Year 2 | A Week in Greece #5: WORK WEIRDNESSES

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After an exciting but restful weekend in Bucharest, I came back to a chaotic week in Athens.

On Monday, we tried to begin having Day Program classes at our new offices.  This meant starting with a couple hours of new rules and a lot of questions about the rules.  Mostly we talked about tardiness and absences, and this is still a topic I feel conflicted about.

Our program is meant to model a school or work environment, and we want to hold participants to similar standards so that when they seek employment elsewhere, they will be used to the routine of being on time for things.  But we have participants from diverse cultures, and I think this is at least partially responsible for the serial tardiness of some of the women.  I don’t know how much my desire to enforce timeliness is for their benefit or if it is for my own cultural comfort.

But other than that, it was really nice having classes in a new space!  Or at least, it was on Monday and Tuesday.  By the end of Tuesday, more and more workers were arriving to finish air conditioning installations, wall dividers, etc, and it was becoming increasingly ridiculous to try to be vulnerable or thoughtful with all the chaos around us.  We cancelled classes for the rest of the week, but planned a special event on Friday.

It was almost disastrous, and I was SO pissed, because I told the women a fake time to show up, knowing that they would be late.  Still, I wound up standing at the metro station for half an hour, at which point I decided to go on without them.  I met up with the two people who were meeting us downtown and found out that THEN, the women were leaving the house.  They met us one hour and fifteen minutes after our scheduled appointment time, and as I mentioned, I was PISSED.  I am generally a pretty laid back person, but apparently time issues have their claws sunk deep in me.

But then they showed up, and…they were all dressed up!  They’d done their hair and put on makeup.  They were wearing nice clothes and jewelry.  The baby was outfitted with everything he could possibly need.  And I realized – this was a really special event for them.  It was a chance to get out of the house, to explore the city while feeling safe, to be TOURISTS and just enjoy life for a while.  My annoyance drifted away as I became consumed with love for them, which is like, the whole point of everything.

We spent a couple hours at the Acropolis Museum.  Two of the women only speak Spanish, so we mostly pointed at statues and imitated their poses, laughed at each other, and then got told off by tour guides.  We had to stop a lot because two of the women are pregnant, and the new mother got increasingly terrified because she kept static shocking people and she thought she would hurt her baby.  A quick phone call to our Spanish interpreter prevented her from going home early, and I just kind of…loved my job?  The weird things that happen!  Never a dull moment!

We got coffee and sat around in the sun together for awhile before heading home.  On the metro, I was acutely aware of the fact that I, a white person, was hanging out with three black women.  There aren’t a lot of black people in Athens, and I wondered how people saw me, and then I thought, oh God, this is only a tiny taste of what they must think and feel at all times.  How exhausting to be a minority, always conscious of being “other” and wondering if that will cause you trouble or harm.

That was a lot of work stuff, but I did manage to have some fun this week too.  I went out with Olga and Haley (an American who works with Samaritan’s Purse) to Little Kook on Monday.  Olga and I had some prime roommate bonding, such as one Complaining Night and another Wine and Cheese and Jane Austen Movie Night.  And on Friday, three women from the Bible School came over for, well, another Wine and Cheese Night.  Today is Saturday, and I’ve been lazy while waiting for laundry to finish.  Tonight I’m going out to an Iranian restaurant for Danielle’s birthday, and the celebrations will continue tomorrow after church when we all watch a bunch of cat movies to celebrate the thing that bonds us all together (besides being ex-pats in Greece).

My Visa Problems are Annoying but Not Life-Threatening

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I am still working on getting the paperwork necessary to apply for a two-year visa in Greece.  I have been working on this since November, and we are still pretty much in step 1 (ask the Greek ministry to approve my organization as one that can request a volunteer).  That is a LONG time to be waiting, and as my 90-day tourist visa gets ever closer to finishing, my stress level increases and I am ever more likely to go on barely comprehensible rants.

But my perspective has shifted recently.

The thing is, if I’m not allowed to return to Athens in April, what will happen?

  • HD will have to find someone to cover all the work that I do.
  • I will have to find someone to take care of my Greek cat for an indefinite amount of time.
  • I will have to figure out what to do with rent and roommates and all my possessions.
  • I will have to explain to my donors why I have had to pause the work that they are paying me to do.
  • I will be sad about leaving the life and work that I love.

