I live here.

I started my temp job a few weeks ago. It’s been great! My boss is a really nice man and the work is definitely manageable. Thank God.

So I’ll go back a bit and update…

On the subway one morning I read about an Academy Awards party that was taking place at a comedy club in the city. All you had to do was email a reservation request and you had a spot to sit and watch the awards ceremony on a big screen. The announcement promised fellow movie geeks, food and drink specials (with an Oscars theme), trivia games and prize giveaways. So I made a reservation, of course, and on that Sunday night I showed up to see the broadcast. I felt so VIP, when I got there people were standing in line trying to bribe the host to get in without reservations. I gave them my name and got right in. (Wow, all I did was email, and it was free. Duh.) I felt like I was actually at the awards in LA. There was a huge room in a shape much like the Kodak Theater. It was full of people and a big screen to watch on. It was too fun for a big movie geek like myself. A room full of people shouting, booing, and generally reacting to the TV like it was a Superbowl game was a dream for me. As I told my friend who joined me, “This is like my Superbowl.” I even helped myself to a “Tropic Thunder Daiquiri” and joined in the festivities. I especially liked being in a room were I could give Hugh Jackman a standing ovation for his opening number, scream out “I got my upset!” when Sean Penn won, and generally make remarks at things like acceptance speeches and badly dressed actresses. I was with my peeps. Haha, too much fun. So I didn’t win any prizes, but my friend and I decided we’d be back next year and order the Chicken Meryl Streeps as an appetizer. Geekity geek geek.

The next night, my uncle came into town with the Indiana Pacers and kindly got my friend Kaylie and I tickets to see them play the Knicks. We had great seats for the Monday night match up and were excited to see Mr. Will Ferrell in the crowd that night as well. There was a pretty good turnout for the game, thanks to a better showing from the Knicks recently (Sans Isaiah Thomas). The Pacers lost their battle to the Knickerbockers to the chagrin of my uncle and the liking of the crazy Knicks fan sitting next to me. Many foam fingers in the shape of guns (apparently), bags of cotton candy, French Knicks fans and those weird noise maker distracting things later, Kaylie and I had a funny night full of future inside jokes to laugh about. I also had a good chat with my uncle after the game. Fun times.

A couple nights later was Ash Wednesday, (the start of the Christian Lenten season). I was on the load-in crew for the service in Union Square. I had fun weaving though pews with power chords but found myself a bit of a sneezing mess as I kicked up dust (which I’m allergic to). The service went well and officially started the season of Lent.

The next morning I woke up with the start of what was to become an epic cold. A cold to end all colds (I wish). Why does each cold you get seem to be worse than the last? Boo.

Before the cold hit a high point, I managed to have some fun. I went to a party held by Banana Republic at their flagship store in Rockefeller Center. My friend invited me to a promo party which, by the looks of it was to generate some sales. We got a gift bag, food, drinks, live music, and an extra discount from just about anything in the store for the event. It was fun. I didn’t end up spending any money (I didn’t have) but liked the “free” gift part. Anyhow, I enjoyed the refreshments and in our gift bags they gave us lip gloss from Benefit and some free iTunes downloads as well as coupons for other great stuff. Sweet. Free is a great price!

Well, ready or not, I went up to Boston and Providence to do a little visiting and theatre watching with my friends Pattie and Megan. I took the "Bolt Bus" (boltbus.com) on Saturday morning to Boston. I met up with Megan in Boston and we took the commuter rail to Providence. We caught a quick dinner with our friend Pattie and then saw Pattie in a show called The Secret Rapture by David Hare at Trinity Rep Theatre in Providence. We were so proud to see her in this role with a bunch of equity actors in a professional theatre setting. She is about to graduate with her MFA in Acting from Brown so we wanted to support her and see her professional acting debut (At least I think it was her pro acting debut). She did a lovely job.

The next day, in Providence I was able to catch up with a couple other friends from college, Vichet and Ben. Vichet is now studying acting at Brown and Ben was visiting Brown as a prospective MFA acting student. They are dear friends of mine from college and it was so fun hanging out and catching up with them.

