Tuesday, July 12, 2011

24 hours....

You'll never guess where I'm writing this.

Delta Flight 68 to JFK. Wi-fi on board. Seat 6A.

A window seat in first class. To New York--the greatest city in the world!

I just got served cranberry juice in a glass. (A glass!)

In my headphones is this song:

(well, the whole soundtrack, but this song happens to be playing).

In 24 hours, I will be on Broadway, hopefully seeing the fine Andrew Rannells himself belting it out. (Oh my, I love him.) And if not him, he'd better have on hell of an understudy.

I know that the tone of this post is not successfully conveying the sheer excitement that is freaking boiling in my stomach, so let me just say it straight out: I'm so excited.

I am so. excited.

I'm flying to New York! First class! For my birthday! I'm going to see a broadway show--and not just any show, but the freaking sold out show of the century!

*eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*




Sunday, May 22, 2011

The Saddest Little Birthday Girl

I've been working a lot of overtime again, so my life is back to the computer. I'm feeling the need to update, though, so here's a little gem I uncovered a few days ago. I wrote it last year in response to an email from a friend who invited me (and others) over for some chocolate cake. But, not just any chocolate cake. She is *famous* for this chocolate cake. And because I was going to Kansas City for a conference, I couldn't go and partake of her famous deliciousness.

****************************************************************************************
Dearest [friend],

This was a truly sad email to read for I am a long-time lover of Chocolate Cake. On my 5th birthday, I ate my cake straight out the oven--no frosting, not even any sprinkles. Just pure, delicious chocolate cake.

I didn't get half-way through before my mother, who had so lovingly baked this cake and left it on the counter to cool, so sharply scolded me for doing so and promptly booted me out the door. I found this to be most offensive as I had admitted No Such Thing. She knew, though. "A mother always knows," were, I believe, her exact words before locking the door behind me. And so, there I was, newly 5 and left--forced out!--to fend for myself on a New Jersey cul-de-sac. What was I to do but wander to the neighbors' homes soliciting for more of that warm, savory deliciousness that had been so unkindly taken from me? And, as Halina and Jen well know, I've been doing it ever since.

I am deeply saddened that I won't be partaking of your famous chocolate deliciousness. I rather enjoy chocolate cakes--at least, I think I do.

Actually I haven't had one since that fateful birthday. (It was my punishment, you see. It would have been cruel, but shortly thereafter I discovered Baskin Robbins' Peanut Butter 'n' Chocolate Ice Cream cakes. Last year was the first birthday in AGES that I didn't get one of them on my birthday.). To actually be *invited* to eat one? Wow. 5 year old Anna is speechless with delight. So is nearly-23 year old Anna (almost).

You may remind my mother of this incident should you feel so inclined. I think the bitterness of it will complement nicely the divine sweetness of your chocolate cake. And, since I can't be there in person, I would very much like for my sneaky five year old self to enjoy it for me. (Please, be sure to put extra frosting on her slice.)

I'm leaving Friday night. I hope to throw myself a birthday bash while I'm in Utah. (Utah is my native land, you know.) Perhaps someone there will offer to honour my 23 years with a decadent chocolate cake of their own? I can only hope (before begging, pleading and otherwise manipulating it out of someone).

Happy caking,
Rayzzle

***********************************************************************************************

This year, I will once again forgo a cake (I never did succeed in persuading one of my beloved Utahns to feed me cake) because I'll be in NEW YORK CITYYYYYYY.

I'm leaving for Canada Thursday. I haven't traveled since January.

I'm so excited.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Things I've Accomplished...

...And Many More I Haven't (yet)

My last year of college, I lived with two (super awesome) girls. We had a blog. Naturally, it was super awesome, too.

One day, October 21, 2008 to be exact, I wrote a post titled: 30 Before 30
I intended to make a list of 30 things I wanted to accomplish before turning 30, but I only made it to 25 (you'll see why).
I was thinking about this list the other day and decided to dig it up and see what kind of progress I was making.

Let's have a look, shall we?

