Old/New Reads, Family Dinner, Mailing Our Food!!

I just finished 3 cups of tea!! I wanted to share my favorite qoutes from the book:

"Jahan took a breath and composed herself. 'When I was a little sort of girl I would see a gentlemen or a lady with good, clean clothes I would run away and hide my face. But after I graduated from the Korphe school, I felt a big change in my life. I felt I was clear and clean and could go before anybody and discuss anything. And now that I am already a Skardu, I feel that anything is possible. I dont want to be just a health worker. I want to be such a women that I can start a hospital and be an executive, and look over all the health problems of all the women in the Braldu. I want to be a superlady'. Mortenson didn't laugh after all. Instead he beamed at the bold granddaughter of Haji Ali....Five hundred and eighty letters, twelve rams, and ten years of work was a small price to pay, Mortenson thought, for such a moment".

This is my next read I just got at the store yesterday!!!

Returning to the U.S. after 20 years in England, Iowa native Bryson decided to reconnect with his mother country by hiking the length of the 2100-mile Appalachian Trail. Awed by merely the camping section of his local sporting goods store, he nevertheless plunges into the wilderness and emerges with a consistently comical account of a neophyte woodsman learning hard lessons about self-reliance. Bryson (The Lost Continent) carries himself in an irresistibly bewildered manner, accepting each new calamity with wonder and hilarity. He reviews the characters of the AT (as the trail is called), from a pack of incompetent Boy Scouts to a perpetually lost geezer named Chicken John. Most amusing is his cranky, crude and inestimable companion, Katz, a reformed substance abuser who once had single-handedly "become, in effect, Iowa's drug culture." The uneasy but always entertaining relationship between Bryson and Katz keeps their walk interesting, even during the flat stretches. Bryson completes the trail as planned, and he records the misadventure with insight and elegance. He is a popular author in Britain and his impeccably graceful and witty style deserves a large American audience as well.

Family dinner last wednesday. Mom, again has been blinded by the love of god shining upon her. I really enjoyed hearing lowell's impression of Obama's pastor.

And finally all the John Muir Trail Food has been mailed to our two resupply points in Tuolumne meadows and Vermillion Valley Resort.

PT or physical training, 1500 corp members in government center of downtown boston.

what a year

These are kids from our afterschool program at their graduation! Twenty parents came! Wow! Seriously wow!This is a mural i designed but did not paint (as you can tell!) haha I am just kidding, sorta!

after school kids

this is a big bleacher mural I had as my project last week. We had 1500 corp members from around the country and south africa come out for save the world conference (something like that) I led 25 volunteers in painting this mural!

Yay friendship garden, full of new summer flowers and perrenials

At the preforming arts night with salamata on the left and her little sister. I look a little tired.....

one of my "mentees" Beautiful girl, Isnino wonderful artist

some crazy hippie....

I gave my the kids in my mentor group my camera and they went around taking all these amazing photos, this is my favorite

Critical Creations art mentoring group! I took them on adventures to find the secret golden fish, they listened to old stories and quotes and responded to them through art, they stole my camera and sent flashes throughout the spheres! I have never taken a photo that captures a true childs smile. They look so happy!

My class!

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks. We are wrapping up our service and saying good-bye. It is so crazy to imagine all of this. All of this around me. This computer screen. This music filling the room. My room behind me. Everything that exist here and now in this moment. It will all shatter to discretion of my memory. And I will be somewhere new. Something new blooms before my eyes. Crazy crazy.
Well today I just found out I got into the Chile program! Whaaa hooo! I am going to Chile! Well I think so. I am going to think it over a bit more. The program seems absolutely amazing and I am really looking forward to working with the community there. Sierra, have you heard of Pandora.com? It lets you listen to music for free! Say there is a band you really like. You type in the Irish jiggers and they will play a song by the irish jiggers, then they will play similar music to expose to other bands you might like. It is quality stuff!
I have honestly been going through a lot of ups and downs lately. Feeling a little polar, ya know! Little polar bear! hehe. Haha yesterday was great. I was out playing soccer with the usual mix of brazilians, ecuadorians, peruvians, spanish, italian, zambian, jamaican mobsters. This guy "Pele" runs the thing. Whatever Pele says, goes. It is really crazy. But if pele is in a bad mood, he is bazooka and he calls everyone else bazooka! "Hey Bazooka, what the hell are you doing!" They have been play for something like 20 years and I am pretty sure I am the first girl to kick their butts, steal the ball, nutmeg at any moment..."Hey Bazooka! What the hell are you doing, pass the ball!"
"She is so fast! " Haha it is so much fun....fun on my good days. Other days I let their comments get to my head and I play like shit. It is a wonderful daily practice of not letting shit get to your head. Let it flow through. Once I let it get to me I play like shit....just like in life, ya know?
So it has been fun. I have one last week of city year and I then I am off to blowing bubbles in Santa Cruz with friends, laughing it up with my family, attacking ghengis with my endless amount of love for him and hitting the John Muir Trail with MY BEST SISTER!
I love you guys and I can't wait to see you!

Food Poisoning, Raggae Dance Club, Casanova Lounge and Oreilly's Irish Pub in SF, Listening to My Inner Child

I got a fabulous case of food poisoning Friday night. It started with an upset stomach. A few hours later I was moaning in my bed unable to deal with the pain in silence. Then I got a fever and decided I couldn't lay in bed anymore so I moved to the floor of our hallway. I thought it would be the best place for me to sleep. Mom found me almost dead laying in the middle of the hallway and asked me what was wrong. All I could say was, "ahhhhhh eeeeee eeeeeeerrrrrtttttssss. Caaaaan moooo". As mom looked over at the already half drunk pepto bismo bottle i bought an hour ago she said "did you drink all this" and i replied "ehhhhhhhh". Man, let me say if you feel like talking to death during a lunch break grab yourself some moldy cheese and get ready for an adventure!

Last Monday night I got to take a trip down memory lane. Some raleigh's folks and I headed to Kitty's in Oakland/emeryville for some seriously ghetto reggae dancing. The scene looked like an older version of my days back at the teen center!! Lots of great dancers and good hip hop music!

Andrew (from Raleigh's) and I took a trip to the city last week. Our first stop was Oreilly's Irish Pub in North Beach. A little disappointing b/c there wasn't any live music or much of a scene. We also went to Casanova lounge in the mission which can be a pretty cool spot to sit and lounge around on the sofas while listening to some live music. It was another "#1 best of the bay" according to the guardian.

While it was nice to get to explore somewhere new the best part of my night was getting to know a new friend. Andrew is a natural comedian who is also a twin, loves traveling (spent a semester in a little village in Italy!), likes surfing and the beach, majored in Italian and history at Cal, pursuing law, enjoys cooking things like cinnamon rolls, obsessed with the Celtics, played soccer when younger (decided basketball was more his sport when he punted the ball into his own goal as a goalie and held the record for the least amount of goals scored as a forward), enjoys fishing and crawdad hunts and camping....and best of all is down to do just about anything fun in SF with me!

In counseling I'm learning more about that inner child inside me. The one that is always trying to tell me things, but that I tend to ignore b/c like any crying child who wants attention sometimes you just want to walk away.My inner child comes out in the form of sweaty palms, a racing heartbeat, a headache, a turn in my stomach etc. I'm learning it's a good idea to be compassionate and loving and attentive to that inner child and see what it needs. Interesting stuff!!