Blog more: I wrote that I wanted to blog once a week, and last week I did two posts.
Grade: A Refined resolution: blog twice a week.
Set goals: I sketched out some broad goals for the year, but until my preparation for this post, I hadn’t outlined specific goals.
Grade: F Refined resolution: set and hit specific, quantifiable goals for the year, each month, week, and day.
Work every weekday: Without this resolution, none of the others are possible. I got up at a reasonable hour and was “at work” by 10:00 a.m. every free weekday, but I still wasted hours of time.
Grade: B- Refined resolution: seven hours of job-hunting, submitting for acting notices, or other administrative tasks each day.
Exercise: I had resolved to exercise three times a week, thirty minutes per session. And I exercised for exactly 15 minutes last week. By the end of the week, I had as much tension as a coiled spring.
Grade: D- Refined resolution: register at local rec center, exercise ninety minutes a week.
Cut the crap: This resolution isn’t quantifiable, so it’s hard for me to grade myself. But I think I’ve been using fewer excuses in my daily speech.
Grade: B Refined resolution: stop making excuses.
My 2011 GPA is a 2.08. My goal is to have that up to a 4.0 by the end of the month.
How are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions? What are your strategies?
“This is your life. Do what you love, often.” Thank you to Kareem Mayan for sharing this gem, The Holstee Manifesto. I highly recommend subscribing to Kareem’s blog for motivational quotes like this one.
Maybe if I publish my resolutions on the internet, I’ll actually stick to them.
New Year’s resolutions don’t kick in until the first Monday of the year, according to my friend Sarah. I’m just under the wire.
Blog more. Look! I’m already keeping this resolution! Woo hoo! Perhaps I’m celebrating a bit too soon. I resolve to post at least once a week, which is totally doable. I also resolve to use my new HTML and CSS skills to spiff up the site.
Set goals. I tend to meander. Setting yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals will give me direction and help me focus. So what are this year’s goals? To be debt free by the end of the year. To get a line in a movie, TV show or commercial, or to get a full time job in a career that I find exciting, such as web development. To run a 5k without stopping to walk. To write a novel or screenplay.
Work every weekday. January is typically a slow month in my freelance actor existence. I am facing the likelihood of a lot of unstructured time in the month ahead, time I usually waste. But no more. If I am not scheduled to work on a weekday, I resolve to get up at a reasonable hour and be “at work” by 10:00 a.m. I resolve to use this time to do actual work, like combing websites for auditions, mailing to casting directors, looking for a full-time job. Progress on a writing project or a blog post also counts. I resolve to waste less time on facebook and gossip websites, and do more work.
Exercise! I am lucky to be on the slender side, but that doesn’t mean I’m fit. If I’m going to run a 5k this year, I have to get out of this desk chair and move. I resolve to exercise for at least 30 minutes, three times a week. I can jog or work out at the free recreation center in my neighborhood. Note to self: rec center opens at 7:00 a.m.
Cut the crap. “The person who really wants to something finds a way; the other finds an excuse.” This quote hangs in the real-life gym inThe Fighter. I would love to say that I am the person who finds a way, but really I am the queen of excuses. Ask me about acting, and I’ll give you a litany of reasons why I’ll never make it. You know what? That’s a bunch of bull. I’m going to take some inspiration from The Fighter and go after what I want, full throttle. No excuses.
Internet, help me keep these resolutions.
What are your resolutions? Or do you choose not to make them? Feel free to leave thoughts in the comments.
It’s already December 31, 2010. Where does the time go? 2010 was a turbulent year for the world, marred by a recession and an oil spill. But for me, 2010 was a downright banner year. Here’s my personal “best of” list.
Best Night Out: July 22
Dishes shattering in the driveway. German beer on tap and bratwurst on the grill. Kaulsdorf’s best band playing under the stars. My friend Ellen’s pre-wedding polterabend was the best night out of 2010. Described to me as a tradition when dishes are broken for good luck, the polterabend turned out to be one hell of a party. Instead of separate bachelor and bachelorette parties, everyone united for a casual backyard barbecue, German-style. But with Ellen marrying the mayor’s son, the polterabend was no small affair. We broke dishes, we drank beer, we danced in the rain with a hundred new friends.
Best Day Off: April 13
If I had written a 2009 review, it would have been filled with highlights of the Yankees’ championship season. On April 13, 2010, I made the season’s first pilgrimage to Yankee Stadium to see the team receive their World Series rings. The loudest applause was reserved for a visiting player. Hideki Matsui, the World Series MVP who had signed with the Angels in the offseason, received his ring last. When his teammates surrounded him in an impromptu mob hug, I doubt there was a dry eye in the House That George Built.
