Playing for Change
JP and I recently went to a concert by a band calling Playing for Change, which is a group of street/local musicians from all over the world, that were put together to form a band that is all about peace and spreading its message through music. In fact, their touring concert is raising money to start music education programs in poor areas of the world, to bring peace and hope to those areas. It all started as a guy who went around recording different musicians and splicing them together for videos on youtube. This is a great one:
http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/2/Stand_by_Me, which includes over 35 musicians who never met in person.
The show was really powerful, and the band was absolutely amazing, especially since something like 10 different countries were represented in just the one band. The beloved frontman, called Grandpa, is a blind street musician from New Orleans. His voice is different, but everyone seems to love him. At the end, after the encore, Grandpa was left alone on the stage, and everyone was quiet. I kind of wondered if he was waiting for someone to help him off the stage.
But after another seemingly long pause, he started singing, low and slow, a capella style. "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound," and the waves of memories of my dad washed over me. I pulled JP closer and just hugged him and tried not to listen.
"That saved a wretch like me." But of course I could hear what he was singing.
"I, I, I once was lost, oh, and now I'm found." This was my dad's favorite song, and every time I hear it, I think of him and miss him. A lot.
"Was blind, but now I
see." But then I thought about this man and what this song meant to him. I thought about how much this song is true for him. And maybe, even hopefully, this song can take on a new meaning for me, so that every time I hear it, I can think of the positive instead of the sadness.
http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/19/Amazing_Grace_Live_in_Boston
Time is wasting, Time is walking
Wow, Amy and Rebekah are going to be so happy! I'm updating my blog!
Something I've been thinking about lately is time. We now can pause a movie, rewind on TV, return an unwanted item, and undo on the computer, but as each second passes, I can never get it back. That's downright frightening. (Perhaps because I am pretty scared of death and the end of time as I know it.) How many seconds pass where I am wasting precious moments. But then I think about how utterly exhausted and imbalanced I would be if I tried to fill every single second of every single day. And what about sleep?! That's super unproductive. I wonder why we were made to need sleep. Whether you believe in God or evolution or a mixture of both, why do we need so much sleep? You think natural selection would have kicked that habit by now. But back to passing time. I think more now about how I spend each minute that I am awake, and not that every minute can be a life-changing and meaningful event, I want them all to have a purpose. What do you think about time?
Did I just admit to that?
We didn't want to say the truth the first time someone asked us. Someone would ask, and I would stare at him, and he at me, trying to discuss without words, but failing because we still didn't know each other that well. And they asked again: "How did you two meet?" And finally I gave in, hoping he wouldn't mind. "We met online," I said. The look we got in return wasn't nearly as close to you-are-desperate-and-crazy-
and-unable-to-meet-anyone-without-the-internet as I thought it would be. That day, and in the times people have asked Juan Pablo and I since, people are actually interested in hearing more about online dating. And they don't think we're lame. At least they don't say that to my face... One person even made the comment to us that they were glad to see that normal people can find good relationships online! That made me happy. It's nice to not want to hide how we met, and I'm actually kind of proud to be a good example!
So people want to know what sites I used, and since I wasn't sure I wanted to commit money to online dating, I used plentyoffish.com and okcupid.com, which are free sites. I like okcupid's site more, but Juan Pablo and I met on plentyoffish, so I'm obviously partial to that. I had someone (thanks Hannah!) help me fix up my description so it didn't read like a textbook. And for the ladies, I would highly recommend looking for guys yourself and not waiting around till they contact you. You will get contacted, but you might not find the quality guys until you do some digging. Hence how I find JP.
And things are great. :)
Fortunate Life
I was driving back from San Diego last weekend from a trip to hang out with my friend Nick, when I started thinking about how fortunate I am. Seriously. Of course there are the basics, like the fact that I have a great job (and still have it, which is better than many in this economy) and a loving family. But what got me really thinking is the great times I've had over the past few months with friends. In the last two weeks, I've been to San Diego (including hiking and ice skating), a Lakers game, dancing, to Joshua Tree National Park, skiing, to see the debut of an up and coming boy band, and to the club Les Deux (where apparently the stars from the Hills went all last season). It makes me a little tired just to think about the last two weeks. (And if I went back 3 weeks, I'd get to include the Oscar's!)
And I'm not saying this to brag (really!), though it might sound like it. I'm just saying this because all the sudden it hit me that life is awesomely fun, and I appreciate these opportunities. I definitely take advantage of LA and its surroundings, so it makes sense, but it also makes me happy. :-) Now off for some margaritas!
Skiing!
Well I just seem to have a good thing going on here - I spent last weekend in Breckenridge with a large group of friends from MIT, and today we went to Mt Baldy and got to enjoy the powder there, just an hour from Pasadena. Let me tell you: ridiculously awesome. We went to Colorado midday Thursday, and after picking up the car, Lucy, groceries, and beer, we headed off to the cabin. It could have fit 26 people, but we only had 16, so there was plenty of room for everyone. And it was still crazy cheep. The best thing was the people, of course. We had a mixture of Wine Wednesday crew and Space Systems Lab people. It was great to see everyone together. We spent two days at Breckenridge and one day at
Loveland. I think the coolest thing was skiing from the
Continental Divide - the top of the mountain in the linked picture. It was scary (since I'm somewhat afraid of heights) but gorgeous all at the same time.
But I'm exhausted now writing this because we spent all day today at Mt. Baldy skiing. I am the smart one that went salsa dancing last night and got less than 4 hours of sleep, but the 2 feet of powder today was worth it for sure! We got to explore new territory, somewhat off trail, through powder that you had to keep moving through in order to not sink too far. We were also skiing through the clouds, literally, so we could barely see 30 feet in front of us. I would have rather had more visibility, but the powder was worth it! It's amazing to me to that Mt. Baldy is so close to Pasadena, yet its a completely different world. Because of the clouds, we couldn't see LA from the top, and the falling snow and fresh powder made skiing very quiet and peaceful (but of course thrilling!).
