2012

New year, new background. Whadd'ya think? The get-computer-file-to-do-what-I-want-credit all goes to my big bro and sis-in-law who are both clever and attractive. Thank you both so much.

Since I ended last year with a list of 2011's highlights I'm posting some for 2012 as well. This was by-and-large the year I moved to Galway. Living in Ireland for 5 months was amazing and uncomparable (comparableless? incomparable? What is the word I'm looking for?) I learned a ton, made great friends, and soaked up so many wonderful memories, while soaking up an overabundance of rain water as well. The rest of the year back here in the states has been full of life and loveliness as well. Here are my 12 highlights of 2012 all haphazardly and in no particular order:

1-- Moving to Galway, everything from the plane-turned-train ride leaving BWI in January, to exploring and getting to know my darling city, to my wonderful visitors, to stepping back into Maryland humidity again in May was intense and bright with travel-details. I will always love the little city of Galway.

2-- 74 St Branden's Ave and the girls I lived with were better than I could have hoped for. Turns out moving overseas to live in a house with complete strangers you've only ever emailed a couple of times can be a perfectly fine idea, no ax-murders for me.

3-- My piccolo trip to Paris, as my first really solo trip it was unbeatable. I was thrilled to met up with Rei and her hubby on their trip from Japan. Not only did I get to see a precious friend, Paris made me feel brave.

4-- Rome, mio first amore. Possibly the only city I love more than Galway. I threw another coin into the Trevi fountain so I'll be sure to return. Then we visited friend's friends in Florence and Turin drinking in even  more great memories and the world's most delicious nutella-and-espresso drink.

5-- Dancing, One of the highlight of being home in Maryland is Mobtown Ballroom. Taking Lindy Hop lessons and going to see the incredible dancers at ILHC were high points of my summer. Now I can even do a successful swing-out without tripping over my own feet . . . most of the time.

6-- Jobs, This year I was also a productive member of society working at Starbucks, Program-Directoring at camp, interning at Manna Inc, and starting my job with Habitat for Humanity Montgomery County. Now I'm even sort-of-kinda-maybe figuring out what I want to do long-er-ish-term for work.

7-- Babies, since I was back in the States I flew out to WI for my old-college-roomie's baby's baptism. Then when I was suppose to fly home Super-Storm-Sandy hit, delaying my flight. Meaning I was able to help take the world's cutest Carpenter, Walrus, and Oyster trick-or-treating. "This!"

8-- Books/Films/Plays. This year I read and saw plenty of awesome books and films. The Fault in Our Stars is most definitely one of my new favorite books. And while I can't quite say I liked it, I'm not sure I would ever see a more emotionally intense movie than As If I Am Not Even There. Plus Cabin in the Woods, Avengers, and Cloud Atlas were kick-butt-good. And I got to see brilliant plays down in DC.

9--Русски - Fall 2012 I took Russian 101 with my lil' bro which was really fun. Did you know the Russian word for brother is brat? That is also fun. (although my little brother is totally not a brat)

10--Grown-up-ish-stuff, I have also spent a good deal of time this year getting rid of stuff I don't need, learning to cook/ feed myself and clean and budget better, and to stay sane as a semi-responsible adult.

11--T.V. Another good amount of my time was spent watching every episode of Downton Abbey, Friends, The West Wing, and How I Met Your Mother.

12-- The Boss in concert in Philly, was another bug highlight of 2012. Bruce Springsteen played for more than four hours straight and was amazing - blew my mind. The concert was incredibly fun. I hope to be just a fractious of that energetic and impressive when I'm in my 60s.

Over the course of this past year I've checked off bucket list items I didn't even have on my imaginary list: spending the night in an Italian train station, getting John Green's signature, taking a freezing-cold-April-dip in the Mediterranean, impressing an Irish lad with my tolerance for whiskey, puking off the side of a boat, finding the world's coolest tree, and watching a movie marathon at an embassy. 2012 has given me plenty of great stories. For this new year, I don't think I'm going to try any new year's resolutions, I'm just hoping to be more brave, adventurous, compassionate, and strong in 2013.

