Silver Linings

This is one of my very best friends in the whole world. I love her to the ends of the earth and back again. I have also recently dubbed her my "Silver Lining Best Friend". I can find several not so awesome things about life at the moment, but as per my emotional-based New Years Resolution, I am determined to find good things around me. I am at home for the semester, and among the good that I see regularly, (like having family close, for instance), seeing this beautiful lady is definitely a Silver Lining to whatever I'm not psyched about. I have seen her more times in the past month than I probably have in the last two years .

I think the best thing about a best friend is that feeling when you get together after so much time apart, and it.doesn't.matter. The same things are funny. You still laugh with each other and at the other's corny jokes. You've both grown, but your lives are so intricately intertwined by fate, it's impossible to not connect like no time has passed. You still watch the same types of shows and movies and you still do the same crazy, silly stuff. Just the other day was that JR High Band Concert. A week ago we were were taking the SATs. Last weekend, we started college. And in December, this smart, amazing lady is going to graduate college with a fancy major and a fun minor and the summer after that, she'll be headed to PT school to go get a super-smart degree and she's going to change the world.

I love you Silver Lining Best Friend.
<3

Lukewarm Tea

"It's better to make a mistake with the full force of your being than to carefully avoid mistakes with a trembling spirit. Responsibility means recognizing both pleasure and price, making a choice based on that recognition, and then living with that choice without concern."

"It sounds so 'either-or'. What about moderation?"

"Moderation? Moderation? It's mediocrity, fear, and confusion in disguise. It's the devil's reasonable deception. It's the wobbling compromise that makes no one happy. Moderation is for the bland, the apologetic, for the fence sitters of the world afraid to take a stand. It's for those afraid to laugh or cry, for those afraid to live or die. Moderation is lukewarm tea, the devil's own brew!"

             --The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, by Dan Millman

Of Songs and Merlin

1-I can't get over this song. It's beautiful and lovely and pretty much the whole thing is addicting. Its impossible to get tired of...I just keep it on repeat.
2-I can't get over the show. It's brilliant. If you haven't watched it, perhaps the following video will persuade you to do so immediately.

Blue Danube

If someone handed me a plane ticket to Vienna International Airport right now, I'd take it without a second thought, pack a bag in 10 minutes, and be off to DFW Airport. I'd land in Vienna several long hours later, but it would feel like a snap.

I'd take the Airport Bus straight down to Schwedenplatz--it's only about 6 Euros. I'd grab a 24 hr U-Bahn ticket and walk around Stephensplatz and Stadtpark. I'd go on the outskirts of the city and visit the Belvedere grounds and Schonbrunn Palace. I could walk around Schonbrunn for hours. And if the weather was nice, I'd sit on one of those benches overlooking that immaculately beautiful courtyard and read a book that inspired me to learn and explore. I'd sit by the Danube-maybe at the park near Webster- and admire the impossibly blue water. Late afternoon would find me back at Stephansplataz for some coffee-a melange, perhaps, or maybe just some hot chocolate. I'd get a kebap for old time's sake and spend my evening at the Opera-watching a world class performance that some people only dream of seeing.

It seems silly, but I miss Vienna more the further away it gets from me. I miss the easy going pace of Austria coupled with its stunning art, architecture, and history. I fear that soon it will seem like a dream-a distant memory--when it was so much more. I miss Vienna with a passion that I didn't even know I had. Don't get me wrong--I'm thoroughly enjoying being home-my family, my friends, my puppy. But I miss the adventure, the uncertainty, the new places to explore. I'm sure those exist here-they just don't seem as mystical as they do there. The excitement that was a new country every weekend is not a luxury I have here, and as special as it was, I don't want it to be a 'once-in-a-lifetime' type thing-I want to do it again! I want to keep going places and exploring. I feel like I only got a taste of Europe-and I need more. And with three of my classmates having their adventure this semester, it just makes me with I was back in that magical city. I'll get back to Vienna eventually, it's the fact that I don't know when that kills me.

So I'll settle for vicarious living for now until I have the $1300 for a plane ticket lying around...I will someday. =)

My favorite view in all Vienna--a fleeting image of the Danube as we raced by it on the U-Bahn between Kagran and Alte Donau.

A Year in Review (or) To New Possiblities

Welcome to 2011!!
2010 changed my life, and I'm ready to see what 2011 has in store. So-a reflection, a tribute, and a huge thank you to 2010 and everyone who was a part of my life and made last year such an epic 12 months.

Monthly Highlights:
-January: Opera Studio
-February: MWTA
-March: The All Nighter for no reason
-April: 4-Square and Truck Riding
-May: LTOTS
-June: Children's Theatre Shows
-July: [tr]Annie
-August: Hair
-September: Venice & Vienna
-October: Ireland & Vienna
-November: Rome & Vienna
-December: Christkindle Markets & Vienna & Home

Not So Awesome Things
-I'm sure these existed...but I'm on a new 'Don't dwell on those things that weren't awesome' kick.

Year in Objects
-Euros
-Suitcases
-Scripts
-Books
-Bottles & Cans
-Computers
-Tornadoes
-Decks of Cards
-Shotglasses
-German Classes
-Camera
-Music

Year in Actions
-Journaling
-Driving
-Talking
-Questioning
-Learning
-Listening

Firsts
-Living so far away on my own
-Living in Europe
-Travelling extensively
-Shotgunned Beer

Lessons Learned
-Life isn't as scary as it's made out to be
-Things work out
-Life would be easier if people would just be a little happier
-You'll never know until you try
-Mistakes are okay
-Worrying doesn't help anything
-Do all you can and then let it go

The Year in One Word: Adventure
From travelling Europe to calling my first show in a professional setting, adventure has been sprinkled all over 2010. And I love it! There is mystery and possibilities in adventure--you just have to take the leap and see where you land. And there's nothing wrong with not being satisfied with where you are and deciding to take another leap and hope you end up somewhere different. Little adventures like late night drives to big adventures like the mountains of Ireland have shown me how much the world has to offer is people would just look up from their workaholic lifestyles and appreciate the world that they've been given to work in! Take a risk.

To 2011
-I hope you're filled with risk and adventure and uncertainty. Leave out the worries and the fear and the feelings of inadequacy. You've got some big shoes to fill from last year, but I'm counting on a fierce year.
-Read 100 Books
-Consolidate my life into fewer boxes
-Find the proverbial "Silver Lining" in every situation

100 Books. What Am I Thinking?!

So here they are. 100 books for 2011.

I realize this is a huge undertaking. I even realize that I may not complete this challenge by this time next year. But it is a good challenge for me and I'm very excited to begin. I just don't know which book to start with!!

I have gathered suggestions from several places, and this is what I've come up with. I'm still not completely sold on some of these, so suggestions are still welcome. There will probably even be edits to the list during the year. Who knows?

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 Sophie’s Choice- Willian Styron

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 In Cold Blood – Truman Capote   

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible 

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 

10 Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue – Neale Donald Walsch

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Clan of the Cave Bears- Jean M. Auel

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Cannery Row-John Steinbeck

16 The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien

17 The Egyptian Book of the Dead – Raymond Faulkner

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 Grimm’s Fairytales - Brothers Grimm

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 

27 The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Steven Chbosky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 Pillars of the Earth- Ken Follet

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Girl With The Pearl Earring- Tracy Chevalier

36 Deception Point- Dan Brown

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Understanding Media – Marshall McLuhan

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 Interred with their Bones- Jennifer Lee Carrell

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Practical Magic- Alice Hoffman

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Beyond the Pasta- Mark Leslie

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 On Writing- Stephen King

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 People of the Book- Gerladine Brooks

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Way of the Peaceful Warrior- Dan Millman

88 The Eagle of the Ninth- Rosemary Sutcliff

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Glass Castle – Jeannette Walls

91 Man and His Symbols - Carl G. Jung

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 Daughter of the Forest – Juliet Marilliner

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 The Secret Teachings of All Ages - Many P. Hall

99 A Christmas Journey - Anne Perry

100 Casting Off - Nicole R. Dickson

Throw it in Reverse

So. Here I am. Back in Texas.

After a whirlwind of a trip back to the states, I finally arrived. Luggage-less and exhausted as I was, I was happy to be home.

And now, with Vienna only 3 days and 5501 miles away, I feel like it was another lifetime. It almost feels like a dream. I had all these amazing adventures and discovered these beautiful places. The landscapes were breathtaking and the architecture was incredible. Everything about the last four months was unbelievable. And yet that seems to be the problem. It's like it didn't even happen. I came home: my parents and aunt were ecstatic to see me, my dog went absolutely nuts. I had a voice-mail from someone that made my day to hear their voice.

And yet the bittersweet moments of goodbye to friends and to that crazy beautiful city are seared into my memory.

And as big a part of my life as it was, it doesn't seem that way to anyone else. They know it was important, but it's hard to convey how much it changed me as a person. It altered my world views and changed me in a big way.

So there's this thing that Webster told us about called "Reverse Culture Shock". I laughed it off. Reverse Culture Shock? Really? It seemed so silly until about 48 hours ago...and I'm not sure the extent of it, but it's starting by presenting Vienna as a dream--so far away and now completely out of reach.

But it's not. So I'll adjust. Vienna was very real and I know that. So it'll do for now to remember and to learn from it until I can get back to Vienna or whatever the next great adventure is.

I'm so much more than greatful for the experiences that I had, and I'm happy to be home. Now it's just getting back to "real life" with responsibilities and uncertainties that I have to figure out. I guess right now it's all about rolling with the punches.

New Year's Resolution

I know what you're all thinking::

"It's too early for resolutions."

"No one ever keeps their resolutions."

"Why do something for an entire year?"

"What in the world would make you want to do that?"

Well, the fact is that for the past 4 years of my life, I have devised, promised, and kept to my New Year's Resolutions. I find a great sense of accomplishment on January 1st, after an entire year of "No chocolate" or "No fried foods", to know that I set a goal for myself and achieved whatever it was that I told myself I could do.

This year, my resolution focuses more on my liberal arts education and expansion of literary knowledge. There is a list floating around Facebook of "BBC Books". BBC expects that the average person will have read 6 books on the list. I admit, a bit ashamedly, that I have read only a few more than that. Pieces and parts, and "oh I started that"s and "I really need to finish that one"s, but I have not read many more than 6 books on that list. My grand total, I'm embarrassed to say is 11.

11 books out of 100.

When I started college, I started reading less. A disappointment to myself, as reading was once one of my very favorite pastimes. I devoured new books. I begged for new books. My Christmas List was 70% books, and I read them all. As I grew older, I lost the love for it. That magical feeling that you get when you turn the page almost automatically because you forget you're reading a book. I miss that. I miss loving books. I miss that cheesy wonderful "escapism" and the "world" that the written word can create.

I've been in Vienna for 4 months and have read 4 (awesome) books--more than I've read in the past year, probably!

So, my New Years Resolution for 2011:

Read 100 Books.

And there you have it. I am going to read 100 books. I'm not sure what they will be yet. I'm searching and compiling from tons of different lists and personal thoughts.

Suggestions welcome.

Bring it on, 2011!!

Winter Wonderlands of Vienna, Austria

Snow is kinda magical for me. See, I'm from Texas--we don't get a lot of snow. When we do, it's icy and turns to slush before you can make a proper snow man...which I have never done. Ang has promised to make one with me before we head out of Vienna.

My time in St. Louis has provided me with some fun, snowy shennanigans, but I've never had a legitimate snowball fight, and I've never built a snow fort. These are all very fantastical things that have never seemed real to me. Now this has never really bothered me--in fact I don't like the cold. I don't like the heat, for that matter-I'm a very '65 degrees and slightly cloudy' kind of person.

BUT I can't help but fall in love with this weather here in Vienna!! There is something ethereal about falling snow. And it's the best snow! It's light and fluffy and sparkly. It's like dust, and it's so soft to step through--so much better than anything I've experienced before.

Yesterday I went to the Vienna Woods to explore. They are on a mountain, and from one of the overlooks I could see all of Vienna. I saw the observatory/space needle-esque building I still need to visit, and the apartment building by the mall. Everything looked tiny from up there. I walked along what I supposed to be a sidewalk during warmer times, but now was just a collection of about 4 pairs of footprints. It lead on for a while, and I considered turning back soon, when I saw a HUGE expanse of white snow. There were two snowmen that children had rolled together sitting at the base of the valley. I walked about halfway down, kicking the snow and picking some up every once in a while. It was literally sparkling from the sun, and I thought it was one of the most beautiful things I had seen. The whole piece of land I could see-the sun shining through the snow dusted trees and the perfect, undisturbed stretch of snow was so peaceful.

This has been my city for the past 3 1/2 months, but I have less than 3 weeks to explore. More thoughts on leaving to come later. Anyhow, I've been watching the snow all afternoon. I even played in it a little this afternoon after class. I went to the park across from Webster and just walked...I love the feeling of crunching the snow and it feels very...refreshing. It was, for all intents and purposes (from a Texan perspective), Blizzarding. I had snowflakes on my eyelashes and all in my hair and covering my jacket. But it was simply peaceful. I'm going to miss the snow.

Little Things

It's probably part of the stupid amount of homesickness I've been feeling lately, but I see faces in the crowds: that could be this person or that person. That boy has your curly hair! That girl has your purse! If that man was 2" shorter and 4 years younger, he'd look just like you! And I feel like my mind is playing this awful, cruel tricks on me, because I'd give *almost* anything to see you right now. Cause it's the little things I miss.

I miss giving her shit about wearing skirts in December.

I miss his sleepy "fuck off"s at 10AM in the PO.

I miss telling her, for the love of God--get some sleep!!

I miss calling him to see if he wants a drink and he always says yes-come over.

I miss hearing all the goings on of the Broadway scene-yeah I didn't think I'd miss that either.

I miss his stupid antics through the DS and the Tech Office and the PO.

I miss the silence of the LHC at night-yes I've been the last to leave once or twice.

I miss the way footsteps echo like sonic booms in the DS.

I miss walking home and it only takes 4 minutes instead of the 40 it takes here.

And those are just a few.

Each day I find myself adding to the list of things I miss about the States, Webster, Home, Family, Friends, and all that. And I feel like I shouldn't be missing so much, because of this extraordinary opportunity I'm living...but I'm allowed a little homesickness, right?