After the allegations in the news recently, I thought I was important to share this story. It’s one story. It doesn’t diminish the victims who had been further traumatized by Peace Corps actions. It’s important to realize those statistics were highly sensationalized by CBS. Rape and the reactions by others is not just a Peace Corps problem.
Category: Uncategorized
Being A Girl: A Brief Personal History of Violence
Yes, yes, yes. I can’t add anything else.
1.
I am six. My babysitter’s son, who is five but a whole head taller than me, likes to show me his penis. He does it when his mother isn’t looking. One time when I tell him not to, he holds me down and puts penis on my arm. I bite his shoulder, hard. He starts crying, pulls up his pants and runs upstairs to tell his mother that I bit him. I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone about the penis part, so they all just think I bit him for no reason.
I get in trouble first at the babysitter’s house, then later at home.
The next time the babysitter’s son tries to show me his penis, I don’t fight back because I don’t want to get in trouble.
One day I tell the babysitter what her son does, she tells me that he’s just a little boy, he doesn’t know…
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20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Jules Verne is one of my favorite authors. He was writing steampunk before steampunk was steampunk. He possessed a wild imagination that brought to life the Nautilus and the creatures of the ocean floor.
The story centers on Professor Aronnax as our narrator, guiding us as he is captive abroad the underwater vessel the Nautilus. He, his assistant Conseil, and a harpoonist Ned Land are thrown overboard at the beginning of the story on their hunt for a mysterious giant squid. To their surprise, the giant squid they believe they’ve found is actually a submarine created and lived in by Captain Nemo.
What would you like to read more of?
As the year comes to an end, we started looking back on the past year of blogging. We’ve come pretty far from that first post, and there were a lot of bumps in the road, but we found our stride.
In preparation for our second year in the blogosphere, we’d like to know what you enjoy and want to see more of. A poll is on the sidebar. Let us know what you think. Also feel free to comment if you have any other suggestions.
Why I love serving in the Peace Corps
An inspiring story!
A Little Help For a Great Friend
Magic Lesson 2
We focused on the cards themselves for lesson 2 after a round on Magic on the Xbox. I find the cards themselves to be the most interesting part of the game. There are numerous types of cards and the art work is beautiful. We spent an evening looking through Cameron’s boxes of cards. He has kept them all since he started playing in high school. The art work has changed from the earlier expansions to the most recent editions.
Here’s what I learned about the cards in this lesson:
There are 5 colors that make up the color wheel, or as it’s often called, the color pie: White, Blue Black, Red, and Green. Each color has it’s own theme, strengths, and weaknesses.
White – White can be identified by a white sun on the cards. It’s characteristic creature type is human and/or soldier. White’s iconic creature type is angel. The iconic creature type is the flagship representative type of the color. The characteristic creature type is more general. The lands that you use to cast spells are plains. White is the color of community, law, peace, and harmony. The strengths of white cards include healing, life gain and protection. It’s weaknesses include inability to draw cards as quickly as other colors and inability to focus on singular enemies when attacking.
Blue – Blue can be identified by a water droplet on the cards. Blue stands for seeking perfection through knowledge. It’s characteristic creature type is probably drake or merfolk, and it’s iconic creature type is sphinx. It’s lands are islands. Cam doesn’t care for the blue cards. It’s weaknesses include being reactionary by extension slow. He also says it’s strengths include drawing cards, countering spells, and flying creatures.
Black – Black can be identified by a skull. Black is the color of selfishness, ambition, and amorality. It’s lands are swamps. It’s iconic creature type is a demon, and it’s characteristic creature type is a zombie. Black isn’t above doing anything, but you will always have to pay the price. For example, in addition to tapping land, you may have to sacrifice a creature or pay with a certain amount of life. It’s good with bringing creatures back from the graveyard (discard pile).
Red – Red can be identified by a flame on the cards. It is the color of passion and chaotic. It’s lands are mountains. It’s iconic creature type is a dragon. It’s characteristic creature type is a goblin. Red is fast and known for haste. It is known for doing direct damage to players. Red’s goal is to kill you before you can do anything to stop it. It’s weaknesses include not being able to destroy enchantments because it only deals in what is tangible. It can also run out of steam really fast if you’re not careful.
