4/20 at CU

4/20 has become a day for those who love the cannabis.  For the last several years, CU has become a hot spot for people to come together and light up.  However, this year is the first year that the University has cracked down on the gathering.  It’s gotten a lot of students and MJ-lovers upset, so I knew I had to go on campus today to see what was going on.  When I got there, there were police and security at every major entrance to campus, but the campus was almost eerily quiet.  I think there had to have been more police and news reporters there than any other group.  Even CNN covered the story.  However, there were some kids who sat around Norlin Quad to (mostly) quietly protest the crackdown.  It’s an interesting phenomenon, and while I can see why people are for and against it, all of the hoopla that now surrounds 4/20 in general makes me wonder if we are close to legalization.  Here are some photos I took on campus today.

Nobody was allowed on campus today without a school ID

Police checked out everyone who came on campus

Secret Service? No, there'd be more prostitutes around. *Rimshot*

Students loiter on the steps of Norlin Library, probably hoping for a retreat.

Hippie girl gets interviewed about the 4/20 crackdown. She defended the gathering by claiming, "This is a day of celebration, even for people who don't smoke pot." She later rang her bike bell repeatedly and yelled, "Viva 4/20!"

Police cruise down the sidewalks of campus.

Students encourage others not to cooperate with authorities (probably not the best idea).

Students wait and stare down the details securing Norlin Quad.

On any other day, Norlin Quad would be packed with people. Today it was covered with police tape.

Silent student protest

The day in a nutshell.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I had no idea that 4/20 had become such a huge day for so many people.  I read a news story that Austin, TX will unveil a a Willie Nelson statue at 4:20 (probably happening right now).  To try to distract the students on campus, CU brought Wyclef Jean to campus for a concert.  Will it work to cool the kids off?  We’ll see.  The best thing about the day, though?  The fact that we made The Onion’s American Voices.  Heck yes!!

The Kids Are Not Alright

As promised, I wanted to dedicate a post to how my teaching and tutoring experiences have made me realize that the youth of our nation are deteriorating at a rapid rate.  You may say that my negative attitude comes from the fact that I’ve been out of college for nearly four years now and have just forgotten what it’s like to be an undergrad.  While a little of that may be true, I’m pretty sure the experience of being an undergrad is burned on my brain.  I will never forget that time of structured freedom away from the real world.  I certainly wasn’t perfect, but I can list several ways that me and most of the people I knew in college were smarter than today’s undergrads (or at least sneakier).

I have to start out by explaining a few things about the University of Colorado.  It is a great school with several outstanding departments that attract some fabulous students, however, it is also in Boulder -a hub of winter and extreme sports.  This means that a lot of students are just here to “shred the pow” (that’s skiiing for you normal folk), be a part of a nationally-ranked snowboard team (how many of those can there be??), or to ride outside of the bike lane on their skateboards (Yes, skateboards. CU is a little stuck in 1994 in that way).  These students tend to be the ones who put academics at about #47 on their priorities list, somewhere after sleeping in during class time and sitting out on Pearl Street Mall holding signs like hobos that ask for pot money (No, this is real).  You also have a good share of trust fund kids who absolutely cannot stand to be talked down to in any way -“talking down” to them meaning “teacher is trying to tell me something I don’t already know. How dare she!”  They also throw major fits when they get an A-.

With these facts in mind, I think you can understand why I would be dubious about our future leaders, but no Ali story is any fun without details.  Here are a few choice mini-stories that I’ve encountered as a tutor and as a T.A. in the university community.

