new location for the next month

Well, tomorrow I'm traveling to Turkey for a month, and guess what? Blogger is banned there due to some bloggers violating copyright laws by posting streaming soccer (futbol) games on their blogs. Instead of targeting the criminals, the government decided to just blanketly ban the entire website, similar to their previous bans of of Youtube, and various other blogging platforms.

So, rather than mess with figuring out how to change my IP address, while I spend the next month in another country, my blogging will also spend the next month in a new blogging platform. Please add it to your google reader and follow me in my latest adventure here -

http://tulipsandbluebonnets.wordpress.com/

Unless of course, the Turkish government decides to ban wordpress as well in the next month.

slower

Take a deep, slow breath. Hold it for a few seconds. Slowly exhale.

I had a busy end to an even busier semester, a couple of weeks off with my family and friends, and now I've spent the past two weeks going non-stop. I've had nine interviews, with two left to go. I've traveled to four different states, with one more to travel to tomorrow. Flown on 10 flights, with 2 more to go. Ridden 12 miles in a car to go to Oklahoma. I've got 11 more hours of car travel to go this week. I've talked about my strength, my growth areas, my most challenging supervision experience, what my clients have taught my, and what my goals are for internship countless times. I've asked over and over again, "What is your supervision style? How does your staff support intern self care?"

When I haven't been traveling to interviews, I've been working as a hall director, training RAs, opening the hall. Fortunately I've been able to see some dear friends in the past week, but even those times felt fast and furious. Most mornings I've been waking around 6am, and trying to go to bed earlier to accommodate those early mornings. I've had a couple of mornings where I was able to sleep in, and boy, did I take advantage of them. I've finished two books, am over halfway through a third, and a third through a fourth. I've been sick with a cold and suffered from an upset stomach after an unfortunate encounter with Thai food. I got an Android that now keeps me connected to gmail, facebook, google reader, weather forecasts, etc.

And now I'm taking some moments to breathe, sitting in a lovely coffee shop in Knoxville. I've prepared my questions for this interview tomorrow, already drove by it to make sure I know where to park, and soon I'll meet up with the friend that I'm staying with and we'll talk and catch up and go to dinner. But for now, this time is mine. Finally.

These past few weeks have been exciting, but oh I'm craving more time to slow down like this. More time for myself. More time to just breathe. This semester, I hope to have more free time than usual. I've kept dreaming up ways to fill that time - cycling, dance lessons, yoga classes, studying a foreign language. I've been so excited to finally have time for non-academic things like this, but maybe I don't need to fill up my hours with more time commitments, even if they are things that I love and will enjoy. Maybe I need to make this the semester where I finally learn how to slow down - or at least start trying to more. Maybe I'll drop into the chapel to pray. Maybe I'll go to a coffee shop and only bring a novel to read for my own pleasure. Maybe I'll take a slow walk around campus with no destination.

Maybe I'll start moving slower.

Winifred Napers Nephew

I have a few drafts of unfinished blog posts saved. I just browsed through them, and found that this post was pretty complete. This one was from 2/8/10, about a month after I'd returned from a trip to New Orleans with some friends. After watching Inception last week, it's kinda fascinating to me again . . .

**********************************************************************************

I had an interesting nightmare last night. I was flying home from a trip with some friends, going through airport security, when a female TSA employee asked me a strange question, something about petroleum engineering, that had one of two answers. One of the answers seemed obvious, but I thought about it a little more, and decided that the less-intuitive answer was actually the correct one, though I knew that I had little knowledge about petroleum engineering. Apparently, I gave the "right" answer, and then was asked to come into a small room for further screening.

