Wednesday I drove to San Marcos to help out the Honors Department with the deluge of students and professors who would be convening for a “Meet the Professor Night” and so I could also sign up for a couple of the classes that I want to take in the fall.

I’m still trying to figure out how the Honors Program works but basically the intent of this evening was for the professors to introduce themselves and the course they will be offering and for the students to introduce themselves and sign up for the course they would like to take in the Fall. Some classes fill up fast because they only allow 17 students per class. 17. 17. 17. Ahhh, such a nice thing to hear after the two classes I’m taking this semester with 400 students a piece.

Here’s one of the courses that I signed up for and have been accepted into the class for the Fall:

HON 2390M Making Spaces
Instructor: Awoniyi, Steve Days/time: MW 3:30-4:50 pm Location: LAMP 501
Intensive exploration of the character of spaces we inhabit with a significant component of in-class discussion and analyses of images of works of preeminent architects/designers. Another significant component includes extensive hands-on building of precedent-based analytical/study models to teach lessons about visualizing and creating space.

Substitution(s): counts towards the Honors Minor

I so encourage anyone in school or thinking about returning to school (especially Texas State University) to check out the Honors Program. I would have never had the courage when I was 18 so I’m grateful for the opportunity to explore this now. I have been so impressed with every single person I’ve met in the department thus far from the Dean to the Associate Dean to the Admin III to all the workers and students. Just a really nice bunch of people.

And smart!!!

So grateful to have something to wrap my mind around just for the shear fun of learning. Hmmm maybe I’ll actually be able to apply this later on so that I can be of service to others.

What about you? How are you feeding your mind and heart these days?

Reference to the character “Bones” or was it “Spock” from the original Star Trek series….

For my birthday this year, my loving husband gave me a brand new Palm-Pre. The fact that he gave me a “new” phone is a huge feat unto itself given that my loved one’s idea of good hunting is to discover used IPODS and Phones on Craig’s list. The hunt begins with meeting the owners at various Starbucks locations around town and negotiating with them until he can bring his bounty home so that he can then try them out and repair them if needed. Evidently the ultimate coup de grace of this whole scenario is to then turn around and repost the items on Craig’s list. I suppose the apex of satisfaction is to then to sell the items and make even just a little bit more money than the purchase price.

The day he gave me my new phone I had one of those schedules that was non-stop. Fun but non-stop (including dropping by to pick up a spare key and locking my car doors with the keys in the ignition and the car running). What that meant was that by 6:00pm when my honey had changed my old phone service over to my new phone service I was lucky to be able to rub two sentences together much less to understand where he was telling me that the on button was and how to swipe the screen and handy little short cuts for all the many applications available.

Yes, I have been begging him for an iPhone for quite sometime now but I must have had visions of the phone being as uncomplicated as say a Jitterbug phone because I had no idea how amazing these phones really are and quite what they are capable of doing. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that you could open up three or four or five applications simultaneously and bounce between them back and forth to accomplish all kinds of things all with an effortless sideways movement or tap-tap-tap of your thumb (hey now I know why they haven’t evolved from our hands….)!

But what I really wanted this morning, this very painfully early morning on my way to get my first cup of coffee was to try to remember how to answer the phone if someone called and to call someone from my contact list. So there I sit at the stop light finding out that I’ve opened up my contacts and emails and somehow I’m sending an article that I didn’t even know I had to someone that I don’t even know and all I wanted to do was to make one simple phone call.

I know eventually I will get enough sleep that my brain cells will move around to the center cortex of my brain and into buck-up mode so that I can pay attention to what I need to do to use my phone but gee I can’t wait until we can simply hook our phones into our cars and interact with our computer like Jean Luc Picard did so well on Star Trek Enterprise. But then again, maybe we would end up like the really soft and flabby cartoon characters living in the far away land in from the movie “Wally” where everything is done for them.

Who knew that a thumb could be so important? If I don’t call you…you know why and if you call me and I don’t pick up it just know that I do see the little bright green phone ringing and probably even your photo from my contact list and I’ll be sending you really, really good thoughts but it…er…might be awhile before I figure out how to answer the phone.

Love you, mean it…..

(written on my birthday, March 24th)

You might not think that someone who has lived on this planet more than a few decades (cough, cough) would consider thanking their parents for bringing them into this world; but, then there’s me! 😀

Thank you Peggy and Howdy!

