Randoms of a Naive Space Monkey

NEED HELP!!

2009-10-17T01:29:00.001-07:00

The struggle of Witnessing.

2008-05-15T02:44:00.001-07:00

There's something about imminent departure form a place you've grown to call home, from the people you've learned to pass almost every day and you get comfort from just seeing pass you by and smile, from the sounds that make up the space around you, from the tastes that swirl through a culture, that gets you to start thinking about annoyingly meaningful or at least seemingly meaningful things.

I have started to think now, as I am ending JVI, why I did JVI in the first place, and what this here and now means for the there and then.

So I have decided to go through the 4 values that I wanted to support and live when I signed up for this excursion, just to see what would happen.

For those of you that lack familiarity with the components of JVI, they are :

Living Simply, Witnessing Faith, Community, and Social Justice.

Today's blog has been brought to us by the letter F... for Faith... and for Failure and for Footwash and Fungus, and Flakes, and Feathers, and Fuck, and Franklin, and Farts, and my all time favorite (that too) Fraternization.

Witnessing faith seemed like such a loaded set of words to me when I first looked into JVI. It sounds pretentious to me to some degree. Not only does it assume that I have faith, which is ok to assume, but it assumes that that faith is worth sharing, that my faith can somehow be exemplary of something.

When I thought about it in that context it totally turned me off, and not to anyone's surprise, it was probably the component I most treated like a salad bar choice I could leave under the uncomfortable lighting and glass casing.

Faith, to me, is in constant flux between incredible strength, pride, and passion, and a complete and utter nihilistic darkness that can consume me and sometimes incapacitate me in bouts of depression at the meaninglessness of the universe. Sometimes the universe seems perfect and balanced, with God at its center, or being it itself in its pantheistic glory. While at other times the cold tiny speck of dust in the bitter cold and black of space is much more real to me.

I have found powerful feelings and experiences in and through most of the world's religions in my travels and explorations of the world and of my place in it. Yet, I return to the language of Christianity because, despite my differences with the Church in practice and theology on many, some would even say deal breaking, occasions, I also find great comfort, motivation, and love inside of it.

So, faith to me in a journey, a struggle, and passionate search for the embrace of God through following a way of virtue and love... so basically be a nice guy and look for the meaning behind it. Love others and treat others as best you can. All of that in its simplicity is also a Huge struggle in and of itself.

I have faith, then.

But what bothers me is this witness part. Because to witness is to be one who has seen something, who has experienced something, who knows something and who can reveal the Truth of it to those who do not know. One who can prove something through their existence and word.

Think about witnesses in other contexts. In court a witness is the holder of a truth they experienced and who swears to tell the truth of that experience for the benefit and knowledge of others' struggle for truth.

A witness at a wedding or an event is someone who can testify to the truth of what they experienced.

To put that word with faith seems wrong to me. Sure I can witness through my words to the teachings of the Church, and I can witness to my passion or to my struggle with religion because I was there and I can explain my own thoughts and emotions, but can I or anyone else be a witness to FAITH?

Isn't faith, by definition, a leap over a gap in knowledge, a jump based hopefully on clear reasons to a conclusion that is UNPROVABLE, that is UNKNOWABLE.

How then can anyone testify to an experienced TRUTH, when the best they can do is recount a feeling, a thought, an emotion, an idea... a belief.

How can anyone be a light for someone else of some universal and divine TRUTH, when faith itself is the struggle to try and discover that truth?

And, even if that is all possible in people of great connections with the universe, the divine, God, Ultimate Reality, or whatever you wish to call it, who am I to think that I am that person? ME?

No that seems rather pretentious to me. If I were that person, I probably would be unable to admit it because of the amazing humility in my heart, or would simply live it and not think about it. But I am not someone who has any more of something to offer in terms of what is really going on than anyone else...

so unless we can all be constant witnesses to each other of divine truth (which arguably we can through LOVE) then I am far from being able to meet this component of JVI either in my time here OR in my life afterwards.

I can meet something close though, something a little reworded...

I have so far through my time in JVI witnessed my own personal struggle with my faith.

Here in Majuro, where the pressure from society seems to be believe or die, where most of the kids question their faith but shut it up for fear of others and of hell, who are told not to question, not to think, not to reason, and so have more or less dead or dying faiths (on a general scale)... saying that its OK to doubt, and showing then when you do you don't just give up but keep trying seems to be more of something that I can witness to. It also seems like something I can continue to witness to.

Where I am now, I see that there is one underlying thread that has kept my passionate moments of living Christian or religious faith intense and burning, and that has kept me more good than not when I fall into pits of despair... especially in the recent past. That thread is the idea that what is most important is to find, first, what motivates me each day to be a better person, to love more, to care more, to treat better, to show more kindness, to be more generous, to put others before myself no matter the cost, to sacrifice anything for the well being of others... finding that motivating power is the first step to a more profound faith. That is not to say that when you find it it will be sunshine and rainbows ever after, sometimes even that will falter in your head, but finding that first and realizing that you have found it for yourself, not for its imposition on others... is something I have come to truly take a leap of faith into, and a struggle with I can continue to show to the people around me.

Maybe that's not what JVI was looking for, but that's what I've found.

Food for thought... again

2008-03-18T02:01:00.000-07:00

Recently, we did a retreat (this last weekend) and I broke the door fo the kitchen to the retreat center clear off (well, not the hinged side, but the locked side...). It was mostly an accident, though its hard to explain... I didn't mean to break it while I was trying to break in...

but it will be ok... I hope.

The main point of this, though, is in support of Boeke's dilemma's/dedication to/attempt at totally stripping himself naked with honestly... and, because of the value I've come to see in that, and in fact the necessity I'm slowly starting to think of it as... I bring forth the following thought (which comes from looking at JC's trial for the whole Holy Week theme):

Many of us are not a completely open book all the time because to get ridiculed, mocked, or judged (or misjudged) by people who don't completely understand us, by those who we can tell ourselves don't truly know who we are... is easier. Then we can just say (and many of us do all the time), "Oh, they just don't understand."

To totally let ourselves be honest about all our ourselves makes us totally vulnerable because when we are judged, ridiculed, mocked, pitied, or any of those other things we don't want to be... it is because of who we actually are. Someone is rejecting or attacking our fully, honest, naked, unprotected selves... and suddenly, we have no shield of misunderstanding to hide behind... we are left with the simple reality and pain of being unaccepted for who we are, and there is little in life that hurts more.

The question is... will all the good things we want from people, be even better? What about when the people in your life love, admire, respect, and care for who you really are... openly, honestly, and at your most vulnerable...

is that posible pain worth taking for the amazing reality of truthful relationships?

I think it is.

But... maybe not.

Just a visual of what I spent a lot of words saying

2008-03-18T01:47:00.000-07:00

On the Cultural Exchange thing

2008-03-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

So I've been forced to think about this all throughout the last two years, and I think I have figured it out.

No, that's a lie that can never be true. I think I have figured it out for myself... I don't think it really applies to anyone else. it might, but it probably doesn't. I have no idea.

I also think I've learned in my endeavor to read Harold Bloom's Canon of Western Literature (yea, I know I havn't told anyone that really... and yes I know it will tak eme a long long time), that I think I side with Socrates on many points, but primarily on the essential wisdom of my total lack of knowledge. In comparison to all the knowledge there is to know, the knowledge I do knwo is negligible, therefore: I know nothing.

Taking that to heart makes most of my opinions great for myself and the time, but also, realistically, open to change.

Anyway, I've been thinking about living in a different country, and trying to accompany people in poverty, and work for social justice, adn witness faith, and live simply, and adapt to the culture, but also to be yourself, and to juggle all of those ocmplicated and hard to define things while also doing it for another 5 or 6 not mentioned other things that are equally as complex. If you feel as comfused as I at the end of redain that sentence then you know what every day feels like in the position we're in.
How do you handle that? How much of yourself do you sacrifice and force into the new cultural mold and where do you draw the line and say, I hold this value, and I have to go against your culture and stand for this, no matter what!? When, where, how do you even begin to make those decisions.
In the end, I always have a panic attack (but not a real one, just in my head) and freeze up because I default to "Who the EFF am i to make those decisions?"
But practically, I still have to go outside every day and decide how to behave.

This becomes especially complicated when you've been told that you should be "an example" with no clear definition of what that means.

So here's my plan of action: maybe its come to late, maybe its come right on time, or maybe, seeing as I hope to spend a lot of my life in the world and not just at home... I have come here to figure this out.

For me, I have come to learn, not to teach. If you go into a different culture with the mentality of changing a place then you will fail, create more injustice, or jus tbe disappointed in some way. Real sustainable development has to come from within not from without. People need to make change for themselves, and they can do that, and figure out how, if they see that they want to.
There's a lot thats really quite terrible about the way we Americans see and relate to the world and other people, as well as a lot that is good. So we have to sacrifice many of the things that make us comfortable to be able to learn from others. We have to throw some of ourself away and take in some of their ways.

It also requires a decent amount fo security in your own deep values though. You cannot completely abandon everything you believe in, because you are never going to go into a perfect culture. The things youcan learn are great, but there are also things that you can teach without thinking about it. You have to question yourself deeply and say, what things do I hold to be true and important and why? and how can I express that simultaneously respecting the parts of the culture that might make me uncomfortable but are not mutually exclusive to my values and which parts to I have to contradict and challenge just byt he way I live?
This challenge cannot come from a place of, "Wow, you guys are so wrong." As long as it comes from a place of, "I have to be true to myself," then others will see it and make up their own mind. They'll ask themselves, "Why does he/she do that?" and either dismiss it or take it in, and if many people like it then some change may eventually happen, but in their own way, not in yours. And, more likely than not, you will never see it.

One example, which many people might disagree with me on, in my time here would be in gender relations. I don't think its wrong for women to wear pants, but the local people do. While this may be a big issue of women's lib in the west, I would rather let that part of me go. Also while I see nothing wrong with male or female exposure of their bodies for purposes of things liek swimming or heat... they do hear and everyone requres more modest and formal dress, which drives me up the wall to no end, but I am uncomfrtable for.
But, here, women and men don't really talk to each other unless they're sleeping together. If I am seen taking a walk or having a long talk with a girl, then I am dating her. This is a tricky balance becasue there is little I can do to stop that rumor from spreading, but I also hold high value in hte non-sexual relationships I have had with a lot of women, and I refuse to let that part go, I refuse to give in and say, ok, I'll agree, men and women should have purely superficial relationships or they should be sleeping together. There is a lot men and women can learn from each other, and I could not spend two years somewhere without sharing in the wisdom of the women here. So I made friends with students who were girls, women in the office, and mothers of people. I don't really get to know single young women, but hey, I'm still friends with women in a slightly more safe way (although, I've dated many an old gal in the rumorville of Majuro)...
I put up with the questions about my sexual promiscuity, with a conversation about how that is not true and I can have friends, to questions about my sexuality when the reality finally hits home and everyone knows I never did sleep with anyone. And I accept and deal with those things calmly though repetatively, because I would rather stick to that part of myself.
Not because I think I need to change the culture (though I think the culture does need to cahnge its not my job to do that, nor do I know how to do it, nor do I know if its the right time, nor do I know what it should necissarily change to) but because I need to be true to myself.

So where does this example crap fit in?
Well, I think it would be really naive of someone to think they can live in a different culture without affecting the peopel around them (hell... to live ANYWHERE without affecting the people around them) but more so in a different culture that looks at you sin either a good or bad way as "an American." So taking into the realization that you are being looked at and evaluated in some ways... then the best thing to do is be true to yourself... know what you are able to sacrifice to learn, respect the parts that you can and cannot adapt to, show interest in different thoughts and ideas, and stick to being true to yourself...
then some things you do won't mesh with the local style, and peopel can make up their won minds about that.

That seems like more words than were necessary to explain what I think is a much more ismple Idea, but I havn't written in a long time, and I felt like waxing rhetorical.
Good night.

On the health thing...

2008-02-16T21:10:00.001-08:00

I recently watched Michael Moore's Sicko...
and so I've been thinking a lot about the health care system in the US, and outside of it, about propaganda, and about right and wrong, and about the whole general pool of things related to and about movie making, documentaries, journalism, and mostly though, our health.
I have finally determined that even though I don't always agree with the way that michael moore conducts his business, mainly because I'm not particualrly a fan of Hammurabi and so the eye for an eye system of combating angry white men with an angry white man ont he other side of the fence seems counterproductive (though usually hilarious), and even though I don't think the movie portrays all sides fairly because there are instances when the insurance companies do something good, I refuse to believe that they're the incarnation of greed, nor are the universal health care systems of other countries perfect by any means...
it all comes down to some simple truths, that may be painful, but they're true:

First: The health care system in the US is based on profit, which is, well... lets face it... EXTREMELY STUPID.... the main concern of the agencies in charge of making health care available to everyone should be MAKING HEALTH CARE AVAILABLE... not profit... that is just plain logic.
Secondly: Becuase of this primary focus on profit, many many people get screwed out of needed health care and coverage... health care is already easily available to those who can help pay for it, the whole point of insurance is to make it available to those who can't.. but when health insurance is only available ot the wealthy or the healthy, well... then who the EFF are they covering?
Third: I don't have health insurance in the US... and I never have... and I probably never will.
Why? Because I have dual citizenship with a "third world country" where we are "starving for development" and where I can go and get all the medical attention I need, for very little money, and excellent care. where i can go to docotrs that are primarily concerned with my health and not with the money that they will get out of it. where every time i go to the eye doctor, because its so infrequent, as i have to travel halfway around the world, he give me total care on the house. where when you get sick at home and you call the health services, you have immediate medical house call at any time of day or night.
When I was in college I was mildly ill, very mildly... but the student health services had no idea what was wrong with me and what was causing the mild stomach pain I had...
So the Dean said I had to go to the hospital. I refused adamantly, saying I had no health insurance and would not go. He said the College would cover the costs... my health came first (hint hint ... maybe the attitude health insurance companies should adopt?). So I went, they stuck me with an IV, which to this Day I don't know why... I wasn't in need of nutrition, I was eating fine. They made me wait for a long itme, they left me alone for hours in a bed, they took some blood and left me alone for many more hours (and the problem with universalized health care is the waiting time and the lack of personal attention???)... and then they said there was nothing wrong with me, I should take some aspring, take a nap and I'd feel better... thank you, have a nice day.
then they kicked me out, and I had to drowsily call the college to pick me up... that was no concern of theirs. And I was a paying csutomer... well, my college was.
the bill? Close to $4,000. I took up precious time, space, and resources in teh 10 minutes I was attended to in those 8 hours, and they cost $4,000.....
I didn't pay it, my college did, but still... EFFING RIDICULOUS.
And now, in the Marshall Islands, while I may not be as confident of my medical care here as I owuld be in South America, where there are amazingly qualified, US trained doctors...
Any person in this country can get anything from a checkup to serious surgry for FIVE american dollars, any foreigner can get the same for SEVENTEEN american dollars, and medicine is somewhere between free and affordable. So its pretty damn close to universal health care.
BUT, the most shocking thing about it is that WE'RE paying for it!
Instead of having a system in the US that would benefit everyone by using our tax dollars to create a socialized health care system, we are using our tax dollars to fund the RMI health care system. Not that I think that the money to the RMI should stop (although most times I do since its being radically misused) but the reality is that our tax dollars are paying for other peopels health and letting us die...
and that simply makes no sense.

The reality is simple:
having certain institiutions that are socialized does not totally remove the option of privitized businesses, and it is not the same as totall socialism.
We already have socialised establishements in the US: where we get our books, transportation, mail, and EDUCATION! ar ethey with probelms, of course, will a socialized health care ystem have problems like long waits and other issues? YES!, but will people be left homeless because of medical debt, without treatment, without care, or without required medicines because they are not rich hoity toitys.... no.

Let's face it.
Life is temporary, and I would rahter go out in the end having lived a full healthy life, than swimming in a pool of profit off the lives of other people that is not going to go with me whether its to an afterlife or to nothingness.

