Wednesday, February 9, 2011

I'm going to India!

This is going to be a rather short post since the title pretty much says it all, but I have to share my excitement on the web for the whole world.

My friend Divya is getting married on the 23rd in New Delhi, India, and through a series of minor miracles, I get to go! The first miracle was that it was a pretty short engagement, so I didn't have much notice as far as applying for a visa and finding plane tickets, but it all worked out, and I now have a fresh new sticker in my passport and a slightly pricey e-ticket just waiting for next Friday when I leave.

The second miracle is that my parents were supposed to come visit that same week, so I had to ask them to switch their travel plans. Fortunately they were accommodating as was their airline who switched their tickets to a new date for free. Now they're coming to visit in April so I'm looking forward to that!

I also have very little vacation time from work since I'm still pretty new there, and I used most of my allotted vacation time to go home for Christmas. But since I have pretty much the nicest boss ever (all my coworkers are nice for that matter), he's letting me take a few days off unpaid, so I get to be in India for a whole week! (Which is good since it takes about 36 hours to get there!)

Speaking of my nice nice coworkers, on to a completely different topic....

In case you haven't heard (though I assume anyone who bothers to read this probably also reads my facebook statuses....), this past Sunday I was in a car accident that totaled my car. I took Monday off from work, and on Tuesday decided I was going to master the public transportation system and take the bus to work. I live 4 miles away, which is about 7 minutes by car, and apparently 90 minutes by bus. I was not impressed. When my coworkers heard, they all started offering me rides to and from work. I'm going to owe them big time. Though they probably won't accept payment.....maybe they'd accept chocolate chip cookies....

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

2010 Year in Review

As you have probably noticed, I have not done a very good job of updating my blog for the past several months. Partially because I've been busy and just haven't found time, but primarily because life has actually been good lately, and I don't feel the need to write in order to process through my feelings so much any more. But then I started thinking, if I go back and read this thing years down the road, it's going to be depressing to read about the crappy part of my life and never document how everything worked out in the end, so I decided the start of a new year would be a good time to get back on the blogging train and try to write about some of the exciting things going on in my life. Although 2010 started out rather depressing, sad, and lonely for me, it ended with more happiness, fun, and fulfillment than I ever would have imagined (had I decided to try imagining such things rather than spending all my time being down in the dumps). And more importantly, it made me into a different person -- not necessarily better, though hopefully a little bit -- and I like the new, different me. Hopefully other people do too...

I would say that this attempt to start blogging again is a New Year's resolution, but that will just make me feel bad when I break it, and I'm 11 days late anyway, so I'll just call it a hopeful New Year's intention and see how things turn out. Today I will try to (briefly) hit the highlights from my 6 month blogging hiatus.

August
- My sister got married! I got to go to Michigan for a whole week to help with the last minute preparations and whatnot. And I was one of the bridesmaids. It was so much fun, and I'm pretty excited about finally having a brother.

- My former roommate Elizabeth got married in Idaho. I got to be her maid of honor, and I drove over there from Seattle with the other two bridesmaids. We had a great time, and her wedding was absolutely gorgeous!

- I moved to Kirkland. It was sad to leave the Teagues behind, but I was pretty excited to get out of podunk Monroe. My new roommate Kristin and I are "two peas in a freaking pod" according to our friend Christina, so that's pretty fun. And my new place is within easy walking distance of all the following places: the Lake Washington waterfront, tons of restaurants, the library, the grocery store, the movie theater, two Starbucks locations, a French bakery, and the Kirkland Dance Center. It's pretty ridiculously awesome.


September
- My obsession with Lindy Hop became even more....well, obsessive, especially considering I now lived so close to the dance center. I started attending every class, workshop, and night of social dancing that I could possibly cram into my schedule and have a lot of awesome new skills (and awesome new friends!) to show for it.

October
- My roommate and I dressed up like Thing 1 and Thing 2 for Halloween because we are giant dorks.

- I started learning a new swing dance called Balboa which is second only to Lindy Hop in the list of most awesome dances ever.

November
- My job officially became full time! I now have health benefits and vacation time and all that good stuff.
 
- I traveled to North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with two of my college roommies. We had the best time ever!

December
- I attended my very first weekend long Lindy Hop event, Killer Diller Weekend, here in Seattle. It freaking rocked! And I've already signed up for another one, Camp Jitterbug, in May.

- I went to Michigan for a week to visit my family for Christmas. It was so relaxing and fun. I swear I never laugh as much as when I'm with my family. We played games, watched movies, opened gifts, and ate waaaaaay too much food. I got my first pair of real dance shoes for Christmas from my parents.

January
- I started taking private dance lessons from my friend Ben (who's an awesome teacher in case you're looking for one...) It's hard, but oh so much fun.

- I started looking for a new church and found two that I like!