feeling fortunate

although this weekend didn't go exactly as planned, i feel very fortunate in many respects right now. i would like to acknowledge how lucky i feel to have a supportive family, a great network of friends, a caring boyfriend, a secure summer job (part-time, at least!), a great place to live, now and next year (i just received word that i will be living in an apartment in the new residence hall with some of my closest friends in the fall!), complete health (something i often take for granted, unfortunately), travel experience, a liberal arts education, and now a car to borrow for a few months! it seems like things are really coming together- i hope they stay that way. i hope to never find myself complaining while leading this cushy american middle-class life.

sickness

i went home last week; a brief visit home was in order in light of my recent trip to south africa, my grandma's fragile condition, and the fact that i want to stay in baltimore all summer. besides struggling to make a connection with grandma, the poor lady, the week went well. that is, until i was bound to fly home on sunday. i woke up feeling nauseous and proceeded to vomit my way across america. apparently i contracted the stomach flu when i was home. i subsisted on literally one cracker and half a glass of ginger ale the whole day, both of which escaped my facilities on the plane. it was a highly unpleasant journey that ended with the supershuttle driver getting lost. after that day and another of feeling achy, feverish, and weak, i am now fine with just a cold. the trip back was horrendous, but it was good to see my family.

this weekend i tackle the east coast: new york, new jersey, philadelphia. i can't wait. i hope these adventures go more smoothly than last weekend's....

exciting events

yesterday was quite a rollercoaster- typical of fridays in spring semester, i suppose. the day started with a bang as the acclaimed and talented cultural photographer martha (marty) cooper came into my anthro class! this woman is amazing. this baltimore native spent a few years in thailand in the peace corps (when she was my age), rode a motorcycle from there to england, married an anthropologist and moved to japan, then began her prestigious career as the premiere documentarian of the birth of hip-hop culture. she knew and photographed the first aerosol artists, break dancers and rappers of new york city in the 1970s and 80s. her books are truly remarkable works; she is largely responsible for the worldwide popularity of new york style "graffiti" due to her landmark work "subway art." she is currently living (part-time) in southwest baltimore (sowebo, not a terribly safe area) and working on a project there. it was so exhilarating to have her speak with our class!

the day then took a turn for the worst as i realized how much work i needed to do this weekend to prepare myself for midterms next week. i spent a solid three hours in the library, plugging away at one of my sociology take-home exams, and only finished a fraction of it. the weather also turned grey and rainy- i felt like i was back at home...

the evening turned out to be pretty interesting as well. i was hesitant to join a few of my friends and acquaintances at a party downtown because of the amount of work i had to do. we ended up there, however, and i felt pretty un-hip and terribly young. i'd say the average age was 22, but the gap between 20 and 22 can seem pretty vast at times. i guess the difference is naivete, not age. in any case, over 50 hipsters were squeezed into a rowhouse, listening to a quasi-hip-hop rap show in the basement. it was pretty claustrophobic but memorable. that is, we all hung out downstairs and in the backyard until two police cars showed up and shouted at us to drop everything and leave. i could understand that we were being loud, but this is baltimore...do the police really have so much free time that they are busting get-togethers of artsy twenty-somethings? don't they have real crime to be dealing with? in any case, that concluded our romp downtown and it was back to the suburbs for us...