thankful // a long weekend in New Hampshire.

this thanksgiving, i traveled from new york to cambridge to nashua to spend a long weekend with northeast cousins.  and a restful long weekend it has been. since i've moved to new york, i haven't had the time to sit down and spend a few hours doing whatever i'd like. this thanksgiving, it was reading a book. baking a pie. home videos with cousins. flailing at pictionary. naps. 

i'm one in a million twenty-something's who has recently moved to the city, an island with 27,000 people in every square mile, with cronuts and shake shack and frozen hot chocolate the size of your face.  it's been a wild ride of an 18-course schedule (what, columbia?) and an apartment that is 45 minutes from the lower easy side (trust me, we've counted).  it hasn't exactly been the ride i expected, but when has life ever planned out exactly as planned? i still get weirdly interested in epi readings, i still cry my eyes out when laughing with the wonderful people around me, and i still can't help but giggle when i realize how much my perception of the city has changed. 

from my current read goodbye to all that: writers on loving and leaving new york: "the city's not the same and you're not the same and you'll never get that time back because time is a spiral, girl: a spiral. life is elsewhere now. live it." 

"good things happen gradually and over time. great things happen all at once."
- elisa albert 

sounds good to me.

{hiking in western mass, summer 2013}

"keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.  small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too, can become great.  when you are seeking to bring big plans to fruition, it is important with whom you regularly associate.  hang out with friends who are like-minded and who are also designing purpose-filled lives.  similarly be that kind of a friend for your friends."
- mark twain

boston // in the fall.

a quick jaunt to my second favorite city to help the 2x2 project, an epi magazine here at columbia, cover the american public health association conference.  an eye opening experience, to say the least.  who would have thought that i would enjoy listening to a talk on arsenic exposure in young children? this public health school has changed me, it's safe to say.  the highlights of my weekend included: catching up with old bowdoin friends & northeast cousins, feeling a part of a community of people so passionate about public health, and the red and yellow leaves everywhere i turned.  the only downside may be that i'm even more confused about what direction in this field i want to take - but too many options has never been a bad thing, am i right? 

"when you have exhausted all your possibilities, remember this - you haven't."

- thomas edison

scenes from (last) weekend // from my iphone.

{the end of midterms! calls for mojitos & sparrow faces}

{art & pumpkins & mexican with high school lovers & FPOP lovin' on food day}

{graffiti & roarin' lambs & pretty views & a cookie with all of the things}

{some cuties & some jokesters & some (a lot) of fries}

{inspiration & central park sun & a boyfriend on 96th & that building}

{love for sure & an upstate ny escape & my midterm views & a weird thumb stack}

i'm a little bit late with this post but a lot of bit busy.  hopefully one day (in two years), i'll be able to write a long, lengthy post like i did in college about my deepest (who am i kidding) trials and tribulations.  but for now, a panoply of pictures and quotes for helping us to keep on keepin' on.

also - i've noticed that my favorite quotes lately have been completely anonymous, yet the tiniest treasures lay within them.  who wouldn't take credit?

"be the one who nurtures and builds.  be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart.  one who looks for the best in people.  leave people better than how you found them."
- anonymous 

queens county farm museum.

the northeast basically owns the season of fall.  october and november decorations here are on par with the hallmark-ization of christmas time, and the weather is something you just can't beat.  give me a reason to wear jeans, boots, a light sweater, and a scarf any day and i'm a happy girl.  where i grew up (florida) was not blessed with seasons, where i went to school freshman year (maine) only has one (cold as shit), and where i went to school the rest of the time (nashville) couldn't make up its mind (snow one day, sweltering heat the next). 

thank you new york for that consistency. and for forcing 7 friends and me onto a queens bound bus for 2 hours for the nearest pumpkin patch.  the roommates and i just posted a map on the wall of the greater NYC area so we can pin where we've been. aannnnnd this pumpkin patch isn't even on it. it's whatever.

"i feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more." 

- jonas salk 

scenes from the weekend: it's finally fall.

{roomie night // tricked out rides // so very new york // that green juice}

{date night at gallow green}

{bubble tea // birch lattes // my chef boyfriend // columbia anoche}

aaaaannnndd just like that it was fall. after trucking it to 84th street in search of movie tickets saturday night and realizing that no one in new york gets to a movie 5 minutes beforehand (solely because all of the tickets are already sold out), J and i made alternate plans and sipped bubble tea on the steps of columbia instead.  soak it all in, he said, as this was the last time we would be able to comfortably sit outside at night without wanting to jump off the top of the lion statue we were sitting under.  at first i was all WHAT'CHU TALKIN' BOUT, JOEY, but i realized he was right.  fall turns so quickly into winter here that if you don't stop and look around once in a while.... well, you know where i'm going here.   

my highlights of the weekend - lots of tasty drinks and pretty views and a chill in the air that made my moccasin-toting toes do a little dance.  a little to-do list for my favorite time of year: 

1. do a fall photo walk of the new hood
2. throw a successful halloween party
3. carve a pumpkin (a first!)
4. knit something new
5. go see art in odd places 
6. make a yummy fall stew
7. visit my grandpa's old japanese restaurant 
8. the village halloween parade
9. do yoga at least three times/wk
10. have a scary movie night
11. brendan james concert at the bowery  

"what matters most is how well you walk through the fire."

- charles bukowski 

dear new york life,

so far, i feel as if we have a LOVE LOVE LOVE / hate relationship.

i'll go through phases where i'm all if i have to listen to one more lecture on focus groups again...

^^^ but then i get to listen to my new epidemiology role models wax poetic on the soda ban and actually have fun drawing a systems map and think OH MY GOD infectious disease causation is cool.

and THEN i'm all if i see a squished rat on the sidewalk one more time....

^^^but then i go to a sara bareilles concert on a school night at radio city with my lovely ladies and can't believe this is my life.

and THEN when i think i'm FINALLY over it and i'm all if i have to buy 3 packs of gum at a bodega one more time to reach the credit card limit of 10 dollars...

^^^i remember how lucky i am that my family is so near (and how my sister is more than willing to try the ramen with me down the street).

and then i take a look around my hood....

and wonder how i EVER doubted where i chose to live. 

"stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive."

- anonymous 

outdoor concerts make for a happy girl // from my iphone.

alicia keys and john mayer and olivia wilde and gerard butler and bono and stevie wonder and kings of leon and my mind was about to explode.  new york city is the coolest. 

"i want my heart and my passions to be the most beautiful thing about me." 

- anonymous 

sounds good to me.

{my program in a nutshell // an ode to the government shutdown}

"our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we could all be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously."

- tom robbins 

a day at the museum.

i've officially fallen in love with the upper west side.  whenever i went to new york when i was younger, we either stayed in queens with my grandparents, brooklyn with my sister, or midtown with the rest of the camera-slinging, empire-state-building-gawking, tourist universe.  we would venture to chinatown to sample dim sum, demolish a sandwich at carnegie deli, or peruse the shop windows during christmas time near central park.  but now that we live up in the 100's, i've come to appreciate the comparative calm that is always present.  i'll forever remember this borough as the first place where i was on my own and as the first place it was physically impossible to finish all of my readings before class. welcome to grad school, they said.

--- 

a few sundays ago with J at the american museum of natural history - on the upper west side!  a sunday well spent indeed.

"do the best you can until you know better. then when you know better, do better."

- maya angelou