You catch more flies with honey...

...than you do with vinegar. My mother would always say this. Of course as a little girl I asked her what it meant, and of course she explained how it's much easier to get what you want when you are sweet and kind as opposed to bossy and rude. I remember pondering the all-important question, "Why would anyone want to catch flies?" I discussed this with my brothers and sisters and and we decided that there is no good reason to catch flies other than the fact that it proves you have some serious skills. When I was a child we caught all kinds of creepy-crawlies, most of which we kept in the basement. My mother was quite alright with our strange collection--she even assisted us in finding new creatures-- but she was less than thrilled with the tadpoles. She put her foot down when, upon venturing downstairs one morning, she discovered that the 50 tadpoles living in an old aquarium had sprouted legs and were leaping across the floor. My siblings and I were delighted and we happily (and without permission) dug a pond in our backyard, lined it with trash bags, and filled it with water. A lovely new home for our little froggy friends. I think my mom would have done well to remember another one of her sayings and let the incident "roll like water off a duck's back." :^)

Most of these colorful expressions were passed down from my granny, a native of Mississippi. As in Deep South, pluck your own chicken, slaughter the hog, dirt floor Mississippi. By the time my mother was born, number 10 out of 11 children, her family had moved up north to Wisconsin and my granny shed her southern accent. But behind that clipped Yankee voice was a clever Southern lady. The cooking nearly met a dead end with my mother. She never learned how to cut up a catfish or make fried chicken, or cook up chitlins, or a host of other southern dishes. Whole catfish are scary-looking, raw meat is not attractive and feels gross, and chitlins are, well, chitlins. I haven't shed any tears over our lack of chitlin cuisine. I've already mentioned the fact that I grew up with stir-fry, veggie burgers and soymilk. Somehow, though, collard greens and grits slipped through. And so did a long list of southern expressions, which I'm sure sound strange rolling off of my Yankee tongue.

I was born in Milwaukee, WI, the land of cheese and snow, and we moved to Connecticut when I was not yet two. Wisconsin + Connecticut + all of the Massachusetts side of the family left me with a very neutral, yet decidedly not Southern accent. People always ask me where I'm from--in part because they think I look foreign (Of course, my own mother thinks I look foreign. I'm not sure if people are really suggesting that I look odd. Hmm...) and in part because they cannot place my voice. Once, a woman asked me if I'm British. Ah, a dream come true! I so wish I had a British accent. But alas, I do not. And after all my years in the South (I've lived here for 16 years), I still say "DAL-ton" instead of "Dal'n." Contrary to popular belief, the Southern is in there somewhere and it pops out when I say someone is moving "slower than molasses in the winter time" or I hear of someone in trouble because they were hanging out with the wrong crowd and I can't help but shake my head and knowingly declare that "when you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas."
Then there are times when I question the veracity of a tale and I insist, "tell the truth and shame the devil!"

Moving down South was like culture shock. For the first year or two I could barely understand what people were saying. And why does everyone move sooo sloooow...? And everyone we met wondered why we talked so fast. I still struggle sometimes if I happen to meet a true, deep South kind of person and I know they're probably wondering "What on earth is that little Yankee trying to say?" No worries, my Southern friends. We have common ground. I spend most of my days running around like a chicken with my head cut off and I know to fish or cut bait. You might find me sitting like a bump on a log or barking up the wrong tree. When two of my sisters were little they were like two peas in a pod. And I am often accused of getting too big for my britches. I wallow in self-pity for getting the short end of the stick even though I know better than to beat a dead horse One -up me with some bizarre news and I'll tell you .that takes the cake! Rush me and I'll tell you to hold your horses. I don't tolerate much carrying on and yes, I have put on some ugly clodhoppers when there's work to be done. Okay, so I've made a solemn vow to myself that I would never say something is so good it'll make you slap your mama (I just think that's weird) but hopefully that won't be held against me! And if it is, well, that's no skin off my nose. My goal is, by the time I'm old as dirt and have one foot in the grave, I'll have spread these lovely little sayings around the world :)

fall leaves



photo by Rob McKay http://robmckayphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/fall-leaves-falling-autumn-colors.jpg



i gazed upon

a yellow leaf

twirling in the air

i couldn't help but wonder how it was

suspended

there

no branch to hold it up

disconnected

from a tree

perhaps it hung on spider's silk

free and yet

not free

A word (maybe more) of complaint

I haven't updated this blog in over a month--far too long I think. Quite a bit has happened since then and if I were to write about it all at once you would be reading for an awful long time. Therefore, I shall cover the events and my thoughts of the past few weeks in more manageable bites.

October 13 was the day I dreaded. It was the day four classes were scheduled to begin. Not that I haven't had four classes in one semester before, back when I was in undergrad. However, I had yet to take four classes all at once while in nursing school. Research and Technology = yuck. I never had to take this course before because as a science major it was understood that I would have to use the Internet, write papers, make slide presentations, etc. But no, that does not count at my new school now so here I am, "learning" how to use Microsoft Word, and PowerPoint and search engines.

Then there's U.S. History. I apologize in advance to history lovers but this is not my cup of tea. I know that as an American citizen I should be well-informed about my nation's past and as a friend of mine said "you have to learn history so that you won't repeat it" and so on. It's not that I don't care about it in general. I love to read about about historical characters and events. This may seem morbid, but I am fascinated with the Holocaust and both World Wars in general--but I'll delve into that topic in another post sometime. I love learning abut my family's heritage (and the more I learn, the more I realize how strange it is). I love all these things and yet, the sad truth remains, I have absolutely no interest in presidents, and dates and this law and that speech. The very thought makes me cringe. I tried to recite the list of U.S. presidents a short while ago, just to test my knowledge. I think I was able to name 8. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Carter, Bush (times 2) and Clinton. And there was some debate over whether Grant was a president or a Confederate general. That's tragic.

Of course, I am the girl who couldn't remember if Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1462 or 1492. I've since resolved these perplexing history mysteries, but there are hundreds more which I will never figure out. And I won't lose any sleep over it. Now, literature is quite a different story. I wish I was taking another literature class so I could analyze poems and write stories and read Beowulf and Byron, Poe and Eliot, Hawthorne and Shaw, the Canterbury Tales...Not that I can't read them on my own, but if I must take a class I would much rather it be something I actually enjoy.

Perhaps it is not fair to say that all of the material is dull. I do my homework properly and turn it in on time and occasionally learn something :) One of the issues is that I am in school to become a nurse and uninteresting requirements outside of that take up too much valuable time and brain space. OK, the real issue is that after being in school year round, I am rather burnt out and some things lend themselves well to abuse.

Acrophilia and other extremes.

