Pictures

So I have actually been doing what I said I was going to do for a while now (big surprise there) and have been taking more pictures which is fun. I need to find my little camera cord thing so I can post the best ones for all of you beautiful people. I am hoping to possibly take the camera to the next rowing practice and gets some pictures on the water. Not only would these be gorgeous because the involve water in the early morning sunlight, but then you all can get a visual on why I love the grace of this sport so much.

Speaking of rowing I had a 5k test this morning. I still rank top 3 for the women...but that isn't the top so I still have work to do. A good friend of mine asked why I row the other day and I finally got a chance to vocalize why I love this sport so much; it went a little something like this:


"I love rowing firstly because it is on the water and that all in of its own is calming but also because when you are on an erg or racing on the water there is only you and that one thing. There is only the next 500 or 200 or 100 meters and the only thing stopping you is yourself. Because it tears your body apart and pushes you closer to your physical boundaries than you ever thought you could go. You have no idea how far you can push your body until you have taken it over the edge, then take it back a half inch and that is where you have to go every time you race. My body is so much more rugged than I ever though it would be, and it can handle so much more stress than I thought possible. Rowing helps me realize this, it is a challenge and a constant competition and its so pure in how it goes about doing all of these things.
You are accountable for yourself and your boat and when everything comes down to the line the stronger better rowers will always win. There isn't any way a ref or a guideline or rule, or call can change that. And the lows are so low because if you did it right you can empty yourself entirely and still lose to that other, better team; but the highs...god the highs are amazing because you can't stand or breathe or see straight but through the pain, and there is SO much pain, your body is ringing knowing that it has conquered all.
And then there is the last part, the part where I don't have to think about ANYTHING when I am rowing. It is just me and the water and the boat and the screaming voice of the coxswain and I don't have to think about school or work or the loneliness or any of the other shit that clouds my mind every other second of the day. For that 2 hours all there is, is the boat and my team mates and the water. I don't have to think about anything else, and nothing else comes into my mind. And when we are doing test pieces, even though they suck, all there is to concentrate on is how you are going to get your body through the next couple of minutes without it shutting down. There is just nothingness, and I get to swim in it."

So yeah, if anyone is every wondering why the hell there are these crazy cult people that love the pain and the spandex and the early practices, try it, because everyone has a crazy cult member in them somewhere.

On a note that is a bit more applicable to the title of this blog: I am going to be auditioning for a talent show with a $1,000 cash prize. I am going to sing my heart out for this so much more than anything else because I REALLY NEED THE MONEY! It would take care of rent, and debt to my parents, and bills, and the tattoo I want to get and I could put some away to use for text books and road trips and any other crazy adventure I might find myself wanted to do on a rainy day.

Cutting an album with Erik, should be fun, I am excited.

Hope everything is coming up roses.
~The Singing Ginger

I'm Back!

Hello wonderful internet peoples. Sorry it has been WAY too long since I have last posted. Life has been a bit hectic. I am trying to get my study abroad papers done, as well as moving into the new apartment, getting back into school, starting a new job and of course rowing. I am happy to report that the last Bastille of resistance to the crew movement in my family (my little brother) has fallen and now my entire 5 person family rows. It is actually kind of sad, but I enjoy it all the same.

This might be where people are thinking I am going to go into what I learned while away but to be quite honest I don't really feel like doing that right now, so you will just have to hold your breath and come back another time. I promise I will post one at some point.

On a cooler note, since I don't have enough going on in my life right now, I think I am going to take (at the suggestion of my fabulous photographer friend JD) on a little project. One of my goals for the year is to take more pictures and hopefully better ones as well. In order to work on this in an active manner, once I get back I am going to start taking about 30 random pictures a day and then post the one that best represents the day on here. Even if I don't do a text post that day the pic will still be on here. I am going to try and start this up as soon as I can mostly because it sounds like a blast, we will see how long it lasts.

Hope everything is coming up roses!

~The Singing Ginger

OMGOMGOMG!!!

So I made it to Paris, the city I was MOST looking forward to visiting on this trip and I have to say it has yet to disappoint. I spent the day on a 3 hour, free, walking tour held by neweurope (most amazing tours ever if you go to a big city in europe) and saw: Notre Dame, Eiffel tower, arc de triomphe, Louvre, Muse de Orsay, Latin quarter, Saint Michel and a bunch of other really cool parisian sites. After that I took a 20min walk from where the tour ended to the Eiffel tower (since we didn't get very close) and chilled out there for a bit but didn't have the chance to go up since I didn't really want to wait in line for 3 hours, by myself, in the rain. And this is where I shot myself in the foot...

