A Taos Experience: Part 1 Last night I dreamed about plaster. Why? Could it be because the last four days have been spent mixing plaster, pouring plaster, slapping plaster on walls, floating the plaster to give it a nice texture, getting plaster up our nostrils, in our hair, on our face, all over our shoes, on our pants and shirts and hats? I think so! There was a lot of plaster involved in our Taos Habitat for Humanity experience, and a lot of fun too. We le...

A Taos Experience: Part 2[See the previous blog entry by going to "Blog Posts" and clicking on "Taos: Part 1" (under "New Mexico").]So, like I started saying in my last entry, Taos is a beautiful small town. Nearly all the buildings - shops, houses and churches - are made from adobe bricks covered with plaster, brown or beigey, with flat roofs, like something I'd expect to see in Israel (not that I would know, having never been t...

I have a confession to make...Until today, I had only truly been to the beach twice during my entire stay in California. And one of those two times was at night.And I'm living in freakin' San Diego!Why is it always the way?  How is it that you can live so close yet go so rarely?So, having finally finished finals [wow, look at that alliteration!] this morning, my lovely flatmate Joy and I decided to celebrate by taking a trip to the beach. And this re...

Grunion RunningHere's a quiz for all you non-Californians:The term "grunion run" refers to:a.) when your granny's nose doesn't stop runningb.) running through town in underwear you should have thrown out long agoc.) scouting the beach for weird fishy things that have come ashore to lay their eggsd.) a type of disease which sets in after studying for finals too much  Think you know the answer? Well, if you picked b.)... What we...

Vibrant Harmonies*Wanted to update about something I felt was an awesome representation of life in International House, the place I live: a surprise farewell party for a Chinese student who's leaving at the end of the quarter.The turnout was huge, and he almost cried (that's cool with us!) when people gave speeches - in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Farsi and Thai, and translated into English afterwards. How international is that!Then, just to balance out th...