Yes, we can

This is taken from Obama's concession speech after he lost the New Hampshire primary. The frontman from the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am, was so inspired by it that he brought together a group of people from the entertainment industry (including John Legend, Scarlet Johansson, Kate Walsh, Nicole Scherzinger, Herbie Hancock) and put the words to music in order to use it as a tool for Obama's campaign. I am posting excerpts from his speech along with the video because I, too, find Obama's words brilliant and inspiring, and I want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to hear it.






We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.


We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come.


We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.


For when we have faced down impossible odds, when we've been told we're not ready or that we shouldn't try or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.


It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can.


It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights: Yes, we can.


It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness: Yes, we can.


It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land: Yes, we can, to justice and equality.


Yes, we can, to opportunity and prosperity. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can repair this world. Yes, we can.
...


Together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can.

US Customs: Part Deux

Seventeen days after returning from Europe, this is what I found on my front porch today when I came home.

Return address: Baggage Dept, British Airways, JFK INTL Airport...

I love it when things work the way I want them to work.

The end of eurotrip 2007 and oh yeah, I'm an aunt!

Here’s how the story goes of the last few weeks of my life. I was in Amsterdam after leaving Paris and Krista (my traveling buddy) has to fly back to the states because of budgeting issues. So a couple of days later I go to the train station in Amsterdam and ask the man at the ticket counter for a ticket to somewhere in the south of France. I figure I'll start out this solo journey on the coast of France and see where it takes me- perhaps along the northwest coast of Italy, then across through Tuscany, down through Pisa, Rome, maybe to Naples, the birthplace of the Neapolitan pizza and ice cream. Who knows, right? The possibilities are thrilling and somewhat endless. So thirty minutes later I'm on an overnight train to Nice, which is on the French Riviera about 40km west of the Italian border.

I spend five days in Nice and it is gorgeous. Basically, I wake up whenever I want and then head to the beach to slum it on the French Riviera for a good part of the morning/afternoon. I usually do some hiking or biking or wandering or gelato-eating somewhere along the way. Not too shabby of a schedule, I know. But after a few days of this I have to admit this fact. I wasn't ready to be on this chi-chi (pronounced "she-she" meaning "fancy shmance") coast of southern France, which is like family holiday/topless-old-lady capital of Europe, all by myself. I don’t just mean being ready financially or with accommodations because of course I didn’t plan that in advance either. But much more piercing was the feeling of not being ready mentally or emotionally to fully enjoy my sassy French meal all by myself whilst overlooking the Mediterranean as hordes of families and lovers and groups of friends paraded by me enjoying their togetherness. Boo hoo, I know. Yes, I would like some cheese with that whine. Anyway, I then start thinking about how my older sister is about to give birth to her first child back home in North Carolina and how much I really would like to be there for that event. So this makes me realize that sticking it out on this gorgeous coast eating gelato all day by myself on a whim is kinda dumb. Beautiful and fun, but also kinda dumb. So I book my flight to North Carolina on Friday for the following Monday.

On Sunday I talk to my sister and she says she's having the very earliest signs of labor, even though she isn't due until the 19th. But lo and behold, on Monday after flying from Nice to London to JFK to Raleigh, I go straight from the airport to the hospital at 12:30am on Tuesday morning to find that my sister has just given birth an hour earlier. So I got to meet my nephew only an hour after he was born, which was one of the coolest things ever. His name is Isaac Phillip Hill and he is tiny tiny tiny, Born at only 6lbs 4.5oz. He has dark brown hair and dark blue eyes and barely ever cries but instead makes this strange whimpering noise like a puppy dog. And when he does cry, it’s really not that loud, but just the most pathetic little noise you’ve ever heard and it makes you want to just smother him with love and hugs and all things good. I know, cheesy. But give me a break. I’m an aunt! And yes, I would like a little wine with that cheese.

