surprises, oh glorious surprises

"The difficulty is capturing surprise on film" ~F. Murray Abraham

Ok, so undoubtedly not the most attractive photo, but the surprise was in fact caught on file. Of course, people can only assume my (and my sister) level of surprise and not really feel it, but it was quite a shock, I’ll tell you that. This was right before we left to get on the last plane to St. Martin when we opened the envelope about the Jimmy Buffett concert. You can notice the happiness in my sister's eye even though half of her face is cut off.

A little background: It is becoming an annual thing that my dad plans a surprise vacation for my sister’s and I (or just my twin sister this year, seeing as my older sister is in Africa). Last year we went to a Jimmy Buffett concert in Ohio and then headed to West Virginia to go whitewater rafting. These trips seem to include a common theme of Jimmy Buffett and are always a highlight of the year!

Envelope 1
Passport, airline tickets, flight itinerary
Depart Milwaukee, 3/22 at 7am
Arrive in Charlotte, 9:22am
Depart Charlotte, 11:20am
Arrive St. Martin, 3:03pm

Coming Home
Depart St. Martin, 3/26 at 4:05pm
Arrive Charlotte, 8:12pm
Depart Charlotte, 9:45pm
Arrive Milwaukee, 10:49pm

Envelope 2
entitled: “Beach Plaza Hotel” This is where our 'home base' would be for the next few days.
attached was a map of the Caribbean and a map of St. Martin/Maarten * so my sister and I could actually figure out where we were going.

*Note: half of the island is Dutch and half of the island is French, so depending on which half you are on, the spelling is different.

Envelope 3
entitled: “Golden Eagle”
This envelope explained the amazing boat that we would be spending the next day on. The Golden Eagle is a sailboat based out of Philipsburg. As far as this envelope goes, we knew that we would be taking this boat for an all day, 8-hour cruise around the island. We were told that we would make stops to snorkel, swim, and have a traditional island lunch.

Envelope 4
Activity Itinerary
Brief summary….
Thursday: Arrive in St. Martin, get car, check in at hotel
Friday: leave hotel, get aboard Golden Eagle/full sail around the island
Saturday: leave hotel, take Golden Eagle to Anguilla and explore the dunes, return to St. Martin
Sunday: whenever and whatever we want to do
Monday: explore a bit more, depart St. Martin, Arrive Milwaukee

Also included is a map of Anguilla and an explanation of the Dune Preserve

Envelope 5
Revised activity itinerary
The coolest revision ever…….
Highlighted below the heading “Saturday 3-24-07
“Gates open at the Dune Preserve. Party begins. JIMMY BUFFETT AND THE CORAL REEFER BAND live on the beach for only 3,500 of their closest friends.”

Also attached is a picture of the man himself and our tickets and a list of FAQs.

Surprises are great, whether you expect them or not because you know there is always so much thought put into it.

spring break=forgetfullness

I am standing at an airport kiosk with little time on the Internet, so I am sad to say that my time is limited. Spring break tends to come along and it makes me forget reality. That being said, I have been in Arizona with limited access to a computer and thus limited access to blogging. Tomorrow I leave to go out of the country and will have no Internet access.

Considering my time is limited, I don't have too much time to look at all of my blogs, but here is what I have to say.

One Million Love Messages........message 74 and 75 (I believe) are great. They demonstrate part of why I love this blog. It is interesting to see what a sharp contrast both writers exemplify, yet they are simply both displaying their love for their significant other. One does it in a poetic way, while the other simply comes and and says it, yet both are getting the message across.

My other blogs continue to not intrigue me too much. The tabulas blog does come up with photos that always illicit some kind of emotion, whether it be good or bad. Since the last comment on the doll photo, I have loved the next photo that was posted, which was a simple room. Check out the blog to see this picture. Something about it is quite nice and calming. Beyond that, a stint on a picture with a baby in a car seat also drew emotion out of me, but not so much calming.

As I continue on my airport journey.........that being, my flight has thus far been delayed 4 hours, I will try to post again when I get home around midnight (previously, it would have been by 8) but welcome to America. Delays.

a gloomy day for blogging.....

Sometimes I am very much so disappointed by my favorite blog, one million love messages. But it seems that just about every other time that I go on, there is not update—sadL I seem to always talk about this blog, so I will try to focus on a new one.

What originally attracted me to the tabulas blog was I think a quiz that it offered. Now I am sure none of you are;) but I am a huge fan of procrastination, so I like to find things to distract me. This website offers many pointless quizzes to distract my time. I don’t mean to bash any site because I obviously liked it at some point. I just seem to be quite distracted lately…

I don’t know if it is just the gloomy weather or what, but none of the blogs I frequent are even remotely holding my interest today. Usually I am at least outraged at the stupidity of them (or me for choosing to read them), but today I just keep scanning down. Blah, blah, blah.

