Spain as a Procrastination Technique

Lizz,

First and most important: I LOVE that hat! I would wear it in any color. Well maybe not any color, but you get the point :)

Congratulate Ben on graduation for me and thank him for the VSO tip. It looks like a great organization though as you said a bit selective about its American volunteers and being I don’t have fluency in any other language a longshot, but it’s nice to have options!

My Peace Corps interview went well – I should know if I made this quarter’s placement sometime in June. If I don’t get a placement in June I have to wait until October, but either way I’m ready to come back to the states and save up some cash so I can move into a bigger city – preferably NYC – and be self-sufficient. That means a bit of time in Oneonta, but I suppose there are worse places to be plus I can scope out places for our Book and Breakfast/Writers Retreat!!     

I’ve been working on my thesis and by working on my thesis I mean  contemplating the pile of material meant to be absorbed by my sometimes active brain into a brilliant thesis on citizen journalism taking the place of the watchdog role as predicated by the market failure of the fourth estate and wishing it would write itself.

No such luck.

It’s due on June 8^th which gives me a few weeks to write 12,000 words that are coherent enough to earn at least a B+ so that I can graduate with merit. I think that if I’d taken a gap year this wouldn’t matter, but my undergrad self keeps comparing my 3.8 to my graduate 3.4 and shaking her head…

On a positive note in a premeditated celebration of my June 14th graduation I’ve been planning my final trip with some friends. We’re going to Romania and Poland. I’m really excited about Romania. We’re going to do the Transylvania area and besides the whole Dracula angle (which of course I’m excited about!) the country side looks breathtaking and there are all sorts of old castles just waiting to be explored.

Speaking of exploring I still haven’t told you how much I loved Spain!

Barcelona was rainy, but I saw a ton of Gaudi architecture which more than made up for the weather. The entrance to the park looked like it came right out of Candy Land!

It was very fanciful. I half expected to find myself transported into some kind of world with Victorian throwback costumes and candy three meals a day, but the rest of the city was quite beautiful as well.

This was at a subway enterance!!

Next I went to Valencia where I had my first taste of paella – delicious.

And my first sip of horchata – surprisingly refreshing!

I also visited the city of arts and science which were amazing! I spent a few hours walking around and I didn’t even go inside.

Oh and did I mention that I saw the Holy Grail. I totally would have had a Monty Python moment too if there had been coconuts available.

Alicante was a beach stop. Enough said :)

Granada was beautiful! I stayed in a little town outside of the main city right in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the scenery was magnificent.

I also got to see some live Flamenco dancing in the caves which is apparently where the Jews, Gypsies, and Arabs were sent after the Christians regained Spain from its Muslim occupation. It’s specific to the area and very passionate. It made me wish I had just an ounce of rhythm in my body.

Seville was in the middle of a festival so there were woman all over the place dressed in traditional attire. Here are a couple at the Place D’Espana – my favorite spot! I could have spent hours looking around at the mosaics alone not to mention the prime people watching opportunities.

Cordoba was just an afternoon stop on my way to Madrid, but I was told by several people along the way that it was a stop I had to make for the mosque (which is now an active church). They were right. It was majestic.

Madrid was my last stop. And though it was much like any other major cities it still had some treasures that just don’t pop up in the states. Like this statue of the fallen angel.

And free student admission to art museums like this

And some other must see attractions.

I underestimated the size of Madrid and didn’t see nearly as much as I’d wanted too, but that just means I have an excuse to go back, right?

Now that I've re-lived my lovely trip it's back to thesis time. Translation: Holding a book open on my lap and wishing I were back in Spain!  

-Ashley

P.S. Any feedback on Letters? Also, feel free to send the new draft and day after June 8th!!

Of Little Lambs and Rewrites

Dear Ashley,

Sorry it's taken me a month (a month!) to write back. You've probably already had your Peace Corps. interview today, but good luck anyway!! Also, Ben suggested that you check out the Volunteer Service Organization. He's known some people who have done the Peace Corps, and not had the best experience. Apparently, they have a less than stellar track record of support on the ground and keeping their people safe. And of course, we want you to be safe. He's heard nothing but good things about VSO- the only hitch might be that they consciously don't recruit from the western hemisphere- i.e...Americans. Can't really say that I blame them. Our country's not exactly the most devoted to really helping others without a hidden, self-serving agenda.  But anyway. Something else to look at, in case the Peace Corps. doesn't work out. I hope it does, though.

I can't wait to hear all about Spain! I'm sure it was amazing. From everyone else's pictures I've seen, it's gorgeous. And I think I could actually get around there. I do need to brush up on my Spanish- I understand waaay more than I can speak at this point.

