Cafe con Leche Replacement

I finally made some progress today in my quest to find the perfect stateside version of the morning cafe con leche from my Madrid university cafeteria.

I've been deconstructing Starbucks' Web site to figure out exactly what they call a shot of espresso, four ounces of hot milk and one packet of sugar. I narrowed it down to either a caffe latte, cappuccino or espresso macchiato. I'm not getting my hopes up too high, considering the Spanish don't fuss with foam in coffee and always take more than a dollop of milk, but I'm willing to give it a try.

Two hours of sleep last night made for a very long day of meetings and classes. After a short nap I had an urge to venture down to Starbucks for a caffeine jolt and a change of scenery. Sumegha accompanied me and I decided my first attempt would be the cappuccino.

Before we get into the drink, since when has Starbucks had a short (8 oz.) size? I first saw it for on the Web site and it's exactly what I've been looking for. The heaviness of a tall anything but house coffee from Starbucks is enough to replace one, potentially two meals. But with a short I might actually be able to indulge without sacrificing my appetite.

Once I got beyond the unnecessary layer of foam under the cappuccino lid, the rich flavor of milky espresso filled my mouth and I accepted that Europe has forever spoiled any chance I have of becoming an American coffee addict. I hadn't even put the sugar in and the drink still blew regular coffee out of the water. The espresso and milk didn't blend exactly the way my Spanish cup did, but I think that perfect ratio will forever elude me. I even warmed up to the foam after slurping the last dregs of it from my diminutive yet stimulating cup of cappuccino.

Verdict: Not quite there, but getting closer.

A Lazy Weekend

Lethargy. Languor. Torpor. We four bonded this weekend.

The last academic thing I accomplished was a story memo submitted Wednesday. Since then the energy and desire to be productive has been on a slow, steady deceleration that has left me feeling, well, like my three aforementioned buddies.

Despite triggering a sea-change in my perspective on a lot of things, the semester looks to be making a relatively quiet departure. This last week demands only two assignment from me and then just three take-home final assignments separate me from the end.

Exhaustion isn't the cause of my slowdown. This semester doesn't touch the academic rigors last fall brought. It's me tiring of the monotonous routine of school yet wanting desperately to hold on to it forever.

It's the frustration at seeing my field of study go through such the degeneration, upheaval and change.

It's the impatience of waiting for responses to the various applications I've sent out.

It's the uncertainty that follows May 22, 2009.

It's the gluttony of a weekend spent eating snacks instead of meals.

Clad in my beige velveteen sweatpants and oversized navy blue Yale sweatshirt, I feel like a bear on the verge of hibernation. The bitter cold and blustery wind don't help either.

I found one source of frustration officially shared via this NYTimes column by Timothy Egan, which sums up the rant I dumped on poor Nancy last night about how irritating it is that everyone suddenly thinks they can be a journalist.

When Good Girls Stay Good

In an age where The Real Housewives of Atlanta is considered must-see TV, it's refreshing (and reassuring) to see wit and politics catapult a woman to the dizzying heights of stardom.

Tina Fey graces the cover of this month's issue of Vanity Fair and the Maureen Dowd profile reveals a simple yet steadfast woman seeking not success but satisfaction.

Though she talks about her past weight issues and drab dating life (Hooray for not losing your virginity before you can vote), the Annie Leibovitz photos are smoking with red stilettos, some naughty nibbling of glasses (Thank you Tina for showing the world that there is something sexy about a four-eyed brunette) and what looks to me like a near-wardrobe malfunction.

In Broadsheet's view, this can either be construed as "depressing (a brilliant comic mind inevitably reduced to shaking her cleavage)" or "empowering (a brilliant comic mind finally shaking her cleavage!)" I'm leaning toward the latter. Let's face it, sex is part of society. So why not sell it tastefully, with brains and principle to back it up?

I'll admit, I didn't know a lot about Fey before reading this piece and the her 2003 New Yorker profile. I've seen an episode or two of 30 Rock, but am not an avid follower (then again my TV watching has all but died since high school). But she's now rapidly ascending the list of people I want to be.

In an age where it's so easy to be wild, she sticks to her guns. She didn't drink in college but freely writes sketches about whores and dropped the f-bomb in both articles.