I love America.
I think its sad that as long as things continue how they are, when it comes to my health, I will always leave America and get treated like a human being somewhere else.

Come on America, step it up.

Where in the World?

2008-02-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

I failed to put up all the pictures I promised... mainly because I put them up on facebook.
And that took like 2 hours. I think I might later, if I get motivated. I'll start with an update though, since I havn't done that in a while. Politics, religion, and the Pacific, will wait for a bit.

I'm still in Majuro. I'll be in Majuro for another 4 months. That should seem like a very short amount of time, especially after looking back and realizing that I have been floating about the Pacific on this ridiculously small and neglected piece of humanity for 18 months and 3 days.
Yet, right now it feels infinately long. I guess you've infered at this point that I am probably nto doing so hot. That would be true.
If I am to be truly honest, I barely feel like waking up in the morning every single day. By barely, I mean I don't. Its an odd feeling to open your eyes in teh morning and to be disappointed. That sounds odd maybe. It's not suicidal, I'm not disappointed or disillusioned by waking up at all... just by waking up here, again, and again, and again.

I think the worst part of this rather deep mote of depression is that I can objectively see everything that I love and care about int his place. I think it might be exactly that that is making it worse. Now, before you go on to think that this is some sentimental and overdramatic early reaction to my having to leave, let me clarify.
I think I've hit reality and sobered up, I've gotten over the euphoria of island beauty and people I'm in love with, I've gotten over the hump of cultural discomfort and extremem negativity over issues that don't really matter, and now I should be in the comfortable place of acceptance and enjoyment of my last few weeks. But I can't be there.
I can't be there because I have to be a teacher to students that are too close to my age and that I sympathize with a lot more than with the administration of the school I work for. While I may be totally comfortable with having to yell at them fo things they should nto be doing, I feel stupid and useless being the agent of petty meaningless rules and archaic conservative usless systems I don't believe in. I feel pressured each day to succumb to this authority, without ever questioning because I am here to serve, but feeling unable and unwilling to do so.
I believe that respecting authority is important, but that should never mean that it should not be questioned, challenged, and sometimes, overturned.
I hate my days because I have to pretedn like I care to be part of the system, when I would choose to dismantle many parts of it overnight if I could.
I hate going to work every single day and pretending to be someone I'm not, I hate not being able to really get to know Marshallese people or have tem know me becasue every day in and outside of school I can never be myself. I hate having to pretend I'm the Catholic I maybe would like to be, but am not yet. I hate having to pretend I'm the person they want me to be or at least I'm told I'm wanted to be, but I'm not.
This is especially hard when adult women will nto speak to me seriously or for a long time because men and women are not friends, they are only intimate or not involved, when adult men are too busy or simply uninterested in another foreigner to deal with, leaving, the only available people left to share genuine thoughts and meaningful conversations with the very kids you have to yell at for things you don't even understand or care about or think are ridiculous and unfair.

I'm an adult, I understand rules, I understand why they exist and why they should be followed. It isn't like I don't understnad those things. But, rules feel oppressive if they aren't convincingly necessary, or if you on a more deep and core level stand against them.

I want to be here for 4 more months because I have many people that I love, though few I really know as well as I could or should because that chance is not available to me being part of JVI and being part of Assumption. I want to be here because I lvoe drinking coconuts, I love talking to my kids, I love running around with Small Island children when I'm not too tired, I love walking on coral, I love Bata's homily's, I love Marshallese singing, I love the half performed dances, I love the Good Night's in the middle of the afternoon, I love the lack of chalk, I love Pablo and Florence, and Sr. Monika, and all teh otehr sisters, I love bubsi the dog, I love going for walks to payless, I love power outages, I love sashimi for free, I love the sunsets, I love peopel who are into things liek Wutmi and YTYIH, I love the youth group when they're doing well, I love the awkward parish events, I love not knowing what to do on saturday nights, I love majuro, I even love the headaches and the toothaches and the waiting and the frustration and the loneliness and the joyfulness and the ukelele and the rice and BBQ chicken all day.

I love it.
But I cannot enjoy it because I cannot be me, and I'm pretty sick of that.

I do strongly believe that Christ and many of the other world's faiths have called us to die to self. But, I believe that that is fighting out own selfishness, dedicating our time to others, and sacrificing of ourselves for the greater good.
But not giving up our person for meaningless and petty things, not being unable to enjoy or be true to ourselves.

I love a lot of things about Marshallese culture, but it is the general attitude of submission at all times, the suffocating fear and the powerlessness that is promoted by the culture that stops people from standing against things that are endangering or destroying their world, the blind and unquestioning bow to authority that is not deserved that depresses me. And me having to be yet another example of not questioning or actively fighting what is unfair or unnecessary, me trying to promote and be an example of that powerlessness sends me hurtling down into a darkness that makes me count the days until I can leave, when all I want to do is enjoy being here, which depresses me even more.

So tommorow, I will force myself out of bed again, and be an example I loathe, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I will find a way to enjoy what I love.

Adventures in the world of Christmas

2007-12-26T20:33:00.000-08:00

I was apprehensive about spending the holidays in the community.
Now, I know that seems to be the opposite of what you'd expect me to say, but its true.
Last year I benefited a lot from getting the hell outta dodge.
But, this year, seeing as the planes have been grounded for months, the boats are highly unreliable, and we really only have like 10 days off school...
I stayed.

The following is a short list of what we have done so far:
On Christmas Eve we went out to dinner. We dressed up and went to The Stone House, which is a Japanese restaurant past the bridge....
Dressing up was really bizarre. I havn't warn a tie and been told I looked liek Regis Philbin in a very very long time. Mos tof hte time I played with it like a cat toy or tried to figure out exactly what made it make me look any different or special. Steve told me a few minutes ago they make you smarter... which is true, but I didn't wanna be smarter for Christmas, just cuddlier really.
I mean, its Christmas for goodness sakes!
I'm a little concerned about having to do it more often when I get back.
OR maybe I'm really just concerned about thinking its normal again.

Midnight mass was fun, as Bata Rich pointed out at the beginning, we had some Japanese visitors all the way from Japan.
Like at every Catholic Midnight mass, there were more poeople there than I had seen ever in the last year in that church, since the last midnight mass... since we weren't here for easter...
The decrations were lighttastic, and i didn't fall asleep! (see, mom!)

On Chistmas day we went to our vice principal, Luke's house. I ate more food than I have ever eaten in 2 sittings in my entire life... at teh end of desert I literally felt like exploding, it hurt to move, and brething was a fantastically difficult thing for about 4 hours...we all just lay around for 4 hours, and then we went home and watched a Charlie Brown Christmas... and I watched Evan Almighty, read and went to sleep. I really liked that day.

And yesterday we went to the resort, where our friendly neighborhood Condons got themselves a room for the holidays. I took a hot shower, had some vodka and orange soda, laughed really hard, and talked way to much about demon manifestation adn vajayjays... while sittin gon a veranda on the lagoon looking at the full moon... amazing maybe?

Really selfish things this holiday season:
I wish I had an Ipod and it wasn't stolen and possibly at the bottom of the ocean if rumors can be trusted
I wish I could take all my friends and hang out in one big party full of love
I wish I could drink more, even though its not that big a deal, it only is because I feel like I its not really my own choice
I wish I had a "job" and could buy and get presents.

Really good things this holiday season:
I think i finally really understood and enjoyed the "Holidays is about people thing"
I felt at home a lot on this vacation
Holidays are really about children, and I'm slowly falling in love with them again
Also, the whole birth of Christ saga hit a warm spot, and whether or not he's God, that story blows my mind, and the idea that God would give himself so fully to humanity, even if its just in our hearts, is mindblowing, and it makes me feel undeserving and ungrateful and loved like nothing else.

I think I'm going to order myself His Dark Materials trilogy as a present.
I want to know what happens after end of Season 2 of the American office!
I'm excited that we're going to Micronesia for ReO/DisO.

That's all for random facts about the week. I have 2 specific things in mind fo rthe next 2 goes, so... later
and Merry Christmas.

The Quarter Life: Careers

2007-12-12T02:54:00.000-08:00

Where would I even begin to define how my career and my views on the divine mix and match, or don't.
I don't know how to talk about both at the same time. So I'll deal with film first, then God in that.
Oh, I almost forgot, if you are interested in the original version of the Quarter Life and not just the dark-alley island copy, then check out the dynamic Aaron and Bryce Duo.

So, Film and its place in my "career":
I had a really hard time thinking about this so I looked up the word career in the dictionary and it said this:
"an occupation or profession, esp. one requiring special training, followed as one's lifework"
If that is the case, then my career is filmmaking. I passionately believe in the medium as a form of communication, education, and entertainment. I’ve struggled with it for a long time because I have wrestled with doubts about whether or not filmmaking makes any contribution to greater society and what my place in the artistic world should and will be. Hopefully, I can dedicate my life to films, both documentary and narrative, which help to amplify the voices of people around the world fighting to be heard. I aspire to make films that remind us of our universal duty to embrace and help each other as a worldwide human community, and that place me personally in situations where I can accompany those that lack what my life has blessed me with. Through my short life I’ve seen film be a mean which can lead to powerful ends. I have seen film used to promote local culture and to destroy it, to bring people together and to set them apart, to produce debate and to produce animosity. Through doing what I love, I would like to build a more intimate and direct connection with people and their cultures, I would like to solidify my foreign language skills, and I would like to, in a small way, repay the kindnesses and gifts that have been given me by so many people I am so removed from. I hope to make films that entertain, educate, and inspire youth to action. I hope to come to a more full understanding of how western culture has impacted the world, how the world has impacted me, and how we can achieve equilibrium, if not on a large scale level than on the level of everyday relationships.
That is why I want to make films.
BUT,
(and on to God)
the dictionary also said this:
"a person's progress or general course of action through life or through a phase of life, as in some profession or undertaking"
If that is the case, then my career is not filmmaking at all. Filmmaking is just a part of it, at least right now as I see and hope it to be. But if I am to say that I am a deist, that I believe in an all pervading divine force that not only overpowers the universe but also cares about me personally, in other words, if I am to let God be God, then I cannot limit God. To say that I need to be in full control of what that course I call my life is to take is to say that God can't handle it. That God is too small for me.
My career, in the cheesiest words I can place on it, is to discern what God wants from my life. To give up the need for control and to trust in that divinity I profess to believe in.
Now that can sound down right stupid in some ways. Only, though, if giving up control to you means giving up action. I still have to be responsible for my own destiny, I still have to act adn commit to the choices I make everyday. But, what is behind that action is sincerely seeking to understand what God wants me to do, and to do that, even if it may not seem like the best financial option, or the smartest "career move."
How do I, you, any of us discern God's will?
Well, who the eff knows? I don't.
But there is something that, at least right now, is stearing me in the right direction. That is the idea that God is always talking to us (no I didn't get that from "Conversations with God", I find that guy a bit creepy, even though I agree with some of the things he says). There is a whisper, a still voice, a constant connection to the divine found deeply inside each of us. SO, digging deeply, being honest and real with ourselves (which is usually the person it is hardest to be honest with!) we can hear it. If we are true to who God created us, to our talents and strengths, to pursuing what we love and what frustrates us, and we constantly listen for how we can shape that person into someone dedicated to love and to others, THAT is discerning God's will for us.
It's not about forcing ourselves into a mold created for everyone 2 thousand years ago in a desert, but that 2 thousand years ago in a desert someone told us that we each have our own mold, and figuring out what that original, true version of ourselves is is discovering God. Now, some anti-deists might say, well finding your true self is not finding God, its just figuring out what makes you happy. Is that possible, is it possible that it is not God?
Sure. of course its possible.
But I see it this way. God, to me, is love.
So if you find your true self, the one that leads you to real happiness, then you will love yourself. That is God.
If you live like you were meant to live, if you live your true self, then you will dedicate your talents and full self to other people, to empowering others, to engaging others, to respect, and kindness, and compassion, and trust, and honesty, and joy, etc, etc, etc. So, you will truly love others.
That is God.
If you sincerely love others and yourself, others will love you.
That is God.
Maybe its all crap. Sure. Maybe none of that is a greater divine power and its all just cuddly wuddly chemicals. If I were to deny that possiblity I would be a fool.
But, Belief is a choice, and right now, all the evidence that shows me that that purity of love is inside all of us, and connects all of us, leads me to the conclusion that it is something greater than cuddly-wuddly chemicals reactions.
Right now, as a personal choice, and as a career, I choose God.
and, if the discernment system is all wrong, well I hope Thomas Merton was right when he said that the very act of trying to please God is what is pleasing to God.
and if the entire theistic system is wrong, well, then I'll do my best spending my life trying to make myself happy in the deepest ways possible, dedicating my life to the service of others, and pushing myself to love more for all the wrong reasons.
Dammit, I'm really going to regret that... NOT.

After the arrival of the second wind

2007-12-12T02:39:00.000-08:00

I will post some pictures. Really, I will.
Promise.

This is mostly a test run, to see if I can post things from this computer.

So, without further ado:
My top ten ways to be in the height of Marshallese teenage fashion and attitude:

10. Wear unusually baggy clothing. If you are a guy, wear polo shirts that reach your ankles, hopefully with stripes. If you are a girl, wear pants, but never say you do!
9. Have at least one gold tooth, but more is better. If not enough commitment is available, have some fake ones.
8. At any moment when called to interact with the opposite sex. RUN. not figuratively, literally, as fast as you humanly can.
7. Write your nickname in as many places as you can, usually with awkward combinations of Lowercase and Uppercase letters, underscores, and your number. Also, with some nonsensical, island style "ghetto"cized words: like so:
La-Mike #13 w/ hea biotshhh!!
6. If attenging a school dance, whatever you do, DO NOT DANCE!.
5. Get really excited about learning new languages. Get really bummed about learning math.
4. Cut little designs into your sideburns, like some horizontal lines, or, if adventurous, zig-zags.
3. Ask your teachers uncomfortably personal questions.
2. Play basketball if you are a boy, play volleyball if you are a girl.
1. Have a sweet rat-tail mullet! OR a little mustache... if really hardcore, COMBINE!

Now, after following these careful instructions, you will be able to fit right into the pop group at your local friendly high school student body!

See you all next time on, "Being cool" with Mike.
Next week we will give you the top ten things to do to fit in the Serbian hill towns.
Have a ncie day.

Tired

2007-11-23T01:37:00.000-08:00

I wish I could talk right now,
or write I guess.
I wish I could share the rattling tumbling speedy passions and discolorations that pass through my emotional windshield, but the truth is that right now, at this moment, I feel pretty numbed by routine.

It is interesting how you could put 5 people in a house that don't get a long and they can get along quite well. it can be fun and you can find or at least feel like youc an find support.
Then, it is interesting when you mix it up and get 5 different people together, some old, some new, and you can have more in common, you can get along better, you can objectivly like each other more, yet find yourself completely alone.

I don't know how I feel right now.
I don't even know what I think.

The process of aculturation to the RMI has been an unsteady process.
Truth: I have grown to love this place adn its people with inmense depth and soul.
Truth: I have grown siginificantly more commited to a erlationship with God and better relationships with other people.
Truth: I have fallen in love with life. (more than ever before at least)

Yet, I can't help but consitantly be frustrated with the Marshallese, my community memebers, myself, and especially God.
I know that is ok, frustration means caring, it means active participation, it can lead to inspiration, action, motivation.
Yet, right now, its only leading me to get tired.
I'm tired of thinking about everything in a deep and analytical way, I'm tired of living in an isolated bubble away from the heart of marshallese life, I'm tired fo trying to make friends with people who don't seem to think they have time for it, I'm tired of not really knowing what people think, i'm tired of being so far from people I wish i could be around, I'm tired of thinking and caring and processing.

I just want to live my life in the way I think is good, not enclsoed by a system of rules that seems arbitary and pointless.
I feel like that may be how many people here feel on a day to day basis. Hence the drug addiction, adn the alcoholism, and the numbness and indifference and lack of action.

