The first (and last) time I was there, J and I only had one day to do sightseeing. ONE DAY. That's definitely not enough to see one of the cities I've always dreamed of visiting one day. Thank you, J, for letting me tag along on your one-week business trip, so I can continue my adventure! Here's a list I came up with just now of things I want to do while I am there. It would be nice if I could do all of them with J, but let's face it, he brings home the bacon, and to be able to do that, he needs to work. So I will have to get used to going places on my own. New York is the most exciting place to practice! (And in case I chicken out, I know I have a handful of friends there who are willing to accompany me on some of these goals. :P)
- Walk the Brooklyn Bridge
- Tour the Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Visit the Guggenheim Museum
- Visit the Museum of Natural History
- Check out Rockefeller Center
- Visit Chinatown
- Get on top of Empire State Building
- Spend an afternoon at Central Park
- Catch a Broadway show
- Check out the Grand Central Terminal
- Check out the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum
- Get a cupcake (or 5) at Magnolia Bakery
- Drink a Manhattan cocktail in Manhattan
- Eat a New York Strip Steak in New York
- Ride the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island
- See the Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island
- Take a walk through the New York Botanical Garden
[Updated]
- Eat an eclair from Boucon
- Have a Junior's Cheesecake
- Have breakfast at Tom's Restaurant
That's what I have so far. Anything else I may have forgotten to include that you think I should do while I am there? I am still figuring out how to do all these as cheaply as possible, so any help is definitely welcome. :)
For someone who claims writing is her passion, I sure have not been doing what makes me happy. Add making art and doodling to the list of things I would rather do than sit and zone out in front of a laptop. This stops NOW. And I hope I don't back out of yet another attempt to jumpstart the juices from flowing.
I will write. I will make art. And I have just the stuff to make everything feel like a fun exercise I will not be able to resist. I have a tool box containing a slew of art supplies, which includes a couple of colored Sharpies and colored pencils. I have a brand-new sketchbook that's been sitting in my bookshelf for months, dying for me to use it. I also got this book.
I was in a nearby Barnes & Noble with my husband, browsing at art books, and this caught my attention. I had a previous doodling project that started out as a daily effort, but gradually, like most of the art projects I've been coming up with these days, it became occasional to non-existent.
It's not that I don't have the discipline. I just realized why I keep stopping in my tracks with these projects: I have no visible goal to target. I have no reason to push myself to get off my ass and go write/create something.
Now I do. My application for a work permit in the U.S. is currently being processed, and I am determined to land a job that's at least related to what I love (writing) or what I went to college for (Multimedia Arts). I will make it my mission to build up my portfolio and make sure that my work speaks for itself.
The idea of being stuck in a job that I don't enjoy. That's a thought scary enough to will me out of my writing rut!
Yes, you read it right. Until we get a proper cable service provider to hook up to our brand-new TV, I will have to stick to torrents (for my usual shows and favorite flicks) and online streaming (for sports games and live telecasts of selected shows). Sadly, the latter option is not so great. The channels that stream the Oscars on www.ustream.tv and www.justin.tv keep shutting down because of copyright issues, and the ones that don't get shut down are messed up by translators speaking over the presenters, thereby making it impossible to understand (note: I should really get back to learning Spanish). The last few categories, I had to listen to because the last channel I used just stopped broadcasting images. It's a good thing my online stream experience only started getting infuriating later on in the show--by then I decided to just torrent the show later on and re-watch the parts I missed.
Anyway, now that my rants are out of the way, here are the things I particularly liked about the show:
Billy Crystal. I don't care what anyone says...there is a good reason why he has hosted this particular show so many times already. He always does a good job! It would have been interesting to see Eddie Murphy do his thing onstage this year, but then I remember the Nutty Professor. Yeah, Crystal was definitely a good decision.
The in-between actor interviews and movie montages. Leave it to the Oscars to render movie lovers emotional and nostalgic through heartwarming montages composed of the best movies of all time. Whoever decided to use talking heads as in-between-presenters fillers definitely knew what they were doing (it also didn't hurt to put the likes of Edward Norton, Robert Downey Jr., and Brad Pitt in it). And that performance of Cirque du Soleil was absolutely breathtaking! It is one of my life goals to catch a show, this year or the next.
The comedy. Sandra Bullock speaking Mandarin with a German accent. That winner who decided to thank everyone who's ever been born instead of offending somebody important he would've forgotten to acknowledge. RDJ filming a documentary of The Presenter. Emma Stone milking her first time as a presenter for all its worth. The list is endless.
Winners that made me go, "Finally!" I cannot believe this is the first time Christopher Plummer won an Oscar. His speech was humorous, heartwarming, and very elegant.
