Wanderings

From the Bookshelf: Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

2010-02-19T01:23:00.000-08:00

I've gotten a serious windfall of books since Christmas time. Check out all of my new lovelies:

Plus I just scored an ARC copy of Jeanette Walls' Half Broke Horses at my writers' group meeting tonight for answering a book trivia question. Sweet! I am having a smidge of anxiety though because -- seriously, when am I going to have time to read all of these?!

If this were last August, I'd rip through all these bad boys in two weeks, but with Archer and devoting more of my free time to writing I'm thinking it's going to take considerably longer than that. That's OK though, I'll take my time and enjoy them all.

Here's what I'm in the middle of tearing through right now (thanks to my awesome NBC book exchange elf Crystal who sent this to me):

The prologue got me interested. France, 1565. A creepy dark angel appears in a graveyard and extracts an ominous promise from an unsuspecting man. There is talk of Nephilim, a legendary race of half mortal, half fallen angels.

Sounds good, right?

The first few chapters, however, felt a little too familiar. Fast forward to present day Maine and meet our heroine, Nora Grey (No relation to Meredith, by the way). A mysterious, smoldering new guy stares at Nora and makes her feel uncomfortable in Biology. Nora enjoys driving her beat up old car. Nora lives with her single parent. It's rainy and foggy all the time.

Twilight with angels anyone?
The similarities were eye-roll worthy, but apparently not enough to make me stop reading. It just seems like a shame that an otherwise well written and creative book had to fall back on this formula.

I'm about halfway through now and I'm officially sucked in. The author has done a really good job of slowly ratcheting up the tension and it's getting hard to put down. The dialog is good and I like the characters, especially Nora's sidekick and instigator Vee and her fruit color wheel diet. I'm intrigued by what's going on with Patch, though I'm not an especially big fan of the name (says the girl who named her main character Malady). Is he the dangerous stalker in the ski mask or is he Nora's protector? And what about Elliott? Gah!

I'll give you my final verdict on this one when I finish. For now, I've got to get to shut eye so I can get some more reading and writing in tomorrow.

Pardon My Dust

2010-02-04T23:36:00.000-08:00

Since I'm making a fresh start, I'm giving the old blog a little makeover. Apparently Stacey and Clinton don't do blogs so I'm on my own here and not so savvy with all of the XML and HTML codes. Please excuse the mess while I'm experimenting.

Remember Me?

2010-02-03T02:45:00.000-08:00

Hello. Hello. Hello.
Anybody out there?
Any chance anyone is still reading?
I know, I know. It’s been a while. OK, a long while. OK, so almost a year, but here I am, back with something to say again.

So what have I been up to since you last heard from me? Well, for starters, a little less than a year ago I took a pregnancy test. Two pink lines. I was excited. I scared out of my ever loving mind. And wishing I’d had just one more glass of wine before my nine month hiatus. But anyway, to make a long story short, last November Archer was born and now it’s hard to remember what life was like before him. By the way, I love how we use the passive voice to talk about birth, as if there weren’t 20 hours of labor and 2 hours of pushing involved on the part of his mother.

Part of the reason I kind of stopped blogging was that a lot of my life was consumed by all of the new things that came with pregnancy- praying that I wouldn’t vomit in class, seeing Archer’s heartbeat for the first time, trying to find shoes that would fit my swollen Shrek feet, planning our babymoon getaway. The truth is I didn’t want to blog about all of that. No, that’s not entirely it. More like I didn’t want to jinx it. My mom had something like five miscarriages, both in the early and late stages of her pregnancies. Even though I had the sense that everything would be fine, there was still a niggling superstitious part of me that was very careful about putting it all out there. Just in case.

The other part - I got bored with my blogging subject matter. I started this blog to share stories about walking the Camino de Santiago and my other travels, adventures and general nerdy hijinks, but since I started traveling less, I started blogging less. Then I thought maybe I’d go the book blog route, but that just wasn’t working for me. I felt like I’d kind of painted myself in a corner and the fun leaked out of it.

So, I just let the blog lie fallow for while, but I think it’s time to grow again.

Instead of trying to make this a Travel Blog or a Book Blog or a Mom Blog or a Writing Blog, I’m taking a more holistic approach this time. One thing that used to scare me about having kids was this notion that I had to trade in so much of what made me me in order to be a mom. I feared that I could either ____________ or be a mom. I could either hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Pichu, have time to snuggle with my husband, spend time writing and planning challenging lessons for my students, have time to watch Lost, read stacks of books and still play Balderdash with my friends on the weekends OR be a mom.

Not that things haven’t changed, but for the most part, my fears were unfounded. Something Paul helped me realize is that giving up your identity in order to become a mom is a choice. I may not be able to spend hours on end writing in a coffee shop everyday, but I can write longhand in my notebook when I’m feeding Archer or steal a few minutes here and there. We still go out to dinner with our friends. Paul and I even went to watch New Moon a week after Archer was born. I get to have this amazing little person in my life and I’m still perfectly capable of having an intelligent conversation without a single mention of poop or spit up.

I’m still learning and I know it won’t always be easy. There will be growing pains and sacrifice, but I hope you’ll join me as I try to replace the OR with an AND.

Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster

2009-02-22T22:39:00.001-08:00

Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office by Jen Lancaster

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I have read Jen Lancaster's blog off and on for a while now and I like her snarky no holds barred sense of humor.

I was also a victim of post 9/11 layoffs so I could empathize with some of the things she went through. I also think this is a book a lot of people in our country's current economic situation could appreciate as well. I have to say though, I was impressed by Jen's industriousness. I did OK on unemployment until after graduation the next spring, but after that I'm pretty sure I was depressed and sleeping in while she was up at 7am making calls and applying to every job posted on Monster.

This book really could have been just one big funny rant, but I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of it. The earlier chapters cracked me up, but for me it was the balance of humor and the humility, the lessons she learned over the course of her unemployment that brought resonance to the book. Not that I didn't enjoy her 'fat girl at the Chicago Marathon Health Fair'episode and her commentary about the 'Russian Army' building the house next door. It was just that I also liked seeing how she and her husband Fletch supported and took care of each other in the hard times and the way she swallowed her pride and took a greyhound bus to see her mom when she was in the hospital.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading her other work.

View all my reviews.

Writing Angst

2009-02-20T00:53:00.000-08:00

Argggghhh!

My level of frustration is reaching a frenzy at the moment and I am really tempted to just give up and go to sleep. I am being nominated for an Outstanding Teaching by Part-time Faculty award and my portfolio is due tomorrow. Everything is pretty much in order except for my Teaching Philosophy and Statement of Focus. Its wordy. Its filled with abstract mumbo jumbo. My sentences are too long. There's no conclusion to speak of. Blech! I just keep going over and over it and the words are refusing to bend to my will.

I am so steeped in it that I am having trouble getting perspective. And its way past my bedtime. I'm just praying that I'll get some divine flash of inspiration sometime in the next 5 minutes while I can still keep my eyes open.

On a happy note, it looks like this is my 100th post. At least there's something happy to boost my ego.

The Geography of Bliss: One Grumps Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner

2009-02-08T22:36:00.001-08:00

This is the first non-fiction book I have read in a long time and I think this is one I will go back to again and again. The premise of this book sold me immediately- Eric Weiner, a long time NPR foreign correspondent realized that he has spent the bulk of his career traveling to rather depressing, unhappy places and decided, for a change, to seek out the happiest places in the world. His journey first takes him to The Netherlands to meet with the world’s foremost happiness researcher and then on to Switzerland, Iceland, Qatar, Bhutan (where the government actually measures GNH – Gross National Happiness), Thailand, Great Brittan, Moldova, India and then back home again.

I bought this book over a year ago in hardcover (gasp!) because I just had to have it right this minute, but alas I got onto a big fiction kick and it sat on my shelf patiently waiting until now to find its way into my hands. However, I think my timing was serendipitous because it seemed that every time I picked it up, something I’d just been thinking about popped up in the pages. After my husband and I were watching Lost and discussing who the real Jeremy Bentham was (Jeremy Bentham was the name John Locke used after leaving the island) and who shows up in the book that very same night when I sat down to read? Yep, question answered. Bentham, incidentally, was famous for his utilitarian principle “the greatest happiness for the greatest number.”

One thing I loved about this book was that it was full of passages and observations that really gave me food for thought. My copy is full of dog-eared pages and lines I’ve gone back to and jotted down. My favorite section was the bit about Iceland entitled Iceland: Happiness is Failure where Eric explores the link between the act of creating and happiness. Apparently in Iceland there is not such a negative stigma attached to failure which encourages a culture rife with creativity. One Icelander quipped that they would probably erect a statue to the one person who in Iceland who had not written a novel or poem or song. Here’s a passage from that chapter that especially resonated with me:

“There’s no one on the island telling them they’re not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write. One result of this freewheeling attitude is that the Icelandic artists produce a lot of crap. They’re the first to admit it. But crap plays an important role in the art world. In fact, it plays exactly the same role as it does in the farming world. It’s fertilizer. The crap allows the good stuff to grow.”

Imagine how much more we might achieve in America if we, as a culture, weren’t so afraid of the ramifications of failure. I could sure use some time in Iceland creative boot camp.

My one disappointment with this otherwise thought provoking and very well written book was that the section on America seemed a bit rushed. It offered stories only about Miami and Asheville, North Carolina which hardly seemed representative of our entire country. But then, I wondered if any city or state might have been able to capture the essence of America. Probably not.

Keeps Me On My Toes!

2008-10-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was one of those days.

I've got a lot going on in the next couple of weeks and I think my brain overload is starting to catch up with me. Here's my funny story from yesterday (at least it seems funnier in hindsight).

I get to school nice and early feeling very prepared for the day, sip my coffee and take my time doing some writing in my car. I get ready to walk to class when I discover I've left the bag with all of my teaching materials at home in the living room. And I've only got 12 minutes before class starts. I start to panic but realize I don't have time, only 11 minutes left now. This is very out of character for me as I am usually super meticulous about checking that I've got everything I need. So I ran to my office, scrounged up another copy of my text book and quickly printed and copied some materials and luckily was able to wing it with my students none the wiser. If it had been any other class on any other day, things wouldn't have turned out nearly so well.

This must have jostled my brain out of its normal routine because I actually had a very productive and creative day after that.

Author Q & A with Dalia Sofer

2008-09-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

Back in July I participated in the online book club discussion for The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer over at Everday I Write the Book Blog. I loved the book and was very excited when Gayle posted that she was doing a Q & A with Dalia and asked for reader questions.

Well, she selected a couple of my questions and here is and excerpt of what Dalia had to say. There is a spoiler in the last line of the first question if you haven't read the book.

Q. Shirin's narration was especially compelling and I couldn't help wondering how much of what we saw through her eyes was very closely based on your experiences. I'm dying to know if you actually stole and hid files.
A: Alas, Shirin’s sections are largely imagined—I did not steal any files! But that state of bewilderment and confusion is one that I remember very well. And the passage about absence being very close to death came from a sensation I developed at that time.

Q. Sofer means writer in Hebrew - is this a pen name or a family name you grew into?

A: Sofer is my actual surname. My father is originally from Iraq (and the story goes that my ancestors were biblical scribes!)

I also asked a few more (the one about her writing rituals and adjustment to life in Israel and the US after she and her family fled Iran), but you'll have to read Gayle's post here for the full interview.

Inside the Readers' Studio Meme

2008-09-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

I wasn't tagged for this meme, but I liked the questions so I'm jumping in anyway.

What is your favorite word? My favorite word that I've stumbled upon recently is quiddity. It means the essence or "whatness" of something. I also like preternatural and verisimilitude.

What is your least favorite word? Satisfied. The origin of my dislike for this word is rooted in someone I know regularly eating 2 bites of popcorn and a sip of diet coke in place of a meal and saying, "I'm so satisfied!" Blech. Years later I still cringe.

What turns you on (creatively, spiritually or emotionally)? Gratitude, reflection, a thoughtful gesture from my husband, traveling, being outside in 85 - 90 degree weather with a nice breeze, experiencing a new place for the first time, being near mountains and nature, especially rivers, and coffee and a comfy chair at Borders

What turns you off (creatively, spiritually or emotionally)? a dirty or cluttered house or workspace, bad breath or other noxious smells, people chattering away loudly on their cell phones about personal problems in otherwise quiet public spaces

What sound or noise do you love? The sound of a river, wind in the trees

What sound or noise do you hate? honking horns, shrill whistling, chewing noises and the gait of every narrator's voice on PBS programs

What is your favorite curse word? I'm good for a well placed s$#t or f&$k from time to time.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? writer, paid traveler/explorer, lady of leisure, flying trapeze artist?

What profession would you not like to do? I think one of the circles of hell may require making telemarketing or sales cold calls for all of eternity.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Welcome home.

You'll Get More Than 1,000 Words From These Pictures

2008-08-11T20:42:00.000-07:00

I think I'll try my hand at Weekly Geeks (a weekly challenge hosted by Dewey at The Hidden Side of Leaf) #13, although I am a week late. This week's theme was author photos so here are the men and women responsible for creating my favorite casts of characters:

Any guesses?

1. Photos of your favorite author(s).

2. Photo(s) of the author(s) of the book(s) you’re currently reading.

3. I'm combining a few here : Photo(s) of any author(s) you’ve met in person (even very briefly). Any photo(s) you may have of yourself with an author.

6. A photo of the author of the book you’ve most recently finished.

Book Review: The Septembers of Shiraz

2008-07-30T18:01:00.000-07:00

Personally, I have always preferred getting my history lessons in story form.

I don’t know about you, but when I would sit in history class and the teachers would pontificate about timelines and wars and facts and figures, the Middle Ages, 1776, Napoleon, serfs, Galileo, 1893, Presidential assassins,1602, it would all blur together for me and sound like it was coming from the teacher in the Peanuts’ cartoons. Even though I was interested in learning about history, I could only get the vaguest ideas of the events to stick with me, dangling precariously from my cognitive map like a used post it note.

But put The Diary of Anne Frank or My Brother Sam is Dead (about the Revolutionary War) in my hands and bam - mental Super glue. All of the sudden, instead of seeing a blurry blip on the time line and a passage that made my eyes glaze over, I could see history through the eyes of a young girl, who like me, kept a diary, missed her friends and both loved and got annoyed with her family members. I could see through her eyes that the Holocaust meant that innocent Jewish families like hers had to go into hiding and hold their breath, hearts racing every time they heard a knock at the door wondering if this was the time they'd be caught and taken to the gas chambers of the concentration camps.

In The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer, Isaac Amin and his memorable cast of family members, though fictional, were able to have the same sticking effect on me. The book transported me to 1980s Iran after the fall of the Shah when wealth was punished and none of rules of the old regime applied. In this tumultuous time, rare-gem dealer Isaac Amin is arrested and jailed by the Revolutionary Guard, falsely accused of being a Zionist spy. After his disappearance, his wife Farnaz searches anxiously for him while he endures months filled with isolation and torture and the rest of the family must deal with the lives they have always known being pulled apart piece by piece.

The book was artfully written. Dalia Sofer's narration has a quiet power that kept the pages turning and she does a great job of capturing the subtle contradictions and gray areas inside of us all. The narration comes from all four members of the Amin family: Issac, Farnaz, their nine year old daughter Shirin and their son Pariviz who has been sent to New York for college to avoid his being drafted into the Revolutionary Guard. I liked the changes in narration - Isaac who escapes the tedium and terror of prison by letting his mind drift to his younger days in Shiraz when he was a poet and idealist; Farnaz, who has numbed herself to the world and tries to carry on and hold the family together in Isaac's absence; Parviz, lost, alone and indifferent in New York with a futile hope of a relationship with his extremely religious landlord's daughter, and Shirin, trying to make sense of her father's disappearance, losing friends on the playground and boldly taking a risk that might save someone's life, but could also land her father in even more trouble. I felt particularly drawn to the parts from Shirin’s point of view and found myself wondering how much of the story that we saw through Shirin’s eyes came directly from the life experience of the author who fled Iran with her family when she was only ten.

One interesting thing that stood out to me is that the book is written in the seldom-used present tense. I love the immediacy this adds to the story, connecting someone like me, who has grown up in the US and been fortunate enough not to experience the horrors of watching my beloved homeland and family fractured and cleaved apart by the tyrants of an unstable government, to the events that took place in Iran after the fall of the Shah.

I also think the Sofer’s use of the present tense reflects the fact that the Amin family’s lives have been severed from the tranquil days of their lives before the revolution. With their pasts like a distant dream and their futures uncertain, they have no choice but to live day to day in the present moment.

I really enjoyed this book and while its not action packed, the force of the story propelled me forward and really kept the pages turning. It also definitely brought this period of Iranian history to life for me. I'm looking forward to reading more from Dalia Sofer in the future. Thanks to Gayle at Everyday I Write the Book Blog and Harper Collins for putting this book in my hands and hosting the great online book club discussion earlier this week. If you are interested in more from the author, check back on Gayle's site for an upcoming author interview.

***
Fun fact: Sofer means writer in Hebrew. I wonder if that is a family name that she grew into or if she took it on as her pen name because of its meaning.

Beginnings

2008-07-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

Suggested by: Nithin

Here’s another idea about memorable first lines from books.

