way up)

Also on my bookshelf:
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Going Clear by Lawrence Wright *

Regeneration by Pat Barker
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I'll write reviews of these books later.

* denotes bookclub selection 


The rest of the books I read in 2012:
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Red House by Mark Haddon *
The Portrait of the Young Man as an Artist by James Joyce
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Fated by S.G. Browne
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Faranheit 451 by Ray Brandbury
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch

Beginnings

My best friend, Bailey, is moving to Alaska today. She spent last summer working up there and fell in love with it. She found a house, bought furniture and a car, and shipped most of her possessions there a few weeks ago. After a two week trip visiting friends and loved ones across America, she's boarding a plane later today to begin the next chapter of her life.

I feel so incredibly happy and excited for her.

I don't know many people who can pick up and move to such a different part of the world. It's always been one of the things I admire most about those who can/do. So while I know you don't need it, good luck up there and I can't wait to hear about all of your adventures!

Endings and Beginnings

I've been terrible about writing lately. I've been even worse about knitting.

The past two years have been incredibly challenging for me.. graduating from law school, falling in love, studying for the bar exam, moving across the country and back with my family, getting my heart smashed, looking for jobs, accepting a job for my family, working my butt off in that job, getting over the past and falling in love again.

I've spent the past two and a half months working full time for my family and part time for an attorney up in Big Bear. Now that my one-year commitment is just about over, I'm beginning to transition into full time work up there and just a few days per month down here.

I've found a beautiful house that I love and can't wait to move into. I've already started moving some of my legal books up to the office. I'm setting up all the different services I need to fully move in after I get back from the east coast.

These changes are exciting. And scary.

Within the first month of working at my current job, I was unhappy and knew I was going to be throughout the rest of it. I was correct. And yet, despite knowing that, despite knowing that I needed to find something else, getting back into my own profession, I was paralyzed by fear and uncertainty. It felt easier to stay in an unhappy, and at times seemingly abusive, job than to go out and face the rejection that felt like was waiting for me.

I'm so incredibly lucky that my new position worked out the way it did because I never would have looked for this type of position in the location where it's at. I would have looked back in LA, or at least in the LA county area and would have missed out on the great opportunity I've been giving.

Instead, I get to live in an adorable house in an adorable town. I get to work with a partner who respects and values me, with secretaries who free up my time to work on substantive matters. I get to work directly with real people and I get to help them solve their problems. I get to go to court. I get to work on a variety of different matters. And at the end of the week, I get to spend the weekend with the most incredible man I have ever met.

I'm incredibly grateful for the lessons I've learned during this past year. I'm also excited and hopeful for the new challenges I am going to face in this new phase of my life.

Books Read and to Read in 2012

I love reading. I've been a bookworm since I moved to NJ at age 11. I spent countless hours at my elementary school's library, avoiding the jeers of other students who teased me relentlessly about being Luke Locursio's crush.

I thought about majoring in English Lit at college but knew there was no way my family would allow that. Sadly, I only took one lit course at NYU-- Eastern and Central European literature (during my Cold War kick sophomore year).

I took a rather long reading hiatus during law school-- too much legal reading to do on a daily basis. By the time my day was through, I would feel so exhausted that I would watch a little tv and then pass out each night.

I started reading literature again last year, though sporadically. I tried to document what I read but I've always been awful at consistently sticking to.. anything, really.

I love the idea of reading a book per week. But even then, I can't commit to a single book at a time.


A smattering of the books I've read in 2012:
Story of a Marriage (1/2012)
1Q84 (1/2012)
The Imperfectionists (1/2012)
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson (3/2012) <-- April Bookclub
Yaclav and Lena by Haley Tanner (3/2012)
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins (3/2012)
The Marriage Plot by Jeffery Eugenides (4/2012)
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Wu (4/2012)
Room by Emma Donaghue (5/2012) <-- May Bookclub
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (5/2012) <-- Listened via mp3
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (5/2012)

Currently Reading:
Candide by Voltaire <-- listening via mp3
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy <-- reading on nook and listening via mp3
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Southern California: An Island on the Land by Carrie McWilliams


Still Left to Read:
On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Cloudy Wednesday morning

I really need to start getting out of bed earlier.
My favorite part of the day is quiet morning.
No one to talk to.
No one to listen to.
Just me.
And breakfast.
And cup after cup of tea.

