18) Get Properly Fitted for a Bra

According to a few articles on the internet, like this one at Nordstrom.com, which also has a measuring guide, roughly eighty percent of women in the United States wear the wrong size bra. Considering a bra is an article of clothing most women don for several hours or more every day, most days of the year, wearing one that doesn’t fit seems pretty silly. It’s also a bit unsettling to think that the majority of breasts are not being given proper care.

I had originally specified getting fit at Victoria’s Secret because, with my minimal knowledge about bras, I figured that was the best place to do it. However, after reading a few too many blog posts denouncing the quality of bra fittings at the well-known lingerie company, and after coming across a few articles highlighting the services rendered at department stores, I decided to go to Nordstrom to find out what size bra I actually should be wearing.

While I’ve happily jumped out of an airplane with a guy named Mutley strapped to my back and a parachute on his, and I’ve cheerfully watched great white sharks swimming to and fro, where the only thing separating us was a cage with metal bars, and even backpacking to a campsite and spending the night alone in the wilderness proved to be tremendously more fun than scary, I was not looking forward to having a woman take measurements of my chest and bring me various bras to try on. Though I don’t flit around locker rooms buck naked, my apprehension wasn’t because I would be taking my shirt and bra off in front of another woman. What I was terrified about was admitting that I was nearly thirty and had never been fit for a bra, and that I didn’t really know all that much about bras or how they should fit.

In my defense, I’ve been a late bloomer—in a lot of regards. I didn’t emerge into the world until three weeks after my scheduled date of birth, I didn’t talk until I was two, and let’s just say I joked well into my college years that I (still) had the physique of a twelve-year-old boy. Though my friends often teased me for having a small chest, I had never had any issues with my lack of lady lumps. In fact, I reveled in spending less on running clothes because the built-in bras in some tank tops were sufficient enough, and I didn’t need to purchase expensive sports bras. I was also able to wear many a dress without worrying about visible bra straps, as I just went without.

Even still, I felt uncomfortable walking up to the counter, asking to be fitted for a bra, and then, once we were in the relative safety of the dressing room, admitting I had never before been fitted. It was even worse when I told her I wasn’t really sure what size I wore, and when I removed my shirt and bra, and felt sweat cascade down my back as if I had just completed thirty minutes on an elliptical trainer, I wanted to sprint to the car faster than Usain Bolt blazed his way to victory in the 2014 Olympic 100 meter dash. Luckily, the bra fitter, whose name I will change to Lucy, was wonderful, kind, patient and, best of all, apparently not deterred by my surely off-putting perspiration. She assured me that I shouldn’t feel bad because most women don’t know their real size, nor do they bother to get properly fitted. Furthermore, she seemed confident she would be able to help me get the perfect bra.

Using a white measuring tape, Lucy took a few measurements around my chest, and under and across my breasts. To my surprise, the band size she told me was one size smaller than I had ever worn. I was pretty sure my breasts had grown in recent months, so if anything I would need to increase in band size, not decrease. To my even greater surprise, the cup size she told me was appropriate for my girls was three sizes larger than I had ever worn, or had remotely considered wearing in my weirdest dreams. Lucy explained that most women do not wear a band tight enough to give proper support, and then they try to adjust the straps to make it work. I thought about the numerous bras I had worn where it seemed like every day I had to readjust the straps to make them fit. She then enlightened me about cup size, and that a decrease in band size meant an increase in cup size. Going down one band size would explain going up one cup size, but I had gone up three. I guess I just didn’t know how bras were supposed to fit.

After trying on a number of bras in various styles and by different designers, I selected two. I thought they seemed too tight at the time, but she said they would stretch and that I just hadn’t been used to wearing that size. When I got home, I wore each for about twenty minutes, and realized that they were indeed too tight—uncomfortably so, and to the point that I would not be able to wear them all day like I knew I would need to. Though the two I bought would not be my new greatest bras, or even in my drawer among the ill-fitting collection I had amassed over the years, I did learn more about my body, bras and bra sizes in general, and that I would just have to keep trying if I wanted to move into the small percentage of women who wear the correct bra size.

29) Do a Random Act of Kindness

When I created the goal of spending a night alone in the wilderness, I knew I would be able to plan for it, and I knew it would be obvious when I had accomplished it. I only had to work up the courage to execute it, and maybe learn how to build a fire beforehand. (I did not do the latter, but fortunately I figured out the technique when I was out there—or at least lucked into getting a blaze going).

Likewise, going one month without Facebook, serving at a food kitchen, and driving to Mexico were all easily-definable goals, and I could specifically ascertain when each had been achieved.

How, though, could I make it a goal to do something random? By making it a goal—at least the way I make goals, which is to devise a plan to properly execute and achieve them—doesn’t that remove the element of randomness? Furthermore, I (now) believe doing a random act of kindness shouldn’t even be a goal on a list as much as it should simply be a common thing people do in their daily lives.