I feel like a teenage girl who is so caged and overprotected by her parents who want, more than anything to keep her chaste, that she wants nothing but to sneak men in through the window.
Given the responsibility over her own choices, she would most likely never choose that path, but having that responsibility taken and denied, that choice becomes the only visible root.

I find myself over stressed and disconnected.
I would love to live in Majuro not in Assupmtion.
I would love to represent myself not a reputation, or a combination of them.
I would love to make my own choices and stand against systems of opression that are part of everyday thought and have been imposed by over a hundred year old Puritanical Europeans.
I would like to be myself and not try to force myself into this mold I don't even like.

I do think, as Megan Romey told me when she was here a few weeks ago, that there is great value in learning what you don't believe and what you don't agree with.
I think i've learned it though.
And I don't want to keep learning it everyday.

I need a vacation.

A little bit much maybe

2007-10-19T20:52:00.000-07:00

It's been a while, and its hard to trly be able to regurgitate to you all the events of the following last months without not being able to really do justice to it all, but I'll start with some highlights:

1) Adding Insult to Injury
My Ipod crashed and burned. I have been musicless for a few months now and I am sad for the many joys that come from music and from being able to use some of my songs in class for various reasons.
BUT, right after my Ipod broke... it got stolen... who the hell steals a broken Ipod? It was reported to me under tha table that one of the students did it, and angered by its non-functionality.. threw it in the ocean. So it is another small bit of my life that the great blue has swallowed. I miss not the machine, its no big deal, I will replace it someday in the future... its just the injury of the saltwater, and the insult that I may be a bad enough teacher to incur a student's fingery wrath...

2)Facing a New World Order
The new JVs arrived in a splay of flashing colors, whirling airplanes, and crashing expectations on all sides. Crashing both into the mountains of beauty and goodness and into the dark voids of chaos. Change is in the air, and unlike last year where the 2nd years yearned for change in many ways, we yearned for stability. But, all things end and new things start, so we're trying to figure out how to live.
We're so far overcome:
differences in expectations of what JVI is all about
long, long, long awkward silences
skirting around major issues
not really enjoying each other
We still must overcome:
issues of honesty
not really having actual conversations
tiredness

3) Catnip
We got a cat. His name is buttons, Edgar, Shiva, and Mujik.
He's a pain in the ass.
First he cried, now he bites.
The point was to get rid of the 30+ rats we had living in our roof... which brings us to the next point:

4) We have no roof.
Everything is soaked.
Theyre fixing it.
Everything smells like it got wet with water filtered through rat crap.
Yummy!
Me and Aaron and living in Bata's house.

and last but not least 5) applications, the future, and you

I just finished sending my Fulbright application today and it wasn't completely complete, dispite my own personal overworking and triple working to get it done on time. I spent all my money, neglected my community and my students, and stayed up until all hours of he night for months really...
I requested that they understand my circumstances and allow direct delvery of my recommendations to them.

I would find it quite entertaining and intruiging if they didn't, since they require of their applicats flexibility and adaptablity to unforseen situations. Wouldn't it be quite hypocritical of them not to provide the same attitude they require?
I think I have noticed recently that this is a common trend in America... and it may be everywhere in the world, why do we all require things of others that we are not willing to provide ourselves? We ask people to be on time, but we're not. We ask people to be frank, but we're apssive agressive. We ask people to be honest, but we keep important htings to ourselves, We ask people to be responsible, to know themselves, to know what they want, to know what to do.. but most fo the time we are just as lost and dazed as those we crtiticize.
I've been thinking about what I require of my students. It is similar to what was required of me. But they don't really do it. thing is: NEITHER DID I!
So why should I expect it? Is it lowering my standards to require less or different things? Or is it being realistic and fair?

I havn't made a decision. Obviously, in terms of faith... God in no relgion I have met so far lowers his standards to say, "hey, realistically, this might be too hard for you..." but simultaneously... God in every religion I have experienced so far lives up to his own standards...
Jesus definately didn't slack off on living up to his own standards.
Jesus reminds me of Socrates, or maybe Socarates reminds me of Jesus... I don't know. But I hope in the end of my days, when I am old and grey or in my 30s and destined to go, I will be able to hold up my standards in a court of law and say no... this is what I stand for, while I have been open to new views and ideas and reworked my thoughts accordingly, this is still what i stand for. I have not danced around the bush of thought, I have not wishy washed my way through this existance... and, in the end, I am willing to have you sentence me to my death before I betray myself.
If I can do that, I can require whatever I want from people... because I require it of myself.

Universally awsome

2007-09-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

The first picture is from our trip to Ebeye. We were on the line waiting to get ont he ferry to the miliraty base to get on teh plane to come back to Majuro, and here is the coolest baby ever. The second one making a yucky face is some relative of Stiffney's (then a junior at the senior graduation, but now one of my seniors). Who, unsure... but awsome nonetheless.

I would walk 30 miles

2007-08-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

We decided in our oddity to walk to entire island of Majuro... from Lauren Bacal to Rita Heyworth.... (I probably spelled Bacal wrong)

We decided to finally get it done for Greg's Birthday... and we left laura Beach at around 8:30 PM...

12 and a half hours later everyone else had

reached Rita and I was asleep at home...

Sorry.
I made it to the Embassy.. the US Embassy, and I stopped at about 7:30 am...
I made it a whopping 22 miles... beating Chris Keeney who stopped at the airport... but I hear we'll probably go again in October... so I'll finish it then.

Ummm... yea

2007-08-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

So, this update has been a long time coming... but a few months back, we got into the ridiculousness of our lives even more by branching out with our "spirituality nights" and performing the most Christian-nerdy night of fun ever to have arisen in teh minds of liberal minded Majuro JVis... we went BIBLICAL BOWLING...

It was quite an adventure in an of itself, but then Jacqueling made sure that we WALKED to the bowling alley in full costume, Later on I'll put up the picture of me walkign down the street and the cab driver driving by with his mouth wide open.

Any way, the point is we got there, and it was fun, in the end, even if it was ridiculous.

The breakdown was as follows:

Jaqueline and Greg were team #1, the old testament:

Salome and Solomon

Emily and I were Team #2, the new testament:

(See how the second years gang up on the first?)

Mary Magdalane and Mary the Mother of Jesus

Greg and jaqueline wupped our asses, but they never ended up getting the back massages that they won as a prize.

Later in teh week Emily found a bowling trophy on the side of the road while running, and of course she picked it up and brought it home... she does that a lot...

And I, well... I am still embarrased, but in a small way.. a little closer to God.

teaser trailer 1

2007-07-19T03:40:00.000-07:00

SO SO SO MUCH TO COME... i am back from ther outer Islands with pictures, stories, and having had gaved at wild dolphins... which are amazing...

I am burnt and crispy after a 2 hour boat ride to a mini-plane.
I am one year older.
I am one year into missing some people who are probably reading this more than I have missed anyone ever, since I've rarelyREALLY missed people, never feeling them too far for too long.
I am one year into loving and falling in love with people, nature, ocean, God, and a wild assortment of youth.
I am one year from seeing my mom and dad.
I am burnt and crisy.
I must go pass out.

The Presence of Luxury

2007-05-24T19:43:00.000-07:00

Last night was a fantastic night. We were invited over to dinner at this girl Sarah's house. She's very awsome and her sister is coming in a few weeks... That'll be funny too because she has NO idea what she is getting into.
Anyway, she cooked some great food: artichokes, which I havn't had in a loooong time, an apple and onion stuffed chicken, and this fatastic muchroom pumpkin curry. We brought over some wine and I made a coffee cream and raisin pie. (I bake a lot now, by the way, especially on Sunday afternoons).
So, we drank, we laughed,we sat.
At the end of the evening, me and Sarah had a converstaion that went in circles, but that was the only place it could go.

She was here for a year working with "World Teach" a good idea that doesn't always play out so well here in the Marshalls, at least thats our opinion, due to some, SOME, American volunteers that are just too into their Americanness and their way of doing things. They are here only to teach and some are not so opne to learning, which I think is the first and main failure of any international volunteer, missionary, or any other type of similar expedition. It HAS to be a mutually growing experience, or else someone is going to thinktoo much of themselves. Anyway, after her program she decided to stay for another year, working under contract for WUTMI, which is an NGO like org that works for women's issues. They recently put together a great documentary about violence against women in Marshallese (one of 2 or maybe 3 things in the language on TV). SHe stayed because she wanted to and not because she thought they NEEDED her, which I think is fault number 2 of international volunteers and etc. Somehow, especially if you were part of a program, you MUST realize you personally are not desperately needed, and somehow the people and culture cannot and should not continue without you. Can you make an impact? yes. can you be remembered? Possibly. Can you even form some life long relationships? hopefully you'll get that close to some people. But no one really NEEDS you, and they WILL survive, and do well without you. Someone will come after you, and if not, they'll manage as they have for a few thousand years.

Anyway, I digress again... She works with a woman named Daisy Momotaro, considered a model Catholic in a lot of ways, who runs WUTMI. She works hard, but she has her flaws, as everyone does. Yet, despite all the good work she does for women and their rights in this country, she also gets manicures and pedicures all the time, takes the 5000 health package to the phillipines, and lives very very comfortably. There are a gaggle of other examples of people who do the samething in all ranges of wealth, from Oprah to Daisy, the question then remains: Where does it become hypocritical? Where does it become not so impressive that they help people?

Quickly we both acknowledged that we would be no different. And so we went in circles. IT is a question which I cannot, and she simply cannot answer. I also wondered because some of the examples I had that seemed better ended up in the same place. The guy I heard about from Chris at IV in Claremont that madelike 150 thousand a year or something and gave most of it to charity, was annually audited, lived in a low income neighborhood off of liek 30 or 40 thousand a year... even he, as far as I understand, may live on what he needs, but I don't think he lets himself ever live off of an amount of money where he WORRIES about not having enough to eat or worries about not having enough of anything. He gets what he needs and no more, but he never has to think about just that, what he needs, which a lot of people DO have to think about. Maybe he does, I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't thinkhe does.

So, maybe the idea is a model life in emulation of the great religions leaders: like Buddha, like Mohammad, like Jesus did, and like Jesus said over and over and over... to drop EVERYTHING and follow him. Maybe that is the ideal, but are all the attempts that don't meet it not as valuable?

I have no idea...but what I think right now is this:
What matters is that you care, that you are aware, that you ARE doing SOMETHING. Maybe its just a bandaid, maybe not, but that you see the wounds in humanity and you try to treat them. OK, Daisy takes the health package to the Phillipines and gets the best possible medical care, she doesn't deserve it for what she does, but she does DO what she does. She could just as easily choose to take her luxuries and turn a blind eye to the places in her country that need help and healing. I think that counts for a lot.

I don't know in life how much money I will make, and I will most likely give what I don't need to others in some way. But will I ever just trust God enought o watch my back? I don't know... right now I have placed tangible security and comfort before God, I have placed money before God, and I trust what it brings in the world. Even if I just use it for what I need, and the occasional but not overpowering wants, I still abide in the house of the all american dollar...

Monetary security is my golden calf, is it yours?

Moon Landing

2007-05-05T19:10:00.000-07:00

I have to say that I have been emphatically reading discover magazines that were graciously sent to me by one amazingly beautiful pair of people. Thank you...
Unfortuantely, the pink monkey got wet and is a little grimey... but overall he is a happy fellow.

All I have to say is wow, thank you, and the nutella lasted about 4 hours...
Oh, and that I'm not so keen right now on living in north carolina, but I am excited for you, and it sounds like a good place to freeload for a few holidays each year...

On that note I would like to talk about NASA's plans to rearrange their budget to center work on:
A: Returning to the moon
B: Attempting a Space colony
and all of that really just being practice for
C: Landing on Mars.

While many people in our current times of rising global crises may see this as a foolish waste of money, I'm going to go with Steven Hawkings and support the obvoius,
Too many people and rising global instability does dictate that the future of the human race may not lie solely on earth. While that may be ridiculous science fiction to some, so was "The New World" or landing on the moon in the First place.
That being said, I am not thinking that space colonization will be an element of reality in my lifetime, (while going to space for a joy ride to create revenue for NASA and Virgin might be), but I am glad to see that SOME of the taxpayers' money is going to something significantly more cool and interesting than the "war on terror" or anything having to do with the billions of dollars spent on election campaigns.

What about problems here on Earth? Some would say, what about AIDS research, poverty, hunger, cancer!!!! and the heat... my god! ... THE HEAT!!!

Well, I say, no LESS money is going into those things, money is simply being refocused from mechanized missions, to human involved missions, which, to me is another plus. Adding the human element back into space research helps eleimate the science fiction and bring ont eh reality, it also helps us push ourselves harder to develop technology for the safety and plausibility of humans spending a long time in space.

AIDS research is hard because it may be, whether we like it or not, have to be added to the list of diseases we CANNOT vaccinate against, like malaria and tuberculosis, and then.. oh dear, the responsibility to protect humans from AIDS will completely be on education and personal responsibility... I know that that is a great fear for many.... What? We can't just get something done to us to make our lives easier, so that we can do whatever we want without thinking about it?.... At the pace we are going, according to most scientists, it will be a decade or a few decades before we reach a vaccine, but the most likely end result will probably not be one...
Obviously, I am not making a jab at people with AIDS. Its a disease, and it sucks, and I feel a lot of sympathy and compassion for those who have it, especially for those who did educate and protect themselves and still contracted the disease. But, seeing as it is not the easiest disease to catch, as opposed to say malaria or tuberculosis, I do often wonder if our moeny would not be better spent on funding good sexual education programs, that lead with abstiance as the forefront, but don't presume that that people won't still have sex, and educates our teenagers on how and why to protect themselves.

Poverty, hunger and the rest of the legitimate problems in the world, and in our country, i think have a more pressing battle to fight than that of being short on change. Until, which may never happen totally, but until there is a radical change in the mindset of the importance of material gain, and the revered cult of the glorious American Individual, those probelsm will continue to fester and grow, and many people will be taken in the wake. As long as there are still Sunday Christians praising the Bible but not listening to its call for simplicity and communal care, as long as there are the few and far between churches preaching that people deserve to be poor, as long as there are atheist materialists instead of atheist moralists at the forfront of our country, well... don't expect a bigger budget to change much. Before anything can change, WE have to change, the way we think and the way we live our lives, and especially the way we run our companies. As long as CEOs are making millions by paying workers 5 dollars an hour and never training them, as long as people keep getting absurdly more money than they will ever need, and as long as children are taught that the goal of life is to bring yourself to the top, no matter who you step on or leave behind... we will be pleaged by the consequences we have raught upon ourselves. Unfortuantely, it is not the ones with that mentallity that usually suffer. Pure materialsim is a religion all its own, with its own safty measueres. If you are that far gone, you don't CARE about making others suffer, and so that happens.. over and over again... its a great saftey mechanism.

Anyway.. the whole point is let's go to the moon. Heck, I'm ready to go myself... as long as we don't put an american flag on it, declare it the 51st state and start whipping out the shotgun when other countries' astronauts try to land.

Some Simplicity

2007-04-27T19:18:00.000-07:00

Things I have learned, amd learning, and daily struggle with, but feel are important:

1. Nothing is permanent.
2. Speak only the truth at all times, no matter how inconvenient.
3. Speak only when you need to speak.
4. God and peace may be frequently found in solitude.
5. All relationships are also God, if they are what they are supposed to be.
6. Logic usually supercedes goodness or good nature, many virtuous people have harmed others with good intentions and miserably execution. Yet Logic without a good moral base can be equally dangerous.
7. Many things are interconnected, any imbalance usually causes the house of cards to crumble.

I hope everyone is well.

The Quarter Life: Romantic Relationships

2007-04-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

Since I bootlegged the last Quarter Life, I figured I would re-hop on the bandwagon and give the laid back tropical island perspective. Since It is bootlegged and all, like 98% of the DVDs here in the Marshalls... I will simply sufice by saying you can check out the original work by Aaron here and the links to Bryce's from there.

