winter is here
📚 I threw together a list of my reads this year I recommend everyone should read (out of the books I can remember). Skip down to the list here.
my travels
bar mitzvah @ san diego
Throwing down at a Bar Mitzvah was such an odd time but I was surrounded by my best friends & their parents (a positive thing!). I’m very lucky to have a best friend who shares his brother with me and am lucky his brother actually enjoys spending time with me.
brandon @ san fran
Brandon and I somehow managed to get 0 photos of each other this time around but it was super fun to stay with him in SF. His friend group makes me jealous (like fully jealous) and Late Shabbat is always a blast. S/o to Josh & Danit, the rest of the Ramah squad up there, and for the great views up there! There’s a lot going for this city (access to parks, really nice people & decent weather being 3 of them) but the costs of living there is unfathomable to me.
graham @ vancouver
My first time on Canada’s west coast, Graham & Maraina (my first friends to get married) hosted me for an extended weekend of food markets & snow hiking & wacky bouldering & eggnog tastings & watching them cohabit.
One of my favorite things about traveling to people’s homes is being able to experience life from their perspective. Being my only married friends, I got to watch them laugh and poke fun at each other and see their struggles and achievements. Living with someone you want to be with forever seems very awesome (but I'm also in no rush for forever to start}
thanksgiving @ san diego
I came home for thanksgiving and family events, spending time away from the snow & close to the beach. It felt like a very quick trip.
week @ philly
I arrived in Philly for a 5-day trip which quickly proved to not be enough time. Between some logistics with Idan and wanting to stay longer, I extended last minute for a few extra days. I lost my trip to NYC but it was well worth it. During my time, I…
Got mango desserts with my best coworker friend 🥭
Attended a free jazz concert with friends 🎺
Suited up for a fancy holiday party for work (and win the Lifetime Learner award & some hot cocoa) 🕴️☕
Foraged for mushrooms 🚶♀️🍄
Celebrated my friend’s birthday with dinner & bar hopping 🍜🍾
Watch my friend’s ceiling start raining on her 🏚️⛈️😖
And had lots of fun nights spending quality time with friends 😍
weekend @ boston
I left Philly on a bus to NYC and connected to another bus traveling to Syracuse, where Idan grabbed me & we spent the night. The next day we worked (randomly seeing an old friend) and then drove to Boston. Those two days were a lot of travel but travel with Idan never seems too challenging for us.
I spent a long weekend on Ilana M.’s couch (very comfy, if anyone was wondering…) spending time trying out Chanukah popup bars (and other bars in the middle of nowhere), seeing old friends & walking around. It was pretty cold out here (honestly it felt colder than Toronto did because of the rain)
new years @ toronto
It took us all of Sunday to get to Toronto, and we stopped at Trader Joe’s before the border to make sure we were stocked up on frozen goods (Canada doesn’t have TJs, a necessity!). The first night I arrived Idan & I cleaned up the place (he had been gone for 3 weeks) and he really made it feel like I had a home while I was there. I had kitchen space, my own area to sleep in (most of the time), I put my award up (in his room) and I was given a hamper & closet space (a first during my travels!).
Toronto was a bunch of me working during the day, us spending time inside (we had a major storm come through), a bit of climbing, a lot of hanging out with Idan’s friends, a couple of 4-day weekends (bless up Christian holiday season ✌️) and overall relaxing. We…
🕎🫒 Hosted a latke party (and set the fire alarm off 6 times)
🍣 Got all-you-can-eat sushi (every time I go to Toronto…)
🍿 Watched Avatar 2 (but went to that same mall 2x before actually seeing the movie because “of course we wouldn’t need to buy tickets in advance to see the most waited-on movie of our generation”). I really enjoyed it!
🖼️Walked through the Art Gallery of Ontario (they had some cool cultural pieces!)
🎇 Spent NYE with Carmen (a friend of mine from Hong Kong who was abroad in Montreal!)
month @ utah
I’m hanging out in Utah with a few friends (Justy & a bunch of people from VFA, my work program), working during the week and snowboarding during weekends. It’s overall slow and cold (it’s consistently sub-freezing) but it’s been nice to get a bit of quiet (to prep all the future hectic-ness!).
I’ve watched a few Sundance films, seeing one in person & listening to the director speak about his experience! They also have an online experience, where you gain access to a subset of films until the 29th.
The last time I snowboarded was right before COVID, so I’m pretty rusty. It’s great to get so many days out here to snowboard, or else I’d stay at the “how do I turn” phase forever. It takes a while to get up the mountain so I’ve only been able to get out on weekends, but it’s plenty of fun.
my projects
✍️ I’m keeping journi alive as I think through what it can be next. I still believe in the core value of self-reflection as a way of living & think frequent reminders are the way to go. Even though I didn’t gain the usage rates I would’ve liked, I saw that these reminders helped people put their lives in perspective as it was happening.
