Looks Are What Really Matter

Now that the World Cup is again upon us and I am for the first time very interested in football, I decided to blog about the only aspect of the game I feel comfortable commenting on - good looks! Using this handy dandy website with all the athletes' pictures, I looked at all the competitors and chose the 10 cutest in my opinion, based solely on these photos. (Cristiano Ronaldo, Frank Lampard, Nadir Belhadj and Nani, to name a few, are good looking in real life but didn't make the list because their World Cup pictures are less-than-attractive.)


1. Samara
2. Boateng
3. Afellay
4. Ljubijankic
5. Ziani


I don't even want to say the rest of the top 10 guys belong on the same list since they are much less attractive than the top 5, but when it comes to footballers I'm sorry to say but there are pretty slim pickings! Besides, leaving this as a Top 10 rather than a Top 5 will better showcase popular opinion which says that my taste in men is terrible. 


6. Muslera
7. Beto
8. Silva
9. Jedinak
10. Vela


Who would be in your top 10?

Luuuurve

One of my friends had this as her facebook status update:


why i am happy with my boyfriend (is this a lame status update?):

because he laughs at my hairy legs when others are disgusted.
then waxes them when my own attempts fail.

Could just be my mood of late, but the cuteness made me cry. What better way is there to describe love in 30 words?

Good Advice

I have been trying for a few weeks to write a blog about my current living situation (titled 8 Simple Rules For Living With Your Ex) but I am still much too close emotionally to it all to be able to express myself clearly. I often read the photocomic Surviving the World and came across this one today. This basically sums up a lot of what I wanted to say in my blog but in a much more succinct, less boring and definitely less bitchy way.

Anna's Decade of Travels

One of our Polish couchsurfers has a great map posted on facebook showing all his travels of 2009, complete with arrows from Poland color-coded to show whether he travelled by plane, bus, train, or hitch-hiking. I was inspired by his map and decided to make my own version. I documented all the countries I've visited in the 2000-2009 decade and color-coded them by which year I first visited that country. I feel like I've seen a lot of places but looking at all the white staring off the map it proves that I have a long way to go before I can really call myself a world traveller!

(By Mike's request/demand I didn't include any country that I only travelled through (Serbia/Croatia by train in 2006), and country I had a layover in (Budapest Hungary, Paris France) or any country I flew over/saw from the air (Greenland) :)



(click on the map to see it bigger in all its glory)

Rings Galore

I found an amazing and inexpensive jewelry store close to my house and have quickly become a frequent shopper there. The man who owns the shops makes most of the jewelry himself, so it's all unique too! There are always new designs every time I go in and I'm sure he makes things to order as well. So far I've just bought rings but they have great necklaces too that I'm sure I'll try on and buy when it's warmer and I'm not stuck in a turtleneck and scarf. I wanted to share pictures of my purchases so far so that you can enjoy their beauty as well.

Apologies

I know I haven't updated for ages. There are lots of things to update about - our Thanksgiving trip to Cappadocia, our Christmas trip to Safranbolu, and our New Year's trip to Berlin, but I just can't be arsed. I'm trying to get the motivation but it isn't working very well. For now you'll have to do with my facebook albums. Enjoy!

Happy 2010!

The Perfect Craigslist Personal Ad

I spend a lot of lazy days at home on the internet, and often read craigslist istanbul to see what weirdos I share my city with. Craigslist personal ads are usually just inappropriate pictures with ridiculous pick-up lines, but when I saw the posting title "Hank Rearden is looking for Dagny - 28 (Ankara)," I thought that I'd found my husband. (For those of you who don't know, Hank Rearden and Dagny are characters from my favorite book, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand).

Here is the man's full-text posting.

"Many guys dont want what I want. Any female must talk fluently what the hell she is talking about. Must be smart. Must be strong. Must deserve what she wants. I am a person of reason so I'm looking for same. Integrity, consistency, honesty are must. Sense of humor mostly comes with them. Appearence is important for me as long as one has the characteristics written here. Beauty is necessity but if you are not attractive -(beauty and attractiveness are different issues. For example: Adriana Lima, Megan Fox are beautiful women but not attractive for me. I prefer Gisele Bündchen, Rachel McAdams, Sienna Miller, Saffran Burrows;)) -it doesnt make sense at all. To hell, I'm not only looking for somebody to have sex. I must enjoy spending time with her.

Whatever, you must be single in every sense. No widows, no married and etc. If you have a boyfriend, dump him first before answer this. Age range between 20-28. Older than it is not ok. Younger is too young for me.

Send your picture please.I hate headshots. Find something spontaneous. Dont expect me to answer without it.

In case that I dont answer you even if you send your picture: You must know I am so pathetic that I cannot say "I am sorry, I didnt like you".


