lessons in, well, not quite sure what?!

ok so i guess a little bit of the story may reflect my need to work on my patience skills, however, for the most part it is a lesson to myself to 'just say no' when i know im not into it!!
the scenario- saturday morning, er, well i suppose it was more afternoon by the time we had all assembled in the living room of my house. mel, jas, emilie, james the english couch surfer and the german (ugh). We were going to head up to ubud for the earth day festival, with promises of djs and bands and other such exciting things! now, these plans had been assembled the day before, when we were full of life and energy! but then friday night happened, and with the adequate amount of long island ice teas and a late night trip to double six, that said energy and life were fully drained out by 3 pm on saturday! so this is the moment- the one where you look b ack on going, dang-er, i shoulda done something different right about HERE! i was moving slowly and not at all ready for the adventurous outing of the day and did in fact say, nah i dont think im going to come, in not ready, yada yada yada. everyone chimes in with the collective ' ah no you have to come- so fun- be great- come with- blah blah' and buckling with indecision under the peer pressure, i say ok.
fast forward to being on the bikes somewhere near sanur- at this point im relatively positive that i shoulda stayed home. reason being- groups....its been almost seven full months since i moved away from LA. a lot has changed. one major thing for me is that i am no longer part of a 'group' of friends. while i miss my friends incredibly and i think about them every day, i have loved every minute of my growing independence. yeah sometimes its lonely, but i seriously love being on my own as far as plans and things. i can float from each little group of friends and be completely on my own agenda. its really worked for me and i have felt myself grow to be more like the person i want to be- which is independent and non-reliant and completely ok with being on my own. so- now that our group has grown to seven bikes i dont think i need to poitn out that things become difficult right about now....
decision making in a group is almost impossible. everyone has one thing or another they have to do and the collective can virtually never agree on things. needless to say this trip was no different. on top of that we had a nomadic sized group of bikes, all trying to follow eachother through saturday afternoon traffic (imagine the 405 in LA at 6 pm on a Friday, then take away all rules, laws, and signage and you will know what its like!!) so of course we lost someone. the german. of course. dont get me started on the german. im going to skip detailing the rest of this arduous journey mostly cus its boring and annoying and i think you get the point!! oh but do note im riding on the back of someones bike- not the most comfortable place to sit your ass for going on two hours! ever had your complete pelvic area fall asleep and go numb?? yeah- its weird!!!
moving on- after a search mission for this festival we finally make it ( funny part, turns out it was literally next door to the house of one of the girls we were with...due to poor group communication this was not discovered until way too late and while funny now was a 'grrrrrr' moment at the time!!!

at the festival-because i dont want to gripe and that is not the correct emotion for the way i was feeling, i wont detail much about the festival. i will say that it was pretty much what i was expecting in the sense that i knew i wouldnt want to be there. but hey- i was in great company and in that situation it is easy to make do! i think the problem was more that i was exhausted from the get go, wiped from the drive and now sitting on the grass, well, er, waiting. not a biggie at the time- wish the bands had been a bit more diverse but they were not bad. five hours later....still sitting, still waiting. this is part where i asked my gaurdian angel for some patience, only because i was now under the fully stifling crush of realizing that i was no longer free or independent, as i was in ubud at the mercy of those with bikes. again- not that it was bad or anything, it just at this moment (thank you murphys law-- nothing good going on for days then as soon as im unavailable its like plans galore!!!) there were other things i would rather be doing. as time wore on, and our troops' moral were dropping off one by one i was busy telling myself that i would just have to go with the flow and when we left is when we left. no point in obesssing over it. i know- easy, but not so much. i decided to call a friend to distract my mind away from eating itself with anticipation and twenty minutes into a great conversation i looked up, and walah! the group was mobilizing!! once i let it go it happened on its own!! of course if only it was that easy.....

the rest of the story is just cause for laughter at this point- i was just happy to be on the go and so these other things slid off my back! a) jas's bike was stalling, the one i was on the back of, so i had to go with this other girl who happened to have the most uncomfrtable seat in the history of seats. no prob right? ass numbage? no biggie- im happy now! b) we lose the group...who cares right? lets just go!!! c) we are supposed to make a pit stop to pick up someones bike, another delay- but hey! still smiling! d) mel and emilie txt saying they have gotten a flat tire and lost the whole group (none of them are people who actually live in bali and therefore have no idea where they are goin!!) ah well..... what can we do?
end of the day- we make it back to seminyak with news that mel and emilie have found a mechanic, the rest have made it to legian and i shoot off the bike into a cab and head home! fifteen minutes later im off on my own again- wow breathing room:) ended up having a good night to which the timing turned out perfectly!!!

