It’s been awhile, and to say that I’ve missed blogging would certainly be an understatement. I’d like to say that I’ve been busier than usual, but that would be a lie, especially considering my life in New York, but I’ve been busy nonetheless, so here’s an update on everything in my life.
I came back to sunny San Diego on May 18th and have loved every second of it. A few days after getting back, complete with jet lag and all, I started my internship at Fitness Quest 10 – one of the top gyms in the country, home to multiple IDEA and ACE Trainers of the Year. I’ve been on the marketing side of things which includes making videos, shooting photos, editing social media posts and aiding in the editing of monthly newsletters which is definitely up my alley. I love the environment, the people, and culture of the gym, but what I’ve learned so far is that I definitely NEED an active environment when I grow up. This internship has also REAFFIRMED my love for wearing athletic gear in the workplace.
I’ve also been practicing with a semi-professional team since coming home, the WPSL San Diego Sealions. The practices are super-intense, fitness-filled, butt-kicking workouts. I don’t think I’ve ever run so much in my life, but I know it will all pay off come July 28th, when I head back to New York for preseason. The team is incredible though, the girls, although some are almost 12 years older than me, are so fast and skilled and dedicated – it really gives me something to look up to as a collegiate athlete. These girls not only have time for jobs, but practices and fitness sessions and family – it truly is INCREDIBLY INSPIRING. Tonight, they are playing in their final game before nationals.
Since I’ve been home, the weekends have seemed to literally slip through my fingers like sand at the beach. Last weekend was my Mom’s birthday and we went to the Fleetwood Mac concert with some friends then I drove her and Dad and Twist down to the airport a mere few hours later so they could go to Portland, OR and Seattle, WA to see a soccer game and her sister. The weekend before I was in Parker and the previous weekend I was in Huntington Beach channeling my inner-beach bum with Lauren – twas an amazing fun-filled weekend. As I write this post, I glance at the calendar and begin to wonder how the past six weeks have flown by.
This weekend has been one for the books. On Friday I went to Baked Bear with some of the interns. Saturday was filled with Bootcamp and a beach day with Jesse, Justin and their cousins, picked up my BFF, Kate, from the airport, and hanging with my mom for her bar crawl. Today, I came home to the group of interns surprising me at the house for a goodbye party. I immediately burst into tears, stunned at the gesture. I cannot even begin to put into words how much these people have impacted my life in the past 6 weeks. They’ve taught me to love, and be compassionate,and above all, taught me to follow my heart. I love them dearly, and leaving San Diego this week is going to be that much harder because I had 9 beautiful people come into my life this summer.
It’s national ice cream day so I’m off to nom on some ice cream and watch Batman: Dark Knight Rises.
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been one full year since I began documenting my adventures around San Diego, New York and Europe. So much has happened in such a small amount of time and I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who has helped me get to this point in my life. At twenty years old I cannot even begin to describe how lucky and thankful I am to have been afforded the opportunities given to me. THANK YOU.
That being said, I know I could have finished my “Twenty’s List” if I had a better attitude and stopped making excuses like “I’m too tired” or “I don’t have enough time”, so I made a promise to myself since coming home from Spain: my mantra/saying/motto/whatever you want to call it is now:
“Say YES, even though you don’t want to.”
This extends so much further beyond the invitations I receive to go hang with friends; it relates to the extra workouts for preseason, family events, doing chores, and just being a better person in general. “Yes” is my word of summer and I’m challenging to make myself a more well-rounded twenty-something.
Here’s to the extra fitness, the early wake ups and to the 79 days left until the first game of the 2013 season.
I was recently chosen for the second round of competition for the USA Today College Correspondent Program. Part of my task for the next stage was to compose a short piece on something in the news in the past week from the perspective of a college student. Enjoy!
It’s hard to believe that we are the same age, that someone of only 19 years of age could be capable of such horrific acts, of killing somebody’s son or daughter. It’s hard to believe that less than a week ago, our country fell victim to yet another coward looking to garner his fifteen minutes of fame.
I was only eight years old when my picture perfect world turned upside. I was at an age where the harsh realities of society were still far outside the perimeter of the playground, but on that one fateful day in September the floodgates came crashing open. The visions of terrorists flashed in front of me on the TV screen, plastered on the front pages of newspapers, and in every corner of my life and forever embedded themselves into my mind. It is the first real tragedy I can remember, and I never did quite understand why these faces were everywhere I turned. My eight-year-old self wondered where the photographs of our heroes and the victims were.
