Some quotes for you in May

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Do something memorable.

I've been doing a lot lately, like graduating, taking classes, hanging out with people (especially on the moon), and finally enjoying some decent weather in Indiana, Pennsylvania. But that's not what I'm putting this post out today for. You see, I collect quotes, and today I realized how many really glorious yet unknown quotes I have that others would likely enjoy. So here are a few.

"During the 1998 refit of the U.S.S. Constitution, a number of interesting artifacts were found; one was a provisioning record. When the ship left Boston on July 22, 1798 with a crew of 475 officers and men, she carried 45,600 gallons of fresh water (enough for six months), 7,400 cannon balls, 22,600 pounds of black powder and 79,406 gallons of rum. Her mission was to harass English shipping. Making Jamaica on October 6, she took on 828 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Then she headed to the Azores, where she arrived on November 12. She took on 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine. She then set sail for England on November 18. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled twelve merchantmen, but not before salvaging the rum. On January 27, 1799, powder and shot exhausted, Old Ironsides, undaunted, slipped up the Firth of Clyde, put ashore that night a landing party, and captured a whiskey distillery, hauling away 40,000 gallons of what we now call Scotch. Then she raised sail and headed for home. She arrived in Boston on February 20,1799 with no cannon balls, no powder, no food, no rum, no wine, no whiskey and 45,600 gallons of stagnant water. Length of cruise: 181 days. Alcohol consumption: 252,000+ gallons, or 2.93 gallons per man per day (this does not include the unknown quantify of rum captured from the 12 English merchant vessels in November). Naval historians say that the re-enlistment rate from this cruise was over 92%."
---from various sources, including the National Park Service

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.
---Glenn Clark

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both
incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by
twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
---Rod Serling

Last night Rusty pointed out a waitress who was taking orders at the next table. He said that four years ago she was married, had a fourteen-year-old daughter, and was the school system's consultant on dyslexia. It was summer. She and her husband were having a drink in a bar in Aransas Pass. Her husband went to the rest room and while he was gone a man at the other end of the bar said, "Hi. Would you like to come with me to Mexico?" On the spot she walked out. She lived with the man for three years in Guatemala. Even more unexpected than the story was the reaction at our table. We were all staring at the woman as if she were a heroine. A time comes when you need to clean house. No, you need to go even further, you need to burn the house down with yourself inside it. Then you must walk from the fire and say, I have no name.
---Hugh Prather (from Notes on Love and Courage)

Not one of us ever grows up to be what he intended to be. Not one of us
fulfills his own expectations. We are all our own children, in that sense.
At some point, somewhere, we have to stop making demands.
---John D. MacDonald

In the land of the dark the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead.
---Egyptian Book of the Dead

"One unexpected result came from the seismic experiment recording the impact of Intrepid on the surface after we had jettisoned it. The entire Moon rang like a gong, vibrating and resonating for almost on hour after the impact."
---Cortwright, Edgar M., Apollo Expeditions To The Moon, By C. Conrad,Jr./ A.B. Shepard, Jr., U.S. History, 1 Sep 1990.

How to fix a broken Slade this summer

I feel that I've been emotionally dishonest with myself and the world. I've worked myself like a forastero Indian at Potosi for the last four years, and although I've done a lot of cool stuff, I feel like I've cheated myself out of a lot of emotional growth. I haven't focused on my writing in years. I haven't taken an art class or touched wet clay since sophomore fall. I'm drained from Jordan. I'm drained from getting back on the grindstone this semester, even though the last few months should not, on paper, have been so hard. I'm utterly spent trying to pull more energy, more time, more caring, more anything out of myself to feed into a system I think is innately craven, dehumanizing, hope-crushing, and stultifying. I still can't believe I'm graduating, not only because it's been so long I can't believe it's already here, but also because there is a large part of me that knows I'm a sellout for finishing my time on the system's terms instead of tunnelling out when I could.

So I'm coming up with a plan. It's a plan for a fresh-out-of-college adventure in replanting myself in reality and rejuvenating/rebuilding from years of partially self-imposed exploitation. I made a list like this for myself last year around this time, and it went pretty well (1.5 goals met out of 3, by my reckoning*). I want to make this list public in kind of the same vein as an alcoholic coming out so that everyone knows to expect her to be a bit fucked up for awhile.

Therefore, my big, fun, and scary adventures for the summer are:
1. Insofar as possible, read only books/comics/etc. that I actually have a strong personal desire to read. And get them from the library. Lots of them.
2. Clean, organize, and paint my bedroom at home.
3. Make a fairly rigorous writing regimen that I can stick to.
3a. And make a glorious start into the Goddamn Nordic Hero Novel.
4. If I don't have some stonecut future and summer employment set up by June, get some of each.
5. Make myself a decent website. (Dan, I'll probably be in touch. [grins])
6. Sell off as many useless old textbooks as possible. Donate the rest.

There. I think that's excellent signposting.

