and if not, why not?

paradise.

2010-07-06T20:38:00.000-04:00

East of Elon

2010-06-08T11:32:00.001-04:00

Check out the East of Elon brewing co-op, Mark and Ian's new venture into home brewing.

http://eastofelon.blogspot.com/

barf bag.

2010-06-08T10:51:00.002-04:00

** Warning: Content is disgusting and may be unsuitable for those with weak stomachs **

Barf.

This is how I started my Friday last week. The Friday I had looked forward to for about a month because it involved traveling to Asheville for a romantic weekend away with Mark.

And I was greeted with barf. Lots of it.

How's that for an introduction? Here's what happened:

Since I was leaving for the airport directly from work, I had packed up my orange suitcase and rolled it diligently for .6 miles from my apartment to the Woodley Park Metro stop. Because the bag was heavy (I'm not usually an over-packer, but for some reason I was one this week), I struggled down the broken escalator. Don't even get me started on that front. It's another ranting blog entry waiting to happen. It's been broken since January. 'Nough said there. But I digress. I struggle down the broken escalator and hop on to a train that pulled up right as I did. I find a seat and precariously make my way with my bag to sit down. I pull out my book, and begin the 30-minute journey to work.

About a stop later, a guy gets on the train and comes to sit next to me.

And wow. Um. Something stinks. In a city, particularly one with such an extensive transit system that's, until recently at least, fairly reasonably priced, you get to mingle with the unwashed masses. My friend Bridget and I have started keeping tabs on the weird/disgusting/odd/bizarre/only on the Metro-type encounters we have. We've actually talked about starting a blog about it. We encounter that many. Anyway, unwashed masses.

This guy stinks. Like. Bad. Hopefully he'll get off soon. And as if my silent prayers were answered. He did. About three stops later.

But it still stinks! What is going on? His stinkiness rubbed off on the seat. Gross!!

About three stops later -- I'm about four stops from work at this point -- I make up my mind to get up and walk to another seat. At exactly the same time, a Metro employee gets on the train and walks up to me and stares down at me with all the guile of someone about to pummel the living shit out of me says, "Ma'am, you need to move. Now." I look up from my book, and stunned, say, "I'm sorry, why?"

"Because someone vomitted next to you. You need to move."

Vomit?

Yes. Vomit.

I look down and there it is. A big old, stinky pile. And of course, I freak out. Jump up, and immediately drop my sweater on to it. The sweater that I have to wear all day at work. That I have to wear on the plane and then for a two-hour drive to Asheville.

I move myself, realize I've stepped in it, and check my sweater for incrimintating spots. Miraculously enough, there was only a pinky fingernail sized smudge that wasn't fiber-deep. And my shoes. Well, of course they were brand new, but the nastiness was limited to the bottom. OK. Gross. But I can deal with this.

I get to Silver Spring and run straight to the bathroom. I clean everything with scalding hot water and enough antibacterial soap to kill a small country. The shoes are clean, and the sweater, well, it's clean enough for me to feel comfortable putting it back on after it's dried and I've checked it for smell, spots and any semblance of the foul substance that was there an hour before. I sit down in my cube and start working, horribly mortified by the insanity that I've just experienced. And then. I smell it.

By some odd impulse, I sense that it's on my luggage. My beautiful orange luggage that's traveled with me to London, Prague, Italy, Ireland and everywhere in between. I gingely walk to the other side of my cube where the bag sits, and flip it over to see the bottom. And of course. There it is. Cow-patty sized splat of barf. And I lose it.

Images of Chunk in The Goonies crying about a barf-o-rama flash through my head. I'm laughing, crying and gagging all at the same time. It's horrible. It's ugly. It stinks and it's on my bag. MY BAG.

All the girls come running to see if I'm OK and I manage to control myself enough to take the bag into the women's room to begin the arduous task of cleaning the foulness off the bottom of the bag. Luckily, there was a really kind woman who took one look at me and helped me on hands and knees until every last bit of grime was Clorox-wiped, Lysol-ed and scrubbed.

So by 9:30 a.m., I could finally start my day vomit-free. The rest of the day wasn't any better. My flight was two hours delayed and we didn't get to our bed and breakfast until 1:30 a.m. But the weekend made up for it in spades. Photos of the fun to come soon.

Just another day on the Metro, and in the words of my friend Heidi, "Brings whole new meaning to the term 'barf bag.'"

the mono.

2010-06-02T09:24:00.002-04:00

Yet again, blogging has been foiled by life's little quirks. This time the quirk came in the form of mononucleosis.

Yeah. That's right. At 23, I was afflicted with the disease usually reserved for hormone-crazed 16 year olds.

It's been a rough five weeks. It started with some scariness -- namely involving the doctor's being completely baffled by some impressively active lymph nodes in my groin. A week off work for doctor's visits. A six-hour stint at Suburban Hospital, which included a massive amount of blood drawn, and a CT scan. And ta-da! I have mono.

Really, I'd much rather have mono than any of the alternatives that come with swollen lymph nodes. But still. I'd much rather be healthy, too.

Now, five weeks later, I've almost fully recovered. Still waiting for my liver to cool it and catch up with the rest of my body. And until then, I'm teatotaling it, and minimizing any especially active activities (how's that for redundancy?).

Anyone who's read my blog before knows that I typically like to find a lesson, or five, in the things that I encounter and experience. So here are my lessons, in convenient list form, in no particular order:

01. When you get sick, and you don't know what's wrong, people worry about you. It's an incredibly wonderful feeling to know that there are people who truly care about your well-being and what happens to. I'm not talking about doctors and surgeons, I'm talking about friends and family. I'm so amazingly lucky to have parents close by, and fabulous friends and a boyfriend on-call who would check in daily for updates.

02. Health insurance is a god send. This experience has opened my eyes to just how essential it is to be able to just hand over your card, pay your co-pay and get the care you need. Thankfully, my experience ended in mono, but had it not, I would be even more thankful for health insurance. I cannot imagine life without it, and I'm really glad our government is working toward making it available to everyone. Politics aside, no one should have to worry about getting the care they need.

03. Mono sucks. It's a terrible, rotten, miserable virus. It knocked me on my ass. And it was absolutely amazing to me how little energy I had.

04. Puzzles are awesome. My friend sent me a care package full of "sick activities". A puzzle, coloring book, crayons, play dough. Yeah. I have great friends.

05. Knowing your limits is essential. I've never thought I had a problem listening to my body and knowing my limits. I've always been pretty in tune. But having mono has made me that much more aware.

06. Being healthy is a god send. I have so much respect and admiration for people who grapple with illness their whole lives. It sucks. And I'm sorry. I know I just had mono, but I feel that much more lucky that in a few weeks, I'll be back to normal and feel better. I wish everyone had that luxury.

OK, so I think that's it. I'm sure there are other things that I've learned/realized, but I can't think of them now. Other than the mono, things are going pretty well. Wednesday Night Dinners have continued, and now include another friend who is dead-set on blogging about it. So I'll post about that as soon as it happens.

I know I've fallen off this blogging wagon, and I'm struggling to get back on. So if you're still reading, thanks. And if not, I don't blame you.

b

cooking up friendship

2010-03-11T13:49:00.003-05:00

How do you solve the problem of lives that never seem to intersect? Dinner.

She still lives in Bethesda, but works Downtown at Children's Hospital. I work in Silver Spring but live downtown. She goes to Baltimore on the weekends to visit her boyfriend of three (almost four, right?) years who is still at UMBC. And I, well, I'm generally everywhere on the weekends.

We realized one afternoon in the summer before I moved that unless we came up with a standing date in the middle of the week, we'd never see each other.

Enter: Wednesday Night Dinner.

We meet at my place (it's on her way home) and cook ourselves a fabulous meal (sometimes, we've only had one disaster), complete with wine, beer or a stiffer drink if the work week's calling for it. And we talk as we cook. It's girl time. It's cheap. And it's wonderful.

About two months into it we instated the 1-new thing rule. We must cook one new thing every meal. It can be something we've had before, it can even be an old family recipe, but we cannot have ever made it ourselves. So now, about 7 months later, we're really becoming chefs. We even grilled for the first time last week. A huge accomplishment for someone who's only ever watched her dad grill (me) and someone who grew up a vegetarian (her). They say you should do one thing a day that scares you, well, we do one thing a week. And it's not scary because we have each other.

A quick list of successes:

Shrimp curry
Fattoush salad, kafta and tzatziki sauce with home-made pita chips
Lettuce wraps P.F. Chang-style
Pad Thai
Roasted asparagus with creamy mustard chicken with grapes
Chicken with balsamic glaze
Shrimp scampi

Four hands, two brains and my tiny kitchen make for wonderful Wednesday nights. A welcome respite at the middle of the week to help us over the hump and into the downhill of the rest of the week. The best part is that it's become a routine, which has even started to include a jasmine tea "ceremony" as we watch last week's episode of "30 Rock" or "The Office."

I've realized as I get older that when you're not seeing your friends every day at school, maintaining friendships, particularly really close, meaningful friendships, becomes harder and harder. It takes effort and time, and in our case, it takes lots of olive oil.

She and I are thinking about starting a blog about our dinners ... complete with recipes and photos and stories ... so stay tuned!

snowy misery on foot

2010-02-17T21:56:00.002-05:00

Warning: Mild-mannered rant to follow

Snowmagedden '10 has made it very obvious that there is very little respect for pedestrians in this city.

Taking to the streets to walk basically anywhere means taking your life into your hands. If the sidewalks are actually scraped clean, which about 50 percent are not, then they have random icy patches. Those that aren't scraped are landmines of ankle-rupturing pits and valleys. I understand that the roads are the first priority, but the roads are, at this point, at least passable by one lane of traffic. This isn't the case for the majority of sidewalks.

My usual commute to and from work takes me across a bridge on Connecticut Avenue. It's the "lion" bridge in Woodley Park for you Washingtonians. The bridge is incredibly high, and as a result is terribly blustery. There are sidewalks on either side of the bridge, as with most bridges. The roads have been clear since last Friday. The sidewalks are still dangerously covered in snow. As a result, pedestrians are forced to walk either in the street, being dodged mercilessly by ruthlessly fast traffic, or they must trudge laboriously through on the sidewalks, which are now slushy and incredibly hard to walk on. I nearly broke my ankle three times yesterday night. I'd forgotten about the mess and got off at the "wrong" stop. My alternative to falling and possibly pitching over the side of the bridge is walking an additional 1/4 mile up-hill from Dupont Circle. Not really that big of a deal, but at 9 p.m. when it's about 20 degrees out, that extra 1/4 mile sucks. A lot.

And let's not forget about the fear inspired by those in their 1-ton vehicles who are so pissed off that their commute is taking them 2 hours instead of 1 that they're ready to mow over any helpless pedestrian who happens to get in their way. Today, while walking up the hill in high heels carrying 1/6 of my body weight in groceries in 20 degree weather, I had to stare down a driver (who then gave me the finger) so he wouldn't hit me as I crossed with the light in a cross walk. I'm sorry, but you're sitting in your heated car. I'm walking up-hill in high heels carrying groceries and it's cold. You're honestly going to give me the finger? Seriously?

Now, I understand that no one is happy right now. Snowpocalypse has ruined our routines, and forced us all to languish over the possibility of high energy bills, broken ankles and thrown-out backs, 3-hour commutes from hell and any number of other snow-related stressers. And I know that DC has never been known as the kindest city, but come on!

The snow will melt. The road crews will scrape the sidewalks. Until then though, can we try not to kill each other? And can we maybe all band together to petition the city government to scrape the sidewalks a little faster so I can stop walking in the street and get out of your way?

The snow is ugly. It's like a brown slush-ee. Not so great. But why fight it? Yeah it sucks, but maybe if we all just tried to smile a little more, and understand that eventually it will be spring, and eventually we will see flowers and sun, and hell, grass, again someday, we can get through this.

And please watch out for pedestrians.

way too long.

2010-02-15T21:16:00.001-05:00

Goodness it's been ages since I've done this ... and for that I truly apologize!

It's funny how when you actually have something to write about, when life is finally busy enough to be interesting -- you don't have any time to write about it.

Suffice it to say: My life at the moment is busy, but in a non-stressful way. Interesting, but in a non-dramatic way. And fun, exciting and all the other things people look for in moments of "good" in their lives.

I recognize that it's important that I keep up with my writing. The muscles will start to atrophy after a while, just like all other muscles. I can already feel the disintegration. Lately, my writing has been comprised of emails, the occasional memo and other random snippets at work. This just isn't going to cut it.

There will be more. I'm going to do it. It's time.

gratitude

2009-10-27T21:47:00.005-04:00

In the vein of http://1000awesomethings.com/ and Mama Cass's Gushing with Gratitude, here are the 10 things I'm thankful for this week. I encourage everyone to participate in the practice of saying thank you (it doesn't really matter to whom you say it -- just projecting it is a good thing), because I've realized that even when you feel like you're living in a land of suck, there are always things, no matter how small (and some of mine are small), that make the world a better place.

Without further ado, my 10 good things of the week:

10. I just turned on the TV to my favorite part of Caddyshack. I changed the channel and landed on my favorite episode of Friends. Changed the channel again to find my favorite scene of Top Gun.

09. There is a beautiful tree outside the window of my cube at work. It's been steadily changing colors, from green to gold, to orange, and now it's a rich burgandy. Tomorrow I fully expect the leaves to begin to disappear -- but it's been absolutely gorgeous while it's lasted. Seeing it makes my day brighter, more colorful.

08. Because I haven't been to the grocery store in about two-three weeks, I've been forced to be really creative about what I cook in the past week. And the results have been generally tastey. I'm proud of my ingenuity and impressed by my cooking skills.

07. I'm finally, finally, going to send my friend a care package. I'm thankful for finally finding motivation to just send it!

06. I figured out an awesome Halloween costume that is the right blend of creative, funny, clever and scary (with a bit more modification).

05. I got one of those coupon inserts from the paper in my mailbox yesterday, upon looking through it, about 1/2 of the coupons were for things that I need to buy in the next few days/weeks. I've estimated that I'll probably save more than $15 simply because I got some junk mail that I took the time to look at before I tossed it in the recycle bin.

04. I made it safely to and from Elon this weekend. The car survived and so did I.

03. I had lunch with my 91-year-old Grandma.

02. My yoga instructor's topic of guided mediation made me recognize a need to refocus, realign and rebuild. Her message: Surrendering to what is, is not the same as giving up, rather it's a realization and acceptance of a situation with the intent to move forward toward the better; and finding the courage and strength to surrender is an incredible and powerful ability.

01. I'm convinced I have the best friends in the world.

be here now.

2009-10-17T17:45:00.002-04:00

Lyrics are beautiful. Music is beautiful. The whole show was beautiful. Ray Lamontagne, you've stolen my heart.

practicing the art of an open palm

2009-09-04T15:16:00.004-04:00

The image of the open palm is universal. It has different meanings across pretty much every culture: Buddhism has about six different mudras (hand positions) that use the gesture of the open hand, and each has a slightly different meaning. Catholics use the gesture when recieving the Euchrist to signify an openness to the glory of the body of Christ and a sense of wanting. The list could go on and on, but if we were to draw a common thread across the cultures, the open palm is a symbol of a sense of willingness to accept what is given.

My grandmother had a saying: "You can hold sand in the palm of your hand forever, but as soon as you close your fist and try to hold on tight, it will all fall through."

Lately, I've been attempting to practice the art of an open palm. In my yoga class, my instructor often asks us to focus on acceptance of the moment and things within our power to control. Does your leg hurt? Move it to the left. Are you cranky? Maybe you're hungry, eat something and drink some water. Are you tired? Take a nap.

If only all of life's questions were that easy, right? But I think, to some extent, maybe there is something to it. I think maybe when we get frustrated, we're not asking ourselves the right questions. We're frustrated because we're asking ourselves questions we cannot answer. What do I want to do with my life? Why am I here? What am I doing in this job that I hate? When is he going to marry me?

My friend Bridget says that the best way to talk to kids is by asking them questions they can answer. They'll never learn to behave if you start off by asking them why they did something wrong. They have no clue. You have to ask them things that they know: Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? Now, I am, by no means and expert on parenting, but I feel like most of the time, the source of the problem is probably somewhere within reach after a few rounds of those sorts of questions.

I feel like we (adults) are probably about the same way. I think it's about asking the right questions of ourselves at the right magnitude. We cannot arrange world peace, end world hunger or make someone love us. But we can do things to change and affect the way that we participate in the world.

To me, acceptance, or allowing the sand to lay in our palms, does not mean complacency. It does not mean blindly ignoring the world and allowing it to trample us. Practicing an open palm, to me, means knowing when action is needed and when it isn't.

into the bin

2009-09-01T16:59:00.004-04:00

I moved this past Saturday. Unlike all the moves I've done before, to and from college, this move was particularly special. I moved into my own place. A place that I pay for with my own money, without help from anyone else. This is a big deal for a number of reasons. For me, it means insurmountable increases in independence that had be lost since moving home after graduation. It means learning about unclogging toilets, hammering nails, painting walls and calling Pepco when our power is out. And it means that never again in my life is my parents' home "my home." I will, in all likelihood, never again live with my parents for longer than a week.

And that, in so many ways, is incredibly bittersweet.

I could go into all the sappiness about how I feel about being left to my own accord with rent payments and such, but that's not really what this post is about. What it's about is all the stuff that I found when I started packing up the bedroom I've occupied since I was 8 years old.

We moved to the house we live in now the summer after I was in fourth grade. I think this is significant because I feel like the age of 8 is sort of when, developmentally, you start to have things that are significant to you on a new level. Sure when you're little you have your pacifier, or your special blankie, or pilly if you're my cousin Melanie, but I think after about fourth grade, you start to have things that you collect that are significant because of things that happened to you.

Now, I'm not a scrap-booker. I never have been, and I sort of never want to be. But I do save things. Most of them end up on bulletin boards or in boxes. My anti-scrapbooking mentality has nothing to do with any lack of creativity, it has more to do with a lack of time and a desire to allow the objects and things that I save to speak for themselves. I've always felt like I was a photo/memory minimalist. Let it stand for itself. No frills, lace or goofy catch-phrases needed.

Now, let me clarify. I am, by no means, a hoarder, a pack-rat or anything else along those lines. Things that I save are things that would normally go into a scrapbook, like a Charlie card from a visit to Boston. A button from a march in DC. A drawing a friend gave me in seventh grade. Random things that hold value and importance to me.

So this past week, as I was packing up, I started uncovering the stuff. The bits and pieces of my life that I'd saved for who knows what reason. The cool thing is that most of the stuff, I could tell you right away where it came from.

But then came the hard part: I had to get rid of it. It couldn't come with me to my little apartment, and at some point, my mom would want "my room" back to use for something else. It'll all have to go eventually.

I had to physically throw away the odds and ends, trinkets and stubs, of my childhood and adolescence. And the weirdest part of it all was that for the most part, I was OK with it. There were some things I kept, just because they were very, very significant. But most things ended up in the trash bin with the old pair of flip flops, the broken picture frame and the other refuse that had been collecting dust in my room since the 1990s.