This picture is originally from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38224278/

Check out this story on two--possibly crazy--men who are planning to make a supersonic jump. Literally. Felix Baumgartner, a 41 yr old Australian and Michel Fournier, a 66 yr old Frenchman are each attempting to be the first to skydive from 120, 000 feet, as in the edge of space, and break the sound barrier on the way down. Personally, I'm rooting for Fournier because he is clearly the underdog with much less funding and support. He's been working towards this feat for about 20 years, 5 times as long as Baumgartner who is backed by Red Bull. Not that I have anything against Baumgartner. Au contrair, anyone who seriously plans to take that kind of risk deserves some kudos. I've leapt off of 50 foot high platforms and fallen backwards out of trees, but all while secured to ropes and a harness. Sure that rather flimsy looking carabiner could break but what are the chances? These guys will have some fancy suits and hi-tech parachutes, but no ropes or harnesses. Pretty much just them and the open air. No one is quite sure what the effects of falling from that height will be. Other people have tried descending from lesser heights and sadly lost their lives. I expect that these supersonic jumpers will black out at some point during the fall--hopefully not at the parachute opening point.

Most of us will never do anything this extreme, but I can understand ( a little) why one would try. I think back to the time when I leapt off of my friends dock into the 30ft deep lake below. Did I mention that I cannot swim? And there were no life guards in site? And the water was quite murky so if I sank like a rock, it's highly unlikely they'd be able to see me? Oh and I was an adult who fully understood cause and effect, (diving into deep water + not knowing how to swim = DROWNING). This is not on nearly the same level as falling through the sound barrier and obviously I didn't drown. My self-preservation skills kicked in and you'd better believe I swam. I even jumped in again. But why did I do it? 1. The common sense section of my brain frequently takes a break 2. Because I was curious to find out what would happen 3. The adrenaline rush is pretty amazing. Plus it makes a great story. People may look at you like you're crazy but deep down I know they are in awe of your daredevilishness and wish above all else that they could be so cool. Maybe. This article in PsychologyToday offers some explanations for why we take risks http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200910/risk.

The research implicates that the drive to take high risks is "hard-wired". In other words. risk-taking may be  be a genetic, biological thing. The average, middle and upper class American lives a relatively safe, and dare I say, dull, life so many people--especially men--engage in risky behaviors like extreme sports to fulfill their thrill-seeking needs. Not that women can't be thrill seekers--many are. The biological truth of it is that women are the ones who bear children and throughout history have invested a majority of their time raising them. Risk taking simply is not conducive to motherhood. In the past, and today in hundreds of communities around the world, men are expected to provide for their families by travelling long distances, hunting for food, and fending off wild animals and violent people. This of course involves a great deal of risk taking. The article notes that men and women living in war-torn or poverty-stricken areas aren't exactly looking to take unnecessary risk; their lives are risky enough already.

Both Baumgartner and Fourtnier have done some extreme stuff in the past so they're certainly not strangers to the adrenaline high. And in many people there's a natural drive to test your limits, to see what you're really made of. Unfortunately, not everyone who finds themselves in a seemingly impossible predicament volunteered for it. I read an interesting book on a related subject, called "Surviving the Extremes: A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance" by Dr. Kenneth Kamler . Kamler is vice president of the Explorer's Club and he was actually part of the tragic 1996 Mt Everest Expedition and treated the survivors. The book details stories of human survival in a variety of extreme environments--the desert, the open seas, the Amazon Jungle. Kamler doesn't overwhelm you with medical jargon, which is nice. I actually mentioned this book in one of my first posts back in March. Well, we'll see who makes history with the first space jump, Mr. Red Bull or the underdog. Either way, it will be super impressive and something I will most likely never, ever try...P.S. I still can't swim.

O blush not so!

Perhaps it is a silly thing to be embarrassed about one's idiosyncrasies. (Isn't that a delicious word?
Id-i-o-syn-cra-sy, noun, : a peculiarity of constitution or temperament; an individualizing characteristic or quality). The truth is, sometimes I am. Embarrassed, I mean. Someone was riding in my car with me and the radio was playing the last station I left it tuned to. It's a station that plays random old songs, and obscure songs, and some mainstream stuff mixed in with some not quite mainstream (which somehow makes it way cooler). After a few moments, the rider asked me "Is this the kind of music you listen to?" The tone wasn't rude, but slightly incredulous. And immediately I was embarrassed and tried to brush it off with "What is this station? I'm not even sure what I left it on. I mean, sometimes I listen to this stuff because, you know the other stations all play the same thing..." I wish I was one of those people who manage to always seem unfazed, but alas, my emotions are forever on display.

One of my friends described my expressions as "so cliche'". At first I wasn't sure whether or not I should take offense to that. Who wants to be cliche'? What he meant was, my facial expressions and even the way I move, are practically textbook examples of what emotions should look like. For example, startle me and I'll jump, and gasp, and clutch at my heart, and give you the classic look of wide-eyed, open-mouthed, surprise. People, particularly children and guys, figure that out quickly and think it's hilarious and are constantly sneaking up behind me. After nearly giving me a heart attack, a friend of mine in college said he would relish my reaction for the rest of his life. Great. And it's the same for anger, sadness, happiness, confusion, disappointment....Not that I know what I look like. I usually don't even realize I'm making a face until someone mentions it. "Omigosh, look at your face! It's sooo extreme!" The truth is, my emotions are pretty extreme. When I'm happy, I'm not just happy I'm OVERJOYED. When I'm sad I'm not just sad, I'm absolutely devastated. When I'm embarrassed, of course I'm utterly mortified. And it all shows up on my face. I have a book all about the human face [The Face: A Natural History by Daniel McNeill]. Well, it's really about more than just the face. The author goes into detail about why we look the way we look, act the way we act, say the things we say. I don't agree with everything in the book, but I do agree with most of the information. According to the author, most researchers agree on five or so basic expressions; anger, surprise, fear, happiness, and sadness. These are recognizable around the world. In fact, babies born deaf and blind have the same facial expressions as anyone else. (Side note: Helen Keller is of course the most well-known deafblind person, but she is certainly not the only one. Check out this website, created by a deafblind man in the UK  A-Z to Deafblindness).

Picking up on my obvious embarrassment, my passenger quickly reassured me that it was okay. Then I felt embarrassed for being embarrassed. It's a vicious cycle. The worst is when I can feel myself blushing. Yes, yes, dark-skinned people can blush. If I was a shade or two darker no one would ever notice...How I envy my chocolate brown friends. I'm not at all pale, but when I blush it's obvious. There's no mistaking that tingling, uncomfortable heat spreading across my face and I find myself praying that no one points it out. When someone does, I just want to run and hide under a table. Actually, I should be putting my red cheeks on display. Blushing has a purpose. When you make a mistake or do something humiliating, that awkward flush literally softens people's feelings toward you. Because blushing is completely involuntary it shows the poor blusher to be sincerely embarrassed. Someone who says something dumb and then blushes is more likely to be forgiven than someone who says the same thing blush-less. This article on why we blush is a good one. My search on the web also led me to a poem by John Keats, Sharing the Apple, better known as "O Blush Not So!" Perfect, don't you think? Ok, so the poem is also a little risque'.

Anyway, to summarize: Idiosyncrasy is a cool word, I'm embarrassed about being embarrassed, blushing is actually socially beneficial, and John Keats was a poet. The end.