And yet, I had made it a goal. I obviously felt I had been lacking in doing kind things on a whim, which, in my opinion, does not include tasks I believe should be automatic like holding doors open for others. I had to clearly make it a goal to do something I should have been doing for years. I have learned a great deal since I started this project nearly a year ago, evidenced in part in the letter I wrote to my future self, and doing nice things just to be nice was one of them. Though I may be somewhat dismayed that it took me nearly thirty years to figure it out, to use a trite saying: better late than never.

My random act of kindness itself is hardly worth mentioning, as my intentions for creating the goal were not so I could then relate what generosity and kindness I bestowed on an unsuspecting person, but I will say that I accomplished it. And I was surprised when it occurred, which I suppose is exactly what I was going for. I hope to perform many more random acts of kindness in the coming years, and months, and days, and continue to be pleasantly surprised by achieving things for which I did not plan.

*For those curious readers, I will divulge that the act involved pro bono freelance work.

22) One Month without Saying a Negative Thing About Anyone

If I learned one thing from watching Bambi, it’s that Walt Disney and company were quite content with teaching little kids the awful truth that sometimes you can lose your mother unexpectedly and at a very young age. If there are two things I learned from that much-beloved childhood film, the second is, “If you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.” For those who may have forgotten, this is said by the little rabbit Thumper, who, after announcing that Bambi doesn’t walk very well, is reminded by his mother of his father’s advice to be nice.

Though I’m not sure I need to be reminded too often of the first lesson, I definitely could and should heed Thumper’s father’s advice much more frequently than I do. I don’t consider myself negative, whiny or gossipy, but throughout my nearly thirty years I have spewed more negativity than I’d like to admit.

I am not a religious person, as evidenced in my post about practicing spirituality for one month, so the main ideology I try to live by is that of the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like to be treated. While I hardly live a life void of speaking ill of others, I do try to be conscious of it and keep such comments to a minimum. Selfishly, perhaps, I just wouldn’t want people saying mean things about me.

That philosophy, however, has not kept the negative self-talk to a minimum. I have always been my biggest critic, and seemingly have no issue saying negative things about myself. I am fine standing in front of the mirror and stating every perceived flaw and thing here or there that could be improved. If I’m watching Jeopardy!, and I miss a question to which I know the answer, I readily put the heel of my palm to my forehead and make a sound akin to Homer Simpson’s “Doh!” Come to think of it, I often have no trouble unleashing a litany of similar gestures and sounds on the innocent game show contestants themselves—primarily during Wheel of Fortune—if the answer is so painfully obvious to me, but so completely lost on them. (I understand that, in addition to my goal of playing Bingo at a Bingo Hall, this offers more evidence of my fondness for “grandma”-like activities).

I wanted to see if I could make it one month without uttering such off-putting talk—to and about others (even if my voice doesn’t penetrate through TVs), and to and about myself. I knew it would be a challenge I would need to focus on intently and intensely, considering I had formed the unpleasant habit decades ago.

To achieve success, I decided to avoid using gimmicks, or multi-step plans, or rubber bands I’d snap on my wrist every time I reverted to my old ways–not that those ways of quitting bad habits don’t work for a lot of people. For me, though, I knew that focus and willpower would be the only way to go. I would just quit it.

And, essentially, I did just that, which makes it sound considerably easier than it was. In part, I simply talked less—which is difficult in its own right because I am a talker. But I focused, with every ounce of my mind, on not saying anything mean or nasty or whiny, and instead sought the positive in everyone, and everything, and talked only of that. When this proved difficult, I resorted to Thumper’s dad’s advice and just kept my mouth shut. I let my thoughts go to battle on my mouth’s behalf, and that seemed to work out for the most part.

I’ll admit that I sometimes came up with ways to make a certain negative thought or feeling known, without actually saying it, which I chalked up to being crafty rather than a broken streak of no negative talk.

For example, if someone swerved right in front of me on the highway without using his turn signal, I might have said something like, “Gosh, I’m so appreciative of all the drivers in the world who use their turn signal when they rapidly switch lanes and are nearly touching bumpers with the car behind them,” and then of course think, Even if I’m not experiencing any of those drivers here!

Or, perhaps, if a Wheel of Fortune puzzle was missing only one letter, say, the “x” in the word “experience,” I might say to the contestant, “Oh, my gosh! You are a mor….ally decent person, no doubt, because surely they don’t let immoral people on the show.”

Like I said, I found ways around saying negative things. But, for the most part, I practiced using the filter in my brain that sometimes—and sometimes rarely—keeps thoughts from finding their way to and out of my mouth. I also realized that the less I said negative things, the less I thought them. It was somewhat of a self-fulfilling cycle that was beneficial to others and to myself.

