One is silver and the other gold...

Took my camera out again this weekend. Here's a cool shot I got.



I normally hate bugs - whenever I hear anything buzzing near my ear, I automatically jerk my head away from the noise in a very awkward and ungraceful manner - but I was able to get close and capture this bumble bee with the (unintentional) help of my friend.

This weekend, my brother, his friend, and two of my friends came from San Diego to visit me. One of my best friends, who also loves photography, is not a sissy little baby when it comes to bugs and other creepy-crawlers. In fact, I remember going to the beach with her when we were little kids and running away in sheer terror as she picked up a handful of sand crabs like they were as harmless as jelly beans.

So the other day, when I was taking pictures with her (she also has a fancy SLR), she was photographing this bee. I saw the potential for a beautiful photograph and because my friend was able to take a picture of the bee without flinching away from it, I found the courage to do the same.

While my ability to photography this bumble bee demonstrates only the tiniest personal victory for me, I think it says a lot about the worth of a good friendship. If my friend can encourage me (without knowing it) to approach something that scares the crap out of me, I believe that's someone who is worth having around.

I love my friends because they bring out the best in me and cause me to take risks and experience more of life.

Going to Italy!

I finally bought my plane ticket to go to Italy the other day!

I am so incredibly excited to study there for the entirety of next year. I will be flying into Florence and then taking a bus to Siena (about a 30 minute ride).

Now I speak absolutely no Italian - that is the whole point of me going there: to learn the language. All my classes there will be Italian language and culture classes. While this doesn't fulfill anything for my GE's or degree requirements, I am far enough ahead in my studies that I can afford to essentially take a year off my real studies and still graduate on time.

I am, however, a little apprehensive about flying into a country where I don't know the language and then finding my way to Siena. But I have been in contact with other people from my program and we will meet up in Florence after my flight and then combat the language barrier together.

Now starts all the list making.

I love love love to make lists. So here is a quick list of all the lists I am going to need to make before I go:

1. What clothes to bring
2. What cosmetics to bring
3. What toiletries to bring
4. Stuff I need to buy once I'm there
5. Important papers/documents to bring
6. Which shoes to bring
7. All the places in Europe I want to travel to
8. What electronics to bring
9. Contact info for emergency situations
10. Useful Italian phrases
11. Miscellaneous items to bring

So much to do, so little time.

Pictures! (finally)

Alrighty, so I finally took my new Canon Rebel XS for a test run. I love this camera so much, but I'm still a newbie when it comes to Digital SLR's. So here are some photos my friend and I captured while walking around IV.

Peace signs and such things crop up all over IV



Love the ocean



Downtown IV



A pretty wall painting and some bougainvillea



And what better represents IV than the public's general attitude toward the infamous IV Foot Patrol? (it says "calling cops pigs is an insult to the animal")

Don't question my drinking habits (or lack thereof...)

I haven't posted a new blog in a while, and I have a very good reason: school and study abroad forms are slowly sucking my soul right out of me.

Aside from running around trying to get all my school work done, I've been frantically trying to turn in all necessary paper work to my Education Abroad Program (EAP) office. I will be studying abroad in Siena (Tuscany) in Italy for the entire next school year. As excited as I am to go, I am not excited by the crazy amounts of paper work I have to do.

Today I had to go into the doctor's office on campus to get my health clearance. Basically I just had to fill out a health questionnaire and have them take my vital signs so they can make sure I'm healthy enough to travel.

I didn't think this would be a problem at all, but upon filling out the questionnaire, I came across the question "How many alcoholic beverages do you consume on average per week?" I answered zero.

Now this is a completely honest answer. I may go to the biggest party school in southern California, but I do not drink. There are multiple reasons as to why I don't, but the main reason is that I suspect I have an allergy to alcohol. I get sick almost every time I try to drink any sort of alcoholic beverage. So i tend to avoid the stuff.

But, this being Santa Barbara, the nurse takes one look at my questionnaire and says to me "and you're sure you filled out everything truthfully?" ...like its not obvious what she's hinting at.

