Passion

Passion. You hear the word passion, and there are so many different connotations and ideas that may go through your head. This is the kind of passion you may be thinking about....

Francesco Hayez, Il bacio (1859)

Too bad for you, pervert, I will not be talking about that kind ;) I'm talking about getting excited about what you do everyday. Feeling passionate about your life and the decisions you make.

You see, I’ve been seeing a theme in my life recently. That theme is “what are you passionate about?” This started about two months ago. Maybe longer. Okay, for a while, I've been feeling very blah. Like there is nothing left for me in life. Everything I do has no point. I have no direction or goals. Blah, blah-blah, blah, blah. You get the idea. I was talking to my Bishop at church about how nothing excites me anymore and how i am feeling dead inside (cue the dramatics). His idea was "Think of something that you really love, that you feel passionate about, and do it." Say whaaaaaaat? Something I'm "passionate" about? Who even says things like that. Nevertheless, it really got me thinking. What kind of things do I find exciting? I started making a list, because I am a list maker (hence my love of lists). I thought of how one of the happiest times in my life was when I was on my mission, thinking of others before myself all the time. I wanted to get back to that. I sent in a volunteer application to the Ronald McDonald House in Houston, and noted a few other organizations that peaked my interest. I didn't want to apply to them all in case all of them wanted me, and I end up over-committing myself. I thought about how I really wanted to learn more of the scriptures, so I started making a list of scriptures I want to memorize. I also looked into some Spanish classes, but my work schedule is so unpredictable; I cannot sign up for regularly scheduled classes I have to pay for, since something may come up, and I would not be able to attend the classes I already paid for. It was really invigorating. Except the volunteering didn't happen immediately. Turns out you have to do training before you can volunteer, and finding a time slot I can attend is a wee bit tricky.

Later I came across this. My company has this central website that has articles and updates about the company. There was this article written by Mark Sanborn. There were 5 questions and descriptions of the questions that got me thinking. So the questions (with some of my answers) are:

1.      What would you do for free? Is there an activity you enjoy so much that you’d do it for free, even if other people would consider it work?
-Travel. I would travel for free forever if I could. 
-Read Harry Potter books....read most books actually
-Write a blog...oh wait....I already do that
-Watch Scandal...check.
-Sleep and/or nap

2.      What riles you? Irritation can be a great motivator. Are there problems or annoyances that drive you up the wall? Perhaps you can find your passion in fixing them.
-Human trafficking, especially the sex slave trade
-Deforestation and humans ruining animal environments
-Sexist behavior
-Racism. Even when you say it as a joke, it's still racist
-Politics
-stupid people, and uneducated people
-Genocide
-North Korea (heinous human rights violations aka their modern concentration camps)
-Women's rights, especially in rape cases, (please refer to India's most recent issues)

3.      What interests you? What do you like to read about and study? When you’re in a bookstore or a newsstand or browsing online, what piques your interest? Do you find yourself returning to the same topics again and again? Perhaps you've found your passion. Your heart may be telling you what it wants; you just need to recognize it.
-History. Especially WWII.
-Doctors Without Borders
-Memoirs of Child Soldiers in Africa
-Defectors from North Korea
-Missionary Work with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

4.      Who interests you? What groups of people do you tend to notice? That is, whom are you most interested in helping? Are you drawn to coach, counsel, encourage, or teach? Some people have a heart for young children. Others volunteer their time to help those who are underprivileged or live on the streets…Find out what demographic you’re wired to connect with.
-Malala Yousafzai
-Doctors Without Borders
-Ronald McDonald House

5.      What will minimize your regrets? If you have regrets at the end of your life, what do you think they’ll be? We tend to ask ourselves, Will I regret doing this? But often the better question is, Will I regret not doing this? The most common workplace regrets I hear are from people who get to the end of their careers and feel like they dedicated their lives to work they didn’t feel was important or they wasted their time just to make money.
-Not seeing the world
-Not having an impact in the world

I was having a conversation with Lindsay over lunch the other day about how in college, you have theses big ambitions of having a super successful career, traveling for work, and being in high-power positions. Now that I've been in the work force, I look at all that I've achieved. I've met ever goal I've set for myself at this phase in my life. My life has gone exactly as planned. The question is: has is everything I hoped it would be and more?

