New Tattoo!! and Olivia in Washington! and Bali!

I just got a new tattoo last night, and I wanted to share pictures with you. Check out my new album. It's inspired by traditional filipino designs, and most of it means inner journey, among other things. It took about an hour to finish. Here's
the website of the guy who did the work:
seventhsontattoo.com/Orly/orly_tats.htm#

There are more pics in my pics section. I also just added a pic of my new haircut, although it's longer now.

I also wanted to tell y'all that i will be in Redmond, WA the weekend of July 12 and 13. From July 14 until July 18 I'll be in Bellingham, WA.

On the night of July 18 I'll be going to Bali for two weeks! I'm going as part of an "integrated arts and culture" program through the center for world music.
centerforworldmusic.org/tours/...08.html
It's designed for teachers, and we learn balinese art culture dance theatre with the intention of using the ideas in our lesson plans when we get back. I am SOOOOO excited.

I get back on Saturday August 9, and I'm supposed to go out to the black rock desert the next day. Whoo hoo.

Anyway, if you're in the Pacific Northwest and can spare a trip up to see me, I'd LOOOOVE it.

Snow on the Playa! (Snow at the Ranch Part 2)

As I was laying in bed last night, I continued to reflect on my Work Weekend experience. I didn't mention a couple things before that I
wanted to but forgot. :)

On Saturday, while we were working, there was a huuuge white out. Not just on playa, EVERYWHERE. Even in Gerlach. It was insane! It
looked like fog, but it totally wasn't. It looked like the whole span of playa was on fire. If it's this bad now, I wonder how bad it will be in the summer...

This following is a continuation of my last blog post about cleaning out the office basement: When we were done with the office, fox and i
went to Empire to get some PBR. Driving to Empire and back to the Ranch, even with the large amounts of dirt in the bed of the truck (we
were messing up the suspension!), the wind was whipping us around! It was scary. When we got back to the Ranch, we left the mud in the
truck overnight, in the freezing weather. The next morning, we had to dump the mud and use shovels to chip it apart since it was almost
frozen solid.

We took the dirt in the truck to the perimeter of the ranch. This is where the MOOP from all the previous years' burns were. It was
amazing to see all the stuff still out there! Kinda gross. We dumped the junk out there. I was using a shovel to hit the mud really really
hard. I made a comment about being clumsy, and fox agreed.

So, playfully, I say "Copy That, Clumsy"...and she says "You have been named!" haha.
So I guess my new playa name is: Copy That Clumsy. Or, Clumsy. Or, CTC. :)

After this, we had to go back to the office to clean it up. On the way from the Ranch to the office, fox took us on a secret road. We
used the DPW entrance on the playa and drove really really fast across the playa until we got to town. It was soooo fun! It was hard
following a silver car through thick playa. Haha. Driving really fast on the playa is so awesome, almost as exciting and liberating as
peeing on the playa. :)

Overall, it was an really awesome weekend. The snow on the playa, as brief as it was, about topped it off, too.

Snow at the Ranch!

I just got back from the first DPW Work Weekend of the 2008 season.

I keep telling people I won't be DPW-ing this year because I'm going to Bali, but I have been convinced otherwise. It's one thing for my peers to tell me to do it, but it's another thing when the "supervisors" have a word with me. That's what happened, so, I'm coming back [same deal as last year, work until i have to prep for school]. Not like it took too much to convince me. :)

So, back to the Work Weekend...It was freakin COLD. The temperature dropped to 30 degrees on Saturday night...I was about to freeze in my car, in my 10 degree sleeping bag. I also had to pee so bad in the middle of the night and ended up peeing in a cup left over from when I ate a Subway sandwich. That was more information than you probably wanted, but that's okay.

There was a quaint dusting of snow in the morning but it quickly melted. By the time I left at noon (from the office, the story will come...) it was snowing a little. It snowed while I was driving, too, but not too much. Look at the pictures I posted, there was snow on the mountains around the Ranch. I don't think I got sunburnt as much as I got cold wind burnt. Either way, my face still hurts. Not too much though.

I saw fox, logan, padawan, starchild, insane, zair ian, garth, quinn, D.A., playground, lexi, and a couple other people I've met before. I met a whole mess of new awesome people, and I'm excited to hang out with them more.

For the Work Weekend, I got to work with fox, Perky (first time DPW), Zack (first time DPW), and wheels (first time burner). I volunteered to work at the office, which I thought meant paperwork and easy stuff. Boy, was I wrong.

In the past 60 or more years the office building has been around, the basement has not been cleaned out. There was flooding this year, as in other years, but this time, the pump was not working. They are afraid that the office basement will rot out, so they needed the basement to be completely cleared out. Sound easy? It wasn't.

There were shelves, old stuff dating from the 1940s to today, dirt, wood, metal, and all other random pieces of junk. It took 2 truckloads and a whole huge trailer full of junk to clean it out. Doesn't sound so bad yet, does it? Take into account that the water has been soaking all the junk down there for months, maybe even years. Things started decomposing, and smelling rotten. Mold was growing, and things were really really slimy. I think there was even poopy water down there.

We went shovel full by shovel full, bucket by bucket, up the freakin basement stairs, out the door, into the trucks. It could have taken 2 or 3 days easy, but we got it done right quick. One day. We got treats for doin it, but man, was that a gross job. I wore a respirator down in the basement since I'm allergic to mold, and that was the least of my worries down there. :)

Anyway.
It was a great first Work Weekend for this season!

I can't wait to get back there. Memorial Day weekend, probably.

so this is the new year...

and i don't feel any different.... (ya know that death cab song...)

Well, that's a lie. i feel totally different, and a lot better.

First off, I want to tell you how thankful I am to have so many awesome people in my life. Sometimes I think i don't tell people enough.

Next thing, I want to tell you how awesome two week winter vacations are. teehee.
I absolutely love being a teacher, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it. After the vacation my mental and emotional approach was different. I'm able to deal with more and be more calm about it. I've introduced new concepts regarding how to think about our subject matter, and I actually think the kids are getting it.

I had my first sixth grade girl gossip situation...you know, adolescents with their "my friends say that she said blah blah blah...but i didn't say that about her...i don't know who to believe blah blah blah" stuff. And they wanted me to mediate for them. I asked what happened, and i'm like "that's it?!" ...luckily the school counselor came to help me out, and that helped. At the end of the day, these girls were friends again. silly adolescents. :)

I don't wear glasses anymore (i wear these contacts through the night that reshape the surface of my eye and i take them off during the day and i see 20/20 and just put them back on before i go to sleep...like a retainer for my eye). I'm getting used to not having to look through external lenses to see. and not try to push up my glasses when they're not there.

One reason i did this is because ike I posted earlier, I made the decision and started kickboxing. I started on Wednesday Jan 2 and have been going every other day since then. Well, for the first half week and the whole second week i went MWF...starting my third week (second whole week) I went MWF and Saturday.

It's only been a month, but I feel and can see my body changing. It feels awesome to be doing something physical and exercise-y again. For the past couple years I haven't worked out regularly because my schedule has been so weird. Now that I have a grown up job with a normal (meaning not retail) schedule, being in shape and healthy is more of a priority. I start my SJSU classes this coming tuesday, so we'll see how my body does with kickboxing MWFS and classes Tuesday and Thursday. My classes for my credential are the only things in my schedule that make things difficult, but I have to deal with those for a whole other school year. I'm used to it by now.

So, why start exercising when I'm pretty busy? I'm happier doing it. I don't deal with stress well if I'm not doing something physical and/or exercising. Let me tell ya, kickboxing is a great stress relief...and...I'm getting in shape. One of these days, I want to try to really fight in the ring, but not for another 6 months to a year. I'm still trying to get used to getting hit. i'm not so good with defense yet, in all my other martial arts training i never got hit at...i only did the hitting. but it's only been a month, right.

I'm not expecting any miracles with my training, but I'll work as hard as my body allows. my legs have gotten more definition back, my arms too. when i flex my arm i can see my deltoid and the outline of my triceps...but i still have that arm fat (you know, wings...lol), which i'll have for a while. I've made friends with a few really good people to train with, to get trained by, and to watch...so being at the gym I'm at puts me in great company. i train at american kickboxing academy in san jose, a gym that has bred more than its fair share of UFC fighters.

I just met a burner who is a professional fighter (they are few and far between, let me tell ya)...she actually left a note on my car after seeing my DPW stickers and other burning man paraphernalia. i called her and found out who she was...she's pretty hard core, a little bit frightening how tough she is. i hope she doesn't kick my ass. haha. she's cool though, and we're gonna do burner activities as much as possible.