lessons: be patient, let things go at their own pace, do what you want, not because someone else says you should! make my own decisions, and stay away from groups!! nah not really- groups are fun too:) but i will revel in my independence while i have it!

is it worth it?

yesterday mel and linda and i were talking about whether or not it was really worth it to get close to someone you know will be leaving- i think i wrote something about it the other day and how i think it is worth the experience no matter what. but then when it happens i start to wonder- is it really better to have experienced something amazing only to lose it or is it better to leave it alone? mel and linda said they felt ambivalent towards doing it because what was the point? they didnt want to expend the energy when they knew in the end it would be fleeting. we debated it for a while, me defending it to the death-even resorting to the use of the new age hippie phrase of the month 'being present'. but then-the aftermath... its like a come down, i feel like im crashing from a hard night of partying- feel drained and a little empty really. i made an incredible friend this week and the time spent with him was absolutely incredible and i wouldnt want to say i would rather never have had it happen but now its so sad to have to think about what i wont have anymore. these last few days also have left me missing my friends back in california and longing to have more connections like the one i just made. but i guess if life is not made up of both bliss and loss then it would be pretty empty. how could you know how amazing something could be if you didnt know how much you would miss it when it was no longer there? to my friend i feel incredibly lucky to have met you.i hope we can continue our friendship becuase i dont know what life will be like without tangents and rants:) i will be forever infinitely jealous of those in your life who get to bask in your radiance on a daily basis. the golden sunsets will be a little less golden when not watched from the platform with you:)

Reflections of a Friday Night

Go back several pages of blog-blabber and you will find stories of the utmost craziness happenings on friday nights ( and sat, sun, mon, tues...you get the point) im pretty glad to say that these days i have a lot tless craziness to report and more well, introspective things to report from my friday nights:) ( well not all of it- see the tranny noodles part....)
best part of my night: realizing what a best friend i have and knowing that after 11 years of friendship we have pretty much nailed this thing;) we have it down to a science!! i forget sometimes that those who challenge you are often the most rewarding and little things like last night make me remember why my friend is so amazing. without divulging too much personal detail regarding the events of the evening, ill suffice to say that somehow amidst the drunk sweaty people of mbargo- in between being aggressively stalked by an excpetionally tall man, taking shots of jungle juice from 'ricki' who insisted that i knew him ( didnt.....for sure didnt...) sloppy salsa dancing with horacio, and trying to dodge the B.O. guy mel and i had a moment and it was good:)

the cherry on top of the otherwise less exceptional evening: coming out of Mbargo and seeing mels bike being wheeled over to her by the parking guy. we then stood there for about ten minutes while mel searched her tiny purse for her bike key. she passed the bag over to me and i did i full search as well- all the while the parking guy is standing there watching us. at some point i suppose he was no longer amused by the goings-on and he finally tells mel that he has the key!! she left it in the lock of the bike and he had taken it out and held it for her! so sweet right- yeah, until he asked for money to get it back!!!!! so after letting us look for the key for ten minutes on the streets flooded with drunk bozos he extorted money from us as well. on our merry way..... then comes tranny noodles.
there is this little warung/stall on the way home that is situated next door to a popular transvestite hang out and its open all night (the noodle place) so typically late night if you crave mee goreng you can often get a side of tranny for free. however on this particular stop there were no trannies to be found. so we paid our 50 cents to have some guy literally cook a packet of instant mee goreng and add some green leaf-like things to it and went home to feast- we finished our MSG around 5 45 am and barely made it to bed..oh and mel just offered to pay me for my assignment im doing for her with tranny noodles. i rejected this offer based on the fact that i dont want to my salt intake to shoot through the roof and put me into early cardiac arrest....thanks though stang:)

the human connection

its been a really long time since i have updated this bad boy- i only realized just how long when i signed in and saw the bin sin pic pop up...that was forever ago!! a lot of the reason for my recent haitus has been th damaged state of my left wrist- it kinda makes it hard to type..hurts after a while and i hate not being able to rant at the speed my nimble fingers are so used to:) but yesterday i made a friend who reminded me that this was an important part of my journey so here i am with a most recent update!!

