hurricane irene.

right now, the howling winds are forcing the rain to spray and splash against my window. above me are the muted sounds of rain against the roof. i feel as if i'm in a rain globe.

last night, i panicked and thought that the hurricane might bring with it, terrible power outages and water shortages. i bought 9-volt batteries for the radio and stocked up with bread and cheese. this morning, i filled 3 empty milk gallons with water and have not stepped foot out of the house all day. even with the wind whiplash against the windows, i am feeling mostly safe.

i remember teaching hurricanes to my 4th grade students during our weather unit in science. i've since forgotten the details, so thanks to the internet, here's how hurricanes form:

Hurricanes begin when a group of storms comes together over warm waters in the ocean along the equator. All summer long, these areas absorb heat from the sun. By late summer, the hotter water temperatures allow storms to strengthen and grow. This signals the start of “hurricane season.”

Warmer water means more energy for a storm’s development. Storm systems create areas of low pressure, which cause large amounts of water to evaporate. This makes the air very humid. As the warm air rises, cooler air rushes in to replace it. As this cycle intensifies, these rushing winds pick up speed.

At first, these winds blow in toward the center of the storm system. As the storm grows, however, the effect of Earth's rotation begins to spin the storm around. The center rotates in a counterclockwise direction. The winds now whip around the center and create the “eye” of the storm. Swirling bands of clouds and rain curve outward from the center and give the forming hurricane its familiar shape.

(thank you, macmillan-mcgraw/hill.)

first an earthquake on tuesday, august 23rd, and 4 days later, a hurricane. i have a feeling that this is only the beginning...and that thought, alarms me.

vintage ella video.

an oldie but a feel goodie, especially if your name is ji sun! (thanks ELLA!)

http://amberandbrady.blogspot.com/2011/03/vintage-ella.html

my brother's fourth video.

my brother is one mad creative individual and i love being involved in his artistic projects. here is our latest escapade, fabulously packaged into a hilarious video from joyous bike rides around cambridge, massachusetts. thank you kanye, jay z, and otis for the inspiration.

my bike is my car: http://vimeo.com/28066830

digits.

after 5 months of living cell phone free in the states, i have joined the approximate 96% of fellow american mobile users. although i am welcoming myself to the connected club, to be honest, i intend to use my portable phone only for extremely important phone calls and/or texts. call me an old fogey, but, i have found that during my time of cell phonelessness, i have held myself more accountable to dates and in turn, so have my friends with whom i've made said plans. yes, yes, i know. unexpected things occur, traffic jams, la-la-la, but where else do you need to be? where else do i need to be? so for me, waiting a brief 10-15 minutes until paths connect is a welcome moment to observe life, make lists, read a passage from my book, or simply let my thoughts drift.

HOWEVER, i must say that i am thankful to others (some, even strangers!) for letting me use their phones during my lack. the other night, after spending time with a friend, i came home late, around midnight and as i had feared, my parents locked me out of the house. they locked the screen door, to which i don't have a key. after some time of futile attempts to stir them from their slumber, i was just about to give up, when! to my delight, an unknown neighbor pulled into his parking spot. with my backpack on my back and a meek smile, i asked the young man if i could use his phone to call my parents who locked me out of the house. four rings and one message on the answering machine later. no dice. repeat. finally! my dad woke up and unlocked the door, granting me access home. so yes, being locked out of one's house is a great example of an important time to use a cell phone and i'm appreciative to have that luxury now. still. don't call me. unless you must.

pastoral musings.

i have just returned home from three days in milwaukee, wisconsin. two half days of traveling equaled one whole day and the other two days were spent as my interview/work days on the urban farm.

recently, i've have been trying consciously to not have preconceived notions or expectations of any new thing. this is difficult i know, especially since i've observed and participated in a spectrum of similarly grouped adventures and experiences, so things don't feel completely 100% "new." but i'm discovering that the more open and free i can be to life, the more i can see and learn from these different, if similar, events.

my time on the farm was a great exercise in being receptive, observant, and attentive. it also involved me being physically active in the hot heat of the sun, sweating profusely, and delighting in apparent daily progress. i helped take care of livestock--2 full (yet free roaming) chicken coops, a multitude of goats, turkeys, and a handful of ducks--trellised tomatoes, moved vegetables, soil, and muck to the compost truck, as well as try to catch rats. yep. that's right. armed with a shovel, i tried to catch rats by bopping them on the head while they emerged from their underground den. call me little bunny foo foo. but these weren't tiny mice, these were fat rats that squealed. it was an adrenaline pumping and frighteningly surreal experience.

it's not surprising that many farms experience rodent and pest issues. there's food everywhere! it's a rat's dream to seek shelter on a farm and gorge itself into gluttony. the farmer, however, will eventually realize this and the problem must be fixed. i, along with the other current interns, micheline and adam, mucked out the front room of the coop where the food was stored and in the process found a family of rats. a handful escaped, one rat went into the chicken coop and died immediately from the group pecking (those hens were FIERCE!), and the fate of the fattest one of all is unknown since it went into the chicken coop too, but we weren't able to locate its body. oh the happenings of life on a farm!

