Dancing Through Life...

The Fault in Our Stars (Spoiler-free, I promise)

2012-01-15T03:58:00.000-05:00

You should read the book The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. If you've known someone who has died, you should read it. If you assume that someday you will die, you should read it. If you are or were once a teenager, you should read it. If you spend most of your days engaging in but not really thinking about the miracle that is breathing, you should read it.

Does that cover everyone? Good. Just in case, I'll say it again: You should read this book.

I devoured the book, in the most intense figurative meaning of the phrase. My copy arrived at my house around 1 PM. I sat down to read it around 9:30. Approximately four and a half hours later, I finished the 313th and final page. I went downstairs and ate two sticks of string cheese, went to the bathroom, and began this blog post.

For those unfamiliar with the novel, its main character is Hazel Grace Lancaster, who was diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at age thirteen but has somehow managed to survive more than three years. The cancer eventually spread to her lungs, so she's dependent on a portable oxygen tank. She has few friends, she reads the same novel over and over, and she thinks about death a lot -- not in a particularly dramatic or macabre way, but in the way that any of us who use more than a tenth of our brain ponder whatever situations realistically lie in our near future. Hazel reluctantly attends a weekly support group for kids with cancer, and it's there that she meets Augustus Waters, an intelligent, irreverent, extremely good-looking kid who's in remission for a relatively treatable form of bone cancer.

Hazel and Augustus hit it off so quickly and completely and are so unabashedly attracted to each other that at first it felt a little unbelievable, but I have immense faith in John Green as both an author and a human being, and I was not disappointed. I have thankfully never known a family member or friend living with a long-term illness, so it took a few chapters to understand that for Augustus and Hazel and their peers, a good portion of their lives are shaped by all-or-nothing decisions: You don't know how much time you have left, so you enthusiastically pursue the things you want and you don't waste time on things of little importance.

I really can't think of another piece of literature that I've read that was so immediately thought-provoking (even among John's earlier books, which are each more thought-provoking than most of the rest of the young adult genre combined). The Harry Potter series is full of deep truths and timeless, ageless themes about life, love, humanity, and death, and as most of the seven or eight people who read this blog are aware, it has helped to shape myriad facets of the person I am right now, but I've spent more than a decade of my life thinking about those books. (And let's face it, I read the first four with the life experience and self-awareness of an eleven-year-old.) The Fault in Our Stars has been in my possession less than twenty-four hours, and it's caused me to contemplate the complexity of life, the inevitability of death, the existence of fate (or lack thereof), the narcissism of the universe, the power of attraction, the blessing and fragility of health, the realities and imagined aspects of heroism, the credibility of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the beauty of a well-designed Venn diagram, and the power of words (and I mean I actually combed through my own thoughts on these topics, in addition to taking in John's and the characters'.)

I have long held John Green in high esteem. Aside from being my second-favorite author (I know he would be honored to learn that he was even a distant second to J.K. Rowling, and he's really not very distant), he's a brilliant video blogger, a radically compassionate and logical humanitarian, a discerning curator of other people's words, and an unintentional co-founder of the Nerdfighter community, which has greatly influenced my life and choices lo these past three years. That I could someday write one-hundredth as well as John and that my books could be one-hundredth as important to one-hundredth as many people is more than I can imagine. Also that I could use capital letters with such Significance and Aplomb.

Though The Fault in Our Stars deals with a wide array of intense topics, nothing is ever treated superficially. Additionally, though the book is narrated by a self-described "terminal" teenager, it manages to altogether avoid being depressing. The total acknowledgment of the frightfully sad and utterly unfair is woven seamlessly with the snarky observations of rebellious adolescents, the split-second decisions that make life hilarious, the complexity of suburban family dynamics, and the self-consciousness and excitement of true love, along with a perfect smattering of nerdy references. I have rarely been so charmed by a male lead, and I have never before enjoyed video games as much, felt such disdain or such despair for a raging alcoholic, or cried so hard over a paragraph about math. (Though my spectacular family did teach me, many moons ago, that math can, at times, be supremely beautiful.)

As I read the novel, I occasionally jotted down things that resonated particularly strongly with me on the nearest piece of paper, which so happened to be my to-do list for the last few days. I wrote down the word aqueous, which I'm not sure I had ever heard or read before, but which is so beautiful that I keep staring at it and repeating it over and over in my head. I also wrote down the word vitrine, which is also quite intriguing in its physicality, but whose meaning I could not quite divine from its context. (I just looked it up. Vitrine: noun; a glass cabinet or case, especially for displaying art objects.) I recorded a quotation from Augustus on page 123: "You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are." On page 138, Hazel feels bad for scrambled eggs because they have been so stigmatized that one cannot mention them without conjuring up images of breakfast, which is exactly the sort of ridiculous manner in which I often feel bad for totally innocuous inanimate (try saying that five times fast) objects. I actually tore off the list (without everything on it having been completed! Gasp!) to scrawl across the back of it a sentence that I can't repeat without giving away a major plot point, but it suddenly put into perspective something that happened immediately after I was informed of my grandfather's death almost five and a half years ago and which has occasionally bothered me ever since. (For those who've read the book, it's the last sentence in the second paragraph on page 262.)

A lot of things in this book made me think about Grampy and the comparatively brief time he was ill and my memories and feelings surrounding his death. I've actually been thinking about him a lot in recent weeks. It seems I miss him most at Christmas time and during the first month of baseball season. But I digress.

I know The Fault in Our Stars has been a very long time in coming. John has said he's been working on it in one form or another ever since his time as a chaplain at a children's hospital more than a decade ago. It's obvious that it was influenced by Esther Earl, who touched the greater community of Nerdfighteria indelibly if fleetingly, and John has admitted as much, though I think the main purpose of the author's note at the beginning is to gently remind Nerdfighters that he could never and would never attempt to write a biography of Esther disguised as a novel. There's been a lot of furor surrounding the publication and release of this book, not only among John's rabidly loyal fans, but within in the industry. Few other books have had so many copies pre-ordered, and John made history by signing every one of the 150,000 books in the first printing. (For those wondering, my J-scribble is green, but sadly without a hanklerfish, yeti, or special note.) TFiOS was originally supposed to be released in April, and we're all grateful that the date was moved forward several months.

Sometimes when I anticipate something so much and for so long, I start to worry that there's no way it could possibly live up to the monumental expectations I've developed. Sometimes, that turns out to be the case (see: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2; LeakyCon 2011). Thankfully (given how easily excited I am), more often than not the actual finished product absolutely lives up to my idealization of it. It's rare, however, that something far outstrips those expectations, more than I ever could have imagined, and The Fault in Our Stars does just that.

It's Real for Us: LeakyCon 2011

2011-09-01T23:50:00.001-04:00

Obviously,I totally failed at BEDA, and even after it turned into BALA it kindof fell apart, between the craziness of being in Chicago and thencoming home and getting sick. But here I am again with a super-longpost for your enjoyment.

It'sthe first day of September, which means that a new school year hasbegun at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In honor of thatI've finally gotten my many, many thoughts on LeakyCon 2011 togetherin a cohesive manner. For anyone unfamiliar with the event, it was agigantic Harry Potter fan convention that took place in Orlando,Florida, in the middle of July. I first began counting down to LC'11somewhere around 500 days before it started. I know. I'm a nerd. Ilike numbers. Moving on...

I'llstart with a basic, basic sketch of the experience so I don't have toexplain too much as I go along. The con was held at Universal's RoyalPacific resort, which is within walking distance of the Islands ofAdventure Park, which contains the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.My roommates included my sister Alicia (or Phish), my almost-sisterMaddy, and my friend Jess from college. (We met at a nerd/wizard rockconcert in October.) We flew from Columbus to Orlando on Tuesday,July 12th and spent that afternoon exploring the enormous hotel and conferencecenter. The next morning we attended a special event called Lit Day,which featured panels, workshops, and other programs put on byauthors, agents, editors, and others from the field of young adultliterature. Lit Day's keynote speaker was none other than Arthur A.Levine, the man at Scholastic who fell in love with the Harry Potterbooks and decided to take a chance by publishing them in the U.S.Wednesday night we attended the opening ceremonies of LeakyConitself, and then we pretty much danced our way over to the theme parkfor an event called Open at the Close. The Wizarding World, whichnormally closes at 10 PM, stayed open until 1 AM just for LeakyConattendees. The next day was filled with all sorts of programs, whichranged from academic discussions to hands-on workshops to podcasts tooriginal musicals to film screenings to meetups for various groups ofpeople. Thursday evening we attended a special screening of HarryPotter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, six hours before the midnightrelease, and then we hurried back to the hotel for a six-band wizardrock concert. Friday meant more programming, including a danceworkshop led by Alicia, our friend Emily, and me, and there wasanother wrock concert that night, this time with seven bands. For me,Saturday was mostly taken up by the two incredible keynote events Iattended, and Saturday night was the Esther Earl Rocking CharityBall. Sunday morning brought a delicious brunch and many tears at theclosing ceremonies, and then a plane ride home.

I'vetitled this post “It's Real for Us” because of a relatively new song of the same name by Lauren Fairweather. On one level, the songrefers to a conversation in the seventh HP book in which onecharacter tries to convince his Muggle-born friend that Hogwartsreally does exist, even though her jealous, unmagical sister wantsher to believe otherwise. On another level, however, the song speaksto the fan community's collective feeling that it doesn't matter whatoutsiders think, because we love this world we've read about andcontinue to expand upon. I attended the first LeakyCon, which tookplace in 2009, and it was probably the most life-changing experienceI've ever had, even a shade more powerful than the time I spentstudying in Ecuador. I ought to see what other people think aboutthis, but I'm going to postulate that nothing can ever quite compareto your first major Harry Potter con experience, the one that opensyour eyes to exactly how vast and diverse and loving this communityis.

Unfortunately,I experienced several minor disappointments at LeakyCon 2011. At onepoint I remember stating that it felt like the “con gods” wereagainst us. On Wednesday afternoon I lost my phone. It justdisappeared out of my pocket right before the keynote with Arthur A.Levine, and because I was trying to find it I didn't get a chance tomeet Mr. Levine, something I had been really excited about. I did getmy phone back eventually, but not until Saturday afternoon. At theOpen at the Close event, no one told us that the Forbidden Journey,the ride inside Hogwarts castle, was going to close significantlyearlier than the rest of the park. We were just getting in line forthe ride at midnight when a Universal employee appeared and told usthat they were going to run the ride one last time and we needed tocome quickly, so we raced through the castle behind her, and when wereached the loading zone for the ride the employees there told usthat they had shut it down for good ten minutes previously. The girlwhom we'd followed through the castle mysteriously evaporated. I'lladmit I cried quite a bit over that one. I was supposed to take partin an incredible flash mob during the LeakyMug podcast, but it had tobe canceled because not enough people committed to taking part. OnThursday morning, Maddy bought her very first wand, a beautiful LilyPotter model from Whimsic Alley, and as we were walking down theUniversal City Walk that evening after seeing the movie, she reachedinto her purse for something and managed to knock her wand out. Iheard it hit the ground, and we started looking for it less than tenseconds later, but it was gone. We retraced our path four times to noavail. There were so many people there, and I think it's just aslikely that it got kicked under one of the carts along the City Walkas it is that someone else took it. I gave her money to buy a newwand the next day, because I was just not going to let my littlesister lose her wand at her first con, and she went back and boughtthe James Potter model. And unfortunately, I ended up hating HarryPotter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which was kind of the centralevent of the con. I won't go into all of that here, because thatcould be a whole post unto itself, but I sobbed during the creditsbecause I wanted so much to like it, but I just didn't.

Inall honesty, I was a little disappointed by parts of the actual conand some of its staff. Registration was a total and complete mess. Ifyou can't handle 3,000 people's registration, then don't let 3,000people register. There was no excuse for the literally hundreds ofbadges that were missing. I missed the two Lit Day programs I mostwanted to attend because I had to stand in one of several conflictresolution lines for over two hours, and I know they kept telling LitDay registrants to just go to our programs and take care of it later,but I was afraid if I got out of line and came back I would misseither the Arthur Levine keynote or the opening ceremonies or nothave time to change into my costume for Open at the Close. Also, inaddition to calling the hotel's lost-and-found every few hours, Iasked about my phone every four hours or so at the Leaky staff deskin the conference center, and I unfortunately discovered rude Leakystaffers for the first time ever. Most times the people were verynice, but there were a few occasions where I was made to feel like Iwas wasting people's time because they had to turn their attentionaway from their conversations with friends to listen to my quickquestion.

However.However, however, however, even when things kind of sucked, I wasstill at LeakyCon. I got to walk through Hogsmeade sipping butterbeerand eat at the Three Broomsticks with my sisters and some of myclosest friends (all of whom I've known for less than two years). Ihad my picture taken in front of Hogwarts with Alicia and mydear friends Emily and Jordan, just as we did when we were at King'sCross Station four years ago. I waltzed with my friend Philip and agood chunk of Team Starkid during “Total Eclipse of the Heart” atthe ball. I got to talk to my friend Elisa, whom I met last year atWrockstock, and I got the chance to have a real conversationwith Jordan for the first time since we graduated college. I also meta few friends whom I'd never before met IRL. In fact, I met my friendJodi when we randomly wound up sitting next to each other whilewaiting for the LeakyMug to start, and we talked for probably fifteenminutes before realizing we tweet each other all the time!

Theprogram Alicia, Emily, and I did, which was called “Dance Againstthe Dark Arts,” ran perfectly smoothly and we had two or threetimes as many participants as we were hoping for! I was sad that JohnGreen had to go home because he got sick, but I did get to meet himat LC'09, and I got to see Hank run around the room with swords andsing “Protons and Neutrons” in the dark (because the lights wentout randomly), and Maureen Johnson trolled the Nerdfighter gatheringthe whole time via Twitter. I laughed and cried and laughed duringthe amazing Very Starkid Event and high-fived Joe Walker during thephoto booth session. I learned that Benedict Clarke (young Snape inthe film) is afraid of lemon meringue pie, and I watched my sisterstump Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) with a Harry Potter triviaquestion. I got to tell Stephanie Perkins how much I love her firstnovel, Anna and the French Kiss. And the wizard rock – oh mygoodness, the wizard rock! Bands/artists that deserve specialrecognition for mind-blowing sets that I will never forget includeTonks and the Aurors, Ministry of Magic, Hank Green, Gred and Forge,Harry and the Potters (just for having Evanna come out and play bassduring their encore) and of course, Oliver Boyd and the Remembrallsand The Remus Lupins, who were playing their last shows. Seeing AlexCarpenter tear up stage was really evidence of how far this genre ofmusic that began as a joke has come. Speaking of Alex, it was reallywonderful to get a chance to talk to him in the Room of Requirementon Friday afternoon without being surrounded by a crowd of peoplealso wanting to talk to him. When he's not swamped by a hundredpeople and can actually hold a conversation with you, you know thathe is really glad to talk to you and is honestly interested in whatyou're saying.

Andof course, there's the one thing that I can never manage to expressadequately, no matter how hard I try, which is the sense of love andacceptance and community that you can practically grab out of the airwhen you're at an event like this. Harry Potter fans, the wonderful,nerdy, totally insane ones who spend their hard-earned money to go toLeakyCon, are the most amazing group of people with whom I've everbeen associated. There's no way to replicate how I feel inside whenI've got my arms around sweaty, hoarse-voiced people I don't evenknow and we're all swaying back and forth and singing “We'rewizards, we'll party forever! This night will never end!” at thetop of our lungs, or when Melissa Anelli announces that we've raised$120,000 for Book Aid International, the Harry Potter Alliance, andthe This Star Won't Go Out Foundation. It's because of those feelingsthat I was literally sobbing by the fourth note of “Days of Summer”at the closing ceremonies.

AsLauren says in her beautiful song, “It's real for us, it's real forus. It doesn't matter what the Muggles say, 'cause it's real for us.”I am so blessed because I do get to live in Harry Potter's world, orat least as close as anyone except Jo Rowling can possibly come, andI know it's real because it has its ups and downs just like any otherpart of life. Even when things in the wizarding world are less thanperfect, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

BEDA Day 25: What is this world coming to?

2011-08-25T21:56:00.004-04:00

Earthquake in Virgina on Tuesday. Wildfires in California. Hurricane Irene threatening the East Coast. Libyan rebels have taken Tripoli (not that that's not a good thing, just kind of amazing). And I'm sitting in a hotel in Valparaiso, Indiana, because tomorrow my sister is moving into her college dorm in Chicago.

WHAT?????

BEDA Day 22...ish: Apologies and Excuses

2011-08-23T03:30:00.003-04:00

My sincerest apologies to all four of you who read this blog (hi Mom and Dad!). I have been remiss in my duties three days in a row and thus have failed at Blog Every Day in August. This project has now been reduced to BALA, or Blog A Lotta August, which I've always thought of as a cheap out for lazy people. (Well, always since the term was coined approximately 26 days ago by the residents of Echo Base.)

It's technically August 23rd, but since it's not yet daylight out, I'm going to pretend it's still the 22nd. I don't have to go to work tomorrow [today] and I'm not tired because I let myself sleep till noon today [yesterday], so now I'm listening to The Mountain Goats and, obviously, blogging.

I legitimately didn't have time to blog on Friday. It was the last day of our summer session at work, so I had to be at school at 7:45 AM for our trip to Fort Rapids, a western-themed indoor waterpark in Columbus. The day was very long and somewhat stressful, and I nearly lost my voice from trying to talk over running water and shrieking children for five-plus hours, but it was honestly a lot of fun. I can't believe how fast this summer has gone!

As soon as I got home from work, I jumped in the shower and then attempted to make myself look supermegafoxyawesomehot for my date with my sister. Since it was her last Friday night in town before going to college, we went to Sonic for dinner, then went to see the new Anne Hathaway/Jim Sturgess movie One Day (which was really good), and then went back to Sonic for milkshakes. We saw a 9:45 showing, so by the time we got home, it was well after midnight and I was dead tired.

I honestly have no excuse for not blogging on Saturday. I even thought about doing so a few times, and then I just didn't. I slept in a bit, lazed around the house in my pajamas listening to NPR for a while, ran a couple of errands with my mom, and then Mel and I went to a bonfire at our friend/co-worker Andrea's house. We met all of her family's cows, watched other people set off firecrackers and fireworks, and had a good time hanging out away from work with our co-workers Heather and Jody and Jody's daughter, who's eight and adorable. I also wound up covered in marshmallow creme when Andrea's brother tried to attack her with the remains of the ice cream sundae ingredients and missed. Good times.

I tried to budget time to write a quick blog post yesterday (Sunday), but I overslept and my plan failed. I got up with just enough time to get ready for wizard-pirate laser tag, which is as epic as it sounds. My sister and I drove down to our friend Chloe's apartment, and then Chloe drove us down to Cincinnati, where we met other hp-ohio friends at a place called Scallywag Tag. We played two fantastic games of laser tag and then played a ridiculous round of glow-in-the-dark mini golf, during which I made an inadvertent assist in the greatest hole-in-one ever made by wizard, Muggle, or pirate. My friend Emmy's strategy for mini golf is to just hit the ball as hard as she possibly can and see where it ends up. On the twelfth hole, she hit it extra hard to get it over a little bridge thing, and it bounced off a rock at the far end, came almost all the way back and bounced off my ankle, and skimmed the top of the bridge and rolled into the hole. I, as the only Ravenclaw of the group, had been given charge of the scorecard, so I gave her a zero for the round.

BEDA Day 17: Pottermore and Houses and sorting, oh my!

2011-08-18T22:55:00.007-04:00

I'm starting to get quite paranoid, to the point where I periodically start shaking and have slight trouble breathing if I let myself think too much. What is the cause of my paranoia? Harry Potter.

You weren't that surprised, were you? Good.

Specifically, I'm paranoid about Pottermore and getting sorted into the wrong House. Pottermore, in case you don't know what it is, is a brand new, interactive, online way to experience the Harry Potter books, connect with other fans, and learn more things about Harry's world that Jo Rowling has yet to tell us. It opens to the world in October, but 1 million people have been given early access to the beta version of the site. From July 31st to August 6th, a clue was posted each day, and those who solved it and caught the Magic Quill before that day's spots filled up got into the beta. I have wonderful friends, and I got in on the very first day, thanks to a 4 AM phone call from my dear friend Chloe. Beta testers are being granted access in waves, and for the last few days my Twitter feed has been filling up with excited tweets from those who've received their welcome emails. I have yet to get mine.

Pottermore gives users the chance to experience all kinds of standard Wizarding milestones, among them being sorted into one of the Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Rather than placing a magical hat on their heads, as is traditional among wizards and witches, Pottermore users take a complex personality test, designed by Jo herself, to find out their House, and Houses can't be changed after they've been assigned. I know at least three people who are already on the beta and who have been placed in a different House than the one to which they've always ascribed. Many wizards and witches out there are having identity crises of varying degrees of severity, and now I'm paranoid.

I've always known I have a lot of Hufflepuff qualities, but I feel very strongly that I have even more Ravenclaw in me. Since I first realized that many people take sorting very seriously and I began to take it seriously myself, which was actually only about two and a half years ago, I've considered myself a Ravenclaw. I have a Ravenclaw tie, Ravenclaw socks, and a beautiful Ravenclaw jewelry set that my friend Carie just gave me; I'm a member of Ravenclaw House on the Harry Potter Alliance forums; and my Twitter and Gmail names are both ravenclawdancer, not to mention that I generally look better in blue than any other color. However, I'm still paranoid of being sorted into Hufflepuff on Pottermore. This Sorting Hat test, the most accurate one I've taken thus far, gives each person a percentage for each House, since it's true that most people have at least a little bit of each House in them. My scores were as follows: Ravenclaw - 100%, Hufflepuff - 95%, Gryffindor - 81%, and Slytherin - 41%. At Hogwarts, it's a known fact that the Sorting Hat takes one's choice into account when assigning Houses, but I have no idea whether that applies to the Pottermore sorting process.

One of my favorite musicians, Alex Carpenter, posted a song yesterday that speaks to the Harry Potter community's collective fear of being sorted wrongly. While I think the song is brilliant, I now have it stuck in my head and it's making it impossible for me to think about anything besides Pottermore...

BEDA Day 16: Grocery store adventures

2011-08-17T21:27:00.002-04:00

I went to the grocery store with my dad and my sister tonight. My sister, who is hoping to get her driver's license soon, drove, and we car danced to ALL CAPS most of the way there. My dad made a bad classical music joke about our shopping Liszt as we were walking in. We picked out roses for my mom, who has been through some really awful job-related crap lately. Then we decreased worldsuck by picking up the pieces of a flower pot that had fallen off a shelf and shattered. My dad walked in circles in the bread aisle while my sister and I were choosing loaves of bread. My sister made a really good geometry joke about circles being pointless. My dad and my sister spent five minutes artistically arranging the containers of yogurt we bought in the cart. My sister just about got high in the laundry detergent aisle. I was disappointed by a candle that claimed to smell like the rainforest, which definitely did not hold up to its claims, and my sister accused me of being a "rainforest dropper," which I didn't deny. My sister also ran around taking pictures of all of the items that had been left in incorrect places, such as the bottle of soy sauce left on the taco chips shelf and the box of Junior Mints left in the display of children's cough syrup. (This is a standard practice of hers. I'm hoping she turns it into some kind of deep, meaningful art project about the disorganization and lack of motivation in our society or something.) We got strange looks just about everywhere we went, and it was awesome. I love going places with my family!

BEDA Day 15: Pancakes!!

2011-08-16T22:13:00.003-04:00

Tonight when I got home from work I was very tired and hungry (as usual). My dad had picked up dinner on the way home so he could get outside and mow some of the lawn while the weather was good, since the whole job takes 8+ hours. My mom came home long enough to drop off my sister and then headed back out to a meeting, and my sister didn't feel very well. No one could go out to eat with me and I didn't want to go alone, we didn't have much in the house, and I didn't feel like eating Ramen noodles.

So I made pancakes! Real pancakes, from scratch, using the recipe from the red and white Better Homes and Gardens cookbook my grandma gave me last year for my birthday. I didn't burn any, my first pancaked turned out pretty well, and there were only two that had a slight layer of uncooked batter left in the middle. This was actually a major accomplishment for me, because I'm not much of a cook.

My sister has this, like, sixth sense about cooking, where she can just grab some random ingredients and throw them together without a recipe, and they're guaranteed to be pretty good if not amazing. It's nice when she gives me food, but it's kind of annoying too. (I won't lie, I often get annoyed when the random-and-impulsive method turns out better than the carefully-following -directions method. I'm such a Ravenclaw.) My parents are both pretty handy in the kitchen with anything moderately fancy, and my grandma can cook anything under the sun, and she taught herself everything she knows after she got married. I can make most things that come in a box with instructions for the microwave, and I can make one really good but really easy chicken dish that includes Swiss cheese and cream of mushroom soup. I can make pretty good banana bread, and I've finally mastered halfway decent scrambled eggs. I'm such a wuss that I'm pretty nervous to try frying an egg. So I was pretty pleased with my pancake dinner!

BEDA Day 14: Best friends forever

2011-08-15T23:56:00.002-04:00

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about my friend Mel getting married. She's not the first of my friends to get married, but she's the first of my friends whom I see on a pretty regular basis to get married. Even though she went to college in Missouri, we always managed to hang out on a pretty regular basis. In particular, I recall long hours driving around the county in her car, softening my aversion to most country music.

Needless to say, I didn't quite know what it would be like to have my best friend suddenly being a married woman. (I do have to say, it's been amusing to hear her stories of adjusting to married life and how no one told her that everything about your routine, including the way you brush your teeth, would change!) It's been pretty normal at work, of course, since we just do work things and deal with the kids and it's essentially the same every day. We've only really done one non-work-related thing since the wedding, but that was really pretty structured since we drove all over creation to get gifts for a baby shower for our friends Tawni and Nate, then went to Mel's mom's house to wrap our gifts, then went to the baby shower. So I didn't know what it would be like when we were just hanging out.

Mel came over tonight after work and had dinner, because Derek was working till, like, 10:30. Also, my sister cleaned a bunch of clothes that don't fit her anymore out of her closet, and because Mel is tiny and has been borrowing my sister's clothes for years, she wanted to see if anything would fit her. We sat around and watched TV for a while and were just generally silly, and then we went upstairs and she tried on a lot of the clothes, and we were just generally silly, and everything was totally normal. I always knew that Mel getting married would mean some big changes, and I always knew that we'll be best friends for the rest of our lives, but it's nice to have some reassurance that the one thing hasn't had an enormous impact on the other.

BEDA Day 13: Doctor Who!

2011-08-14T22:37:00.004-04:00

I'm currently watching Doctor Who with my mom. We're on episode four of Season 1 (meaning that which started in 2005, since that can be slightly confusing), the one called "Aliens of London," and I told her she's not allowed to judge the show till after this episode, so she'll have seen one set in the future, one set in the past, and a good one set in the present, since "Rose" is kind of a lame episode in my opinion. (I haven't told her that this one is a two-parter!) My mom isn't usually one for sci-fi or fantasy (it took me almost 10 years to get her to read the Harry Potter books), but she seems to at least be interested in it so far. Mom makes the fourth person I've gotten to watch the Doctor since getting the Season 1 DVDs for my birthday in June. The other three are my dad, my sister, and my friend Carie.

I keep forgetting that I've only been a Whovian for seven months, because in that time I've watched all of Seasons 1-5, thanks to my lovely friend Annika, as well as the first half of Season 6, which began in April and returns in 13 days! This all began because of Annika. When we were first getting to know each other last fall, she asked if I'd ever seen Doctor Who (she's absolutely obsessed with it), and I said no, but it was next on my list of things to get into when I had time, because I knew so many people who loved it. Then I asked if she'd ever seen LOST, which I love, and she said no, it had looked intriguing when it was first on and then it just looked weird. We knew we wouldn't have much time during the rest of that semester, so we decided to introduce each other to our respective favorite shows over Martin Luther King, Jr., Day weekend. We did, and she, unfortunately, thinks LOST is pretty dumb, but she's determined to finish the show one of these days. I, obviously, love Doctor Who!

I think I've always kind of harbored this hope that aliens were actually real, just because I love learning about and meeting people from different cultures, and I've always been really interested in outer space. When I was little, I really wanted to be an astronaut for a while. That idea disappeared when I found out how much math and science would be involved in that career path (I find scientific concepts interesting on a basic level, but I usually don't enjoy studying them, and I really love math up through Algebra 2, but not much beyond that). However, now that a handful of regular people have traveled into space, I can't help thinking about how awesome it would be to go as a civilian!

BEDA Day 12: Out of the mouths of kindergarteners

2011-08-14T00:00:00.005-04:00

Some of my kindergarteners at work have really gotten into knock-knock jokes, one format in particular. The one version that gets told over and over is "Knock-knock." "Who's there?" "Interrupting cow." "Interrupting cow wh--?" "MOO!" Riley, Gabriel, and Jayden have taken to modifying this to any interrupting animal or other being that suits their fancy. I did NOT appreciate Riley's version from earlier in the week, when I was sitting next to him at lunch and he was eating Cheetos, of course leaving his fingers coated in a thick film of orange "cheez" dust. This was the first time I'd encountered the new obsession, so I didn't know what I was getting into. Riley looked at me and said, "Miss Madeline, knock-knock!" I said, "Who's there?" He said, "Interrupting orange spider." I said, "Interrupting orange--?" And he proceeded to grab my face with his sticky, orange fingers. Oh, the joys of working with children.

