Vote for Evan!

State "O" the Union Brickfish

My brother Evan is working his way through school and doing his best to make ends meet. He's entered a piece of his art in a Brickfish contest, which will help him pay tuition for next semester if he wins. Please take a look at his entry, make a comment, whether you agree with the message or not, and VOTE! The site lets a computer's IP address vote every 8 hours, so if you really want to help him, vote multiple times over the next several weeks!

Broccoli = Musical instrument. Go figure...

This should brighten your day. I know it did mine :)

Merry Christmas!

Guess What?!

I just finished watching "Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World", a movie about a guy who is sent by the U.S. gov't to find out what makes Muslim people laugh...I wouldn't recommend the movie. It wasn't very funny, was pretty ethnocentric, and had a sloppy ending. Basically, the guy (Albert Brooks) goes and tries to convince people in India that his American humor (which wasn't even funny to this American) is funny. It didn't show any kind of Islamic culture humor, which was very disappointing to me. And didn't depict any muslims as having any kind of sense of humor, which, from my very limited experience, is far from accurate. One of the things that helped me enjoy my arabic class last semester is Dr. B's enthusiasm and sense of humor. Granted, he's been in the States for 30 years, but it's not that fact that he understands or caters to american humor, rather, he enjoys being happy and finding humor out of things. So anyway, I was pretty disappointed in the movie.

BUT what I AM excited about is this: There was a fair amount of Arabic dialogue, and I Understood some of it!! There was an interchange of greeting and talking about someone being expected for a meeting, almost all of which I understood, and then I picked out several pronoun suffixes (talking about "Those men" versus "this woman", etc), and a few nouns. I was pretty excited about that :)

Also, "Holly" from The Office played the guy's wife. :D

Wedding pics

With the semester over and no more homework hanging over my head, I've returned to coveting photography equipment and experience, doing research, and finding some great photo blogs. I never posted the photos from my first wedding, mostly because I was somewhat disappointed with the outcome. I've been playing with the images and doctoring them as well as possible with my little Picasa 3 program...tried downloading the Photoshop trial version, but alas, it seems my poor computer is neither sufficiently healthy nor strong to handle such a beast; it keeps kaputzing on my in the download process. And so, here is a look at my first attempt at wedding photography!

There's an album on my picasa page, also, with what I've edited so far - http://picasaweb.google.com/whirlygirl/BeersWedding

my current favorite song

I've been doing a lot of babysitting lately.

Four Months Later...

I've finally uploaded more Costa Rica photos! My albums of on-and-around the university campus and of my beach trips have waay too many pictures, so I'll have to edit them down some more before uploading, but there are 10 or 12 new albums, so the majority of the pics are online now!

Here's the link!
http://picasaweb.google.com/whirlygirl

26 things you never knew you always wanted to know about me

A- Attached or single: Attached - I've been dating Mike for about 9 months now

B- Best Friend: my momma :)

C-Cake or Pie: Brownies! with walnuts in them! or cake with cool-whip frosting

D-Day: Wednesday.

E-Essential Item: my lovesac

F- Favorite Color: Blue

G-Gummy Bears or Worms: I haven't had either in a looong time. probably worms.

H-Home town: Wilburton, Oklahoma,

I- Indulgences: A crackling fire with a good book or someone to snuggle up with

J- January or July: July...i'm thinking of making it a tradition to spend this month in foreign countries :)

K-Kids: I may have some one day

L-Life is incomplete without: My blender and fruit smoothies in the morning

M-Marriage Date: I keep asking my magic 8 ball, but it hasn't come up yet

N- Number of Siblings: 5 brothers + 2 sisters = 7

O-Obsession: Lately I have a somewhat disturbing obsession with radio dj personalities...

Phobias or Fears: I think i'm fairly phobia-free at the moment!...except maybe this one

Q- Quote: There is nothing noble in being superior to some other man. The true nobility is in being superior to one's previous self. ~hindu proverb

R- Reason to Smile: The semester is almost over!!

S- Season: I like each one when it's happening, except maybe winter

T- Tag: I don't know who reads this besides my brother occasionally... so if you read it, do this on your blog and leave me a comment!