At this point, a man who's personality reminded me of the US Marshall on LOST began interrogating me, as the answer I had given was suspicious given that I'm not supposed to know anything about petroleum engineering. He asked me who I was, and claimed that I was not who I am, but instead a woman named "Winifred." He showed me a card, that had the name, "Patricia Napers Nephew" on it and asked me to read it. I read it, "Winifred Napers Nephew," and he said, "Aha, you are Winifred! You just gave yourself away!" And I said, "No, I just misread it because you had just said the word Winifred, you mislead me. And I used to live in Naperville, so the word 'Napers' was familiar to me." He did other things to try to trick me into saying "incriminating" things. He asked me about my parents and what they did. He sat me in front of computer with a recording device and asked me to say "important things" about myself, then left the room. I spoke into the computer and talked about being a Christian, my church, being a doctoral student, and my career goals. He came back in and asked me again how I knew the answer to the petroleum question if I wasn't Winifred. I told him that I was a doctoral student and very smart and was able to make an intelligent guess about it. Then, another student from my program came into the room and told me that another friend of ours had picked up the friends I was traveling with. Then, the man interrogating me said that my trial would begin next week. "Trial?!" I exclaimed, "What did I do besides answer a question?"

At this point I woke up. The entire nightmare was more interesting than scary, until the very end. At the point when the man mentioned me being put on trial, I was struck with fear, set into some sort of Kafkaesque scenario in which I was falsely mistaken for someone else and unable to prove my true identity. Now awake, I looked around, and reminded myself that I was still in bed, and told myself that this nightmare was just a dream.

ooh, it, feels good to be free

I should have known today was going to be an eventful day as I drove into Huntsville, listening to the BBC radio coverage of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin wall, my eyes filled with tears. This is the second time I've cried this past month while listening to public radio news, the first being while listening to the speech of a female member of the Afghan's parliament's speech criticizing the parliament's relationship with warlords, that resulted in her removal from parliament and threats against her life and safety. I knew today was a special day being celebrated in a city that I recently visited, but I had no idea what a personal impact this Monday was going to much hold for me.

For starters, the most difficult client I've had thus far in my training abruptly terminated therapy with me in an entirely frustrating manner, but what else would I expect from someone whom myself and the staff suspect suffers from a personality disorder, who has caused us numerous frustrations over the past two months? I was downright pissed off this afternoon, but thankfully I have a wonderful staff to process it with and I'm thankful for the training opportunity that has challenged me and will provide fascinating answers to the internship interview question, "What has been your most challenging experience with a client and how did you handle it?" Though at this site we sarcastically use the term "training opportunity" for anything difficult that we don't want to do, I genuinely am thankful for this experience.

Then, I received freedom from all romantic involvements for the first time in over a year, and incredibly, by God's grace, it happened in the most positive way one could hope for - with clarity, kindness, understanding, gratitude, and forgiveness, without hurt, shame, anger, or regret. I'm so thankful for this. It feels good to be free, to be grateful for my current state, to be open to whatever or whomever will come into my life next. I know a time is likely to come soon when I will experience loneliness or long for a man's attention, but for now, I'm surprisingly downright euphoric about this new found freedom.

Finally, this evening I booked a 13 day tour over spring break in this country:

Home of the city no longer called Constantinople, the 7 churches of Revelation, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Troy, Pergamum, seascapes that rival Greece's in beauty, incredibly hospitable people, and the furthest East I will have ever traveled. As you can imagine, I'm pretty incredibly stoked. Somehow, four months away, this trip doesn't even seem real to me yet, but I'm excited, and I'm sure it will sink in soon. Just last week, I also booked a trip to New Orleans with a good friend and then on to Oklahoma to visit other friends in January.

There's just something incredible about freedom, that people around the world will risk their lives and safety for it, that young women in Texas will dance joyfully and shamelessly to a favorite song when they receive it, that a god would send his son to death to secure it for his people.

a suburb is a suburb

Overall, the trip to California was all that I'd hoped it would be - a fun time to celebrate the marriage of my friends and spend time with family in a beautiful area that is a welcome escape from Texas. The three days of wedding activities were better than I expected. One of the other bridesmaids is one of my best friends, and we all hit it off with the others, who I'd never met before. The brides' family completely pampered us. I ate some of the best food of my life that weekend. And I slept. On. A. Boat. I've been in many weddings, and this was one of the most fun, probably because by the time the wedding rolled around, we'd spent three days together and so the wedding itself was the culmination of a days of celebration and preparation with old and new friends. I know I've been in the weddings of some of you reading this post, and believe me, every wedding I've been in has been fun, exciting, memorable, and special, but there's just something a little different about having a "destination" wedding of sorts that allows everyone involved to just escape into wedding land for a few days.

