Distant Wanderings

Camping 2.0

2009-08-10T17:05:00.000-05:00

I've led a nearly non-technological life for the past few weeks, with only occasional access to e-mails and intermittent cellphone coverage, and zero logins to Facebook. It's been great!

Since finishing my internship, Nate and I spent a weekend in Lucerne, five days in Paris and a long weekend in scenic Overton, UK...then one night at my dad's (well, Nate had a flight rebooked due to weather and spent the night in Providence at a hotel) and 11 days camping in Acadia National Park in Maine. We sublet our apartment, you see, since neither one of us would be there for June and July, but the only way we could do it was to sublet it through August 16! So we are currently homeless, and having spent all our money in Europe, are living the cheap but wonderful life of meals cooked over the fire and days spent biking or hiking on beautiful trails or walking on rocks by the ocean.

We head back home on Sunday with stops at both of my parents' houses beforehand, but we are spending the last few days of this long vacation in Camden, ME. In contrast to our remote location in Acadia, the state park here is ultra-modernized and even includes wireless internet access at most campsites! So, I am typing this on Nate's tiny netbook from my seat at the picnic table in our site, with chips and salsa and beer (shhhhh) and Nate across from me, planning our activities for the next couple of days. The mosquitos are leaving us alone and our few neighbors are very quiet, so overall it is a lovely, peaceful evening.

But I kind of enjoyed being off the grid, so I'll retreat now to offline mode. Look for more updates and photos in a week or so.

I'm too sexy for this haircut

2009-07-17T14:11:00.000-05:00

Almost unbelievably, today was the last day of my internship! It was a really good experience; in fact it was pretty much a perfect continuation of my coursework this past year. I had really nice colleagues and a lot of variety in my work responsibilities, and the drudgery of doing some boring administrative work was offset by the opportunities I had to exercise the kind of initiative authorized by my unique position as a French-speaking American staff member (actually a not-entirely-unique position: I shared it, funny enough, with another Jessica from Southeastern Vermont.

I'm ready to move on, though, and have a lot of fun plans for the next few weeks. First stop is tomorrow's drive to Lucerne to see some old friends and hopefully enjoy some Alpine scenery. Nate's never been to Switzerland so I'm hoping to put together an impressive itinerary of Swiss experiences.

My hair was getting a little shaggy so I decided to have a pre-vacation cut. The salon next door had two signs in the window, one saying "student discount" and the other saying "models wanted for haircuts: male and female." I was a little unsure what they meant by "models" and I didn't want to risk the embarassment of being rejected, so I went in to ask about the student discount, and offhandedly asked what the sign meant. As it turns out, it's common in France for aspiring hair stylists to get apprenticeships in salons where they gain experience between their school training and independent work. To help these apprentices get experience, they help at the shop and offer free haircuts. Free! and with no photography or actual modeling needed. So I quickly volunteered and I'm now sporting a brand new free haircut. It was well cut, but I'm still unsure how I like it. It's pretty short. I'm sure I'll have photos soon, and hopefully by then I'll be used to it. Anyway, the point is, I'm officially a model!

Le jour de gloire est arrivé

2009-07-14T16:43:00.005-05:00

Happy Bastille Day! It was pretty uneventful here today: the fireworks tonight were canceled because of thunderstorms. Nate and I are having a great time, though. Yesterday we borrowed bikes from two of my colleagues and took off for a 25 mile trek through the wine fields of Burgundy to Beaune, where we would catch the train back to Dijon. I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea (it was me) but about a quarter of the way there someone (me) started to think it wasn't such a brilliant plan. But it was a great day, the vineyards and tiny villages were beautiful, and best of all, just when the fun was really wearing off, we arrived at the cute little town of Nuits-Saint-Georges, and found out it has a train station! After three hours and about 20 km, we were very humbled by the 7-minute train ride home, not to mention the TV coverage of 200 km stages of the Tour de France.

Last night we checked out a French tradition neither of us had ever experienced before: Le Bal des Pompiers. On the eve of Bastille Day, French firefighters open up their stations and host a huge party that's open to the public. One of my colleagues' description led me to believe we'd be the youngest participants by far and were in for a night of favorite French oldies, and we got kind of dressed up for the occasion. When we got there it turned out to be a sort of all-ages dance party, with favorite French pop classics, and of course random American things like "Summer Loving" from Grease, which always seems to pop up at European dances. It was a blast! Everybody was having fun, teenagers and young parents with kids on their shoulders, all dancing the night away. At 1 AM we got a special treat, when a small contingent of firemen (who, in France, are known for their good looks and physical fitness) put on a little strip-show on the roof of one the garages!

More photos (including half-naked firemen).

Saturday Night

2009-07-11T16:56:00.002-05:00

Today I moved out of the nunnery and into a student's apartment that I'm subletting for the week, in time for Nate's arrival tomorrow. It's great to have a real living space instead of a tiny little room. Also, I have my own private internet now, instead of waiting for a spot at one of six hookups to share with 30 other women in the computer room. This means I have spent the last couple of hours catching up on useless things like YouTube and Facebook. I think I may have lost a few brain cells. But on the other hand, I got to watch the trailer for the new Ricky Gervais movie!

I have just 20 pages left to read in Infinite Jest! However, with sentences like the one below (yes, one sentence) those 20 pages might take a while.

Gately now simply blows through Inman, heading for B&C over on the upscale northwest side nearer to Harvard, every light suddenly green and kind, the Aventura's ten-cylinder backwash raising an odd little tornado of discarded ad-leaflets and glassine bags and corporate-snack bags and a syringe's husk and filterless gasper-butts and general crud and a flattened Millennial Fizzy cup, like from a stand, which whirls in his exhaust, the tornado of waste does, moving behind him as the last pearly curve of the sun through baggy clouds is eaten by the countless Sancta Something and then whitewashed WASP church roofs' finials farther west, nearer Harvard, at 60k but sustained in its whirl by the strong west breeze as the last of the sun goes and a blue-black shadow quietly fills the canyon of Prospect, whose streetlights don't work for the same municipal reasons the street is in such crummy repair; and one piece of the debris Gately's raised and set spinning behind him, a thick flattened M.F. cup, caught by a sudden gust as it falls, twirling, is caught at some aerodyne's angle and blown spinning all the way to the storefront of one 'Antitoi Entertainment' on the street's east side, and hits, its waxed bottom making a clunk, hits the glass pane in the locked front shop door with a sound for all the world like the rap of a knuckly, so that in a minute a burly bearded thoroughly Canadian figure in one of those Canadianly inevitable checked-flannel shirts appears out of the dim light in the shop's back room and wipes its mouth on first one sleeve then the other and opens up the front door with a loud hinge-squeak and looks around a bit, viz. for who knocked, looking not overly pleased at being interrupted at what his sleeves betray as a foreign supper, and also, below that harried expression, looking edgy and emotionally pale, which might explain the X of small-arms ammo-belts across his checked chest and the rather absurdly large .44 revolver tucked and straining in the waistband of his jeans.

Avian Childcare

2009-07-09T06:46:00.003-05:00

My little studio at the student residence is located just off a small courtyard, and across from my door is a little nook in which a bird had built a nest. A few weeks ago I realized there were three tiny baby birds in there and a mama bird who flies back and forth bringing morsels of food for the little squawking babies. The hatchlings are very excitable, and can actually make a very high-pitched racket when clamoring for a meal.

When I lived in Amsterdam in 2001, a pigeon built a nest on my balcony and laid an egg in it, hatching a little baby bird; I thought it was cute so I stepped out on the balcony to take pictures, and shortly thereafter I discovered the baby abandoned, splayed pitifully across the nest, having starved to death. Since that event (and the accompanying trauma of having to dispose of the dead bird and nest by myself) I've been cautious about getting too close to live baby animals. So I didn't try to get a close look at these little ones.

Today I stepped out of my room and noticed that the nest was empty and the regular twittering was a little further away, out in the courtyard. The babies had learned to fly! (They grow up so fast, don't they?) I walked past the courtyard where the little cuties were fluttering around, bumping into walls and windows, still getting used to using their wings. The mama bird was nearby, and squawking loudly at me to move along.

Well, apparently by the time I came back for lunch, the mama was quite tired of humans walking past her baby and had gone on the defensive to protect them. As I tried to cross the courtyard she came at me, landing briefly two times on my head as I retreated back into the main building. I tried to go through a side hallway and come out another door, but there she was, hovering. Mind you this is a very small bird, but still! It was hilarious and a little scary at the same time.

I managed to leave out the back doorway undetected after lunch, and I'm already planning my defense for this evening. Let's just say that the umbrella I'm carrying is only partly because of the gray skies.

Speaking of weather, I'm pretty happy about the forecast for the next few days:

That might be too small to read, but basically it indicates very reasonable, balmy temperatures with little fluffy clouds for the next few days. I'm also excited because this four-day forecast finally includes this Sunday (dim for dimanche) which is when Nate gets here! Yay! And it's a four-day weekend, since the school "makes the bridge" between the weekend and Bastille Day on Tuesday. I'm very excited to show him around Dijon and to have a partner for exploration of undiscovered parts of the city.

A Supposedly Fun Thing that's Actually Really Fun

2009-06-30T08:36:00.003-05:00

I am a bit frustrated at work these past few days, dealing with some people who are, let's just say, difficult. I would love to have a big rant about this, but I am aware that public rants about professional issues can sometimes be a little bit harmful to one's career development, so I will keep the details to myself.

Instead, I'll tell you about a little side project I have going on, along with supposedly a couple thousand people around the world. Infinite Summer is a three-month long project in which people read and discuss the book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It's a three-month-long project because the book is more than 1,000 pages long, including many many endnotes, some of which refer to other endnotes or have endnotes of their own.

I first heard of DFW when I met Nate; he (Wallace) is his (Nate's) favorite author. I'm pretty sure it was on one of the very first times we went out that he told me about IJ and its notes, the reading of which is essential to understanding the novel. I remember specifically that he talked about one particular endnote, an eight-page filmography of one of the book's characters. He said it seems kind of excessive but turns out to be really important. Intriguing!

Then last September David Foster Wallace killed himself in his home in California. Like lots of fans, Nate was very sad to hear of his death, and set about collecting as many non-published works as the internet could provide (he already owned all the published works.) It's unfortunate that a tragic death can create a whole new wave of fans for a writer or artist, but it is so. I read a few of his "easier" non-fiction pieces, including A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (about a luxury cruise) and Consider the Lobster (about Maine's annual Lobster Fest.) With a writing style prone to endlessly contorted sentences, detailed reference from everything from pop culture to linguistics to biochemistry, reading his works is both challenging and frustrating, but for these same reasons is also very rewarding.

But so anyway, being away from boyfriend and family and friends, living in a quasi-nunnery in France with no money and no TV, as it turns out is a situation that's very conducive to reading a complex and massive novel like Infinite Jest. I'm currently on around page 800, but when the Infinite Summer project started up on June 21, I doubled back to start again from the beginning, reading a first and second time simultaneously to keep up with my own schedule but also participate in the scheduled and spoiler-limited Infinite Summer forums. This means I am using four bookmarks (two for text, two for endnotes) and it means that I will have plenty of reading material for the rest of the summer, including this weekend, when I'm leading a group on a weekend excursion. And I'm not going to go into detail on why, but let's just say at the end of each long day I'll be glad to retreat to my room and read in solitude.

La stagiaire

2009-06-22T05:25:00.004-05:00

I have now reached the halfway point of this internship: four weeks behind me, four more to go. Out of the seven groups of students coming over for summer programs here, six have arrived, and of those, three have already left. So as it happens, just as I am getting into the swing of things and learning the names of people and streets, the number of people who get to benefit from my increased knowledge keeps getting smaller.

I have to say it's a strange thing being an intern (stagiaire) again at age 33. I have supervised enough student interns in previous jobs to know that the range of capability and initiative can vary greatly from person to person. And I recognized some apprehension at first in the assignment of new tasks, when colleagues wondered just what end of that range I would occupy. Of course, I'm capable of managing my own work, so I don't think they are too worried about me.

My colleagues are busy with their own work, so I'm trying not to be that intern that constantly needs to be helped with her job...but the French language keeps getting in my way! Sometimes people have to explain things to me slowly, or a second time, because of some unfamiliar vocabulary. Sometimes I have to ask for help with wording of a phrase or interpretation of an e-mail I'm writing or reading. In short, I need a little more supervision than I want, which is sometimes frustrating.

And another thing! In general, I think I have a pretty good sense of humor and in general I like to make jokes and laugh with colleagues. Unfortunately, in my experience, the ability to show your full sense of humor is one of the last foreign-language skills to develop. I'm getting there, but not quite as quick on the draw with wit as I would like to be. I should work on this, because I'd much rather be remembered as the intern who was funny but didn't always say things right, than as the intern who spoke perfect French but was really boring to have around.

But overall things are going really well. I have finally learned enough about Dijon and the school to be considered some kind of expert for students with questions. I'm working on an extensive list of upcoming events in/near Dijon: in summer months the music festivals and free events abound! I'm keeping close track of exchange students' fall course registrations; I am involved in serious discussions re: student behavior and how beer pong is not an accepted part of French culture; I have nearly memorized the English-speaking doctor's phone number, and just today learned the word for "rash" (the itchy skin kind, not the behavior kind.) I get to be part of all kinds of fun tasks and activities, and who knows what is in store for the next month!

Bonjour Dijon

2009-06-08T15:36:00.001-05:00

Two and a half weeks ago, I was at home putting the final touches on a semester-long group project, proofreading our 60+ page proposal, getting ready for our final presentation, and not really thinking too specifically about my upcoming internship in France. In quick succession the unresolved elements of my life came together: we succeeded in subletting out our apartment for the whole time we’d be away, I’d finished off my final assignments one-by-one. Nate and I had worked out our travel plans: he, on tour until mid-July, will come to France afterwards for two weeks and we’ll return together. On the very last day of classes, after a successful presentation, I was offered and accepted the job I had been hoping to get for next year. Whew! The end-of-semester fog of stress cleared and it was time to pack.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in my little room here at the Tremouille Young Ladies’ Residence in Dijon, France, exhausted after 24 full hours of car-train-plane-bus-plane-bus-train-bus-train-taxi transit. The residence, mostly for students, is female-only (as you may have guessed from the name) and run by Catholics; the room décor and furniture are spartan and what I imagine to be nunnery-like. It’s clean, though, has common kitchens and lovely gardens and terraces, and best of all is very very cheap, which is important on my measly intern stipend. It felt great to unpack after carrying luggage all around all day in the 90 degree heat. Bedtime was early because of jetlag and to prepare for an early start to my first work day: 5 AM meeting time with a colleague to ride together to Paris to pick up two groups at the airport. Both groups are U.S. college students, participating in summer programs abroad at Burgundy School of Business, my employer for the next two months.

Last week, I was settling in. My supervisor, absent at a conference the previous week, had returned and given me lots of tasks. I was getting to know my colleagues and finally had a proper tour of the building where everyone was very nice and welcoming. My French is doing great and I’m having no trouble communicating. I had realized with a shock that I’ve been speaking this language for twenty years, and decided it’s time to stop worrying about the words I don’t know or don’t pronounce right. I was finally beginning to know the answers to some of the questions asked of me by the group: Where is the student restaurant? How do I access the wireless network? Why did it take so long for the waiter to bring my coffee? Where do I go to get medicine for this sore throat? What does that sign say?

This week, I’m taking on more responsibilities. A new group arrived yesterday, and I gave them an introduction to Dijon and a tour of the school, and tomorrow lead two groups on a visit to the Regional Counsel. I’m enjoying the little perks of the job, like the opportunity to participate in field trips and the occasional wine tasting. I like the way my involvement in these programs neatly connects my past and future careers: tourism and education abroad. Of course, my clothing and shoes are all wrong and with no budget for shopping I will have to resign myself to always looking like a foreigner…but I don’t mind so much.

For photos of my first couple of weeks, click here.

Sharp knives and hot oil at 1:30 AM

2008-09-27T14:33:00.003-05:00

The first week of classes went well, I like all my professors and the classes seem interesting so far. Last night we went out with some classmates to celebrate the end of the first week. We started at a friend's house where we watched the debate. We made up our own very flexible rules for a debate drinking game, which included taking a drink any time:
-Obama said "Look" at the beginning of a sentence
-McCain said "Warshington" (or any mispronunciation)
-either candidate dropped names, especially of an Average Joe met on the campaign trail (hello, bracelets!)
-we felt like it

It was a good time, and from there we continued down to the local wine bar, which apparently becomes the local hip-hop club for the Barely Twenty-One crowd in Brattleboro on weekends. Given their raging youthful hormones perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised that a fistfight nearly broke out in the bar, requiring four police officers and a state trooper to intervene. That was a good sign that it was time to go home.

In a larger city, a long night out might call for a visit to the local greasy pizza place, greasy kebab shop, or (my favorite) greasy french fry stand, but sadly none of these are available here. So we decided to go home and make our own greasy snack. It perhaps was not such a wise decision to handle sharp knives and hot cooking oil after consuming a number of alcoholic beverages, but we went for it anyway...and it was GREAT.

