retrospect

the annual purchase of next year's muji planner (in my opinion, the best planner there is out there) is accompanied by both excitement and reflection. there's something so thrilling about the blank pages of a new planner - boxes and lines yet unfilled with all the hopes and occasions of days to come. where will i celebrate my birthday next year? with whom will i break bread for thanksgiving? what are the moments, big and small, that will culminate in my 34th year on this planet?

there is also sour-sweet nostalgia that comes with tossing out this year's planner. actually, i never have the heart to toss it out straight away. i usually take time to flip through the worn pages covered with scribbles, noting the appointments, grocery lists, deadlines, and all the essential and non-essential notations i felt necessary to jot down.

so, in a tradition started last year, here is a month-by-month recount of all that was memorable from 2011...

january:
- hiring a chinese chef and his wife to cook a new year's feast in my kitchen...one of the best new year's celebrations ever with wonderful friends
- bidding dear grace a fond adieu as she makes the move back to the states
- finishing graduate school applications! waiting, waiting...

february:
- chinese new year and massive family reunions in taiwan
- hanneke comes to stay and study chinese for 3 months!

march:
- china folks take IAM encounter in nyc by storm. debut of the urbanity project as well.
- hello, NYU!
- farewell to glen....embarking on the difficult journey of grief

april:
- friend dianne finally comes to visit!
- one last trip to beijing
- buying a one-way ticket back to the states

may:
- long weekend in cambodia, my new country-love
- our last SHAC exhibit in the studio before the area gets torn down to make way for commercial venues. an appropriate homage: "things that disappear"
- dinner and karaoke blowout with hanneke and friends before she heads back to the states

june:
- a string of farewell parties, including a fabulous "brooklyn vs. the district" bash with justin and lauren
- my last day at twocities

july:
- back in america!
- helping my parents move to their new house in a new town
- moving myself to new york and becoming a brooklynite

august:
- fulfilling my dream of attending the jazz-age lawn party on governor's island
- orientation for school
- i score free tickets to a girl talk concert!

september:
- the start of grad school.....
- chinese food and karaoke for my birthday...it's like i never left shanghai
- attending my first "fashion week" event, courtesy of friend ben

october:
- trekking through the snow for a halloween party
- school, school, school

november:
- weekend jaunt up to boston! reunion with hanneke, grace and other friends
- thanksgiving at home with my parents, the first time in 9 years

december:
- wigs, jigs and mistletoe! epic christmas party hosted with my roommates and another friend.
- finishing my first semester of grad school. whew!
- a wonderful christmas spent with my parents and family friends

here's to finishing 2011 well, and to all the adventures to come....

cups of coffee:  1

mood:  retrospect-algic

welcome home

christmas eve service at my parents' chinese-american church was anything but quiet. first off, there were performances involved. we're not talking traditional nativity plays with children dressed as shepherds and sheep, nor are we talking professional, polished productions with special effects and live animals. we're talking a range of songs and skits in chinese and english played out in a talent show of sorts (including a wonderful rousing dance number by the elderly fellowship, cleverly called the "evergreens", led by my mom, an honorary member). we're talking straight-to-the-point "reason for the season" proclamation peppered with "hallelujah's!", with the enthusiasm more than making up for polish and loud impassioned singing making up for musical finesse. the only quiet moment was at the very end, when small white candles jammed through cardboard holders were hastily distributed to the congregation for the singing of "silent night" in chinese. the whole affair was disorganized, boisterous, and beautiful in all its messiness. made me miss shanghai.

during my nine years in china, i only came home once for christmas. so this christmas was special in many ways, but particularly for my parents because they viewed it as their daughter's homecoming. i feel like the prodigal son sometimes - not because i've squandered my inheritance on loose living, but because for many years, i've lived physically and metaphorically so far from home. i'm not saying it's been ten-plus years of terrible decisions; on the contrary, i've learned so much and been blessed to grow in all sorts of unexpected ways. but my fierce inclination towards independence and stubborn self-reliance have definitely led me down paths carved by my strong will. from boston to london and then to shanghai, i was always searching for the next big adventure, the next thing to satisfy. now that i'm settled in new york for at least the next two years, there's a strange and comforting sense of belonging, of having traveled far only to land so near.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.  

- T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

"know the place for the first time." i love that image and everything it encapsulates.

in the six months since i've been back, i've been hit again and again by this overwhelming sense of being home. for the first time in a long time, i live geographically closer to my parents - their house is literally a two and half hour train ride away. and for the first time ever perhaps, i'm not antsy and restlessly peering around the corner to see what's coming. i'm happy to be here, to be fully present and to give thanks for the moment. it is age? is it fatigue/growing laziness? whatever it is, i don't mind.

 mom leading the "evergreens" in a dance number

 "merry christmas!"

cups of coffee:  2

mood: joyful, joyful

incarnate love

loving people is not easy, mostly because every single person is complicated and difficult. we're all such tangled messes - hiding this, guarding that - all the while desperately wanting to be affirmed and loved. and when we experience a real encounter, when we let down our masks and allow vulnerability to occur, it's beautiful and powerful. we realize how life is meant to be lived.

