Hedgehogs and Holidays

The Korean for hedgehog (바늘 두더지) translates literally to "needle mole."

In about 36 hours I'm planning to join Ari, Meghan, and my friend Vasi who I met in Latvia in Istanbul for a few days over New Year's. Hopefully fun ensues.

home for the holidays

Ah, the yearly transition from school to home. It's always such a shift, such an adjustment. Don't yall feel like so much of our identities are defined by our surroundings? By what we do, what we study, what instrument we play, where we've travelled. Suddenly I find myself removed from my normal surroundings and activities that normally define myself and am in a new place.

More that expressing our sevles and values by what we do, even just how we spend our daily time seems to define ourselves. Maybe I just think too much (hah, maybe), but I find myself pressured to spend my time well and in a way that reflects the sort of values I hold. I should get up early, I should read a book, I should help my mother unload the dishwasher and watch football with my dad. Having to redefine myself with new activities and time spendings is a bit stressful.

Maybe because I go to school so far away and see my family so infrequently I feel like my time here is not mine. Like my time here is somehow owed to my family, and I think about how every action I take affects them, and I think about how to give them my most attention. I don't want to sleep in if it risks missing breakfast with my dad.

Alas, another edition of Madeline's gone home and feels anxiety, but other than these self reflective moments I really am enjoying myself :)
Thanks for listening yall,
Happy break!

madz

I just found these. I don't even remember taking them! Brett is a natural.

Harry Potter

I went to the midnight showing of part 1 of the latest (last) Harry Potter. I'm not usually a fan of the movies but I actually liked this one, minus the obvious low points when Harry wore either a velvet vest or a jean shirt. Yuck. I think I must have a complex where I really don't like main characters in epic films... (that's code for Harry and Frodo).
So something good comes out of being 9 hours ahead.

roaming? pre-roaming? hibernating?

Roaming? Business school? I am so not roaming right now. But I suppose the point is to prep yourself to be able to roam wherever and with as much money as you want?

Man am I having vocational issues right now. I like to think that this small period of un-roaming is just prep time for massive roaming excursions to other cities, states, countries. I guess that's the point.

Do I work first? Do I roam? Can I roam and work? Do I want a homestead?

yikes!

I just watched a teacher cane a student and I did nothing.

i lol'd

"We go out to lunch every once in a while. So we went to a place called Hooters, and there were eight or nine of us. Somebody told the manager that I was 100 years old. So the manager said that they’d pay for the meal — we didn’t have to pay for the meals. Then we took pictures with the waitresses. I thought it was very nice of them."

-Phil Damsky, 100, on being 100. Printed in today's New York Times.

Read this to yourself in a 100-year-old man from Brooklyn voice. How can you not laugh?

View

Above are a few photos, stitched together into a panorama using Picasa, that I took of my neighborhood from the top of a hill nearby. Nearly anywhere else in the world this neighborhood might be a city in its own right, but in Seoul, with a metropolitan population of 24-ish million, it's just a neighborhood. My apartment is in a non-descript grayish building about a third of the way over from the left side, just under and to the right of the leftmost building with a red white and blue chicken logo. The building I work in is the blue one just to the left of center.

Interesting things I've learned (kinda) recently:

1. The Korean word for "login" is "로그인," which, transliterated, is roughly something like "rogeen"--the koreanized version of the same word in English. Taken as separate words, those syllables (로 그 인) mean "As it is."
2. The Korean word for the Arial font, 굴림체, translates literally as "grooved oyster body."
3. The Globalization and World Cities Group publishes an annual list of "World Cities" that is structuralized and heirarchicalized in a way that is, to me, scarily similar to the social heirarchy in Brave New World, complete with Alpha Double Plus and Gamma Minus castes of cities.
4. Since September 1, my father has been mowing the lawn about every six days.
   

kilts

i know, this should be the title for one of meggo's posts, but it instead it's coming from praha.

the last few days there have been little pods of kilted-men wandering around the city center. and i'm not talking 1 sighting a day, i mean like 50. at first it was really confusing because i didn't think kilts were everyday garbs (they're not, right?). after the third day -- i'm slow on the uptake -- i realized that it's for this big soccer game tomorrow against czech republic and scotland. it's cool going out at nights and seeing all of the pubs half-infested with loud, singing, kilted men. i walked by a pub today (noonish) and i heard them belting out a song from "the sound of music." ahhhhh, i love men who aren't afraid to sing songs originally solo-ed by julie andrews. it was the one that goes, "doe, a deer!" etc

one last thing. you'd think that a gang of 6 or 7 kilted guys my age would make me laugh, and it does (not in derisive way of course). i guess i think it's endearing and a great example of moral support. except when 1 of the guys is just sporting heans, and then all of a sudden he's the one i find most amusing.

