Sharing is Caring

What is this, you ask? Photos and it's not even Wednesday yet?  AMAZING, right?!  This stuff was just so funny I had to share it with someone.  I just finished teaching a 2 week class for several 4th grade classes in Palo Alto, and as a thank you, they made me cards.  And let me just say, they were HILARIOUS.  Here are 2 of my favorites, they aren't the most high quality photographs, but you get the picture.  Apparently, in the mind of a 4th grader, I am not only a mermaid (yeah, I know, excellent), I am always saying tongue twisters (like "irish wristwatch."  Try saying that 5 times fast right now, odds are you can't do it), AND I am a princess.  Yes, that's right.  A tongue-twister saying, MERMAID PRINCESS.  Check it out.

Plus, according to 4th graders, I am awesome, anawesome even (and I don't even know what that means). And I'm number 1.  See?

Thanks, 4th grade.  You are endlessly amusing.  

Random Photo Wednesday, installment 2 arrives tomorrow.  You'll want to put on a new pair of pants for this one.  Get Ready.

Random Photo Wednesday

I've noticed out there in the blogosphere that people are doing lots of weekly series--Treasure Find Tuesdays, something my dear friend Rachel does, for example, or the Music Monday posting here--and I got to thinking, "Why don't I do a series?"  After wracking my brains to think of something, I realized that I have 9,070 pictures in iPhoto, and yet some of them have never seen (and perhaps never will see) the light of day, or, the light of the...internet...  Anyway, I thought I'd share them here.  Most of these are going to be from a while ago, but they still make me feel like I'm contributing to the world (and blogland) artistically.  


Today's come from a trip I took at the beginning of my last year of college with my beautiful friend Marissa to her family's home on Cape Cod.  Enjoy!

Cape Cod, MA

Cape Cod, MA

Cape Cod, MA

You Are What You Eat

picture by Jennifer Tang (I love these!)

(obviously the picture is unrelated)


I'm what one might call a "complicated" eater.  I'm not picky--I love everything (except cilantro and scallops, generally)--and if I don't already love it I'm usually pretty game to try it.  However, not all food loves me.  Food and I have a what one might classify as "complicated" relationship.  


It wasn't always this way.  As a youngster, I was that weird child who ate green things willingly and loved fish and never said no to anything (except for a glass of milk, which, even now, thinking about makes me a little queasy). Fast forward a decade or so and I'm off to college with new found food allergies.  It began as a simple fruit allergy.  Tropical Fruits + Ashleigh = hive-y discomfort and general sadness.   Fine, I could handle that.  Tropical fruit isn't in everything so it was easy enough to cut out.  Stopped eating Tropical Fruit, stopped feeling like my skin was trying to crawl off my legs, problem solved.  


But wait, wait, not so fast....


...more recently, I have discovered an intolerance to foods of the nightshade family.  Now, you are probably thinking one of two things: either "Nightshade?  That's a food family group?" or "Isn't that a poisonous plant?"  Why, YES, dear reader.  Nightshade, or as it is more commonly known, deadly nightshade IS poisonous.  In fact, according to Wikipedia, it is one of the most toxic plants in the Western hemisphere.  Excellent.  Anyway, other than nightshades generally not being great for you (due to the whole they-have-small-amounts-of-toxic-stuff-in-them thing), the family of foods includes TOMATOES, POTATOES, EGGPLANTS, and BELL PEPPERS (especially the green ones).  Yes, all the delicious things.  All the things that are in everything.  Now, I discovered that my biggest problem is with the -atos, that being tomatoes and potatoes.  It is a very long, convoluted story of how I figured this out, but let's me just say that I have chronic leg pain, which virtually vanished when I cut specific things out of my diet, and acne, which stopped being horrifying 100% of the time when I stopped eating nightshades.  It was hard to do, especially in the beginning, and can make ordering at a restaurant seem a little daunting (especially an Italian restaurant....waah waah) even now, a full year later, but it remains one of the best things I've ever done for myself.


Now, the point of this whole post was to explain how I am slowly (very slowly) becoming a vegetarian.  It has a lot to do with my brother suddenly becoming Joe Shoots-Animals-and-Such, and then watching him attempt to dry a rabbit he shot a few weeks ago in our garage so he can make a hat (even as I type it, it sort of makes me queasy...ICK).  For some reason I didn't connect the meat products I was eating with the animal that it came from (ok, I did, but not really, in a way that would matter) and ESPECIALLY the fact that someone has to kill them for me to eat them.  Someone has to take another life--for those of you who argue that animals have no souls and therefore it should be just fine to chew on their delicious flesh, I recommend that you go to www.wnyc.org/radiolab and listen to their "Animal Minds" show, because I have a feeling it will change your mind, at least in part.  So this being said (and a lot of things being overgeneralized and embellished) I have decided to attempt to cut meat out of my diet.  This has, so far on day 2.5, has been easier than I thought it would, because now every place has vegetarian options.  It has also added a bit of stress to the allergies conversation when in a restaurant, because it cuts back what I can actually consume by a lot, but I believe in it.  Seriously, for the first time in my life I actually feel better when I know that I'm eating cruelty free (and by cruelty free, I mean free of killing animals.  I love cheese and cream in my coffee and can't give them up yet).  It, for some reason, gives me this power (which could just be mostly internal) when I make the choice to not eat meat.


