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Showing posts from November, 2010

Remembering Alaska

In August my family and I took an unforgettable cruise to Alaska.  I took from that vacation several ideas for travel articles and have since written about my adventures in articles such as  How to Avoid Overspending While on a Cruise . One of the most memorable things we did was zipline in Skagway, Alaska. I wrote a travel article about it on AC,  Ziplining in Skagway, Alaska . I had been wanting to zipline with my husband and sons for some time and I'm glad we finally got a chance to do it.   The guides were young men from Oregon who took the  Alaskan Marine Highway System  to spend an adventuresome summer in Alaska. One guide called Smiley seemed to have a smile that emanated from his bones. He looked so blissed out, it was hard to image he'd ever had a parking ticket, or gone through any sort of trauma, or disappointment in life. I expected to find that sort of happiness from a  Buddhist  Monk not some 18 year old. I made a mental note to encourage my boys to spend the

Detained In The Desert

I went to see Josefina Lopez’s  world premier play, “ Detained In The Desert ”. Josefina, known for her popular Real Women Have Curves, was vacationing in Arizona when SB 1070 was passed. She was unable to go to protest rallies held that night because of prior family commitments but Josefina had it in her heart to do something.  In the five years between 2003 and 2007, there was a 40 percent increase in crimes against Latinos. It’s no wonder considering the proliferation of “hate talk” that spews off the radio, TV, and internet and aims at infuriating the masses. In a climate saturated with negative propaganda, fear mongering, and increasing violence, what one would consider a random act of violence is in reality not so random after all. When we create a society that is so pitted against one another, our chance encounters become unavoidable collisions between unsuspecting individuals caught within the biome of the conflicted society in which we live. It’s like walking into a room with

Casa 0101 Writers' Workshop

I've been attending a Josefina Lopez's writing workshops on Tuesdays in Los Angeles with my sister. It is an unforgetable learning experience. Josefina opens herself up and shares her professional experiences with us so that we can learn and move ahead in our own writing ventures. She clearly wants us to succeed. The classes are three hours long but I'm immersed the whole time so it feels like only twenty minutes. Each class is only $10. The best part is how much real world experience we learn from her. We leave the workshop with a long drive home but excited and contemplating the possibilities. With Josefina it feels like anything is possible if you pursue it. I get home late, wrap my arms around my sleeping husband and fall asleep completely blissed out. http://www.casa0101.org/