Yes, I'm a good girl, but I'd be lying if I said I've never wanted to just completely let loose. Fey said it beautifully: “I only have two speeds— either matronly or a little too slutty."

But who cares what you are as long as you're happy with it? Confidence is the most attractive quality in a person. And while other people may say I'm confident, too often I agonize over what other people think of my actions more than what I think of them. Peer pressure is hard to handle, but then it's people like Fey who remind me that being who you are will all pay off some day.

Losing My Touch?

For the past two weeks I've been scheduled to give a presentation on Fareed Zakaria in my commentary and editorial writing class. Today I finally did. And I was nervous.

Correction. I presented as if I was nervous.

Big deal, you say. No one likes giving presentations.

Wrong. I do. I love it. And I do not get nervous. Sure if it's a big one the flipping stomach and pounding heart make an appearance. A brief appearance. Because once the room has gone silent, the eyes are facing me, I'm right where I belong - at the center of attention.

But today I didn't take the split-second before opening my mind to mentally orient myself and consequently did just what I said I wouldn't do. I began reading from my handout.

The first few words wobbled out of my mouth and I felt like someone who was walking with the wrong shoes on each foot. I began with who Zakaria is - Newsweek editor, Post columnist, CNN host. Someone made a joke - I missed my chance to fire back, bumbling right on through where he's from, who his parents are, where he went to college etc.

It got worse. I noticed a typo in the handout. According to me, the Newsweek cover story "Why They Hate Us," which turned Zakaria into a foreign policy rock star, has 6,8000 words. They must really hate us.

Get away from the sheet that voice inside said through gritted teeth. I regained some composure when I finally tore myself away from the sheet to my notes, only to get lost again. Note to self: NEVER write your notes in cursive.

It got a little better. The class took my honesty with a laugh when I said I chose to present Zakaria because I want to be him.

Time to read an excerpt of Zakaria's writing. I chose a column from last December, "The Power of Personality," which I read on New Year's Eve while sitting in the dentist's office. This short column told me Zakaria was a man to pay attention to.

The copy in front of me not being my original, I didn't have the highlighted road signs directing me where to begin reading. I chose the fourth one, realizing halfway through I should have started at the third. Even worse, I knew I was doing exactly what I hold against almost every other student presenter I've encountered. I was reading way. too. fast.

SLOW DOWN, the mental voice screamed. I did, but stumbled over words. Sentences were repeated. Words were skipped.

Am I losing my touch?

The inner voice was not happy.

In the end, I made my point. That it's time for America to pay attention to the rest of the world and we need more people like Zakaria to be telling us that. One student remarked to me after class that she'd actually learned something from my presentation. There were smiles and "Good jobs." I knew the audience wasn't judging me nearly half as harshly as I was judging myself.

Actually, as I'm writing this, I just got a g-chat message from another classmate saying, "GREAT PRESENTATION."

So why am I still beating myself up? Honestly this presentation is probably worth like one half of a percent of my grade.

Perfectionism, don't you ever take a day off?

Senioritis?

I have turned into such a slacker. Dare I say I'm becoming one of those people I used to hate, the ones who seemingly do no work and still pull off a stellar academic performance. After all, grades looking good and clear skies abound the horizon straight through finals.

It's not that assignments ceased after October. Could I actually-gasp-be enjoying my schoolwork? By senior year you theoretically should be taking the most interesting, most relevant classes and I have finally embraced my journalism love. It also can't be a coincidence that this period of calm began immediately after submitting my grad school application. Or maybe it's just my new let-it-be, wait-and-see attitude toward life.

Can it really be happening? Is this what payoff feels like? I mean, after three long years of ass-busting I'm entitled to a little bit of coasting, wouldn't you say? And to think, I was under the impression that it took retirement to reap the fruits of your labor.

I really shouldn't be so cheery after getting just one hour of sleep last night. I woke up at 8:30 a.m. in a daze that didn't disappear until I reached the gym 30 minutes later. The sky this morning was gray and dreary and that combined with my foul mood promised a very crappy day. But four hours later the sun is shining directly onto my face and I'm filled with satisfaction. I really should be reading about photo stalking and wiretapping for media law. Or maybe I'll just continue continue to listen to Coldplay and surf e-Bay. Life is glorious.

Writing

I can't sleep. And that means you, lucky reader, get a second helping of moi. See, I'm already making up for the two-month hiatus.

