Chocolate Quiche

So I decided this will be a recipe blog for a while. If my primary interest is food, then that's probably what I should write about.

The other day Whit and I made brownies but instead of using oil and eggs, we used applesauce to replace the oil (but then added a splash of oil anyway), and 2 egg whites for each egg. They turned out really good, but kind of spongy.

I was a little nervous to bring them into the office but I told people not to expect brownies... and they kind of liked them, or at least that's what they said. Brad said they were kind of like chocolate quiche, so there you go.

Secret Ingredient: 1/2 tsp mustard.

Dedicated to Whitney:

Mac and Cheese:
Heat 1 and 3/4 cup skim milk until it simmers, then add 3 tablespoons of flour, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp dijon mustard, and wait for the milk to thicken. Then add 1/2 cup of mexican blend cheese and 1/2 cup of italian blend cheese (or any shredded cheese). That's all that's in the cheese sauce, and then I add that to a box of wheat shell pasta. If you want cheesier mac and cheese, use less pasta.

Salad Dressing:
All I do is get Good Seasons Italian dressing mix and follow the proportions on the back with balsamic vinegar and grapeseed oil. Then I add a little bit of mustard :)

Smoothies that are so good:
ice cubes
vanilla greek yogurt
two servings of fruit (I usually use peaches and bananas or peaches and frozen berries)
packet of splenda
1/4 cup cranberry juice
no mustard.

A way better blog than mine!

http://1000awesomethings.com/

Life in St. Louis

The readership of my blog is an at all time high right now (meaning, 2 friends talked about it...) because of all of my banana bread recipe advertising, so I figured it might actually be a good time to start posting again. When I started this blog I promised myself that I'd never feel like I had to post with frequency or anything, because then it becomes a burden and not as fun.

So three weeks ago I moved to St. Louis and I live by myself. It's cool because I've made my apartment a shrine to the color blue, Wicked, and musical instruments.
My AV housemates might remember my reaction to the moment when I realized that I was living alone... serious panicking. It's pretty much a complete 180 from last year, and so I thought that since I was happy last year I'd be the opposite this year. For the first week, it was really tough. My gchat status one day was something about knowing why they call them the St. Louis Blues. Depressing! But I'm lucky to have awesome friends who were supportive from afar and- shout out to Whitney for being so amazingly kind and welcoming to me that first week and still now. But then, once life picked up a little bit, I've embraced this.

I actually like doing dishes now. They are my dishes, and they are going to sit in the sink until i do them. My mom and Ali Folker don't live here! So the 2 minutes it takes to put them in the dishwasher considerably improves the cleanliness of my apartment and I end up feeling really accomplished.

Other than my ability to be incessantly singing pretending-to-be-Elphaba and most recently Fantine without infringing on other people's rights, life is pretty much the same as before. Except there are a lot of thunderstorms which apparently I am scared of. One of my first nights I fell asleep on the couch and I woke up at 2:00AM to thunder and what sounded like a tornado siren but was actually wind whistling through the windows. Also, when I got home from work today my whole apartment smelled like gas, because I guess I never turned the stove all the way off... didn't exactly know what to do so I opened some windows and bolted. Definitely missed roommates in those moments.

What has been the biggest change since this move is the peace and quiet I can have at will. While it was great to hear Paul's stream of conscious in my family's little casita all summer, for years I have wanted to have some sort of place or way to start my day in prayer. Until now I had a hard time making that happen. Now, I've started to leave a little time in the morning to center myself before the day.

So I'm shaping up to really like life here. The people in my program are fantastic, and even though I feel like I'm in way over my head academically, they are all really supportive and don't ever make me feel bad that I have no idea what all the fancy words mean. I do 20 hours a week of graduate assistant work on a project I care a lot about, and I'm taking 3 classes. Other than class times, all my time is my own and I can choose when I work, which is a really good system for me. I wake up and I can't believe that I get to spend all day doing things I've been wanting to do for years. I wonder what I'll be saying during paper writing season.