We live in a media obsessed society captivated with the visualization of the other. We play looped videos for hours on major news channels of mug shots of potential suspects to invoke emotion from our citizens. We are infatuated with pointing fingers and finding a scapegoat, and we put ourselves at an arm’s length distance to the culprit, similar to the barrier that media creates between the home front and the not so distant battlefront. These mediums have the ability to make horrific events seem distant from their audiences and make it easy for Americans to compartmentalize their fear, by simply allowing them to think that they, as an individual, have nothing to do with these horrific atrocities, yet we do.
As a technology-obsessed community we are fighting a shape shifting battle against terrorism, whether we like it or not. The communication and spread of ideas has allowed us to glamorize the other in a rapid, global, unprecedented way. We give them the satisfaction of being scared by voicing our thoughts and opinions on social media, by hash tagging #tsarnaev and following fake police scanner twitter accounts. We are so entranced by the idea of “someone else” doing wrong, that we in turn glorify the criminals and forget about the victims. How come in times of conflict we can identify the perpetrators yet struggle to name even a single person who was shot and killed?
As the largest users of social media, our generation needs to stand up, not only to terrorism, but also to the media movement that is redefining our nation. Instead of retweeting the names of the cowards who bomb our marathons and shoot up our schools, we need to take note of those who lost their lives in the moments of tragedy. Acts of terrorism have a way of bringing people together and way of reshaping our communities – let’s take this as an opportunity to do so. Let’s stop glamorizing the other.
It’s a mid Friday afternoon. Rain is pouring down (by my California standards) and the tips of my Sperry Top Siders are soaked. My roommates are gone for the weekend – two are in Barcelona, while my third roommate is out and about in Madrid, showing her two friends around our beloved city. I am alone at a café – the first café in Spain I ever went to actually- sitting at a
table with my cappuccino, contemplating getting a crêpe but then I remember the lack of Euros in my wallet. Heck, why not. I’m broke as it is and it’s the perfect day for crêpes and people watching. I have the perfect view of the street – the two large glass doors sit in front of me and my eyes wander to the wonderful wet world outside.
A runner passes by in his bright neon orange shirt and yellow shoes, scuttling away at a casual pace up the hill towards Atocha. A story plays out in my head – he lives with his wife and two kids – a boy, 13, and a girl, 9. Probably a business man, a casual runner, and enjoys a nice whiskey at night. A pair of foreigners sit next to me – speaking in a heavily accented English I can’t quite decipher, sipping each on a café con leche, reminiscing of their youth summers spent somewhere in England. A woman in her late thirties strolls by pushing a stroller, likely a young baby girl wrapped up inside, judging by the pink blankets peeking out from underneath the umbrella. Nothing out of the usual. Spain you’re boring me – Where are the people running to and from the train station as if their life depended upon it? Where are the crazies? Where are my people?
People watching has come to be one of my favorite activities in New York – where else in the world do you have access to individuals as eccentric and as electric and as stubborn and as, well, New York? (Yes, I did just use “New York” as an adjective – you’d only understand if you’ve lived here). Where else can you find a woman dressed in all black, standing tall in five-inch stilettos, sipping on a latté, with three hours of sleep under her belt, living the dream? You simply can’t. Nowhere else in the world will you find people as happy to be killing themselves as you will in New York. They work 70-hour weeks, find time to go out at night, and pay more than a small fortune for a shoebox of an apartment. But they’re living in the Big Apple – hoping, dreaming, wishing that their dream of becoming the next big Broadway star or Wall Street exec will come true. They feign the excitement of working for an asshole and getting next to nothing in return. I guess it’s just part of being a New Yorker.
