mini-honeymoon in Cape May

Before we leave for our next trip, I want to post some pictures of our time in Cape May!

It's a bit of a blur to me now – just coming down off of the wedding high, catching up on rest, and getting used to being together, just the two of us. What I do remember is that it was cold, windy, and raining. Not exactly beachy weather! So we had to find some other ways to have fun:

We took a trolley tour of the historic area of Cape May, which is dominated by old Victorian houses.

The trolley dropped us off at Dr. Emlen Physick's house, where we took a tour of the interior. No pictures allowed!

 The rain somehow made the flowers more vibrant.

This is a defensive tower built during World War II, part of a system of towers guarding the East Coast.

And the lighthouse. We arrived by bicycle, ten minutes after it had closed. Maybe I should have pedaled faster...we'll just have to go back again some other time!

WE DID IT!

On Sunday, 26 May 2013, Dave and I got married! I'm writing now from Cape May, New Jersey, where we have retreated to relax, decompress, and try to wrap our minds around what just happened. More to come later – we're off for an historic trolley tour now!

a wedding errand weekend

Everyone knows that wedding planning demands a great deal of time and requires a lot of decision-making. It's particularly difficult when planning a wedding from a distance! My mom has done an awesome job of helping us plan, but some things simply must be done in person. Right after my eye surgery (which I think went okay? At least I'm not yet "One-eyed Klu"), we drove to PA and arrived very, very late. Up until last week, it was practically still winter in Michigan – it snowed heavily last Wednesday. So I was delighted to see life and blooming flowers on the East Coast!

On Saturday, we headed to New Jersey for my bridal hair/make-up trial! No pictures here, but I liked the work of the ladies at Mane Stop Salon. Looking forward to getting gussied up with my bridesmaids there on the morning of the wedding! We headed to the cake tasting next at DiBartolo Bakery:

If you click on the link, you can see what the Bakery used to look like, just a few weeks ago. Apparently its makeover will be featured on the Food Network's "Bakery 911" show sometime this summer! The cake was okay.

And speaking of blooming flowers, here's a sneak peek of the Florette in her flower girl dress! We found a ribbon at Michael's that matches the bridesmaids' dresses – voilà! a sash:

After a meeting with the DJ on Monday, we hit the road again for Michigan. I graded the last of my students' final papers in the car, which nearly became the proverbial straw on my camel back. Because I taught two writing-requirement courses back-to-back this year, I've had a pile of papers to grade every week since...early September. I don't know how Dave survived 10.5 hours of my moaning "EGGGHHHHHHH" and throwing my head into the window. My favorite line from this batch: "As demonstrated by the actions of the Gettysburg Museum of Los Angeles..."

Only a few days to squeeze in some work before graduation festivities begin later this week!

the bachelorette

What a great weekend! Shuen and Julie flew into town on Friday, and we had a whirlwind weekend of good eating and drinking, chatting, and exploring! Though Julie's flight was severely delayed, we still enjoyed a relaxing evening at home on Friday:

On Saturday, we tried out the new Wafel Shop in Ann Arbor. The process:

The delicious result:

After that, it was time for our horseback riding lesson. We drove out to Rushlow's Arabians for a group lesson. The lesson was in an indoor barn:

Safety first, everyone!

We each rode a different horse (Eli, Hostess, Keebler, Rampage) and learned how to direct our horse to walk, trot, stop, and turn. No action shots, though – cameras weren't allowed during our lesson!

 

Here I am with my horse, Rampage. He was described as a grumpy old man who hates being around other horses. No one will be surprised to hear that we really got along:

 

Rampage is looking at you, and no, he is not amused.

It was really fun and totally unfamiliar and we all said we'd love to go back and do it again!

Then it was off to a wine tasting, paired with some snacky foods at Everyday Wines in Ann Arbor. We learned that a good Pinot Gris can, in fact, be paired with baklava with resounding success.

There was more eating and drinking and dancing with my friends from school – Beth, Brianne, Emily, and Charlotte – before collapsing after a long day.

On Sunday, we made a solid brunch at home (more waffles, please!) and spent the afternoon shopping at the outlets. Thanks for a great weekend, girls! Can't wait for the big one in May. =)

showered

Last weekend, my mom, her dear friend, and my bridesmaids threw me a bridal shower! I've been racing to keep up with everything this year, and this was one of the few occasions when I've been able to pause, take a breath, and enjoy the moment. I'm getting married! To Dave!

The shower was a "bridal tea." Mrs. Carlson's house was decorated in blue and silver, and my mom made all kinds of delectable treats.

It was so moving to be surrounded by friends and family, women who have been part of my formation for so long (some since birth!). I've been really sad about missing out on some of the joys of being engaged – savoring the anticipation, building a home, preparing for marriage and all the changes it entails. And so I really appreciated how the shower served as a rite of passage. We gathered for stories and games, songs and wisdom.

Here I think my mom is making fun of me.

Thanks for coming, everyone!

a busy season

It's hard to believe that it's really here: the hunt for a job offer. Before I came to graduate school, I dated a humanities PhD student who was on the academic job market for the first time. Needless to say, it left me somewhat traumatized and deeply anxious about my own future employment situation – starting 7 years ago. And now the time is here: I have several campus visits lined up. I'm polishing the talk, revamping the handout, editing the slides. I'm preparing my teaching demos, researching faculty interests, and starting to imagine myself here, there, or somewhere in between. Part of me wants to ask, how did this happen already? The other part of me reminds me: oh, about seven years of hard work (and I'm even getting the right husband out of it, too!).

I was feeling paralyzed and overwhelmed by it all last week. Too paralyzed even to blog about it. I'm not ready! I'm just a diversity candidate! They'll find out that I'm too young or not what they want or a total red-faced Asian when I drink! How on earth can I possibly the survive the scrutiny I will receive over the next six weeks? Then my dad reminded me, "It's just six weeks." That's right: six weeks. I can do this! It's just "a busy season," right? With all the travel, snatching of sleep, and frantic hand-washing, it will all be over before I know it. It's a little microcosm of this blog's subtitle: "seven campus visits. four performances of beethoven's 9th. one bridal shower. one job offer. six weeks. let's go!"

I'm off to my first school on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

Save-the-dates

We are woefully behind on our wedding planning. It seems we've been preoccupied with other tasks! One big priority post-job-interviews has been getting out our Save-the-Dates. I love getting magnets or beautiful postcards to put on the refrigerator. But there is no time for that! The wedding is only 4.5 months away!

So I've been trying to design myself a nice image that we can email to our friends and family as we solicit their physical addresses for the formal invitation. I had originally envisioned a modern-looking graphic image that contained our names, but not our picture. But Dave (and everyone else I talked to) liked the picture idea, and they are so right! I won't post the official Save-the-Date here, but I did want to share the background image. It's one of our favorite pictures of us. This is a self-timed photo from northern Michigan in September 2011. The original colors were brighter (and more blue), but I gave it an old-timey wash – must be the pernicious influence of Instagram!

We had just finished a long drive up north and were eager to go for a walk along the shore while the sun was setting. Dave spotted the big driftwood, and the magical moment was captured! It's hard to look relaxed in posed pictures, and we like how this one has a more casual feel. I hope it gets people excited for the wedding!

2013

Ready for the new year? When I created this blog, I imagined that it would document a year of my life: May 2012-May 2013. I can't believe that more than half of that year is already over! When I look ahead to 2013, I see some "anchor events" that are inevitable: graduation, wedding, summer travel. But after August, I see a huge blank. Will Dave and I be professors at the same school? Will I be living far away from him for at least a year or two? Will I still be in Ann Arbor, continuing much the same life? I won't know for several more months, and the suspense is killing me! ;)

Dave and I were discussing our New Year's resolutions last night. Well, our lack of resolutions. We both feel that we have enough goals to accomplish this year as it is! I've got to get a job, or position myself to be even more competitive for next year's job market, in addition to planning the wedding and teaching. Dave has multiple grants to write and some big papers to push out, in addition to planning the wedding. Our lives right now are so focused on preparing for the future, which requires sacrifice in the present. If there's one thing I'd like to resolve, it's to "stop and smell the roses" whenever possible. I don't think that has to mean that I take a lot of time off work to go for long walks by the river. But I want to be able to savor the small moments along the way!

