No Place Like Home

Sunday, May 17, 2009

I grew up in one of the, if not the, prettiest places on the planet. Don’t believe me?




Yeah, I thought so.

I took it for granted while I was there. Sure I shopped downtown, layed out at Hunting Island, golfed at every possible course, found sharks teeth at the sands, went to church in a 200-year old building (yey BCOB!), ate countless shrimp burgers, had coffee at the waterfront park, wore Sperrys…on a boat, and looked at the gorgeous view from the downtown bridge while waiting in traffic because it was open. I did all of those things.

But once I went to college, I started missing it. I even began to miss that weird marsh smell. Who would have thought? When I came back home to visit I found myself rolling down the windows at the first sight of marsh.

This is my first summer away from beautiful Beaufort. I’ll miss being there over the summer, a really fun time. But I’ll be staying in Rock Hill and working in Charlotte at Charlotte Magazine as the marketing intern. I’ve already had several people at work ask me where I’m from and as soon as I tell them, their replies are all the same:

Oh! It’s beautiful down there!

And that's usually followed by:

Do you think you will move back there?

And my reply is usually:

No.

Ok, so I just went on talking about how wonderful Beaufort is and now I’m saying I don’t want to move back? Crazy girl. There are a few reasons why my answer is so quick and sure. One is that Beaufort doesn’t really have the job opportunities I’ll be seeking when I graduate. And two is that I love traveling to new places and seeing new things.

I’m really thankful of where I grew up. I loved it. I met some amazing, incredible people who have become my friends that I will never forget. It is a truly unique, one-of-a-kind place. I hope that in my future, I can discover what other unique places exist around the world!

This seems like a pointless post after re-reading it. Going on and on about how I love and miss Beaufort and then just said I probably won’t move back. Oh, well. It’ll always be home.

How could you be so heartless?

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I’ve discovered something that irks me.

Here are some (not all, I admit I chose some of these just to prove my point) of the top headlines from CNN.com in America:

‘Idol’ blog: Kris Allen need not ‘Apologize’
Miss California USA to keep title
‘It was like the sky fell down,’ mom cries
Missing teen’s cell phone gives cops clue
How it feels to be judged on looks
Ranking the best, worst owners in sports

Really? Believe me, I completely understand addressing your audience, but what in the world kind of audience is regularly visiting the site if that’s the case. I am a little embarrassed because I do regularly visit the site, but find myself digging for what I want to read.

The reason this irritates me is for the simple fact that there are way more important issues happening around the world, but instead the decision on letting Miss California keep her crown is deemed more important. Ridiculous.

I feel a bit manipulated (and I began to feel like that in my media and politics class), because I find myself discovering news about my own country from friends who live in other countries. That’s sad. They have to tell me what is going with my president or my economy. They also inform me of information about their own countries that don’t seem to make it past the never-ending run of ‘missing teens’ stories.

For some reason I’ve always been obsessed and a little fascinated with the media and how it works. I am still obsessed, fascinated, intrigued and now just a little motivated to do something about all of this.

I know that CNN and all other media is a business, and a professor once drilled into my head that they only exist to make money. I just wish they would make money better.

A LowCountry Tale

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

One of my favorite foods is shrimp, for many reasons: I live 100 yards from where you catch them, they’re delicious, my dad would physically hurt me if I didn’t, and the most important reason of all…

I got attacked by a shrimp one time

Yup. I remember it so vividly. I was about 9 years old and was taking a tour of a shrimp boat in Beaufort with some family and friends. We were out in the river, the nets were pulled up, and the shrimp was tossed on the table. I had a front row view of the table with my head just peering over it.

Then all of a sudden, with all the shrimp popping up and down, one lively one jumped extra high hitting me directly between my eyes and then back into the ocean. The shrimp used me to escape. So now, I eat all the shrimp placed in front of me in hopes that I will someday get revenge.

I think my favorite shrimp dish (and there are many - watch this video from my favorite movie, Forest Gump, that names a few) is the lovely shrimp burger.

