E-Bizzle

nancy grace gets pwned

2008-12-08T20:20:00.002-05:00

this is hilarious

how i spent my weekend...

2008-11-10T17:16:00.002-05:00

this is only half of the giant project i dominated this weekend:

The Life of Ludwig van Beethoven
with special attention paid to Symphony No. 8, Op. 93

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in mid-December, 1770 in a town called Bonn, located about fifteen miles upriver of Cologne. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptized on December 17th, and it was customary in the Catholic practice at the time to baptize a child within twenty-four hours of his birth. He was the eldest, although not firstborn, son of Johann and Maria Magdalena van Beethoven.[1] Maria Magdalena had given birth to two children who both died in infancy before Ludwig was born. The second-born was baptized and buried in April 1769, also with the name Ludwig. Two siblings survived after Ludwig, and later Maria Magdalena gave birth to another two children who both died in infancy. Johann van Beethoven was a known drunk and a cruel and abusive father and husband, which no doubt contributed to the reasons that four of their seven children died in infancy.[2]

The elder Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann’s father, sponsored young Ludwig’s baptism. He had moved to Bonn in 1733 to take a prominent position as a court musician, Kapellmeister, and he was much admired and respected as Bonn’s most eminent musician. He died on Christmas Eve in 1773, when little Ludwig was just old enough to be able to form some memories of him.[3]
Music was the true language of Ludwig van Beethoven, it came to him “more readily than words.”[4] It was his escape from the cold home he lived in, with an alcoholic father and a neglectful mother who allowed him to run about unwashed and in dirty clothes.[5] He would sit at the harpsichord as young as age four, crying, unable to stop repeating his exercises.[6] Johann, being a poorly paid court singer, was critical of Ludwig’s musical gifts for improvisation and freed variation as a child, telling him to stop and that he wasn’t “to do that yet.” However, Johann did recognize his son’s talent and in 1778, when Ludwig was seven, he took him to Cologne to have him give a recital. He presented his son as being six years old, to make him appear as more of a prodigy. Johann was greatly disappointed and even more critical of his son after the recital drew very little attention and no press at all.[7]

Thinking that their son was maybe not a child prodigy in the rank of Mozart, Maria Magdalena and Johann decided to pay some attention to their eldest son’s general education. They enrolled Ludwig in a Latin grade school, where his unkempt appearance led his classmates to believe that he actually had no mother. He was not a very gifted student nor was he very social. He had trouble with more than just the basics of writing and arithmetic, and he has no evident desire to make friends. Some evidence suggests he may have been slightly dyslexic, often inverting numbers in his scores and letters. However, he surely exhibited genius in his quest to solve complex problems of counterpoint.[8] Morris discusses the relationship of his learning disability to his genius stating:

“He had, besides, a mastery of musical architecture that was as instinctual as it was innovative. Again, the possibility of dyslexia arises. Some orthographically challenged people have an almost cubist ability to visualize planes and dimensions from many different angels at once. Beethoven’s sound structures are full of disproportionate rooms and inner voids, with surprise changes of level, and windows full of sky; but they always balance out as total buildings, no matter how large their size.”[9]

He began composing sometime around the age of ten, not having had any formal training in composition. Somehow, he managed to write correctly without knowing how to do so. Soon after, he was withdrawn from school and thirty-three-year-old Christian Gottlob Neefe took him on as a student. Neefe was a court organist, trained in law as well as music. Having studied in Leipzig, he was able to teach Beethoven using the pedagogical tradition of Johann Sebastian Bach.[10]

Beethoven’s first publication in 1782 was under the influence of Neefe. It was a set of piano variations of a theme by Dressler. Having been an assignment from his teacher, the variations did not foreshadow much of the composer that he would become, except for in the final variation in which he suddenly takes off in a foreign key, something of which Neefe was not very encouraging.[11]

Despite his extremely formulaic style of teaching, Neefe saw the potential that Beethoven held, yet worried that the confines of Bonn would not allow him to fulfill his destiny as a composer. He published an anonymous article in 1783 commenting on his skill and genius, stating that if he had the opportunity to travel he could become “a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart”.[12]

Beethoven did travel to Holland with his mother in the fall of that same year where he played his first paid engagement. It was at a royal concert in The Hague. Also he was paid more than any other performer, he complained that the Dutch were penny-pinchers and that he would “never go to Holland again.”[13]

At age thirteen, when financial instability burdened his family after the death of his father’s palace patron, Ludwig had to apply for a court post to earn some money for his family. He was hired as the Assistant Court Organist, with no fixed salary. However, when the Elector, Maximilian Friedrich, died two months later, he was hired by the new Elector and was officially put on the court payroll earning 150 florins per year. His teacher’s salary had been cut from 400 to 200 florins per year, and when Ludwig got a 50-florin pay raise six months later, it put the mentor and protégé at the same salary. It became more and more difficult for Beethoven to learn from Neefe, as Neefe tried to tone town Beethoven’s wild musical ideas and Beethoven became resentful.[14]

During that time, Beethoven experimented his wild musical ideas with the court orchestra, exploring the sound of combining a high-pitched flute note with a low bassoon or hearing how a section of violins sounds playing a piece of all fingered notes without a single open string. He had a compositional dry spell and published almost nothing over the next few years. Still, he kept busy performing at mass every morning as well as piano solos or concertos in court.[15]

In 1787, having heard of Ludwig’s great talent and potential, the Elector sponsored Beethoven to travel to Vienna with the hope of being able to study with Mozart and return to Cologne as Kapellmeister, the same position his grandfather had held. So, in the spring of that year, Beethoven traveled the nine hundred miles to Vienna. Upon hearing him improvise a theme, Mozart was impressed with Beethoven, remarking to some friends that “some day he will give the world something to talk about.”[16]

However, after a very short time in Vienna, Beethoven received word that his mother had fallen critically ill and he rushed back to Bonn without having had much of a chance to study with the great Mozart. He arrived in Bonn while his mother was still alive, but in a very critical condition. She died July 17, 1787. Dealing with the grief of his mother’s death and the disappointment of a fruitless trip to Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven became very depressed.[17]

He was hired shortly thereafter by Hélène von Breuning to tutor her four children in music. He found comfort in the widow von Breuning and her elegant mansion. She became somewhat of a substitute mother to him and her home was the antithesis of his bleak and sad household. He also found interest in Frau von Breuning’s sixteen-year-old daughter Eleonore. Ludwig befriended the three younger boys as well, but he preferred spending time on the piano bench playing duets with Eleonore.[18]

Spending time in the von Breuning mansion also gave Ludwig his first exposure to social behavior among the upper class. He learned new manners, and he learned them well. He was also exposed to things he had missed in his lack of formal schooling, things such as German literature, ancient and modern history, geography and science. He also befriended Franz Gerhard Wegeler, a student from the new University of Bonn and a frequent visitor to the von Breuning mansion. This friendship gave Ludwig the opportunity to enroll part-time in the university as a philosophy student. [19]

In 1788 Count Ferdinand Waldstein moved to Bonn. He was a friend of Mozart’s and came from a background that impressed the Elector. He soon became a frequenter of the von Breuning mansion, and when he met Ludwig he was so impressed that he decided to do everything in his power to advance Ludwig’s career. The count tried to convince the Elector of Ludwig’s genius, but when Ludwig applied for a raise he was denied. Although to some he showed great potential, he hadn’t published a composition in years and was to others at the same level of most of the other court musicians with whom he played.[20]

An opportunity arose for Beethoven out of a tragedy: the death of Joseph II, “the people’s Emperor.” The Elector, Max Franz, was particularly upset, as Joseph II was his brother. A musical memorial was called for, and somehow Ludwig van Beethoven earned the honor of being announced as the composer for the event. Even though he was a nineteen-year-old court musician with no experience composing large-scale works to grieve the loss of a public figure, Beethoven had friends in powerful positions who must convinced the Elector in his fragile state to allow Beethoven this responsibility.[21]

For “various reasons”, Beethoven’s work for the occasion was never performed. It was assumed for a long time that he wasn’t able to finish it in time, but nearly one hundred years later , Johannes Brahms discovered Ludwig’s manuscript for the Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II. It was a forty-minute work for five soloists, a full chorus and an orchestra of strings, double woodwind and horns. The Cantata was a perfect example of Beethoven’s unambiguous style, and it was too difficult for the performers of that time.[22]

Beethoven was invited soon after in that same year of 1790 to compose another work for the election of Joseph II’s eldest brother, Leopold, to the Holy Roman throne. He composed another powerful piece, the Cantata on the Accession of Leopold II, which was also withdrawn and never performed.[23]

In the winter of 1790, when Beethoven had just turned twenty, the well-known composer Joseph Haydn passed through Bonn on his way from Vienna to London and Beethoven had the opportunity to present him with one of his unperformed cantatas, although which one is not known. Haydn was impressed and urged Beethoven to pursue further studies in music.[24]
Those further studies were realized with Haydn himself when Beethoven moved to Vienna in November 1792, where he would remain the rest of his life. By the end of January 1793, Haydn announced that he was so pleased with Beethoven’s progress as a student that he was ready to compose “grand operas.”[25]

Beethoven spent the next few years studying with Haydn, performing, composing—doing all he could to further his career. He published his first two works with opus numbers in 1795. The Three Trios for Piano, Violin, and Cello, dedicated to Prince Karl Lichnowski, and the Three Sonatas, dedicated to Joseph Haydn, were numbered opus 1 and two, respectively.[26] In 1796 he gained wider notoriety with a five-month tour through Bohemia, Saxony and Prussia. During his tour, his performances brought members of the Berlin Singakademie to tears, earned him a gold snuffbox full of louis d’or from King Friedrich Wilhelm II and gave him a confidence that he was experiencing a time similar to the youth of Mozart.[27]

Very busy composing, performing and traveling, Ludwig van Beethoven continued to gain more acclaim over the next years. However, his growing success was met with a sad occurrence. Sometime around 1794 – 1798, he began going deaf. Various sources and letter suggest different dates regarding when his symptoms actually began. It started with a constant humming and buzzing in his ears and progressively got worse. He was careful to not tell anyone about it, as it was not until 1801 that he admitted in a letter to his friend Franz Wegeler, whom he had met through the von Breuning family in Bonn and who was trained in medicine, that “for the last three years [his] hearing has become weaker and weaker.” He went on to say that it was associated with the illness that caused him to have “violent diarrhea” and that he had seen several doctors and healers, some of whom helped his digestive situation, but his hearing continued to get worse. He expressed his grief of the fact that he had stopped attending social functions because he found it “impossible to say to people: I am deaf.” Later in the letter, he stated that he found it “surprising that some people have never noticed [his] deafness; but since [he has] always been liable to fits of absentmindedness, they attribute [his] hardness of hearing to that.” Beethoven lamented his condition and mentioned that he often cursed his Creator and his existence. He then begged his friend not say anything to anyone about his condition, as it was a terrible handicap in his profession and he worried what his enemies would say if they were to find out.[28]

He must have felt very lonely in his condition, for only two days later he revealed his secret in a letter to another friend, Karl Amenda. In this letter he referred to his hearing as his “most prized possession” and told Amenda that it had “greatly deteriorated.” In both letters he expressed to each Wegeler and Amenda how much he appreciated their true friendship and begged them to write to him more often, for their letters, “however short they may be, console [him] and do [him] good.”[29]

Perhaps Beethoven was also secretive about his condition because he was going through a period of great success, being offered more commissions that he could carry out. He was pleased that he no longer had to negotiate a fee with his patrons. “I state my price and they pay,” he wrote in that same letter to Wegeler.[30] A fear for losing his patronage also seems a likely reason to hide his worsening deafness from the public.

