"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey." - Babs Hoffman (Entry 3, Day 1/ 2)

Monday, 12 August, 2013; 12:18 AM Eastern Time; plane

Okay, I admit, I didn't check up on a lot of history in the guidebook. To be fair, the guidebook is for current, not past, things to do.

Anyway, we've been on the plane for about an hour, and it's pretty standard, as planes go.  It's one of those planes that have eight seats across (four in the middle and two on each side), which I haven't been in too often, at least that I remember. I know we had a plane seated like this to Switzerland, but I don't remember any other time.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen seats on a plane that are sea foam green. This is also one of the only flights I've been on that hasn't been completely freezing. I might just not notice it because I have a jacket on, but the last overnight flight I've done - the one to Switzerland - I was curling up in a ball under/ into my tie-dye sweatshirt and with maybe a blanket, but I still couldn't get to a decent temperature. I also couldn't get a proper level of comfort or leg room, period. (it might have been because the person sitting in front of me had leaned their seat back ALL THE WAY, which leads to crampiness). (A/N: also, planes.)

Also, the staff is ocming around with dinner. As stated in the Peru entries, I'm not sure how much of it I actually want to eat - it's all processed, packaged, and reheated, and also probably more man-made than chicken- or cod-based (those were the options).

"Stop worrying about the potholes on the road and enjoy the journey." - Babs Hoffman (Entry 2, Day 1)

Sunday, August 11, 2013; 10:12 PM; Airport

Had a nice talk with Alex and Katie at Starbucks until the Starbucks people threw us out because it's closing time for all the commercial places.

Anyway, Istanbul was named such in 1453, after much tribal and regional warfare.  Obviously, I'm skipping over a lot of the history of the city, but we're maybe boarding soon, so I'm going to peace out, read the guidebook, and check back in later.

"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey." - Babs Hoffman (Day 1, Entry 1)

Sunday, 11 August, 2013; 9:20 PM; Airport

We're two hours from the departure time, and I'm really excited. I think I'm the sort of traveller who only gets really excited when they're actually at the airport, through security, and listening to the random little girls playing with their dolls and such. Or it could just be the fact that I missed about half the meetings because, you know, school. Anyway, we're here, and I'm EXCITED.

We're doing a different sort of adventure from in Turkey than the one we did in Peru.  This is so much more of a culture/ history thing. It's not much of an outdoorsy, danger (ha), hiking type of thing.  Of course, while the whole thing is an adventure, the history in Istanbul is recorded so far back, whereas in Peru there's no recorded writing from that far back.  There's pottery from 8000 BC, but there's no alphabet type of thing.

Istanbul, on the other hand, has been a center of the Roman empire and the Greeks before them.  It started as Byzantium in 667 BC, named after the leader, Byzas, of the colonists from Megara.  The next name change happened in the reign of Constantine, in 330 AD, who named it Constantinople and the centre of the Roman empire.

(Starbucks run.  Back later)

Back at School

Well, I'm back for another semester of school, which is exciting but saddening.  It's been an AMAZING summer, and I've had some incredible adventures.  I wouldn't want summer to end if it meant I could go to a bunch of amazing places all the time.

But summer isn't eternal this far above the equator, so fall must come and with it, school.  It's nice to see my friends and my brothers again, even though it means that I'm going to have to, you know, go to class, do homework, and study.  The usual stuff.

Of course, that also means that I get to see my friends again, and that I get to devote a lot of weekend time to service with my fraternity and DnD on Saturdays.  It means I get to watch Sci-Fi on Fridays and have an excuse to be a hooligan (we are college students, after all).

Fall means NaNoWriMo and impending cold weather; it means school and the ending of warm times.  I don't think anything is truly bad, so I can't say I hate fall or winter; I would just really prefer for it to be spring or summer a lot of the year.  That would be great.

But, alas, I am back at school, in my new dorm, still improperly unpacked.  My roommate doesn't move in until Saturday, so I have an excuse to be a bit of a slob until then (I probably shouldn't be a slob, though, because that probably means I'll just have to clear it all up later).  At any rate, I'm here, whether I like it or not.

Returned and anniversary!

