Queens

Queens

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Dear Justin

Dear Justin,

First of all—Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you have stuffed yourself with some delicious turkey and stuffing… oh and squash—one of my favorites.

I am certain you have been following my blog—because it’s been sooo riveting—so you should know that I have checked everything off my 30 list! Except for #31—this is where you come in.

So I started out after New Year’s (already over a month after I turned 29) and decided to accomplish 30 things before I turn 30—which happens to be today… on Thanksgiving. Not an ideal day to celebrate your 30th. But hey, I would be guaranteed time with family and a great meal. And I get to share a 30th Thanksgiving birthday with my favorite Yankee (last year Swisher turned 30 on Turkey Day).

I think some people had doubts whether I’d be able to accomplish everything in 11 short months and yes, I think at some points I really wasn’t sure if I’d do EVERYTHING. But I did set out to check every single item off. And I now have.

Except for kissing you.

I got some suggestions of doing a YouTube video. And I liked that idea. Except I didn’t have the creative skills, guts, or time to do it. So I decided to write you a letter instead (via my blog).  

I was thinking of going to find some old school ‘N Sync poster in Faro, Portugal (where I am currently) and make out with it. But I have a feeling I would have little luck with that. Plus, I don’t want to kiss the 17 year old Justin. I want to kiss the much sexier and very funny 30-year-old Justin. In real life.

Now I’m not inviting you to the Marine Corps ball (although I did run the Marine Corps Marathon in 2008—Semper Fi). I work in advertising—pharmaceutical advertising. Not super glamorous. Or patriotic. However, my awesome team did a great job of Photosshopping the image below.


To celebrate my 30th, I spent the day with my sisters and our adopted Portuguese family eating a wonderful dinner. I only wish the rest of my family could be here. But they are back home enjoying our traditional dinner. And pumpkin pie (also one of my favorites). I do demand leftovers when I get back to the States on Sunday. It is one of the best parts of Thanksgiving.

I’m not going to try to convince you to kiss me. I think my blog speaks for itself. Do you know any other girl that watched the sunrise and sunset on both coasts in the same day, did a Polar Bear Plunge in the Atlantic in February, ran a marathon, tried kangaroo meat, read 10 classics, and jumped out of a plane in the same year? No? Well I did. I’m pretty awesome. And that’s why you should kiss me. Oh and I'm a pretty good kisser. If you need references, I can track them down.

So this is a formal invite to my 30th birthday party on December 2nd. It’s a small affair in NYC—and since NYC is so awesome, why not? If you happen to be in town, make your way to El Centro on 9th Avenue at 8pm. I’ll be there with a margarita in hand.  

xoxo

~Shawnessy

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Jumping Out of a Plane

#4.

What better way to end my 20s than to jump out of a plane? I figured I’d go out with a bang. Or fall. Whatever. I did it. I actually jumped out of a plane. And it was scary as hell.

I met up with my sisters in Portugal and we drove to Portamaio where the airfield is—Algarve Skydiving. We had a bit of a late start, but fortunately it was just the 3 of us jumping that day and they were super nice about it.

I was up first—I am the birthday girl. Cornelia took us through a quick safety introductory lesson. After we got the motions down, I got into my jumpsuit and harness. After I was good to go, I crawled into the puddle jumper of a plane—a Cessna 182 to be exact, strapped myself into my tandem master—Bruno, and we took off.


We flew around the Southern coast of Portugal for about 20 minutes admiring the views. It was a beautiful and I actually saw the Western coast too—so both the Mediterranean and Atlantic were in my sight. I chatted with the other guys who were jumping and tried not to think about the fact that I was going to be free falling momentarily. Once we got to 10,000 feet—above the clouds—it was time to go!


We opened the door and my legs were hanging over the edge of the plane. All of a sudden I was screaming my way through the clouds. About 45 seconds later Bruno pulled the cord and we were floating our way down. We saw better views outside the plane of Portamaio, the neighboring towns, and the coastline—with my feet just dangling there. What did I do? I just enjoyed the view. Bruno did some crazy dizzying spirals in the air—where I really tried hard to not get sick. About 4-5 minutes later we made our way down and were landing in the airstrip where the twins and the other crew were waiting.


It was then Ambreleah’s turn, followed by Alysia. First time for each of us. We are now official sky divers! Would I go again. Definitely. Will I be scared the next time? Probably. But it will be an incredible adrenalilne rush, just like this one was.


30 Before 30—officially done!!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Morocco

#17.

I finally went to a new continent! After growing up in North America and taking countless trips to Europe, I finally ventured to a new continent. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to; it was just too expensive, too long of a flight or I didn’t get to take enough time off. And it wasn’t looking like it was going to happen again this year. But I made it happen. About 5 days before my 30th. Not cutting it close at all.

So Africa! Or Morocco more specific. Fes even more specific. I have been thinking about going to Morocco for a good part of the year. It seemed like the easiest logistically and lots of people were telling me it’s a pretty cool country. I had a plan of taking 10 days and explore the various cities, but my time was limited, so instead I only spent a handful of days there and really only explored one city. But no worries. It was an experience nonetheless.