So now I'm here in NC with my sis and bro and my new nephew and my mom is also here for the week, and I just have to say that hanging out with family in Burlington, NC is just about as much fun as hanging out in Nice, France all by myself.

To sum up, I have no idea when I'm getting back to Texas. I need to take a quick nine hour drive back to JFK airport at some point to claim my bag that I left in customs because I was afraid I was going to miss my flight to Raleigh if I waited around for it. I called British Airways about it and apparently since I didn’t file a lost baggage report at the time, my luggage is now the property of the US government, seeing how it was an unclaimed bag off of an international flight. Oh well, I’m trying to be very Buddhist about it and let go of whatever attachments I had to all the stuff in the bag. I mean, if I had to sacrifice one small suitcase of my crap in order to get to the birth of my first nephew on time, then I suppose with a little pointed meditation, I can get over that. After all, he is a lot cuter than my favorite pair of jeans or my new ked tennis shoes, and he does smell a lot better than all of my dirty clothes that I wore while traipsing around Europe. Yes, I do believe that the sacrifice was quite worth it.

I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time today.

It was big.

Let's see. A quick update for all those wondering what the hell is going on with me. I would have done this sooner except I didn't even know what was going on with me so letting in others on my plans was difficult. So the last eleven days have come and gone in a bit of a haze.

Right now I'm in Paris at an internet cafe situated outside of Notre Dame cathedral. It's been raining a lot here lately, but that hasn't stopped us from exploring the city. I mentioned that we saw the Eiffel Tower first thing this morning. Then we ventured down along the bank of the Seine and up the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in search of l'Arc de Triomphe, which we found along with the world's largest Louis Vuitton store. C'est fantastique! From there it was a hop on the metro to the Latin Quarter where we found Notre Dame and le Fontaine St-Michel.
I really like Paris so far and here is why. First of all, I haven't encountered any stuck up French people who refuse to speak English in order to help me in what would otherwise be a very awkward and exasperating conversation. For the most part, people have been extremely helpful, willing to muddle around in Frenglish in order to try and figure out what the heck I am saying. People of France, merci beaucoup. I appreciate that greatly. Also, I adore the fact that every cafe has at least a few dozen tables along the sidewalk with every chair facing the street. They mean for you to come sit and sip your glass of vin or biere and watch the people move along the streets. And the chairs are all right up against eachother, so you are practically sitting on the person's coat tails next to you. It's as if in every way Paris wants to remind you that you are not alone. Even your elbow space is not your own here.

Before Paris was London and then Leeds. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that even though I barely slept a wink at all in London, all I really saw of it was Camden Town Market and a few clubs that were two stops up the tube from our hostel. So no Big Ben or London Bridge or Buckingham Palace this time around. I thought we could catch that next time. We met a very outgoing Venezualan girl at the hostel who had lived in London for almost two years and had spent some time in New York prior to moving across the Atlantic. She had lived and worked in Camden Town and pulled all kinds of strings to get us into clubs in the area that had already closed their doors or were charging way too much of a cover. So with all that said, London rocked. The area I was in was chock full of rockers- punk rockers, alt rockers, folk rockers, any kind of rocker you could ever want. London for us was one big dance, a party that moved to the hits of the Clash and Wolfmother. Very different from the chic Parisienne vibe, but still very cool in its own London way. I liked it quite a bit.

Leeds was a beautiful trip. We met up with one of Krista's friends who grew up in the Lake District (the setting of Beatrix Potter's tales) and is also a PhD in some complicated science and is currently doing research in Bionanotechnology at the University of Leeds. We had a fantastic night out in Leeds with him and one of his fellow researchers and followed it up with a tour of the Lake District in his Audi hatchback, which was possibly one of the most beautiful day trips I've ever taken. I remember at one point thinking to myself in the backseat of this joyride "I couldn't possibly be more content anywhere else than I am right here" as we zipped along through the English countryside listening to the Corrs and watching the sun make crazy patterns through the rainclouds on the lakes and the hillsides. We stopped for tea at an old farmhouse that Beatrix Potter had furnished herself. We ate world famous gingerbread in Glasmere. We explored caverns and walked along dirt roads past English farmhouses. And all the while we were getting the inside scoop on everything from why the British drink tea in the first place to the scientific names of all the local flora. It was a very stimulating trip mentally and visually and also very enjoyable.