Well, I'm home, if only for two nights.  Today has been mostly dedicated to unpacking and repacking and trying to figure out what I do and don't need to bring to school.  (For some reason, this information can easily slip out of one's head in a year's time).
You know what's NOT something that easily slips out of one's head?  ANNIVERSARIES!   Yes, this blog has officially, as of today, been around for a year.  It's interesting to look back and forward - to what has come along, what hasn't, and to what prospects I have for the future - and to see all the differences.  This summer was definitely different from last year - if only because I didn't really have a job this summer.  Yes, I wrote a lot and knitted a lot and reopened my Etsy page and all those things, but I didn't have a technical "job."  That being said, I was able to travel farther and wider than I was able to last year, which is really nice.  The time in the middle - yes, school - taught me a lot about a lot of different academic topics, how to sprint through an essay and still pass it, and how to deal with people as an introvert (pro tip: STUDYING ON YOUR OWN HELPS YOUR GRADES AND YOUR INTROVERSION).

In business news, the coolness of Turkey is mind-blowing, and everyone is extremely nice.  We learned a ton about history, religion, and culture, and I learned a bit about the issues that sparked the Taksim protests.  (in its simplest form, it involves people getting fed up with government favoritism and then people getting mad at the police violently ambushing protesters in their sleep).  Anyway, as what happened in Peru, I kept a journal; I will be typing those up, as I did for Peru.  The difference is that this time you will be getting occasional BONUS ENTRIES!!  Since Byzantium was founded in 667 BC, and therefore the city (or the concept of it, at least; there have been several citywide fires) has been around for 2500 years, there is a LOT of history - and a lot more recorded history than the Inka had, since the Inka didn't have a writing system and Istanbul/ Constantinople/ Byzantium was under the influence of Greeks and the Romans before the Ottomans.
In short, there's a lot more recorded history - a lot of which I didn't get to in the journal.  Since I'm moving back into school early (aka tomorrow), I will have almost a week in which I can do absolutely nothing except type and research old mosques to every extent I feel like.

With that, I must return to packing.

The Second Adventure

Well, it's nearly the end of the summer, and I'm once again off to a wild and awesome place.  This time, I'm going to Istanbul, Turkey.  I'm almost repeating what I did at the beginning of the summer in reverse: I finished finals, sprinted home for two nights and the day in between, and then raced off to Peru for two weeks.  Now, I'm heading off to Turkey for two weeks, then staying at home for two nights and the day in between, and racing off to school to help with freshman move-in.  Funny how that works out.

Anyhow, I'm sorry I haven't posted too much during August (and the fact that I haven't posted much lately in general).  I'll try to work on that as the semester starts up again.  I'm going to do the same thing that I did for Peru: I'm keeping a journal (the same journal with the quotes that I used in Peru), and then typing it up here.  Hopefully it'll all work out.  This time, I've been asked to do a video as well.  AFS, the organization that helped plan the trip, is a foreign exchange program - they help students go to year-long study abroad programs (a good friend of mine just got back from doing a year in Germany), as well as group programs.  Since AFS hasn't yet done a group trip to Turkey, we're the guinea pigs, and I've been asked to maybe do a video about it.  So... yeah.  I'll be doing that as well.

Unfortunately, we're doing a flight at 11:30 PM, which means I need to eat, shower, take out my contact lenses, and prepare for ADVENTURE!!!!!!!!!!!

(Also, my mom gets to go to Troy while the non-adults are doing home-stays. I'm exceptionally jealous of her, but whatever. I'll get over it. Eventually.)

On Backstories

I had two interesting experiences with backstories today.

The first was when walking to a meeting about volunteering today, I passed the girl who was my best friend in elementary school.  We didn't greet each other - I half-smiled, but I'm pretty sure she didn't recognize me.  (To be fair, I was wearing sunglasses, and I have far shorter hair now than I did in fifth grade).  She and I have barely spoken - we said a few words in middle school when we still had mutual friends, but in high school she and I saw each other maybe twice, and each time was completely by chance.  It could be a situation of interesting backstories, because our paths have diverged so much.  Our family situations are completely different, for a start, but we haven't been in the same school since fifth grade, and our personalities have probably developed to be completely different.

The second event concerning backstories was after the volunteer meeting.  Since the place was on the way to Starbucks, I stopped there on the way home.  I sat down with my pound cake and drink and tried to discreetly observe everyone and made up a back story for each of them.  I will type them up here later.