the two work days proved themselves to give me excellent exposure to what my 3 months as a fall intern would entail. hard physical labor aside, i learned more about the management and (dis)organization of the day to day functions. i am more than thankful that the current interns gave me their honest assessments and critiques of the farm. they confirmed what i had suspected...that despite the good work involved, the strained lines of communication, crowded living situation and work load that considers the demands of the organization without very many open modes of mutually agreeable and beneficial dialogues with the work staff, have me convinced that in this point in my life, milwaukee is not the best fit. which means, onward to, HALIFAX, nova scotia. OH CANADA!(impending confirmation...)

what was i thinking?

i recently read a book titled, what was i thinking? 58 bad boyfriend stories. it's a collection of personal, often hilarious and poignant reflections told in first person from 58 women who all shared the "what was i thinking" moment. some of the moments (that made me laugh out loud) were ridiculous and outrageous...from the innocuous but deadly vocabulary faux pas with a one letter difference to a more intense, (seeming) unforgivable male's lack of attention to mutual lifestyle choices (baby). it seems improbable or maybe even mean, that a person, in this case, a fair share of 58 women could and so easily would dismiss the men in the their lives from such simple and harmless acts. however, to their credit, many of these stories involved only a date or two, which, in and of itself, is already pretty non-committal. a few of these stories are "dated" in that the authors reference "grunge" (think kurt cobain) and fiddling with phone cords--CORDS! PEOPLE! remember that shit?--while dishing the goods to their girlfriends. and only a few of them mention meeting their boyfriends online, which is all the current rage. online dating is fast becoming, if it is not already, the norm as a way for busy busy people in this busy busy world to meet their potential match, partner, half-orange.

presently, i'm dating a guy named nicholas whom, i'm not at all shy to admit that i've met online. (okcupid is the current hot spot and i've even seen profiles of previous guys i've dated online there--awwwwwkward!) friends have joked and asked if he lives on the north pole. i wittily reply back that he doesn't, but he is in fact a jolly man. he is jolly. and sweet. kind, affectionate, and self aware. he's also a bit overly romantic (read not necessarily the most realistic) and somewhat too attached to me (or maybe the IDEA of me, which is WORSE!) which makes me feel a bit squeamish. i used to think that i was a low maintenance kind of girl. i don't wear make-up often, i'm much more comfortable hiking in the woods, than i am being wow-ed from the trendiest dance club or posh restaurant, although, i also would not be opposed to dancing all night or an extravagant meal. i'm easily amused, easily entertained and typically laugh at the drop of a hat. BUT. i realized that while i'm not high maintenance when it comes to my own appearances or entertainment, i'm much pickier about the appearances of the men i date and the kind of men whose company i actually enjoy. is it possible to have both my cake and eat it too? am i a hedonistic glutton? are my boots too big for my britches?

since my return from korea, about 5 months ago, i've entered an entirely new level of boy-crazyiness and as a way for me to harmlessly satisfy the want for eye candy, i joined okcupid. for me, it's mostly entertainment--a chance to meet new people but maybe, i'm more drawn to the idea of meeting new people and all the promise that comes with something (new, and shiny, and sparkling!) unknown than working to sustain and maintain a relationship that in my mind, is destined to be temporary. i'm leaving baltimore for a fall internship--which and where is currently in deliberation--and in my seize the moment, carpe diem mentality, i thought that enjoying a summer romance, if it were to happen, would be fun. what i didn't recognize so fully then, in june, was that one of the main reasons why i can have fun in a limited time offer relationship, is that it is exactly that. for a limited time. make no mistake, i'm leaving. don't even try to stop me. as a matter of fact, try to stop me and i'll be gone even faster.

i'm beginning to wonder if i have commitment issues. i'm also beginning to wonder about the moral rectitude of short relationships. and then, my goodness, relationships in general are consuming-ly exhausting! RELATIONSHIPS! nicholas and i have now known each other for 4 weeks. our first week of dating included midnight walks under a full moon while holding hands (soooooo romantic!), cooking together using his vegetables from his csa (dreamy!), making out on the couch (ooh la la, FUN!), and sharing an incredible cone of crispy tater tots as an appetizer during brunch while discussing jesus and judas. we saw each other 6 days in a row and in that fairytale way of getting to know someone and WANTING to get to know someone, we shamelessly gushed our affections. then i went away for a week and gained some (realistic) space and distance and felt smothered by our daily chats and repetitive conversations. i intentionally hid myself online and took some much needed space. in that 36 hours of space, i pulled away and knew i was pulling away. (i'm leaving, i want to leave, i'm going, nothing will stop me.) i wonder if i will always feel this way? am i responsible to nicholas to be anything more or less? no. yet, i can't help feeling...slightly self serving.

what i am thinking now is to stop thinking.