What the U.S. Military Did to Me

I wasn’t necessarily the typical teenager that you would have guessed would have joined the U.S. Navy.  I was a straight-A, college bound student who was involved with so many clubs and after school activities I can’t even remember them all.  However, when I got to the point where I was about to reach my goals and go to college, I knew that it wasn’t where I was supposed to be.  After 911, I joined the Navy as a crypologist and shipped out Sept 11, 2002, when I was just 17-years-old.

5 Things the Military Took from Me:

1)  My Drive- It’s a hard thing to be unhappy for a long period of time.  I lost my initiative, which is what has always made me who I am.

2)  My Freedom of Choice- I made decisions all the way up until joining the Navy.  After that, I was no longer in charge of my destiny.  Losing your freedom to fight for others’ is kind of an interesting concept I guess.

3)  My Family- Although I have always been an independent individual, I missed my family very much.  I only got to see them about a week and a half out of the year.  I missed a lot of my sister growing up.

4)  My Goals- I lost sight of any goals that I had once had.  The only goal I had was surviving everyday without breaking down.

5)  My Faith- I felt so lost about who I was and what I was doing, that I let my faith become weak.  Not that I didn’t believe, but faith gets stronger with practice.  I didn’t know how to survive on my own with that yet.

5 Things the Military Gave to Me:

1)  Survival- I’m not scared of anything anymore.  My sense of adventure gives me the ability to go for anything.  I can take any pain that comes along the way.

2)  Self-acceptance- I know who I am now.  I’m no longer the self-conscience girl who was scared to walk around my own house without makeup.  I’m proud of who I am.

3) Friendship- I have met thousands of people, many of whom have been though many of the same things that I have.  Although many of them move on as time goes by, I’m left with irreplaceable memories.

4) Knowing What’s Important- I don’t complain about little things that don’t matter.  I try not to dwell on any kind of drama that would hold up my life.  I know what’s important, and I focus on those things.

5) Learned a Lot- I made a lot of mistakes during those 5 years, but I have learned from them.  I also got to help a lot of people in need, and hopefully helped to change their lives for the better.  Since I’ve left the Navy, I feel like myself again.  I have goals and I work hard.  There’s nowhere to go but forward.

I can’t share here all the bad/good things that happened during those years.  And although it would probably shock many of the people I know to say it, I would do it again.  Those lessons I learned, and those people I met can’t be replaced.

Either way, now I’m out and I’m HAPPY  Ready for whatever is going to happen next…

Hiking in Zion National Park

Last weekend, my family took the first vacation we’ve had together in ages. The first part of my trip consisted of visiting my grandparents. After that we shot right up to southern Utah to check out Zion National Park.

Zion is full of gorgeous landscape, miles upon miles of hiking trails, and extreme rock climbing. Since this was a family trip, we stuck to the trails.

It was so fantastic to have a breath of fresh air. A getaway from work and school. A time to enjoy my family and a natural atmosphere. The cliffs where amazing and enormous. I would absolutely LOVE to climb them one day.

I definitely plan to go back. There are a ton of trails that I have yet to explore.

Click to see photos from Zion National Park!

The Roaring Lion

Since I want to learn about the different creatures that I would love to come across in Tanzania, I would like to try and focus on one a week and share a few interesting facts. I would like to start with the top of Africa’s Big 5 list: the lion.

The Swahili term for lion is “simba”. Lions are very sociable creatures and live in prides of five to ten animals. Most of the hunting is done by the females, although the first feed normally goes to the dominant males.

There are often battles to the death between males to determine the leader of a pride. Young males are often pushed out of their prides at around age three, and it is common for male cubs to be killed after a takeover. Yikes.

But don’t worry about the lions exerting themselves too much. They tend to spend up to 23 hours a day resting…

Searching for Sponsorship!

Hello Everyone!

I’m still looking for additional sponsorship for my Tanzania service project through Cross-Cultural Solutions.  The total price for the program is $2,885 (that’s excluding the plane ticket cost).  I would appreciate any help I can get!  Upon my return, I will send a photo album or a DVD of my video diaries at my sponsor’s requests.

I am very excited to share my adventure with you all and am dedicated to helping as many people as I can.  Please help me in my journey to foster cultural understanding and make a difference!

You can make a credit card payment online via Cross-Cultural’s Make a Payment site where you can look me up in the sponsor’s section, under the name Vanessa Griffin.  You’ll be pleased to know that all contributions are 100% tax deductible. If you have any questions please feel free to comment below and I’ll get right back to you.

Thank you in advance for your generosity!

UPDATE: I was unable to secure funding due to the state of the economy. Thanks for your support and stay tuned for more adventures!

Calico Ghost Town

For Father’s Day, we decided to explore our local ghost town and see what we could discover. We may not have found any spirits exactly, but we had a lot of fun exploring Calico Ghost Town.

