Makeover

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Yesterday, I redeemed my Sephora coupon for a complimentary makeover. It was set to expire next month, and I had no idea when else I’d want to have my makeup professionally done. The makeup artist who was working on me asked what kind of look I was going for. I told her I was going out to celebrate my birthday last night, so I wanted a birthday look that maybe would play up my eyes. Can we go for the “smoky eye” look? And so she proceeded to spend the next 90 minutes working on my face. The request for “light” skin coverage apparently wasn’t heard or was just ignored.

When she was done and gave me the mirror, I looked at my reflection in complete shock. I could barely recognize myself. I think those are my eyes, and that’s my nose, but now my nose looks a bit distorted because of all the foundation. I looked like a vampy, exotic Asian, with eyes that were almost made to look slanted up. I had to ask her to tone that down, so she altered it slightly.

My friend told me last night that she thought I looked amazing, that the only reason I didn’t like it was because I just wasn’t used to seeing myself made up like this. Now I know what I do not want as a wedding look, or any look ever again.

My friends

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I don’t have a large friend group. In fact, since the age of 15, I haven’t had a large friend group. Sometimes, this has bothered me, and I have moments or even days when I wish I had more friends with more varied interests, or a reliable local group of girlfriends who I could just hang out with from time to time who I could trust. Last year, I went to a number of Meetup groups to try to meet new friends, but there wasn’t much of any “click” that happened. The one girl I met who seemed fun ended up being really flaky, and that seems to be the common theme among people in New York. Everyone has a lot of options and doesn’t always want to choose you. In fact, they may never choose you.

When I was out in my group of six tonight, though, with Chris, I felt really happy. In these moments, when we are all sitting around a table, drinking good whiskey instead of taking stupid shots, and talking about the most random things, and friends from different areas of my life are all laughing about the same thing, I think, well, I have a lot to be happy about. My friends all fit my life in different ways, as they should, and they love me and want to spend time with me on my birthday, even when I don’t always want to celebrate it. It doesn’t matter that they may be five versus fifty. I have what I need right here.

Reminder

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Tomorrow, I turn 29. That’s one year closer to 30 for me, and the first full year gone by of being 28 and without a living brother. I spent about half of age 27 with Ed, none of age 28, and none of any future year will be spent with him alive.

It’s a weird feeling, to think that every year I am getting older, but every year, he stays the same age. Yes, in my head, each year I celebrate his birthday. Last year, I wished him a happy 35th birthday. But we all know he’s not getting any older. His age will remain the same forever. Thirty-three years and about 11 months, just one month shy of turning a ripe old 34 is him. Each year, my face will change, my body will change, and my hair will change. In four years, I will be the age he was when he died. I already know I will feel sick. I will think, Hey, Ed! It’s me! We’re the same age now! Who would have ever thought this would happen?!

Well, no one. It’s not normal to reach the same age as your older brother. It’s a void that always resurfaces when we get to his birthday, his death date, Christmas, and my birthday. Sadly, my birthday is another reminder every year that Ed is no longer here, and he’s the one person I know for certain will not be reaching out to me to say “happy birthday” ever again.

Wedding songs

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Since the engagement, I’ve been subscribing to different wedding websites and their daily/weekly updates. They’re supposed to be giving me ideas for what to do for my “big day.” While it has certainly done this, it’s also clogged my inbox full of a lot of ideas, thoughts, and sayings that really are either not helpful at all or are so obvious that I’d have to think that the majority of people who read this must be stupid to otherwise not know this stuff.

The latest “cool” email I’ve received is titled, “We’re calling the best wedding songs of 2015 now.” Why would anyone want to choose a wedding song that is supposed to be an “it” song of the year? I thought that the first dance wedding song was supposed to be a song that was special and meant something to that particular couple? If you have been together for at least two years, wouldn’t your song… be a bit older than the year you are getting married? Why would you want your wedding song to be something that is just “in” for the moment or the year? I’d hope it isn’t a reflection of your union..

“Hi.”

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I was thinking about Ed yesterday during all this wedding venue research, wondering how we are going to incorporate him into our day. And then last night, as though he’s been hiding from all the wedding research nonsense, he came back again in my dreams.

I enter a bright room, seemingly the room that I’d be in to get ready for my wedding day. There were large windows that allowed a lot of bright light to stream through. As I enter the room, I notice it’s a large round room with lots of people sitting and standing along the circumference, talking, getting ready, and adjusting their necklaces and ties. Ed is sitting by the doorway on a chair, and he’s adjusting the collar of his white button-down shirt. He has a tie hanging from his neck, and it looks like he’s about to put it on. He notices I am standing there looking at him, and he looks up and smiles at me.

“Hi,” he says to me.

“Hi,” I respond, not knowing what to say. I am confused because he is sitting there, alive and bright and smiling, and I was not expecting him. “You’re here…” I bend down and pull him into my chest. He doesn’t say anything and just hugs me back.

Bi-lingual/ESL courses in New York high schools

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I went to my first in-person session of a mentoring program I am doing for high school students tonight. The goal for this program is to get every single mentee into college. That may not seem like a big goal if you come from some privileged middle class background the way I did, but after I came here today, I realized why this goal would be so ambitious.