Driven to depression by the fact that he could no longer properly communicate in person and no longer hear what his fellow humans heard, Beethoven went to the country to live in solitude for some months. A document written by Beethoven in 1802, but only found after his death, now known as the “Heiligenstadt Testament,” addressed Beethoven’s thoughts of suicide during this period of his life, but he admitted that it seemed “impossible to leave the world until [he] had brought forth all that was within [him].”[31]

Over the next years, Beethoven traveled back and forth between Vienna and the country as well as other places, paying rent in four places at once at some points. Work was endless, as he was being constantly commissioned to produce new works and his prices were rising. He produced numerous compositions, including symphonies, solo concertos, string quartets, string sonatas, piano sonatas and much more, almost all of which were masterpieces and full of modern progressions and harmonies that were new and foreign to the contemporary ear.[32]

In October 1808, the new King of Westphalia, Jérôme Bonaparte, offered Ludwig a part-time position as Kapellmeister in Kassel. He saw this as an opportunity to bargain for an annual salary from the Vienna Imperial Court, writing to its directorate petitioning an annual fee of 2,400 florins to retain him as the in-house opera composer.[33] The directorate ignored Beethoven’s suggestion, and so he prepared to leave Vienna. In December he held a farewell concert for the Viennese public,[34] at which the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were both premiered.[35]

However, Beethoven’s plans changed when upon the encouragement of Countess Anna Marie Erdödy, several of Vienna’s richest patrons pooled together to offer Beethoven an annuity much larger than what the King was offering him in Kassel, on the condition that he stay in Vienna.[36] He accepted their offer and decided to stay in Vienna, as stated in a letter dated March 4, 1809.[37] He was now earning four thousand florins a year, just to remain in that city.[38]

An exciting thing happened for Beethoven in 1811, when he began correspondence with Johann Wolfgang con Goethe, someone he admired very much. This was thanks to Bettina Brentano, who knew Goethe and wrote him a lengthy letter describing Beethoven, suggesting the two should meet. Goethe responded to Bettina sending his greetings to Beethoven and inviting him to Karlsbad as a possible place to meet.[39] Beethoven first wrote to Goethe in April 1811 and sent him a copy of Egmont, Op. 84 early the next year asking for comments, writing, “even your censure will be useful to me and my art and will be welcomed as gladly as the greatest praise.”[40]

That summer, Beethoven traveled to Teplitz to spend time at the Bohemian baths to see if his health might improve. There, he began preliminary sketches of the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies. He continued correspondence with Goethe, exchanging letters full of compliments back and forth.[41]

In the following year of 1812, Beethoven completed the Seventh Symphony in May and immediately continued working on the Eighth. He took the half-finished manuscript with him when he returned to Teplitz in July 1812 and continued his work on it there.[42] That the Eighth Symphony is such a light, jolly work is not at all evident of all that was occurring in his life at the time.

That summer at Teplitz, Beethoven finally met Goethe in person. This was a meeting for which he had been waiting years, and although Beethoven was very pleased to make the acquaintance, Goethe’s reaction was not entirely positive. Although Goethe marveled at Beethoven’s talent, Herriot suggests that Goethe found him “uncouth and far too laconic.”[43]

The summer of 1812 is also known for the famous letters written by Beethoven addressed to his “Immortal Beloved.” The letters were not found until after his death, and there is no named recipient. In these letters he writes of a profound love, asking if there is a way she can “alter the fact that you are not wholly mine, that I am not wholly yours?”[44] There was much speculation among musicologists over the centuries in regards to who the addressee of these letters was. However, in 1977 Maynard Solomon published a theory that has now become widely accepted as conclusive. He suggests that the letters were meant for Antonie Brentano, the wife of a friend of Beethoven’s. Whether an affair between Antonie and Beethoven was ever consummated is not known, nor whether Antonie ever read the letters. The fact is that she was also at Teplitz that same summer. So is it possible she read them and returned them to Beethoven, as it was too risky a document for her to keep as a married woman? Or did Beethoven write them without the intention of sending them, as an expression of his love for her, a dream of a relationship that could never be fulfilled?[45] Whatever the case, it is obvious from the letters that Beethoven was deeply in love at the time and deeply emotionally affected by it, writing, “Oh God, why must one be separated from her who is so dear…Be calm; for only by calmly considering our lives can we achieve our purpose to live together…what tearful longing for you…Oh, do continue to love me – never misjudge your lover’s most faithful heart. ever thine. ever mine. ever ours. L.”[46]

During these same summer months, a rumor was spreading that Beethoven’s brother Johann was involved in an illicit relationship with his lodger’s sister, Therese Obermeyer, whom he had hired as a housekeeper. Beethoven became furious about this news and traveled to Linz, where Johann was living at the time, to put a stop to their relationship, which he deemed immoral. He involved the civil authorities and the police and even went so far as to obtain an order to evict Therese if the relationship continued. Johann was offended and upset by his brother’s interference in his personal affairs, yet ended up marrying Therese that November in order to appease his brother. He later blamed Beethoven for having driven him into a marriage he never wanted.[47]

The Eighth Symphony was dated in Linz in October 1812.[48] That Beethoven was experiencing such turbulent times in his life during the months in which it was composed doesn’t come through at all in the music. Without knowing what was going on in Beethoven’s life, a listener would think from its light, warm affection, he was in the best of moods during the period in which he was composing it.[49] However, two things set it clearly apart from his other symphonies. For unknown reasons, Beethoven did not dedicate the Eighth symphony to anyone.[50] It also does not have any introduction. Of all the preceding symphonies, only the Sixth was composed without an introduction, and the presence of one is even a debatable topic.[51]

Beethoven called his Eighth Symphony “my little one.” Aside from it being actually shorter than his other symphonies, it also has a lighter instrumentation, with just two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, two timpani, violins I and II, violas, cellos and basses. It was also composed in a very short period of time. From the time the Seventh was completed, it was only five months before the Eighth was completed and dated, and it would be over a decade before the ninth was completed.[52]

The Eighth Symphony was premiered on February 27, 1814, almost a year and a half after it had been completed. It was first performed at the Redoutensaal in Vienna. The program of the concert began with the Seventh Symphony (which had premiered two months earlier), then “an entirely new Italian terzetto” (Op. 116), then the Eighth Symphony and it concluded with “Wellington’s Victory.” The Eighth did not receive as enthusiastic an applause from the audience as Beethoven’s previous symphonies had received.[53] His pupil, Carl Czerny, later asked him why it was that the Eighth was so much less popular than the Seventh. Beethoven is said to have responded, “Because it’s so much better!”[54]

By this point in his life, Beethoven’s deafness was so severe that “one had to shout so loudly that it could be heard three rooms distant” in order to communicate with him.[55] One wonders if this is why, in the recapitulation of the first movement of the Eighth Symphony, the melody is given to the bass instruments, which get completely drowned out by the upper-register instruments. Was he unaware that the audience could barely hear the melody? Not an unlikely assumption, as it is said that his conducting style had become peculiar and extreme, and he had even gotten lost in previous concerts he had conducted because he couldn’t hear some of the instruments.[56]

Compared with his output during the first thirty-five years of life, Beethoven produced very little music from 1815 until his death in 1827.[57] However, his compositions from this last period have a denser musical thought than any of his earlier works. By 1815 he had gone completely deaf, so he refrained from interacting in society as much as possible.[58]

Beethoven took on a large responsibility in 1815. After the death of his brother Caspar in the fall, he fought to gain custody of his nephew Karl. Caspar’s widow, Johanna van Beethoven, was still alive and wanted her son to remain with her. However, Beethoven’s status as a well-known musician and of nobility overrode Johanna’s attempts to gain custody. So Beethoven took over the care of nine-year-old Karl in January 1816.[59]

There is varying evidence about the nature of the relationship between Karl and his uncle Ludwig van Beethoven. Some people close to them suspected Beethoven of beating Karl, while others witnessed pure happiness in Beethoven’s eyes when the two were together, as well as scenes of Karl falling asleep while his uncle played the piano.[60]

In May 1824, Beethoven premiered his Ninth and final symphony, also his longest, at almost an hour in performance. Although Beethoven was completely deaf, he insisted on co-conducting the first performance alongside Michael Umlauf, who had advised the musicians to ignore the composer’s gestures.[61] The Ninth was his biggest and most ambitious composition yet, and the audience received it accordingly. The performance was interrupted four times by wild applause and Morris recounts that, at one point, “while the audience erupted with delight, Beethoven stood with his back to the hall, absorbed in the score before him. One of the soloists…had to…turn him around so that he could see the tumult.”[62]

During the years 1824 to 1826, Beethoven fulfilled his obligation to compose several string quartets, which had been commissioned before he was even deep into composing the Ninth Symphony. These last quartets were masterpieces, one of which (Op. 131) Beethoven considered his “most perfect single work.”[63]

Traveling with his nephew, Karl, in an uncovered coach and sleeping in an unheated village inn in early December 1826 left Beethoven deathly ill. He was suffering from pneumonia and pleurisy, as well as spitting blood. He recovered regained his strength after a couple weeks, but by mid-December he was ill again, this time with dropsy, a fatal illness. Beethoven underwent several surgeries over the course of the next few months, but to no avail. He was abusing his prescriptions and drinking heavily. On March 26, 1827, Ludwig van Beethoven passed away in Vienna, coincidentally on the same day of year he had made his child debut in Cologne exactly forty-nine years earlier.[64]

[1] Morris, pp. 11-12[2] Herriot, p. 20[3] Morris, p. 12[4] Ibid., p.20[5] Morris, p. 18[6] Herriot, p. 20[7] Morris, pp. 18-19[8] Ibid., p. 7[9] Morris, p. 8[10] Ibid., pp. 20-21[11] Ibid., pp. 21-22[12] Ibid., pp, 22-23[13] Morris, p. 23[14] Ibid., pp. 24-25[15] Ibid., pp. 27-28[16] Morris, pp. 30-31[17] Ibid., pp. 31-32[18] Ibid., pp. 32-33[19] Morris, pp. 33-34[20] Ibid., pp. 36-38[21] Ibid., p. 39[22] Morris, pp. 39-42[23] Ibid., p. 43[24] Ibid., pp. 45-46[25] Ibid., pp. 49-53[26] Herriot, p. 56[27] Morris, pp. 70-71[28] Anderson, pp. 59-62[29] Anderson, pp. 63-65[30] Ibid., p. 58[31] Morris, p. 96[32] Morris, pp. 100-109[33] Ibid., pp. 123-124[34] Herriot, p. 160[35] Kinderman, p. 123[36] Morris, p. 130[37] Anderson, p. 217[38] Morris, p. 135[39] Morris, pp. 143-144[40] Anderson, p. 318[41] Morris, p. 147[42] Ibid., p. 148[43] Herriot, p. 206[44] Anderson, p. 374[45] Hopkins, pp. 162-164[46] Anderson, p. 376[47] Hopkins, p. 221[48] Herriot, p. 207[49] Hopkins, p. 221[50] Young, p. 101[51] Hopkins, p. 222[52] Young, pp. 101-102[53] Hopkins, p. 220[54] Young, p. 102[55] Morris, p. 158[56] Hopkins, p. 197[57] Herriot, pp. 13-14[58] Hopkins, p. 188[59] Morris, pp. 175-177[60] Ibid., pp. 183-184[61] Young, pp. 109-110[62] Morris, p. 210[63] Ibid., p. 213[64] Ibid., pp. 218-223

References

Anderson, Emily, comp. The Letters of Beethoven. Vol. 1. New York, NY: St. Martin's P Inc, 1961.