'56 Hungarian Revolution

... the flag with a hole in it

October 23rd is the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian revolution, so today I'm going to indulge my history-major-side. Junior year I did an Oral History project interviewing a man who fought in the 1956 uprising as a 15 years old. Part of why I find the Hungarian revolution so fascinating is I spent a summer with brilliant Hungarians, I adore Budapest, and my grandma's side of the family is Hungarian. But it's also fascinating because they were my age and even younger, because those two and a half weeks were epic, and because it's the type of story you hope will end well --even when you know the ending.

I hope it's more like a story and less like a term-paper,
because these people were amazing

In October 1956 Polish workers went on strike, an incredibly risky thing to do under a strict communist government. This inspired students at the Technological University of Budapest, they organized a simple protest walking along the Danube down to a statue of Bam - a Polish native and Hungarian hero who had fought in the 1848 revolution. The students created a list of 16 demands and as their protest grew and attracted more and more students and then workers and people from all over the city they went to the radio station to broadcast them.

Their demands were first off the removal of all Soviet troops from Hungary. Soviet forces had liberated Budapest and Hungary from Nazi forces at the end of World War Two. While it is a huge relief when someone gets rid of Nazis, it becomes worrisome when they immediately set up their own secret police in the same office building and people continue to disappear to the dungeons and death, with no sign that the troops have any plans on leaving it is not as acceptable.

The student's 16 demands listed free and legitimate elections open to all parties.

For the Love of Funny Alphabets

 This fall I'm taking Russian 101. Just for fun because I enjoy studying languages and have a slight obsession with funny alphabets. To be honest this is probably due to the fact that my real desire when-I-grow-up is to be Mara and overthrow evil-ancient-egyptian-pharaohesses by acting as a-double-spy-translator-bad-ass-chick-who-runs-around-bare-foot. Since these dreams of being an blue-eyed-ancient-egpytian-bi-lingual-secret-rebel will most likely never be a reality, I have to settle for attempting to be bi-lingual . . . or more actually jump at any chance to study a language that has a funny alphabet. Although I am miles away from fluent in anything but English, I very much enjoy my kindergarten-level-of-skill at sounding-letters-out-painfully-slow-to-attempt-to-read-words, because the fact that those foreign squiggles mean anything intelligible to me makes me happy.

Day of the Brave

The United Nations made October 11th international Day of the Girl, which is particularly fitting as the recent attacks on Malala has brought a more attention to the issues she has been writing about and fighting for since she was eleven. Because this girl so-freaking-amazing-awesome that she has been standing up to the taliban since she was barely double-digits-old. I pray and hope she and her classmate fully recover. It is impressive to see how powerful the ideas of this young lady are, that they're seen as a threat to the taliban. Malala is an epic example of what a dis-proportional-positive-effect educating girls provides for their community.

Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani blogger fighting for girls to be able to go to school 

Lessons from Wildflowers

The field at camp = guns, bows and arrows, slingshots, tomahawks, campfire, flag, and games.
This field at night = tons and tons of stars, shooting stars, and the milky way.                                                         Photo Credit: L.A.Birdie

Being on staff at camp you learn a lot. Ten years of staff teaches you a whole-lotta-stuff. I can organize super-exciting games, or wash a few dozen dishes before the soundtrack to Prince of Egypt finishes, and I'm decent with a range of random weapons (though I still suck at tomahawk). With only a few prompts I could sing roughly 2gillion-hours of silly songs for campfires or van rides (to say nothing of the hymns). I've also got a good repertoire of skits involving good morals and/or dog pee. This summer's DaddyAndDaughter camp taught true fatherly love is expressed when wearing a lopsidedly-bedazzled-cowboy-hat. And every summer Mss. Posie/Cheif instills some of her wisdom and staff-isms in us, concepts like: "Hard fun" and "The night is a whole 'nother day" and "John-boy --What a man!"

Here (in no particular order) are some lessons of a summer-camp-staff-girl:

Showers are not entirely necessary. At a certain point you are coated in enough sweat, soot, sap, and dirt that being one with the earth simply ceases to phase you. Around that point you may be serenaded with "Little black things" more often, but right up until you really really smell bad (or rather smell worse than everyone else) showering is not entirely needed. Especially since jumping in a salty/chemically Pool/Ool is a nearly equivalent to bathing, right?  It rinses off poison ivy and leaves you less dirty, that counts for something.

