The Life of a PurpleBlobofGoo

Baby, when the lights go out…

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:41:41 GMT

It’s crunch time here in San Cristobal. All of the photogs are rushing to finish their stories, and we’re all rushing to finish our graphics and programming. We only have ONE WEEK left here! It’s so hard to believe that I’ve been away for three weeks.

It’s kind of weird here in that when I was in Costa Rica, I missed American things a lot more, but here, I don’t really miss anything other than my family and friends (oh, and American ketchup). I could seriously live here.

Lately we’ve been having weird brown-outs where part of the city loses power. Luckily, not all of it loses power at the same time. So when the power goes out at school, the power is on at the bars and at the hotel and vice versa. I’ve heard three different stories about why this keeps happening, but the most legitimate one is that the island is split into three grids. Normally each grid has a generator, but one of them went out awhile ago, and another one of them went out last month, so the island is taking turns using the power. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, though, when you consider that we didn’t have any issues with electricity before. We keep joking that running 20 MacBook Pros all day are crashing the grid.

A plan to the tortoise reserve in the highlands is in the works. Hopefully I’ll go before I leave. Everyone is rushing to finish so that we can have free time at the end of the trip to take day trips. A lot of people want to go to other islands, but I’ve already been to both Isabela and Santa Cruz, so there’s no need to spend the money on the boats. I’m looking forward to some beach time and venturing to the highlands.

Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.

Kicker Rock

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:39:48 GMT

I’ve had a ridiculously good past few days. All of the group is now here in San Cristobal, and yesterday we took a day trip to Kicker Rock to go snorkeling. At Kicker Rock I saw sea turtles, starfish, and lots of other fish. But my favorite part was another area where we snorkeled where we could swim with the sea lions. One got so close that it brushed up against me.

The next 11 days are going to be really busy, but everything seems to be coming together. Everyone’s stories are awesome, and of course the graphics are going to be amazing.

Here are some pictures from Kicker Rock:

Leaving the port

Our boat

Erin with Ronnie, the boat captain. Check out the hat I gave him.

Kicker Rock--We snorkeled through the channel in the middle.

Ronnie's boat

Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.

Isabela

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:48:31 GMT

So after riding in a bus, plane, bus, boat, bus, and boat, we´re finally in Isabela. The traveling took a lot out of me, but we got to see Santa Cruz on the way, meaning I get to see all three islands we´re staying on.

It´s beautiful here. I wish I could show you pictures, but the internet, although it´s cheap at only $1.50 an hour, is also unbearably slow.

So far I´ve seen giant iguanas on the beach, sea lions, crabs, turtles, Darwin finches, and pelicans. The wildlife is amazing. You can literally get within three inches of the iguanas.

Some of us also went to the Wall of Tears yesterday. Apparently the government tried to make prisoners build this wall around the city, but there were no roads and the volcanic rock is really sharp, so a bunch of people died and the wall was never finished.

We´ve been mainly eating fish, rice, and potatoes for every meal, but I´m not complaining, seeing as how seafood and potato products are my favorite foods. We also get soup with every meal, which is always delicious. Last night we had shrimp, and we also had chicken before.

Yesterday I felt kind of uninspired and unproductive because everyone was just getting started on their projects, so I didn´t have a lot to do in terms of graphics, but today everything seems to be running smoothly and progress is being made. I´m on the computer looking up numbers for graphics.

Like I said, I can´t upload pictures, but maybe I´ll get around to it in San Cristobal. I leave on Thursday. Wish me luck.

Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.

Pictures from Quito

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:43:47 GMT

We went to orientation for half of the day today, then took a tour of Quito in the afternoon. This is mainly just a photo post with goodies for y’all to look at.

I won’t be able to update for the next week or so because I’m going to be on Isabela, which is really isolated and internet access is questionable.

The view from my hotel in Quito

<3 Quito

Part of Quito--it's a HUGE city

Virgen del Panecillo

One of the plazas

Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.

In Quito!

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:29:44 GMT

Not much to update, but I wanted to let people know I got here safe.

The flight was fine, other than being like two hours late so we didn’t get to the hotel until 2:30 a.m. last night, then had to wake up around 7:30.

Some blurbs I wrote down:

No matter how much I fly, I’m still fascinated by staring out the window–everything seems to small and irrelevant, and those housing communities seem even creepier.