spreading the goodness

ways i am corrupting my flatmates:

1) felicity

ways i am improving my flatmates

1) felicity!
2) the youtube battle of kruger

they think im a god. mission accomplished; check! (czech!)

ps. that check/czech pun is on OVERKILL here. i automatically think about saying it whenever someone inadvertently uses that unfortunate word, but ive refused to indulge the impulse. im afraid that after this semester i will have the impulse to make that pun for the rest of my life..... scary

ode to ari, by ari...bye, ari! or should i say...chow?

ari: living life on the edge is what its all about

lol

ok ok ok

all right all right all right all right

that reminds me of a song...

anyways

5:09 PM i need to write this paper!!

chao

haha

ciao

dont tell anyone i did that

me: chow

ari: hahah

me: i'm gonna

ari: even better!

hmm. i think thats unbeatable

you win this one

5:10 PM me: i always win

ari: chachacha see ya

pleeeease

you wish

me: you wish

geddoudahere

5:11 PM ari: gogrebabir

me: what?

ari: haha

go grab a beer

me: go grab a bear?

jkjk

ari: duuuuh

me: hahhaa!

ari: i win this one

5:12 PM lol

me: whatev

ari: im going to start calling you slimey from now on

5:13 PM not because you are

but because i like the word

me: no

that's a bad idea

ari: who should i call slimey then

5:14 PM me: no one. don't call anyone slimey

maybe a worm

or frog or something

ari: haha. too graphic?

5:15 PM oops my comp's gonna die

me: NOOOO

ari: later skater for realsies

me: don't leave me!

bye

chow

ari: chow mein street smart ass wipes

haha

5:16 PM me: wow. nice.

ari: will shortz here i come

me: no, usatoday here you come

ari: hahaha

so true

5:17 PM me: ok. geddoudahere!

miss you!

ari: gogrebabir! miss you too

hella dank strudel

last weekend we went to Oktoberfest in mt. angel, and drank german beer and ate german sausage etc. At one point, brian and I were sitting on a bench on a darkish street corner with little foot traffic, and a guy came up to us and got kind of close to brian and said, "hey..do you know where I could find some ..strudel?" Brian goes, "yeah, I've got some right here in my jacket". Guy says, "I'm looking for about fiftybuck's worth of strudel. I want the high quality strudel, you know?" Brian realizes guy is not joking about the strudel, and informs him that he does not in fact have strudel in his jacket.

so goes our latest multicultural experience.

latest spastic moment

Wanted to inform you all of my latest embarrassing moment. I was at a traditional Scottish dance called a Ceilidh, put on by the Christian Union in a big church. No alcohol involved. All women were supposed to join hands and move towards the center of the room. Well...it was really crowded and on our way back I tripped the girl next to me and she fell all the way down on her face in front of everyone. She wasn't hurt but I think she was a little mad at me.

call me a nerd ass but...

I have my own blog because it's an assignment for SA...????right?
So I started one, nobody reads it so it's more like I'm writing to myself. So, to kill two birds with one stone (KEEPING IN TOUCH DOING HOMEWORK) I will put the link here. From now on I will try and make it funnier/more interesting.
http://mybonnyscotland.blogspot.com/2010/09/rugby-and-queen.html

Who would have thought that my new best friend (temporarily of course) would be a churchgoing, cheer-leading, sorority girl? I was worried at first. but why? I'm too judgmental, I have vowed to be kinder hence forth. I love her!
P.S. Scotland is sweet.

Bill Harper

[ ......... ]

when i heard, i went to write him a quick get-well-soon message on facebook but i guess i wasn't officially friends with him. so i added him, but forgot to send the message. then it struck me he probably wouldn't be on facebook if he's in the hospital, and even if he could, maybe it seemed kind of cheap to only add him as a friend when i heard he had leukemia.

it's hard to tell someone that you only peripherally know that you care about what happens to them.

Some Experiences in and around Seoul

On the flight here I sat right behind the exit row that connected to the jetway, and when the door opened after we landed I could feel the humidity wash over me. The first week or so was oppressively hot and muggy, and even the storms didn't seem to take the humidity out of the air, but it seems to be easing up a bit now.

When I got picked up at the airport I found out I was on the flight with two American women (who will remain unnamed because I forgot their names) who would be working at the same company as me, but at different schools. We did a few things together, like find our apartments and get our medical exams for our visas. The first few days were pretty disorganized and full of guessing and hoping we got things right, which I thought was a great adventure, but neither of the women really seemed to enjoy it. At all. Oh well.

I got in on the Sunday the 15th and started my training on Monday. I was supposed to have that whole week as training with the woman I would be replacing, but she went home sick after the first class on Tuesday, so with one day of training and about 48 hours in the country, I was teaching my own classes. It was fun, and it mostly went really well, with only a few minor mistakes like forgetting to take attendance. Apparently that's important.

I'm in my second full week of teaching now. I think I have about 140 students total, and I'm struggling--but progessing, slowly--in learning their names. The array of different students and their associated personalities, strengths, and personal situations is dizzying, but the challenge is fun. My preferred form of discipline is tossing a marker at a student. I probably do it once a day. Actually, the form of discipline I really prefer is a more subtle one that gently urges students to do their work and pay attention because I care about them and I hope I can help them grow and achieve cool things, but I don't know if I'm there yet. But I do throw markers.

The city of Seoul is amazing to me for its sheer size. I don't think I'd ever been in a city where I could ride a subway for 50 minutes and still be smack in the middle of the same damn city. It's an imposing presence. Also, sometimes there are air raid sirens here. It's a poignant reminder of where I am.

I've been experimenting with cooking in my apartment. Tofu and veggies is my go-to meal, and it tastes pretty good now that I've figured out how to make tofu taste good. (Hint #1: buy the second-cheapest brand of tofu, not the cheapest one. Hint #2: fry it lightly.) Tonight, though, I made something truly divine.

My usual food-making strategy is
1- put some oil in a pan.
2- put some stuff on top of that oil.
3- flop it all around in the pan until it seems done.

Tonight I changed it slightly. I picked up some soy sauce and some sesame oil, along with a couple cuts of meat that I think is pork. I slathered a bit of oil and a bunch of soy sauce on the meat, and THEN put it in the pan. I cooked the meat and then took it out of the pan, and THEN flopped in (in this order) some carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers, and onions. I sauteed/pan fried/shallow fried (I don't know what it's actually called) the vegetables in the meat juices and leftover oil. I added a bit of this hot sauce called 초고추장. I think it would be transliterated as Chogochujang, and Google Translate tells me it means sour red pepper paste. Divine.

Hope everyone's well and that school's fun, wherever it is in the world that you're going to school.

Brett

I cooked dinner naked tonight. It's just that hot here.

More later,
Brett

Tue 6:21 AM Musings

Is it books that will guide me to my fulfillment? I feel like I am constantly looking for myself outside of myself. Pressured by the belief that we are defined by our jobs, hobbies, and experiences. Just to recognize how much there is I don’t know puts me at a stale mate. I can’t move forward. I can’t finish a book. Where do I find completeness? Where do I find true fulfillment?

If I always look forward, if I always look outside of myself, I will never find it. There is truth and fulfillment in myself and in who I am as a person. Only when I am truly interested can I find the will to finish a book. When it moves me, not when I think I should be moved.

But it’s not about the books or the travels. It’s about loving oneself so one can love others and be loved. Love is about vulnerability, and before this can be a positive experience we can’t be afraid of letting others see our true selves. We have to first love our true selves and not define them externally. Love is about the humility to be open to learning from others without feeling insufficient.

To be a student is not to be insufficient but to be on the cusp of desire and humility.

PhotoBoothBlogPost#1

New phone!

prog

i finally bought my ticket to "you're up." drained my summer earnings to do it, but whatevs. it's all one way. i wanted to spend the winter travelling somewhere, but it's pretty up in the air. first it was christmas in bangladesh since that's where my sister was working, but now that's over (she's actually with us in jackson for the rest of summer). she might visit me in prague for a bit in the fall and then be my travel buddy afterwards. turkey, switzerland, who knows. being drained of cash and begging my mom for airfare home seems very likely.

last semester when i got accepted to study abroad, i had little snippets of "the spanish apartment" running through my head, or just visions of myself in an imaginary city which my mind labelled "prague" walking confidently down the cobblestone sidewalk on the way to somewhere fantastic. in my head, prague never rains and i'm always dressed impeccably. head up sort of thing. this was in spite of stacy west trying to hammer into our heads during the oh-so-helpful mandatory meetings telling us not to have expectations of what living abroad was going to be like. before i went to south america, i tried to picture the andes, but everything my mind came up with had a touch of the pacific northwest in it, since that's all i knew about pretty much. does that make sense? since imagining involves the creation of a mental picture, how could i imagine something i had never seen? needless to say, now that i've been to peru i can't picture it any other way, but before my picture of it was just meshes of places i'd already been and movies i'd seen. not much of a comparison in the end. anyway, when i try to picture prague all i get is a lot of cobblestone. it's all a blurry grey.

we've been getting weekly emails from our prague program facilitators, and one included an attachment of all the students studying there in the fall and their email addresses. we were of course encouraged to become acquainted with one another and write emails before we met in september, but i can't bring myself to write one generic mass email, or spend all day writing fifty personalized emails, or (even worse) writing a few personalized emails that i randomly choose to send based on superficial things such as a person's name. that seems pretty shallow, right?