My life has put my hopes and dreams into perspective. I don't want to live my life working. I want to live my life living. I believe you can live your life with work in it, and I think that living your life working are two very different concepts. I want to enjoy life. I want to be. I want to do. I want to have a life with people in in, not just my co-workers. I want to look forward to waking up in the mornings. I want a life I'm passionate about.

A week after I had a conversation with Lindsay about my changing priorities, I had an inspiring conversation with my cousin Dan. He spoke of travelling the world, something I've always wanted to do. It's not like I haven't seen the world before, but there is so much to see and do. People always tell me "Do before you..." Have fun before you get married, buy a house, own a car, become old and boring, etc. Honestly, everyone makes marriage sound terrible and adulthood: torturous. I told my new hair stylist of my dreams, and he said "do it while you're young. you're still a baby! you have to do it now." 

I was reading this article online and the one line that stood out to me was: The person you will spend the most time with in your life is YOURSELF, so better try to make yourself as interesting as possible. I loved it. I loved it, and it further encouraged my new life plan. What is my new life plan, you may ask. Well guess what? I can't tell you. Not right now. I'm working on living in the present, and when I think of my new life plan, I get so excited for the future, I forget to enjoy the now. I have my volunteer training on Saturday, which will hopefully kick off some volunteer time. I just joined a 9 to 5 running program with Teri Jo, where you start running (walking for me) and after 9 weeks  you accomplish your goal of running a 5K. I want to build up my endurance and maybe become a runner, so I can escape if I need to run for my life.  I am have a goal of doing a Urban Survival class, so I can avoid being taken. That's right. The next year of my life is going to be a training and preparation for any adventure that can come my way...and I am excited.

PS. This is MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, not a photo I found on the internet :P

I Believe in a Thing Called Love

This is a love story. This will also be a "Natasha Story" as my high school bffs call it, meaning it will be a really long story and will take forever to get to the point. This love story starts on Sept 26, when I had to wake up really early and was miserable having to leave my wonderfully comfortable hotel bed to go to an early meeting, after staying up to work on a presentation I was going to give, but never ended up making changes to it, since my calculations were not making sense. I realized that I was a little Europe homesick. I have a group message on Whatapp with some of my friends from studying in Spain in this group. Becca tried to comfort me in my distress from the day saying, "don't worry, we will be in Guatemala soon. your job is paying for it!" and I said "I kinda want to switch Guatemala for Germany." She said "I'm okay with either, just as long as we go somewhere" wow. that was one of the greatest and easiest change of plans. It got me pretty excited. I was on cloud nine. Sadly, even though I was in a great mood, I was having some bad luck. Nevertheless, this news put a spring in my step all weekend.

I left work a little early to go pick up Teri Jo from work and start our weekend. It was gross stop-and-go traffic all to the airport. Bah humbug. The traffic wasn't as terrible as anticipated, so we arrived early. This was good because I was getting hangry for some food. The flight was good, and I got to start The Spy Who Loved, which is a biography about WWII spy who kept on blowing my mind with her quick thinking in super intense situations. We got to the LaGuardia pretty late and got in the taxi line, only for it to be ridiculously slow. The New Yorkers in line were getting very vocally upset and verbally assaulting the worker over the line. I was part amused and part horrified. Luckily, we got a taxi without any bloodshed, but after a super long wait.

We got to the hotel we were staying at, the W in Time Square. Teri Jo's friend is a chef for a super fancy hotel in Boston, and got us a friend-rate. So we walked into the hotel, and the lobby/check-in area is on the 7th floor. The 7th floor is also a club. There were people dancing,and great music. We checked in and got into a different set of elevators to get up to the room, except you have to insert your hotel card to get to the floor you needed. Teri Jo was having major problems with the key card. lol. I used my hotel expertise to get us to our room...and the room was super swanky with a beautiful view of Time Square. I hoped in the shower so I could sleep in a little more the next morning since we were going to get some CRONUTS!!!