You will never feel more alone than you do in a city of millions – that much is true. But while living in New York, you’re part of something bigger than yourself, an unspeakable bond unites us – the aspiring actresses, the recent college grads, the wannabe big shots. We eat dollar pizza, not because it’s good, but because it’s a dollar. We go early to clubs so we don’t have to pay a cover. Yet, we will spend $300 on a pair of fabulous heels, because appearance is everything – it’s part of the never-ending illusion of being a New Yorker. But here, in Madrid, in a country more friendly than your creepy neighbor in apartment 2C, in a city where the taxi cabbies smile at you and the men buy you drinks without a second thought – you are more alone than you think. It’s not that you lack friends – the other study abroad students, the foreigners, the Madrileños just don’t understand. There is no mutual understanding of “struggling to make it”– everybody is relaxed, moving at a snails pace, eating dinner for hours on end as if there was nothing else more important in the world. In a country where the conversation is as important as the food on the table, I’m at a loss for words with those around me.
I feel the word lonely is used to describe somebody lost and by themselves – in a somewhat unhappy state, unaware of their own being. And while, yes, I am alone by pure definition of the word; I cannot feel any more aware of myself in this present moment. Nothing screams struggling writer like a twenty-something year old, sitting alone at a Café, sipping on a coffee, dressed in an oversized cream sweater from Urban Outfitters, with a messy bun on top of her head. All she’s missing are some large D&G glasses, a pencil behind her ear and a notebook in an overused black Longchamp. I’m watching myself, aware of my own being, aware of the stares as I type away feverishly. I am aware of my appearance as a New Yorker – jaded, opinionated, and unimpressed of everything around me as I people watch outside the large glass windows.
I first began to refer to myself as a New Yorker when I moved to Spain to study abroad. Every time my Mom skyped me, she would ask if I was home sick? My answer, without fail was – “Yeah, I miss New York terribly”. The disappointment on her face yielded an equally disapproving response in her eyes – “It’s my home, Mom, you’d never understand.” Her only reply “New York has changed you”. Living in the city transformed me from a carefree and laidback California girl to an uptight, busy young adult, whose life is dictated by the calendar appointments in my iPhone. Similar to the bright lights of Times Square – my life in New York is simply an impressive façade. My newfound beauty routine hides my lack of sleep and the slew of friends who pose for pictures with me at clubs usually forget about my existence by the weekends end. I appeared to be a New Yorker on the outside and tricked myself into thinking the same.
I haven’t even lived a full twelve months in the city, yet, when I meet people, I find myself telling them I’m from New York. Spaniards are instantly mesmerized – a bit confused as to why I would ever leave the mystique that is New York, but so am I. Leaving the city has made me realize how much of a New Yorker I am not, but I guess to become one you have to leave and appreciate everything that the city is. The more I realize the way I act and eat and dress and drink and fill-in-the-blank here, the more I realize how much the essence of being a New Yorker is the illusion of having it all together. And while I am rather composed on the outside, I cannot even begin to fit the puzzle pieces together on the inside. A true New Yorker knows what they want and when and are not afraid to tell anybody about it. I, on the other hand, do not know what I want, let alone know who I am. I just know I am not a New Yorker. Not yet anyways.
Quote of the Day: ” One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years” – Tom Wolfe
I still can’t come to terms with the fact that I will be entering into my twenties in a mere ten hours.
Twenty.
It’s not the number that scares me, rather the implications that come with entering into this new decade.
July 1999 – December 2011
Legally buying my favorite bottle of wine, playing my last collegiate soccer game, graduating NYU, applying to grad school, getting a real job, and falling in and out of love are just some of the bittersweet things that await me this next decade. Yes I’m scared, but it’s an adventure I’m finally ready to take on.
I know I wouldn’t be at this point in my life without falling down, scraping my knees and getting back up again, so this post is dedicated to the 10 things I’ve learned that have helped me get to this point in my life.
Smiling is key to getting through anything. Learn to smile. And if you don’t know how, fake it till you make it. The flash of my pearly whites have gotten me through numerous awkward situations, a handful of Spanish conversations where I am completely lost in translation, and have helped me forge more friendships than I can remember.
Take lots of pictures. Though I’ve been criticized and told I take way too many pictures, I find solace in the fact that I am constantly getting asked to “upload this” or to “send me that pic”. I’m not just snapping away people and places, I’m capturing memories – bottling them up for years to come.
Laugh at yourself. A lot. They say laughter is the best medicine and I’d have to agree. I probably wouldn’t have made it out alive of my teenage years if I wasn’t able to laugh at my gawky self and my less than flattering outfit choices.
Admit defeat, but never accept it. This life lesson stems partly from my athletic career. Like I’ve said numerous times, I hate to lose, but defeat is the only way to learn our weaknesses.