How to be

I am on a self-improvement kick. Hm, well maybe I need clarify that. "Self-improvement" has unpleasant connotations of poor self-esteem (which used to plague me and occasionally I relapse) and short-lived cycles of sacrificial dieting (which I never do) and brutal exercise (see comment after sacrificial dieting). What I mean by self-improvement is really a conscious effort to live a productive life. Various events over the course of my almost 25 years of existence--particularly those in recent months--have pushed me to reexamine my goals. I am one of those people who have always had some idea of what they want to do and, being ridiculously stubborn, once I have my mind set on something, I will pursue it until it becomes literally impossible or God tells me no. And usually God tells me no by making whatever I'm trying to do literally impossible. I've already said I'm a restless sort of person and to be doing nothing would be, well, miserable. I'm working toward these big goals that I've had for years and yet it's not enough.

One Sunday, the pastor preached on the difference between being satisfied, dissatisfied, and unsatisfied. I've always thought that to be satisfied was the goal. You know how people say that good Christians should be content, and at peace, and so on. I assumed that meant I must always feel perfectly satisfied and I felt rather guilty about not feeling that way. In fact, it's a chronic condition for me. But the pastor went on to say that being satisfied can be a bad state if it means that you think you've "arrived", that you have become all you want to be, and now are under no obligation to contribute to anything else. I'm sure others figured out long ago that contentment is not the same as ceasing to strive but for me it was a revelation. The American Sign Language sign for "understand" is a closed fist held up beside the forehead, palm facing in, and then you flick the first finger up like a light bulb coming on. I always imagine hearing a loud "ding!" at the same time. Of course, two seconds later, I began to worry. The next point was about dissatisfaction. If I wasn't smugly satisfied, I thought, then I must be dissatisfied. Yuck. I know dissatisfied people. Heck, not too long ago, I was one of those people. Bitter, grumpy, complaining, critical. We are all unhappy with this and that every now and then, but for that to be my general attitude?! I pictured those who fit the description and they are so unpleasant to be around. I pictured myself and thought about how unpleasant it must be to spend time with me when I'm like that. Thankfully, before I sunk into the depths of despair, we moved on to the next point. Unsatisfied. Right. Doesn't that mean the same as dissatisfied? Apparently not. A person can be satisfied or dissatisfied but not unsatisfied. You see, unsatisfied refers more to a need or an expectation that goes unfulfilled, the feeling of needing more (according to the thesaurus and daily writing tips online). It is perfectly alright to be unfulfilled when it leads you to seek more out of life, out of yourself.  When it leads you to seek God's will, and to live up to your full potential. That struck a chord in me. I know I am not satisfied, I have been making a conscious effort for some time not to be dissatisfied, but this whole concept of unsatisfied ...What a novel idea! Ha, well clearly that is what the Apostle Paul was saying when he wrote Philippians 3.

I realize now why working to achieve "big" goals was not enough. I make good grades in school, I'm learning the medical skills, so I could be a competent nurse. I love children, I have spent most of my life working with children, children seem to like me, so I will probably do well in the area of pediatrics. When it comes to traveling, I'm not particular about housing or transportation--the more unusual the better-- and I'm not a picky eater. I get along well with most people, and I'm quite willing to learn a new language, so traveling shouldn't be a problem. If life continues on as it has so far, I'll eventually be what I want to be. But I've recently had to stop and try a new perspective. I can go through the motions and maybe be "successful". However, I realized lately that instead of focusing on what I want to be and do, I need to be contemplating who I want to be. What kind of character do I have now and can I see myself continuing on this way? What about the little things, like how I handle my money, how I organize my time whether or not I clean that blasted room of mine. Those things say alot about me. Am I patient with the little ones in the family? Do I respect my other siblings? Do I respect my mother?  Am I a hypocrite? How often do I make promises that I don't keep...How often do I gossip?? And what about my interests. Do I take the time grow and improve on a personal level? I love to sing, but I rarely sing with people or for people anymore. The violin is my favorite instrument but I've almost convinced myself that I'll never learn  o play. I am interested in martial arts and I was good at it but it's been a while since I've pursued it. I enjoy drawing and painting, but how often do I pick up a brush? I adore the theater, and museums, and dancing but when do I go? And most importantly, what is the quality of my time in prayer or in the Bible. Am I so distracted that I can't even hear God's directions? I know that sometimes I get so caught up in trying to make things work the way I think they should, that I don't recognize how much of a mess I'm making. I just don't want to look back on my life and say "I have no idea who I am?"  When I look at those around me and see the decisions they've made and the consequences--good or bad--it makes me wonder about my own choices and where they will take me and how they will affect those around me. I don't expect to magically transform into Ms. Perfect. I do, however, want to be heading in the right direction.

Nursing school, recycling, and messy rooms

What follows is a terribly mundane very condensed and incomplete update on my life. I don't really delve into the dirty details (for example, the fact that I have thrown several temper tantrums over the past few months) simply because my fingers are tired.

Nursing School:
I'm officially in my 3rd semester of nursing school which deserves a big "Thank You God" because I didn't think I would survive summer. All of the lectures and lab skills and clinical rotations just went right over my head and I felt like the dopiest nursing student ever invented. And then, suddenly, at the end of the 4-months- of-material-condensed-into-9-weeks-of-stress, it all made sense. I told my clinical instructor, "It's finally clicked! Now that the semester is over, I finally get it." Well, better late than never I suppose. Highlight of the summer: I had a patient who hates needles. She was in the hospital because her craniotomy incision had become infected--and a wound infection after surgery is no joke. WARNING: description of a surgery to follow. Read it if you want. A craniotomy is a procedure used to remove a brain tumor. The hair is shaved at and around the incision site and a fairly large section of the skull is removed, exposing the brain. After the tumor is removed, the piece of skull is fit back into place. You can imagine how it would feel to know that you're half bald and the back of your head has an big upside-down horseshoe shaped line of stitches. Well, this patient was incredibly anxious and she'd already had quite enough of IVs, drains, and shots. When I walked in to give her a heparin injection she didn't look too happy. Thankfully we were taught to prepare the injection in the med room and cap the needle so the patients won't see you come strolling in with a long shiny needle; when you're already stressed out and afraid of shots, that inch long needle looks like a sword. My patient sat there cringing and said "Okay, you can do it now." I smiled and said "I'm already done." She looked genuinely surprised. "Oh, good technique! That last nurse came walking in with that huge needle for my heparin and it hurt like crazy!" Ha ha, go me :) Now the fall semester has begun and I'm in Pediatrics/Obstetrics/Psych. Plus I'm taking a silly Research Strategies course (all about using PowerPoint and looking stuff up online. I didn't have to take it at the college I graduated from because I was a science major and you have to use all of those research strategies in class anyway) and U.S. History. I'm pretty sure there aren't enough hours in the day, so sleeping and eating will have to wait until Christmas break. Good news--I'm still on track to graduate May 2011. Hurray!!

original image from  mycampfriends.com/pages/ask_the_camp_nurse/90.php

Recycling:
My little household, consisting of two of my sisters and I, have been recycling and I am working very hard to avoid using plastic grocery bags when shopping. The problem is, I go to the store and leave my cute little tote bags at home. Okay, they're actually not little. They're huge and I'm small. Most of the time I just tell the cashier I don't need a bag and carry my groceries out. Of course, my arms can only hold so much before things start falling all over the place and I end up looking like a one woman circus. I can imagine myself wobbling across the parking lot with red clown shoes and garish clown makeup and poofy rainbow colored hair. Ick. Clowns are scary but I will be one in the name of going green. I'm really quite a klutz anyway. The other day I was skipping gracefully up the stairs, feeling cool and light on my feet, and then I tripped and fell dramatically, very nearly landing on my face. And of course I had an audience. A group of teenage girls and several grown-up ladies all sitting around having a meeting, which I was skipping up the stairs to attend. I am supposed to be a mentor to these girls but I'm afraid I lost some cool points :) I started laughing at myself as soon as I landed. The key to minimizing embarrassment is to laugh first, because that way everyone really is laughing with you. Besides, it's not like you can ignore the fact that I nearly splattered myself across the floor.

