January 18, 2016

Making Promises

 Trip to England

Yesterday, I thought a lot about making promises. Why, you ask? I went to a baptism.   It was in Aylesbury, England for a particularly adorable little British baby named Willoughby James (I happen to think this name adds to his particular adorability).   I watched as the vicar (another adorable, British-type of a word) performed the baptismal rites in a 12 Century font, which was pretty remarkable.  The vicar said there is actually a whole class of fonts named after the one little Willoughby was baptized in.  I didn’t even know there were classes of fonts.  To be honest, I didn’t even know it was called a font.  So…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

January 14, 2016

The Value of Time

 time as sand through the hourglass

This morning I photocopied 27 pages out of The Big Thirst by Charles Fishman.  The book is a study of current worldwide water use practices and includes some fascinating and terrifying observations observations about the general human attitudes towards water consumption.  I want to read it with my IB Environmental Science class in some vague hope that the students will grow up understanding that water consumption is an important issue and problem in their lives.  I believe it will be a very worthwhile activity. However, it took 25 minutes to make the photocopies.  It got me started thinking about the value of time. Today, I chose to spend those 25…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

January 13, 2016

Sober January

 la croix sparkling water

This year for my New Year’s resolution, I’m bounding towards sober January like a runaway train.  I know, I know. I make weird New Year’s Resolutions.  For example, last year my resolution was to learn how to do a flying ninja kick.  For training in preparation for this arduous task, I completed a half marathon.  I never did the ninja kick.  In 2013, my New Year’s resolution was to go on a date.  It resulted, in a roundabout way, in the nascent entries of this blog.  This year, I made my New Year’s resolution in July (The thing about the X Files was sort of joke–but I will definitely watch all…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

January 10, 2016

The Best of France

 france is beautiful and full of things to do and see

I’m obsessed with the best of France. Partially, because I’m still stuck on this “beautiful grace of French community” thing.  Partially, because after seeing the country-how can you not be obsessed?! I mean, honestly. I first travelled to France in the summer after my freshman year of high school, in a determined attempt by my parents to: A) Make sure I was doing something vaguely more productive than learning to smoke cigarettes (this had been the crowning achievement of the previous summer, and it turned out, was highly useful in France)B) Get me out of our hot, crowded apartment and expose me to some non-televised cultural activitiesC) Increase the overall…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

January 9, 2016

Charlie Hebado

 Year in Review 2015

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since the Charlie Hebado shootings in Paris.  Looking back, it feels like the shooting was the beginning of a hectic, shocking year of world events.  Find a short list below. (You classy, academic types can read the all about it on The Atlantic website). Important 2015 Wold Events SpaceX Lands Rocket Successfully Makes Reuse Possible. (12-22-2015, 10 Records)Climate Change Deal Reached by about 200 Countries. (12-13-2015, 23 Records)Paris terrorist attack, hundreds dead. (11-13-2015, 35 Records)Russian passenger plane crashed in Sinai. (10-30-2015, 22 Records)Russia intervenes Syria civil war. (10-01-2015, 55 Records)Flowing liquid water found on Mars. (09-25-2015, 12 Records)Migrant crisis of Europe. (08-30-2015, 114 Records)Earthquake 7.9 Magnitude hits Nepal. (04-24-2015,…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in randomly fabulous

January 6, 2016

New Year’s Resolutions

 Happy New Year

It is the time of year to consider New Year’s Resolutions. Lose the cookie weight, go to the gym, etc. Instead, I’m considering television. It may be relatable to New Year’s Resolutions. It may not. Let’s see. In college,  I spent a memorable year living in a house full of girls that loved video games.  Specifically, Mario Kart.  I exclude myself rather emphatically from that category.  Sometimes, I would leave for a weekend and come back to the girls sitting in basically the same places I left them, scattered around our living room with a pile of Keystone Light cans expanding around them in every direction.  It was kind of…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

December 15, 2015

Holiday Decorations

 Holiday Decorations

It’s important to appreciate holiday decorations.  This simple thought came to me yesterday as I realized it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Madrid. The city decorated for Christmas two and a half weeks ago.  Yesterday, sitting in a cab and practicing my slow breathing, I finally noticed. There are lights up on all the major streets, massive fake trees up in all the plazas, and hordes of slow-walking Spanish old ladies  strolling arm-in-arm on every sidewalk. But I’ve been so busy at work, I never looked up to appreciate it all.  Bad choice.  Holiday decorations are almost meditative in their quiet beauty. (I think it has something…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

December 12, 2015

What’s important?

 too busy to think

To define ‘what’s important’ sometimes you need to take a step back and think. Sometimes, instead of thinking, you plan frantic back-to-back weekend trips for three months at a time. I consider myself ‘Exhibit A’ in this example. Where have I been, you ask?   Let me tell you.  In the last 3 months, I have been in: -the South of France-Barcelona-Morocco-Italy-London-Valencia In addition, I have been working 60 hours a week, teaching 3 separate subjects to 110 students.  I’ve written comments and assigned grades for all of them twice.  I’m taking 2 different types of Spanish classes and desperately trying to give my wonderful boyfriend some measure of meaningful…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

October 3, 2015

How to Deal with Grief

 Ceremonies of remembrance

How to deal with grief varies from person to person. There’s no magic cure for the weight of sadness. But telling stories helps. So here goes.  My best friend growing up was Polly Noble.  We met on the first day of nursery school.  We both had adorable bowl haircuts.  Our apartments were 4 blocks apart.  The rest, as they say, was history. We spent years of our childhoods laying on the floors of each other’s bedrooms, playing Uno and Guess Who.  We have seen the movie Grease together 2,659 times.  At her apartment, we would play tag in the hall with her dog and have juice out of these endlessly…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous

September 28, 2015

What Defines You?

 notebook

On Sundays I enjoy doing nothing.  Walks, lunch, pedicures. Pondering serious life questions like this one: What defines you? In this view, I’ve recently branched out Sunday “nothing” to include watching documentary films on iTunes.  In this vein, during the latest quest of nothing I discovered Lizzie Velasquez.  She’s 26 and weighs 64 pounds due to a rare congenital disease.  She gave a TED Talk in 2013 about a YouTube video labeling her “The World’s Ugliest Girl”, which went viral complete with thousands of comments from strangers demanding that she kill herself.  In her TED Talk, she said when she considered how to deal with the video, she asked herself…

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written by carolineschley@gmail.com - Posted in live fabulous