Backstreet's Back Alright! - Day 2

So our day began in sunny Key West. What a nice change from semi-cold, rainy Miami. Ew. Key West was beautiful and warm. So nice. So Megan and I got off the ship and went to explore Key West. It's pretty small so we could walk everywhere. We found Duval Street, the original Margaritaville, and the sign where the interstate system began. No lie. Mile 0 starts there. Kinda crazy. The southernmost point of the United States is there too but it was a little too far to walk to. Anyway, we went to an internet cafe for a good hour haha. I had some key lime pie. It was good. That's about it. We met some BSB fans from California that took our picture for us. They were super nice. Back to the ship we went.


We went to the Question and Answer session once we got back. It was about an hour and a half long. Fun stuff. Not much to say about it honestly. It was formal night on the ship that day too, plus the BSB Masquerade party. So we got to wear our fancy dresses. Vanity night as Megan called it haha. I was excited. My dress was new with pockets! So we got all dressed up and went to dinner. P.S. Carnival has this warm melting chocolate cake that is unreal. No lie, I got it 3 nights for dessert. It's like brownie soup. Amazing. I want it now. Anyway, after dinner, we went to the Masquerade which was a lot of fun. Everyone was dressed up with fun masks. Megan made both of ours and they looked amazing. So awesome. I can't believe they turned out so well. So, let me just tell you, these deck parties that were every night, didn't start til midnight or later. So we were dying by that time and weren't super pumped to party. But we stayed til about 2am I think and decided to call it a night. We weren't sure when the boys would start door knocking anyway.






That's another thing! A staff guy told us in the hall that Nick would be coming around to knock on fan's decorated doors to meet them after the Masquerade. Well Nick even told us this during the Q&A session earlier. So we were super excited. Well, we didn't wanna stay up all night and no one show, but we also didn't wanna take off our makeup and be in our pajamas if they did come. Solution? Sleep in our dresses. That's just what we did haha. It was so funny. Here we are in our formal dresses with hair and makeup done laying in bed with the covers over us. So the hallways and walls weren't sound proof, so we heard people all weekend long up and down the hallways. About 3:30am I hear someone next door somehow. I jumped out of bed and yelled at Megan to get up! I went and opened the door to look and there was security guard standing next door. He said, "Shhhhh....Shut your door." So I did and ran back in the room and got Megan to zip my dress up, fixed my hair, and for some reason realized my breath probably stunk, so we both stuffed some mints in our mouth. By that time, someone knocked at the door. We both opened it and it was AJ! Simultaneously we both gave a high spirited "HI!" It was so surreal let me tell you. So he came in and Megan went to shake his hand, and he took it and kissed it, along with mine :D Then, he looked around and told us our room was messy. I wanted to say, well, I'm sorry, we don't have a suite like you, but I bit my tongue haha. he asked if we wanted a photo and for some reason we didn't bother getting individuals, we got a group shot, but it was SO good! I was very pleased. After that, I said, "Hey, do you have a second?" and he said sure. (side note) All cruise long they were rushing them here and there to do stuff so we never thought we'd get actual time with any of them, thats why I asked beforehand. Anyway, I had my BSB pages out. I almost didn't give them to him, but I thought, Cortney, you've been working on these for your entire adolescence almost, give him the f-ing pages. You said you were going to all of those years, now grow some kahunas and DO IT. So I did. I prepped him by saying, "Now, you're gonna think I'm insane, but...." And he stopped me and said, "No, trust me, I won't" haha. So I started flipping through the papers and told him in a round about way that I had written I Love BSB 100,000 times and had counted them all. Megan, God bless her soul, she thought to take a picture as I was talking to him, now I have actual proof. Love her. Anyway, about this time, I started to shake. When he first got there I was just really excited, but not nervous. Well, I could feel my hands shaking and see it in the papers. I was anticipating his reaction and thought, what if he hates it? Well I didn't have to worry about that because he responded with a "This is pretty fucking cool." I could not of asked for a better response :) So after that I somehow found the page that has like 3,500 on one side and showed him. I don't know why, but I did. He blinked a few times and said, "That hurts my eyes." Haha! I said, "I know mine too, I don't know how I wrote that small back then." I think that was all. I wish someone could of filmed the entire thing. So then he signed some autographs for us. He signed Megan's cd and I didn't have anything, so I got a piece of paper out of my purse and he wrote, I Love You 1,000,000,000,000 times. SO GREAT! After that he left and handed the pages to the security guard. I kind of handed him him the manila envelope I had them in so they wouldn't get messed up and he took it graciously and said that would probably be a good, safe place for them. He was quite nice about it, I was surprised.





After he left and the door shut, Megan and I both screamed! Ohhhh we sat and reveled for a good 20 minutes about it. We replayed the entire thing over about 5 times. She took a picture of me with my autograph too. I look so giddy haha. We were so glad we heard it, woke up, and had slept in our dresses. Such an amazing experience. And of all of the members to come knocking, AJ came, and I got to give my pages to him. I don't know if Nick's reaction would of been as good as AJ's. Who knows. I was thrilled with the entire thing. So, we put on our pajamas and went back to bed about 4am. I think I laid there a good hour, not sleeping, running on adrenaline.

Backstreet's Back Alright! - Day 1

So I definitely forget I even have this blog until I go on a trip somewhere and want to remember every detail. The Backstreet Boys cruise is one of those trips. AMAZING. Such an unreal experience I tell you. Jesus was on our side the entire trip. Everything was in our favor somehow. Praise God for it!

So our trip begin Wednesday night. Megan came to the house and we got stuff ready for the cruise. I was quite nervous about this because we're only acquaintances, not even really friends, minus facebook. She went on my trip to Italy and Greece with me, but we didn't really talk. She was with Interior Design. But we became facebook friends regardless and I saw that she loved BSB as much as I did! So other than facebooking each other, I saw her last April when she came and gave me a check for her airline ticket. Then she came Wednesday night. Haha. I prayed we got along alright and we did :) So anyway she came and we got stuff together for our door decorating contest and talked for a while then went to bed early since we had to get up at 2:15am. Ugh. It was more of a long nap than a night of sleep. We went to bed around 10pm I think. So then dad took us to the Groome Shuttle place for our shuttle to Atlanta. Our ride was good, only us and another guy so we had plenty of room. We made it to Atlanta fine, no issues checking in, finding our gate, etc. Our flight went well and we made it to Miami in one piece WITH luggage intact. I was so afraid we'd lose it and have nothing for the cruise.

We got a taxi to the ship then and checked in. We were early so we had to wait about an hour and while we were, we heard screams! We jump up and see Backstreet walking by! Ah!!!! We about crapped our pants with excitement. We were taking pictures along with other fans and some people next to us asked who that was and we told them and they said, Oh crap. Let's go home now. Haha. So we checked in and went to eat lunch. About an hour later, we see Howie waltz in the door, no big deal right? We were like WTF!??!!?!?! ITS HOWIE! He was with his wife and child obviously but there he was eating like anyone else. We just kind of assumed beforehand that they'd be under lock and key the entire cruise and we wouldn't see them unless it was at a scheduled event so it was crazy to see them out and about. Well then not 20 minutes later Brian walks in too! We were sitting next to some Latin American fans and they FREAKED OUT. Woah. Like me and Megan were excited and were giddy, but these girls about had a heart attack. One went over to Howie to show him something and came back weeping. That would of been me 8 years ago haha.

So Brian starts signing some autographs and taking pictures so me and Megan run over there to wait. Well then he stops and says he will a little later. Well we wait about an hour and he starts again. We had been there the longest and somewhat expected to be first, but people kept crowding in from all sides. No lie, I was kinda scared. I couldn't move and people kept pushing. So finally Megan gets to the front and pulls me up there for a picture. I apologized since I almost stepped on Brian (he's short) and I said, I'm so sorry, thank you so much, we've been waiting a while. And he said Oh I'm sorry and I didn't want him to think I was complaining cause I wasn't, but I said oh no no no you're fine! So our picture is UBER close to our faces since the security guard was right there and there was no room either. But it's good and I love it!


So after all of the excitement, we had to go check in and get our wrist bands and stuff. That was an incredibly long line that we got to the front of luckily. Afterward, we go to our room and wait for our luggage. While we waiting we see the cruise has put on a BSB channel full of interviews, concerts and music videos. We watched like little girls for a while haha. Then it was time for some BSB events. It was Backstreet Boy Family Feud and the Dating Game. We went to the theater that all of the events would be at and we had the last row, last 2 seats. No lie. Plus the seats weren't real, they were folding chairs and hurt like crap. But any seat was pretty good since the place was so small. But they had picked girls out of the crowd to play these games and stuff beforehand apparently. We thought it was random but it wasn't.

We went back and decorated our door for the door decorating contest. SO much fun! Our door looked awful compared to other doors we saw. People put so much effort into them and we just didn't plan like they did. We'll know better next time.


After that we got ready for the cocktail party that was on the deck outside and for dinner. It was fun, but not a lot going on. We sang to songs and took lots of pictures. We got lucky and Nick, Howie and AJ all walked right by us and shook Megan's hand! We went to dinner afterward and were greeted by 6 other people at our table. Weird people. I joked with Megan that if she had turned out weird, I'd been stuck with weird people the entire trip haha. We had a mother and daughter from Florida, two girls from Virginia who were yankee transplants, another mother and daughter from Pennsylvania, plus a weird creeper dude who was middle aged from New York, on this trip ALONE, AND had been on the New Kids cruise before. Woah. We got him moved the next night lol. So during dinner, we were about to fall over from exhaustion. No lie my face almost landed in my food. So, the deck party didn't start til 11pm and we opted out because we figured if we didn't sleep again, the next day would be shot too. So we went to bed.

