It's Finals Season

Goodness I really wanted to be able to post everyday but I had my first final today and thankfully have all my finals and classes will be done by Tuesday.

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author: Shauna Reid)

The social gathering that WILL rock my socks will be my 21st birthday. In exactly 9 days I will be 21 and you better be sure that I am going big. My birthday is one week before Christmas and it has always sucked so the past 6 years I didn't have a party or do anything really special because I knew it was really just an imposition on people's busy holiday calendars and forgetful. I was sort of saving all those missed birthdays so I could have one night that is really mine. One night where I counted on peopel to coem and celebrate my birthday with me. A 21st birthday, to me, is the last real community wide rite of passage you go through other than marriage or buying a house but this one is the most participative. I can't marry everyone on my wedding day but I can get fabulously dressed up and get pissed drunk with everyone on my 21st birthday. I plan to serve chips and dip, finger foods, cupcakes, cake, and hot chocolate before we go out to the bars. I plan to really look and listen for an amazing soundtrack for the night and I am using some Lady Gaga and Katy Perry (Firework would be perfect). I am trying to have a Hello Kitty theme too complete with hats and cake =) If you have any vegetarian appetizers and fantastic party songs send them my way!

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

I had a real hard time growing up and thinking I was beautiful. Everyone I saw around me that were "beautiful" looked nothing like me and so I just never could describe myself as beautiful and instead I started to think of myself as smart and funny and creative and my identity was formed around that. I think what makes me beautiful is that I don't ever fell is (if that's not backwards thinking I don't know what is but it's true). I developed other aspects of myself other than pretty hair and a beautiful body because I never though I had those things. Now I know that I am beautiful but it's my intelligence and whit and whimsy and creative side that the most personal aspects to me and are my most treasured and beautiful parts of me.

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)

My first sense of Community in 2010 was definitely found in collegetown. Those folks I met there gave me so much that I could ever ask for and once again it was a life changing experience. You can read about it here, here, here, here, here, here and I really do miss everyone. Anotehr place I got a sense of community would be from the girls I work with at The Shoe Mill. They told me when I got hired that their coworkers are more like a family and everyday has just shown me that more and more. I feel blessed that I get to know everyone and have been given the opportunity to work there.

Lassst Nighhhtt..

"Last night, she said:

"Oh, baby, I feel so down.

Oh it turns me off,

When I feel left out"

So I walked out:

"Oh, baby, don't care no more

I know this for sure,

I'm walkin' out that door"

I love that song from the strokes and while this party wasn't technically last night it was a thursday night that all this shizz went down. It was a birthday party for a new collegetown buddy and informal mini-reunion for everyone..

There were tons of people that made it our from camp...

so there was ALOT of this...

which makes the night feel oh so good...

do see how sweaty we all are? yeah well it's January in Arizona and while it may not snow here it still gets pretty chilly from time to time, and that night was a cold one. Why are we all sweaty you may ask?? It was from the bitch'n rave going on in the basement. In-house DJ, strobe lights, and fully stocked bar made this like a mini dance club- it was pretty awesome which had me leaving telling myself "I need to make it out to these college parties more often"

We were dancing like crazy and drinking like fish. Thank God this wasn't a repeat of New Years but boy did I have fun.

you can pretty much see how much fun I was having here.

Happy Friday everyone! Hopefully I will be back Monday with the long awaited pictures from my Tattoo Photo shoot from November.

What is everyone doing tonight and this weekend??

I'm making it out to Downtown Phoenix for First Friday!! My first time =)

The Last Day

Like how I'm such a good blogger?? yeah like two weeks later and I now just posting the ending to my week up north...

The last day we're pretty much all in love with each other (honestly it's like getting 20 hugs per hour everyone loves everyone else so much!) and we have a variety show during lunch and one final big activity left.

The variety show was amazing, I didn't know everyone had that much talent! Here is Joshua with Jon (not pictured) and he solved a rubix cube while Jon read Lady Gaga lyrics a la Christopher Walken style (only much, much funnier!! they were hilarious)

They're was a jam session thing too that was just amazing...

and during the week and the day before the last day I learned how to do The Jerk!!! It took me forever to do, I also fell down twice trying to get the skip-hop-backwards thing right but that's actually pretty good for me =) They did a full jerk dance lesson and we all got up and did the jerk...one of my shinning moments!

There were tons more amazing/hilarious/crazy good acts during the skit but I couldn't find photos I really liked for 'em.

Before the variety show we had our last discussion groups and it's pretty usual that everyone is camera happy that last day of camp -so my delegates had a mini photoshoot...

and I love my delegates so they pretty much only had to me ask me once for them to get me to do this pose....