We went to Vichet’s favorite study/dessert place in Providence and had some amazing Italian desserts. Sunday night I saw a production of A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, produced by Trinity Rep, as well. I realized I had never seen the show and I really enjoyed it. The acting was great and the play is a theatre classic. The playwright was the first black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. She was such a talented woman that tragically died too young, from cancer.

On Monday I was scheduled to travel back to NYC but a snowstorm hit the Northeast and set my plans on end. My bus to NYC was canceled so I took my time getting back to Boston. Megan, Pattie and I shoveled through what seemed like a mountain of snow to free Pattie’s car. We eventually dug a path and got ourselves safely to a nice, long lunch at a fairly empty restaurant. It was so nice to hang out with my girls.

I was able to catch a train to Boston with Megan. It was pretty apparent that I would be staying in New England for another night so Megan and I took our time in the snow/slush and stopped over at the Boston Public Library for some site seeing. Megan showed/explained the architecture and the history of the nation’s oldest public library and I took some pictures of the beautiful building. When the weather’s nicer, I want to see more of beantown. It was pretty frigid so we hurried along to do some errands. We went to the grocery store, then back to Megan’s apartment. Megan and her roommates, Shara and Rebekah, kindly allowed me to stay the night in their apartment in Boston before I would be catching the bus back to NYC on Tuesday.

On Monday night, Megan had plans to make dinner and watch The Bachelor finale show on TV with some of her friends in town. I was kindly invited to join the party now that I was staying the night in town. There was a massive amount of snow on the ground and it was actually kind of fun traipsing through it to dinner that night. I ended up getting to meet a bunch of great people at the party and had some great food too. I was so glad the snow made me stick around. Even though I don’t watch The Bachelor, I had fun watching the finale with a room full of witty 20-somethings.

Tuesday, I got safely back to NYC and went to meet my temp boss that I’d be working for during the next 7 weeks.

The weekend after my New England trip, I went to see a production of The Winter’s Tale by Mr. Shakespeare at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) with my friend Jana. The production got excellent reviews (as far as I saw) and was part of “The Bridge Project” starting at BAM with repertory productions of The Cherry Orchard and The Winter’s Tale. The productions are going to be brought on tour throughout the world. The cast included outstanding British and American actors (hence the name “The Bridge Project” as they used actors from both sides of the pond). Some of the actors included Simon Russell Beale, Sinéad Cusack, and Rebecca Hall from the UK; and Richard Easton, Josh Hamilton, and Ethan Hawke from the US. The show was directed by Sam Mendes (a.k.a. Kate Winslet’s husband).

I was in theatre heaven. I was in a small scale production of this show while I studied abroad in England so it was exciting to see it performed and by these actors in this unique circumstance. I feel like I got to see a part of theatre history. It's not every day you get to see great actors from America and the UK put together a project that's going to tour the world. The whole crew did an amazing job with the show. I was very impressed.

On Saturday I went to donate blood at a Blood Drive in my neighborhood. I ended up with two band-aids on either middle finger and no less blood for the wear. Turns out my iron count was too low. No worries. After my failed attempt, I met up with a friend and we saw a movie called “Taken” with Liam Neeson. Whoa. All I can say is we were cheering his character on like we were at a football game. haha.

After the movie we walked all around town, around Central Park, and down to a little Dutch café called Danku. Along the way I saw my favorite ad I’ve seen in a while:

Every time I see one of these, it makes me laugh.

Also, at the end of February, my friend Ilyse had a get-together for friends/anyone who wanted to learn more about the Dalit Freedom Network that she volunteers with. I was able to help put together a PowerPoint presentation about the work that the DFN does and about the Dalit people of India. It has been an unbelievable experience. God has really been growing me in this process.

It started out as an opportunity to help a friend out, by making a simple presentation to aide in her mission (and the mission of so many) to raise awareness and support for the Dalit people. Since starting this work, I realized I have become more passionate about finding a cause to fight for; something to truly get angry about.

As I have learned in the growing of my spiritual life, Jesus would not have me getting angry over things like subway card fare hikes, flaky friends, and loud neighbors. He wants me angry about the injustices facing so many people throughout the world. He wants us to take part in the battle to end things like sex trafficking, the lack of clean drinking water, and the abuse of basic human rights for so many. I am searching my heart for real anger. What makes you angry?