Other versions of this joke were much more amusing yesterday at the pool. It was only about 80 degrees out, so the water was pretty chilly and we had a number of kids sitting on their towels near my co-worker Mel and me. Gabriel told the cow joke about five times and then moved on to other ideas: an interrupting cat who said "meow;" an interrupting bird who screeched; an interrupting apple who crunch-crunched; and my favorite, an interrupting old man who yelled, "I'M TIRED!" Jayden got out of the pool after a bit and joined in the jokes with gusto, although he was mostly repeating ones Gabriel had already said, since he doesn't quite have the grasp of linguistics that Gabriel has so far. Mel and I tried hard to remember some good jokes, knock-knock or otherwise, from when we were kids, but we could only think of a few, which made me sad. Ahh, to be young again...

BEDA Day 11: Mixing truth and fiction

2011-08-12T22:47:00.003-04:00

I'll just announce it at the beginning: This is going to be another cop-out post. However, if you follow the included links, you're guaranteed to get a few good laughs!

The Leaky Cauldron, my favorite Harry Potter-related news site, posted a link today to a brilliantly written article that gives serious (Sirius?) suggestions for fixing some of the world's major human rights and foreign policy issues, but the entire thing is written as if the authors are witches and wizards. Even if you don't know much about Harry Potter, it's still a fantastic read, and most of the important wizarding references are explained.

That article contains a link to this article from Slate.com, which is all about Rupert Murdoch's desire to purchase The Daily Prophet, the main newspaper in magical Britain. Again, it's hilarious, especially with its insinuations that Murdoch's best friend is Rita Skeeter, everyone's favorite sneaking, spying, mud-slinging, yellow journalist witch.

Enjoy. :)

BEDA Day 10: In Memoriam

2011-08-11T22:42:00.005-04:00

I can't believe it's been five years since my grampy passed away. I think about him every single day, and I miss him like crazy. Because I'm completely exhausted from a day at Sports Ohio with my kids and because I haven't gone back to read it in a while, I'm going to post the words I spoke at Grampy's memorial service.

**********
My grampy was a lot of things: a father, a teacher, an author, a baseball fan, and a friend. But all those things made him something else: an adventurer. He wasn’t one to sit back and let life pass him by.

As a teenager, Grampy saw Babe Ruth hit a home run at the very first All-Star Game. When he could see that America was going to get involved in World War II, he joined the army. His teaching took him around the world, to exciting places like India and Nigeria. And Grampy’s adventures certainly didn’t end after he retired. In recent years, he flew in a 1920s biplane and a 1939 Ford tri-motor, and he joined my cousins on a HumVee ride through the Arizona desert. He continued to travel as well, visiting friends and family around the country, as well as voyaging overseas. “Boring” was one word that never described my grampy. How many people do you know that flew to China on their 89^th birthday?

In addition to all the important, exciting events in Grampy’s life, he had the ability to turn the smallest things into adventures. My first memories of Grampy are at his house in Virginia, which was filled with fascinating things to see and do. The marble roller was probably the highlight of the house, followed closely by the cuckoo clock. I loved to watch Grampy wind it. My cousins and I could be entertained for hours by watching Grampy’s model trains and riding with him on the garden tractor. I even loved to sit in the kitchen with Grampy and watch the neighbor's cows.

He always managed to turn dinnertime into an adventure too, often by arguing with my dad for the check. Once, he ordered clam chowder for an appetizer and liked it so much that he ordered it again for dessert! And then there was the super-strong airport coffee...but that's another story altogether. Of course, if you spent more than five minutes with my grampy, you were sure to be treated to some great, or terrible, puns. He made sure to pass his love of wordplay on to his children and grandchildren.

Grampy made learning exciting for everyone, from his college calculus students to my first grade class. When we studied Antarctica, he came to show slides and talk about the trip he and Grammy took to the bottom of the world. Even when my classmate's father brought a real penguin to our school, I thought there was nothing cooler than the big, red parka Grampy showed.

Shortly after Grampy's death, one of my friends reminded me of something said by a character in the Harry Potter books: “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” I think we can all agree that my grampy had a well-organized mind, and I am sure he was not afraid to leave this earth. I know he was looking forward to seeing Grammy and his parents and his Savior. We can only imagine what adventures he's having right now!

BEDA Day 9: Rock, paper, scissors, kimodo dragon!

2011-08-10T22:52:00.003-04:00

Not gonna lie, this BEDA thing is kind of getting old! I'm so tired when I get home from work, but I make myself do things to be productive for a while, and then I usually remember that I need to post something here right as I start thinking about going to bed. Oh well. I'm gonna stick this thing out if it kills me! (Not that I'm really expecting things to get that dire.)

I actually just realized how ridiculous it is that I made a whole post about weather yesterday, that quintessential small talk, I-don't-have-anything-else-to-say topic. Pretty sad.

Fortunately my kids always give me material to talk about. I sat with one of my favorite kids on the way to and from the pool today. His name is Andrew and he turned four in June. Shortly after we got on the bus at school, he looked at me and asked, "Do you know what cemeteries are?" I was very curious as to why he'd thought of this, since we were just sitting in the parking lot, I said, "Yes," and I was pretty sure he would give me his explanation. I was right. He said, "Cemeteries are a lot of rocks." I'm assuming he meant headstones, but this statement seemed to exhaust his interest in the topic. We then sang the Mickey Mouse Club Song five or so times, because he's been obsessed with it since I taught it to him on Friday as a distraction from something he wanted to do but couldn't.

On the bus on the way home, I sat with Andrew again, and he wanted to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, which we often use at school to settle disputes among kids. When I'm playing a game with a preschooler, I usually try to let him or her win, but there's absolutely no way to do that with Rock, Paper, Scissors! We were each winning about 50% of the time, but each time I won twice in a row, Andrew would say, "Why do you keep winning? I want to win this game!" I could tell he was really tired, and I tried to get him to settle down and go to sleep, which I usually can when we're on the bus, but he wasn't having it. Yesterday one of my co-workers (who was in marching band with me in high school) and I showed some of our kids the llamas we used to make with our fingers which were a complicated inside joke in the band, and then we started to make other animals with our hands, so I thought I'd try to distract Andrew with those animals. (For those curious, a llama is made by putting your middle and ring finger together with your thumb and sticking your index and pinkie finger up like ears.) I was trying to get him to make llamas, bunnies, fish, and other things, but he still seemed focused on Rock, Paper, Scissors. Then he said, "Rock, paper, scissors..." and put out his fingers like scissors, then turned them vertically and said "...bunny!" So we spent the rest of the ride back to school saying, "Rock, paper, scissors, snake!" "Rock, paper, scissors, moose!" "Rock, paper, scissors, kimodo dragon!" (That was his favorite, and it always ate up whatever my animal was.)

I love my job. :)

BEDA Day 8: Weather is weird

2011-08-09T22:58:00.002-04:00

They, whoever "they" are, always say, "If you don't like the weather in Ohio, wait five minutes and it'll change." Having lived my entire life in Ohio (save for the 10 weeks I lived in Ecuador), I know that's pretty much true. I've grown up in central Ohio, which has its own brand of totally unpredictable weather. I went to college in the northeastern part of the state, which has an entirely different brand of unpredictable weather. I learned at a pretty young age that no weather forecast is sacred, and that Ohio is a state of extremes. We had two days off from school during my senior year of high school because it was temperatures were around 0 degrees Fahrenheit, officially too cold to stand outside and wait for the bus. Two weeks ago, I got sick when we had to take the kids at work to the pool when it was 96 degrees Fahrenheit, with a heat index of around 107. (The heat index is a calculation that combines the temperature on the thermometer with the humidity level.) Last week I was driving home from work in pouring rain while it was brilliantly sunny...and I didn't even see a rainbow, I might add. Disappointing to say the least.

I always think it's funny to see reactions to our weather from people who live outside the Midwest. In July 2007 I attended the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, a tri-annual (is that a word?) gathering of youth from around the country and the world. It took place at Purdue University in Indiana, and all of my fellow Ohioans were highly amused by all of the people from the Southwest who couldn't handle the humidity, even though they're used to temperatures well over the mid-80s, which is what we were having that week. The following summer, my family had a reunion in Indiana, and my cousin Matt, a native Californian, just about had a heart attack when he saw a weather forecast that called for 90% humidity. I told him he'd have to get used to it, since he was about to start college in Pittsburgh. (He still gets really excited by snow!) Finally, my friend Annika, also a native Californian, who transferred to B-W last year, was really scared back in October when there were severe thunderstorms and a possibility of tornadoes. Now, I will never deny the destructive power of twisters, but I can count on one hand the number of times there's ever been one within fifty miles of where I was located at the time, compared to the hundreds or maybe thousands of tornado warnings I've been subject to during my life. I told her it was no big deal; it was super unlikely that any would be cited, and if we had to we'd just go down into the basement for a bit till the storm was over. Anyways, tornadoes weren't nearly as big a deal as the earthquakes they have to worry about in California. Annika assured me that earthquakes weren't anything to be worried about, but tornadoes were still terrifying.

In case you're wondering where all this is coming from, we're currently in the period of the year where hot temperatures mean that crazy huge cloudbursts can pop up at just about any time, like the one we had this evening. After that, everything goes back to being peachy keen.

I should mention that Cuenca, where I primarily spent time in Ecuador, also had crazy, crazy weather. It must be my lot in life.

BEDA Day 7: In which I worry extensively about England

2011-08-08T22:50:00.005-04:00

I think possibly the scariest thing that a person could experience in their life is being stuck in a riot. I can't even imagine how terrifying it's got to be for the people in the suburbs of London right now. In case you don't already know, violent riots have been raging in many areas of London for the past few days, initially sparked by outrage over the death of a man at the hands of police officers. This article from CNN gives a pretty good explanation of how everything spiraled out of control.

Sadly, rioting has now sprung up in other parts of the country, including Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and Liverpool. This BBC article paints a seriously frightening picture of what's going on. I wish I could wave a magic wand and just stop all of this. I'm frightened for the people who live there, and for all the people that are visiting there, even though at least in London most of the rioting is well away from the tourist-y areas. Less than three months ago, I had several friends visiting London and Liverpool on a study abroad trip. For selfish reasons, I'm frightened for all the incredible history and beautiful buildings that give those cities such character. The essayist Samuel Johnson said, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." Well, let's hope that's still true when all of this is over. I'm afraid to see what's going to be left....

BEDA Day 6: No, I didn't forget to blog today...

2011-08-08T00:53:00.002-04:00

This is my blog for today. I had entirely too much fun hanging out with two of my almost-siblings this afternoon, and now my best friend Carie is here to spend the night and save me from being lonely in the house all by myself, since my sister and my parents drove to Chicago today. We have spent the evening watching Across the Universe and working on a scrapbook that's been on hiatus for almost a year, and now I'm tired and it's time for bed.

Cop-out blog post is a cop-out.

BEDA Day 5: I think the Whomping Willow's out to get me

2011-08-06T21:13:00.003-04:00

As I hinted yesterday, I will now commence writing about the crazy thing that happened to me after Mel and Derek's wedding reception.

Directly after the reception and getting everything cleaned up at the park, the families of the bride and groom and the wedding party went back to Mel's church to clean things up there. It was around 5:30-6:00, and the sky was starting to look really nasty, and the wind was picking up. As I mentioned before, it had been exceedingly hot and sunny all day, and in Ohio, that kind of weather early on a summer's day often means there will be a thunderstorm in the afternoon or evening. It took less than half an hour to get the bulk of things cleaned up at the church, and the sky had taken on the greenish cast that means a really, really, really bad storm is coming. The wind was blowing dust from the dirt/gravel parking lot in circles, and I decided I'd better head out right away. (It's only about seven miles to my house.) I hugged everyone goodbye and promised I'd call Mel when I got home.

The wind was buffeting my little Honda Accord from side to side as I hurried down the road, not to the point that I was crossing the center line, but certainly enough to be disconcerting, and there were lots of branches flying through the air. It started to rain really, really hard right as I turned onto 257, but I was still more concerned with the wind. There are tons of trees surrounding this long, very curvy stretch of road, and things were still flying everywhere. Right as I was going through a teeny tiny, bump-in-the-road town, I heard this terrifying sound that was like a huge rock smacking the body of my car. Then I looked up and saw a golf ball-sized hole in the top left corner of my windshield and saw the glass spiderwebbing all the way across in front of me. It had to have been a pretty large tree branch that hit my car; I never actually saw what it was because it didn't come inside. I completely freaked out and didn't know whether to pull over or keep going, but I was almost home, and I could actually see halfway decently, so I just decided to suck it up and keep going. I groped around for my phone and managed to call my mom and have her move her car out of the garage so I could park there, and to her credit, she didn't flip out when I told her what was going on.

I finally made it home and parked in the garage, and I just totally lost it. I really can't remember the last time I cried so hysterically. I was wet, and I was completely covered in teeny tiny shards of glass. It was all in my hair (which was still done up from the wedding), all over my face, in my mouth, down my shirt....it was horrible. But my family was amazing and helped me clean off, and all I got was this miniscule cut on my wrist that didn't even require a band-aid. My windshield got replaced two days later, and it's perfectly fine, although I do kind of miss the Virginia vehicle inspection sticker that was still on the old windshield from when the car belonged to my grampy.

So really, I'm pretty sure the Whomping Willow is trying to kill me, because that was the third time in my life that I had the thought, "I'm going to die right now," and both of the other times had to do with trees as well. The second was the time I almost got eaten by the Log Monster, and the first was when Mel was driving me home from a friend's graduation party in 2008 and we almost slammed head-on into a gigantic tree. So, yeah. Trees are apparently not my friends.

BEDA Day 4: Goin' to the chapel and we're gonna get ma-a-arried...

2011-08-05T23:17:00.006-04:00

So this is the post I was planning to write yesterday....

On June 4th, 2011, my best friend Mel married a wonderful guy named Derek. I was honored to be a bridesmaid, which was my first foray into the world of wedding parties, and it was honestly so much fun! It was really wonderful to spend some quality time with Mel's mom (whom I call "mom"), and it was great to see her older sister, Rachel, for probably the first time since Mel and I graduated high school. Rachel was the matron of honor, and I had a blast with her and the other two bridesmaids, Mary and Debbie, and the pianist, Kristen, who were friends of Mel's from college. We all helped decorate the beautiful little church, which is right across the street from the school where I work, which was lots of fun. After the rehearsal dinner at the ever-amazing Der Dutchman, we went back to Mel's grandparents' house and wound up with one of the best bachelorette-party-gone-wrong stories ever!

Everything started out pretty low-key, because we were all exhausted, especially Mel. Rachel decided we had to watch some home movies from Mel's first birthday, and while the bride kept protesting that this was dumb and everyone was bored to death, we all laughed and laughed and kept track of the number of times baby Mel fell on her face. Then Rachel, who was insistent that her little sister have something akin to a real party, took us all outside for sparklers. After that, she sent Mel on a little fool's errand inside the house while she passed out cans of silly string. When Mel came back out, we attacked and chased her all the way down the street, which resulted in me spending a good 15 minutes picking little bits of colored goo out of her gorgeous curly hair. Then we went back inside for a bit.

I was just about ready to head for home, and Mel was just about asleep, when Rachel waltzed in again, blindfolded the bride, and marched her out to the car. She announced we were going to take Mel somewhere and leave her to be rescued by Derek. I climbed into the car that belonged to Kristen and her husband Daniel, Mel, and Mary. Debbie and Mel's cousins Jason and Sydney went in Rachel's car. I figured we were just going to drive to the park a few blocks away or something, but no -- we followed Rachel for nearly half an hour, all the way to Marysville, including a random turn-around in a driveway to throw the still-blindfolded Mel off track. After that turn-around, everyone in our car felt a small jolt, like we'd hit an animal on the road, and I couldn't see it from where I was sitting, but a whole bunch of lights suddenly lit up on the dashboard. Once we reached Marysville, Rachel turned into a Walgreens parking lot, just hoping to regroup and tell her about all the calls her crew had been making to Derek while we were on the road. As soon as we parked, however, Kristen and Daniel's car died. As in, completely quit functioning. The guys immediately started poking around under the hood and determined that one of the belts (I forget which one now) had given out.

So there we were, stuck in the parking lot of a closed drug store in a small town around 12:30 AM on the day of the wedding. We called Derek and his brother, who had been waiting at the nearby Wal-Mart, where we were supposed to meet them, and we determined that the whole groom-seeing-the-bride-before-the-wedding doesn't count till the sun comes up. Some of us had to use the bathroom, so Rachel drove Mel, Mary, and me over to Wal-Mart, where we used the facilities and Rachel bought a jumbo box of ice cream bars. When we got back to the Walgreens lot, the dead car had been towed, Mel's pastor was there telling stories like only he can, and her aunt was on her way with a working vehicle. After Aunt Lisa got there, we sat around in the parking lot for probably an hour, listening to Pastor's stories of bachelor parties he attended when he was younger (they once put a totally smashed groom-to-be on a commercial plane the night before his wedding!). We finally decided we ought to go when it was almost 2:00 and a police car drove slowly by the parking lot for the third time. I told Mel it's all going in my novel someday.

The next day, everything went wonderfully. My sister came along with me to the church, and she was a big help, putting on Mel's nails and doing Debbie's hair and running little errands for Mom. She did my hair while we were still at home, and it looked amazing! Pictures went pretty smoothly, thanks to Rachel running a tight ship, and they were a lot of fun. We were all highly amused by the ring bearer, a family friend of Mel's, and the flower girl, Derek's niece, who wouldn't even talk to each other at the rehearsal but had to be restrained from running around the sanctuary together while everyone else was taking pre-wedding photos. Mel was incredibly gorgeous and just seemed happy. Derek was adorably nervous. The ceremony was beautiful, and the only tiny hiccup was the flower girl deciding that she wanted to go sit with her mom in the second row after about twenty minutes, and that was way more cute than problematic. The reception was at a local park, and it was insanely hot, but that didn't stop us from having a great time. They had buttercream-frosted cupcakes and orange punch, and their cake toppers were Han Solo and Ariel, the Little Mermaid. I got to see a lot of good friends whom I hadn't seen in quite a while, and everything was just sunny and happy and wonderful.

This post has gotten sufficiently long, so I'll write about the crazy thing that happened after the reception in tomorrow's post. I'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures from the wedding:

Mary, Debbie, Rhiannon, Mel, Rachel, and me

Best friends since eighth grade <3

Mr. and Mrs. Derek Glynn!

Mel and my parents

BEDA Day 3: I Am a Murderer :(

2011-08-04T21:52:00.002-04:00

So, I was definitely planning to write about happy things like the wedding I was in two months ago today, but I really don't feel like it now. I was just driving back from the grocery store with my dad and I'm pretty sure I ran over a frog. I've never run over an animal while driving before, and I know it probably shouldn't be that big a deal, but I really feel like a horrible person right now. The fact that it was a frog makes it worse, since I had a pet frog for six years when I was younger, which launched me into a lifetime of collecting froggy things. From my bed, where I'm currently sitting, I can see almost forty frog items around my room -- everything from stuffed animals to figurines to socks (yes I'm messy and have dirty clothes on my floor). I always figured God had a hand in me not having to dissect frogs in science class. I never particularly enjoyed dissection, but I could handle the fish and the worms and the squids and the crayfish. If I'd had to do a frog, I probably would have cried the whole way through.

Here's a prime example of the weird thing I do where I get extremely emotionally attached to large categories of things that don't really matter in the long run. Oh well. I'm going to go eat my ice cream and be sad now.

BEDA Day 2: The Little Monsters

2011-08-03T21:30:00.002-04:00

If you've known me at least a year, or have been reading my blog for that long, you may recall that last summer I worked at a local middle school SACC (school-age child care) program, and I hated it. I felt overwhelmed because my boss had been doing her job practically by herself for years and just assumed I would understand things that seemed obvious to her. The paperwork at the site was extremely unorganized and I felt like I couldn't find anything. By the end of the summer the number of kids attending was so low that I was only working 15-20 hours a week. Because of our low numbers, I was often the only adult around when I was working. And most of the kids were so snotty that I only actually liked about four of them.

Because of budget cuts, the district's middle school program had to close, so this year I'm working for the same program at one of our elementary sites, and my situation couldn't be more different. My site director is extremely organized, and there's always another adult around who takes my questions seriously, even the tiny ones that I feel silly for asking. Our numbers have been so high this summer that instead of working 28 hours a week, as I was originally scheduled, I've been working at least 35 hours since the second week of summer. I get along really well with all of the other teachers (and it's a bonus that one of my best friends is working the same hours as me), and even when our kids drive me crazy, I still love them. Because the middle school program closed, the rising sixth graders have been allowed to attend our program, and our ages range all the way down to preschool. When we break into groups I usually have the 4th-6th grade group, but we all have plenty of opportunities to work with all of the kids. At these ages, they're still so sweet that even if they get really mad at you over something, they've forgotten it by the next day and you're bound to get hugs again.

The only downside to the job is that I'm absolutely exhausted and usually starving when I get home, because the little monsters wear me out! We stay really busy. On Monday afternoons we go to the small movie theater in town that's owned by a school district alumnus for a free kids' movie. On Wednesday and Friday afternoons we go to the pool. Thursdays often mean full-day field trips, such as to the zoo or local parks or Sports Ohio. When we stay at school all day, I usually teach a mini dance class for a group of kids.

We're currently working on a piece of choreography to Taio Cruz's "Dynamite," which the kids have been singing constantly all summer. I'm actually borrowing my sister's choreography, and I told the kids this yesterday, which led to a storm of questions, including about five kids asking how old my sister is. (They don't listen to each other...or me, most of the time.) I said she's eighteen, and they all went, "Cool!!" Then someone asked me how old I am, a question I've gotten periodically all summer, and one I don't mind answering because I think they definitely have a right to be curious about their teachers' lives. Before I could answer, though, one of my little boys, Matthew, shouts indignantly, "You never ask a girl how old she is!!" After I stopped laughing, I told the kids that that's a good rule to follow when you're talking to a grown-up you don't know very well, but it's okay to ask questions of the teachers because they know us well. Little moments like that totally make this job worthwhile. :)

BEDA Day 1: Summer on Fast Forward

2011-08-02T23:15:00.002-04:00

Look, it's me!! I remembered that I have a blog!!

As atonement for my grievous lack of activity on this site over the last 2.75 months, I've decided I'm going to participate in BEDA, or Blog Every Day in August. (BEDA was started by the author Maureen Johnson back in 2009 and originally took place in April, but August works too.) Yes, I know today is August 2nd. But I'm not that far behind and I'll go for a whole 31 days by blogging on September 1st as well, since I'm sure I'll have some kind of sappy, Hogwarts Express thing to type that day.

Obviously my world didn't come screeching to a halt the day after I graduated college. The fact that I've graduated still hasn't fully sunk in, because this summer feels exactly the same as each of the past three summers. However, my friends who have yet to graduate are starting to talk about heading back to school on Facebook, and I'm starting to feel pretty sad again.

I'm glad to say I've had a really good summer so far. I'll just kind of recap everything here and spend the next few posts talking about various elements in detail. I was a bridesmaid for the first time, in my best friend's wedding, and my car got attacked by the Whomping Willow. (Yes, those events are related.) I started working at an elementary school child care program, and all things considered, I'm really enjoying it. My sister graduated from high school, and last night I tagged along on her first round of college shopping. And of course, I've had lots of Harry Potter-related adventures.

I dubbed the summer of 2007, the one right before I started college, "the summer of Harry Potter," because the fifth movie and the seventh and final book were both release in July. At that time, I couldn't possibly have imagined any of the things I've done in the last couple of months. For starters, I went to LeakyCon 2011 and visited the Wizarding World of Harry Potter for the first time. I've been to four wizard rock concerts this summer, not counting the ones that took place at LeakyCon. I celebrated BAMFmas, also known as Neville Longbottom's birthday, with some of my newest and closest friends, which included destroying a horcrux at 11:00 at night in the parking lot of a movie theater with the sword of Gryffindor, which looked suspiciously like a light-up, inflatable lightsaber. And I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Harry and Jo's birthday to register for the beta version of Pottermore.

All of these things and more will be explained in the coming days, and I hope you'll stick around for my first BEDA adventure!

The end of the road

2011-05-08T00:28:00.002-04:00

I will graduate college in about 14 hours. I can't even handle it right now. I have this weird feeling that the world is going to end when I go to bed tomorrow night (well, technically today, but I don't mean when I go to bed an hour from now). I can't imagine waking up Monday morning. It's like my brain can't even picture how that could occur.

I don't even know why I'm posting this except that I really want to write and all of my notebooks and journals are packed away. I don't understand how everything happened so fast.

Look who's still alive!

2011-05-05T14:16:00.003-04:00

Let's ignore the fact that it's been four months since I last posted here. I've been slightly busy. If you're interested in reading a blog that is updated much more frequently than mine (and is also much funnier), you should check out my sister's blog about her experiences as a senior in high school.

First of all, I have to point out that it's been pretty darn good to be a nerd this week! Monday was Wizarding Independence Day, Wednesday was Intergalactic Star Wars Day, and today is Hanko de Mayo, and Helen Hunt finally saw the Helen Hunt Song!! Power of the Internet FTW.

Okay, so all of those links were really an attempt to procrastinate talking about the really big thing that's happening later this week: GRADUATION. My feelings about this are so mixed that it's really hard to talk about it. As much as I didn't want to graduate high school, that felt like a beginning of something new as much as it felt an ending. This right now just feels like an ending. I had my last meal in Lang cafeteria with my friends today. I left the Foreign Language building and the Theatre building for probably the last time. And I keep looking around my room and knowing that when I get home, I can't just stick all of this stuff in the attic till I get it out again in August. I'm going to have to actually sort through it all and put it all away, a thought that kind of makes me want to defenestrate myself right now. (10 points to me for working my favorite English word into that last sentence!)

One thing I'm glad about is that I really managed to have a fantastic last semester at B-W, despite the gargantuan amount of work I had to do. (I am apparently on a roll with the big words today.) I started watching Doctor Who in January, and I'm now almost to the start of season five, and I am completely addicted! In February, my friends Annika and Jess and I made a semi-spontaneous (come on, we're all Ravenclaws) trip down to Cincinnati in the middle of the week to see a wizard rock show, and we made it back for Annika's and my 8 A.M. classes the next morning. The dance concert, New Beginnings, was in March, and it was a really fantastic show. I was very pleased with how my piece turned out, and I had a wonderful time working with my dancers. April brought Diva Night and the annual Theatre Department banquet, and the decision that I want to pursue Spanish translation in grad school.

But I just don't want it all to be over.

Sblogging and star words

2011-01-05T15:32:00.002-05:00

I'm sitting on the couch in the family room, and my sister is sitting next to me. She's just started a blog as a project for herself in 2011, and she's typing a post right now too. She just decided we're "sblogging," or synchronized blogging.

So...it's 2011. It seriously feels like 2010 just whizzed by, and I don't know what to think about this new year. I have to graduate college in May, which is a terrifying prospect. In July I'm going to LeakyCon 2011, which I can tell you right now is going to be the highlight of the year, but I still need to find myself at least $400 more before I go. I guess everything will work out somehow...It always does.

I'm sure everyone has their own start-of-the-year traditions. We have a tradition at my church that my pastor started about six years ago called "star words." On the Sunday closest to Epiphany, we pass baskets of paper stars through the congregation. Each person takes the star on top of the pile and turns it over to see which word is written on the other side. They take that star home and hang it somewhere they'll see it, like on the fridge or the bathroom mirror, and that word becomes the basis for their journey with God for the year. The results are always astounding...every single year, I find that God puts my word in my life over and over and over again.

My word for 2010 was "Gratitude." I try to always be grateful for the many blessings in my life, but this past year I really did feel gratitude so much more than usual. At the beginning of the year I was still adjusting to life after Ecuador, and I was grateful to be home with my friends and family whom I'd missed so much, but as I shared my stories of the trip with people who didn't quite understand or appreciate them, I was so grateful for the experiences I had in Ecuador -- experiences that most people never get to have. I went to my first hp-ohio Crystal Ball, which I will never forget, mostly because of all the friends I made there. As I ran into a few rough spots with friends at school, I was so grateful for my friends from home who have always been there for me, any time of the day or night. When summer rolled around, I was grateful to have a job and be earning money in this difficult economy, even if I didn't particularly enjoy my job. I was so grateful for the love and fellowship of my church family at Montreat, and of my real family at our fabulous reunion in July. School started and I met my friend Annika, whom I feel like I've known for years already! I was grateful for my summer job again when I took my sister to Wrockstock 4 as an early birthday present, and I was so glad to be able to watch her revel in her first con experience, to meet some awesome musicians, to make lots of new friends, and to spend time with old friends. By the end of the semester, I was extremely grateful just to have survived and passed all my classes, let alone with good grades. All year long, I felt so much gratitude to all the members and staff of the Harry Potter Alliance, the Harry Potter community at large, John and Hank Green and the Nerdfighters, and all the other awesome YouTubers who are committed to decreasing worldsuck. Together we raised $123,000 for relief efforts in Haiti, worked together to win the HPA $250,000 for future programs in the Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook, comforted each other as we mourned the loss of Esther Earl and vowed to never let her star go out, and raised over $135,000 for various charities and took over YouTube with the Project for Awesome!

2010 was an insanely awesome year, and I'm so grateful for everything that happened. My star word for 2011 is.......drum roll, please........"Strength." I have to admit, my immediate reaction was "Oh, great!" So I'm likely going to be needing a lot of prayer this year, but I know God will give me the strength to make it through whatever comes my way. *sigh*

Best wishes to all as we start the new year. What are you looking forward to in 2011?

Wrockstock 2010: An Abridged Chronicle of Awesome

2010-11-12T17:18:00.004-05:00

There are so many things to say about my first Wrockstock experience (a wizard rock music festival, for those who don't know) that I could probably write for about twelve hours before covering them all, but alas, the Muggle world makes other demands of my time. Therefore, I now present a condensed list of awesome events that took place in Potosi, Missouri, last weekend.