So, on the topic. I will limit this as well to all about myself, philosophizing about everyone else through that narrow lens...

I talk a lot.

Everyone that knows me knows that.
Everyone that knows me has a love/hate relationship with how much I talk. Sometimes it is amusing, sometimes it is confusing, and half the time, only I am in the mood for it. I repeat stories 1000 times and I need to share anything and everything I get excited about with everyone at anytime. And I get excited about almost everything. Hence... there's a lot to say!

Yet, as those who know me very well also know. While I wear who I am on my sleeve, I also restrain myself from sharing a significant part of my genuine feelings and personal thoughts about things that are important or significant to my life. I get uncomfortable talking about myself in real depth, I've even been uncomfotable writing this blog sometimes.

So, what the hell does all this have to do with romantic relationships, Mike?

Unfortunately, for me and those I have been involved with, I treat romantic situations, if they can be called romantic, in the same way that I treat my topics of conversation. It is quick and easy for me to get myself into "relationships" that are fundamentally superficial and frequently produced by a moment of brief excitement, a fleeting passion for something shiny... sometimes, it doesn't even have to be that shiny. BUT, when it comes to the girls/women I have met that I truly find substantial, powerful, beautiful in intricate and expanding ways, and together utterly amazing (here concurring with Aaron that the list is extensive) I have absolutely no idea what to do, what to say, how to breathe...

I freeze and I have two typical reactions:
A) Avoid them at all possible costs
OR
B) Assume that they don't and will never like me back and aim hard to cross the friend barrier, turning them into a close confidant, a hang out partner, an adivsor and advisee, a sister, and the farthest thing from a romantic relationship.

These two methods ensure that I either keep their amazingness in my life and/or avoid getting emotionally injured in any possible way.

It is an amazingly terrible method because up until now I can't say I have ever had a meaninful romantic relationship, and I have had many relationships with women. The benefit is that I do have an inordinate amount of very amazing women I can call my friends.

I think I should drop this method, but that is hard. Due to years of self-conditioning, I simply assume that any woman worth my time wants nothing romantic to do with me. It makes it easier and infinately harder, simultaneously.

I think about my friend John, whose engagement I recently learned about (while I was sad I didn't know of it earlier, I was happy I heard it instead of read it, there's something nice about that), and I find myself full of admiration. The commitment, dedication, compromise, and all the other pretty amazing qualities required to be in a relationship that leads to a real engagement and marriage, not just for the ritual and the paperwork, but a real one for which ritual and paperwork is just a sidedish, is something worth admiring these days. While I have never been a strong supporter of early marriages I can think of a few couples that were either married early, are enganged right now, or are in a relationship where one could say they are married despite the lack of formalties... that tend to prove me wrong, and the old cliche of love being all that matters more of a reality.

I think that now, in my life, I have come to a point where I no longer feel like I need a relationship, I no longer really feel pressured to get one. While I would like to be in a meaningful relationship right now, I don't feel inadequate not being in any relationship. I am utterly content and happy with my life and waiting for someone else amazing to come along. I think that means I finally AM ready for a real relatioship. But who knows? We'll see.
I would like to wait and see.
I would like someone to share the things I have a real difficulty sharing with.
I would like someone to be comfortably quiet with.

THE cross walk (Faith, PT. 2)

2007-04-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

So, I have been weary and hesitant, cowardly and foolish, since I have been intensely avoiding this topic. First, some more procrastination: the background of this reflection. THE cross walk... yes, you read correctly, this was not just ANY cross walk or A cross walk no...no... no this was THE cross walk. There are three main reasons for this:
NUMBER ONE: Marshallese people on Majuro don't really walk that much. People do, and there is a lot of basketball, but during the day there is the intense and penetrating sun, and then there are cars and seventy-five cent taxis. Let us forget that not too much is really THAT far away, but it is in people's minds. One mile is 100. So many of the people above the age of 15 are not used to walking too much... and even less so after the age of like 20 or 30. People also get very large after the age of 25 or so, so it becomes harder and more agrivating to do so. So to ask many of these people to walk and carry a heavy cross and heavy icon of Mary for EIGHT MILES... makes this THE cross walk.
NUMBER TWO: It has come to my recent attention that the cross we carried for those eight miles was in fact the actual, legitimate, 100% real cross that the actual, legitimate, 100% dying and alive and walking on earth son of god, Jesus, died on. Not a cross made out of two pieced of wood, sanded down, laquered, and held together with large metal bolts... NO... Jesus died on this cross...
Want to talk about Lost in Translation?
I hope that little mess up was clarified...
but, despite its not being the stage of Jesus' execution, the cross was still pretty cool despite, and partially due to, its simplicity. The Pope gave the cross to the world's Catholic youth a bunch of years back when he (John Paul II, the dead one for all of you non-holics in the reader's circle) established "World Youth Day" in an attempt to create something that would reignite youth passion and the idea of pilgrimage. It happens every 2.. or 3.. or 4??/ I dunno, every couple of years in different places all around the world (the next one is in australia and I am hoping to stick around long enough to go with the Majuro Youth, not only to see the amazed adn stunned faces of many Marshallese kids when they see something like australia, but to see mine when i do, lol). The cross travels around the world and has done so for a bunch of years. Well, this is the first time (and very possibly the last time ever) when the cross has come to the RMI. So both the awsomeness of its travels and the uniqueness of its arrival and stay here (for less than 24 hours, yes it was walked for longer than it was in the church before it was back on the plane) make this THE cross walk.
NUMBER THREE: The amaount of people thta showed up and MADE it all the way was awe inspiring and intense. I was so happy to see so many people, Catholic and not, united around this one simple cause. I had a lot of fun, one of my favorite moments in all of my time here. I carried the cross and the irritatingly slippery and awkward though beautiful icon of mary, I prayed, and I messed around with the youth group. It was pretty effin' sweet.
So.
Mike.
What are you getting at other than showing cool pictures of the 4-5 hour event ending in a huge feast of delcious delights and a mass I still get made fun of for falling asleep in (it was 3 am and I had just walked 8 miles, come on!)
I do not belive any religion uniquely possessing the entirety of universal, ultimate, and divine truth. I belive they all do. I admire the passion and prayer of the Muslim, I admire the philosophy and conception of God of the Hindu, I admire the rigor and laxness of the Buddhist, I admire the way of the Tao, I admire the humanism of much of atheism...
I respect and honor all of them. And I also admire Chrisitanity.
All religions are haunted by mistakes, human faults, historical bull, and constant internal and external bickering...
despite that, there are so many people around the world doing powerfully amazing things in their search for God in reality and in each other.
I am here still because I love Jesus.
Despite what theological stuff and doctrine and fundamentalism I may or may not agree with. I get frustrated with Christianity so often, as well as with many of the other religions, like I do with my family, with my friends, with new yorkers, colombians, nepali, and marshallese. I get frustrated like I do almost every single day with God.
I am glad I do and fear a day that I don't, because if that day comes it will mean I no longer care, it will mean I am no longer putting so much of myself into trying to get myself a step or so coser to God, and a step or so closer to the world as well.
I get frustrated because I am on a journey to make myself and them better, the best, the most loving, the most generous, the most kind, the most forgiving.
I get frustrated because I want to be perfect, and I want everyone else to be as well.
I get frustrated because both me and others lose track of what is important.
I get frustrated because I am constantly trying to live up to the example of a man, god or not, that inspires me to love.

I leave with a Sufi Muslim quote I got from teh reading from "Life of Pi" I gave to my World Religions class:

"If you take two steps towards God, he runs towards you."

I am trying to take those steps.

Jesus fell, and I fall, but I have a whole hoard of people around me doing THE cross walk to pick me up again.

the most poignant from Melissa's CD

2007-03-30T00:45:00.000-07:00

The mike adapted version...

I don't wanna take another vow
and i don't wanna stay and hang around
and i don't wanna tell anyone else about my life

but I don't wanna be the one who chokes
and is the butt of all their litte jokes
I don't want God to leave me alone.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

2007-03-16T01:52:00.000-07:00

Post and pictures on "THE cross walk" where, the actual... yes, yes, the ACTUAL cross of JC came to the small pacific island of Majuro.
(very honest positive feelings exist on my part towards this event, which further allow me the ability to mock it openly in a sensitive but utterly inappropraite way, so while it may include some hilarious interludes and mockage... do await some teary moments of genuine heartfell expression on my part... be forewarned)

Post and pictures on "Biblical Bowling" the high and low of my time as a volunteer attached to a religious institution... we, as a foolish and awkward community, exemplified the extreme sterotype of "Friday night Crazy Christian fun" in a lovely 1 hour package.

and last but not least:
on a serious note...
those of you who pray, please pray for Dave O'Donnell, whose father just passed in an accident, and whose mother is injured but recovering....
Keep them in your prayers, if you know Dave and read this tell him, despite it being a long time since I've seen him, I wish I could be there to you know... be there. but my prayers are with him, and so are those of my comunity.
And to those who don't pray... send a condolance and a wishful thought into the ether for him...

with that...
be back soon

Mucha mierda a caso de nada

2007-03-16T01:39:00.000-07:00

...OK

So how did that long load of verbal turned into cyber-literal vomit have to do with "Much Ado About Nothing" which is the play I saw even though i keep saying it was "As you Like It"
well...

I guess the final realization, that I had...
and when I say realization, I mean epiphany... I mean gutteral, supereme, passionate, and bit bit by bit all consuming explosion of p-ure truth inside the very core of my internal ethereal structure...
was a little anti-climactic, seeing as it was something a bit obvious, to me at least.

I want to tell stories.
Movies most likely and theatre and the like.
That is what I feel like my life is for.

Which to a certain degree makes me feel pretty useless.
I mean, you know... in the grand scheme of things. In the big picture of human achievement, progress, and divine relations...
Yet, not...
I gave it some thought, and I thought about my life, and the life of some of the people I know... and I thought, how nice is the 3/4 of a teaspoon of sugar that is the universally known collection of ficticious BS that we have in our heads. Some long term, some not...
But, as I sat with Jaqueline and Kraus the other day in teh faculty room, guiltily rewatching the "Dancha" video by the Pussycat Dolls that we fenaigled into the school computers...Jaqueline goes... "Wow, that look is really Lara Croft."

I thought later... how nice is it that soemthing so trivial and insignificant as a non-real oversexualized uberexagerated female action adventure videogame female, is in the public consciousness to the point where me, an oddball monkey from NYC, and JQ, for all intents and purposes, a farmgirl from Iowa... can relate for a few seconds on the mutual recognition of said trivial and insignificant character.

ANd what about those stories that do live in the public forever?

I probably will never create one of them, but i will enjoy my life... and if i do help to bring one of those into the mental real... than so be it, and if i don't... well i lived my life... no?

kasari timilaai manparchha

2007-03-08T03:29:00.000-08:00

I just came from the MIHS (Marshall Islands High School) performance of "AS you like it"
Yes, you heard right... for one dollar 3 hours of shakespeare.
80% in marshallese and 20% in English... the marshallese parts are WAAAY better.
I've never been a huge fan of this particular comedy but a combination of 2 front rows full of kids utterly enthrawled with one of the few, if not the only, play they will ever see, and high school kids famed for being unhelpably shy and totally lacking of vision, imagination and commitment to follow through with putting on a whole play.... together, contradicting so many things you hear about Marhallese people, turned the simple and somewhat generic Shakespearean comedy into an island style extravaganza worthy of watching over and over...

I was sitting down last week... pretty much all of it, listening to my slowly rusting and rotting Ipod, thinking about who I am, and what I want to do with my life, and all taht other stereotypical load of bullshit that you think about as a 20 something year old. Yes, I admit my foolish weakness... but I was there going... Alright Mike, who are you? what do you want to do with yourself?

And as my Ipod froze for the 6 billionth time, i slowly came to realize that I am happy here, as i was in Nepal, as I was in NY, as I was in colombia...
I have never really really been unhappy... and that blew my mind. So much time we spend thinking about what little things bug us, bother us, or we wish were different... and we don't stop and realize that maybe the reason we're so picky is because we're so happy with so much of it all... of eerythign around us.

So I thought... what made me happy... and I realized that I need 2 things in life... this is decision number one... who am I and wha tdo i want to do with myself...

I am a person that wants to be around people... people who care about each other and look out for each other... you can call it family, community, friends, all of the above or communist tendencies, but I'm done with that whole All American Individual bull... EFF the individual... community here i come. with all teh sacrifices, all teh frustrations, all teh yelling and kicking and screaming. all the lies, and tears, and laughs, ad hugs, and smiles, and warmth, and agreement, all the passion, and dishwashing anger, and rodents, and trash, and chores, and wanting alone time but never getting it. all the ups and downs in teh rollercoaster of people being with people ad wanting to be with each other no matter what because you mean something to each other... that is the boat I want to be on.

Two..

I want to be involved with teenagers, or kids, or adults... with people who need someone to be there because too many people are worried about the AAI (all american Individual) and not looking at those around them that need a helping hand. I'm pretty much done with the whole "but they'll use the money to drink... or for drugs" their life sucks... give them an EFFing berak and maybe try and forming a relationship with some people and seeing what little you can do, person by person. NO, i'm not developing a savior complex... there are peopel who don't want to be helped, there are people who use drugs and alcohol and their life sucks because of that, not the other way around... but tehres so many people in the world that just need someone to listen to them, someone to hold their hand, someone to make them laugh, someone to play cards or checkers with once in a while.... thats all... no stopping hunger, no eliminating economic poverty... those are long term goals, but in the day by day, how about visiting some of those elderly folk whose children desided they were too much of a burden, even though they managed to put up with them for 20 years while they were being raised... talk about a burden...

TO BE CONTINUED.... (and connected to "As you Like it")

Suckfest

2007-02-06T11:46:00.000-08:00

I love it here.

While the community memebers comfort or annoy me to varying degrees, I have gotten used to them.
I'm mentally preparing myself for new people and being "old" in JV terms.
Also, sadly we lost a community member last week.
The office decided it was better to send her home for medical reasons.

That sucked hardcore. It was probably for the best in the long term.
But, that doesn't take away from the suckfest.

So, keep Emily Capurso in your prayers and we will muddle on.
It's easy to just keep going liek normal.

It was amazing to see how big a deal it was she was leaving to all the people here.
Yet, how life HAS to go on, HAS to continue...

It's amazing to realize how simultaneously important and insignificant we all are,as JV's andas people.

Rancho Cucamunga

2007-01-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

I think that despite my disdain for dishwashing, it is humourous how it is an issue for almost any group of people living together...
adding to my disdain...
DOWN WITH DISHWASHING! it breeds internal hatred among humanity!
let us go back to plates made of leaves.
think about it:
1. it would be cool.
2. it woul create jobs, because someon would hav to make the leaf plates everyday and note everyone would want to.
3. they'd be biodegradable... you coul jut chuck em out the window when you are done!..
Paradise my friends...

Leave modern plates for decorative purposes only... like those ones that come with teh sign:
WARNING. DECORATIVE ONLY, LEAD PAINT, DO NOT USE TO EAT

why do they need that sign? and the one for hairdryers in showers... WHY?

I also have come to a deeper apprecaition of color...
Color is awsome!
See?
Try to think of a world with no color... none... do it for a while, just live for a few minutes in your head in a world without color and then open your eyes to something crazy like this picture, or flowers, or india, or thailand, and see what you think...