And Meryl Streep! I know she's got a bunch of nominations under her belt, but it's been a while since her last win. She's awesome.
My favorites winning. Hugo was definitely one of my favorite movies last year, and I am so happy that it got a lot of recognition (even if Marty didn't win for best director). Even my second and third favorites, Midnight in Paris and The Descendants, got a win each for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, respectively. Yay! On the other hand, I should really watch The Artist, now that it won Best Picture. [Full roster of winners, 84th Annual Academy Awards]
All in all, it was a good night. This is my favorite of all the award shows and I am glad it delivered. :)
I'll be honest—blogging daily is a tall order, and it only seemed like a doable goal because I was energized at the beginning of the year, blah blah blah. I really do want to blog everyday, but unfortunately, there won't be much to blog about, if you consider my day-to-day activities (you'll see what I mean in a sec). The blog name change (from A Daily Dose of Jam) is supposed to both help manage expectations and guilt me into getting back into my passion—writing about stuff that inspire me, sharing interesting ideas, making up stories. One of these days, when I've got no distractions, I swear I will.
So what have I been up to lately? Well, with my husband in Australia on business for two weeks, I've been focusing on not focusing on the fact that I am alone for two weeks...did that make sense? I actually have a bunch of stuff I can do. I recently bought a guitar in the hopes that I can get myself to self-study again, and I just got my friend to tune it properly (ignore the fact that I couldn't do it on my own for now). I have a bunch of materials at hand I can transform into art, for our bare apartment walls. I have a bunch of shows to catch up on, waiting to be marathoned (Downton Abbey, Happy Endings, 30 Rock, Doctor Who, Chuck) and a couple of movies I've been dying to see on my own (yeah, like I can get my guy to watch Love and Other Drugs, The Help [he might actually like this], and Blue Valentine). So really, I have no reason to be bored and sad. However, because the 40-inch TV we ordered online just recently arrived, I've been focusing more on the shows and the movies I've got lined up...which all look so badass magnified! I've been enjoying it non-stop for almost 5 days now...my eyes are actually starting to hurt. I should really take a break from the watching and do some of the other stuff I vowed I would do.
To try and give me something a great reason to get out of the house and learn how to commute by myself without being terrified, I signed up for pole fitness lessons. I actually have not heard back from them regarding my intention to reserve a slot for a class that starts next week, but if I ever get my slot, this would definitely be something to look forward to every week!
Speaking of things to look forward to, I have to end this post for now. It's 2:08AM, I'm a bit groggy and I have George R.R. Martin's A Storm of Swords waiting for me on my bedside table. Today was spent migrating 7-8 years worth of emails from one account to another...the OC-ness provoked by this exercise is exhausting!
When nightly images in the deepest recesses of your brain begin to take a turn for the worst and start showing yourself being forced to marry an evil version of a direct relative (it's too awful to say which one exactly...let's just say it's deeply disturbing to marry someone this close to you in the family tree) to save the life of your real-life significant other, you know it's time to WAKE THE FUCK UP AND REBOOT. Shake off the bad juju. Maybe even tear up and whimper a little. That's what I've been doing almost every night.
I don't get it. I've been having weird dreams/nightmares on a daily basis for almost a week now. They usually involve people I communicate with on a daily basis, my family, my close friends as bad people, and sometimes, my subconscious digs up people from my forgotten past and puts them in a supporting actor spot, and usually, in an antagonist role, i.e. the person is out to ruin my life, kill people dear to me, rape me or my female friends and family members, the works. Sometimes the person transforms into a monster before coming after me. Being raped by a monster! Can you imagine?! Where is all this coming from?
No, it can't be because I've been watching too many crime-centered shows or horror movies because for weeks now I've only been exclusively marathoning Sex and the City (okay, for some, this might be classified as horror, but not me!). It can't be because I think of destructive thoughts before bed time, i.e. some hooligan bursting into our apartment to rob us, rape me, and kill J (or if the hooligan were into guys, maybe the other way around), because I usually think of happy thoughts before I drift off to sleep. Could it be because I'm currently reading A Clash of Kings by R.R. Martin?
A quick Google search reveals that the most common cause for nightmares in adults include sickness or fever, stress, relationship issues, trauma from violence, and use of drugs and alcohol. Hmm, we've been drinking beer every night with a goal of accumulating 54 empty bottles for our home beer brewing project. Could that be it? I'll try to not drink beer today and see if it's connected.
Usually, going back to sleep and "modifying" the dream works for me, but lately, it's been failing. The silly part of me even flipped my pillow to the other side one time, in the hopes of changing the bed vibes. Didn't help either.
