Literary assistance

Help Laura read!

I've started making a list of books I'd want to read while in the corps. You can see them here. While it is quite a list, I would love some input. English majors I looking at you.

For reference: I love food, adventure, Africa and the classics. I really like Sedaris, Flaubert, Marquez, De Beauvoir, Wilde, and ethnographies. I would also like books on automotive repair, history and travel. I would not like self help books, chick lit, fantasy or overtly political one. No Coulter or Moore, please.

So what else kiddies?

Catch up

Hi kids, it's been a while since I've written.

The big news is that I told work I was leaving. Everyone was very nice about it and I have a letter of recommendation and a job when I come back. Sweet. It's nice to feel wanted.

Other than work, life has been pretty wonderful too. I bought my tickets to Boston. Ryan and I will be in town May 12 & 13th. I can't wait to see everyone! Big dinner at Vinny's T's for old time's sake?

I also got to explore the grandest building in Los Angeles. It was a theatre built during the depression era in downtown which has the most beautiful architecture I've ever seen. It is remarkable. We went in the guise of watching an opera and spent the whole time wandering the halls. I wish I took my camera. It has fallen into disrepair over the years and I felt like a explorer finding an ancient gold laden tomb. Look!

That's it for now. I promise I'll write more and take my camera everywhere I go, for those of you who are worried. :)

Love,
Laura

Blue collar comedy tour

Today started off as a typical day, I dragged myself out of bed feeling like a fool for getting up an hour eariler than i had to. Once on the treadmill for about 20 minutes I wondered why I didn't do this everyday, heck twice a day.

That's when some comet type thing landed in my eye. As a student of first aid I rubbed it till my it didn't seem to work. By then I had been at work for a few hours. I think I may have scratched my cornea a bit, but that's only because my eye looks like the inside of a tabasco bottle. While it has prompted intrusive questions from cashiers and coworker "gasp- what happened to your eye?" I've only responsed with shrugs instead of incriminating myself by alluding to my previous speluncking mishap.

After work, I went to see Ron White. This is the man who was one the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, who is also known as Tator Salad. Oh the judging started in the parking lot. While Mr. White is a funny man, his audience is quite a niche. Albeit we were just outside of LA, I saw hunting hats, Harley t-shirts and more than one tube top- mind you it wasn't a particularly warm day. Seeing as how my eye looked like christmas I was in not place to judge, though.

Tomorrow is the weekend, Ryan convinced me not to take the foreign service exam just for fun this Saturday and I've caught a bit of the theatre bug- maybe even in my eye.

If this doesn't get better I'm posting pictures.

work

"We are all capable of hurting the ones we love. Why? Because we are jerks"

- taken from a 9/24/2005 America's Funniest Videos script. Those aren't ad libs at all! So that's what i discovered at work today.

Kismet and other forms of self improvement

The universe didn't let me go to Beverly Hills this weekend. I haven't every had trouble before.

I was very excited about his new French/Moroccan place called chameau. But it wasn't meant to be. I ran late, the boy ran late, his new headlight burned out, my check engine light came on, my camera malfunctioned and the canyon over the hills was shut down.

So we went to Killer Shrimp on in the valley. There is only one thing on the menu- a spicy shrimp concoction that you get to accessories with your favorite carb. It was lovely.

I miss my friends in Boston & the Brown kids. I just need to buy a ticket right away so that I am sure to go. Otherwise I stuck in a happy haze. Everything is great. Family is good, work is challenging and rewarding, the boy is wonderful, and everything is going well. I am getting lazy though. I've spent too many weekends sitting around the house. It's not that I need huge raucous parties to go to, but I should take better advantage of where I am. There are plays, museums, trails and restaurants I haven't been to in LA. It's more guilt than anything else.

I also need to slip in a trip to Wyoming.

I've also been stalking my fellow Peace Corps kids. I can't wait to meet them. I wish they would blog more so that I could better pretend to know what to expect.

It does look like I will have some time on my hands while I am in Zambia though. While the corps will certainly help me on my foreign service trajectory- I am going to try to pick up one of the more difficult languages on that state department looks for. I'm think of either Chinese ( Mandarin) or Farsi. I know Armenian and we use a lot fo the same words as Iranians but I did take a year of Mandarin and really liked it. Arabic is very difficult and Urdu might be interesting but seems to require sounds I am not sure I can emulate- kinda like French which I could definitely use. I might be overlooking another State Department preferred language, if anyone can find a list I would really appreciate it.

Other than that I can't wait to spend my days reading book. I have a mental list of books I have been wanting to read for a long time. I might actually get to it now. How exciting.