really deep post

I love moleskines! I can't talk about the goodness of these notebooks enough.



These are the newest acquisitions.

Moleskine should pay me to advertise all the possibilities with their notebooks.

pointless things I do.

Keep my tea bag even though I know it will be too weak to use a second time.

Spin the hot/cold dial in my car, thinking it will make the air warm up more quickly.

Scheme for ways to not wear long sleeves in the winter.

domes

Six months ago, St. Paul's Cathedral, London.




























Now, Capitol building, Washington, DC.

(No, I'm not living in DC, just near it.)

winter solstice!

Today: shortest day of the year

Tomorrow: a day a little bit longer than yesterday

Day after tomorrow: longer days until midsummers!

vitas, counter tenor

Forgot how awesome this guy is.

best color.

I have had this awesome color in my head. It's in between blue and green and it'd be an awesome color to paint a wall.

I've googled for the color, even looked at paint swatches when I've happened to be in a hardware store or something (I love also that I'm thinking about this when there's absolutely no paintable walls in my life).

However, it came upon me the other day when I googled Tiffany's while watching "Breakfast at Tiffany's".


















Voila.

image source.

this website is so cool.

http://artofthetrench.com

It's Burberry and The Sartorialist.

things that happened while i was in the uk

the tea party movement

justin bieber/katy perry/lady gaga

wikileaks

those kindle things for ebooks

miss list

What I miss about London
being able to walk places.
awesome people from all sorts of countries.
St. Helens.
Tower Bridge, the South Bank, the Thames.
meatball curry.
taking the tube places.
awesome architecture everywhere.

What I don’t miss about London
being cold outside and hot inside the tube.
no sun.
the five hour time difference.
health and safety (seriously a class to use a ladder?).
no water fountains.

most beautiful word in the English language

Do you remember reading Tolkien on this?

Dictionary.com is talking about the most beautiful-sounding word in the English language.

Short article here.

the neverhood.

best computer game ever.

claymation, a story line, intelligent.

image source

audrey

The top ten reasons Audrey is an awesome baby name.

1. It's a classic.
2. It's cute but not cutesy.
3. It's a serious name.
4. It works for a baby, a high school freshman, and a grandma.
5. Names that start with vowels generally rock.
6. It's only two syllables.
7. Nobody ever hated Audrey Hepburn.
8. It's not a deathly common name.
9. People know the name.
10. It's awesome.

kids are cute, from a distance.

For two years, I had the most awesome Saudi friends. Before I went to London, they returned to Saudi. I really liked their four kids, but I also realized how okay I am with not having kids at this juncture in my life. So much work!

In one afternoon, when I was watching the three youngest, my list of never-have-I-ever's shrunk considerably.

* I let the four year old scale a parking lot handicapped sign. What's it going to hurt? He didn't fall.

* Endured a crying fit from the young'un because he didn’t want to leave his sister

* Heard the best mis-speak from the nine year old, “But we don’t like to go there. We’re like… scary cats…”

* Asked one of them to lick his hand clean because it had melted chocolate all over it, and then finished the job by wiping his fingers on his shirt in the absence of napkins

* Prevented them from trolling out the window with a yoyo on the drive home

Bless their mother.

shoe fail

I fixed it with two paperclips so I wouldn't look like a gimp around the office. It's time for closed-toes shoes anyway.

looking back to london.

If I were to write about my experience of the United Kingdom from a sociological perspective, it would contain certain motifs. These would include toast, neon yellow vests, health and safety, and rain.

friday night

On my third cup of tea. Just me and the dog around here tonight.

check it out.

If you've been following the Chilean miner's rescue, check these two articles out.

This and this.

My dad used to work for this organization, and I fully support their mission and vision.

anthropologie

Holy crow they are good.

I don't know how long it will stay as their front page, but check this out.

