et alia

Sounds of home

2012-03-02T10:25:00.001-08:00

I’ve always thought that the hardest thingshappen on the most beautiful days, when the sun is shining warm on yourshoulders. But I also think some of the most beautiful moments happen in therain. Growing up, I’ve spent countless hours sitting on my front porchlistening to the rain. I’ve been lulled to sleep by the sound of a summer rainon a tent time and time again, and taken hundreds of barefoot walks after therain stops. Even now, I’m sitting by my open window, listening to the thunder, andbreathing in the sweet clean air that only comes with a good rain. There issomething incredibly soothing and rejuvenating about rain. It washes away allthe dust that has been gathering, all the stale air that can fill the soul. Andafter the rain, the world feels ever so slightly newer, like the earth took agiant breath and then relaxed again.

This week I’ve needed the rain more thanever. I’ve needed the thunder. I’ve needed the chance to stop and regroup, torefocus. To remember exactly what matters in this crazy world. A familyemergency brought me back to Tennessee for the week. While everything seems tobe turning out alright for now, it’s been more than enough to remind me howquickly the world can change on a sunny day. It also makes it a hell of a loteasier to forget all the silly little stresses of a daily routine and to putthe world on hold for a minute to listen to the rain. In a few days, I’ll headback to London, but I like to think I’m taking a little bit of the Tennesseerain with me.

Snapshots

2012-02-15T11:23:00.001-08:00

I use public transport about every day andmostly take the exact same routes from home to campus, campus to coffee shops,coffee shops to home, but for some reason the little moments of today’s journeyaround London seemed to stick with me. Maybe it’s because I’m gearing up towrite an essay on ethnographic writing, about the ways in which anthropologistsput down in words all the things they see and hear daily in different cultures,or maybe I’m just more observant today. Either way, until I have something more exciting to write about, the following are snapshotsof my journeys around London.

Walking from my flat to the tube, I pass myfavourite view of Portobello Road. Bright pink, blue and yellow buildings lineboth sides of a narrow street that runs perpendicular to the famous marketroad. Just as the buildings shrink with distance, the ideal spot for an artistplaying with drawings of perspective, a clock tower rises from behind Portobello,capped with a sea green dome.

As I swipe my oyster card walking into thetube, I smile at the same man who sits behind a glass window making the sameservice announcements everyday looking utterly bored with his life. He rarelysmiles back but I like to think one day he will.

When waiting for the tube, I’ve taken tomaking up my own superstitions. I consider any day that I see a mouse to be agood day. I’ve learned, however, that if I see two mice on the same track, it’sgonna be heavy day.

Today, I had the hardest time not dancingto my music while waiting for my train. Listening to Grace Potter and standingperfectly still is just plain impossible, so I gave in to being one of the fewpeople you see bobbing along to the music you can only assume is playingthrough their headphones.

While walking down the street, I looked upto watch some pigeons on a ledge and when I looked back down, everyone on thestreet had looked up to see what I was looking at. Ha, made you look.

Still walking, while texting, I ran into atree.

While sitting at a coffee shop today, Ilooked out the window and saw what was either a dog-training class or a circleof strangers simultaneously being attacked by unruly dogs. Rationality led me toassume the former but I looked up a few minutes later and found the group had alreadybroken up, with only a few dogs still running wildly back and forth aroundtheir owners. Guess it wasn’t a class.

Most days I take the tube. But there aresome days when sitting in a stuffy train car in a dark tunnel deep underground justseems unbearable. So, as a special treat, I take the bus even though it takesat least fifteen minutes longer to get home. My bus from campus to home happensto run the same route as the infamous open-top tour buses so I get to enjoy aparticularly nice ride down Oxford Street and past Hyde Park.

While riding down Oxford Street, I usuallyget in a good dose of window shopping, making mental notes of which stores are beginningto bring out their spring clothes. Slowly but surely the window displays arebrightening up with hot pinks and aquas and flowery pastels. I cannot wait forthe days when it’s warm enough for shorts and skirts and dresses.