Disney and the gang may have had a few, I’ll say interesting, ideas about what people should be made aware of at a young age, but teaching them, albeit via a talking rabbit, to withhold negative thoughts rather than unleashing them on people, or animals, was certainly not a bad one.

6) Write a Personal Letter to be Read at Age Fifty

As I’ve learned this past year, more than in any other of my past nearly-thirty, life sure can change, even if you thought you had a course plotted out, or at least a very good idea of a course. Things you thought you knew for certain can change dramatically, and you can find yourself in places, with people, doing jobs you may never have envisioned. I guess what they say about the only certainties in life being death and taxes is true–though I suppose you can avoid the latter if you take yourself off the grid and live in a cave. But if you’ve seen The Croods, that idea didn’t work out too well for Grug and his family, as they still couldn’t escape the inevitably of change. I guess what I’m saying is that life throws curve balls, and even living in a cave won’t keep you from them.

Earlier this year I wrote a letter to my ten-year-old self, partly as preparation for this goal, but also because it seemed like a cathartic self-reflective activity. The intention wasn’t to write a list of regrets, but to accept and understand what I’ve learned about myself based on choices I’ve made. Although I enjoyed writing to my younger self, I don’t know that I would truly want that version of me to have known what I know now. Sure, what they say about hindsight is true, but who learns or grows out of perfection?

I didn’t foresee many of the changes that have occurred in the past ten months alone, and if I had written a letter to my thirty-year-old self at the beginning of this 30×30 experiment, I would surely read it in eight weeks and laugh. There is no way to predict, or at this point even take a wild stab at, what will happen in the next twenty years, but I know what I’ve learned so far, and I know what I hope those years will entail. I look forward to reading the following letter (only bits of which are included) to see how much more I will have grown, and to see how many curve balls came my way and what I was able to do with them.

Dear fifty-year-old me,

Happy birthday! Can you believe you are fifty! I can’t! Surely you remember those cards you used to send your family members when you were a kid espousing your incredulity at the fact that each relative was, indeed, that old?. And now you are that old. Or, rather, that young. Despite the trepidation you felt about turning the big three-zero, you have always known that age is just a number; how you feel is what’s most important.

So, here you are, celebrating fifty years of life. And not just life; living. Some of that time was tough, and frustrating, and full of anxiety and apprehension. Some of that time you felt unsure about everything, and that your life had been completely turned upside down and you were rapidly barrel-rolling towards the edge of a cliff.

But you had felt consternation before, like in middle school when you had to select the right color of bands for your braces so it wouldn’t look like you had food stuck in your teeth, or when you had to choose the perfect Halloween outfit that would be fun and unique, yet also keep you warm in that chilly Alaskan weather. As you came to find out, you’d get food stuck in your braces no matter what color the bands were, and the homemade bear costume–accompanied with a mask that looked like a rat’s face–was certainly unique, though maybe not quite in the way you had hoped.

With each difficult time, you were able to find a solution and move on. Sure, maybe what you settled on at the time wasn’t always the best choice, and maybe sometimes it was a downright bad decision, but everything worked out okay and led you to where you are now.

There is no such thing as perfection. It is human to be fallible. No matter how hard you try to make your life perfect, there will always be flaws. Be true to yourself, be kind to others, and be as good of a steward to your environment as you can be. Be grateful for the rough patches, for that’s when you were able to learn and grow more than you thought was possible, and be grateful for your experiences.

You have experienced love, of the deepest, most unconditional, and most forgiving kind, which has shown you that there are people who know you inside and out, and know of your imperfections, and still think the world of you. I hope by now you love yourself as much.

You have experienced heart-rending loss, which has helped you appreciate those you love much more than if you had never felt the pain and anguish of losing people you care about. Loss has also further impressed in your mind how precious and short life is, and that it’s important to express your love and gratitude for people as often as possible.

You have experienced the creation of life-long friendships. The kind where you can go a decade without seeing each other, but the second you meet again, everything is exactly as it always had been. Sure, you have a few more wrinkles, and you desire just a glass or two of wine with dinner—rather than gulping down “duck farts” and other now-horrible-sounding mixes of alcohol out of shot glasses glued to a ski just to get drunk—but you still laugh at the same jokes, talk endlessly about everything under the African night sky, and belt out songs from The Lion King while driving through the savanna on search for wildlife. And yes, just like you did at twenty-seven, at fifty years of age you know that singing is probably the worst way to attract animals, but you’ll continue to do it because it’s fun.

Although your list of must-sees and must-dos will likely—hopefully—be never-ending, you have seen and done more things than many people dream of.

You have traveled across the the world.

You have watched a leopard stalk two impala in the wilds of Kruger National Park, you have watched hyenas pace hungrily while your stew cooked over the campfire and all that separated you from them was a fence, you have watched two behemoth rhinos stroll across the road right in front of your car, you have watched a baby elephant walk so closely behind its mom that surely its trunk was glued to her bum, and you have looked into the black eyes of a great white shark as it rammed the cage you were in that dangled over the side of a boat in the frigid Atlantic Ocean.

