New Plans in January

Let's start with events:

I arrived back in Cambridge in mid-January, after having spent an amazing 3.5 - 4 weeks in the US with friends and family, and a lovely evening in London with two of my close friends there.  They even showed me a great little happenin' vegan, local-foods place (cheap, too!): InSpiral Lounge.  Addicted, I'm telling you.  If I were in London...or if they had one in Cambridge...AH, it was amazing!

I'm the new LGBT(Q) Rep at my college for the postgrad community.  With the Cambridge University Student Union (CUSU) and its postgrad LGBT reps, I planned a Re-Fresher's Event in College.  The idea: queers and allies/friends come together over boardgames, ridiculous amounts of fresh vegan baked goods, tea, coffee and maybe some wine.  The result: phenomenal!  The best-attended CUSU LGBT event of the academic year so far (hurrah!)  All the rest are generally located at pubs and clubs, so it turns out lots of people are like me in that they would prefer conversation, low-key atmospheres and creature comforts to use as bonding, instead.  Friends from college and the university in general were there, as well as many new faces.  We also had 3+ dozen peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies (each), as well as uncountable amounts of chocolate fudge brownies (made with olive oil!): http://www.lovefoodeat.com/best-vegan-chocolate-fudge-brownie-ever/.  Everything was a success, though the brownies were a TOTAL experiment.  Glad they went well.

That same weekend, one of my London friends + one of my best college/Dev Studies friends and I all made plans for Spring Break.  We managed to grab cheap flights to/from Eastern Europe, and now our plans look like this: We'll be in Vienna for 4 nights, Prague for 5 nights, and then I'll be in Krakow (Poland) 3-4 nights with one of my best, best friends from my time in Amsterdam (she's from Sweden) and another one of my closest friends, a former housemate from Wesleyan who's been living in the city while working in a Jewish centre/museum.  After Krakow, my Swedish Amsterdam-friend and I will be in Warsaw for 2-3 nights.  So, I'll be off for 2 weeks + 1 day.  In April, my other best friend in Cambridge (whom I met at the London occupations) and I are going to try and head for Scotland for a small travel-stint.  Yay!  My close friend in college/my course and I are thinking of getting involved with some for-pay research studies around the area to help make us feel a bit more secure about our travel payments.  But I'm feeling pretty okay about the money because: a) everything was pretty cheap and we're going to do some CouchSurfing; and b) I'm eating ridiculous amounts of lentils and other beans, and saving so much money.  Hopefully I'll be able to instantly pay off all the incredible interest I'll have accumulated (once the pounds are converted back to USD).  It's a bit of a shock--I thought my loans actually might not cover me... so this is clearly a welcome surprise.  I hope it doesn't go to my head; I need to maintain that surplus!!!

Speaking of my friends: it's my close college/course friend's birthday today.  She didn't even tell me until last night, when I happened to ask her off-hand about her birthdate.  She turns 25 and is starting to feel old due to all the European youth discounts expiring once people turn 26!  (Silly, silly).  I made her pancakes (get it? pan-CAKES!) with peanut butter & chocolate chunks (from the Trader Joe's bars!  thank you!) for her birthday this morning, since we're both finishing our 5000 word essays for one of our papers (classes) that's due tomorrow by 1pm. Tomorrow I will make her a proper cake (as a surprise, of course) and we'll watch movies to celebrate.  Then I have another 4000 word essay on technical macroeconomics due next Monday.  Whew!

Also speaking of friends + coursemates, as soon as I came back, one of my adorable acquaintance-friends here approached me at a mutual friend's birthday party to tell me she'd bought me a homemade skirt when back at home in the mountains of Thailand over break.  It's SO PRETTY!  I love it and wear it...umm...every two days or so...

Today I spent 1.5 - 2 hours on our new college vegetable garden next to my residence, and that was really, really nice.  I'm glad to be integrating into my college community, and not just with my coursemates and other friends I've made through scattered channels.  Plus a lot of them are British!  That's nice.

I am hosting my first CouchSurfer for 2-3 nights in mid-February, by the way.  Yay!  I can't wait.  I've never hosted before.  I feel like giving back since I don't want to just take, and plus I don't even have any roommates (or housemates, even, since it's just a dorm-y apartment).  As long as the surfer understands they'll be staying on my floor, I'm fine.  And I don't like the idea that someone would be in Cambridge and unable to stay anywhere, so I'd like to be there as a back-up, emergency couch if someone really needed it.

