Identity. Culture. Privilege. These three words are the reason I feel compelled to keep writing here. They define the journey I'm on. If, like me, you haven't had to think about your culture for much of your life, please keep reading. This post is for you.
What's Christmas without a little joy? A little laughter? A little Why did we do that? a few days after?
So far this month, I've focused on holiday traditions, writing about Christmas movies, decorations, and treats. What I haven't written about so far is the true meaning of Christmas. Here are 8 words that remind me of what this season is really about--
This week, we celebrated Diwali, an Indian festival that marks the triumph of good over evil and the beginning of a new year.
While I was looking through my photo archives for today's post, I noticed that many of my favorite family photos resembled photos that were taken of my mother and her siblings/cousins.Enjoy a bit of time travel today!
This morning, I took a break with a cup of tea and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, to kickoff the holiday countdown.
I finished Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee weeks ago, and I've struggled with what I would write about here since the moment I read the last word on the last page. Truthfully, since about halfway through the book.
I learned my love for butterflies from my grandmother, who happily passed on her appreciation for the pretty, winged creatures through the stained-glass miniatures hanging from her kitchen window, trips to Callaway Gardens, and her stories.
A fascinating fact about spaghetti: there is both one right way to cook and eat spaghetti and a dozen right ways to cook and eat spaghetti.
If my car clock (which is purposely 4 minutes fast) says 6:28 when I pull out of the driveway, I'm early, if it's 6:34, I am exactly on time, and if it's 6:38, I'm late.I'm pretty sure that it was a 6:32 kind of morning when the turkeys showed up.
What did I do this week? I graded papers. But I also finished the February issue of my Real Simple magazine and decided to write something inspired by this month's question, "What is the sweetest thing that a loved one has ever done for you?
I was the child who tested my mother's patience by refusing to draw on either side of a paper with visible erasure marks, the ghosts of crooked lines and ovals that should have been circles.
I was the child who entreated my mother to transform my coloring books into color-by-number after I'd finished replicating the front and back cover illustrations.
I was the student who would re-write my notes half-way through class, when I finally deduced the organization of my teacher's lesson. Or because my handwriting wasn't neat.
And I am the writer who feels compelled to un-publish my past posts and begin with a fresh page every time that I change my mind about what this blog could/should/will be, so that when I finally know for sure, it will look as though I really knew all along.
But I'm resisting the urge, especially since my first two posts, "How to Wear a Sari" and "A lot of different Annes", (which, I confess, I have rewritten twice already) still represent the core of what I am writing for, and here's why:
Life is like a river: tranquil times often follow a trek through rapids, with the next bubbling adventure just around the bend. In one of these calmer moments, I look at where I am now, and I'm amazed.
The part of my life that I'm often worried about, but that I think I'll be the most proud of, is creating an identity for myself and my family from the two cultures that make up my new world. Perhaps the most striking shift in my life over the past two years is this one:
Identity. Culture. Privilege. These three words are the reason I feel compelled to keep writing here. They define the journey I'm on. If, like me, you haven't had to think about your culture for much of your life, please keep reading. This post is for you.
Whether you're just joining me or you've followed along before, here are 10 of my past posts that I'm calling "The Keepers."
This year, I'm challenging myself to build a blog with a purpose, one that can be part of a community of writers and readers. Discovering that purpose took me back to the question I started with: Who am I?
For the first time in many years, my Facebook news feed is not filled with messages of gratitude in honor of Veterans Day. Currently, I can scroll for several minutes and only find two.
After La Sagrada Familia, we made our way to Parc Guell, another project by architect Antoni Gaudi. He meant it to become a housing development complete with marketplace and public venue--a live-work-play community!
Last stop at La Sagrada Familia: The top of one of the towers. If you read this post back in October, these pictures should look familiar to you.
Inside La Sagrada Familia, nearly every surface is white stone--smooth, cool, white, hard, and in complete contrast to the sandy exterior. The windows all around the building are made of stained glass--blues and greens to the east; oranges, reds, and yellows to the west. This way, as the sun moves throughout the day, the colors reflected inside the basilica change.
Spring might finally have arrived in New Haven! And I feel about as busy as the birds have been the past few mornings. We have a little over one month left in our first year at Yale SOM and I'm certain it's going to fly by. As I mentioned last week, there's a lot of work and seriousness filling my time lately; what I want is a light-hearted space to document all of the fun we're having, too. So for the next several weeks, I'll be posting often with photographs and short notes about what we're up to as we wrap up our first school year at Yale.
To start, some of our favorite places in Barcelona. We traveled there for five days before Amar continued on a school trip to Serbia and Croatia. (You might have already seen a few of our favorite pictures here and here.)
Happy Friday!
Spring is really fighting to come through around here. One day is sunny and warm enough to coax some blossoms onto a tree, the next day, the blossoms are encased in ice. There might be sun, rain, and snow all in the same day. I'll open a window in the afternoon and need to turn the heat on a few hours later.
Whether you're just joining me or you've followed along before, here are 10 of my past posts that I'm calling "The Keepers."
For the first time in many years, my Facebook news feed is not filled with messages of gratitude in honor of Veterans Day. Currently, I can scroll for several minutes and only find two.
After La Sagrada Familia, we made our way to Parc Guell, another project by architect Antoni Gaudi. He meant it to become a housing development complete with marketplace and public venue--a live-work-play community!
Last stop at La Sagrada Familia: The top of one of the towers. If you read this post back in October, these pictures should look familiar to you.
Inside La Sagrada Familia, nearly every surface is white stone--smooth, cool, white, hard, and in complete contrast to the sandy exterior. The windows all around the building are made of stained glass--blues and greens to the east; oranges, reds, and yellows to the west. This way, as the sun moves throughout the day, the colors reflected inside the basilica change.
Spring might finally have arrived in New Haven! And I feel about as busy as the birds have been the past few mornings. We have a little over one month left in our first year at Yale SOM and I'm certain it's going to fly by. As I mentioned last week, there's a lot of work and seriousness filling my time lately; what I want is a light-hearted space to document all of the fun we're having, too. So for the next several weeks, I'll be posting often with photographs and short notes about what we're up to as we wrap up our first school year at Yale.
To start, some of our favorite places in Barcelona. We traveled there for five days before Amar continued on a school trip to Serbia and Croatia. (You might have already seen a few of our favorite pictures here and here.)
Happy Friday!
Spring is really fighting to come through around here. One day is sunny and warm enough to coax some blossoms onto a tree, the next day, the blossoms are encased in ice. There might be sun, rain, and snow all in the same day. I'll open a window in the afternoon and need to turn the heat on a few hours later.
Wishing you all a happy (and warm) first day of Spring! Since the spring season and Holy Week both begin today, I thought these words from Anne of Green Gables most appropriate--
Happy Friday!
We traveled to Barcelona last week, and I think I slept off the last of the jet lag this morning. I'm only just starting to sift through our photos from the trip--you can expect a few Spain-related posts in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here is one of my favorite pictures so far...
This year, I'm challenging myself to build a blog with a purpose, one that can be part of a community of writers and readers. Discovering that purpose took me back to the question I started with: Who am I?