I read my horoscope in the airport in Atlanta. It talked about living on the edge, but not other people’s edge. I have to find my own unique edge, but not get too close to the edge. It was both amusingly ridiculous and surprisingly accurate considering that I’m in Ecuador.

On the flight I watched Benjamin Button and totally cried while sitting next to an 8-year-old who was giggling at Yes Man the whole time.

When we got off of the plane in Ecuador, we had to wear masks over our noses and mouths, evidently because of the swine flu epidemic. Americans are a threat to Ecuadorian national security and the health of the country. It was all a big joke because everyone just took them off as we stood in line for over an hour waiting for customs. Then they legit took our temperature with some kind of temperature-sensing device.

A picture for your amusement:

Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.

One more week

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:22:21 GMT

I’m one more week away from the Galapagos Islands! I’ve made a packing list and done a bunch of research.

Here’s a rough itinerary:

I leave on the 18th. We’ll be in Quito, Ecuador, for a couple of nights. Then from there, I’ll be on Isabela for around 5 days, during which I don’t think I’ll have internet access. But I should be able to post after that when I’ll be on San Cristobal, which’ll be from June 25-July 15. Then it’s Quito for a day, then back home on July 18th.

Also, update: I’ve now synced my Facebook and Twitter with WordPress so it should link to updates whenever I update my blog. Sweet.

Here’s a map to give you an idea of the geography:

Originally published at Kristen E. Long's WordPress. Please leave any comments there.

Sun, 03 May 2009 23:36:57 GMT

So I haven't updated LiveJournal in forever, even though I'm still reading people's entries.

For more consistently updated info on my life:

Facebook.

Twitter.

Website.

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:18:49 GMT

Today's horoscope:

You are ready to explore your feelings in a deeper way, but you may not know how to go about making your dream come true. You want to be real, but you probably feel more comfortable when you're safely hiding behind a mask. You can try to totally disguise yourself, yet the true you will still show through. Once you realize that it's not worth keeping your intensity to yourself, it will be easier to touch others with what's in your heart.

Astrology blows my mind. Half of me is like, what a load of crap, and half of me is like, but damn, that's accurate.

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:00:38 GMT

"And you girls who don't want to like your boyfriends are too funny. You're both going to have great breaks. Just let them be wonderful."

"You're allowed to like him! Do it!"

Conclusion: My friends are ridiculous. And romantics, which is something I gave up on a long time ago.

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:42:11 GMT

Wtf.

My horoscope has been shockingly accurate this whole week.

Example.

Tomorrow:
You are getting tired of playing a role that is more serious than you prefer, and today you may have your chance to demonstrate a new and improved you. Being lighter of spirit may be challenging for you these days, yet now you realize it's your only sensible option. One way to achieve this is to surround yourself with fun-loving people. Laughter truly is the best medicine.

I read these things daily because they pop up on my iGoogle, and normally I just laugh because really, horoscopes are full of crap. But apparently not this week.

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:33:35 GMT

I started to write
a poem

about the boys that

made this Girl
who She is,

a couple lines for

each
one night stand

each
broken heart

but I realized

truth is
relative
to the times,

feelings are
relative
to the times—

putting periods when
they should have been commas,

closing the book
before getting to the ending.

I don't know that there's
ever
a last page,
a final period.

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:04:33 GMT

A Hunger So Honed

Driving home late through town
He woke me for a deer in the road,
The light smudge of it fragile in the distance,

Free in a way that made me ashamed for our flesh–
His hand on my hand, even the weight
Of our voices not speaking.

I watched a long time
And a long time after we were too far to see,
Told myself I still saw it nosing the shrubs,

All phantom and shadow, so silent
It must have seemed I hadn't wakened,
But passed into a deeper, more cogent state of dream–

The mind a dark city, a disappearing,
A handkerchief
Swallowed by a fist.

I thought of the animal's mouth
And the hunger entrusted it. A hunger
So honed the green leaves merely maintain it.

We want so much,
When perhaps we live best
In the spaces between loves,

That unconscious roving,
The heart its own rough animal.
Unfettered.

The second time,
There were two that faced us a moment
The way deer will in their Greek perfection,

As though we were just some offering
The night had delivered.
They disappeared between two houses,

And we drove on, our own limbs
Sloppy after that, our need for one another
Greedy, weak

Tracy K. Smith

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:47:30 GMT

This summer I had the worst dream of my life. Part of it involved cheating. Part of it involved witnessing people die. Both things affected me deeply.

