The Last Days of Fall

In the category of "Things You Must Try": Reed's Spiced Apple Cider. It's cold, fizzy, and bursting with spicy apple deliciousness. I think if you could bottle autumn, it would taste remarkably similar.It's a great beverage to consume while carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin cake, both of which I have enjoyed with my friends this week. I love celebrating fall, and I wish it wasn't leaving so quickly.

In the category of "Things You Should Never Try," I would nominate the recently released movie Love in the Time of Cholera. We decided to rent this movie during our fun girl's night this weekend, and now we'll never get those three miserable hours of our lives back again. Horrible makeup (you just can't pretend that 30-somthing actors look like they're 80), contrived and revolting plot, and dreadfully poor acting. I'm still sort of gagging just thinking about it.

You know, the bummer about fall is that it turns into winter, and winter is remarkably chilly. My house, being over 100 years old and rather large, is rather impossible (and costly) to heat. The temperature has fallen swiftly this past week. I'm starting to get a taste of what the colder months will be like, and I have to say I'm not looking forward to it. I'm sitting here writing in my living room, bundled up in a sweatshirt, thick scarf, and woolen slippers, and it's only October.

As I've found myself complaining a great deal about this state of affairs, I saw something this past week that made me pause. I was sprinting to work one morning after sleeping past my alarm, shivering as I ran against the freezing wind, when I looked across the street and saw a homeless man, sleeping on the steps of the church down the street from my house. He was curled up under a thin blanket on the frosty concrete, and I shuddered as I thought about him sleeping the night there. My house may be drafty and cold, but it is a home, and I am incredibly blessed to have it. How quickly I forget about the millions in this country who still struggle daily to survive. They fight continually for shelter, warmth, protection, food, all the basic necessities of life...while I feel overwhlemed with the stress of academic papers and making it to work on time.
Oh how quickly I forget.

Fall Break, Mountain Style!


BEST FALL BREAK PICTURE OF ALL TIME

Really, not much more needs to be said. That pretty much sums up the best five days ever.

So, we set out from Greensboro on Friday, listened to lots of seventies jams as we rolled towards the mountains, enjoying the beautiful changing leaves along the road. We arrived at my home Friday night, greeted by my wonderful family...it was so good to see them! We were also greeted with loads of delicious cookies (three different kinds!) and played a great deal of Cranium. My brother Josh, Rachel and I formed "Team Universal Cosmic Power," and pretty much wiped the floor with the competition. We also had an awesome team gang sign, which you can see modeled to your right. We spent the rest of the evening rockin' a little jam session on my family drum collection, which was mostly painfully uncoordinated...but lots of fun.

We spent Saturday hiking my mountain, which is not really meant to be hiked....its virtually straight uphill. Our calves were exhausted and our lungs had collapsed by the time we finally reached the peak. It worth it though, for the sheer beauty of climbing on piles of fallen red and golden leaves, and running across the expansive grassy pastures we discovered at the top of the woods. After the hike we were ravenous, which was perfect, since my parents had prepared a feast of home cooked barbeque, macaroni and cheese (786 calories per serving, I kid you not. I found this out the day after I ate it), baked beans, and of course, more delicious cookies. We spent the afternoon playing a little game I picked up in Prague called "Nutty Nuggets," and I seem to remember dancing the Macarena as well. There's always dancing when our crew is around.

We set out Sunday afternoon for Paul's house in Tuckasegee, after lots of picture-posing in my front yard with my family's extensive arsenal of guns. We stopped off in Asheville for the afternoon, enjoying some delicious pizza at Barley's Taproom and walking around the fun shops in downtown. . We originally planned to camp in Tuckasegee that evening, but upon arriving late that night to discover horribly frigid temperatures, we decided that sleeping in the warm cabin would be a better alternative. Paul's family lives in a lovely little solar-powered, wood-stove heated one room cabin, secluded out in the middle of the mountains. It was really cozy and fun with all of us bunking in there. It made me wish I could live in a little cabin in the woods.....it seemed like a really simple, wonderful lifestyle. Paul's dad fried us up some yummy blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and then we set out for a day of hiking. We traversed various trails along the Blue Ridge Parkway, drinking in the incredible mountain outlooks and wading in cold streams. Of course, the only problem about traveling with friends in couples is that they all stop at every scenic moment along the trail and act very romantic. Rachel and I enjoyed mocking them in rather ridiculous fashion and gagging at opportune moments. We spent Saturday evening roasting hotdogs and telling stories over a nice fire outside the cabin.

