There’s a reason I write… I’m much better at it.

And I totally have something in my teeth.

Aubrey Sacco, Boulderite and Colorado native, missing in Nepal

This afternoon I received a text from my brother: “Can you retweet my last tweet? Morgan Sacco’s sister is missing in Nepal.”

I remembered instantly who Ryan was talking about. I didn’t know her well, but I saw Aubrey on the CU campus probably only a handful of times. Regardless, it scared me right out of my sleepy stupor; she had been traveling in southeast Asia on her own. I checked Ryan’s Twitter account and found a link to the Facebook group, where people have been posting messages of support and the membership has been growing steadily. Aubrey’s cousin Amanda has asked people to spread the word, especially on social media, so we can find people who can help.

Aubrey’s last verified location was at Shyabrubesi on April 20, where she checked in before her trek and after she arrived from a bus trip from Kathmandu. She was trekking the Langtang region and planning on taking a popular route from the Lonely Planet guide. She was supposed to be back by April 30 or May 1, when her parents expected to have heard back from her — but nobody has heard from her.

Aubrey Sacco

Since then, there have been strikes in Nepal — strikes that have shut down shops, transportation, and services all over the country. There’s a strong likelyhood that Aubrey has been unable to contact family because of these strikes, but the Saccos still want to find their daughter is and it’s the community’s duty to help make it happen.

I rang up (okay, direct-messaged) the Elephant Journal with a plea: please help! Knowing that readers of the Elephant Journal not only care about the well-being of a valued member of the spiritual community, but may even know others who can help find Aubrey, I figured it would be one of the best ways to spread the word on social media.

Waylon got back to me in minutes. He said he’d publish something if I could get it to him this afternoon. After getting ahold of Connie, Aubrey’s mother, I had a detailed explanation of the circumstances and a piece to go with. Also, the Daily Camera was looking for information. By evening, the Daily Camera / Colorado Daily, Greeley Tribune, and the Elephant Journal all had information about Aubrey posted on their sites. Faithful Elephant Journal readers are tweeting and re-tweeting about Aubrey.

Today I have seen a huge demonstration of community and I’m hoping that this continues. The Saccos are a good family and they deserve to see their daughter step off the plane on May 15, when she is scheduled to come back home.

Before then — and I mean, right NOW — please spread the word. Pass these links along. Tweet about it. Join the Facebook group. Do whatever you can do get this message around the world and in the hands of people who might be able to help.

UPDATE: The Denver Post is also writing about Aubrey and I’ve included the link below.

UPDATE, pt. 2: The Greeley Tribune has published a piece about Aubrey for the Tuesday edition. Link below.

UPDATE, pt. 3: I’ve added a few more blog posts and television coverage.

• Facebook group for Aubrey
• Daily Camera article about Aubrey
• Colorado Daily article (replica from above, really)
• Greeley Tribune preview article about Aubrey
• Elephant Journal article about Aubrey
• Denver Post article about Aubrey
• Greeley Tribune article
• ExploreHimilaya.com post
• Piece on The Denver Channel (Denver’s ABC station)
• Piece on cbs4denver.com
• 5280 piece
• Huffington Post piece
• Digital Journal article
• CNN coverage

Other links about Aubrey:

• Aubrey’s website
• Aubrey’s travel blog

The family can be contacted at findaubreyglitter@gmail.com and welcome any e-mails with information or helpful contacts in the Langtang region.

Aubrey Sacco

A worn-down jennyjenjen at Coachella

For a few weeks now, I have been silly busy. I’ve even been too busy to post a Must Read/See/Hear update; there’s just so much going on, like moving, finding a job, and attending boatloads of events.

It’s been nice being busy. My mind has generally been occupied with the future, my ambitions, what I need to do to succeed at this point in my life, and actually, the relationships I have around me that keep me balanced and sane. While I get a little frustrated every day, I’m also in this very great period of personal growth — and I’m getting outside of my comfort zone, just like I intended to by moving to San Diego.