"Yes, I'm sure," I say. Do they want me to say I drink copious amounts of alcohol? I would imagine that would create more problems for them.

She looks at my paper again and says "so, you haven't suffered any severe illnesses in the past year?"
"No."
"And you drink...how many drinks per week?"
"None."
"...Alright. Lets go take your vitals then."

I know this isn't a huge problem, but its just so disheartening that due to my surroundings, people don't believe me when I say I don't drink.

Anyways, my new camera finally got to see some daylight today! I'll post some pictures soon! :)

Slowing Down

I am sick.

UGH.

I have been so busy running from place to place, doing various activities that when I contracted this cough a few days ago, it hit me hard. Now, I love to be lazy. Isn't that the usual nature of college students? But I cannot be properly lazy and relaxed if I feel there is work that needs to be done and places I need to go.

This week I have had to constantly remind myself that if I don't show up for a class one day or I end up canceling some plans with a friend, it will not be the end of the world.

Also, I finally received my long-awaited lens yesterday for my new camera - but I have been unable to go outside and take some lovely pictures due to this icky cough. So depressing.

I like to think that the universe is trying to tell me something. It's trying to say "Slow down, Taylor. For heavens sake, SLOW DOWN!"

I'm trying to listen, Universe, I promise.

Beautifully Chaotic

Patience seemed to be the theme for today.
I cannot tell you how many times I had to mentally remind myself to be patient.

"Be patient Taylor, class will be over in 30 minutes."
"This line won't move toooo slow, just be patient."
"Stop demanding so much of people and just be patient with them."
"If you keep beating yourself up over nothing and stressing out you're going to give yourself a heart attack before you turn 20. Be patient with yourself and with life."

I swear, it was like one test of patience after another today. Things that are generally free from stress became painfully tedious and irritating today.

After I identified my extreme lack of tolerance and patience (about half way through my day), I tried desperately to turn it around. I didn't have much luck getting my mind off of the things that I was having difficulty with so I decided I needed to start making some changes in my routine so that today would seem less trivial and more interesting. Here's a list of stuff I did in order to shake things up.

1. Put my iPod on shuffle and forbade myself from skipping songs I didn't want to hear.
2. Took the long route to and from class.
3. Started a conversation with a random person in a lecture class today (but this resulted in the guy giving me a creepy pick up line so I moved seats).
4. Discussed the pros and cons of being old with a 73 year old woman.
5. Skipped a class in favor of reading in the sun.
6. Switched phones with a friend a few minutes ago so that I no longer have access to my contacts (at least for this evening).

Surprisingly, #6 has been the most amusing and liberating thing I've done in a while. Its interesting to see how I operate when I don't have any way to text or call my friends.

When I go through these spurts of spontaneity, one of my best friends laughs and tells me that by mixing things up I'm making the world "beautifully chaotic". Life really is about opportunities and experiences. I try to do something (even little things) different every day and then appreciate the consequences of it.

Routine is a boring way to waste life away.

New dress...same old routine

I cracked today. I cracked and I bought a relatively expensive (by the standards of a college student) dress that I've been wanting since I first tried it on 2 days ago. I have never looked better than how I look in this dress.

Unfortunately I have absolutely no where - no special, fancy occasion - to wear this dress.

Yes, yes. I know, to many people this would seem frivolous. But I know some women must be able to understand why I HAD to buy this dress. The unwritten law of shopping says that if you find a dress that makes you look absolutely gorgeous and it is not horribly overpriced, you must buy it. Not purchasing such an item would be a crime against oneself.

So I have a lovely new dress, now I just need to find a gala to go to.

Happy Mother's Day!

Upon waking up this morning I was contemplating what I should do for mothers day to express to my Mom my love and admiration for her. I decided that I wanted to post here about how amazing she is and perhaps provide a small anecdote that would illustrate the fact that she is the best mom in the world.

Unfortunately I've been sitting, staring at a blank screen for 10 minutes now.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mom to death. It's not like I don't have anything wonderful to say about her, because I do. Its just that there are too many wonderful things I could say about her and I can't even decide where to start. Its like when you walk into a See's Candy, or some other equally delicious candy store or bakery, and you are virtually blinded by the assortment of delectable treats - unable to make any sort of selection.