*Jordan was supposed to be my semester off and doing NaNo was dependent on my taking real time then for my writing, instead of having this boyfriend and spending three months playing video games and mooching around in the Middle East. So half a point off each of those goals. And I definitely learned to sail, so that makes 1.5 goals accomplished, which isn't bad when really 2.5 were dependent on No. 1.

I CAN HAZ SPRING!

It seems to be my destiny only to update on minor or national holidays.

Here in Indiana, this is the second consecutive day of truly beautiful, warmish weather. It's in the mid-60's* for gods' sakes! And the forecast says it won't drop more than a couple degrees below 50 all the rest of the week.

THAT MEANS IT'S SPRING!

And the groundhog lied; this is the 9th week since he saw his shadow. I'm wearing a T-shirt, the window is open, I'm contemplating getting an ice cream tonight and actually taking it outside the building, and the last thing I really want to do is start my first draft of my research paper, which is due later this week and really must be begun today. And after that I read Kannani and the Document of Flames for East Asia and, more awesomely, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Of Love and Other Demons for Colonial Latin America. And write papers on both of them. Then, another exam and two short papers for US Since 1877, an exam in Latin America, some more random reading quizzes in US, my Seminar paper presentation, and then finals, and then nothing for a few days, and then I walk graduation, and then I have a month taking two summer classes (Psych 101 and Geography of the Non-Western World, both of them easy), and then I am finished with School forever and ever, amen.

I can smell the end. It's wonderful.

*That's almost 19 degrees for anyone from a metric country reading this. Isn't that crazy?!

St. Patrick's Day update

Hey, guyshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif. I'm still alive, despite not posting since Thanksgiving. Some things have changed around here in that time. I'll be graduating this summer instead of this fall, after taking two summer classes. I'm behind on work for school and trying to make it work so I can get the hell out of here. The Global Scavenger Vlog is back on -- watch this week for a new post from me. John and I went to Cairo over New Year's and now are both home safe in the States (and still dating). I'm doing my last major research paper of college on Marvel's Civil War extravaganza and how it uses recent history and old Marvel stories to talk about national American ideals and identity. Steve McQueen, my adorable wonderful rat, is very broken and has either pneumonia or an inoperable tumor in his lungs.* I'm getting new glasses soon, and the first pair of prescription sunglasses of my life. Usually I find a pair of wholly inadequate and stupid-looking clip-ons and just deal, or go without sunglasses entirely. But now I'll actually be able to see outside in the summer! And they're cool-looking, too, with little gold lions on the sides. Pearle Vision had a two-fer special.

Other things have not changed. Like I said, John and I are still dating, and it's still great. I still can't wait to get out of college; Becky Chamberlain has a countdown on her door that I pass every day, and it just makes me want out more. I still have not given anyone but my mum their Christmas presents. I just got back from spring break, which was partly restful and partly restless. Can't wait to travel again, do something new, get out of Western PA for awhile.

To that end, I'm applying for a job (technically two: bosun and cook) on the Lady Washington, who operates out of Seattle but roams all up and down the West Coast. Most of you have already heard all about her from me babbling about it nonstop. (She has naval battles! Come on!) I haven't seen the Pacific since high school, when we took a family vacation to San Francisco. And I haven't been aboard ship since last summer on the Kalmar Nyckel. I'm missing the sea like I usually just miss writing or pottery. I really hope they hire me; that would be amazing. I'd get a good summer in Pittsburgh (and some sort of summer employment), then move to the other side of the country in a backpack and maybe a duffel in order to sail a new boat year-round and learn to care for her properly. Perfect. Maybe there'll even be holystoning. Application goes out today or tomorrow (I forgot to check when I was home about my last tetanus shot and high school GPA). My fingers are crossed.

And speaking of writing and pottery...well, not much change on that front. There's an Advanced Ceramics class offered this June that keeps tempting me but I'm going to have to say no to in order to keep from incurring more debt and more time stuck in Indiana. Kills me though. And while I keep getting story ideas and I can't wait to get back into the novels I have in progress -- especially the one about the girl who stops Ragnarok -- I can't do a damn thing with them right now because as per usual there is no spare time whatsoever aside from classes.

So, that's how things are here. Drop me a comment; how are you doing today?


*Normally this would get a whole post to itself in which I wailed at the horror and cosmic unfairness of such a wonderful rat having such horrible genes -- he's a pet-store albino rat -- but I'm working on not dwelling here. I love that rat. And I hate that another of my rats has gotten a tumor.

Pics: First Posting

Happy Late Turkey-Day, everybody!

I've finally posted photos to my Flickr account! You can see them here; if that doesn't work, search my username, AMPowell.

These photos are from Aqaba and Petra. I'm afraid they're not all labelled by location. If it's a building, it's Aqaba; if it's rocks, it's Petra. And if there's nothing but dirt and road and the occasional outcropping, then it's the desert in between everything else.

Hope you all enjoy.