The DRESS

The DRESS has been found! I am happy to announce that we ordered the wedding dress today! Sarah B. and I went shopping on Sunday at a new little place in Saline, called White Arbor Bridal. The first dress I tried on was just what I was looking for. SO PLEASED. It will still take a few months to come in, but there should be just enough time to get the dress altered to my liking. I went to the seamstress today to plan for alterations and everything. HURRAY! I'm excited, and also relieved to have one big thing crossed off the list. On to the next...

This is NOT the dress (and not at all similar to the dress), but I wanted to include a picture from the expedition. Here I am in a Pippa-Middleton-knockoff dress. Because who doesn't enjoy pretending to be sister-in-law to the heir to the throne of England? Hehee!

the Church

Lo, a church for our wedding ceremony has been found! It is located within 20 minutes of the Trump, large enough, available on a Sunday, has a parking lot, allows us to bring our own pastor, and is open to rental by non-members! Phew! It was harder to find a place that checked all of those boxes than we had initially expected, and we had started to get stressed about it. It is also beautiful:

It feels more intimate than it looks from the picture. It is also at the center of a charming New Jersey town (uh, how often do I say that?), which has a DINOSAUR STATUE DOWN THE BLOCK! Meet the local Hadrosaurus, everyone:

I can't believe Dave didn't tell me that my legs were positioned wrong for this picture. At any rate, we felt that "everything came together" at this church. We had tried to visit it on Sunday, but it was locked! When we returned on Monday, it was cool and drizzly (like the day of our engagement); the carillon was playing a hymn (like at the moment of our engagement); we visited a dinosaur (like after our engagement); and afterwards we ate curry chicken salad sandwiches (like our engagement picnic). So I suppose it was meant to be!

Now, the huge drawback of this church: no air conditioning. So let's also hope for cool weather and no heat waves in late May 2013! The back windows do open and they have a lot of fans, and we won't have an extremely long ceremony, so we think that it will all work out okay. At least we're not planning an outdoor ceremony, right?

Wedding Dress Shopping, vol. II

Yesterday I hied it to David's Bridal with Sarah and Brianne. This was our second outing, after an enjoyable but unsuccessful perusal of the dresses at the Gown Shop a few weeks ago. No secrets will be spilled here, but just to give you a taste of the atmosphere:

I shall be the fiercest bride in all the land! The ideal wedding dress will bow to me!

Thanks to my lovely friends, who made the outing fun and stress-free!

The Onion: Horrible Couple Really Wants Wedding to Reflect Their Personalities

Love this Onion article:

“We want to throw out all the wedding conventions that don’t scream ‘Jess and Ross,’” the utterly contemptible Black said Thursday, adding that the couple’s “uniqueness” will be mirrored in every aspect of the ceremony. “From the drinks served in mason jars, to the sparklers we’re handing out to everyone when it gets dark, this is going to be a wedding only we could have.”

“We want it to be a celebration of our love,” the unbearable woman continued. “But we also want it to be fun and quirky, just like us!”

The couple told reporters the insufferably precious ceremony will include readings from Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass, a 10-minute silent meditation on each wedding guest’s own conception of love, and a forcibly lighthearted accordion wedding march expected to last for nearly 20 minutes.

The video is pretty great, too.

But how sad is is that I kind of want to have sparklers at the wedding?? Oh, Onion, how you shame me...

A wedding-planning boost

I've been holding off on thinking about many aspects of wedding-planning: I'd wanted to find the venue first, and then I was so busy with teaching and dissertating and enjoying New York that I put off thinking about dresses, colors, bridesmaid attire, flowers, etc. etc. for all of June. But this past weekend, I got to spend some concentrated time on wedding details! And it was fun!

