More Duffluff Adventures!

To all my darling blog followers that I haven't talked to in the last week: my study abroad plan for the summer is coming to fruition!

For sure I'll be going to...drum roll please...

CAMBODIA!

Woop woop! And a friend of mine that I met on my trip to Morocco, Elizabeth, will be going with me. We're both quite fond of traveling so we plan on doing our own thing around Southeast Asia after our month in Cambodia studying travel writing.

Hopefully I'll be able to update soon about the exact plans.

**We'll be in Siem Reap for the month of May and hopefully we can travel up through Vietnam, across Laos and down through Thailand to Bangkok before heading back home.**

**Elizabeth and I in Morocco, more specifically the few days that we rode camels through the Sahara.**

**Elizabeth and I in Paris...hopefully many more countries to come!**

He lives! He lives!

Becks is superhuman. Or superfish, I guess.

Remember that time he attempted suicide last summer? (I'm still holding on to the story that he sacrificed himself for a yet unknown greater cause.)

Well, on this 24th of February, I once again thought he had left us.

I recently upgraded Becks's tank to a much bigger one and put a

big fish rock thing in there to keep him company.

I just got back from a study group and couldn't find him. Where does a fish go? He wasn't swimming around. He wasn't on the floor. He was UNDER HIS ROCK!

There was a pocket between his rock formation and his pebbles and he was STUCK!

Being the loving mother that I am, I quickly lifted the rock and beautiful Becks swam to the top.

Now this event alone doesn't prove much. But paired with his 2.5 year lifespan (so far) and his already failed suicide attempt, I'm convinced Becks is immortal.

Most likely the second coming of Christ.

Sac-religious? Maybe. But I have confidence in the divine powers of my favorite aquatic creature.

Here is my interpretation of Becks when he is discovered and returned to his natural state:

Man, he looks good.

PS- Does that make me like the fish version of the Virgin Mary?

For the Kids

Saturday 10am-Sunday 10am was Dance Marathon 2010.

I am just now blogging about it because I can just now form full sentences after a 36 hours period of being exhausted.

If you're unfamiliar with Dance Marathon, it's a 24 hour event where we celebrate all the fundraising efforts held to raise money for the Children's Miracle Network, more specifically to Georgia, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

The Entertainment committee put together a ton of stuff to keep us occupied. Included in that was a band, dance groups, a cappella groups, a hypnotist, 26 stories of families with miracle children, dance parties, catered meals, inflatable slides/obstacle courses, and so much more.

This year I was on the Morale committee. Our job is to keep everyone excited and energized for the full 24 hours. We also make up a 10 minute dance and teach everyone else how to do it throughout the marathon. Keep up the "morale" you might say.

We're split up into different color groups and have to rep them as well as we can. Which, to me, sounds like a darn good excuse to wear the most ridiculous things I can find. Per usual.

**Our Morale leaders- he promised Morale if we raised enough money that he'd shave his head at the end of the marathon. We raised over $25,000 as a committee!**

**At about 5 in the morning we have "Club DM" which is basically a rave to get us all moving again and energized for the next 5 hours"

**USA hour**

**80's aerobics hour- ready for the rave.**

**I look for any excuse to break out this little baby."

**Found this gem in our social closet.**

**Got this one at Goodwill. I was going for the mechanic look.**

**One of my first outfits. I was called Sarah Palin, a flight attendant, a principal and a band director.**

At the end of the marathon, our total was announced and we raised over $250,000 for CMN. It was totally worth staying up all night.

Bare Naked Lady Bears

So here's the thing.

I'm taking a journalism class called "Editing and Design" this semester and on the first day of class my teacher said that anyone who tries to change anything for the better is an editor. And I agreed.

Today I posted a Facebook status (a quote from my Hebrew Bible professor) that read, "Being Jewish, it's my cross to bear." And then I proceeded to freak out.

Why? Because I have no idea if it's his cross to BEAR or BARE. I changed it three times. I googled it and spent way too much time trying to figure it out but it was bothering me and I NEEDED to know. Right then.

So among my travels through cyber world I came upon my answer. It is actually his cross to bear (victory, self!).

