Ready

As a student, one of the things I do for my education is read books that infuriate me because my education is occurring at a moment when things are happening. One of those works this week included a claim that ascribing naivety to the writers of the bible is not morally or epistemically problematic because “naivety is not falsehood.” 

This acclaimed scholar went on to argue that this world, even at its most destructive and terrible and hurtful, is part of God’s plan, and that we will achieve wisdom when we cease to question the grave injustices of the world and simply accept that holy plan, that will of the Almighty – accept a faithful naivety for ourselves.

I don’t blame him for the desire to return to naivety. It has been a dark week for my sense of social justice. You see, I keep learning that the causes I believe in are not such bright stars as I thought, but streaked with injustice. I’ve been a vegetarian, a peace protester, an anti-sweatshop mover, a feminist, a union worker, an environmentalist, a racial justice leader, an ecumenist, and a gay rights advocate. 

I have thrown myself into each of those causes with a hunger for justice and perhaps a bit of naivety. And each and every time I have learned that my cause was not without moral ambiguity. Sweatshop-free clothes turn out to be made of sweatshop cloth worn over exploited sexuality. Foreign and economic policy are complex and rarely two-sided. Food choices are tinged with privilege and environmental causes are acted out on women’s bodies. Feminists and the mainstream gay rights movement, it turns out, are not so good at racial justice or dismantling a hurtful gender binary. Coalition-building sometimes means draping a cloth over that which is too different about us and you.

A part of me misses the naivety. I am prematurely and anachronistically nostalgic for my hippie youth. Even more than being nostalgic for the past, though, I am nostalgic for the future.

When I say, “How come it’s okay for women to be treated this way?” and they say, “It’s so much better than it used to be,” I’m ready for it to be so much better than it is.

When I say, “Why is the fight for gay marriage, let alone workplace non-discrimination and adoption and partner violence protections, this hard?” and they say, “It’s so much better than it was just a short time ago,” I’m ready for it to be a short time from now.

When I say, “How can the church tolerate this injustice?” and they say, “But we have our unity,” I cannot just pray through the waiting for a time when we unify ourselves around justice.

When I say, “How can children continue to go hungry in a world with so much food and so much power?” and they say, “We’re meeting ourgoals,” I wonder if what goals we set that this is meeting them, and I am ready for reality to exceed our dreams.

When I say, “Why do we permit a system that incarcerates more men of color than it educates?” and they say, “Slavery only ended 150 years ago,” I am ready for us to be free of the slavery we are enacting on our sisters and brothers right now.

I am ready. Maybe that is naivety. Maybe I will come to see how much more complex all of it is and how my privilege blinds me from the injustices to which I contribute. I hope, when that day comes, I can find a way to lessen the suffering a bit and make my corner of the world, my life, a bit more just, and maybe the future will come.

God am I ready.

Apoc-Election 2012

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, young America. You feel that the world has done you wrong because you’re unemployed and you can’t pay off your college debts. You shout with the ninety-nine percent on your way out of Starbucks about the greed of corporations and/or the liberal elite. You talk with your friends in hushed tones about the foolishness of social movements or the greed of immigrants over a bottle of beer made in Mexico by a unionized company. You aren’t going to vote because there’s nobody worth your time; you don’t write to Congress because you don’t want to be part of a corrupt system.

Guess what, 18-to-30 demographic. If your politics are about you, you’re doing it wrong. Treat your college education like the privilege it is and use it to analyze the barrage of information you receive every day. Put your energy into raising money for scholarship funds for those for whom higher education isn’t a given next step, who didn’t party with you in college because their booze money went to help pay their parents’ bills. If you’re unemployed and living in your parents’ basement, drag yourself away from the blogosphere and volunteer for an organization that is doing good for the world. You may be the 99% in the U.S., but by virtue of living here, you are the 1% of the global population. The hungry/sick/trafficked/abused/pick-your-cause are left in the great wake of your privilege, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

There is a lot in this country to be mad about, twenty-somethings. We are a generation whose nature is idealism, and the frightening state of national and international politics chip away at that resolve. I’m jaded too; the $5 given to each of a dozen causes I cared about have resulted in a flurry of emails that hit my inbox every week telling me about the refugee/sick child/poor family/poached whale that will be helped if I dig a little deeper, and I’ve become inured. The news is a flurry of soundbites from policymakers who have forgotten the difference between principles and ideology. The bickering is grating – I’d rather listen to the new Glee soundtrack too. But it will never go away until we find our voice.

That is the reason to bother. For the first time in decades, 20-somethings voted in 2008, and they voted hard. Politicians began to wake up to the thought that allowing retirees to control their agenda wouldn’t work forever. We got expanded healthcare coverage, (briefly) extended Pell grants, and an end to segregation on the basis of sexuality for our country’s largest employer. Don’t let them get away with retrenching the gains that we – and frankly, folks smarter and more dedicated than we – have gained. Call the national campaign committee of your party and ask how you can organize the vote, or hell, run for office. You matter, as much as you fear and hope. Live up to it.

Eagles

(Note to the children in the audience. This blog post uses a word derived most likely from a Swedish word meaning to strike or push. If this is a problem for your interwebz censors, stop reading.)

I am pretentious as hell. (I don't know if you noticed with my last post on gerunds.) I walk around using phrases like "spring term" and "to wit" because I read the Chronicles of Narnia too many times as a child and apparently think I'm an upper-crust British lass.

That said, there are brief (but all-too-frequent) moments when I grow perversely, irrationally irate and full of patriotic fervor. These are the moments when some very nice person full of personhood and valuable values walks down the street (or, say, the terminal in the Honolulu Airport), minding his/her/zer own business, imbued with different cultural norms than those with which I was raised. As a result, this person walks down the left side of the street. My immediate reaction, particularly upon encountering this person face-to-face at all-too-little distance, is to mentally shout, "THIS IS AMURRICA, GARDANGIT!"

BALD EAGLE!

AMERICAN CULTURAL HEGEMONY!

For the love of all that is holy, walk down the right -- both right-hand and correct -- side of whatever throughway you are traveling.

Then I calm down and realize that this is foolish. After all, these persons are simply locomoting to someplace just as important as I, and why should my cultural spacial norms prevail? CUZ THIS IS 'MURRICA! Okay, whoo, I calmed down.

Enough to wonder: Do you suppose that the eagle is embarrassed with that name?

 "The correct term is not bald. It's receding hairline. Asshole."

On that same subject, the eagle is also probably pretty pissed about being exploited in every advertising item sent out by the Tea Party EVER ( "I AM THE TEA PARTY." ).

"HEY your people want to cut environmental funding - which has kept me alive - ENTIRELY. So fuck you, you patriotic fucks. I don't even LIKE tea."

Fun with Gerunds!

Welcome to an interactive (kind of) grammar lesson.

A gerund is a verb, ending in -ing, used as a noun.

For example,

"Playing the clarinet is fun." Playing is the noun in that sentence.

"I enjoy eating peanut butter." Eating is the primary object noun in that sentence.

"Mouth-breathing and close talking are obnoxious." Mouth-breathing and talking are the nouns in that sentence.

