Disclaimer: This entry is just one long complaint.
And now I'm sick. And everything is wet because it hasn't stopped raining for days. Even my tea infuser for my Get Well tea (thank you Mom!) smells like mildew. And it's cold and damp and I'm behind on my work and I wake up scared in the middle of the night because of the robberies and assaults that have been happening.
What being scared in the middle of the night makes me think and do:
-if someone abducted me and dropped me in the middle of the cloud forest I'd be screwed because I don't know what I can eat and I'd never find my way out
-If you climb up on the roof of my house and swing down on the balcony I bet you could break into my house and the dogs wouldn't even notice.
-Even if its raining, if I'm walking at night and hear voices I'll take my umbrella down and grasp it in my fist to make me feel safer
I can't wait for October break. I love my job, but I can't wait for October break.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Downfalls To Teaching
9.24.10
This morning I crouched naked in the shower for 30 minutes pouring vinegar over my head to get rid of lice. What a funny thing to be doing, I thought. I wonder if they told me to do this as a joke, I thought. I wonder if I’ll have vinegar left over to cook with, I thought.
Vinegar does not smell as strongly as I’d thought. After shampooing the smell does not stick as strongly as I’d worried. Or I just got used to it. Today was a stinky mess anyway – I pulled out clothes I haven't worn recently (the others tossed in the laundry) and with them a comfy, musty, mildew smell. Tonight I sit in mildew pajamas after my vinegar shower. How often do I need to work vinegar into my scalp? When will the lice be gone? I don’t know. But I do know that vinegar makes my scalp warm, 30 min is a long time to sit on my heels and reading with my head between my knees and vinegar dripping off my nose is barely worth it.
This morning I crouched naked in the shower for 30 minutes pouring vinegar over my head to get rid of lice. What a funny thing to be doing, I thought. I wonder if they told me to do this as a joke, I thought. I wonder if I’ll have vinegar left over to cook with, I thought.
Vinegar does not smell as strongly as I’d thought. After shampooing the smell does not stick as strongly as I’d worried. Or I just got used to it. Today was a stinky mess anyway – I pulled out clothes I haven't worn recently (the others tossed in the laundry) and with them a comfy, musty, mildew smell. Tonight I sit in mildew pajamas after my vinegar shower. How often do I need to work vinegar into my scalp? When will the lice be gone? I don’t know. But I do know that vinegar makes my scalp warm, 30 min is a long time to sit on my heels and reading with my head between my knees and vinegar dripping off my nose is barely worth it.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Continued Thoughts
I'm not finished with the book. Here are some thoughts, lifted more or less directly from a letter I just wrote to a good friend on her way to Bogota, Colombia:
I'm just now finishing an essay by William P. Roberst Jr. I love the way he writes. Its sort of crazy and poetic, which I think fits pretty well with his actions. After more than a year in prison he got paroled to work in a hospital and wrote this to his still incarcerated pacifist friend Larry (the guy who put the book toether):
"In my first ramble among snow and trees I had a long talk with a terribly wise and ancient maple druid and he asked especially about you, Larry, and wanted to know what this conscription thing is that has the ghastly power to pin you to cement, where he can't talk with you. But druids know how to wait and I told him you do too."
Later he said: "Although there is much that hurts, there is so wonderfully much that sings - which, after all, is life."
This is also the guy who was initially in a minimum security prison and told the authorities that he was going to leave because he didn't want to be his own jailer. He was immediately transferred to a higher security setting. Then he was happily paroled in Boston for a bit but decided his life would be much more productive and meaningful it if were his own so he wrote to the parole board: "... I want to tell you that I no longer consider myself under the authority of the parole board." He was re-arrested. Who does such a thing? I feel like he must be either wise or crazy.