Now, I'm not saying "How DARE YOU eat meat, you cruel, cruel bastards."  I say, do what makes you happy, what fulfills you, and do it at every level.  And having attempted to GoVeg(.com), does this for me.  Rock.

Magical

One of the coolest things I've ever encountered on the internet:

http://wwww.inbflat.net/

New, from San Francisco

Many friends have been visiting lately which means there have been lots of touristy adventures to be had.  When people visit I end up doing all of those things I never do at home because, well, I live here and any other time they seem lame and almost pathetic.  Actually, it's really great because it means that I get to do all the things in Northern California that I've never done before (Pier 39 (which, admittedly, I have been to before)!  Cable car rides!  Oh the fun!).  Here are some pictures of recent adventures in the city with some people dear to me:

I am loving the black and white photography lately.  It is a photographic area where I am trying to improve through experimentation.

A Picture is Worth...

One of my best friends is moving to Nicaragua, like, TOMORROW to start her world saving work in the Peace Corps and, while the adult in my is so unbelievably proud and excited for her I can hardly stand it, the tiny baby person in my is basically crying every second.  To placate the tiny-Ashleigh, I have been day dreaming about photojournalism.  Yes, that's right.  PHOTOJOURNALISM.  Photojournalism, travel photography, is the career I imagine having (even though I still dream of directing and working in film and theatre and know that is absolutely what I love doing).  It is the career I would have if I, you know, changed my personality completely.  I love love love National Geographic.  I love the articles, I love the photos, I love the smell (seriously, the smell of that magazine is magical).  The photos make me feel better, they make me see the world as beautiful again, especially in this time of confusion.  


Here are some of my new favorites:

Naming Rivers

The Dodos - Acorn Factory (live) from KEXP RADIO on Vimeo.

(Remember how I pledged to "direct" these blog posts more?  No? Yeah, I forgot too.  Here is a little something from a band I just discovered.  Hopefully it rounds out your reading experience.  Enjoy!)

I've been in a weird head space for these past several weeks.  Basically, I think I can chalk it up to one thing: DENIAL.  Yes, not only is it a river in Egypt, it is also the way I have decided it will be best to function.  This, of course, is a terrible, terrible idea, one that only leads to frustration and sadness, but none the less, it is how I have been living.


Generally, holidays aren't my favorite time.  Certainly this seems irrational, but if you had the extended family that I have, you would understand that because the holidays mean lots of family time, they are not as awesome as one would hope.  It is really difficult for me to write about for many reason, the major of which has something to do with dirty laundry in the public arena, but let me just say that my grandparents aren't what you would call "nice" people, which, you guessed it, makes the holidays freaking awkward.  Luckily, I have been blessed with a superb set of supplemental grandparents who were two of the best people I have ever had the opportunity to know.  Grandma passed away almost 10 years ago and sadly, just two days before Christmas, Grandpa Irv (excellent phrases from Grandpa Irv here) passed away.  It was expected but certainly still unbelievably sad, and I think since then I've been in denial of my grief, which, on a scale of unhealthy to unbelievably good for you is definitely super unhealthy.  I've never had a family member die before (my biological grandparents are quite young, as are my parents) and so I don't think I exactly know how to process someone passing.  I'm learning, slowly, but it is a process.


Despite this, the holidays were magical because all of my friends were home and I got to spend time with a large number of them.  However, this was short lived as people have school and work and lives to get back to.  Plus, there are several of my friends leaving for other countries for their Peace Corps positions and, while I am unbelievably excited for them, at the same time, it puts in pretty harsh perspective what the next few months are going to look like here at home. These friends, especially the Peace Corps ones, have been my rocks while living at home for the past 8 months.  Without them (and many others who aren't moving away, thank god), I would have been going CRAZY by now.  And now, with one of my dearest friends, Jenny, leaving for her adventure on Monday, I'm feeling smaller and smaller and more alone.  Part of the problem I think is that while I can't wait to get back to New York City in a few months, I have just secured this really awesome job which I am really enjoying and is tempting enough to make me want to stay in the Bay Area longer.  I know in my heart that this isn't the right decision, since every time I hear about any fun thing happening in New York City with my college friends, I feel like part of my heart is missing, but it doesn't keep me from imagining what it might be like to move home for real, and bring my whole heart to reside here.  It's a really tough decision that I've been denying answering for months now, but now that people are starting to move forward with their own lives, I know that I need to move forward with mine and make a decision.  Be a grown up.  Grow a pair.


The next few months are going to be interesting and defining and hopefully challenging, and I can't wait to figure out what it is what I truly want at this moment, I'm not 100% sure yet.  Check back here for more updates, I am going to try to be a better blogger and hopefully break that 100 post mark and maybe even find a few more blog friends and followers.  I can use all the help I can get as I attempt to figure stuff out (If there was a river called Choices I would absolutely be eternally bathing at its shores).


My best to the blogosphere this MLK Jr. Weekend.  And prayers for Haiti.