Peace!

What to do with gross looking bananas:

I'm taking a short break from untangling in my neurons the terms liberal cosmopolitanism and deontological libertarianism to tell you about the fantastic creation I created whilst not all the things I was supposed to be doing.

My mom and my sister always used to make the best chocolate chip banana bread, but I am about a thousand miles away from that recipe. Also, I'm pretty sure banana bread like that is the reason pants don't fit anymore. So I invented the first recipe I have ever invented and here it is! I was so surprised that it didn't suck that I am blogging for the first time in months.

Mix together:
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 cup splenda
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup applesauce

Then add:
1 1/2 cups mashed bananas
3 egg whites and 1 whole egg
2 tsp vanilla extract

Then mix in:
2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

and.....
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Spray and flour a bread pan, cover everything lightly with tin foil, then bake it at 325 degrees for 30 minutes. Then take off the tin foil and bake it for 40 more minutes. Then, if you can (I couldn't) wait until it cools down a little bit to cut it. But whatever, really.

As far as reading goes, I am about 250 pages behind where I'd like to be right now, and I have been averaging between 10 and 20 pages/hr. This may be the last you ever hear of me until 2015 when I graduate.

Love,
Emily

...while our memories are singing of the blue and white

I can't believe that around this time a year ago, I was tucked away at my hidden desk in Falvey Memorial Library (second floor, northeast corner, second desk from the end) cramming for my molecular final and putting the final touches on my ethics papers. I was sad because Villanova was over, and I was trying to figure out how to say goodbye without having to really say goodbye... while trying to be excited about my upcoming year as a volunteer still living surrounded by those same Augustinian values I cherished so much.

I was told that my life was not over and that there are so many great things ahead for me. Obviously I could never reach my full potential by staying in college forever, and the idea was that I would outgrow Villanova.

Yesterday, I finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. There was a passage from the last chapter which I think speaks to what I'm trying to discuss far more eloquently and beautifully than I could express. It describes how the main character feels as she is saying goodbye to her old neighborhood before leaving for college...

"She went out and took a last long look at the shabby little library. She knew she would never see it again. Eyes changed after they looked at new things. If in the year to be, she were to come back, her new eyes might make everything seem different from the way she saw it now. The way is was now is the way she wanted to remember it.

No, she'd never come back to the old neighborhood."

I'm not yet sure how I feel about this, or if I agree with it.

About a month ago, I visited Villanova for the first time since leaving. Yes, I had been on campus a little bit during Augustinian Volunteer orientation and over winter break, but to me- in true Augustinian spirituality- Villanova isn't the buildings, but rather the people. I'd be committing a lie by omission if I didn't tell you that those two days while I was there were the best two days since I graduated. I got to do what I had always wanted to do... run into friends and talk for an hour... hang out with people I love all day on campus (a little piano interspersed) without having to worry about going to class or study.

Here's what's a little unsettling.

According to Betty Smith, a year later, shouldn't I have "new eyes" by now? Shouldn't I have noticed how I've matured and grown away from Villanova? One of the first things a person I consider to be one of my best mentors asked me was what I noticed since I was back on campus. I brushed off the question as if it were frivolous, but in hindsight I realize that he was probably trying to get me to acknowledge that I had changed, or that Villanova just didn't seem that great anymore. This could mean one of two things... 1) I haven't changed. 2) Villanova just is that great. I'll take the latter, given that I KNOW I've changed this year. How could I not have?

Anyway, my ethos lately (which is fitting for my nomadic lifestyle) has been that I should trust that I'm going to be happy wherever I am. Even if it's not how I thought it would work out... though these days it is kind of working out. But it's not only that I'm going to be happy wherever I am, it's that I'm going to adopt that place as my home and as the place I love and would never want to leave despite knowing I will. (Again, nomad.) I've definitely have moments where I felt that this year in San Diego, but it's not as consistent as it was for the four years I spent at Villanova.