*I had just gotten my suitcase off the Knight Bus when I offhandedly said to my sister, "Hm, I wonder if my HP-Ohio friends are already here." I walked around the bus, and there were Jenny, Philip, Kim, and Megan, unloading their car. I couldn't have found them sooner if I'd used a Summoning Charm! We all ate dinner together, along with Vago and some other HP-OH people, and we had a blast! We were off in a rather dark corner of the dining room, so Philip suggested we get candelabras, and then someone added fine linens, and then we decided we were the Slug Club! :)

*The Parselmouths, the first band of the weekend, decided to have a slumber party at their show! They wore footie pajamas, taught us all a song they learned this summer at Pureblood Camp ("I am the Heir of Slytherin, you all bow down to me..."), and finished things off with a mass pillow fight.

*The Remus Lupins' entire set was amazing! Extra-fantastic highlights included what Alex said was the first live playing of "Young Sirius Black's Flying Motorcycle" (though there's some debate in the comments of my video of it on YouTube about whether or not it was actually the first time), the EPIC cover of The Whomping Willows' "Draco and Harry," and the onstage dance party during "Looking for Trouble," which featured Boba Fett and a stuffed animal pug that was apparently much loved by Luke Conard.

*During Madam Pince and the Librarians' set in the Wampum Willow, Ariel used the word "antiquarian" in a rap about good grammar. This is an example of why wizard rock pwns all other music.

*I had won a backstage pass, but there was a little mix-up and I didn't get it at registration on Friday, so Abby told me to come find her before Saturday's afternoon show. I wandered over to the Room of Wrockquirement around 1:00, where Josh and Joe of Marked As His Equal directed me to Abby's cabin. Jarrod Perkins was sitting on the porch of his cabin across the way, and when Abby asked if I was under or over 21, I said I am 21, and Jarrod started yelling, "No she's not, she's 19!!" In hindsight, I should have retorted with something about Fred and George being unable to fool the Age Line in GoF. Oh well. After a little more teasing, Jarrod came out and gave me a hug. :)

*I went back to the Room of Wrockquirement to watch the sound checks, and I met Laramie and Emily, the other lovely ladies who had won backstage passes. Marked As His Equal did their check last, because they were playing first, and when they were finished Mark and Mandy started having a debate about what Mandy ought to wear for the show. Mark looked at Laramie, Emily, and me and said, "Will you guys please come help my wife figure out what to wear?" So we went behind the stage and Mandy showed us her options and we helped her make a decision. We hung out and just talked with the band until the show started, which was really fun because they are hilarious! Josh was, like, shaking with nerves and excitement! They also give fantastic hugs.

*RiddleTM always amazes me with their versatility! Their songs are so beautiful and so deep, and I bawled my eyes out during "For Jo." (I wasn't alone in that!) Then the crowd began shouting "Beans! Beans! Beans!" and they came back out onstage to play it as an encore. Georgia said we made her life by all chanting that together.

*After the evening sound check and before they opened the RoW doors, it was really cold in there! Emily, Laramie, Georgia, Victoria, a WS staff member named Sarah, and I all wound up standing in a circle and doing jumping jacks to keep warm!

*The Saturday night sets were incredible! MC Kreacher was amazing, there was so much energy in the room when MoM came out with "Snape vs. Snape" that I thought the room might explode from the pressure of the awesome, and Diagon Alley's "Ode to Jarrod"....enough said.

*Bryce Cone of Neville's Diary on alto sax - HOLY COW. He's a wizard rocker and a high school band director. That's almost too much cool to be allowed in one person.

*Oliver Boyd and the Remembralls, whose music I absolutely love, were playing their last set. When Christian sang "End of an Era" and the other musicians took off their instruments and left the stage, I was so close to crying again. Also, that set was kind of the epitome of what I love about the wrock community and the way they support and collaborate with each other. At one point I think there were six bands represented on the stage - seven if you count Alex playing Steph's guitar.

*I ran into Mandy and Mark again in the merch room and happened to mention that I didn't want to read Henry V on the plane the next day. Mandy proceeded to summarize the entire play in about 15 seconds and then gave me two free buttons because I was a backstage pass winner. :)

*Brian Malfoy started singing "Your Family Is Poor" with the obvious intention of "provoking" Jarrod. Jarrod stood at the side of the stage, making threatening and obscene gestures, until he'd "had enough" and invaded the stage. They stood at the same mic, screaming their own versions of the song into each other's faces. And then...

*...MATT MAGGIACOMO, LAUREN FAIRWEATHER, AND JFF SHOWED UP!!!!! Biggest surprise ever!! I'm not sure I'd ever heard so much screaming in one place before. The coolest part was being able to see the reactions of the other wrockers at the edges of the stage and all the laughing and hugging that took place.

*Jarrod's entire set was insane, from his dramatic entrance to him periodically splashing the crowd with water to "Brotherly Love," one of the dirtiest and most fabulous songs in all of wrock!!

*Tonks and the Aurors. Holy cow! Steph worked so hard the entire weekend to keep everything running smoothly, and I couldn't think of anyone more deserving of the final set. She wrocked so hard that she broke strings on two different guitars, and Remus Lupin held his character hilariously as he helped his "wife" switch her guitar strap, which was being difficult. "We Are Magic" was truly magical, and then we called Steph and the others back for two encores, and they had only practiced one but you never would have known it.

*When they finally turned the lights off to signify that there would be no more encores, everyone turned to their friends and started hugging, beginning the process of farewells, and then suddenly all of the wrockers ran onto the stage, jumping up and down and singing "The Weapon" at the top of their lungs. We all joined in, jumping, dancing, singing, shouting, hugging, some people crying, and it was the perfect culmination of a truly amazing weekend.

*I managed to catch Alex after the show and I got to tell him how much his music means to me, which is seriously a lot, especially after it helped me survive some pretty heavy homesickness when I was studying in Ecuador last fall. I asked if I could hug him, and he said sure, but he made me put down the stuff I was carrying so we could do it properly. Then we gave each other an enormous hug. :D

*In the morning we had a pretty small, sleepy group on the 8 AM Knight Bus back to the airport. We were reliving some of our favorite moments of Wrockstock on the shuttle bus to the east terminal, and a guy on the bus said we sounded as if we were talking in code! We laughed and explained a bit about wizard rock. On the way through security, a TSA guy stopped and asked me what nargles are (I was wearing my "I believe in nargles" shirt), and he laughed when I told him and said he at least knew who Dobby was. Before we went our separate ways to the flight gates, our little Knight Bus crew shared a big group hug in the middle of the airport. :)

Wrockstockers, thank you! You amaze me and I hope we can all do this over again next year! The weapon we have is, indeed, love. <3

Triple Rainbow Awesome!!!!!11!!!1

2010-10-22T14:46:00.003-04:00

It's Friday afternoon, so it must be time for Madeline to write a blog post. I'm not going home this weekend (for once, it seems), so I actually have a big chunk of time to do things.

School continues to just be school: fairly interesting and super stressful. I'm now working on my second Collaborative project. This one has been more interesting to think about than the previous one, even though I don't really like the play, because it's a comedy so it has more dimension than a farce. The play is The House of Blue Leaves, and it's about a bunch of people who think their lives are completely falling apart and they're all pursuing these really unrealistic fantasies: "If only [such and such] would happen, my life would be perfect!" My team has decided to use reality TV for our concept, because of course reality shows (at least in the Real World/Survivor/Big Brother sense) are completely unrealistic, and I think a lot of people watch them to feel better about their own lives. It's a schadenfreude thing, almost. Because of our concept, we have to move the time period of the show from 1965 to 1995, so it's been kind of fun updating the dialogue. For example, any reference to Jackie Kennedy is changed to Madonna, and one character's "transistors" are now hearing aids. I'm doing scenic design for this show, which is definitely not my forte, but at least I'll have costume design for the final show of the semester. I'm going to try to incorporate reality TV into the set design by having boom mics and TV cameras visible in the scene.

Have you ever been in a library with only one other person? It's awesome! (Sorry for the random topic change.) I was in the library from 11:30 to midnight last night with my friend Annika, doing Collaborative research (we're in the same group this time), and no one else was in there!! So we got to talk to each other from across the room and be really goofy and it was so much fun! It felt like we were being really rebellious or something.

The reason we were in the library so late was that last night Annika and I drove to Cuyahoga Falls, about 45 minutes away, to see the Triple Rainbow Awesome Tour!!! 3RA, as it's been dubbed on Twitter, was the fall tour for ALL CAPS, Alex Carpenter, Skyway Flyer, and Mike Lombardo, all of whom (except maybe Alex?) are DFTBA Records artists. Annika and I hung around at the end of the concert and waited for all the high schoolers and their parents to leave, and then we got to really talk to everyone!! While we were waiting, we met another girl who goes to B-W! Her name is Jessica, she lives in the dorm across the street from mine, and she knows another Nerdfighter on campus, so now there are at least four of us!! I got the chance to ask Alex and Kristina if I could use a couple of their wizard rock songs in a school project, and Alex convinced Annika to get a Twitter account. I bought a poster, which everyone signed, and everyone also signed Annika's DFTBA shirt. We also got to watch Hayley, Mike's girlfriend, film her entire 5 Awesome Girls video, and then Annika asked Mike about learning to play one of his songs, and Hayley and Mike took us upstairs to use the piano in the sanctuary to show Annika the chords! (The show was in the cafe at Hayley's church.) It was really a completely fantastic night, and definitely the most fun I've had since the HP-Ohio Crystal Ball in January.

I recorded the last part of "Don't Unplug Me" by ALL CAPS, so I'll put that below. Now I'm going to go back to rocking out to my new Skyway Flyer album and wondering why there are two pairs of sunglasses on my desk and to whom the extraneous pair belongs. My life is unpredictable, if nothing else...

Drowning in the Ocean of College

2010-09-24T15:07:00.004-04:00

Finally, at the end of the fifth week of school, here is my post about how school is going this semester. That's a pretty good indication of how school is going. In short, I feel like I'm drowning. As soon as I finally feel I've got a bit of a handle on things and I can get my head up to take a breath, the current of senior year pulls me back under and I just wind up with a burning mouthful of salt water. I've carved out about two hours on Friday afternoons (aka, right now) to just give myself a break and do whatever I want, but I spend the whole time feeling guilty that I'm not doing schoolwork.

A brief rundown of my classes this semester:
Collaborative Studies in Theatre - This is affectionately known as the class from hell in the Theatre Department, mostly because of the amount of work it requires. Over the semester, we have three projects on three shows, and we work with different people for each one. Currently, I'm the "director" for a production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and I have to work with my "scenic designer" and my "costume designer" to choose a spine (the main action of the show) and a concept (we're doing Cirque du Soleil) and then do all the research that our "job" requires...so I'm researching Forum (its history, significant productions, its authors, dramatic criticism), directing musicals and farces, Ancient Rome (with particular emphasis on slavery and women), social history of the 1960s (when Forum was written), and anything about Cirque du Soleil that I can get my hands on. Then I have to use my "scenic designer's" sketches and outline the blocking for the entire show. Everything has to support our spine and concept and the playwrights' intentions. For someone who hates group projects, this class is a joy.

Tap III - I love this class, it's just exhausting!! My tap technique has really suffered over the last couple of years, so I'm getting the chance to go back and review some basics. It's taught by the new dance teacher, Greg, who is completely wonderful. I sweat buckets every time!

Seminario español - This is a really interesting class so far. The focus is on immigration and everything that that entails: the decision to leave home, the journey itself, adjusting to a new world, cultural and subcultural identity... We get a very interesting perspective on it because the professor, my adviser, grew up in Puerto Rico and came to the U.S. for grad school in the early '80s. The class is very small and I'm friends with everyone in it.

Dance in America - One of my least favorite classes ever. It's like dance history for non-dancers, and I'm in it because I missed the Dance History class required for my minor while I was in Ecuador. The teacher is odd and super-pretentious and tries so hard to be politically correct that he often comes off as racist. At least he'll admit he's a snob about what constitutes "good dance," though. It's super boring and the teacher picks on my friend Loee and me all the time because he knows we're dancers.

Ballet IV - Another class that kicks my butt every single time, but I'm loving it! It's also a return to basics for me, in a way, and the teacher is really wonderful about making corrections, explaining things, and answering questions. I'm now regretting most of my high school years, when I put way less effort into my ballet classes than I should have.

Dance Production and Performance - This is another class taught by Greg, the new dance teacher. It's a lecture class, but he gets sidetracked all the time into awesome stories of the years he danced with the Rockettes or various national tours he's been on. We have one project for the semester that keeps building and building on itself. Each person has to act as the producer for a show (a dance concert, a recital, a musical, whatever they've chosen) and plan the entire budget and logistics. It's really interesting so far, although it's a bit frustrating because I usually don't have time to call places like hotels and rental companies during business hours.

In addition to all that, I'm working in the scene shop in the theater four hours each week for Backstage Experience credit. I get to do everything from putting together spiral staircases to taking seams out of curtains to painting sets to bringing lights down from the catwalks. It's fun some days, but it's also exhausting and usually dirty, sweaty work.

I also have my senior Honors thesis, which I haven't really started on because I'm feeling kind of lost about it. My project is essentially developing a business plan for a small dance company, because my sister and I have a dream of starting our own company someday and neither of us knows anything about business. And that's the issue with me getting started: I don't know anything about business. And because the thesis is not something that's due immediately, I never seem to find time to work on it, so I feel like it's constantly looming over me. It's just so frustrating. I joke about wanting to drop out of school all the time, but there are days when I really wish I could.

To end this post on a happy note, something fantabulous happened on Wednesday. I was packing up my things after Collaborative and I heard one of my classmates, Annika, whom I don't know very well, talking to someone else about a book called Looking for Alaska. I freaked out and asked her if she'd read any of John Green's other books, and she said no, but then she said something about being a Nerdfighter, and I shouted, "You're a Nerdfighter?!?" and then she said, "YOU'RE a Nerdfighter?!?" and it was completely fantastic. Everyone was staring at us like we were nuts, and we just kept babbling on about John and Hank and YouTube and pizza and LeakyCon and everything. That was most definitely the highlight of my week!!

Labor Day baseball!

2010-09-08T13:43:00.003-04:00

I love Labor Day, because I'm lucky enough to go to a college that still takes the day as a holiday, so it's like a Monday that's not really a Monday. This year I stayed at school for Saturday and Sunday and then drove to Pittsburgh on Monday morning for an afternoon Braves-Pirates game.

It's only about two-and-a-half hours to Pittsburgh from school, and I was a little nervous because it was my first time driving out of state by myself, but I was fine until I got into the city. This was my third time going to Pittsburgh, and the previous two times my dad got totally confused on the way out because of construction and closed streets and other nonsense. This time, I got lost on the way into the city. Apparently they've just re-numbered all of the exits to coincide with miles on the actual road, rather than distance from the city limits, as they used to be. My GPS, Lucille, was telling me to take exit 7A, and there was neither a "7" nor an "A" to be seen on any of the signs. So I just drove around for a while, totally lost, crossing the river to the wrong side and winding up in residential areas, while poor Lucille worked really hard to get me back on track. The problem with Pittsburgh is that there are so many places where you have to make a turn from the far right lane and then half a mile later you have to make a turn from the far left lane and it's just not possible!

I survived, thank God, and finally made it to the stadium. I allowed myself almost an hour of extra driving time, so I still had a while to wait in the parking lot for my family.

My dad, my sister, my grandma, and my aunt drove up from Central Ohio and picked up my cousin Matt at his fraternity house. (He goes to Carnegie Mellon University.) We had all had to laugh, because my dad, my sister, and I all had on our Braves hats (of course), Grandma was wearing her Tigers hat (because she's from Michigan and we took her to a game in Detroit last summer), Matt was wearing a Giants shirt (because he's from the San Francisco area), and Aunt Kathy forgot her Braves hat so she bought a Pirates one to keep the sun out of her eyes. It was too bad my sister hadn't worn her Cubs shirt, since they're her other favorite team!

PNC Park is really a beautiful stadium, and we had fantastic seats (between 3rd base and home, about fifteen rows back). The weather was perfect, probably the best baseball weather I've ever experienced. It was a good game, but the final score was a disappointing 3-1 for the Pirates. They're already eliminated, and we totally should have beat them! There were at least two occasions where the Braves had the bases loaded and were unable to get a run in. Our up-and-down offense has been the biggest issue this year, and we're really going to need to pick it up if we're going to make the playoffs, let alone win the division. The Phillies scare the crap out of me, and as of today they've taken the division lead by a half game.

Matt and I spent the whole game talking about every aspect of baseball, from the "battle royale" that's coming with this postseason, to great bloopers that we've seen in person or on video, to reminiscing about games we've been to together. He told me about the NLCS game where the Giants clinched the pennant in 2002, which he attended. SO COOL! We watched the right field scoreboard for other games obsessively, glorying in the Phillies' loss to the Marlins. (Matt also wants the Phillies to crash and burn, because the Giants are in second place in the Wild Card race.) Unfortunately, the Phils and Marlins had a double-header that day, and the second game didn't turn out to our liking.

Matt, my sister, and I also had a blast gauging the trajectories of the balls flying into the crowd. I'd never seen so many fouls into the stands before! Early in the game, a ball landed about five rows in front of us, and two guys dove for it. One came up with the ball, and he shook hands with the other guy and gave him back his hat, which had been knocked off. Then the guy who got the ball noticed the other man had three little girls with him, and he gave the ball to the girls! Our whole section applauded his generosity, and the dad bought the nice guy a beer when a vendor came around. Maybe two innings later, a ball went way up into the first deck, right above us. I was watching my left side to see if it would come back down, and it came down on my right side and bounced away! Matt was like, "BALL!", but I didn't see it before it was gone. It went forward, though, about five rows, and wound up with the guy who had given up the first ball!! That's karma for you. It was an awesome thing to see!

I'll write again soon and talk about how school is going. I desperately needed to write about something happy, today, though, so you got this instead. (That should give you an idea of how school is going.)

Esther

2010-08-25T19:02:00.003-04:00

Early this morning, a beautiful soul went home to be with Jesus. Esther Earl, a sixteen-year-old from Boston who was fighting thyroid cancer, passed away, surrounded by her family. I never met her, and I first heard of her only a few months ago, but her strong spirit, love of life, and commitment to awesome touched me deeply.

Esther was a Nerdfighter and a Harry Potter fan of the highest caliber. She truly cared about people and she had a passion for decreasing worldsuck. Though I'm sure she was often frustrated and in pain, her tweets and her videos were always upbeat and never self-pitying. She faced her illness with strength and grace (Grace was her middle name), and she reached out to other people and vigorously supported great causes, such as the work of the Harry Potter Alliance. Her Make-A-Wish Foundation request was for a gathering of close friends and her favorite author, John Green. John told Esther that for her birthday, which was about three weeks ago today, he would ask Nerdfighteria to make videos about any subject of her choice, and her choice was love and family.

I've celebrated many fantastic events with the Nerdfighter and Harry Potter communities over the past year and a half, but this is the first time I have mourned with them. From the moment I woke up, my Twitter feed has been full of messages in her memory and prayers and wishes for her family and friends. Two beautiful songs have already been posted to YouTube about Esther, and I'm sure more will follow. People have been saying "R.I.A." for "Rest in awesome," and they've been reminding each other of Albus Dumbledore's wise words about life and death. We are all saddened to say goodbye to Esther, but we will continue to honor this brave girl who inspired so many people to make the world a better place.

Heaven holds just a little bit more awesome today than it did yesterday. Rest in peace, Esther.

Playing summer catch-up

2010-08-02T18:13:00.002-04:00

Hello, faithful blog readers! (I'm pretty sure there are two of you.) I have been quite remiss in my blogging duties lately, so I'll try to catch you up on what's been going on with me lately...which isn't really that much, now that I think about it.

This is the first summer that I've had a real job. I'm working at the local middle school doing a day camp-type program. Some days I hate it, and other days it makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon. I like my two co-workers, and a few of the kids are sweet, but I really hate the middle school age group, and I really can't deal with all of the disorganization and lack of people explaining things to me in advance. I keep being told, "Well, you know we're in a new room this summer and we're all busy and sometimes you've gotta just roll with the punches".....but come on, it's well over halfway through the program. I shouldn't still be searching through haphazard piles to find the folder for the old attendance sheets. It pays well, and I occasionally get to see my good friends who work at one of the elementary school sites, but my hours keep getting cut because we don't have enough money to pay two staff people when we have seven or fewer kids. At this point I'm just trying to grit my teeth and get through it, but August is going to be killer: a trip to King's Island and an overnight lock-in at the school. To be perfectly honest, I was grateful when I woke up this morning and threw up multiple times, because it meant I didn't have to go in to work.

This summer hasn't been all bad, though. I've gotten to see two wizard rock shows with my sister and our friend Maddy. We saw the Parselmouths, Justin Finch-Fletchley, Lauren from the Moaning Myrtles and The Whomping Willows (who together make up Armoured Bearcub), and ALL CAPS play in Akron, where I got to meet Kristina and Hayley of YouTube's Five Awesome Girls. Barely a week later, we drove down to the world's largest YMCA in southern Ohio to see Skyway Flyer, Tonks and the Aurors, the Remus Lupins, and Witherwings, who happens to be my friend Mandala. In addition to Mandala, I got to see several other wonderful friends from the HP-Ohio group, whom I hadn't seen since the Crystal Ball in January. In other Potter-related news, I'm all registered for LeakyCon 2011!! Maddy is registered too, since I'll be her chaperone, and my sister will register soon. Now we're just trying to figure out the rooming situation so we can book a hotel room!!

The best and most exciting thing that's happened lately is the Wilson family reunion that took place this past weekend!! It only happens every other year, so it's always a true joy to get together and catch up with everyone. We had about 40 people this year who came in from across the country. It was my branch's turn to plan it this year, and since central Ohio hasn't really changed much in the past eight years, we went to a state park lodge down in Hocking Hills. There was a nice swimming pool, a beautiful lake, hiking trails, basketball courts, and more. We had a campfire one evening and made s'mores, and we all sat around and talked for hours (and rearranged the furniture in the lobby multiple times!). I had so much fun catching up with all of my cousins. I talked all about B-W with my second cousin Anna, who was up there in June for a music theatre workshop, and I know I'll be seeing her in November when she comes up to audition for the MT program. Other events included analyzing "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly"; obsessing over Major League Baseball trades and making postseason predictions; having fun with physics on a see-saw with my sister; measuring the precise distances between horseshoes (and making up the rules for "cornshoes"); singing Beatles songs with my honestly brilliant two-and-a-half-year-old cousin; looking at scrapbooks of family photos that go back to the 1800s; and hearing the story of how my aunt and uncle met. I am truly blessed to have such an incredible family!!

Beautiful Montreat!

2010-06-23T14:06:00.002-04:00

First off, I'd like to ask anyone reading this to send up a prayer for my friend Clay. He had some serious surgery yesterday, and he's in a LOT of pain and will have a long road to recovery. He had to have two ceramic rods inserted into his back, and he had to go all the way to St. Louis to have it done because there isn't a doctor in Ohio who can/will do it. Prayers and good thoughts are greatly appreciated!!

Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

I'm coming to you live from Montreat, North Carolina, this week! It's a beautiful little town up in the Black Mountains, and its main claim to fame is a Presbyterian college and conference center, which the Presbyterian Association of Musicians is using this week for their annual worship and music conference. This is my ninth year here, and let me tell you, it is glorious to be back!! My days are spent in choir rehearsals, handbell rehearsals, and a liturgical dance class. In my free time, I get to hang out with friends and family. We climbed Lookout Mountain on Monday, which is only a one-kilometer trail, but it sure kicked my butt. It's a beautiful view from the top, though, and we could see our amazing house. The house where we've stayed for the past seven years holds twenty-two people, but we only have eighteen this year. It's nice to have my dad here, since he hasn't come in a very long time.

The coolest thing that has happened so far was this morning's worship service. The sermon was incredible and exactly what our church members at home need to hear during our current transition period. I got to perform the Lord's Prayer with part of the liturgical dance class, and a big yellow butterfly flew in one of the open windows and was flying around -- definitely the Holy Spirit at work.

Well, I'd better go now...My friend Maddy is waiting to steal songs off my iTunes. That's another great thing about this week...

The magic is real!

2010-06-06T21:48:00.002-04:00

I've written here before about my frustrations with people who don't understand the hype Harry Potter, but I'm going to write about it again.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the newest portion of Universal Islands of Adventure in Orlando, Florida, is now up and running, and it will have its grand opening on June 18th. Tonight NBC aired a half-hour special about the making of the theme park, and of course my whole family watched. Even though I'd seen most of the footage and heard most of the information before, I still cried. When I watched the videos (here, here, here, and here) that the PotterCast trio posted after their visit last week, I cried. I understand why some people think my fellow fans and I are ridiculous, but we don't appreciate being treated like we're immature or insane.

Imagine that somewhere in your imagination exists a universe that is the most beautiful, incredible, elaborate, thought-provoking, magical place that anyone has ever known. You've gone there to mourn, to celebrate, and to simply find refuge from the frustrations and fears of everyday life. You know every detail of this place -- top to bottom, left to right, inside and out. It represents most of the major turning points in your life, and it symbolizes the greatest good you've ever known and a triumph over the darkest evil. Beyond all of this, the most glorious part is that your best friends know this place too. It exists in their imaginations, and together you have explored it, analyzed it, excavated it and created new dimensions. You've wept, celebrated, and taken refuge...together.

Then imagine that one day, someone invents a way for that place to become REAL. You can go with your friends and physically explore it together -- see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, feel it, live it. It is the greatest fantasy of your life, your life-long dream and deepest desire come true.

This is what the Wizarding World of Harry Potter means to me. I won't make it there this summer, but I'll be there 401 days from now. I'll drink butterbeer and eat cauldron cakes, fly on hippogriffs, send owls, breathe in the steam of the Hogwarts Express, and have a conversation with a portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw. I'll probably cry when I walk under the stone arch and enter the village of Hogsmeade, but I know I won't be the only one. I'll be there with my sister and friends who have become my family, and we will all, finally, be at home.

Sigma Delta Pi, Ecuador reunion, and Diva Night

2010-04-19T18:21:00.004-04:00

Today is the second-to-last Monday in April, which means it's the second-to-last Monday of classes for the semester. That is completely ridiculous and impossible. Two weeks of classes, a week of exams, and I'll be a senior in college, and one who is planning to go to grad school just to avoid the real world for a little bit longer but has yet to decide what to actually study in grad school. My mother almost had me convinced to get a master's in creative writing, but then on Saturday she said she thinks I should go for a master's in publishing or editing or something, which is also intriguing, but I have no idea whether or not any grad school would even accept me into such a program when the only English class I've taken as an undergrad was Latin American lit as part of the Seminar in Ecuador. I hate decisions.

And now I'll apologize, because I feel like I complain about my lack of time and my abundance of work every single time I blog. It's kind of on my mind all the time, though.

...Moving on...

This afternoon I was inducted into Sigma Delta Pi, the National Hispanic Studies Honorary, and I'm pretty proud of that. Several of my friends were also inducted. We were all kind of surprised at extreme formality of the ceremony, which began with all of us lining up in the hall and waiting for one of the professors to give a secret knock on the door to another professor on the other side before we were allowed into the classroom. I was waiting for someone to start chanting In Omnia Paratus or something (Gilmore Girls reference FTW!). The whole ceremony was in Spanish, of course, and at a couple of points we had to repeat a few lines after Dr. Cambria. She's hard to understand some times because she's very old and speaks with the traditional lisp of central Spain, so sometimes I had no idea what she had just said so I just tried to repeat it phonetically, but then once I was saying it I found I understood the words that were coming out of my mouth! That was rather odd.

On Saturday night I had the opportunity to reunite with almost everyone else who went to Ecuador at a fiesta at my friends Katy, Caitlyn, and Emily's house. We were only missing four students, and Professor Martin and Dr. Melampy, the trip leaders were there too, along with Nancy, Dr. Melampy's wife, and her friend, Suki, who joined us for the Amazon/Intag portion of the trip. We had a blast!! We had SO much food, Ecuadorian and American, and we looked at pictures from the trip, played lots of reggaetón music, and made a Facebook video for Antonia, who's currently back in Cuenca taking classes at the University of Azuay. We're all very jealous of her!!

As I promised previously, here's a little bit about Diva Night, the fabulous fundraiser for the Arts House that I went to a few weeks ago. The musical acts were not nearly as good as last year's (so I'm told; I couldn't go last year), but everyone looked totally glam in their get-ups, whether they were male or female for the evening. The winner was the one true standout, a girl from my acting class who sang a song from The Gospel According to Tammy Faye Baker, an original and as yet unproduced musical written by one of her friends. My friend Carolyn sang "Dance: Ten, Looks: Three" from A Chorus Line and did a fantastic job considering she learned the song in about three hours. My roommate, Jamie, and I decided that dressing up as boys was no fun, so we just went the obnoxiously-sparkly-pop-star route thanks to some old dance costumes of mine and my sister's. We did help Pat and R.J. with their outfits, and we all looked ridiculous and fabulous, if I do say so myself:

How is it April already??

2010-04-09T11:23:00.002-04:00

I don't understand how we got to this point. I thought it was February last week. Not fair! I have entirely too much to do in the next 4 weeks before school is out.

But nobody really wants to hear me whining. Instead, here's a bit of a review of what's been going on in my life lately.