To follow that up though, showering is a wonderful, blessed, exciting, rewarding thing to do every now and then. You never take a hot shower for granted at camp and any shower over 3 minutes is particularly gratitude-worthy. (As is an extra 7 minutes of sleep). Showers are few and far between, and the chance to shave your legs even more so, but that makes it one of the most amazing feelings when you can finally have smooth-non-tarzan-legs for a few days. Everything is more exciting at camp, even the everyday: hot showers, cold drinks, sleep, food, clean clothes, all those rare wonders we happy-dance for at camp. Real life could use a little more of that gratitude and excitement.

Camp is for the campers is practically a motto of staff. We hear and say it all the time as a reminder. It's simple, it's obvious, but it's also important. I've been a part of other ministries where this guiding principle seems to have been forgotten, where those they are suppose to serve were not the top priority, instead of being there for those they were aiming to serve the organization itself took center stage, or the staff, or a concept like "God's will". (And while I fully support God's will being central, you are not running a ministry for it, you are ministering to those who need your ministry.  If you forget that camp is for the camper, or your group is for the students, or your organization for those in need, it never turns out as well as it could.

"God Does Things" is painted above the door in the dinning hall at camp, three words to sum up why the staff subject ourselves to blood-sucking-bugs, nearly no sleep, very few showers, and endless piggy-back-rides when our backs and bodies would honestly just prefer a nap. Because at camp it is so much easier to see God do things. I've seen him do things the rest of the year too, but everything is more intense in the wilderness. Everything gets louder and you have more time to marvel at all that God does. The same God who lead the Israelites on dry land across the Red Sea and keeps campers safe playing in the creek, He provides comfort, healing, strength and courage, sends rain and rainbows. He does things.

happy post with cuteness and a camel

Currently I'm about as happy as this kid with a camel and I don't even have a camel, so imagine how happy I'd be if you gave me a camel.

Pinteresting?

I love the internet. It allows me to chat face-to-face with friends in different time-zones, countries, and on the other side of a significantly sized ocean. Plus wonderful Youtubers to watch and Facebook to keep me updated on friends' big milestones and little first-world-problems. Though there are exceptions: StumbledUpon = never gotten into it, Tumbler = baffles me, and Twitter = only seems logical with a smartphone.  To be fair though I'd most likely get hooked if I spent a bit of time on them. I didn't understand Pinterest before either, it wasn't that I disliked it or anything. I just sincerely did not grasp what it did.  To solve my befuddlement I spent an afternoon poking around on Pinterest. Although I'm still not positive exactly what purpose it serves, and I'm not fully addicted yet, I was indeed won over by this little bit of brilliance that I came upon:

Source: sprwmn.blogspot.com via Megan on Pinterest

My bedroom, bathroom, couch, and anyone-who-lives-with-me-and-is-to-any-degree-opposed-to-bobby-pins-everywhere would very much benefit from this clever idea.

And I suppose the crafty/home improvement ideas and inspiration side of Pinterest is what makes the most sense to me.

big brother's b-day

Happy Birthday to the bestest big brother ever!

He's got brilliant taste in women as well :)