Therein lies the problem... Amazing things have happened to me this year. I've grown so much, gotten close to new people, and have discovered things I never thought I would love so much (i.e. Hogar Infantil La Gloria, frozen yogurt, SAINTS, ChrisAliAnneKatieMikeDanMike, etc.). At this point I'm wondering why I haven't fallen so in love with my life here as I have for places before. Next year when I'm in St. Louis, will that be my new life? Or.. how long am I going keep missing Villanova? (Oh yeah! I'm going to St. Louis University next year... I lied when I said I'd be at JHU. Changed my mind. Another story for another post.)

Something important I realized while I was visiting Villanova, though, is that that school will never be the same once those people that make it what it is for me aren't there anymore. Like I said earlier, it's the people that make Villanova Villanova for me. Yes, Bryan will be there for one more year. The Augustinians I know will be there for a while, same with some of the faculty. But the overwhelming majority of people at Villanova who I am close to are seniors who are graduating. Over the years, I'll know fewer and fewer people. The already faceless altos will become more and more faceless. My visit a month ago was perfect, and I knew it was the last time I was going to be able to have that same experience of having that same Villanova community I knew in my four years there.

With a little more thought... I really do identify with this passage from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but just not in the most obvious way. The perfect memory I want to preserve and always think about when I remember my alma mater wasn't just the way I saw Villanova when I graduated- though at that time, I couldn't have loved it more. The way I saw Villanova last month was almost just as awesome. Yes I have different eyes, but they aren't the new eyes I'll have when I see Villanova once the people aren't the same anymore.

Before my mom came to pick me up for our trip to visit Johns Hopkins, I sat in my Pastoral Music chair and took one last long look at St. Thomas of Villanova Chapel from the perspective from which I experienced it. I might never see Villanova again. I'll have changed even more next year at a new school and when I visit Villanova again, I might remember a whole different place that wasn't the place I experienced. The way it was last month and the last four years is the way I want to remember it for the rest of my life.

But unlike Francie in The Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I will go back. Actually, even though I know this too will probably change in the future, my current career objective is to teach there one day. I think it's all about identifying the shifting relationship I have with that school and realizing that while it's a place I love a lot, there are probably going to be dozens of places in my future with the same significance.

With a prayer for Villanova and a sweet amen,
Emily

Don't Stop Believin'

The Augustinian Volunteers have a blog (osavol.org/blog) that every volunteer writes for at some point during the year. This week it's me! Here's my post about my greatest joy in working at SAINTS.

"What I appreciate the most about being the Campus Minister at St. Augustine High School is that I have the opportunity to affect 700 young men who are at a very impressionable point in their lives. The students at SAINTS all have the potential to mature into men committed to their Christian faith and to using the gifts they have cultivated at SAINTS to turn around and give back to their communities in service. The greatest joy in my work this year as a volunteer has been having the chance to help inspire the realization of their potential - and for some of them - witnessing times when they surprise themselves by their abilities and truly believe in themselves.

“Mass Band” is simultaneously my most taxing responsibility and most rewarding. The group plays at weekly Mass, but we have very limited practice time. We’re not always my idea of prepared at 8AM on Wednesday mornings when the liturgy starts, but it always seems to work out and the students succeed amazingly, whether they think they can or not. I watch students become confident in their ability as musicians as they play beautiful guitar solos, and volunteer to sing the psalm by themselves. Being present for these moments is such a joy for me.

Kairos retreats are our office’s biggest project of the year. They require quite a bit of work from a faculty planning perspective, but they really happen because of the six student leaders on each retreat. Each leader gives a long talk that requires them to think critically about themselves and their struggles. One of my jobs is to start with the leaders at the beginning of their talk writing process and to work with them as they develop their stories and the message of their talk. It takes a lot of courage to give a talk on Kairos, so when it finally comes to the point when they’re dressed up on the retreats speaking to their peers, I’m always really proud of them for their accomplishment.

