All packed up with nowhere to go

Thanks to inclement weather, my flights have been canceled. On the plus side I'm flying out on Saturday morning rather than Monday morning, and I won't end up spending days stranded in Chicago. On the minus side, I was mentally prepared to leave tomorrow morning. It could be worse, but it's disappointing all the same.

What to pack?

For those of you who wonder, "what does one bring on a 7-month pan-Asian journey?" I shall present the answer in picture form:


Allow me to be a little boastful about the economy of my packing. I rule. I've always followed the traveling precept that if you can't carry it, you can't bring it. I think I've achieved that here.

In other news, I received a serendipitous phone call today from the Hamline admissions staff telling me that I was accepted into their law school. This is good in that I now know I will be attending school somewhere in the fall. However, I'm slightly indifferent about it because it's my safety school and I don't really want to go there.

Middle-of-the-night blogging

It's 2 in the morning and pre-trip insomnia is in full force. On the upside, I've done a lot of reading (now The Count of Monte Cristo, just finished Persuasion by Jane Austen) and gotten some emailing done. On the downside, tomorrow I will be tired and crabby. I've had insomnia in the past and I find the best thing to do is not to fight it. Fighting it piles on more worry, which increases one's inability to sleep.
Since I last blogged, my family had a delightful Hannukah celebration. We always celebrate the Saturday after Thanksgiving because my grandparents are always in town. Good times were had by all. I generously received a flashlight that does not require batteries (it will be a light to me in dark places), and a new digital camera.
Here's Zayde mixing up the latkas:

And Dad frying them on the deck:

I spent today trying to tie up pre-trip loose ends to no avail, which was irritating. I will probably have more success tomorrow, since it's a business day.
I finally finished sock #2. That is the first and last pair of socks I knit. I think it was my least enjoyed knitting project ever.
I can't think of anything else to write, so it may be time for more reading. I hope you are all blissfully asleep.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Hello gentle readers,
I had a delightful going away party last night. We had some delicious fajitas and pisco sours, courtesy of Katie, then ventured to the Country Bar for the always-fabulous Karaoke. I sang 2 of my old standards:
1. Leaving on a Jet Plane (I nearly shed a tear, because, well, I am)
2. Suspicious Minds.

Here's a fun Haiku Cate wrote about me:
Asia...and beyond
Many nations you delight
With your worldly charms

Thanks to everyone who made it a wonderful and zubiquitous evening. I heart you:

Thanksgiving was a great success, but the nuts and biscotti I made, alas, were not. The nuts were all goopy and were enjoyed by the backyard squirrels. I guess we gave them something to be thankful about. Usually, my dad's trapping them and taking them to remote parts of the city as a part of his Rodent Relocation Program. No one ate the biscotti.
The main event of the meal: A Good-Lookin' Bird

Fine ham also abound(ed?).
We had fun with our family, ate more than one can feel good about, and did a lot of cooking and cleaning. My mom is a fantastic hostess and always makes holidays feel special.
I made this holiday feel special by concocting a boozy beverage:

Tonight we are celebrating an early Hannukah. Latkahs + family fun = par for the course.
This week I will tie up loose ends and go off into the great beyond.

T minus....a couple weeks

I'm reading "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote. The murders of the family in the book occurred on November 15, the very day I read about them! Coincidence??? Unknown.
I started some Thanksgiving cooking today. I made a savory biscotti with lemon zest, browned butter, and capers. They turned out well. I also made sweet and salty nut clusters (NOT dietary in any way--corn syrup, honey and sugar). They taste good, but they didn't really firm up into clusters--it's kinda just a goopy pile. People will have to look past the presentation to the impeccable flavor.
I got my visa back from the Vietnamese embassy today. Hooray! Now I will be allowed on the plane! It's only for a month, though, so if I want to stay longer than that I'll have to figure out a way to renew it.
In other news, I sent in my final law school application last night. I'm glad they're all done and I don't have to worry about them till....Jan 1, the very day I get kicked out of Vietnam. That's when I hear back from the U of M.
Yesterday I had my last day of work with the Habitat crew. Again, what a nice group of people. One gentleman was in the peace corps in Nepal. He gave me the name of the city he and his wife were working in, and said he might be there in March too! It's a small world.
I'm getting excited to travel. Yay.
Aaron is flying in from Nashville tonight. We (me, Mom and Dad) are going to pick him up from the airport and then straight to the cabin! He hasn't seen it yet, so I think he'll be impressed. Plus, it'll be fun for the four of us to hang out.
I've had "Viva Las Vegas" stuck in my head.

I love this picture.

Hee, hee, hee.

SCUBA is supposed to be fun

Good evening gentle readers. Since my last post I've:
1. Completed 5 of 7 law school applications.
This makes me feel:
a. A satisfying sense of accomplishment
b. sick to my stomach now that I've sent them into an anxiety-producing abyss
c. like eating pie
2. Had nightly dreams about my impeding departure:
a. I spent the night planning a route through South America, visiting the places I missed last time. Special consideration given to some place in Argentina where you can see whales.
b. I dreamed I scrapped most of my trip and just headed to Mysore for 6 months to study yoga. I had to stay in a dorm dedicated to yoga students. It was like camp for adults. Yoga class was in a huge room in a mall. You could look in the windows and see people practicing. I kept showing up late for class.
3. Worked on a delightful felted purse.
4. Nearly had a break-down in REI with my mom over which pair of pants to bring on my trip.
5. Been doing lots o' yoga
6. Bought my bridesmaid's dress for A and K's wedding. Here it is, except it will be all blue, no pink:

7. Completed my confined water SCUBA certification

I don't even like to swim. I don't get a lot of joy out of being in the water, unless it's hot and I have a cold one in my hand. Needless to say, neither of these two elements were present at the Inver Grove Heights community pool today.
We started the day with a 200 meter swim and a 10 minute water tread. Then came the fun. We put on all our SCUBA gear and went to the bottom of the pool. Our first exercise was to "lose" our regulator, recover it and begin breathing again. Well, I couldn't find mine right away, I panicked and went to the surface and felt like I was going to cry. It's scary when you can't breathe. One of the instructors came up and started telling me I was fine as soon as I hit the surface. I sucked it up and tried again. I think yoga has taught me to calm myself down through breath control.
That was the first time I kinda wanted to quit. The second, we had to remove our masks and sit and breathe for one minute. I didn't think it would be a problem, but I freaked out a little bit when the bubbles going up from my breathing kept forcing my eyelids open. The chlorine stung. I slowed down my breathing, relaxed, and I made it through the exercise.
Those were the only two times I felt panicky. We spent 45 minutes at the bottom of a 12 foot pool. That was actually a lot easier than the skills we were learning in the morning where we kept getting in and out of the water. We practiced running out of air and swimming with our buddy's 2nd regulator in our mouths. The instructors actually turned off our tanks so we would feel what it was like not to have any air to breathe.
The afternoon made me feel a lot better about the whole business. The morning was cold and scary. The afternoon made me feel like it would be worth getting comfortable with the whole business if there was cool stuff to see and your buddy was nearby in case something went wrong.
I think I will go on to get my open water certification in Vietnam. You have to do 4 dives in 2 days. I'll get tested on most of the skills I learned today, but in the ocean. I can see how one would feel more comfortable with more experience and more familiarity with the equipment.
It's pretty cool to be able to breathe under the water. It's actually easier to breathe out of the regulator than out of a snorkel. And, I didn't have any problem equalizing the pressure in my ears, even though I thought I might.
This week: Mother/daughter stitch and bitch on Tuesday and getting ready for Thanksgiving.

Ed is my new friend

I was in Nashville visiting my brother, Aaron. I got back last night. I had a very nice time there. My first day there we saw some "sights" in downtown Nashville, but both agreed that the Country Music Hall of Fame was not our idea of a good time. It felt strange to be in what was an obviously touristy part of town and have very little touristy interest in it.

I feel like it had been a long time since I'd seen Aaron. I enjoyed having some time alone with him and Kaitlin, his fiancee.

They adopted a stray cat named Ed, who is the sweetest, loveliest cat I know. They feed him on the patio. He loves to be pet and to lick toes. He looks like an albino tiger with beautiful turquoise eyes.
Eddie-poos:


Ed cannot be let inside, because Aaron and Kaitlin's apartment already contains three cats that don't particularly like each other.
Anyways, enough about cats and how I wish Ed were mine.

I finished Anna Karenina. I enjoyed the book, but the ending disappointed me. It was similar to Crime and Punishment where the author took to demonstrating his own newly found religious faith through a main character. I found it irritating. And uninspiring.
Next book: A Clockwork Orange. I read half of it on the plane yesterday and it creeped me out.

Aaron helped me out a lot with fine-tuning my personal statement for my law school apps and with deciding where to apply. I finally feel like my statement is excellent and will add to my overall application.
List of schools:
1. University of Minnesota (#1 choice, will find out by 1/1/07 if I get in)
2. University of Washington
3. University of Iowa
4. Boston University
5. Vanderbilt University
6. Washington and Lee University (I may take this one off the list)

I think I can conceivably get into at least one of these schools, if not more. But my anxious side worries that I'll get into no school and my plan will come falling down around me and I'll spend next year completely miserable.
Worst case scenario.

I'm starting to get a little freaked out by my trip. I've been having really weird dreams about it. I have to send off my passport to the Vietnamese Embassy tomorrow so I can get my tourist visa. I signed up for SCUBA lessons and am taking them next week. Monday is the travel clinic. This weekend, Mom and I are going to hit REI and we're going to buy my bridesmaid's dress for Aaron and Kaitlin's wedding. The list of things to do goes on and on.

I got a very nice compliment from Bob at Habitat for Humanity today.
Bob: I've been watching you and you strike me as a very serene person.
Me: What exactly does that mean?
Bob: Well, it seems like you know who you are and you don't let the world get you down or knock you around (rough paraphrasing)
Me: I think that's true. Thank you for the nice compliment.

The guys at Habitat were telling me today they used to work with some inmates at the Women's prison in Shakopee. They were being taught carpentry so they could be apprentices when they got out of prison. They'd practice their skills with Habitat. I thought that was neat.

Oh, and I finished my sock. Here it is:

Now, unfortunately, I have to make another one.