Weather and Jobs

PART ONE: LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER

Irbid is dry. And hot. And brown. Technically brown is not part of the weather, but after staring at enough of that same brown dirt and brown buildings and brown dust and brown sky--no wait, the sky is still china-blue--you get to start thinking of it like that. I have to use lotion just to keep my hands from cracking. The humidity has to be in the negatives, regularly, with temperatures in the 80-90 (Fahrenheit) range most days. I liked that weather. It was monotonous, but always good. Sometimes there would be decent winds, for variety.

Then winter started settling in. There is no fall here, unless you count the two weeks of blustery chill before it just goes straight to winter. That was hilarious, when John and I were perfectly fine and every Arab in this city was bundled up for the apocalypse.

Now it's mid-November and I'm sitting in a drafty netcafe unable to fully feel my feet, remembering why I hate winter, and watching the rain outside that's been pouring down almost constantly for the last three days. At three in the afternoon today, the sky looked like evening. It's five now and it's moved on to nine o'clock or even eleven. John's been watching the lightning outside, and the stormclouds are impressive--firstly because there are actually clouds in the sky, and secondly because they haven't left. They're actually pretty wimpy compared to good Pennsylvanian thunderheads.

The moral of the story is that the Middle East does get buttfucking cold, and I need to get to the suq tomorrow for a decent winter jacket.

PART TWO: ELECTION DAY
Yesterday, on Day Two of The Rain, Jordan celebrated Election Day. And I am not kidding when I say "celebrated." There were parties in the streets, chanting and shouting and honking car horns, nine people hanging out the windows of a minivan in kuffiyyas carrying homemade banners for their candidate, people sitting on the windowledges of taxis that had been painted with slogans and candidates' names, people just stuffed into the backs of lorries with Jordanian flags and banners held up high, vehicles racing in victory laps around the college and the town even before the votes had been tabulated. The race was for the Jordanian Senate. The head of state is King Abdullah, who is the actual monarch (not a figurehead), but the Senate has governmental power as well. The people here freaking love Abdullah, too. There are pictures of him everywhere: in offices, outside shops, in people's homes, in people's cars, in cafes, on the street, absolutely everywhere. This is no authoritarian cult of personality either, like the mandatory paintings of Chairman Mao. I've seen the print shops where you can buy your picture of the king in any situation you could think of, and posting them up is (with perhaps the exception of government buildings) entirely a voluntary act of citizens who want enormous posters of their king plastered on every visible surface. You can buy Military Abdullah (in several varieties, including Abdullah Firing a Machine Gun), Family Abdullah with his wife and kids, Abdullah Playing Video Games, Abdullah Surfing the Net, Abdullah in a Kuffiyya, Abdullah in a Western Suit, Abdullah in Jeans, Abdullah Looking Ahead to the Future, Abdullah Eating Dinner, Military Abdullah Looking Approving While Small Military Son (And Heir to the Throne) Shouts Orders, Queen Rania as Dutiful Wife, Queen Rania Loves Her People, and a wide variety of The Face of Our Great King, which come in Stern, Friendly, and Bowed With the Demands of Power. People here just freaking love their freaking king. (So do I; he's got great policies and he was on Star Trek: Voyager And they freaking love voting for Senate. The parties and honking and chaos did not end until sometime in the middle of the night, after the results came out and also after the rain returned. Not exactly the kind of political frenzy that makes CNN.

PART THREE: ANALOG JOB-SEARCHING
This one's more of a note than anything else. I'm trying to figure out what to do after I graduate in May. I want to spend the summer on the Nyckel, but I also need to see the friends and family I'll have neglected by that time for eight months straight. And much as I hate it, I'm going to need money and the boat only has volunteer positions. By next November, I need to be employed and able to start paying off my loans, or in some kind of debt forgiveness program. I need to keep travelling, but again, I miss my peeps.

At the moment I'm looking at a few options. I need a job that will send/take me to new places (preferably warm ones) in order to do good, meaningful work to disseminate knowledge or aid to some portion of the world, and pay me for it.

I could try to use my (admittedly small) expertise at sailing the Nyckel--which will be greater after a summer living aboard--to find work as a deckhand on a boat that sails during winter. That seems to mean moving to the West Coast, Caribbean, or some other warm-water area. I don't know how possible that is with less than a year's time shipboard, although I might be able to swing something.

There are also NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations).* I need to save the world, and this is a good way to start. Hopefully, they'd want to send me abroad to cool places to help people do cool things.

I'm also thinking about just picking up and moving to another country with flexible immigration standards and finding random work once I get there. I've wanted for awhile to work my way around the world.

The problem is that my internet access, as you may have noticed, is sporadic at best. I need to be able to research my options more fully, and I can't exactly just walk over to their offices and drop off a resume when I have some free time. I'm having a lot of trouble chasing down leads in my designated weekly netcafe time (ie. whenever I can get to it). So if you know of any cool or interesting opportunities, please tell me about them. I'd love to pursue them.

*I always thought this was a stupid label. Most organizations are non-governmental, and most of them are not NGOs. Be more specific, abbreviation-maker people.

