Murder on the dance floor...

I just realized that I haven't been able to do a post on Alaska yet.
This is very, very important that I share a bit of this experience with you.
I am always shocked at how much of an impact a place could have on a person.
But this time, it wasn't just the place, but it was the people I was able to share it with.
I was really blessed to have an amazing group of kiddos who I love and miss all the time. A combination of these powerful mountains and these inspiring kids rocked my world. This trip that I led was the reason why I do what I do.
Pictures definitely don't do justice (they never do).
But man, I for sure know that I am one lucky girl to have been able to have this experience.
Anyone wanna go back to AK with me??

Alexa, Eric and I on our journey to the last frontier. gettin' CRUNK!

GREAT SUCCESSSSS WE MADE IT!!! (barely)

Here's my lovely, lovely crew.

Our first section backpacking in the Kesugi Ridge
in Denali State Park. This is where the glory began!

Sea Kayak expedition in the beautiful Prince William Sound

Here we're in Wrangell St. Elias. We backpacked into an island
in between two glaciers (the Root Glacier and Kennicott Glacier)
We set up camp there and ice climbed!

Our last section was a 10 day backpacking section
in the Talkeetnas... (which lead to the rafting)
Burly river crossings and epic views.
Boo-ya

After the 10 days of backpacking we met our raft guides
at a tiny runway at the headwaters of the Talkeetna River...(below)
They were flown in along with all the raft gear..

Big HEART Sun.
I miss you.

http://www.events.org/sponsorship.aspx?id=17651

anything will be appreciated and so so helpful.
thank you thank you thank you.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Into The Wild

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun...you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. -Chris McCandless

Take time to realize

I'm on your side. 

kiss and ride

So I'm going to work a little backwards because... well because I uploaded the pictures incorrectly and I'm too tired to fix them.

I just got back from an epic time spent in Yosemite National Park with some fantastic people. Heidi, Andrew and I busted up Half-Dome. If you don't know about Half-Dome here are a few facts that I'll brag about.
Half Dome is a 16.4 Mile roundtrip hike. It sits at a nice 8,836 ft with a 4,800 ft. elevation gain... I ate a lot of string cheese! Pictures and a nice video will have to come in August when I get home..if I get home!

The day before I left for Yosemite I was in the East coast due to a beautiful graduation gift from my cousins/aunt. And the day before leaving for the East coast I moved out of Redlands and also graduated! It has been a series of crazy events and I still feel like I'm spinning so please excuse this terrible blog update. I just felt like I needed to post something before I left for Alaska.

The pictures below are not all the pictures I wanted to post but... sigh. excuse excuse blah blah blah..

Okay I'm going to shut it now... I'll be heading to AK in about 10 days but meanwhile I'll be in Northern Cali doing staff training..

Here's my one and only mail drop while in AK so if you so desire to send some love:

NOVA Riverrunners

P.O. Box 1129

Chickaloon, AK 99674

Attn: ARCC “Crystal Lim"

Must arrive by 7/17

prospect park

Welcome to Brookly and Alan!

Ah.. the pretty Brooklyn Bridge. The view was/is amazing. pretty pretty pretty!

Bibian and Me watching a Orioles game. Who woulda thunk I would be in any other stadium other than the Dodger Stadium?

Dunkin Donuts to the Dome!

Me and Mina. I seriously love these museums.

=] A simple sign that made me so happy. This is what they call
the drop off zone for the metro in DC.

We are grown ass peoples.

The love of my life. Mommaaaaaa

My boys. We done it!

Again, I'm so sorry for such a bad post. I'm so exhausted. See you guys in August after AK!! Until then...

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals that human spirit." -E.E. Cummings

I'm lucky. 

I know that.

I've been fortunate enough to have found people who "reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our trust, sacred to our touch."

I am so grateful for my dear, dear friends and my heart feels alive when I'm with them. They truly do help me in believing in myself. 

These past couple weeks have been a flurry of emotions. I feel like my world was tossed up in the air and flipped around a couple times. 

But thank goodness to a perfectly timed San Francisco trip with Andrea, Emily, and Heidi I feel a bit more grounded. A bit. 

 I think things and trips like this helps me because it is just a reminder that there are big things to worry about but even bigger things to enjoy. 

Life really is a good thing so why not save a wave and ride a surfer? I mean.......Ride a wave and save a surfer? This makes no sense whatsoever but I like it. 

Eh I'm boring myself with this post. I'm so freakin' melodramatic sometime even for my own good. 

On a bit of a different note:

I'M GRADUATING SOON!!

WITH MY BOOOOOOYYYS!!

Also on a different note and for your listening pleasure:

EL-OH-VEE-EE

What it is about love that gets a person spinning sideways and upwards and all other ways? 

No, I'm not in love but I have been pondering the idea of love.

It is so ridiculously powerful but so wonderfully magical isn't it? 

My heart beats a little bit faster when I think about loving someone so much

you would go through great lengths to love that person until the day you die. 

I believe in love. I always have and I always will. 

