Ice Carving, Festival of Colors, and Decisions...

Wow, I have really slacked off on this whole blogging thing the last couple of weeks, but I have a great excuse-- its called "school". Sigh. I have been so incredibly busy, and am so excruciatingly exhausted, that I hope I can manage to finish this post before I am overcome with sleep. I apologize that this post will probably not be very insightful, nor a very thrilling thing to read, but I felt a little update was in order, so here it is.

On Tuesday I made my first (and possibly my last) attempt at ice carving. The overall experience was exhilarating, though a lot more intense than I had expected. My class split up into groups of 2 where we created templates of the design we would use for our sculpture, after which we transposed it by poking holes through the outline on the paper into the ice with an ice-pic of sorts. Once the outline was there, we broke out the chainsaws and hacked away at the ice until we had a rough image to work with .(I won't deny that this was a little scary for me as it was my first time using a chainsaw...however, it was kind of empowering. Don't worry though, I'm not about to go all "Friday the 13th" on everyone...) After the main chunks of ice were removed with the saw, we set to chiseling for the next three hours. It was hard work! Being the perfectionist that I am I took the task very seriously, and approached it with a sort of manic zeal, wanting every detail to be flawless. I definitely didn't acheive perfection, in fact we didn't even finish it which means we'll have to find some spare time before Thursday to complete it for the annual "Scholarship Ball", but it's getting there. Anyway, enough babbling. Here are some pictures:

We call him "Frankie". He's supposed to be a 1920's gangster to go with the theme of our scholarship ball... unfortunately he kind of looks like a cowboy, but we're working on it...

On Saturday I attended the "Festival of Colors" at the local Hari Krishna temple with some friends. I have been to the temple once before for a different festival, but this experience was a lot more fun than the last. Every year the Krishnas welcome in spring with the festival; I'm sure it is a celebration of more significance to them than that, but I don't know very much about it. To celebrate, everyone in attendance purchases little bags of chalky colored powder. The celebration commences with the lighting of a bonfire and burning of a witch in effigy, subsequently followed by everyone in attendance throwing the colored powder at eachother. There was music (which consisted of people taking turns singing the words, "Hari Krishna" over and over again in the most creative/original way they could think of), and dancing (which included crowd surfing, moshing, and me being a lot closer to a lot of people than I ever cared to be), and an omnipresent pink cloud hovering overhead (the effects of which have permanantly dyed my snot pink). It was honestly one of the weirdest things I've ever been involved in. The place looked like a war zone. But it was really fun, and if I'm around next year I'll definitely go again.

That pretty much sums up the more exciting adventures of my last couple weeks. Other than that I've been immersed in school, and it doesn't look like its going to be letting up any time in the near future. I'm really grateful for this time of my life where I can have so many experiences and obtain knowledge and an education. However, I have so many big decisions in front of me right now that I don't even know how to start making them. I've hardly had enough sane moments to devote to thinking about them and I don't think I've ever felt so directionless or unsure in my life. As difficult as this is for me, the positive side is that I'm so blessed to be able to have so many options before me. Part of what makes deciding so hard is the wide range of opportunities that are available. I feel so lucky to even have the chance to decide between all of these good things because the majority of people in this world will never have a chance to do this. I am afraid that we who live in this day and age and country too often take for granted the endless possibilities that are ours. We truly live a priveledged life and so, even though I am struggling to figure things out, I can't help but be grateful for the opportunity to decide.