Food Porn

Now that I have a surplus of time to blog today, there's nothing new to say. Living abroad in the Middle East may seem dangerous and exotic, but the reality is mostly boring. I eat, sleep, go to class, do homework, read...with the exception of John and his PS2, it's mostly like any other semester. It's just in another language and the grades don't transfer.

So I'll talk about food, because of late it's been on my mind. I eat Arabic food every day, enough that I'm getting sick of hummos. What I wouldn't give for some General Tso's chicken and a pint of Chunky Monkey. And a Blue Moon; beer is prohibitively expensive here. I'm craving variety, any variety, in my food. I want some Thai peanut noodles, some seitan fajitas, some chile rellenos, some fucking bacon.

Some of this lack is my own damn fault. In a perfect world, John would be eating American fast food every meal, every day, and I would be cooking fresh vegetable and meat dishes from produce bought down the suq. But in reality we both eat together, I don't like cooking enough to do it for every meal, and you still can't get half the stuff I'm craving from the suq. I don't even know how to make General Tso's, and I'm pretty sure I'd be arrested if I asked around for seitan.* I could feasibly be eating better, but it's faster, easier, and not expensive to get falafel and shawarma takeaway. And they're good. We've found arguably the best falafel and shawarma in this town. They know us and make jokes with us. It's nice to be a regular.

But damn, would I like a fucking waffle.

*Pronounced "Satan." Satanists are well and truly arrested here, and if you dress too goth or punk you could be mistaken for one, too. There is no counterculture in this country.

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Still alive. I still only get to the netcafe (Rabiah Cafe; if you're ever in Irbid, look it up) about once a week. So I've really only missed updating about half a dozen times, in terms of cafe visits. I'm otherwise doing quite well and travelling a bunch. I owe you guys the tales of weekends in Israel (Tel Aviv, twenty minutes in the Old City of Jerusalem, the beauty of actual diversity and being out with John as a couple), Aqaba (Jordan's port city, lovely, carries duty-free booze and allegedly also hot Arab girls in bikinis which I was apparently on the wrong beach to find), Petra (amazing, actually not just the one famous gate carved into the cliff face, but in fact a whole ancient Nabatean city of cliff-carved buildings), and various exploits in Amman (capitol of Jordan, fairly lame, includes a totally soulless shopping hell called Mecca Mall).

I've also got plenty of social commentary to make. I just had a conversation with Andrew (one of our Fulbrights, from Virginia) about how young people here are not expected to be self-sufficient until they're about 25 and graduated from college. Everyone at Yarmouk commutes from home, even if home is in Amman, an hour-and-a-half bus ride away. The only students living in the dorms are foreign students (like us) and children of professors. You live with your parents, that's just what you do.

Jordanians also don't start co-ed education until college. All grade schooling is gender-segregated, and you can see the effects of this system in people's behavior. You know how fourteen-year-old boys treat girls? With a combination of derision, terror, awe, and total incomprehension? That's how twenty-something Jordanian men treat women their age. And when I told a small group of women (non-Jordanians, even: a Syrian, a Moroccan, a Sudanese chick, and a Frenchwoman) that I had a boyfriend, they were impressed, as if I had done some kind of big-kid thing that they weren't allowed to yet, like biking without training wheels. A friend of mine and John's* is throwing a party this coming Saturday in which he plans to have games and prizes and very organized emceeing. The games include dancing and limbo competitions, karaoke, and charades. I kept flashing back to middle school, when such games were somewhat acceptable for a (gasp!) Boy/Girl Party. I kept waiting for the drinking and making out and getting high to come into anyone's heads...and it never did.

Yet somehow, the rate of people buying condoms is apparently comparable to the States. I'm mystefied. This country is bizarre. And I crave General Tso's.


*This is Ash, from Dubai in the UAE, probably the most Westernized, liberal city in the most Westernized, liberal country in the Middle East. He's cool. When he played a song about fucking for us at work, he apologized constantly for its obscenity (cursing and explicitness), and it took ten minutes of convincing for him to tell even one remarkably clean dirty joke in front of me. Madness.

Dating in Jordan, Part 2: The Stunning Conclusion

Two posts ago, I started talking about how dating in Jordan is a lot like being in a closeted gay relationship in southern Kentucky. Here's the rest of what I intended to post that day.

Here's a situation you don't find yourself in very often Stateside: someone introduces himself to you, as happens a lot to John and I. We're easy to spot; there are only four white students at Yarmouk after all. You and your SO return introductions, and the guy asks if you're siblings. "La, nakhnu sadiqiyoon," you reply. "No, we're friends." And in your head you're thinking to yourself, yeah, right, because that's how I show affection for all my friends: with tongue. But there isn't even a standard word in the Arabic language for "boyfriend" or "girlfriend." You can use "friend" or "loved one" or something, but nothing translates directly. There was a guy who decided he was really into me (because I was "innocent", by which he seemed to mean "not a criminal") whom I had to let down by telling him I had a boyfriend already. It took ten minutes to describe American dating to him, and he was still asking me at the end whether I was engaged. The concept does not translate.

