What no posts?

Its been a couple weeks since I started this blog and there are no posts, no pictures.. Time to change that...soo....I love to travel and have been to a handful of interesting places....There are places that I consider lucky to have found...that I will treasure for the rest of my life. These are some of those places..

1. Banff National Park. I grew up in Calgary, Alberta and Banff is about an hour away. One summer, I went to Banff and this is how I like to remember it.

2. During graduate school, I went to a conference in Portland, Oregon. I spent a week there with my mom. This is one of the most tranquil places we found..

3. After I graduated from my masters degree, I travelled throughout Thailand, visiting places like Bankok, Ching Mai, Phuket. We visited a village with the long neck tribes. This was one of my favorite pictures from the trip...

4. During graduate school I went to the Netherlands for a conference..it was hosted in Maastricht. I was under the gun and had no time to explore. On my last day, before I was leaving I decided to go to the Rembrant museum. However, by the time I got there I only had time to go into the museum shop and then had to return to the Airport to catch my flight...I wanted to see more but this is all I got...This reminds me that its important to take the time we have.

5. During graduate school I went to New York City for a conference. I never got to see as much as I wanted and would like to go back. This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip...We were going to go to the top of the empire state building but the weather failed to cooperate.

6. During my phD I got the opportunity to visit China which is full of awesome monuments. I fell in love with the summer palace and in many respects consider it more beautiful than other places we visited.

7. We travelled from Iowa to California not knowing what was to come. It was one of the best trips of my life and here are some of the highlights...Arizona sunrise, bryce canyon...the grand canyon, 

9. I now live in the bay area...and we have travelled to quite a few places, some greater than others...the following are some of my favorites: Mur forest, bean hollow beach on the way to half moon bay, the Coast going down to Carmel...

10. Even after going to all these places and enjoying all these moments...it seems that those I know best are still very dear to my heart. Calgary is most certainly one of these places. Every time I fly home and see the skyline I know that I am finally back (even if for a short while). Unfortunately I have failed to capture this feeling in any picture.  Iowa City was my first home away from home, where I met my husband and my dearest of friends and Indianola represents memories of my husbands family. All of these places represent the good and the bad.

I love to travel and have been to wonderful places that hold many dear memories...some of which were forgotten until I started writing about them. The strongest places are those with memories of friends, family and good times... I have also developed a great appreciation for new places which I was lucky enough to visit and sometimes to capture in a photo or memory. I realize now that you have to take these moments or they will be lost forever.

A bit about me and why I started this blog

I thought I would start out by giving a bit of an introduction about me and the motives behind this blog. My name is Monica and I am 30 years old.  I recently went to a seminar about stress that was offered through my work (YouTube) and I had an epiphany...one that I think I have had before and its this....When you focus so much on getting somewhere sometimes you forget to enjoy the journey.

I have spent the majority of my life in school...and for the last 6 years I have been working towards getting my PhD in Industrial Engineering. Overall it was a grueling process (captured ever so eloquently by Jorge Cham's PhD comic) . At the same time there were some really great moments. But a lot of these moments seem to have been lost because I was so focused on getting done, so focused on the details that I forgot to sometimes step back and enjoy the smaller things in life. It gets really easy to become bitter and upset when you forget all the good you have going on in your life.  

This epiphany has led to me trying to create this blog. I want to be an active explorer and documenter of my life rather than just have it pass me by. I want to make this blog about thing that I find interesting, things I appreciate, things that I can go back to and reflect on later. This is the first of many posts....this is the beginning to a life of appreciation.