But where I found the answer was in another person's blog and he was not very kind to us people who don't know everything. APPARENTLY it's quite stupid to even consider that it might have been his cross to bare. In that case, the cross would have had to have lots of clothes on and you would have had to have some reason to remove them...hence, making the cross nakey. Or...bare.

But being so mean about it was quite unnecessary. In this case, this "editor" was not making things around him better. He was simply making me feel dumb. Not cool.

So to all you readers who have ever asked yourself the question..."bare or bear?" I am going to kindly show you the light so you don't have to be offended by other bloggers that will put you down:

Bare= to undress, reveal, expose. You bare your soul. You get bare naked. You bare your soul WHILE you're bare naked. You get it.

Bear= to support, carry a load, hold up. You bear a cross. You bear a child. You bear a child WHILE you're bare naked.

An even easier way to remember:

Grin and bear it= good

Grin and bare it= sexual assault

PS- I hope you all got the religion joke in there. Jewish...cross to bear...GET IT?!

When a man loves a woman...

I've mentioned many a time that I'm borderline obsessed with one of my religion professors, Wanda Wilcox. In honor of Valentine's Day and the accumulation of a new favorite quote of mine, I decided to share what she described love as the other day:

"Being in love is being late to work."

She meant, of course, the lose-your-mind, forget-the-world, whimsical feeling of just being head over heels for someone. And I thought it was a perfect description. Suddenly, nothing else matters.

So happy Valentine's Day, friends. I hope you're late to work.

Abstinence Only

Hopefully you all can read this flow chart. My awesome LGBT spirituality teacher shared this with us in class the other day. It's a flow chart of when you can or cannot have sex according to medieval expectations. In case it isn't big enough, you're lead to the box reading "STOP! SIN!" is you're pregnant, unmarried, married for less than three days, or if it's Lent, Easter, Sunday, Wednesday, Friday or Saturday. Etc, etc...

Homeless but helpful

This morning I got ready to go workout and headed to campus. I had to stop in downtown to get something first so I parked my car and started walking. Athens has its share of homeless people and some of them live in a world of their own.

As I was crossing the street I saw a homeless man walking the opposite way rambling loudly about who knows what. As we got closer to one another I heard what he was saying and he kept saying that I looked cold in my shorts and t-shirt. I smiled and said that it was a bit chilly out but I was alright.

And then he offered me his pants.

He literally asked me if I needed his pants to get warm. Something about a homeless man asking if I needed his torn up jeans kinda shook my foundation. And I liked it. I like that there are people out there that will give whatever they have even if it isn't much of anything.

For today, my faith in humanity has been restored.

If only I could rent a car...

The past few days I've been celebrating 21st birthdays with some of my closest friends. I can't help but think back to when I was a wee youngling, just turning 21. AKA January 3.

As I've mentioned before, I'm not exactly a caviar and fine wine kinda girl. I'm also not a high heels and downtown kinda girl. But I've very much a sweatpants and stay at home kinda girl.

So what better way to spend my birthday than playing flip cup with my parents on my kitchen table? Exactly, there is none. So some neighbors and friends gathered around with my whole family to bring in my 21st birthday with a bang.

Let's watch, shall we?

**Coolest frat house in Alpharetta**

**The "other" team**

**Team Awesome**

**The girls and their boys**

**My whole fam damily!**

Outlet employee

This semester I have no classes on Fridays (three cheers for strange scheduling!) so the roommates and I decided to get our shop on. What better way to shop than at outlets? So off we went to Commerce to try our luck finding formal dresses.

We eventually made our way around all of the outlets but we started at the Polo store. As I was waiting for one of the mates to try something on I was sitting on a bench outside the fitting rooms. This older woman came up to me and asked me if I could open one of the fitting room doors for her. I was a bit confused until she asked, "Do you work here?" I understood the mixup as I'm about the age of the other employees there and had to say that no, I didn't work there.

So we continue to shop and a few stores later end up in Banana Republic. Again, I'm waiting for one of the mates to try something on and the SAME lady comes up to me and asks if I work there. I kind of stare at her for a second because she definitely wasn't old enough to be senile yet (though mom and Bob do have their moments...). After a minute I again said that no, I didn't work there. And then AK and I dissolved in laughter because we're already 21 getting older by the minute. We only have so long to laugh at the antics of old people until people are laughing at us.