And then you start planning travel throughout the Middle East and you find yourself in the suq in Amman pricing cheap wedding rings in order to pass for a real couple.*

Then there are the jagoffs who yell things, or just stare at us. Sometimes they stare because we're weird and foeign and pale. And sometimes they can't tear their eyes away from my breasts, as if this is normal, polite interpersonal interaction between peers. It pisses me off and makes me very uncomfortable. I just dyed my hair again, partly on the Kass Headgear Principle: if you intentionally look funny, you know exactly what people are staring at. That hasn't stopped John or I from working on a good Arabic translation for "I will tear out your rib cage and wear it as a hat," however. For his part, John hates that I have to deal with this shit and acts as my wingman as much as possible. At the same time, he's in the unusual position of dating apparently the most desirable woman in Jordan.

In our flats or with Andrew and Tony, our fellow American students, it's a normal American straight relationhip.** We try not to PDA, but I can ruffle John's hair or whatever and it's no big deal. But when we go out, it's as if we're not dating at all. We walk together, but we don't touch. I am a very touchy-feely person when I've got someone to touch and feel, and this drives me insane. The smallest physical contact gains layers of meaning: brushing hands while walking, touching elbows during class, etc. I used to scoff at Victorian novels for their obsession with relatively uninteresting pieces of anatomy, like ankles and wrists and elbows. Damn, I thought, get a life. Now I find myself fully understanding the plight of all those Heathcliffs and Catherines. When you can't touch your boyfriend, all touch is significant.

John is trying to arrange a semester in Russia immediately following Jordan, and if that works out then we will break up because neither of us wants a long-distance relationship. However, if we end up back in the States together and are still dating, do not be surprised if our relationship seems to be one long PDA.

*This is a surreal place to be in a relationship, let me tell you. I think we're married at the local pharmacy, too, because I wasn't willing to say that John was my relative. We've been dating for a month tomorrow, for the gods' sakes.

**Well, as close to that as we can get, it being us. There's a lot more talk of gender theory and foreign policy, a lot more lighting things on fire, and more blanket forts than most straight American relationships can probably boast of. We're both sort of like sixteen-year-old boys.

Ramadan and Aiyd al-Fitr

It was announced today on the evening news: today is the last day of Ramadan! Tomorrow is Aiyd al-Fitr, the start of about a week of crazy feasting and visiting relatives and giving gifts. Tonight is basically Black Friday; John and I tried to get to the suq, but we couldn't get a taxi that would take us because they cannot physically travel into that entire section of town due to pedestrian congestion.

Ramadan has been nuts. Even as a non-Muslim, I ended up accidentally fasting much of the day because I have to eat in the privacy of the flats. Even buying food at supermarkets during the day feels weird. And even more than the food is the water; John tried to keep the Ramadan fast for a day and nearly passed out from dehydration. I don't understand how anyone can keep this up for a month. Everyone who actually manages that deserves praise and the biggest slab of post-sunset kanaafa imaginable.*

I've lost weight. My belt, which I cut a new, well-fitting hole in just before leaving the country, is now about four inches too loose. I wish there were a better (ie. less painful) way to have lost that weight. I am not going into what unintentional pseudo-fasting does to one's eliminary system.

Even more than the obvious fasting going on, there's Angry Time. People who don't eat all day get pissy around 4pm. To avoid having to deal with that, everything on Sha'ar al-Jamaiya shuts down at 3pm. The suq is still open, but then the suq would probably stay open through a tornado.

John and I are planning to do some kind of traveling for the next couple of days. We have no class till Tuesday (four-day weekend!), although we have to be back Sunday night because we're going to a wedding. Very exciting. It's the cousin of Khalid in the Expatriate Students' Department. Pretty cool.

All right, it's 1:30 am and I have to get back and sleep. More on dating in Jordan later; believe me, it's worth the wait. That shit is crazy.

Miss you all. Be well.

*I have found God, and it is called kanaafa. This stuff is a sweet cheesy orgasm dripping with syrup and pistachios. It's amazing. It's wonderful. It's bright effing orange. If only it kept for more than half an hour, I would do nothing but eat kanaafa for the rest of my happy life. Last night we ate falafel and kanaafa in the olive orchard in the middle of campus; what could be better than that?

Dating in Jordan

On Facebook, John and I are listed as "It's complicated," even though our relationship is fairly well-defined. That's because any and all dating in Jordan is complicated.

Imagine that the only people commonly seen holding hands on the streets are good frineds of the same sex. Imagine men and women walk in largely segregated circles--not completely so, of course, because that would be nearly impossible, but they don't hang out together as friends very often. Now, imagine you're spending the majority of your time in the company of someone of the opposite gender. In fact, imagine you're in a closeted gay relationship in southern Kentucky.

And then imagine the Net cafe is closing sooner than you thought. Shit. More later. Sorry.

