I'm moving my blog!

Hey all:

I'm moving my blog to:

http://zachpacktravel.blogspot.com

Black and Gold!

That's what song I'm obsessed with right about....NOW!

Besides that and the fact that it has been approximately 4 months since my last post, I have to admit it was not intentional. During the remainder of my internship I was dating a guy named Jacob, a pretty cool guy but we just didn't work out. And then I finished up my internship exhausted but ironically rejuvenated in my abilities!

I got back and literally got off the flight Sunday May 17th at 11pm, didn't make it home until about 12am and was at my new job by 8am the next day. It was an intense transition. For a while I was sure it would have been smarter to take a couple of days off. But, I digress. That's in the past.

I have an amazing job and I'm working my butt off to really build NATIVE Project's community presence up from every angle I am trained and can-whether it's social media, PR, marketing, re-branding to an overall face-lift!

I finished up my first round of physical and exams for the Peace Corps and all was smooth sailing until the shit storm of more and more exams came my way. A lump was found in my abdomen and it's been described as an inguinal hernia. It's a bummer because I have to take care of it. I'm in a couple week limbo before I take care of any of the medical right away-just waiting for my health insurance to kick in! haha!

Besides that I've been training with a friend for the Portland Marathon Oct 4 and the Vegas Marathon Dec 13. It's been brutal and fun all at the same time. I am really loving taking care of my body in the best way possible.

Also, still single...haha...nothing going on in that department.

I have a ton of little things lined up to get me out and moving around the country. I'll be at Warped Tour next weekend, Seattle the following weekend, LA for Labor Day, NYC the following weekend and Vegas the next. I'm pretty pumped about the next month...

I love you all, thanks for reading this little thing...

post-op

i recently learned a few new things:

*in australia, the barby actually is short barbecue

*"24-hour coin-up laundry" means 24-hour coin OPERATED laundry.

since we last spoke, i have had quite a time.

i have been working so hard on a dave matthews band project for work. his new album comes out on june 2nd and we are working with him-he is the soundtrack for our vagabond tour! i have been doing a huge marketing campaign with them. it is exciting, but a lot of hard work.

thursday night of last week i went to a show at universal studios city walk at the hard rock cafe, i saw jon mclaughlin live. he is amazing. check him out!

friday kate, and a bunch of the crew headed down to san diego. friday night we had drinks and went out on the town in encinitas. encinitas is my favorite town in california!!! we went out and had a great time.

saturday morning we went to my favorite breakfast place, pipes cafe and then headed to point loma to sail for the day. it was a bluebird day and the wind was just right. i got to steer the sailboat for much of the day. it was awesome. as we came back into the harbor i witnessed a submarine surfacing. it was so cool. that night a bunch of the roommates left for l.a. except katie, kate and i. we watched weeds and ate bad food saturday night-it was great.

sunday i spent the day at the beach and i SURFED!!!! i love every second of it. as we left to return to l.a. kate's mom's boyfriend gave me an old wetsuit of his, even more exciting i get to use ashley's friend scott's surfboard for the remainder of my internship!!!

monday was hard for me to be back at work. all week i was recovering from a slight sunburn! haha, but again all week i have been working hard in the department to create and develop a DMB marketing campaign, and then i got hit with a second campaign, this one for TOMS. all week i have been working on these campaigns and coming home super tired. on wednesday night i went to the prop 8 rally and march in downtown l.a.

thursday the campus rep department got a free meal on TOMS at this awesome mexican place in venice called, baja venice cantina!! it was great. friday was so fun at work, we worked hard polishing our marketing campaigns to present monday. wish me luck, i present to all the head honchos!

i hope this caught you up, there is so much i'm leaving out. i love you so much and can't wait to talk to you again!!!

misinterpret

i want to dedicate this post to my mom.

i read somewhere a while ago that, in a general sense, humans use five love languages (quality time, touch, act of service, gifts and words of affirmation) when communicating love with each other. i learned that my GIVING love language is quality time and touch. and my RECEIVING love language is words of affirmation and quality time.

upon further investigation, i learned that my mother's love language is gifts. that is how she gives love. i am still working on learning her receiving love language.

that said, i wanted to spend a second to recognize my mom. whether you know her or not she is an amazing woman. we find it hard sometimes to communicate love with each other but when we get it, it feels great.

dear mom,

i love you so much, and for what you do for me, and what you have done for me, i am forever grateful. thank you so much for knowing what i need when i need it, and what i need even when you shouldn't be giving it to me.

i know we don't talk much but for every time you have been selfless, forgiving, understanding and unconditionally and compassionately loving, i am forever grateful.

you mean so much to me; and although i am taking my life in new directions and going on wild adventures to discover the meaning of life i always remember that back at home, waiting with seth and ray, there you are.

i love you so much, and i miss you.

thank you.

love.

planetarium

the last week has been intense.

i started monday refreshed and ready for the week. at the end of the day on monday i was asked to be in a shoot for TOMS shoes thursday. it definitely made me feel good about myself. so thursday i was set to be modeling for our Spring collection and line launch.

