Archive for the ‘personal’ Category
Posted on January 31, 2010 - by sarahsamudre
Sometimes It Takes a Month to Start a Year
I wanted to start the blogging year off with a personal post about the way I view New Year’s goals and hopes. In the following post, you’ll read nothing about the weight I hope to lose or the habits I’m giving up or the regimen I’m placing myself on. I know I’m young, but I feel I’m old enough to begin to grasp that external goals set in January can be an incredible exercise in frustration. There are things I hope for this year, and things I will hold myself to, but they’re of a different quality than the kind of resolutions I used to set. With this post, I just want to reflect on the way last year ended and what’s taken me so long to even blog about it in the first place. Life is always tougher and stranger than I plan for at the start of every year and month and week. So this year, I’d like to start out differently.
But first, background. How did the last year end for me?
So a little over a month and a half ago, Vasant and I finished our apartment. He and my father started working on this four years ago (although serious construction started in 2008). While we’ve been going to school and working, every spare minute of Vasant’s time was invested into our place. And this Christmas, we finally woke up in our cozy hobbit hole of an apartment.
Keep reading below the link: (more…)
Posted on November 24, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
Thanksgiving (updated with pictures!)
So it’s almost here! One of my favorite holidays of the year! The preamble to the Christmas season! The holiday that kicks in the teeth of any diet you’re on and says “Sorry sucker! That stuffing smells too good to pass up!”
This year I am in a rush to finish up my novel (91,000 + words, currently) and Vasant is in a rush to get us into our new place by the beginning of December (carpet and fireplace go in this next week, and hopefully we’ll get a housing inspection by the first weekend of December). In fact, while I tend to the turkey on Thanksgiving, Vasant and my Dad will be in the apartment working. Between school, catching the swine flu in October, and being behind on our ever-pressing deadlines to finish this book and construction by December, we’re spread unbelievably thin.But despite the craziness of this fall, there is so much to give thanks for. When I turn 28 this December, I’ll be able to say I’ve completed a novel. We’ll be in our own place, that Vasant BUILT. We’ll be closer than ever to graduation, and with so many projects off the table, we’ll be able to start working on screenplays for Vasant & I’s grad school portfolio. Ever onward and upward.
For more Thanksgiving update and the elaborately thought out Thanksgiving menu, click ‘more’…
Posted on September 23, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
5 Years Ago
… 5 years ago I fell the first bit in love with my future husband, after years of not-really-caring about him. This post is to celebrate that.
5 years ago, I had already known Vasant Samudre for a couple years. He was best friends with my best friend Todd. Our acquaintance had been a Mr. Darcy/Elizabeth Bennett type of acquaintance. We’d been introduced, by our gregarious, red-haired, Bingley-esque friend Todd, but hadn’t gotten along. I thought Vasant was proud. While all of Todd’s other friends quickly became my friends as well, Vasant stayed withdrawn, didn’t talk at parties, didn’t talk to me when I hosted the parties. I assumed he didn’t care for me as a person, which meant, of course, I didn’t care for him that much as a person.
That was the first two years of knowing each other, from 2002 through 2004. It was cool indifference that could, at times, be extended to pleasant socialization, if forced by Todd, to interact with each other.
But on September 23rd, 2004, something changed…
Posted on August 29, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
Psychological Hiccups
In a flash a heart is slain
you have to ask in all this pain
Was your heart too soft?
Was your love in vain?