Messy Room:
My room is a dreadful mess and it's embarrassing. Maybe it reflects my disordered mind. That sounds bad. I don't have a real disorder aside from being dreadfully unmotivated and easily overwhelmed. Consolation: the rest of my house stays clean. And no I don't have dirty laundry or 3 week old pizza lying about in my room. The papers and books and knickknacks have simply taken over. I'm in the process of getting organized. Really I am.

I could write much much more but I won't. I'm boring myself. My next post will be radical and interesting.

Elsewhere

Sleeping dreams prance lighty thru
                        Whisper thin as air
My daydreams are too full of you


             At night you aren't there...

Someone once asked me: A poem

Someone once asked me "Which do you prefer--the sun or the moon?"

I said the moon.


The question was asked by someone whom I had convinced myself I liked ever so much
And he supposedly liked me ever so much.
But, as these things go, my head eventually cleared and I realized
that I was more enamored with
"the idea of."
I don't see him anymore and I honestly cannot remember most of what we talked about

I do remember the question about the moon.

It was supposed to be an original get-to-know-you kind of question I'm sure

Nothing particularly special

And yet, it struck me.

I thought about it for a moment. Which did I prefer? I pictured both..

The sun. The moon. The moon. The sun.

The sun is bright and seems cheerful enough. I conjured up sparkling images of beaches and waves and paradise islands
And suddenly I felt warm--uncomfortably so.
It is also, I think, loud and relentless and impossible to ignore


The funny thing is, you can't really look at it--I mean the sun.

It is beautiful in an awe-inspiring sort of way but
no one can ever get close to it.

because it would consume them

Perhaps that is why many people have believed the sun to be a god.

I was thinking about the moon last night.

The sky was blue-black and clear and the moon was enormous. It startled me a bit.

A man on the radio was describing his trip to a sacred lake beside a sacred mountain in Tibet.

His voice was rather monotonous and it would have been unbearable if it hadn't been tinged with a hint of an unusual sense of humor.
He said something about the moon in Tibet and I looked up at the moon where I live and I thought about it.


Sometimes the moon seems cold, like a great orb of blinding white ice.

then I imagine winter in Narnia

And other times it is calm and gentle or even sleepy.

As if the moon has actually closed it's eyes and gone to sleep

Suspended in space, completely oblivious to everything but it's

moon dreams.
The idea makes me giggle.


On the nights the moon is red, looming ominously in the sky
I catch my breath and wonder what will happen next.
I stare, then look away, then stare again, fascinated
When the moon is red I think everyone who sees it must feel the weight of the red moon.


Of course, there are nights when it is invisible
and that alone makes you long for it to return.
it's absence
seems strange


I don't really believe in faeries or fauns or any other mythical beings, but

every now and then

I wish that such creatures existed so that I might, sometime, happen upon them dancing and leaping in the moonlight

Like a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I did not give all of these reasons when I was asked.

At the time I simply said

Because the moon is more

Mysterious.

Going Green--an update already?

I wrote about the Korst's year-long Green Garbage Project yesterday. Later that evening, I stopped at an art supply store to buy a new sketch book and drawing pencils/charcoal. The first set of pencils I picked up was quite nice and I almost bought it, then I hesitated when I realized that the plastic it was packaged in had no recycling number. The other set came in a metal tin wrapped in a small piece of cardboard and thin, plastic wrap-- both of which are recyclable. And it was cheaper. "But the first set has so much more! More pencils, more charcoal, more more more!!" I walked around the store clutching it to my chest like a little Gollum. "My precious... My precious!" Okay, I didn't actually say that, but I'm sure the store people were wondering what was wrong with me as I wandered the aisles talking to myself, looking over my shoulders for the go-green police and repeatedly returning to where all of the pencils were hanging, torn between quantity and eco-friendly. Finally, I decided to stop pacing like a crazy woman and look at sketch books for a while. Guess what I found? The perfect book made in the USA of 100% recycled paper with a Sustainable Forestry Initiative label (meaning they don't just recklessly chop down trees). I was elated but I managed to contain myself and not dance down the aisle--I do occasionally dance down aisles. How could I buy such great paper and at the same time purchase plastic waste? Besides, another force was at play here. The North American "more is better" complex. I'm usually on guard against it but I was unwittingly allowing it to influence me. "Well," I reasoned, suddenly seeing things clearly, "The metal tin is convenient and portable, whereas if I bought the other set I would need to find a container to store them in. And how many pencils and charcoal sticks do I really need right now anyway? Not to mention it's cheaper." I happily purchased the smaller set and the fabulous sketch book and went on my merry way to figure drawing class. Anyway, I need to get organized so that I can do this whole green thing properly.

Oscar the Grouch would not like this :)