The farthest I've traveled lately is West Friendship, Maryland for the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival a few days ago. No palaces or ancient ruins there, but there were little lambs,

 and border collies

and loads of glorious yarn.

 I came home with a small load of glorious yarn.

In other news, I finished my scriptfrenzy script, as you saw on facebook. It's not a great rewrite, but it's better than the original was, and there's definitely a role in it for you so we can both be rich and famous writer/actresses. Your plan makes it sounds so simple, by the way. Of course George Clooney will just telephone and ask to play the lead. :) If he did, I'd even consider saying yes, even though he's really not right for the part.

I'm also currently procrastinating on  revising Letters to Myself. The ladies at book club have agreed to be my focus group, and I need to get it to them by this weekend so they have time to read it, but I'm having a really hard time adding things to it. I'm going with the whole Ariah-finds-out-about-her-mother's-affair plot, but I think it's going to be almost impossible to add that, without making it seem like an excuse for her to start an affair with Tristan.

I don't know.

When this draft is done I'll send it to you so in your copious amounts of free time (sarcasm) you can read this version.

Ben graduates this weekend, speaking of free time. We're very excited. He might now have time to read books for fun and stay awake through a whole movie.

Finally, I finished a hat yesterday, and it might be my new favorite. I think you'll love it too. What colors do you want yours in?

-Lizz

Are Quarter Life Crisis’s a New Thing? And other thoughts of a jaded grad student...

Lizz,

I think you can have it all! The acting and the writing and the house in Italy. I think it goes something like this: You write a 21^st century staple and everybody wants to be part of it. You have studios bidding in the billions and George Clooney calling your personal cell phone saying he can pass for 35 and would kick ass at the role. You then play the lead in the movie which is really just the first stop to Broadway where your talent can be appreciated 8 shows a week. And congratulations now you’re a very rich actress/writer with a house in Italy and a castle in Ireland! See easy :) As far as Ben and the wanting different things, I have never been in a relationship that lasted longer than 5 minutes so I can’t really help you there, but as your friend I’m going to say the whole it will work out and I’m always here if you need to talk bit! I mean it too, even if it’s not very helpful.

The Peace Corps lost my finger print package and I keep thinking it may be some kind of sign. Like a wait a minute, take a deep breath, is this really what you want kind of sign. And the thing is I don’t know what I want. I’ve wanted to do the Peace Corps for years, but I’m also about to finish a Master’s and the only thing I can think about is how this is never what I wanted to do and I was a coward to not go to college for music. Yeah, it’s a really hard life and one out of a million people make it, but why couldn’t I be one in a million? I feel like I’m having a midlife crisis at 23 years old. I also feel like we need to have two couches in our book shop for therapy sessions, but at least we’ll never have to pay a professional!

On a happier, I live in Europe so I’m going to make the most of it note, I’m going to Spain/Portugal for 11 days! One of my friends from Elmira lives in Madrid so I’m going to spend a few days with her and I figured why not make it into a vacation of sorts so I’m going to travel around (I love the train system in Europe!) and I know I’m going to do Barcelona and Lisbon, but other than that it’s still up in the air. I’m calling it my between finals and thesis mental health break.

April NaNo is going very much like regular NaNo meaning I don’t have very much to show for all that’s going on in my head, but I still have most of the month and I’m determined to have something to show for my character sketches – they want a story and I want to give it to them. I’m glad you’re a writer because that sounds slightly crazy like I have a bit of dissociative identity disorder and that just doesn’t look very good (and by good I mean sane) to the rest if the world :p

I finished my video on final cut! It actually came out pretty good. I sent it to you as a message on facebook because it’s a big file and I didn’t feel like keeping it on my computer. It’s part of an advocacy campaign project, but I think it turned out to be just the right amount of information and humor. I hope you like it!

All right I need to go write a paper on the evolution of democratic participation in the museum. It’s going to be hoot. Really, I’m wearing my happy face and everything.

~Ashley

P.S/ I feel like I should have posted pictures, but I don’t have any new ones so I found this on google images and it can be motivation for us to finally sit down and write that trilogy! Imagine having a book store here :)  

Of Socks and Scriptfrenzy

Dear Ashley,

Blog post take two, since blogger is stupid. (Lookin' at you, blogger admin that's probably reading my last post and giggling)

Congrats on applying for the peace corps! That's so exciting. Have you heard anything yet? I hope you get something awesome, so that I can continue to live vicariously through you.

The most exciting thing going on here is that I finished my very first knitted sock ever! Here it is on Ben's foot:

Fits perfectly. I was amazed.

Finishing this sock, which I started about six months ago, made me feel like a knitting superstar. It made me feel like "hey, I made a sock. A fucking SOCK! I can do anything!"