In addition to my work at Saints, I tutor at St. Patrick’s School, where Katie and Anne teach P.E. One of my students is a 2nd grader who I’ve been working with since September. All year he’s struggled with focus, and tutoring requires focus. He does not like tutoring. When we go to find him to start the session, he pretends to be either a 1st or 3rd grader of a similar, rhyming name. It’s hysterical and we love it, but when it comes down to it, it’s really important that somehow he learns how to draw in his attention. I decided to try letting him play “Lost in Migration”, an educational computer game that could help improve his attention skills. It gives him something to look forward to at the end of alphabetizing spelling words and writing them over and over. The game is simply five birds in formation in the air facing one direction, except sometimes the middle bird is flying an opposite way. The point of the game is to hit the arrow key to match the direction of the middle bird. He got really into it and I was just about as excited as he was when he scored 740 first and then 920 on his second try. He’s up in the 1200s now, and the pride and joy he takes from succeeding and breaking records is definitely shared with me.

In my jobs this year, I have the chance to see my students excel quite often and I feel really lucky that I get to be a part of those moments, and even sometimes a factor in their achievements. I’ll miss being a part of their lives at the end of the year, but hopefully the faith I have in them will resonate and transform to strengthen their belief in themselves, and they will continue to have moments of self-actualization and accomplishment."

¡Felices Pascuas!

Happy Easter!

Easter was a little while ago, but hey, liturgically it's still the season and will be for a while. Easter this year was so different for me than any other year... I decided to stick around San Diego for a couple extra days after my break started to go to the orphanage with Chris Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday. It was my first Easter as an Easter Bunny!! On Saturday, we colored eggs with the kids.... here are some pics.





Lupita's egg took a little bit of a beating.



Sunday, we did an Easter egg hunt, and then they got Easter baskets.

Running as fast as they possibly could out of the capilla.


Vielka was taking eggs out of her basket and putting them in her brother's.


If Bere is not the cutest child you have ever seen in your life...


Baskets in the baby room!





Also notable on Easter was the earthquake!! It was my first real earthquake, kind of exciting :)

Peace!

Thoughts of Tuesday

Looks like I'm going to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for my MHS! When I'm not learning how to solve the world's health crisis, you can find me in the streets singing Hairspray...

"Good morning Baltimore
And some day when I take to the floor
The world's gonna wake up and see
Baltimore and me!!!!"

I'm pretty thrilled :-)

Kat sent me this picture:

A couple links:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255187/Ruling-roost-Hen-thinks-dog-adopts-litter-puppies.html

http://www.marcandangel.com/2010/02/08/29-semi-productive-things-i-do-online/

I play this with my 2nd grader Fabian at the end of tutoring:
http://www.lumosity.com/brain-games/attention-games/lost-in-migration
He hasn't figured out yet that the whole point is to help him be less distracted.
High score: 970.

AV Lent reflections: http://osavol.org/Lent_10/Reflections.html

Conan's daily tweets have become a daily event I eagerly await.
Favorite tweet: "If anyone's curious what I look like with a beard, it's this ?:^(0) Coincidentally, that's also my ATM pin number."

Things I need help with:
1) I'm still working on my plan to get Jack the black lab down the street. I daydream about it often. That reminds me... last week I got his tennis ball accidentally stuck in a short palm tree and he freaked out about it for a good 5 or 6 minutes until he got it down.. it was so funny and sad. Anyway, so far, the only thing I came up with is to leave a note saying I'd take him for walks and stuff... which would then obviously lead to them giving him to me. It's chafa. Any other ideas?

2) Starbucks doesn't carry Tazo Wild Sweet Orange Tea anymore. Where can I find it?

3) A Sporcle quiz got me thinking about ways the world could end. If the world stopped on its axis, would we keep moving (that's a funny image slash horrible), or would gravity keep us on earth? I could be wrong, but I think we're moving at around 1000 mph. That puts our momentum (p) at about 15000 lbs x mi/hr (depending on your mass, which is dependent on how hard you work at Team Diet) because p=mv. I'm a little fuzzy on my physics, so I'm not entirely sure how that relates to f equaling ma.