on blackouts- last you heard we were experiencing random black outs in the sky temple ( the name of our house) well those conitnued with increasing frequency after we had an AC unit put into my bedroom ( i know, pause for a moment of excited screaming!!!) but with luxury came strife- no longer waking up a sweaty mess, instead the powering of the ac somehow tripped up the water pump and our water was intermittently just turning off. so now the possibility of a black out while in the shower and then having the water turn off on you while soap is dripping down your face was imminent. thanks to jasmine and 'her guy' the problem is now rectified and i no longer have to force my soapy scared self through the pitch black house to the outside electric box to switch the lights back on!!

a quick mention of the person who has recently inspired me to come back to the writing- sometimes i forget how amazing human connections can be- how they can come at you from nowhere and forge in the most unexpected ways. one of the things i love the most about being in a constantly transient place is the ifinite possibility of people meeting. sometimes its a disapointment, sometimes its fleeting and sometimes its more powerful then you can explain. knowing someone for 24 hours and having a connection that feels like life long friends is something that i will never tire of experiencing. its humbling and awe inspiring at the same time- to think about the sequence of small events and decisions that went into motion to sway two peoples lives into congruence and for however long it lasts it is most worth it:)

ok like i said- my finger is starting to hurt so more profound thoughts tomorrow;)

quote of the day "i managed to ride that banana"
highlight of my last 24 hours- making a beach burrito/enchilada (not taco) :)

Fun Facts of the Make shift life!

just a few things that make living here just that much more interesting:

*blackouts* yes they happened in the states too- when its really hot and they do those rolling black outs. here though- when your power goes out because its too hot, you are thereby surredering to just turning into a wet rag of sweat, especially in my hot box of a room. not only is it already like sleeping in a sauna, but my one meager fan clicked off this morning and that powering down sound followed by utter silence warned me that i would not be sleeping anymore! oh yeah- and it makes our water pump go off so there was no shower to be had before coming to work this morning! so im sweaty, my hair is dirty and i had to brush my teeth standing over the kitchen sink!!

oh yeah- and i noticed on the drive to work that the traffic lights go out when there is no power...no generators.....so the 'every man for themselves' driving mentality becomes even more of a hazard! eh traffic lights are overrated i suppose:)

*australians* the aussies are a constant presence here, as well as a constant source of amusement to us. they are like their own species of stupid its great! dont get me wrong- i do have some sort of magnetic draw toward them but sometimes you just cannot help but drop your jaw with incredulity at their own ignorance- and i thought americans were bad!

so we invented a game- the BINSIN game. BINSIN stands for bintang singlet (the aussie uniform is a bintang singlet with board shorts and a strip of material from the bounty hotel tied around their head, or arm or leg, etc. anywhere they can tie these things they do and then they parade around the streets buying tubes of ephedrine that look like packs of gum from the motorbike taxi drivers slash drug dealers! so the game is, before you go into a bar, every one guesses how many binsins will be inside. the winner is whoever is closest. you get extra points here and there- for example, predicting and seeing a girl in a binsin is extra, and if you manage to site the 'hanger' then you get double. the 'hanger' is more rare, however they can be spotted- its those shameless creatures who buy their binsin too big, intentionally, so that the arm sleeves hang down low proudly displaying their man boobs. its a gauruntee that they have man boobs if indeed wearing this shirt- the hot ones dont partake in this cultural slur.

my favorite quote from my very cute but hopelessly ignorant aussie friend: we are walking to dinner and he is like, all excited, "wow they are selling bottles of absolute over there on the street for 6000 (60 cents)!!!" i look behind me, to see what he is all giddy about. Me: "uhhhh yeah no that is petrol." amazing. althogh i should probably give him a break on this one- its probably only in bali that they siphon petrol into old alcohol bottles and sell it on the street for 60 cents...

crisis avertede

figured out the photo problem and my boss with the electronically gifted hands has seemingly fixed my phone. he is the yin to my yang:)

Even in paradise it rains!