So now we're in Paris, and I have no idea what happens next. The apartment we were supposed to rent ended up being unavailable, so we've been in a cheap hotel for the last few nights. Krista and I have a lot to discuss, but I think we're leaning toward buying a train pass and making a few stops around western Europe over the next two weeks. Might as well see this continent while we're still on it. I'm not the least bit disappointed but just a little antsy with anticipation of figuring out our next move.

Bises de Paris!

Part II: What is to come or Losing the fear of the Unknown

So now I’m back in Texas for about seven more days. I’m planning on spending a lot of time this week throwing crap away. I feel I have already gone through an internal gutting of my life in some ways through this spring. It has been a very hard spring, I’m not going to lie. I saw several good friends lose parents. I finalized my divorce. I wrecked a car due to carelessness and irresponsibility. I said good-bye to my first (and second) job in Dallas for the last time. And now what’s left is all this stuff. The actual, physical stuff that takes up space in every corner of my room and parts of the garage here in Arlington and a storage unit in Waxahachie and one apartment in Dallas. So the goal for the next seven days is to get ride of the old. Trav and I tried to rid ourselves of a lot of junk when we moved to Dallas for the first time, and so we titled the event “The Great Kelly Crap Purge of ’05.” I suppose this will be the ’07 version for both of us. A lot of the stuff is both of ours and will need to be separated. It’s not going to be a pleasant event in any way, but at least we are exceptionally good at making each other laugh even in the midst of throwing away the things that tie us together. Really there is a lot that we both need to get rid of. I just want us to get both of our possessions in order so that they reflect the fact that we are starting things anew in this part of life. There is much to be done between now and next Monday.

So this is what the future of my summer holds. In seven days I’m driving to North Carolina to spend time with my sis and her husband who are expecting their first baby in July. I am going to lounge around with Rachel and watch movies and make her and Gare dinner and help them move furniture and paint and whatever else I can do to help them prepare for Isaac’s arrival. It will be very good. I’m still so undone by the idea of my having a nephew and my sister being a mom. Undone in a way that makes me realize how our roles in life are ever changing and the unpredictability of life can bring more joy and excitement than one could have ever anticipated. It’s a very good kind of undone.

After my week stay in NC with the fam, I’m planning on a short stay in Chicago to visit another friend I met in California who lives there now. It will be my first trip to Chicago. I’m hoping to see a Cubs game at Wrigley, hang out on the beach at Lake Michigan, eat some authentic Chicago-style pizza, and hear a lot of really good live music up until June 20th.

On June 20th I fly with my friend Krista out of Chicago O’Hare to Heathrow in London. And from there I honestly can’t even say what exactly will happen. We will stay in London for a few days I’m sure. I would like to see Buckingham and Big Ben and the Globe theatre. From London we will probably travel to Leeds to see a friend of Krista’s. I would like to see Ireland as well as England. I would like to perhaps take a bike trip down a road in Ireland that leads along the coast and through green fields. I would also like to drink ale in a pub and watch a good rugby match. After our stay in the UK, we have decided to get an apartment for the month of July in Paris. We are subleasing from a Parisian named “Benoit Mercr-something-super-French.” No doubt it will be an excellent time seeing new things and meeting new people in this foreign culture. I plan to drink a lot of vin and eat a lot of brie and baguettes. And since that will be the case, I will probably need to plan on doing a lot of walking off the super good French bread, cheese, and wine while exploring the city. I’m not really sure what my days in Paris will look like. I’m still figuring out that vision. I hope it will involve the aforementioned good food and excellent wine, perhaps some dancing in a Parisian night club, some walks down the Champs d’Elysee, some time spent along the Seine in cafés learning some French and taking lots of pictures. Besides our stay in Paris, we would both like to visit Prague and Amsterdam for a few days as well. I personally would love to get to see some parts of Italy. Perhaps Rome at least. Or maybe just some towns along the coast. Much of it will just have to be determined based on money and time when that time comes.

