Oh look, 30 years went by in a flash!

Posted in Thoughts by

The 80s, that’s when I was born, thirty years ago. This is the beginning of my thirty-first year on the earth. I am much wiser for it, and I am about to give you unwanted advice because being thirty means I can tell you what to do.

Or not. Due to my overnight wisdom I realize that no matter how old I get I will never know everything. It didn’t take me thirty years to figure that out, I knew it all along, it just took me thirty years to admit it. So, what should I post about for my thirtieth year? Well, I thought about doing one of those “30 things in 30 years”  or, “30 things I did in my 30th year” thing, but to be quite honest, 30 is a big number, and I don’t really want to come up with 30 things and, since we’re being honest, let’s just admit that you probably won’t have read pass the 7th thing if you’ve even gotten this far. And if you have … why are you still here? There’s no prize at the end of this, no secret thing! I promise you this!

I feel as though, many people get scared of getting older, it’s one step closer to death, but that doesn’t frighten me, for that matter, I welcome it with open arms … now this has taked a morbid turn and you’re all planning on giving me the number to your favourite psychiatrist; you know, the one you have on speed dial.

I’m the Doctor

Ok, enough of that … time to get serious.

I couldn’t resist!

A few days ago I received a text from a friend, she told me that thirty isn’t the end of the world and I smiled. I said I was fine, but it made me think of the many people who turn thirty and feel … well … odd. I won’t say that it’s no big deal, to many it IS a big deal and that’s fine, we all experience life differently. There are all these slogans out there to keep you from rolling up into a fetal position and sobbing, my favourite is, “thirty is the new twenty”. To be honest, I use that phrase sometimes, but let me be clear, I use it in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. I don’t want to repeat my twenties. Sure, we had some fun times, lots of jokes and lots of adventure, but at the end of the day those days are over and thirty feels like a brand new chapter, a brand new page, a brand new day. And, if in all my life, my 20s were my best year, then what a sad life I’ve lived! I don’t want to ever stop and say that my life will be “all downhill from here”. I want the graph of my life to be y=x! I want my line of experiences to keep growing and life to keep me interested.

So, I’m one of those people who is looking forward to finishing my thirtieth year on earth, because I like the newness of the decade that is before me. Sure, my body is reaching is peak and I’m slowing down and I’m closer to the years where things stop working like they use to, and I have to watch my diet, but hey, that’s part of the adventure right?

Give me a second, I’m going to go show some admiration to my eyes, legs, internal organs, and everything else …

I’ve still got legs!

Ok, I’m back.

I’ve had thirty years of life under my belt, life is a gift, may I use it to its fullest!

Laus Deo…

[PS – if you’ve made it this far, I’d like to reveal a project that I’m attempting this year. Of course, now that I’m revealing it, I’ll probably neglect it. I’m writing … or trying to … I will need your criticism, as long as it’s constructive. Just a note, things like “u suk!” is not constructive. Take a look! Not much is up, but, comment away =) Let the dialogue begin, and if dialogue continues it will also encourage me to write more: Visit Ella Wrytes!]

Fall Lineup: Who Made The Finale?

Posted in Media, The Telly by

Last fall I posted a post about my fall shows. Not everything made it to the Finale, and since I just saw the final season finale on hulu, I thought I’d do a recommendation post. Just because1.

Bones2

Bones has always impressed me. It has the perfect balance of drama and investigation. I love the way all the characters work together, they all have great on screen chemistry.

This season Brennan and Booth finally get together. *confetti* But, along with that lovely happening and the beautiful addition of Christine, there is a lot of smart cases and interesting solutions.

One thing I always love about Bones is the killer finales, and this season delivered. Bones is framed for a crime and they leave us in the middle to cross our fingers and hope that the crime is solved in the first episode – or at least the first two or three ones – of the next season. I for one, cannot wait! This one was good … a computer hacker genius, a clue left in spit! Pretty creative stuff.

