jet set.

i'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when i'll be back again.... well actually we're leaving tomorrow and returning the 2nd, but i just cant get this john denver classic out of my head.

bags are almost packed and almost ready to go... toothpaste? check. contacts/glasses? check. ipod? check. tickets, passport, camera? you betcha - check, check, check! this weekend has been a flurry of preparation and last minute to-do's. but as each hour passes, we look more and more forward to our upcoming adventures, romping across europa. below is our proposed itinerary...fun times ahead!
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monday, may 21
departure - 3pm flight to ATL, 7pm flight to PCZ (uggh, layovers)

tuesday, may 22
arrival – 10:25am in prague; relax & sightsee (yay home!)

wednesday, may 23
prague, czech republic – sightsee, crystal shopping, national theatre opera (!!!!)

thursday, may 24
vienna, austria - sightsee (thrilled - never been!)

friday, may 25
vienna, austria - sightsee (classical music and cafes, anyone?); drive to nürnberg

saturday, may 26
nürnberg, germany – visit family (dad's hometown); drive to wurzburg

sunday, may 27
wurzburg, germany – visit family (hubby = translator); return to prague

monday, may 28
karlovy vary, czech republic – sightsee (old aristocratic spa town...sounds divine)

tuesday, may 29
krakow, poland – pottery factory (i'm counting on my polish aunt's bartering skills)

wednesday, may 30
krakow, poland - sightsee (so excited about touring the heart of this country!)

thursday, may 31
brno, czech republic - sightsee?? (quick - just passing through - visit)

friday, june 1
prague, czech republic - relax & sightsee (grand finale)

saturday, june 2
return to the good US of A – depart 12:30pm, arrive at ATL 5pm, arrive in DC at 11:30pm

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i will do my best to keep this blog posted with updates on our travels, thanks to the modern conveniences of laptops and internet cafes. can't promise timely pics, but i will certainly try!

highlander hindsight.

"life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - soren kiekegaard, danish philosopher

i find it funny how memories of the past ebb and flow in our lives. there are times when i forget who i was just a few years early...as if that period of time was a different life all together. truly this only speaks to the adage that time changes everything - our perspective, our goals, our identity. recently though the supposed "glory days" of high school have been brought to mind, again and again. what a bittersweet time.

maybe it's been triggered by all the talk surrounding my family's return home to the woods....where my kid brother will pick up where i left off - 6 years earlier. maybe it's the recent return to 90's tunes that seems to be a buzz everywhere. music has such powerful recollection effect. or maybe, just maybe, the time has come for me to introspectively examine that common thread of identity that has remained intact through all these years of change. who knows. the reality is, is that for now i'm "stuck" in the past.

earlier this week, i was browsing around on the conroe ISD website looking at the new high school david will attend in the fall. recently built back in 2005 to alleviate the overflowing original TWHS highlanders, the woodlands college park high school (TWCP cavaliers?) is an impressive "teen flick" representation of secondary school. well, at least it doesn't look like they used the same huntsville prison architect to design this one. genius. unfortunately though this town just won't stop growing.... my graduating class was 950 and david's will be 750. smaller class size? well maybe for a state like texas. welcome to the woodlands, houston's own mini-metropolis. :P

anyway, interested to see what has NOT changed, i scanned through the list of faculty both at the old and new hs's and much to my surprise, many of my teachers have stayed...and they all have websites! not much to them, but i definitely clicked on all the ones i knew just to get a glimpse of life as i knew it. i chuckled when i saw my senior english teacher's website title as "linda woods: english goddess" (and that she was...former stand-up comedian and understated drama queen). ha! and i cringed with anxiety when i found my junior english teacher's site..."English III AP summer reading: The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck; The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald - *expect a test the first week of school (this includes the first day)." TYPICAL mrs. omohundro!! oh how i dreaded that first class of the day, but oh how thankful i am to her now.

in spirit of returning to the red & green, i also located my old high school papers stored away in my "EDUCATION/TWHS" computer files. my emotions toggled back between amazement of my infant intellect and embarrassment of my so called "maturity". especially those college app essays! they are all about puffing yourself up and spinning your qualities from good to great. i laugh at my confidence and certainty in my proposed future direction. if anything rereading my words, written some 7 eventful years ago, only increased my awareness of just how much our environment molds the ideals of who we are and who we want to be.

i find this all supremely interesting, especially now that i am at a point in my life where i have made a lot of important decisions so far and am examining what equally important decisions to make in designing my future. with this recent trip down memory lane, it makes me want to boil myself down to the essence of who i am and what i want. to strip away the effects of geographical standards - to get to the core and eliminate the surrounding white noise of confusion. but surprisingly, what i have come to realize, as much i try, this effort is already thwarted before it can start. it's impossible.

i recently came to this full realization in the concluding pages of the thought-provoking book - the tipping point: "we like to think of ourselves as autonomous and inner-directed, that who we are and how we act is something permanently set by our genes and our temperament...[but] we are actually powerfully influenced by our surroundings, our immediate context, and the personalities of those around us." we are who we are by what's inside us AND what's around us. we are human, we are social creatures.

just like everything in life, there are some things we can control and some we can't. past versus future? well the past cannot be changed, for then it would change who we are. but the future...it's prospects might elude us, but truly it is ours for the taking. mrs. o's website quote says it best - appropriately counteracting the dread of her class with the hope of the future.

