...hard to say goodbye...

the lyrics of boyz II men's awesome mid-90s hit "it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday" are currently on repeat in my head.  the first concert i ever attended was viewing the wonderful harmonies of the men from philadelphia.  even saw them last summer twice during the 'package tour' with 98 degrees and NKOTB.  but i digress...

...the reason my mind keeps playing "how do i say goodbye to what we had...the good time that made us laugh, always come back.  i thought we'd get to see forever.  but forever's gone away.  it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday...i don't know where this road is going to lead.  all i know is where we've been and what we've been through.  if we get to see tomorrow, i hope it's worth all the wait.  it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday...and i'll take with me the memory to be my sunshine after the rain. it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday."  those are some serious words.  and on july 29th it was all i could do to keep from singing them aloud in the middle of JFK airport.  it was the day i flew away from my beloved new york city for provo, utah.  yes, i moved to utah.  

a great opportunity to obtain an MBA degree from Brigham Young University presented itself and i took it.  the only painful part of this equation was that it required me to leave my beloved new york city.  i miss it everyday.  every. single. day.  thankfully i know it is temporary and my career path is already leading me back to my hometown.  i will be working as an intern this summer for a financial institution in new york and i couldn't be happier.  four more short months until i'm back.

i have been richly blessed thus far as a member of the BYU MBA community.  the people that walk the halls of the tanner building with me are fantastic and willing to help.  i know that i will emerge a better business leader, person and family member from my time in utah.  but it sometimes doesn't stem the sadness about leaving my beloved new york city.

waiting for the airplane to take me away from new york city

ode to leftovers

most stores don't sell just one chicken breast.  or a 1/3 c of cream of chicken soup.  or a tsp of rosemary.  you have to buy in bulk.  but for meal time - it's just me.  this means leftovers.  lots of leftovers.

 

i don't hate eating leftovers.  i always try to spice them up with something else added to the meal.  like fresh fruit.  applesauce (i love applesauce).  roasted sweet potatoe chips.  etc.  just to keep it interesting.

 

the other thing that is great about leftovers is they become lunch during the week which means i save on average about $40 a week.  bonus!

 

bon appetit as i eat my sunday chicken and rice at work for the third straight day. 

me and the bridge for the final class day

our last photo class homework assignment was to create a series of images about something that we love.  i adore new york and two of my absolute favorite places in new york are poets walk (aka the mall) in central park and the brooklyn bridge.  since i used poets walk for homework assignment number 4, i bet you can't guess what i chose as my subject for the final series...come on, one guess...
 

i chose the brooklyn bridge on a gorgeous sunshine filled blue sky evening.  the problem that i encountered was that it became quite difficult to compose my photos how i wanted them because the bridge was swarming with tourists.  this was not unexpected but i was disappointed that i didn't do exactly what i wanted.  maybe it's a blessing in disguise so that i can go back again to really get the shots i had composed in my head.
 

behold, i give you the 'me and the bridge' photography series.
 

we had to present our series at class.  my teacher told me i did a 'great job'.  woot woot.  i'm totally biased but i thought that my series was the most cohesive of the rest of my fellow classmates.  it had the same subject and color tone.
 

our last class we spent outdoors practicing our panning technique and learning how to use the built-in flash for those moments when it is absolutely necessary.  it was really funny to practice our panning.  we found a large gap between cars because of a fire hydrant so the 8 of us literally lined up shoulder-to-shoulder on this small stretch of road on 2nd avenue.  our teacher jumped up on the hydrant and would yell "biker, biker, biker" to alert us that a person was about to ride by our camera line up on a bicycle.  then she would jump off the fire hydrant and run in front of us along the street.  we laughed a lot and enjoyed the strange looks we got by people as we would start looking to our right and follow them to the left.

this is our teacher Patricia running back and forth so we can get "the shot"

captured using the focus panning technique

 

 

i must say one of the best compliments i have ever received happened while i was chatting with teacher patricia and owner francisco at the end of the very last class.  i've mentioned before that my camera is quite limited because it is over 4 years old.  so we were chatting about which model i should consider grabbing next.  then patricia told me that i take stunning photographs with a lesser camera than the others.  she was very impressed with my abilities when using a camera that wasn't as "high tech" as the others.  i love being praised for something that i have created.
 

i'm sad that there are no more classes for me in the photography realm right now.  my time and funds need to be focused in another direction.  maybe in a few years, after i upgrade my camera, i'll find my way back to photo uno for some more instruction.  because in a few years i'll have mastered shooting only in manual mode and will need some new challenges.

week 4 homework

so i realized that i only had wednesday night to do my photo class homework.  eeekkk.  i trekked my tripod to work that morning because i wanted to take some shots in central park at dusk.  below are my favorites. 

also a big plug for the greatest visiting teacher ever who left work and found me in the park so we could have our "visit" and she could be my model.  the church is true!

poet's walk

betheseda fountain (notice the silky water effect)

my favorite

the young married crowd

i'm never going to be a young married woman.  i've finally come to the realization that i'm not "young" and have known i'm not married for quite a while; therefore, if i do get married i will jump straight into the "got married when she was in her 30s and has no children" sphere.  don't think there are many others in that sphere within the mormon culture.  i'm kinda bummed because it looks like so much fun to be part of the young married (with maybe one small child) crowd. 

