New Year's 2013!

Well, here I am now, still at my parent's house, and missing my human friend,who left early this morning. Barfy, my dog friend, goes home tonight and I will be very sad.

New Year's Eve 2013 was the most calm one I've ever had.  But first let's recap my New Year's Eves since the end of high school.

2012 - My then-boyfriend Yuri came to visit.  We had been dating long distance (from Boston to Brazil) for about a year and a half at that point, and due to circumstances beyond our control, the only flight he could get arrived at Dulles at about 11:15pm on New Year's Eve.  We made it home just in time to run to the TV and watch the ball drop.  He was exhausted from over 24 hours of travel so we went to bed right away (thus the lack of photographic evidence).

New Year's 2011 in Salvador, Brazil

2011 - I was in Brazil visiting said ex-boyfriend for three weeks, arriving just after Christmas and staying until MLK Day.  We'd only known each other a short time at that point, with our relationship almost entirely over Skype, but we had an amazing time! I got to know his city, family, and more of his friends than I had met the first time I went to Brazil.  It was summer there, which meant it was super hot, around 100 degrees every day.  We went to a house party at this amazingly beautiful apartment overlooking the most beautiful bay in the entire world, and watched fireworks from the balcony at midnight.

New Year's 2010 in Guangzhou, China

2010 - I was in China with the World Orchestra of Jeunesses Musicales.  We took a 6-1/2-week tour all over the country, though sadly we didn't get to see Macau (one of the places I most want to visit), Hong Kong, or the terracotta soldiers.  We went to some very... unusual... cities on our tour.  For example, we spent Christmas about 2 hours away from the nearest interesting tourist attraction or medium-sized city.  But on New Year's, we were in Guangzhou, a city on the southeastern coast that has the third largest population, after Beijing and Shanghai.  Because the WOJM was based in Spain at that time, a majority of the orchestra was from Spain, so we followed a Spanish tradition at midnight - eating twelve grapes.  You have to eat each one as the clock strikes, and you get good luck for a month for each one you eat! As you can see, the grapes they provided were enormous, so I missed one or two.

New Year's 2009 in Puerto Rico

2009 - I was traveling with my family in Puerto Rico.  If my memory serves, we didn't do anything special on New Year's because we were all exhausted from the myriad hikes my mother "encouraged" us to do.  Here is a picture of me and my two sisters on one of those hikes.  I'm on the right.  I was trying to look tall...

2008 - For once, I was at home in Northern Virginia.  My friend Maria, who now lives in Germany, had a get-together at her house.  It was fun to hang out with all my high school friends again, and at that point, none of us were old enough to go out anywhere.  We had a really great time being silly and playing board games.  Somewhere I have some pretty bizarre photos of me from this night, but I can't currently find any of them.

New Year's 2007 in Costa Rica

2007 - I was traveling with my family in Costa Rica. It was pretty much the same as in Puerto Rico, where we did a lot of hikes and tourist things, and didn't celebrate Christmas or New Year's. This photo is the one my mom sent out on her "January cards" (they were sent out after Christmas, but otherwise were basically Christmas cards).

After that nice retrospective, let's return to this year. So what did I do for New Year's 2013? I stayed at home, had one friend come over to play board games, watch children's movies, and play with the dog and hamster.  This was in addition to the friend who was already visiting me.  So we played a modified version of Cranium (I won, yeah!) and then watched the first part of ParaNorman, meanwhile scarfing down homemade guacamole, pita chips with hummus, and leftover Christmas cookies.  At midnight we watched the ball drop, then polished off a bottle of the finest champagne $15 can buy.  My friend had to go home before 1 because she had to go home from her parents' house in the morning, so after that it was just a normal night.  I had a nice time, though I didn't take any pictures at all.  I hope a nice and relaxed New Year's celebration bodes well for a calm year ahead.

Normally, I don't do New Year's resolutions.  I think it's such an arbitrary day to start something new, thus the start of my 25 Things the day after my birthday.  But this year, I do have a few small, possibly a bit silly-seeming resolutions.

1. I resolve to keep my email inbox clutter free.  I always sign up for those email newsletters, thinking I will read them and then educate myself about whatever it is, but the end result is that I have to go through and delete dozens of junk emails every single morning when I wake up.  I have already started the process of unsubscribing from everything, and those that don't have an unsubscribe option are being directed straight into the trash can.

2. I will get a job this year.  I know this isn't necessarily something that I can control, but I really hope I can make something work out before 2014!  I mean, 2014 is the future, right? And yes, I do already have a job, working as a musician and teaching artist in public schools in Connecticut, but by job I mean a job performing music that pays at least half of my living expenses, and is not work-study or a stipend from a school I'm attending.  This is not totally unrealistic - though I've only done one audition for a professional orchestra so far, I did advance to the second round of three, and I had a lot of circumstances against me in the second round, which I'm using as an excuse for why I didn't advance to the finals.  I hope next time to make the finals, and by the end of the year, to win something!

Balalaikas

3. Become part of the blogging community.  I have been an avid reader of various blogs for the past few years, but I'm mostly a lurker.  I'm going to try to comment more instead of just reading and going on to the next one, and also get my own blog out there to try to increase my readership.  So please pass the address along to friends! (By the way, Beanilika is pronounced bean-uh-LIKE-uh, and was a nickname given to me by a friend in high school, since I was a vegetarian = beans and a musician who was interested in Russia = balalaika - a Russian instrument.)






I'll check back in about these in a few months and see how things are going!  Until next time!

Lauren

PS. By popular demand, here is a cute hamster photo:

That's what came up when I googled "New Year hamster".  Take of that what you will.