In the Life of Kami: My Awesome Friend

This next blog is for my best friend of 4  years, Kami, a quite avid blogger herself. You can actually find her on tumblr:

 http://utahbound.tumblr.com/

THIS is US..... the OH SO "normal".... US.

We are actually pretty good at acting normal too....

Okay... maybe not... but we still try.

She's what you would call a book worm! Its more look an addiction to her,  books are her drugs. She would, and I quote, "...live in a barnes and noble and have (her) own section devoted to her, where she has (her) own personal place to read all day." She loves books such as Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher, Impulse by Ellen Hopkins, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray, and Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. (I had to restrict her choices because before the i restricted her to only 4.... she told me about 20 or so books.) Next year she will be attending Kennesaw State University as an english major. She hopes to one day be a editor at a publishing company, but for now she writes poems and such on her tumblr. However the following is just a little something she found, by Rosemarie Urquico,  which I loved and DEFINITELY reminds me of her. So, Enjoy! And take time to Go look at her Tumblr, its awesome!!! Heres the link again: http://utahbound.tumblr.com/

“Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”

— Rosemarie Urquico


Kamis Page: http://utahbound.tumblr.com/

Narrative Elements

The video below is actually a video I made with some classmates about Fall 2009 for a group class project about the book A Brave New World. The book talks a lot about people being put in their place by what they can or cant have because the world is "programed" that way, and it seemed like the ones programmed to have more were happy except for one that saw the world as it truly was. The video theme? Futuristic(we tried our best in that area... haha) Shopping.. [we also added a sort of awkward semi-creepy elemental feeling into the video as a joke to our classmates... so it will seem weird].  It shows about shopping and how it leads to happiness until something better comes along and then what once made us happy is just something to be forgotten. The video is a little not top notch of course but it gets the point across. More stuff wont make us happy, but will lead to our downfall. 

Enjoy! 

P.S. I really don't ever act or talk like this... it was for the video and so I couldn't keep my voice sounding the same..... =P 

Ecuador

Last Spring I went on a trip to Ecuador, it was definitely life changing and it was amazing. For school I had to write a speech to inform. So I thought I could inform others about the beauty of Ecuador... so I thought I would share it on here

Ecuador

Today I’m going to be talking about Ecuador, a place that is close to my heart. My experiences there made me stronger and I want to share my love of the beautiful  Ecuador. I loved every bit of what i saw there, everything from the mountains, to the people, to the food and even thair climate, and I would like to share this with you today.

The beautiful South American country of Ecuador, located in north western South America, bordering the Pacific Ocean at the Equator, between Colombia and Peru with an area of 256,370 sq ft. Within this area, Ecuador has the one of the greatest densities of volcanoes in the world and had many active volcanoes. Ecuador has a population of almost 14 million, its capital city of Quito, has 1.2 million of those citizens residing there. Its name “Ecuador” came from the word equator, since it is located over both sides of the hemisphere across the equator. The equator is seen marked by a yellow line following

 through the center of their monument known as Mitad Del Mundo, in english meaning “Middle of the World”, as seen here... Built in 1979 to 1982, it stands at 30 meters high, and is located in Pichincha.

Pichincha is also the location of the Pichincha Volcano, an “ultra” peak, meaning it is over 5,000 ft, standing at 5,420 ft and an elev you ation of 15,696. It is a peak in the Andes Mountains. In order to get to the top of the volcano, you take a 25 minute “sky-lift” rideo the top, where are high enough in elevation to where they have oxygen available for those who have trouble breathing at that elevation. This however is not the highest elevation point in Ecuador. The Chimborazo Volcano, at 6,310, forms the highest point, although, Cotopaxi is the highest active volcano in the world.

   Cotacachi covers an area of 1809 sq. kilometers and 38,000 inhabitants. Cotacachi is known for its handicrafts in leather and wool. Cotacachi also has an agricultural production, especially in  dairy products, and in exportation of flowers and asparagus. From the town of Cotacachi it is a short distance from Cuicocha Lake, which is a 3 km wide crater lake, which lies at the foot of the Cotacachi volcano (4944 m above sea level). The people here belongs to the Indian tribe "Quichua de Andes" and they speak their own language Quichua. 

The Quichua people have many legends, including those of the Lagoon of Cui, it is the legend of The Golden Cuy, better known as Guinea Pigs. “Legend has it that many years ago in the islands of the lagoon Cuicocha, an imploded volcano, lived a guinea pig of gold. The one who could see this animal first was given power and fortune, but if the guinea pig first looked at you, you would die and your spirit would be transformed into a coot(a bird of the region).” *

In this region, there are also a certain ways that the Quichua people dress,  generally most of what the people wear is handcrafted in the village. Mainly it is the elders of the Quichua  that dress in their cultural wear. Males where hats, a 

white or blue button shirt, white pants and a dark woven poncho, females generally wear a cloth on their hear, hand embroidered blouses, long woven shirts, and shawls draped over their shirts. It was definitely quite surprising to see that the younger generations wore clothes closer to what we generaly wear with tshirts and jeans.

The food is also very different in these areas. We had food such as plantains, lots of rice and beans, baby octopus, guava, passionflower fruit, even fried small intestine of pigs which was definitely my very least favorite. Other traditional food that is common in Ecuador is many

meats and seafood, a very memorable sight of their cuisine that i saw was their cut cuy, which is roasted guinea pig.... >>> Cuy Cuy is considered a delicacy in Ecuador and is a traditional meal along with fruits of the region. 

Fruits are easily grown not only because most that live there are raised to farm but becasue of the warm climate and the frequent rain. During my time in ecuador we experienced the most rain theyv’e had in 50 years  during that season. Roads were washed out and embankments were torn apart. My group was lucky enough to not be caught in a situation such as this, however there were point on our drive to Quito from Banos that we had to evacuate our bus and walk across a 200foot stretch or road for fear that it would collapse into the river if our bus was too heavy to cross. We were very fortunate with this since the very road we walked across collapsed into the river later that day. 

I never thought that I would say that I experienced a country so beautiful and majestic that it will always remain a part of me and i will never forget my time in Ecuador. From the cities to the monuments, the lagoons, the mountains and volcanoes, the food, to the language and the people. This coming summer, I sincerely hope to have a chance to return to do mission work 3 weeks to help the people who touched my heart forever. I hope that at some point in your lives that you have a chance to experience this country that I love so much and let it change you as it did me.