Best Career Achievement: January 26
On January 26, I walked into 30 Rockefeller Center, signed in with NBC security, and auditioned for 30 Rock. It was an audition that I had secured all by myself, by catching the eye of the director while working on set the month before. It was one of those moments when I had to marvel at how far I’d come from a boring marketing job in a windowless room in Queens. I auditioned for 30 Rock. Me. That’s right. And I’ll be back.
Best Example of Right Place, Right Time: October 2
I rose long before the sun that day to help my friend Karen with an event in Central Park. Handing out flyers wasn’t glamorous, but hey, I got paid in cash, saw my friend, and enjoyed a beautiful autumn day. Then I recognized a former colleague who said his company could use freelance help. So that’s how a few hours of fun grunt work turned into a month-long stint at Newsweek.
Best Use of $80: November 9
Eager to learn some new skills and add some lines to my resume, I signed up for a beginner’s HTML and CSS class with Girl Develop It. Eighty dollars bought me entry into four two-hour classes where I learned that HTML isn’t as daunting as it seems. Next up: Javascript.
Best New Obsession: July 11
When I first began dating my boyfriend, he told me he’d be out of commission during the World Cup. Since I wouldn’t be able to pry him from a TV during those four weeks, I joined him and gained a new sporting obsession. Even though Spain was ranked number one at the start of the tournament, John was pessimistic after years of disappointment by his native team. But La Furia Roja (literally, “The Red Fury”) just kept winning games. He told me was excited as I had been for the Yankees last year, except more so, because in all his life, Spain had never made it far in the World Cup. If they won, he wouldn’t know what to do with that level of joy. On July 11, we watched nervously as Spain defeated the Netherlands in the final minutes of regulation. I still don’t think John has processed that Spain actually won the World Cup.
Best Tribute: April 10
This year, my family lost our patriarch. My grandfather was one of the last surviving veterans of World War II. He fought in North Africa and Europe, including the Anzio beach landing. He raised six children and guided five grandchildren. He found true love the second time around, marrying the love of his life at age 55 and staying by her side until he was 92. On April 10, with an Army bugler playing Taps and a Champagne toast, we bade farewell to this great man.
Those are just some of the highlights of an amazing year. I can only hope that 2011 will bring you as much prosperity and happiness.
Living in New York has taught me one thing above all else. When it’s sixty degrees in November, SEIZE THE DAY. Go outside and enjoy that warm sunshine, because this day could be last balmy day for five months. This Sunday was one such day, too warm to spend inside. Sandwiched on NewYorkology.com between walking tours and string quartets, one listing stood out: free Quidditch World Cup.
Dude, I am so there.
Despite having read (and re-read) all of the Harry Potter books, I didn’t know quite what to expect from live quidditch. Two blocks away, I heard cheering. Though the atmosphere was jovial, I quickly realized that these quidditch players weren’t joking around. Even though they ran around on brooms and often in capes, these players want to win as much as any other athletes.
Quidditch could best be described as a cross between soccer, dodge ball, and basketball. With three referees, one snitch runner, seven balls and fourteen players running around on brooms, quidditch is organized chaos. On each team, three chasers take the quaffle and score ten points by throwing it through the opposing team’s hoops. Two beaters throw bludgers (dodge balls) at opposing players, who must retreat to their end of the field when hit. Each team has a keeper defending the hoops. Players wear colored bandannas to denote their positions, as only the seeker can chase the snitch.
But how to replicate the snitch? In Harry Potter’s world, the snitch was a flying ball with a mind of its own. In the world of muggles, the snitch is a quick, agile runner dressed in gold, with a ball dangling from the back of his waistband. One “snatches the snitch” for thirty points by taking the ball away from the snitch. Easier said than done.
The snitch can fight back without being called for a foul. I witnessed snitches running out of the park, running through other matches, and generally taunting their seekers. One particularly entertaining snitch–the first snitch, ever–repeatedly took down seekers who were a foot taller and forty pounds heavier. According to the Savannah Quidditch League, an ideal snitch is a “cross country running ex-wrestler who loves quidditch.” Bonus points if they’ve taken clown classes.
Quidditch is a surprisingly brutal sport. Chasers with quaffles in hand were frequently tackled. These tackles were not the flag-football variety, but full-contact tackles where someone ate astroturf. All teams were co-ed, and women tackled and were tackled just as roughly as men. No player ever stopped running.