What are your favourite first sentences from books? Is there a book that you liked specially because of its first sentence? Or a book, perhaps that you didn’t like but still remember simply because of the first line?

I am going to answer today, but concede to my laziness and be brief. I'm going to go with the excuse that brevity is the soul of wit (well, it is isn't it?).

I have to admit that, "Call me Ishmael." doesn't really do anything for me, but my favorite first line that I can recall from memory comes from a book I haven't even read yet, is not a classic and has nothing to do with a whale.

Here goes:

"Dear Carrie Bradshaw,
You are a f***ing liar."

to which I respond:

Dear Jen Lancaster,

You crack me up. I love your blog and I can't wait to read Bright Lights, Big Ass. Let's drink some mojitos and be best friends. And promise to never ever read Moby Dick.

Irreverently Yours,

Jessica

Book Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

2008-07-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

It has been an extremely long time since I have felt myself so drawn into the world created by a fiction writer and felt so emotionally involved with the unlikeliest of characters, nine-year-old Oskar Schell, a boy whose Dad was killed on 9/11 and his Grandparents, German immigrants whose lives were forever changed after the bombing in Dresden.

I have read so many novels in the earlier part of this year that I wanted so badly to be touching and thought provoking but they all fell short, except for this one.

This is a short summary from the book jacket: "Oskar Schell is an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center."

Besides Oskar and his grandparents, I also loved the characters Oskar met along the way, like one hundred and three year-old Mr. Black who has a giant card catalog with a card for every person he ever met, each one labeled with one word that describes their essence.

I think Jonathan Safran Foer is one of the most talented young writers I have ever read. His detail and lifelike mixture of humor and sadness made the characters leap off of the page and right into my heart. I rarely listened to audio books before this one, but I picked it up on a whim and really enjoyed the performances.

Booking Through Thursday: Vacation Spots

2008-07-17T12:59:00.001-07:00

I've been reading other bloggers' weekly Booking Through Thursday posts for a while, but this will be my inaugural BTT post. This week's question is:

Do you buy books while on vacation/holiday?

Do you have favorite bookstores that you only get to visit while away on a trip?

What/Where are they?

I knew I was going to love Washington D.C. when I looked out my hotel room window. Against the backdrop of old brick buildings, historical landmarks and the hustle and bustle of crowds of intellectuals and politicos I could see not one, but two bookstores. We don’t have many local, independently owned bookstores in Las Vegas so I have trouble resisting a peek at the stacks of places like Kramer Books & Afterwords Café on Dupont Circle in D.C., which also happens to have a killer lunch menu and a bar inside the bookstore. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

But while I do love to browse through bookstores while traveling, I don’t often make book purchases away from home for several reasons: A) Its one more thing I’ll have to lug around with me. B) Its very likely I can get it cheaper on Amazon, and the main reason C) l hate to have a stack of more than two or three books at home waiting to be read. If I accumulate too many, by the time I get to them I have usually lost interest because I am excited to read something else.

There are two exceptions I can think of:

¿Dónde esta Harry Potter?
When our overnight train pulled into the station in Madrid at the end of our Camino last summer, I was on a mission. I had to limp all the way, but I was determined not to leave Spain without a copy of the newly released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in English. I’d tracked down an English language bookstore that was holding a copy for me and after about an hour of being lost, we found the address listed on their website. Only when we got there, the building was empty. Frustrated but undaunted, we called our friend Jeremy back in the US, the only one of our friends who could possibly be up at 3am and he graciously looked up the bookstore’s phone number for us. We called and found the new location a few blocks away and I had my Harry Potter for the plane ride home.

When in Stratford
It seemed almost sacrilegious to leave the idyllic English countryside town that gave birth to Shakespeare without some work of literature. Though ironically, what I picked was not a book of sonnets or a comedic play involving a woman disguising herself as a man but The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.

Cover Love: Judging a Book By Its Cover

2008-07-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

I’ll admit it. I am a sucker for a good picture. Whenever I go to a restaurant and open up the menu I am instantly wooed by the dishes that are accompanied by pictures. At BJ’s, the picture of grilled chicken pasta with its vibrant green broccoli and delicate shavings of parmesano reggiano gets me every time.

Book covers sometimes have the same ooh-look-something-shiny! effect on me. Out of the massive volumes of books stacked floor to ceiling in my local bookstore shelves, some always seem to draw me over for a closer look.

Here are a few that have caught my eye in the bookstore lately:

Maybe it’s my marketing background, but although great cover art does not always portend a riveting and well written story, I think its OK to celebrate the publishing companies giving an author a great package to help promote their work.

Giveaways Galore

2008-07-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to share a few great book related giveaway opportunities I've come across in the last few days:

*In the Shadow of Mt. TBR's writer is hosting her first giveaway ever. Visit her site to enter for a chance to win a $20 Borders gift card.

*Marie at the Boston Bibilophile is giving away an ARC copy of Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I just discovered Marie's blog a few weeks ago and I love it. She seems to post several times a week and her reviews are detailed and insightful.

From the Garden Spells cover:
In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in the smallest of towns, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.
*The audiobook version of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is available for free download on iTunes this week. Just check the main page for the free download icon.

A Little Something Humorous

2008-07-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

I love when I learn something new from a textbook I'm teaching.

For example, did you know the that word humor actually comes from the Latin word for liquid?* Kudos to you if you're a crackerjack at dead languages, but I had no idea. Apparently the story goes like this: Hundreds of years ago, when people still agreed that the world was flat, it was commonly thought by the noted philosophers of the day that one's personality traits were determined by the balance of the liquids in one's body. Unbalanced liquids = unbalanced personality = strange or odd. So instead of being used to describe things like Sarah Vowell's nephew referring to cemeteries as Halloween parks or Stephen Colbert's version of the news, humorous once referred to someone who was a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket. For example the contestants on Flavor of Love Season 3.

OK, enough with the Latin lessons, but speaking of textbooks, my summer session class starts up next Monday. That means today I am hard at work lesson planning as well as casting aside my hate-affair with talking on the phone to find the best mortgage loan for our new house (Yay! We're getting a new house! Boo! We have to pack. A lot. Quickly.).

I have been in seriously in denial that summer vacation is in fact almost over for me. This is going to put a serious cramp in my new habit of reading until 2am. And lounging around in my pajamas until its time to change into my gym clothes in the afternoon. But in all honesty, I can't complain. I love working with my students and seeing someone who arrived knowing only very basic English progress enough get into the best Hotel Management School in the country. Teaching allows me to work autonomously, be creative and get better every day. And it lets me have a summer vacation in the first place. So, yeah I guess I'm pretty lucky.

*From World Pass: Expanding English Fluency Advanced by S. Stemplski, N. Douglas, J. Morgan and K.L. Johannsen

Lost Girls Book

2008-07-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

In book and travel related news (my two favorite subjects), I am thrilled to see that The Lost Girls have landed a book deal (with Harper Collins, no less!) to write about the year they took off to travel the world. If you haven’t already heard the buzz about the Lost Girls, here is a little background, but I highly recommend checking out their blog for yourself to read about their incredible journey and check out their tips if you are dreaming of doing something like this yourself someday: In 2006 best friends Holly, Jen and Amanda traded in the comforts of home and steady jobs in the competitive New York media world for giant backpacks, sometimes seedy hostels, guidebooks and the chance at the adventure of a lifetime.

These are truly girls after my own heart. From the moment I discovered their blog, which happened to be when I was in the throes of planning my own Camino adventure last spring, I was intrigued and inspired. When I wasn’t researching backpacks, lightweight sleeping sacks and a place I could purchase a contraption that enables women to pee standing up in the middle of nowhere, I spent a lot of my spare time reading through their archives.

From the time they touched down in Peru, bought funny looking hats and hiked the Inca Trail right up to the end of their journey in Australia, the girls shared stories and pictures of their adventures on their blog, kindly allowing us to live vicariously through them. I find their writing style savvy, polished and extremely accessible, like hearing the insider point of view from a best girlfriend who also happens to be a kick-ass writer.

I love their spirit and their courage to dare to do what most people only dream about. And of course, the fact that they wrote about it. Jen, Amanda and Holly are truly a testament to the idea that if you want something badly enough, with enough drive, determination and sacrifice, anything is possible. So I wish them the best of luck with the book, which I will anxiously await. I hope they sell millions of copies and inspire many others to take a chance on their own dreams.

Crossing the Finish Line

2008-06-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

I did it! I have already spewed out almost all of the words that reside in my head onto my keyboard today in order to cross the 50,000 word finish line, so I'll be brief. Just wanted to share my excitement. I'm really grateful to the New Zealanders over at Kiwi Writers for letting this eager American participate in their challenge. This year a total of 2,635,755 words were written collectively by 143 participants. Sharing my daily progress and knowing there was a whole group of other writing hopefuls clattering away at their keyboards in the winter weather of the southern hemisphere helped me immensely in getting to my daily word goals. As did lemon-lime Gatorade, piles of Oreo cookies and the unfailing support and encouragement from my wonderful husband.

Here's the button with my final word count below:

Book Review: Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert

2008-06-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert

My review

Here is fair warning: If you are looking for a book to fill the hole left by Eat, Pray, Love, reading Stern Men is like trying to shove a square lobster trap into that round hole. It doesn't quite fit the bill.

I really wanted to like this book. After reading Eat, Pray, Love last summer I was eager to read some of Elizabeth Gilbert's earlier works so my first pick was Gilbert's first novel, Stern Men set on two fictional islands off the coast of Maine. I thought it would be a pretty sure bet that I would love almost anything the Elizabeth Gilbert set down on paper, a bet I was disappointed to lose with myself with my mixed feelings on her debut novel.

What this book does well:

You can almost smell the salt air and you can definitely feel the boredom and the generations of animosity between the people of Fort Niles and Courne Haven Islands. Gilbert knows how to paint a gritty and lively picture of the backdrop for her heroine Ruth and the cast of characters around her.

Where it falters:

Descriptions of the history of the islands and the families living there seem to go on for days. They overwhelm the brief pockets of action in the story. It plot ekes forward at a painfully slow pace.

When I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert speak last year at the Book Group Expo in San Jose she cited Charles Dickens as one of her favorite authors and a big influence on her work. His influence was apparent in her stylistic choices for Stern Men. If you like sweeping prose descriptions that go on for fistfulls of pages filling you in on on every detail of backstory, this book may win you over. However, if you are looking forward to something actually happening, you might want to settle in and get comfortable because you might have to wait for a while.

The book does seem to pick up and redeem itself in the last 40 - 50 pages or so, Elizabeth Gilbert's confident and original voice that I'd been waiting for seemed to resurface and shine through to bring the story home.

View all my reviews.

50,000 Words

2008-06-23T01:26:00.000-07:00

All right, I’m outing myself today. This month I have been committed to some serious writing, just not in this blog. I was feeling a little tentative (and like I might throw up) about mentioning it before I began. I had some serious doubts and some days when they completely paralyzed me – what if I discovered it was just too hard? What if it was too cumbersome? Too soul sucking? I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to rise to the occasion, but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t at least try to find out.

So… for the past 21 days I have been pounding away at the keyboard participating in a little something called SoCNoC (Southern Cross Novel Challenge), New Zealand’s answer to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but taking place in June, which happened to be in a more convenient month for me.

The challenge: write a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel in 30 days and live to tell about it.

The idea is not to edit as you go – quantity trumps quality in this round, the editing starts when July rolls around. Well, here I am in week 4 of my challenge and as of today I have written 36,002 words (that’s 63 pages single spaced!) of my required 50,00.

I’ve always harbored the secret desire to write a book. If I don’t at least try, I’ll never know if I can do. And wouldn’t that be a worse failure? (That’s what I try to tell myself every time I’m so sick of writing and just want to quit.)

I let my writing drift off into the background while I let the business of growing up and finding my way in the world take precedence during my college years and beyond. When I did that, I forfeited all of that prime sucking time in my youth that usually needs to come before the brief flashes of brilliance start showing up in the vast haystack of words that I produce. So now is as good a time as any to jump in the mud to

So, like the Camino de Santiago that I am writing about, this month has been a formidable challenge. I am walking out into the wilderness not knowing what to expect. I have a lot more clothes to choose from this time around, but the goal I want to achieve is the same, get to the finish line no matter what obstacles jump in my way.

Wish me luck. I’ll keep you posted – 50, 000 words, June 30, I can see you in the distance.

Boston: Along the Freedom Trail

2008-05-22T12:03:00.000-07:00

Did you know that Paul Revere had 16 children? 16?! I can see my Paul’s eyes light up and the corners of his mouth curl upward involuntarily as I tell him this bit of trivia I picked up walking the Freedom Trail and paying a visit to Paul Revere’s former home in the North End of Boston last week. I tell him not to get any ideas. Besides, only eleven survived to adulthood.

With Paul tied up in conference sessions for the large part of our first few days, I set out to explore the old cobbled streets of Boston’s history on my own. I was surprised to find that Boston was a relatively small, compact city that was very easy to get around with a combination of the T (Boston’s subway system) and a good pair of walking shoes.

I started off my journey on the Freedom Trail, which begins in the lovely Boston Common park and snakes around the city for 2.5 miles connecting the dots between many of Boston’s significant historical sights.
Walking along the red brick trail was also a good way to get my bearings in the city. There are may tour groups that lead guided expeditions along the trail, but I opted to download the audio tour ($15 to download) on the Freedom Trail website so I could take it all in at my leisure and pause at the interesting spots or fast forward through the long boring bits if I happened upon any of them.

Here are some highlights of places I stopped and fun facts I learned along the way on my first day in Boston:

Faneuil Hall- Boston’s first central marketplace. This is a lively area for shopping and eating and watching live street performers. There is a whole building full of nothing but gift shops. I was in heaven.

The Inspiration for the Scarlet Letter – Tucked away In the King’s Chapel Burying Ground is the headstone of Elizabeth Payne, who is rumored to be the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s heroine in the Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne. Hawthorne probably passed through the graveyard on his way to work at the Custom House. Her headstone bears a coat of arms featuring 2 lions and a half of what looks like a stylized letter A.

The site of the first public school and the Old Corner Bookstore

The Old State House – I got to stand under the balcony where the Declaration of Independence was read to the people of Boston for the first time.

The Old South Meeting House – where some 5,000 people gathered to protest the tea tax and after a secret coded proclamation from Sam Adams (who, incidentally, I learned was pretty hopeless as a brewmaster despite his other talents) sent the group of protestors to the harbor to dump multiple shiploads of tea into the water in the event that came to be known as the Boston Tea Party.

Paul Revere’s House – When Paul Revere purchased the house it was already 90 years old. Walking into the old building with a fireplace in every room to keep the family warm in the winter, you feel distinctly like you’re inside one of those funhouses where everything is tilted and crazy things happen like balls rolling uphill and water running sideways. I asked the docent who offered her services if I was imagining things. She said no, its even more uneven upstairs.

The Old North Church – The famous site where Paul Revere was to hang lanterns – one if by land, two if by sea, to warn the people that the British were coming on the night of his famous midnight ride. This is one of the landmarks I was most excited to see. Although I am a little embarrassed to admit this, its role in the movie National Treasure had a little something to do with that.

Now That She's Back in the Blogosphere

2008-05-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

I know I have been MIA from the blogosphere the last couple of weeks.

You know when you get a message from a friend who you haven't talked to in a long time. You're so excited to talk to the person, but you keep putting it off because its been so long that you need a good long time to sit down and give the them all the juicy details of what you've been up to.

Well, I kind of feel like that. Except I haven't had a good long time for dishing in a good long time. And its almost midnight and I have to be at school at 8 tomorrow and probably stay until 8pm. So it's not looking good for the full scoop, but for any of you who are still checking back after I've gone missing for the last few weeks, I just wanted to say hi.

Here are few things I have done since we last chatted:

Spoke at a professional conference for the first time in Sacramento
Visited Michael, Jenny, Noah, Josh and David (my brother-in-law, sister-in-law and nephews) in Vacaville
Spent time with Lai, one of my best friends, when she came to town from Macau for the week
Went to my friend Heather's bachelorette party
Logged some major hours house shopping over the last few weeks
Put an offer in on a house we really like yesterday - I'm very excited since this will be the first home Paul and I have picked out together
Started to prepare for study week and finals -only a week and a half to go before summer vacation!
On a sad note, visited Maw Maw, my grandmother-in-law, in the hospital on two occasions after she took a couple of spills at my in-laws house.

I probably forgot some, but that's the quick and dirty. I hope to resume the weekly blogging again soon. Just think of it like all the TV shows returning after the writers' strike.

Save the Drama for ….the Popular Kids?

2008-04-07T23:58:00.000-07:00

I was in every play in high school from my sophomore year on. I remember how excited I was to get cast as the lead in my first play over Starr Easterday, a really outspoken senior who, frankly, I was a little bit scared of, and had been acting a lot longer than me. As it turns out, despite my oh so convincing audition, I had a long, long, long way to go before I got even kind of watchable. That first audition was my ticket into the high school drama world though. No matter how big or small my part, I loved every crazy four hour rehearsal and even the constant angst-filled asides from the really intense kid. I made friends plus I got to flirt shamelessly with all of the cute clever boys, most of whom inevitably turned out to be gay.