Therefore, when you modify the sentence with the person doing it, you have to use the possessive, as in,
 "His playing the clarinet is fun for him!" or
"My eating peanut butter makes me very happy," or
"Your mouth-breathing and close talking make me
want to both hold your lips closed and
run away with equal fervency."

Most people, however, string their nouns together willy nilly.

"You mouth breathing is annoying." ALL KINDS OF NOUNS
"Him playing the violin is loud." WHAT THE HELL IS HIM PLAYING? What sort of playing is "him"? I hope it's nice, since it's so loud.

So when someone very kindly says, "I appreciate you noticing," that's like saying, "I like you essay," or "You late arrival is annoying."

You might say to me, "Thank you, Katherine. I appreciate you teaching me about gerunds."

And here I would imagine the little stick with the apple on the end that all my elementary school teachers had for some reason, and I would imagine whacking you with it.

You appreciate MY teaching you about gerunds.

The teaching is mine.

Twit Face

Today's front page revelation from D.C.'s preeminent political newspaper, Politico, is that lobbyists are not down with being up on their social media. The article suggests that it's strange for this center of national power to have so little presence on the world's most popular form of media, the constant barage of updates from Facebook and Twitter. As the author puts it,

About half of the year's top-grossing lobby shops have no discernible presence on either Facebook or Twitter, the nation's two most popular social-media sites, a POLITICO analysis* indicates. Most of the rest have two- or three-figure followings that would embarrass a not-particularly-popular ninth-grader. 

It isn't surprising, given the audience for Politico (I picked up mine at my friendly local Starbucks, nestled comfortably between K Street and the IMF, whilst ordering a Dirty Hipster) that the artcile focused on the loss to public relations specialists of a potential power source at the public square that is the interwebz. What is surprising is that message's provenance in Dave Levinthal, a former Communications Director at the Center for Responsive Politics, which claims its mission as "to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more transparent and responsive government."

The fact lobbyists don't yet understand the Twitterz while elected officials have begun to is a positive sign that there is an area of public life untouched by the enormous quantities of money spent shaping public policy. However, it also means that the Facebook-friendless lobbyists are still doing their work behind closed doors, in the computer-free smoke-filled back rooms of yore. That is the true concern: not the impact that Farragut North is failing to make 140 characters at a time on an iPhone-glued electorate, but the impact they continue to make outside the scrutiny of a public that, to its credit, is a greater fan of the President than of Katy Perry.

So pursue your right to e-rage, or better yet, engage in a reasoned, populist discourse, and Tweet Dave.

-----

* I understand "POLITICO analysis" to mean "an intern counted." I do, however, want to credit Dave and his copy editor for their excellent hyphen usage.

We Reuned.

There is nothing to make one feel tan and svelte like spending a weekend at the Mall of America, where my maternal family celebrated a reunion.  However, I learned there an important lesson about weight on log flumes.  My brother-in-law went with my nephew, and said I would get just a splash, "Like when you spill water on yourself."  (Yes, this happens more often than I am comfortable admitting.)  However, when my brother-in-law, my sister, my nephew, and I went on the log flume together, we got SOAKED.  Well, let me clarify: I got soaked.  If my sister and brother-in-law got a Methodist baptism, my nephew and I got the full on, Disciples of Christ, believer's dunking.  In the name of the Creator, the Christ, and the Holy SPIRIT of consumerism.  Fortunately, we were in a mall.  So I squished over to Old Navy and bought myself a dry outfit; I'd been wanting a pair of goucho pants anyway.

Lovegood

It is weird that people are dressing up to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.  There is, in fact, something definitively creepy about being in one’s mid-twenties and putting on a schoolgirl costume to go see a children’s movie.  However, there is a story behind that utter strangeness for every one of those weirdos.

I have sharply colored memories of my mother handing me the first Harry Potter book as I was finishing sixth grade, just after I turned twelve.  During middle school, that universally awful period through which we all apparently must suffer to become functioning adults,  I followed a bereft tween as he fought against bullying peers and a bullying teacher and the bullying world and found himself able to meet the challenge with a flick of the wand, and found myself with him.  Two days later, when I had devoured the first book, my mother brought home the second, picked up on another lunch hour run to Barnes and Noble, a boon to a child in the shadows of an accomplished, beautiful social butterfly of a sister graduating from high school.  She handed it over with a warning that she would not be buying me a thirty dollar book every week for the rest of the summer.

No matter – by the time I scorched through that second book, and then read them both again, I was ready the following year to buy the third book with my own money on the day it came out.  The books came out more or less once a year, and so as Harry aged, as his emotional maturity grew and his way of understanding the world, its beauty and its evils, became more complex, so did I grow with him.

There are tens of millions of kids – nerds and cool kids alike – who have found a piece of themselves in this series, and at least thousands of us who lived along with Harry, starting at age 11 and coming out at the end, somehow as adults.  Those of us who were born 24 years ago grew up with Harry, and we are coming of age with him.  So I will walk to the theater this evening with my fellow nerds, those of us who could not join the throngs of teenagers at last night’s midnight showing because we had to be at work at 8 this morning.  I will don my Hogwarts uniform (Without telling him why, I asked my housemate if he had a stripey tie I could borrow.  Without blinking, he asked, "What House are you representing?"), to relish the whimsy of being young and alive but also to be representative of a million iconoclasts.  We are not a generation that insists on living in a fantasy, refusing to acknowledge the real world; we are the generation that formed a social justice movement using the inspiration of fantasy to fight real-world evil.  We are not failing to grow up; we have just been waiting for our hero to grow up with us.

An Anti-Sorkin Polemic

Most women, given the opportunity, will blame their misguided notions of romance on the Disney movies, which taught them to look for a prince they would know from their dreams and his white horse.  They may too lay fault with those winsome leading ladies with surnames that sound like men's first names (Roberts or Ryan) or means of inducing impotence (Bullock or Witherspoon).  These women showed us a world in which beautiful men with two first names are unassuming and principled purveyors of the written word.


These romps through fantasy and folly are not my downfall, however.  The devious, dastardly screenwriter responsible for my epically unrealistic expectations of the dating scene is none other than Aaron Sorkin.  Not only does he play to my secret desire to cause political scandal and shake up American politics with my romantic endeavors, he lures me in with rapid-fire, vocabulary-intense dialogue that makes me think what I'm watching is deeply thoughtful and high-minded.  Philosophical even.


But Aaron pulls the same tricks as the Nora Ephrons of the world, on an even grander scale.  She made you want a witty New Yorker who just needed the love of a good woman?  He made me want a man who would risk his journalistic and political career because he found my insults to his character and competence endearing.  A man who would send me absurd tokens of his love at work.  A man who would come to see the brilliance of my well-justified political opinion and stand up for me and for love before a rapt American populace to defend truth, honor, justice, and reduced fossil fuel emissions.  He's humble and eager to please in bed and controls the 82nd Airborne (though he is loathe to use violence).


If you've got five minutes, watch this speech, and tell me you don't want to get in his presidential pants.