Herriot, Edouard. The Life and Times of Beethoven. New York, NY: The MacMillan Company, 1935.

Hopkins, Antony. The Nine Symphonies of Beethoven. Seattle, WA: University of Washington P, 1981.

Kinderman, William. Beethoven. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California P, 1995.

Morris, Edmund. Beethoven : The Universal Composer. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Young, John B. Unlocking the Masters: Beethoven's Symphonies. New York: Amadeus P, LLC, 2008.

NYC

2008-01-26T13:33:00.000-05:00

i hope this doesn't come off as cynical, but i really don't like new york city. it's a nice city to visit. i love going to see shows there (just saw avenue q the other night with my mom - it was hysterical). it's great for a fun night out on the town, but i could never live there. seriously never. there are just too many people. everywhere you go, you are surrounded by far too many people, yet somehow that city manages to make you feel all alone. nobody makes eye contact, nobody talks to you. it's a large, lonely city. i have always felt this way about new york (and london among other cities but that's for another post).

so it may come as a surprise to some that my mom just got an apartment in new york. yes, that's right. she loves new york. my mom and i are very similar; my sisters actually call me mini-mom. but i do not share her love for the big apple. still, i have to pause to appreciate the view from her 15th floor corner apartment at 96th st and central park west. few views in the united states could compete with this. just imagine what it must look like in the summer.

"is there anybody here it doesn't suck to be?"

2008-01-24T23:02:00.000-05:00

question: why do northwest montana taxis not have 4-wheel drive?

2008-01-23T14:01:00.000-05:00

apparently there are some people who actually still check my blog, and have watched that bird video about a million times. so i figure i owe it to these dedicated souls to continue blogging. i will start back out slow.

here is a picture from my recent trip to montana. my taxi got stuck in the snow and had to be pulled out by some guy wearing loafers and shorts.

brazilian alarm clock

2007-08-09T13:36:00.000-04:00

Portuguese Lesson: Birds

passaro (pah-sah-roo) bird

Quantos anos vive um passaro? (kwan-toos ah-noos vee-vee oom pah-sah-roo) How many years does a bird live?

Here is a video of an incident that occurs at my window every morning at 6 a.m. Enjoy...

this is so brasil

2007-07-24T09:11:00.000-04:00

don't get me wrong. i LOVE brasil!! the people are awesome. as long as you have all the time in the world, this is the best place to be. but as soon as you're in a little bit of a hurry, things get difficult. read on.

abridged translation of the conversations i've been having with people regarding my computer:

THURSDAY, JUNE 11th
Location: Mac Bahia Store

Elizabeth: My computer died.
Computer Tech: What happened?
E: I don't know, it keeps going to sleep. It started a week ago.
CT: I think it's the fan. I can repair it, but you need to bring it back tomorrow because I'm leaving now. You need to go the repair office on the fifteenth floor.
(note: the repair place is pretty far from where I live. it's not easy for me to get there.)

FRIDAY, JUNE 12th
Location: Mac Bahia Repair Office on the fifteenth floor

E: I need to drop off my computer to be repaired.
Secretary: What's the problem?
E: I don't know, it keeps going to sleep.
S: When did you buy your computer?
E: January 2006.
S: We can't repair it, you aren't covered by the warranty.
E: Yes I am. I bought the extended care warranty.
S: I need the registration number for your warranty.
E: No you don't.
S: Yes I do.
E: No....you don't. You just need my computer serial number.
(Pause)
E: Don't you think it's funny that you repair Macs but you're using a Dell to input all my information right now?
(Pause)
S: Ok, the tech will repair it. It'll take 72 hours.
(enter computer tech)
CT: Hello, I'm the computer tech, Francisco.
E: Hi, thanks for repairing my computer.
CT: It'll take 72 hours.
E: So I can pick it up on Monday?
CT: Well...tomorrow is Saturday and then it's Sunday, so....
E:..Wednesday?
CT: Yes, we'll call you when it's ready.

They didn't call me on Wednesday.

FRIDAY, JUNE 20th
Location: telephone conversation

S: Hello, Mac Bahia. How can I help you?
E: I dropped my computer off about a week ago to get repaired and I'd like to know if it's ready.
S: Let me get the tech.
(really bad hold music)
CT: Hi Elizabeth.
E: Hey Francisco, how's my computer doing?
CT: Well I repaired it and it seems to be fine, but I want to run a few more tests to make sure. I'll call you this afternoon, ok?
E: Great, I look forward to your call.

He didn't call me that afternoon.

Same day, 6:15 p.m.
S: Hello, Mac Bahia. How can I help you?
E: I'm calling to find out if my computer is ready to be picked up.
S: I'm sorry, the tech only works 9-6. You'll have to call back on Monday.
E: I have to write a paper. Is there any way you can find out?
S: No, you have to call on Monday.

MONDAY, JUNE 23rd
Location: telephone conversation

E: Hey Francisco, this is Elizabeth. Remember me?
CT: Yes I do. Your laptop is all ready to do, you can pick it up anytime.
E: When can I pick it up?
CT: Anytime.
E: No but really...when?
CT: Before 6.
E: I have class until 6.
CT: Well then you can come tomorrow after 9.
E: No, I need my laptop to write a paper which I wanted to write over the weekend but couldn't for obvious reasons.
CT: Well, I don't know....
E: Can you leave it at the store and I'll pick it up from there after I get out of class?
CT: Great idea! I'll leave it at the store.
E: Thanks, I'll pick it up tonight.

SAME DAY
Location: Mac Bahia Store

E: Hi, I'm here to pick up my laptop. It was being repaired.
Woman working in store: By the computer tech?
E: Yes.
W: He already left, you'll have to come back tomo--
E: No. I talked to him today. He said he'd leave it at the store because I had class until 6.
W: Well, he didn't leave anything here. He forgot his card, but that's it. You'll have to come back tomorrow.
E: No, I'm here to pick up my laptop now.
W: You talked to the computer tech?
E: Yes, I talked to Francisco on the phone today.
W: And he told you he'd leave the laptop here.
E: Yes.
(Woman calls Francisco, talks to him for minute, then hands the phone to me.)
E: Hey Francisco.
CT: Hi Elizabeth, how's it going?
E: Well, I'm here to pick up my laptop, but....
CT: Yeah, about that...I'm reaalllly sorry.
E: You forgot?
CT: I had a lot of things to do today. I was really busy...can you come back tomorrow?
E: Look, this is a big problem, because I have a paper to write for tomorrow but I can't because I don't have a laptop. I wanted to write it over the weekend but I couldn't because I didn't have a laptop. I'm here to pick it up now and I can't come back tomorrow.
CT: Ok let me talk to my colleague.
(I hand the phone back to her. She talks to him, and then hangs up.)
W: Ok Elizabeth, just give me a few minutes and I'm going to get your laptop from the office upstairs.
E: Thanks.
(45 minutes later...)
W: Alright, here's your laptop.
E: Thanks. Have a nice night!

I went to a surprise birthday party for a friend after that, to which I was an hour late. But, I have my laptop now. Phew!

Here's a picture from our Brazilian culinary class yesterday:

L to R: Casey (goes by João), Elizabeth (pronounced Elizabetchi), Marie (pronouced Mahee)
We were trying to make thug faces, but I don't think mine worked out too well.

brain in a bag

2007-07-20T12:44:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week, my Contemporary Brazil class took a field trip to a market here in Salvador. There are a lot of markets around the city, most of which are pretty tourist-aimed. However, this definitely was not a touristy market. When we first got in, the kinds of things being sold seemed pretty usual to me. Clothes, blenders, spices, kitchenware, flip flops and so on. However, there was immediately a plethora of smells, none of which were pleasant, none of which I could identify, coming from every direction penetrating my pores. I knew at that point that this was going to be an experience I would never forget.

Eventually we got into the live animal area. First we saw chickens, ducks, pigeons and other types of birds in overcrowded cages. Then we saw a live chicken being wrapped up in newspaper. Then we saw goats and pigs. Then we saw a barely-alive-goat in a burlap sack be thrown over a man's shoulder and carried away. Another goat was pulled out of the pen screaming like a child as it's four legs were tied together and it was thrown in a wheel-barrow and carted away.

The fruit section was next, full of flies, cockroaches and dead rats. Yes, I saw dead rats next to baskets of fruit.

The meat section was the most disturbing part for me. I saw mean in every fashion: hung up, laid out, in bags, in nets, in newspaper and more. I saw intestines, eyeballs, tongues, testicles and I also saw brain in a plastic bag. Many of them. I saw every organ of every animal I had seen alive just a few minutes earlier. This is where all the smells were coming from.

I'm glad I went. It gave a much better real-life idea of not only where my food comes from, but also the kind of work some people have to do to survive. I don't think I'll ever go back to that market, but I definitely appreciate the food I eat a lot more now.

PORTUGUESE LESSON #4: FOOD

Some of my favorite foods/drinks since I have been in Brazil:

1. Pão delícia (paong deh-lee-see-ah) literally means "bread delight" and it is.

2. Açaí (ah-sah-ee) a brazilian berry most often made into a smoothie mixed with other fruit. My favorite is açaí with banana.

3. Suco (soo-koo) juice. Brazilians make juice out of every fruit, only it's not the juice we're used to. They just stick the fruit in a blender and add water. Most brazilians also like to sweeten the juice with sugar. Some of my favorite sucos are melância (watermelon), manga (mango), maracujá (passion fruit) and lime-rind, but I can't remember how to say that one in Portuguese.

Até mais! Till next time!

south american computer saga

2007-07-12T10:34:00.000-04:00

PORTUGUESE LESSON #3: Fixing a computer

Meu computador morreu. (meh-oo com-poo-tah-door moh-heh-oo) My computer died.

Você fala inglês? (voh-seh fah-lah een-glays) Do you speak English?

Pode me conectar com alguém que fala inglês? (poh-djee mee coh-neck-tar cong ahl-game key fah-lah een-glays) Can you connect me with someone who speaks English?

my blogger menu is in portuguse

2007-07-02T17:34:00.000-04:00

instead of "new post" is says "novo postagem." i love brazil. sorry to tell all of you i haven't really taken any pictures. i'm afraid to take my camera anywhere for fear of it getting stolen. one of my friends got robbed in broad daylight on her way back from the beach on saturday. the man just came up to her and grabbed her bag right off her shoulder. soon enough i'll figure out when it's safe to take my camera and when it's not. i do have have one good picture i got on camera phone.
i took this picture from the bus on my way to go visit some Baha'i friends who live about an hour north of salvador. maybe it's immature and juvenile of me to have taken it, but whatever. i thought it was funny.

PORTUGUESE LESSON #2: MUSIC

Onde posso comprar um violão? (on-jee poh-soo com-prahr oom vee-oh-laong) Where can I buy a guitar?

A música brasileira é muita bonita. (ah moo-zee-kah brah-zee-lay-rah eh muytah boh-nee-tah) Brazilian music is very beautiful.

I have about 5 minutes left on this computer, so that's it for today folks. Till next time!

a praia bahiana

2007-06-28T06:37:00.000-04:00

estou no brasil, na bahia, em salvador, na praia. here is the view i've had from my hotel window for the past few days.

from here on out my blog will serve as a mini-portuguese lesson as well.

PORTUGUESE LESSON #1: THE ESSENTIALS

Olá. Tudo bem? (Oh-lah. too-doo bay) 1. Hey, what's up 2. Hi, everything ok? 3. Yo, how's it going?

Onde é a praia? (On-djee eh ah pry-ah) Where is the beach?

today i will move in with my host family. i got to meet my host mother last night. her name is conceição. she has been hosting students with this program for six years! so even though i'm just one on a list, she took my right in as a member of the family. i love the brazilians. also, she lives right across the street from the hotel, so i'll still be right on the sea! yes, life is good. tá boa.

they're growing up!

2007-06-20T19:22:00.000-04:00

yesterday was graduation at the preschool where i work. the kids were all dressed up and so excited to graduate. we saw a slide show with baby pictures and recent pictures of each of them, pictures of the classes, and shots of them doing different kinds of activities.

then they each went up with their families and received their diplomas. for every child, a teacher read a few sentences of some nice things their friends had to say about them. for example, "i love her because she has a beautiful dress and beautiful shoes. she has beautiful all over her!" or, "i like to play with him because he likes to catch girls too." it was very sweet, touching and very funny.

last on the program was a little concert to be given by yours truly. when i first got on stage, i knew these kids were not going to be able to listen to thirty-minute set i had planned, so i decided to cut it down dramatically. the first song was a sing-along called "the great big moose." the kids were into it, but by my fourth song, i knew i was losing them. the last song i sang was a duet with my coworker rachel. another coworker shareen actually managed to record it. annoying as it was at the time, the video actually turned out to be pretty funny.

flight of the conchords

2007-06-19T19:21:00.001-04:00

i can't remember who first introduced me to them, but i started watching flight of the conchords clips on youtube a few years ago. they're a comedic folk music duo from new zealand. i just can't enough of their stuff. i was flipping channels last night and noticed they were on hbo, and apparently they have their own tv show now. i was lucky enough to have happened upon the series premier. i recommend you check it out. you can watch it here. in the meantime, here is a little teaser:

11 days and counting

2007-06-13T20:30:00.000-04:00

jake shimabukuro is my new hero

2007-06-07T18:47:00.000-04:00

back last june, when i bought my first ukulele, i posted a video of a famous ukulele player named jake shimabukuro. here is a video of him performing the same song, "while my guitar gently weeps," live in concert with an uber cool extended intro. this guy is incredible. the bridge gets me every time. it's about five and a half minutes in so you have to wait for it!

it's always better when we're together

2007-06-03T17:37:00.001-04:00

amelia and i are finally roommates! but only for three weeks...

aight y'all, here's proof....

2007-05-30T09:38:00.001-04:00

nostalgia

2007-05-25T13:39:00.001-04:00

i'm going to a feist concert on june 13th. as i was perusing their myspace page, i came across this music video....and after watching about ten seconds of it i realized it was filmed in prague! :)

i did not turn into a giraffe

2007-05-13T14:21:00.000-04:00

the saga continues...

surgery was monday. i was released from the hospital tuesday. wednesday and thursday i started eating real food, as opposed to the clear liquid diet i was on for monday and tuesday. thursday afternoon i started getting stomach cramps. you see, nothing in my digestive system had been moving since my surgery if you know what i mean. friday the cramps were worse, and my tongue was black. i went back on the clear liquid diet, plus ginger ale.

(this picture really doesn't do justice to the blackness of my tongue. also notice the tape on my neck. that is the location of my to-be battle scar.)

saturday i was half-half on the diet. i had some bread and chicken soup. my tongue went from kind of black to purple and back to normal by nighttime. today i'm not so sure what i want to do. my digestive system finally showed some movement today, but i think i'm going to keep my diet simple. i had some high-fiber cereal for breakfast. that should help things.

on a lighter note, i know how to solve a rubik's cube!

the definition of irony

2007-05-08T16:36:00.000-04:00

you are in the hospital recovering from a left thyroid lobectomy, a surgical procedure in which the left half of your thyroid is removed, and your cousin brings you a butterfly-shaped balloon.

NOT a hickey

2007-04-22T16:47:00.000-04:00

contrary to popular belief, this is actually my battle wound from the biopsy.

Advanced Driving Strategies

2007-04-19T22:24:00.000-04:00

Here is an excerpt from an online course i took this evening...

In case you can't read, it says, "Perhaps the most embarrassing fixed object collission is when you run over a fire hydrant. The fire hydrant is just one example of a fixed object that is often struck and damaged."

WRA: Washington Radiology Associates, P.C.

2007-04-14T18:27:00.001-04:00

PATIENT: HAI ELIZABETH
DOB: 02/10/1986
AGE: 21

4/11/2007: THYROID SONOGRAM

Thyroid Sonogram

Clinical History: Thyroid nodule

There is a circumscribed nodule in the left lobe of the thyroid which measures 2.1 x 1.3 x 1.5 cm. This contains a small linear calcification. There may be a second small nodule in the left isthmus measuring 5 mm. The right lobe is essentially normal.

Impression: 2.1 cm left thyroid nodule as noted above. Fine needle aspiration is recommended.

The findings and recommendation were discussed with the patient and telephoned ot George Washington student health.

Mark E. Klein, M.D.

the neverending adventures in elizabeth's health

2007-04-11T12:44:00.000-04:00

2004 - bronchitis with a fever so high i fainted and started hallucinating

2005 - the doctors gave me a pregnancy test without asking me if there was a chance i was pregnant. had they asked me, they wouldn't have given me the test unless they thought i was actually the next virgin mary.

2006 - the meningitis fiasco resulting in a CT-scan, two spinal taps and eventually a colonoscopy. that was fun.

and what would 2007 be without a good case of a growth in my thyroid? biopsy next week, i'll keep y'all posted.

my 50th post

2007-04-03T00:37:00.000-04:00

this calls for a celebration! how about a virtual trip to flea market montgomery? "livin' rooms, bedrooms, dinettes, oh yeah. you can find 'em at the market, we talkin' bout flea market...montgomery."

and now with facebook's fairly recent gift feature (ok, so i'm blogging about facebook a lot, big deal), you can even give someone a little miniature sammy stephens! "it's just like, it's just like, a mini-mall!"

thanks for keeping me informed, facebook

2007-04-01T02:33:00.000-04:00

they have taken it to a new level.

a few months ago, the people at facebook decided to implement a new feature called "News Feed" in which you are informed of all your friends' actions. For example, if my friend 'Bobby' starts dating someone and decides to change his relationship status on facebook, i will have a note in my news feed that says, "Bobby is now listed as In a Relationship with Ashley." i also find out when friends add new photos, when they update their profiles and when they join or leave groups among other things. there was a big revolt against it. a lot of facebookers were angry because it made facebook-stalking a little bit too easy. millions of people signed online petitions, wrote articles and formed groups (on facebook, ironically) protesting it. it was the biggest and most organized protest of this generation. am i proud of that? well, that's a rant for another post.

what's this new level? facebook has decided to inform me of MY OWN ACTIONS. ?!?!? tonight when i logged in I had a little note telling me that i was on facebook, reading my news feed. thanks, facebook....you're always looking out for me.
strangest part about it all? i was out at 11:19 pm, not on facebook.

no, my blog hasn't died

2007-03-25T01:57:00.000-04:00

in case any of you were wondering, which i'm sure you weren't.

bugs aren't incredibly intelligent creatures. for the past few minutes, i have been watching a small fly. first it was attracted to the light of my computer screen. i like to pretend i'm a vampire sometimes so i sit in the dark with only my computer on. anyway, i think this fly was trying to find a way INSIDE the computer. poor thing. i turned on a lamp to give it somewhere else to go. then it was flying around the light of the lamp for a little while trying to figure out how to get through the lampshade to the lightbulb. it didn't fly up or down to the openings, just kept trying to go through it. finally it got stuck on a piece of tape on the wall. sad. i guess it was either that or get burned by the lightbulb. he certainly wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, poor guy.

camera phones are a great luxury, aren't they? i LOVE being able to have a phone AND a camera all in one! so much versatility and mobility. PLUS my phone is super skinny, so i can just stick it in my pocket and i dont even need to carry a purse anymore. here are some pictures i have taken with my 1.3 megapixel camera phone:

one fun activity native to dc is jumbo slice. and when i say jumbo slice, i mean jumbo slice.

here is abdul pretending to drink from the coffee/tea pot i got him in israel.

this boy has amazing fine motor skills when it comes to manipulating wire. we like to build wire sculptures together.

here is ferraby lionheart playing at the rock and roll hotel in dc. awesome venue, awesomer musician.

i even have some videos of the some of the kids i work with on the playground. for their privacy, i don't think it would be a good idea for me to upload them to youtube and then post them here. the point is - my camera phone rocks.

my celebrity look-alike

2007-02-22T19:25:00.000-05:00

this is interesting:

http://www.myheritage.com

quick pic review

2007-02-12T20:25:00.000-05:00

wow, i have way more things to do than i ever want to, yet i still find myself blogging to procrastinate. oh, well...this won't take long. (or so i like to tell myself). it's been a while since i've updated this virtual world, so i just want to give you a short photographic overview of what's been going on in my life the past few weeks.

i sent away my laptop to get my problems fixed a few weeks ago. it was sad to part but it came back in very good timing with all the problems fixed. :)

my roommates hosted a party entitled "anything but cups" in our room two weekends ago. here are some of the creative non-cups people used....a fishbowl and a coffee pot.

a pringles can... (sorry i can't figure out how to rotate the pic)

i got trained and certified in wilderness first aid. so basically if i'm ever out hiking in the backcountry and someone breaks a leg, i know how to make them a splint out of tree bark. here is the group i was trained with:

mona came to visit!!!! this is IN the reflecting pool at the lincoln memorial. i guess they drain it during winter...

and this is us with poo on our faces. (not really...it's a face mask, just in case you didn't sense the joking tone.)

i turned 21! this a picture from my pomegranate party! pomegranates were out of season, so we didn't actually have any, but there was pomegranate juice or syrup in everything else i made. i didn't make a cake, so here is me blowing out candles that we stuck in the leftover pomegranate-glazed eggplant.
and here are my roommates dressed in pomegranate-y colors. that's sarah, erica, erin, and jon. ok jon's not technically my roommate, but he kind of lives with us.

here is the pomegranate punch fountain. once again, i can't figure out how to rotate it..

alex came for my birthday weekend! this is us being tourists in front of the white house. (or is it the light house? hehe)

now i have a tooonn of homework to do, but i wanted to give a brief update before continuing with that.

south park studio

2007-01-17T07:56:00.000-05:00

this is my sister, roxanne. excuse me, i should say...this is my interpretation of roxanne as a south park character. care to create your own?

Added a few hours later:
To appease Soraya, here is a variation on my "South Park Roxanne":

whatever

2007-01-12T02:06:00.000-05:00

first of all, please get advice about how to get along with our global community from a wombat.

okay now onto my real subject. a few days ago, i turned on my computer to find that my speakers are no longer working. and it's completely random. i didn't install any new programs or download anything..i haven't done anything that i can imagine would have caused this. so i have no sound coming from my speakers. and not only that, but there is a little red light coming out from my headphone port. strange, i thought. so then when i try changing the volume, my computer starts saying, "No, no! Don't do that! Not allowed!!!!" You don't believe me? Here, i'll prove it:

I actually have my computer telling me not to change the volume. What a moody piece of technology.

Okay so then when I open system preferences I find out that my computer thinks I am somehow connected to digital speakers. I don't even have the option to switch to internal speakers. However, when I plug in my headphones, the sound works perfectly fine! like i said...moody.