Green – Green is Cam’s favorite, and not because green happens to his favorite color. (And the color of our future game room.) Green can be identified by a tree on it’s cards. It is the color of nature, growth, and co-existence. It’s iconic creature type is a hydra. It’s characteristic creature is an elf. Green’s strengths include being good at getting lands out more often and at destroying enchantments and artifacts because they are artificial constructs on nature. It is also good at making really big creatures. It’s weaknesses include being very non-confrontational and can’t deal with creatures beyond hoping you block with them.
Overall, lesson 2 was pretty informative. I probably feel that way because we didn’t actually play a game. I got to learn more about the cards and the different expansions that continue to change the balance of the colors and how the game is played. We’ll probably go over the cards more in my next lesson.
Card images courtesy of magiccards.info
Applicable Tradmarks & Copyrights owned by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc.
The Best Cure for a Messy House
- Watch the new episodes of Hoarders on Netflix
- Wait for a good snow so you’re unwilling to leave the house
- Let Mom visit
I was aware I hadn’t done my share of the housework in a while. Cam was doing his best. I got a bit spoiled while I was working two jobs through Christmas. The deal was he was to do all the housework while I was at my second job. Now that job is over, and I knew I needed to pick up the slack. It was just so much easier to spend that free time in front of Netflix.
Then, my parents dropped by. The excuses began. We have 3 cats. We’re busy. What’s the point? We’re buying another house soon! My favorite is the weather. I’d rather hibernate under my blankets between 5 p.m. and 6 a.m. and only leave when the bill-paying job requires me to leave.
The second push was finding the new episodes of Hoarders on Netflix. There is nothing that motivates me to clean more than watching that show. It doesn’t take long to clean our little place. We just needed the motivation.
The show also inspired me to purge. There’s really nothing like purging yourself of the things you’ve needlessly accumulated. (Well, to begin with, there’s nothing better than not accumulating the things you don’t need anyway, but that’s probably another topic for another day.) It really is hard to get rid of the things I have kept from before Cam moved his whole life into my place. I can still remember the conversation we had about my bed. I was determined to keep it. I was worried something would happen, or I thought it would be great if someone was going to be visiting. I don’t know what I was thinking. So, we have maybe too many mattresses here.
I didn’t want to let go of the home I created for myself. I lived in a two-room hut in Africa, so I know I can live with less. I felt I worked hard for this home. I made it comfortable. I made it mine. Now it’s ours. It’s time to let go of things to make room for each other.
With the snow coming down outside, Hoarders on the t.v., and my mother’s voice in my head, I decided last night was a good night to start my purge. Spring cleaning started in January this year.
Life and Laziness
So, I’ll admit it. It’s been a hot minute since my last post. I’m sure all five of you reading this have been patiently waiting. The wait is over.
The past week hasn’t exactly been busy. It’s just been filled with the same mundane routines. It was nothing anyone really would want to read about. That is, unless you really want to read about how my nose is stuck in numbers all day at work or the glorious weekend I spent sleeping until noon for three days straight. Perhaps you’d prefer the faster pace of Cam resetting passwords all day at work. We do lead a thrilling life.
So, life and laziness got in the way of writing. It got in the way of maintaining a lot of the goals we set for ourselves. It was a small sidestep. We are back on track now. I know you were worried.
We have both been working really hard at our day jobs. By the time we both get a moment to relax, we are drained. Forty hours a week staring at numbers all day can exhaust a person. It sometimes leaves me with the inability to even muster a creative thought at the end of the day. Don’t worry. It’s a good job. I like it. I like that it mostly pays all the bills when I need it to. Cam has been clocking out at more than 40 hours weekly some weeks. On top of that, with our alternating work schedules, it is hard to have time to ourselves.
On the other hand, we had an extra day off this past week, just to relax (read: sleep until noon). It was a lazy, lethargic weekend. Netflix, Redbox, and board games were our friends last weekend. It was nice not to measure my activity at the gym, or worry how many words I could squeeze out of my brain. The only problem was it took us the rest of the week just to get back to our old routine.