Sometimes it seems like I file away memories in a completely different way than most people. For instance, I can vividly remember when I was five years old riding in the station wagon with my mom and dad and brother in the early evening through the streets of Fukuoka, Japan. I think we may have been returning from a day trip to the mountains where we had watched some potters making pottery with the running water flowing through long bamboo stalks that had been cut in half. My little brain had a day full of information, sites and sounds which may explain why I would have come up with the following question for my parents which was, “Mom/Dad, where did we (my brother and I) come from before we were here?” because I knew that I knew that I was “here” and that I hadn’t been “here” long but where was I before I was born?

Hmmm. Now this is where I know to be thankful for having come through parents like I have because I seemed to have been the kind of kid, adolescent, teenager and adult who was constantly asking these types of questions. Turns out, I began quite young.

I remember my mom and dad grinning at each other and then my mom saying, “well beans (yes, that’s my nickname), you and Howdy (yep, that’s my brother’s name too) came from heaven/God and you looked down here and decided that you wanted to come to Earth to be our kids and you chose us to be your parents so before you were here, you were with God.

That appeased me for awhile but it’s always been a burning question for me to know where I was before I was born and where I’ll go after I die. I’ve had many, many excellent teachers and friends who have helped me to delve into this question but I have to tell you that I am really grateful that I came through the Dad that I have and the Mom that I have and that I am who I am so that I can be as fully weird and wonderful as I am…most of the time…..

I’m grateful to my Dad too for many reasons least of which is his sense of humor but also for his gentle heart when he allows it to be gentle! One of my favorite memories of my father was a bitter sweet memory just before my parents divorced. We all went to our favorite picnic spot on Canyon Lake (this was right during the Viet Nam war and my Dad was about to leave on his first tour). Anyway, I don’t remember how he and I got on the subject but evidently I had a fascination with wanting to learn how to braid. So my Dad set out showing me how to braid with big ole long clumps of grass around the campsite. By the time the evening was over, we had braided at least a dozen or more clumps of grass. I love that memory. It is so simple, but it tells you a lot about my Dad.

So on my birthday today, I want to send a shout out to Peggy and Howdy for being my parents. I love you much and thank you.

I’m serious about hiking the Inca Trail which winds its way through the mountains from Cusco ending up at Machu Picchu http://www.southernexplorations.com/peru-travel/IncaTrailColcaCanyon.htm.

Yes, I’ve been inspired by Donald Miller’s story in his book that I’m reading (A Thousand Miles in a Million Years). And I love challenges like this. This is not a trip for a couch potato! Supposedly this is one of the most excruciating hikes you can do because of the terrain and the climbing and steps etc. At first blush, I would want to give ourselves at least a year to get in shape physically, mentally and spiritually as well as to save the funds for it and put aside the vacation time. That and I hope some of you who will join me are Virgos and have a natural desire to investigate and research all there is to know about this hike and the terrain and the surroundings! (always keep some Virgo friends tucked away for trips like this, they are a God send!).

Just before I turned 40, I made up my mind that I had to run a marathon so I signed up for Austin Fit which is part of the USA Fit training program. They do declare that they can take a couch potato and turn them into a marathon runner by the end of their program and they certainly can! It’s now several years down the road and I’m still benefiting from what I learned during that training process. I wasn’t too impressed with myself for actually completing the marathon partly because of who I felt that I should have been at that time and partly because of the huge expectations I had about myself. Maybe that’s the same thing? Anyway, now I can be grateful to my ole body for enduring the training and actual marathon especially since I had been carting around a good 50 pounds plus I have two pins and a broken off drill bit in my ankle (car wreck at 21). I also don’t have a spleen, am missing part of my pancreas and a bit of my intestines, have had broken ribs, jaw and nose (from that same accident) and yet my dear sweet body was able to get into shape in spite of everything so that I could run that marathon.

Anyway, all that to say that I really believe that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. I remember when my running partner and I crossed the finish line turning back to cheer other runners in and there was this one guy who crawled up to the finish line from about 50 feet back. He wouldn’t let anyone help him because he wanted to do it on his own. I’ll never forget that. It’s as if that guy crawling in is stuck in some kind of a you tube video in my head. It made me cry for him because I was so proud of him.

