Rockin' in the Free World

Adultery?

2010-03-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am cheating on you. The thing is... there is another.

I have another blog.

I decided to post my blog for botswana on a more public sphere (i.e. placing it on peacecorpsjournals.com). I have loved sydmark, and I proud of the content. I feel like there are some personal posts and information that I don't necessarily want the whole world to know.

I invite you to follow me to Botswana. Add www.sydneylambson.com to your google reader. I promise to still be as personal and frank as have always been! Do it!

Love,

Syd

Perfect Sunday

2010-03-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

I bought a Canon Rebel T1i. Isn't it beautiful? In lieu of my future departure to Botswana, I have purchasing a lot of things. Some are coming in the mail, some I am buying from the store. It's like Christmas. I feel indulgent. But I think that will change soon. But I haven't explored my new camera properly

Today was a perfect day for exploring. It was a beautiful spring day. This is probably the worst time of year for Utah. Because Utah weather is manic depressive. One day we will have this beautiful spring day with sun and warm weather and then the next day there will be a bone chilling storm that takes about a week to recover from. Take this past week for example. Yet, today was magnificent. It was a perfect Sunday. I went on a long walk/mini hike with my friend and we took Ziggy. We explored the diverse terrain of Highland.

And then we found a horse... and cows. I was a bit scared of the horse, but he was sweet and wanted to be touched. All he needed was a little TLC.

Chicago, I love you

2010-03-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

People! I am leaving in less in five weeks! The weekend before I leave, I am going to have a big party with big music and big hair. I hope you plan on attending. One of my best friends is leaving a week before me to go on her mission. She is so awesome, she is going to be fantastic.

Speaking of fantastic, I love Chicago. It was cold, but glorious. On the first day there, I was able to explore the city with my friend Courtney. We had delicious tea from Argo tea. The friendly people over at Argo tea recognize the need for spectacular herbal tea. One drink they combined white chocolate, soy milk and rooibos tea. Best. idea. ever. Have I told you I am excited to go to Botswana and drink endless amounts of red bush tea? We went to the Art Instittute of Chicago... for free. Love free february at the institute. Then later that night, Courtney and I skated at the Millenium Park. And this picture is a testament that Courtney cannot skate straight.
The rest of the week was filled with presentations and tasty food. I told myself before that I was going to eat good food, mission accomplished. I received my official invite to the Peace Corps while we were in Chicago. But I couldn't really focus on it, until after I finished my presentation on Wednesday afternoon. That night, my brother Paul flew in on his way to Milwaukee, and he took me and some of my colleagues out to dinner in Greek Town. I sware when I finally get a job that pays money, I am going to take pity on poor college kids and pay for meals or tax rides and I will say 'my pleasure.' Thanks Paul!

On my last day, Brittany and I took an excursion around town and had a blast infront of the bean at the Millenium park. I mean, Chicago has a rapid transport system and a big art form that you can take pictures at and get the background of the city in your picture... how can one city get better?
I am going to the Hunger Banquet tonight! I am nervous and excited. I feel so much emotional tension. Will I be able to just sit there, without contributing. The Hunger Banquet has been one of my greatest accomplishments (i mean not my accomplishment, but a group project), can i let go? I hear it is best yet! sigh.

Botswana 2010-2012

2010-03-02T21:32:00.001-08:00

I have things to say. First, I am going to Botswana on April 7th for 27 months, two years and three months as a Community Capacity Builder with with the HIV/AIDS program. About one year ago I applied to the Peace Corps. There were a lot of events and people that influenced my decision to apply to this organization. I remember going to a career fair with my friend during my junior year. There was a Peace Corps booth but no recruiter so I took a booklet and moved on. That booklet has sat on my nightstand for the last three years. I liked the idea, but I had never meet any one that had done it. I had heard things about volunteers and about the organization but all hearsay, nothing substantial. I remember entering into my last semester at BYU. I had the desire to go to grad school, but I needed time to not be a student. I sat down with my mentor, Joan Dixon, asking her about how I could get into the field of International Development, and she mentioned the Peace Corps and we chatted for a while. Thinking, yeah… I’ll try it out, see what happens.
The application was daunting and I almost didn’t finish it. But then I took this trip to DC and instantly I meet someone on the bus who had just gotten back from Ghana and then my GW contact had gone to South America. I can’t remember their stories, but it was the extra push I needed.
And then I waited, for what seemed forever. I went through a lot during that time- Graduation, Nepal, My Parent’s Basement, Unemployment, Homeless Shelter. But still, at the back of my mind, I always had this looming possibility. I felt qualified, but what if…
I had been told back in June, that in order to become qualified for a potential position leaving around May 2010, I would have to start gaining HIV/AIDS experience. After a lot of set backs, I finally meet Heather Bush at the Utah Department of Health, who opened my doors to brand new experiences. In the training to become a counselor and instructor, I was pushed beyond my comfort level, but challenged to look at my life and my background in a new way.
Just today I received my invitation from the Peace Corps. (I found out a couple of days ago that it was coming in the mail!). I still have a lot to process. But for now, I am excited.

PS Chicago is great. I have had a lot of great tea! Yummy!

Working in the Community

2010-02-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

The other night, a distressed refugee came into the shelter, looking for safety for her and her seven kids. An eviction notice was looming in the future and she had no options. A dutiful relief society president was by her side, recording phone numbers and community resources that would assist in their search for hope. I liked pulling out the 211 Social Services directory and watching the panic drain out of their faces. They eventually felt hopeful enough to leave and try their luck with the vast amount of community resources. Do you know that you can call 211 from any phone and be connected to any social service agency in Utah? They are nice and helpful and can answer all your questions. You should just do it. It makes be feel warm inside to know there are such things in this state. Because, more than giving out shampoo, more than coordinating family dinners, more than seeing families move out of the shelter, I like telling people about community resources. I love it! I see community development and collaboration in my future, at least that is what the eight ball told. And it doesn't lie.

People ask me if I ever go home crying, if what I see at the shelter effects me emotionally. When I went to interview, I will be honest, I was scared to be there. But mostly, you get used to it. But I am a firm believer that humans can get used to almost anything. Squatter toilets, no electricity, Nothing distresses me much any more, maybe I have a cold heart. But I think I have learned to decipher what is real. It's sad to see kids living in the shelter, but they love it, they have tons of fun, it is more sad when parents go to the hospital for drug overdose and then their kids get taken away. That is worse.

A Bit of a Junkie

2010-02-07T21:06:00.000-08:00

Tonight, was the final episode of BBC's newest version of Emma. My mother and I have always been a fan of Masterpiece Theater, ever since I was little. It is where I discovered beautiful stories about suppressed young women plagued by a misfortune of birth, wealth, family or situation only to be relieved by a man. But not really. I mean, some of these women are strong and can break themselves free, it just seems to make the story better when a dashing young man (Matthew McFadyen!) is involved like in the beautiful and heartwarming Litte Dorit. So many films that I have loved. Such as, Wives & Daughters, North & South, The Forsyte Saga, , the new and old versions of Persusion, Sense & Sensibilty, Mansfield Park, and the more recent additions like Cramford and Northanger Abby. These Sundays at 8 o'clock are real treasures for me. And this newest version of Emma is heads and shoulders above the Gwenyth Paltrow version, in fact I never liked Emma until I saw this one. Oh Mr. Knightly...
But tonight, after the final episode, there was this little gem of show. It is called Lost in Austen. It is about a modern British girl who switches places with Elizabeth Bennet. It sound hocky but it actually really funny. If you are a Pride & Prejudice junkie then you will probably love it

A Heart Full of Tea

2010-02-03T14:56:00.001-08:00

If you were thinking about being my valentine's day lover could you get me this from adiago teas? I mean, I wouldn't drink it because I have this very hostile relationship with caffiene but I would look at it and perhaps serve others the beautiful tea. In fact, you could get me anything herbal from this website and I would be yours.

All Things Go

2010-02-02T11:09:00.001-08:00

Working 40 hours a week is a beast. I mean, I like my job. It is an adventure all the time, but it feels like work. And I know I am underemployed, doing a job that does not require my skill level (whatever that may be). I am antsy to take on more, rather than just schedule volunteer activities or smile at donors or tell kids to stop running. I can do more, I am sure of it. Knowing that my job will only last until the beginning of April, I dream of what I will do when I have spare time and can go visit my siblings or finish my quilt. It is such a paradox, I hate being unemployed but employment feels a bit like prison. What is that?

But to sooth over my feeling of being grounded, I am going to Chicago! At the beginning of March, I will be presenting in a conference, a real, legit conference. It is the Comparative and International Education Society Conference. Some of my colleagues from my Nepal adventures are presenting a paper titled "21st Century Technology in Nepal: How Youth Technology Leaders Communicate and Collaborate in Rural Himalayan Villages." Exciting, no? We kind of have no idea what we are doing... but the point is I am going to Chicago for a week! I am going to find some tea stops, maybe watch a tapping of Opera, and walk around. If you've been, tell me what to do. It's my first time!

Soup is for Lovers

2010-01-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

I just made that most incredible soup and I feel like the world needs to know about it. Have you ever had the Olive Garden's soup and salad for the lunch special? Well, I made the Zupa Toscana and it tasted just like the restaurant soup. But because I had made it... it tasted better. It was like I had reached nirvana with every spoonful of cream, kale, potatao and sausage. I finally get what all those Hindus in India were talking about. But seriously, incredible.

Try it, you won't be disappointed.

Zupa Tuscana Soup
1lb. spicy italian sausage, crumbled
1/2lb. smoked bacon, chopped (or bacon bits)
1 quart water
2 14oz cans chicken broth
2 large russet potatoes, scrubbed clean and cubed
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed (or minced garlic)
1 medium onion, chopped
2 C. kale, chopped (or 3 C because it is so good!)
1 C. heavy whipping cream (I ain't scared)
salt and pepper to taste (mostly just pepper

In a skillet over medium-high heat, brown sausage, breaking into small pieces as you cook. Rinse and set aside. Brown bacon. Place water, broth, potatoes, garlic, and onion in soup pot. Simmer over medium heat until potatoes are tender. Add sausage and bacon. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add Kale and cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Heat through.

Obsessions of 2009

2009-12-31T23:58:00.000-08:00

How does one describe a year or access the impact of one year, one year of my life? But it all seems so present and organic that it is hard to classify a year. I graduated, had an internship, got a real job, finished my first knitting project, bought a car and went yurting. Seems like an eventful year.

Here is a list of obessions I have had during the year 2009.

1. Andrew Bird . Early on last year, his album 'Noble Beast' came out. I listened to it non stop. And I still listen to it pretty often but my obsession has subsided. And I don't really understand the lyrics all that much but i feel like if I did then somehow it would be about me. And during 2009, I saw him in concert and he was everything I wanted and more. A man with a violin and a voice, what more could you ask for. My fav is 'tenuousness'.

2. Making a meaningful impact. As I was getting ready to end my undergraduate I was exploring what I could do with this time in my life. And all I really want to do is make a difference that is positive and meaningful.

3. HIV/AIDS. In August, I started volunteering with Utah Aids Foundation and now I have shifted to the Utah Department of Health volunteering with the HIV/AIDS prevention program. I have read test result, swabbed people's mouth, pricked their fingers and made STD spreadsheets. I have learned a lot about sexually transmitted diseases since then and I plan on learning even more this coming 2010.

4. Cooking. Now that I live at my parent's house I have been able to cook all the things I never had the time or energy to cook when I was in college. Like this awesome creamy rice and shrimp recipe and endless amounts of cookie dough.

5. Birthing. I know I have mentioned it before, but I think it is amazing that women can produce little creatures. Our bodies are amazing!

6. Writing Resumes. I spent a good portion of 2009 writing and rewriting resumes. And not just my own but other people's. And a lot of time it does feel like you have to display every single good quality you have or else the potential employer will never see how awesome you are. Rock on for kick butt resumes.

7. Nepal. Nepal was epic and it continues to come to me in my daydreams. And every once in a while I am reminded that I was in a commercial in Nepal. Viva Nepal!