Housework

2007-01-19T16:44:00.000-08:00

I have made an objective decision.
There are many many many things I love about life. They make me amazingly happy everyday,, and there are just two things that might be onsidered a blight to mundane but wsome daily human existance:
1. Housework, but really just washing dishes
2. Grading. Who likes grading? NO ONE.
I think every other tedious and daily thing about life. I think some of the most fascinatingly amazing things happen when nothing is going on. It is the time when you can really get to know people and yourself. This is big coming from an adventure junkie. Of course I still want to kayak own rivers, head up to everest base camp, ride a camel in the sahara, and ride a horse up to see some Ecuadorian volcaoes, but in between I think I can really enjoy the details.
I'm trying to let the world adn people get to me less and less. We're just people, and it is just the world. Don't we blow everythign too far out of proportion. I know it is cheezy but global warming is consuming the planet, there are over 100,000 child soldiers in Africa, the tensions between the middle east and the west are strady or increasing, civil wars continue all over the world, and people are using religion to push each other apart instead of bringing each other together just as much today as 2000 yars ago.... so is the broken coffee pot, the insensitive phrase, the small misunderstanding between ways of doign things really worth my stress level rising and my heart going to my head?
My dad apparently had a mild stroke last week. Granted my father is a walking combination of smoking, stress, and age. Yet, we really do think that they'll live forever no matter what...
He's fine... as logn as he lives a more regimented life...
Yet, unnecessary stress is such a huge part of his life, and, as far as I am convinced, of recent medical events. I don't like that path.

This picture I've put up before, but it is the only one I have of the rental units...

My heart is with you dad... every day, even if I can't be there. It always has been. Despite anything.

Hmmm...

2007-01-13T00:21:00.000-08:00

Well..

I just have to say.
COMMENT PEOPLE, I'M NEEDY AND WANT OPINIONS!

thanks...

i should post more pictures... I'll start taking them again.

I've watched liek 30 or 40 hours of anime straight because I was really really sick.
I couldn't sleep, so I was saved by Japanese drama and action!
You should really learn to appreciate japanese anime if you already haven't.
It was many hours of Samurai X

That's all I have for now. WHat do you want? I've been sick.
Don't judge me.

Finding ways to communicate

2007-01-08T01:14:00.000-08:00

Communication sucks.
It is hard.
But, we all have to do it. SO, we keep trying to find new ways to do it.
We make up whole language systems to have enough in common with other people that we can communicate. Religion, politics, countries, laws, pop music, fashion, sports, brand names... Then we take those simple and basic terms we invented to be abl to identify with each other on a superficial or not, depending, level... and we interpret them and reinterpret them and personally apply them until each person's version is so different that we have to find some other way of identifying with each other and communicating.
So, people in the modern world are running around doing everything just as long as it takes them to "make it their own" but then they are alone with it... alone again... so they pick something else up.
It is like a huge buffet of life choices and ideas....

sometimes it looks like that...
Sometimes though I just wish I could be someone's apprentice... stop trying to "make things my own" and wait until I gt the knowledge personally passed down, and experince has been gained... then, maybe then I could make something my own, after years of having it be shared... but at that time I would probably be ready to pass it on to someone else....
I'm not saying the whole world should work like that... it can't these days... the world is too small... there are too many people.... but... for some things... it would be nice.

Just think of the great combinations... alex the great and aristotle... famous painters and ..other painters... socretes and aristotle... if i were more educated i bet I could name hundreds...

Quick and easy

2006-12-31T15:32:00.000-08:00

I'll be back with longer stuff and more pictures in a week or so, when internet is free somewhere on the island through a little fenagling and people are more likely to read this and look at pictures.

Bryce and Aaron are talking about snow...
that's so freaky here. So foreign its become hard for me to imagine SNOW!
white stuff falling from the sky and you tell me it is ICE? NO EFFING WAY!

I don't believe it.

Its become very windy, I like that a lot. It's "winter."

I went out to the Jaluit Atoll for the break, and it was AMAZING!
For those of you that like the pictures... sorry but I forgot my camera and I think it was divine providence. It is sort of nice that the trip is just mine. There are some things that only require mental pictures.

I think its funny that I talk about Bryce like I've ever met him and that he might read this about me talking about him. The internet is WIERD.
Think about it. Think about it a little more... Yea see? WIERD!

I got my first 2 mailed Christmas card that were just for me, not for my family, for me (Thank you Sarah Green and Melissa!). They hold a special place in my heart.

I also got more floss... Thanks Mom. I get the hint.

I'm gonna push my self really hard to send things soon.

Don't watch "Eragon" but read it. Also read, "Everything is Illuminated" "Lamb" "Autobiography of a Yogi" and do see Casino Royale and Borat.

Much Love,
Mike

The Quarter Life: Community and Friendship

2006-12-16T16:10:00.000-08:00

As always I have decided to invite myself along on a journey that I was not invited on, but I felt I needed to connect this endless rambling to something bigger, especially after having read both Aaron and Bryce's posts, I felt a strong push to hop on the boat (yes, all my comparisons for the rest of my life will most likely be maritime...). I have to struggle to get the money I need to join this little expedition of thought, but I find it worth my moneymore than many other things.

So, if you would like to read the genuine series that this post has been bootlegged into, and why I have chosen to do so, Aaron's post is found at its usual address of http://throughtincansandstring.blogspot.com/ and Bryce's can be found there.

So, friendship. As many of my friends know I have had, in the past, an awkward and rather negatie view of friendship. Yet, now a days, I have found in friendship the heart of life. If God is and always will be the soul, I think friendship is the heart, and community is the mind.

Friendship MUST include both entertainment, enjoyment, tomfoolery, ridiculousness, and many many many laughs and smiles. That is purely a requirement. Friendship must also contain love. Duh and all. But real love, and therefore real friendship, I think, do not always show themselves in the way we would automatically want it to. I think real friendship is hard sometimes because while our friends support us, they also challenge us. I think friendship, consciously and unconsiously, makes everyone involved better and change is never easy.
I have not thought about weddings, because I've never been to one.
My friend Tayrod sent me an email this summer asking me to be IN his wedding, not just go TO it, and I suddenly understood the big deal. I felt a pure and honest desire to be there, and a truly crushed feeling at my inability to do so because of my commitment.
I though, would have to qualify my friends, if I had to, (maybe because calling si my main form of off island communication and one of the thigns i have to go out of my way to do in the current world I inhabit) as follows:

1. Those I would call if I needed to be reminded of God and love.
2. Those I would call if I needed to feel at home.
3. Those I would call if I needed advice.
4. Those I would call if I needed a laugh.
5. Those I would think of calling.
6. Those I would never call.

Sixth place sounds bad... but it is not. Really. It is just personal negligence and forced ranking.
The other thing I think about these days is, if someone asked me, personally , to be with them, in one week, for whatever reason they felt was truly important... who would i give up my 2 year commitment for, with just one question, even with no explination.

I have to say those people exist. I intensly grateful for that Gift.

I belive friendship does not need proximity as much as it needs desire. Distance makes it harder to maintain, but distance, is, for the most part. Temporary. Not always, but many times.

Now,intentional community, christian communtiy, human community... Ha! Wow... well... there's two ways I think about it right now... immediate and worldwide. I think communtiy is effing ridiculously almost close to impossible. That is why it is so rewarding, in a lot of ways, to strive for it. I think genuinely being part of an intentional community and a worldwide community keeps us and our faith alive, gives us a form of joined solitude that, hopefully, pushes us hard towards God, and in the end, requires that we let go of so much of ourselves, and our desires and our wants, and our needs, and all the other OUR stuff.

It requires that we put God first, above all things, and in doing so, in letting go of ourselves and placing God first (which is one of lifes biggest and hardest challenges) we suddenly come to really see, every moment SEE, teh perpetual connectedness of mankind through God and love... wow that sounds hippie ish and new agey, but ti is not. I think it is a strong part of what Jesus was talking about. The connectedness of all people through the divine, forming ONE community, despite language barriers, cultural differences, and all the other complicated stuff... One human communtiy that is there constantly, eternally striving for the same thing... the thing we lost in the fall... whatever that fall was, the thing the legend of Adam and eve holds that IS true... even if they are not fact... thta somewhere along the line our relationships with each other and with God was broken...wewere broken, but we are all striving to put it back together. So community is that that forces us to help each other. We are already part of it, we have to make it intentional because we are blind to it so much of our lives.

For the last 2 weeks I have wanted nothing but to leave th community I am in. Yet, now I realize I can never leave it... it goes with me wherever I go. That is a comforting thought, even though I may be frustrated right now out of my own selfish and self guided ways.

To end:
One thing I have learned from community in the last few months:
PB&J sandwiches ARE good!
One thing I have learned from freindship:
God is alive.

The desert

2006-12-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

I just watched a video about Catholicism, which I am slwlly beginning to love in the theoretical realm... in that space where I accept Christianity as my way of looking at the world.
While teh idea that there is one true religion encourages and motivates people, if I were to have to pick between there being one true religion and nothing at all to believe in.. I would pick nothing.
I cannot accept such a God.
That being said I can accept that Christianity is the language I am most comfortable growing closer to God in.

So. I was watching this video... about "The little brothers of Jesus"... funny name, great group. You should all look into them if you are bored... very interesting. Anyway. They live in teh desert alone for a year and they said 2 things I would liek to send to those I care about in a desert. I also started to think of this place as a desert made of water instead of a desert with no water.... they are equally as oppressive or a welcoming.

They said, and I paraphrase:

The scariest thing about the desert is that you risk encountering God.
and
when asked.. isn't it antisocial to go to the desert for a year and be alone, and remove yourself from society?
they said, and i paraphrase:
1. you come back
2. the desert is something you always carry around with you. You just need to learn to see it.
When you do, you can run into God anywhere.

Richard

2006-12-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

If I needed to have an example of someone who had qualities I want:
Richard

He does everything... EVERYTHING, with that smile on his face.
Why?

He said service makes him happy.
Well, and he's used to it.

I want to have both of those things.

Unclear

2006-12-16T15:07:00.000-08:00

This is not a very clear picture. But it doesn't matter because it is kindergardeners doing a chicken dance and that is universally fantastic.
We had an elementary school "TALENT SHOW" fundraiser where every class had to participate with more than one number and they did and it was fantastic.We also had a high school "VARIETY SHOW" with little variety but liek 25 numbers. Each show lasted over 3 hours, and other than my being exhausted from chasing kids around. I thought they were GREAT!

I have gotten tired of people of the american denomnation that criticize a lot of what goes on here because: A: it is not to THEIR taste and what a show, or class, or behavior SHOULD be, and B: because they simply don't like it. I'm tired of it because being around it makes me do it to and it makes me angry at myself for not having the will and character to not do it and remain silent, and for encouraging it through my actions. I also hate it because I LIKE most of the stuff they complain about. PLUS i think half of the stuff they complain about is so blown out of proportion. Again, making me blow so many things way out of the water. Oh there's no electricity for a day, oh there is a little teeny tiny iddy bitty piece fo glass in my food, oh we only get rice everyday even though we don't, oh we don't have enough variety, oh the dances are boring, oh they don't smile, oh they don't appreciate my presentation of food they just eat it...SHUTUP!! That is a shutup both for tham and for my own self. Stop bitching about things. Things that really don't matter at all!!!

Arg.. it makes me so angry and frustrated. And here I am complaining about how much people complain instead of just breathing and dealing with it, and maybe praying that the next community is less, just slightly less tied to what i don't like about "americanism" and has some more of the things i do like.

All I want sometimes is for life to be more of a group of kindergardeners doing a chicken dance. If you pay attention they all suck at it, but they're all enjoying each moment adn who really cares about the rest of it?

I miss not thinking

2006-11-29T02:28:00.000-08:00

I miss not thinking about:
cultures
shopping
food
money
dishes
keeping tabs
other people
work
kids
water
more water
salt
excercise
balance
God
americans
american things
american ideas
american mindsets
american americanisms
i miss thinking about:
myself
no sun
cows
getting up at 4:30am
goats
navin daaju
uttam bhaai
going down to the river
puja
shiva and saraswati
making roti wrong
my mom
my fake mom
good colombian coffee in the morning
rufus the dog that thinks he's a person
dad not smoking
regular amounts of alcohol
cheese
tibetan refugees
buddha all around me
mandalas
red and maroon and yellow
tika in the morning before school
goats
and more goats
dirt roads
the same food everyday
leeches but no mosquitos
i'm glad that now i get to think about:
coconuts fallin on my head and me dying
12A and B
9A and B
renting or not renting independant movies
bubsi
kan
to jaluit on a boat?
ocean waters
coral
hiking on water
will sandy le me use the internet
kava with luke
dancing being funny
ice candy
turkey neck...umm ::shudder::
baba ao im mamma ao
times the kids are around
times the kids are GONE
colombia as a home
nepal and india as a comfort zone
europe as a series of fantastic memories
the marshalls as intimately connected with my life

I have but to be grateful.
for the things i love, and for the things i utterly despise... not that i may keep them, but that i may accept them and understand them in my life.
that i see why they are there
i have yet to seriously think about God too much
i should probably stop stalling
but He knows when it will be time.
right?

I miss my mom
I miss fighting with Aaron about random things, and a nice cold beer while talking about girls and arrested development and punk music
I miss getting jumped by Alyssa
and jacob...lol
I miss bob, erik, and devon, and nate tate
i miss random scripps girls... tho megan is quite a main point...
i miss grace and sarah, and meredith, and the rest of the girls.
i miss alex, jess and julie... always simultaneously uplifiting and depressing
i miss my brother.
i miss john fahy and random lunches and bars.
i miss being a student.
i miss andy, and sarah, and MAAARK!!
i miss molly and arielle and michelle...
i miss TENDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i miss navin, subas, rudra, rabin, and basante daajuharu...

i like that i have so much to miss.
means i have a lot of good friends and a lot of good memories to keep adding to.

its sad to forget a friend. not everyone has had a friend. So i never shall.

Running, as fast as u can

2006-11-28T00:34:00.000-08:00

very quick update:

I am great... I heart the marshalls
living in community is getting to me a lot
I wish I could live with a Marshallese family.
I'm not too cut out to living with the amazing amount of hangups and rules Americans have for themselves.
This experience has so far furiously pointed out the part of me that can never be completely American, the part of me that is intensely Colombian, intensely "third world."
That is a part I've never loved so much until now.

It's wierd, but sometimes I think I'm too laid back for this ordeal.
Yea... ME... TOO LAID BACK...
it can get stressful for ridiculous reasons.

More Pictures soon.
More rants on existance to come.
Love you All....

Majuro...

2006-11-08T22:02:00.000-08:00

To be very honest...
there's a lot about this place I have started to love...
I think I just needed to let go of some resentment I had
which I said I got rid of, but really didn't
I still want to be in Nepal
But... learning marshallese will not make me forget nepali
so my marshallese is coming along
its mildly hard
easy language
but i have to live with americans instead of with marshallese so
its hard
and yes, i know i can go there and elsewhere later
but it sucks because I want to be there NOW
but i'm here... now...
and loving this place and these people will never take away the love I have for nepal
i think about it a little everyday
but i have to live here
and to be honest
I've started to like a lot of things about it here.
It's sad that if I were in Nepal 2 years would seem too short.
but here they seem like forever...
yet, hopefully when I leave I'll say
"wow, that was way too short"
but hopefully i'll also say... "ok off home for a month and then off to visit Katie and Sean!"
Lol.
The marshalls... no matter what happens... will always have a very cozy place in my heart

Faith... pt 1.

2006-10-29T02:45:00.000-08:00

My faith is a fragile, slowly growing, developing thing. Christianity to me is not and will never be THE ONE true religion. I am open to almost everything and everyone in the world... but
among the few things I believe in with a deep faith is a variety of paths to God.

Christianity is, though, the one I am most comfortable in and feel the most challenged by to struggle to be a better person. Hence where I am.

Hiram Samuel, beyond being a great person in many other ways, is a daily example to me of a strong faith. A faith that I one day, in my own way, hope to have. More on that some other day.

A grain of Salt might be too much...

2006-10-29T02:17:00.000-08:00

A moment of reflection with a picture of what I can see out my window...

this is for my opinion, my feelings, my rants and stuff ... that is all. It is mainly for those that care about me or are so teaming with curiosity that they find my inane ramblings intelligible are somehow enjoyable to read.
it should not be taken as FACT... and it should be taken with a grain much smaller than salt.