So roxanne and i searched and searched all over the apple support site (p.s. i really want the iphone) and couldn't find a solution. we searched google, and i found a couple message board threads with some people who had the same problem, but none of them figured out how to fix it. oh well, who needs sound anyway, right?

luis helped me out a lot yesterday. but he still couldn't figure out what the problem was, so he suggested that i call apple. i'm in israel, so that's not the most convenient thing to do. but luis was very helpful in letting me use his computer to use skype to call while i could talk through the problem and do some troubleshooting on my own computer. the guy i talked to had me do all these complicated things i was sure would help. for example, i had to turn off my computer, disconnect the power, take out the battery, and then hold down the power button for seven seconds. okay.....that didn't help. various other tactics of this sort proved to be useless.

luis and i did one last google search and found a guy with the same problem who did actually fix it! hooray! i guess somehow he stuck a matchstick in his headphone port and tickled the inside and it fixed his problem. here, read what he said:

whatever.

meanwhile my speakers still don't work. i'm going to have to send it in for repair. great.

i am literally speechless

2007-01-06T15:37:00.000-05:00

wow i'm not even sure where to begin. i've been in haifa, israel for two weeks, visiting my sister roxanne. so much has happened...

i arrived on december 26th, and a bunch of my extended family members were already here. if you'd like a detailed description on each one of them, visit soraya's blog. she somehow forgot to include my uncle in her description. he's not in her picture. he was probably checking to see if the restaurant we were in had wifi.

we spent a good bit of time with my family here, as well as with a bunch of groupies. i have a cousin who looks like bono, so he developed quite a fanbase here. it was great.

both my sisters, my mom, and 8 of my extended family members were all here for the new year. we had a fun little celebration at a place on the top of mount carmel called arcaffe.

the family left on january 2nd. it was a sad night for all of us. then solange left on the 4th. my mom left tonight, the 6th. so now it's just me here. i'm the last of the clan, and i get to stay until january 14th! and seriously who wouldn't want to with a view like this:

oh, and i also performed at the open mic friday night. you can watch the video here.

i must have angels

2006-12-22T13:08:00.000-05:00

i had my last exam today! i'm done for the semester! yipeeeeeeee! funny story about my exam, though:

my exam was scheduled to be 12:20-2:20 today. so i scheduled everything around having my exam at that time. i planned my flight, i turned down lunch offers, i planned all my packing and everything around the fact that my exam was at that time.

this morning i got up at about 9:20 to get some packing and cleaning done, and i was also hoping to review a bit for my exam. but since i had so much time, i decided to take a bath. i get in the tub. it's about 9:40--when all of a sudden a thought comes to my head:

"I should get out of the tub, go to my computer, and check what time my exam is. Just in case."

Yes, it occured to me that this was a strange thought. Why would I interrupt my lovely hot relaxing bath to check on something trivial that I already know the answer to? Still, for SOME reason, I decided to follow my instincts. So I got out of the tub, sopping wet, and I went to my computer to check my exam time. Lo and behold.....

MY EXAM IS SCHEDULED FOR 10:20-12:20!

What in the world possessed me to GET OUT OF THE TUB and check on that? I will never know! All I can say is, someone up there is watching out for me. Because there is no logical reason I should have done that. Period.

Thank God I did. Ya-Baha'u'l-Abha!

And actually, my exam went really well. I was pleasantly surprised at how well it went, especially considering the fact that I didn't review at all for it this morning. Seriously, someone up there is watching out for me.

"mom, the statue of liberty isn't silver, it's greeeeen."

2006-12-09T11:26:00.000-05:00

i'm way too tired to try to write anything worth reading, so i will give you a photo of a halloween long ago and let you draw from it whatever conclusions you wish. enjoy.

the place 2 b

2006-12-06T23:26:00.000-05:00

three years ago, i couldn't have named even one person i knew who lived in haifa and served at the Baha'i World Center. the story is now rapidly changing. slowly but surely, everyone i know is moving there.

okay, maybe *everyone* is a bit of an exaggeration. but it's really a lot. it is a really good thing in this case that my sister lives there. not only do i get to go for a month to see her, but i can also see all these other friends of mine who are moving there. and it truly is a magnificent place...i don't blame them for going. for more information on the Baha'i World Center or the Baha'i Faith visit this site.

i would elaborate on the whole topic, but i'm exhausted and i have piles of statistics homework to do.

better know a district

2006-12-01T02:38:00.000-05:00

in case any of you wanted more information about where i live, you can always trust stephen colbert....

oh the mountain

2006-11-20T01:03:00.000-05:00

after missing a week of classes (which incidentally was meant to be my most stressful week of the semester), i am having to make up all my work in one day. it's 1 o'clock in the morning now, and i would say that i'm about 2/3 finished with the work i have to do. i finished my statistics project, and now i feel like i have statistics coming out of my pores. i finished my dictation project for comprehensive musicianship. i still have a dictation homework assignment to do for that class and i have to study for a portuguese test. i missed two statistics quizzes while i was gone, but thankfully she drops our two lowest quiz grades. i just have to make sure i don't miss any more. by the grace of God (and my music history professor), my 10-page paper on the prague spring music festival which was due last thursday has been extended to next tuesday. that's truly a blessing, since i haven't done much with it, and it would be impossible for me to try to tackle that before the thanksgiving break.

meanwhile friends, i would ask that you all please keep my grandmother in your prayers, if you believe in prayer. she is 91 years old and in her final days now. she is a pure and loving soul, very precious to me.

i've been thinking...

2006-11-02T00:26:00.000-05:00

what if the receipt of our everyday resources and needs depended upon the generosity of others? imagine going through each day knowing that the food you eat, the water you drink, the energy you consume... were all supplied through selfless donations of other people in the world. would you still let the water run the entire time you brush your teeth? would you still leave the tv on when you left the house? would you still throw away the food you don't finish eating? or would you save it for later?

i have been thinking the past few days about capitalism, and how the whole economic structure is based on the idea the humans are ulitmately self-interested. if we develop enough capital by promoting our own selfish desires, we can rise out of poverty. the problem with this model is that since it is all based on self-interest, who will help the poor? the most self-interested people will be the ones with all the money. as a result, they will waste all the resources they have because (since they are self-interested) it doesn't matter if everyone else has enough food, water or energy. decisions are based on immediate gratification for the self, not long-term happiness for all people. one friend suggested to me that maybe the idea behind capitalism is similar to the idea behind darwin's natural selection. the most self-interested people will be the ones to survive, and all the poor will die off. i dont think a capitalist would ever admit that, but it does seem to be the only way this model holds up. and in that case, in any given generation the least self-interested would die off, decreasing the population by more and more each time. then we would eventually be back to adam and eve. i guess everything comes full circle.

ok enough of that. i'm not saying it's actually going to happen. just since i've been thinking about these theories and concepts, all these ideas have been coming to mind.

so what about an economic system that is not based on self-interest, but one that is based on selflessness. of course, this would require a general shift in consciousness of popular society. but should that occur, and should such a system be adopted, our resources would certainly last longer. we would find ways to save money and resources across the board, because it would become more apparent that we're all in this together. not only would be concerned about the resources we consume, but we would also be more concerned about our interactions with other people. suddenly your own survival is partly dependent upon how you treat others. in this type of system, selflessness is actually in one's own best interest. kind of paradoxical i suppose.

i would love to hear your opinions on this. my thoughts aren't totally sorted out yet, and i'm not even sure how coherent this post was. but i would really enjoy hearing what you think.

a woman meowed at me today. do i look like a cat?!

2006-11-01T02:39:00.000-05:00

oh man, i know i've been terrible about updating...the semester has really kicked in. you can expect my next decent and well-thought-out post to be during my next vacation. in brief, here is what my halloween costume was:

can you all guess what i am? people have been guessing it wrong all day long...

african elephants swinging from pink bananas and eating jellyfish

2006-10-19T10:40:00.000-04:00

seriously dreading a stat quiz coming up in about 25 minutes.

going to boston today to see the opening of my mom's show! yay!

spending the weekend with good friends in amherst. :)

go listen to the new song i posted on myspace. it's called "Gems."

backdorm's back

2006-10-16T23:26:00.000-04:00

so for those of you who remember the backdorm boys...well let me start with an intro for the ones who don't know who they are. they are a duo of chinese boys who made a bunch of videos of themselves lipsinging backstreet boys songs and posted them on the internet. the most popular ones are "i want it that way" and "as long as you love me."

now that you know who they are, i have recently discovered that they made a special video dedicated to the participants and fans of the 2006 FIFA world cup.

can someone who speaks german please give us a translation?

hairstyle 911

2006-10-09T22:32:00.000-04:00

in response to a picture recently posted on martin's blog, i am posting these pictures of badi with short hair (before, during, and after a haircut in the czech republic in 2004). please, please, please....let's all encourage poor little badi to get a haircut.

maybe he has chosen to grow his hair out because he is experiencing some sort of quarter-life crisis now that he is 25. i guess it makes him feel younger....or something....

things that have been occupying my time lately

2006-10-06T11:50:00.000-04:00

1. statistics

2. GW Baha'i Association

3. this game

4. being sick

5. work

6. playing guitar

7. playing piano

8. phi eta sigma

9. portuguese.....more portuguese

10. washing dishes

logic, music, bedtime

2006-09-22T02:40:00.000-04:00

hello everyone.

i am exhausted.

i was supposed to be doing statistics homework all night, but i got distracted by this. i'm on level 19 and it is definitely bedtime.

in other news, check out my new music myspace page. you can hear me sing! (as if you haven't heard me before....)

that said, sleep tight.

my thug drink

2006-09-15T02:48:00.000-04:00

yes, i'm still alive. school has been back in session for almost two weeks and i feel like i need a vacation already. this semester is going to be tough. the good news is: i got a job at a preschool (at the world bank, in fact) working only 10 hours a week that pays literally twice the wage i got at the parent-teacher store over the summer. goodbye slave labor....

ok i think is really funny. i took another one of those blog quizzes....this one is supposed to find out what my inner mixed 'thug' drink is. i figured since i don't drink alcohol it would interesting to see what kind of drink my inner psyche relates to--way more interesting and funny than finding out what color my aura is or what my name means. well, here's the answer i got:

Take the quiz:
What thug drink are you?

Grape Juice
You are your own very special thug. You dont like to drink alcohol but thats ok... i guess.