Unfortunately, I woke up the day after the wedding sick with a bad cold, caught from one of the other bridesmaids who had been sick prior to the wedding. Fortunately, my cousins took good care of me, and I took it easier my second half of my time in California but still managed to have fun. Monday, I drove my cousin's minivan (a frightening experience on LA freeways) and battled parking meters in Pasadena to spend a few hours shopping and enjoying art collection of the Norton Simon Museum. Tuesday my cousin, her kids, and her brother and I spent a few hours at Knotts Berry Farm, which I still managed to enjoy in spite of fatiguing more easily and experiencing more nausea on the roller coasters than I would have had I not been sick. In between, we enjoyed good meals, Animaniacs, frozen yogurt, Theraflu, playing farkle, and antics with my cousins' 5 month old daughter and almost 3 year old son. We tried to teach him how to say, "Hellooooooo Nurse" when he see "a pretty lady who looks like Mommy," as some of the Animaniacs characters do. He managed the phrase sometimes, but sometimes it turned into, "Hello Nana."

It was somewhat prophetic that I titled my previous post "California Reality." At the time, I intended it to be a play off of "California Dreamin'" because I wasn't just dreaming about going to California, I would actually be there in my reality. The title has taken on more additional meanings as I realized that prior to this trip, I had idealized California. A beautiful state of almost perfect weather in the southern coast, and a variety of natural beauties (beaches, mountains, forests) within driving distance of anywhere in the state had made it seem like a paradise compared to Texas. Fortunately, ever since my first visit, I had been aware of the high cost of living in this state, but I would still find myself telling people, "I would love to live in California if it weren't so expensive." After this visit to Southern California, I'm seeing now that even if you have a lot of money in this state, the suburbs of LA may not be the ideal paradise that I imagined, mainly because the region is so darn crowded. Houses are small, and yards are smaller. Traffic is horrible, with my cousins urging me to leave Pasadena before 3:30 if I wanted to make it back in less than an hour. Honestly, even with the great weather, the suburbs of LA seem just like the suburbs of DFW, but with a higher population density and greater urban sprawl.

Living in a smaller town these past two years, I've come to enjoy the conveniences of being able to drive wherever I need to go in 10-15 minutes. When I visit my home in the DFW suburbs, I get annoyed with the traffic and just how spread out everyone and everything is. I spend 20 minutes to an hour driving each way to go see another family member or friend. I'm annoyed to see the suburban sprawl, miles of houses as far as the eye can see. I've come to appreciate living in a smaller town without such sprawl and traffic. I don't know where I'll live in the future, but I'd prefer to live in a small to medium-sized city or the downtown of a large city with decent public transportation than a suburb. Wherever I may make my home, I'd ideally like to live close to wherever I work to minimize commuting time, and hopefully that will also be close to necessary amenities and a community of people that I love and care about.

Just as my Southern California fantasy bubble was bursting, I saw the amazing film 500 Days of Summer, set in LA. Seriously, go see it as soon as possible if you haven't already. One of the many great aspects of this film is that it manages to make downtown LA beautiful in a way that I've never seen in film or in person. Somehow, in this film, LA looks like an East Coast city, plus some palm trees. The protagonist, who studied architecture, appreciates the beauty of old buildings amidst modern parking garages. I've never seen this side of LA before. Maybe I haven't been to the right place, or maybe it takes just the right eye.

california reality

Tomorrow, I fly out to LAX at 7:40 in the morning, bright and early! I will be in the LA area for 6 days to maid-of-honor in my friend's wedding and then to stay a little longer to sightsee and hang with my cousins. This will be my 7th time as a bridesmaid, my 6th time flying solo, 4th trip to California, 3rd trip to the LA area, 2nd wedding to attend in the LA area, and 1st time to meet my cousins' baby Violet! (Sorry, if I think of what this is the 5th of, I'll add it later)

Sadly, I've been so busy lately, that I haven't had a chance to let the excitement of this trip build. But now that I leave in less than 24 hours, am packed, have my boarding pass printed, my dress altered, my gifts bought, the bachelorette dinner planned, and plans with my cousins are shaping out, I'm definitely getting excited! There will be love and commitment to celebrate, great friends and family to catch up with, new friends to meet, good food, drink, dancing, lingerie, getting nails and hairdid, beaches, yachts, minivans, babies, Knottsberry Farm, highs of 73 degrees, and whatever else comes along!

