Granted there are things to be said about your own personal will and power, but I think more often than not, we’re too stubborn to just see where it all takes us - but we’ll complain about our present situation the entire time without figuring out how to go live. And so I’ll stop while I’m on this kick and find something to do. However, in the mean time, just one more video/slideshow okay? This one I got turned into an actual video so it plays a little different. But it’s older photos, mostly from Phoenix, and the earliest photos are from around the time I met Leah and all of her nonprofit friends.

Leah is flying to Baltimore tomorrow morning so that leaves me here in Atlanta this weekend to do homework, hangout with ummm, Yelp people, and then she comes back Saturday evening - just in time for our busy Sunday. See you tomorrow.

 The news coming out of Myanmar in the past few weeks saddened me, too, but having just come from China… for some reason, this time, the news really sunk in.  Or, rather, I let it sink in.  You hear these ridiculously high numbers, and it all becomes a blur.  You don’t want to think about how many lives are truly lost, or forever changed by the loss of a husband, a mother, a child, or a home.

But then I thought about Wang Da Wei, Li Bao Hua, and each individual face and personality….they aren’t just numbers.  If one of my Chinese friends, or one of the fellow travelers we made friends with, was a part of that 18,000… that’s one really awesome person who is no longer here. 1, 2, 3, 26,000….  it adds up.  People and more people.  Silenced.  Buried.  Gone.

China will rebuild.  Efficiently, collectively.  The people will come together, work their asses off, and within a year or so there will be no sign of this gigantic earthquake that took so many lives.  Children will be born.  Widows will remarry.  Life will go on.  China has been going on for thousands of years.  The quiet strength of its people is impressive.  But there will be grief.  There will be scars below the surface.  There will be remembrance.  And there will, hopefully, be healing.

So as I sit here at Phoenix SkyHarbor, waiting for my flight, I’m very, very happy that I was able to come out for my brother’s graduation. It’s always interesting to see my family - especially since I’m honestly not as close as I could be with them. Although I’ve made some progress over the last few years, it’s still always a gap that has to be bridged whenever I see them - but again, it’s getting better. Not that anything ever happened, I just went off and did my own thing for such a long time. And while it stings me that I cannot get back that lost time with them - times that I simply missed out on because I was just more interested in my friends and other people who don’t really matter. Still, I’d like to think that my relationship with them is improving.

I have to warn all of you, I’m on this big kick of being  ‘present’ and not so much living in the future or the past (I never really did the past thing, but the future? It’s a favorite place I like to hangout in.) This weekend I did try to be more present with everyone and less… thinking about what I was going to do next, or when I get back or just.. thinking about other things while I was spending time with someone - such as my brother, or my sister, or my parents. For me at least, it was probably one of my best trips and time spent with my family in a long time.

And while my life is continuing to get busy and full with everything and Leah, it’s still always in the back of my mind that I need to make the effort, to call, to write, to spend time with them - and help them spend time with me. Because obviously, even though all of a sudden I’m making the effort, they’re not used to making the effort to hangout with me - simply because we’re all out of practice. And even though we’re on opposite sides of the country, I am glad that I am probably much more connected to them now, than when I lived across town. The significant distance makes everything hard to take for granted.

And although I don’t have a picture of my mom posted, over the last few years I know that we have both opened up to each other considerably. As hard and stubborn as we both are, it was once difficult - like it is between so many people - but these days, I accept and feel the love that she has for me - not that it wasn’t always there - but you know what I mean. So. Today I fly back to Atlanta and it’ll be good to be back with Leah and One-Two and Three-Four, I’ve missed them and while it was great to be here, everyone has missed Leah and wished that she would have come.

I was trying to write this and trying to find the appropriate ‘right’ photos of the graduation - you know the ones, showing the whole scene and layout and capturing all those memories - but it wasn’t working. I took the obligatory amount of video (lots) with my camcorder, and now I need to go get a firewire card and install it on Leah’s desktop (don’t worry Leah! it’s not a power supply so the chance of me causing your motherboard to catch on fire is…. well, it’s considerably less.

And then I can transfer everything from China AND my brother’s graduation. Plus, with new found amateur editing skills, it won’t just be background noise and I can do cuts and music and ummmm… practice for the China slideshow.

So. Graduation. Or, um, Commencement as they call it. It was an excellent fast ceremony, under two hours and even the speeches didn’t drone on and on. We were soon on our way to lunch, and then the Lumberjack Hunt.

What’s that? Well, Northern Arizona University’s mascot is a Lumberjack. So there are several lumberjacks around town. We decided to start looking for them and hanging out. But first!

And now… onto the Lumberjacks! There was one inside the SkyDome at the graduation ceremony overseeing the event.

Then there was one just outside - and just as gigantic.