I went on to play a sickly sweet flapper girl with a serious crush on a guy named George and the maid in You Can’t Take It With You. In the script the character was supposed to be black, but I gave her an Irish accent. Sometimes. I was the stage manager in Gammer Gurton’s Needle with a monologue that ended with “God Save the Queen! Huzzah!” You can never say that too many times. I was the understudy for one of the princesses in Love’s Labour’s Lost, my favorite Shakespeare comedy ever, and would have gotten to go on when one of the princesses ran away from home with her boyfriend had her costume not been a size 2. In my very last performance as the celebrated fashion designer Bibi Cavendish in a British murder mystery I actually felt confident in my improvement. Even my Mom, who came to every performance and kindly encouraged me through my mediocrity couldn't hide the hint of surprise in her voice when she said “Jessi, that was actually really good!”

What can I say? It takes a while.

So it hit me the other day, with the High School Musical movies capturing the rapt attention of all of the teens and ‘tweens of the nation. Are all of these kids now trying out for their high school musicals?

Instead of drama being the place for marginal kids who are drawn to acting because its not so mainstream, I wonder if stages are now being overrun by the would be cheerleaders and football players. And think of the competition… I might have edged out Starr Easterday, but I don’t know if I ever would have gotten the chance to get on stage with 20 mini Vanessa Hudgins running around. It would be pretty sad for all of those kids who are hopeful and whole-heartedly ready to make complete fools of themselves in the quest to get better like I was to miss out on their chance.

Any high school drama teachers out there who have seen a massive influx of auditioners of late?

Wandering Mind? Try Accessorizing.

2008-04-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

It seems that the times I want to focus the most (especially on writing) are the exact times that my mind goes all Lord of the Flies on me and decides to run wild …

Its like some mischievous six-year-old kid in pigtails has taken over my thoughts. One who has forgotten her daily dose of ADD meds and traded her healthy tuna sandwich and carrot stick lunch for 10 Oreos, some pixie sticks and a pack of Ding-Dongs. Did I ever tell you I had a cat named Ding-dong? Yep, when I was a kid. And she has a sister cat named Esprit, but they both got sick and died a few weeks after we got them. Wait. Wait, where was I? Oh, yes focus and concentration. That’s right.

So imagine my delight when, in the midst of my brain toggling at will between the best way to explain gerunds and infinitives, wanting to go to Hong Kong, contemplating the benefits of the pigeon pose in yoga, researching about Harajuku girls in Japan, preparing for my first major conference presentation and thinking about throwing out the chicken that has been sitting in my fridge for 2 weeks, I come across the concept of the hachimaki, a Japanese symbol of absolute concentration and dedication to the task at hand.

My first thought was, I’ve got to get me one of these!

The hachimaki, a thin cloth headband sometimes bearing an encouraging slogan, is tied around one’s head when the wearer wants to signify a shift into a state of focused thought and energy. Picture Mr. Miagi and the Karate Kid. A student might wear one when studying for a grueling exam. Pilots wore them when heading into battle.
Martial artists and Sumo wrestlers sport them in competitions. I can just picture myself walking into Borders, preparing to dedicate myself to whatever writing task I’m working on and pulling out my hachimaki and chopping through a brick with my hands on the coffee bar before sitting down to concentrate.

I first came across the concept in a book I’m reading called Japanland: A Year In Seach of Wa by Karin Muller. Karin describes the hachimaki as "a symbol of intent - like pinning your New Year's diet to your sleeve and wearing it to brunch the next day."

While certainly not a magic cure for the wandering mind, the idea of a tangible, visible reminder of my intentions is appealing to me. I think most of us have rituals that serve as the psychological doorway into a state of concentration and dedication, whether we’re aware of them or not. Closing the office door. Going for a run. Going to a special room or place outdoors. Listening to guided meditations or praying or practicing yoga. Driving around with the windows down singing “I Will Survive” off key until your voice goes hoarse. Tying on a hachimaki. Do you have any type of custom that moves you into hard work or creative mode?

I usually get out of the house and head to a place where I’m surrounded by books and/or coffee when I want to focus. Even though I already have some kind of ritual in place, I think I might find my own pink silk version of the hachimaki to add to my repertoire. When the little girl in my brain is tugging me away from my endeavour, with her "Didn't you want to watch all of the old episodes of Lost today?" and "Maybe you want to check your email for the 14th time? Oooh! Ooh! What about Spider Solitaire?!" maybe it'll help remind me to put her on mute and keep focused on my intentions.

Love in the Time of Cholera: Book Review

2008-03-26T00:07:00.000-07:00

After 3 months, 4 days and one 8 hours of feverish reading in one day I finally finished Love in the Time of Cholera this Sunday. I tried to write about my reflections on the book over the last few days but I think I was still entrenched in the world of Fermina and Florentino and needed some time to exorcise the story from my body and consciousness.

Like our heroine Fermina Daza had with woeful hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza I had a love/hate relationship with this book. Several years ago I picked it up full of innocent longing for a good story, but after reading several dozen pages I decided that the that it didn’t have the chops to keep my attention for the long haul. It was exiled to the book shelf, out of sight and out of mind for several years passed (though nowhere near the 51 years and some change that Florentino patiently idled away his time in love affairs to break the monotony of endless pining for Fermina while he waited for her husband to die so he could once again put the moves on her). Out of the blue, the book became an Oprah book club selection and started generating a lot of buzz. This piqued my curiousity and I slowly warmed again to the idea of reading the story. Perhaps I had made a mistake the first time around.

Here is a brief plot summary: Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza were childhood sweethearts. Although they never shared a proper conversation, they steal surreptious glances and fan the flames of young love with a secret correspondence of love letters. When Fermina decides that what exists between she and Florentino is not love, but some kind of adolescent illusion, she rejects him and leaves him tormented and brokenhearted. Fermina goes on to marry and have children, but Florentino spends his entire life carrying a torch for Fermina. While he stays devout in his singular love and devotion for Fermina Daza, he finds comfort in a multitude of secret love affairs of the flesh. 51 years, 9 months and 4 days go by since the days of their earlier letters when, upon the death of Fermina's husband, Florentino steps out of the shadows to once again profess his everlasting fidelity .

While it wasn’t my very favorite book of all time and I would be cautious recommending this book to just anyone, I enjoyed the story and the rich portraits of the characters spanning two centuries in Colombia. Florentino Ariza was at the same time a devoted and caring and borderline maniacal and stalkerish suitor. Fermina was haughty and obstinate, a woman whose identity was spirited identity is traded for the stable life of a wife and mother. Gabriel Garcia Marquez can write vivid heart breaking descriptions of the joy and agony of love in all of its many forms like no other. I also think he perfectly captured the inherent contradictions in human character.

On the downside, I found that the meticulously detailed descriptions that drew me into the story and kept me wanting more also served to repel me at other points in the narrative. Sometimes in the middle section of the book I thought I could take a slow boat to Paris and back before the plot would move forward.

After reading the story of Florentino and Fermina's early days of exchanging letters and her ultimate rejection, I felt like this was one of the best books ever written. It make me feel as though I wanted to stimulate my brain with some more challenging classics (although this is a more contemporary classic as I later found out this book was written in 1985) but at other times I felt like I was just gritting my teeth and pushing through. That said, I felt satisfied but weary and did feel like I should get a medal for conquering the marathon of books when I finally reached the final page.

Next up:
My next Girls Book and Wine Club selection:
Him Her Him Again The End of Him by Saturday Night Live writer alum Patricia Marx.

Catching Up

2008-03-22T18:04:00.000-07:00

Here's a lazy one where I smash all of the events of the last few weekends into one post. Here's are some of my highlights from the last few weeks:

Dinner with my parents at Bahama Breeze while they were in town. We had a lively discussion about life and the elections this year. My Mom wiggled over my Dad's lap to switch places with him in our booth. The rest of us laughed hysterically except my sister's highbrow boyfriend who looked on in horror. His eyes and neatly manicured eyebrows nearly jumped out of his head and on to his appetizer plate.

I tried on bridesmaids dresses for my youngest sister Laure's wedding. She encouraged us to get the coolest dresses possible as the wedding will be held in Lake Havasu in August. Mine is a little black dress that could actually make a second appearance at a Christmas cocktail party or a friend's wedding. I didn't order it right away because one of my fellow bridesmaids, Sandra, brought her little baby girl to David's Bridal and she seriously put the baby voodoo on me with her giant brown eyes and sweet temperament. This temporarily clouded my judgment and made me put off buying my dress for a month. Definitely no plans, but just in case of the unlikely event. My sister would kill me if I couldn't have drinks with her at her wedding.

Just as Spring Break was beginning, I was knocked out cold by some kind of sickness. I lost my will to do anything but sleep and eat Cadbury Mini Eggs for several days, but I did recover pretty quickly and go hiking again last weekend. I luckily begged out of the early morning hike that Paul, Tim and Tim went on 5:30 am in search of a phantom trail Paul loves that leads to the top of a really high peak. When they got back they couldn't wait to tell Heather, who crashed on our couch from 5:30 until we woke up, and I about their adventures. Apparently on the way back down they rode a rock avalanche about a hundred feet down the mountain (it has grown to 200 feet in this weeks storytelling).
"We almost died." Tim said.
"Yeah," Paul said, "It was awesome."
Boys, boys. Heather and I joined them for some afternoon hiking that involved neither rock avalanche surfing nor almost dying.

The Girls Book and Wine Club reconvened after a three month hiatus at Ashley's last Sunday to discuss What Should I Do With My Life? by Po Bronson. Three months was way too long between get-togethers. Many factors conspired to continually get us off topic which led to a fun afternoon but with one that was light on the great book discussion we usually have. That's too bad because I think this book could really have generated some good questions and discussion since the topic is so universal. The book is a compilation of stories from people who have answered this ultimate question, what should I do with my life? I'll have to do another post to talk about it in more detail.

That bring us up to last week, my Spring Break. Still slightly recovering from my sickness, I basically split my time between my couch and Borders with a few trips to the gym sprinkled in towards the end. I caught up on some movies. I rented Dan In Real Life and Enchanted, both of which I enjoyed, but Dan had the edge if you ask me, and spent a lot of time writing, just not on my blog.

And to perfectly round out the week, dinner and a competitive round of Balderdash , my favorite bluffing board game ever, with friends were in order last night. I can sometimes dominate on game night, but last night not so much. I can't believe nobody voted for International Belly Dancers with Cancer Corps for IBDCC! That totally sounds real. Anyway, the last few weeks have been pretty great though I am a little sad to see Spring Break end.

Menu del Dia - ¡Te Echo De Menos!

2008-03-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ever since the Las Vegas weather gods have started teasing us with some gorgeous warm and sunny days here and there I have been suffering from some serious spring fever. Its really tough to keep myself planted in my office chair indoors when I'm planning for my classes. My eyes and my mind keep wandering out the window and making a very convincing case for my body to follow out onto a blanket in the soft grass in the company of the fresh air and golden sun. I've been carrying a fuzzy pink blanket in my trunk just for such opportunities.

To take full advantage of the nicer weather, I spent this lovely sunny Saturday morning hiking out at Red Rock Canyon with Paul and our friend Tim. I haven't really been hiking too much since the Camino last summer so I am a little out of practice, but we did a pretty easy although somewhat steep hike to ease ourselves back into it. Paul took the doors off of his Jeep this morning and was very excited to monster truck over the bumpy trails to get to our starting point.

After we finished up hiking, we headed back to town to grab some lunch. Our lunch conversation turned to the indisputable fact that everything tastes better after a full day of exertion. I remember thinking during nearly every meal on the Camino, save for the curious (read: disgusting) veggie meatloaf in Logroño, "This is the best _________ I've ever eaten!" This is the best beef (ternera -mmm!) and oily french fries I've ever eaten. This is the best squashed-up-from-being-in-my-backpack-for-2-days banana or plum I have ever eaten! This is the best salad with tuna and oil I have ever eaten! This is the best roasted galic soup I have ever eaten. I love most Spanish food to begin with, but it all seemed take on a unnaturally delicious taste after working up an appetite. Even Coca-Cola, which I almost never never touch at home, was incredibly delicious.

All this talk and a recent post by Joe at Italyville where he shares a list of the foods he misses most from Italy got me feeling nostalgic for my favorite sabrositos Spanish treats. So here's my little contribution to the list of foods missed from abroad.

Menú del dia or Menú de Peregrinos After 12 - 15 miles on the road each day, we were exhaused and absolutely ravenous. The menú de peregrinos was just what the doctor ordered, a 3 course meal served at a restaurant or bar, complete with copious amounts of pan and your choice of vino or agua. Most provided a choice of starters (usually salad, soup or pasta), main course (beef, chicken or fish) and dessert and were definitely worth the price.

Zazamoros Little pieces of raspberry and blackberry flavored sugary heaven. You can get these here in the US, but somehow they are just not the same. I first discovered these at the candy/record store down the street from my apartment when I lived in San Sebastián and of course I sought them out again this summer.

A Napolitana with Cola Cao or Café con leche - Ah, the breakfast of champions. A flaky chocolately croissant paired with the Spanish answer to hot chocolate or coffee with steamed milk. Not the healthiest, but this isn't the top healthiest foods in Spain, its just my favorites.

Nestle Maxibon Fittingly last since it is the dessert, the mother of all helado, the Maxibon. Most of the Spanish bars that I passed by carried a tempting array of ice cream bars from either Nestle or Frigo, but this half ice cream bar, half ice cream sandwich, held the number one spot for me. I consumed at least one a day, a wonderful perk of burning off so many calories.

What foods do you really miss that typify the places abroad that you've lived or visited? Or if you're out on the road are you missing some strange things from home?

Gakkakusei!

2008-03-05T16:58:00.000-08:00

That means sucker in Japanese. Actually, it doesn't. I just made that up, but I'm pretty sure I fell prey to the latest infomercial scam. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I bought the Kinoki foot pads. Yeah, the ones from the infomercial.

They sounded so great - detoxing, helping rid your body of headaches and metabolic waste, reducing cellulite (OK, I was skeptical about that one), promoting vibrant health and wellness. Who doesn't want vibrant health and wellness? The commercial claimed that the products use the ancient Japanese art of reflexology and acupressure along with negative ions to work their magic. I was intrigued. Even my level-headed husband who is skeptical of everything to do with advertising was interested so I bought them. What the hell, I figured. Even if they just had a placebo effect, I was game for that.

After 4 weeks of waiting for them to arrive, Paul and I have been testing out the "magical" Kinoki foot pads over the last week. Here are some pictures:

Here's the before picture. They come in nice little shamrock packaging.

This is after night 1. I'm sorry to tell you that all of that brown stuff is already inside the pad to begin with. I think that the moisture from your foot activates one of the ingredients to let it show through.

The official prognosis after almost a week: I almost want to call the Mythbusters guys to check these out. Here are my observations:

Something is definitely coming out of my foot at night, but I'm not convinced its toxins, metals or metabolic waste. It might just be sweat.
In the morning when I peel them off of my foot there is a strong odor that smells like liquid smoke.
Since I have started using the Kinoki's I have felt really tired. Paul and I both took 2+ hour naps in the middle of the day on Sunday. This, of course, may be a confounding with other variables or maybe that's just what happens when your body gets rid of toxins.
I'm not sure how reflexology or acupressure could play any part in the efficacy of these pads since you can place them anywhere on your foot or even on your shoulder or back.
Sadly, no movement on the cellulite front.

I guess I should have known when I saw that their website contains tag lines like "Experience Kinoki's Natural Power of Nature!" Really, nature is natural? Hmmm.

I guess that's what I get for armchair traveling via infomercial products.

A Little R&R

2008-02-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone, long time no see! Sorry for the hiatus, but I needed some time away from the
public forum to regroup and let some things marinate for a while. Let's see, what have I been up to since you last heard from me...

Paul and I took a trip to Tahoe with a group of friends. Parts of the trip were fun, like the night we stayed in and cooked up some lasagne and spent the night drinking wine and Blue Moon (the unofficial official beer of Tahoe it seems) while we played Taboo and Apples to Apples. My two friends Marissa and Jeff, the couple who planned the trip, are the two most competitive people in our group of friends, probably in all of creation, so it was great fun and verbal fireworks when we played boys against girls Taboo. My motion sickness/nausea/migranes/possible altitude sickness and then the drugs to counteract said sicknesses which made me super sleepy had me pretty much out for the count during most of the weekend. I didn't go skiing, partly due to the sickness and partly due to my fear that I will never find ski boots the fit me properly, but I did ride the gondola up to Adventure Peak to go tubing on day two. And of course, no force of nature or sickness can keep me away from trolling the gift shops for treasures.

Almost as soon as we got back from Tahoe, Paul was off again to Washington D.C. to attend the AIA Grassroots conference. He got to hobknob with some architecture greats at the conference Gala including John Carl Warnecke, the Architect responsible for JFK's eternal flame memorial at Arlington National Cemetary.

While he was gone, I decided to use the extra free time to do a lot something I love -curling up in a comfy chair at Borders or Barnes and Noble (I alternated) with a good book or writing in my journal for hours. I also had lunch with my wonderful friend Michele and a sleepover at my mother-in-law's.

