Whinnie like a horse....Naaaay

I am hoarse! Dont misunderstand this, Im not a horse or just simply hoarse but my little voice box has officially given out on me. I think I will blame having no voice speaking too much spanish, who new such tragedy could happen when learning a new language. Yesterday I sounded like a smoker who had smoked 40 packs a day for the past seventy years. Today I sound like the Big Bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood only worse because he could talk and I can’t.

When I was little I always wanted to have Laryngitis. I thought it would be so neat to not have a voice for a day. Now I realize that I should have been dreaming about different things when I was little, like snowmen or ice cream cones. I must admit this is going to be a challenge for me. Not being able to talk will push me to having to listen more and speak less. Not always giving an opinion but accepting opinions and being content with the silence of my voice. Who new not having a voice could have so many potential lessons in it? Every day a new lesson pops up and sometimes in the strangest forms. Not talking here I come...or am!

GLADIATORS

Chelsea is the Best!

Butter Waves and Fertility

Spain has been an experience for me. I have hablared some spanish, ate some pretty weird food and watched futbol games with some pretty crazy fans. One privilege I have had here is participating in the endless supply of festivals and random holidays that float around Spain. A few weeks ago San Juan graced us with his holiday and let me tell you San Juan knows how to throw the party. So Im not sure what kind of saint San Fermin was but he was a wierd one or at least the people who celebrate him see him in a strange way.

The tradition is to wait until midnight and at the stroke of twelve dash into the Mediterranean's butter smooth waves and jump over the waves. Every time you successfully jump over a way you are granted purity. That's right! I have been deemed pure by jumping waves at midnight! Thanks San Juan!

Now the great thing about this holiday is that you get two things out of it, Purity and fertility. Im not sure how these two are related but they are. Before or after waves are jumped the participant seeking fertility must leap over a fire. Fires are lit all over the beach and people can be seen leaping through the flames. Jump a flame and you're fertile until the next San Juan day. Personally it seems like this tradition would cause more infertility than fertility but what do I know.

Our little band of rag tag Americans decided we too wanted to be fertile and pure. People were jumping over flames, whootin' hollerin and having a good time. One of my friends walked up to me and asked me why I hadnt jumped the flames. I told him I had a bad ankle and I didnt want to hurt it anymore, (its all better now, thanks Dr. Wilkens!:) Before I knew it he and another guy were carrying me over the flames....Phew, I dont know what I would do if I had to wait to the next San Juan day. So now I am pure and fertile....awkward.

Back.Stabber

Yesterday I got poked in the back with a pig leg. This sounds really abstract but it is in fact the truth. I was standing in line at the Walmart-esque store getting ready to purchase a few necessities. I was studying my purchases and trying to look like a local when I felt something poke me in the back. I turned to see what was going on when I noticed a ham leg sticking out of the shopping cart behind me. The leg was really pale pink and still had a hoof and little piggy hairs on it; the leg looked at me and seemed to say...."Tag, you're it." Well pig leg I guess games over because you are soon going to apart of a dinner, so jokes on you.

Actually here in Spain ham legs are a really big thing to eat. We went into a large open air market the other day and one stall was completely covered with ham legs. As beautiful as they are they smell even better, I think someone should consider making the scent into an air freshener, it could be called "never squeal again." Alright Im sorry, enough with the bad pig jokes. But in all honesty I love Spain! and pigs...but more so when the pigs are alive.

Poked in the Mind's Eye

I have had such an awesome time here in Spain. I have always like being submersed in another culture and absorbing the life around me. Here I love the view I see everyday, I just step out onto the little balcony we have attached to our room and I can see the Mediterranean. The people who are helping us learn Spanish this summer are friendly and don't seem to mind my very choppy Spanish. I love eating gelato, finishing my gelato and wanting more...(Im a little piggish with ice cream). I even love the heat we have been getting because its proof that we are not cold.

The night before I flew over to Spain I remember my mom and I having a conversation, after several minutes of talking she turned to me and said something that shocked me a little. She said,"Laura, Be careful when you go to the beach, you're going to get an eye full." Now instantly I thought, no way the beaches will be like they are here. I've always heard horror stories of European beaches and the topless women that walk around but I just didn't want to believe it.

The first day we went to the beach was nothing out of the ordinary, people were dressed and there were no signs of the fabled European beaches. But let me tell you, I have seen more topless women then I ever wanted to see in my life. My eyes hurt every time I go to the beach, I can't look around without getting poked in my minds eye...and my real eyes. Not only is the specialty here topless women, men have started this trend of wearing speedos....ewww. Its like there are surprises everywhere you go on the beaches here. I'm pretty sure each individual thinks to themselves before they go to the beach, "what can I wear to the beach today that will scar the foreigners?" Well let me tell you they figured out a fool proof method to repeatedly poke me in the eyes. Now more then ever I really appreciate beaches at home where people have to wear at least some type of body covering.

