Some Recommended Reading

Daughters of Copper Woman:

I don't even know where to start. I am not finished with this book yet, I'm just a little more than halfway through. Already it has made my heart sing with gladness, challenged my old ideas about creation and Time, made me angy and cry bitter tears, and made me cry tears of sadness and compassion. The stories are mythical and magical and they hold Truth that we have forgotten. It celebrates women and their sacred power, magic, and love. I can't wait to finish so I can start reading again.

Mistborn:

This book was recommended to me by my past boyfriend, Blake. It was a captivating read. I spent an entire Saturday just reading it (which was not good -- I had a couple of midterm projects I should have been working on; which is why I'm putting off starting the second book until I get caught up). The characters are interesting and dynamic. The heroine, Vin, is awesome. She starts out a strong and clever but beaten down girl living on the streets and at the end she is the most powerful awesome woman, unafraid to love and fight for what is right. Kelsier is Vin's teacher and he is amazing, too. He totally kicks a$$ in this big fight near the end. It's got some good underlying thematic questions as well about equality and ethical use of power.

The FOB Bible:

I haven't read the whole thing because I don't own it yet (I intend to order it when I have money. At the moment, I'm completely broke). But there are some excerpts online at this site. It is a collection of literary works re-examining and re-imagining the Old Testament. I particularly liked "Blood-Red Fruit" and "Abraham's Purgatory." I think B10 Media put it best, "At once irreverent, whimsical, sexy, feminist, and poignant, this ain’t your mama’s Bible, and you sure didn’t learn this in Sunday school." The stories are insightful and even spiritual. I'd love to discuss these with you if you read them. Leave a comment about what you think or which one was your favorite/least favorite.

Same for the other books. If you've read them, let's chat :) I love discussing literature.

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A wish

Tonight, my sister and I were driving home from our weekly (in theory at least) game night at her boyfriends house. At an intersection, we saw a woman get out of a big white truck. She was halfway out of the truck with the door open for a while like she was gathering her things. Then she started walking away in the direction that we had come from. We thought it was a bit odd so we kept an eye on her when our light turned green. The truck made a U turn and followed her to a gas station. The driver was aggressively following her, he even pushed her to the side with his truck.

We turned around. When we got back to where she was, the guy in the truck had sped away and she was walking on the sidewalk in the dark. It was probably around 1:30 am. We gave her a ride to where she needed to go. She cried a little but was strong. I hope that we helped her in some small way. Actually, I am certain that we did.

I thought about the incident on the whole way home. Women, girls, we need to look after each other. There are so many creeps out there. Let's take care of each other. Not only with bigger things but in small things, too. Let's love each other and be kind to each other. Women get abused all the time, we as their sisters cannot support or continue abuse in any shape or form, under any title or definition.

If we all just made a more conscious effort to love and care for the women in our lives; our mothers, sisters, lovers, friends, neighbors, aunts, nieces, any woman you meet; if we shared with them our strength when they feel weak or oppressed, think of what a difference that would make! I know that many of us feel this is important already, but reaffirming this conviction will make it stronger and will make women stronger.

I hope that young woman to whom we gave a ride can get a big hug tonight from her mother/best friend/sister/anyone who truly loves her. When she does, I hope she feels my love and Tashi's love in it, too.

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The Dirty Dozen

Here is another healthy eating pointer from Meatless Mama, the Dirty Dozen. These fruits and veggies are normally loaded with pesticides and residues. So if you can, always buy them organic. It will make you and the planet healthier :)

The Dirty Dozen

1 Peach (highest pesticide load)
2 Apple
3 Sweet Bell Pepper
4 Celery
5 Nectarine
6 Strawberries
7 Cherries
8 Kale
9 Lettuce
10 Grapes - Imported

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Healthcare Debate

I just wanted to share this lovely blog post about healthcare reform. I agree with this woman 100% There is an interesting article in the NY Times as well. The link is on my fb page, so check that out as well if you are interested.