Saturday morning began with waking up, putting on my red lipstick, and grabbing a scarf to keep me warm in the chilly weather...at 5:30am. We got a taxi to take us down to Dominique Ansel's Bakery, and figured out where it was at from the line that had already formed. We took a seat on the side walk and attempted to stay warm, and made a friend. She worked in fashion design for bathing suits at Target. She was pretty cool, and we became friends for the 3 hours we were in line. The bakery is pretty small, so you go into the bakery in groups. We were in the second group. There was someone waiting in line in a sleeping bag, napping. There was also another person with an office chair, which they claim they found outside by and took it to the line with them. lol.
We were waiting in line for the cronut inside the bakery. I spotted Dominique, and the New Yorker girl we became friends with said that he was really friendly and took pictures with tourists. I finally got up the courage to ask him for a picture. He looked at me and said, "No". My face dropped, and I said, "Oh. Ok." to which he smiled and said "of course! How can I say no to a face like that?" with a smile. He came from around the counter and took a picture with me and another one with me and Teri Jo. His French accent just melted me. I loved it. The cronut flavor of the month was fig. Honestly, you say fig, and I am not impressed. Oh snap. it was tasty. Was it as life-changing as everyone makes it out to be? Maybe not so much. But the experience of it all made it all worth it.  I ate a cronut and ate a few bites of a frozen smore. I'm pretty sure I was about to die from a sugar coma. Luckily, I got some milk to balance out the sugar. It was great. We then took a walk to the subway station. On the way there we walked past the Dash store, and I thought of Saryah. I didn't even notice it, since I'm super unobservant, but Teri Jo pointed it out to me. We got to the subway, only for me to realize, I don't understand the differences between the metro tickets. It took a few minutes and we just chose the $10 fare ticket you can reload with more money later. We hopped on the metro, switched lines to go up to Time Square. After a few stops, we started to suspect that we were going the wrong way, except we only were sure when the train went above ground and across the bridge into Brooklyn. It was ridiculous. But I couldn't find a map of where we were on the metro, and I didn't have signal in the underground metro to follow where we were on my phone. It was quite ridiculous; it's the first metro that ever got the best of me.

We miraculously found our way back to Time Square before heading off to book a bike tour of Central Park. Sadly, it was booked, so we had to go on the 1pm tour. Since this was the case, we went back to Time Square; Teri Jo wanted to see the Disney store (she's one of those Disney lovers). We were talking and saying how we would love to just love seeing another play on Sunday afternoon before we leave, even though we are going tonight. I was kinda happy that Teri Jo was so cool with this idea, because I could honestly come up to NYC and watch plays all weekend and be as happy as a clam. We went back to the bike tour place, and it was pretty fun. The biking was relaxing and nice. Teri Jo was getting a little annoyed with me always looking behind me to make sure I haven't lost her. She called me out on it, so I stopped. This backfired, because when we got to the lake in the part, she was not there. We lost her. She found her way back, but it was not unreasonable for me to check on her. She walks really slowly, so I wanted to check on her on the bike too.

I had texted Dan earlier in the week to tell him I was heading to NYC and how I wanted to meet up. We were texting to meet up. We finished the tour, and he called. The funny thing was, when I picked up the call, I thought, 'Why is a British person calling me?' and then I remembered...hahaha, it's my cousin; he has an accent. (i honestly forget my dad has an accent most times)

Teri Jo and I went to a little coffee shop on the corner, to meet up with Cool Cousin Dan. Plus, it was almost 3:30pm, and we hadn't ate any lunch. I needed a sugar level boost. Dan met up with us, and we had some great catch up time. I was teasing him about wearing a helmet as he was biking around. He said it was because he fell asleep on his bike one day and fell off. He really is the coolest. He introduced me to the concept of traveling the world for a year. I thought if I ever took time between jobs, it would be for two months or something, but when he said a year, it was like a light-bulb turned on in my brain and in my heart.

really cool art on the side of a building off the High Line

We went down to High Line to walk the trail. It was on a list of things to do that Saryah sent me. It was really beautiful, and was a nice place to walk. We were pretty hungry, and Dan recommended a pizza place off the line. We went, and it was delectable!!!!! The wait was a little longer than was desirable, since they didn't have any slice immediately ready. Nevertheless....sooo good. Dan and Teri Jo ate it so quickly, that I tried to eat it faster, and I'm pretty sure I burned my tongue. Dan then had to go get ready for a wedding reception, and Teri Jo and I needed to get back and get ready for our night on Broadway. I ended up passing out on the bed, while Teri Jo got ready. Teri Jo and I were headed off to two different plays. Teri Jo had the dream of going to Newsies on Broadway. I never had that dream. I was willing to go, but honestly wasn't too excited about it. Luckily, Teri Jo is pretty cool, and was like "you don't have to go to the same play as me" so i took that out like a Nox spell and went to Once. Oh my. Lindsay went to see this when she went to NYC last and told me how amazing it was. Before the show, the cast is on the stage singing Irish songs. It was brilliant. Then when the first song came on it, was soooo hauntingly beautiful. I was captivated. It as a totally British ending. I loved it.

After the musicals, we met up and walked around Manhattan at night, after Teri Jo got her pics with the Naked Cowboy. It was part amusing and part disturbing. lol. The walk was super relaxing and beautiful.We walked around for a while. We went to get some cupcakes for a midnight snack. We went to Rockefeller Center, Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, NYC Public Library (they were having a black tie event in the library. i wish i was invited), and Empire State Building. It was a nice walk, even after being sexually propositioned by random guys I smiled at in a car.

We woke up and took a taxi to go to church with the Young Single Adult congregation in the Manhattan temple building. The bishop's wife was super nice to us. Everyone in the congregation looked like models. It was ridiculous. We took off after sacrament meeting to go to brunch at a restaurant Dena recommended. It was sooo good. Plus, there was live jazz playing. The ambiance was pretty legit. We then went down to see the Freedom Tower. I forgot to get us ticket to the 9/11 memorial beforehand, but the line to pick up those tickets was super long as well.

After the Freedom tower we went to Battery Park. It was beautiful. We got a ice cream and lemoneade as we sat on a bench and just relaxed. We were relaxing and waiting for Ben to show up #multitasking I honestly wanted to find a patch of grass and lay down to soak in some sun. Sadly, Battery Park seems to be more of a plant part rather than a grassy knoll park. Ben finally showed up, and we saw each other across the memorial and Ben started dramatically slow running toward me, so, of course, I had to join in the fun. Don't tell Ben, but I had forgotten how much I love that kid! I finally got to tell him, in person, how I've joined him in the i-dont-want-to-get-married-anytime-soon-slash-i-love-being-single club. I think Teri Jo was a little overwhelmed by the energy and excitement that Ben and I created. I had to explain to her that we were kindred spirits. Teri Jo told Ben that I was like a black widow, killing everyone who might be possibly interested in me. We caught up, we caught a taxi back up town to make it back in time for the musical Teri Jo and I were going to catch before our plane out. On the plane we were joking and having too much fun. I dont remember what the joke was, but I said one of my twisted humor jokes, and teri jo said "that is dark". ben said something along the lines of "there is no darkness with natasha, because she is the light". omg. I almost died. It rivaled my super cheesy comment to him i made earlier, which I do not remember, but it was too perfect to pass up. Ben dropped us off at the First Date, literally, right before it started. I miss that kid.

First date was amazing. I was laughing so hard with the first song. It is a "musical comedy", and when I heard that, I wasn't sure what to expect, and my expectations were pretty low. OMG. TOO FUNNY! It was as if anything awkward or ridiculous happened on a first date, it was in this musical. It was great. The best part...Zachary Levi. He is amazing. His singing voice was great. He was the voice of Flynn Rider in Tangled, and you always think that that Hollywood changes voices to make it better, but his voice was exactly the same as in the movie. Afterwards, we met him in real life after the play. We waited at the stage door, and the cast came out to tell everyone it was his birthday. We sang Happy Birthday to him, and he went around signing things for people. I got him to sign my ticket and play bill. The girl next to me bought a Flynn Rider doll (action figure?) for him to sign (the box, not the actual doll). There was another girl who was telling him how she asked her friend to get something signed from him and it didn't happened and she tweeted him. He responded that he received the tweet and wanted to talk to her and how grateful he was that she came, so he could sign her stuff. It was then time for photos. I got a photo with him, and as I walked away, I looked back at him, made eye contact, and I fell in love. It was beautiful. Maybe it's true love, or it goes to show how I can only love people who are unavailable. We'll see. See....I told you it was a love story.

It ended on a great note. We took another walk, feeling high off the love in our hearts for Zachary Levi. Taxied our way to the Newark Airport, because NYC metro and trains confuse me to no end. We ate sushi and slept on the flight back. The end.