So whatcha think?? Want to talk with me about hiking the Inca Trail? Send me a message, I’ll be here and I probably don’t have to remind any writer who is considering this hike about all the material you will accrue…..

“A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller.

A little over a month ago I downloaded this book onto my Kindle to read and study with my MM group. I love this book. Mostly because Donald puts into words how I feel as a writer and also captures the humor of being human while seeking spiritual growth. But you may enjoy it for entirely different reasons and find a completely different assessment of what this book is about than I did.

Take this passage for instance, “But the want was not enough. My desire to live a better story didn’t motivate me to do anything. I kept sitting down and writing more and more boring words into my life. And when I wasn’t sitting down writing boring words, I was sitting down watching television. Steven King calls the television “the glass teat”, and I was suckling on it for all its sugar. I was licking the glass and pawing at it like a kitten.”

Donald’s been talking about wanting to write a different story about his life because he was approached by screenwriter/film makers to make a movie about his life. Taking his words and putting them on to the screen. This is something I have wanted to do my whole life. To make a movie about my life story.

My friend Kat reminded me that I have had many adventures over the 8 years or so that we’ve been in our MM group such as taking up scuba diving, flying in an open doored mini-helicopter over the Big Bend of Hawaii, hiking up volcanoes, etc. etc. etc. And that did feel good to be reminded that I wasn’t as big a loser as I sometimes feel that I am when it comes to writing my story but there is still something gnawing at me when it comes to writing what is in my mind and putting it into a cohesive form such as a book or out onto a screen into a movie.

I have a deep inner desire to help other people and I have done much deep inner excavation work to help myself out of the many crevices and holes that I’ve crawled into over my life but sometimes when it comes to putting it all down and capturing it onto a page, I become immediately bored with what I am writing and automatically begin asking myself why on earth anyone would want to read what I have to say? How egotistical can I be!!? But this is seriously the kind of mind f&*k that I put myself through.

The converse side of this, by the way, is that the little (big?) grinchy part of me that does not believe that I have anything to say that anyone would want to read (much less get help from) is that I totally judge many of the books that I see on the shelves of book stores and wonder how in the bloody hell these people completed these books, got em published and people are BUYING them for criminey sakes! And don’t even get me started on movies.

Back to Donald Miller, what I love about how he writes is that he writes the truth about where he is at the moment and then shows how he crawled out of the hole that he dug. This gives me great hope and also gives me ideas about how I can craft some of the stories of my life so that I can help other people feel connected and to know that they are not alone on this journey we call life. For that is the big lie that the inner grinch in us tells us, that we are all alone.

Only another writer really understands the pain of being a writer and having this strong desire to write and the need to be read and heard. I leave you with this passage from “A Thousand Miles in a Million Years” which just makes me want to hug Donald Miller:

“That summer, the summer after the winter we started writing the movie, the Tour de France was being broadcast on television. And for some reason it affected me differently than watching other sports. I mean, when I watch football it doesn’t make me want to play football, and baseball doesn’t make me want to play baseball, but for whatever reason, watching Lance Armstrong win his seventh consecutive Tour de France made me want to ride a bike. I figure if a guy can be diagnosed with cancer and overcome cancer and then win seven Tours then start an organization trying to beat cancer itself, the least I could do would be to get off the couch. So I started riding a bike. I just kind of lifted my legs a little and made a circular motion with my feet while sitting in a chair watching the Tour de France. I made believe I was winning. Like I said, I live in dreams.”

Go read this book and writers out there, just write one page today. If you can’t do anything else today, just write down one page.

“A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller.

A little over a month ago I downloaded this book onto my Kindle to read and study with my MM group. I love this book. Mostly because Donald puts into words how I feel as a writer and also captures the humor of being human while seeking spiritual growth. But you may enjoy it for entirely different reasons and find a completely different assessment of what this book is about than me.

Take this passage for instance, “But the want was not enough. My desire to live a better story didn’t motivate me to do anything. I kept sitting down and writing more and more boring words into my life. And when I wasn’t sitting down writing boring words, I was sitting down watching television. Steven King calls the television “the glass teat”, and I was suckling on it for all its sugar. I was licking the glass and pawing at it like a kitten.”

