28 February 2010
25 February 2010
oh yes oh yes i love new york
last night with toni and 2 more germans (me + 3 german men on the town!!), i bought the full price movie ticket at film forum because my year-long membership just expired a few days ago, obviously not to be renewed because i have only 4 weeks left in the city.
and oh no! oh no oh no, in this week of free string quartets at lincoln center, motorino pizzas, ethiopian documentaries, bagelsbagelsbagels, chelsea openings, fort tryons, williamsburg banks, almondine macarons, fairways, levain cookies, wagner colleges, dumbo friends, num pangs, snowy central parks, and all the rest i think oh no oh no i love this city too too much to leave. i know this city too too well, it fits me like a glove.
but wait wait wait. it's quite obvious that i love this city so much this week because of a certain beloved bearded man accompanying me at each step. the weeks when he is not here, of course it's charming and i have great affection for the concrete mountains, but life is only that much rosier when the man you love is strolling with you hand in hand, ja?
and he is the very reason i am leaving, to (hopefully) make berlin as natural to me as new york is, and so i calm down a bit and realize that in 3 days, when i'm alone in the city again, i know i will no longer think oh no oh no i cannot leave. yes i leave a great deal behind and step into a great unknown, but if i can feel the way i have at so many points this week ALL THE TIME, then how on earth could i not say adieu to these beloved 5 boroughs?
so cher new york, i will start now in preparing my 4-week adieu. i'm certain we will meet again in the future, i will renew film forum memberships and shop exclusively at fairway and go to powerhouse book readings and it will be grand once more. but for now, i'm trading you in for a very different model, one in which they speak a very different language, but one which holds something a bit more appealing than bagels (yes, it is possible).
in other words: toni and i are feasting on the city, it is glorious and hard at the same time, he leaves on saturday, i am sad, sad that we have to have another goodbye, but overjoyed that it will only last 4 weeks. and then no more goodbyes. huzzahhuzzahhuzzah!
and oh no! oh no oh no, in this week of free string quartets at lincoln center, motorino pizzas, ethiopian documentaries, bagelsbagelsbagels, chelsea openings, fort tryons, williamsburg banks, almondine macarons, fairways, levain cookies, wagner colleges, dumbo friends, num pangs, snowy central parks, and all the rest i think oh no oh no i love this city too too much to leave. i know this city too too well, it fits me like a glove.
but wait wait wait. it's quite obvious that i love this city so much this week because of a certain beloved bearded man accompanying me at each step. the weeks when he is not here, of course it's charming and i have great affection for the concrete mountains, but life is only that much rosier when the man you love is strolling with you hand in hand, ja?
and he is the very reason i am leaving, to (hopefully) make berlin as natural to me as new york is, and so i calm down a bit and realize that in 3 days, when i'm alone in the city again, i know i will no longer think oh no oh no i cannot leave. yes i leave a great deal behind and step into a great unknown, but if i can feel the way i have at so many points this week ALL THE TIME, then how on earth could i not say adieu to these beloved 5 boroughs?
so cher new york, i will start now in preparing my 4-week adieu. i'm certain we will meet again in the future, i will renew film forum memberships and shop exclusively at fairway and go to powerhouse book readings and it will be grand once more. but for now, i'm trading you in for a very different model, one in which they speak a very different language, but one which holds something a bit more appealing than bagels (yes, it is possible).
in other words: toni and i are feasting on the city, it is glorious and hard at the same time, he leaves on saturday, i am sad, sad that we have to have another goodbye, but overjoyed that it will only last 4 weeks. and then no more goodbyes. huzzahhuzzahhuzzah!
ok ok. enough with the circuitous introverted ranting. back to unicef-related matters :)
13 February 2010
for your consideration, exhibits a - d:
my dear german arrives thursday for a last visit to my city before i leave it to take up residency in his :)
exhibit a:
and in anticipation, this morning i trekked out to a little bagel shop in brooklyn (an accidental discovery of ours in january) in order to stock up on their DELECTABLE french toast bagels for our highly-anticipated and soon-to-be-very-missed new york breakfasts. french toast + bagel = DELECTABLE.