I'm trying to figure out what to do solo on Monday when my cousins are at work and allow me to drive their awesome minivan. Since this is my 3rd trip to LA, I've already seen a lot of the typically touristy places, Hollywood stuff, Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive, driven around Bel Air, UCLA, etc. So, I'm definitely open to any suggestions!

Did I mention that it's almost 30 degrees cooler in Huntington Beach than in College Station right now?

I'm not done with my traveling, so let's run, let's run, let's run

Final week of the semester. Two blog posts in one day. I'm not avoiding doing anything. No, never, of course not!

My classmate Daniel stopped by my office, not to collect a protocol, not to turn in a test kit, but just to say good-bye and wish me a good break! It really touched me that he thought of me in the midst of all of the preparations he must be making to leave town today. He informed me that him and his girlfriend are taking a motorcycle trip down to Panama and back in the next 6 weeks! On their way back, they are going to climb the highest peak in every Central American country - incredible! He gave me the address to his blog where he will be updating about his adventures throughout the trip. I'm thrilled for him and Lauren, and excited to see his updates on my google reader! Even though you probably don't know him, I encourage you to read along and see how this crazy adventure turns out with them:

http://ridewithdaniel.blogspot.com/

As you know, travel is one of my great passions, one of the things that excites me the most in life! Why else would I plan a trip to Europe on a whim if it wasn't something that really ignites my being? I realized today how I'm managed to surround myself with people who also share this passion and desire to travel the world or even to live in another country. Even looking at the blogs that I follow, there's Emily who's living in Bangladesh with her sister's family right now, Ben who is a missionary in Berlin, Anton who has traveled around the world to many incredible places over the past two years and created video blogs to document his journeys, Cara who I'm pretty sure started her blog while she was living in Barcelona, Britt, who traveled with me around Europe summer 2007, and Amy who worked on a musical production in Germany a few months ago. And truly, all of you write of the places you travel within the US, of running marathons in San Francisco, of celebrating New Year's Eve in New York city, of adventures in Alaska, and each of you dream of travel, and write about where you want to be, and I share those dreams.

I feel blessed to have so many dear friends who also love travel, who I can share with in the excitement of their journeys, who can dream with me, who have traveled alongside me in the past, who will travel with me in the future, and who encourage me to go and do this thing that brings me to life and thrills me to my core! Brothers and sisters, let's run!

The Great Western American Roadtrip

Often, I find myself at work on a slow day, sitting in my windowless office, it's been three hours, and not a soul has come by to break the monotony . . . and I begin to dream of getting the heck outta here! During such days, I'll just start looking up plane tickets, making routes with google maps, looking up hostels, couchsurfing, etc, to plan some dream trip. This was how my proposed excursion to Denver and Boulder started. I stumbled upon some cheaper-than I realized plane tickets, and started dreaming and scheming. Sadly, the Fourth of July weekend excursion to Denver never materialized, mainly because I couldn't find anyone to join me. But no matter. I am going to Boston in August, and I've had to pay a couple of deposits on a new house that I'm moving into, so it's probably best that I saved my money for another time.

Today, my latest travel scheme I've cooked up is probably my most ambitious to date. For the past couple of years, I've wanted to travel alone Highway 1 along the west coast, and my cousins and another friend took separate trips from California back to Texas, stopping at Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon along the way. Then Anton is about to go to Glacier National Park in Montana. I don't know if you're realized, but add those three routes together, and you have . . .

The Great Western American Roadtrip!!!