I don't have time now to enumerate the brilliance of their spot-on advertising, but you can probably discern the key aspects yourself.

across the world.

it's five o'clock in the afternoon where I am. many of my friends are far-flung across the globe.

my friend in japan is probably already facing monday's work.

in saudi, she's probably getting the kids to settle down.

american friend in norway just heading to bed.

the english teacher in korea probably will wake up in an hour or two.

in england, they're ending the evening and getting ready for monday.

bigger family.

I have a new sister! We didn't even have to adopt.

My big brother is married.

this is my surehope.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Refrain
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

But, Lord, ’tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait,
The sky, not the grave, is our goal;
Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord!
Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!

And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

Horatio G. Spafford, 1873
Psalm 146:1

simply breakfast

Simply Breakfast is one of my favorite blogs. A photographer posts breakfast pictures almost daily. It's a nice escape from politics and strife and words sometimes.

this week's to do

go to work.

get sick.

take a sick day. oh wait, I did that.

go to big brother's wedding!

white space

the first (and only) full poem I ever memorized

I met a traveler from an antique land

who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

tell that it's sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

"Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley

dear maryland.

Dear Maryland,

I'm going to be frank. Why don't you install some street lights? There aren't sea turtles for 100 miles.

-me

commute: then and now

Then.












Now.













Then: London, UK.
Now: Maryland, USA.

to those this who read for philosophical and or intellect thoughts: sorry i've been so disappointing lately.

to those who read because they know me: I am employed. I have moved to Maryland. I (finally) got a car. I am currently in the market for friends.

me and media

I don't care if google takes over the world, as long as there is still gmail, gchat and google search engine.

I'm a voracious podcast listener. I subscribe and regularly listen to upwards of half a dozen podcasts.

Twitter is just weird.

I can't get enough of good blogs.

you know them

In my head, I think of them as "pastel words".

If you maintain a somewhat-girly blog, or if you read what they write, you know.

To have the right aura, you need the right words.

The goal is to sound engaging yet intelligent, maintaining the ultimate goal: to be charming on a computer screen. Most of the time, they are. But it still forces a search for adjectives.

As a reference, any of these will maintain that charming read:

adorable
autumn (opt for this over "fall")
crush
dreaming
enchanting
inspiration
magical
mish-mash
musings
obsessed
purple
rad -believe it or not
revel
sweet
whimsical

Please notice this is roughly alphabetized.

this time last year.

I had just become arrived in London, UK.

I had been waiting so long to see Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

(photo by my old roommate, Stephanie)

best kids books EVER

babar

miffy

madeline

if you give a mouse a cookie

frog and toad

tea.

early grey.

dusting of sugar.

drip of half and half.

For some reason coffee hasn't been appealing to me, so it's tea all the way.


This intellectually stimulating post is brought to you by a recently-become 9 to 5 girl.

zooey deschanel

I admit that one of the things I am looking forward to, as part of getting back into the working world, is the business-professional attire required.

Whoever did the wardrobe and design for Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer wins. That is a look that would be awesome to channel.





image source

image source

how cool is google?

This was the google homepage yesterday.

The circles ran around the page and then settled in to the google logo, but stirred up again when you moved the cursor over it.

are you too busy?

I'm busy with weird things.

Not too busy, though, because you can't be too busy when you're not employed.

I've been job searching, car searching, interviewing, and now I have a job offer! Hopefully stable living conditions and my own place will soon follow.

Things I'm most looking forward to:

owning my own car again.
having a coffee maker perpetually sitting on the counter, making coffee.
have a closet so i can organize my stuff.
pulling my belongings out of boxes and settling in.

I know, I'm such a girl. It's true.

when i'm away.

It's nice to see family.
It's frustrating being away from friends.

Here's to hoping a compromise here soon!

how to... write for job-getting

My preamble for this post is that I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just thinking through how I've written coverletters in the past and how I'm writing them currently and how I think I should be writing them.

Please don't mistake this for advice.

Coverletters.