But also?  I have family and friends all across the United States who I know will take me into their homes.  I know I could find a job in the States as a librarian or nanny if the waiting goes on for a month or more.

The women at HD do not have that option.

We currently have three (soon to be four) women in our program who are refugees in Greece.  They are each pregnant, or newly a mother, and they all want to stay in Greece with the longterm goal of finding a job and making enough money that they can send it home to family or even better, finding a way to bring their family here.

They are also in the middle of a legal headache, trying to get paperwork approved so that they can continue to live in this country.  We are the same…except that if they never get a visa, then they face the possibility of being sent back to a homeland of poverty and in one woman’s case, an abusive family.  They risk re-entering the desperate world of trafficking if they trust the wrong person.  They are confronted with the reality that in order to feed their soon-to-be-born child, one of the most feasible options available to them is voluntary prostitution.

Their lives are so limited, and in comparison, mine is limitless.

I’m grateful for all of my privilege.  I wouldn’t give it up, even if I could.  But now that I am more aware of this new aspect of my white, American, educated, middle-class privilege, I’m going to try to stop complaining quite so much.  I mean, I still will sometimes, because I’m selfish and anxious.

But I have a new awareness that the worst of my problems essentially amounts to a vacation that I didn’t ask for.  So for today, I’m grateful that my problems are only an annoyance, and not something life-threatening.

Year 2 | A Week in Greece #4: MOVING OFFICES AND BUCHAREST

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This week was FULL.

Moving Offices

When I arrived at work on Monday, I discovered that we had received a new participant over the weekend, bringing our total number up to six (in a three bedroom house)!  It was now clearer than ever that we needed to move our offices into our new rented building so that we could convert our current office space into two new bedrooms.  We’re also building a dividing wall in the living room to create a third bedroom.

All of this means that the week was chaos.  We packed up everything and moved it to our new space.  But because we’re moving so quickly, the phone lines aren’t working yet in the new office.  That means that our desks are in one space and our wifi is in another (a 25 minute walk between them, too, so the commute is not simple).  Only the Day Program (that’s me and the two other facilitators) will be working out of the new space next week, and we tried to plan ahead for everything we might need that would require Internet access.

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Speaking of the Day Program, this week felt like I really came into my new role as the coordinator.  I did the intake forms with our newest participant, in which she shares her story (we only ask our participants to relive their trauma once – after the initial forms, they can share or not share the details of what they have gone through at their own discretion).  I also had to do a re-entry interview with a participant who returned to us last week.  And there are several fiscal year reports to do and program rules that I am responsible for creating and enforcing, and ah!  It feels like a lot!

I didn’t quite realize the difference between being a facilitator and being the program coordinator.  Last year, when I had a concern or an idea, I could tell the coordinator and let her decide what to do and when to do it.  Now I’m that person, and while I quite like the position, I feel very drained at the end of a busy day.

Bucharest, Romania

Luckily, there is travel!  Olga and Luciana and I went to Bucharest this weekend.  All of us like to explore new places, but more than that, we share a NEED for travel.  For whatever reason, there is a direct link between my physical and mental presences.  When I am in Athens, I feel responsible for work-related things, past and future.  But when I physically leave, I am able to leave the mental worries behind too.

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So we went to Bucharest for €40 roundtrip, stayed in a cute little hostel downtown, and explored!  The three of us have wonderfully similar travel philosophies (heavy on the coffee shops, bookstores, and silly pictures), which made for a really fun weekend.  It was an especially amazing time to visit Bucharest, because there were hundreds of thousands of protesters flooding the city.  The Romanian government tried to pass a law that would make government corruption legal, but after four days of peaceful protests, it looks like the law won’t be passed!  It feels really cool to have witnessed a historic event like that.

We returned already planning our next trip, so I think that solidifies our weekend as a success.  I feel rested, excited, and ready to go back to work.  I love this life of working hard at something that feels important, and then playing hard by visiting new countries and experiencing new cultures.

What I Read | JANUARY 2017

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In January, I left my beloved library behind in the States, which was very sad.  But I also returned to twelve new books that I bought at a Christmas bazaar before leaving Athens last year, so it all balanced out (not really, twelve books does not equal infinite library access).