Yesterday I read an article about Amy and Adam Korst, a couple who reduced their waste so much that after one year, they only had one small box of trash. Trash-Free-for-a-Year.  I was astounded. I hate trash--hate it--and yet I make so much! As a part-time secretary I've thrown away tons of paper and each sheet I watch flutter down into the pit that is the garbage can makes me sad. Over the past couple of years I have managed to rescue some and it sits in stacks in boxes and desk drawers. My youngest brother and sisters recently acquired of those machines that uses shredded bits of old paper to make new sheets plus they're always making paper airplane's and stuff so I will most likely gift them with all of my surplus. But then there's all of the fast food wrappers and junk mail and grocery bags and paper towels...I try to buy things in reusable containers and choose cloth rags over paper towels and I never buy disposable plates or utensils but obviously that's not enough. I live in a house with two of my sisters and we all throw away much more than I'm comfortable with. And when I think of all the food we've wasted I feel even worse. All four years in college I belonged to a student organization that focused on poverty and homelessness and we ran a local soup kitchen. At first, the school would give us untouched pans of cafeteria food for the kitchen but after they signed a contract with an outside company (yuck) giving us leftovers became a legal issue. So the school paid the outside company (yuck) to prepare a main course, while we the organization were responsible for sides and drinks. And guess where all of the untouched extra cafeteria food went. That's right--straight into the garbage. It was depressing. Several days ago, before I read about the Korsts, I was standing in my kitchen making a sandwich and thinking, gosh, imagine how much money we would save if I made bread instead of buying it? And look at all of the plastic packaging this cheese comes in! Then there's the produce--I love fresh fruits and vegetable but I usually buy frozen because it keeps longer. You know, I could freeze them myself or make preserves or learn how to can (which should be called "jarring" instead of "canning" because you don't really put the food in a can. Anyway). I am responsible for managing the household finances--and although I'm far from an expert, I can say that we have yet to be without water or electricity and we are still on good terms with the landlord--so the idea of saving money and reducing waste is quite appealing. The Korsts reused, recycled, composted... Check out their blog for more tips and tricks. http://greengarbageproject.adammathiasdesign.com/ I could, perhaps grow my own vegetables etc. but I won't make any promises about that! The idea of strolling through a carefully tended garden patch, picking tomatoes and pumpkins and peas is very romantic but hardly realistic.  Besides, shopping at the farmer's market would benefit both me and the farmers :) All this talk of canning fruits, baking bread. "It's because she was homeschooled," you might think, dismissively, "and homeschooled girls are like that." Or, perhaps you think I am an earth-loving, tree-embracing, hippie kid. Ok, so my mother was a vegetarian for years and years, which of course means that all of her children were also vegetarians (and to this day, I don't eat very much meat), and yes we did shop at thrift stores or on clearance racks for most of our clothing, books and toys (actually, we still do. I bought a lovely dress last week at a "real" store, on sale for $20, and felt like I was spending a fortune), and yes we recycled diligently when I was a child. Going to college and falling in with the community service, anti-poverty, fair-trade crowd certainly sealed the deal. I'm alright with that :) The Korsts took some pretty extreme measures and I'm not sure I can do everything they did, partly because some of the suggestions could be a bit costly and partly because I anticipate either feeling lazy or being too exhausted at times to be waste cautious. All in all though, this could be very cool...

I did chop down that cherry tree...

Somebody stole my tax refund check and cashed it. This awful somebody rummaged through my mailbox, took the check, signed my name in atrocious cursive that looks nothing like my own and CASHED MY CHECK!! I have been waiting for my tax refund check to arrive for months--3 months actually--and I finally called the IRS a week ago. They said, "That check was sent out to you on April 30...Are you sure you don't have it?" April 30? No I don't have it! I don't have it anywhere. I have been checking the mail every day, including Sundays, hoping for this check to arrive. This happened last year too, except last year they discovered that it really was never sent. Well, the nice IRS lady assured me that they would start a search. On Saturday, I received a letter from the IRS and as I read the first page I could hardly believe my eyes. It said, "Your check was cashed. Enclosed is a copy of the signed check." Are you kidding me? I fumbled through the pages to the very last one and there it was--a copy of the refund check made out to me dated April 30 and it was signed by someone who is most definitely not me and obviously does not know me well enough to have ever seen my signature. It is not a good feeling to see your name signed by a stranger. How could they have cashed it without ID? I have all of my photo IDs, debit cards, etc. in my possession. I called my mother, who was ironically in the middle of playing Monopoly with my three youngest siblings--a game I am not particularly fond of because I am not ruthless or business savvy enough to ever win--and she said that it must have been cashed at some shady hole-in-the-wall. She must be right. "This always happens to me!" I wailed. Then I stopped and thought and felt a little guilty. You see, I can honestly say that I have never stolen any one's check, or sneakily forged a signature to get money or told a lie that put an innocent man in jail or anything like that. I mean that is obviously deceitful and I would not consider myself a deceitful person at all. Or should I? The majority of the time, I am an honest person, but I'm ashamed to say, I tell little white lies and half truths and whole lies sometimes. Don't I occasionally pass the blame when things go wrong even though I know I had a hand in it? Am I really any better than whoever lied and stole my money? I wish I could say yes. I wish, but I know better. I have a well-developed guilt complex and I can remember just about every lie I've ever told, going back to when I was a child. Well, you might say, that can't be very many lies then, and besides everyone tells lies now and then. The thing is, it doesn't take a million lies to make you a liar. One lie is enough. We teach children to be truthful, but we grown-ups seem to be okay with fudging the truth a bit. Or fudging the truth a lot. It's too bad really that we don't have Pinocchio's condition. If our noses grew every time we lied, most of us would have unbelievably long noses and they would always be getting caught in doors and bumping into things. That's what lies do anyway, isn't it, trip us up. Of course, the truth is so very uncomfortable sometimes. I read "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom some years ago. She was a Dutch Christian and during WWII, she and her family helped to rescue hundreds of Jewish people. At one point in the book, Ms. ten Boom describes an afternoon when she was having tea at her sister's house. Her sister had several young children and they had all been taught to always tell the truth. German soldiers suddenly burst in and demanded to know if they were hiding any Jews. Corrie ten Boom and her sister said nothing, but to their horror, one of the children spoke up and calmly answered "Yes". Ms. ten Boom recounts her irritation, thinking this was the exact wrong moment to tell the truth. "Yes?" the soldier replied, probably delighted to get such an easy answer. "Where are they hiding?" The child said "Under the table." I'm sure the two women felt sick. I felt sick. There was, in fact, a trap door beneath the table leading to a secret room where a group of Jews was hiding. If I were her mother, I would want to pinch that girl to make her stop, but if you know anything about children, you know that would have made things worse. While the women held their breath, the soldier lifted up the table cloth and peered underneath. "There's no one there." he said, and assuming the little girl was simply playing a game, the soldiers left. Amazing. So as I stood there sadly in my house, the ugly signature staring back at me, I had a revelation. "Maybe," I said, "maybe God is trying to show me something about myself. I may not do what this person did, but I have my own issues to work on. It's easy to make comparisons and overlook my faults. Perhaps this is a wake-up call." Am I upset with whoever stole my check. Um yeah! But there's something to be learned. I need frequent evaluations to keep me in line. Besides, if I'd gotten the money when it was first sent, I might have spent it too soon. Now I have to prove that I didn't sign the check etc. etc. and hopefully it will work out smoothly this time...

a not so hidden shame...

Today the Atlanta Journal Constitution published an update on the investigation of Georgia's inadequate mental health system. www.ajc.com/news/georgia-mental-health-talks . I recently read an article by Alan Judd on ajc.com about how psychiatric patients must wait for days sometimes in the ER before being admitted to state or mental hospitals. http://www.ajc.com/news/desperate-psychiatric-patients. Admissions are delayed due to the fact that psychiatric units in GA are scarce and also the state hospitals are hesitant to admit patients with acute psychotic conditions. Many of the patients end up being discharged after a very short time and without treatment. Judd wrote a series of articles in 2007 titled  "A Hidden Shame". These articles brought to light the questionable state of mental health care in GA and sparked a federal investigation. Gov. Purdue attempted to address the issue by organizing The Mental Health Commission which came up with 7 goals. http://www.gmhcn.org/. That was early 2008. In 2009 the federal govenment sued the state, making the claim that the "inadequate mental health system violated patient's rights." Lack of funding, overcrowded psychiatric units, (and in my opinion, major disorganization) have contributed to the current conditions and, as Judd made very clear, mistreatment and hundreds of patient deaths. 

