Past Lives

I was home a few weeks ago, and shot algunas fotos of the general surroundings of my parents house. Having misplaced my digital camera months ago in an unfortunate episode in rural Vermont the day I presented my Master's capstone, I was starting to die a little bit inside from lack of camera contact. I dugout a rather nice film camera I acquired about 6 months before film became virtually obsolete. There is something nice about using a real camera, perhaps because there is so much more skill required when you cannot immediately see your result in a viewfinder. But, yeah, it's harder. And frankly, any romance I had with the old school technology was destroyed when Walgreen's did the same to my film.

Alguna Vez

There are occasions where I look at what I write and realize just how very poetic or profound it is not. My midnight surfing has landed me on an old friend's blog and I marvel at how she puts words together. It is not a coincidence that she seems to adore the quite insane Sylvia Plath, and indeed, our lack of correspondence stems from her penchant for telling stories full of fabricated lies about anything and everything. Still, write she can. I envy her ability to poeticize things I would say in the corniest fashion known to bloggers.

I’m living a very mundane life these days, but that is precisely why I am so filled with emotion. The times when my existence is not worth discussing are generally the exact moments the boulder has rolled down the hill. My lazy ass is sitting on the ground for a second, poking the massive stone with a finger and contemplating which peak to aim for and the perfect way to get to the top.

The part of me that is at peace, the part of me that is not reeling out of control, knows that this is a phase in my life, that it is a valley that must be crossed to reach the amazing peaks I continue to scale. At this second, I’m in a very similar situation as I was exactly one year ago. I am once again, an insomniac in my parents’ basement, reassuring myself that I will find some organization who wants me to do something worth doing. Eventually. I am poorer, perhaps, but up a Master’s degree (and up all the debt that comes along with that). Up also is the number of places I have traversed on this planet. It has been more than a rollercoaster.

For seven months, I saw a glimpse of what I wanted my life to look like. I was incredibly happy the majority of my stay in Chile. Even working in the deepest, most real crap I had ever seen, I still, somehow, walked out the door everyday and soaked in the reggaetone, appreciating its beauty more than its pain.

And I guess that’s why, aside from the inevitable random moments of despair, and the very real loneliness I face as my friends are continents away all over again, I can look at my life and laugh. At the new manager who petitions me to buy beer for his 20 year old butt, but mostly at myself, for learning the same lessons every single year.

I read, recently, a New York Times article by a teacher in Alaska, who said, “One of my challenges as a writing teacher is to show my students that their writing can be a celebration of the ordinary.” I hope to succeed at celebrating the ordinary as much as possible in the near future. It’s really the only way to survive in this era of my life.

Worth a Thousand Words

Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Stayin Alive

So, instead of working on my thesis, I'm distracting myself with such important tasks as researching Barack's policies on the Middle East (approve of Iraq/Iran policies, not so much with the Isreal), and writing a rambling entry to a much ignored blog. Plans for a Happy Easter call to my parents have been foiled by some sound disease that has possessed my roommate's computer. I was hoping the Easter Bunny would bring me a new laptop today, but I didn't even get any damn chocolate. He's probably mad I didn't go to Mass. Or dye any eggs. And I may have even cursed Jesus for dying and thus shutting down an entire continent on Friday. Later, continuing my habit of productive procrastination, I'll go running and possibly make a grocery run, procrastinating just long enough that I will begin mapping out thesis plans directly at a time where I won't be able to turn off my thoughts and thus, will ruin any chance of a good night's sleep.

I've recently been feeling the need to be back in the States. Not necessarily long term, but for un rato. Just because it's where I get things. Plus I really want a salad from Panera.