Adventures in Tutoring

I’m told that I’m a bit weird for liking to tutor undergrads in writing.  As impatient as I can come off sometimes, I am actually quite patient when working with even the most confused and frustrated of students.  However, there are still moments that make me want to repeatedly faceplant on my computer keyboard.  One of these moments came just a couple weeks ago when I was working with an exchange student from Australia.  His assignment was to write a press release for an event which he had to make up.  The event he chose was an environmental talk by former Vice President Al Gore . . . or as he continuously wrote, “Algore.”  You see, even though this student had chosen to write about Al Gore, he didn’t think it prudent to actually check the spelling of his name, or even what his first name was seeing as he thought “Algore” was just his last name.  “But he’s Australian! He never had him as a vice president!” I hear you yelling.  And I respond to you, “Punch my give-a-sh*t card.”  The kid had an iPhone, a Macbook, and an iPad on him (all three of which I had to tell him to stop checking while in the appointment) which means he had several means to do a quick Google search which would have righted the problem.  The amount of surprise he displayed at my revelation of the correct spelling of Al Gore’s name was enough to make me want to start drinking in the middle of the day which, come to think of it, would make my job especially fun . . .

Another incident I had soon after the “Algore” debacle was with a female student who came in with an argumentative paper about the evils of fake tanning.  In general, her paper wasn’t structurally bad, but I was confused by her use of the term “ultra-violent rays.”  Scratch that.  I wasn’t confused.  I knew that her consistent use of the incorrect term meant that she, like Mr. High-Tech Australia before her, hadn’t even taken the time to Google or double-check the most basic elements of her argument.  Luckily, I am the master of bringing up potentially-embarrassing topics such as these, so after I had praised the good points of her essay I said (with just the right tone of vague uncertainty), “So, I’m not 100% sure, but I think that the term is “ultra-violet rays.””  “Really??” she responded, as if I had just told her that the earth was square.  I responded to her in the affirmative, and then went on to show her the wonder of online dictionaries which, along with giving you definitions, can also provide you with correct spellings!  What novelties we have at our fingertips!  The kicker of this whole incident was that the student told me that several of her classmates had peer-edited her essay before I had read it.  This means either, A) her classmates aren’t as good as me at letting someone know when they come off like a complete ditz or, B) there are a whole lot of people walking around who think there are sunlight rays equipped with swords, bow-staffs, and nunchucks that are are violently attacking us on a daily basis.  Those ultra-violent rays, they’ll get ya every time.

One of the choicest stories I’ve gotten from the writing center happened just last week.  The student didn’t have an appointment with me, but with one of my co-workers.  Lucky for me though, the walls are very thin.  I could hear the student right when she walked into our offices because of her angry movements and the whiny way she sounded like a martyr when she checked in.  I perked up my ears when she sat down with her tutor and was rewarded with this choice quote:

“My professor says I’m not understanding the subject matter entirely, so right now I’m a ‘B’ student!  I did NOT come here to pay for classes that just tell me what I’m bad at!!”

She went on to say several other things that made her sound like the spoiled brat that I’m sure she is, but I don’t think I need anything beyond that quote to outline my point.  My poor co-worker spent most of the time trying to calm the girl down from her rant which meant that, instead of learning something productive, the girl abandoned an opportunity to get better at something in favor of getting pity.  I’m sure that will work out real well for her in the future when she cries to her boss about a bad work evaluation.

One of my favorite things that occasionally happens at the Writing Center is students telling me that I’m wrong about something.  No seriously, I think this is hilarious.  None of them have actually straight-up said “You’re wrong,” but I can tell when a couple of them have pushed back against my advice that they thought was incorrect.  The funniest thing about this is that they always push back against facts or advice that I would be willing to stake my life on.

For example, a couple weeks ago I had a girl come in whose paper was filled with instances of plagiarism.  To be fair, this girl was an international student, and plagiarism is not considered a big deal in all colleges and universities the world over.  Still, I knew this would be a huge problem with her current professor, so we spent a lot of time talking about how to quote sources.  From there, I had to explain what constitutes a good source because she had quoted something (probably one of the crap-tastic pages that often comes up at the beginning of a search list) that stated that George H. W. Bush was president in 1997.  Of course, I knew that Bill Clinton had just begun his second term in 1997 (who could forget the Bob Dole-ridden world of 1996??) so I brought this up to the student. The student, to my surprise, pushed back stating that maybe I was confused and that perhaps the senior Bush’s term was just ending.  I responded that I had a very clear recollection of this time period and, considering this student was not in the country nor had they even entered kindergarten at that time, I was definitely correct.  (Of course I didn’t say these things explicitly, but I felt that they were somewhat implied).  The student finally relented to “look it up” later.  I think if anyone is going to be that pigheaded about something, maybe they just deserve to be wrong.  However, I definitely saw the humor in the situation and can rest assured that, if the student actually did look up who was president in 1997, that she eventually had to admit that I was right.  Oh the glory of that feeling . . .