Backstories are the important part of the character in a novel - it can haunt a character; it can come back to bite them; they can avoid or pursue a certain thing or feeling if they've had a certain experience with it in the past.  We see it in everyday life; for example, I now avoid insects that sting with a passion because I've discovered that I will swell up and be miserable for the better part of a week if I get stung by something.  Because of that unfortunate experience with Things that Sting, I avoid them at all costs. Interestingly, all the unfortunate things that have happened to me have not been when I'm abroad; I've sprained my ankle before black belt tests and before hiking in Switzerland; I've gotten allergic reactions at home but not in Peru.  Interesting how things work out.

an exercise confession

I admit, I haven't been going out for a run as much as I should (this heat wave is a big factor).  So I decided (five minutes ago) to do something else: a Writer's Workout.

It's one of those things where you do some sort of workout every time you hit a goal.  As I'm typing up a novel (and I have 45 minutes before I go out with my boyfriend), my workout is as follows:

1. finish a page - 10 jumping jacks
2. every 5th page - 10 jumping jacks and 10 sit-ups
3. every chapter end - 10 jumping jacks, 10 sit-ups, 10 push-ups

I dearly hope this works.

On Goals and the Supervillains to Productivity

The last few weeks, I've realized, I've been in a bit of a writing rut.  I just don't know what to write about - nothing of the creative spark I had in high school has decided to manifest itself.

It's easy to point fingers at certain situations.
I've spent a year in college, away from a secure environment where I'm allowed to manifest my creativity.  I actually have to get up every day on my own, get myself to the dining hall, get myself to class, stick myself in the library for a few hours a day, go to clubs and service events and a bunch of activities that take up time I could normally use for writing.  Now I've been around lots of people who take 'no' for an answer, who allow themselves to make excuses, and maybe don't push themselves to 100 % capacity.  At the end of my senior year, I definitely felt like I was not that sort of person - I was the one who, with half a glass of coffee and a few pens, was determined to do what I needed to do to get stuff done.
But, shifting over to this summer in particular, the increase in free time has lead, I think, to a decrease in motivation for doing stuff like writing, but also other things.  I admit, my summer diet is not exactly healthy.  I hardly eat breakfast, and lunch is normally fruit, goldfish, and trail mix.  Sometimes not even that much.  I can see why my parents have started to get on my back about things like getting out of the house and seeing people and having some sort of structure to the day - it helps a lot with productivity.  The danger, of course, is that the mindset of Eternal Free Time - only having to leave the couch and my yarn to get some more food or to maybe go for a run in the evening, and nothing in between - is the worst enemy of productivity; I might even contest that it's ranked higher on the Supervillain list than procrastination.  At least with procrastination, you can recognize that you actually have a goal in mind, but you're just choosing not to pursue it.  With Eternal Free Time, the original existence of a goal is questionable.

As the next big chunk of free time looms over the horizon, I realize that I need to refocus my goals - and make sure that the goals are established in the first place.  That's the real trick to getting any sort of anything done.

Back from ASP!

Right, I know it's been a few weeks since I last posted (and longer since I posted something that wasn't related to Peru), and for that, I apologize. I'll try to start posting more regularly now that I actually have time and stuff.

Last week, I went with my church's youth group (even though I've technically graduated) on Appalachia Service Project, which is perhaps my favorite mission project.  For those who don't know what ASP is, it's a mission project similar to Habitat for Humanity, but focused in central Appalachia.  This year, we went to help families in Mitchell County, NC; interestingly, this is the first summer in several years (maybe even decades) that ASP has served in North Carolina.

Every night we do evening gatherings; my favorite is normally Tuesday night, or Culture Night.  This year was particularly interesting.  Normally, a local band (usually bluegrass) is hired to play; this year, we went to a historic apple orchard (which has been a functioning apple orchard since 1908), and which now is an orchard and a historic preservation area.  The man who runs the place, a retired engineer who helped put people on the moon in the 60s, told some stories about how he got the place and things that happened in the general area.  For example, the turning point of the Revolutionary War occurred near-ish to the orchard, and it turns out that the owner of the orchard is descended from one of the men fighting in that battle.

In all, it was a very good trip.  It's kind of saddening that this was my last year, but hopefully I'll be able to apply to be on staff next year.  This is all I have time for now, but I'll post at some point later in the month.