Still rainy season here- which means at least once a day torrential downpour carries on for hours, flooding all the streets and making our house smell like a sewer (any of my followers a plumber-by-night and know why this might be???) everyday there is a downpour, or after mel and i shower, our bathrooms smell like serious sewer-ness. last night melissa was so bad that i walked in and gagged- without even making it through the door frame. it was so bad we had to disturb linda and have her come up to witness the foulness. for someone who likes the smell of durian to be physically repulsed by a smell should describe the level of rankness. apparently people have been out to the house to figure out what it is but instead of fixing it they put like a layer of cement over the wall that leaks and say its fixed. yeah its not. any ideas?

so we all have these rain panchos that we put on when it starts to rain when your driving. so when i got back mel was like hey i bought you a present- a new pancho! and i said- hmm that is nice but i already have one?! and she said - not anymore....with alittle further investiagtion it came to light that someone had ripped hers, so she stole mine and bought me a new one when i came back. so ok thats nice! then i take it out of the packet the first time to wear it and there is a rip like 8 inches up the front- so all the way home from carrefour my pancho was flapping around me like wings and i got home all wet down my front!! premium poncho my ass.....i continued wearing what has come to be known as 'flaps' out of my niceness and refusal to force melissa into returning mine until two days ago, on the drive to our surf lesson, in the pouring rain, flaps up and ripped all the way up the front and off of me! so right this second im watching black clouds roll in and cursing melissa and flaps....

on a more positive note ( the new theme of the blog!) i had lunch at the roti place- yes we found an authentic roti canai place! and they also have teh tarik! before lunch i met jon at a gas station, where we gave our passports to a lady who is going to illegally restamp us in so we dont have to leave when our visas expire. best part-- this is an illegal activity yet we met in the open and public gas station where she took our passports and then we asked how long until we get them b ack. she replied one week- 7 working days, as they are very busy....um, this is so corrupt and illegal yet you are 'so busy' that you have minimum wait times? so ridiculous this place is:)

i dont think i ever put up the pictures of my house.....ok here they are:)
update. my blog is not working not letting me put any images on here an my phone just stopped working. today might be the day i need to be put on suicide watch......

where have i been??

SO i have not totally abandoned the blog and my four followers....i just really hadnt felt too inspired the last few weeks and really had no idea what to write. but too many funny things happened this last week so its back to the blog:) plus, inspired by jon's tutorial on the secrets to success, i have decided that i am only going to put positive energy out, and am going to visualize and believe fully in what i want, and it will happen. so im going to use the blog as my way of putting all the good things out there into the universe, so nothing negative will be allowed on here!!!!

speaking of visualization-- yeseterday jon and i finally made out way to kuta beach and had a surf lesson with our friend rizal! yes- amongst the trash ( seriously so bad sometimes you were stepping fully on a sandy bottm covered in trash!! the bags would get stuck to you and i pulled several unidentified objects out of my hair and bathing suit!! but we braved it anyways ( and the rain that threatened to scare us out of the water!) but no- we stayed in for two hours and both were like pros by the end:) haha well obviously not- but we were both standing up and getting it and it was so much fun! very exhilerating....veeeerrry sore today though:) but so worth it!! we are going to go again tomorrow i think- its about 3 dollars to rent a board for an hour so i think its worth it- gotta get good! the best part was that we did the lesson from about 4 30 to 6 30 so we were out in the water for the first part of the sunset and it was really incredible!

funny story: the other night after a late one, I decided to take a motor bike taxi home from kuta- basically these guys in orange vests will drive you anywhere for like a dollar. so i took one home and the guy is chatting to me all the way blah blah.... we are almost back to my house and im thinking of my bed and how comfy its going to be and then all of a sudden THWAAP!!!!!! a flipping bird has just slammed into my mouth!! im not kidding- i saw it coming and there was no where to go- it bashed me in the mouth, while we were going like thirty km/hr!!!!!! so then the guy is laughing and im screaming and almost crying and the whole way he is like no its good luck its good luck....i told him that this was the second time this had happened to me and i really didnt think there was anything good about it....yes, i think most of you know my story abouit the bird hitting me in the face on my bike in california so yeah. you think they get out of your way. im here as living proof that they dont!!!!! anyway i had a fat lip from it that thank god didnt last overnight and i actually had forgotten it happened until about 6 pm that night driving by the spot where it did and all of a sudden it came back to me and i was laughing so hard on my bike! ok enough for now! im uploading pics and will write more stuff soon....