Last night I had the same dream, different guy, and without the people dying. It didn't affect me at all. Sign?

In other news, I love my family, my friends, my job, my school, my self.

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:28:09 GMT

I'm surprisingly content and optimistic right now.

Went to the counselors today. Didn't get to talk to anyone, but will within a few days.

Pretty okay with my guy situation.
Pretty okay with my friend situation, other than the elephant in the room, which I'm choosing to ignore for now.

I think I'm going to have a mostly chill, mostly sober weekend. I'm going to try to get some me time in.

I'm ready to go home for Thanksgiving and see my parents and grandparents and eat some good food. Separate myself from the world for awhile. See some old friends.

New Buffalo is the current singer whose songs define my life.

This time
It's not about you
So tired
But what can you do
Last night
I wanted to say
Move on
And look on the brighter side

But your eyes
Never seem to open
There's a whole world outside
See I'm trying to tell you
It'll be alright

Did not
Think you leave it this long
Work hard
Or maybe you've got nothing to say
Please call
I'm begging you to
Forgot
I never got back to you

And your eyes
Never seem to open
There's a whole world outside
See I'm trying to tell you
It'll be alright

And when you're all alone
You catch your breath
You save yourself
You save yourself
It's easy
If you'd only try
It's easy

But your eyes
Never seem to open
There's a whole world outside
See I'm trying to tell you
It'll be alright

I thought you'd call
I thought you'd change
But why expect
Oh so much from your friends

I know who you are
And you know who I am
Is that not enough

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:14:26 GMT

"You aren't always comfortable discussing your feelings around people who seem to be sitting in judgment of you and your lifestyle. Today, you may not be able to avoid such a conversation, and it could bring up unpleasant memories about other times when you were misunderstood. Take it slowly and don't say more than is necessary unless you think the relationship is worth the time and effort."

Looks like my horoscope was a day off.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:56:47 GMT

Update-a-licious

happy about Obama's victory
trying not to think about Virginia boys
not going to London next semester
getting focused on my work so my GPA doesn't die this semester
really over this being single thing
but not really into pursuing anything
not worth my time
catch me if you can

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:53:04 GMT

"You are so ready to rock this weekend, Leo. The Moon is in your 5th House of Romance, making this an ideal time to let go of your inhibitions. If you're coming on too strong for someone, then seek out another person who can keep up with you. The goal is to express yourself freely, so don't hold back. "

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:09:42 GMT

I won't be a label-
slutseductresswhore
confidentsecureindependent

I'm just trying to figure
everything
out.

Been defined by you for too long.
Trying to flex my muscles
Stretch my mind
Open myself wide enough to find out
who I am.

You ain't no thang.

None of you.

I ain't got no heart of stone,
but it still ain't open to you.
No way.
No how.

None of you.

You can try.
You might think I'm crackingmeltingopening
And I would
if I could

I'm just trying to figure
everything
out.

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 15:53:50 GMT

In other news, I <3<3<3<3<3 Carolina.

I'm doing graphics for DTH.
I love my job with the Union.
Classes are going well.

Football game against VT this Saturday. Super pumped. I'm preparing to lose my voice.

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 02:39:46 GMT

I feel myself being left behind. The things I used to value aren't the things that I value in life anymore.

I don't want to fit the mold. I don't want to follow in line. My life has been defined by following the normal path of life. High school. College. You do certain things at certain times. I've never had enough balls to disobey the cycle, but it's really not fitting what I want to do right now.

I honestly feel like it's a phase, something I need to get out of my system, this attraction to the urban environment, this attraction to a certain type of people.

Honest to God, the weekends I spent this summer at Christa's were life-defining. I was satisfied with my life at UNC, but not entirely happy, but I didn't realize the extend of my dissatisfied-ness until I started spending more time there.

True, I made a mess of my personal life in Richmond. But the mistakes I made have taught me way more than I learned in the past 4 years of dating John.

I'm not sure that UNC is the place for me right now. I know, however, that Richmond won't be the place for me for the next 3 years of my life, so it's not that I want to transfer. I love UNC in a way that no one other than a student here can understand.

In a perfect world, I'd take off this semester and just spend time in Richmond and work some (my original plan for this summer, ironically). But this is where my scholarship becomes both a blessing and a curse. It is true that it gives me a full ride to UNC, but it also ties me for the next 4 years to this school.