U- Unknown fact about me: one of my 'canine' teeth never came in by itself, so I had to have it surgically uncovered and pulled down into my mouth while I wore braces.

V- Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animal: Meat-eater for sure

W- Worst Habit: I spend way too much time online when I should be doing productive things.

X- X-rays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasounds are much more interesting than x-rays.

Y- Your Favorite Food: I love mexican, but mostly for the salsa, sour cream, guacamole, queso, pico de gallo...just give me the condiments & some tortillas or tortilla chips & i'm SOO satisfied :)

Z- Zodiac Sign: Aries

Al Arabiya

I haven't posted in a while. My computer has been without power sources for the past several weeks (battery was fried, and then A/C adapter shorted out...but they're now both replaced!!), and school has been busy, busy! I haven't seen the last two episodes of The Office, so that should tell you how much leisure time I've had lately!

So, my biggest news lately: I applied for a two-month study abroad program to go to Tunisia, Egypt, or Jordan next summer, after I GRADUATE!!! (May 9, 2009 is the big day!). I enrolled in Beginning Arabic this semester kind of on a whim, and have really enjoyed it. It's crazy-hard, but so very interesting, also! One of Mike's friends from BYU spent a semester in Jordan, and she has a blog about her experience, which has gotten me even more excited about the possibilities :)

I won't find out until late March whether I've been accepted or not, but I'm going to plan as if I will be going, and if it ends up not working, alternative adventures are pending.

After the few months that I've been studying, I can write a short paragraph about who I am, where I'm from, what I study, and my living situation/possessions , which is pretty amazing to me. Dr. Bayakly is a top-notch teacher, for sure!

books

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (i stopped reading about 1/3 into the second book)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (1st & 3rd books only)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - on my list of books to read soon
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (Does the Childrens Illustrated version that Walmart used to sell count?)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - Own it, never read it.
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown >:-/ ... how...did this get on the list? and next to Gabriel Garcia Marquez??
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ...the box set...many times
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (read the first chapter...)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (Another "Children's Illustrated")
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

on the subject of things to do before one dies...

Got this from my friend Jamie's blog & thought it was fun. Copy, paste & highlight the things you've done, if you wanna play along

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Alaska
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Been to Disneyland
7. Climbed a mountain (don't think so...but I've driven past the world's tallest hill a few times!)
8. Held a praying mantis
10. Bungee jumped
11. Watched a lightning storm
12. Taught yourself an art from scratch
13. Adopted a child
14. Had food poisoning
15. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
16. Slept on an overnight train
15. Had a pillow fight
18. Hitch hiked
19. Built a snow fort
20. Run a Marathon
21. Watched a sunrise or a sunset
22. Hit a home run
23. Been on a cruise
24. Seen Niagara Falls in person
25. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
26. Seen an Amish community
27. Taught yourself a new language
28. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
29. Gone rock climbing
30. Seen Michelangelo’s David
31. Sung karaoke
32. Seen Old Faithful geyser errupt
33. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
34. Walked on a beach by moonlight
35. Been transported in an ambulance
36. Gone deep-sea fishing
37. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
38. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
39. Played in the mud
40. Gone to a drive in theater
41. Been in a movie
42. Visited the Great Wall of China
43. Started a business
44. Served at a soup kitchen
45. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
46. Gone whale watching
47. Gotten flowers for no reason
48. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
49. Gone sky diving
50. Bounced a check
51. Flown in a helicopter
52. Saved a favorite childhood toy
53. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
54. Eaten caviar
55. Pieced a quilt
56. Stood in Times Square
57. Been fired from a job
58. Broken a bone
59. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
60. Published a book
61. Had your picture in the newspaper
62. Read the entire Bible
63. Visited the White House
64. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (ahhh, those good ol' days of chicken farming...)
65. Had chicken pox
66. Saved someone's life
67. Sat on a jury
68. Met someone famous (not yet, but once I was in a mall at the same time as John Travolta!)
69. Joined a book club
70. Lost a loved one
71. Had a baby
72. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
73. Been involved in a law suit

And, it turns out, I don't have pleurisy, but rather a similar condition called costochondritis...which makes me think of some kind of prehistoric animal every time I say it :)

Blue Roses

Here's a confession. One of my life's secret desires has come to pass.

