Category: Julia

posts by Julia

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Inspirational Julia

Even the Terrible Things: A Book Review

“Even the Terrible Things Seem Beautiful to Me Now” is a collection of articles written by a Chicago Tribune columnist, Mary Schmich, and anyone who ever lived in or wants to live in Chicago should read it.

The first section of the book is about Mothers and the very first story made me cry as I read it in the book store while I was deciding if I was going to buy the book or not. in such a relatable way. The way she describes a powder blue bike that her dad gave her even though he didn’t have much to give, made me think about cruising on the city streets at dusk, swerving to avoid car doors and feeling free with the wind on your face and in your hair.

She talks about tragedy and strength in the same sentence as she describes how a Chicago judge, who’s husband and mother were murdered, comforts her children and ends up going back to work.

Schmich is able to take a normal life, a normal story, and show it for the incredible gift that it is. She says her mom told her, in her old age, that looking back across her life she could only see good. She said that even the terrible things seemed beautiful to her now. How hopeful is that for every reader? That life gives you what it will and in the end – somehow- everything looks beautiful.

Book Review Grade: A

Writing style: Frank, honest and raw

Mood: while there is a lot of sadness in this book, there is a prevailing theme of hope and strength and survivorship

Categories
Samuel Twenty Somethings

Using The Seinfeld Productivity Method

Over the years I have constantly struggled to maintain a “productive” schedule. I tried post it notes, calendars, too-do list… pretty much any kind of productivity hack you can think of, all of which I had various degrees of success with. The main problem with all of these methods is that they would get complicated, and they don’t really show you a “big picture” of how you are doing. I recently came across a quote from Seinfeld about the method he used when he was early in his career, and he credits it with powering his success. Naturally this intrigued me since he is one of the most successful humans on the planet, so I set out to see how this method works for me.

The basic premise behind this method is very simple. Get a large calendar, hang it up on your wall in a place that you can easily see it. Then decide on 3-4 activities you want to do every day. If you do those activities, you get a big check mark for that day, if you don’t do those activities then you have to put a big ugly x mark on that day. I’ve been using this method for 5 months so far this year, and it has REALLY improved my life, and my overall productivity. The goals for each day are completely arbitrary, and will be different for everyone. My goals happen to be to wake up at an appropriate hour, to spend between 3-6 hours of “focused” working, and to get at least 45 minutes of exercise in. To get an idea of what kind of calendar you should use see my setup below:

IMG_20140516_105041_055

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Julia Shorts Uncategorized

Parisian Jacque

About five years ago I lived in Paris for a semester of school and lived with a French family.

The 3 kids, my french ‘siblings’ had a pet fish and loved to eat chocolatey cereal or chocolate biscuits (cookies). They loved learn English words from me while they helped me with my French/ laughed at my incorrect verb conjugation.

They also were obsessed with the show 24. “Jacque Bauer!!” they couldn’t comprehend how I didn’t watch the show and insisted I watch with them. The only TV in the apartment was in their parents room and one night I was babysitting them/ hanging out – after making French versions of frozen pizza (tuna on one, and some white sauce on the other)- we turned on season 2 or 4 of 24.

Nothing is as funny as trying to keep up with a bunch of gasping french kids, shrieking as things happen while you’re about three minutes behind in understanding due to slow translation skills and a heavy reliance on context clues.

I never watched the show in the states even after my return, it just wasn’t the same without the dubbed voices and the feeling of sitting on worn, creaky, french floorboards at the foot of a bed.

Now that its back on TV, I wonder if they’re all freaking out and watching together…

Categories
Julia Shorts

Parents

I had the great opportunity to spend Memorial Day weekend with my older brother, sister-in-law and my niece. They just moved into a bigger house and have a guest futon of which I took full advantage. They make parenting look good. My niece is teething and got a little bit of a fever on my second day in town. I love her so much and got nervous when she obviously wasn’t feeling well but they just did some parent things and stayed calm and don’t get frustrated when she is crying because she doesn’t feel good. As much as I love babies and kids living with them for a couple days reminded me how intense parenting is and how lucky it is that my amazing, cute, smart niece has such great parents making this life for her where she will develop and grow.

she did sit on my lap to read books and we built blocks, which I swear she was counting even though she’s only One.

Categories
Julia Places and Spaces

Crater Lake

I read a description in a semi-autobiographical novel once about Crater Lake in Oregon once, and since then its felt like this mythical place that I have to go visit. The book is about this woman who at 26 hikes a huge portion of the Pacific Coast Trail, alone…and with no prior hiking experience. I am not sure about taking on that much due to time and possibly not being as brave/stupid to go alone as she was. But a hike over several days to reach Crater Lake? totally doable.

I should start figuring out a plan to make this real.

 

The lake was formed by a volcanic eruption about 8,000 years ago, so it’s like a mountain in reverse: 1,943 feet deep, the deepest in the country. The rim is about 700 feet above the water’s surface; it’s so blue when you look down. The Klamath Indian tribe considers it a sacred site.

Categories
Julia

Gratitude

This evening I was walking to the train in a bit of a daze, having a conversation but feeling tired and drained. Not only did I stay up entirely too late the night before (reading a book. yes, it was real crazy) but my team got the boot from round one of the playoffs (Hockey) after what was a high-energy fast paced and exciting start. The series began to look more like playoff round-ones of our past coming back to haunt us, and in the end provided the same dismal outcome.

Anyway, weather-wise it was a fairly nice evening and most people were in a celebratory mood because I live in the city of the other team- the winners (boo). I was making it a point not to look in the bar windows I was passing on the way to the train and brushed off the “I’m sorry about your team’s loss” from my companion because it just made me mad to hear it out loud.

I changed the subject as we entered the train station, digging in my purse for my CTA pass, knowing i’d just had it in my hand yesterday. I slowed as I approached the turnstile and balanced on one foot as I rested my bag on my knee to get a better look at where the heck my card was. A train had just pulled in overhead and a stream of people started coming down the stairs and clicking through the turnstile. This guy came out with headphones on, a fade cut to his blonde hair, sunglasses and a backpack strung across his shoulders. I backed up to get out of his path, as I realized I had inched up pretty close as I was rooting around for my freaking card.

He didn’t bob and weave out of my way but instead matched my move to the side, turned and tapped his own CTA card on the turnstile. It turned green, welcoming me; I smiled and said thank-you, though I couldn’t see his eyes and wasn’t sure he could hear me over whatever music he was listening to.

My mood instantly got better. such a small and inconsequential thing to him really meant a lot to me. How such a simple gesture felt so good. My CTA card? I realized as I boarded the train and headed off into the setting sun towards home…was in my pants pocket from yesterday.

Thank you guy; I bet you have great taste in music to match your sweet and surprising manners.