And keep a look out for that man for me.  I'm right here in DC, and my six home states and many favorite foods and flowers make me very convenient to woo.  Just send over some gerber daisies with that nice Marine regiment you've got and it's a date.

Civil Rights

I work in an office that ensures the fulfillment of people's civil rights.  I work with a lot of people who have been victims of discrimination because of their skin color or disability or accent.

I also spend a lot of time participating in conversations punctuated with, "It's okay, I can say that.  I work for civil rights."

This was one such conversation:

Colleague:  "I don't think I'd want a guide dog.  Or any non-human guide really.  I mean, I love my cat, but I don't want her to lead me to WalMart."

In my head:

As our conversation meandered onto other topics, we got to talking about compost worms.  (Yes, I am a hippie, and I compost in my backyard.)  I was extolling the virtues of worms and their ability to divide and  reproduce to a sustainable level in proportion to the food available.  Sharing my wonder, she cried, "Maybe worms should be the guides!"

In case you can't tell, that's a guide worm.

The conversation continued away from this topic, thankfully, to a discussion of minority communities.  In a final moment of truly fine political correctness, she ejaculated, "I just don't get some communities.  Like, for example..."  With a furtive glance to see if anyone was listening, she stage-whispered, "Deaf people!"

I'm not really sure what her point was going to be, as I dissolved into paroxysms of laughter at her great care to make sure that the deaf weren't listening to her comment.

Uniform Reporting

Our nation's capital does not publish statistics on sexual assaults committed inside the District.

I came across this fact while trying to provide some context for the women around the country who are participating in this year's V-Day campaign to end violence against women.  Hundreds of women are practicing their moans and mustering the dignity required to perform about hair and clitorises and genocide, and there are places in the Vagina Monologues script to insert local and current statistics about rape and sexual assault.  It was my hope to try and find estimates of total sexual assault survivors in the District of Columbia and to note the number of sexual assaults counted by DC police.

The national agency that provides crime statistics, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics uses a widely accepted definition of sexual assault that includes forced sex and other kinds of unwanted sexual contact, which they then parse down into legal subcategories.  DC's Metro Police Department, however, uses the FBI's Universal Crime Reporting guidelines, which only include "forcible rape,"  or "the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will."

This "forcible rape" definition is the one some members of Congress want to use in defining how federal tax dollars can be spent on abortions.  My first question on hearing this proposal was, "What the hell is rape if it's not forcible?"  The answer to that question is a definition that excludes date rape, statutory rape, alcohol-related rape, sexual assault against men, and incest in which the woman was not beaten.  Leaving aside the abortion and federal funding debates for a moment (though if you have not seen it, you should watch the Daily Show's fantastic commentary on the proposal), how is this 1930s definition of rape (the one used verbatim in To Kill a Mockingbird) useful in preventing sexual violence?

On an empowering note, there are ways you can help stop sexual assault and violence against women.  Attend your local production of the Vagina Monologues.  If you're in our nation's beautiful (non-sex-crime-reporting) capital, come out to see V-Day DC's production, in which I will be a cast member.  Volunteer at your local rape crisis center or an international agency that works on women's issues.  And talk to your children/nieces/nephews/students/friends about consent, so that sexual assault survivors will be fewer and more likely to report the crimes against them.

(And for an interesting article about talking to kids that I couldn't tie into this post, check out Jim Wallis's blog.)

For Loco

The top news story of my day:   Denver's government employees are better at utilizing their work time effectively than I.

The Denver International Airport has a state-of-the-art rig that is used for putting out flaming planes, but has more recently been used to fan the flames of workplace romance.

"It's supposed to be used for plane crashes, NOT as a pleasure palace."  Quality journalistic commentary right there, my friends.

This report has left me with a couple of questions:

1.  Where do Denver's city employees get their ethics training?  Could I participate in that one instead of the talking heads videos to which I'm subjected to make me ethical?

The standard we were taught in my employee ethics training was that office facilities could be used for "ad minimus" personal use.  Is that the reason that the tapes show them "undressing and engaging in sex from 3:15pm to 3:26pm"?  Eleven minutes strikes me as less than the minimum, but perhaps that was a compromise they were willing to strike to maintain a hold on their dignity as civil servants.

2.  Essentially these folks were having sex in a big, shiny trailer.  Why is everyone so shocked that she was impressed with his double-wide?  If the rest of the city officials were from the south side of Indianapolis, they would have understood.

3.  The airport spokesman's comment was, "We took immediate action. We're not going to stand for that kind of behavior at the airport."

Unless it's by the TSA, in which case it's fine.

Foggy Bottom

That name still makes me giggle a little every time.

I am now living in Foggy Bottom, D.C., officially. When my airport shuttle driver drove over the hill from Maryland and I saw the top of the Washington Monument and the Capitol Dome in the distance, I nearly yelped with excitement. It's real! DC is a real place! It's not the Shangrila or El Dorado for policy nerds! I quivered down to my internet-enabled cell phone and grownup faux-leather padfolio.

Tonight: Dinner Cruise on the Potomac.
Tomorrow: Meeting Clarence Thomas (yes, that Clarence Thomas)

A Bowl Full of Juice

So I failed to journal for the first two days of fasting, but I will make it up to you, I promise.

The first day went fine; I started with a healthy and fiber-full breakfast and then moved onto water and a bit of juice for the rest of the day. I was hungry, but I imagine it was mainly psychological pain at the prospect of continuing to fast for six more days. Also, my roommate, who is also fasting, kept talking all day about how hungry she was.

Sunday, I woke up feeling great, sure I would be fine to continue fasting as long as need be, and it all went downhill from there. I savored my communion wafer in church; never has that crunchy bit of cardboard tasted so good. For the afternoon, I worked on papers, my brain eating away at my glucose stores until I was ready to kill someone for a tuna melt. I was feeling none of the real effects of fasting, but my body was so conditioned for food that I was just hungry. After my 4pm DOC meeting, friends and fasters came over for what is usually Sunday Night Dinner, but was instead Sunday Night No-Dinner. Then we went to see Charlie Bartlett, which was not an exceptionally good movie, but some of the acting was phenomenal, and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, which I needed. No insomnia so far, but we'll see how it goes.

Today was the beginning of my body beginning to eat itself. I woke up feeling okay, not too hungry, but I began to notice the small signs of my body breaking down: my computer sitting on my thighs triggered the sensation of soreness as though I had just run upstairs, and I started feeling a little light and floaty. I wasn't feeling anything very strong, though, until I was late for class because of a longer-than-expected phone meeting. After hurrying down to my car, up the parking structure, and out to class, I realized that class was beginning in a different room today, so as I ran up those stairs, I stopped in the middle to realize that I was going to die if I kept going. So I stood, and breathed, and went a bit airily to my classroom, where I sat perched on the floor and listened to a woman sing Rumi's poetry in Farsi. My indication that I was not as starving as I could be was that the gentleman sitting across from me was eating an apple, and I realized in a moment of self-awareness that I was still hungrier for him than for the apple. So much for clarity of purpose and sense of self.