End of September Round-up

Sorry as always for sporadic, sparse updating. Here are the highlights of what's happened since last I posted:

1. The sky-rats are nearly full grown. One has already left, and the other should be gone in the next couple of days. Then I'm going to scoop out the birdshit, put up plastic bottle fortress, and open my effing window for once.

2. Everything in this country is made of concrete. No, really. Every building is cast in concrete. I passed an old, old stone building the other day and gawked. American wooden housing does not exist.

3. The standard workweek/class week is Sunday through Thursday--which messes with my head. A lot. Ramadan hours are roughly 8am-3pm with often a second opening sometime in the evening, around 5pm or 7pm (before or after iftar, the sun-just-went-down-let's-all-pray-and-stuff-our-hungry-faces meal). This means that late afternoon is somewhat dead; some businesses stay open, but not all.

Damn, there is so much to post. How do you do culture shock in bullet format? I get stared at everywhere I go. There is no public touching at all, not even jostling in crowds. John and I have effectively been forced into a bizarre twisted version of Ramadan due to not being able to eat out during daylight and not wanting to be the asshole Americans going grocery shopping in the day--even though Jordanians do it all the time. There are special Ramadan street foods that have come out, like these fantastic little pancakes that taste like pretzels. I really, really miss having Net access in my room. I never realized how much of my college lifestyle depended on having Gmail, YouTube and Wikipedia at my fingertips 24/7.

And perhaps most monumentously, I have a small public service announcement to make. You all may remember my friend John, who's travelling with me. Well, as of the 17th, we've started dating. It's pretty awesome, actually. I'd forgotten how much more fun things are with a significant other, and Jordan just keeps getting better this way. For those of you who don't know him, he's an International Studies/Asian Studies/Philosophy triple major, a year under me, has a twisted sense of humor, and would fit in at a WorD meeting.

And now I have to go. It's nearly 2am here, and I still have stuff to do for class. Hope you're all doing well. I miss you. And seriously, email me. I will not reply promptly, but I will reply. I want to hear from you guys. Rock the States while I'm gone.

Sky-rats!: News at eleven

Alive and well! Placement exam taken; probably in Beginner level. I know so much less Arabic than I'd rather hoped I did. Have been hanging out with John McMurray (from IUP, whom some of you know) and Andrew, who's doing further language study for his Fulbright before starting research in spring on Jordanians' actual opinions regarding American foreign policy as broadcast on major regional news stations (ie. Al-Jazeera). I'm all for that project, actually. It's something that's desperately needed studying for a very long time and yet hasn't been. I'm getting a bit more into the swing of things--just in time for Ramadan to start tomorrow and throw everything off again.

And now, let me tell you about pigeons and my new phone.

PART I: PIGEONS

The sky-rats are everywhere.* Most particularly, they have roosted, shat upon, and nested in my window-box. There are two--TWO!--ugly baby pigeons growing in my window-box. Their names are First Pigeon (which is smaller and appeared first) and Second Pigeon (which is fat like an obese water balloon sparsely pasted with ugly yellow feathers). There are also two eggs, which promise future pigeons as well.

Both First and Second Pigeons and their Mama Pigeon(s) bed down for the night in the soft, downy layers of old pigeon shit layering my window-box, which smells bad enough that I can't keep my bedroom window open for more than ten minutes.

Apparently, you can stop pigeons from landing somewhere by lining the spot with old plastic bottles. Pigeons hate plastic. Who knew? It's like a less vicious version of those spikes you see people put on their windowsills in the States. But I do not want to be responsible for killing baby pigeons by starving them. I definitely don't want to watch them slowly die of exposure in my window. Any ideas?

PART II: JORDANIAN PHONE

Because of the craziness that is non-compatible continental cell phone networks, my American cell phone is useless in Jordan. And Jordanian phones are really, really cheap, even when you're ripped off because you look like a tourist. So I have this new little Nokia phone now.

And God, it is amazing. There are more ringtones I like on this phone than there are ringtones on my American one, full-stop. The options are organized sensibly. Prepaid phone plans are standard, and pretty cheap. My phone cost 25JD and my plan 15JD (incl. 5JD prepaid): about 56USD. Craziness!

Plus, this is an insanely cell-phone-obsessed culture. Walking down the street, you can see about a fifth of the people on phones. If you're talking to someone and your phone rings, you always answer it (unless it's your annoying cousin Ahmed who's called you four times today already, or something like that). And unlike in the States, where getting someone's number is a sign of knowing them well, in Jordan you get the numbers of everyone you know. I have the personal cell number of the guy employed by the supervisor of Yarmouk's team of repair guys, and he has mine. You just do that. It's weird, but I'm starting to get used to it.**

Still miss you all. Drop me a comment or an email, tell me how your day went.


*I have a lot of love for rats. But pigeons are just vile.
**If you want my Jordanian number, just ask. I'm sure someone out there must have a decent international plan.

