Last Post from Spain!

It’s been a fairly introspective day, but I’m writing this after eating a big steak and drinking red wine (room service). I’m currently sitting in my hotel room bed and knowing that I’m way too lazy and relaxed to do a proper blog entry. So, a quick summary:
• Got all teary saying goodbye to my roommates. They’re all really good people and I’m lucky to have gotten to know them. I will miss them A LOT. It's weird saying goodbye to people that you've come to love in a way while wondering whether or not you'll ever see them again.
• Thought about how one’s life can totally change in one day.
• Listened to some music on the bus to Barcelona that made me think a lot about the fact that I’m starting completely over, from a blank slate. Had my first very brief moment of terror. Started listening to Lady Sovereign to get out of that mood (was getting teary eyed again on the bus).
• Bus was full of Danish high school students. They are SO blonde! All of them!
• Got to hotel, room was tiny, no bathtub, poor internet connection. Complained, got new, MUCH huger room with tub and better internet connection.
• Took first bath in five months (I’ve been showering). Realized that I kind of like baths better in theory than in practice.
• Had a steak for room service and about to go to bed. It’s only 9:40, but I have to get up at 4 a.m., travel all day, and then party with my friends.

Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. Holy shit!

I Can't Stop Cruising Websites

For dogs to adopt, that is.

Here is today's obsessision:



Isn't he the cutest little snugglebutt you've ever seen?

Unfortunately, I'm homeless and by the time I have a job and then a home, I'm sure he'll be taken. I can only hope that an equally adorable specimen will appear by that point.

In other news, talked to my best friend today and I am contemplating taking a little trip to Miami to see her before I get a job. On the one hand I feel like it's a bit irresponsible to go on vacation while you're supposed to be looking for a job. On the other hand, I GoogleEarthed her address and she has a pool, is really close to the beach, it's in the mid- to high 70s there, who knows when I'll next have time for a vacation, and she might move away for grad school. Oh, and once I have a job, home, and dog, well, I'll need a dog sitter!

Who Are You??

Ok, I just found out that people (or person) from my soon-to-be/kind-of-already ex-department read this blog, which is kind of weird (but I don't mind). I guess I didn't think that that blog post about me dropping out of school would actually be any sort of announcement. Anyway, I also have various tracking devices on this blog (don't worry, it doesn't tell me which individuals look at it, but it does give me your IP address [which is kind of useless because you can't track IP addresses with much specificity]) and I see that people in Java and Australia and Quito read my blog (Quito, you read it regularly!)! Some blogs I read on a regular basis mentioned that a few weeks ago was National Delurking Week. I have no idea if this is something they just made up and they're blog friends, so they all said it or what, but this is MY Delurking Week. Add a comment, fess up to who you are, I promise I won't change the content of this blog. Unless maybe you're my parents. But give me an idea of my audience please. And if you have a website, make sure to include that. Thanks!

p.s. I just woke up, so I'm not holding myself responsible for how well (or poorly) this post is written.
p.p.s. For those of you who look at this blog by clicking the link on my myspace: I'm setting the myspace to private as soon as I start looking for a job, so if you like this blog and you're not one of my myspace friends, copy down the link for future reference.

The Funniest Two Sentences I've Read on the Internet in Months

Taken totally out of context:

"Men can get a general idea of a girl's endowments before unveiling them, but penises are the Kinder Egg element of the human body. As you'll remember, cracking open one of those yellow capsules could yield something fun and useful, or shitty and pathetic."

(written by a man, by the way)

Source

Addition: It's been brought to my attention that not everyone knows what a Kinder Egg is, thereby stripping this post of all its humor. So, for those of you who've never seen one:

Another update: Got the picture up and found this blog entry on Kinder Eggs (includes pix). By the way, I'm pretty sure the "Kinder" is "children" in German and has nothing do with the egg being nicer than others.

Haunted Apartment?