Every mentor is assigned with a mentee, and usually when you begin, you start with them when they are in the 9th grade and stay with them as a mentor through their 12th grade and final year. I knew my mentee’s English wasn’t amazing from the e-mail exchanges we’ve had, but when we spoke in person, I realized that she almost never speaks English. I asked her about her classes, and she said that every single class is taught in Spanish, as that’s her native language. How is this possible, I thought in my head. This is a public school in the U.S. How could every single one of her classes be taught in Spanish? “What about English class?” I asked her. “What language is that class taught in?” “Spanish,” she said. “English is taught in Spanish.”

So you get taught English in Spanish? I asked. “Yes,” she responded. “We mostly speak Spanish in English, but when we are reading text, we read in English.” No wonder her accent is so strong and she is so hesitant to speak in English. It’s because even in school, she doesn’t have any real place to just practice and speak in and be surrounded by English.

When I was learning French in high school, very little English was spoken in class. When we needed to figure out what a word meant, our French teacher spoke using French to explain what the word meant. In Chinese in college, especially in China, virtually no English was spoken. You learned Chinese by using Chinese and being forced to speak and listen to it.

I am so confused and sad now.

External caterers

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Now I know why a lot of people just suck it up and pay the per person head count for the venue they choose. I just found out how painful it can be to source an external caterer.

One place I am looking at has a “preferred external caterer” list. If you do not use one of these preferred vendors, you will be charged an extra $1,000 AUD just for them to be vetted to ensure that they have their food license and follow proper sanitation and food guidelines.

Some of these caterers do not offer alcohol. Some offer just beer and wine. What does that mean — I have to source my own alcohol? Oh, and then some don’t offer dessert table spreads and just do plated desserts (of course, this usually costs more). And if you choose external catering, the actual venue just charges you an insanely high “venue hire” fee, and all they will do is literally give you the space, tables, and cutlery (and the paper towels in the bathroom… yes, it’s that explicit and noted in the “what’s included?” section of the form. They won’t cut your cake. They certainly won’t serve it. And they will charge you a per-hour fee for added security. I guess hiring an external caterer increases the chance of crime?!

Getting lost

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One of the reasons I like the fact that I grew up in an urban area where people both drive and take relatively reliable public transit is that I grew up knowing the streets of the city I grew up in. I knew how to take the bus or train to places, and once I started driving, I knew what routes to take where. The fear I’ve had of having children in a suburban environment is that they would not be street smart. They’d inevitably be sheltered, not know what life was like outside their own neighborhood, and when brought into an urban area, feel lost and not know where the hell they are going.

Well today, I interviewed a prospective Wellesley student who commuted into Manhattan to meet me, and she waited for me at the wrong cafe location, even though I gave her a link which clearly noted the correct address with cross streets. When she realized she was at the wrong location after I texted her, she called me again to ask me which direction was uptown and downtown on the avenue she was standing at. When we finally met and sat down for her interview, she said that her parents had insisted on coming with her in case she would get lost, and she scoffed at them and said, “I’m 17 years old — I can get around New York City!”

Oh well.

St. Ann’s School

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After five months of waiting, my mentoring program finally started today. It’s a small program with no more than 15 mentors and 15 mentees, and so far, it looks like it will be a good setup. All the mentees are in fourth or fifth grade, so they are a relatively young bunch. I haven’t been matched with anyone yet since for the first 2-3 sessions, the program leader wants all mentors to get to know all mentees, particularly in the instance that a mentor or mentee can’t make a session. In that event, the absent mentor/mentee could be replaced with someone that s/he was familiar with.

The exercise we did today involved a method like speed dating, where all the mentors sat in one row and all the mentees sat in a row sitting across and facing them. We had five minutes with each mentee before the time was up, and they had to move to the seat to their right.

Like I imagined, there was a large range of personalities and social skills in the group of mentees. I had one mentee who was really mature for her age, and she’s already traveled quite a bit around the U.S. and in the Caribbean and was telling me about her travel experiences. Another mentee was so hard to crack that it ended up feeling more like a Q&A talking to him, but the answers part was just one or two word answers from him. Some had one sibling and others had seven siblings. Some knew where San Francisco is and some had never even heard of it. But they all had eager, happy faces.

That’s what I want. I want to be around kids and people who are hopeful, even if they are painfully shy or awkward or even annoying at times.

Cookbooks

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Today, a friend gifted me an Indian cookbook. It’s a bit different this time because he actually got it through a Kickstarter project that he funded, which I really appreciate.

I think that as someone who cooks, I am seen as someone who would appreciate cookbooks, and so as a result, I have received an endless number of cookbooks from everyone from my own relatives to even colleagues. A number of them are cookbooks that are better as coffee table cookbooks (i.e. you wouldn’t ever really cook using their recipes, but damn, the photos are great), and some of them are kind of dumbed down versions of the authentic cuisine that I am after when I am preparing food at home.

I’m hoping this cookbook is better than my other Indian cookbook, which was also a gift and written by a reputable Indian chef. In this cookbook, every time I used any of the recipes, I always had to either double or triple the amount of spices she recommended or add additional spices to make the dish taste “more Indian.” When this happens, you know that your source isn’t reliable… when you feel more Indian than the Indian chef you are trying to imitate.