Things to Learn About

jazz n animals

Port Bailey is a good place to blog. It used to be a salmon cannery, but now is owned/lived at by an awesome couple. We store boats/fishing gear here, and hang out. You can only get here by boat or plane, and it feels kind of like summer camp. I wander around boardwalks, exploring old buildings and sometimes getting work done. There is internet here, which seems crazy because it is smack dab in Alaskan wilderness. It's a good combo right now though.

Yesterday a sea otter washed up on the beach. He was just laying there for hours, wheezing, and barely moving. We went up to him and saw that his face was white, and he was pretty big so I think he was an elder otter. After a couple hours he moved less and less, and we realized he was about to die. He was about the size of a medium dog, and had big white canine teeth . Otters are very doglike, I think.

Then a little fox came up to the otter. The fox was about half the size of the otter, small and scrawny. He realized that the otter was weak, and started biting at the otter's legs and face. Poor old otter could barely lift his head, let alone fight back. If my dad hadn't have scared the fox away, it would have eaten the otter alive. Maybe it's wrong to stop nature's course or whatever, but I just wanted the poor otter to die in peace and THEN get eaten, you know? So he died a couple hours later, and I went up and touched the fur...it was SOOO SOFT. RIP, otter buddy.

That's my otter story. Skeeters are bloodthirsty tonight...over and out.

oldie old

i feel really old these days. i think i realized this because i'm working with a 16 year old girl, and it suddenly occurred to me that i'm 6 years older than a 16 year old. 6 years older! as you might be able to assume (or not), she's really annoying. when i told her i go to school in oregon, she said "omigod. are you kidding??!" to which i replied...i don't remember, probably a grunt, or something. yesterday she showed me that she broke a fingernail and started whining, so i punched her in the face. not really, though, but it was a nice thought.

also, my knees have been achy lately, so i know i'm gettin up there

Going to the backcountry

So tomorrow morning I leave for this 36 day hike, 500 miles from Denver to Durango. I'm excited and scared shitless at the same time. The past week I've been making granola and cooking and dehydrating food non-stop. Preparing 36 days worth of food ahead of time is no joke. It's so intimidating and impossible to think about how much we'll be able to eat. 15 miles a day will probably up the appetite, but looking at these boxes of food set aside for resupplies its hard to think that we might go hungry, although that's all anyone talks about who has done a through-hike like this. I hope I don't starve. So I'm hiking with this guy Ford, who I know through dancing, like almost everyone I know, and I think it'll be fun. We don't know each other all that well, but did a 3 day 36 mile loop as a prep trip a week ago and all went well, so ya. Also have 4-5 people joining for segments along the way and resupplying us with these lovely boxes full of peanut butter, dried fruit and nuts, pasta, quinoa, dried hummus etc. So I should be back in Denver August 5th or 6th, rejoining civilization after a month of mountains. I hope my body holds out. And I'm super frenzied right now, but love you all and look forward to reading about your summers later.

hobo jungle

this is what I wrote in my notebook during bio class on june 17th at Zena. It's mainly a list of words I like, and all the weird Alaska place names I could think of.

(in the margins:)

jjohns: "what is sustainability?"

"long-term longevity"-Kali

holy shit

"I'm a little scattered here, sorry" -Jennifer Johns

fucking sustainability

----------------------------------

ptarmigan tarmac sage

mokum(sp?) viticulture succession

fig oak visceral fallow

silty clay loam heirloom

french press jasmine bergamot

hops unwieldy India Pale Ale

-----------------------------------------------

alder tendril shale

kale wigwam salmon

slough

----------------------------------------------

Bethel

Norton Sound

Nome

Talkeetna

Dillingham

Ouzinkie

Tok

Eek

Minto

Barrow

Egegik

Naknek

Ugashik

Nushagak

Kvichak

Uyak

Uganik

Ugat

Alitak

Ahkiok

------------------------------------

It is finally hot in Salem. I'm listening to Joanna Newsom, a strange and lovely musician.

Brett and Madz: I am awaiting your arrivals eagerly! What should we do for the 4th of July?

Jacamo Fi Na Nay

I woke up early this morning hoping to find sunshine. Alas, the one time I successfully start my day early it's dark and ominous here in the Big Easy. I've got a little less than 2 weeks here at home. My decision to go back to Salem early was a hard one for my parents to hear and thus a hard one to make. I suppose going to school so far from home has its consequences. However, having such a limited time in one place with certain people always succeeds to create a urgent sense of optimism and opportunism. Thus I am awake early ready to get the most out of my day and my city.

