totally sucks awesome hated it beautiful

yes, this week i'm exploring a series of paradoxes with a bunch of other missionaries just returned from the field. a little thing called "debriefing and renewal" in the mountains of colorado. some people have come "home" for good, others are just here for a year before returning to assignments abroad. all are totally grateful for their experiences and are struggling now with varying degrees of home-sickness (for "adopted" countries) and identity crisis. yet all have been burned, bruised, and battered; the side of being a missionary that is rarely shared outside the safest of circles. this place is definitely a safe one, and i'm glad i made it out here, albeit (slightly) grudgingly.

perfect score

north carolinians everywhere might as well roll out the welcome mat to their newest resident; yours truly just got her license.

this is a big deal for 2 reasons... a) it's symbolic of the fact that i'm putting down roots here (though i confess my heart is still mostly in maryland), and b) in order to get a NC license, you must first pass a driver's test. the test is full of obscure questions like, "what percentage of driving accidents are due to drunk driving?" is it really necessary that i know the exact percentage to be a good driver? isn't it enough to know not to drink and drive?

lucky for me, someone in my office mentioned that one could find a "study guide" (i refuse to call it a cheat sheet) online. thus, this little lady got a perfect score... booyah!

(really, what ever happened to people saying booyah?!?)

when i got back to my job, at the church, i was amazed to find kids moon-bouncing inside. yep, you can fit two moon-bouncers in our "multi purpose" space (which happens to be used for our contemporary services). who knew? and when can i bounce?

google hearts walkers

i use google maps a lot... mostly because i'm new to town. i love how when getting directions, you can use your mouse to drag your route onto smaller (less trafficky) roads. great for bikers. but NOW there's an additional option! when getting directions, you can click "by car" or "walking." not only does it automatically move your route to roads less traveled, but it also estimates your walking time! i think this change denotes some serious behavior changes in the US. i'm so proud.

car shopping

really, i ought to say virtual car shopping... as i've yet to test drive a single vehicle... but in my imagination, i've narrowed down my options to the perfect car. the 2007 nissan versa hatchback sl... with a sunroof. i've only found ONE with a sunroof so far, and it's in dulles, which makes me think i should fly up to dc and visit lots of friends on the drive back south. sounds like a week of fun, right? and i'd need that week to learn how to drive stick, as the ONE versa sl with sunroof happens to be a manual. no worries. i actually think i'd be a great manual driver, given 2 or 3 days of roadtripping and couch surfing. sadly, i don't have time for such ventures... not for another 2 weeks, at least... and by then my currently "perfect" car will likely be sold... eventually replaced by another potentially "perfect" set of wheels. i mean, i'll be driving this car for the next 10 years, so it's got to be just right. for now, though, the bus and bike are still fun. liberating, even. still, the possibility of purchasing a car in the near future looms large.

recovery

it appears that for every day of hanging out/working/living with middle schoolers (that would be last sunday through wednesday), i need an equal portion of sloth and sleep (thursday through sunday). but finally, i have emerged from hibernation.

i did peek my head out the door a couple of times during the 4-day respite. i went to the cardiologist for an echocardiagram. those are fun! it's like an ultra-sound, except that i watched my heart beating on a screen instead of a fetus. small difference.

i later biked to the ymca (2.5 hilly miles), tried one of their yoga classes (i was impressed) and then biked back home. it pretty much felt like 3 workouts in 1, but i'm sure that will improve as i get back to an exercise routine.

finally, i went out with some friends and met some new peeps on saturday. always fun to meet new people. then two of us split off to take on the salsa scene. i'm pretty sure that in flip-flops, i could out-dance any girl there. they could all kick my butt in heels, though. which is unfortunate, as no real salsa dancer wears flip-flops. (sigh).

burping

after spending this week with over 40 middle school kids, sleeping on the floor of a downtown church, fixing peeps houses (which is significantly difficult with 8th graders) in the sun... i'm too tired to write anything eloquent...
not that i ever do...
but i will say that i learned a new burping game this week. apparently, every time someone burps, it's cool to scream out random colors, "red! black! orange! canary yellow!" with no repeats... the last one to think of a color (and scream it) loses. the loser has to grunt. grunting is embarrassing. the end.

kids and tattoos

i went to the movies last night with a group of middle schoolers. we saw "prince caspian" of the narnia series. it was good, though we had the entire theater to ourselves, which made for lots of noise and finger puppets.