Now I am off to have myself an afternoon nap. I came home desperately wanting some vegetable juice, so I heated up to make it taste like tomato soup. I drank it down so fast and licked the bowl that I am now sitting here uncomfortably full with my belt loosened.

I'm full. Of soup.

Feast Today, for Tomorrow We Fast

Today is the day before I begin my fast, my day of preparation. My plan, after class, work, and a practice Truman panel interview, is to head for the grocery store to buy juice, and begin freezing perishables left in our house. I don’t know for sure if everyone in the house will be fasting yet, but since two of them are regularly not home, I feel fairly safe in freezing things that haven’t been used yet, as I feel they can probably use a microwave. Perhaps it will also cut down on the pile of mess that seems to accrete and foment in our kitchen. I may have to get creative when I get to things like spinach and peaches; perhaps some good old-fashioned canning?

As a baseline today, I feel good. I had my standard breakfast of a piece of whole-grain vegan toast and an excess of delicious Skippy Superchunk peanut butter. I am hoping to find someone to steal lunch from, but failing that, today will be a preparatory low-calorie day, as all I have in my bag is a bottle of apple juice and some increasingly un-vegetable-like celery sticks. I think the only listlessness I feel is caused by a lack of sleep, which I’m hoping to remedy by sleeping tomorrow until I cannot humanly sleep anymore.

I still haven’t decided when I will actually begin to fast, because although tonight’s Shabbat dinner would make a delicious last meal, I don’t know that I’m quite ready to commit yet. And falafel would be a rather impressively smelly last thing to have in my stomach.

for peace and dogs

Miércoles el 7 de noviembre

I hung out with people my own age today! Sort of. Rebecca was invited to give a presentation to a class on sustainable development at the United Nations University for Peace in nearby Ciudad Colón, and she invited me along as her interpreter and to talk about my project with the association. I really enjoyed putting "guest lecturer for the UN University for Peace" on my resumé today. It was an adventure, and I was both glad and embarrassed that there was someone else who spoke Spanish in the room, to help me out when I missed things and to notice. It is a really cool place though. In this class of like ten students, there were students from the US, from Argentina, from Costa Rica, a couple from Africa, one of whom is going to bring Rebecca African seeds for her garden, and I don’t remember where else.

Lunch was pasta with pesto, and I really enjoyed eating American-style and watching the very international mix of students and talking to Don Rony, who I think is one of the coolest teachers I have ever met. I’m hoping to get some more information and maybe arrange a visit, both for me and for Katie T., since they have masters in peace and conflict studies and in international and human rights law.

After lunch, we took the U’s bus into Ciudad Colón, where we serendipitously caught a ride with a friend of Rebecca’s into San José. We bought the fabric for the dress Cecilia is making me, looked at shoes, hunted through the souvenir stores, and found the cutest manger scene as a gift for my mom. I wanted to get us ice cream at Pop’s on the way home, but Rebecca wanted to stop in the second hand clothing stores they have here filled with the extra clothes shipped in from American Good Wills, and we ran out of time for ice cream.

This has been a week of weird, weird dreams. In the last seven days, I have dreamed that I lost my virginity at a frat party, that I was a hired escort at a prom, and last night, various dreams involving water and old ladies. Those were probably due to the fact that due to heavy rains and landslides upstream, the usually very beautiful Río Tabarcia that runs past our house overflowed its banks and threatened to come up to the house. I was sitting in my room, sorting through photos, when first I got the warning from Rebecca that I had better unplug my electronics because if lightning struck, it could fry them. I spent a few minutes working from battery, and then was ignoring her warning, when she told me that I should pack a bag of essentials because they were preparing in case they needed to leave because the river had grown so much. This was my first experience actually preparing for an emergency, and I must say it is a worthwhile experience to have to go through one’s things and decide what things you don’t want to lose and what things can be pushed aside. I’d like to say I went with a pair of underwear, a pair of socks, and a light heart, but instead I filled my backpack with things I didn’t want to leave behind: my computer, my mp3 player, my bible, my map of Costa Rica with my journeys marked on it, my new shirt from Nicaragua, my camera, and the hideous number of drugs I need to have with me "just in case." We packed up the Land Rover – turns out I am not the only one; Rebecca brought her new silver shoes – and went to my dad’s aunt’s house across the property to wait.

The river shrunk; it’s back to its normal, wet tumult. I was forced to watch a dubbed episode of Hannah Montana – a Disney show that makes me fear for generations to come – and to converse with a very old woman who wasn’t entirely sure of the geographical difference between South Africa and South America, but who knew when the town was founded and who built the church, but that’s all the harm that came to me. Moreover, one of Rebecca’s friends from her education work, a twenty-something English teacher who lives upriver, called to let us know it was going down there, so we needn’t worry. In the meantime, at Rebecca’s behest, he invited me to the talent show at the church on Saturday. We’ll see whether I manage to make friends with someone about whom I know only what Rebecca has told me: he’s an attractive, brown-skinned, shy, recently-converted Catholic.

Today was much less of an adventure, but still interesting. I went with Rebecca and Nago (my dad’s name is Abednago; it makes me really happy) to one of the schools where she works to help a group of kids paint their outdoor tables. Encountering public education in another country is always an adventure; in Costa Rica, unlike in the US, if you don’t do well in your classes, you don’t move on. In the US, social promotion has led to students entering high school who can’t read. In Costa Rica, the lack thereof means that among this group of fourth- and fifth-graders with "discipline problems," there were several kids over the age of twelve. Maybe it was because we were outside painting, or because the kids respect Rebecca, but I didn’t see any behavioral issues with these kids beyond what is considered very low-grade "acting out" in all the schools I’ve attended. However, I have a dozen pictures of kids covered in green paint; I told them splatter-painted pants were quite the fashion in California, and they were all kinds of pleased with themselves. We ate munchies as lunch, and I stopped at the internet café for a delicious, $1.20 hour-and-a-half connected to the world. The water was icy, but I’ve eaten gallo pinto twice today, so I am pretty happy.

At the three-quarters mark:
Things I have gotten used to: ants in my coffee, cars whizzing by at ridiculous speeds, putting my toilet paper in the trash can instead of the toilet, walking uphill (to some extent), not having internet, the rain.

Things I am still freaked out/bothered by: toilets without seats, damp toilet paper, bugs in my bed, dogs licking my feet, cold showers, the fact that trash cans full of used toilet paper smell bad, being covered from chin to ankle in bug bites, the fact that I know fewer than five Costa Ricans my own age.

Lunes el 29 de octubre
Today was my first day with the goats, and although I really enjoyed it, I am sad about the fact that I can’t get the smell of goat udder off my hands. Also about the fact that I didn’t bathe completely today because I still can’t figure out how to make the shower warmer, and I have drunk ice water warmer than this shower. However, I ate very well today, including my first glass of goat milk (it’s really not as different as you might think) and two different not wholly intentional eatings of animals (delicious grilled chicken at lunch and yucky ham in my sandwich at quasi-dinner). I also went to the meeting of the association of organic producers of which Rebecca (my host mom) and Maritza (the goat lady) are a part. Like most meetings, it was productive and even interesting, but way longer than it needed to be, and I was really tired by the end. And then we got to walk home. In the dark. Over a scary, wet bridge with no railings and an unsure weight limit. And then we stopped at one of the lady’s houses, and I somewhat got over my fear of using the awfully omnipresent toilet-with-no-seat because I really had to pee. This phenomenon is one I haven’t figured out, and don’t really want to ask. (Imagine: "The rest of your house is nice; are you really too poor to afford the toilet seat?")