Our fries took only about 20 minutes and were flavorful and delicious. Here's how to do it:
1. Cut two potatoes into french fry strips, as thick or thin as you want.
2. Pour about an inch of cooking oil in a deep pan, and heat it on medium
3. Put a couple of tablespoons of flour, some salt and pepper, garlic powder, and any other flavorings you want into a brown paper bag. Add the potatoes and shake it all around.
4. When the oil is hot, put the potatoes in the pan (careful not to splash yourself) and cook them, flipping, poking and rotating so they cook evenly and don't stick together, until they're a nice golden-brown.
5. Drain the fries on several paper towels, then put them in another brown paper bag while still hot. Add salt, and shake them all around again.
6. Scarf them down ravenously, preferably with mayonnaise, but ketchup and mayo mixed works too. Yum!

Photographic evidence

2008-09-20T18:30:00.002-05:00

It's a quiet weekend here. Nate is in Charlottesville celebrating his friend Nick's 30th birthday, and I am working on my first two papers for school. One is done (and was submitted this afternoon) and the other one should be fairly easy, so it's not a stressful time here.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and we hiked up Mt. Wantastiquet, the local peak just across the river in New Hampshire. It was a nice hike and the view was beautiful:

(See the white buildings in the center of the photo? That's my school.)

We're lucky to have had beautiful weather most of the time since we've moved here. Last weekend we picked apples, a fine New England tradition. Can you see me in the tree?

I finally uploaded some photos from our move. Here's one of our long and narrow room. Thankfully, it looks a lot better now:

To see more photos of the apartment and our weekend adventures, check out my photoset on Flickr.

First week

2008-09-14T16:42:00.002-05:00

Friday marked the end of the first week of classes for me in my re-entry into academic life. Actually, it's a kind of strange segue from work to school, because here we have one intensive course all day every day for the first week. So, less than a month after leaving my job I find myself on an 8:30-5:30 schedule again! But luckily the day is broken up into lectures, activities, group work, and discussion, so the tedium of all-day class is kept at a minimum. (Of course, it doesn't keep me from nearly falling asleep at least once per day). The point of the class is to understand theories about working in multicultural groups. To do so, each class is divided into small work groups. I got very lucky and got a really great, nice group. We work together well and have a lot of fun. That's definitely made this week much easier.

In our studies and class discussion of team work, sometimes I have to laugh because we are covering so many topics that I find extremely relevant to my past work experience. In fact, we even used some of the vocabulary that was used in a work retreat I attended with my department at Penn State this past May. Luckily, the environment is so different, that concepts which seemed completely cheesy and stupid when presented in May (to a highly cynical group of co-workers) seem to make complete sense and be extremely useful in this supportive academic environment.

In other updates, I got a work-study job at the library, which is good. It's not a typical library front-desk job, where I might have time to do some homework, but it's a very flexible job for which I can define my own hours each week. I registered for four classes which will start next week, and I'm pretty pleased with my class schedule. I have Fridays free and on Mondays my class doesn't start until 6:15 PM.

I've been taking the bus to school, which is really easy, and free for me since I'm a student. I have about a 5-minute walk to the bus stop, so that will make it easy in the winter when I can avoid driving in the deep Vermont snow. So far Nate seems to be enjoying being a stay-at-home boyfriend, with financial stability for at least a couple of months from his work as a Tour Director this summer. We picked up a few more items for the house yesterday, like a small bookcase and an ironing board, but hopefully that will be the last time for a while that we haul heavy items up to our 3rd floor home. We also bought a rocking chair at the Salvation Army and are pretty psyched to have that! I'm already envisioning cold winter evenings in the rocking chair with a glass of wine, a blanket, and the cat on my lap. Nice. Oh, yeah, and a few books to read and papers to write, too. But let's not worry about that just yet.

Milestones

2008-09-01T19:36:00.002-05:00

It's been a great summer for me, and there is a lot of news to update. I'm writing from my new home in Brattleboro, VT, where I begin orientation for a Master's program tomorrow. I was at Penn State for two years, which was about enough for me--I worked with fun people and enjoyed having students around all the time, but the bureaucracy of a large university was not a good fit for me so it was time to move on. I had a great summer in State College and moved away just as classes were starting so it was perfect timing for me.

Of course there are a lot of changes afoot here in Distant Wanderings land: the move brought with it lots of tasks like packing and loading trucks, changing addresses, setting up cable and electricity, finding the grocery stores, drilling holes for shelves and hooks, and the obligatory trip to Ikea. Although I've done this process before, this time it had a new and exciting twist to the process because I did it all with a partner. My boyfriend Nate decided to move to Vermont with me, and we moved in together on the 5-month anniversary of the day we met. I suppose that's pretty fast, but it feels like the right decision for us and we are loving it!

I am really glad to work together with Nate on everything from storage of pots and pans to measuring windows for curtains to scrubbing the greasy stains off of the oven and stove. But at the same time, it makes me pretty amazed at the independent woman I've become in my years of living alone. As we arrange the bedroom furniture I marvel at the memory of setting up the bed at my new apartment last year and moving the dresser across the room, both tasks accomplished by myself. I am proud of the skills I have developed over the years, like hooking up stereo speakers and measuring and drilling holes to hang things on the walls. But it's really nice, and a lot more fun, to be able to share these tasks with someone else.

Our apartment is "quirky" to say the least. It's the attic of a 3-story Victorian house, and comes with slanted, low ceilings, bizarrely shaped closet space and unwieldy "nooks" in some of the rooms that pose a definite challenge in the decoration department. The main room is about 40 feet long and 15 feet wide (although the ceiling starts to slant down after only 5 feet or so). I think we have done a great job at engineering the room so far, and it is now divided into three sections: a living room, a dining room/kitchen extension, and what we are calling the "sunroom" - a kind of ironic name since although the apartment boasts windows facing all four cardinal points, the sunroom's window is the sole window facing north and therefore receiving the least direct sunlight.

There's lots of work to be done, but I'm having a really good time doing it. We're also really excited to explore our now hometown, which is a really liberal, earthy, hippie type of place. We are only a block from downtown, which is full of little shops and cafes and a surprising collection of international restaurants for such a small place. One of our biggest joys so far has been the ability to buy wine and beer in the grocery store! After two years in PA, where liquor and beer are sold in separate government-sponsored stores (and in fact, there are two kinds of beer stores depending on the quantity you want to buy) this is such a relief that it almost left more of an impression than the wonderful farmer's market, the variety of activities and events going on around town and the plethora of hiking/walking trails accessible from just a couple blocks from our apartment.

This year promises to be exciting, challenging, probably difficult at times, but hopefully fun throughout. I hope to blog more frequently (but, luckily for you, less long-windedly) about all of the things that are going on in my life. I hope you'll stay tuned!

On the Road

2008-06-30T14:06:00.000-05:00

May and June have been a pretty crazy month for me. In the past four weeks, I've been in eleven states (plus DC), slept in eleven different places, and racked up more than 2,600 miles on my odometer (I don't even want to think about how much the gas cost for those miles). I've had a lot of fun, though, and the fact that I have no road trips planned for the near future makes me feel almost ancy.

Some highlights of the New England roadtrip:

Visiting former Bates haunts with old friends, climbing Mount David and eating brunch in Commons (it was New Commons, but the French toast still tastes the same).
Camping in ME and VT with Nate, discovering Burlington (a very cool city) and exploring shops and neighborhoods in Brattleboro, planning for my move there in September.
Swimming in Lake Champlain to cool down from the 95-degree heat (yes, even in Vermont!)
Kicking off the summer season floating in Candlewood Lake, bonding with my family over gin and tonics and cheese and crackers.
Wading in Kent Falls.
Revisiting my youth by playing on the tank and dancing old-timey style in the bandstand on the green in New Milford.
Rediscovering beautiful New England and getting excited about living there again!

The trip was a blast from beginning to end, although the one low point came when I realized I had lost my camera. (Yes, some of you may remember this is the second time this has happened to me, don't remind me, I'm kicking myself really hard for being so absent-minded). So I've had to borrow photos from other people to show off my adventures.

From Basil: Alison and Henry and I in front of Old Commons, feeling nostalgic for the small and middle rooms.

From Nate:
Where did I go to college?

Overlooking the Connecticut River in Brattleboro:

Ice Cream Mecca!

Who took that?

Oh, and we also learned a little bit about Maine's own Moxie soda:

Road trips!

2008-06-01T18:02:00.000-05:00

Today is the first day in two months that I've spent at home, alone, with no agenda or plans or responsibilities. It's wonderful! I took two naps already.

May and June are very busy months for me, and I'll be spending a good amount of time traveling. Recently, I've been spending some quality time with my car, and in the next couple of weeks I'll be spending even more time driving. This past week the driving was mostly a bad experience. For future reference, the next time I suggest that it will just be easier to drive to Washington, DC, then New York, then back home again, remind me that IT WILL NOT. I should take the bus or train like other normal people. The combined travel time for these three legs of the journey should be about 12 or 13 hours, and yet from Tuesday through Friday I spent 19 hours driving, and about $30 in tolls. The terrible traffic I encountered and moments of getting lost in unfamiliar places could be described as a comedy of errors, and yet it WASN'T FUNNY. I was so relieved to get home on Friday night that I've been content to do absolutely nothing this weekend.

Other than this trip, the rest of the summer's road trips should be lots of fun. The good times started on Memorial Day weekend, which was a really fun weekend spent with Nate. First we hiked local landmark Mount Nittany, and on Sunday we embarked on a GeoDate. We took out a Pennsylvania Atlas, flipped a coin to choose between the pages in the vicinity of where we live, and then threw a dart at the chosen page to determine our destination. The winner? Yarnell, PA, a place so small, it's not actually a town at all! Along with nearby Rhoads, Fetzertown, Runville, and Dry Top, Yarnell is included in Boggs Township, population 2,783.

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It was a sunny day, and we parked at the church, were greeted by several local dogs and had a picnic by a small stream. Afterwards, we stopped in at Jack's Snack Shack for ice cream, and asked the owner, Ed, about any local attractions not to be missed. We also clarified the correct pronunciation of the town's name (according to Ed: "yar-NELL. It used to be called YAR-nell, but over the years, I'm not sure why, it changed to the more fancy pronunciation of yar-NELL.")

Ed suggested we head up Devil's Elbow road to see the "engine" carved into the rock. Ed's particularly rural pronunciation at first shocked me into expecting a silhouette of a Native American tribesman of some kind, and I was relieved to realize that he meant a train locomotive. A local attraction, the train was carved in the 1800s but its artist and reason for being seem lost to history and subject of some local speculation.

(Photo by Nate)
The train was pretty interesting, and while checking it out we met two families who had come to show their kids the train and go on a Geocaching excursion. Geocaching, which was a new concept to me, is a worldwide hobby for GPS and exploring enthusiasts. Containers are hidden, their coordinates and details written up online for other geocachers to seek them out. These sleuths sign a logbook and take and/or leave trinkets to be later deposited in other geocaches in other locations. (Oh, and for the record, Nate and I were calling our day a GeoDate even before we met the GeoCachers!)

This turned into a fortuitous meeting, because our new friends told us about a local spring where we could fill up our water bottles, and pointed us towards another Geocache at a historic church about a half-hour away. Thus we continued the adventure, seeing more beautiful countryside, learning about some local history and finding another treasure trove.

I highly recommend the GeoDate as a great way to get to know someplace (or someone) new, especially on a beautiful, sunny day at the end of spring. In fact, we plan to use the dart-throwing technique in another week during our New England road trip through Maine and Vermont. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Peru Part Four: In which we rough it on a beautiful island and I get ready to return home

2008-05-16T18:02:00.009-05:00

At times during the past couple of weeks, I´ve thought wistfully of what must be the pleasant early-May weather back home. But I have never yearned for May flowers quite as much as in the past few evenings spent on the coast of Lake Titicaca. It´s bone-chillingly cold up there, and alpaca mittens and leg warmers can only go so far to warm one up. Despite this, we had a great trip out to visit three islands in the lake. The first was actually a group of man-made islands formed from reeds. The islands are soft and squishy and the inhabitants (when not selling trinkets to boatloads of tourists) live a very traditional life.

From there we moved on to Isla Amantaní, where we spent the night at the home of a local family. Theirs is a very rustic home: although we did have actual beds to sleep on, there was only an outhouse, no running water that we could detect, and no electricity. No electricity means no heat and no heat means sleeping all bundled up in full winter regalia including aforementioned alpaca goods, plus winter hat and ski coat, covered with two alpaca wool blankets. But add to that the stillness of a vehicle-free and tranquil island, the contented exhaustion at the end of a day of hiking to explore its scenic hilltop temples, the sound of gentle waves lapping at the shore, and overall it was a beautiful place to spend the night. The next day we visited Isla Taquile, another beautiful spot, but one whose lasting impression will always be the 500 steps leading up from the port to the town. The other night, we went to a bar and Marco and I wanted to dance, but felt winded after just one song. These are the effects at 12,000 feet of altitude, so imagine what 500 steps can do!

Now I´m back in Cusco, wandering its pretty streets and killing time until my flight tomorrow. Marco and Edward are in Arequipa, but they arrive in Lima tomorrow, at the same time as I arrive for my seven-hour layover, so we plan to meet up and explore the city together, at least for a little while.

It´s been a great trip, full of challenges and lots of fun, but I´m definitely ready to go home again.

Here are some photo highlights of the last few days:

Playing house with a couple of local girls on the floating islands, and (as usual) having some fun with my flip-screen camera:

Our house and outhouses on Amantaní (the green one is a squatter toilet--just a hole in the ground with two places to put your feet--and given the state of the actual toilet, I´ve never been so happy to see one of those.)

Group picture at the top of Isla Taquile´s 500 killer steps:

Oh, and did I mention I ate guinea pig?

Peru Part Three: In which an adventure begins and the three travelers experience some of the local culture

2008-05-13T15:08:00.006-05:00

I´m happy to report that I´m feeling much less stressed now, having had my last meeting with the hospital staff yesterday morning. Sunday was also a great day--Marco and Edward and I went to the market at Pisac, a town about 45 minutes from Cusco. The town is surrounded by hills lined with Inca terraces, and although the market happens every day, Sunday is the biggest. There´s an artisans market, where you can buy all the textiles (Marco), jewelery (me) and bells to hang around llamas´necks (Edward--really!) that your heart desires. But the best part was the food market, where I could spend all day just watching the people. In this area, many people, especially the women, still wear traditional dress, which includes multilayered skirts, embroidered shirts, a great variety of styles of hats, and colorful cloths slung across their backs, containing merchandise, food, or children. Fruits and vegetables are stacked in neat piles, chunks of meat or piles of fish or sometimes entire animal carcasses are on tables ready to be sold, bags of spices and grains and other staple foods are available for purchase.

Yesterday we took a bus from Cusco to Puno, opting for the cheapest ticket we could find, about $5 each for what turned out to be an 8-hour ride. During the trip, passengers loaded and unloaded, carrying boxes and bags of food, blankets and all kinds of things, sometimes sitting in the aisles when all the seats were taken. Occasionally, we would pick up a woman or two selling food--fruit drinks in plastic bags, ears of corn with slices of cheese, loaves of bread, jello cups, and once even a fully cooked meat and potatoes meal. We´d drive along with them while they made their way through the bus, stopping off to let them off when they were done. Presumably they picked up another bus later to sell more of their wares and find their way back home. About 6 hours in, an earnest young man addressed the passengers with a sales pitch for herbal supplements guaranteed to improve your mental, respiratory, cardiac, sexual, and general health. We watched three DVDs: The Green Berets starring John Wayne, dubbed in Spanish, and two compilations of music videos from Peruvian artists. These last two were simultaneously annoying, fascinating, interesting, and ridiculously irritating. Take a look at Katty Portella singing of her love for gringo tourists, and you may understand why we decided to take a break today, hanging around Puno before our trip out to several of Lake Titicaca´s islands tomorrow:

Peru Part Two: in which things get better, then worse, then better, then just plain frustrating, and Jess becomes a godmother

2008-05-09T18:45:00.006-05:00

After Monday´s success, we were pretty excited to get to the hospital on Tuesday to start our work. That excitement was soon deflated when the first two patients (out of four) didn´t show up. Add to that continued confusion with the Ministry of Health and, aggravatingly, Peruvian customs agents, and I was ready to throw in the towel by lunchtime. In the early afternoon, things reached crisis phase when our third patient didn´t arrive, and we began doubting that we should even continue the mission. Thinking back, it´s pretty unbelievable that I didn´t break down in tears at any point during the day. However, the hospital administration assured us that the paperwork was just a formality, and the third patient appeared a bit late with his family, and we got to work. Never mind that during the last operation of the day, someone plugged in a machine without using a voltage converter and blew a fuse and fried the machine, rendering it unusable and canceling two procedures for the following day. We were badly beaten but not KO´d.

On Tuesday afternoon we saw more potential patients. One girl´s parents came in with her one-year-old brother in tow, a boy we all thought was a girl because of his very long hair. The parents explained that normally, a child´s godfather is the first person to cut his hair, but they didn´t have a godfather for their child. So, they proposed that we all cut his hair, thereby becoming his godparents! (Attention party poopers: please do not point out to me that there are errors in this logic; I will ignore you. Also, this is obviously a symbolic title, since religiously speaking I am totally unfit to be anybody´s godmother.) So we all took turns cutting off locks of his beautiful hair, chopping away with a pair of extremely dull safety scissors. Tuesday evening, I made my second Peruvian TV appearance on a show called ¨Variedades¨ which is broadcast live. It was a talk-show kind of setting, with couches and very enthusiastic (him) and surgically enhanced (her) hosts.

