My Afternoon and Evening

My afternoon consisted of going to the annual awards ceremony and see a number of totally amazing students win awards for the awesomeness that they've achieved in their one, two, three, or four years here. I nominated a few of my own students, and one of them won, which was very exciting and made me feel a bit like a proud mama.

My evening consisted of inviting the students from my Alternative Break trip over for dinner, and hanging out with them, playing some Mafia, and eating creme brulee.


(I made sixteen of them to commemorate the occasion. And to make sure I didn't run out.)

And they pay me to do this?

Sometimes, my life is pretty amazing.

Springtime

Springtime in California means:

• Very, very windy days. The past few days have been crazy, and I've been a little concerned that a palm tree branch is going to smash into a window in my building.
  
• Season finale filming. They're filming the Glee Season Finale across the street from Will's work. I am considering calling in sick one day and just going and sitting outside to see if I can spot stars. Or try to convince my boss that we should go whisper for a free cupcake at Sprinkles, and then eat it while trying to spot stars.
• Stressed students. They've got finals, they've got papers, they've got projects. For some reason, all this extra work stresses them out. Who woulda thunk?
• Graduation. All of my awesome seniors leave every year around this time, and it's always sad. I know that they're going off to bigger and better things, but part of me wants to figure out how to hack into the school system and have them fail so that they can stay for another year. (Don't worry, I don't actually do it.)
  
• Closing. Not on a house, which is what everyone thinks when I talk about closing. Closing the building and sending all the students home for the summer. I always have mixed feelings - sad that they're going, glad that the summer's coming and I get a bit of a break.

Springtime in Texas means

Bluebonnets.

I miss bluebonnets.

The LA Galaxy

If you had told me 3 years ago I would be a season ticket holder to a sporting event, I'd have thought you were crazy. Nonetheless, Will and I are now season ticket holders to the LA Galaxy.



Things change.

There had been a couple of games already in the pre-season and season that I wasn't able to make, due to work. But this past Saturday I got to go to my first game, which was against Real Salt Lake! One of my RAs is from Utah, and is a big Real fan, so he was there too, but across the stadium, in the Real supporters section.

It was actually pretty fun! Not even just pretty fun for a sporting event, but pretty fun in general. I'm not going to give a play-by-play of the game - I'll leave that to Will, but Galaxy won, and our seats, which are right by one of the corners, gave us an awesome view of some pretty good shots.

So, another thing that I can only really do while we live in LA crossed off! Living up my LA life!

March 12 of 12 (Or: I WENT TO THE FRENCH LAUNDRY!)

Since I moved out here, Will and I have worked to widen our pallet, spending way too much money on food and not regretting it at all. I've already made a post where I come off sounding all snobby and pretentious, so I won't make the mistake of doing it twice, but on March 12, Brandon, Moye, Will, and I made our way up to Yountville to eat at The French Laundry.

Getting the reservations was a bit of an adventure in and of itself. We started calling when the line opened up after their holiday break, and between the four of us called on and off throughout the morning. I finally got through at one point, and then got put on hold, and then disconnected. Arg! But Brandon finally made it through, and the only option was a lunch, Friday, March 12. So we did that, and were all lucky enough to get the day off so that we could go.

Brandon is from the area, so we stayed at his mom's house, which was awesome, since it saved us a hotel bill. We flew up on Thursday night, on a tiny plane (2x2x20) that you had to go outside to get on, and which had actually propellers where the engines usually are. It seemed especially small because we loaded right next to a China Air 747.

We got in, and crashed relatively early.

And now... my 12 of 12 (and the day!):

When we got up, it was a little rainy.

We got ready, and Will and I improvised some Heart and Soul on the piano, while Brandon and Moye went to get the rental car.

And then we were off! The trip took about an hour, and I was awake the whole time! (Though I would fall asleep on the way back, and the other times we went there that weekend, for ad hoc and just general merriment.)

When we got there, we were promptly seated, and spent a few minutes trying to decide whether or not it was okay to take the clothespins home with us.

We eventually decided that we could.

The menu was awesome, and we planned it such that when there were to options, one person from each couple had each option, so that we could try everything.

Lots of amazing courses, though we didn't take pictures of most of them, because Moye is morally opposed to that. Well, except the fois gras. Because it was pretty.

Oh, and the picture of the dinosaur salt! There were 3 different kinds of salt for the fois gras, and one of them was 40 million years old! So we called it dinosaur salt.

The only course which I didn't share/get to taste the other one was the dessert. Because I got peanut butter chocolate, and will had some citrus thing. And who trades peanut butter chocolate for citrus?!

Then we got chocolates to top it off. They were awesome.

Our waiter asked which ones were our favorites, and Brandon and I told him the peanut butter ones (peanut butter chocolate!), and Will told him the cinnamon. Moye was too full to think of a favorite. And he gave us more. (!!!!) And I tried to take an artsy picture with the macro setting on my camera.

After an amazing lunch at The French Laundry, the only really reasonable thing to do is go on Chat Roulette. Moye and I showed off Brandon's Ninja Turtles action figures to some guys from Russia who showed us snow in exchange, some guys from Toronto, and a few other people. We only saw one really offensive thing, which is probably pretty good, considering we were playing around for about an hour.


Dinner (once we were able to make room for it) was this awesome cheese spread on a bagel.

Moye updated her blog with the experience much more promptly than I did.

And what better way to end the day, than a little bit of the UK version of The Office?

Love what you do

Once again I dragged my feet to a late night meeting, very tired after a loooooong day of selecting RAs and then showing off my building to eager freshmen.

