Sticking to What Matters, Family Dinner, Friends, JMT hike, Soccer, and my Dad's Band

Wow, it's been an interesting week. Most of this week, despite my new found health, I felt like I was trudging through the mud. It feels great to be strong enough to walk during a whole 8 hour shift, not have a massive headache, eat things other than Jamba Juice, not have a fever, and not have terribly sharp pain in my sour throat. I'm so grateful to have my health back!

However, lately I've been feeling like I'm getting sidetracked. I've been spending a lot of time on things that are not as important to me, really. It's been fun hanging out in SF, at Kipp's, Bear's Lair and getting to know new people at Ral's functions.

I feel like I need to be focusing more on the things that are important to me in this life. I need to concentrate on getting all the supplies we need for the JMT, figure out what I'm going to be doing with my time in Colorado, running every morning, eating healthier, doing a better job of keeping up to date with friends and fam, researching things on my to do list!, reading books that inspire me rather than talking to people that only make me want to drink more!

I know honest honest run down of the week... to much?? Neway, of course every muddy spot has it's good times if your traveling with some interesting folks. Here's some of this last weeks happenings...

One of my favorite folks at ral's is an Australian guy named Sam (Left of guy in pink hat). He's leaving Wednesday to travel around Thailand and Malaysia. Then he's off to do the JET program in Japan for a year or two!! You can see him in this pic to the left of the guy in the pink hat. It was amazing. We started drinking at 5:30 when my shift ended and stayed out until 3 am! Yet this is the only pic I got of the whole evening. the highlight of my night was meeting a Turkish guy who showed me all this awesome Turkish music on youtube!


My younger brother Lowell (2nd to the left) just came home from West Point. We have enjoyed many fam dinners together since his return. we went to this Italian restaurant last Wednesday. We shared a big laugh over Obama's Reverend. Apparently he's quite a character!!! Here is a video if you wanna check him out... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAYe7MT5BxM

And I met up with one of my best girlfriends randomly this week! I had no idea she had just gotten back. I decided to lay on the grass one day and we just sort of ran into each other while sitting out there. I met Nimisha my freshman year at Cal while living at the Clark Kerr dorms. She's now getting her PhD in history at Princeton and came back to Cal for some much needed rest. Although she's still reading 3 books a day! I'm looking forward to meeting up with her again tomorrow at the bears lair.

I'm not going to lie putting breakfast, lunch and dinner into 23 bags was time consuming! The pic on the left is what the bag for July 15th is full of. That day we will be eating oatmeal, snickers, a pop tart, apple cider, trail mix, and REI's version of cheese enchiladas.

One of the best parts of my week has been playing soccer out on the new field! The pic on the left is my new man-crush. His name is Ronaldo and is the best soccer player in the world. He plays for Portugal!

My dad plays in a band with some of his friends. The weekly rock out session happen once a week at his house in Pleasant Hill. About 5 minute away from where I live in Concord. I was lucky enough to go over there in the middle of a gravity kills jam session!

Just finished a great book. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time was an extremeley inspiring true story. the book begins with an American who gets lost climbing K2. he stumbles on a village full of children who are determined to learn, but who have no text books or materials. He promises that he will build this small village a school. By the end of this book he ends up building hundreds of schools all over Pakistan and in Afghanistan. This is my favorite quote from the end of the book:

"Jahan took a breath and composed herself. 'When I was a little sort of girl I would see a gentlemen or a lady with good, clean clothes I would run away and hide my face. But after I graduated from the Korphe school, I felt a big change in my life. I felt I was clear and clean and could go before anybody and discuss anything. And now that I am already a Skardu, I feel that anything is possible. I dont want to be just a health worker. I want to be such a women that I can start a hospital and be an executive, and look over all the health problems of all the women in the Braldu. I want to be a superlady'. Mortenson didn't laugh after all. Instead he beamed at the bold granddaughter of Haji Ali....Five hundred and eighty letters, twelve rams, and ten years of work was a small price to pay, Mortenson thought, for such a moment".

Newho, I miss you guys. Laura I hope you got our message from the concert this week. I know your kicking ass over there and I was soooo happy to get the update from Ariane. Post pics when you can!! Ariane, lets look into wicked!

Cheapskate Hill and Thievery

After Sierra got sick, and I got sick, and then Sierra got sick again, we finally had a joyful reunion at Yogurt Park. Neither of us got yogurt, though Geoffrey did. After discovering that Jamba Juice was closed, we scaled a couple blocks to try to satiate Sierra’s craving for a smoothie. She compromised with bubble tea instead. Geoff mentioned something about Thievery Corporation playing at the Greek Theatre which made me want to kick myself because I had meant to buy tickets but hadn’t realized that they were going to be here so soon. So it was off to cheapskate hill for us where we joined the ranks of hippies and stoners while listening to the chill beats of an amazing dj duo.