I'm still feeling pretty good about myself. I had Ro (former teacher and friend, and lady who hosts book club) read Letters to Myself and she liked it. I was interested in her opinion as a teacher, but she thought it was interesting and wasn't totally against Ariah and Tristan's relationship. She actually agreed that I shouldn't make excuses for it, so I don't think I'm going to kill off Julian. I might write it both ways anyway, just to get it out of my system, and to see which I like better, but I think, ultimately, it would be better to just leave her alone. I want the relationship between Ariah and Tristan to be completely organic and not the result of some trauma, and I want people to accept it as it is and not try to rationalize it away.

So I'm going to work on that for scriptfrenzy this year, as you suggested. I was thinking about writing Occam's Razor this year, but I think while I'm feeling pretty good about things I should try to finish them. My goal is to work on Letters... and to possibly resurrect an old screenplay of mine and polish that. And by polish, I mean keep most of the basic plot and scrap most of the lines.

My Uncle also gave me a book about freelance article writing and how to make some money at that, so I'm going to start reading it and looking into periodicals that I could write intelligently for. Article writing was never something that I saw myself doing, but I think I could bang out a few things and make some extra money, and that of course, would be good.

In real life, I'm still not sure where we're going to be this summer/in the next year. Ben's applied for a job at Downsville, and I have insider information that there's going to be a science position opening in Delhi for next year, so he's excited about that. I'm excited for him, but not at the prospect of going back to New York.

I'm still looking at Baltimore and kind of want to apply to that Masters program there. We never talk about how we want radically different things out of life except when we're drunk, which probably isn't a good thing. We should really have a long (sober) conversation about it, but both of us are too cowardly to bring it up. Well, I know I am anyway. I guess I shouldn't speak for him. He has said that he wants me to do what will make me happy, but I can't figure out what that is.

I still follow Annie and Laura's blog, the one that we modeled this one after, and Laura has this seemingly perfect simple life- her posts are full of their cottage in the English countryside, and her two adorable boys, baking, crafting, and vintage-y finds from thrift shops. Part of me wants that life, and the other part of me (and larger part) knows that I can never be content with just that. I want everything.

I want to act, and to write, and to have that huge house in Italy with the olive grove like the one you took a  picture of which is currently my computer desktop background, with a steady stream of fun people coming and going. But I also want sheep. And to make upstate New York known for something other than baseball. and someone who loves me. And a dog.

Is that asking too much?

Yes, of course it is. I feel like I should be paying you for this therapy. Or at least lying down. I'll make you something pretty that you can have when you come home. I can't wait to see you!

In the meantime, I'll work on the socks that I cast on this morning. (and finding a matching skein so I can make a mate to the sock that I finished yesterday).

Let the Frenzy begin! (a little early)
-Lizz

You're Lucky!! And I have to make it through macro...

Lizz,

It's so much more fun for everybody else that you're not domestic! But I'm sure if you keep trying you'll get the hang of it or at the very least get to the point where the household appliances are safe :p I have one of the electric stoves here and I've learned not to let anything boil over else the house will smell like a mini fire for days... Oh, the joys of adulthood!

I'm so happy that you got to be one of the lucky 25 pitchapoloza finalists (And you always said you weren't lucky!) and I after I voted for you I went back and read the other 24. I think you have a good chance of getting the meeting. I was underwhelmed by many of the other pitches though the Steve Jobs Cloud/Heaven analogy was quite brilliant and I would probably read the book if I saw it on the shelf. In case you haven't checked in the last 5 seconds - you're in 3rd!

I wish I had lots of interesting things to tell you, but things are quite dull on my side of the ocean. I am learning how to use Final Cut video editing software for my Civil Society and Communications class. We're developing advocacy campaigns complete with videos which we'll post to youtube. When its finished I'll send you the link. My group is focusing on online reputation so the video (if it comes out well) should be humorous. I just couldn't bring myself to pick a more serious problem - its depressing enough that my year abroad is already half over :( Anyway, when you win pitchapoloza and Letters to Myself becomes a movie I'll be able to edit for you and my decission to add a masters program to my already substantial student debt will be justified!

Also, I applied to the Peace Corps (I don't think I told you yet). My interview should be sometime latter this month. If everything works out in my favor I'm hoping to be nominated for a job, come home for a few weeks this summer and then start my 27 months. Fingers crossed!

Ok, macroeconomics is about to be over (thanks for helping me get through the worst class of the term) and its finally sunny and tolerable to be outside for more than a minute so I'm going to make the most of it!

-Ashley

P.S. I have a whole two paragraphs for Pan! Maybe in a month I'll be able to send you the first chapter :p