Sadly, it all had to end Tuesday, when we packed up and had a long sleepy drive back to Greensboro. It was so wonderful just to unplug for the weekend, being able to forget our jobs and our homework, leaving our cell phones off and our laptops at home. Just pure relaxation, fun, and friendship. It was good to step outside the crazy grind of school life for a few days and remember that life doesn't have to be insanely stressful all the time.

One of the great parts of the trip was our new friend Warren. Warren is Lauren's friend from South Africa who has been staying at our house for the past two weeks. We've become rather attached to him, and had so much fun teaching him "ghetto" culture over the break....particularly gang signs (see the demonstration to your left) and cool street phrases that he can take back to South Africa. Hearing him say "Don't be hatin', y'all" or "I keeps it real" in his proper, British-sounding accent was quite delightful. We also introduced him to important American cultural institutions such as Wal-Mart, Bojangles, and BBQ pork. He just boarded a bus bound for Miami, where he'll fly to South America for the next couple of months. We were very sad to say goodbye to him tonight...he really became a part of our little family quite quickly, and he will be greatly missed around here.

Too busy living to write about life

My apologies....When my life gets crazy, communication falls through the cracks, both in keeping up with friends and keeping up with writing on here. Blogging is a luxury for those with spare time, which is a commodity I can afford very little of these days. This past week was particularly insane...four papers, one huge exam, and trying to finish choreographing a duet. Top that off with rehearsals at night and work in the morning, and you've got some very full days and a few emotional breakdowns.

Sometimes I feel like a hamster running on a wheel, endlessly running as fast as I can to get nowhere. It's so easy to get bogged down in what's happening hour to hour, day to day, and forgetting that all this insanity will really just be a temporary blur in the big picture of my life. Those are the moments when I just have to breathe and let it all go.

Also after this week, if I never hear words like "prepositional phrase," "olfactory semiotics," or "grammatical bound derivational morphemes" again, I'll be quite happy. A similar sentiment applies to my thoughts towards Bach's Goldburg Variations, which we are required to use in my choreography class right now...try dancing to every beat of Variatio 8. a 2 Clav. and you'll see how I feel.

But enough of that!

Cultural highlights of my week: Last weekend, my friends and I went to see Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Very hilariously witty, and particularly enjoyable when followed by eating two large pizzas at midnight. This weekend we went to see Big River, which is a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn. It was decently good, but let me just say I think Mark Twain would have been rolling in his grave...and not with laughter. Some books are simply not meant to be musicals, and the content gets pretty trivialized when key elements are made into big show numbers. What's next, Crime and Punishment hits Broadway? I'd like to hear those songs.
The other "artistic" moment of the week was one of our own making...one of my house-mates is working on a choreography project that uses group improvisation, so most of my friends, dancers and non-dancers alike are involved. It's a lot of fun to get together once a week, put on some music, and just go with the flow! The results are always an equal mixture of beauty and craziness, so it's intriguing to watch what happens.

Culinary highlights of the week: I've decided that communal cooking is really the way to go. You get to enjoy the companionship of your friends, while cooking something that is more delicious and less time consuming than anything you could normally make on your own. We did this three times this week. One night featured pasta with homemade tomato and vegetable sauce. The next meal was a gigantic stir fry with a smorgasbord of shared ingredients....broccoli, zucchini, squash, tofu, potatoes, egg, carrots, and onions. The third event was Saturday morning breakfast (at noon, of course), with homemade biscuits, sausage gravy (vegan sausage, which is surprisingly good) and scrambled eggs.

Mmm, it's making me hungry just writing about it. Time for lunch and as always, more homework.
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Currently reading: lots of Emerson and Whitman, for American Lit class. I remember really liking their stuff in high school, and while I still find them intriguing, they mostly seem like pretty arrogant, self-obsessed twats now. Perhaps as a 15 year old I just identified so well with their arrogant self-obsession that their writing seemed delightful.
Currently listening to: The new Coldplay album! Viva La Vida is one of the albums I missed while I was away this summer, and it's great.... the soaringly triumphant title track is my particular favorite.

Wordle wonders

Coolest site ever: Wordle. You basically type in the name of a website, and it gives you a neat graphic featuring a randomized assortment and design of the words that are featured most often on that particular sight. The words that are most frequently used are the largest in font. I used my Prague blog, and I thought it was an interesting summation of my summer:

Check it out. It's fun to stare at for a long time.

Happy Autumn!

Tonight I am so bogged down with work that I have no choice but to simply stop. Sometimes you just have to drop everything and take a step back. So tonight, I'm doing that with a brief blog update. And I'm also celebrating the first day of fall with my roomates by drinking hot apple cider and eating popcorn!