I've been absent from this space for a while now. Busy with work. With love. With family.

I need to make some big changes soon-- move away from this sheltered (albeit demanding and stressed) circumstances and move back down to the big western city. To challenges. To stronger friendships. To more fun.

A letter to the ghost of love past

Dear Nick,

A year ago, I was heartbroken. Barely able to force myself to take a few sips of water, let alone eat any actual food. I couldn't sleep. I would fluctuate between feeling angry and breaking down into tears every few minutes. I could not imagine what my life was going to look like since I had finally committed myself to one future with one person. With you.

In another 2 days (from one year ago), I would talk to you again and clarify the reasons you wanted to break up with me. Because you found yourself talking to any girl who would smile at you and it was 'only a matter of time before something happened with one of them.' Great, classy guy.

In another 4 days (from one year ago), I would go out with Gwen and a bunch of her friends to celebrate us completing the CA bar exam. Once at the karaoke bar, a certain 32 year old screen writer from Long Island would spend the entire time talking to me, get my number, and then spend the next month and a half trying to get to me commit to a relationship with him.

And so began my (almost) year of single-hood. I went on many dates during that period and kissed many frogs. I was not searching for love-- just trying to put back together my smashed heart. I spent most of the time feeling angry and resentful. I tried to cultivate my female relationships as much as I could (though I've always been awful at it). I tried to reconnect with my family more.

As cliched as it probably sounds, I was pretty happy being single. Doing the things that I wanted. Going where I wanted. Spending time with whomever I wanted. Not having to worry about the repercussions of my actions on a significant other. It was a very selfish time period and I ended up hurting the feelings of three good men, despite repeated warnings that (1) I was still recovering from heartbreak, (2) I did not want a relationship at the time, and (3) I was not going to want a relationship in the future, either.

And then I started writing to a man on a dating site. Who kept sounding better and better in each of his messages. Who I eventually met for coffee in my favorite place in LA and who turned out to be exactly the way I hoped he would be from his messages.

I very much was not looking for love when I started writing to him. I certainly wasn't looking for love when I first met him for coffee. Had I known what would result from those simple actions, I'm not 100% sure I would have reached out and taken those first steps. I wasn't ready for love then. I'm not completely sure I'm ready for love now.

I do feel that he is supposed to be my person. And I want to be his.

One year ago, I thought that you had ended my future when we broke up. I could not imagine what I would do or who I would be without loving you.

Today, I am so grateful to have lost myself so completely when dating you because it forced me to reevaluate my life, my interests, and my expectations over this past year. It forced me to be a complete person, one with both positive and negative traits. It forced me to start listening and acting upon my own desire. While this past year was... challenging, I'm grateful for it because it honed who I am today. And it prepared me for a real, balanced, and mutually supportive romantic relationship.

So thank you, Nick, for breaking my heart so completely back in February of 2011. I'm happy to say that I'm doing pretty alright.

I hope you find your happiness, too.

I hope you find your true love, too.

Whatever you decide to do, please, please, please, break up with Angela if you're not in love with her. It's not fair to keep stringing her along when she so clearly loves you. As much as it would hurt to have her heart broken, it's better to struggle through that and heal than to continue to love a man who doesn't love you back. Trust me on this one.

Love,
P

I can haz sock!

My first (sober) sock! Going cuff down was so much easier than going toe up. Kitchener stitch wasn't that bad either. 

Can't wait to start the second sock tomorrow!

Sock Progress

I still can't believe that I'm actually knitting a pair of socks! Properly. From the cuff down.

Although I complained about the slow progress at first, I must say that I'm enjoying the experience quite a bit. Maybe sock knitting will become a regular part of my knitting regimen.

Not much to report beyond that. Work is busy as usual. I see my friends. I date. That's pretty much it...

