remembering the best stuff

So I'm doing this "Almost 30" project (see previous post) and one of my challenges was this:  C. told me to write the 10 things I'm most proud of/ the best things about my twenties. And J. asked me to write down the things I am blessed to have or have achieved until now, and then frame it and read it every day... Both mentioned it was to "get positive" (apparently, they are trying to tell me something...). Anyway, I merged the two challenges and this is the list I came up with.

1. Publishing a book I wrote when I was 13 and selling 5-thousand copies to the full profit of the Children Cancer Center. I wrote "I Believe in Angels", a novel about friendship between a boy and a girl, cancer, teen-pregnancy, and a whole lot of other themes you would never expect a 13 year old girl to write about... In 2006, it was published and sold in bookstores all over Lebanon. Thousands of people got to read me --every writer's dream.
2. Getting a Fulbright Scholarship... I was never one of those bright straight A students with amazing grades... I was always average, had ok grades, nothing to write home about. But I knew how to write, and I nailed those essays in my application. Went straight to their emotions, and it worked. I got a full scholarship to a university in the US for my Masters Degree; my first fully independent achievement. Got it all on my own, none of that nepotism BS we're all used to in Lebanon.
3. Going to the Journalism School at Columbia University... An Ivy League school, and one of the best journalism schools in the world --created by Pulitzer himself...  and I met some amazing people including one of my best-friends.
4. Living in New York City... Growing up, all I ever wanted to do was live in the US. I was one of those people who had "the American dream". And the first time I went to New York, I was 17 years old and told my father: "How can anyone live anywhere else in the world?" I wanted to live there one day, and I did.
5. Being a news presenter on live TV... and the head of English News as my very first job. I was in a little over my head, they just sort of thrust me into presenting the news bulletin after just two screen-tests and voila... at 23 it was pretty cool.
6. Being one of the founding members of an NGO for children... and then working there for two years, helping improve different children's programs in NGOs across Lebanon. 
7. Acting in the TV/Web Series "Beirut I Love You"... Actually, not just the acting, being a part of it in general was one of the best times of my life. It was an incredible experience to be part of a group of young, passionate people who just loved working on this for no other reason then the pleasure of doing it. The only time in my life when waking up at 5am was exciting!
8. Writing my blog, Beirut Rhapsodies... For two years, it was a weekly piece of writing that kept me going. And it has reached over 80-thousand views, which in the age of social media may not mean much, but it means a lot to me. Because in between those views, there are people who took the time to write me and tell me how much my writing meant to them. And that is priceless. Again, every writer's dream.
9. Getting my own apartment... after years and years of sharing, couch surfing, living with boyfriends and going back and forth from my father's house, I finally have a place that is just my own, on my own.
10. Writing a novel... Last year I quit my job and moved to New York to start writing a book. And I will be a lot happier/prouder/relieved when it's actually finished, but creativity works in mysterious ways and time isn't always on my side. Still, the writing of this book, the work I've put in it, the research and what it's made me discover has been a fascinating journey so far.

As for one thing that I'd like to mention and end with, as something I'm extremely blessed to have, it would be my friends. I have the luxury of having not one, not two, but a whole family of amazing friends, some of them who've been there my entire life. I remember a time, when I was 11 years old --I didn't really have any friends, and I'd spend the entire recess time hiding in the school library, behind a book. It was the loneliest I'd ever been. One of my greatest fears in life is being alone. But when you have good friends, you just never are.

the "Almost 30" project

I'm almost thirty. Well,  precisely 29 years old and 11 months. And for some inexplicable reason, I've been completely PETRIFIED of my thirtieth birthday. So to distract myself from the inevitable, I've given myself a challenge. Thirty challenges, to be exact. In the last 30 days before my birthday, I have to do one new thing every day. 

I asked the people in my life to each give me something "to-do" and I've added a few things to the list myself... And I got a little bit of everything, from "go wakeboarding" to "cook me dinner" and "spend a day without underwear"... a long list of thirty things that I have to fit in my life, with work and everything else...

The project kicked off last week, and will go on until my birthday on JUNE 20... I've been documenting it daily on instagram (@yashatem) and tumblr (http://thirtytothirtyinthirty.tumblr.com/)

But for Rhapsodies readers, I'll summarize it week by week...

• Day 1 - "Get interviewed on the radio" : I randomly received a message a couple of weeks ago inviting me to Light FM to talk about my blog and my book... and I got a lot more nervous than I thought I would! I used to do live TV once upon a time so I didn't think a little microphone with two super cool ladies could intimidate me! But I guess it's different when the roles are inverted; when you're not the one asking all the questions. I'm used to opening myself up in writing but saying things out loud is a different story! Made me realize: if there's one thing I really need to do in my thirties is to stop asking so many questions. 

• Day 2 - "Do a sexy photo shoot": I found myself sitting in a beautiful garden, wearing a straw hat and a flower robe, and nothing else. That was my challenge: To let go long enough to be able to be taken a picture of, nude. It’s not an easy thing to do… to be that comfortable in your body. It takes a lot to let go of all the years of constant dieting, always comparing to other girls... and showing your body without anything to hide behind. At first I couldn’t stop laughing and wanted to hide every part. Then one picture after the other, I relaxed. I started loosening up. And it’s an incredible thing, to let go of all your insecurities for a moment and just feel sexy. To forget to push in your stomach and turn more towards your good side and tilt your nose up to avoid a double chin --to actually feel a little cocky staring into the camera. It was freeing.

• Day 3 - "Go somewhere you've never been" : It wasn't easy to keep the challenge going as I was on my first weekend trip home in 4 months… But I persevered and despite the (harsh) hangover, I went along on a drive south: an afternoon in the Chouf, in a place I’d never seen before: Bkersay. Beautiful green mountains all around me after four months in the desert was like a vacation for my soul. 

• Day 4 - “Read The Prophet (Gibran Khalil Gibran)”: I am embarrassed to admit that at almost 30 I had never read the most famous literary work to come out of my country. So I attacked the book as I caught an overnight flight back to Dubai. I read the book, some parts more than once. And the truth is, I felt like it was the perfect time to read it, as I'm feeling lost in transition between my different lives and different choices. I don't think I would have ever understood or appreciated this book if I had read it before.  One of my favorite parts: "But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. "

• Day 5 - “Watch a classic you've never seen" : A couple of weeks ago a friend was dumbfounded that I had never seen "Back to the Future" --so I decided this would be the classic I'd watch. Plus it turns out it came out the same year I did --1985. So we're both celebrating 30... I made a little bit of pop corn (because what's a movie without pop corn?) and I illegally made my way to a streaming of the film (probably not the way anyone watched it in 1985). But I loved it. It felt serendipititiously appropriate too! Here was Marty McFly going 30 years back and forth and reinforcing the idea in my head that everything happens for a reason and that I might understand it, 30 years from now.

• Day 6 - "Reconnect with a childhood friend" : Truth be told, the challenge was to “track down” a childhood friend but I honestly have already tracked down all of my childhood friends in the last few years –it's something I actually enjoy. Whether through Facebook, or knocking on a door in Paris 20 years on, or trying to figure out the name of that girl I was best-friends with when I was four years old (got my dad to play detective...) I have long run out of friends to track down... So for the sake of this challenge, I decided to reconnect with a friend that I haven’t spoken to since I was a teenager. It turns out we live in the same city, and we spoke on the phone earlier today and I’ll be visiting her and her newborn baby very soon!