1. Graduate May 2009. Check!
2. Anna, don't fail math. B+. boo YAW.
3. Make it back to Yemen. dangit!
4. Master Arabic. Not yet, but have an action plan in motion and a goal to be proficient by the end of 2011.
5. Read all the books on mah list (which has grown to include Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls and Wicked. Thanks, Megan! :) Will address this in another post.
6. Go to Grad School, ya bum! Got accepted! Will go in another year or two, I'm thinkin.
7. Go Skydiving. Did iFly this summer! Now for the real thing...
8. Get SCUBA certified Wanted to do it this year. Spent all my money in Egypt instead. But I still got time!
9. Then dive in the Red Sea and Australia. See above.
10. Make it back to Guatemala, Egypt twice!, Italy, Jordan , Lebanon, Oman (Salalah) August?, Turkey November? and Mexico July?.
11. And while I'm at it, see North Africa (Morocco, mostly), Russia, Hungary, Switzerland, Spain--aw heck! All of Europe, Kenya, Australia, Brazil, Honduras, Beliz, CUBA so that I can be just like Matt. Whoa. I'm way behind on this. But! Did add Germany and France to my list of European countries :) (new total: 17!)
12. Live in New York. 2012 goal!
13. Spend some time as a professional writer of some sort. Or have writing be part of my job. OR! Just make some sweet moolah for blogging. Really, any combination of money and writing would be *great*. Done quite a bit of writing for my current job. Not exactly what I had in mind when I wrote this, so I'm not crossing it off, but it's been accomplished.
14. Spend an extended period of time (read: more than two weeks)traveling abroad solo. See: Summer 2009
15. Maybe stop talking so much about travel. Yeesh. So for #15: develop new interests! like Quilting!
16. Work in DC. For a human rights organization. Hm...
17. Live outside the country! For a few years. Bada. BING.
18. Hike all around Southern Utah (Canyonlands, ZION, Bryce, Arches) Only did Arches. And it was before this post was written. Doesn't count :(
19. Take up surfing. Even for a day. Oo fun!
20. Oh yeah, um, get married. TDH, that's all I ask. Okay, and smart and funny and interesting and adventurous, too. But that's a topic for a different post :) haha. going to get this as close to 30 as I can...
21. Eat lunch at the top of Half Dome. Oh California. I have big plans for our reunion.
22. Watch the sunrise over the Empty Quarter. Totally must do this year!!
23. Eat Nutella on French Bread while looking up at Mt. Rushmore. This will be fun, but before I'm 30? Not so sure.
24. Road Trip the entire length of Highway 1--So Cal to Canada. Woot! (hey...sounds like a good post-grad vay-cay! Huh huh?) Okay, maybe not to Canada. But all the way up the California coast, then Oregon and Washington and ultimately wind up in BC. Heading up to Vancouver in May, but not by way of Highway 1. Boo.
25. There I go with the traveling again. Um, maybe I should take a break and think things over when I'm not ITCHING TO GET OUT of this great little city I call "home". Hokay, see ya next time!


Completed: 4 of 25
Progress: I have a long way to go.
Analysis: I am totally getting there, though. I really wanted to travel, and look at me! Living in Dubai, spending my leave galavanting across Egypt, heading to Canada (country #18! woohoo!) this summer, GETTING PAID TO TRAVEL. I've done so many cool things since writing this list, and still have plenty of time to finish it off. If I weren't so strict, I could have crossed off a few more things even.

All in all, I'm pretty darn proud of my accomplishments and look forward to the rest!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

A Quick Brag (or: I'm Kind of a Big Deal) (Again.)

Encounters with Sheikh Mo and Barack Freaking Obama.

Guys, I know I suck at blogging these days. Actually I have like 3 drafts that I've never finished, and several cool stories I never even started! I'll get to those one day. Tonight, I'm just here to brag.

I spent the weekend visiting long lost friends in Abu Dhabi. Tonight, one of these friends and I drove out to a sports bar on a Yas Island to watch the Chelsea-Stoke match (draw!) (also cricket was on. Does anyone even understand that sport? I mean, besides the UK, Australia, and the billion+ inhabitants of the subcontinent?), and afterwards we sat along the harbor talking. In fact, see this purple structure center-right? We were sitting (bottom left corner) looking across the water at it when a man stopped a few meters away and interrupted our conversation.

Excuse me, he said.

I looked up and saw a stylishly-bald fellow in a pink dress shirt who looked kind of like...

My friend* was immediately on his feet. Mr Zane! Wow! How are you? And shook his hand. I was just thinking maybe he didn't look familiar after all when my friend turned to me and said, Rayzzle! This is the guy from Titanic!

And I was like, What?

And then I said, WHAT?

And do you know what? HE TOTALLY WAS! And there was my friend, standing with him like he was some old friend and pointing him in the direction of whatever hoity-toity place he was looking for.

Only then did I get on my feet--he was gone by now--and my friend was like, Can you believe that was Billy Zane?

I was like, I can't believe you even know who that is.
We were both like, That's the closest I've ever been to Leonardo DiCaprio.

Isn't that crazy? Such is the glam life I live over here in the UAE. My weekdays are spent handling paperwork for royalty (<--yes, that is an allusion to a story I will not be publishing here EDIT: two stories) and my weekends are spent running into celebrities I can't recognize.

Life is good.

Brag brag brag.

*I'm not being intentionally cryptic here. No wait, yes I am! But only because I've recently decided not to use real names here and it being the wee hours of the morning, I'm not witty enough to come up with a good alias.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Where I've Been

So, it's been a while since I blogged. That's because it's been a while since I did anything. I mean, I did have a fantastic, fun, amazing, delicious, WONDERFUL trip to Egypt at the start of the decade, but I think everyone reading this is my facebook friend, and so you have already seen the incredibleness that was that trip.

Since then, I have been here:

This is my desk where, in a standard weekday, I will spend the better part of 9 hours sitting here, emailing, meeting with students, emailing, doing secretarial stuff, emailing, and a little more emailing.

It is also where, for the last (slightly more than a) month, I have spent the better part of 12 hours a day scrambling to stay afloat amid a rising tide of---well, everything.
I knew before the semester began that it would be crazy. Last semester I worked 2 nearly 60-hour weeks at the start of the semester and it was only me and 8 students. This year it was supposed to be me, 11 students, my boss, and a new & improved orientation program. I was prepared for 2 exhausting weeks.

Then, the Egyptians revoluted (woohoo them!) and we had a bunch a bunch of emails from partners and non-partners asking if their students could come here. And, since I am in charge of all incoming non-degree-seeking students, I had a lot of extra work to do. Our numbers doubled in just 5 short days and now, a full 4 weeks (+ a little) later, I'm nearly back to my cushy 9 hour day :)

My workspace is quite orderly now. Cluttered, sure, but the important thing is: you can see my desk!
You can also see my collection of sunglasses (to the left), my toys (on the computer), my speakers, and the music that's playing (800 points to whoever names the song that's playing) (also, I don't watch videos during the day, but they are playing in the background. Realplayer is so awesome!), and the Best Bulletin Board since the one before it (below).

Like how I've arranged it? I have the three most important, most frequently used reference documents prominently displayed, and surrounding them is happy travel awesomeness. Genius!
All the postcards were given (or sent!) to me from abroad. Starting at top left, we have Nepal, below that I'm not sure (probably the US, actually) (it's a normal card, not a post one), the UK, top right column: Sri Lanka (just arrived today!), China, India and Malaysia.

It's the Best, I tell you! (Also, feel free to send me a postcard anytime!) (I will display it prominently and proudly)

On the far right, we have my Year in Yes calendar:

It has a whole column devoted to "Favorite Words"! And a space to write the Things I loved this month. And sprinkled throughout each months are little special occasions and holidays liiiike:


Plan a Solo Vacation Day---which I am doing now.
Yesssssss!

So, you should all get one. It's awesome. Plus, the blogger, Ms Sarah Von, is so ridiculously cool that I donated to her cause and got cool things in return! I'll tell you about that in a minute.

Right now, it's time to introduce you to the First Bulletin Board of Awesome:

That green thing at the top is my (un)official name plate. It says Annabeans. It was wrapping paper for the stickers (get to those in a minute), but I liked it to much to throw away.

Once again, this bulletin board is more play than work. Sorry, did I say play? I meant, What the heck is all the crap?

I hung this up in honour of that one time the chancellor corrected my grammar. It's my favorite comic ever.

Above it hangs my little gift from Sarah Von. As I was saying, she is spending several months volunteering her way across Asia (started a few months ago in India and is currently in Laos. Click here to read about it). I can't find the post now, but if you donated some money, she would send you something cool. This little bag has a bracelet inside, and that postcard from Nepal? From Sarah :)
Those frogs, however, I've had since Jr high. And I still love them ♥

Speaking of adorable things I love, LOOK AT THESE STICKERS:


I nearly die from Cuteness every time I see them! ♥ ♥


And last but not least, my two favorite sticky notes ever:

The yellow was written on a particularly tough day last semester. :)

The pink was waiting for me when I came back from lunch one day in the Fall. It says, Pls find out the number of this hot girl in my marketing (401) 1400 clock session. First name Fatima! Thx, Tobi.

Sure Tobi. I'll get right on that.



Monday, February 14, 2011

Ask...

...and ye shall receive:




Happy Valentine's Day!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

3 Days of Rain

**But first, a little Wednesday wisdom: When breaking the seal on a new bottle of water, be sure you aren't squeezing the bottle. The water may spill out alll over you. And your couch.**

I'm not big into New Year's resolutions. Or small into them. Or, really, into them at all.

I did, though, commit to doing a few things better this year. One of those is taking pictures. I have a friend who's doing a photo-a-day project for 2011, and I thought that was an awesome idea! But it didn't come to me until the 10th, and by then it was almost midnight, so my first picture looks like this:


I call it 'unpacked!'

That is the (flattened) duffel bag I took with me for my two-week trip in Egypt. Those are the fuzzy blue socks I wore around the ship because I forgot to bring those grey slippers. D'oh!

Aaaand I forgot again the next day, so I got this picture, taken well after midnight (but whatever. It still counts!)

Unfortunately, it's not what I was going for. I've never seen fog like that--just wisps, snaking through the air. It was eerie. I took this picture and ran inside.

Ah, look! A picture taken during the day:


And what a beautiful day it was.

One morning this week, the sky looked particularly amazing. This picture doesn't quite capture it, but it's the best I could do while driving...

...an activity I am not practiced at, I swear!


This was yesterday afternoon:


It's been raining all week.


Last night, Halina and I went to the mall. We ate Thai food until I had to unbutton my pants, and then we spent an hour digesting in Border's.
And then, when we were good and ready for more gorging, she introduced me to PinkBerry.


It's no SpoonMe, but it is delightfully aesthetic.

Tonight, I am excited because Halina saved me an empty Mayonnaise jar.

I am not a fan of mayonnaise, but I am a fan of bread, and I am really freaking excited to try making my own SOURDOUGH!


I have more pictures, but they are on my phone. One day, I might get around to uploading them.

In the meantime, I plan to do a whole lot more exploring around Dubai, and hope to bring you many wonderful pictures of the city and the people in it. It's my last year here. It's about time I did some exploring.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr

is one of my heroes. My all-time favorite speech EVER is I've Been to the Mountaintop. I'm sure I've heard it well over a dozen times. It's just to powerful and beautiful not to listen to over and over again.

I'm sorry I missed his birthday celebrations yesterday, but his message is relevant--and crucial--across all days and times and so I figure now is as good a time as Monday to dedicate this post to him. May you take it to heart.

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

And to leave you with his final (publicly uttered) words:



I get chills every time I hear them.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Welcome to 2011

Wow, we are already over a week into the new year. Time just flies on by, don't it?

For reasons I can't put my finger on, I am really looking forward to 2011. I think it's because I did a lot of self-discovery last year and you know what I found? I'm freaking awesome. You know what else is freaking awesome? Life. Life, and me, and my freaking awesome life ROCK. 2010 taught me that there is a me-shaped hole in the universe and I am having one hell of a time filling it.

I hope you will too.

You-shaped Hole**

Sometimes the world feels inhospitable.
You feel all the ways that you and it don’t fit.
You see what’s missing, how it all could be different.


You feel as if you weren’t meant for the world, or the world wasn’t
meant for you.


As if the world is “the way it is” and your discomfort with it a problem.


So you get timid. You get quiet about what you see.


But what if this? What if you are meant
to feel the world is inhospitable, unfriendly, off-track
in just the particular ways that you do?


The world has a you-shaped hole in it.
It is missing what you see.
It lacks what you know.


And so you were called into being.
To see the gap, to feel the pain of it, and to fill it.


Filling it is speaking what is missing.
Filling it is stepping into the center of the crowd, into a clearing, and
saying, here, my friends, is the future.
Filling it is being what is missing, becoming it.


You don’t have to do it all, but you do have to speak it.
You have to tell your slice of the truth.
You do have to walk toward it with your choices, with your own being.

Then allies and energies will come to you like fireflies swirling around
a light.

The roughness of the world, the off-track-ness, the folly that you see,
these are the most precious gifts you will receive in this lifetime.

They are not here to distance you from the world, but to guide you
into your contribution to it.

The world was made with a you-shaped hole in it.
In that way you are important.
In that way you are here to make the world.
In that way you are called.

**by Tara Mohr. Her complete book of awesome poems can be found here, and I do recommend a read.