Nearly 127 years ago, was the richest silver mining district in California. In the early 1900’s the price of silver plummeted, leaving Calico a desolate ghost town.

What make Calico interesting was that most of the buildings are original, while the others have been reconstructed as it was many years ago. It has a bustling atmosphere with activities that include exploring old-time shops, sifting for gold, and investigating old mine shafts.

A note about the gun fight shows that they put on for the crowd. The first one that we saw had my sister and I in tears because of how ridiculous the dialog was. However, it was thoroughly entertaining and the children that were there were enthralled by the site of two cowboys interacting with them. Still, we had a fantastic laugh.

Click to see photos from Calico Ghost Town!

I Eat Bugs…That’s Right, I Said it!

Okay, well maybe I don’t eat insects on a regular basis…but tonight I made an exception. I won’t lie, I’ve always been curious.

I have a friend who writes avidly about food on her own blog. Somehow we got onto the topic of bugs and soon a new mission developed. The mission? Find a decent restaurant that serves insect dishes and experiment review the experience.

Now when I say decent restaurant, I mean one where they don’t harvest the food from the bushes in the backyard. So we found this very nice gourmet restaurant called Typhoon in Santa Monica with a variety of dishes.

We selected the Singapore-Style Scorpions and the Taiwanese Crickets. The scorpions were way smaller than you would fear imagine and were served on this very tasty shrimp toast. All in all, pretty harmless experience. The taste of the scorpion was blended with the deliciousness. One down, one to go.

The crickets were regular “cricket size”…wings and all. They were stir fried with various other things until the whole meal was crunchy. The result was not that bad. I ate the majority of the plate. Didn’t feel grossed out once. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the same with my partner in that aspect, but we both came out of the experience with a sense of accomplishment.

My curiosity was satisfied. I’m Fear Factor ready. At least, I feel like I could survive on a few episodes of Lost…

Mars Just Got a Little Chillier

For those of us with an interest in space, there has been a HUGE discovery. NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft instruments have discovered enough water ice under the surface of Mars to fill Lake Michigan twice over. That’s a lot of water. And it brings us one enormous step closer to finding out whether or not life ever existed/could ever exist there.

With this new information, NASA may now commit to a manned landing within 20 years. Imagine the possibilities…

And the winner is…Schwerin, Germany!

In August, my sister Michaela is going on a foreign exchange for her senior year of high school. She could have opted to go the easy route and only be in Europe for 3 months. But instead she chose to go for the full year, to fully experience the culture and all the other knowledge and opportunity that comes with it. I am so proud of her for that.

Rotary International is a fantastic organization that is assisting her with her trip, taking care of all the organizing and providing a host family. So my family has impatiently very patiently waited for news to come of where exactly in Germany that she was going, and who her host family would be. A couple days ago, the news finally came!

Schwerin is a city in northern Germany, with a population of approximately 100,000. It seems like a beautiful place with many lakes several historical buildings that would be lovely to see. Michaela will be staying with a family with several children, one of which will go to the same school as her.

I’m so excited for her. This experience will change her life and open her up to so many new things.

Let the countdown begin!

Afternoon at the Tar Pits

Last Sunday, my mother came down to Los Angeles to visit me for the day. Discovering that I lived less than a mile from the La Brea Tar Pits, we set out to see what it was all about. The tar pit itself was basically what we could expect: oozy, sticky, smelly But what makes the location really stand out is the Page Museum, which holds skeletons from the thousands of animals that have been pulled out of the tar pit (basically a giant fly trap) over the last century.

Yes, the photo above is of a full woolly mammoth skeleton that has been excavated at the location. Awesome! Tar covers skeletons from animals that have been extinct for tens of thousands of years are on display, giving some insight into creatures that had never seemed real to me before. Saber tooth tigers, a variety of lot birds…there’s even a room where you can observe new fossils pulled from the tar being investigated and cleaned.

So although it was a small display compared to the larger museums, it was still very insightful and a pleasure to explore!

Click to see pictures of the La Brea Tar Pits/Page Museum.

Secrets of Stonehenge

There is an interesting article in the June edition of National Geographic on Stonehenge. I admit that I didn’t know very much about it. I knew that the stones had been there for thousands of years and that no one could explain exactly what they were for. After doing a little more research, I discovered that there is so much more to it then that.

Around 2500 B.C., approximately 80 bluestones (weighing around 4 tons each) taken from Wales and were moved 250 miles to where the structure exists today. One of the great mysteries is how these great stones were transported over such a huge territory, and with what resources?

The stones seemed to be arranged around the solstices and were possibly used for several purposes.  The primary use appears to be a cemetery, as many humans remains have been found at it’s base.  Whatever it’s purpose, and however it was constructed, it is a thousand years of ancient history where we may never have the answers.