School has been keeping me super-busy -- more busy than usual, in fact -- and it's kind of a problem that I've come to that point in the year where all my motivation just goes out the window. The nice weather lately hasn't helped much. We had sun and temperatures in the 70s and low 80s from last Friday through two days ago, although now it's down to the low 40s and rainy. Tomorrow it's supposed to be in the low 60s again, though...welcome to Ohio, folks. Anyways, on top of trying to figure out how the heck I'm going to combine dance and creative writing into a thesis project for next year, I've had sooooooooo many papers to write! I made the conscious decision to really enjoy my Easter break (yes, we get a week of spring break and then we get a 4-day weekend when Easter rolls around!), so I did no homework while I was home. Therefore, I spent all of Tuesday researching and writing a six-page rough draft for Spanish and spent Wednesday finishing my soundtrack practicum for my film class and yesterday writing the paper to accompany the practicum. Yay college.

I did have a very nice Easter break, though. The highlights were church on Sunday and the start of baseball season. I can't express how glad I am that we're back to watching baseball!! And my Braves started their season off with a bang by beating the Cubs 16-5!! :D Don't get me wrong, I love my Cubbies, but the Braves always have been and always will be my number one. The other good part about Easter break was getting to spend a lot of time with my family, especially my poor sister who had surgery on her ankle on Thursday. She's handling both the pain and the frustration really well, and I'm very proud of her. She won't be able to dance normally for 4-6 months. She'll be in a soft cast for another week till the swelling goes down, then a hard cast for a month, and hopefully she'll get her walking boot the day before prom in May.

I'm looking forward to a fun weekend, starting tonight with a low-key party at the Arts House and then going to the Arts House's second annual Diva Night tomorrow. (Diva Night is basically an excuse for everyone to dress up in crazy-fabulous outfits or in drag and enjoy an awesome cabaret show. I'm sure it will give me a lot to write about!) In between, I'm hoping to get some thesis research done, catch up on the Glee episodes I missed while I was in Ecuador, and finish another chapter of the story I'm writing for my friend Emily about Neville Longbottom.

Enjoy your weekend!

A short rant, but then I promise there's good stuff

2010-03-20T22:17:00.005-04:00

Angry, angry, angry. News flash: I am not a child. I don't drink. I don't really understand the rules of football and basketball even after seven years of watching games. I don't always get the mature (read: vulgar) jokes right away. And I literally could not care less about March Madness. None of those things, however, in any way make me five years old. I am an adult. I don't need to be protected from stupid things people say. I don't need you to cover my ears when someone makes a dirty joke, even if I'm going to find it completely disgusting and unfunny. And guess what...I don't need to be informed that boys - particularly boys I know very, very well - get angry when their sports teams lose. I am tired of being treated like a baby.

Okay, moving on. I just had to get that out there.

Last week I was home for spring break, and it was the week of the musical at my high school, so the entire household revolved around the show. The production was Thoroughly Modern Millie, and what a fabulous show it was!! I got to see it several times, because I got permission to watch rehearsals for research for my project for my Dance in the Musical Theatre class, and it just got better and better and better. My sister was in the show, playing the role of Alice, one of Millie's friends, and also serving as an Ensemble member, Dance Captain, set and logo designer, and the understudy for Millie. My parents and I got to see her perform as Millie at one rehearsal, and I was so proud! Everyone else in the cast, crew, and orchestra made me proud too! I have a number of friends who were involved, including one of my best friends, Emily, who played the actual role of Millie, and she gave the performance of her life so far, which is definitely saying something! I think it might be the best show our school has done since we've been in the district, and that's even more impressive when you know that 90% of that success came from the kids and 8.5% of it came from the awesome parent volunteers, the orchestra director, and the choreographer. Suffice it to say the director is less than the ideal candidate for the job (since I don't need to get into another angry rant).

Other highlights of spring break were shopping with my mom, watching LOST with my friend Helen who was home for her break, and seeing Alice in Wonderland (the 3-D is totally not worth the extra cost!) and having other random adventures with my friend Carie who was also on break. But mostly, it was a week about Millie.

Alicia as Millie

Emily as Millie and Alicia in the brown wig and pink top directly to the left

My best friends' wedding

2010-02-18T10:34:00.009-05:00

I went to a wedding on Saturday. Two of my best friends from high school married each other. I cannot begin to express how weird that is for me.

Don't get me wrong; it was a beautiful wedding. I've known Tawni and Nate for years and I am so happy for them. I just feel really, really old! I also can't even fathom getting married at this point in my life. For that to happen, of course, I would first need to find a boy that was interested in me, something that seems unlikely, but that minor detail aside, I couldn't ever see myself getting married before about 25 anyways.

All of this has been so hard for me to process. For one, I'm barely used to the idea of Tawni and Nate being engaged. They dated for over a year in high school, but they broke up early in senior year and things were a bit awkward for a while. By the time we graduated everything was peachy keen, but they were just friends. They got back together last January, and they were engaged by Valentine's Day. I'm not sure I even knew they were dating again before Facebook told me they were engaged! They love each other so much, though, and I know God is guiding their lives, and I know they're going to be very happy together.

The other day in my Music in Film class we watched the opening sequence of The Sound of Music, and I was suddenly struck by a deluge of memories. Tawni and I became friends during our freshman year of high school, thanks largely to marching band and Spanish class, but one thing that really cemented our friendship was our school's production of The Sound of Music. We were both cast as nuns, so we spent a lot of time learning music together and then a lot of time playing cards and tossing a tennis ball around and generally goofing off when we weren't on stage. That all feels like it was only a year ago, two at most, but no...that was FIVE years ago! I've spent so many treasured times with Tawni in the last five-plus years, but I just can't figure out where any of that time went.

I've only known Nate since our junior year of high school, when he transferred from the local Christian school, but I have so many memories with him as well, mostly from our Drama Club adventures. At the wedding, when Nate stepped out in a white tux, I couldn't help but laugh to myself as I remembered our junior prom...Tawni's dress was white, so Nate was the only boy in our group wearing a white tux, and I can still hear Tawni's mom exclaiming, "Nate, you shine like a little angel!"

I don't like growing up. To be honest, I've never really liked it, but I suppose it's inevitable. There's not much else I can do, except reiterate how much I love Tawni and Nate and wait to see where God takes all of us next...

Tawni and me, The Sound of Music, 2004

Tawni and Nate, junior prom, 2006

Nate and me, graduation, 2007

Me, Tawni, Nate, and my sister Alicia, February 13, 2010

I have awesome friends.

2010-02-06T12:11:00.004-05:00

As always, I'm just full of things to talk about. My life is kind of ridiculous, but also ridiculously amazing.

I'll start off with the Crystal Ball last Saturday. I don't think I've had so much fun since LeakyCon. I cannot overstate how much I love the folks from hp-ohio. Save for my friend Jordan, whom I've know since eighth grade, I had never met anyone in the group more than once before last weekend, but I feel like I've known them all for years. I got to the beautiful castle grounds about 3 PM, and I went down to the event center to help finish up the decorating. Everything was blue and white and silver and gold, so beautiful and full of magic. Jenny, who was in charge of the ball this year, did such a fabulous job of planning everything. We had lots of fun going through the three tasks of the Triwizard Tournament, and I won the third task by finding where Scabbers was hidden, so I got to keep him! He's adorable, not a filthy, backstabbing traitor. Jenny and Philip taught everyone to waltz, which was a lot of fun. The food was just heavenly, and we danced the night away to a great mix of current pop, pieces from the movie soundtracks, wizard rock, and standard awesomeness like "Jump, Jive, and Wail" and "Thriller." After the ball was over we all went down to the pool house. The pool was supposed to be heated but it was actually freezing, so as many people as possible crowded into the hot tub and the sauna. I didn't have my swimsuit, so I just sat at the edge and dangled my feet in the hot tub. We finally went to bed around 3:30 in the morning. I was exhausted, but it was totally worth it. I can't wait to be able to see all the hp-ohio folks again!! If the weather cooperates, I'll be seeing some of them on Tuesday!

My second occasion to revel in my friends' awesomeness this week came on Tuesday, a very important day in human history. The final season of LOST premiered on television, and as always, I watched it with one of my best friends, Helen. She goes to Marietta College, which is a few hours away, so we always sit on AIM during the show and call each other at the commercial breaks. Helen was totally on fire this week! She called so many things before they happened and she came up with several extremely interesting theories. I'm not even going to go into a LOST discussion here because I'd wind up writing for hours, but I'll just say that this season is going to be every bit as insane and mind-blowing as we all anticipated. If you're looking for some good LOST discussion, you should check out this made-of-awesome blog.

My final instance of awesomeness this week was last night/early this morning. It was decided that a party was in order, so party we did. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I can't overstate how much I appreciate my friends making accommodations for me as far as alcohol is concerned. I hate alcohol. I've had sips of wine, of a mojito, and of margarita before, and even though they might have had other good flavors in them, I couldn't get over the taste of the alcohol. I can't even imagine drinking beer because it smells so awful to me. And even if I liked alcoholic things, I wouldn't be drinking at a party anyways because I'm only twenty. Call me a square, but I'm not a fan of breaking the law. Anyways, my friends made sure there was plenty of Dr. Pepper on hand for me, and they taught me to play beer pong with cups full of Dr. Pepper mixed in with the cups of beer, even though that kind of messes with the rules because I couldn't help drink the other team's leftovers when we lost. I surprised myself and everyone else by being more than halfway decent at the game, and I don't really think being sober gave me much of an advantage. I may be laying off the Dr. Pepper for a while, though, because between two rounds of beer pong and a game of kings, I drank well over a liter.

Yeah, my life is kind of ridiculous. Even so, I wouldn't trade it for anything. :)

Ice Skating and Awesomeness

2010-01-29T15:48:00.005-05:00

[Insert standard complaints about Ohio winters here], because that's all anyone seems to be doing these days, and I sure wouldn't want to shake up the status quo. School is fine so far; nothing too terribly stressful has happened yet. As always, my friends and I are having lots of random adventures. R.J. has successfully converted Jamie, Pat, and me into fans of his favorite TV show, Leverage, so that has become a default part of our Wednesday nights. We've also somehow turned into semi-regular ice skaters.

Two weekends ago, we went ice skating on Saturday night with R.J.'s younger sister. She figure skated for many years, and R.J. played hockey when he was younger, so they're both pretty good. Jamie's a decent skater for someone who doesn't practice very often, and I thought I would be okay because, though I had only been skating two or three times and the last was when I was twelve, I used to be pretty good once I got the hang of it. I think Pat was really not excited to go, but he took one for the team. Once we actually got out on the ice, he managed to do pretty well. I did not. Ice skating was about a hundred times harder and scarier than it was when I was twelve!! The others deemed my skates weren't tied tightly enough, and it got a little easier after I re-laced them, but it was just really painful to my ankles and stressful. I fell five times, I think, and I didn't have very much fun.

Now don't think that was meant to be a sob story, because it continues. Every Thursday night the college sponsors a Mid-Night Madness (MNM) event from 11 PM to 1 AM, and this week it was ice skating. Jamie, Pat, and R.J. went ice skating again last weekend while I was at home, so they were all very excited to go with MNM. I was not. I kept saying I didn't want to be really sore for the ball I'm going to tomorrow (more on that in a bit), because last time my ankles and calves were on fire for about five days, but I also just didn't want to be so stressed out and scared again. The boys kept trying to change my mind, pointing out that I wouldn't get better if I didn't practice and it might not be so painful the second time around, and so I finally decided to go (at about 10:45 PM). And guess what...I had a lot of fun!! I didn't fall at all, and I managed to survive two collisions (other people running into me) in the space of ten seconds. I had the skates with snapping closures like ski boots rather than laces, and they were a lot more comfortable and supportive. I'm hardly sore at all, too. I don't often admit the boys are right about something, but they were right about this.

So ice skating was pretty awesome, but that pales in comparison to the most awesome thing that occurred recently. Last Saturday fan communities for LOST, Firefly, True Blood, The Wire, and Heroes joined the Harry Potter fan community raise money for Partners in Health, one of the organizations that is doing major relief work in Haiti. The event, Helping Haiti Heal, kicked off with a webcast that lasted for nearly six hours and featured MuggleCast and PotterCast, Hank Green, several wizard rockers, author Lev Grossman, the Harry Potter Alliance, and several celebrities, including Matt Lewis and Evanna Lynch from the Harry Potter movies. They managed to raise over $36,000 on Saturday alone!! I have never been so proud to be a member of the Harry Potter community!! Donations are being taken through tomorrow. If you donate at least $5, you can win fabulous prizes, including autographed memorabilia from Ghostbusters, a replica lightsaber, custom-made Harry Potter scarves and blankets, Nerdfighter and wizard rock CDs, and many, many autographed books, including a rare first edition of Looking for Alaska and an entire set of the Harry Potter books (donated by J.K. Rowling herself!). If you're interested in contributing, check out this link.

I'll wrap this up now by gushing about how excited I am for tomorrow night, when I'm going to hp-ohio's Crystal Ball to dance the night away in an incredible castle with friends both old and new, and how excited I am for Tuesday night, when the final season of LOST begins!!

Chipotle trips this year: 2

Longest. First. Week. EVER.

2010-01-15T16:06:00.002-05:00

Holy cow, thank God it's Friday!! As you might have guessed from the title of this post, this has been the longest first week of school of my life. College is weird because you kind of have two first weeks of school (at least if you're on semesters), but the first week in January is usually a little easier than the first week in August because most of your stuff is still at school and some of your extracurricular things are just carrying over from a month ago. I, however, had to move everything back into my dorm room on Sunday night, except for things that kind of belong to both me and my roommate Jamie, like the phone and the clothes drying rack and our mascot, a little animatronic dragon named Bernice. I got most of my things organized that night, but there are still a few little things like getting out my dishes that I'm procrastinating about.

Monday was an okay day; it was just long. I had three classes: Stagecraft, Spanish-American Civilization, and Dance in the Musical Theatre. Stagecraft is already a lot of fun, because the teacher is hilarious and I've already heard a lot of crazy stories about him because he's my friends' boss in the scene shop. Spanish-American Civ should be good because it's with the Spanish prof who's slightly less crazy, and my friend Lauren and I sit around and talk about how much we miss Ecuador before class and whenever we have downtime. Dance in the MT looks like it will be a very interesting class and I think I'm going to learn a lot. Most of the class is made up of Musical Theatre majors who are very loud and always talking, but I have four wonderful fellow Dance minors in there too. Monday night was full of adventures, like going to Shannon's house to get her puppy and bring him back to the Green Room, going to Giant Eagle to feed my friend R.J.'s chocolate milk obsession, and then making a Taco Bell run at 10:30 because Pat had just gotten back from his welding class in Cleveland and hadn't had dinner yet. Like I said, a loooooong day.

Tuesday was a nightmare. I somehow I woke up with an eyelash already in my eye, which was very painful. I went and suffered through First Aid and Safety Education at 8 A.M., but the eye was getting worse and worse and I eventually had to go to the Health Center. They poked around in my eye and finally determined that I hand managed to scratch my cornea. By this time I was barely able to make it back to my dorm. I couldn't open my eyes for more than a few seconds because blinking was so painful, so there was no way I could have gone to my afternoon classes. I literally sat or laid on my bed in the dark for almost eight solid hours before giving up and going to bed around 8 P.M.

Fortunately the eye got much better over night, and I was perfectly able to go to class (same schedule as Monday). Stress was relieved with Chipotle and various shenanigans at the Arts House, including watching the season premiere of Leverage, which is R.J.'s favorite TV show. I like it a lot, but it will have to go by the wayside when LOST comes back on in two weeks!!

Yesterday I finally got to go to my Tuesday/Thursday afternoon classes, Music in Film and Acting. The former is inherently awesome. Music and movies. Enough said. The latter is also going to be awesome, because I have some highly entertaining classmates and the professor is hilarious. We played a game in which two people had to crawl around on the floor with their eyes closed in search of a rolled-up magazine. When one of them found the magazine, he or she had to then try to find the other person and hit them with it while the rest of the class stood around and laughed.

Today has been fine, although Jamie and I are currently in charge of coming up with a Plan B for tonight's entertainment. We were going to go to the St. Ed's/St. Ignatius basketball game (Pat and R.J. went to high school at St. Ed's and St. Ignatius is their MAJOR rival), but it's apparently sold out. So who knows what mischief we'll get up to...

Chipotle trips this year: 2
(I stole this idea from Hayley G. Hoover, who has been counting her yearly burritos for a long time, but imitation is the highest form of flattery, right? And I'm counting "Chipotle trips" because I don't always get a burrito. I love Chipotle, but it's kind of a luxury for a poor college student who spends too much money on other essentials like books and CDs.)

2009 in review & looking forward to 2010, all on no sleep

2010-01-05T07:48:00.003-05:00

It's quarter to eight in the morning and I am still on winter break, yet I am awake and typing. "Why is that?" you may be wondering. Well, it's because I woke up at 2:30 PM yesterday and haven't slept since. Every time I'm home for an extended period of time, my sleep schedule gets weirder and weirder, even though every time I'm home I promise myself I won't let that happen. So I stayed up all night and am going to try to stay up all day until I can go to bed at a reasonable hour.

What an auspicious way to start the new year. Or something like that.

I'm sure you've noticed, as I have, that lately everyone and their brother has been ranking the events of 2009 and giving excessive commentary about said events. 2009 was a very strange year in a lot of ways, and it definitely had some low points, but it was also a really great year for me. Therefore, I now present Madeline's Top Five Events of 2009.

5. Dance Concert 2009, my school's annual student dance showcase in February. A week prior to the show, I would never have imagined this event would make my list of top events. To make a long story short, the piece I was choreographing was very unfairly pulled from the concert nine days before it opened because one of my dancers felt that we weren't going to be ready in time, and rather than bringing her concerns to me, she went straight to the director, and rather than discussing the situation with me, the director just decided to pull it. I was devastated. While that part of Dance Concert is still a rather sore subject, it turned out well in the end, because I was offered the opportunity to assistant stage manage the show as a kind of consolation. I had never held a crew position before, and I wound up having a blast and making some really great friends, which leads me to...

4. As You Like It, which was the spring Shakespeare show. One of my roommates was the stage manager, and because I had had so much fun crewing Dance Concert and I had those new friends who encouraged me, I took my roomie's suggestion to crew AYLI. I wound up being the light board operator, and I again had a total blast. I got to push buttons, have fun conversations on headset, and get to know a lot of people better and make even more new friends.

3. Montreat Worship & Music Conference, which is hosted every year by the Presbyterian Association of Musicians and is always one of the best events of the year. This was the best year out of the eight that I've attended, however, because the guest artists were members of Friends of the Groom, a Christian theater company based in Cincinnati. My church has performed about a dozen of their musicals and we've had the privilege of working with them at two retreats in years past. They brought so much to the Montreat experience this year, and I had the opportunity to take part in one of their pieces during a worship service. Also, I got the opportunity to go down a few days prior to the conference and spend some time with some good friends whom I rarely get to see.

2. Living in Ecuador for ten weeks with an incredible host family and amazing friends. I don't even know how to begin summarizing this in a few sentences, so see my last three months' worth of blogs for the big picture.

And finally, the most important event of 2009...

1. LeakyCon, the most life-changing four days I've ever experienced. In short, close to a thousand Harry Potter fans gathered in Boston to celebrate life, love, and our favorite books through music, art, writing, drama, discussion, and activism. That doesn't begin to cover it, however, so if you've never heard of LeakyCon, please check out this previous post.

Other awesome things that happened during 2009 included my discovery of the VlogBrothers on YouTube and my subsequent conversion to a citizen of Nerdfighteria, finally getting my driver's license (don't mock me, please), and finally, on the very last day of the year, attending my first hp-ohio event. hp-ohio is a group for adult Harry Potter fans who live in Ohio (or at least have a general association with someone who is somehow connected to Ohio), and I now have even more new friends whom I'm hoping to get to know much better in the near future.

So that was just a little bit of my 2009. The first few days of 2010 have been pretty great, because my friends Jamie, Pat, and R.J. came down on New Year's Day and I had a lot of fun showing off awesome things that central Ohio has to offer, like COSI and Wildlights at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. This week is going to be extremely busy as I get ready to go back to school, but it should be an interesting semester. I'm very much looking forward to January 30, on which I am attending hp-ohio's annual Crystal Ball.

I usually suck at keeping my New Year's resolutions, so I'm going to refer to them as "goals" in an attempt to obscure the actual significance from myself. Therefore, my goals for the new year are:

1. To eat healthier, both in terms of what I eat and when I eat, and to actually take advantage of B-W's really great rec center that I pay for whether I use it or not.

2. To read 52 books this year. I know there will be some weeks in which I won't have any time to read aside from schoolwork, but I'm shooting for an average of a book per week.

3. To save money for LeakyCon 2011! I already have half of the minimum amount I'll probably need, which is a great thing, although I did just drop $160 for a ticket and hotel room for the Crystal Ball...but some sacrifices simply must be made.

4. Blog more often! Self-explanatory.

I'm going to go eat some breakfast now. Happy 2010 to you all!!

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-24T14:23:00.002-05:00

Okay, I sincerely apologize for being such a procrastinator and not blogging in so long. In my defense, when I haven't been busy with procrastinating, I've been rather busy with other things.

A bit of backtracking: I've been home for almost two weeks now. Leaving Cuenca was really, really hard. I was okay until I got out of the car at Amauta and saw my friend Paul hugging his host mom and just bawling. Then I lost it too. The bus ride to Guayaquil was very long and rather subdued, but by dinner time we were all in better spirits because we were just excited to get home. Saturday's flights were fine, apart from a couple of people in our group being shouted at by TSA personnel for wearing Che Guevara T-shirts in the Miami airport. We spent the night in Chicago, and though our plane was a bit delayed, I still managed to make it to my sister's Nutcracker performance Sunday afternoon in Upper Arlington, and it was fabulous as always.

Since then, I've just been getting ready for Christmas. All my presents are now wrapped and under the tree, the house is all decorated, and I've made a ton of puppy chow both for my family here and to send to my family in Ecuador. I've cleaned my room and hung out with my parents, and I've gotten to see a lot of friends. I saw a good portion of my dance studio family at the Nutcracker, and I got to see everyone at church on Sunday. The other night a bunch "the old crowd," my friends from high school who are still like my brothers and sisters, came over to my house. We watched A Muppet Christmas Carol and Beauty and the Beast, which are the sort of sophisticated, grown-up movies we like to watch when we get together. I also got to meet Caleb, my friend Megan's two-month-old son. He is just adorable, and Mego is a fantastic mother, just like I knew she'd be.

Now it's Christmas Eve, and I have to start getting ready for church before too long. The two Christmas Eve services are one of my absolute favorite things about the whole holiday. The early one is the family service, with all the music and scripture readings provided by the kids, and while it's a little chaotic, I love it. I've already seen the bulletin for the later service, and the title of Pastor Phil's meditation (basically a really short sermon) is "Star Trek: The First Journey." My immediate thought was something like, "Star trekkin' across Galilee / On these stinky camels to find the newborn King." It should be pretty epic, because Pastor Phil is just awesome like that.

I wish you all a joyful and merry Christmas with lots of fun and food and family. Amid all the wrapping paper and tinsel and pecan pies, don't forget why we're celebrating: the birth of our Savior in a tiny stable thousands of years ago. As Linus said, "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!" And now I leave you with more words of wisdom from another of my favorite characters, Kermit:

"There's somethin' in the wind today that's good for everyone
Yes, faith is in our hearts today, we're shinin' like the sun
And everyone can feel it, the feelin's runnin' deep
After all, there's only one more sleep till Christmas
After all, there's only one more sleep till Christmas Day!"

What I've learned in Ecuador

2009-12-10T18:30:00.002-05:00

Less than 24 hours left in Cuenca. That's really weird, and I can't pin down how I feel about it, which is really frustrating. I think I'll be really happy and excited tomorrow afternoon once we're about an hour outside the city. Until then...blah.

I am finally finished with all of my work for the semester, which is a wonderful feeling. To celebrate that fact, I've created an account at the most recent new, awesome, procrastination-inducing website, formspring.me. So if you feel inclined, head over and ask me a question and I'll answer it! It's really ridiculous how entertaining this thing is.

There were so many times I felt like I'd never reach this point, but looking back, I can't believe how fast these ten weeks have gone! I only spent six weeks on campus, but I feel like I spent more time at B-W than in Ecuador, or at least equal amounts of time. This trip has definitely been a life-changing experience. I've learned so much, and it's definitely going to take some time to process it all once I get home. There are some things that really stand out, though:

*For the most part, food is food.
Most of the things I eat on a daily basis here are essentially the same foods I eat at home, they're just sometimes prepared in a different way. There's a lot of potatoes, rice, chicken, pork, fish, eggs, cheese, and bread. There's no point in going to a foreign country if you only want to eat the same things you eat in your own country, and you've got to have an open mind and be willing to at least try things. I had pig skin soup the other day, and though that sounds disgusting, it really wasn't that bad. Also, I feel like foreigners have no business whining when “their” foods aren't prepared exactly the way they're used to. My host mom sometimes gets food from the little grill down the street, and the hamburgers have all the usual things, like lettuce, tomato, ketchup, and mustard, but they also have ham, salami, fried egg, and diced-up fried potatoes. Yeah, that's a little odd for me, and I'll be glad to get back to the standard Wendy's Junior Bacon Cheeseburger, but I can deal with a different kind of hamburger for a little while.

I should mention that I draw the line at cuy. I might have been willing to try it back in July, but now there's no way I could possibly eat it and then go home and look my guinea pigs in the eye.

*Clean is a relative term, and clean clothes aren't as big a deal as you think.
When you've been living on a boat in the Galapagos or at a research station in the Amazon or in a legit log cabin in the mountains for several days, there's really no way to get around this. Everything you have with you is either wet, muddy, or both. Your things are also likely covered in insect repellent and sunscreen. It's okay that you've worn the same socks for four days in a row because you don't want to ruin more than one pair. Nobody's going to judge you if you take a shower and then go to bed in the same cami you were wearing earlier. In fact, you might have a few days where you only wear three sets of clothes: the “before shower” ones, the “after shower” ones, and your pajamas. You reach a point where you and everyone else are all so sweaty and gross that you stop thinking about it. If there's no alternative, you might as well make the best of it.

*Childhood is universal.
Children in Ecuador cry and whine and refuse to eat and frustrate their parents just as much as children in the United States. They also sing and dance and giggle and say the darndest things. They want to be big kids and do things for themselves, and they want to learn your games but they also want to teach you what they know. They all like Barney and Mickey Mouse. No matter the structure of the language, kids follow the same pattern when they learn to speak. Their parents and grandparents can understand what sounds like gibberish to you, but if you spend enough time with the little one, you start to be able to understand them too. My friend Aryn advised me that talking to the kids is one of the best ways to get more comfortable with a foreign language, and he was absolutely right.

*Being a teenager is also universal.
Where there's a mall, there will be prissy fourteen-year-old girls taking up the whole mirror in the bathroom so they can put on makeup and drool over Taylor Lautner. It's a fact of life.

*Lying to yourself can be a really effective motivator.
“I'm not going to see a big hairy spider in the shower today.” “Swimming with sharks is perfectly safe.” “If I can just get to sleep, the headache and the nausea will completely disappear.” “I'm the best bargainer in the world.” “I can totally find the post office without getting lost.” If you tell yourself these things, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish, and some of them even wind up coming true. Some of them only work to a point, however. Convincing yourself that the shower is actually really warm, for example.

*Don't judge a book by its cover or even the first couple of chapters.
I try really hard to keep an open mind when I meet people, and that attitude has brought me a lot of great friends over the years. This trip has taught me, though, that knowing someone inside the classroom, even when you see the same people every single day, is not the same thing as knowing them on a small boat and in a tour bus and at a nightclub. There were certain people in our group that I had written off before we left as annoying or just someone I wouldn't ever be very close to, and now I can't imagine how I ever made it through my days without them. On the other hand, there were people that I thought were really awesome and wonderful before Ecuador, and while I certainly don't dislike them now, their attitudes and actions on this trip have caused me to lose a lot of respect for them.

*You can't come away from this kind of thing without having formed a family.
This reminds me of two of my favorite quotations. The first is from the pen of J.K. Rowling, at the end of the tenth chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: “There are some things you just can't share without becoming friends, and knocking out a ten foot mountain troll is one of them.” The second was said by my incredible high school band director, Kent Eastham: “Band is like family. You love some, you hate some, and they're all crazy.” The Seminar in Ecuador has had a distinct lack of both mountain trolls and musical instruments, but the results have been the same.

We don't all get along all the time, and I probably won't keep in touch with everybody after we're done with all the Explorations promo stuff I think we're going to have to do next semester. There are a lot of strong personalities on this trip, and sometimes they clash, but I think this kind of adventure requires a strong personality. Despite our differences, however, we've all formed a really strong bond. We can tell our friends and family all about everything we've seen and done, but there are some things that no one outside of these twenty-four people will be able to understand because they weren't there. And really, once you've thrown up together over the side of a boat, sorted through each other's laundry, gotten lost together in the dark and pouring rain, chopped garlic together by candlelight because the power was out, and had conversations with each other in your sleep, there's really no way you can avoid being friends.

This is most likely my last blog from Ecuador. Chronicling this journey was the main reason I started this blog in the first place, but I'm definitely going to keep blogging, and I hope you'll keep reading. I've always got plenty of stuff to run my mouth about (so to speak), and I think it's high time I started chronicling the adventures I somehow wind up having on a daily basis. As I've said before, no one would believe the life I live...

Hours till I'm back in Ohio: 66

Things I'll miss; things I won't

2009-12-09T17:46:00.003-05:00

Wow. It's really crunch time. In 48 hours, I'll be almost to Guayaquil, where we're spending our last night in Ecuador. The last couple of days have been really productive, thank God, so now only one 8-10 page paper on the dollarization of Ecuador stands between me and freedom.