Donald’s been talking about wanting to write a different story about his life because he was approached by screenwriter/film makers to make a movie about his life. Taking his words and putting them on to the screen. This is something I have wanted to do my whole life. To make a movie about my life story.

My friend Kat reminded me that I have had many adventures over the 8 years or so that we’ve been in our MM group such as taking up scuba diving, flying in an open doored mini-helicopter over the Big Bend of Hawaii, hiking up volcanoes, etc. etc. etc. And that did feel good to be reminded that I wasn’t as big a loser as I sometimes feel that I am when it comes to writing my story but there is still something gnawing at me when it comes to writing what is in my mind and putting it into a cohesive form such as a book or out onto a screen into a movie.

I have a deep inner desire to help other people and I have done much deep inner excavation work to help myself out of the many crevices and holes that I’ve crawled into over my life but sometimes when it comes to putting it all down and capturing it onto a page, I become immediately bored with what I am writing and automatically begin asking myself why on earth anyone would want to read what I have to say? How egotistical can I be!!? But this is seriously the kind of mind f&*k that I put myself through.

The converse side of this, by the way, is that the little (big?) grinchy part of me that does not believe that I have anything to say that anyone would want to read (much less get help from) is that I totally judge many of the books that I see on the shelves of book stores and wonder how in the bloody hell these people completed these books, got em published and people are BUYING them for criminey sakes! And don’t even get me started on movies.

Back to Donald Miller, what I love about how he writes is that he writes the truth about where he is at the moment and then shows how he crawled out of the hole that he dug. This gives me great hope and also gives me ideas about how I can craft some of the stories of my life so that I can help other people feel connected and to know that they are not alone on this journey we call life. For that is the big lie that the inner grinch in us tells us, that we are all alone.

Only another writer really understands the pain of being a writer and having this strong desire to write and the need to be read and heard. I leave you with this passage from “A Thousand Miles in a Million Years” which just makes me want to hug Donald Miller:

“That summer, the summer after the winter we started writing the movie, the Tour de France was being broadcast on television. And for some reason it affected me differently than watching other sports. I mean, when I watch football it doesn’t make me want to play football, and baseball doesn’t make me want to play baseball, but for whatever reason, watching Lance Armstrong win his seventh consecutive Tour de France made me want to ride a bike. I figure if a guy can be diagnosed with cancer and overcome cancer and then win seven Tours then start an organization trying to beat cancer itself, the least I could do would be to get off the couch. So I started riding a bike. I just kind of lifted my legs a little and made a circular motion with my feet while sitting in a chair watching the Tour de France. I made believe I was winning. Like I said, I live in dreams.”

Go read this book and writers out there, just write one page today. If you can’t do anything else today, just write down one page.

Even if it is 40 degrees and the wind is blowing like Hades in a hand basket the sun is shining mighty powerfully today in Austin, Texas. Happy New Day to all my Baha’i Friends and Happy Spring to everyone!

I’m about to head off on my first long run since enjoying my first Brazilian Keratin Treatment at Sophie’s Garden Salon (thank you Lisa). I got some laughs from friends yesterday when I admitted that once I had received this hair treatment for the elusive smooth straight hair, I stopped running so that I wouldn’t have to wash my hair as often and thereby lose the “effect”. Result was that I have had smoother hair for a longer time but I have promptly put on about six pounds!

These are high-class problems people! I know I have much to be grateful for such as the friends that I am blessed to have today.

Just got off a chat with my dear friend Nagavalli Medacharla( http://nagavalli.com/shows.html) for those friends of mine who haven’t had the chance to hear her yet in Austin, Texas….you can go look up her shows on the link provided. I am so excited for her because ever since first meeting Valli in 2003, I have known her love of music and singing and her deep desire to sing her heart out for others. I am blessed to know some very special musicians in town such as Sara Hickman, Erin Ivey, Lorrie Singer, Bradley Kopp, Casey McPherson and the list goes on. Big shouts out to all of you and glad we’re living this life together!

Mental/spiritual tip o’ the day: the experience, strength and hope I want to share with you today is that when we are willing to do the nitty gritty hard work of getting down into the crevices of our souls and hearts to root out the weeds in our minds…..more room for peace, love and joy is freed up to blossom and grow.

Good Day Sunshine!!!

Gotcha!