You have SCUBA dived the Great Barrier Reef, bungee jumped in Thailand, sky dived in Australia, crawled through a cave in Colombia, wire base-jumped in New Zealand, rappelled off Table Mountain in South Africa, and zip-lined through the jungles of Costa Rica—shortly before a sloth inched its way along the line before alighting in the trees.

You have also set many goals in your life. Some you have far surpassed, and others you have not achieved, which is okay. If you easily accomplish every goal you set, you are not reaching high enough, nor are you giving yourself the opportunity to grow. The moment you stop striving to acquire new knowledge and new skills, or create music and stories–two things you love–your life will become dull. You know a little about what that’s like, and you know it’s not how you want to live. Always aspire to learn more, do more, and be more than you think is possible. Continue to learn from your failings and be grateful for your accomplishments.

Remember when you went one month without saying anything negative about anyone, including yourself? It worked wonders for your outlook on humanity, and self-esteem. You’ve always been great at finding the silver lining in things and putting a positive spin on things that can seem bleak, and you should continue to do it as often as necessary.

Remember when you meditated for thirty minutes a day for a month? You weren’t always able to completely quiet your mind and focus solely on your breathing, but it helped you find an inner calm and peace. Give it another shot in times of stress, which will surely arise again.

Remember when you were a kid how often you laughed so much and so hard that you peed your pants? Of course you do because it comprised a decent amount of your childhood! Always remember those carefree days of your youth, and that it’s okay to be completely and unabashedly out of control sometimes to get the most out of life. You can always buy new britches, but you can never exactly replicate an experience to get more out of it the second time because you held back the first time.

Remember at the age of three when you slipped your feet into your very first pair of ski boots, clicked into your bindings, and schussed down the double black diamond run smoothly and flawlessly? Of course you don’t; it didn’t happen. Do you remember going down your driveway, throwing your skis into a wedge to keep yourself from picking up too much speed, and then somehow doing the splits and a somersault at the same time, resulting in having a yard sale of your ski equipment and clothing? No? You don’t remember that either? You don’t remember it because you got back up, tried again, and fell again. And then you got back up, tried again, and fell again, and again, and again. Until you didn’t fall anymore, and you started to have fun, and you cast aside the number of times you had fallen, the times you had failed. Sure, you fell other times later on, but no one learns how to excel at something and then is perfect at it forever. At one time skiing was such a large part of your life that you were on the mountain from open to close every Saturday and Sunday, Thursday nights, and Monday and Friday afternoons. If there was snow on the mountain but not enough to open the lifts, you were hiking. Before there was any snow at all, you were training on land. You spent so much time loving something you had once failed at repeatedly that you likely still often dream about it.

Don’t let the fear of failing cripple you and leave you in a state of stagnancy. Idleness is not the devil’s playground as much as it is simply boring. You despise boring, so take risks like you did when you were a kid. Who cares if you fall, or screw up, or things don’t work out exactly as you intended or hoped they would? You learn from your mistakes, and anyone who knows an iota about you knows that learning is one of your favorite things to do.

When you get down on yourself for being selfish, think about your capacity to give.

You have walked dogs at a rescue shelter, you have tutored middle school students who weren’t fortunate like you to have parents who helped them with their homework, you have served food to homeless people, and you have routinely donated to organizations that help war veterans, the environment, and orphaned elephants.

No one is perfect, and what a boring world that would be if perfection existed, so continue to think about and exploit your positive traits that others find endearing and valuable, and that you should too. Work on improving those traits you find less than admirable.

Today you are fifty, which means that there is a very good chance you have lived half of your life. It also means, however, that you still have half left. You still have fifty years of exploration, discovery, growth and achievement. Seize every decade, every month, every day and every minute of this time. When you are done reading this, go look in the mirror and tell yourself you’re beautiful—no matter how many wrinkles you see—and then look inside yourself and know that you are beautiful.

Cheers to your first fifty!

25) Learn a Song on the Guitar

Like a lot of people, I’m a fan of music, as documented in part in My Five Favorite Film Scores post. Not only do I love listening to music, I love making it. When I was a kid, my sister and I would create instruments out of empty plastic tubs that once contained jelly, or empty tin cans with an aroma of popcorn still lingering. We would march around the living room banging on our homemade drums—much to the delight of our parents, I’m sure. Then she had a ukulele, I had a master key, and we both had harmonicas. No doubt we continued tormenting our parents with our evening two-man-band concerts.

I’ve enjoyed making music since childhood.

