my boy be's smart, part...whatever

worry not, friends. with a little tooling around on the internet, my hubs "fixed" my palm pilot, or rather figured out how to get it working again.

blasted technology!

i think technology has a great capacity to really help us humans stay organized, streamline our work and do more with less time. but on the other hand, what i think technology is really doing is that it gives you the illussion of all this. and then when you really need it, it punks out and leaves you in the lurch.

you may remember that chris gave me a palm pilot z22 for my birthday. i love(d) it. it's just 2 months old and today it crapped out. just won't turn on. i called chris to tell him this and he said "oh yea. some of the reviews said this about the device. but all the rest of the reviews were really good." so it's all just a crap-shoot?

well, crap.

3 day weekends rock!

this has been a great weekend!



friday night and saturday chris and i went to visit cheryl in greenville, south carolina. sean came over too and we all had a really great time. the picture above is of the suspension bridge which is in reedy river falls park, an awesome park that was in the downtown part of town. i'm sure chris will post some of our pictures so i'll let him do that. but, man, greenville is a happenin' place. we really enjoyed everything about our 18 hour-long visit, but most especially i enjoyed the company.



we got back home to cola in time to rest a minute and then hop in the car to go to the big mo with dogwood and ingrid. no, we did not see the king and i, the prince of egypt or titanic. we saw over the hedge and mission impossible iii. both movies were very enjoyable, as was the entire evening.

yesterday was spent running around picking up gifts and such for our trip to africa and then last night we went out to hear irish music and enjoy the good company of a few more close friends.

today is just chill, chill, chill. except that it's really hot outside so i may just chill, chill, chill in the house where it's cool.

kiswahili...

or whatever. i'm just sitting here waiting for my husband to finish translating an email that was written to him in swahili. we're about to leave to go to greenville for the night. ya!

a long weekend and 4 more days of work to go before my big break. yippee! i'm starting to get that mixed nervous/anxious feeling about the trip. one minute i feel like we're totally prepared and then the next i'm certain it's going to be a disaster, which i know it's not. but what i'm really dreading is the plane ride. i keep thinking abou the fact that 2 of the 3 flights (seperately) will last longer than 1 work day. yikes!

ok, i'll stop rambling because chris is ready to go. sean and cheryl, here we come!

the autobiography of malcolm x

i just finished reading this book (as told to alex haley). my friend anthony gave it to me back in april sayng it was his favorite non-fiction book and a "must read" for everyone. took me a while to trudge through it. i think i just wanted him to move on from white-hating and get to the facts of his life. "the white man's the devil;" yea, yea, i get it. but now that i'm finished and have read the thoughts and comments of alex haley himself at the back of the book, i really enjoyed the read and can completely understand anthony's opinion that everyone in america should read it.

if i sit back and think about the image that came to my mind about malcolm x before i read the book, it was of a villain, someone to be afraid of. completely opposite of martin luther king, jr. MLK = good guy. MX = bad guy. why is that? i didn't even know anything about him (sorry, i missed the movie). but that's what society did to him. he started out bigoted and seperatist (justifyably so in my opinion). but he came around to see the larger issues of culture, class and race. now that i've read the book i have a lot more respect for the man. i still don't agree with all he said, but i don't think of him in negative terms anymore. i now see him as a good guy, a martyr.

so, yea, even if you don't agree with me, or my new friend malcolm, read the book.

what am i going to read in africa?

any suggestions anyone?

gotta be:
- easy enough to transport
-but lengthy enough to last 54 hours of transport (at least)
-and not about genocide or ethnic violence (not the place, folks)

my boy be's smart #3

check check it out!

jelly bean!

Happy Birthday, oh sister of mine! i hope you get to have ice cream and cake today. and perhaps, just perhaps, get 7 bunches of flowers.

this is my busiest 2 weeks of the semester

or at least that's what i've been saying to almost every person who asks "how's it going?" the state standardized tests start on monday so everyone is crazy, teachers and students alike, and all of my programs come crashing to an end at one time. so i have graduations to run, work parties to facilitate, end of the year reports, all that kind of stuff that i don't mind doing, but not all at once. so tuesday i had the end to my biggest program, FAST. and now that that graduation is over with, i think i can sail through the next few days okay. but i sure can’t wait for it all to be over (for this year).

on the home front things are pretty hectic too. i’ve not even really seen chris for a few days. well, that’s not entirely true because he did come to help out at FAST graduation from 4:30-10:00 PM. he has his homeskillet visiting while he participats in some bike races around the state. the reids set off from MS this afternoon, so I hear, and should arrive sometime tomorrow. then saturday is chris’s big graduation (congrats ol’ boy!) and our shin-dig saturday night. if you didn’t get an invitation, drop me an email and i’ll give you the specifics.

so that’s the 4-1-1. i do have the night “off” tonight so i think i’ll check out the laundromat down the street. being in a new place, I gotta check out the new hotspots.

itinerary

itinerary,
originally uploaded by Waldie's World.

here it is, folks. it's official. we're going to africa! this is our itinerary, not that you can read it. but tis for real.

i even got my vaccines on thursday. four shots at one time didn't hurt as much as i anticipated. but i think my body has been mad at me because i've had a low fever for the past 24 hours. but after sleeping all afternoon, i'm feeling a lot better.

my 4 heroes

we went to hamido and hawa's apartment tonight for our regular wednesday night english class. tonight hamido learned to read and spell these words: write, read, say, copy, draw, color, number and name. and she really did learn and recognize these words where at the beginning of the night she did not. cool.

signed, sealed, delivered

mom sent this photo since i couldn't find one.

3 years

tomorrow will be my and chris's wedding anniversary. (and dogwood and ingrid's, too. happy anniversary, guys!) i went looking on snapfish for old stored photos of our wedding and i couldn't find any. suspicious. i thought we had some online. but alas. that was before our digital camera as well so i guess we don't have any on computer files. use your imagination. or stop by and see the pictures and movie we have at home. anyone? anyone?

anyway, back to our anniversary. so, yea. 3 years. good stuff. i got a great guy. to give you all an example of how great he is, i'll share a story. while the 2 of us sat on the couch tonight, chris caught a fly with his hand. one hand. that's skillz.

so here's to a great guy, a great marriage and 3 wonderful years. happy anniversary, scoobs.

my boy be's smart, part 2

chris was awarded the outstanding senior in sociology award today at usc. it was a long, but nice ceremony in the horseshoe and once i moved to the shade i enjoyed being outside for a few hours. afterward we got to go inside the university president's house for a reception. swanky place. anyways, we didn't take the camera into the president's home so we have no pictures of that. but if you want to see a few more of chris and his award, click on the picture above.

pardon our mess. we're under construction

click on the picture to see a set of picts of our new place. it's pretty unimpressive with no pictures on the wall and things just randomly strewn about. but it'll give you an idea. while you're there, check out picts of our trip to charleston during my parent's visit. or you can click here to see them.

our new pad

okay, okay, i said i'd post pictures like 2 days ago and i've still not done it. i'm hoping to take some this morning but just in case i thought i'd write the post first then do the pictures, that way if i don't get to the pictures, well, you all would still know what's up.

so we officially moved saturday, though we spent a good part of the week prior pre-moving-bringing boxes over, cleaning, etc. saturday went well, thanks to several generous friends who lent vehicles and/or time. by the afternoon we had everything moved in and chris and i were arranging and rearranging everything to make it work. by now we have most things unpacked but a lot of that is just sitting around on the floor waiting to find a home, as i'm sure you'll see in the pictures to come.

the place is cute, though. it has a few quirks-leaky fridge and 2-prong outlets only (!!)- but otherwise it's a sweet deal. we've already decided we're having a housewarming/graduation party on may 6th to show the place off. come on over if you're around!

HOLY SMOKES!

we're officially going to africa! for 3 weeks on june. we booked our tickets yesterday. it's the most money we've ever spent in one shot but it'll be totally worth it and, as my sister-in-law said today, we just need to get there.

so we fly out of columbia, into atlanta and then layover in amsterdam and into dar es salam. then we'll travel through tanzania, staying for a few days in mwanza, the 2nd largest town in the country, on the coast of lake victoria. chris's teacher is from this town and he's promised us some friends to stay with and, hopefully, some non-profit organizations to volunteer with or to see. then we'll go to nairobi, kenya and will leave the continent from there.

i'm typing this on our new-to-us computer!

mom and jim have been here since friday night. we've been bus-bus-busy. but not too rushy-rush-rush, which is nice. saturday we trampsed around columbia, going to some our our favorite haunts. sunday was charleston and mepkin abbey. yesterday, though, i came down with some sort of cold. slept all morning while mom and jim revisited our favorite columbia spots to make more purchases. then i drug myself up to go to the congaree national park. i bailed on a work function i was supposed to go to last night because i didn't feel up to it, but opted to go to the movies with everyone to see neil young, a heart of gold at the nickelodeon. it was good but i got sleepy in the end. don't know what's in store today, but this afternoon we finally (and hopefully) sign our lease! woohoo! and we'll take advantage of $.55 slice night at pizza man for a last evening of fun before mom and jim hit the road early early wednesday morning. pictures of the visit to come.

i think i might have a "neatball" sandwich for dinner

well, chris pretty much updated you on our week already. so i don't want to feel redundant. but a few things of note.

we think we've found an apartment to move into. for reals this time. not the places chris mentioned. we looked at 2 on tuesday. apt 1 was just a little too shabby for what we wanted. and apt 2 was just a little too big for what we wanted. but we looked at a place wednesday that seemed just right. so we submitted an application last night and we're the only people to have seen it so i can't really see why we wouldn't get it. hopefully we'll hear from the property manager tomorrow. but here's a brief description to feed your palate just a little bit. 2 bedroom, 1 bath, central heat and air, hardwood floors, little green space out back and "woody-ish" behind, 1 block from a big park. woohoo! ya park!

timero, the grandmom bantu, can now write her name perfectly without looking at another copy of it for guidance. we have 5 woman this week (plus a screaming infant). i'm appreciative that nicole is now helping out, and that chris is taking the noisy (albeit cute) kids outside.

mom and jim come tomorrow. yippee! and they’re bringing a newer computer for us. with os 10! out of the dark ages we come! fun things me might do during the visit: pick strawberries, mepkin abbey and charleston, $.55 slice night at pizza man, oh yea, and move.

thanks for the well-wishes

as most of you who read this know, yesterday was my 28th birthday. it was a lovely day spent mostly with my husband. but i received lost of phone calls, birthday cards and well-wishes. so thanks, everybody for thinking of me!

if you're curious what we did...well, friday night i got together with "the ladies" to watch i robot. enjoyed the movie, but the company was much better. they even made a cake for me and sang happy birthday. then saturday chris and i drove up and down the streets of select neighborhoods looking for houses to rent. it was such a treat to just meander and hang out with my guy. then we went to the columbia international festival, had an awsome lunch (from india, the carribbian, and turkey) and watched the entertainment. then last night we went up to the lake to have a cookout with some friends. all-in-all, a very laid back and relaxed day. perfect!