Don’t be afraid to try new things. After embarking on my “Twenties” list I began to find who I truly am and the things I really like. Though I wasn’t able to cross everything off my list, I feel it brought out my adventurous spirit which is truly what is important.
You don’t have to defend your actions and thoughts to anybody but yourself. ‘Nuff said.
Traveling gives you more than good stories and a newfound sense of global awareness. After living overseas as a child, and now studying in Spain, I see things through a completely new perspective. I’ve caught the traveling bug, symptoms include increased sense of adventure, empty bank accounts, new friends, and countless memories. If you get too close you might catch it too!
Procrastination will never get you anywhere, except to a diner at 4 in the morning with a bad cup of joe. I promise I’ll tell you about this one later.
Take care of your body because it’s the only one you have. I’ve been trying to find balance for a long time and I will never admit it’s easy. On top of nutrition, I’ve pushed my body to extremes, caught myself overtraining and doing things that were in the end detrimental to my body. It’s all about moderation in everything you do, especially for your body.
Priorities are everything. Family is everything to me and without them, I’d be nothing. It’s important to keep in mind the people who you got you to where you are today and say thanks every once in awhile.
Hope you find these lessons helpful and they get you through a tough day or week!
Oh! And a huge shout out to my family for putting up with me the past 20 years!
It’s been awhile. It’s been a really long time actually. My fingers lost their place under the covers the last couple of weeks and today I am finally returning back to the computer and the neglected blogosphere. I hope everybody had a FANTASTIC holiday, I know I loved coming home and seeing friends and family! Christmas was very simple – I was surrounded by friends and family, which brought me down from my “New-York-skyscraper-high”. After Christmas, my Dad and sister headed out to Florida for a soccer tournament (in typical Patten fashion), which left my Mom and I to bond over our love for seafood, the beach, and being social. Unfortunately for her, I came down with the crud which turned out to be a nasty kidney infection and we wound up in the ER on New Year’s Eve. Twas quite the eventful end to the year, but it made for great blogspiration. As I bent over to receive a very much dreaded and painful antibiotic shot in the left butt cheek, the only thought in my mind was “Thank God I’m not sick enough to stay here. Thank God I’m healthy.”
Looking forward, this year (for me) is about health and happiness. I head out to Madrid in a few days and turn twenty (yikes!) in less than a month. It’s a little frightening to think that I’m embarking on a new stage of my life, but hey it’ll be another adventure in the making. As I “Eat, Pray, and Love” my way through España over the next few months, I’ll be focusing on finding myself and carving my own path. Over the holidays I was asked multiple times by friends and family, “What are you doing with your life” – I hope that this jaunt abroad will help me find purpose in life (though I’m not ready to settle down on anything yet).
I’m looking forward to my adventures overseas and I hope you are too! To follow me abroad check out this blog I made specifically for my time spent in Madrid:
Let it be known that I am not one to be late for anything. If you know anything about me, I’m sure you are well aware that I am never less than fifteen minutes early for anything. I would be considered what you call “OCD” when it comes to getting anywhere.
Yesterday, however, I did the unthinkable.
I MISSED MY FLIGHT. YUP, I MISSED MY FLIGHT.
Laugh all you want, but I promise that is the last time I ever leave two and half hours prior to my flight in Manhattan.
On the verge of tears
Nothing even begins to compare to that feeling in your stomach when everything turns to sh*t. The butterflies began when I walked downstairs at 3 o’clock to catch a cab to JFK. Unlike most days where I can just wave down a cab in 2.7 seconds flat (check out my holiday guide on catching a cab), it took 45 WHOLE MINUTES to get a cab to go the airport (and that was after the promise of a generous tip and a gleaming smile). As soon as I hopped into the cab, the butterflies subsided, but only for a minute, before I realized that getting out of Manhattan was going to be anything but easy. I proceeded to sit in traffic the rest of the way to airport for the remaining two hours – the worst part wasn’t the traffic or the $62 spent on the taxi or the unbearable smell of halal in the cab, just knowing that I wasn’t going to make it on time was enough to make my emotionless self cry.
In the two hour cab ride, I drained my fully charged iPhone to a trifling 17% bombarding a multitude of people with phone calls, texts and snapchats – American Airlines, my parents, the hockey team, and best friends – you name it, I messaged them.
