It's been a few weeks!

So, I talked to Kristyn today and she pointed out that it's been a while since I wrote in here.

It's because I...

started another blog :( I feel so ashamed and yet HAPPY because I like the other blog too! It's fun to write in...but in a different way. In this blog I can write about what's really going on in my life and share more personal things. But in the other blog I can be creative and explore different topics. They both have their pros and cons. But I can't just ignore this one. At least not yet.

So the past few weeks have gone by quickly which is probably why I forgot to write in here.

Let's see...

My boss went on vacation to Argentina a few weeks ago which made work really nice. It's not that I don't like my boss or that she isn't a good boss. Because she is. She's just high maintenance sometimes and she stresses me out when she's stressed. Seriously. I feel like she tries to stress me out. So it's nice when she's out of the office because I can just sit quietly at my desk without worrying about her, and I can go visit my friends at their offices more without wondering if she'll come to find me to give me something stupid to do when I'm away from my desk.

I've been doing some stuff for the education department at work for the past two weeks which is actually nice. I feel like they really appreciate my help. And I feel like the work they give me to do is directly related to JNF and is useful...as opposed to the work my boss gives me which is mostly irrelevant ('becky, can you look up the prices of dumbells for the CEO? he's starting personal training classes and i need to buy him some workout equipment'-that's not my job!). I got to do some work with <3 Ira which was nice. Though he's really bad at explaining things. And I'm helping Erin to copy checks, and I helped Debbie send out some e-mails. I'm a Jack-of-All-Trades! And now I get an alternative spring break SWEATSHIRT! SWEET! I love FREE sweatshirts!

The weeks all kind of blend together as sad as that sounds. But it's not a bad thing. I just have a routine here...so there's not much that changes from week to week, except the weekends. I usually stay in a few nights a week and try to do dinner/drinks the other nights. Last week Erin, Deb, Miriam, Mara and I went out for drinks one night. And then another night we all went downtown with some of Debbie's other friends for Trivia at a bar. WE WON! There were 6 rounds of trivia, each with 10 questions, and about 20 teams playing. We got the most points
(I think it was the round of 'Seinfeld' trivia that gave us the win)...incase you didn't understand that that's how people win trivia. :)

The weekend of February 16th Jon and Co. had a big Brandeis reunion in New York. So I took part in that and it was a lot of fun. Jon has so many friends! Sometimes it's kind of annoying but other times it's really fun to get a big group of people together to go out to dinner or drinks. There are so many people to talk to-how can you get bored? So, Jon has a lot of friends in NYC and I got to see all of them. We hung out in Dave K.'s apartment on the upper west side for a while...it's a really cool apartment. A few blocks away from central park and near lots of cute little restaurants. It feels more 'new york' over where he lives than where I live in Astoria. We did Thai dinner and drinks downtown one night, then the next day hung out and took a walk. Then we did dinner by Times Square which was fun. I got to re "meet" Jackie, Jon's girlfriend. I actually LIKED her a lot! We got along so well! I think this is the official sign that I'm over Jon. I didn't care about them PDA-ing or talking about their relationship or anything! Also, I get along really with Dave K. and Dan L. so I think I'm going to try to hang out with them on my own since they both live in the city :)

The weekend of the 23 I was sick...gross. I feel like I've been getting colds and stuff lately. I don't like it! The city is just so dirty and everyone seems to always be getting sick...how can I avoid that really? So, I hung out in my apartment a lot and got a hair cut (I'd already had it scheduled). I went over to Debbie's one night with Erin and Mara and we had pizza and then went over to Gabby's for a little get-together. We kind of stuck together and got bored so we left early...which was fine since I wasn't feeling well.

Last weekend I went home which was nice. But again, I was kind of sickish. I had a slight fever but still managed to do a few things. I went outlet shopping with my mom, had lunch/went shopping with my brother, slept since I wasn't feeling well, had some delicious fondue for dinner one night...
It was a nice, relaxing, family weekend. And I got to see my cats which made me very happy.

I can't write anymore.

