Bats in the Belfry, Cats in the Attic

from Festival of Chariot's gallery My boyfriend and I were driving , and along the road we see colorful tents not yet set up. We saw a sign that said, "Festival of Chariots." He looked over and said, "Oh, that's the Hare Krishna festival. They had one when I lived in D.C." I looked over with a smile, and subliminally he got my message...I had already decided that we would be going. For those of you who don't know, Hare Krishna of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is a small religion (some say cult) that is an offshoot of Hinduism that was formed in the 1960's. It's often associated with people with shaved heads and saffron robes. White is a funeral color in India, but also practical to stave off the heat. We went yesterday with my mother, and it was a pleasant surprise. I wanted to go mainly for the delicious vegetarian food, but also for the cultural value. We were surprised to have only received one pamphle...

Last week, I returned from a vacation to Williamsburg, Virginia. For those of you who don't know, Williamsburg has a whole section of the city (Colonial Williamsburg) that was restored to look like it did in the colonial days complete with "interpreters" and tours. Williamsburg is also home to the beautiful College of William and Mary, the second oldest college in the United States. I will share my pictures, so without further ado: Governor's Palace Marquis de Lafayette  The College of William and Mary was founded in 1693. Although I love my school, I considered applying to W&M, and I know I would have loved the old buildings with all the legends and tradition at this school. We were able to take a ghost tour of Williamsburg, and there were a few stops at William and Mary. One of the Haunted Buildings, because of suicides.  The building above, home to the English Department, had some interesting stories that I remember. One of the students...

source The first time I read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, I was mesmerized. I stumbled at first when trying to tell the characters' similar names apart, but each one was so colorful that I found even stumbling through the names , constantly referring back to the family tree in the front of the book, irresistible. Márquez had a way of exploring humanity with his words. He captured love, failures, struggles, beauty, and ugliness, and he wove it into magic. I found out about an event in my area called "100 Readers of Solitude." It was an event at which 100 volunteers would read from Márquez's pages in a tribute to his life and body of work. I decided to go on a day that rained in torrents. One of the readers quoted a passage about rain , saying "The air was so damp that fish could have come in through the doors and swum out the windows, floating through the atmosphere in the rooms." My favorite reading was about Remedios the B...

A couple of weeks ago, my ghost group, HGWI,   trekked down to have a paranormal investigation at Taylor Memorial Hospital. When we arrived in the small town, the old sprawling building just sprung up out of nowhere. When we set everything up, we toured the building and listened to some history. After sunset, we initiated our investigation.  The town really prized this hospital when it was built in the 1930's, and you could see the craftsmanship put in to it. There were high ceilings, long hallways, and remnants of marble floors in some areas. It fell in disrepair after the hospital relocated to more modern facilities in the 1970's. There was a man, they say, who acquired a large sum of money to renovate the old building, but he abandoned the project (they say because of the amount of paranormal activity he had witnessed). A nonprofit group called People Helping People United now owns the place, collecting money by hosting investigations in order to restore the buildi...

Gabriel García Márquez, one of the greatest authors of our time, slipped away on 17 of March earlier this week. He was born in Colombia among political turmoil. This was the perfect climate to produce Magical Realist writing, and his writing is something special.  The first time I heard about this author was when a professor of mine recommended my class to read One Hundred Years of Solitude, or Cien Años de Soledad in Spanish. I wasn't sure what this book was about, but I really liked the sound of Magical Realism as a genre. I took my professor's recommendation, put it on my Summer reading list, and I never looked back. It is one of my favorite novels, if not my absolute favorites. I was enthralled and challenged the entire duration of the book. I have plans to read Love in the Time of Cholera, another book by Márquez, this Summer. For anyone who is reading this post, please pledge to read something from Márquez in his memory! I doubt you'll be disappointed.   Sr. Már...

I just wanted to do a quick update this month! First off, I will be moving out in May! I'll be moving to Atlanta where I'll be cat sitting and taking Summer courses. I'm even considering doing an internship with Atlanta's very own Literary Magazine, Loose Change. I'll be cat sitting Geraldine. In addition, the week after Easter, I am supposed to be doing an overnight paranormal investigation at The Old Hawkinsville Hospital . I will definitely have posts about all of the above. On another ghostly note, how many of you have had paranormal experiences?

There are some exciting things developing in my life recently, and I'd like to share a little because, naturally, I'm excited. I'm on Spring Break right now, and it's not really a break, because I will be doing a considerable amount of schoolwork. I'm gearing up for a writing tutor conference being held at my school. I will be one of the speakers, and I will be presenting on the inherently contradictory oppressive yet liberating situation of writing studios. I'm very much looking forward to it, but as of now, I'm completely unprepared. I don't even have a paper written up, but when I do, I hope to be able to get it published in a journal. Wish me luck! I'm also taking a couple of courses this Summer. They're Brit Lit and Applied Linguistics! I'm taking the linguistics courses to earn me my TEFL certificate, so I could do literacy outreach with refugees in the states, or I could teach abroad if that's where life takes me. I'm also ...