I slowly made my way to Morocco (via Spain). Transport took a bit longer than I was hoping. We were on Moroccan time. I spent a good amount of time hanging out in train stations. Luckily I had my Kindle and I was reading the Hunger Games, so I entertained myself to a certain degree.


I took the ferry from Tarifa, Spain to Tangier, Morocco. At the Tangier train station, I met a nice couple from Portland, Oregon—Angelica and Brandon. We soon found out we were headed to Fes on the same train and were actually staying at the same hotel. Since I was by myself, we kind of stuck together over the next few days.  

After an hour train delay, I finally made it to Fes, after midnight—in the rain. Oh, did I mention it was raining? It rained on the ferry ride over to Morocco, the whole day while at the train station, and continued to rain on and off for the next 3 days. Ugh. Luckily it didn’t rain too while I was exploring the city.

On our first day in Fes, we got a guided tour of the MedinaOld Town. The guide was a good thing or I would have gotten totally and utterly lost. And I have a good sense of direction. I have a feeling it would have failed me in the maze of alleyways that this city is known for. We saw a lot of different artisans working at their craft. One of the highlights was the tannery—where they make leather goods. We saw from a distance the process of making leather, from where they clean it to where they dye it. Let’s say the smell isn’t nice—a small reminder of the farms near where I grew up. The process includes cow urine and pigeon poop. I guess that’s how they get such soft leather. Good thing the smell goes away in the finished product. They use natural products for the different colors—saffron for yellow, indigo for blue, mint leaves for green, ect. I of course had to buy a cute small purse as a souvenir. In addition to the tannery, we saw a ton of mosques, went into rug, scarf, and pottery stores, and saw one of the oldest universities in the world.



I ate lots of Moroccan food—couscous, roti, tagine, and of course drank mint tea. That’s all they drink here. There wasn’t a drop of alcohol in sight. No bars, no liquor stores—nothing. Which was alright; Fes isn’t a city that you necessarily want to get tipsy and lost in at night.


As a Caucasian American, I definitely stood out. However I didn’t get hassled too much—good thing I don’t have blond hair. There was a prominence of men everywhere. You saw woman, but they were not in charge of any establishments, so I barely spoke to any of them. You don’t really see them socializing like the Moroccan men. A bunch of teahouses were only occupied by men. As an independent woman, I wanted to just sit down wherever I wanted. But I chose not to ruffle any feathers while I was there.


My short trip to Africa was nice. I wanted to go to the Sahara and see more of Morocco, but what I saw gave me a good flavor of the country—not necessarily the entire continent since it’s so vast, but definitely the country. I do want to go back and explore a bit more. But I also want to go to Egypt, South Africa, and other African countries… oh and countries in Southeast Asia and South America. Too many travel dreams. I’ll get back someday.

Now time to get to Portugal to go sky diving!

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Haiku

#21

Ok. I’ve written a haiku. Back in elementary school. I’m sure I could go dig up somewhere in my dad’s attic. But I won’t. I figured it’d be fun to do it again. And it wouldn’t take up too much time or money. So that was a plus.

So a refresher for all of you—I needed one. A Haiku is a type of Japanese poetry that is centered around nature. Well my Haiku is not centered about nature, but around my 30 list. Of course with 5-7-5 syllable lines.

But first I want to share a Haiku that Brandon, an old college friend, wrote for my 30 list:

Goals to accomplish
Journeys of great adventure
Farewell fond decade

A good job if I don’t say so myself. And now here’s mine… well 2 of them. I didn’t know which one to pick.

One week left until
My 29th year is done
Let’s make it awesome

From blogs and balloons
To a puzzle, pie, and books
Bring it on thirty

Well that was easy. And kind of fun. But i'll stick to other things that I'm much better at.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Family Tree

#19.

I never had to do my family tree for school. I think all of my siblings have, but not me. I guess I lucked out. However, this year I wanted to begin building my family tree. I guess as you get older, you wonder more about where you came from. Earlier this year, I worked on compiling names and birthdates, but then got sidetracked with everything else going on in my life.

I finally revisited this about a month ago when a friend recommended myheritage.com for building my tree. And boy was that a great suggestion!

I began immediately filling in all my siblings and parents. I then added aunts, uncles and cousins. Even the kids of some of my cousins. Then I branched out to my grandparents. I emailed some relatives to get birth and death dates. I made some great progress with my maternal grandfather’s branch—thanks to my mom and my aunt Kim.

I still need to work on other branches of the family, especially my dad’s side. I need more generations past my paternal grandparents. Unfortunately, they are both dead, so I need to tap my aunts and uncles for any knowledge they have.

But I do have 113 people in my tree so far. It seems like a lot. But I'm missing a lot of the older generations. I feel like I’m only on the tip of the iceberg. Over the holidays, I will be questioning all my relatives to make this as complete as possible. It’s actually quite a lot of fun to do. This will be an ongoing project for months/years to come.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Bills Bill Bills

I did it. I currently have a zero balance on all my credit cards. Yay! Ooh how amazing it feels. I didn’t have a load of credit card debt, but it was more than it needed to be. During and after college I racked up more than I wished to. I also traveled a lot in 2009, and that didn’t help at all.