Atlantic City with Jon this weekend?

Things that have been going on lately...

So I guess I've been kind of busy lately. It's nice being busy and having things to do. It makes time go by really quickly!

First of all, I had a busy week last week. I went to a free movie screening of an Israeli film called 'The Band's Visit' at the Manhattan JCC with Kate. The movie was really funny and it was nice to spend time with Kate and go to a new place (the JCC). Another night after work, I had dinner with Erin and her family and THEN, ANOTHER NIGHT, I volunteered for the first time! I was an English speaking partner with a nice lady from the Dominican Republic :) Is it bad that I can't remember her name? IT was really rewarding to be able to help her with her pronunciation of things and to do something for someone else. I think about myself too much.

But anyway, more about me now ;)

Last weekend I went to Temple again (on Friday night) with Erin, Debbie and Jason. We went back to the Lesbian/Gay/Transgender synagogue and I actually ran into someone I know there-Adam (my nana's best friend's grandson). He's gay...I wonder if he thinks I'm a lesbian now? After services we all went back to Astoria and had DELICIOUS CHEESE FONDUE. We did fondue in college a few times and it was great. This fondue was even better though. Jason's a really good cook so he was able to put in all these awesome seasonings and MMM.

Saturday, I met up with Elizabeth from study abroad in Paris and we went to The Cloisters museum and then did dinner. I had such a great time! I haven't spent one on one time with her since May 2006...so we had a lot of catching up to do! We joked around and I found that I didn't really have to "think of things" to talk about wit her. We had plenty to talk about and the time passed really quickly. One of my favorite things was taking the bus down from 190th St. to 100th St. where we had dinner. I think buses are a great way to learn about a city. It's sightseeing without the effort and title of it.

Saturday night, Erin, Debbie and I went to Gabby's apartment in Astoria (where else. It's so nice that we all live here!) and had a few drinks and talked. It was a lot of fun to have silly girl time. It made me miss my friends though...

Remember playing MASH in the berks last year?

Sunday, Josh came to see my apartment for the first time. We had a really nice time. He seems to be in better spirits now which is good. He was telling me about some NEW FRIENDS he made at work which makes me really happy. I want him to have friends! We went grocery shopping, then to this little cafe across the street from my apartment-so cute. There was live music!!

Last night, I had dinner with my cousin Chris downtown. He goes to NYU and lives right in Chinatown so we went for Chinese food! It was delicious and fun to see Chris and hear him talk about what he's doing in school and his life at NYU. I'm really happy that he went to NYU. I think he's learned a lot and gotten to break outside his bubble. I'm also glad that he and I get along as friends. We've never hung out just the two of us so it's nice to know that we can do dinner or coffee or go to a concert together and have fun :)

And tonight, it's snowing! It's really pretty to be in the city when it's snowing. I almost slipped a few times but whatever. I was happy to come home after work today (and after going to the post office-what a crazy place. The woman working wouldn't let me use her pen and kept saying that I'd filled things our incorrectly so she kept making me get out of line to correct things! IT WAS REALLY ANNOYING! Not to mention the fact that I waited in line 15 minutes to begin with) and watch an episode of Heroes, cook a delicious pizza (cheese with brocoli and sliced tomatoes...mmmm) and hang out now. I might watch an episode of 'Weeds' now and then go to bed.

A little complaining

So, I am doing really well. And so far, I've had a pretty good weekend. But I just want to complain/rant for a little bit because I think writing out what's bothering me might help me to digest it more and get over it.
********************
I just wrote this whole entry and thought it seemed stupid so I erased it. But I still think that it would help me to write about my angst therefore I'll recap, briefly, what's bothering me. I like a guy at work named Ira. I'm not sure if it's because I think he's cute, or that he's a good person, or because he's just there, but I like him. I talk to Ira sometimes at my desk, or at lunch, or at work meetings and that makes me happy. But I feel that Ira pays much more attention to my friend Erin, the administrative assistant for his department, than he does to me. To make matters worse I can't confide in my friend Erin about the situation.