Sábado el 27 de octubre

I’m not sure how many ants I’ve eaten here inadvertently, but I’m sure it’s several since they live in the sugar and in the dishes. I’ve pulled two out of my coffee so far, and I’m sure I’ve missed some. But it’s okay, more protein, right?

I enjoyed and was exhausted by the tour of the neighborhood that I received from María this morning. Our first stop was the house of the Southern Baptist missionaries from Kentucky. They are extremely nice, and it was very welcome to find a bastion of English (especially twangy English) in the midst of my Spanish speaking, albeit also a bastion of slightly crazy folk. I was invited to all four of the church services they hold during the week, in addition to their other activities. I plan to go at least once, just to see what an evangelical service is like in Costa Rica.
After lunch, a nap, some sitting around, and some watching of an odd movie that I think had very young Edward Norton in it, we visited the house of a young couple in the neighborhood to fulfill the family tradition of giving away a manger scene every year. It was an excellent opportunity to talk about holiday traditions (along with the fact that we had pumpkin at dinner) and to let Rebecca know that I am looking for a manger scene from Costa Rica for my mom.
After dinner, I alternately helped María with her homework and did tongue twisters with her. Then, as I was writing this, she invited me to ice cream, which I never turn down. It was an interesting combination, vanilla and fakey lime and the weird strawberry flavoring they have here, but tasty nonetheless. Then Rebecca and I chatted a bit, discovering that Katie T. is not very far away, a half hour or so, and I could probably get there with the twenty-something English professor who works there in Acosta. What luck if it turns out he’s attractive. Then she invited me to join them in watching some weird end-of-the-world movie, which I just left from because it was psyching me out.

Although I still have the vaguely persistent desire to go home, I think I will be sad to leave this place in just three and a half weeks. I still love this town, and I’m excited to get to see the "town center" of Tabarcia tomorrow.

Viernes el 26 de octubre

Today is my first day at my independent project in Tabarcia, and after nine hours, three of which I spent sleeping, I love it. The outdoor kitchen overlooks the river, Río Tabarcia, and the constant rush of the water sounds like rain and is very relaxing. Everything so far is very tranquil, despite the fact that there are four dogs, one of which (the nicest actually) is the size of a small pony, and a ten-year-old daughter who reminds me of me at her age in that she is starved of playmates by the fact that her brother is almost seven years older, and so we played a horrendously long game of Uno, and I had to turn her down for a game of Life after dinner so that I could go to bed. My host mom is much more the mom I was expecting than Haydee; where Haydee is frenetic and insistent even in her accommodating-ness, Rebecca is easygoing and very kind. We talked for some two or three hours, from the time I got up from my nap until Maria assaulted me for a game before dinner, about the environment and people and racism and traveling and love. The house is not what I expected after the niceness of my house in Curridabat, but I think more like what I was expecting when I came to Costa Rica. I have my own very tiny room where I haven’t figured out quite where to put things, and I am mildly perplexed by the fact that there is no sink in the bathroom. However, the house is comfortable, my pillow is soft, and the dogs don’t lick my feet.

Martes el 23 de octubre

Too long since I’ve written, and lots happened. I pierced my tongue ten days ago, I went to Nicaragua for five days, and I’ve all but chosen my goat project. Nicaragua was an excellent experience, worth the fun bus ride up and the somehow hideously longer and more uncomfortable return trip. We saw immense poverty, but actually not as bad as Tijuana, and amazing efforts at reducing it.

Here I am having a much better day with the world, after a weekend of being tired and grumpy and annoyed. I feel loquacious in Spanish, speaking better and again willing to ask questions to improve. My host mom, a very kind and earnest woman, sometimes just annoys me with her dogmatic and fatalistic world view, and I don’t always do as well as I should letting go her comments about God’s will and the shame of lost purity. But I do find that I learn from her, and I want to be grateful for that anyway, even when, for the thirty-seventh time, she points to my plate and says, "PiZa! PiZita!"

Pins and Needles

jueves el 11 de octubre

It is still weird to me to be writing the date as October. By the time I get used to it it will be November, and then what will I do. There are a few pumpkins out in the vegetable markets, and I saw one costume display, but there is not the usual festivity for Halloween I’m used to, especially from living in Orange, the land of the keeping-up-with-the-Joneses yard displays. I guess that’s good because it means the US hasn’t foisted all of its culture on the rest of the world yet, but I’m realizing that having lacked a real fall for the last several years, I have clung to Halloween and Thanksgiving as my vestiges of celebrating the dark and the harvest even where those things don’t coincide with "autumn."

This week’s challenge is that my insulin pump went on the fritz, so I stayed in Curridabat while the rest of my class travels to Guanacaste, doing the multiple shots thing and trying to figure out a way to get my replacement over international boundaries without needing a dozen governmental forms and paying hundreds of dollars in taxes. I’m actually really enjoying my time to myself; the intense Field Course schedule was beginning to grate and I’m taking pleasure from five days without anything I have to do on a schedule. I’ve been getting up and coming to ICADS anyway, but using the time to procrastinate on Facebook, to read about social change, and to write about immigration. Hopefully it will leave me refreshed and happy for the journey to Nicaragua Monday, which I’m going to take regardless of my pumplessness because I am so excited.

lunes el 8 de octubre

Yesterday was the big election – sí o no al TLC – on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Clearly voting here is more a part of the national consciousness, with all the schools crowded with voters and dozens of campaigners of all ages for both sides at all the polling places. Sí won, much to my sadness, and by the time I worked up the nerve to go chat with the campaigners, they didn’t have any more t-shirts for the neighborhood I live in, "Curridabat dice NO al TLC" with a really cool image that I’m told is the Curridaba for which the neighborhood is named.

Today was mostly good. It started with the for some reason always awkward conversation with my Tico parents over breakfast; my dad has this habit of asking me questions without any context whatsoever. This has the dual effect of making me irritated at the irrelevance and confusing me because I have no context from which to draw meaning out of the Spanish he speaks, frequently quickly and somehow without moving his lips. Then at ICADS I helped Tess deliver "our" presentation on our Nicaraguan immigration project, which was made only slightly awkward because we agreed that she would do the analysis/presentation and I would write the paper, which is great except that I had to try to pretend I had any idea what was in the presentation. Then, being the Katie show, I had to give my presentation on our agroforestry project, which was great until David pointed out that none of it really met his scientific expectations, a result of our being crappy samplers of scientific data and my apparent inability to do math. Then David gave his presentation, and I wished that I had been able to pay attention because I feel like it could have been interesting if I were in a different mood.