My writing in general is nothing to brag about. Yet. It works, it's usually grammatically correct, and it usually makes sense. I'm working on it. My plan is to keep writing and eventually be a tantalizing writer.

Thus far, in my job-pursuing writing, I have erred on the side of being too professional. When I'm applying for jobs, it usually involves multiple people, layers of hierarchy, and attaching documents for emails. I have no complaints with this system, but because of it I tend to also sound professional and cool. Though I hope I don't slide into bland.

Now into something like my dozenth cover letter in this season of job searching, I am beginning to self-assess. I've also consulted my brother who does grant writing for a living. For my own writing, I've concluded:

- More explanation. Explain in vivid, simple language what each item means
- More details. Mention relevant projects and duties in the cover letter. I usually reserved much of this for the resume.
- More of me. Sincerely explain why I want this job.

I'm trying to embrace the difficulty of crafting an eye-catching coverletter. I like how the structure is less rigid than a resume. As I learn how to compose a better letter, this freedom should end up to my benefit.

playing with filters

1. Tred Avon River in Maryland

2. Eastern Shore of Maryland

3. Rocky Mountains

being back.. day 28

Here are the numbers

4 cities. Baltimore, Orlando, Tampa, Pensacola

7 days. longest stay at one time

9 different hosts

2 very important weddings

0 cars acquired

4 bags, two large, two small which follow me around

1 call for a job interview


In my normal life, I'm a lot more sedentary.

at least there's people

the best part about being back has been getting to see lots of people I like.

what are you doing today?

I'm going hunting. Job hunting.

What I'm hoping for is a marketing, writing, or communication position.

i'm such a geek.

I found this youtube video on how to identify fonts by the shapes of their letters. And I'm finding it interesting.

the anthropologie dress

this was the dress from anthropologie we wore for katie's wedding.

we loved it. really.

since I've been back.

shocked at the obscene number of ounces of soda you can buy as a serving

discovered the new "sensation" Justin Bieber

realized that i no longer have any handle on where anything in Walgreens is

i don't expect car to drive on the left side, but I have to think about which way they'll be coming

need to call back someone about a possible interview!

back to the basics.

Job searching.

Car searching (or wishing it was already done).

Home searching, i.e. temporary lodgings. I don't want to commit to a lease until I find item one.

back to the us: weddings

jacquelyn and christian's wedding on the beach. august 7.

fresh back in the States.

People talk about "nesting". I am just looking for a freakin tree.

last night in london.

last night in london, august 1.

coming soon:

The adventure returns to America.


Be back online soon.

first glimpse of the mediterranean.

yes, it was from a bus. but still, look at that water.

little time left.

Back to America soon.

on the lead up...

Nice, France for four days. just returned today and not sleepy enough yet

Wedding cake baking. holy cats! what i have i gotten myself into/this is going to be awesome!

Wedding. yippee

i used to be a technology snob.

I didn't understand the compulsion to own an ipod. I thought they were expensive, unnecessary, and were conversation-barriers.

I contemplated getting an ipod for over a year, considering conspicuous consumerism and whether such a purchase would be foolhardy.

About a year and a half ago, I decided it was all right and kept an eye on the apple website until I found a refurbished model of the ipod I wanted.

Now, I get it. Especially since the amount of time I spend on public transport has skyrocketed, it is a God-send.

My favorite is when I have cleaning days on Mondays, and I can catch up on all my podcasts.

These are my top five:

The World in Words by Patrick Cox and The World
Let My People think
Fresh Air by NPR
St Helens sermons
This American Life

I also recently discovered PRI's International Affairs pod. It has shorts on America abroad- foreign policy and foreign relations.

bring back to the states.

when I go back to the States, I want to carry on the English tradition of not only offering guests a cup of tea when they arrive, but also, always sending them away with a cup when they leave.

They used to have to arrange when to return the china cup, but now guests leave with the tea in a to-go cup.

Just kidding. They don't do that.

stuff christians like.

I remember the first time I read the blog "Stuff Christians Like". I nearly fell off my chair laughing so hard.

He is witty, observant, and a great writer.

Jon Acuff had been around for a year or more before I somehow discovered his site. Since then, it appears his work and his blog have been taken to the next level. The blog has a snazzy new website and some of his blog material has been put into a book which is recently out.

I just found this article he wrote an article for CNN.

places that got pictures.

snow in january


world cup advertising


canary wharf

there goes my handshake.

I am proud of my handshake. And I like shaking hands. It's a personal, jovial touch to interacting with people.

Recently, in an interactive role-play, my English friends let me know that they wouldn't offer a hand shake in a situation where I did. "It's very formal," they told me. Oh.

Not quite finished with my Jeremy Paxman's The English: A Portrait of a People, I am moving on to Kate Fox's Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behavior.

Fox is an anthropologist who, like Paxman, is herself English.

She says, in general, "There is no universal prescription of handshakes on initial introduction- indeed, they may be regarded as too "businesslike" - and the normal business practice of giving one's name at this point is also regarded as inappropriate (Fox 39)."

Got it. No handshakes and don't start off with names; ease into it. Glad I am learning this two weeks before I leave.

da jesus book.

One of the best discoveries from working for Wycliffe Bible Translators. From what I saw when I worked there, Da Jesus Book is one of their best marketing pieces. It is the New Testament translated into Hawaiian Pidgin English.

“God wen get so plenny love an aloha fo da peopo inside da world, dat he wen send me, his one an ony Boy, so dat everybody dat trus me no get cut off from God, but get da real kine life dat stay to da max foeva.”

Do you understand that? Do you recognize it?

It’s John 3:16 in Hawaiian Pidgin.

More? Okay:

“So den, wat bout us guys? All dose peopo dat wen trus God befo time, jalike dey all wen run one race. An now, jalike dey all stay standing aroun us, watching us run da race, an showing us how fo do um. So we gotta gemo all dat stuff dat make us run slow, you know, dat bad kine stuff dat jam us all up. We gotta hang in dea an finish da race dat God wen pick fo us.” – Fo Da Hebrew Peopo 12:1


Source: Da Jesus Book. Wycliffe Bible Translators. 2000.

the typist....

I applied for three and a half jobs today. That's enough computer time for me today.

the 4th!

the 4th of July still happens in England!

night-time reading.

It's never too late to study your surroundings (and its peoples).

i keep this log.

Sometimes, I have what I call "a good interpersonal interaction". That is, a very beneficial or enjoyable encounter with another person.

This sprang from my college days when I was studying Interpersonal Communication, so my coinage sprang from there.

I started this document in Word in 2008. Its title is "a most excellent interpersonal interaction". It's a log, like a ship's log.

It is where I record the best person-to-person interaction I have had on a given day. I used to do it daily, putting down the best one of the day. But I don't do it daily, just the most epoch ones go down, because I get distracted and don't always remember to do it.

It is currently 16 pages long and growing. I'll let you know when it goes to publishing.

what i've lost

scissors- more than one pair

a banana republic shirt. disappeared junior year.

"sweet home alabama". this was actually a borrowed-and-not-returned scenario.

a pair of dress shoes, accidently left in fort lauderdale

tan washcloth.


I suppose it could be worse.

good design.

to whom it may concern.

Do you still address letters "to whom it may concern"?

If you don't know specifically whom you're addressing in a cover letter what do you put?

I'm applying for jobs. Loads of resume drafts and cover letters. If only there were more time in the day! I keep getting too bed late and still not getting enough applications done.

devon.

I don't know much about it, but I am going there this weekend.

I'll let you know how it is.

familiar movies.

"Gettysburg" always makes my top-ten list for movies.

Growing up, my brothers loved learning about the Civil War, and I did too. This movie, specifically about the battle of Gettysburg, was a movie I watched a lot growing up.

An old, familiar movie can be just as good as an old, familiar book.

evita

"you let down your people evita
you were supposed to have been immortal
that's all they wanted; not much to ask for
but in the end you could not deliver."

- "Evita"

calculating women

Anne Boleyn.
Eva Peron.
Pamela Churchill.

I can't help it. I really admire someone who knows what they want and is able to get it. It seems so much more salacious when it is a woman as well.

Innate intelligence coupled with good genes, and then developed ambition and shrewdness and honed people skills. You've got to admire it.

i'm thinking the capitol

I think I want to live in Washington DC when I get back to the States.

Anyone got any job hookups in the city?

today's preferences

I’m the first generation to grow up with household computers being the norm.
Now in my twenties, I’m a demanding reader.

I am a NLTLOWSAPOIP.

I-need-little-text-lots-of-white-space-and-plenty-of-images-person.

I tried to make the last bit of increasing font size and boldness, which I did in Word. But I am not savvy enough to know how to do on blogger.

why the phobia?

"Stop acting like a tourist." "We don't want to go to the touristy places; we want to find the local places."

I want to know why it's so uncool to admit that you are a visitor in a cool place and that you're investing in investigating the area.

In other words, a tourist.

Perhaps it's the word. The connotation of "tourist" seems to be a Where's Waldo personnage: bright, loud clothing, wielding a camera in one hand and bottle of sunscreen in the right and- chief of sins- a belt-pack. A person who bumbles along, consulting his map, or driving too slowly down International Drive, looking for his turn.

So the word has a bad rap. But why throw out the proverbial small son with the suds?

I like tourists; they bring money and thus create jobs. In Florida, where I am from, the chief industry is tourism. It's a good thing, and our economy suffers when people stop taking trips.

The let's-go-native approach appears, on the surface admirable. But I think that it's self-deceptive and a little petty. You are not a local, you're belittling your own status by trying to pretend otherwise. Besides, locals are notoriously bad at seeing things in their own town.

I'm a visitor, and I want to see the town. Why pretend?

monmouth coffee

This place is near Borough Market, by London Bridge. It is always in the top 10 lists of London's best coffee.

On Saturdays, there is a line that goes out the door and down the street. A guy comes out with a stack of cups, taking everyone's order.

the perils of good weather.

I haven't been able to sit down and do any work until the sun sets. Up north as we are in England, sunset has been at like 9:30pm.

Three whole days of warmth and sunshine is too unreal and wonderful.

it's not worth bragging about.

maybe just noting.

I went and got a curry with friends last night after service. Being not English (or Indian), I asked my friends to advise me, because I don't know much of anything about what is good.

Something like chicken madras looked good, and I think I said so. And there was something else, but I was afraid to mispronounce it around knowledgeable people. At the last minute, I spotted a cheaper option that sounded nice.

Chicken Vindaloo.

My friend yelped when he found out. Apparently, that's top-tier for spicy. It was time to ante-up.

I didn't sop up the sauce, but three glasses of water, all of my naan bread later, and I managed to finish all the bits of chicken and potato, I think without visibly sweating.

Either brave or foolhardy.

time to find warm, sunny weather.

The weather here is so unpredictable. Last Saturday, I got sunburned playing frisbee in the park. This Saturday, it was fifty degrees, cold, and wet.

Time to run away and find a nice sunny, Florida day.

a fun re-post

I found this on my former blog, and liked remembering when I wrote it:


That’s it.

I’m over it. I’ve had it.

I understand that it’s in vogue right now to be up on technology. I understand that there’s merit to using it well and using to effectively to meet your needs. I understand social networking is the buzzword of the previous year and likely this year.

Technology is cool. Using technology well is cool. but being into technology is geeky. Remember high school? The kids that knew computers weren’t your Abercrombie and Fitch clique.