When I was in high school Speech & Drama we watched the movie of Tennessee Williams' play Glass Menagerie. In AP English IV, we read Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie. When I was in ENGL 2220 we read Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie. In Intro. to Theater we watched a university production of Tennessee Williams' play Glass Menagerie.

Playhouse on the Square is currently doing a production of Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie a mere 5 blocks from my house, and I had no desire to go see it....it's kind of a boring play, after all, and I don't really understand why it's such a staple in literature and theater classes.

However, since the first time I read it, I have been intrigued by pleurisy, or, as Jim hears it, "blue roses". I thought it was a romantic illness, in the way that dying of 'the consumption' was romantic in the Anne of Green Gables books, and I secretly wanted to contract pleurisy. We now call consumption 'tuberculosis', and it's a nasty disease that no one wants. As is pleurisy, I have recently discovered .

I started out with my normal seasonal allergies a few weeks ago, which then moved down into my chest & caused a cough, which evolved into bronchitis this past week, which has now evolved into 'blue roses'. What is it, you may ask? WebMD has this to say:

"What is pleurisy?
Pleurisy is swelling (inflammation) of the thin layers of tissue (pleura) covering the lungs and the chest wall. The outer layer of the pleura lines the inside of the chest wall, and the inner layer covers the lungs. The tiny space between the two layers is called the pleural cavity. This cavity normally contains a small amount of lubricating fluid that allows the two layers to slide over each other when you breathe. When the
pleura becomes inflamed, the layers rub together, causing chest pain. This is known as pleuritic pain.
Pleurisy is sometimes called pleuritis."

It's like having a stitch in your side that just won't go away and gets worse when you inhale, and mine started yesterday afternoon. I stayed home in bed today so I wouldn't have to talk to anyone, which makes me cough, which makes the pain get sharper. So I spend like 8 hours wandering around on the internet, snuggled up in my bed. It was kind of nice, except for the breathing part :)

And now I can say that I've had pleurisy, just like Laura Wingfield, and cross it off my list of things to do before I die!

It's that time again!

We went to the fair again last month...it was the last time it will be at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, and they had cut down on their variety of rides, but we got our fill of head-spinning fun nonetheless!

My favorite thing about the fair is spotting amusing signs, and I was not disappointed this year. I share with you a few :)

Then, of course, there is the yummy, greasy fair food.

Mike was lovin' him some turkey leg

I had my first ever deep-fried twinkie :)

Everyone else decided to go on the water ride & got soggy bums

Food in the Sooner State

There are two fast food restaurants that I get really excited about when I go back to visit Oklahoma. I have to eat at these places at least twice when I go to Norman, and this weekend I got to introduce Michael to them!

Taco Bueno has the BEST fast-food mexican, with tasty tortillas and wonderfully seasoned refried beans...nothing like the bland taste-less-ness of Taco Bell (which i still eat, because it is cheap...and Mexican :) ) But, MMMMmmMMMM! I love me some Bueno! They also give you real salsa to put on your food, not some strange chemical-y 'taco sauce'.

The other place I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE is Braums. Their french fries are UUUM-Azing! They're thick, crinkle-cut fries that are consistently perfectly cooked, seasoned with this salt powder that is just so very tasty! And the burgers & ice cream are pretty yummy, too.

On the non-fast-food side of things, we went to GiaComo's in McAlester with my dad, where they make a mean ravioli. Ted's Mexican Cafe Escondido has several locations in the OKC metro area, and they recently opened one in Norman, to the great delight of Becky, Courtney & myself! We have to eat there every time I visit, too...homemade tortillas, amazing cheese sauce and salsa that they just keep bringing till we're stuffed with it before they even serve our 'real' food!

Yup, "food" is a close second to "seeing people I love" as a reason I visit Oklahoma!

"for the girl who has everything"

I'm sure my faithful readers have been racking their brains for weeks already, trying to figure out just what to give me for Christmas. Never fear, I have come to the rescue. Below, you will find...

The 2008 List of Things Most Coveted by Eve

1. A guaranteed parking spot in the Central parking lot

2. Reading caddy for the bathtub

3. Toyota Prius

4. A full set of flatware that matches

5. Smooth Legs

6. Trip to Colombia for a semester

7. Blender/Food Processor


What do YOU want?