MAIL + FOOD = HAPPY

A lovely photo of Ginger Beer

My great-aunt  sent me a cookbook. http://www.totallybarbados.com/barbados/About_Barbados
It arrived in the mail this week. I have been anxiously awaiting my tax return, so I opened my mailbox hoping to see a nice little check but instead, I pulled out something or other to add to my junk mail collection and a ta-da! a package. I love getting mail--real mail you know--and surprise packages are the best. My brothers and sisters and I used to compete over who would get the mail first. The mailman came at about the same time every day, so if you timed it right, you could get down to the mailbox before anyone else then nonchalantly stroll back up the driveway, flipping through the bills and letters that were not addressed to you, knowing that disgruntled siblings were staring at you through the windows. HA HA!  In Connecticut (I always want to say "connekt-ee-cut) where we used to live when I was very young, the mailboxes are attached to the house, just beside the door. The mailmen (and mail ladies) park their trucks at the corner and walk from house to house--rain, shine or snowstorm--carrying huge bags of letters and postcards. I thought--and still think--they must be terribly strong to walk about all day with those heavy bags. At college my friends and I would send each other cards and notes via campus mail. Except many of the notes I sent were pranks. I sent a letter to one friend from the (nonexistent) Dean of Academic Commitment, Mr T.R. Jameson I believe. I typed it up on official school letterhead and placed it in an official school envelope so it looked very authentic. I even practised signing the letter so that the signature wouldn't look like a girl's. It basically said that if our friend didn't start coming to class regularly, he would be kicked out of school. Isn't that awful? My roommate and I giggled gleefully and dropped it into the mail. We didn't know what happened until weeks had gone by. Turns out this poor guy was extremely upset and not realizing that it was a prank, he went to all of the school administrators to argue his case only to be told that Mr. Jameson did not exist. Of course, when my partner in crime and I found out we felt terrible about the whole thing so we promptly typed up a new letter on official letterhead From: The Office of Academic Commitment, Re: An apology for the recent misunderstanding and any distress it may have caused, and signed by Mr. Jameson's secretary. My big brother told me that I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for forging signatures, but I don't suppose you can forge the signatures of people who don't exist...Ah, well that was the last prank letter I've ever sent. Lesson learned. When I pulled the surprise package out of the mail 2 days ago, I couldn't guess what it might be so I hurried back inside, not bothering to shut the door, with Charlie the dog romping around and getting underfoot. A book titled "Caribbean Cookbook" and several typed sheets with additional Barbadian recipes (read my other post, Kiss Me I'm Irish). I was thrilled and I danced around the living room for a while. "How cool is that!?" I asked Charlie. I recently bought a Greek cookbook (I went to a Greek Festival recently and the food was ridiculously delicious. The guys were cute too) and a book of recipes that only require 3, 4 or 5 ingredients.

To do: 1. Make a list 2. Buy ingredients 3. Find an apron
4. Cook something. I'm curious to see how it will all turn out!
I may post some recipes once I have the chance to experiment with a few.

This is a picture of spanakopita--it's very good!

Mistah Kurtz-he dead

 I first read T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" when I was a young teen and for years it was one of my favorite poems (not my very favorite though--that honor goes to "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, (read ozymandias) quite a dashing and tragically glamorous character himself). read eliot's poem if you want to. Hollow Men still is one of my favorites actually. I'm not really sure why. It's rather depressing.Whenever I read it, I imagine reciting it aloud, dramatically, with my voice rising and falling at all the right places. People would be listening, thinking "That's an odd sort of poem for a little girl to be reciting on such a beautiful day." At the word "bang" I would shout it out and startle everyone and while they were still composing themselves, I would quietly say the last words. So calmly and quietly that everyone would have to lean forward to hear. Of course, I'd be standing in a garden, on a small sort of stage, perhaps in a gazebo. The garden would be very well-manicured with roses and the shrubbery trimmed into fantastic shapes, a stately palace in the background. And everyone would be wearing white and drinking tea :) I was introduced to Eliot's poetry in my British Literature class. He was born in America but moved to England and eventually became a British citizen. I can't imagine what it would be like to become a citizen of another country. I've spent my whole life as a citizen of the U.S. Not that I have no desire to go anywhere else. In fact, my plan is to travel to as many places as possible. I've met  people who think it's crazy to leave the country. "You could die," they told me. "I could die here too" I said. "Uh-uh," they replied, "I'd rather die in the U.S.A, thank you!" What difference does that make? People die in a myriad of unexpected ways every day. And if you must die, why not die doing something worthwhile? I mean, I'm not in a particular hurry to fall into the grave or anything and like most girls I pray that God would postpone my death until I've fallen in love, married and had children (we'll see how that goes). En route to the Bahamas on a mission trip, we had to board a tiny plane  that would take us over the ocean between Florida and Nassau. The plane only had about 40 seats and there were quite a few empty. Once we all sat down and buckled in, the pilot announced that some of us needed to move to a different seat to balance out the plane. I was absolutely delighted. My friends were not so happy. Because the plane was so small and we were flying so low, we hit a lot of turbulence and rocked and shook and bounced about. It was brilliant. I imagined the plane plummeting into the ocean. Obviously I would have the presence of mind to quickly secure my life jacket and help those around me, and once we were out in the open water I would keep everyone calm while we waited to be rescued, which could take days. Never mind the fact that I can't swim :) When my sister and I were preparing to teach ESL overseas a couple of years ago, we both agreed that the adventure of it all and the chance to make friends and experience another culture far outweighed the risks.  "But why would you want to leave?"people ask.  Because, people, there's more to life than my neighborhood, my city, my school. There's more to life than driving back and forth between work and home. More than cable and fast food and Wal-Mart and clubbing. I don't want to just see the world on television or read about far-away lands. I want to go and meet the people and talk to them and eat their food and wander through the markets and listen to their music and play with their children and explore. My mother says that I'll end up living in a hut somewhere, which would be fine with me for a while at least.  I don't suppose I will ever want to be an actual citizen anywhere except for the U.S. but I am a restless soul. Perhaps I want to have my cake and eat it too (The saying never made any sense to me until I looked it up :) Nerd alert!  http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/eatcake.html ). A friend of mine once said that I am impossible to impress. I denied it because, in general, I am quite easily impressed. The simplest magic trick leaves me awestruck and anyone who knows how to change a tire is my hero. He explained a bit further. "You," he said "are always looking for the next thing. You do something and think, 'that was good' and you're already wondering what's next." I thought about that for a while and I suppose he's right in a sense. It's not that I'm impossible to impress. It's just that there's always something more to do, places to go, people to see. Too long doing the same old thing drives me crazy. Let me clarify--I'm not fickle or reckless. I just cannot stand mundane. The idea of an ordinary 9-5, apple pie, same ol'--same ol' existence scares me (you know when someone asks how you're doing and you answer "O, same ol'-same ol'" hm, maybe that's a Yankee thing). I mean, it truly frightens me. What I really really want to do is become a nurse--and eventually a nurse practitioner--and with a medical team periodically travel to remote or impoverished areas overseas. There I would work with the people to set up clinics and teach them how to incorporate basic modern medical care into their local health practices so that the clinic will continue to benefit the people long after the team is gone. Last semester, one of my nursing instructors told the class about transcultural nursing. A transcultural nurse learns all about medical practices in a wide variety of cultures and is trained to put that knowledge to use so that diverse patients will receive the best care. How cool is that? That's what I wanted to do long before I found out that there was an official title. I've seen many people live in their carefully constructed safe little worlds and maybe that's okay. But I believe that man was created for much more than okay. Everyone needs some extraordinary mixed in with the ordinary, and just like medicine, there are people who need a larger dose than others. I started off with Eliot's post-WWI poem and somehow end up with the thirst for adventure. Well, then.