Wednesday, things began to look up. We put surgical work on hold until we discovered exactly what official paperwork was missing and completed it. All our patients showed up at the appointed time, and we even added a few new ones to our schedule. Many questions remained but for the first time, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Thankfully, yesterday, our last day of surgery, was completely successful! Actually, one patient didn´t appear until the end of the day, to apologize for not coming earlier, and explaining that their priest had advised against medical intervention! The surgeons finished up around 5, while I spent several tedious afternoon hours carefully counting all of the leftover medical equipment we would donate to the hospital. We were in a great mood last night, and I was thrilled to meet up with my friends Marco and Edward, who will be my travel companions for the next week. The whole team went out to dinner, and we all drank too much Chilean wine at dinner and made a ruckus in a fancy restaurant, but were so glad that it had all worked out well that we didn´t care.

Today, the rest of the team went to Machu Picchu, and I spent the day at the hospital, meeting with the head administrator. (Frustratingly, the hospital director seems to have disappeared and I haven´t seen her since Wednesday morning.) The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the fees that we owe them for use of their facilities, beds, x-ray machines, lights, electricity, space, air, etc. Amazingly, the huge pile of medicines and equipment doesn´t seem to count for much (¨acetaminophen? that´s no use to us, we use ibuprofen here.¨) I am completely fed up with these hospital people, their long lunches, mysterious disappearances, and most of all with their assumption that we rich Americans owe them thousands of dollars. In the end we are paying for the x-rays, and to ensure that our patients get the attention they need we are paying for all follow-up procedures. When I left them they were still in the process of taking inventory of our materials, separating out what they can use from what they can´t, and being unbelievably irritating. I don´t want to assume that they should just be so grateful to us, because after all, we did take them by surprise, and disrupted their week. But really, they should be a bit grateful, shouldn´t they?

Anyway, apart from what should be a quick visit on Monday morning, and some patient care instructions I have to e-mail to the head osteopod, I am now done with the medical portion of this trip. I´m going to celebrate with a Pisco Sour or three.

Here are some photos to highlight the week. Unfortunately, I don´t seem to have any photos of the haircutting ceremony; I´ll have to get them from somebody else´s camera.

Little Fiorella draws a family portrait while waiting her turn with the doctors:

My second shot at television stardom:

An amazing experience at the end of the day: twins are born by emergency C-section, and who better to hand them off to (just 15 minutes or so old, before meeting their own family, even) than the nearest gringa? The youngest babies I´ve ever held (look closely, I´m holding both of them):

Peru Part One: In which the trip gets off to a rocky start and Jess becomes a TV and radio star.

2008-05-05T20:42:00.004-05:00

I am writing from an internet cafe in Cusco, surrounded by backpackers living the life I had three years ago, and feeling a very strange disconnected sensation. I envy their freedom but at the same time I am enjoying some of the benefits of being here for only two weeks. I don´t count all my pennies, for instance, and I can buy souvenirs and gifts without worrying how much weight it will add to my backpack. And in most ways I am looking forward to getting back to my real life. But I can´t seem to fall easily into the role of tourist in this place. Despite this confusion, I am enjoying being back in Cusco. It´s an absolutely gorgeous city with beautiful surprises around every corner. I am also pleased to announce that the altitude (approx 13,000 feet) hasn´t affected me badly and as long as I take it easy on the uphill walks I am not having any trouble at all.

Unfortunately, in these first few days, the same cannot be said for our trip. I found myself feeling ecstatic when we arrived at the Cusco airport, and also somewhat incredulous. After all the trouble we had organizing this trip over the past year, and all the setbacks we encountered, and all of the problems we had en route (my bus to New York was running 4 hours late so at the last minute I drove, we spent hours negotiating with baggage checkers, customs agents and Ministry of Health officials in New York and Lima) we had finally arrived! It seemed that we were on our way to a successful trip. When we arrived at the hospital to drop off the 18 suitcases full of medical equipment we had brought, and no one seemed to know who we were, we attributed it to the fact that it was Saturday and the people in charge were not at work.

Then we showed up yesterday, Sunday, expecting to screen a whole bunch of kids with foot problems, and schedule them for surgery. I was completely dismayed, and words cannot describe my disappointment when upon arrival we found not one single child waiting to be seen. We began asking around and found out that no one working at the hospital had any idea that we were coming, and what´s more, they had no plans or preparations for our visit. I felt sick. As I mentioned, I had communicated with the hospital director who assured me that everything would be fine, and we had made contacts with several local organizations who promised to bring us children to treat. Suddenly, the entire plan for the week was in jeopardy. Although rationally I knew that I had done everything I could do in preparation, I began doubting my efforts and wondering where we had gone wrong.

Luckily, our team, and our local liaison Silvia, sprung into action. I found a sympathetic doctor, who commiserated, saying yes, the hospital director is ¨muy informal¨ and he gave me the names of all the other department heads, encouraging me to meet with them first thing today. Several team members went back to the hotel, printed up flyers about our visit, made a hundred photocopies and spent the afternoon walking around the main squares and markets telling people about the visiting surgical mission team. Silvia, whose brother had just passed away and who had to attend his funeral later in the day, accompanied me and two others around town to two radio stations and two TV stations, asking them to let us make on-air pleas for patients. Can you imagine doing this in your hometown? We walked in off the street to two different radio stations, explained who we were, and minutes later found ourselves behind the microphone for on-air interviews. In the process, we got a glimpse into the very interesting and often hilarious world of Peruvian broadcast journalism. On the second ratio station, the announcer was reading all of the news with a very emphatic and enthusiastic tone, completely unsuited to the words he was saying. Imagine a DJ reading items such as ¨a 52 year old woman in Quillabamba committed suicide after receiving a diagnosis of AIDS!¨and ¨a convenience store in Pisac was robbed last week, and $4,000 was stolen!¨ in the tone of a used-car or discount appliance salesman, and you might begin to get the picture.

At any rate, the point of the story is that yesterday I was interviewed twice on the radio, and this morning I left the hotel with two doctors at 6:30 AM to do a live TV interview on a local news program. It was really fun, and a great test of my Spanish, and at the same time, a completely surreal experience.

We joked about being famous and dodging paparazzi, but to our great pleasure, our efforts paid off. Not even a half an hour after arriving at the hospital this morning we had already met three people who had seen us on TV, one of which was a woman who had left her house immediately to bring her child down to the hospital. The hospital directors came to meet us and agreed to host us, and in total, 87 patients turned up at the hospital for evaluations! This turn of events was all the more exciting because we could see the direct effects of our hard work.

It has been an incredibly long and exhausting day. We still have many challenges to overcome. Much of the hospital staff is still uninformed, and even if informed, sometimes resistant to the idea of a team of gringos coming in to take over their OR. The hospital wants to negotiate with us the fees we will pay them for using their facilities. And of those 87 patients, we only have 12 currently scheduled for surgery (the rest were mild cases where surgery was unnecessary). I swear, we have seen every case of flat feet in Cusco, and if ever I or anyone I know has a child with flat feet or mild hip displacia, I know exactly how to treat them non-surgically. So we still have some obstacles in our path, but after the events in the last two days I feel fairly confident that we are going to make this trip happen, even if we have to ruffle some feathers along the way.

Here´s a photo of me impersonating a doctor, along with two real doctors, being interviewed on Channel 2 News:

Off to Peru

2008-05-01T21:29:00.002-05:00

After nearly a year of planning, it's hard to believe that this trip to Peru is finally happening. We've hit so many snags in the planning for this trip that I have barely let myself get excited about the fact that in a day and a half I'll be in South America again!!

Tomorrow I catch a bus to New York at 1 PM and meet the rest of my group at the airport at 7:30 for an 11:30 flight. Yes, that's four hours early. In those four hours, my job will be to become best friends with the staff of LAN Chile airlines and try to sweet-talk them out of charging us fees for our overweight luggage. We'll be carrying all kinds of medical equipment, machines and supplies, and even with the ample luggage allowance we'll be significantly overweight. I haven't yet finished my own packing, but I'm reaching back into my memory to recreate my backpacker wardrobe of approximately two pairs of pants and three shirts for my two-week trip. Average daytime temperature at this time of year in Cusco is 70 degrees F, but at 12,000 feet, there's potential for some bone-chilling nights, so I'm packing a fleece and my winter jacket, too.

For the first week, though, I'll mainly be wearing scrubs. (Words can barely express how excited I am about that--scrubs are the most comfortable articles of clothing in the world). For the first 6 days of the trip, we'll be working at the Hospital Regional de Cusco, and I'll be doing my best to keep track of the patients and translate medical terms for foot deformities and treatments. Since we're the first surgical team to visit this hospital, we'll be paving new ground, and I am trying to prepare myself for the likelihood that it's going to be a week full of challenges. I have spoken with the hospital director several times by phone, but her constant reassurances of "don't worry, we're ready for you, no problem, everything will be fine" and noticeable lack of concrete details leave me a little bit concerned. There may be some cloudy details at this point, but I am finally convinced that the doors will indeed be open to us when we arrive on Saturday, and there will be children awaiting treatment on Sunday morning.

After the week-long medical trip, I'm staying for another week, and will be joined by my two EF friends Marco and Edward. This will be a totally different travel experience for me. I'll be traveling with two male friends, an Italian and a Frenchman (who will blend in much better in Peru than light-haired little me) and one of them is completely fluent in Spanish. We have absolutely no specific plans yet, and that suits me just fine. I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of gal.

I should have frequent internet access in Peru, so hopefully I'll get the chance to post a few times and let you know how the trip is going. At any rate, when I get back I'll have lots of photos and stories to tell.

Thanks to all of you who have sent your good wishes and support for my trip!

Feed the Brain

2008-04-11T10:12:00.002-05:00

This has been a great week filled with all kinds of activities to stimulate the thinking-muscles. It will probably go down in my personal history as a week with the largest number of organized and widely-varied events. On Sunday I went to a baseball game and ate a hot dog while letting the springtime sun soak into my consciousness. On Sunday evening I worked (as a volunteer usher and as a result, non-paying attendee) at a local theater where the Second City Comedy troupe were performing (very funny!).

Monday evening I went to a standing-room only talk by Frank Warren, the founder of PostSecret. I've been reading that blog for a couple of years, always with mixed reactions. The point is for people to anonymously mail in their secrets on homemade postcards. Each week, of about 1,000 postcards received, Frank posts a selection of about 20. Invariably, there are some that make me laugh, some that make me sad, some that make me cringe, and, inevitably, some that I often find overly melodramatic. It's a totally mixed bag and some weeks I don't enjoy reading. I keep going back, though, and I think the reason I do was summed up in the point of Frank's great talk. Regardless of what the postcards say and how you react, the point of the site (and the books, and the traveling exhibits, and the project as a whole) is to demonstrate that EVERYONE has secrets that they keep to themselves. Whether they're big secrets that affect their daily lives, or small secrets that do so only rarely, as Frank said, if we could all just recognize that everyone else has things hidden inside, maybe we could be a little more tolerant and understanding of each other.

To flip back to the less-deep side of things, Tuesday was Trivia night, where my team had fun but bombed pretty badly. Whatever...those were some hard questions. Although I was able to contribute my knowledge that Dolly Parton wrote the original version of "I will always love you" as usual I was useless on the sports questions (e.g. since 2000, how many NFL players had running records of 2000 yards or more? Only one, don't remember who).

Yesterday was another feed-the-brain day. In the afternoon I had the opportunity to attend a talk and question-and-answer session with Chelsea Clinton. I'll be honest, I've always been a bit fascinated by her. When her father was elected I remember thinking how mortified I would feel if I were her. As if a 12-year-old girl doesn't have enough to deal with! But I was always impressed by the extent to which her parents were able to protect her from media attention and allow her to have a (relatively) normal life. In a way, I guess you could say I felt protective of her, since she was so close to my own age and I could only imagine how difficult it would be to be her sometimes. Since she reached adulthood, I've been conflicted by a desire to know more about her, and a continued relief that she maintained a private life. Her involvement in her mother's campaign has been a little surprising for that reason...however, I also identify 100% with her desire to campaign, as I can imagine just how proud I would feel if it were my mom running for president!

Chelsea's talk was fantastic. She was eloquent, poised, well-spoken, obviously very intelligent, warm and approachable and extremely knowledgeable. It was a great session for students, because she mostly answered questions about her mom's policies, but was able to express her own strong opinions about issues such as the need for universal health care, civil rights and the sexism that she has witnessed towards her mother during the campaign. She was a great representative of her mom, because afterwards I felt very positive towards the Clintons for raising such a capable daughter. And for me, because of my inexplicable (and I admit, kind of weird) protective instinct towards her, it was a pleasure to watch her speak.

In the evening yesterday author Mario Vargas Llosa was given an award by the Institute for Arts and Humanities, and he delivered a speech called "The Road to Fiction." He was an engaging speaker and talked about the long (even ancient) tradition of storytelling and how he was influenced by this tradition, and specifically by the indigenous storytellers of Peru. I especially enjoyed the speech as a reader of mostly fiction books. Vargas Llosa (or Dr. Mario, as one audience member called him) spoke to storytellers/fiction writers role in expressing the deep history, traditions, wishes, dreams, fantasies and fears hidden underneath our real-life existence.

Phew! this was obviously a good week to start waking up my mind after a relatively dormant winter. This weekend holds a few more activities, including an Indian benefit dinner on Saturday and the NCAA Women's Gymnastics tournament here, also on Saturday. I think I might need to take next week off to recover.

April Showers

2008-04-10T12:31:00.002-05:00

I just ate lunch outside for the first time this year. I love spring! Too bad I have to work for the rest of the day (aside from attending a Chelsea Clinton speech in the late afternoon) because the weekend doesn't look so promising:

Overheard on Campus: Helpful Parent Edition

2008-04-05T19:13:00.002-05:00

Today was a loooooooong day. I had to work at an open house for prospective students, where I and representatives of other student services offices and associations talked to students and their parents about the possibilities available (like study abroad) if they choose to come here. I really do enjoy talking to students and parents, but I slept poorly last night and the eight AM start was just not what I wanted to do on a Saturday. The event was five long, drawn-out hours long and for the last half it took every shred of willpower to keep myself from laying my head down on the table and taking a nap.

My table was right next to the table for the LGBTA center (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender alliance), staffed by a friendly undergrad named Roberto. I felt bad for him, because while my table got lots of traffic, most people tended to speed past his table once they realized what it was for. However, a few people stopped with a question or two. At one point, a father approached Roberto as if to talk in detail about something. Initially, I thought it was great that a dad was showing some genuine interest. Then I heard him ask his question:

My son is interested in musical theater. Can you tell me where on campus I would find that department?

Roberto and I had a good laugh over that. He wasn't quite sure whether to be amused, offended, or perhaps just a little sheepish: after all, in fact, he knew exactly where to find the department, and the name of the department head.

Exposing Central PA's Liberal Underbelly

2008-03-31T22:06:00.004-05:00

James Carville once said about Pennsylvania: it has Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west, and Alabama in the middle. (Interestingly enough, on my first day of work here, the head of my department said that to me as if it were his own clever quip, and I only learned the other day that it was Carville's). I can see the Ragin' Cajun's point...central PA is very rural geographically, and its social and political characteristics more often align with red states than blue ones. The State College area, while still more conservative than any other area in which I have ever lived, is an exception to this rule. Its sizeable educated, university-affiliated, internationally-minded, corduroy- and elbow patch-wearing, folk singer-listening, war-protesting, long-haired former-hippie population is sizeable, and only occasionally does it get drowned out by hellfire-and-brimstone-preaching, Bush-loving conservatives.

This past weekend was a great one for us liberals! It started when the mayor conducted a commitment ceremony for four gay and lesbian couples--the first ceremony of its kind in State College and one of very few to have been held in Pennsylvania. The event was open to the public and I attended with a friend of mine. We didn't know any of the couples but we wanted to support our gay and lesbian friends in town and the cause of gay marriage in general. Now, I cry at weddings. It's just what I do. If you had seen me on the couch in Amsterdam, sniffling away at the televised wedding of two former contestants on Belgium's Temptation Island - two people I knew nothing about, from a show I had never watched...in a language I barely understood! - you wouldn't be surprised to see me with my Kleenex at this ceremony. But it was more than the music, the expression of love and good feeling throughout the room...Rachel and I agreed that we both got choked up at the idea of the whole occasion, and the overwhelming show of support in this little town for this liberal cause. (Well, that and the emotional grooms and brides sharing their vows with trembling voices).

