I LOVE MY LIFE!
Kalimera! Ti Kaneis? Hopefully everyone back home enjoyed their 2010 Halloween. If I run across one more Jersey Shore costume in a Facebook album, I’m calling it quits on my career pursuit! I think I’d rather workout 7 days a week, feel better about myself after I get 40 spray tans and fist pump all night with DJ Pauly D on the 1’s and 2’s. Yeahhh, sounds much easier and more fun than getting an education! MTV has really let me down on this one. But of course it’s not their fault because the more viewers who consistently return every week determine a show’s lifespan and in that case, thank you America for proving how easily we are entertained. Most importantly, thank you MTV for bringing us “Snooki”, the greatest thing to laugh at since the downfall of Britney Spears.
This past week consisted of making the most from my shambles of last minute planning that fell a few fries short of a Happy Meal (see previous blog post). After accepting the bright side of this disaster – 1. saved lots of money 2. got a head start on two papers and 3. continue reading – a few other members from la familia and I began trying to figure out what the heck we do with all this free time on our hands. Our solution? Watch too many movies (Wall-E, We Were Soldiers, At Enemy Gates, Remember the Titans and Armageddon), prepare a feast AKA a 10 year old kid’s dream meal that comprised of multiple pizzas, spaghetti, chicken nuggets, apple slices with Nutella and ice cream, then complete our free time with the main event, bright side #3.
As I emphasized in my previous post, extra cash in my pockets as a result of not traveling during our extended weekend means that the possibility of bungee jumping into the Corinth Canal had made a quick comeback onto the forecast of my agenda. This time around the weather man’s forecast was dead on. On Saturday, Larrisa, Amy and me made the best decision or dumbest in some opinions, of our young lives. Bungee jumping is one of those ventures you see on most bucket lists. Why hesitate crossing it from the list when the stunt at hand means plunging head first into the famous Corinth Canal, the 3rd highest bungee jump in the world? Zulu Bungy
After having a group of Greeks and Americans tease myself and scare the girls into almost backing out by watching their jumps ahead of ours, it was finally our turn. We signed our lives away, Larissa and I gave Amy a last minute pep-talk and the three of us ready or not, made our walk directly below the bridge to the launching pad.
I chose to go first in attempt to do one of two things. One, set an example for these young ladies and keep up my “act” of being as calm as possible so that they would have the courage to follow with a bungee of their own. Or two, be an example on how to fail at bungee jumping. Luckily for me the millions of rubber bands dangling from my feet decided on the former of the two. Everyone insisted on saying “make sure you don’t look down prior to jumping”, I looked down. Leaping from the edge of that platform was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The moment my body went into full swan dive mode and I realized it was me one on one with the Corinth Canal, every bit of fear or worry released from my body, my mind went blank and for that instant nothing else in the world mattered. HOLD ON! Why am I trying to put this experience into words? For the sake of me not getting carpal tunnel, help yourself to this short promo video and be sure to listen closely. (I LOVE MY LIFEEEEE!)
I chose to go first in attempt to do one of two things. One, set an example for these young ladies and keep up my “act” of being as calm as possible so that they would have the courage to follow with a bungee of their own. Or two, be an example on how to fail at bungee jumping. Luckily for me the millions of rubber bands dangling from my feet decided on the former of the two. Everyone insisted on saying “make sure you don’t look down prior to jumping”, I looked down. Leaping from the edge of that platform was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The moment my body went into full swan dive mode and I realized it was me one on one with the Corinth Canal, every bit of fear or worry released from my body, my mind went blank and for that instant nothing else in the world mattered. HOLD ON! Why am I trying to put this experience into words? For the sake of me not getting carpal tunnel, help yourself to this short promo video and be sure to listen closely. (I LOVE MY LIFEEEEE!)
(you can thank my camerawoman for the sideways view)
To Larissa here is your SHOUT OUT! About 2 weeks ago you asked for one, so there it is, better late than never. While I’m at it, I’ll answer the question you asked me on our unsuccessful search for a taxi following the best decision of our immature lives since I never truly gave you a serious answer to your thought provoking question that seemed to be asked in a serious-minded tone. "What is nervous to you?"
Nervous to me – besides people talking about my momma and walking to Armuni by myself, a place you won’t find on any “Top Places to Visit in Greece” list – is the uneasy feeling I get when close friends go away to fight in a war that I don’t exactly believe in. Largely in part because the very government who request the services of these men, lie about their motives behind these wars. War should never be an option, never fight fire with fire. Nervous to me is living under that same government who decides to cut funds for education and healthcare. Nervous to me is a world that assumes natural resources continue indefinitely. We are currently consuming in one year what the planet produces in one year and three months. Scary thing is, transnational interests propose we continue as before but paint the machine green: “continue with growth, irrational consumerism and inequality in order to generate more and more profits.” Hopefully my peers from Gen Y and other members from this global household can join me in thinking outside the box and beyond the “there is no alternative” they call capitalism. Yeah I guess I get nervous and you should too when I begin agreeing with statements made by both Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Zizek that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism”. Forming the above anxieties into two broad but not so broad categories –our governing class and our narrow minds – the only other thing that defines nervous for me is trying to love like the God I love. Then again, I pray and continue to live the life I live.
Larissa, I hope my reply satisfies you. To everyone else I hope you enjoyed the video and I encourage you to return next week for my blog following a visit to Barcelona, Spain! Kalineekta!
If anyone would like to send me mail, the address is...
John Sharp
City University, Syntagma
Athens, 10561, Greece
and if you do decide to send anything make sure to only do it how Stevie would...
All other pictures are posted on my Facebook profile.
0 Response to "I LOVE MY LIFE!"
Post a Comment