I think that many of us have become so jaded on this four letter word but I believe

there are still hopeless romantics out there in the world, searching for that passionate,

mind-blowing, perfect love.... and many have been lucky enough to find it. 

I hope everyone finds it. 

I hope everyone finds a love that makes you do stupid things, pisses you off, pushes you

to greater heights, believes in you, makes your heart beat a little faster, makes you  lose your breath, calls you out on things you've done wrong, holds your hair when you're throwing up (or rubs your back), always leaves you wanting more, always comes back wanting more, makes you laugh even when the world seems to be at its lowest point, fuels the fire of passion instead of dampening it, laughs with you when you're pants have ripped down the crotch, holds your hand when you're scared, is right there next to you when you're having the worst day of your life.... I think I could just go on and on.. 

It's out there....right?

Well- I can't wait to find the Homer to my Marge, Eric to my Donna, Noah to my Allie, derek to my Meredith, Jim to my pam... 

Who says singles can't have fun on V-dAY?!

Roses, red, pink, white, chocolates, balloons, love... Ah Valentine's. The clever Hallmark holiday carefully crafted by some sly capitalist. Usually I would shake my angry fist at this dreaded February 14th, but this year was a bit different. This year my heart felt filled to the brim because of a wonderful surprise. 

My dear, dear friends Phil, Willett, Dre, Peter, and Grant (and much more) came and kept me company this Valentine's. 

Their company was enough but what I'm really getting at is my Valentine's outing. It's not the typical dinner and a movie nor was it mushy and gushy... but it sure as hell was fun and some may say stress relieving...........

Shakey, scared, and unsteady to say the least... but man am I glad I did it. whoa mama. 

Que romantico, no?

There really is nothing like shooting shotguns and dancing all night long to Black Light Soul with your best friends on Valentine's day. 

Dear Neal

It's been good to be back watching the NBA again. Being in college, access to a tv has been difficult, but those times that I do get a chance to watch are glorious... especially when one of your best friends is a Boston Celtics fan. And especially when the Lakers have been doing some serious damage. 

There's nothing like kicking back with your friends, drinking a brew (or shots of rum...either or) and watching a fantastic and epic battle between two of the best teams in the nation. 

Its even better when you make a competitive but senseless deal with your buddy that you wouldn't eat until your team won. 

So we sat next to each other without food in our bellys since about the last 27 hours yet the craziness of the game made us forget our hunger... well until the time outs when those Outback steakhouse and pizza hut commercials would come out.. then thoughts of sushi, indian food, thai food, and everything else kept seeping in. 

So after a great overtime game and after Neal shed some tears. We hugged it out and made up with a SERIOUS feast at Tokyo Sushi. 6 rolls, assorted tempura, miso soup, and salad later... it was back to lovin again. Until the Finals that is. 

Moral of the story is: Competition is great, food is better, friends are the best. 

WAHOOO LAKERS!!

My body aches for it. 

Like physically aches for it. 

I get that swirling in my stomach.

I just read some blogs that 

my friends wrote during our stay in India. 

I felt such a strong pull to be back there again in that space. 

I miss it so much. It's already only become a memory. I'm not living it

anymore. It's just a memory. I hate saying that. 

Although it was challenging, looking back on it I couldn't have asked for

anything more. 

I know I need to move forward from this experience, but it has been a 

lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Although this nostalgic moment 

made me take a couple steps back, I'm

 ready to move forward. Be patient

with me, it will be a slow process but I know I need to take my experience

and continue to grow here. 

THE question

So I'm back from my travels. *waah waah boo hoo* I've been in school for the last two weeks and all I could think about is getting out of here as fast as possible. I'm trying to plot a way to make money and travel at the same time. Impossible? I will find a way. Anyway, apparently while I was abroad I was able to escape reality for a good number of months but when I came back, it punched me right in the face. I was faced with questions like, "are you working on your capstone?", "are you all set to graduate?" and of course... THE question, "so... what are your plans for after graduation?" 

If you don't know me by now, I will tell you that I am a girl that is not excited about hitting the "real world".  I don't want no stinkin' desk job. I don't want no stinkin boring job. I don't want no job that will restrict me. So basically.. what I've come to terms with is that I will just push this "real world" thing as far away as possible. 

So here's the tentative plan:

I'm going to take a year off between undergrad and grad. 

June-August: work for arcc.. hopefully go to some sweet place and get paid for it again. 

August-October: Get a temporary job for 3 months. Make some dough, put some greens in my pocket sort of speak. This job is up in the air. At the same time, I will be taking tests and filling out applications for going back to school again. 

October-December: Work for Asian Pacific Adventures over in southeast asia leading hikes, sea kayaking and what not. 

December+(hopefully till I need to go to school again): Travel. Take the little money that I have and go to places like Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal. Do the whole Asia thing. Maybe if I have enough money I will be able to skip over to South America. But like I said. It's tentative. 

So there it is. THE answer to THE question. Sure it's not getting an internship that will lead into a serious job or going to grad school right away... But i'm okay with that. I'd rather see the world. Wanna join me?