A few of my ponderings from the weekend:

1) Airports are great places for people watching. I can observe the businessman rushing with his leather bag and cell phone firmly attached to ear, the woman on the phone with her boss about an interview, the family with stroller and two small children dragging bags as big as they are (thank heaven for rolling suitcases, huh?!), the lettered athletes with gym bags on the way to a tournament, those running for flights in an attempt not to be left behind. I can sit and imagine the conversation I could have with the army private in the corner, with the older woman crocheting across from me, with the four year who's convinced he could fly the plane as well as any pilot. I am reminded of the city in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities- the one where all the airports start to look like the same city so that you can never escape, and it becomes one huge nightmare. Except that the people in the airport are never the same, so you can have an infinite number of imagined conversations about the various departures and destinations of each and every traveler. It's a small world until you start thinking of the intricacies of each and every one of those in this huge airport, and I am impressed by the bigness of this earth,and intrigued by thinkning of the very different lives each person leads. So amongst the crowd of faces I only know in my head, I smile and swerve around the people waiting in line for Starbucks to try to make it to my terminal on time.

2) What is is about nature that makes people so contemplative? We drove to Santa Barbara one day with the mountains on our right and the beach directly to our left, and I loved it! To be in between both was so amazing! The ideal of strength on one side, and the icon of fluidity and movement on the other. It could have been dangerously overwhelming, but thankfully we were too busy trying to think of how many cities start with the letter "E" to be in too much danger. And while at the beach house, I liked nothing better than to just sit on the rock wall and listen to the waves and the gulls and feel the wind. It was so nice and relaxing and rejuvenating. How wind can stir up one's soul as much as it disturbs one's hair will always be beyond me. Makes you wonder how connected we really are to creation. If we can't feel emotionally moved without some sort of sensual (meanin from the senses, not from sex) inspiration, what about those physical things can be so spiritual? I don't even know, but at least I know it works.

I saw Elton John in concert tonight in Columbia, and let me just say one thing: Wow! That was an amazing concert! Not only is his voice incredible, but as a muscian and performer he is astounding. He got into the music so easily, which made it easy for the rest of us to do so, as well. During a song he would just look out at the audience and give them this look that said "You like this? 'Cuz I do!"And his talent at playing the piano made me want to sit down on a piano bench and play my heart out. I remember wanting to play like Elton John when I was taking piano lessons. Didn't quite get that far, but it's a great goal!
Anyways, so the songs were awesome! I got goosebumps on several occasions just listening to his voice and the perfect blend of vocals and music, and being in awe of the way the music echoed the lyrics perfectly. I think that my favorite part about music is when the instrumentals sound exactly like what the words mean. A really good song has such a cohesiveness between the words and the music, and I admire the artists who can do that.
The other really cool thing was that EJ always recognized his fans. After every song (no joke- every single one) he would get up off the piano bench, and bow to the crowd, pointing to all of us as if we had just made the great performance. On his first encore he started at one end of the stage and went all the way to the other shaking hands and signing as many autographs as he could. I was really impressed. On the second encore he thanked America for giving him his largest fan base, and said that the next one would be our song. (Guess what he played? ;o))
Definitely a good concert, and one that I will be talking about for years to come. :o)

So today I read one of the most disturbing articles in our university magazine. The article was about pornography, but it wasn't just the subject matter that made it distrubing. It was the fact that the author left out so many things in the story, and that the students interviewed were absolutely either unaware or uncaring about the seriousness of their situation. They commented on the amount of memory that the porn took up on the computer, saying that their computers were running slowly and they were constantly running virus scans, but it didn't even seem to phase them. One student was quoted as saying that his parents deleted a whole bunch of his porn over christmas break, but that he still had about 2 gigabytes left on his computer. Um, did it ever cross your mind that you have 2 gigabytes of flat, albiet smiling, nonresponsive women on your computer? Like its no big deal. Then, we find out that the students who contributed (who's names were also changed to "protect anonymity." hmmm- there's no shame in looking at pictures of boobs, but don't put my name in the article, because that might harm my reputation?) had experienced a decline in their social life. One guy said that he spent so much time looking at porn in higschool that his GPA went down, and now he's not in an "Ivy League" school. They sacrified other things in order to get on the internet and take full advantage of their liberty, but they didn't mind it at all. Hello! Your life is going down the drain because you spend too much time looking at pictures!! Another one said that he doesn't have a girlfriend, so he doesn't have to worry about any of that. (Don't ask me what that means.) Ok, so you don't have a girlfriend, but as long as you can look at a flat screen and imagine, maybe, that the perfect bodies of the women you see there love you, if in fact you can look past the body at all and give them a human status by affirming their mind and spirit along with their body, you'll be fine. That's sick.
And it gets more disturbing: these guys just didn't care. The ability to see naked women and enjoy their image (not the real thing, just the image, mind you) was worth the price of the hours a day they waste looking at them. How sad. I could go on about how pornography encourages the objectification of women, but I think I'll leave that one for another day. Regardless, I'm still struck by the pitiable state of those two students, and the many people like them. I want to hug them and say "It's an addiction! You need help!" But I can't, so I resort to ranting about their predicament online. *Sigh*
I'm just so saddened by this article, and the fact that it addresses none of the really meaningful things that pornography destroys, besides memory chips. I have always been impressed with the knowledge that porn is wrong and sick, and to hear it being treated in such a light way may be the most disturbing thing about my reading of this.