"...if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours...if you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; this is where they should be. now put the foundations under them." - hdt, walden

rookie hookie.

so it’s mid-afternoon on a thursday, and i’m bored out of my mind. all work has been completed, hours ago, even with a full hour lunch break, wandering around GW’s “campus” with the hubby for some grub (ie. baskin robbins mint chocolate chip ice cream – my fave :)). upon returning, i was actually productive, managing to recycle about a tree worth of paper cleaning out old files. we’re kind of in the eye of a storm at the moment; the frenzy of meetings have stopped, our deliverable submitted and now we are preparing to go from a team of 7 down to 2, thanks to the CR budget cuts. woohoo war. anyway, shouldn’t be too bad, especially since i’m leaving on a two-week vacay in just…gasp, 10 days! thank goodness.

anyway, the weather has been just gorgeous here lately. literally, perfect. yesterday we got together with my first accenture boss and her husband for dinner at one of the best steak restaurants in DC – ray’s the steaks. the problem though is that they don’t take reservations…meaning, you know to expect a wait. fortunately for us we live just a block away! and at 6pm on a wednesday, a mere 15 minutes didn’t put us out too much. stephen and i split at 16oz new york strip with aged blue cheese, garlic mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. mmmmmmm, good. it was so great to finally catch up with jen & jim – they are such a down-to-earth fun couple. we went back to our place to show them the “lions” and when i found out they are going to america's polo cup against great britain out in leesburg on saturday, i hastily lent her my huge derby hat for the occasion. honestly, i’m super jealous – if we weren’t leaving town for mother’s day you’d know i’d be there! i mean, who doesn’t want to live in a ralph lauren ad??? oh and did i mention that journey is going to perform as well?! interesting mix, but "don't stop believin'" ;)

after dinner i had to drop stephen off back in georgetown to get the vespa. apparently the battery died when he tried to start it after work. ha! since it only charges when you go over 40 mph, it doesn’t take long till it needs more juice. so while we enjoyed our scrumptious steak, there it sat on our kitchen counter, charging away. :) i didn’t mind the little post-dinner detour; if anything it gave me a chance to take the scenic route home on rock creek & potomac parkway. funny enough, he beat me home and then scooted off to meet up with some buddies for some celebratory post-finals drinks while i baked brownies and vegged out with my recent netflix order. all in all, wednesday turned out to be a surprisingly great night.

and tonight should be equally as good…. BBQ happy hour at a coworker’s place and then off to a couple’s tennis double date with lee & alyssa. only to return home to a DVR full of my must-see tv - all new episodes too! oh yeah...fun times.

citizens of humanity.

to be honest, i'm not a huge fan of christian conferences, especially the over the top ones. i understand they are tool to pump up believers and ignite the fire of faith but is all the glitz really necessary?? anyway, with my skeptism in tow, stephen and i went to the fusion conference at the dc-area token mega church (needless to say, another pet peeve). in essence, it addressed our generation's need for purpose - how can we significantly impact our friends, our community, the world, through our faith...?

truly though, the line-up was quite impressive. donald miller, author of blue like jazz, kicked us off with a remarkable oratorical journey into the world of story-telling. he recounted his 3 day seminar session with story-construct guru robert mckee and applied its principles to how we orchestrate our lives. really, what kind of story are we telling? is it dynamic or dull? this quote by mckee, surprisingly, hit the heart of the matter: “the final cause of the decline of story runs very deep, values, the positive/ negative charges of life, are at the soul of our art…this erosion of values has brought with it a corresponding erosion of story.” what a great perspective.

friday night ended with a "mini concert" by the beloved band, caedmon's call. it's been forever since i have last heard their music, let alone see them in concert, so to me, it was the most refreshing way to end the evening. there is something about their music, their lyrics that just brings me home. the song, well the whole ablum, "40 acres," certainly does the trick. from the first days of faith back in the homeland of texas, never have i missed the lone-star so much.

however i think most powerful moment of the entire conference, came saturday morning as we broke out in the various "breakout sessions." my friend kim and i had been wanting to see the northern uganda documentary - invisible children - for months now, and we got our chance. seriously, if you have yet to see this, you must. it is life changing. in the middle of their 2007 world tour, there are free available screenings pretty much everywhere. but here's a quick clip of the 2006 global night commute...just to whet your interest.