I almost forgot to tell you all that I possibly stayed in a haunted apartment in Barcelona. Or maybe just a haunted room. Anyway, the first night I noticed that the overhead light would flicker on occasionally. Just a sort of soft glow. I attributed it to the crazy weather outside (strange magnetic fields?? I have no idea). Anyway, thinking this way made me feel better about the maybe ghost in my room. The next night, there was no crazy weather and the light still glowed occasionally. Surprisingly, I was fine with it. Usually the thought of ghosts scares the bejeezus out of me, but I was ok.

When I was in ninth grade, my parents were out of town for the weekend and my brother was living in Germany. I was home alone and went over to my best friend's to watch the ghost scene in Three Men and a Baby. I returned home after having seen the ghost. At some point I realized that there was no way I was going to be getting any sleep in my big empty house, so I rode my bike over to my friend's. She probably thought I was overreacting a little, but let me sleep on her floor. That wasn't good enough because I still kept imagining/dreaming that that little ghost boy was going to get me. So I got into her bed with her, but even that wasn't good enough. I had nightmares until she let me sleep between her and the wall. Finally I was safe now that I had my Lindsay protective shield. (Thanks, Lindsay!)

So, I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to mind over matter myself into staying in that room all that time.

Identity Theft?

I am in the process of getting my USA life back to order. That involves setting up my cell phone so that I will be able to call everyone the second I get into the country. Having ordered the new plan, I called today to see if I could get my old phone number back. It's not a particularly neat number, and it doesn't spell out anything cool, but I think people still have it programmed into their phones, so it's just easier. But maybe not.

I was on the phone with someone who was a legitimate operator and she put me on hold to check on something. All of the sudden I hear someone say, "Hello?" and I tell her I was just on hold waiting for the other operator. This new woman, by the way, sounded kind of drunk (or if you've seen those clips of Paula Abdul's intoxicated interview, like that). She told me that she didn't know why I was calling, that the call just got put through to her, so I needed to explain the whole story to her again. I did, the whole time thinking about how weird and unprofessional she sounded. Then she asked for my social security number. I gave it to her, even though I felt a little uneasy. She then wanted my name. I gave her the first name and she said ok and then asked for the last name. At this point the whole thing just seemed weird, so I told that I felt uncomfortable giving her that information because of the way the call had been put through to her and the fact that she herself sounded so weird. She said she was just asking that information for verification purposes and I told her I would just hang up and call back. She tried to keep me on the phone, saying that she could explain the whole process to me, but I said, "No thanks," and hung up.

Now I am all paranoid that there's going to be another me out there, but this new me will be one with really bad credit and that she'll mess up my perfect credit. argh! The one thing I keep telling myself to make myself feel better is that she did ask me how I was doing today in exactly the same way that the legitimate operator did. Let's just hope that she was drunk at work.

Going Away Again

I'm off tomorrow morning for my last stint as a Barcelona tour guide. Back Friday!

Coupling is Freaking Hilarious

In my spare time, I've been watching Coupling, another BBC masterpiece. I have no idea if it's stil on the air. If it's not, you should rent it. This clip is pretty good, but only showcases one character and really all of them are hilarious. Don't just take my word for it.

It's Been a Long Time Coming

I am dropping out of school. The less "quitter-ish" way of saying this is to say I'm withdrawing, but really, yes, I am quitting. Just in the way that you would quit a job that you knew you didn't like and had no future in. Just in the way that you would quit a job that you knew you were not excelling in because you didn't really care about it.

It's a big decision and one that various advisors at school have urged me to "think about a little more." I've been considering it for four and a half years, so I really think that's enough. Plus, ever since having made the decision, I've known in my heart and my brain that it's the right one (these two organs rarely align, so I have to pay attention to that!).

So here's what happened. For those of you who don't know, I am in graduate school for anthropology. I pretty much went to graduate school because I thought anthropology was interesting and isn't that what you're supposed to do if you have an undergrad degree in it? I immediately realized that I was nowhere near as passionate about it as my fellow students. In fact, despite liking them as people quite a bit, I purposely distanced myself from them because I couldn't handle talking about anthropology as much as they did. [Note to self: Don't try to get a PhD in something you don't like talking about.] I tried to drop out my first year, but let myself be talked into staying because I didn't really know why I wanted to drop out (I knew I was not enjoying myself, but due to other things going on my life at that time, I wasn't able to tease apart the reasons for not being happy with school). Also, I hadn't been in grad school that long, so I didn't really know if I was making an informed decision, and I'm one of those people that prefers that sort of thing, especially when it's life-altering.