Everyone is having a really hard time processing the fact that this trip is almost over. We've all started listing things at random that we'll miss or that we won't miss, so I thought I'd come up with a comprehensive collection.

First and foremost, I'm going to miss my host family. I really feel like a part of the Quijano-Ochoa family. I'm not going to say anything else about this or I'll cry.

A lot of the things I'll miss have to do with food. I'm going to miss all the fresh fruit we get here. The peel just falls right off the bananas, and the strawberries, pineapple, mangoes, and cantaloupe are all so fresh. I've even discovered I like peaches here, and I've never liked them at home. I'll also miss all the fruits that we never get at home, like papayas, reina Claudias (which are basically very small plums), babacos, naranjillas, and tree tomatoes. I'll miss the really tasty Ecuadorian cheese and also having hot chocolate every day for breakfast and dinner. I'll miss my housekeeper Veronica's incredible cooking and the amazing smell of all the little bakeries I pass on the street. There's one just down the street from the school, called Maria's Alemania ("Maria's Germany") that has amazing pastries and pretzels. I'm really going to miss the ridiculously low prices on most things here. I now consider a lunch that costs $6 to be really expensive. I'm going to miss Mayra and Narcisa, who run the school, Julia, my Spanish teacher, and Angel, our guide on many of our excursions. I'm going to miss the beautiful mountains that surround Cuenca, and I'll miss the warm, mild climate of the sierra. At the same time, though, I'm so excited to go home and see snow!!

I won't miss the crazy imbalance between veggies and starches and meat at meals. It's not uncommon to have rice, two kinds of potatoes, and a big hunk of meat for lunch. Sometimes there will be lentils or beans in the soup (because there's always soup!) or a little salad of tomatoes and lettuce doused in dressing. As much as I love the city of Cuenca, I won't miss walking around it. I won't miss the half-hour trek to the school or the abundance of litter and air pollution or the many stray dogs. The dogs don't ever bother us, but they make us sad. I won't miss the never ending hills. Lauren, Sara, and I decided a couple of weeks ago that the phrase "What goes up must come down" doesn't apply to Ecuador. It's possible for things to just go up and up, forever and ever. I won't miss constantly being on my guard when I walk around, especially because December is the most dangerous time of year in the city. I won't miss traffic, whether I'm in a car or walking. You couldn't pay me enough to get a driver's license here. The speed limits, stop signs, lanes, and traffic signals are all fairly optional, at least in the drivers' opinions, and everyone honks their horn constantly. Also, there are so many roundabouts and one-way streets, and many of the streets, at least in the center of the city, are paved in bricks or cobblestones, which makes for a very bumpy ride. I won't miss the disgusting men who feel it necessary to honk or whistle or say "Hola," "Hello, beautiful," and "I love you" when a foreign girl walks by. Sometimes they try to grab your arm or pull your hair. The policemen and soldiers are the worst, which doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in the local authorities. I won't miss things we never think about in the States, like whether tap water is safe to drink, whether the electricity will go out for three hours today because there's not enough water in the river, and whether my shower will be freezing or just cold. I won't miss having to wash my underwear by hand in the sink, because that's what women are expected to do here, and I will be so glad to be away from the stupid rooster that lives somewhere near me and crows from 5:30 AM to 5:30 PM.

I can't believe I only have a day and a half left in Cuenca...Three and a half days till I'm back in Ohio!!

Church in Spanish!!

2009-12-07T15:41:00.001-05:00

Last night I went to church with María Fernanda, Pichi, Antonella, and Rita. It's the first time I've been to church while I've been in Ecuador, and María Fernanda said she was sorry they hadn't invited me earlier because they (she, Pichi, and Anto) go almost every Sunday night.

It was a big, beautiful church up on a hill, with a large, auditorium-like sanctuary. The church was called Verbo, which means “Verb.” There was a beautiful painting of three crosses on the front wall, with projection screens on either side for the words of the songs and the PowerPoint slides that the leader flipped through during the sermon. The service was very contemporary, with praise music and guitars and a drum set. Communion was super-informal; you just went up to the table whenever you felt like it during the appointed song and took a piece of bread and a cup of juice and went back to your seat. That's so different from my church, where our music comes from the organ and the choir and handbells. We sing from hymnals and the elders serve Communion with well-practiced choreography. However, thanks to my experiences at summer camp at Geneva Hills and the Presbyterian Youth Triennium, I can appreciate both contemporary and traditional worship services. I think I'll always want to attend the traditional services with which I've grown up on a regular basis, but sometimes I really enjoy the less formal contemporary worship like last night's.

The first part of the service was all music, and the guy playing the piano and leading the band looked almost exactly like one of my dad's best friends, who is definitely not Ecuadorian, but I think he does go to a church very much like Verbo. It was really bizarre. Then another guy came out and led a prayer. He gave some announcements and talked about a project the youth group is doing and then he asked if there were any people in the congregation who were there for the first time. Pichi made me raise my hand, and a girl came over and kissed me on the cheek (which is the standard greeting here, like a handshake at home) and gave me a very pretty rose and some pamphlets about the church and its ministries. We had Communion, and then there was kind of a break in the service. People just got up and socialized, and they asked anyone who was there for the first time to go to the back corner. I was going to go anyways, but this lady who was also carrying a flower came over to me and latched onto my arm and half-dragged me to the back of the room. That was a bit awkward. We got crackers and really tasty juice, and then church members talked to each of the newbies individually. I talked to a very nice young woman who asked if I'd come with Pichi, and I said yes, I'm a student staying with María Fernanda's parents, and she asked if I was going to be in Ecuador for a while. I explained that I've been here for nine weeks and I'm leaving on Friday. She asked if I go to a church at home, and I said yes, a Presbyterian one, and she surprisingly knew what that meant. Rita and María Fernanda didn't really understand the concepts of Protestant or Presbyterian when I tried to explain them. It seems that in Ecuador, you're either “Catholic,” which means “Catholic,” or “Christian,” which means “I believe in Jesus but not the Pope.”

After the break we sang another song and then a guy gave the sermon. I don't think he was really the pastor, because in the car on the way home Pichi referred to him as “the man who gave the message tonight.” The sermon was about plans, how we make all these plans for ourselves (and then likely don't follow through on them!), but God has His own plans for us, and they're “good and accepted and perfect.” (I forget what verse that's from, maybe something from Nehemiah. There were a lot of books quoted last night.) God definitely brought me to Verbo last night to hear that message, because as a junior in college with three humanities concentrations, I'm constantly trying to figure out what my plan is for the next phase of my life. I went through a not-so-minor freak-out a few weeks ago, because I realized I was really sick of Spanish (obviously an issue when you're in Ecuador). I was tired of speaking it, tired of writing it, and when I was listening to a lecture or a tour or a video in Spanish, I just couldn't make myself concentrate on what was being said. As we near the end of this trip, though, the Spanish has been getting easier and more enjoyable again, and last night I was able to focus on and understand everything in the service. I was really struck by the fact that I was worshiping in Spanish, and I was reminded of how prayer and worship and Christian fellowship aren't restricted by something as trivial as language.

Over the last month or so I've been praying a lot about what I'm supposed to do with my life, and I think I have a general idea of where God is leading me. I don't want to talk about it yet, but I'm pretty excited and I'm seeing some possibilities for building a really cool ministry. I'm pretty sure I don't want Spanish to be the primary focus of my career, but there's no doubt that speaking a second language can be a huge asset in a number of ways. I still think it's a beautiful and interesting language, and I know I'll need it when I travel, and if I can use it to somehow do God's work, then it's definitely something I want to keep studying.

My Cuencan family

2009-12-03T20:46:00.006-05:00

It occurs to me that I haven't written a whole lot about my host family, which is ridiculous because my family has been my favorite thing about being here in Ecuador. I'm really excited to go home next weekend (in case you hadn't noticed), but I wish so badly that I could bring my whole host family with me!!

My host parents, Jaime and Rita, are amazing. Jaime is a retired civil engineer, and he's in his 60s. Rita will be 60 this month. They've both been so patient with my Spanish speaking, and they're the ones that usually have to deal with me speaking late at night when my brain is really tired. Rita speaks really fast, because she's originally from the coast (the city of Manabí, I think), and Jaime grew up in Cuenca so he has a very pronounced rhythm to his speech (they say people from Cuenca "sing" when they talk), but we manage to understand each other.

Rita and Jaime have three children, and their daughter, María Fernanda is the oldest. She spent a year studying in Germany when she was in high school, so she can really sympathize with the foreign students that stay with her parents. She loves to travel, and she loves Christmas. She had her Christmas decorations up in October! María Fernanda's husband's name is José, but they call him Pichi. I'm not sure what he does for a living, but I know it sometimes requires trips to Europe. He knows a fair amount of English. They have a four-year-old daughter named Antonella, who is hilarious. I really hope she gets involved in the arts as she gets older. She's always moving, and she skips and dances more than she walks. She's very dramatic sometimes, and she likes to sing and she loves to draw. María Fernanda told me she sometimes goes through a sketchbook a week. Anto goes to preschool, and they apparently learn a lot of English there. She can count to ten, sing "Happy Birthday" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," and she knows a lot of basic nouns and phrases like "thank you" and "you're welcome."

Jaime and Rita's oldest son is Jaime Felipe. He rides his motorcycle to work, and he sometimes drops by for lunch. He's learning English, and sometimes he'll be talking to me in Spanish and pause mid-sentence to ask how to say a particular word he just used in English. He has absolutely no desire to travel, though. He understands why I want to see the world, but he sees no reason for him to leave Ecuador. However, I know he's been to the U.S. and to the Dominican Republic with his family. Jaime Felipe's wife is Soledad, and I love her. She's very bubbly and friendly and interested in what I have to say. The family joke is that she's la loca tía Sole ("crazy Aunt Sole"). She studied in Oklahoma when she was seventeen. Jaime Felipe and Soledad have two children, Mateo and Valentina. Mateo is eleven, and he's your typical middle school boy. He loves food, football (aka soccer) and American football, snakes, spiders, cars, and telling animated, dramatic stories. He's read a couple of Harry Potter books, although not in order. Valentina is ten and she's such a sweetheart. She likes taking care of her younger cousins, and she's trying really hard to memorize "Trot, Trot to Boston" in both English and my roughly translated Spanish so she can play it with them. Mateo and Valentina and I bonded when we were in the backseat of their grandparents' car on the way to a family event. They told me about their trips to Disney World and Virginia and asked me what New York City and snow are like.

Jaime and Rita's younger son is Javier. He's a fireman, and his schedule is such that he comes over for lunch most days. He was very helpful my first couple of days here, explaining things about the city and the food. Javier's wife is María del Mar (which literally means "María of the Sea"...I think that's so beautiful!). I think she works in a bank. She's fairly quiet and reserved, but still very friendly. She just had laser surgery on her eyes last week, and unfortunately she's still not feeling very well and still has to wear sunglasses most of the time. Javier and María del Mar's daughter is María Gracia, who is two and completely adorable. She's kind of a child of extremes...she's either incredibly happy and giggly or she's crying very vocally, and she can change from one to the other like a light switch. She took a while to warm up to me, but now we're very good friends. María Gracia comes to her grandparents' house after preschool, so she's always there for lunch, and she and her parents are often still over for merienda, the light evening meal. She's a very picky eater and often doesn't want to eat even the foods she really likes, so sometimes we do fun things like eat bites of rice or soup together. She's been a bit better about eating this week because she's constantly being reminded that Papá Noel (Santa Claus) and el Niño Jesús (Baby Jesus) only bring toys to people who eat really well.

Speaking of Papá Noel, María Gracia really put me in my place the other day. I thought I knew how Santa functions, but I was apparently way wrong. We were coloring and talking about Christmas because the house is all decorated now, and I asked María Gracia who comes to visit on Christmas Eve. She said "¡Papá Noel!" and I said (in Spanish, of course), "Yeah, and you know what, he'll come visit me too in the United States." She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No," and I said, "Yes, because Papá Noel visits everyone all over the world!" And she very forcefully said, "¡No!" So I said, "Okay, he only comes to Ecuador?" and she assured me, "¡Sí!"

I do know something about Papá Noel that María Gracia doesn't, however. Rita was telling me the other day that last year on Christmas Eve, Pichi dressed up as Santa Claus and came down stairs to surprise the kids. María Gracia, who was only one at the time, freaked out and cried and cried, and Anto kept trying to calm her down and promise her it was okay because it was the real Papá Noel. She had no idea it was her dad! María Fernanda, Pichi, and Anto were over last Saturday, the first day the Christmas decorations were up, and Pichi said, "Anto, tell Madeline who came last year for Christmas!" And Anto launched into this excited, animated explanation of how Papá Noel came down the stairs and María Gracia was scared but she knew it was okay and she thinks he's going to come again this year. Pichi was just sitting there, looking all pleased with himself and egging her on in her story. It was hilarious.

So there's a little bit about my family here. I'm so sad to have to leave them, and I really, truly hope I can come back and see them again someday!

Days till I come home: 10

A little nostalgic, a little numb

2009-12-01T14:52:00.007-05:00

"you know it's always weird when someone you haven't seen in years dies. what do you say? what do you do? I guess nothing, but that feels wrong too."

My sister posted this on Facebook the other day, and I can't come up with a better way to describe how I feel right now. A boy we both used to know was killed in a car crash late Saturday night. He lived two houses down from us when we lived in Dublin, and we were all part of the big group of kids who ran down the sidewalks and through the backyards (before everyone put up fences) every evening during the spring, summer, and fall. I never knew Kyle very well, because he was three years younger than me and that made a big difference at the time, but he sometimes played with the boys who were my age. My sister and his sister were very close in age, and they knew each other better.

I haven't seen or heard from Kyle and his family in the eight years since we moved from that neighborhood, but I still feel really affected by this news. I'm sure part of it is being down here in Ecuador and already really wanting to come home, but I think the other part is shock. A very dear lady from my church passed away in October, and I was very sad, but her death wasn't unexpected. She was 90-something and had been ill for a while. Kyle was a senior in high school. He was apparently a varsity football player on a date with his cheerleader girlfriend, and neither of them were wearing seat belts. That's something I'll never, ever understand. Buckling your seat belt takes less than a second, and it can save your life.

Other than the pure tragedy of the situation, I think the thing that makes me the saddest is that I'll never think of Gnarled Pine Drive and my old neighborhood the same way again. That world was sort of perfectly sealed in a vacuum in my memory when I left the neighborhood public school in sixth grade, even before we moved. We were young; we were invincible beyond broken hands and scraped chins; and everything was sandboxes, fireflies, ice cream trucks, and Power Rangers. Sometimes it's easy to convince myself that none of my first friends ever grew up, changed, got girlfriends and drivers' licenses, made mistakes. I guess it's a loss-of-innocence thing.

I can't imagine what Kyle's family must be going through. I can't imagine what Christmas will be like for them this year. I wonder if they'll still wrap lights around the small lamppost in their front yard. I remember the stir it caused in the neighborhood when they painted their front door and mailbox magenta, and though I'll always associate them with the pink and blue house, the picture in my mind is now sad and dreary. The one comfort is that Kyle and his girlfriend apparently were Christians, so they've gone home to be with Jesus and their families will see them again someday.

I suppose all of this is a wake up call. You never think anything will happen to anyone you know, and then something happens. So think about what you do. Think about the people you love. Hug your family and friends every day, and buckle your seat belt!! If you won't do it for yourself, do it for your mom or your sister or your roommate or your best friend.

Now more than ever, I can't wait to get home and celebrate Christmas with my family and friends.

Days till I come home: 12

I think I'm stuck in a time warp...

2009-11-29T18:14:00.003-05:00

...because I absolutely refuse to believe that time moves this slowly on its own.

I have so many pages of school work to write over the next two weeks, and I did make a little bit of progress earlier, but I've hit a standstill. So now I'm blogging (obviously).

Back-tracking: On Sunday, November 15, we took a bus from Quito to Intag. We met Carlos Zorilla and traveled the last hour to his farm on foot while our luggage was transported on horseback. We had lunch right away, which was homemade and all vegetarian and completely amazing. Then we settled into our cabins and had a tour of the farm.

Carlos and Sandy have lived on their farm for more than thirty years. They grow over 70 crops as well as 50-60 native tree species, and their gardens are very diverse. It's totally normal to find pineapples, green onions, bananas, and tree tomatoes growing in the same plot. Everything they do is completely sustainable, and they haven't used pesticides, natural or synthetic, for over twenty years. The crops they grow don't actually provide enough income to live on, so they host ecotourist groups like us in their lovely facilities. The bathroom was an outhouse, but it honestly wasn't that bad. The shower was ice cold in the morning, but the water was nice in the afternoon after the sun had been shining for several hours. The cabins had no electricity, so we had to light candles after dark, but we had thick, alpaca blankets, and we were all nice and cozy. Everyone felt like we were in the Little House books or on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

We hiked all of Monday morning in the cloud forest, which is beautiful but full of insanely steep hills. Monday afternoon we were visited by some members of a co-op of local women who make all kinds of products out of agave fibers -- everything from bracelets to purses to belts to potholders to floor rugs. Not only do they make extra money from their efforts, they gain a sense of value beyond just being housewives and they know that they're helping the local economy to resist the advances of copper mining companies. Tuesday morning was spent on group projects, which meant I got to go out and dig through a muddy stream for insects again. Tuesday afternoon we met Mary Ellen Fieweger, a font of knowledge and a true jack of all trades. She's the co-founder and co-editor of Periódico Intag, a newspaper that reports on community and conservation news in Intag, and she just won the first-ever award for environmental journalism in Ecuador. She's translated books from Spanish to English, she's a member of DECOIN, the anti-mining organization Carlos started, and she's absolutely hilarious.

On Wednesday we left Carlos and Sandy's beautiful farm and went to the tiny town of Apuela, where we visited an organic coffee factory and also Mary Ellen's newspaper office. She and her colleagues explained some of the projects they've been trying to implement in the community, including a lending library, a youth center, and music and movement classes for little kids, but they're really strapped for funds. As soon as we left, we started coming up with fundraisers we could do on campus.

That's all the back-tracking I can handle at the moment. My brain is so fried and I want to come home NOW.

Days till I come home: 14

When is a train not a train? When it's a bus.

2009-11-25T17:23:00.002-05:00

I feel like I've been hit by a bus on train tracks, which is, ironically enough, what I spent four hours riding on this morning.

I promise I'll come back and write about Intag, Junín, and Otavalo, but right now I'm going to write about Riobamba so I can put it behind me and not think about it ever again.

We got to the city of Riobamba on Monday night, after riding in the bus all day long. Our hotel was seriously the weirdest hotel I've ever stayed in. It was basically an 11-story maze, and there were weird displays of pots and tools and things behind windows in the hallways, and also lots of empty courtyards that I'm not sure you could actually get into.

On Tuesday we drove way up into the mountains. We spent some time walking through a polylepis forest to help ourselves acclimatize, and that was actually kind of fun, if difficult because it was so steep. Then we drove to Chimborazo, the highest peak in Ecuador. We drove up to a climbing refuge around 4,800 meters above sea level, and from there we walked up to another refuge at 5,000 meters. Those were the hardest 200 meters I've ever walked. It was freezing cold and snowing a little bit. At that altitude, breathing sometimes seems like more of a wish than an actual functioning process. I nearly turned around a couple of times, but I did make it to the second refuge. I'm glad I did, because now I can say I've been higher than any point in the lower 48 states, but I don't ever want to do that again.

Coming down was a little easier, and the clouds had rolled in and completely surrounded us, which was neat. We got lunch at the lower climbing refuge, and it was good but I wasn't really in the mood to eat. We sat around the fire and sang Christmas songs while we waited for the ten or so people that had decided to go up higher than the second refuge. Good for them for being adventurous, but I just really wanted to get off the darn mountain.

We had some people suffering from altitude sickness on the way back. One person threw up on the bus, and my friend and roommate Natalie wound up with a horrendous migraine. I think just about everyone, including me, had at least a headache and a little dizziness.

Back at the hotel, I warmed up in the shower, put on my pajamas, and did some Internet-y things for a while. I went down for dinner at 7:00, and pretty much as soon as I got there I got really cold. I didn't feel like eating much, which is rare for me at any time and especially in Ecuador. I just felt completely dead...achy all over like I had strep or something. I went back upstairs before dessert, because I had reached the point where I was shaking uncontrollably. I got in bed about 8:30, and I was just all weepy and couldn't turn it off. I warmed up a little under the covers and had some random huge epiphanies about the story I would be currently writing if I could be doing NaNoWriMo, but I didn't fall asleep for ages. I woke up about five times during the night, alternately freezing cold and burning up.

We left the hotel at the ungodly hour of 5:45 AM, prepared to ride in the bus for 45 minutes before we got to the train station. However, after literally two minutes, the bus stopped and Narcisa announced we were there. So we scrambled, half-asleep, to get our stuff together, and went into the train station. I still felt awful and only had juice and tea for breakfast, and I was still all weepy. We had to sit through this long video about Ecuador's great railroading history, which just made me cry more because it made me miss my grampy. We finally went out to get on the train...and it wasn't a train. It was essentially a charter bus on railroad tracks. We were all very pissed off about that.

I had really been looking forward to the train ride, because my family has such a love of trains (courtesy of Grampy), but I was annoyed and sick and I slept most of the time. There was some really pretty scenery, but it kind of felt like a wasted morning. We got off the "train" and got back on the bus and drove several hours back to Cuenca.

I still feel really icky, but I'm glad to be back to my home-away-from-home. At this point, I can't wait for December 13, when I'll be home for real. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving tomorrow. I'll be thinking about you while I'm sitting in class.

Days till I come home: 18

Aventuras en la amazonía

2009-11-23T21:45:00.000-05:00

These past two weeks have been so incredible, and I really want to write about everything. We've been SO BUSY. I think there have only been two nights since leaving Cuenca that I've stayed up later than 10 PM. I'm afraid there's no way I'll be able to do justice to the awesomeness of all our experiences, but I'll do my best.

On Sunday, November 8, we flew from Cuenca to Quito, which is not that far (less than an hour by plane), but there are a lot of mountains in between. I sat in the emergency exit row for the first time in my life. Actually, all of the emergency exit row seats were taken up by B-W people, and you're technically supposed to be fluent in the language to sit there. Dr. Melampy, his wife, Nancy, and Professor Martin actually are fluent in Spanish, so they were probably okay, and I'd like to think I could have held my own in an emergency situation, but everyone else probably should have been seated elsewhere. I was a little nervous sitting in that row, actually, because that was probably the roughest flight I've ever experienced. There was a lot of turbulence, and about five minutes before we landed the cabin pressure dropped significantly for about fifteen seconds and I got really dizzy. We survived, though.

We spent the night in a beautiful hostel in Quito (it was way nicer than the hotel in which we stayed in Machala), and then we left at 5:15 AM for the Amazon. We had to wait a long time for our flight to Coca because of weather, but we finally boarded the shuttle bus that took us across the tarmac to our plane. The airport in Quito, Ecuador's capital city, has less than five gates. The airport in Coca is even smaller. Instead of a baggage carousel, they tossed all the luggage onto a wide bench and we had to go over and just pull ours out of the pile. We took a very short bus ride to a dock, which was right by a hotel. The hotel had a snackbar, and while we were waiting for our boat, we were entertained by the snackbar's resident toucans and spider monkeys. They hopped all over the place, including on some people's heads and shoulders. The toucans were particularly interested in untying shoelaces.

We had been waiting for three other people to arrive on a later flight, and once they got there, we set off to board the boat. That was something of a disaster. Professor Martin slipped in a big puddle of water; Angela lost control of her gigantic suitcase and it crashed down a huge, steep ramp; and yours truly took a spectacular tumble. My right ankle (the one I sprained a few years ago) occasionally decides to stop working without asking my brain's permission, and this occurred as I was going down a small set of stairs. I ripped a hole in my jeans and scraped up my knee pretty well, and everyone freaked out, but I was laughing. It did hurt, but my brain kind of experienced the whole thing in slow motion, so it was actually rather comical from my point of view.

The boat was a long, flat motorboat with an awning and two back-to-back rows of plastic lawn chairs. Each person received a life jacket and a really nice bagged lunch, and we had a very enjoyable two-hour cruise down the Río Napo. We arrived at what seemed to be some kind of military station, where we had to present our passports and go through security. Then we boarded our first chiva.

Chiva means goat in Spanish, but in this case it refers to an open-air, wooden trolley-kind-of-thing. All the luggage is thrown on top, and all the people are squished together on long, not-very-well-padded benches. It was noisy, hot, dusty, and bumpy for about an hour and fifteen minutes – easily the most uncomfortable form of transportation I've ever taken, with the possible exception of that awful overnight train ride in Spain two years ago. After the chiva, we were quite glad to get on another motorboat and sail two hours down the Río Tiputini.

We finally arrived at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station, which is a joint project between Boston University and Universidad San Francisco de Quito. It's located right at the edge of Yasuní National Park, which is also a Biosphere Reserve, or an area recognized by the United Nations as a world heritage site. It's arguably the world's greatest biodiversity hotspot. It covers an area of about one million hectares (one hectare = 100 meters x 100 meters), and it's estimated that each hectare contains one thousand plant species and 100,000 insect species. It's also estimated that there are 1,200 vertebrate species in the area. All of this means that interference in this environment impacts more species than it could anywhere else on earth...Enter the oil companies.

Oil accounts for about fifty percent of Ecuador's annual federal revenue. In 2004, oil companies paid $811,000,000 to the state in taxes, royalties, etc. For this reason, the government often turns a blind eye when drilling occurs on “protected” land. There's a big oil station located inside Yasuní, about twelve kilometers from Tiputini, and we could often hear its motors humming as we were out hiking. In most oil operations, it's still a common practice to leave behind totally exposed pits of oil sludge which leeches nasty chemicals, and oil spills are also big hazards. Between 2000 and 2006, it's estimated that Petroecuador, a smaller, domestic company, was responsible for 850 spills, so I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the big, international companies were responsible for a lot more. Also, there is only one oil refinery in the country. It's in Esmeraldas on the western coast, so the oil from the eastern lowlands has to be pumped through miles of pipeline across the seismically active Andes. And of course, to drill and transport oil, one must first build roads, which means cutting down trees. Deforestation or degradation occurs at a rate of one hundred hectares of forest per kilometer of road.

In addition, trees are still being cut down to be sold as timber. Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, has ordered a timber harvesting ban, but it hasn't been enforced at all. There's so much corruption in the region that it's really easy for illegal harvesters to receive forged papers to make their operations look legit. And then there's always the problems of commercial hunting and fishing (the latter is sometimes done via dynamite or poison) and the selling of insects, bird feathers, and animal skins to tourists. One million birds are shipped to the United States each year, but only five percent of them actually survive long enough to make it into the hands of pet owners.

Now that I've inundated you with unhappy statistics (courtesy of Dr. Kelly Swing, director of Tiputini Biodiversity Station and professor at Universidad San Francisco de Quito), let me assure you that we had a fabulous time in the rain forest. It does rain a lot there, but not as much as you might think – certainly not as much as I was expecting. We were there from Monday evening to Friday morning, and it only rained Tuesday and Wednesday afternoon for a few hours. The humidity is relentless, however. My hair was never dry, and neither was my bath towel, which smelled strongly of mildew within twenty-four hours of my first freezing cold shower. Most species of the electronic family (laptops, iPods, cameras, etc.) don't appreciate the humidity in the Amazon, so they always spent the night in the dry boxes located in the station's library. Electricity, save for the lights in the library, was only available from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM to 9:30 PM every day, so sometimes we had to make do with candles or headlamps, which are a wonderful fashion accessory.

Most of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent hiking with our guides. We broke up into groups of six to eight people, because tromping through the jungle with a group of twenty-nine (twenty-four students, two professors, Dr. Melampy's wife and her friend, and the son of the director of Amauta) is a surefire way to scare off any and all wildlife. My guide's name was José, and he was fantastic. I don't think there was a question all week that he couldn't answer. Ashley Herman and I took turns translating his Spanish answers for the rest of the group, but he knew a lot of individual words in English, especially animal names. Sometimes we just hiked for hours, and sometimes we climbed up towers that nearly reached the top of the canopy. It was really cool to witness my friend Shannon conquering her serious fear of heights and then designing a project that required climbing up the tallest tower again. We saw a ton of insects and spiders, a few really beautiful birds, including an extremely rare curassow, which is kind of like a large, black goose with a red beak, and four spider monkeys, including a baby with its mother. Believe it or not, I ate some ants. There's this specific species of ants called lemon ants, because the tree species they inhabit makes them taste like lemon. José said it's a tradition for guides to offer the ants to their guests. Obviously we saw a lot of plants, but I was actually surprised at how interesting I found a lot of them. It was neat to see trees that we read about weeks ago in Ohio, and by the end of the week I was starting to feel a little like Neville Longbottom in a Hogwarts greenhouse.

On Thursday we did student-designed group projects, which we have to turn into Spanish presentations when we get back to Cuenca. I'm not particularly fond of scientific research, so I made sure I was working with people who knew what they were doing. My friend Natalie, a biology major, wanted to find out about aquatic insects in the Amazon, so I went with her because digging in the mud sounded like fun. Our group went out to a small stream and spent a few hours scooping up the bottom in sieves of various sizes and poking around for little critters. We also recorded the temperature and pH of the water and the mud and tested for the presence of nitrates, phosphates, and dissolved oxygen. There were no phosphates, which was good, because that means the area is pretty much undisturbed by humans, and there was dissolved oxygen, because without that, there would have been a problem. We found ten or so little wriggly things, mostly dragonfly larvae.