return to paradise?

well its been four days since I have been back in Bali and i have not been to the beach once!! its rainy season and they are joking- right now we are in the middle of some crazy storm that has lasted all week and tomorrow then winds are supposed to get up 50 km'/hour! the streets flood in a matter of minutes and SUVs are in windwo deep water! so we have been living in our ponchos- i have the shittiest poncho on the planet! while given to me with love from melissa, the truth is she lost/ripped hers and 'borrowed' mine so she bought me a new one. only the new one came with a giant rip right down the center and so there i was flying down sunset with my pancho flapping like wings to my side and getting soaked all down my middle! i also dont have a helmet with my visor so everywhere i go i roll up with a dripping wet face and my hair is needless to say, a fro.
the worst part of the driving in the rain thing is that the streets flood and you cannot see whats under the water- aka GIANT pot holes and ditches and rocks that you suddenly find yourself crash over/into. yeah. on top of that the traffic has become reminiscent of HelLA because people just want to get wher ethey are going so badly that they disregard any semblence of rules that there might have been in place....
Last few days i have defied the rain to try and get things set up- today its knocked me into submission though- i just cannot be bothered being wet all day again! but on monday i had a job interview for this clothing company called ayya- its a web based store and everything is designedand produced here in bali. the job was for a customer service rep= someone to handle client relations through email and skype and also track packages, keep administrative records, etc. pretty simple stufff. but i ended up spending about two hours with the owner of the company and things went really well. he said they were thinking of creating more of a marketing/sales position out of it and are working out a way to incorporate some more responsibilities and to work out a decent pay. so he emailed me monday night saying he would let me know today , once he and his partner ' put the puzzle together'! so crossing fingers....

i also set up my room and got things all unpacked and settled. camera battery is charging right now so i can put up some pics. yes i swear. ;)

my birthday is in april but i know what i want....

so last night i decided on something- i know what i want for my birthday. and its totally ridiculous and only one of you can give it to me( by you i mean one of the like four people left who read my blog...which consists of mostly family members or close enough and therefre are the only people who feel inclined to actually GIVE me presents!!) so. basically i have noticeed a trend- when i am far far away from my computer, nowhere near my trusty keyboard and the outlet that is this blog, for example, in taxis on my way to clarke quay, or waiting in line at the pharmacy, i have these close-to-genious thoughts in my head. i mean i think about what iw ould write at that moment if i were in fact at my computer and seriosuly- its like pure gold;) haha no really, i have this constant inner monologue- so intricate and well versed that sometimes i wonder if in fact i might be in a truman show like situation and people are watching my dramedy of a life and listening to my monologe as the shot zooms into a close up on my pensive face staring into the sunset! and messed up as it is i take some sort of pleasure in the fact that somone might be watching- its better then thinking no one can even see you...
anyways- digression- what i need is one of those hand held recorder things- that i can keep in purse and whip out in my moments of genious clarity, to speak into it and be able to write down the things later...yes i realize the risk of looking like an out of place 50's sleuth reporter but hey, it will all be worth it when i get to unload all of my wildy funny and wickedly witty observations onto this blog:)
i realize you will all be clamouring to purchase said item for me- please consult each other and decie who gets the honor of making all my dreams come true;)

lastly- im headed back to bali in t minus four hours. the excitment is litrally almost sickening!!!!!! so for all three of yous sake, im happy to report that this blog will hopefull become substantially more exciting and upbeat:) first things on the agenda- job interview tommorrow ( more details later, im trying nto focus all the universes attention on making that happen so dont want to curse it:) and new tattoo..i seem to like marking my arivals with skin art!

Do Over!

