Much Overdue Updates

It’s been a while since I updated this blog, I’ve been so focused on my travel blog (ABC TravelEye). I thought about this blog today though, when another “playlist” popped into my head.  Surprisingly, it hasn’t changed much from the one I made three years ago. But first, an update on my bucket list.

In the past two years, I have crossed numerous things off my list, some I didn’t even have on it.

• I have made progress on my continents, by visiting South America and Antarctica, only Australia left to go!
• I made progress on my Disneylands by visiting Tokyo and Hong Kong Disney parks.  Then they went and opened one in Shanghai, so still two to go!
• I have ridden numerous animals, including Camels, Horses, an Ostrich, Elephants, Dolphins, and a Yak.  So I guess that’s a thing of mine.
• Dancing happened. I learned how to Tango, and did it a few times in Argentina.  I also salsa danced in Peru, swing danced in London, and two-stepped in Ft. Worth, TX.  And I danced on a few mountain sides, so I guess that’s also my thing.
• I did a multi-day trek in the Himalayas (something I hadn’t even dreamed of before!)  It wasn’t the summit of the mountain, but it was the highest mountain pass traversable by foot – at over 5400m high!  Next, Kilimanjaro….
• I also reached my dream of spending more than a couple weeks in another country by spending five weeks in Scotland and six weeks in Nepal.  Still want to move somewhere new (but not there).
• I managed to shop for shoes in Quebec in French and in Chile in Spanish – language win!
• O yeah, and I got a new job, again.

So yeah, needless to say, you can see why I’ve been too busy the past couple years to post!

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Music Choice

I’ve been contemplating for weeks choices on music preferences and when we actually become conscious of them.  For the past few years, I had been listening to mostly country music, which was a bit of a change from my alternative rock days and my pop princess days before that.  Letely, however, I have been listening more and more to the “Adult Contemporary” stations, which is, I suppose, a combination of bubblegum pop and alternative rock with perhaps a little bit a dancey rap thrown in.  I started wondering why these changes occur?  Is it because of who we hang out with at the time?  Or what we do?  Or is it really just an evolution of who we are?  All of these things boiled down to one thing:  What made me consciously change my music preferences?

When I was a kid, I mostly listened to Oldies.  I listened to the likes of Elvis and the Beach Boys and other pop-rock icons from the 50s and 60s.  I remember going for an MRI when I was 8 and the technician asked what radio station I would like on the headphones, I said U92 (the oldies station at the time) and they were kind of surprised.  This was the only music I really knew, it was what my parents listened to and what we sang in the chorus performance at school.

Then came the 1997 Nickelodeon Big Help A Thon.  Even as a kid, I was a hippie, so of course loved the Big Help concept.  This specific performance, however, introduced me to what are still my two favorite bands today: Sister Hazel and Barenaked Ladies.  And I remember when they were first announced to take the stage I thought they were both girl bands!  So began my everlasting love of 90s pop rock.  (Shortly after this I got my first CD: No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom).

In 1998, all my girl friends were obsessed with the Backstreet Boys and NSync.  Having always considered myself a “rocker”, I refused to buy into it.  That is, until I saw NSync performing at EPCOT for the Very Merry Christmas Parade.  It was a small gathering of around 60 people around a small stage that we happened to be there on a field trip during.  And I was hooked.   A few months later I saw the Backstreet Boys at what was my first real concert ever, and the next year some friends and I even made a video to try and meet NSync on MTV’s Fanatic.  I was, I will admit, a teeny bopper.

Throughout most of high school I secretly stayed a teeny bopper listening to boy and girl pop bands as they faded into history while all of my friends were “discovering” bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead.

Then I went to a small preppy college in Georgia.  Here, my pop princess side was squashed and I was forced to listen to the likes of Dave Matthews Band (which I still never really got into) and was introduced to country (a love which lay mostly dormant until about 10 years later when I started line dancing).