My husband and I see so many movies that someone really ought a hire us as reviewers. This evening was no exception. One of our good friends had recommended “Ghost Writer” and so we invited two of our movie-buff friends to join us. It wasn’t until dinner that I recalled why I had dismissed going to see this movie when I had first heard about it a couple of week’s ago.

Roman Polanski directed this movie. You know, Roman who had his way with a 13 year old girl back in the 60’s and is not allowed to set foot on U.S. soil (without being put under immediate arrest). Yeah, that Roman.

Anyway, it turned out to be a good movie and I must admit that the direction was actually quite good. The characters are all believable. The movie had intrigue, action and a bit of wry humor woven throughout. It always makes me feel uneasy when I find myself in the grey of life instead of the duality of black and white such as Roman is a child molester and Roman is a good director. Both are actions, both are a part of a person but one is reprehensible and the other win awards. And if I pay for a movie by a director like Roman, do I want to support the reprehensible side of who he is?

It’s great to have finally grown into my brain because now at my age, I suppose most people would expect these kind of questions from someone who’s lived on the planet long. Still, it was a good movie and the actors did a fine job.

Does make me wonder which truth to believe in….that’s all!  How about you?

Yes, the topic that popped into my head today during mediation was Africa. I’ve always loved what I’ve known of that country but I must confess that I am very ignorant as to the various tribes, politics, minerals/diamonds history and so I’m going to begin investigating. Besides the animals, flora and fauna, what interests me very much is the social/cultural aspects of the tribes and how they are being impacted by the warring factions and political parties that have been running amok lo these many years.

As a very young Bahai (going on my fourth year), I know that there are Bahais in Austin where I am from, who have been helping our friends in Uganda http://news.bahai.org/story/590.

For years I was part of a spiritual discovery group led by Nelin Hudania (http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=168486) who escaped from Uganda when she was a girl. Through her, I met Gilbert Tuhabonye, another Ugandan, who is the founder of http://www.gilbertsgazelles.com/.

Last year I was introduced to Philemon Matibe, author of “Madhinga Bucket Boy” http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2010/01/26/matibe_author_of_madhinga_buck.aspx. You can listen to our interview by going to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hope42day/2009/11/17/hope42day-interviews-writers-and-hope-ambassadors. Philemon’s book is about his growing up a boy in the Congo through to adulthood in Zimbabwe. Very powerful.

This past year we rented “The Lost Boys of Sudan” (http://www.lostboysfilm.com/index.html). Very powerful if you haven’t watched it yet.

And of course there is the book, “Gorillas in the Mist” by Dian Fossey which absolutely broke my heart when I read it.

There is much for me to learn and gather about Africa and many people for me to meet. This year will be my year to come out of hiding about my ignorance. What do you know about Africa?

Yes, the topic that popped into my head today during mediation was Africa. I’ve always loved what I’ve known of that country but I must confess that I am very ignorant as to the various tribes, politics, minerals/diamonds history and so I’m going to begin investigating. Besides the animals, flora and fauna. What interests me very much is the social/cultural aspects of the tribes and how they are being impacted by the warring factions and political parties that have been running amok lo these many years.

As a very young Bahai (going on my fourth year), I know that there are Bahais in Austin where I am from, who have been helping our friends in Uganda http://news.bahai.org/story/590.

For years I was part of a spiritual discovery group led by Nelin Hudania (http://www.news8austin.com/content/your_news/default.asp?ArID=168486) who escaped from Uganda when she was a girl. Through her, I met Gilbert Tuhabonye, another Ugandan, who is the founder of http://www.gilbertsgazelles.com/.

Last year I was introduced to Philemon Matibe, author of “Madhinga Bucket Boy” http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2010/01/26/matibe_author_of_madhinga_buck.aspx. You can listen to our interview by going to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hope42day/2009/11/17/hope42day-interviews-writers-and-hope-ambassadors. Philemon’s book is about his growing up a boy in the Congo through to adulthood in Zimbabwe. Very powerful.

This past year we rented “The Lost Boys of Sudan” (http://www.lostboysfilm.com/index.html). Very powerful if you haven’t watched it yet.

And of course there is the book, “Gorillas in the Mist” by Dian Fossey which absolutely broke my heart when I read it.

There is much for me to learn and gather about Africa and many people for me to meet. This year will be my year to come out of hiding about my ignorance. What do you know about Africa?