Dear Santa,
For Christmas, all I want is…
a new purse (medium to big size)
a watch – to wear everyday to work
Microsoft Office for my new laptop
New York & Co Gift Certificate
Warm work tops – long sleeves or sweater
Boots – Grey Size 11
Long necklaces and matching earrings
Headbands
“Oh the Places You’ll Go” T-shirt – Large
Perfume
a Massage
Lip gloss
Thick belt (any color) must have some stretch to it- to wear on top of clothes:
Warm Socks for work pants:
Last Christmas Josh gave me a gift certificate for Kiva.org. I went to the website and saw that I could choose a specific entrepreneur somewhere in the world to specifically donate the money to. I think my first donation went to a barber in south america. Since then I’ve donated to a few more people, now I choose women, in countries I find interesting. A woman in Samoa got my last donation.
It’s really an ingenious and simple company. They partner with microfinance institutions (MFI) all over the world. An MFI is an organization that provides microfinance services, ranging from small non-profit organizations to large commercial banks. Kiva has found a way to making donations to fight poverty, which is a very faceless, general thing to do and made it more personal. They have write ups about the different entrepreneurs and you make the decision about who deserves your money.
Kiva has really got me thinking about what I want to do with my life. Thanks Josh. I have a finance degree, but have not found a single job I think I would be happy doing in the world of finance. Until now. I think micro finance is a beautiful combination of many of the thigns I love in life. Money, numbers, fighting poverty, other cultures and places, connecting people, organizing partnerships and relationships and getting things where they need to go.
I’m looking in to a couple different microfinance companies. One is Global Partnerships which works with MFI’s in Central and South America and is based in Seattle. There is also the South Pacific Business Development (SPBD), and MFI, which works out of and in Samoa and the Pacific Islands. And then of course Kiva.
Kiva has a fellowship program where they send you to work with one of the MFI’s somewhere in the world. You spend your days interviewing entreprenuers, blogging, relaying information to be put on the website and living in the culture. It’s a 4 month or more commitment and I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. I know I’m home and settled, but I just feel like there’s a lot more I could do and doing a fellowship would really get my foot in the door to the world of microfinance and see if it’s something I’d like to spend a career doing.
Check out kiva.org. Think about donating to an entrepreneur or giving kiva gifts certificates as Christmas gifts! After you make a loan you slowly get paid back. And as the money is paid back you can decide to re-lend to another entrepreneur, donate your funds to Kiva (to cover operational expenses), or withdraw your funds to your PayPal account. Everybody wins!
www.kiva.org
It doesn’t happen very often. But I’m going for a run.
It’s a Hawaiian themed event that include a 5k run with random obstacles and other surprises along the way. The run is to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Check out the video from last year.
Donate to my team! I’ve got my own page where you can donate to the cause. Here
We’re also still looking for another team member, so…
Though I have claimed previously that I despise running, I’m kind of enjoying having something to get ready for. Yes, I have to “get ready” for a 3 mile run. I am that out of shape
It’s been over three months since I arrived home. And during that time I have been gainfully employed and operating under a regular schedule. Though it may not seem like a long time to the average land dweller it sure feels like a long time to me. In the last three years, without really meaning to, I never did the same thing for more than a couple months. I’d be on a ship for three months as a librarian, then traveling for 6 weeks, then home for 2 weeks, then off again on another ship. Constantly having something different to do right around the corner. So my internal nomadic clock is telling me it’s time for a change. And not so much telling me, but screaming it at me.
Thus I’ve been perusing the internet for my next adventure (a fellowship with Kiva is what I’m looking at now–check out kiva.com). Not that I’m actually going to do it, but operating in such a way as to reassure myself that I CAN “hit the road” again if I really need to… in awhile. But for now I’m sticking around. I feel like if I can get through the next month or so of having a normal schedule and just keep getting out of bed every morning to do something incredibly similar to what I did the day before then I’ll come out the other side of my hump loving the fact that I’m home.
The great thing is that it really doesn’t matter either way. If my hump never gets summited then I’ll begin wandering around the world having adventures again. If I get through it and home starts feeling like a permanent home, then that’s just fine too.
I figured it had to do with differing temperatues, but I thought I’d google it for the official answer as to why this gorgeous mist happens, other than to start my day off beautifully.
Thank you google: “The mist that may be seen above ponds and lakes on cold winter mornings and clear summer nights is sometimes called steam fog. It forms when there is a big difference between the temperature of the water and that of the air above it. During the night, the air often cools off much faster than the water. The warm water from the surface of the lake evaporates into the cold air above. The sudden cooling of the rising water vapor changes some of the dampness into very small droplets of water, which float above the lake as steam fog.”
Here’s to steam fog.
No one has ever exclaimed, “I LOVE looking for a job!” But I didn’t think it was going to be that tough. I assumed a couple days contacting temp agencies, then surely someone would give me a job.
And now, after three weeks of sending resumes, calling to see if they got it, calling again to see if they want to schedule an interview, going to interviews, filling out more information online, craigslist, indeed.com, talking to friends, calls to follow up, and anything else I could possibly imagine, I still have nothing to show. Although my resume has gotten spruced up a bit. So for all those lucky job holders out there, I am looking for work! Let me know if you need somebody temporarily for a month or two.
