Love Like Winter

I figure 3 months is long enough not to have written in my blog. Plus I don't want to write my green engineering paper right now. So instead of doing something boring and lame, I'm going to do something fun and amusing! And what's something that is fun? Writing a post about all the things I love in life! (Ok, maybe not all because that would take days. I'll just pick the best ones.)

1. thunderstorms (as long as I'm not alone)

2. when it rains and it's sunny outside

3. going camping in a tent or pop-up trailer (none of that 32' camper business)

4. burning my marshmellows when making smores

5. PASTAAAAAA

6. when you get a good grade on something and there's a sticker on it. especially when you're in college

7. when I can successfully fit all my groceries in the smallest number of bags possbile

8. dancing in the rain, dancing with friends, dancing with random people, dancing ridiculously, dancing in sweatpants, DANCING DANCING DANCING

9. driving with the windows down, music up, and singing loud (oh and throw some head banging in there too)

10. any kind of boarding (surf, snow, skim, etc.)

11. getting a random text from someone you haven't seen/talked to in ages

12. when someone close to you tells you they love you. that NEVER gets old

13. when people call me instead of texting me (no one does it anymore except my grandma. call me old-fashioned)

14. SHOES OMG SHOES and dresses

15. when guys wear ties. so sexy

16. getting a handmade gift versus an expensive one

17. orchestras and band concerts

18. meeting new people

19. jumping in puddles

20. the colors of Fall

21. snow; it makes everything beautiful and pure

22. playing team sports. bonds are formed that you can't re-create anywhere else

23. hearing someone speak passionately about something

24. recycling, preserving the environment, reprimanding people who don't care about the environment, hugging trees

25. penguins! 

26. getting snail mail (again I guess I'm old fashioned)

27. getting roses from anyone. I don't care who you are, if you give me roses I WILL LOVE YOU

28. music. all of it

29. giving and getting long hugs. bear hugs trump all

30. the sound of rain, fire cracking, ocean waves

32. dressing up for no reason

33. dressing up for a reason

34. playing "What does that cloud look like?"

35. longggg bike rides

36. completing jigsaw puzzles

37. when people can take sarcasm. a sense of humor is rare and beautiful.

38. boxes of kittens

39. boxes of puppies

40. milkshakes and smoothies

41. being a Hokie

42. catching sand crabs and lightning bugs
43. running outside with no destination
44. when people smile or laugh. when you smile you become 20x prettier

45. road trips

46. holidays when families come together

47. wildlife/nature. in my opinion you will learn more about life from observing nature than you will from any person or book.

48. going away from the city where you can see a million more stars than normal 

49. driving on the beach in OBX (Kristen Krieger! Sean McCormick!)

50. snowball fights, pillow fights, water balloon fights, food fights

51. that I used to make tree forts in the woods and comforter forts in the house 

52. when I finally use up a bottle of lotion that I've been trying to use up for the past year

53. walking along the water at the beach
54. being able to accomplish something before the microwave beeps

55. testing all the perfumes for free

56. harmony and chords

57. animals. when a person dies in a movie I'm nonchalant about it, but when an animal dies I'm all like "WTF WHY?!?"

58. the whole month of December

59. fuzzy socks

paper procrastination = success

Life.

Nowadays, life is crazy. When we were kids, life was simple. As teenagers, life was just life; passing one day at a time. It still baffles me how, as you age, life speeds up like the fast forward button on an invisible remote is stuck. Why does this happen? I feel like if I'm not careful, one day I'll wake up and I'll be 90 years old wondering where all the time went. However, there is a philosophy I've adopted: If you don't live on the edge, why live? I'm not saying go out and do something dangerous. I'm saying do anything and everything that makes your heart thump with excitement. Maybe you like adventure. Go out and challenge the world. Maybe you like peace of mind. Travel to an exotic place and hear what nature has to tell you. If you do this, tell people about your experiences so that you may encourage them to chase after their passion as well.

There are people out there who are so incredible that even if you only speak with them once, they make an impact on your life. I know there are dozens of people I've come in contact with who are thousands of miles away from me, and yet they have influenced me in ways they can't imagine. It works the other way around too. You make a difference in someone's life whether you know it or not. 

Some of you are probably wondering where this is coming from. Well, I can't really give you an answer. I have very deep thoughts most of the time, but I never really voice them. Some people are scared to talk about their feelings because it makes them feel vulnerable. I'm one of them. I have only recently started talking about my deepest thoughts with some of my really close friends. And you know what? It's awesome. Sharing these things creates a bond that is so strong. I'd say it parallels the power of love. So what I'm saying is, once you find the people that you can share anything with, never let them out of your life.