school has been exhausting the past couple of weeks with final projects and presentations, but life has been rich. my cup overflows with the joy of advent and the wonderful friendships that bless me here. i've had so many fecund conversations with friends lately, full of honesty and hope, i feel like my heart could burst with gratitude. in this season particularly, i am awestruck by the Incarnation, this amazing manifestation of divine love. God came down. He dwelt among us. He touched us and allowed us to touch Him. He walked with us.

and we in turn are called to live and love in this incarnation model. get our hands dirty, roll up our sleeves, mourn with those who mourn and rejoice with those who rejoice. not shy away from the mess, but instead plunge in with resilient hope and tenacious love.


cups of coffee:  2 + 1 green tea

mood:  time for bed....

dance

i loved this article from npr: "the magic of music and a little room to groove"

the author basically sums up why i always feel compelled to dance:

"The world is always moving, cars speeding here and there, the Earth spinning and turning around the sun, and day becomes night and the night becomes day, and even as our lives pass us by we stand still, trapped in the calcified malaise that too often rules our spirits. We've become a world of wallflowers.
What a thing it is to dance, to feel music in your blood, to have your heart alive and your body free."

what a thing, indeed. i think we were wired to celebrate, to worship, to exalt. when we don't, we are robbing ourselves of great joy and denying a vital essence of who we are. i love watching children dance - they're not self-conscious, they're not in it to impress, they're not trying to do all the right moves. they dance to just dance - a simple exuberant expression and natural response to great music they hear.

my roommates and i are throwing a holiday bash this weekend with the theme, "wigs, jigs and mistletoe." i can't wait to dance!


cups of coffee:  a bazillion

mood:  ugh. end of the semester. please finish soon.

30-hour respite

just returned from a quick weekend trip to boston - 30 hours to be exact. squeezed it in while new england foliage was still bursting in its glory, right before thanksgiving and the onslaught of my final projects and papers (only 4+ weeks of the semester left....unbelievable).

highlights:
mint chocolate coffee at cafe algiers. chili and beer party at the beautiful l'abri house in southborough. conversations late into the night about love, God, family and community. brunch at IHOP, for old times' sake. 25-cent chicken wings and sunday afternoon football. downtown boston aglow with autumn sunshine. worship at my home church. delightful friends who bring such joy to my heart.

thank you, boston. that was a wonderful and much-needed respite.

cups of coffee: 3

mood:  happy

mishmash

my brain has been in a perpetual state of fried lately. i'm constantly trying to keep my head above the piles of reading to complete and papers to write for class. there is always another deadline right around the corner. and yes, i did sign up for all this when i decided to enroll in grad school so really, i'm not complaining.

but since sleep has been compromised and so has my social calendar, blogging sadly has also taken a backseat. here, in no particular order, are snippets of thoughts i've meant to blog but haven't had the time...

• when you attend school for a program in arts administration with a bunch of girls who are all artists and art-lovers, this means no one wears sweatpants to class. NO ONE. even the three guys (2 gay, 1 straight) in my class always look good. and it's not just looking put together - every one of my classmates has their own sense of style, their signature. there's the girl with the braids who always wears large lattice-like earrings. and the girl with the short hair who works for phillips de pury and always carries a kate spade bag. or the black girl from brooklyn whose amazing collection of colorful hosiery astounds me. or the guy who's interning at christie's and always wears a tie and sometimes vest to class. gone are the days of bumming in class.

• my brain feels like it's about to explode. besides the copious amounts of reading we have to do for class, there is so much external reading to do just to keep up with current events, exhibitions, art news.... and with my particular interest in art and social justice/community development, this means i have to stay abreast of public policy as well. keep those rss feeds coming.....

• my supervisor at work, the senior accountant, is hilarious. he's a middle-aged filipino-american man who always says what he thinks.  he has a slight accent where he stretches out certain vowels into nasaly flat tones, like "stupiiiiiid", which he uses a lot. today, when i was eating hummus and pita for lunch and raving about how much i love hummus, he said, "that's fine now but one of these days, you'll have trouble poo-pooing." and then later this afternoon, when the CFO was joking around with him about how he didn't hear what she had said earlier, he responded, "it's not my fault. it's all this hair that's growing in my ears." i love my job.

• want a surefire way to lose weight? first, move to a city where everything is expensive. then, choose to be a student so you're not earning money full-time. better yet, be a full-time student and work 20 hours a week to try and alleviate the expenses of living in said-expensive city. make sure your schedule is really packed - every hour measured out. and make sure your schedule involves a lot of running around from one end of the city to the other, which means you're usually late so you're literally running around. eat simply and not often, due to time and budget constraints. trust me, you'll lose weight unintentionally.

• this city is crazy, chaotic, maddening, inspiring, daunting, liberating, cacophonous and lyrical. in other words - i love it here.

and in the spirit of halloween, here's a recent gem of a find:

http://halloweenorwilliamsburg.tumblr.com/

is it halloween? or is it just williamsburg in brooklyn? you be the judge.


cups of coffee:  1 + 3 cups of green tea

mood:  time for bed

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