Exciting September

Wednesday, 4 September 2013Wednesday, 4 September 2013 Starr3 Comments

I promise promise promise you all that I am drafting my city-by-city recap posts from my vacation. I am well-aware that I left for vacation way over a month ago and I am now approaching the one-month point since I returned. SORRY! It hurts me, too, because every day that I don’t write about my vacation, I forget little things I learned about each city or saw or heard or felt.

But those posts will come. There are drafts saved. Photos are being uploaded. I’m going to get this done!

They won’t be coming for at least a week, because I have a super jam-packed week coming up.

September 8 – Six Flags trip
September 10 – Red Lobster Yelp dinner event
September 11 – Muse concert (!!!!!!)

I think that blogging about my foray into the Baltic Sea region will be a great way for me to get over the adrenaline crash of all these exciting things happening to me.

It’s also nice that this September, I’ll be kept busy with these activities, since this is the first September in 18 years that I haven’t been attending classes. It feels really… off. So all these fun things can distract me from my strange existential crisis. 🙂

I usually try to space out my fun activities to about one per week so that I have something to look forward to at the end of every week. Also, I often have a hard time concentrating when I have a lot of things during the entire week. Plus, that lull where I have several exciting activities and then nothing for weeks can be really grueling.

I’ll also be going to Manhattan at the end of the month for a little weekend getaway. The trip was originally going to be the weekend of the 13th, but I didn’t want to have to go months without something to look forward to, so I put it off for a few weeks.

I’ll be posting about all these fun things PLUS my Eurotrip after next week, so stick around!

Euro Eating!

Saturday, 20 July 2013Wednesday, 12 March 2014 Starr1 Comment

With less than a week left until I leave for my family vacation to Europe, I have been put in charge of planning our itineraries and looking up all the information for where we want to go.

Essentially, I have been assigned to be our free-of-charge tour guide.

While I plan out where we go and how we get there, I have been thinking of food. Some people gave me great suggestions on Facebook for what I should be seeking out when I’m abroad, including but not limited to:

Döner kebab in Berlin (apparently, Turkish food is really popular as street food in Germany and most of Europe)
Ratatouille in Paris (hoping the French chefs’ versions blow the American ones I’ve had out of the water)
Gelato or gelato crepes from Amorino in Paris
Mogador (passionfruit) macaron from Pierre Herme in Paris
Ice cream (but not sorbet!) from Berthillion in Paris
Bangers & mash and fish & chips in London
Snails & frogs legs in Paris (psh, I’ve already had the Chinese versions of these)\
Beef bourguignone in Paris
Brændende kærlighed in Copenhagen
Kroppkaka in Stockholm
Blini in St. Petersburg

What else should I be absolutely SURE to eat?
What can I pass on? What should I avoid?

To give you some insight on my food preferences, I don’t really like dairy and I do not eat cheese. I have kind of a wimpy palate, so nothing terribly spicy or SUPERDUPERBOLD in flavor would be preferable.

Day 10 — Someone you don’t talk to as much as you’d like to

Tuesday, 16 July 2013Wednesday, 20 April 2016 StarrLeave a comment

Dear Jeff,

I’m disappointed in myself for letting us drift apart the way we have. Even after I moved, I was able to talk to you about anything, any time. You always made time to see me when I would come back to visit, and I don’t think I ever communicated to you exactly how much I appreciated you taking the time to see me for a few hours, despite knowing that I would drag you into a Victoria’s Secret and then run away in an attempt to embarrass you publicly.

Sorry. Thanks for always indulging me in this silly game.

You would indulge me in long phone calls about nothing particularly important, and you would talk to me, really talk to me. About school, about your relationship, about struggling through life. You trusted me enough to tell me the kinds of things that I always hoped someone would trust me enough to tell me, even though I would never wish that kind of struggle upon you.

I can’t pinpoint when it started to happen, when we started to drift away. I do remember, however, our last phone conversation.
It was painful. We had nothing to say to each other.

There was so much silence between us.

I’m so sorry for that conversation. I wish that it wasn’t like this between the two of us. I still always want to tell you when big things happen in my life but I just can’t help but feel like you don’t care as much as you used to. Don’t feel bad if you don’t. I haven’t been a very big part of your life in years, so there is no reason for you to care as much as you used to.