Lastly, keep it that way if you think I am an asshole.


Ps: I'm not like Hank Rearden but he's my role model. "

Turkish men don't seem to be the kind of people who A) read Ayn Rand and B)Of course the last thing I need is to meet strange men on the internet , but I thought his posting deserved a response. So I wrote to him, just telling him how much his posting "spoke" to me as someone who wishes to become a character from Atlas Shrugged and I asked if he could let me know if he got a date out as a result of the post, just to know if there are other girls with weird fantasies like me. I wished him luck in his search for his Dagny, and got a nice response back. If only he were really Hank Rearden...

Better Than a Horoscope

So Mike was typing in my blog address to read my new post and accidentally mistyped one letter. The blog he came to seems to eerily relate to what I'm going through in my life right now, so I wanted to share the most fitting part. It's like reading a horoscope that exactly sums you up at that moment in your life, only weirder because it's a random blog. Crazy coincidence! Imagine that the "you" is me, and the "I" is Aissa...

Thursday, April 04, 2002


Let's not have this coversation, you and me. We've done it before, and the same thing always happens.


You'll get pissed off, and I'll get self righteous, and we'll end up not talking for months until one of us comes up to the other on the street and we decide that we'll never part again. And six months later, we will.


Because you are fickle. And I am jealous.


You will find another and run off for a while, and when I call you on it, we will have this conversation again, and I will tell you that you won't find the pieces you're missing in another person and you will tell me to fuck myself.


And you'll know, as you always do, that I am right. But that fact will not be enough to stop you from going because...


Because you don't want me to be right.


So let's not have this conversation. Let's pretend that this has never happened, and never will, and when you don't call me I'll just shrug and write it off as one of those things that a person does when she is finding herself.


And we will leave it at that.

The Future

I have less than 3 months before I have to have a plan for the near future. My AFS job ends end of August/beginning of September, and I still have NO idea what to do after that. There are lots of options.

A) Move to NYC on the off-chance that Rootie will be there, we can live together for a semester, have no money, probably drink a lot... but NYC is likely to have more lingusitics/international job opportunities than the Twin Cities do.

B) Move to CT and live at Grandma and Grandpa's because my bedroom is rented out to a UConn girl. Get a crappy job in Storrs/Willington/Ashford where I'll have to see people I know and probably hate, or commute to Hartford and work in insurance. Doesn't sound that exciting, but it would mean free rent, time with the family, and time to fit in an East Coast tour with Aissa.

C) Take the teaching job in Kyrgyzstan, even though I feel that I don't have enough experience. I've heard from a past teacher there that the teachers can basically teach, assess, and run class as they choose, which means there is likely no lesson plans already in existence. But I would learn how to make lesson plans of course, and also learn Russian, Kyrgyz, and get to be in the mountains all the time. It would be an amazing experience.

D) Take the teaching job in Sofia. All the lessons are planned, I could improve my Bulgarian, collect more data about the Bulgarian /l/ for future grad school research, and probably get back together with Efrem... which everyone tells me I shouldn't do. They may be right, but I really want to think that he has changed for the better, and I can't shake the intense feeling that he really is the one.

E) Travel somewhere with my graduation money- Algeria with Aissa, visit Lukas in Germany, Muriel in Switzerland, family in Austria, Rootie in Thailand if he'll still be there, Jessie in Australia, Conti in Chile, Owen in California, or find a travel buddy and go somewhere unknown. Then come back and still have no idea what to do.

F) Do a TEFL certification course in Ljubljana or Prague in the fall and then have many more teaching jobs around the world open to me.

G) Fly somewhere in Europe and just start looking for jobs.

H) Stay in Minneapolis, work at FinnStyle again or find another job, take a TEFL certification course at Hamline. I would have to find a new apartment since Paul is kicking me out at the end of August.



On the one hand, I really want to get away from here. When I smell the spring rain in the air mixed with cigarette smoke, I feel such intense longing for Austria. I drank Swiss Fanta that Muriel brought and I want to be in Europe so much. I look at facebook pictures from people who are there now and it makes me want to book a flight and leave tomorrow. On the other hand, I would love to have time to leisurely drive back to CT after AFS is done, take Aissa to see the East Coast, spend lots of time at the beach, and clean my room out so the UConn girl doesn't have to be surrounded by my stuff. September suddenly seems SO SOON, and the thought of flying off to Bishkek Kyrgyzstan is extremely frightening.

I'm working on Fulbright teaching applications to Bulgaria and Austria for the 09-10 school year, and I'm also applying for the Peace Corps. If I get those I'll have a real commitment, but I have probably from now until June 2009 to figure out.