Wednesday night we went out on the river in the boat and went hunting for caymans. We saw about four, including a huge one that didn't actually try to get away from us. It just stayed where we found it, peeking up above the water in the shallows. Some people touched its tail, and the guys from the station fed it a large slab of meat. Thursday night our guides took us on short hikes after dark. We saw a lot of insects and spiders, ranging from interesting to gross and creepy. We found this gigantic female orb weaver in her web, and José sacrificed an unlucky cricket so we could watch her in action. He threw the cricket into the web, and the poor thing didn't even have a chance to struggle before it was wrapped up and being eaten. It was disgusting and oddly fascinating. We didn't see any owls, but we heard them, and we found an adorable frog on a leaf on the way back to the cabins, so I was a happy camper.

I think my personal highlight of the week was swimming in the river. The current was fairly strong, so all we had to do was bob along in our life jackets and literally go with the flow while the boat followed a ways behind. The water was absolutely the perfect temperature, and we were all having so much fun...until we were attacked. We were all floating along, kind of spread out, and Mark was right ahead of me. All of a sudden he started freaking out. I thought he was just kidding, because he jokes around a lot, until I felt something very heavy slam into my hip. The current was still carrying me, so my legs scraped along it too. I screamed, Mark was still freaking out, and then it hit Paul, so everyone in the water started flipping out. We eventually realized it was just a tree, and there are a lot of fallen trees in the river, but most of them are not completely submerged. When you're swimming in the same water in which you saw caymans the night before, you're bound to be jumpy.

After that, I decided I was done swimming. I paddled against the current and stayed in the same place until the boat got to me. When I got out of the water I had some pretty minor scratches on my right calf and a big, nasty scrape on my right hip. It bruised up nicely. That hip just has no luck, apparently, because that's almost exactly the same place where I wiped out in the Galapagos. Still, though, I was essentially swimming in the Amazon River, and I think that's awesome! The log monster just adds a touch of drama.

After everyone got back in the boat and we had turned around to head back, we saw a dolphin! It was definitely playing with us, because it would come up at the front of the boat on one side, and then when it surfaced again it would be at the back on the other side. River dolphins are pretty rare, because a lot of indigenous groups kill them to use some part of their bodies as an aphrodisiac. We were lucky enough to see another one Friday morning when we were leaving. River dolphins are really not all that attractive, but they're pink, which is cool!

Well, that's certainly enough for now. I'll post about Intag and Junín as soon as I can.

Did I actually leave the US?

2009-11-06T16:52:00.000-05:00

The influx of Western culture here is astounding. I'm at the mall again, and they just randomly turned on the TVs here in the food court. So far they've shown music videos by Christina Aguilera (well, at least she's Latina), The Fray, and Pink. American songs play on the radio all the time. The other day I was walking down the street and I heard “Single Ladies” coming from some car. When we went to Machala and Guayaquil we heard something by Pink Floyd, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” “Kung Fu Fighting,” “It's Raining Men,” and “Summer Lovin'” from Grease on the charter bus. I've heard Switchfoot, and I've even heard Across the Sky, which you almost never hear at home. Disney Channel is everywhere, especially High School Musical and Hannah Montana. My host nieces love Mickey Mouse, Barney, and Hello Kitty (and I realize the latter is Japanese, but I bet it became popular here after it became popular in the U.S.). It's really weird and sometimes a little frustrating to still be surrounded by so much American culture. I've seen twelve-year-old girls wearing T-shirts with the Play Boy logo, and I have to wonder if they understand what that actually means. From where I'm sitting, I can see a Burger King, a KFC, a GNC, and a Sony store. There's a soup and sandwich shop down the street from here that's called PoPe, but its logo is almost an exact copy of the logo for Panera Bread.

The obsession with our culture even extends to product manufacturing. Ecuador is the largest exporter of bananas in the world (Brazil and India actually grow more but they use most of them domestically), and a lot of those bananas come to the United States to be processed into pudding, baby food, and other products, which are then shipped back to Ecuador and sold in the stores. Ecuador would really benefit if it processed its own bananas. Jobs would be created and money would be saved, both on shipping and because American goods are just a lot more expensive. There's this general attitude, though, that American (or European) products must be better than domestic ones, so Ecuadorians continue to buy expensive, American-made, Gerber baby food. The one thing that I'm surprised that I haven't seen is Starbucks. Ecuadorians are so obsessed with their instant coffee and their NesCafé, though, that I'm not sure they would allow Starbucks in the country.

This will probably be my last blog for at least a week. Tomorrow we have an all-day trip to Ingapirca, a town with a lot of Inca ruins in a neighboring province, and then we're leaving Sunday evening. We're flying to Quito, spending the night, and then flying to the Amazon on Monday. We'll be at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station until Friday, when we come back to Quito for a day and a half. Then we're going to Intag to go to the cloud forest, we're going to the city of Junín (and I'm honestly not sure what's there), and we're going to Otavalo, a town very famous for its artisans – so that means shopping! Then we come back to Quito once again, and then we travel down the Avenue of the Volcanoes. We'll stop in Baños, which is famous for its natural hot water baths, and we'll end up in Riobamba, where we'll get to climb Chimborazo, the highest peak in Ecuador (we're only climbing up to the glacier line, which is at 5,000 meters above sea level). After that, “we hope to catch a train” (direct quotation from Dr. Melampy – he inspires a lot of confidence sometimes) back to Cuenca. It's a seventeen day trip in total, and hopefully I'll have Internet at least while we're in Quito, but no promises.

Today marks the halfway point of my time in Ecuador, and when we get back from this long trip we'll have less than three weeks left. Sometimes it seems like time is going really slowly and other times it seems like everything is flying by. I'm still having a blast and I'm really looking forward to everything we're about to get to do, but I'll admit that I'm anxious to get home too. Sometimes it's hard not to think about things I'm missing, like NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. It officially began on November 1, and there's obviously no way I can write a novel in a month if I'm spending 75% of that month traveling around a foreign country. There's always next year, but I have novel ideas (pun indented!) right now! Also, I wish so much that I could go back to the States just for this weekend, so I could go to Wrockstock III, a huge wizard rock festival in Missouri. It's basically summer camp plus music and magic, minus the summer part.

I really should stop complaining. Sorry. Oh, the rough life of a world traveler.

Recap part 2: Don't sweat the big stuff; you won't have a chance anyway

2009-11-04T15:52:00.004-05:00

I literally saw the blind leading the blind today. I was walking down the street and there was a string of three blind men holding hands and making their way through the crowd. I just thought it was amusing and deserved to be noted.

So on with the recap:

Saturday:
We took a trip to Cajas National Park, about an hour from Cuenca. It's incredibly beautiful, but a little hard to breathe when you're climbing up the mountains, since we started out at nearly 4,000 meters, which is nearly 13,000 feet. It was freezing in the morning! There were a few snow flurries, which our guides said they had never seen in Cajas before. I was very grateful for my made-of-awesome Under Armor shirt. (You wear it one way and it keeps you cool; you turn it inside out and it keeps you warm!) Since we can't go anywhere here without doing something academic (I know, I know, it's a 17-credit hour school trip. That doesn't stop me from wishing I didn't have to do work), we had a scientific activity to do for Dr. Melampy. Admittedly, it wasn't bad at all. We broke up into groups of four, and each group made an X on a patch of ground with two long pieces of string. Each group member chose a quadrant and counted the number of open flowers and the number of potentially flowering species within that area. We stuck a thermometer into each quadrant to measure the ground temperature. We did all this twice, once on a west-facing slope and once on an east-facing slope. Apparently we were expecting to have a higher average temperature and more flowers on one side (west, maybe? I forget. I'm not very scientific), but when we combined all the data yesterday both sides wound up being about even.

After lunch we took a four-mile hike. The temperature was probably up to the low 50s (Fahrenheit, of course, not Celsius like they use here), and once we got moving most people took their jackets off. It was definitely an adventure – there was a big dark cave, a few streams to be crossed by leaping from stone to stone, large piles of llama dung to avoid, and a big patch of mud that tried to suck people in like the molasses guy in Candy Land. I, fortunately, managed to get only my boots and the edges of my pants muddy. Poor Natalie and Antonia got stuck up to their knees. Everything was so green, and it was eerily quiet – except when we were getting yelled at by Professor Martin for speaking too much English! Unfortunately we had a few headaches and one person throwing up due to altitude sickness by the end of the hike, but I think everyone would still agree that it was mostly a very fun trip.

All last week through yesterday, the city of Cuenca was celebrating its independence, which it won 189 years ago. Our big projects that are due Friday all have something to do with the fiestas. I have to write about las Noches Cuencanas (Cuencan Nights), or the little celebrations that are held in all the different neighborhoods, so Saturday evening I went to a local mall for one of the Noche Cuencana fiestas. It was in the parking lot. There was a banda del pueblo, or local town band, playing traditional music – two clarinets, an alto sax, two trumpets, a trombone, a snare, a bass drum, tenor drums, and cymbals, for all of you band geeks. There was food for sale, and a lot of people were drinking zhumir. I unfortunately couldn't stay long enough to see them set fire to the castillo, which is a big tower built out of some kind of flammable material and decorated in the colors of the flag, but there were fireworks being set off periodically, not nearly far enough away for my comfort. (I forgot to mention that when we went to the rodeo, they were setting off fireworks from inside the ring. We tried explaining to some of the Ecuadorians that you couldn't do that in the U.S., and they were like, “Why? It's not dangerous!”)

Everyone wanted to go out that night for Halloween, and I didn't want to be the only one staying home, so I went. It was fine when we were at the bar just talking and things, but then we went to a club, the same one we went to last time. In all honesty, going to the club last time was not nearly as fun as I made it sound when I wrote about it. I am just not meant to be a club-going person. It's dark and loud and the lasers are too bright and there are too many people and everything smells like alcohol and cigarettes. In my opinion, what people do in a club qualifies as dancing in the same way that rap qualifies as music – maybe-kind-of-sort-of-a-little-bit-if-you-really-have-low-standards. I was not having any fun at all, so I left around midnight and took a cab home. At least I only had to pay $3 to get in instead of $5 – because certain girls in our group are willing to flirt shamelessly enough with the bouncer to get us all a discount. These are the same people who seem to feel it's necessary to get up on the little stage at the club and promote the idea that all American women are stupid and promiscuous. Can you tell I don't appreciate it?

Sunday:
Sunday was just a rough day and I already wrote about it. It did get better once I got home from the aunt's house and went to an Internet café with Lauren. I got to look at pictures of my two-week-old pseudo-nephew all dressed up for Halloween. I'll admit I cried a lot about that too, but it was out of happiness.

Monday:
The school was closed for the fiestas!! Sleeping in was a welcome treat. I went to Milenium Plaza to use the free wifi and actually started researching for my project. (By the way, the mall's name actually is spelled “Milenium.” I do know how to spell the word in English. I feel this compulsion to uphold my reputation as winner of the fourth grade spelling bee.) There were huge fairs of artisans all over the city, and there was one near the mall, so of course I had to check it out. Prices are so amazing here, and I'm not even good at bargaining yet. I spent less than $35 and got a pair of earrings for myself and Christmas or birthday presents for seven people. I was thrilled!

Monday night I went with my friend Lauren to another Noche Cuencana celebration, this time in a park not far from the school. There was a much bigger crowd there than there was at the mall. A huge stage was set up, and it had a set of amazing smart lights. (Am I a theater geek? Do I spend huge amounts of time with the master electrician? No way.) A guitar trio played and sang for about an hour, and then las reinas del barrio, or the girls who had been elected queens of the neighborhood were introduced.

Then it was time for the second musical act, whom the emcee introduced as “one of the most sought after artists in Ecuador.” Her name was Lady Laura, and she was a vision in a bright yellow sleeveless unitard with gold and pink sequins and purplish-red hair. She actually sang and danced very well, and the whole crowd seemed to know the songs, but between the outfit and the two back-up dancers, two big tough guys dressed all in black and doing super-cheesy hip-hop moves, Lauren and I found it absolutely hilarious. It got even better when I realized that one of the dancers reminded me of someone from our group. Also, all three of them were periodically chucking CDs into the crowd, and man, could they get some distance with those things! They were just like square Frisbees with dangerously sharp corners. I took video of one of the songs on my digital camera, because I just didn't think I would be able to adequately convey the cultural experience without it. Don't worry; it will make its way to YouTube eventually.

Once again, we didn't stay long enough to see the castillo burning. It was getting both very late and very cold. I'm not a huge fan of fire (I know, I too wonder why I hang out with the people that I do), and I had already had my fill of open flames. There were lots of people wandering through the crowd with boxes full of candy and cigarettes for sale, and some of them were had lit candles nestled down among the mints and gum. Totally exposed flames being carried in cardboard boxes through a crowd of a few thousand dancing people. Forget being kidnapped or mauled by a jaguar – you won't die from the big things in Ecuador. The little stuff will do you in just fine.

Finger painting and rodeos, but hopefully no schizophrenia

2009-11-03T18:16:00.002-05:00

Next week we'll be in the Amazon basin, which is an area at risk for malaria, so I had to take my first mefloquine pill last night. You take one pill the week before you go, one pill each week you're there, and one pill a week for four weeks after you return. Hopefully I won't have any funky side effects. I have a friend who has been taking the pills since we got here, just in case, and she has been fine. Still, though, I have to recall the conversation I had with a family friend, Delia, who is a doctor, that took place shortly before I left for Ecuador:

Delia: What kind of medicine do you have for malaria?
Me: Mefloquine. I've got six pills.
Delia: Mefloquine, hmm. If you start acting schizophrenic, stop taking it, okay?
Me: Um...okay. Sure thing.

Delia is always so helpful with her free medical advice. ;)

The past few days have been so busy and full of interesting things that I really want to write about everything. It's going to take a while, though, so here's the first bit.

Thursday:
A very good day. Activities in class included finger painting our vision of the perfect world, writing sentences backward using the subjunctive tenses, and walking separately to the park near the school and then telling each other about everything we observed. Then Julia bought us ice cream. Also, the school got a new, secure wireless network, and it runs a little faster than the previous one. We had salsa class in the afternoon, and though I didn't really want to go because I had so much research to do for my 1,000 words about Bolivia (and you know it's rare when I don't want to dance), it was really fun. Mark and I make a good salsa team.

I also bought a cell phone. It's the cheapest model available and it's prepaid. It costs eight cents a minute to call or eight cents per text to anyone else on my same network, Movistar. It costs something like twenty-five cents to call landlines or other cell phone networks in Ecuador, and I could conceivably call outside of Ecuador (aka the U.S.), but it would be a dollar a minute for me and I don't know if whoever I called would be charged as well. Here's the stupid part, though: only a small percentage of my prepaid minutes can be used to call outside of Movistar. Once that percentage is used up, you simply can't call landlines or other networks till you put more money on the phone. Fortunately I don't anticipate having to do that too much, and now I have a phone that should function anywhere in the world as long as I have the appropriate country's sim card.

I now understand why a lot of Ecuadorians have multiple cell phones. My host mom has one for Movistar and one for Porta. There are monthly (or whatever) plans available, but apparently most people just go with the prepaid option.

Friday:
Exam day at Amauta. We presented our papers to each other (and for the amount of complaining we did, it really wasn't that horrible), and that was half of our exam. The other half was a group activity in which we each wrote twenty sentences about the way a perfect class should function, then we paired up and chose the twenty best ideas from our individual lists, and then we all got together and made one final list of twenty things. Halfway through our morning break, Julia came back from running an errand and said (in Spanish, of course), “There's a big parade two blocks down! Take your cameras and go!” So we did. While the other three Spanish classes were taking a hefty written exam, we were down the street watching a parade.

The parade was really long and we didn't stay to watch the entire thing, but it was really cool. All through last week and continuing into this week there have been all kinds of special events in the city to celebrate the founding of Cuenca 189 years ago. The parade seemed to consist of all the high schools in the city, each group dressed in some kind of traditional dress and usually doing some sort of dance routine. Some of the music was live, played by students on traditional instruments, and Sara and I decided we were seeing the ancient Incan ancestor of marching band. There were also contestants for la Chola Cuencana sprinkled throughout the parade, dressed in the traditional brightly colored skirts, white bowler-style hats, and long double braids of the cholas, or women of both Indian and European descent.

Friday afternoon I went to an Internet café and called my mom for Halloween, since it's her favorite holiday of the whole year. I managed to reach my sister on her cell phone too. She was running around trying to get ready for the football game in the dark, since apparently someone blew a fuse at the high school. Typical. There are very few things that happen at BVHS that surprise me anymore. I also got to talk to Knox and Kala while Phish (aka my sister) was trying to find Emily for me. I didn't get to talk to Emily then, but she wrote on my wall later and told me everything went really well for Senior Night. Missing Senior Night this year was one of the things that I took into serious consideration when I was thinking about coming on this trip. This year's senior class really means a lot to me and it was hard to miss their big night.

Friday night I went to a rodeo. I'm not sure whether it's more funny or sad that it took a trip to Ecuador to get me to my first rodeo when they happen all the time at home. The entire evening was a bit of a fiasco. First, my friend Caitlyn and I had to walk across the city in the rain to get to our friend Katy's apartment. Katy's host brother, Eduardo, was supposed to take us to the rodeo. He isn't actually part of Katy's family here in Cuenca, though; he's also a student staying with the same host parents. Eduardo is actually from Loja, a few hours from here, and when Katy got home that afternoon he was gone. His room was a mess and a lot of his things were gone, like he had packed really quickly. Katy called her host sister and found out that Eduardo had gone back to Loja and hadn't said why. I still don't know how all of that worked out, but we decided to go to the rodeo anyway. Sara and Liz got there, and we set off.

Katy had a general idea of where we were going, but she wasn't super-familiar with that corner of town. We were close to where we needed to be when we encountered two thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girls walking together. We asked them if they knew where the rodeo was and they said they were heading that direction and could take us there. So we started following them. After about ten minutes, things started to feel really sketchy. Nobody else was out on the streets and the girls kept whispering to each other. I was starting to wonder if they were thinking it would be really fun to get a bunch of gringas totally lost. Katy got my attention and I dialed her cell phone from my pocket. She “answered” the phone in English and acted like one of our other friends had called and needed help, so we weren't going to be going to the rodeo anymore. We popped into a brightly-lit store and asked directions, and it turned out we had actually been going the right way. All five of us agreed, though, that the situation had felt really weird and we were glad to be rid of the two girls.

We found the correct place and bought our tickets ($10 each...expensive for a night out in Cuenca). We found Sara's host brother and his friends, whom we had been planning to meet. They were all decked out in their cowboy hats and boots. Sara had described her brother as “Fonzie, only a lot dorkier,” and as weird as that sounds, it seemed to fit once I met him. He pretty much ignored us, but his friend Andrés talked to us and made sure we followed the group inside and got seats. (By the end of the evening, it was clear Andrés had his eye on Katy. She already has a boyfriend, however, and he's South American to boot.)

I've seen bits and pieces of rodeos on TV before, but I guess I wasn't really prepared for how scary they actually are. The bulls and the broncos were equally violent and frightening. I kept thinking about all the guys on the rodeo team in high school...some of them were pretty tiny, and I don't know how their families could stand to watch them do that. I thought about Spencer Smith, our “Little Cowboy,” a lot. He was in my class and was killed in a car accident junior year. I didn't know him really well, but he was a great guy and he sure loved to ride in the rodeos. There were some nice parts to the rodeo, like the little kids who rode horses in formations to music, but all in all it wasn't my cup of tea. It didn't help that I was freezing...I left my sweatshirt at Katy's because when it's cold outside in Ohio, they have rodeos inside hot, stuffy buildings. In Ecuador, rodeos are apparently outdoors despite sprinkles of rain and low 50s/high 40s temperatures. Caitlyn also didn't have a sweatshirt, but Andrés gave her his jacket to wear. I was also surrounded by a disproportionate amount of drunk people, thanks to the several bottles of Zhumir (a really strong Ecuadorian liquor) being passed around by Sara's brother and his friends. None of the other gringas had more than a couple of sips. By the time we left, I was pretty much frozen solid and I was pretty sure my cold was coming back.

We took taxis back to Katy's and got our things. We were planning to take more taxis back to the center of town, but Katy's host mom insisted on driving us, which we appreciated. Katy's host sister came too, so we piled four people into the backseat and two people in the passenger seat of a Honda CRV. That's pretty typical for Ecuador. There was such a traffic jam, though, that we got out and walked the last four blocks or so. We got to the bar where the others were going, and I caught a cab home. It was one of those nights that will make a great story someday, but I never want to do all that again.

Venting/Whining

2009-11-01T19:10:00.002-05:00

I've had a really fun week, and I promise I'll write about it all very soon, but right now I'm going to take a moment and complain about how not-fun this afternoon was.

We went to my host aunt's house for lunch today. There were at least 35 people there, a very few of whom I'd met before. I was prepared for a bunch of new family members, but not that many. I was expecting to have to answer a ton of questions...but it was just the opposite. Nobody talked to me for about two hours, except for Rita, my host mom, explaining what the food was. Everyone was talking so fast and at the same time and I couldn't understand anything. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat in my chair. Some of the people, especially the ones my age, would make eye contact and maybe smile a little and then look away. They knew I knew Spanish because they heard me greeting my host sister and niece when they came in. I felt so lonely!! I tried to look like I was interested in the conversation, but all I could think about was how much I miss my family. I tried to sing songs in my head and do other things to distract myself, but I kept having to look away and pretend to be interested in the paintings on the wall and keep myself from crying. I think Rita and Jaime could tell that I wasn't doing so well, and we didn't hang around too long. We got in the car and I just cried. They were very understanding. Rita gave me a tissue and let me cry for a little bit and then they started pointing out things we were driving past like they usually do.

So it's just been a lonely day. I can handle it. This is the first day I've been really terribly unhappy since the very beginning of the trip. I just needed to get that out of my system.

A Typical Day

2009-10-28T16:26:00.000-04:00

I don't have a whole lot of new and interesting things to expound upon, so I thought I'd write a little about what a typical day is like here.

My alarm goes off at 6 AM, and I usually get out of bed around 6:10...or 6:20...or 6:30....I eat breakfast, which usually consists of fruit, some type of bread, and milk that I think my host mother sets out the night before. (The milk here is different...it comes in bags, and though it usually resides in the fridge, it seems to be fine sitting out for hours at a time.) With the help of the microwave and a cute little tin of cocoa powder and the sugar bowl, I turn the milk into hot chocolate. The cocoa that my family buys is not really sweet at all, hence the added sugar.

I'm out the door by 7:20, and I meet my friends Kyle and Lauren on the corner and we walk to school together. It's about a mile, mostly uphill, with my laptop on my back, and Kyle and Lauren are both taller and walk even faster than me. I will never complain about the hills at Montreat again. (Okay, that's a lie, I'm sure I'll complain about those hills every year of my life. But I'll always remember that it was worse here. At least the drivers at Montreat make a point of not running over pedestrians.) By the time we get to Amauta, our school, I'm out of breath, the backs of my knees are quite unhappy, and I'm pretty sweaty. We go upstairs and immediately take out our computers to do Internet-y things.

Class starts somewhere between 8:00 and 8:20. When we have history with Narcisa, we usually start pretty promptly. For grammar with Julia, though, we get there when we get there. There's this concept of “Ecuadorian time,” and a lot of people aren't very concerned with punctuality. Class goes till 10:00, and then we have a thirty minute break for tea, coffee, and whatever bread or crackers are downstairs. Most people spend a large chunk of break on the computer too. In order to check my B-W email, I often have to start loading the page when I get to school, let my computer run all through class, and then I might actually have my inbox available to me during break. Squirrel Mail sucked, it's true, but did anyone really expect a Microsoft-powered system to be any better?

We have class again from 10:30 to noon, and then Lauren and I usually walk home for lunch. A lot of people go out to local restaurants, though, and I think we're going to go out with a group tomorrow. You can usually buy a two- or three-course meal for $1.50 or $2.00. (Yes, Ecuador uses American currency. I think they switched over in 2000. They used to use the sucre, but it became devalued to the point that it took tens of thousands of sucres to equal one dollar. Ecuador makes its own coins, but they accept American ones too, and they buy the bills directly from the U.S. mint, so they all have George Washington and Abe Lincoln on them. I find it kind of hilarious. And you know how you never see gold Sacajawea dollars in the States? It's because they're all down here.)

We usually go back to the school in the afternoon for salsa class, ecology discussions with Dr. Melampy, to meet about our group projects, or once again, to use the Internet. Today we have salsa, but I also need to do some research since I have to write 1,000 words about the government of Bolivia for Friday. Joy.

Sometimes small groups of people do something together in the late afternoon, like get ice cream or run some errands. Then we walk home. I get home somewhere between 6:00 and 7:30, and then I do homework. We have a small dinner, often leftovers from lunch, between 7:30 and 8:30, and then I take a shower, finish my homework or do some journaling, and go to bed because I'm exhausted.

I feel like I'm constantly busy here. I really relish the three or four hours on Saturday and Sunday mornings when I can just sit on my bed and do nothing...if I don't have too much homework, that is. It's frustrating, because everyone is always saying, “Go out and enjoy yourselves! Have an adventure! Get to know Cuenca! Be involved with your host families! And now do this mountain of homework, yay!” On top of that, we walk almost everywhere, and it takes an hour on average to get there and back. I walk at least four miles a day. The one benefit is I've already lost some weight. And I'm sure it's character building. My dad says that about anything that's unpleasant. I can think of a few people, though, who would argue that I'm enough of a character already.

Is it Christmas yet?

2009-10-26T16:18:00.004-04:00

I hope you all had a good weekend. I did. Weekends here, when there are no group activities planned, tend to be really long, a lot like weekends on campus at the beginning of college. But this was a good one.

On Saturday I went to Milenium Plaza (actually, where I am at this very moment), which is one of about three malls in Cuenca. It has really fast, free wireless, and those two things are almost mutually exclusive here. Lauren and I just missed drowning in a horrendous rainstorm (a real "frog-strangler," if you were lucky enough to know my grammy), so most of the power was out when we got here, but it, along with the Internet, came back on long enough for me to Skype my wonderful roommate, Jamie, since it was her 21st birthday. The Internet came back in full force a few hours later, and I was able to get some pictures uploaded to Facebook.

My host parents were gone all weekend and actually weren't back when I left the house this afternoon. They went to Salinas, several hours away by bus, to visit Rita's grandmother, who apparently isn't doing very well. (After all, she is 104.) As a result, I spent the majority of Sunday with my host sister, María Fernanda, her husband, José (whom everyone calls "Pichi"), and their daughter, Antonela. We went to Pichi's parents' house for lunch. One of his brothers and his sister or sister-in-law were there with their kids, and they also had two friends visiting from Spain. The lady from Spain, who was actually Cuencan by birth, spoke really good English, which was nice. I still spoke mostly in Spanish, of course, but we made a few comments to each other.

After lunch, Antonela wanted to go to the toy store, rather than ride rides with her cousins at the random mini fair that suddenly appeared down the street, so I went with her and her parents to another local mall, Miraflores. The toy store there is apparently the largest in Cuenca, and it was maybe 1/3 the size of the Toys-R-Us with which I grew up. It was full of Barbies, GI Joes, bikes, baby dolls, dinosaurs, kiddy cars, and playhouses, and also full of parents and screaming children. Anto decided she's going to ask Papá Noel for a bike, a baby doll, and a Three Musketeers Barbie this year. (Three Musketeers is the latest in the line of Barbie movies, in case you're not up on that sort of thing.) We also went into a Christmas store, because María Fernanda wanted to get some ribbon for their Christmas tree, which they already have up. There were tons of bright, shiny, themed Chrsitmas trees, stockings, collectible villages, reindeer, and snowmen. There were a few normal penguins too, but María Fernanda and Anto kept referring to the snowmen as pingünos as well, and I didn't bother to correct them. I frankly think it's hilarious that snowmen are so popular here, since it never snows in Ecuador except much, much higher up in the mountains.

Now, after hearing Bing Crosby's immortal version of "White Christmas," I'm definitely wanting to break out the Christmas music. I've told myself I'm not allowed until the second week in November, though. I do this every year...last year I refused to let myself listen to Christmas music till after Election Day. We'll be in the Amazon during the second week of November, and it will probably be ever weirder than hearing Christmas carols during Thanksgiving in Pensacola, Florida, but I don't think I'll mind. Christmas is only two months from yesterday, you know...not that I would ever start a countdown to anything...yeah, never.

Bananas don't grow on trees, you know...

2009-10-23T17:36:00.002-04:00

They really don't. But I'll get to that in a bit.

It occurs to me that my last four or so blog titles have ended in ellipses. I swear I'm not turning into the Rev. Dr. Jack B. Winget, Esq. (I know the Esq. isn't real and I know I'm missing some other title, but I don't remember.)

Despite having my typical really, really awful mid-October cold, the trip to Guayaquil and Machala went pretty well. I spent most of the drive to Guayaquil talking to another student from our school, a British guy named Rob. For all you LOST fans, he was pretty much Charlie's twin except with a London accent. He needed a ride to Guayaquil to catch a plane to Colombia, and the teachers just told him to come on our bus. We talked about travel, music, baseball vs. cricket...all kinds of things. We wound up kind of adopting him for the day, actually. He spent the night at the hotel with us, and we taught him how to play Egyptian Rat Screw. The best thing about traveling is the interesting people you meet.

Monday night we walked along the Malecón, which is a big, beautiful walking area along the river, part park, part monument, and part shopping mall. It's kind of the pride and joy of the city, and at the end of it you can climb 444 steps to the top of a tower from which you can see all of Guayaquil. The next morning we had a tour of the city, with a guide who spoke really excellent English, which was a nice respite for my brain. Guayaquil is the most populous city in Ecuador, and it's the only city in the country where you can find the extravagantly rich living around the corner from absolutely destitute. Poor people tend to just take over huge areas of land, live quietly for a few years, and then demand that the government provide them electricity and water, which then comes out of the pockets of the upper and middle class. It's been undergoing some extensive beautification and reorganization programs for the past few years. We toured the cathedral, which is beautiful but simple as Catholic churches go, and we walked around the main park, which is literally crawling with iguanas.