 

most of my contemporaries and friends who are my age and married have multiple children, are home owners, drive vans or suburbans and plan play dates at the park.  that is so NOT my life.  i wouldn't change a moment of the time i've had to become me.  but sometimes it is a little depressing to realize that something that looks so fun probably won't be part of my life.  i just can't see my newly married self hanging out with another married couple in their early or mid 20s.  partly because i would probably appear ancient and very intimidating to them. 

 

the one thing i won't be sad about not experiencing is the young, married and POOR part of that time of life.  priorities. 

personal realization #15 - the dark day is done

last year was a bit rough for me.  it didn't start out well, primarily because of the events that led to the dark day in february.  then my rut, named george, and i had some issues causing my happiness level to be down in the doldrums.  the kicker came when i noticed that my marital status might be my fault.  ouch. 

 

recently in my life i have been feeling abundantly blessed.  i mean life changing wonderful things have happened lately.  i'm not sure how to embrace all the good that is happening.  i feel like i'm cheating another person from getting their prayers answered because the majority of mine are being answered in a wonderful way.  and then there is a very slight feeling that something horrible is on the way to counteract all of these good things.  thankfully that is a very small, almost insignificant, thought right now because i remind myself that life doesn't work that way.  it also has helped to talk to a therapist.

 

the biggest recent "woo hoo" occured when almost a year of hard work and the catalyst for the dark day was overcome.  i reached my goal!  hip hop hooray!  strangely i did it by not putting so much pressure on myself and just trying my best.  then voila! i was able to defeat the events that led to the dark day.  in a way the agony and defeat i felt prior made the absolute joy of the moment of acomplishment so much sweeter.  i even cried again but this time the day was full of sunshine, birds singing and me skipping down a new york city street.

 

i guess the biggest personal realization from last year to where my life is this year is that hard work will pay off but often it takes time, commitment, assistance from others and patience.  lots and lots of patience.  i'm constantly learning how to be patient in my life.  i must have missed the line in heaven where they were handing out patience...instead i went right to the line where organization was being given out.  blast!

 

good things happen when you don't give up.  now i'm going to go bask in the warm and bright glow of happiness.

week 3 homework

loving my photography class.  especially because i feel like i control the camera rather than it controlling me.   yippee!

 

my homework from week 3:

 

i highly recommend photo uno photography school for increasing your skills as a photographer. now trying to determine which course to take next...i'm thinking their "iPhone Photography".  taking this class now means that my photos from the european vacation 2013 with joani and flex are going to be exquisite!  stay tuned.

cherry blossoms 2013

rolled down to washington dc for a little cherry blossom viewing the first weekend of april.  we ended up missing "peak" bloom by like 2 days but it was still absolutely gorgeous.  and with my trusty new skills learned from my photography class i've been attending for two hours every thursday night i was ready to take some snap shots of the nation's capitol in bloom.

countdown is on!

i'm hitting the wild blue yonder this summer and i couldn't be more excited!!  it seems to be the year for island vacations as i'm going to london and paris with joani and flex.  then about 6 weeks later will fly to the beautiful hawaiian island of oahu with clare.  ecstatic to spend my birthday relaxing on a beach in hawaii.  a girl has got to do what a girl has got to do.  

only 65 days until we head across the pond for some quality time with the brits and french.  and 120 days until clare and i head to the beach where we have a condo on the beach and i'm renting a convertible.  again, my life = awesome.  and i'm incredibly lucky and grateful.

why did i wait so long?

i have wanted to take a photography class since i got my pretty SLR camera over four years ago.  i have been able to fake good pictures and think i have decent composition but couldn't utilize the true photographic skill of shooting only in manual, aperture or shutter mode.  i really wanted to be able to use these functions rather than rely on the pretty icons on the mode dial for night, landscape and action shots.  so finally after checking with my friend yelp.com i found a school that had a 6 week course for those such as me who wanted to embrace their inner amateur, but wanting to be professional, photographer.  

my first class was last saturday.  i LOVED it.  soaked up all of the information like a sponge and was probably one of the more engaged of the 9 students in the class.  had so much fun that now i kick myself that i didn't do this earlier.  what was i waiting for?  it makes me happy and wasn't going to break the bank.

can't wait for session two where we learn about aperture.  gotta go do my homework to prepare.  i have homework and i love it!