I'm sure there are somethings I'll never be OK with tossing, and I think that's normal.

inspirational words.

2009-08-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us. -- Thomas Merton

a penchant for feel-good

2009-07-23T14:36:00.006-04:00

I like movies that make you feel good. So sue me. I've seen both of these movies (below) within the last few weeks, and I would highly recommend them. Not only do they make you feel good, but they have great messages of acceptance, love, life, personal growth and understanding. They also have killer soundtracks, wonderful casts and are interesting takes on the standard "summer" movie. Neither of these are blockbusters, which is probably why I love them.

Of the two here, this is my particular favorite for a number of reasons. The sound rack is to die for, including a song by Wolfmother that I have a special fondness for. The story is really sweet, and I think everyone can relate to an unrequited love story on some level. It's funny without being corny, and indie without being emo. All around wonderful film.

The Answer Man

Managed to catch this by accident on a movie channel we get (one of our 700 channels...) and it was really great. Lauren Graham is quirky, as always -- she's pretty much Loralai Gilmore but as a chiropractor, and Jeff Daniels is equally sweet, weird and fabulous as the famous writer, Arlen Faber. It was an entertaining film, both my mom and I got sucked into it.

Usually I'm not a film critic, but I felt like I needed to share these -- they're just so enjoyable and in times like these, who doesn't want to sit and just be entertained for an hour.

connectivity.

2009-07-20T15:04:00.003-04:00

I'm becoming more and more convinced as I get older that everything is connected, that there will be things in your life that never seem to leave or disappear all the way.

My mom and our family friend Karen and I went to the 50th Anniversary Barbie convention the weekend before last. Yeah, I know ... but my aunt makes reproduction historically accurate gowns for the dolls (her work is some of the best there, if you ask me) and the convention was in D.C., so we went. It was an experience, to say the least, but the best part was the memories it evoked. More than once Karen or my mom would burst with joy at the sight of a doll they'd forgotten they had, or would begin to tell a story about a pair of shoes, a wig set or cutting Barbie's hair.

I was astonished by how few of my Barbies they had. In fact, they didn't have any of the ones I had -- perhaps they're not old enough yet. My Aladdin and Jasmin dolls, my skater Midge and Barbie, my Kelly dolls -- they're just not "vintage" enough yet. As I walked through the tables, I wanted some sort of a jolt of recognition, something from my childhood that I'd forgotten, something that I'd loved and then given up along with the American Girl dolls, Polly Pockets and My Little Ponies. But it didn't come, at least not until the very end.

And then, on a table, there it was, my Barbie poodle. Yes. I had a poodle. He was white (I'm assuming it's a "he" even though there were no anatomical indicators) with legs that bent at the shoulder and hip joints. Matted white "fur" with floppy white ears and white, hard plastic feet and face. He was my dog! I had him! And I had completely forgotten about him. He's sitting in an enormous plastic container in my parents' basement. I'd loved him.

Moments like that one are so bizarre, and they remind us of how strange memory is. How we can be such good friends with someone and then five years later we can still remember the name of their cat, but their name escapes us. We can find our way to their house, or remember their phone number, but their birthday is gone. We can be so invested and yet something happens and the dustbuster in our brains turns on and starts to make space, eliminating somethings and keeping the others, forging hair-thin links between that stuff and other stuff so we can someday access that bit of information in our seemingly infinite rolodex.

I'm thinking about all of this because I've realized that these links don't actually matter unless we pay attention to them. Like anything else, if you ignore it, it might as well just not be there. As I was updating some contact information today for one of IPM's donors, I had a moment's flash of recognition with the organization she works for: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

It was one of those moments that's similar to trying to remember the movie a favorite quote comes from. Or the lyric to a song where you can only remember the tune -- why did I know this organization!? I've been working with organizations with names like that since I started at IPM. I've even seen that name before, so why was it sparking something now? I don't suppose I'll ever know. But then I realized it -- I know them because of the Corcoran. I worked with them last summer.

The Global Fund partnered with Magnum Photography last summer to produce an exhibition called "Access to Life" that would originate at the Corcoran. I wrote the press release for the show. I stuffed hundreds of press folders for the show. I met people from the Global Fund at the show. Light bulb!

So, I don't really know what it all means or if there really is any significance that it's all connected. But I find it really bizarre how one thing has taken me to the next. How everything seems to be related, whether or not it really is, I guess that remains to be seen. But still, it's these little flashes or recognition, these moments of connectivity, that really surprise and startle me into questioning how many of these moments we miss.

we get up

2009-07-17T12:45:00.012-04:00

When I was in London, the girls I lived with and I began taking what we called "bridge jumping photos." The premise was fairly simple, any time we would cross a bridge, we would take a photo of the group jumping. Everyone's body had to be airborne and we had to yell "1, 2, 3, jump!" because let's be honest, it's pretty funny (in a morbid sort of way) to hear a group of girls yelling "jump" while on a bridge.

The album that resulted from this little activity spans nearly a dozen different countries. Each of us had vowed to take a jumping picture any time we crossed a new bridge.

Until I stumbled randomly upon a blog, "Jump. Because.", I hadn't thought about these photos in a very long time. Run by a few people in Richmond, Va., the blog asks for submissions of jumping photos and then asks the photo's creator to finish the sentence, "I jump because ..."

As I scrolled through, I became more and more nostalgic for the jumping I've recorded over the years with my friends, and I wanted to share a few with you. We're going to share a few with that blog, but I figured I'd include a bunch here also.

Why do I jump? There are so many reasons that I can't even begin to explain, but the biggest: I jump because I can.

(I'll add more as I find them...)

Olivia and I in Prague, CZ

Olivia and I on Millenium Bridge, London, UK

Mandy and I on a bridge near the Vatican, Italy

cubed in silence

2009-07-08T09:16:00.000-04:00

Since starting my job about a week ago, I've learned, among many important lessons, how to sit in silence for extended periods of time. This is an impressive feat for me -- I like to talk. A lot.

Let me clarify, I have absolutely no problems with periods of quiet. Like the silence you get when you're on a car ride and everyone's listening to the radio or watching the cars and scenery fly by. I like the quiet you get when you eat with someone and you're so hungry, three words of any sort just get in the way of the fork. I like being so comfortable with someone you can sit in silence next to each other and read a book. That silence isn't really silence to me. It's active quiet -- usually there's some sort of background noise, or some sort of shared appreciation of the void. You aren't partitioned by the silence.

This is the reason why I can't study in libraries, why I write best in cacophanous newsrooms, and why unless there's someone who absolutely needs quiet, quiet it shouldn't be. I actually think better when I have to tune things out. When it's already tuned out, when I'm surrounded by silence, that's when my mind starts to wander, my thoughts start to drift and ten minutes later I realize that I've lost track completely.

I'm currently working the most silent office I've ever been in. The floor is carpeted, the space too large and too spread out, and everyone is cubed.

I've been cubed in silence.

I'm learning to make do. I'm learning ways to be productive like everyone else while surrounded by two walls and no sound. I can't even hear the click of somone else's keyboard.

Then something strange happened yesterday, I looked to the bottom right corner of my screen and realized three hours had gone by. I was so busy, so focused despite the silence, that time had flown and the day was progressing.

Perhaps I was just focusing on the wrong thing?

fruity drinks

2009-06-28T18:16:00.006-04:00

I just got back from a week of mommy-daughter time in the Caribbean on St. Maarten. There are a million and one stories to tell and pictures to come when our waterproof disposable camera is developed (yeah we wanted one that could get stolen and wet if the situations arose, only the wet part happened, luckily). The trip was fabulous, relaxation and tans were achieved. And to top it off, my mom drove on the British side of the road for a day in Anguilla without killing us both. A noble and admirable feat. I'm seriously not kidding about that, because I would have killed us both.

The beaches were absolutely fabulous and the company was, as always so wonderful. My mom, in case you don't know her, is an above excellent travel companion. I love her so much and am so thankful she was willing to travel with me -- Typhoid Travel Bethany. If you know me at all, which most of my readers do, you'll know that I'm incredibly cursed when it comes to the magical and mystical wonder that is air travel. I haven't been on a flight in probably four years that hasn't at least been delayed ten minutes. Nothing ever goes right for me. And it didn't this time either, but nothing so catastrophic that we didn't get there and back within a few hours of when we were supposed to.

But anyway, it was wonderful. If you haven't been to St. Maarten/St. Martin, I highly recommend it, though only if you stay anywhere other than the Flamingo Beach Resort. It was a hell hole. Not only did we have problems with our reservation before we even got there, but it continued on through the week. Check in began at 3 p.m., we arrived at 5 p.m. only to find our room wasn't ready. No biggie, we'll just go sit at the pool bar and have a fruity drink, our first in probably close to 100 during our trip. We came back at 5:30 to find that our room was ready, but that it was situated on the first floor with beach access, but that it was immediately behind the beach bar, which we would have to look through to see the beach. Awesome, I thought, when does it close? The answer was a civilized (to some, heresy to others) 10 p.m. No biggie yet again. We're easy, we're on vacation. The room was really nice, except that the beach bar was under construction along with the rest of the resort. Workers started sawing wood, painting buildings and cutting metal tubing outside our door starting at 7:15 a.m. OK, that one's a little bit more of a big deal. The last straw was when we came back from our day trip to Anguilla to find that the maid had left our door open. Big deal reached. Luckily, nothing was taken and it was an honest mistake -- she'd been called away and then just forgot to come back. But still, not cool. And the worst part, they didn't really do anything about it. Sorry. That's all we got, which was fine since nothing was taken, but still. Some free fruity drinks would have been nice at least. Oh well.

My dad and brother just wrapped up a week of racing our boat, Incommunicado, during Block Island Race Week. They came in fourth overall (PHRF 3) and did really well on Wednesday when they won twice. My brother was interviewed that afternoon for a daily video recap of the races. It was his 15th birthday. He comes in about halfway through the video if you're interested.

Oh and the most exciting thing of all, I start my job tomorrow. I'm the newest member of the communications team at the International Partnership for Microbicides. I'm a production assistant for the external relations department. It's a great organization, and an excellent cause -- they work in developing nations with pharmaceuticals to promote a medication that has been proven to prevent HIV in women. I'm super excited and ready to go, but that's another post that I've been rehuminating on for a while. It'll come soon.

That about wraps it up, sorry to be long winded.

we are all trees

2009-06-17T21:18:00.006-04:00

So the concert was absolutely amazing. The cause is so inspiring, the musicians are so talented, the company was good, and the venue completely perfect for an acoustic set. The video below is what was played at the beginning of the concert. It features Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai as he discusses the plight of his country and the importance of giving back to the global community by offering your support to causes locally. As Isabella Cannon, the incredible Elon benefactor would say, "Think globally, act locally."

Below is just one of many awesome moments. Still waiting for them to come out with a CD or DVD. This was pulled from YouTube and it isn't quite the whole song, but it's one of my favorites, and it was PHENOMENAL. To top it off, I was only about 10 rows behind the person filming and on the other side of the theater. There are a bunch more videos of this concert on YouTube -- check 'em out!

open letter to the Kennedy Center

2009-06-05T11:21:00.001-04:00

Dear Kennedy Center,

Your online ticketing server sucks. I was fifth in line to get Dispatch tickets, when all of a sudden, I was 1,873rd. That is both insanely unfair and frustrating. Through some miracle, I was able to get through your phone system, and was placed on the line with Agent 81. Not only was she kind and understanding, but also managed to get me what I think were probably the last four tickets to the SOLD OUT show.

Please use this as a learning experience. I understand that the typical billings for your performing arts center usually do not draw such ravenous ticket seekers, however, in the event that your institution chooses to host someone like Dispatch in the future, please get your act together.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Bethany Swanson

life in a nutshell

2009-06-01T17:10:00.005-04:00

This week, I've ...

01. graduated from college.
02. moved back to Maryland, unpacked my life and squeezed it into too small of a space.
03. had many a meal with good friends who've gone unseen for far too long.
04. applied to a bunch of jobs.
05. seen "Kung Fu Panda," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," the season finale of "Grey's Anatomy," and too many hours of TV.
06. mailed a few items that needed to be returned to their rightful owners after accidentally moving back to Maryland with me.
07. gone sailing.
08. had my first Dark and Stormy of the summer.
09. realized that my cat snores.
10. realized that my brother is now 14 and HUGE.
11. realized that I'm ready to start my life and be an adult.
12. realized that number 11 is impossible without a job.
13. realized that without my family and my friends I would be in a panicked state of hysteria constantly, rather than only occasionally.
14. started to understand that making decisions is only possible if there are choices to decide among.
15. come to really love lists.

Art Collections website

2009-05-20T08:02:00.005-04:00

After nearly a year's worth of work, the Elon Art Collections website is finally up and running.

A little background on the project: As many of you know, I love art. As an art minor, I was required to take an art history class, and I fell in love -- a little too late. I wasn't able to double major or minor in art history, but I was able to take a few more classes. One of those classes led me to this project. A friend of mine in the class, Alaina Pineda, who is a brilliant art historian, has spent most of her Elon career working with the problematic Elon Art Collections. Like most people on campus, I'd never heard of it. It contains more than 650 works in seven different collections. It's under funded and under appreciated, but it has many gems and I realized that I might have the means to help it out.

My senior sem project (basically like a senior thesis) was born: I would make a website for the Elon Art Collections that would not only explain and explore the collections, but attempt to obviate their use as a teaching tool and a developmental priority. What that means in plain English -- Why it's important that we pay attention to it.

And so I was off. My friend the university photographer, Grant Halverson, graciously agreed to take the photos. Anyone who has ever tried to take a picture of a picture knows just how impossible it is. It's because of his work that I think the project turned out so well. And then I began building with Flash.

And nearly five months later, here it is:

http://org.elon.edu/arthistory/artcollection/home.html

Enjoy, show all your friends, and most importantly, if you go to Elon, any time you get to talk to an administrator, ask them about the collection and what they're doing to promote and support it.

weepies

2009-05-15T18:59:00.007-04:00

I'm currently obsessed with this song, The World Spins Madly On, by The Weepies. I think it's just really beautiful. The lyrics are sad, and very melancholy -- but then it's been raining a lot lately. The video isn't the best, but open it up, minimize the browser and just listen.

rain.

2009-05-14T10:19:00.002-04:00

It's raining. Again. Literally, for like the fifth or sixth time this week, and it's only Thursday.

Not only am I getting very, very tired of the rain, but I am also beginning to live in perpetual fear of it when it rains in the morning. I have an uncanny, Pavlovian response where my stomach clenches and my mind begins to race, It has eight days to learn how NOT to do this.

You see, Elon means "oak" in Hebrew, and so our lives here are tree themed. In fact, they pretty much revolve around trees. When you come to Elon, you get an acorn. When you graduate, you get an oak sapling to symbolize your maturity and growth. When you get old and start donating a lot of money, you join the Order of the Oak. Everything is acorn, squirrels (because they live in trees) and oaks. They're everywhere. And so, we hold our graduation ceremonies under those trees from which Elon derived its name and its essence.

Herein lies the source of my anxiety. It has not rained for graduation in 10 years. WHERE are those trees when I need to knock on them!! In fact, it hadn't rained on graduation for 25 years before that. Yeah, you read that right. We went 25 years, then one big, disastrous ceremony, which involved soaked grandmas, running makeup and then a fire alarm (yeah.) and now have gone 10 more. Needless to say, I'm absolutely TERRIFIED.

It sounds petty, but I want my Elon graduation. I'll still be an Elon graduate if I have to (knock on that oak again...) walk across the stage in Alumni Gym, but I won't have had the true Elon experience of sitting under those trees like I did four years ago.

So please. Find any wood, preferably oak, in your house and knock on it at least once or twice a day for me and all my fellow acorns who just want a sunny morning on May 23.

Thank you.

being launched

2009-04-26T14:00:00.003-04:00

So here I am, a little less than a month from graduation and I'm beginning to feel the tug. Anyone who's waited for inevitable change (it sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not, trust me) knows what that feels like.

I'm sure it's similar to the feeling a pregnant woman has about 3 weeks before her due date -- there's still so much growing to do. But time is running out, and you're happy, because you're ready to go into the next stage of life, but you're also terrified. Will I be good at it? Can I do this?

And so, that slow tug back on the catapult begins. It's the pull on the bow strings before the release. The tension buzzes in the strings and the urge to let go is so strong, but the arrow will just fall from the ground without that extra tug at the end.

And so here I am. In that last little tug. My strings are tight and I'm buzzing pretty hard. I've got a lot to do between now and the end.

The string just gets tighter and tighter. The funny thing is, I know I'm going to make it a few more weeks before what I'm moving toward will actually become real. Like I said, there's other things to do first.

I've been reading a lot about Buddhism lately. One of the practices is present-mindedness, or being completely invested in the current. You can't focus on how far you want the arrow to fly, all you can do is focus on the tightening of the strings. If the strings are tight, then what happens happens.

And that's all I can do. Wait for the launch.

singing and dancing

2009-04-20T11:54:00.001-04:00

This is basically incredible. You can't watch it without cracking a smile. I'm working on a project for a kinetic imaging class and I'm pulling dance sequences, and I came across this one and figured I'd share. The song is awesome, and it has a pretty good message.

Tom & Jerry with Gene Kelly
Uploaded by anabelasugarlee

a jaunty tilt

2009-04-16T17:08:00.007-04:00

I think a little back story is necessary... Yesterday evening, I was enjoy a nice cold beverage as I did some work. I then proceeded to spill half of said beverage, which contained sugar (it was crystal light), on my laptop keyboard.

Freaking out, I quickly mopped it all up, laughing happily in the wonder and good fortune that my keyboard should function at all. It had started to dry when I realized there was a greater problem.

My keys are sticking. Not just a little oops, here or there. We're talking like intense, it's hard to push them down, sticking.

So I get some water, a paper towel, a cotton ball and a Q-tip. All manner of sizes of wiping materials, I wasn't sure what I was going to need, you see. And I start cleaning the top of the computer, thinking that the problem is that the sides are sticking to the base board. But I don't think I can really get at the source, because my keys aren't the kind that come off. At least not that I've figured out. This generally solves some of the problem, but they're definitely still sticky. Ugh.

Fast forward to today, 5 p.m. after consulting with my computer savvy friend, I've been told that the keys can come off, but to remove them at my own risk, as some times they can be very tricky to get back on. All I heard is that they come off. They come off!!

Anyone who knows me knows that if there's the possibility of making something cleaner than it is at the moment, I will take it. I like things clean, I like things not-sticky. And so darn it, if I can make this keyboard not sticky, you better believe I'm going to try.

A quick Google search explains ways of cleaning keyboards without removing keys... yeah yeah yeah. Nope. I scroll down to the good part, "How to clean keyboard after removing keys." Jackpot.

I turn off the computer, unplug it and take out the battery. I'm really not looking to be electrocuted, especially with my roommate in L.A. and no one around to hear me scream... After I flip it back over, I start scanning for keys that are basically unused, something that if I can't for some reason reattach, it's not the end of the world. It's like using whatever new cleaning product on a spot behind the door. It's the guinea pig. The test subject, as it were.