8. Not taking the Graduate Record Exam. I have intentions to go to grad school someday soon, maybe in like three years. And I hear that it is best to take it while you are in school or right after. Something about studying being easier. In my last semester of college I had plans to take the test and then I rescheduled it like two time and then I just dropped it. And I have had this book sitting on my night stand for about five months and it is the last thing I want to do. I can't even express to you how much I do not want to study for this test. Ugh.

This is my Christmas Post

2009-12-26T22:50:00.000-08:00

It sucks not having two whole weeks off for Christmas Break. What is this being an adult crap? Nothing is free anymore. I had to work on Christmas Eve and for a little bit on Christmas day. Having said that, I have been having a fantastic holiday break (without the break part).

1. Last weekend I went up to East Canyon State Park and stayed overnight in a yurt. Which was awesome and also very posh. Inside the yurt there was a fireplace and beds and electricity. So it was kind of like a hotel room in a yurt... without the bathroom. But the bathroom was only just outside. In the morning we went snowshoeing and wandered around the frozen lake in our snowshoes (not the best idea). I loved reconnecting with dear friends, talking about real things and remembering that there are people in the world that get you.

Inside the Yurt. So so cozy
2. I went sledding with Sam, Mallory, Ziggy and the rents. How beautiful it seems to live in a place where a sledding hill is just down the street from your house. My reality has shifted so much from even 3 years ago where we spent Christmas in our house in Arizona where we could eat dinner outside and watched snow falling on the television.

3. Working on Christmas. Didn't I just say I hated this? For about two months I have been worried about what Christmas morning would be like for families in the shelter and feeling like it was up to me to make sure that the residents would forget that they were homeless, if only for this one day. There was a lot of joy that morning and I am so relieved and excited that the morning and evening was a success and even more that I could be a part of it. And glad that it is over.

4. Being with my family has been pretty rockin. Today, Paul and I went snowboarding at Canyon's and it was majestic. Even though I got a bloody nose, there were worse things that could have happened.

Stayed tuned for Obsessions of 2009... it's going to be epic

Stuffing and family pictures

2009-12-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was awesome, awesome, awesome. My family finally took new family pictures. I am not hesitant to show off pictures of my gorgeous family but my mom is freaked out that they are going to be used on faulty weight loss ads and then our pictures will be on at least 100 hundred different web pages. So if you plan on doing that, maybe choose a different family.
My sister and I discovered that we dyed out hair the same exact color. Which makes us look like twins... or just sisters. The boy standing next to her in the brown is my soon to be brother-in-law, Zach. He is hip, well read, and dresses like Will from Glee which makes him nothing like us, but we welcome him and his matching socks!
This picture is the best. My dad, brothers and Zach frolicking in the field with Ziggy soaring through the grass. Sam looks interesting, doesn't he? My question is... what kind of company could use this picture for an ad?

Peace out

FACT

2009-11-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

I am hesitant to share my opinion because I know that I am offending a lot of my friends. But one day we will have to wake up and face the music.

Happy Birthday Sam!

2009-11-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

My parent left town and left me to be the guardian and care taker of my dog. He is cute flat faced pug but also very needy. He has to be touching a person at all times. Rarely does my mood every match his. It's weird, it's like I am never in the mood to run around the house like a crazy person. Where has all my energy gone? Sometimes, I look at the my little kid friends and become jealous of their stamina. The other day, Kaliegh ran circles around me for ten minutes saying, 'can we do it now, can we do it now...' How can she do it that? I want that!

Today is Sam's birthday! He is 26 years old! What what! When he got back from his mission, he started school at BYU. We practically started at the same time. And for awhile, before my parents made the exodus to the lovely deseret, he was all I had. It seemed like, as the youngest child, I was always wanting to grow up so that my siblings could see me as a competent, intelligent peer. Finally, I had been given this chance to prove to Sam that I was just like him. Once i got over this complex of mine, I learned to appreciate everything that Sam was and is and I enjoyed so much, watching him grow up and find the woman of his dreams. And while I am happy for him that he has a job and lives in Oregon with Lizzy-baby, I miss him and wish he were here to laugh with and give me advice. Is this public enough? Happy Birhday big brother!

Karaoke 24/7

2009-10-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

My coworkers take a very liberal amount of smoking breaks and i feel myself being left out. It's like that episode of The Office where Dwight moves the water fountain-thing to his desk so he could hear the work gossip. But I was thinking that if my coworkers took karaoke breaks instead, I would join them. But alas, they didn't think I was serious. Maybe in the next life or maybe in Japan.

Today, my Dad showed me the stun gun he bought me. He is afraid for the safety of his youngest daughter. The streets of Salt Lake can be a beast. Look out world. I have a stun gun

Stardom

2009-10-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

My friend, Ramita, brought the dvd of my Nepali commercial to america.

Here it is.... the moment you have been waiting for...

Just stop and shake it up

2009-10-07T21:43:00.001-07:00

A week ago, I sang karaoke for an hour and a half by myself. I need to make myself perfectly clear when i say I love karaoke.

I can do things for myself and by myself. I can go to the store by myself and I can take my lunch breaks by myself. Last night, I went to a Blitzen Trapper concert all by my lonesome. It wasn't the first time. When I was sixteen I went to the Fiesta Mall to watch Avril Lavigne. There. I did it. Skeleton out of the closet. The thing is... I really needed to see Blitzen Trapper and I was sure I could get someone to go with me, but that didn't happen. I work like a block away from the venue and i got off of work just as the concert was starting. All the cards were in place. So I went. And Blitzen Trapper was amazing. Once they hit the stage it didn't matter that I was alone because there was this incredible amount of energy that wrapped me into the music and the perfromance.

Ridin Dirty

2009-10-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

So I have been more than a little obsessed with Heroes for the past two months. Just two weeks ago there was the season premiere and I was all confused. But than I remembered that they do this to me every season premiere, they start somewhere in the future and work back. But this was too out of wack. So i did some digging and discovered that my season three was missing ten episodes! TEN EPISODES! what the? But with the help of my friend Chaela, I am rectifying that situation and am well on my way to being caught up.

SAVE THE CHEERLEADER, SAVE THE WORLD!

But today, I got a job. I am now the volunteer coordinator at The Road Home's Emergency Winter Homeless Shelter. So I am your hook up to volunteering. I can even begin to tell you how lucky and blessed I feel. Two months of waiting and watching heroes and my first professional job has finally come! I am ecstatic.

Also, to top of the day I bought a car. I am now a proud owner of a 2000 dodge stratus. Some of you who know me may be shocked because I have expressed my wishes on never owning a car. I thought this day wouldn't come until I had at least four kids, but curse Utah and it's fault transport system. But now I have a car. My first car. And I bought it. With my own money. Eat that.
Now for a name. I am taking suggestions...

Deep Breaths

2009-09-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

I am having an identity crisis. This is the first September since I was three that I haven't been enrolled in school. I am ready for it. I am so ready to not be a student anymore. And as I sit all day in my bedroom watching old shows of Veronica Mars, I realize my only friends are the little girls on the street. Lauren is my bestie because she is only four and doesn't have to go to school. Lauren, Ziggy (the pug) and I sit on the front step talking about dum dums and imaginary boyfriends. It is during these times that I miss my former life, the life I was so ready to leave behind. I had defined myself by my activities and networks and classes. By my last year at BYU, I was a known person. Provo was fun and exciting and I had friends. And now I trade it for my parent's basement in highland utah. But of course,
it's only temporary...
I'm in transition...
i'm trying to figure somethings out
But do you want to know the truth? I can't find a job. In my defense, in this past month I have been to Lake Powell, San Fransisco, Boston and Portland. Yet, I struggle with detaching my identity from my occupation. Which at the moment consists of rereading Ella Enchanted and indexing. But this was to be expected

Fishin'

2009-08-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

I love fishing. There is magic in fishing. I love how there is no real tactic, you just throw your line in and putt putt around the lake. There is no competition or stealth, just patience. I have anxiety when it comes to sports or games that take a lot of skill, like wakeboarding. I'll do it because I'm on the boat but it hurts to try to do cool things and it's not part of my genetic makeup to case the knuckle while clearing it (what?). I can do fishing. I am down with that.
This is literally the one that got away, but I have proof! The chain we attached him to was faulty. I hope he lives a good life.
action shot of my dad catching a feisty one.

I heart Nepal

2009-08-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

The picture below is of the bagmati river in kathmandu. When my family lived in Hong Kong, we went to Nepal for a ten day vacation. We hiked the himalayas and then came to Kathmandu to do some site seeing. I remember very little about the site seeing but this river is seered into my memory. It is on these ghats that cremations are performed for the dead. My pre-teen self had never been that close to death and at this river it stares you in the face and seaps into your pours. With that in my memory, I finally visited the the river again. It was still eerie and abrasive, and the scenes of death rites were almost sublime in their rawness. Yet, there is something so captivating, I could avert my eyes from these dead bodies and their morning family. It is almost like trashy tv, where you know you shouldn't be this interest in watching but what are these people going to do next? (i loved myself some My Super Sweet 16).

And with that, I miss Nepal. I miss the raw intensity of living. I miss the struggle. Since being back, I haven't felt nasesua once. What is that?
Courtney and I are feeding twinsy baby elephant. CUTE!
I was trying to scare away the dog with my umbrella. it did not work.
I met my parents in Singapore on my way back, talk about a culture shock. And then the day after I got back i went to Lake Powell, so I only count myself for being back in the states for about a day. I need a job...

My sister Kali is engaged.

Life on the big screens

2009-07-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have experiences that let you know your alive. Earlier this week I starred in a Nepali commercial for tire sealant. I wore more make up than I have ever worn in my life and I learned how to ride a scooter. I tossed my hair, looked into the camera and sang (yes, it was a jingle) "you'll never stop." They needed a white face to endorse their American product and i was more than happy to play the part.

Courtney has joined me in Nepal for my last week. It has been good to have her here and see her experience Nepal for the first time. I almost remember what it was like for me. I remember the time I saw what was to be my bathroom and how I went up to my room and cried because the the spider webs above the toilet and the stagnant water looked insurmountable. Oh to be naive and full of fear.

For the past few days Courtney, Jeff and I went to the National Park in the sourthen part of Nepal. We spent two days river rafting, riding elephants, canoeing and playing cards. I saw rhinos, wild elephants, friendly wild boars (bill the boar jumped in the river to follow us, he loved us so much), bambi and friends, and peacocks. My favorite part was the part I got to bathe with the elephants. If the Nepali people wanted me to be in another commericial where bathing with elephants were envolved, like you know for elephant soap, I would.

I'm gonna free fall, out into nothin

2009-07-18T01:50:00.000-07:00

So I jumped off a bridge. The man said come here and then put a harness on me. Then he was like, 'oh yeah, just go under rope.' before I know it, i am on the edge of a platform that is is 160m (roughly 524 ft) above a rushing river. Then he said, 'ok, your going jump one. two. three.' And then i did, just because he counted. Well I feel for 7 seconds and then the rope swung me. You see, it is the world's highest canyon swing. so it much like bungy jumping but different.
After this small conquering of fears, i went repelling down waterfalls in the middle of Himalayas!

Then when I was back in Kathmandu I rocked the local karaoke night at the local bar with some "Ironic" by Alanis. That was probably one of the best days in Nepal. Also, a mysterious stranger bought me a drink (a mocktail) because of my amazing karaoke skills and that has never happened to me. You see, we don't have very many bars in Provo, so mysterious strangers haven't had much of a chance. And let me tell you one other thing, I love karaoke. It may be up there with my passion for baby goats.

I leave Nepal in just over one week and I have a twelve hour layover in Tokyo during the middle of days. I open for any and all recommendations for how to spend those twelve hours, even if you are the mysterious stranger that reads my blog in India (i love google analytics).

Food for thought

2009-07-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

Today I had some masala dosai with chutney. It made my heart warm to think of south india and to be able to eat the food! I submit that there is no better food in the world than south Indian food. Even Nepali dal bhat does not rival. I sat across the table from a korean girl that had just come to Nepal a few days ago from India which she says was hot. She has done a fair amount of traveling. She has definately out traveled me in terms of the number of countries. I talked about India with such excitement she asked me I loved it so much. And here is my travel advice that isn't worth much. Most peolpe can come to Nepal for a week and have a splendid time. Nepal and India can decieve you, and you may think the two must be very similar. If you go to India for a week you will hate it. There is so much about India and one needs to explore and discover. I know no other land and people like it. I may not be a good judge because I have only been to 17 countries out of 270 countries.