My last Writing Center story happened to occur just last week.  A student came in with a paper about the novel Lolita.  The student was especially concerned with whether his argument and main points were coming through, and I was more than happy to help him determine this.  After reading through the paper out loud, I could tell that the student was one of those people whose brilliance often gets in the way of simplification.  Though his argument and main points came through, there was one part of his explanation that absolutely boggled me: he had created a method of describing the emotions and actions of the main character, Humbert Humbert, using such mathematical terms as “n to the 2nd power” and “y to the x power.”  Of course, I never want to put down a student’s ideas until I learn where they come from, so I asked him if his method was somehow rooted in something he had learned in another class.  He told me that he couldn’t think of any better way to describe the book.  . . .  Situations like this remind me of why I’m glad that I’m not a genius.  Eventually I did get him to understand how to put his thoughts in lay men’s terms, but I could tell his higher mind was going to continue to give him difficulties when he asked questions like, “How would I explain that I’m doing a deeper reading of the text? Would I call it a sub-explanation -or maybe a sup-explanation, as in a super explanation?” (Me:)”You would explain that you are doing a deeper reading of the text beyond that of a casual reader.”  “Oh.”

Now that I think about it, I can’t decide if the kid was incredibly smart, or incredibly dumb.  Like the number of licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, “the world may never know.”

Why I’ll Never Be Professor Jepsen

This past semester, I was very lucky to be appointed to a teaching assistant position in my department.  Basically, my responsibilities include attending a lecture by the professor twice a week along with the students, then leading my own sort of class period, called a recitation, to answer questions and have discussions.  I have gone through several stages with these kids, from lumping them all together as little heathens, to starting to see them as humans, to finally realizing that they do indeed have individual personalities.  Of course, some of these personalities leave something to be desired, and that’s where some of my best stories have come from.

An odd thing about my position is that I am teaching Medieval literature.  I knew almost nothing about Medieval lit when I came into the job, but that is usually the case with most T.A.s –it’s an advanced exercise in the art of B.S..  Really though, it’s not so bad since all I really do is make sure the kids are understanding the text and are applying what the prof says correctly.  During one of my first recitations, we were going over a romantic poem.  I was explaining to the class that one of the tropes of these poems is that the man is always looking at and talking about the woman but we never get her side, so the man is probably just into her looks or projects romantic ideas onto the woman.  One of the girls in the class somehow took offense to this, and pressed me for a further explanation.  I explained that, like now, sometimes people just see someone they find attractive and start romanticizing the person even if they don’t know them.  The girl tried to argue that there is such a thing as “love at first sight,” and couldn’t this be happening in the poem??

I had to stop there and try to devise a way to make myself not sound like a cynical bi-otch.  Of course I love romance and I believe at connection as first glance, but I think that love at first sight is something that only certain people truly believe in –and those people usually end up having failed relationships because they can’t face reality.  I told her that, since the poem seemed to only talk about the physical and didn’t say anything deeper about personal connections, that the man was probably just idealizing the woman.  This girl then had a good mini tantrum about how that was SO depressing!  I mean, SO DEPRESSING!!  I could only kind of blink at her and think about what a tough time she must be having in the dating world.  Perhaps she’s even having a worse time than me.  Either way, her completely misguided thoughts on love just made me want to smack some reality into her peanut-sized head.