And lastly, the title of his essay is "Prison and Butterfly Wings". He says, "We flapped our butterfly wings in prison. Who can know their effect in our interconnected world?" What a wonderful, uplifting thought.
almost forgot - in following up a reference to Mann Act (the prisons had many conscientious objects but also men violating the Mann Act) I went to wikipedia and found this super interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act
I'm just now finishing an essay by William P. Roberst Jr. I love the way he writes. Its sort of crazy and poetic, which I think fits pretty well with his actions. After more than a year in prison he got paroled to work in a hospital and wrote this to his still incarcerated pacifist friend Larry (the guy who put the book toether):
"In my first ramble among snow and trees I had a long talk with a terribly wise and ancient maple druid and he asked especially about you, Larry, and wanted to know what this conscription thing is that has the ghastly power to pin you to cement, where he can't talk with you. But druids know how to wait and I told him you do too."
Later he said: "Although there is much that hurts, there is so wonderfully much that sings - which, after all, is life."
This is also the guy who was initially in a minimum security prison and told the authorities that he was going to leave because he didn't want to be his own jailer. He was immediately transferred to a higher security setting. Then he was happily paroled in Boston for a bit but decided his life would be much more productive and meaningful it if were his own so he wrote to the parole board: "... I want to tell you that I no longer consider myself under the authority of the parole board." He was re-arrested. Who does such a thing? I feel like he must be either wise or crazy.
And lastly, the title of his essay is "Prison and Butterfly Wings". He says, "We flapped our butterfly wings in prison. Who can know their effect in our interconnected world?" What a wonderful, uplifting thought.
almost forgot - in following up a reference to Mann Act (the prisons had many conscientious objects but also men violating the Mann Act) I went to wikipedia and found this super interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_Act
Sunday, September 12, 2010
An (Unfinished) Essay on Emptiness and Confusion
August 30, 2010
I have come across a book that has really shaken me by the soul. Its funny how books like those come into our lives. I found this one in the Monteverde Library on a rainy Saturday. I stopped into the library for a break from the rain and a rest on my trek up the hill to my soggy house.
Sometimes I am no good at choosing books and sometimes I know just by glimpsing the spine that we are going to be great friends. The latter was the case with this book, a few small candles: war resisters of wwii tell their stories by larry and lenna mae gara.
I loved this book from the start for its all lower case title and black cover (who writes WWII in lowercase?!? Unfathomable! The “i”s no longer look like roman numerals and the only reason left to do it is because that’s the way its always been done but it doesn’t even make sense any more but somehow I suspect that’s the whole point! Genius!) I don’t remember if I started this book that same evening or the following morning but I do know that by the time I walked to meeting on Sunday morning I was filled with ideas and questions.
…
And that was two weeks ago. I’m still not finished with larry and lenna mae and their collection of war resisters. Everyday I plan out another small piece of the detailed and insightful essay I will write and post about pacifism, ideals, religion, support, beliefs, spirituality, politics and history. Every book I read and every podcast I listen I relate back to what I’m reading in this book and I add another small section to my essay.
But lets be real – unlike Laura Norton-Cruz and Raquel Maldonado (my inspirations when I think about how I want to write about powerful ideas and share them with the world) I will never write this essay. Maybe I’m just not an essay kinda girl. Maybe I’m not a war resister and locked in a cell 23 hours a day for going on a work strike because I’m not down with segregated dining halls even though it’s the 1940’s and I’m white and now I have nothing left to do but read and write. Maybe I love my job more than ever this year and find that I don’t have much down time between work and exercise and reading and phone calls to Brooklyn and sleep.
This is my wish: that you will read this book and then talk to me about it. Maybe you will be as touched as I was by John H. Griffith’s father who supported him through his resistance with the same fervor that he supported his other son who was in the navy because he felt that they were both trying to do the right thing. Maybe you will stop and sit up when you read Ralph DiGia’s account of how he realized that he was going to jail because “what would ideals mean if one gave them up when they were put to a test?” Maybe you would then spend days searching for your own ideals and wondering what you would stand up for if given the opportunity. Maybe you too will realize that you’ll never be a Quaker because even though you think pacifism is important and admirable, you think the butt-kicking scenes in The Girl Who Played With Fire are just so cool you want to go out and take Thai Kick Boxing classes so you too can beat up bad guys. Or maybe you’ll have a totally different experience with the book and we’ll discuss and clash horns but it will still be a wonderful conversation.