Parks and Recreation has that dry humor with just enough adorableness that keeps you interested enough to go back for more. Every new episode I found myself wondering if I really wanted to watch and after watching, I always am glad I did. The cast work well together and you can’t help but find each character endearing.

Modern Family 3

Shot in the same documentary style as The Office, Parks and Recreation follows a group of government employees, lead by Leslie Knope, the ultimate overachiever. This season Leslie is running for office and nothing can stop her from winning – or, trying to win.

This season finale wasn’t explosive, but there were quite a few heartwarming moments. I can’t wait to see what Leslie has up her sleeves for next season!

What can I say about Modern Family? It just keeps getting better and better. It’s hard not to love this crazy family.

The big shocker this season was Lilly’s sudden aging, however, that was easily overlooked after a few shows. There were a lot of great episodes this season – Claire’s stop sign wars has her running for councilwoman with hilarious outcome, Haley’s college woes, that “period” episode, visiting Disney (um, can I have those shoes, Gloria?) and Cam and Mitch’s adoption attempts.

One thing Modern Family can guarantee the viewer is a good laugh and this season was not a letdown. They did manage to leave us with that tiny shocker in the finale … oh the fun things that can happen with a new addition.

I had a hard time making it through Community this season, but, I made it! I think my favourite episode this season was Remedial Chaos Theory with the different timelines. I really liked what they did there.

Of course, Community won’t be community without it’s alternate universes and animated episodes, and they did not disappoint. The ending(s?) were great to watch, so much so that I’m going to keep Community on my list of TV shows for next fall. Safe!

Nick and Hank at a Crime Scene4

In the season’s Raising Hope, Jimmy and Sabrina are finally together – eh, it doesn’t matter either way. To be quite honest, Burt, Virginia and Maw Maw are the stars of this show. Their comedic timing, and the funny situations they get into left me chuckling. I’m definitely going to keep this one on my list!

Finally, the fairytale shows! Grimm and Once Upon A Time are both staying on my fall list! What amazing shows! They took completely different takes on the fairytales and they both did an awesome job.

Grimm was investigative, so if you’re a fan of detective shows, Grimm would be a good fit. Nick Burkhardt, a homicide detective starts seeing strange things when his Aunt shows up and informs him that he’s descended from the Grimm brothers, and that the tales they chronicled are based on real incidences. The creatures in Grimm are dark and dangerous and the writers did a great job weaving the creatures into the crimes that Nick and his partner were investigating.

Once is a bit more on the dramatic side. The fairytale characters are under a curse from the Evil Queen. She banished them all to Storybrook – a place in the human world – to destroy Snow White’s happiness. It seems a little extreme, I know… and Emma’s (the heroine, Snow’s daughter) sudden belief in the fairy-tale world was a little unbelievable. The reason I liked watching it, however, was for the fairy tale timeline. I loved what the writers did with the characters, how they gave them pasts and interwove their stories. Chris Colfer’s new book The Wishing Spell, actually reminded me of Once – though, his version is more tamed.

Well, that’s about all the TV shows I had time for. I had to give up on Fringe, it was getting a bit stale and repetitive. Castle also fell into that stale, repetitive cycle, and the drama between the partners wasn’t spectacular. Why can’t they just be partners and that be the end of it?

I also stopped watching The Secret Circle and Pan Am, pretty early on into the show. They both lacked in grasping my attention, though, if Pan Am had more of that spy story line that they were developing, that might have been fun!

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1 It’s my blog and I can do whatever I please.
2 Image via Fox.com
3 Image via Modern Family’s Facebook
4 Image via NBC.com

Adventures in Asia – From The Parking Lot to Honolulu

Posted in Vacations by

A few years ago I flew stand-by to Asia. I’ve decided to chronicle it in installments. This is the first part of that adventure.

We got it into our heads, Eve1 and I, to go to Asia for 14 days.  Eve wanted to go to China, but I didn’t want to get a visa, nor did have any desire to go to China, so after some research, we settled on the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.