I rarely get back to san francisco anymore, and for those of you up there, i do apologize. I want to see you all, please believe me. Being a first year teacher (and going to school to learn how to do it at the same time) is definitely one of the hardest things i've ever done in my life. It's all worth it.
I was up during new year's...but with a couple of my best mates.

I hope to make it up to san francisco for a few parties soon.

Now, I must put a quick and not very smooth end to this post and say good bye!

LOVE

kickboxing and jiu jitsu, anyone?

I've made the decision.

After Christmas, I'm going to start training in kickboxing and jiu jitsu. I think it's time. I want to get my ass kicked and get my body in shape. I want the stress relief.

I am 95% sure I won't ever compete (let's face it, I don't really like to get hit...but then again...I never really have gotten hit before...hmmm....all the other martial arts I've done were no contact...hmm...)...but I wouldn't mind being a sparring partner or something.

At least I'll get all my aggression out at the gym instead of at my 6th graders. :)

I wanna start training here: akakickbox.com/index.htm

Who wants to come?

finally an update! (kinda)

I just chaperoned a middle school dance...and i actually danced! it was passable.

i'm loving teaching, i'm startin to lay down the law more.
middle school is definitely where i want to be for now. being a teacher is definitely what i'm supposed to do.

some of my students are trying to add me as a friend on myspace, that's why i had to make my profile private.

okay, so it's not much of an update, but that's all i'm writing anyway. for now.

:)

please let me know if you want to hang out

burning man. gosh

so...i did the DPW thing for a week then started teaching 6th grade. which is going AWESOME by the way. and then...

I just got back from the playa. I went to burning man just for the weekend. i'm pretty incoherent.

funny story, though.

i got there friday night around 11. My gate/greeter experience went smoothly, thanks to the DPW decals on my doors. i went to the heebeegeebee healers space to find my burning man family, and it went a lot smoother than i had thought it would.

i waited for everyone else to come home, and asleep we went.

the next day was the DPW parade. I didn't think i was going to go anywhere but stay at HBGB, but off i went with cricket. i saw all my buddies, and party armada came and fed and massaged and watered us with various libations. it was good to see everyone, i missed them all.

i had a bit too much to drink, and we were out in the sun all day...the parade went a long time, and after a while people just started getting all drunk and "affectionate" with each other.

when we got back to the depot, i was looking for my friends to tell them i was going home (meaning back to the HBGBs)...but...i accidentally wandered into the meeting for working the perimeter of the man burn to make sure the hippies didn't try to run through too soon and get toasted.

i was in the right place at the right time, b/c it was an amazing experience. although i was confused as to everything i had to do, i had front row seats to the fire dancers and fire performers and fire spinners. i was supposed to be working, like keeping perimeter, but it was so hard to do my job when every single fire performer was freakin hot as hell.

anyway, i did the DPW parade and man burn perimeter by happenstance. not bad, if i shall say so myself. and today my buddy cricket and i left...before that i had a thai massage and a really awesome chiropractic session.

it took 2 and a half hours to get out of Black Rock City, i shit you not. it was LAME! but oh well. they do the best they can.

it's a bummer that i'll only be able to come back for the weekend of the burn for a while with the teaching thing goin on. i'll stick to my 2 work weekends, DPW, burning man tourist weekend instead. that was my 4th time to the playa this year. that's insane.

anyway, i'm freakin tired and i'm going to bed.

back from the playa!

i just got back (early of course) from doing DPW.
I posted some pictures already, but here are the rest:

picasaweb.google.com/o.g.sawi/DPW2007

i came back early b/c of that job thing. you know, responsibilities. haha.

It's going to be REALLY dusty this year.
the playa didn't freeze over like it's supposed to, so there's a LOT of loose piles of playa EVERYWHERE. from 10:00 to 6:00 it's pretty hard...however on the 2:00 side, it's pretty soft. And...the streets go up to L this year. HUGE!
It's dusty enough with just DPW out there. I can't even imagine how it's gonna be with 50,000 plus people.

to the playa! DPW away!

At 6:30a wednesday i leave for the playa. i go pick up cricket in san fran then serra in grass valley.

i put my roof rack on, packed up my car, and everything.

i'm so stoked.
this will be the last vacation i will have for a LOOOOONG time.

When i get back, it's work work work!
gotta get ready for the new school year.

i got a teaching gig!!

As of August of 27, I will be a 6th grade core teacher.
That means, i teach english/language arts and social studies.

www.berryessa.k12.ca.us/school...dex.htm

yay me!

:)