Yesterday was the first day of summer, summer solstice. I don't buy it. How can that be the first day of summer if I have been sweating bullets since I got here in 95 F, 87% humid weather? I've lost about 10 lbs since I've been here and I swear I must have sweated it all out. Ya'll shoulda seen me camping in Florida, sleeping in my underwear on top of a sleeping bag in the tent. For the first time I sang Nelly's "Hot in Heere" in the most literally appropriate scenario.

Being home has been really good. Making the transitions between Salem/Home and Home/Salem are always difficult for me. There's always something going on and this city never sleeps. But again I find myself conscious of an underlying state of fear necessary for survival in this city. I feel myself suspicious of people in a way that can't compare to the suspiciousness I feign against Salem hobos. It's racist and it makes me feel like a bad person.

But New Orleans is such a beautiful mix of cultures and people love it so fiercely. It's simultaneously stale and fresh, dangerous and safe, ugly and beautiful. But from the Oyster, Zydeco, and Seafood festivals to birdwatching in the Bayou Savage swamp to meandering down the ancient streets of the French Quarter and hearing people everywhere call me "baby," I really do love this place and it will always be home.

Coming back to Salem I have no plans. Nor do I have a job. I am hoping that in my idle state I will become fiercely creative writing novels, composing ballets and knitting sweaters for my future grandkids. But while there's people I love down here in the South, there's people I love up in the Pacific Northwest whom I am so excited to see. Natty, I'm truly bummed you won't be there (and that goes for all you roamers).

But I'm ready to explore Salem, it's still a mystery to me. I'm wondering if I can find a love that can compare to the fierceness with which I love New Orleans, and I don't doubt it's possible. Especially in that summer sun (there is sun there by now right?) Anywhere there's people there's love and culture, sometimes it's just not so obvious.

Love yall.

ps. anyone who has any sort of (il)legal access to HBO should watch the show Treme. Talk about a beautiful, realistic portrait of the life I experience in New Orleans.

pps. I picked up a great magazine called Bitch. It's a collection of feminist responses to pop culture and the media out of Portland. There was a great article about representations (or, until recently, lack thereof) of the female orgasm in hip hop/rap songs in the last decade. So great.

ah, the bounty of Oregon!

I am on the 6th and final week of the Zena farm summer program. I live at the farmhouse with 5 other campers, plus katie rigs, our RA. Despite some fairly large organizational shortcomings of the program, I have really liked living out on the farm. The stars are surprisingly clear and plentiful on fair nights, despite our close proximity to Salem. We do a couple hours of manual labor a day; shoveling compost, etc, which feels healthy and invigorating and directly useful.

We have also visited several small-scale organic farms in the valley, which has been one of the most impressive aspects of the program for me. To see people making a living by just growing vegetables and selling them at markets is...hmm, inspiring I think is the word. These farmers have such extensive and intimate knowledge about the land they live and work with, and the food that they grow. A farmer named Elanor said to us, as we commented on the gorgeous, green, lush landscape her farm sits in, "We are more interested in what this place is doing to us than what we do to it."

She and her husband were clearly very knowledgeable farmers, and probably could have expanded their production and/or income at the expense of soil health, water health, and wildlife, but that just wasn't their philosophy. I love meeting people who choose lifestyles immersed in nature over shittier but higher paying jobs. It is such a physical and visceral life, one that seems incredibly healthy and nourishing, and is very closely connected to the earth. cliche as that sounds, it's really true. It's not hard to see why some people choose it.

I've also been picking up tidbits of knowledge about wine lately, secondhand from Brian, who now works at Willamette Valley vineyards.

Did you know that manioc, cassava, and yucca are the same plant?

Aside from Twilight, what has everyone been reading so far this summer? I've been liking Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" lately.

wyo-ming

why, o ming?

this post isn't actually about ming, but evan came up with it and i thought it was clever. so im using it.

wyoming is impossible to get used to. not just the bi-polar weather but just the majesty of the scenery keeps your head swiveling on car rides or hikes because you just don't want to miss a view. you're so busy trying to capture the carpet of green grass, austere lime and dark trees, rivers, and whatever snow-capped mountain range that is running alongside you that you almost forget to look for wildlife. almost. when meghan and i drove to her house in cora my first week here she pointed to a moose on the side of the road that was just gaping at oncoming traffic very stoically. only when we were whizzing past it did i realize it was a statue. nice, ari. she said that was the longest anyone had gone believing it was real. really nice, ari. apparently evan fell for the same hoax further along the highway where there is a herd of fake buffalo on a ridge. one of them is an albino. crazy cowboys and their practical jokes on us city simpletons.