There is this thing that I do, if I have a long, morning flight and want to make sure that I sleep a good chunk of that flight, I usually stay awake the night before so that I’m tired enough to sleep for a long time on the plane. This plan usually works, but, I don’t usually fly stand-by, so I can say in hindsight – I was not prepared!

The plan to get to Asia was to fly from Newark to Houston, then to Honolulu, then connect to Guam and make a final connection to Manila, where our adventure would begin. We got to Newark airport for a 5:30am flight and found that we didn’t make the cut to get on the plane – the flight was full, all standby spots were taken. The next flight was at 1pm in the afternoon, a direct flight to Honolulu. 1pm and I did not sleep for 24 hours.

We “napped” for an hour in the car and decided to go to the mall for a bit of window shopping, or in Eve’s case, shopping for things that might be useful on our trip. Around 12:30pm we found ourselves at the gate, slightly delirious and very hopeful.

1:30pm, the last of the confirmed passengers boarded and by 1:35pm we were on the plane, ready to start our adventure.

~*~

Ten and a half hours later – Hawaii!

Sometimes time changes are awesome. We left the North East at 1pm and arrived at 7pm to Honolulu. The first thing you notice about Hawaii is the lovely weather, then, the ABC stores.

We found a cheap hotel in Waikiki, just opposite the beach. Even though we were flying on a flexible schedule, we still had some solid plans in Asia (one does go to a foreign country – where English is not the native language – completely unprepared2) so we spent some time changing things around and then went out, into the night, to explore Waikiki.

It was 9 in the evening and there was a lot of activity – people walking, music playing, tourists being tourists – so we felt very safe walking the streets. One guy asked if we wanted to take our picture together, another tried to make us smile, while another walked down the street with his ukelele, playing and singing to himself. We got the vibe that things were Laid-Back in Waikiki, and for some reason it made me feel confident; so confident that I managed convinced a store owner in the mall to stay open long enough to make us some fries3.

In Hawaii they have surfboards on their fire trucks

While he cooked the fries, we spoke about the economy, traveling and life in Hawaii. One interesting thing that he pointed out was that the Hawaii tourists see and the Hawaii residents see are completely different islands and that sometimes it’s easy to not see beyond the tourist-y Hawaii. I found myself enjoying a serious conversation with a random stranger, we chatted a bit more about the economy of Hawaii and what locals do for work, then, with fries in stomach, Eve and I carried on exploring.

The next morning, we boarded the city bus to go to the airport, everything went well (if by “went well” I mean that it’s OK for the bus driver to leave the bus on the side of the road for 15 minutes) and we found ourselves on a plane to Guam. The last time we checked, the flight from Guam to Manila was overbooked; another adventure awaits.

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1 Some names are changed, because, I felt like it.
2 Shanella’s first law of travel
3 That was a lot of confidence for a shy and introverted girl.

“Excuse me!”

Posted in The Observer, Thoughts by

I travel to work on the Long Island Rail Road and I tend to notice interesting bits of behaviour. One behaviour in particular is the inability of passengers to say, “Excuse me” when they want to exit a row.

The typical train has 5 seats in a row – three on one side of the aisle and two on the other  – there isn’t enough space to pass the person sitting in the aisle seat without first asking them to move.

So, how do they indicate that they need to exit? Well, it’s really simple … they start to fidget. They gather their things and angle their bodies and there is this expected agreement that this fidgeting means they want to exit. This reminded me so much of a post on “She’s not from Yorkshire1” that, one day, when I was in a particularly mischievous mood, I decided to see what would happen if I ignored the “I need to leave” cues.

We were waiting to pull into the station at Jamaica – a big transfer station – when the lady next to me started to gather her things and angle her body. I wasn’t listening to music, only reading a book, and I decided to be conveniently engrossed in the paragraph that I was reading. This wasn’t difficult, the book was a good one2, and I was at a good part. It took her a moment to realise that I was missing her cues, but she finally said, “Excuse me!” and so I said, “Sure!” and got up.