And once again, I got so wrapped up in the conversations that happened that I lost complete track of time, and left the meeting rejuvenated and excited about my students, my job, and my chosen career.

One of these days I'm going to remember that this always happens before I start griping about having a 10pm meeting on a day when I'm ready to crash around 9. But until then, I'll just continue to be pleasantly surprised when it does.

Laughter

Marci and AJ have spent the past 20 minutes video chatting each other - from the same room. I don't think I've laughed this hard in a long, long time. Jen is torn between laughing, and watching along with a bit of confusion.

Quote of the night:
Marci - Why have we never roomed together before?
AJ - Um, because we all have our own apartments.

I am so thankful for my coworkers, who I can also count among my friends.

Balanced Meals

I'm trying to do this cooking thing where I actually create balanced meals. I consider a balanced meal to be a protein, a veggie, and a starch.

Will doesn't like this. Well, in his words, "It's not that I don't like them... I just... don't like them."

Thanks hon!

He keeps trying to cut out the veggie part. Potatoes AND salad doesn't really make sense to him, and if we have a side dish of rice, then why do we need Brussels sprouts as well? (Because they're awesome, that's why!) And when we have spaghetti, he needs bread as well. As if the pasta isn't enough carbs! (Well, to be fair, I'm a fan of that one.)

I'm still working on him, though. One of these days, he'll be just as excited about the veggies as he is about the meat and potatoes.

Rain!

You would think that rain wouldn't be that big a deal as I grew up in Texas, but after almost 3 years in California, it's become kind of a big deal. We almost never get it, and when we do, it's not something that in the past I'd call rain - it's more like this misty stuff that's here for a minute or two, and then gone.

But over the past week we got rain. Like, real rain. At least a few hours a day, from Sunday through Friday. It was crazy, and what I really wanted to do was curl up in bed with hot chocolate and an open window and read, listening to the rain.

Unfortunately, I have a job that keeps me from doing that. So instead, I did the whole responsible adult thing, and grumped at the rain.

However, the way LA looks after the rain is definitely my favorite. All the haze and smog and ocean layer or whatever you want to call it was gone, and we could see clear to the snow topped mountains. It was kind of awesome.

Christmas ends

When I was growing up we always kept our Christmas lights up through Three King's Day, the night of January 6. I was totally into this whole Three Kings thing, since it meant an extra day of presents, and what kid doesn't want that? The night of the 5th we'd go pull some grass and set out some water for the camels of the Three Kings, and in the morning they'd be gone, and we'd have presents instead.

I remember the year we stopped doing milk and cookies for Santa - the truth about him was out, so there wasn't really any point. But we kept doing the grass and water, I think because of the cultural connection we had to it. So now, as an adult, even though I don't get presents anymore, I'm still very aware of the fact that it's Three King's day, and what that means, both in the story of the nativity, and culturally.

I kept our lights up through last night, and actually spent some time sitting in the dark so that I could really enjoy them. And while I didn't really set out grass and water for the camels on the night of the 5th this year - it would have just made a mess that I would have taken way too long to clean up - I definitely considered it, and I know that once we have kids we'll have them do it as well. I still struggle with figuring out how to raise our future children so that they feel a connection to their Puerto Rican and Lebanese heritage - especially since they'll be an extra generation away from it, but I feel like that will be an easy step in the right direction.

And I figure that since it means they get extra presents, when they're kids, it won't be a hard sell.

Tuesdays Unwrapped: My coworkers

One of the blogs that I stumbled across while blog-hopping was Chatting at the Sky. I discovered it when someone was participating in Tuesdays Unwrapped where you're encouraged to celebrate the small things in your life. I love the idea of Tuesdays Unwrapped, and want to make a conscious effort to appreciate the everyday, so I'm hoping to participate in it with some regularity.

Since it's Wednesday, I know I'm a bit late, but the MckLinky on this week's post is still open, so I'm going to go ahead anyways.

I'm lucky enough to work at a place where everyone really seems to enjoy their job and the work they do. Among my colleagues we have various backgrounds and came to the decision to work with college students in different ways, but what really matters is that we're all here now, doing what we do. And in addition to really enjoying our work, I feel like we really enjoy each other.

Over the holidays most of us went home, and we've slowly been drifting back as the expectation was that everyone return by Friday, and most of us wanted at least a day before that anyways. Today was the first day that we were all back, and after picking up Marci from the airport we headed to Iggy's to grab lunch with everyone else. And we were all crammed in that corner of Iggy's that we love, talking about all sorts of random stuff to AJ's ridiculous plane flight to Marci getting up around the time that I was going to sleep, to Nate's New Years resolutions and everything in between. And it was just fun.

There are 11 RDs and then another 6 professional staff members in the department, and by no means are we all best friends, nor do we all get along all the time. But I still feel like there's a real sense of camaraderie, and that most of the time it doesn't really take an effort to enjoy each others company. I've worked in places where that wasn't the feeling at all, so I feel lucky that at this school, for this year, it's the case. We're a good group, and we're all bound by the fact that we're here to help college students, whether this is just the stopping point before a different career or something that we see ourselves doing in the long run, it's what we're here for now.

So this year, I really want to make an effort to appreciate my coworkers and the fun that we have, and what everyone brings to the table. We all have things to learn from and about each other, and there's no way of knowing what next year will look like - we may all be back in the positions, or we may not - so I want to make sure that I'm making the most of this time and these great people that I'm working with, because it won't last. But it's here now, and it's the gift I was given today to unwrap.