Cold Feet

This is the problem with not having a lot of natural bodily insulation and being reluctant to give up my flip-flops as the weather cools down.

...It would also help if the people in my office would consider cutting off the A/C sometime before the first frost...

Mary Poppins

I watched Mary Poppins the other day for the first time in probably 12 or 15 years. I quite enjoyed it. One of my younger siblings went through a period where they watched it multiple times a day for months on end, so I pretty much had every line engraved in some dusty file in the back of my brain, but I didn't realize it until I was watching it and knew even the tone of voice that a certain line would be said in, before it was said :) The brain is a marvelous instrument.

Just allergies

I work at a law firm that works with real estate transactions. Sounds pretty uppity, til you take into consideration the condition of the current market. The soda vending machine hasn't been stocked in 2008...they haven't bought Kleenex for general office use since about March. And I've spent the better part of the day sneezing and sniffling along with our accountant in the office near me. The guy whose desk is between ours 'bless you'-ed him this morning a few times, then I started with my achoo-ing. He said "Are you sick too?" Me: No, it's allergies. Him: ...Oh.

I scouted around in the storage room & found a random 6-roll pack of cheap toilet paper and appropriated a roll in leiu of a nice, soft box of Puffs. The roll is about half-gone now & I'm ready to crawl into my bed for the rest of the weekend.

It's just allergies...it's just a slow economy...

I'm a creator

http://www.careerpath.com/
" The Dewey Color System® is the world's first and only validated, color-based personality career testing instrument. Based on our experience and your interests, your best suited occupations are listed below. "

Best Occupational Category
You're a CREATOR
Key Words:Nonconforming, Impulsive, Expressive, Romantic, Intuitive, Sensitive, and Emotional
These original types place a high value on aesthetic qualities and have a great need for self-expression. They enjoy working independently, being creative, using their imagination, and constantly learning something new. Fields of interest are art, drama, music, and writing or places where they can express, assemble, or implement creative ideas.
CREATOR OCCUPATIONSSuggested careers are Advertising Executive, Architect, Web Designer, Creative Director, Public Relations, Fine or Commercial Artist, Interior Decorator, Lawyer, Librarian, Musician, Reporter, Art Teacher, Broadcaster, Technical Writer, English Teacher, Architect, Photographer, Medical Illustrator, Corporate Trainer, Author, Editor, Landscape Architect, Exhibit Builder, and Package Designer.
CREATOR WORKPLACESConsider workplaces where you can create and improve beauty and aesthetic qualities. Unstructured, flexible organizations that allow self-expression work best with your free-spirited nature.
Suggested Creator workplaces are advertising, public relations, and interior decorating firms; artistic studios, theaters and concert halls; institutions that teach crafts, universities, music, and dance schools. Other workplaces to consider are art institutes, museums, libraries, and galleries.

2nd Best Occupational Category
You're a PERSUADER
Key Words:Witty, Competitive, Sociable, Talkative, Ambitious, Argumentative, and Aggressive
These enterprising types sell, persuade, and lead others. Positions of leadership, power, and status are usually their ultimate goal. Persuasive people like to take financial and interpersonal risks and to participate in competitive activities. They enjoy working with others inside organizations to accomplish goals and achieve economic success.


...all because I don't like to look at orange.

I don't agree with the second option, but the first pegs part of me pretty well :)

I'm aspiring to greatness

...just thought you should know.

i moved!

If

then, after 4 years, I am now a bona fide Memphian! :)

I moved to Midtown last month, to my own little one-bedroom apartment on the second story of a house, and am loving it! Living by myself has been an interesting and welcome change after sharing apartments and houses with roommate/s for the past 8 years. I love the fact that the only dishes in the sink are my own, I can set the thermostat as high as I want it, and never have to shut a door for privacy!

My furniture fits perfectly in the house! All I lack is a dresser, seeing as how mine was not secured in the truck when we were moving me, and fell out into the road at Appling and Cordova Rd en route to my new place. Michael and a guy from church were in the truck and had to collect all my dainties strewn along the rain-soaked road...I wish I had a picture of that!
And now, for a virtual tour of the home of the not-so-rich-and-famous...

Stairs that lead up to my apartment

my 'front' door

Living room

A beam of the ceiling angles up from about three feet off the floor, so I strung paper lanterns as a protection against tall people's bumping their heads when walking from the LR to the office/dining room. I think it's nice & festive.

Office/dining room area and doorway to kitchen

...and, kitchen!

Complete with an amazing, old-fashioned oven with a warming drawer below.

One of my favorite things about the apartment is this little window-seat/nook place just between the dining room area and the kitchen (mini-blinds are broken and the landlord is going to replace them with bamboo blinds :D )

My hall, adorned by a curious lantern-like light fixture

Another favorite aspect...the deep tiled shelf around the tub is perfect for candles!

Another example of the eaves of the roof creating interesting ceiling features...the curtain rod extends about 3/4 of the length of the tub, and then curves around to the wall.

My bedroom, which also doubles as a laundry room. I'm gonna hang a curtain across the laundry closet. It's kind of nice! my clothes are all contained in the one room...from the closet, to my body, to the laundry, to the closet, all right here!

So there you have it! My new midtown bachelorette pad!

In a nutshell

I pared down my pictures to a digestible album. Here it is! For the internet addicts out there who need a couple of hours' worth of non-constructive vegging, I'll post full albums over the next few days. :D

In the works..

I took around 1500 photos in Costa Rica, and two of the friends in my group who also had cameras took 1500 between the two of them, all of which we shared before going home, so I have 3,000 pictures of 32 days' worth of adventure to sort through and edit down to a reasonable number that someone would have the patience to look at! I discovered Picasa this month, and have fallen in love with the program. So I'll be adding pictures little by little through public online albums and posting the links to the albums here...as soon as I figure out exactly how to do that!

Stay tuned!

Old friend

Of all my friends from high school-era, I am in touch with only a few, and that, mostly through Facebook. Will and I met when when we were 15 and had many adventures together throughout high school. We dated for a few months our senior year, and i have to say that our prom picture is the best picture that has ever been taken of me. After high school we went our separate ways; I went to OU for a few years, then moved to Memphis, and he went to the Air Force Acadamy, a mission, USAFA again, got married, went to grad school in Maryland, and just moved to Texas last month. Through all our different experiences, we've stayed in touch, through a few phone calls a year, and the occasional email. I think everyone needs a friend who knew you "back when", and Will has been that friend to me.

When he and his wife Sara moved to Texas, they were able to stop by for breakfast and a Sunday morning of reminiscing/catching up on each other's lives. It was great to see them!

Hair emergency at T:-18 hours

So the day before I left for Costa Rica, I thought it'd be a good idea to get a haircut. What does one do when she has 3/4-inch long hair? Why, cut it herself, of course! I'd been trimming my hair periodically with a trimmer set since I initially shaved it in December, and have gotten pretty good at it. But this was the day before a life-changing event, and so I could not do something easily. That's just how it works ;)

I had let my hair get fairly 'long' over the past few months - I could actually part the front portion - and so it took a few sittings with my poor little trimmer. It tries hard, but runs out of juice easily. So I had finally gotten my hair a uniform, 3/8 of an inch or so, took the guard off to even up the nape of my neck, and voila! Perfect!

I proceeded take care of other items on my to-do/packing list and in the interim, found a longish hair on the back of my head. Simple...all you do is run the trimmer over the area to take care of the rogue strand! But I forgot to put the guard back on, and thus, dear reader, I bring you the results in picture form to your left!

I tried to fix the bald blemish myself and make it blend in with the rest of my hair, but to no avail. It all had to come off. And so, that is the story of how I began my month in Costa Rica with a very scantily covered head!

Estoy aqui

I'm beginning my third week in Costa Rica. It's been an adventure to say the least! I have 800+ photos & so many stories, it's a bit overwhelming to know how to begin reporting on my experience. I've learned a lot, my spanish is improving, and I'm enjoying my new experiences, with a peppering of missing home & friends/family.

My first sight of population from the plane

First day: We got caught in a torrential downpour on the walk to campus. I was soaked!
Poas Volcano crater
We saw some BEAUTIFUL waterfalls!