To the people who continue to journal with journi, I’m glad y’all are making space to self-reflect and understand yourselves better. I’m glad I could be part of that journey 😊
I’ve seen that the people who journal on journi the most are also people who already journal elsewhere. This means I didn’t manage to successfully help new people be more self-reflective!
A couple of people have asked to collab on the toolset, so I’ll be seeing if that goes anywhere!
🍄 A couple of friends & I are looking to see if fungi are a strong method of cleaning up oil spills. We’re doing some casual research right now, but our goal is to start learning & experimenting with mushroom growth later in 2023.
If you have experience (or know someone with expertise) in mushroom growth or oil cleanup methods, let me know! We’re 5 strong right now and I’m hoping we can grow our expertise set.
My 2022 reading list
Although I don’t have all of the books I read this year saved, I read (and therefore annotated) more books this year than any other! I’m highlighting the ones I read more recently (as I remember their contents more clearly). If you have any book recs for me this upcoming year, please send them my way!
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren — shoutout to Alix for passing me a memoir of a Professor’s experiences in science, plants, and life. You follow her from a young age learning about chemistry, getting lost in what life she wants to live, finding friends in the strangest of places, and pushing against the societal tide to find happiness & meaning. You’ll want to go back in time, learn chemistry, and make some wacky friends in the pursuit of belonging if you read this book.
The complete Harry Potter set. You’re never too old to reread childhood classics, and you’re definitely never too old to revisit the stories that helped shape your world perspective.
Hot Takes: Harry is quick to get mad at his friends for fairly questioning his actions (a behavior that probably comes from growing up in a household where everyone looks out for themselves), and Ron’s typical frustration with his friends comes from self-doubt issues when his friends surpass him (youngest child vibes). Ginny is way under-focused on in the movies (a well-known issue), and the original resistance against Voldemort was mostly a band of friends (Dumbledore, Harry’s parents, and connected squad) who were determined to not allow fear to be the status quo.
Bonus Fun: Buy the books from local thrift shops and read them in order that you find them. You’ll read specific details in later books and find out when the characters learn them, giving you a cool perspective on plot points and shifting your focus around to new sub-plots.
The Defining Decade by Meg Jay — thanks to Carson for letting me borrow (and then ruin her copy in a rainstorm), a clinical psychologist & professor writes about her experience working with people in their 20-30’s. She touches on many of the pitfalls that make our lives confusing and how to live the lives we truly want to live.
You have to read it for her message to get across, but I often hear friends talk about the issues she discusses (what do I want to do with my life, do I really need to pay attention to kids & relationships & my own family yet, how do I become something that I’m not right now) and I end up pointing back to her writing. It’s a great read for anyone who wants to start making their life their own. You won’t leave a changed person, but you’ll have the resolve you need and the path necessary to become who you want to be.
How to Sit by Thich Nhat Hanh — thanks to Tyler for leaving this gem in his house (and to my phone for breaking, giving me plenty of time to focus on reading). This book is a mixture of short writings and meditations written by the man who helped widely popularized Zen Buddhism in the West (including a space in Escondido). You’ll learn about the systems that connect us to the world, be reminded to breathe intentionally, and learn how sitting meditation can bring comfort & realization.
I also read his Being Peace and How to Eat, both are beautiful pieces!
The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler — another shoutout to Carson, Gendler takes many qualities of a person and gives them a full character arc: how does Anger spend their time, who does Love interact with, what keeps Worry up at night? In learning the stories behind each quality, you’ll learn more about yourself and the people in your life.
Other Cool Articles
Can't remember how I found this article (it's been open for a month on my laptop) but it's a great piece on taking in uncertainty. We grow when we do things we aren't used to (skiing for the first time, learning to knit, asking to join a new friend group, navigating a new situation) and when we see something that doesn't fit into our worldview. It touches a bit on my current thoughts on randomness -- how the world makes the most sense when things are chaotic and follow no rhyme or reason.
A great article about places which people *shouldn’t* travel for tourism this year and why. It focuses on sustainability & how tourists typically harm the land when we swarm specific spots. If you are traveling in 2023, read up on best practices (NYT, Sustainable Travel, SkyScanner).
A beautiful list of all the best things in life. It spans the small moments (#750), the most absurd thoughts (#812), the best sensations (#604), the things you’ll spend an entire month planning (#234), and so on. If you’re looking for a pick-your-adventure read, come in here from time to time!
A short list of great life rules that are juuuust general enough for everyone but also very easy to take into your personal life too.
A piece on ambition that will help you understand me from ages 16-19 (I think Isabel is a great writer, and would recommend subscribing to
!).A site where you enter your location and the direction you’re viewing, and it helps you determine what you’re seeing in the landscape. Super cool tool!