That being said... it is what it is... honest and mine and public out of my selfish choosing of ease, comfort, stinginess, and laziness to individually communicate with people. If you read it and it makes you angry, frustrated, bored, inspired, or like you wasted precious minutes of your life... let that be what it is... honest and yours.

Feel like sharing that with me? Fine... thank you. Feel like asking me to explain myself in more detail... also fine.. i might... i might not... and thank you... feel like dismissing me as a an asshole, or praising me as an example (though if its the second you should have your head checked) go ahead...

my ideas, my rants, this page are what they are... sometimes elated, sometimes insulting, sometimes self-defeating, sometimes angry, sometimes bored, sometimes boring...

i can't take this page too seriously... because less people read it than i see in a day. I know I have a counter...
you shouldn't take me too seriously... because those who know me will tell you that's more frustrating than its worth.

i represent myself, i represent JVI, i reperesent New york, LA and Medellin, Colombia, I represent Catholicism, I represent doubt, I represent racists, arrogance, and greed, as well as white people, hispanic people, selflessness, empassioned belief in being a man for others, liberalism, and acceptance, I represent Regis Graduates, Jesuit Schools, Pomona Graduates, Film Majors, Artists, Actors, Fat people, Brand name whores, punk wannabes, 22 year olds, teachers, Assumption high school, America... and many other things...
am I a "good" representative of any of those... most likely.. no...
am I conscious and trying to represent some of them better, some of them worse, and some of them not at all? Yes...
We'll see what happens.

I'll end with a simple truth.
The world is made much better by going to school with a mullet.

Culture cont...

2006-10-29T01:27:00.000-08:00

Culture is an interesting thing. I think my personal beliefs on it are a bit different from most people's in that I do no thtink culture is sacred or should be preserved because of anything other than appreciation of beauty.
Its hard to explain, but basically, the only reason I think"culture" should be preserved is in memeory and in museums.

I think culture is alive... it grows, ti adapts, it changes, it does what it needs to do. It is not a solid thing that everyone agrees on. It just is what life is and we can try and put it in boxes, and we can try and say no it should not include McDonald's or change in anyway, but really everywhere in the world it always has and it always will. We can and should try and remember, and honor, traditions that are falling away... but we should not assume, in my humble opinion, that the direction a "culture" is moving is "bad"... that statement takes a serious amount of thought and a serious amount of consideration.

Does that mean I am not angered or devastated when things in other cultures die, or have died because of organizations that I may or may not be part of? No, I am. And that anger is mine to have. Does that mean that that should or should not have happened? I have no idea... what I do know is I am angered equally by the decimation of Ancient Egyptian culture by the influx of Islam, the destruction of Babylonian "culture" by the jews, the "moralization" undergone by many cultures by Christianity. Why do those anger me? Because I wish I could see them, I wish I could see the beauty they had to offer... Selfish and unrealistic in the end. I think it comes from a combination of my intense desire to see adn experience the whole world... and all of time... and from my lack of real identification with any culture, especially not the American one... which is only a fraction of who I am, where I've been, and where and how I was raised.

There is also "material culture," "artistic culture", social culture", so what am I or anyone else talking about when they say culture? Who the fuck knows and it needs to be clarified when you are having a conversation.

Anyway, to finish what I wanted to finish last week... all of which this was a prelude to...

The Marshallese in my opinion have not, and still do not have much of any "material culture"... the STUFF we can get excited about as adventure seeking and materially driven americans. Clothes... food... dances... architecture... etc... do they have some? yes... is it creative and awe inspiring? not to this young and immature buck...

This is of course coming from someone that longed for it in going back abroad. Coming from urban USA... I was trying to escape a world I already considered even more void of awe inspiring material culture than here...

The colors in colombia can make you feel high, the passionate love of ancestry in ecuador can make you feel a bit empty of your own, the architecture and sheer history of many parts of Europe can make you feel extrememly tiny, the landscapes and perpetually present animal kingdom or india and nepal can force you to see God in the world. ANd in all of these places, the food can tantilize you until your mind settles in your stomach.

Here, to me, that is not so. Here to me material culture is a scarce and slowly withering thing. Pictures of the Marshallese drum are everywhere yet there is no drum to be seen or heard. The smallest semblance of adventurous material culture I may have been genuinly selfishly pleasured by would be the material scarcity of this places' past, before missionaries came and both bettered and worstened this place, as they have greater bettered and greatly worstened many other places.

THAT all being said... some of the places with gerat material culture have an almost invisible smidgeon of spirit, or of hospitality, or of love, or passion, or joy. There are SOCIAL cultures that are self-hating, self-defeating, alienating, and in some cases even harsh, in some cases oddly paranoid. There are social cultures of discrimiantaion and of fear. One of my greatest concerns is that that is exactly where the USA is going... deeper into a culture of fear and discrimination that the fences sepertating it and Mexico can never get too expensive or too high...

A moment of silence for that sad and recent addition to the world...

The Marshallese do not have a perfect or fully unfrustrating social culture... but their hospitality, their spirit, and their capacity to love is beyond most I have experienced in my whole life. It is a culture of survival and of mutuality that is alaso slowly dying. Slowly being replaced with American values of productivity, materialism, and and self-preservation.

That to me is a real loss... the loss or lack of material culture is only sad to the part of me that wants to white water raft and learn how to dance in new and interesting ways covered in new and interesting clothes.

I am honestly, and deeply saddened by the slow loss of what many parts of the world could learn FROM the Marshallese...

humility, acceptance, reverence, patience, love, freedom, prioritization of relationships, community, communion, sharing, desire to suspend time with other people, the undefinably large appreciation for conversation, hospitality, demonstration of affection, and many many many other things that make up the undeniable spark in many, if not all, of the marshallese I have met so far.

if anyone is responsible for that loss its corprate america. the missionaries i find respectable and valuable, and in some ways hope the little i am doing here emulates are those that passionately see that spirit and aim to save it.

In terms of material culture the world is loosing little less than nudity from the marshallese...
In terms of social, spiritual, and all other subsections you could create of culture, the world is loosing some of its greatest and most empassioned souls...

a day of silence and prayer for the hope that the spirit of the marshallese, a spirit of survival and warmth may find strength in the face of materialism.
a day of silence in gratefulness to those who have given their lives to preserve it.
and a year of silence for the beauty the marshallese have to offer that may be too far gone to share with the world.

Manit Day

2006-10-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

Manit means culture.

To be very very very honest... there isn't much of a culture to celebrate...and the little there is left of the little their used to be is... well... kind of boring.

Mostly they celebrate the cultures of every other island nation in teh pacific... the ones that have...well... physical culture...

the dances are dead... so now they are stolen
the food is bland...

BUT THANK GOD FOR GRASS SKIRTS AND COCONUT BRAWS. because i thought this was awsome!

the little cultural stuff they had might have/was probably destroyed by the missionaries. things were labeled "immoral" and the peopel were "civilized"....

but honestly... there was little physical culture to destroy here... so there is not much to mourn...

What I would really like to give a moment of silence to is the slowly disappearing cultural things that aren't visible right away, that aren't pretty and you can't put in your house. I would like a moment of silence of all teh many thigns teh marshallese have to offer the world that I think is being erroded by American individualism, a monetary notion of progress, and ...hmmm "gansta" music.

Bula.. bula... Fijian from Kubuna

2006-10-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

Lucy was the geography teacher at AHS.

She gave her notice at the beginning fo the year that after two months she would be leaving Assumption.
So...
she is gone.

The confederacies of Fiji... like states almost... or sections with provinces in them...
they have a competition every year. they raise money and whoever gets the most by inpenedance day wins.
Lucy is a member of kunbuna and this night we went to the Oasis bar to help in the effort. They won... btw...

I also got smashed that night. smashed, wasted, tanked, drunk off my ass... it was a very necessary adn relaxing event.

Sisters make things better Pt. 3...

2006-10-21T15:41:00.000-07:00

Sisters in habits are funny.

Though it looks pretty cool.

Sisters, wearing all black and swimming around, wiht their hair down, and not wanting to get out. That is even funnier.

Sr. Monica... Sr. Mon mon... hailing from Kirabas... a kirabati mermaid fo teh open ocean water pool at Outrigger, marshall Islands resort.

Swim for richard's birthday sister, swim, swim, swim and save the world.

Party=food, karaoke, and a pinch of Richard...

2006-10-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

The world is a better place at Assumption thanks to Richard David, physics adn accounting teacher, fillipino master, father of two adorable children... Rafael and Joshua Michael.

His wife's name is Esmeralda, but they call her Esmi. She's about 4 feet tall, but a whirlwind all herself.

Richard, like most of the high school staff at Assumption will be leaving at the end fo the year. See... Assumption who raises its almost $1,000 tuition every year, and has just completed a 6 or 7 year long $1,000,000 building project, has not raised its teachers salary for a long long time. Richard makes 40 bucks a day. $4.50 an hour. His babysitter evryday costs 20.
hmmm.... on the other hand, everyone that works at the public schools gets paid lamost 3 times as much. He has two kids now. he can't afford to stick around ad majorum dei glorium.
he's not a volunteer. this is his life.

It sucks because all the people on this island don't really want to be here. They just want to go to America. That's all. Sometimes I wish they closed the island, shipped everyone to california, dropped them off and said here... figure it out. I think most people would. Would their lives be much better than here? no, but at least they wouldn't have this indefinate struggle for americanhood looming over them forever.

On the other hand, knowing the united states. Becuase he'd liek to be a nurse, but what are his chances in the states of that? Maybe everyone is really far far far far far better off here, where Richard can be a teacher, a good teacher, and not have to clean toilets, with his hands, in some dive bar while getting treated like an animal by self important white trash.

Life is life though. It has a course. Who knows what will happen.

I think I'm turning Japanese....

2006-10-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

We have two J.O.C.V.'s at Assumption High School. Tsuyoshi and Asumi. It stands for Japanese O-word C-word Volunteers. They are pretty nice. I think Asumi's English is much better than Tsuyoshi's, apparently though last year when he got here it was even worse!

They are pretty cool. though I am told many a story of Rie, who was here last year before Asumi. She was supposedly a fun fun time. Tsuyoshi was a chemistry major and Asumi... I'm not sure I think Music. Tsuyoshi teaches math math math and chemistry. Asumi teaches music.
My goal is to use them to learn Japanese so Ian will take me to Japan. I will learn some Marshallese, enough to be accepted, understand people, and have basic conversation. but honestly the use of learning a language known to 30,000 people? int he whole world? other than cool factor it isn't much. ANd the little I will learn will satisfy cool factor.

So Japanese here I come.

Sisters make things better, Part Ruo/dos/dui/ni/two

2006-10-09T03:38:00.000-07:00

The last installment for this section of life will be short and sweet.

Sr. Cecila.
She makes some of the greatest faces you'l ever see.
I rarely get to see her.
She teaches Home-ec at the HS.
Fading class.
She's never in the faculty room because she doesn't need to be and it is far from her shop.

I think I need to make a point of seeing her more.
In the end.
I could only make things better.
Right?

The Dungeon

2006-10-09T03:28:00.000-07:00

The faculty lounge used ot be called the dungeon, because it was underground, under the church, dark, dirty, and well, mostly like a dungeon.

This new faculty room has a brand new airconditioner, we have kids on JUG clean it all the time, and everything in it is clean(ish) and new(ish).

No better name has come yet.

I pulled my first all nighter since college in this room last night. It is the end of the quarter and I had tests to write, things to grade, review packages to make, and so on. I even made a Jeopardy board out of colored paper for a review game.

My desk.
The one in front with the two posters on it, rolled up.
A messy hell.
A comfortable little home near home.
I'm very grateful for my little space.
Greg sits next to me.
I'm grateful for that too, but don't tell him. His head is big enough. Literally. He kind of looks like a bobblehead sometimes.

Thugging it out

2006-10-09T03:17:00.000-07:00

Cody and Aubrey are cousins.

Whn people are not related, that day I might be surprised or amused.

The two trouble makers in the middle are Mike Momotaro and Rodney from Chuuk. I don't teach them yet. I will next year when they're seniors... and oo do I smell some stuff coming my way. They're great kids... but troublemakers all the same... and they remind me a little of me... hence the trouble

Cody is one of the smartest kids in the school, if not THE smartest kid in the school. Aubrey's relied on his cousin too long... and so he's trailed behind. They're good kids though. I don't think I've met the one I think is not worth my time or effort when it comes to the older kids. I am so invested in them, it sucks... really, i put them in front of me to much.
I love it though.
It's nice to think that maybe they'll listen one out fo the 300 days of the year and get, learn think of something that will help them in life.
It's also fun to push them harder than they say they want to be.
It makes me very grateful to many in my life.

Hilarity always follows Danity

2006-10-09T03:09:00.000-07:00

Danity and Rosemary.

I can't help but really like these girls. Even though Rosemary always seems liek she's bored out of her mind and doesn't give a rats ass... she manages to charm you right back in.

Danity has a lust for life and seeing the world that is so rare here with these kids. Wanting to learn? Wanting to go see the world, not just make money and live in air conditioning with your ipods adn cell phones? Never...
If I hope anyone makes it out of here in one piece and gets what she wants, I think my vote goes to Danity. Listening God?

I heard the making the bad girls are called danity something... that's kinda funny... unless its not true.
then I just look retarded.
Used to that though.

Some of the girls

2006-10-09T02:55:00.000-07:00

We were totally jipped out of lunch at USP Open Day, we thought it was free and good and it was small and charged... I ate some green papaya covered in vinager and fod coloring adn gosh darned I like it.

We have Yolani on the left, a self declared loud mouth, truth there and proud of it. She's a good kid to have in class. A little firecracker all her own. She reminds me of bits and pieces of people. Paired with Yoshiko Yamaguchi on the right, and you have an all star team of loud, teenage fun. The middle two, Melissa and Florina, are much quieter... though I don't think that means much. These four can take the town and turn it upside down. They can do the same to my classroom. Yet, they are a good group of kids, and I'm working my butt off to get them somewhere.

USP Open Day

2006-10-09T02:43:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my "kids" watching a presentation on sound at University of the South Pacific project here on island.

Some of my favorite parts of this picture:
They look interested, but are just happy to not be in school. You really have to ride theri asses hard to get them to care about stuff and to do the work that needs to get done to get into college.
Were we that bad?

And... mostly... notice Aubrey with the towel around his neck. This is a stapled trend of the RMI boys. we sweat a lot, we might break out and play basketball at any minute without warning, so let us make sure to keep this handy towel permanantly around our neck or covering our head... if we get bored, we can chew on it.
It may sound like i think it's a silly idea, but mostly I just want to do it myself.
I would chew on that towel like there was no tomorow.

The Kan-man

2006-09-19T04:09:00.000-07:00

Kan.

The con man.

Sometimes I feel like he's playing us. He's too darned adorable and he knows it. He knows how to get what he wants, when he wants it.

You see him with kids younger than him, older than him, adults, whatever, whoever. He walks his walk adn talks his talk and no on better be in his way.

Kan will be 13 on his next birthday. He is on scholarship at Assumption, as many kids like Kan cannot afford to go to Assumption. The tuition is 1,000 bucks a year! That is... well... a lot to ask from the people here. He's in 4th grade.

Yupp... 4th grade.

Kan may be a mastermind of deception, but he is a blessing in my time here. He brightens my day all too often, he is easy to love, and easy to hate at times... depends on his mood... not yours.
But, all in all, the kids has heart.
He gets things done.
His way or the high way....
Kan.
the con man.
master of intruige and artistic manipulation.
product of a world where white people just keep coming, they have for almost their entire history, and they just keep coming
with presents
and money
and so why would you need to work?
You can just lay back and relax,
island style,
and as the first president of the country said:
"Money will rain from the sky."

Island

2006-09-19T03:52:00.000-07:00

Its really wild to think that people live in the middle of nothingness and everything.