So while every chapter in my life I am changing and expanding my musical tastes, I will probably always come back to those bands I saw while I was still so young and impressionable.  Maybe it’s because they take us back to a less complicated time in our lives.  Maybe it’s because they really do write great timeless music.  Maybe it’s because some bands know how to evolve with us.  Whatever it is, I bet everyone, regardless of how many different genres of music they listen to, has that one moment in their life when they legitimately became aware of music as more than just a noise in the background.  I’d love to hear your moments!

 

I Could Live in a Theme Park

I have two huge passions in life- dancing and theme parks.  The first has its own whole blog, the latter gets this post.

I go to a lot of theme parks.  I worked seasonally in one.  But I hadn’t been to my favorite theme park in 4 years, until yesterday.  And I finally figured out why it is I love theme parks.  I could live inside Epcot.

First off, theme parks are like their own little world.  Like going to a different country in your own backyard (Epcot especially so!).  They have their. Own inhabitants from all over the world.  They develop their own culture.  I have always loved studying world history and culture, and what better way than to go straight to the source!

I don’t even like roller coasters, but I spend a good chunk of my days off at various theme parks.  I realized yesterday that most of the time, I don’t even care about any of the rides.  I don’t have a set aganda for what I have to ride.  I don’t have to get fast passes to avoid waiting in lines all day.  Waiting in the queue is part of the theme park experience I feel, and sometimes its one of the best places to make new friends!

Most people go to Disney World for the Magic Kingdom.  Or for thrill rides or to dine with Mickey and friends.  I go for Epcot.  Some people don’t even know how I could spend a whole day there, but I could spend a week and still not see or try everything.  There’s of course the big name rides like Test Track, Mission Space, and Soarin’- thrill rides I can actually ride.  And after every ride there’s little interactive play areas to play and learn new things- you could actually spend the whole day just doing these probably!  Then there’s innoventions- the huge interactive arcade with all sorts of things to try.  There’s the Land and the Living Seas with all sorts of things to see and do and learn about nature.  And then there’s my favorite part- the world showcase.  I could spend a whole day just here!  There’s presentations and comedy shows in each country.  Plenty of shopping if you have the cash to burn.  For the kids and the kids are heart there’s a craft station in each country.  There’s at least two restaurants in each place to eat around the world. There’s my favorite pasttime of drinking around the world.  And my second favorite pasttime, finding cute foreign guys to flirt with.

I think I’d like to build a new theme park that is just like that part of Epcot.  It would be a little bit smaller, but hopefully a little bit cheaper, and include even a larger variety of countries.  And right in the center will be a hidden tower that I will live in.  Yep, that sounds like a nice dream to hold on to!

A Day in the Life of, well, Me.

The holidays are always a crazy time for everyone.  I, personally, am booked solid into the new year.  Wonder what it’s like? Choose any of numerous cliches- “Burning the candle from both ends”, “No rest for the wicked”, etc.  Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if I just have too many friends.  Too many friends you ask? Can that be possible? Well let’s start with yesterday and you can see what I mean….

tuesday- work in the morning- early afternoon, some Christmas shopping, out to the bars for my friend’s birthday til 3 am

wednesday- up after five hours of sleep, work 14 hours, come home and write this blog before finally crashing

thursday- another all day double

friday- Disney world for the first time in four years all day, christmas/friend’s birthday party number 1

saturday- make brownines for one party, friend’s graduation party an hour south, friend’s bridal shower an hour north, friend’s festivus party back in town,  another friend’s holiday/birthday party

sunday- one friends birthday celebration at busch gardens, work til close, another friends’ holiday party

monday- work a double, then over the bridge for movies and frozen chocolate bananas with a friend from out of town

and then comes going home for christmas, trying to celebrate my quarter-of-a-century birthday (curse my inconvenient birth!), and working doubles every other day including new years eve and new years day!

And somewhere in there I have to do laundry, walk my dog a bagillion times a day, eat, maybe sleep, and possibly shower.  But yeah, I do it to myself.  At least i can’t say my life is boring!

“I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”