Bike Ride to Mexico

A friend of mine, Matt, suggested we ride our bikes down to Mexico. So we did.

The rout we took was through a canyon along I-5, down a sketchy sidewalk that took us to Mission Bay, around the bay then down Ingram street. Past the airport and to the San Diego Bay where we then caught a ferry to Coronado (which is Not an island I found out). We followed Silver Strand from Coronado to San Ysidro and there we were at the Mexican border!

Once there, we got some DELICIOUS fish taco's, then got the trolley to old town and a bus back up to campus!

Talk about an AMAZING way to spend a Thursday morning. :)

Gay Pride and Sandcastles

The next day was the annual SD Sandcastle Building competition. And my gosh they do some amazing things with sand! I think my favorite is a tie between the dragon and the sculpture of a woman with her children, but it's a tough one to determine. And just think, these things are made of SAND!





San Diego is a great city to be in during the summer as there is TONS of stuff going on!

Every year in July Hillcrest has the annual SD Gay Pride Parade. A few of my good friends and I went to the parade this year to enjoy the festivities. Hillcrest is a great part of San Diego as it is, and the life that events like this bring to the town are always exciting. The funny thing was, we ended up sitting on a lawn in front of a Mexican restaurant drinking margaritas and watching the parade go by. We had lots of fun and the company that I was in are among some of my favorite San Diego friends.

Spokane=househunting and barhopping

Our goal in Spokane was to find Aliina a place to live and to get her familiar with the social scene of the town. And goodness we rocked at doing both.

In Sociology we learn about Rational Choice Theory which endeavors to explain that when making choices we try to compare the costs and benefits of each choice to be able to choose that which would benefit us the most. I spoke with someone lately who further described that the more choices we have, the less happy we end up being because though we chose the one that is the best (according to rational choice) we will dwell and regret about not having chose the other options. Now Aliina is pretty darn bad about making choices anyway, so after we had seen a bunch of places, a few of them being amazing places, we decided that the number of options was getting excessive and she should choo

She ended up in a beautiful studio apartment in an old house in a very 'up and coming' neighborhood. I was rooting for it the whole time but there were some definite other good options. Hopefully the choice was the best one! We also had lots of fun exploring the city through meals and evenings checking out the bar scene.

After 10 days of non-stop Aliina-and-Steph time, I headed back to San Diego to settle into summer and work and being busy all over again :)

We drove to Spokane

I'd just met Aliina at the Grand Canyon then hiked to the bottom of it and back, day 2 of my journey included a packed in drive to Cedar City Utah. The bed there was INCREDIBLE. Especially after hiking 15 miles in 85 degree (at least!) heat and sleeping on a rickety bunk bed above a grumpy and often-moving lady.

Cedar City was simple, we bought a few CD's and otherwise left the town to itself. After a great night of rest and some real food, we began our drive to Salt Lake City to stay with a UCSD friend of mine, Hala. Hala's currently in Med school and she graduated from UCSD last winter. She kindly took us out to dinner and then we got another bed to sleep in (twice as many as we had expected considering we were road-tripping!). Hala is one of those girls who you can't help but love, even though sometimes the things she says make you double take. I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy her company and as a tour guide alumni she has lots of great stories of her time at UCSD. Salt Lake City then for us was a little bit of walking and a lot of enjoying the company of one of the most entertaining friends that I have.

But of course we weren't there for long and had to begin our longest drive yet, from the middle of Utah (SLC) to somewhere (to be determined) in Montana where we set our sights on camping for the night. Driving was a little tough on both Aliina and I because of the lack of sleep and the fact that the seats of her car are SOO uncomfortable. Really though, I love her car but the seats are really hard and oddly shaped and just not the best for a road trip (my car on the other hand, lovingly referred to as the couch car, is a Great car to drive lots of miles in because it is Sooooo comfortable). So we would try and switch off driving at this point to allow each other to get some rest but of course that never really worked because of the darn seats.

With a long history of road trips Liin and I have a few key traditions. We must always have one of our "J boys" to sing us through the trip (Jack Johnson, John Mayer, or Jason Mraz), this trip we were accompanied by Johnny and Jason, as well as Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga (maybe that last one was a mistake, but hey she has some catchy stuff!). We also ALWAYS get ourselves some tortilla chips and an avocado (long story about a trip on which we wanted guacamole and instead just had an avocado and scooped out the fruit using chips..it's now the standard requirement for the snack box on all trips). Aliina also likes drinking Lots of water, so we have a few bottles of that each time.