What more nothing is there than the vastness of ocean, waiting for you to get lost in it and claim you as its own. Stretching forever in every direction... except in the one you can see the nearby atoll of Arno...
Nothing in every direction... nothing to do... no where to go... nothing to look forward too except what is already here and already around you.
This place forces you to live in the present or in a future that probably will not exist.
At the same time the ocean is life itself... water, and a world exists bneath it full of possibilites... food, fun, and mystery all lie in on blue expanse...
It is much easier to focus on the nothing though than on the everything.
I guess that its the same for people when thinking of God.
Its a lot easier to feel alone and abondoned, than accompanied and safe, its alot easier to blame God for doing nothing, than to blame yourself for not trusting God or doing what you were supposed to do in the first place.
Majuro.
30 miles long.
1/4 miles wide.
surrounded by nothing.
and everything.

A Quicky...hehe

2006-09-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

The world is falling.
Stars don't stay in the sky too long.
These are the yells of the crazy man that works at the Project.
He may be a prophet and no one would know, or he may be a crazy guy.
I like him, I am not afraid of him.
I think he's fascinating... probably because I'm crazy too.
He is emblematic of this entire experience. Insane.

Yesterday one of my community members insinuated that the comments I had made about discerning whether I should stay or not were for attention.
I almost decked him in the face.
Its because of al this community business that I told anyone in the first place.
If it wasn't for that I wouldn't have said a world and left or not left and no one would have ever known I was thinking about it.
Asshole.

I probably won't go. I think God wants me here and I'm being very stubborn about it. Though, thats a bit presumptious... I don't know for sure what the eff God wants. I sometimes wish he was more Old Testamenty and sent some angels or some fire or something cool and exciting.
That's how I feel today, the sisters helped me a lot... and so did Alex... bow to the women in my life as always... though I called Aaron and that was helpful too.
The only reason I'm feeling like I should stay is because other people have said I'm doing something here, not because I asked, they just did... and even in I make JQ's time as a JVI more fun, get some kids to act in a play, give Tara something fun to do, and play with kids... even if I just love a little, I may learn to love a lot. That's something right? In the end I'm simply here to love.
I've been worried I'll hate instead. That's why I wanted to leave.
I don't want to hate these people.
But maybe my lesson is that I already learned to love people that I feel are easy to love.
Maybe I need to take it a step farther.

Finally, thank you for reading and commenting and reading. You are all in my hearts as well, and I think of each of you everyday, both friends from home, friends from college, family, and those in my greater JVI community.

More pictures will come.
They are far more interesting than my rambling.
I would also like to share some of the amazing people here with you.

Love,
Mike
still a bit of an arrogant baffoon.

Sisters make thigns better

2006-09-09T20:33:00.000-07:00

This si Sr. Monica.
I'll tell you all about Sr. Monica next time because i've run out of time hardcore a lot.
BUT.
for now, all you really need to know is, a valuable piece of advice:
Sisters make things better.
It doesn't matter what it is: pains, aches, cuts, bruises, depressions, loneliness, sorrows, worries, headaches, frustrations, broken sould, broken hearts, or diarrea.
Sisters make things better.
Thank you, and goodnight.

PS. Where are my parents?
Anybody?
Anybody?
Bueller?

The Matress Saga pt. 5

2006-09-09T19:56:00.000-07:00

I sleep the same now.
Not very comfortably, still rather full of aches and pains and for disgustingly long periods of time, and frequency has exponentially increased as well.
The others though are happy under the illusion of my increased pleasure during the slumbering hours...
Generally, my mood is the same as well. Generally uncomfortable and with, on a daily basis, an exponentially increasing desire to retreat into a cave and be alone. Be in darkness. Be in nothing. Not spend time with others, with god, or even with myself. Just be left alone and be that way permenantly.
This is beginning to sound a bit morbid. Its not.. Its jsut a deeper solitude I seek and I don't like it, and I can't get it, and I don't even know why I'm trying if I don't like it and it prevents me from doing anything. But, maybe its a big sign that there is nothing here I want to be doing.
Its hard to decide whether something is really meant for you to do or not. Sometimes you hold on more to the idea than to the reality. Neither is good in excess... as it goes for the majority of things.
Balance.
Equilibrium.
Moderation.
Maybe I am meant to learn not that I can get through anything; that I can't get through everything. I am limited, I am human, and the gut feeling is always right... but the gut feeling is not always the same as the feeling I want it to be or not want it to be or think it is or think its not. Its a gut feeling, its too vague to always figure out. Maybe what was meant to happen didn't, and the original plan should've been scrapped.
Maybe my gut says I should be in Nepal, not with JVI.
Maybe it says I should stick it out, not be in Nepal, but not do it for JVI.
Maybe JVI is the desired gut constant, the thing my gut wants me to finish wherever it is because my gut will learn.
Maybe my gut is retarded because I've been feeding it too much sugar and that's like lead paint to gut feelings master person kid guy girl place.
Maybe my gut is right when it says that any other place... even one of the other islands... any single OTHER place JVI could have sent me I would have loved no matter the difficulty or uncomfortability.
Maybe my gut is right when it says because of that I should be here.
Maybe my gut is right when it says because of that I should leave.
Jiwaan tyestai ho?
That's life?
We'll see what happens in this story.

The Matress Saga pt. 4

2006-09-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

The community bought me a mattress.

It was very nice.

There was Green or Blue and I picked Green.

I've never bought a foam matress before, not for 35 dollars and not at a supermarket especially.
But simple living huh?

I be honest thought... the little scrounge of a matress I had before was way way more comfortable. But I won't tell anyone if you won't.

The Matress Saga pt. 3

2006-09-07T01:59:00.000-07:00

Sleeping on the wood felt better than the mattress! I liked not having it anymore. I would like not having this place anymroe for so many reasons, and I love being here for so many reasons. Apostolic availability is what I signed up for after all....
Can we go pack to the pictures of puppies?
I wish people left comments.
I wish calling america was easier.
I wish i knew peoples numbers to call them if i could.
I miss air conditioning and computers, and common sense and reason and logic and effeciency.
I miss rural India, and cows and goats and chickens, I miss farming adn having to walk 3 km to the itnernet, i miss hills and mountains and rivers full fo trash.
I miss Navin, Basante, Binita, and Prasant, and Pratiksha, and Aamaa and baabaa, and thuliaamaa, and mark and tenders, and suz and john, and nisha and sarah, and molly long. where are you molly long? and arielle too where did you go?
I miss choclate cake, cold air, snow, walking, arroz con leche, people who don't think america is the be all and end all of life, i miss nto seeing white people all the time, or only hite people all teh time, but not this awkward mix of to much adn too little...
I miss devanagari, i miss andy, and i miss warmth, i miss not sweating, i miss real food, and bad food, and cheap food, and anything but more processed american crap made doublepriced by importation. I miss wanting to learn a language, i missed loving the things that were hard about life, i missed being so bappy that everything i found inconveniant, walking, food, not showering, going to the bathrrom, sleeping on hardness, bugs, life, love, time... was infinately negligible, a small and unnoticable price to pay for the beauty around me and the happiness in my heart, for seeing god in teh small things, for the God of Small Things.
I don't like missing God becaue of my own challenges.
I'm glad I'm here... it's miserable and impossible to want to get up in the morning.
I think I'll learn something, and if I don't I'll have wasted one of God's greatest gifts to me.

The Matress Saga pt. 2

2006-09-07T01:43:00.000-07:00

It hurt my back.
I wanted to cry...
I couldn't sleep very well.
Someone how Kalimpong I could, maybe it was because my soul and mind were happy and my bodily pain seem insignificant, while here my boduily pain is magnified by my indifference, and slow but steady downward spiral into the darkest pits of purgatory.
Wow... that felt dark.

The Matress Saga pt. 1

2006-09-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

I used to have a matress that sucked.
It made me cry....

Island Family

2006-08-31T22:32:00.000-07:00

I miss these guys.

I hope they are all ok.

If they answered their phone i would know.... (clears throat)...
I really liked the way Greg could make you laugh without trying, Marcos could sing and play the guitar real well, Tim could relax and go with the flow, Colleen saw fun in everything and smiled all the time, Ellen could simultaneously be strong and vulnerable, and Lincoln could have long, drawn out but really good conversations about philosophy, religion, or innane nothingness... I'd liek to have one of those now... with a side of fries.

Match o matic

2006-08-31T22:07:00.000-07:00

William and his mom. She's the cousin of Lusi who teaches at Assumption and that is why we were invited.

The matching outfits are bloody fantastic and the food was orgasmarifically good. It was made in an earth oven, as in cooked in a hole, buried underground. DELISH!

I want to help do it someday.

I also am pretending my first bday was this good, since no one remembers it, especially me, i figure, why not just make a memory?

I wish my first b-day was this fun...

2006-08-31T21:40:00.000-07:00

The man on the right is a Senator and the man on the left is a brilliant old Fijian man with an amazing accent that teaches at CMI (College of the Marshall Islands) which is right next door to Assumption Parish and my house and where I am taking Marshallese class Mon, Wed, and Fri from 5-6.

This was at a first birthday party for william. Yes first. In that wooden bowl like contraption is kava. An island narcotic beverage that numbs your body pleasantly then gets you smashed. At least that's what its supposed to do. I drank the damn stuff until I was blue in the face and I didn't feel jack. Luke (The Elementary School Vice-Principal) said it was really weak. Its made from a root and water. The Fijian word for it is Iangona. I remember it 'cuz it sounds like Nalgona, which is big assed girl in spanish.

The Project

2006-08-25T21:42:00.000-07:00

This is the high school. Its a work in progress... so its called the project...

it is bata rich's project.

oh that means fr. rich.

everyone calls him bata.

the faculty room is mildly air conditioned.... that is nice.

The Elementary School

2006-08-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

Nough said.

The sisters live on the second floor where the balcony is. They are amazing and a great help. They leave at the end of the year forever. I know not what i will do.

Emily's classroom is on the first floor... to the right of the cross.

Haamile Picnic Khelyau!!

2006-08-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

Doesn't it look like we're having fun.

I've been to the island of Enemonit twice... once with Em and Greg, adn once with just greg..

both times some of my students were there..

its like a 20 minute boat ride away.
First time we met this guy Kirt at a restaurant Emily Capurso's family took us to. He invited us the next day. thats when this picture was.

I didn't take my camera the second time. But it was greg's loaded host family. His host sister was going to comm. college in Oregon so it was time to say goodbye with a picnic.

Fun Time's at Assumption High

2006-08-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

There was a big goodbye for Fr. Tom, the old preist here a while back, who came through again for a visit.

Jaqueline does Kirubas (spelled wrong) dancing, and they had him do it while they played on that matt thing.

It was pretty sweetawsome.

She's a good dancer too.

Ok enough cute already

2006-08-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

PUPPIES!!!!!

Love

2006-08-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

PUPPIES!!!!!

6 of them. brand new. need I say more?

so amazing makes me wanna cuddle.

I have hit the peak of my outward emotional expression.

Someone hit me.

One Time Babysitter

2006-08-25T20:55:00.001-07:00

Thanks to greg's friend... whcih i already forgot the name of because i am an insensitive bastard.. or maybe because i am hitting alzeimers age...

we had a great time in hawai'i! thanks greg's friend!

she was awsome, she took me and greg to great fast food phillipino food.

I wish we could've seen Waikiki and stuff but oh well. Next time Greg's friend... next time.

If we were all like kids...

2006-08-19T23:36:00.000-07:00

Most of these kids live in the neighborhood right next to ours called Small Island. They speak little to no English, and many of them do not go to school at all. Though som are on scholarship at Assumption and others go to public school (which is almost like not going to school anyway).

They come over every day, rain or shine to color, to play, to run around. Some of the peopel in the house are tired from teachign all day, especially the Elementary school teachers. But I look forward after spending a day with adolescents to coming home to these raucous and chaotic kids. They are on of the few things here that make me smile everyday.

I am glad they are around.

Flags and ideas

2006-08-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think of life as a bartering system. You pick and choose what you want, but nothing is free... you trade one set of experiences for the loss of a different set.

I have traded grad school, or a job in LA or NY, or being a bum at my parent's house... and many other sets of possibilities for this. I have lost some things, but I have gained others. So I have something others don't and others have what I do not. Such is life.

I wonder if what you can see in the sky every single night is the reason the RMI flag is blue, white and orange?

God of Small Things

2006-08-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

My house may get to me most of the time. But the next series of pictures will be reasons I can't complain.

I can't say that I am anything but slightly uncomfortable and mildly inconvenienced.

I am also lucky to be abl to experience the beauty of this place.

I'm in the middle of the pacific for goodness sakes... on an island made of coral... which is alive! Crazy talk. Crazy crazy talk.

The Bat-cave

2006-08-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

This is my room. Messy, I know.
Its a bit of a swamp... a cave really.
Chris didn't seem to mind the fact that it floods when it rains... So I have to live with the fact that it floods when it rains.
Thank you Chris.

It's being worked on. Its mostly fixed now... hence the stuff on the floor.

But the first 2 days, I was in moist mosquito paradise...

mmm delish!

Guy's side

2006-08-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

On the "Guy's Side" we get the kitchen.

Good because we have a kitchen... and all the food, and everyone hangs out on our side...

See how Greg dilligently cooks and the girls work hard.

We are such busy little bees.

Girls Side 2

2006-08-19T23:10:00.000-07:00

On the other side of the room are Emily Kraus' room on the left and Jaqueline's room on the right.

Other Emily lives outside... in the extra bedroom, arguably the "penthouse" since its nice and new, but its locked out from bathrooms and kitchen.

All good.

Girls Side

2006-08-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

This is the "girls side." Its everyones but they sleep there.

when we are feeling debaucherous we put a laptop on that little table and we watch a movie.

renting a movie is $2.50.

last night we watched V for Vendetta... a movie i love for the cinematography and the Vivian o r Valerie or whatever the lesbian in the movie's name is story.... generally mediochre movie but good points.

Home

2006-08-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

This is our wee litte shack house.

Its on of the oldest buildings on the island and you can tell.

It isn't much but its home. Its not comfortable or nice, or particularly clean (but apparently it is way way way cleaner than last year), but its home.

Its growing on me.
Slowly.

1-800-JVFRIEND

2006-08-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

Chris Keeney.

He was in Majuro for the last 2 years and returned after his stint with JVI to be at our orientation. I think he's in NY now... though he doubtfully has a job yet... but he will.

I have replaced him in his leaky and stinky room. And as World Religions teacher for the senior class... BUT I am teaching freshman science, which he never taught.

If you wonder what Chris is like. This is a good picture. Good guy... kinda odd... all around great person to have around. Look him up. Be his friend.

Dork

2006-08-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

There's me being stupid and Adam whose in Ecuador for a year with Rostro de Cristo. Great guy, good bridge player.

Yes, we spent much much time playing bridge during orientation.

Ian Pollock would be proud.

Our first night

2006-08-11T00:51:00.000-07:00

Our first night they took us to one side of the island... far from wher we live. called Laura... after an american actress. the other side is called Rita... after Rita Heyworth. we drank coconut milk out of the coconut and broke them in half and ate the insides. The sunset was beautiful and it was the perfect setting for the first spirituality night.

The beauty of this place exists in a permanent dichotemy with its ugliness. I guess that is everywhere... but its extreme here sometimes. Reminds me of India and Nepal... but everything does sometimes.

Our little Fam

2006-08-11T00:40:00.000-07:00

After we got off the plane the 3 folk we live with who have been here for a year and will leave after a year met us. I hope we get newbies next year so me and emily can play with them too!

There are many issues surrounding the continuation of Majuro as a JVI site though, the Jesuits might leave, but who knows? NO ONE! not yet anyway. Nothing might change or everything might. Its all in the air. Kinda fun and kinda painful.

From left to right: Emily 1, Me, Jaqueline, Greg, and Emily 2. We are not the most creative group and have not been able to come up with another, less semi-insulting, semi-dull way of seperating the 2 emilys that both work in teh elementary school.