And I have to make decisions soon, because the job in Kyrgyzstan won't be open forever and plane tickets are already getting super expensive. Oh, decisions, decisions! Right now I'm getting used to not having ANY obligations when I leave work for the evening, and I'm still finding things to fill the time with. Gotta get started on my summer reading list and stop stressing so much about the future. Things will fall into place.

lackluster

I've been putting off writing here for months, waiting to come up with something amazing to write. Bambi's blog (shpammy.blogspot.com) is always so well written that I feel like I shouldn't even bother if I'm not going to write something that great.
I only write for myself anyways, I sent my parents a link to the blog a while ago, but I doubt they read it. But I guess I'll just start writing here, since I have so many emotions inside me. I'd probably be able to deal better with everything if I put some of it down on 'paper', rather than just letting it float around inside me. We'll see.

Home is where the heart is

I moved into a new apartment last week, and have two wonderful new roommates, Paul and Amie. Through them, I am meeting new people all the time. Most of them are 18 or 19 and have finished their freshman year of college. Paul had drunken friends over the other night, and his friend Casey asked me how I was dealing with his craziness. Once she found out I was from Connecticut, she asked me if it was hard being so far from home and if I missed my parents. It was such a strange question at the time, but considering that she is away from home for the first year, it must have been very normal for her. I don't think I have been asked that in at least two years, and I never realized until her question how little I really miss "home". In fact, I have sadly come to realization that Willington isn't really even home anymore. I get along with my parents and my brother more than I did in high school, but somehow the magic of my house being my home is gone.

I went to Finland in August 2003, and during the entire year I was gone, Willington was definitely home, and the only home I had ever known. While I did learn to feel at home with my host family in Nokia, 61 Eldredge Road was, in my mind, still where I lived. All my friends were still there in high school, and it was the first time I had been away for any real length of time. When I got back in July 2004, my bedroom felt like home. I had returned after a long time away, but it was just as much my home as it was before Finland. It was exactly as I had remembered, and it was almost like I had never left. But I was there for less than 2 months and then I came to Minneapolis for college.

Maybe it should have been at that point that Willington stopped feeling like home, but I wasn't. Owen and I were still together, I went home for Thanksgiving and then again for Christmas, and I still felt that the time in Minneapolis was time away from home. I spent the summer of 2005 in Connecticut, although a month and a half of vacation was actually spent with Karl, touring Europe. I spent the fall semester in Minneapolis, had an extended winter break again in Willington, and then went off for my semester in Graz. Since leaving for Finland on August 13, 2003, I have spent about 4 months total in Connecticut- 91% of my life since then has been spent not at home. And yet, I still identify very strongly with Connecticut- I tell people that's where I'm from, I'm proud to be from the East Coast, I brag about my superiour accent, and I automatically feel close to people from the East Coast or Connecticut even if I know nothing else about them.

I think my time in Austria made me really realize that I no longer live in Willington. Up to that point, I really felt like I llived in Connecticut and just spent many months away at school. When I was in Finland I really was away from home, and that identification carried on. I'm going back to Willington in a few days, and I no longer feel that I am going home. I am going to visit my parents and my family, but it is not home. My new Minneapolis apartment in the basement of a pharmacy is more home to me. All of my most valued things are here with me, and I'm packing like I'm going on vacation and not going home.

Zach Braff's character talks about this exact occurrence in the movie Garden State, but I hadn't realize it happened to me until right now. In fact, when I first saw the movie, I remember agreeing with Sam that I still felt at home:

"Andrew Largeman: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.
Sam: I still feel at home in my house.
Andrew Largeman: You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."

It happened one day, some time between leaving for Austria and returning. Willington was home, and then suddenly, or maybe gradually, it wasn't. I don't miss my bed or my things in my room like I did when I was in Finland. I don't compare things here to how they are at home the way I used to. I am certain that Willington and my house will be always exactly as I remember them, and up until this point, I have never been disappointed. I change and home doesn't, and I think that keeps me sane. Or maybe we both change a little bit each time we're apart. Either way, 61 Eldredge Road will always be exactly the way it is right now, in my mind. And if that ever changes, no matter how long it's been since I've felt home there, there will be a lot of tears.

Study Abroad

I attended a pre-return orientation over the weekend for the AFS high school exchange students returing to their home countries in a few months, and I've had my study abroad experiences and friends very much on my mind ever since.

The textbook for my Teaching ESL class is all about studying abroad. It's called Maximizing Study Abroad: A Students' Guide to Strategies for Language and Culture Learning and Use and was put together by returnee students from the U of Minnesota. One of the first quotes by a returnee is about returning home after a study abroad experience:

"Coming home story: Beginning at the end

April 28th was the day I chose. I don't even know why. I knew I had to return to Minnesota sometime, so I picked an unimportant date. I had lived in Mexico for four months and, although I didn't consider it home, it just felt more like my home than MInnesota. In the week before I left, I continued my life in Mexico as normal except for pakcing a little and buying some gifts. I spent my last Saturday, my last Sunday, my last Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and THursday in Cuernavaca. And then Friday, April 28th arrived. I wasn't excited. I wasn't scared. I wasn't sad. I was just numb, in total disbelief.