Unlike the fictional version, live quidditch matches usually only last about twenty minutes. Teams line up in front of their hoops. The announcer commands to the teams, “heads down, eyes closed.” The snitch runs and hides, to appear later in the game. At “brooms up,” the teams are off and running. Each quaffle goal is worth ten points, and snatching the snitch is worth thirty points and ends the game. If the teams are tied after the snitch is caught, a three-minute overtime decides the winner. The game moves quickly, and could change in an instant.
I’m hooked. As a spectator, that is. I’d get run over on that field.
Leave it to a generation that grew up with Harry Potter to bring this game to life. Never did I think I would see quidditch played live, outside of some show at the Harry Potter amusement park. To quote the poster of the Quidditch World Cup, “We hold no illusions about magic, yet consider that anything is possible.”
“Oh, I don’t tweet.” I’ve heard it more times than I can count. Whether they are skeptics, Facebook-loyalists, or just plain late adopters, people who aren’t on twitter don’t know what they’re missing. Twitter is changing the internet. Will you be left behind?
People who have never used twitter commonly think of it as another version of Facebook. “The last thing I need is another social network where people post every mundane detail of their day.” While there are some twitter users who tweet whenever they pick up coffee (please don’t), twitter is not just a collection of status updates from friends. Facebook and twitter are very different and can be used for distinct purposes.
Twitter is all about who you follow. Unlike Facebook, twitter relationships aren’t mutual, meaning that you can “follow” someone even if they aren’t following you. Fan of Lady Gaga? John McCain? BBC News? 30 Rock? Condé Nast Careers? Follow them on twitter. Your twitter feed will become a real-time news source that is tailored to your specific interests.
That’s when the fun starts. Stay on top of your personalized feed, and you’ll learn about events and giveaways that might not be posted anywhere else. I’m a huge fan of the New York Yankees, so I follow the players, fellow fans and all the sports writers who cover the team. On a day when I had tickets to a game, the beat writers wrote that three of the Yankees pitchers would be greeting fans who arrived at 4:00 p.m. Thank you twitter, for my picture with Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes.
“Oh, that’s nice,” says the skeptic.
“But wait, there’s more!”
You can build your own community by tweeting interesting links, articles and comments on others’ posts. John built a following by regularly posting his beautiful photos of New York City. Soon enough, his fans were clamoring to buy prints of his pictures. Voila, a business was born.
Twitter grants the average person access to people they otherwise may not be able to communicate with. You can send a message to someone, even if they aren’t following you. Just include the @ symbol in front of their user name. Your favorite actor/reporter/athlete just may see your tweet and write back to you, or start following you back.
When my friend’s stepdaughter went missing, I sent messages to several high-profile tweeters, hoping they would re-post it. New York City anchor Pat Kiernan replied that he would check in the news room for updates. To my surprise, actress Alyssa Milano wrote back immediately and asked for more concrete information that she could repost to her one million followers.
By adding a hashtag to my Yankees-related tweets (“Let’s go #Yankees!”), I found other passionate fans from around the country. Their tweets added another dimension to games. In real time, I could see their cheers and learn stats I might otherwise have missed. Two of the Yankees beat writers started following me back, and invited me to drop by the press box before a game. How else would I have gotten to do that?
Since 2002, I have attended forty or so Yankee home games. Dad and I were there for game 2 of the World Series in 2003, when Andy Pettitte nearly pitched a complete game shutout and the crowd serenaded Bernie Williams, whose days in pinstripes were numbered. In 2007, I attended not one, but two games when Alex Rodriguez’s home run count sat at 499, and saw Joba Chamberlain hit 100mph as a reliever. This August, my parents and I witnessed a fifteen-inning marathon victory against the Red Sox. On September 9, my friend Laura and I cheered as Derek Jeter tied Lou Gehrig for the Yankees all-time hit record.
That is why I am here, writing a new post for the first time in months. I want to remember this one. I want to remember what it was like to watch from the left-field bleachers on that surprisingly pleasant October night.
Anything can happen in these short division series, so there was a palpable sense of unease in the stands as Twins’ pitcher Nick Blackburn took a no-hitter into the fifth inning. A.J. Burnett pitched well for the Yankees, but lived on the edge, hitting two batters and walking five more. The Minnesota Twins got on the board in the sixth, but Alex Rodriguez tied it up with a single in the next inning. But when the Twins took a 3-1 lead in the eighth, the new stadium became deathly quiet. The Yankees would lose this one, ending their 8-0 winning streak against the Twins and 15-0 run when tied after seven innings.
