Swimming - A Challengers Review

The irony is that of all the beaches around the world I've ever traveled,
so few are the times I've actually swam their waters.

My desire to integrate swimming back into my lifestyle is what sparked the creation of my resolution themed blog: ThirteenSquared. So far it has been the most successfully accomplished resolution list and the time has come to begin reporting how these little sessions are progressing. 

No Pants Subway Ride now has its very own short film

For anyone who hasn't seen the new YouTube Channel here is a sneak peek at what you are missing:

Check out KN Extraordinary Life for all my travel, blog, and life related clips. http://www.youtube.com/user/KNExtraordinaryLife

And for more exclusively ThirteenSquared related films see the playlist at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLia_2HVKIQdhD8ZkHs0I0R5sEyYEjzzQO

Don't forget to show your support by 'liking' the videos and subscribing to the channel.

Race to Dakar

CHALLENGE  ACCOMPLISHMENT # 2

THE RESOLUTION: Read 13 books

Race to Dakar 

Author: Charley Boorman

If you have ever heard of this race then you know it is one the longest, most treacherous races in the world. Fatalities are nothing new. In short, this is one bad-ass challenge and Charley is attempting to complete the race as a novice off-road biker while documenting the whole thing for TV. 

This event, this experience, is exactly the kind of thing that humbles and inspires me. I do love telling stories about my own exciting world adventures and seeing the wide-eyed responses. I feel good about myself to hear other say how brave and lucky I am. Why shouldn’t I? However, as a traveler I recognize two very important things. 

1. The whole solo backpacker on a shoestring is not for everyone. 
2. There will always be someone out there doing wilder, longer, scarier, and more unbelievable things to traverse this earth than I possibly ever will. 

Scholarship submission

CHALLENGE  ACCOMPLISHMENT # 2

THE RESOLUTION: Make something Artsy

One of the hardest challenges of writing is the ability to make an impact all the while being concise. To tell an emotive story within the limits of a 1000 point space count means that every word you print must be worthy of your precious word limit. Every sentence moves the story forward and inspires you to keep reading. Every story becomes an snapshot that captures a moment of my life in this great world and has the potential to catapult me into the extraordinarily tough break-out field of travel journalism. 

I briefly mentioned in a recent blog (http://thirteensquared13.blogspot.ca/2013/04/forging-ahead.html) that one of the many projects taking up my valuable time was writing travel scholarship applications. This type of effort clearly forces me to dig deep into my creative potential to bring into being, a story that will not only become a contender for the World Nomads Travel Writing Scholarship but is also worthy of taking the second slot on Thirteen Squared’s resolution list: 13 Arts (& Crafts) Projects. 

Check out my entry right below or seek it out at http://journals.worldnomads.com/karinas_extraordinary_life/story/100374/Guatemala/Catching-a-Moment-A-coming-together-like-no-other to see my whole World Nomad page (sadly it has not been kept up much). The category I selected was ‘Catching A Moment’.

Sleepless in the Blogosphere

CHALLENGE  ACCOMPLISHMENT # 2

THE RESOLUTION: Challenges by you

Perhaps this is not the best moment in time to have a focused writing session. But this exact sleep deprived condition was probably not appropriate for handling life endangering machinery either (especially when you are new to their operations).

You see, as a relief Life Skills Coach for people with severe ABI (Acquired Brain Injury) I am basically on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is the ultimate job flexibility to be able to choose when and how much I want to work. Due to the last minute nature of the position I sometimes find myself in situations like today; unable to sleep properly past 5am on Friday and having accepted an overnight shift late in the afternoon I had to maintain conscious and vigilant attention for 27 hours.   The last 8 hours of that being my caffeine induced wakefulness during my shift. 

Pulling off all-nighters used to be like “It’s the weekend!”. Nowadays, my endurance has decreased and my recovery period has doubled. 

So Saturday afternoon I wake up still intoxicated with fatigue but determined to succeed at my latest challenge: One Post a Day For 14 Days. Now here I am to tell you about the successful completion of another challenge put forth by my friend Jess: Learn how to and assist in the finishing of her basement. 

Because I’m the kind of person that always keeps my word, I woke my enervated body one afternoon and drove to Jess’s house. My lethargic condition hardly allowed for the alertness required to learn how to operate tools that could easily leave me missing a body part. Thankfully Jess started me off slowly and I began the project by screwing into the ceiling beams the containers that would eventually connect a light bulb. 

The lesson continued as I began to feel the effect of my caffeine shots. I quickly progressed to power tools and used one (I’m sure they all had names but my brain was simply not up to the remembering task) to drill screws (I think they were anyway) through sheets of drywall onto the wooden beams lining the walls around the basement. Then, I got to start putting holes in things!

Using the drill again I attached this large, scary looking probe that Jess handed me and proceeded to drill a small but rather perfect hole in one of the ceiling beams. This is were things got little messy as flakes of wooded floated down to me like snow. I lined the electricity cables through a number of beams and into their respective electrical boxes in preparation for future plug ins to appear. I had a bit more fun measuring, marking and X-acto-knifing through the drywall. Of course the most exciting part comes down to the most dangerous tool of the day: the saw. 

Surely this is not the most exciting activity to write about as I am fairly certain that all Im really doing here is showing how little I know about home repairs. But I’m learning and that is exactly what this challenge and all of ThirteenSquared is all about!

Besides, there is a much better portrayal of this activity: A video!

*I will have the actual video on the blog just as soon as I figure out how to do it :P

http://youtu.be/ej-3VmS1NFU

I want to extend my thanks and a super excited congratulation to Jess & her awesome husband Chris! 

One woman. One year. 41 down. 158 to go

World Domination!

CHALLENGE  ACCOMPLISHMENT # 6

THE RESOLUTION: Something New

ThirteenSquared is expanding.

I'm absolutely thrilled to unveil the newest addition to the empire that is "Karina's Extraordinary Life".

The YouTube Channel 'KN Extraordinary Life' at http://www.youtube.com/user/KNExtraordinaryLife is your new favourite place to find videos of my latest exploits. Whether it's ThirteenSquared challenges or clips from my extensive travels around the world (or funny cat videos... no wait, I don't have a cat), my life is about to become an open channel!

I hope every single one of you will support me by subscribing to the channel, checking out and clicking "like" on the videos. Here is a sneak peek at the full channel description (or see it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/KNExtraordinaryLife/about).

Forging Ahead

The resolution engine continues to forge ahead on full blast through sunny days and stormy nights. The majority of the train follows loyally around the bends and somehow manages to lift its weight to get over peaks and out of the valleys. I absolutely assure you the challenges continue to be conquered and tracked. As of mid-April I have successfully more than sixty resolution completions.