But India isn't calling be just yet, but the memory of it gets sweeter and sweeter with distance.

I already miss these friends and they are only four hours away!

Baby Goats In Nepal

2009-07-10T03:45:00.000-07:00

There are two very important things that I must mention:

1. Mariah Carey's "always be my baby" should never be remade or performed as a cover. Not only can you not compete but the only reason that song is good is because Mariah sings it.

2. Baby goats are adorable. In many instances they seem more cute than human babies.

I have been in Nepal for less than two months. I have been working with two different organizations. For one, I am assisting in their efforts to strength these youth telecenters. These are basically techonology centers that are run by youth but also serve a purpose in helping their community. Some are called Youth Managed Resource Center (YMRC). I just got back from going to two rural villages set outside of Gorkha. I hiked to these villages with three other friends, one being my translator and the other two representing Gorkha's YMRC. The hike was only four hours and I have heard of others that have to hike for two days, but I was always asking myself why anyone would live this far away. For the highschoolers to go to school they have to walk up a mountain both ways. Did you know that 85% of Nepal lives in the rural area of Nepal? So the hiking was a little difficult for me. I will admit that the last time I went hiking was the summer of 07. But I was wearing my chaco, shoes especially designed for exactly what I was doing. And here my Nepali friend were wearing cheap flip flops. On the way to Maskichap I feel four times! They just told me it was not my habit to walk in such a way. But even the last time i went hiking in 07 i fell all the time, and so I tried to convince them that it was just because of me that i kept falling not because i was American but that seemed too hard to believe.

For some reason it is always a big hit when I start to dance. Here is me dancing at a wedding that was just down the street. Yikes!

I went to the year 2066, not much has changed but they live underwater

2009-06-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

This blog goes out to my gal pal Cassi. She is out in the Pennsylvanian woods teaching young impressionable minds how to make rad books and how to transform large t-shirts into funky tops. She claims to always say 'we live in the future.' Her phrase continued to come to me as i would ask other nepalis when such and such happened and they would say 2064, or 2060. Currently, in the nepali calendar it is 2066 and i am becoming increasingly more convinced that we live in the future.

I just spent 4 days with youth leaders from around Nepal. These are leaders that work with technology centers, trying to help the community through technology. Youth is a very loose term and basically means anyone still relying on their parents so some of the youth were 28 and one was even 45. We had a good time talking about social capital and teaching others about facebook, blogs and wikis. I think even I don't realize how much technology impacts my life.

shout out to anyone who knows the origin of my blogpost title

Mero naam

2009-06-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

These kids are sooo cute. They stole the welcome tikka and put it on themselves!

So I received a Nepali name a couple of weeks ago and it is my favorite trick. I guess people don't expect me to know Nepali and I know close to nothing, but i can say my name is Fulmaya (love flower) and I am from Gorkha.
I know some people are wondering what I am doing in Nepal because before i had no answer and right now I am not ready to answer. It has been hard to be alone but I am growing and as my parents told me when I was younger, it is character building experience.

A Nepali Swagat

2009-06-07T02:30:00.000-07:00

In Gokha, I have been going to small villages a couple of hours away on foot. It is exciting to be trekking along the Himalayas with other Nepalis and talking about traditions. And I can’t help comparing all my experiences here with India. And in this time India is a sweet memory.

My purpose in these villages is still somewhat puzzling, but learning more about development than I could in a classroom. Twice I have been welcomed in to the village with a traditional Nepalese welcome, which includes flowers and pink powder that is smeared on my face by the women.

Today, I got attacked by a beggar. She urgently wanted money from only one person in the crowd and that lucky person was me. When at first I didn’t give way she began to push and punch and moan. I shielded myself with a group of people but she was determined. I then went inside a bus and sat down and she stretched herself across two people to jab me in the arm, several times. But before I was sad that I couldn’t give her money and then I became just as stubborn as she. My friends mother gave me two rupees to give to her, but she threw it back at me. She then changed gears and walked around the bus. She found herself a rock and threw it inside the bus through the open window. She was trying to kill me! Even when the window was closed she still continued to throw the rocks. And even when the bus began to drive away she chased after it!

picture next time?

I missed call you

2009-06-07T02:14:00.000-07:00

There is a phenomenon among the people here that has to do with cell phones. I don’t doubt that some of you are familiar with this phenomenon. It is the missed call. Here in south east asia, most phones are pay-as-you-go. So when a young person’s balance is low, instead of calling their friend, they call let it ring one time and then hang up. They tell me that the friend is supposed to call back and they can chat, because it doesn’t cost any to receive a call. But most likely the friend also has a low balance. So they just miss call each other all day long. I ask them why they don’t just message each other, thinking that is what young people do so avidly in the United States but that also requires balance. So if you get a missed call from me, I was thinking about you…

The youth center here holding a program for high school students to come and compete. Luxmi was explaining this to me, saying it was a chase program. I asked her what chase was. She was so shocked and tried to explain to me that it was a computer game and you competed, but that was as far as her limited English would let her go. The next day in the office I inquired further to the nature of chase. The next clue I got was that there was elephants, and a prime minister and a princess. Mario? What the heck? So finally Pren took me upstairs to show me the game on the computer. Can you guess what common household game this was? Chess.

2009-05-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

I wish I could truly give these mountains justice. I wish I could capture with my camera the supreme beauty of the Himalayas. Everytime I look up there are the mountains,so close to me and i stop to thank God for his marvelous creation, this earth.

For the past five days I have been with Ramita and Brittany running around Kathmandu Valley like we owned the place. I had the opportunity to spend today in a village called Sankhu with four very dynamic and innovative young adults. Part of my stay in Nepal is dedicated to supporting youth managed resource centers that are basically community technology centers run by the youth. These four young folk have been fighting against the elders of the community that want to shut them down and have shut them down in the past, but Sunni, Ramita, LP and David find ways to reopen and to continue to serve the community. They inspire me. But today they let share my knowledge about the english language, specifically the use of the word 'yet'. I may only know one language but I was able to use that skill to it's fullest, because later I edited content on a website and then taught an english course to eager fourth and fifth graders. Head, shoulders, knees and toes has never come so handy.

Tonight I got the best compliment, my host family told me that I eat just like a Nepali. You would thin eating with your hands was not a complicated matter, but there is a clear form and finally I have mastered it!

Anywhere you go in the world they know the movie Titanic

2009-05-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

I lost my birthday somewhere between los angeles and Tokyo. I boarded the plane at noon on the 19^th and arrived in Tokyo at four in the afternoon, the next day. My mind has been so preoccupied with the flight, I would have to continue to remind myself it was my birthday. I told the passenger next to me that it was my birthday. 22 seems so anticlimactic.

When we landed in Tokyo a herd of medical suit personal came on and questioned each person about their possible exposure to the pandemic commonly known as ‘swine flu’ or H1N1. Yes, I traveled to mexico, right into the heart of it all and I am fine!

I was in the Bangkok airport for eleven hours! AND btw Thai Airways is superior to all other airlines I have ever taken. Airplane food has never tasted so good. And they gave me a orchid boutiner as my parting gift. Who does that?

I was scared to land in Nepal. What if no one was there to pick me up? Do I really want to be doing this again? I looked out the window as the most majestic view. The Himalayas were in partial sight and I was breathless. Ten years ago I had gone trekking in Nepal with my family, I remembered the slaughted goats and the isolated tea shops, but I had forgotten these mountains. Accented with terraced rice patties and curvy roads, these mountains holds sublime qualities, they are so majestic in stature and poetic in beauty. Our plane touched the ground and I began to remember this sad little airport. It is so sad, it doesn’t even have a proper jet way and so dirty.

When I got out to the prepaid taxis and hotel salesman there was no one with my name card. Soon enough I had a flock of men trying to help me. I had to think fast. I got a prepaid taxi into the city, to a guest house that had been recommended to me. At this point, when I am in the taxi driving through the city, I am still asking myself if I really want to do this again. India was a hard place to be and isn’t Nepal going to be the same? But I smell the air, it is a mixture of burnt trash and marsala. I feel of rush of comfort come over and I am joyful. I excitedly talk to the man in the passenger seat who is trying to sell me a trekking package. He drops his pitch and we talk about his home town, the place I will be staying for the next three months. The conversation reassures me.

Sometimes when I listen to Sigur Ros songs I make up my own lyrics

2009-05-12T17:40:00.000-07:00

I came to the recent discovery that I only have 4 GB left on my hard drive. In one summer I can take 4 GBs of pictures! My mother, for my birthday, got me a super cute and super small 500GB hard drive. Currently, I have 20 + GB of pictures and I can't seem to let them go over to external drive permanently. I love my pictures. And my external hard drive is easily accessible, but not as convenient. But clearly I have a hard time of letting things go, which is evident in the numerous boxes scattered in my bedroom in my parent's house. Who knows when I will need that cord that went to my camera that i don't have anymore? Someone, somewhere might need it!
So I wanted to share my pictures with the public, so you can partake of the love.
I'm sorry, but I was adorable when I was younger! That face!
AHHH! This is me in ninth grade. And even though this is painful to show to others, it is part of the healing process. BRACES+GROWING OUT BANGS+ CRUNCHY CURLS+NEW KID at SCHOOL= AWKWARD

And this is the boy that I had a crush on for so much of my high school, but it was unrequited. Also, I used to bake cakes! (what?) and I used to wear ribbons around my neck because i thought that was cool... not cool

This is Cameron. He was the first boy to ever hold my hand. We both had red hair! What more did I want? maybe a phone call
At one point in my life I used to be 'into' sports, specifically basketball (because boys also like basketball and I may or may have not been 15 years old and a bit boy crazy, in this picture i am at least 16) GO HAWKS! Since this picture, Amber and Stacie have both died (they got married).
This is my dear sister Mallory, during her second back surgery about four years ago. She is a really good and friendly person and it is hard to see her struggle. You rock, Mal!
This is during my freshmen summer with my awesome roommates Melodie and Chaela. We still rock and we still love each other. We are tan(ish) because that was the Summer of Love and no summer since will ever compare, and when it's the Summer of Love you get tan. Logical? of course

This was just last night. With Cassi and Louis, my good friends. Louis had missed his flight to Chile, so we saw Star Trek. I just need to say Spock is attractive (i feel weird saying that... rebecca, is that ok, will that compromise the assimilation tubules?) Used to be boy crazy? I don't think I have change much.

2009-05-07T00:06:00.000-07:00

Awhile a go a boy said to me, 'i have a one tract mind that splits into seven directions.' Since then, his part in my life has been recasted and I write him off as a learning experience. Still, I cannot figure out what that statement means.

Recently, I was blog stalking. For awhile I became obsessed with blogs of girls I had known in high school that were married and expecting or had a child. I watched as they upload pictures of their son eating his first plate of mashed potatoes or the pictures of the new crib she got at her bridal shower. My friends, Steve, was right about blogs. Blogs that have pictures of babies always get a million comments. But I wondering if this obsession is linked to my new fascination with birthing stories. After a successful surf on the web, I found this website, which contained this website that has stories, with pictures, about birth. So it's graphic, beware. I particularlly am drawn into the stories about birthing centers and homebirths. The birth of a person is supposed to be a beautfil process. (kirsten, the hospitalization of childbirth in the 1930s). But this all comes from a book I read called Our Babies, Ourselves. It is about the biological and cultural implications of babies and raising them. Check it our my friends.

yes, I currently reside at my parent's house

2009-04-26T09:12:00.000-07:00

I realized yesterday (the day after I graduated) that I can now say things like 'back when I was in college...' or 'in college I used to always...', and then someone quickly reminds me that I am currently living in my parent's basement.

also, Nalgene bottle are truly indestructible. except to hate

Location, location, location

2009-04-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

I know there was a lot of confusion in a previous post about the location of nepal. And after that incident and many other conversations, I started to question my ability to locate Nepal on a map. But the map below should clear up some questions...