Snapshots from my life...

 Christmas 2011

My nephew's 7th birthday party

View from my desk

Two of my four adorable nieces and nephews

Sock knitting

Sock knitting progress

Matching fingerless gloves

Day 228: "Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead."

I spoke with Nick on the phone yesterday. For the first time in... 6+ months.

He wants to see me in March, when he flies out to Vegas for a few days with some of his friends. We've been talking back and forth about it via email and I thought it best to call him and get everything out of the way, so that we would be finished.

I wish I could say that hearing the sound of his voice had no effect on me. But I would be lying if I said that. I wholeheartedly wanted to marry him and spend the rest of my life making us happy and successful. I have no doubt in my mind that we would have been, too.

But he did not want to undergo the temporary discomfort of a long-distance relationship that would allow me to move back to NJ in a way that didn't burn the relationship with my family. And he didn't want to think about moving out here. Not seriously, anyway.

It took a long, long time for me to accept that. To live with that. To be ok with that.

But I am now.

He is a beautiful road not taken and that's all he'll ever be to me. And that's ok.

Mostly FO: Granny Square Blanket

 I joined the last square to my granny square blanket last night and finished weaving in all the ends. I'm rather pleased with the finished project: 

And as you can see in the following pictures, so is my mother... =)

She really should have been a model-- she's so lovely!

I'm in the process of deciding which project to start working on next... I have two lovely skeins of road to china yarn (in purple and in cream) as well as 3 skeins of Lorna's Laces Honor in "cedar." I also have about 5 balls of mulberry silk yarn, plus new sock yarn and a bunch of others.

Off to a craft fair for now!

Photo recap of 2011

I know it's a bit early for the annual self-reflections to start, but here's my 2011 recapped via photos:

 Studying for the bar exam. This consumed my life from December 2010-February 22, 2011.

My boyfriend and I broke up the last night of the February bar exam. My heart was smashed. I'm still recovering from the emotional repercussions (yay for emotional unavailability!).

The biggest benefit to moving to CA after law school? Getting to spend lots of time with my adorable nieces and nephews. 

Monday afternoon champagne to celebrate my 26th birthday, with my LA best friend, Sarah. She made my birthday really special. There's an embarrassing video of me riding a mechanical bull on facebook to prove it.

 My best friend Noah came to visit me in LA this year. We spent a fun week eating delicious food, seeing several movies, and reading Team of Rivals out loud to each other. I miss him. =(

One of the benefits of living in Los Angeles? Getting to see some of your favorite actors spending a Sunday afternoon just hanging out at the bar (that's Jason Segel).

 In April, I traveled to Denver, CO for the first time, to attend the 13th annual ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's spring conference. SHU Law made it to the national competition for the second year in a row! This is a photo from an amazing used book store I found and desperately did not want to leave.

 Other favorite things about LA? Jasmine and Jacaranda season! Nothing helps heal a broken heart more than the intoxicating scent of jasmine on fresh air...

... passing the CA bar exam also helped with the broken heart tremendously.

In 2011, I also started running again-- an activity I had not regularly done since high school cross country and spring track. My mom went out on my first run with me. We did not make it very far.

I kept up the running though for a good 3-4 months, enjoying beautiful scenes like these ones above.

 

In 2011, I attended a few musical and culturally-southern CA activities, including a show at the El Rey Theater with Sarah, watching Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dance kid with Kareem, attending Doheny Days Summer Music Festival to see Cake, attending my first Kings hockey game (go Devils!), lots of karaoke nights and seeing Gavin Degraw, David Cook, and Carolina Liars down in Pamona!

 I took my first trip to Vegas with friends-- it was fantastic!

 I attended several mediation and healthcare law events with the LA County Bar Association and took a few courses at the Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica.

 I went to several parties and events sponsored by St. Mary's, including their annual gala and holiday party.

 And finally, officially getting sworn in as an attorney in CA!

This year has been very challenging but a lot of great stuff has come out of it. I can't wait for 2012-- I know it's going to be my greatest year!