Well, first, the weekend started with a special get-together: D. brought his parents down to my parents' house, where we all visited Longwood Gardens, relaxed at the house, and had a nice dinner together. This was only the second time that they'd met each other. 

When I had first suggested to D., in September 2010, that we introduce our parents to each other, I remember not being pleased with his response: "Uhh...introduce our parents? I don't know...I wouldn't want anyone getting the wrong idea!" What wrong idea, D.? I guess at this point, everyone knows that we're more than just friends, so it was okay for all of us to get together.

My mother had made a birthday cake for D.'s dad; after we sang for him and he blew out the candles, we re-lit them and made the cake an engagement cake for us, too! Very practical, Mom.

The following day, Julie and Shuen both drove up from the D.C. area. We hit the mall and looked at so many different things! Cuts and colors of bridesmaids' dresses, veils, hair pieces, wedding gowns, make up, color swatches, and more. I highly recommend these ladies as bridesmaids: they are efficient shoppers, flexible but offer considered opinions, creative in imagining various scenarios, and just thoughtful all around! We looked at bridal magazines together and talked, talked, talked. With everyone living so far apart, I was worried we wouldn't have the opportunity to do any real wedding stuff together, but it worked out really well this weekend. Thanks, Shuen and Julie!

I drive back to Ann Arbor tomorrow morning. For the next month, I'll be focusing more on writing my chapter and less on wedding details (with the probable exception of trying to find a church). Let's see if I can figure out how to balance this right!

June assessment

It's hard to believe that June is nearly over! I'm packing up my stuff tonight, teaching my last day at the Institute tomorrow, and D. will move me out tomorrow night. I can't wait to get out of my stupid sublet. One thing I've learned this summer: I am now, apparently, too old to handle crappy living arrangements. Remember when we could say things like, "It's only for a month; I can handle anything!"? NOT TRUE ANYMORE.

As excited as I am to leave the apartment, I am sad to leave the Institute. I don't know whether I'll be back to teach next summer, and after that, the opportunities to return will only grow rarer. My colleagues at the Institute have shaped me into the teacher I am today, and I will miss working with them. I feel grateful, however, simply to have been here, for teaching at the Institute was one of my major goals for graduate school!

I wrote a post at the beginning of June with my goals for my month. Let's see how I actually did:

Wedding-related:
We picked a venue! We picked a date! Still working on church and style.

Dissertation-related:
I actually made more progress than I expected: I conceived an overall theme for my final chapter, got it approved by my advisor, and wrote the first five pages this month. Hopefully, this means I can hit the ground running when I return to Ann Arbor. I did not read any German or Pindar.

Job search-related:
I did nothing!

New York-related:
I got to see my friends! I visited the Met, MoMA, and Morgan! I ate delicious foods! I walked in the parks! I saw a play! I almost stepped into a dead bird! I smelled a lot of trash on the sidewalk!

And last, but certainly not least, I got to spend time with this little niece o' mine:

This picture was taken two weeks ago, and she's EVEN CUTER NOW!

I think that June has been a productive month, but that's been possible only because I've cut a number of things out of my life: reading everything I'm interested in on the internet, reading fiction for pleasure, running/exercising, cooking (and refrigerator/fresh food management), spending time with D., and most forms of entertainment (TV, movies, games). I'm glad to be rid of some of these time-sinks, like mindless internet browsing and TV. My new challenge will be to use the hours I'm no longer spending on teaching to pursue only the good stuff: eating healthier, regular exercise, the occasional novel, and of course, enjoying the summer with D.!

Meet...the Bridesmaids!