Behold, the "Application Key." I didn't even know that's what it was called, I had to look it up. Anyway, I had read that the best way to get the little buggers off was to use a small screwdriver. Enter, my finger.

So I start working at it and realize that there are these two little plastic thingies that toggle together, almost like a seesaw, it's called the key retainer. (that website was useless, btw.) And it hooks in to the baseboard and the key top. Anyway, the key top just snaps off.

Awesome. This is easy. I can do this.

[Note to reader, next time I say that, slap me.]

I pull off the application key and lo and behold. Gross. There is so much crap on my keyboard! I'm appalled and decide it's time to really clean this sucker. I'm going to go row by row, pull off my keys and make it sparkle.

I pop the application key back on, and start with Q, W, E, R, T and Y. All come off and go back on with ease. And so I start with A, S, D, F, G and H. I get the first five off and on with no problem, and then there's H. It figures it should be H, because I then entered keyboard hell.

The key retainer came off with the H. Yeah, that's right. It came right off. Um. Oh. My. Gosh.

Insert panicked expletive here.

And so I pull off Y, to make space, and start trying to slide the retainer back into it's four metal prong-like holders.

It will not go.

I try, and I try and I try. I can get the bottom, or the two prongs closest to me to go in, but the top prong has some how expanded since leaving its home. It's a lot like that scene from Friends when Ross wears the leather pants and he goes to the bathroom, takes them off, and his legs swell and he can't get them back on.... but yeah, this is plastic. This should work. But no.

So, I take the little retainer apart. Bad idea. Ten minutes later and I finally get it back together. And I try to shove it in again. And again and again.

You get to a point, where you begin to understand that trying is just not going to work anymore.

At this point I'm frantic. I have broken my keyboard. It will not be clean. It will not be sparkly. It will not be not-sticky. If I can't use my H key. It does not matter.

And so. Resigned to the fact that I'm just going to have to make due, I shove the bottom prongs into their holders and hold my breath as I snap the H back into place. It goes. Breath out. I turn the computer on, and the H works. It now sits at a jaunty tilt and my finger catches on it occasionally on the way back up. But, it works, and that's really all that matters right now.

And so, children, the moral of story is this: If your keyboard works, and it's just a little sticky, it's OK. Leave it alone. Or you'll end up with a tilted H key like me and a computer keyboard that is still sticky.

remember to breath

2009-04-16T11:49:00.005-04:00

We're getting down to the wire. Roughly 40 days and counting until the end. Marathoners call it hitting the wall -- you just don't want to go anymore, but you have to. You have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and just keep running.

I've hit the wall. Hard. What's that saying: Senioritis, we're too lazy to find a cure.

Yeah. But see, I don't have the luxury of doing nothing. I have a To Do list the length of Route 40 just for things to finish for school alone, forget finding a job, and planning to move home.

I've been taking a yoga class, and one of the things our professor always tell us is to remember to breath. I've started having to tell myself to breath in and out during my daily activities.

I don't think I've ever been so happy and yet so terrified for something to come to an end.

accomplishment

2009-03-31T20:57:00.002-04:00

I finally finished my online portfolio. I'm incredibly proud of it.

Take a look!

learning to be alone

2009-03-27T14:53:00.007-04:00

"Will you be OK?" she asked as I left their apartment to go to my own empty one.

"Oh yeah, I'll be fine," I responded, I know I can be alone and be OK.

I'm not sure why, but I used to hate being alone. I would always call someone, anyone, to avoid the silence of solitude. I'm an extrovert by nature, conversation and people keep me going. I'll always feel happier with others than without them, but since going to college, I've learned the value of spending time with myself and my thoughts.

I've encountered an odd situation this week -- every single person who I would consider a good friend or acquaintance at Elon, who I would feel willing to call to spend time with, is away on spring break. I came back early from our week at the beach because my best friend here had to be back to present at a conference in Georgia. Her roommates, my other great friends, are away at a concert in the southern part of the state. My friend Lesley is in Maryland. Mandy and Olivia, Florida. My roommate, on a cruise in the Caribbean. And the list goes on, leaving me to myself. Alone.

Someone asked me a few days ago, what's one thing outside of your coursework that you have learned while at school? My response: I've learned to love being alone. I think when you spend 24 hours a day in a dorm for two years, then 4 months in a tiny flat with 7 other women, then in a busy apartment building, in a newspaper office... when you're constantly surrounded by people, even the most extraordinary extrovert would find themselves seeking some silence.

And so I've learned to value those hours when my roommate is at meetings. Or when I have to take that 15 minute walk across campus to work. Or when no one is free to go grocery shopping.

I think it all really started when I was in London. I liked to take walks around the city by myself. Don't worry, it was only ever during the day. But I found that I would walk slower, thinking about the things I was seeing, the people I was passing, the smells I was smelling. I wasn't distracted by someone asking me about my internship, or complaining about a paper to be written for our class. I could take it all in. I could absorb.

I've learned that my mind can be stimulated by the world itself, without others, that thoughts themselves can be loud enough. And that it's OK to enjoy moments of calm or evenings filled not by the voices of others, but by the tapping of my fingers on my computer keys or the scribblings of a pen on paper.

Maybe it's all part of growing up, knowing that you can survive the quiet. But not only survive it, learn to revel in it.

friends in action

2009-03-15T14:29:00.009-04:00

My girlfriends took me out last night for my birthday. We went to a new restaurant in Elon called 116 Oak, which if you live in the area, is fabulous, affordable and has a great atmosphere. Thanks girls, you are some of the sweetest, most beautiful and intelligent women I know. I love you all very much. A few friends weren't able to make it because of geographical issues, and they were heartily missed. You know who you are.

It's been a crazy year for me, filled with lots of happiness, sadness, changes and constants. The year to come won't be any different, but I feel so lucky to have people who I love, who love me, who I know will be there through it all.

(L to R) Kiersten, Ashley, Kim, Colleen, me, Christen and Lesley. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm short, I was the only one in flats other than Colleen, but she's 5'11" anyway...

I'd like to just say that in watch us below, none of us had consumed more than a glass of wine -- this is just how we roll. Video care of Colleen.

argh.

2009-03-12T20:31:00.002-04:00

It's just been one of those weeks. Here's hoping that next week will be better.

changing hands.

2009-03-04T20:57:00.009-05:00

It was in a baggie in a box for more than 50 years.
Stars and stripes mingling with mothballs and cedar smells.
Covered by blankets and keepsakes, sweaters and nightgowns.
Forgotten at the bottom of the box.
She rescued the cloth, placing it in another box, this one with a window, so we could see the pride in the colors.
The cloth of a war long gone, for a man long dead.
It had sat draped on top of his box, covering his body,
that he bore to foreign lands to save us all.

Folded by warriors and into another's hands it had gone,
And then into the bag,
Into the box,
For more than 50 years.
Until we brought it out.
Unrolled, not unfurled.
To see the sun and feel the wind, but never again to blow in it.
We unrolled to count the holes and the stars,
48 stars in all, more holes.

Passed to another's hands and onto another box, covering another body
that was carried all over the earth.
Another warrior.
More lands seen by those closed eyes,
More stories told,
Wars fought,
Children loved,
Life lived.

It covered this body and then passed hands again,
Folded again in the spring warmth.
Folded with painstaking care and presented to a son, uncle, father, brother, grandpa.
48 stars in all, more holes.
To go onto a mantle, as far from a box as possible.
For how long?
Until another box is needed.
Or until the holes consume it.

bubbles everywhere.

2009-02-22T11:32:00.005-05:00

I'm always surprised by life's little quirks, that most of the time, you get exactly what you need when you really need it.

Today, it came in the form of bubbles.

I was sitting in my room, working on a proposal for a project I'm going to be working on for a design class, when all of a sudden:

"Hey, Bethany?" When something is wrong, it's always a question.

"Hey, Bethany," she said again, "I think we have a problem."

"What kind of problem," my 'mom' voice and instincts starting to kick in.

"There's something wrong with our dishwasher."

"OK, like what sort of something?"

"It's leaking."

I get up and walk out of my room, past the breakfast bar and around the corner into our kitchen where I'm confronted with bubbles. Lots of bubbles. I launch into action. I quickly turn off the dishwasher, which as I stood there for 1/2 a second was churning out more and more suds. And then I open the door.

Bubbles. It was filled with bubbles.

And then, it happened. I laughed. Harder than I've laughed in about a week. You see, my grandfather died on Friday, and laughing has been exactly the opposite of what I've been doing since then. I looked at Colleen, standing, staring at the overflowing meringue that was our kitchen, I just couldn't help myself.

"Hey." When you're embarrassed, it's never a question.

"I'm sorry," I managed to blurt out between chuckles. "I promise you, I'm not laughing at you, just the way it looks, it's ridiculous. Everyone does this once. Did you use the dish detergent or dish soap?"

"Um..."

I reached into the cupboard and compared the bottles. "Did you use this one, or this one?" She pointed to the orange bottle, the dish soap, and it clicked for her.

We spent the next 15 minutes elbow deep in bubbles, laughing as we contorted our bodies so we could reach the back of the dishwasher. Cursing our neighbors who aren't awake at 11 a.m. on Sunday to lend us a mop, which of course, we've never needed in two years until the last three months we live together.

So we mopped and bailed with paper towels, sponges and dish rags, plastic bowls and "I'm 21 Today!" cups until the dishwasher was as empty as it could be. We started it again, putting all the dirty dishes back in, and not 10 minutes later did the problem begin again. We'll need another angle of attack -- Colleen's decided we should just let the bubbles subside and then wipe away the residue. We'll see, right?

My grandpa always said, if you can't laugh at yourself, then something's wrong. Something has been wrong the last few days, and laughter has really been limited. I think it was his way of reminding me that things are OK. That this is what he wanted. It's hard, but laughing helps. Bubbles help.

you are what you carry

2009-02-12T16:23:00.003-05:00

With every change in season, I dump out my purse, clean out all the random movie stubs, receipts, gum wrappers and spiral peppermint candies. It's a ritual I've had since I started carrying a purse, really, and I love the memories you uncover when doing it. More than that, I do it to purge any unnecessary weight that I might end up carrying around, because ladies, let's admit it, those things can get damn heavy! And isn't it always the way that you end up carrying other peoples (ahem, boys) baggage?

In my recent dump and ditch, I started thinking about what the things in my bag say about me. What are my "essentials," the things I always have on me? Other than the obvious keys, wallet and cell phone... Infer what you'd like, but here's my list:

Either Carmex or Burt's Bees chapstick -- I picked up my chapstick obsession from one of my best friends. He was never without a stick, and now, neither am I.
Mirror -- to avoid things stuck in the teeth, to hunt down stray, pokey eyelashes, look under cars (you laugh, but it's come in handy...) or in the off-chance I get stranded on a desert island, hail a passing search and rescue plane.
Pen -- I'm a journalist, 'nough said.
Mints -- because I have a constant fear of bad breath.
iPod -- even though I'm not one of those people who is always plugged in, I just like knowing it's there.
Lotion -- usually a travel size one, preferably with a slight fragrance to freshen up and soften my mits.
Camera -- Like I said, I'm a journalist. Also, it's a habit I picked up when I was in London, you never know when there'll be a photo opportunity.
Flash drive -- I started carrying one of these when I was an intern at a newspaper in Graham. I liked knowing that I wouldn't have to email things to myself every night if I wanted to continue working. And, it always has things like my resume stored away in a file, just in case.

That's about it for my bag. I know guys have pocket equivalents for my treasure trove. I had a friend who at the end of the day would take off his pants to sleep, but leaving the stuff in his pockets. It's safe there, he always said. The next morning, would put on different pants but just scoop out all the stuff from his dirty pants' pockets and transfer it all to the fresh pair of pants.

So my question to you, dear readers, what do you haul around?

i hate winnepeg

2009-02-10T10:14:00.010-05:00

I've recently rekindled a friendship with an ex-boyfriend. He was a very big part of my life for about four years, he was my everything. He was with me through many firsts, through most of college and was my best friend through ups and downs and everything in between.

When things dissolved between us, as things eventually do with high school to college romances, there was a void in my life that I couldn't fill. I had a new guy, a new life and a new perspective, but I missed him. When we were both finally to a point where our friendship could resume, I think both of us felt that troublesome void finally ebb, finally feel a little less empty. He's my friend again, and I'm so very glad he's in my life.

But this isn't really about him specifically, well it is, but isn't at the same time. You see, he was always really into music. Always providing me with new material for my auditory discoveries. He's since changed a little, as we all do, and the relationship is a little reversed now. He taught me to love music, to want to hear more, to find more that I loved -- never question, just enjoy.

But a few weeks ago, he gave me the name of a song, One Great City! by a band called the Weakerthans. I pulled up YouTube to listen, and I was surprised when I knew the song. I'd heard it before. Another guy, one not too long ago, had played it for me on his guitar. I'd lay there on his couch listening, quietly smiling at how cute he was, and how odd the lyrics were. The song was one I hadn't known, and I had asked who it was by, fully intending to look it up when I'd left and gone back to my other life, hundreds of miles away from him.

As I sat at my computer, all of a sudden my worlds collided, and I realized in that moment, listening to this beautifully written song about the monotony of life and the artful grace in its quirks, that everything is connected. That no matter how much I like to think I know myself, things like this moment throw me for a loop. I realized that everything builds on everything else, that as much control as I think I have -- there's another factor. These men were connected, not only through a love of this song, (I've always had a "type," and sometimes it's more obvious than others...) but through me and who I am.

I've always been one to believe that every person who comes into your life leaves a mark and changes you. It may not be a profound change, but it's there.

It amazes me how music, like smells, are incredible memory triggers. Even now as I write this, I'm listening to this song, singing along to its lyrics about a grungy city in Canada, I'm transported briefly to his couch in Massachusetts, then memories start to mingle, I'm in Iowa, in the car surrounded by snow. In the field under the tree...

the saga continues

2009-02-06T09:45:00.002-05:00

"Have a seat," they always say, "and let us take a look at what we've got going on here."

They lean the chair back and tell you to open wide. They stick the little mirrored circle in your mouth to take a closer look. They're faces scrunch as they peer into an abyss littered with white stalactites.

"Hmm, OK, well we've got a little problem here."

That's the way it has always seemed to go for me. Genetics blessed me with a pretty rotten set of teeth. They're not actually rotten, just in the wrong places. I've been to orthodontists, dentists and oral surgeons since I was about 11 years old. And it hasn't ended yet.

My tally: Two rounds of braces totaling 5 years, 13 tooth extractions including both front teeth and one adult tooth, and a round of oral surgery to expose a tooth on its side so it could be righted by braces. Two years from now, we'll be able to add two additional extractions, another set of braces and another bout of oral surgery to that list.

I'm not complaining, well, maybe I am a little bit, but I just find it completely insane that some kids never even wear braces and I've dealt with all this. Perhaps orthodontia needs kids like me to keep them in business. For every braceless face, there's the girl with a lifetime subscription.

I'm currently facing another four months of braces at the fabulous age of 22. These orthodontic nightmares will most likely accompany me through my job search and probably into the work place. I'm not exactly vain, sure I wax my eyebrows and I've had my nails done, but I like to look nice, and I think first impressions are really important. I look somewhere between 16 and 18 anyway, add braces and I'm done for.

But it's inevitable. It has to be done. As I was whining to my friend yesterday he told me, take a few days, be pissed off about it and then move on. He's always been good at stuff like that -- for the most part he knows how to let things slide off of him. I don't see him wearing braces at 22, but you know.

So here they come. Ready or not. The self-esteem will probably take a momentary hit, but I'm pretty sure this is just another lesson in endurance. It's about learning to live with what's put in front of me. I've been thinking a lot about fate recently -- chock it up to the fact that I'm graduating, but I actually think about it a lot. Maybe we're meant to endure certain hardships, they help us grow, they help us learn, they shape who we are.

I know, I know. They're just braces. But to me, they're a little more than that. I know it could always be worse. I know that, believe me, I know that. But I can't help but feel a little duped by my gene pool. To me, they're just another notch on a time line of annoyance in a mouth that's always been a problem. The saga continues.

first of the lasts

2009-02-03T17:06:00.003-05:00

Since I can remember, the first day of school has always been accompanied with excitement and a little anxiety -- Will my teacher be nice? Will I know people in my class? What if I forget my schedule or get lost?

But this first day of school is particularly jarring: Tomorrow is the last first day of school I will ever have.

I love school, I always have. I'm a good student, call me a priss, a goody-goody, whatever. But I like to learn. I like the process of school, I like the adrenaline you get when you take a test, and then again when it's being handed back by the teacher. I like going home and talking about the things you learned, the things that blow your mind because you could have never imagined that they were true. I like buying school supplies, I love the smell of fresh notebook paper and I think I'm vaguely obsessive when it comes to buying day planners.

But never again. Not unless I go to grad school, which won't be happening any time soon. And not until my children, should I have them, pack up their backpacks and head to school will that first day of class be important again.

I've been trying not to think a lot about the number of lasts that are about to start cascading down on my life. It seems so incredible that I'm here, finally, staring at only four months left in a place I've called home for four years. A place where I've both found and lost any number of things, clothing, friends, love, my sense of self.

I often like to think about the road not taken, about the way things could have ended up but didn't. What if I had gone to Boston University like I so desperately wanted to? What if I had never met Olivia, Mandy, Ryan, Bryan, Colleen, Kiersten and all of the other people I see as so necessary to my life, that I love so deeply. What if I had chosen differently?

One thing is for sure, regardless of where I was, I'd probably still be feeling this same ache, knowing that goodbyes are coming. Lasts are inevitable. But so are beginnings. I've never been good with change -- McKenzie always says we're ducks in a row kind of girls -- we like everything in order. I like to know where I'm going, how I'm going to get there and what it'll look like when I finally arrive. But life's not like that. I don't know where I'm going, I don't know what I'm doing. And it's scary. But I sort of like it.

My professor over this past winter term (my last winter term) told us every so often to buckle our seatbelts, grab the oxygen if needed and prepare for a bumpy ride.

It's going to be a bumpy few months, but I think it's going to be ride of a lifetime.

...Anyone know where I can get an oxygen tank to have on hand?

a blog of a different color

2009-01-25T18:08:00.003-05:00

So if you're a regular viewer, you'll notice a change in color. I decided to shake things up a bit, change the design of the page -- let me know how you like it.

The original photo was taken by my dear friend Alex Neff during a photo shoot last summer for her portfolio.

Thanks for all your support of the years. Please keep reading!

b.

just wow.

2009-01-20T21:01:00.000-05:00

I wish I could say something original and profound. But I can't think of anything that hasn't been said already to describe the warmth I felt sitting on my couch, watching snow fall out my window, listening to Barack Obama become president.

I'm hopeful for tomorrow. I feel proud. I feel excited.

As I looked at the sea of heads on television that stretched for miles, I was overcome. I watched as millions of people, like me, welled up with tears in their eyes at the enormity and beauty of the history unfolding in front of our eyes. The thought that I couldn't shake: Only in America.

So yeah, wow. Just wow.

That's all for now.

circles

2009-01-08T09:35:00.002-05:00

I really like circles.

I can't explain why, but I just really like them. I like the fluidity and the motion of their shape, and I like the symbolism of the never-ending form. I really like circles.

