I've got a few minutes

Okay, so I haven't arranged any photos, or gone to yoga 3 times a week. But I think I've done well by doing the rest.
Today I am going to be giving presentations to high school Spanish class students at the local high school about Spain. I'm pretty excited, since I'm a little obsessed with talking about Spain :). Plus, my friend, Jose is giving it with me. Jose is from the school I studied at in Spain and now he is studying at my school in the USA!
It's been absolutely gorgeous here in the fall. I'm in love with it (as ALWAYS).
Chicago over fall break was completely fantastic!! I flew up there with the other girl that studied from ASU at my Spanish school to see the girl's roommate from Spain. The three of us traveled a lot together and became really good friends. We were, needless to say, ecstatic about seeing each other! Thursday and Friday we stayed outside of Chicago at the roommate's apartment where she goes to school. We made a traditional Spanish lunch, hung out, and laughed a ridiculous amount. Saturday and Sunday we spent in Chicago. We went to a Spanish tapas (not "topless"... tapas) bar and walked around the city. It was so fun. I'd like to go back at this moment. Anyways, I loved it.
So now it's back in Boone and back to real life :). I've had the week off work until Friday, so it's been very relaxing and I love that.

New-Fall's Resolution

Some people make New Year's Resolutions. I'm making a New Fall Resolution. Fall's awesome. These are goals for October:
1. actually get my life in order and arrange and order some photos from study abroad
2. GO TO CHICAGO OVER FALL BREAK!!!
3. Make pumpkin pies
4. Soak up the last rays of sun
5. Go to yoga 3 times a week
6. enjoy gorgeous Boone fall
7. make apple sauce
8. wear cozy long sleeves
9. Begin thesis research and GET SOMEWHERE on it.
10. Stay educated about politics.

Yeah, so some of those are silly, but I feel that if I make fun ones in there, too, then I might have more of a chance to accomplish them. And there's only 10 of them. I'll let you know if they get done...

Here's an update

Well it's been a while since I've written, but hey... life happens :).
So here I am. Senior at ASU. I'm a double major in Sustainable Development and Spanish. I graduate in May and after that I have no idea. I might do an internship over the summer with SAF, a program that works with farmworkers assessing assessable things like health and whatnot. After that, who knows? Maybe Costa Rica.
Wouldn't that be nice!

Anyways, so I have a job at the bookstore. I'm a clothes folding extraordinaire. I also help Sonya get ready for the football games by pulling all kinds of clothes, etc. to bring up to the stadium to sell to over zealous fans.



So that's my life. I like to spend my little bit of free time on the SD farm out in Valle Crucis. It's astonishing, the freedom you can feel by just playing in the dirt. We grow all kinds of things. I have lab out there on Tuesday mornings at 8 AM. We start the morning off right, weeding or harvesting something. The past few weeks have been potatoes. I've learned so much from those morning labs.



This weekend, Dayna, Jack, and Erica are visiting. Erica is visiting just because, and Dayna and Jack came up because Jack does the horse shoeing at Eustace Conway's place at Turtle Island Preserve. It's a pretty sweet gig. Check it out... http://www.turtleislandpreserve.com/

So maybe I'll start doing this blog thing again. I like to read Dayna's so maybe she'll like to read mine :).

For a laugh... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkdcYlOn5M

sanctuaries abound

so i came home early. and i am so glad for it. 28 days early and now i've been here 1.5 weeks.
yesterday we went white water rafting. in a few weeks we're going to florida to visit family, but also to see some of my 2nd home state's natural beauty. i'm riding my horse when i want to and laying in the sun when i want to (although right now i'm a little burned). i'm spending as much time as i can with my family and i'm savoring every moment.
someone said to me the other day, "i bet you miss europe, i mean, we ain't got no great big ole cathedrals and stuff like that around here." my reply was, "this is my cathedral" as i swept my hand over the vista. there's no better way to explain my appreciation and love for this place that always calls me back.