i also picked up this GORGEOUS and CHARMING 100+ year old little photo of venice.
exhibit b:
GORGEOUS. CHARMING.
while strolling through here,
exhibit c:
STUNNING.
and once more it's olympic viewing party tonight - although really, did anyone else find the opening ceremonies last night kinda bizarre and lame?
exhibit d:
FIN.
and in anticipation, this morning i trekked out to a little bagel shop in brooklyn (an accidental discovery of ours in january) in order to stock up on their DELECTABLE french toast bagels for our highly-anticipated and soon-to-be-very-missed new york breakfasts. french toast + bagel = DELECTABLE.
i also picked up this GORGEOUS and CHARMING 100+ year old little photo of venice.
exhibit b:
GORGEOUS. CHARMING.while strolling through here,
exhibit c:
STUNNING.and once more it's olympic viewing party tonight - although really, did anyone else find the opening ceremonies last night kinda bizarre and lame?
exhibit d:
FIN.
12 February 2010
guess what guess what guess what?!?!
my computer works! my computer works! my computer works!!!!!
yes yes yes!!! i came in my room no more than 10 minutes ago, saw my laptop just lying there, open, black and empty. i thought - hey, why not? why not press the little power button and see what happens.
ET VOILA.
are there words? hardly!
only to declare from the mountaintops that my computer works, and that new york is BEAUTIFUL in the snow - or rather, part of it, namely the central park part of it that i walked through tonight on the way home from work... so so quiet and eerily white as the sun went down, the skyscrapers began to light up - ah! BEAUTIFUL.
i didn't take this picture (my camera is heavy) - but it is quite accurate. what a BEAUTIFUL DAY.
10 February 2010
timeline of my week
MONDAY
7am. woke up sickety sick sick. despite what i know will be a highly-packed work week, i also couldn't swallow, nor hardly lift my head up, so alas: i decided to work from home.
12pm. been pushing fluids and a senegal case study non-stop for the last 5 hours. feeling quite comfortable, lying on my bed, laptop perched on my lap, water in my left hand - until oh no oh no oh no the most awful thing ever, me in all my clumsiness and fuzzy-sick-head-thinking tip my glass, water spills on my keyboard, i LEAP UP and shake and mop off. mind you, it was really only about 3/4 an inch that spilled out - but mind you further, it spilled directly on the keyboard. computer dies.
2pm. at the apple store on 5th avenue in my pajamas. they've taken my beloved laptop apart, dried it out as best they could, then said to leave it open for a week to allow every morsel of moisture to evaporate, return, see if it works properly, or else alas. another computer must be bought. (no no no no no!)
rest of day. cry at this prospect. also cry that i lost 5 hours of precious work, when i'm under an ugly deadline.
TUESDAY
8am. back at the office, feeling increasingly sick throughout the day, but got lovely text messages to cheer me up from toni, sadie and moe :)
5.30pm. on the phone with my boss in geneva, when a colleague comes up, puts the following post-it-note on my computer screen "big snow storm tomorrow, UN may be closed, call 212-326-7101 in the morning to find out." !!!!!!!!!!!
WEDNESDAY
7am. slowly get out of my melatonin-induced slumber. can't swallow yet again, but behold! i part my curtains and there they are! big, big chunky flakes falling from a white white sky!!
7.05am. out in the living room, the view onto broadway is blindingly white, i can no longer see the river or across to jersey. i call the UN helpline, and why yes "Please be advised that due to increment weather, the UN complex in New York will be closed Wednesday, February 10, 2010." (isn't it amazing that the UN can simply shut down? oh it's all so absurd.)
