To Do List

Starred items are most urgent--more *'s = more urgent

finish 3 biogenetics assignments*

make blog post**

work on optional group project for envi sci*

eradicate worldwide terrorism threat

fix guitar string***

send photo for NCSSM yearbook*

draw/paint something***

finish History dispute*

take biogenetics final exam

send NCSSM graduation invitations*

find job**

find roomate***

write thank you cards*

message dance teacher about lessons*

watch AHS and SN***

clean Subaru*

buy new bathing suit**

find cure for cancer*

search Elance

make dinner reservations*

book flight for AADP*

bake cookies for party**

sell junk*

make PayPal account*

fix earbuds**

enter My Coke Rewards codes

clean inbox***

set up cell phone*

get new pointe shoes**

clean

     cat's room*****

     front room

     office*

     halls

     bathroom

     kitchen*

     room**

fill out immunization form for AADP*

read and review books**

return awful Netflix DVD that's been on the table for months********

earn Swagbucks

fix laptop*

sell photography on stock photo site**

review French**********

check email

find/return NCSSM textbooks*

Checkout 51

do laundry**

make last will and testament*****

drive on interstate**

get organized

Made in China

© 2015 Abby Danfora photography

"What were you thinking?" she asked. "Why did you do it?  What could you possibly have been thinking?"

She towered over me in her utilitarian, mass-produced chair, which was probably made in China over a decade ago.

"What would your parents say?  Your father?  What will he do when--"

I thought about the concert I was going to with my best friend later this afternoon.  We'd get our photographs signed after the show, maybe talk to the singers, go get fat on pizza and junk after.  We'd come home at 2 a.m., sleep 'til noon the next day, go out and shoot some hoops maybe.

"Are you even listening?"

I looked up.

"I wasn't thinking," I said.  "I'm sorry."

She looked intensely at me, pursed her lips and sighed.  Her eyes met her folded hands in her lap.

After a moment, she got up and pushed her utilitarian chair back under her desk.

She waved an arm down the empty school hall.

"Stay out of trouble," she said.  "Go on, get outta here."

I turned and escaped past the dark empty classrooms and into the fresh sun.

 © 2015   Abby Danfora

Some Music for the Surviving of Tuesday

Hallo,

Like everything else I enjoy, my music tastes are colorful, sometimes downright strange.  Here are five of my favorite artists with a sample of music for each from le YouTube.  Along with prayers, these awesome singers have gotten me through many a Tuesday, and I hope they will do the same for you!  These are not by any means the only singers I enjoy, and they are not in any order of preference.  They are just some of my favorites who came to mind first in a random order.

I do not claim any rights to the music videos, the songs, the lyrics, or the artists.  All rights go to the original video uploaders, the singers/musicians, and song writers.  Enjoy!

Claude Barzotti (Belgian-born, Italian-raised, French-singing)
          Le Rital:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPXtKGuG9rw

Margaux Avril (French, French-singing; her birthday is two days after mine!)
         L'air de rien:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ztosKIqp8

Helmut Lotti (Belgian, sings in just about every language)
         Очи чёрные (a traditional Russian song):    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIWQE-8t5ew

Lena Meyer-Landrut (German, won Eurovision for Germany in 2010)
         Touch a New Day:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WIEQBeIoS0

Jonatan Cerrada (Belgian, French-singing, represented France in Eurovision 2004)
         Dites-moi:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufjirSuWr6I

After making this list, I realized that three of the five artists who first came to mind are Belgian-born.  I wonder if this is entirely a coincidence or if Belgian blood and good voices go hand-in-hand?

Enjoy!

Oh, and let's not forget Elvis!  But, of course, he goes without saying, so I didn't include him in my list :).  I don't really need to provide a YouTube link for him, do I?  It was a night, oo-oo what a night it was it really was...such a night...

Exam Week + Why I Haven't had Time for a New Post

Hey guys,

So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but this does NOT mean that I'm falling back into my 1-post-per-year thing...

Now that I've realized the beauty and value of blogging, that won't be happening again!