I'm all about appreciating and taking back a piece of different cultures and I think there are many things I will bring back with me from spain...just not the beach attire:)

Header

I love being a room full of people who are all sharing passion for the same thing. Now these passions can be anything but here in Spain the new passion rage is...World Cup. Congratulations Spain on your recent wins and please continue to win because I can't imagine what the state of Spain would be like if the Spanish futbol team lost.

A couple of nights ago we all crammed into a room and watched Spain play Portugal...BIG rivalry. Shots were taken on the Portugal goal keeper and every time a ball would miss the goal moans of agony and screams that sounded similar to a woman in labor came from the viewers. Now when I think of soccer fans I think of someone wearing maybe a jersey to show support for their team, that is not the case here. Face paint of yellow and red are must, a jersey, and the Spanish flag draped around the shoulders is the standard attire for viewing a futbol game.

After the Spanish futbol team succeeded in making the viewers hoarse from their moans they decided to score....

Finally Spain scored! Everyone, as if they were only one person leapt from chairs and started jumping up and down and screaming "Espana! Espana!" A flag started waving and the national anthem began to chorus throughout the room.

What a moment. Its so easy to be swept up into the joy and excitement that everyone around you is feeling. My friend Chelsea and I got up and started jumping around with everyone else, we did not however, sing the national anthem...it escaped our vocabulary.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else for world cup...except maybe South Africa, but thats besides the point.

YES!!!!!!

ATTENTION WORLD! I will be able to talk to my wonderful boyfriend tomorrow...It has been sixteen days too long since we have been able to talk!

I've got passion yes I do, I've got passion how bout' you?

Today is another beautiful Sabbath day. The birds are chirping and the sun is pleasantly burning the heads of bald men. It has been a great day so far. We got up this morning to the blaring sound of spanish hymns from a loud speaker and tromped down to breakfast. Church started promptly at ten o'clock and that's when I was there...what else would you expect:) Sabbath school is first and we all sat patiently anticipating the wise words of the speaker.

He stood at the podium and took a deep breath. He began to talk about Moses and then broke into his passionate speaking. He no doubt had practiced this speech for hours before he had given it; hair flopped wildly about his face as he threw one fist in the air and then another. His voice dipped down an octave and then exploded into a loud rapid fire of spanish words. He must have not built his stamina up enough for his speech because he decided to stop speaking after an hour. He was truly passionate about that thing that he was talking about. I personally enjoyed every moment of it and am anxious to hear what he has to say next week. Oh if only I had his passion, and his floppy hair...

I wish I was a Robot

So Spain is extremely awesome. I have loved this experience so far. The school is set up in the mountains and looks over the little city of Sagunto. We attend classes for four hours everyday, have a study period and then we go to a variety of activities. I have been doing Flamenco for one activity and some cooking classes. Flamenco is amazing! I got too left feet a you can probably call me grace:) Someone’s got to make the professionals look good!

We are surrounded by spanish and sometimes my brain feels like its going to explode. I have started to want to type in spanish to people or add in spanish words to my family and I have to remind myself, “Laura, that won’t make sense”...When I talk to people I have to interpret a sentence and whoever is talking to me has moved into an entirely different subject by the time I get what they had been trying to say...Yikes I’m slow... I feel like something should be invented where you can just stick a computer chip in your ear at night and when you wake up in the morning you know a completely new language. I think thats called artificial intelligence, I need some of that. I wish I was a robot...but still me, hmmm....

Wisdom of Age

The compensation of growing old...was simply this;

that the passions remain as strong as ever,

but one has gained-at last!- the power which adds the supreme flavor to existence,

-the power of taking hold of experience,

of turning it round,

slowly,

in the light.

-Virginia Woolf

Island Breeze face

So the other day my boyfriend was sitting peacefully on the floor studying his next move in a backgammon game that we were playing. As I waited (very patiently I might add) for him to decide the fate of his backgammon piece, my eye spied my deodorant bottle. It was sitting quiet nicely on my shelf, so I decided that it was time to disrupt it.

I swiped it in one lightning fast motion, ripped the top off and tried to streak it down my unsuspecting boyfriends face. He was faster than I and a tussle ensued, I trying to swack deodorant on his face, he trying to dodge my skillful swipes. At last I gave up, I decided to be merciful, he was to tired to fight anymore anyways.