But wait! There’s more! Outside of the restaurant where we had lunch, there was another one! And then finally, we found one more - except this one was like… the Harper romance novel version of a lumberjack - right in front of the university bookstore.

So we’re finishing school in reverse order. My youngest sister already has her bachelor’s degree, and is a year away from her Master’s. My brother, obviously has his now, and I’ll finally get mine around the time of the wedding next year.

Hanging out and talking with my brother and sister is always an interesting conversion. Not only because we’re siblings, but because we’re quite intelligent - and we know it. Or rather, whether it’s right or not, all three of us have healthy superiority complexes - at least as far as smart things go. Plus with our very diverse range of knowledge (Physics and all things science, Literature and all things Library, and then me with Business/Finance.) it’s just fun to ask them questions. And argue. Or debate. I learn nearly as much from my brother and sister as I do from my classes that I’m taking right now… possibly more.

And if it seems as though I’m blatantly bragging about my brother and sister - you’re right. But I write this stuff not only to show how proud I am of them, but because they push me - whether they really know it or not, and whether they actually tell me or not - they do. Because damn, with siblings like these, coupled with my own competitive nature - what choice do I have other than continuing my education (life and academic) to show them that in fact - I’m the smartest one!

I went to Frank Ma’s Dinho Chinese Restaurant last night with the awesomely crazy/cool Yelpers for a Chinese feast. Mark had to miss out, so here’s a little clip just for you, my love. Enjoy!

Today we drove up to Flagstaff, Arizona. A small town about 2 hours north of Phoenix and home to Northern Arizona University where my brother is graduating with his Physics degree.

We also met up with my grandparents and their old friend King - they live in Fresno, California and they drive Everywhere. My grandmother is 87 years old and she still looks amazingly young. They actually make it a point to take care of themselves and maintain their health the best they can - they eat right, walk when they can and generally stay as active as much as their bodies allow them. Every year they take a month long road trip around the United States and last year they notified us that they were coming to Atlanta the day before. But that’s how my family is when it comes to travel - plans are hardly ever made more than a week in advance. My grandma is a rockstar.

I was also able to visit my friend Vanessa at StarSux today. She’s the store manager at the one down the street from my parents house so whenever I’m in Phoenix, I make it a point to stop by and visit - and she always writes MarkRoX as my name on the side of the cup. I used to live with Vanessa and work with her while I also worked at Starbucks. I can honestly say that it was one of my most favorite jobs where I had the most fun - until I burned out and just started doing bad things. But still, it’s always nice to visit her. She’s had some… turbulent years but it looks like she’s coming out just great and I hope she really takes advantage of the momentum that she has now. She’ll also be attending our wedding next year in May so it’ll be fun to hang out with her in Atlanta - I’m just so happy with Atlanta in general that it’s like I want to show it off - especially to my friends in Phoenix.

On a side note: We’re staying at the same motel that my high school speech and debate team would stay at whenever we would come up here for a tournament.

It’s been awesome to hangout with everyone, but it’s really nice to see my brother and sister. I’m not the closest with them so it was really great to hangout and talk just the three of us after dinner. These two - they’re quite bright and full of genius. They literally laugh at the GRE math portion - and rightfully since they both received perfect scores on that section - without really studying for it at all. I’m pretty good at math, but they’re hardkore and to easily get a perfect score on such a test - well… that just shows you what level they operate at in that department.

I cannot describe how proud I am to have such smart siblings.

It’s unfortunate that Leah couldn’t come along. I do miss her and this would be that much more fun having her here with us. My grandma was very happy to hear that we’re engaged and getting married.

And now it’s late. I’m up too far and I should’ve gone to sleep - now I’ve screwed up my timezone/jet lag sync even more. But. I have one more thing. As we walked through downtown I saw this hotdog cart - and then I saw some dancing mascots. A mustard and ketchup bottle. So you KNOW I had to go over and get a hotdog. There’s some video here of them dancing - and since I’m slowly practicing my video editing skills - I even added some music you don’t have to listen to the wind noise. Goodnight.

I really like flying back to Phoenix. I like visiting this city a lot. While I would probably never choose to live here again, visiting this city and seeing my friends and family again is always a welcomed treat. When you add any feelings of nostalgia, and all of the time I spent growing up here - it turns out to be a really good time for me. Just driving around the loop, seeing the open sky and open desert stretching to the end of horizon - the difference from Georgia is night and day.

And then there’s the heat. Dry when it hits your face, it’s like stepping into an oven where you can see the heat bending light as it moves across the concrete.

After landing and picking up rental car, I met up with my friend Kristen for lunch. She’s a dance instructor here in Phoenix (hip hop, jazz, and nearly everything else except ballet and tap) teaching at studios and schools and now she’s even got her own dance studio starting up. So things are going really well for her. This summer she’s also the director of two high-end dance camps in Colorado and then Lake Tahoe.