I decided not to tell anyone when I was coming home. My mother would ask and I would say, "Oh, sometime at the end of April or early May." I finished classes at the beginning of April and since then, my friends were wondering when I was coming home so they could meet me at the airport. I pictured the scene: my mom almost crying with happiness when she sees me, a stern hug from my dad, a quick 'welcome home roughing up' from my brothers, friends giving hugs and asking how the trip was, etc.

The whole idea scared me to death. I haven't seen these people in four months, and they want to come together in one place and bombard me the moment I get off the plane? No way! So I decided to tell only two friends when my flight came in -- Matt and Carlos are the two people who I knew would not stress me out.

THe morning of the 28th I took a taxi to the bus station and a bus to the airport in Mexico City with my friend Alberto. We got to the airport with about 15 minutes before I had to board the plane and nervously talked. He and I had become really good friends, and I think we were nervous about saying goodbye. About seven minutes before I boarded the plane it hit me. I was leaving. I didn't want to leave Mexico. I didn't want to leave my friends. And I didn't want to leave the new 'me' that I had discovered. I started to cry. Alberto gave me a hug, we said goodbye, and I walked to the gate. I knew that if I looked back at him I would just walk back to him and say, "Let's go back to Cuernavaca. I can't leave!" Instead I walked to my gate and boarded the plane.

I had a layover in Houston, and it was terrible. I walked off the plane and was surrounded by white people. Everyone was speaking English. I hadn't seen so many people like me in so long. It seems like I should have been fine with it, but I was very uncomfortable. I kept thinking about Alberto and my other Mexican friends, and I kep thinking about all the places I had seen every day that I may never see again. My 40-minute layover seemed to last forever.

My plane ride to Minneapolis was uneventful except for my thoughts of how I didn't want to be going there. I stepped off the plane and saw Matt and Carlos and almost started to cry. I wanted to cry because no matter how great it was to see them, I didn't want to see them. I wanted to be in Mexico.

-Susie P"


It's incredible that if the names and places were changed, this could my narration of how I felt about returning home after my time in Finland. I talked at orientation with other AFSers about how exchange students can relate on so many levels with other exchange students because, no matter the time and the place and the situation, we all experienced so many of the same things. The fear of being in a new place. The homesickness. The close friendships formed. The new places visited. The sheer devastation of leaving an entire new world that we may never return to. The knowledge that we will never be the person we were before leaving. The certainty that our new friends will be close to our hearts, no matter how far away they are. The beauty of having a second home. The unconditional love of a host mother.

My best friend from high school understood less of what I'd experienced than someone I'd just met at an AFS post-return orientation. Even though Susie P went last year for a college semester in Mexico, she can understand my sadness of having to leave my high school year in Finland more than any of my friends from home can. That is the beauty of studying abroad- we are forever changed and affected by the time we spend abroad, learning, growing up, and sharing ourselves with the rest of the world.


Leaving Finland and returning home was the hardest thing I have ever done. It eclipsed the sadness of leaving everything I had ever known to go to Finland the year before. Weeks before leaving, my best friends and I would break down in tears a few times a week, knowing that we only had a little time left. We found as many sad songs and quotes as we could to make ourselves sad, so that when we cried, we were still together and could hug each other for a few weeks more. Sappy exchange student emails were passed around, all about the difficulty of the return process and the lasting bonds that we had made during our year. When the end finally came, we cried. But not as much as we wanted to. There were no tears to express what it was like to have to walk away from our new families, or closest friends, our soulmates. But we did it. I landed in Newark and was struck by all the English around me. I saw my parents at the arrivals gate and cried, unable to control my emotions any longer. I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be back in Tampere, meeting my best friends for food, talking to my host mom for hours a night, and being surrounded by the beautiful Finnish language.

It's been almost 3 years since I left, and I can relive the entire return process. It still makes me to cry to remember what we went through. Even though one of my best friends is in Chile and the other in Switzerland, they are closer to me than anyone else in this whole world. They are there for me in ways that those in my presence can't be. We have millions of shared memories. I've gotten to travel to Chile and Switzerland, and even though it's been years since we've been together, I know that these are lifelong friendships. We don't need to be close in distance since we are always going to be close in heart. To quote Claudio Magris in the wonderful book A Different Sea, " But seeing each other again is not all that important. Our bonds are the sort that cannot be broken." I know that when I see them again, we will pick up exactly where we left off, putting aside the years we had to spend apart.