My top 3 from this past week (besides my birthday, of course):

1) the Farmer's Market. I really love walking through fresh markets and buying produce....what a perfect way to spend a crisp autumn Saturday. I savored some tasty homemade peach ice cream that reminded me of childhood, as well as buying some lovely tomatoes, onions, crispy lettuce, and a thick loaf of crusty sourdough bread. The twins got similar items, so we had a delicious lunch that consisted of the best BLT's you've ever tasted.

2)Babysitting. I babysat for five great little kids Sunday evening. Apparently, my name is circulating around the families in my church, which is pretty sweet, because I make far more money in a few hours of babysitting than at a few hours of my job. Not to mention that it's a billion times more enjoyable.

3) Moments of rest. I was pretty sick for the first half of this week, probably due in large part to my continual lack of sleep. Being a night person who has to be at work early every morning has not turned out so well for me this semester. Tuesday morning, as I sleepily slogged through the Dewey Decimal system, my shuffling iPod gave me a sermon by Tim Keller about the importance of rest. I found this was interesting, considering my constant lack of rest, but I thought little of it for the rest of the day. I should interject here that my lack of rest was more than simply not sleeping... I was spending very little of my time alone and very little in prayer and contemplation. Sadly, when life gets hectic and crowded the first thing to go is typically solitude. So back to Tuesday...that evening, as I was praying, I got the strong sense that I was supposed to wake up early to spend some time alone with God. Of course, I complained at length about this idea, considering how late I was already going to bed, but with a sigh, I set my alarm a half an hour earlier than my typical dreadful awakening.

In an ironic twist, I awoke two hours later than my alarm the next morning, which was twenty minutes past the time I was supposed to be at work. I bolted out of bed and frantically scrambled to get out the door, followed by a mad dash across campus to the library. I went to apologize and explain my situation to my boss, but after hearing my faint, scratchy voice, she said, "You sound really sick. Why don't you just go home instead of working today?" I tried to protest, but she would have none of it...so I had to go home.

I got a couple of unexpected hours of restful solitude that morning in a way I never could have planned. God moves in mysterious ways....

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Music of the week: Bob Dylan and Patsy Cline. I suppose I'm feeling rather folksy.
Book of the week: the final Harry Potter. I know, it's absurd that I still haven't read it.

Farewell to the Teenage Years

I think this was the best birthday ever. I always say that, but really, they just seem to get better every year. I'm hoping this trend of improvement will just increase at a steady exponential rate forever, and life will be grand.

This is a card from my parents, who also sent me some delicious chocolates and cookies and other delightful edible things....they know me well, I must say! I have enough chocolate to last me a lifetime right now, and I'm very happy with that state of affairs.


In addition to the wonderful gifts from my friends here, I also got an amazing package in the mail from my Prague intern friend Lindsay! It was a little taste of the summer, with a wonderful picture of the girls at the American embassy, as well as some chips and salsa to bring back old memories. Our tradition was to come back to our flat every night and sit around our little kitchen table eating chips and salsa as we talked about the experiences of our day.

This is a little reminder of my birthday duties from one of my lovely roommates, Lauren. I did eat cake until I was full up to there, a delicious homemade dark chocolate cake, after lots of dancing to some of the best musical hits to emerge from the 1970's and 60's (as well as some tunes from our favorite show, which is, of course, LOST....i.e. "Make Your Own Kind of Music" and "Downtown"). Such good times! I am truly blessed with a marvelous group of crazy friends.

Rainy day recollections

Today was just one of those wistful days. On my lunch break, I began reading something from a blog of one of the missionaries in Prague, which led me to reading multiple other blogs and looking at pictures of all of their beautiful faces and families and stories. I felt an ache rise in my heart as the rain fell softly outside, wishing I could be with them all. As I walked out of my last dance class of the day, a fellow student beside me commented that the weather reminded her of the time she visited Prague. The familiar sadness welled up in me again, as I closed my eyes and imagined walking along the city streets, peering up in wonder at the buildings which always took my breath away. That chilly rain made me want to walk the cobblestone streets to Cafe Kalma and eat a chocolate filled croissant (or two), sipping my espresso as I write in my journal and read my Bible. Feeling rather blue, I stopped in my local coffee shop on my walk back home from campus (nothing says comfort like a warm latte). Just walking in there for a brief moment brought a surge of joy into my day. I deeply inhaled the familiar smell of freshly brewed coffee as I soaked in the sounds of jazz melodies and a million strands of conversation. Something just feels right about that sensation.

I feel so strangely out of place these days, longing for the past and hoping for the future. I suppose that's a lifelong tension, and I'll always exist somewhere in the middle.
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currently listening to: "Sunday," by John Coltrane and "Secret Garden," by Bruce Springsteen

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