The Jordan Chronicles: Chapter 1

Hello, you wonderful people! You're awesome! I miss you! I'm safe, have housing, and I'm getting to know some people. It's nuts here. If you're reading this page, you're probably wondering what things are like here and what I'm up to. Your answer today comes in two parts: my flat and culture shock.

Part I: My Flat

I have a one-bedroom, on-campus apartment. It's crazy. The building, like nearly all the buildings here, is made of concrete. The walls are painted white, which makes for very bleak surroundings. It's three storeys, reaised off the grounds so that you can park underneath it. It's also professor housing...plus us foreign kids, that is.

The flat itself is...well, the internet lied to me. It's gigantic. The living/dining room seats eleven easily, including a counch. I have a TV with bunny ears that gets maybe five stations (two of them the same one). The windows are enormous, and the living room has this credenza thing that I've already truned into a windowseat.The kitchen has a freidge, a strange collection of Goodwill-esque silverware and dishes and cooking utensils that include full Arabic coffee-making equipment. The stove has a separate propane tank and must be lit by hand--which freaked me out the first time I did it. (Weirdly, John's talk has Enligh directions and mine has Arabic. Aand the on/off knobs turn opposite directions, which was confusing to learn while making pancakes last night.)

The bedroom is set up for two people, and apparently the previous tenants were a pair of Turkish girls.* I have no roommate, but there are plenty of pigeons. In fact, my window planter seems to be a nesting grounds fo rthem. (24/7 Animal Planet).

...more later. Internet cafe is closing. Miss you all. I'm safe and sound.


*They even left a poster on the dining room wall: "Go with the rhythm...enjoy Istanbul."

RIP Harry Potter (SPOILERS!)

It's been 24 days since Deathly Hallows came out. I borrowed someone else's copy while I was on the boat and read it in snatches over the course of about a week, between (more or less) twice-daily sails and learning belay points. I hated some bits, like the epilogue, and I loved others, like Narcissa Malfoy. I loathe Snape's pointless death; I am angry at the pointlessness of ALL the deaths, from Hedwig straight through to Harry himself. I still held out hope that Harry would pull out a Glock and shoot Voldie between the eyes. There was not enough laughter.

And now it's over. Well, technically it was over 24 days ago. I used to plan meeting up with friends knowing that, at the very least, nearly every summer we'd have a book release and days of discussion afterward, no matter what. I started reading these books in the sixth grade, and now I'm a senior in college. Somehow, without any Potter book ever reaching my personal all-time favorite books list, I remained obsessed with the series for years. I was in fandom for about seven years. (That time spans four school campuses, three rodents, and the course of a relationship.)

And now we're done. I hardly ever get fic cravings anymore; I've been falling out of fandom for a couple years now. The canon is complete. Not only is there no speculation to be had about future books, but that window of opportunity between books--when the new canon is still new and must be played with from every angle, followed to every possible conclusion whether logical or illogical, because no one knows what JKR might make obsolete when the next book is released--that feeling is dead. There's no more series coming. I loved that mad dash to carve fanon in granite before the next book killed it. It was a whirlwind of energy that spun the tubes of the Interblag like a cybercarousel. It fueled fandom.

That doesn't mean fandom is dead. It'll be around for awhile; there's still a lot of momentum in a series that held this whole planet spellbound for over a decade. I give it at least six months before it becomes but a ghost of its former glory. It's probably too much to hope that the ratio of good writing to bad will improve in that time.

I'm not sure what to do now with the time I used to spend thinking about Potter stuff. I have a list of theme songs for most of the major characters, which I could post here. I'd always intended to find a small hourglass and some wire and make myself a Time-Turner. I suppose I should just dig into my intended reading list, which is mostly YA fantasy anyway. (OT: The top fourteen YA books, by best-selling and best-reviewed, on Fictionwise are all fantasy. The SF community has been debating for years how to attract kids to its books; I think that this is somewhere near the reason.)

Requiem In Pace, Harry Potter Madness. It was a good way to grow up.

Post-Boat

Hey, there, guys. I realize I forgot to post when I was leaving for crew training aboard the Kalmar Nyckel, but now I'm back again. For ten days. Then I'm going back to the boat for a week--which should be enough to tell you how much I liked learning to sail her. I think I have my ultimate can't-find-a-job fall-back plan: live on a recreation 17th-century Dutch pinnace. (Honestly, what do you think half the people who live there now are doing? Exactly that.)

So from 18-25 August, I will be on the boat again. This time, she's docked in P-Town! Yay, gay! I hear the Cape has some fantastic waters for sailing and lots of wind, for all that you have to weave between the lobster pots. There will be one constant crew, too, instead of the large number of day-volunteers who come for a sail or two and then leave for awhile. That means we'll get really, really good at working together. Yay, mastery of all boat-knowledge!

In the meantime, I'm finally getting around to writing the term paper I was supposed to have finished months ago and putting together some final paperwork for Jordan (like a visa). Never ever again in my life will I ever take an incomplete. They are horrible and bad for you.

