Poland

I've spoken to several of you already about your anticipation of my blog entries on the trip. This is extremely intimidating.

Most of my photos actually didn't turn out very well... it looks like my camera is becoming progressively more broken. However, I got a few good shots and will hopefully post some of my favorites from others on the trip as I receive them.

I am sitting here in the smelliest jeans imaginable writing after 22 hours of transit home and a day of work, but I have to brace you, readers, for what is coming.


I think that looking back on this trip, I will decide that it was one of the more important trips of this part of my life. We all need a personal renaissance from time to time, and I believe that this has been one of mine. The things I saw, heard, and thought about around and during this trip to Poland have led me to a series of conclusions about my life and how I've been living it.

There are a lot of things that I have been putting off because I "don't have the time right now" or "there are just better things to be spending my time and money on." While I still think it's important to choose carefully how we spend time and money, I am tired of putting off the things that I have been putting off since I was in high school. They're not going to go away, so I might as well dive in.

The two largest things I have been putting off for memorable recent history are reading and learning more about non-classical music. I have a reading list as long as the distance between the airport I was re-routed through and my house in Liverpool, and mental notes on twice as many artists.

I am also trying to apologize less for doing what feels honest to me.

My point in telling you these things is that you may find my blogs touching on subjects that make you uncomfortable... force you to take a hard look at the way you're living your life... and perhaps even invite lasting and unexpected change. I'm not going to preach, but I will be using this as an outlet for my musings on the books I read in the next two months, from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close to Mountains Beyond Mountains to The Iliad to Into the Wild to Pathologies of Power.

I hope you will still be my friend while I explore the books and songs and movies that have been waiting far too long for me. I'm not sure how it will be.

"i accept chaos. i am not sure whether it accepts me."

Adventures in Equal Parenting

Wow, I would love for you to tell me what you think of this article. Watch the video, too!

It's geek squad hardcore.

Earlier today, I was clued in to a very amusing spot on marketing yogurt to women:


Some favorite lines include "say some more things that I generically relate to, and then go to a wedding!" and "it's first woman president good... EAT IT."

On my way out the door this morning I won my very first battle wound of this type. It was good, a yogurt advert might say, hardcore good. As many of you know, I'm quite an avid runner. Like most sports (yes, running is a sport people... I WILL fight you about this), there is a certain status associated with mild injuries, especially those that bleed. This injury was hardcore-bleeding-but-not-inhibitive-of-play-injury good.

Why, then, am I not smiling? I actually managed to incur an injury by dropping my laptop on myself. This rivals the time I had to get stitches from my glasses cutting my face when I faceplanted into the cement while giving a classmate a piggyback ride in the fourth grade.

Perhaps I should be grateful, rather than be ashamed. Long the technological black sheep of my geeky-with-social-skills family, I finally have something to show. A rite of passage. Embarrassing, triumphant, telling, whatever - I am now a contender in the techy scene. When people sit around discussing their internet speeds or how they've learned the new web programming language and I can point to my leg scar.

"Shaving?"
"Mac."

It's geek squad hardcore.

These windbags will fix everything.

As a child, I played normal nintendo. That's right, we're talking pre-super nintendo, pre-sony playstation, pre-gamecube and pre-x-box, just to name a few. I enjoyed such gems as Paperboy, Dr. Mario, Duck Hunt (no actual birds were hurt in the playing of this game) and, my personal favorite, Battletoads. As our nintendo aged, we came across the common problem of a faulty connection between the game cartridge and the nintendo. Ingeniously, we somehow thought to solve this problem by blowing on it. "Maybe it's dusty," we thought. Or, as we got older, "Maybe the water/saliva molecules in our breath actually improve the connection because it is a conductor." Whatever the reason, our blowing treatments increased in frequency, length, and intensity. They never failed (not even for Mystery Quest, which would have been a blessing. I'm fairly certain not even the programmers knew what the quest was).

So what? So my childhood left me with the firm belief that you can fix anything by using those two sacks of air called lungs. French people also hold this belief, if you've ever seen them get upset. Bus late? Purse those lips and have a go at it. First one to pass out wins. You can imagine the problems this caused when confronted with new and challenging life situations.

Example 1: late childhood
"Charla, Ben said that you ate the bagels. Did you eat the bagels?"

"No."

"Well who ate them then? They didn't just evaporate."

"I don't know."

"Go to your --- STOP BLOWING ON ME!"

Example 2: late adolescence
"Charla, I just don't think we should date anymore."

"What? haaaaaaaaaa I haaaaa can't haaaaaa you're breaking haaaaa"

"Charla? Did you hear me? I just want to be ---"

"haaaaa talk to me haaa morrow"

Wait, that worked. Well, at least until we talked in person. He said that my breath smelled like oranges but to please stop. I panicked.

Example 3
I earned a Southwest voucher for taking a later flight at Christmas. I used half of it on my flight from SLC to BWI, and intended to use the other half from BWI to SLC on my return. However, I confused the voucher with my (used) boarding pass and discarded it instead of bringing it with me to use when purchasing the tickets (I couldn't do this before because the flights were too far in advance).


Blow as I might, I am consigned to suck it up (come on, it was clever [haaaaaa haaaaa... see? haaaaaaaa]) and fork out the cash for this one.

A whole batch of cookies for anyone who thinks of a way around this.

P.S. - A note to art students: teachers who say that your upper lip is smaller than your lower one are often wrong. I'm just saying.

In the name of progress.