Spring Break Adventures: South by Southwest

Last week was my glorious, wonderful, incredibly relaxing spring break. I spent it in Houston surrounded by family and friends hanging out and enjoying their company. On Thursday Kimmy, the BF and I decided to take a spring break road trip to South by Southwest a weeklong music, film, and awesomeness festival in Austin, Texas.

It was my first trip to Austin. I lived my whole life in Texas two and a half hours away from the capitol and I’ve never even seen it. That’s one for the bucket list.

Proof I was there.

There was a band on every corner. The boyfriend took this. Being extremely tall comes in handy especially when your girlfriend can’t see over the crowd to take a picture.

Posters promoting shows were everywhere.

The film festival in full swing.

After wandering up and down Congress for a bit looking for the hotel Kimmy’s friend David Ramirez was supposed to play at (yes, that David Ramirez) we were in need of a snack. Thankfully Austin has tons of food trucks. We stopped at Chi’lantro a Korean-Mexican fusion truck only to discover that they had just run out of meat and needed to shut down temporarily.

Thankfully the guy behind the counter was feeling generous and gave us free Kimchi fries that he had just made. So so delicious. Korean BBQ pork over crispy french fries covered in melted cheese, cabbage and yummy sauce. Writing about them is making me hungry all over again.

Later, after the show, we stopped by the capitol building to take some pictures. The light from the setting sun made the pink granite glow.

Austin is a great city to visit. There’s a lot more to it that I haven’t seen yet but given how much fun I had this time around I know I’ll be back.

~Have Coffee, Will Travel

I’ve been tagged and apparently I live under a rock

The bad news: I’ve been living underneath the rock known as midterms lately. Late nights, loads of homework and sleep deprivation have abounded. The good news: After a lovely and restful spring break here I am bright eyed and bushy tailed returning to the land of the blogging.

In the meantime I’ve been tagged (thank you Wanderlust!) so here goes it.

The Rules:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged.
3. Tag eleven people and link to them on your post. (I tweaked this one. What can I say I’m a rebel. I only tagged 6 people)
4. Let them know you’ve tagged them!

Questions from Wanderlust:

1. Do you have a hidden talent and what is it?

I am exceptionally good at flaring my nostrils.

2. To be or not to be, yes that is my question.

To be. To quote the Avett Brothers, decide what to be and go be it.

3. Any regrets?

Not doing enough shopping on spring break.

4. Favourite travel destination?

Somewhere new and exciting. The next adventure is always the best. In all reality though probably London.

5. What is your favourite book?

I’m currently reading the Hunger Games so I guess that qualifies.

6. Where is the most recent stamp in your passport from?

Wherever they stamp your passport from when you go on a Caribbean cruise, Jamaica maybe?

7. New Kids on the Block or Back Street Boys?

Neither, I was an NSYNC girl

8. Cats or dogs?

Sadly dogs. I’m allergic to cats even though I love them more.

9. If you could would you go to the moon?

Absolutely. I’d join Star Fleet if I could. Or be a Jedi. Or both.

10. Favourite movie?

Anything with the Muppets in it.

11. Savoury or Sweet?

Savoury. Salty is always better than sweet.

oneyoungadventurer

Kimmy Gaskins Music

Girl, Independent

becominganomad

whiteelephantstyle

khollin

Questions:

1.Spring, Summer, Winter or Fall

2. Favorite roadtrip

3. Favorite roadtrip snack

4. The last five songs on you listened to, iPod or radio

5. Do you have any tattoos, if so where

6. Star Fleet or Jedi

7. Five words to describe yourself

8. Where did you go on your first vacation

9. If you could move anywhere in the world where would you go and why?

10. Favorite meal you can cook

For those of you I tagged you’re under no obligation to respond. I just enjoy reading your blogs and I thought you might like to join in the fun.

~Have Coffee Will Travel

I’m scared

Its summer internship season, or about to be. So many of us are scouring the Internet looking for the “perfect” internship at the “perfect” company, or heck just something to do this summer in general. Some way of setting ourselves apart, standing out from the pack and getting that golden opportunity squarely on our resumes.

Confession: I’m scared.

I’m scared I won’t end up in the right place at the right time, that I won’t find anything to do this summer, or that what I will find won’t be what I want or where I want to go. What I want is my dream internship in yet another city far away from here. The problem with this internship is that it’s so amazing, so what I want to do, and who I’ve wanted to work with for years, that I’m afraid I’ll fail. My fear of failure is so strong I’ve barely started the application. If I don’t start then I can’t fail. That’s a fool-proof system, right?

An inspiring blog post would probably post something right here about how I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me or how I just need to grab the bull by the horns and make things happen, but my post, my less-than-perfect-post, is me just saying, I’m scared. I think I’m maybe a little afraid of what would happen if I did get this opportunity. If I did have to relocate yet again to somewhere I’ve never been before, leave my friends and family again, find housing, hope my money holds out for the summer and hope against hope that I can actually do the job they want me to do.

Typing this all out make my fears seem so much more trivial. Look, this application is due by midnight tomorrow night. I am going to turn it in. It may be a crappy thrown together application or it may be better than I think it is. I have a way of pulling things together at the last-minute. Either way I’m doing it. I’m turning it in. We’ll see what happens from there.