ok, the weather. one day we watched a great two-hour thunder and lightning storm on meghan's deck. it was going four different directions at once. one minute it was 60 and purple outside, and the next there was 30 mph wind and white hail that blanketed everything in sight. her horses would freak out every time there was a big clap of thunder so they would take off running. it was a beautiful sight, although i did feel bad they were getting pelted with hail. yesterday was sunny and we went hiking in grand teton national park and we saw so many animals. brett looked them up online when we got back. we saw three or four grouse birds and about thirty gazillion stonechucks (relative of the woodchuck). they're like big furry gophers the color of red barkdust. and they're really friendly. i think brett has fifty pictures of one that was an arm's length away eating pine needles and staring at us. the coolest sighting though was a young moose that was ambling by. i cant wait to go on more excursions and camping at yellowstone, but coordinating schedules of everyone in the house might be a little tough.

right now ming is in california visiting dodo. meghan is in china. evan is staying at meghan's house and looking after her menagerie (except they're not wild, but still. three dogs, four horses, two cats. full time job). evan's two friends, tim and sean, are visiting, as is brett. haha, the house is in a constant flux.

im working fulltime at shades cafe off the center square in town.... all the food is homemade fresh, the ipod has artists like beirut, architecture in helsinki, sufjan stevens, fleetwood mac, the shins, etc. the people are all really friendly and down to earth. lots of regulars come in. i get tons of free food, and hella tips. needless to say, this is the first job i've ever liked. haha, i guess telefund and canvassing last summer isn't really a hard thing to beat in a comparison, but still. life is really good right now. im hanging out with a co-worker later until the wee hours (drinking and art galleries and dancing), but before that i'm off to go hike snow king, whose trailhead begins on the edge of town. up and down, man.

ahhhhhh, summertime. i finished the twilight saga. the last book was legitmately good i thought. it's embarrassing how many times i think about it. last night i actually had a twilight-esque dream, where i was bella-esque... yikes

a case against encores

Tonight I saw the band Miike Snow (ps they were awesome check em out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niKT-kJfUz4&feature=fvst ) at a venue called the Republic with my dad. It was definitely an amazing show. I wasn't sure if I was witnessing an indie/rock outfit or participating in a techno trance dance. Regardless of how awesome they were, I felt the same fake sense of obligation to clap a few times and 'woo' half-heartedly when they walked off the stage, instruments still at the ready, and the lights didn't give any sign of coming on. This my friends, is the modern day encore. When a band does the cliche routine of walking off stage and we pretend we don't want them to leave and we beg them to stay even though we know they're going to come on a do a few more songs and they know they're not about to leave because they haven't performed their radio hit yet...

All I'm sayin is, it's fake. I would respect a band so much for just performing a beautiful awesome whole complete well rounded set and leave it at that. Nameley this has been done by Peter Bjorn and John and Architecture in Helsinki, kudos. But so, only then if we threaten to tear the place down unless you play one more song, go for the encore.

Travel Plans, Inter Alia

I'm home now. 5469 Chico Way NW, Bremerton WA 98312-1245, USA, Earth, System Sol, Orion Arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Universe in Which I Think I Live. I think my parents would be upset to discover I've posted our address on the internet. We shred every piece of paper that has our address on it. This makes no sense to me because we're listed in the phone book under E E Dahlberg. Oh well. Being home is comfortable, but remembering some of the rules is difficult sometimes. Like shredding the mail; opening letters with a letter opener; flushing the toilet after every use, even if I only peed in it; and letting the day's dirty dishes (except some wood-handled knives that get washed immediately after use) accumulate until, once each day, they're washed after my dad finishes his shower, at about 1825.

I plan to leave here in a few days, though. It'll begin with waking up at about 3:10AM on Monday 07 June to take a 4:25 ferry from Bainbridge Island to Seattle, where I'll meet up with Evan at about 4:50AM to drive to Wyoming. I think I'll stay in Wyoming until the middle-ish of July. Then I'll head back (not sure how yet--bussing, flying, and hitchhiking are all on the table) home before going on a two-week cruise to Alaska with my extended family. I think the cruise will be a really interesting experience for three equally salient reasons:

1. I feel a bit uncomfortable with people doing things for me.
2. It's a small cruise ship, and my family will make up about a third of the guests. Some of us haven't seen each other in years.
3. We're going to Alaska! I expect it'll be beautiful.

Oh, incidentally, here's a music recommendation: "Sun's Gonna Rise" by The Wailin' Jennys. Put your headphones on, turn the volume up high, and wait for some gut-wrenching high-pitched vocal harmonies. Follow that up with "Heaven and Earth" by Blitzen Trapper.