You know it’s gloomy when I can’t even pick a favorite quote out of any of the blogs to post for your enjoyment.

aaaannnddd.............CREEPY

So, as I went to visit one of my regular blogs, I was shocked to see a alarmingly large picture of a relatively creepy doll. This would maybe be seen as a bit more acceptable if the posting offered any text besides "Currently listening to: only lovers left alive - the long blondes." Yup, that's all. That ambiguous quote is all that was given to explain the picture of the bug-eyed doll--and thank god, you can click on the picture and it gets even bigger--CREEPY!

loving the love messages....

"Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life."
Leo Buscaglia

I am very excited to report that I have received my first comment from someone not in this class. The person who started "one million love messages" commented on a post of mine:) This makes me love this blog even more. I am also pleased to report that there have been 3 new posts since I looked at the blog last night (less than 12 hours ago). I am personally working on a love message to contribute to the mission of one million. Everyone reading this needs to go on the site and contribute as well because we all need a little more love in the world:)

correction.....

In my previous post, the quote "it takes not only sunshine to make a rainbow" was supposed to be published in yellow. This is keeping in line with a common trend of previous posts.

A little sunshine in the rain.....

My favorite blog that I look at is still "one million love messages." It’s something about the anticipation of going on to see if anyone has posted any other love notes. They also include a daily love quote and we all know now what I sucker I am for quotes. Quotes are also incorporated in the love messages that are sent. Although I cannot readily find dates of when these postings are posted, this is the most recent post of a guy asking his girlfriend to stick with him through the rough times because it's not always easy but that doesn't make it bad. " It takes not only sunshine to make a rainbow." I think that many of us can relate and that's why I like to read this blog.

I am disappointed to say that the trashiest blog that I am now watching is the one that is most readily updated. There are enough postings on "Just Jared" to keep me busy for hours. Beyond the posts, this site has many, many followers because I rarely see a post that doesn't have at least one comment on it.

Note: I have officially abandoned "make it funny" because it has yet to be updated since I have been watching it.

Sometimes I choose bad blogs............

As I was reading on the blog entitled "I used to think that was cute" (http://tabulas.com/~vapidocracy/), I noticed something on the right side column. This blog is so kind as to provide all of us readers with links to flickr. I appreciate this.

I also need to express my love for the "one million love messages" blog. It's so simple, yet I find myself addicted to returning to the site just to see if anyone else has added a message of love. It is such a breath of fresh air just to see people simply in love.

http://justjared.buzznet.com/ I swear I just get dumber the more I read this blog. I am not quite sure why I have decided to choose this blog as one I will read on a consistent basis, but I did indeed. And I must say there is something addicting about it in an absurd kind of way. Today's feature story.......Fashion Face Off: Bell Bottoms. REALLY?!?! Enough said.

On a completely different note, the blog about the Gap (Red) campaign. At last, celebrities doing something good in the world.

Sticking with my common thread of quotes, I love this one.
"This is huge and it’s beautiful and it’s a reminder that (RED) is a generous idea. It breeds creativity. It inspires. It connects. But most importantly, it delivers."
I hesitate to give too much information because I would prefer to leave it a mystery and force each and every one of you to go onto the blog and learn about project (Red).

New blog.......

As I was searching through my other blogs, one linked to this one which I find fairly interesting. http://www.1millionlovemessages.com/

I plan on sifting through all 5 of the blogs until I can pick which 4 are my favorite. I may also just continue to look at all 5 if time permits.

And the journey begins........

Well I have to deviate from my typical blog style to satisfy my assignment for the upcoming weeks.

On that note, I searched for quite some time on technorati to find four blogs that could hold my interest for two weeks straight. I ended up choosing the following four....

http://tabulas.com/~vapidocracy/
http://joinred.blogspot.com/
http://justjared.buzznet.com/
http://makitfunny.blogspot.com/

I did have a common theme in my blogs and that was quotations. Before I knew or read anything about blogs, I knew that I needed something that I would be able to publish in each of my blogs in case I ran out of ideas. That is when I decided that I would choose the common theme of quotes.

I will leave this blog post thinking of what I can do to thread my blog together in a more cohesive manner.

Sacrifice for Real Beauty

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through in once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.

I actually just got this quote in an e-mail from a friend and I think it's beautiful.

When I was talking to my sister before she left for Africa, we were talking about what I should do post-graduation. Her one line of advice she told me was to decide by asking myself "what can you do to make this world a less shitty place?" This is a huge challenge, but she is currently making a huge sacrifice and helping people in Africa. Finding something to satisfy this bit of advice is not the easiest thing, but a great guideline!

That was a side note, but I thought fit perfectly with the quote. Beyond that, I just need to share with everyone how sick I am of the body image battle. I am surrounded by people who seem to have an extremely hard time going out in public without makeup on or without perfectly straightening their hair--get over it! If you follow the guidelines listed above, which I understand can be extremely difficult, you will find yourself to be much more beautiful of a person, inside and out. Wow, how cliche does that sound? I don't care how cliche it is, because it is true. Any small sacrifice I have made, and the many that people I know have made, make me believe it with all my heart.

When asked what beautiful is, everyone should answer with the quote that is listed above.