I remember...

Waking up in a palapa in Tulum, Mexico with Simon.

Nana pulling pound cake out of it's little aluminum tin in the morning in her tiny apartment kitchen.

Eating hotdogs with Magdalena while she told me the story of the billy goats Gruff over...and over... and over...

When Jenny Star broke my mini trampoline. (RIP JENNY!)

That Salo always orders pasta bolognaise at the Macaroni Grill.

The student aide for 7th grade algebra - Vanessa with the huge eyebrows.

When my mom had braids.

When I got all those college rejection letters.

Magic Circle Bagels.

When Alberson's was Furrs.

The first night I had my beagle Friskey, and how loud he howled.

My birthday party going into 8th grade, where we covered Elenie in whipped cream.

The gorgeous British guy at Columbia Gorge School of Theatre, and how he said cutlery instead of silverware.

:)

Thinking is hard.

I've been thinking, which is usually not a good thing. It's much easier to go through life with all it's wonderful points without thinking about the hard things, and it's easier to manage the hard things without thinking about how it could be better. Currently, I think my situation is pretty good, if not a bit static. I've mended some broken relationships, and made several new ones, which for me is a pretty big thing. I've learned a thing or two about accountability in the past year, which has really helped me actualize myself to this point in time. I've also learned something about fear, of the unknown mostly. Not the greater, god or no god, why are we here kind of unknown - I've come to terms with all that for the time being. But, it's fear of MY unknown. The future is now - and every thing I do at every moment impacts my future, even if it's only negligible. So how then do I know which actions will effect my future the way I want it to? Before I answer that question, I have to answer the question: What do I want? What do I want from life? From a career? From my family and friends? From myself? How does one go about answering these questions - you can't very well just make a list in an attempt to quantify the aspects of meaningful life and then sort them from most important to least. So, that's what I'm thinking about. Currently, I don't have any answers. But I do know that the sun was shining today, and that made me smile. And that's good enough for now. :)

What the hell is going on out there?!

It's easy for all of us to just bury our heads in the sand and go about our daily lives with little attention paid to the global, or even national, state of things. I know I am guilty of this, and sometimes I think there is a valid excuse, and sometimes I don't. But that's not what I'm writing about today. What I am writing about is what I do find when I poke my head out of my little Whitney - World and see what's going on around me. I do it a little here, and a little there, but over the past week, my only comment for everything going on is What the Frack, World? What on earth is going on out there.

The first thing is obvious Haiti. I can't even express the sadness I experience when I think about it. These poor people were living in terrible conditions to begin with, but now things have gotten worse, when before they may not have believed that it could be any worse. How long will it take for the country to rebuild, especially when everyone who remains has lost someone close to them. I applaud the humanitarian and relief organizations, and everyone who has donated to help them out. But money can't buy time, which is what is needed for everything to start to get better. But that's not a WTF event, just a sad one. The WTF came when reading about Clooney's "Hope for Haiti" telethon drive. It raised $57 Million to be split equally among seven relief organizations. More funds are expected to come in as people buy the album of musical performances from the telethon on iTunes. What harm comes from this? People who, because of their position in the public eye, are more likely to generate attention and support (and money), than us poor Joe-Blows who donate as much as we can and still not feel like we are making a difference. I commend any efforts such as these, but in reading the comments on the article, I was appalled. Here is one from the Huffington Post:

"It was nice of them to squeeze this into their busy schedule of dressing up in thousands of dollars couture and giving themselves "awards." I hear those other self-absorbed folks, the Country Music "stars", not to be outdone, are planning one but have not worked out the schedule conflicts with their current plethera of award shows. So much pomp and pageatry, so little time. What a conundrum."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/24/hope-for-haiti-brings-in_n_434951.html

Um, what? This fucker is the kind of person that makes little kids cry when condemning their lemonade stands. I just don't understand why someone would feel the need to be so cynical about people (celebrities are people at the end of the day, believe it or not) rallying together to help a cause. Mindboggling.

The other WTF moment this week was Scott Brown. What the fuck, Massachusetts?!

Back to the grind again.

Well, school is back in session! I'm not super excited about it yet, but that's probably because I'm still getting over having to nearly sell my dignity to get into all the classes I need. At first I was convinced that UNM was the worst run business ever, just based on the amount of disorganization and miscommunications, and how many problems it causes for the students. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that "repeat customers" AKA - students who don't graduate on time because UNM fucked something up - is how UNM makes money, so it's really in their best interest to keep us here. Tricksy hobitses. But, I'm trying to lift my spirits and get in the groove of things, because I really want to ACE this whole semester. I came close last semester, but stopped short due to a frickin' hack of a teacher who decided that I didn't bend my morals far enough to play his "ends justifies the means" system of grading, and therefore didn't give me an A. If I prayed, I would pray that God would smite him, cause it's kind of illegal for me to do it. But I would!

I good news, I have decided to be more diligent about going to tango and salsa, and as of this morning, I have started going to yoga. In the past 3 months, I have really started building relationships with people at work, which is really nice - not only because it makes work more fun, but also because now some of them are my workout partners! I went with one to yoga this morning, and another 2 will be coming to salsa with me on Monday. I'm really excited about this new development. I really need PEOPLE in my life, even if they aren't super-confidants, just another psyche to connect to is something I crave. So, yay for that. Hopefully, this will also help in my ongoing, never ending, hell bent quest to lose weight. Le sigh. I lost 10 of the 20 I wanted to last year, but then gained it all back in November, December, and January. Boo. So I am back at square one.