Since I'm a writer and an artist, I find myself thinking about things like circles. It sounds really strange, but I can't help it.

I've been taking yoga classes, which are helping me ground myself in my thoughts and my feelings -- discovering and understanding the way that my body moves and the way that we often think: in circles. An idea will pop into your head, you think on it, then move on to the next thing, then to the next thing, and then to the next thing. But then it dawns on you -- I've forgotten where I started. And you go back. You complete the circle, using the the things that you've thought in the interim as a prompt, a way to more fully understand the first thing.

When you learn to draw a person, most of us learned the circle method. We are, according to elementary art principles, just a bunch of circles. Sometimes ovals, but circles stacked and connected to create our form.

My grandfather has been very ill recently. He has congestive heart failure and was placed in a hospice facility about a week ago. I was telling someone about it and they said to me, not indignantly, but actually rather surprised, that I seem really very OK with it all. I'm not, actually, OK with everything, but the more I've thought about this, the more I'm beginning to accept that this is all just part of the circle. I hate the cliche -- the circle of life -- but I think, like all cliches, it exists because there is something of a fragment of truth to its meaning: You're born, you live, you die. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We're not meant to stick around forever, and I find something strangely comforting knowing that we live and die because we are meant to, not as some universal vengeance being taken on the living. Death is hard on the living, I've said that before, but mostly because it forces us to confront our own mortality, which I'm not going to lie, is absolutely terrifying. But why? Why is it so scary for us if that's what we're meant to do eventually? Maybe because living is the only thing we know how to do. These are all still thoughts in process... I'd like to know what you all think too.

But circles. Layers upon layers of circles. Life is about circles, days, weeks, months, years. The organization appeals to me and comforts my sensibilities. Such big ideas for a Thursday morning...

addiction

2008-12-14T12:07:00.003-05:00

I've been called one before, but I did not, until today, realize just how big of an email-addict I am.

I discovered this little thing on bottom right corner of the Elon email page that, if you click on it, allows you to observe the number of times you've visited the Web site in the past. On my computer, which I've had since the spring of my freshman year, I have visited the Elon email web page 2,549 times.

Yes. And that's only on my computer. Can you imagine the countless number of times I've visited on the myriad of other computers I work with on a day to day basis? The numbers are staggering.

Hello, my name is Bethany...

paper towels

2008-12-07T17:49:00.008-05:00

Last night I was reminded of this story, and I just wanted to share:

We roadtripped for 10 days. We drove for more than 3,000 miles, from North Carolina, to Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and back. Ten days in the car, just the two of us. We did a lot of talking, even more singing and we developed a case of kleptomania.

I've always been one to take the soaps and shampoo, pens and lotions from hotel rooms. I would never take towels or things of real value, but for some reason, I've forever felt entitled to the things that they would replace anyway if I hadn't taken them -- might as well put it to good use, I say. Waste not, want not, I say. He made fun of me a little that first morning in the hotel when I stuffed the lotion into my purse.

But then we went to the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, just to take a look at the ducks. The hotel is gorgeous, mission style furniture, stained glass, dark wood, marble floors and white flower arrangements. We each went to the bathroom. They're beautiful. Granite countertops, gold fixtures and these glorious luxury paper towels. We each walked out with three. They went promptly into the glove box. Only to be used in emergencies. These things are way too nice for just runny noses and random McDonald's spills. These are our special towels. And so begins our obsession.

Further into our trip, we're in Charleston. We stop to pee in a hotel after a day wandering around what has become one of our favorite cities. We come out of the bathroom, and walk out of the hotel. He takes my hand as we cross the street, walking his fingers up my right arm to my purse. Finding the zipper, he opens the bag and slyly shoves luxury hotel bathroom towels into my purse. "Who are you?" I ask. I've turned him into a towel snatcher.

Our trip ended and we'd filled the glove box with towels. Memorabilia from the multiplicity of nice hotels we'd peed in, but never slept at.

Two months later, we're in Boston saying goodbye. We had walked all day, through the public gardens and the common, lunch in Fanuiel Hall, dinner on Newbury Street and now it was time to pee. We stopped at a hotel a few blocks from Fenway. It was beautiful.

Marble. Dark-stained hardwood. Flower arrangements larger than the wingback chairs in my parents' house. The kind of place with nice paper towels.

I smile to the doorman as we walk by. He knows our purpose, but doesn't hesitate. We're two good looking 20-somethings, harmless and handsome. Holding hands as we walk in. We're blending. We're fitting in. We belong here. Hell, we go to Elon, half of my 9:25 a.m. Media History class has probably stayed here, so who's to say we couldn't be guests?

The bathroom is spectacular as I expected. I pee, walk to the beautiful Corian countertop to wash my hands. And there they are. The lux towels. They're perfect, thick paper towels that are so nice they feel like cloth. They're Peabody towels, but from Boston. I should grab some. No. No. I shouldn't do it. I can't, we've moved passed our spring break kleptomania.

After some mental sommersaults, I walk out of the bathroom empty handed. He takes my hand and we walk back out, fitting in as before, past the doorman and on to the street.

"Did you take the towels?" I asked once we were about half a block down the street.

"What? Of course not," he turns, his smile lighting up as he reaches to the big pocket on his khaki cargo shorts, which now, I notice, is bulging with four paper towels.

in the end it was the twinkies

2008-12-02T19:46:00.006-05:00

I've been reading some pretty heavy philosophy for my methodologies in art history class. This week we're focusing on Martin Heidegger's The Origin of the Work of Art. Basically, Heidegger claims that the essence of a thing, especially and specifically a thing that works or produces some sort of good for the communal being (he was a Marxist...), lies in its ability to do that work. It is its true self when it is performing the function it was meant to perform. His example: a pair of peasant's (again, Marxist) shoes.

There are problems with his interpretation, the biggest according to one critic, being that the shoes he was inspired by, a painting by Van Gogh, are actually not peasant's shoes, they were Van Gogh's own shoes. To this one critic, the essence of the shoe lies in the fact that they aren't anyone else's shoes but Van Gogh and that is precisely why he chose to paint them. They were his and they represented him.

So I started thinking about my shoes. Bare with me here, there is a point, I promise. I started thinking about my shoes and what they say about me. I have lots of shoes, as do a lot of women, and some men, I suppose. And they all serve different purposes. Some are play shoes, the ones that I wear when we go out dancing or to the bar. I have dressy shoes, ones that I wear when I have to look all grown up and professional. I have comfy shoes, athletic shoes, and practical shoes. Slippers, pumps, flats, peep toes, red, brown, black (lots of black), blue, pink (yes, my sneakers are pink)... etc., etc., and the list goes on. One hundred years from now, when an archeologist uncovers my shoes, how in the world will they know who I am?

To Van Gogh, the shoes made the man, so to speak. He had probably only one or two pair, and they, like the lines on his face, bore the imprints of the miles he'd walked, the mud he'd schlepped through and the doormats he'd crossed. They probably had splats of paint, and maybe drops of blood from when he cut off his ear... only kidding, sort of. But Van Gogh truly believed that we could read a pair of shoes like a book -- the shoes maybe didn't make the man, but they were inexorable. You cannot have the pair of shoes be that pair of shoes without that man, and a man can't get very far (without lots of glass and prickly things in his feet) without the shoes.

Again, I swear I have a point. So I started thinking about my shoes again and my legacy. I've done this before, when I was holed up in the British Library about two years ago. Our consumerism has left us with dozens of pairs of shoes, tons of clothing, jewelry, CDs, DVDs. You name it, we have it in droves. What will archaeologists say about us? Because we're so forward-looking (heh, sure), theorists have already started predicting what will kill us all in the end and historians have already started anticipating how some of us will be remembered. But what about the every day people? What about you and me? How will what we leave behind shape how we're remembered?

There certainly isn't an answer, and I suppose there really wasn't a point other than to ask these questions. I would hope that some of the legacy will be good -- we managed to create a society where equality and justice, honesty and truth (hey, I can dream) were key doctrines. It'll probably be something along the lines of the indestructibility of Twinkies.

I can see it now, 150 years post-Armageddon...

Archaeologist 1: "Floyd, I just found something."
Archaeologist 2: "What is it, Vanessa?"
A1: "It's a strange yellow cylinder wrapped in plastic; it seems to have once been edible?"
A2 unwraps said shrink wrap and pops said yellow cylinder into his mouth: "Still is!"

hovering

2008-11-20T09:29:00.004-05:00

Lately I've had this very odd sensation that I'm sort of floating, in a way, hovering around something big, but I can't quite get there. I know it has to do with the time of year, and the fact that I'm going to be seriously looking for jobs soon. But I have a sense of dullness that I can't quite shake. I feel like I should be more nervous about finding a job, more anxious about the fact that I have no clue where I'll be in six months, but over the last few weeks, I've been so focused on my life in the present, that the future hasn't really caught up with me yet.

That's good, right? I've been saying forever that my goal was to live more in the now, and not worry about what's coming and where I'm going. I've always been a strident planner, and incredible organizer, yet right now I feel like there's so much on my plate that needs to be organized and planned in addition to all the other stuff going on in my life, something had to give, and it was the future.

There have been multiple instances in the last few days where this Future has been poking my shoulder, creeping into my daily life as a reminder of its imminence. I delivered a package yesterday for one of the women at University Relations, it was a set of proofs for the program for the Spring Honors Convocation. That's the thing they hold in April to honor all the students who've performed well -- seniors wear their caps and gowns. Holy crap. And yet, it seems so unreal right now, so completely foreign and far away. Denial? Maybe. Survivalist instinct? Probably more likely.

I think my mind is compartmentalizing because I know that if I start worrying about it now, I'll fall apart. I have no plan. I have no job, not a lot of money and at this point no clue as to where I'll be living in six months. But saying that doesn't freak me out as much as it should right now because it's still six months away. A lot happens in a week for me, six months is a lifetime at this point.

That being said, check back with me after Christmas. It'll be a different story I'm sure.

panorama ding dong

2008-11-11T18:27:00.005-05:00

A life update will come soon, but as I'm in the middle of some reading and still have about 50 pages to go tonight, that can't happen now.

But, as I was doing this reading for my Methodologies in Art History class, I stumbled upon this really cool website when I looked up a piece of contemporary art that was being described.

It's called gigapan. It takes high resolution images, especially panoramas, and allows you to zoom in, zoom out and view different sections of the image in seriously high definition. Totally cool.

This easily distracted me for 15 minutes.

yes we can.

2008-11-05T12:44:00.003-05:00

Standing on the edge of history, I'm brought to my knees with tears in my eyes by the power of the unified voice of the people. Today, I am so proud to be an American. I am so proud to have voted in this historic election and to have been accompanied by one of the highest voter turnouts in history. I am proud to say that our democracy works. I am proud to say that for the first time in its nearly 300-year history, the United States has broken tradition in the search for change and hope and has spoken its mind in the favor of a new way of looking at the world, a way that ceases to recognize strength and wisdom, leadership and truth based on the color of skin.

I am proud to align myself with a party that has never ceased to fight for the equality and good of all people. But it is in the following days, weeks, months and years that we as Americans must look to ourselves to see past the colors red and blue and on to the bigger issues that we're facing. Both candidates recognize we are only as strong as we are united. Party politics is petty and divisive, and now is a time for unity and change.

"Where we breathe we hope. Yes, we can."

check out The Pendulum coverage

peaches

2008-11-02T20:29:00.024-05:00

I spent the weekend in Atlanta with the freshmen Journalism and Communications Fellows. It was a blast. I made some new friends, and some excellent contacts and had a great time visiting a new city.

From Thursday to Saturday we were a whirlwind of nice clothes, clicky heels, notebooks and questions. I was placed with the strategic communications (PR) and print journalism group. We went to Atlanta Magazine (met the group at CNN briefly, see below), the Weather Channel, Weber Shandwick (the PR firm that holds the accounts for the got milk? campaign and Coca Cola), and Turner Field where the Braves play. I've posted some pictures below.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to visit the High Museum. It'll just give me another reason to go back to Atlanta.

In other big news -- The Pendulum was just awarded third place in the Pacemaker awards competition by the Associate Collegiate Press for our online election coverage package, and was given Best of Show for our Oct. 29, 2008 issue. This is huge, these awards are considered the Pulitzer Prizes of collegiate journalism. I'm so proud!

OK, on to the photos:
This is the view from my hotel window. We stayed in the Marriot Marquis, it was a beautiful hotel, the interior architecture is fabulous. I had my own room, care of Elon, and enjoyed a king-sized bet to myself.

This is the whole group in front of the CNN sign in Atlanta. Half the group went to the studio, then the rest of us met up with them for a photo-op. (I'm the one in the white shirt and brown pants.)

This is the view of Turner Field from the press box. We were taken on a tour of the press box and video production booth and then onto the field itself.

This is all of us in the dugout. (Green skirt, front row.)

And that's me, in the dugout feeling fully major league

when it rained on tuesdays

2008-10-28T23:11:00.007-04:00

Today was the first Tuesday this semester that it has not rained. It has consistently rained every Tuesday since the first day of classes. Invariably, the day after every grueling Monday production night, the zombie day after has been met by gray skies and at least a chance of showers, if not a fully functional downpour.

But not today. Today wasn't particularly dreary at all. It was sunny, a little windy and crisp. Yesterday was, both personally and percipitatively (Is that a word?) miserable. Dreary inside, dreary outside.

I've been struggling lately with an overbooked schedule and an overworked mind. I like to be busy and I'm pretty good at organizing my time. But the past few days I've been in over my head. It all came to a head yesterday as I sat at 8 a.m. still working on finishing reading I'd abandoned at midnight from the night before, desperately trying to stay awake over my Cheerios. I realized as I looked at the little life rafts floating in my milk that if I didn't slow down, I'd be needing more than one Bethany-sized life raft to keep me from drowning.

The stress has passed -- today was the biggest day of the week for things to be finished. The rest of the week will be easier (and supposedly sunny also): I'm seeing Minus the Bear with Kiersten tomorrow night and then am heading down to Atlanta for the weekend with the Journalism and Communications Fellows. That's not exactly a holiday, but it will be a welcome change of scenery.

I often find it odd how one day can be so different from the last. It's cliche, but hindsight is completely 20/20. Historical perspective is absolutely everything. I think that's something I need to remember, when things look bad, just give it a little time and don't forget to carry the umbrella.

well done

2008-10-23T09:31:00.002-04:00

Speaking of duty, my cousin Cooper made the front page of the Washington Post today for his work in the Peace Corps in Mizque, Bolivia. He's been there for two years, working very very hard for the benefit of those he's grown to know and love there. He and the rest of the Peace Corps volunteers were evacuated from Bolivia a month ago and the program was dissolved. Cooper chose to return to Mizque to finish his work there. He'll be back to the United States in February, most likely, and I cannot wait to see him when he returns. I'm so proud of him and his dedication to the work he's done.

Well done, Coop. Well done.

Policy and Passions Collide in Bolivia

civic duty

2008-10-22T18:57:00.003-04:00

I voted in my first presidential election today. I filled in my absentee ballot, No. 2 pencil in hand as I ate my Cheerios. I voted for Board of Education, a bunch of constitutional amendments and my representative to Congress should I choose to live in Montgomery County again sometime soon.

I expected it to be a bigger deal, like all of a sudden there would be patriotic music that chimed in when I plopped it into the mailbox, or there would be little flags waiving behind me as I penciled in my bubbles. Not so much. Maybe in my head. But it's still significant, I think, that I did it. I took the time, and the 53 cents to cast my ballot and let my voice be heard.

On my way back from break yesterday, I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight, and I was eavesdropping on this girl's conversation with the guy next to her. I've owned up to eavesdropping before, people just fascinate me. I can't help it. But she was talking about how disgusted she was by politics and that's why she wasn't voting. She didn't feel any sort of loyalty to either major party candidate, and just didn't care. And then she launched into how she thought her vote wouldn't make a difference anyway, and how she was sick of all the problems in America. Now, let me be honest, I don't deign to claim that I'm so idealistic to believe that my one liberal vote in a county that historically always goes blue makes that great of a splash. But, I do think that it's important to exercise my duty as a citizen in a democratic society.

I could rant and rave at this for a few hours and a multitude of pages. But it frustrates me that part of her argument dealt with how sick of America she was and how tired she was of politics as usual. I understand this. I get a little weary of listening to the candidates sling mud and bad-mouth each other. Studies have proven that this is the quickest way to reduce voter turnout. If this girl is so sick of America and business as usual, then I don't think she has any excuse not to vote. Anyone who says politics doesn't affect them is badly informed. What happens in Washington touches everyone. Apathy itself is a political choice, but no one is truly apathetic.

Personally -- if you don't vote, you don't get to complain. Don't give up your opportunity not only to declare yourself and make a difference, but to give yourself the right to say, hey, I didn't like that guy, but we'll get it next time.

Oh, and here's the other thing: It's free. In an economy this bad, anything free is basically awesome. So why wouldn't you do it?

coverage

2008-10-21T16:12:00.005-04:00

Hey everyone, sorry I didn't get on this sooner. But check out the Sarah Palin coverage by The Pendulum by visiting our Web site: www.elon.edu/pendulum

I compiled the video with the interviews with supporters/dissenters. As well as some of the video of the protester being carried away by police.

Oh, and I also interviewed D.L. Hughley who was here promoting his new show on CNN. It was totally on the fly, and he had cameras with him. They turned the cameras on me as I conducted the impromptu interview, so it's possible that I might be on the show ... we'll have to see!

Anyway, a proper update is necessary at some point. I had a really great fall break ... now back to the grindstone. Luckily there's only 3 weeks until I get to see John again ... makes it easier, not a whole lot, but a little.

More soon, I promise.

playing with the big boys/girls

2008-10-15T09:40:00.006-04:00

[EDIT]
Press credentials were revoked by the campaign about an hour or two after I posted this. They cut the press in half, essentially, for the university. Even University Relations got cut -- just goes to show how little the campaign respects the venue they're using for their stage. I'll still be reporting from the field, but I won't have any special bling or badges. C'est la vie.

I just got my clear for a media credential for the Sarah Palin rally that's taking place on campus tomorrow afternoon. As much as I cannot stand her political stance on basically everything. I'm super super excited about this.

This is the second time I will have been credentialed as an official member of the media during this campaign, and I have to say, it's pretty sweet. You get the best views of everything and you get to play with the big boys. For the Bill Clinton rally we took serious pride in the fact that we got to the podium first and when Fox News 8 tried to squeeze us out, we held our ground with our tiny tripods against their mongo daddy cameras. We may be little, but we pack a punch, and we know not to move for anyone.

I'm going to be on the floor for this one, I'll be among the audience taking still photos of participants and doing reaction interviews to the size of the crowd and stuff like that. The rally starts at 3. I'll be there at noon. That is the one bummer about being a member of the media -- you have to be early. It's a whole lot of hurry-up and wait. But it's an incredible high to stand with the media, the only group of people at a rally who aren't clapping, cheering or jeering. We're not allowed to, and we're working, pens scribbling, laptop keys clicking, cameras rolling and shutters blinking. It's exhilarating. And I'm so excited.