I kept going to school and stopped hating life so much once I made all my rad friends and was dating. I didn't realize at the time that my successful social life was pretty much masking/dulling my dislike of school. I was consciously aware that I didn't enjoy school, that I never read journal articles unless assigned them, that I was never driven to go above and beyond, but I thought, "Well, ok, I don't really like class and I obviously don't like writing grant proposals, but fieldwork's my bread and butter–that's why I like anthropology, that's why it's worth it for me to hang in there."

But now I'm in the field and I, in fact, don't like it. I do like talking to and observing people, trying to get their point of view of things. I don't like the hours and hours of transcribing or the structured system of analysis that you have to do. And so, the last thing I was banking on has turned out to be a dud.

I've waited a while in writing this post because this blog is linked to my myspace and some of my myspace friends are school buddies. School is like work and gossip travels fast, so I wanted to make sure all the higher ups knew first. Now they know, now I can talk about it. I also was worried about their being offended because I was rejecting something that they feel strongly about. But this is not a rejection of anthropology, it's the realization that it's not the right fit for me. I like anthropology, but I don't want to be an anthropologist. I have no idea if that makes sense. Perhaps my interest and belief in anthropology is just too superficial? I'm not sure. I just know that I want to be happy in both the personal/social and work/career parts of my life. Some people I've talked to disagree with this or don't think it's necessary, but I do think it's necessary and I do think it's possible. Maybe I'm being a naive optimist, but I at least have to try.

I obviously have to find a job now (btw, I'm moving back to Atlanta). I have no idea what I want to be, which could be terrifying, but I'm actually finding it exciting and an adventure. I've been working on a book that helps you identify your skills and interests and at this point I've got it narrowed down to this: I want to be the organized person who gets stuff done in a company/group of artistic people. I don't actually have any idea of what sort of job this might be because I need an Atlanta yellow pages to fully complete the exercises (long story). But so far, with that little to go on, it feels right. I feel like I'm headed in the right direction, something that I have not felt in the work/career side of my life for a very long time.

I was worried about what people would say when I told them this news because worrying about disappointing people is something I do. Pretty much everyone, however, has been marvelous, offering support, reminding me how they remembered my lack of passion from the beginning, and offering me places to crash while I'm job hunting. As I have mentioned several times in this blog, my friends are fantastic. To that group of wonderful people I add my committee–my advisors who have invested a lot of time in me and are yet supportive of my decision to leave. Lastly, my parents and brother, who pretty much encourage me in anything I do and make sure that I know that they've got my back, always and unconditionally, and have thereby given me the confidence to completely change my life. I am so grateful and lucky to be surrounded by such people.

For Old Times' Sake

It's been quite a while since I've been physically capable of consuming large amounts of alcohol, but back when I could, this bar sign language from the Modern Drunkard was very entertaining. It still is entertaining, I just don't put it to use anymore. Who am I kidding?–none of us were ever really able to put it to use because this sign language is hard to remember when you're drunk. Give it a shot (ha ha).

I am 30 Today

I don't feel much different. A little tired since my parents woke me up with a 5 a.m. birthday phone call, but otherwise the same. Not that I was expecting any big changes–the 30=old thing is definitely a myth!
I think people get bummed out about their lives on big bdays because they reflect on their lives and are disappointed with their currents places. I don't use more or less arbitrary markers/days to do that (I do that all the time!) and besides, I'm pretty thrilled with life at the moment. Thirty will definitely be an interesting year and I'm totally up to the challenge! (More on that in about two weeks.)

Got back from another Barcelona trip yesterday. Just kind of chilled. We went to the zoo (pix below), walked around, shopped, and saw the naked old man with the tattooed butt and the pierced penis (again). Had an apartment near (in?) the Born area, so got to check that out–very cool, would stay there again (arty, fewer tourists).

Have a friend visiting and she's still sleeping, so I'm going to wrap up because I'm worried my typing might wake her.

