10 posts tagged “jenn yee”
For some reason unbeknownst to me, people who don't know me seem to think that the "Y" at the beginning of Yee is an "L". No matter where I go, I am Jennifer Lee.
Today, for instance, at the health center, where I went to get some vaccines, the nurse referred to me as Jennifer Lee even though she was looking right at my medical record on a computer screen. I could even see it as I sat beside her: Jennifer Y-E-E...and yet...nothing.
To be fair, this has been happening almost my whole life, at reception desks, scheduling doctor's appointments, resolving issues on utility and telephone bills. The list goes on. It's very weird. I didn't think it was remarkable and then today for some reason I just found it extremely bizarre that even when I am looking a person in the eye, they don't seem to hear "yuh-ee." "Yee."
Eight hours after the health clinic, I went for a long run on the treadmill to burn off some business school steam. When I went to retrieve my student ID card from the woman at the towel desk, who asked me for my name.
"Yee. Jennifer Yee."
"Lee?"
"No, Yee. Like with a 'Y'."
"Oh! Ok."
I don't know what to think. Do I have a lisp? Is that what people have been trying to tell me for the last decade, and have just been too polite to say so?
(Thanks to Chuck for the amazing photos from the day.)
The crowd was LOVIN' it.
Why do I love this party so?
( These photos are courtesy of Naheed, photographer extraordinaire, and super VIP for the day as wife to the DJ.)
I am writing themed quizzes for National Geographic's environmental magazine, The Green Guide. The topics have ranged from the food crisis to the entertainment industry, and they'll keep coming, weekly, throughout the summer.
This week's is about Oceans. There's no byline, but there are a couple of silly answer choices that you might guess were invented by yours truly. Do you know what the Eastern Garbage Patch is? Or a nurdle? Or coral bleaching? If you have a few minutes, take this quiz and find out.
Happy 4th of July, friends!
A month from tomorrow, I'm moving to Chicago for business school. In preparation for the big event, I've so far done/am doing the following things:
* Received as a gift and perused a Not For Tourists: Chicago guidebook. (Who am I kidding? I will most definitely be a tourist when I arrive. Field Museum, Here. I. Come!)
* Looked at a map of the Chicago Transit Authority El trains at least once a week to marvel at the fact that there are multiple, different stations with the SAME NAME. (Riddle me that?)
* Taking a wretched Statistics class at Hunter College (alas, this bullet point warrants its own post because it is such an embarrassment to higher education. In fact, another post-bac recently leaned over to me in class and said, "You know, when this is all over, we're going to find out we've been 'Punked.'" ...ne'er a truer statement uttered.)
* Filling out forms (health), and forms (financial aid), and questionnaires (career leadership skills) for Kellogg. Was asked, for instance, to decide which of these statements most characterized my ideal job: "The position allows ample time to pursue other important aspects of my lifestyle (family, leisure activities, etc.)," OR, "The position offers consistent intellectual challenge." TOUGH ONE!
Another week begins, and I vow to be more diligent about this here blog. Happy end of June, all!
I'm a little bit of a fraud. I wore a original, Anri-handmade shirt that said "1/2 the genes, all the pride" for today's Japan Day race in Central Park. But I'm not half-Japanese like Anri, Sonya and Kae, pictured below. Which one of these is not like the other?
"Does that shirt mean you guys are half-Japanese? Because I'm a halfie too, and my friends and I joke about only being friends with other bi-racial people...Go Obama!"
And then she walked away. hilarious.
Some other photos from the day, when Ilya and Anri's parents joined us for Japan Day festivities in the East Meadow. We met Hello Kitty...
(Thanks to Mizz Sonya for the great photos!)
For folks who are interested, here's a link to a small album from our trip to Detroit.
Highlights include: Russian dinner-dancing spot, Perchikovsky-Filanovsky Memorial Day barbecue, Coney Island hot dogs in downtown Detroit, and a visit to some of ilya's nearest and dearest friends.
Happy weekend all.
Last week, I volunteered for a day at the PEN World Voices Literary festival, and as a thank you from the organization, got an invitation to the closing party on Saturday night at the Hungarian Cultural Institute on Broadway. Several of the authors made cameos at the party, and being as big a fan of Middlesex as I am, couldn't resist the opportunity to take this photo.
One of my favorite things about this kind of party is that there are literally two kinds of people: the kind who are very serious about their writing and arrive at the beginning of the party dressed in all black, to seriously sip wine and rub shoulders with Salman Rushdie, and those who wear layers and layers of secondhand clothing and who can't pass up an open bar and an open dance floor. I also love a party where a Raymond Carver joke can go a looong way.
Anyway, later, when the respectable authors had long since departed, there was much drinking, dancing, and merriment. Here, ilya teaches some of the Cultural Institute staff how to do the Russian dance. This really is a big highlight of many a partygoer's evening. Just look at everyone's concentrated expressions.
National Public Radio is my new constant companion as I embark down the road of "working from home." Not only are their broadcasts great, but apparently their web team is on top of it: a good friend of mine drew my attention to this slide show of wives who have stood by their political husbands as they were making public admissions to charges of corruption and sexual misconduct.
I wanted to avoid commenting on this issue, but it has so consumed the city where I live (and by Google News' count, the world), that I think I want to say this: I am very confused about how Spitzer could be so boneheaded in a time where technology has allowed law enforcement officials to track every single person's every move; when Internet clicks can be tracked to IP addresses; where money laundering seems so mid-century.
The conversations around the scandal that have interested me more, though, are the ones I've been having with my women friends, who all have different opinions about how they might feel if it happened to them. Is it better that it was prostitutes over a long period of time, or would it have been worse if he had been having an affair with an aide? Is it some kind of pathology that allowed him to disconnect romantic love and just sex? Was this about the assertion of power over women: prostitutes versus his Harvard Law School-educated wife? I still don't know where I come down on all of this.
In the last few days, the desire to write has surged in me. I've dusted off books with instructions on writing and life, and started reading online posts again about writing, and how to get back into it. Cary Tennis wrote such a column today, in Salon.com. I thought it was a sign. (And I don't tend to be terribly superstitious.)