I was a reading fool last week! I finished Perseopolis: The Story of a Childhood in a couple of days and it was really a good read. Its a graphic novel memoir, telling the story of Marjane Satrapi growing up in Iran during the time of revolution. The writing style was both humorous and poignant showed the changes in Iran and in one family's life because of the revolution. The movie based on this book and its sequel (which was also good, better than the first, in my opinon) was up for an academy award this weekend for best animated film. I'm hoping that the theatre near my house that usually gets the less mainstream movies usually reserved for New York and LA is showing it.

I'm also reading Love in the Time of Cholera. I LOVE this book. At the risk of sounding like I should be recieving social security, they just don't make books like that anymore. The first 50 pages were agonizingly slow and confusing. Where is thte love story? Where are the main characters mentioned on the back cover? Who is this boring doctor? However, I think it is well worth enduring that part for the rich story that follows. And don't worry, I wasn't one of the masses that bought it when Oprah chose it as her book club selection. No, I was way ahead of the trend when I picked it up a few years ago when it was featured in Serendipity, the John Cusack/ Kate Beckinsdale romantic comedy.

Well, that's about all for now. Since I have been getting into yoga again lately, I'll leave you with Namaste.

Set Your DVRs and TiVos

2008-02-09T16:35:00.000-08:00

I have desperately been trying to post something witty and interesting this week, but my full time teaching, Japanese class and Grad Research class have sucked all of the creative energy I would like to funnel into writing blog posts out of me.

I nearly had a break down on Thursday after finding out that the researchers I had learily agreed to videotape my class a few times told me they would be back next Tuesday and Thursday too. I was under the impression that they would tape 3 classes total (which is uncomfortable enough), not 3 in the beginning, 3 in the middle and 3 at the end. That is practically the whole semester! And I hate being videotaped, hate it, hate it, hate it. I didn't even like being videotaped on my wedding day. It adds a feeling of complete panic to whatever I am doing not only during the taping, but also before and after for me. In fact, I can feel my blood pressure going up right now just thinking about it. I am trying to find a way to trick my mind into putting a positive spin on the whole thing. Like I'm the star of my own reality TV show. Except I don't get to travel around the world and go bungee jumping or ride in a dragon boat or anything like that.

After talking to Paul about it, I felt a little better and decided to audit both of my classes rather than taking them for credit. Hopefully this will relieve some of the pressure and give me a little more time for some creative pursuits.

On a happier note, my good friend and super talented artist Matt, who was my partner in crime during my study abroad days in Spain, is making his television debut! After doing plenty of as a starving artist, his work has recently been showcased in New York, Chicago, Reno and probably more that I don't even know about. Thanks to this exposure and press appearance in The Advocate last year his business has really taken off and has allowed him to paint full time. I am so proud of him and love to see that all of his hard work and determination to follow his dream has paid off.

Please check him out tomorrow on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition where he painted a "Reflection of the Buddahs" mural in Ty's "Secret Room" for the Gilyeat family in Kansas City. The show airs tomorrow, Sunday February 10 on ABC at 8/7 central.

Respect Your Elders

2008-01-30T17:45:00.000-08:00

I am officially the oldest person in my Japanese class. I walked in Tuesday to this conversation between some of my classmates who discovered that they had gone to the same high school.

Class of 2007 girl: I thought you looked familiar! I went to Blah Blah Academy too. I was in student government. I graduated class of 2007.

Class of 2005 guy: I was class of 2005. Man, now I feel old.

Me: Whoa, I feel really old. I’ve got 10 years on some of you guys!

Luckily, I have one classmate, Page-san, who wasn’t born after New Kids on the Block went out of style. Good thing for us that the Japanese culture teaches respect for elders.

Less is More

2008-01-29T22:10:00.001-08:00

Sorry I've been away for so long. Or as I can now say in Japanese, Shitsudesu shimashita. I can even write that in fancy Hiragana characters now!

Since I wasn't crossing as many things off of my to-do list last semester with my convenient Tuesday/ Thursday teaching schedule with nice long weekends, this semester I decided to test out a theory of mine.

The more time on my hands, it would seem that the more time I would have to pursue all sorts of interests- fitting in some more yoga and gym time, reading, blogging, finding ways to save the world, etc. However, in reality, since free time was in abundance I found myself feeling like I could always do it later. Kind of like the Spanish mañana syndrome.

So my theory was this: the less free time I have, the more likely I am to fill it up with more productive and worthwhile than catching up on daytime TV. So this semester, I took advantage
of the #2 perk that comes with teaching for the university system (#1 of course being summer and winter break between semesters). For every credit I teach, I can take 1 for free. So along with the 4 classes I am teaching I am also taking Beginning Japanese and another grad class about conducting classroom research.

The results so far? If the they were playing in the Superbowl, it would be a really close game between super productive and really freakin' tired. In fact, I think I've already gone into overtime.

Back to School

2008-01-17T23:50:00.000-08:00

Well folks, this is the last week of my winter vacation since the Spring semester starts up on Tuesday. I've had a good long time off so I really can't complain.

The greater part of my week has consisted of burying my nose in my textbooks to prep for the coming week. I've been reading textbooks on my couch, reading textbooks at Panera Bread, reading textbooks in the comfy chairs at Borders and reading textbooks at the gym while bobbing up and down on the elliptical machine and attempting not to throw up.

I'm teaching 4 classes this semester. One is a grammar class, 2 are experimental CALL (computer assisted language learning) classes and the fourth is an advanced reading and writing course using short stories and poems in American literature to help my students develop their English skills (can you tell I've just been writing course objectives?). I'm really excited to teach from the textbook I'm using for the reading/writing class. It has a great collection of works and really thought provoking exercises and writing prompts but its really in depth and I underestimated the time it would take to read and prepare for the class.

Tonight I just looked over what I've finished prepping for the week/semester and I am feeling much more at ease with my level of preparation, but Monday of this week I was freaking out, brain on massive overload and in the poetry vein I wrote some haikus, mostly just as a distraction from reading. Maybe some of you teachers who want the summer to stretch on forever can relate.

Words crammed in my ears
the deafening echo of
procrastination

Textbooks are so long
Why did I wait 'til so late
to read them? F*&%! S&%$!

The Speech Not Given

2008-01-11T11:33:00.000-08:00

This is a post I started before the holidays and finally finished.

Last Friday I got to dress up in my cap and gown (and fancy polyester hood this time!) and walk across the stage to accept my Master's degree. After all of the pomp and circumstance and speeches were done, the 2 + hours of reading the names of the graduates began so I had a lot of time to think.

It was one of my goals last year to speak at my graduation. However, as the deadline for speaker applications loomed this October, I let myself get wrapped up in creating midterms and lesson plans, grading essays and preparing to teach a new class that began at mid semester. Along with all of those excuses, maybe I let a little fear creep in too. As I let the deadline slip past I was disappointed that I hadn't pushed myself to submit something. I eventually made peace with myself about it, but if I had spoken, here is what I would have said:

Beginning a new chapter of your life is at the same time exhilarating and terrifying. We reflect on the choices we have made and the choices that will shape the rest of our lives. We ask ourselves again - What am I supposed to do with my life? Is this really what I'm supposed to do with my life? Am I on the right track? What if I know what I want to do but I'm not the best at it yet?

Questions like these can be the cause of many sleepless nights. Cues in society have taught us to believe that every person is born with a dream and singleness of purpose that is the key to our fulfillment. Think about the movies we watch - Indiana Jones is always searching for ancient relics, Bridget Jones wants to get her guy. But we don't think about the fact that movies need this single purpose to drive the plot and that the extraneous real life details get edited out. If we don't know, if we have our doubts or uncertainties or setbacks, we feel like we've got some kind of manufacturer's defect. Its hard to look at someone like Oprah Winfrey and picture her having to warm up to the idea of hosting a talk show because she was considering a career as a lumberjack or professional figure skater. But people who feel that they have a "calling" to do something in life may be the exceptions rather than the rule. The path to achieving your personal ideal of success and fulfillment is often paved with difficulties, mistakes and rarely has a linear or neatly marked path.

Earlier this year I went to a book group convention to hear one of my favorite authors, Elizabeth Gilbert, speak. At the end of the panel discussion the moderator turned the mic over to the audience for questions. One attendee asked, "Did you always know you wanted to be a writer?" Though seemingly simple, I thought that this was an important and telling question. I believe this person was really asking for confirmation of a more important question about herself - "Am I supposed to know what I want to do? Am I supposed to have some calling or epiphany? What if I've missed it? What if I don't know?"

Elizabeth and author Sara Davidson answered that they had been creating worlds with their pen and paper from a young age but Po Bronson , author of five books including What Should I Do With My Life? (which I got 2 copies of for Christmas) and a regular contributor to prominent newspapers, magazines, television and radio gave a surprising and somewhat relieving answer. As a kid, Po was in his words, a "math guy." His high school teachers told him that his writing was messy and unintelligible it wasn't something that came easily to him. It wasn't until late in his college education that Po wrote a letter that was published in his college newspaper. With graduation looming, many seniors were terrified at the thought of having to know for sure what they'd be doing the next year after college. Many students were comforted by his essay titled "Being Po," which is what he quipped that he'd be doing in the next year.

There's Po in the middle at the Book Group Expo

Po was buoyed by his classmates' comments on the essay and felt a faint whisper of possibility that he was actually a good writer. It wasn't a big epiphany or booming voice from above bestowing his purpose on him like some of us expect. Just a whisper. A hint.

After that experience, Po went on with his life. He finished his course of study in economics and over several years spent crunching numbers and doing, in his words, "mind-numbing" jobs, he decided to trust that whisper and gradually honed his skills as a journalist and storyteller. He has since written five books translated into eight different languages, articles for the New York Times, Time, New York Magazine, NPR Morning Edition and has appeared on Oprah and many major morning shows. Although it wasn't a career he instinctively knew he was supposed pursue when he was 5 years old, he eventually learned to listen to the whispers and wasn't afraid to fail on the way to being good. Or maybe he was and just did it anyway. As it turned out for Po, those subtle whispers of possibility paid off and took him some place wonderful but totally unexpected.

So if you haven't had your whole life planned out since you ditched the Spiderman undies or training bra, learn to listen for the subtle clues in the world around you. Don't discount a calling just because its not obvious, loud and clear. Be open to the unexpected opportunities life has in store. As Norman Vaughan says, "Dream big and dare to fail," and listen to the whispers.

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

2008-01-10T15:15:00.000-08:00

I am very excited to see that the hit counter for this blog has tipped past the 500 mark (and only half of those are me checking in throughout the week, I swear!). So thanks to all of you for stopping by and reading. And on that note, this week is national de-lurking week in the blog world (thanks Nanette at Say It Don't Spray It! for the info) so if you've been reading please leave me a comment to introduce yourself and leave me a link to your blog or website if you have one. I love getting a glimpse into other people's thoughts and lives.

Transformation Vacation

2008-01-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

Before Paul and I left on our trip to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago this summer our friends and family were intrigued. After all this was not your typical vacation.

“You’re going to walk how many miles? For fun? Why?” they asked.

The trip we were undertaking involved walking nearly all day for five and a half weeks under the hot Spanish sun, braving bugs and blisters and waking up at 6am and sleeping in creaky old bunk beds with a room full of snorers. We had to carry everything we needed on in our backpacks. This might sound like a nightmare for some, but from the first time my friend Matt told me about the Camino I felt a magnet-like pull to take this journey. Besides the fact that I really wanted to visit Spain again, I was seduced by the idea of taking on something that was difficult and outside of my comfort zone. I liked that it was something Paul and I could do together and wondered how it would shape our characters and bring us closer together. There was a big allure to having hours at a time to think while walking through parts of the country that not many people ever get to see and by the prospect of meeting new friends from all over the world.

I have always been of the opinion that the trips worthy of spending those hard-earned vacation days on are those that have the potential to change you in some way. For some that means quitting your job to vagabond around the globe for a year, building an orphanage in Kenya, bringing books to children in Cambodia, following the path of your ancestors in Norway

or hiking an ancient pilgrimage across Spain. For others, place can be secondary to the people involved on the trip. Some find themselves transformed after undertaking even a small activity that pushes them outside of their comfort zone.

While some of us would be perfectly content selling everything we own and zigzagging across the globe, I think it’s important to note that the search for change and growth can manifest itself in totally different trips for different people. Transformational travel can also come from spending 24/7 with your husband or parents or best girlfriends, meeting someone from another culture for the first time or discovering how much different other parts of the world are, yet how much they’re the same.

If I think back to the most memorable trips I have taken, the moments that really stand out are not those spent sitting by the pool or taking an afternoon nap (although these activities might represent a huge paradigm shift for people who are on 24 hours a day and rush to answer their crackberry at 2 am). I think about the things that have expanded me as a person. Things like the meals I shared with new friends from all different countries on the Camino, taking that first step backwards to rappel down a waterfall in Costa Rica, learning to navigate the streets of Washington, D.C. all by myself, walking 31 kilometers in one day with a killer foot injury, learning to ski after being completely terrified with the encouragement of Paul and my brother and sister-in-law, drinking new wine straight from the barrel before it was released to the public, growing closer to Paul after understanding more about myself, or trying octopus cooked in its own ink after mistakenly ordering chipirones instead of champinones.

Want your next trip to be a transformation vacation? Here are some tips.

Think back…
to your favorite travel moments. Ask yourself what made them special. What do they have in common? Did you try something new? Face a fear? Get to know the person or people you were with in on a different level? Get totally lost in a new culture? Live out a dream? Think about the ways you can you incorporate these types of experience into your next trip.

Challenge Yourself to Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone
This can be anything from finally deciding to try out an adventure sport –bungee jumping, hang gliding, white water rafting, rappelling to visiting a place where you don’t speak the language. If you always travel solo, bring along a friend or family member. If you don’t have travel companions, so what? Take the leap anyway.

Put Your Personal Limits to the Test
These can be physical limits, mental limits or social limits. Hike the Inca Trail to Macchu Picchu. Pick up your backpack and hike the Camino de Santiago. Climb a mountain. Bike across Europe. Stay in a tiny cabin with your whole family and toys that make noise for a week. Talk to the people around you. I like to choose trips where I can share the experience with new people. People can enrich your travel experience much more than place. If you are really brave, give Couch Surfing a try. If you are the kind of person who needs constant noise and stimulation, go someplace that challenges you to become comfortable with silence and meditation.

Play
Go ahead, act like a kid. Being somewhere new can let you reconnect with that uninhibited, uncensored part of yourself. Eat 3 scoops of gelato for breakfast in Florence. If your heart screams, “I want to ride an elephant!” do it! Sometimes instant gratification can be fantastic.

Reflect
Sometimes you don’t know how significantly a trip or experience has changed you until you take the time to meditate on it and write about it.
Keeping a journal or a blog can commemorate your experience and be a much more meaningful reminder of your journey than a miniature statue of liberty tchotchke. If you aren’t a writer you can still keep a reflection journal in other ways. At the end of the trip make a play list of all of the music you listened to on your trip that will trigger memories. If you are an artist, keep a sketchbook. My husband is an architect so he keeps a sketchbook with him on trips and draws the layouts of the buildings we stay in or sketches the old beautiful churches. He’s built up a really special collection over the years that triggers detailed memories for him.

My Holidays Unwrappped

2007-12-28T18:56:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! I hope everyone had a safe and fabulous time ringing in the New Year and rest of the holiday season. Its hard to know where to begin. It seems like I had about 3 weeks worth of activity packed into my last week! In true Me fashion I am a little behind on some things since Christmas- blogging, cleaning since I have spent most of my days and nights at the in-laws this week with my visiting brother and sister-in-law and nephews. and I am happy to report that I actually ordered my Christmas photo cards yesterday that will now be known as "Happy New Year" cards... or perhaps "Happy Martin Luther King Day" or "Happy Valentines Day" depending how long I procrastinate on writing the letter to go with them.

Paul and I had a great Christmas despite my previous anxieties. He loved his big mystery present which was a handmade wooden bookshelf that is actually big enough to hold his oversized architecture books.

And I could hardly keep from jumping up and down when I opened my graduation/Christmas/birthday gift from him - a shiny, new, incredibly fast MacBook Pro laptop. It is so wonderful not to have to delete a file every time I want to add a new one!

My mom was incredibly generous and went overboard with presents as usual, although she swears this will be the last time (we've heard that before but I think she actually means it this time) and suggested we all go to Maui for Christmas next year.

The arrival of Michael and Jenny (my brother and sister-in-law)'s Christmas card announced the upcoming arrival of a new niece or nephew! They came down for a week to visit around New Years and we re-enacted Christmas once again.

And I turned 29 last week (although it seems like a month ago!). Only one more year left until I enter the next decade, but for now at least, I am embracing my age. I've had a great 29 years. I have a great family and great friends and I am living out my career dream as a University teacher for International students and have been blessed with many opportunities to travel and see the world in out of the box ways and participate in the community around me. 29 is not so bad and I don't think 30 will be either.

