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  • Berton 5:51 am on February 7, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Week 5 – Another Kind of Hunting Adventure 

    The reason why I didn’t post this past week was due to a personal issue.  I lost my job.  Very unforeseen.  It was one of those situations where I wasn’t fired; I was just let go because of financial reasons of the family I worked for.  And they didn’t really forewarn me that it could possibly be coming.  So totally caught me off guard.

    But life is an adventure, right?  That is what I’ve been telling myself so that I don’t overly stress out about it, at any rate.

    So my adventure for this week was been to begin the job hunt.  Not an exciting adventure, or one that I enjoy being on, but it is surely one that I am dedicating all of my time and energy towards.  In the past week, I’ve applied to around twenty-three jobs at colleges alone.  This week I plan to hit the school districts hardcore.  Then will be state / county / city jobs, and if nothing happens after that, go back to the service industry.

     

    • Kimberly Hula 9:41 am on February 7, 2012 Permalink

      Adventure year is the best year for new job options! I wish you the best of luck! Perhaps some fellow adventurers have some leads for you?

  • Berton 5:42 am on February 7, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Charles Schulz, Lucy, , Peanuts, Snoopy   

    Week 4 – Peanuts for Pleasure 

    Not a surprise to people who know me, but I haven’t ever really grown up.  I am still a child at heart, big time.  Though I can be mature and serious, I love having silly moments of fun.  I still try to do things that entertained me when I was in elementary school, because to be honest, they are still WAY fun!  One of the things that I do, along these lines, is read comics.

    Now, I’m not referring to comic books.  I mean, I do still read those.  I have a fairly large comic book collection.  Peter Parker is my best bud.  I am going to name many of my children after X-Men characters.  But no, I am currently referring to comic strips.  Like Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes.

    Now, fun fact: Charles Schulz, the creator of the Peanuts strip, was born and raised in the Twin Cities.  So to honor him, the city of St. Paul hosted something called “Peanuts on Parade” in 2000.  Originally, a total of 101 statues of Peanuts characters were strewn throughout the city.  However, after 2004, the city auctioned many of them off to support local artistic charities, as well as to commission several permanent bronze statues that would be in St. Paul city parks.  Some of the originals are still around the city.  But because they are now privately owned, there isn’t an official map of their locations anymore, nor a well known number of how many.  So for this adventure, a good friend of mine and I went out to look for the non-bronze ones!

    It was quite the random trip.  We weren’t sure where many were.  We had a few hints from friends, but not many.  So here was our plan of action: we printed off the original map with the statues locations as of 2000 (12 years ago…).  We then went to the local businesses near the original locations and asked if they knew where any had ended up.  Needless to say, many random conversations were had (and almost all of them were awkward too).  But we found a total of eight statues in one Saturday afternoon, which I think was quite the success!  So here is some photo evidence of the achievements and a small description of how we found it:

    The first two statues we tried to find were misses!  There were supposed to be two near the Ford Plant, but alas, none to be found!  However, as we were driving to our next location, we see a Snoopy doghouse on the side of the street next to a bookstore!  Random and awesome!

    (More …)

     

  • AG 9:51 pm on February 2, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    CHB: Culture, Hair, and Body 

    Going with the theme of being a tourist in my own city I went to the Chinese New Year parade in Chicago’s Chinatown last weekend. I decided to bring my sister and niece in an effort to expose my niece to a little culture. The dragons scared her a little bit, but all in all it was a nice free event and fun way to kick off the Lunar New Year. I can’t wait to get back there for some good food!

    I ended up having a total of five adventures in the month of January. The next two were unplanned. Not that adventures need to be planned or anything. I find that most of the time I realize I was adventuring in hindsight. Anyway, I decided to change my ‘do and go for the “ombre” look: dark roots faded to lighter bottoms. It did NOT work for me. I went from a reddish brown to orange to yellow to dark brown…in the course of two weeks. Not good. As a result of my whimsical behavior I did a little damage to my hair by processing it so much. But now I know. I should not be blond.

    And lastly, to round out January I started the Body Rock TV 30 day challenge (there’s a website for those of you who are curious). I’m currently on day 3, and I can say that it is not easy. It is definitely not easy. I have been practicing yoga for almost two years, and I love it. I haven’t found a form of exercise that I can stick to religiously other than yoga. However, I need to lose weight. While yoga has definitely made me stronger and toned me up a bit, I’m looking to slim down. And the only way that can be done is crazy cardio. Body Rock is pretty crazy to say the least. Hopefully I will come to love it as much as yoga, and mostly I’m aiming for more physical results. I’ll update when it comes to day 30.

