May 31, 2009

Llama Drama

There’s been a lot of drama in my life recently, the central issue being To Watch or Not to Watch: Jon & Kate Plus Eight. On one hand, eight adorable (half or quarter-Asian) kids! On the other hand, shouldn’t I let Jon & Kate try and figure out their problems and deal with their issues with some semblance of privacy? Is it ok if I watch reruns as long as I don’t watch any of the new season? Does it even matter what I do if they keep doing the show anyway? What kind of cake did they have at the sextuplets’ birthday party? WAS THERE A PINATA??

This has nothing little to do with the subject of today’s post (re: GOALS), but if you peruse the archives of this blog, you’ll notice that Kevin is more of the “everything should flow seamlessly from one paragraph to another” kind of writer, while I’m more of a “you are stuck reading whatever I happen to feel like writing, and I feel like writing about reality TV, so too bad” kind of writer. I’m sorry, but I just won’t hide my true feelings about television.

And with that, we will abruptly segue to the meat of this post, which is entitled “THE GOALS OF ZHOU AND KEVIN ON THEIR TRIP AROUND THE WORLD.”


[I imagine the experience of reading this post so far is like getting on a train, thinking you’re headed to Paris, and then realizing you got on the wrong train and you’re going to Moscow instead – not that you have anything against Moscow, but you really wanted to see the Eiffel Tower, and you don’t speak Russian. I’m sorry if that’s the case, but I hear Moscow is very nice in June.]

Now, let us remember that I have not actually asked Kevin about his goals, but just assumed they are in line with the goals I have in mind for him, which are the following:

1. To try and eat the food that is available to him, including, but not limited to, the following: watermelon, mangoes, pineapple, beets, strawberries, curry, avocado, any kind of nuts besides peanuts, tofu or any other kind of soy-based food, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges, pad thai and pho.


2. To save the sea kittens.
3. To meet new people.
4. To stand with one foot on the Northern Hemisphere and one foot on the Southern Hemisphere. And then jump up and down.


5. To set a personal record for days gone without showering.
6. To meet, and make a good impression on, my relatives that live in Beijing. (Bet you didn’t know about this one, did you, Kev?)
7. To JUMP FROM A PLANE. Crazy person.

I’m sure these goals are completely and without a doubt 100% in line with what Kevin would have written, especially number one. There is no need to ask Kevin for any amendments and/or corrections. So we’ll just go ahead and move on to my list.

1. To gain a better understanding of world geography. I know all of the states and their capitals (although New Hampshire does trip me up), but I have no idea where Kazakhstan is. Or how to spell it. It took me three tries. I probably still won’t know where it is after this trip, but at least I’ll know where Botswana is.
2. To meet new people.
3. To do some things that will scare the living daylights out of me. [This does not include jumping out of a plane. I only want to be slightly more brave, not a whole lot more brave.]
4. To avoid the real world for just one more year.
5. To be more aware.
6. To pet a llama at Machu Picchu. Speaking of llamas, there is a very underrated movie about a llama that you should watch.
7. To swim with pink dolphins.


This is the point where, if Kevin were writing this post, he would seamlessly transition from pink dolphins to a concluding paragraph filled with little jokes and a tidy summation of the main goal, which is: to have an amazing, awesome, challenging, unforgettable 11 months. But I’m not Kevin. (Also, I did not put those adjectives in alphabetical order on purpose. They just came out of my head that way. I swear.)

[So this train is going to Paris after all! Too bad you already bought that ushanka. Sorry about that.]

Instead, I’d like to talk a little bit about the surreal-ness of all of this. It feels like some Zhou alter ego is going on the trip, not me. (My alter ego looks exactly like me, except she is the kind of person who would never sweep the floor twice in one day. And she wears a cool cape, even though Edna advises against it.) It’s almost unimaginable to me that in a little over a year, Kevin and I will have visited five continents and over 30 countries. We’ll have trekked the Himalayas and stood in the sweltering heat in front of the Sphinx. We’ll have met a lot of cool new people whose names I don’t know yet (I’m hoping one will be named Sawyer, because I think that’s an awesome name). And we’ll probably have grown and changed in ways that I can’t even imagine right now. It just completely blows my mind.

I can’t wait.
________________________________________________

Puzzles for Postcards (list of winners):

WNDRFL Song Lyric VQs:

SSKSFBL
TSLTNTHVNNG
________________________________________________

Scrabble Games: 47 (full log)
Zhou WPLB: 24; 367; 390; FILLIES, ENTAILS
Kevin WPLB: 23; 368; 417; UNsWEET*

1 comment:

  1. I see skies of blue.
    It's late in the evening.

    Thank god. That took too long.

    ReplyDelete