Quizzes by myYearbook.com -- the World's Biggest Yearbook!

figures. i don't even like grape juice.

in other news, visit rox's blog for an innovative yet frightening perspective on aging.

my visited countries map

2006-09-10T15:43:00.000-04:00

inspired by luis, i decided to map out the countries i have been to. asia and south america look pretty lonely. i'll have to do some traveling.

visit this site to create your own map.

my map-o-friends

2006-09-04T20:05:00.000-04:00

because i take after my sisters in so many ways, i thought i would copy one of them yet again and create a frappr map. so click here to join my map of friends...i really would like to see where you all live now. i think this map thing is a cool idea. it's like the 21st century version of putting pins in the wall map in your room.

will be at you soon with more details about my weekend in LA and my arrival in DC. i'm all tied up unpacking at the moment. in the meantime, i will leave you with this picture of me and angeline trying to stick spoons to our tongues by creating a suction-cup-type-thing. this was picture number 17...our only successful one.

los angeles

2006-09-01T20:18:00.000-04:00

wandering alone around los angeles today has not been as boring as it sounds. well, i really shouldn't say i've been wandering around los angeles, because i've stayed within a 5-block range of my hotel. however, the alone part is entirely true.

i slept in. well deserved after my last few weeks of semi-slave labor at the parent-teacher store. don't get me wrong--the job was alright. but i was getting paid an amount that is below minimum wage in californ ia. regardless, the extra sleep was nice.

my hotel is right across the street from CBS studios, so i wandered over to the ticket window to see if i could get tickets to a taping of a show. sadly, the price is right is not taping today (which i already knew), but i wanted to see if i could see something else. the only thing taping during my time available would be the tyra banks show. however, this ticket window didn't even have tickets for it. i would have to call another number to make a reservation. i wasn't particularly thrilled about seeing the tyra banks show, but i called anyway and left a message. nobody called me back. oh, well...there goes that.

so then i wandered over to the los angeles farmer's market, also right across the street from my hotel. i ate dinner there last night at a lovely falafel stand. this morning they had stands set up with all kind of fresh fruits and vegetables. i bought some fresh dates, fresh figs, sweet cactus pears, and a pomegranate. i noticed a food stand with a sign "breakfast all day." i got some fresh squeezed orange juice and homemade granola. i sat at a table, alone, eating my granola, drinking my orange juice, and munching away on my cactus pears and figs. when i finished that, i decided to make myself some pomegranate juice. i was squeezing away, kneading the pomegranate, listening to all the seeds inside pop, when suddenly i sqeezed a bit too hard and my pomegranate burst open! pomegranate juice and seeds were flying everywhere! and that's not all. when i looked inside, it was all brown and rotten. there goes my pomegranate juice....oh, bother.

i took the rotten pomegranate back to the stand where i bought and asked for another one. the ladies there were very sweet and even offered to slice it open for me. "no thanks," i said, "i like to squeeze it to get the juice." i went back to the table where i had been sitting and started to knead all over again. (side note: when i went back to the table, i noticed that i had left my purse there. thankfully, everything was still inside it. phew!) yum, yum. i was getting excited about this one. i had my dixie cup ready for juicing. squeeze, squeeze, knead, roll.......POPSPLAT! this one burst open, too! pomegranate juice and seeds all over the place, and even WORSE this time. i'm just sad nobody was there to laugh with me. at least this one wasn't brown on the inside. but it still wasn't any good. it was bitter.

"hm, what can i do next?" i thought to myself. i decided to go see a movie. i hadn't been to one since i went to see an inconvenient truth the night i met angeline...in june. i've really been wanting to see little miss sunshine, and there was a nice movie theater in the grove (a shopping center) right next to the farmer's market. i got a ticket for the 2:20 showing, and then i just killed time wandering and shopping for the next hour.

when i went back to the movie theater around 2 o'clock, i thought i saw a familiar face right before i entered the building. i stopped in my tracks, did a double take, and then thought really hard about where i knew this face. aha! it was paul rudd from the 40-year-0ld virgin. oh my gosh! he was on the phone, and i didn't want to interrupt him, but i really wanted a picture. so i waited outside the theater, a safe 10 yards away from him. you might call it stalking, but i call it waiting. finally after 15 minutes some girl comes by and they go inside. but he's STILL on the phone. damnit. i follow them inside. they're at the concession stand getting popcorn and drinks, and he's still on the phone. oh, well, whatever..maybe i just won't get a picture with him. it was time for my movie to start anyway. as i entered into my theater, i stopped and waited for a few seconds just to see if they were mayyyybe coming to the same movie. aaaand they were. they came inside and he was off the phone. yessss!

"excuse me, paul rudd?" i asked/stated an obvious fact.

"mmhm," he murmered.

"could i get a picture with you?" i asked.

"um, well, the movie's just starting."

"i know, but maybe we could just take it on the way. i'll just snap a quick one." and with that, i shot a quick picture of the two of us, probably ruined his day, and made my trip to LA entirely worth it.

"awesome. thanks." i said.

"sure." he was definitely not as thrilled to meet me as i was him.

so maybe i didn't get to meet bob parker or win the price is right, but i still had a pretty awesome day, and i'm about to have a fabulous night. i'm about to go check in at the Los Angeles Baha'i Young Adult Conference.

now if you're still thinking, "okay, she had a boooooring day. why is elizabeth even telling us this boring stuff?" just think, i didn't even tell you about the purses made of recycled paper or the oktoberfest display at the world market...

p.s. rox, that oktoberfest picture was taken just for you.

PTS and picture-fun

2006-08-28T14:22:00.000-04:00

today is my last day working at The Parent-Teacher Store. i am on my very last one-hour lunch break at Panera Bread Co. i've grown quite attached to this place. i'll miss it very much. the mediterranean veggie sandwich has become somewhat of a comfort food for me.

on my last day, i'm working a 9-5 shift. today is the day we get our shipment. AND it's my turn to clean the bathroom. what a day.

here is a totally unrelated yet adorable picture from the weekend. jesse and i were watching ruby for a few hours, and in between dancing and changing outfits five times, we managed to have a little photo-taking-fest. this one's my favorite.

ear to the ground

2006-08-23T17:38:00.000-04:00

i'm sitting in panera on their free wifi. i've made a habit of coming here during my one-hour lunch break every day, ordering the "you pick two" (i usually get french onion soup and the mediterranean veggie sandwich) and an iced green tea, and then sitting on my computer while i eat my lunch. yesterday i was lucky enough to catch my sister, solange, online while i was here. as we were chatting through gmail chat, she suggested that we both log into skype so that we can have an audio conversation. "but i don't have my headphones," i protested. she pushed me, "so? you don't need them." i finally gave in. so for the next fifteen minutes or so (during panera's peak hours, i might add), i spoke to my computer, laughing and giggling, as all the other panera patrons stared at me with concern. the volume on my computer was turned all the way up, but it was so loud in the restaurant that i still found myself having to lean over with my ear to the keyboard in order to hear her. i felt like a native american listening for the buffalo herd....or a caterpillar listening for the ant herd.

today i brought my headphones, but solange wasn't online.

this is the stuff life is made of

2006-08-17T01:00:00.000-04:00

so about the canmore folk music festival--it was pretty much amazing. there must have been over twenty bands and artists covering a range of genres from country to celtic to bluegrass to african. there were two bands there who i had seen perform there in 2003 when i went, fruit and the duhks. i'm a big fan of fruit. here is a picture of me with them at the festival: three girls from australia. really nice harmonies and a jazzy sort of influence. the duhks are straight-up folk music. pretty cool. they have a banjo player, which earns them points in my book, and they've recorded all their albums in nashville. woohoo!

here's a funny picture i just thought i'd show you all. no real relevance to the story, expect that it was taken in camore, alberta.

i was also really impressed with the cottars. they're two brother-sister pairs. both the girls are 16 and the boys are 18. they knocked my socks off. the lead singer, fiona, has this incredibly sweet voice, yet so powerful and well-controlled. they're so young, yet they have such a strong connection with and respect for folk music of all kinds, celtic, slavic, and even a song in gaelic.

there was a vendor at the festival with a booth called the cats pyjamas. they sold all kinds of things like buttons and cuffs, handbags and clothes. real funky stuff. but their main sale was hats. this guy, kurt, made hats right there with his sewing machine. he had a bunch of pre-made hats which you could buy, but you could also pick out materials to design your own hat. then he'd come and feel your head, and in five minutes you'd have an awesome hat custom-made to fit your head. and it always fit! amazing, i tell you. and that's not all...as it turns out, kurt is from wodonga, australia, the same town as mona v. (gustavo). i just happen to know the wodonga high school fight song (long story), so when he realized i wasn't kidding about knowing where wodonga is, he and i became good friends and he cut me some good deals. he also told me i can have a job anywhere in the world where he's putting up a stall. sweet deal, eh?

but really my trip up to montana was way more than just hats and huckleberries. while i was at school there, the staff became like family to me, and the area became my home. i hold a very special place in my heart for the tobacco valley and eureka, montana. it was the place where a lot of significant changes in my life took place. where i learned and grew more than i knew i could. it was where i found the Baha'i Faith in my heart for myself. and who wouldn't grow and have spiritual experiences in a place like that? surrounded by such beautiful nature, when you wonder where it comes from, there's only one Source to attribute it all to.

the Chrysalis School, where i went, offered me a job for after i graduate college. actually, Kenny offered it to me to have me start immediately, but he was half-joking. but i would love to go back there. being there and having loving, understanding, and patient adult influences around me was the key to my growth and happiness there. not only do i feel like i owe it to those people to try to pay it forward, but i would just love to be a part of that process.

by the way, as it turns out i have a tear in my sphincter. when the doctor told me, i laughed. all i could think of was wayne's world.

warning: this post may contain content inapproriate for children or people weak of stomach. reader discretion is advised.

2006-08-15T23:57:00.000-04:00

i owe you guys an update. sorry for my absence.

i'm getting a colonoscopy tomorrow. when i told my friend meredith, she responded with, "what?! why? you're not 50 yet!" no offense to any of my 50-year-old readers.

thankfully, i'll be sedated for the procedure itself. however, today i had to do the bowel prep (also known as a colon prep). this is the worst part of the whole process. it is the part where i clear out my colon in order that the doctors may have a clear look at it tomorrow. so what do i have to do? well, following the doctor's orders, i took the maximum daily dosage of dulcolax and magnesium citrate. i also got a prescription of miralax. on the bottle, it says that the daily dosage is 17 grams. my doctor's orders were to take 255 grams today. so basically i'm sleeping on the toilet tonight.

it's 11 p.m. and i still haven't finished my miralax. i feel completely nauseated because i wasn't allowed to eat anything solid all day. all i've had are a couple popsicles, a cup of tea, peach jello, some white grape juice, and two bowls of plain chicken broth. and of course, all my laxatives and gatorade.

the magnesium citrate was advertised to have a "pleasing lemony flavor." it has turned me off of sprite and 7up forever.

on a lighter note....i had a really nice vacation in montana recently. i went to boarding school in eureka, montana for my last year of high school, so i went back to visit. i hadn't been back there since 2003, and oh how wonderful it was to be back. kenny, my surrogate father at boarding school, has recently gotten his pilot's license and a little plane. so on my first day there, he took my flying in his little orage plane. i actually got to pilot it a bit myself. while i was in control of the flying, and we were caught up in conversation, kenny looked out of the window and said, "oh no! we're in canada. we'd better turn around before the F16's show up." thankfully, nobody showed up and we got out safely.

i also had an unsuccessful day of huckleberry picking. yes, a huckleberry is more than just the name of a mark twain character. they grow all over northwest montana, and they grow only in the wild. every summer, girl's from the school go huckleberry picking and get gallons and gallons of berries to freeze and use the whole year for pancakes, pies, jams, milkshakes, and smoothies. see all the gallon jugs they're carrying? on a regular huckleberry picking day, those jugs would all be full. yum. unfortunately, the bears had gotten to the huckleberries in that area before we did. it was still a nice hike. i found my new favorite flower:

indian paintbrush

we spent the weekend in the canadian rockies at the canmore folk music festival. i love canada for so many reasons, but one of them is that canadians all really appreciate the music of their ancestors regardless of where they came from.

here is a picture of the drive on the way up to the festival:

i'm going to have to finish blogging about canmore later. they told me that the bowel prep would give me the worst diarrhea of my life, but i think they actually meant to say i would be peeing out of my butthole.

talking embryos, the upset stomach and diarrhea of freedom, and Mahmud al-Zheimers

2006-07-30T15:35:00.000-04:00

enjoy.

i was going to blog about the time two of my customers referred to kenyans as 'very primitive people', but i want to blog about this instead. enjoy.

2006-07-28T22:31:00.000-04:00

look at me..am i not cuuuute?*

i think so...

mos' def...

but it does almost scare me how much solange and i have the same nose.

now i'm just trying to be artistic, buut i don't think it's working.