51t0npdw14l-_sy344_bo1204203200_We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This tiny book is adapted from a TedX Talk, and boy is it effective.  I mean, I guess she was preaching to the choir, but I found her balance of personal anecdotes and academic research very persuasive.  I would love to know if someone who is not a feminist could read this and come away unmoved.

hpHarry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Everyone already knows how awesome this book is, but do you know how amazing the illustrated edition is?  It has the full text printed like a children’s fairy tale book, and just holding the heavy thing in my hands made the whole story feel important and magical in an really evocative way.  The artwork is stunning, both familiar and unique.  I was especially impressed with how the kids looked like actual 11-year-olds.  I cannot wait to see what they do once they publish the fourth book in this format – will it come in two pieces or require a forklift?

the-geography-of-genius-9781451691658_hr1The Geography of Genius by Eric Weiner

This book combines three of my favorite things:  travel, history, and sociology.  Weiner visits several cities that were the birthplace of geniuses.  Some are obvious, like ancient Athens or Florence during the Renaissance.  Others I was unaware of, like Edinburgh and Hangzhou.  The whole journey is in pursuit of what creates genius, abolishing myths (the lone genius) and positing new theories (genius requires diversity, disorder, and discernment).

scrappy-little-nobody-9781501117206_lgScrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

The simplest recommendation is this:  if you like Anna Kendrick, you will like this book.  It sounds like her (especially if, like me, you listen to her read the audiobook version), both very funny and often insightful.  It is vaguely interesting as a child actor story, but that’s not its real purpose.  Instead, she’s doing what she does best:  entertaining us with stories.

27362503It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

WOW.  This book was recommended to me by a librarian friend, and it completely blew me away.  It’s all about breaking the cycle of abuse, but instead of being maudlin or overly dramatic, Hoover gives us the “best” case scenario and challenges us to empathize with people on all sides of the situation.  It felt incredibly weird to occasionally root for the abuser, but that’s the power of her storytelling capabilities.  And the ending was just beautiful.

51jqqolltjl-_sx329_bo1204203200_Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham

Once again, if you like Lorelai Gilmore – I mean Lauren Graham – then you will like this book.  And once again, I recommend you listen to the audiobook, which Graham reads herself.  I really admired that she knows her audience; she spent a little time on her childhood, but the bulk of the material lies in describing her experiences working on Gilmore Girls (and to a lesser extent Parenthood).  Her joy and gratitude are so evident, and it makes the book a delightful thing to experience.

51vf1u6wpfl-_sx326_bo1204203200_The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell

I’m a full-fledged socialist now!  Russell’s description of being a British ex-pat in Denmark for one year totally converted me to the benefits of paying 50% taxes.  But seriously, her memoir/non-fiction story is really fun to read…just start saving for that plane ticket, because she’s hella convincing.

1618The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

Although this is a great book written from the perspective of a teenager with Asperger’s, I never quite connected with it because it was not what I expected.  I thought I was reading a mystery, but that ends quite quickly, and I found the true story far less interesting.  Still, it’s a great piece for those who want a glimpse into inner workings of someone with Asperger’s, especially in making obvious just how much WORK every action and reaction is.

Year 2 | A Week in Greece #3: BACK TO GREEK and a VISITING TEAM

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Greek Lessons Part 2

fullsizerenderI re-started my Greek lessons this week!  It turns out that taking five weeks off from all things Greek (by returning to the United States) was very necessary for my brain.  And amazingly, I don’t think I lost any of my vocabulary or grammar!  I’m really grateful for Evangelia – she’s giving me lessons for free twice a week as her way of supporting HD.  And this year, HD paid for my textbook, so I have my own to write in (previously we were all sharing a book and had to write answers in a notebook, which just…didn’t work in my brain very well?).

All this is really great, because I’m using my Greek more to talk with the Greek-speaking participants at HD.  I stayed late with two of them on Friday, and the three of us managed to communicate for over an hour.  Not in anything resembling an intelligent conversation, but we got along and laughed and knew well enough what the other was trying to say.  I know I will eventually reach another plateau of “UGH GREEK,” but I plan to enjoy this period as long as possible.