the campus rep department has also been crazy since the term started. a lot of my reps have already had a lot of events and programs.

the week has been pretty chill otherwise. i have been working on spending and budgeting. it has been hard, but that's how a lot of my week was dictated.

thursday we woke up at 6am for the shoot and we were actually crew as well as models. we were raking and cleaning up the house that we were doing the shoot at. i got the full hair and make-up treatment. it was great.

the weekend was great, friday i went to bed early and woke up early to drive a vw van back to huntington beach-we borrowed the van for the photo shoot. it was a '77 westfalia. hard to drive, but super fun. we walked around hungtington and returned the clothes from the shoot in newport at a place called trovata. we came home and got ready for a dinner party at kate's aunt's house in beverly hills. we had cocktails, dinner and fun. it was awesome, we then headed to the standard and the purple room. we didn't see any celebrities, but we had a great time.

sunday...i'm chilling-waiting for the oscars to start.

love

simple.

this weekend...

as i said, "tomorrow [will be] brighter" and that tomorrow was saturday/sunday. Both figuratively and literally, tomorrow was better.

i slept in a lot. it felt great, the day was a lot nicer. it was sunny. it was warm and it definitely affected my mood.

here's my saturday adventures in a nutshell:
-went to culver city
-read a book
-caught up on emails
-went to a psychic/astrologer (kaylie tell your mom!)
-read a book, Power of Now
-went to bed early!

here's my sunday adventures in a nutshell:
-grocery shopping
-watched the reader
-went to the LA tar pits, for 3 minutes
-went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, saw a penis, some mirrors
-went to Little Tokyo
-saw Russell Crowe
-drove home without a native LA-er
-got lost in Compton at night
-arrived home an hour later than i should have
-stress ate ice cream: bad idea, cramps!
-watched Ellen
-watched Into the Wild
-got lifted
-laughed a lot
-cried a little

i needed peace, and i needed some strength. i remembered where that comes from and i am slowly recovering. without actually having literally been reeling in pain and emotion, i definitely put my head up and there is a light at the end of this tunnel. it's like, i always feel like, "why does this stuff always happen to me!?" i'm sure we all ask that, and there is a comfort knowing that both the good and the bad happen to all of us, it's how i choose to endure it that matters. this has made me stronger, i will be fine, another scar.

love, peace and aloha!

brakes

Week 5 had me curtailed on my vision of reality. I assumed to some extent that the adult life would not be that hard. What I had not properly prepared myself for was a lack of love, resources, motivation and passion.

What is so exciting about being an adult? According to the last two months of post-graduate bliss, I have experienced a lot more post-graduate miss.

I took a leap by breaking off a relationship. That leaves me alone; in "that" sense, of course. Taking this internship was one of the most exciting and fun adult decisions I made. I would get a free place to stay. Live with 14 other people and enjoy the California lifestyle. Fact: I live in California, with 14 other people and make $50 a week. I do more than my fair share of 40 hours a week, to which I still only make $50 a week. For the last several months, I have learned the true nature of living within my means, I can still look great, but it sure beats the life they show you on TV. My motivation to do anything is curbed; a curbing of my enthusiasm! I am finding that the traces of depression that still linger are preventing me from enjoying certain things. I am hoping that this week will bring change and growth and that continuing to work towards getting the Peace Corps squared away will jump start my motivation. That leaves passion. Why do I do what I do? I do not know. I am finding that my heroes are human and that being this far from the people I love will always hinder me a little in my abilities to do the best job I can. I miss my friends and family so much sometimes, and long for that feeling when I could run and hug my parents when I needed them most to avoid a looming doom. Those days are gone and I must meet any struggles with my chin up and a strong rationale.

That brings me to the week. This week I had a lot of work to do for our Campus Reps at TOMS. I had to personally send out 200 Promo Packs to each rep and it just felt like that project was bigger that it turned out to be. I am exhausted from that alone. I am also just exhausted emotionally. I do not have a lot of people to talk to down here that I trust, or that I want to be vulnerable with so I am finding that I am bottling up a lot of my feelings. Even worse, it is causing me to shut off from anyone in general. I was faced with a couple of hard financial decisions and struggles. I have faced these problems before, and I will face them again. It all comes down to understanding that it is part of the plan, and that I am not given any hardship that God does not think I can handle. He is always there, and I have learned once more to trust him. I am also working on loving myself and working on my confidence. Do we ever achieve maximum confidence? I would hope not because the learning that goes along with finding confidence is too valuable to ever be without it.

This post for this week doesn't have many details on what I did. I did a lot of nothing. I had a lot of work to do this week and so that took up my time. I went to a wine bar on Wednesday, and Thursday went to a different wine bistro. I got an amazing care package from my dad and spent a lot of quality time with the roommates. It was a great week. I wish this was easier sometimes, this life they require you to endure. Today is hard, Tomorrow will be brighter.

Love