fortunately, through heightened awareness and various social justice organizations, such as my fave, international justice mission, this battle for these children is being slowly won. what i find most tragic is that fact that it has taken the world 20+ years to recognize this unseen war that has ravaged this country and destroyed their livelihood. the lack of international attention up till now is truly unnerving. it definitely makes one evalute - what part are we each playing as citizens of humanity?

i guess it all comes back to a decision....our chosen life story.

cute knut.

last summer i fell in love with the city of berlin. seriously, if i could live there i would. one day... :) so when i heard about the city's real live "berliner bear" - knut - i just couldn't get enough. and apparently neither can everyone else. similar to last year's dc panda craze, all of germany and beyond have been raptured by this cub's cuddly cuteness. just who can resist this white fluffball? i know all i want to do is rub his warm little belly!

not only is knut just down-right adorable, but he has become quite the political symbol for global warming as well. you know you're a super star when you grace the cover of vanity fair, pose with leonardo and claim your godfather to be germany's environment minister - sigmar gabriel. heck, his calendar is already filling up with appearances... just a year away in may 2008, he will serve as the mascot of the united nations' convention on biological diversity conference in bonn. ha! in the meantime, however, he's playing it cool, staying busy greeting all his many adoring fans at the berlin zoo.

but really, there is a another reason why i am so into this baby bear... as it just so happens, my pet name for the hubby, who grew up in berlin, is and will always be "cuddlebear," which now, of course, has morphed into "KNUTschbär"! ok, ok, a little obsessed with the cute overload, but i LOVE IT!

either way, it's clear - knut ist gut, but is his cuteness just too much to bear? you decide.

dilemma of desire.

so i just got off the phone with my dear friend marla. as freshman hall-mates and fellow bioengineering buddies, we go way back... it's been awhile since we have last caught up but like with any true friendship, the passing of time is an irrelevant factor.

over the course of an hour, we spent most of our conversation on the topic of life's desires regarding career and how to handle the unexpected wrench that gets thrown into our plans. i guess it all comes down to how we approach setbacks and process disappointments that pepper our path.... are we resilient in bouncing back, determined in our pursuit, or do we rather avoid risks altogether, out of fear, giving into comfort? let's just say our little chat was all too relevant.

so really, what makes someone to continue pushing on despite it all? i believe it all comes down to singular focus; knowing what you want and doing what it takes to achieve that goal. seems simple enough. well, that is, if you actually know what you want...

for myself, i finally feel like i am there. of course, it took me all but 2 years to reach this point and even now i'm reticent to embrace it fully...for fear of, well, a lot of things. after graduating college, i had no idea what to do with myself. my previous well-laid plans had come to reveal only disenchantment and a clear picture of what i didn't want in life. well, great. some say that is the first step to discovering what you do want, but what about the steps in between?

i had always envisioned that with age, came clarity, wisdom and direction, however what i have come to find is quite different. rather it appears that this cloud of ambiguity only advances as we get older, for the more we grow, the more options are presented to us - which path to take? where will it take me? will i be happy with this choice or happier with another? how to know? perplexing and paralyzing in every sense, only presenting more questions than answers.

funny enough, the essence of this journey, regardless of circumstance, is all too well captured in a timely grey's anatomy quote. so with this i will end. for whether in the former or latter state, we can all relate to this dilemma of desire.

"too often the thing you want most is the one thing you can't have. desire leaves us heartbroken. it wears us out. desire can wreck your life. but as tough as wanting something can be, the people who suffer the most are those who don't know what they want."

sigh...such is life, i guess. ;)

going green.

while booking my non-stop july flight from DCA to IAH this afternoon, i made a small but important contribution to our environment. i went green. that's right - for a mere $6 i was able to offset my trip's carbon (CO2) output completely...all 1,085 lbs of it. a concept initially conceived in a wharton mba classroom back in my final semester at penn has now become the talk of the nation. terrapass - an innovative idea that has changed the way we can all fight global warming through alternative energy development.

i had first heard of the revolutionary objective through an january 2006 article in the alumni mag of the pennsylvania gazette, 10 months later i was reminded in a witty daily candy email, but it wasn't until today that i took action. sure the fact that expedia partnered up with terrapass just last month made it that much easier for me to "do my part," but there's so much more of why...

now, i don't consider myself an environmentalist, but i do think that is time america and the world woke up from our all-consuming destructive "slumber" and learned to appreciate the place we call home. with so much recent buzz on saving planet earth, it is definitely an issue that is hard to ignore. inconveinent truth or not, we cannot continue our obtuse energy-hogging ways. heavy dependence on limited resources that result in polluted emissions? it's a lose-lose situation that will only leave us crippled in the long-run. eventually, it will all give way to the rule of petropolitics...meaning, life as we know it must or will change, in one way or another.

well aware of all the many articles out there on this topic, i finally ran across one worth recommending - a published piece in last week's nyt magazine by thomas l. friedman. seriously, read it... let us each consider how we can become the "greenest generation."