Sunday was a big day in town. As Pennsylvania gears up for its historic role in this year's Democratic candidate race, we were lucky enough to host two important speakers within three days of each other: Bill Clinton on Thursday and Barack Obama on Sunday. I missed the Clinton speech...I hosted a work event that evening and by the time it was over the line was over a half-mile long in a miserable drizzle, so I skipped it. But Sunday was a beautiful day, perfect for a political rally. I went with Rachel and her partner Matt -- we are working on popularizing the term "partner" for committed heterosexual couples, let's make it a movement! -- but weren't keen on waiting for four hours in the chilly March morning. We arrived fairly late, but somehow managed to get in ahead of our friends who had been waiting for several hours! The audience was estimated at 22,000 people, and it was an energetic and enthusiastic crowd.

I've been really pleased with the Democratic race this year because I feel confident in both of the leading candidates. While I am more of a Hillary supporter, I'm not a diehard fan. I may not be on the fence, but I would say I am standing very near it. After Sunday's rally, though, I'm practically leaning on it. Obama was a powerful, entertaining, intelligent and inspiring speaker, and the idealist in me agrees with just about every single thing he says. What's more, I enjoy listening to him speak, and the thought that we could elect a president whose voice wouldn't inspire a gag reflex the way GWB's does is very appealing.

I'm not looking to turn this into a political commentary, and I really don't want to start any arguments. I just want to take this weekend as a reminder that there are lots of people in this town who think the way I do and have the same values and goals for our country. It was a good feeling.

Unfortunately, Obama was standing right between my section of the crowd and the only set of spotlights, so I couldn't watch him very closely without being blinded. See if you can play Where's Waldo with this photo...

A heartwarming start to the weekend

2008-03-28T17:45:00.002-05:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89164759

Don't try this at home, folks, I hope you find this story as touching as I did.

(via kottke)

Fundraising Recap

2008-03-26T21:33:00.002-05:00

The fundraiser last weekend was pretty successful. Everything went smoothly, and all of our fabulous auction prizes sold! In total we raised a bit more than $6,000...and with the rest of the team planning a benefit concert and party next weekend, we're hoping to raise enough money to cover our airfare to Peru. All the medical supplies will be donated and other costs will be minimal, so this will be a great accomplishment!

I was disappointed in the attendance at the event--we had less than half the number of attendees that we had hoped for, and with a ticket cost of $50 per person, that meant a lot less funds raised than we had hoped. But at the end of the night, I had to give myself a big pat on the back. Attendance wasn't my responsibility (I'm not a doctor, I don't have wealthy New Yorker friends), and I took the things I was responsible for and did them very well, including acting as impromptu emcee and hostess--an unexpected role. So after all was said and done, I was pleased at my work. I was also completely exhausted, and judging by the nasty cold that struck this weekend, all the stress of preparation may have compromised my immune system.

This whole project just keeps hitting one snag and road block after another, and somehow it almost felt like luck that the fundraiser went as smoothly as it did. For instance, in the first two weeks of March, several of the doctors who had planned to go on the trip with us (a trip, I might remind you, that is scheduled for the first week of May!) suddenly decided that they don't want to go. This concept is totally inconceivable for me, but for at least four doctors this was true. However, we were able to recruit new doctors very quickly and I think the roster is now complete. I still feel a lingering sense of wariness and apprehension about the whole project...however, we're in the final stretch now and we're going to fight to make it happen. I'm sure I'll keep you posted on our progress over the next six weeks.

Overheard on Campus: Spring Break Edition

2008-03-12T19:52:00.002-05:00

What have I been hearing on campus lately? Silence...blissful silence. Spring break is one of the times when we get a brief respite from the normal flurry of 40,000 students rushing back and forth between classes and coming to our offices asking us questions. Sure, helping students is part of my job, and it's one of my favorite parts of my job, but having a week of peace and quiet is wonderful. I managed to straighten up my office, knock a few items off my to-do list, and answer some old e-mails...all the while spending WAY too much work time finalizing details of the fundraiser this weekend.

Yesterday I got to take off part of the afternoon to accompany a group of international students to our local ~~molehill~~ ski slope for some snow tubing. When we arrived the tubing area looked pitifully small and pathetically eroded by recent rainstorms. But it turned out to be lots of fun, especially when groups of us hooked together and tubed extra fast all the way to the end of the hay-strewn bottom of the slope. I felt a twinge of yearning for the Alps and the exhilarating terror of sledding recklessly down Mt. Pilatus. But I've made my Central Pennsylvania bed, and now I have to lie in it. For the next few months, anyway.

Charity trip to Peru

2008-03-10T16:04:00.002-05:00

Some of you might remember my trip in May 2006 to Honduras as a part of a medical mission team. It was a wonderful experience and I've been trying to be a part of another trip since then. Last year, I got that opportunity: Healing the Children asked me if I could go to Peru in October. I jumped at the chance, especially when I was told the trip would be entirely funded by a medical supply company.

Unfortunately, about a month before the trip, this medical company withdrew their funding. You see, there's an irritating man named Andrew Cuomo who is the Attorney General of New York, and as the target for his AG energies, he has chosen to investigate "perks." Oddly enough, this affects me in two ways. First, he is investigating study-abroad program providers and their relationship with study-abroad offices, to determine if the relationship is appropriate. That's a long story for another day. Secondly, and most pertinent to this particular post, Mr. C is investigating medical companies' perks for doctors. I'm sure most of you agree that golf weekends and ski conferences and lavish dinners etc are an excessively wasteful use of patients' overinflated prescription fees. Unfortunately, the broad umbrella of the word "perk" also extends to include charitable donations, like the one intended to pay for our trip. For fear of attracting the unwanted attention of the government goons, our sponsor backed out.

I haven't really thought too much about the specifics of that situation for several months, and now that I write it out...DAMN! that sucks. Especially given the crazy amount of time and energy I am now putting into raising funds for our rescheduled trip, to happen in May.

Our biggest event is this coming Saturday. It's a hors d'oeuvres and wine, fancy-type event with a silent auction. I've never even been to a silent auction before, but now I'm one of two people organizing this. We've gotten donations of some fabulous prizes, if I do say so myself, and we hope to earn a ton of money at the event.

Curious? Check out the auction blog I created: http://htcne-auction.blogspot.com. I'm pretty proud of my work, I must say. We'll see if we actually get any initial bids this way, but at least it's a good way to pique everyone's interest.

Details are included on the site for anyone who is interested in attending the event. If you'd like to help out otherwise; stay tuned, and I'll have more details on that later this week.

P.S. Do you remember that SNL sketch where Chris Farley played Giuliani's son Andrew at the inauguration? Well, for a while I was confused and thought maybe that little kid was Andrew Cuomo. I did some elementary math in my head and realized that Andrew G is probably still in college, and therefore unlikely to have been elected to the highest legislative position in the state of New York.

Overheard on Campus: State Patty's Day edition

2008-03-04T00:25:00.002-05:00

Welcome to a new feature on Distant Wanderings. In "Overheard on Campus" I will share tidbits of conversation I overhear as a part of my daily life in a town where half the population is between 18 and 22.

This weekend was State Patty's day...essentially, because Saint Patrick's day falls the Monday after Spring Break, the students decided to mark the occasion en masse by getting outrageously drunk this weekend. This plan started last year, when March 17 fell during Spring Break itself. Today's paper was filled with stories of arrests for public drunkenness, underage drinking and DUI.

As I was leaving my office I overheard a girl on her cellphone speaking with a tone of shock and despair:

"OH MY GOD! OHHHHHHHH! That just makes my weekend, like, a gazillion times more shameful!"

...not sure what exactly she had just learned, but if her weekend was already shameful, and now it's a gazillion times more so, it can't have been good.

Actually, I shouldn't mock, because I had my own State Patrick celebration, hanging out with my friend and neighbor Rachel, her boyfriend and two of her grad school friends who were visiting. Between the gin and tonics and the wine and the more wine and the alcohol in the fondue we made, I probably could have given any of those undergrads a run for their money.

200th Post!

2008-03-01T15:51:00.005-05:00

Woo! This is my 200th post. I have decided to write more frequently, and possibly tell some more people that this blog exists in the first place. I have some exciting changes coming up in my life, that I'll write more about as they become finalized. As for right now, I'm having a productive day of laundry and cleaning, with the occasional break to look at silly things online. I just spent more time than I should checking out the Flickr Song Pool. I'm tempted to give this a shot, but I really do have more necessary things to do this weekend. Anyone else care to interpret their favorite song lyrics in graph or chart or Venn Diagram format?

Originally uploaded by jakers19

Answers

2008-02-28T13:51:00.002-05:00

The high school in Back to the Future was Hill Valley High. We came kind of close, guessing Valley View.

The final question answer: Charles I, Charlie Chaplin, Anne Boleyn, Eva Peron and Gram Parsons all had their bodies stolen, in whole or in part, after their death.

Thanks to my mom the Evita fan, I've seen the stage production of Evita, at the end of which a creepy Vincent Price-type voiceover talks about the mysterious disappearance of Eva Peron's corpse. The movie version left off this detail.

And thanks to Tim, I now know that two of Gram Parson's friends stole his body from the Los Angeles Airport and set fire to it in Death Valley, according to what they said "he would have wanted."

Trivia Whiz!

2008-02-27T14:50:00.002-05:00

Last night I played team trivia at a bar in town. I've done this a bunch of times, always with the same people, and usually find it frustrating that I know the answers to very few of the questions. Usually, with a big group, we do well, but they often ask very obscure pop culture or history questions that even a self-professed pop-culture and trivia buff like myself is hard-pressed to answer (e.g. last night's question: what was the name of the high school in Back to the Future?). Anyway, last night I had a rare moment of heroism for my team when I knew the answer to the final question, lifting us from fourth to first place. In fact, based on the other team's scores, one teammate pointed out that I may have been the only person in the whole bar who knew it. How's that for excitement?

Here's the question: Something unusual happened to the following people after they died. What was it? The people are: Charles I of England, Charlie Chaplin, Eva Peron, Anne Boleyn, and Gram Parsons.

Confession time: I didn't actually KNOW the answer for sure. I did know something unusual that happened to one of those people after they died, and it was the only thing that really made sense as an answer...turns out it was correct.

Want to take a guess? I'll post the answer to this question (and the Back to the Future one) tomorrow.

No Country for Old Men

2008-02-24T23:46:00.002-05:00

I enjoyed this movie very much, and of the nominees, it was my choice for Best Picture. Unfortunately, when I saw it, my immediate reaction was one of confusion. You see, for some reason I expected a twist or a surprise. I was analyzing every interaction, trying to figure out when the film was going to change, trying to anticipate the surprise before it happened. However, if you've seen the movie you know, there is no twist, there is no surprise, and just when you think there's about to be a big reveal, the credits start to roll.

So it wasn't until I came home from the movie theater and started reading reviews online, then discussed it with other people who had seen it, that I began to appreciate it on its own merits, surprise- and twist-free. I discovered a discussion board on IMDB that was full of thoughtful insights on the movie, the characters and themes (a pleasant departure from the usual name-calling and ignorant remarks). So while I didn't instantly love the movie, it became, in retrospect and upon reflection, one of my favorites of the year.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

2008-02-24T23:45:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm officially disappointed. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a beautiful movie, moving, inspiring, funny, and sad, has officially not won any of the awards it was nominated for. This is really dumb, in my opinion.

Cat distraction

2008-02-24T23:37:00.002-05:00

This is Renee, my foster cat. I am hosting her weekdays, and she spends weekends at the animal shelter, hoping to be adopted for real. She is very timid, and spends as much time as possible hiding under furniture. She lives in my spare bedroom, and I bring her out for supervised "playtime" with Daisy in the evenings. Daisy is very well-behaved, and just seems to want to make friends. However, Renee has never lived with another cat in her 4 years, and just growls and hisses whenever Daisy so much as looks in her direction from a distance of less than ten feet. That's why this moment this evening was so momentous:

Unfortunately, it was short-lived. Now Renee is hiding under a dining room chair across the room and Daisy is still in her spot on the couch and they are having a staring contest. But at least there's no hissing so far.

Too cool for school

2008-02-24T23:33:00.001-05:00

I love Johnny Depp, but is he chewing gum? Really?

Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova win

2008-02-24T22:54:00.002-05:00

Yay!

And aww, how sweet that Marketa Irglova got to come back and give her speech. That's the best thing of the night, and to be honest I don't really care what happens next. I guess I'll stick it out until the end, though.

Too bad I finished all my Girl Scout Cookies (Thin Mints of course) this morning. I could really use some minty-chocolaty-cookie goodness right about now.

Once

2008-02-24T22:22:00.002-05:00

I hadn't heard of this movie when it came out, but kept hearing it on end-of-year "Best of 2007" lists so I rented it. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's a fairly short, small production of a film, with a cast of non-actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves. It's been called a musical, and if you consider that it contains songs sung all the way through whose meaning ties directly to the plot and development of the characters, well, then, yes it's a musical, but don't let that discourage you. The acting is realistic and touching, the story is lovely and the music is wonderful. I loved watching Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova sing their song from the film just now, and was disappointed that it didn't get more nominations.

I drink your milkshake, Trebek!

2008-02-24T22:03:00.003-05:00

(Yes, there are Law & Order marathons on both Bravo and USA. FYI.)

Today I went to see There Will Be Blood. Had the time wrong by 15 minutes, so arrived 10 minutes after the film started. It worked out just fine, though. I missed all the previews and had just settled into my seat when they found oil. There has been much talk about Daniel Day-Lewis' performance in this movie, and indeed he is a fine actor. However, I was very distracted throughout, though, by the fact that his voice sounded just like Darrel Hammond's impersonation of Sean Connery on SNL's Celebrity Jeopardy parodies. Did anyone else notice this?

Bored

2008-02-24T21:41:00.002-05:00

Now that I've taken it on myself to blog about this event, I'm terribly bored. I can't commit to watching for the rest of the show.

There must be a Law & Order marathon on some other channel...Or, I do have laundry to do.

Javier Bardem

2008-02-24T21:18:00.003-05:00

Holy cow...no wonder they gave him that godawful haircut. It was probably the only way to hide those good looks! Add that to a dedication of the award to his mother and her parents and all of her family, and I'm swooning!

But seriously, that was an amazing, chilling performance.

Best speeches so far

2008-02-24T21:12:00.003-05:00

My favorite speeches so far are by the non-English speaking nominees, the ones that go like this: "I very happy. I thank ___ and ____. I thank you very much. I love you. Bye."

Best Song performance

2008-02-24T20:59:00.002-05:00

With three songs from Enchanted nominated, is it possible that Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova could still win for Once? I hope so.

Oscars

2008-02-24T20:52:00.001-05:00

Well, I thought the Oscars started at 7:30, but accidentally slept until 8:30, only to discover that they started at 8:30! Lucky me. What better occasion to blog the occasion. I saw quite a few of the movies this year, so I feel a little more clued-in than usual.

I saw Atonement, No Country for Old Men, Juno, Into the Wild, Gone Baby Gone, Once, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and There Will Be Blood.

Wait, is that it? Now that I look over the list, there were so many more that I wanted to see: Persepolis (which I wanted to see this weekend but ran out of time, mainly due to watching two other movies this weekend), the Savages, Lars and the Real Girl, Ratatouille, La Vie en Rose, Sweeney Todd.

Anyway, my Oscar predictions are always incorrect. Two of my favorite movies of the year, Once and Diving Bell, weren't even nominated for Best Picture. So I'll just pop in with commentary every so often throughout the evening.

First comments: well first of all, I love Jon Stewart, but that just goes without saying. So far he's funny.

The 80-year wrap up is so self-congratulatory that I might just lose interest altogether. No, I will persist...

A no-fanfare return to blogging

2008-02-21T12:03:00.003-05:00

I was so appalled at my poor performance on this quiz that I felt the need to publicize my shame.

Mental Floss Lunchtime Quiz: Name the TV theme song.

There were only THREE songs I can confidently match to their show (and yes, that includes #9), and only ONE other song I knew the tune to right away--in fact, I can sing it all the way through, but can't remember which show it belongs to.

Can you do any better?

EDIT: I actually took the quiz, mostly by guessing, and managed to score a 70%...about twice what I deserve.

You Tube Friday

2007-12-14T13:42:00.001-05:00

Who am I kidding? Every day is You Tube day. Today's video is, in itself, not particularly spectacular (it is cute, but you don't need to watch the whole eight minutes--just the first 30 seconds or so will give you the idea). The best part was the e-mail that accompanied it. This came from a Japanese colleague:

This kind of videos, "Cats in Clay Pots", are now very popular in a number of Japanese YouTube-like websites. Of course, they are not for eating!! The cats are not being abused, either... People just enjoy watching cute cats in the clay pots.

According to some research, cats love sitting and sleeping in the clay pots. If you place a clay pot on the floor, then it is often the case that a cat voluntarily gets himself in the pot. The shape and touch of clay pots seems very comfortable to cats.

Please note that putting a cat in a clay pot is NOT part of the Japanese traditional culture!

I just wish I could attach this kind of disclaimer to many American products that are transmitted around the world. For instance, before watching the web release of Jackass 2.5, viewers would have to read the disclaimer: "Please note that propelling oneself with jet packs or slingshots is not a part of traditional American culture."

They read my mind!!

2007-12-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

This article from The Onion is a perfect example of the "It's-funny-because-it's-true" school of comedy. I've been commenting on the ridiculousness of college student attire ever since I moved here, and just yesterday noticed yet another student wearing shorts despite the sub-freezing temperatures and the snow on the ground.