One of the duties that comes with being a teaching assistant is grading papers.  Yes, it’s total lackey work, but it does give me some good practice for being an alcoholic.  Seriously, it’s impossible to read these papers without at least having a glass of wine.  Don’t get me wrong, some of the papers have been brilliant, but a good many are just chock full of little gems that you either have to learn to laugh at, or risk wanting to pound your face into some abrasive surface like stucco.  My first big moment like this came with the first round of essays which were about symbolism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  I was reading the essays on Valentine’s Day (as one does), and started grading a paper from one of my kids who always comes to my recitation, but rarely comes to lecture.  I knew he probably didn’t have the right tools to write a great paper, and I was proven right when I came across the line, “This is symbolism, no doubt!”  Keep in mind that this was a paper all about symbolism, so this revelatory outburst was not as effective as the author wanted.  Of course, I chose to laugh because, what the hell else can you do?  If the line had come from one of the better students, I would have known they were making a joke, however, I knew this person didn’t know that walking into a 10 AM class at 10:30 was somehow rude, so I knew he was serious.  After laughing really hard (and secretly wondering if I was the worst teacher ever) I gave the kid a C+.

Something that never fails to amaze me about CU is how dense the students can be.  They really have no idea how much we can see through their bull.  One of the first times I really noticed this was the day the first essays were supposed to be turned in.  I received somewhere in the neighborhood of ten e-mails giving excuses of why the paper was not done.  I got everything from “my dog was put down” to “I’ve been constantly barfing for a week and can’t even sit at my computer because I’ll spew on it.”  Kind of amazing that all of these things happened right as the assignment was due, but what kind of power do I have?  I’m not going to very well tell someone they’re lying about ol’ Fido being put down.  All I can do is wait for them to offer doctor’s notes or letters from authority figures explaining the excuse (those are usually the legit ones).

However, I did have a girl last week who said she couldn’t make it to class to turn in her paper because her “ride bailed.”  I already knew I was going to dock her since it’s her job to get her paper in on time, and CU gives kids a free bus pass.  She really had no excuse at all for not getting there.  To make matters worse though, she did not put the paper in my mailbox or e-mail it to me.  It wasn’t until two days AFTER the assignment was due that I got an e-mail with the paper (which was two pages short of the minimum).  I could tell from the general shittiness of it that she had just thrown it together last minute.  After a semester of this bull, I gave her paper a C- (that was being generous) and finally had the gumption to tell her in my comments that I could tell she basically produced the paper out of her asshole (not my exact words).  It felt really good to do it, and I actually think the tactic worked, since the student has been trying to participate more than usual the last couple class meetings.  Along with this girl, I also have the student who actually asked me what the professor’s name was during the midterm (which he arrived late for), and I also had a student who sat right next to me in class and wrote the paper that was due at the end of the class period.  Not knowing the professor’s name when she has taken the time to memorize the names of all fifty kids in the class just means the first kid is a total goon, and writing a paper next to me when I’m going to be the one grading it just shows such a lack of creativity.  If you’re going to write the paper down to the last second, for the love of God, at least be sneaky about it!  Criminey . . .

Even with all of the crap some of these kids pull, I do a good job of keeping my cool when I’m around them.  In fact, I often think I’m a pretty swell teacher.  I had a particularly great accomplishment this week when I managed to compare the movie Bridesmaids with the Medieval religious autobiography, The Book of Margery Kempe.  There is a scene where the main character, Margery, has a bunch of guys come up to her in a dream and show her their genitals.  The students were very confused about this passage, and many were not understanding that this was something that Margery did not enjoy at all.  Some of them didn’t really believe me, so I reminded them about Bridesmaids, and Kristen Wiig’s and Maya Rudolph’s conversation of how having genitals right in your face is not a pleasant thing.  I even did Kristen’s impression of a member, complete with my arms creating pointy testicles and squinting one eye.  If the kids learn nothing else this semester, I want them to at least remember my awesome male genitalia impression.

So maybe the kids aren’t completely lost since they can at least get a good Bridesmaids reference.  However, tomorrow is 4/20, the biggest day on the calendar for those who like the reefer.  Security is being stepped-up on campus to combat all of the non-students who will surely be trying to flock in to light up.  I can’t wait to see it.  I will post pictures here if I get any good ones.  Crazy things are bound to happen when “the man” gets between CU students, Boulderites, and/or visitors to this hippie Mecca and their pot.  If there’s one thing that I can’t deny about CU, it’s that the entertainment value is high . . . did you get the pun?  I crack me up.

