Spring Break! But not really....

The offices are still open and I have to be at work. Who am I to complain? At least I don't have to go to class; that's vacation enough. We also get Friday off, so I have a long weekend, over which I'll be going to Albuquerque to visit Julia Sapir--yea!

My "break" started on the weekend. Saturday I cleaned and went to yoga class, and then there were two parties to attend that night, Seena's birthday celebration at a bar downtown and a party at Shane's apartment. At the bar, we had tables on the roof deck, which was enclosed and heated; it felt like summer with all the green plants around. I chatted with lots of people I'd really only heard about from Seena. It took me ages to get back to Washington Heights, but I was glad to have had the energy to stop by Shane's party, which was full of tipsy musicians. An impromptu jam session started when I asked if anyone played the ukelele, because there was one hanging on the wall. Shane took it down and started playing, and then a girl sitting on a pilates ball started drumming on the ball. A guy started blowing into an empty beer bottle, and then two more of us starting blowing into empty beer bottles. Soon everyone was participating in some way, clinking glasses together, singing, and even doing an improvised Hawaiian dance. We ended the night with kumbaya, which started as a joke but cracked us all up.

Sunday I worked on school stuff. Even though it's Spring Break, I still have tons of work to turn in. Then I came home and cooked quinoa with black beans for dinner, and Shane came over to learn Spanish and give me another guitar lesson. I'm beginning to learn the chords and stuff to that Beatles song, Blackbird, or whatever it's called. It's very cool.

Having the evenings to myself this week has been wonderful. With late classes Mondays and Tuesdays, I usually get home at about 10 and should just go to bed. This Monday I went to a yoga class after work and again had dinner at Shane's. Yesterday I went to a cool grocery store and came home and cooked soup with fabulous ingredients that I don't normally get (such as organic daikon and bok choy). Then I did laundry and hung out with Seena, and then Krystal and Shane stopped by for soup. It's so nice having friends in the neighborhood!

I found yet another friend at the grocery store yesterday; Peter was one of my students taking Chinese back at Ohio State, and we'd hung out a bit back then because we lived in the same apartment complex. That was almost four years ago. I knew he'd come to New York to study dentistry, but I never contacted him because I assumed he'd finished already. He'll be graduating soon and moving to San Francisco to study orthodontics, but he lives a few blocks down the street, so we'll probably hang out at some point.

That reminds me, I ran into another friend at the neighborhood grocery store over the weekend. She is one of the teachers I observe at the public school I normally go to, and she also lives about a block from me!

What's going on? How come I never saw any of these people in the neighborhood before? I guess during the winter people don't spend a lot of time outside. I definitely avoid it. Now that spring is upon us, however, I hope there will be time to take walks to the park, and now I have a whole crew of friends to choose from to invite along with me. At least this will be the case up until Peter and Shane graduate and move away in May; then it will be just us girls.

Best get to work now!