Overweight College Student Announces Plan to Wear Shorts, Sandals for Rest of Year

And to add to the perfection, the article is about a Penn State student and it features a real dining hall and the real student newspaper. This makes me so happy.

Get out your rulers...

2007-12-03T11:51:00.000-05:00

...and find out if you have what it takes to become a nude dancer in Paris.

I got disqualified on the first measurement--I'm too tall. No comment on the others.

Mmmmmm!

2007-11-28T21:21:00.000-05:00

I just finished my last whole plate of Thanksgiving leftovers, and MAN! they were delicious. Something about heating them all up, maybe the flavors all merge together in the microwave or something, but they were just so tasty! Now, what a bummer, I have to go back to cooking my own meals.

Do you know what else is a bummer? Being woken up at seven AM (on a day when you don't get up until eight) by a construction crew working on the roof, banging their hammers right above your head. When I went outside I had to dash to avoid falling shingles, and when I looked back I realized the team of workers were Amish (or Mennonite, or something--I guess they came in cars because I didn't see any horses grazing on the lawn). It was like my own little barn-raising.

Thanksgiving Success

2007-11-25T18:27:00.000-05:00

Since I was a kid, my mom's family normally celebrated Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house in Williamsport, PA; when my cousin and her husband bought the house 6 or 7 years ago the family generally kept the tradition and gathered at that house. However, this year my cousins were out of town, so on my mom's suggestion, I offered to host the meal. It was not a huge crowd. I had only six guests: my grandmother, my aunt, my mom, her boyfriend Armando, my brother Dan and a South Korean grad student I invited through a Thanksgiving Dinner program run by the university. But I'd never cooked a turkey before, and had certainly never prepared so many dishes all at once, so it was a big undertaking for me nonetheless.

My aunt, who is a nurse, had to work on Thursday so we had our dinner on Friday. This gave me most of the day on Thursday to spend cleaning my house. Inexplicably, I decided to spend a good portion of time rearranging my dresser drawers, and another stretch of the day watching a Law & Order marathon on USA. So my free day was spent less efficiently than I might have hoped, but by the time my mom, Armando and Dan arrived the beds were made, toilets scrubbed and welcoming scented candles lit.

Friday's meal was a success. My mom (my co-chef) and I worked out a tight timeline of when to put things in the oven, when to assemble casseroles, etc. After more than five hours straight of slaving away in the kitchen we had a delicious meal. Sure, there were a few snags: we lost track of the timeline in the last half hour or so, and there was some confusion about what dishes needed to come out of the oven at what time, and for some reason the turkey sort of split open and collapsed when we took it out of the roasting pan, leaving it lying in a rather obscene manner sprawled on the cutting board. But this made it easier to carve, and it was delicious. All the dishes came out great, including homemade stuffing and cranberry sauce, both of which I made for the first time.

The rest of the weekend was very relaxed. The guys took care of some projects around my house (visiting Lowe's no less than four times in two days) and in between meals of Thankgsiving leftovers we caught up on episodes of the first season of 30 Rock on DVD. I introduced my mom to the show, and she and now my brother are now converts. If you haven't seen it, you are missing out on the best thing on TV.

I hope you all had a great Thankgsiving, wherever you were and whoever you celebrated with.

A Different World

2007-11-19T21:59:00.001-05:00

This weekend I spent a couple of great days in New York. It's always nice to get to the big city for a while. Aside from the standard bit of shopping I need to do every time I get out of town, this time I got to visit with some old friends I haven't seen in nearly a year. It was quite an international weekend. One of the things I love about New York is how international it is. Even just walking down the street you hear all kinds of languages: French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Italian, you name it. Saturday night we went out to a birthday party for a friend of my friend Sara, who is Swedish. It was definitely the tallest, blondest and most fashionable group of people I've hung out with in a long time. Sunday morning, we went out for a delicious breakfast at a Latin American place with dishes from at least five different countries. Huevos rancheros, a pineapple-mango shake, and cafe con leche...yum!

After a quick afternoon visit with Alison, Basil and Henry, I caught the Chinatown Bus back home (yes, really). It's a quick trip, only four hours. The bus was pretty empty so after we left the city I stretched out across a couple of seats for a nap. I slept for a couple of hours. When I woke up, it was dark outside and with a few dim lights on inside the bus, it was hard to see out the windows. However, it slowly dawned on me that the silhouettes I saw outside were trees...snow-covered trees! While I was gone about 3-6 inches of snow fell in central PA. Right about when I figured this out, we passed a country road alongside the highway, and I saw two horse-drawn carriages go by--we were in Amish country. Just a few hours outside the city, I had arrived in another universe.

What is this, 1996?

2007-11-15T22:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had an exam in the class I'm taking, and as I did last year for a similar exam for the same professor, I lugged my ridiculously heavy laptop across campus for the test, causing potentially permanent spinal and/or shoulder damage. But to my great surprise, the professor asked us not to use laptops, but instead to please WRITE DOWN our answers. What the...? You mean, like, with a pen? I was lucky to discover a pen in my bag but had to borrow paper to write out my essays. But the biggest problem was that when I went to start writing, I froze up. The last time I wrote something important (and lengthy) by hand was in college, probably ten years ago! How does that work? What will I do when I change my mind about the way a sentence is coming together? What happens when I decide that a sentence belongs at the beginning of a paragraph instead of at the end? You mean, when I write this down, I can't cut and paste? It's PERMANENT!? This was a scary thought, and an eye-opening one. Had I become so reliant on computers that I was afraid to allow my thoughts to flow freely?

Eventually, I came to my senses and dove in. Once I began to write my thoughts came together and everything worked out just fine and I finished writing out my answers with a bare minimum of cross-outs and scribbled edits. It was good for me, I think. I hardly ever write something and keep it after a first attempt. Already I've erased and re-written at least three sentences from this blog post. Even simple e-mails go under the knife before they're sent. Maybe if I had to write everything out by hand I'd actually get more done.

Long time no blog

2007-11-08T19:32:00.000-05:00

Well, hello there. It's been a while. What's up? How are things? Last time I wrote it was...gosh...WEEKS ago! How's life treating you?

Anyway, I know, I've been an absentee blogger for a long time. I apologize to all four of you out there reading this. Here's a quick catchup:

I got new carpet in my apartment! The landlady was really great about it, and had it replaced a month after I moved in. It makes an entire world of difference and I love my apartment so much more now.

I did go tailgating, but not the weekend when I said I was going to. It was pretty fun, and I'm glad I went, but it won't be a common occurrence in my future.

I went to Boston a few weeks ago and had a great time catching up with some good friends from my European years. We got to enjoy the start of a New England Autumn by going apple-picking:

I saw Dar Williams and They Might Be Giants two nights in a row!

I made a great jack o'lantern, but only had two trick-or-treaters. That brings the total number of trick-o-treaters I have had at my house in my adult life to: five.

Two weeks ago, I went to my hometown to attend an awards gala, honoring (amongst other people) my mom! She won an award for being a community "hero". Mom works at the Senior Center and is a really dedicated and hard-working counselor for seniors. I'm so proud! It was kind of a fancy event, with a celebrity host:

A Sucker for blatant commercialism

2007-09-21T09:50:00.000-05:00

Attention, people who work in advertising: you win. I am a total sucker for advertising. I love creativity in advertising, and a good, funny, original ad will grab my attention, and, I'll admit, probably make me more likely to buy the product being advertised. But most of all, I'm drawn in by music in commercials. In the past, I've bought CDs or individual songs because of songs I've heard in commercials for M&Ms, Vodafone, Levis (at least twice), Polaroid, Magnum ice cream bars, and others that I have forgotten. Volkswagen definitely wins the prize--I was one of many people who first heard Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" in a particularly memorable commercial, and I recently bought the new Wilco album after humming along to numerous VW ads. While I feel a little ashamed that I heard these songs by watching TV and not by seeing the bands in some live show, or hearing them on some independent radio station, or from a particularly culturally-savvy friend, I'll take good music and enjoy it no matter what the medium of discovery. However, I do feel a little saddened by the fact that popular artists so frequently pair up with companies in these displays of mutually-beneficial commercialism...not because the artists have "sold out" but because this kind of thing is no longer considered selling out at all but a normal part of our culture.

Anyway, the latest song to make its mark on me is Feist's ridiculously catchy "1 2 3 4", featured in the commercials for the new iPod nano. I'm on a zero-spending budget this month, but at some point when I feel a little more financially sound I'll pick up that CD. The video is really fun, too. If you haven't seen it, here it is. It obviously doesn't take much to amuse me, but I love the whole people-appearing-or-disappearing-from-behind-other-people trick, done well in this video. But if you want to see a really fun example, check out this creepy and odd example from British singer Bat for Lashes:

Enter the students

2007-09-07T22:05:00.000-05:00

So we're back in gear here on campus. Tomorrow I plan to have a true local experience and tailgate for the big Notre Dame game. Not being a football fan, or much of a sports-party type of girl, or a big fan of crowds of rowdy drunken people, or a person who likes to sit on lawn chairs when there isn't a beach or pool nearby, I'm not sure how much I'll enjoy it.

September is absolutely the worst month for me, work-wise. In the short span of one or two weeks, I went from a nice, quiet office and campus, to Stress City, population 40,000. The beginning of the semester marks my busiest time of year. First I have to recruit, interview, hire and train two teams of student volunteers, and plan for a big information fair that I am in charge of at the end of the month. And all the while, a steady stream of students come through my office, looking for information, and since the student volunteers aren't trained yet, I have to help them. By this afternoon, I started feeling overwhelmed and worried that I might forget something essential, so when I got home I took some time to make a list of all the things that have to be done. Most of the things really need to get done in the next few days. I came up with a list of FIFTY individual, significant tasks...and even with that, I think I'm forgetting a few things.

So wish me luck! And stay tuned for some tailgating photos and an update on the carpet situation--there's good news!

Last day of calm

2007-08-24T21:51:00.000-05:00

Today was my last day having a student-free office for approximately four months. It's been a beautiful summer, and I've managed to get a lot of work done, finished projects I'd been planning for a long time and enjoyed the peace and quiet. Over the weekend, the town's population will increase by something like 20,000 people and that peace and quiet will become a distant memory. Today on my drive home from work I saw four guys walking along the street. One had his shirt off, two were carrying guitars in cases on their backs and two were carrying cases of Labatts Blue on their shoulders. And I thought, oh, here we go. Brace yourselves, folks. School is back in session.

I've loved the summer, but really, it's fun to have students around. They bring a lot of energy to the office, and I love being connected with what's going on around campus. Plus, I like that I occasionally have pearls of wisdom to share with them that I've gained in the ten years since I was in their shoes. Also, they show me funny You Tube videos.

The New Apartment Saga, Parts One, Two and Three

2007-08-08T22:30:00.000-05:00

So I moved to a new apartment two weeks ago, because, well, that's what I do. I realized that since I graduated from college, the longest I've lived at a single address is 24 months. But really, my old apartment was very nice inside--extremely well-maintained, new appliances, structurally perfect, etc. But it faced north, so I never got any direct sunlight; it faced a parking lot and the entrance to the building so I rarely opened my shades; and it was in a location that felt a little isolated from town and campus. And it was expensive because it was in kind of a prestigious neighborhood. I don't need prestige. So I moved. And thus began the drama.

Part One: I had to give four months' notice on my old place (I know! Crazy.) So I gave my notice before I found a new place. After more than two months I hadn't found anything, and with the housing market here being TOTALLY INSANE I started to worry. But then one day I saw a sign next to a neighborhood of townhouses, saying For Rent. This, I had been advised, was the best way to find a place. Rent right from the owner, no rental company middleman to boost up the rent. I visited one apartment, another was supposedly also available, but I waited too long to respond, and while I visited other locations those places were taken. But in all the back-and-forth I got to know the landlady a little, and she liked me, so when another place became available she called me, I visited one (not the actual one, but, she assured me, exactly the same) and the deal was done. Success! A place 2 miles from downtown and campus, right on a park and a bike trail leading to town, with two bedrooms, a backyard and all the amenities I had at my old place for more than $50 less per month. Yippee!

Part Two: My old contract ended on July 31. Unfortunately, so did the contract on the old tenant in my new place, and the apartment was due for a carpet cleaning and a paint job. And that happened to be the week of my family vacation. While I planned to rent a truck and leave all my stuff in it for a week, the landlady worked some kind of magic and in the end the tenant moved out early, so I was able to move in on time to go to Williamsburg. The move posed other problems. I have some friends here, as I've said, but it's been slow going, and I wasn't sure I had reached the Seinfeld-approved level of friendship required to ask them to help me move. But I worried in vain and in the end had plenty of volunteers.

Part Three: The Drama Begins. As you might have guessed from my clever use of foreshadowing in Part One, my new apartment is not "exactly the same" as the one I visited. Yes, the layout is the same. Yes, it has all the same appliances. However, the general state of this apartment is of notably lower quality than the others. The first thing I noticed is that the carpets are a dark brown, as opposed to the light tan in the other places. The carpet is also old, discolored in some places, with scuffed holes on the stairs. I don't like to walk on it and can't really even imagine sitting on it, and I don't want to invite people over because it's ugly. Then there is the dishwasher which won't close, the kitchen drawers which seem to have no tracks to slide on so that some of them actually don't pull out at all, the windows that won't open, the refrigerator door that doesn't shut until you push it hard, and a list of about 7 or 8 other problems. And did I mention the carpet?? So today began what I fear may become a sequence of confrontations with my landlady. After a frustrating argument, I think I might have made some headway, and have at least arranged for the maintenance company to come by and fix all of the fixable problems. It's a tough situation, because while I know I'm in the right, she holds the upper hand, since I've already moved in and it would be a gigantic hassle to move again very soon.

So that's the update on the things that are keeping me busy these days. Overall, I'm still excited to be here. I ride my bike to work, which takes 15 minutes and leaves me a ball of sweat in this 100% humidity because of a big hill, but which I feel really good about, and I'm looking forward to exploring my new neighborhood!

Well, if you've read this far, you deserve a reward, so here's a photo I took when I stopped for gas on the way home the other day. Rural PA can sometimes be a little scary. On a long stretch of route 15, the landscape was peppered with dilapidated houses, taxidermists, adult video shops (I counted four, plus two possibly sketchy "massage parlors") and a church announcing a "Chicken and Waffle Dinner". This gas station, owned by a very cheerful guy straight from India (why did he choose that particular location, of all the places he could have chosen to immigrate to?) barely seemed to have a name other than "GAS DIESEL" and this was the truck in front of me at the pump:

Family Reunion

2007-08-06T22:31:00.001-05:00

On Friday I returned from a fantastic family reunion in Williamsburg, VA. I'd only been to Williamsburg one time: in high school, my dad and I drove down to visit William & Mary. But car trouble on the way there meant we arrived on the first day of spring break, and a dog show in Washington left all the hotels in VA and MD booked solid, so we gave up and drove all the way home, arriving at 5 AM. Anyway, this trip was far more successful. A total of 21 members or associated members of the Marvin clan (my mom's family) came together from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Arizona, Texas, Oregon, and Alaska. Six of those members were under 8 years old, and in our matching t-shirts and energetic brand of family chaos, we took over the timeshare complex--including pool and mini-golf course--and got our money's worth at Busch Gardens (riding some awesome roller coasters) and Water Country USA. We also spent some time lounging by the pool, visiting a sandy beach along a river in Yorktown, soaking up a little history at Colonial Williamsburg, and enjoying delicious meals and of course, the family standard, evening happy hour(s).

Before we left, I had the idea, inspired by some of the family photo sessions my friend Dave does on the Vineyard (see some beautiful examples here and here). Unfortunately, the aforementioned family chaos made it impossible to organize everyone to spend more than five minutes being photographed, so I had to try to grab some shots while I could. With such adorable kids, it wasn't hard to get a few good ones. Here are the best; click through to see the rest.

My cousin Pascha's daughter Mairead:

My cousin Amber, whom I haven't seen in almost 8 years, with her adorable daughter Rowen and my brother Dan:

Mairead again, with my cousin Chanda's daughter Calla, making her robot face:

Amber with our uncle Jackson, and a hamburger on a stick:

The boys: Liam, 6; Brendan, 5; and Tiarnan, 7

Tiarnan (one of those teeth had just fallen out that morning) looking fierce:

Mom and me looking miserable in the stocks (an obligatory photo at Colonial Williamsburg):

Que Sera, Sera

2007-07-20T16:25:00.001-05:00

So the new book comes out tomorrow. Although I have it pre-ordered from Amazon, it's actually the first of the series that I will read right as it's released. In fact, I didn't read book #6 until a couple of months ago. So, although I'm swept up in the momentum of book 7, I haven't been this much of a die-hard fan all along. I will not line up at midnight in my wizard outfit, although I bet it would be really funny to see the crowds--my local bookshop is having a costume contest, and since there's a Harry Potter fan club on campus (yes, indeed) I bet there will be quite a few entrants.

