A Letter to My Younger Self

Dear Sixteen-Year-Old Emily,

First off, let me prove to you that this letter really comes from your older self: your favorite thing you've drawn since high school started is actually just a crummy sketch of Pete Scheck and a saxophone. (And let me sort of reassure you, after such public embarrassment, that until publishing this letter, you never told a soul about that.)

#tbt to being sixteen.

Barefaced and Fancy-Free

This is my face.

On Milestones (My 200th Post!)

Since the ability to remember idiosyncratic anniversaries and count small achievements is one of my hidden superpowers, I'm excited to report that this is my 200th blog post! (Seriously, I'm the kind of person who passes the time on the elliptical machine by multiplying the number of strides or calories per minute by the number of minutes remaining in my workout, and then trying to beat my projected totals. What can I say: it keeps my mind engaged!)

My Before-30 To Do List

Almost a decade ago, I wrote a list of things I wanted to do before I turned 30. Recently, I pulled out the journal I'd written it in and decided to have a cry-laugh over the goals I set at 21. I'm not sure whether to celebrate the successes, bemoan the failures, or feel ashamed over some of the items on that list. Since feeling ashamed of myself isn't really my thing, I decided to go with Secret Option D: Share List Publicly on My Blog, complete with annotations!

My 30th birthday was spent at a winery and the Nixon Presidential Library. You can probably guess where this photo was taken.

Hello, 2017!

Happy New Year, everybody! I have high hopes for 2017, even though 17 is a prime number and I have an irrational dislike for prime numbers. (Judging by the responses to my poll, very few people share this optimism, but then again, I didn't get a statistically-significant sample. (I guess there's no such thing as ex-social-scientist. Ok, enough with the parenthetical remarks!)) In the nine or so hours that it's been 2017 in my time zone, nothing bad has happened yet, so I suppose it's already off to a better start than 2016, at least on a global level. Personally, 2016 was actually a pretty stellar year!

While I know it's something of a cliche to make New Year's resolutions, I've always liked making (if not always keeping) them. Thus, in the spirit of trapping myself through public accountability, I'm going to share a few of mine with you, as well as some photos from our Vegas honeymoon!

Big in Japan

By the time you read this, I will (hopefully) be in Cambridge, England, but for once in my life, I've tried planning this blog ahead, so I'm writing this when I really ought to be packing.

Believe it or not, this is not my first blog. Way back in the day, I had a Livejournal, in which I posted snippets of conversations, Pointedly Cryptic Thoughts, song lyrics, and a smattering of pretentious garbage. The other night, though, I remembered my other blog: the one I kept during my semester in Japan over a decade ago. On a whim, I decided to see whether it was still there, and miraculously, it was. Epic travels down Memory Lane ensued.

December 2005. Look at the size of that digital camera!