Here are some zoo pictures.

This one's out of focus, but I like it because the male tortoise is clearly putting a lot of effort into his mating.




These chimps would clap and raise their hands so people would throw them food (prohibited). It was amazinng to see that they'd picked this skill up, but it was also totally depressing.




This is some cute deer/antelope thing.



And here's some really ridiculous hair we saw.



These aren't from the zoo, just a funny butcher's display.

Nature Still Cool.

I might alternate between neat nature clips and bad date stories.
This may or may not work. If it doesn't, check it out here.

Bad Dates (#2)

It was my first date with "Michael." We'd hung out before, but this was the first official dinner together, just the two of us thing. Michael is (was?) fond of the drugs, but one of those people that you couldn't always tell if he was on something because he was slightly weird anyway. So we are at a sushi place, and I am chatting away. It's possible that my story was getting long-winded, but I'm pretty sure he was super wasted. Why? Because when I noticed that he was staring at me instead of listening to what I was saying, I asked, "Michael, what's up?" and he responded, "I just was totally focusing on the shape of your skull."

I actually did go out with him for a little while after that. I guess I'm not (or wasn't) dissuaded by that type of thing. I probably should be.

I'm going out of town for a few days. A good friend is coming in to celebrate my rapidly approaching 30th bday. Perhaps I will have some debaucherous pictures to post when I get back.

Well done!

Acid-head extraordinaire, Albert Hofmann, turns 101 today (and he's still lucid!*).

*At least he was when he gave a 20-minute speech with no notes sometime in the past year

**Please excuse all the comments on here today that are pretty much directly taken from Boing Boing. It's an interesting day over there, what can I say?

Bad Dates (#1)

It's been a long time since I've been on date. That's usually how things go... I don't date anyone and then I decide I better get back in the game and I do. (Again, I repeat to any of you nosey folks who know me, I haven't been on a date in a long time, over two years.) Anyway, in the past, when I did decide to date, it was usually a no-holds-barred kind of thing, meaning that I would date pretty much anyone who asked me out. None of the dates during these periods had any sort of happy ending, but pretty much all of them make for great stories. Which I will now share with you (not all at once though).

Many moons ago, when I lived in Boston (most of the stories you'll hear occurred in Boston), I decided to finally give in to a co-worker that had asked me out several times. Sometimes persistance pays off I guess. Because I was only 22 and was capable of such things at the time, I had spent the previous night drinking excessively with some other co-workers. Maybe I actually wasn't so capable, at least not that day, because I woke up terribly hungover and I remember that I was still vomiting about an hour before the date. I was going to cancel, but I realized this would result in further pestering, so I pulled it together, made myself up, and met up with "Seamus." When he first saw me, he was pleasantly shocked by my appearance (I tended to look like shit at work and I waited tables, so he'd never seen me out of my uniform). He said, "Wow! You look like a movie star!" Despite still feeling wrecked, I thought, "Hmm... this date is beginning surprisingly well."

Of course, it went totally downhill from there. We went to see Fight Club at a theater where his friend worked, so we got in free. I like Fight Club, it's a good movie. It's kind of annoying to watch with someone who's already seen it six times and says everyone's lines while they're saying them though. After the movie I announced that I had to eat something since I hadn't been able to keep anything down all day and was now starving. There was a pizza place nearby, so I got a slice while "Seamus" was outside the whole time (I think he was on his phone or smoking or something). Anyway, it was weird and I felt rushed. I scarfed down my slice and then we went back to his place; he drank, I watched. We talked and that's when he started trying to convince me of his immortality.

Immortality.

I was worn out and didn't have much fight in me, but I gave it a go: "Uh, you're not immortal."
S: Yes I am
Me: No, you're not
S: Yes, I am, I'm thousands of years old.
Me: No, you're not
S: How do you know?
Me: Because it's impossible!

It went on like this for far too long. Eventually I excused myself and went home.

He didn't ask me out anymore after that. Mission accomplished, I guess.

By the way, if people reading this are reminded of strange dates they've had, please share in the comments section.

YES, PLEASE!

