*Note: I'm not currently accepting freelance gigs--building Purpose Portfolio has me pretty much at capacity :) Thanks for your interest, and feel free to drop me a line if I can help find the right designer for your project. `sj
All in Nerdery
Apparently I arrived just in time for what all the students are praying was the worst cold snap of the winter. Just thought I’d let you know I’m not in danger of hypothermia anymore.
Ventured into the Chaco this weekend to a truly unique little town called Filadelfia. It’s one of several German Menonite settlements nestled in the middle of one of the last largely un-tamed wildernesses in the world.
Since I came, there has been what seems to me to be quite a bit of birth and death around here. Of course that’s kinda a given on a farm. Pigs get old and die. Young cows lay down and never get up. And it’s normal to lose some of the babies in any herd or brood. But for some reason it seems to effect me more here.
Right before I left, to spend three months in South America, my friend Seth made a few predictions:
1. You’ll come back speaking fluent Guarani
2. You’ll be super dark
3. You won’t want to eat anything
They said it was winter here. They said it would be cold. I consulted the Almanac and decided that a South American winter would be right up my alley—70 degrees, partly cloudy with the occasional afternoon shower followed by breezy, clear nights. I packed accordingly...
I got glasses last weekend. After weeks of leaning across aisles to whisper to classmates; "can you read that!?" months of feeling like a dolt because I couldn't seem to navigate this new town, and years of going to bed with a splitting headache any time I watched a movie, I finally went in for an eye exam.
At least 70% of the questions posed to my father by a person under the age of 10 will be answered one of three ways; "I love you," "17," or "Go look it up."
"Oh! You've got to read this! It's beautiful! especially if you're in love." I am not in love, but it was beautiful. And I left his office fairly sparkling with creative energy and a renewed zest for life, love and everything in between.
I'd tunneled a good distance through said mountain, up to my elbows in suds, when I suddenly caught my reflection [no joke] in the side of an overturned stock pot and realized I was washing dishes in high heels and pearls.
I inspired a poem! (and a pretty cool one at that!) I think I was a buck-toothed, frizzy-haired, incurably romantic 13-year-old when I put that on the to-do list for my life. I'm still incurably romantic, but this bit of wit from Jed Platt was just pure fun:
