Sunday, March 20, 2011

Alive and Well in Haiti

I told myself I wouldn't spend as much time blogging while I'm here as I did last time. I want to spend more time being effective and doing what I need to do while I'm here...but considering we're on lockdown due to today's elections, I figured I would at least give a quick update :)

So far things are very mellow today, as far as I'm aware from people around here and what I can gleam off Twitter and the internet. The polls opened late and have bee missing documents and people haven't been able to find their name on voting registries, so the outcome should be interesting. I am pretty sure Abby, Adri and I will be long gone before any semblance of results come about, which is when I expect protests of any kind will take place. We are hoping that we can get to work tomorrow. Since I did some rubbling last time I was here, I'm excited to work on a couple other projects that were not here last year, particularly working on school builds and the bio sand water filters. I also want to get my fill of rubbling one of these days!

It's been such a blessing to have Christa here...Abby and I met her on our last trip, and she's been here for most of the time we've been gone. In that year she's got a great understanding of the Creole language, and seeing her interact with all of the members and children of the community is extremely amazing and inspiring. You can simply tell the pleasure that people get when they see Christa: there's so much love in their eyes, and they are genuinely excited to see her. Christa was our fearless leader at the local market yesterday (since it's Sunday, we have no cook, and since we're in lockdown, we can't go eat anywhere, which means we had to load up on food to cook today, yesterday). It was Abby, Adri, myself, and two of the other people that were on our shuttle into Leogane on Thursday: Diego from Mexico and Kisa from....I think Washington state? Basically we told Christa what our menu for today was...and she led us through all the market stalls and translated at each of these until we had purchased our pasta, garlic, carrots, mini-lettuce, tomatoes, mangos, and bananas. Our hope is to use basil grown here and have a nice pesto sauce pasta with a light salad. Sharing the kitchen with 70 other hungry people, however, should be interesting. Anyhow, Christa is awesome, and I'm so glad she's still here!

The last few days have been really interesting...talking a lot about everything going on. Hopefully I'll know how to share my thoughts on all of this once I'm done processing all of it internally.

Until then: I'm a live and well, and happy to be back :)

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Can you just google your brain?

I'm a big gmail fan. Google in general, but I love my gmail account. I can organize my emails in folders. I can archive stuff so it's not filling up my "inbox." I can use search terms to find emails that have been lost in my cyber mailbox. I can search by a contact, and see every single email I've shared with that one person. It groups my email and subsequent responses in one "email." I mean...things weren't always this amazing! Remember hotmail? Yeah...

My favorite feature is definitely the search capability. All I need to remember are a couple key search words, and I can find the EXACT email I need, even if I don't remember who it was to or from. So I guess it shouldn't really be a big surprise that lately I expected my brain to do the same. I was trying to remember something, not sure if it was a memory, some sort of information or whatever, and in my mind I started thinking of the search times I was going to use to "gmail search" my brain. Once I realized what I was trying to do, I couldn't help but laugh at myself. But how awesome would it be if you could gmail search your BRAIN?! You'd never "forget" anything (not sure how the brain actually works when it comes to remembering and forgetting...but assuming it all stays stored in your brain somewhere)...you'd just have to remember the right search terms and you'd be set.

I shared this recently with Jeff, and he shared a similar story he had . He was smelling something at his parent's house, he wanted to share the scent with me, and wanted to email it to me so I could smell it. Ha!

This sounds crazy now...but it's only a matter of time...right?

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Blast from the Past



A few weeks ago I was given the opportunity to go back in time. Yep, time travel. It was circa 1999, I was sixteen, and I was speechless. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I got to relive my infatuation with Enrique Iglesias! Am I a little embarrassed? Not really. We've all had embarrassing infatuations, right? Anyhow, my friend Ana generously
bought me a ticket for his recent show at the Gibson as my birthday present. Yes, she is pretty awesome.

Before we went and grabbed our seats, I waited outside the restrooms for Ana and her sister, at which time I was able to witness the following interaction:

Another girl, maybe of the more appropriate age of sixteen, was standing next to me, presumably also waiting for her friends. As most people, um...women, in attendance, she looked very much Hispanic: dark hair, brown eyes, darker skin. I, on the other hand, was part of the white girl minority in attendance.

Because of the obvious disparity in the male-female attendance ratio, the Gibson had changed the signs of a few of the mens restroom to better serve the female population. One older event staff member, let's call her Maria, was trying to make us women aware of this, since the women's restroom had a huge line, and the restroom next door, which was also marked "women's", was almost entirely empty. Maria kept pointing to women in the line, and telling them to go to the other restroom. After
a few minutes of continuously telling new arrivals to keep walking to the next restroom, she turns to my Waiting Buddy and starts talking to her in Spanish, "these women! I'm trying to tell them the next one is completely empty! Ay ay ay, I'm gonna have to stand here all night!" The way she said this reminded me of my grandmother: super sweet and joking older lady, just trying to get a laugh out of her job.

Throughout this conversation, Waiting Buddy was just starring back at her like she was crazy, while I tried to contain my smile at Maria's funny outburst, since she wasn't talking to me and I'm sure she didn't think I understood a word (I'm always afraid people are going to think I'm crazy when I react to things I overhear...when they don't think I understand...they probably think I'm crazy, right?).

It occurred to me that Waiting Buddy had no idea what Maria had just said. I felt sad for multiple reasons. For one, that Maria didn't want to joke with ME because I looked like a white girl who couldn't understand her...even though I totally got her jokes! And two, I felt bad for Waiting Buddy, who didn't know what she was missing out on. Like so many second or third generation children, they come from Hispanic families but are never taught, or maybe don't want to be taught, the language of their heritage.

Waiting Buddy's buddies walked out of the restroom, and as they were walking away, Waiting Buddy was telling her friends how the cleaning lady had started talking to her because the cleaning lady thought she spoke Spanish...and she hadn't understood a word. I had to smile to myself.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

March 6-10, 2011

I'm getting worse and worse at doing this, but it's all of your faults for not holding me accountable! And mine for not making the time..

I don't think I have the time or energy to really go through the last four days...let's just say they've been busy, but here's what I remember:

  • Went to Dr.'s appt.
  • Picked up art donations (huge thank you shout out to San Clemente Art Supply):
  • Walked Lilo--such a beautiful day yesterday for a walk in Dana Point:
  • Visited Brookie
  • HBA Program Committee meeting
  • Office work
  • Bought stuff for trip to Haiti...started making a pile of all the stuff I have to pack
  • Went to DMV to pay for replacement ID
  • Met with Dana to catch up and borrow her backpack for my trip
  • Church with my mom
  • Dinner with Julian & Erika
  • Finally called my grandmother in Guatemala! It only took hearing news of an earthquake to make me finally make time...I need to be better at that.
  • Went to mass for Ash Wednesday...spent the rest of the day telling people that I knew there was something on my forehead...but thanks for the heads up!
What I didn't do:
  • Immigration cases: I HAVE to get this done before I leave next week
  • Write up on D&O insurance
  • Misc blogs I'd like to write up
  • HS Stuff I need to put together before I leave

Music Corner: Lykke Li: I Follow Rivers

There are so many blog posts I want to work on, but unfortunately the time to work on them is lacking. So instead, here's a music video :)

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Charity of the Month: No One Without

You know how there are certain people that come into your life, and you just know they were put in your life for a reason? That's the behind the scene story for this month's Charity: No One Without ("N.O.W.").

Gaston, founder of N.O.W., used to be a full time real estate investor, and indeed thought that was what he would do for the rest of his life. His ultimate career plans changed, however, when he drove to Los Angeles on a mission trip with his church in 2009, and experienced the pain and suffering of the homeless through new eyes. After sharing breakfast with a homeless man, Gaston knew he had to do something different with this life, something that involved putting others first. The question was, how does he do that? The answer started to become apparent after he received a pair of TOMS shoes for his birthday, and the model of ONE-for-ONE blew him away. For those unaware, for every TOMS pair of shoes purchased, TOMS donates a pair of shoes to those most in need of them. Gaston thought of doing the same, but with clothes. But he wanted to take that model a step further: why not support non profits that are doing amazing work in various meaningful areas while you're at it?

In the words of Helen Keller: "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

Cue Kelli. Gaston and Kelli met through a mutual friend, and they were instantly connected through their passions, their ideas, and their desire to make something happen that could have a real impact. As N.O.W.'s Director of Operations, Kelli makes it all happen. Gaston's dreams and business sense, combined with Kelli's relationship building strategies (not to mention prior work experience with TOMS!), were the perfect combination. Through this partnership, N.O.W. began to take shape, launched, and is beginning to help make a difference.
N.O.W. was founded as a "for purpose" company, meaning that the motivating factor is not "for profit" or "not for profit," but rather "for the greater good." How does it do this? For every product purchased, 20% of that purchase goes directly to funding efforts of N.O.W.'s non-profit partners. One of the great things about how N.O.W. is set up is that it does not restrict who they are helping. This is something I struggle with in trying to figure out what I want to do with my career: there are so many challenges in this world, and so many areas that I feel I could dedicate myself to, how could I pick just one? Well, N.O.W. found a way around this: help them all! N.O.W. can pick non-profit partners involved in so many different facets of work, and support each of them through "purpose driven consumerism."
As of now, N.O.W.'s non-profit partners include:
  • More than Me (getting girls off the streets and into schools in Liberia, West Africa);
  • These Numbers have Faces (providing college scholarships to local Cape Town universities);
  • Thirst Project (raising awareness and money to provide clean drinking water); and
  • the Chisomo Idea (connecting privileged young to issues of poverty in Africa and providing them with a framework for action).
Not a bad group, huh?!

N.O.W. is off to a solid start, and as Kelli said: "there's nowhere to go but up." They are looking to expand their clothing line, as well as working with advisors in the fashion world and funding some great projects.
So what can you do? Check out N.O.W.'s store to see how you can become a purpose driven consumer. Like them on Facebook. Join them on Twitter. And most importantly, check out how you can help N.O.W. earn $5,000.00 to allow them build their line (which will give you more shopping options in the future and more ways to be a purpose driven consumer!). They have 27 days as of today to raise $4,174.00. As I like to say, no amount is too small...every $5 counts :)

This blog is already verging on the long side, but a huge thank you to Gaston and Kelli for taking the time to answer my questions, and letting this blog take "Charity of the Month" one step further than it's ever gone before.

March 3-5, 2011

What I did:
  • All of our laundry!
  • Cleaned the kitchen
  • Changed bed sheets
  • Emptied out another huge portion of the garage...one more trip and I'm all done and the garage is back to it's intended purpose!
  • Met Karin for lunch on Thursday to turn in another pair of gift certificates for the silent auction
  • Made important phone calls yesterday
  • Lost my driver's license! Which means adding DMV to my to-do list for Monday, which is already out of control. I'm crossing fingers that alls I need to travel is my passport...
  • Tutored on Thursday
  • I finally wrote the letter on my small claims issue
  • Wrote my March Charity of the Month blog!
What I didn't do:
  • Immigration stuff (I HAVE to do this soon)
  • HS stuff--again, HAVE to do this soon
  • I'm sure there's more, but Jeff and I have spent almost four hours at Starbucks already and he's ready to go :)

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Lockers

This is where I sat and waited for my interview last week: Cesar Chavez Community Center, Riverside CA.
It used to be a school.

March 2, 2011

Busy and exhausting day.

What I did:
  • Dr.'s appointment at 7:45am. Led to more things on my to-do list.
  • Walked Lilo
  • Coffee with my attorney mentor, Monica, during which time I locked my keys in the car and had to call AAA TWICE since I missed them the first time they came by.
  • Office work
  • TVN
  • Started laundry, picked up kitchen, made dinner
  • Fixed slideshow again...I think I may have finally gotten it right this time, maybe
  • Important email for HS
  • On Tuesday I WENT TO THE GYM!
  • I also met up with Katie on Tuesday night, which was aaaamazing. I miss you.
  • Started to put together final fundraiser for our trip to Haiti
What I didn't do:
  • Acceptance letters
  • Letter
  • Immigration stuff
  • D&O write up
I need to revert back to college days when I could stay up late being productive...