Anyhow, I thought I’d post on my blog for several reasons: first, Butch keeps bugging me about my Must Read/See/Hear series (which shall return even as soon as this Monday); second, I should definitely keep this remotely updated and post something during the month of April; and third, I wanted to post a rundown of all the fun things I’ve been doing this month that will appear on the blog within the next few weeks.

So what will I be eagerly writing about soon?

• One Day Coachella 2010 with my Sony bloggie. This has to be one of the coolest things I’ve done in a while! I had the opportunity to attend Coachella 2010 for just one day, and thanks to Sony Electronics, I had the opportunity of capturing it with a bloggie.
• Getting a makeup tutorial by Estie. Estie of Estie’s International showed me (and a few other ladies!) how to apply makeup in a way that flatters the shape of my face without looking overdone, and then he sent us home with some goodies so we could test our newly-acquired skills ourselves!
• Attending yoga classes at Corepower Yoga. Thanks to a week-long free trial at Corepower Yoga from Sugar Jones, I was able to try some yoga classes. Funny — I never took yoga classes while living in Boulder, CO, but after trying it at Corepower, I like it!
• Attending the Influence SD awards. I was the lucky winner of two floor tickets for the first annual Influence SD, thanks to Someday I’ll Learn. It was the first event of its kind that I’d ever been to, and I had a blast!

Phew. That’s a lot, really. How many exclamation points did I use there? (No, really… don’t count.) April really has been an extremely exciting month for me, and I’m hoping that it only gets better as May rolls around.

And with that, I’ll also have plenty about being a complete fangirl and getting the chance to meet Spoon. (Yes, I met Britt Daniel! And I kept my composure!)

Until then, this busy little bee needs her beauty rest…

It may be yet another week following far too short of a weekend, but there’s really no choice but to own up to the Mondays and dig in anyhow. I guess that’s part of why I write this Must Read/See/Hear series — to get over my “Mondays” and start the week with something good for me to share, and hopefully, something good for you to read.

Anyhow, here we go: new things for your enjoyment on a Monday morning.

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MUST READ

One of my favorite online reads is elephantjournal.com, a Boulder, Colo.-based blog, webcast, and general guide to well-being that provides a lot of articles relevant to what founder (and friendly face) Waylon Lewis calls ‘the mindful life’. If you ask me, elephantjournal.com really embodies what living in Boulder is all about: living conscientiously, and sharing that mindset with others.

Although I’m not in Boulder anymore — and I know that I’m pretty vocal about missing it so much — it’s really nice to be able to read about politics, spirituality, health and much more from the Boulder state of mind when I’m all the way out here in California. But the reason that works out so well is that it’s not just  ‘Boulder’ thing to be mindful of one’s lifestyle — it’s something all of us should be concerned about, and it’s relevant no matter where you live. I also follow @elephantjournal on Twitter to keep up with what’s going on.

My favorite pieces lately include posts talks about farmer’s markets and eating in support of sustainability and an older post about slow food vs. vegetarianism. There’s also a fair amount of humor and politics to go around, and I can always get a quick solution to homesickness with the abundance of videos featuring Waylon and the ele-crew enlightening and entertaining the Boulder community.

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MUST SEE

Thanks to elephantjournal.com, in fact, I saw this great segment of Jon Stewart mocking Glenn Beck on the Daily Show. Stewart channels Beck not just for the sake of comedy but because Beck, regardless of political affiliation, deserves to be called out for his absurd theatrics.

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MUST HEAR

“What? Jen, you like Spoon? No way…”

All right, all right. I know. I can’t leave it alone. But Spoon played at SXSW this week and the entire 18-song (!!) set that was aired during a live webcast is now online at NPR.org. It’s just way too good not to share!

If you like rock in any capacity, you’ll definitely like this. If you have never heard Spoon before, it’s a great opportunity to hear why they have such an incredible fan base. And if you love Spoon as much as I do, you can download the set and listen to it anytime!

I couldn’t figure out how to export/import my blogroll, and probably just should’ve used de.li.cious, but I think I’ll do that another day. It wasn’t too difficult to do the blogroll by hand as an excuse to waste time and watch television instead (HD at the parents’ house is awesome!).