View Larger Map

2009-04-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Ya'll are invited to my graduation par-tay at my rent's house in highland after commencement. I must say, I have been feeling a bit of an identity crisis. For eighteen years of my life I have been a student. As far as I can recall, my life has had a simple pattern: spend the summer playing/working/traveling and then when the fall comes around go back to school and try to balance a life of work, research, job, friends, clubs and hobbies. Now what? where do i go from here? how do I orient myself?

I thought of another letter i have been wanting to write:

Dear BYU,

For years I have been going to the Cougareat Courgar Express to bag my own candy. I have always seen the candy counter in the bookstore and seen the chocolate covered raisins for 2.99 a pound, and evertime I feel happy inside that the Courgar Express sells the raisins for 2.49 a pound. I believe i may be the only on campus that knows this discrepancy, and that gives me a sense of joy. You can imagine my feelings when I discovered the Courgar Express eliminated their candy station and subsequently the Candy Counter increased the price of chocolate covered raisins to 4.49 a pound. Are you kidding me? Where is the freaking justice? I'm done. If your going to have a monopololy on the market of chocolate covered raisins, then you are going to lose my business and my allegiance. So the Alumni Fund can stop calling me because we're through.

Goodbye,

Syd

Jk, from before

2009-04-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

Remember when I said I was going to Malaysia to visit the vast rain forest and take picture of water, while assisting a women's empowerment group? Well I was just kidding. I am actually going to Nepal. Which, don't tell other people, I think is more awesome than Malaysia and I don't really know why I think that.

Sam and I graduating. We have this tradition in our family to make picture graduation announcements. Sam started it when he graduated from highschool. He stood with his cap and gown in the desert. When Mallory and I graduated we emulated him in our cap and gowns with our token cactus behind us (sadly, I cannot find that picture but there is the picture of Mallory and i kissing my dad which is uber cute). Then Paul graduated from ASU and continued the tradition but with a more stylized approach. Recently, Sam and I took graduation photos together, but there was no desert or cactus to be found... anywhere! What is the deal? So hopefully these will do.

Mr. Timberlake, I present Sexy People

2009-03-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

This may be the the most profound blog I have every stumbled upon. It takes some scrolling to appreciate and I honestly think it is a generational thing. I shared this with some of my freshmen students. They didn't get it. I do hope you understand the beauty. This is a good taste if you don't have to the time to scroll.

Today I went to a workshop about social change. I feel, more than ever, that maybe I can actually do something worthwhile.

But what does it mean to 'change the world?'

Dear World,

Sometimes I tell myself that I am going to change you, because I do not like the current state you are in. You allow for women to be oppressed, children to be enslaved, and machines to trample on your skin, destroying the resources that allow us to live. I think it's time for you to take some accountability and think about your actions. Ready or not, here I come

Love,

Sydney

P.S. really? you couldn't have done something about the weather?

... I walk with my cap and gown in four weeks. Finally a college graduate. I would say to any reader of my blog is thinking about doing college, it's really hard. I wish I had cared more about my GPA (but i still don't), grad schools would like me more if I had cared, but i had a lot of really good experiences that they will hopefully care more about. My two friends, Trent and Chelsea are getting married (not to each other) in arizona in the beginning of may and I haven't been there for a year and half. That is the longest since my family moved there back in '89. I hope to see all of my old friends like Amber, Keith, Chelsea, Zac, Shauna, and I wish Stacie. Leaving Arizona to go to Utah is one thing, but leaving Utah to go wherever means real seperation. After their weddings, I am going to be a bridesmaid for Kirsten's wedding in Portland. It is after that that I will be embarking on my post-graduation adventures like going to Malaysia to intern with a woman's organization through ProLiteracy. I know, right? Malaysia! I would say more about what I am going to be doing, but I honestly don't know. But I do know that my blog will be exciting again with pictures of the rain forest and water (what?). And then after that it's still a suprise to me.

Beauty and Posters

2009-03-23T23:11:00.000-07:00

In case you were curious... a shout out to Chaela for her beautiful design

Hunger Feast 3000

2009-03-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

I just had one of the biggest weeks of the academic career. I presented in the Inquiry Conference this past Friday. At 2:20pm in the Kennedy Center I stood up in front of a few of my peers and some of my professors and finally confessed about what I had been doing in India. It was exhilarating. I had taken a year's worth of preparation with classes, field work and post-field write up. Finally, I was presenting my research in front of audience that wanted to hear. I am positive that when I was a freshman, and I thought of my future as a college student, presenting at a conference was not on the agenda. In fact, the place I am in now is so different than i could have ever imagined.
Just ten minutes after my presentation I ran over to the Wilkinson Center to start the set up of Hunger Banquet. I could go into elaborate detail about both nights but most of all I want to say that it was amazing, it was more better than I could have expected. I realize the word 'amazing' is over used. I mean the Hunger Banquet made me feel like I could do good in the world. It reaffirmed to me that there are sick and starving people, my brothers and sisters, all over the world. I can sit in a classroom or sit and read a book and listen over and over to the awful statistic that one sixth of the world only function of one dollar a day. I am not shocked, but I don't feel good inside. It is like this... if i choose to sit one more day while the injustice of poverty and genocide ravage the earth, i will be held accountable for my inability to act. The Hunger Banquet empowers me and gives me hope. The monies that were raised on the Hunger Banquet are going to be distributed to organizations that are most effective in effecting a change that really matter, giving others freedom.

Post HB, I feel relieve, I feel grateful, but most of all I feel hope.

This is what the ballroom looked like before...

This is what looked like when filled with people

These are all the beautiful people that made it happen, we could not have done it without them
These are the two people I have been privileged to work with for my duration as SID c0-president. I love them.

I have a best friend

2009-03-04T23:47:00.000-08:00

Her name is Chaela McDonald. She supports me in all of my doings. I think if each person could be a friend like her the world would be a better place. She is kind, thoughtful and truly concerned for me. We always have a good time. You should check her out at the Hunger Banquet this weekend. She will be the one eating something delicous looking like a tourist and probably stepping on you.

Shameless

2009-02-28T01:46:00.000-08:00

Last year, I became really involved with the Hunger Banquet at BYU. The Hunger Banquet is this two-night event that attempts to display real-world global wealth disparity using food. So each guest is randomly assigned an income level and then seated an feed according to that income level. 60% of the guests will be seated on floor sharing a plate of rice and beans with five other people, and then only 10% will be seated at a table eating a three course meal. Along with being served food, or not, there is entertainment and a keynote speaker. It is an evening that provides, for a moment, a oppurtunity for others to suspend their privelages that they were born with and be born into something new. Paradigm shift, if you allow it to be. And what is most amazing is that this event is completely student run! After the Hunger Banquet last year, I became co-president of the club that sponsors it, Students for International Development. For the greater part of this semester, I have been intensley working on this year's hunger banquet, and it is going to be bigger than ever. This means that we will raise more funds for organizations around the world that are attempting to address the issues of poverty and hunger. I really believe in this event. I believe that organizations, now, more than ever, need the support of really good people. So I am using my blog as a shameless promotion for the Hunger Banquet. If these reasons aren't incentive enough, I am master of ceremonies and it would mean so much to me if you came (assuming you live in the provo/salt lake area).
Details....
March 6th & 7th in the Wilk Ballroom
Tickets sold at Wilk Info Desk $7 or $6 with college level textbook (to donate).
please, please, please come, it will change you.

In other events....

I am presenting my summer research from India at the Inquiry Conference this Friday, March 6th (yes, same day as the Hunger Banquet, don't even worry about it) at about 2:20pm in 238 of the HRCB. If you can come, I would love to show you what I did over the summer.

Also, I went to Washington D.C. a couple of weekends ago to visit George Washington as potential grad school and loved it! can't you tell in this picture how excited i am?

I Believe that Love is the Answer

2009-02-05T22:45:00.000-08:00

NPR has this great segment called "This I Believe." It is basically a five minute program that features people saying what they believe. I think this one is particularly inspiring. It has tempted me to write my own 'I believe essay', which I did. If you don't have time to listen to the five minute audio clip, can I quote for you some things that this seven year old kid believes.

"I believe God is in everything.

I believe we're all equal.

I believe we can help people.

I believe everyone is weird in their own way...

I believe people should not give up.

I believe love is everywhere.

I believe that God helps us to have a good time...

I believe war should not have started.

I believe war should stop.

I believe we can make peace."

I have listened to this podcast a bunch of times and everytime I want to cry because the words are so beautiful. And when I am listening Tarak say his beliefs, I feel happy, I feel like the world is a vast canvas for innumberable amounts of good to be performed. I believe in happiness.

Reality Check

2009-02-02T14:16:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I went to the Sundance Film Festival with my peeps. It was my first time. The whole time we were jokingly acting like we had seen a celebrity. We went through dinner, a viewing of some short films and then hot chocolate and there were no celebrities to be seen. At the very last stop we saw, or rather I saw, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt. Sound familar? Not really. He's the boy off of Ten Things I Hate About You and the 3rd Rock From The Sun series. I recognized him and I actually felt a connection with him, because I had watched 10 things so many times. Heath Ledger, sigh, rest his soul. So after much encouraging from Philip and Briana, I mustered enough courage to go and talk to J G-L(shortened for convienince). I was so nervous. I walked up to him and interupted his conversation with his friends to say the following:

Syd: Hi, can I tell you a story?

J G-L: Sure

Syd: Ever since Heath Ledger died, rest his soul, my roommate and I have decided to quote Ten Things I Hate About You forever. So I just want to say I have been using your phrases for about a year and you are an inspiration.

J G-L: I'm Joe

Syd: I'm Sydney. Remember when you said "i'm back in the game..." yeah I say that one a lot. Can I take a picture with you?

J G-L: Sure

This the picture. The girl on the left is not a celebrity (although you may think so because she is wearing fur) she is my friend Briana
And then I tried to small talk but all I could talk about was movies he was in and it was so lame. He is a real person and so am I. And it's strange that I feel any sort of connection with him when all I know is his face and the persona he depicts on screen and from his jacket I can tell he supports Obama and that his hair is greasy but what does that say about a person? I only felt nervous because I had glorified him as a celebrity. What are celebrities? Why do they have any sort of prestige?

All you soul searching people

2009-01-12T17:55:00.000-08:00

This is a list of my least favorite things
1. Plucking my eyebrows. come on. really? I hate it. Did a man come up with this sort of enforced beauty, I don't doubt it
2. When people, mostly my dad, walk through my pile from sweeping
3. When I overestimate the size of a Tupperware as seen in the picture below

Here are is a list of some of my most favorite things
1. Soldier's Hollow. It is this tubing place outside of Provo that is incredible. There is rope tow and tubing runs, its the perfect formula for a perfect evening. This is a picture of my roommates and me on Friday night.
2. Using acronyms in everyday language and NOT in text messaging. I think it started out as a way of mocking text language but know it has just become a fun way to communicate. There is a poster I found in the local Wal-Mart trying to educate young, influential customers about the proper acronyms to use in text. Do you know what FYSBIGTBABN means? I dare you .3. BYUSA celebrities. The BYUSA is the student body 'government' for BYU. Let's be honest, the whole thing is a bit ridiculous. And sometimes the presidency kind of walks around like they own the place because Cecil O. Samuelson knows their name and they get to sit on the stand during devotionals every week, but really they will never be able to add an extra entrance to the library or even talk about parking. Perhaps all they will be able to do is offer students free hot chocolate and, on a good day, a free hot dog. Despite all of this, Adam, the president, is from New Zealand and he did come to my Classy Christmas Party and he did try to kiss me... so that's worthy of liking.

My Western Point of View

2008-12-28T17:22:00.000-08:00

I have been grading a lot of papers lately. I am sure I am not allowed to directly quote some of these students, so I won't, I will just paraphrase. I am a TA for the Anthropology 101 class at BYU. For their final paper they were asked to write a five page essay about three universal aspects common to all human beings and then the second paper is about three differences that societies have. These are anything but exciting. Such a prompt allows some students to make really grandiose statements about the world, such as 'every person is different but some how we are all the same.' or 'Over the span of the entire world, people are constantly asking themselves 'who am i? where am i going?' I think these students are really bright, its just this prompt asked for some grand statement based on their limited knowledge of the world's culture and due to the class readings, mostly isolated tribes in Africa. With this they have to write a paper about 'universals' (I even struggle to answer these questions, mostly the first one).