Apple does it again. God, I wish I had some stock! To paraphrase some guy's comments I was reading online (don't know where), "I think I need some new pants now."

*Addendum: I won't be getting this phone any time soon because: a) it's not out til June (June!) anyway, b) it's only available with Cingular, which has horrible plans, and c) I could never justify (especially when unemployed) spending $500 on a phone (the iPod and video player features are irrelevant to me).

"Authentic Happiness"

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I read an NYT article recently about positive psychology. It referred me to authentichappiness.org, the website of Martin Seligman, head of the American Psychological Association. I've read some of Seligman's stuff. I did a directed reading on Adolescence and found that most articles (particularly in psychology) focused on depression and other negative things. My professor directed me to the small subset of psychologists that choose to focus on the good stuff (and they catch some flack for it). To be honest, the positive stuff is more boring to read than the negative stuff, but I do in general believe in positive psychology and that thinking good thoughts and enjoying what you do has a profound effect not only on your psychological health, but also on your physical health.

So onto the Authentic Happiness website... It's basically a bunch of quizzes (or that's the part I skipped to anyway). I did the 240-question VIA Signature Strengths quiz and these were my results:

Your Top Strength

Capacity to love and be loved You value close relations with others, in particular those in which sharing and caring are reciprocated. The people to whom you feel most close are the same people who feel most close to you.

Your Second Strength

Honesty, authenticity, and genuineness You are an honest person, not only by speaking the truth but by living your life in a genuine and authentic way. You are down to earth and without pretense; you are a "real" person.

Your Third Strength

Bravery and valor You are a courageous person who does not shrink from threat, challenge, difficulty, or pain. You speak up for what is right even if there is opposition. You act on your convictions.

Your Fourth Strength

Humor and playfulness You like to laugh and tease. Bringing smiles to other people is important to you. You try to see the light side of all situations.

Your Fifth Strength

Industry, diligence, and perseverance You work hard to finish what you start. No matter the project, you "get it out the door" in timely fashion. You do not get distracted when you work, and you take satisfaction in completing tasks. I found these results extremely interesting, mostly because in about 20 minutes, they told me things that it's taken me years to figure out. I don't know that it's spot-on, but the fact that #1 is about love kind of threw me. Recently someone asked me what I wanted from life and I said, "to be happy, to be with someone that I love and loves me." And that was it. Nothing about any other aspect of my life. That was the only thing I was totally sure about. I would never think of myself as a particularly loving person, but perhaps that's the me that's always been there, hidden under my #5 strength, industry and perseverance (also interesting is that this made the list, but as #5). So maybe on the outside I'm #5 and on the inside I'm #1. I'm trying to figure out what my point is here with this post. I guess mainly that I was really (pleasantly) surprised to get these results and that this appears to be one of the more "accurate" online tests I've taken lately (and I've taken a lot). This one seems to get at your gut, whereas the others are more superficial.* So take some of these quizzes: they're free, eye-opening, and the site saves your results. *Test results vary a lot depending on your mindset when you're taking them. My previous mindset may have skewed results of other online personality quizzes I've taken lately.

Nature is totally nuts!

And totally cool.

Sometimes I Feel Like This

But most of the time I feel pretty good (well). I just read an interesting article on Positive Psychology in the New York Times and linked to another website, authentichappiness.org. Interesting stuff that I want to write about later. Well, I want to write about it now, but I have other stuff I need to do. More later!

Some Pictures from the Market

It took me a minute to figure out what the below picture was. Then I realized that it's the head of a goat or sheep or something, sawed in half. You can see the cerebellum. And the tongue. Crazy!

Clearly I've Been Reading Too Many Gossip Blogs

I just woke up from a celebrity-filled dream. First, I was hanging out with Kate Moss and some other "civilians." We decided to go somewhere and for some reason, Kate drove. I don't remember the outside of the car, but the inside was similar to an ex's shitty Honda. Anyway, Kate thought it would be funny to drive while sitting in the driver's seat facing the back, legs up the back of the seat and touching the ceiling and sort of steering with her back/twisting around a little bit to steer. I remember thinking, "that doesn't look too safe anyway AND she's probably totally wasted."