Slacker

What a slacker I am! I haven't updated since Thailand, which was, unbelievably, a month ago already. Wow. Time has flown. Nothing important has happened really either haha.

I've just been working, midterms, working out, finishing my bedroom, halloween costume. I finally moved into my new room! Yay! It looks great! SO much room. I can't get over it. I could have a disco in here. We just ordered my chair this week too, and it was on sale! Success! We got my dresser mirror too. It's all coming together. Then, I'm gonna have to figure out how to decorate. Eh. Not real sure.

I'm gonna be a garden fairy for halloween. So exciting! I made my tutu, pink, ivory and blue. It's quite poofy. Much more than I thought. Almost too much. Kinda makes me look fat. I'll just have to flatten it some. The tights I ordered don't match. The color chart was wrong, so I'm irritated. I'm gonna dye some I think. I need some pink flats. I got the fabric for my top, blue, shiny and sparkly. It was on sale too :) So pretty. I'm gonna make it one-shouldered. Kinda toga-like. I got lots of flowers, butterflies and bees to put on the top too. Hence, garden fairy. Yay! I've been practicing my makeup too. That's the hardest part actually. There's so much to choose from and so many ideas. I've been trying to wittle them all down. We'll see. Something pink and blue. Of course :) I'm excited. I got pink wings at Walmart for 5$ too. That was great. Not much else to say. I'm quite boring I know.

Christin is in town! Yay! She'll be leaving soon though. Quick trip.

Going to Gatlinburg this weekend with the girls! Becca, Allison, Sam, Sarah and Julie. Hope it all goes well with no drama. And I hope it's chilly weather :) I'll update about that when I come back. Pics to come!

Thailand Day 7: La Korn

So, the Thailand trip has ended. Yes, folks, that's right. I'm heading home. I'll add some more on here when I officially get back into the States, but I figured now is as good a time as any to update on my last full day here. I sure do hope I can make it through the plane rides and that they're magically shorter going home. That happens sometimes right?

So I met Christin at Healthland today for an oil massage. I was hoping to get Jed? as my motorbike driver for the last time and tip him well and say thank you for driving me all week, but I got some other guy instead. He was nice, but smaller than me and much older. He seemed to have a hard time balancing me on the bike haha. Anyway, we got to Healthland in one piece considering he went a new way than I was accustomed to and I'd only been there once before. But Christin and I got 90 minute oil massages. I had no idea what to expect. All I knew is that I didn't wanna be naked in front of anyone, regardless of if it was a woman. Well I went and had to shower first for some reason and then laid down on my stomach on the table. And I guess I also didn't realize for a while that it was a total body massage, not just a back massage. That's what I'm used to seeing everywhere.

Anyway, all was well until she started digging into my back! What is with these people and trying to dig your bones out of your body? I mean honestly! The rubbing and partial kneading was great, but not in certain areas. I would cringe and almost yelp when she dug into my lower back. Apparently it's MUCH more sensitive than I realized. So are other parts of my body. I know this now after having them rubbed and kneaded to death twice. I had to tell her to be soft on my back. She wasn't as soft as I would have liked. So then, I kept my underwear on, like I thought I was suppose to. Well apparently not. She pulled them half way down my butt. That wasn't embarrassing at all. I didn't necessarily mind her massaging my butt over the sheet, but not sans-sheet. Then I had to flip over and I covered myself fine and all. Well, then she lifted up the towel covering my boobs to massage my waist. I wasn't okay with that. At all. I haven't ever felt that violated actually. It's not like the gynocologist. I prepare myself for that and know what's gonna happen. I didn't here. Ugh. Anyway, it was pretty good overall I guess. Not sure how it'll compare to a massage at home. I don't know if I'll ever dish out the money at home though compared to buying one here for so cheap haha.

Christin and I decided to go hang out afterward and pack up. We ate dinner at a little street cart thing next to her apartment. The guy who owned it spoke great english. I had spaghetti haha. It was okay. Pretty good for Thai standards. Christin hated her food. It wasn't that great. So we went to the 7/11 and got sandwiches haha. Off to the airport to sit and wait soon. Not looking forward to that. I sure do hope I sleep most, if not all of the flight to Japan. Say a prayer. Update more later on the 2nd half of the trip.

Thailand Day 6: Yin Dee Tee Dai Ruu Jak

So today was much more eventful than the past couple have been. I got to hang out with Christin at school for the majority of the day. I got over there to eat pizza with them at their party, but it was all gone by the time I got there :( Anyway, Christin and Andy told me to eat the pizza sitting at Chris' desk. Haha. I thought he wasn't there at all for the day, but apparently not. I found out later from Camille and Stacie that he was asking around who ate it! He was asking when Christin and I went on a lunch break to get a foot massage. So funny. Christin just died laughing. That made the day great.

So the foot massage was much better than the thai massage. Much less painful. We're gonna go get an actual oil massage tomorrow I think. The masseuse better close her eyes is all I have to say. Anyway, I went with the student teachers to their apartment after school while Christin tutored. They all live in tiny rooms with a bathroom. Kinda sucks. But it was cute.



So we went to MBK and met Christin at McDonalds for dinner. They had a tuna pie on the menu. Yummy. Anyway, we went and shopped for a while. I'm so excited! I got one of those awesome Thai dresses that are beautiful and it fits great! I also got a mint green silk robe, a thai shirt, and 2 vases with those pretty flower arrangements for my new room. I hope it all fits in my luggage! Ah! Gotta pack tomorrow and get ready to say adios to Thailand. Back to the States and to the real world. Ugh. I'm not looking forward to work. Blahhhhh.

Thailand Day 5: Sa Yan Sa Was

Today was good. Christin originally had to be school until 5:15pm! Ugh. But, as it turns out, she didn't have after school duty or something like that. So I got to roll in to BCC at 3pm. Earliest yet! Jed (#7 haha) flagged me down and took me to school again and he didn't even ask this time where to go, he just took me haha. So I sat and waited for Christin to come get me and I loved marveling at all of the boys in their uniforms and their socks pulled up so high on their legs. Good times. I guess it doesn't matter there since everyone looks the exact same. That's a good thing right?

So Christin got me some mango and sticky rice! Yummmmm! It came with coconut milk to pour over the top and it was awesome. I see why she ate her weight in it last time she was here. She took me to her office area which was quite fun to see. I wasn't expecting the layout at all. Long rows of desks all together with individual areas for each teacher. Quite cute I must say. I got to meet Christin's Hawaiian friend, whose name I can't pronounce. But she gave me a hug and was the nicest person ever! I wasn't expecting all of the affection but it sure was nice even if she was a stranger. Camille and Stacie had desks over there too so I sat and talked with them for a while. Then they invited me to go to the salon to get hair and nails done. Teacher Knock sp? was taking them over by her house so I went with them and let Christin go tutor. Well, it took forever to get there because of traffic and then the salon was tiny with 4 girls working, 1 of which only did nails. Thank goodness I wasn't getting a pedicure. I just got mine painted. They look awesome too! My hair was another story. It looked really pretty but I feel like I lost half of my hair from the process. She washed it and scrubbed my head so hard it was horribly tangled when I sat down to get it worked on. Well she started combing through it and then quit. She instead started brushing it with a round brush and drying it that way since I was getting it curled. It took a while but it looked beautiful when it was done. I felt like a million bucks. I've never gotten my hair done before just because. I didn't have any special occasion obviously. It sure was nice though :)

Afterward, Teacher Knock took us to her house and we had dinner with her and her husband. They are the sweetest people ever. I absolutely love that her husband doesn't speak a word of english but he will sit and have a full conversation with you and you'll understand what he's saying. So fun. We found out he LOVES cowboy stuff too. How ironic is that? Belt buckles, cowboy hats, country music. You name it. So Teacher Knock called us a taxi and we all left. She explained to the driver to take the student teachers to BTS and then take me to TIT Tower. So all was well and then the taxi driver got lost. Ha. He pulled over and asked someone where to go. We were on the right road, we just hadn't gone far enough yet. It was kinda funny and nerve wracking all at the same time. But I got back okay. That's all that matters.

Ohhh and FYI randomness. I was talking to Camille about Matt, just in passing and her and Stacie both tried to convince me to not pursue that. I was kinda shocked honestly. They proceeded to tell me how nice and great of a guy he is, but that he's lazy and I could do WAY better. Well I wasn't really gonna take their word for it but all 3 of the girls were kinda adamant about it, so I guess I will. Plus, Camille said she has a friend from Cleveland she wants to set me up with who she thinks would be perfect for me. He's cute and a big guy, kinda like Adam. She said he dates a lot of girls like me. So she's gonna set something up and we'll see how it goes :)

Thailand Day 4: Yin Dee Ton Rab

Today was good. I always get excited to sit and relive all that's happened while on this trip but then I realize most of the excitement has already happened since we did all of the major things this past weekend. I'm fine with that, I kind of knew that coming in to all of this. I'm glad I got to do it period, regardless of when.

So, today I went and met Christin at school around 4pm. I had to go get a motor bike alone again but today was good because Jed and the Thai Mama were there waving me over haha. They were funny and super nice. We didn't die and I got there in one piece, dry. That was a major thing. Jed slowed down at each puddle which was nice of him. So I sat and waited for Christin on a little bench and got to stare at all of the Thai kids running wild. Woah. That place is crazy with 6,000 kids. That's still unbelievable to me. I saw all sizes and ages. The uniforms of all Thai students everywhere makes me laugh. I guess they don't ever get to wear what they want like some schools do back home? I see that in a lot of foreign countries actually. Maybe that's why they're grades are better, they take it more seriously than we do. Oh well. Not worrying about it.