Ok so the last few weeks this blog has been a mess of , well, i dont know! its been a little too personal, a little to depressing and perhaps not nearly as interesting as the past few months! i think i have come to the conclusion that leaving bali for five weeks was not a wise choice!! while i had a blast with my family in whislter and was really happy to see my friends in LA, i think my mind was not ready for it all- it was a lot and i think that some of the things i was dealing with were not so much 'dealt with', rather repressed to the darkest parts of my mind, which received little to no attention while i was in bali! so then everything kinda crept up on me and the next thing i knew it was like i was back to september, when i thought things in my life were the worst they had ever been! and i didnt deal with it very well, im afraid, but the more i think about it i supose that stuff was also an important part of 'leaving m life behind'. because at some point, everythig you leave behind will creep up on you and no matter how much you try to say that you have moved on and things are better, its impossible not to aknowledge what you have in fact left behind. plus at the same time i realized that i was counting a lot on other people to secure my happiness and was notreally doing much in the way of my own healing. because as soon as those things/people went away, i felt crushed again by the overwhelming weight of everything. but the last few weeks were a test- one that i cant say if i failed or passed- i can only say that i learned that i was relying too much on others and that i was repressing not confronting. this time i want to do it diffeently. the last few months in bali for me represented a time of freedom, of rediscovering myself and of calming my shaky nerves into realizing that in fact life always does go on and time really heals everything. but no im ready to move on in a different way. i want to build myself a new life, not just escaping the old one. i have a lot of stuff to decide and a lot of things in myself that i must confront, so i know the next few months for me will be different then the last few, but i guess its all part of the process when you leave it all behind. at some point you have to pick up the pieces and rebuild the puzzle into something new- learning from the past and knowing how tochange the future.
i also have to admit that i have been a suffering baby the last few weeks and was unable to realize the gift that i have been given. it took my a comment from my grandma last night to really shock me back into realization. when my mom said to her on the phone that i was sitting with her drinking wine and watching american idol my grandma said "well i just hope that i die and come back as kaelen cus that girl is everywhere!!" really made me laugh to think that while one grandma thinks i am some sort of reject because im not married and cannot fathom to understand why i would possibly want to live oversseas and GASP potentially end up with a 'foreigner' , the other is hoping that the karma brings her back as me!! hahah ME?!!! but then last night it was all i could think about- how many people do get the chance to start over, a DO- over as they call it. i cannot change the past, i made decisions and choices and they have changed the course of my life in a way that i could never have imagined a year ago, when the fear of possibility was crippling to me. when i think about this summer, and what is was that drove me to my breaking point and pushed me mindlessly through the picking up and starting over, i realize that many of the things i was hoping to happen, did. and while some of them didnt exactly turn out the way i had hoped, at least i tried and that is important. i do have to say i wish i wasnt turning 26 this year and was not approaching the impending doom that is 30, but again, i dont think i would ever go back to being 21 if it meant i had to sacrifice all i have learned these last five years. if i was 21 again i wouldnt have the capacity to handle any of this!!

so here's to my do- over. heres to making decisions (anyone who knows me knows i dont even like to decide what to eat for breakfast!!)heres to sticking to them. heres to not beating myself over things that i cannot control and to actively trying to change those that i can. heres to knowing how fragile every day is and that once its over, the best way to fall asleep is to know you wouldnt have done it any differently;)

500 and snowboarding...where do i sign up?

so monumentous occasion last night.... i finally cracked and taught a select group of the morris clan how to play 500!! yes - it was a successful mission and i can now report back that 500 is officially on the ballot of games that we play! (and there are a lot of them!) even this evening over apres ski beers shar said 'that game was fun iwant to play it again' and then everyone wanted to so we had a 'rock off' ( rock paper scissors comp) to determine who gets to play. im like the lord of 500 so i automatically got a spot:) haha
it didnt quite get as gritty as it can but just give it time is what i say- already people are makiing the standard excuse ' ughhh if only i had played THAT card instead then we would have got it!!" yeah- you will never learn! and then someone said 'oh that was luck that you got that' and i pulled out tim's classic- its not luck- its skill!!! i love playing with newbies!!