Visiting Team

img_5276We had a team from the States come to HD for the week to teach us how to knit.  I spent the first day doing it wrong and hating it, and then the second day realizing my mistake and thinking “THIS IS SO EASY (compared to what I was doing).”  I love our Celebration Weeks when we get to hang out with the participants on equal footing – M and D latched onto knitting quickly and left me in the dust, which I think is a valuable thing for them to experience (and me, too).

I was thinking a lot about the nature of the teams that come to us, though.  Our participants are becoming more diverse – three different countries, three different languages, two different races, two different age levels – but our staff and volunteers are pretty universally white, educated, middle- or upper-class women.  I wonder how helpful it is for our women to see privilege, privilege, privilege all the time.

But then…how else is someone going to come volunteer with us if they aren’t privileged?  Not everyone can take a week off of work and afford to fly to Greece.  I don’t think there is an easy answer here, but it’s something I want to keep thinking about.

Friends

I didn’t do a lot socially this week – I worked late a couple nights, and I was especially drained from being Happy and Hospitable for our team.  Rosie came over one night, and we discovered a mutual interest in anime and Korean dramas.  She said she wanted to read something fluffy, and I hesitantly offered, “Have you tried…fanfiction?” and she said, “Oh, yes, of course,” and I leaped for joy.  Nerdy kindred spirits.

Speaking of nerdy kindred spirits, I went over to Luciana and Giorgos’s another evening to play Zelda: Twilight Princess.  We passed the controller between us, all taking turns and pointing out suggestions to each other, and it was so fun!

This will come into play more next week, but…I’m going to Romania!  Luciana and I were trying to go to Bredvoort (Netherlands) but tickets were too expensive.  I half-heartedly checked Ryanair for cheap tickets to anywhere and noticed €20 tickets (each way) to Bucharest.  “Do you want to go?” I asked Luciana and Olga.  They immediately wrote back yes, and I bought our tickets.  Within 30 minutes, I’d made weekend plans to visit Romania with two friends!  This is exactly the sort of European lifestyle I want.

Self-Care During This Political Chaos

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I almost always feel alone in my beliefs.  I’m too conservative for my liberal friends and too liberal for my conservative friends, but for one reason or another, I typically have more conservative friends than liberal ones.  A lot of the time, this doesn’t cause conflict, because although our politics differ, many of our goals and values are the same.  But the inauguration of the United States’s newest president is not ‘a lot of the time.’  So it is unfortunate that I currently find myself surrounded by conservative friends when all I want is to complain and cry and grieve that a racist, sexist, lying narcissist has been elected into my country’s highest office.  What’s a girl to do to take care of herself?

  • Snuggle with my cat; many faceplants into soft furry sides have occurred these past three days.
  • Watch A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix, and remember that with intelligence, passion, and ingenuity, all sorts of horrible things can be endured.
  • Drink a class of wine, eat a piece of chocolate, and remember that good things exist.
  • Walk outside in the crisp air while listening to podcasts about God, feminism and/or Harry Potter.
  • Scroll through endless photos of women’s marches around the world and get excited about the fact that many a young girls’ career in politics is beginning today.
  • Talk to my female roommate and female friends about theology, about philosophy, and about psychology.
  • Write a message of gratitude to my brother, to my male friends, and to male celebrities who show support for women by joining in marches that do not benefit their exact experiences.
  • Get involved, by writing postcards to my senators so that my voice will be heard.  Too long I’ve tried to avoid being involved in politics, and look what happened.  Everyone needs to speak up, during elections and in between.  That means you too, dear readers, even if you are going to write in the exact opposite of my requests.

I’ve been sad the last couple days, but also inspired.  I feel alone, but in truth, millions of women all around the world marched to make their voices, and the voices of those who could not publicly join them, heard.  I stand with many brave, smart, sassy, angry, passionate, happy women who are going to change history.  This is going to be great.  Let’s not give up or shut up – we are blessed to live in a country that allows us freedom of speech, so for the first time in my life, I’m going to take advantage of that.  Tammy and Richard, I am so excited to write to you!

Year 2 | A Week in Greece #2: CANCELLED DUE TO SICKNESS

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I had such good intentions for this first full week in Greece.  I was headed back to work, and I had something planned for every night!  And then I caught this weird flu/cold bug that’s been going around Athens.

I spent all day Sunday and Monday in bed.  This illness was especially untimely because of jet lag.  I couldn’t sleep at night, and I found it all too easy to sleep until 5:00 p.m.  Nightmare.

