Currently Reading Travels with a Tangerine: From Morocco to Turkey in the Footsteps of Islam's Greatest Traveler By Tim Mackintosh-Smith see related

late again

 I have once again fallen off the Xanga bandwagon.  Thank you all for sticking with me, if in fact there is anyone who still checks my blog to see if I've written.  Because here I am again!  Back in Xangaland and ready to party!

I would like to share with you all a few pictures of me over Christmas break.  They show just a couple of my myriad adventures.

First, I have taken up swimming with the fishes, as is obvious from this picture:

The fish are courtesy of the Oregon Coast Aquarium.  As most of you know, I actually am afraid of fish.  Especially if they are the same size as me, which many of them in this aquarium were.  If one of these guys really did come this close to me, I would probably hyperventilate and die.  I don't care that they can't hurt me; it always looks as if fish are thinking evil thoughts.  Thank goodness for four inches of protective glass between me and the floating fish of death.

Second, my friend Bethany and I met James Bond, as is obvious from this photo:

Yup, he's taller than he looks on TV.  No, he's not a cardboard cutout.  Really.

So that's what I've been up to, at least for the past month.  That, and going to about a million conferences, visiting relatives around America, and drinking lots of coffee.

New Year's resolution: somehow find a way to consume less caffeine without cutting down on the amount of caffeinated beverages I drink.

P.S.  I would highly recommend Travels with a Tangerine to anyone interested in the Middle East.  I have only just begun it, and I will probably not read every word of it (thoroughness is a highly overrated virtue, in my estimation), but so far it is incredibly satisfying.  Ibn Battuta.  Say that five times fast.

Currently Watching Lagaan - Once Upon a Time in India By Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley, Paul Blackthorne, Suhasini Mulay, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Raghuvir Yadav, Rajendra Gupta, Rajesh Vivek, Shri Vallabh Vyas, Javed Khan, Rajendranath Zutshi, Akhilendra Mishra, Daya Shankar Pandey, Yashpal Sharma, Amin Hajee, Aditya Lakhia, A.K. Hangal, John Rowe, David Gant see related

I am NOT a loser!

The title is a line from my favorite Bruce Willis movie: The Kid.  He's standing outside at the end of the movie with his kid self watching his older self pilot a plane, and he shouts to the heavens, "I am not a loser!"  Very life-affirming.  Another good quote from the movie: "Why don't you call the waaaaaaaaaaaambulance!"  Ahh, such depth.  Such wisdom.  Bruce Willis at his most philosophical.

That was a random tangent, but it made me happy to share it with xangaland. 

So I've had some good conversations with some good friends lately, which always puts me in a good mood.  A recent subject of conversation: How to choose the person you'll spend the rest of your life with.  Basically, what I've noticed is, nobody knows for sure.  They can only say how they chose, but their methods aren't replicable.  That doesn't do the rest of us much good.

I've been ruminating on singleness lately as well, though, and I've found that the prospect of lifelong singleness is not nearly as scary as I once thought it would be.  You have so much more independence when you're not sharing your life with someone.  Of course, it's a bit lonelier... 

So basically there isn't one answer to whether 'tis better to embrace marriage or singleness.  It seems like each person has to decide that for him/herself.

Well, that's the short version of what I've learned lately.  The long version is much more boring and angst-ridden. 

Random sidenote: I love Bollywood.  My most recent foray into Indian cinema was Lagaan.  There's singing, there's dancing, there's cricket.  What more do you need?

Currently Listening Mockingbird By Derek Webb see related

Thinking ahead: they say it's useful sometimes.

Yesterday I went to Los Angeles for a meeting.  I think it's pretty cool that I can fly to LA for a day to have a meeting.  It makes me feel important.  We were planning a conference for Christian international students on the west coast.  It's going to be spec-tabulous.  I enjoyed sitting in a room with cool people brainstorming crazy ideas for the conference, knowing that the sky is the limit for what we can do (well, that and a VERY small budget). 

Certain members of the planning committee wanted to have a pirate theme for the conference.  "Argh, matey!  Thar she blows!  Welcome to the Pirate International Student Conference!"  Can you imagine?  Good thing those lobbying for pirates were actually joking... Although, you know, I might be more likely to go to a conference if it had a pirate theme.  I could wear an eyepatch.  I've always wanted to do that, but not because I actually needed one.  That would be depressing. 

As of tomorrow, I and the rest of the OSU XA staff will go into heavy fall planning mode.  Wahoo!  I have discovered that I am not a planner (I know, shocking discovery, right?).  This is something I'm pretty sure God wants to change in my life, as it's kind of hard to be purposeful if you haven't sat down and decided what your purpose is.  And it's hard to reach your goals if you don't have any.  And it's hard to meet people if you haven't figured out where the people are and when they'll be there. 

Ahh, planning, what a winning idea.  Now the next step is the follow-through.  Let's see how long it takes me to master that.

P.S. Props to Jayme Harris who showed me how to paste a pirate pic into my blog.  That Jayme Harris: What a winner.

Summer time

So Kathryn Phillips is visiting me now, and life is good.  I would post a picture, but I haven't taken one.  Not even one.  Alas, if only I was more adept with modern technology...

We went down to the Oregon Coast and camped last night.  Beautiful.  I have noticed, though, that here in Oregon, we don't have a beach, or even a coast.  We have the Oregon Coast.  I'm still not sure how it's different from, say, the Washington coast, but apparently there's a difference.  We had fun there; we camped all night and played with the fire, and today we saw whales and seals.  I enjoy seals: most of the time they sit in one spot, soaking up the sun and doing nothing.  Ah, to be a seal. 

That's one thing I love about Oregon: a person just can't seem to stop experiencing nature in this state.  Everywhere you go you encounter it.  It's like we live in it or something.  Yesterday Kathryn and I were talking and I said something was good for the environment.  Then I said, "And look, we're in the environment right now."  And we were.

I know that sounds silly (because it is), but a person doesn't have that strong sense of being in nature among growing things in Arizona or Jordan.  Out here, though, you can't escape it.  It's like the moment you turn your back, nature's going to take over.  I love it. 

Independence Day