10.34am. 3 mugs of tea, 3 chocolate-covered digestives and 2 glasses of orange juice later, working on my very kind roommate's computer editing this never-ending senegal case study with a WINTER WONDERLAND OUTSIDE.
10.35am. SO HAPPY we had a UN snow day today. not only because i still feel utterly ill, but i also now feel as if i've finally made up for all that sunshine in the OC meaning no snow days. we only ever got extra days off school when our teachers were on strike (which, admittedly was frequent.)
10.36am. yes, still very very very sad about my computer. oh please little macbook, don't die! don't die!
10.37am. back to work. will take pictures of the metropolitan blizzard and post some other day. in the meantime, much love you all!
7am. woke up sickety sick sick. despite what i know will be a highly-packed work week, i also couldn't swallow, nor hardly lift my head up, so alas: i decided to work from home.
12pm. been pushing fluids and a senegal case study non-stop for the last 5 hours. feeling quite comfortable, lying on my bed, laptop perched on my lap, water in my left hand - until oh no oh no oh no the most awful thing ever, me in all my clumsiness and fuzzy-sick-head-thinking tip my glass, water spills on my keyboard, i LEAP UP and shake and mop off. mind you, it was really only about 3/4 an inch that spilled out - but mind you further, it spilled directly on the keyboard. computer dies.
2pm. at the apple store on 5th avenue in my pajamas. they've taken my beloved laptop apart, dried it out as best they could, then said to leave it open for a week to allow every morsel of moisture to evaporate, return, see if it works properly, or else alas. another computer must be bought. (no no no no no!)
rest of day. cry at this prospect. also cry that i lost 5 hours of precious work, when i'm under an ugly deadline.
TUESDAY
8am. back at the office, feeling increasingly sick throughout the day, but got lovely text messages to cheer me up from toni, sadie and moe :)
5.30pm. on the phone with my boss in geneva, when a colleague comes up, puts the following post-it-note on my computer screen "big snow storm tomorrow, UN may be closed, call 212-326-7101 in the morning to find out." !!!!!!!!!!!
WEDNESDAY
7am. slowly get out of my melatonin-induced slumber. can't swallow yet again, but behold! i part my curtains and there they are! big, big chunky flakes falling from a white white sky!!
7.05am. out in the living room, the view onto broadway is blindingly white, i can no longer see the river or across to jersey. i call the UN helpline, and why yes "Please be advised that due to increment weather, the UN complex in New York will be closed Wednesday, February 10, 2010." (isn't it amazing that the UN can simply shut down? oh it's all so absurd.)
10.34am. 3 mugs of tea, 3 chocolate-covered digestives and 2 glasses of orange juice later, working on my very kind roommate's computer editing this never-ending senegal case study with a WINTER WONDERLAND OUTSIDE.
10.35am. SO HAPPY we had a UN snow day today. not only because i still feel utterly ill, but i also now feel as if i've finally made up for all that sunshine in the OC meaning no snow days. we only ever got extra days off school when our teachers were on strike (which, admittedly was frequent.)
10.36am. yes, still very very very sad about my computer. oh please little macbook, don't die! don't die!
10.37am. back to work. will take pictures of the metropolitan blizzard and post some other day. in the meantime, much love you all!
04 February 2010
i sit on my computer all day at work, so about 85% of my posts are about unicef
i do apologize.
but i had to spill just a wee bit this fine Nachmittag. (not as if i know it's fine as i've been inside since 8am and have no windows nearby. but i'm sure it is.)
i seem to rail against unicef and all its politics a great deal, especially of late. but having just returned from the 8th floor of the unicef offices, better known as the health section, and having attended yet another incredibly impressive thursday 11am technical update from the health team, i really have to step back on my criticisms and put them in context. you see, i work on the 11th floor, and if anything, the UN is heirarchical (ha). the executive director rests on the 13th, and it seems the higher you go the more entrenched you are in policy and process, less in outputs and results, and thus more susceptible to the egos and politics of large organizations.