One of the things I'm looking forward to about my wedding day is seeing many dear family and friends together, from all different parts of my life, under one roof! But that's still a long way off. So I'm especially fortunate to have four great friends who will be my bridesmaids and walk with me in this process the whole way! Now I want to tell you about them:

Sarah B.
Sarah and I were classmates in college and part of the same eating club. We even had some close mutual friends! But we didn't really get to know each other until we both ended up in Ann Arbor for graduate school. We've generally been living just a few blocks away from each other for the past several years (excepting the year when I was in Greece), which makes our frequent potlucks very convenient. Her adventurous spirit and boundless enthusiasm make her the perfect buddy for trying new things! She definitely makes A2 a more fun place to live. I feel so lucky to have a friend who shares so many intellectual interests with me, is so supportive of my endeavors, and always reminds me of what a catch D. is. =) Now let's see whether she can persuade me of the joys of spinning.

Sarah and I at the Taste of Ann Arbor 2011: she had just run a half marathon, while I had run one quarter of that distance and complained twice as much.

Shuen
Shuen and I also went to college together and ran in the same social circle, but for some reason, we weren't close. I guess we both had our own friends who took up all our time! Shuen and I overlapped for one year at Michigan, and I'm so glad we did. I was really lonely and unhappy during my first year in grad school, and Shuen was one of the few familiar and friendly people who reached out to me. We cooked for each other, took in a few concerts, and then all too soon, she graduated and got an important job and moved to the East Coast/Atlanta/Mozambique! Fortunately for me, we've stayed in close touch and have shared some adventures in D.C., Philadelphia, New York, and Michigan. Next goal: an international trip together!

Keeping it real at the Philly Chinatown Bus parking curb, June 2009

Katie H.
Katie H., I must admit, was Julie's friend first. They had known each other for a whole week before I got to meet Katie, when she came to visit our dorm room at the start of freshman year of college. Julie was generous enough to share, though, and soon I was getting to know Katie through our literature classes and the campus fellowship. We were spotted together often enough that friends began to refer to her as Katie #1, and me, Katie #2. I suspect she got to be #1 because she's prettier, taller, kinder, funnier, smarter, and more popular, but I can't be sure. Since graduation, Katie #1 has been living in various exotic international locales while making the world a better place. I'm pretty annoyed about that, but I guess I have to learn to share, too. Looking forward to seeing you once again on American soil, Katie!

Katie in Mostar, Bosnia, February 2010: this is a picture of just Katie H., but since I'm the one behind the camera, I think it counts.

Julie 
Julie and I were roommates for three years of college! And since she is the best writer/emailer/keeper-in-touch that I know, it is only fitting that our introduction was an epistolary one. As in, we actually exchanged real letters the summer before freshman year of college. I remember hers was enthusiastic, printed in cute font, and even had the occasional smiley face! We had our ups and downs that first year, but that hopeful feeling I first experienced when I read her letter has been realized in spades in the years since. She's been there for me through every circumstance and enriches my life daily with her passion for reading, writing, fashion, cooking, media, babies!, etc. etc. etc. More than anyone else, she has taught me what it means to be a good friend.

At the Fat and the Flower's Wedding, 13 August 2010 (love that dress, Julie!)

Save the Date!

We have a date! I am pleased to announce that we are getting married on 26 May 2013 at the Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia in Pine Hill, NJ. Yes, you read that properly: it's a country club called "Philadelphia" but located in New Jersey. So aspirational, New Jersey. ;) Although the venue isn't the largest, and so it may be a bit of a tight fit, I just loved the "feel" of the space. I think we'll have a great wedding reception there! The date is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend; we're hoping that the national holiday on Monday will make it easier for our wonderful guests to travel.


There are better pictures of the ballroom on the website, and I'll include a couple pictures below. I'll just say that it's the only place we visited where it's actually nicer in person than in the photographs!

The ballroom, here set up for a birthday party, is simple and elegant, and not too unnecessarily frou-frou. The natural light is really refreshing.

Of course I just have to have a giant clock tower for my wedding reception site!

I don't know whether you can see, but that is the skyline of Philadelphia in the far distance. The club is on top of a big and lush hill, so you feel very far from the hurly-burly of South Jersey. I'm really hoping for a free Memorial Day Weekend fireworks show, courtesy of some New Jersey township, to enliven the wedding!

So, write it in your calendars, and see you there! Hooray!!