9 days away until Jayna's 5K

Please consider chipping in a couple of bucks if you would like to Support the Jayna Murray Foundation that will provide scholarships for students studying the arts. Thanks so much!

A decade of Awesomeness has passed

and I am really at awe at what has transpired after embarking on the SS Universe Explorer in Vancouver, Canada. 

I am SO happy to have chosen a study abroad program that took me to 10 countries in 100 days.  Within the hundred days, I managed to maneuver around the world with just $800 in my pocket and experienced a lifetime of things that only 600 other people will understand. Not only was the timing unusual (we arrived in Kobe, Japan just days after 9/11) but the setting and classes were quite unconventional. Whether you were in Voice and Speech, Film Analysis, World Economics or Astrology class, there was always someone to relate to on a whole other level. Being nomadic and adjusting to your surroundings on a weekly basis was unsettling at first but we were all briefed upon arrival to our designated ports of call and after Japan, we became pros. 

There are too many things to recall, these are just some of them~

*Canada-Meeting my roomies for the first time and realizing later that the boy scout shirt I wore had the same den number as our cabin-Upper Deck 464

*Japan-Going to a sushi place with Davenport, Kao, and Kalina and Davenport asking a group of Japanese ladies (in Spanish) to take our picture. 

*Hong Kong-going to Aberdeen with Annie, Sharon and Wayne and negotiating with a lady to take a tour around the area and adventures in Lantau Island

*Vietnam-Exploring the Cu-chi tunnels with Colin and Jeff and eating pho in the same restaurant that Bill Clinton frequented. Being shown around by the former Miss Vietnam.

*Singapore-

*India-Going to the beaches in Chennai and seeing a Sari commercial videotaped while Raj (my rickshaw driver) does his bobble head move at everything I ask him. He wrote me a few years ago and thanked me for the watch that I gave him to keep track of time to meet his customers.

*The Seychelles-Getting proposed to by one of the guards that watched over our ship after telling me about his houseboat, motorcycle and cooking skills. He pulled the ring out of his sock. Totes Ridics!

*South Africa-Visiting Stellenbosch and Neethlingshof wineries on horseback with Chris, Wayne, Blakeley and Shane and smuggling a small bottle of Rosenlese onto the ship.

*Brazil-between South Africa and Brazil, I turned 21 and Jared and Deep throw me in the ship's pool and almost drowning. Learning Capoeira from a 9 year old boy.

*Cuba-Sitting in a room with a translator in my ear listing to Fidel Castro talk about terrorism, CFC's in the air and the mercury in the fish that the pregnant people were eating and his favorite baseball team.

HAPPY "ITS BEEN A DECADE SINCE WE WERE ALL STUCK ON THE VOYAGE TO WHO KNOWS WHERE" Anniversary. My fondest memories were on that boa...I mean, ship with all of you SASers!!! Much ♥ to y'all!

PLAN A ready to go

LAST August, I traveled to Uganda with Forefront Church as a missions trip to teach former child soldiers, AIDS orphans, and former child laborers. The video above was taken in the L.E.A.D. Uganda house in Kampala with some of the mothers to the students I had the pleasure of meeting and teaching. To this day, it had such an impact in my life and I am going back on July 5th-Aug 9th with a NY-based sustainable fashion company called MUSHANA.

My main purpose this time to work on Product Development for the August market of the NY International Gift show but like the mission trip, I will not set up any expectations and just let things organically flow (rough skeletal organizational plan in place) and relish in the experience. Don't get me wrong, this is a JOB so I will be responsible for reporting on a day to day basis to the fabulous founder of Mushana and like the moniker suggests, "Working Under One Sun", will be my morning mantra. The dude upstairs has blessed me with so many options for the next phase in my life and I am grateful for this opportunity to be here, right now.

Plan B looked enticing but I'm glad I will be living out Plan A and keep trusting the path that was designed just for me.

SUMMER plan B if A doesn't work out

Hey y'all! I have been struggling to make a decision for after May 31st but this suddenly became an option. I hope I get the gig and I will definitely make all my musician friends proud by giving them a shoutout :)

Cheers and Please DRINK RESPONSIBLY!