I felt guilty about it at first. The house was a disaster. We could have been so productive all weekend. I kept thinking I was wasting time. As the week wore on, I remembered that time spent being happy was not time wasted. We actually got to do things we hadn’t in a while, like cook breakfast together Monday morning. We probably hadn’t done that since we both started our jobs last year and ended up on wonky schedules. Maybe you all have a thing. Sleeping in and cooking breakfast together is our thing. It happens so rarely now.
Good news is that we are back on track. Cam joined me at the gym most evenings, and had quite a workout moving around computers and equipment one day at work, from what I understand. As the week winds down, we both have the creative juices flowing again. Cam is great to bounce ideas off of. He likes fixing things. That includes computers and my poorly defined story ideas.
We’ve never lost sight of the big goals for the year–the house, the vows, etc. We just got bogged down in them. As a result, we tweaked them a bit. We’re still on course, and hopefully, won’t be deviating from our timeline. We just realized that when we proposed these various goals, we were thinking about how great our future was going to be and forgot that our here and now is so much fun.
Just your typical, run of the mill New Year’s resolution post
The New Year is synonymous with starting over, creating goals, and deciding to make a change. Reflecting on the previous year, you usually realize you didn’t accomplish any of the resolutions you made January of the year before. This year will be different, you tell yourself. You have the idea that the new year will be better than the old one. This is the year!!
I don’t like resolutions. I never understood why you had to wait until January to make a change or try something new. What’s the point? Why not start in November when you got that crazy idea to begin with?
Except this year, Cam and I have a whole audience of about 5 people who read our little blog, so we thought it might be the perfect opportunity to reflect on what we accomplished last year and what we hope to accomplish next year.
Last year, we went through the painstaking trouble of combining all our stuff under one roof. We moved in together, in other words. We also both started new jobs that make us happier. The night before last, he gave me a beautiful ring. All things considered, it was a great year together and going to be hard to top!
Since I went through the trouble of creating this little blog to start writing regularly and have a creative outlet, we thought that we might as well come up with resolutions or goals for 2015. It would at least give me something to write about. So here goes…
2015 – the year of write more, read more, move more. I hope that writing on a regular basis will at least marginally improve my writing skills. You can be the judge of that. Cam and I decided that we needed to read more. Last year didn’t provide a lot of opportunities to read with our busy schedules. He has a goal of at least reading the books he received, started, or borrowed last year. That’s about 6 in all I think. Most are pretty heavy, so it’s fair. I’m a little more ambitious. I’ve signed up for a couple of reading challenges, including the Around the World Reading Challenge. I’ll be reading 4 books set in different countries to reach my goal as a Wayfarer Participant. I’ve also signed up for the 50 Classics Challenge. Luckily I have 5 years to complete the 50 classics, which are mostly classic and mostly sci-fi/fantasy. Each book I read, I will write a review of it on this blog.
We also might as well jump on the fitness bandwagon, too. In order to move more, I have my handy new fitbit to help keep me on track. I’ve only just played around with it a bit. It’s pretty accurate on monitoring my sleep at least. My goal is to run a couple of 5k races in 2015, so nothing too demanding. Cam will have the Zombies, Run! app on his phone to get him moving more. I have both the Couch to 5K and the regular Zombies, Run! Both very motivating and entertaining.
Maybe I should add “create more” to our resolutions. Cam’s goal is to build a new computer by the end of the year, if the finances allow. I hope to be able to pursue more creative endeavors as well. I’ll just leave it vague, because I’m not sure yet where my interests will take me at this point. Dusting off my sewing machine and searching for my knitting needles might be involved.
Sounds like it is going to be a packed year. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, just the little things to keep us from going insane. Next year will bring even more changes. We both hope to excel at our new careers in 2015. Our biggest goal is a bigger house. We are currently saving up money for a bigger place where we can have a garden, a dog, and game night with the friends. There’s no telling what else the year might bring.
What new and exciting things are you looking forward to in 2015?
the geek couple 