With the help of google maps, I've made an itinerary:

5318 Miles – 3 days, 12 hours of driving

Day 1: Keller to Santa Fe, NM 9 hr, 46 min

Day 2: Santa Fe

Day 3: Santa Fe, NM to Denver, CO 5 hrs, 46 mins

Day 4: Boulder

Day 5: Denver, CO to Yellowstone National Park 9 hrs, 34 mins

Day 6-8: Yellowstone

Day 9: Yellowstone to Glacier National Park 7 hrs, 49 mins

Day 10-12: Glacier National Park

Day 13: Glacier National Park to Seattle, WA 9 hrs, 38 mins

Day 14: Seattle

Day 15: Seattle, WA to Portland, OR 2 hrs, 50 mins

Day 16: Portland, OR to San Fran, CA 9 hrs, 53 mins

Day 17-18: San Francisco

Day 19: San Fran to Las Vegas, NV 8 hrs, 45 mins

Day 20: Las Vegas

Day 21: Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon, AZ 4 hrs, 32 mins

Day 22: Grand Canyon, AZ to Albuquerque, NM 5 hrs, 59 mins

Day 23: Albuquerque and surrounding area

Day 24: Albuquerque, NM to Roswell, NM 3 hrs, 23 mins

Day 25: Home to Keller, 7 hrs, 43 mins

11 States. 9 Cities. 3 State Parks. Are your bags packed yet?

With the exception of Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Colorado, I haven't been to most of these places, and all of them are places that I'd looooove to see.

What's to consider?

Time. I could embark on this adventure as early as July 2009, or I might have to wait until the summer of 2011 or 2012, either right before or right after going on internship. Taking a month off isn't an easy task, but as long as I pick a transitional time, I could manage it.

Money. Gas will be a big cost. Estimating 30 miles per gallon on the highway in my new Camry at $4 a gallon, that comes out to a little over $700. It will probably be more with excursions around the areas we're going, and gas prices will probably continue to rise. But split at least two ways, that comes out to $350-500 per person. Lodging will be the next biggest cost. 25 nights aint cheap, but we'd do it as cheap as possible - couchsurfing, hostels, camping, and cheap, nasty motels. Depending on our options, my estimate is about $500-$1000 per person. Food can be done cheaply, buying groceries most of the time, and occasionally eating out good meals, so for that I estimate up to $300. Then there are entrance fees to parks and museums, laundry money, toll roads, parking costs, gambling in Vegas, who knows. I'd have to do some research to figure out those costs. But on the high end, I'm looking at about $2000 per person, but potentially less. For a trip this ambitious, that sounds pretty reasonable.

Driving. Can be exhausting. 7 days of heavy driving (8+ hours) and 5 days of light driving (<6 hours)

Who? Would be up for taking this trip with me and able to take the time to do it? Time will be the biggest issue. A fellow student, or someone just finishing school, or someone transitioning jobs, or someone who works for a school district. Finding someone to go with will determine when and if I take this trip. Besides the obvious perks of having someone to travel with, I really do need someone share the driving, and to make this safe.

So, it'd be awesome if this could happen. But really, who knows? If I see all of these places eventually in my lifetime (or before 2030 in the case of Glacier National Park in Montana), I'll be happy. If I could go to all of these places in one amazing month, I'll be ecstatic!

denver calling

I've got the travel bug again. My friend and I are planning a trip to Boston in August for the APA convention. We've booked our flights, we've got a hotel room for a few nights with another classmate, then we're going to stay a couple of extra days to sightsee, hopefully couch surf with some cool person(s) or stay in a hostel downtown. I'm really excited, both about the convention, and seeing a great city that I haven't yet visited.

But the travel bug is one not easily satisfied. Am I content to wait until August for some adventure in an unfamiliar city? No! In looking for flights to Boston, I discovered that Fourth of July weekend (when I have a day off), I could fly from Austin to Denver for only around $200-$230 dollars. I started dreaming and scheming. I have a classmate who's in Denver for the summer, so I could stay with him a night or two and sightsee around Denver. Then, I could take a bus to Boulder, and hopefully couchsurf with someone, and spend a couple of days hiking in the mountains.

Oh man, this is very tempting. I've never been to Denver or Boulder, and I've only been to Colorado once. I love the mountains, especially in the summertime, and then pictures of Boulder online look absolutely gorgeous. This is very, very tempting. Tickets are going fast, so I need to make a decision soon. Anyone interested in joining me? If so, let me know ASAP! It would also be an adventure to go by myself. Should I take the plunge?