Kelly Morr (dot com)

What I felt like skating on new blades for the first time in ~9...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:26:51 -0800

What I felt like skating on new blades for the first time in ~9 years

I have overestimated society...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:12:00 -0800

A text message conversation:

Me: Thing I have learned: if you go to a bar alone they give you liberal pours of wine
Boyfriend: Certainly with an ass like that
Me: They can’t even see my ass because I’m sitting behind the bar
Boyfriend: That ass surrounds the bar (something to do with relativity)
Me: Hey! No need to be mean…
Boyfriend: I meant in a good way!

And then the check arrives…

Penguin Sweaters

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 20:46:00 -0700

Penguin Sweaters:

This is real.

There was an oil spill in New Zealand which left the local population of penguins in need of warmth and protection. So, logically, a call has been made to all knitters to make them sweaters… If only I could knit things other than squares (or other rectangular shaped objects).

comiques: A Gloomy Limerick

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 09:22:10 -0700

comiques:

A Gloomy Limerick

Cat Massage - A promising career opportunity if this whole job...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:51:31 -0700

Cat Massage - A promising career opportunity if this whole job search doesn’t pan out?

Thanks to Jeff for introducing me to the wonders of Everything is Terrible. And Turtle, for teaching me how best to cat massage… though as a right-hander, I still haven’t worked up to petting with my left! It’s a complicated art.

Rule No. 1 of Job Searching: You do not talk about job searching

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:01:28 -0700

I am in the market for a new job. I have been neglecting this blog. The two are not unrelated.

While I was abroad this summer, working a job which is a 24-hour-a-day commitment (the workday goes from 6:30 AM - 10:30 PM and it’s not unusual for us to get woken up in the middle of the night by sick students) there was no time to compose pithy musings. When I got back, it seemed too monumental a task to sum up two months abroad in a few paragraphs.

And then I found myself eyeball deep in the search for a new job.

What’s on my mind these days? Looking for jobs, applying for jobs, and interviewing for jobs. I have stories about all of these things, stories that might actually have some entertainment value, with insights into the current job market & economic crisis and the general state of employment and being a 20-something in America today.

The problem is, I do not keep an anonymous blog. This humble tumblr is the first thing that pops up when you type my name into Google, and I therefore do not know who’s reading. If I gloat about getting an interview for a position I’m excited about, does make the next company less likely to call because I don’t seem as needing of a job? If I then rant about said interview, does that make me look bad to future employers? If I write about job searching and then still do not have gainful employment two months later does it make me seem unemployable? I just don’t know. In this economy, you don’t want to do anything to hurt your chances. So, until I actually get a job I feel like I have to keep my mouth shut. Which may mean a dearth in posts, because I have little else of import on my mind these days. That doesn’t mean I won’t find some ridiculous animal videos to post, though…

And if you’re a potential employer who happens to stumble across this blog: Hi! I’m awesome and will work hard. You should hire me!

I figured animal videos were a good way to work my way back into...

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 19:23:33 -0700

[Flash 10 is required to watch video.]

I figured animal videos were a good way to work my way back into blogging after a long hiatus. Perhaps a more thought-out, intelligent piece will come in the near future, but in the meantime, here is the weirdly unique gang fighting ritual of Galapagosian mockingbirds. Only the ones on Isla Espanola do this. No, the video is not sped up and this is an accurate representation of how they move.

Those minor cultural differences...

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:57:20 -0700

I´m spending the summer in Ecuador (Quito, The Galapagos, the Amazon, and the Andes) leading a service learning trip for high school aged students. Yesterday, I flew from Denver, Colorado into Quito to prepare for the trip.

I´ve been to Ecuador before - in 2009, leading the same trip - so it wasn´t completely foreign, but there are definitely aspects of the culture that you forget about. On the plane to Quito, I got seated amoungst a large group of Ecuadorians returning home, and was reminded that they (or perhaps all South Americans?) have very different personal-space paradigms. It started when a large man uncerimoniously smushed his hairy, protruding belly against my cheek as he hoisted his bag into the overhead compartment. No apology, no adknowledgement, just a mouthful of bellybutton lint for me to chew on. He kept it there for a good five minutes, helping all the rest of his family members hoist their belongings, as well.

Upon landing in Quito, you exit the plane into a long, modern looking hallway. It seems to go on for nearly a mile, and there are no doors to other gates or restrooms. When you get to that point when your bladder is just about to fill past capacity, you finally descend the stairs into the not-quite-as-modern immigration room. There´s a single bathroom on the other side of the room, but if you´re anything like me, instaed you decide to hop into the immigration line while it´s still short, because you assume (erroniously, it turns out) that there will be a bathroom you can use in customs while you´re waiting for your bag to arrive.

Baggage claim and customs serves as a further reminder of how Ecuadorians view personal space differentally than we Americans do. In America, we tend to wait politely for our luggage to come off the carosel (ideally, in my opinion, several feet back from the edge so people whose bags are actually there have easy access, but that doesn´t happen nearly as often as one would hope.) In Ecuador, it feels like you´re a character in a video game trying to find the Golden Egg. First you search among the piles of random bags, stacked in precariously balanced pyramids. Then you have to jump over and squeeze between the large luggage carts (because apparently no one traveling into Ecuador arrives with less than 6 large, hard-cased suitcases, most likely tightly seran wrapped for security purposes) to get to the carosel. At first, it appears that there´s only one, long carosel, but it turns out there are actually two! So after ten minutes of waiting at one, you finally realize you´re not in the right place at all and you have to hop back over the luggage carts to the other side of the room. And careful of all of the other passangers trying to get their stuff! For the most part, niceties are ignored. You don´t ask for permission to squeeze between people, you just plow on through, and you certainly don´t apologize after bumping someone. It´s easy to pick out the Europeans and Americans because we turn sideways, whisper “permisso” or “perdon” and try to slide slyly between people.