I work around a lot of older (50 is probably the average age) people. They have all recently gotten on facebook. It’s bemusing to walk by a conversation 40-50 year olds and hear one of them say to another, “Well if you look on my facebook page…”

Talking about Twitter, has suddenly become the default conversation topic among my spheres. Seriously? Twitter? It’s what everyone talks about but no one actually uses.

I went to hear a live talk by Dave Ramsey about the economy last night. After he gave his piece on how we need to stop freaking out, because the economy is really not that bad, he took questions from the audience.

I don’t know why they thought it would make people like them better if they advertised all of mediums of question-collecting they were using (in my mind, that’s not what we were there to hear about. And who cares if you can get people to respond to you in a bunch of different ways?)

But they continually pointed out all the ways they were collecting questions. They took a question from the audience. They took a phone call. They took an emailed question. They played a person over youtube. They took a question via Twitter, and, of course, from facebook. Seriously?! I don’t care. The only thing I think they were missing was Skype.

There must be a limit.

No. I just did some online banking. Home page: “Find us on Facebook” sticker.

*Sob.


originally published april 24, 2009

a list of ninteen.

I am trying to figure out what to do next year. Well, where to go and what job it get, starting in August.

In order to aid myself, I stooped to the geekiness of making a pro/con list of my obvious possibilities.

Then in order to interpret the grid better, I decided I needed to verbalize my priorities to myself, get them out in a more visible, coherent way.

So I made a list my priorities, or, put another way, what I want out of life.

I got 19 things.

That seemed like a short list to me. But I can't think of anything imperative to add. Does that seem short?

Geeky, like I said.

penguin books.

I love the design of penguin books.

Whenever I see their books, I want to buy them, even if I have the book or have read it already.

They're just that good.

the rumors were true

I can now personally verify that Stonehenge exists.



I saw it on Friday!




You'll notice that the pictures are from a distance and through some chain-link fence. That's because you had to pay and we were too cheap to pay seven pounds to just get 50 feet closer.

for the weekend.

a favorite picture of my favorite swede.

I am off to somerset for the weekend.

the World in Words

Today, I was a work. I was getting ready to mop. I plugged in my ipod and started playing one of my favorite pod subscriptions. I yelped as soon as it started and ran to find someone to tell.

It was feature-length piece on an American family who had gone to Indonesia to translate the Bible. And I knew them! It was a couple from Wycliffe, and some of you may know, I worked for Wycliffe last year as I finished university.

So exciting! After I had gotten someone to share my excitement, I went back to mopping and got to hear Sue tell her story of working among the Berik people of Indonesia.

Later, when I got home, I got to email and fb all my Wycliffe friends and tell them that I'd heard the pod.

The show is called "The World in Words" and is run by this guy named Patrick Cox as a co-production of the BBC's "The World", as they tell you on the pod. Anyway, it's really interesting and all about language, linguistic politics, and language change.

spotted

Spotted: cutest kid ever today near Westferry in London.

i know it's a silly goal.

My travel card is for zones 1 and 2 on the London underground. It's my goal, whilst I am here, to either go into or come out of every tube stop within these zones before I leave.

To give you some perspective, I'm less than half way.

can't blog right now.

The election results are coming in, and as invested as a barely-informed outsider can be, I can't wait to see the results.

It's looking like it may be a hung parliament. Ooooh.

We should know in the morning.

feeling like today.

Kind of missing America right now.

misread, again.

If you read my blog when it was over at wordpress, you may remember this post about my shower curtain.

Well, the initial-glance strikes again.

I was walking along the thames and spotted a sign on the door of an auspicious building, "CCTV safe zone".

"Wow," I thought, "finally a haven in the city from those intrusive cameras peering at me. How great is that. And it makes sense considering the building..."

But I slowed down and looked again. Foiled. "City Safe Zone"; the shape of the typography had tricked my eye. And then I looked up and saw it. The faithful CCTV camera watching me.

feet around the uk.

I am not an avid photographer, if you know me, and I never really do photo projects. This one started casually and was months in the making. Finally, it's finished enough to show someone. Be merciful.