- Copeland, “Love Affair” Eat, Sleep, Repeat ♫ http://blip.fm/~cipry
(a post about the psychological struggles of the middle of this novel)
Posted on July 6, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
Book Summer
Six years ago, I started writing a book called The Ashes. It began as a rambling analogy to something I was trying to communicate to my mother when we were out on a walk. It was a hot spring day, we were walking along the country roads, past the white fences protecting horses and alpacas and the other animals you find out here. I was talking to her about generational politics, tradition, problems people my age found with the church but what drew us to the ideals of the Church described in Acts. She wasn’t understanding, or rather (at that time only) was taking it so personally on behalf of people her age that she was missing my point. So I wove a tale about three women in one house, a deceased patriarch named Peter and a history of community parties the Grandmother and Grandfather had held that the granddaughter, Chloe, starts up again. Over the last 6 years, the story has evolved from just a simple analogy about the idealism of the young, the strictures of middle generations throughout all of time, and the examples that the elderly can forget that their own youth has set. It has taken on a life of its own that lives apart from its message and is just a damn fine story in its own right.
Read about what I’m doing after the jump:
Posted on May 13, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
England Trip Thus Far
So I’ve been here for five days so far, and having (as usual) a wonderful time. This is my third trip to London, and being as third time is the charm, Vasant and I have skirted jet lag COMPLETELY on this trip. Although, that may have something to do with the fact that we don’t have a regular sleep schedule anyway.
Our first day in town we went to the British Musuem (my fifth time there- I can’t get enough of musuems).
I love the Persian art the British Musuem has. Most of these pieces come from Persepolis.
Necklaces for British chieftains.
Two fantastic headpieces from the Roman Britain Era.
Death mask found at Sutton Hoo.
This is one of my favorite pieces. It’s a clock- when it was operational, it was designed to move across the dining table on the hour, firing little cannons, with music, and parading figures around its gilded deck.
Ancient Persian door fittings, guarded by Persian Sphinxs
Those are just a few of the pieces I really liked. From there we took Mom out to tea at Fortum & Masons (waste of money unless you’re paying for the experience alone, and even then I’d say go elsewhere). And if you ever want to have the best tea on the face of the Earth, for my money, got the White Heather Tea Room in Victoria, Canada. Best. Scones. In. Universe.
The next day we did Oxford and Blenheim Palace, where we saw some scenes from 20th Century Fox’s Gulliver’s Travels (Jack Black, Jason Segel and Emily Blunt were on set). I took a couple pictures of the costumes, but didn’t take any of the actors, because I felt really weird doing that. I did accidentally get Emily Blunt in the distant background of one photo, but I feel weird posting it. So my cousin Kevin, who doubts until he sees photos, will have to wait until I get back to see someone famous. But here are some set shots:
The scene we saw them shooting involved Emily Blunt and Jason Segel “looking up” at Jack Black’s Giant Sized Gulliver. Emily Blunt was screaming and there was smoke, and again, I felt really weird being there, like I needed to leave unless I was there to work. It just felt kind of odd looking at something I want to do professionally without being there for a reason. SOooooooOooo… I left and those are all the photos I’ll post!
We went into Blenheim’s gardens after the insanely boring (always boring) tour of Winston Churchill’s birth room and personal effects. I love the library however. The one room that is the most fascinating in the whole of the palace and you can only look at the spines of the books from behind metal lattice work. TORTUROUS.
This insanely weird statue fascinates me. I photograph it every time I visit. The feminine head looks so wistful, and slightly sad, atop her beastly body.
Her twin, however, just looks perturbed.
Just in case you’re wondering if this place looks familiar, it does. It’s used in dozens of movies, one of my favorites being Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet.
The next day we went out to Herstmonceaux Castle and Battle Abbey in Kent. Battle is one of my favorite spots in the UK, purely because I’m such a history geek. Herstmenceaux was “meh” for that reason. Pretty structure and gardens, but no huge historical significance. Speaking of which, we went to the National Archives (where Emily did her internship) and saw the Domesday book and a bit of the Magna Carta earlier that day. They had a map of the Roanoke Colony and underneath said the colony failed after 10 months “due to lack of provisions”. That’s all it said on the placard. Isn’t that like saying Amelia Earhart disappeared due to lack of fuel in her plane? Very weird that they’d just say it failed due to lack of provisions. One of history’s big mysteries and that’s all the say. Wonder why the historical slant. A BIG slant.
