I miss you and it's getting ridiculous...

I think the title pretty much covers it. I can't remember the last time we really spoke. I'm thinking it might have been the last time we saw each other, which was also ages ago. It's no ones fault really. You've been crazy with your test and your phone doesn't work and my schedule is just weird and last minute and unpredictable. But I thought in the meantime, Bowl needed a resurgence.

I hope I've seen you or spoken to you since I started working, but if not, here's the gist. I work for this woman named Beth who does casting for TV shows. Seh's really great and she gives me a lot of opportunity to learn and ask questions without feeling dumb. I started working with her around Thanksgiving time. I had been emailing her for a couple of years after I got her name from someone at one of my past internships. I knew she did casting for Chopped (the Food Network show) and had emailed her asking about internships. She always replied that it would be good to work together at some point, so I kept in touch and emailed her every few months just to keep her up to date on my situation.

She emailed me the week before Thanksgiving to say she was swamped on a project and needed help and was wondering if I was available. But then her funding fell through and she said she couldn't pay. I ended up doing it anyway for free. It was a learning experience and a foot in the door and a chance to prove myself and all that yada yada... In the end, she was able to get the money to pay for the days that I had worked which was great. It was about a month or 6 weeks.

We were casting judges for this baking show. It's the American adaptation of this show The Great British Bakeoff (it's pretty good actually; you should check it out) So yeah, we needed to scour the internets for baking experts, get in touch, arrange interviews with them, and then interview them either in person or via skype. I got to sit in on a bunch and take notes on them so that they could go to the editor (a 20-something Rutgers grad who literally lives a block way from my house on Huntington St. in NB with his parents- he grew up there... and he dormed!) The editor whittled the hour-long interviews down to 3 minute packages for the network to see "pitching" the people. It was very cool seeing a new side and learning the process.

I ended up working on that some more in January, along with another project. And now I'm on to a third and she's talking about bringing me on when she goes back to Chopped. It's really great and she's great and understanding about shabbos, which is a huge relief by itself. For the last month I've been mainly working from home, which you'd think I'd love. I did at first, but I miss the social interaction and I never really know when I'm going to be working. It's great not commuting, but I like the people so it would be nice to see them. I mostly talk to Beth through IM, and it can be difficult to convey tone as we know, so sometimes that's a little stressful.


My sister is coming in with Hannah this week. She's so cute and she started crawling! She sits up on her own and is just generally amazing. She's started recognizing my face and my voice through the computer and it's awesome seeing her light up when she sees me on video chat. I can't wait to get to hug her though. You probably want some pictures.

All of the girls at a wedding in November. Remember Dave? Josh Gombo's roommate? He got married and now they live in my neighborhood. 

My sister got her baby-aviators for Chanukah

A screencap from our video chat on New Year's Eve

Her 6 months photo

My mom got them a swim class, so my sister and Hannah have been going weekly. 

The monkey I got her when she was born

Two front teeth if you can make them out on the bottom

I ended up going to see my friend Allison in Washington Heights for New Years. She was planning a movie night with some friends, which sounded fun. Except the movie didn't load and they couldn't hook the computer up to the tv, so we ended up going with a large group of people I didn't know to Central Park where there was like a DJ and Fireworks and a costume competition? It was actually really fun.

I was in Highland Park this weekend by Shua, which was nice, and then I went to Rutgers. Kol Halayla was actually hosting an ICCA quarterfinal, which was just so cool. It was so much fun to watch them up there and see the audience of mostly new-to-KH people reacting to them and loving their songs. Especially after two hours of listening to other A Capella groups. It's also a nice feeling when I see them and they all come and hug me and miss me and write notes on my ticket so that I feel loved when I rush in late because it took longer than expected to clean off my car.

I thought I would get to hang out with them, but they were all really tired, understandable, so I drove home late and didn't go to sleep until after 4am. I know you're thinking that's not weird for me, but it's a lot more exhausting when you're actually out and active through those hours instead of just in bed watching TV. I do really miss being a part of them though. Not the KH part, just the social part. It's like FOMO (Fear of missing out- I'm assuming you know this) all the time because they are always posting pictures from rehearsals and stuff.

Those are all the updates I can think of right now. I do really miss you and want to see you. I was trying not to overwhelm you when you were studying because I know how much you were probably stressing about it. But I think you told me Feb 2 was the last one? How did it go? Do you still have to retake that other part or did you already do that? How is work? How is Sid? What are you doing about Valentine's? I was really happy that you texted me for advice/my opinion :) How is your family? How is your sister? How is living at home post-test?

I'd love to find a time to see you. My sister is going to be in from the 13th to the 19th, so maybe next week might be better. Like I said, my work schedule is weird and I days when I do work, I feel like I then have to be home until 7pm, so I wouldn't get into the city until late, but maybe if I'm not working one day I can come meet you or we can do a weekend or something. In any case, it had simply been too long since I told you about my day (had to wake up waaaay to early considering the late bedtime, because a plumber was coming to make my bathroom a mess...) and even longer probably since I've heard about yours. Love you! Hope it doesn't take too long to read this whole novel!