     

    • Pragya 8:33 pm on May 22, 2012 Permalink

      We recommend a SLR or DSLR, but you can take the class if you have a camrea with some manual settings. We also cover a lot of information on composition which works for any type of camrea. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

  • Berton 9:48 pm on January 22, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Week 3 – Habitat for Humanity 

    Something that I feel that I don’t do enough of us community outreach.  I’m fortunate enough to have come from a middle-class family.  Both of my parents have graduate degree, and I’m lucky enough to be in a graduate program now.  I grew up in a small town in Minnesota where I was taught acceptance, trust, and compassion.  I really feel like I could be doing more to help the world around me.  So for this adventure, I decided to walk the walk.

    I am currently working part-time as a barista at Starbucks.  It’s a pretty sweet job for a full-time graduate school student.  I usually work only five hours a day, and get done by 10am.  I can take a nap in the afternoons, then do homework all before my wife gets home from work!    Bonus!

    The Starbucks store that I work for does community work maybe once a month.  This month, some of my co-workers and I worked with Habitat for Humanity for a day.  And it was so awesome!

    We, for the most part, were just painting the interior of a group of town homes that were being built in Northeast Minneapolis.  And the group of people that I was working with was awesome.  I only knew the three people in the picture above with me, but there were maybe 50 people there.  Everyone was very joyous, constantly joking, smiling, chatting.  And all while doing this great thing to help those less fortunate.

    I think I’m going to do more community outreach with my Starbucks.  I’m not sure when, but I think next month or the month after, we are going to be working at a Feed My Starving Children event.  I hopefully can make it!  But since all three of my graduate classes have started, I may be pretty busy.  That won’t stop me from adventuring!  I just hope that the timing and scheduling works out.

    *Fun fact: did you know that every house that Habitat for Humanity builds across the world is all painted the same color on the inside?  Every single house, the same color.  That’s so cool!  Kinda boring, but cool!  It’s mostly because the paint is, for the most part, all donated to them.  And you can’t complain about the color when it’s free!

     

    • Kimberly Hula 9:37 am on January 24, 2012 Permalink

      Dan, what a lovely adventure! You have just inspired my week 3! Keep.it.up!

  • DebbieP 3:21 pm on January 20, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    Week Two Adventure – Yoga 

    After months of slacking off, yoga is back on my schedule. I know that it’s supposed to be relaxing but seriously, the more I think about something the more anxious I get. The instsructor kept repeating “focus on your breath”. Well, when I focus on my breath my breathing suddenly becomes very forced and I feel like I’m hyperventilating. What’s so relaxing about that? And then I become very self-conscious because when my breathing becomes labored then it also seems to sound very loud. So I focus on my breathing even more…… It’s a viscous cycle. But, I’m going to keep at it. Maybe by the end of my 52 Adventures this year I’ll actually start to enjoy yoga (probably not).

     

    • Kimberly Hula 9:40 am on January 24, 2012 Permalink

      it’s good of you to try. I find myself getting more anxious than calm with yoga, too. There are as many yoga practictioners of the world, as there are fiesty kickboxers. Keep it up!

    • Andrea Gargano 9:58 pm on February 2, 2012 Permalink

      Maybe try focusing on an intention instead of breath? That could relieve some of the stress of focusing on breath. In time, the breathing just comes naturally and will feel less forced. Namaste :)

    • Ali 8:53 pm on May 24, 2012 Permalink

      Hi Mariusz and Lisa,This is Jo who helps run this blog for Beth. Thanks so much for your comments, rlealy lovely to read. Lisa- I know Beth would like to email you directly about the Shoreditch classes. Would you mind emailing us privately or sending us an email the Urban Yoga Monkey Facebook page?? Then we can get straight back to you. Thanks.Mariusz enjoy your practice in Poland nice to see we’re going international! Have a good day x

  • AG 10:04 am on January 19, 2012 Permalink | Reply  

    On Being A Tourist 

    I’m really good at being a tourist. I have traveled in groups. I have traveled alone. It is easy to adventure abroad. Many people are afraid to travel solo, but as I found on my most recent trip to Italy, traveling alone is easier and more productive than in a group. By productive, I mean that you can venture to wherever, whenever and meet people more easily than when you are in a group. When you’re in a group, you are kind of closed off to others or give off a vibe that you are less approachable (than if you were alone).

