Connections to Home & Updates

Well, February has come and gone and I wrote on this blog a total of three times. Oops! I really am not sure what has been occupying all my time on a daily basis, so hopefully I will have more to say in March!

Recent Updates
Things happening lately and things I am excited for in the future.

• Over the long weekend that just passed Kelsi and I headed to the mountains for some relief from the Cali heat and spa time at the hot springs in San Vicente. (Blog post to follow!)
• Seven short months after moving from Minnesota to Wyoming, my friends Anna and Andy got engaged!! Love them both so so so much and I am so excited :)
• Annnnnnnnnnnnnd Anna bought her plane ticket to come visit me in Colombia at the end of the school year! We plan to spend some time in the mountains as well as some time on the Pacific Coast.
  
• I bought my plane ticket home to Minnesota for the summer! Nothing like a little trip planning to get you motivated for the rest of the school year :)
• My friend Katie and I bought tickets to see Sugarland in concert at Summerfest AKA the best outdoor music festival in Milwaukee, Wisconsin! Outdoor music in the summertime - specifically country music is literally the best thing ever. I haven't been to Summerfest since I saw Keith Urban two years ago, so I am psyched to return.
• I heard from my friend Ilse in Uganda. She left on February 10 for the Peace Corps in Uganda and after tw0 painstaking weeks I finally heard from her that she is alive, happy, well and living with a great host family!
• Kelsi and I bought plane tickets to Medellin and have reservations at Rio Claro Nature Reserve for Spring Break! We will be staying in a tree house with three walls and one side open to the river below. Oh hey Swiss Family Robinson.
• After tutoring all the time to pay my way through college, I really have been missing that one-on-one connection with kids that is hard to make in the classroom. Thanks to a hook-up from a fellow teacher, I am now tutoring two siblings, 6th grade boy and 5th grade girl, once a week each in math and loving it! I just love being able to work at the student's individual pace and not feel like I somehow need to find a balance for every kid in the classroom.

Books
We went to our ladies only book club last week and I brought lots of things to share!

• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - After getting through the initial 100 pages, I couldn't put it down. If you love mysteries or novels or just good writing, you must read this series!
  
• The Girl Who Played With Fire - As good as the first one, but better. I read this book in two days because I couldn't wait to figure out what happened to Lisbeth Salander.
  
• The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest - The saga continues. I read this book non-stop until it was done and then proceeded to watch all three of the Swedish movies with English subtitles. These books are just as good as everyone says they are. Lisbeth Salander is literally the female Jason Bourne and she basically rocks at it.
  
• The Handmaid's Tale - A Margaret Atwood classic about what America would look like in a primitive, futuristic society where women are only kept around for their ability to reproduce. I had to read it in high school, but re-reading it as an adult was fascinating.
  
• Power of One - Five year old Peekay grows up in South Africa at the start of apartheid and his journey to be a boxer is filled with funny characters and a great story of personal triumph.
  
• Something Borrowed - I love Emily Giffin! Such a good author, and these two books tell the same story from two best friends' points-of-view. Sounds repetative and boring, but the story is anything but. Definitely a good beach or travel read that you can dive right into.
  
• Something Blue - The companion to Something Borrowed.
  
• Out of Captivity - I may or may not have cried like a baby on the bus coming home from San Vicente while reading the end of this book. This is the story of the three American men, Keith, Tom, and Marc who were held captive in the Colombian jungle by the FARC for 1, 967 days. Their plane went down while they were doing countranarcotic intelligence work for the Department of Defense, and they were only rescued years later by a covert operation led by the Colombian military. Lots of their time in captivity is spent with Ingrid Betancourt, whose books I also read, and who is a pretty controversial figure in Colombia so I loved hearing their take on things. Overall this book was a stunning insight into their personal will to survive in captitivity and remain the best of friends.

Awards Show Season
I wasn't ever that into awards shows when I lived in the United States, but living abroad I am so into them! They are just this huge connection to life back home, even if it is the lives of people I don't actually know.

• After the Grammys I immediately get Lady Antebellum's new album and have been listening to it non-stop! I was so out of the music loop I didn't even recognize their song, Need You Now on Glee, but it was super good. I also cannot get enough of Something About A Woman - love those lyrics!
• Also post-Grammys I am in love with the Avett Brothers when I need some good relaxing music to grade to. :) They just looked so adorable and psyched to be on stage singing with Bob Dylan that I loved them immediately.
• Why oh why do we live in a society where Lady Gaga arrived to the Grammys in an egg and everyone thought it was hilarious?
• FACT: James Franco is an awesome acter in Indie movies about a person stuck in a cave for 127 Hours. However, he is a pretty terrible Oscars co-host.
• Not as bad a Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes who was terribly rude and basically made me forget how kind and adorable British boys can be.
• Best moment of the Oscars? When James Franco's grandma exclaimed "I just saw Marky Mark."
• Ryan Seacrest is actually the death of all that is good about live TV. If I wasn't so starved of good old fashioned U.S. celebrities, he would actually make me throw things at the TV.
  

...so how's that for a random Wednesday of thoughts?

More conherent ramblings to follow soon...