Anyway, if nothing else, I can use 10 days of cleaning up my body after 10 days of chowing down in the happiest place on earth.
Gypsy on
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Master Cleanse
I'm in the middle of a 10 day detox (day 3). The detox involves a laxative tea, a salt water flush every morning, and drinking a mixture of lemon juice, water, maple syrup, and cayenne pepper. Pretty weird, huh? I'm still skeptical about all the claims this cleanse makes (Google "The Master Cleanse") but I'm actually feeling good other than being a bit hungry. The cleanse is supposed to clean your major organs and get rid of any toxins that are lingering around in your body from preservatives and processed foods. It also is supposed to clean your intestines of any old food and nasty just stuck there....yucky i know.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
This Blog
"I am going to Africa because I wish to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I cannot learn what it has to teach, and not, when I come to die, to discover that I did not live. I do not wish to live what is not life, living is so dear; nor do I wish to practice resignation, unless it is quite necessary. I want to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that is not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proves to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it is sublime, to know it by experience, and to be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." --a bastardized version of Henry David Thoreau's Walden
It's the last day of work. I'm feeling quite liberated. It's not to say this place was actually the 9th circle of Dante's hell as Paul (my favorite witty coworker) said, it's just not exactly intellectually stimulating. I'm feeling rather free from drudgery right now. Free to research, free to write, free to actually use my brain. It's gonna be great.
So for those that are a bit slow, the title of my blog is drawn directly from the original version of the quote above. Okay, okay Thoreau was a bit of a poser...but he still lived on Walden, even if he did borrow all his stuff from other people and visit the city often...he's still a brilliant writer, after all. I mean just look at On Civil Disobediance, now there is some fine writing.
Why am I going to Africa? To find what it means to live. it's the reason I do everything really. What does it mean to be alive in the very largest sense? Later in Walden Thoreau writes that to be alive is to be awake. Further, he claims that no man has ever been truly awake...God I want to be awake! In my life I've never been so awake as when I am dedicated to serving the people around me. It's strange, it's like I am more myself when I'm working for the Good (I tentatively use that term in the Platonic sense...at least for this moment...right now) than I am at any other time in my life. It's so hard to explain it's like I'm more me in an earthy yet spiritual way...it's like being filled up, with your true self. It's so exciting. It's better than any feeling I've ever experienced. Even little things, like making cookies for people just to let them know someone on this earth cares. Someone actually wishes to lighten their burden, if even through a warm gooey mess of chocolate. Sigh...why am I going to Africa? Because I truly believe I will be more myself there than I've ever been anywhere.
Anyway, from here on out this blog may take new direction (as of yet it has had none). Literature, Mali, and my political musings will likely take up much more space than it has in the past. In other words, hopefully i'll succeed in some semi-intelligent conversation...but that's just a long term goal.
Things I'll be doing in my post job life:
Trail Running
Mountain Biking
Lifting
Reading philosophy
Reading anything my smart friends have on their favorite book lists: this means you Brent
Organizing my life so I can leave America without any warrants or credit problems
Writing poetry (ah it's been much too long)
Learning new words
Getting a tan
Reading Latin American authors. I'm absolutely in love with the latin voice.
Learning French
I think that should take up the next two months...
Til next time friends
GYPSY ON!
It's the last day of work. I'm feeling quite liberated. It's not to say this place was actually the 9th circle of Dante's hell as Paul (my favorite witty coworker) said, it's just not exactly intellectually stimulating. I'm feeling rather free from drudgery right now. Free to research, free to write, free to actually use my brain. It's gonna be great.
So for those that are a bit slow, the title of my blog is drawn directly from the original version of the quote above. Okay, okay Thoreau was a bit of a poser...but he still lived on Walden, even if he did borrow all his stuff from other people and visit the city often...he's still a brilliant writer, after all. I mean just look at On Civil Disobediance, now there is some fine writing.
Why am I going to Africa? To find what it means to live. it's the reason I do everything really. What does it mean to be alive in the very largest sense? Later in Walden Thoreau writes that to be alive is to be awake. Further, he claims that no man has ever been truly awake...God I want to be awake! In my life I've never been so awake as when I am dedicated to serving the people around me. It's strange, it's like I am more myself when I'm working for the Good (I tentatively use that term in the Platonic sense...at least for this moment...right now) than I am at any other time in my life. It's so hard to explain it's like I'm more me in an earthy yet spiritual way...it's like being filled up, with your true self. It's so exciting. It's better than any feeling I've ever experienced. Even little things, like making cookies for people just to let them know someone on this earth cares. Someone actually wishes to lighten their burden, if even through a warm gooey mess of chocolate. Sigh...why am I going to Africa? Because I truly believe I will be more myself there than I've ever been anywhere.
Anyway, from here on out this blog may take new direction (as of yet it has had none). Literature, Mali, and my political musings will likely take up much more space than it has in the past. In other words, hopefully i'll succeed in some semi-intelligent conversation...but that's just a long term goal.