Have you ever put off doing something because you were afraid?

~Have Coffee, Will Travel

David Ramirez: American Soil

I’ve had the privilege to see David perform live three times, once at a house show, twice in concert. He’s an incredible live performer. He draws you in with dark, earthy tones and plaintive wails that resonate through smokey bars and concert halls.  There’s raw openness about his music and his voice that can best be captured standing in the same room as him. His lyrics and performance embody his songs. Listen to the anger in his voice in “Good to Be Bad” or his mournful calls in “You Only Kiss Me When You’re Drunk” and you’ll hear what I mean.

David is a singer/songwriter that I was originally introduced to by a good friend of mine Kimmy Gaskins (http://kimmygaskinsmusic.blogspot.com/), later I found out one of my cousins is a big fan of his too. His website describes himself as folk brewed pop. I can see that. A little heavier on the folk than the pop though in my mind. He has a nice Americana flavor, you know you’re listening to an all-American boy, an idea further cemented by one of my favorite songs of his “Carry Me Like the Wind.”

American Soil is his second full length album and well worth your time. “Fires” was recently featured on an episode of Private Practice. Listen to the distinctive instrumental hook at the beginning and you’ll see why they chose this song. It draws you into the story David is about to set up for you. I think that’s one of the things I really like about his music, his songs tell stories with real emotions and real people. Again guys, I’m not a musician, I just know what kind of music I like. I think you might like this too.

Here’s a great example of him performing live. This is one of the songs that he sang for Serial Box Presents. “Shoeboxes” is on his Strangetown EP but its such a great example of his live performances that I wanted to share it. Enjoy.

Check out American Soil by David Ramirez

http://www.davidramirezmusic.com/

~Have Coffee Will Travel

I meant to be a good girlfriend. Really, I did.

I meant to be a good girlfriend. Really, I did.

After my rather long, rather glorious, rather unblogged about Christmas break, I finally made my way back to Cleveland the day before spring classes began. Having already arrived a few days prior was my good friend Tahera with a present for me from her magical homeland of Chicago.

I meant to be a good girlfriend. Really, I did. Last semester The Boyfriend requested that if Tahera had the opportunity and the inclination he would really appreciate some Garrett’s popcorn.

I think you can see where this is headed.

I think we can all see where this is headed.

Yum. :)

~Have Coffee Will Travel

Baby its cold outside

Yes people, it is snowing. Real, legit, actual frozen precipitation that is *gasp* actually accumulating on sidewalks, roads, trees, me, anything that happens to be outside for longer than half a second. And it keeps coming. This morning when I woke up I saw the snow report on my phone, a few flurries had already started outside and I assumed that this snow would dissipate like the past few little flurries that we’ve had. Not so ma’am, not so. This one is here to stay and sticking.

Anyways, its beautiful and I’m going to enjoy my first proper Cleveland snow in the library working on a take home final and waiting to bug my statistics teaching assistant about my project.

Also, note to self, Cleveland is not so great with the cleaning of streets and sidewalks. I’m going to avoid driving if I can.

~Have Coffee Will Travel

One of Those Days

Its one of those days again when the rain keeps misting turning the world into a damp gray place no one wants to slog through much less wake up into. The semester is ending. Final projects that seemed so faraway and innocent 15 weeks ago now loom threateningly around every corner of my sleep-deprived brain.

Last night I stayed up until the wee hours listening to Bon Iver and recoding variable after variable after variable for my massive statistics project from hell. In all actuality it’s not that bad. My professor fortunately does not seem to require much sleep and has so far displayed infinite amounts of patience, I guess having 8 kids does that to you, which allowed me to send him frantic emails late at night begging for help, extensions, a lifeline, anything to get through this project. In the end, I hope that my project becomes something worth being proud of, at the very least I know that I’ve learned something in this class. It’s up for grabs how much manages to retain itself, but for the moment I’ve almost conquered something that I am afraid of.

Statistics isn’t math the way I thought it would be, its more than that. It’s a new way of thinking, of reprogramming how you look at data. Somewhere after looking at variables and numbers until your eyes cross, running tests and plotting regressions until association, p-values, statistical significance, odds ratios, and relative risks all run together, something starts to click. Not everything. Just a faint, pale clicking sound in the darkness. Oh, that’s what a p-value is. Huh.

I guess a lot of things are like this. When I first moved to Cleveland everything that had seemed so possible, became big and scary, an insurmountable wall of self-doubt and fear. Little by little Jesus and I’ve chipped away at that. I’ve learned that if God wants you somewhere, he’s going to put you there and take care of you there. He never leads us somewhere just to abandon us, and I know he led me to Cleveland and to my school. He’s put some incredible friends in my life whose support has helped me find my way. Five months ago I was terrified (see?: So here I am). Today I know I can survive graduate school far away from everything I’ve ever known and succeed. I can do this. I can succeed at this. I can learn this. All in all that’s a pretty awesome feeling.

See you on the other side of my logistic regression model. Wish me luck. What have you been afraid of that you learned how to beat?

~Have Coffee Will Travel