HESED does not equal BUSY-ness

I have been ruminating about a lot of things as of late and it took taking a break from the busy-ness of my life to realize that I need to STOP. Yes,  stop busying myself with events and meetings with people and just sit with myself and the dude upstairs and have a conversation. The beautiful surroundings here in Airmont, NY is the driving impetus for all this. Even ending up here was, and I know because I certainly didn't plan on being up here this week, orchestrated by something higher and omniscient than myself. Also, a recent email from my pastor, Brian Moll had me thinking of the current series we are observing at Forefront Church called HESED : the consistent, ever-faithful, relentless, constantly-pursuing, lavish, extravagant, unrestrained, furious love of our Father God!
"It is this love, demonstrated through the life and death of our Savior Jesus Christ, which has shaped our lives and made us who we are today — a people filled with joy and confidence who know the source of life, who are living the way life was meant to be lived." -Frank Johnson

My relationships thus far has been lacking the trust that is needed to be placed in the hands of God, and frankly, just GOD period.  To this day, I wonder about how my life would've turned out if I had stayed in Costa Mesa, CA and married my pseudo-ex fiancé. Michael Bublé's "Feeeling Good" just went on in my Pandora and I can't help but feel that the dude upstairs is really tugging at my heart right now. I know that he's got big plans for me and whether I execute them here in NY, Paris, LA, Perth or Kampala whatever it is will be HUGE. The one thing that I AM worried about is that I will go at it alone. I long for a partner to share all of this with but I do not know that I have met him yet. Every time I meet someone new and exciting, our lives kind of separate us due to their "busy-ness". 21 Including the one that I left back in CA. I was a stubborn 25 year old longing for something bigger than what God was planning and I didn't know him then like I know him now. I'd like to think that my faith has always been at a level 10 growing up but it hasn't. Even separating from the comforting arms of someone who loved me was against everything I was programmed to do. Was I letting me drive the wheel or my creator? The very thought of me being here reminds me of Jean-Paul Sartre's, Huis Clos (No Exit). Existentialism is a fickle thing and my duties up here in Airmont (caring for some animals and a beautiful house and car) has me wondering. Why am I here? Why is it that I exist?
I just finished viewing a documentary about 2 brothers and their relationship with their father and the world called: The Human Experience  along with another documentary about the I heart NY creator, Milton Glaser and Original Sin, Billy Elliot, and Salt. Yes, I wanted to maximize my NETFLIX subscription today...and it has made me delve deeper into my ruminations.

Well, with all of this. I am still forced to make a decision come May 31st to rid of all my possessions or to store them and figure out a home base for the next 6 months...I just hope that the people that I meet along the way have a matched faith. They don't have to be Christian, just a faith that their existence is because of a greater good. There are a lot of events that are lined up in my life: being an auntie, helping out with the debut of a Film Festival, Directing, Producing and writing very important stories and I hope I can partner up with the right person to go through all of it with me and still have room for the dude upstairs. In fact, the dude upstairs is the unmentionable partner that will be with me along the way, with or without an actual physical counterpart.

30 years and counting: Observations and Wayward Wonderment: Team World Vision:

30 years and counting: Observations and Wayward Wonderment: Team World Vision:: "Marivic's World Vision Donor Page Yes, I'm only 5 days away from running a half marathon (13.1 miles). Please join me in my efforts to prov..."

Team World Vision:

Marivic's World Vision Donor Page

Yes, I'm only 5 days away from running a half marathon (13.1 miles). Please join me in my efforts to provide clean drinking water for villages in Africa. Click on the link above for my personal World Vision donation page.

Visiting Mbale, Uganda

 I hope you can partner up with me to raise much needed funds for a water filtration system in select villages in Africa. I have been training since November for this half marathon. The last time I ran a full marathon was in 1996 in Los Angeles. I hurt my right patella permanently so I am doing it the right way this time and working with a personal trainer. I will probably be wearing a knee brace regardless of how awesome I think I'll do without one but yes, it would be an honor to run for my friends in Uganda and different parts of Africa.

You can view the course here:
Map of the 13.1 mile run on Sat. 4.3.11


Thanks so much for your support :) See you at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in my running gear!