However, joblessness does have its perks. I am becoming a craigslist tycoon, cleaning out the garage for Mom and Dad and making the occasional buck when something actually sells. I watch a good hour (if not more) of HGTV and Extreme Makeover Home Edition a day, as well as enjoying limitless time on free, FAST internet–something I don’t get while on a ship. I’ve caught up with quite a few friends from school, made multiple trips into Seattle, and started reffing (and hopefully playing soon) volleyball.
Wish me luck.
It’s been so long. And I always feel the need to “catch up” with these blogs so here are the highlights:
October: After Hawaii on the Statendam we headed south to French Polynesia. Tahiti, Bora Bora, Nuku Hiva, Moorea. All gorgeous tropical islands with the clearest water you will see in your life. My favorite was Bora Bora. Probably because I went on a fun excursion to swim with sting rays. They were everywhere. Swimming up my sides. I kept having flashes of Steve Erwin being stabbed in the heart by one. But I came out unscathed. That day we snorkeled a bit too and saw an octopus, a whole bunch of sharks (little ones) and admired the gorgeous coral they have there in shapes and colors I’ve never seen in the Caribbean and Hawaii. All in all, the south pacific was a success.
End of October: Rienus and I left the Statendam on the same day and spent a couple days hanging out with Jacki in San Diego. I love that city. We did the San Diego zoo and saw Shamu at SeaWorld. Both were fantastic. As most of you know I love love love Jacki, so it’s always a good time there, but it was even more fun to have my friends from land meet Rienus. Land and sea colliding!
After San Diego it was up to Seattle for 10 days of hanging out with my family. I took Rienus out to visit Lydia and Josh in Yelm and ride 4 by 4’s and play with the dog and all that. We did all the American things we could and enjoyed Seattle.
Then on to New Zealand! I spent 6 weeks on the North Island and had a wonderful tour guide show me just about everything. I met Rienus’ family, bungy jumped, black water rafted in underground caves, went luging, chased sheep, saw some gorgeous scenery, fished (for five minutes) and enjoyed the southern hemispheres opposite weather.
Home again in mid December to have my first Christmas at home in three years! It was fun to get back in the tradition of handing out gifts and trying my hardest to save the last present for myself to open After opening all the presents, eating a lot of desserts and wallowing in the Christmas spirit I flew to Florida to get on the Westerdam to celebrate New Years with Rienus in Holland America style. Quite a few of the people I celebrated the coming of 2008 with were there again to ring in 2009 with me, so I had a blast, even though I arrived only a couple days before the turn of the year. Five weeks on the Westerdam found me tanned and happy and ready to come home.
The last few times I’ve been home in the past year I have only stopped in for a week or two, not really giving me time to reconnect with friends or establish a routine. Thus, I’m excited for the next while.
It’s now February 8th and another birthday has come and gone. Now I can rent cars and get $5 off my car insurance monthly. That’s really all I had to look forward to with the big Two-Five. My grandfather sadly passed away a week ago, so the family headed back to Indianapolis for the memorial service and to spend time with family. It was really fun to have so much family in the same place at the same time, since they’re all scattered across the US. Nearly all my first cousins on my dad’s side were there so we had a lot of fun reconnecting and spending time together. It’s been five years since I’ve been back to see family in Indiana and everyone had grown up so much I had to meet new baby cousins and talk like adults with others that were in junior high the last time I saw them. All in all a great trip for family.
I’ve got two months until my next ocean going adventure, which I am happy to spend at home living a normal life. I’m looking for temporary work to get some money rolling in and trying to pick up normal habits, like going to church every week and playing volleyball on a team with some girls from high school.
So life is looking pretty plain jane in the next two months for me. And I am more than happy about the change
Queeps, the last of the Sommerman pets passed away on Tuesday March 4th. ”He’s just a bird” they say, but he was quite the character and I already miss him. I had started assuming that he would live forever, so it was a little rough on me. I was trying to decide how old he must have been. I got him in the 8th grade after much begging and reassuring that I would feed him everyday and take care of him completely. That was in 1997 and at the Fairwood petshop they assured me he was less than a year old, although it was more likely he was two or three. So that’s puts him at the ripe old age of 13 or 14.
I love you little man.
In trying to communicate with all the people I know who are now spread around the world I’ve found the time zones to be one of the biggest obstacles. As much as you love your friends you don’t want to hear from them at 4:30am when you are fast asleep. I don’t know exactly where I’ll be for the next 6 months, but I put together a reasonable list so that when I call you, hopefully it will be waking hours. Check out the TIMETABLE now or go under Links anytime to see what time it is where I am.
My life truly is a blessing and I am having some opportunities to do things I never imagined and, even now that they are happening, they don’t actually feel like reality. I also have friends out there who are doing amazing things. MARA is in Morocco working as a Community Health Educator in a 1,300 person village for the US Peace Corp. FELIPE just released his first entirely original record ”Raízes Trançadas” at the beginning of 2008. DELUX is living and learning Mandarin in Beijing. JOSH is following and reporting on the 1,100 mile dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome, called the Iditarod. JAMIE got himself a Rolex and they’re paying him to wander around the globe and dive. KIRSTI is now a news anchor over in the Tri-Cities and Roomate LYDIA is always busy with design, fashion and photos.