In these papers, the argument of the west vs. them keeps coming up. It is referred to as 'our western civilization' or 'western culture.' I admit, I make this argument all the time. But is seems post-modernism has gotten a hold of my thought process and I find myself questioning if I even know what "the west" really means? And then I ask myself if I have the authority to put the entire culture of 'the west' in a box like that. When I was in India, I traveled with a girl that had Mexican heritage but was American. People were constantly asking her if she was Indian. Over and over again she would say she was American but some would assert she must have Indian blood, she would then say her parents were American. I remember visiting a school in New Dehli. On a whim, someone asked me to teach a short lesson about America. I got lot of questions about my skin color. I remember saying, like I had so many times before, that America was made up people of all colors and many nationalities, we were not all the same.

And sometimes when I think about the "West" I think of this thing my friend Matt
shared with me

A Sigh of Relief

2008-12-18T17:04:00.001-08:00

Today, I finished my thesis.

No big deal, right? WRONG! I feel like celebrating, like going on some grand adventure, or even better listening to some really great music. I have taken 15 hours worth of classes in preparation for this paper, and when I put it that way, the thesis doesn't seem as grand. Its about 20 pages but it full of the data I collected, not some scholar or historian that sits in his office and reads books, or some quanatitative researchers collecting numbers and finding a pattern. I went out in the 'field' and asked women how they really felt and I put it on paper. Eat that.

To celebrate, I am listening to I'd rather than dance to talk to you. It makes me want to boogie.

In the process of preparing for my thesis I found some treasures, pictures of India

I got a feeling 21 is gonna be a good year

2008-11-22T15:08:00.000-08:00

It was my half-birthday on Wednesday. I am now, officially, 21 going on 22. Yes! Wahoooo!

Today I went to a baby shower for a girl I was good friends with in high school. She sat on the couch next to another common friend who was married and next to her was a friend who had a thirteen month old baby. I sat amongst friends, there were seven highschool friends including me. Five are married, one is almost engaged, two have children and one is pregnant. Did I tell you how old I am? I am only twenty one. I am too young to go to baby showers where I am the only single female.

I just heard Neil Young's full length album from his live concert in 1965, or something, and it was amazing. "You can't be twenty on sugar mountain, though your thinking that your leaving there too soon." Perhaps this baby shower was my way of being escorted off sugar mountain. But am I ready to leave?

This is from an awesome site called wordle.net

I <3 Music

2008-11-22T09:33:00.000-08:00

I have often compared my passion to music to worshiping a false god. I don't, but if I did and if I ever have come close to worshiping any sort of idol it has probably been music.

You know the type of music that you feel instantly. I feel it all. Like "Your Ex Lover is Dead" by Stars. So delicious. Or even better are the songs that take a while to like and then once you like it is like 'in' you. Hook, line and sinker. The song "Jigsaw Falling into Place" by Radiohead is one of those songs for me.

So, if you have any musical suggestions you think I might be interested in, send them my way. I also think that James Mercer is attractive. Done

I like you too much after too little time

2008-10-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Friends
This first picture is me. I colored my hair. It looks pretty rad. I wish you could see in this picture that black that is hidden in the back. My hair is getting super long (comparatively). I am thinking that I will wait until the summer to cut it short again. I did take this picture myself so it does have a 'myspace' feel to it.

In other news, I bought new shoes. My chacos are just not cutting the mustard. Utah is cold and therefore I need shoes that will protect my feet from the cold. The shoes I bought do not fulfill that function. I mean they will be good when it is not raining or snowing, but its utah so there will be snow. But after doing some research, I really wanted these shoes. Have you ever heard of Toms Shoes? Well, for every pair purchased, TOMS will give a pair to a child in need. So... thats cool. Although, it sounds great, is it? Who are they giving these shoes to? Well it said the last shoe drop was in South Africa and Argentina. Is that just relief? And is is justified or is it creating a dependcy on something that can not always be provided. Are they putting local shoe companies out of work? AND, they were made in China and not that China products are faulty but how are they insuring that the laborers are being paid competitive wages and the workings conditions are humane? That is what I spend my days thinking about.

In other news, I may go to Cambridge (that is in england) this summer and then go to India to do an internship. I am unsure about the exact plans.

Last week, I went to a Mountain Goats concert AND a Fleet Foxes concert, AMAZING.

Life in Wonderland

2008-10-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

Oh Hey.

I haven't been writing in my blog because
A. I am no longer in India
B. My live does not seem exotic
C. I am busy (when has that not been an excuse)

Here is an update on my life, thus far...

I am living in Provo for my last seven months at BYU. I have enjoyed my time at BYU immensely. It has been quite a journey. I go through phases where I can't decide if I like it or not. But I have come to the consensus that I am a better person because of it and I am different. I finally found a niche in school that seems to suit me. I have finally become involved with my professors. They are not as scary as I always thought. I am co-president of Students for International Development. Here I learn about awesome people and awesome experiences. I am slightly jealous of all the people that will be staying for the next couple of years, there are so many incredible experiences to partake in.

I graduate in April and am trying to find a path. Teach for America is out of the running, they told me I wasn't good enough. I am thinking about doing a teaching fellows with NYC or Chicago, but I am also looking into an internship with a NGO in India. But, there is always the Peace Corps.

On to other news... my FHE group made a massive fort in my living room. There is a picture
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256006571076148722" />

And then these are my favorite cousins that I visited in California

alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5256006579241046594" />

So I guess my life is going pretty well

Stepping Off the Plane

2008-08-27T23:06:00.000-07:00

I arrived back in the United States on Sunday. I was looking forward to the journey home for some time now. I was sick of living out a backpack and I wanted to feel like a part of a community again. The members of my program definitely fulfilled some of the need to be a part of a community.

I miss them.

The little blonde haired girl in the photo below is Megan Campbell. Her parents brought her to India when she was just 18 months old. They were crazy, and I think they would agree. But she made the whole experience a lot more interesting and often times more fun. In that picture she is downing chocolate. To her, I hope I will forever be remembered as 'baby Sydney' or 'Sydney fingers,' or 'Sydney Color!'

I think I could last in India if I had a bit of space to make a routine. What can I say, I am a creature of habit. While traveling, I felt like I was in a stage of limbo. I was always traveling, 'sightseeing', trying to understand the 'true India,' when most of the time it felt like i was seeing what foreign tourist had altered India to be. In the village, I lived among people and although I still had to fight to be treated as an equal, the people let me live like a member of their community, with some exceptions. Since leaving the village I have had to fight a lot more to be treated like I expect to treated, which is cultural. It is one of those things I can't leave behind.

I hope I have come back slightly altered. I have a different perception of the world. Currently, I compare every thing to India, and I know that can get a bit annoying. I have come back tired. I may even be a little 'traveled out.' I know, me, a Lambson, traveled out, how could it be? Just give me a month or two and I will be itching for the chance to leave again.

So, thanks to everyone for reading my stories of India. It really was a grand adventure. Before I left, a woman told me, after finding out about my trip, "You really are lucky, there is not going to be another time when are able to do something like this." I told her then "I certainly hope that's not true." I have thought about her comment a lot. Listen, this really is the most 'convenient' time of my life, I am young, not married, I don't have a job and no real home, this is prime time. But I'm not about to die, I have my whole life ahead of me. You do too. Getting married, having kids, getting a job, doesn't equal death. If we have dreams, shouldn't we follow them? Within reason, right? Look at my Mom, she is almost fifty and she is traveling to every country and roughing it as if she were twenty. Don't let moderation and disillusionment slow you down. There are things to do, people to meet, languages to learn.

Everyday we got to keep on rockin' in the free world

Pictures!

2008-08-27T22:48:00.001-07:00

2008-08-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

My program has finally finished. I watched all my friends leave for the airport with over stuffed packs, filled with ethnic clothing, Ganesha shrines and memories. They were going home, after a hard three and a half months. I gave each a hug and watched them ride to the airport where a plane would sweep them to their beds, their homes, their lives and their mothers. I choked up with jealousy. Only one more week. What could be the damage? Its not so terrible, not at all really. On Thursday, my mother, in her usual way of doing things, came to spend a week with me in India. In her words, 'who knows when I will have another child in India to come visit.' I have been so excited to see her. The day she came in we spent the day in Dehli but that night we were going to take an overnight bus to Rishikesh. This small Hindu pilgrimage site is set on the banks of the ganga against the foothills of the Himalayas, It is well known for being the world capital of Yoga. I thought this might act as the perfect place for my mother to see a softer side of India besides hard core Dehli and it would be a good place for myself to rest and catch up on some work.
I decided I would try to make this three day trip from Dehli easier than most of my travels in India. For most of my time in India I have arranged my own travel and that travel is mostly local, state run transport. It is very cheap but you pay in other ways, do you all remember my story about the 45 hour train ride? I thought my mom deserved better so I stooped to let a travel agency book my mother and I on a 'luxury' bus, one with a/c and reclining chairs. I think my definition of ‘luxury’ is different than my travel agents.
We arrived at eight sharp, just like my travel agent said because the bus was going to leave at eight-thirty from this location. We sit inside for an hour when finally we are sent on a cycle rick-shaw, with all of our stuff, to the bus stop. I am a little ticked off because he said the bus was coming here and we were already an hour later than planned. So my mother and I pile on this cycle rickshaw. I am embarrassed. Could there be anything more neo-colonyist? My butt is more than half way off the seat and I am keeping my self on by using all my leg muscle to stay on. Our travel agent told the rickshaw peddler where we were going and told us that we were going to go meet the bus. We started down one street but were stopped by the police. The police man turned to us and asked where we were going 'the bus stop, we are going to our bus,' 'Do you know where it is you are going?' 'Yes, the bus, we are going to Rishikesh,' After He had asked my mother twice he turned to me and asked the same and i answered the same. He finally said "oh, do you guys not speak english?' I was shocked. I raised my voice, slightly, 'we are SPEAKING ENGLISH!' 'Ok, where are you going?' 'to the bus.' He told us we needed to know the exact location otherwise the peddler would take us to a foreign place and demand money. Even if we did know the location we wouldn't know what it looked like. The officer would not let us pass until we knew where we were going. Our peddler decided to bypass the government and off-roaded a bit to get the street the government had so loosely guarded. We arrived at our bus stop with no bus and 15 other people waiting for the same bus. They said wait until nine-forty five. Finally around ten-thirty we boarded an alternate bus that would take us to our real bus.
Twenty minutes later we board out actual bus. It is so far from luxury. The seats are crampt and there is definitely no ac. Around eleven we are all seated. A group of Koreans are forced to sit in the front of the bus with the driver where their are benches instead of seats. They are not happy and demand a refund. There is stand-off between the koreans and the bus conductor for an hour. Eventually… eventually, they reach a compromise, and around twelve we begin what we should have started three and a half hours ago. It is supposed to only take eight hours and so eight am was the new ETA. Meanwhile, my mother is in shock. She already thinks i have started to take her on this crazy journey. For me.. so far nothing seems out of place, a bit typical for our situation and our location. India was going to have to throw a curved ball in order to shock me. Bring it. Oh and she did, she certainly did.
Immediately after we left our gas station our bus would stop to pick up people to take to local destination. They would stand for the duration and get off. This practice was not legit. They did to pocket some extra money. It was 2 am and Dehli was glowing with activity. So many people were walking around and shops were open. We were stuck in stand-still traffic at one in the morning. I started to wonder when this city sleeps. I was dreadfully tired, the night before i had stayed up talking to my mother, catching up on months of silence from one another. I sat in my chair awfully tired and jerking every thirty seconds from the bus creeping in the traffic. Around that time the bed bugs appeared. i don't know if that is would really are but you can't see them and they make your exposed skin itch like crazy. I had the same thing happen a couple of time previous. That was awful. As I scratched fervently at my arm, I saw my mother do the same. I meant for it to be easy for her.
Around five we stopped because the radiator had gone. We sat there for about forty minutes. The crew decided to keep going but every thirty minutes we stopped to put two buckets of water in the radiator.
Around six we stop for our half-way point rest. Here, my mother told me I was the craziest out of her children and what sort of journey had i brought her on. I forget how rough India can be on a person.
The last event is the one that topped the beautiful cake made of corruption and greed. An hour outside of the final destination, our bus driver decides that he doesn't want to go so he stops. After four hours of driving on a broken bus he won't go one more hour to go the place we had paid him to go. Luckily, we had a European who spoke fluent English, Hindi and Japanese. The bus driver would not give in. If we wanted to go to Rishikesh we had to pay for our own rickshaw there. NO WAY! We called our travel agents, we pulled out all the stops. We were going down with a fight. The driver had us go into rickshaws. Since there were like sixteen of us, there were like three rickshaws. after we all had put our luggage in the rickshaw, the driver decided he was losing money and asked us all to get on the bus. Fourteen hour later from our starting time we were checking into a hotel.

