buns! how i would love to be sitting at j&b with you discussing and researching theater of the oppressed.
the most beautiful gray sky decemeber
it's raining in cooper texas. living in lubbock can cause one to forget what rain sounds like, and oh how i've missed it! right now i think it's more beautiful than anything in my itunes.
tracey and i are painting a sign for a local telephone co-op this break, a 10x23' sign that begins 7' high on the old tired bricks.
tom was a really big help and aided in our transportation of 10' and 30' ladders. he made it look not very heavy, but looks can be decieving. tracey and i have worked out a system though, and we are now pros at raising the ladder to 17'. tracey loves it up high.
Observations from the Dining Room
Observations, memories, thoughts, darkness, and weight
For Christmas I got a chinese coin with the center cut out (an aunt went to china) and Barbara and I made feng shui hangers from them...and by that I mean we tied Celtic knots through them with sky blue and lime green chord and braided bells into the medley.
When you feel like writing, take advantage of it. I have a cup of tea, the cold snow outside the window, Barbara, my Dad, and Kristin home, an entry for the blog, and a new document open to rewrite a scene for my Costa Rica story.
I listened to a Radio Head song on Pandora, unaware the band was radio head, and liked it.
Barbara used a picture of a Victoria Secret's model as wrapping paper for a gift for my grandmother and wrote "You'll be a Hot Mama when you use this".
My sister and I went to the rec to work out today and when we got back, my dad held the door shut as I tried to open the door. He was in a bad mood for the morning, so it surprised me to see him trying to joke.
I'm listening to a song called "wildwood flower" by David Grisman and Tony Rice on an album called Tone Poems...which I think it a really pretty combination of words.
Words, words, words!
Roger Landis is not on Pandora. Nor is Mason Brown.
Mason Brown goes to Naropa. More incentive?
I think what one person considers an opportunity another could easily see as a mistake.
Will only time say who is right? Or are both right? Or neither?
Who can tell?
Why do we try to tell?
I'm not as scared of eternity as I used to be. I've become more resolved to the idea that when we die we could exist as energy and nothing more. Or nothing less?
The music on pandora is really pretty right now. I like when tea, music, and writing align and leave me feeling inspired and peaceful.
who are you selling it for?!
there is snow in cooper texas, not much but some! my grandma is as crazy as ever. she asked tracey and i, as we brought her potato salad, if we were selling it for church or school and who she had to pay. i got 'terri' hugs from my dad. my mom is frantic and refuses to use newspaper for wrapping paper. tom eats ten eggs at a time.
things don't change much! and that's ok with me.
Snow & Wind
I finished looking through the Celtic Christmas photos...that and playing through smeceno horo and listening to the concert online (http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/3297339) while baking rolls brought me back to it.
It was a good concert.
I would argue that it was one of our best. My parents and friends comments ranged from the concert being fantastic to being unable to hear to wanting the ensemble to perform more and the guest artists less.
What made the concert amazing for me (in part) was the guest artists. Playing with them, sharing the stage, and being part of the music coming from all of our different instruments was exhilarating. Too strong a word? I don't think so. I felt a connection to the music and the people playing and listening that I had never experienced in concert band or our other recitals. It was, in part, because of the familiarity of the music, the knowledge that this is the last time I will sing Mari Lwyd while carrying the totem, and Tracey, Glen, and Ty playing along with me. But it was also playing along side of people who had dedicated their lives to music and were amazing at it.
Maybe it's hard to appreciate their talent (from my parent's perspective) when they probably don't know what the guest artists were playing, must less the style and technique.
But I'm glad they were there. I am glad to be part of an ensemble that brings together a community to share, learn from, and enjoy Celtic music.
And I feel no matter where I go after May, I can carry that with me.
BUT! It snowed today. That is really why I came here to blog, but I got distracted by nostalgia and pictures.
So I will post some pictures from the snow.
Here is Matti. She looks hilarious when the snow is too deep and she has to bound.
The snow was so deep! It is still deep!
Kristin wouldn't stop eating my dough...
Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
There is another blog post about Gross Indecency forthcoming, but for now I want to leave everyone with a quote.
The play ends with a prose poem by Oscar Wilde called "House of Judgment." "House of Judgment" is about man coming before God. God recalls everything man has done...bad things, and says "surely I will send thee into Hell. Even into Hell will I send thee.
And man cried out: 'thou cannot.'
And God said to man: 'wherefore can I not send thee to Hell, and for what reason?'
'Because in Hell I have always lived.'"
I thought that was a really powerful ending for a play.
Go in peace.
Questing for answers
The semester is winding to a close. I turned in my 15 page South Africa essay last friday, my Austin story (Moss, Sea, and Sky) with critical introduction on Tuesday, finished classes up, and met with Caswell today. I have the rough draft for my Honors Thesis done (with the exception of a final scene) and wanted to know where I go from here. I read over it all yesterday and...didn't like it. It's a good narrative, but that's all I feel like it is this way. As Professor Caswell put it: I have themes, I just don't know where I'm going with them and they need to deepen.
(fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!!- Ty McDonald)
Anyway, so he told me not to work on it anymore. I was going to start revising it, but he said it would help me make the connections and see the larger picture if I set it down and left it alone for a month.
BAH! SO I am essentially done. I just need to put it together in an official honors thesis format, turn it in, and do my Spanish final.
BUT as one of the ways in which I am going to "deepen" and "expand" my honors thesis is to include quotes and commentary by other writers.
I'm starting with two of the books I read while I was in Costa Rica and then moving onto Costa Rican literature.
I am very excited about all of this.
So I wanted to share the advice, because I think it's applicable to more situations than just writing. Maybe we should just set things down, let them be, and then come back to them. The answers will come.
The answer is 42.
-Howard Fisher (my former writing mentor)
The answer is 47.
-Rajiv (my physical therapist)
Part of the Healing Process
I have finished From Our Voices: Art Educators and Artists Speak Out About Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered Issues and while I do not plan to be an art educator, I feel like their stories are applicable to anyone who finds themselves in a teaching role.
I posted a quote a few entries back from the anthology, but I would like to add some more.
This is from Ed Check's essay "The Pleasures of Adolescence":
"What I lost for so many years because of public humiliation and cultural and self imposed homophobia and misogyny, I am slowly recapturing through my art and writing. I use memory and imagination to explore the simultaneous pains and pleasures of growing up gay in a straight world" (Check, 155).
I found this to be a really encouraging thought. In one of the previous essays, Ed discussed his school and college experience as a gay man and it's hard to read at times. So to hear him say that he is not bitter or angry about his past, but rejoices in it is amazing. I liked that he was "recapturing" his past and experiences with his writing and art, because that sounds empowering. I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between empowerment and powerful. I feel like our society tends to use "powerful" more often than empowerment, but I think there should be a distinction.
To me, empowerment is good. It is working with yourself or others to realize and teach rights to happiness, life, love, and freedom. To me, being powerful is the opposite. Powerful is imposing on someone's right to love, happiness, life, and freedom.
Art empowers Ed. Through art, he empowers himself.
Thoughts for the Days
Hello AMAZING friends!
I am going to repost from Coyote Banjo, because I feel like his words may help you:
So here's your plan:
"1. I am obligated to work constructively and peacefully toward completion of my degree requirements. Therefore I must spend some time each day working on coursework.
"2. I am obligated to work constructively and peacefully toward my own health. This means I must spend some time each day exercising, eating healthfully, and working on emotional health issues
"3. I am obligated to work constructively and peacefully on my professional obligations. This means I must spend some time each day on assistantship, teaching, and/or other professional work.
"4. I am obligated to work constructively and peacefully on my own artistic development and self-expression. This means I must spend some time each day on art, music, writing, or other creative activity.
"5. I am obligated to work constructively and peacefully on my own emotional community and support network. This means I must spend some time each day enjoying my living space, communicating with friends, thinking about or communicating with family, and so on. In addition, I must spend some time each day thinking about ways I can actively be a good friend and support-network-member for people who are important to me, and taking action on those thoughts.
"6. I am obligated to work constructively and peacefully on my own spiritual health. This means I must spend some time each day in prayer, meditation, visualization, or other spiritual practice.
"7. I am obligated to work constructively and peacefully at building the future I want for myself. This means that, in addition to items 1-6 above, I must spend some time each day developing my skill set and my portfolio, visualizing the kind of job I want when I depart, searching the Chronicle or other job source to familiarize myself with current job profiles, revisiting and polishing written pieces that I might send out to specific academic targets, and so on."
A life spent engaging in some healthy combination of the above 7 activities would be a good life, and a full-time job. Print 'em out and stick 'em on the damned wall!
You're Not Alone
From From Our Voices: Art Educators and Artists Speak Out About Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgednered Issues:
This quote is from the essay "The Illusion Was to Think She Had Any Control Over Her Life" by Deborah L. Smith-Shank
"Trauma can also be caused by exclusion. We have all heard the stories of ancient times when banishment was an ultimate punishment...it is a trauma of omission. Adrienne Rich articulated this experience and brought it into a postmodern context: 'whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under inadequate or lying language, this will become, not merely unspoken but unspeakable" (Smith-Shank,144).
I have not had a chance to listen to Brownbird today. It's been largely busy--one thing after the other, and I have been so absorbed in writing that music has become a distraction. I went to 10,000 Villages, hosted by Covenant Presbyterian Church, this morning with my mom and Micaela and bought a few items. With the exception of food and books, I have trouble buying "things." I can always think of several reasons why I don't need it. But I really wanted to support 10,000 villages, the church, and the people who made the crafts, so trying not to think, I went and grabbed a Bangladesh prayer flag. It just occurred to me where Bangladesh is and that makes me appreciate it a little more. I took a really amazing world geography class last semester and learned that Bangladesh used to be a part of Pakistan because the British thought it would be a good idea to polarize the Hindus and the Muslims further, so India became a Hindu state and West (Pakistan today) and East Pakistan (Bangladesh today) became a Muslim state.
After 10,000 villages, I tried to write an essay until Jesse's AMAZING guitar recital. His individual pieces were incredible and engaging. After he finished, four other guitar players joined him and the music they played was powerful. Glen and Tracey began to teach me mandolin last night and I have a new appreciation for strings, fret, and finger position. To diverge, I really like guitar and mandolin in that they remind me of playing piano. I like the idea of stretching and curving finger to produce the sound--not breathing and reeds as it is with oboe.
I feel like I can flow with the music better when I play with my fingers and not my air.
Where does dancing fit in then?
But coming back to the essay...I would like to post it here when it is finished. It is my essay about Austin and I hesitate because it is creative non-fiction, and the blog is available to the internet.
But I finished the critical introduction today. I wrote it without an outline and watched in wonder as the ending to my introduction became the ending of my essay. I pieced together thoughts and ideas in places I hadn't originally intended and felt as if I was crafting, not writing, a story.
"You get one life and who wants to spend it at the wee hours of the morning, writing?"
-Janisse Ray
Wednesday Mornings
Some of the happiest moments of my life are in the morning, drinking earl gray or english breakfast tea, doing homework of some sort that involves writing, and listening to really good music. This morning the music is the pandora nickel creek station and some beirut, the tea is fair trade english breakfast, and the homework is a nearly completed essay on JM Coetzee and torture during the apartheid.
I want to share some of the joy from my day. It's a picture from a link from Terri.
Life is full of simple joys (I think that is what makes it so rich and worth living). This is one of them.
Please share any simple joys that you have had. I would love to hear them.
Also, to credit the picture, here is the link: http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/bio-diversity/
Sitting puffed out on a branch
I am home. I was surprised this morning at how excited I felt to be driving from my apartment to my house (around three miles away). To express my excitement, I came home and promptly woke Kristin up. As she groaned and hissed at me, I told her how excited I was to be back. She responded by threatening my life if I ever went into her rooms and opened the curtains again.
The washing machine is rumbling. I am not sure how many people do this (probably a lot of college students), but I just brought my dirty laundry home (I liked bringing dirty laundry home--since I live in Lubbock I've missed out on a lot of things in terms of going home that my friends have gotten to experience). The birds outside are sitting puffed on their branches. I love the windows in this house. Looking out the middle pane, I can see a fiery red and green tree hanging over the fence, with doves and sparrows perched on it's branches. Occasionally they swarm the ground. Looking out the left pane, the light is bold and brilliant. The right pane shows me a cheeto bag buried in the leaves.
The birds swarmed again. I hung up my laundry to drive, and coming back to work, I passed my dad's desk. On his desk was a book, and being pulled to books, I stopped and meandered over to it. It is called "Impossible Extinction: Natural Catastrophes and the Supremacy of the Microbial World." My dad is in Washington DC right now visiting my aunt, but I really want to ask him how the microbial world is "supreme".
"Tell me where you're from, and I'll tell you who you are."
since Terri and Glen have forbidden me from talking
My freedom of speech has been restricted in Glen and Ty's apartment. I am not allowed to tell either Glen or Terri what I learned at the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue dinner this evening, because it's "distracting" so I will write it here:
Show me a fight over religion and I'll show you a fight over poverty, political power, and greed.
We can put man on the moon, and robots on mars, yet we have problems reaching out to the corners of the world
We can destroy the world, yet we cannot educate those who are compassionate.
If you only love those who are like you that is egotism and self-centeredness.
Oh, sisters let's go down.
I want to take you to this past Monday when I was in Stephenville. I went with the Celtic Ensemble to Tarelton State University to give a masterclass and performance. The masterclass was invigorating. Dr. Smith, our instructor, is amazing at reaching out to other students. The majority of the students that showed up were trumpet, trombone, and saxophone players, which are not traditional celtic instruments (as oboe is not a traditional celtic instrument), but he worked with them. They were jazz players, so he related learning celtic music to how people learn jazz, and then told us about their differences. Celtic music places more of an emphasis on melody, so you don't have the complicated undertones that you do in jazz. I had NO idea! It makes sense, of course, and I had always kind of wondered why we all just kind of played together and didn't really have parts. It's cool that that is the way the music is supposed to be.
But I would want to take you specifically to after the masterclass. The professor who invited us to Tarelton took us to her house and fed us pizza. One of the women in the ensemble (I've stopped using the word "girls" I think it's slightly degrading) is allegoric to cats, so she stayed outside on the porch. A few people gathered with her, and they started singing. It was beautiful. They sang "down to the river", "go to sleep little baby"...man I don't know the names, but basically the songs on Oh Brother Where Art Thou. And they could sing! Occasionally we do group pieces in the ensemble, but it's hard to hear individuals over everyone else (which is good perhaps). So I never really get to hear these women sing, and they have beautiful beautiful voices. I spent my dinner outside, on the porch, on a swing, listening to songs I don't ever remember really hearing but somehow knowing the words to.
Music is a beautiful thing.
It's odd of me to think of myself as a musician, but I had the realization this weekend that I was. It's exciting to consider myself as such.
For Glen
"I can look at a canyon shadow or a Byzantine mosaic and understand blue better than I understand a dissertation on the comparatively stubby quantum of electromagnetic radiation measured as 4 X 10-7." (The Anthropology of Turquoise)
I love the idea that we don't see blue the same. <3
What we really want is to come to life.
I'm going to bring the blog back to Artic Dreams for some time, because on Thursday, Barry Lopez came to speak with our class. It is so amazing to meet the author behind the book you have read, spent time with, discussed in class, and realize that those are his words. The man in front of me wrote this beautiful 400 page book. Saying he wrote it feels like an understatement. He labored over it, spent hours rewriting passages he probably didn't use, edited countless drafts...so much goes into writing that is unmarked. As with every piece of art, I would imagine.
Barry Lopez wasn't intimidating, he didn't feel like a stranger. I really like that non-fiction is non-fiction in that everything he wrote about actually happened. And he was there! It is such an exposure, but such a connection at the same time.
And he speaks so eloquently. He really reached out to the class, and talked to us on a level that we could understand and relate to. I would imagine that would be difficult with all of the scientists he has traveled around with, but maybe easier, because he can appreciate being with different groups of people.
Mostly I just want to share some quotes with you that I scrambled to write as he spoke.
I have no point to make in the moral universe--my universe, I'm not asking anyone to live there.
My effort as a writer is to be a companion rather than an authority.
It doesn't mean that I'm some sort of a nutcase when it comes to detail.
I don't always know what I'm doing, and it doesn't bother me. I'm trying to make a beautiful pattern.
Beautify is found in the complexity of the world, both in the light and the not light.
[In regards to writing Arctic Dreams]...I spent two years looking at things and trying to not make them mean anything.
[in regards to talking about death or any near death experiences] Just let it alone, be glad that you have come home.
I love the kind of humor that keeps you going when your face is peeling off with frost bite.
When people applaud, what they are really applauding is how they feel.
[in regards to what has made it all worth it]...the realization of the divine...that makes you aware of the enthusiasm for light, I mean life. (I like that he slipped there, light is a beautiful answer too.)
This is one that really spoke to me:
Although we say we want to go to heaven, what we really want is to come to life.
Turquoise in shades of blue and green
I feel the need to burden this blog with more thoughts about The Anthropology of Turquoise. I have to draft an outline or free write for 2-3 pages about a chapter in the book, so I am going to post the question here, and then write my response. For some reason mediums of writing influences my desire to write, and I have found that when doing this type of assignment, the blog is more inviting than a word document.
Here is the question:
In "A Wilderness of Monkeys," Meloy gives us the geological and cultural history of turquoise, and writes on pg. 107 that "Turquoise is a sympathetic gem." In a short (2-3 pages) outline or free write of a possible essay, discuss why, of all possible gems and/or stones she could choose, does Meloy focus on turquoise (besides the fact she likes how it looks)? What symbolic meaning does turquoise carry for her?
“Is turquoise green? Is it blue?”
“In the Deeds and Sufferings of Light,” Meloy raises questions about the nature of green and blue. Blue is a strong color. It came into evolving languages late, but had a dominating effect. It preceded black, white, red, yellow, and green, and for unknown reasons replaced green. Blue is now used to describe objects formally perceived as green. Green was pushed into ambiguity. We often fumble for words when trying to describe sea green and ocean blue and other shades that fall in the "is-it-green-is-it-blue" category. Turquoise is a stone that encompasses this ambiguous blue and green. In some areas of the world, it is a clean cerulean color, others a deep sea-green, and others stark sky fissured with black. Meloy focuses on turquoise because it is an answer to her question. Objects can be both green and blue. There is not always a need for distinction.
“to scare myself witless by swinging on the thick hemp rope outside the safety of daylight and visible depths”
From Meloy's essay, I have gathered that she doesn’t consider the stone’s wealth in terms of money. She values it with memories. In her earlier essay, “The Deeds and Suffering of Life”, she writes that every color has a story. Turquoise has a part in many of her stories. From the Mariachi band in El Paso, to the cheap turquoise ring a family of hippies stole from her mantle, to the Iranian turquoise ring set in silver her brother gave has a gift. Each event is precious. Each event is associated with turquoise. Turquoise is the storyteller. My favorite of her stories involved the Iranian turquoise ring. I liked that it was a gift, and I liked the Persian proverb she pulled that stated the power of turquoise could only be experienced as a gift. To Meloy, this ring also represented her post-college need for freedom. Freedom is not the right word here. I can't find the passage, but at one point she mentions that she needed reassurance she would not fall into a linear boring adult life. So, post-college, Meloy and a group of friends tied a rope to a tree and catapulted themselves into the river below. They jumped from 55 feet waterfalls. Meloy hiked alone to the spot one night and dived into the dark river. She comes back to this ring at the end of her essay, saying that one day she will give it to her niece. She says nothing of the value of the ring she hopes to pass, but instead the memory behind. The memory of “the night that the ring flew with me, on a hemp rope high over an opaque river, in the cusp of youth with no hazard of thought, only the sheer suppleness of sensation.”
Austin is blue, green, and sea-green
I have written and told this story in several different places, but it made me so happy that I feel I need to share it. In my Gender, Race, and Nature class, we got to write creatively. The assignment was simple: identify the three colors you would begin with to describe either the high plains or canyons of the caprock country around Lubbock, or your own home region.
I chose Austin. There were many reasons regarding this decision. The colors I chose were blue, green, and sea-green and there was a passage in The Anthropology of Turquoise that related to them. Also, there is a story behind the blue, green, and sea-green as "within every color lies a story." It was so liberating to write in class. I am feeling pulled in many directions in my life right now, and this experience pulled me further toward pursuing creative writing.
I felt so happy writing. My thoughts raced and my hand was not able to keep up with the ideas rushing my mind. I got lost within my writing during the 10-15 minutes she let us write.
If it makes me feel this way, why am I not doing it?
But I LOVE the book we are reading which prompted this discussion, and I wanted to share some thoughts. The book is The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy.
These passages are from "The Deeds and Sufferings of Light"
It has been shown that the words for colors enter evolving languages in this order, nearly universally: black, white, and red, then yellow and green (in either order), with green covering blue until blue comes into itself. Once blue is acquired, it eclipses green. Once named, blue pushes green into a less definite version. Green confusion is manifest in turquoise, the is-it-blue-or-is-it-green color. 12
Some days, high on the ridge, with a seventy-mile view in all directions, I feel compelled to strike up an existential query and a lotus pose, forming profoundly spiritual questions and throwing them out into the ethos.
What do I know?
What is my place in the universe?
How little do I need to have everything?
What are the obligations of living a certain geography, of narrowing the distance between eye and beauty, of making the visible world an instinct? 14
Certain places try to tell us something, or have said something we should not have missed, or are about to say something. 15
Before night falls, blue-green is the last quantum of visible light to pass through the atmosphere without scattering. 17
I suppose this could be a prayer
I came to this blog wanting to write, but not knowing the words. I have so many thoughts filling my brain that I feel chocked. I've retreated to my apartment for the day, brooding. But I don't want to think. I've been dealing with a lot of difficult issues lately, and they are exhausting.
My thoughts based off of the stories I have been reading and research I have been conducting.
All it is has to do with violence.
Violence can really weigh a person down.
It can overwhelm them. It literally can. I've been reading A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer edited by Eve Ensler, and I feel as if my zest for life is diminishing. Only slightly.
That is not what I want my words to do. I want to write about these HARD issues, but I don't want to give people this burden in which they HATE themselves, or feel guilty about the amazing life they have, because what we want is for EVERYONE to have that life.
It is okay if your life is great. That is what I want for you.
That is what I want for every person in this world. So if you are one of the people who already has it, how amazing. How beautiful. How blessed. Not lucky. Luck has nothing to do with it. You were born into your life for a reason, and love that reason. Don't hate it. Don't wish it were another way, because why would you want that other way? Why would you want the violence, the poverty, the hate? The people living in violence, in poverty, in hate, would not wish that on you, so do not wish it upon yourself.
I've slipped out of my routine. I've practiced oboe every night since Sunday. I usually practice once a week. I've been writing more. Reading more. Thinking more.
Spending time with Terri more.
I have no idea what I was doing with my time before this.
I want to just pour myself into music. I feel like I can think less when I play. Maybe this isn't healthy, but words can get so overwhelming. I feel like I need a different medium right now.
Terri and I were talking the other day about how stretched we feel. We are both very busy with many things, but we LOVE all of those things we are doing. But because of the time commitments they all require are never able to be "great" at them.
We decided maybe we aren't meant to be great. Maybe in order to do one of those things, we need to be doing all of them.
A segment
Here's a piece from my honors thesis that I wrote this morning. To give some context, I have just found out that I am going to design a recycling program for the school.
Lorna sighs her ‘the school is underfunded sigh.’ I wonder briefly how am I going to design and implement a recycling program in a school that doesn’t have enough money to pay for a counselor or soap in the bathrooms. I think of the expensive shiny recycling bins back at the few green conscious businesses and schools in Lubbock. They used grant money to build their programs. I have the equivalent of twenty dollars from my study abroad center.
But how much would their security increase if they had these things? I wonder. Not recycling bins, but more modern computers and televisions in every room? If their classrooms looked like the elementary classrooms back in Lubbock, how many extra rows of barbed wire would they need to keep out those who cannot afford such luxuries? Rely on policeman? No. The barbed wire surrounding the campus is there because the police do not protect it. The homes around the school are shrouded in metal gates and barbed wire because we do not feel safe. Not being able to trust the government or the police, we take safety into our own hands. We do not go out alone at night. We take taxis during the day. We leave with only house keys in our pockets, an umbrella around our wrists, and enough money for the taxi ride there and back. When we are attacked, we call the police. They do not come. We go to them. We file our reports. We hear nothing back. We return to our barbed wire, metals gates, and cages, and wait. Wait, because we don’t know what else to do. Wait, because we know that crime is increasing in urban Latin America, and Costa Rica is part of it. Blame it on the Nicaraguans, the Colombians, as Mama Tica does, but they are not at fault. Blame it on the economy and poverty and loss of jobs, but they are not at fault. Violence is bigger than any one issue.
Cardboard, I think. I can use cardboard boxes for recycling bins. I plan out how many the teachers would need as I follow Lorna into a classroom of fifth graders. We enter and the students shout a chorus of “hello teacher.”
“Hello, hello,” I say back, finding my seat at the back of the classroom.
Lorna takes out her markers and starts to write the names of various diseases on the board. The students watch her, eagerly waiting for their lesson to begin before the final bell rings and they can go home to their barbed wire houses around the school.
My South Africa class continues to expand my expectation on the ends of human stupidity
But here is something slightly more inspirational:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/opinion/28wed3.html?emc=eta1
Thoughts on The Good Body
The Good Body is a short play written by Eve Ensler after her work with The Vagina Monologues. Like The Vagina Monologues, the play relies heavily on interviews with various women throughout the world. But unlike The Vagina Monologues, the play focuses on a different part of a woman's (or anyone for that matter) body. Our stomachs. The chapters of the play are interviews, but in between Eve uses commentary on her own relationship to her body. The Vagina Monologues was an attempt to make peace with her vagina. But instead of doing so, she feels as if the negative energy and feelings moved to her stomach. She writes that "I suppose I had this fantasy that after finally coming home into my vagina, I could relax, get on with life. This was not the case. The deadly self-hatred simply moved into another part of my body"(Ensler, xii).
I really liked her introduction. I pulled a lot of quotes from there, and would like to share them, because I feel like they are a good reflection of what the book is about.
The play begins: "In the midst of a war in Iraq, in a time of escalating global terrorism, when civil liberties are disappearing as fast as the ozone layer, when one out of three women in the world will be beaten or raped in her lifetime, why write a play about my stomach?" (Ensler, ix).
Her answer: "I see how other women's stomachs or butts or thights or hair or skin have come to occupy their attention, so that we have very little left for the war in Iraq--or much else for that matter" (Ensler, x).
I feel like this is excellent insight! I am very involved in a social justice group on campus that is currently waging a fair trade campaign. I've been involved with it for the past year and a half, and we have worked with several different issues, ranging from the conflict in Darfur, to hunger, to the rapes in the DRC. It was through this organization that I first heart about Eve Ensler and become a member of the cast of the 2009 production of The Vagina Monologues. But, getting back on track, I have spent a lot of time trying to get the texas tech campus aware/interested/active in current events and social justice issues in our community and world. I don't want to sound cynical, but I would say that the majority don't care. And I think this is a reason! While it may not apply to everyone, I think we spend a lot of time worrying about our bodies! I do. I can completely related to Eve Ensler wanting a flat stomach, because that is something I have wanted for years (though if I had one, I don't know if I would even recognize it).
I think this also goes with the thought that in order to help others, we have to be whole ourselves. We have to work through our own issues before we can begin to help others work through theirs.
And this book is an excellent starting place for starting a dialogue about body issues.
One of the great things about theater, is that people have to gather to experience it. So, once they are gathered, why not talk?
Especially within the American culture, there are many issues concerning our bodies. Her interviews are vast and range from plastic surgery, vuvla shrinking, fat camps, intentional breast removal, acceptance of ones' body, and spiritual nurturing. I would like to go into detail about each chapter, but I think that would make this already long blog post even more obnoxiously long. So instead I am going to leave you with quotes.
Some of the quotes I pulled from these chapters that I liked are as follows:
From a 74 year old African Masai women: "We are all trees, you're a tree, I'm a tree. You've got to love your body, Eve. You've got to love your Tree. Love your tree" (Ensler, 74).
From Eve's conclusion: "Our body is our country, the only city, the only village, the only every, we will ever know" (Ensler, 91).
We must love ourselves, our bodies, to love and help the world around us. As I am writing this, I can't think of a better book to begin my journey on social justice theater with. Good body, good self, good community, good country, good world.
The Solace of Open Spaces
From the clayey soil of northern Wyoming is mined bentonite, which is used as a filler in candy, gum, and lipstick. We Americans are great on fillers, as if what we have, what we are, is not enough. We have a cultural tendency toward denial, but, being affluent, we strangle ourselves with what we can buy. We have only to look at the houses we build to see how we build against space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness. We fill up space as if it were a pie shell, with things whose opacity further obstructs our ability to see what is already there.
- The Solace of Open Spaces
Pandora's Nickel Creek radio station is BEAUTIFUL. HOLY CRAP.
I want you guys to listen to it.
Josphine-Brandi Carlile
I do not think that flicking someone with your toothbrush water warrants being tickled and playfully kicked by their foot.
But that is just my opinion.
Once again, at J&B and finding time to write on this blog. Despite the amount of people here, it is surprisingly quiet. And the music is beautiful. They just played a version of "hallelujah" that I hadn't heart before and it was so pretty! All of the music is pretty.
And it's still going on! I thought it was over. Small surprises.
Mostly, I've been writing on my honors thesis. I completed a small segment, and am going to post it here to see what everyone thinks. It's about the day after I was robbed and having to go to the police station to identify my attacker. I met with Professor Caswell today and prior to our meeting I was very lost about where to proceed in my story. I had just finished the actual robbery scene, and wasn't sure where to go. So I talked to him about it, and just in talking with him, I was able to see a clear path to take with this next scene. He is a really awesome mentor. We talked about his book a lot today, because I have been reading it to get a better idea of creative non fiction.
Very broadly this is what I took from our conversation: if something you are writing about makes you uncomfortable, write about it anyway. It usually ends up being a better story.
I am not in a state of mind to do our conversation justice, so I am going to end there. This is what I wrote here at J&B tonight. It's a really rough draft, but let me know if you have comments/suggestions/praise.
Two police officers talk lowly in Spanish. I sit in front of an old dell computer, the kind I had when I was ten, and stare blankly at the screen. I try to focus on the twenty mug-shot faces looking back at me, but their voices are distracting. One of them is young, a few years older than me. The other has a beard and a receding hairline. I listen to them, catching words with as much success as catching rain on my tongue. I shake my head and tell myself to be more fair. The sleeping pill I took last night lingers behind my eyes, and my mind is too distracted bursting in bits of memory to focus on another language. I turn back to my twenty faces. I look at each, not wanting to hurry and miss his face, but knowing that each pictures takes my memory further from me. I skip over the black and white men—his skin was the color of a dark walnut wood and the ones shorter than 5’7. He towered over me. On the third page I find a man with the same black eyes and similar facial features. I click the box beside his name and am asked how sure I am. I type in fifty percent. Something about his face feels unfamiliar, so I change my answer to forty. I move onto the next man, and feel doubts about my decision. I don’t want to condemn the wrong man. I have it in my mind that when I see him, I will know. Like a soul mate, I muse and click the next button. Twenty new faces. On the fourth page, I find him. Or at least the closest I come to finding him. I pick a man with the most similar facial features—the same color skin, square face, flat nose, high cheekbones, and black eyes. I choose him with sixty percent accuracy. As I submit the numbers, I wonder how certainly he chose me. How did he know I would have anything of value to take? Was it even those physical things—computer, credit card, phone, he wanted? Money can be replaced easily. Fear takes longer to put to rest.
Seeing him, or someone that could be him, sends new floods of memories through my mind. I close my eyes, willing my mind to stop. Please stop. I’ve replayed it enough. I’ve replayed every detail, every movement at least ten times today and I am tired. There are dark circles beneath my eyes and my cheekbones are red from crying. My mind reaches the point where he takes out the gun, and I bite my lip. Don’t cry, not here. I click the next button. Twenty more faces. I can pick up to four men. I look in the top right corner. Only two hundred more to look through. I don’t find anyone else who looks like him. I thank the two men and leave.
Brian at J&B
I should have included this a long time ago. This is a picture from our fair trade cookie baking night. We are standing in front of well body honoring the sun.
I am sitting in J&B waiting for 2:45 to come along. Not really waiting, more just being with the time, letting it pass as it will. I need to slow down the pace of my fingers, because they are typing too quickly and that is rushing time along.
My mom met me for lunch at Angela's cafe. It was kind of her to do that, as it has been a busy day and I did not have to deal with packing a lunch. I enjoyed seeing her. I talked animatedly about the Shelby Knox documentary and panel discussions I have been to this past two nights. (Slight divergence-it is so random to turn around and see someone you went to high school with that you haven't seen in years. This particular guy I have known since Kindergarten, I believe.My most distinct memory of him is from the 4th grade. We were all taking the TAAS test and he farted. Because it was quiet, everyone heard him and even the teacher started laughing. It really hurt his feelings and he went to the counselor's office crying. We felt horrible after that, and I blamed one of my friends for laughing and then causing me to laugh too. It's funny...maybe our entire life is remembered some way or another, but just by different people. I would be really surprised if he remembered that...but maybe he remembers something about me that I don't. I like that thought)
But getting back to my original post. These past two nights at the separate discussions of GLBTQA events (Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender, Queer, Ally!) have been very eye opening. These are a couple of thoughts I have gathered from them:
-with privilege comes power. There is no reason to feel guilty for being a white female heterosexual, instead use that to your advantage. Straight people are more likely to listen to other straight people, so take advantage of opportunities that present themselves
-you can't advocate for something when you don't feel like you are doing anything to change it (oh, Darfur)
-Don't let things go. Don't let people make comments, tell jokes, use terms that are homophobic. Standing up for the GLBTQ community can be as simple as not using the term "gay" to describe a situation that is undesirable
That is all I have now. Mostly I wish you guys a beautiful wednesday and take a moment to appreciate that it is wednesday. Shout glory!
I am going to repost from Coyotebanjo, because I feel as if this is something I really struggle with, and he phrased it really well:
"But more from watching how my great therapist/Dharma sister/teacher handled the emotions of others. The therapist's charge is to maintain perspective (not "objectivity", which is a bullshit chimera that some therapists hide beyond in order to avoid commitment), but the Buddhist teacher's charge is to not only maintain perspective but also to manifest compassion. Which is a delicate line to walk, and every circumstance is different. But I also learned that one of the best ways to walk that line most constructively is to be present in the moment. And part of that "being present" is to sit with someone else's pain, and refrain from either trying to escape it, or to "fix it"--both of which are attempts to avoid it."
When someone comes to me crying or in pain, I am usually thinking ahead of how to fix it. Because I honestly thought that that is what they wanted. But when I am crying or in pain, how much do I want a quick fix? Does it really mean something to me? Or do I want my friend to listen and sit with me as I cry?
Do I even need a solution? Or do I just need to cry?
Beautiful advice.
On life and all of its choices
I think it is really cool when things you have been pondering come up in every day life.
For example. Today I was reading an essay in Professor Caswell's book "An Inside Passage". He mentions that his wife is in Boulder, CO doing a degree at Naropa University. I think, how interesting.
For the past couple of weeks, I have been contemplating going to Naropa myself for a degree.
Right now, it seems as if the course of my life is going to take quite a drastic turn then what I had discussed in my previous posts.
Here is what I am considering so far:
1. Americorps
2. Social Justice/Human Rights MA program at Arizona state university (I talked with the director today, and the program seems awesome! It is really flexible, and I can direct my focus to either domestic or international issues. I can also do a CREATIVE thesis! HOW AMAZING!)
3. Breadloaf MA in English (a summer program. Caswell did it, and said that it would be perfect for me. Takes 5 years and is only taught during the summer)
4. Naropa...either a Masters in Contemplative Education or Writing
5. Teach For America
Terri told me, on behalf of advice she had received from Lynne, to apply and then consider what my options are once I have been accepted.
Any thoughts or advice?
Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts by Tracey
I just wanted to remember this:
Essays are never just essays. They're massive undertakings to see the entire world through a small piece of glass.
On time
There were too many thoughts in Artic Dreams (by Barry Lopez) to ignore, so I am going to share a few with you.
"Time hovers about the tundra like the rouhg-legged hawk, or collapses altogether like a bird keeled over witha heart attack, leaving the stillness we call death."
"To lie on your back somewhere on the light-drowned tundra of an Ellesmere Island valley is to feel that the ice ages might have ended but a few days ago. Without the holler of contemporary life, that constant disturbance, it is possible to feel the slope of time, how very far from Mesopotamia we have come."
172
It frustrates me when a subject comes up that I really really want to talk about, but I feel intimidated so I don't.
Even if I don't talk, I just want to keep talking, but I don't even speak up to forward the conversation.
Because when people bring up sex, and their upbringings, and I can relate...I still hold back from saying anything because I was brought up to hold back and to not talk about sex.
*frustration*
I thought something was missing
but when I walked into our kitchen and looked around, I couldn't place it. The kitchen was unusually clean. Almonds on the floor, yes, rice from my lunch. A coffee-ground brown circle stain on the counter. I was running late with my tea this morning.
The bamboo rug was off center. I pulled the suction pads off last year, attempting to clean beneath it. Nothing new. Nothing different.
The motivational peace corps postcards hung unevenly on the wall. The bumper sticker reading "stop bitching, start a revolution" had not been peeled from the cupboard.
I glanced above the sink. Several white thumbtacks were scattered on the wall like stars.
I looked behind me, above the stove. The same constellations. The same story.
Terri...where did your prints go?
Social Justice Short Stories
Since the short story I will be writing for my thesis deals, in some ways, about social justice, I decided to google social justice short stories to see what I could find.
And here is what I found:
http://englishcompanion.ning.com/group/teachingsocialjustice/forum/topics/social-justice-texts- TERRI please look at this one! It has ideas for books to use when teaching about social justice issues.
Though I did not really find any short stories about social justice...I found that link.
And I think that is a good place to start.
CORRECTION!
I did find this:
http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/BOOKS/bid2132.htm
It is about a book called Fire and Ink: an Anthology of Social Action Writing.
When I research things like this, I feel very alive. Very alive and connected to the world. I feel as if I would just continue on this path a little longer, I would be able to see where I am being called to go.
The Wind is in you, the wind is in me
I am part of the wind. Growing up in Lubbock makes you that way. You sense a change in the seasons not by temperature, but by drops and rises in the wind. Winter is dead. The wind blows south with the birds, leaving the days clear and sunny. December through February the wind has become a breeze. The breeze is cool and reassuring. Without wind, the world would be terribly wrong. If I woke up to a still morning and opened my blinds to see the trees limp, I would think that we finally did it—we finally did something so horrible that shifted earth patterns irreversibly into a different way of life altogether. And if I stared out my window and the heavy branches of the elm tree did not move, did not lift its leaves, I would think we are not ready for this.
We are not ready to change so drastically.
This made me think about Terri's comment on how we have lost touch with our humanity:
[In regards to death], there are much worse things, you know. The destroyers: they work to see how much can be lost, how much can be forgotten. They destroy the feeling people have for each other.
-Ceremony
I am reading and critiquing Dr. Batra's upcoming manuscript and am intimidated to be offering her suggestions on her work.
everything
"Everything that is really precious is right here in our hearts. Everything is already right here."
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama
I'm not going to really put this in context. From the research I've done on Costa Rica, I've come across a few articles about prostitution. This passage stood out the most to me:
Who could ever forget that thick-lipped black woman, whose exuberance perched on a pair of temulous buttocks that gained her the nickname Black Pudding! And how to forget that corn blond woman who they called Soft-Boiled Egg? And poor Silvia, skinny and pale, surely suffering from tuberculosis? Where are they now? Maybe they're wandering around someplace begging, or are they just a little anonymous mound of earth in the cemetery for the poor, the Calvo?
(Molina, Iván, and Steven Palmer, eds. The Costa Rica Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham: Duke UP, 2004)
SO INSPIRED!
Reasons for a sudden inspiration:
1.I found out this morning that Seva is getting a coffee donation from from Equal Exchange for our tabling outside the sub event in October. SO we get free fair trade coffee to hand out to students!
2. I had a meeting with Dr. Verrone to discuss the URF meeting I missed last week. We talked for about 20 minutes about URF, Honors Thesis, and Contracting and then for the next 40 minutes about American Foreign policy, Che Guevara, our reasons for being in Vietnam, Lubbock school systems' stupidity at not allowing students to watch Obama's speech, Obama bringing genuine change to our nation and having one of the most transparent government administrations, how our reasons for invading countries are deciding, there being a CIA agent present when Che Guevara was executed, the "closet" liberals of the honors college...it was really cool to just talk with a faculty member about something that wasn't related to why I had scheduled the meeting. Mostly I admire how really dedicated Dr. Verrone is to his job.
3.Short-shorts just walked by.
4. Two maintenance men got drenched and started laughing about it.
5. I have inspiration and direction for my honors thesis!
6. The bike ride into tech was BEAUTIFUL! and not scary.
7. There is a possibility of an old time tunes jam session this evening
8. Love!
Conflicting Ideas/Thoughts/Feelings?
I don't think I have been listening to my music enough lately. I opened iTunes just now and was conflicted as to what to play, because there are so many songs I want to hear, and only one moment to click one.
I have felt shaky and not grounded today. I woke up before my alarm again (which I think it bad, it may not be. I think I have not necessarily healthy view points on sleep)...and I just have so many ideas.
I have two big projects that I am working on right now. One of them is my Honors Thesis which is dealing, now, with violence in Costa Rica. The other is an essay for my Gender, Race, and Nature class. I haven't come up with anything concrete yet...but I am thinking about focusing the essay on sexuality in nature in Ceremony and examining the different sex scenes in the novel, contrast them (there are three, one is violent white man/ indian woman, the other is more spiritual/natural mexican woman/indian man, and the other is healing indian woman/indian man...I mention their race as it is a factor of the novel.)
I guess it is difficult to switch between thought processes. Originally I was going to write about violence in Ceremony, but reading and writing about violence for two projects was too depressing.
I think it's more of a funk caused by actually reading Ceremony. The book deals a lot with older Laguna traditions and relationships with the earth...and I feel like that is something I really lack in my life and culture.
And I don't really know how to reconcile it. So I feel like I am retreating further away from it instead.
Really I need to reconcile my faith. I had a lot of time to think this summer, which brought up several questions I had that I was unable to answer, or didn't necessarily agree with. But now I have not dealt with them.
I don't feel overwhelmed. That is the weird part.
I feel like I am on top of all of my assignments...I don't feel like I'm struggling for time.
But something feels like it's missing.
I think what is missing is not religion but spirituality. And thinking.
And meditating.
And appreciating the little things in life.
We watched Amelie this weekend, and I LOVED IT. One of the scenes that I liked was where Amelie is watching a video of her life on the TV (juxtaposed with the death of Princess Diana) and the announcer says something to the affect of Amelie appreciating the little things in life. Like skipping stones.
The first thing that comes to my mind is hot chocolate on a warm day.
And riding my bike through the neighborhoods to tech. There is a particular tree that catches the light right off of boston in the mornings.
I was surprised today when I finished my essay on oral history for my South African class. I didn't expect to have it done until at least Wednesday, but I got it in one go this morning. I think I have come to terms that my most productive time is in the morning. It also surprised me when I woke up and it was still dark outside.
I was moved when I found a sticky note left on my computer that said "roar!" and some other things.
I was inspired when Glen and I were eating lunch together this afternoon. We were eating outside by Murray, and he pointed to a corner near where the sams place and dorm rooms intersect. Around the area was a cluster of red flowers, and he said that he liked the color palate--the reds of the flowers, the blue of the sky, the brick.
It has been a really beautiful day.
5 minutes a day...
everyday i'll be answering these three questions:
what surprised you?
what inspired you?
what moved you?
it kind of an exercise from this book i'm reading for a visual studies class. oh how i love visual studies classes. the book is titled, "spirituality in education." it's not about religion, but more about your soul and connecting to that part of you that you may have forgotten was there. becoming whole again.
My professor of Modern South Africa said that he realized how nerdy he was, because he walks into libraries, and says "ah! the smell of books. I am at home."
back
i would thoroughly enjoy being back in the caprock on this fine tuesday. as opposed to the dean's suite of the college of education, where power structures are all too well apparent.
oh these boxes...
I am having such problems concentrating today, and feeling productive. I feel so spacey and my arms feel jittery.
Terri, I have an idea for you. I am reading an article for my honors thesis about crime in developing country. A strategy it mentioned for fighting crime through development projects is called Crime prevention through environmental design. This is really wordy and what I think it means is that the focus is on the dangerous locations, and not the dangerous people.
They were talking about maps, and how often, locals will point to areas on the map and tell you not to go there. I thought this would make an interesting art project, because I know you like maps, and it's weird how they can be used for so many purposes. I don't know if I am explaining myself correctly, but I am visualizing a map in which with many different drawings on it. Specifically, I am thinking of my San Jose map. In the nicer areas are big houses with the question "Do the Costa Ricans live in the big houses", that are followed by slums around the nicer areas, and stick people acting out their lives, from a homeless man sitting in the center of downtown San Jose, to tourists near the spots marked "tourist attractions", to a man holding a gun at a terrified girl, to a group of kids playing near their school.
I think it would be an interesting project.
If such a map was drawn, I would like to use it for my Honors Thesis, I think.
today
has felt so good! i love living at woodscape so much! nicaraguan coffee makes me super spazzy. LOVE!
I feel too close to everything
I drank tea, woke up, talked to Terri for a long time instead of "being productive", translated a part of Jose Marti's "Nuestra America" (not fun, sucked the life force out of me), read about the geography of the middle east, and am now transcribing a lecture Dr. Batra recorded about Caribbean drama.
I am feeling so inspired!
I wanted to make a list of things I would like to do so that I don't forget. Here they are.
1. Have a story telling night. I once sat in a tipi with my classmates and told stories around a fire. I feel like the living room will do just fine.
2. Go to a play. Dr. Batra told me that in other parts of the world plays are often used as a medium to bring about social change. Here they are used more as a form of entertainment for those who can afford the ticket prices.
the world can be kind of overwhelming- Honors Thesis Discussion 1
I recently had a meeting with my Honors Thesis Mentor, Professor Caswell, about the project I am undertaking this year. To give some brief context I am writing a creative non fiction piece about my time in Costa Rica.
So one of the things I am dealing with is poverty, which is a very very broad topic. I am going to do more research in an attempt to narrow it down. I recently came across the term "neocolonialism", which very basically is the idea that colonialism is still happening in countries that were formally colonized. I am coming to understand that the United States has (and is?) greatly influenced many countries in Latin America, and, in some ways, has devastated them.
I want to know what we are still doing. I want to know what our interactions are with Costa Rica.
I chose to focus on poverty in my story, because I came to understand that poverty was a reason why I was robbed.
So I was explaining all of this to Professor Caswell. He was reading through my proposal and asked if it was true that I mainly went to Costa Rica to see poverty. Which I did. I wanted to work on my spanish, get out of Lubbock, but I could have easily done all of that in Spain.
He told me that I would need to provide background into why I wanted to go to Costa Rica to see poverty, because a reader is probably not going to buy that.
So I was sitting down to draft why I wanted to go to Costa Rica to see poverty, and felt it would be better to blog about it.
A lot of things contributed to that:
1. A sense of wanting to help those less fortunate than me that has been something I've felt throughout high school. I never felt like I was actually doing anything to help (which in all honestly I probably wasn't). I don't think I had any real desire to travel and see the people I wanted to help though.
These feelings became a lot stronger when I heard about the Rwandan genocide in ninth grade, and then later saw Hotel Rwanda when I was a Junior.
2. Coming to college I heard about Darfur. I went to a talk by Ambassador Nagy on Darfur, and was really struck by the idea that this was happening now. I didn't want my children to ask me about the Darfur crisis and then ask why I hadn't done anything, as I did to my parents when I learned about the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia.
3. I have lived a very blessed life and was never really exposed to poverty. It was hard for me to relate to the pictures I would see of the refugees camps in Darfur. It was hard to relate to any of the pictures I later saw of starving children with their bloated bellies.
4. A speaker from the non-profit, Glimmer of Hope, came to speak to my Africa in the Contemporary World class. He talked about how you can't really understand poverty until you have tasted, smelt, seen, and heard it. You really have to use all of your senses.
But, why go to Costa Rica to experience poverty? Why not just stay here?
Maybe it is easier to see poverty in a place that isn't your home. Somewhere you can leave. Somewhere you don't have to drive by every day and feel that pang of guilt knowing the people living behind the closed doors of the houses. Knowing that 1 in 4 children in Lubbock live below the poverty line.
Here, I can sit in my living room on the more west side of lubbock, and not have memories of what is happening miles away from me. I can think, instead, about the children I met in Costa Rica, and think about their lives, knowing that I have done what I can, and now can only send them good thoughts.
But if I were to go into Lubbock, go the Parkway center and become truly involved with the students, how hard would it be to live my life knowing how they lived theirs?
I don't regret my time in Costa Rica. I am glad I went, because no matter where we are, there are always stories to learn. Going to Costa Rica pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to rely on myself to make a life there. I think it would be harder to do that in Lubbock.
easily one one my favorite
things about college is sitting at a coffee shop (sugar brown's or j&B depending on our mood and glen's desire for a java shake) with glen and laura. easily one of my favorites.
i want to enjoy it as much as i can before we all are physically separated. i love being at texas tech in lubbock.
Afghanistan Inspires Me
I have been awake for two hours, and spent a good majority of that time in bed reading Open Veins of Latin America (wonderful book to wake up to. I'm on the part where the conquistadors kills half of the indigenous population in Latin America). After more lazing around, fixing breakfast, getting an amazing cup of that blood orange tea, I went to morning edition to see how the election process in Afghanistan was doing.
Mostly, I can't comprehend what it must feel like to be afraid to go to the voting station. The reporter was describing how so far, in Kabul, there hasn't been a high turn out, because people are waiting to see if there will be attacks. She said a few people have come to vote, because they feel that, despite the very real risk of injury, they feel voting is more important.
In a country where we often choose not to vote because the drive is too long (not going to lie, this past presidential election, I went to vote at the rec, and there was a really long line. I debated leaving), it is inspiring to hear about people willing to risk their lives for a ballot.
What was even more inspiring was listening to a report about how people were using donkeys to bring polling booths and ballot boxes to rural areas in Afghanistan.
A NPR photographer is traveling with a group of these donkies, the Afghan National Police, and others assisting in the process. His report can be here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112051151
I can't repost them here, but I would encourage anyone who is reading this to go to the website and see them all, as they are breathtaking and encouraging to think how far the human spirit will go in the struggle for human rights.
starting to feel my eyes
being back in lubbock is amazing!
it feels so good here.
was that good laura?
life and all it's choices
I have been looking into several graduate programs lately, and feel overwhelmed, excited, and still like I don't really know what I want to do (in terms of a career). I'm not worried about this, because:
1. I don't really have a background in what I want to go into
2. I think that the answer will become more clear once I have studied it more
3. As long as I am helping people, I think I will be happy
4. My life really is in God's hands, so I don't feel I need to worry
SO I want to go into something that deals with International Development. I am learning that there are many many ways in which someone can do this. For example, you can do the Masters International Program with the Peace Corps (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whyvol.eduben.mastersint). Or you can get a masters degree in International Development. Or you can get a masters degree with an odd title like "Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy" http://fletcher.tufts.edu/mald/default.shtml
This degree is more like international relations/affairs where you can specialize in development.
That is the route I am leaning toward. I want to understand how the world works (haha not that I could completely learn this from a master's degree. I guess what I meant was I wanted to get a better idea of how the world worked) before jumping into the development sector.
What I think I really want to do is get a general masters that deals with international relations/affairs in which I can get a better idea about the world (historical, political, and social interactions) and then be more specific when doing my doctorate.
I am finding myself drawn to course work that involves women and ethnic issues/development.
And Africa. And Latin America.
Mostly I wanted to type it all out so that I could have a better idea of what I wanted. Thanks for listening.
it feels like august
tom is working on tracey's bike and every other word is that angry cursing God kind. oh how nice it is to be home?
nicaragua was an amazing place, filled with amazing people and deserves a very detailed explanation with lots of pictures. the experience definitely changed my life.
but for now tracey and i are rushing around the house packing up my car with all of our material possessions. we easily are fitting everything we need, but only because we were both blessed with AMAZING roommates that provide things like... furniture, mini fridges, beds, tables, etc etc. we are such moochers.
i'm so excited to be in lubbock, to live in an apartment with just buns and kind of glen and ty, but mostly i'm excited to take tracey away from this place. i can't wait for her to see a different way to live, and to escape the negativity that has nested around our house.
my mom took off work today to spend time with us. it was really nice. we went to paris and ran some errands and ate every meal together. we talked about communisim and socialism, trade systems, coffee, oppression, and many other things. and for the first time all summer she kept an open mind and mostly listened to me. i showed her pictures from the trip and she constantly compared them to india, which is fine, and she enjoyed them. i showed her my art from this last semester and i took some of hers from when she was in college to display in our apartment.
while i was in nicaragua i felt absolutely amazing the majority of the time. i was so inspired and excited and i couldn't even imagine what feeling bad would be like. but, reality kicked in and i let the world get to me tonight... but it isn't lasting as long as it usually does. it's only been about ten minutes and i feel fine.
everything is so possible, and tomorrow will be a beautiful day.
Three Cups of Tea
The apartment has been moved into. With the amazing help of Sarah, Kristin, my Mom, and Ty my room is almost done. I have a few posters and wall decorations to tack up and a rug to arrange, but other than that my desk, futon/bed (btw, not such a good idea. I thought it would be cool to have a “chair” in my room…yeah, not so much.), Issac Newton quote, lamp, and amazing tree of life wall scroll are up. The room feels so much more like a home than any of my previous ones have. And the apartment too. I like these apartments. They aren’t real big, which is nice, but seems to have more room than the Carpenter Wells one did…and so much less noisy.
I feel like we are failing our original goal of reviewing books on this blog. I have read at least three since my last review, but oh well. You do what you can. A couple of weeks I read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. The book was a non-fiction account of Greg Mortenson's journeys into Pakistan and Afghanistan to build schools for the rural children. It was a really inspiring book--Mortenson is married with two children, but still spends months over in Pakistan and Afghanistan building these schools for the other children there. I honestly couldn't do that. I guess what was also cool was the book started at the very beginning. Mortenson was a mountain climber, and attempts to reach the summit of K2 (pictures of this mountain can be found in a previous post). He fails (due to a medical emergency) and gets lost coming down. He stumbles across a town called Korphe, and the people warmly take him in and care for him. He picks up the local language and gets to know the people, only to find that the town's children do not have a school. The children meet on the top of a hill, in the cold, to practice lessons from a once-a-week teacher (I believe) in the mud. So...the book takes off from there. It was interesting to read about how Mortenson manages to get the funding for the school, only to go back and realize that they have no ways of getting the supplies to the village, so they have to build a bridge first. It's a very good comparison of our Western mentality in comparison to the mentality of the villagers of Korphe. I am not by any means saying that the villagers were stupid. I rather admire their practicality, and how hard the elders worked to build a village for their children. But also, it was amazing to read about how different people in all of these areas of the world made the schools possible. Though Mortenson was the one to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan to initiate the schools, he, by no means, accomplished this alone.
The cover of the book says "one man's mission to promote peace...one school at a time.", but this isn't correct. It was not the work of one man, but many.
So I guess, I would end with saying that it is truly amazing to see how the work of many can be brought together to create so much goodness in the world.
The book also started each chapter with a quote, and many of them were very good. Not going to lie, sometimes I enjoyed the quotes at the beginning more than the actual story (it dragged), so I will end this post with one.
"Why ponder thus the future to foresee,
and jade thy brain to vain perplexity?
Cast off thy care, leave Allah's plan to him--
He formed them all without consulting thee."
--Omar Khayyam, The Rubaiyat
I think my word for the summer has been "small". Since Terri did a recap of her summer, I thought it would be fun to do it as well. Not that summer is over. I am thrilled that it is only August 2nd! But tomorrow I am moving into my apartment, and that begins a whole series of things that need to be done, so in a way my blissful having nothing to do is over. If it was ever even there.
Wow, I don't even know where to begin with this summer. I guess it started in May, and what followed was three weeks in which I spent pretty much just with my family. Barbara still lived down the street, so we saw a lot of her, and often had nights where I would cook and be like "invite Barbara! Invite Barbara". Or for icecream. Or to watch a movie.
I was also preparing and freaking out about my trip to Costa Rica. Working briefly. Attending counseling and feeling very empowered. It was a very empowering summer.
Then Costa Rica. Beautiful amazing Costa Rica. My mother never fails to bring up me being robbed when she tells people I went there, but I wish she would associate it with the so many better memories I had. Yes, I was robbed, but I learned so much from it. And feel so much less naive about the world. I needed that, in a way. But I also felt like I was helping others, doing something I had been called (in a way) to do. I loved the students I worked with, loved their enthusiasm. I also made an amazing friend, which gave me the confidence to go into other situations in which I don't know anyone.
I felt very close to God on that trip, and for the first time in my life, completely let go of my concerns and followed where life led me.
It has been more challenging to do that now that I am back. Especially now that I am back from vacation. In Costa Rica there wasn't as much that needed to be done...but really...there isn't here.
Life is a journey. It's not something I just want to get through. It's something I want to enjoy.
I felt also, for one of the first times, that if I died, I would die without regrets. I feel like I'm made the most of what life has given me. I mean, there would be somethings I wish I had gotten to experience.
The almost three weeks we spent visiting family was...I don't really have just one word for it. I spent more time with Kristin, and enjoyed it. I feel like I was unnecessarily snappy on the trip, and didn't take the time to spread my arms and feel the wind. Mostly, we were never in one place long enough to become accustomed to it. So it passed quickly.
But I love my family. I love seeing them...for those few days each year.
Maybe I will go to grad school closer to them.
I did read a lot. And write.
I am almost done with a short story about my time in Costa Rica, called "Small Seeds". I started out writing it as fiction, and found that it was all true.
I want to end this entry with a story of some sort. My Pap, Nana, Kristin, Dad, and Mom were driving somewhere in Pittsburgh. I handed my Pap his seat belt, and he said "no thanks, I'd rather see the Lord."
Small story.
3 cleansing breaths
my windows are open and there is no need for itunes, because the world is singing a song. the air is cool and the light soft. it has been raining all day, oh how i love the rain.
in my last days of summer i struggle to remember what i did for a little over two months. i don't think i can check off many things that would appear on a to do list, but i feel that much has been accomplished.
up until about the past two weeks, tracey, my mom, my dad, and occasionally tom have been preparing all of my grandma's meals and doing daily chores for her. i've spent a good amount of time in the little cluttered house next door, and i've fixed a million lean cuisine turkey and chicken dinners. i learned that when my grandma says she only wants a 1/3 a cup of peas, she really means it, because she knows what a 1/3 a cup of peas looks and feels like. she is able to get up and walk around a lot more everyday, so now i just go over to talk, or more to listen to the stories i've heard a million times (with new additions of course).
we went to tom's graduation, tracey and i went to lubbock for her orientation, i visited ty in austin, and drove tracey to see her boy in quinlan/caddo mills. i spent time with ty and his family and experienced granbury live! i went to physical therapy for three weeks for my hip, and spent lots of time in paris because we coordinated trips with tom's work outs. POWER THIRST. i sent laura long emails about my mundane life and relationship probelsm. tracey and i painted a mural on the side of our church with several people from church, and we met lynne (morris) mazing. we had slow lunch and found energy and an open mind and heart in a 71 year old catholic woman. our church also has pews for the first time now, as opposed to folding metal chairs. i've had many conference calls with usft, and become apart of something amazing. much time was spent in pray, and i feel like i have my relationship with God back, and a peace fills me. i went shopping more times that my white guilt could take, and i invested in material posseions like bike parts, "nice clothes", shoes, an awesome backpack, and a fair trade purse. i almost completely organized all my possesions, and i believe they can easily fit into my car, along with tracey's things. one day i hope to just have a backpack of belongings. i visited friends, got a terrible sunburn with rosa, and ate a homemade vegitarian enchilada dinner with friends.
but most importantly, i caught up on my sleep. and i really feel like i have this time. the first weeks i was sleeping for at least half of the day, everyday. i felt really guilty about, but my body needed it. when we started painting the mural we woke up at 7 and left the house by 7:30 because the sun hardened our paint around 10:30 every morning. ever since then i have been waking up at about 7:30 everyday, and i feel suprisingly good. i did some "self maintenance", started bathing more regularly, and paid more attention to mine and tracey's nutrition. i feel much more healthy.
the deep rooted problems in my family seemed to all surface at once, begining with my plea to travel to nicaragua for two weeks. the three hours my dad and i talked, well more that i was told why fair trade is stupid, humanitarian aid generally doesn't work, and how terrible obama is, was the longest conversation i have ever had with my father. we haven't spoken much since. my mom completely freaked out and was a nervous wreck all summer, until recently. tom also disagreed with how i was choosing to spend my time. tracey unconditionally supported me. it feels so suprisingly terrible to know that your parents don't support you. but more than the nicaragua issue, the lack of communication skills we possesed with one another became the most obvious. i feel only with time will things improve. i think it's just hard for my parents to let go, and for me to stay.
tonight we were supposed to go out to eat to celebrate my mom's birthday. my dad didn't want to go so, we didn't. tracey and i cooked the sweet potato enchiladas that tarrah so kindly made for us and my mom really liked them. she said she enjoyed it more than going out to eat, and i think she was sincere. after dinner we went on a walk to the square, in the rain, and tracey and i splashed through every puddle. it was the first time all summer that my mom and i could really speak with each other and not hurt. it was fun, and i'm glad to have had the night before i leave for a while.
cooper looks so different walking through the streets in the rain at sunset. it's so beautiful. i feel that there is a town underneath it all that is truly amazing.
i've been reading 'blood of brothers' by stephen kinzer and it is the best history book i've ever read. if you could call it that. he was a reporter in nicaragua during the revolution in the 70's and the 80's and his writing is just terrific. reading about was and so much political corruption really makes me appreciate the united states, despite all of it's flaws. i am so lucky to live here, and so thankful.
i'm leaving on wednesday for nicaragua to meet some amazing people, and i can't wait. lubbock comes the day after i return and i am so so so excited to begin a new year, in a new place, with a new attitude, with glaura, ty, tracey, old and new friends at tech in our happy little commune.
oh how i love the rain.
A river flows in you
My cousin Michael has been playing piano a lot for us lately. He doesn't really mess with any of the classical works. His taste is more in Broadway. And, occasionally, Disney. He is in 8th grade, and has been playing for years. We used to play together, back when I played piano. I never really got beyond My Heart Will Go On, and Cannon in D. He has by far surpassed me. And he can sing.
In February, when Terri and I came up to DC for Powershift, my Nana, Pap, and Michael came down to see us. While he was there he played Colors of the Wind. Terri really liked it, and I remember her telling me something to the effect that you could really hear his soul in it, and it didn't matter if he sounded really that good or not.
So I had him play Colors of the Wind this time...and I recorded it and will post it on here later.
But for now he has been working on River Flows In You by Yiruma.
It is beautiful.
I'm posting a link to Yiruma's myspace: http://www.myspace.com/yiruma.
It's beautiful.
One of those songs that really grips your attention, and sends a flurry of images racing through your mind. One of those wordless songs in which you can really hear the story.
it is so beautiful outside
but really this whole outside idea is strange. the world is so beautiful.
Upward over the mountain
Sorry that I am using this blog as my play ground. I just really like having all of these resources available at my finger tips, and I want to use them.
At the recommendation of Shayna, I have started reading Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
I am about 3 pages in. But the book opens with describing the K2 mountain.
Having taken only two geography classes in my life, I had no idea what the K2 mo
untain was. So I googled it and found some really stunning pictures that I am going to share with everyone.
This one I found at: http://www.k2news.com/dimages/k20207.jpg
This one I found at: http://www.rankopedia.com/CandidatePix/33973.gif
K2 is a mountain in Pakistan's Karakoram and is the second highest mountain in the world.
Please share any stories you might have about this mountain.
We are going to go hiking at:
1. Paladoro Canyon
2. Caprock Canyon
3. Big Bend National Park
Please add to/edit the list.
Things I Wanted to Tell Terri but Did Not Because I Forgot
1. Last night my Pap was telling us that he was reading this book, and got half way through when he discovered the story ended and entirely different story began in the middle. He said "I was so mad I could have crapped."
2. I found four oak leaves beneath a tree in my grandparent's backyard, and didn't really pay much attention to them, until I held them to the light and they were so so so pretty! I had never really noticed leaves before, but they have so many veins and pathways running through them. It reminded me of finger prints.
3. My Uncle and Aunt have Go Lean Crunch Cereal, so I am probably going to fart all day long.
must...
Very quickly the summer is coming to an end! Only 3 weeks until I leave for Nicaragua and if all goes according to plan, I hope to leave for Lubbock the day after I get back.
So, I must get very organized, be positive, and enjoy being alive.
Also... lol at Greenpeace.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/07/greenpeace_says_g8_didnt_do_en.html
I have one more very very good article:
http://www.vday.org/node/1712
My thoughts are scattered after reading it and hard to articulate. The one story that sticks out in my mind is the man's. I am reading these articles because I need more stories and thoughts like this for a story I am going to write as my honors thesis. But where do you even start?
I don't have a computer at the moment that is functioning (Firefox is crashing on Mu) so until the computer that is not yet named comes in on Friday, I am going to post a list of websites that I want to add to my bookmarks here. Sorry that I am using the blog as storage space.
This would go under:
The Seva Movement-General Goodwill:
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/issues/community-finance/what-oxfam-is-doing
ALSO this is something we can all do. According to a study conducted by the UN, 1 BILLION people are starving. I don't think that we can comprehend this number, or really, what is means to be starving. BUT I am looking around at Oxfam (and am really really impressed by their work) and found something that we can do to help. Right now Obama is at a G8 summit, and you can send him an e-mail to urge him to make this global problem a priority.
Here is the link:
https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1025&autologin=true
Mostly what I was impressed about was Oxfam's strategies for helping to combat hunger. Their approach sounds a lot different and less preachy than some of the other e-mails I have sent to our elected officials.
Also I just removed myself from the Save Darfur e-mailing list.
sad.
That is all for now.
if you are in chicago this summer
I am looking into finding sustainable businesses in Chicago, Pittsburgh, and DC for when I travel this summer. I figure that there are still some things we need for our apartment, and while I am there, I should take advantage of the local, eco-friendly businesses that Lubbock doesn't have (now...maybe we will one day)
SO if you need some linksys:
Chicago
Green Genes
http://www.green-genes.com/about.html
From what I have gathered, this store is an eco-friendly boutique for children. They produce less than two bags of garbage a month.
Green Heart
This one looks to be more generalized: http://www.greenheartshop.org/t-gh_aboutus.aspx
This is a little about them:
What is Eco-Fair Trade? Greenheart follows the guiding principles of "Fair Trade". Fair Trade supports sustainable community development by ensuring that the artisans making the products are paid fair living wages. "Eco" signifies that our products are made using the most sustainable materials and methods whenever possible. At Greenheart, we are both "Fair to producers, and good to the Earth".
This shop seems really cool! They have "survival Spanish for travelers" classes!
so cool!
Sweet Dreams Organic Bakery & Cafe
http://sweetdreamsorganicbakery.com/index.html
Family owned business that makes everything from scratch and ALL of their products contain only organic ingredients. This is pretty far away from my grandma's house...but it looks so freaking good.
The Fair Trader
http://www.thefairtraderchicago.com/Products.html
More fair trade products!
And some fair trade coffee houses:
http://www.bluemaxcoffee.com/
Flying Saucer Cafe
Swim Cafe
Third World Cafe
But now I have an appointment with the study abroad office. Ciao.
More Fair Trade products!
books!
I have failed on the front of this blog being a place to talk about the books we have read. I read a couple of books in Costa Rica, and only talked about one of them! Failure!
But I read one that was so amazing that I want to write about it now.
It was...The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
The book was recommended to me by Shayna. This summer has been really awesome in that I have been exchanging book lists with people and been getting a lot of really good suggestions. SO to anyone who reads this blog, do you have a book list? If so PLEASE email it to me: laurinskii@gmail.com and I will post it on our blog for everyone to share. Or just put it as a comment and I will post it on the front page.
I think that books make some of the best gifts, and I am looking for materials to read for my 3 week family vacation that is coming up.
But back to Arundhati Roy. I would read her wikipedia page, because she is a rather amazing person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy. She appears to be a writer, activist, essayist, actress, screenplay writer, architect, etc. Mostly look at her activism section. Pretty inspiring.
But back to the book! The book is amazing. Roy is very very clever with grammar, capitalization, and sentence structure. The book spans about 20 years, but really focuses on the events of a week. It doesn't follow a clear time line, so at first it is hard to follow, but when you get into it, you have to go back and read the beginning to see just what you missed.
It is focuses around the lives of two twins (one boy, one girl), their single mother, divorced uncle, cruel great-aunt, and blind grandmother, and the Uncle's ex-wife and daughter coming for a visit. Sounds simple, but more it is about "the Love Laws. That lay down who should be loved. And how. And how much." It is about the caste system in India, and the Untouchables, and there are two love stories intertwined. Beautiful beautiful beautiful book.
Lol I bet our book reviews are never very in depth. But I don't want to give too much away...because I really want everyone who reads this blog to read this book.
A quote to leave you with: (it is after the twins have come to Velutha pretending to be old ladies dressed in Saris)
"It is after all so easy to shatter a story. To break a chain of thought. To ruin a fragment of a dream being carried around carefully like a piece of porcelain. To let it be, to travel with it, as Velutha did, is much the harder thing to do."
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