Anyway, Herstmonceaux Castle. Best part about it was a mother duck with her chicks chasing us all down, whining like a puppy (I didn’t know ducks did that) for our food. Mom gave the duck a cracker, but that wasn’t enough. It wanted Vasant’s latte.
So that’s our trip so far. Today Vasant and I went over to Notting Hill to find a Paul’s Boulangerie for breakfast (< Coffee rant> only reliable coffee chain in London- if you’re from Seattle and are a coffee junkie, avoid London Starbucks. Total crap. If you’re from any other part of the states though, you may not notice. < /end coffee elitist rant> )
Tomorrow Emily graduates, we’ll take Dad to the White Tower and Somerset House, and then Friday is York! Saturday and Sunday- I forget what we’re doing, but we return to the States on Monday. And Tuesday I’ve got a linguistics midterm, oh joy of joys.
Hope the pictures upload well.
Posted on April 18, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
Playing Catch-up.
So I’ve been having some serious “not the kind of thing one twitters about” medical issues this last month. I have sadly been unable to keep up regular entries on the site.
I don’t know who RSS feeds this, or checks it regularly, but to anyone who visits this site often, or happens upon it now randomly- I put it to you:
WHAT should I write about this weekend?!
If I only have time for one post this next week, what should I write about? My book or how to find good connections on Twitter? Those are the two topics I want to write about, but I don’t have the time to write about both. I either want to write about two characters in my book and how they’re evolving in a surprising way- or make good on a promise I made my friend Danielle; namely, to write a post on how to find great people to follow on Twitter. Both seem like good ideas, and eventually I’ll do both. But for now, I feel scatter-brained and indecisive. Any input?
Posted on March 10, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
Storm on the Horizon
My book is almost finished. I am almost 98% sure it’s going out to publishers this year, and I am 100% confident that when it does, it will be huge. There’s a little bit that’s left to be done, some extra revision, some peer edits, and one final plot point that I want to tweak- because I’m incredibly dissatisfied with this one aspect of one of my central characters.
Part of me is scared to finally finish it. There’s this massive feeling in my gut, the kind I get when I’m going up a huge incline on a rollercoaster, that something tremendously exciting/scary is about to happen, and that even though I know intellectually I’ll have fun and be glad I’m on the ride in 20 seconds, until then part of me is inwardly screaming to get off.
What leads me to ruminate about this in a post tonight is political in nature. Mainly because my book has a socio-political bent in it. I’m not worried about ITS acceptance, but rather my own. My book is somewhat critical of the Church and the fundamentalism that’s rampant in it today. It’s also critical of the way that generations tend to interact within the church, and how legalism plays a role in that. Of course, the plot is not about that stuff at all- but that stuff is the IDEOLOGY that steers my book. There’s actually hardly a mention of the Church in my book, other than a small role it plays in the mise-en-scence of small town America. But the critique is there, it’s the whole reason the book exists at all.
Posted on February 12, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
At Disneyland and Wondering about Writing
Vasant and I sat in the Blue Bayou (the restaurant inside Pirate of the Caribbean) and talked about my trouble writing fantasy for nearly two hours today. If you’re going to have a talk about creativity, talking about it at a table right on the edge of the moonlit swamp is the place to do it! I wrote about my problems writing a specific genre a couple weeks ago in a post called “A MESS”, but to be less vague, the genre I have difficulty writing is fantasy. It’s not that I don’t like fantasy. I do. I love it. But there’s something subconsciously blocking me from producing any works of fiction in that genre at all. And the crazy part is- I’m finishing up a novel that has nothing to do with it. A novel I’m incredibly proud of and excited about. BUT… now that I’ve id’ed this problem in me, I can’t get it out of my head. I keep thinking there is a better writer within my subconscious that is being blocked by this mysterious hangup. Why would I love fantasy, have an incredible imagination, but feel frustrated and fogged in whenever I try to write it? And it’s not that I’m trying to write it and I’m just no good at it. I can’t write it. I can’t get more than a paragraph into it- I all of a sudden get angry, ditch the idea and walk away from the paper or laptop. It’s dumb.