Driving along I managed to get us our only ticket of the trip in a construction zone in Utah. Fortunately for us the guy was nice because 20mph over the limit in Construction would not be a pretty ticket. Especially considering the fact that the officer said if he hadn't have knocked it down I would have HAD to appear in court...in the middle of Idaho...a month from that day. Phew for him being a nice enough guy to spare us that. The rest of the drive was uneventful; Liin and I were tired so not the most inspiring conversationalists, but we sure do have a knack for getting along with each other even if we're both tired, grumpy and uncomfortable (aka our status most of the trip).

We finally got into Montana in the late afternoon and stopped off at a random campsite off of a random highway we decided would be fun to take (thank you blackberry for showing us this path). We set up camp in an incredible little campsite whose caretaker was a grumpy yet kind old man living in an RV with his wife and a few dogs. At the campsite we realized we didn't have matches or any cash so we had to bug the man a few times before we could actually get settled in.

Aliina, the master of campfires, got us a good one blazing and we set up the tent. We had bought some yummy bratwurst, marshmallows, and a shrimp cocktail (it made sense at the time). And so we sat down to dinner amongst a beautiful forest in the mountains of Montana. It eventually began to rain which meant we went to bed, then realizing that though our tent entrance faced the campsite, it was also 90 degrees wrong in the way it faced, so the entire night we were rolling off of our mats down the hill. It was a pretty chilly night during which the rain poured the whole time so we were both cold and ready to clean up when we awoke in the morning.

Back on the road, Aliina for some reason really wanted to stop in Missoula, so we pulled into that town and used the pretty bathroom of a random hotel to wash our faces and teeth while otherwise cleaning up to be more publicly presentable. It just so happened that we were in spokane the afternoon of a lovely little weekly festival that the city hosts, so we went and got some curry from the market and sat on a hill watching the strange people who roamed the town and listening to a band. Then we found this AMAZING little store which had WALLS full of tea of every variety and spices and just amazing, incredible jars of cooking supplies. I got some help by the boys at the desk in choosing some tea then Liin and I got a chai latte shake (delicious but left that weird film in our mouths).

And then it was on to Spokane.

Hiking the Grand Canyon

Now that I'm somewhat caught up to my present life I get to detail my adventures a little bit more..

I have this best friend, Aliina, whom I have had many incredible experiences with since my junior year of high school. We've road-tripped from Maryland to Wyoming, gone on a trip to Miami, gone to my family's house in Colorado a few times, and shared an amazing number of experiences traveling and exploring the world around us.

So this time, Aliina got a job in Spokane and needed a copilot for her drive from the Grand Canyon (where the position's training was) up to her new home, Spokane. On the 4th of July, I flew into Flagstaff. At which point I've got to tell a little story about our Grand Canyon portion of the trip. When I typed in my search to fly from "San Diego to the Grand Canyon" and I got results with a plane ticket, I was very excited that I could actually fly straight into the canyon, saving Aliina a drive and gosh the ticket was Cheap! Of course when Aliina told her friends that I was flying into the Canyon they were skeptical because there are very limited flights that go into the Canyon but we were both sure that the ticket I had purchased said it was ending in the Grand Canyon. Well turns out they had reason to question that I was actually flying into the Canyon as only helicopters land at that airport, so I ended up in Flagstaff and Aliina had to come and get me.

This put us at the North Rim of the Canyon at about 1pm and we had to make it down to the bottom of the Canyon for a rather expensive beef stew and, more importantly, to beat the setting sun. With elevation, the flu, and a long day working against me, we did the incredible hike down the canyon with Aliina encouraging me and my struggling body the whole way. I don't know if you've seen the canyon before but it is an UNFATHOMABLY beautiful part of our world and somewhere that makes one appreciate the vastness of the world we live in.

After a tough hike down (boy my knees hurt!) we enjoyed a delicious cafeteria-style dinner in the lodge and were the life of the table (seems most people were pretty tuckered out after the hike and didn't feel up to chatting). We chatted with a Californian mother and daughter and had a few good laughs as well as gave some advice as the daughter was beginning her hunt for the perfect college. Later that night we met with some of Aliina's coworkers to sit in the creek and soak our weary legs before we hit the sheets.