This week has been hard. I had forgotten, somehow, that eventually I would return to a place where I have to make big life decisions. There is nothing I hate worse than trying to decide what I'm going to do with my life. When I'm feeling really lazy, I occasionally think I should just leave these decisions up to other people. Ah. Less stress. Wait no. I have to decide who to let decide what I should decide. Possibly more stress. The thing is, there are always atleast 2 opposing things I want at once. I want to stay in the same place for more than a year and stop trying to build relationships with people who will be out of my life in 2 months. But then, if I could travel the world and meet a 100 million different humans, why wouldn't I live the more adventurous life? Or maybe I just need to start spending more time in the places I move to...say 2 years instead of 6 months. I love galivanting around with no particular direction, but eventually I start wondering where I'm wandering. Right now I feel like my life is a lot like trying to do crazy moves on a exercise ball. I know that clearly these things can be done, given Kim's demonstration a few feet away, but I just keep falling of that freekin squishy globe and seem to have no sense of balance whatsoever.

My Computer Is Very Sick

The dinasaur is in a coma. And I'm really not sure how long it will be before I can restart her heart (i.e. buy a new power cord). It seems to be an expensive procedure and I'm left wondering if I should just have her put to sleep and buy a new computer. I would make a joke about how I cried over her illness, except that would be more true than funny.

But basically what this means for now is that it's a giant pain in my ass to finish my IFESH application. And worse still, I'll be even more incomunicado than I have been the past couple of weeks. I know it's hard to believe that Coletta saying even less is possible, but believe it baby. In addition to limited email and facebook access, virtually skypeless, I shall be. Probably very little blog activity too, but that's nothing you're not used to, right Mr. Blog?

Concha Tu Madre

January has been one of the oddest and most unique months I’ve lived through in some time. I woke up on the beach in the desert on New Years Day. A sandy, practically uninhabited area is a wonderful place to do some reflecting. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that no amount of reflection will actually produce the answers I’m looking for and people will always confuse me.

Almost 24 hours later, I arrived back in Santiago, caught a nap, and rushed off to do my normal volunteer thing. Within a week I was presented with vacation time while my kids spent their first stint at camp. So off to Buenos Aires I went, flying solo. Being alone (and a girl) gave me the chance to meet some interesting boys who kept me out until 6 in the morning for the majority of my 4 day trip. There was steak and wine, ukuleles and stars, street tango and some rather hilarious Irishmen that drank exactly as much as the stereotype would lead you to imagine.

That alone would have been a very travelly month, but the fun only began there. Or actually, I guess it ended there. Yesterday I returned home from a week of camp with my kids and at least a hundred more young people. Given that the only English speaker was my Spanish co-volunteer, it reminded me much of the Spanish Intensive I took around this time last year. Only it was 24 hours a day. And I was babysitting kids all of those 24 hours. Oh, and those kids have severe emotional and behavior problems and like to beat the shit out of each other. So instead of learning lots of useful vocabulary, the majority of the new words I picked up are garabatos, i.e. curse words. I lost the ability to count how many times I was asked, “What does muddafuchyou mean?” On the positive side, my self-esteem is flying after a week’s worth of being called “Tia Rica” and constant comments on how beautiful my hair and eyes are. Of course that’s only because I’m probably one of 3 blondes those kids have ever seen, but we won’t talk about that.

Beyond the shallow details, the experience was really quite tragic. I like to believe that people can change, can better themselves. I’ve seen it happen in my own life. But as I overheard one of the kids say to another camp monitor, people can change, but they have to want to do so. And when I see a nine year old girl possessed by some insane rage which leads her to physically attack a girl larger than her who has no desire to hit back, I don’t know. The more screwed up kids seemed to have no concept of the fact that their actions effect other people. Either that, or they just didn't care, or they lacked the judgment to think before they did something. All of those kids have and will live lives that are super duro and I understand to a certain extent why they are the way they are, but I have no idea what to do about it.

And despite their situations, I look at a few of them and think, they could have a decent life someday, if… If they don’t fall into some sort of despair that makes them think they can never change anything. If they aren’t ruined by their brother’s thoughtlessly thrown flying rocks. If being surrounded by so many damaged people doesn’t induce them to initiate a pasta base habit before they reach 16. If. If. If...

Sigh. The saga continues. But at least for the next couple of days, any tantrums I experience will be ones I throw myself.

Pan de Azucar

From my New Years camping trip in the most arid desert in the world: