Wanda Pedersen > Recent Status Updates

🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦 Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

I'm reminded of the saying in Antarctica: The first time you go for the adventure, the second time you go for the money, and the third time you go because yo3no longer fit in with the rest of the world.

Working in the deep field is a make-it-or-break-it thing for human relationships. By the time the season ends you're either firm friends for life--a bond born of profound mutual respect forged in the fires of some interpersonal hell--or you despise each other with a burning hatred forged in that same place.

We arrive at the house in pitch-black darkness. Mansur and Ali run about with torches and light the primus and spread out blankets and get in each other's way. I long for the quick and efficient Subri. Mansur is incredibly slow and clumsy. Presently Michel comes in and criticizes what Mansur is doing. Mansur stops and they argue. I hurl all the Arabic I know at them. Mansur looks scared and resumes operations.

Women, children, hens, cats, dogs--all weeping, wailing, screaming, shouting, abusing, praying, laughing, miaowing, clucking and barking--depart slowly from the courtyard like some fantastic finale in an opera.

We also have long and complicated dealings with the Bank. I am struck, as always in the East, with the reluctance of banks to do any business whatever. They are polite, charming, but anxious to evade any actual transaction.

She knows she will never leave the convent, that she will die in the same house where she was born. If the Vatican ever decided to beatify her, Maria de Jesus de Agreda would undoubtedly become the patron saint of FOMO, the holy intercessor for all of us who cannot help but succumb to the fear of missing out.

Some, like Margery Kempe, punctuated their sobbing with such extravagant contortions that a well-meaning friar once whispered to her, "Woman, Jesus died a very long time ago," with the compassionate honesty of that friend who bids you to get over your ex.

It doesn't matter what century you're reading this in: Women's eating habits are always scrutinized.

We were playing, prioritizing delight and detours over discipline in the tradition of Maria de San Jose. For as she knew, an unholy amount of work will not make you any more holy.

It doesn't matter what century you read this in: If they demand you work in Excel, it is not your revolution.

Nuns and bishops could spend hours arguing whether it was his death for the sake of humanity or the gift of the Eucharist that counted as Christ's greatest quality, just as you can now spend hours debating whether you'd rather run into a man or a bear in a deserted forest; you just don't write a treatise about it--though you probably should.

Religious institutions lacked a human resources department, the rigid hierarchies that managed the convents did resemble the organizational structures of most modern multimillion-dollar corporations. Between the confessor who extended a hand under the guise of friendship to ensure your spiritual writing did not stray too far from the order's party line and the bishop with the final say on whether your excessive ...

No matter what century you're reading this in: The most reliable cure for ailments of the spirit is always a good time with your girlfriends.

"I am not the one who slipped out of time, Professor Tarrant," he replied, giving her one of his rare, fierce, genuine frowns, the kind he usually reserved for cheating students, conservative politicians, and cold coffee.

As we often say: "Anything you are going through right now has probably already happened to a nun living several hundred years ago." The euphoria, the sleeplessness, the turbulence, the caring, the rigor, and the devotion of friendship too.

Every street surrounding the main square was filled with garishly dressed marching bands, girls in traditional costumes and boys in ukuku masks, which look like ski masks with clown faces knitted onto them. It was as if the Colorblind Junior Majorette Society of Greater Cusco had scheduled a social mixer with the Future Bank Robbers of Southern Peru.

They dared not relax, however, for the night was still young and the library full of historians. No one is more dangerous than people who have little interest in the future.

Just when I started to wonder what the logistics were for repatriating a body to the United States, we spotted a depot with a train parked in a siding.

"If you turn out to be a murderer, I'm going to be profoundly annoyed with you."

"Is Marguerite wearing the Star of Sikkim?" Lainey blurted out.

"What's the Star of Sikkim?" Gordy asked.

"Isn't Sikkim one of those countries that doesn't exist anymore?" Deke asked.
Bryce nodded. "Yeah, like Morocco?"
"Sikkim still exists. It's a state in northeast India," Harlow told him.
Lainey added, "Also, Morocco still exists. It's important to me that you know that."

He had that look in his eye that any American who has spent time around non-American drunks may recognize, the leer that precedes either projectile vomiting or a lecture on the CIA. Sometimes both.

Lainey turned to see the Crossings Hotel for the first time and wondered if she'd made a life-altering "secondary location" mistake.

Between my microfiber bwana costume and the sacks of candy that Justo kept foisting on me, I could have been trick-or-treating as Hemingway.

Scientists have calculated that there are thirty four types of climactic zones on the face of the Earth. Peru has twenty two of them.