Where are you going, what are you doing?

Are questions I ask myself regularly.
The idea of traveling and seeing new places keeps circling in my mind. I even thought seriously about going somewhere for the whole spring semester (although upon further thought I realized I should start with a much shorter trip,) but then this program for 16 days of winter break in Ecuador came along. I would have never thought to go there on my own, but the guys who run it gave a presentation in my class and after that I just had to go to the meeting. It's a grassroots organization, separate from study abroad, but still affiliated with the school (Global Student Embassy if anyone's interested,) and basically a group of 25 students from my school as well as another group from California, travel with group leaders to la Bahia de Caraquez on the coast of Ecuador and work on reforesting the area. Ecuador has always been one of  the most biologically diverse places in the world but environmental degradation is starting to threaten that. A lot of deforestation happens there, and trees are being cut faser than people are re-planting them. The GSE aims to reverse some of this damage and restore Ecuador's ecosystem. Other projects include building a rainwater catchment system  to help with the town's water supply and planting gardens in an Ecuadorian school. The deal is you work on these projects from like 8am - 2 in the afternoon, then the rest of the day is yours to relax on the beach and explore. We're supposed to be spending 2-3 days in the nearest city, la Bahia de Caraquez (our camp is a little ways away from the city on an isolated beach,) and we will celebrate the New Year there. The trip goes from December 27-January 12. The itinerary says we have a few different trips, visits to museums, and hikes. One day we're supposed to be learning how to surf too. The trip costs a litte more than I'd like..$2300, which covers airfare, food, transportation, travel insurance--basically everything but souveniers and extra necessities. We don't stay in hotels, I think we might spend a night or two in a hostel that the program always uses and has pretty much privacy in, but most nights are spent camping on the beach in large tents the organization provides.
Here's where you guys come in.. I have friends who really support it, friends who are neutral, and a couple of family members who are practically begging me not to go (primarily Grandma...the news always gets her worked up, she doesn't want me traveling at ALL, anywhere..). Then I have a relative, my dad's cousin, who has traveled a lot, but usually is more into tours and sightseeing, although she has been to Africa, Ecuador(briefly and in a different area than my trip would be,) and other third-world countries. She thinks I should go somewhere "easier" first, like Ireland or England. She's worried I'll be disappointed, but I don't know.. I feel like we might have different tastes when it comes to traveling. She loves to go and see the places she's read about and seen photos of--while I like that aspect too, a larger reason for me wanting to travel is just to get a taste of somewhere different and broaden my views. But anyways, I'd like to get some of your opinions on if you think this is a good idea or not. Don't worry about offending me--I'm just trying to make my decision and I know a lot of you have traveled before :). Eventually I do want to go all over--and I REALLY want to go to Australia. My dad's cousin suggested I save my money and go there, but I'm trying to decide if Ecuador really is an opportunity worth giving up. It would definitely reflect well on my resume, there's a chance I can work out some college credits for the trip, and it could defnitely be a life-changing experience. What do you guys think? Please be honest. The financial aspect sucks, but they did mention fundraising usually being successful in the past. Here's some photos I stole from the email they sent out to applicants.

Think I should fundraise and go? Or save my money for a future trip to Europe or Australia? Honestly I'm going to Europe or Australia eventually while I'm still young and free of heavy responsibilities, but I would probably go later on if I did this trip, and if I didn't do this Ecador trip I would probably go to Europe or Australia sooner.

Straying away from life-changing decisions, things overall have been good with me. I spent most of this week with Tom, which was really nice. I don't advertise it much on here, seeing as we don't bother with the boyfriend/girlfriend titles, but we have been seeing eachother for a really long time (yes exclusively, just no title,) and it's definitely nice when we get time together during the chaos of my college career. I like to consider Tom to be my rock. Whenever the little stressors of life decide to gang up and attack me, I know I can just let myself unravel in front of him. I'm never too worried about looking stupid, and it's pretty much a sure thing that he'll find a way to make me feel better. I always look forward to taking turns reading stories out loud from A Treasury of Sherlock Holmes with him before bed, waking up past ten and making big hearty omlettes for brunch. It's not always that glamorous, sometimes I just snooze on his shoulder while he kills godknowswhat on his xbox games, but I love the time together all the same. He's suppoting the Ecuador idea, which has a certain impact on my decison as well, because I know he's got my best interest in mind. He came to a meeting with me too because he was visiting me that night--and he was sold on the whole idea of the trip. He was also there for my emotional call with my dad when he told me that my grandmother was "devastated" by the very idea of me thinking of GOING. "If you go on this trip, just know it's going to cause some serious problems back here." Pretty heavy words to hang above my head. Again, Tom was my rock after I got off the phone all teared up, trying to collect myself before I had to go to class. Tom and my mom are probably my biggest supporters of the whole idea--my mom thinks it's a good thing, she's a little worried about international travel, but she doesn't want to stand in my way if I think it's a good opportunity for me.