I don't know. I'm having issues with myself. What do I want out of life? I'm unsure.

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 23:24:33 GMT

I first started thinking the other day about UNC and Richmond in relation to the garden metaphor. The garden metaphor is this ridiculous idea that we had a project on back in the days of CGS, about how gardens relate to the times. So then I narrowed my thoughts and realized that I was really thinking of is the forest/city motif in Shakepeare's "As You Like It." It's a pastoral comedy, so it plays on the idea of the forest being an uncultivated place where the nobility can let their hair down, where social conventions don't matter as much. For example, when the couples in the play go to the forest, there is a lot of cross-dressing and confusing different characters in the play. The city is a place with firm rules that dictate how life should be run in the court, etc. So the couples escape to the forest where they relax and let loose and their love for each other blossoms.

In my case, the forest becomes a metaphor for Chapel Hill, and the city becomes a metaphor for Richmond. However, instead of me wanting to leave the city to escape to the forest so that I can let loose, I'm more apt to want to leave the forest where I currently live and go to the city, where I can let loose. The fact that it's backwards for me is sort of interesting, but I think that one can attribute that to the rules of the court when the nobility are in the city, versus no rules when I'm in the city. My life in Chapel Hill, instead, is the structured life, while my life in the city is unstructured.

William Wordsworth wrote his Songs of Innocence and Experience based on the idea that nature itself is innocent, while the oppressive society that people live in is experience. It is similar to "As You Like It," but in Shakespeare's time, it wasn't innocence that was attributed to the forest, but rather, the wildness and thus experience had in nature. Nature is where the wild things happen. Again, it's totally reversed for me, because Richmond is experience, which makes perfect sense such I'm much more inclined to relate to Wordsworth, a Romantic poet, than Shakespeare, a Neoclassical playwright.

From a biblical standpoint, the garden of Eden is where Eve eats the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which is ironic since I'm in Chapel Hill to learn. However, knowledge in that sense doesn't relate to life experiences, of which I've had more of in Richmond.

So I don't know. There's just been a bunch of shit going through my mind like this. I'm trying to figure out why things happen the way that they do and why I am the way that I am.

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:17:35 GMT

Thinking about getting a tattoo has led me to look up a bunch of my favorite quotes, and I've decided to compile them.

"We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."
-- "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

"Do I dare
Disturb the universe?"
-- "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

"The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly."
-- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

"L'essential est invisible pour les yeux."
-- Le Petit Prince by Saint Exupery

"I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."
-- "The Circus Animal's Desertion" by W.B. Yeats

"Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
-- Mark Twain

"Let it be."
-- The Beatles

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players"
-- "As You Like It" by Shakespeare

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."
- "Serenity Prayer" by Reinhold Niebuhr

More to be added later.

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:05:13 GMT

I'm in this mode, and I'm thinking of getting a tattoo. Before I kept thinking the Leo symbol, but what I really want is a quote on my arms.

So far I have three that I love:

"The lower you fall, the higher you'll fly." -- Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

"L'essential est invisible pour les yeux." - Le Petit Prince by Saint Exupery, which translates as the essential is invisible to the eyes. I wrote an essay about this topic in French class.

"I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart." -- "The Circus Animal's Desertion" by W.B. Yeats, which is basically the first poem that really, truly affected me on some weird deeper level.

I'm leaning towards the Yeats quote. I'm wondering how much this is going to cost. I really want to get it done.

[EDIT] Dude. I just had the best idea ever. If I get it on my wrist, then I don't have to worry about wearing sleeves, because I can cover it up with a bracelet if need be. But in that case, I should save the Yeats quote until I can get it done on my back or something later on.

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:18:31 GMT

Things I learned in Delaware:

I must specify that I want my tea ICED and SWEET.

Riding the swinging ship while tipsy might be one of the best experiences I've had so far in my life.

I apparently should vote for Bob Barr, since I talk about him in my sleep.

Don't live in a house that was once a morgue.

Also, pay attention when crucifixes keep going missing.

I must own a hot tub.

I also must buy a pod house on an island in the Caribbean.

70 degree water feels like it's 40 degrees when it's like 90 outside.

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:10:40 GMT

I've been eying this bag for like 2 months, and it keeps being relisted. Oh, I want it, but $50 is a lot of money in terms of my spending. I hate being broke.