*proper response gwould be: joo kno', joo ar so budiful...joo cootie. i lob joo.

i know

2006-07-08T04:44:00.000-04:00

i've been absent, and i'm sorry. i have been busy and too tired and lazy to blog. i will return soon. if you're really concerned about what's happening in my life, write me an email. i might respond. or you could find me on myspace.

for some good fun, visit these sites:

i am mighty

i got owned

the color purple

2006-06-13T00:17:00.000-04:00

i'm not sure what has gotten into me..why i am into all these blogthing quizzes all of a sudden. but i did this one and it was really accurate. it was only like 6 questions. i mean, i don't know what color my aura really is...but all the stuff they said about me was right. this is much more impressive, albeit less amusing, than those name definitions and stuff.

Your Aura is Purple

Your Personality: You're a dreamer and visionary. You believe you were put on this earth to do something great.

You in Love: You're very passionate but often too busy for love. You need a man who sees your vision and adopts it as his own.

Your Career: You need a job that helps you make a difference. You have a bright future as a guru, politician, teacher, or musician.

What Color Is Your Aura?

for the moment

2006-06-12T00:57:00.000-04:00

do you guys ever get that feeling when you listen to a song that is just so strong and inexplicable? i get it every once in a while when i hear a really incredible song. it's a feeling that makes you want to listen to the song all day long, and you feel that you just want to do something with it. if i could play it myself, i know i still wouldn't feel complete. it's a feeling of incompletion and utter hopelessness, but at the same time a feeling of complete freedom and liberation. it's like i really feel like i want to create something so powerful and so beautiful, but i know it won't be the same. every nerve in my body is moving to the rhythm of the music and my hands feel really ready to make something. but i just wouldn't know what. there isn't a thing i can do to shake this feeling. and it doesn't come so often. so what i end up doing is just listening to the song on repeat for a few hours, dissecting every beat the way they must have as they were recording it. i learn it inside out, like the back of my hand, like my life depends on it. then it's in me. then it's a part of me.

i went to the exit/in last night. i saw jeremy lister and the gabe dixon band play. they were phenomenal. jeremy lister has this amazing heavenly high tenor voice that he really knows how to show off in really creative ways. the gabe dixon band has a cool jazzy/funk feel, with an upright bass player instead of bass guitar, and gabe plays keyboard and does the lead vocals (and he also plays the accordion, which i found out when they came out to do an encore). he's played with names like paul mccartney and norah jones. i also went to school with gabe dixon's little sister for four years, but enough about me. ;)

jeremy lister played this song last night that just blew me away. it was the second song he played, but it was stuck in my head immediately and has been ever since. since i only heard it that once, i've been singing the same phrase over and over again all day long: "with your smi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ile....with your smi-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-ile." i finally found it on itunes, so i downloaded it IMMEDIATELY. you all should listen to it on jeremy lister's website. the song is called "for the moment."

i'm pretty sure the next one on my list to listen to for hours at a time will be "all will be well"...by gabe dixon.

e is for ebullient

2006-06-08T22:10:00.000-04:00

so here's another RANdom post just for roxanne. i don't know what's wrong with my blog, but just scroll down.

ELIZABETH
E	is for	Ebullient
L	is for	Lucky
I	is for	Intense
Z	is for	Zealous
A	is for	Amorous
B	is for	Boisterous
E	is for	Exquisite
T	is for	Talented
H	is for	Honest

What Does Your Name Mean?

i don't know about you guys, but i didn't know what ebullient meant. according to oxford english dictionary, it means:

That boils; boiling; agitated, as if boiling.
a. Of the humours of the body: Agitated, hot, effervescent. b. Of drugs and diseases: Causing heat and agitation.
fig. Of energy, feelings, influences: Gushing forth like boiling water; bubbling over, overflowing, enthusiastic. Constr. with.

interesting.

hey, ukulele!

2006-06-07T03:02:00.000-04:00

some of the kids i work with at the world bank children's center started calling me ukulele a few months ago. i'm not sure why, but they just started saying, "hey, ukulele!" ever since then, i've felt very close with the instrument. so the other day, i finally bought one.

...and i love it. i've been searching around the internet looking for all kinds of ukulele resources. i've found lots pages that have tabs and chords of popular songs, and i'm working hard now on learning to play "The Star Spangled Banner" (the national anthem of the USA). i think i'll audition in the fall to play it at one of our university basketball games. :)

one interesting thing i came across while i was doing my uke research is the ukulele orchestra of great britain. i didn't realize the ukulele was such a popular instrument. this ensemble has several different types of ukuleles played in it, and they play covers of all kinds of popular and classical songs. here is a video of them playing the nirvana song smells like teen spirit. and if that's not enough for you, listen to this cover of natural woman. wowie.

another thing i came across was a video of a girl known as the hoola hoop uker. no introduction necessary. i think the video speaks for itself.

i think the MOST impressive of all is jake shimabukuro,a professional uke player. below is a video of him at the strawberry fields memorial in central park, NY playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." i guess his version is more like "While My Ukulele Gently Weeps."

i think this may very well become a new obsession with me. when i bought the uke, i noticed that they had them in all kinds of colors: pink, red, green, etc. i just went with the standard wooden guitar color, but if i buy another one i think i'll go for the pink. actually, the guy who sold me the uke told me that the beatles were big ukulele fans. i've found other sites that attest to the fact that george harrison was a uke player. and this site has a very unique way of teaching beatles songs on the ukulele.

i have a feeling that this whole ukulele thing could get dangerous. just look what happened to cookie monster.

aliens in the mist (or rain)

2006-06-03T02:56:00.000-04:00

so i was just chatting with JD, and he sent me the link to an article about some unidentified red-colored particles found in a random red rain shower in India in 2001. basically, the man doing the research has found that these particles are a lot like live cells, with very thick cell-walls. they reproduce and everything! however, they do not have any DNA. and life on earth as we know it must have DNA in order to be classified as life. also, they can survive in water up to temperatures of 600 degrees farenheit, which no known life on earth can survive. so this guy has a theory: maybe they're aliens! maybe they hitched a ride on a meteorite and ended up in the rain in india.

now apparently they think this is a really big deal. i don't.

look, if aliens do exist (which of course they do. are we really arrogant enough to believe we are the only life forms in this universe?!), they're not going to look and behave exactly like us. in fact, and this has been my belief my entire life, i don't even think we would recognize it as life right away. life on earth is exactly that--it is life ON EARTH. it is made for the conditions on earth. the conditions outside our atmosphere are very different, and we can't survive out there. so in order for something to survive, it would have to be very different from us. it only makes perfect sense.

so these people are spending obscene amounts of money to tell us something i could have told them in second grade.

now, they also say that if they do end up proving that these particles are extraterrestrial life, that it may give us some insight into the origins of life on earth. but how would that REALLY help us? don't we have more important things to worry about? i mean, if these scientists are smart and able enough to study extraterrestrial life forms, i think the money and energy they are using should be put towards helping our own life forms. what about finding cures for cancer, AIDS, and even the common cold? what about finding (effective) vaccines for things like meningitis?

maybe i sound a bit cynical and backward, but i just don't think studying this will get us anywhere at this point in our society. it's not where we should be focusing our energies.

anyway, so then i was still chatting with JD and telling him he should read my blog and try the name thing and see what he gets. so i decided to try it again too. strangely enough, this is what i got:

Elizabeth Hai --

[noun]:

An alien

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

seems there are mysterious forces at work...hahahahaha.

definition hoax

2006-06-02T18:49:00.000-04:00

ok, so i've come to the conclusion that this 'name definition' thingy is a load of crap, but also a load of fun. after reading roxanne's post about it and seeing all the various comments people posted with their results, i noticed that some names have the same definitions. so i thought, "hmm...what if i tried it again. i wonder if it would give me the same response. so i did. and it gave me this:

Elizabeth Hai --

[noun]:

A beat poet working the streets

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

this is strange because last time i got "like in nature to a banana peel."

so then i decided to try some of the other names of people who tried it just to check.

roxanne's result was "a person who has the ability to be invisible." when i tried her name i got:

Roxanne --

[noun]:

A master blogger

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

i think that's a very accurate definition.

i was having luck, so i kept trying. martin got "visually addictive" last time. here's what they told me about him:

Martin --

[noun]:

A human transformer (Robot in disguise)

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

i guess that goes along with the "superpowers" theme. hehe.

carmel last time had "full of bees." my result for her name was:

carmel --

[noun]:

A real life terminator

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

soraya was "fuzzy to the touch." my result:

soraya --

[adjective]:

Like in nature to a train-riding hobo

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

hahahahahah. i think i should stop there. nothing can top that!

check out your definitions and see what you get! the exciting part is that you can check back multiple times and it will give you a different definition. let me know your results!

(added approximately ten minutes later:)
guys, i just have to add this one. it's too funny.

Elizabeth --

[noun]:

A person who makes a living suing celebrities

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

blogger's audio clip feature

2006-06-02T02:16:00.000-04:00

is pretty cool. y'all should try checking it out. i'm really impressed with it and excited about it. earlier tonight i posted a song in the 'audio clip' link in my profile. so you should all listen to it!

the song is called "I Left My Baby." it's performed by King James and the Serfs of Swing. the vocalist is yours truly. :) so for those of you who haven't heard me sing in a while (or ever for that matter), this is your chance! the quality of the recording isn't exceptional, but i think you can at least get the picture.

these pictures are from when we performed at a senior prom last month. and by senior prom, i do not mean high school seniors or college seniors....i mean senior citizens. that's right, folks. the average age of the attendees at the prom was 78. it was awesome. they loved it and so did we.

what does this even mean?

2006-05-31T14:02:00.000-04:00

Elizabeth Hai --

[adjective]:

Like in nature to a banana peel

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

liberation from a bottle of shampoo?

2006-05-29T19:24:00.000-04:00

i just saw a truly amazing and inspiration movie documentary at the belcourt theater in nashville called The Beauty Academy of Kabul. the story is about some american hairstylists who go to kabul, afghanistan to open a beauty school for the women there. i went into the cinema expecting to get a few laughs out of it and then go home. i wasn't really taking it seriously. but i was, in fact, very touched and moved by this film.

first of all, the courage it took those six american women to go to kabul and open a beauty school is extraordinary. they were dealing not only with an entirely different culture and language, but they had to actually renovate the space to make it suitable for a beauty school. the afghani men who were helping with renovations were not used to having women tell them what to do, which brought about a whole new set of struggles.

but once this school opened up, so many women wanted to be in the first class that they ended up having to literally draw names out of a hat. many of the women taking the course had been hairdressers before the taliban came into power, and some of them continued to work in secret out of their homes under the taliban government. some of the women had never done hair before. but the one thing they all had in common was how much they wanted to learn. the teachers kept commenting on how quickly they were all learning and what outstanding students they were.

there was also some commentary on the homelives of the women in the course. most of them were married, but not to men they had chosen for themselves. the ones who were married were very fearful of their husbands. they didn't wear makeup because their husbands said they shouldn't. one woman couldn't come to class for two days because her mother-in-law was sick and her husband told her she couldn't go. but these women persevered. they had survived something i could never dream of living through--the taliban. yet they were all happy and smiling. the confidence they gained from taking this course was something they could pass on to other women.

toward the end of the course, they started accepting clients for free so that the students could have practice doing real hair. again, more women showed than they could handle. they were literally having to push women away fromt the doorway in order to shut the door. upon leaving, one woman said she felt the best she had ever felt because of a haircut.

one of the american hairdressers mentioned during the movie, "i'm a hairdresser, i heal people." and these afghani women would be healing the city, one woman at a time.

this was an inspirational, emotional, and sincere movie about real life. you should all go see it.

here are some other articles/reviews you may be interested in reading:
bbc.co.uk
l.a. weekly
chicago tribune

biggest personal space bubble in history.