Anyways, Thursday and Friday I had off from school due to the Jewish holiday, so I went home with Tom Thursday. Wedneday night was a Rise Against concert(!) so we stayed in my college city instead of driving the hour back home. The crowd was so crazy, everybody moving, everybody so amped up. I even lost Tom at one point when he got separated from our group of friends---but surprisingly I was able to find him and bring him back through the sea of sweaty, rowdy concert-goers, back to our friends. I crowd surfed for the first time! Pretty awesome ;), I didn't really go far, but it was a cool feeling, those bouncers pick you up like you're a piece of lint--you feel like you weigh NOTHING. Definitely cool to feel that way.

Once we were back at home, time with the friends was in order. We had a game night playing Apples to Apples at Derek's house, which is always a blast. The next day Tom and I went to our local apple orchard with the intent to pick apples, but it was pretty pricey, so we settled for cider and of course apple cider doughnuts!!!! There was NO way I was leaving that place without a bag of those, I've been craving them ever since the temperature dropped below 75 :P. So we played with the goats a little, got our doughnuts, walked around, and then went home.

 I was lucky enough to catch this group of senior citizens checking out the goats---something about it kind of makes my heart melt, haha.

 I'm pretty much pro at getting creeper shots of Tom ;), I couldn't help it though, it was too cute.

MY WEAKNESS...... Here you see like..10 out of the dozen we purchased. Yeah, well before the evening was through I managed to pig out on 6 and a half of these bad boys, by myself. Looks like it's time for me to visit the gym again.

So I am currently at my college, by myself. How did this happen you ask? Everyone at work was requesting this weekend off for the holiday, and being a newbie, I decided not to push my luck and only asked for Wednesday-Friday off, hoping I would magically get Sunday off atleast. But alas, I'm working both days over the weekend and the rest of my suite won't be here until later on tomorrow. I'm not really complaining though, I saw a lot of my friends this week and I do need the money. Plus it gives me time to just chillax and watch things on Netflix, BLOG, and hopefully do some reading.

Have a wonderful weekend! Please feel free to give me any imput/advice you have on my traveling situation :), and don't worry about offending me, I'm trying to be totally open-minded about this whole thing.

♥ Olivia

Change of the Seasons

Summer is gone and it's been almost a month since I've updated, again! But I am pleased to at least note that a lot has happened since I last wrote a blog post. I made a trip to New York City to visit my college friends, I bid farewell to Polo Ralph Lauren (until winter break perhaps,) I went job hunting and succeeded, and I have started my sophomore year of college. Alright, it doesn't seem like much, but I've been feeling pretty busy.

This is already starting off to be an amazing year at college. My suitemates are all just so chill this semester. Last year I dormed with a group of girls from Long Island who had all carefully chosen eachother beforehand, and my roommate and I were just the extras they were stuck with, ha ha. We didn't really click with their group because they had different friends and things going on through their sorority experience, but me and my roommate basically went together like peanut butter and jelly. And we chose to be roommates again this year :). For our suitemates we chose girls we met during freshman year that we had a lot of fun with, and felt the closest to, so now we have a pretty sweet suite. Our rooms are actually smaller in this building, but we compensate by actually using our space. Our common room last year housed everyone's desk, and that was all. And if the other girls were getting ready to go out, the common room felt off limits because who wants to sit and work at their desk in a room that's blasting music with hair straighteners and blow dryers going? Needless to say I did a lot of homework on my bed last year. This year, my desk is in my room, and so are a few of the other girls', so we had room to purchase a cute futon and set up a little living room area. It's so much cozier to be able to sit out there with the girls and watch bad tv together(before them I never watched an episode of Millionaire Matchmaker or Real Housewives.) My classes are pretty good this semester too; Abnormal Psychology, Environmental Science, Childhood Development, News Writing and Reporting, and Film in Contemporary Latin America.

Cozy right? Makes it awfully hard to get up and leave the dorm though, haha.

New York City was a lot of fun too. It was in the middle of August so I can't remember all of the details, but I'll recount what I can :). We went to Coney Island, Central Park, St. Mark's Place, and saw the Metropolitan Museum. I think I was actually getting the hang of the subway system after awhile. The night we went to St. Mark's we almost saw Johnny Knoxville!! We were walking past Union Square and these guys were like "Hey! Hurry up and go to Ray's Pizza, Johnny Knoxville's over there!!" I mean yeah... maybe they were lying, but it could definitely be credible--it's NYC. I could imagine a drunk Johnny stopping in a pizza place at 1 AM, it seems pretty plausible. But once we hurried over there, there was no Knoxville in sight...sigh.

 Coney Island was pretty cool :D. I've never been to an amusement park so close to a beach before, I thought it was cool the way the structure of the rides contrasted with the beach scene. We were kind of broke that day so we only paid to go on one ride (they're like $7-8 a pop!) and we walked along the water. Of course neither Tom or I had bathing suits with us. We also saw the original Nathan's Hotdogs stand--pretty epic I suppose :P.

 This little boy was ADORABLE! I can't believe I caught him just as he was trying to join in on the fun, with dad desperately reaching to pull him back, haha. They incorporated him right into their thing though, it was so cute to watch this todler teeter after these gigantic bubbles. I must've taken like...15 pictures of him, I feel like a creep. But I couldn't help it, it was adorable.

 I found Waldo ;).