I've been pondering the outcomes of this final book, reading some predictions online and trying to come up with my own theories. I just can't separate what I want to happen from what I think will happen. I know there will be deaths, and I believe that several will be main characters, including at least one kid. But for a series that started out as such a sweet, fun tale of adolescent adventures, I feel a bit sad to even contemplate the potential deaths of these characters. In the most recent movie, there is a scene towards the end when all the kids are being held hostage by bad guys, and as the camera flashed from face to terrified face, I realized that, fictional or not, I have gotten attached to those kids, having watched them grow up through the pages of these books. I know it's naive of me to want a happy ending, so I suppose I'll just have to suck it up, face the inevitable heartbreak I expect in these next few days, and take it like an adult.

However, for the sake of entertainment, and for mocking me when I am totally wrong on all counts, here are some predictions:

The person who died at the end of book 6 is dead.
Neville will be a hero.
Draco will come over to the good side (and kill his own father!)
The Sorting Hat will be destroyed (and good riddance, that thing is annoying).
Hermione and Ron will finally get together, and there will be much snogging.
One of the Weasleys will bite it (I hope it's Percy; if it's Ron I will cry giant Hagrid tears).
Harry will die.
No, he won't--he'll live happily ever after with Ginny
Or, maybe he will die and she will marry Neville. I can't decide.
Cousin Dudley is a wizard, or maybe gay.
Snape will die saving Harry's life.
It turns out it was all a dream.

Daniel Radcliffe on Extras

2007-07-19T15:01:00.001-05:00

Extras is a pretty funny show, and this has to be one of my favorite episodes.

Six Degrees of Harry Potter

2007-07-18T16:29:00.000-05:00

Harry Potter to Kevin Bacon:
1. Daniel Radcliffe was in three Harry Potter movies with Gary Oldman
2. Gary Oldman was in Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon

er...ok, that was too easy.

Connect Harry to...say...Cary Grant. Anyone care to try?

Countdown

2007-07-17T10:17:00.000-05:00

It's Harry Potter week here at Distant Wanderings!!! So a word of warning for all of you non-fans: be prepared for bizarre vocabulary and themes that might suggest I've joined a cult. Apologies in advance for you who have no idea what I'm talking about.

With four days to go until the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I'm re-reading book six, listening to some Wizard Rock, and have located all (two of) the Potter fans at work for daily debates about the characters and predictions for the end of the series.

Last week I went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on opening night, and enjoyed it very much. My main issue with the book was twofold: it was too long and complicated by too many sub-plots; and Harry was kind of a jerk in it. It got tiring to read about Harry repeatedly snapping at his friends, feeling sorry for himself, hating everybody around him and being an all-around prat, as they say. I was therefore pleased that the movie made delicate adjustments to lessen both of these problems while still retaining the emotional core of Harry's story. Harry's still a jerk sometimes (well, wouldn't you be if you saw your friend die and nobody believed you and the only authority figure who supports you ignores you all year? And you were 15 years old?) I also appreciated how the film streamlined all the many plot lines, eliminating those that were unnecessary to the continuation of the story, and even changed some details in order to move the plot along. One disappointment (which is unavoidable in a story with such a huge, famous cast) is that some characters get far too little screentime for my tastes, notably Luna Lovegood, Tonks, and Bellatrix Lestrange. (Isn't Helena Bonham Carter fantastic??). I also missed Firenze, the Centaur and substitute Divination professor; I was looking forward to his arrival (not least because of his reputed good looks) but I can understand why he had to be cut out of the story. Oh, and I feel a needed moment of comic relief was lost by not showing Ron trying to keep his balance and looking utterly terrified while riding an invisible horse.

One thing I realize about these movies is that I can't remove myself and watch them independently--I will always compare them to the books and debate how well they were adapted, and wonder how the director will handle a certain scene or character. Part of the reason I love watching them is that I love to see JK Rowling's amazing, vivid descriptions of places and people brought to life--they nearly always look on screen exactly the way they did in my head as I was reading. And I love that, because I have read the books, I recognize subtle scenery or background elements, such as the plant that Neville carries onto the train at the beginning, or the fact that Percy Weasly (who remains unnamed and line-less, and whose family estrangement is cut completely) stands prominently next to Cornelius Fudge in all the Minister's scenes. I can't help but wonder what the experience is like for those who haven't read the books. Are the movies confusing? Scary? Bizarre? Or is the discovering the crazy wizarding world as much fun when it happens in a cinema as when it happens while reading? Are there any movies-only participants out there? Care to comment?

Viva summer!

2007-07-01T19:20:00.000-05:00

After approximately 8 months of complete sloth, the arrival of summer has kicked me into gear, exercise-wise. Yesterday I went for a short hike with some friends in one of many local state parks, under a non-canopy of trees stripped bare of leaves by an infestation of gypsy moth and tent caterpillars. Today I ran a mile (baby steps, people, baby steps) and this week I plan to go swim some laps in the university's outdoor Olympic-size swimming pool (and maybe jump off the high platform, if somebody dares me).

I've also grouped with some co-workers to play a little softball after work, and was pleased to note that even after a hiatus of 6 or 7 years, I can still throw and catch (and hit, thanks to the other team's error-prone infield). Running, however, is another matter. After 3 innings, all the sprinting involved in running the bases took a toll, and two days later I literally had to use my hands to help lift my legs--say, to get out of my car, or tie a pair of shoes. Hopefully by the end of the summer I'll be a little less wimpy.

One inspiration for this activity is the sudden (and somewhat inexplicable) athleticism of my brother Dan. He started going to the gym in January or February, and along with his friend Cooper (who I have known for 20 years) completed his first triathlon last weekend. Last Friday night I participated in the American Cancer Society Relay for Life as a part of a team from work. The Relay is a fundraiser in which each team has walkers circling a high-school track for 24 hours straight. Since I'm a little younger and have less family commitments than most of them, I volunteered for the 2-4 AM shift, giving me fond memories of my first days as a WRBC DJ. After my shift, I hopped in my car to drive straight down to Philly, arriving just in time to catch the guys just before they headed off for the swim portion (1/2 mile in the Schuylkill river, followed by a 13-mile bike ride and 3-mile run). It was really fun watching them, and I caught them at all the transitions, and got some photos as they sped past me. As a result, some of them are blurry, but you get the idea. I was really proud of Dan for doing this crazy thing, and he did great; both of them finished in under two hours.

Click on the Dan's fat cat Cutie for a slide show of photos from that weekend.

Who's been stealing boats?

2007-06-28T07:42:00.000-05:00

I can't decide if this is helpful or just really bizarre...

Edit: looks like I was too vague in this post. It appears that a young John Waters has been stealing boats in rural PA. The victim helpfully included the film director's photo in order to locate the suspect. Perhaps he was upset about the new version of Hairspray.

More YouTubes

2007-06-21T21:43:00.001-05:00

I promise not to only post YouTube videos all the time...but seeing as it's my life's work to explore the differences between world cultures, it's my duty as a citizen to share two gems from the fabulous world of Japanese television.

Many of you may already have seen the first example, Human Tetris. I love this game and I hope that it eventually makes its way onto our airwaves. Then, a colleague of mine who lived in Japan for a year told me about Silent Library, part of a TV variety show. The participants draw lots to see who has to participate in each "punishment"...but since it's in a library, they all need to keep very, very quiet. It's long, but oh, so worth it. Both of these made me laugh so hard I cried. Enjoy.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

2007-06-15T21:29:00.001-05:00

As I was calmly sitting on my couch tonight, Daisy suddenly started freaking out in the next room. I went over to stop her from tearing the carpet to shreds with her claws, only to discover that she was chasing a MOUSE.

I don't know what it is about mice. I've had them in three different apartments in my life, and it never gets any easier. They are JUST. SO. GROSS. Now, I like to consider myself a pretty tough girl. In nature, I can deal with all kinds of animals--Snakes, spiders, insects and mice in their natural habitat are fine. But when they come inside my living quarters, it's an entirely different story. The flying daddy-long-legs things and the one Gigantic Death Moth that flew into my Lucerne apartment were pretty traumatic experiences. But with mice I get reduced to a cartoon caricature of a total wimp standing on a chair, shrieking. Literally. Also, I called my dad. God forbid I ever have a rat--I would probably have an instant heart attack.

Anyway, Daisy batted the mouse around a little while I stood on the chair worrying about bloodstains on the carpet. Then the mouse hid inside a box, which I was able to drag out onto the balcony and tip upside down (while crouching on another chair). The traumatized mouse fell out, ran to the edge of the balcony and then leapt. The fall was less than one full story, but the landing was on rocks, and the poor little thing died on impact. That's right...suddenly, I felt sorry for the little, disgusting, creepy rodent that moments earlier had me so totally paranoid that before I put my sneakers on (lest it run across my foot with its tiny little disgusting feet) I checked the inside of them to make sure there were no tiny little baby mice inside, waiting to bite me on the toes.

But that still doesn't mean I won't freak out the next time I have one indoors. But it's a good thing I've got Daisy. She's all excited now, and has spent the last hour staring at the kitchen cabinets, balcony window, and underneath the bookshelves, ready and waiting for her next victim.

Ridiculousness Part Four

2007-06-13T23:18:00.000-05:00

I just saw the preview for Live Free or Die Hard. Justin Long and Kevin Smith are in it...does that mean it's really a comedy? Or is it the usual unintentional comedy?

Anyway, Ben Stiller's 1992/3 sketch "Die Hard 12: Die Hungry" has never seemed more relevant:

I'm #1 on Google Images!

2007-06-07T22:43:00.000-05:00

For White Nun Orchids, anyway.

A denim-clad, water-soaked blast from the past

2007-06-07T22:12:00.000-05:00

Today I accidentally (I swear) wound up watching a little of Inside Edition, which is really a blight on our society although every now and then it provides us with amusing pieces of trivia. Tonight I learned that Jennifer Aniston is apparently dating someone new, and the show's researchers (whose mothers must be so proud) dug up some early work of his--the role of The Drowning Man in the Underwater Love Levis commercial shown in Europe 10 years ago when I was studying abroad (although I think I became aware of it afterwards). As a result I also learned that the commercial was directed by Michel Gondry, who directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I loved, and The Science of Sleep, which was just too odd to love.

So there you go.

A Week in the City

2007-06-05T18:58:00.000-05:00

I had a great week in Minneapolis, although the two conferences I was attending kept me very busy. The first was for users of a software program we're implementing at work, and was small--about 35 or 40 people. That was very productive, and as a bonus it served as a kind of freshman orientation for the main conference, the national conference for the professional organization for people in my field. It was the biggest ever, at about 7,000 attendees and was therefore kind of overwhelming at times. But I had some productive meetings, learned a lot, met lots of people and especially, I ate lots of good food.

Minneapolis is a great city, and if it weren't for the killer temperatures in winter, I'd move there in a second. There are a ton of fantastic restaurants, where I ate the aforementioned good food. It's clean, the people are friendly, they have great art and a huge live music scene (on Thursday evening people started lining up with their sleeping bags to wait to buy Prince tickets, but there are other local artists and groups for all audiences), it's big enough to have all the amenities you need but small enough that you can easily cover the downtown on foot, with a comprehensive bus system and an ecologically-friendly light rail. It also has some very cool Art Deco buildings and random statues scattered throughout the city, including one of Mary Tyler Moore throwing her hat in the air.

I hope to go back some time when I have a little more free time to see more of the sights. Click on the "Spoonbridge and Cherry" sculpture below to see all of my photos from the trip.

School's Out for the Summer

2007-05-24T21:46:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago was the last day of finals around here, and the campus emptied of students that week and was deserted last week. It is fantastic! Remember spring at college? Remember the green grass on the quad, and sitting outside in the sun? That's what's happening now...on my lunch break, at least. Having a peaceful, quiet campus is so much fun. This week, the first summer session started and some students are mingling around, and some middle- and high-school students are around, for science camp or for their first-year orientation days. But it's still relatively peaceful and quiet and I don't have to worry too much about running people over with my car as I drive through campus. It's beautiful.

I'll have a change of scenery for the next week, though: I'm leaving tomorrow for a conference in Minneapolis. I'll have a couple of free days in that time, and aside from hitting the H&M at the Mall of America, and the art museum, I don't have any plans. Has anyone been there? Any recommendations?

More trucks!

2007-04-29T21:11:00.000-05:00

What is with the trucks-carrying-trucks thing in PA?

The two capitals of Bolivia are La Paz and Sucre

2007-04-25T22:01:00.000-05:00

A couple of months back, Sean posted about Clicky, a website that monitors traffic on websites. I joined up, and since then I check in almost daily to see who is looking at my site, why, and from where. I definitely did not get visitors from strange searches like Sean did (although yesterday somebody landed here by searching for "au pair smoking marijuana". In fact, nearly every visitor I get either comes here directly (i.e. already knows about my site) or finds it through a search about something Latin America-related. The most interesting result is that at least once a day, and usually twice, someone arrives at Distant Wanderings by searching for information about Bolivia's capitals.

So here's your answer: La Paz is the administrative capital, and Sucre is the constitutional capital. Although really, I'm not exactly sure what that all means. For old time's sake, here is my old post on this topic.

The searches that lead curious web denizens to my site may not be all that varied, but sometimes they are funny. Here are today's:

Google search, Dearborn, MI: "What are the two capitals of Bolivia"

Google search, Rohnert Park, CA: "Sassy magazine blogger"

Google search, Colombia, SC: "Interesting facts on the Incas and human sacrifices"

Google search, Colts Neck, NJ: "'temple of fertility' 'visit get pregnant'"

Google search, Sumiswald, Switzerland: "bus movi peru"

Google search, Dublin, Ireland: "Funny coca leaf slogans"

(I also had visitors from Bucharest, Romania; Chihuahua, Mexico; New York, NY; Appleton, WI; Mount Vernon, NY; Timmins, Canada; Geneva, IL; Duebendorf, Switzerland; and San Antonio, TX, but I don't know how these people arrived here.)

EDIT: It turns out that that visitor from San Antonio is actually ME! How strange. I have no idea why it shows up that way.

A Word of Warning

2007-04-23T20:58:00.000-05:00

If you ever plan on spending several hours driving across Pennsylvania, let me extend you this piece of advice: for the love of god, bring your own music! Of, if love of God is your kind of thing, you might as well leave the radio on, considering the abundance of Christian rock. Aside from that, there is a lot of country, Christian country, and cheesy, unbearable pop, mixed in with the occasional hair-rock hit from the 80s. If you find yourself, as I did this weekend, without your own entertainment, this makes for a looooooong drive, with nothing to distract you besides the abundant and varied roadkill (deer, of course, cats, raccoons, possum, small unidentified rodents, a fox and even a turkey).

And disconcerting sights like this:

It's a Small World After All

2007-04-18T22:10:00.000-05:00

In 1999-2000, I worked for an au pair agency. I dealt with a lot of au pair and host family applications and over time I've forgotten most of them. The ones that I do remember (aside from the troublesome ones) stayed in my memory for a number of reasons: some were male au pairs, some had unusual names, some sent interesting applications, and some stood out because of success with their host families. One was all of those things. He had a very unusual Eastern European name, he had interesting hobbies, and during the year he got involved with local performance groups and branched out into the community. During the year he lived in the U.S. he was interviewed for at least one article about male au pairs. But it was especially the name that I remembered.

Today my department hosted a reception, and many people from all over the university attended. As I stood talking with my supervisor in the lobby--incidentally, talking about the company I used to work for--in walked one of the guests of honor, an older woman, and with her a PhD student who lives at her home. I looked at his name tag, and there it was--that name! Eight years later, there was that same former au pair, now studying for a doctorate in Special Education. He doesn't remember me, of course, which is a good thing, since the only reason he would have had to talk to me was if he had had trouble with his host family.

If I was making this story up, he would have told me a story about how his year as an au pair changed his life, and influenced his decision to become an educator; he would have told me stories about regular reunions with his host family and with the other au pairs he met that year. In reality, he had to think for a second before he remembered the family's name, and most likely his interest in education was the reason he became an au pair in the first place. But still, it was really fun to see someone that I remembered from back then! And a reminder of what a tiny world we live in.

Fleece Me, Man!

2007-04-15T21:33:00.000-05:00

Last week, E! showed The Big Lebowski several times, and I watched it twice. When I saw that it was going to be on, I wondered how the censors were going to manage to show that movie without completely butchering it. If you've seen the movie, you know the language in it is, er...colorful. If you haven't seen it or need a reminder, check out some sample dialogue. The answer is, they didn't. I'd even say, they can't...the movie is just too full of profanity to gracefully dub for TV. But it was a valiant effort, and when you're not looking at the TV it doesn't sound obviously dubbed. However, the rewritten lines were completely silly! Besides that, the plot was irreparably damaged by the cutting of a large number of entire scenes, including the confrontation in the bowling alley to the accompaniment of the Gipsy Kings' version of Hotel California and, for no good reason that I can fathom, Aimee Mann's brief cameo as a German nihilist with nine toes.

The dubbed dialogue was amusing in its ridiculousness; here is a sampling of my favorite lines. According to IMDB, the F-bomb was dropped more than 280 times in the film, so you don't have to have seen it to guess what the original lines were:

Fleece me, man! The kid spent all the money!

You don't like my music, get out of my peaceful cab!

They killed my Ford car!

You see what happens, Donny? You see what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!?

We chop you up, man! I chop you! I chop you! / I kick you! I kick you!
and my favorite:

They peed on my valued rug! -That's right, Dude. They peed on your valued rug.