I haven't been posting simply because this is exam week and I haven't had time to work on anything anyone would want to read.  I have had several posts in the draft stages for the past few months and am slowly working on those, but I haven't had time to actually make a new post and I won't until Friday or Saturdayish...

In the meanwhile, thank you for staying subscribed.  Spread the word about this blog's craziness, eat more chocolate, learn the Schuhplattler, and go finish studying for YOUR exams!

*Note--by posting this blog post apologizing for not posting, not only have I apologized, but I have also remedied the problem by making a short blog post.  I no longer have a lack-of-recent-postings to apologize for!

P-R-O-C-R-A-S-T-I-N-A-T-I-O-N spells "procrastination!"

Ciao !!

How Tennis, Love, and Bagels can get you a free Designer Straitjacket in a Foreign Country

Hallo Leute !  

Fun fact which you probably already knew:   "Hallo" isn't just German.  It's also used as a greeting in Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Norwegian, and several other languages.  If you can say "hallo," you already know your first word in over half a dozen languages!  Look at you--already multilingual and making me cry!  Not quite multilingual...but it's a start.  It's probably a safe greeting to use if you have no idea what language someone speaks.

Remember that time you woke up in a strange country where everyone was wearing Liederhosen, dancing the Schuhplattler on tables, drinking vodka, eating croissants, and singing Rigoletto with a thick Aussie accent?  If you had known this handy multicultural word, "hallo," you could have charmed them all into giving you free baklava and black forest cake (say "Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte") with your knowledge of foreign greetings.

What are some other words you should know that are found in many languages?

"Tennis," a word for a popular game played on a green court with a green ball, is also the same across several languages including Dutch, Danish, French, German, Klingon, Norwegian, and Italian.  Next time you go to another country and want to play tennis, you can express either your wishes or your insanity by running up to a random stranger, shouting "TENNIS," and wildly swinging an invisible racket in the air while singing about love and bagels...and how much you love bagels.  This might not earn you any Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte as with "hallo," but it could earn you a free straitjacket, which otherwise would cost you "$279.00 + $24.85 shipping" on Amazon.  Then you can go back to that strange Liederhosen-wearing-croissant-eating country you woke up in back in the second paragraph and join in dancing the Schuhplattler and singing Rigoletto in your new designer straitjacket!

There are many other words that are the same across several languages, but "hallo" and "tennis" are undoubtedly the two most important.  You now know how to greet people, increasing your chances of being invited to Schuhplattler-Rigoletto parties and foreign-food-eating events, and how to earn a free straitjacket by loudly professing your undying love of tennis and bagels.

Now go eat some Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte while you are pondering what kind of blog post you just read and shaking your head at my bad tennis puns!

 © 2015   Abby Danfora

Emily Dickinson: Blazing in gold and quenching in purple

I'm pressed for time, so I thought I'd share someone else's poems in a completely-attributed, non-plagiarized post.  We're reading a lot of Emily Dickinson's poetry in a class, and these are probably my favorites so far:

Blazing in gold and quenching in purple,
Leaping like leopards to the sky,
Then at the feet of the old horizon
Laying her spotted face, to die;

Stooping as low as the kitchen window,
Touching the roof and tinting the barn,
Kissing her bonnet to the meadow,
— And the juggler of day is gone!

Emily Dickinson: Blazing in Gold and Quenching in Purple

©Nancy Moser Photography

The mountain sat upon the plain 

In his eternal chair, 

His observation omnifold, 

His inquest everywhere. 

The seasons prayed around his knees, 

Like children round a sire: 

Grandfather of the days is he, 

Of dawn the ancestor.

Emily Dickinson: The Mountain Sat Upon the Plain


Ciao !

True Thanks: Inconvenient, Difficult, and Rewarding for Everyone Involved

As we're all getting ready for Thanksgiving festivities later today--buying last minute ingredients for the sweet potato casserole and wondering how we're going to deal with the in-laws coming over who always have us wondering "De quelle planète descendez-vous??"--it's easy to forget about friends and family in hospital, especially if we haven't seen them in years, when we've had a falling-out, or when it's just inconvenient to visit.  