here's the current picture

July 4th and I'm going back to America tomorrow!
I was struggling to decide whether to go back early or stay on, there at the farm, so I made a list with 2 sides. Side one: Reasons to leave. Side two: Reasons to stay. With side one being completely full, with double columns in some places, and side two having 12 reasons (5 of which were: "I said I would stay"), I decided that leaving overpowered staying.
Maybe if things had been different, I would have stayed. I'm sure of it. But at this point, I am ready to be home. And my parents are amazing enough to want me to come home so badly that they go through so much to get me there.
But my last day at the farm wasn't too bad. It didn't rain all day until about 2 hours before I left (I left at 6:30PM). I rode Molly in the woods, spent a lot of time with my friend Edel, her 8-year-old cousin that she's babysitting, and Molly's owner, Sheila. I rode Butterfly about 30 minutes and tried to get her to jump, but seeing as how if she were a human she'd be a DITZY blonde, she was being silly and I gave up on jumping. Other than that I finished packing. Sometimes I have days where the one-hour ride isn't my only joy :).
But now I am in a hostel in Dublin and tomorrow I will be at the airport at 8 AM to try and get on a plane, standby, to America. I hope that you had a great 4th of July. I've missed summer and ALL that comes with it (bar-b-ques, swimming, sun, family, friends, sun, creek, sun, blackberries, fruit, family, etc.). So hopefully by Saturday at 23:29, local time, I will be rolling into my beautiful state of North Carolinaaaaaaaaa

aaand i wrote this one july 1st

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

You want the honest truth? No sugar or candy coating? Well, the past few days have been shitty. They’ve been hard for me emotionally and each day I’ve counted the minutes until I could go to bed and pass a few hours without thinking (that is, hoping I actually went to sleep when I went to bed). It’s been rainy and cloudy outside and now the wind rages incessantly. Where did this wintry summer come from? Is this seriously how I chose to spend my few months of summer vacation? Where is my family? The people who love me and with whom I feel so comfortable, knowing that I can do anything, good or bad, and I am still, like always, just Marianne. I had such a good time with my parents. I had been missing them for six months and we had 10 days together to catch up and explore and see and play and drive and talk together. I loved it. Then I came back to the farm. Back to Marion, who reminds me sometimes frighteningly of Grandma Rupp. Back to Godfrey, who is quiet, who throws me off, and who lets his wife rule his life. And back to Natalie, a sweet, quiet, shy 30-year-old, still being dominated by her overpowering mother. Back to this weather, back to defending every move I make. Back to feeling, at times, like nothing more than some servant, because that’s how Marion will treat you. Sometimes I just get really quiet, and then when my only friend comes I just have nothing to say to her. That’ll make you wanna be someone’s friend, won’t it? But what’s it matter—she’s leaving in 2 weeks to travel and I won’t ever see her again. There goes my only friend. Not to mention that I am missing a beautiful Boone and a beautiful Hollis summer with 4^th of July parties, sunshine, bar-b-cues, festivals, birthdays, friends visiting, and general family life.

So you might can see why I sort of have been having a hard time.

But then…

Just like everyone else, though, I have these days. And they pass. Today was that day for me. I realized that I need to heed my own constant advice and suck it up. I have to make the best of this time here because, 1. I have a month left, and 2. if I just sit here thinking about how much it sucks, that’s what it is going to do. If I get up and laugh, play, work, cook, bake, whatever, it will be a lot better. Yeah, the weather sucks. Bad. Yeah, I miss my family and friends. Yeah, I’m missing out on all the summer fun times and family, but if I can make this time here a good time, then life will be a lot more enjoyable. I hate it when life is unenjoyable. It’s no fun.

I guess I could always just pay the money and hop on a plane back home. I could be home in time for supper tomorrow. But then I would be failing on the obligation I made to myself, and basically, I’d be running away. No way to deal with it. It’s hard, but I guess I’ve dealt with a lot of shit in the past 6 or 7 months. I can get through 30 more days of this. All I have to do is concentrate on the things through which a light of hope and happiness shines. The hard part is finding those things and then on pushing the knowledge of what you’re missing back home into the back of your mind. The world is a beautiful place, I just have to remember to remember that.

lack of internet=lack of posts. wrote this on june 8th.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Alright, so it’s been a while since the last time I’ve had a chance to make a post. Warning: there will be a large gap between topics in this entry and the last. I don’t even remember what I wrote about last.

Anyways, well, I’m in Ireland and it’s beautiful. It reminds me a lot of Virginia flatlands, right when you’re getting into the foothills. It has no climate, only weathers in a day. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this as an Irish weather forecast: cold and foggy morning with possible snow. Afternoon: cloudy with sunny spells (yes, they say sunny spells, not rainy spells, or cloudy spells, but they keep their chins up and let you know that treasured moments of sunshine might be coming your way today). The evening has a chance of being in the low 20’s, Centigrade, with bountiful sunshine. Sunrise will be at 6:05 this morning and sunset will be at 22:45 tonight. It will undoubtedly rain overnight, but with a chance of not raining until morning when it could turn into light sleet.