I just want you to know that I still love you very much, as you remain one of my dearest friends. Although it’s unlikely, I hope we don’t have so much silence between us in the future.

I wish you all the happiness in the world.

Love always,

Starr

Day 9 — Someone you wish you could meet

Sunday, 14 July 2013Wednesday, 20 April 2016 StarrLeave a comment

Dear Leo,

I struggled for a while trying to think of which living person I most wanted to meet. While there are a lot of great options out there, I suddenly remembered my first love: Jack Dawson, brought to life through your unbelievable talent.

Maybe it’s excessive Tumblr-ing, but I’ve found myself getting increasingly upset that you haven’t won an Oscar yet. You had your first nomination when you were 19 years old, for crying out loud. What upset me most is that you’re great. Am I biased because I’ve loved you since I was 6? Of course I am, but my childhood crushes do not affect how much undeniable talent you have.

Your acting has matured with you, but you never lost that magic you brought to the screen because you, Leo, are GREAT. You are great and it pains me that you haven’t been rewarded by your peers for that. Years in Hollywood has only gotten you 3 nominations and one single Golden Globe win. I joke about how you didn’t get an Oscar nod for J. Edgar, but seriously – you played a hotly controversial, closeted, American political figure. How did you not get a nomination for that? Why can Kobe Bryant have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but I can’t put my hand in your handprint? Just… why?

Aside from how I feel you’ve been snubbed every year at the Oscars, I do admire you. You helped me get into environmentalism, and I truly respect your devotion to healing our planet. Even though I know you’ll be missed from the big screen during your acting hiatus, I am glad to know that a worthwhile cause will be receiving more of your attention.

I don’t know much about you, admittedly, and maybe that’s why I want to meet you. I’ve known OF you for most of my life, but I would love to know more about you. My friends who try to bring you down a notch like to remind me of your perpetual bachelordom. Whatever, I don’t care. And I don’t care that you aren’t with Kate Winslet. (I think that’s a really silly fantasy a lot of people have: that you should marry one of your close friends because you two like each other and play love interests in movies.)

I’d be terribly embarrassed if you ever read this, but I hope one day I get to meet you, because you’ve made a lasting impression on me in more than one way and I’d love to thank you for that.

Love always,

Starr

P.S. Also, please teach me to do this:

Bed to 5K

Saturday, 13 July 2013 StarrLeave a comment

I used to be a very active girl, honestly, I was.

But somewhere between moving away from my taekwondo classes, recreational basketball team, Chinese school ballet, and… now, that changed. I went from being the fastest and splitty-est person in my class (there are photos of me doing all kinds of splits) to the 10+++ minute mile runner.

That’s disappointing for me. Not only to be out of shape, but to have become very out of shape after having been very in shape.

Over the past few years, I keep telling myself I’ll get in shape, I’ll take up running and all these good things. But the habit never lasts very long.

This time, I am trying to enforce it. I’ve signed up for my very first 5K ever. I will be participating in the Cosmic Run in DC this October, and I am starting as an absolute novice.

I really liked the premise of this run. It’s not a very hardcore or competitive race – you’re not timed during the run. You don’t even have to run. Some people just dance and rave through the entire thing. (Very tempting option, believe you me.) I have been getting into EDM lately, especially for when I do get off my bum to exercise, so the idea of an entire event set to an EDM soundtrack, complete with fluorescent colors and LED lights, and rounded off with a great big EDM party sounded totally amazing and fun. Who knows, maybe I’ll even wear a fun costume to run in. (Neon tutus have always appealed to me…)

So far, I had been running on a pretty regular basis, until I got back on campus to start packing up my apartment for moving out. I am better about my schedule when I’m at home, since I feel safer running in my neighborhood than I do around my campus in the evenings.

I’ve been trying out the Beginner’s 5K training plan on RunKeeper. It’s been pretty good to me, so far, as far as starting to get used to running more. I hope I can stick to it and be able to run the 5K continuously.

I’ll keep this blog updated with my progress here, so long as I… keep running between now and October!

I’m a little bit scared that I’ll do terribly. Part of the reason that I’m so out of shape is that once I started getting out of shape, I was too embarrassed to take part in the sports and other activities I loved so much. With any luck, that won’t be an issue this time around.

Do you have any tips for someone running her first ever 5K after several years of not… moving… much…? Have you participated in Cosmic Run before?