Happier Notes

On my short journey, I managed to realize a lot of things. And the four days I spent in Asheville seemed like a lifetime. I made some new friends, learned something about myself and the world, and explored a new city. Upon returning home, I decided that I would finish my journey, only not all in a 2 month period. I think it would be better for me to spread out the journey and take one week mini-vacations to all the locations on my list. Or maybe I'll get restless next week and change my mind again, hahaha. (Most likely the case.) If this happens, I'll simply continue my journey in the opposite order in which I started it.

I did discover a career path that I would like to pursue. Inspired somewhat by Sky who is an independent contractor installing flooring in people's homes. I think I would like to be an architect. Though, I've decided I want to be self-taught rather than go back to school and effectively quadruple my debt. I've acquired a multitude of books on architecture and architectural history. After effectively trudging through 6 years of college courses, I think I can fully understand how to learn a subject. Start with the history, which is the building blocks. Then follow with the theory, which is the worst part, but clearly very relevant to today. Next comes the practical side where you learn to blueprint your ideas. Then finally you learn how to do the finishing touches; to make your idea come together fully. Keeping all this in mind, I plan to study architecture and continue working part-time jobs until I fully understand the subject. 

My current project is to build an enclosed patio extension to the back of our house. I've got the design all drawn up (something I started before leaving on my trip). Tomorrow I start digging the hole for the foundation (20ft x 8ft x 6in). That will be fun...hahaha. I'm content to be home for the moment, but knowing myself, I will probably get restless in a week or two. :/ In which case, I will travel to Albuquerque to climb La Luc with Michael and continue my journey from there. :)  Oh! Did I mention yet that I plan to hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim in September? Super excited about that! And Richard is coming with me for this one! :)

**Addendum: After doing some more research I have concluded that in order to become a licensed architect, you have to attend a university and graduate with a degree in Architecture. Therefore, I will either have to go back to school, or figure something else out. :/


To see photographs from my trip you can visit here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samjgphotography

***Update:
I am not going to make it to the Grand Canyon due to my European trip, since I will effectively be without money after that. I will also not be an architect. Though I do still harbor hopes that some day I will open my own restaurant, I am content to make a little money and stay at home for now (we will see how long that lasts). I did manage to finish the project for the back porch, though it is a patio and not a porch (finances decreed that a back porch was not in the immediate future). I still believe that we did a good job see below for before and after.

Tarot Reading at Dobra Tea

On Friday, I drove Alexa, Paul and myself about 2 hours from Asheville to Courthouse Falls, where I dunked myself into *freezing* cold water under a magnificent waterfall. Throughout the course of this trip, I took about a thousand photos (probably not so many). I was especially fond of Alexa and Paul's faces when they got into the freezing cold water, haha. After this little adventure we meandered back to Asheville and grabbed some tea at Dobra Teahouse. :)

While at the Teahouse, all three of us had our Tarot cards read by a woman who purportedly has 18 years of experience in tarot reading. I must say, even for those who didn't believe in the spiritual side of tarot reading, we all determined that she was very good at reading people. Alexa almost cried after her reading because it was so surreal.

My tarot reading stated that I needed to get my financial situation in order. I need to figure out what I'm passionate about and go for a career. Because the next step in my life is to make that career happen. In order to figure out this financial trajectory, I will need to take a journey. Perhaps travel in Europe for a while. The reader also suggested that not be tied down to a certain place at this point in my life and to explain to my husband that traveling would be the best thing for me right now and that if he held me back I would resent it in the future. A very interesting reading considering the journey I had decided to undertake this summer.

After our tarot readings, the three of us grabbed ingredients from the grocery store and threw together a delicious meal: sesame encrusted tofu, stir fried veggies, and a mango dessert drink. I was excited to hear that Alexa and Paul, who don't normally enjoy tofu, liked the tofu I made. :) Later that night I got a sad call from Richard and I decided that maybe now was not the right time to take this journey across the states. So on Saturday morning, after not hearing back from Sky about a random road trip to Athens, GA, I packed up and headed home. Sadly, about an hour into my return trip I finally got a text from Sky inviting me to join the mini-roadtrip, which I then had to decline. I'm still beating myself up a little for that because I think had I went with that group to Athens I would have stayed on my course and finished my trip. But, it's too late for that now, so I won't beat myself too badly. It seems that my documentary will have to move to a back burner for a little while. But no fear! I plan to finish it sometime in the next 2 to 3 years.

Oh, by the way, eleven hours of driving time isn't much better the second time around. :/

Computer Science is Philosophical...

Hand dying silk

This guy works with dyed squares of paper or tape strips

This entertains me so much, considering it's similar to Will Lentz's work and people actually like it.

Potter

Metalworker, who has gone to China with her work before.

 So, yesterday was awesome. Alexa, my host, acted as a tour guide and we explored the River Arts District (depicted above) and downtown Asheville. I was so excited to be able to meet artists who are doing what they love and making money at it. My excitement over this made me realize how much I still love art and want to make it. And I came to the realization that I can handle living in Conway for a while. Working at Fuji's isn't the worst job, it covers my bills and gives me free time to work on my artwork. I've also decided I want to take a glass blowing class. :D I think that would be the coolest thing to learn how to do, second maybe to pottery. I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that I might not get a great job that pays lots of money, but I can have ok jobs which pay just enough and then make money on the side doing my artwork, which I will actually have time to do. It was a pleasant realization.