Finally, my parents bought us a keyboard and put us in piano lessons. I suppose they figured it’d be best if we learned how to properly play a real instrument. Though at times I wanted to do anything besides practice scales, I delighted in recitals our group put on for our parents, especially our quirky take on Jack and the Beanstalk. I also often “treated” my parents to solo concerts, which not infrequently included popular songs I’d “re-written,” or songs I’d simply made up.

While I continued to play piano, I took up the flute in middle school. Like the piano, I enjoyed playing the small silver instrument, and spent a decent amount of time practicing to retain my first or second chair status. During some lunch breaks, I would hang out in the band room and dabble in percussion, learning how to do the paradiddle on a snare drum, and learning enough timpani to play it for one song during a school concert.

In short, I’ve played music since I was a wee lass, and it seemed appropriate to add guitar to my repertoire of instruments. A decade ago I picked up a friend’s Fender and frustratingly stumbled my way through three chords of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.” It had been a finger-hurting experience I was not keen on repeating.

Fast-forward to age twenty-nine, and I figured I ought to give it another go. I sat down with the guitar on my lap, my left fingers holding the neck, the right holding a pick, and my laptop open to a Youtube video about guitar for beginners. Despite suggestions of taking lessons, I had it in my head that it was going to be a frustrating experience I neither wanted to pay for, nor share with someone I didn’t want to be irritated around.

That first day, I took that old six string and played it until my fingers bled. While Bryan Adams surely meant he played for hours on end, my blood starting oozing by about minute three. Fantastic. I was well on my way to another unsuccessful stint at learning guitar. I set the guitar down, glared at it, and waited until the next day to reluctantly pick it back up.

I knew the only way to get through the calloused fingers, let alone achieve my goal of playing a song with chords, was to practice every day, so I did. At first it was ten minutes, then fifteen, then twenty. I mostly just plucked strings at random, though I’ve always had a decent ear for music and have been able to learn songs pretty quickly on my own.

After about a week, when I could successfully pluck my way through my renditions of “Let it Be” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” I decided to enlist the help of some guitar players in the Youtube world. I found a couple tutorials for learning chords and got a few, E minor and G, with a moderate amount of effort. Considering many songs can be played with just four chords, I was ecstatic that I was nearly halfway to accomplishing my goal! However, what I didn’t know was that C chord, and then F chord, would be the bane of my guitar-learning experience.

For those who have never tried playing the guitar, let me tell you that the F chord was given the most appropriate letter of all the chords I know, which is admittedly a modest seven, but still, it is apt. I thought the C chord was tough, as even with my gibbon fingers, it’s a stretch. I figured that the F chord, however, may as well F off.

Luckily, the song I chose to learn first—after watching numerous videos for beginning guitar players like myself—contained no F chord. In fact, true to what I had read, it contained just four chords: G, E minor, the once-dreaded C, and D. These four chords can be rearranged to play a number of songs, but in this case, they comprised the notes for “Stand By Me,” one of my favorite songs.

It took a few months of practicing nearly every day to go from whining about calloused fingers and loathing the guitar to playing a song with chords—albeit one with only four chords that merely repeat without adding anything special—but I am happy to cross this one off the list, and be able to type this post with pain-free fingers!

*I thought about adding a video of me playing the song, but it really is just four chords over and over, and doesn’t really sound like the song unless it is accompanied by singing, which even my shower head doesn’t want to hear me do! That being the case, if you watch Rob, the wonderful guitar player from whom I learned this song, you’ll get the gist:

19) Fast

For years I’ve enjoyed reading survival stories. Crazy for the Storm, Unbroken and Touching the Void are just a few of the more powerful, memorable books I’ve read in the past several years. If I were to amend My 5 Favorite Books list, I would add Unbroken to it. Each book details inspirational accounts of men who survived ridiculous, almost impossible, situations, often while starving and being dehydrated. Although I hope to never endure anything close to what these men have, I suppose I was curious to see what it might be like to go one full day, one twenty-four-hour period, without food or water.

While running cross-country and track in college, I became a camel. I didn’t want to be encumbered by a water bottle, or several mini bottles attached to a pack around my waist, and essentially wouldn’t drink during runs that sometimes lasted ninety minutes. In the desert. (I went to school in Reno, Nevada, where the summer heat can be pretty intense, though nothing outrageous enough to make my Most Extreme Weather I’ve Experienced list). I also found out in high school that I was susceptible to getting side aches, and grew accustomed to not drinking anything a few hours before a workout or race.

I hoped I would be able to rely on my learned behavior and discipline to get me through a twenty-four-hour period without water. I figured if I had the lack of water under control, the lack of food wouldn’t even be an issue.

As it turned out, neither was actually all that challenging, but I also didn’t exert a lot of energy during the day—definitely choosing to forego a workout or even do much more than I absolutely had to. I certainly wasn’t dragging myself down out of the frigid Peruvian Andes with a broken leg, a la one of the climbers in Touching the Void, nor was my body being parched by the relentless sun while I floated in a raft in the South Pacific for forty-seven days, a la Louie Zamperini in Unbroken.