back on the slopes today- early morning up and out there by about 8 45am- it was FREEZING! like cannot feel your nose or any of your extremities freezing! but its realy best in the am because the snow is still nice and you dont have like 600 thousand snoboarders coming down from the park on top whizzing by you threatening your life! this am they had all the snow machines blowing ( there has not been snow fall here in several weeks!) and that made it absolutely retarded cold! do we went over to whislter and did a few runs of the lower olympic trail and then ally ad i headed back to swap out our skiis for snowboards! first things first- those boots are SOOO much more comfortable! ski boots suck ass! so with our matching poweder blue boards and our new boots e headed out to meet our instructor- jon from surrey, england! so me al and some bulgarian named mia spent the afternoon learning to snowboard down the bunny slopes! spent a lot of time on my ass but managed to make it down several times without gripping his hands in the death grip! although all three of us got seperately taken out by other skiiers/snowboarders ( allison failing to warn until the girl was litearlly sitting on my head as i was strapping into my bindings!!) she however was taken out by a six year old skiier! so floppy haired jon got us mobiule on the boards and wanted to slap us silly for trying skiing first and not spending the whole week 'boarding'! and i kinda agree-- it was more fun ! so we are headed back up for our last day tomorrow with our snowboards to see how much we can learn in another day!

note- im seriously considering moving here- even for like a year or something. its incredibly gorgeous- in the summer apparently there is tons to do and the weather is incredible! plus everyone here is like 20-30 ( people that work / live around here that arent families i mean) and so international. researching livig costs and jobs, etc...anyone want to join? ;)

back to blogging!

ok enough of that crap- i have been slack about this blog lately, well because not much exciting stuff was happenening-well let me rephrase...not that it wasnt exciting stuff, but this blog was about my move to bali and currently im not there and therefore i dont find much else relevant. and the stuff that has been happening well just hasnt been so blogworthy! a short update of what i have been doing/ where i have been:
spent christmas in singapore with the fam, fun times but nothing 'newsworthy' it was actually one of the most 'tame'holiday seasons i can remember! only a couple nights out, while fun, were pretty much drama free ( well from my perspective anyways!)
went to melbourne to visit a friend for new years- really good time- at this point think it was well worth it but i suppose only time will tell!
back to singapore for a few days- pretty much agony in my own mind- that was the few days that things kinda fell apart for me and i had no friends around and it sucked pretty bad.
went to los angeles- excited only at the prospect of seeing the few good friends i left behind. the rest was a mix of anguish and anxiety and sure enough, those few days were incredibly taxing emotionally and i think did further damage to my head. had a few really fun nights out with the girls though- really do mis my bill and bob and balls!
now in whistler, canada learning to ski with the fam! so far been a good time- i personally had a rough few days trying to learn but now im feeling better about it. im really enjoiying it now and am think whistler probably has the highest concentration of hot guys in the world. no joke. hhaha but the best part is when you eat it off the chair lift in front of them.. yeah that was me. ally and i donwloaded ( for those non skiiers it means you pussied out of going down the entire mountain and got on the lift to ride down - note- not only like 3 year olds do that here!!) however, as i valued my life and really didnt think i would have one to value if i attempted the descent, we sucked it up and rode the last bit down. so then as we are trying to get off, ally panics about where she is supposed to skii off to, as there is not a ramp down like the other lifts when you go up. so as we get up she nudges her skii into mine, trying to move out of the chairs way and my skiis cross and to avoid getting my ass draggged under the chair i throw my body to the side and am splayed out on the snow with my skiis crossed and the chair moving over me. good sister that she is she is standing over me hysterically laughing as i do a side army crawl up the side of the snow bank trying to save myself, all the while laughing and yelling that she sacrificed me for her own good. .yeah this is in front of people....so then i have to drage myself up to flat ground so i can stand up and shamefully move to the next chair to continue going down . so embarassing but not really i guess considering more embarassing would be cartwheeling down the side of the mountain in my ill fitting rental ski gear!!
so...whistler is a good time but i have been away from my 'own life' for far too long- i am starting to get fidgety and restless and my mind is taking advantage of my weakness. im trying to get excited about going back to b ali- no- scratch that, i am excited, but im nervous about things and how they are going to go this time. and ive lost some of the initial strength that i felt when i first left everything behind and ive lost sight i guess of what it was i was looking for. going back to LA was probably pre mature in the sense that i dont think i was ready to deal with some of that stuff and i think maybe i have led myself down another slippery slope when it comes to guys and the situations i fix myself in. why is it so impossible for me to find someone who is in the same place as me? its like a form of masichism this inability i have. hey if i was 21 i suppose i wouldnt care but im heading over the 25 hill, and into the depth of the pre thirties, which lets face it, are the darkest hours before you hit fourty! and while the last few months i have had a great time being single again and remembering how much there is out in the world, im tired of it in a way. and annoyed that i am tired of it ;)

ill put up some whistler pics so that those of you whose eyes are burning from having made it this far will b e rewarded with something other then txt:)

ok i know i got boring.....and i am onl going to get worse....

