Weekends.

Weekends are my favorite. 

For no particular reason. I don't necessarily have more time. 

In fact, I generally have less time than I do on weekdays. 

I also manage to get less done, which ends up bothering me more that it should.

But! The possibility of vast stretches of free time is intoxicating. 

Or I've just been conditioned by societal rhythm. 

Either way.

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The only picture I took this weekend, drunkenly in a parking lot somewhere in Northern Virginia. 

Update Mode: Activated

School has started and I always manage to get pretty behind with the rest of my life for a few weeks months. But, in the mean time here's a quick little update about life in general.

I got back from France and moved into a new house. Not a new new house, but a new-to-me house. I spent almost the entirety of August making my bed frame out of pallets. And by making I mean I sanded them to near concrete-like smoothness, then stained only the visible parts and sealed them. Despite the fact that I know next to nothing about woodworking or power tools, it actually turned out decently.

Here's a pretty horrible picture of my messy room, in which you can see a tiny bit of what I accomplished.

I also got a new kitten. His name is The Beast and he's the best.

I have two photo series I'm sporadically working on. One about the sun and clouds....

And another about haze.

It's not very clear where exactly I'm going with either of them, but I love working on them.

In more conventional news, I've been applying to internships. It has been a far more exciting and satisfying endeavor than I originally imagined. It makes me far less intimidated by the fact that I'm graduating this spring.

Along with a slew of freelance work, the recent onslaught of homework and a few visits from the Boyfriend I've been kind of swamped. But in the good way.

See you soon.

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*All photos by me.

Checking In

I just stopped in to say I haven't disappeared again. I've just been sans internet or traveling until a couple days ago.

I'm moving into my new place, traveling to visit family before school starts and looking for a job and an internship, so between all of that I haven't had any time to get my life together. Or do much worth posting about, except for listen to this song.

It's my new favorite thing. I want an entire album of songs like this!

He's also a great artist in his own right. His name is Dan Henig.
Go listen to this song until you can't stand it anymore and then check out his other stuff.

And I'll hopefully have a life worth posting about here shortly.

Status: Goodbye

Home, here I come! 

And on to other adventures.

I'm excited to be back in places that are wholly familiar to me. 

Around faces that I have missed.  

Status: Morocco

People always talk of epiphanies and love affairs when they travel, especially to countries of the developing nation variety. And honestly, I have yet to experience that. Not that my travels have been so far flung and exotic, so my anecdotal evidence is a bit lacking, I admit.

It was Rabat that had originally caught my eye, a picture found online and saved to a "Distance Futures" folder. One of those places you dream of going, but never believe it'll actually happen. Well it happened, not Rabat, but Tangier. Also we're the only language, that I've seen, that adds an 's' to the end of city names for whatever reason. What's going on English?

I got to France and immediately planned to leave. This seems to be how I conduct my life.

It turned out to be one of the better decisions I've made so far.

*Photos by me. Tangier, Morocco

Countdowns and their consequences.

I have a lot of qualities that I dislike about myself.

Like the way I get stuck in the internet for more hours than I care to mention or the way I wait until I'm too hungry to actually cook something so I end up eating chips for dinner. You know.

But the one on the very top of my list is my desire to wish time away. 

I spend so much time looking forward to what's going to happen in the future that I forget to spend time in the moment. 

Time already goes by so fast, it feels selfish and wasteful to hope for it's expedience. Especially when I know those futures will be there and those pasts are staying put. 

It's a bizarre middle area we reside in and I strive to appreciate it more.

*Photo by me: Nice, France

The Tour.

The Tour de France came through Nice on Tuesday and I was lucky enough to get to see some of it.

Truthfully, I know nothing about cycling and very little about the Tour. So, while it was interesting to see, I didn't really get the full impact of it. The cyclists also came by so fast and so infrequently that I ended up thinking more about how much my legs were sweating.

I do know that this guy is kind of a big deal at the moment, though.

* All photos by me.  

I wonder...

...sometimes about my ability to plan out my life.

I take solace in the fact that everyone else is probably just as lost as I am.



* Photo by me. Somewhere on the Mediterranean.

Breakdowns

I got to France at the beginning of June expecting to have a breakdown. Not because I'm the sort of person who has frequent or predictable breakdowns, but because that's what I figured happens when you study abroad. (My orientation packet told me to expect uncontrollable crying and nausea.) 

But nothing. 

I got close the first couple days, but that had more to do with the people I was around than the country I was in. For the record I have had one. I was sitting on the couch at 4 in the morning, Skyping the boyfriend. I had just gotten back from a bar and I was drunk and I felt stupid. 

I guess I'm feeling kind of gypped? 

I think I expected things to be drastically different.

So bizarre. 

Maybe this is my version of culture shock.


* Photo by me. 

Hello Again.

From France.

I've been here for 20 days so far.
Another 39 to go.

And I've decided to start blogging again, not necessarily about this trip, although I'm sure some of this will make it on here, but simply in general.

So hello again.











*Photo by me. Antibes, France.