Wikipedia tells me that this is the derivative for f=ma, and p is in it. Beyond recognizing that this is calculus and that this is definitely in my General Physics I notebook because I ignored Dr. Hones when he told us we didn't need to frantically copy all derivations because we would not understand them (which we clearly did not), I don't know what to do with this. ¿Maybe you do?

So moving on. If the world stopped, our velocity would stay the same, so then the acceleration would be zero.. right? But I think wrong... because first off, that would make force zero as well and that doesn't seem right, and secondly, wouldn't our velocity slow down because there would be some effect of gravity? Gravity is 9.81 m/s^2 and that is where I stop, because I'm not in the mood to convert units or even look up anything anymore for that matter, and I'm still confused about how we can get from mass and velocity to mass and change in velocity to find force, and yeah... ni modo.

ATTENTION SMART PEOPLE: My basic question is.. is that 9.8m/s^2 enough to keep us down if our 150lbs kept going at 1000 mph if the earth stopped? I'm thinking it's probably not...

Wow, that took a lot out of me. I honestly did not anticipate getting into that much thought. But, Junior Retreat got pushed back a week and this has been a great mentally stimulating diversion :-)

God's Time

Go to google maps and search "Palomar Mountain"... cause that's where I am right now! It's AWESOME. Kairos is definitely the biggest part of my job at SAINTS, and this is the first of two I'll be on this year. For those who aren't familiar with Kairos, it's a four day long retreat for high school kids, and it usually ends up being a life changing experience for a lot of them.

The leadership team and I got up here last night after climbing up a 5000 feet on windy mountain roads in a 12 passenger van full of high school boys and 400 dollars worth of snacks. I knew I lived in Flemington, NJ for a reason. Dangerous roads are exhilarating. Actually, now that I think of it, this place reminds me a lot of Flemington. There are deer and wild turkeys and woodpeckers, except there are also rattle snakes that will kill me in an hour if I don't get anti-venom. Apparently.

This morning I tried to go for a run. Ha. Running is A LOT harder when you are a mile higher than your usual altitude, the temperature is in the 30s and you have recently bruised your tailbone. But, hey- Team Diet would be proud!

Anyway, I have a couple hours to rest before the rest of the retreatants get here, so I thought I'd let whoever is reading this know about what I'm up to this week, and ask for prayers for all the Saintsmen. I'm so excited to finally see the results of all the stress I've gone through at work to get ready for this week :-)

Peace!

The Last 5 Months

A lot has happened so far this year, so I thought it would be a good idea to catch everybody up! My housemate Ali takes a lot of pictures, so pretty much everything from Cali is from her, and my other housemate Katie gets credit for the idea of using pictures to tell the story of my year so far... here goes!

These are my housemates! Left to right: Allison, Anne, Katie, Mike, and Chris. I am quite fond of them! This picture was taken after our Commissioning Mass at Villanova before we headed out to California. Fun facts about them: Ali is a Villanova nurse which basically means she's amazing and saves lives all over the place. She works at a clinic at St. Vincent DePaul Village, a homeless shelter downtown. She's also from the lovely Garden State. She likes to bake and is my running buddy. Ergo, I love Ali. It's not a coincidence that I made Ali first ;-) Anne is my direct roommate. I spend a lot of time with Anne. Too much time? Maybe. No. As you can see, Anne is the cutest ginger in the world. She works at the orphanage in Tijuana (you'll hear a lot more about that later) and is a PE/computer teacher at St. Patrick's School. We have thousands of common interests including the djembe, Spanish, musicals, and MacBooks. Katie is a PE/computers teacher at St. Patrick's. We tutor together on Mondays and Wednesdays after school trying to get little kids to focus on their homework. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. She is the go getter who will always go to In-N-Out or fro yo with me, and after everyone's in bed on Saturday nights we make grilled cheese and watch Friends or Will and Grace and fall asleep on the couches, tweeting at each other. Mike teaches P.E. at Holy Family School. He is also pretty much the best basketball coach ever. Mike and I drive to work together every morning. He waits for my coffee to be ready and he listens to me as I discuss my dreams from the previous night before wishing me a good day at SAINTS. Also, he helped me win my first, second, third, fourth and fifth games of beer pong last weekend. Chris was my lab partner in Honors Gen Bio I lab freshman year at Nova. I thought he thought I was annoying, but now we are considering marriage because we both have the same taste in food, and that's what's really important in life. Chris has hundreds of thousands of fun facts. Literally. He works in Child Services at St. Vincent DePaul, and at the orphanage where he's dedicated to teaching the kids English. I live with awesome people.