    Ok that was a slight tangent, and my point really is that for some reason it’s easy to find adventure in an unfamiliar place. My second adventure involved the whole “being a tourist in your own city”. It’s funny that I’ve seen more of Seoul than my hometown of Chicago. I even know directions and the subway better in there than I do here. We easily take for granted familiar surroundings and don’t always take advantage of the things our own city has to offer. So last week in an attempt to do something touristy, I went to the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium with my sister and nieces. We went on a “free” day, and lucky for this gal on a budget, they have about ten of these per month. I got to see some marine life and learn about some stars. It was a nice little something out of the ordinary!

     

    • Kimberly Hula 5:08 pm on January 19, 2012 Permalink

      I think I may just try to see some more of Boston after reading this! Excellent, fiscally responsible, fun and informative adventure!

  • Kimberly Hula 12:54 pm on January 17, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: bento box,   

    If you must judge me, do so after tasting my chilli. 

    Hiro and I have been forced into a life of frugality.  Well, we could live well, but we choose not to in effort to save enough money to host a wedding, buy a car, put a down payment on a house, pay off student loans, pay off credit cards, and on.  We’re lucky really, that we are both employed and live in a place we long to return to, and have all the modern comforts you can come to think of (internet, tv, nearby bus service).  But we’ve tightened the fiscal belt which has yielded some unexpected results (many additional adventures to come!).

    Where we haven’t funds, we have imagination.  I know that imagination doesn’t pay the bills, but it does!  Here I will confess to rarely cooking.  And what little I cook it usually belly-full of preservatives and/or found pre-made requiring some heat.  I didn’t know how to al dente.  Or pan sear.  The only thing I could do, or thought I did well, was to ice cakes, and even then I paid little or no attention to the resounding taste.

    My new test kitchen

    So now that we’ve a home, with a large kitchen and combined cooking supplies, I took to the kitchen.  My kitchen.  And it was there I began to realize why chefs are so brazen, and why cooking is often referred to as an art.  I see that it’s more than the sum of a gaggle of ingredients.  It takes brains, brauns and inventive thinking to churn out a successful dish.  I’m not near there, but the journey is increasingly tasty… (More …)

     

  • Berton 10:46 pm on January 15, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Week 2 – Power, Wisdom, and Courage 

    If anyone meets me for five minutes, they will for sure learn that I am a gigantic geek.  And I’m not afraid to admit this.  I will talk about my favorite TV show (Firefly), favorite book (Wizard’s First Rule), favorite movie (Lord of the Rings Trilogy)…basically any kind of favorite has to do with something nerdy.  I even went so far as to get a geek related tattoo.

    For those of you who don’t know what the tattoo is, it is called The Triforce.  The Triforce is a symbol and holy relic in the video game franchise The Legend of Zelda (my favorite one).  Originally when I got this tattoo, I just wanted something that I thought looked sweet.  I told people that it had some meaning behind it, but that wasn’t entirely true.  At least, not at first.

    Now, as I looked back at my first batch of adventures, I was trying to see which ones I attempted and failed, if any.  One that I feel I didn’t fully commit to was my week four adventure, Lifestyle . During that week, I did a lot of self-analysis on how I could improve my life moving forward.  And I feel I did put a lot of thought and effort into it.  But I didn’t have an exact plan, and as such, it wasn’t executed very well.  I didn’t have written, obtainable goals, or the steps I could take to achieve them.

    Which brings me back to my tattoo.

    As I take an honest look at myself, I can’t help but be drawn to my tattoo, to this thing that was meant to stamp myself as a geek.  But now, as I look at it, I realize how I can use this as a constant reminder to better myself.  I can use this metaphor from a video game to inspire and change my life. (More …)

     

    • CalebB 12:53 pm on February 6, 2012 Permalink

      I really hate to tell you this, but your Zelda tattoo is screwed. The colors are definitely wrong. Red should be on top, blue on the left, and green on the right. Sorry for the truth.

  • AG 4:03 pm on January 10, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , quitting smoking   

    1: Calling It Quits 

    I’m pleased that the Year of 52 Adventures is back. I was living in Korea the first time around, and it seemed that a life of adventure was more easily attainable there. I think the challenge for me will be to invent new adventures for myself back in my hometown rather than just finding them right under my nose; something that seemed to happen often while living abroad. I’d like to think that being a wanderlust adventurer is in my nature. So we shall see!