Anyway, Christin showed up and Tiffany, Stefanie and Camille were there too. I found out they were coming with us! Yay! They're super fun. Then they called Matt and he joined us as well :) We went to a mall of some sort that I can't remember the name of to eat. I had noodles and pork dumplings. Quite good, minus the noodles, which made me sad. They were kind of fishy tasting. Matt suggested I get them, but forgot to mention that they're cold. Ah. But oh well. I'm glad I tried it. We ended up going to get Christin's iphone fixed again and went to see waiing Ronald McDonald! Ah! Success! I was quite thrilled with it. Something so American that has been made Asian. I love it. So we had a photo op there and went to a nice coffee shop to grade papers.


It ended up being more of a heart to heart about boys than grading actually. Love those. It was good. Afterwards, Christin took me to the Red Light District. That's quite the place let me tell you. She informed me about the ping pong shows. I don't want to ever see that. All of those poor girls though just waiting for some guy or girl for that matter, to come along. A lot of it I just can't imagine. That's how people live. They do they for their families or are forced to work that way. It definitely makes me thank God for not having to do that. Praise Jesus again.


We headed back after that and I was quite proud. I stayed up til 10:45. That's the latest I've been up all week. Yay! By the time I get accustomed to it I'll be heading back home. Bleh.

Thailand Day 3: Yai Puan

So today was much less exciting than the past two have been. Christin had to go back to the real world and go to work. Work sucks. It's ruins my fun. Boo. Oh well. So basically I sat in her apartment most of the day. It actually went by pretty quickly though. I was pleasantly surprised.

I walked over to the 7/11 and got some coffee. Came back and called mom and dad. They were thrilled. Did some homework and went to the gym. Even though it's nice to have a gym here, it was comical I must say. I tried to use the treadmill and it didn't work. I found out later from Christin that it required 10 baht to work. Shut up. So I used the bike for about 30 minutes. The weight machines were all inclusive and were somewhat difficult to use. So my workout consisted of cardio and a few bicep curls. Oh well. Better than nothing right? Anyway, it's set up real pretty with glass windows and doors all around so it makes you feel like you're outside. Well, the doors were open too, so that made it 80000 degrees inside. Not that I don't in general, but I sweated like a pig. I was literally drenched. I'm sure people walking by were laughing. But afterwards, I walked outside to look and there was the glorious pool! So nice! I'm gonna have to try that out when Aunt Flo takes a hike soon. It sucks to be a girl.

Well when I came back to her apartment, I decided I'd be a great friend and clean her bathroom for her. Well I cleaned most of it but then started feeling horribly sick. So I almost finished it. I think bending over the tub is what finished me off. I drank some water and tried to eat some pizza. Bad choice. I spit it out. So instead I ate some cheez-its and took a shower and took a nap. I felt much better after that. I think not eating consistent meals is making me dizzy. I don't know how Christin eats a cookie a day. Oh well. I felt much better once I ate some more.

So I got ready and had to meet Christin at school. Ah! On my own in Thailand! I had to find a motorbike person, tell them where I wanted to go and not get screwed out of my money in the meantime. I'm not gonna lie, that's the most nerve wracking thing I've done thus far here. Well I walk out and see a bunch of guys sitting there. No one even approached me for some reason. So I approached them. I had a piece of paper of where to go and how much money. He kinda looked at me. He obviously didn't speak english. He handed it to another guy and he knew where to go and said 40 baht? And I said a definite yes. So I hiked my dress up and we went. No side saddle for me. He didn't bother giving me his extra helmet though which I found quite odd. But I made it there in one piece, paid 40 baht and found Christin. SUCCESS! So I have to do it again tomorrow. Hope it goes as well. I hope I can find Christin's Thai mama or Jed. Haha. That name cracks me up. They're super nice.

Oh, so I met Christin and David. It's nice to finally meet all of these people she talks about. He's from England. We went to Paragon! Crazy place I must say. It was full of lots of tourists too like Christin said. We ate the infamous cowmanguy for dinner. It was quite good, especially the soup. Yum. Then, we met Joey and went to the phone place. Then on to MBK, an indoor mall market thing. It was great! It was huge too. I got a beautiful scarf (that I didn't need at all considering I have like 4 blue scarves) for $2! I'd pay like 15 or 20$ at home for that. I also got a really pretty silk/satin Thai maxi dress. It will barely cover my boobs, but it was cute and it fits. It was cheap, like everything else is here. The baht is my friend. Oh, funny story I have to laugh about or i'll cry instead. We saw those pretty dresses that Christin bought me before but didn't fit. Well the one I picked up the woman motioned it would be too small because my boobs are too big. Yay. She pointed over to the dresses that were bigger, and more expensive for me. Yay. It's nice to be called fat twice here. I need to start keeping a tally. It looks like it's gonna be an ongoing thing.

Thailand Day 2: Kop Koon Kah

I am quite proud. I must say. I'm forcing to update this blog about every single day of this trip so I don't forget a thing and I'm actually doing it! Success!


So today we went to a floating market with the student teachers and Christin's boss and husband. Teacher Knock and her husband are the sweetest people. SO kind and her english is great. So Christin and I had to be at BCC to meet them and we ended up having to take the motor bikes there. Well I got to meet her Thai mama and the guy that takes her to school almost every day. They were super nice, but we had to go separately and they each went a separate way. Well, it was fine but then I started to get worried because I realized Christin may not be there when I got there and I could get lost, plus the driver kept trying to ask me something and I thought he was asking me where to go! AH! I was kinda crapping my pants at that point. So he stops on the side of the road and I was like, are we here? There was a set of stairs and he told me I had to walk up the stairs and across the road and there the school was. I was okay with that because I could see the school. So I get over there and see no Christin. I ended up waiting about 10 minutes and I was drenched after walking that short distance. So the hair immediately went up. *Note to self: Don't wear hair down in Thailand. Ever. So she shows up and she said she was freaking out not knowing where I was. Ha. I had no phone either if I did try to call her somehow. Oh well. We were good.

So we drive a while to floating market. There were little vendors/shops around there with people selling EVERYTHING. I can definitely see why Christin doesn't buy food and keep it in her apartment. There is food everywhere, always, on every corner. And it's cheap. It's good too! The coconut pancake I had was awesome! I could get into that. So, we go and get on the little boat and buy a watermelon smoothie. By far my favorite food so far here. It was incredible. Who knew straight watermelon could be so awesome? This little boat was so neat and so very Thai! I definitely feel like I'm getting the most amazing Thai experience. Very Asian, which is what I wanted. Let me tell you about this boat though. It's not made for tall people, nor is anything else in Thailand. I feel like the jolly green giant everywhere. I had to sit sideways because my legs were too long to sit straight forward. Crammage. Minus that, the boat ride was perfection. Little Thai homes all along the water, people going by that were actual floating markets with all of their goods/food to sell. It was amazing. The Thai people sure are nice too like Christin said. I feel like I'm in the south :) People wave constantly and smile. Part of me thinks its because they are that nice, but another part of me thinks it's because we're tourists. Either way, it's great that everyone is so friendly. So this boat ride took us on a number of stops to see awesome stuff. We went to a temple first that was amazing. Exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to see. We went to a flower garden that was cool and a few other temples. Oh, something funny. At the flower garden, all of the Lee girls, Christin and I took a picture together and there was a little Thai girl on the tour with us who was probably 9 or 10. She was watching us and asked to take a picture with everyone. She was so excited and said, "Thank you" in english to us afterward. She was all smiles. It still amazes me how people are so interested in us. I don't know if it's an American thing or a foreigner thing in general. Like at the Crocodile show the other day, there was another little girl who looked to be 4 or 5 sitting a row down from Christin and I. Every time I looked that way she was staring at me. It sounds conceded but all I could think was, "Do I look like Barbie to her?" I assume she's never seen or seen very few blonde people in her life. I'd probably stare too if I hadn't. I kind of like this attention considering I don't get it at home. If you wanna feel good about yourself, go to a country where your looks are minority. Watch people stare then.

I know we, or just I, sweated like a pig the entire day. I had quite a few people comment on my sweating, which means it was REALLY bad and worse than I thought. I should have just foregone makeup and worn a bandana on my head to absorb it all. Ah. Oh, I bought some stuff today too. Got a green bracelet for Ashley, a pair of owl earrings that are UBER cute for myself and an Asian fan. Super excited. My first souvenirs. Can't wait to find a cute Asian top/dress like Christin has. I love finally coming to a country where the dollar is king and I can get a lot of stuff for cheap. Yay! After the boat ride, we came back to the floating dock area and had lunch. We got noodles! YAY for noodles finally! They follow me wherever I go around the world and it's amazing. So good. Oh, and back to being tall in Thailand, it blows. We sat at these cute little Thai tables with little stools and all. Sounds fun right? Wrong. I had to contort my legs in order to fit and eat my food haha. It's all good though. I had a good time.


