Weekend!

This was an excellent weekend. A homework party on friday night, volunteering at a farm (75 degrees in the greenhouse, it felt like summer!) on saturday morning, a Lady Ga Ga themed dance party saturday night, sleeping in this morning, and making some awesome music with some new friends this evening! Yay for remembering to have fun!

I'm heading into the last week of classes for the term, and then FINALS. Once I get done with that, I have spring break to look forward to.

Things that made me smile today...

1)Sparkly Dinosaur stickers

2)My mom FINALLY learning to text :)

3)A hand-crocheted scarf that arrived in my mailbox from one of my best friends

4)Almost being done with Rios Profundos by Jose Maria Arguedas

(it's just... dificil...)

5)Being closed out of my Women, Culture, and Society class so I have an excuse to take 2 Environmental Studies classes...

6)Warm wooly socks!

7)Knowing I'm going to work on a farm tomorrow

(in a greenhouse, it's too chilly for the outdoors!!!)

8)Robots on my desk! (that hold all my stuff!)

9)Naked juice Green Machine! It's got 2 3/4 apples, 1/2 a banana, 1/3 a kiwi, 1/3 a mango and a whole buncha other good stuff in it, and it tastes good!

10)Looking forward to my birthday in a week!!!

Trying DESPERATELY not to be jealous of the northeast... and of my sister, who is seeing Michael Pollan speak at Earlham tomorrow night.

Successes and Failures...

"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid the failure, because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere."

-Barack Obama

This week I've encountered some failures... not being offered an RA position (when my three friends who applied were), realizing that I can't fit Ultimate Frisbee into my schedule (Apparently my body can't take a total of 4 hours of workouts a day between ultimate and volleyball, who knew?), and realizing that sometimes all I can do is listen and feel a bit powerless.

I don't tend to fail.

So I am trying sosososososooooo hard to not take it personally,

to remember all the things I can do well,

knowing that these are minor setbacks in the long run,

and celebrating the little victories in life

like

beasting my last government exam

(got it back today, a 96!!!)

performing for the first time at Knox, at an open mic

(and getting lots of compliments)

knowing I am going to a farm saturday to plant some seeds

and meet some new people

focusing on volleyball

(missing you Erin, you give me so much drive!)

not falling on my butt on the icy icy sidewalks

seeing happy friends who will be AMAZING RAs

working my way towards the end of my first winter term

(which they say is the worst, if you can make it through it,

you can make it through Knox)

looking forward to spring

trying to see the beauty in the huge swarms of crows that love campus

(pictures to come, I hope)

getting geared up for my birthday next friday

(which I share with my roomie!)

being a good lister

giving advice where I can

(and only where it's helpful)

listening to NOW 5 with friends

(and singing along to NSYNC)

realizing just how much I love and appreciate my family

making appointments that need to be made

(like with the oral surgeon...)

Waaaay more little victories than setbacks!

Oh, Michael Pollan...

... how I love you.

"To my eye, there are few sights in nature quite as stirring as a fresh row of vegetable seedlings rising like a green city on the spring ground. I love the on-off digital rhythm of new green plant and black turned loam, the geometrical ordering of bounded earth that is the vegetable garden in May- before the plagues, before the rampancy, before the daunting complexities of summer. The sublimities of wilderness have their place, okay, and their legions of American poets, God knows, but I want to speak a word here for the satisfaction of the human earth. I'd call it the Agricultural Sublime if that didn't sound too much like an oxymoron."

-From Botany of Desire

I'm starting to get sick of winter. I've always been a spring girl, maybe because I was born in early March, just when you start to see the grass peeking out and little buds starting to think about popping out. I can't wait to see that ridiculously bright green of renewal- I think the green of seedlings always looks extra bright because it is a sight for sore eyes.

Some days are harder than others...

Erin was my first best friend. Although we moved away when I was only 5, our families have had a connection for a very very long time. Luckily I got to spend a lovely few days with her and her family last year about this time when I came to visit my college.