God I love to write. Yet I feel like such a fraud saying that considering I've been MIA since September. Typically enjoying something means you actually engage in it every once in a while. Sure I write for class (especially this semester, where my entire courseload consists of journalism classes), but that's also class.

I've never been one to consistently keep a journal or diary. Documentation of my life comes in waves, most usually centered around when I take a big vacation. (Studying abroad wreaked havoc on this strategy.) I write when I'm frustrated or when my brain manages to put together an especially noteworthy sentence. My writings vary from pages of boring chronological recounts of events filling any of the half a dozen notebooks I have scattered around to a smattering of sentence fragments listing sights, smells, colors and emotions scrawled onto whatever notepad I had handy.

I keep willing my mind to just remember, to file away all the details so that once I get the time I can do that memory justice. But the real reason I let so many of those memories just slip away without a permanent paper anchor is because my writing style overwhelms me.

Ever since I was little, I've felt the need to document my life with the precision and thoroughness of a court stenographer. And after a day of sightseeing, the last thing my tired self wanted to do was wear out my hand documenting the day's every detail, including the food we ate, the stories our tour guide told us and the wrong turns we took. The concept that some details simply aren't important escaped me until I realized how cumbersome details can be.

This eye for detail permeates my verbal storytelling as well, a style I get from Mom. Everyone groans when she has a story to tell because we know it will meander like a lazy country river until an exasperated Papa will ask her what the point it. At which point she will have either forgotten or realizes that ninety percent of the details had nothing to do with that point.

I'm really no different though. I seem to have no concept of drama or suspense in verbal communication. I'm more focused in getting the entire story out in conversation than in making that story interesting to the listener. Ask me what happened in class today and I'll begin with something the professor said two months ago and then plod along from there. Flip the situation and I'll mmhmm my way through their story, hearing each word but listening to none.

But now we've veered into another branch of communication. This post is, after all, titled "Writing." For someone who proclaims she wants to be a journalist, or at least make writing a central part of her career, it's peculiar that I haven't actively sought forums to show off my writing. Typically people launch blogs to have some kind of accountability to writing. It's a lot easier to blow off that diary entry when there's no expectant audience. So I dipped my toe into the blogosphere and started this. But with what I think to be one devoted reader, that public accountability argument withers away.

For almost two years I've said I'd apply to be a columnist at my school newspaper, a daily with a circulation of 17,000. Something has always held me back though, primarily the fear of attack. Although I crave attention in almost every other sense, the idea that my thoughts, opinions and words would be completely open to discussion, ridicule and comment was just too much. I mean, some letter-to-the-editor writers are just plain harsh.

Yes, I know, in the words of "Hillary Clinton", I, as a future part of the media, need to just "grow a pair."

I'm Back

I know. I know. I'm the girl who says she wants to be a journalist but for two months shuts out the one place that welcomes her words with open arms.

Yes you heard that right. I have begrudgingly accepted what some may have known all along. I want to be a journalist. I figured the j-school would beat me down eventually and I'm finally willing to publicly acknowledge my love affair with this major. Now that's either extremely bold or extremely stupid, given that the rest of the economy has caught journalism's scent and is following its path - straight into the ground. But you must remember that I never seem to take the simple path in life.

Obviously my blogging absence hasn't been for a lack of material, that I can assure you.

In fact, as this semester winds down and 2008 enters its final month, I'm left wondering how so much could possibly happen in such a short period of time. I've already concluded that 2008 will have been my best year ever, but we'll ruminate on that when 2009 is closer.

That sweltering first day of school is yet another memory, gone like all the leaves on this tree-lined campus. October, the month of exams, papers and projects crept along while November has whizzed by like a skier headed down a slope of fresh powder. As much as my friends hate me for this, I've been taking it easy since Nov. 15, when I turned it my sole graduate school application. And it looks like the coasting will continue through the final two-week stretch. Finals are nonexistent for me, replaced with two final papers.

But the semester has comprised much more than schoolwork, and much more than I can recount right now. I've learned the value of honesty, candor and greeting the future with exhilaration instead of trepidation. I've learned that friends are best enjoyed when you don't shut them out. I've realized the person I think I am isn't always the one others see. And though I've come pretty far in the past three years, it's clear I've still got a whole lot left to learn.