Steve McQueen Returns: Squee at Eleven

MY RATTIE IS COMING HOME TO ME! Some of you have met him. He is a furry ball of love with adorable fuzzy nose that loves burrowing into my elbow like a melty package of cute. I hadn't realized just how much I missed him until I arranged to pick him up.

Will has been rat-sitting since I finished college, and apparently he and Chad have fallen in love with Steve McQueen as well. Because he is that charming. Will called him "Master Longtail" and "Sir Rat." Steve McQueen has been knighted in my absence! He has also apparently gotten a new aquarium because the old one developed a crack (!!!). (Steve McQueen lives in an aquarium with a two-storey wire fortress on top, with ramps and levels and stuff. He spends most of his time on the middle level.) Steve McQueen is adorable and sweet and kinda dumb--no, make that really dumb--and lovable and partially blind and cute and he hearts me. So there. Squee!

Becoming More Findable

My kid brother's graduation party was last Saturday (yay kid brother!). We had more family over at our house than we have since...well, my high school graduation, back in the Primordial Soup of Time. Family from Ohio, family from Colorado, family from distant Morningside. It was crazy. And somewhere in the midst of family I hadn't seen in ages asking me about my trips to Crete, to Greece, to Egypt, to dig up pyramids, and to go on Semester-at-Sea, I realized that there was a some misinformation floating around due to crappy communication.

I thought about how to fix that, and I came up with the Internet. I know some of you guys aren't exactly techno-savvy, but if you can keep up with my blog, then you can handle this. It's a Google calendar that tracks my every movement from place to place.

Okay, not as stalker-ish as that. But it will tell you which country and/or state I'm in at any given moment and roughly what I'm doing there. If you have a Google account, excellent, you're already equipped for this and you can click here:

If you don't (that is, if you do not use Gmail, Writely.com, Blogger, or any other Google service), then you can get a Google account here or you can subscribe to the calendar by XML (for feed readers), iCal (for Mac iCalendar and other applications), or straight-up HTML (for just bookmarking the page if you don't use a computer calendar. This the best option for you technophobes).

I hope this is useful for you guys. This is good for planning in general, not just for my peace of mind at parties. And, family, please don't be offended. I'm not trying to talk trash about you; obviously I've been less than helpful before about telling you what I'm up to, and you all have lives that don't revolve around keeping up with my every project. Friends, you're in the same boat; I'm not exactly fantastic at this keeping-people-updated thing. This calendar is here as a reference tool for all of you, anybody reading this. Download it once and check it any time you're wondering what I'm up to these days. All of the versions linked above will update automatically every time I add something to the master calendar. It's all for you, honey.

Nonstop Excitement

I haven't made a single post about being back in the States since I returned, so here we go.

It's boring.

Now, Cyprus wasn't all fun and games. I washed pottery with a toothbrush for hours at a time. I walked along hills staring at the ground. I grew to loathe the company of certain people whose personality quirks really got under my skin. But there was always something to do. My most boring time those three weeks was the last two days, when the IUP All-Stars (Mara, Megan,* and myself) had time off for souvenir shopping and packing. I loathe the idea and practice of souvenir shopping** and had almost nothing to pack, so even after I spent half a morning shopping and drew out the packing as long as possible, I still ended up with vast tracts of unused time. I napped. I read. And then I begged to go out in the field after the other All-Stars had left. I want to do something with my time.

Now I'm home. Unemployed, living in my parents' house, waiting for PALCI books to come in so I can do research I don't enjoy. I'm checking the internet every few hours and continuing to get no love from it, and I'm slowly reordering my entire room so it'll be good to go when I leave for Jordan, instead of piled with mess as it usually is when I leave. I'm bored out of my fucking skull.

Writing, you say?

SLUMPED, I reply. I'm so bored thinking is hard. Tomorrow I'm going to call the climbing wall in Cranberry (10 minutes from my house! Score!) and check them out. I need to get out of this goddamn house. I need my peeps -- where are my writers, my queers, my dorks and geeks and nerdy types? I feel underrepresented in my own house.

And so, to the point, as per always: LET'S DO SOMETHING. BEFORE MY BOOKS COME IN (probably late this week). AFTER THAT I HAVE PAPER TO DO.

*That's "MEE-gen", with a hard G. It's Australian.
**Which is not to say I don't love buying you guys stuff. I do. But souvenir shopping is not about finding good gifts; it's about finding kitschy shit to appease the people back home you're going to assail with ungodly mountains of vacation photos. Combined with my normal loathing of shopping even at the best of times, this really is the lowest you can go.

Neil Gaiman picked up my brain waves

At the bottom of this post, there are a couple of links to mp3's of the beginning of Neil Gaiman's Interworld, read aloud.

People, that is exactly what it's like being lost in Some Town That Is Not Larnaka. You know where you're going, then suddenly you have no idea where you are. Everything looks simultaneously familiar and alien. Somehow, Neil Gaiman picked up on my brain waves from the past, and wrote them down. Perhaps this is another miracle.