anyway, before the film, we stopped in at mcdonalds for some nourishment. it happened to be connected to a convenience store which happened to have a tattoo machine--the kind where you insert 2 quarters and get a fake tattoo in return. seeing this as an opportune bonding moment, i invited the kids to pick out a tattoo for me to paste on my arm. after much deliberation, they decided i should get one of the "magic" type tattoos, hoping for a dragon. the less desirable options included silly flowers and hearts, sports and racing, or random "lovey" airbrushed types. i put my quarters in under the pictures of dragons and swords... but out popped a tattoo of two people embracing romantically, with the words "lets get it on" inscribed in cursive below. oops.

salsa hurts

i went salsa dancing last week... twice.

wednesday i went with a guy named ricardo. "lauren laughs" regulars will understand the humor in this small coincidence. anyway, ricardo took me to a place that starts with lessons before moving to just plain dancing. we did the first (beginner) lesson. easy... a tad boring. we asked one of the instructors if we could do the intermediate lesson too. she hesitated and said yes, but just to sit it out if we felt it was too advanced. psha. we rocked the intermediate class so well that the same instructor walked up to us later and asked us to audition for the advanced class that will be starting later this month: "just throw something together." okay. maybe...

i danced with the other instructor at one point, a man in pointy white shoes (mandatory for all male salsa teachers). sadly, i stubbed my toe on his shoes, breaking my toenail and spewing blood everywhere. that was fun. i really need to invest in salsa shoes.

but you can't let a broken toe nail keep you on the sidelines of life. no sir. thursday night i was back at it, only with a group of latinos. (ricardo is not latino... well, he's half... but it's a repressed half). anyway, my new latino friends all speak spanish. it was great to be in that environment again, and i understood everything, i just kept responding in french. shoot! till a moroccan guy joined us, then i had a french buddy. oh, the woes of a multi-lingual lover. still, i hope to hang with (and eventually hold a coherent conversation with) these new friends every once in a while, if only i could get used to the festivities starting at midnight.

progressive kitchen 1

i don't so much have a "fully functional" kitchen yet. i'm reminded of this at odd moments... like when i bought a can of beats to eat on a salad, but then realized i had no can opener. nothing a pocket knife can't fix. or when i decided i'd make brownies this weekend, but had to do so without measuring cups. the result: brownie goo the entire staff made fun of.

so i'm on a mission this week/weekend to set up my kitchen. i've got dad's monster van parked in the driveway till sunday, so i might as well make use of it! so far, i've purchased a spice rack (including 20 spices), a liquid measuring cup and a strainer. odd mix, i know.

this would be so much easier if i were getting married. bridal registries are so discriminatory.

musica

two awesome finds this week:

1. paste. the magazine. they send you a new cd every month with new releases! how cool is that? and it's only 20 bucks for a year subscription. awesome.

2. wrnr online! in case you didn't know, the very best radio station of all time happens to live in downtown annapolis. life without wrnr has been a sad void of sound, till carolyn told me to just plug-in online! it's so much easier to get out of bed in the morning knowing "planet alex" is just a click away.

good stuff.

i LOVE the vintage wallpaper that adorned my bathroom up until this weekend. it was so super cool, but it was peeling in the worst way... so it had to go. let me tell you, taking wallpaper down from the wall is no easy task. goodbye lovely little butterflies on yellowed background...
and then i painted, which was also a bit of a task... mostly because i had no step ladder so i did all kinds of acrobatics to get from one high corner to the next. painting has always been a social event for me, usually helping friends, but this time i was going it alone, and that was quite nice too. i kept thinking, 'i'm doing this just for me.' sounds silly, but it's a rare occasion that i put that much effort into anything that's only going to benefit me. i'm still debating if i like this blue, though...

go cats!

sometimes my mom likes to remind me that i was a cheerleader by thrusting her finger up in the air and shouting, "go keeaaaatts!" because that's how we used to say it in high school.

this is a different kind of cats. this is the city bus.

after my woe-is-me-i-have-no-social-life moment yesterday, i did indeed email some friends to see what was going on this weekend (the answer is EVERYone is leaving town), and someone tipped me off about an outdoor music venue downtown. so i pulled out my bus map and went downtown. easiest thing ever. even coming back in the dark and rain wasn't a problem. i kept thinking, i'm on a reputable city bus with lots of people, and that's got to be safer than riding on the back of a motorcycle with a stranger in benin, right? i am lovin' me some public transportation.

not to mention... i met someone last night that likes both biodiesel AND salsa. i mean, what are the odds. thank you city bus, for expanding my social horizons.

where the hell is matt?

how cool is this video...