I must have been nuts...

Our final activity was a camp wide empowerment builder where we symbolically smashed our monsters or demons by smashing wooden boards!

Here I am holding Cera's board while she prepares to bust through it...

Like the safety goggles?

And here I am getting ready to plow through mine.

There are photos around of me actually breaking my board but I still haven't found them on facebook so when they surface I'll post them. I have done this activity before when I was about 15 and the first time I did it I broke the board with 1 try but this time it took me 3 tries to brake it and I think it has to do with all the struggles I've had to overcome this past year and how I really can't give up when shit gets hard. It was sort of embarrassing that it took me so long to brake through it but I know it meant more to me in the end, when I finally broke through it, because I had to struggle.

Here is all of us in the best group picture we could get...

That was one of the best week's I've ever had =) There was a birthday party/ mini reunion that happened last thursday night and If I can stay on my blogging roll I'll post about that soon.

In other news,

school is in full swing and I am doing really good with keeping up with reading for classes so far and even getting some of my personal reading in there too!!! Somehow I've been able to fit in work and some awesome social time too but how to fit a regular blogging schedule into that mix too, is still an anomaly for me...

I started the Jillian's 30 day shred and love it but I kinda, sorta want to die right now it hurts to move so bad. I was surprised at how good I was at doing the workout though and even got my butt out of bed this morning at 5am to fit in a session before school today. The only problem with doing that was that by the time I got to school my calves hurt so bad I was clenching my teeth with every step. Did I mention I park about 15 min walking from campus, and that my campus is a square mile with classes spread out all over the place??? yeah sucked! I do feel good though and have more energy and I'm feeling happy but just stuff hurts...

I have some interesting guy questions/situations and funny stories but I'm not sure if I can post on here. I don't know if the reach is wide enough that if I post something here the person/people I'm writing about might read it (obviously planning to use fake names but I'm positive even with that they could end up recognizing themselves) but I also think it would be just downright fun to read about how much of a spazz I am in the dating scene. It could be titled "The Dating Diary of a Love-Dumb Girl" or "Why do I Suck at Life?: The dating chronicles of a girl who will no matter what manage to f-up a good time" but I'm just wondering if people would find that interesting or if anyone has posted on that topic before in the present tense (like when you're actually out there dating and not in the past tense) Plus I could probably use ya'll advice...

I'm hoping everyone has a happy hump day! I'm spending mine making this and hopefully out there reading and commenting =)

Days 2-4

Our delegates came and we organized ourselves into our cabins

Jordan, Me, Tony, Ana, Tennille, Stephanie, Anna

and we were then later placed into our discussion groups

from top Cera, Me, Jon, Tennille, Steve, Eli, Amanda

Im trying to grab little tidbits here and there from the week because there is just no way to retell everything that went on and get the message and emotion behind to everyone reading so one of my favorite parts of camp (probably most of you too) is just the fun and games everyone plays and has in the camp atmosphere...

This spontaneous round of the Macerena came from a whole cabin being late the first day after taking their luggage to their cabin. It was Max's cabin who was then infamous for the rest of the week for being late to everything. The best part of it is that everyone knew all the moves and danced it like they practiced it all day long...

After shaming the tardy delegates we played tons of fun group games to get the energy up and going. This one was called lifeboat where they called out a number and you have to find that many people and get into a group to stay in the game. Being college students and having and obvious lack of fun this game became competitive/violent very quickly and I opted out about after 4 rounds for fear of being torn apart..

see the looks on those faces? fun or fear???

This game is called bear, man, woman and is a fun full body variation of rock, paper, scissors

We kept going until it came down to two..

Juliet and Suniko

Fun camp games are pretty much how we got the day rolling everyday but after that the counselors would do a skit (that we usually got like 5 mins to prepare!!) on what the topic of the day was. This one was the 4th day where our topic was "know your family/community".

During the evening programs we sometimes did another skit or intro to that activity. The last night we were there was easily the most emotionally charged one with looking at the 6 different levels of prejudice. We did six skits for each level and ended with a skit on genocide. Me, Suniko, and Max (all hispanics) huddled in the middle of the dark room depicting a family of undocumented citizens hiding out. The rest of the counselors stood outside banging on windows and walls until the lights went completely out and they came to kill us under flashlight and with pieces of wood for sound-effects of gunshots. It was easily the most raw, emotionally charged and tragic thing I have ever acted in but when I hit the floor upon my acted murder I could hear almost everyone in the first couple rows crying and I was instantly filled with hope for the future.