Once you finally find the right carosel, then you have to pay attention that someone else doesn´t pull your bag off before it gets to you - I´m not talking anything malicious, it just seems that some bags are worth of riding all the way around the carosel and others are picked to be tossed onto the floor into a newly-forming pyramid. Of course, I didn´t know this until I witnessed my bright blue and orange backpack come in off the truck, then lifted up and off by someone else. I, of course, freaked out, leveled up to super-speed, and navigated back to the other side of the carosel. And there was my bag, safe and sound. From there, all I had to do was wait in a 45 minute line to have my custom form collected and bag scanned, then find my Chilean co-leader, Javier, who I´d only ever seen in his Facebook profile picture, from amoungst the hundreds of people waiting to meet their friends and family, and proceed to take a taxi (which Javier had arranged in the 2 hours he´d been waiting for me, not realizing it wasn´t a legal cab) to our hostal in the middle of the part of the city I didn´t spend any time in in 2009. Easy Peasy.

Well, I´m now here safe and sound, and have learned how to identify legal taxis for when the kids arrive (tomorrow!)

If you´re interested in the day-to-day happenings of the trip, my students will be keeping a blog at:http://www.lifeworks-international.com/blogs/allblogs.php I will also try to keep this updated somewhat regularly, hopefully with pieces that are a bit longer and more in depth on one particular issue. But really, it will probably soon descend into your run-of-the-mill “you´ll never guess what I got to do today!” travel blogs.

Fascinating Ted talk which may explain why our world seems more...

Sun, 15 May 2011 15:12:11 -0700

Fascinating Ted talk which may explain why our world seems more partisan and divided than ever. If you’re reading this, it’s probably because I’m in your bubble. Hooray! Lets go look at some dead squirrels…

"What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me …..."

Sun, 01 May 2011 16:28:23 -0700

““What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me … is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.””

- Ira Glass on being a creative professional

A graph about cats.

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 08:26:37 -0700

A graph about cats.

Damn straight

Tue, 08 Mar 2011 13:32:06 -0800

Damn straight

From my program last week at Sectionals. Photos credited to...

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 11:11:50 -0800

From my program last week at Sectionals.

Photos credited to Ashley Roche

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has..."

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 16:39:51 -0800

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

- Borrowed from:

Rosemarie Urquico (via kblitz)

(via conversationslips)

(via themonicabird)

Wedding at the competitor’s party officiated by...

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 20:33:42 -0800

Wedding at the competitor’s party officiated by Elvis… Only in Vegas

Results: well, I ended up in 14th. Ouch. This was honestly a bit...

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 17:49:10 -0800

Results: well, I ended up in 14th. Ouch. This was honestly a bit of a surprise, and if you look at the marks you can see they were all over the place. I got a 5th and an 8th, for goodness sake! I talked to my coach and he seemed to think it may have had something to do with the fact that this is my first competition so the judges don’t know who I am. Despite all the changes that have happened in the last few years, we still compete under the 6.0 system at sectionals and there are certainly politics involved to a certain extent. Oh well, I felt good with my skate and that’s all I can ask. Better luck next year?

My game face. With apropos Dino tossie. Just finished skating....

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 16:26:28 -0800

My game face. With apropos Dino tossie.

Just finished skating. Did a clean program with two solid axels and a double toe! Spins could have been a little stronger but overall my coach and I were very pleased with the performance. Now it’s margarita time!

Nerves!

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:03:07 -0800

Zen-Kelly from last night was apparently just Sleepy-Kelly in disguise. I got a good night’s sleep but the nerves definitely kicked in this morning! I was at the doctor’s office last week and they clocked my resting heart rate at 59 bpm. About ten minutes ago I measured it as over 90. Yikes! Body: you need to calm the f down, I need you!

Oddly it seems I can lower it by zoning out in front of my iPhone. I guess I’ll be playing a lot of angry birds between my warmup and competition…

Exhausted

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:37:39 -0800

I didn’t even have to skate today and I’m beat! Back at my cousin’s for the night and curled up in bed with my laptop, catching up on my facebooking.

There was something oddly calming about watching the other skaters today. I now really feel like I want to get out and skate a good program, and there’s nothing I can do other than that. I can’t think about results or what jumps/spins other people are doing, I just have to do what I know I can. When I was a kid I never got nervous for competition, but then in college I became a wreck. I’m hoping this awesome zen attitude holds through the night and 11-year-old Kelly shows up tomorrow instead of 19-year-old Kelly!

There's some good skating going on up in here!

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:45:43 -0800

Just finished watching the open gold events and the ladies were rockin’ axels left and right. Tomorrow is going to be a tough competition with all this talent.

So far LAFSC and All Year FSC (based in Culver City) are representing!

Looking forward to watching the championship int/novice and junior/senior tonight!