By Tuesday I felt well enough to go to work, both because I wanted to and because I knew I had to break my sleep cycle.  It was WONDERFUL.  I got to meet our newest participants, I got caught up on everything from the past month, and I got to go to a bunch of meetings.  I love meetings, is that odd?

After work, I met Kendra for coffee to catch up.  She’s leaving Greece permanently-ish (the -ish is mostly wishful thinking) in August, so I was able to give her “how to take care of yourself while adjusting to the States” advice.  Then I bragged about how with DayQuil and NyQuil I had conquered my sickness in two days, and oh how sad that you are still sick with yours two weeks later.

On Wednesday I woke up feeling like death again.  I did go to work, where I talked so much that I lost my voice.  I did not go to Bible study that night, and slept all evening instead.

On Thursday I felt better!  Wow, it’s like there is a direct correlation between sleeping for massive amounts of time and feeling healthier.  I went to work and taught my favorite class, Self-Esteem.  We talked about the different categories of negative people in life.  Our newest participant said that she has a lot of Two-Faced people in her life, people who seem nice and friendly but who actually want to use her.  I pointed out that it must be hard to be at HD, because hey, we’re all acting nice and friendly, but why should she trust us?  She looked away, smiled, and said yes.  It is overwhelming, sometimes, to realize how much we ask of these women, and how easily it is to hurt them again.  They are so much stronger and more resilient than I will ever be, and I hope so much that my dumb selfishnesses will not hurt them more than my shaky love might heal them.

Since I was riding high, I went to book club with my friends.  We planned it back in December when a bunch of us went to a bazaar to buy cheap books and realized we all wanted to be in a book club.  Of course, because it is Greece, it took an hour for everyone to arrive (including one person getting lost, one rescue mission, and one car stalling in the middle of the road blocking twenty angry motorists).  Then we ordered food, spilled wine on a white tablecloth, Googled how to get it out with salt, and anyway it was 10:00 p.m. before we got to the actual book (Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton) part of the book club.

Surprise, surprise, my late night cost me big!  When I showed up to work on Friday, one of the participants told me in Greek, “You look horrible!”  It was both encouraging and discouraging that I understood her.  Luckily my coworker came to my rescue and volunteered to take my period later in the day, so I went home early and slept all day after cancelling my plans to see Rogue One (I am never going to see Rogue One, apparently).

On Saturday, Olga made me – oh wait.  I haven’t talked about Olga, my roommate!  She’s awesome.  For instance, she made me soup on Saturday for lunch, and when she came to tell me it was ready and found me asleep at 2:00 p.m., she waited another 45 minutes so she could eat with me.  She’d set up an adorable table setting and everything, it was so wonderful.

I cancelled more plans for Saturday night, but then Tatiana and Natasha (former roommates) came over.  We all talked for a couple hours, and when it got to be 10 I kicked them out because I was sleepy, but then Olga and I sat on the kitchen floor and discussed the theology of animal souls (my favorite topic, I cannot resist it!).  I have decided that this is a good friendship test:  if you have fun sitting on cold linoleum with them, probably they are a pretty good sort of person.

That was my week: high expectations rarely met.  But I’m so glad to be back, and I hope next week involves fewer sore throats and less sleeping.

Sunday Summary #52

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1|  If you can’t travel as often or as diversely as you’d like, all hope is not lost!  This article does a beautiful job of suggesting ways to bring the world to you.

2|  President Obama surprised Joe Biden by giving him a Medal of Freedom, and I legitimately cried.

Year 2 | A Week in Greece #1: I’M BACK

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Technically I haven’t been in Greece for a full week; just 48 hours.  But it already feels worth documenting, so here we go.

After three flights and nearly 24 hours of traveling, I arrived in Athens at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday.  Anthi picked me up, and as she drove me home, she filled me in on some more HD news.  Cool fact:  our newest participant is Muslim, so she doesn’t eat pork.  As mentioned in my last post, I’ve decided to give up pork this year!  Hopefully we can bond over this and find some food solidarity.

As I was unpacking, Anthi offered to pick up some groceries for me.  I requested cereal and milk for the moment, and she came back with that plus eggs “because I know you love eggs.”

