On December 31^st, 2009, I picked up my best friend London at the Stamford Train Station.  Without any digression we headed straight to The Long Island Sound to float our troubles away.  We packed our written thoughts into a small glass toppings jar, with a 60’s fashioned red top.  The splash was insignificant, but the waves rhythmically undulated for what seemed to be hours.  In a moment I made commitment to myself, which I would say “shalom” to all the small stuff weighing the world.  And, London said his “peace” to the girl he’s loved with all of his heart for four years.  Lately the rushed letters jammed into the glass jar have reinforced the promise to sleep less, to write more, to read more, to go out more, to date more, to appreciate myself more, to have more confidence, assertion, sureness, and clarity.  At the end of 2010 – I’d like to look back and say: “it was the most defining, productive, exhilarating year of my life” – perhaps a real Siskel and Ebert Review.  I know that the only way to ensure it is to create it.

A couple things to work on:

1)   Style – I would like to know different fashion designers, their influences and further sophisticate my own style.  Currently I am looking at the likes of Tom Ford, Marc Jacobs and people who have really “understood” it like David Beckham, Brad Pitt, and old influences too, like James Dean.

2)   Information Overload – work on my knowledge of popular culture, companies, brands, music, celebrities, cultural events, secret menus.

3)   Wit – Practice at any chance, moment, to use the power of my words to be mightier than the sword. That was not meant to be witty, but honest… bee tee dubs.

It’s a long and winding road, ahead.  Thanks for sharing it with me.

- Sono

Right now, I am sitting in a window seat 30,000 ft above sea level, to escape winter for a few days.  The man next to me is big boned, probably an athlete who still recalls his high school football glory days, and now has an edgy corporate do with a smaller version of Johnny Bravo, jet black hair.  He is quiet, and to himself, and unmistakably vocal when it’s his turn to say: “excuse me”, “no problem”, or “it’s not on” while he is arguing with the flight attendant about the “off-position” of his blackberry.  “Sir – I have a blackberry, it’s on – you are texting!” It was an obnoxious exchange.  “Sorry” when he accidently plowed his elbow into my brother as he sits down from all of his trips to the overhead compartment. Each time he comes back he brings a messy stack of daily newspapers three weeks high; they appear to have been taken out of a recycling can.  “Yeah, I read a lot”, he swaggers to the man next to him.  I don’t know how they know each other.  But, he doesn’t stay on one page of news for more than a heartbeat.  He is not reading the pages at all – but only consuming the graphics and the mere image of the letters.  This is the ultimate delusion.  A man, who thinks he has become a student of the world, and knows nothing of the content.   I recommend “Playboy” if he wants to read something – the articles are terrific.

I have always loved Eartha Kitt’s version of Santa Baby but this version rocks.  It’s so sexy and jazzy.

That will be my guilty indulgence until the 31st..

Sitting down at Tomoe, enjoying our sushi and green tea, we spotted a couple.  Clearly they were out on a date but the conversation was waning.  Maybe they had run out of material.  We called over our waitress and explained what we wanted to do – we wanted to send that couple some dessert without them knowing who sent it.  It was pretty funny, the waitress felt like she was on some secret sleuth mission.  She may have got more into it than we did.  We ordered them green tea mousse.  The waitress predicted that they were that “type” of couple.  Casually peeking over to the couple every now and then, the dessert finally made it over to their table.  They were a bit confused at first, but hey, they began to talk.  Soon enough, they were talking more and more as they were looking around the restaurant trying to figure out who sent them the dessert.  The girl especially was doing a great job trying to make a superficial assessment of every table in the restaurant.  They had gone from zero to sixty.

As the couple left the restaurant, smiling, talking and holding hands, the girl made a final survey of the room.  We locked eyes for a moment..  Maybe she knew, but she will never be certain.

It’s fun playing cupid.

Walking downtown along Broadway, taking our usual route (down Broadway, right on Bleeker) towards Tomoe Sushi for lunch, my feet could not keep up with my brain fantasizing over what I was going to order.  My feet kept to the theme of not keeping up as I slipped on black ice and fell to the concrete.  Obviously keeping my cool was important so getting up I feigned some laughter, pretending that I am so cool that falling over in front of an audience is actually even more entertaining for myself.  Yeah, I probably failed to win the audience.  On the way down to the nice cold pavement, I was pretty sure I heard a ripping sound coming from my jeans so I asked my friend to check the back.  There was a minor tear at the back before so I guessed that it had ripped further.  After examing my rear, he reassured me that nothing had changed.  That’s when we examined the front..

