overflowing

i've been back in the states for about 3 months now and a student for almost 1 month. life is setting into a sense of normalcy, though adjusting to student mode has been more challenging than i'd expected.

the last time i was in school, people were still using desktop computers. we were just starting to really use mobile phones, but only for making phone calls and to send the occasional text. my course readings involved a mountain of textbooks. i had to call or email my professor's department office to arrange meetings during their office hours.

technology has changed everything in the past 10 (wow, 10! how old AM i.....) years. everyone has a laptop now and a good handful use tablets. my iphone is my crutch: i'm checking email, looking up restaurants, using the dictionary, constantly referring to google maps when i get lost. all my professors have their calendars online, and scheduling meetings now requires clicking on their calendar link, signing in, and scheduling the slot myself. my readings involve a small pile of books but tons of websites, blogs, and pdf documents (which led to the purchase of my first kindle so i could read while in transit. and i know i should have waited - purchased my kindle mere weeks before the new kindle fire was released!).

i went to the library for the first time last week and was absolutely overwhelmed. nyu's bobst library, besides being architecturally massive, overflows with resources both online and physically. i actually had to sign up for an orientation session next week, for fear of being completely lost and in a panic come final papers deadlines.

my life is overflowing in so many ways. when it comes to school, i feel as if my head were cracked open and all this information is just being poured into all the crevices. i'm living, reading, sleeping, breathing arts administration. with the copious amounts of reading assigned - particularly for my "environment of the visual arts" class, taught by our interim department director, a very thin richard gere with intense eyes and an airy voice - i am constantly reading and trying to stay afloat.

the readings are fascinating. i always realized the art world and arts organizations were complicated, but this past month of reading, discussing and learning is further opening my eyes to just how complex that world is. from the current reality of a ludicrous art market to questionable ethical practices in the non-profit and for-profit realms, it is an amazing array of greys.

when i'm not reading (which is pretty much all the time), i'm visiting exhibitions and taking notes. one of my classes is "intro to galleries and museums in new york" and we visit different galleries, museums and art districts every week, sometimes with guided tours by staff who are alumni from our program. needless to say, i LOVE this class. all my classes require visiting exhibitions on my own time as well, and most of our papers and projects revolve around our research and analysis of these institutions and the work they're doing. this weekend, i have back-to-back museum trips scheduled: first, it's off to brooklyn museum for their 'target first saturday' event, then it's sunday afternoon at the MoMA for the 'talk to me' exhibition. i'm hoping to catch the much-acclaimed de kooning exhibit at the MoMA as well on sunday - that is, if i'm not totally over-saturated by art yet.

i confess that i am a bit of a nerd, and my curiosity is being wonderfully sated by school. i love learning and asking questions, and i'm excited that two of my final projects involve putting together analysis and strategic suggestions for a museum and an arts center. so much of what we're learning is theoretical but there is a heavy emphasis on the practical. we are getting to apply what we are learning, and that is incredibly satisfying.

on top of school, life in nyc is bursting with a million and one things to do. last weekend, i celebrated my birthday on U.S. soil, the first in nearly a decade. dear friend hanneke came down from boston, and we trekked to flushing, queens with a few other friends for an afternoon of delightful noshing on cheap, good chinese food. the evening was spent celebrating with friends over drinks in the lower east side, followed by a couple hours of rousing karaoke. ironic that i would celebrate my first birthday back in america doing pretty much what i would have done in shanghai.

 my awesome roommates

 reunited with hanneke

in what has become an annual tradition, i "gave up" my birthday to raise money for charity:water. upping the stakes a bit each year, i raised my goal to $2,000 this year and was so excited to see that goal met! a big, warm "thank you!" to those of you who participated in the fundraiser this year! it was also a pleasant surprise to receive a personal thank-you video from founder scott harrison, as part of their fifth year anniversary celebration this september.

i continue to be deeply grateful to live life in this gracious overflow. i know what i've been entrusted with is a wonderful gift - not to be hoarded but to generously share. i am thankful for each and every provision here, and my daily prayer is that these gifts would pass through me - as fruit from one hand to another - to bless, nourish and encourage those around me.