Tis The Season

2007-12-23T20:23:00.000-08:00

...For everything Christmas and all of the parties and gatherings that go along with it. In the last few weeks I have been to both Paul's and my work holiday parties, a "Hootenany" Christmas sing-a-long,

Christmas cookie and fudge baking at my mother-in-law's (we managed to keep at least half of our original batches from burning or mistakenly using the recipe on the page before the intended recipe), a last minute get together with former co-workers and Christmas at my Dad's. So far Christmas 2007 has not been overly stressful, but I shouldn't speak too soon. We've still got two more Christmas celebrations to go.

I made the task of wrapping Christmas presents much more enjoyable by dragging my laptop upstairs to watch my old Sex and the City DVDs and preparing a very healthy breakfast plate of chocolate Christmas cookies, fudge, and cheese and crackers to nibble on between wrapping and trying to keep my cat, Shakira, from chewing all of the ribbons to death.

My biggest stressor this holiday season has actually been trying to find the perfect present for Paul. After looking in every conceivable place both online and in person, last week I started to freak out that I hadn't found anything. I did get a bunch of little things that I know he'll like but nothing big. And then I found it. Something he mentioned that he would really like. Something beautiful and unique and very good quality. And then I looked at the price tag. Yikes! Something expensive. I agonized over this decision for days and finally went back to the place where I could find it and found it was not exactly as it had seemed. Hmmmm. Return to freak out mode. Luckily, yesterday I was able to find something not only better, but also something that will take a little less of a toll on the pocket book. I just hope Paul will like it as much as I did. Want to know what it is? Sorry, you'll have to wait until after Christmas too.

Shaking Up the Routine

2007-12-17T15:45:00.000-08:00

Travel is something that I can always count on to give me a new perspective. When I am stuck in a rut and can’t seem to get out of a nightly routine of sitting on the couch watching Tivo-ed episodes of Ugly Betty and the Amazing Race I sometimes get depressed. While I am comfy snuggled up under my blanket on the couch with the scenes flashing before me, sometimes I feel like there is so much more out there I could be doing. So much I could be learning, even small things that would greatly change my life and make a much larger contribution to my happiness than keeping up with Betty Suarez.

I think about the experiences I’ve had just a plane ride or car ride away when my routine is totally shaken up: stomping on a barrel full of warm squishy grapes that stained my feet purple for a week,

getting a glimpse of the actual John Hancock on the Declaration of Independence,

eating dinner with a Korean woman and a Brazilian woman in Spain who have somehow become friends without even speaking a common language,

picking up my feet and letting myself zip line across the rain forest through a cloud even though I was terrified,

choosing to walk across nearly the entire country of Spain for my summer vacation.

I think travel gives me back that childlike feeling of limitlessness. Before being saddled with all of the rules and social pressures of adulthood (“Don’t do that! You could get hurt, get messy, spend too much money, too much time, etc.”) dreaming the impossible and expanding our experience was our number one priority. Lost in a new place without the comforts and routine of my home life I feel free to take more chances, do the things I’ve always wanted to, be the person I’ve always wanted to be.

Even though travel can be the catalyst we need to break ourselves away from our routines in order to try something new, these activities I’ve mentioned above all have something in common that I don’t need to leave my hometown to find. The rush of giddiness doesn’t come from jumping off of a high rickety platform and almost dying, but instead from stretching myself. Its seeing the line in front of me between what is comfortable and easy and what is risky and scary and dancing right over it.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop traveling. I love it way too much. (In fact I already have plans for a ski trip this February with a group of friends, and I am hopeful that we will get to take a trip to Macau and Hong Kong this summer). But in the coming years I want to bring some of the excitement and newness to my life at home. I really want to seek out ways I can participate in my community and live with that traveling spirit right here at home as well as on the road.

Writing on the Wall

2007-12-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

The building where I teach 2 of my classes this semester is pretty old. Not beautifully old, made of aging red brick, rich in history with ivy crawling up its sides like you’d see at some New England University. Instead, this building is 1970’s mod style old, complete with peeling stucco. And like many buildings that pass their prime in Las Vegas, it is scheduled for implosion (well, at least destruction of some sort) and rebuilding in the coming years.

One of the interesting features of the 2nd floor ladies room in this building is the writing that covers the walls of the bathroom stalls. I don’t think it has been cleaned for years because I have some hazy recollection of seeing it when I was an undergrad at least 6 years ago. Reading through some of the strange comments the other day, such as a debate over whether or not Jesus was in fact black, I got to wondering what possesses people to write on bathroom walls and how they choose the subject of their bathroom stall graffiti.

The bathroom that sticks out in my memory as being the most actively filled up with comments was at my favorite college hangout Tom and Jerry’s. Sadly, the place is now a Laundromat or something like that, but during my college days, every Tuesday night it was bursting at the seams with underage college students with fake IDs for dollar drink night (perhaps that’s why it was eventually shut down). It was the first bar I ever went to. The floor was always sticky with spilled drinks and packed with everyone I knew at the time. Being thoroughly liquored up with a continuous stream of $1 Captain and cokes or beers, it seems like a brilliant and pretty obvious idea to write on the bathroom walls. Especially when so many other people already had. Most of the writings at Tom & Jerry's were to the tune of Anthony hearts Melissa 4-ever or Natalia is a skanky b**ch and she better stay away from my man. I’m pretty sure I added own my comments at one point.

However, I’m a little more curious about the people who scribble on the walls in the middle of the day at school. Are the authors bored? Are they looking for a forum to express themselves? Who are these people that write on the bathroom walls anyway? Are they rebels? Just ordinary, everyday students? Are they (gasp!) professors? I can just imagine Ira Glass doing an interview with the people who write these comments for This American Life.

There is one bathroom I refer to as the F*** Jesus bathroom. The dialogue in there goes something like this:

Jesus was black.

No, he wasn’t. Jesus was white.

What color is the sand when you wet it?

I have it on good authority that Jesus is purple.

Jesus was Jewish. Cleopatra was Macedonian. Stop rewriting history.

F*** Jesus. (This comment is now scratched out.)

Mmm-kay. I find it funny that their choice of topic for defacing public property is religion.

This made me think of something written in a bathroom wall in the University I went to in Spain. I wrote it down one day after returning to class because I thought it was funny. It said:

Nunca corras detras de un tio ni un autobus.
Llegara otro en un ratito.

Translation:
Never chase after a guy or a bus.
There’ll be another one along in a minute.

I've Come a Long Way Baby!

2007-12-03T17:17:00.001-08:00

My half marathon was yesterday and I am happy to report that I actually ran across the finish line to complete my 13.1 mile (about 21 km for my friends on the metric system) course. I kept thinking as I was plodding along, if only my high school gym teacher could see me now. I was that girl who was "sick" or suddenly struck with a case of debilitating cramps every time we had to run the mile in PE. If those excuses didn't work I would puff and wheeze through it, sure that death was imminent.

Yesterday, I didn't think I would die even once! That is not to say that it was easy, I think I just had a change of heart about the whole running = torture or death idea. I walked a great deal of it, but Ashley and I did the whole course together and talking and laughing about the running Elvi and the guy in the pink tutu and fishnets and the run -thru wedding chapel made the time and distance go by pretty quickly. We finished with a time of about 3 hours and 30 minutes which was quicker than I expected. Ashley, being the 4 time full marathoner that she is, who actually runs all the way through 26.2 mile courses, I would normally not be able to keep up with her speedy and well trained pace. Because of a calf injury she was taking it easy and went along with my slow and steady pace.

Even though I am extremely sore and shuffling around like an old lady today I am really glad I did it. I even got a cool medal and a t-shirt to prove that I made it through.

Quote for the Day

2007-11-24T15:59:00.000-08:00

I just came across this quote and thought it was something that even the most confident among us could relate to. I don't know anyone who hasn't questioned at one time or another if they were good enough.

"Is it possible that you're just not good enough? That you (or your team ) just don't have enough talent to be the best in the world? Sure, its possible. In fact, if your chosen area is the cello, or speed skatinmg, then I might even say its probable. But in just about every relevant area I can think of, no, its not likely. You are good enough. The question is, will you take the shortcut you need to get really good at this?"
-Seth Godin, author of The Dip.

And totally unrelated to this quote - This holiday week has a whirlwind, at times fun and at times stressful. The first half of the week Michael and Jenny, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and my 3 nephews came to visit from Northern California. The boys who are 8, 6 and 3 years old are all brilliant balls of neverending energy.

We spent Thanksgiving at my Mom and Jon's house in Southern, California and got home last night, totally and completely exhausted and ready for a stress free day today.

Washington, D.C.

2007-11-15T22:04:00.000-08:00

This is a little late, but better late than never!

The weekend before last I had the good fortune of spending this weekend in my new favorite travel destination (and possibly future home), Washington, D.C. Paul was recently appointed to a position on the national YAF (Young Architects Forum) and had a leadership retreat in DC this weekend to meet all of his fellow committee members and get planning for the year ahead. He was able to get Friday off from work so we decided to make it a mini vacation.

What really struck me was how much I enjoyed Washington DC. I had been there before so the intensity with which I liked the city and everything about it took me by surprise., The rich history and beautiful old historic buildings made with red brick and stone, the energy of the people on the streets, the leaves putting on their red and yellow fall coats the never-ending supply of cultural activities and great little shops and markets and small, cozy bookstores. One great thing I discovered is that contrary to my old opinions I actually think that I would like to live in a walking city. I used to be petrified at the idea of living somewhere without a car. Cities where I had to rely on the metro or the subway or something out of my control gave me a lot of anxiety. Being mugged while I lived in Spain had a profound effect on the way I feel about my personal safety and need to control my environment. However, stepping out for a walk into the nation’s capitol wearing a scarf and jacket to fight off the chill made me feel strong and alive. I wonder if it was the five and a half weeks on the Camino that did it, but I seem to have radically different sentiments now about walking as a mode of transportation. There is something zen about the continual motion and the freedom, not restriction as I previously thought, that comes with being able to get anywhere I want to go without a car.

We were there for 3 days...to be continued with more details about the trip.

Retracing My Steps

2007-11-05T23:17:00.000-08:00

Its amazing how someplace you lived during one stage of your life can change by the time you return to retrace your footsteps there. Or perhaps its just the lens we see it through that changes our perception of it.

The bridge over the Rio Urumea in San Sebastian that I crossed everyday to get to school

This summer before we started the Camino, I wanted to take Paul and show him around San Sebastian, Spain, the gorgeous northern coastal city that had been my home during my junior year of college. San Sabi, as the locals affectionately call it, boasts the most bar per square meter in the world and is the only city outside of Vegas that I have called home during my adult life.

Being there stirred up a lot of old memories. The sand and the waves, the bridges that connected my apartment with Parte Vieja where I would spend the nights with friends in the bars or disco and where I would catch the Benta Berri bus to go to school with all of the dirty Basque men who smelled a lot worse on Friday than they did on Monday.

As we walked through Parte Vieja, the sights and smells brought back memories of my younger days. It was strange to go back to such a familiar place, but without any of the familiar faces. All of us were temporary residents of San Sabi who passed through for a semester or 2 and returned back to our home is Vegas or Sweden or Moscow, ID. I started to reflect on how much my life had changed since those days. San Sabi seemed to have changed the same way I had. The basics were still the same. The same rio Urumea running through the town, the same Kursaal, the same beach filled with blue and white umbrellas. Buen Pastor, the ornate old church was right there in the center of town like a sentinel, unchanged since the days that Matt and I ditched Basque folkdance class and shared a bottle of wine on its steps. 33 Zabaleta, my old apartment, probably still houses International students.

Me in front of my old apartment building, ah memories!

Yet, some things had changed, evolved. New movie theaters and botiques and supermarkets had moved into town. The beaches were packed with travelers and students, but they were a new generation of students. It was familiar yet distant. It felt a little like returning home after being away at college for a year, familiar and comfortable, but a little distant from who I had become. Although, San Sebastian will always in some way feel like home, the San Sabi that I hold so dear exists now only in my photo album and somewhere in my memory. I guess the girl I was when I lived there also exists frozen in time in those memories too.

Let's Get Swapping

2007-10-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

I found this website, Gimme Your Stuff. A Cultural Exchange, a couple of weeks ago and fell in love with the idea. Basically, you post a list of stuff that you would be willing to send to someone in another country and peruse posts from others all over the world doing the same until you connect with someone to swap with. One of my favorite things to do when I go to other countries is check out the grocery stores and see what different goodies I can find. Some of my favorite snack discoveries from the past few years: Cafe Britt's Guyabitas (chocolate covered guava jelly - yum!) and Lizano salsa from Costa Rica, and Cola Cao (Spain's hot chocolate) and Zazamoros (little raspberry shaped gummy candies) from Spain.

So here goes:
I'd really like to customize the package to whatever my swap partner would like but here are some ideas of what I've got for you:

books
magazines - fashion, architecture, design, travel, gossip, whatever you like.
any fun Las Vegas stuff
candy, snacks, coffees or teas
paper or scrapbooking supplies
fabric or yarn
postcards or photos
flip flops

Here's What I'd Be Thrilled to Receive:

A unique journal
candy or snacks from your part of the world
stationery
a CD of music with your favorite songs
jewelery
hot chocolate mix

Interested? Leave me a comment. I'd love to hear from you!

The Month in Pictures - Part 2

2007-10-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Pictures from October continued-

Girl's Book and Wine Club - take 2
I want it to be book club day every day! I love our meetings. This month's book was Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the true story of Chris McCandless, a young idealist who, at 22, gave away his savings to charity, cut ties with everyone in his life and set off in search of an authentic existence. His pursuit of an authentic life turned out to be a fatal one as he met his end in the Alaskan wilderness. This book provided a lot of good discussion although we all agreed that if Chris McCandless could see us now, a girls book club discussing his life over mimosas and mini crab cakes, he would probably be pretty pissed. Our next book selection - The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.

Halloween and Birthday Weekend
Where did this weekend go?? I can't believe its Monday already. Paul and I had a little too much fun on Friday night that resulted in a Saturday full of sleeping. We went to dinner and a charity event for Abby's birthday and then met up with some other friends at Cherry nightclub for our friend Marianne's birthday. We are not generally big on the club scene, but this was a blast. We had our own section with a few tables and I mixed a lot of drinks and took a ridiculous amount of pictures.

After a day of napping and eating KFC to absorb the alcohol from the night before we were ready to suit up for Marissa and Jeff's costume party. I was pretty happy with how my costume turned out. Here's some pictures from the party:

The Month in Pictures - Part 1

2007-10-29T10:41:00.001-07:00

October is drawing to a close and I haven't been able to post as much as I'd like, but wanted to share some pictures from the main events in October.

Anniversary Dinner and Spamalot! at the Wynn
The first weekend in October Paul and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. I was looking at our wedding pictures the other day and it's hard to believe that a year has already flown by since our wedding on the lake.

Dinner at the SW Steakhouse was delicious and Spamalot kept us laughing. A word to the wise though, when in a steakhouse, you should probably get a steak. I had some so-so snapper, but Paul's ribeye was fantastic (and enough to share with me!) The atmosphere was nice too. One wall of the restaurant opens up to the outdoor pool and waterwall. It was a perfect night to let the outdoors in.

Its a little hard to see up close in the photo here but I've got my anniversary present from Paul dangling from my ears. He is so good at finding clever and thoughtful presents! I had saved a bunch of pink shells we'd picked up on the beach on our honeymoon in Costa Rica with the idea that I 'd someday make them into earrings. Well, they were too delicate and I had given up, but Paul took them to the jeweler who made our wedding rings and had them made into beautiful earrings for me for our anniversary.

Last Comic Standing Tour
I generally don't like stand-up too much, but my friend Marissa got me hooked on the Last Comic Standing show a few years ago and I've kept watching ever since. I think I like that the contestants are getting a shot at their dreams. This year my favorite was female commedienne
Amy Schumer (the tiny figure in the picture on the left). I thought she was original and hilarious in almost every case, but I was kind of disappointed in her set on tour. It was a lot of the same material she had already used on the show.

Lai's Visit
Less than three weeks after relocating to Macau, Lai missed us so much that she had to hop another 15 hour plane ride back to Vegas to visit. Actually, she is in the process of becoming a US citizen and this is the first of several visits she'll have to make over the next year as a continuing part of the naturalization process. It almost seemed like she just went on a quick vacation! It was really good to see her, even if it was just for a few days. She's almost convinced Abby and Paul and I to move across the ocean with her. I miss you Lai!

To be continued...

Ugly is the new Beautiful!

2007-10-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

It's Halloween time!! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays of the year. Ever since I can remember I have loved to dress up and, thanks to my multitalented Mom, who, even when she was working three jobs and taking care of my sister and I just after she and my Dad divorced, always made sure that we had the best costumes on the block. I've got to see if I can scan some of the old photos because they were always incredibly detailed and simply amazing to me. I was a butterfly, Canary Yellow (Rainbow Bright's side kick) a mermaid (I had to be pulled in a wagon to go trick or treating that year because of my fins) and countless other characters I was obsessed with during my childhood.

