Pre-July 4 Week

Oxymoronic observations about blogging:
1. The more free time you have for blogging, the less material you have to blog about. It's an inconvenient inverse relation, but not one I've faced this summer.
2. The more life you live, the less time you have for recording it. An opposite situation with a similar outcome.
3. The longer you wait to blog, the less you find yourself able to remember stories to blog about (yet another unfortunate thing).

Not really sure if those add up but it's the #truth.

Another observation is that I get overwhelmed/stressed when it's been more than a few days since my last blog post. I become tempted to over-summarize and/or I worry about forgetting important details or stories. But whatyagonnado. Too busy YOLOing to blog about it, that's a problem I'll take any day.

But in a cut to the chase:

Last week I didn't have Slow Food work; they close the office for the week of July 4. So I got Monday off, but I had to go in to the City Harvest office on Thursday instead of Friday due to the holiday. SFUSA closing that week was actually convenient because otherwise I would have had to ask off work that Thursday due to the switched-up CH schedule, if you're still following that. So Monday was chill but the rest of the week flew by, leaving me scrambling to pack for DC in a rush and leaving my blog thus sadly neglected.

Anyway, quick summary of the week:

Monday I met with Charles Buice, the president of the Tiger Foundation, which shares the same benefactor (Julian Robertson) as the Robertson Scholarship, which pays for my college. His foundation gives grants to a lot of cool nonprofits, so it was neat talking to him about his work and sharing some of my ideas about starting a community development program in my hometown of Tarboro.

Tuesday I led a grocery store tour with two single dads who were touchingly concerned about feeding their families healthily. Even though the tour group was so small, it was still really meaningful and rewarding to me because I knew these men had a lot of influence over their entire families.

setup in the grocery store for my tour participants

posters at a senior center — woo community outreach!

That evening, I volunteered for several hours at the Summer Fancy Food Show, the largest marketplace of specialty foods and beverages in North America. It was a volunteer event offered through City Harvest, designed to rescue for donation all the leftover gourmet food that had been displayed at the show. I was a little disappointed that we weren't allowed into the main hall until after vendors had already started breaking down their booths; also we weren't allowed to eat anything. But it was still cool to see the tail end of the event and participate in the rescue efforts. I also caught the overtime portion of the Belgium-USA game just in time to see USA get eliminated from the World Cup.  :(

the conference center that held the Fancy Food Show was massive

some 200 volunteers to help rescue leftover food from the show — waiting for the show to end so we could swoop in and do our rescuing ~

Wednesday was another nutrition tour day, this one in Bed-Stuy. Sagar came over to my apartment later and we made a delicious sauteed eggplant dish for dinner.

After the normal end-of-week meetings in the City Harvest office on Thursday, I caught a 2 p.m. bus from NY to DC! My roommate Ellie was supposed to take the same bus as me, but took the subway from work in the wrong direction and didn't notice until it was almost at the end of the line. She called me from deep in Brooklyn right before our bus left Manhattan. I immediately started searching online for other buses available that afternoon, but she decided to just jump on a train instead, telling me that she might even arrive in DC before me — not so. About halfway there, her train hit a fallen tree and lost electricity. She waited at a standstill for a couple hours before getting shepherded onto an equally full train headed in the same direction, on which she stood in the aisle for two more hours until they finally arrived at 11 p.m. — four hours after my bus. But this is very typical for Ellie.

While I waited for Ellie to arrive, I got dinner at Union Station and did my online class assignment for the day. When I realized how late it would be before she got there, I got in touch with her friend with whom we were originally supposed to eat dinner and found my way to her apartment at George Washington University. On the public bus between Union Station and GW, I was befriended by a large crowd of fraternity "men" who were in DC for a frat conference. It was like being on a camp bus, with all the singing and joking around.

my delicious Union Station dinner, from a Mediterranean place called Roti that DC loves

Ellie's friend (whom I had never met before) was super friendly, and I enjoyed hanging out with her and her roommates until Ellie arrived. The three of us then went out and found our Duke friends at a nearby bar. After a short time, Ellie and I went home with the Duke guys and crashed on couches in their apartment.

For context: all the Duke people I hung out with that weekend were friends from Maxwell, the selective living group I joined during my semester at Duke last spring. A lot of Duke graduates move to DC, and current students and alumni alike all converge on DC for the Fourth every year. This was my first time joining the festivities, as I was in Argentina last summer.

bonus pic: a delicious pesto meal I made myself last week!

extra bonus pic: a market in downtown Manhattan. adding to the list of why I love NYC...

Weekend 4: Parks and Bars Galore

What a weekend!!!

Friday, I more or less had the day off. I need to get some work for Slow Food done over the next week or so, but I didn't need to do it on Friday so I mostly took the day for myself. I went to Queens to put up posters in my grocery store and to meet with a woman at a nonprofit financial advising agency that works towards economic equality. The woman seemed to like the idea of the nutrition tours, and agreed to talk to her clients about signing up for one.

