I mean it's totally fair

To start writing again after 3.5 years.

I will just say that this weekend included the viewing of two movies that seem to have very parallel plots.

God Help the Girl (Saturday late-night streaming)
Broadcast News (Sunday evening DirecTVing)

shells

I can't necessarily believe that I haven't posted anything in more than a year, but since my Elle.com horoscope says that my "biggest year in over a decade begins this month", and because I've just cleaned most of the apartment, I wanted to just sit and write.

I know irrefutably that it affects somehow your mental state to force yourself to write.  Is that the reason for which 2010 was so ... jumbled up and bereft of meeting?

To do a quick recap:

• I moved back to Brooklyn.  I found a job at Google that sounded perfect on paper - but not without having gained 10 pounds over the course of 3 months of unemployment.  
• I reconnected with friends old and new.  I hung out a ton with Scott.
• I went food shopping.  I decorated my apartment and tried to lose those 10 pounds.
• I bought a Kindle and started reading a ton more.

When I apply a discerning and disciplined eye to that year of life in those 4 bullet poinds, I find there's very little to be said.  The same could be said of my professional resume.

I'm looking for a new job, less than 12 months later.  And hopefully, something more in my life as well.  There.  Committed to in writing!

iceland without a camera!!!

but, with Homeblest Digestive Biscuits and the ever-present cranberry juice.

got to Reykjavik after a wonderfully stressful morning - the snow in Fontainebleau made a normally 25 minute trip from Barbizon to school to train station take more than an hour.

and then Keno missed the train, with us and his bag on it.

and then i had to pee soooo bad.

small small things

wow, maybe the longest time not posting ever!

i got inspired by daul kim's blog, i like to fork myself.

obviously inspired since i'm not typing in capitals. is it something about the student life that makes capitalization so tiring?

and meanwhile i'm just completely tired ... unsure whether it's my usual change of seasons fatigue, or my also quite usual fatigue of an insular situation. INSEAD it's been real, but i think it's time to go home.

things outside the usual that have also cheered me up:

sculpture: Rodin

baked goods: banana bread

nature: Fontainebleau forest

Chanel nail polish: dragon

Superlative Shopping Day

Remember my olive green corduroy coat from study abroad, junior year?

No?

Well, it was from a company called Sessun.  I bought it at a skater/snowboarder-y shop in Lyon, back in 2002 and wore it to death.  I loved that coat.  It was warm and full of attitude.

Today we rode into Paris and what should I see in the 11eme but a Sessun STORE?!?  I bought another adorable coat - this time a navy blue detachable hood option spring jacket with stripey lining.  Life started to seem really grand.  Also given the potentials of great conversation with Adriana and Romain over lunch at Pause Cafe.

Then a party tonight.  I begin to realize that not everything that goes wrong in life is my fault, and that some things are simply not meant to be.  Simultaneously exhilarating and annoying.  I don't know what to feel guilty about if not EVERYTHING.

Supergahhhhhh

I just recharged my new French pre-paid plan.  This involved going downstairs, standing in line at the tabac, buying a card, scratching off the code...listening to my options in French, and finally selecting VeryGoodTime.  I hope it is a very good time.  France is too expensive not to be a VeryGoodTime.

Now back at the apartment.  Had what I would like to imagine was a very French dinner of Emmental and prosciutto (leftover from dinner with Romain two nights ago) and a glass of Corbieres rose.  It's going straight to my head, thank goodness!

I miss my Singapore crew.

Pizza Hut and THEN McDonalds?!?!

On a Sunday night, there is nothing else to do but eat disgusting fast food.

I did exempt from Macroeconomics.  I just made a makeout mix on iTunes using Morphine's "The Night" as the Genius source.  Fifteen songs.

Things to experience: "Goodbye Lenin" and "Be Kind Rewind".

Things to never repeat:  Pizza Hut + McDonalds + 4 Asahis.  It's just too much.

Singapore Doesn't Make Anything

Because it has no natural resources.

That's why it made me so happy to go to Korea and buy wonderful cheap pens!

However, it did feel nice to come back to Singapore and its sultry tropical weather.  I am now studying in just such weather at our dining room table for the P3 macroeconomics exemption exam.  I took macro roughly a trillion years ago, but it still rings a very faint bell.  Hopefully the ringing will get louder by 4pm tomorrow afternoon.

I arrived in Korea early on Thursday morning, flip flops on and laptop off (minutes later, I figured out that I had probably left it at Immigration, which I had ... and it was returned to me within an hour and a half.)

Since then, I've visited my grandpa in the hospital, where he's recovering nicely from spine surgery he had two weeks back.  I've eaten my FAVORITE ice cream - it is red bean ice cream, inside a mochi which is made of a Korean green plant whose English name I don't know ... encased in a waffly outside.  Despite having forgotten that it existed, I really missed it.

Today I visited my cousin Sehyo at her work at the hospital - she was wearing a lab coat and her life is not very much like Grey's Anatomy, although she is certainly enjoying it.  And then I met up with Jaime Oberlander at a Starbucks in Shinchon for coffee and speed-reminiscing/catching up.  And then my other cousin, Hansu, in Shinsa-dong.  I made him wait while I spent the equivalent of $160 on stolen clothes.  I totally scored some Yves Saint Laurent and Mayle.  Um, this is the stuff my dreams are made of!  I might go back tomorrow morning...

Finally Hansu and I sat down and had our usual heart to heart about life, dreams, and guilt as the hookah smoke coalesced around us.  I totally can't believe that I'm older now than he was when we last saw each other, when I was here after college.  Now I'm back at my uncle's house in Banpo, after having gotten utterly confused about how to get in without disturbing anyone (there is no way).

Oh, and I bought the wrong size of white Cons (which I needed because I didn't have anything other than the flip flops).  So if anyone wears size 6.5 and wants some nearly pristine white lo-tops, let me know.

And perhaps most tellingly, I took an ONLINE QUIZ last night.  Here are the results.  I have already made a lot of it, believe me...

Upper Body

I'm totally digging Deezer right now - I found out about it from Javier one day a couple of Saturdays ago while we were all studying at school.

I finally figured out the whole 'add to playlist' aspect of it, and I'm unearthing a sorry slew of songs from the olden times.  For example, rediscovering:

• Natalie Merchant and Dar Williams
• Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
• The Bluetones
• Aaliyah

As per the always, I'm atavistically returning to the music from freshman year of college, plus or minus 3 years.  So if you have any recommendations from those magical times of wild MP3 downloading, please let me know!  I need to procrastinate from writing this paper for my "Leading People and Groups" class.  Hence this blog entry.