It’s been a year since I started blogging, and in that time I’ve:
- had 1,000 cups of tea (give or take a few);
- posted at least once a week in all but 4 of the past 52 weeks;
- written 142 posts about my year abroad;
- taken 13 trips around Europe;
- and, hopefully, been interesting enough to merit the 20K+ views I’ve earned.
The question now is… What next?
Answer: I’m not sure myself. I graduated from the LSE in July, traveled around Switzerland, roadtripped with the fam to Cape Cod, caught up with friends in New York, and finally made it to the Bay area. I am quite happily funemployed at present, applying to jobs, cooking and baking and making milkshakes, watering B’s garden, doing yoga, going biking and hiking and generally trying to enjoy this as much as I possibly can. Unemployment can be incredibly stressful, so I’m just focusing on the fact that once I have a job, I won’t have what is currently my one commodity: time.
That is, in addition to time, I am incredibly blessed to have the absolutely immense generosity of friends: R&B I can’t thank you enough; A&N you two are so thoughtful; L&K and A thanks for welcoming me to SF; E thankyousosomuch for trusting me with your car! (Besides that one time I almost left-turned into the left lane because England got me all mixed up, I’m happy to report there have been no mishaps.)
Next question.. What happens to the blog?
Again, not quite sure, but I’m determined to keep it up. In many ways, blogging has made me push myself harder than I would otherwise. Today, for instance, I was exhausted after hosting an epic 10-hour-long birthday party yesterday, so I was tempted to stay home while my friends went hiking. But I told myself that there might be some good photos along that hike, so I dragged myself off the couch. And I’m so glad I did.
Question three… Did you say, “epic 10-hour-long bday party”?
Why, yes! One of the things I miss most about London is afternoon tea. So for my birthday, I invited friends over for tea, scones with jam and clotted cream, and cucumber sandwiches. All of it was homemade except for the jam, and even homegrown thanks to B’s vegetable garden!
A made fresh-picked cucumber and basil sandwiches. I did my best to make scones using A(b)’s grandmother’s recipe, but converting grams and millilitres to cups is always tricky. Mostly played this by ear.
The scones turned out okay, whew! I also made clotted cream using this recipe, but I went easy on the sour cream as it’s a bit overpowering.
I invited the girls to come over at 2pm, as tea is kind of a dainty affair; the boys would join at 4pm for board games. Umm we ran out of scones and sandwiches so I put out some chips and beer for the guys:
Puhahaha. Guys, if you’re reading this… sorry. We totally underestimated how much food we would need!
From 4pm until 12.30am, we played:
- 4-7pm. Pictionary-phone, which is just about my favorite party game ever. It’s a combination of pictionary and telephone. How it works: each person holds a stack of cards, which go around the circle simultaneously (so everyone is writing or drawing at the same time). The first person writes a word or phrase, and the next person draws it; s/he then passes the drawing to the next person, who has to write down what s/he thinks the drawing depicts; who passes it on to the next person, and so on. It’s outrageous. Here’s one round:
“Thank you” is depicted through ways a person might give thanks…
The next person guesses the different scenarios represent “yes, no or maybe,” which elicits a pretty reasonable drawing…
Which then becomes multiple choice questions…. which then becomes.. sperm?!?! I was the last person in this round, so I had to look at the above drawing and figure out what it meant. My guess:
- 7-10pm. Mafia. Ready, vote!
- 10-12.30am. Four on a couch. Trying to think of another game to play, I only remembered the title of this game, and the fact that I had played it once in college. The only thing I remembered about the game at all was having an absolute riot. But I’m so glad it occurred to me, because once we figured out how to play, we again had an absolute riot!
In sum? I’ll keep blogging, if you’ll keep reading. Thanks for traveling with me thus far!
—
Related posts:
Milestones: Rediscovering My Inner Introvert
Milestones