She passed away in December, and it's hard to imagine her family now.

I don't know how my family would cope with anything like their experience,

but I am amazed at the amount of strength her parents and siblings have shown in the last years and especially weeks.

My mom just visited with them the last few.

So thanks, Erin.

Thanks for being my first friend,

and for reminding me just how lucky I am to step out on the volleyball court

and just how lucky I am to have a family like yours

and just how lucky I am to live every day.

Wish I could have a setter like you in life.

Making my body function better.

So after being sick for about 2 weeks, and ending up on antibiotics for an ear and sinus infection, I figured I need to step it up! Granted, being on a college campus your first winter is bound to be brutal no matter what. But I am NOT GOING TO GET SICK AGAIN, so here's what I'm doing.

Body

Still doing my good ole volleyball off-season workouts. But now I'm also playing ultimate frisbee! It's so much fun, and I'm meeting great people. Also eating much much better. I've been successful in not drinking soda, except for the Hansen's root beer I bought the other day. But it is made with cane sugar and is a very responsible company, so I'm feeling okay about that decision. Especially after hearing Luis Adolfo Cardona speak last week about Coca-cola. He worked for the union in Colombia and is now in exile in the US after witnessing an assassination and being kidnapped himself. My college is attempting to kick Coke of campus.

Mind

Well, I AM a college student after all. Only a few weeks left of term, which means that life is going to get crazy, FAST. All my normal work, plus work on two long research papers.

At least I get to read awesome stuff for Plant Bio, like a whole chapter about legumes!!! NERD ALERT!

Spirit

Finally found a Unitarian Univeralist church! It's in Peoria, which is a little far, but me and a few friends went a few weeks ago, and it turns out my Plant Bio professor goes there too! We plan to go back soon. I forgot how nice it is to be around other really caring, compassionate people. Although going to church was never all that fun for me, it's nice to be around other people with similar beliefs now that I'm not around my family often.

SO I'm trying all this, and hopefully my body will appreciate it all!

Devoured.

I felt the time had come for my suitemates to realize the AMAZINGNESS that are beets. And the best way to eat beets is mixed in with other root veggies, of course! So we went to our local grocery store (which of course has limited organic produce, sadly) and bought carrots, beets, potatoes, olive oil (with basil! MMMMM!), an aluminum tray, and a spatula (or spatch as we call them in my family). We cut them up, threw them in the tray with oil, salt and pepper (S&P 500 as my family calls it) and put them in our sketchy oven at 400 degrees for about an hour. Using our oven is always an adventure, considering it is located in the laundry room... and is probably from the late 60s or early 70s. Luckily, we were successful in making it function!

And we promptly devoured the veggies-

one girl wants to make them EVERY DAY,

and I think I converted about 7 people to liking beets!

Plus it's one of my favorite foods.

And beet juice is pretty.

My Valentines

From my mom and dad, plus a cute little notepad!

From my lovely sister Lindsey

From my teammate Erin, one from my sister Hannah, and another from my brother Stewart and my sister-in-law Dawn. There was a lollypop with the one from Hannah, which was of course devoured upon arrival.

My apologies once again for the poor picture quality, my camera and I are having a love-hate-hate-hate relationship at the moment. Plus the lack of natural lighting.

SO MUCH LOVE.

That's what Valentine's Day is REALLY about. Not "singles awareness day" or a day for obscene PDA.

So spread the love, even when it's not Valentine's Day!

Snail mail is lotsa fun!

Courage

We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.

Helen Keller

My thoughts are with some brave UUs in Uganda, who are fighting for equality in some fairly desperate conditions. We might not have perfect laws for the GBLTQ community here in the US, but at least we have some safe spaces. We gotta appreciate what we have and strive to do better.