I am officially a legit procrastinator.

Something really has to be wrong with me. As ya’ll know, I have sooooo much time on my hands of late. Yet here I am 2 days before a final draft of a research paper is due with it not remotely completed. I have major A.D.D. when it comes to writing this paper. I’ll start to get going and then have an all consuming need to check Facebook and blogs. Or catch up on 30 Rock. Or go outside. Or file my nails. You get the drift. I really enjoy being back in school (I do!) but taking 3 1/2 years off is kicking me in the ass just about now. I’m sure with a little more time into the program, a paper such as this will be NBD. Here’s to hoping.

In other RANDOM news, I have ridiculous plans on Saturday morning. I am going to an open casting call for a Danish reality show. What the what?! I know… I saw a snippet on the news today (while not writing this blasted paper!) about this casting call. It’s calling Danish-Americans in the greater twin cities area to come to interview to be a part of some show where you go to Denmark and compete in various challenges (Danish challenges? Like eating my weight in aebleskiver? I hope!) to win some $$. You have to have at least a little proven Danish ancestry to be eligible. Luckily for me, my great-grandmother Mabel was 100% Danish. Making me 12.5% Danish. Should count I think. I talked with my mom tonight and got all kinds of cool history about Mabel’s family. I was in 5th grade when she died, but I’ll always remember her. She was born in 1900 and I always think about how incredible her life must have been. Imagine the things she lived through!

Who knows the odds of this panning out? Probably not in my favor, but what the hell? I’ll give it a shot. At the very least I’ll have a story about the time I went to a casting call for a Danish reality show. Totes random.

Okay, back to this paper which is slowly sucking my soul away. (I know, so dramatic. Perfect for reality tv, though!)

Xoxo,

Gossip M (Because I’m cool like that and am copying GG)

D is for Divine, R is for Respite: My Dominican Republic Trip

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been a bit bad about updating the ol’ blog lately, which is damn shame since a LOT has been happening.  You got to see how Kenz and I whooped it up a couple weekends ago, and that came on the tail of my family visiting me in CO (finally learned to ski!) and my trip up to the Northwest to see the sights in Seattle I didn’t get to enjoy while there for Thanksgiving, and I also finally got to visit the great state of Oregon and the city of Portland which people have managed to keep weird, as you can see here:

Just another one of my famous "jump" shots

Along with all of the trips and fun, I’ve been non-stop with school along with my school-related jobs as a teaching assistant and writing tutor.  Working with undergrads has proven interesting -but more on that later.  It will take a special post to do justice to all of the entertainment (and gray hairs) they’ve given me.

I finally got a chance to really cut back and relax this past week over spring break.  I don’t think words can describe how happy I was to have this built-in break back in my life again.  It gave me the fantastic opportunity to visit the lovely Kayla and Jason Burkhiser Reynolds who have been gone out of my life for the past year doing wonderful work with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.  Since I hadn’t taken a trip out of the country since visiting China at the tail-end of college, I had plenty of pent-up wanderlust to burn, and I couldn’t very well pass-up the opportunity to travel somewhere where I already have hosts/tour guides/translators just waiting for me to come visit.

I began my adventure the Friday before spring break officially started (why not cheat in one more day?).  I spent most of the first day traveling and arrived in the capital, Santo Domingo, at 2 AM on Saturday morning.  I was on a plane with a bunch of people from New York City who were visiting family, so it made it pretty easy for Kayla and Jason to spot me . . . because of the spring fedora I was wearing, you see.  Not because I should be recruited on to Pale Force. 😉

After getting a few hours of sleep, Saturday was spent touring Santo Domingo.  We were staying in the Colonial Zone (or La Zona Colonial for those es-pan-ol speakers) which is the area of the city settled by the likes of everyone’s favorite STD-ridden a’hole, Christopher Columbus.  Despite the connection to one of the biggest douches who ever existed, this part of the city is chock full of beautiful old structures and streets.  It seems that everywhere we walked we ran into old buildings like this one:

Gives me goosebumps to think about what kind of historical events may have happened here

Right down the road from this particular building, we stopped at a cigar shop to get some fresh hand-rolled cigars.  I have an inherited love of cigars from my dear Grandpa Doug, and I was able to buy him a very nice box of them in honor of his retirement this past month.  Jason, being Jason, got really chummy with the resident cigar roller and got a special one rolled just for him.

