Antelope Canyon, Page, AZ

Over the Thanksgiving holiday my mom and dad and I went to Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona. They are slot canyons owned by the Navajo people. You would have no idea they are right underneath the ground, from the top you see only a barely perceptible fissure in the landscape. Anyway! They are beautiful.




As you can see I had quite a lot of fun with my camera - but how could I not? Apparently in the morning (when we were there) the colors are purplish-blue with the orange, but all day long the colors change as the sun hits the canyon walls at a slightly different angle. I wish I could have been there all day long to watch the array.

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for my wonderful parents who understand my need for adventure!

A Trip to the Newsroom

Life has a strange way of turning around in circles.

I graduated from this journalism program several years ago, and last week I took my newspaper students to see the news studios and print offices at my alma mauter.

It was a strange moment of deja vu in reverse. I remember as a broadcast student at this university watching tours of high school students and Boy Scouts roaming the newsroom and each time wondering and even speculating that someday I too would be bringing in a group of kids to the newsroom.

Life has a strange way of turning around in circles.

Let's Not Talk About It

I am a proponent of talking about most things. I am a verbal, so talking-it-out, works-it-out in most cases. However, I wonder if that's not always the case. I wonder if sometimes, talking about it one more time doesn't help.

I just finished reading Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer's account of the disasterous 1996 climb of Mt. Everest where 12 people died in one expedition. Afterwards when the few survivors made it down the mountain people were obsessed with finding out what went wrong and playing the blame-game. Interestingly a relative of one of the survivors, critical of Krakauer's narrative said:

No amount of your analyzing, criticizing, judging, or hypothesizing will bring the peace you are looking for. There are no answers. No one is at fault. No one is to blame. Everyone was doing their best at the given time under the given circumstances. No one intended harm for one another. No one wanted to die. (297-298)

Additionally, Krakauer said people wanted to "catalog the myriad blunders in order to 'learn from the mistakes.'" As if finding those errors would make them "too clever to repeat those same errors." (286)

It's human nature to want to catalog, analyze, and go over one more time because this is how we learn, but is it always necessary? Or are there some things we should just allow ourselves and others to have survived?

Blackmail Photos

I was told I was under no circumstances allowed to post these pictures on facebook...so I am putting them on my blog. Haha!


So, my teacher friends and I dressed up as teachers for Halloween! It was one of the funnest things I have ever done costume-wise! The reactions were classic. A few of the older teachers complimented us on how "cute" we looked - because they still have sweaters like this in their own closets! And not all of the students got it because they have seen sweaters like this on teachers (i.e. elementary teachers) their whole lives...but to people around my age it was halarious because we would never dress like this! :) Hopefully we didn't offend anyone because it was so great.




Admit it: This is what you pictured in your mind when me (an unlikely) grew up to be a school teacher.