2006-05-24T17:53:00.000-04:00

sitting in the philadelphia airport on wireless. my flight should have left 11 minutes ago, but we won't be leaving for another two hours and nine minutes. guess why? go on, i dare ya!

ok fine, i'll tell you. it's because of the president. president george w. bush.

the president visited philadelphia this afternoon to tour a nuclear power plant. read this article for more information.

anyway, he's leaving philadelphia now. his plane is departing back to washington. so thousands, or tens of thousands, of travelers are being inconvenienced so that georgie porgie can have the whole airspace to himself. i've been traveling for 12 days now. have stayed in 8 different places in the last 12 days, and now my flight is delayed two and a half hours because of this guy. how long does it take to take off? 8 minutes? 10 minutes? yet all these flights are delayed two and a half hours. why exactly is that you ask? well, when the president is in the air, no airplane from maine to florida can be in the air. that's the policy. you know, they talk about americans having big personal space bubbles, that we don't like to be very close to other people in public spaces. we sit far apart in movie theaters and buses, we make it a point not to touch anyone around us...and God forbid we would ever make eye contact with a stranger. well i think this man takes the cake. the distance from maine to florida is approximately 2,000 miles. that's about 3,200 kilometers. i really think he should go into the guiness book of world records for biggest personal space bubble in history. that's one bubble i'd like to pop.

watch the video rox posted on her blog. definitely a funny one.

czechland

2006-05-19T03:37:00.000-04:00

i'm home! it's oh-so-nice to be back here. after a long and arduous journey, i have a few days to relax here in the quiet and peaceful town of Hluboka Nad Vltavou.

but not so quiet and peaceful up at school. it's crazy day today at Townshend International School. what does this mean, you ask? well, the graduating class had their last day of classes yesterday, and they now have about a week and a half to prepare for their final exit exams. every year after their last day of classes, the graduates plan an attack of some sort against the school. they dress up in all sorts of bright and tacky clothing and each class plans a different strategy. last year, they kidnapped several of their favorite teachers and staged a trial where each teacher was found guitly of some crime against the students. then the students gave the teachers clever and embarrassing punishments. for example, the principle had to learn a dance to a kylie minogue song and perform it for the school. this year the students came into the morning assembly acting like monkeys and handing out bananas to the teachers. they've spent the last few hours running around with water guns trying to get everyone wet.

what a day to be back. i'm loving it. will post pictures soon. (may 24th, 11:49 p.m. posted pictures).

does virtual equal real?

2006-05-15T23:19:00.000-04:00

well this is it. my last night in DC for a good few months. the next time i check in with you all and post an entry up here i will most likely be trekking across europe. i have to disconnect my internet now. i'm going to feel so disconnected from the world. funny how getting rid of the virtual realm makes me feel like i'm losing my connection to the real world. it should really be the opposite, right? i should feel more connected to the world this way. strange how things work in the modern world.

my wedding

2006-05-14T16:32:00.000-04:00

solange informed me today of a quiz that is floating around on the internet called "how suitable are you to marry me?" the quiz was written by a guy we know named neissan. he said that if a girl scores more than 80%, she should feel free to contact him. no pressure.

i scored 82%. i guess i have found my husband. all i need now is consent.

for more interesting comments on this quiz, please visit the blogs of rox and ruha. and please tell me you were all as disturbed by this as i was.

race to the finish

2006-05-12T02:24:00.000-04:00

i have exactly six hours to pack up my life. this is the state of it at the moment.

the story unfolds...

2006-05-11T15:48:00.000-04:00

last night i saw meredith. she recounted the whole hospital adventure for me from her point of view. i must say--i'm more disturbed now than i was before.

apparently she saw the second spinal tap procedure looking through the window of my trauma room. when i got sedated after the first time, the nurse told her i'd be asleep for a while and said she could come back in an hour. but when she came back, they wouldn't let her in. she watched from outside the room until someone asked her to leave. one nurse gave her a phone number she could call to find out if i was still there or when they would let me go home, but when she called they wouldn't answer any of her questions.

i'm not going to go on, because it's truly too disturbing. i'm actually glad i wasn't in her place throughout the whole adventure. at least i was knocked out for a significant part of it.

music WHAT?!

2006-05-10T17:37:00.000-04:00

so...martin told me i have to make my post today really good, because apparently it will be "getting a lot of traffic." that's a lot of pressure...i'll see what i can do.

i'm back in the real world now--back on campus, that is. and it is certainly straight back into the swing of things. i just got back from a meeting with my statistics professor.

i got a phone call from my sister in haifa. unfortunately i was meeting with my professor so she had to leave a voicemail. nevertheless, it has been months since i've heard her voice, so it was really nice to hear from her. love you, rox!

in other news, my university is in a bit of a pinch. there is a budget gap of $8.2 million for the 2006 fiscal year. now i ask you: how does the university with the highest tuition in the country (with the tuition rising each year) have that big of a budget gap? well, one reason is that they are using the tuition of the current students to pay for a new building on campus which will be called square 54. the best part is--square 54 will be everything EXCEPT academic! it will be for residence, commercial use, and food places.

ok ok, so what does a budget gap have to do with me? well, when the university has such a large gap, they have to cut the budgets of different departments all across the university. the columbian college of arts and sciences (CCAS) has to make $700,000 worth of cuts to its academic departments. here's where it gets touchy: the music department is being targeted.

starting next year, students without a "close affiliation" to the music department will not be able to take studio music lessons. so the university is basically saying, "i'm sorry, but you haven't studied music before, and a university is not the place to study something you have never studied before." (ok, maybe that's a bit extreme, but as a music major this is a touchy subject for me). this won't affect me directly since i am "closely affiliated" with the music department, but i feel a loss for any future students who might not have the opportunity to study music here.

now i ask you--and please feel free to post comments in response--is music not an integral part of a liberal arts education? if a university is going to offer music at all, shouldn't it offer lessons at the introductory level? it's as if i had come into university interested in taking an introductory sociology course. if, "i'm sorry, but you can't take sociology because you've never studied it before," was the response i received, i would seriously think twice about the motives of my university. some of the upperclassmen music majors i've been collaborating with have told me that if they had come in their first year and had to take some sort of exam in order to take a music lesson, they wouldn't have passed it and they would not currently be music majors. is this not distressing to all of you???

the university still hasn't announced exactly how much the budget for the music department will be cut, but we already know that it will be more than any other individual academic department.

the students staged a rally last wednesday. we assembled in front rice hall, the administrative building, bearing instruments. we played for over three hours, and approximately 60 people showed up to join in. we made a lot of noise (literally and figuritively)...so let's just hope we made some effect.

martin, was this good enough?

also...i'm not sure how, but rox and ruha found my blog independently. any guesses, anyone?

MUS 105

2006-05-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

i've spent this entire semester complaining to my friends that i'm taking a class called "Intro to Ethnomusicology" but I don't even know what ethnomusicology means. i am constantly complaining to them that i don't know why i am taking this class, that it should NOT be a required course, it is a waste of my time, and i am fed up with it. so for this class, instead of a final exam, our professor has assigned us a final essay. and what is the question for the essay? well, there are two parts:

a. do you think ethnomusicology should be part of the music curriculum?
b. please include a brief definition of ethnomusicology in your answer

so what do i do? should i be honest? if i decide to be honest, i might get a very bad grade (and my prof doesn't like me very much as it is). if i try to bluff it, it won't help him become a better teacher in the future, plus it's just wrong. so here's what i did....i sugar-coated it. as it turns out, my skills of being able to write about absolute crap came in handy.

in summary, my answer explained that i spent most of the semester not understanding what ethnomusicology is, but it was at the end of april when we had a special guest speaker that it finally became clear. i said that in retrospect, everything was very important, but it was hard for me to see it at the time because i didn't really understand what ethnomusicology was.

.....yeah basically i wrote a bunch of bull. we'll see how this turns out.

sedatives and fetal positions

2006-05-08T19:43:00.000-04:00

i'm in maryland staying at my amu-joon bozorg's house. for those of you know don't speak persian, amu-joon bozorg means big uncle. why am i in maryland staying with him in the middle of finals? why am i not in DC on campus? well it all started saturday night....

i couldn't sleep because my neck was sore and i had a terrible headache. my headache kept getting worse, and i called my friend meredith to come over and rub my neck. unfortunately she wasn't on campus, but she was really worried about my aching head and proceeded to call the campus emergency telephone number on my behalf. around 3 a.m. a UPD officer showed up at my door asking me how i was feeling. when he saw how severe my headache was, he called EMerg, our campus emergency medical response team. they showed up a few minutes later. they asked me a bunch of questions which i can't even remember and then took me to the emergency room at GW hospital. (i added this pic 5/29 so that i could have a pic on my profile. don't mind it.)

the ER waiting room was pretty busy and there were about four announcements for trauma victims requiring immediate attention within the first 20 minutes we were there. luckily meredith was there with me to fill out all the paperwork. i was hiding under a blanket the whole time because i was so sensitive to light. it was pretty incredible that i was taken in in less than an hour. to my surprise, i was led into a private room and asked to change into a hospital gown. i later found out that the private room i was in was a special room for airborne illnesses because the doctors thought i had meningitis.

they gave me a mask to wear, and all the doctors and nurses who came in were wearing masks as well. i was asking for pain medication, but instead i got a CT scan. eventually they gave me a saline drip through an IV to rehydrate me. the CT scan came up normal, which meant that the next step would be to do a lumbar puncture, colloquially known as a spinal tap. they first had me sitting up with my arms and head leaning forward and resting on a headrest in front of me. they told me it wouldnt hurt because they injected a local anesthetic. it was the most painful thing i have ever experienced. i could feel the needle inside my spine searching around for the fluid. and no matter how much i screamed in pain the doctors wouldn't stop. i eventually got extremely nauseated and yelled out, "i think i'm going to throw up!" so they took the needle out and gave me a sedative and said they'd be back later to try a second time. i soon fell asleep.

when i woke up, meredith was gone, and an entirely new set of doctors had come in to do the spinal tap procedure again. this time, they had me curl into a fetal position on my right side. i begged them not to do the procedure again. i pleaded that there must be an easier way. they said this was absolutely necessary. they sedated me so i would stop protesting and held me in the fetal position. any time i tried to move or say something, they would just hold me in place and tell me to breathe deeply. the deep breathing increased the pain so much more. this time, i could actually feel the suction of the needle inside my spine. i felt so powerless over the doctors. they started just ignoring what i was saying and didn't respond to me at all. after having gone through intense amounts of pain and screaming, the doctor pulled out the needle and said he needed a longer one. i protested so much to the doctors that they agreed to not do the procedure a third time.

they gave me some more sedatives and i went back to sleep.

i woke up and my friend jenny was in the room with me, wearing a mask. several hours later when they released me i had to sign a form releasing the hospital from any liability that might result from them not being able to complete the necessary procedures.

looking back, i don't think it was anything more than just a really bad headache.

so now i'm in maryland at my uncle's house, recovering from the whole episode. i'm more emotionally shaken up than anything else. the whole event really pushed me to reevaluate my life and health. the spinal tap procedure felt so intrusive, and i had no control over the doctors. they wouldn't listen to me--they just sedated me.

my friends and family have been extremely supportive. roxanne, my sister, sent me a very funny e-card. solange, my other sister, emailed all my professors to give me extensions on my final assignments. amelia, as always, acted as my resident mother in asian form.

but i still have a strong shudder of fear every time i think about being curled up and sedated in that fetal position, completely helpless to do anything.