After that, I felt like I just desperately needed some peanut butter, so for lunch I bought crackers and a banana and a jar of peanut butter, of which I ate like four tablespoons and then felt much better about life; I think I needed some protein in my life. Then we had the afternoon free, so I facebooked and e-mailed and worked on my application for my fellowship and on my immigration paper that I should be working on now. I also went to the bank to finally get my messed up traveler’s check fixed, which was a fun adventure with ever-crazier professor Matt.

On the way home, we stopped at Pequeno Mundo, and I bought footy pajamas to match the hat I bought for Magnus, my sister's baby, who is confirmedly a boy (as I told her from the beginning). Upon coming home, I discovered that we were to have dinner with Laura and the nietos, and I am very glad I have no children. Valeria is cute enough, but she is ever-present, and Axel gave me the disgusting cough I have, and he is whiny, and I have to lock the door to keep them from walking in on me, and it’s kind of leading to a seething hatred for them, which is not the best thing ever. Also, my fingers smell like bad pizza. I guess the best thing that can be said for the day is that I did a lot; now I think I will do some Spanish reading and try to sleep through the obnoxious children noise.

miércoles el 3 de octubre

I’ve decided that when I get home I will touch people more. I will embrace the tactile part of myself, hold hands with my friends, kiss strangers, and generally fondle anyone who happens to be sitting on my bed or couch. I imagine a sign reading something like, "If you don’t want your personal space violated, find a chair in the corner. If you feel you’re lacking human contact, sit on down." I don’t know how guests will react to this, but so far I think positively.

For now I am listening to the rain and Sam is fiddling about on his guitar.

Bread y Chocolate

Martes el 25 septiembre

So I have decided not to do all the reading for Sociology/Ecology this week. I am discovering that Tess is the only other one who does it, so this will be an experiment to see if I am more or less stupid for not having read it. I think this will leave me more time to do things that I actually care about, like applying for this fellowship program at UC Berkeley next summer. I am really excited about the possibility of getting free room and board and $1000 to study public policy and law and get a free LSAT or GRE course. I have no idea if I have any chance of getting into the program, but they say they’re looking for financially needy students who either come from underrepresented groups or have good experience working in diverse communities. WASP that I am, I am not underrepresented, but I’m hoping that the financially needy and experience with diversity quotients will kick in to my advantage. If nothing else, I think it would be a really good experience to help me figure out if I really want to go to law school. I feel much more productive editing my resumé (it was really exciting, by the way, to change my language skills to "Proficient in French and Spanish") and writing personal statements than I do reading; I think I will skim. Also, I have been rather enjoying this really weird book I borrowed from the ICADS paperback exchange shelf called "The Passion."

We had a substitute in Spanish today, which like in high school was at first was rather frustrating, but turned out to be helpful because we got to spend more time on the presentations we have to give tomorrow – six to eight minutes on an aspect of Costa Rican culture; I am discussing dance, and so I made a poster today of various feet doing the dance steps for tango, merengue, and salsa. I am unduly proud of the thing, it’s so pink and cheery.

Lunes el 24 setiembre

Nuestro viaje ayer fue muy largo, pero con desayuno otra vez en Bread and Chocolate, fue muy bueno. The only awkward moment was when I was talking to my Tico dad about animals I saw in Limon, he was like, "Monos? Pezes? Negros?" (Monkeys? Fish? Black people?) and then chuckled. It’s too bad that for such a nice man he says an awful lot of kind of inappropriate things.

Today was a magically good day. With no classes in the morning, I slept for some twelve hours and loved breakfast. Then I walked to ICADS to use the internet, which was great except that I got there and discovered I had left my power cord at home, so instead of the two or three hours I had planned to use it, I got one. But it was long enough to work on my blogs/Spanish diarios and clear out my e-mail, which was pretty full for it only being a day and a half since I checked it. I then spent an unreasonable amount of time stalking facebook and being annoyed that clearly it is early in the semester, because nobody is spending like five hours a day on facebook procrastinating. Finally I gave up and worked on my oral presentation on Costa Rican dance for Spanish class. That’s Wednesday, which makes me very nervous, but I’m hoping this irritating inclination I have to express myself in Spanglish will make the Spanish flow easily, since we aren’t supposed to read.

I also didn’t mention in my Spanish journal that Saturday night was very interesting for me. We decided to follow Sam in his adventures, which was actually a lot of fun. We met up with a bunch of people, including a guy from San Francisco who seemed like he was going to be a bro, the male equivalent of the California dumb blonde, but who turned out to have traveled all over the world and done a lot of cool stuff with his life. We also hung out with Vic, a really funny Finnish guy who told us about lizard dreams, the result of delaying one’s hangover for several days, and with whom we had fun with interlingual translations. Our waitress and cook were Swedish, and we met up with them later at Jhonny’s, and though I didn’t get to talk much to him, she was really a lot of fun in an infuriatingly gorgeous and worldly sort of way.

This next part is taken from my Spanish journal, so those of you who speak Spanish can see how atrocious my grammar is and those of you who don't can be impressed by my wordliness. Also, my ~s don't seem to work.

Sábado el 22 setiembre

Hay mucho tiempo que no he escrito, pero pasé unos días muy largos y interesantes. El jueves, fuimos en una playa de Punta Uva por la manana. Estaban hublado, pero la temperatura del agua estaba perfecto, no demaciado frío ni calienta como lunes. Habia dos otras personas en toda la playa, entonces teniamos mucho espacio por natar y descansarnos. Las olas estaban muy pequenas, pero estaba bueno por ver unos pezes y animales. Pude ver unos monos en los arboles!

Despues, Mateo y Sam (se llama hoy Samurai por los Bribris) y you fuimos en un restaurante buenisimo sin nadie pero con muy buen comida. Maqteo tuvo un argumento conla propriadora, y ahora no podemos vovler.

Por la tarde, hablamos con una director de una projecto por conservar los bosques. Su opinion fue muy interesante, pero despues de la playa el el sol, tuvi mucha dificultad a permanecer despierta.

Ayer por la manana, fuimos en la finca de Jose Rodriguez. Despues, Mateo estaba muy cascarrabia, un poco como un pequeno nino cansado.

Hoy a sido un día muy bueno. Dormé hasta las ocho y media, y Katie Roja y yo fuimos en un soda se llama Bread and Chocolate. Los huevos con salsa caribena, las papas, y la fruta fueron buenisimo, y el chocolate fue perfecto.

Despues de nuestras conferencias con Mateo y David sobre nuestros proyectos independientos, alquilamos bicicletas para volver en la playa de Punta Uva otra vez. Fue largo y caliente el viaje, pero you estoy muy feliz, si consada y covierta de arena.

Miércoles el 20 setiembre

Lo siento por mi escrito muy pequeno, pero cuando estaba escribiendo en la playa, conoci un hombre se llama Emanual, que me halaba por mucho minutos, y no pude terminar antes de tener que salir. Tambien, ayer fue un día muy largo. Fui mordita para una hormiga zompopa porque no llevaba mis botas porque son muy incomodas. Pero el almuerzo fue delicioso, y nadie mató David.