We become so easily worried about finding a suitable gift basket to bring to a host's dinner, one that's not cheap or too showy and includes almonds but no peanuts, that we forget about our Aunt Marge who's recovering in the hospital from a bariatric surgery or about our annoying coworker, Greg, who's still in intensive care after a car accident. We so easily forget that these family members and acquaintances, however distantly we know them, enjoy and crave fellowship, particularly on Thanksgiving day, as much as we do.

We think it may be "too inconvenient" to visit these family members and acquaintances in hospital, and we justify our thoughts with the assumption that someone else will probably go visit them--they wouldn't want to see us anyways.  We don't send a card because cards are too old-fashioned and somehow whatever we write in them always sounds awkward and makes us feel uncomfortable.  We don't call because we're too afraid we'll have to say "I'm sorry" for the blow-up and harsh words we exchanged two years ago over a ruined carpet.

So, instead of visiting, sending cards, or even calling, we forget about our relatives and acquaintances in hospital and instead focus on the people we have an easy time spending time with.  It's easier to spend Thanksgiving with our best friend, with a significant other, or with someone with whom we have never argued before.  It's easy to spend time with people who have always treated us well and who make good Thanksgiving foods.  If our annoying coworker Greg doesn't have any visitors for Thanksgiving, it's his own fault for being such a jerk, right?  Of course, we feel "bad" that he was in a car accident, but we would never go visit him in the hospital ourselves because our interactions with him are the cause of so many headaches.  He must have some close family members or friends--let them visit Greg instead...right?

The thanks we give during Thanksgiving should transcend this initial unwillingness to spend time and energy on people when it's not the easy or convenient thing to do.  True "thanks" is not just a noun, nor is it easy.  Giving true "thanks" means extending our gratitude to others through our words and actions.  "Giving thanks" is a verb--we must do it, not just feel it.  If we are truly thankful, our thanks will spill over into compassion and empathy for others.  It's easy to celebrate our thanks with people who do us no wrong and who live less than five minutes away, and we extend our gratitude, compassion, and empathy to them without a second thought.  It's less easy to celebrate our thanks with people who are in a hospital an hour away and who we decided never to speak to again.  This, however, is true gratitude--showing thanks for all people in our lives, no matter what walls we have constructed to block them out.

By visiting or showing care for an "inconvenient" or "difficult" hospitalized family member or acquaintance, we not only come to realize and express our own deep gratitude for all people in our lives, but we help that patient to express and realize his own gratitude.  In fact, patients who have visitors, receive a card, or receive phone calls from friends and family are usually more determined to recover quickly than patients who can interact only with hospital staff.  Patients who interact only with hospital staff and do not receive cards or calls and have no one to have a non-medical conversation with quickly become frustrated.  They often do not wish to recover because they feel they have no one to recover for.  One patient on our floor had no visitors, cards, or phone calls during a hospital stay of several months and soon lost the will to even get up to walk.

In summary, here's a Thanksgiving challenge--make an uncomfortable, inconvenient effort to do one or a combination of these things:

     a)  visit someone you know who's in a hospital--take the time and effort to extend your "Thanks"giving to a family member or acquaintance, especially if you have a hard time facing him, be it because it's inconvenient or emotionally/mentally difficult.  Maybe he is like the patient on our floor who had no visitors for months and you'll be the first to express active "Thanks"giving.

    b)  IF you do not know anyone in a hospital (this means visit anyone you know first), go to a nurses' station on a patient floor in a hospital and ask if there are any patients without visitors, cards, or phone calls whom you can visit.  Spend 30 minutes to an hour just talking with a patient, and extend your "Thanks"giving to them.

    c)   I know many people have definite Thanksgiving plans.  If this is the case, and you CANNOT (not "cannot conveniently," but are actually incapable) visit family members, acquaintances, or random lonely patients, make a phone call, send an email, or Skype chat with someone you know who's in a hospital.  Offer support, and arrange a time to physically visit that person within the next month--maybe for Christmas!

    d)   Send a card to someone you know who's in a hospital--you'd be surprised how few cards patients get.  In my entire unit, I typically see fewer than four or five people who have received a card.

Happy Thanksgiving!