 Of course, we got ourselves some to smoke on the beach -but more on that bit of wonderfulness later.

One of my other favorite parts of the day was getting to meet Mama Nini.  Mama Nini was Kayla and Jason’s host mother for a while when they first came to the D.R.  They stay with her almost every time they’re back in the capital, and she was kind enough to want to fix lunch for us.  She fed us shrimp, rice, fried veggies, and tamarind juice (which is freaking amazing, by the by) and we played with the puppy who’s living with her now named Okie Dokie.  Sitting out on her back patio enjoying the food underneath an avocado tree was absolutely delightful, and helped put me in full Vacation Mode.

Jason with Mama Nini

After getting a bit tipsy on mojitos and sangria on Saturday night, we spent Sunday morning traveling to Kayla and Jason’s volunteer site, which is in a rural community (called a “campo”) outside of a town called El Seibo.  After traveling by bus to El Seibo, to get to the campo we had to ride on motorcycles driven by men who are for hire to take you wherever you need to go.  Even with my roll-along bag, my driver wasn’t even remotely daunted by the prospect of carrying me as well as my luggage on several miles of dirt road.  The drive there in fact, turned out to be one of my favorite parts of the trip.  Since I was just riding along I was able to take in all of the amazing scenery.  The rural areas are so beautiful and green and are filled with low mountains, and of course, palm trees.  Here’s a view of the landscape from Kayla and Jason’s yard:

Note the perfect little Dr. Seussian trees along the top ridge of the hills.

I did more than a little hammock-laying while I was there, not going to lie.

My shoes match the house!

Kayla and Jason have really become a part of their community in the campo.  Kayla and I took a long walk, and it seemed that everyone greeted her and knew who she was and was happy to see her.  My favorite was getting to meet some of the little girls who Kayla has been working with.  They very adorably introduced themselves to me in Von Trapp family fashion by stepping forward with their hands behind their backs and stating their names and that it was nice to meet me.  Freaking. Adorable.  We also had several visitors to the house who stopped to chat for a while.  One older gentleman informed me (in Spanish, of course) that I would be marrying his son.  He assured me that I would be very happy with him.  (You’ve heard my dating stories -I’ve had worse offers.)  All-in-all, they live in a very kind and welcoming community.  Kayla and I even got our nails done for free!

You know those scary long painted nails at most nail salons? That's the kind of patterns Kayla and I got.

On Monday, we traveled to the beach town of Las Galeras in the area of the D.R. called Samana.  To put it directly, the beach there was Paradise.  I was blown away by how perfect it was.  Crystal clear water, palm trees, mountains in the distance, beautiful sand -it was the whole package.  We even rented chairs under a tiki-themed canopy so we could sip our cups of Presidente beer and smoke our stogies in the shade, if we wished.  Here’s some visual:

Jason needed a bit more sun

Green with envy yet?

Kayla and I blew through the Hunger Games over the course of the week, so that mixed in with all of the lounging and relaxing worked very well for me.  I also got to meet some of Kayla and Jason’s fellow Peace Corps volunteers since some of them were in town to get their scuba certification.  We were able to watch them in their lessons right from our chairs, and we were even nice enough to get off our chairs and swim near them.

Besides the reading and the swimming, we of course took some time to take some sexy beach pics.  Apparently, along with any  narcissistic 16-year-old you could find, people from the Dominican Republic love to take sexy pics on the beach.  We complied with this tradition, and I got the perfect opportunity to show this island nation what Ali Sexy is made of: sheer, unadulterated awkwardness.