Hoy, fuimos en el reservo de los Bribris (un grupo de indigenos de las montaZas Talamancas). Damos un paseo largo en la bosque, donde los Bribris manejan los recursos sosteniblemente. Almorzamos sandwiches muy soborosos, y despues hablamos con dos hobres sobre el desarollo y el TLC.

Nada grande me mordió, y no conoci nadie en la playa, pero vise David cuando el llevó una culebra por demonstrarnos sus dientes.

Martes el 18 setiembre

Estoy en la bellisima playa en frente de nuestra casa de Limón, el Hotel Maritza de Puerto Viejo. A mis pies está un perro café y blanca, que me oló y decidó que soy asi bien para ser una campanera. Esta playa es muy protegido por una dota de tierra con muchos palmas y no mucho más, y pues el agua es muy tranquila. Ayer, tan temprano que estuvimous en Puerto Viejo, fuimos en la playa para natar.

Sábado el 15 setiembre

This week was an interesting week because it was very full, which means we had a lot of interesting experiences, and also that it was the week when a couple of people in our group reached their exhaustion, nervous breakdown, yelling at the professors, breaking point. Friday afternoon, everybody was so ready to go out and blow off some steam, and then Friday night when it came time for us to meet up to go out, the two who had been most gung-ho decided to stay in because they were sick with exhaustion. I hope they use this weekend to relax since we leave for the Atlantic coast Monday morning, and a week in close contact with people just on the edge of psychotic explosion will not be much fun.

The cool thing that’s this weekend is the Quinze, the celebration of Costa Rica’s independence. Yesterday, a dozen local fourth graders dressed in traditional clothes came and did traditional dances for us. They were not very good, but they were very cute and very proud. Then we ate really delicious typical food. When we walked home, the three of us stopped by the park in Curridabat where pretty much the whole town showed up to sing the national anthem and see the kid’s fulares, sort of like luminaria on sticks, many of which were very elaborately homemade. After dinner and watching the highschoolers go by our street drumming, Tess, Sarah, and I went to a bar in Curri that was very chill and very fun, and I enjoyed watching a couple of locals dancing on the tiny dance floor.

At the moment Haydee (my Tico mom) is asleep, and I have no idea where Mano (my Tico dad) is, but I’m very content.

La Lingua Pegajosa

Martes el 11 setiembre

Today was a wholly pleasant, and very fast, day. My alarm clock rang too early, but maybe one of these days I won’t feel tired. My shower was hot, and I felt good in my clothes, and I parted my hair according to a dream I had (as strange, I think, as the one in which my sister gave birth to a strawberry plant. The largest and most important strawberry’s name was Magnus.). Then we had gallo pinto (rice and beans) for breakfast, which I love, with eggs and fried cheese, and a piece of bread for me.

Katie took pictures of graffiti while we walked to school, and we had a few (sadly internetless) minutes before class. Matt did the lecture today, about different economic paradigms of development, which was actually really interesting because I love alternative economics. After our break, he sort of ranted about how traditional tourism is killing the environment and itself and thus Costa Rica, and how (his form of) rural community tourism is much, much better. Katie and I enjoyed talking over lunch, my leftover bread and generic nutella and banana, with celery and cream cheese that needed more fat in it. You could say alternately that we processed verbally or gossiped, depending on your perspective. Spanish class was a lot of fun, and I was only frustrated like twice, and once it was because I got something right and the professor heard me wrong. We played parto-de-cuerpo go-fish, and I finally correctly remember cejas (eyebrows) instead of obejas (sheep).

Earl: I missed you a lot in Spanish today because, to practice the progressive tense, we had to list our four most important people and say where they were and what they were doing, and my list was my mom and dad, you, and Katie. Since it was around 3:15 here, 2:15 California, I said that you were either in class or at home, and in either case probably eating an afternoon snack.

Lunes el 10 setiembre

Sunday, I’m sure my family was under the impression that I was sleeping off a tremendous hangover, but no, I was just really rather emotionally exhausted. Taking care of friends is hard work, especially when they don’t want it, and though I try to avoid it in the realization that it can just get worse, sometimes I would rather sleep than try to communicate in a foreign language and culture.Today, though, was better. We had an incredibly relevant lecture on certification systems for agriculture (organic, Fair Trade, etc.) from this really hot (if like forty-something) Belgian man. Then, I lunched with Sarah on warm, freshly baked bread and cheese and bananas with an interesting generic Nutella in the ICADS garden. She is fun, the food was tasty; it was magical. Then we had Spanish, and since it was Monday, it was our next professor, Rolo, who is the funniest yet, without the distracting attractiveness (and obnoxiously-good-smellingness) of Jhonny. Also, Jose gave us this Peruvian tea with eucalyptus flavor and coca extract, so we were all a merry bunch of Spanish-speaking minstrels after the break, during which we watched an episode of the Office.

Topher: I’m listening to All For You. It always makes me think of eating vegan hotdogs on the beach with SPEAK and singing backup for you on guitar. I get the impression our guitar-playing kid doesn’t think I’m very cool, so he gets no backup singing from me.

Sábado el 8 setiembre 2007

So there is this aspect of Latin American culture that makes it acceptable, and seemingly almost required, for men in cars to honk at women in the street. It comes from private vehicles, taxis, and bus drivers, and if their windows are down or there are guys in the back of a truck, they are almost guaranteed to talk to you. I don’t understand this; it doesn’t seem to have any purpose, as I’ve never seen or given any response other than to ignore it, and it doesn’t even appear to me to intensify when I’m dressed attractively or provocatively. However, even though I (in all my ethnocentric cultural bias) don’t get it, it doesn’t really bother me that men whistle and holler at me on the street. What bothers me is that they do it in English.

Am I really so obviously American, even from behind and yards away? I know I must be, but what is it? My walk? My clothes? My hair? I just can’t quite identify it, since there are any number of people here just as white and blond as I, and yet I know I can always identify Americans on the street too, especially if they’re in a group. But when I’m walking to Katie’s house at 7a.m. so that we can all meet up, what identifies me on the street as being someone so obviously alien to the culture that "Hey baby" (or more like, "Haaa-eey, bay-beeeee") will be somehow better than "Hola chica"? It’s a close kin to the indignance I feel in Hawaii when I’m mistaken for a tourist, knowing that in some ways I am an outsider but I am also enough a part of the culture not to be treated as completely foreign.

But that’s okay, I’m working to take things in stride, be easygoing and flexible and open-minded and loose and all that other b.s. they tell study abroad students to be. Yesterday, for example, I was licked by an ox. It was a little traumatizing, I’m not going to lie. Oxen have really big tongues, and apparently I tasted like a sweet vegetarian morsel, because one of them reached out its four-by-nine inch gooey tongue and probed it into my new green tank top. I was vaguely wet and sticky for a good hour or so, but I am hoping that I will get enough mileage in my life out of the sentence, "I got licked by an ox once," to make it worth it.