Christin and I were deciding what to do after we left the market and Christin had the bright idea of getting a massage. Yay for massages! Camille and Tiffany came with us too. We went to Health Land right near the BCC. Let me tell you, when you walk into that parking lot, all you see is nice cars. NICE cars. You see where the people with money go for sure. They were valeting them left and right. The place was super nice but packed. We had to wait a little bit in order to get a private room for the 4 of us. I got to wear those crazy huge scrubs too. Very comfy, even though they weren't super huge on me considering I'm huge to begin with. But anyway they were good. So, I had no idea what to expect. A 2 hour Thai massage. Well, it was painful let me tell you. Kinda scary considering it was my first massage ever. My little lady was fierce too. I wish I had known the word for, not so hard, but all I could remember was "lang, lang" which means harder. I definitely didn't want that. I just kept thinking about as she worked on each limb or area of the body, about how sensitive certain areas where in general even when I wasn't being massaged. Gah, I had to cringe and hold on to the bed sometimes. The real sensitive part of my calf where I have a hematoma, she kept kneading. Ugh. I wanted to cry. My inner thighs are more sensitive than anywhere else and she kept kneading those too. Meanwhile, I kept thinking, I can't wait for her to get to my back because that's where I really need the massage. I wish I could turn over when she did finally get to it. It was the most painful thing. To make it worse, she kept using her elbows in my lower back and at one point it hurt so bad I moaned and to make it worse, she laughed! I should have farted on her like the girls told me to. Lunch must have given me gas because I really did have to fart the entire time. I had to concentrate on holding it in. Well to make it even better, at the end she patted the area near my boobs and my waist and said, "Big big". Gee. It's nice to be called fat here. I didn't want to tip her. Maybe I should pat her head as I look down on her and say, "Short, short". Is that as insulting? Or I could be real mean and point my foot at her as Christin says is like giving the finger. I'm not that mean. Only sometimes. *Be like Jesus Cortney. Be like Jesus* I keep telling myself that.

We headed home after that on a red bus thingy. That was interesting. Out of all of the transportation so far, I think I like the tuk tuk best. The motor bike is cool too, but I'm more comfortable on the tuk tuk. My butt and feet don't hurt at the end. It's odd not being in a car all of the time. It sure does make me appreciate my car at home though. It's real easy to hop in and go wherever I want, whenever I want. That's not an option here. It costs money to go places. People here don't have a lot of money. I get that. Praise Jesus for my car. I got a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner that Christin likes to eat all of the time. It was good with ketchup on it. Yum. Oh and I love Thailand more now. We ordered pizza the other night and it came with ketchup packets taped on top. I freaked out! I didn't bring any because I ran out of time to get some at home. I'm glad I didn't know obviously. Christin said they put ketchup on a lot of stuff. Yay for my condiment of choice. I think that's about all we did for the day. Came back here and attacked the internet like I've been doing lately. Forced myself to stay awake later so I wouldn't wake up at 3:30 again. Boo to jet lag.

On to tomorrow!

Thailand Day 1: Sawadee Kah

So the Thailand trip has officially begun! Finally, after months of waiting and thinking September was never gonna come, it did. So we'll just begin with the fabulous 28 hour flight schedule I had.

I slept about 5 hours on Wednesday night (8th) to get up at 3:00am. Woah. It came quick. So I finish packing, and head over to the airport and get there around 4:10ish? Sounds good considering I have a 5:40am flight, right? Wrong. No one even showed up there to take my luggage til 4:45am. I about crapped my pants. I was so irritated, but then again it is Chattanooga, so people aren't bustin down the doors because the airport is so crowded. So I go to check in and I'm holding my breath because I'm worried about my luggage being over weight. Well, Christin's bag was 37 lbs or so, no big deal. Well, my suitcase was 55. AH. I about crapped my pants. The guy put a heavy tag on it and said, "We don't care here, but Japan might." But then he says, wait, why don't you put some stuff from that suitcase into this one?" What a novel idea! And it worked, so no baggage fee for me. Yay! Ohh and he also informed me that since i wouldn't be getting to Tokyo until the next day technically, I couldn't get my boarding pass until I got there. WTF is that? I tried not to worry about that just yet.

Anyway, as I'm sitting there waiting, Emily and Carter walk up! How funny. I had no clue they were gonna be there and they were going to Atlanta too, but on a different flight. They were going to a wedding in Seattle and were shocked when I told them I was going to Thailand of all places. Let me just make a little side note about that, I absolutely LOVE to see people's faces when I tell them I'm going to Thailand. It ranges from shock, confusion, and envy. It's great. No one understands why I'm going haha. Anyway, I fly to Atlanta, no big deal right? Wrong. I've never been in Atlanta airport alone before and I got lost at a time when I didn't have the luxury to get lost. I had about 20 mins to find my gate before boarding began. So I got off the plane and booked it. Well, I had to take that stupid subway, concourse changer thing. So I think I get to my concourse and walk all this way and I end up right back where I had started. How does that happen? I went back again and saw where I had missed the escalator to go upstairs, dumb people put it where you can't see if you're walking from the opposite direction. Anyway, I made it in time and all was well. Well, then I started to worry that my luggage wasn't gonna make it with me since I didn't have alot of time between planes. Ugh.

So I get on the plane and have an exit row seat on this flight. Success! I forgot I had picked one out. It was so nice and roomy. Well, I had this semi-cute guy, who got less cute as the plane ride went on, sit next to me. He didn't say a word to me for about 10 minutes and I was like, okay, this is gonna be an ipod flight. Well, I was wrong. He started talking and did not stop for like an hour. I heard his entire life story, more so than I wanted to know and all kinds of other stuff. Ah. But he was nice none the less. So, that flight to Minneapolis went by quick, it was only 2 hours. Well then I get to Minneapolis airport and have 6 hours to kill. Bah. So as soon as I walk off the plane I turn right and see, A. A gate screen B. A bathroom C. Starbucks. Life is good right? Everything I need right there together. And to top it off, the Starbucks had a sitting area with it that had outlets to charge your stuff! So I basically parked myself there and ate breakfast at 10am, when I had been up 7 hours already. I was hungry. I called the folks and reassured them I was okay. 2 flights down and not even 3/4 of the trip was over. Boo. So I sat around and then wandered around for a while. Marveled at all of the Brett Favre/purple Viking stuff that was everywhere. Those people are just as bad as TN with orange. Haha. So I find my gate that's suppose to be my gate in a few hours, I was a wee bit early, and took a seat. I had the chance to sit and listen to all of the Minnesotan people talk while I tried/pretended to read my book. I actually listened and tried to keep a straight face since I wasn't suppose to be listening obviously. It was great. Sounded like something straight out of Fargo. Oh, so while no one was around, I walked over to the stewardess and told her about the boarding pass drama for Tokyo and she printed one right out for me. Apparently I had waited enough time to be able to get it. She sure did save me some worry. Thank you lady!

I went and had some Subway later on even though I wasn't hungry. I didn't know how long it would be or when I would eat again on the plane. After a while, I noticed people trickling in for the flight to Japan. I guess I never thought about it, but most people were Asian. Duh Cortney. I think I assumed that would just be on my flight to Bangkok. Wrong. So I board the plane, which let me tell you, is usually 30 mins before on domestic flights. Well, for international, boarding time is an hour before. Well holy crap, if you think you have a lot of time in between flights, you don't, unless you've got like 5 hours to kill. So I didn't have to wait as long at the airport. Yay. I was worried the entire time about this flight, not because it was 12 hours, but because I picked a window seat that had 3 people to a row aka I have to crawl over 2 people to pee instead of just one. Boo. I hate doing that. But luckily, the 2 ladies next to me were UBER nice. One was a Christian too! Praise Jesus! Well then she ended up moving seats so me and the other lady had an empty middle seat which was the best possible option really. We weren't crammed in together. It was great. This flight did suck, but not nearly as much as I thought it would. I didn't watch any of the movies though and they played effin 4. I didn't wanna see any of them, not even a little. Boo. Ohhh and I was planning to have my own personal tv on my seat. Didn't happen.

12 hours later I arrived in Tokyo. Yay right? Yay wrong. If I thought I had little time in Atlanta, I had even less time in Tokyo. I was kinda sad about that too. I wanted to people watch a little and look for a Harajuku girl haha, plus I wanted to stand and not sit for a while. Well neither one worked out for me. It took so long to actually get off the plane that when I got into the airport, my next flight was already loading. BOO. Oh and to make it even better, the Japs think it's best for some reason, to make everyone who has a connecting flight, go through security AGAIN. WTF is that? I'd already been through, why do I need to do it again? Ugh. That took more time and they took my water which pissed me off since I had bought it in an airport. Whatever. So I'm practically running to find where to go, which is not easy to find btw. I had someone white and American help me. Ha. So I make a quick pee stop and then as I get to my gate, I'm one of the last people to board! Ah! So all is well, minus me worrying about luggage transferal again. Oh, and each seat this time had a personal tv. That was a welcome sight considering it was a 7 hour flight. Well I sat next to Kim Jong il's brother, also known as little Elvis on this flight. He had these gold glasses with this detail on the side that looked remarkable Elvis like. I don't know, but it was funny. He didn't say a word to me. Ha.

So this was by far the WORST flight out of the four. No joke. I kept thinking it was a different time then it was and I was wrong. I thought I had 2 hours left and I had 4. Oh the distress I felt at that was awful. After an eternity, I made it, only to see the pouring rain and no thing to connect our plane to the airport. Great. We had to get on a trolley that took us to the airport, then go through Customs, then go get baggage, then exit. This airport is insane and I don't like it. Christin kept saying how it wasn't very big. Negative my friend. I disagree. It's got the oddest layout ever. So as I finally find my baggage claim area and find my luggage! YAY! That was the first task, now the second was to find Miss Christin. So as I walk out, she just happens to be walking by. Lucky me, she said she had been pacing because there were several exit areas. So I stopped and dropped my luggage and we had our airport moment like she likes to talk about so much. It was so great to 1. See her since it's been a while and 2. To FIND her so easily. I was truly worried about getting lost there. It all went so well I couldn't have asked for anything better. PRAISE JESUS. So we make our way out and get a taxi. Yes, they have those pink taxis everywhere that I saw while she was student reaching. Unreal. And let me tell you, she said she can't speak Thai. She lied. She was awesome at it. We had this funny cab driver too. So we head to her apartment and I had someone carry my luggage for me to the elevator. How nice! Kop Koon Kah!

