iowa to the city

thank you.


ahoy matey! this movie swabbed the pooop decks.


knock rummy. new roomie in blue.


kris and chris. the bearded ones.

kris, sharing with my camera holder.

sophie. new family dog. i had a fun day with her.

then she bit my face, so she had to go back to the humane society.

so it's been fun in iowa. i got a new apartment, saw my old peeps, played a lot-o-cards, and met with my department. best story from the weekend:

i have never taken any speech path classes in my whole entire life. therefore, one of my required classes for the fall is "introduction to speech and hearing sciences." instead of having me take the class though, they're just going to have me be the teaching assistant. kill two birds, you know. that's crazy i say. crazy. and it confirms what i once suspected about teaching assistants.

off to arkansas for the family reunion tonight. boy howdy, i'll have some good photos for you on monday. :)

home sweet sweet home

(borrowed without permission and edited, slightly, from the official state of iowa website)
(and from my old blog)

i'm going home! here i come ottumwa!
yay yay yay ioway!
i thought all you peeps should know a thing or two
about the fab state in the middle.
those who don't know.
who haven't read my old blog.
so here you go.



Iowa is a great place to live and travel.
The more you know about it, the more you will come to enjoy it.
Iowa became the 29th State in 1846.
It is known as the Hawkeye State, and Des Moines is the capital city.
I was born in Dubuque, right there on the Mississippi.
Now mi familia lives in Ottumwa, a bit farther south.
On the Des Moines River. The city o' bridges.


Iowa is bordered by two great American rivers
(the Mississippi and the Missouri) on its east and west sides.
It has a rich agricultural tradition and ranks first in the nation
with corn and soybean production as well as in hog production from its 93,000 farms.
There are twice as many pigs as people in Iowa.
(6,000,000 porkers, 3,000,000 people)

That's one pig for every person in Iowa, plus one for their friend.
Who wants my second pig?
Sioux City, Iowa is home to the Twin Bing candy concoction. (??)
So says Megs.
On May 10, 1879, the largest meteorite known to have fallen in North America fell in Iowa.
Iowa was home to many famous individuals such as Herbert Hoover, Johnny Carson, Donna Reed, Radar O'Riley, Tom Arnold, John Wayne, Elijah Wood, Buffalo Bill, Ron Livingston, Ashton Kutcher, the new Superman, Glenn Miller, the band Slipknot, Ann Landers and Dear Abby, Dan Bern, and Grant Wood, to name a few.
Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper died here.

Captain James Kirk will be born here.

It was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition and many other historic events, such as the filming of Field of Dreams.
Iowa Fact: In Anthon, a man once hiccoughed for 69 years. Practically his whole life.
1922-1991, until he died. Poor fella. Name: Charles Osborne.
Iowa supports a rich and diverse cultural population and history.
The Iowa Primaries make it an important political stop as well.
Iowa is the place where family values, exceptional work ethic, first-in-the-nation education (as eternalized on our state quarter), pigs, people, and peace of mind all come together.

Iowa is for me.
Iowa is for you.
Discover how much you value a life with accomplishment, reward,
opportunity and a sense of being in the right place here in Iowa.
Whether you live here or are visiting for the first time,
you will find Iowa is the place you can always call home.
Always. heart heart heart.
(even if your parents move to Canada)
Welcome (home) to Iowa.

down home kansas city

now that's what i'm talking about. now this is home. sigh.

what does it mean when someone says to you:
"they're playing music for your hair!"
and the song is by crowded house, or a-ha? or something.
megs and i are having an awesome time.
lotsa shopping.
i almost cried in the candle store because it smelled so much like home.
home home home!!!
then i got dizzy from all the sniffing i did.
we went out for tacos and there was a mariachi (sp?) band in the restaurant.
we had panera BREAD!!! for lunch.
we went to old navy and cleaned up. OLD NAVY!


i'm experiencing a lot of culture shock.
at the airport i had to take off my sweatshirt and put it through the x-ray machine after everything else had gone through, so i went to ask the man behind me if i could put my sweatshirt in his bucket. i turned to the 50-something, blond, white man in the jeans and arizona state shirt and said:

"excuse me, do you speak english?"

he just kind of blinked at me. so i thought that meant no. i began to signal putting my sweatshirt in his bucket. he then replied:

"yes. of course i speak english."

he thought i was funny.

i've had two mind-numbing trips to target, the land o' plenty.
we went out for drinks last night, and the relatively extremely low key debauchery (other peoples', not ours, of course) was hilarious and disgusting and very very shocking. all the college kids looked to be about 12 years old to me.

it's really so good to be home. i think it will still take some time to recover.
does anyone know of a place i can live in iowa city?