I'll report back with the coverage of the rally after tomorrow. Ryan, I'll try my best to get the photo you asked for ... but no guarantees.

To see what we did for the Bill Clinton rally for Hillary in April, check out The Pendulum Web site mini site.

looking back

2008-10-03T12:06:00.010-04:00

I was reading one of my friend Bryan's blog entries today, it's about memory and change. And it got me thinking about how different my life is from a year ago. So much has changed, so much growth. It got me thinking about the fluidity of life, and whether or not this supposedly linear idea of time is truly true at all.

Bryan's blog entry (I suggest you read his blog in its entirety, because it's awesome) was about memories from a year ago, it was about change and love and how we remember things. Perhaps it's because I'm in phase of life where things are about to change big time, but I've been thinking a lot about people, relationships and life in general a lot lately.

At this time last year, to the day, my grandmother died. That feels like a lifetime ago, but I still remember details of my brother and I walking out of the wake, him ready to be in tears, but already at 13 unable to shed them because he wanted to be a man for Mama. I still remember talking to Nick on the phone, crying and feeling like he didn't understand, and holding my cousin Elsie, 2 years old at the time, and wanting to cry for her because she will never know our perfect grandmother. Perhaps sadness is something we try to distance ourselves from more because it's so painful, but I haven't thought of these memories for a whole year. I've put them away because they're sad, because even as I write them I start to cry.

I wrote a while ago that I don't like to relive the bad, that I hang on to it but choose not to revisit those things that bring back anger, frustration and bitterness. But as I dig back into the memories of Grandma's death, I realized that there's a lot of catharsis in coming back to things that hurt. There's a lot of wisdom in perspective. So maybe it's not so bad after all.

A year later, my life has taken a few turns. I've had a few guys, a few big decisions and a new direction for my career goals.

Most people measure a year from January to January, but why not measure from October to October? Or big decision to big decision? This year has been a year of change for me, and a year of learning to trust myself and take for myself what I want. I've always thought of myself as one who only likes to move forward, but more and more I'm starting to see that looking backward has it's importance too.

life is beautiful, swanson

2008-09-25T11:01:00.006-04:00

My senior year of high school I had an amazing teacher for an ancient Mediterranean civilizations class and Medieval history. His name was Mr. Baxter. A tall, heavy-set black man, his voice boomed when he called us by our last names. His podium was painted with camouflage and he had a riding crop that he'd use to emphasize points about cathedral building, Piltdown Man and Gregorian chants.

His classroom ceiling was covered with flags, his walls covered in maps and images of his travels. Some how he'd managed to get framed paintings to hang on the cinder blocks. You were always "Private," or "Comrade Swanson," or just "Swanson." No one had a first name. And everyone loved him.

Most classes in high school are fairly forgettable, you may remember the teacher, you may not. And most of the time, you definitely don't remember what you learned. I have about four teachers from high school whose lessons have stuck with me, whose voices I can still hear in my head and whose mentoring I pray I never forget. Baxter's voice is in my head in certain instances when I'm doing certain things, when I have to recall random European historical facts. But I hear it most of all when I wear a certain sweatshirt.

I'm wearing that sweatshirt today. It's light weight, so only for certain weather. Today seemed right, I guess.

It's funny how things just dawn on you. You forget about them until all of a sudden it makes its rounds in your brain and comes back.

My sweatshirt is silk-screened and it says "Life is beautiful," on the front.

In my head I can see myself. I am 18 years old, standing next to his desk about to ask about a paper. I can see him look at me, directly in the eyes, and say in his clear but weathered voice, "Life is beautiful, Swanson."

And then he smiled that smile that stretched from ear to ear, he always knew when he was being profound and knew that you knew it too.

I think few of us ever get to meet someone who is truly wise. He was wise. And he was right, for all the disaster and chaos that prevails most of the the time, through all that, life is beautiful.

all hail the comma!

2008-09-24T13:32:00.005-04:00

Today is National Punctuation Day! And being the nerd that I am, I'm excited.

Kiersten met me at work today to hand me a card that had two cut out over-sized quotation marks and read: Happy National Punctuation Day! My friends know me so well.

In honor of National Punctuation Day, here's a clip of Dean Martin and Victor Borge doing a bit about verbalized punctuation. It's cute, it's about punctuation, and you just have to love Dean Martin's face as he's trying to mimic the sounds in the beginning, and then they just dissolve into hysterics as it progresses.

It's a classic. And you can be assured that "Oxford Comma," by Vampire Weekend will be on heavy rotation today.

writing down the bones

2008-09-21T10:03:00.007-04:00

More than once in my life I've been told that when I'm having a problem, I should write about it. Journaling has always been cathartic to me, but I realized recently after talking to other people about their journaling habits, that I only write for myself (read: in a tiny hand-written journal that no one reads) when I'm upset or going through something that's causing me anxiety or stress.

I rarely, if ever, write for myself when I'm happy.

As a result, I have journal upon journal full of angst, sadness and in some cases, anger. These journals contain the bones of bad relationships, uncomfortable situations, awkward encounters and ugly moments. They harbor all the yuck. All the icky in my life.

I'm naturally a worrier. Even when things are going well for me, I worry. I look ahead with that strange mom-complex that women tend to have and I see the worst. I'm working on it. Trust me. And journaling helps.

McKenzie and I were talking yesterday about what should be done to or with old journals. She rereads hers. She likes to go back through and re-experience with new perspective. Her mom, she said, burns old journals to release their contents back into the world. I love the cycle of it, and the karmic nature of that approach. But I do neither. I cannot bring myself to re-experience what I've written, and I cannot bring myself to part with it at the same time. Having that grave for the bones, for me, something I know is there, but don't have to revisit if I can't, serves as a reminder of the memories the books hold. I don't have to dig them up to know what they are.

I haven't really been journaling for myself lately, and that's generally a good sign. But I think I'm going to start. McKenzie used the metaphor of doctors: People only go to the doctor's when they're sick, she said, but sometimes a check up when you're healthy, to prevent the sickness, is really good.

I think she's right.

Avedon

2008-09-17T09:30:00.005-04:00

The Richard Avedon show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art where I worked this summer just finished its first week. It's been getting some great press, both national and international. I figured, since I spent most of my summer stuffing press packets for this show, I'd keep track of the press that's come out of it.

Here's a piece by the BBC with curator Paul Roth. He's explaining Avedon's legacy and his intent when taking the portraits. It ends with a view of the Obama portrait that was essentially one of his last. It's a really well done package, except that the background music is a little distracting.

Enjoy!

gulp

2008-09-09T09:21:00.009-04:00

It's striking to me how being a college student is essentially like being impoverished. The two are practically synonyms. Except that it's actually nothing like being impoverished, because most of us have a meal plan and all of us have a roof. So really, we're asset rich and penny poor. Or something like that.

I'm mentioning all of this because I had to turn down going to the Ben Folds concert because it was $50 a ticket. I just couldn't do it. Not since I haven't been paid since May. And not since I've seen him four times already. He's pretty fantastic in concert, probably one of the best I've ever seen. But I just couldn't do it, and neither could my equally impoverished friends.

I think college students have an odd outlook on money. Since we're not quite adults and for most of us, our parents foot the bill for the big stuff (car payment, tuition, room and board) our big purchases are frivolous things. My most recent big purchase was a $200 plane ticket. But $50 for Ben. Can't do it! Priorities...

I'm finding it hard to believe that in eight short months the big ticket purchases, the rent, the food, will all be mine. Insert sarcastic gleeful exclamation here.

We had a meeting for the senior class yesterday. It was all colored lights and spectacle -- the university and student government association's attempt at making graduating sound less scary. That was until the Registrar stood up and listed on his two hands the number of steps (there are eight) we are away from graduating. Two and two-thirds semesters, a few meetings with advisers, the registrar, and a $70 graduation fee. Um. What? Does someone want to explain to me where the last four years have gone?

After the registrar had thoroughly petrified us, our president, Leo Lambert, got up and announced that in eight short months, he'd be addressing us again as graduates. No amount of orange balloons, fake red carpet or flashing lights will make that sound less scary.

I've been saying for a while now that I'm ready to not be in school any more, and that's true. That's as true today as it was yesterday before the Nickelodeon-themed senior survival extravaganza. I think my anxiety comes less from my fear of going out into the world and "growing up" and more about the change associated with saying goodbye to friends and faculty members who've become my family. But I have a while, eight "short" months actually, to get used to the idea of turning the page to the next chapter.

Look out world, here I come, tentatively.

oh. my. gosh.

2008-09-07T17:59:00.003-04:00

Definitely peed my pants a little when I found out this was happening. And if I can't get tickets, I might die inside. I plan on buying two tickets. The second has been tentatively reserved for Olivia as her birthday present. If for some reason it turns out she cannot go, it will go to the highest bidder.

Ben Folds Five

good.

2008-09-05T11:43:00.004-04:00

That's how I feel right now. Basically about everything in my life. I feel good.

It's not really that often that that happens, to any one really. I've never had bad luck, per se, but I'm not particularly charmed or anything either. Right now, things are just pretty good.

I'm happy with my classes and projects. I'm happy with the paper and my job at University Relations. I'm happy with my romantic situation, which isn't ideal, due to a familiar mileage problem, but has potential. I'm happy with my friends. I'm happy with my family. And I'm happy with myself.

I hate to use the word comfortable, because I think that can sometimes suggest stagnancy, but after worrying for weeks about how weird and uncomfortable this year was going to be with out my best friends, I think it's actually OK that they're not here. I miss them terribly. Like, more than I can explain. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't lonely here without them. But I had an incredible night last night with some amazing, fairly new friends.

I'm not really one to make good, close friends easily. I make acquaintances and friends without any trouble -- I can talk to anyone, and I've always been proud of that. But I have a bit of a hard time really letting people in.

Last night, I think one of my "friends" passed into the realm of "really good friend." We spent the evening watching Project Runway (guilty pleasure, leave me alone...) and laughing about the UrbanDictionary.com definitions of fairly dirty sexual positions after her roommate came home from a human sexuality class with a list of colloquialisms. It was a cheerful night filled with mint chocolate cookies, jelly beans and multiple instances of the two of us and her two roommates laughing until tears fell. As I drove home at 11:30, my face hurt from laughing so hard.

I think it's nights like that that we all live for. We all cherish moments where you're truly happy and comfortable, where you simply exist without worry or fear of the future or the past. You just are.

I've had a few moments like that this semester already. I hope they don't stop.

fun splats!

2008-08-30T21:32:00.008-04:00

So I stumbled upon this Web site. It's called JacksonPollock.org. You get to be your own version of Jackson Pollock -- you know, the ink splatter painter guy. Click the mouse and the "paint" changes color.

I could sit and play with this for hours. Here's one of mine:

Happy drawing! :o)

icky

2008-08-27T15:00:00.003-04:00

What is that called when the weather matches your mood? I know there's a literary term for it, but alas, it's been a while since I've taken a true English class -- John? A little help? Regardless, it's basically been raining non-stop here in Elon for about 3 days. And not just the random little drizzly obnoxious rain, but the monsoon, you're going to get swept away kind. I wish a photo would capture the intensity of the rain as it falls outside my window right now. It's basically amazing.

Don't get me wrong, I love the rain. It's probably my favorite sort of weather pattern, followed closely by sun, and then an even closer third place, snow. I love the sound it makes in the gutters and the way it smells on the concrete of the parking lots and sidewalks. Rain smells different everywhere. Arizona rain smells different than Maryland rain. D.C. rain smells different than London rain. But like most things, I like it in moderation. This rain in particular seems to have coincided nicely with a marathon newspaper putting-out session.

Starting Monday, I believe I clocked a total 28 hours in the Pendulum office, designing, writing and perfecting Friday's edition. Usually, as you Elon readers know, the paper comes out on Wednesdays and production is just Monday nights. It's not unusual for us to be in the office from 5 p.m. to midnight most weeks. But this edition was a bit of a nightmare. Olivia, our fearless leader, was called away to Denver to be with her family during a time of sadness. I was left in charge. I don't mind being in charge. I'm good at bossing people around. I just got really overwhelmed with this one. I think because it was the first one back, and a double issue (two sections, due two different days) this one really worked me over.

So as it rained outside, dreary and sad, looking like 7 p.m. at 10 a.m., we worked away in the office, consuming insane amounts of Twizzlers, Sun Chips and homemade cupcakes. But it's done. We finished.

The rain just always seems to make things worse. It's like being sick at night. You always feel like you're going to die somewhere between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., until the sun comes out and you know you'll make it through.

Another lesson in endurance, I think. I have a feeling there'll be a lot of those this year...

whistling teapot

2008-08-24T13:07:00.002-04:00

My shower sounds like a whistling teapot. It sings. Not nicely, though. It's more of a shrill, constant, high E above middle C sort of sound. It's one of those showers where you turn on the water, and then pull up on the little knobby thing on the spout to start the shower flowing. Pull up all the way on this one, and it starts whining. Sort of like me? My old one didn't do this. Physical plant is getting a call tomorrow.

So, I was standing in the shower, listening to it sing its brain-numbing song, and I started to get mad. This isn't right! I kept thinking. This is so unfair! I was pissed. My old one didn't do this! How did I get stuck with this P.O.S.!? And then, because I wasn't paying attention, I got shampoo in my eye. Um, ouch!? I think it was the universe telling me to stop complaining and fix the problem. So I leaned over, and fiddling with the little knobby thing, I played with it, pushing it down and up and turning it until I could get the whistling to stop. I fixed it. At least for that shower. Physical plant is still getting a call.

I finished Rainer Marie Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet this morning. This series of letters is absolutely incredible. It's a philosophical text, so not appropriate for someone looking for a quick throw-away beach read. But it's amazing. If you're a writer, an artist, a philosopher or basically a human being, you should read this text. Rilke's writing is direct and and laden with advice, some I agree with and some I don't. As an artist and a writer, I was overtaken by the honesty and incite of this German poet. His thoughts on the necessity of solitude, art and creation, God, and love were not only universally relevant, but profound and beautiful. He was a poet after all.

One of the things he discusses is the necessity of struggle and pain. I've always believed, however sadistic it sounds, that pain is the most formidable education. But struggle falls right there as well. That whistling shower this morning, as petty as that is, was a struggle that I found I had to overcome. Every struggle forces growth and maturity. I know, I know. I'm reading way too far into a whistling shower, but bear with me... Or not. But it's about learning to take charge and believe in the struggle, as my adviser always says.

Rilke writes, "... it is clear that we must hold to the difficult; ... everything in Nature grows and defends itself according to its own character and is an individual in its own right, strives to be so at any cost and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to the difficult is a certainty that will not leave us; ... the fact that a thing is difficult must be one more reason for our doing it."

I can't even begin to explain, and I won't try, how that paragraph affects me. How it involves me on a level that were I to explain, would, I think, diminish it's value. So, take it for what it is, let it wash over you. No one ever reads the same text as someone else. The same words, the same punctuation, yes. But the experience is never the same. Our lives and our histories prevent that.

I have a new book to add to my list of favorites. And I am a firm believer of passing on the good stuff. So there you go. Oh, and thanks, Bryan for cluing me in.

fresh starts

2008-08-21T18:30:00.004-04:00

I've been mulling over this idea because I'm back at a school I've known so well and so comfortably for 3 years, but through multiple instances of situational insanity, I'm back at a school that feels so foreign. So as I'm unpacking my room, I find myself wondering if I should rearrange furniture. I'm finding it weird that I am different and my life has changed, but the scenery hasn't. Is it better to power through the old, and eventually find myself comfortable again? Or is it better to rearrange it all and start fresh?

Something to think about until I get around to something more extended and thoughtful.

Also -- am reading Letters to a Young Poet, it's incredibly thought provoking, and I have so much to say about it. That's another upcoming post...

more soon, I promise.

b

two!

2008-08-15T11:47:00.003-04:00

I know. Two in one day. It's a record. Bring out the cake. I just found out that this was published and I just had to share this interview with you all. I was responsible for the press release that made this interview possible, and was literally sitting next to Betsy Lowther, the interviewer, as she playfully grilled the fabulous Simon Doonan.

It's a wonderful interview, and Doonan has great advice on how to be loud and proud about being yourself. Check it out!

Recap: Simon Doonan Dishes on Fashion

slowing down

2008-08-15T10:57:00.003-04:00

What's that line from "Top Gun"? "I have a need, a need for speed." While this may be a necessity for fighter pilots, swimmers, cyclists and runners, for your average 21-year-old girl, it may not be so important to be constantly rushing through things.

I've been trying to slow myself down the last few weeks and months, to really take in all that's happening around me. I've never been good at being present in a moment -- I constantly find myself thinking ahead, planning and anticipating. I walk fast, and I talk fast, and recently the latter has gotten me in some trouble. So it's time to slow down, think before I speak and really allow myself to absorb my surroundings.

As I was walking to work today, the last day of my internship at the Corcoran, I took my time. I simply wanted to experience the morning walk for the last time: the smells, the sounds and the motion. I alighted at my station to the voice of my favorite street performer: An older black man with killer dreadlocks, with a voice so soulful and expressive. He sings to his guitar and into a microphone. Plugged into an amp, he's broadcast for at least a few blocks. He plays James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Van Morrison -- easy listening for me. On days that he's playing, I always ride up the escalator instead of walking. Today, he was playing a song I didn't know. And the only line I caught was this:

"The future is uncertain, embrace the present, never forget the past."

How's that for perfection?

I've marveled recently how life seems to give you exactly what you need when you need it. I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she mentioned that she's been having bad luck in the dating world. She just can't seem to find someone. But perhaps, regardless of the fact that she wants someone, now is just not the right time. Perhaps, regardless of whether it's what you think you want or not, we subconsciously provide ourselves with what we truly need.

I've come to believe that some how it all seems to resolve itself. Resolution, regardless of whether it's the outcome I'd hoped for or not, has incredible merit. Resolution is not an end, it's not a period. But rather, more like a paragraph break, separating one part of the story, one moment from another. Resolutions create breathing room, they allow us to step back, observe and understand.

My new school year resolution is to absorb, to step back, observe and allow my final year as a student to wash over me with my friends surrounding me and my life playing out as it should.

I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

decisions

2008-07-16T14:32:00.002-04:00

Decisions. Life is full of them. Socks vs. flip-flops. Red shirt or blue shirt. Sam vs. Harry. Boston University or Elon University. Spain or London. Big or little, decisions occupy the majority of our daily thought process. The little ones cause are minimally distracting -- Cookie dough ice cream or Lime sorbet? But the big ones often result in equally large headaches, stomach aches and in some cases, anxiety attacks.

As the summer rolls on, my friends who are recent Elon graduates find themselves making those gut-busting decisions. And I find myself on the receiving end of apprehensive phone calls and text messages. I love listening. I love being the ear and the shoulder. And I love sharing the excitement when a decision is made and a victory won. For the most part, I'm talking about the job search.

Of my three best friends who've graduated, two are now employed and the last just received her first job offer -- one she's not sure she can take, but an offer nonetheless.

And as I listen to her agonize over low pay without benefits and dish out advice, I wonder just how well I'll be able to take my own advice next year when it's my turn to hit the pavement running and begin the next chapter.