Things I'll be doing in my post job life:
Trail Running
Mountain Biking
Lifting
Reading philosophy
Reading anything my smart friends have on their favorite book lists: this means you Brent
Organizing my life so I can leave America without any warrants or credit problems
Writing poetry (ah it's been much too long)
Learning new words
Getting a tan
Reading Latin American authors. I'm absolutely in love with the latin voice.
Learning French
I think that should take up the next two months...
Til next time friends
GYPSY ON!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Beware of the Penis Snatchers
Wow...moving to West Africa is going to be awesome. I'm laughing...but the part about lynchings is a little...unnerving. See article below (i pulled it off drudge)
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.
Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.
(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mary Gabriel)
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.
Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.
Rumors of penis theft began circulating last week in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo's sprawling capital of some 8 million inhabitants. They quickly dominated radio call-in shows, with listeners advised to beware of fellow passengers in communal taxis wearing gold rings.
Purported victims, 14 of whom were also detained by police, claimed that sorcerers simply touched them to make their genitals shrink or disappear, in what some residents said was an attempt to extort cash with the promise of a cure.
"You just have to be accused of that, and people come after you. We've had a number of attempted lynchings. ... You see them covered in marks after being beaten," Kinshasa's police chief, Jean-Dieudonne Oleko, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Police arrested the accused sorcerers and their victims in an effort to avoid the sort of bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 suspected penis snatchers were beaten to death by angry mobs. The 27 men have since been released.
"I'm tempted to say it's one huge joke," Oleko said.
"But when you try to tell the victims that their penises are still there, they tell you that it's become tiny or that they've become impotent. To that I tell them, 'How do you know if you haven't gone home and tried it'," he said.
Some Kinshasa residents accuse a separatist sect from nearby Bas-Congo province of being behind the witchcraft in revenge for a recent government crackdown on its members.
"It's real. Just yesterday here, there was a man who was a victim. We saw. What was left was tiny," said 29-year-old Alain Kalala, who sells phone credits near a Kinshasa police station.
(Editing by Nick Tattersall and Mary Gabriel)
Thursday, April 10, 2008
I heart Portland
I stole this from my friend Rose.
Portland has more bumper stickers per capita than anywhere else in America.
We have some of the funniest bumper stickers too:
Legalize Tofu
What would Scooby do?
WWXD? (what would Xena do?)
Stop continental drift.
My other car is a piece of crap, too.
No food with a face.
Vegetarians taste better.
Keep Portland weird.
We have our own food pyramid. At the bottom is espresso.
If you carry an umbrella, we know you're not local.
If you dye your hair, we know you're not local.
You'll think by looking at us that we are completely oblivious to the rain. We don't use umbrellas. We don't bother to put up our hoods. However, there's one clue that lets you know that we do notice whether or not it's raining. In the rain, we wear clogs. No rain? We wear sandals. It doesn't matter if it's January.
Portlanders love micro-brew beer. We don't really care what they taste like as long as they have interesting labels.
Portland is one of the few places in the world outside of France where you can take your dog to pubs.
Portland pre-schoolers play at indoor play park during the rainy seasons.
You may think that we're a bunch of tree huggers. But we know better. Them tree huggers live in Seattle.
We think valet parking is like bragging. It's just poor manners.
Portland is one of those few places in the world where real estate prices go up when there's a good independent coffee shop in the neighborhood. Starbucks doesn't cut it.
Portlanders are anti-chain. We like the little guy and we want to shop local. So local that we don't even want to shop outside our neighborhoods sometimes.
The most ordered beverage in Portland is a half caff, 16 oz, soy latte. Beware, if you say, half decaf, this will label you as a non-local.
At the Oregon zoo, Pachy, the senior elephant in residence gets a birthday party with his own birthday cake every year. The flavor? Carrot cake.
Beaverton is the city in Oregon where you're most likely to give birth on the way to the hospital cause you're stuck in traffic.
When in Beaverton, make sure that you get your vocabulary straight. You gotta called Nike's headquarters a "campus".
If you live in Lake Oswego, then chances are you're not a native Oregonian. You're likely to be from California or New York. That explains why real estate prices are higher here. Then again, so is the appreciation.
Portland has more bumper stickers per capita than anywhere else in America.
We have some of the funniest bumper stickers too:
Legalize Tofu
What would Scooby do?
WWXD? (what would Xena do?)
Stop continental drift.
My other car is a piece of crap, too.
No food with a face.
Vegetarians taste better.
Keep Portland weird.
We have our own food pyramid. At the bottom is espresso.
If you carry an umbrella, we know you're not local.
If you dye your hair, we know you're not local.
You'll think by looking at us that we are completely oblivious to the rain. We don't use umbrellas. We don't bother to put up our hoods. However, there's one clue that lets you know that we do notice whether or not it's raining. In the rain, we wear clogs. No rain? We wear sandals. It doesn't matter if it's January.
Portlanders love micro-brew beer. We don't really care what they taste like as long as they have interesting labels.
Portland is one of the few places in the world outside of France where you can take your dog to pubs.