The Whole Fam

2006-08-11T00:26:00.000-07:00

Here's the whole group for JVI 2006. Plus staff and chris who came back from Majuro, RMI (guess where that is?) and Tim who... oh wait i think he got cut out or took it... but he came back from Punta Gorda, Belize. I'll put a picture of him up later.

I thought I would switch the pictures up a lot. Keep everyone on their toes, thinking, active... its mroe itneresting that way.

Last one for now

2006-08-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

I'll do orientation later, I want to go home, but here is me and Emily at the welcome sign. That little pink building is the airport!

Welcome to the next 2 years!

Maryland Beauty

2006-08-04T17:07:00.000-07:00

The awful view from my room. Many people said they had never seen the Potomac look so beautiful. The land was amazing. It was a great place to have orientation. Emmaan tata!! (Really Great!)
I also went swimming in it once in my underwear, which i hear may be only a small step less disgusting than swimming in the hudson around manhattan. i feel like the radioactive superpower opportunities just keep coming on this adventure.

Big-O Quarters

2006-08-04T16:57:00.000-07:00

I quite enjoyed my little roon at the Loyola Retreat House. It was cozy, and welcoming, though i tore the sheets off the mattress in my sleep a lot and I woke up on the mattress a lot. it was very irritating. there was a toilet behind the door, that was cool. and the shower was down the hall for all the guys. Greg W. initiated Shower Time where we'd shower and. it was fun while ti lasted. Oh air conditioner and obsecene comfort, how I miss thee.

DC

2006-08-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

DC was a blast. though it was a lot of walking the a billion and one degree weather with mildly irritated parents and not too much in mind as goals to actually do. back a block and a half from where the washington monument is in the picture is the post office (ben franklin) with the amazing black lady who helped me get my passport, expensively, but in time. since i lost it 2 weeks before i had to fly out.

Preshow

2006-08-04T16:48:00.000-07:00

Me and mom and the other family fun in Atlantic City before heading to Washington DC. I am very glad I got to see them.

Iokwe

2006-08-04T16:38:00.000-07:00

So. Majuro.
Generally emmaan (good). I wouldn't go so far to say emmaan tata (the best!) but also not Enana (not good) Its well kinda dirty, kinda gross, kinda hot, kinda shabby, kinda poor, kinda small, kinda everything. It will not be comfortable ever, it will never be sweet, or clean, or all too nice. It will never be easy.
I will always be beautiful, fun, full of kids, and drawing, and play fighting, full of laughs and smiles, and a warm community, it will always be wet and sticky, and things will be rust and moldy. It will always be shy yet embracing.

I am obssessive about learning Marshellese.. ntoa big surprise. I am scared of starting to teach next week. But I think it will be ok. We had our first faculty meeting for the high school and we traded classes like baseball cards. it was a bit wierd. I got Senior theology, which i am excited about because tis world religions and i get to do stuff for graduation at the end of the year. and i traded junior religion, which was like semi boring vocational/sacramental stuff for freshman spectrum.
its ok i also didn't know what it was. its general science, ill just do my best to stay a page ahead.

Jaqueline, Emily, and Greg are great. they will be fun to live with. All interesting adn quirky in their own ways.

Ok I'm tired of typing. I'll write to you all by snail mail soon.
I'll also try and do pictures.

Hawai'i in a nutshell

2006-08-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

So, I'll write about Big-O (the orientation 2 weeks) when I am settled into Majuro and can put some pictures up and stuff. For now, I will drop a note baout our little Hawaiian layover. One night a few hours, philipino food, mall shopping, bus riding, exhaustion forced passing out, snoring, elbowing, fruit eating, moshi moshi, and an all around good time. to summerize. I am very excited right now, sitting in the airport, waiting for the island hopper. It feels very reminiscent of the aiport internet hours and hours I spent in kolkata aiport. I miss the nepali crowd a dozen times over... and everyone else of course. Its just at this moment i remember andy and his wierd sleeping, molly long and mosquitos, arielle and exploring, tenders being tender, mark and sarah's sillyness, john's lovable bizarre and contemplative nature, michelle and her chilled out ways, nisha and her unspoken adventures and wild comments from left field, suzanna and her hugs, christina and her bad luck, emily and her nose piercing, and all the other people and things that came with the 12 hours in kolkata.
Here its airconditioned, comfortable, and only 2 hours. its not a birght little orange store but a wierd kiosk booth. my desitination is not the identity searching, post violence traumaed himalayan foothills but the isolation of a quater mile wide, 30 mile long island exploited and mutilated by american nuclear testing and crass selfishness.
This time I am accompanied by Ellen's caring nature, Emily's smiles, Lincoln's adventureousness, Greg's hilariousness, Tim's helping hand, Colleen's young and vibrant spirit, and Marcos' funny neck pillow, deep hesitations and hopes, responsibilities, and fears, and a deep sadness to have left the folk i quickly grew to care about before i really got to know any of them. I walk with them in spirit as they do with me.
I am blessed to have been touched, for however long or short, by such amazing people in my life, for however long or short a time.
I do not dwell in my memories and miss the present, i am eternally thankful i have the memories i do, to enjoy at my leisure and treasure forever.
Until next time, this is mike, in the islands, signing off.

2006-07-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

It was an overall Joe-tastic Experience. This is Joe on the left and his friend matt, or was it mark?joe? james? oh Todd?? well we went to visit Joe's friend and Joe's friend's boyfriend in Williamsburg and saw they're swaky apartment with NYC skyline views, ate at the bougie-est diner in the world, watched Strangers with Candy and drank beer. It was all around a great time. I did not steal this picture from Joe's friend's facebook...Except I did 'cuz I don't have a camera.

2006-07-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

Trinity Church too! Fun Episcopal Razzmatazz!

2006-07-09T20:57:00.000-07:00

We went to see the Ground Zero Hole.

2006-07-09T20:56:00.000-07:00

Just Radom NYC madness.

A Cup of Joe and Adult Situations

2006-07-05T23:40:00.000-07:00

I left off on my NYC arrival, which was as before stated, uneventful.

A few parties, seeing some wonderful people I missed a lot (Steve, Fahy, Picarello, Quigley) and some people I didn't miss so much, but was really glad to see (Conway, Priany, Huber, Schneider and others). We had fun, I won at beerpong. All good. I saw Alex and Zander and went to some gay club, danced, fun times. Last week I went to a BBQ at my friend Aidan's house, don't remember too much of what happened, but I behaved well and had a lot of fun. Few days ago was Steve's birthday and I don't remember anything. (Note to the kids: Don't show up high to a drink special then drink you're ass off) I heard I behaved badly, who knows? I also met up with Jacob, Alyssa, Melissa, and Sarah, and I was so so so happy to see them. I was exhausted so maybe they didn't read that part. But I was. It was a great culmination to the Joe week.

That is it. The entirety of my adventurous life. That is of course except for the best week so far on this trip... the unexpected: Week of Joe.

Joe, from the roadtrip (may he rest in Korean peace) {He's not dead, he's in Korea for a year[same thing], and you may be able to read about it in his blog if he ever writes in it [never gonna happen]}, good ol' Joe, came back from visiting his girlfriend, the Colombian, in Argentina and he came to NYC. Now most people you ask would aswer the question, "Is it a good idea to stay with you're ex for a week, even though you don't really like each other and you havn't really spoken in years?" with, "No, in fact that is downright mildly retarded." But not Joe. I still love the kid, and he knows it... but no... not Joe. Joe is a special breed of man who thinks, "Sounds dandy." Yes, yes... dandy.

So Joe comes and yadda yadda yadda... a text messege arrives a morning after he has slept in my home stating, "When are you picking up your stuff?" Expected, yet still cold. So is born the unexpected: Week of Joe.

During this week we roam, walk, run, drink, laugh, and make fun of everyone and everything with and without a pulse. It was the most political incorrect week of my year, and i ejoyed it very much. I got to be every -ist in the book, and a few -phobics. definately no -philiacs. We made fun of everything from God to sad old ladies, from Oprah to babies, and I regret not a second of it. It was a nice way to leave nothing sacred. Our adventures in NYC were topped off by an amazing Adult Situations concert. The best I have seen. Though if Nick said myspace one more time on stage i might have left. After a week of semi-drunk, semi-laid back and mildly expensive week, Joe sadly departed back to Houston and has now left for Korea. But I am very glad I got to know him much better than I thoguht I ever would. I had a great week. [Thanks Joe, footie, Bratwurst, and the ghetto]

I have also watch a good 3/4 of the cup games. [Whoever does not know what I am refering to with "the cup" is probably dead or retarded and therefore not reading this]. That has been amazing. Italy in the final?? Sorry Angelo, but WTF?? HOW?? All good though. I'm just happy Brazil fell earlier than later.

I'll post pictures ASAP.
Words are boring, and I know reading is hard.

I've got one week of packing and then I'm turnign one year older adn shipping off. Wish me luck.

Restart Button...

2006-06-12T02:12:00.000-07:00

OK.
It's been a while since I wrote anything on here seriously, and I want to get myself used to it again, since this trip around I hope more people will read it. So, here we go.

Graduation was amazing. I had a lot of fun, despite the enormous amount of running around, the unnecessary amount of mingling, adn the overbearingness that is my lovely parents. They were great, but wierd all weekend. And I loved meeting everyone else's folks and family. Its so great to see people with their families. I LOVE IT, don't ask me why, I'm just wierd.
It didn't really feel different or special to have graduated. I'm sure it will at some point. It did hurt like hell though because I hit my leg on the arm of a chair as we were lining up to get on stage and I had a HUGE balck and blue that hurt a lot for like a week and a half! it was crazy! Saying goodbye to people sucked hardcore. Grace left first and she was crying and stuff and i was like NOOOOOO!!!! and then everyone else one after the other I saw for the last time in a long while and all I can really think of now is how I didn't really say goodbye to everyone, but I think that is OK, because goodbye to me is so permanant, and I'm trying to think of life as short and a few years before I see people as not that long... but it is... but its not... ok moving on.

The week after graduation was ok. I didn't really want to be at camp. Jesse was amazingly depressed, and Aaron was so preocuppied by Beth I didn't know if i thought it was cute or wierd. I had fun overall, and I'm happy I went, and I think I might be in love with Erna, but I don't think it was amazing. The best time I had was on the last day when I went to this river on the other side of the town (Idyllwild) and I walked along the river forever! There was no real walking along, it was more IN the river. I met some funny old folk and some cool southern folk and had some great conversations. Jesse came with me but chickened out after about 30 seconds. So I headed on up alone and I just kep going. Eventually I hit this real big deep part and I took off my tan golf cap and my shirt and my shoes and pants but NOT my underwear, lol, and went swimming for like 15 minutes and it was amazing! It was far up way past any houses or anything and it was clean in that really dirty natural way and refreshing and very needed. Then I put on all my clothes... wondered why I took them off since they got soaked anyway and headed back. I wish I could do it again right now. Saying goodbye to Aaron was hard... especially since I was having such a hard week with everything else, and he left sort of when everything hit me all at once. Sucked... but I got a surprise present of used silly string, which was probably unintentional... so I was happy.

OK. Oxy graduation was WAAAAAAAY better than hours, why? : better speaker, MUCH shorter. Jacob's fams was cool. I liked them a lot and we had some amazing food all that weekend. Also a lot of great fun, wine, bulgarian nonsense, italien nonsense, and some form of hispanic nonsese. THere was dads vs. daughters beer pong which was great to watch. Then the roadtrip fiasco of the century began as me, jacob, alyssa, this girl cessie, her parents, and a guy names joe no one really knew went off to cross half the country with 5 cars, all cessie's life and walkie talkies! JACKPOT!
It was a ton of fun and silliness, and some dumb but hilarious cars coordinated motions. like the switcharoo and the snake slither...Joe was also one of the greatest guys I've met in a while. He was sarcastic and funny and awsome all around. He sang some grat karoke for us with his amazing operatic voice, which I unfortuantely had to pay for with a painful rendition of Wherever, Whenever by Shakira... Thank goodness I was drunk enough to not wanna shoot my own foot to escape.
I miss Jacob, Alyssa and Joe. It was a good group. Definately to people I'm in love with and one I would be with if I had known them for more than 3 days.

New Orleans was funtastic as well. Clancy's was closed so Jacob's dad cooked us a private dinner in his abode, which was like dude... wow. and we went to crazy vietnamese food where i had to cook my own shit. It was an interesting adventure. Lyssa's dad bought a new Prius, so he is my current personal Hero. I like trees. I like hugging them. DO you have a problem???
We saw X3 which I found amazingly disappointing, and I wanted to fix it so bad cuz all the mistakes were so HUGE and BAD and OBVIOUS and BAD. It makes me a little angry to think of that movie....

Then I flew home. Met the baby which can walk now and had some good times.
Home has been uneventful. I will talk about NY later.
This is already way too long.

Feel it up

2006-05-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

I should update my blog.
I will later I'm an adult now and I don't have time.

Present, Future, and Cheesecake

2006-05-03T05:11:00.001-07:00

There are a few things I need to get out there.

First, I got the spy call from the JVI. I am spending the next two years in the Marshall ISalnds living in poverty. The decision is made. I am terrified... like piss my pants terrified and I don't care. It is also very exciting, and I hope God does amazing things with and to me on the journey.
I also really love UCLA Film right now, and wanna go there Bad real Bad on my return.

Secondly, I am almost done with college. Thank God. Except for haivng met like 3 people in the last few weeks I want to take with me because they are amazing and I will not get to know them better in person.

Third, Yesterday there was this ridiculous boycott against HR4537. Worst Idea I have ever heard. Illegal immigrants and immigration issues being very important to me, my fmaily, my history, and many people I know... WHAT THE FUCK? HR4537 is GREAT and I support it 100%. I am sick and tired of Americans idealizing and romanticizig immigrants. The poor unfortunate and desperate souls that scurry into the country. Grow the FUCK UP. a majority of immigrants are not selfless, desperate, helpless souls with no other options. They are selfish falsly motivated people who are actually better off in their countries. refugees are a very different issue. I am talking about the majority of illegal immigrants, and lets face the facts, when we talk about illegal immigrants in this country 90% of the time we are talking mexico and central america. So many people in this country act like we are the only ones with an illegal immigrant problem... yes PROBLEM... when in reality all countries have it and every single one of them thinks it is a problem. There are reasons for that. While I may not agree with all the one's given by our governemtn or some of the supporting side's spokespeople, I do agree it is a PROBLEM and HR4537 needs to happen.

I would like to boycott idealistic and misinformed overly liberal white college students... can I do that?

Finally, I love cheesecake. I want some.

Out for now.

News and stuff

2006-04-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

So I am giving up one someone in my life that gives me nothing but headaches and awkward situations. I hate doing it, its selfish, adn wroing, unChristlike, bad, foolish, mean, maybe even evil. But, its driving me insane, and its a purely hurtful and one sided friendship. In my opinion no longer worth my efforts.

On a happier note I got into Teach for America. I have until May 1st to say yes. I got English as a Second Language in Houston. Everyone has said not so great things about Houston, but I'm pretty sure I can find its charm. Everyone says pretty awful (and generally truthful) things about LA, which objectively I really dislike. But, I have found its charm here and there. Plus that's not the point right? I'm there for the kids.

There's no way I won't accept unless I hear back from JVI and its an acceptance call. Then I'll drop Teach for America like a bad habit and run to the closest Jez Rez for a communion wine and wafer party.

We'll see.

My dad seemed to really like the concept of me teaching ESL in Houston. As liek aprt of the whole as a child of immigrants that may have well been you, adn you're lucky and have had great opportunities and you should recognize that and give something back. I think he also likes that if he visits me they'll be only 6 hrs from New Orleans, which gratned isn't the happiest palce right now, but still really cool.

I think I agree with him though about spending two years trying to get other kids to have at least more chances at the opportunities I've had in life.

Ok back to Thesis.