I remember how just a few years ago we were both out of work and basically really poor. Around the same time period, on one of our monthly dinners at Five & Diner, I was maxed out on credit cards with no cash, and she didn’t have enough to cover my half of the meal either. SO. She left me there and went and got money from her dad at his place - mind you, we were already in our early 20’s at this time so it’s not like we were jobless high school kids. So yeah. It’s been a nice change to see both of us keep making progress as far as jobs/money/career. And I’m really happy to see that her dance/instructor/owner career is starting to gain momentum.

Actually, I feel like we’ve been so busy since being back here that I haven’t really processed everything we experienced in China.  I’m going to make some time this weekend to at least privately write down my thoughts.  People keep asking us, “So, tell us about China!”  And we both sort of falter…because we haven’t had the time to put the stories together, to pick and choose from the many that never made it on the website, and to find the right words to accurately convey what China is like.

I think a part of it, though, is that our life is so fantastically awesome right now that we’re more in the moment than ever before.   We had a wonderful time in China, but we’re having a great time here, too, so there isn’t the need to look back and go over all of last month.  Because then we’d miss out on enjoying all of this month!

Tonight I’m meeting up with some Yelpers for a Chinese Feast at Frank Ma’s in Chamblee.  It’s a large-ish restaurant in this big Chinese shopping center area and the owner, Frank, is always zipping around the restaurant greeting and talking to all of his guests.  Mark is bummed to miss out, but he gets his mom’s amazing cooking, so it’s sort of a wash.

1. When I have to use a public toilet, I always tear off the end of the toilet paper and dispose of it before tearing off some to wipe with…  I just always think that maybe the person before me had dirty hands and touched the paper.

2. I have 1 grandfather, 3 grandmothers, 5 uncles, 6 aunts, and 23 cousins still living, in addition to a father, mother, and brother. 

3. I will soon have a brother-in-law, sister-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law, and grandparents-in-law to add to my big, crazy family.  I’m very excited about that.  Mark’s family is beyond awesome!

4. Almost all of these people will (hopefully) be at the wedding.

5. That really limits the number of other people we can invite.  So please don’t feel bad if you don’t get an invitation!  It doesn’t mean we don’t love you.  It’s just… our families would be pissed if they weren’t at the wedding.

6.  Yes, I worry about stuff like this because I was brought up to be an extremely polite and sweet Southern girl and I’ve been working hard ever since to lose some of that self-sacrificing, over-the-top niceness.  But not all.  Because it never hurts to be polite and hospitable!

Okay, and now for blogs I like to read:

http://jamesadamthwaite.com <– my BFF and crazy conspiracy theorist

http://girlsgonechild.blogspot.com  <– cool blog by a hip, young mom

http://schuylersmonsterblog.com  <– cool blog about a special dad-and-daughter duo

http://postsecret.blogspot.com  <– PostSecret.  Duh.

Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself (things/habits/quirks).
4. Name some of your favorite blogs.
5. Send an email/comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged.

1. Until I met Leah, I hadn’t planned on EVER leaving the United States. Since I wasn’t a US citizen, and my Filipino passport had expired, I just figured that the US was big enough and I didn’t need to go through the trouble of getting my citizenship, getting a passport, and flying off to someplace else. And then I met Leah and that whole plan of being land locked to the US was blown away.

 2. I’ve had roughly 17 jobs in 12 years. I’ve worked at Mcdonald’s, as airport security, 5 or 6 call centers, Uhaul reservations, car sales, overnight alarm monitoring, StarSux, and that’s not even including all of the different types of office jobs I’ve had.

3. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve eaten 100 chicken McNuggets in one sitting. (I stopped being able to taste them at all after about 34.)

4. The lowest I’ve ever gotten my body fat percentage was 9%

5. My alltime favorite foods are Fried Chicken, Orange Chicken, and Pizza - in that order.

6. Every year I get about 50 words in my novel for NanoWrimo - and then I quit.

*edit - I was hoping I could leave it at that, but Gabrielle pointed out that I didn’t complete rule number 4. And I suppose, I should also tag some people.

Some of my favorite blogs?… … it’s terrible but I don’t read too many other blogs. I suppose there used to be some, but - oh wait! Okay.

MelissaMaples.com
Yogagirl
And then people on my LJ flist.

Although I have started reading all of the blogs that are listed in the various link categories over on the side there. Does naming the blogs mean that I’ve tagged them? Nah. I’m sure most of them have done this already anyways. But I will definitely tag Leah.

And anyone else who wants to join in and post theirs down below in the comments section. You’re awesome no matter what.