In my adult years, although I don't have my Mom's prowess for the sewing machine, I still feel like I've got to carry on her legacy of creativity and make a fabulous costume, even if I do put it together with hot glue and hand sewing. This year I have decided to dress as my TV heroine, "Ugly" Betty Suarez. Today I am off for Nevada Day so I am going to finish off the costumes for Paul and I for Marissa and Jeff's party tomorrow night. I'm going as Betty wearing her lovely Guadalajara! poncho. Here's some pictures of what I had finished as of last night:

Here's my recreation of Betty's fabulously tacky "B" necklace. I made the B out of some FIMO clay that you bake in the oven. I'm not sure why I never discovered the stuff before, but I want to make everything out of clay now. Here's a fun fact for history buffs about the real necklace Betty wears in the show: it is a replica of one that Anne Boleyn wore.

And here is the beginning of my Guadalajara logo for the poncho. I thought the sequins were a nice touch to add to the tackiness. I attached them to some felt with tacky glue and I am sewing them down too.

So now I am off the Joann's to find some last minute crafty stuff to finish off the costume today. If I could only come up with a good way to make some faux braces...Ugly- here I come!

Spanish Song of the Week

2007-10-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks have been so crazy at work. Crazy. I've got a new modular class (less than 3 credits so its taught on a modified semester schedule) that I am teaching that started this week. It is an experimental class with all different English proficiency levels and each student gets individualized instruction.

And do you know how many students I have? 22. Ay Dios Mio! This will be an interesting rest of the semester! Right now I am so exhausted I can barely type or put together an intelligible sentence so I will post something I was working on last week, my new favorite video that Paul came across surfing around YouTube:

"Ya No Se Que Hacer Conmigo" by Cuarteto de Nos

I can't stop watching this video. When it gets to the end I just push play again and get mesmerized watching all of the new Spanish words whizzing across the screen. I get so excited when I find a new Spanish speaking group to listen to. Well, I suppose technically El Cuarteto de Nos is not exactly new. The Uruguyan quartet has been performing together nearly as long as I have been alive, but they are new to me and I love them. If you like this video they have another inventive video, "Yendo la casa de Damian," that you can find on YouTube too.

For all of your Spanish speakers or learners, here are the lyrics and my attempt at translation into English. This is a great video if you are learning because all of the words are displayed in the background so you have multi-sensory input for your learning.
*I am not finished with my translation yet, but I'll do an update hopefully later this week.

"Ya no se que hacer conmigo”

Ya tuve que ir obligado a misa
ya toqué en el piano “Para Elisa”
ya aprendí a falsear mi sonrisa
ya caminé por la cornisa
ya cambié de lugar mi cama
ya hice comedia ya hice drama
fui concreto y me fui por las ramas
ya me hice el bueno y tuve mala fama
ya fui ético y fui errático
ya fui escéptico y fui fanático
ya fui abúlico fui metódico
ya fui púdico fui caótico
ya leí Arthur Conan Doyle
ya me pasé de nafta a gasoil
ya leí a Bretón y a Mollier
ya dormí en colchón y en sommier
ya me cambié el pelo de color
ya estuve en contra y estuve a favor
lo que me daba placer ahora me da dolor
ya estuve del otro lado del mostrador

Chorus

Y oigo una voz que dice sin razón
vos siempre cambiando ya no cambias más
y yo estoy cada vez más igual
ya no sé que hacer conmigo
ya planté café en Nicaragua
ya me fuí a probar suerte a USA
ya jugué a la ruleta rusa
ya creí en los marcianos
ya fui ovolacto, vegetariano, sano
fui quieto y fui gitano
ya estuve tranqui, estuve hasta las manos
hice el curso de mitología pero de mi los dioses se reían
orfedrería la salvé raspando
y ritmología aquí la estoy aplicando
ya probé, ya fumé, ya tomé, ya dejé
ya fimé, ya viajé, ya pegué, ya sufrí, ya eludí
ya huí, ya asumí, ya me fui, ya volvi, ya fingí, ya mentí
y entre tantas falsedades
muchas de mis mentiras ya son verdades
hice fácil las adversidades
y me compliqué en las mil edades

Y oigo una voz que dice con razón
vos siempre cambiando ya no cambias más
y yo estoy cada vez más igual
ya no sé que hacer conmigo

Ya me hice un lifting, me puse un piercing
fui a ver al Dream Team y no hubo feeling
me tatué al Che en una nalga
arriba de mami para que no se salga
ya me reí y me importa un bledo
de cosas y gente que ahora me dan miedo
ayuné por causas al pedo
ya me empaché con pollo al spiedo
ya fui al sicólogo, fui al teólogo
fui al astrólogo, fui al enólogo
ya fui alcohólico y fui lambeta
ya fui anónimo y ya hice dieta
ya lancé piedras y escupitajos
al lugar donde ahora trabajo
y mi legajo cuenta el estrajo
que me porté bien y que armé relajo.

Y oigo una voz que dice sin razón
vos siempre cambiando ya no cambias más
y yo estoy cada vez más igual
ya no sé que hacer conmigo

Y oigo una voz que dice con razón
vos siempre cambiando ya no cambias más
y yo estoy cada vez más igual
ya no sé que hacer conmigo

Jessica's English Translation
I already went to mass out of obligation
I already played "Para Elisa" on the piano
I already learned to fake a smile
I already walked through the cornice I already changed the location of my bed I did comedy, I did drama I've already been clear and I've beat around the bush
I've pretended to be good and had a bad reputation
I've been ethical and erratic
I was skeptical and fanatical
I was apathetic and methodical
I was modest and chaotic
I already read Arthur Conan Doyle
And I passed the NAFTA gas oil
I already read Breton and Mollier
I already slept on a cushion and on a sommier (not sure about this word - might be French?)
I already changed my hair color
I was already against and already for
What used to give me pleasure now only gives me pain
I was already on the other side of the counter

Chorus
And I hear a voice that says without reason
You're always changing yourself, don't change anymore
And every time I'm just more the same
I don't know what to do with myself

I already drowned in a glass of water
I planted coffee in Nicaragua
I already went to try my luck in the USA
And already played Russian Roulette
I already believed in martians
I was a vegan, vegetarian, healthy not sure on this one either, do we have a word ovolacto?
I was quiet and I was a gypsy
I was calm and I was manic
I took a mythology course but the gods laughed at me
_________________________
___________________
I already experimented, smoked, drank and quit
I already signed, traveled, hit, suffered, eluded
I ran away, I assumed, I went away, I came back, I pretended and lied
And among so many falsehoods
Many of my lies are still true
I made easy

***To Be Continued

Signs of Spain

2007-10-15T01:03:00.001-07:00

I am feeling a little nostalgic for Spain at the moment so I decided to look through our massive amount of photographs and find all of the random signs we encountered along the Camino this summer. Here are some signs we saw and Paul's and my guesses at what they might mean.

Squid??? Huh??

If you must hover, please don't do it over the vehicles.
or
Moonwalking on Cars Strictly Prohibited

Caution: Break Dancing Ahead

No big hands here!

Dancing puppets ahead

This was painted on a wall on the side of the road. It says "Love Is Not the Shit"

Leave me a comment if you've got an idea for a better caption!

Let the Training Begin

2007-10-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should have considered a 5k or 1 mile run before the half marathon. I went to the gym on Friday totally determined to start "small"and breeze through 3 miles of running with no problem. Ha ha ha. I finished 3 miles all right, but it took some time... like an hour. Damn!

My friends Ashley and Marissa who run marathons as often as I eat ice cream like to tell me that anyone can run a marathon or any kind of race if they try. I'll give them that. I like to think that with enough effort and determination, people can pull off some extraordinary feats. However, I also think that it is a human tendency to believe that the tasks we are personally good at are easier than others.

Each of us is biologically predisposed to be better at certain types of tasks. For example, Paul is constantly inventing things and thinking about how to make the world and everything around him better. I happen to be freakishly good at remembering people's names when I meet them. I also love and am good at making friends and learning languages. Marissa and Ashley, among other things, are really good at running. This is not to say that no effort or perseverance is involved in any of these tasks, but they are abilities that come more naturally to us.

While I may be able to discuss the effects of the media on body image in Spanish and tell you the name of every person I have met since the fifth grade, I will probably never be a great runner. I started to think about this and I couldn't help but wonder (here comes my Carrie Bradshaw moment), should we stick to developing our natural abilities and leave the hard stuff to someone else or should we put on our running shoes and run against the wind towards something further outside of our reach?

LV Half Marathon

2007-10-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I am actually going to do it, but I picked out a new challenge for myself. I officially signed up for he Las Vegas Half Marathon last Sunday. Its December 2, so I have a few months to train, but I have never ever even thought of doing something like this before. Wish me luck!

Looking forward to the weekend...

2007-10-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

Want to know what the two greatest things about this weekend are?

First of all, when I wake up tomorrow morning I don't have to rush around like a mad woman trying to do my last minute packing and then jump into the car and drive for 5 hours. Or even drive to the airport to catch a flight. After four solid weekends of traveling, this weekend I am staying home. I feel more relaxed just thinking about it. Here's my plan for tomorrow morning: sleep in, cook bacon and eggs, watch bad TV and under no circumstances will I vacate my pajamas until at least noon.

And second, Sunday will mark Paul's and my 1 year anniversary. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown by. It seems like just last week that all of our friends and family were in town getting ready for our crawfish boil rehersal dinner and I was freaking out trying to coordinate with the caterer and the florist and hair and make-up person. And finally the ceremony arrived, I saw Paul standing up by the lake waiting for me to walk down the aisle in my pretty white dress and all was calm and right once again.

To celebrate, we are going to see Spamalot, a Monty Python twist on Camelot (which I have been dying to see and for some reason is the only show I haven't somehow managed to get free tickets to) and have dinner at the new steakhouse at the Wynn hotel.

Here's a little wedding slideshow from this time last year to commemorate the occasion. The professional wedding pictures are courtesy of the fabulous J&J Photography here is Vegas.

Time for the Grape Harvest

2007-09-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Who needs a spa to relax when you can spend the evening stomping and squishing around with your friends in a gigantic barrel full of cabernet grapes? Well, here I am three weeks into my four weekend traveling stint. I am exhausted from the constant running around in the last few weeks, but not too exhausted to partake in the harvest festivities that I have been looking forward to for the last month.

When Marissa first started talking about the festival in Temecula, she had me at the grape stomping. Sign me up! I was immediately fascinated. The grape stomping didn't hold the same allure for Paul as it did for me, but he had a good time nevertheless.

Here are some of the highlights from the trip:

Harvest Festival at the Callaway Winery
The Callaway harvest festival was the main event in Temecula for the weekend. We weren't really sure what to expect, but between the wine tasting, Italian dinner, grape stomping, Lucy and Ricky look-a-like contest, live band and cork tossing game (which Paul won), it was a great time.

Paul and I met up with the rest of our group at the winery : Marissa, Karie(who subbed in at the last minute for Marissa's husband Jeff who was stuck at home with some work responsibilities) and Marissa's law school friend Brooke and her boyfriend, Matt. The event room was lined with barrels, all of which were full of fermenting wine. There were people of all ages there including a group of red hat ladies and two women dressed like Lucille Ball. The cost of the event got us a delicious Italian dinner and 6 meticulously measured one ounce wine tasting pours which we quickly learned was not going to be enough to last us the evening. We'd all planned to buy some wine to take home with us anyway so we headed to the Callway's wine shop and got a case to share between the 6 of us. Matt even managed to charm the lady in the shop into giving us a free corkscrew.
After that it was into the barrel for me where Paul brought me refills in between cork tossing. He won the cork tossing game with 1,000,010 points and got to bring home 3 bottles of wine as his booty.

Grape Stomping
While most of the crowd jumped in the grape barrel for a few minutes and a quick photo opp. and quickly got out, I on the other hand, was completly enthralled by the whole grape stomping experience. I spent nearly an hour in the barrel stomping and squishing the warm grapes, making new friends and cheering for everyone next to me doing the cork toss. I, being my gracefully clumsy self, managed to spill half of my glass of chardonnay all over my pants when I slipped on the way in. Unfortunately, the grapes we stomped will never be fermented and made into wine. I thought it would be neat to be able to buy the wine that we stomped, but I guess people don't want wine that has been touched by hundreds of dirty feet. I guess I don't really want to to drink wine that has been stepped on by hundred of dirty feet either.

The Stellar Cellar Wine Bar
I have to say I really wish we had places like this, or even a place like this back home in Vegas. The Stellar Cellar is a cozy little wine lounge in the middle of Old Town Front Street in Temecula. The ambiance was great, it was a small a softly lit room with wine bottles crammed into every nook and cranny and saxaphone player and floutist playing jazzy melodies . My favorite wine of the trip was one I found here - J Pinot Gris. I have never heard of Pinot Gris before, but I'd like to hear more of it.

Tasting Wine Straight from the Barrel at Leonesse
On day 2 of our trip I learned a new expression - hair on the dog.
In the morning, the phone rang about 8:00. It was Marissa and Karie. They had already been up, showered, gotten completely ready, gone to eat breakfast, practically had time to read War and Peace cover to cover and were getting bored sitting around the room.
I should have known. While I thoroughly enjoy luxuriating under the covers as long as possible in the mornings, especially on weekends, especially after a night of drinking and especially on vacation, Marissa has to restrain herself to stay in bed past 5:30 am. We had planned to go tasting at a couple of other wineries this morning while Paul, Brooke and Matt went golfing. "There's no chance you're ready a little early, is there?" Marissa asked me. Still tangled in the covers I laughed. Um, no. They decided to go to Starbucks and grab some coffee to stave off the boredom while I got ready.

By the time we were headed out to Wilson Creek Winery for their awesome almond champagne, I was still feeling sick and trying to chase away my thundering wine headache massive amounts of water and Advil. Going wine tasting in the morning had sounded like such a good idea last night. This morning not so much. The mere thought of more wine was enough to make me nauseated. "Come on," Marissa and Karie told me, "Hair on the dog." Huh? Hair on the what? I had never heard this expression before but apparently it means that the best cure for a hangover is more of the hard stuff. Uggh. I have never subscribed to this theory and wasn't about to, but I figured, hey how often am I in wine country? I steeled myself and decided to try some wines at Wilson Creek. The lady running the tasting room was teasing us about being there so early. "You girls decided to skip church this morning and come worship at Our Lady of St. Wilson, didn't you?" We got five tastes for our $10 fee and I gave up after the first two reds that were making me sick. I told the lady at the counter that I wasn't feeling so hot after the harvest festival at Callaway last night. "Hair on the dog!" she told me. How have I never heard this expression before?

After that, I went straight to the almond champagne which was a welcome change. I guess champagne seems like a more acceptable morning drink, you know with mimosas being a brunch drink and all. Maybe the hair on the dog was working, I just needed a different breed.
Next up was Leonesse. This was my favorite winery by far on our February visit. I was especially looking forward to going there today because, as newly enrolled Leonesse wine club members, Marissa and Karie (and up to fours of their friends) got to go to a special tasting in the barrel room and try wines that aren't even released for sale yet. When we arrived we hopped on a golf cart that took us through the twisting vineyards where we got to eat cabernet grapes off the vine. Then our young driver took us to the barrel room, a building hidden from view of the main tasting room where all the winemaking magic happens.
Stepping into this room felt like some kind of backstage pass to the wine world. It was so much fun. We tried a 2006 Savignon Blanc, Four, a Cabernet Zinfandel Limited edition that had been sold out for months
and the mother of all red wines on the trip, a spicy and bold 2005 VS Cabernet straight from the barrel. This is a wine that won't even be bottled until next month and won't go on sale until next June! I'm not the biggest red wine fan, I usually prefer white, but this was unbelievable. Norma, our wine tasting guru used a contraption that looked curiously like a turkey baster to transfer the wine from the barrel into our glasses. I'm not sure whether my opinion of this wine was clouded because of the coolness factor that came with drinking it straight from the barrel or whether it was just that good, but I ordered a bottle that will arrive in June so I guess I'll get to find out.

The Girls Book and Wine Club is Up and Running

2007-09-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a good quote for all of us wine lovers out there:

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel shame. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this wine and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver." ~ Jack Handy

Rewind and Fast Forward

2007-09-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know I have disappeared from the face of the earth for a while. I started blogging about Paul's and my time on the Camino with very good intentions of keeping regular posts and pictures along the way. However, as the weeks wore on I promptly got so involved in living the Camino that getting to a computer to write about our journey and my reflections fell to the wayside.

The good news is that, while I didn't always have a computer nearby, I did spend a considerable amount of time snuggled up in my albergue bunk beds with my headlamp blazing writing about the day in my journal. So here's the plan - amidst new posts about current happenings, books I'm reading and trips I'll be taking, my goal is to go back and recount our camino story piece by piece. I'll backdate the posts to the dates in July and August when they took place so you will have to scroll down to check for new stories.

The five and a half weeks we spent trekking across Spain were some of the most exhausting, challenging and yet most exhilarating and memorable that I have ever experienced. Who knew I could walk 20 miles in one day when I was sick and could barely put pressure on one foot? Who knew I could go a month without make-up and still feel confident and beautiful? Who knew that Paul and I would find friends so similar to us living half a world away? Who knew that everything you need in the world can fit into a backpack?

It is a saying among the pilgrims that the Camino truly begins once you reach Santiago and set out on your own path from there. In my future blog entries I hope to share my experiences on the road in Spain as well as my journey forward from Santiago without the arrows and scallops to lead the way.