Today I had more fun with human animals because I got up at the same time I get up for school (quarter to six, although this morning I woke up at 5:30) to go to the Poás Volcano, northwest of where I live in San Jose. It has a big round crater, very different from the one at Hawaii Volcanoes, but with the same eye-watering smell of sulphur. We caught it early enough to see it in daylight, though they say on a clearer day you can see all the way to the Atlantic Coast. There were also an excessive number of American tourists, most in a gigantic group, one of whom had a deep red sunburn the exact shape of a tank top, including a big, scabbing blister. I tried to flirt with one of them (not the sunburnt one) by asking him to take our picture, and endeavor slightly hindered by Sam’s suavery when Kate asked, "Where’s Tess?" and Sam replied, "Fuck Tess." My picture taker, clearly amused, said, "1-2-3, Fuck Tess!" and that was the end of that exchange. Sometimes I really loathe Americans.

Joy: I am listening to Simple. There are no skyscrapers here. But the truck horns play a pretty tune.
Bethany: I saved Katie’s life today. Thought you should know.
Earl: You can get what I estimate to be roughly a forty (it is a big-ass stein) of beer for ¢1000, or about $2. Even you could get drunk cheaply here. Though you would feel very blond and white doing it.
Josh: One of the kids in our group bought a cigarette today (you can still buy just one here) and I am annoyed that I have come to associate that particular form of high with you. I wanted one; I think it’s because I miss you.
Emily: They are very neat here. Everyone closes their cupboard doors all the time; I make my bed every day. I miss you.

Tristes Tigres

Jueves el 6 septiembre 2007
We ate lots and lots of fruit today. Some of it was gustatorially thrilling, but that was not always good, as a picture Sam took of me can attest. The fruit I particularly was given to try, I had to break open, and it was like autopsying an alien’s head. (Unrelatedly, it took me a moment to write that sentence because I had forgotten where the punctuation keys on an American keyboard were.) I pushed my thumbs into its hard, yellowy exterior until it cracked, revealing a layer of what looked like white sponge underneath. Beneath that was the apparently edible part, a goo the texture of sinus infection mucous with big black seeds in it. I have no recollection what it’s called, but I’m willing to bet it’s the fruit to which Melissa Polsenberg, a previous Interterm student at ICADS, refers as an alien brain. Despite that, it was pretty tasty, like passion fruit almost, once I got past the feeling I was sucking on cold, chunky snot.

I’ve also been working on taking more pictures; the landscape here is incredible, with mountains on three sides, and I’m arriving at the point where I don’t feel like I will simultaneously be mugged, be raped by rampant taxi drivers, and fall in an open manhole if I stop to take pictures on the street.

Yesterday was also an interesting challenge, as we spent the first half of the morning looking at bugs. Large, dead ones. Preserved in a substance that smelled rather like the jungle juice at Adelpho parties, only less fruity and more, well, like death. After the centipede slithering through my bathroom a couple of nights ago, it was perversely satisfying to hold a giant (I’m talking half an inch wide and five inches long) crunchy millipede in my tweezers for the purely scientific purpose of examining its legs and what my ecology professor very enthusiastically calls its "chewing parts." I was relatively pleased to find out that the centipedes here a sting similar to the ones in Hawaii (I said very coherently to my host father something like, "there is a very big, um, animal in my bathroom, and they are very bad in Hawaii." He replied, "Yes, here too," before squishing it beneath his shoe.), and not like the ones in Guam and parts of South America that bore through flesh. The second half of the morning brought our interviews on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, here known as the TLC. We six (with Caroline and our professor floating around) stood in the large mall in San Pedro harassing people walking by for their perspectives on the treaty and its potential implications. It was incredibly scary, very trying on my Spanish, and really rewarding that I managed to engage twelve people in conversation in a still fairly foreign language in an hour.

Speaking of language, the preterite is killing me. I loathe, loathe, loathe memorizing vocabulary and conjugation rules. Especially since our book is actually wrong in several places. But today’s linguistic excitement was listening to Sam talking about his first face (carra) dying. He meant his first carro (car), but we spent a good several minutes laughing at him anyway.

Domingo el 26 agosto 2007
So it turns out my Spanish is not as bad as I had thought. Sure, I can only converse in the present tense, and I screw up my agreements all the time, but I seem to communicate about ninety percent of what I want to say and understand about seventy percent of what is actually said to me (much less of what is said around me), and my homestay parents say that I speak Spanish very well and should be in the lots-of-Spanish class when I take my interview tomorrow.

Today we went to church; honestly it wasn’t that much different than the not-knowing-what’s-going-on I felt going to Catholic mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York last spring. After that we had brunch, tasty tasty red beans and rice. (My homestay parents asked after dinner if I was happy here; I lacked the ability and gall to tell them that they are nice and feed me really yummy food, and that’s really enough for me.) Then we went to a farmers market, which was really cool. It is much like the one in Hilo, only about ten times the size. Similar smells though, and similar fruits, although there were papayas literally the size of my head.

Then we met up with my friend Katie (who also goes to Chapman) and her host mother to walk to ICADS. It is a beautiful old house with really lovely gardens; I am excited that I get to spend half my day there every day. We all also met our ecology and sociology professors and read a bunch of stuff they handed out; I’m a little nervous about the science stuff, but so stoked about the traveling we will be doing. I still have no clear idea what to do for my research project, but I guess I’ll figure it out.

Sábado el 25 agosto 2007
Revelation of the day: I like coffee. Costa Rican coffee with sugar and milk is like the richest chocolate milk but better. Which is good, because although I feel like I am communicating pretty well considering I haven’t ever actually studied Spanish, I am making a lot of mistakes and being very confused and I’m sure I sound like an idiot. I try to make up for it by smiling a lot and making friends with the abuelitos, whose names, I think, are Axel and something like Amarilla.
I also discovered that, unlike in Europe, people here eat a big lunch and then eat a small dinner very early. I was slightly expecting the Spanish-style midday snack at five, and so I didn’t eat very much, and snacked on my Goldfish and Luna bars before bed (which will be in a few minutes). So far my host family is incredibly nice; my room is simple but really very comfortable, and I’m going to church in the morning. Hopefully this American Protestant doesn’t make too big an idiot of herself at Costa Rican Catholic mass.

I Am an Angry Dualist

I had no idea I connected so much emotion to socks until I found myself crying about them. I have, in my sock drawer, three pairs of Halloween socks, two pairs of Valentine socks, and a pair of Christmas socks. I also have cat socks and slightly used stripey socks. With the possible exception of one or both of the pairs of socks speckled with pink hearts, all of these were given to me by my grandmother, my dad's mom, the good grandma. She is dying.

I don't understand how such an intelligent, attractive genetic line could have survived such a crappy mixture of diseases. My grandmother, at 77, has survived breast cancer. She is the one who talks about taking food to the old people in her church. She waited in Maine for my bombadeer grandfather to return from the Pacific theater so that they could travel to Texas to find a place away from their families. If the doctors are right, and she has only a few weeks left, I won't be able to go to her funeral because I will be in Costa Rica, learning to speak Spanish and save the world from itself. I am so proud to have inherited her adventure, her wit, and her passion, and so fearful of her diseases, and finding myself attached to her socks.