I Stand For Tibet

2008-08-07T05:18:00.000-07:00

I attended this candlelight march tonight in Dharmsala, a Tibetan settlement of the Dalai Lama. It is a beautiful town set in the foothills of the Himalayas. Among the landscape are prayer flags draped across the mountain ending at monasteries built into the mountains. The streets that curve up the mountain side are lined with tea shops, book stores, and kasmiri goods. With Tibetan refugees outnumbering Indian residents it makes for a completely different feel than any other city I have visited while in India. In this backdrop I joined Tibetan monks, Tibetan refugees and other foreigners. I walked with candle in hand along the one way streets all the way to the temple where earlier that day i had seen the Dalai Lama and heard his teachings. in the temple grounds we sat, segregated. On the far right side sat the monks and the nuns with shaven heads adorned in robes of maroon and gold. They were the face of the tibetan resistance. in the middle were Tibetan families and to the other side were the foreign tourists. I wonder if most of them joined the march for the same reasons i did. I had just come out of dinner and saw there was some sort of rally forming. I went to go see and i was told I could join the march . I took a candle and joined the crowd. In my head I was thinking, this is pretty rad, two days before the Olympics and I am with a bunch of Tibetans protesting and asking for human rights. No one could top this story. I am an advocate for human rights, I'll join. They made the foriegn tourists go behind the monks and then the tibetans could follow. I hated that, I hated having being divided when it would have felt more comfortable to be among the other tibetans, the one's were fighting for. I think the committee was really excited to have international people involved.
But we sat as the youth, mostly young adults, talked with great passion about their homeland, human rights and China. One of the speakers addressed us in English. He told us of the many human rights violations. Time had come, Tibet would not be ignored. Free Tibet! They went on to show an hour long documentary about the uprising that happened in the former Tibet in spring 2008. The documentary was mostly in Tibetan but a man assured us, via the microphone, that he would show the english version for all the non-tibetans. The documentary displayed Chinese guards cracking down day after day on peaceful, or what looked like peaceful, protests that were supported by the Tibetan monks. It was moving and convincing. Where was I when this was happening? How did I not know about it? This candlelight march was in memory for all those that had lost their lives in Spring Uprising of 2008, most of them monks.
At the end of the documentary there were only five tourist left. There were about fifty at the beginning. Which leads me to believe that the tourists weren't very passionate about the cause but maybe thought it would be a cool story. One of the organizers approached me and said it looks as if there are not enough non-Tibetans to show the english version. He invited me to come by his office to get the documentary for free. I am going to come by so that I can talk him more, because I don't know enough. I would love to hear his story, how did he end up displaced from Tibet? Tomorrow there is march to lower Dharmsala, it is to protest the Beijing Olympics, which I am all about, but I think I am going to skip it. I need to rest for a minute, gather thoughts about protesting and write.
First of all, I feel silly being among the white people that protest. The is the Tibetan's cause and I feel I would be most effective supporting them in my own country where their voices are muted. Sometimes I kick myself for my apathy, where are my causes? I don't need to be passionate about everything but don't i need to passionate about something, stand up for something. I think it is a shame to come from a culture that is extremely moderate.

Varanasi, The City of Light

2008-07-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

I realize that my thoughts on this city could go on for a long time, so i decided to condense to make it more reader friendly and to take out parts that would scare my mother...

The 45 Hour Train Ride
On Tuesday, the 17th of July, I arrived in Mughal Sarai, after a 45 hours train journey across India. It is not like it was a miserable train ride, it wasn't. The people I sat next to and across from were nice and we had a really great time playing cards with them all day long. And I realize that I was paying 25 dollars to go across the sub-continent and that was pretty amazing. And I realize that I wasn't seeing the sugar coated India I would have seen had I decided to travel via a/c. I did live in a village for the past two months, I know how to 'rough it.' This train itself was dirty. I am so thankful for the clorox wipes my mother sent me. The first thing I did was disinfect my bed, which was also the seat we used doing the daytime. I have been in India for about two and a half months, so I understand how instensely dirty India could be. But before I could control my space. I had the remarkable ability hold my bathroom breaks for nice bathrooms (my definition for 'nice' is used rather loosely here), sometimes I could go all day. I had no choice but to use the train's bathroom. Meanwhile, the baby across the way would just pee and then his parents would wipe it up, over and over again. Sometimes it would take a while for them to realize that their son had peed on the floor. I would watch as the stream on urine got closer and closer to my bag of stuff. Luckily, they caught it every time. Oh, and it was so hot. We went through Chennai during the middle of the day. AHHH! I did see the country side of India change ride before my eyes. I also had a lot of time to think. When we arrived in Varanasi I smelled like urine and felt like crap. An awesome preamble to a crazy city

This segment is called ... India is dirty

One evening I was attending a ceremony on the main ghat (the steps where the ritual bathing occurs). A man next to me was selling camper and flowers in a small cardboard bowl. He told me I could send it out onto the river. It seemed so romantic, so I tried it. While doing this I got a bit of the Mother Ganga on my toes and my hand. With the help of Rebekah and Natalie, I quickly washed and sanitized the affected areas. Oh, the Mother Ganga, said to be the holiest water in the world. The Mother Ganga can cure you, you go into the her with impurities and you will come out clean. Maybe the fact that there are "1.5 million fecal coliform bacteria per 100mL of water," doesn't bother ritual bathers. From my balcony I watch as hindus undress and dip themselves several times Often they will wash their body with the mud found at the bottom of the river. The same river that houses dead bodies in it, thousands of dead bodies, maybe even millions! The bathing appears to be a sacred experience but all i see is foul water infested with body limbs, heavy metal, trash and sewage. Perhaps the Ganga represents a cultural difference that I am not able to embrace. It is like the train ride here, the filthiness made the trip almost unbearable. The heat was ok, the close proximity was no problem, even the persistent starring could be combated with a scowl but no matter how many clorox wipes I used, the train was still dirty and my febreeze spray could not get rid of overpowering smell of urine. How do I live and let live? Different strokes for different folks, right?

Burning Bodies

As we were walking home we got lost. Lost might be the wrong word because this happens every time we walk home. Yes, we don't know where we are but there is no way we can eventually known where we are. The whole way home we depend on other people's finger pointing in the right direction. Our guest house is right next to the burning ghat, the place where they burn bodies after dipping them into the river. We didn't know where we were going and a guy told us to come this way, up here. We walked up a staircase. It was dark and there were a lot of men. No women, in fact. He told us to come stand here. We went over. I look at where I was standing and saw a dead body about six inches from my feet It was a body getting ready to be cremated. We watched as below they dipped the body in the ganga and then brought it up to the burning area. It was so eerie to be caught between this strange man telling me about burning bodies and a body on the ground about to be burned. It was this out of body experience, perhaps. I kept thinking, 'is this really happening?' It was too impersonal, it was too close, it was too informal. From my view I can see at least six different bodies burning. And of course this man wanted us to givehim a tip for showing us these burning bodies. We walked home in a haze, literally smelling like death. Burned into my memory was the looks of those men and the darkness of that area, even the light from the fires couldn't seem to lift the darkness, as we stood, confused by the close proximity of death, watching the tinsel covered bodies being ushered to their fire. The next few days when we would pass this area to go to our hotel there never ceased to be a man asking us to 'come this way to see the burning bodies.' Why was it publicized?

The SIghts and Souds of Sravanabelagola

2008-07-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

I left the village about five days ago. It was a sweet goodbye. We did the health class our last sunday. It turned out so well. We told these village woman some things they knew and some things they didn't know, like letting food get cold and then eating it can make you sick. You need to reheat your food. Afterwards we offered refreshment (because although it wasn't a branch activity we still held it in the church therefore every activity has to have refreshments). We made the woman walk outside and wash their hands with a bar of soap and a bucket of water we had provided. Some of the woman were very timid to do this at first but once they did we had a jolly good time. Before the woman were distant and had stuck together but after the hand washing ordeal they were shaking our hands and speaking to us in the little english they knew. This is a picture of Natalie and Liann assiting the woman wash their hands.

I left the village and headed for Mysore. I only stayed in Mysore for about one day, to pick up train tickets. While in Mysore Rebekah and I looked at this really rad palace. Here is a picture. This is Rebekah and I at the palace.

Mysore was dirty and touristy and so much more abrasive than I was used to. i was used gong home and being greeted by twenty children and Matthew or Jeeva asking about my day. It was a familial sort of feeling. And even when I went to into the city no one bothered me. I in Mysore there were like five men up in my grill trying to get me to go to their hotel. I got offered pot four times and i was there for less than twenty four hours! It was cool though. It was never a temptation to say yes. And twice i resorted to used my middle finger as my answer, which I had never done before.

From Mysore I went to Sravanabelagola, a small village that caters to thousands of Jain pilgrims a year. The village is in between two hill, both of which have a large temple on the top. Most visitors come once to climb the hill. After some tiffin (breakfast) I climbed the hill to find myself some pilgrims.

The first thing I saw was a group of students, possibly high school students. There looked so trashy, wearing tank tops and jeans or shorts. This frustates me. They are not at some freaking Kenny Chesney concert, you are in India. It just goes to show that they came to take pictures and not to learn about the culture. It just gets me really upset. I started walking up the hill, after saying hi to the postcard seller who i had made friends with the day previous. I walked up the hill with the intent to talking to people. I had a smiling face. i was stopped alot for people to ask where I was from. Every Indian I talked to was so nice and had smiling faces, causing me to smile back. I think I was very approachable because a) I was wearing a sawarl b) I was alone and c) I had a smile on my face and looked into the faces i passes by,letting people know that I wanted to interact because I was already doing so by making eye contact. There was one elderly woman who stopped me. She asked me where I was coming from. She herself was from Bangalore, she was with her brother and her children. She was a Jain. Her family was about to go meet with His Holiness Swamaji. I told her that I also was going to meet him later that night and she was very excited. We shook hands and exhanged sincere smiles. I was feeling so good because of the many smiles and heart felt messages that had been transfered verbally and nonverbally. Was it that I was in a really good mood so I saw goodness emanating from every strangers or was it that I was in a sacred spot or was it that other Indians appreciated I was studying their culture and religion? I think it may have been a combination of all three.

I made it into the temple area. i circumanbulated the temple, received my blessing and sat to meditate slash observe. Other visitors were doing the same thing I had done except some were chanting some sort of mantra for a minute. Some would prostrate themselves in front of the statue. And others offered coconuts as a sacrifice. A family sat beside me on the steps. I watched as a woman sat in meditation position and her husband brought his hand over her body, starting at her waist and lifting it over her head. He talked as she breathed in and out. At one point she would take in deep breath, throw her head back and cover her face with her hands. Her husband repeated the hand motion but this time when he got to her neck the woman's breathing became rapid and shallow. He would lift the hand past her head and she would start to breath normally again. They finished their routine and the woman relaxed. He hit his daughter on the leg and she got into mediation pose and they repeated the same process. After this was over with I asked the daughter if she was a Jain and her confirmation marked the beginning of my first interview with a jain.

I sat there for another hour, sitting and meditating. I talked to a couple. I was overcome with a feeling of peace. I loved siting there and watching the people worship. I had asked the woman I just interviewed if there was a God. She looked stunned and repeated what I had just said. 'Yes!' She said emphatically. 'There is a God. He is everywhere.' Indeed, He is. I felt a connection with these people that were profounding religious because I also am profoundly religious.