Awesome Street Musicians

Walking downtown

Beautiful Climbing tree

We continued to explore downtown and then went out to look at Beaver Lake. Alexa took Paul and I to this awesome tree down one of the walking trails around Beaver Lake. Then we went back to her apartment for dinner, deep discussions, french music and movie trailers, hahaha. It was great. Later we met up with Sky at a dive bar kind of place called The Get Down. The band his friend was playing in was pretty good, but the screamo music afterwards might have left me a little deaf. At some point in the night we come to the discussion of Computer Science being philosophical. Paul assures us that if we read the right material and know programming languages that we would see computer science is philosophical. I'm still not convinced, especially since my friend, Michael,  knows these things and disagrees. It was an amusing conversation though. I adore couchsurfers because I have the best conversations with them. It's like meeting ASMSA kids all over the world and having informed discussions without judging anyone for their opinions. One thing I dislike about living in Conway is it limits the number of people that I have these types of conversations with. In all, Asheville has been a blast so far and three days seems like a lifetime.

Asheville CSers

Last night I participated in an awesome CS potluck. It was a themed party (Djibouti food themed), which was intriguing. Most of the people who cooked theme food used the same website, but we managed to not have any repeat recipes. (I was excited to cook and made Djibouti vegetable stew!) Music, fire, chats about everything, a couple of videos and a late night meant yesterday evening was a lot of fun.

I decided to continue with my plans to stay with a different CS host starting today. So, this morning, after sleeping in I said my good byes and left the farm behind. At 10a.m. I met up with Sky and Debra (two CSers I met yesterday) to head out hiking. We arrive at around 11:30 and hiked until about 3:30. It was awesome. More awesome than the hike was the conversations with my awesome company. We talked about a lot of mundane and philosophical things. One thing that really hit home was Sky's definition of love: complete respect, trust and attractions. I find this to be a great definition.

We also discussed open relationships and polyamory. All three of us have been participants in open relationships. But there are fine lines between polyamory and simply open relationships. Polyamory means you are in love with multiple people at the same time. I feel like polyamory is the reality that we all face in our relationships, but social rules require that we deny ourselves from loving more than one person. I think it is possible, I would say natural, that we can love more than one person at a time. I also do not feel that we need to spend all of our time with one person to show them our love. I also believe that those relationships can be taken to a physical level with multiple people and that we should not be made to feel guilty for expressing our attractions to people in this manner. This was my philosophical realization for today, spurred by the CSers I was with. * I should add an amendment to these statements because my husband took them in a way that I did not mean. I do not necessarily believe that we should be allowed to be in multiple loving relationships and have to split our time between all the people involved. I simply believe that the reality of things is that even when we are in a relationship we fall in love with other people.

I also had a critique of my documentary by Sky. A lot of you know how I take critiques, which is in stride but a tad resentfully. He made a good point though. It is the point I just made; CS is about the people and the community. So, my film should be more about people, on a deeper level than just the questions I had thought up. So, I've decided to take it in a different directions. More focused on the community side, such as the potlucks and the hikes and the tours of the city. :) I've also decided that my trip has become too structured. As my friend Michael put it, structured is not my style. I need to go with the flow more. So, I will continue to follow the path that I've currently laid out, maybe taking out Minneapolis and Indianapolis because I'm not much interested in them, but maybe not, I'll decide in Cincinnati. Probably taking out Seattle and San Francisco too. I'm adding Albuquerque so that Michael and I can hike the La Luz. I've also decided that I want to hike the rim of the Grand Canyon. Which means this whole trip just got a lot more awesome. :) It makes me even more excited than I originally was, which is hard to do, haha.

Journey to the Farm

Conway, AR -> Asheville, NC

TN traffic

Eleven hours is a very long time to drive by yourself. This should have been a time that I used to reflect upon my life and miraculously discover I do, in fact, know what I want. Admittedly, this was not the case. Mostly, I just listened to a lot of cds and tried not to drive all over the road while I took pictures in motion. I have come to realize I am bad at reflection. I debate life plans with myself, I make crazy new plans, I plan courses of action if those plans don't work out, but I rarely reflect upon why I chose the plans. Instead I mope and reflect on all the things I did "wrong" that I could have done differently. I need to learn to be more zen and how to truly reflect.

I did have a little time for reflection. The conclusion I came to is that I enjoy the company of my husband, even when we don't have anything to say. I believe that as humans we crave companionship. This can simply mean we prefer to have someone else around, even when we are self-absorbed with reflection, or rocking out to music.

Rainbow!

I enjoyed the weather on the drive. There were many occasions to photograph rainbows, which is a new experience for me. I came to realize just how bad I am at geography on this drive as well. I had no idea that Asheville was in the Smoky Mountains area until I drove through the Smoky Mountains. I had the strong urge to go camping my last two days in town and am still considering it. I think I will ask some couchsurfers if they want to go camp with me. :)

Smoky Mtns

I arrived at the farm where I am staying for at least two nights at 8:30p.m. Eastern time. Just in time for dinner, which was perfect because I was starving. James Case told me that he lived in a community on the farm, but I did not truly understand him until I arrived. There are about 50 long-time residents currently living on the farm in 3 houses. The farm is about 2 acres of cultivated land as well as the surrounding area. The community owns the land and produces vegetables, goats milk and Matté tea. They have many sister communities in 12 different areas of the world; including Spain, France, Brazil and Canada. They are called the 12 Tribes. Everyone who lives on the farm participates in the community: working in the fields, cooking for the residents, teaching the children (of which there are many in the Asheville community, all home-schooled), working as carpenters or mechanics. It's really an amazing system and I am so happy that I've gotten the chance to be a part of that community for a short period of time. This is a rather unique couchsurfing experience because the people that live on the farm are used to strangers passing through as WOOFers (http://www.wwoof.org/). They are also used to people coming to the farm and deciding to stay on as members of the community. It will be interesting to see what my interviewees have to say in relation to the couchsurfing community considering how they are involved with this communal world.