Understand though that this attempt at deodorizing his face was only retribution for him having burped in my face in days gone by. Retribution....its everywhere.

Frayed

Why is it that the bodies natural response to death is to cling to life?

Today I saw two different women gulping for life. One had entered Cheyene-Strokes or gasp-breathing with periods of about a minute with no breathing. The only way I could tell she was alive was that I could see her heart beat in her chest. Her son sat beside her. He no doubt prayed that his mother wasn't going to leave this world but at the same time prayed that the inevitable would come quickly so her pain would be no more.

She couldn't get down the medicine, she was in an un-responsive state, trapped in her body that didn't know how to give up. For days she'd been gasping for life, or bodily life at least. She's unresponsive to sound and touch. Slowly though she has gone through the expected stages of death so far, whatever those are.

Can you really go through expected parts of death? Isn't death not being able to live and taste the freedom life has to offer? If she has been unresponsive for a while isn't her soul dead and her body the memory of that soul?

The other sat curled in bed. Moans and hushed "yeses" were all that could spring from her being. She could respond, but only in the broadest sense of the word; her face was furrowed and left no question of how she was feeling. I looked at her and wondered what she had lived and done in this life. Was she a young girl wrapped in the change of the 60's or did she live for the taste of adventure... Her soul was there but only by a fatigued thread.

Why do their bodies not know how to give up when pain is all-consuming and the soul is no more?

In Love

Today my boyfriend burped in my face and blew it at me.

We are so in love.

Shelf friends

Disconnecting from old friends is easy to do. Life gets busy, people move, phones seem to stop working and motivation dwindles. But when you get that message or phone call from someone whose been on the shelf for a while its like wearing your favorite pair of shoes, your favorite outfit, eating your favorite desert or listening to an old favorite song.

The song starts to play, you feel the skipping of your heart and cant help but sing and move with the music. Floods of memories pour in and good times have been reborn.

Its the same with shelf friends. Their dust is gone and its like time never passed. You can reunite as if you have been in contact all your life, never missin' a beat and just being besties.

Time to dust off the shelf.

Mushy Mushy

Have you ever sent a mushy text to the wrong person? Meant to get to a significant other but then addressed to the wrong receiver?

Ooops...

Bwahahahahaha:)

Wrap Me Up

Spring time gets me every time. Seeing the blossoms and smelling the crisp air just makes me feel like I can never be a part of nature to the full extent. I just have to!

I think the only way I can be apart of the spring and the magic that happens is to lie in a field.

The sun is shining. Lie in the green blanket that itches a little bit as it settles around your body. Don't move! Let it wrap itself around you. Slowly nature and you become one. The green-grass blanket intertwines itself with your fingers and toes, eyes fixed on the sky. Warm tickes of sunlight, the kiss of the breeze. Nothing but the swish of the blanket of grass and the hum of the bugs.Nature becomes a part of you, the place we come, the organic matter God created us out of, we return to.

Nature.

It seems so interesting how we can sometimes want to be apart of nature so badly. We have to leave the city, the man-made contraptions and be apart of the nature, the nat-ur-al. We were created for such peace, serenity and simplicity, the spring!

Become

I'm pretty nervous. Not specifically but in general.

I feel entangled by these subconscious nerves that arent attached to anything

but my own twitching brain. I think they call it anxiety.

Someone once told me that anxiety can come from a sense of feeling trapped.

Im stubbled into the traps I set for myself.

Caged.

Old and rusted, bent bars that have been hit by the prisoner but have never been broken, my cage subdues me.

Anxiety locks me in and my mind starts to play, taunting with the things that seem impossible to solve.

"Daily and nightly all fighting just like me... Hear the moan of wings that will never spread.

How can I teach your soul to soar?"

She said, "Picture yourself in freedom, what are you doing?"

Become one in your freedom.

The bars start to jitter and fracture and then they vanish.

Spread. One after the other. They are there.

Step into something that the soul knows. It wants to take the tattered

and crippled wings it possesses and to flee the cage; they want to spread in the freedom that is, isn't, can and forever will be.

Then she asked me, "Can you do one more thing for me?"

Can you Just Be Free

Tick Tock

What is it about time that makes me not know what to do with it?

When I have everything in the world to do, I have no time

When I have oddles and doodles of time I dont know what to do with it but I know there must be something. I take time for granted but dont have enough of the time I take.

I guess its time to figure out what to do.

Verbage

Sometimes I got a lot to say.

Sometimes I can't think of what to say.

Sometimes I can't think of how to say it.

Sometimes I don't know if I should say it.

Sometimes...