:)

what else we did

out of arizona

into kansas city!
just need to dust this baby off . . .

stuff that's been happening around here

the final photos

i've just put the last of my trip photos on my photo site.

i'm done with that site now, i think.
any u.s.a. reclimatization month photos i'll just put on here.
or something.
and let me just say it is so so so very nice
to control my music once again.

christie's back now, and we're going to make a movie this week sometime. probably a foreign film staring wang hao-tze, my monkey stowaway. i imagine it will be shot at the korean restaurant in town and will make use of all the korean i can remember.
subtitles included.

:)

soccer star is me

ryan took me to play soccer today with a big pack of dudes.
we got majorly smashed, but i scored the only goal for our team.
boo-ya!
i don't think i've ever scored a goal before.
and i head-butted ryan.
he was trash-talking my mom.

:)

(not really, mom)

whatsawhatty? who what?

some thoughts on being home.

1. never before in my life would i have said l.a. was home.
2. people in l.a. were so nice! i think i'm going to overdose on nice when i get to iowa. whoa.
3. the man at starbucks said i was a fantastic lady after he asked me casually and disinterestedly how i was and i freaked on him and told him how happy i was to be home. i made his day wonderful, he said. awww. it was the nicest compliment i've gotten since that shop owner in india told me i was fit, and that's why i had nice arms, arms like a man.
4. traffic cops. forgot about those.
5. felt weird to eat grapes straight up without peeling them. it still made me nervous. yikes! disease!
6. for lunch i had a bagel with cream cheese and reeces pieces mushed inside. so glad to be back!
7. i've now officially been wide awake for something like 80 hours. i haven't slept since koh tao. can you believe it? no sleep. at all. none. i feel a bit odd. 80 hours. huh. 80. and i'm not tired right now. i think i'll just never sleep again. i sure am getting a lot accomplished. like hallucinating and not-being-able-to-stop-shaking.
8. the package i thought was lost was really just consolidated! yay for yoga notes and indian cooking recipes! boo for indian shipping companies who open my packages and consolidate them and don't respond to my emails and make me worry about my wonderful yoga notes. ppthbb.
9. i'd forgotten how wonderful it is to flirt with everything that moves and the fact that i am a big fat flirty flirt. what i have been missing! i don't mean flirt like boy + girl + social setting = flirt and i don't mean big minnie mouse eyelash batting. i mean flirt in the sense that everyone flirts with everyone they pass on the street and wink at or smile at or buy a bag of reeces pieces from. or maybe it's just me. but i'm pretty sure i read an article in a reputable magazine once about the benefits of flirting or something and how everyone does it. it's a friendly, charasmatic, playful hello. (am i spelling everything wrong and/or making up words?) and it's not flirting to get anything from anyone else. it's not the dreaded india-barter-flirt. it's just a happy acknowledgement that the other person exists, and that we're all going to smile over our mutual recognition. i haven't flirted in months. maybe since i left for korea, even. it's hard to flirt properly when people don't get your jokes or understand your language. or mimic your body language. body language! wow. i hadn't even realized what i was missing, but it's so nice to be back in a place where i feel like people are feeling my flow and we're moving to a same-ish rhythm. and i can look people in the eye. not so much at the greyhound bus station. that's for bullet 10, though. i had a great time in the airports these past few days, hours, whatever, in america, interacting with large groups of americans. i feel so so good. and i'm charming the pants off everyone! it feels so so good to make such a mutuably appreciable human connection with strangers. oh it feels so good! i'm going to do some more of that tomorrow, boy howdy.
10. at the greyhound bus station i met a man who said "well aren't you a purdy little thing?" so i promptly left and waited around back at the airport, where there was air conditioning anyways. so then i sat on my bus next to a guy who said the new superman looks like the real superman. i said, you mean the cartoon? no. you mean, christopher reeve? no. the real superman, you know. the really really real one. okay. so then i engaged myself in a conversation with the man to the other side of me who wanted to know, loudly, about my views on politics, abortion, and religion. oh, and hispanics in the u.s. and that was fun because there were many hispanics in the u.s. on our bus. so i changed the subject back to abortion. gladly.
11. and then ryan got me at the bus station! hooray! i should really probably go to bed. now. yup. that makes 82 hours awake. fascinating.

i'm so ronery

anyeong haseyo! oh the happy look of surprise on the faces of the airlines hostesses when i greet them in hangumal. sigh. yay for being back in korea! boo for long layovers. yay for internet! boo for having to change money. yay for crispy won! boo for the magazine i want costing $7. yay for having a photo cd! boo for my photo site not working.
so here's a short photo synopsis of my week on koh tao.

don't dive here . . .

elizabeth and erin elizabeth

sairee beach. all the beach you'll ever need.

running to the beach, day 1.

shot from the porch of our bungalow.

awesome.

kaboom!

an island diet.

so that's basically all i did was lay on the beach and/or eat brownies and drink lemon shakes.

elizabeth and i are good at that. we both made ourselves sick. i feel sick right now. time to detox with some kim bap. it's raining, so no korea beach for me. another boo to that. boo-urns, even. now off to l.a. i go! well, in like five hours.