My friend McKenzie and I always refer to ourselves as "ducks in a row" kind of people. We like to know where we're going, how we're getting there and what's going to happen when we arrive. More and more I'm realizing that life doesn't work that way. There's always someone waiting with a monkey wrench to toss into your gears. Cynical? Yes. Realistic? In my experience, very.

Over the last few years I've slowly and sometimes painfully begun to understand that the only thing I should plan on is the unexpected. Come September I will have nine months to start my march toward that stage Under the Oaks and then across to the parking lot, my car and the rest of my life. Every instinct in me is telling me to start planning, make lists and phone calls. And to some extent I know I have to just resist all of them for a little while longer and just let myself enjoy the last summer of freedom.

a long hiatus

2008-07-14T13:47:00.006-04:00

So I've been pretty all around terrible with this whole blogging thing the last few months. But I have a good reason. Actually, no I don't. But I've decided to just do it. To bite the bullet and post something, even if it's boring and meaningless to anyone but myself. I've realized that the longer I wait the more pressure builds up to post something spectacular, and really, that's just too much anticipation. Too much pressure.

Essentially my life the last few months has consisted of my internship in the communications department at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Just a few words on that. The first would have to be: awesome. I'm learning so much. I'm the public relations intern, officially, so I spend most of my time dealing with external communications, writing pitch letters and press releases. And basically spend my time pumping up public programming with the likes of Simon Doonan, Thurston Moore, and other famous artsy folks, and getting excited about upcoming exhibitions: Richard Avedon. Maya Lin. Can anyone say holy mackerel!? I've worked with press from Spain covering the Elena del Rivero opening (If you click on the "press information tab," I wrote that release...) and some how have managed to be on a first-name basis with the cultural attache to Spain (this isn't my life, right?). You can see me in this news reel for CNN+, the Spanish affiliate of CNN. And I was recently (read: My arm.) on the Spanish version of the Associated Press, Efe!

Here is the package for CNN+ covering the installation process of the Elena del Rivero exhibtion, Home Suite. I am the one in the gray skirt. Sorry, it's in Spanish:

In addition to random encounters with Spanish press, I have been helping with the editing process for the catalog that will accompany the Richard Avedon show due to open mid-September. I edited the essay by the curator, Paul Roth, that will appear in the catalog. I also compiled the text for the brochure that will be handed to every patron. I've been a busy B.

And it's just all around fun. The program consists of 14 girls and one guy and I've found a group of three other interns who are just so great. We have lunch everyday and talk and gossip about our lives. Very Sex and the City-esque. It's fabulous.

It was my goal this summer to blog more and keep on top of this thing, but yet again, and as always it seems that life has gotten in the way of life.

More soon.

b

the edge of the knife

2008-03-17T13:55:00.005-04:00

Everyone always asks the same question on you birthday: Does seven feel any different than eight; is 16 drastically different than 15? How about 21 versus 20?

Having just done the last one, I have to admit that for the first time, it does feel a bit different.

I have just passed into American adulthood. In the United States, you can drive at 16, vote and serve your country at 18, but you're not really considered an adult until you can mosey up to the bar and order a beer (or whatever). It was weird to sit at dinner yesterday and drink a margarita with my Mexican food. It all still feels very dangerous and foreign.

My friends and I have been talking a lot recently about growing up. Since most of my friends are graduating, this is a topic of great interest, one that brings a barrage of uncertainty and general terror. Yet, there is a surprisingly low concentration of excitement in this mix.

As American children, adulthood is the coveted status. As little girls we play house, wanting to be mommies with husbands and houses and families. As teenagers we wear make-up and dress to simulate age beyond our years. But I've noticed recently that once adulthood is actually within our reach, we seem to hit a wall. College undergrads forgo jobs and responsibility for two more years of graduate school. Middle-age women get Botox and boob-jobs.

It seems to be a case of situational dissatisfaction. We all want what we can't have. To children, the responsibility of adulthood and the ability to make decisions for oneself is incredible because the ability doesn't exist. For adults, the idealism of being young and free of responsibiliy is the utmost desire in the face of "grown-up problems" like a job, a mortgage and kids.

Why can't we be happy with what we've got? As some one standing in limbo, on the edge of the knife of adulthood and childhood, I'm scared to tip both ways. I'm not quite ready for one and I'm not quite ready to leave the other.

I think it's all a matter of adjustment. With time, hopefully I'll learn to accept my new place. Either that, or come 40, I'll just invest in some plastic surgery. Only kidding.

fitting

2008-03-09T14:29:00.003-04:00

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize that your life fits? I hadn't had one in a while.

Friday night was Fellow's Mixer Night - the incoming freshmen vying for a place in Elon as a Journalism and Communications Fellow come to our building and meet the current Fellows.

I was in demand this year, being the managing editor for our newspaper, and it was weird to suddenly be somewhat important. But it wasn't the power that got me, it was the conversation.

As I was standing there schmoozing with the students, selling Elon and its glories, I started talking with a few of my professors. The conversation turned to grammar and punctuation, and split infinitives. I marveled as I listened to these people discuss something so esoteric as a split infinitive, passionately debating whether they're actually a grammatical error or not.

I stood there, smiling, offering my input, and I realized that I could not have chosen a better place to try to belong.

All my life, I've been a wordy. No one ever really seems to get it - boyfriends, parents, friends, no one seems to understand how I can find extra spaces between words, or anguish over dangling modifiers, comma splices or the correct use of affect versus effect. No one seemed to understand, until Friday. They got it. My professors, I'm just like them.

I feel like it's easy for cinema buffs, or painters or biologists -- there are plenty of people who get excited about those things. Copy editing, that's a niche market. There are so few of us. It was so nice to finally feel like I fit in.

Call me a nerd, or a dork, or a geek, whatever. But you know that when you're writing your resume, cover letters, grad school applications and/or wedding vows, you hand them to me, and they'll never sound better.

pulling back

2008-03-05T14:33:00.003-05:00

I've been having trouble reflecting lately. My life, since my last post, has performed some serious acrobatics. And I find myself struggling to keep up. I'm terribly afraid that the continuous movement and forward momentum, the constant push ahead, is going to catch up with me soon, and it's really not going to be very pretty.

They say burning the candle at both ends is bad for you - but it's nothing a little vitamin C can't fix. Elon students, I've found, have an obsession with this tasty citrus nutrient. They believe, and I've realized that I do too, that orange juice cures all ails.

But as I sit here with my Minute Maid, I'm struck by the fact that orange juice, no matter how potent, will not cure a restless mind.

Two of my best friends at Elon were fitted for their caps and gowns today. They're graduating at the end of this semester and going on to start their lives. One is thinking of moving to Singapore or South Korea to teach English, and the other is considering moving to London to work for a study abroad coordinator as an RA. My entire life at Elon has involved these two in some way. The last year has not seen a day without them. Seriously. So what do I do next year? Make new friends, obviously. I know this sounds really very petty and third grade, but the prospect of a year without my surrogate family is terribly daunting.

In the last few weeks, I've learned more about myself and my friends than in the lifetime before that. I have found a strength in their unconditional love that I thought only existed in bloodlines. I was so wonderfully wrong.

I've always been a firm believer that true friends never leave you, that all relationships have something of value to offer and that no one ever enters or exits your life for no reason. And in today's technologically advanced, effortlessly connected society, it's next to impossible to lose touch. But nothing beats a late-night movie, a drive to Greensboro or Sunday night dinners.

I've never been very good with change, and I think part of the reason is I never anticipate it very well. I never expect it until it's bumping noses with me, pulling my hair and pinching me, begging me to take notice.

I find myself today wishing I could pull back a bit on the reigns. But putting a stop on life isn't living, and legs were meant to act as more than just pillars.

So I must move along with the changes, embrace the futures of my friends and myself, and know that in this Lion King-coined circle of life, there is no such thing as an end.

getting stuck

2008-02-10T13:02:00.000-05:00

It always happens to other people, a cousin’s best friend, an uncle, a coworker or maybe a professor. It’s not a cancer diagnosis, or a car accident, or any thing else as doom and gloom or tragic. This is on a different level of horror completely.

I’m talking about spending the night in Chicago O’Hare Airport.

I did it. Much to my dismay. I’m not proud, nor am I happy. But I did it. I can add myself to the list of unfortunate travelers who’ve been stuck in that terrible airport in the middle of the winter. I know that if I took a poll, everyone I talked to would know someone who’s been stuck there. One would think that the grand-poobah of O’Hare would have figured it out by now. It’s the Midwest. It snows every year. It shouldn’t be a big deal. But apparently snow is still a new thing in Chicago. Go figure.

I spent the last weekend of Fake Break in Grinnell, Iowa. I managed to make it out of that fine Midwestern state with no problem on Sunday afternoon. It was my layover in Chicago where things started to go wrong.

I arrived in Chicago at about 6 p.m. Central time only to find out that my plane had already been delayed about an hour. As we finally boarded the aircraft at 7 p.m., the snow outside began to fall lightly, ominously, but soon escalated to the snow equivalent of a downpour.

Before I even got on the plane in Iowa I knew I was in for an adventure. The trip out had been too easy; I kept saying to myself, I’m going to get stuck! I boarded the plane anyway. What is one to do when one knows they’re in for trouble but can’t help themselves? I couldn’t jump up and yell, Let me off the plane! I wanted to get home. I had to get back to Elon. And they probably would have arrested me thinking I was a terrorist. I was doomed. It’s hard to know helplessness until you’ve been stuck in the snow on an airplane that’s pulled back from the jet-way.

So I sat. And I sat. They de-iced our plane. We taxied to the runway. And we sat. Then the de-icing material stopped working, so we taxied back. And then we sat. Then the flight attendants were over time. So we got news ones. And then we sat. About two hours later, the captain comes over the loud speaker to inform his weary passengers that the crew has now gone “illegal” and it had become unlawful for us to remain on the plane. You see, at this time, we could have flown to Washington, D.C. and back about three times.

We got off the plane and there I stayed. Booked on the 8 a.m. flight the next day, on stand-by for the 6 a.m. flight. I could have stayed in a hotel, but to be back for the 6 a.m. flight, I would have had to have left the hotel at 4 a.m. I made the decision to stay in Chicago about a half hour after getting off the plane, which happened to be at 12:15 on Monday morning.

I found my gate, B5, and made myself cozy on a bench. At about 2:30 a.m. the cleaning lady came through with her industrial vacuum. Seemingly unaware that the pile of coats, bags and feet belonged to a person, she kept running the vacuum under my bed, hitting the legs of the bench with torturous inconsistency, slowly driving me mad.

I wanted to jump up suddenly and yell, STOP! But was afraid I’d give her a heart attack, for which I would have probably been sued. It wasn’t worth it.

I made it out on the 6 a.m. flight, only to find out upon my arrival in D.C. that the 8 a.m. flight had been canceled. I made it back to my house around 10:45 a.m. on Monday, took a much-needed shower, an hour-long nap and then hopped in the car for my ride back to Elon.

Five hours, one stop at McDonald’s and one speeding ticket later, I was back in Burlington, cursing my luck but happier than I’ve ever been to see campus across the railroad tracks.

stress stinks, YouTube works

2008-01-16T13:33:00.000-05:00

Winter Term. Wow. Where to begin? Perhaps with the monstrous work-load I've taken on over the past two weeks. Perhaps with my ever waining desire to work while it's 20 degrees outside. Or perhaps with my inability to keep in touch with my out-of-state friends due to my monstrous work-load.

That being said, my class is fantastic. I'm learning more than I could have ever hoped about Flash and interactive media. I find our class discussions so fascinating, and I'm really starting to feel like I can use my creativity to create something both functionally and aesthetically interesting and innovative. I'll have to figure out a way to post my projects for viewing. I'm not sure if I can do it here, but I'll figure it out.

In my class we've been viewing a lot of online interactive content. There's this Web site, which is essentially the Web site for an annual Flash convention, that has lists of award-winning Flash animated Web pages. It's mind-boggling and totally worth a visit. Look at the Ikea Dream Kitchen in the 2006 winners. It's amazing. I love the 3D elements and the musical accompaniment - the integration is so seamless and so perfect for their product. I love it! I've been "dorking out" pretty hard core the last week and a half or so, going through tons of YouTube videos and awesome Web sites for class.

My professor is big on breaking up monotony with fun YouTube videos, many of which I've been passing on to my friends. Please go watch David Blaine Street Magic. It's a bit vulgar, but oh so hilarious if you understand the context. We've been seriously discussing YouTube as well as this sort of new wave, or Web 2.0, of how people use the internet.

YouTube has become my savior. Sad, I know. But true. Mindless entertainment has become my vice. And to some extent, I'm really okay with that. There's a ton of stuff, good and bad out there, that can be used educationally and to just break up the day.

That said, I'm going to leave you with an embed of something I found quite amusing, albeit a bit odd...

cheers!

breathe out

2008-01-05T11:16:00.000-05:00

The holiday season is always hectic for everyone. I don't think I'd ever experienced, or truly understood that until this year. I was home in Maryland for about 10 days total; the whole time rushing around running errands, seeing friends or just being occupied by something.

My family spent about a week in Arizona, like we do every year. This was the first year without my grandmother. It's funny how when someone leaves us, everyone else sort of scoots in to fill the space they left behind. It's like when you have birds on a wire, and one flies off, all the rest shove down. But we can only fill so much, there will always be a void, I think. My aunts, my mother, my cousins and I can make the cookies, the salad dressing, the mashed potatoes and do the wrapping, the cleaning and the laundry. But Christmas just didn't feel like Christmas this year.

New traditions must be forged, though in the company of ones still in tact. We did our annual cousins movie trip and our big family party. But they were held at my aunt Suzy's house instead of Grandma's. Oh that's another thing, it will always be Grandma's house. I mean no disrespect to Grandpa, but that's just how it's always been.

She's everywhere in that house on 44th Lane in Glendale. Her scent is still on her clothes, and her touch still lingers on the pots and pans and the candy dish that sits on top of the clothes dryer.

It was a very bittersweet Christmas, but I'm glad to be back at school. It's not that I'm an escapist, I am perfectly happy to face sadness and grief, but there are moments when you're ready to just breathe out and let the sadness disappear, surrounded by friends and family.

I'm excited about winter term this year. I'm taking a class about interactive and new media. Essentially, it's a class about Internet publishing and digital imaging. We had our first class yesterday (they started school on a Friday, I know, I'm taking it up with the proper authorities) and I think the class shows a lot of promise to be something both informative and engaging in terms of artistic growth and thought development.

I'm going to try to blog more this month. I've fallen off the wagon a bit. I'm going to be heavily engrossed in my search for an internship. So, if anyone knows anyone in the art publishing industry who's looking for an eager student to fill an internship position. Call me.

successes big and small

2007-12-17T18:15:00.000-05:00

My grandmother will turn 90 in a week. Not many people ever get the chance to say that. I tell people my grandmother is 90 and they all congratulate me, as if I had something to do with it. They say, "You're lucky you've got good genes," or it's just a, "wow."

We had a surprise party for her on Saturday, and as I looked across the dinner table, I realized that it's not her good genes I'm so lucky to have, but her in general.

My grandmother is Armenian. When she was three years old, she and her sister came through Ellis Island to escape persecution in their home country. My great great uncle was drawn and quartered and left on a doorstep. They had to get out. They left for America seeking a better life, bringing with them very little and setting out to meet the rest of their family, a few siblings and a couple cousins and uncles who had come before them.

To say it wasn't easy is a great understatement. I don't actually know how they did it, but they did. And their posterity thanks them immensely. But through it all, growing up in a new, strange place, living with adversity because of their race both in their homeland and in America, some how, my grandmother turned out to be one of the most fantastically optimistic people I've ever met. Nothing gets her down.

It's funny when you look at your parents and grandparents and realize where your traits and attributes come from. I have my dad's eyes and hair, my mom's smile and cheek bones. I have my dad's laugh, and his habit of eating everyone else's food. And I have my mom's sensitivity and talkative nature.

But then I look at my grandparents. All of those traits come from them. My maternal grandmother was about 5 feet tall had the same blue eyes that I have; she was just as stubborn, and just as gossip-prone as I am. My paternal grandmother is the same, about 4' 9", stubborn and sure, but still sweet, that is until you give her a juicy story. I was doomed to be a little person with a big mouth. It's in my heritage.

As I watched my grandmother this weekend, and thought about all she's done in her life, all the people she's met and all the things she's seen. I became more and more proud of myself. At the age of 20, things are really coming together for me.

I was just named Managing Editor for Elon's student newspaper, The Pendulum. I had an article published on the front page of the Burlington Times-News. And over the past few weeks, I have sort of mapped out the rest of my life. I've decided to go to grad school for art history or art criticism, something I've always loved but just never thought I could do.

I still miss London every day, but I think my life is slowly leading me back there. We'll see.

the age of internships

2007-10-23T22:47:00.000-04:00

I started looking for summer internships yesterday. Yes. You read that right. Summer internships. It’s October 23. I’ve been called a serial over-achiever before. Nothing new, nothing different and definitely nothing surprising. Yet, even I, in reflecting on yesterday’s activities had to see this as being just a little bit ridiculous. Perhaps my actions were less a reflection of my personality type (read, disorder…) and more a symptom of a far more interesting and somewhat distressing and puzzling change in our society.

The question must be asked though: just how insane was I being? Ask most university students, especially journalism majors, and they’ll explain that they too have already started thinking about next summer, and for those who are really on the ball, have actually sent out a few applications. I have a friend who has six applications due Nov. 1. For me, as a junior, this summer stands as one of the most important internships I will have as a college student. This internship opens the door to possible future hiring situations.

Fifteen, even 10 years ago, no one really put a premium on internships the way we do now. Journalism has always used the experience index as a way to determine hire-ability. Our clips, or writing samples, are our lifeline. The better your clips are, and the more you have, the more likely you are to land that primo job.

So what happened? My only thought is that as more and more people have started to attend college, there needs to be a new standard set for what makes someone more desirable as a new hire over someone else. They could have the same degree, the same GPA, the same extracurricular activities, and yet one of them has done an internship. They have experience. Right there, the company is going to save valuable time and money training the person to do the job.

There’s another side to the internship coin, to be sure. Taking on an internship provides students with the invaluable opportunity to test-drive their career choice. It happens, more often than not, that a student accepts an internship, completes it and then changes their major. The job wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be, and now the student has saved themselves the trouble of graduating with that degree and getting stuck with something they’d rather not be stuck with.

Other countries have only just started to understand the internship craze sweeping America. The organization I worked for in London had only just started accepting interns a few years prior, and my supervisor admitted she thought it all sounded a bit like slavery. She had to be convinced to hire me, not because my credentials weren’t stellar, but because she just didn’t get it. Why would someone want to work for free? It wasn’t until I got there and explained to her how important job placements like this are in the United States did she start to understand, however minimally.

It’s an odd phenomenon that we’re being forced so quickly to face the future and determine our career paths. Granted, that is what college is about for the most part. But it’s a startling call to reality when two months after one summer has just ended you’re forced to occupy yourself with planning for the next or be left out in the cold, er, heat?