Lyrics to my new favorite song:

You're all smiles and silly conversation
As if this sunny day came just for you.
You twist your hair, you smile, and you turn your eyes away.
And won't tell me what's right with you.
Now it dawns on me probably everybody's talkin'
And there's something here I'm supposed to realize.
'Cause your secret's out, and the universe laughs at its joke on me.
I just caught it in your eyes, it's a beautiful surprise.

When did you fall in love with me?
Was it out of the blue?
'Cause I swear I never knew it.
When did you let your heart run free?
Have you been waiting long?
When did you fall in love with me?
When did you fall in love?

Make your way over here, sit down by this fool and let's rewind.
C'mon, lets go back and replay all our scenes.
You can point out the hints, the clues, the twists and the smiles this time,
All the ones that slipped by me.
I bet my face is red and you can hear my heart poundin'.
Well I guess it doesn't matter now that I realize
'Cause baby I missed it then, but I can surely see you now
Right here before my eyes
You're my beautiful surprise.


When did you fall in love with me?
Was it out of the blue?
'Cause I swear I never knew it.
When did you let your heart run free?
Have you been waiting long?
When did you fall in love with me?
When did you fall in love?

Was it at the coffee shop
Or the morning at the bus stop,
When you almost slipped and I caught your hand?
Or the time we built the snowman?
The day at the beach, sandy and warm,
Or the night with the scary thunderstorm?
I never saw the signs
Now we've got to make up for lost time.
And I can tell by the way that you're looking at me
I'd better finish this song so my lips will be free


When did you fall in love with me?
Was it out of the blue?
'Cause I swear I never knew it.
When did you let your heart run free?
Have you been waiting long?
When did you fall in love with me?
When did you fall in love?

Have you been waiting long, when did you fall in love?
I kept you waiting so long, when did you fall?
Have you been waiting long
When did you fall in love with me?
When did you fall in love?

I just love that. I've always wanted love to sneak up on me and be a "beautiful surprise," cuz that just seems so perfect. It's like realizing you've had a million dollars in a bank account that you didn't even know you had, and then all of the sudden you get a letter from the bank. :o) So then the question is, what do you do with the money? Some would spend it, some would save it. The danger of saving it is that you never get to enjoy what the money can give you, but the danger of spending it is that you spend it so quickly you never quite get to enjoy it. But what if this bank account was constantly replenished, so that your balance was never below $999? Well, you would never be able to enjoy the comfort of the replenishing if you never spent the money. So if you think of love like that surprise bank account, I would want to take advantage of this new account that I have, while making sure I don't spend recklessly.


Ok, so maybe this whole analogy of love to a bank account is a little corny, but hey, it works! So there's a few of my thoughts on that, and I'm out!

So here I am, welcoming myself to my own blog! Seems just a little funny, doesn't it? I have to admit, it took me a while to decide that I actually wanted to get into this "blog thing." I had to ask myself, "why do I want to have a blog?" One reason is so that I can report on my travels, since I'll be in Brasil this spring. But why else? Is it because I love to be in the spotlight? It is so that I can "practice" getting my thoughts out ther before I dare to be published? Is it to enter in the craze of online diaries? Is it just because I think everyone should hear what I have to say? I'm not that presumptuous. Let's get this clear first: I do not mean this to be any kind of journal. A public diary to me is an oxymoron and should not exist. That being said, however, there's no way I can have a blog and not comment on the things life throws my way! In any kind of writing I put a little bit of myself, and to brandish it on a website for all to read is a little bit frightening. Of course, writing is best when you know what you are writing about, and what do you know more about than yourself? (Well, there are a few exceptions. :o) ) And that is also a reason why we write: to know more about ourselves. I think that I'm writing this now just to take a risk and get some of my thoughts out there. Just to see what happens. :o)

When I asked a friend if I should start a blog, he advised me against it and said that I might get bored with it or run out of things to say. I could have laughed in his face. I didn't, because this was online so there was no face to laugh at, but it was still quite humorous. I love being obsevant of the things surrounding me and then commenting in my writing the things I observe, so I doubt I will run out of things to say. And I just love to write, so this should be fun!

Anyways, I think I shall now let this run its course and see where it takes me!