all my bags are packed . . .

i'm ready to go.
driving home to be with you
highway's divided, the city's in view
i'm standing here outside your door
got a ticket for my destination . . . hum hum hum
home! where my thoughts are straying
home! where the music's playing
home! where mom's makin' mac n' cheese for me . . .
i'm so far away each step that i take's on my way home
home home on the range
sweet home io-oo-oowa
i wish i was home
yeah it's been a long time, long time, long time gone
i ain't honked a horn since i don't know when
long time gone.
please come home for christmas
i'll be home for christmas
it feels like home to me
it feels like i'm all the way back where i come from
it feels like i'm all the way back where i belong
just pack your bags and get yourself on a plane
if you need her, you should be there
go home
come on man! if you need her
you should be there
go home!
i'm tired and i wanna go home
i won't forget where i come from
i'm going home
i guess i'll get the papers and go home
another aeroplane, another sunny place,
i’m lucky i know, but i wanna go home
got to go home
i think i'm gonna stay home.
have myself a home life
well, maybe that's a bit far.
have myself a home life for a few months.


it's going to take me 40 travel hours to get from bangkok to flagstaff starting tonight at 10pm bangkok time. i'm going to see if i can find my way to a beach in korea, though.
i've got an 8 hour layover there.
kim bap and sunshine could do me some good.
home home home home home home home
see you all soon soon soon soon soon soon soon
what a great year!

and hey, don't y'all go away now, y'hear?
i'll keep posting until i touch down in iowa for good, sometime mid-august.
this ain't over til school starts. dig?

beach thoughts

question: is it possible to make other people happy?
subquestion: should you even try?

answer: yes. and yes.

in spanish, there are two different verbs which correspond to the verb "to be" in english. the first one, "ser," is a permanent state of being. the second, "estar," is temporary. so, for example:

soy guapa = i am hott. always.
estoy guapa = i am hott right now only.

soy aburrido = i am boring. always.
estoy aburrido = i am bored. just right now.

this is an important one not to mess up, you can see.

i figure that:
1. only you can make yourself ser happy.
2. you can make only yourself ser happy.

this kind of happiness comes from your outlook on life, or something. it comes from your soul, or somewhere. it is constant and, as anne frank says, it can only be dimmed. it is your responsibility, pretty much. you can permanently affect no one else's and no one else can permanently affect yours.

that being said, you can:
1. make other people estar happy.
2. be made estar happy by other people.

so yes. we should try. i find it rather easy to make someone estar happy, actually. pirate jokes, for instance. and brownies. even just smiling. it must become easier to maintain our ser happiness with good moments of estar happiness in our lives, right? and giving other people estar happiness makes me estar happy also. even ser happy.

the flip side of this is that:
1. you can make other people estar sad.
2. other people can make you estar sad.

this is just a dimming of the ser happiness though. they can't touch the root of the ser.

therefore, no one person can make you ser sad.
and if it so happens that you are ser sad, this is something you need to work through in your own system. but a lot of estar happiness from other people never hurt anything.

one last thing.
i suspect there are adjectives that other people can give your ser.
for example, another person can make you ser loved.
you should be ser loved by yourself, but others can do it, too.
and it's easier to ser happy when we're ser loved.

other people can also estar love us. that's like how you love pizza i would think.
or like, how you love the guy who brings you a towel when you spill your beer.
or how you love a random librarian. but the ser love is the really, really amazing kind.

so go forth and spread the ser love. and please, ser happy.
but i can't make you.

ko tao

i eat a lot of brownies here.
i'm gettin' all porky. it's good.
when we do yoga on the beach, we first get barked at by a group of island dogs. then, when we don't back down, they form a protective circle around us and, instead, bark at other wanderers on the beach. and then guard our bungalow while we change into bikinis.
i'm having a bikini custom-made by an irish woman and a scandinavian. hope it turns out.
should come in handy in iowa in october . . .
i'm tan.
i'm coming home oh so soon.
i've had a wonderful year.
i've had the most interesting of weeks. laughably so.
i'm going to eat another brownie right . . . now.

yum yum yum!
home home home!

the islands, mon: a haiku

i'm on the thai islands, mon.
my camera's kaput.
i'm coming home in six days.

yay! yay! yay!

You scored as Carrie. Carrie 63% charlotte 44% Samantha 31% Miranda 31% what sex and the city character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

ohmigod i love it! i scored in the order of my preference for the characters. yay!
someone pass me a cocktail, i'm going shoe shopping and, yeah, call adian. i've made a terrible mistake! :)

the final stop

i'm in bangkok.

i leave for arizona in less than two weeks.

eep!

i've put a smattering of angkor photos on my photo site.

(among others)

here's a preview of the angkor awesomeness:

happy canada day!

happy fourth of july!