After running, I met up with Joanna at Bryant Park where we watched a couple of dance troupes rehearse for a performance that evening. At 5:30 I went to a free open rooftop bar at the Empire Hotel — no catch! You only had to RSVP online in advance. I met up with some of the friends I made at the 21st birthday party last weekend and really enjoyed hanging out with them more. We went to a different bar when the open bar ended, and then I headed out to find Emily celebrating her 21st.

with Joanna in Bryant Park 

"Do you ever dream you're flying? I wish I could dance like that because then I could know what flying felt like." -Joanna 

red carpet photos at the rooftop bar

*~*~paparrazzi~*~*
[photo belongs to Yasamin Haghshenas]

the view from the bar 

My phone had already died by 7 p.m., so I looked up directions on a friend's phone and wrote it down on a piece of paper. Despite having had three drinks without eating, I managed to navigate myself to the bar where Emily and her friends were supposed to be — but they had left just five minutes before I got there. So then I borrowed the bartender's phone to look up directions to the restaurant where we were supposed to go next. I was proud of myself for finding that one, too (having gone from the upper west side to the lower east side back up to somewhere between those two). A couple of circuits through the tables and bar area determined that the group definitely wasn't there. I waited by the door for half an hour before deciding they definitely weren't coming. The kind host, though he was clearly very busy seating people, took pity on me and let me borrow his phone to log on Facebook. I saw that Emily had messaged the group saying there wasn't space at that restaurant so they were eating somewhere else. A semi-desperate message ("hi I'm stranded with no phone please tell me where you are!") and a few minutes later, I got a response the name of the restaurant where they had gone instead. I looked up directions for that place (still on the restaurant host's phone) and then sent a quick reply: "Okay I'm walking there now please don't leave before I get there!!!"

After a 15 minute walk I was finally united with the group I had chased all over lower Manhattan. After some great Spanish tapas, we walked to a different bar before all going home. I love meeting all these friends-of-friends because everyone I talk to is super friendly and interesting! I've also been lucky to meet several Duke and UNC students who I know I'll be able to see/hang out with in the future.

with Ellie at Emily's 21st birthday dinner

I slept in Saturday, went running then worked on my online class for a couple of hours. Then I met up with Sagar (the one who turned 21 last weekend) for some Frisbee in the park. We ended up walking the entire length of the park, including one super fun pit stop to sail a remote-controlled sailboat on a pond! Then we made dinner together — mostly he made dinner, a delicious tomato-chickpea dish.

Central Park Sailing Club

delicious chole dinner

That night I met up with Ellie at a different free open bar, this one much more club-like with neon lights and loud music. Then Ellie and I went to her friend's apartment for a little while. It wasn't a big night but I was still out super late just because it takes so long to get around the city.

Liberty Theater: free open bar #2

This morning I went to the Pride March downtown. So fun. I love all the bright colors and high energy and glitter and music and dancing! I know a lot of my family and friends are opposed to homosexuality on a biblical basis, but I think the most important thing to remember is that people are people are people. The Bible's key message above all else is love, and so I think respect for people who choose a different lifestyle than you is mandated simply by our shared humanity both from a Christian perspective and a secular one. I was happy to be there supporting acceptance of all people regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

acceptance matters!

Chickens~restaurants~markets

The highlight of my week thus far:

holding a chicken at the Bed-Stuy Farm

Monday: Instead of going to the Slow Food office, I walked around Manhattan looking for restaurants to shoot magazine photos in. I visited a dozen places and collected eight business cards for emailing managers. As I walked, I was self-guided by a pretty kick@ss map I made that includes a point for each of the restaurants awarded the "Snail of Approval" by the NYC chapter of Slow Food for use of sustainably-sourced ingredients. I spent a couple of hours in the afternoon completing assignments for my online class, in a cafe that had neon green walls and was frequented almost exclusively by Asians.

My favorite photos from shooting at the Union Square greenmarket:

Later I walked with my friend Emily (who I met through Ellie my first or second week) to see a free opera in Central Park. By the time we got there, though, it had already started and the gates were closed. So we found a spot among the other opera-rejects grouped on a nearby rock and tried to listen from there. We didn't catch much of the performance but enjoyed the atmosphere nonetheless and probably absorbed some culture by osmosis or something.

Tuesday: Yet again my first grocery store was rescheduled last-minute, this time because the woman coordinating the participants got her dates mixed up. We'll hopefully be able to do it next week instead. My partner Sai and I spent the day walking around Long Island City/Astoria, forging more community partnerships for tour recruitment. I went to the City Harvest office in Midtown that afternoon to make some phone calls and catch up on email, then attended a session where my supervisor made a presentation about his work setting up my internship program. I think I'd enjoy doing something like that.

waiting outside my door for the super to come because I locked my keys and wallet inside my apartment when rushing out for work Tuesday morning

Wednesday: My first tour! I led two women around the Bed-Stuy grocery store where I work with Rick. This tour was in English, which was good for my first time. Both women seemed to enjoy it, and I definitely did. That afternoon, Rick and I made friends at a local bakery where I got to sample some awesome sweet potato pound cake. We also spent a solid hour at the Bed-Stuy Farm, where I got to hold a chicken!!!

delicious sweet potato pound cake at Sweet Lee's Bakery

here's the chicken picture again because it makes me so happy

After another few hours in a cafe doing my online class, I met up with my friend Carson for happy hour in Midtown. I hadn't seen her since last fall, so it was great catching up.

Thursday: I'd normally be in the Slow Food office, but because City Harvest is closed tomorrow they had us in the office for meetings today instead. I'll just work from home for Slow Food tomorrow instead. Today is my CH internship coordinator's last day, which is sad because I've enjoyed working with him and now we'll have to adjust to a different supervisor.

In the office today there was an abundance of free food, including fruit salad and chocolate cupcakes (for each of which I was equally excited).

I went running for the first time in more than a week, an absolute necessity to combat the accumulating slothy feeling.

I'll never get tired of this