Cross posted to Reporting to the Public Good (JCM 300 class blog)

transition mettle

2007-10-15T10:15:00.000-04:00

Most of you who know me know that my grandmother passed away last Wednesday, Oct. 3. This is not meant to be a sad post, nor is it meant to glean a wave of sympathy. I simply see it as an important piece of background knowledge necessary to approach this post.

As with any life there is death, obviously. But it is the nature of that life that determines the nature of the death. A happy life filled with friendships and love seems to recall a death shrouded in sadness and mourning. Conversely, a sad life filled with spite, anger and misery seems to welcome and accept a timely death.

After spending so many days of this past week filled to the brim with such sadness, I find myself wondering how it is that the above statement makes so much sense. All death should be a celebration of life. Regardless of the condition of that life.

I've spent hours and hours of the last week talking about my grandmother and her vivacious spirit and her love. And her cooking. And every time I begin, I fill up. For selfish reasons yes, but also for the sense of loss I feel for those who missed out on knowing her. My true sadness comes on their behalf.

Death should not be so sad, someone once told me. Death should not be so miserable. Funerals are for the living, and grief is transient.

Existentialism has never been my thing. But the more I "deal" with death, the more I come to understand its purpose. Truly, death is just another part of the cycle. Life is not linear, there is a beginning and an end, to be sure, but who's to say that there is only one of each. But the more I deal with death, the more I understand that while we are "required" to be born, live, and then die, the process serves a greater purpose.

It is the purpose of hope and understanding for those you leave behind. The death of loved ones should stand as a reminder of the evanescence of life. There is tragedy in death, yes, but there is also great hope. The hope is the legacy of those still living.

a lost "wrinkle"

2007-09-18T12:57:00.000-04:00

Madeleine L'Engle died last Thursday, and with her passing, the world lost perhaps one of the best novelists of modern times.

Now, I may be exaggerating a little, but this is my blog, so deal with it.

For those for whom the name does not ring a bell, L'Engle was the author of "A Wrinkle in Time."

As a journalism student, I feel like I'm constantly being told by professors that the only way to become a good journalist is to read good journalism. I think it needs to go one step further. Journalism is storytelling. To be a good journalist, you must surround yourself with good storytelling.

L'Engle's writing is recognized for its impeccable storytelling: clean, easy work that not only superficially engages the reader, but that also challenges thought on a more mature level, introducing scientific and political ideas. As a child reading the novel, I loved Meg and Charles Wallace, they were my best friends. But upon revisiting the story in my late-teens, I realized that the book is not only the story of the Murray children, but is also a cleverly disguised criticism of communism and other social systems.

The Washington Post recently published an article of appreciation. The reporter, Monica Hesse, completely captured my sentiment about the novel and L'Engle's brilliant writing.

I think her final graf sums up the affect L'Engle's writing had on so many awkward, uncomfortable teens and then the later discovery of a club of-sorts, of avid "Wrinkle" fans, "All those years ago, with your patchwork quilt and your instant hot chocolate and your despairing belief in your own monstrosity, you hadn't been alone after all."

Madeleine L'Engle's writing is storytelling in its most accelerated form. She adeptly transcended the "children's novel" category of literature and pushed cunningly past to a realm of classicism, punctuated by layers of meaning, beautifully crafted characters and just a good story.

to begin again

2007-09-15T15:10:00.000-04:00

I noticed the other day a quote on a friend's Web site, saying something about "Can a change of address change your life?" It's strange when you realize you've done something to alter your life completely. In a good way, to be sure. But forever different my life will be after being away for so long.

Upon returning to campus I've noticed that in most ways, I'm beginning again here. I walk around and run into a few people I know, but not many. I've reached the point at Elon where most of my friends are leaving at the end of the year, and since being gone, I have very few who are younger than me.

In addition to the metamorphosis of friendships, I've returned to a school that looks strikingly different from the one I left. Buildings are popping up everywhere. Fountains, trees and pathways have materialized over a six-month stretch of absence. It's disconcerting, really, to find my old haunts re-purposed and left behind in favor of newer, more modern things.

I've decided to do some re-purposing of my own. I kept this blog during my semester abroad as a way to stay in touch with my friends and family in the U.S., and as a way to document my experiences and musings on cultural differences. I've found myself lacking that outlet, and have decided to begin again.

beginning of the end

2007-04-29T08:02:00.000-04:00

If you really think about it, nothing is ever really completely over. You never really leave anything behind or anyone for that matter. I'm well aware that I've been whining and complaining about how much I'm going to hate leaving here and how sad I am to say good-bye to London. But the closer we get to the end of our time here, the more I realize that the memories that I've made here, and the friendships that I've formed are going to sustain my missing London and the life that I lead here.

I sat in Trafalgar Square on Friday for about an hour just taking in the city. Drinking in the sounds of the people and the pigeons, watching the water fountains and the tourists climbing on the lion statues. Trafalgar Square and St. Martin's Lane are my little corner of London. I spent more time there than anywhere else in the whole city. It was the first place I went, and the last place I'm going to say good-bye to.

In Dublin last weekend, we visited our friend Ryan. He left to go home only 2 days later. It was interesting to stay with someone who was so close to the end. He was happy to go home, happy to leave his new city and ready for the end. I don't know if I'll ever get to that point. I have a feeling I'll be sobbing all the way home. But seeing him on the verge of leaving made me think about what it is about London that totally enraptures me. Dublin was nice, I enjoyed it immensely, but I don't think that after 4 months I would call it as much home as I do London. I have always felt comfortable here, I have always been so fascinated by it. This city accepts all sorts of people, there is something for everyone here. And I think that attitude is what is so attractive to someone who has little, to know idea where life will take them.

Upon returning London, I proclaimed, "I'm home!" I had a few people question how I could possibly call some place home that I've only lived in for 4 months. But some home, this is home for me, just as Elon is home and Bethesda is home. Who ever said you cannot lay your hat in 3 different cities?

So I like to think, this is not the beginning of the end, because I have a million memories and a handful of amazing friends who will sustain this beautiful life in London perpetually.

library musings

2007-04-15T18:02:00.000-04:00

After having spent a sufficient 6 hours in the British Library today, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is something magical about old books and manuscripts. I held a book today that was 100 years old, a pamphlet that was 130 years old, and an original copy of a letter, handwritten in 1783. Yes you read that right, 1783, which would make it 224 years old. Everything I looked through today had the most incredible musty smell. Gross, possibly to some. But it was amazing. Holding another letter from 1907, I could feel the writer, and I felt like I knew her. I laughed at the pronunciation key she gave to her reader for the name Premanand (“you say ‘pray’ shortly, then mà, with a great deal of emphasis, then ‘nun’ shortly, and stick in a ‘d’ at the end! Now, do you think you know how to say it?”).

It’s funny how once you’re gone, people can read your mail. It really suits the nosey neighbor in me, but something about it is just strange. But this very independent missionary woman, Marie Elizabeth Hayes, is doing wonders for my grade in my general studies course. Because of her attempts to explain her daily life to her colleagues at St Stephen’s Hospital in Delhi, I understand so much more about the lives of Indian women and British women in India during imperialism.

Sitting here, (I’m writing this in a Word document to transfer to my blog later because we don’t get wireless in the Library.) I started thinking about the sorts of things that people will want to study about us. What will we leave behind? Well, if my current form of communication with you is any indication, it won’t be paper. How different it will be for a student, perhaps studying the study abroad practices of American girls in London during the early 21^st century, to read my letters. All of them are electronic. She, or he, will get a big diskette or whatever, and will just scroll down through. Nothing will be tangible, there will be no musty smells, they won’t be able to see my handwriting. There is something incredibly personal about reading a handwritten letter. You can almost picture the person writing it. You can almost see them forming each letter, dotting every I and crossing every T, to be cliché. Historians of the future most like will not have the same experience with letters and journals of today. They’re all emails and blogs.

It’s a very funny thing to hold something older than, well dirt, and think about how there will be very few things like that of yours to exist after you do. These letters of Marie Hayes’ enable her to live long after she died in 1908. She unwittingly gained immortality simply by scrawling a few observations, condolences and sentiments. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

if sheep could fly

2007-04-09T04:23:00.000-04:00

I know I've said before how busy I am, but this week hit an all time high. Thursday was the big night at my internship. I've been working on planning the after-party event for the London premiere of the Philip Glass opera, Satyagraha. Thursday night was the big night when everything had to work and had to come together for the show. Luckily, it did for the most part. The party was wonderful, all those 'famous' London guests who needed tickets, got them. And Philip Glass stepped on my foot. It's my new claim to fame, really. I was horrendously stressed out before hand, as I always get before some big thing, but it all went really well and I actually had a really great time at the event. My hired car took me home at 1:15 am.

My parents are visiting, so Friday morning at 8:50 (yes, this is after my 1:15 am arrival to my bed) I caught a train to Warwick to meet my parents and our friends for a day at the castle there. More a theme park than a heritage sight, it was still very fun. We saw them launch the trebuchet. Which, for the lack of a better phrase, was pretty freakin' sweet. This started the discussion of the fact that in 'ye olde' (pronounced with the hard 'e' at the end...) times they would launch other things, not just 15 kilo balls. Like sheep, and pigs (according to our friend Sandra, they're more aerodynamic...) and people. And my brother's personal favorite, lime pitch. They would launch a basket of lime and the basket would empty out on its way down. The lime would then dust out over the castle walls. As soon as it hit any body part that had any sort of wetness, it would start burning. Gruesome. The funny thing was that the 'squire,' who was explaining everything, didn't spare any details. He was just as gory and graphic. It was amusing because that would never happen in America. We like to sugar coat death and destruction.

It was a fabulous weekend filled with driving around looking at thatched roofs, beautiful yellow fields of rape (That really is the name...) and lots and lots of sheep. I wanted to take a little white lamb with a black face home, but no one would let me put it in the car. They're adorable. And the sound they make is just so funny. My parents found a little stuffed animal sheep in Scotland. I'll have to settle for that, I suppose.

Everyone always says that London is the antithesis of Great Britian. It is everything that the rest of the country is not. After traveling around a good part of the country in the last few days, I can truly understand that now. England is full of farms, fields, pubs and quiet villages. I could spend a lifetime traveling around the interior of this country and never even scratch the surface. The beauty is a different sort, it's calm and slow. It doesn't take itself or anyone else too seriously. It is what it is, and that's it.

As the number of weeks I have here dwindle to the single digits, I find myself just trying to soak everything up. I walk down the street and I become more alert - listening, watching, trying to see everything and anything that I can put to memory and hold on to. The days are fleeting and time just keeps flying by. I want to just stop and stay forever, but I know that if I could, my fleeting time here would not seem so precious.

And so, I carry on, taking digital photos and mental ones. But so many times I just sit and try to absorb the city around me; to remember how I felt at the moment and to try to recreate it over and over again to secure its place in my mind until I find myself back here someday, ready to create more memories.

reading railroad

2007-03-29T17:06:00.000-04:00

I've always been a 'people-watcher.' It's not really staring so much as it is just observing. Perhaps that's just a euphemism, but I've never thought it was creepy or weird because I've always known that everyone does it. Admit it. You know you do too.

Recently on the Tube, I've noticed what people do to pass the time. While most are engrossed in some form of musical entertainment blasting into their ears via little white earbud speakers, there are still a select few who actually use their commutes to enjoy the written word. As a journalism major, London astounds me at its fairly decent selection of free newspapers that are handed out just outside the Tube stations. The LondonLite, in my opinion, is a rag and has very little substantive news value, but the London Paper and the Metro are actually fairly quality journalism. Because of the can't-be-beat price of the news in this town (um, it's free, hello!), I'm convinced that London is far better informed than DC, where there are only two major subscription papers (London has about 6) and only one free paper (London has about 3).

But even more striking than if someone is reading in general, is if they're reading a book. Today, I had the interesting experience of sitting next to two people who were not only reading, but reading self-help books. The first was a man reading about how to preserve his inner artist. It was going on and on about negative self-images and how that kills creativity and how you must counter-act the negative with a more positive statement... Repeat after me: I, (your name), am an excellent artist whose gift is a way to be closer to the highest form of understanding and being... not even kidding...

The second reader was a woman engrossed in a title that was something like, 'How to Get What You Want and Want What You Have...' Of course, being the Londoner, I started reading over their shoulders. Personally, I would not want some random busy-body like myself reading over my shoulder if I was reading something that was basically teaching me how to become my own personal cheerleader. There's something strangely ironic about someone who has enough self-confidence to read a self-help book on the subway. But to also be so unconfident as to actually feel like they need a self-help book in the first place.

I will forever be more conscious of what I read on the tube. I know that since I'm looking and reading over your shoulder, some day next week, you'll be looking and reading over mine.

czech me out

2007-03-26T16:28:00.000-04:00

Skipping back in time a little, I should probably talk about my birthday before spring break. I had a wonderful 20th birthday. The girls in my flat pulled out all the stops for me. I woke up to a bouquet of roses from Lily and Keiko and a pair of earings from Scotland from Mandy. I then promptly consumed Pop Tarts from my care package from Mom and then talked to both sets of parents. After that, we went to the London Eye. It was a beautiful, clear day. We could see for miles. It was perfect. My birthday was Red Nose Day - a Comic Relief Festival to help Africa and some English schools. It was really funny to see people walking around London in red clown noses. But I found out today that the festival raised 7 million pounds. I'm happy to share my birthday with such an excellent event. The night was spent at dinner at a noodle joint called Tuk Tuk and then at a few pubs. It was a good time.

This post really should just be full of photos, but it takes forever to load them. So I've uploaded them to another Web site. Here's the link so you can enjoy my pictures from Prague. Unfortunately, the pictures are in backwards order, so start from the end and work backwards if you can.

The trip was wonderful. The city has such amazing character and history. Prague has survived so much - it's one of the only European cities to have much of the original architecture from before the second world war. It was left basically unscathed and because of that, the whinding cobble stone streets are packed tight with beautifully ornate Baroque, Romanesque and Gothic buildings. It's an architectural wonderland, and I had a fabulous time wandering around with Olivia, getting lost and exploring a city that has seen hundreds of years of kings, the dark years of Communist rule and is now a modernized member of globalized Europe.

We didn't have as much trouble as we thought we would with the language. Both Olivia and I printed out little pocket guides to Czech. I can now say about 4 words (please, yes, no, beer, wine... that's about it) in Czech. Most everyone spoke English, so it wasn't a big deal.

It was great seeing my dad and staying in the hotel with him. We stayed at the InterContinental. It's a 5 star hotel and the room came complete with a hot tub, a sauna, tons of bath products which we pilfered, a queen size bed, slippers and a rubber duck. Yes, that's right. A rubber duck. He disappeared after the first night - not because we took him, we don't know where he went. We used the hot tub a few nights because it was so terribly cold outside. But despite the frigid temperatures, we had an amazing time.

The only bummer came when we tried to come back to London. Our flight was delayed about 6 hours. We were supposed to leave Prague at 8:50 pm. We didn't end up leaving until 4:15 am. That put us into London around 5:30 am. We got to our beds at 7:45. It was miserable. I was so tired yesterday, and I'm a little sick, so that didn't help the situation. Unfortunately, because we flew easyJet, it doesn't look like we're going to see any sort of compensation for our time or trouble. It's really too bad, because I would feel a whole lot better about their airline if they actually cared that I was a zombie all day yesterday. Oh well. We made it, and we made some good friends at the airport while we waited. We ended up talking to these two girls from Bristol and playing card games with them for the majority of the time. It passed quickly enough, so it wasn't so horrible, and if anything, it's a good story, right?

But now, the fun is over and it's back to real life. I started my internship back up today and class starts again tomorrow.

More soon.

B

a little kindness in the daffodils

2007-03-12T18:42:00.001-04:00

They say that cities are cold. Not temperature cold, but emotionally distant and uncaring. For the most part in London I've found that that is true as with DC or New York or any other major metropolitan area. You don't say 'Bless you' when the man next to you sneezes. You don't pick up the lady's paper when she drops it. And under no circumstances should you look at people as you walk past them on the street.

Today was a warm day. In a city usually populated by black trench coats, black umbrellas and black clicky heels, there were sunny colorful skirts, ties and coatless backs. And with the rising outdoor temperature today came a warm spell of friendliness.

Today, sitting in the sun in Trafalgar Square at lunch time, I was taken aback by how many people were sitting on the low walls eating lunch with friends, chatting, talking about the school children who walked by and the lady in red who sings opera to a boom box. I was astonished when, as I was getting off the tube at Warwick Avenue, my home, a lady walked past me, head up, listening to her iPod smiling. She looked me right in the eye and grinned. I, slightly stunned, tilted my head and smiled back, meeting her gaze and sharing a moment with a complete stranger.

Spring brings a sense of life to this city that I have not yet experienced. The appreciation for the world that the woman and I shared today on Clifton Garden Road is something that I had not yet noticed could happen in a place where 7 million people run around each day with their own agenda.

It seems to me that with daffodils subtle kindness is not far behind.

crunch

2007-03-09T06:22:00.000-05:00

It's been a crazy time since I've posted last. I know I've said so many times that I've been busy, but it's reached a new level. Before, it was a touristy busy, filled with running around from place to place to see the sites. Now, the real world has caught up with me, and work and school have taken over my life.

I have two papers due this coming week, before spring break starts on Friday. I've almost finished one, but haven't even finished the book that I need to review for the second one. Today, my day off, I'm going to spend typing and reading. Not really how I want to spend my free day during the week, but I've been putting it off and putting it off to have fun and see people, and it's time to actually do work.

This has been the week of visitors. Alex, Mandy and Olivia's friend from home, has been here all week and leaves Sunday. My friend John from home was here earlier in the week before heading to Paris on Wednesday. And now Olivia's boyfriend Sam is here for the next week until the 18th. It's been so good to have familiar faces. I've been a little homesick recently, so being able to have people from home come to me really helped.

We spent the morning in Greenwich yesterday for class. We didn't get to stay long, but it was so beautiful, I really have to go back. The Maritime Museum was really interesting, they have so much stuff. We hiked up the biggest hill ever to get to the Royal Observatory and took our campy pictures on the Prime Meridian. It was fun to be goofy and touristy - I stood in two hemispheres at once. It was pretty cool.

Earlier this week I had my first big even at my internship. I recently found out that my official position at the ENO is 'PR intern' which explains why I'm hardly interested in what I've been working on and why I don't really get to work with the press department. But I just keep plugging along, doing my best and keeping my eye out for a project that I might be able to assign myself. But on Monday we had the event for La boheme. I really got to take charge of it. I had to put together tickets and drink vouchers and then got to personally hand the packets to all the invited guests. That was neat, because I got to meet a bunch of MPs (Members of Parliament) and a few Lords and even a Baroness. I stayed for the show when my friend Canden and her friend Jonathan from home came and watched it with me. It was a long day, I didn't leave the block for like 13 hours, but I actually ended up having a lot of fun. I think I just need more days like that.