I was able to enjoy one back home last weekend at The Shrimp Shack (the best place to get and the shrimp are from right across the street). Basically, all a shrimp burger is is shrimp beaten down and then formed into patties. Then they are usually fried, but on a bun with some tarter sauce and served. Delicious. There is nothing much better than that, I promise.

Here is a picture in case you can’t imagine the goodness I’m describing:

My "book" continued...

Sunday, April 12, 2009

I’ve previously blogged about the “book” I want to write at some point in my life. (I put book in quotations because it’s really not a book but rather just a compilation of ridiculous things).

Read here to catch up on what the book will be about and the first few stories that will go in it. This book won’t be anything close to what this guy will one day release, but funny nonetheless. Here are some brief descriptions of new stories that will definitely make it in the book:

• Being on a plane ride for 8 hours and standing in the customs line for 30 minutes right next to rapper Flo Rida. Didn’t get a picture, autograph, or anything. I’m not sure if he even made it into England- he was asked to step aside for extra questioning.
• Losing my camera in a field when the boys holding it, dropped it to start running from a bull that started running towards them. Why were they so close to a bull you ask? Scavenger Hunt. It was dark and we thought it was a horse.
• Jennifer and I got interviewed in front of BBC in London.
• Playing the cowbell (a big dream of mine) with the Winthrop Pep Band at a basketball game!
• My restaurant experience in Chinatown in NY. First of all, there was a line of about 20 people waiting on a table and when we went to put our name on the list, they just took us right back to a table ahead of everyone else. And we couldn’t understand our waiter one bit. Overall, it was sketchy and a true Chinatown experience. And really yummy.
• Having a car that doesn’t turn off. Read more here.
• Getting pulled into a funeral procession/parade/street dance by an older man in New Orleans. It was fun dancing with a random guy in the middle of the street with a band that walks right behind you.
• Spending 6 hours, yes 6 hours, in a Wal-Mart in Georgia where we got stranded on the way back from a youth trip.

I’m sure there are TONS more, but these are what I came up with for now. Please comment and let me know if you think of any others. And I’m still looking for a book title.

I Hate Cars

Saturday, April 4, 2009

A quick break from London here.

I never had any car problems while I was in high school or at home. But now that I have moved over 300-miles away, away from my dad who deals with car issues for me, I’ve had several.

Most recently, yesterday, I dealt with a very unique problem:

My car would not turn off.

Yup. I put it in park, went to turn the key to turn the ignition off only to find it stuck and not willing to turn or turn off. What does one do in this situation you may ask. After a few seconds and the realization that car dealerships and shops were closed, I considered my options:
• Let the car run out of gas and eventually turn off
• Rip the key out by sheer force (not from my wimpy self of course, but instead my friend who plays basketball for WU)
• Freak out, cry, call AAA and find another solution

I chose the third option. However, upon calling AAA they told me they could not immediately help me because my car was still in service. Exactly.

So instead, myself and 3 other girls had to pop the hood (which took a quite a few minutes) and be talked through via phone on where to find the black box that held the fuses, pick the correct fuse out of like 20, and pull it out. I now wish I would have taken a picture of all of us crowded around scared to pull it out in fear that we may get shocked or catch something on fire.

After several minutes we pulled the fuse and off it went! We were pretty proud of this great accomplishment.

So then I had to intentionally lock my key in the car (which was still in the ignition) and get AAA to tow it to the Saturn dealership the next day to fix it.

I got the car back today and it’s fixed! Woohoo! But while watching my little Saturn get pulled up on that tow truck, I told Jennifer I just wished we had trains, busses and subways that took us everywhere like in England. Then problems like these would not happen. But then she promptly reminded me that instead we would have the problem of people jumping on Subway tracks at our stop causing us to ride all over the city of London to get home. I don’t know which is worse.

Funday Sunday

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Jennifer and I decided that Sunday was our favorite day in England. It consisted of actually getting into London, me seeing Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye for the first time, Hyde Park with Speakers Corner, Trafalgar Square, Hillsong Church, and Piccadilly Square. It was a jammed-packed day and soooo much fun.