It's about 1:30/1:45am by this time. So I call my mom on Skype and she screams with joy when she finds out it's me Hahaha. It was great. She goes, "Are you in Japan?" Japan mom? Really? I was like no, I'm with Christin. I'd shoot myself in the face if I was just now to Japan. So I talked to her for a few minutes and then played on the computer. Well then it was 2:00 or 2:30 and I was informed we were getting up at 5:30 to go to the Tiger Zoo with the other student teachers! Success! So I worried about only sleeping 3 hours, well I slept 2, maybe. Jet lag is fun my friends. I was up at 4:15am, staring at the ceiling. I just knew I was gonna keel over by 11 or 12 that day, but amazingly enough I didn't! So Christin and I get a tuk tuk to take us to her school. Now, that was fun. That's a good way to travel. So we meet Prateep at school, our tour guide for the day and the other student teachers. There are 5 of them, 4 girls and 1 boy, but someone was sick, so there were 6 of us for the day and they were all SUPER nice and the boy was cute too. I'm still trying to see if he's single, I'll keep you updated :) I'm really glad we got to go with them. So, in a nutshell, I got to experience all of Thailand in one day. It was amazing. If I had to go home the next day, I'd be satisfied. I got to see that much. So we sat on the bus for a while and drove out of Bangkok to Pattaya for the beach. Well we stopped to pee along the way and my first experience with Thai bathrooms had squatty potties. Yes, squat over the pot. No comodes. I about crapped my pants, I forgot Christin mentioning this a while back. Well, I sure am glad I had been practicing squat peeing at home anyway just for hygenic purposes because it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Then we headed to the beach, which wasn't much of a beach really because it was road, sand, water. Not much to see, but it was nice. Christin and I went picture crazy. Prateep got us cute little chairs and a table to eat at and he ordered all kinds of Thai food. Woah. We basically had 'lunch' at 9:00am. It was all great though. I was surprised I liked so much of it. We cleaned up and headed to the Tiger Zoo!


So the Tiger Zoo was amazing. There aren't other words to describe it. It was just amazing. Oh and btw, I've noticed, most Thai zoos will cater to one animal type, but have 50 million more. Like there were elephants, crocodiles, pigs, bunnies, etc. here, even if tigers are there main animal. So we first went to the elephant show. That was funny and kinda sad. I don't think they have animal cruelty laws here like they do at home. A lot of the elephants had been branded with a number or symbol. So sad. But it was like watching Dumbo haha. The show was good and then we headed over to see some tigers! They were all in pens obviously but I was kinda bummed because I thought they would be more out in then open I guess, or more accessible like when Christin went before. But we found baby tigers in a separate area. They were in pens too and they had bottles to feed them through the cage and I was like, ohhh no no no. I want to hold them. But they had one over in another area where you could pay to hold it and feed it so that's what we did. Christin and I did it and split the cost, then they took it away and we paid again so I could hold it and we got a little baby one! SO PRECIOUS! AH! It was adorable! By far the best thing ever. It gave Christin a sloppy kiss haha.


After that we went to the Crocodile show. How boring. Those people are dumb. Those crocs wanted to do nothing but eat their faces off. We looked at our tiger pictures instead. Then we went to the tiger show. Now that was good. Very entertaining. After the show we went to see the monkeys! SO funny! Naturally, we had to get a picture made. Then we left to go back the city. Christin and I made a pit stop outside Paragon to check on her iphone. Holy crap it was typical Asia! I've never seen so many people! We took a motor bike back to the apartment. I was VERY apprehensive about it at first but it was actually quite fun. We came back to her apartment and crashed afterward. So, funny story, kinda. I was on the computer and saw the time was 9:00pm. All of a sudden the jet lag and only 2 hours of sleep hit me like a ton of bricks and I was about to pass out. So I told Christin I was gonna go to bed and she said, "Cortney, it's only 8." I said, "Is that a cruel joke?" I realized the time on my computer was from home, not here. I wanted to die. So I forced myself to stay up later so I wouldn't wake up at 3am. I finally went and to bed and Christin said I was out cold. I didn't move. I don't remember moving either until about 6am this morning. It was the best sleep I've had in a while. Yay. On to day two!

Edward Cullen. In The Flesh.

So yes, it happened. I. Met. Robert. Pattinson. No lie. Words cannot describe this momentous event. It was as great as my future meeting with the Backstreet Boys will be in December. Who would of thought? I get to meet my 2 favorite 'people' in the world, less than 5 months apart? Life is good. Jesus is good. Maybe I'm not his little joke anymore @CWalk430.

So, I know I'm a slacker for my posts on here aka my trip to New Orleans I've done nothing about that was 3 weeks ago ha. I figured I'd better blog about this NOW since I need to remember every detail possible. So let's begin on Friday night.

I met Megan and Sarah at the mall to carpool. We decided to go to the Railroad Museum to see what was going on. They had already gone to the house in Georgia earlier in the morning but said there was about nothing to see since you had to be so far back from the set and the trees were in the way. So they didn't see much of anything regarding Rob. Well we went over to the railroad and there was nothing there. It looked like a ghost town. We thought maybe they'd have crew or set up or whatever going on, but nothing. Megan had already been there earlier in the week and saw them putting the circus name from the book on the side of the cars, but no one even acknowledged her presence honestly. They weren't allowed to say anything. They eventually told her, yes we're filming a movie, we can't tell you anything else. So, we went back and nothing was there now. We will see today and tomorrow. Anyway, we head down to the Read House. We heard/figured he was staying there since it's so nice. Well we parked and started walking around the hotel. Eventually, we see groups of girls here and there. We all smile at each other and nod because we know why we're all there. We ended up talking to this group of girls who had been there a while and they didn't know much. Well not 5 minutes later, someone walks by and goes, Rob just walked in. So we RAN in to the lobby and he was gone. They said he'd gotten on the elevator. Okay, strike one.

Well we go around the hotel lobby a while and kinda wait, stalk, poke around, ask some people if they know anything. Well we ended up over by this window in the back that overlooked the valets. We figured he'd be getting in or out of a car right there. Well we got nothing and saw a pizza man show up. Well we decided to get on the elevator with him and see where he was taking it. Yes, very stalkerish I know. Well it ended up not being his room, we asked the pizza guy. Plus, a girl answered the door. Anyway, we realized he's probably on the 6th floor because it was the preferred floor and there was only one room with a balcony. We figured he'd stay in there so he could smoke whenever he wanted. Well we went back downstairs and saw some policemen outside by the valets. People had started to gather and we heard them say they had to leave. Well we kinda hid and didn't have to go. Well, Megan was over by the lobby and she ran over to us and said, "Come on!" So we ran over there and he was being escorted into a back door that was covered in paper (the door was all glass windows). All I see is the door shutting. My heart broke. Strike two. Throughout the night I realized I was always 2 seconds late every time.

So, we go into the bathroom and who walks in? Ashley Campbell! We both did a double take for a minute and had a moment of recollection. She had previously invited me to hang out with her and her friends at the ChooChoo because they had gotten a room. That's before we knew they weren't really staying/filming there. Anyway, we told her our story and she goes, "Oh crap! He's in the back room of the bar where we are." So we went with her into Porter's Bar. She knew two or three of the workers in there, plus they were Rob's waitresses in that room. You could see through the door where we were sitting, but no Rob. He must have been on the other side of the room. Anyway, there were flat screen tv's in there and mess, plus a lot of people. The director, producer, crew and obviously Rob. Well he had a body guard sitting outside the door so no one could go in. Well we stayed for about 2 hours waiting to see what would happen. People in the bar with us slowly started to trickle out. You also knew the people there were stalking because it was a bunch of girls our age. P.S. Sarah Warren, Emily Broyles and Libba (dont know her last name), who all went to Boyd, were there. Kinda funny.

So we leave the bar and notice the body guard and security are on their phones saying something about a police escort. Well we decided he was gone already and we missed him, plus they were making people leave who weren't hotel guests. Then Megan comes running over to us and said he just went to the bathroom with like 8 people and came out and left! We missed him again by a minute! Strike three. I was so sad. Both of my friends had seen him at least and I hadn't. Well then a guy who was sitting near the bathroom said he heard someone near Rob mention something about Big Chill. So we went over there just to see if he would show. Well, he never did, but some of his crew did and that got us all excited. We all made stops at Hair of the Dog, Market Street Tavern and Big River. No such luck. We called it a night after that.

So I went with Ashley Spurling back down there last night and Megan ended up meeting us. Candace and some friends were also driving around to see what they could find. Well, I honestly didn't have a lot of hope for last night. I thought, we got lucky on Friday by him coming into the hotel when we were there. We had no clue about him last night or any info. So we went back to Porters Bar and the waitress remembered me from the night before. She told us she was sorry but he wasn't coming down there tonight. They had all the paper off the doors and stuff. She also said he had ordered room service earlier in the day and that was all. Grr. We weren't happy. We didn't know to stay there or go out now. Well, we're drinking our wine and Megan comes running in and says Candace is at CBC (Chattanooga Billiards Club) and he's there! So we leave immediately and walk over there, bad idea. It was described as being really close but in reality we should have driven and there was parking. Bleh.

Well, Megan informed me that they were upstairs and she could see him. She was looking at him. She got there literally, 5 minutes before us and they had let her up. When we got there, there was a rope and a woman standing in front of it not letting any one through. She said something about waiting 45 mins to an hour. I. Was. Fuming. To top it off, Jessica was there somehow before us with her friends so she was in front of us in line when we had told her where to go. She had no clue about Porters or CBC. We told her. If she got to go up there and I didn't, I was slitting someone's throat for sure. Well, Megan came down and tried to tell the woman that we were with her but she said no. Well, I'm standing there looking like a hot mess, literally, I was sweating bullets from walking so far so fast. Well it was probably more like 20 or 30 mins and like 15 or 20 people came from upstairs and left. Well she let us in and I ran up there and found Megan and Candace. They all cheered and I immediately said, "WHERE IS HE?" Nicole said, sit down right here and look to your right. So I did and there he was in all of his glory. So close. So perfect. He was in a black baseball hat, white tshirt, dark colored button up shirt that was open and jeans. He looks just as good in person as he does on tv.

So I sat there and stared for a while, I was in shock. He had SO many freakin people around him too. And I noticed it wasn't necessarily fans or anything, it was people from the crew/movie and body guards. Woah. These body guards were something else. They made Adam look small. They were probably 6'5 and up, huge dudes. Well there were 4 of them or so and they faced away from Rob's table toward the crowd. They were blocking him basically. No photos were allowed either. If you tried, someone said they got right in front of you and stood or put their arms up or whatever. We were even threatened not to look at him or stare or they'd ask you to leave. Well, Jessica somehow got a table next to his that was empty. So we went over there since we had such a good view. A few minutes later a crew member that was with Rob's party came over and started talking to us. After a while he goes, "So are yall Rob fans?" We were kinda quiet and didn't wanna freak out obviously, but we just said yeah and shook our heads. Then he says, "You want me to bring him over here?" My heart stopped. We were kinda non-chalant about it and said well sure. So he goes over there and says something to Rob, who looks over at us. He comes back and says he'd be over to say hi in a few minutes. Well we about crapped our pants.

Well it was about 20 minutes later and lo and behold, here comes Robert Pattinson over to us. Not us to him, him to us. It was unbelievable. I know we were all just holding our breath. He said hi and we all simultaneously said Hey! With too much enthusiasm I'm sure. So, we're basically in shock and screaming all at the same time because it's so loud and we can't hear anything. Well I've got Jessica on one side, Megan on the other and another girl next to me basically hogging him the whole 5 minutes he was there. We kind of just asked him about Tennessee and how he liked Chattanooga. He said it was good, but he'd only been here 2 days so this was the first place he'd really seen. This girl and Jessica told him some places to go see or eat or whatever. We all were hunched in and listening/screaming/staring the entire time like little obsessed stalkers (I know we are). So he's talking off and on to us and the crew guy he knows. He's cutting up, laughing, smiling, joking. He was real personable and nice, but also clearly wasted. You could tell he was half there. Like he was in his right mind and all, but just really buzzed/happy. His eyes were real heavy and half open when he blinked. It was kind of funny. Well then he asked us what we all did for a living or in general. I was screaming, "I'M A TEACHER!" but Megan kind of took over and was talking about having a classroom and starting Monday. Ugh. I was a little irritated I couldn't get much in the convo, but then again I was so amazed I couldn't have thought of much to say. When people were talking I told myself not to look at them, but look at Robert. Look at Rob Cortney. Rob. So I stared like everyone else in amazement. GOSH, he was gorgeous! His jawline that I love so much looked amazing. Ohhh me. What else is there to say? He left after that a few minutes, we all said bye.

Oh, and I almost forgot! The first thing Megan did when he came over was ask if we could get a group pic with him. He said, "I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to." or something along those lines. So he wasn't taking pics with anybody. But I decided I was gonna take one before we left, regardless of what happened because if they kicked me out, who cares? I was going home anyway right? Well we started talking to a new crew guy who was super nice and after a few minutes I remembered Rob and looked for him and he was gone! He had left completely! I was so mad! I thought he'd gone to the bathroom, not the back exit. Ugh. So he was gone and we decided to leave too. We walked back to the hotel and there was a mob of people outside the valet entrance waiting for him. Well we decided to wait too just in case but he never showed. Someone on my yahoo group said he went to an undisclosed location or bar and she was there. It was after he left CBC. But I don't know about that. I felt so bad though. We walked up and people were speculating, asking where he was, and I go, "I just met him." This poor little girl's face, who was about 8 or 9, just sank. She ran over to her mom and goes, "Mom! That woman just met him!" I kind of felt bad. But I know I put it on facebook right after it happened and I was bombarded with comments and all like 2 mins after I posted it. No joke. It was so funny. Most people were like, you're stalking paid off huh? Yes sir it did indeed.

So, before all of this happened yesterday, Sarah Hurst and I decided to get a room at the Read House for tonight. They were kicking people out if they weren't guests. So we got one in the hopes of seeing him. And now I almost wish I hadn't since I had a full conversation with him. But oh well. Sarah wants to try, especially since she's driving an hour from Loudon. And my new goal is to get a picture of some sort. Everything else is icing on the cake, I know I know. I wouldn't change last night for anything. So we shall see. Wish me more stalking luck! It's only gotten better every night!

Go Fetch A Space Heater or Something

So I'm a major slacker, yes I know. The midnight Eclipse premiere was almost a month ago and I have yet to update/put pics up of it. So sad. So here we are! Better late than never.

So obviously I don't remember as many details from that night as I should (shame on me I know, that should teach me to blog as soon as something happens). But there were 9 of us I believe. Amanda and I rode together. She borrowed my Team Edward shirt and loved it. It was so funny. And yes, I did dress up as Jane. And let me toot my own horn for a second, because in the words of my Papaw Cutcher "Honey, go ahead, if you don't then no one else will." So funny. I looked DAMN good. I was so proud. I felt like Dakota Fanning was looking at me in the mirror. Needless to say I was nervous to get out and walk around like that since everyone was gonna stare at me, which is exactly what happened. I saw NO ONE else dressed up and I was hoping there would be. Wrong. I could see the eyes follow me haha. The best line of the night came from these 2 girls who were probably 9 or 10. They were standing in front of me and one of them says to the other in a whisper that I could hear, "Look. directly. behind. you." It took all I had not to explode with laughter right then. Oh it was good.

So this year they got smart and lined people up outside. We were lined up according to our theater number and sat outside the outside door entrance, which was fine. But we overhead some girls say someone in their party was sick so they were let in early to their theater. Well we got smart and said Sarah was ill since she has fibromyalgia, which is true, it just wasn't flaring up haha. But we just got to sit in the little tv/waiting area since there was a movie playing in our theater. But we got to go in early before everyone. I don't think I'm gonna go back to Rave next time for Breaking Dawn. All of my other friends go to Hixson and it's SO much better. They don't do the theaters by numbers and just let people in til it's full. Oh well. The movie was amazing! No complaints here. I was thoroughly pleased. And angry Edward was ultra yummy :) The flashbacks of Rosalie and Jasper were AMAZING along with the battle scene. I couldn't believe they showed a decapitated Victoria. I mean it wasn't gory obviously, but it was surprisingly great. Fun times.

Trips, engagements, and vampires, oh my!

So after weeks of looking and OCDing, I finally baht (haha) my plane ticket to Thailand yesterday. I must say, I am glad I finally have one so I can't stressing about it. And now that I think about it, I don't know why it was stressful at all to begin with. I guess the idea of spending nearly 1300$ on something kind of got me stressed. That's the largest purchase I've ever made! Hope it helps my credit score. Anyway, I fly from Chattanooga to Atlanta, Atlanta to Minneapolis, Minneapolis to Tokyo, Tokyo to Bangkok. Coming back I do all of that again, but I go to Portland instead of Minneapolis. I have a 6 hour layover in Minneapolis and I found out the Mall of America is 5 minutes away with buses that run to and from. Visit the largest mall I've ever seen: Check. I'm excited now. September will be here before I know it.

Oh, speaking of September, it reminds me of school. I got my graduate assistantship! And not only did I get it, I got it full time instead of part time, meaning ALL of my school is paid for for all of next year. No more tuition to UTC! And I get paid! How is this fair to the school money suckers? It's not, but hey, I'll take it. Oh and I got my professor that I love so much. I'm hoping this will be good. Praise Jesus!

So I finished my math workshop this week. Glad that's officially over. I always dread these things because it's ALL day math, but I end up enjoying them in the end because we have a good time and I have friends there. Well, I didn't hate this year, but it wasn't as fun as previous years even if I did have a fun table. The crazy Nasa man was my favorite. He was wild and on something I'm sure. Who gets THAT jazzed about science, other than Christin Walker?

So I attended an Eclipse party last night that was KILLER! This place was awesome! I saw pictures of the New Moon party they had and was amazed at all they did/had. I'll get some pics from FB soon and post them. All of the food was Twilight themed in some way, they're was a photographer to take your picture with the Jacob and Edward cut outs, black and red everywhere, people dressed up, movies playing, etc. So much fun. I kinda wish I had gone as Jane now. I figured everyone would stare and I didn't know most people, so I didn't wanna look like a fool. But I guess I will know less people Tuesday night and everyone will stare? But we're all fools there, so it won't matter, right? Haha oh well. Anyway, it was a good time. I wore my Team Cullen - Vegetarian Vampire shirt. So fun. I wish I had my Team Edwisle shirt made with the "Who's your daddy" on the back. That would have been fun. Next Twilight party, next time.