Or would they?
In every sport, there are an infinite number of subplots, backstories surrounding every player. Tonight, two of those subplots took surprising new turns.
Since 2004, Alex Rodriguez developed a reputation as a high-priced player who couldn’t hit in the playoffs. Coming in to the bottom of the ninth inning, he had already hit 3 RBI singles in the 2009 ALDS. Mark Teixeira, an expensive acquisition, was 0 for 6 in the ALDS until he singled to get on base in the ninth. Then A-Rod came to the plate, waited for his pitch, and sent it flying into the Yankees’ bullpen.
And the crowd roared. The bleachers shook. My friend Lenny and I high-fived each other and any stranger in striking distance. I felt like I’d had a heart attack. We were all stunned, delirious with disbelief. The game had been over, done, the series tied at one. Suddenly, the game was not over. Suddenly, A-Rod was the most clutch hitter in playoff baseball.
The game was still tied in the bottom of the eleventh, with Teixeira, A-Rod, and Hideki Matsui due up for the Yankees. If the Yankees were going to win, it would be in walk-off fashion. Everybody was betting on Rodriguez, the newly anointed Mr. October. I turned to my new best friends and bet on Teixeira, who, along with Derek Jeter, had not received a whipped cream pie to celebrate one of the Yankees 15 walk-off wins in the regular season. I bet on Teixeira, who risked becoming the new playoff struggler with his 1 for 7 start.
Mark Teixeira’s home run flew so quickly that we didn’t know what happened. The ball landed just to the left of us, in left field seats. Was it foul? Was it fair? It was gone! Another heart attack for me. Another walk-off win for the 2009 Yankees.
All 50,006 people in the crowd stood and applauded for a good five minutes. We screamed, we yelled, we high-fived, we hugged, we tried to fathom that yes, that actually did happen. We chanted “MVP” for Teixeira, even though Minnesota’s Joe Mauer has that prize sealed. We all stood in our seats and sang along to Sinatra. “I want to wake up, in a city, that never sleeps….” Do you know what it’s like, to hear 50,000 people ecstatically sing that song at the top of their lungs? It’s a little bit of heaven.
I’d never seen any of that before in my forty games at either Yankee Stadium. Never had I seen a crowd that was so united at the end of the game, that just didn’t want to leave. You won’t read about that in any of the official recaps. But I was there, at the House that George Built. It was spectacular.
Yes, Rafa. It must be love. Love for your incredibly chiseled arms. Oh, what, I was supposed to be talking about how effective this ad was. Sorry, I got a little distracted.
A few days ago I stepped off the subway and like any good New Yorker, I made a beeline for the exit. Then I saw this ad for the U.S. Open and stopped in my tracks. Suddenly I remembered that I had not yet bought my tickets, a must-do even though my budget is severely limited these days.
Advertising has two main goals: either to increase awareness of the brand, or to directly increase sales. For an ad to work, people have to notice it, and they have to remember it. (There is an advertising adage that people have to see something six times before they’ll remember it, hence why you can be bombarded by ads for the same product.) If the goal is to increase sales, people have to be impacted by the ad enough to then complete the purchase.
Rafael Nadal’s ad for the U.S. Open worked on all levels. I noticed it so much that I actually stopped in my tracks and turned around to go back and stare at it. I loved it so much that I took a picture of it. It’s only a matter of time before I click the check-out button on the tournament’s website. Rafa, it’s all your fault.
Years ago, I was asked who my first love was. “New York City,” I said. It was love at first sight for me and New York, from the time I jumped in my first cab and gave the address of the Times Square hotel where Mom and I would be bunking down. That was 1998, and I moved to the city in 2003. While the crowds and costs may wear on me at times, I have never fallen out of love with New York.
These stained glass windows line the above-ground passage at the Franklin Avenue subway stop in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Bed-Stuy is a neighborhood that is still a little rough around the edges, where I didn’t expect to see art in the subway. But as I walked through the corridor at dawn on a summer morning, the sun was hitting these stained glass windows, designed by Eric Pryor, just right. And I found beauty in the most unexpected place.
Since returning to New York in October, I have tried to retain the traveling spirit I had while I was on the road. When I can, I carry my camera and attempt to capture the wonder that is New York City. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the last few months. Click on the images to see larger versions.
Worshippers at the Mahayana Temple celebrating the Lunar New Year