Thing about staying at the bottom of the Canyon is that you either camp or stay in a hut with (in our case) 10 other ladies. Because we got down there so late, we got the rickety top bunks above some grumpy older ladies. I tried to envision myself being rocked to sleep every time she moved rather than get annoyed, but no matter the effort neither of us got much sleep. So 4am came rather quickly the next day and after a few granola bars and a fruit cup we began the adventure back up the cliffs. It was a beautiful day and we were in the wonderful company of her friends so the 9 mile hike up 4,000feet actually seemed easier than the hike down the day before.

One thing that Aliina and I are good at is taking time to stop and observe the incredible places that we are wandering through and the Grand Canyon is a great place to just sit and look at. Especially in the late day and early morning, the red of the rocks is at its most vibrant shade so you can't help but view it as a grand painting. My favorite thing was to look at the trail below and see it zig-zagging its way down the incredible slopes we had to cross.

Once out of the canyon, we went straight to the ice cream parlor and ordered big root beer floats. Of course our stomaches didn't handle those too well, so a large group of us decided to go and get pizza before parting ways. While the pizza was less than enjoyable, my hunger made it's lack of resemblance of what I thought I ordered irrelevant.

Leaving the Canyon, we were on our way to Cedar City Utah in Aliina's tiny car (which of course was packed with her entire life at the time). Being the optimists we are, Aliina and I figured we could squeeze in one of her coworkers and to do so we completely unpacked the car (after that enormous hike) and ended up strapping three duffle bags to her roof using the straps from the duffle bags as bungee cords. Was it a good idea? Probably not our best. But let me tell you those bags stayed in place and three of us, plus aliina's life made it safely to Cedar.

The rest of the journey to Spokane is another story in itself which I will leave to my next posting.

First Weeks of summer-Family Visit and SkillsUSA

Summer break arrived and I had a quite hectic first few weeks of summer, but boy they were fun!

1. Mom and sisters visit San Diego!

2. SkillsUSA National Conference

Mom and sisters Visit!

My mom and sisters Katie (8) and Nicole (6) came to visit me in San Diego finally! We had an awesome week that included Sea World, Disneyland, a few San Diego beaches, and of course the pool in my complex. It was so, So wonderful to have the girls and mom here and I hope they loved exploring my new home! Disneyland was as magical as it ever could have been and I think my favorite ride was the flying dumbos. A keystone of the week though was my sister's infatuation with the pool. After every single fun-filled day of play, we'd come home to their immediate demands of going swimming in the pool. And boy they loved swimming, I think we spent at least an hour every day after everything else we did. They are great little swimmers those two :).

SkillsUSA National Conference

One of the things that I will forever take a week in June to go back for, the National Skills and Leadership Conference for SkillsUSA (a national student organization that I had the privilege of being a national officer for in high school) brings together tens of thousands of the most skilled and motivated students in the country to compete in anything ranging from baking to airplane maintenance to practical nursing. This year I got to go back and work with Eric Gearhart working in the Business and Industry partnerships office.

The greatest thing about Skills is that it gives me the opportunity to be with an incredible community of people from very different backgrounds who all share a common passion for an amazing organization. I always feel such an overwhelming sense of pride when I attend SkillsaUSA events and feel a confidence in the work that I do with the organization that is unrivaled by any of my other involvements. el so much a part of something and I love having the opportunity to go back each year and volunteer--which is really a time for me to go and be with people I enjoy and work on behalf of an organization that really helped shape my life. It is a beautiful thing to feel so at home amongst anyone in a sea of red jackets at SkillsUSA's national conference.

After nationals, I got to stop by home for a few days because I had a Denver layover, which was a great chance for me to help my mom unpack into her new home and get visits from a few good friends. (sorry to those of you I didn't get to see, 2 days was not nearly enough to be home!) My sisters and I had some lovely walks in the park and I got to visit with my dear friend Amanda. Fort Collins is an amazing little town and if you haven't been you definitely, absolutely should.

The end of the school year

I don't believe I've done an update since before the AS elections...in April, I know. So this is probably going to be a long one considering that was almost 5 months ago.

In respect of your time and sanity I've done a nice little outline for the message so you could pick and choose the pieces that you'd like to read and keep your place if you want to.

