Backpacks and Travel

So this is the backpack I bought. It's the Eagle Creek Truist Vita 55L Travel Pack, normally $200 but I got it for more than half off at $95,which comes to about $104 with taxes. Not bad, eh? Good hiking backpacks are expensive, and this one seems pretty good quality for the price. It arrived today, and I immediately became ridiculously happy when I saw that giant box sitting in my apartment complex's office. I just knew it had to be my backpack, because nothing else would need a box that big.

I wasn't sure about the color originally; this model also comes in black and I first thought I would order it in black instead of the maroon color. Black doesn't stick out as much, doesn't show dirt or wear and tear, and seems more neutral. But then I thought, well, I kinda want to be girly with this. Black is so...blah...and seems more like what a guy would have. I'm a girl, dammit, and sometimes I want to show it! Besides, this isn't obnoxiously girly, like those annoying females who buy everything in pastel pink (a color which I abhor), it's just slightly feminine in a matter-of-fact, functional way. Like me.

I know it's a bit of a pipe dream at this point in my life, but I want to travel. I want to visit all the obscure, hidden, out-of-the-way corners and roads less traveled. Buying this backpack makes that dream seem a little more real, like a real possibility. I definitely intend for it to happen in a few years, once I finish school, but of course it's completely out of the question until then. Having this backpack stashed in my closet where I can see it every day reminds me that someday, it will happen. I just need to be patient, which is definitely not a skill I possess. Knowing that this backpack is sitting there just waiting for me to fill it up and hit the road might make it worse, but I'm gambling on being able to use it for a small trip, even to my parents' house or somewhere, which should help.

Yay for making future plans seem a little bit closer!

REI and Stress Relief (not like that!)

I've been having a lot of trouble this term. Take, for example, the fact that I'm writing this post instead of finishing my paper that's due tomorrow, studying for my midterm I have tomorrow, or prepping for the county Board of Supervisors meeting I have to cover for my reporting class tomorrow morning. I need some sort of stress relief to counteract the immense amount of stress school is causing me. Last term I spent long hours in soaking in the bathtub with a glass of wine and a trashy romance novel. It worked pretty well.

However, in January my water heater somehow fried itself and had to be replaced. The new one basically sucks. My water pressure is crap, the water doesn't get hot enough for me, and it doesn't last long enough. Because of this I can't take baths anymore -- I can't get the water hot enough (I like it so hot it's just short of burning), and I don't like feeling cold in the bathtub, so it completely loses its appeal. As a result, that form of stress relief is out.

Unfortunately, the new one I seem to have developed is much, much more dangerous: I've been shopping online. Apparently I've gained an addiction to REI.

Quite frankly, I'm embarrassed and more than a little ashamed by the amount of money I've put on my credit card in the last two months. Not to mention worried. There is absolutely NO way I can pay it off, and due to some late payments I have that horribly high penalty APR of 29% on my card. And even while I'm having a panic attack about this, I still log on to REI Outlet and buy more! I can't control myself! In my defense, I only buy the sale items from REI Outlet instead of the regular REI site (REI is insanely, ridiculously, outrageously expensive).

The way I got started was with the $100 Visa gift card my brother gave me for Christmas. I mentioned that I would probably use it for groceries and my parents told me to make sure to buy something non-food or bill related with it. My original plan had been to get some durable travel-friendly clothes for when I eventually go back to Afghanistan (as I hope I will). So that's what I did. Unfortunately, once I started I couldn't stop. I'm too scared (and ashamed) to even think about totaling up how much I've spent. I've also gotten a few things from ExOfficio, Patagonia, 6pm, and now Old Navy. It's spreading! Ahhhhh!

I'm trying to control myself, and I hope it works. But I've been trying for the past few weeks, and I just spent another $500 or so. I'm hoping to have enough self-control to send most of it back, but I'm not very good at self-control. Basically, I don't have any.

But on the other hand, I've gotten a lot of nice, good-quality clothes that should last me a long long time and serve me well in my future career. I also made the decision to stop buying normal, fashionable clothes and buy these travel clothes instead. Only it snowballed. I meant to do it gradually, over the next few years. Instead I've done it over the past few months. I just bought a hiking backpack that was half off (backpacks are really expensive, so that's actually quite a good deal) and a pair of hiking boots. Those are major purchases, more expensive than anything else I've bought, and the most important so I'm hoping that will cure me of this driving need I have to click that "Purchase" button.

Swans

Buying Bread

With Cat-Like Tread

With cat-like tread,
Upon our prey we steal.

Silent be,
it was the cat!

Newspapers

As I'm a graduate student in a journalism program, for many of my classes I'm required to subscribe to the local daily paper and occasionally the New York Times. My teachers insist that we go the old school route and get hard copies delivered rather than just reading online. As a result, my apartment spends most of the year buried under piles of old newspapers.

And I Find Strength in Pain

I've recently become completely and utterly enamored with Mumford and Sons' music. Especially this song, "The Cave". Everything about it speaks to me and I love the singer's voice. I particularly like this acoustic version as opposed to the official smoothly made music video. This one just seems more real and raw, like a real person with real feelings is singing it instead of some digitally perfected finished product with all the emotion edited out.

Is not that strange?

I've never really been a huge fan of Valentine's Day. Most people would probably leap to the conclusion that it is because I'm single, and as such I must be lonely. Not true, although it does somewhat contribute to my dislike of the holiday. However, the main reasons why I don't like Valentine's Day are 1. because of the obvious heavy commercialization that seems to be the driving force behind it and 2. because I don't think you should need an arbitrarily chosen day to show your affection for your significant other just because Hallmark wants to sell cards and chocolates.

On the other hand, Valentine's Day is always a good excuse for me to watch my favorite movie, "Much Ado About Nothing." The 1993 film is directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as Benedick. Obviously, it's an adaptation of the play by William Shakespeare and Branagh has kept it fairly true to the original play, which is just one of the myriad reasons why I like it so much. Shakespeare was a genius and his work requires no help to be amazing. The play/movie has some of the most romantic and tender scenes ever portrayed between one of the most successful relationships in fiction's history. Here is one of my favorite scenes that gets me every time. It always makes me tear up a little..

A Strange Love
Much Ado About Nothing at MOVIECLIPS.com

Apart from this scene, the play has some other great lines as well.

Beatrice: "...But for which of my
good parts did you first suffer love for me?"

Benedick:"Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love
indeed, for I love thee against my will."

Also, at one point Benedick proclaims, "for I will be
horribly in love with her!" which is just a fantastic line.

Benedick claims that he and Beatrice "are too wise to woo peaceably," which I love.

Benedick just generally has some great lines throughout the play. His are usually the best, and often the funniest. Towards the end they tend to be the wisest as well, especially regarding love.

Danish Maid

Staircase to Somewhere

Stained Glass

Hometown Travels Reflected

Finding Art in Shapes and Shadows

Hometown Travels

An Antique Land

I'm a nerd. Not in that computer-genius, off-the-charts-IQ, Big-Bang-Theory-way because I'm not actually that smart, but in the boring, like-to-go-to-museums, addicted-to-Firefly-and-Doctor-Who-way.

When I travel to new places I like to visit museums, see the sights, take in culture and art as well as walk the streets to participate in daily life. As contrasted with most of my peers who go to bars, drink, have random drunken hookups, and wander around drunk.

So when I visited New York for the first time during one all too brief weekend last year, of course one of my priorities was to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

One of my good friends from high school (and middle school, and even college too -- we went to the same one) who now lives in DC came up and met me in New York. She had been there several times before but being less of a nerd than me, she had never been to the Met before. She sounded pretty doubtful when I said that I wanted to go but, being a good sport and a good friend, agreed without any argument.

We spent several hours on a Saturday morning wandering through the museum looking at any exhibit either of us was interested in, me with my ever-present camera constantly snapping away and her patiently waiting for me (she's a great friend).

I really enjoyed it and my friend did too, which rather surprised her. When we left the museum she told me that she had thought it would be boring but actually ended up having a good time. And trust me, she's not the type to say things just for politeness' sake. If she says it, she means it, which is yet another reason why we're friends.

I particularly liked the exhibit on ancient Egypt. Again with the nerdiness: I've always been fascinated by ancient civilizations, and Egypt was one of the largest and most influential, not to mention seeming particularly exotic and strange to a small town girl growing up in Iowa. So even as a kid I read a lot about ancient Egypt -- about their cultures and traditions, gods and goddesses, myths, architecture, art, etc. When I was younger thought it would be fun to learn to read hieroglyphs, but so far it hasn't happened yet.

My interest is actually strong enough that early last year after I had decided to return to school but was trying to decide which discipline to pursue, I was seriously considering archaeology, possibly with an emphasis on Egyptology.

I've always wanted to visit Egypt, and I still hold out hope that someday I will be able to go. But for now I'll have to content myself with visiting museums like this and dreaming.

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Lantern Waste

Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so

I presume everyone has heard about the new zodiac by now? I have to admit, I was rather surprised by the impact it has had -- most of my friends profess to be upset by it, with reactions varying from being a little thrown off to proclaiming to no longer know who they are anymore.

As for me, well, let's just say that I'm not much of a believer.

One of my friends from college is really into all that astrology stuff and used to talk about it all the time. Surprisingly enough, a lot of what she told me was really interesting and actually did seem to be right a large percentage of the time. However, just because I think it's interesting certainly doesn't mean I believe in it, at least completely. It's just something that's fun to play around with and think about.

So even if my sign had changed (which it has not -- I'm still a Virgo), it wouldn't really affect me because basically I agree with Edmund in King Lear:

"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
if we were villains by necessity; fools by
heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
disposition to the charge of a star! My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon's tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing."

Or in other words, you are what you make of yourself and the stars have nothing to do with it, except as a convenient scapegoat to blame when things go wrong. And that I do believe.

Sinister Staircase

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody!

I used a Facebook application to compile this photo collage using pictures that I had uploaded to my Facebook account throughout the year. It pretty much covers all the major events, and, after looking back on it, made me realize that my year actually was pretty good.

A lot happened in 2010: I traveled to Afghanistan, visited with college friends in Chicago, was a bridesmaid in the wedding of my one of my best friends since kindergarten, moved halfway across the country, and went back to school.

Good times!

How did you spend your year?

Happy Holidays!