Then I don't remember what happend, but all the sudden I was on a university campus hanging out with about 2-3 non-famous people and Kirsten Dunst and Jessica Biel. For a while we were in the library studying and then for some reason I decided that I needed to take a shower (I think I was homeless or something). I borrowed Jessica's student ID (you know, because we look so much alike) to get into the girls' locker room. Sorry, no crazy shower scene: next thing I know, we were walking around campus and I was thinking to myself, "Kirsten is really cuter than she appears on Perez's website. She should really not wear those wayfarers." Then we hung out some more and Jessica and I were totally BFF. It was only after I woke up that I realized I could have asked her for some workout tips (she was fully clothed during the whole dream, so I guess it didn't cross my mind then).

So I guess that is officially my most superficial dream ever!

This is why snail mail will never be completely taken over by email

I just saw this on BoingBoing (yes, this is a screen shot straight from their page). It's pretty amazing. I wonder if this kind of thing is a welcome change in the postal worker's daily routine? I know if I was doing the same thing every day and then suddently someone threw what is essentially a treasure map into the mix, I'd be into it. It's a pretty damn good map though (at least to someone who's totally unfamiliar with the UK)–I'm not sure everyone has those cartography skills. Here's the link to the article.


I was rereading some old posts and noticed that I had promised to relay some stories about family trauma over the holidays. Yes, there was the usual family fracas, making its spectacular appearance on New Year's Eve, but no, I'm not going to tell about it. It's kind of disrespectful I think. Suffice it to say, there was nothing unusual about this fight or about the fact that it occurred, since we are four independent people generally unused to seeing (and cohabitating with) each other. If I've ever told you about any other family fights, this one was the same, just in Barcelona. "Resolved" half an hour after it started. Other than that, the vacation was great and filled with lots of delicious food!

Happy New Year Text Message

I got a really nice text message at about 2 a.m. on New Year's Eve/Day. I have no idea who it's from (yes, I could text the person back at the number given on the phone, but I kind of like not knowing).

Here is it in Spanish:
Que la lluvia de la felicidad te encuentre con el paraguas roto, te moje hasta los huesos y salpique a toda la gente a la que quieres. FELIZ AÑO! T deseo lo mejor!

Translated:
Here's to the rain of happiness finding you with a your umbrella broken, soaking you to the bones, and splashing on all the people you love. HAPPY NEW YEAR! I wish you the best!

I thought it was sweet and poetic (for a text message, anyway). I hope it's not from a random student that has a crush on me.

Happy New Year!

Back in Tarragona now. Had a great time in Barcelona with my family. Ate lots of tasty food and had not one, but TWO delicious steaks! (A good steak is hard to find in Spain.) Saw the sights (not a lot that I hadn't seen already), blah blah blah. Good to be back home, mainly because I have internet access here. It's safe to say that my interweb addiction is pretty large. I didn't even know that Saddam was executed! It's like without the internet, I live in a media vacuum. This must have to do also with the fact that I've pretty much completely stopped watching TV here since it's generally not very good.
I did discover though that they show porn (penetrative and everything!) on regular TV stations after midnight. It was kind of nuts. I know Americans are all uptight about that kind of stuff (which I think is exaggerated), but twelve a.m. is not that late and it seems weird that a kid can turn on the TV and see a man slapping a woman's face with his penis. Maybe it's just me?
I was just trying to think of a funny story from Barcelona to tell you all and the first one that came to mind is this: I was sitting on the corner of the street we were staying on, waiting for my mom when my dad said, "Check out this guy walking up." So I look and there is a man, probably in his 70s, walking down the street totally naked. Well, naked except for the fact that his butt is tattooed black and his front was reddish (I don't know if that part was tattooed or not) and his foreskin was pierced. Oh yeah, he was wearing shoes and socks too. It was probably around 10 or 11 a.m. As if that wasn't hysterical enough, there was a group of about 15 giggling girls following him/gawking. It was like he had his own little parade. It's the kind of thing a totally insane man would do, but he seemed pretty relaxed and not-crazy. I didn't have enough time to get a picture...sorry!
More later when I think of something interesting.