I can't tell Erin that I like Ira because it would make work awkward. I can't tell anyone at work that I like Ira because it would make work awkward.

Erin goes out to happy hour with Ira and Ira calls Erin to hang out. This makes me feel sad.

I want Ira to call me to hang out and to take an interest in me.

And he isn't/doesn't.

I realize that I can't make anyone like me. And I realize that I'm a good person and Ira not liking me doesn't mean I'm not special, or fun, or cute, or that I am worthless. I just am frustrated about the whole situation and the secrecy of my feelings and the fact that Erin talks about Ira frequently. I also feel frustrated because irrationally I want Erin to invite me when she hangs out with Ira. I want to be included. But, Erin is not obligated to me and doesn't have to invite me to hang out with her if she doesn't want to. If Erin wants to spend one-on-one time with Ira she's more than entitled to.

It still bothers me.

I'll write an entry tomorrow recapping tangible things that have happened to me.

The Giants Win!

So today is the 'morning after' a few things:

The SUPERBOWL
and
MY WEEKEND WITH ANDREA

Both went really well :)

Andrea came into town Friday night, around 7:30. It was raining and really cold AND really windy (a person can only take so much bad weather at once!) but we made the best of it. We went over to Debbie/Jason's and played games and talked. It was really nice :) We had some wine and cheese (the cheese was especially delicious!) and margaritas (I actually didn't have wine but had one margarita instead. Otherwise-EW. wine and margaritas in the same sitting?)

Saturday, we did SERIOUS shopping. I had heard about a big target/mall near my apartment so I looked it up online and Andrea and I went. WOW. The more I learn about my neighborhood the more I love it! It really does have everything! So now, in addition to having NY&Co./Modells/Gap/Victoria's Secret/Payless/Starbucks 5 minutes from my apartment, I also have TWO BIG MALLS 5 subway stops away!

Consequently, Andrea and I spent four hours shopping at: H&M, Target, Macy's, Daffy's, Famous Footwear (got two pairs of shoes for $22!). It was a lot of fun :) And it's good to know that there's a target so closeby. I can't live without target.

We made dinner together (a delicious pizza with brocoli and tomatos MMMM) and then got ready to go out. We met Kate at a bar downtown in the east village for drinks-hooray! Considering the fact that I live in Queens it really doesn't take that long for me to get from my apartment to downtown Manhattan. It was probably 30 minutes door to door! Which makes it really easy to go out at night. Though, none of the trains near my house run at night...so not perfectly easy.

We had a good time at drinks. We went to one bar called "telephones" which has British telephone booths as the entrance and is really neat inside. The drinks weren't that great there though. So then we went to a little pub a few blocks away and had cider, and shots :) I really LOVE alcoholic cider! It's so much better than beer!

We got home not too late, around 1:30, and went to bed. Sunday morning was pretty relaxing. Andrea was working a news story for her internship and I read and watched TV while she did that. Then we walked around near my apartment, got some bagels (there is a bagel place about 10 sts. away that has the BEST bagels! They're warm and gooey...MMM. I could kind of go for one right now) Then we went and got Andrea's ears pierced (she got a second hole), back to my apartment, and off to Erin's sister Mara's apartment for a superbowl party!

Well, the party was pretty funny. There were about 15/20 people, 2 TVs, 2 "viewing rooms" and lots of food. The TVs were off from each other, so one room was watching the game 5 seconds ahead. I was in the room with the slower TV, so we'd be watching the game, then hear big cheers from next door, and then see a good play/bad play happen. It kind of ruined the suspense of the game but I don't really care about football so it didn't matter to me. One of Mara's sister's fiance's co-workers stumbled into our room DRUNK. And then proceeded to have 8 more beers. And spill all over the place and not clean up. And then CLEAR AWAY OUR FOOD as we're eating it. You can't clean up your huge spills but you can take away our food as we're eating it?

So Andrea, Debbie, Jason and I are sitting there laughing hysterically as this guy tries to talk about the Giant's strategy with us. He couldn't put two coherent words together.

