Line dancing skillz cross cultural boundaries

Some of you may have been following my blog while I was in Guatemala. I have now returned to the US, but I felt the need to encapsulate my experience in the above photo, when another US student and I taught the Kaqchikel Maya instructors how to do line dancing. We explained, of course, the importance of line dancing and its ties to country music as one of the music and art forms that was and is natively produced in US culture (and that we didn't steal from other places... I think in the music world, that category leaves us with country, jazz, blues and grunge, of all things.) Who knew that the Gone Country Girls would one day be promoting cultural exchange via popular culture art forms?

My new place: part 3

After spending 2 weeks in the Mission (the house in the last post), and a week at The W Hotel (yum), I'm now going to be spending the next 6 weeks in Nob Hill (the photo above). The conference went well, I survived my session, and now it's time to get the rest of the summer rolling.

I'll be in Dayton from the 21st to 25th of June (it's on the calendar), if anyone will be around!

Bring on the Local Wines!

This was a picture taken a couple years ago when we went out to the Lake Michigan Wine Trail Festival at Weko Beach. Upon closer look, the tickets all say DRINK. The wine festival, now an annual event, is awesome because its sanctioned alcohol on the beach, good live music and sand dunes. Not to mention drunken fights in the lines for the shuttle. Oh southwestern Michigan....so much like southeastern Ohio....

Back in California

The semester finally ended, and now I'm back in California working fulltime for the summer. This is the apartment I'm staying in for 2 weeks; I knew 2 people who lived here (out of 4), one moved out, so I'm temporarily staying in her room until the second week of June. More photos of the place (it's not really that exciting) are here. Then I move into a hotel with coworkers for a week during our developer's conference (WWDC), and then I move to another part of San Francisco until August.

Because I'm here just for the summer, I'm using it as an opportunity to see if I'd want to live in the city when I come back permanently. Apple just recently added shuttles that go back and forth from San Francisco to Cupertino (about an hour drive), so I'm trying to figure out if "city-life" is worth commuting 2 hours a day for.

And it's freezing here. I guess Twain was right when he said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."

Lovin' Colombia

So we were prepping the wall for the kids to mural it, and these policia came up to us. At first I thought they would be like what are you doing... la ti da... bribe me... But the guys just wanted a foto with the gringa. So I agreed and then asked him his name, which was Ricardo I think. Well, I never heard the end of it from my teammate Kirk and our friend Diego! Ohh, como te llamas... te gusta el uniforme Anyway, I thought you'd get a kick out of it!

Payback is a bitch

(Click on the picture to get full detail, if interested)
Did I mention my sister got engaged? She and Ryan Snyder are tying the knot...Memorial Day Sunday, 2009. Looks like we're 2 years apart in everything :) We went wedding dress shopping, and she's down between two choices: the one that ended up being my second choice, and this gown, which is my personal favorite. As for the title, that was the first thing my sister said before she asked me to be her maid of honor.

Remember Cosi?

As an introduction to a unit on electrostatics, I get to play with the Van de Graaf generator. I actually do a whole show type thing, confetti explosions, bending flames, and finish up with the whole hair standing on end trick.

The school year is finishing up and for the first time I am not moving classrooms. It seems so much more relaxed! I am looking forward to the summer and the trip that I am chaperoning to Europe with a teacher friend. We are going to France and Spain June 22-July 2.

While everyone else was sleeping...

...I was awake too.

It's the last week of the semester, so I've been working pretty late hours. I took this photo of my dorm while walking home at 5am. I thought dawn looked especially nice.

My Future In Canton Includes Brushed Nickel

My life lately (when I'm not focusing on my jobs or on my Saturday class) has been consumed with looking for a place to live come the end of June. Brian and I are *gasp!* moving out of Ann Arbor and into metro Detroit-most likely to a bedroom community called Canton. This picture is from a model apartment kitchen of the complex where we will most likely be living. The brushed nickel hardware on the cabinets is what made me swoon; I love the idea of living in a place with real wood cabinets (maple!).

I am truly disappointed at having to move from such a wonderful REAL city to go live in suburbia, so at the very least, I'm getting my cabinets.