cups of coffee:  1

mood:  deeply thankful

we remember

Last picture of WTC, Bob Guskind

ten years ago. planes crashed, buildings crumbled, loved ones lost, world shaken. feelings of invincibility shriveled as fear smothered us. grief spawning rage spawning hate, and back to grief again. fingers grasping for God, for each other, for something to hold on to.

today we paused to remember, mourn, honor and renew. today we publicly grieved for those whose absences are still felt deeply by family and friends. today we reflected on the past decade - how we've changed, how we haven't, the choices we've made, the world we are attempting to rebuild.

i remember that morning, sauntering into work in downtown boston, cup of dunkin' donuts coffee in hand as usual, and noticing the television monitor in the lobby was on. image of smoke billowing, video replay of a plane hurtling towards the tower. i remember shock then disbelief, then profound sadness and cold fear. i remember the evacuation of downtown offices, walking through deserted streets and feeling eerily alone. i remember sitting through a prayer service, uncertain of how to form words, what to ask for, but deeply - desperately - longing for God to confirm His presence with some miraculous, gracious, triumphant gesture.

we remember not because we want to hold onto pain. we remember because in this act of remembrance, we mourn all that is not right, all that should not be. we give grief its space. we do not suppress it, lest it boils to resentment or festers into vengeance. we are not consumed by it, lest we lose sight of hope. we acknowledge it, paying proper tribute.

and then we must persevere. we persevere in love because ultimately, love triumphs. we persevere because this world, as shattered and broken as it is, glimmers with the vision of what could and will be. we persevere holding tight to the hope that someday, all this sadness will be made untrue, that evil will be stamped out, that the dead will rise, that our weeping will turn to joy and tears of sorrow to rivers of gold. we persevere because there is a Redeemer and redemption is happening, and we participate in that ongoing work of redemption.

but today, we took time to remember and mourn. and pray for the peace of this land and for the coming of the world that ought to be.

cups of coffee:  2

mood:  pensive

new life

i am officially a student now. on tuesday, i stuffed my messenger bag with spiral notebooks and pens, slung it over my shoulder, and sloshed through the rain to my first day of classes. my textbooks finally arrived today via UPS (long story - but the short of it is two failed delivery attempts including one where the driver knocked on the door of the building next door, and the eventual re-routing of the delivery to my work address), reading assignments have been doled out and the various syllabuses have been reviewed. and now for the actual studying....

i LOVE my degree program. every class so far has been enjoyable, with personable professors and fascinating classmates. there are several girls from china in my class actually, including one who already received one master's degree at peking university and worked as a gallery assistant at pace gallery. there's the girl from tel aviv who worked as a curator and desires to return to israel upon the completion of her degree to advocate arts education. there's the half-indian, half-german girl who just graduated from central st. martin's college of art and design, who grew up surrounded by art and antiques in her father's gallery. and yes, my class is mostly women: 42 students and only 3 are male.

for one of my classes, i'm required to tweet five times a week. seriously.

i have felt overwhelmed in a good way this week: overwhelmed at the million and one possibilities and paths that now stretch before me, the mountain of resources that lay at my fingertips. this program's extensive network of alumni working in the arts, being in this city that's the nexus of the international art world, professors bursting with knowledge and experience and happy to impart it all to us eager students....i am in awe. and incredibly humbled.

it's slowly sinking in that i am living, in many ways, a new life. new circles of friends, new neighborhoods, new rhythms of life. i am gradually settling in, though i am aware that realistically, it may be another year before the rhythms feel natural. i am learning my way around my part-time job at a hedge-fund company, getting the hang of reading numbers and performing simple analysis. i am learning all the ins and outs of the new york subway system, acquiring the skills to decipher the tangle of colorful lines on the map, to calculate the best way from point A to point B (the iphone app helps), and to interpret the garbled voices over the intercom speakers announcing this train delay or that re-routing.