In Collegetown we do insanely emotional activities combined with an action group workshop that changes how you see and feel about the world and as well as give you the tools to go out back into your community and make a difference...

I had hope that through the delegate's tears, there would that seed of change planted and when we came back they would see the injustices happening in our society and be able to do something about it...

I just though of my mom that night, and how her and my father came over illegally and how they could have easily been put into the situation I was acting out that night...I was thinking that and about how I was going to come back and work to make a change.

all photos taken from the collegetown facebook page

Day 1-2

We had a Tuesday morning meeting up at ASU to get aquatinted with everyone and eat yummy free food. That night we drove up to Prescott and got totally lost in the freezing cold dark- it was great fun. They then put us to work making name tags, hug necklaces, delegate folders and this lovely bed sheet welcome flag...

I was very quickly told to get my creative ass over to the bed sheet and paint up some glorious message of welcoming but seeing as I was already tired from the drive up and that it was about 10:30 at night and that I was full of the free food I'd been gorging myself on I quickly said I was having a creative block and released from duty.

Which is when I went over to load up on hot chocolate and pizza- hey did I mention they were feeding us for free yet???

At some point during my pizza comma someone lathered purple paint that made me smell like formaldehyde and guided me to my alloted space on the bed sheet...

Totally felt like I was in third grade again making those hand imprint Christmas gifts for my parents...made them that year and then never saw them again..

Here are some photos for posterity's sake

The Dining Hall

There was a smaller sign on the side of the building announcing it as "The Dinning Hall"

oh how I love spelling and grammatical errors =)

Photo of the patio and our homemade welcome sign

Tuesday night we all slept in one cabin together. Never had I done co-ed cabin's before and boywas that funny

"if they're like 20 and haven't seen a girl's bra by now than that is so not my problem"

see how sensitive I am to everyone's needs and wishes??

Wednesday morning we got up early to finish up everything before the delegates arrived.

handout shirts, finish folders, move into our own cabins, figure out sleeping arrangements, assign discussion groups,freak out about never being a counselor before, hyperventilate into a bag, eat more free food, organize our welcome skit...

The delegates arrived at around 12 and camp Collegetown ASU officially began...

Back Home Once Again

I arrived to my awaiting bed at around 1 AM this morning from what could be seen as the five most amazing days of my college career. My week consisted of waking up at 7, breakfast, morning meeting, group skit, discussion groups, lunch, afternoon meeting, afternoon activity, action groups, cabin time, dinner, sometimes an evening meeting, night activity, closing activity and getting to bed anytime from 12:30 to 1 am... and then waking up at 7 and repeating all that for five days straight.

I knew being a collegetown counselor would be a difficult job and would require me to be on my game 24/7 but I never knew it would change me as much as it did.

doing intense skits on gender, different families, oppression, prejudice and genocide was at times incredibly difficult and emotionally draining but seeing all the ASU students (delegates) crying and in pain and doing difficult emotional work was worth it because through that we inspire change and hand them the tools to go out into the world and initiate change.

It felt right coming home on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and remembering an incredible figure in our history that dedicated his life to changing the world. The quote on the back of our collegetown shirts really sums up what we were trying to achieve up in Prescott this week

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that has."

Today think about how far we have come and how we have still to go and go out into your community and out into your college campuses make a difference.

This week I will be blogging about last week and how really life changing it was to be with those 100 people freezing in Prescott...

but today It's just a simple message that I'm back home, in love with the idea of living in a better world, and dreading unpacking, doing laundry, and starting my spring semester of classes tomorrow.

If you want to learn more about the anytown program you can email me at

comeflywithme (dot) mari (at) gmail.com

or visit this website

ps- I totally learned how to do "The Jerk" up there so be prepared for some awe inspiring moves =)

I'm gonna FREEZE!

It is Monday night and I am writing this in preparation for Tuesday morning so I can have time to pack and get last minute things together for my Tuesday afternoon departure to Prescott where I will be freezing in the 25-50 degree weather until Sunday.

I will be a camp counselor for College-Anytown!

I dream of one day moving to another place that has seasons (not just hot and not hot like AZ) and telling Arizona to leave me alone- that I've moved on...

I say this now in my 70 degree house and I bet you money- lots of it that I will almost die from the cold that is 25 degrees up in Prescott this week!

Bad cell phone reception, no macbook, a walk in the wilderness to a bathroom and shower, and to top it off I will most likely lose a limb to frostbite...

I'm excited- you can tell right??

Have an amazing week lovies and I'm sorry but no blogging or comments from me until I get back with tons, tons of pictures and stories to share!

Pray I come back with all 20 fingers and toes?? okay- thanks!