Whoa, August

Dang, summer really flew by. I'm sad to see it go; I loved every bit of it (well, maybe not the stressful times during summer classes...) I have to say Blacksburg has been real nice to me. However, it's time to head home for a bit and then let the craziness of college begin. I honestly didn't know if I was going to like being here, practically all alone in my apartment. However, as time passed, I realized that living alone is quite invigorating. I think it's something that everyone should try for a bit. It's a completely different lifestyle and you feel so independent and in control of your life. Yes, there were times when I felt lonely, but thankfully I had some great friends and amazing experiences to help me along the way. On that note, thanks to everyone who made it truly memorable; you know who you are.

Here's just a sample of the things I did:

 15 DAYS UNTIL MARCHING VIRGINIANS!

Seriously.

I'm gonna get this as a tattoo soon. I would get it now, but that means I can't go to the beach or submerge myself in water for 2.5 weeks. I'm determined to get it this semester.

Dragon's Tooth

Warning: This post is a doozy.

Summer classes are finally over!! Now I can really enjoy my summer in Blacksburg. Ok about last Saturday, here it goes: 
          We began our journey around 2pm with a pit stop at Kroger to get the goods; aka hot dogs, smores, etc. When we arrived in the parking lot around 3pm, a slew of cars were already there so we unloaded the car and started trekking up the trail. I have never gone backpacking before so I was not equipped with the proper gear. Let’s just say stuffing a sleeping bag into a school backpack along with some food and clothes is one way to look ridiculous. As we were hiking, the trail progressively got more rugged and more challenging. At points I felt like we had signed up for a rock climbing class. There was even one point where some metal bars had been welded into the rock to help us climb. 

When we reached the top, we unloaded and proceeded to climb the “Dragon’s Tooth.” This point is above all the rest of the mountain, and if you go all the way to the top you can see just about everything. For those of you who don’t know, I’m deathly afraid of heights. This is the only thing that will stop me in my tracks. I started climbing the rock and got to the normal location to which just about everyone climbs. However, I wanted to go higher to see above all the trees. Jim took off like a monkey and scared the crap out of me and Alex, as he climbed uber fast and stood on the very tip top of the Tooth. I continued climbing and decided to take Jim’s pace at a more human speed. However, that human speed turned into a tortoise pace real quick. As I was climbing, I realized “Holy crap, I’m shaking.” and then I did what no person afraid of heights should ever do. I looked down. I froze and clung to the rock like I was giving it the best hug it’s ever had. I wouldn’t move; I couldn’t move. Eventually, about 10 min later, I became a little more accustomed to the situation and crawled a bit further to reach a nook in the rock. Once I reached it, I sat there for what seemed like a century. I looked out and saw miles upon miles of mountains. I was so happy that I forced myself to reach that point. Granted, I could have gone higher, but I’m pretty sure I would have hyperventilated. This was one of the most gorgeous views I have ever seen. The view stretched for miles, and you could see Salem in a valley in the distance. Simply incredible.

Once our stomachs started talking, we headed back to our campsite and gathered wood for the fire. Jim and Alex did a wonderful job of recovering dead branches from trees by using a string and shear “man-power.” I, on the other hand, roamed the woods and collected dead branches that had already fallen to the ground. I have a video of one of their branch retrievals. I guess I’ll post it below this novel I’m writing. Anyway, after we gathered enough wood, we relaxed and enjoyed the mountainous atmosphere. During the duration of time we were there, many people came and went: a family, a guy with dreads, a guy with a keyboard in his backpack and his buddy (these two ended up camping a little ways down the trail from us but kept to themselves at night time). We ended up having casual conversations with just about all these people. Everyone hiking was so nice and friendly! Around 5pm we had a couple join us in our camping venture. They pitched their tent about 20 feet from us, and we ended up being basically best friends with them. We asked them if they wanted to join our fire and offered them some hot dogs. Their names were Caroline and Brendan and they were around our age too; 23 and 25, if I remember correctly. They were both from Atlanta, Georgia, but Caroline is staying in Blacksburg this summer. Caroline was soo funny and had many great stories to tell! She told us about how she went to Alaska and all the adventures she had there. I was so jealous of her. It sounded incredible. I definitely want to go to Alaska now. While we were talking to them, I mentioned that I was in the marching band at Tech. Caroline said she knew a piccolo in the band and that they were just hanging out the night before with a bunch of tuba players. (For any MVs reading, she mentioned Goose and Trunks haha.) So after getting over the fact that 6 degrees of separation gets freakier as you get older, we climbed the Tooth and all watched the sunset together. The sunset wasn’t as great as I had hoped. There were a lot of clouds in the way so it was kind of a disappointment. However, the sunrise TOTALLY made up for it. (I’ll get to that later.) 