Oddly bent legs: check, sticking my stomach out: check, contorted torso: check, unattractive facial expression: check.

Ultimately, we ended up doing a very good job of making the trip fun as well as thrifty, and our “fancy” night out, while more expensive than some of our other meals, was not bad.  This was especially awesome because the place we went, El Cabito, landed on my Top Favorite Restaurants list not even five minutes after we arrived.  El Cabito is the kind of place you think only exists on movie sets.  It’s that awesome.  Check it out:

We sat at the table on the far right

Restaurant on a cliff

Our view to the west

El Cabito ledge

If the location and view wasn’t enough, the food was awesome as well.  I’m all about seafood, and they had plenty to offer.  They also had several other kinds of dishes to choose from, if you’re not a fan of the fishies.  Another feature of the restaurant that I loved was that it featured a full bar and sitting area with a couch underneath the canopy if you just felt like stopping by for a drink. If I were you, I would get myself there between January and early March to watch the thousands of whales that come to spawn in the bay.  I would have loved to see this natural phenomenon, but really, it was a little hard to be disappointed with a place that’s so beautiful.

After four days in Las Galeras, we returned to Santo Domingo for my last day in the country.  Part of the day was spent on the bus, but we were able to squeeze in a few more sights as well as a lovely dinner along the water.  I didn’t get picked up to head to the airport until 11 PM, so we spent my last few hours chatting on the roof over beer and one last cigar.

Drinkin' and smokin'

It was hard saying goodbye, but I was comforted by the fact that Kayla and Jason were really excited about getting going on one of their main projects -building stoves for their community -and the fact that they are already making plans for what they’ll do when they return to the States in May 2013.  It seems a long way off, but time keeps going faster and faster, so it will be here before we know it.

Pt. 2 – Returning to the Real World

Fast forward several hours to me at JFK Airport in New York.  Let me tell you, after sitting on a beach all week drinking out of a pineapple and the fact that I now live in a mountain hippie town, I wasn’t really prepared to deal with any kind of stress.  Add to this the fact that JFK is a terrible place filled to the brim with rude, unprofessional assfaces, and you have an Ali who is just waiting for the opportunity to spew vitriol so venomous, it would make the most seasoned New Yorker cry on the spot.  After receiving a condescending comment from a customs agent, getting turned around due to the lack of signs and ridiculously-named terminals (I was in the area for terminals A and B, but I needed terminal 2 . . . what the eff happened to C or D??), watching a security agent tell people who were waiting for their baggage to “get out” of the area, and hearing a TSA agent complaining and cussing like a 13-year-old while holding up the line for body scans, I was about ready to take someone down a peg or fifteen.  I had just gotten to my seat to text my mom how much I hated the place, when the announcer for our gate let us know that they “couldn’t find our flight crew” and had to delay the flight.  Right as that happened, a pigeon sauntered right by me  as if it had every right to be there (pigeons are the only animal on God’s green earth besides centipedes and big fat houseflies that I wish would just fall over dead).  I wanted to burn the place down and squat on the ashes.  I tell you all this as trip advice.  Apparently JFK already has a poor reputation, so if possible, fly into La Guardia the next time you want to visit the Big Apple.  Just my humble little opinion.

Once I finally left Hell, I made it to Detroit-Wayne just in time to make my connecting flight.  However, I was called up to the ticket counter since they had oversold the flight and wanted to offer me a voucher for $400.   I wasn’t about to pass up a free trip, so I took it in exchange for leaving a few hours later than expected.  This left me with a lot of time to kill.  Besides starting Girl With A Dragon Tattoo and making several calls, I wandered around making a couple dorky videos. And with a little help from Kenz you can now enjoy them!

I hope this encourages all of you to take a trip to the D.R. sometime soon.  It’s a cheap way to get out of the country and enjoy a very beautiful place.  Or, at the very least, I hope I saved you a terrible layover at JFK.  Either way, you’re welcome.