The Girls Book & Wine Club is Up and Running

2007-09-04T14:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a good quote for all of us wine lovers out there:

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the wine I drink I feel shame. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the vineyards and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this wine, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink this wine and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver." ~ Jack Handy

Cheers to that!

So, after several months of planning and rescheduling and shuffling plans around we finally kicked off our Girls Book and Wine Club the last Sunday of August. After several hours of catching up, snacking on fruits and veggies, and taking full advantage of the wine part of the book and wine part of the club, we finally launched into our discussion on our first book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was delighted that everyone loved this book as much as I did. Here's a picture of the "founders" at the top of the post me, Michele, Karie, and I in the back and Abby and Marissa up front.

Here's a little background on how the Girls Book and Wine Club came into existence:
One thing that's been on my mind a lot in the past months is making it a priority to spend more time with my friends and family, really working to reconnect with the people who are important in my life.

Its always been important to me to spend time with my girlfriends, both old and new. Unfortunately, its not always easy when everyone has spread out geographically and had grown in different directions in their careers and lives. In the college days, luckily, it was just a matter of walking down the hall. It was in the hallowed (and generally hazy) halls of the dorms at UNLV that I I met Abby, Michele and Marissa, (here's a picture of us from the good old days) the girls who would soon become my best friends and partners in crime. We spent our college years and beyond as a tight knit group of friends. We loved each other in spite of or maybe partly because of our quirky habits - mine of playing Shakira and Enrique Iglesias songs on repeat at an alarming volume, Abby wanting to go to sleep on the ground exactly where she was after a night of drinking, Michele's alleged "cheating" at mancala and Marissa's tendency to get dressed up and then fall asleep before it was even time to go out for the night. We were there for each other during that intense, awkward and exhilarating time when we were just trying adulthood on for size and learning how to find our place in the world. I think that there is something about spending a lot of time together in intense situations where a lot of personal growth is involved that bonds you together for life.

As we've gotten older and moved on from our college days, we've all grown a great deal. Each of us has met more people who have touched our lives and become our close friends. Marissa and I are both now happily married. With all of the positive things that have happened, still our lives and careers seem to pull us in different directions. I guess that's part of life, but I don't want to let go of my friendships just because its not as easy as it used to be.

I was thinking about all of this at the same time I started reading Eat, Pray, Love, (which I felt an immediate need to share with everyone I know) and the idea of the book club was born. My idea was to provide a shared experience that we connect through and give us some regularly scheduled girl time. The first meeting was great - good book, good wine (and mimosas) and best of all good company. Our next selection for October is Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

Video Postcard and Some Photos

2007-07-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

Well, we are about 1 week and over 100 km into our Camino. The distance sounds much more impressive in kilometers so I´ll leave it that way. We have had some ups and downs and some long hard days and some beautiful easier days out there walking and a few injuries, but all in all we are having a great time. I haven´t been keeping up with the blog much since we haven´t had much opportunity to be on the internet for long periods of time.

We´ve got more stories to post when I have a little more time online, but for now here are some pictures of the terrain we´ve been walking through and a little video postcard we made when we wandered through a field full of sheep yesterday.

Puente La Reina

2007-07-12T11:29:00.000-07:00

Day 2 - Uterga - Obanos - Puente La Reina

I went outside to write this afternoon and with the warm sun on my face and the perfect breeze I fell asleep. I was outside the on the back lawn of our albergue after a much more moderate day of walking than yesterday. I awoke to the wonderful cacaphony of chatter from pilgrims from all over the world. Here, at any given time I can hear a combination of Spanish, English, German, Italian, French and many other languages that I cannot yet recognize. I feel like the beginning of our journey is brimming, hoping that some of these voices will soon become friends.

The municipal albergue in Puente La Reina has about 100 beds, many more than the one we were very nearly turned away from the night before. The albergues seem to have one or several rooms filled with bunk beds for us to sleep on. This comes with the added bonus of a symphony of snoring during the night. Here there is a large bathroom and a few showers and a gorgeous lawn out back with trees to shade the pilgrims gathered in various groupings on the lawn and a place to hang our hand washed clothes.

This whole hand washing the clothes thing is new to me. Now, I have washed delicates in the sink before with Woolite, hoisery and bras and such, but this is something else entirely. The albergue has this curious looking sink, with slanted ridges for scrubbing. The hospitalera (that´s what the hosts at the albergues are called) lent me a piece of this strange brown soap to wash our clothes with. I wasn´t really sure how to begin, but Paul showed me how. I rolled up my sleeves and washed our clothes Little House on the Prairie style soap, soap, soap, scrub, scrub, scrub, rinse, repeat. This is more of a workout than the walking! I was very proud of myself, but halfway expecting Ma and Pa and sister Mary to show up after they had killed and skinned the chicken for supper.

This was the first albergue where we have been able to cook so Paul and I made some pasta and some chicken. We didn´t have any oil, but saw some margarine in the fridge so we figured it was ok. When peeled back the top, there was a strange white substance at the bottom of the tub that was quite suspect. When you have walked all day and are totally famished, your standards of acceptability are dramatically altered. We used it anyway. From the kitchen while we were cooking and chatting with an English guy named Rob who writes tie in books for video games and movies, I heard someone who sounded just like one of my Korean students talking excitedly. I was really surprised to see that there were not one, but 3 Koreans in the albergue with us. We all started talking over dinner and met Che Jin, Ku and O Kwang along with Matthew from India. I talked to all of them for quite a while and Paul joined us for a while and then went to do a drawing of the church.

The Camino de Santiago - Day 1

2007-07-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

Day 1 - Pamplona- Cizur Menor - Uterga 17km

As soon as you summit Monte Alto Perdon (Mountain of High Forgiveness), you will fully comprehend why the catholic church pardoned many heinous crimes and various other sins in for walking the Camino. If you are like me, only reasonably fit and carrying a backpack weighing more than a small child, you will come to this understanding much, much earlier in the ascent.

The first day of the Camino began easily enough. After walking around in the Casco Antiguo in Pamplona I quickly discovered that my hiking shoes, although they felt like a warm hug standing around my house, were a disaster to walk more than 100 meters in. I know , I know I should have tested them out before I left, but the problem was solved easily enough with a Corte Ingles, Spain´s mega department store, in close proximity. I abandoned my old pair of hiking shoes on a bench in Pamplona hoping they might find a home with one of the guys who lost their shoes in the bull run. I replaced them with new Merril´s that are working out perfectly.

We left Pamplona about 2pm which is VERY late to start a day on the Camino. Most peregrinos, the Spanish word for pilgrim, don´t mess around. They are up well before the sun, clean, dressed and rummaging around their backpacks, loudly crunching their clothing and bags of sausage, cheese, and bread for the day in the dark. It was only 4 km to the first town Cizur Menor, which we completed easily. It was about 4pm when we arrived in the sleepy little town, invigorated from having talked to 2 perfectly normal pilgrims, a music teacher from Liverpool and a girl from Frace, on the way there. I was hesitant to begin the 12.8 km hike to the next town of Uterga so late, but Paul was excited about making some more progress so we decided to press on. After all, the first part had been easy. We walked through the lush green grounds of the Universidad de Navarra, mostly downhill. The weather was beautiful, cool and breezy, which was a nice change from the 116 degree weather we left behind in Vegas. No problemo, we thought. If we had only known what lay ahead of us...

We knew we were in for a little mountainous terrain, but thought we had seen the worst of it during the ascent in the first hour. If this was what the mountains were like, give me ten more mountains we laughed. We were tough. We were peregrinos, finally on our way! We were mastering the outdoors, we didn´t need any autobus to help us along the way. We didn´t need any doctors or police to help us. Silly Spiderbat, what did he know? The green landscape swirled around us. We delighted in all of the strange and beautiful wildflowers and the green countryside with wheat fields as far as we could see.

And then it began. The small hill we had taken for the great Monte Perdon was behind us and gave way to another ominous trail that rose endlessly from our feet stretching to the horizon above. This daunting scene was dressed up innocently in the vast robes of countryside. It looked like a scene from Don Quixote, complete with giant white turbines at the summit, which I preferred to think of as windmills. We started up the hill and Paul walked confidently forward, full of energy. I started in a similar manner, feeling like I was rising up to meet the challenge, but slowly and surely my back began to squeal in pain. I tried to ignore it for a while, but after about 30 minutes of the steep climb it felt like each item in my backpack, every article of clothing, my poncho, my camera, all of my battery charges, my journal and even my toothbrush were conspiring to crush and melt me under their weight as punishment for packing too much. They crushed my spine until I felt like discs would slip out avoid the pressure. I began to cry. I looked at Paul climbing ahead of me. I struggled to keep up and finally my back could take no more. Tears streamed down my face. I couldn´t do it any more. I had to rest. I had to shed the pack. I didn´t know I could carry on up the mountain.

Only one day and the Camino had already broken me. I wondered if it was like the military, if everyone who passed through had to be broken down first in order to be built back up stronger and better than before. Maybe this was meant to humble me before the long walk I was about to undertake. Paul came to my rescue. He asked what he could carry to help me lighten the load. I sobbed and shook my head not sure what to say. I leaned down to reach into my pack. Paul stopped me and took the whole pack from me and strapped it on the front of his body. This brought more tears, this time of gratitude. I couldn´t imagine how he could bear the weight of both packs, but he did. I rested for a few minutes and noted that this walk would actually be rather pleasant without the weight of the bulging backpack. When I had recovered I started to ask for my backpack back. I asked every few meters until we got to a stopping point where we sat for a moment. We shifted around and repacked until the pack was much more comfortable. The sun was burning brightly almost directly overhead. If I didn´t have my cell phone telling me it was 5pm, I would have thought it was noon.

We continued to struggle for another hour up the hill, Alto Perdon challenging us with every step. Only one pilgrim passed us the entire day. He was a Spaniard on a bike and told us to be careful, the rocks on the wasy down were very dangerous. Great. As if we needed anything worse. All the way up we heard a loud whooshing sound that sounded like a plane taking off. We we finally clawed our way up the final few steps we found out that the sound we had heard was the ¨windmill¨turbines. As we rested on top of the hill, I sort of understood the pride that Super Spider Bat had exuded. I felt faintly like Wonderwoman myself and I could detect a little bit of superpower in Paul too.

San Fermin in Pamplona

2007-07-11T01:27:00.000-07:00

Well, we weren´t injured running with the bulls in Pamplona. This is probably due to the fact that we didn´t actually run with them. Tuesday afternoon after we arrived in Pamplona, Paul told me that after thinking about it, he didn´t think he wanted to run. Especially since this was at the beginning of the trip where we´d be walking the entire time. Any injury, even a twisted ankle could make quick work of us out there on the road. He thought there was just too much to lose if something were to happen to either of us. He was right, really. He asked me how badly I wanted to run. I thought for a moment. I was both excited and terrified at the prospect of being closed into a tiny street with a mess of people wearing white and red and a dozen angry bulls. I didn´t really want to do it by myself, but if Paul came with me...

We had already bought balcolny seats at an English language school to watch el Encierro, the name for the running of the bulls, from above Calle Estafeta for the following morning. If we watched and decided it was safe enough and we really wanted to run, we could postpone the start of our camino and come back the next morning.

At about 5 minutes to 8 in the morning, the barricaded street in front of our balcolny was slowly flooded with runners getting a head start on the bulls. People stretched and jumped around preparing themselves for the chaos that was about to take place. The air was thick with anticipation. A few minutes later a cannon sounded and the people on the street began to move, some running, the more daring jogging or walking hoping to get a little closer to the charging animals. After about 2 minutes another cannon sounded and the bulls were released. A TV behind our balcolny showed the news coverage of the Encierro so we were able to see the entire path of the bulls as they ran the gauntlet taunted by runners to what would be their final resting place. The folks in the front of the pack probably made it to the bull ring to safety without seeing a bull at all. Others in the back ran along side of the bulls, making a game of touching the bulls massive sides or holding on to their horns. People ran into each other and fell every possible way in the street. One bull decided a runner was in his way and promptly flung him against a wall with his horn. Another guy trying to climb a wall was pulled back into the street and under a bull. Bull testicles in his face, the guy clung to the beast´s legs for dear life. The bull tried to stomp him, but was eventually prodded along by the bull chasers. All of this happened in a matter of minutes.

I really didn´t understand how much I wanted to be down there running until I was not. Some of you will probably think I am crazy after the scene I just described, but I envied those people who stood there in anticipation waiting for everything to get started while I watched from the sidelines. Not so much the guy who got stomped on, but the group in the front we could see from our balcolny, the 3 women who braved it down there in a sea of men, the group of buddies from London who wore matching green shirts and took off awfully quickly when the cannon sounded, the young couple about my age who ventured to the front of the pack. They all found a way to have this experience that they will probably remember for the rest of their lives. They took a risk, but found a way to make it a smarter risk and were rewarded with a story that they will probably tell for the rest of their lives to their children and their grandchildren.

I felt a profound sadness sitting in our room that afternoon in the aftermath of San Fermin. I´m not sure it even had anything to do with the bulls exactly. I just felt I had made a choice that was at odds with the way I want to live my life. Do I really want to watch life go by safely perched on a balcolny from afar? Or do I want to take life by the horns? If I choose the latter, I may get a little bruised and beat up along the way, but at least I will then have battle scars to show off and I think be better for the wear.

Then I began thinking about the Camino and why Paul and I are here in Spain in the first place. To have an adventure, to do something that will challenge us both physically and mentally. I suppose deciding to walk 400 miles on your summer ¨vacation¨carrying an 18 lb. backpack is not exactly sitting on the sidelines.

We didn´t go back the second day to run with the bulls. We did what we set out to do, started our camino. I was really OK with that. If I´ve got something to prove to myself about taking risks to gain great rewards, it doesn't need to be on a street in Spain with wild bulls. There will be other bulls in other towns. Maybe next time someone else will be watching from the balcolny and I will be the one running by.

We´re in Spain

2007-07-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

We´re here! After a couple of long days of traveling, we´re in Pamplona ready to start our journey. I have some other stories from the days leading up to today, but I will have to go back and post later.

We had our first encounter with a fellow pilgrim today while waiting to buy bus tickets in San Sebastian. He was a short and stocky Spaniard talking to everyone else in line in Spanish and novice English like he owned the place. While I took off to find an Internet cafe and retrieve some information about where we were headed, Paul stayed to buy the tickets and the guy struck up a conversation with him. The interaction went something like this:

Spaniard: Hey, your wife, she left!
Paul: She went to the Internet cafe.
Spaniard: No, no. She left her bag and she left too. Ha ha
ha. Hey man, I just walked 1,000 km. I am so strong.
Paul: Oh yeah? My wife and I are walking a long way too.
We´re here to walk the Camino de Santiago.
Spaniard: Oh no. I just finished this Camino. You are not strong enough. And those are the
shoes you are wearing?
Paul: Yes, they´re pretty comfortable.
Spaniard: Oh, no. You cannot wear those. The rocks will punch you in your
feet.. You will take an autobus. Or you will die. You have to train for three
months at least before you start, like me. I am so strong. See my muscles? Let
me show you my feet (he proceeds to remove his shoes to show blisters and broken
toes). I am so strong. I am not Superman. I am not Spiderman. I am not Batman.
I am all of them put together.
Paul: (At this point Paul´s face is involuntarily contorting into a look
similar to Gary Coleman´s trademark ^Whatchoo talkin´ about Willis?^) Hmmm. I see. How did you do
that to your toes?
SSB: (The Spaniard will henceforth be known as Spider-Super-Batman - SSB for short). Oh, well I
start the trail at 10am. All of the white people start at 6am and I pass them
all because I am so strong. One day on the mountain, it goes down, down,
down and then up, up, up. I am walking so fast and in front of me there is
this girl, She is walking so slow. I yell at her, -Ày, Ay!- but she does not know
she needs to move and get out of my way and then crunch, poof! My toes run
into her, I fall on a rock and crack my head. Blood, blood
everywhere. But I am strong. I go on. Not you, you will
die. This mountain, Alto Perdon, there are no policia, no hospital, no autobus. You cannot make it.
There are so many white people on the Camino. I am the only black one (mind you,
this man has olive skin, but he is no more black than Tom Cruise with a
suntan.)

Paul: Black?! You are not black.
SSB: Ah, yes I am. (He pinches the skin on his arm and shakes his head as if this stupid American doesn´t have a firm
grasp on the English language) Dark skin. Black.

This goes on for a while before I return. It turns out that Spider-super-batman walked the start (which he made sure Paul knew was NOT in Pamplona where we are beginning) in 21 days. After the bragfest, Paul wanted to ask about SSB´s personal and spiritual growth on the pilgrimage since humility was something he clearly discarded along the way along with his extra socks and shirts. But he thought the `better of it lest he be subjected to yet another Ì´m the King of the World´ story from black Spidey.