For the Love

My three youngest siblings had their spring dance recital a few weeks ago. I absolutely love watching them dance. I love watching people dance in general. When I was younger, my mom took us to the Fox theater often. In December we would see The Nutcracker ballet (we would go to the pre-opening night dress rehearsal performance) and all of us would sit there and drink it all in. The lights, the stage, the costumes, the dancers. My very cool High School English teacher had all sorts of wonderful friends, one of whom was a modern dance choreographer. I went to one of the rehearsals with my brothers and sisters and my mom. The youngest at the time was only a toddler, but she sat quietly through the whole performance. We have always loved dance and music and art so my parents never worried about us being disruptive. My mom considered discontinuing the children's dance lessons, but I couldn't bear the idea. "Oh no, " I said, "You can't! They are so good and they love it!" I took dance lessons for a short time and violin lessons for a short time but lessons can be pricey. I could draw and paint for free, however, and so I taught myself years ago. I went to a figure drawing class recently and it was like a breath of fresh air. It had been so long since I had taken the time to do draw. And it was a pleasant surprise to look down at my paper and see that I had captured the model's pose and angles and shadows just right. Some of us in the family play instruments, some of us dance--the one thing we can all do is sing. My sisters and I used to sing together all of the time. We'd find a song and make it even better, coming up with intricate harmonies. Various people have tried to convince us to make a cd, get an agent, go big, but I don't know about that. I don't really want to be famous, I just want to sing. As a freshman in college I would sing in the shower at the top of my lungs--did I mention it was midnight?--and my RA would come in and say, "That really is beautiful, but it's late and people are trying to sleep, so..." Even now, when I'm at work I'll stand in the middle of the bathroom and sing. The acoustics are quite good and no one seems to mind :) I joined the choir at church and I am the youngest by at least 30 years. It's pretty fabulous. I can't practice with them as often as I'd like to but when I do we have a lovely time. Last Christmas I was assigned a solo. I was already assigned a much smaller part in a duet but some rather last minute switching left a major solo available and the choir director's wife asked me to do it. The Christmas production is always a big deal (the sanctuary seats at least 500 and is overflowing with people each time we do a Christmas musical) and we start practicing in August. I cannot tell I lie--I was excited. Nervous but excited. The song was beautiful and difficult and emotional. You know how you can just feel a song or a painting or a photograph or a dance and it pulls you in? I think that is one of the best feelings in the world. The baby in the family is only 4, so of course when her little class performs there's a lot of jumping and wiggling on stage. But just the other day, I was babysitting her and we took my dog out for a walk. After running down the hill, we discovered a puddle. Of course, she wanted to splash and I figured, why not, shoes and legs can be washed and dried. So she proceeded to tap dance in the puddle and I was honored to be asked to participate. We shuffle-stepped, tapped tapped tapped, and although the puddle wasn't large enough for us both to enjoy, I still managed to get wet. My 10 yr old sister is very graceful on stage when she's ballet dancing and she looks so elegant. What she really loves however is tap-dancing. And boy is she good. I watched her up there (she and my 7 yr. old brother can moonwalk which makes them super cool) and I could see on her face that she was in it.  My 7 yr old brother is the only boy in the class, but he has all the confidence in the world and enough natural talent to pull it off. And he's adorable :) After the last show, I was driving home and I told my mom, I love to watch them dance. She said "Me too! It's because they love it and you can't help but love to see people do what they're passionate about." Amen. So keep dancing and singing and painting and acting and kickboxing and writing and gardening and playing soccer and cooking and teaching and rock-climbing and building and stock-brokering and whatever else you love.

AAAaaagh!!!!

Don't you hate when you've typed something up all nice and then it disappears!! Yuck :(

(I've actually read this book btw and it's pretty good. Although I wouldn't want to be plastered on a cover picking my nose.)

Unrest in Central Asia

About two months ago in Kyrgyzstan, angry protestors filled the streets, clashing with government forces and local police. Bakiyev, the former President of Kyrgyzstan, was deposed and the government was overthrown. http://www.nydailynews.com/  A new, (allegedly Russia -friendly) interim government was quickly set up. Problem solved? Not so much. The Kyrgyz unrest is back, now amongst the people. Kyrgyz against Uzbeks, the second largest ethnic group (link) Uzbek culture. The Uzbeks are a Turkic people group. According to some, an Uzbek uprsing against the Kyrgyz was bound to happen. (link) Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan. However, the opposite has proven true--many ethnic Kyrgyz have been terrorizing Uzbek populations in Kyrgyzstan (link) Kyrgyz unrest . The U.S. has a military base there, Manas in Bishkek, which supplies troops for the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Bakiyev wanted to close the base a year ago and of course the Russian government (which operates a military base in Kyryzsatn as well)  isn't exactly the U.S. military's biggest fan. Some very interesting and tragic political and ethnic dynamics going on in this tiny nation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8651518.stm They will certainly be in my prayers.

perhaps i should be studying...

There's a little bookstore a minute's walk from where some of my siblings work and on the rare occasions when I have time after I drop them off, I go.  It's just the sort of place you'd find in a--well, in a book actually. The door has a bell on it so whomever's at the counter knows you've come in. Except, they can't really see you around the shelves and shelves of books that greet you. That concerns me a bit because in the city, just about any number of strange people wander about. You might think they wouldn't wander into a bookstore, but I've has some bizarre experiences at libraries over the years, so...A sign asks you not to let the cat out.  A resident cat that lounges about and reclines on the countertop. I'm not much of a cat person but I do think that's splendid. It's a pretty cat, and I'm pretty sure  it knows it's pretty--I can tell by the way it looked at me like "Everyone loves me...and it's quite obvious why." The store itself is tiny and dim and dusty and crowded and wonderful. I always visit the art section first and lose myself in books full of photographs and paintings, old and new. If I could afford to, I'd probably buy the whole section. Well, maybe not, because then no one else would get to enjoy it. See how unselfish I am :) After I've had my art fix momentarily satisfied (no such thing as too much art) I kind of tiptoe to the back. I can't quite figure out how all of the books in the back are arranged, which gives me an excuse to spend lots of time looking at this shelf and that and picking up books at random. I can only go to the bookstore when I have time and money. Finding something to read is a delicate matter and one mustn't rush these things, plus it's depressing to windowshop at a bookstore. I started to read when I was four, so I can't imagine what it must be like to not know how to read. Or there are those who know how to, but don't like to. How can anyone not like to read? That's tragic. I read very fast and when I finish a book it's a bit of a letdown, you know, because sometimes I have nothing else to read and I'm compelled to read advertisements and the backs of cereal boxes. After I zipped through my weekly stash of library books, I would find other things to read. Poetry, Homer's Odyssey, all 1001 Arabian Nights (some of those are pretty wacky), Dickens, Kipling, Doyle, fairytales. And I still read children's books. Some of them are so good.  (I still watch children's tv shows on too--Backyardigan's rocks). The last book I read was hilarious: Gideon Defoe's "The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists/The Pirates!In an Adventure with Ahab" The Pirates! I absolutely love silly books like that. Perhaps too much. I read it instead of reading my nursing textbooks and that may partially explain why I didn't ace my first exam. Hm. The lady at the counter said, " Oh, I saw this book! I thought it looked pretty good." Yes, I thought so too, I said, as I reached over the vain white cat to pay. Every time I go into that store, I expect something strange and magical to happen. Maybe a trap door will open and I'll fall through into Wonderland. Can't say I'd mind strolling down the beach with the Walrus and the Carpenter :)