My sister Lindsey calls Whole Foods "Whole Paycheck". I think my family has accepted that good, organic food costs more. But apparently, at Whole Foods, you're paying for a whole lot of nothing.

This video is crazy! Whole Foods imports much of their produce from China.

Really all I want is to ingest things that I either grew myself or were grown by someone I directly know. Why is that so hard!!? It seems we live in a toxic food environment!

This seals the deal, I am going to attempt to grow veggies in my dorm. Stay tuned.

(Special thanks to my sister in law Dawnita for sending me this video!)

Our first lady!

I knew I liked Michelle Obama! She has started a campaign to fight childhood obesity, and it actually involves dealing with the food situation they are faced with! You can read an excellent article here from Grist. By bringing together several agencies OTHER than the USDA, hopefully we will get some good dialogue going and keep Monsanto and its special interests out of the equation for once!

If we think that general obesity is bad, imagine being a kid who honestly can't make informed decisions about nutrition and exercise. Say all you want about obese adults and their poor choices, the honest truth is that kids are being robbed of the chance to lead healthy lives by being fed food poor in nutrition- and also being robbed of the chance to know and understand their food and where it is coming from. Childhood obesity is on the rise- and there is overwhelming evidence that the damage often cannot be undone.

So hopefully Michelle Obama can get some good work done on improving the nutrition of America's children. It's a step in the right direction towards fixing our relationship with food.

Some thoughts about hippies

I wear flannel because it's warm

Man sweaters cause they are cheap and they have sleeves long enough for my arms

I wear peace signs because I know their history

I wore crazy rain boots before it apparently became trendy

I was practically born with a nalgene in my hand.

So here is my message to the young crunchy folks of the world:

Stop caring about the image, and start making some change.

Let's go, it's crunch time.

Monday!

So, of course, each day brings new things.

I woke up to snowy skies and some nice glittery powder on the ground to crunch through to class at 8 AM. Then I went to sign up for classes, and being me, I of course changed my mind about half my classes, so I am now signed up for (and will hopefully not get closed out of!)

Environmental Ethics

Women, Culture, and Society

Introduction to Globalization.

TADA.

It's so pretty out, and last night walking back from something with friends we decided that the snow looked like pretty amazing glitter. Not that crappy craft store stuff, the nice Martha Stewart glitter, you know what I mean? Anyway, wish I could get some good pictures, but my camera and I don't exactly get along- more like my camera doesn't take as good of pictures as I would like...

Anyway, off to make some valentines! I don't like to think of Valentine's Day as a holiday for couples. I think of it as a time to send really cute, sweet snail mail to friends and family to remind them you love them! (because we never say it enough!)

"We love because it's the only true adventure"

-Nikki Giovanni

Sunday!

I have to turn this stack of books into a 5 page research paper (all in spanish I might add!) by Friday. So... my Sunday is already pretty full!

But it's nothing some temp tats can't cure!!! Who knew that I would find a suite full of freshman girls would be just as interested in temporary tattoos, coloring books, Jane Austen adaptations, puzzles, and Jimmy Johns sandwiches as I am?!! I am such a lucky girl!

I already have to start signing up for spring term classes!!! Sadly, pickings are slim, and I am forcing myself NOT to take spanish for my own mental health. So HOPEFULLY- I will be taking

Environmental Ethics

(which is a little too philosophical for me, but is a requirement for the major)

Women, Culture, and Society

(which a few friends took this term and highly recommended)

and Microeconomics

(which is just me being CRAZY... actually it is probably going to be valuable to me, since environmentalism becomes economic quick quickly, plus I'm taking this one with a friend, so we'll survive!!!)

I hope I don't get closed out of any classes, I think I'd probably loose my mind a little. Well, off to write about how pre-colonial Andean civilizations were way more advanced than us! (more to come about THAT).

HASTA LUEGO

Check it out!

Pretty intense ads being put out by veterans about the link between oil and terrorism. Check it out here! Happy snowy weekend!