Goodbye NY
Once I arrived to the terminal, the water works started. It had finally settled in. I was not going home that night. I don’t know who was more upset – the woman who tried her best to decipher my words between sobs or me. I called my Dad and before I knew it I was booked on the last SEAT out of NYC to San Diego until Saturday (thanks Dad, you rock!). I headed back into the city on a bus, more upset than anything and grabbed a cab back downtown to my awesome friend, Tim’s, apartment. Before I exited the cab, the driver made his best effort to remind me how upset and stubborn I was and then proceed to tell me I had the attitude of a cow from Calcutta – say what? Hey! I’ll take that as a compliment, thankyouverymuch.
Once I got to Timmy’s I hopped out of the cab, my emotional and physical baggage in tow, and landed him the biggest hug he’s ever gotten. He mostly stood there, began chuckling to himself, and lugged all of my suitcases upstairs. Once again you’re such a rock star Tim! Atop of his three-story-walkup was my amazing “mini-me”, Menta, waiting arms wide-open, with the greatest hug and consoling words a girl could ask for.
After a night filled with Ukrainian pirogues, potato pancakes, white pizza, lots of jokes on behalf of the hockey team and snuggling on the couch with Menta, I felt a lot better. I think that’s when you know you’ve found some quality pals – they’ll pick you off the ground, but not before they poke some fun at you first.
Headed Home
Today, I was a planner. I left Tim’s at 11:45 and was at JFK at 12:15 – isn’t it funny how things work out? I had told the cab driver my misfortune the day earlier and all he could do was laugh and say in his heavy Pakistani accent, “I hope you make your flight so you can share your laughter with your family.” It took me all of 25 minutes to get through check in and security. As some readers already know, I am not the best of packers, but I did get both of my bags under the restriction – one weighed in at 47 and the other at 49 – can I get a medal for that? Once through security I found myself in the Admiral’s Club, nomming away on a grilled cheese and chocolate milk and writing my Sports Law paper that was due a couple hours later. Right before my flight I made my way down to the gate, and to my great surprise I had found one of my NYU friends Grady at the gate. A little less than 30 seconds on the plane, and I spotted my neighbor Emily who was traveling back from Madrid and another Scrippy. Seriously, HOW SMALL IS THIS WORLD GOING TO GET?
Anyways, I’m four hours into this flight, counting down the seconds till I get back home. Two hours, one minute and fifty three seconds. Fifty two. Fifty one. Fifty. You get the point.
Knowing my Dad, I am sure I’ll be getting my fair share of “I told you so’s” in the next couple of days, but there are many things I learned from this. First of all, my friends are awesome –I dare your friends to be cooler/more supportive/ understanding/ funnier/ compassionate/caring! From Katie and Alex putting up with my storage issues to Menta hearing all of my venting to Tim who let me crash and invade his bachelor’s pad – all four of them were such a huge support system in this huge mess (and on the daily). Second of all, I need to learn how to breathe. I’m usually pretty good at handling stress, but the stress of letting somebody down is probably the one thing that bothers me the most. The last and important thing I learned (from my Dad) is that the last mile is the most important one. Whether I’m running a marathon or trying to catch my flight back home, you better bet your bottom dollar that I will (for now on) make sure I am doing everything I can to make it happen – until I cross the finish line or get my California burrito.
So the other day I found myself experimenting with my Canon in the middle of hundreds of people during rush hour in Grand Central, then once again at Rockefeller Plaza under the Christmas tree. It felt like an eternity since I had pulled out the ‘beast’ I so aptly named last Spring, so I decided to start practicing again. I know it’s self indulgent to take photos of yourself, but hey, since I am traveling by myself to España I ‘indulged’ myself per se and wrote about on how to take the perfect selfie in three easy steps (no Snapchats allowed!).
Step One: Make sure your camera is focused. As you can see below, this picture is a tad out of focus which (to me) is really bothersome so make sure you can clearly see yourself.
A little blurry and a lot funny looking
Step Two: Make sure you can see the background behind you – position yourself to one side or another otherwise you won’t be able to see the glorious (insert monument,statue, landmark here). If your arms are to close and you’re zoomed in, all you’ll be able to see is your lovely (insert body part here).
Step Three: Always smile. Nothing is worse than somebody who refuses to show their pearly whites.