Last year, I really made attempt to be more financially responsible and to decrease my credit card dept. This year was going to be it. I was determined to get it down to zero at by the time my birthday rolled around. Well today was pay day and it is done. It was a bit tricky as I had traveled a lot for work in the last ½ of the year and I paid for far too many hotel and dinner bills, but after those expense checks came in, all was right in the world.

Now if only my student loan debt was gone… I guess I need 20 years or however long my repayment plan is before that will happen.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

3rd Place

#9.

Well that was my last attempt at a sub-7 pace. Unless I can find a race next weekend. In Morocco. Somehow I doubt that will happen. So I changed my goal. Yup I can do that. It’s my list and I’ll do what I want. It’s actually a better goal and would have made more sense to have included it originally. But hey, better late than never.

I should have put on my list to place top 3 in a race—including age group. Before this year, I think the last time I placed was in a high school track meet. However, there are some people (non-runners) think there's a possibility of me winning a marathon. I really hope they are kidding. Last I checked I wasn't a Kenyon or Paula Radcliffe.

So today I ran a 5k in Prospect Park. Now we all know Prospect Park is hilly. The course wasn't even on the normal route—the road, but on a bunch of walkways apparently going to the highest point in Brooklyn.

My first mile was 6:48 and then it went downhill. The 2nd mile was slightly slower and I don't even know how the 3rd went. The volunteers weren't paying attenntion and not directing runners, so I ran extra. Ugh. My time of 26:19 is not correct. Unfortunately I have no idea what it was. Probably somewhere around 3 minutes faster. This will hopefully be corrected tonight. We'll see.

Well I still ended up placing 3rd overall (even though I started in front and only saw one girl pass me) and got 1st in my age group. So yes, I'm changing my goal. And since I am, I technically checked it off when I ran the Geneseo 1/2 on September 4 when I placed 2nd in my age group. However we will go with today and we will go with placing overall—no age groups.

P.S. My camera makes this very cheap plastic trophy look much cooler than it is. But hey, I'll take it.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The Catcher in the Rye

#11.

And I’m done! I read 10 classics this year. I finished The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger about an hour ago. This was another book that I didn’t read in high school, like every other American teenager. It just wasn’t on the list. Although I can see why it possibly wasn’t on the list.

The main character, Holden Caulfied—with a very privileged name of course—is kicked out of another private school and narrates a very strange 48 hours after this event.

He’s all over the place from his private school to New York City, out to bars, meeting up with old friends and making new ‘friends’—and of course calling everyone phony along the way. Throughout the whole book I was questioning his character and whether any of this was reality or all in his head. I was convinced he was lying and making shit up for a good majority of the book. 

At the end I was expecting something big to happen. Whether it was suicide or some freak accident, but it just kind of ended. We know Holden was having some sort of psychotic episode during all of this—clear from the beginning, and is now getting the treatment he needs.

I liked the book. It was a pretty quick read. Various points drove me a bit crazy, but overall I liked it.

Now I can go download and read the Hunger Games! 
  1. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  3. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  5. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  6. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
  7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  8. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  10. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Speed Dating

#8.

Dating! Argh. I tried. I did. I was very busy with work this year. Traveling a lot and so forth. I swear.

Now I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to squeeze in 11 dates from now to my 30th. So I signed up for speed dating. I’ve never done it. I convinced my sister to tag along. And I figured it’d be a good story.

I went in with low expectations. We had a glass of wine before we started our ‘dates’. 14 in total.  We spent 8 minutes apiece chatting. A lot of ‘What do you do for a living?’ and ‘What do you do for fun?’. For some reason, there were a lot of international guys and I’m almost positive a couple of gay ones.

I didn’t meet my future husband. Not sure if I’ll even put in my ‘picks’. Maybe I’ll do this again. Maybe.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

To Kill a Mockingbird

#11.

I just finished To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Only one more book to go! Everyone told me this was a good one to read. For some reason, this book never came up in any of my English classes in high school or college. I remember most of the books I read, and I have also read a ton of books outside of class. But I definitely don't recall this one.

I really liked it. I think it gives a really good perspective of what I imagine it was like in the South during the 1930s and the racial injustices that were happening. This is a time period and area that I’m not familiar with at all, so it makes it even more interesting. Although I did find myself getting angry at various points. A lot of the themes still resonate today. I thought the reference to Hitler and Jewish people was interesting to include in a book about African Americans in the South. But it’s all the same prejudice.

It’s unbelievable that people still continue to try to ban this book, especially since it uses the word nigger and talks about rape. People may not like it, but children shouldn't be sheltered, but educated.

On a lighter note before I get too riled up, it was nice to read another classic that took place in my own country. There are too many European classics...

Last one to go—The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger!


9.        To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
10.    The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger