quarter century old

Well, I'm officially 25! Man, I'm old. But as Ari said, I have already suffered my quarter life crisis so I guess that's a good thing. This photo was taken at an awesome Spanish restaurant called Ibesa. Instead of the usual free piece of cake, we got cotton candy in huge silver cups with a sparkler. It was so cool.

Also on the actual night of my birthday, we went to Craft in Dallas. If you haven't heard of it, it's owned my renowned Chef Tom Colicchio, producer of the Bravo show Top Chef. Let me just surmise to say that it was one of the best meals of my life! I got lots of sweet calls and lovely gifts, so thanks to all of you for making my day so special. :)

cutest kids ever

well, i finally found a part-time job to keep me busy for the rest of the summer. i am a substitute counselor at the Houston JCC pre-school day camp. that means i get to see the teeny tiny ones 2 to 4 years olds! while they are adorable, they are also the most energy guzzling things i've ever seen. I only go til 1:30 most of the time and by the time i make it home i am dead to the world and have to take a nap in order to function the rest of the day! this week i spent two days with the "whales." they are mostly 4 year-olds and all it takes is 1 day for me to get attached. here's a cute picture of them i posted today:



from left to right is will, rachel, olivia and sasha.

oh yea, i think my job is the hardest because i don't get just one class. so far i have learned the names and personalities of about 50 campers! but it's all worth it. there is something about children that makes me so happy. :)

I have bangs!

OK so I don't think I've had bangs since I was 7, but I decided to do something drastic and try it again, this time with a more "sweeping to the side look."



Let me know what you all think. ;)

It's official...Spain here I come!

I just booked my flight today and will be departing Houston on Sunday, September 16 at 4:10 PM off to my new adventure! I am so pumped. I also spoke to two different people who work for Instituto Hemingway and they answered all of my silly American questions. In case you are wondering exactly where I will be in Spain, it is in the northern region and the city is Bilbao. Here is a map to get a better idea.



Anyway, as soon as I get ther I will begin taking my Spanish lessons because school starts Oct. 1 and I will have to know enough Spanish to teach English to my students. I will have internet at Instituto Hemingway so make sure to email me and stop by my blog as often as possible because I will be posting things. I also plan to get back into some of my photography so hopefully I will post some nifty shots too. Now I have to get busy preparing. I have to get a student visa, which is a very long process and figure out exactly what to pack!

Here is a photo of the famous Guggenheim museum designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. Many people from around the world travel here to see it.



Isn't it gorgeous? If you want to know more about my city, you can visit this link. I have to decide where else I want to travel while I'm there. Definitely Barcelona, Madrid, Seville and Southern France since I'm right below them. So much to do!

Cincy 2007

I just got back from a lovely week in Cincinnati with my Grams who turned 83 on June 16th. This photo is from Rookwood Pottery, a famous restaurant in Mt. Adams on her birthday. She let me treat her to lunch. Isn't she beautiful?

pretty day at Surfside

I went to the beach last Sunday with the padres and I got really burnt. :/ But at least I got a pretty picture. It's sort of one of those cliche ones, but I liked it.

New Favorite Quote

I was on Facebook looking at one of my girlfriend's profile pages where you can list your favorite quotes. Hers really got to me and it's a great mantra in a time of confusion or doubt:

"One day you are going to wake up and realize you truly love her and when that day comes, she'll be waking up next to the guy that already knew."

Love it! And on a lighter note, I came across a new artist and song I love. It's more playful and upbeat, but man I really feel her...

Artist: MoZella
Album: I Will
Year: 2006
Title: Amnesia

Help me cause I’m falling and I just can't see you
You came along and took a hold of me.
You gave me sugar-coated valentines
Promises that you were mine.
Tying up my line. Talking dirty to me.
And all I need I thought I found.
You only let me down you went sleeping around. around.
I wanna go back to the day before I met ya.
Things would be better
If I could forget ya.
Somebody give me something strong so I can release ya.
A double shot of amnesia
Life could be sweeter (for me).
Everyone was saying what are you doing playin
With her heart when you don't care.
She’s much to young to string along put her back where she belongs. \
Why you doing her wrong. its just not fair.
And all I need is piece of mind
I wanna put it behind
Quit wastin my time. My time.
I wanna go back to the day before I met ya.
Things would be better
if I could forget ya.
Somebody give me something strong so I can release ya.
A double shot of amnesia
life could be sweeter. (for me)
Yea you only let me down.
How you turn a girl around.
And now I need some piece of mind.
I want to put this behind.
Stop wastin all my time.
I want to go back to the day before I met ya.
Things could be better
if I could forget ya.
Somebody give me something strong so I can release ya.
A double shot of amnesia.
Life could be sweeter. (for me).
I wanna go back to the day before I met ya.
Things would be better if I could forget ya.
Somebody give me something strong so I can release ya.
A double shot of amnesia.
Life could be sweeter. (for me)

I'M GOING TO SPAIN!!

At least I'm pretty sure I am. ;) I started researching yesterday on some ways I could make money while I travel. I came across this pretty cool web site called Instituto Hemingway as I was looking into Spain being a potential country. Here is the address in case you want to take a look: http://www.institutohemingway.com/index.htm.

Anyway, I noticed that you don't have to be a college student to still take a Spanish course over there and you can actually get paid at the same time for teaching English! I began emailing with this cool guy, Jose, and he made up a package deal for me to take a 13-week Spanish course, set me up in an apartment that will be a 6-month lease with other female students my age and an orientation on how to teach English. It came out to be pretty cheap so that was pretty cool.

The town I will be living in is called Bilbao and it's on the northwest corner of the country. http://www.institutohemingway.com/bilbao.htm. I spoke to my dad's best friend's wife who is a Spanish professor and who has lived off and on in Spain including Bilbao and she said I will love it so much I won't want to go home! She said it's beautiful, in the mountains but surrounded by beaches. It's the safest city she's ever been in. She said I could walk alone at night and feel perfectly safe. It's a pedestrian city so I can walk everywhere and there are three main forms of transportation that you can use one pre-paid card for and all the trips are cheap. France is close nearby, so I can just take a bus over there if I want.

Here is why I think this is meant to be:
As I was sorting through some desk papers during my move, I came across a letter I was assigned to write to myself when I started college. It was a letter full of my goals and dreams and in it, I had already decided that I was going to minor in Spanish and go to Spain to immerse myself in the language to become fluent. It's interesting because my parents went on a trip to Spain about two years ago and absolutely loved it. They were actually surprised they liked it so much. Anyway, through their photos and stories, I once again felt this strong urge to get there. And I had totally forgotten that it was my original destination city until I found that letter.

Also, I have always wanted to become fluent in Spanish. This is my chance. I missed out in college studying abroad because I, eh hem, wanted to stay for a boy. So this is actually my second chance with nothing standing in my way.

My other thing is...for the first time, maybe ever in my life, this decision that I don't know much about feels so right. The notion of it just clicks and seems like I was meant to do this since the day I was born. I can't really describe it better than that, but I know this is what I'm supposed to do. I can already see myself there, speaking Spanish, meeting awesome new people, exploring this enchanted and exotic country as well as other nearby countries and really finding something about myself I never knew I would find.

Anyway, that my big news. I am sending in my application tomorrow (but they have already accepted me) and my plan is to leave September 1 and (maybe if i'm ready) come back March 1.

What about grad school you ask? Well, I'm still going to prepare for that but after having a long talk with my dad, we decided I should wait and see if I don't find a different direction with my life while I'm over there...or at least decide on a different topic to study in grad school. So I am still going to take the GRE, research on schools, get rec letters and transcripts set up and then just take it all with me and send applications from there if I decide to still do it at that time in my life.

I am very, very excited about this whole new adventure. I haven't felt this happy or optimistic in a long time. :)

music is also theraputic

I am loving so many songs right now but one in particular really stands out to me and unless you saw the movie Elizabethtown, you probably haven't heard it. It's by Tom Petty and it's called "Square One." Below are the lyrics, but I highly recommend people download this song off of itunes or get the Elizabethtown soundtrack. It's an awesome album.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Had to find some higher ground
Had some fear to get around
You can't say what you don't know
Later on won’t work no more
Last time through I hid my tracks
So well I could not get back
Yeah my way was hard to find
Can't sell your soul for peace of mind

Square one, my slate is clear
Rest your head and me my dear
It took a world of trouble, it took a world of tears
It took a long time to get back here

Try so hard to stand alone
Struggle to see past my nose
Always had more dogs than bones
I could never wear those clothes
It's a dark victory
You won and you also lost
Told her you were satisfied
But it never came across

Square one, my slate is clear
Rest your head on me my dear
It took a world of trouble, it took a world of tears
It took a long time to get back here x3

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my favorite line was "you won and you also lost." there is so much to that simple sentence that i really believe is true for both parties when a relationship ends.

reading is theraputic

as we all become very busy people in our day-to-day routines, most people sacrifice certain joys in order to get it all done. one of my sacrifices was not reading the books i had been wanting to read. i usually saved any reading time i had for newspapers/online news sites so i could keep up to date with my current events since it was part of my job to always be "in the know."

since I have become unemployed, one of the first things i told myself was that i was going to do lots of reading. my friend diana came to visit me in houston very soon after my world turned upside down and she had a laundry basket full of things for me. Most of that included books she thought might help me as well as her entire set of Friends episodes to cheer me up.

In the past month and a half I have read about three books, all three of which have helped me gain perspective and feel so much better. The first book is "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. This book was excellent. I had been wanting to read it for some time after my brother, Andy, told me it was his favorite book. It's basically all about soul-searching and a little boy's strength and willpower to survive in the most impossible conditions. The ending has quite a twist to it, but I decided regardless of the ending, it's still about the same thing and in the end about having faith in yourself.

The next book i read was one that diana got for me and told me to read immediately if not sooner. It's called "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's nonfiction but so attention-getting the entire time. It's a true account of a journalist's own soul-searching who travels to three different countries within the span of a year and in each country she focuses on three subjects she wants to explore and improve upon. She first travels to Italy where she explores pleasure, which involved a whole bunch of eating as well as learning and practicing the Italian language. The second country is India, where she learns how to pray, meditate and get in touch with her spirituality. Finally, she goes to Indonesia where she learns to balance the pleasure with spirituality. Her account of each place and the people she meets and gets close to make you feel like you are there and talking to them too. She is so easy to relate to, funny and revealing of her deepest thoughts. This is one of my favorite books of all time. I think a lot of it had to do with how much I needed to hear her story right now since she did all of this after two relationships failed and she was lost.

Finally, and I read this in one day, was a book called "How to Survive the Loss of a Love" by Harold H. Bloomingfield, M.D., Melba Colgrove, PhD and Peter McWilliams. This was another book Diana gave to me and it is meant to be one of those books that drag you out of your depths and make you realize above all else (and what is a mantra throughout the book) "you are alive. you will survive." It's not so much a book but a set of instructions and points to remember while you are at your worst. It gives you hope and reminds you that you are a wonderful and amazing person. That loss is just a part of life and above all, you are a better person for loving someone regardless of the outcome. It also focuses on the importance of letting yourself heal. It greatly advises to take as much time off from your daily life as possible and really go through your thoughts and feelings and no matter how painful they are, accept them and work with them. Avoiding them and staying too busy will only make it worse and you might be back to square one years down the line. Good thing I did all that before I got around to reading this book! This was one of my favorite passages:

"There is beauty in sadness. There is a certain beauty in sadness (and here we mean genuine sadness, not self-pity). We cannot elaborate upon this further (not even the corn-fed poet in our midst dares do that), but we thought it was worth mentioning. If you are enjoying the beauty of being sad, it's perfectly all right."

task for the week accomplished

When I got back from San Fran, I had one goal in mind. (In my state, you kind of have to take baby steps and be proud of them.) I registered to take the GRE – the required test you have to take before applying to any graduate or professional school.

I've never been good at taking any sort of standardized test. I can make straight A's but I can also miserably perform on those things. It's weird. I remember in middle school, being pulled out of my class once a week to do practice tests for TASS or whatever the stupid required test was at the time. It was humiliating because I knew I was a good student and smart. There was just something about those things that made my mind work differently...and not for the better.

Anyway, here I go again. Hoping this time that a complete education, including two majors and a minor under my belt and some life experience might do me some justice. I plan to study and review quite a bit but I'm frequently told not to study too much for this thing.

My test date is July 14, so I have some time to prepare. Keep me in your thoughts as I can use all the luck I can get. I want to do well on this very expensive test!

The San Francisco Treat

I just got back from an amazing trip to San Francisco and the bay area. My brother, Ari, and his wife, Rachel, have lived in Sausalito for about a year and a half and this was my first visit. Above is a cool shot of the Golden Gate Bridge as we were driving on it. I liked the vantage point and the lines as it makes you feel like you are riding up the lines.



Here is a photo of Ari. Isn't he cute? This was taken on my last day there in the wine country – Sonoma Valley to be exact. We had just visited our fourth vineyard and were a little toasted from all the wine tasting. It was truly a beautiful day and an amazing sight to see. I bought three bottles of wine from different vineyards. This one was Ravenswood and was one of our favorites.



Here is a photo of the famous "Painted Ladies" Victorian houses. I wanted to see them and Ari and Rach had never been over there. It was very windy outside so I only got one shot before I ran back to the car in effort to not get blown away. We did a good combination of typical touristy things as well as things most tourists wouldn't know about. Here is a summary of what I did and saw:

Toured Sausalito and did a little shopping with Rach there

Ate lunch at the famous Cliff House that overlooks the ocean and saw the ancient ruins of the bath house.

Saw the Palace of the Fine Arts

Drove down Lombard Street – the curviest road ever!

Visited Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 where all the sea lions hang out.

Shopped a little bit in the famous Union Square.

Ate dinner at an authentic Chinese restaurant called R&G Lounge in Chinatown.

Hung out at a trendy dive bar called Hemlock's.

Got up at 6 a.m. to witness Ari and Rach go to rowing practice in San Marin.

Went to Golden Gate Park and the Japanese Tea Garden and yes, drank some yummy Jasmine tea.

Visited the de Young art museum where a cool exhibit of Vivienne Westwood and her evolution of fashion was on display. We also went up to the observation tower where you can see the entire city. Pretty cool even on a foggy day.

Strolled down Haite Ashbury Street – known as the weird, hippie area. Also saw Castro St, which is the predominately gay area. Got some yummy cookies there at Hot Cookie.

Went to North Beach for dinner – the Italian District and ate some authentic Italian cuisine.

Attended the Lions Club Pancake Breakfast at the San Marin Firehouse.

Rode a school bus up Mt. Tamalpais to see the musical production of Hair at the very top. That was fun.

Caught the end of the annual street fair in Sausalito and bought some nifty things.

Ate dinner at yummy Asian Fusion restaurant called E&O Trading Co. in Sausalito and hung out at the Marin Brewery.



Above is a photo of us at the brewery. My friends Diana and Ashley were also in town for a Communications conference and hung out with us when they could.

And last but not least was a day spent in Sonoma Valley wine tasting. So much fun!