I guess one of the best ways for me to express how impressive my mom is, would be for me to talk about myself. I say this because I am a product of my mom's hard work to raise me and her love for me (and my dad's work and love as well - but this is mother's day. Dad, you'll get your own father's day post...).

You know when people say "like mother, like daughter"? They have good reason to say that. As I've grown up and gone away to college I have seen myself become more and more like my mother. I've seen myself grow into a person who values her family and friends, someone who believes that happiness is always attainable, someone who appreciates intelligence and creativity, someone who cares for others' happiness to the point where they forget to care about their own at times, and someone who has more than enough love to give. I even make some of the same lame jokes and say the same silly things my mother does.

Mom, you've turned me into the person I am today and I couldn't be more happy about that. I am honored to be your daughter and I love you.

Happy Mother's day!

The early bird gets the cake...or something like that

I woke up early this morning - which is nothing short of miraculous - and the sunlight streaming into my room was pink. Looking outside, the sun looked like a red ball, obscured by the smoky clouds covering the entire sky.

I attempted to photograph this to share with you because it looked so surreal. Unfortunately, my wimpy little point-and-shoot camera is old and refuses to filter light properly. Soon I'll have a Digital SLR, and when that happens I'll be posting tons of photos here to add some color to this blog.

Anyways, the sky is now clear and blue - but ash is falling down and coating everything. My bright blue bike, which is locked up outside, looks like its been spray-painted white.

Aside from me getting up early this morning, something else amazing happened. Are you ready for this? I don't think you are, but I'll tell you anyways: I cleaned my desk.

Now my desk has been piling up with papers and books since the beginning of my school year. For the last 2 months I have not been able to sit at my desk because there have been tons of clothes and notebooks stacked on my chair. I've been doing all my work while siting on my bed (which makes work hard to do, seeing as all I want to do is take a nap). But now, I am proud to announce to you that I am writing this blog post from my desk!

One last bit of interesting news: I had chocolate cake for breakfast this morning! Oh, the joy of being an independent, lazy college student.

I don't know why I felt compelled to eat cake for breakfast... Perhaps it was a way for me to validate my autonomy. Maybe it was to rebel against the monotony of breakfast bagels and cereals. Or I could have been reveling in the uncertain and adventurous side of life. But it is quite possible that it was solely due to the fact that this delicious cake has been siting on my desk for a few days and is the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning.

Life is full of a million opportunities to break free of the ordinary, and by doing so you can find joy and excitement every day. So enjoy your freedom - eat some cake for breakfast.

I don't do well in heat. Or in the cold. Or in humidity or dry air. Thank you San Diego for ruining all extreme weather for me.

It is ungodly hot here. According to the internet, it is now 94 degrees here. NINETY-FOUR! That is 94 degrees of hell.

This heat is a product of the Santa Ana winds that are blowing through here, a fire nearby, and the quickening approach of summer.

I've compiled a list of the things I've been doing to cool down over the past day or so. This list is organized by the level of ridiculous behavior that is required to execute each action (normal person behavior to crazy person behavior).

1. Turning on my fan
2. Drinking extra water
3. Pulling my hair back in a ponytail
4. Wearing shorts and tank tops
5. Not wearing make up that will clump and/or melt in the sun
6. Wearing a dress
7. Standing in front of the freezer with the door open while moaning "It's toooooo hot..." over and over to my room mate.
8. Contemplating leaving German class early in order to organize a water balloon fight.
9. Contemplating leaving Linguistics class early in order to organize a water gun war.
10. Making it a point to ride my bike through all the sprinklers I can find on my way home from class.

Obviously number 10 is the most effective and fun method of cooling down that I've discovered so far - its made even more fun by all the weird looks I get (they're all jealous that they aren't adventurous enough to do the same). Now that I know when people's sprinklers are on, I'll be sure to schedule my day around that.

Even in trying to study for midterms I manage to attract the oddest people to me

Yesterday, with the threat of a nasty German midterm looming over my head, I went to the library to study. As I walked into the library, a little old man looked at me and said something. I couldn’t hear him because I had my headphones on. I turned off my music and he repeated what he had said: “What are you smiling about?”
Now, I love spontaneously talking to random people about random things - it makes life more interesting - so it's no surprise that this simple question spurred on a 15 minute conversation near the entrance of the building. It went something like this:

“What are you smiling about?”
“Oh, I don’t really know. Today is just a good day.”
With a knowing smile he says “and by that, you mean your boyfriend is being good to you.”
“No…I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Good! A girl like you doesn’t want a boyfriend. You want a male companion. And I should know. I’m a marriage counselor. Take it from me. My wife and I just got married…55 years ago!”
(At this point in my head I’m thinking what the hell constitutes a ‘male companion’.)
The old man continues on and says "Let me ask you something, hun. What do you want out of life?"
I gave him the most honest answer I could think of. "I just want to be happy."
He laughs and says "Well with your personality, you'll get far in life. Here take, my card."
(this is where it gets creepy)
He reaches into his pocket while saying "send me an email and my wife and I will take you and some of your girlfriends out to dinner one night and I can teach you everything I know. Oh but don't let the staff here see you take this card from me. I've been thrown out of three churches for this sort of thing. They don't like me telling people they can be happy."
At this point I'm incredibly intrigued as to what could be on his card that would result in him being thrown out of churches, but if there hadn't been a ton of students walking past us I would have felt somewhat apprehensive about talking to this man.
He hands me his card and continues talking to me like he's not some creepy old guy hanging out on a college campus, preying on unsuspecting young women: "Believe me, its my personality and love for God that got me this far in life. I retired at 45!"
Oooh, this makes sense now. He's trying to sell his faith.
I take his card and put it in my pocket.
"I'm a christian man," he says. "How about you? Are you Christian? or Jewish?"
Damn, is my Jewish ancestry really THAT obvious?
"I'm spiritual, but I don't follow any religion."
He laughs and says "well I can teach you everything you need to know to succeed in life. Just send me an email. Bless you hun, I love ya."
"Alright...bye." I say, nervously backing away.

As soon as I'm a safe distance away from him, I take his card out of my pocket and read it. It has some short poems and lines on it concerning "True Love" and "Abstinence". Basically its a card full of Christian propaganda. I laugh to myself, making note to NEVER email this man. But that's when I realize...there's no email (or phone number or address or any sort of way to contact the guy) on this business card.
What the hell?

Tetris is the first step towards enlightenment

Oh my goodness. It is almost 3:00pm and I have yet to leave the house today. What have I been doing!? I'm still sitting around in my sweatpants and baggy shirt. I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad, I hardly ever let myself have a day where I do nothing - but I'm not being productive in the slightest! Youtube is far too time consuming.

And do you know what really makes me feel like I've wasted the day away? When I've spent a straight hour and a half playing Tetris.

So I'm on this new mission to find inner-peace and happiness through meditation, exercise, drinking a lot of water, yoga, and positive thinking. Well, this isn't really new. Its something I'm revisiting for the fiftieth time. Every few months I get really into meditation and start practicing my yoga more often. Soon after I start attempting to find nirvana I start loosing sight of what I want and fall back into the stressful buzz of everyday life.

So what is inspiring this latest bout of self-healing? I think it has to do with a number of things. Mainly it is due to the realization that there are some specific people in my life who are no good for me and I need to let them go. This realization has also been paired with an old friend reappearing in my life and opening my eyes to the wonderful people there are in the world and the amazing experiences that can be had with such individuals.

It is sad when someone who is your "friend" is the source a large amount of suffering in your life. It is even more sad when you realize you need to separate yourself from them if either one of you is going to have a shot at happiness.

So I recently went to the library and checked out some books on meditation and living a peaceful life. Needless to say, most of these books are written by Buddhist monks. I've only gotten trough a few pages of this little pocket book simply entitled "Meditation", but its already proving to be very helpful. I feel more at peace and aware of myself and my surroundings.

But now I really must get out of the house.