Oh, on a lighter note, my friend Leigh Anne asked me if I was talking/seeing anyone last night and I said that was an obvious NO. She told me she had someone she wanted to hook me up with from church :/ I was skeptical but she said he's 22, just graduated from Tech, he's an engineer at TVA now. I saw a picture of him on FB and he's CUTE. He also has massive arms, which got me excited. I'm suppose to go to her house for Farkle night and meet him there. He said he was interested, but we'll see just how interested once he sees me. Bleh. I'm huge. Dad agreed to pay for us to join the gym in Ooltewah, so that's what we're doing next week. I'm kind of excited. I'm not paying for it which is a bonus. Oh and Kerra is now engaged, so I will be in her wedding next June, so I NEED TO LOSE SOME WEIGHT. And I just realized, that means I need to lose it earlier than June because dresses will have to be picked out and ordered. Oh yay. I hope skinny Cortney resurfaces. She hides and reappears every few years.

The oil is coming.

So I know it's a little late, but I've had a busy week. Anyway, I went to the beach last week with Becca and her parents and my parentals again like last year. Good times, good times. We went to Oliver's house in Destin too. We beat the oil too! We thought it would hit right when we got there but it didn't come in at all until Friday and it was just a tar ball or two. It's probably coming in good now.

But there's not much to say about it. We went to the beach everyday and out to dinner at night. I came back at lunch when everyone made a sandwich and stayed there to take a nap. That was so nice. I had to recooperate from New Mexico. Sleep was definitely my friend. Can I just BITCH for a minute please? I love her to death and she's one of my best friends, but I want to take Becca's phone and throw it in the ocean. She doesn't stay off the freakin thing EVER. And it's always to talk to Kevin. He's a whole other blog. She even texts while she drives and that REALLY bothers me considering I'm the passenger. She can do that while she's driving herself. I wish she would just quit him for a week or whenever we're busy/doing something. She did that at Bible study the other night too. I couldn't concentrate on the lesson because her phone kept buzzing with texts! UGH. She needs to learn to prioritize her boyfriend and friends separately. We don't want to hear about him 24/7 or see you talking to him or texting him. BLEH. I remember those times with Dustin and know how first love is and feels and how amazing it is. I also remember him consuming my life and I dropped everything to do whatever he wanted and was there at his beck and call. That's the part I will change next time. I WILL change it (if there is a next time). Becca doesn't see that unfortunately because she's in the bubble. We've all been there and seen the outside of it as well. You can't explain the outside bubble view unless you've been there. It's like talking to a brick wall. Sorry had to vent.

Otherwise, I had a great time, but I was ready to come home by like Wednesday. I was tired of the beach because that's all we do and was sick of sand being everywhere. I was also getting tired of seafood. I was mostly ready to be home since I'd been gone for a week already. I wanted to play with Elvis :( I felt bad for leaving her even though Adrian had a marvelous time. He will be my next cat sitter for sure.

Now I'm on to math workshop this week. Monday-Friday, 9am-3:30. In the words of Christin, BONK. I know I get paid a crap ton of money to eat good food, get free stuff and socialize with friends, but I hate doing math all day long. I think this will be my last summer to do it all week. 2 more days.

ECLIPSE COMES OUT NEXT WEEK! YES! Costume dress up here I come! I will be Jane! Don't laugh. I've become one of those Harry Potter people *coughchristincough* Don't hate.

New Mexico Mission - Days 5-9

So, let me tell you a little bit about the Navajo people to make this blog a little less confusing.

1. The Navajo Nation is comprised of 170,000 people, living in 4 states. New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah.

2. The vast majority of people are alcoholics, especially the men, who are non-existent in the home. We all know how that turns out.

3. The children are abused. At Bible school, we would give them hugs or rub/pat their backs, etc. to show good affection. Some of them would flinch or jerk if we moved too close or fast near them as a reaction to being hit I'm sure. Made us all so sad. At the end of the week, when they realized we wouldn't do that, they were all over us. Climbing in laps, getting hugs, etc. So sad.

4. Their is none or very poor dental care. Most people were missing teeth and the children had mouths full of silver.

5. The Navajo received 9$ billion dollars before Obama became president. They now receive 6$ billion and hate him for it. The money is given to the chief/tribal council and is dispersed how they see fit. That means, the chief lives in a mansion and flies around on his jet while the rest of the nation live in shacks.

6. The Navajo live in trailers or other poorly developed homes that could blow over if the wind blew hard enough. They're made up of plastic, wood, tires, any scrap material they can find. Most also have round homes called Hogans that most people use to live in. Three families use to live in them and they compare to the size of a dog house practically.

7. People live on welfare/food stamps/government funding so they don't work or don't want to work. If they do, they make the same amount of money they would get from the government, so why work at all?

8. People don't fix broken cars, they buy another car instead. So they're homes look like car parks.

9. 40-50% of the Navajo don't have electricity or water.

10. The suicide rate is extremely high. Within a 2 week period, 15 people had killed themselves. They have no hope for anything.

11. The rate of pregnancy is 70-80% of all high school senior girls. The more babies a family has, the more food stamps/welfare they receive.

12. The altitude is 7,000 feet. Needless to say, you need a lot of water. To add to that, you swell. BIG time. My feet looked like a pregnant woman's. When I got off the plane in Albuquerque, my chacos were tight. I loosened my shoes all week continuously. I'll talk about this more later.

So, on Tuesday, Bible School began! We waited in anticipation to see how many kiddos would show up. Well, to begin with, we had about 4 or 5 SUVS that people had rented like vans and tahoes. These kids can't get to the church usually because the family may have just one car or have some other reason, so, people go out and pick them up and take them home. And you have to realize, these kids live so far out on the reservation, it takes a good hour to pick everyone up and get back. So Bible school usually started at like 10am instead of 9am like it was suppose to. But anyway, we kept looking for the vans to get back to see how many we would have and we had arguments about what age each child was to see if we had more kids than the other groups haha. So it turns out on Tuesday we only had 14, which seems very low compared to last year when they had 50+. And we decided that since there were so few, we would have all elementary ages together instead of separate, which worked out great.

Is it sad that we kinda hoped less kids would come so it wouldn't be wild? We all were torn because we wanted more kids to witness to, but less to take care of haha. So Bible school ends every day at 12:30. And we give them breakfast and lunch. We heard stories from the adults helping with the older kids (middle and high school) about the students asking to take food home to their parents because they just knew they're mama would love it. So they would eat half their lunch and ask to take the rest home. It was only peanut butter and jelly. It was so sad. Needless to say, we gave those kids an extra lunch to go home with. And the little ones would save a sip of juice they had or the scraps of their sandwiches to take home. And what makes it even worse is that some of the teachers would tease the kids and say, "Are those M&Ms for me? I'm gonna take them!", obviously kidding, and they would hand the entire pack to them and say here you go. Or, when they got something like that, they would immediately start handing them out to all of the other kids so they would have some too. They all know what it's like to need, want, be hungry and have nothing. They don't want others to feel that way. Sad day :(

So on Monday we didn't have an afternoon activity to go chaperone on for the big kids. So we went out to eat at this restaurant called Earl's. It's in the "downtown" area of Gallup and is suppose to be great. I was not impressed at all. The food wasn't bad, but nothing like I was expecting. Bleh. But anyway, we stopped at this store beforehand and I got some moccassins! SO EXCITED! They're so pretty with little beads on them. Beautiful. Just beautiful. So we ate and went to the hotel and went to bed. I was in bed every night around 9 or 9:30. I was zonked. Getting up at 5:30am blows, just so you know. Anyway, Jennie and I met some SUPER nice ladies that worked at the hotel named Della and Eugina. Well we tried to witness to them/invite them to Bible school or anyone they knew or their kids, etc. So Eugina ended up having 2 kids who came to Bible school for 2 days and at the end, they accepted Christ! Praise Jesus hallelujah! We also invited Eugina to come if she wanted. We heard stories of many adults, parents, grandparents, etc. coming to Bible school to drop their kids off and they would stay and make crafts and eat lunch. They were so thrilled to do that so we offered for Eugina to come too. She ended up coming on Thursday afternoon to bowl with the kids. I know she had a good time :)

So on Wednesday we had about 16 kids at Bible school. We lost a few and gained a few. But most of the kids were the same ones all week. And I forgot to mention earlier that I was in charge of games. So I had a bunch of games planned that we had to do in the classroom because it was dangerous outside with wind, heat, and gravel. We had accidents already. So we played musical chairs, over/under, simon says, we did the "freeze" song. They had the best time playing those simple games. And of course the teachers had a big time too acting like big ol' kids. After Bible school officially ended on Tuesday, the big kids had an afternoon activity to go to the aquatic center. It's kind of like a YMCA. We later found out that it would probably be the only time that year that they would get to swim. And it had been a year for some of those kids since they had last swum at that place from VBS. Sad day. They had the biggest time. We also realized later that there is no water anywhere in New Mexico. There are no ponds, lakes, streams, etc. Nada. Zilch. So those kids were dying for a pool obviously.