Hahaha. And I love Irish time. It reminds me of Spanish time. Which I love J.

Well the family wedding was the 31^st of May. Other than when I had to work (I’d rather not get into those GORY details. It was quite the experience and I prefer to not relive it), it was so fun. A weeklong party! The wedding reception was here at the house and I nearly killed someone during the craziness of preparation. But the hard work was worth it as I got to know probably ½ the people of Ireland and as we stayed until 6 AM singing Irish folk songs and laughing. The next day, the garden party (oh-so-“civilised”) was marked by a lot of hung over people, haha, but what really made it fun for me was the fact that in the morning (about 11AM) I got up and made coffee for the 3 people that were camping in my front yard, then spent the next 3 hours playing Frisbee and hanging out with them and other wanderer-ins. Those hours made me really miss Boone and all that we do, or don’t do, and all our hanging out. That night I went over to the bride and groom’s house where I hung out with the groom and his cousins until about 3 AM and then stayed the night at the cousin’s/at the groom’s sister’s house. It was fun just sitting around and talking about nothing. So anyways, the whole week was really fun. I don’t think I’ve ever spent more time being tipsy off high-dollar wine and Proseco than I have in the past week-and-a-half. The whole experience has, for the most part, been very civilized, leaving me yearning for target shootin’ expeditions and contra dancing craziness.

I started riding the horse the other day. Wow. I am out of practice. It’s been a while since my last lesson and since Marion (the woman who I earn my keep for) is a noted dressage judge and teacher, it is painfully obvious. With time, though, I think I might be able to get back into it. It’s been 3 days and I can feel myself bonding with the horse J.

So the family is Godfrey and Marion. They’re about 60-or-so years old and Godfrey’s family is very historical and of ooooold money, although I only know that because other people have told me. Marion reminds me, sometimes to the point that I cringe, of my Grandma Rupp. Ouch. But she’s very eccentric and loves to talk. Godfrey is quiet, and throws me off because of it. Natalie is the oldest girl, 30-something, and lives at home. She’s really pretty and sweet. She needs to get out of the house, in my opinion, to save her mind from her Mom. But I’m sure there’s more to the story than I know. Charlotte is 28 and is the one that just got married. She’s cool and I like her husband. Leo is the English Labrador. He’s about 10-years-old, but still has a little puppy in him. Butterfly, Bella, Magic, Dunn, and Molly, and Dreamer, are the horses. They all stay in the fields except Butterfly, who I ride, and Molly, who is trying to lose weight, and who I take for daily walks like a puppy dog, haha. I live in the caravan between Bella’s field and the barn. It’s green and one-of-a-kind. I like it because I’ve got my own little place out here. The house is a 1700’s “lodge.” Marion’s started a Bed and Breakfast (like a LOT of other big, old, farmhouses in Ireland) in it about 18 years ago. It’s a 7-bedroom, 7-½ baths, house. Pretty nice, huh? Well, the old family house is across a few fields (potato fields). Godfrey’s family is big and I like all of them whom I’ve met. They’re really nice. They all live here in the area or in England. From the riding ring I can see Kilkea Castle, built in 1103. It’s right across the field (hay field). It’s a ritzy hotel now, but still really sweet.

My main roles are to, number 1, take care of the horses. I feed, brush, pet, walk, ride, play with, holler at, and give kisses to them. Oh yeah, and I clean their stalls where applicable. My other roles include dish washer, kitchen-looker-after, receptionist, gardener/waterer, helper of the 72-year-old cleaning lady with the house when she comes twice a week, and the do-er of whatever else Marion wants me to, which ranges from grocery carrier, to cake baker, to, in the times between when Lucy the cleaning lady comes, bed sheet changer and floor vacuumer. So those are the things that fill my days now that the wedding is over. I won’t go into all I did before and during the wedding. It was a lot of work and would take forever to fully say. So, yeah, that’s my life. In my off-time, I play with Leo, I read the newspaper, I read a book, I sit in the garden-swing and watch the weathers come and go, I talk to my parents on the telephone, I clean my “house,” I sit in the grass, I listen to music, I pet the horses, I sometimes write in my journal, and I look forward to the week-and-a-half that Mom and Dad are gonna be here. Don’t be jealous—I know they’re a lot of really, really exciting free time activities, but don’t forget that I’m doing them in Ireland J.

Okay, well, that’s an update on my life, I guess. Don’t say I never wrote ya nothin’.