totally reminds me of an impromptu village dancing party in northern benin with peace corps friends.

snails pace social life

well i never thought the day would come when i was bored on nights and weekends... but it has. i am meeting lots of people and i have at least one social activity a week, but i'm spending even more time alone here than i did in benin. part of me knows i ought to enjoy the respite. in two months' time i'll be longing for the days when i could come home and do nothing but read. but when it's almost every day? it gets old. my eyes hurt from reading. last night i thought i'd give myself a break by watching a movie... but i only have one... love actually... yeah... great movie to watch when you're already feeling a bit lonely. yesterday, in a moment of weakness, i even agreed to babysit on a saturday night. this is serious.

ok. i will stop whining at start being proactive. i'm going to email my new acquaintances and make plans. right. now.

small town america

i went to home depot this morning to pick up paint supplies with my landlord. i'm in a really unique situation, where instead of having to track down my landlord and wait months for anything to be accomplished, i see mine every day. and every day he smiles and says, "how's the house? anything you need?" (tip for the day: if ever you can rent from the church... do it!)

while i was waiting at the paint counter, i noticed a slightly funny, slightly familiar, very friendly guy mixing paint. i thought to myself, 'huh. that guy looks just like mason... haven't seen him since high school.' then i looked at the guy's orange smock, which said: "my name is MASON" in big magic marker letters. no way.

yes way. an old friend from rockbridge county. because the world really is that small.

soooo not in africa anymore

i spent most of yesterday at a theme park with 25 middle schoolers. i'll be honest and say i could have sat at a table in the shade all day and been happy... i'm not the biggest fan of rides and such. not that i mind them, it's just not my idea of a rockin' good time. but i did go on rides... lots of them. all of them. even the worst i'm-gonna-puke-my-brains-out rides. why? because i'm earning my stripes. those middle schoolers went home thinking i was cool, and i went home feeling a little queezy.

so i ate some week-old pizza, cold, and i didn't get sick. (i was making sure it was safe before telling everyone else at the church to help themselves).

at some point last night, i got a little bored... so i walked to the grocery store. it gave me some time to reflect on how FAR from africa i am.

1. there are no fences. everyone has big welcoming front yards, unencumbered by walls topped with broken glass. there are also no guards. you can look directly into most neighbors windows, and that's okay.

2. there is grass and it's pretty. in africa, grass is considered a messy yard. my guard was constantly pulling up my grass. granted, grass can look messy when you cut it with a machete. no machetes here.

3. there are street lights.

4. despite all the comforts of the outdoors... the safety, the grass, the lighting... everyone shuts themselves up inside. no one is out on the streets talking to each other. def not africa.

5. no one stares at me or sings the whitey "yovo" song.

6. the grocery store... ooooh, the grocery store! i don't even know where to start on that one. luckily, my grocery store is a smaller "express" version, so i don't get TOO overwhelmed.

7. lots of cars. no motorcycles. less pollution. more trees. no beach. fireflies.

i'm still far from all my close friends, though. peeps here are super friendly, but i know it will take 6 months to a year before i have any really intimate friendships, and that's kinda sad. but do-able.

dc by storm

last thursday 29 9th graders, 5 adults and i all made our way to our nation's capitol via the overnight train. a little "urban adventure" of sorts. all 35 of us crammed into a youth hostel, toured the holocaust museum (after hearing a survivor describe his experiences the night before), rode a bus to the national cathedral (that was an experience... you try cramming 35 peeps onto a city bus during rush hour on a friday!), and then ate at the very chic "marrakesh" moroccan restaurant... complete with belly dancing... which the kids joined in on. of course.
the following day, we split up into 4 groups and sent the kids on a scavenger hunt... where they had to find various points of interest using only a map and public transportation. the boys started off "surfing" in the metro, thinking it was fun to be thrown around... but later were too cool for such childish games. i gotta say, i was impressed. the kids mastered the maps and metro, they walked for miles, the saw tons... they even protested in front of the white house. (that's one of my kids behind the bush mask). all in all, it was an extremely exhausting but very awesome 48hr trip!

where it's at: american healthcare

i know there's a lot of hullabaloo about health care in the US, but i have to say i had the most pleasant, efficient, even surreal experience at the doc's office yesterday.

i hadn't been to the dr. in over a year (except for that little ekg back in benin), so it was time for a full physical, etc. i was reminded of the need for a dr's visit when my chest started hurting on monday--oh, not that again...

so i called up a medical office and got an appointment the very next morning. amazing!