Tuesday afternoon we drove to Machala, which is about four hours away. We had lunch at the hotel, which was something of an ordeal, because we have about five vegetarians in the group and nobody in Ecuador really seems to understand or care about what that entails. After that we had several hours to walk around the city, which is loud and colorful and crowded and dirty. The streets are way more chaotic than Cuenca. Lauren, Sara, and I wound up getting tremendously lost, and we asked for directions three times, but everybody told us something different and wrong. We wound up taking a cab back to the hotel, and even that was difficult. Our hotel was called the Hotel Royal, which we pronounced like it would be in Spanish: "Roy-AHL". It turns out it's just pronounced like we would say it in English normally, so nobody could figure out what we meant.

Wednesday morning we went to a banana plantation. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was surprised to learn that the big, tall, leafy, green things that produce bananas are not trees. They're herbs. No joke. Each stem can only ever produce one bunch of bananas, and it takes nine months to reach maturity, so there are always different generations at different stages of growth sprouting from the same plant. We didn't see anything being harvested, but we did see large bunches of bananas being separated, cleaned, sorted, plastered with stickers, boxed up, and loaded onto a truck. For the amount of space they take up, banana plantations aren't a huge source of employment. Each one only has about fifty workers, and while the plantation we visited pays $18 a day (a pretty good wage for that kind of job in Ecuador), the employees only work about three days a week.

We then went to a shrimp farm, owned by the same people, which was much less interesting. It basically consists of a bunch of large, murky ponds full of shrimp, which are harvested at night after a certain amount of time. One of the workers threw a net into a pond, collected about fifty shrimp, and dumped them in a bucket for us to see. We were allowed to pick them up, which some people did, and some people kissed them as well. I am still not sure I like to even eat them, so I just watched.

After the shrimp farm, we went to a port where they ship all kinds of things out of Machala. We got to wear hard hats...and that was pretty much the highlight of that. Then we drove back to Cuenca.

All in all, it was a good trip. This post has gotten sufficiently long, so I'll sign off for now.

Welcome to the world...

2009-10-20T22:03:00.004-04:00

Name: Caleb Russell Merchant
Date: October 19, 2009
Time: 9:30 PM
Weight: 9.5 pounds (!!)
Length: 20 inches
Mommy: My Mego :)
Proud aunts and uncles: "The Family"

He is beautiful!! Megan is the first of my friends to have a baby, and I am so excited for her!! I can't wait to get home and meet him. Congratulations, Megan, and good luck.

Guess who gets to take another 4-hour bus ride through the mountains...

2009-10-19T11:04:00.002-04:00

Yay. I'm thrilled. I woke up with an icky cold and this afternoon my group gets to drive through the mountains again to go to Guayaquil to meet the other group that's getting back from the Galapagos today. It's break time at the school right now, and we're halfway through a crazy, insane class with Narcisa, one of the school heads, about history. I'm just letting it wash over me. I don't have the energy.

I got to watch two hours of American TV yesterday, which was really exciting. I watched Criminal Minds and CSI:.

Well, I was intending to write more but I have to go, sorry. I'll be back Thursday.

"And tonight's gonna be a good, good night..."

2009-10-17T17:13:00.003-04:00

It's a sunny Saturday afternoon here in Cuenca, and Lauren and I are at an Internet cafe near our houses. It's probably in the low 60s (Fahrenheit) outside...be jealous, Ohioans!!

Before I forget, I'd like to invite you all to check out the collective blog for everyone on our trip. Some of my posts here may wind up over there too, and you can read about what everyone else has been up to. Also, check out the Photobucket page that Paul was kind enough to set up for all of us. My photos aren't up yet, but hopefully they will be soon.

As always, the last few days have been interesting, which is mostly a good thing. Emotions are still a bit rough for some of us. Yesterday was the first day we didn't have to take a few minutes' break for a group hug during class, because one of us would start crying for one reason or another, and then the rest of us would start in as well. Fortunately, our teacher is really understanding of our situation and she gives great hugs. :)

Yesterday we took a field trip to one of the small markets in town to witness a traditional cultural practice. Many women take their babies to the market to be "cleaned" and cured of common childhood afflictions that are the result of bad energies. Katy was a good sport and volunteered to be cleaned. A tiny old woman took a large bundle of flowers and plants (which I think included some marijuana) and whacked her all over her arms, legs, torso, and head while saying "Kisha, kisha!" which is a Quechuan word to drive away the evil spirits. Then she took an egg and rolled it all over Katy, and then she cracked it open in a plastic bag, examined it, and declared Katy was suffering from espanto, or fright. In order to be totally cured, Katy should come back next Tuesday and next Friday and do it all over again, because Tuesday and Friday are the Virgin's days, or something like that. Katy said that it actually kind of hurt and she had a bunch of leaves stuck in her hair, but she might go back and finish out the process.

Yesterday afternoon several of us B-W students and our new friend, Emma, met at the school and went to the "zoo." The Cuenca zoo is nothing like an American zoo. Instead, it's a small, dark building full of fish, snakes, turtles, frogs, and tarantulas. It was interesting to see pirahnas and tilapias, but we weren't exactly enthused at the way some of the snake cages were constructed. They looked more than a little iffy. Also, there was a humongous alligator just chillin' on the floor, penned in by some tanks and the rickety wooden bridge we walked across. I'm not a huge fan of snakes, but I was rather disappointed that the boa constrictor was all curled up and asleep. I was sincerely hoping it would look me in the eye and tell me it had never seen Brazil. (25 Awesome Points to the first person to comment on that reference!!)

When we came out of the "zoo," it was pouring, like it does most afternoons here. We waited out the worst of it in the convenience store next door and then we went with Emma to the hostel where she's staying. It was really nice, as hostels go, and she said it was $8 a night including breakfast. We all just hung out in the lobby and talked for a while and got to know her better. She's from Manchester, so she has a really awesome accent. She's been traveling all over South America for a few months, from Brazil to Argentina to Chile to Bolivia to Ecuador, and she's intending to be home in time for Christmas. That's the sort of trip I sometimes dream about taking, but there's no way I would go by myself.

Last night we went dancing. We were planning to all go as a group, but everyone on the other side of town got invited to a party that they didn't feel they could refuse, so it wound up being Lauren, Emma, our other friend Sierra, who's rooming with Emma at the hostel, and me. Emma kind of started a dance party on the steps down to the river, where a band was playing, and insisted that we all join. We wound up getting about forty people to get up and dance with us, and it was really fun. Then the band just kind of abruptly quit playing and started packing up, so we went with a group of four or five American girls we'd met to a club called Zo. It was super crowded, but after we had been there for a little bit, we ran into the rest of the B-W group!! All in all it was a very fun night.

Las clases y los Galapagos

2009-10-14T11:21:00.005-04:00

It's break time here at Fundación Amauta, which means everyone ran downstairs to grab some free food and then immediately got on their computers. We're kind of addicted to the Internet. The school has wireless, and it's fairly slow (I couldn't open the B-W course catalog, a PDF file, or download the newest PotterCast), but we're managing. It´s really kind of sad how addicted we all are.

This is day two of Spanish classes, and so far everything has been great. I'm in a class with four of my friends, Sara, Lauren, Katy, and Natalie, and our teacher is wonderful. We learned a ton of new verbs yesterday and we've been reinforcing them by drawing pictures, fingerpainting, and reciting them while jumping, shouting, or tying each other to chairs. It's a bit more interactive than any Spanish class I've ever had. We're doing a quick review of the basic indicative tenses, and this morning we spent about twenty minutes telling a story around the table about an evil maple tree, a good apple tree, a wise owl, a magical book, and shape-shifting wolves and sea lions to practice the preterite and imperfect tenses.

We had salsa class yesterday afternoon. It was a lot of fun. We had to take turns being guys and girls because poor Mark is the only guy here in Cuenca at the moment. The other four are all in the Galapagos this week. Everyone picked up the steps and the rhythm pretty quickly. The teacher is pretty funny, and I found out he's my host sister's brother-in-law.

So, all about the Galapagos:
We went to a total of nine islands: Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, Española, Floreana, North Seymour, Baltra, Genovesa, Bartolome, and Plazas. Each island is so totally unique from all the others – that's what's so amazing about the Galapagos. Santa Cruz has the largest human population, around 17,000, but much of it is still undeveloped. It has beautiful beaches, but it also has a highland area where it's very wet all the time and there are so many different trees and shrubs and ferns. There are two huge craters in the highlands, los Gemelos (the Twins), which were formed by some sort of volcanic activity, but scientists haven't settled on the exact cause.

Most of the rest of the islands don't have a lot of green vegetation on them other than cacti and various little shrubby things that are good at surviving drought. Santa Fe, Española, North Seymour, and Plazas are very rocky and dusty, but Santa Fe and Española also have very nice beaches. Floreana and Genovesa are mostly huge lava fields, but both have pretty interior lagoons that are good places to see flamingos. Bartolome is very young, as islands go, and it's pretty much all tall mountains of volcanic ash. It made me feel like I was on Mars.

We saw so many animals...penguins, sea lions, fur seals, land and marine iguanas, lava lizards, flamingos, blue- and red-footed boobies, nazca boobies, swallow tailed gulls, Galapagos hawks, Galapagos mockingbirds, several types of finches, and more...and that was just on land. We went snorkeling every day, sometimes twice, and we saw sea turtles, starfish, sea urchins, manta rays, spotted eagle rays, moray eels, a few kinds of sharks, and so many fish!!

Our group had so much fun together, and we also had a blast with the crew on the boat. Our guide, Fazi, knew so much about the animals and the islands themselves, and he spoke really good English. The rest of the crew barely spoke any English, but they were really patient and encouraging with our Spanish. Everyone's favorite was definitely Raul, the waiter, who was so sweet and shy. He found out my friend Lauren is lactose intolerant, and he made a point of getting her food without milk, and he also taught us all how to fold napkins creatively. Jorge, the first mate, really tried to learn everyone´s names, and Alberto let a lot of us steer the dinghies. Alberto and Jofre, the captain, explained all of the navigation stuff up in the bridge to Lauren and me. Juan, the chef, made incredible food for every meal. Randy was hilarious, even though he was hard to understand because he´s from Guyaquil, and he hung out with all of us when we were seasick.

That´s right, there was one really bad night when we started sailing right after dinner, and we were sailing against the waves, so it was pretty much a constant roller coaster. Add in a big dinner, a bit of dehydration, and lots of sunburn, and none of us felt very good. I was one of four people who "fed the fishes" over the side of the boat. I guess you´re not a sailor till you´ve gotten seasick.

I´ve already taken over 1000 photos here, most of them in the Galapagos, and I´ll have them up on Facebook as soon as I can. Uploading pictures takes forever. We also have a Photo Bucket account for everyone on the trip, so I´ll put up that link ASAP. Class is starting now, so I´ve gotta go!!

I'm here!! In the Galapagos!!

2009-10-05T19:23:00.002-04:00

Hola a todos, estoy en los Galapagos!

Hi everybody, I'm here in the Galapagos! A brief overview of what's happened so far:

We flew out on Friday, Cleveland to Chicago to Miami to Guyaquil. We spent the night in a beautiful little hotel and then drove about four hours to Cuenca. The mountains are so beautiful. It was so awesome to be on solid ground, looking down on a blanket of clouds.

We got to the school and met our families. I'm living with a very nice couple, Jaime and Rita, who are probably in their 60s. They have three children who are all married and there are four grandchildren. I have yet to meet Rita's 104-year-old grandmother. Everyone is really friendly and they try to help me, but it's still pretty stressful. I felt pretty lonely on Saturday, even though I was surrounded by family. Yesterday was definitely easier. They speak so fast, and my head just spins when there are more than two people in the room. I think I understand about 65% of what's being said. I'll be glad to get into the Spanish classes so I at least feel like I'm making progress.

Right now nine of our twenty-four group members are on Santa Cruz, one of the Galapagos Islands. Dr. Melampy is here too. We had to be at the school at 3 AM, then we drove back to Guyaquil. That was a very unpleasant ride...it's incredibly twisty and bumpy and at that time of day and in the dark and all...only two of us threw up. I never get carsick, and I still felt really awful. From there, we flew to the island of Baltra, then had to stand up in a very full bus (it was like a roller coaster but we had to handle all the physics!) to get on a small boat that took us to Santa Cruz, then we had another very long, sitting down bus ride to the harbor. Then we took a dinghy out to our boat, the Golondrina, where we'll be living for the next week. Then we came back to the island. I felt like I'd never stay still again.

We had lunch, which was pretty good. I haven't encountered any really scary food yet, although I did see cuy (guinea pig) roasting yesterday. My family will appreciate this: I actually ate two pieces of shrimp today. I figured I'll never get it fresher than it is here. It didn't taste too bad, but I'm still not a fan of the texture.

After lunch we walked through the Galapagos National Park, which included a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station and a chance to see lots of giant tortoises, including Lonesome George. I'll tell his story when I have more time.

I'm really looking forward to the next several days. I'll get to another Internet cafe as soon as I can. For now, saludos!!

In defense of my obsession

2009-09-30T15:14:00.003-04:00

This post is not about Ecuador. I have entirely too much to think about and to do before Friday, and at the moment my blog is my refuge from all of that.

Last week, I got really mad at a good friend. This friend and I are both really sarcastic, and much of our relationship is based on making fun of each other, so the two of us shouting is not an uncommon occurrence, but we actually kind of had a real fight. He thinks my obsession with Harry Potter is really nerdy and ridiculous, and while I'm aware I'm a big nerd, I was getting pretty tired of the negative comments about it. So we shouted it out and it's been agreed that Harry Potter is off the table as far as teasing goes, and everything is hunky-dory. But I know a lot of people don't understand my obsession, so I thought I'd spell (no pun intended!!) it out...

For starters, I read A LOT, and the Harry Potter books are, without exaggeration, the best books I have ever read. I've lost count of how many times I've read them (somewhere around ten each for the first four books), and each time I go back to them I discover something new, whether it's a joke I never got or a bit of foreshadowing I never noticed before. The basic plot isn't that complicated --the classic good-underdog-triumphs-over-evil-super-power deal-- but I'm always amazed all over again by the level of detail that Jo put into the Wizarding world...sports, government, candy, books, cities, all of it!! The books have themes with which I really identify, such as the importance of friends and the power of love, and they're full of insightful parallels to the real world. They've sharpened my critical thinking skills, and they've also helped me improve immensely as a writer.

Beyond those things, I'm fascinated with the global phenomenon Harry Potter has become. In the age of television and video games, it's astounding that a book series has spawned fan conferences, a theme park, an entire new genre of music, and the Harry Potter Alliance, a nonprofit organization that functions as a real-life Dumbledore's Army both at home and in some of the darkest places in the world. All of these crazy things were set in motion by one woman who put pen to paper, who never dreamed she would become one of the richest people in the world in less than a decade. Jo Rowling is an inspiration to me, not only because she's such a talented writer, but because she's committed to her family and her many charitable projects, she's always classy in the face of criticism, she truly cares about her fans, and she had the courage to take that leap and send Philosopher's Stone off to an agent. If she can do amazing things, so can I.

The third level of my obsession is the community of Harry Potter fans, or the "fandom"...other crazy people like me who are passionate about the books, travel for hours to go to cons or wizard rock shows, and are committed to changing the world through love. There are also so many offshoots or related groups that I've been introduced to through the HP fandom, like Room 3428, the Vlogbrothers and the Nerdfighters, and Team StarKid. When you're a member of the fandom, it's okay to be a geek; it's okay to like to read and to use big words and proper grammar; it's okay to sing songs about fighting zombies, Quidditch, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and nargles; it's okay to serve bacon at a wrock concert. There's no need to be embarrassed or to hide who you are, because "Every outcast, they can find their place / At Hogwarts," as the Remus Lupins have been known to sing. It sounds too good to be true, but that's really how it is.

So that's my obsession in a nutshell. I could literally write about the fandom for hours, but fortunately a much better writer than me has published a book about it. Whether you're a Potterhead, you have one in your family, or you're still just wondering what all the fuss is about, Harry, a History: the True Story of a Boy Wizard, his Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon by Melissa Anelli is the book for you!!

Host family news!! and John Green on health care

2009-09-21T14:29:00.003-04:00

This morning Dr. Melampy sent out a list of the families with whom we'll be staying while we're in Cuenca. I will be living with a couple named Rita and Jaime. They have married children (an unspecified number) who visit often, and they have a 104-year-old grandma named Hilda. I'm very excited to meet them. Some people received email addresses as well, so they can contact their host families ahead of time. I need to come up with some nice gifts to bring my family.

We also got our final flight itinerary. We're flying from Cleveland to Chicago to Miami to Guyaquil. Our return flights follow the same pattern, although American Airlines was mean and canceled our original flight back to Cleveland, so we'll have to spend the night in Chicago and get back around noon on Sunday, Dec. 13th. Dr. Melampy said the airlines are all being ridiculously difficult to work with these days.

On a totally different topic, I'd like to encourage everyone to watch the following video, courtesy of the Vlogbrothers. I believe we desperately need a public option for health care in America, and this is a perfect example of why.

Time constraints, books, toursim, and adventures

2009-09-20T15:16:00.002-04:00

In less than two weeks, I'll be in Ecuador. That's a really frightening prospect. I know I'm going to have a blast and learn so much and make new friends and I won't regret this trip in the slightest, but at the moment I'm freaking out a little (okay, a lot). I always do this when I'm preparing for something new and different. (Well, LeakyCon was kind of the exception.) But there's just so much to do and so many people to try to see before I leave, and I can't begin to comprehend how it's all going to happen.

Lit is still a really enjoyable class, even though Friday was frustrating. We talked the whole time about the movie from Wednesday, which I did not enjoy, instead of the reading that had been assigned for that class, which I really liked and which I'm considering writing about for the paper that's due later this week. Oh well. We recently finished reading The House of the Spirits, by the brilliant Isabel Allende, which was excellent and I highly recommend it. It's the story of four generations of a prominent Chilean family, and it's full of intricate characters, strong women, romance, magic, politics, irony, history, and social commentary.

In Tropical Ecology, we've been talking about tourism in the Galapagos, which is expanding exponentially and is becoming a serious issue. The Ecuadorian government has put some restrictions in place about who can rent boats and build hotels and things, but they haven't been carried out very effectively. More and more travel companies are using the archipelago for things that can be done at just about any beachy location, like sport fishing, beach camping, and parasailing. The number of hotels and boats hasn't increased dramatically, but the number of available beds has. As the tourist industry expands, more people are inclined to move to the Galapagos and open restaurants and other attractions. All of these things have a strong and usually negative impact on the delicate ecosystems on the islands. We discussed in class the impact that our trip will have on the Galapagos and who should be allowed to visit the islands. The general consensus was that we are students who are interested in learning about and promoting conservation of the islands, so our visit will ultimately do more good than harm. However, we're all very aware of the precautions we'll need to take to avoid creating a negative impact any more than is absolutely necessary.

I still can't believe this is my last weekend on campus this semester. I have to go home next weekend to buy a few last-minute items and start packing. Yesterday was a thoroughly awesome day, though. I went miniature golfing with Jamie, Pat, R.J., and Jamie's parents, and then I finally got to eat at the Melt, which specializes in unique and delicious grilled cheese sandwiches. We had to wait close to two hours, but it was totally worth it. I had the "Purple Parma," with tomato and eggplant on it. It was about four inches tall!! We went to the Phoenix, a coffee shop that's not quite as cool as the Mean Bean but has incredible smoothies, and then we went and played on a playground, because we're awesome college kids. I went down a two-story slide. Then we went back to the Arts House, hung out for a while, and decided a late-night Giant Eagle run was in order. Jamie and I subjected the boys to Taylor Swift in the car, and they survived. To top it all off, we had R.J.'s epic "Chocolate Overload" milkshakes.

Yay for good times with good friends. :)

Snorkeling in the pool and LOLPresbyterians

2009-09-15T16:58:00.007-04:00

It's been a crazy few days, and I've finally had a couple of hours to catch my breath.

The weekend was awesome. Our (meaning my high school's) football team beat Pleasant, whom we've only beaten once before in 20 years, so that was very exciting. Also, our band has a freaking fantastic halftime show this year. It's space-themed, so it includes epic music from ET, Star Wars, Superman, Star Trek, and more. Everything was really tight and sounded great, and I was proud of all my friends. I realized that after this year, anybody with whom I was ever in band will have graduated...and that makes me feel OLD. (Not quite "olde," but close!!) I got to chill with Carie at the Mean Bean for a while on Saturday, and on Sunday I got to see the annual All-Horse Parade (which also includes marching bands and wagons and mules and such). I'm really glad that I live in a town small enough to have awesome community traditions like the Horse Parade. It's really kind of a big party...some streets even paint grids on the road and place bets on where the "refuse" will fall.

Today was something of an adventure. I got to go snorkeling in the pool at the rec center. We all had to prove that we won't drown when we go swimming in Ecuador, and then we had to try out the dive vests we'll be wearing, and then we all tried out our snorkels. It was an interesting experience. I am much more inclined to breathe through my nose than my mouth, even when I have a big old plastic thing in my mouth for the express purpose of breathing. Inhaling through one's nose only causes lots of uncomfortable plastic-suctioning-to-face action inside one's dive mask. This is going to take some practice. I also managed to scrape my knee getting out of the pool. FAIL.

And now for something completely different...
My sister and I tend to accidentally come up with ridiculous ideas and then just kind of run with them. This happened on Sunday during church. I don't even remember how it got started, but one or the other of us wrote a sentence on the bulletin in LOLcats format. (If you're not familiar with LOLcats, you can find them here.) We proceeded to come up with way too many more, all church-related. Here are some of the best:

I iz in ur pulpitz, preachin' ur gospelz.
I iz in ur font, baptizin' ur babiez.
I iz in ur choir, drownin' out ur sopranoz.
I iz in ur youth group, eatin' ur donutz.*
I iz goin' to the Promised Land. BRB.*
Presbyterian cat loves committees.
Presbyterian cat does it decently and in order.
I iz in ur art room, makin' ur crafties.
I iz on ur cross, dyin' for ur sinz.
I iz on ur committee, votin' for ur potluckz.
Pentecost cat lightz ur fire.
I iz in ur choir room, leanin' on ur bell tablez.
Youth group cat lightz Jesus candle.**
I can haz Communion?
I can haz daily bread?
Potluck cat guardz dessert table.
Mission cat talks about Nicaragua.
I iz in ur choir, messin' up ur descantz.
Acolyte cat lightz the bellz.***
Firefighter cat monitorz acolyte cat.

*At our church, "the Promised Land" refers to the Tim Horton's down the street more often than it refers to Canaan. (If you're not fortunate enough to be familiar with Timmy Ho's, it's a donut/bagel/coffee/sandwich chain.)
**We have a "Jesus candle" in the living room of our youth house. My friend Ben felt the need to buy a Catholic-style prayer candle from the foreign foods section of Krogers for our lock-in last summer. We don't question.
***Long story. A slip of the tongue courtesy of my friend Katie from about twelve years ago.

TGIF!!

2009-09-11T09:41:00.002-04:00

Quick post before class!!

I just have to ramble about how excited I am for this weekend!! I have one class, then I get to go have Chipotle for lunch and go home!! I'm going to the BV football game tonight, I get to go shopping (for more Ecuador stuff) with Mom tomorrow, I get to see Aunt Kathy and hopefully Grandma tomorrow, and Sunday is church and the annual All-Horse Parade. I haven't been in town for the parade the last two years, and the four years before that I had to march in it. I also get to see Carie at some point this weekend, and I can't wait to get home and see my baby, a.k.a. my guinea pig, a.k.a. Ginger Rogers. (Yes, I am a dancer. My sister's guinea pig is named Margot Fonteyn.) And on top of all that, I just downloaded (for FREE) the soundtrack to A Very Potter Musical. :D :D :D

Thank God it's Friday!!

Way too many things to talk about

2009-09-09T20:25:00.002-04:00

Wow, I have a lot to run my mouth (so to speak) about...here goes...

Labor Day weekend was great. Saturday night I went to a combined 21st birthday party for Pat, Chris, Aryn, Pete, and someone else, and I survived!! It was great fun actually, although it totally messed up my sleep schedule and I'm still trying to get back on track. I think I went to sleep somewhere around 3:30 AM...at which point I am guaranteed to be totally out of it. And if I was that bad under those circumstances, I do NOT want to know what I'd be like with alcohol in my system!! I was reminded again this weekend that I have some really good friends here. I really appreciate that they respect my decision not to drink and that they don't give me a hard time about it...at least anymore than they give me a hard time about anything I do. ;)

It's nice to have a short school week once in a while, but it really throws me off. I had plenty of time to get all my homework done over the weekend, but now it seems like everything is a bit of a scramble. Classes were very interesting yesterday, though. The topic in Tropical Ecology was cloud forests, which are different from "typical" rain forests because they are found at very high elevations (meaning the Andes, in South America). As a result, they are consistently pretty cold, they are shrouded in fog or mist for much of each day (hence the "cloud" title), and the plants and animals that live there are extremely different from lowland rain forest species. Thanks to their mountainous location, they're often geographically isolated from one another, which means that many species are endemic to only one individual cloud forest. Unfortunately, vast areas of cloud forest have been destroyed by logging, fires, clearing for agriculture, and other human influences. Think of all those species lost...

The topic in Orientation to Ecuador was immigration. There are currently about 1.5 million Ecuadorian citizens living abroad -- that's approximately 10% of the country's population. A large portion of them lives in Spain, but a far greater portion lives in the U.S., whether legally or not. Due to a huge economic crisis in the 1990s, governmental corruption, and other factors, many in the lower and middle classes in Ecuador can't sustain their families without leaving the country. We had a guest speaker from the Immigrant Worker Project, an initiative of the Catholic church in Ohio, which assists the thousands of Latin American immigrants to Ohio by providing job placement, representation in immigration court, contact with the families they've left behind, and many other services. He told us about an Ecuadorian man who had a master's degree in agronomy. He was able to make more money working in Ohio as a crew chief at a sawmill than as an agronomy engineer back home. That pretty much blew my mind.

Tonight's movie was Sin Nombre, a really powerful film about illegal immigration and about gang violence. I'm glad we watched it and were exposed to those issues, but it's not one I ever want to see again. I'm still kind of processing it all.

On a much happier note, it is now time for Glee!! I'm so excited about this show I can hardly stand it. Yay for show choir!!

Dance, Ecuadorian women, and breast cancer

2009-09-03T20:39:00.004-04:00

What?? Madeline posting three days in a row?? I know, I know, it's never happened before. Hopefully it will happen again in the near future.

Apart from my arm hurting a fair amount from the rabies vaccine I got yesterday (it was worse than last week's), it's been a pretty good day. I went to a meeting with the new Dance professor and all the other Dance minors, and I think we're all a lot happier than we were before. The new professor is nice, but the way she described in an email the changes she's planning to institute kind of had us all up in arms. She explained it all a lot better in person, and now I think things are going to be much better. B-W's Dance Department just switched from being part of Health and Phys Ed to being part of the Theater Department, and it needs some serious restructuring. I think her ideas for classes are good, and now the Dance Concert deal sounds good too. There will be two this year, and she and some guest choreographers will be putting the first one together, but students will be allowed to choreograph the one in February and choose all their dancers. We were about ready to start a revolution or something before the meeting today...

(Insert segway here. I've got nothing.)

In Orientation to Ecuador, we talked about women's roles in Ecuadorian society and also the Latin American concept of machismo, or manliness. Women have sort-of-kind-of been allowed to vote in Ecuador since the 1920s, but it didn't really become commonplace until the '60s. There are a lot of female political candidates these days, but few get elected. There have been a lot of small movements and groups that advocate for women's rights, but their efforts haven't been very unified. Domestic abuse is even more common in Ecuador than it is in the United States, but over the past decade or two, there has been a very strong effort, both socially and politically, to protect women and prevent violence against them.

Ecuadorian women do have a sector that is pretty much entirely theirs: the market. Nearly every city and town has a traditional market, selling everything from live animals to fresh produce to entire prepared meals. The vast majority of the vendors are women, and they take their jobs very seriously, forming little social circles with their fellow vendors and favorite customers. According to our Ecuador Reader, men, particularly foreigners, are often made to feel rather uncomfortable in the markets. We'll see how the five guys in our group do. One of our assignments while we're in Cuenca will be to make a traditional dish with the help of our host mothers, so we'll be expected to vist the market and interact with the vendors there.

I'm starting to feel like I'm actually going to be going to Ecuador soon. Sometimes I'll be sitting in class learning about markets and rainforests and all, and all of a sudden I realize I will be standing in those places in less than a month. I'm not sure it will truly sink in, though, until I step off the plane in Guayaquil.

Last thing for today, though certainly not the least important: Melissa Anelli, author of Harry, a History, webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, host of PotterCast, and one of my favorite people in the whole world, is participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Each person on her team must raise $1,800. Through the generosity of the Harry Potter fan community, Melissa has already met her goal, but the rest of her team still needs help. Dontations are tax deductable, and she's offering some truly incredible HP/Nerdfighter prizes as incentives. I'm planning to donate as soon as I get something about my bank account figured out. Find out more info and get the link to donate here.