Vacation Report: Part Quatre

2007-04-09T00:30:00.000-05:00

Well, seeing as it's been two weeks since I returned home from my vacation, it's time to wrap up the story and move on. The basic reason for my trip was the ten-year-anniversary of the year I spent studying abroad in Aix-en-Provence, France. My three closest friends from that year and I have been planning this reunion for the past five years, since two of them and I celebrated our five year reunion! This time, we decided to reunite in style, by renting a house--not in Aix, but in a small town called Vaison-la-Romaine, in a part of Provence none of us were familiar with. It's a beautiful area, surrounded by rolling hills, ancient villages, vineyards, fields of olive trees and lavendar--none of which, unfortunately, were in bloom in this cold season.

I haven't seen these friends all that often over the past years, although we've stayed close by e-mail and the visits we have had. We live in very different areas: Oakland, Portsmouth (NH) and Geneva, so it was very exciting to be together--and it was better than I could have ever expected. We had a fabulous time! We drove all around the region, visiting towns, having long lunches, tasting wine and seeing the sights. We also had some adventures! These stories probably fit into the you-had-to-be-there category, but amongst the highlights were:

Allowing Claire (Kristin's friendly GPS system) to guide us to the Avignon TGV station to pick up Harriet, only to put Claire away and get lost in "le petit Guatemala" and narrowly avoid running over a chicken.

Hiking through a vineyard to reach the ancient ruins at the top of the town of Séguret, then getting caught in crazy Provencal weather on the way down, providing a vocabulary lesson: "les giboulées de Mars" (March downpours, like our "April showers" only more so)

Making Belgian BFFs, discussing American politics and the Belgian divorce rate over a long lunch, promising to send them postcards when we return home.

Causing a yoga instructor to jump out of the shower and into a pair of skin-tight gray leopard-print spandex pants in order to show us her pottery.

Encountering a real-life Town Crier and interviewing him about his round-the-world travels and ascention to the Town Crier throne (er..pedestal)

Visiting a town called "God made it" to look at pottery that was supposedly ugly but which, in fact, we all kind of liked.

Continuing the quest for perfect pottery, driving down a winding side road to a 500-year-old castle to see cups and bowls described by our landlords as "beautiful" and "reasonably priced". Finding neither of these to be true, but having spent a long time chatting with the potter's husband and discovering the three degrees of separation between him and Kristin, we make purchases anyway. Then we get a tour of the castle and have tea and 20-year-old cookies.
(Photo courtesy of Mollie)

Being like adopted daughters at this point, we agree to play a practical joke on the potters' son Barnaby, a former flutist who is building an apartment building out of bricks and plastic. He helps himself to ALL of the cookies we offer, but in the end we don't mind because he is cute, in a mountain-man kind of way.

Returning home each evening to cook a meal, open a bottle of wine and catch up with each other late into the night, discussing our lives, relationships, and jobs, and reminiscing about our year in Aix.

Conducting a highly scientific comparison test of the pastries and chocolates of many of the local bakeries:

It was a perfect week...although unfortunately the weather wasn't perfect. But hopefully we'll get some sun for our next reunion, five years from now.

Before heading home I made a quick stop in Lyon and got a tour from my friend Thibaut, who I met in Chile. Lyon is a very pretty city. It's also home to a recent installment of the worldwide "Free Hugs" movement, which resulted in my You Tube debut.

Vacation Report: Part Drei

2007-04-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

I used to live in Switzerland. I moved there for my job, after living in Amsterdam, and at first I was dubious about my new home. I had loved living in the Netherlands and like a stubborn child I was sure that nothing could replace it. And it was true, Switzerland could never take that special place in my heart, but over time it managed to burrow its own little hole there. It is a beautiful country; the kind of beauty that always takes you by surprise. Even when you think you've seen it all, you'll turn a corner on a mountain pass and gasp at the view in front of you. But some of the other qualities that I loved were double-edged swords. Its people are highly efficient and highly organized--and highly inflexible. Everything is impeccably clean and well-maintained--and if not, your neighbors will complain. Rules are meant to be followed, and you can count on cars stopping for you if you are in a crosswalk--but you risk being yelled at if you cross the street when the light is red. (It's true, it happened to me twice).

So when I headed back to Lucerne for the first time in almost two and a half years, I was unsure what kind of emotions I would feel. Would I be filled with regret? Would I wish I had never left? After a few days revisiting the town, I was pleased (and relieved) to realize that the answer was no. I felt fondness, and nostalgia, and was reminded of the good times I had while living there. But those good times, I realized, were tied to the people I knew there, not the place itself. So the best part of my trip was the time I spent with my friends there. We couldn't believe it had been so long, and if it weren't for the intervening life events (engagements, marriages, three babies born!) it would have seemed like just yesterday that I saw them last.

Aside from visiting with friends and a few walks around and in the hills above town (and a few opportunities to practice my German, which came out of hibernation after a couple of days), the other main event of my visit to Lucerne was a beautiful day of skiing at Gemstock Ski Resort, near the town of Andermatt. I could not have asked for a better day to go skiing or better conditions. The sky was blue and the weather was warm enough to sit outside in the sun with no jackets for an hour and a half at lunch, but the snow was perfect and the views were amazing! When I lived in Switzerland I used to go skiing every weekend whenever possible, and having only skied twice in the past two years, I was in serious withdrawal, and this was just what I needed...until next winter.

Vacation Report: Part Two (of Four)

2007-04-01T22:45:00.000-05:00

After spending a day reminiscing with Sylvine and Celia, and looking at ALL of our photos (approximately 8,492,797 in total), I took the tube ($8! I swear that's the last time...but really...$8!) to Paddington Station and with nary an abandoned bear in sight, caught a train to Overton, the bucolic new home of my friends Kathrine and Tom. They bought a house last summer and have been living the domestic life, gardening, painting, scraping wallpaper, etc. They have a beautiful garden complete with a small pond (at the moment filled with frog eggs), a tiny gazebo, and a paddock in back (their next-door neighbors are actually using it for its intended purpose--keeping a horse). After a busy day in London, this was the perfect place to relax for a few days. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and we went walking in the fields, had lunch at the pub, and strolled around town. One day we watched England play France at rugby. This was lots of fun, even if I didn't understand it all and had to ask the occasional question to figure out what was happening ("what was that penalty for?" "are they allowed to lift them up like that??" "do ALL the players have cauliflower ear???"). But once I got a grip on the rules, it was a really exciting game, especially with Tom and Kathrine and their friend Al yelling at the TV (while his fiancee Rowan, fearing disappointment, hid behind a newspaper), and England won, which made it even better.

One day Kathrine took me on a tourist excursion. First stop was Stonehenge. It's a pretty impressive circle of stones, I must admit.

However, I also must admit that we were too cheap to pay the entrance fee (you can't even go near the stones anyway) so we had to stay outside the fence, and instead of an audioguide I had Kathrine and later Wikipedia to inform me about interesting Stonehenge historical facts.

Later we continued to Bath, where we had lunch and shopped for lampshades. For the rest of the time we just hung out, had dinner with their friends, and watched amusing new reality TV shows. We ate curry, cake and treacle, and digestive biscuits and had tea. It was all very fun, very relaxing, and very English.

Vacation Report: Part One

2007-03-28T20:16:00.000-05:00

Note to self: when planning a trip, for own sanity, book a morning flight, or at least take the whole day off. My flight was at four, so I worked until 2, running around like the proverbial beheaded chicken, trying to accomplish last-minute tasks. I had a hopper flight to Philadelphia, where I witnessed the bizarre sight of Philly P.D. cruising through the airport on Segways (kinda like these guys--apparently it's not an uncommon phenomenon).

Then it was on to London. As usual, I couldn't sleep on the plane, but watched School for Scoundrels (not recommended) and did Sudoku to pass the time. When I arrived I navigated trains both above and below ground to get to my friend Celia's apartment (also one bus, due to a fire which briefly closed the Jubilee Line). I was met at the apartment by our other friend Sylvine. I met Celia (who is from France) and Sylvine (who is Belgian) in Argentina, more than two years ago. It was with them that I experienced a rain-soaked, wind-blown (and eventually aborted) patagonian trek. Good times.

After catching up with Sylvine and catching a quick 2-hour nap, we headed out to meet Celia after work. London is a ridiculously expensive place. At $2 to the pound, the exchange rate absolutely sucks. It's hard not to fixate on the prices!! We had a drink at a bar, grabbed a quick dinner, then headed to a Brazilian bar/club. Celia's Scottish friend Robert joined us to share his samba skills and lovely accent and together we imbibed a number of caipirinhas and mojitos ($11 each!) The funny thing about going out at 5:30 PM is that by 10:30 you feel as if you've had a very full day and are ready to turn in for the night! But thanks to the great band that was playing a mix of brazilian tunes and party favorites, we stayed on until the wee hours! No jetlag for me!! After that it was time for a wander through the streets looking for a late-night snack. We wound up having quarter pounders ($5!) at a completely packed McDonalds at 2 AM, then rode home upstairs in a double-decker bus. Ah, London!

I hadn't brought my camera with me, but luckily Robert had his phone with fancy camera (with flash) and also luckily, he had no objections whatsoever to behaving like ridiculous tourists! Thanks to him, I have these classic photos to share:

Stay tuned for the next installment...

Longest Birthday Ever!

2007-03-25T22:50:00.000-05:00

Due to time zone differences and the European switch to Daylight Savings Time which occurred this weekend, my birthday this year (today) lasted 29 hours!! How about that! I may perhaps be more than reasonably amused by this fact because I'm a little delirious due to lack of sleep--I woke up nearly 25 hours ago in Geneva. Unfortunately, all of those hours, minus two during which I enjoyed a nice dinner with my brother and his girlfriend in Philadelphia, have been spent in airports or on airplanes. Also unfortunately, airport employees and customs agents do not seem to notice when it's a person's birthday, and it by no means helps one escape from the tedium of travel nuisances, for example, waiting in line in Gatwick airport for 4 hours.

No matter, none of it can spoil the excellent vacation that I have just finished. It was brilliant! Das was zehr toll! C'était génial! Updates and photos to come soon. But for now, I'm off to bed.

One of those kinds of days

2007-03-03T17:58:00.000-05:00

It's one of those Saturdays...you know, the kind of day that you spend at home, just puttering around, cleaning up, listening to music, etc. I've been doing laundry, finishing up my taxes, playing my share of hearts on the computer (suck it, virtual rivals Pauline, Ben and Michele! I just shot the moon four times in a row!) and otherwise poking around. The only difference is, for a little while, I did it all wearing a floor-length cocktail dress. I was going through my closet, getting my suitcase out for my vacation which starts this week, when my eyes fell on my selection of dresses. It's a small collection that never gets worn, especially a very fancy one I bought a few years ago and have not worn once. Anyway, I thought I would try a couple of them on, just for fun, and one was just so pretty that I decided to leave it on for a while. It was fun, and gave my household puttering a little bit of glamor. Maybe I'll watch a movie in it later. I rented Marie Antoinette, and I think wearing a fancy dress seems fitting.

I hope you all are amusing yourselves this weekend, too.

Lost and...Replaced

2007-02-25T18:20:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I lost my iPod. I still can't believe it's really gone and I expect it to turn up. I've searched my house, my office, and my car, and the relatives I recently visited looked around for it, to no avail. I've got a vacation coming up, which includes a lot of long layovers and several train rides, and I'm going to need some entertainment. But being cheap, and having already pre-spent most of my tax refund on flights, I was hesitant to shell out big bucks on a new one. So when a colleague pointed out the refurbished iPods for sale on the Apple website, that seemed like a great compromise. I'm a little nervous, but from what my colleague (one of our IT guys, so he should know) said, the refurbished iPods are totally reworked and as good as new, and at least 15% cheaper than new ones. I've ordered a 30 GB video iPod, and we'll see how it turns out. I have to say, I'm going to miss being an Old School (2nd generation) iPod owner!

Speaking of music storage, here's just a little reminder that the driver's-side door pocket is not the best place to keep your CDs. It must have fallen out, and been snowed on and driven over for days before I saw it lying there:

Recap

2007-02-21T20:12:00.000-05:00

The Lemonheads concert was Monday night and it was…a strange experience. Here’s a recap:

After an unremarkable opening band and a long break, the Lemonheads appear. Evan Dando looks exactly the way he looked in 1993. He comes out wearing a knit hat pulled way down over longish shaggy hair. He takes the hat off a couple of songs into the set, revealing a good chunk of hair cut off at about nose level and hiding his eyes, although from what I can tell he doesn’t raise them above microphone level all night. When the tentative crowd finally closes in on the stage, I happily take up position at the corner just a few feet away from him. I start to feel a surreal mix of self-conscious amusement at the ridiculousness of it all and girlish giddiness, and that winning combo of emotions lasts pretty much all night.

I wonder if, through that Cousin It hairdo, he is checking out the crowd. There are 40 of us, 50 max, including sound check guys and bartenders, and we are a somewhat bizarre crowd. Does he see the guys with the sleeve tattoos and motorcycle shirts? How about the grungesters in matching knit caps and shaggy hair? Does he see the woman (not me) standing in front, staring earnestly (and a bit studiously) up at him, not smiling or dancing, but determinedly holding a camera in both hands, occasionally taking a picture, but mostly just looking on? Does he see me, singing along?

It is not the best concert I’ve ever been to. I console myself with the thought that if I had seen this concert at age 16, it would have been the very best concert I had ever seen in my entire life. (OK, the only one I'd ever seen, but who's going to nitpick at 14-year-old details?) The music is pretty good and they play lots of familiar old tunes, but they run through them as if by rote. The most disappointing part, though, is the complete and utter lack of audience interaction. There's no banter, no jokes, no conversation, no funny stories...nothing. Not even a greeting--they just come up on stage and go right into the first song. No "this one's from our new album", no introducing the band...nada.

Noteworthy moment #1: they sing "Drug Buddy". The song is an ode to going out to buy pot with your friend. It’s a great song. One of the stagehands comes up to the stage, and bam! an intense odor of marijuana fills the air. He isn't smoking, he just seems to exude the scent, from his pores or perhaps his green army-navy-store jacket. When he walks by me at the end of the song, I swear I could get high just from the fumes! But now here’s the key detail: later, the same guy walks by twice more, and there is no odor whatsoever. I conclude that his presence was an orchestrated event, planned to bring greater dimension to the meaning of the song—to make it an olfactory experience. It is highly amusing, but definitely odd.

Noteworthy moment #2: Evan Dando throws me his guitar pick. I like to think that through the curtain of hair and the visual effects of whatever combination of substances he ingested pre-concert, Evan Dando sees me, senses that I am getting a kick out of the whole experience, knows that I had his poster on my wall freshman year of college, and rewards me with a little souvenir. So what if the pick landed near me; so what if it’s not even clear if he actually threw it or if it accidentally flew out of his hand during an awkward guitar change. The pick flies, it lands a couple of feet away and I casually (I’m cool after all, not some groupie loser) lean over and pick it up.

Noteworthy moment #3: After an hour or a little more, it appears the band is going to wrap up soon. Evan Dando turns to the band, then turns back with an air of this-will-be-the-last-song. But no: lips back to the microphone, he mutters: "Good night" and takes off his guitar. Understandably, we protest--mostly out of confusion, since to be fair, they had played a full set. He puts down his guitar, pulls on his hat, walks off the stage, ignores a guy trying to give a high-five, walks through the crowd and out the door. After a few minutes of confusion, during which the roadies start unplugging all the equipment and the lights came on, we realize that there will be no encore. It's over. Which is fine with me. It's past my bedtime.

A quick Google search today showed me that this kind of experience is not so unusual. (All of those stories, and particularly the last one, demonstrate that he is a bit of a space cadet, but none so much as this one). And while I'm in a linking mood, here is a hilarious story about a woman who failed in her attempt to sing onstage with Evan Dando. That’s a lot of links, but those are some pretty hilarious sites if you’ve got the time.

Anyway, to sum up a long post, it was a fun concert despite the oddness of it all. In a strange way it brought me back to age 16, when I was discovering new bands and setting myself up for a lifetime of interest in music. It was fun for a while to remember what it was like to be fascinated with a rock star. But at the same time I was happy to be grown up--to find his crazy antics and bizarreness amusing instead of becoming disillusioned by them.

And I did get a photo. You can see just how close I was. You can't see the bangs, but you might notice the wedding ring. Apparently he's married to some British model. I wish her all the luck in the world.

Sassy!

2007-02-10T18:11:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I was very excited (irrationally excited, some might say) to learn that the Lemonheads are coming to town. While I was unaware that they had released any albums since 1993, apparently they put one out last year. I haven't listened to any excerpts yet, perhaps delaying the inevitable discovery that it is really bad. Instead, I pulled out It's a Shame About Ray and have been basking in the memories of my circa-1992 teenage crush on Evan Dando. He was so cute! He seemed kind of sweet and goofy and somehow wholesome despite writing a song (a great song) about going out to buy pot! He took a fan to the prom!