I’ll leave you with my list of “Things to follow up on from a few small candles: war resisters of wwii tell their stories” even though I am just over half way done:
1. U.S. support of Hitler in the late 1930’s
2. Anti-Nazis in Germany in 1930’s and 40’s
3. U.S. immigration policy from Germany during this time. What did the U.S. know?
4. Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939
5. All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun, two anti-war novels
6. The Power of Non-Violence by Richard Gregg
7. “Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau
8. Gandhi
I have come across a book that has really shaken me by the soul. Its funny how books like those come into our lives. I found this one in the Monteverde Library on a rainy Saturday. I stopped into the library for a break from the rain and a rest on my trek up the hill to my soggy house.
Sometimes I am no good at choosing books and sometimes I know just by glimpsing the spine that we are going to be great friends. The latter was the case with this book, a few small candles: war resisters of wwii tell their stories by larry and lenna mae gara.
I loved this book from the start for its all lower case title and black cover (who writes WWII in lowercase?!? Unfathomable! The “i”s no longer look like roman numerals and the only reason left to do it is because that’s the way its always been done but it doesn’t even make sense any more but somehow I suspect that’s the whole point! Genius!) I don’t remember if I started this book that same evening or the following morning but I do know that by the time I walked to meeting on Sunday morning I was filled with ideas and questions.
…
And that was two weeks ago. I’m still not finished with larry and lenna mae and their collection of war resisters. Everyday I plan out another small piece of the detailed and insightful essay I will write and post about pacifism, ideals, religion, support, beliefs, spirituality, politics and history. Every book I read and every podcast I listen I relate back to what I’m reading in this book and I add another small section to my essay.
But lets be real – unlike Laura Norton-Cruz and Raquel Maldonado (my inspirations when I think about how I want to write about powerful ideas and share them with the world) I will never write this essay. Maybe I’m just not an essay kinda girl. Maybe I’m not a war resister and locked in a cell 23 hours a day for going on a work strike because I’m not down with segregated dining halls even though it’s the 1940’s and I’m white and now I have nothing left to do but read and write. Maybe I love my job more than ever this year and find that I don’t have much down time between work and exercise and reading and phone calls to Brooklyn and sleep.
This is my wish: that you will read this book and then talk to me about it. Maybe you will be as touched as I was by John H. Griffith’s father who supported him through his resistance with the same fervor that he supported his other son who was in the navy because he felt that they were both trying to do the right thing. Maybe you will stop and sit up when you read Ralph DiGia’s account of how he realized that he was going to jail because “what would ideals mean if one gave them up when they were put to a test?” Maybe you would then spend days searching for your own ideals and wondering what you would stand up for if given the opportunity. Maybe you too will realize that you’ll never be a Quaker because even though you think pacifism is important and admirable, you think the butt-kicking scenes in The Girl Who Played With Fire are just so cool you want to go out and take Thai Kick Boxing classes so you too can beat up bad guys. Or maybe you’ll have a totally different experience with the book and we’ll discuss and clash horns but it will still be a wonderful conversation.
I’ll leave you with my list of “Things to follow up on from a few small candles: war resisters of wwii tell their stories” even though I am just over half way done:
1. U.S. support of Hitler in the late 1930’s
2. Anti-Nazis in Germany in 1930’s and 40’s
3. U.S. immigration policy from Germany during this time. What did the U.S. know?
4. Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939
5. All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun, two anti-war novels
6. The Power of Non-Violence by Richard Gregg
7. “Civil Disobedience” by Thoreau
8. Gandhi
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