Portland pre-schoolers play at indoor play park during the rainy seasons.
You may think that we're a bunch of tree huggers. But we know better. Them tree huggers live in Seattle.
We think valet parking is like bragging. It's just poor manners.
Portland is one of those few places in the world where real estate prices go up when there's a good independent coffee shop in the neighborhood. Starbucks doesn't cut it.
Portlanders are anti-chain. We like the little guy and we want to shop local. So local that we don't even want to shop outside our neighborhoods sometimes.
The most ordered beverage in Portland is a half caff, 16 oz, soy latte. Beware, if you say, half decaf, this will label you as a non-local.
At the Oregon zoo, Pachy, the senior elephant in residence gets a birthday party with his own birthday cake every year. The flavor? Carrot cake.
Beaverton is the city in Oregon where you're most likely to give birth on the way to the hospital cause you're stuck in traffic.
When in Beaverton, make sure that you get your vocabulary straight. You gotta called Nike's headquarters a "campus".
If you live in Lake Oswego, then chances are you're not a native Oregonian. You're likely to be from California or New York. That explains why real estate prices are higher here. Then again, so is the appreciation.
Monday, April 7, 2008
One jammed hip later
The race went awesome. It was a great trail!
I'm VERY happy with my times and my running. I finished around 1:54 and for a hilly course, i think that's pretty great. I got 12th in my age group (outta 110) and 254th outta 1266 runners total (male and female).
After finishing, I enjoyed the post race festivities with thomas and went back home for a shower and a nap. Upon waking, however, i realized that my right hip was jammed during the run (too much running down hill i guess). But no problem today it's feeling almost completly normal, and i'm gonna do a nice easy 4-6 miler today (depending on how i feel mid run).
Next up, a 4 mile Xterra trail race. I love this race. It was my very first race ever a year ago. Last year I came in second, but this year i moved up an age group which, contrary to what you'd believe, makes it harder. It seems that my new age group is a peak time for "serious" runners, so i'm just gonna train hard and see what happens. Xterra races are my FAVORITE, and this is the last one i can compete in before i leave for Mali, so i'm pretty excited.
In other exciting weekend news...thomas and i went to the farmers market again this weekend and bought a bunch of fruit. mmmdelicious. Buy local!
Gypsy on!
I'm VERY happy with my times and my running. I finished around 1:54 and for a hilly course, i think that's pretty great. I got 12th in my age group (outta 110) and 254th outta 1266 runners total (male and female).
After finishing, I enjoyed the post race festivities with thomas and went back home for a shower and a nap. Upon waking, however, i realized that my right hip was jammed during the run (too much running down hill i guess). But no problem today it's feeling almost completly normal, and i'm gonna do a nice easy 4-6 miler today (depending on how i feel mid run).
Next up, a 4 mile Xterra trail race. I love this race. It was my very first race ever a year ago. Last year I came in second, but this year i moved up an age group which, contrary to what you'd believe, makes it harder. It seems that my new age group is a peak time for "serious" runners, so i'm just gonna train hard and see what happens. Xterra races are my FAVORITE, and this is the last one i can compete in before i leave for Mali, so i'm pretty excited.
In other exciting weekend news...thomas and i went to the farmers market again this weekend and bought a bunch of fruit. mmmdelicious. Buy local!
Gypsy on!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Runnin on love
Tomorrow is the big day! I'm bib #2312 for the Dole Great Race!!! I'm running my second half marathon, and have no plan to PR. Although I'm in better shape thanI was for last August for the HulaMan Half Marathon, this race is on trails and has more hills. I'm used to running hills though, so hopefully i don't peeter out :)
Plan for today is rest, drink water, eat spaghetti, and have a little gatorade just before bed. Then, I'll be up just before 6 to be to the race around 6:15. Start time is 7am, hopefully all over and sittin on a curb eating post race party food by 9. My last time was 1:49 or something like that...I'm hoping to get under 2 this time. But I'm not going to concentrate on my time so much as enjoying the race and finishing.
7 weeks ago i couldn't even run because of an ankle injury, so i'm pretty happy just to be able to feel as confident as I do. I'm not a half-marathoner to be honest...i so much prefer the 6-9 mile range, but it's good to go outside my comfort zone occasionally :)
After the race I'm plannin on hittin up the farmer's market and then home to bed. :) I'll let you know how it goes...
Plan for today is rest, drink water, eat spaghetti, and have a little gatorade just before bed. Then, I'll be up just before 6 to be to the race around 6:15. Start time is 7am, hopefully all over and sittin on a curb eating post race party food by 9. My last time was 1:49 or something like that...I'm hoping to get under 2 this time. But I'm not going to concentrate on my time so much as enjoying the race and finishing.
7 weeks ago i couldn't even run because of an ankle injury, so i'm pretty happy just to be able to feel as confident as I do. I'm not a half-marathoner to be honest...i so much prefer the 6-9 mile range, but it's good to go outside my comfort zone occasionally :)
After the race I'm plannin on hittin up the farmer's market and then home to bed. :) I'll let you know how it goes...
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