It's my big bro's birthday and since he is super amazing so here are a few reasons why my brother is so cool. Since he's turning 27 (so old!) I've made a list of seven things, they're are in no order besides what I typed them up in:
--> Comic Nights! Wednesdays we have yummy food and new comic books released that week.  It's one to the things I miss about home, because it is so fun.
--> Shakespeare Plays! My senior year in high school we went to see Love Labor's Lost at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC. Since season subscriptions for young-people-who-don't-have-gray-hair are significantly cheaper we get to see lots and lots of plays (and we've even recruited more playgoers now ^_^) Recently  we even managed to skip the whole finish-eating-delicious-food-and-run-through-dc-to-the-theater-minutes-before-the-curtain-raises-thing. Although there was a certain charm to that as well.
--> Star Wars! I could practically recite all of the original (a.k.a. good) Star Wars films since they were to my brothers what LOTR was to me (a.k.a. a slight obsession when young). A foundation of lightsabers, spaceships, and the force is a good nerdy thing to have.
--> Ren Fest! Continuing the nerdy theme, my big brother (as well as most of his marvelous friends) not only go the Renaissance Festival, but also dress in impressive outfits. He owns not one, but two kilts now -cause he's just that cool. (Or perhaps the kilt salesman is just that persuasive)
--> Ireland! Continuing that kilt note, he is so fantastic that he not only invited me, but he also convinced our parents to allow me to fly out to Ireland and meet up with him to travel when I was only 15 and he was 19. It was very very grand. We saw a ton, had lots of fun, and only had one candy-bars-and-pop-from-a-train-station-vending-machine-dinner. Biking around Galway was one of my favorite days (Galway clearly made a great impression on me.)
--> Japan! A few years after Ireland, our little brother Aj joined us as well on a trip to Japan. At the airport and such they would ask if we were meeting our parents there or something, "Nope it's just the three of us" And the three of us had a super great time. Even with the uncanny ability of every landmark to be wrapped in scaffolding before we arrived, we found amazing things like a mountain with monkeys with our "Let's check out the interesting shapes on the map we can't read" strategy of exploring.

--> Europe! After my semester aboard in Rome, he flew out and met up with me in Paris. We had an epic trip stopping in France, Spain, Austria and Italy. Our adventures included lots of jazz clubs, yummy food, great sites, a Euro Cup celebration, and of course a good deal of scaffolding.   

Happy Birthday! I look forward to many more adventures this year! ^_^

2011

2011
I have now had an entire year and I still write two zeros after the 2 when I go to write the year.  Last year this was incorrect, but not a problem cause I could sneak the one in between the zeros and I can no longer do that (haven't been able to for a year, but still haven't learned) so maybe now I'll learn.
In the past year:
1 - I wrote a senior thesis. Theo was a healthy 38.5 page history thesis on the National Korean War Veterans Memorial.(yes i named my paper, don't you name your papers?) We had a love/hate relationship. I was still typing memoiral instead of memorial, even on the last page because my right hand is always that much faster than my left.
2 - I graduated from American University.  There were bagpipes and awful robes and a really old scientist lady left us with the parting wisdom that one day aliens will visit, but we will be dead by then, so we should have children.
3 - Ally Gator turned one.  Granted I did not actually do this, Ally is the one that actually accomplished this, but I was there and there was cake and cuteness to be witnessed and I witnessed it.  Along those same lines of this not actually accomplished by me, Daphne Elizabeth was born. (what a pretty name) she has an abundance of cuteness as well.
4 -  I did KettleBells all year and now I swing a 44 and press a 22. I'm so strong. Not really, but I am stronger than I was last year so that's something.
5 - I was Program Director for the girls' weeks of camp. I didn't sleep much, I worshiped NyQuil (just a little), I conquered the boss-level-sudoku that is the rotation schedule, and I kept most of my staff sane and campers safe.
6 - I was one of the five people in the whole world who was officially allowed to run the camp's zip line.  An honor bestowed mostly based on availability for the training, but that's ok I can tie beautiful P.H.B./ double-figure-eight-on-a-bite-knots. Clip, check, chat, call, clear.
7 - I spent my golden b-day in Chicago.  I love that city. It is super pretty and awesome so I went out there and turned 22 on the 22nd. It was awesome.
8 - Danny and Ning got married.  It was epic.  Lots of fun, beautiful flowers and location and dresses, swords, and awesomeness.
9 - I took a road trip up to TMC with Jamie. It was great and it involved baby goats, wine, dancing, and plenty of Thomas Morons.
10 - There was a lot of swing dance and the opening of Mobtown and it was great. I had my purple-haired friend to go with all fall when everyone else was off at school so that was pretty great.
11 - I worked at Starbucks all year and I had my last day one week ago.  I  very much enjoyed it although I still don't like coffee.  And I've actually never tried a caramel macchiato.
There were important dates/anniversaries like 9-11 and 12-7 as well.  Because things like dates seems more important when they are divisible by 5 or 10. And a whole bunch of revolutions and overthrown dictators which was awesome to see.  I got to see the middle school level posters where Danny works and try my hand at nannying and see an ultrasound of my heart as well, which were also cool points of the past year.