After it got dark, we all made smores and contemplated playing Chubby Bunny which Jim and Alex had never heard of! Shame on them. After swapping stories and enjoying each other’s company, we again decided to climb the Dragon’s Tooth to view the stars. It was magnificent. There were millions of stars! The universe never ended. You could also see all the satellites that were circling the Earth, and boy were they bookin’! We even saw 2 shooting stars that night! It was amazing. The only thing that was missing was…the moon. It was nowhere to be found. We found this to be quite strange, but I guess it was just taking the night off. Instead of the moon we got a bunch of angry mooing cows in the distance. We decided that they were either being murdered, having sex, or just wanted to let out some emotion. They were crazy loud! Once we had our fill of stars and cows we crashed in our tents. Before this, however, we decided that we would wake up to watch the sunrise and then go to Homeplace in the morning for lunch. Jim, Alex, and I tried to describe the deliciousness that is Homeplace, but as every Tech student knows, you don’t know and don’t understand how good the food is until you actually taste it.

We went to sleep and man was it freezing cold at night! I can’t speak for everyone else, but I slept horribly. Plus, I had a nightmare that a bunch of killers came to the mountain with knives and axes. Most of the night I was either poking Alex because he was snoring or I was shivering from the lack of heat my sleeping bag failed to provide. Once I started seeing the sky light up very slightly, which was around 5:30am, I jumped up and climbed the Tooth. I took sooo many pictures and they all looked the same. At least in the beginning they did. As the sun rose you could see the fog collecting in the valleys. It was BEYOND gorgeous. It was more epic than when Simba threw Scar off the mountain in Lion King or when Darth Vader said, “Luke, I am your father.” or when…you get the point. It was crazy to believe that so many people below were still sleeping and missing this greatness. The sun slowly peaked up above the furthest mountain top and as it was doing so, birds chirped at its arrival. It was like the world was just being born. But guess who had to ruin it? That’s right, the obnoxious mooing cows. Even though the cows slightly damaged the moment, it was still incredible. I never wanted it to end. But we all know all great things must come to an end. We just need to enjoy them while we can. After the sun had reached a somewhat normal position in the sky, we all climbed back down and started a morning fire with the wood that remained. After awhile I climbed back up the Tooth to see the view again. I felt like some kind of drug addict except my drug was the mountain outlook. Soon after I got there Jim came up as well and then two guys with extremely colorful tie-dye track pants joined us. They were very outgoing, just like all the other hikers, and I told them I really liked their pants. They told us they were hiking the entire Appalachian Trail (starting in Georgia and heading to Maine). They said they hike about 10 hours a day and it would take them three months to complete the whole trip. They didn’t stay long, but before they left I asked if I could take their picture because I really liked their pants. They posed as you can see in the picture below and said that it would cost me $5 but they were willing to accept Snickers bars instead. Of course they were kidding; they had such great personalities. I wish all people could be as care-free as these guys were. Shortly after they left we agreed to start packing up.

Once we all reached our cars we decided to visit a house we saw from the top of the mountain and see if we could view the Tooth from there. We arrived, and we definitely could. We even saw some people walking on top of it. It was kind of creepy how good of a view this house had. They probably spy on people all the time when they are bored. We arrived at Homeplace around 10:45 and there were already a butt load of people waiting. Once we were seated, we enjoyed a lovely and filling lunch with our new Georgia friends. After the sinful cherry cobbler had been served, we made our way back to the parking lot and said our goodbyes. It was so cool how close we had become to Caroline and Brendan in just a matter of 18 hours. We all managed to crawl back into our cars with our pants a little tighter and prepared at any moment for the food comas to hit. And then we left. Once I got back to the apartment I collapsed on the couch and took a 5 hour nap. Something I haven’t done since I was about 12. Best. trip. ever.

(For larger images click on the photo)

Sunrise.

  No one was harmed during the making of this video. Well...no one was seriously harmed.