sory guys but this bog wasnt really invented to disply hilarious stories about my dumb ass life 24-7..while i think i do a pretty good job on the whole 'telling horrible funny stories that are actually painful because you all sincerely feel bad for me' i think that sometims its mandatory that i bore you with the way i acually feel only if anything to keep those few of you who read this interested.

the last few weeks have been weird. i have had so many differet emotions spilling over each other and i have had a hard time grasping any one at a time. afte my friend passed away i really fell- i am a victim of cirusmstance and that really threw me. i know that life is hard and so many people close to me are suffering because of other bad hands but this one shocked me so hard and left me hanging. dealing with tragedy is not something i am good at- as it tends to resurface every insecurity i have ever experienced. and this tie i was alone. like literal alone- i really dont think my parents understood and i they did well then i appreciate that so muchbut they had no idea how to deal with it. and that is ok because neither did i. and none of my close friend lost him either and it only reminded me of the other time in my life where a close frind died and nobody got it because he and i were friends ouside of everything else that was 'normal' in highschool. and to this day i remember how werid it was for m for week to try and make in understood that i could not ust forget it the way everyone else could.

things here have been awkward. and truly if only awkward was the word. i cant really explain how weird it is to be here- its like pretending that everything that happened to me in the alst fou months never existed and some how im in the excact same place i waas before. while i miss certain people so much, being here is hurting my stability. its to much. dealing with everything i left behind is really painful and knowing i realy dont have anything ahead of me is hard. i know that i left for the righ reasons but that doesnt make then harde everyday. everyday i think about what i gave up and how i put myself into a really diffuicult situation
truley i would not have thought about it like this had my grand mother not made a serious deal aboiut this but now i cannot help but think about it. while im married to erin and lydia and melissa for the rest of my life, i cant help but realize that that is something that i want and what i doing with my life may not be the best way to find someone. while i recognize that i have to be open to what life hands me considering i dont think that my choice has much to do with it.

im confused.

i will miss you JJK

i was hoping to log in today and gush about my great trip to australia but it seems my return to reality has hit harder then expected. with hopes of this year starting out as a great one, thinking that perhaps the good fortune that i had these last few months would continue it was a rough day for me today when things came crashing down. nyall and i kept saying that as of tuesday we would be 'back to reality' and it seems that the real world has turned on us. i found out this morning that a good friend of mine from when i worked at bob in LA died over christmas. he had a brain hemmorage and went into a coma where he would remain brain dead indeterminably and his family took him off life support on christmas eve. jay was only 28.he had been married over the summer to his amazing girlfriend el and they were one of the cutest couples i had seen together. jay made me smile on the days when work was trying to make me hate life. jay shared so much light and energy and was one of the most creative and funny people i had ever met. we instantly became friends and bonded over our weird senses of humour- constantly taking the piss out of each other and making up weird conversations. it breaks my heart now to think of what el must be going through and the pain that must have settled deeply into the void that he left at bob. i cannot fathom how they are getting up and going into work each day, where his empty office will constantly be a reminder of all of his amazing quirks, his weird dance moves and his irregularly high pitched girly laugh. the amount of sadness, the extent of the grief and the loss that has been suffered by his many friends and colleagues is insurmountable. jay was inspirational to me- he was creative, talented and humble and on his way to do great things. it it one of lifes unjust cruelties that he is gone. i hope that i can only ever be a fraction of the person that jay was and will miss him.

in light of several other pieces of devastating news that i heard today i can only think about how quickly things can change. how literally in one instant everything you thought mattered no longer does and an entire new world can unfold. i know that most of this year i have looked at this as opportunistic and have enjoyed the fruits of this so-called change but in the last few days i have been forced to view it in the more dismal way. i can only hope that all things do happen for a reason and that some day the reasons for all that is happeneing now will be clear. the only way i feel i can hold on to what positive optimism i have left is to believe that with every tragedy bears a miracle and with every door closed a window opens. there has to be a reaason for all of the suffering and i can only wish to one day see what it may be.