Later that day our group was able to meet with the head holy guy of Jainism. He was like there Chief, the president, except for Jainism is not a easily defined as that. He got to talk to His Holiness (Insert really long name here) Swamaji and it was really neat. He gave us dinner and a sacred shawl. I will save that story for another time. Here is a picture of the group in our sacred-ness. The picture at the beginning is me with my sacred shawl

Leaving a Mark

2008-06-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

My time is Chavadi Pudur is coming to an end. I have like eleven days left in th village. From there I go to Mysore for two days, Svenabellagola, Hyderabad, Bodhygya, Varanasi, Dehli, Armistar, Dharmsala, and Dehli again. Mysore will be the beginning of the religion tour that will last five weeks. The program ends at August 15th. My mother and brother are planning to come and spend a week with me here. Then I will spend a week with my brother and sister-in-law in California. I will be able to see most of your smiling in like two months. Where has the time gone?
As I evaluate my experience in the village I think about how the village was different at the beginning. When I first arrived I was approached by several villagers who had been good friends with members of the field study in years past. There has been a group coming for fifteen years, of course there are going to be people that know other members. And then there are the kids that come and ask you to dance. Sometimes one of the girls will show me how to swing dance. Or some of the children know how to do patty cake and others know 'head, shoulders, knees and toes.' And then you get th people that will ask you for money or sometimes you will get people asking you to take a picture and give you the copy of it afterwards. I have been to at least three homes where they have taken out a picture with Tausha and Courtney. They are everywhere. I realize that creating any sort of human relation will leave a mark on the people involved but what about creating a dependency that can't be filled. It is not like we are giving hand outs of candy and money. What about the idea of leaving a place better than you left it. What if we educated some of the people about proper hygiene and sanitation. This can only have a positive effect, right?
It would only be right to give back to the community because they have given so much to me and i imagine the same goes for my peers who are using this village for academic purposes. But who I am to say that I can leave the village better than when I found it. As always i feel like I have been impacted more from this experience than vis versa.
So the point is... the point I will probably help organize a woman's health class for some of th village woman. I will probably come to the conclusion that leaving a mark was inevidable. I didn't mean to, it wasn't part of the plan.

An Indian Wedding

2008-06-21T02:32:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends, yes, I am in India.
It has gotten really good. I am really loving my stay here in India. Every since I have gotten home from Kochin (see, now I am calling Chavadi Pudur home!) I have felt more comfortable here.
When I arrived back in Coimbatore after having taken a train from Kochin, my translator, Divya, was there to greet me. I separated from my group and went with Divya. Divya's cousin was getting married the next day at six thirty in the morning and I was going to spend the night at her uncle's house. Weddings in India are usually a two day affair, The wedding I had gone to the week before was an overnighter. We came in the evening for the engagement ceremony and then went to sleep on the cement floor for a couple of hours and then got up around five to get ready for the ceremony at six-thirty, That wedding had been at a wedding hall. This wedding of her cousin's was of a much smaller budget. The bride's mother and father had died when she was fifteen and so she had no budget for the wedding expenses just what her uncle was willing to spare. Instead of sleeping at a wedding hall the family gathered at the uncle's house and went to a temple in the morning.
I arrived at the uncle's house rather late, like nine-thirty or something. Her family was extremely nice. They fed me, even though I had already eaten. I am discovering that Indians love to fed their friends. Every time I go to someone's house in the village they ask me to eat something. At first I would refuse because I was uncomfortable with eating Indian food from people's homes, I mean what if they had some unsanitary way of cooking their food. Then I got honest with myself, the places I go to eat along the street cannot be better than these homes. The other night I was eating at one of the regular stalls when i saw, out of the corner of my eye, four rats jumping from the cabinet into a hole that lead to the kitchen. After I got over the sanitation and faced the facts, I was uncomfortable accepting food because I felt bad. I felt I was burdening them and their pocket book. Even though I refused they would insist until I had no choice but to accept. I have since started to ask families why they insist on feeding me. Now I have just accepted it. I am starting to understand Indian families. I think. Anyway the family feed me, it was great.
I met the bride. She was 26 years old. She had only met the groom once, one month ago when they were arranging the marriage. This was a true arranged marriage. It is not so surprising when you have been here awhile. Our definitions and expectations of marriage are different. Although, I am still trying to sort out the differences. And I am still trying to process these differences.
Later in the evening all the woman in the house put bangles on the bride's wrist after accepting the blessing of god. We went to bed around twelve am. There were about fifteen people sleeping in the small three room house. I don't mean three bedroom, I mean three room, kitchen, living room and bedroom. Everyone slept on the floor except they made me sleep on the steel cot. Little did they know that I sleep on a cement floor ever7 night. Within an hour of sleeping everybody was up. There was a wedding to get ready for and everyone needed to take a shower. I laid there for about an hour, feeling slightly uncomfortable because this wasn't my house and I had to figure out what to do with myself for the next four hours. After an hour I went in the front room and watched as they made th bride look like a true Indian bride. Eventually, around four am, the uncle informed me that it was my turn to take a shower. I go into the bathroom and find the water in the bucket had been boiled. I hadn't taken a hot shower in a month and a half. It was the most glorious bucket shower I have ever taken. Just glorious. After the shower, I was wrapped in my sari. With jasmine in my hair and a bindi on my forehead I looked like a real Indian. Or a least that is what people told me.
We got on a privately rented bus that took the whole family to a temple. There at the temple we waited for the groom to show up and more family showed up. Finally, the groom showed up. The groom and bride stood together as a priest gave them things to hold and take blessings from the god. The uncle of the bride put a toe ring on the grooms foot which is the symbol of marriage in tamil nadu. And the groom's mother place the toe ring on the bride's foot. The priest then blesses this gold string, which also indicates a woman is married. The groom places it around his bride's neck. When this happens all those attending throw rice on the couple. Mazaltof.
The pictures featured a from the wedding before. or the pictures that I will post

A Jain Temple

2008-06-11T02:56:00.000-07:00

Hi.
I know my blog is more popular when I have pictures to add but it is hard to get my thumb drive to work on the computers. I guess I will just have to try to write well enough so I can paint a picture with my words.
I have been away from my village for about four days. We decided to take a mid-research retreat. Research is taxing and living the life of a local is difficult. We took a train into the tourist town of Fort Cochin in Kerala. First of all, trains in India are so fascinating. I will have to do an entry on just train rides. We stayed at this wicked nice hotel. There were actual beds. And in comparison it wasn't actually very nice but compared to sleeping on a cement floor it was amazing. Fort Cochin is a city that rest on the coast on the Arabian sea. There are huge Chinese finishing nets that rest on the beach catching delicious fish and making for beautiful photos.
I had read about a Jain temple in my handy guide book. With Heidi, I took off for the Jain Temple. It should have been a twenty minute walk but it turned out to be an hour walk. We got there and there a couple of Indian families and some devotees. We took of our shoes and walked around. After five minutes of being there we see a man holding a bucket walk into the courtyard. He sets down his bucket and yells something. Thousands of pigeons fly off of the tops of the temples into the courtyard. I am taken back. I was scared but I was also amazed. This man takes a scoop full of rice from his buckets and starts to pray. At the end of his prayer we are invited to feed the pigeons. I gather a handful and lower myself to the pigeon's eye level. Eventually I have a few pigeons eating from my palm. It was a sweet experience. All the while I had pigeons flying around my head. It was one of those raw experiences that caught me off guard. I can't wait until I can show pictures of my adventures.
Until next time...

Two Coins

2008-06-06T05:30:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends,
Ok. I feel I need to clarify. Lately, I have been getting alot of comment consoling me or giving their sympathy. Listen, I don't need your sympathy. I am in freaking India. I don't need anyone to feel sorry for me. I don't mean to use any force. India is a hard country to live in but I don't regret coming, not once. Sometimes, I even love it. How do you like them apples?
The other day Heidi and I were at the bus stop waiting for our bus to arrive. We had been seated. Earlier a little boy had been tugging at my leg asking for money. I gave him a rupee. The little boy returned while I was sitting. He was leaning against my legs waiving his cup in front of my eyes. I began to talk to him in english. Asking him questions, like why is he doing this and why are parents making you do this, don't you have a childhood to live, ya know, just questions. Within less than a minute he had run away. He was screaming 'english,english.' He had gotten his older sister to come and talk to me. Before she reached me some other people told her to leave. Not less than twenty seconds later a man in a blue button up shirt and slacks is presenting a coin in front of my eyes. He says ' for you, ma'am, a rupee.'
I was dumbfounded. 'Why'
'It is a gift.' He then drops the one rupee into my open hand. He turned to Heidi and said the same thing. She refused. He dropped the other rupee in my open hand making two coins in my open hand. I asked again, 'why!'
'A gift.' He walked away.
We were so shocked. I came up with several reasons for this strange happening.
A. He stole the coin from the little boy and the other one was for the interest.
B. He had been starring at me so he thought it would be fit to pay for the time that I sat there as a model for his starring pleasure (not a good option and a gross one)
C. I had dropped two rupees and he didn't know how to say 'you dropped these' so instead he said 'a gift.'
D. I AM AMERICA
E. I had been in the city all day standing for hours on crowded buses, I truly looked homeless.
I know, I know. all options are not very good. Sorry I am not more creative. It seemed like a crazy juxtaposition to give me two rupees when I have clothes on my back and food to eat and there are starving children at my feet. I don't feel justified in receiving such a gift. I still have the two coins to give to someone who needs more than me.
Speaking of interesting juxtapositions... the other night Liann and I were walking home from dinner. We heard drumming so we followed it. We stumbled upon a Hindu funeral. Eventually we were invited to come in and join the family that was attending. At the time there were several men constructing a piar made bamboo and flowers. Once they finished this construction they were take the body out to be burned. We made friends with a girl that spoke english and for the rest of the night she acted as our cultural informants. Inside the compound many woman and men were sitting in plastic lawn chairs. Inside a room were woman in saris gathered around the dead body. The body was exposed to the air. She said with her head exposed and the rest of her body covered in cloth. When we walked into the room three women came to us crying and sharing with us their great sorrow. All I could do was take their hand and rub their arm. The woman dead was 85 years old and had had nine children. The woman crying on me were her daughters. Soon men came into the room and lifted the body outside and put her on a table. While the body was on the table they performed several rituals. I kept asking my friend for the meaning in these actions, sometimes she knew other times she did not. At one point she told me 'as of these are formalities but I do not believe in them.' I asked if she went to temple and other religious functions. 'I go but I do not believe.' I have run into that several times when talking to young girls that they keep their parents traditions but they have no faith in it. On the other side a man was saying to me that these ceremonies were of the most importance to his family. His nieces words versus his own words. Eventually the youth will be the parents and what will happen to these cultural traditions?
Today I went to a Hindu wedding. I will shared picture of these events soon.

My Village I Call Home

2008-05-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

Chavadi Pudur, just a small village one hour outside of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. It has a thousand people, maybe. I am constantly surprised at the new faces I continue to see and the wide age variety. There is a little girl that lives at the top of the road leading to Matthew and Jeeva's house, my host family. Everytime I pass (I must pass at least five or six times a day) she comes running out of her compound onto the street with her hand in the air and not wearing any pants or underwear. I think she trying to wave but all she has master is to stick her hand in the air. After two weeks here it has not gotten old.
I wake up at six thirty every morning. Around this time it starts to get warmer, the rooster is testing his vocal strength and the next door neighbor can't stand a waking moment without his radio. All these elements combine to my natural wake up call. It take about an hour and a half to get ready because bucket showers are not as easy as turning the faucet on. I do an assortment of things until about 12:30 in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and I talk the twenty minutes walk to lunch. On the right is a picture of the lane I walk down in order to get to the main street. I am usually wearing a sawarl camis, a long tunic with pants and a scarf. T he jerks who thought it was ok to wear a scarf when it is a hundred degrees outside will pay in the afterlife, I am certain. It was probably a man. Most woman here wear sarees. I can't do it. It is to much fabric and it is to complicated.
The landscape here is beautiful. Like this lake you see. One morning I went on the bus and found this lake. I got off the bus to see if I could eat a little breakfast and read a little. I was quickly disappointed. This was the ultimate public bathroom. As I walked down the hill towards the lake I saw it was a field of poo. I saw three people squatting to take a dump. Must be nice, poo with a view. So beautiful yet so disgusting.