LOTS more to come later!

~Eve/Eva

Go jump in the river

A few weeks ago I joined some friends for a campin/canoe trip to the "Many Island Campground" at Spring River. SO much fun! Michael & I rode up with Alli, and we caravan-ed with another group of people. We brought walkie talkies...really they weren't even walkie talkies, cause you could 'text' and take pictures, and do all kinds of cell-phone-y things with them. Not the kind from back in my day where all you had was the Morse Code printed under the speaker and an enormous antennae! So we tried the walkie talkies for a bit, but it got old pretty quickly. Mike was behind in the book we're reading together, so he wanted to read, which greatly offended Alli. And I was in the back seat, feeling sequestered, so I thought I might read, too, but that offended her even more greatly, so no rude reading actually came to pass during the ride :)

We got there lateish, around 9:30, stopped at a Sonic that had tables inside and the little red phones at each booth for to order one's food directly from the kitchen. I randomly picked up the receiver after everyone had ordered, just to look at it, before realizing that just picking it up signaled to the kitchen that someone wanted something! The girl answered & asked for my order & I started apologizing, and she hung up on me! I would probably hang up on people too, if I worked there.

Once we finally got to the campsite, after paying an extraordinary fee to sleep outside next to a train track, I set up my beautiful hammock so as to sleep under the stars. This hammock is one of the best things I've ever bought myself and brings me great joy every time I set it up :)

Alli & I trekked down to the women's facilities & while I was washing my hands I discovered the absolute largest insect I've ever seen in the wild, in person. It was sitting inside the bathroom, just hanging out under the blindingly bright light of a fluorescent bulb, along with about 4,700 other, smaller bugs. We alerted Mike & Scott, who captured the poor thing, and brought it back to camp. Then Scott found another one on our picnic table, & tried to make them fight. No such luck. They were ridiculously passive for being so scary-looking. I am convinced that they were actually fairies, like the one from Pan's Labyrinth, and we just hadn't drunk our milk for the day!

Alli, Kirsten & I had some girl-bonding time on the hammock, & then decided to make finger stars & frame everyone's faces in pictures.

Michael was our first target, but (finally having a chance to catch up on his reading) he did not think much of our childish antics...

I think this picture is hilarious.

We continued on with various other of our camp-mates.

I finally went to bed around midnight, and only then did I recognize how very close we were to the train track...it was literally 75 feet away. Every 1/2 hour a train woke me up as it rumbled by. Once, in the very middle of the night I actually fell into a deeper sleep than I had previously been able to, and the realisation that the train hadn't been by in a while caused me to awaken because of the silence!!

Morning came & we readied ourselves for the canoe trip. We jumped on a bus & rattled through the dirt roads, causing me to have flashbacks of my freshman & sophomore years in high school when I was the first on the bus at 7 a.m. for an hour-long ride of picking up children who lived, as I did, miles from any other sign of civilization.

We got to the dock & loaded our canoe with life-jackets & oars, and off we went! Michael steered & I paddled up front. I tried all different paddling methods during the trip, determined to work out as many muscles as possible. Our group found a nice little rapid with a pool under it and an island with a strong current running on the other side of it. We piled as many people as we could - 11 or 12 - into a canoe & someone pushed us off. Everyone had to hold perfectly still so as not to let any water in the boat...the water level was about 1/4 inch below the rim of the over-loaded canoe. Finally we hit bottom and everyone flew out! Kirsten was caught by the current & a couple of our strong men swam out to rescue her. It was quite the adventure!

We "tumped" over, as Michael calls it (a southern word I had never encountered before), only once, which Mike did on purpose when I wasn't paying attention. It was a beautiful day on the river, with all kinds of wildlife on the banks & in the water. Our friend Scott caught several turtles & carried them in his kayak for a large portion of the trip.

We made it back to the camp, snacked, & packed up for the trip home, but as we headed down the dirt road leading to the highway, the back windshield of one of the cars shattered!

Being hungry and gross as we were, we decided to stop at King Catfish buffet, where we proceeded to stuff ourselves with fish and hush puppies. They have an amazing rocking chair, which we had to try!

We got home late, exhausted, and satisfied after a relaxing weekend and adventurous trip!!