but when i go down to the health meetings on the 8th floor, or the emergency section's on the 5th, water/sanitation on the 6th, i'm routinely impressed by the high level of expertise, innovation, and critical thinking at play. and it makes me uber-excited that there really are huge parts of unicef who are doing critical work, with thoughtful expertise. staff and projects who are concerned about realities on the ground, not afraid to self-question or re-evaluate or change... my problem is that i'm in a division which is so utterly entrenched in all the fashionable debates and politics of international development - i lie in the middle of donor, civil society, and government arguments about foreign aid and aid effectiveness and paris declarations and accra agendas and i'm truly, utterly disgusted at it all.
now one can't necessarily have one without the other - but is it too much to ask that i move down a few floors? the technical update/lecture today was on infant feeding in the context of HIV - ah! it was so revelatory and i felt like i was in a university setting - so much thoughtful debate and consideration of best practice. a few weeks ago there was a lecture on tropical enteropathy that nearly blew my mind.
so. conclusion of the week: i still admire unicef. i wouldn't mind working for them in the future. i would just like to try out other sections, namely health, namely maternal health, since this is where my true interest lies, and where i think actual impact can be made. also, it'd be nice to get out of new york. try a country office on for size. i'd love to see how things happen at that level.
eh voila. i've learned so much the last year of working for unicef, i've perhaps been too critical, but today i concede that there are systems which do seem to work, and in which i sort of wish i was more a part of.
if you've made it this far, many thanks for listening to this long and utterly-boring diatribe. but in case you were wondering if the whole UN was bunk, i can firmly say no, it is not. and with that, happy thursday to everyone!
but i had to spill just a wee bit this fine Nachmittag. (not as if i know it's fine as i've been inside since 8am and have no windows nearby. but i'm sure it is.)
i seem to rail against unicef and all its politics a great deal, especially of late. but having just returned from the 8th floor of the unicef offices, better known as the health section, and having attended yet another incredibly impressive thursday 11am technical update from the health team, i really have to step back on my criticisms and put them in context. you see, i work on the 11th floor, and if anything, the UN is heirarchical (ha). the executive director rests on the 13th, and it seems the higher you go the more entrenched you are in policy and process, less in outputs and results, and thus more susceptible to the egos and politics of large organizations.
but when i go down to the health meetings on the 8th floor, or the emergency section's on the 5th, water/sanitation on the 6th, i'm routinely impressed by the high level of expertise, innovation, and critical thinking at play. and it makes me uber-excited that there really are huge parts of unicef who are doing critical work, with thoughtful expertise. staff and projects who are concerned about realities on the ground, not afraid to self-question or re-evaluate or change... my problem is that i'm in a division which is so utterly entrenched in all the fashionable debates and politics of international development - i lie in the middle of donor, civil society, and government arguments about foreign aid and aid effectiveness and paris declarations and accra agendas and i'm truly, utterly disgusted at it all.
now one can't necessarily have one without the other - but is it too much to ask that i move down a few floors? the technical update/lecture today was on infant feeding in the context of HIV - ah! it was so revelatory and i felt like i was in a university setting - so much thoughtful debate and consideration of best practice. a few weeks ago there was a lecture on tropical enteropathy that nearly blew my mind.
so. conclusion of the week: i still admire unicef. i wouldn't mind working for them in the future. i would just like to try out other sections, namely health, namely maternal health, since this is where my true interest lies, and where i think actual impact can be made. also, it'd be nice to get out of new york. try a country office on for size. i'd love to see how things happen at that level.
eh voila. i've learned so much the last year of working for unicef, i've perhaps been too critical, but today i concede that there are systems which do seem to work, and in which i sort of wish i was more a part of.
if you've made it this far, many thanks for listening to this long and utterly-boring diatribe. but in case you were wondering if the whole UN was bunk, i can firmly say no, it is not. and with that, happy thursday to everyone!
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