I also spent a good while messing around with PHP and making myself a new homepage. I probably didn’t need to do all of that when I did it, but I’m pretty happy with the results. I just wanted something simple, and I was also hell-bent on not having to use other services to put a feed up of my posts on my website. Why not just make my blog the homepage? I dunno, I kinda wanted some space to show the world the project I’ve been working on, and I didn’t want some of my little CSS tricks to go to waste. Besides, if I ever got motivated enough to make something decent in Flash, I could also put it there.

I’ve published my first blog post for the South Africa Project!

(And I’m writing a blog post about a blog post! Go me!)

I’m really excited about this because I’ve been working for the South Africa Project for something like a month now and have really only used Twitter, Facebook, and to a degree worked on the MySpace and Flickr pages. This has been an opportunity for me to really write.

The South Africa Project is a campaign built by the non-profit organization Ubuntu Now, aimed at bringing attention to social issues in South Africa during the 2010 World Cup. The five areas of focus for the South Africa project are promoting gender equality, rape prevention and female empowerment, post-rape care for victims, orphan support, and providing access to financial independence. We have just become a certified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit organization.

As for my first blog post, I wrote about the legacy of Olof Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister who was assassinated in 1986 outside of a cinema. Palme’s name is probably forgotten to most people nowadays, especially in this part of the world, but his death sent shockwaves through Sweden and Europe, as it was unfathomable to the Swedish people that one of their public officials could be murdered in such a callous manner. To this day, many Swedish officials are able to live without round-the-clock protection from a bodyguard, but more are choosing to travel with protection; Sweden revisited the shock of losing a public official in 2003 with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anna Lindh, was murdered while shopping in a Stockholm department store.

Palme was known around the world for his committment to peace, justice, and equality, shown in part by his stance against apartheid. I had written about media coverage during the investigation of Palme’s death for an international media course several years ago, so I am rather familiar with Palme’s story and was able to connect his involvement with South Africa when I began working on the South Africa Project. I believe that it’s important to remember how Palme contributed to the struggle against apartheid when considering the ways in which we should approach the push for change in South Africa’s current climate; despite the political freedoms granted in 1994 when all-race elections broke racial barriers, there are still serious issues regarding equality and justice that require worldwide attention. Although I have certain opinions when it comes to interfering with another nation’s democratic process, I feel that these are very important issues that are relevant to the rest of the world, much in the way apartheid was; especially now that South Africa is hosting the World Cup in 2010, it would show a lack of responsibility to let these injustices go without being addressed. Palme serves as an example for how the international community should come together for such issues, and it is a shame that he is not here today to help the cause.

I’d greatly appreciate it if anyone who reads this goes and takes the time to visit the blog for the South Africa Project. I’d be great to get some traffic to the site, but I’d also love to see any comments — not just on my post, but on other posts, as well. Please go check it out!

In December, I posted a quick blurb about wanting to attend Chicks Who Click, a conference created by Gwen Bell and Denise Smith and brought to the web by Danielle Jackson. I hadn’t heard from anyone about it, so I just figured I’d make like any savvy social media junkie and do a Twitter search on it and call it a relaxing weekend. But by the time the weekend rolled around and a bunch of chicks had gone on the Eldora portion of the weekend, I had heard word about a tweetup of sorts at The b.side Lounge where Chicks Who Click were to converge. Naturally, I skipped on over and began to socialize.

I was very surprised and genuinely grateful to receive an invitation — a scholarship — from Doyle Albee at Metzger Associates to attend Chicks Who Click. I accepted, and suddenly my boring weekend turned into one about networking, social media, clicking, chicking, and loads more.

The day began with two very different speakers: Jenny Slade and Carole Billingham. While Carole taught us a method of meditation and gave her perspective on connecting with the world, Jenny gave a humorous and informative speech about women’s role in technology and social media.