As you can image, after a 3 hour walking tour and another walk to and from Eiffel I was kind of tired. I was going to just take a nap for an hour and then head over and go into the Louvre because it is free for students after 6pm on fridays. Well I guess my body was calling for a bit more sleep than that because I ended up taking a 2 hour nap and waking up too late to be able to go out. That is the sad thing about traveling alone, I don't have anyone to go out with and therefore don't feel comfortable leaving the hostel late at night to explore. Because I missed the Louvre tonight I am going to try and go tomorrow. This also means that tomorrow looks a little crazy: wake up, go to Muse De Orsay, take a walking tour of Monmartre, meet Avery at 6:30 for mass at Notre Dame, go to Louvre with Avery?, try and convince Avery to go have a glass of wine with me somewhere, go to bed. Then on Sunday: wake up, meet Jeffry at Catacombs and go on tour, go to Champs de Eleyse to watch the end of...TOUR DE FRANCE!!! So excited, even though Lance isn't gonig to win. Since I will be down there I am going to round out my stay with the Arc de Triomphe and I think that covers pretty much everything. Next time I come back here I think I am going to do the non touisty side of Paris, but for now I am content being a camera wielding, gitty American.

Home in less than a week. I love and miss you all and will update about school when I get back to the flat. :)

-Claire

p.s. Look below for a post I just published that I began writing before Paris.

2nd Wind

Hello everybody! I am back from Prague and it was exactly what I needed to really ward off the homesickness that has been plaguing me for a while. Prague is amazing; it is everything that anybody you has ever told you about it. It was nice traveling alone as well simply because moving in large groups can be a little stressful/ dramatic/ inefficient for doing the things that I want to do. And we all know that the world revolves around me :)

Anyways, on a slightly different topic, in efforts to update all you wonderful people on life here across the puddle (and you are going to have to forgive me but I am not going to deal with loading pictures until a later date so for now it is just going to be text...sorry)this has been what has been on the up-and-up.

Fields trips:
-NATO Headquarters: Went to the NATO Headquarters just outside of Brussels and got to be a part of a Terrorist Attack drill that happened to fall on the the day we there and about 10mins into the presentation we were being given. We also got to meet the 3 star Admiral that represents the US at NATO. I could give you his name but I don't have it on me and will look it up later and add it. http://www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/navybio.asp?bioID=276

-European Council: This woman (again I have no names on me and will add them later) was amazing and I want to BE here. She is the representative for President Solano when it comes to Human Rights and is also a former James Madison student. She talked about how EU uses certain avenues in order to improve aspect of human rights on a global scale. I will want her job if I decide to enter a more political sphere.

-European Parliament: Again another great speaker, this time a civil servant who was working on public relations for the EU at the time. Not a high mucky muck but a really great speaker and a wonderful guy. He ended up giving his presentation on general EU stuff and how it functions (WAY too many sub groups to be productive.) But the question and answer secession was interesting and long and in depth and he knew a lot more than he was letting on when he was presenting and I think he was surprised by the knowledge we had through the questions we were asking.

-SHAPE: This was cool because our "guide" was a two star colonel from Poland. Great guy. We also had a panel made of him, a colonel from Ireland and a representative from the US. We got to ask them questions and then answer from their different view points. Best part of this visit was when the Irish colonel and the US colonel almost got into a fist fight when Wes asked them about using private security forces in Iraq. It was hilarious and all of us learned a lot from it. I had the sense to sit across from our Polish colonel during lunch and we got to talking about life and politics and culture. He liked me I think because he said I should come work at SHAPE and that it would be a good place for me and gave me some reading on it. I would say I could use him for a job but he is retiring off to his yaht in Poland in about a month.

-European Commission: Okay this one was boring, no lie. We got a general overview of the Maghreb (Northern African countries) and the EU's relations. He ended up throwing us scripted answers to our slightly more controversial questions and I wasn't so much into it.

Yeah, write more later, be back soon. Love you all!

~Claire

In Short

Okay, so in short I have been sick with a nasty cold for the past two days. That plus countless interviews and meetings with people arranged by the program, a 1500 word essay to write, a weekend trip to plan, and the fact that I have some serious homesickness going on has, and will continue until next week, prevented me from posting. Sorry guys, I just need a break and attempt to figure out how to recharge my batteries when all I am wanting right now is home. Love you all. Hope everything is coming up roses.