Oh, Christin will be pleased to know that on Wednesday I grew some kahunas and decided to practice singing to see how it sounded in that little church. Well, amazingly, it sounded good. And I wasn't near as nervous and Eric and Jennie were in there the whole time! So I sung it twice and I definitely notice that I sound WAY better on the second time. I have to remember that from now on. So I decided on Wednesday that I'd sing at church on Thursday night.
That was about it for Wednesday. Jennie and myself took Eugina's children home that day too, Bryant and Orrianna. Let's just say their home had tired on the roof holding it up and barely four walls. So sad. So after that, Jennie and I decided to take a van to walmart and buy Eugina and her children food, toiletries and other essentials that they normally wouldn't get. We felt so great about that. We split the cost and filled up a huge tub, bin thing they had. Water, bread, ramen noodles, potatoes, juice, toilet paper, etc. Oh that's another thing, Walmart apparently is always out of white bread, water and ramen noodles because it's cheap and feeds a lot of people. We left it for her on Friday morning before we left. I'll come back to that in a minute.

We went out to eat at Cracker Barrel that night I believe. I talked to HOTT wolfpack boy: Jaime. 20. Wants to be a pastor. Yum. Wish I could have found more like him on that trip.

On Thursday it was our last day of Bible school and we had 16 little ones and 1 or 2 accept Christ! Yay! We had a great day. Me and Jennie also went bowling with the middle and high schoolers for their afternoon activities. We chaperoned again. Initially, the adults watched/helped the kids, but then we decided to bowl too haha. Let me just tell you, I beat Eric in 2 games! That is quite a feat I must say. Eric is like 6'1 and 215 lbs, big guy, Mr. All American, can sing, has 2 kids, good at everything, HANDSOME, and I beat him. I felt so proud. He called me the dress lady since I wore one almost every day. He also told me that was why I was so good at bowling haha.

Thursday was also when I was suppose to sing. I had the runs all day long. I'm not kidding. I don't think it helped that I had coffee and mini wheats for breakfast, but I was going all day here and there. That made me decide to wait to eat dinner too, which was pizza. I didn't think that would go over real well. It may come out one or both ends. TMI I know, but it's my blog and I'll do what I want. Anyway, I felt like my doom was coming all day long. I was dreading it. The time was coming closer and closer. So I practiced after bowling. Three times. And I have to admit, I felt much more confident than I ever had. If anyone was in the room, they all told me I sounded great. I was just worried that since I always sound better after I sing the first time, I wouldn't sound as good at the actual performance since it was time 1 again. Does that make sense? Anyway, I felt guilty about singing anyway, I was gonna chicken out earlier in the week and Angie said to me, "Cortney, you're singing for the glory of God. It doesn't matter what it sounds like." Great. Thanks Angie. You make me feel so good. So I'm assuming God wants to hear me sound like a dying cat?

Well we went to church and were waiting for people to come. I swear, people kept coming, kept coming, and kept coming! AH. I thought I was gonna pass out from the sight of everyone. I had to keep turning around to look so I wouldn't be so shocked when I got up there. Well it turned out to be around 50-60 people, MUCH higher than the 20 or so from Sunday. Well the time came and I walked up there and prayed HELP ME LORD, please don't let me forget the words or my voice to crack. I had worried about that. I also worried about looking like a deer in headlights while singing, even if I did sound okay. When I practiced at home, there were only 2 people in the room and I had to look at the floor with locked knees. SO nervous. So I made a conscious effort to look around and move my body some instead of being an ice cube up there. So, can I just tell you, I was somewhat amazed when I got to the chorus that my voice came out like that. No joke. I was like, "OMGOSH! I SOUND GOOD!" So Angie sat in the front row and cried the whole time. During a musical break, which was after the first chorus, she mouthed to me, "You are amazing." Her face the entire time was in shock haha. Made me feel good! I sang in front of the hott wolfpack boy too. Life is good. Everyone also knew how terrified I was since I'd never sung in front of people like that before and when they found that out, they were like, you're kidding me right? They also told me I looked like I was a professional up there. Someone told me I didn't just sound good, but I had stage presence. So no deer in headlights for Cortney. Anyway, I had like 4 people immediately turn around and tell me how great I had done. It was such a high. I was so glad I did it. It had been gnawing at me all week to do it or not. I knew if I hadn't, I would have regretted it so much and always wondered what would have happened. Praise Jesus for the help! Oh and I sang "Tanzania" by Alli Rogers. It's a song about two different cultures on different sides of the world who are different but both children of God and who will both live on ground that doesn't shake one day. It also mentions Chattanooga. Cool points for that. I'll post the lyrics at the end of this blog to make it massively longer.

So after the service, I had numerous people come and tell me how great I sounded. And to top off the night, we had a final mission trip meeting and Eric (our preacher) made a comment about how great I did and everyone cheered :D Now, to make this night even better, let me tell you about an awesome story. Someone had mentioned there was a box of boots we could buy/take. I was like, nah, I didn't need any boots. Well, I found out they were real Ugg boots. For. FREE. NO. JOKE. All of us ladies ran over there to see and sure enough there was a massive box full. We all got free Uggs! But that's not the crazy part. Apparently, the church/school we were at receives donations and stuff all the time. Well, a truck driver from Cleveland, TN comes out every year on his own, and gives them stuff. He got Ugg boots from window displays and such for free. So these boots have either never been worn or worn once by people who returned them. How cool is that?

Oh, Jennie and I tried to take our tub'o food to Eugina on Thursday night. Well, we went down to the lobby and started talking to a lady at the front desk. She was like, you're leaving that for Eugina right? And we started talking and she was eyeing that tub of stuff and saying stuff like how great those honey buns, chips, etc. looked. I was thinking, how sad is this? Everyone is dying for food here. Just basics to live on. Well we decided Eugina may not have any food left by the time she got the tub, so we decided to take it another time. We took it Friday morning and left it with a note. And she called Jennie and said she got it and thanks. So praise Jesus for that. Hope that family enjoys it. On Friday, everyone on the trip split up to go different places. So, me, Jennie, and her son Daniel took a van to Santa Fe. It's about 45 minutes from Albuquerque. The scenery was beautiful. We decided Santa Fe was the Gatlinburg of New Mexico. It was all shops and such. But everything was made of adobe bricks, so cool. So expensive. And can I just tell you how convicted and awful I felt for being there at all? I saw people walking by holding their Starbucks, wearing their hats, dressed nicely, etc. I just kept thinking, you have no idea. You have no earthly idea what's 3 hours down the road. It hurt my heart so much. It hurt even more to realize that I was one of those people. Buying crap I didn't need at whim because it was "cool" or "pretty" and throwing money away here and there when there were people I had met that lived in shacks. Those Navajo homes made the slums of Chattanooga look like palaces. No joke. Makes me rethink everything I have and what I should be doing with my life to help others. Such an eye opener. I've never seen poverty like this trip.

So we went to see the Miraculous Staircase. I'm not gonna go into the super long story about it, you can google it. But it was cool. Jesus may have been there working :) We also went to see the Georgia O'Keefe museum. Boring. Jennie loves her and wanted to go so badly, so she bought my ticket actually, which was good, because it was very disappointing for $10. After that, we headed back to Albuquerque to the hotel. Early to bed, early to rise. 10pm to 4am to be exact. Woah 4am came early. We also had a long day of flying before us. 2 hour flight from Albuquerque to Dallas. 2 hour flight from Dallas to Nashville. 2 hour drive from Nashville to Chattanooga. So I came home and packed again and went to bed, got up and went to Destin! Here I am now! So I'll have more to blog after this trip. Nothing near as exciting as New Mexico I'm sure.


I do have to say though that I left a piece of my heart in New Mexico with those Navajo people and how awful they are treated. I'm glad the church goes every year. I definitely wanna go back. So here's my last super cool Jesus story. God was at work. There are a lot of rocks behind the church. We went and climbed on them. Well a man lives back there and came to the church and cussed everyone out, drunk, saying to get off his land. Well some people had not been up there yet and were gonna go one night after dinner. They were obviously stopped from going for safety. Well, Eric decided to go on a drive through the reservation, way back in there, to show people. Earlier in the week, he had met a family at the gas station and witnessed to them. Well, he had no clue where they lived at all. When they were driving way back on the res, they saw the family they had met at the gas station. Here's what's wild: They said, We've been waiting for you. We knew you were coming. They accepted Christ right there and then. If that man hadn't come down and cussed everyone out, our group would have gone climbing instead of driving and not met those people. SO amazing.

God has a plan. We have to remember that.

"Tanzania" by Alli Rogers
It’s eight hours later in Tanzania.
When Jen lays down
Mary’s just opening her eyes.
Her child’s feet land on the ground
and dirt scatters,
And she feels left out in the open,
always left out in the open.
She says, “son, wear my shoes to school today”.
He turns and smiles and walks away,
and she thinks to herself…

Someday I will wake
where the earth is clean and safe.
My children have a place to play,
not here in Tanzania.
And someday I will live
in a house that’s built by
hands that hold the world.

It’s eight hours earlier in Chattanooga.
Mary sits down and Jen’s just put the coffee on.
Katie Couric is talking news and fashion,
and Jen feels pushed into a corner,
always pushed into a corner, she says
“Baby I know what girls at school are like”.
And her daughter rides off on her bike,
and Jen thinks to herself…

Someday I will wake
where my children get a break,
And there are chances that they’ll take,
not here in Chattanooga.
Someday I will live
in a house that’s built by
hands that hold the world.

Well it’s hard to be mother,
and it’s hard to be a woman,
and it’s hard to live in Africa sometimes.
It’s hard to be mother,
and it’s hard to be a woman,
and it’s hard to live in America sometimes.

But someday I will wake
in a body that won’t break,
On ground that doesn’t shake, not here.
And someday I will live
in a house that’s built by
hands that hold the world.