Our amazing view of the concert: Though trees were covering our view of the stage and powertripping event staff prevented anyone from getting too close to catching a glimpse of the band, the night was perfect. It was so warm and with the campanile illuminated from behind the trees, everything was so peaceful.

A Greenlining Post

So summer has officially began and my new job as a Summer Associate at the Greenlining Institute is proving to be (thankfully) stimulating and oh so interesting. I work with my partner Daniel (who's from North Carolina) on a project involving investigating corporations who receive the biggest contracts from the state of California and evaluating their corporate philanthropic practices. Greenlining tries to promote good corporate social responsibility, attesting that in a time where many programs for minority and low income communities are cut due to lack of government funding, corporations should do their part and invest back into California--especially because they are receiving the largest share of funds from the state itself. Anyhow, I'm sure most of you just glossed over this paragraph and that's cool. I just thought I'd write it out to spare me having to answer your questions of what I'm doing at Greenlining.

The other 9 summer associates are all awesome and friendly people. We are all so different from one another but we get along really great. My duties for my project have included drafting letters to state Senators and Assemblymen, researching public contract documents, writing memos etc etc. Interspersed throughout all of this are a series of business writing trainings, public speaking trainings, critical thinking trainings etc etc etc.

It feels weird to not be a part of the media academy anymore-- I still feel like I'm part of the media team and last Thursday I helped them interview a subject instead of going on my lunch break.

So this week was the Business Supplier Diversity Conference held at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA. Put on by 14 major banks in the US and facilitated by Greenlining, it was a conference dedicated to increasing contracts for minority and small business owners. I won't bore you with the details, but I am still astonished on how intense networking can be. Especially those high energy networking sessions in which you meet 50 gazillion people in a 40 minute time-span. Our duties as Associates was to meet as many people as we could, pass out relevant material and basically do registration and other mundane adminstrative tasks. After that however, we were free!

One of the associates, JJ took us on an hour busride to Santa Monica pier where we enjoyed lots of sunshine on the beach and a great time on 3rd Street Promenade.

Beverly Hills 90210 Style: Back Row: Daniel, Manuel, Van; Middle Row: Anabel, Shafiq; Front Row: JJ, Me


At night we went to this really cool bar called the Library Bar-- a venue where you feel like you're in a cozy library with super cool books and drinks. Then we went to the Hotel Standard's rooftop club/bar/lounge place where they had an amazing view of downtown LA and waterbeds for us to lounge on.


View from the Standard


With that all said, you all should check out Lil Wayne's new album.

In New Zealand one of my favorite experiences was going to an Irish Pub in Nelson. I loved this place b/c a bunch of Irish folks from the town got together for a seisiun. In a seisiun people come together with instruments you've never seen before, sit in a big circle, and just jam off each other. The sound is truly magical and makes you feel like your right in the middle of that scene from the titanic with kate and Leo dancing. (haha). If your ever in SF check this out Tuesday night at the Plough and the Stars. The place also had great live music other nights. The adventure actually ended up being the trip to this place. We got dropped off at 800 Clement, but needed to be at 100 Clement. Andrew Sam and I enjoyed putting the phrase"It's not the destination, but the journey that matters" to good use.

Ahhh! 2 of my roomies from Fall semester 2006. Exactly a year before I met you guys! It was wonderful to catch up with Negar (middle) and Saili (far right). Saili just finished her second year as a special ed teacher with Oakland Teaching Fellows as an SF State Grad student. She is also going to do some community service work in Morocco this summer. I'm so jealous!! And Negar just graduated from Cal! She is wonderful and always brings me back to my meditative routes. She practices Sufism. We enjoyed a great conversation about the fact that Sufism can make one feel like they are completely full of love, uncaged, and at peace with oneself and the world.

It was tough to have a peaceful dinner with Saili and Negar at Raleigh's b/c of all the uproar over the Celtics Warriors game! Unfortunately I've been dragged into the hoopla and have watched pretty much every game in the series. It's the best players playing the best players which makes every game exciting to watch! God, I hate to say it but I'm pulled to Kobe and the Lakers. He's fun to watch.

At 6:30 on a Saturday morning I dragged myself to a used gear sale at REI. You'd think nobody would be there, but this sale offers such good deals over 100 people were already in line in front of me at 6:30. You get your raffle ticket and then you get to go into this small room for 20 minutes when it's your turn and grab shit as fast as you can! I ended up getting a 120$ sleeping bag for 50$!

Brandon and I went to a great comedy show at Cobbs comedy club in Sf. We saw Arj Barker from flight of the conchords and doug benson from the marajuanalogues.

And one of the highlights of my week was meeting up with my best friend from 6th grade!! Caitlin and I did everything together when we were younger. It was amazing b/c I felt like we were basically the same people as we were back then. I remember when we were younger playing soccer together and dressing up to go to the mall all we did all day every day was laugh. We still laughed a lot together and it feels so wonderful to have recovered a friendship from back in the day. I'm hoping to never lose touch with her again!

I'm off to work. I'm really sick Ariane...this sucks! I miss you guys and am wishing you health and happiness :)

Sionara California

In precisely nine hours I will be on a Southwest flight to New Orleans, Louisiana.

You know, by now this moment is kind of a regular feeling for me. I have no idea what to expect this coming week but between Berkeley, Egypt, and DC I've come to revel in the feeling. I am confident that I need to leave the Golden State for some time but at heart, I know where my roots are and something tells me that I'll find my way back.

But, in Pryor family tradition, my California exit meant many a get together. Here's the run-down:

Friday: The sister and husband arrive from Pasadena. Original LP barbeques and fish and steak feast shared by cousin Kyle and adopted cousin Ben. The evening transitioned to the cousin's house where I redeemed my beer pong skills and excelled at flip cup. The lot of us soon abandoned the beer pong and headed out to the Encinitas bars one last time -- ran into old friends, laughed with family, and had an authentic Enc outing -- couldn't ask for more

Saturday: 10:30am a limo arrives at the Pryor condo to surprise my mother for her 50th birthday celebration. Aunts, Uncles, cousins, and Pryor fam gathered inside and headed to Temecula for a day of wine tasting. The weather was beautiful and the company was even better. In the evening, we all met up at the Scmuckle's for a little burger barbeque. The sister husband and I then escaped with the cousins to play more beer pong/flip cup. I was pooped by midnight.

Sunday: Evening dinner catered by the local dirty Mexican taco stand with everyone near and dear to the family. We dined on carnitas and watched the Lakers/Celtics game. This was officially night 1 of my send-off. I said goodbye to some friends and family and was given several words of encouragement. My sis and her husband also left this evening -- Jeff left by saying: "Damnit Laura! With your in Louisiana 25% of my social life is gone!" (hopefully the sis will loosen the reins soon)

Monday: Sushi happy hour with the nucleus of our mafia family. The sushi, beer and sake was excellent. I gave Kyle a map of the US and labeled it with the Mardi Gras date to encourage their anticpated road trip to the NOLA. I'm going to miss my cousins A LOT, but it's a different kind of feeling, because I know they'll be in my life whether I like it or not. Here are a few pics highlighting the final send off:

Me and Ben (the "adopted cousin" aka my arranged marriage)

Uncle Brian Says: "We can never leave any sake on the table! Finish it!"

Me and Kyle - Note the Schmuckle Painting truck in the background (Uncle Brian confessed he only gets his gas from Mexico these days, hopefully they don't take Kyle for a stowaway)

Honestly, and in the least cheesy way, I feel so lucky to have such a supportive and fun family. When I think about it, I'd be such a different person if it weren't for my Aunts, Uncles, and cousins. In fact, I probably wouldn't be going to New Orleans tomorrow if it weren't for their lifetime encouragement.

So, in spirit of staying true to what I know, I'm going to refrain from speculating about the future because I like to go into things like this without any expectations -- I find that it keeps me positive. I'll be staying at Tulane University till Sunday morning and then I'll be in Phoenix for five weeks.

Thanks so much for all the FPZ love and enthusiasm - I always get a burst of energy when hearing about your adventures and reading your encouraging comments. Puma, I hope you're feeling better because if I remember correctly, today was your first day as a Summer Associate (let me know how it went?!). And Miss Fifi, I'm sure your Muir plans are coming together and I'm excited to see more about your SF adventures.

7:30am flight...time to sleep on it.

Done da da

Yes, my cheeks are still swollen and my left jaw is bruised green and blue. But I think it makes me look pretty badass, like I got into a nasty rumble or something. Anyway, wisdom teeth surgery can be a bitch, but considering my graduation week, I think the forced bed rest wasn't all that bad.

Graduation was ridiculous in the very best way. Between Bear's lair, SF outings, losing my keys, 4am beer pong, commencement speech fiascos, and my entire family coming I was hard pressed for decent sleep.

It was so worth it.

My last week in the Bay was the ideal capstone. Here's a few pics:

The Fam walking to my first graduation

The reception after my first graduation

Behind the scenes before the big one at the Greek

Graduation dinner with the Fam + Ebag - posing with our complementary "congrats" ice cream

Thank you so so so much Puma for the photo albums -- To be perfectly honest, I was actively fighting back the water works. Really, that means so much to me and I will haul it with me to the Bayou.

So since graduation...well, there was the Encinitas debauchery with my boys. This included beach, cousins beer pong, fishing, bar-b-queing, downtown san diego, and Encinitas bar hopping. Whew, I was spent come Thursday. But again, SO worth the sleep loss.

Come Friday...it was just me, the oral surgeon, and the anesthesiologist. Bed-ridden for a few days. But now, minus the swelling, I'm recovered. And I even got to revisit all of my favorite Spike Lee films and do much needed Teach for America prep work.

But now that I'm back in the world...

Yesterday my mother and I went to Pasadena to visit my Sis and her husband. I got some much needed "teacher wardrobe" shopping done and dined on some excellent sushi. It was good to see my sis and spend some female family time. In the evening, my friend Justin turned 21 It was just the two of us sitting in front of the beach when clock turned 12. He needed to celebrate, but even though OCD Justin doesn't drink, I still dragged him into the Saloon so we could officially sit at a bar on his 21st birthday. I ordered him two cherry cokes (with extra cherries) and I sipped on my Pacifico. I think he appreciated my effort.

Anyway, big things on the horizons. Mostly consisting of quality family (esp the cousins) time and packing (I leave on Tuesday!). Several events in the next week so expect multiple updates (now that pain killers have subsided...). I'm getting really anxious for New Orleans, it's really crazy to think that I'll be there in less than a week. I miss my Berkeley life a lot and all of my dear friends, but the more I reflect the more I feel solid about leaving Berkeley and venturing out on my own. It's really an odd feeling though, I've never felt more independent and on my own that I do right now. But honestly, it's kind of empowering to know that it's just me responsible for me. I don't know, maybe it's just the meds talking - but I'll keep the ruminations coming.

Kitty's Raggae Dance Night, OReilly's Irish Pub and Casanova Lounge in SF, Food Poisoning, Listening to My Inner Child, Song of the Week

On Monday night me and a few friends from Raleigh's headed out to Kitty's Bar and nightclub in Emeryville to do some reggae dancing. At 10pm a different DJ spins different tunes each night--such as jazz, indie, funk and Latin. A small section of the bar area doubles as a dance floor.The club was about as ghetto as ghetto gets. And of course that's why I loved it! There you can find people who know how to dance and some amazing hip hop music. I spent a few days recuperating as I was still drinking vodka and coke at 3 in the morning.

Andrew, my new buddy from Raleigh's and I headed out for another SF adventure Thursday night. Of course I'm still looking for an Irish bar with an excellent atmosphere and good live music. OReilly's Irish Pub and Restaurant left me a bit disappointed. There was no live music and the atmosphere was a bit "dead." I enjoyed having a partner that reminded me it's more about the journey than the destination. While the bar was lacking it was good to get to know Andrew: A natural comedian, into the beach and surfing, traveling, Italian, history, dancing, camping/hiking, anything fun, applying to law school. We're heading out to Cobbs Comedy club Thursday night to see Arj Barker from flight of the concords and Doug Benson which should be awesome!

After OReilly's Andrew and I headed to Casanova Lounge in the Mission. Both OReilly's and Casanova were rated #1 in the Gaurdian Best of the Bay so we came in with high hopes. I have to say this place was a bit disappointing as well. We gave it a 3 and then after lounging around on the sofas for a while realized this place actually had a comfortable vibe to it....so we gave it a 4 :). I'd say if you go to this spot on a busy night when live music is playing it would be a great place to sit and relax on the couches with a few friends.

I got food poisoning Friday night and have been down for the count ever since. It knocked me out Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Today...god I hate food poisoning. In counseling I'm learning to listen to my inner child. I'm learning we all have an inner child inside of us which needs to be compassionately taken care of. It acts up and demands our attention throughout the day. Our inner child manifests itself in the form of a headache, a stomach ache, sweaty palms, shaky hands, tired legs, a racing heartbeat. These are many ways our inner child gets our attention and asks to be cared for. Its often in our best interest to pay attention to that child and care for it I'm learning.

Songs of the Week:

La Camisa Negra by Juanes

Lolli Lolli by Three Six Mafia

Dirty Laundry by Bitter Sweet