I feel like when I can figure out what this problem is, and breakthrough with a completed short story in this genre, I’ll be able to get to parts of my imagination that for whatever reason have been blocked off. I don’t know why I blocked them off, but I know I have and I’m not resting until I solve this problem, open this door and write a fantasy story.
Posted on February 1, 2009 - by sarahsamudre
True Love and Twittering During Superbowl
So I was sick all last week, so my efforts to try and blog more often totally crapped out. I had a three day migraine that lasted until midday Saturday. I’m still under the weather, but well enough to get out and about.
While I was sick, I missed a dinner reservation, a haircut, a gym trainer appointment, a paper deadline, and lost 10 followers on Twitter. But I also lost 3 pounds, sooooo…. win?
Sadly no. The loss of 3 pounds does not cancel out tons of mass guilt I feel for letting dozens of balls drop because of a stupid cold/flu. At least the migraines stopped and I can be sick without being unable to Twitter or read or write. Being sick is one thing, but migraines are the worst. (I’m not liking, by the way, that Twitter topped the list before read and write. What’s happening to me?)
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Anyway, I found this INCREDIBLE news story on a local news site this morning:
Couple die together after 62 years of marriage | KOMO News – Seattle, Washington | News
The story tells about a couple who recently died, after being married for 62 years, within six hours of each other. The wife had been diagnosed as terminally ill, and the husband basically ‘gave up the ghost’ when she passed away. Their relatives are quoted as saying that “their lives ebbed and flowed” together, and so, as sad as they are to lose both of them at the same time, they’re overjoyed that they died as they lived- completely in love and dependent on one another.
My husband Vasant and I were lying in bed the other night, and I couldn’t sleep- so I was distracting myself by trying to match my breaths to the duration and depth of his (he ALWAYS falls asleep right away). It took a while to slow my breath down to match his, but I kind of felt a “chi”-like energy in my gut breathing with him like that. I felt warm and drowsy and after ten or fifteen minutes fell asleep on his chest.
THAT is how I dream our last moments will be. In our nineties, on a house by the ocean, coming in from the garden and lunch, we’ll lay down together to nap, match breaths and just let go of this world. We’ve talked about that scenario so many times, and this story just kind of makes me feel reassured that it does happen. Vasant’s grandfather gave up the ghost six months after his wife went. Nothing was wrong with him- he just didn’t want to go on without her. The article details how it’s actually quite a regular phenomena, for couples who have been together for an incredibly long time to just “quit” life after one partner dies. Vasant and I read the article today and felt like that ideal afternoon 70 years from now… may be more than just our own sentimental wishes.
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In NON-SENTIMENTAL news, I twittered during the Super Bowl. It was fun. A small party actually happened at our place, last minute, which was wonderful, and while we’re all hanging out, I’m also twittering (I’m not anti-social, I’m WONDERFUL at multitasking twitter and live interaction). But man, watching the game was fun, but it was made even more enjoyable by watching it with all the people I follow on Twitter- especially when everyone in the room was yelling the same thing as all the people on Twitter. It was like being at TWO superbowl parties. I’m sure someone somewhere will right an article about that: Multi-tasking social events: Real Life and Twitter Superbowl parties and how they intertwine.
By the way, best movie trailer? Transformers 2. Best non-movie commerical? It was a tie between MacGruber and Alec Baldwin’s Hulu/Alien commercial. Great stuff.
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Sarah's Twittering- Done with our presentazione orale nella classe d'italiano. We wrote a silly spy comedy. Now onto final essays & final exams. Done in 5 days!
- Loved tonight's #Lost. Also, loved this description- so true: RT @MikeCoogan Tonight was a thinking man's episode.
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