and there's the social scene - oh my. there is certainly no lack of activity here. my friend thomas informed me the other day that new yorkers often suffer from a condition called "fomo": "fear of mission out." i can see why. this week is fashion week, and tonight was "fashion's night out". i decided to make it "eva's night in." :)

but i have definitely been enjoying the social life here - in the past couple of weeks, i attended a wine tasting fundraiser for one home many hopes, a concert kicking off the US open featuring matt & kim and girl talk, and "warm up saturday" at MoMA PS1. tomorrow evening, i'm going to a friend's exhibit opening, and then accompanying a friend who works in fashion media to a fashion show at lincoln center as part of fashion week! what to wear, what to wear.....

here's to the new life. :)

cups of coffee:  2

mood:  sleepy

living in the gray

it's been two months now since i left shanghai. almost a month and a half since i moved to new york city. china seems a distant dream sometimes - was it really 9 years? other times, recollections are sharp and palpable, hitting me at random moments and prompted by certain sights and sounds: the chatter of young chinese women, most likely graduate students, on the subway; the vendors lined along the street in chinatown, their carts spilling with vegetables; the food truck parked constantly near my school, dishing out containers of potstickers.

a lot of friends have asked me how my transition has been. to be honest, it's been much easier than i'd anticipated. reverse culture shock did jolt me upon arrival and occasionally still rears its head, but on the whole, life in america has not been difficult to slip into. and life in new york has definitely been exciting thus far - trying out restaurants and bars, attending exhibitions, parties and wine tastings...the glamorous sheen of an urbanite life is similar in any major city, i suppose. this isn't to say life here is without a dark side; in the past couple of weeks, my neighborhood has experienced cases of sexual assault and a stabbing at a subway station. and this is probably the safest area in brooklyn.

the things that have proven difficult to wrap my mind and heart around are not easily unpacked. the onslaught of power, money, beauty and sex in this city - pervasive and inescapable. destitution and depravity found on almost every street corner in the form of a homeless man passed out and reeking of alcohol or a young mother with a child at her breast and tears in her eyes, slumped in the corner of the subway station stairwell. the blind eye turned by many a passerby.

i'm re-learning how to filter new issues through the lens of my faith as a christian. in china, i had to navigate issues such as corruption in businesses, the cultural concept of "saving face", loving my neighbors cross-culturally, to name a few. here, i'm contemplating and conversing on issues of sexuality, gay marriage, stewardship of career and finances, religious pluralism....and so forth. still learning to love my neighbors.

whatever the issues are, i think we are people called to live in the gray. i believe i am called to seek God, know God, seek Truth, speak Truth, but it's all covered in Love. without love, all is naught. and i think to love is to plunge into the gray, the areas of uncertainty and ambiguity, to get messy in the lives of broken people who long for so much more, all the while acknowledging my own brokenness.

i miss shanghai but i'm so glad to be here in nyc. but most of all, i'm glad to be here living in the gray.

cups of coffee:  1

mood: happy

spirit of food

i first mentioned the spirt of food back in september and am finally getting around to reading it. absolutely sumptuous: eloquent storytelling, deep spiritual insights, and truths small and simple but richly profound. 34 writers exploring the connections between community and God through food. i cannot stop raving about this book - it is akin to eating a delicious meal that you wish would never end and one that you want all your friends to partake in.

each chapter (an individual essay) provides so much fodder for thoughtful digestion. here's one of my favorite passages, quoting from robert farrar capon's (a talented chef and episcopalian priest) book, the supper of the lamb:

"For all its greatness, the created order cries out for further greatness still. The most splendid dinner, the most exquisite food, the most gratifying company, arouse more appetites than they satisfy. They do not slake a man's thirst for being; they whet it beyond all bounds."

the whetting of our appetites, the insatiable desire that longs beyond the things of this world for something more glorious and everlasting....this is the holy hunger of mankind - the hunger for God Himself. the hunger for beauty that bursts the very seams of our metaphorical bellies, desiring for the thing that fills us to rapturous overflowing.

in our fallen world, what we experience is what capon terms "the inconsolable heartburn":
"The Inconsolable Heartburn...by which the heart looks out astonished at the world and in its loving, wakes and breaks at once." the longing for the here and not yet.