We had the opportunity to hear from and interact with two different panels. The first panel included Wayne Sutton (who I had followed on Twitter for a while and was very anxious to meet), Lucretia Pruitt (who is a fantastic storyteller and all-around lively lady), and Tara Anderson (who rocks some stand-up comedy), all of whom I could’ve listened to for a lot longer — they just had so much information and insight into social media, technology, and how we — as motivated and interested women — can use these social tools and skills to the best of our advantage. The second panel included Zena Weist, Kit Seeborg and Barbara Jones, and basically consisted of wrapping up the day’s issues with our questions and with their stories and expertise. All three had been able to share stories involving projects or creations they had started, experiences which proved as excellent examples in business, networking, and strategy.

For a little bit of hands-on work, we competed to build the best social media plan for a particular situation. My group had a situation similar to the infamous Motrin problem, only that our inferred goal was to avoid this situation and market a product that was “non-sexy.” We won some medals for “Kicking Social Media Ass.”

Kicking Social Media Ass

We also heard from Trina Hoefling, whose advice about communication struck a chord with everyone in the room, regardless of situation. As a student, I felt particularly drawn to her speech because I felt that my journalism studies had lacked a comprehensive perspective of communications in general.

CWC did not go out without a bang. We raided the upstairs at The Rio and mingled over quesadillas, margaritas, and our phones and cameras! Some people also headed to karaoke, but I spent the rest of my evening having some heart-to-heart conversations and learning more about some of the wonderful chicks with whom I’d spent my day.

I must say that my weekend at Chicks Who Click was not entirely unexpected — I knew going into it that the conference would be absolutely amazing and that I would learn quite a lot. However, it was the magnitude of the learning and networking that really amazed me; I didn’t realize just how well all the ladies (and some of the ‘gents!) at CWC could meet on common grounds with so many different backgrounds and experiences. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to attend Chicks Who Click and all the connections and friendships I made that weekend. I also can’t wait to do it again — here’s to Chicks Who Click ’10!

Read some other words about CWC09:

• by Gwen Bell [@gwenbell]
• by George Smith [@georgegsmithjr]
• by Aimee [@greeblemonkey]

Check out some pictures from CWC09:

• from the conference, taken by Aimee [@greeblemonkey]
• from the afterparty, taken by Aimee [@greeblemonkey]

The list is still a work-in-progress, but you can tell me about your posts/pictures either in the comments and I’ll be sure to add them to the list!

But an event coming up in January promises to be one for the ladies: Chicks Who Click.

I’m hoping I’ll nab a chance to go — partially in telling you all about it — but I’m also hoping that this isn’t the only opportunity for web-savvy, social media-interested women to get together through some fun activities, great talks and novel concepts under the Flatirons. I know it hasn’t even happened yet, but the success I’m sure it will be will be enough reason to do it again!

If I get a chance to participate, of course I’ll be blogging about it. If not, I’ll be eagerly awaiting what the attendees have to say about it!

Happy Clicking!

Instead, I have found myself on Tumblr. Check it out! Maybe I’ll be using that quite a bit more.

I was looking for something related to Swedish cuss/curse words and stumbled upon A Swedish American in Sweden. I’m really enjoying it so far and certainly glad I hit upon it.

The only thing is that it depresses me to read it. I would really like to be back in Sweden right now, as much as I am enjoying life in Boulder and the beginning of the end of uni life. Sure, I like a lot of things about being back in the States — an occasional long drive (certainly not as a daily commute, though, because I just like driving!), 24-hour groceries for those late nights of studying (though the late nights of studying don’t really happen in Sweden), not paying out the ass to have a good night of barhopping with friends — but I do believe that my happiness was greater in Sweden. I miss speaking Swedish every day, having a more laid-back lifestyle, and just being healthier overall. Trust me, life is much healthier in Sweden — even from the viewpoint from living in Boulder for several years.

I will have to sit still for a little while, though, and have some patience. I’m not sure how long it will take me to get back to Sweden, However, I do know that if this next election goes horribly wrong that I will be a lot more willing to leave the U.S. a lot sooner.