[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
Friday, January 29, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Longest. First. Week. EVER.
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.)
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.)
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
2009 in review & looking forward to 2010, all on no sleep
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!!
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!!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas!!
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:
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!"
Thursday, December 10, 2009
What I've learned in Ecuador
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
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
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Things I'll miss; things I won't
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!!
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!!
Monday, December 7, 2009
Church in Spanish!!
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.
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.
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