Diarios de motocicleta

2009-09-02T21:43:00.003-04:00

Tonight, since it's Wednesday, I went to the film counterpart of my Latin American Lit class. We watched Diarios de motocicleta, or The Motorcycle Diaries, which I've seen before, and it's really one of my favorite movies. It's the story of two friends, Alberto Granado and Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, and their journey from southern Argentina all the way north to the top of Venezuela in 1952. Along the way they encountered hilarious adventures and the serious realities and hardships faced by the indigenous, sick, and poor citizens of Latin America...and all of the things they witnessed helped shape Ernesto's destiny -- helping to lead the Cuban revolution under the name of Che Guevara.

It's a classic "road trip" movie...hilarious, sad, dramatic, and centered on an incredible friendship. It questions social norms and the status quo, and I personally love the added historical component. It's in Spanish but you can watch it with English subtitles. It has a serious amount of profanity, but if you can overlook that, I highly recommend it.

Classes, 1980s wrock, and September 1st

2009-09-01T13:23:00.005-04:00

First things first: Classes are good, even though I have a TON of reading (all the time). I'm really enjoying my Latin American Lit class, because the teacher, Professor Martin, is really excited about the subject and he knows so much about Latin American history and he tends to get sidetracked into these really interesting background monologues. Tropical Ecology is not my favorite, because I've never been a huge fan of science-y classses, and as hard as I try, I tend to zone out on the reading, but at least everything makes sense once we discuss it in class. Dr. Melampy teaches that class, and he has just about the dryest sense of humor I've ever encountered, but he's a good teacher. Both professors teach Orientation to Ecuador, which is where I'm headed in about twenty minutes. I really like the text book for that class.

As far as the rest of school goes, everything is getting back to normal. Certified Peer Educators officially starts tonight, and I'm hoping for a good turnout. There was a great turnout last night at Hepcat (our swing dance club). When I'm not busy with school stuff, I'm usually hanging out with Jamie, Pat, and R.J....and they're good at turning the most mundane things into ridiculous adventures.

In other news, I went home over the weekend and got to take my sister and our friend Maddy to their very first wizard rock concert!! We went down to the Cincinnati area for Hogwarts Class of '84, which I very much hope will become an annual event. We busted out the side ponytails and the blue eyeshadow and had an awesome evening with Tonks and the Aurors, 1/3 of the Remus Lupins, and Ministry of Magic. Check out some footage here. Also, I got to see my friend Gin, whom I haven't seen since we were People to People people together three years ago!! Neither of us knew the other was going to be there, and it was a fantastic reunion. :)

Finally, since it's September first, I wanted to wish everyone who's heading back to Hogwarts a good start to the school year. I missed the train because I was sitting in class (well, actually I guess the Hogwarts Express left while I was still asleep, thanks to the time difference....) but I plan to jump in my flying Ford Anglia and get there in plenty of time for the opening feast. Whether you're a Harry Potter fan, a musical theater fan, or just a human being who likes a good laugh, PLEASE check out the epic brilliance that is "A Very Potter Musical." It will change your life for the better. I'm not even exaggerating.

Getting back into the swing of things

2009-08-23T18:13:00.004-04:00

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I haven't posted anything in forever!! My apologies to the, like, two people who probably read this. But school starts tomorrow, which means my Ecuador classes start tomorrow, and the Ecuador trip was the reason I started this blog in the first place. So I'm going to make a real effort to blog much more often, starting right now.

I'm all moved in, and I like my room. It's way smaller than last year's, but it's a double instead of a triple, and it's definitely bigger than my room freshman year. I'm rooming with Jamie again, and we've pretty much got things sorted out. There are just a few little housekeeping things left, like flattening out my awesome Half-Blood Prince poster (which I got in Chicago at HP: The Exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry!!) so it will actually stay on the wall.

I just got back from the first Certified Peer Educators (CPE) meeting of the year, and it looks like I'm in for a great six weeks and everyone else is in for a great semester. It was so nice to see more friends after so long, but I really missed Jayla, who is in Australia right now!! :(

The Braves beat the Marlins and they've actually overtaken them in the standings, so that's awesome!! Have a great Sunday night. :)

Reactions to Half-Blood Prince (Spoilers!! Spoilers!! Spoilers!!)

2009-07-15T20:46:00.005-04:00

Well, I saw it!! Last night at 11:59 P.M. (Why not just actually make it midnight?? It makes no sense.) I guess on the whole I was really impressed, but there were a couple of big things that really, really bothered me. So here are my thoughts...

(Spoilers!!)

(SPOILERS!!)

(Beyond here there be SPOILERS!!)

*The very first thing, the little bit of Harry and Dumbledore at the Ministry at the end of OotP, was very odd. At first I thought it was going to be a dream. It seemed a little random and unnecessary, and it was weird that it was before the movie title came up, but it wasn't a big deal.

*We'd heard all this talk about Harry flirting with a waitress, and I was a little unsure how that was going to come off, but it was cute and amusing. I really feel the movies are lacking without the Dursleys, but it still made for a pretty good opening.

*Slughorn was brilliant. I had no doubts about Jim Broadbent at all, as he's one of my favorite actors because of Moulin Rouge and Narnia. He didn't look exactly like I wanted him to, but McGonagall in the movies hasn't ever looked quite like the McGonagall in my head, and I wouldn't want anyone other than Maggie Smith in the role.

*I really liked the first Burrow scene. The shot of Ginny sitting in her window was really sweet. It would have been fun to see them getting their O.W.L. scores, since I'm sure Emma was just like Hermione with her A-Levels, but it does make sense that they cut that out.

*The Unbreakable Vow was good as a movie scene. The blatant turning-inside-out of the canon rankled a little, but Helena Bonham Carter was really creepy and kind of funny. I thought Narcissa acted well, but I couldn't get over the Cruella DeVil hair.

*Weasley's Wizard Wheezes was perfect!! That was probably the thing I was looking forward to the most. I just wish it could have lasted a little longer, and I wish they didn't make the twins always speak in unison, but I'm greedy. ;)

*It was clever how they changed the Borgin and Burke's thing to an initiation. I didn't mind that at all. But having the Trio climb up on the roof?? Seriously, THEY'RE WIZARDS. And they'd just come from WWW...why couldn't they have resurrected the Extendable Ears?? Those couldn't have cost the CGI folks too terribly to produce.

*The train scene was pretty good. Luna was great as always, and I thought it did a great job of establishing how frustrated Harry was getting with Ron and Hermione and vice-versa. My friend Carie and I almost died laughing when Malfoy was talking about how Hogwarts was getting so bad...it was totally, totally crying out for a "Pigfarts" reference!! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, please, please, PLEASE go watch "A Very Potter Musical" by StarKidPotter on YouTube!!) Draco stomping on Harry was just exactly like I was hoping it would be. I'll say right now that Tom Felton was absolutely brilliant throughout the entire film. Of course I didn't expect anything else, but even so, I was totally blown away!! I would have liked to have Tonks find Harry, since I just love Tonks, but I didn't mind that it was Luna. And I'm really glad that they didn't make her Spectrespecs able to see through the Invisibility Cloak, because that would have just been blatantly wrong. Maybe Wrackspurts do exist!!

*I loved that Hermione was freaking out over Harry and Ron just cared about the food. Dumbledore's comments to the whole school about Tom Riddle were a little off canon, since very few people know Voldemort's real name, but I'll let it slide.

*I really love that Professor McGonagall got some comedic lines!! That's rare even in the books. I really, really loved the comedy throughout the entire movie. The romantic, flirting, cat-and-mouse stuff was really fun, as well as just the friends kidding around with each other, and I thought Lavender was perfect. I think they struck a really good balance between the humor and the dark stuff in this film, which OotP lacked somewhat. Most people, including me, don't often think of the books as having comedy in them, but there really are so many little out-and-out hilarious moments.

*Potions class was pretty close to perfect. I loved Harry and Ron fighting over the books in the cupboard. I thought this was funny about myself: For some reason, probably because the actually HBP book is purple and green, I was expecting the copies of Advanced Potion Making to be purple and green too!!

*Quidditch was great, although it was a little random that Ginny was helping Harry with try-outs. MacLaggen was hilarious, and I'm so glad Rupert finally got a chance to do some real showing off!! I so wish they would put more Quidditch in the movies, because it's so much fun, but I understand why they don't.

*I really liked the scene where Harry was comforting Hermione and Ron and Lavender burst in. It was a bit different from the book, but I really, really liked it. And I'm sure Frak was happy that they put in the "Oppugno!" I remember him going on and on about that.

*The scene with Katie and the necklace was really good. Really freaky too.

*I thought the Pensieve scenes came off really, really well (although you can't actually pick up memories!!). Michael Gambon really had some shining moments in this one, which is more than you can say about the previous three. And both young Riddle and teenage Riddle were really, really good.

*The Slug Club scenes were great too, except for Neville. Poor Neville, who had maybe two lines in the whole film!! That really, really ticked me off. For one, movie audiences wouldn't have clue why Slughorn thought Neville was important enough to be at the dinner, and then having him be a waiter at the Christmas party just made me really mad. I know that the movies are specifically from Harry's POV, but I think including Neville's backstory makes our understanding of Harry's trials and his destiny so much richer. I'm really looking forward to Neville at the end of DH, of course, and I honestly don't think they'll screw that moment up, but I was really hoping to see Neville grow into his BA-ness. The rest of the Christmas party scene was really hilarious, though.

*Lupin and Harry's conversation at the Burrow was good. I really wish the movies had done more to develop Lupin's character, and also David Thewlis has just never quite fit the role for me, but that scene came off well. I really could have done without the attack on the Burrow. I actually had high hopes for that scene even though it wasn't in the book, but it was just random and patchy and didn't really accomplish anything. It occurred to me later...was there any mention anywhere of Greyback being a werewolf, or were you just supposed to pick that up?? When he started chasing Ginny all the fans gasped, because we knew what he was, but I'm not sure people who have only seen the movies would get that.

*Ron and the love potion was beyond hilarious. "Harry, I'm in love with her!" "Okay, you're in love with her. Have you ever actually met her?" "No...Can you introduce me?" So great!! And the poisoning was good too, although the bezoar probably wouldn't have made sense if you hadn't read the books. The hospital scene was really good as well. More cat fighting done well.

*Sectumsempra...Oh. My. Gosh. Incredible. I wish Snape had forced Harry to give him his book, though, because that would have been an important underscoring of its significance. For a movie called Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, they really spent way too little time on figuring out who the Half-Blood Prince was.

*And then...the Room of Requirement scene. Minor complaint first: I wish they'd put the diadem in, because that's such a great surprise in DH. Major complaint: IT WAS SOOOOOO CHEESY!!! Oh my gosh, Ginny said her first line in that scene, and I went, "Did George Lucas write this dialogue?!?" It was terrible. It was awkward and cringe-worthy and I was so disappointed. I loved the way Harry and Ginny's kiss was in the book, and I'd heard Bonnie say in an interview that this kiss was different and softer and more private, and I was okay with that. But I was not okay at how it turned out. Fail, Steve Kloves, FAIL. And you know what?? I don't think they ever mentioned Ginny and Dean breaking up, so I suppose Ginny was being a player. But that's minor compared to the epic fail kiss.

*Felix Felicis was awesome. "Harry on drugs," as Emma referred to him at the press junket in New York, was sooooooo funny. I love Dan so much. Aragog's suddenly needing a funeral was a little random, but c'est la vie. (C'est la morte?? Lol.) I thought what Slughorn said about Lily and the fish and then what Harry said in return were really beautiful.

*Horcrux hunting: Apparating to the rock was really neat. And the set inside the cave was really cool...I hadn't pictured the rocks all crystal-y, but I liked that. The coloring was so completely two-tone, though, that it suddenly seemed like a black-and-white movie. I really would have liked the horcrux to be emitting green light, because it would have been easier on my eyes and of course the green would have been symbolic. It would have been better if Harry had seen the hand in the water and they'd had the conversation about Inferi while they were crossing in the boat, because it would have made much more sense for Harry to try to get water from a charm rather than the lake at first, and it would have been much more suspenseful while he was reaching toward the lake. And the Inferi were not as truly creepy as I was expecting. They were too much like Gollum and not enough like faceless, soul-less zombies. And we'll ignore the fact that Harry would have been dead if he'd gone under the water.

*Why did we not see the Dark Mark before Harry and Dumbledore arrived back at Hogwarts?? How on earth did Dumbledore know that he and Harry were in danger?? And if he had known the Death Eaters were coming before they went horcrux hunting, he wouldn't have left the school at all. Malfoy and Dumbledore's conversation was brilliant. Really, really, really brilliant. But without a battle raging downstairs, and without Harry being invisible and immobilized, it was like, "Harry, you're an idiot, run and get some help!!" I was really, really disappointed in Dumbledore's death and the subsequent chase after Snape. I really didn't feel affected at all. I think it lost about 90% of the emotional impact without the battle raging downstairs and knowing the sense that they had lost their greatest ally while they were all fighting for their lives. Bellatrix destroying the Great Hall without anyone trying to stop her felt really annoying and pointless. Snape's revelation that he was the Half-Blood Prince didn't really have any gravity to it because so little was mentioned about the HBP throughout the film. The wand salute that wiped out the Dark Mark was really powerful, however.

*I really didn't like that there wasn't a funeral scene for Dumbledore, even though we've known for a very long time that it wasn't going to be included. That scene might have induced some emotion into Dumbledore's death for me. It also feels like Harry's relationship with Ginny is just a loose end without him breaking it off with her. It won't make any sense when we get to DH. I liked Harry and Hermione's conversation at the end, but it felt really, really wrong that Ron was just sitting there and not saying anything. Poor Ron gets overlooked again. However, I loved the last shot. Ending on the image of the phoenix was really poignant and beautiful.

*A couple of final film-y things: There were some really awesome transition shots of the castle. I especially loved the one that panned from Ron and Lavender making out in the window to Draco standing on the balcony and staring out into the snow. I really disliked most of the coloring in this film, however. Everything, everything, except maybe Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and Quidditch, seemed SO washed out. I can see doing that for effect in the Muggle world, but the Wizarding world should be so rich and bright and saturated. Hogwarts might be dimly lit, since they don't use electricity, but it should still be full of color.

So those are my thoughts. I know, I'm picky and long-winded and I have trouble separating the book from the movie. But frankly, if you're going to do something, do it right. There were high points and low points, and the title "Madeline's Favorite HP Movie" is currently up in the air. I'm seeing it again with my dad this weekend, so we'll see what I think then. I'd love to know what you thought of it!!

Happy Independence Day!! :)

2009-07-04T12:27:00.002-04:00

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!! I love this holiday; it's probably my favorite one after Christmas. I'm so blessed to be an American and to have the freedom to watch people do ridiculous things, like the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, which is about to kick off on ESPN. It's become something of a Fourth of July tradition for my dad and me to watch it together. I'm not sure why, other than that it's hilarious.

I hope everyone gets a chance to get out and see some fireworks tonight. I usually go to the local symphony's outdoor concert, which is followed by an awesome fireworks show, but tonight I'll be hanging out with my friend Maddy at her house. She just had surgery and her face is really swollen at the moment, and I don't blame her for not wanting to go anywhere right now. I love fireworks a lot, but I love my Maddy more. :)

That's pretty much all I've got for today, other than this awesome little tidbit, which was tweeted earlier by Cheryl Klein (@chavelaque): "Set your clocks: At 5 minutes and 6 seconds after 4:00 on the 8th of July, the time and date will be 04:05:06 07/08/09." How cool is that?!?

Harry Potter is secure in the future...

2009-06-20T14:01:00.005-04:00

Geesh -- I really can't believe it's been four weeks since I was at LeakyCon. (Yes, LC is still my most talked-about and thought-about topic, lol.) The depression aspect of it is slowly drifting away, as I knew it would, and it really helps that we've got LeakyCon 2011 to look forward to. I'm saving up already. :)

Another thing that helps is seeing conclusive proof that the Harry Potter phenomenon will carry on just as strongly in future generations. I'm currently in Black Mountain, North Carolina, where I'll be attending a worship and music conference next week, but for now I'm a guest at my pseudo-family's family reunion. One of the little ones, Grady (age two), is completely obsessed with Harry Potter!! He spent all day yesterday asking to watch a Harry Potter movie, and he finally got to watch Sorcerer's Stone after dinner. He sat on the couch and stared at the computer with the DVD case clutched in one hand and the Hagrid action figure he inherited from his cousin in the other. He loves the Sorting Hat scene (video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YbKPFhbp6I&feature=channel_page). His mom said they were listening to HBP in the car on the way here, and he's too young to really pay attention to the story, but when he hears a name he knows, he perks up and repeats it. ("Harry Potter!" "Sirius Black!") Nothing makes me happier than knowing children are going to grow up reading and loving books in general, and HP in particular!!

The Weapon We Have Is Love: LeakyCon 2009

2009-06-03T00:14:00.006-04:00

I heard "The Weapon" by Harry and the Potters tonight, for at least the third time since I've been home, but this was the first time it brought tears to my eyes. That's how I knew it was time for this post. It's rare that I have to sit and process something for a long time. Usually something important happens and I instantly have words scrolling through my brain, preparing for the first moment I have to sit down and write about it. So why has it taken me a week and a half to be able to write about LeakyCon 2009??

The simple answer: Those four days were without a doubt the most wonderful, amazing, incredible, spectacular, moving, emotional, completely joyous days of my entire life, and I don't think anyone could possibly process all of that in a shorter amount of time. For the record, all of those adjectives were completely inadequate. I'm advocating that "LeakyCon" becomes its own adjective, although I don't think it could ever be properly used again until 2011.

In case you don't know, LeakyCon 2009 was (geesh, I hate that past tense!!) a fan conference put together by the brilliant folks at The Leaky Cauldron, the best source for Harry Potter news anywhere (http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org). If you want to hear every tiny little detail about the conference, I would be thrilled to tell you all about it in person, or the Internet equivalent. (I'm sure that offer surprises no one...) Here, though, I'm just going to attempt to sum things up as best I can.

There's nothing more awesome to me than people who are so committed to what they love that they're willing to gather a lot puzzled looks from strangers in order to express their love. For example, teenagers walking down the sidewalk in broad daylight, dressed as Draco and Bellatrix, or middle-aged women enjoying a coffee at Au Bon Pain (how do you say that again??) wearing beautiful, elaborate, hand-made robes and witch hats. Plenty of other people wore sweaters and House ties, or wizard rock T-shirts, or whatever they happened to pull out of their suitcase that morning. Whatever you wore was perfectly acceptable.

But of course, pretty much everything was perfectly acceptable, because Harry Potter fans are the most accepting community I've ever been a part of. Every single person was clearly important to everyone else, no matter their age, nationality, mental or physical ability, or understanding of the fandom...and the attendees truly ran the gamut in all of those categories. Nothing was embarrassing there; everyone was cool...the Nerdfighters, the super-geeks (like the kid who carried a lightsaber all weekend!!), the fanfiction writers (which, yes, I am one, in case you didn't already know), the gamers, and of course, the people who make their living touring the country and singing songs about Harry Potter. The only negative comments I heard all weekend were directed at Laura Mallory and Warner Brothers ("Alan Horn is a Slytherin!!" Yes, Sue, yes!!). People were even civil when Twilight was brought up, to my surprise and appreciation.

Everywhere I went, I looked around and was reminded that all this glorious craziness was started by one woman and one book. From the incredible abundance of authors who were willing to answer any question with advice and encouragement to the freaking sweet drumset painted with the mantra "Fight Evil, Read Books!", I couldn't help thanking God for Jo Rowling every five minutes. There was absolutely no way she could have known, nineteen years ago, how her simple idea would change the world, and we have no idea now where it will take us in the future. The general public thought all the hype would die down after Deathly Hallows was published; no one has ever been more wrong. There's more to talk about now than ever, as evidenced by some of the programs listed in my conference book: "Fawkes as a Symbol of Faith and Resurrection;" "Demonization of Wealth, Power, and Prestige in the Wizarding World;" "The Impact of Fathers in Harry Potter;" "Still Conjuring Herself: Further Thoughts on Hermione's Self-Determination in Harry Potter." There was a seminar on Jewish values and ethics, a comparison of the Wizarding world to the American Deaf community, a comparison of Wizarding and UK laws, and a discussion about being an adult fan of a children's series. There were workshops for fan art, wand and costume making, improv, and starting a wrock (wizard rock) band. There were several live podcasts, an original musical, panels with successful authors, a screening of We Are Wizards, and of course, a whole slew of programming provided by the awe-inspiring Harry Potter Alliance, which has put the values espoused in the books into practice in the real world through their work in Darfur, Rwanda, censorship in the media, environmental issues, and countless local communities. (I'm in the beginning stages of getting a chapter started at B-W.)

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the whole experience was getting to meet so many of the awesome people who have become the leaders of the fandom -- most of whom never intended to lead anything at all. They were just regular fans who were blessed with brains, talent, and a whole lot of luck. It's a really odd thing, in a lot of ways, to be a fan of the PotterCasters and the Leaky staff and the VlogBrothers and the wrockers. It's like being a fan of a fan. But all of those people worked so hard to put LeakyCon together for the rest of us, and they are truly normal (well as "normal" as a Potter fan can be!!) people who are willing to shake hands and take pictures and sign autographs for hundreds of people. And the greatest thing is that they're all friends. They created an evironment of love and friendship that was contaigious. They all want each other to succeed, even to the point of plugging each other's merchandise, sharing instruments, and playing another hour-long set to help out a band that only actually has one person in it, despite a plural name.

It's only been nine days since I left Boston, but it feels like a year. As someone said on YouTube or something recently (I think it might have been Addie from Room 3428, but I might be way wrong...), it kind of seems like LeakyCon was something I dreamed. At the same time, though, it feels like it all happened yesterday, because so many moments from that weekend are indelibly etched in my brain and my heart. It's very hard to explain (and understand)...I guess you kind of had to experience it.

At the end of the ball on Saturday night (or rather, early Sunday morning), Paul DeGeorge of Harry and the Potters said, "This has been one of the best weekends in the history of humanity," and he was so right. I can't think of another experience I've had that was more focused on love and making the world a better place. At the close of his little speech, I figured Paul was going to put on "The Weapon," the unofficial anthem of the Harry Potter community. Before he had the chance, however, 750 people spontaneously burst into the song a cappella. We sang the whole thing, and it was completely indescribable. I realized later that the only reason tears hadn't been streaming down my face was that every last smidge of energy in my body was occupied with jumping up and down and singing at the top of my lungs. The words of the chorus have never felt truer than they did that night:

"There's one thing that I've got
One thing that you've got inside you too
One thing that we've got
And the one thing we've got is enough
To save us all...
The weapon we have is love"

I can't wait for LeakyCon 2011!!

Two other songs that capture the fandom pretty darn well:
"This Is Never Gonna End" by The Parselmouths (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEKgEnq_qYM)
"For Jo" by RiddleTM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unms0DvGg_Q)

Looking for some pointers on how to stop time...

2009-04-30T16:01:00.002-04:00

*Sigh*...I can't believe how fast this semester has gone!! I'm really trying not to go into freakout mode here, but I don't know how long I'll be able to hold it off. Tomorrow is the last day of classes, and then I have exams through Thursday, and then that's it. I'm halfway finished with college, which is a darn scary thought in and of itself. The main issue, though, is leaving B-W for three months. This is the first time I haven't been counting down the days till I get back home. These past ten weeks or so have been the best ever, and I don't want to leave everyone!!

Don't get me wrong, there are very good things about summer, mainly having "the family" back together again. There's LeakyCon and Montreat and Half Blood Prince, and it will be great to church every Sunday for a while. Plus I never have to sit through another waste-of-my-time Nutrition for Athletes class ever again.

It's just all crashing down on me at once, though. I can't believe Jennette and Snicholas are graduating, although at least Snick will be around here next year. I'm really, really not so good at this "change" thing...and that's one thing that never changes, lol.

Anywho, As You Like It was incredible!! I had so much fun. :) Thank God for Becky needling me and needling me to do crew. And our production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona is tomorrow afternoon, and we're doing at least some scenes from it again on Saturday at Ovation...it's going to be very interesting, to say the least. Tonight is The Price Is Right, which is a major highlight of every year, of course...hopefully I'll be able to see a lot of cool people there, since the theater picnic got cancelled due to the darn rain and for some reason we can't have a picnic inside...?? Whatever.

*Not freaking out, not freaking out, not freaking out!!* AHHHHHHHHH!!!

The calm before the storm, so to speak

2009-04-19T14:16:00.003-04:00

It's lucky I've got a free moment. Becky laughed at the lack of blank space on my calendar for this week. I find her laughing rather amusing, since she's the one who was bugging me to work on the show in the first place!! I'm light board op for As You Like It, which opens this Wednesday night. We had tech all day yesterday, and fortunately we got enough done that I'm not sitting over in the theater right now. I don't have to be there till 6 tonight for first dress. It's lots of fun, though, and Becky and Snicholas are great SMs who are totally on my side. ;)

Other than AYLI, I've just been crazy busy with school work and such. I've hardly gotten to watch any baseball, although I'm watching the Braves and Pirates right now on MLB.TV. (It's so nice of them to let me watch this game, since I'm paying to watch whatever games I want...geez!!) The Braves are up 3-0 in the third, which is a good sign, since we've lost several in a row. But Chipper's back in the lineup, so that should give us a boost. And MAJOR congratulations are in order to the Indians, who have made spectacular contributions to the Yankees' epic fail season so far!! They've won the first two games in the new Yankee stadium, including a spectacular 22-4 steam-rolling yesterday. Keep it up, everyone!! WOOT!!

Hopefully everyone has seen the incredible new trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. (If not, you can see it here: http://video.the-leaky-cauldron.org/video/1155) We got word this week that WB has change the release date AGAIN, from July 17 to July 15...I suppose that's better than delaying it again, but it still annoys me. I know Warner Brothers is a business, but I still somehow expect them to have a little bit of respect for the fans that bring in sooooooo much money for them. I'm sure we'll get it worked out somehow, but I'm just worried that people will have a lot more trouble going to a midnight showing on a Wednesday than on a Friday. And this will change the dynamic of the 3 A.M. LeakyMug broadcast from Azkatraz, but I know it will still be awesome.

Well, to the one person who's probably reading this, have a good week (or two, or whatever...no idea when I'll be on here again.) DFTBA!! ("Don't Forget To Be Awesome," for those who aren't up on their Nerdfighter lingo.)

How long till LeakyCon??

2009-04-05T12:40:00.000-04:00

Get this countdown and all LeakyCon information at LeakyCon.com

End of a loooooong week

2009-04-03T21:06:00.002-04:00

Well, this has been just about the longest week ever. Phish (aka my sister) was here on Monday, just to hang out and go to classes with me, and we had a blast!! She was such a trouper, crutches and air cast and all. We finally got our Acting Shakespeare scene re-blocked on Monday too, even though we were missing our trusty Crab. :( But the rest of week was pretty insane, with a diet analysis and a character analysis and an important email to my high school board of education and superintendent to write.

But now I can relax, at least for a while...Pat was my hero and cut the music for Shakespeare (the Outlaws in The Two Gentlemen of Verona are rocking out to "Dancing Queen"), and now he and Jamie and I are watching Accepted, the best college movie ever. Then we have Becky's birthday party tonight, Red Beard and other sweet bands at the SAC tomorrow, and Katy's show, Free Will and Wanton Lust, on Sunday. So it's going to be a pretty darn crazy weekend, but hopefully I'll get a ton of work done too.

"People would never believe the life I live..."

2009-03-24T09:36:00.001-04:00

"People would never believe the life I live" has jokingly become my mantra this year, thanks in large part to one of my lovely roommates, Jamie, and her boyfriend, Pat. I feel I have to start out with this, since they are currently having some sort of strange tickle fight involving sitting on each other's feet and holes in socks and I don't know what all. They generally provide 60% of the amusement in my life, and I always threaten that they're going to end up in my novel someday.

But anyway, it's thanks largely to them and all my other friends that I have ridiculous adventures to write about...which I'm not sure other people would believe if I didn't explain them thoroughly. And one of my main reasons for starting this blog is that in approximately six and a half months, I'm going to embark on my coolest adventure to date: ten weeks studying in Ecuador!! Study abroad blogs seem to be the thing to do these days, so I might as well do one too...but I figured I'd better get into the habit now.

I actually have no idea how often I'll be able to post for a while, since school keeps me pretty darn busy, but I'll do my best. I'm sure my posting frequency will have a direct correlation to how badly I'm trying to procrastinate my papers...lol. (I should probably doing some kind of work right now, but I get to see two wonderful old friends in a few hours whom I haven't seen in over a year, so my brain is in no condition to work!!)

We had our first official meeting about Ecuador today, and I was sitting there thinking, "I can't believe I'm actually going to be doing all these things!!" We leave October 2, 2009, and fly into Guyaquil. From there we travel to Cuenca, the third largest city, and meet the families with whom we're going to be staying whenever we're not off climbing mountains or swimming in the Amazon or whatever. We're going to visit the Intag cloud forest, the Amazonian rainforest, the Incan ruins at Ingapirca, travel down el avenida de los volcanes (the avenue of the volcanoes -- I'll do my best to translate everything, but I have this habit of breaking into Spanish without realizing it!!), and best of all, spend a week in the Galapagos Islands!! When we are in Cuenca (for a few weeks at a time), we'll be taking classes at a language institute. Hopefully we can get it worked out so the other Spanish majors and I can take appropriate levels, because most students on the trip will get credits for SPN-110 or -210 (here at B-W), and we're taking -310 this semester.

The only thing I'm really not excited about: shots. I HATE shots, and I'll have to get four or seven of them, depending on whether or not the pre-exposure rabies vaccine becomes available before we leave. (There's apparently a shortage of it in the US right now, but it may become available this summer.) I'll also need an oral vaccine (pills) for typhoid, and I'll have to take a weekly pill for malaria before, during, and after the time we're in the Amazon basin. But I suppose I can deal. Oh, the rough life of a world traveler...;)