Our flight from Alaska to SeaTac arrives at SeaTac on 14 August. My flight from SeaTac to Seoul leaves the morning of 16 August. I anticipate a hectic 48 hours in which my mother will become frenetic, my father will keep to himself, and I'll pack and respond to my mothers inquests with short, terse answers.

Then, if everything goes according to plan (but then whatever does?) I'll be in Seoul on the 17th and begin teaching on the 21st. I think it'll be a fun ride.

I've been updating my journal/scrapbook, and I came across this gem:

07 July 2009 1124
By the airBaltic Ticket Counter
Līdosta Rīga
Rīga Latvia

I wonder why beautiful women seem to congregate in airports.
OR: What is it about traveling that makes women seem beautiful?

(Līdosta is the Latvian word for airport)

That was updated a few months later in the following entry:

26 December 2009 between 2120 and 0925
Seat 36G. Boeing 767 ER(G)
Somewhere between New York City and Dublin
Atlantic Ocean (Over it)

Addendum to a previous entry about women in the airport: what seems to make the proportion of women wearing brightly colored fleece sweatsuits skyrocket in airports?

HOLY-ISTIC COW

im thinking of being creative. being creative is pretty bogus though. im sitting on my bedroom floor looking at all the blank white walls and the pile of trash i swept up that has to-do lists, empty cider bottles, and old hi-lighters all raked into the same corner. i forgot to mention the box of cheerios. that pretty much sums up my semester. i took all of my tapestries and klimt photos down so now the room (no longer MY room) seems so... sterile. so boxy. i havent had the urge to be creative in a long time -- i sort of gave up that aspiration in high school because i figured it was a phase everyone goes through. i mean, c'mon everyone knows the best little token to get in LIFE is "you write a best-selling novl, $50,000." so cliche; it's in a board game i mean. nuff said, right? anyway, every five minutes of cleaning my room warrants forty-four minutes of breaking, since that's the length of an episode of the o.c. i swear i don't like it, but i stayed up the night before watching it until five in the morning. but hey, it's summertime and the livin's easy. what else do i have to do? maybe that's the wrong attitude though. there's only so much bad tv i can rip from the internet to prove my retaliation to all things educational (suck it willamette), but i also don't want to spend my entire summer holed-up in my room and embarrassed of what im doing. think holistic, think wholesome. re-reading favorite books, maybe journaling and maybe not, making new book lists, playing some ultimate or taking a hike by myself.

practically my only memory of finals week is walking outside from a library binge and seeing stina lounging in the sun on jackson plaza engrossed in the last hp book. god, that's the right attitude.

by the way, creative mission accomplished. i mean, did you read my title?

yeah, it's a dog's life

written on a Southwest Airlines napkin en route to New Orleans

What is this technology that so swiftly takes me between lives? Sandwiched in the atmosphere between space and the top layer of clouds, I sit in my chair, listening to my ipod and making faces at the baby in front of me who is looking desperately for entertainment. I feel you, baby. Sitting here, my mind phases between anticipation for that old familiar place and sadness for leaving a place which has recently become so familiar to me. I can't decide which one to follow and if by choosing I betray one or the other.
It's a balancing act that I no longer want to entertain. It's a life that is finally being left- no bridges burned. It's an independence that I will finally claim. I will take my car. What a symbolic act. I will cook for my family the rosemary chicken recipe that I have recently perfected in my own home. What a symbolic act. Who knows where I'll end up but what is important is where I want to be now. This trip home is a last hurrah in which I will finally tip the scale into my own hands and place the weights into my backpack to carry with me where I want to go. What a symbolic act.

*the 8 hour flight home always makes me a little nostalgic and a little dramatic. do i still feel all of these things? well see.*

Korea, Korea, Koreeaaaaa. I'm Going to a Place Called Koreaaaa.

On Wednesday I accepted a job offer to teach debate to gifted middle- and high-school students in Seoul, South Korea. I'll be there for at least one year, and no more than three. I leave from Sea-Tac on August 16. Cool.

The Brian Breakfast Sandwich

Briefly:
Fry two eggs with pepper and basil.
Spread avocado on two pieces of bread, leave open-faced.
Salt the avocado, then add cheese and tomato slices.
Puncture the egg yolks, then turn each egg over (top facing down) onto each piece of bread.
Done. Eat.

fre-fre-fre-fresh out the salon, i take her to milan.

well kids, it looks like we might be in for some more roaming here. sitting in pdx waiting to board my flight to boston-amsterdam-glasgow. thinking to myself that im a wee bit crazy for this- but in a good way. it's like after having missed glasgow so much i'm going to know exactly how to appreciate it and to absorb every second. can't wait to see all my friends, especially my friend shirly. im so tired.

ok. passengers 1-15. gotta go.
love yall

Lady Gaga

I dont wanna be frie-ee-ends!