Birthday in India

2008-05-19T00:48:00.000-07:00

Hello Friends! Today is my birthday. I thought I would share with an excerpt from my journal,
'I am sitting in a temple of the top of a mountain in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. Heidi, next to me, is frantically writing notes. Besides her, I am the only white person on the mountain. The woman are me are seated on the floor 'indian style.' All are wearing bright fabric with gold on their ears, neck, and nose. Their hairs are pulled into a tight buns or braid wearing a string of jasmine. I sit with short, curly, red, frizzy hair, a stark contrast to the oily smooth black braid that often reaches their waist. I am learning that my own belief that differences are beautiful is not the case. Ina culture where tradition is a rule not a guideline, my differences are not easily accepted. A woman told me last night when talking about my hair, 'it's ok to be different in some things but not all.'
My hair is turning out to be a constant struggle. The humidity is making it curlier than ever and I love it. But woman do not hesitate to ask me why I didn't come my hair this morning. I struggle for words to explain to them that I like my hair. When I tell them that I often get a laughing response. Sometimes I will say I forgot and sometimes I won't answer. But it is my birthday today and I will wear my hair however I want. Even if it is culturally inappropriate.

2008-05-09T01:28:00.000-07:00

On sunday night Heidi, Natalie and Caithlin and I decide to find a mosque. We felt this would be sunday appropriate. Women are not allowed into many mosques so we wanted to find one with a ladies' section but struggled to find even one. The mosque we found was very big. It is actually called the Big Mosque, so there you go. Upon entering the grounds we covered our head. To the est of the mosque there was a shrine to a saint. A man on a motorcycle stopped us and said that we could enter the grounds but we could not go in the mosque or the shrine. It seems as if Indians love to tell us what we can and cannot do, we have gotten that alot. Although in most cases it saved us from an embarrassing situation, in other cases, such as this one, it was a guideline and not a rule. When we approached the shrine they invited us to take our shoes and come worship. Eat that motorcycle man. I was very hesitant at first to walk inside because there were these huge ants crawling around, I am talking HUGE. I swallowed by hesitancy and put on my brave face and did it. i flinched, noticeably, a couple of times and was made fun of it for it but oh well.
Along with ants I am learning to get used to a lot of new elements. Yesterday was my first usage of squatter toilet. I have used one before but it was seven years ago. I have relearn somethings. Today I took my first bucket shower. I getting used to sleeping on the cement floor. Surprisingly it is not that bad. I am grateful I brought a pillow. I am also getting used to the aroma produced by the substance on the side of the road on the street Liann calls 'poo lane.' But people are nice. The women always tell me hello as I make a stroll through the village.
I have a wide range of emotions while staying here, and they differ at each time of day. When I am sitting on the veranda with a girl from my group and talking to the little village kids while feeling the wind blow I feel grateful to have the opportunity to experience this side of life.
I using my blog as a forum to tell the people I love what is going on in my life, but I would like to hear about yours. I may not have the time to start and email and send it to everybody but if you send me an email I will reply. I hope to have pictures up next week. Stay tuned.

Go Touch the Calendar

2008-05-04T02:54:00.000-07:00

My blog title is from one of my favorite lines these past two days. I cant believe I am only on my third day here. I am not implying that it goes by fast but rather I have had so many experiences and most have turned out positive or can be seen as a learning expereince. We are in India, not everything is peachy keen, despite what you guys have maybe previously thought about it. My flight to here left on tuesday night at 10pm and I arrived in Chennai on Friday morning at one am. I was so happy to see Liann and Heidi there to get my bags. It is so freaking hot here... so hot, so hot. The internet in this cafe is pricey but it has air con and I can't say the same for my hotel room. After getting a full wiff of the Indian air we took a taxi to the hotel. I tried to sleep but I could not so I chatted with Heidi and Liann about life and love and our new lives here. There have been times when I have said why the h did I come here. Why why why. It is hot and you can even cool down. You guys know I am from Arizona and I like the heat but not like this. It stinks because we are right next to the bay of Bengal but the community pumps waiste into the ocean so there will be no swimming.
But there are good parts and eventually the good will out way the bad and I won't be jet lagged and I will get used to the heat. There is this man with no legs that sit on a pillow and wears a cap. We pass him every day on the way to the train station and he always says good day madam and smiles. He doesnt even have a tin can in front of him. I have learned to appreciate his smile. At the end of the street there is a lady who sells jasmine flowers on a string. Women put flowers in their hair everyday. They usually attach the sting to their pony tail. Heidi buys Jasmine from this lady. My hair is short and cannot handle a pony tail but I really wanted to support this lady so i bought some. Later that day I returned and showed her how I jimmy rigged the thing in there. She said I looked beautiful. We hardly speak the same language!!
Today is sunday and we went to church. It was a crazy and beautiful. The getting was crazy but the being there was beautiful. They had AC! A whole three hours of AC!!
We will be in Chennai until wednesday afternoon and then we will take a train into Coimbatore, spend the night and then head over to our village, Chavadi Pudur, where it won't be as hot.
The quote in the subject line has to do with the crazy man who was checking the rest of the people in. He wanted them to pay for four nights and I said we would only pay for two nights. I dont think I can relate the story in text, you kind of have to know crazy man. Anyway, I'm actual.

Springtime in Chennai

2008-05-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

Ok people. you can stop worrying because I made it safely to India. Unfortunately, at this time I am oh so tired and will not be able to tell you about my travels and adventures until I recieve some sleep...
So stay tuned.

I'm Going to India to Get Married

2008-04-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

My brother, Sam, is getting married in a week. It is a very exciting time for my family, but I 've noticed there is not as much attention on me but more on my brother, and as a youngest child this lack of attention is strange. Today, Liz, Sam's fiance, went through the temple and we had a family lunch afterwards and that was the forum I used to make my annoucement. The secret is out, I am getting married in India and now you all know my real reason and can use the comment section to give your advice. I don't plan on meeting my future sweetie until the day of the wedding, so... if you wanted to know about him I can't tell you anything.
This is Liz Rhodes. She is marrying my brother, and soon will be called Liz Lambson. In this picture she is holding a bouquet that I made for her bridals. I am doing all the flower arrangements for the wedding. Who knew I was so talented? It will be the first marriage in my family. My parents always knew that Sam would be the first one, and so did we. First comes loves, then comes marriage and then BABIES. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Their story is like a mini romance novel and if you want to read it click here
On a different note, I am almost done with all my finals! Yeah! Woo hoo! I just have to do a make up final and then my book binding final and I am home free. More like I am free to travel to India. I leave in eleven days! eleven days! I bought linen pants at the savers today, two pairs! I totally thought I was going to bring my jeans for traveling until I bought some clothes to wear but apparently jeans are too form fitting. So I bough linen pants and I am in love with them. For awhile now I have been disenchanted with jeans. i hate almost every single pair of jeans I have. I think the purchase of these linen pants is the begining of my jean strike, I wish it were lint because then I could do a trial run a swear off jeans for lint. In India I will be wearing salwar camises (I have not idea how to spell it, but they are like long tunics with slacks, if you can imagine that) and saris. To the left, Heidi and I are wearing some saris. Heidi will be going with me to india, along with six other kids who I don't really know but will shortly know very well.

La la la Life

2008-03-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

If you haven't checked out Kirsten's Blog yet, you should. As I was reading what she had to say I was wishing I could say things in such a way. I also wished I would keep up my blog. And so I logged on to start my blogging journey. I realized I hated my template. The template I had was the fifth one I have had since I started blogging and I only have three posts! I tried to do some work on it today but I still don't really like it. I am trying to find a style that is me. I can't find it. I really like yellow and purple but I couldn't put those colors in my blog. I tried. Its funny because they are my favorite colors but I can't seem to incorporate them in my life. You would think I would have more of it in my closet, but I don't
I feel like I have so many things to address. what is the purpose of a blog? I guess it has the same function as facebook or myspace, ya know, to keep people connected, but it is probably classier. But who defines 'classy'? I would like to have a well established blog before I go to India because I want to be able to let people that are important to me in on my doings.
Let me first get started with my reasons for going to India. I first thought about the prospect of going to India last April during finals week. I was an art history major and was disenchanted and dissatisfied with the more possible future. I walked in the Kennedy Center one day looking for some way to get me out of this country. I saw a flier for the India field study. I went to the main office and met three people who currently play a significant role in my preparation for India. It was there that they described to me what a field study would be like. it was what I wanted. i didn't want to do a tour of all the european museums, I wanted to be somewhere and I wanted to learn about a people. This is it, this is my chance. I don't mean to have a limited perspective. I could probably try to do this on my own but I am ok with being guided around my someone who already knows the ropes.
The road to India got me to declare my major as Anthropology, which I am in love with. I know, who knew you could be 'in love' with a major. I feel good about where I am going, not just about literally going like going to India but also about where I am going in Life (yes, a capital L). I have a tentative five year plan but lets be honest how long do those last. I feel as if I am finally where I wanted to be my whole college career but I didn't know about it.
I hope you, my friends, continue to read my musings and while I am away I am sure all of you will be avid readers of my 'blog'.

The Saga of Ripping Pants

2007-12-02T00:18:00.001-08:00

Welp, it happened again. Then again, then again, then another time. I ripped my pants. Through the course of seven months I have ripped my pants five times. It truly is amazing that I could go through the first twenty years of my life with only getting ripes in my knees and now I here I am with four dead pants in my closet. I would now like to take this time and guide everyone who reads my blog the life and death of my pants.
1. Aprilish, 2007 reading day right before finals. There I am in the Wilk wearing what might as well be my least favorite pants. I hate these pants but I wear them because I have to wear clothes when my favorite pair are dirty. I bent over tie my shoes (which I rarely do because I am always having other people do it for me) and then rip! right across the back pocket, luckily I had a satchel that covered that area nicely. Also I hated those pants so no big deal in the end
2. July 5thish. It was my first day of work at the Greenhouse and my favorite pants,which I had had for about three years, decided to start tearing in the thigh area. I tried to save them by putting a iron on patch in that area but that proved fruitless.
3. Two days later. These pair of jeans were pretty great. I had had them for about two year and I wore them about evey other day. This time I was again at work. I had step up onto a platform and rip! Right across my back pocket. Instead of going home to change my pants I ducked taped them, but then I had to throw them away. That truly was a sad moment
4. End of November .I was down to four pairs of jeans. I hated two of them and the other two were great. I wore these jeans I had gotten from Christmas that my mom had gotten from Buckle, so these were expensive jeans to me. I wore them alot and I could tell that they were wearing out in the crotch, getting thinner and thinner. One day they ripped on the right side, but I was determined these pants would last me so I put a iron on patch up in there.
5. December 1, 2007 11:22pm. Those pants from above ripped, almost right in half. I was playing broom hockey on the ice over at the seven peaks. I was going for the ball and fell and then rip! For the rest of the night I has to wear a jacket around my waist.
And now I am down to one pair of descent pants and two that I hate.
I am sure the saga will continue

National Public Sydney

2007-07-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

You're listening to All Things Considered with your host Sydney Lambson.
So here I am writing a blog. It is fun. I think what I do is pick a theme and write about it. That is what my friends are doing with their blogs.
I would like to take this blog and discuss National Public Radio or as my mother likes to throw around "the NPR." I like NPR. It comes me informed. I especially like "wait, wait, don't tell me" and "all songs considered." I have been told the NPR is what you listen to when you get older. My parents and my siblings are addicted. So we will sit there at the dinner table quoting NPR. It gets competitive trying to keep up with them. I am at a disadvantage because I don't have a car so I can't listen to it on my daily transits. I do listen to the podcasts when I get the time. The thing is we are really the ones at the disadvantage, my whole family. All we do is listen in NPR and claim we know something about what is going on in the world. I have found that I have a skill in grasping on to the smallest piece of information and making it sound like I know something. The crazy thing is I always get away with it. I don't have to read the paper or watch the news, NPR will cover me. I can get away with it because I have found that most of my peers don't know what going on in the world either, so it feeds my skimming of news habit.

Someday I will get called out on my bluff. Someday I will begin to truly be informed.

The art of thumbnail sketches

2007-01-15T21:45:00.000-08:00

Thumbnail sketch... it is neither a thumbnail nor a sketch of a thumbnail... discuss.
These thumbnail sketches are making my brain go crazy. Art is not some I do