My newest roommate Olga moved in on January 3rd, but she was at a friend’s house when I got home.  I was asleep by the time she came home, and now she’s spending the weekend at the Bible College, so I have yet to actually see her.  I’m excited to be housemates, but it was nice to have the house to myself for my first weekend back.

On Friday, I was SO PRODUCTIVE.  I did all the things I hate most:  paid a bill at the post office, walked down to Cosmote to ask about wifi plans, started a Word document of all the Greek vocabulary I learned last year, and…huh.  I promise it felt like a lot.

I went over to Rosie’s that afternoon to meet up with her, Kendra, and Danielle.  I felt closest to them during my time away, because we are all part of a “Parents of Furry Kids” Viber chat where we shared pictures of our cats for the last six weeks.  I also was reunited with Hans Harrison, who is SO massive compared to Rory.

Luciana and Giorgos came to pick up me and HH (so good to see them again!), and once again we dream-teamed the cat trapping.  Unfortunately, Hans Harrison seems to have associated Giorgos’s voice with trauma, because he hides whenever they’re around.  They stayed at my house for a while so we could all catch up.  They were hugely understanding of all my many feelings, and when I told them that due to visa issues I would be staying until at least April 2018, Luciana suggested, “So you’ve decided to live here long term?”

“I’m open to another two years or something.”

“No, like, long term.  Forever!”

“Hahahahhaa, commitment scares me, please stop.”

They left late, and I fell asleep not long after.  Unfortunately, I woke up at 5 am (jet lag!!), which caused Hans Harrison to run around, thinking I was getting up.  He tried to chew on his new collar and got his lower jaw stuck in the thing, causing me major panic as I tried to reach him under the bed and unsnap it as he gagged.  When I got it off of him, he practically burrowed himself into my skin as thanks, reminding me of that Aesop’s fable about a lion with a thorn in its paw.

I couldn’t go back to sleep for ages, and when I did, my alarm went off not long after.  I hit snooze for TWO HOURS and finally got up at 10:30 am.  I really hate jet lag.  Luckily, I did all the boring errands and all the fun friend-seeing yesterday, so I’m going to be as lazy as necessary today!

It’s really good to be back.  It’s really good to feel like I’m returning home – to my own apartment and to people who already know and love me.  What a difference this is compared to last year!

2017 New Year’s Resolutions

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I like the idea of resolutions, and as was pointed out by my friend yesterday, starting a new year on a Sunday feels all kinds of right when it comes to introducing new habits into your life.  A couple days ago I mentioned that one goal for this year was to travel somewhere alone, but I have two new habits that I also want to throw into the mix.

  1. Read the entire Bible using the NLT One Year Chronological Bible

    I bought this ages ago and read through it, though not in a year.  I love the translation being slightly off what I grew up on (NIV) and the way the pages are set up.  It all lends toward making the Bible feel more like a story rather than an instruction manual.  I’m two days in, and already I’ve been struck by how God, as revealed in the creation narrative, is creative, patient, and regenerating.  Which makes me think that as people created in his image, we also ought to be creative, patient, and regenerating.  It’s also fun to read it through my new lens of “this is probably poetry more than history” because I’ve got to tell you, it makes a lot more sense that way.

  2. Give up pork

    I’ve been flirting with the idea of becoming a vegetarian for a couple months now.  I just felt like it was weird that I love animals so much but don’t do any kind of reflection on how often I eat them.  I don’t actually think there’s anything morally wrong with eating animals, but I do want to be intentional about it and not just take it for granted.  Anyway, that’s a whole other conversation.

    I wound up realizing that there’s no way I can be a vegetarian because I barely know how to cook and feed myself in a healthy way, and I have no drive to cultivate culinary creativity.  I would wind up eating only power bars and candy and dying of whatever that causes.

    So my compromise is this:  no pork products!  Partly this is because someone told me pigs feel things more than other animals we eat, but mostly this is because I want to learn how to navigate the awkwardness of have food restrictions.  I want to sacrifice in a tiny way, and we’ll see what happens.

I’m always interested in stretching myself and trying new things.  The start of a new year is an excellent time to kick off those goals, though there’s no reason January 23rd couldn’t also be that day for you.

Or if you just, I dunno, want to stay the same forever, then I guess that’s cool too.  Ugh, that sounds like death, it is NOT for me.

Off to read the Bible and avoid pig meat!