(I win Ming)

This Is Going To Violate A Little Bit Of Copyright, But…

When I see a man, I want to smack him in the face. It’s so much pleasure to pound on a man’s face.

I sit in my room doing nothing.

Then—someone’s come over to see me; he’s knocking on my door. I say, “Come in!” He comes in and says: “Greetings! It’s great that I’ve caught you at home.” And that’s when I knock in his face, and then I let my boot fly into his crotch, too. My guest falls over from the terrible pain. And I give him a heel to the eyes! Like, don’t be whoring around when you’re not invited!

Or else, there’s also another way: I offer my guest to take a cup of tea with me. The guest accepts, sits down at the table, drinks his tea and starts telling me some story. I make it seem like I’m listening to him with fascination—I nod my head, sigh, make my eyes wide with surprise, and laugh. The guest, flattered by my attentions, gets more and more animated.

I calmly pour myself a whole cup of boiling water and throw the boiling water in the guest’s face. My guest springs to his feet grasping his face. Then I tell him: “There is no more benevolence in my soul. Get out!” And I push my guest out the door.

—Daniil Kharms

RAP And PAP

Do y'all think one is limited in their potential artistic profoundness (PAP) by one's parents, and their realized artistic profoundness (RAP)? Been reading a lot of great poetry lately, which has caused me to think a lot about my own PAP, and the concept of PAP in general. Of course I would like to become a writer of profundity, whose hard-won technical skills have allowed him to turn his eye to the creation of sheer, irrefutable art, in the end reaching or even surpassing the pinnacles of past poetry (PPP).

I seem to try to position my writing diametrically opposite my perception of my dad's writing. This must be partly because I'm his kid, and nothing he can do can be great, or at least not intentionally so. Also because he is, after all, a writer only as a hobby, and if there's anything the future will require of us, it may as well be the existence of professional writers. Maybe I need to recognize the total validity of my parents' RAP instead of belittling or denying it; maybe I need to build off of their RAP so that I can someday achieve my own PAP.

I think by RAP I am just meaning the lives of each of my parents if they were reduced to the embodiment of some considered artistic vision. Then PAP, or perhaps it should be "perceived PAP" (or PePAP), has to be the part of my ability to create great art which is dependent on my parents in the same way that my hairline or my cholesterol is dependent on my parents.

I admit it might seem like art is not the same as a hairline, yet, it is.

Poem (not mine)

No me toques
                         estoy contaminada
no me beses
                         estoy contaminada

no me muerdas imbécil!
                         estoy contaminada!!

--Nicanor Parra

hey fam

is this blog defunct now? Just wondering.

roamin' home

i feel like i have a lot of homes nowadays
-one of which is the airport

Collegian Column #1

I'm going to go ahead and re-publish my first column here, because the original that Ari typed into the computer (thanks Ari!) contained some changes made by the Collegian editors, which, no surprise, I don't approve of. I was originally thinking of calling this column "Lost In The Andes." Okay,

-+-+-+-+-

I will be gone from Willamette this semester. I will be traveling through South America for three months and one week with five Willamette students and one from Knox College. When people ask me why I’m going, I get uneasy, because I start to think of all the things I hope, but don’t dare say.

What I would like is to be able to state my purpose and intentions, nobly, rather than to blanch at this embarrassing cataract of malformed and dubious longings and aspirations that swells up occasionally.

Some of these are hopes for myself: Maybe I’ll gain a new perspective. Maybe I’ll get in shape again. (Again?) Maybe I’ll learn Spanish (unlikely). Maybe I’ll learn Kichwa (much less likely still). Maybe I’ll turn into a man! Oh god…

But even worse are my expectations for the land and the people, the ignoble byproducts of a life of media saturation. They’re an unholy gumbo of “The Three Caballeros,” “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” “Romancing the Stone,” sundry Wikipedia entries, Tintin, and more Disney comic book adventure stories than I care to count.

I’m looking forward to seeing cute little gauchitos, and cannibals with sharp teeth and glistening yellow eyes. Perhaps a lost cache of molded Incan gold. Has El Dorado been discovered?

Enough of all this foolishness! Of course I know the world isn’t really like that. Maybe that’s why I’m going? Because I don’t know what it’s like? Anyway. In subsequent columns (which hopefully won’t be so heavy) I’ll report on our own South American adventures, as we make our way south from Quito to Santiago, and attempt to fix some meaning to this trip beyond that of a vacation.