I mean, as it was we were already sitting in a room without food, with a delay on our TV, to have this drunk guy there was just so ridiculous. But annoying. But also funny. And then his friend came in to sit with us and just kept screaming "GOD DAMNIT-GO BABY GO". He probably said that 80 or 90 times. Tourettes?

So finally these guys leave our room...

And then we hear a tap on the window and he's STANDING OUTSIDE LOOKING IN AT US. WEIRD!

The game ended. We went back to my apartment and Andrea worked on her story some more. Went to bed...woke up and she left. It was really nice having her-not weird at all like I thought it might be. We had a lot to talk about. We laughed a lot. We did some fun barhopping and shopping. Ate some good food.

All in all a good weekend!

Pictures of my room

First things first, a pic of me from Christmas! Yay!
A view of my street and my house. The first brick house on the left is chez moi <3
Another view of my street taken from my balcony (can't wait til it's warm out!)
Across the street (notice how none of the houses look the same? What's up with that?)
The view from my window. That's the empire state building on the left! It's actually really pretty but my camera wasn't too good at capturing it. Time for a new camera?
One shot of my room (purple and green are my "it" colors this year)
Another angle of my room. See my cool postcard thing on the wall? And my pretty bookshelves from home? Also, my grandfather made that lamp!
My closet and my bathroom. Cute :)

My week so far

This week feels like it's been really long...even though I've only worked two full days and it's Friday morning. It feels like it should be next Thursday or something.

After my nice, day off on Monday I headed back to work on Tuesday. Things were going really well. The "young people" in the office had planned an ice-skating outing for Tuesday night, I was all excited to get to spend some time with Ira outside of the office building, I was wearing my new sweater from Old Navy, Ira im'd me in the morning to ask me about my day off...and then he sang to me over im... (I might be making this sound more romantic than it was. The song was "Lucky" by Britney Spears but I still thought it was cute) Then we had a celebration in the afternoon for the Jewish holiday Tu B'Shevat (Jewish Earth Day)...Ira sat next to me...the people in my office are really weird/random. It was fun/funny.

And then ice skating was cancelled and pushed to Wednesday. Fine. Debbie and I went for drinks in Astoria and had fun and everything was OK. I told the bartender that I wanted to try something new so she made me an 'Alabama Slammer' which I LOVED! It had orange juice, cranberry juice, amaretto and southern comfort...with a cherry on top! MMM.

I went home and watched 'Heroes' with my roommate Jamie (So, I got her to start watching it so that I could have someone to watch it with and so I could watch it in the livingroom on the big TV without feeling like I was being a TV hog...and now I think she likes the show more than I do!), went to bed...

I woke up at 4 am with HORRIBLE stomach cramps. I couldn't sleep. I felt like I needed to throw up but I wasn't throwing up...I was just nauseous and ugh. I guess I fell back asleep and I woke up at 7 to my alarm. I showered. I sort of stood around...decided to get dressed...called my mom and asked her if I should go to work...decided to go to work...(I had my interview for the marketing assistant position anyway so I really wanted to go in)


I had my interview for the marketing assistant position. Which took 5 minutes and basically consisted of the marketing director at JNF telling me that I haven't been working here long enough for her to consider me for the position but that she's "really glad that I'm interested in working for her department and now that she knows I'm interested she'll keep me in mind for job openings in the future. She was really nice about it but I just felt sick anyway and then I was rejected. I walked back to my desk and sat there trying not to cry. I had a strong feeling that I hadn't been here long enough to be promoted but it still felt bad to be rejected for something that I wanted.

I ended up going home early and sleeping for most of the day. I woke up around 6:30, got some gatorade from the RITE-AID two blocks away, watched TV and went to bed at 10:00. Thursday I woke up feeling much better, went to work and...

MY NEW IPOD WAS WAITING FOR ME :) I was so excited to get it! It's silver-so pretty! Skinny, beautiful display-I couldn't wait to bring it home! Luckily, Debbie has an IPOD charger that she keeps at work so I was able to charge the ipod at work.