LGBTerrified of Christianity

Last semester I took an awesome class called Women in Christian History and loved the professor. So I told her I'd take whatever she taught this semester. Turns out she's teaching Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Transgender (LGBT) Spirituality. We all know I'm a fan of the sexually eclectic so I was pretty pumped. Turns out, I was rightfully pumped. This class is going to be awesome. Plus, there are some very nontraditional people in the class and it's always good to be thrown out of your comfort zone.

Anyways, the point is that we have tons of online articles to read and respond to and we recently got to read one from the always sardonic news site, The Onion. Here's the article:

GAY TEEN WORRIED HE MIGHT BE CHRISTIAN

LOUISVILLE, KY—At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He's a member of his school's swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian.

"I don't know what's happening to me," Faber admitted to reporters Monday. "It's like I get these weird urges sometimes, and suddenly I'm tempted to go behind my friends' backs and attend a megachurch service, or censor books in the school library in some way. Even just the thought of organizing a CD-burning turns me on."

Added Faber, "I feel so confused."

The openly gay teen, who came out to his parents at age 14 and has had a steady boyfriend for the past seven months, said he first began to suspect he might be different last year, when he started feeling an odd stirring within himself every time he passed a church. The more conservative the church, Faber claimed, the stronger his desire was to enter it.

"It's like I don't even know who I am anymore," the frightened teenager said. "Keeping this secret obsession with radical right-wing dogma hidden away from my parents, teachers, and schoolmates is tearing me apart."

According to Faber, his first experience with evangelical Christianity was not all that different from other gays his age.

"Sure, I looked at the Book of Leviticus once or twice—everybody has," Faber said. "We all experiment a little bit with that stuff when we're growing up. But I was just a kid. I didn't think it meant anything."

Faber's instinct was to deny these early emotions. But recently, the Louisville teen admitted, the feelings have grown stronger, making him wonder more and more what life as a born-again right-wing fundamentalist would be like.

"The other week, I was this close to picketing in front of an abortion clinic," the mortified teenager said, his eyes welling up with tears. "I know it's wrong, but I wanted so badly to do it anyway. I even made one of those signs with photos of dead fetuses and hid it in my closet. I felt so ashamed, yet, at the same time, it was all strangely titillating."

Faber's parents, although concerned, said they're convinced their otherwise typical gay son is merely going through a conservative Christian phase.

"I caught him watching The 700 Club once when he thought he was alone in the house, and last week, I found some paperbacks from the Left Behind series hidden in his sock drawer," his mother, Eileen Faber, said. "I'm sure he'll grow out of it, but even if he doesn't, I will love and accept my son no matter what."

Faber's father was far less tolerant in his comments.

"No son of mine is going to try to get intelligent design into school textbooks," Geoffrey Faber said. "And I absolutely refuse to pay his tuition if he decides to go to one of those colleges like Oral Roberts University where they're just going to fill his head with a lot of crazy conservative ideas."

He added, "I just want my normal gay son back."

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/gay_teen_worried_he_might_be

Watch your back (bumper)

So today I was driving home from class, minding my own business when someone cut me off.

On the back of the car was a bumper sticker that said "Jesus is a liberal."

Now, I'm not sure how Jesus voted back in the day but I'm pretty sure he never cut anyone off in his car.

Just sayin.

Another "don't judge" post

So it's the first day of school at ole UGA and I'm already learning lessons.

My first class has something to do with international journalism.

The teacher walked in and looked a little frump-tastic; white hair, extra pudge, glasses. And then she opened her mouth and spoke. I kinda laughed to myself cause it sounded a bit like she had downs. Not that there's anything wrong with downs, but it was gonna be a long semester with a voice like that.

And THEN she explained her travels as a journalist. She said that she's a bit hard of hearing because while writing for a newspaper in Trinidad she caught a virus that took away a bit of her hearing, hence her voice.

Basically, I thought she was lame and she's actually really cool. If she can fight off a virus from Trinidad, she can teach me journalism.