this passage from the chapter written by karen baldwin sums up the essence behind my love for food and hospitality:

"On nights like that night in Colorado, we've orchestrated dinners for a crowd of our children's friends, and on other nights we've eaten a quiet meal with just the two of us. And in the same spirit of openness, invitation and hospitality we like to begin each meal by thanking God and lifting our friends up before the one who invites us to come and eat of the bread of life that he gives. Our friends may not share our deepest convictions, they may not understand the great significance we place in this time at the table, but we can't recall any expectant mothers or anxious students declining our request to pray for them. So we never feel timid about raising a glass of wine or a plate heaped with fragrant food, and then, with simple gratitude and joy, extolling the Creator who celebrated his creative power and genius by resting and blessing his handiwork. And as we say amen, we recognize that in our Creator's image, we have also completed a work of preparation, and so we enter into a celebration-rest together at the table where there is both food to nourish our bodies and fellowship to revive our souls."

- karen baldwin, the spirit of food

cups of coffee:  1 + 1 green tea with lemon

mood:  hungry

jazz age lawn party

ever since i first heard about the "jazz age lawn party" via the sartorialist, i've dreamed of getting all glammed up great gatsby style and picnicking on governor's island with other costumed revelers.

well, yesterday, my dream came true.

 amazing orchestra playing swing tunes

 stylish baby buggy...the owner was using it as a food cooler

 shopping for the perfect hat

 this woman knew how to picnic in style. i need to be friends with her in time for next year's lawn party.

 mother and son - note the adorable slingshot in his pocket!

trying to eat a peanut butter sandwich with class

 amazing couples were tearing up the dance floor

 i think this guy actually time traveled from the 1920's

thank you, friends, for a fun afternoon!

and new york - honestly, can i love you more?  i don't think it's possible.....

cups of coffee:  2

mood:  comfy

stoop life

There’s nothing better on a warm summer evening in Brooklyn than sitting on the stoop of my brownstone, sipping a beer and reading a book. As the day settles into muted dusk, I drink my Negra Modelo contently while plowing through “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”, which I embarrassingly started months ago.

Directly across the street from me is a funeral home. I watch a couple of cars pull up to the curb tonight and the occupants clamber out to make their way to the door. Most of them are chatting, even laughing, bearing not at all the sort of mood I would expect of visitors to a funeral home. I wonder what kind of person died. The valet for the funeral home is a young African-American man, looking bored in his white shirt and black trousers. He spends most of the evening texting on his phone, sometimes propped against a parking meter, sometimes perched on the hood of a car.

The street is never quiet here. There is always the rumble of the R train as it burrows far beneath the pavement, roaring like some underground monster tearing through the tunnels. The traffic’s symphony is never ceasing, swallowed occasionally by the relentless wailing of an ambulance.

A straight shot from the subway station, the sidewalk in front of my apartment proves to be a runway of sorts. There is the Hispanic woman, curvy and brown, with her long ponytail sashaying behind her, chirping Spanish loudly into her mobile phone. There is the young couple walking hand-in-hand, he with his square-framed glasses and ironic t-shirt, she with her hair pulled into a messy-yet-stylish bun on her head with a canvas bag slung haphazardly on her shoulder. There is the bevy of dog-walkers, all carrying serious countenances while their canine companions prance happily before them, smiling broadly with their tongues lolling.

An elderly man paces up and down the street, looking for his cat. With a shock of white hair, he is shirtless and paler than the underside of a flounder. In his left hand, he carries some sort of breathing apparatus with a long transparent tube snaking its way up to his nostrils. In his right hand, he carries a walking cane, which he forcefully thumps twice on the pavement after every five steps.

“Muffy!” he cried out. “Muffy!” Passing by my stoop, he pauses and squints up at me.

“Have you seen a grey cat?” he asks me gruffly.

I shake my head and smile. He thumps his cane and continues his course. At one point, he leans forward against a tree, the breathing machine tapping against the trunk. I hope he’s okay. I hope he finds Muffy.

cups of coffee: 1 + 1 iced tea + 1 negra modelo

mood:  lovin' it