Anyways, just wanted to share that with you all. :)

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le 4 et le 5 aout: Au Revoir London et Paris

We left London Tuesday morning after having breakfast with Marilyn at Pret again. We got it to go and walked through a bit of Hyde Park which was beautiful. Not as impressive or groomed as the French gardens but it was still pretty.

She saw us off before she went to work at the V&A and we had a comfortable ride on the Eurostar back to Paris without any hiccups this time which was nice. We got back to Paris and picked up our big luggage bags from the train station where we had been storing them for the week. We luckily only had to take one metro line to get to our hotel but we did have to walk a little ways. Carrying gigantic bags on the metro is the worst thing ever and we were pretty tired by time we found where we needed to go.

Our hotel was kind of in a sketchy area. Lol, it is kind of a funny story. One of our assignements in Photo class had to do with an Atget photograph. Each student was given one of his photographs and we wrote about the scene as it appeared in the photograph then found the spot in Paris and photographed it as it was today, then compared and contrasted them. It was really cool actually but my photograph was kind near the peep show district and it was a little shady when we were walking around trying to find it. When Brittany was booking our hotel online in the ISA office, she was joking saying that our hotel would be okay as long as it wasn't in that sketchy area where we had found my photo spot. Well, guess what? Our hotel was like exactly in that spot lol. Our hotel window looked directly out to the little square (more like a triangle though) in my photograph. Pretty ridiculous. It was ok for the night though and Cody, a guy from our program who also stayed longer in Paris, was nice the other days Brittany was there without me and made sure Brittany made it back safe.

We dropped our bags off and got dinner in the Latin Quarter. I had a Croq Madame. It was a good final meal. Not very fancy but French. We walked for a bit around the latin quarter and were going to take a Batteau Moche but we still had to go back to Kaitlin's to pick up our carry on bags so we didn't have enough time to get back to the hotel at a decent hour.

So we got our luggage and got back to the hotel. I repacked my bags so that they could both be checked in the weight limit and stuffed a bag I had bought full of stuff that wouldn't fit in my bags. I swear I didn't buy that much stuff. I don't know why it took up so much space. I had a couple bottles of apple juice from Normandy and a bottle of wine for my aunt and uncle that I wrapped in clothes to make sure they would be safe. Those took up a lot of space and weighed a lot so I think that's where most of my troubles came from.

Anyways, it all worked out and we went to bed. I got up early the next morning. I had to catch my shuttle at 5:45 am. I woke Brittany up just before I left to say goodbye and went to the street to wait for the shuttle. Paris is beautiful in the morning. I wish I had had my camera out so that I could take a picture but it was packed away. It was rosy and peaceful, I will always remember that moment. I thought I might tire of Paris and it's busy streets the way I got tired of New York after a week but I didn't have enough time there. And even though I was glad to be home, if I had the chance to go back to Paris tomorrow, I would. Someday she will see me again.

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le 3 aout: Londontown

We woke up in the morning, bright and early so that we could get the most out of the day and so that we could eat lunch with Marilyn. We went to Pret a Manger which is like a french breakfast chain in London. I have never seen one in Paris lol so I was ok with eating there. It was really delicious. Everything was made fresh and it was all eco friendly and stuff with recycling bins and all this stuff about being green which was super cool. I had hot chocolate and a parfait mmmm. Brittany had a cappucino and they did this awesome star design with powdered sugar on it, you will see the picture.

After breakfast, we headed to where we thought we were meeting my friend Jenna, who was in Europe for July doing a study abroad thing with her interior design program at USU. We went to the wrong square and got a bit lost and almost missed her. We had agreed that if we didn't find each other by 9:30 am we would go our separate ways. Luckily, the British are very helpful and we were pointed in the right direction a couple times and we found Jenna and her friend.

We went with them on a whirlwind tour of London's top sites. I'll let the pictures do the talking. However, I didn't get very many pictures of the Tate Modern, the modern art museum there because the people stopped me. I got two pictures before they caught on to me lol but it was SO cool. Like the coolest museum I have ever seen. I really wanted to buy something from their gift shop, too because every thing was so awesome. There was a black and white umbrella that turned colors in the rain, like it was black background and then like white paint splatters and the splatters turned colors when it got wet. But like all of London, it was tres tres chere. Like the museums and stuff were cool because they were free but to take tours of things was always in the double digits.

We had a wonderful day of sightseeing and museum visiting with Jenna and friend. Then Brittany and I spent some time with Marilyn having tea at Harrod's before leaving her to see Wicked at London's broadway with Jenna and friend (gosh I feel terrible that I can't remember her name!). It was incredible. The cast was amazing and I was really surprised at how good it was even after every one talking it up so much. I loved London. It wasn't as romantic as Paris of course but I would have liked to stay there longer.

And now, the pictures will tell the story of our day:

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le 2 aout: Rodin Museum and the Eurostar

Sunday morning, we had tentative plans to get up early and go to church somewhere in Paris. I was still interested in seeing mass at Notre Dame and most of Brittany's friends wanted to go to an American church in Paris that was similar to the church they attend at home. I want to say Protestant Church of America but don't quote me. But what ended up happening was that we all slept in pretty late. I was actually the first person to get up which never happens.

Kaitlin made us crepes for breakfast and we ate them with some yummy honey. We missed our intended train back to Paris so we had some time to wait for the next one. Brittany and I decided to leave our carry on bags which we had been taking with us at Kaitlin's and we'd pick them up when we got back from London.

When we got to Paris, we went to the Rodin museum. It was beautiful and the gardens were surprisingly large. They were very pretty and had sculptures throughout. The inside of the building which must have been a large manor back in the day was filled with sculpures as well and smaller models and mock up statues. I was pleased to find a few rooms filled with sculptures by Camille Claudel. Her work is even more amazing than Rodin's and filled emotion. I first heard of her in a open French class during Women's History Month put on by this amazing girl named Emma at Westminster. Anyways, I am a fan and was happy to see her work.

Poor Brittany, though forgot her passport in her carry on bag at Kaitlins. She was stressed out and understandably so. She left us at the museum to try and get back to Paris on time to catch our Eurostar to London. What a day it must've been for her. Poor thing. I had a little Eurostar drama but nothing compared to what Brittany went through.

Kaitlin, Marilyn, Rosie and I sat down at a little cafe, Cafe Florio, it was kind of fancy looking and just wasted a few hours there sitting and talking and people watching before Marilyn and I went to the station to go to London.

So this is where the fun began. First, I tried to get my ticket from the ticket machine but it wouldn't print my ticket because it said that I had already printed the ticket. I hadn't but thought I had, because I had sent the ticket in an email to the people at the ISA office and asked them to print it for me but they printed the email and not the enclosed ticket. My bad for not realizing this before hand but it was frustrating because then I had to go into the ticket office and explain the situation to the girl working there. Luckily, she spoke English because I was getting flustered and my train was leaving in a matter of minutes. She was helpful however, and printed me out another ticket but after I got that and ran back to the line to check in for the eurostar, they closed the check in for that train!! I was going to pass out lol like I was freaking out about missing it. Marilyn was on the train that they closed and Brittany and I were supposed to be on it. I ran back to the ticket office and told them what happened and the lady was able to put me on the next train (without a fee! I was so happy.). So then I went through the customs and like landing pass stuff, it was very thourough. They didn't do any of that for Belgium. Someone said it's because of the EU or something that they don't check between EU countries. Anyways, so I sat down on the train and called Brittany to see how things were going. She had made it back to Versailles just fine and got her passport and was nearly to the station when I spoke to her.

She was able to get on a train just after mine but what I didn't know then is that the poor girl had to put down a lot of cash to get on it because the only open seat was in first class. She was also on a super tight budget like me but luckily her parents were able to help her out and put some more money in her account.

But we all arrived safe and sound and had our first dinner in London at a pub near the underground station. I had fish and chips and Brittany wasn't too hungry because she had some food on the train (benefits of riding first class).

Pictures:

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