Tomorrow we're taking a big class trip to Bristol, Bath and Stonehenge. It's going to be a long day, starting at like 7.30 am, but it should be super fun. I'll be sure to post on that with lots of photos!

more soon, cheers,
b

“It’s that you each, to shorten the long journey shall tell two tales on the way to Canterbury..." -- Chaucer

2007-02-28T15:51:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday was spent in Canterbury and Dover with Canden. I decided that since Mandy and a few of the other girls would be in Scotland, and Olivia had to work, I should take a little day trip somewhere. Canden, always up for an adventure, agreed to come with me. She'd befriended this guy who went to the University of Kent, which is in Canterbury, and he agreed to take us around the town and then drive us to Dover so we could see the white cliffs.

It turned out to be an awesome day. I got up early and met Canden at Charing Cross station for a 10:00 train to Canterbury. We made there at 11:30 and met Adam on the other side. After the slightly awkward introductions - he and Canden had never really met officially - we walked down into town for fish and chips and then a jaunt through a cute, be it, campy, wax museum that told Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. After that, we ventured into the cathedral. Adam had graduated from university in the cathedral and hadn't been in it since then. It was really neat walking around with him, remembering his graduation day. It was so interesting to finally really hang out with an Englishman. He had so many questions about our culture "Do you guys really love peanut butter as much as I've heard...? What is it about sororities...?" And it was so nice to finally have a guide who could answer our burning questions "...What are those white jaggedy lines on the road...? What's up with those guys who wear track suits and Burberry hats...?" It was a great cross-cultural experience, and plus he was just a really neat guy.

After the cathedral, we got in his little green Peugot and drove 20 minutes to the cliffs of Dover. It was incredible. They really are white. The chalk in the stone is all over the bottoms of my shoes and stained the knees of my pants after I kneeled down. It was very windy and cold. But then, we were walking around on the side of a big cliff. It was too hazy to see France on the horizon, but Adam claims that on a clear night, you can see the lights of Calais and Bologne. I've posted some pictures below.

This is the inside of the cathedral, in the nave. It was so incredible. I always hear about how the gothic style is so verticle, how it has so much light and draws your eye straight up. It's no lie. I could not stop looking at the cieling.

The image below is of one of the stained glass windows. The whole place was full of them, but this one was especially beautiful, the colors were so incredible. I loved the crimson reds and the ultramarine blues. Absolutely amazing, but yet again, my meager attempts at capturing them on film does not even begin to do them justice:

Then here are the cliffs!

On our walk on the ledge that runs along the rim of the cliffs, we came to a nice resting spot... don't worry there's another ledge about 5 feet below me!

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful. I spent Sunday night out with Canden and Olivia at a Hurricane Katrina fund-raising night at this bar/restaurant called the Big Chill House. Olivia and Canden met doing relief work there last spring break, so it seemed fitting that we should partake in their event.

This week's been pretty hum-drum. It's hard to believe I've been here for a month already. My internship really improved yesterday. I got to work with about 4 new people (as opposed to my usual group of 3) and I think I've finally really made some friends. I love the three I work with on a regular basis, but they're a lot older and not really interested in socializing with me. I think I may have finally broken into the main office area crowd. Sitting in the corner has really been hard. I haven't been able to meet people because the only time they see me is when I walk into the kitchenette to get more tea. I've started spear-heading some projects as well. Mags, my boss, has put me in charge of organizing an event in April with the new musical director. It's my responsibility to set up the whole event. Not too journalistic, but I get to write the invitations, so at least I get to use my skills there. I would really like to work more closely with the press team. I want to talk to my boss about maybe letting me work under them for a day or two, so I can see how it works to send out press releases and answer inquiries, etc. I'm still working up the courage, but I figure I should just ask, where's the harm? This trip is all about experiencing new things, doing things I've never done before or dreamed of doing. It's about branching out.

Anyway, this has gotten quite long. Promise to post more soon!

b

moving right along

2007-02-22T15:22:00.000-05:00

It's so easy to get caught up in this city. The days fly by, and pretty soon the week is over. I've taken up a nice routine: Work all day Monday, class and work on Tuesday, class on Wednesday, class and work on Thursday, exploring on Friday.

I'm really impressed how in the chaos of life, you naturally fall into a sort of rhythm. I've been here for about 4 weeks now, and it's beginning to feel like I've been here all along. At my internship I finally found my niche - my supervisor seems to know that I can actually do things other than data entry. And at school we're finally sort of doing work. It's hard to go to school here. We're only in class for a total of about 4 hours a week. I find it hard to concentrate on getting reading done and writing papers. But so far so good.

I love my Art and Architecture class. My professor is crazy - well, maybe crazy is the wrong word. She's eccentric. She seems to know absolutely everything about every painting, altar piece and sculpture we've seen in the National Gallery - where I could literally spend hours if my feet would hold out. After our gallery visit yesterday she took me and a few girls down the block to an art supply store where we spent 45 minutes looking at paint sets, paper, inks and brushes. It sounds totally boring, but if you're an art nerd like me, it was super fun.

We've been filling our time really well here. Like home, there is always something going on. Some sort of festival or new art gallery exhibition to go see. I love the movement of the city. I love the speed and the sudden stops. Olivia talked in her blog about how the city's movement is full of rushing speed and then lulls of silence and calm. I take solace in the 20 minutes of solitude when I ride the Tube to work and school. There's something very meditative about sitting in forced silence in a crowd of people.

I'm taking a day trip to Canterbury with my friend Canden. I haven't been out of the city since we got here. I'm curious as to what the rest of this country looks like.

more soon
b

you can't stop me now

2007-02-13T15:49:00.000-05:00

I feel like I haven't stopped moving since I got here; and today, it finally caught up with me. I haven't felt fully awake all day. I think it's going to be early to bed tonight.

We had another busy weekend. Our friend Ryan came into town. He's studying in Dublin and caught a flight over for the weekend. It was so good to see him again, and it gave us an excuse to go and do more touristy things we'd been wanting to do... not that we really needed an excuse... We went to Harrod's, Hamley's toy store, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, back to Burough Market... I can't even remember the rest. No wonder I'm exhausted.

This week's been nice so far, just as busy. Our student Oyster cards have finally come - which means that I get a discount on tube passes, which will save me a lot of money. I've spent so much already. It's just a very expensive city to live in. But it's nice to know that the money isn't going to be flying out of my wallet as quickly. Our mission recently has been to do anything and everything that's free. Olivia and I scored free tickets to "Love Song" last night with the theater class. We're not in it, but they had extra tickets, so we went along. It is an amazing show with an all star cast (Cillian Murphy, Kristen Johnson, Michael McKean and Neve Campbell) that left me so thoughtful and really inspired.

We officially passed the "vacation" mark. It's been almost two weeks now that we've been here - it's starting to feel less and less like a holiday and more and more like I am here for the long haul. I'm beginning to feel like one of the crowd in the Tube and on the streets. I still feel like I stick out a little, but it's becoming less and less the longer I'm here.

I haven't had time to load my pictures onto my computer recently, but when I do, I'll be sure to add photos to some of my posts.

more soon,
b

who said drama is always a bad thing?

2007-02-08T18:21:00.000-05:00

I think it is officially alright to say that this has been a week of drama. But not the bad - I hate my roommates, my boyfriend cheated on me, my parents are suspending my car priviledges and I'm failing chemistry - type drama. But the drama of theaters, actors and stages. Lights, music, props, sets and applause. It's been a week of culture and theater-going.

The last post I made, I said that we were going to try to see Wicked. Well, I realized later that day that Wicked wasn't running that night. So we stayed in instead, and yesterday night we went as a flat to see the show, We Will Rock You. It couldn't be more aptly titled. In short, it rocked. The show is based on the music by Queen, and actually one of the original Queen members appeared at the end of the show to play (we think) during Bohemian Rhapsody. We were all standing, dancing and singing - not just our group - the entire theater. The energy was incredible, the music, fantastically loud and easy to sing along with and the show, a little campy and cheesey, but still marvelously fun all around. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to have a good time seeing a show. The best part of it all was that because we went last minute, we got our tickets for about a 1/3 of the price - we paid 20 pounds for a show where the baseline ticket price is about 30. Not bad. Though, I have to admit, I would probably pay 30 pounds for it.

This morning, it snowed. I would say it was beautiful, but it caused more problems than it's elegance is worth. And I thought DC didn't know how to handle snow - London is rediculous. We were scheduled to visit Greenwich with our class this morning. That was cancelled because the tube was barely running. I emailed my internship asking if I should bother coming in at 1 pm... of course they said everyone was making it in. So I had to trudge my way through the snow a block to the station, then brave the "Severe Delays" on the Bakerloo line. I ended up making it to work in less time than it normally takes me... seriously people.

Tonight was my first operatic experience. Olivia met me at work at 6 and we headed into the London Coliseum for Agrippina. I have to say - very very impressed. I think this was a good first course to the opera feast I'm going to be experiencing over the next few months. It's what is called an 'opera buffa,' basically, it's a comedy. It was actually very funny and witty, we laughed through the whole 4 hours. What I can't figure out is how the singers remember all their lines. Even though the show is in English, it is still surtitled - so they have to get every single line right. And they did. It was amazing. The set was fantastic, the orchestra was really great too. I'm proud to work there.

Anyway, tomorrow starts the weekend. Our friend Ryan is visiting from Dublin where he's doing his semester abroad. So we'll probably take him around during the day and maybe have some fun later tomorrow night.

More soon,
b

so it begins

2007-02-06T06:21:00.000-05:00

Now that orientation is over, the real work has begun. Class started today and my internship did yesterday, but suppose I should talk about this past weekend a little before anything about my internship and class.

We spent this past weekend at markets. First, on Saturday morning at Burough Market. More fresh fruit, veggies, cheeses and meats than you could ever imagine. It truly fulfills the definition of cornacopia. In addition to inexpensive, good-looking produce, there was also a lot of hot food you could buy and eat. I had this sausage roll thing (basically sweet sausage in a puff pastery), some cider and a piece of baklava... all fresh and all delicious. It was so fun, we've decided that it is going to become a weekly tradition. Sunday was spent at Camden Market. Holy cow. Tons and tons of clothing stalls. We were there for about 3 1/2 hours and probably didn't see half of it. It was amazing. Serious barrage on the senses.
Photos:

Yesterday was the first day of my internship at the English National Opera. I have a really good feeling about it. The theater is beautiful. It's so ornate, lots of rich blood red velvet and gold with plaster goddess heads on the walls and filagre. It's incredible. I got to take a little tour around the theater and the winding back hallways and got to stand in the orchestra pit and look up. It's going to be really cool. I really love my boss, she's very laid back and I think she's going to make a real effort to give me the best experience I can have. I think I'm going to be doing a bunch of little odd jobs. But yesterday she let me write the text for an invitation to an opera called Satyagraha. It's a Philip Glass opera commemorating his 70th birthdayabout Ghandi. She also had me start working on the invited guest list for the premiere... talk about serious star power. Richerd Gere, Madonna, Paul and Stella McCartney, Ravi Shankar. You name them, they're on the list, guarentee... they probably won't all come, but maybe some will!? And guess who'll be at the premiere too!! ME!

Speaking of famous people: After work I met Olivia and Mandy and our friend Canden who lives in London at the premiere of the new Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore movie, Music and Lyrics. We ended up getting a really good spot and were probably about 50 feet from them. Canden got up front and actually held Hugh Grant's hand. Swoon. It was freezing cold outside, but totally worth the cold and aching feet.

Today was the first day of class, it was only an hour - not worth the commute. I'm taking a class about British imperialism. It should be interesting. The class meets twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays we meet for an hour for lecture, then Thursdays are all going to be field trips. We're going to Greenwich this Thursday to the National Meritime Musuem... sounds good!

We're just waiting on lunch to cook now, then I'm off to work again and then hopefully we'll be going to see Wicked! tonight. We're going to the theater to see if we can get half-priced student tickets for the show tonight! Cross your fingers!

More soon,
b

and there it was

2007-02-02T09:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was pretty incredible. We started out the day going to where we're going to be having classes. It's in an area called Bloomsbury, which is very old, and very nice. Our school building is an old converted house dating back to the 1700s. It sits on Great Russel Street facing Bloomsbury Square. It has a bright blue door with the nob in the center.

It's quant and feels very English with its winding staircase and a garden square just across the street. There's a cute walk-through market area where we had lunch - I had an incredible kafta lamb pita sandwich. It was mind-blowingly tastey - anyone who visits will be taken there. The end.

I'm starting to get a hold on working my way around the city. I feel pretty comfortable on the Tube now, and am the proud owner of a pocket "A to Z" (pronounced "zed") atlas that has come in so handy I've started referring to it as the bible. I actually let a lady use it today, she stopped me and asked me if I knew where something was - I of course, didn't, and instead offered her my A to Z. She was so excited and actually was able to figure out where she needed to go.

But anyway, we ended up making dinner as a flat last night. One of the girls in my flat's boyfriend is also on the trip. He made chicken parmesan. I made the salad and bought the wine, and we had garlic bread to go with it. It was so fun to have everyone pitch in, and the food was awesome. We were all so hungry after such a long day of running around the city, going grocery shopping, getting a new phone for Olivia, etc. It was just what we all needed - a good family dinner.

After dinner we decided spontaneously to hop the tube down to the Westminster stop to see Parliament and Big Ben, the Millenium bridge, the Eye and St. Paul's all lit up at night. It was the best decision we could have made.

We got off at the Westminster stop and walked out of the station, and literally, BAM there was Big Ben. Right in front of us. Words cannot really explain how breathtaking it was. I felt so dwarfed by its magnitude. The tower was so much bigger than I could have ever imagined. Here's a picture that I took:

We walked around a little bit for photo-ops in front of the London Eye, which is currently sporting red lights for the Comic Relief festival. Here's the girls from the flat, sans Susan
(L to R: Amy, Pam, Lily, Keiko, Mandy and Olivia)

We then crossed the bridge to take more pictures of Parliament:

And then hopped the tube down to St. Paul's and the Millenium Bridge. We crossed the bridge half-way. From there you could see the entire city. It was so peaceful, so quiet. We blew kisses at the Thames and threw our pennies in with our wishes. We then got really cold and decided to come home.
I keep finding it difficult to believe that I'm going to be living in such an interesting, beautiful and seemingly magically different place for the next 3 months. I feel like a visitor, a vacationer who after a week will pack my bags and go back to my own city. It seems so unreal that I will be staying past that week for 14 more and will be able to go back to this bridge as many times as I see fit.

Today so far has been consumed with an internship orientation at school (boring...) and then a trip to Chinatown so Keiko, who is Japanese, could get some necessities (rice, miso... hopefully she'll cook for us!?). The rest of the day will be devoted to catching up with people, perhaps dinner out and then, who knows!

more soon,
b

walk this way

2007-01-31T13:07:00.000-05:00

Today has proved very exciting. We started out with an adventure trying to find the Carphone Warehouse in Bayswater. We would have been okay, but we ended up transferring to the wrong train at Paddington station. The station was beautiful. I loved that it was outside. It looked so well well-worn. The light posts and the bridge walk-ways above the tracks were rusted and the paint was chipping. I can't stop thinking about the millions of people, famous and otherwise who've ridden the same trains and walked the streets and the platforms of the stations before I got there. There is so much history here, it's a little overwhelming.

So we got off at Paddington station, and ended up going the opposite direction. We got to Edgeware Road, but then the trains stopped running. There was something wrong with the signals and it was delaying the trains. So we decided to walk. We ended up walking the wrong direction and ended up back at Paddingtion. We went the right way then, and got to where we wanted to go.

After our little adventure, we took a walking tour of Maida Vale and Little Venice - the area where we are living. It's so quant and beautiful. We walked down to the canals and ended in Regent Park. Here are some of the pictures from our day's journey...

This image is of the actual Little Venice. There are two canals that join here, one goes toward Camden and the Zoo, the other goes... actually I don't remember. But it was really pretty, and we decided that when it gets warmer we're going to go back and picnic on the banks.

This is a photo of the canals near the Maida Tunnel. The guide said that people lived on the canal boats. The Tunnel was cool, HUGE, in the old days when canal boats were pulled by horses, they used to have to unhook the horses because the Tunnel runs straight into a hill. The bargees (people who run the barges) would then lie down on their backs on top of the barge and use their feet and hands to push the boat through.

We ended up seeing Paul McCartney's old house too... that was pretty neat, but the picture is a a little blurry, so I won't post it. But it was cool - it was right across the street from one of Madonna's old homes... I thought it was interesting - our guide seemed to know everything about, well everything.

Tomorrow we're going to visit our school building...

More soon,

b

in London at last

2007-01-30T14:33:00.000-05:00

I made it. It's hard to believe that I'm here and that I'm actually sitting in my flat right now. It took so much to get here.

I lost my passport for a brief moment Sunday night - it actually turned out to be still at my uncle's house. I was lucky. I thought I was going to die. There was intense hysteria and explosive crying, until I called Cliff and realized that I had not in fact lost it for good; it was actually just an hour drive away in Raleigh. It was enough to set me over the edge though, and proceeded to remain frantic and overwhelmed for the rest of the night. I was able to pick it up from them on our way to the airport... so it all turned out. It was a little bit too close of a call for my taste, however.

But I'm here! The flight was easy - it was so empty that we were all able to have a row of 5 seats to ourselves. I could stretch out and ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep. It's now about 7:45 pm in London, and I want to fall over sideways and never wake up. I'm so exhausted. But I've managed to stay awake, with only a brief nap on the 2 1/2 hour coach ride from Gatwick airport to our flats in Little Venice.

Our friend Canden took us around tonight. We went to our first pub, then decided to be touristy and had fish and chips for dinner. It was really yummy.

Tomorrow we're going grocery shopping and getting a new SIM card for my phone and then we're taking a walking tour of the area that we live in... should be fun!

more soon,
b

"And we're off..."

2007-01-26T10:08:00.000-05:00

"...Like a heard of turtles." For the most part, that's the way it's felt over the past week. It's strange how time seems to slow down right before something you've been looking forward to. I feel like I've been waiting forever for it to be time to leave, and now - it is finally here!

The itinerary stands as follows:

Today (Fri.) - pack. pack. pack. pack. pack. and pack some more...
Saturday - drive to Raleigh with Mom, Dad and Ryan to stay with my aunt and uncle before heading back to Elon.
Sunday - ELON! I'm staying with Mandy's family this night. Say good-bye to my family so they can drive back to DC.
Monday - visit school, a few friends and professors. Depart RDU at 6:45 pm.
Tuesday - 7:00 am, arrive Gatwick airport, England.

So once I arrive in London, we'll be escorted to our flats by the Elon professor who is going with us (Prof. Digre) and we'll get settled. Hopefully our internet will be up and running when we get there so I can make a quick post to let people know I arrived safely.

Time to pack!

I promise more soon...

b

the first of many to come

2007-01-17T11:06:00.000-05:00

I leave for London in a little less than two weeks (12 days, but who's counting...?). While there, I am going to try to keep up with this blog to avoid sending mass emails. Friends have done this, and I think it's a great way to keep in touch with people without overloading their in-boxes. Also, this allows you to follow me at your leisure.

I'm going to try to post pictures and anything that I can figure out how to do, to keep this interesting for anyone who wants to read this.

Look for more soon,

B