As we toasted our homemade Kalimotxos this evening (red wine and coke, sounds gross, but is a Spanish staple and I learned to love it during my time in San Sebastiàn before), maybe we should have toasted: ¨Here´s hoping that we´re not the only 2 normal peregrinos on the road!¨

T-Minus 2 Days

2007-07-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

Here it is, Paul's and my last day of work before our Spanish oddessey. Up until this morning the excitement was building and my head was spinning focusing on planning. Today, however, 2 days from our pending departure, my stomach feels a little queasy. Kind of like somebody hid a blender inside of it and keeps hitting pulse every few seconds.

The semester is ending. I have to say goodbye my first class full of International students at UNLV =(. This really shouldn't make me too sad because there is a good chance that I will be teaching most of them in the Fall or sometime again in the future, but what can I say, I'm sentimental. We've become a little International community this summer.

On Monday morning we will touch down in Spain and be immersed in the unknown armed with nothing but our backpacks. There is something half thrilling. but also the equal parts scary and daunting about a trip like this. I really have no idea what it will be like to walk 15 miles a day in the hot sun and or (gasp!) rain. I don't think I have ever walked 15 miles straight in my life and now we're about to do it everyday for 5 weeks. Wow. On the other hand, there's a first time for everything, right? Part of me is just itching to dive right in and see how it goes. Worst case scenario -we decide we've had enough walking for our whole lives after a few weeks and are "stuck" in Europe for 5 1/2 weeks. We can go to Italy and take a cooking class, get some bicycles in Amsterdam and ride all over Europe, take some wine tours in all of the wine regions, anything really. Not such a bad back up plan.

**The picture above contains all of the clothing I am taking for 5 1/2 weeks! I pack more than this
to go to my Mom & Jon's house for the weekend.

Julie and Julia

2007-07-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing like a little last minute reading that I want to finish before my trip to Spain... less than a week to go by the way. I'm not in freak out mode yet, but the nerves are starting to creep in. To combat my fears that the world will end if I forget something, I am making lists. And lists of lists that I need to make, and cleaning everything like a maniac. When I get tired of that, I am reading like a maniac. I decided last week that if I was going to start Julie and Julia before my trip, I was also going to have to finish it. After all my copy is a hard back and besides my general dislike of hardcover books, it would add way too much weight in my backpack. On the bright side, I weighed my pile of clothes for trip last night and they only weigh 4 lbs! I might make it under 15 lbs. total after all.

So, about the book- despite my mixed feelings at different points during the book, when all was said and done, I was sad to see it end. The basic premise of my latest read, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen is this: Julie Powell is about to turn 30. She is working a string of temp jobs and feeling dismal about the prospects for her life. Then one day while visiting her mother, she picks up an old copy of Julia Child's 1961 classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The seed is planted. Soon after that, the Julie/Julia project is born. Julie decides that she will cook every one of the recipes in a year's time and at the suggestion of her infinitely patient husband Eric, write a blog about it.

The result is an irreverent culinary and emotional roller coaster ride, an often funny, and at the end very poignant account of that year and how it gradually changed Julie's life. I have to confess, there was a point in the book about halfway through, right around the aspics (jelly made from boiling calves's hooves, I am pretty certain I could die a happy woman never having consumed and aspic.) that I was a little bored and wanted to fast forward to the meaty parts already. Enough marrow extracting and botching gellees and hissy fits in the kitchen for me. But I pushed through and I am very glad I did. Looking back I guess I was expecting a neat little plot line that would all tie up at the end, but this was an account of someone's real life and like real life, it had its ups and downs. Like life, there are some boring parts, some fights where you say unkind things to your spouse, some failures, some sludge that builds up in your kitchen drain and spits out of your bathtub. But there are also those delicious dinners and friends and family to stand by you through the whole process and of course those elusive shining moments when it all makes sense.

Seeing that Elizabeth Gilbert recommended this book and thought highly enough of Julie Powell's writing to help her find an agent I had high expectations. I realize this is a little unfair to Julie going in. Elizabeth Gilbert is a lot to live up to. I liken it to going to see a movie that everyone I have ever known has said "You have to see this! It is the best movie ever." There's Something About Mary, for instance. There was so much hype surrounding this movie that when I watched it, I was incredibly critical. I thought there were some funny parts, but mostly I just though, ehh and shrugged my shoulders, not too impressed. Luckily, after my initial skepticism in the early chapters, Julie lived up to the hype. All though the book I was looking for the heart, the meaning of it all. The last chapter sealed the deal. There was one sentence in particular that summed it up. **Warning - spoiler alert** please look away now if you don't want to be spoiled. ** Foul-mouthed, irreverent Julie saying while reflecting on Julia Child's death "I have no claim over this woman at all, unless it's the claim one who has nearly drowned has over the person who pulled her from the ocean." I finished the book last night with a tear in my eye.

Please excuse the crappy book picture. Apparently Amazon has stopped letting you copy their images for your own personal use. How rude.

Two More Weeks and We'll Be in Spain

2007-06-25T23:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it took 14 weeks and some help I enlisted from my new friend Paulette at Senator Ensign's office, but I FINALLY got my passport with my married name back in the mail.

Now I just have to get in shape, brush up on my Spanish and to figure out how to stuff all of my belongings for 5 1/2 weeks into a backpack weighing no more than 15 pounds. No problem!

I Have the Best Husband Ever

2007-06-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

The girls and I had originally planned to start our Book and Booze club (very sophisticated, I know, but I thought we could taste beers as well as wines) on the Sunday after Ashley and I got back from San Jose. However, after checking in with everyone only a few in the group had actually finished Eat, Pray, Love so I decided the best thing would be to postpone it, but I hadn't mentioned to Paul that we were changing the date.

I called him from the airport, and while I'd been away having fun he had bought 5 different kinds of wine and some cherries and other snacks for us and was about to clean the house. For all of the times I complain about different things in my life, times like these make me remember and appreciate that I really have it pretty darn good.

"Eat, Books, Ikea and Bonding" or my 18 hour trip to San Francisco with Ashley to Meet Elizabeth Gilbert

2007-06-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

This week my wanderings lead me to San Jose and San Francisco to meet my new favorite author, Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote the the deeply personal memoir of her travels and inner transformation across Italy, India and Indonesia, Eat, Pray, Love. I picked up this book at Borders because of the cover, so simple and beautiful. As a former marketing student, I like to reward the geniuses behind good packaging and cover art by doing exactly what all moms tell their kids not to- judging books by their covers. To be fair though, even books with lovely covers have to pass the 2 page test with me. I was a little hesitant to read it because it was the story of a woman on the heels of her divorce. As a newlywed, this wouldn't normally be my subject of choice, but something drew me to the book. Maybe because I'd love to take off for a year and travel the world. Maybe I just love stories about personal transformation. Whatever it was, I'm glad I picked it up beause I fell in love with Elizabeth Gilbert's writing. She has a way of letting the reader behind the curtain, revealing the truth about her lonliness, joy and triumphs in a way that shows that she is just so...human. It was one of those books that feels like visiting an old friend their and remembering all over again why you loved them so much in the first place. I didn't want it to end, so when it finally did in my book withdrawls I went searching on Liz's website and happened to see that she was going to be at a Book Group Expo in San Jose, CA...only an hour and a cheap plane ticket away from me.

The wheels started turning and before you know it I had found the cheapest flight and a $75 off flight coupon on eBay. It was only a week away, but I called my friend Ashley to see if she wanted to make a girls outing of it. She was game, so at 4:30(am!) last Saturday we headed out to the airport for a quick trip full of books, authors, wine, chocolate, seafood and shopping.

The Book Group Expo was a pretty neat set-up. Each hour they hosted themed Literary Salons with a group of 3-4 authors on a mini-stage full of the kind of worn comfy couches and chairs you might settle into with your favorite book. Here are some highlights from the trip:

1. What a Long Strange Trip Its Been..
This was the title of the first literary salon with Elizbeth Gilbert(that's her in the center of the photo above with Ashley and I), Sara Davidson (author of "Loose Change" and "Leap!") and Po Bronson (journalist and writer of "Why Do I Love These People?" and "What Should I Do With the Rest of My Life?"). Like the proud book loving geek that I am, I had thought about some questions I wanted to ask Liz. I got a little nervous, but I ended up on the mike anyway asking the whole panel about the mentors they had had in their lives and whether or not they spent time mentoring aspiring writers. All of the authors gave answers that were positive and encouraging to me about liking to spend time reading manuscripts and helping other authors connect with agents. Liz said she didn't really have a writing mentor, but her mom had been her biggest source of encouragement, even encouraging her to send her work to Newsweek and the New York Post when she was 18. She also talked about having worked with Julie Powell, author or Julie and Julia.

2. Did I Mention Elizabeth Gilbert??
Well, we got to meet her at the book signing and she was just as friendly and gracious and easy-going as you might expect after reading Eat, Pray, Love. She told me that I have a beautiful smile! I told her that I really enjoyed her book and determined to get through at least one more of my questions for her, I asked if she had written most of the book while she was away in Italy, India and Indonesia or when she came back home. She said she wrote the bulk of it while she was there, journaling and such.

I wonder if it is weird for her after writing such a personal memoir that so many people who she has never met think that they are her kindred spirits.

3. Ikea
It was my first time. I was amazed at the size of the place. Ginormous. And everything was so cheap! I resisted most of the temptations because we were limited to the small bags we were carrying as carry ons, but I did get a cute $.99 spoon rest.

2. Checking Out San Francisco and the Environs

When the clock struck 2, we had had our fill of book nerd heaven and our eyes were drooping from only 4 hours of sleep, so we decided to hop in our rental car and head back to explore San Francisco. Neither of us had any specific plan in mind, so we headed for the Embarcadero and stopped when a little arts and crafts street market caught our eye.

We don't have a lot of stuff like that in Vegas. There was a guy with the most beautiful photographs of brilliant blue and red doors. And then there were the ugly jewelery vendors and the pretty jewelery vendors. We both picked up a little something from the pretty jewelery vendors tables. Then we explored the market across the street on the pier and reveled in the less than 100 degree weather and the fresh sea ocean air. We went to Pier 39 and stopped at Swiss Louis's overlooking the sea lions for dinner and some wine.

3. Good Old Fashioned Girls Bonding Time
Sometimes this is just what the doctor ordered. For me, having real conversations and spending time with girlfriends is nourshing to the soul. Definitely one of the biggest highlights of the trip was getting to spend it with one of my best friends.

Camino Packing List

2007-04-30T16:06:00.000-07:00

I will be continually updating this post as I add things I have forgotten. First and foremost, my objective is to pack as light as possible. I cannot let myself take any more that 15 lbs. including the weight of my pack lest I die of exhaustion along the way. This is my pack to the left (yay!). Its an Osprey Aura and I would highly recommend it if you are in the market. It is lightweight and has a great cooling system.

Paul and I have done a couple of trial treks with our packs loaded up out at Red Rock. Man, this is harder than it looks. We noticed some weird things like that our hands swelled up while walking. Not sure what the deal is with that, but it seemed to lessen the second and third time we were doing long treks.

Jessi's Packing List

Pack (3 lbs. 2 oz)
2 pairs of pants
2 T-shirts
3 pairs of socks
boots or hiking shoes
Second pair of shoes for the night time (I'm checking out some Crocs sandals I found at Sports Chalet. They are super light and comfy and don't take up much space)
Silk sleeping sack
travel pillow
pajamas?
humpback poncho (it will cover you and your backpack!)
my journal
paperback book
sunscreen
guide book
camera & charger
necessary meds
bandana (s)
hair ties
compass/GPS?
hair brush
passport (also scanned and sent to our email address in case of emergency)
tickets
freshette (funnel and tube contraption to help girls pee in the wilderness without having to squat)
camel back belly for water
quick dry towel
washcloth
soap (buy in Spain)
tissues
travel shampoo
travel conditioner
deodorant
small amounts of makeup
moisturizer
plastic bag for clothes during shower
shower curtain hook or caribiner to hold shower bag
small length of string and clothespins for hanging clothes to dry
small rock from Vegas to leave at the Cruz de Ferro
mp3 player (trying to find a cheaper version that takes batteries to avoid carrying my iPod and charger)
Ear plugs

Plus, I will take some extra things to wear in transit and for our first few days in Pamplona and for after we arrive in Santiago. We can send packages to ourselves at the end of the Camino. These will be:

Jeans
nice shirt
another casual shirt

Am I forgetting anything? Most likely yes, but I shall keep adding to this.

Ahhh, memories...

2007-04-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

I just read what is quite possibly the funniest blog I have ever seen about a preteen book series. Tiff, who writes this gem, the BSC Headquarters ,is "revisiting her awkward(est) years one Baby-sitters Club book at a time."

If you ever read these books growing up, you have got to look at this website. Seriously this cracks my sh*t up! I imagine if Stephen Colbert reviewed the BSC series, the result would be something similar to this blog. She waxes nostalgic with her wry commentary on the fashion and toils of the BSC that brings back memories of a time when hypercolor t-shirts and plastic pink flamingo earrings were the height of 13 year old sophistication. And a time when my ten year old self lived vicariously throught the 13 year old Claudia, Kristy, Stacey, Dawn and MaryAnn. I remember when I was 10, I totally wanted to be Claudia Kishi minus the poor spelling and the spandex tights outfits.

To Run or Not To Run?

2007-04-19T14:43:00.000-07:00

So, now that we'll be in town for the festival, I have been having a mental debate with myself as to whether I actually want to get my running-challenged butt out there in the street with those scary horn wielding beasts...maybe I can wear some body armor with my red neckerchief.

Here's how the battle of my wits goes: I sort of want to run with the bulls, but on the other hand I think that is totally crazy. I could get trampled or my eye gouged out, not even be able to start the camino that we have planned so much for. BUT on the other hand where's my sense of adventure? It really is a once in a lifetime experience...

I turned to my girls on the Nest travel board hoping some of them could share their experiences. One of the girls came to my rescue and quelled some of my fears. She did the run in 2001 with some girlfriends and random Canadian guys whom they met in the bar the night before. They started about 1/2 a mile ahead of the bulls, got a two-minute warning to start running. Once they reached the stadium end point (where I've actually been before), they heaved themselves over the wall where they then had a great vantage point to watch the rest of the people and the bulls go by. She did say it was still scary as hell.

Scary as hell aside, getting a 1/2 mile head start sounds like the perfect way to run, but manage some of the risk. And probably help our Moms sleep better at night too.

Run Toro Run!

2007-04-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

Last week in my TESL Assessment class the girl who sits next to me who always has interesting adventure and travel stories was talking about wanting to run with the bulls in Pamplona in July. July? My ears perked up. When in July? She wasn't sure, but I rushed staight home to my computer after class to find out when the San Fermin Festival is July 6-14!! I will finish teaching my summer class July 6th and the 8th is our estimated departure date for Espana!

Pamplona is actually a few cities on from Roncesvalles, the intended start of our camino route, but after talking with Paul, we decided to start from Pamplona so we can enjoy the festival for a few days and then take off. Plus, it turns out I need to be back a little earlier before the start of fall semester to do some training on some software I will be teaching with anyway. So now we are down to about 400 miles. That shaves off about 25 miles or so, but I figure we can make up at least a few miles on the bull route =).

After consulting my veteran peregrino friends on the Santiagobis group, I found that we can pick up our pilgrim credentials at either at the diocesan offices near the cathedral or the Albergue de peregrinos.

Camino Stats

2007-03-12T18:04:00.000-07:00

So, exactly how many people are crazy enough to take this arduous but inspiring journey with me? Here is the breakdown from 2006. These stats are courtesy of one of my fellow Santiagobis member on Yahoo Groups (which came from El Correo Gallego via Santiago Today).

Camino Frances 82,407
Camino Portugues 6,467
Ruta del Norte 5,378
Ruta de la Plata 3,523
Ruta Primitivo 1,588
Camino Ingles 804

These are the different routes of the Camino.
I'd really like to find out how these numbers on the Camino Frances spread out over the different months, summer months in particular since this is when Paul and I are considering going. The map you see to the left is of the Camino Frances Route with its various starting points. We'd start in Roncesvalle, just over the Spanish/French border and head towards Santiago.

The Camino de Santiago de Compostela- My Next Challenge

2007-02-12T17:46:00.000-08:00

For some its a religious pilgrimage and pennance. For some it's a spiritual journey and for others an intense test of mental as well as physical endurance or a challenge to become more tolerant of others.

As for me, I am looking forward to the challenge of trying something new; a month and a half of walking spent in quiet reflection and a chance to brush up on my Spanish and meet some interesting characters from around the world. In some way I feel like each step of the 426.26 mile path from Roncesvalles to Santiago is a step towards living a life that is something so much more than ordinary.

About Me

2007-02-11T22:02:00.000-08:00

Hi there,
My name is Jessica and here is the abbreviated version of my life story. I am a newlywed, an adult ESL teacher, Spanish and Math tutor, aspiring writer and sometime snake charmer.

I love to travel and visit new places. I am totally fascinated by people from other countries, hence why I love teaching International students. If they speak Spanish and are willing to talk to me, even better. So far I've hit 7 foreign countries and seen hundreds more on TV that I would like to visit.

I have recently ditched the black pants and high heels and ventured into some more adventurous outdoor activities. My husband and I spent our Honeymoon in Costa Rica white water rafting, hiking, rappeling, zip lining and I had the time of my life getting much dirtier and sweatier than I would have considered a good time a few years back.