So that is what is ahead of me. I’m not sure yet of my return date to the states. I am planning on living in Dallas in the fall with my friend, Justis, who is moving here during the summer. I am planning to continue the path to pharmacy school, which includes taking the PCAT and taking another semester of O-Chem this fall. No prob. I feel prepared to handle it this time around.

Surprising even to myself, I feel prepared to handle a lot of things this time around. And not because I’m now suddenly so well equipped at understanding o-chem or figuring out relationships or career changes or trips abroad, but I think it’s because I am at least ready to willingly embrace the fact that life is a process. For some I suppose it can be a journey along a straight and narrow path from beginning to end without ever stopping or straying from the road. But for me, life so far seems to be more like a journey of exploration than one taken on a well-defined road heading toward a known destination. It is discovering new roads. It is learning that one should not climb up the side of a mountain when one is not appropriately attired or acclimated to the altitude. It is a compilation of successes and losses. It is losing one thing and then realizing that maybe something else you have gained is actually more to your liking anyway. Or at least it is grieving the loss of something loved and being flexible enough to openly accept the new. It is unpredictable. It is an exciting adventure. Right now I really have no idea what the next week or month or year or five years of my life will really look like and I think I’m okay with that. And that’s a huge change in perspective for me.

I used to feel this pressure that I had to figure everything out about life before I had even lived it. And now I no longer feel that fear that once drove me to try and nail down a specific five-year plan or figure out my purpose so far ahead of time. That was the fear of being alone when everyone else seemed to have someone, of not having a father that was looking out for me, of not being good enough to keep good friends, of not being pretty enough or smart enough or interesting enough to gain other’s respect, of being uncomfortable around people who seemed to have their life in order, of not having a passion in life or a career plan that I loved, of not knowing god or what god means to me… it was even the fear of doing physically challenging things like climbing mountains. And now it’s as if all the high levels of anxiety that I lived off of for over six years before, during, and a couple of years after college have finally been used up. And because of that I am no longer making decisions based on fear or anxiety, but instead I am making decisions based on what I think will be best for me, regardless of what it is everyone else I know is doing. I really just want to be happy and content with me. And even though the decisions I make may lead me into a life as an old maid or to a stumble down a mountain, I really have no desire to worry about either one of those things anymore ahead of time. And that is a perfectly comfortable place for me to be.

So onward to the next point of discovery. The journey continues.

Part I: The Last Few Weeks or Embracing Lessons Learned

Every now and then so much will happen in relatively short periods of time. And so it goes that during those times when things are happening one right after another, one wants to share it all with people they love. And the great irony of this is that because so much is happening, there is very little time to sit down and write out a blog or make a call to catch everyone up who gives a shit about all of these happenings.

So here is this. It is 1:30AM on a Sunday night/Monday morning and because I no longer have any kind of a job (not even a minuscule, part-time, distorted version of a job), I have nothing better to do at this moment then to tell you the short version of the last few weeks of my life and give a brief description of what I think the upcoming months of my life could possibly have in store for me. Although, the brief description of what I think is coming will be shared in part II of this blog that will be posted soon.