once there, i was struck by the cleanliness of the building. and the privacy! no need to strip down in front of random non-medical peeps here! (as opposed to benin). my new doc handled all possible medical needs quickly and thoroughly. she even gave me an ekg right there in my room, which was a lot less scary than the last one.

then she (the doc) sent me over to do some labs and x-rays... and by "over" i don't mean across town... but across the hall! wow!

while i was waiting for my labs (like, all of 5 minutes) i noticed a woman come into the waiting room to check on the plants. live plants. she was checking the health of the leaves, watering them, dusting them... i mean, what is this place? with professional plant care-takers!?!

some peeps (or plants) don't know how good they have it.

almost perfect camping

just about every year, graham and i go camping. this takes quite a bit of coordination, since neither of us have lived in the same state for 5 years now, but we all make time for what we think is important. we've camped the beaches of maryland, the mountains of virginia and north georgia, and now we can add north carolina to the mix.

after getting some advice, maps and books from my new favorite outdoors store (it's local) we decided the 2.5 hour drive to horsepasture river (which runs through gorges state park and nantahala national forest) was a bit far, but do-able. we had plenty to catch up on anyway.

typically, our camping trips, though awesome, have been marked by some kind of drama. usually in the form of rain... once with the added fun of a sand storm. but this time everything was just so beautiful and easy! our gear was ready, the weather was perfect, our pace was good, the sites were well worth the trek. there are 5 falls along horsepasture river, of which we saw two. turtleback falls is about 1.4 miles in from the trail head. it's easy to see why it's called turtleback, with a short round slide that provides a 15-foot drop (depending on where you start) for those brave enough to go over the edge. this would be an easy spot for a day trip-and-dip. rainbow falls is just 0.2 miles further, with a 125-foot drop. there's a swimming hole at the base, which also looked like fun... but we hiked on, leaving everyone else behind. really, i don't think we ran into anyone past rainbow falls (till the next morning). about 2 miles in, we decided to swim. it was a lot like goshen, va (my favorite swimming spot in the world) and the water was surprisingly warm for a mountain hike. we hiked on some more, thinking we might make it to the 3rd cascade, when we stumbled upon the best camp site ever. the ground was flat and clear, logs were placed as benches around a campfire spot, fire wood had been gathered and left behind... it was almost eerie. a stream about 10-yards away was great for washing up and collecting water. so we stopped, unloaded and set up camp in no time. when has it ever been this easy?!? we feasted on couscous, tuna and chicken noodle soup for dinner. we made a fire. we talked, told ghost stories, got a little scared, told jokes, laughed, and went to bed tired. pretty much perfect.

graham was slow getting up the next morning, so i chilled out on a log for a long time, which is the kind of thing i like to do. once he got up, we went for a swim and stretched out like lizards on rocks. graham wasn't feeling well at all, and it didn't look like he'd be feeling better any time soon, so we packed up to hike out. on our way out, we saw lots of people enjoying the various water holes and slides. this looks to be a popular spot in the summer. about 2/3 of the way out, we threw down our packs and sat on the side of the trail. graham waited for hikers to walk past before vomiting directly onto the trail. so much for perfect camping. miraculously, the vomit soaked right into the ground, totally unnoticeable in less than 2 minutes. in typical boot-and-rally fashion, we loaded up again and didn't stop walking till we got to the car. i drove home, graham rested... and continued to rest till he could drive home the following day. being sick sucks, but being sick while you travel sucks a little more.

still, it was an awesome weekend, and a great way to christen the mountains of north carolina, of which i hope to see a lot more.

hello south

after a month of US travels and adventures (college reunion, texas family, preakness race, awesome baseball, lots of coffee, tea and conversation)... i've picked up my roots and moved back down south. and by south i mean--i have a huge magnolia tree in my front yard and even the gas stations are closed on sundays.

i still have no car, and i'm in no rush to get one, as i can walk or bike to most places. that's awesome.

i have no tv or internet at home, and i think that will remain the case as well. it's nice to disconnect at times.

my house is huge, and it took me an hour to sweep and mop just the upstairs last night. tonight i'll tackle the downstairs.

don't let my evening cleaning escapades deceive you... i do have a bit of a social life gaining momentum daily. it's a small world.

work is too cool. i wear flip flops every day!!

i'm may go back to school this fall (nothing major) at a seminary down the road, still in walking distance.

the ymca (in biking distance) is huge and cheap and even has dry cleaning services.

there are 2 libraries in walking distance, as well as a grocery store, bank and pizza place.

people couldn't be friendlier.

lets hope something crazy happens soon so my blog will be interesting again!