1. Spring Quarter

a. AS elections and what I'm doing instead

b. Classes

c. UCSD Cares (picture to right)

d. Work

e. Exploring

Spring Quarter and AS elections

The spring started out with AS elections and a tumultuous two weeks of campaigning. To start you off, no, I didn't win the position of AS VP Student Life, but while I think I could have done great things with that role I am extremely happy that I won't be doing that next year. I think I realized during campaigning that my heart was not wholly into it and there are a LOT of other things I could be doing my final year in San Diego that do not include sitting on the 4th floor of the student center debating how much money to give to concerts. Now without AS, I am able to keep my role as Manager for the One Stop as a leadership consultant, Alumni Discovery Ambassador, Student Foundation Development Committee Chair, and Tourguide-along with time to take lots of trips around California whenever I can.

So while I think I could have done a lot of great things in a role with the student government, I'm excited to have the freedom to make changes around campus through my other involvement endeavors.

Classes

As far as classes are concerned, I had some okay classes during the spring though only one that I absolutely loved. In one class we watched American classic films and analyzed them, so it was fun watching movies but the professor didn't teach too well and I had a crazy professor who started every class by sitting cross-legged on the table in the front of the classroom and chimed a pocket-size bell to begin lecture every day. Hilarious in the least.

Then there was my favorite class that I think helped me figure out what I'd like to be doing the rest of my life! It was the Sociology of the Dynamics of Innovative Communities. Essentially we studied communities like Silicon Valley, and the biotechnology community around UCSD. We looked at questions such as what are the characteristics of an entrepreneur? and what type of communities were formed in Silicon Valley that made it acceptable for people to jump between jobs and firms so easily? For the first few weeks of the class we read Saxenian's Regional Advantage and a number of other essays on innovation. Then we were set loose on any subject we wanted that had to do with Innovation. I chose to study the training and benefits that innovative companies offer their employees to keep them happily innovating within the company, rather than moving to another or starting their own. With a list of contact information for CEO's of various start-ups and large innovative companies I set up interviews with a CEO for UCSD's Global Connect, a recruiter and a director from their Learning Center. Pretty much what this taught me was that I'd like to work in employee development and training and/or consulting.

UCSD Cares

...is a week of service and philanthropy at UCSD. In it's 8th year this year, I've been chairing a committee of 10 that worked all year to plan the event and make it it's best ever. Student organizations signed up with us to promote their community service/philanthropic causes by promoting their work or doing fundraisers. This year we partnered with a fraternity on their philanthropy, Derby Days, and with Student Foundation for their first ever Dance Marathon and ended up raising over $14,000 total for the Rady Children's Hospital! It was an incredibly successful event and it couldn't have gone any better. You can check out our website at ucsdcares.ucsd.edu!

Work

I LOVE my jobs! So very much that I am worried about my future job because it would be too incredible to find ANOTHER job that is as great as what I get to do now. Of course, that includes my leadership consulting for the center for student involvement, and my job 'discovering' alumni through the alumni association. The alumni job has really been great since school got out as I'm doing around 5 interviews a week-and I can't get over the fact that I get paid to go hang out with alumni and have them tell me stories about their experience. But it gets even better than that, because with the suggestions that alumni give us I've actually had the opportunity to write a few project proposals for the alumni office and am working on making them happen.

So work is great great and in my next little blog I can write all about the summer projects I'm working on!

Exploring

Since this is probably my last year in San Diego, I started spring quarter with the desire to start really exploring San Diego. That in part has been made easier because I have a car but also because I've turned 21 and can get access to many more concert halls and events than I could in the past. One trip that I went on was with a good friend Kat (suitemate from my freshman year and amazing lady) to the Anza Borrega desert and Salvation Mountain. I've also added some pictures of these to trips!

One other place is a beautiful winery in Ramona, Salerno Winery, at which a wonderful old Italian man is a

gracious host to all who attend their family Sunday's at Salerno. I've added a picture of him as well when he was teaching us

how to make pizza dough (while we ate DELICIOUS wood-oven pizza).

Those are just a few adventures. Summer has so many more to come!

A long time coming

I've always been a fan of keeping my friends and family up to date when it comes to my life and it's many events yet I can't manage to consistently keep emailing the long updates.

So I've decided to do a blog. This is great because 1. I can update it from my phone and 2. I can write whenever I feel like it and it's up to you to check and see my updates (so you're not reading 8 page messages once a month and struggling to get through them).

I hope that this makes it easier for you all to stay up with my life! Here come the updates...get ready.

PS If you have any trouble with the whole 'blogging' thing, please let me know and I'm happy to help figure out with you the best way to get the updates!