ELS ISLAND

pretending I'm not here

**

6.5 hours later: I MADE THE MOST ADDICTING JAMBALAYA, and played the didgeridoo my first time. Three types all handmade in Fithian, IL by my new multi-talented musical friend.. he was impressed by my quick-learning didg skills, and all I wanna do is eat more jambalaya

Saturday 2/27/10

Chile and Hawaii got hit today, Chile a lot worse with that quake (8.8 on the Richter) so I am sorry, rebuild that infrastructure ASAP first. they are NOT lucky today.

eating ethnic

strawberry milkshake, nah-nahhh nana, I am eating so well this weekend. I made korean seafood soup + egg drops & sprouts and two types of mushroom mixture with scrambled eggs, such a good mixture. I love Yellow Fin asian grocery store... in one hour I go to Urbana for another prepared Saudi dinner with probably 10 Saudi and Egyptian students who go here and invited me to bring myself over. I am so lucky


***

Post-activity update:
After 20-30 minutes of getting lost in Urbana because there are TWO 604 Stoughtons several BLOCKS from one another (yeah, seriously?!), I entered the warm apartment haven of Saudi feasting. I took pictures and would like to upload some - the 5 main dishes in huge industrial-sized containers, chicken rice, orange vegetable stews with foreign spice, a noodle cream kugel thing, dark dark colored and salty-type flavored eggplant, I don't know the names of it, but it was all very nice. Then the beehive (!! my fave) and heaven bars for dessert, to sweeten the guests' palettes, along with homemade vanilla ice cream topped in chocolate. You guessed it - everything was delicious.
I try on a brown, handmade traditional male Saudi winter coat, I cannot recall the name but it starts with a B, and took a picture of myself in it :) It was heavy and soft! and huge on me. I felt a bit honored to be able to have worn it...
I thank Azziz and his roommate who spent all day and last night cooking for all these people (~20) to come over their Saturday nights, and my buddy Muhamed (one of many I've met this year by now) for giving Azziz my phone # when I was lost to come find me. Ha. I saw a few familiar faces upon entering, and my new friend Emeka who I am helping make flyers for his activist-training, but didn't hang out with anyone past 10 because I wanted to go out. I was sent home with a plate of my favorite desserts wrapped in tinfoil, and with that, I went home in bliss :)

...Well, I dropped by miss Cassie's place and we exchanged weekend activities etc., plans to be productive this weekend, even in a relaxing, catch-up way. Ah! My "fitness club" as they call it is actually open until 6, which gives me an extra hour of productivity today since I thought it closed at 5. The one-hour difference, Lord!!! and I CANNOT find any of the foods I ate via google description attempts! Dangit!! *Must go back and learn Arabic.
*German language learning is on hold for several months, I guess.

Peace -- Fully, Salaam, and Shalom,
Mara

I love what I do

I do what I love.

No no! you don't understand! I really do! I run a non-profit that I helped create, co-found, and run. It is now a beautiful beast that is seemingly taking over the planet, haha. Huge opportunities and prospects. Most importantly is the solid foundation, though. I am constantly re-inventing my role and try to add meaning and credibility to the organization to move it forward because I believe in it.

I believe in greening our communities and the business community in IL. I believe in creative collaboration with students to empower them to take action and be proactive on issues they care about. I believe in creating opportunities and increasing connectivity in our complex societal and capitalist systems. I believe in energy efficiency. I believe in pioneering new ideas to pilot change. I believe in working with people across many sectors to find common ground. I believe in networking appropriately, and I believe that work can be fun. We are the movers and shakers, because we believe, and because we decided to do something about it. We speak up, but more emphasis is on the fact that we ACT up. We do. And it's gotten us so far, always ontheverge ontheverge ontheverge teetering on something monumental -- reevaluating how business works in IL, creating consumer preference for greener businesses and products, and redefining public-private partnerships, educational institutions' interactions with local communities, and new opportunities for community engagement. Oh, and we might evaluate the success of green business programs.

And it's fun to plot how to disseminate this into every interested county in Illinois by working with larger corporations (private business-driven) and public institutions (such as UI Extension and other networks in the state).

Know how Obama talks about creating green jobs? Well we created 3 of them! And I think we inspired a few others to go the entrepreneurial route. Plus, 4 of our board members have gained more respect in their jobs by working with us closely and spreading this vision. We also have a student intern, and work with MANY students (I just met with one very inspired girl this morning) who are working on meaningful projects, which will pave the way for god-knows-what. Really. Take it from me.

To be continued.... to be continued... to be continued

100th post

Nice job M.E- you've reached the # posts to numerate annually throughout a century.

