To the Girl Who Thinks 23 is Old

I read your post, and I will admit, when my 23^rd birthday was looming over me like a bad Monday hangover, I was depressed. I felt old and unaccomplished and like my life was over before it even started. 

But, I was wrong. Oh-so-wrong. It took my upcoming 26^th birthday to make me realize 23 is actually not so old and not so bad. 

At 23, your friends or significant other still make a fuss over your birthday. Be it drinks, dinner or cupcakes at work, your 23^rd year of birth does not go unnoticed. At 26, I am planning my own birthday party. This is, in a sense, like planning my own funeral. Birthdays after 23 often feel like funerals: complete with the guest-of-honor wearing a black slimming dress, Spanx included. 

When you’re 23 you can still cling to the façade of “recent college grad” and “entry-level.” Cherish these terms for they are limited-time excuses and they are fleeing fast. Now, as I am about to turn 26, I can no longer stand behind the Berlin wall of “finding myself.” 

No, at 26, I have reached what I am going to be. I am found and this is it. There is not much changing after this birthday. Sure, I’ll get married, change jobs and have kids, but all those things are really my fulfillment to society and other people. My self-fulfillment stops at 26. 
 
At 26, everything changes. I’m officially closer to 30 than 20. I’m merely two years away from my ten-year high school reunion. I’m older than the kids on Beverly Hill 90210 were when their show ended. And if a bunch of rich white folks from Beverly Hills can’t make their lates-20s look interesting, nobody can. 

I am in my late 20s. Still trying to figure out if I can swing a year abroad or join Peace Corps, when I know that at 26, it’s too late to do any of those things. I’m looked at strangely if I’m out on a Wednesday night, let alone if I pick up and move to Indonesia for the fun of it. Who am I kidding, I wouldn’t have the energy to do that anymore anyway. Plus, I’m too old to be sleeping on a cot in a youth hostel.

At 26, there are no more exciting birthdays to look forward to. At least at 23, you can still look forward to 25 when you can rent a car without the extra surcharges. And at 26, it’s pathetic that I find renting a car for cheap remotely exciting. 

This is what you have to look forward to. Cheap car rentals and hopes that if you stay up until 10:00 pm. on a Tuesday you will still be functional at work the next day. 

So, 23 really isn’t so bad. But I fully expect you to ignore this advice, just as I did when I was 23. Because, when we’re 23, we can’t imagine feeling any more ancient. 

I can only imagine what 27-year-old me will be saying to this, or 28, 29 or…oh please no, 30! That is if I can still muster the energy to respond to blog posts by then. 

So take your limber arms and wrap them around 23. 

Hold tight and don’t let go. 

Because I have a feeling it only gets worse from here.

In Lieu of a Blog post, Here are Instagram Photos

I've been a terrible, terrible blogger lately. I have three blog posts in the queue, but no time nor energy to finish them. So in an easy (cop-out) blog post, here are some Instagram photos over the past few weeks to show why I've been neglecting my blog.

I loved Tommy's hat on Christmas.

And we all made amazing Christmas cookies!

Mom finally got her kitchen done and cooked a delicious meal.

Peter and I stayed in one night and watch Comedy Central for hours.

Then Craig was on NY Ink and got this awesome tattoo!!

And I got ready for Sunday Funday.

Which included homemade chili!

Shake Shack is right near my office. Bad news bears.

The DiRoccos went to a 50s theme party...and only kind of got into costume.

Finally, I drank a bottle of wine and watched the Golden Globes. Amazing.

The Best Global Health Lists of 2011

Every New Year the media subjects us to countless lists, countdowns and reviews. While in the past I’ve decided to steer away from the “Top 10s," this year I decided to commemorate these lists with one of my own. Here are the best my favorite global health end-of-year lists.

Marie Stopes International reviews the year in sexual and reproductive health.

Karl Hoffman from PSI highlights the top 10 global healthachievements in 2011. 

While The Tyee in Canada lists the most under reported health stories of 2011. 

My old stomping grounds, USAID, recapped the 11 most important global health events over the past 12 months.

Women Deliver, a global advocacy organization focused on maternal health and women’s issues, lists the top 10 maternal health highlights from last year.

The magazine Science named HIV treatment as prevention as its 2011 breakthrough of the year. Also making the list: GSK’s malaria vaccine. Check out the full list here and here. 

Finally, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation decided to be positive for the New Year. This post lists five reasons for hope against AIDS, polio and other deadly diseases in 2012.  

2011 was a pretty exciting year and I think 2012 will be even more interesting.

Some others to note:

MSF lists 10 stories that mattered for global health in 2011. 

David Olson lends his hand to the Gates Foundation’s Impatient Optimist blog to include the top 10 global development stories of the year.

What are your favorite lists of 2011? 

A Thought on Facebook Photo Albums

What did people do before Facebook had a photo option? Actually, I know what we did and it was not nearly as easy or fun.

Here's a quick rundown of my memory of the evolution of photo sharing:

1. We used disposable cameras.*

2. You had to get photos printed at a photo printing center. If you wanted to share the photos with friends or family, you needed to suck it up and pay for doubles. You also always saved your negatives, just in case you needed to get photos reprinted.

3. Once computers started becoming more popular, photo printing centers gave you the option to get your photos put on a CD. Then you could share them by uploading them on your computer. But the internet still sucked at this point, so nobody ever did that.

4. Finally, digital cameras became more affordable. But, aside from AOL or AIM, social networking sites were not widespread. This is when Yahoo Photo** and Shutterfly started to pop up. You could upload your photos and post them to albums. People couldn't really comment on the photos or even download them without paying, and it wasn't until later when you could actually share your albums with people, but it was a place to keep your photos.

5. Facebook then begins to spread across campuses. But, as many may not know, the original Facebook did not have any high-tech photo capabilities.*** The first time I signed on Facebook, I am pretty sure I was freaked out and the only photo I could upload was my profile picture. Either way, there was definitely no tagging involved.

6. Now, there are social networking sites dedicated to photo sharing (such as Flickr) and any photo you post on Facebook is basically owned by Mark Zuckerberg. And while he may own your life, you can at least access your friends' photos with a tap of a mouse.

See, isn't technology great?

So, what do you think? Is life better with Facebook Photo Albums?

*For you youngins out there, a disposable camera is exactly what it sounds like. You could buy them for like $15 at a grocery or drug store. They came with about 24 shots. And once you were done with it, you could get the photos printed at a photo printing center. The worst was when you realized your finger blocked the flash, so you lost all your photos from Jimmy's bar mitzvah. The second worst was when you only took 22 photos and the camera sat in your drawer for 14 months and you never developed it. And by the time you did, you weren't friends with those people any more. 

**Shutterfly ended up taking over Yahoo Photo. 


***In fact, the first version of Facebook didn't have half of the capabilities it has now. When you posted on someone's wall, you didn't have your photo or name next to it. It was just a block of text and you could roll your mouse over it and it would tell you who posted it.