So last night I, obviously, set the IPOD up! It's official name is 'baby' like the TLC show 'Bringing home Baby'. I don't know why I thought of that name but I just felt like my new ipod was a little baby being brought home for the first time last night :) I have about 7,000 songs on it and I'll put more on later but in the meantime, for my trip to DC, it'll do.

And finally, to end this long, eventful, been sick and now feeling better, flirting with Ira and now he's out of the office, watching 'Heroes' and being tired week, I'm going to DC! It was Gerardo's birthday yesterday and it's Vanessa's birthday tomorrow so I'm hoping to celebrate with both of them. And possibly see Melissa? I'm staying with Jon tonight near Union Station and then heading over to Julia's NEW apartment in Arlington tomorrow night. Doing dinner with Giuliana, Jason, Erin, Jeremy, Julia and Adam tomorrow night. Possibly seeing my boss, Mike, from my internship? Heading back to New York on Sunday afternoon.

Nap on the bus down to DC? yessss

Playing hookie!

I took today off from work! It's the first personal day that I've taken in over 4 months-and it feels really good. I did laundry, slept in a little and am now working on decorating my room.

To recap:
I had a pretty good weekend. Friday night Katelyn and Alex came to see my apartment. We went out to dinner/drinks too. I was glad to have them come and check out Astoria...though Katelyn was being a bit of a downer. I really don't think she smiled at ALL during dinner. How can someone not smile in TWO HOURS?! That type of life wouldn't work for me but...

It was the last time I'll see Alex for a month too. She's off on her English adventure (she saved up money during her last semester of school and left Sunday for a month in England! She's never been overseas-I hope she has fun!)...I expect a postcard ;)

They left around 9 and then I got ready and met Debbie and a group of her friends in the East Village for a concert/drinks. The concert was so fun! The band is called The Gaskets and they have dancey/rocky songs and really cool dance moves. The singer dances on stage like I dance when I'm alone in my room listening to music on my computer. He was so uninhibited which made everyone in the crowd feel freer...so I got to dance around like I was 5 :) Dancing is a better way to relieve stress than drinks I think. Who would have thought that I'd ever say something like that?

Debbie's friend were really nice too and I enjoyed joking around with them and being part of a big group. It's interesting for me to meet new people. I feel like the more new people I meet the more I learn about myself. I used to think that I was different around different groups of people and that I had separate, disparate 'Beckys'. But, that's not really true anymore. I mean, of course I don't talk about the same things with my nana as I do with my boss or my friends from college. But overall, I'm the same with everyone and seeing how I react to new situations and new people helps me see the kind of person I am. I don't know if that makes sense BUT anyway...

I got to explore a different area of the city, meet new people, dance in a silly way, have a gin & tonic, eat some good french fries (there's this place called 'pommes frites' in the East Village that has DELICIOUS fries with different dipping sauces...MMM)...all in all, a good night.

Saturday, I met Kia downtown for lunch and a movie. We went to COSI <3 And I got to have some delicious tomato soup...I really, really like tomato soup. And Cosi has GOOD tomato soup with a side of their MMMM delicious bread. My love for tomato soup might be a phase. Or maybe not? Well, went to see the movie '27 Dresses' which was really cute and funny. It's nice spending time with Kia :)

And then, I met my sister and we went home until this morning. We had brunch plans on Sunday with long-time family friends of ours, The Malakoffs, so we took the train home Saturday night, hung out at home Saturday night and then did brunch yesterday. The Malakoffs are the best people ever! They made delicious food for us and had lots of funny stories to tell. They're really warm people and I just feel good when I'm around them. They've led such interesting lives and done so many great things...I want to be like them when I grow up! Lisa (Mrs. Malakoff) said she's going to help me make a t-shirt quilt that I've been planning so that's cool! I'll get a fun quilt/get to see her more often too!

So yeah. now I'm in my room, sitting on the floor (my laundry is on my bed), going to put up some postcards, going to put my laundry away, eat lunch and then take some pictures of my room/neighborhood to post up here. Stay tuned!