Kiss me I'm Irish--among other wonderful things

Several days ago, I joined the Ashby family facebook group. The first Ashby I know of was my great great great, etc etc. grandfather born in the 1850s. Everyone on that side of the family can claim English and Irish descent--though you might not know it to look at me; the Barbadian and Native American genes obviously beat the European in me :) For some reason, people always ask me where I'm from. India? Mexico? Perhaps more African? A Mayan pastor insisted that I was originally from his country and after 10 minutes of questioning me I could see that he still wasn't convinced that I'm from the U.S. He looked at me like, "Poor girl, she must have no idea that she's truly from Belize." Who knows, he may be right. My not too distant ancestors traveled about quite a bit. Maybe someone traipsed up to Belize for a visit. Of course, my "accent" doesn't help. Mix midwest, new england and southeast accents together and you get a surprisingly neutral voice. At least I think so. A Nigerian friend of mine couldn't quite place me and finally deciding that I'm a myriad of ethnicities, she settled for "You look like you come from somewhere near the water." Okay, I'll take that. My siblings and I used to spend hours on the computer researching names and trying to piece together genealogies. Yes, we were nerds. Okay, so we still are. We didn't do it this year, but in years past, when St. Patrick's day came around we would all buy t-shirts that proclaimed our Irish heritage (I think my big brother has a really nice one that he still wears on occasion), and we would laugh and say to each other, no one knows that we really are. It's a big deal to know where you come from. That reminds me--I need to ask my grampa for the recipe for Bajan rice and peas. He claims that he wouldn't give it to my mom--his daughter-in-law-- because she doesn't have Barbadian blood flowing through her veins. Well, hoity toity.  [Disclaimer: My grampa isn't truly a mean man] My mom's parent's are from Mississippi (she taught us a song to remember how to spell Mississippi: "M-i-googalaga googalaga-i googalaga googalaga-i humpback humpback-i" You have to wiggle when you sing googalaga and hunch your shoulders when you sing humpback. Love it!) She was born and raised in the midwest but I think the southern is still in her somewhere. Unlike my father's side, my mother doesn't know much about her family history except that her grandmother was a small, quiet woman of black and Native American descent.  Granny, my mother's mother, was very fair with long auburn curls. So a petite black American Indian woman had a fair redheaded child. You know, my nana on the Ashby side had red curls and fair skin too. The moral of this story is--there's a good chance I could have an adorable little red-haired child. Or a beautiful brown Island baby. Or a child who looks like me and everyone asks them constantly where they're from. Every now and then, my mom seems a little sad that she doesn't know anything about her family. I've tried to research my mom's side a bit, but it's not easy. Of course, I'm not sure how well births, deaths and marriages were officially kept up with in small country towns, especially for minorities. I'm sure I'll figure it out someday. Just like someday I'll actually visit Barbados and Ireland and England--among other wonderful places. That castle is called Dunluce btw.

A Nigerian Greek national music artist? Nice.

As most people know Greece is going through some not so fun times. Riots, corruption, bankruptcy. But on PRI the other day, a very unique music artist was highlighted. Born in Greece of Nigerian parents, MC Yinka seems to be pretty popular in Greece. From what I've heard, I can understand why.  http://www.theworld.org/2010/05/14/mc-yinka/  I've been trying to find some of his music online...

"Maps, they don't love you like I love you."

Yes, yes, I know that "Maps" stands for My Angus Please Stay. Such a good song... (link) Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Maps"
Growing up, my mother listened to NPR all of the time--so of course my brothers and sisters and I got quite an earful ourselves; we loved it. When my sister (who is now 10) was about 3 or 4, she met her favorite radio host, Lois Reitzes, (WABE Atlanta) and she was absolutely thrilled. Fabulous :) I recently began listening to public radio again. At 24, after about 7 years of trying to catch up with pop culture (I honestly had no idea who Brad Pitt was until I was 20) I've gone back to my roots. Of course, I still do love classical music. I'm that girl who kept all of the cds from freshman "Music Appreciation" class and happily added them to iTunes. But NPR has more to offer than the classics. PRI world news is so good. In school, geography was my least favorite subject. I loved learning about people and places, but show me a map and my brain shut down. My ancient history professor nearly gave me a heart attack when, for the exams, she handed out a blank map of the region between the Black and Mediterranean Seas and asked us to fill in the names and locations of ancient civilizations. Are you kidding me? I can barely list the 50 states and you expect me to know where the Hittites lived? A light bulb came on after I left the U.S. for the third time. The first time was a mission trip to the Bahamas--yes, it was a mission trip not a vacation. Cross the bridge from Atlantis and the poverty is heartbreaking. Geographically speaking, I was content knowing that the islands aren't too far from Florida. My second trip was to Belize. Central America, check. The third trip was across the ocean to Ukraine. From Switzerland to Ukraine my seatmate was a young Swiss man who spoke fluent English and four other languages and he seemed to know something about everything. He knew all about the U.S. and the countries surrounding Switzerland, and countries not surrounding Switzerland, and we both agreed that The Bourne movies are pretty much amazing. I was duly impressed. A friendly Ukrainian man on the day train back to Kiev was well informed about the latest sports news from the U.S. and Canada, and he told us various facts about his country and the former Soviet Union. I don't know much about sports and at the time I knew precious little about the Soviet Union except that it was communist and no longer existed. What I did know however surprised him. He was sharing a tale about a treasure hidden inside of a chair and after listening for a minute, I said, "I think I know that story!" and finished it for him. Geography may not be my strong point but stories, I know. No, I've never seen the 1970s Mel Brooks movie. He also told us all about Georgia and their difficulties with maintaining independence. Not too long after I returned to the U.S., the Georgia-Russian conflict over South Ossetia erupted and I thought, "hey, I know Georgia!" (link) Georgia-Russian Conflict 2008
I was glued to the news. I read every article I could find. And...I began looking at maps. Suddenly, they became real to me. I was fascinated. All of the countries I'd heard about over the years from missionaries and exchange students and well-traveled teachers--they were right there and I could see how they connected. I've always enjoyed traveling and experiencing different cultures-- I was blessed to grow up in a very multicultural environment--but now I actually care about geography. And what do you know, I love maps. Now if only I could figure out how not to get lost...