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but one of the things Tom and I like to do together is play chess. He basically taught me everything I know--I didn't know any of the pieces or have a clue how to play before him. So it was pretty cool when we went to Union Square and came across these chess games. How it works is if you win, the other guy gives you $5.00, and if you lose, he gets your $5.00. Usually Tom's pretty boss at chess, I've only beaten him a couple of times out of all the times we've played--but that night wasn't his night :P. He said he made a silly mistake, and I can't blame him, it's a little nervewracking to play in front of and against strangers, but it was still cool to watch.

One night we devoted primarily to hookah. It was actually during Ramadan, so a lot of the hookah spots were setting up for buffets after sunset, so we had to find one that wasn't going to be so crowded. We talked forever and had a contest for who could blow the most smoke, and tried making smoke rings. The fresh fruit hookah was really good, definitely worth the few extra dollars. Again, my nights in the city are al jumbled together and I can't really remember that much, but it was definitely a good time.

Back to the present: I did a little job searching at the end of the month and landed a job at Fossil! If you aren't familiar with them they sell vintage items ranging from leather bags to really nice watches, sunglasses, and charms. I went through two interviews with different managers and filled out all of my employment paperwork, so I'm just waiting for them to give me my employee number and start me in on training :). I'm pretty excited. The brand is something that's a little more "me" than Polo, although they were great to work with, I feel like this is going to be a good experience for me.

I kind of really want one of these watches already...yupp, there goes my paycheck!

I hope everyone is doing well, I'll be catching up on blogs really soon. The transition back into fall has been busy,  but I intend on posting a lot more frequently.

♥ Olive

Home is wherever I'm with you

For starters, my car is back on the road! It only took a day to fix, but of course managed to cost me $150.. Automobiles are quite the investment. You have to pay for little unexpected breaks like this, then there's buying gas, paying for service appointments..insurance if you're not under your parents..the list is practically endless. My best friend actually has to pay for a new license plate because she hit a bird which somehow caused the front plate to become detached. On her way back home she went to try to retrieve it, and saw an old man crawling up from where it fell off, get in his truck, and drive off. She went to the spot where she lost it and it was gone. Apparantly the DMV pays for returned plates but charges you to replace them, so traveling grandpa must have snatched her plate.

Chicken Roast

In case I haven't made it clear in previous posts, I'm pretty inexperienced in the kitchen. A few days ago I pulled out a recipe from my "Absolute Beginner's Guide to Cooking" and decided to make a greek chicken roast. I made a trip to the grocery store, bought a fresh whole chicken, idaho potatoes, lemons, and oregano(all things that are totally uncommon in our kitchen) and got to work on it later in the evening after I got out of work. It wasn't too difficult. It's kind of fun to prepare the chicken..is it morbid if I made it dance a little before I put it in the pan..?  Then I coated the chicken and the potatoes and carrots I cut up with olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, and salt and pepper. Then I just let the oven work her magic. Since I started the whole project after 9:00 and finished around 11 I had to wait for lunch to know whether it was a success or not. And a success it was :).I was happy to hear that both my parents sat down and ate it for lunch together, they never eat together because my mom is a picky eater and when my dad wants to eat she has to fix something up for them, so they wind up eaing separately. I was glad to fix something they could enjoy at the same time. So atleast now there's one more thing I can feel confident that I know I can make.

Something new.



I cut my hair! I had been thinking about it for awhile, with dead ends driving me crazy. Plus my hair has been the same style/roughly the same length since like...9th grade. So Tom and I went to the hairdresser in town and got haircuts together (insert "Aww" here..haha). So I basically got it as short as she could do it without it turning out poofy, because curly hair gets poofier the shorter it gets. I'm pretty satisfied with how it turned out. It looks different when it's curly like below, but yesterday it was poofy from the humidity so I took the straightener to it. I had forgotten what a total pain in the ass it is the straighten the back of your hair.

I began this post yesterday, which was Saturday, but I never got around to finishing it until today. We went to see Cowboys and Aliens last night, which was a good movie, but I kind of ruined it for myself by having a sour mood. I think I've discovered what one of my biggest pet peeves is--- sitting on the end in a movie theater. It just makes you feel isolated if you're not sitting next to someone who's making an effort to include you in on the whispering and jokes. Plus it worked out that Tom was on the opposite end of the row, when he wanted to sit next to me. Our two friends in the middle were talking, but I couldn't hear what they were saying, and they didn't ever turn to say anything to me. And I was to grumpy to come up with anything to say to them first. I didn't want to be a pain in the ass and ask to switch the seating around since I'm like with Tom, and didn't want to be that girl who CAN'T be separated from her guy, but it would've been nice to have been able to socialize with someone. Okay that's the end of my rant, it wasn't really a big deal, it just kind of sucked.

Tonight I made steak and mashed potatoes for my parents and grandma. Other than getting a little splashed with oil from the pan when putting the steaks on, it was a pretty smooth experience. No pictures though, I was in a rush to make it when I got home from work, so by the time I finished everyone was ready to dig in.

Well the power just went out, and my laptop battery lasts for like..twenty minutes..so I think this will have to be the end of my post. Maybe I'll read something by candlelight.