I did get a headache in the early evening, and wasn’t able to take an Ibuprofen to relieve it, as I have difficulty swallowing pills even with water, but that was about it. I thought I would become agitated, as I know I have a tendency to get cranky when I’m hungry, but perhaps because I knew I wouldn’t be eating at all, I was okay.

I most certainly wouldn’t want to fast—without food and water—for more than twenty-four hours, and I admire even more those men (and women, though they seem to stay out of those situations more than men in the first place) I have read about, but I’m glad to know I’d be okay for at least one full day if I were stuck without food and water.

10) Serve at a Food Kitchen

I enjoy sleeping in a tent—so much so that I made it a goal to sleep in one completely by myself for a night in the wilderness. I love sleeping in a tent because it means I’m out enjoying nature, but also because it helps me appreciate my cozy bed and home that much more when I return to them after a night or two. Though I try to be grateful for everything I have—which was helped by my month of keeping a gratitude journal—sometimes it’s easy to become complacent and forget that, even during my bad times, I still have a bed on which to sleep, a roof over my head and food in my stomach.

Unfortunately, the same certainly cannot be said by everyone. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the point-in-time count of homeless people in the U.S. in January 2012 was 633,782. It is difficult to ascertain statistics with 100 percent accuracy regarding homeless populations due to the uncertain and inconsistent reality of the problem, but numerous reports and censuses depict Los Angeles as having one of the highest homeless populations in the country. In its 2013 census, Los Angeles County counted 39,463 people sleeping on the street or in homeless shelters. When “at risk of homelessness” and “precariously housed” people were taken into account, the estimated number rose to 57,737. It is estimated that nearly 200,000 people are homeless at least one night a year in Los Angeles County.

One of the largest stable homeless populations in the country is in one-square-mile area of downtown Los Angeles called Skid Row. At a given time, an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people live on the sidewalks, often in tents or cardboard boxes. It doesn’t take a great imagine to conclude that sleeping in a tent is vastly different when it’s a way of living rather than an escape into nature for a night or two. While I’m trying to decide which restaurant to order delivery from because I’ve been too lazy to go grocery shopping, Skid Row residents are trying to ascertain where their next meal is coming from, though a restaurant of their choosing is certainly not on the list.

I decided to serve at a food kitchen because I wanted to do something for someone else, and appreciate even more how fortunate I have been and am. After a minimal amount of searching online, I came across The Midnight Mission. Conveniently located in Skid Row to help serve the densely populated area, The Midnight Mission has been in operation since 1914 and has functioned entirely free of government assistance. In addition to offering food and shelter to homeless people, the mission provides counseling, recovery programs, education and job placement, which particularly interested me. While offering food and shelter is helpful, I believe it is merely a temporary solution. I believe providing tools like recovery programs for alcoholics and education can potentially help people get back on their feet and have long-term solutions to homelessness.

My fellow volunteers and I were first given a tour of the complex, which included viewing the library, a movie room which converts into a quiet sleep center in the evening, a wonderful gym so residents can keep active, dormitory-style rooms, classrooms complete with computers, the mess room and more. We were then put to work in the kitchen preparing dinner, which consisted of chopping food and pouring milk into cups. After that we were each set up at a station on the food line. I was in charge of handing out chips and bread, while my counterparts spooned beans, rice, stew and yogurt onto the trays.

Over the course of about an hour, we served hundreds of people. Some quietly moved through the line, some said “thank you,” and some made jokes. One person who stood out was the man, appearing to be in his mid-fifties, who stopped in front of me, looked me straight in the eye and told me what a beautiful thing I was doing and what a beautiful person I was. Another memorable encounter was with a tall, young man who had three of the openings on his tray filled with beans. I smiled and said he was going to have a fun night, and he laughed and said he was definitely going to sleep by himself that night.

The kind of tent-sleeping I enjoy.

There were characters and people from various walks of life, and it was a humbling, enjoyable experience. Though the food looked fine—and those who show up on a day when the Dodgers have a baseball game get tasty Dodger dogs—I’m grateful I have the choice of what, when, where and how much I get to eat for dinner, and that the only time I sleep in a tent is when I choose to.

15) Play Paintball

Splat!

Ow! That hurt!

Splat!

Ouch! Okay! Stop! I threw my hands up in the air, one holding my gun, and quickly moved off the field to join my fellow teammates and opponents that had also been eliminated. The pinky on my trigger hand throbbed from the shot and a green burst of paint colored my black gloves, indicating where I had been hit. Another small green spot appeared on my right elbow. Both hits that pelted my body stung, but the adrenaline coursing through my body somewhat diminished the pain. I couldn’t wait to get back out on the field and enact revenge on the player who had struck me with two balls of paint.