This is our house!

Before it got "cold", we went surfing on Saturday mornings with Deac, who's our Augustinian Site Supervisor. He's a great surf coach, but didn't believe me when I saw a leopard shark on my first morning surfing... that better have been my first and last shark.

I live about 2 miles from the San Diego Zoo, and I have a membership! (thank you Mike!) If I'm looking for a good run and have some time, I run to the zoo and visit the pandas and gorillas. One Saturday, all of us went and we had SO MUCH FUN. Gorillas have always been my favorite animal since my first grade animal report, and they were particularly adorable when we were there. See the little guy there napping with his dad?


Well, he woke up and wanted a little attention so he poked at him for a while. No crime!
Daddy was still tired and crabby so he kept sweeping his arm back to get little gorilla son to stop. At one point, he was particularly harsh and the little buddy got up and ran to his mommy who greeted him with a hug and cuddled. Gorillas are so cute.

Us at the new elephant exhibit... did you know there used to be elephants in the United States?

While we're talking about animals... I love dogs very very much and even though I'm not allowed to have one of my own yet, I have made some puppy friends in San Diego. Meet Jack. Jack lives two blocks down, and he's the most reliable friend ever because he is always outside ready to play. He looks exactly like my Sophie (black lab, a little pudgy..) so when I met him for the first time over the summer when I was here for my job orientation, I totally felt awesome about moving to this neighborhood. He's so funny, cause as soon as he sees anyone who might play with him he runs and finds a tennis ball to launch through the space in the white picket fence surrounding his house for you to throw back. He's so cute that you don't even care that you have to pick up a slimy tennis ball over and over again... He'll be coming back to the East Coast with me...

Contrary to popular belief and rumor, Hercules is NOT our dog. Sorry for all the worrying the AV office went though on that one. He's Ali's friend's dog, and we puppy sit him from time to time.

This is us when we went on a 8 mile hike one Sunday. We said we were going to do it every Sunday becuase that's how much we loved it. We have not gone hiking every Sunday.

There have been a lot of nights that end with me saying, "that was the best night of the year" during pillow talk with Annie. Well, this was definitely the best night of the year so far, hands down. The orphanage was nominated for "Charity of the Year" for Stay Classy's Classy Awards, an event held to recognize and support local charities in San Diego. See that award Dan has? We won! It was so exciting to see something we had all so quickly fallen in love with succeed and to be there to represent all of the hard work that so many people have put into the orfa for so long.

This is Halloween!!

My mom and I went to Santa Monica to visit my Uncle Danny Halloween weekend. We went to West Hollywood, which was a BLAST. This was the costume Uncle Danny and his friends put together for me. The picture I really wanted to show you had my mom and uncle in it too, but I'm going to go ahead and spare them of the embarrassment pictures of their costumes online might cause.

Thanksgiving started bright and early at the St. Vincent DePaul 5K. Allison and I ran together and got a pretty good time. It has recently been brought to my attention, though, that a 74 year old woman beat us. Wearing my V shirt was a good call.. we got Go Novas a couple times to encourage us during the race :-)

Then... we came home and played football! My team lost (twice) but it was still an awesome afternoon and helped me work up an appetite. I do remember Mikey and I having some sweet touchdown passes though. Afterward, we took this picture and tried to get me up in the tree too, but that attempted failed like my two point conversion.

Fast forward about 7 hours. I'm just going to let this picture speak for itself and say that I love my housemates very, very much.

And Thanksgiving also
turned out to be the
best night of the year.

Here's a picture of my office at SAINTS! It's very purple, cause that's the school color. Important to note: The candy basket on the front left corner of my desk. I haven't figured out if guys come to my office because they like me, or because they like candy. I'm thinking about making them give it up for Lent.

Christmas break was awesome. This is my family! (for those of you who don't know them) Mom to the left...

Paul, Sarah, and Me on Christmas Morning (right), and Paul and Dad (below left)

We went to Mass on Christmas at this little Abbey near my mom's house. It was really cool because it's a smaller place run by a a handful of Benedictine monks. I really felt like everyone who was there actually wanted to be there on Christmas, which was nice, and plus they had goats to feed. Goats are great.

This is Ollie. He's my puppy but not really my puppy in Boston.

New Years Eve I went back to Villanova for the first time since I had left. Campus was deserted, and we were the first to set foot on the path around Vasey Hall.

My afternoon at Villanova ended as afternoons usually did when I was a student.. in the chapel playing piano. Karl should be mentioned at this juncture, as he not only took this awesome picture, but taught me just about everything I know about playing piano at Villanova.

This is what my favorite place
in the world looks like.

Back in San Diego! Actually... Tijuana. The orphanage is one of my absolute favorite parts of this year. I wish I could spend more time there... it's an amazing place. This was on a particularly awesome Sunday. Anne and I went down to give piano/guitar/djembe lessons, and we also made cookies. The collective effort of Anne, me and about 25 kids turned out alright actually! At one point, things got a little hectic and Alan (4) dumped half the box of baking soda into the bowl... we saved them and they were sooo yummy..

This is Fausto... He's good with finding amarillo y verde in Candy Land and basically gave my life meaning by wanting to sit next to me during Anna's preschool in the Karate Room.

y Cristian... in the little time I've spent with him, I've kind of fallen in love.

In this picture, Alan looks so.. peaceful... (you might remember Alan from 2 sentences ago when I described what a great helper he is in the kitchen). I'll refer you to Chris for other Alan stories.

This is Olga and me on the first day I met her! She's a fun one, and really likes to inquire about and comment on my love life. It's so funny. Big project of the year for me: improve my Spanish so I can talk to them more!

Well, that's it for now! I nearly went crazy trying to format the pictures on this post, and then I went to publish it and everything got all messed up, so sorry about that! There are thousands of pictures and memories but hopefully these selected few give you an idea about how my year has gone so far! Stay tuned... :-)

Now that she's back in the atmosphere, with drops of Jupiter in her hair...

Hi!!

Welcome to my blog! I figured now that I’m out in California a few thousand miles away from almost everyone I know having all kinds of awesome experiences, it would be a good time to start. I always thought people with blogs were so cool and had such interesting lives. So thanks to all you people out there with your own blogs who inspired me!! Anyway, I’m really excited. Now that I’m finished with undergrad and 10 graduate school applications, I feel like I have all this new free time to do stuff I’ve always wanted to do… like running, yoga, working on my Spanish, this blog, so on and so forth. Even if my mom is the only one to read it (Hi Mom!!), I’ll still update as a way for me to remember everything that happens to me this year, especially all the experiences that make life really great.

I can’t exactly take credit for the name of my blog... I was beat to a great idea so I decided to just go with it! But Karl can’t take credit for the name of his fish (Spotkles and the late Sunny), so we’re even. It’s from the song Drops of Jupiter by Train, which has always been a favorite of mine. It’s about a girl who becomes an astronaut and flies all over the universe and gets Jupiter stuck in her hair. No, actually, I’m not a big lyrical interpreter, but I think it’s a cool song about a girl who lives her life to the fullest and tries not to miss any opportunities. That’s kind of what I’m going for! Thanks for reading :-)