Wait...what's that? Took a fan to the prom? Yes...that's the bit that won my whole heart over to Mr. Dando. The story (perhaps apocryphal?) was that a fan, having been stood up for her prom, instead found her way to the Lemonheads' party, where she told Evan about what had happened, and he offered to escort her to the prom. I dreamed that this would (or even could) happen to me. What a guy!

My knowledge of the prom story, and my crush on (or even awareness of) the Lemonheads' lead singer, is owed entirely to my subscription to Sassy Magazine. It only lasted about 6 years, and I only subscribed for two at the most, but those were formative years, and I was an impressionable girl. Sassy was founded by a feminist, and while it had normal girls-magazine articles about boys and celebrities and clothes, it steered us away from the brainless trends and encouraged to be individuals (er...well...as much as possible, for people following the suggestions of a widely-read magazine). Sassy girls didn't go google-eyed for jocks, they swooned for brooding creative types like Evan Dando. They didn't like boy bands, they liked boys who were in bands. They didn't wear what all the other girls were wearing, they layered their clothes and stitched things onto them. I remember one article about how to make your hair look like you've just come from swimming in the ocean. They wrote fiction and poetry and discussed Issues. They were in bands. They read zines. OK, so I didn't do any of those things myself. (I tried the hair thing but it looked ridiculous.) But I definitely identified with that independent spirit more than with the vapidity of Seventeen or 'Teen which I occasionally read. Most of all, Sassy influenced my music and pop culture tastes. The editor, Jane Pratt, was friends with Michael Stipe. The first time REM published lyrics was for Losing My Religion, in Sassy. Spike Jonze worked for the magazine, as did Chloe Sevigny.

Sassy was, quite simply, the best girls' magazine ever. And as it turns out, I'm not the only one who thinks so, and a book is due out this spring on that very subject. You bet I'm going to buy it. If you have never read Sassy, it's your loss, but here's a great article about it.

Once I looked in my mom's attic to see if I had saved any of those magazines. Unfortunately, although I have every notebook from every class in high school and college, I must have thrown out the magazines. As it turns out it is my loss--both in terms of nostalgia and in terms of potential financial gain.

Anyway, enough reminiscing for one day. In two weeks I'll be in the front row, screaming like the 16-year-old I used to be, but for now I'm going back to adulthood.

Aaaaaaaaaaaa!

2007-01-28T12:53:00.000-05:00

Oh, this video just makes me cringe! At first it was kind of funny in a strange, ironic way, but that went away quickly, to be replaced with the urge to hit "stop", close the window, shut down the computer and run screaming from the house, just to make the memory go away.

Celine Dion sings AC/DC

Flickr Fun

2007-01-15T22:56:00.000-05:00

Of all the things that people have created to have fun with your Flickr pictures (and there are a LOT), this is my most recent favorite. Remember that photo of a church in Chile?

I love this

2007-01-07T13:00:00.000-05:00

Funny translations make me laugh, but there's something extra special about this one.

Holiday Adventures

2007-01-07T00:12:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! I hope that the holidays treated everyone well this year. I had a pretty busy past couple of weeks, logging about 1,000 miles on my odometer and hopping around from state to state. I decided to keep my camera handy to document any interesting sights from my trip, so here's what I have to share.

I had the week off from work (actually the university shut down, so I had a week off work without having to take any vacation, which was great). I took off the Saturday before Christmas, had breakfast with my family in Williamsport then headed off on the drive to CT. The drive from here to Williamsport and from there to Wilkes-Barre is mainly on country roads, which are very pretty and usually pretty isolated. I saw a couple of interesting signs:

I had Daisy in the car with me, and she does NOT like to travel. I let her out to wander around, and she did a full exploration of the car. Eventually, she got carsick so I put her back in her carrier and she was fine after that. For about half of the drive the roads were pretty empty, which was great because it was peak holiday traffic time:

(I'm not sure what's more dangerous: taking a picture of myself while driving or having a cat on my shoulder while driving. Probably not a good idea either way.)

I saw some nice Christmas lights (nothing like the Somerville/Medford lights, but some were nice nonetheless). Taking photos from the car never quite works the way you want it to, but despite its blurriness--or because of it--I like the squiggles in this one:

I went up to MA for a quick trip and had New Year's Eve with Meredith and some of her friends, which was fun. The day before, I headed to Portsmouth, NH (which I love more and more every time I go there) for a quick visit with my friends Kathrine and Tom, in from England for the holidays. We drove up to Wells, ME for a walk through the snow on the coast. It was a beautiful scene: the tide was out, the snow was falling steadily and the beach was almost deserted. The snowfall on the rocks was beautiful:

(I also found this sign interesting)

I was happy to return to the land of Dunkin' Donuts over this break. State College has three Starbucks and several independent coffee shops, but the nearest Dunkin' Donuts is in Williamsport, an hour away (insert collective gasp of shock from New England readership). On the way home, I stopped in Port Jervis at the NY/NJ/PA border, which my mom assures me is the cheapest place in the world to buy gas, and stopped at DD to get a bagel and coffee. Unfortunately, I didn't try the coffee until I got back on the highway, and discovered it was bad, with a strong burned taste. No problem, I thought, I'd just pull over at the next one and get a new one. What I didn't realize is that the next one was 60 miles away! They should have warned me!

One year later.

2006-12-21T22:26:00.000-05:00

Well, this is it. Today is the one-year anniversary of my return from My Travel Year. One year ago today I woke up in Honduras and went to sleep in Connecticut. One year ago I bid goodbye to the life of freedom I had grown accustomed to over the previous ten months. I returned home to my family and a hectic schedule of holiday visits. To cold weather and the responsibilities of a job search (admittedly I didn't jump on that too quickly) and ultimately to the 9-to-5, earning-a-salary-and-paying-bills lifestyle.

Some days, I start to wax nostalgic about my travel life. I think about the decisions I made each day: stay or go? what to see? who to talk to? where to go next? who to travel with, who to leave behind? The decisions I make these days seem so much more mundane: what to wear? which e-mails to respond to first? what to make for dinner? I am struck by the lack of control I seem to have on my day-to-day life. I have to go to work, because I have to earn money, because I have to pay my bills. Sometimes I think about the freedom I had last year and I get a sick feeling inside, because I'm afraid I'll never have that again.

But then, I remember the good things about coming back. I love being closer to my family. I love having a home to return to each day: parking lot, mailbox, house keys; familiar table, familiar bed, familiar shower. I like my job. I like being productive and sharing my ideas. I like seeing the same people each day and getting to know some of them. I like the fact that I am starting to get to know the streets and shops and landmarks of my new home, and that slowly, bit by bit, I am starting to meet people and make friends.

I would never choose to live a nomad's life forever. I loved travelling (and I definitely plan to do my fair share of it in the future) and this one-year mark is sad because those days keep moving further and further back into my past. But I need stability as much as I sometimes need adventure. As hum-drum as the daily routine can be, that's normal life and that's what I want. But I wish everybody could have the chance I had last year--to discover total freedom, and to escape from responsibilities and the demands of the modern world.

And of course, if someone offered to trade my Aeron chair in my office for a hammock on a Caribbean beach, I'd take that trade in a flash.

someday...

2006-12-16T17:22:00.001-05:00

Besides working and procrastinating, I also have another new hobby. Inspired by what I saw in Buenos Aires, I joined the ballroom dance club here to take tango classes. It took me a while to get into it, but I'm definitely getting better. This week I even went to a tango evening at a local bar, and will go to another one this coming week. I'm just worried that during the 3-week semester break between classes I will forget everything I've learned. Anyway, stay tuned...if I keep it up, maybe someday I'll look like the lady in this video:

Don't I have something better to do?

2006-12-09T15:31:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I started using Google Reader to keep track of all the blogs and various other sites I read. One of their features are "bundles" of sites you can sign up for. For instance, they have a Sports bundle, and if you sign up for that, you get all the updates of sites like Sports Illustrated, BBC Sport, and some sports blogs. I didn't sign up for that, but I did sign up for their photography bundle, which is fun--and I added to that the feed for my friend Dave's photoblog--if you enjoyed my photos of Latin America, check out his. I just about die of nostalgia when I see them.

I also signed up for their "thinkers" bundle, which has also been fun. It includes some articles which I don't really have to think about (like some of Salon.com's celebrity news), some that I do have to think about quite a bit, and some which I have to think so hard to understand that it makes my brain hurt.

Anyway, that gives me lots of reading material, which is proving to be a bad thing right now. The semester is drawing to a close, and I'm discovering that after an 8+ year hiatus from school, my procrastination habit never went away. With 5 days left until the day I have both a paper due and a final, I am beginning to panic. But speaking of which, one of those "thinkers" recently wrote an article about the potential economic benefits of procrastination. I didn't really understand exactly what it's all about, but at least it made me feel like I'm in good company. There's something ironic about it, though: instead of doing the work I should be doing, I'm reading an article about procrastination. And then instead of doing my work, I'm blogging about reading an article about procrastination. Maybe I'm a hopeless case.

The Forbes Fictional 15

2006-12-03T20:23:00.000-05:00

Here's something fun that I never knew existed: each year Forbes names its list of the top 15 richest fictional characters, and this year's list came out a couple of weeks ago. What a fun list! I'm especially amused by Monty Burns and Mario's appearances. I'm dismayed by the fact that only one woman made the list, but slightly consoled that at this rate, Little Orphan Annie should top it in a few short years.

Since I've missed out on previous lists, I don't know who else has been cut from the list in recent years. Where's Jay Gatsby? Are we talking constant dollars here? Or is he disqualified because he's dead? How about Midas? Who else should make the list?

The list:
1. Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks
2. C. Montgomery Burns
3. Scrooge McDuck
4. Richie Rich
5. Jed Clampett
6. Mr. Monopoly
7. Bruce Wayne
8. Tony Stark
9. Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria
10. Thurston Howell III
11. Willy Wonka
12. Lucius Malfoy
13. Tony Montana
14. Lara Croft
15. Mario

Please put down the joystick and go back to drinking your iced tea.

2006-11-30T23:42:00.000-05:00

My apartment complex is a quiet place, for the most part. It's mostly grad students or young professionals like myself, and in general there aren't any loud parties or people shouting to each other in the parking lot. It's actually pretty eerie. I've only met two of the three neighbors on my floor, and even then only briefly, and I have only small notions of what goes on in their lives. The neighbors who live upstairs from me are also generally quiet people. I haven't met them. I only know they are a couple because once or twice I've seen them through the window when I'm coming in, if it's dark out and they have their lights on and shades up. I've heard the occasional TV sound. And I hear them peeing.

Due to some unfortunate acoustical infrastructure in my apartment building, the sound of these people peeing resonates into every room of my apartment. At times I've been convinced that they have 4 toilets: one directly above my bedroom, my living room, my dining room, and my kitchen. But really I know, there's only one, and it's directly above my own bathroom. For understandable reasons, the sound is especially clear when it is the man peeing, but I can hear her, too. And let me tell you, these are people who clearly take hydration very seriously. It seems they are always going! However, I've learned to accept this quirk of apartment-building life and live with it...especially since I don't hear any other noises.

Or at least, I didn't hear any other noises. For about a week I've been hearing loud, machine-like noises through the floor. It started last weekend. Daisy freaked out in the middle of the night and started running in circles on my bed, chasing her tail, then rushing into and out of the bedroom, into the living room and back, at around 3 AM. I woke up groggily and slowly realized there was what sounded like techno music coming through the ceiling. Very strange behavior from my otherwise reticent, liquid-loving neighbors. Then every night this week the repetitive noises filtered through, for a couple of hours every evening, usually ending around midnight. After a couple of nights, it struck me--it sounds like machine-gun fire! From some kind of video game. So my conclusion has been that these are crazy people who waited out in a tent at Best Buy or something to pick up a Playstation 3. I don't know, maybe the whole craze just inspired them to dust off their old Playstation 2, or some old computer game. I don't particularly care what it is; I just hope it stops soon. And if it is a PS3, I have to wonder, why didn't they just auction it off for a million dollars like any other sane person would?

RIP AJM 1914-2006

2006-11-19T22:52:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned last year, it's been a while since I celebrated Thanksgiving in the United States. I remember the last time, in 2000. I flew to PA from Boston for the long weekend, then flew back to Boston, went to my apartment for about an hour to unpack and repack, then headed back to the airport for a flight to Amsterdam for a job interview which eventually led to me moving abroad.

I think I may have gotten some of those details wrong, and I know that I'm fuzzy on the details of the Thanksgiving meal, but I know that things have changed since then. The house where we ate belonged to my grandparents then, and it belongs to my cousin and her husband now; instead of one child, they now have three, and two of my other cousins are married with kids too. And one figure whose absence will be felt at the table this year is my grandfather's--he died about two weeks ago. Grandpa had been in a nursing home for a few years, and in the past few weeks his health had been declining, so this was not a surprise, and after a long (92 years) and full life, this wasn't a tragic death. But it is a sad loss for our family.

My grandfather and my grandmother were both serving in the Navy when they met at a dance in July, 1943; they were married two months later. My mom and her three siblings remember their parents singing together, hosting fabulous cocktail parties in the 50s, leading family camping trips and swimming in the pond at the family farm. I remember him reading us stories as children, singing old songs, telling jokes or puns (or quoting quips such as this one from W.C. Fields: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!") and helping me learn to do a back handspring in the front yard--continuing a family acrobatic tradition. Of course, we have less rosy memories--Grandpa's temper, at times, was as quick and sharp as his wit--but mostly we remember the 63 years he spent married to my grandmother, their shared love of family, travel, playing bridge and of course, their daily cocktail hour, which they shared right up until he died.

Life, and family, is always evolving. This year we'll play with the four new great-grandchildren who have arrived since the last time I was home for this holiday. We'll probably reminisce a little about Thanksgivings and other times past, but mostly we move forward. But we hope to bring some of those happy memories with us to share with the next generations.

They're ba-ack!

2006-10-30T22:01:00.000-05:00

...and this time they've added Ricky Gervais into the mix. Although, if the comments on IMDB message boards are to be trusted, we shouldn't get our hopes up for the new Christopher Guest movie.

Virtual Pumpkin Carving

2006-10-24T22:16:00.000-05:00

First I bought Halloween candy. Then I ate a lot of it. Then my mom forwarded me this link to a site where you can carve your own virtual pumpkins and put a candle inside. Now, I can say, I'm definitely in the Halloween spirit.
Apologies, due to low light, the photos are a little blurry. But you get the idea.

My creations tend to have facial hair:

Then I tried a portrait. Daisy was the only model I had on hand:

After that practice, I tried for a real human face. My goal was Jon Stewart, and I think the hair almost works. By the time I got to the mouth, though, it looked a lot less like real life and started looking more like George W. Bush. But at least that's scary.

Arriving: Miss Daisy

2006-10-17T22:18:00.000-05:00

After much discussion and negotiation, I convinced my landlords not to charge me the extra "pet fee", so I made a beeline for the animal shelter and picked out a cat. It wasn't an easy choice, because there were so many cute cats to choose from, but my mom (who was visiting) and I picked out a very adorable, calm and sweet adult cat, and today I finally settled on a name: Daisy. It's a nice, pretty name, in Spanish is Margarita, and this way, if I ever get a boy cat I can name him Catsby.

She's spent the past few days getting the lay of the land (ok, that took about 3 minutes) and scratching gently at all the soft surfaces. Having had cats starting when I was about nine, I should have known better, but I bought her some toys with bells in them and a soft cat bed, all of which she immediately eschewed in favor of the plastic ring off of the milk container and a cardboard box.

She doesn't like to hold still, but I was able to get a few pictures:

That's the way it was and we liked it!

2006-10-12T23:41:00.000-05:00

I've been marveling (in a very old-fart kind of way) about the way college has changed in the 8 1/2 years since I graduated. When I walk around campus now, it seems like everybody's on their cellphone or listening to their ipod (so anti-social!)...and everything is online! Admittedly, even when I was in school the internet was up and running and beginning to tighten its grip on our lives, but that was nothing compared to now. Gone are the days of waiting in line at the library to use the copy machine in your two hours of alloted time with the reserve readings. Today's newfangled systems let us register for classes online, get our reserve readings and print them out, see our professors' class notes...and as an employee, I can check my vacation balance, fill out my W-2 forms and read the minutes of my last committee meeting. It's not so much the existence of these systems that amazes me, but how quickly it seems they were put into place. I can't imagine how much it cost to get them up and running in these past few years--and yet, my office hallway still looks like a 70s-era YMCA building.

But it's good to know that some things haven't changed. On my way home I was listening to the university radio station (one of two) and was pleased when a hard and electric song with lyrics like "we're gonna rock and roll forever YEAH!" was followed directly by the Indigo Girls' cover of "Tangled up in Blue". Ah, nothing like a complete musical non-sequitur to take me back to my WRBC days.

Hello! McFly!

2006-10-07T20:08:00.000-05:00

Man, this movie is a classic.

1.21 jigowatts! Great Scott!

Are you kidding me?

2006-10-05T20:25:00.000-05:00

So I walked into the grocery store this evening, and something seemed strange as I came in the entrance. Gradually I realized the entryway display had changed from its back-to-school theme, and I did a double-take when I realized the new display was...Christmas trees. Fake ones, with fiber-optic lights in the branches. Yes, it's Christmas at Wegman's.

And here I was thinking Halloween was next.