Thankfully she was nice about it3. I just find it interesting, wouldn’t it be easier – and quicker – to say, “Excuse me!” than to fidget and wait for the person next to you to notice?

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1 They do that in NYC as well!
2 I was reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
3 I was lucky to get a decent person, not all people are decent and not all people will react politely. Basically, this is a disclaimer saying, “Reactions may vary, so observe with wisdom”.

Did I Wake Up in Wonderland?

Posted in Thoughts by

Curiouser and curiouser … could this week get any stranger?

I should have known the proceeding week would bring many strange encounters when I locked myself out of my house (again) on Saturday.

I was running late for a Skype meeting to go over some travel plans with friends when I discovered that my keys were inside the house and I was outside of it and most importantly, the door was locked. I rang the house phone and that of every occupant of the house only to find that they were all away – I just missed them – and so I’d have to wait. To make things more interesting, I had to go. You know, go.

Great.

Lucky for me, I’m a gadget lover so, I hopped back into my car, logged on to Skype on my iPad and used my phone charger to charge my phone while surfing the web for travel deals. The only problem was, I still needed to, you know … go.

After my session, I decided to go to the closet Panera, missed the exit, had to drive 15 extra minutes to get back to the correct exit, finally making it to the Panera only to realize that I left my wallet at home, with my keys. Thankfully, I had some cash my bag so I didn’t feel too badly about rushing into the Panera to, you know, go. At least I could buy something to eat and wait until I could get into the house again.

Let’s talk about Sunday.

I got a new bicycle, so I’ve been trying to ride it as much as I can. On my way to the salon on Sunday, I passed by a group of teenagers. One yell out, “Hey, can I ride in your basket!?”

No … really. No.

Fast forward to Tuesday.

I promise I am not making this story up. I mean, I know I have a pretty good imagination, but, somethings can’t be imagined.

As I stood in the line to enter the train, I noticed a man standing between the cars; the problem was that he noticed me noticing him. Never a good thing.

At the next stop, said man – let’s call him Weirdo – came into my car and the following conversation occurred:

Weirdo: How much did you pay for your shoes?
Me: *startled* What!?
Weirdo: How much did you pay for your shoes?
Me: *mumble price*
Weirdo: How much? They look cheap.
Me: Oook.
Weirdo: Do you speak Spanish?
Me: No.
Weird0: What language did you learn in school?
Me: *turning body away* English and French
Weirdo:  Where are you from?
Me: South America
Weirdo: *stares* Ok. Do you have a brother?
Me: Yes.
Weird0: How old is he?
Me: 19.
Weirdo: Do you have a sister?
Me: *sigh* Yes.
Weirdo: How old is she?
Me: 17.
Weirdo: *pulling out condoms from bags* Do you want this?
Me: *appalled* No thanks.
Weirdo: Give it to your brother.
Me: My brother does not live with me.
Weirdo: Give it to your mother
Me: I live by myself.
Weirdo: *stares* *walks away*

Then, dear reader, he decided to give his condoms away to other commuters. No one accepted.

How about Thursday?

As I rode my bicycle towards the train station, a man on his lawn – with a cup in his hand – called out to me. I acknowledged him and tried to continue on my way, but he had to ask me a question. “What’s your name?” I told him. “Do you live on Carrol?” No.

I know, he was being polite, I mean, this is the second time he’s seen me ride by his home, but the thing is, I’m not a morning person; I do not like morning chitchat and I definitely don’t like talking to strangers in the morning. If I had known that riding a bike was such a social activity, I wouldn’t have purchased one!

I jest, but, at least I can’t complain that my week was a dull one.

Oh … wait. Did I mention that my arm is black and blue and I have no idea what happened? Well, that happened as well.