The more I think about it, the crazier I think it is that we experienced Speaker’s Corner and Hillsong in the same day, actually within hours.

So Speaker’s Corner is an area in Hyde Park in London where public speaking is allowed. Basically, it’s just a bunch of people standing on ladders yelling and screaming their opinions on topics like religion, language, politics, or even how everyone (including men) should wear stilettos. The fun, or intense, thing is that the crowd interacts with the speakers: argue, yell at, cheer, debate, etc.

We heard all kinds of new ideas like one lady who said,

America is made of all the losers of the other countries.

We were not a fan of her. One speaker demanded from one member of the crowd (they actually seemed to know each other well) to try and name the

features of the creatures

that proved evolution.

Although the several hours we spent there was entertaining and interesting, we left feeling sad and had to leave because we really just couldn’t take listening to it anymore. I think it was the crowds arguing with the Christian speakers, where we spent most of our time, that made us feel this way. I don't really have another word to describe how we felt, just sad. Often crowd members would look at us and ask what we thought of the Christian speakers and we responded in some positive way and they would look at us like we were absolutely out of our minds.

So we left Speaker's Corner and soon entered Dominion Theatre in London where the mega-church Hillsong meets. I’ve always loved the worship music they release and right when the worship began, an awesome and exciting atmosphere was created. Every single person in the crowd was worshipping individually and freely. It was encouraging to be there and to see others (especially neat since they were from a different country) worshipping the same powerful God I do.

I think I find it funny that we did both things on the same day because they represent two extremes. I don’t know. I think it’s hard for me to grasp the idea that they both exist so closely to one another. And I know for sure that London is not the only place where this happens. I’ve just yet to encounter it in America.

New Sights of Old Things

Thursday, March 26, 2009

So it's been awhile and I’ve been asked a few times when I’ll start blogging about my trip to London, or at least post some excerpts from the journal I kept while I was traveling. So I guess I’ll start now.

It’s difficult for me to pick what I want to write about first. I experienced/saw/met so many things and people that had some sort of impact on a thought I had before going to London or gave me insight into a new one.

So let’s see….I’ll start with our day at Windsor. A little excerpt from the journal:

We came out of the train station looking at Windsor Castle in the distance. The flag was up which apparently meant the Queen was there. Jennifer and I tried to pick what room she might be in – Possibly just 25 feet away.

It was fun walking around Windsor and then we decided to explore new territory with our wonderful host/tour-guide/guy that always kept us laughing, Neil. So over the bridge we went and soon after found Eton College, an all-boys school famous for those who come through and then onto Oxford. They’ve also had several Prime Ministers go there.

Now this may sound terribly silly and perhaps dumb, but this is the thought that sunk into my head when walking back to Windsor from Eton:

Everything is so old here.

Now, I meant this in all seriousness and was just comparing my surroundings in that moment to what I am normally surrounded by back in South Carolina or in Charlotte. Now don’t get me wrong, if you know me, you know I’ve always had a fascination and love for skyscrapers and all types of modern architecture. But there was something different about these buildings and landmarks. And even my hometown Beaufort, which has quite an historical background, is like a baby when compared to landmarks in England.

Listen up, after a little research, I found that Eton College was founded in 1440 and Windsor Castle is like 900 years old.

I love the fact that I had the opportunity to be around something so old and historical. Thinking about what people were like when the building was new and how many different types of people have passed through and seen this same building is something that definitely keeps me thinking.

And I think I’ve decided why this is so interesting to me: Because seeing these landmarks is so new to me, yet they have been there for so long. It was like I was discovering something for the first time that’s been there for several centuries. That’s something that makes me smile- discovering something new. I’ve always had this mindset within music, now it’s just in a 900-year-old building too.

So what do you think? Do you prefer to be in a modern city like Charlotte that has history to make now? Or somewhere like Windsor where you are surrounded by history? Maybe a mix?

I thought I had this figured out prior to London, but now I’m not sure. I might just have to move every few months to satisfy this little “I need to see something new” bug I’ve gained from London.

I'll post some pictures of that day soon!