I didn't technically make any New Year's Resolutions, by the way, because I've always, always felt weird about them--they feel so contrived; what an artificial timer, what an imposed sense of self-reflection.  It's not a natural state; it's weird.  Anyway, but I think that conveniently, I've happened to make several new decisions for myself around the same time as the changing of the year according to both the Western & Chinese calendars.  Among these 'resolutions' are: 1) be more spontaneous and flexible; 2) learn increased intuition from that, and speak more honestly; 3) be happy with whatever comes to me; 4) never follow anyone else's path, not even to make them happy.  Freedom is key.  I know this.  If I want to travel, or even hitchhike, or CouchSurf, or just be anywhere in the world that I want to be, then I do it.  It's mine.  I don't want to answer to other people's imposed obligations on me.  This leads into 4a) surround myself purposefully: that is, have exactly whom I want around me, in both core and peripheral circles--be intentional with myself, my time, my priorities and my spaces.  This leads into 5) I hope, as always, always, always to decrease the level of fear I constantly live in, in really background, subconscious ways.  I want to come to terms with rejection (with grad school applications have necessarily caused me to confront more directly; I feel like I've become calmer, more grounded and more humble just by having gone through this process), the idea that plans won't go through (even in small ways, like flights being re-arranged, or so forth), and just the general idea that things I want are beyond me or something for another day--or simply too risky.  I don't want to be afraid.

Love, and happy almost-February!

xoxo

Miranda

Various Holiday Festivities

Hello friends & family!

I'm back in the US now, been here for going on 3 weeks. I left the UK on the 15th, right after I woke up early to call my airline and ask to push back my return flight until the 10th of January. Granted, I wasn't planning on it being the 10th. I was planning on it being...oh, the 2nd. The 3rd. Maybe the 4th or 5th. But they told me it'd be cheaper, so I did it.

I got home and spent a lovely 2 weeks with my family, including my 5 amazing cats and my 2 loving grandparents and aunt & uncle who all came down for the holidays. We had Solstice, Christmas and Chanukah (roughly) together and it was fantastic. It didn't snow (except in Cambridge, which happened for 2 days, the day after I left...just as in Amsterdam!) but we had a rosy, cosy time.

On the 31st, my fams took me into DC where I caught a cheap bus up to NYC. We arrived in 3 1/2 hours--I kid you not--and then, there I was! I stayed with a friend in lower Brooklyn for 2 days before peacing out again for Connecticut on the 2nd, with three really truly awesome Wesleyan friends. My time in New York wasn't simply a limbo, period, though, as I spent it chillaxin' with my best friends from Wesleyan who happened to be exactly in the area, exactly during the dates I was there, and also with my close, dear aunt who came in with her boyfriend to spend some time (and a lovely vegan lunch!) with me. New Year's Eve was spent on the promenade in Brooklyn watching fireworks from both left and right cascade over downtown Manhattan.

I'm now staying off-campus in some of my friends' houses and looking forward to one of my other Wesleyan bffs to come back to town tomorrow (for which I cannot wait!).  Food Not Bombs, the love of my LIFE!, is happening on Sunday as always, and I really can't wait to be there. I have longed after Middletown FnB since leaving and it's the biggest treat of my life to be here again for that.

And then back to Cambridge :)  I'm feeling exceptionally good about that, since I miss all of my friends there, I miss skipping with them, I miss them playing various instruments and speaking many languages. I miss us experimenting with vegan dinner nights (without even such exotic substances as tofu, seitan, tempeh or soy protein). I hope it will snow. I'm looking forward to doing my work (!!!!), which I'm starting here. I want to get to know my professors better. I'm excited about our new Centre for Development Studies and moving into our new building closer to my abode on Sidgwick Street. I want to see Spring come to Cambridge. I want to come back to the UK eventually. I want to hear back from grad schools and see if maybe I should start looking for a job; I'm looking forward to planning out my life and also continuing to learn spontaneity. I want to plan a hitchhiking / cheap-bussing trip down to NC to see some Wes friends who are on an awesome intentional community organic farm there. I want to farm with them. I want to help with the Corpus Christi garden/farm that's just being planned. I'm looking forward to sinking into my duties as the new LGBTQ Rep on the Corpus MCR (Middle Common Room, the postgrad rep committee). I want to be awesome. I'm excited about my life!

And so Happy New Year('s) to all!  xoxo :)

Me