We went to our second annual attendance of what has become my favorite New Year’s tradition: Sing-a-long Sound of Music. It is SO fun to sing along to this movie with John Curley and a theater full of costumed fanatics. They should really include this clip at the end though:
Sure it’s been the “decade from hell” and the “worst year ever,” but at least I got some of my 23 things done! My birthday was this week, and I’m sorry to report that my list did not get completed. Here’s an update:
1. Go to Mount Rainer
2. Watch an entire movie with the director’s commentary on
3. Read a 600+ page book (again)
4. Watch the sunrise from Kerry Park
5. Make an entire raw food meal (like..a real meal. not just a salad)
6. Try using a shampoo bar
7. Take a one night wonder class
8. Make an entire meal out of food from the farmer’s market
9. Go swimming in a river with at least one B.F.F.E.
10. Go to the My Sweet Lord Cafe
11. Try tai chi
12. Go to a beer garden
13. Learn how to play a delta blues song on guitar
14. Eat Tibetan food
15. See the real overlook hotel
16. Watch a 3-D movie
17. Go to a SIFF movie not during the festival
18. Go to a midnight showing of a movie
19. Do the bus game–where you take a random bus somewhere and get lost
20. Go skydiving
21. See Kurt Cobain’s old house
22. Drive the Mountain Loop Highway (or sit in the passenger seat while someone else drives)
23. Go to SAAM
9 unfinished tasks!! I’m not gonna lie, I’m pretty disappointed in myself. The only upside is that I did the things that I was most excited about, i.e. skydiving, trying tai chi, going to Mount Rainier, and watching the sunrise from Kerry Park. In order to make myself feel better, here’s a list of some pretty awesome things I did this year (you should make one too, it makes you feel really good!)
Hiked a glacier
Graduated from UW
Watched a sunset and a sunrise at Uluru
Photographed the Sydney Opera House
Saw Beatles Love
Co-created a food bag for East African immigrants
Completed my senor thesis
Taught environmental education to little kids
Saw Bob Dylan live for the 5th time
Celebrated Indonesian Independence Day on Lombok
Woke up for the sunrise in a beautiful setting
Bartended at the WWC annual auction
Snorkeled in the Great Barrier Reef
Swam in a freshwater lake on the largest sand island in the world
Ate a fruit salad at the Mindil Beach Sunset Market
Saw whales, dolphins, seals, monkeys, black swans, koalas, crocodiles, dromedaries, weta, glowworms, kangaroos, and wallabies in the wild.
Watched a performance of the Keckak dance
Ate lamb and sweet potatoes at a Hangi
Got a private tour of the Waitangi Treaty Grounds
Made a Peter Gabriel Halloween costume
Applied to graduate school
Saw Nick Cave: The Exhibition
Camped outside without a tent
Went outdoor rock climbing for the first time
Abseiled
Hugged a koala
Pet a lion
Recorded drum groups at a pow wow
I think I’ll work on making a new list of things for 2010 and post it soon. For now I’m going to enjoy what’s left of the first day of the new year.
60 years young. Thanks for destroying your voice so beautifully.
to get us in the holiday spirit
A few days ago, I finished Midnight’s Children (over 600 pages meant that I got to cross another one of my 23 things off the list). I was pretty blown away by it! The way he weaves historical facts with his magical narrative is both unique and impressive. Check it out!
“From the moment I was old enough to play board games, I fell in love with Snakes and Ladders. O perfect balance of rewards and penalties! O seemingly random choices made by tumbling dice! Clambering up ladders, slithering down snakes, I spent some of the happiest days of my life…
All games have morals; and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb, a snake is waiting just around the corner; and for every snake, a ladder will compensate. But it’s more than that; no mere carrot-and-stick affair; because implicit in the game is the unchanging twoness of things, the duality of up against down, good against evil; the solid rationality of ladders balances the occult sinuosities of the serpent; in the opposition of staircase and cobra we can see, metaphorically, all conceivable oppositions, Alpha against Omega, father against mother, here is the war of Marry and Musa, and the polarities of knees and nose…but I found, very early in my life, that the game lacked one crucial dimension, that of ambiguity–because, as events are about to show, it is also possible to slither down a ladder and climb to triumph on the venom of a snake…Keeping things simple for the moment, however, I record that no sooner had my mother discovered the ladder to victory represented by the racecourse luck than she was reminded that the gutters of the country were still teeming with snakes.” p.180
Can you believe it’s December already? For me, the past couple of weeks have been full of holiday celebrating, test taking, writing, applying, and visiting relatives in other parts of the country. Busy, but good.
Minneapolis parking garage
Lake of the Isles
The Santa Rosa Plateau
"Here's to the few who forgive what you do, and the fewer who don't even care"- Leonard Cohen
Pitchfork is streaming this documentary absolutely free for one week only. It’s a really interesting glimpse into the life of a very
young Leonard Cohen. You even get to see him in his tighty whities! Who would turn down that opportunity?
Happy Halloween, everyone! To celebrate, here are a few of the best versions of one of the greatest spooky/cool songs of all time.
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ version is of course the definitive one, and also the craziest:
Nina Simone does a super atmospheric and awesome version:
I think my favorite version is by Creedence Clearwater Revival:
The version we all remember from childhood:
Of course there are many other versions. Which is your favorite?
So, it looks like I won’t be doing any sort of trip recap post after all. Strangely enough, I feel so far away from it all already. Bottom line: It was a really, really great and I’m so glad I decided to go. Not only was it a good time to see a part of the world that I’ve always wanted to see, but it also gave me time to be on my own for a while and to do exactly what I wanted to be doing. As selfish as this all sounds, it was pretty great.
It’s been a long and slow three weeks since I’ve home. It’s been really great to see everybody again, but boy, real life seems a little bit boring after such a fantastic trip. I’ve been filling my time with lots of job searching, school researching, and GRE preparing. It’s weird having nothing going on, but at the same time feeling busy.
There have also been good things, though! It’s so nice to be able to cook again. And to sleep in a comfortable, warm bed every night. Friends are the best. And, of course, Washington is still one of the most beautiful places in the world (see evidence below).
Beautiful Washington--Mt. Forgotten hike