What do I do for a living? I live to hit home runs, throw the ball outta the ballpark, and be a slugger who hits over 1000 average

Lack a Lad or Lackless? LEGOLAS

My neighbor made me delicious matzoh ball/chicken soup and there's enough left for tomorrow. I had already eaten an awesome mushroom, onion and cheese omelette after a step class and then running 3 miles on the tredmill while watching the Illini beat Michigan. And now I have blood red scratches up my right arm from playing rough with the sharp-nailed Link. Now I'm going to change and clean up nice to go hang out with some of my cool friends I don't see much, my concert crowd, because Zmick's guitarist my buddy is randomly in town on a Tuesday night. Alas, my life...

wknd in feb 2010

killer weekend

FRIDAY Mhondoro!!!!! happy hour dancin' right after work, free drinks from the handsome Director of the center who thinks what I do is cool, then out to 4 bars Friday... random Soma experience, ended up trashy in the townie bar playin' darts with 3 jews (incl. my friend Kim) who I later brought home to chill with and play super nintendo
Kim slept on my couch and I made us breakfast around 11 AM
got some work done on SaturDay.
SATURDAY NIGHT danced to RJD2 concert - who was pretty sick, lost megan and friends but danced with kim and chris, my new bff concert buddy who kinda looks like he'd work at a tattoo shop, we met raging to dubstep a couple weeks ago, we hung out all night it's cool company and we all made it a good time
we went to the afterparty at my friends' partyhouse with some local DJs spinning, left before the "pros" came on tho (the ones who get paid gigs at nicer bars)
then the 5 of us came back to my place to play until 3 am
but I couldn't stay up past like 2 so I went to bed and let them do whatever
I had to get up at 8:30 AM Sunday for an Expo.
9-5: professionalism (at the coolest booth at the place...)
then Kim did me a favor as a best friend to save my butt, ninja ninja stealth moves
Mom came and she is the best, she was passing thru here en route to Indy tomorrow
she brought me pretty pillows and we ate sushi for dinner
and now mom is sleeping over!!

...like a piece of pi

add 0.14159 to that triple-threat scoop of cream

errybody wana piece o' dat pi

we iz local resource?

now errrrybody wana piece of our green services and expertise

hit us up, we can help

1...2...3

who else wants to knock on our door?

I mean now that we're open for business.

I'll help you, if you have a good look and passionate heart

I'll help you get that luck and light that fire

in the spirit of positive cross-community collaboration

memnoch the devil

holy cow and sacred elephant
earth-destroyer?
or self-aware monkey, destroyer of ways of thinking and bending and breaking mindframes
bewitched to exist by my moving magic hands, magician
weaving crazy tales into braids of 3, out of thin air
of cowry shells from beaches from afar
made from strands of the finest red hair

hello!

Hello!

My sister is in the shower while I am watching Millionaire Matchmaker, a great show. Some real cocky motherfuckers, though. Some genuine dumbasses. Entertainment!!!!!

She is visiting me for the weekend then later tonight we are going to Bela Fleck: The Africa Project!

DUB

dub dub dub dub DUBSTEP

sick show last night @Canopy, really threw down, raged with my buddies til 2:30 AM, and even then they didn't kick people out...

hung w/more buds til 5 AM -- it was an occasion! -- left when the group doubled suddenly

I had work in the morning. 9999999999999999999999i---------37===========*-[ikk=iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll=]\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\that was my cat he's on the keyboard

desiderata

so I guess it goes in cycles, this poem. It reemerges and resurfaces much like grass itself, but to me this poem takes the form of a purple flower.

without internet searching, after returning from discussing this poem over vino tinto i recite:

DESIDERATA

*** GO PLACIDLY AMIDST THE NOISE AND HASTE

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

as much as possible without surrender, be at peace with all persons...

speak your truth quietly and clearly...

YOU are a child of the universe, no less than the stars and the trees, YOU have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

...with all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. ***

Not everyone has seen or heard or read this poem. I consider myself blessed to have come across it years ago while browsing the internet. It struck a chord with me, and I hope it does with you. I share it with you because you have come across my page so maybe you are meant to find this.

Now, go-be, fish, swim back to your pond and teach your school with your otherworldly wisdom; how EVER did you find this stream??

Return of the Zmick

ZMICK.rage.life.
"smoke whisky!"
and, "hella ya fuck ya!!"

Good return concert,
Always super high energy, crazy jam-outs that get progressively fasterrrrr
They are skilled musicians and carry a mean groove when they get funky
And it shows that you don't need words to feel progressions and messages.

Kinda weird ending tho for me. like, "knowing" lots of people but still feeling so alone
And where did my partner-in-crime go?? well, I go now, to not impress awkwardness on myself, or unintentionally on anyone else.
I guess I just showed up to dance. Did you?

Link is curled up in a ball on my lap
It's time to sleep.

Me n' Link

i need more pictures on here

'cuz I like myself