I don’t have an affinity for violence or shooting people (aside from a brief infatuation I had with the video game 007, which is specifically about shooting people—in video form, of course), and thus had never played paintball. However, the idea of running around a field, jumping into foxholes, hiding in buildings and behind hay bales, trying to evade the enemy at all costs, did appeal to me. I figured most players were young boys, so I had better get myself to a field before turning thirty.

I was surprised when I showed up at Warped Paintball Park, in that I had been completely inaccurate in my assumption that only young boys played. In fact, it was only after a few hours of being there that anyone younger than about twenty came. What I saw when I pulled into the parking lot made me more nervous than the idea of being hit with paintballs: guys in their mid-twenties decked out in head-to-toe camouflage carrying air tanks on their backs and holding automatic guns. Oh, wow, these guys look serious.

Ready to blast opponents.

My friends–all guys for this activity–and I got set up with our gear: face masks; old, single-fire guns (with the proclivity to jam, as I later found out); and pink and green paint balls. We loaded our guns and canisters with ammo, donned our masks, and I slipped on my gloves, which I soon learned would save my hands. The ref then briefed us on the rules before he led us out to the first battlefield: Hamburger Hill.

Luckily I was on the team that started at the top of the hill, which, as history has proven time and again, is almost always advantageous. I was the only female on the field, but I was determined to hold my own, or at least act like I was going to.

The ref gave the signal to begin and I rushed to a wooden wall, behind which I remained most of the game. I heard the paint whooshing out of my teammates’ guns and hoped they were taking out all of our opponents so I could hide out of anyone’s line of fire and emerge on the victorious team at the end. That was not to be. Eventually I had to creep out from behind my hiding spot and try to take out some of the enemy.

I managed to be stealthy enough to get into a great position a little down the hill and I even took out one of my opponents! Not long after, however, karma attacked in the form of one round bullet of paint that struck my pinky, quickly followed by another that struck my arm. I was happy I had worn gloves, though I still cursed aloud, realizing being hit hurt more than I had been told it would. I then followed protocol and held my arms above my head and exited the field. I was surprised to see so many of the other players already on the sidelines. I guess my hiding had paid off by keeping me in the game longer.

We switched sides and it was my turn to run up the hill, during which time I fared no better than the first. We continued to play for a few hours, taking short breaks in between games to allow others to play and to give ourselves a rest. We played in a “city” that had an old car and boat in which we could take shelter, we played on a field aptly named “Hamburger Hill,” and we played on a field with hay bales. I was hit every time, sometimes worse than others, but I was content in that I hit four people, one of which was right in the heart!

Though I never ended up hitting a twelve-year-old boy as I had originally thought, and hoped, playing paintball was a blast!

The Top 10 Ways You Know You’re in Colombia

If you love adventure traveling, consider taking a trip to Colombia. While many people might be nervous about visiting the South American country due to crime, drug cartels and the like, the biggest problems visitors typically deal with are frightfully unsafe bus rides and contracting gastrointestinal illness (GI) from sketchy water.

Let me preface the following list by saying that Colombia is a beautiful country with friendly locals, myriad spectacular landscapes and environments (including beaches, cities, jungles, mountains and more), and a host of activities for those, like myself, who love trying new things and crave a spike in adrenaline every now and then. The adventurous experiences–good and bad–now make for unique and funny stories, and this list is (mostly) tongue-in-cheek. Iodine tablets, however, are actually recommended.

Up and away in beautiful San Gil.

1) Your bus stops in town every four minutes to pick up passengers, but then doesn’t stop for four hours in the mountains, and the bumpy ride has your bladder screaming to be emptied. 

 2) You’ve won the lottery if you’re the one person out of twenty-one who didn’t contract GI while on a four-day trek through the jungle. 

3) Starting something forty-five minutes late is the closest to on time you can get.

4) You’ve lucked out if there’s toilet paper in the bathroom you had to pay to use. Soap is a luxury you only dream about. 

5) Comparing bug bites with fellow travelers is a common past time, and twenty-eight on each leg is nothing. 

6) You eat burnt ants because they might be better then the local fare. 

7) Honking is a substitute for stop signs, turn signals, braking, and saying hello to other drivers. 

Fording the rushing river.

8) In the jungle you’re wet nearly every waking moment: from sweating profusely, jumping in the river to cool off, being dumped on by the daily downpour, fording a river with waist-high rapids due to said downpour, or soaking in the river in the evening–lightning be damned because you know it’s not going to stop raining before you need to get some shut eye–in an attempt to alleviate the itching caused by the numerous bug bites covering your legs. 

9) You catch a ride with a random local on the back of his scooter because the vehicle you were in died on the side of a mountain, and you didn’t want to swelter in the afternoon sun or have mosquitoes feast on your legs while you waited for another car that would likely never arrive. 