~Claire
p.s. maybe this weekend in Prague will do me good.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

Hey guys, so I know I have been horrible in the past week about posting and I can't say that this particular post is going to be any more informative. We leave for The Hague tomorrow and got a small debrief by our professor on the tribunals we will be sitting in on today. I asked for copies and thought I might enlighten you all. It should explain the title of the post (google it and it should come up.)

Vlastimir "Rodja" Djordjevic:
General charges: Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes committed against Kosovo.
Details: Djordjevic's (Dordevic) indictment alleges that he was a member of the Joint Command of Yugoslav and Serbian armed forces that deported some 800,000 Albanians from Kosovo, killed over 700 named Kosovo Albanians, sexually assault countless women, and looted and destroyed civilian property. This includes the massacre of the Berisha family in a coffee shop and the subsequent moving of their, and others bodies into a mass grave.
This will be held in the Special Court for Former Yugoslavia
Google image this guy, he looks like he could be someone's Grandfather.

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo
General Charge: War Crimes
Details: Dyilo is accused of enlisting and forcibly drafting children under the age of 15 into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC.) these children were trained under the harshest of conditions, given uniforms, weapons and ammunition and then sent to the front lines.
This will be held in the International Criminal Court under:
The Situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Fun Fact: Dyilo was the first person to ever be arrested under a warrant issued by The International Criminal Court.

Now you should be able to understand the title of the post. I have been warned that neither of these men will serve all that much time. I am sure I will have a TON to say about that when I get back. After The Hague I will be spending the weekend in Amsterdam. Love you all and see you on the other side.

~Claire

"Be aware of the charm of evil people"
-Jamie Shea

Last Gobble

Pre-post note: So I made it safely to Belgium and am getting settled. This was written in the Istanbul airport. I will post more about Belgium and the like once I get my life together again. Days living out of a suitcase: 39


So I am sitting in the airport waiting for my flight and I figure it might be a good time to reflect on my time here. I love Turkey, in case you haven’t picked up on that in the last month’s worth of posts, and I am truly sad to have to leave. I have learned so much about this country while learning a ton about my own person and the general human condition as well. I have learned that I can rely on myself more than I ever thought. On my own, as a white female that doesn’t speak the language I was able to get to a town an hour and a half away, explore, and come back. I can order food on my own, in Turkish. I can read a map and plan out my day and be on time for things, all acts I never thought were possible in the states. Most importantly I learned how to use a squat toilet; which just goes to show that necessity is, in fact, the mother of invention…or in this case desperation.

I learned that not all people are like big city Americans and that if a crazy looking Turkish dude offers to walk me to the office I needed to go to, to buy my bus ticket, and then translates for me to the guy printing the ticket, that he might NOT be trying to rip me off, con me or rape me. That isn’t always the case but sometimes people are just friendly. I can’t tell you how many times I have been here where people just wanted to help, and show us their country and ask us questions. I feel that in the US we have developed such a sense of paranoia about other people that when we go somewhere else and are offered help that we are already conditioned to be suspicious, questioning and sometimes cruel. I also learned that occasionally these reactions are okay…like when there is a creeper on the subway and he is giving you looks and following you (in which case it is good to have a Turkish dude friend to scare him off.)

I have learned that not every Turk owns a camel and the one that I did see was sitting and getting paid to have tourists sit on him/ her and look silly…I took a picture, but didn’t sit. I have learned that if you stare a vendor directly in the eye, and just take a moment, to stare them down, to let them know that you may be a stupid American who doesn’t speak the language and isn’t used to working for a price of any good, but that damnit, you are not going to pay 45 lyria for that crappy little dagger, that they just might give it to you for 30. I think I am going to try that at Busch’s next time around. I finally understand that food is just food and I am willing to try anything once. Stuff I have eaten in Turkey: fish eyeball, octopus tentacle, yogurt milk drinky thingy, and all sorts of meats and nuts and spices and amazingness. You take the good with the bad, and if the stuff is really weird and freaks you out, you chalk it up to a cultural experience. Its okay, you are going to live.

And I think that would be the last and greatest lesson I have learned here. You can’t be afraid to live. You can’t sit somewhere and do nothing just because it is safe or because it feels better. That scary things can be new and exciting and adventurous, and they are experiences worth having. STOP BEING AFRAID! DON’T JUST SIT THERE, YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!! People are wonderful, culture is beautiful, adventure is exciting and squat toilets may be more sanitary but they will always smell worse. Time to go find myself in Belgium. Love you all.

~Claire