same ol' same ol'

morning: second umbrella defeated by [literal] gale force winds in yet another brutally infamous manhattan rainstorm.

noon: successfully completed my first ever briefing note with talking points for secretary-general ban ki moon.

afternoon: triumphantly bought my one-way ticket to berlin! arriving 9:15am on april 1st, 2010. huzzah!

end-of-day-commute: had my daily reminder that "the Lord, He's blessing me... right now" by the very same homeless man who performs this very same little ditty of his own writing on the shuttle from grand central station to times square from the hours of 5-7, every weekday, for the last year (at least).

later on the end-of-day-commute, this time the 3 train: overjoyed to revel in the final, 800-page-awaited union of ladislaw and dorothea.

evening: reminded to be "kind and compassionate to yourself" by breathy, pseudo-enlightened yoga instructor. still. a nice thought to remember, no?

later evening: totally laughing at myself as i try to pronounce, "ich akzeptiere, du akzeptierst, er akzeptiert, wir akzeptieren, ihr akzeptiert, Sie/sie akzeptieren." fyi i pronounce german like an american who has spoken french for the last 5 years as her "second language." in other words, i'm utterly awful! hahahaha at least now i know how to say "ich trinke kein Bier" :)

soon-to-be: will sleep soundly and peacefully after conquering another new york monday. again, huzzah!

please, tell your friends

the first time i went to the lovely beyond lovely and delicious beyond delicious sigmund pretzel shop on the lower east side, they gave toni and me a free serving of hot, WONDERFUL russian cherry tea goodness. (perfect for the 5 degree weather outside.)

tonight, as friend stephanie and i were shooed out at their closing time, they bestowed each of us a heaping bountiful bag of a dozen pretzels each, of all varieties, with the only request to tell our friends about their little shop. [12 free delicious gourmet pretzels!?!! does life get better!!?! (methinks no.)]

i tell you, this place is DELIGHTFUL. and their pretzels... oh their pretzels! they'll hold me over quite nicely 'til april in the fatherland, i do declare. the shop opened just a few weeks ago, and i'm crossing all fingers that they survive. they're kind and generous and the goods cannot be beat in taste and delectability.

so. i know 95% of my readership is not in new york city. however, should you ever visit - say a resounding no to the cardboard "pretzels" littering the city's street carts - head to sigmund's instead! and stay till closing! you and all the homeless people on your journey home will be very thankful :)

(neal - you would LOVE them.)


(and p.s. a really great, concise article on how to help haiti here. please do read it - it said much of what i've been thinking, but more eloquently. let's not make any of this worse by our misinformed goodwill. this is also another good one.)

das Wochenende.

so happy that it's saturday early evening at 5:19pm right now.

because this week was just too too frustrating: the ineptitude of aid mechanisms and the development industry (of which i'm a contributing member at unicef) were laid bare in the last days of haiti. not just disaster relief politics, but the insufficiencies and corrupted laziness of poverty-relief programming which mean that haiti, after decades of assistance, is still disastrously poor and a 7.0 earthquake that in california killed a few dozen, in haiti kills tens of thousands and destroys the entire nation's infrastructural capacity. this week at unicef headquarters i felt i was seeing first-hand the weaknesses in the systems which are meant to alleviate poverty, but also those that are meant to administer disaster relief effectively. it's downright frightening how inefficient and ignorant many are who claim responsibility for such grand tasks.

ok this is all unbelievably down, and not as if any of this is THAT surprising. but i cannot help but feel befuddled and sad to see all these systems (even ones you have some hope in, like unicef, like disaster relief, like NGOs) collapse and fail so dramatically around me. i won't go into all the specifics... but let me just say instead that i am very happy that it is the weekend, that i have a loaf of ethiopian honey spice bread rising on the counter, that i have a mug of creamy tea and a pile of german books to work through after i finish typing this,* and that on a rousing walk to air frustrations in riverside park today, i saw a full-on quidditch match being played. enough to make me laugh very loud... :)

also, i'm happy i'm going to berlin in april. happy i'll be away from the politics of UN HQ, and that i will have loads of time to think, read, and discuss endlessly with a very brilliant mind what is to be done (or can be done in our very very small way), to break away from these failed systems and still feel faith in the human good. i don't know. i just need some good reflecting time, here. and i think 9 months in berlin should be a good start to questions which will be around for long long after.

much love to you all - your kind messages, both on the blog and elsewhere, in response to my plans warm me up so much! hurrah for true love indeed!

*did i just say i'm happy about a pile of german books to go through? that i'm actually enjoying learning german?! quelle horreur! it really must be true love.... ali, are you still my friend? :)

some explainin' to do.

so sorry that i did not realize a large number of friends and loved ones did not know i was planning on picking up and trucking off to berlin in 2010! i got many messages of confusion in response to my last post. ah, i felt like a horrible friend. but because the details and logistics of the whole thing have been somewhat a work in progress since november, i've only been steadily and hesitantly telling people... however. i suppose now is the best time to take the "official" (as official as blogs get) route of explaining:

you see, unicef is great. new york is [ ]... how can i even write how overwhelming and exciting i find new york?

but toni is greater, and missing him and having skype be our main mode of contact will simply no longer do for either of us. it's stressful and depressing above all else. so. it's nearing the end of 2009, and i realize the end of my current unicef contract is imminent... quite suddenly i made the decision to relocate to germany at my contract's expiration in april 2010 - move to germany so i can be near toni and actually have a proper relationship. i.e. one where you actually see each other not via webcam. i'll be there from april until december, when toni's own work contract is up... hopefully, that is, depending on if berlin's "alien's authority" - hehe - cooperates with my residency request. (which i have high hopes they will)

no no i don't speak german. nope i don't have a job there, and to be honest don't have the highest hopes for attaining one - a fulltime one at least. but. i have other things to be done and to do, and i have lived like an ascetic hermit for the last 7 months to save every penny - so i am confident i will live just fine. :)

i could have stayed in new york with a new contract at unicef for another 2 years, but it was so clear to me that i simply could not. sure berlin is a sacrifice of sorts, but look at how much more i sacrifice in staying here. it's a no-brainer to me! i simply couldn't stay in new york any longer - the mental energy and frustration of long-distance love is just not worth it anymore.

so much has gone into all of this, and many people have expressed concern to me. but really. do not think i have not thought of every difficulty and complication already. of course there are still real moments of fear and oh my goodness i don't speak german panics. but what else could i do? it'll all be a veritable adventure a la gertrude stein :)

i will be back in the US for a visit at the end of the summer to say hello to the new babies in our extended brood - huzzah for that! it's not as if i've signed myself away to an abyss :) above anything i'm simply so happy and excited for the chance to have a normal life with toni, where we're on the same time zone and can eat dinner together. ice cream too. now that most of ya'all have met him, it's not too hard to imagine, is it? :)

and so there you have a synopsis of the whole lovely story. but i have to add a quick note on more important matters - haiti is weighing me down with its tragedy (which btw explains the muted town of this post)... nearly everyone at unicef knows someone who is missing in the rubble, and any news coming out is chaotic and hearsay at best. such a tragedy that will be felt for decades to come, and which needs prayers and help from us all. it's awful to feel so inept, isn't it? anyone else struggling with that right now?

anyway. much love to everyone - hug the people you love who are right next to you :)

here's to a glorious 2010 in berlin!

<3,

jooj.

for any of you doubters out there...

...why yes toni and i are super sporty.

huzzah for a Christmas break of joy and family and love. and huzzah for 2010, eh? i'm certain it's going to be a wonderful year. new babies! a move to berlin! oh so much love to be had :)