Radio Silence and "Only in Texas"

It's been quite awhile since I intended to really get this blog going - whoops! I am pleased to report that in my absence, I have been adventuring, growing, and implementing all those wonderfully squishy Big Adult Changes I was anticipating. In the interest of keeping this recap post brief, I present to you... MONTAGE!!

The journey begins at Scripps, where our brave adventurer reminisces of years gone by with dear friends. Roses are picked, classes taken, delicious foods eaten, and big decisions are made.



Flash forward a few days: we're on the open road, heading south through Oregon and California on my way to Texas with my very best friend in tow. There are coastlines to see, redwoods to drive through, relatives to visit, and many important conversations to be had.



Onward, through the Southwest! Record temperatures in the Mojave Desert, the incomparably awe-inspiring Grand Canyon, car scares in Arizona, new family in Santa Fe, and flying saucers in Roswell.



Finally we arrive, exhausted and excited, in San Antonio, Texas! My friend flies back home, and I join my brother and sister-in-law on an inaugural Texas camping trip. I learn a lot while camping: cicadas are loud; in Texas, it's too hot to sleep IN your sleeping bag; and Gollum frequents the Lake Corpus Christi area. Fascinating.



Zoom! Off I go again, flying home to retrieve my beloved Cally Kitten Pants. This pictures pretty accurately describes how she feels about both flying and moving:




Back in San Antonio, my furniture arrives, I host my brother and sis-in-law for a weekend, and subsequently deal with my first "disaster:" Cockroach-pocalypse. Obviously, I over-react.




My sweet kitten tries to help inspect the sticky traps one night and gets one caught on the tip of her tail. At 5 am. She lets me know by running at top speed under the bed and banging her tail around while she hisses unceasingly. Convinced my cat is possessed - or possibly in possession of a hissing cockroach - I leap out of bed, dismantle said bed to get to cat, chase cat all around the room, and finally capture her so I can remove the sticky trap. I have to use a small amount of olive oil to get the trap off her tail, and when I wake up a few hours later, I find that she has somehow managed to completely cover herself in the tiny amount of oil I used to free her. I bathe her, during which process she decides her life is over (like any good melodramatic teenager) and lies down in submission, meowing sorrowfully. This is perhaps the most unsettling year of her kitty life, but she recovers quickly and is soon scowling with disapproval at my reading material on a regular basis.



The next few weeks are a whirlwind of visits to see my brother and sister-in-law, visits from my mom to help me settle in, trips to the library to satiate my suddenly enormous appetite for young adult fiction, and adventures in grocery shopping. I learn that in Texas, many people drive trucks and other rugged vehicles, perhaps because they like to decide for themselves when they want to exit the freeway (true story). Texas rain is nothing like gentle, steady Washington rain - it pelts down ferociously for ten to fifteen minutes while Zeus drops a beat with his thunder and lightening, then stops as suddenly as it began. Very bizarre for a rain baby like me. In Texas, we eat tacos for breakfast, which was a wonderful revelation. The road kill is quite diverse, including armadillos and wild boar. The speed limits are high, often 80 mph on the stretches of freeway between larger cities, and of course everyone goes five to ten mph faster than the posted signs (Texas is huge, ok? It STILL takes forever to get anywhere). South Texas country pop includes such gems as "Follow Your Arrow" by Kacey Musgraves (Album title: "Same Trailer Different Park" - I kid you not), and I find myself enjoying listening to the radio more than I anticipated. The library is wonderful, the grocery stores abundant (Here Everything's Better!), and the weather hot. Quite hot.

Ok, so maybe I wasn't exactly brief. I'll save all my City Year updates and news for another post, but get excited!! Also, I have some books I've been meaning to review (thanks, San Antonio Public Libraries!), so look forward to that post as well.

Love from Busybody Extroardinaire,
Kelsey Pants

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this page are not representative of City Year or AmeriCorps as organizations.

Hooray for new blogs!

Good morning, and welcome to my new blog! The idea of blogging has been rolling around in my brain for a while, and now is as good a time as ever for me to get started. I’m moving from the Pacific Northwest to the Lone Star State in less than two weeks (!!!!???!!?!), and I anticipate that this move will be the impetus for some Big Adult Changes in my life. This move is rather daunting for me, not only because I've never really moved since becoming a (somewhat-) independent (quasi-) adult, but also because it marks a capital-T Transition in my life.

For those who aren’t fully briefed on the situation, a large part of the reason for this move is that I suspect that the cause of my health issues, at least in part, is environmental. I spent much of my childhood in and out of doctors’ offices, and since moving back to my hometown after college, many of my health problems have returned - and brought some friends along! The breaking point for me arrived late last year. I had been seeing my doctor for migraines for most of 2012, and at my monthly appointment in September, he laid out my options in very clear terms, and those options scared me. Drug 1 could cause tremors and hair thinning; drug 2 would increase my mental fogginess and anomia (inability to name objects, “tip-of-the-tongue” effect); drug 3’s side effects included possible weight gain of up to twenty pounds and irregular menstrual cycles. None of them could guarantee relief. I felt so defeated, scared, and hopeless. In hindsight, that moment was just one out of many in which I felt these things, but for some reason, it was my tipping point. I got to peek deeper into the Pit of Despair and see, somewhat removed, what rock bottom looked like. I realized very quickly that I wasn’t interested in going There… so perhaps the answer could be found in going Elsewhere. My hope is that changing my environment – specifically, moving somewhere warmer and dryer – will help alleviate some of my chronic pain, allergies, and their ilk.

It’s a harebrained, last-ditch, desperate attempt, or in other words, an adventure.

I will be serving as a corps member with City Year in San Antonio, Texas, during the 2013-2014 school year. I know I’ll be very busy, very tired, and sometimes very defeated. I know I can look forward to some serious culture shock, and my fair share of reality checks. I hope this blog will serve as a tether to stay connected to my family and friends, and perhaps more importantly, to the facets of my identity that have moved me do this work. I named my blog “Bibliophile Polyglot Idealist” because these are three aspects of my self-image that I love, and that I think will help me keep my head above water over the next year(s).

Look forward to book reviews, road trip pictures, growing pains, and (I hope) many funny moments. There’s a reason why the coming-of-age story is so classic, and I intend to find out for myself what all the fuss is about.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this page are not representative of City Year or AmeriCorps as organizations.