So let's start with the quitting of the job- round two. On May 26th I completed my very last day EVER at my old job. For those of you in the know, this was my very last day EVER at my old job for the second time, the first time being in August of last year before I left for California. For some reason I felt like I would be cool with another round of working at this haphazard pharmacy, but alas, it lived up to its very low expectations of being a great temp job to give me an income while I completed a semester of organic chemistry and that was about it. Super. Good job, job. You at least met one very low expectation. Hopefully, you will meet another one for someone else somewhere down the road. But my disappointment in my old job is another blog for another day blog; it is in the past and I wish for it to stay there permanently this time. Let's just say that I was on the fence about quitting for a while, but then my position completely changed so that all I was doing for an entire eight hours a day, five days a week was "sitting and entering orders." I shit you not, that was the entirety of my job description as stated by one manager- "just sit and enter orders." It was at that point when I finally said something like, "uh, heeeeeelllllll no," and I bounced and now I'm unemployed. This is the first time in like 10 years when I have not either been employed full time or enrolled in school full time. Strange. Exhilaratingly strange. But Lesson Learned: Do not go back to old job for Round Three.

So yes, I quit on May 26th and on May 27th I flew out to Tahoe, California to visit some friends back on Fallen Leaf Lake that I had the joy of meeting while working there last fall. It was a fantastic time, filled with good parties, beautiful scenery, and one 10-15 foot fall of the side of a mountain. The place is a haven for anyone looking to get away and enjoy the wonders of nature, but unfortunately the mountain and the old staff director both couldn't wait to kick me out, so I doubt I'll be visiting that gem of a lake again. So four days, one sprained ankle, and several scrapes and cuts later, I am now back at home in Texas for about seven more days.

Lesson Learned: Do not return to place of old employment no matter how pretty it is if you are not %100 sure that the person who let you go is okay with seeing your face again. Oh, yes, and do not go up a mountain off the beaten path in gym shorts.

But I have to at least briefly mention the trip back to Texas. I wish I could have carried a little recorder with me so I could relive all the fantastic conversations I had on the way back home from Tahoe, but unfortunately I didn't anticipate meeting so many fantastic people that day. Everyone was absolutely fascinating from the cab driver who picked me up at Fallen Leaf who had lived through the deaths of two husbands from prostate cancer and was still trucking right along all the way to the drummer of Dramarama and his wife that I sat next to on the final flight of the day back into Dallas who later invited me backstage at their House of Blues concert on the following evening. I can't even begin to explain it. Every one I stood next to or sat next to or walked alongside seemed to want to share a fuller moment of life with me than usual. For some of you that are far more socially adept that may seem like something not so far out of the ordinary, but for those who know me will know that days like that in my life are rare and therefore noteworthy. So I suppose I will hide the details of that day away in my mind under the title, "That one day I traveled by myself through four states by cab, by shuttle, and by plane and yet didn't meet a single stranger."

Thirty-two

Not one victim did I know personally, but this morning I woke up and I could feel the loss. An enormous void has been left by the death of these thirty-two victims. And it is not just a void in the lives of those who knew them personally, but it is a void that affects all of us. To some they were children, parents, husbands and wives, friends and family, students and teachers. To the rest of us who did not know them, they were the promise of potential and progress. They were future engineers, teachers, psychologists. Graduate and doctoral students. Renowned researchers in mechanics and aeronautical science. Civil engineers. Environmental engineers. Computer engineers. People who were creating materials to be used in space exploration. Researchers in biomechanics working on ways to help those with cerebral palsy move. Teachers that had taught for over twenty years. They were seniors, weeks away from graduation, getting ready to share all that they had learned. They were freshmen that were nearing the end of their first year as college students. They were thirty-two of some of the brightest, the best.

These were not people who were wasting their lives or wasting their minds. These were the motivated, the dedicated, the hard working, the inspired. These were the people who were going to help make our lives better. These were the people who were going to contribute very good things to our world. Many of them had already contributed so much.

Don't you feel it? Don't you feel this inconceivable loss? Does it not break your heart to know that no more good can come from these magnificent minds? Does it not agonize you to know that everything they had to give has been taken from us? Yes, I feel it. And I grieve not only for the families and friends of the victims who loved them so much, but I grieve for every one of us who will never have the opportunity to benefit from what these brilliant lives still had to offer.

This is a great loss for all of us.