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  • eatveggiesdrinkwine 9:25 pm on August 25, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Adventures 14-23/52: Summer fun 

    Candlelight dinner for one

    Where has the summer gone? I’m still behind on adventuring, but not as much as my lack of recent postings might indicate. Here’s a speed-round update of all that’s happened:

    14/52: Making a multi-step pizza dough recipe to enjoy during my personal candlelight dinner (pictured above) while DP was away for a golf weekend. Totally worth weighing all of the ingredients and waiting hours for the dough to rise.

    15/52: Finishing my first quilt. I love its fabrics as well as its imperfections (there are many).

    16/52: Offering on a whim to quit my job (or really, just work part-time.) This offer was respectfully declined and led to the discovery that the director of my program reads my blog (Hi Raj!) … he asked me if this was one of my adventures. I told him I didn’t intend it to be, but it made sense to count it as one after the fact.

    17/52: Repurposing old hiking socks into an iPod arm band (aka, Socking it to the Apple man or, I’ve already spent $200+ on an iPod, I don’t need to spend $30 more on something that’s going to get sweaty holding it).

    18/52: Inviting a new friend to dinner to discuss leaps of faith, cooking for a career and living a purposeful life.

    19/52: Admitting—out loud and with tears—that I can’t do it all. And finally believing it. And finally letting myself be okay with it.

    20/52: Moving my relationship status with (not on) Facebook to “it’s complicated.” I ignored it for a few days and found out that it seems to be creating rather than filling some void in my life. I’m not deactivating my account just yet, but I’m still reflecting on other ways to meaningfully connect with people.

    21/52: Putting our house up for sale, in anticipation of another adventure.

    22/52: Becoming a morning walker, even before I have a sip of coffee. I never thought I’d be a person who wakes up early to exercise, but I’m three weeks into the routine and feel too good to stop–until the mornings get colder and darker, at least.

    23/52: Registering for the Mondo Beyondo online class to begin exploring my dreams and reclaiming my happy place in life.

    I sense lots of adventure possibilities in the next few months, and my goal is to better about blogging … so, stay tuned!

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    • yearof52adventures 1:15 pm on September 13, 2010 Permalink

      Looking good lady!
      I am so.very.inspired by you!

    • Zavrina 12:33 pm on May 4, 2011 Permalink

      You’re a real deep tihkner. Thanks for sharing.

    • Iffi 3:32 pm on October 8, 2012 Permalink

      When I use my search engine to look for blogs to read yours has come up several times on different categories. That just made me want to read it more, I can see why. It is excellent. Keep up the awesome work.

    • Kimberly Hula 3:18 pm on January 2, 2013 Permalink

      Thanks Iffi! That means a lot!

  • abstractangel7 10:47 pm on August 15, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Hello, amazing adventurers! My recent adventure involved taking a month-long TEFL class. (Kim, I believe you know all about that?) It was pretty intense, because I also started a new full-time job at the same time! Yeah, not smart, but here’s what happened- I paid for the TEFL class while on unemployment, thinking I would start a new career field teaching English as a Second Language here in Chicago. I’ve taught ESL as a volunteer for the past year, at a school on my block, and found it to be very rewarding. So I thought, why not get certified and make it a part-time job? I’d LOVE to go overseas and teach it, but since I have young kids, that’s not really an option until they’re grown. There’s lots of social-service organizations in Chicago that help refugees though, and I thought maybe I’d get a job at one of them, helping to settle new immigrants or something. My actual background is in substance-abuse counseling, however, and a job opportunity came along that I couldn’t pass up. It was everything I’d been looking for, so even though I could have stayed on unemployment, I decided to go for it. The TEFL school had warned that their class wasn’t meant for students with other jobs, but it was too late to get a refund and I figured I could handle it.
    Well, this turned out to be an adventure in sleep-deprivation, too! LoL. First, my ex-husband agreed to keep the kids for the month of July, as there was no way I’d be able to do all this and be a mom. I felt really guilty about that, but knew the kids would be happier getting to play at their dad’s house rather than deal with me being so busy. Besides, he didn’t get to see them much and it was definitely an adventure in parenting for him to suddenly have them full-time. Hehe
    My schedule was: Wake up at 4:30am, leave for work at 5, work 5:30-12:30, eat lunch, teach ESL from 2-3:30, class from 4-9:30pm, home by 10, an hour of homework/typing papers or lesson plans, hopefully asleep by midnight. Sometimes I did the homework at work during the day because I was too tired to do it at night. I was so out-of-it during the days, giving myself fake energy with sugar and caffeine.
    Somehow I finished the class, with just 6 hours of practicum teaching time short of receiving my certificate. I’m going to finish it when classes start up again at the school near my apt. in September. I hate to say it, but I wasn’t as dedicated as I would have been, had I not been so tired or busy with working during the mornings.
    It was definitely a great experience though, and I loved making new friends and learning about how to teach English as a second language. I recommend anybody go for it- but be careful/prepared if you already have a full-time job!
    Thanks for reading 🙂

     

    • blueskiesinva 9:30 pm on August 16, 2010 Permalink

      You are AMAZING! So glad that things are a little more “normal” for you now, though!

    • Kapri 5:46 am on May 3, 2011 Permalink

      I thank you hmulby for sharing your wisdom JJWY

  • AG 11:17 pm on August 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: 19/52, 20/52, 21/52   

    Adventures #19, #20 and #21: Solo trip, DMZ, 3rd Tunnel 

    Since I’ve been in Korea, one of the things on my must-see list has been to visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which is the border dividing North Korea from South Korea. It is the most secure border in the world!

    The first adventure of this trip was to go it alone. I’ve done trips here with travel groups, but I’ve always gone along with friends. For one, it’s more fun to go to explore with friends. And two, there a certain amount of anxiety that comes with traveling with strangers. So, I signed up for the trip, and I went alone. I was with a huge group, and it was liberating to go on a trip without waiting for other people to decide to join. Many of my friends had no interest in seeing the DMZ or had already gone. And some expressed interest but were too slow to respond to my request. So I decided to just go because it was something that I really felt I needed to do. My grandfather had fought in the Korean War, and the outcome of that war was the truce and separation for the north and south.

    Photobucket

    The second adventure was visiting the DMZ. I saw the Doraksan Observatory and was able to actually see
    North Korea. I saw the propaganda village, which was built by North Korea to fool people and South Korean
    soliders into thinking that North Korea is a great place. It is no longer a fake village because North Korean soldiers’ families live there now. We were not allowed to take pictures past a photo line of North Korea. But I got a great view through the binoculars.

    Photobucket

    The third adventure was going into the 3rd tunnel. There are 4 tunnels that have been discovered between North and South Korea. They were built by North Koreans in order to make surprise attacks against South Korea. I had much anxiety about entering the tunnel as I am claustraphobic. But I did it! And it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined. There were many parts where I had to duck and walk hunchbacked throughout, but
    it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I wasn’t able to take pictures inside.

     

    • adventurechaser 5:31 pm on August 10, 2010 Permalink

      This is on my Bucket List. Thanks for sharing!

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