10) You nearly throw up in the back of the bus not from the seven back-to-back hairpin turns the driver took at two hundred kilometers per hour, or from the moldy mystery pancakes you regrettably ate, or from the severe back pain you incurred from being ejected out of your seat over and over again, but because someone doused the vehicle in fourteen vats of Lysol immediately prior to departing, and after six hours–many of which are spent silently battling the man in front of you for the opportunity to open the shared window so that you can inhale one breath of fresh air every hour–you’re still not accustomed to the smell.

My 5 Favorite Olympic Moments

It’s one of my favorite times of the year. No, not the time following the groundhog’s sighting or non-sighing of his shadow declaring how much or how little of winter we have left. I’m talking about the Olympics. Summer, winter, beach volleyball, bobsled, alpine skiing, speed skating, track and field, ski jumping, fencing; you name it, I’ll watch it. Okay, maybe curling isn’t at the top of my list, but I won’t change the channel if the highlights are on.

I have loved all-things-sports for as long as I can remember. I was skiing down my driveway before I even knew what skis were, and I was watching football years before I understood there was more to it than men running around in tight pants. According to my Top 5 Dream Jobs post, I would be thrilled to be a professional athlete. To me, the Olympics have always been a no-brainer. I get to watch the best athletes in the world compete against each other in a variety of sports.

I have seen only ten Olympic Games in my time, but I can easily recall my five favorite moments from them:

1) Atlanta Summer, 1996: Michael Johnson breaks 200m and 400m world records

Although I competed in track and field at the Division-I level in college, I’d put money on the “other guy” nearly every time in a sprint of him versus me. I can run for days, but anything less than a mile or three is much too fast for my liking and abilities. To be the fastest in the world at the 200 meters and the 400 meters (the most grueling distance, in my opinion) in one Olympics is remarkable. Michael Johnson is the only athlete to claim that success. Additionally, after annihilating his competition and breaking the world record in the 400m, The Man with the Golden Shoes (named so because of his custom gold Nikes) clocked a blazing time of 43.49 seconds that still stands 16 years later.

2) Beijing Summer, 2008: Michael Phelps wins 100m butterfly by 0.01 second

For those who have been living under a rock, Michael Phelps has been a swimming phenom for the last decade (though you may also know him for his Subway commercials or the “incident” when he decided to act like a normal young guy and smoke a little weed). His 22 medals make him the most decorated Olympian of all time and his eight golds give him the most first-place finishes in a single Olympics. He has a slew of other records and accolades, and he has often beaten his competition more than handily. What I will remember most, however, is his win in the 100 meter butterfly by 0.01 second. A sports fan can’t ask for a better competition than that.

3) Albertville Winter, 1992: Hometown Hilary Lindh wins silver in downhill

Hilary Lindh may not be a household name, especially when compared to Johnson and Phelps, but she was a named talked about in my household when I was a kid. Lindh and I were born and raised in the same small town of Juneau, Alaska. In a city of 30,000, everyone knows the names in something as minor as the police blotter. If someone becomes a pro athlete, and then goes on to place second in the Olympics, it’s a big deal. Add to that the fact that I grew up skiing—and then ski racing—on the very run that helped Lindh improve her skills, and her silver medal win is pretty memorable in my book.

4) London Summer, 2012: Misty May Treanor and Kerry Walsh Jennings win third gold in beach volleyball

Volleyball is a game I always want to play at the beach or at a picnic with a group of friends, yet rarely do because I’m a wimp and the ball hurts my wrists too much. However, I enjoy watching others play it, especially at the Olympic level. What’s even better is when it’s two women who have won gold medals in the two previous Olympics and are vying for their third. In the 2012 Games, Misty May Treanor and Kerry Walsh Jennings beat their U.S. teammates in the final match and accomplished their goal—cementing their place in Olympic history and in my memory bank, made even more impressive by the fact that Walsh Jennings was five weeks pregnant at the time.

5) London Summer, 2012: Oscar Pistorius is first amputee runner in Olympics

Potential murder-conviction aside, what Oscar Pistorius did for “disabled” athletes (though he certainly seems more able at running fast than a lot of “able-bodied” people) has left an indelible mark on me. Leading up to the 2012 games, there was rampant controversy in the world of track and field and the Olympics over the question: should a double-amputee who uses prosthetics and blades be allowed to compete in the Olympics? The main argument being that the Blade Runner would have an advantage because of his “blade legs” (as if all the other amputee runners are as fast as, if not faster than, “able-bodied” runners and are just too lazy to put in the effort Pistorius put in to try to compete against them). Pistorius, however, worked as hard off the track as he did on and finally won the right to compete against those with real legs. Though he finished eighth in the semifinals, his incredible running ability and personal tenacity will stay with me for years.

Are you an Olympics fan? What have been your favorite moments in the Games?