    Adventure #1: Quit smoking
    Really I tried doing this so many times. I tried cutting down, nicotine gum, e-cigarette, self-hypnosis…nothing worked. I wasn’t ready, so each time resulted in failure. Maybe it was turning 30, a new-found yoga regimen, or the sky high cigarette prices in Chicago, but January 2, 2012 was different than any other days I tried to quit smoking. I just knew it was time, and I was ready for this life-altering change. I had my last cigarette on 1/2/12 at 2 PM. I have a tracking app on my phone, and it has been 1 week, 1 day, and 36 minutes since I quit, and I have saved $54.89 (as well as my life). I am using the Blu e-cigarette for when I have cravings. Each day gets a lot easier, and though this may seem like a minor accomplishment to some, it has given me the confidence to tackle future adventures.

     

    • Kimberly Hula 4:16 pm on January 10, 2012 Permalink

      Welcome back Andrea! And this is a HUGE accomplishment. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say Congrats and that you are a week 1 inspiration!

    • Andrea Gargano 4:35 pm on January 10, 2012 Permalink

      Thanks!! I’m glad I’m able to share it here!

    • Berton 12:12 am on January 11, 2012 Permalink

      One day at a time, this goal can easily be reached! Just look towards reaching the end of the day, and every day, you will succeed!

    • Andrea Gargano 9:52 am on January 11, 2012 Permalink

      Thanks for the support and advice!!

    • wip78 7:01 pm on January 12, 2012 Permalink

      Awesome!!! Congratulations. I agree with Berton…one day at a time. Soooo proud of you!!!

    • sixofclubs 10:09 pm on January 12, 2012 Permalink

      I have had you linked since a few weeks after the last post on your blog and followed acts of kindness loosely. I will watch with anticipation and participate where I can.

    • sixofclubs 10:10 pm on January 12, 2012 Permalink

      And – quitting smoking sucks, but it is worth it in the end. Promise :)

    • Andrea Gargano 10:27 am on January 19, 2012 Permalink

      Thanks! I’ve made it past the 2 week mark! (17 days)

  • Kimberly Hula 1:43 pm on January 9, 2012 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: memory, no make-up, self-image   

    Beauty is 10, nine of which is dressing 

    The complex art of face painting is still foreign to me.  And when I refer to a painting of the face, I’m just fancifying the act of applying makeup.  General, every day, convenient store selling makeup that every woman seems to have in stock.  And please don’t mistake my tone for sarcasm or disdain.  I think makeup, when applied correctly, can enhance features.  I think it may enhance a woman’s self-confidence.  It can reinvent a person in the span of minutes (again, when you are better versed in application) from a softly lit clean-faced office worker to a no-holes-barred, vixen of the night club rat, with the right smear of eyeliner.  Better yet, there appears to be no rules in making up.  People lay it on thick, or keep it quiet.  The only similarity I find amongst the made up is that they are, in fact, made up.

    This has become something of a constant in my life, but I’d sooner skip the sociological implications and focus on my present predicament; namely that I feel exposed when not concealed.

    This makes perfect sense when you strip it of literal and figurative meaning.  We all in some sense chose to hide in working ways so as to conceal ourselves.  The what and the way is specific and privy to the hider, but in owning up to my own insecurities I’ll admit that I slather on the makeup because I’ve convinced myself that I need it.  That without it I’m helpless, lost, subject to the ridicule we all met as children and forever fear as adults.

    This is a complex problem with seemingly simple solutions: stop hiding.  Love who you are.  Be the change you wish to see in the world. (More …)

     

    • Andrea Gargano 4:42 pm on January 10, 2012 Permalink

      I’d say it can be liberating to go sans makeup until you run into people you know or have to have a face to face conversation. But even then, it’s our own insecurity that causes us the anxiety in the first place because most of the time people don’t even notice that we aren’t wearing makeup!

    • Berton 12:18 am on January 11, 2012 Permalink

      Hula, you are a truly remarkable and beautiful woman. What a great way to approach a new year. Each year is a step towards the future, but we must look to the past so we can learn and walk forward. By looking at a version of yourself from college that you loved, and going back to it today, I am very pumped to hear about what you can do when tomorrow comes :) I think you may have inspired an adventure idea for myself…more to come…

    • wip78 7:07 pm on January 12, 2012 Permalink

      “…love who you are. Be the change you wish to see in the world…. ” words to live by:) Thank you for sharing. You are simply lovely. Inside and out.

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