..I was sharing my fresh Calvin Kleins with the city.

There was a rip straight down my crotch and across my left leg.  I wasn’t keeping any secrets.

Fortunately I had a bag as a makeshift shield.  My biggest worry was not replacing my lack of cover, it was making it to Tomoe before they finished serving lunch.  That’s when you know good sushi – I would rather be half naked eating Tomoe than fully clothed without it.

We rushed around looking for new jeans.  I wanted sushi so bad, I was even tempted to buy some jeans from the Gap.  If you know me, that is extremely out of character but I love buttery sushi.  Sono reminded me not to settle. He had a point, jeans are like well weathered relationships.  Ultimately I left Urban Oufitters with a pair of beige trousers.  I was happy, I hadn’t settled.

Obviously still craving Tomoe, we rushed down Bleeker, left on Thompson to be greeted by the kitchen staff on a cigarette break..  It was closed.

Moral of the story – clothed or unclothed, Tomoe sushi is always the best option.

Still, I wait with bated breath.

So being in the mood for reflection, I thought back to all of those Christmases that I have enjoyed in the past.  It is only then that it struck me.  All those Christmases involved a labor of love.  Searching stores for that special item that everybody seemed to have bought before me, writing extremely long cards to the ones I love, finding the last remaining item in the country and so on.  It was these pursuits of happiness, the pursuits for other peoples happiness that united all my Christmases.

So it was a good thing that my brothers Mac was ready for collection today.  It was a two mile journey each way across campus.  As I navigated the snow, walking through campus was like walking through my memories.  There was the yard which I have crossed daily for the past five months.  The library steps where I used to people watch in the sunshine.  The business school were I spent every Friday organizing events.  The swimming pool where I jump into freezing cold water at 5.30am.  The little pathways where I used to walk holding the hand of the one I love.  It was a bittersweet journey and it was also bitterly cold.  When I finally got to my destination, or more accurately found it, I was happy to receive the pristine, sealed package.  Now that I had made it one way, it was time to do the same thing again.

As I slowly walked back to my apartment, navigating heaps of snow, clutching the box with my (close to) frostbitten fingers and listening to my embarrasingly corny Christmas playlist on my iPod, I was excited thinking about all the fun my brother is going to have on his new Mac and how excited he will be opening it come Christmas Day.

It was at that point that I realized – I had got into the Christmas spirit.

One thing that I realized when studying for my final of finals is just how much I have learned through this course.  There have been ups and downs.  The last few weeks were especially hard.  Juggling emotional trauma with professional aspirations is a difficult balance.  It is a bit like the strategic triangle that I was furiously writing about a few hours ago in a silent lecture hall.  When one element gets affected, so do the others.  Back to my point, I realized that a lot of what we complain about is unwarranted.  The situation does not change as much as our state of minds.  Being put in a class of talented students who have 15-20 years of experience in high positions within IT is daunting for someone who is a rookie in that game.  They talked about cloud computing with the same zest and passion that I talk about online shopping.  They were fluent in the language of systems, I am fluent in the language of shoes.  On the first day I had never seen so many Dell laptops in a classroom.  I knew that me and my macbook were going to be the black sheep in the class.

But amongst my complaints, I persisted and kept going.  I tried to relate to the case studies and IT problems the way that I relate to my friends and their relationship problems.  As I finished my sentence, closed my blue book and took a sigh of relief it felt good to know that although I will never be working in IT, when I will be working with IT I will be able to see things from their perspective.

That alone is worth the cost of tuition.

Although Christian Louboutin isn’t yet in the daily vernacular of the average fashion consumer like Jimmy Choo is, I could see this happening.  Those red soles are so distinctive and so alluring, maybe they will become a universal symbol of sexy, independent women.  Whenever I see a glimpse of those red soles, I always wonder about the lady wearing them.  Really, what is the deal?

I also read something amusing the other day when an author talking about classic wardrobe pieces said the most fun that could be had in a mac jacket is standing naked underneath it on somebody’s doorstep.  With those shoes, I would be hard pressed to disagree.