Today while at a red light, I was watchinga shop keeper standing by the door to his shop. He was holding out his hand andrhythmically tapping each finger with a pen. In a moment of boredom he sighedand stretched out his arms, then swung them around, accidentally flinging hispen out the door, into the street, and right under my bus. His face flashed amoment of surprise before quickly looking around to see if anyone had seen. InLondon, even without CCTV, I’m pretty sure someone is always watching, if onlyfrom the top of a double-decker bus.

My bus circles around the statues of agiant upside-down horse’s head and what I can only describe as a family ofgummy-bear people by Marble Arch, and then drives alongside Hyde Park for therest of the ride home.

Though these moments have become soordinary to me, as an anthropologist in training, I should be careful not tooverlook them. They are moments of my own participant observation and the beginningsof a mini-ethnography of the city that I’m slowly coming to think of as home.

Gettin jiggy

2012-02-15T04:42:00.003-08:00

Can't help but love it.

The beauty of failing.

2012-02-04T05:39:00.000-08:00

Failure can seem like such a terrifying thing sometimes.When you’ve invested yourself in something, fought hard, and lost, failurebecomes this heavy dark cloud floating around your head. The other day, I washaving one of those days where you just can’t seem to get it right. Nothingdramatic, just a series of small mishaps that built upon each other until theday earned the title of a not-so-great-day. As I hopped on the 328 bus to World’sEnd, contemplating the symbolism of the bus’s final destination given mynot-so-great-day, I couldn’t help but get a little lost in that clouded feelingof failure. Some things I had really hoped would work out just weren’t goingto, and I faulted myself. When I got home, however, my flat began to remind meof a very simple and very important life lesson. Fail big. And move on.

I say that my flat reminded me, because oddly enough, it wassort of like my little room was trying to cheer me up. Despite there being nowind inside my room, my curtains seemed to be trying to blow open to let in thesunlight. I picked up an old book and a fortune-cookie fortune fell out thatread, “You are kind-hearted and hospitable, cheerful and well-liked.” I laughedout loud and then smiled at the book’s kindness of dropping such a note into myhand just then. I turn on the tv for background noise and caught the tail endof a Scrubs episode. A character in the hospital that everyone thought wasgoing to be ok had just died leaving the shocked staff in that familiar cloudof failure. But at the end of the episode, the main character went home aloneto turn on the tv to watch sitcoms and say that amidst the sadness of failure, thereare still moments that can make us laugh and smile. Again, I smiled, at theirony of a sitcom cheering me up by telling me that sitcoms can cheer you up.Then, as I settled in with some readings, the tv still on in the background,the movie Elizabethtown came on. I’ve seen it before but never reallyappreciated it. I set down my readings and began soaking up the images of Kentuckyand the south, scenes of places I’ve passed through on my own road trips. Themain character, Orlando Bloom, has just lost his father and been fired from anincredibly prestigious job. He knew failure. Then Kirsten Dunst comes along andreminds him that life is about playing hard and striking out, and then gettingback in the game anyway. Orlando Bloom slowly begins a journey of letting goand moving on, outlined by a montage of moments on his road trip ofself-discovery, coupled with inspirational songs and narrative.

As simple as that message is, and as often as we hear it, it’sstill pretty hard to embrace it in practice. Fail big. That means taking incredible risks on a daily basis. Inone of my courses, we were talking about how we live in a risk societynowadays. There is so much uncertainty surrounding us. College degrees nolonger guarantee a job, jobs are not so secure once you get them, economiesworldwide fluctuate like crazy, the environment is seen as fragile and indanger, and technology is producing as many unintended “side effects” (to quoteUlrich Beck, a post-modernity theorist) as it produces progressiveadvancements. It’s no wonder that in the last twenty years there have been anexplosion of new disorders and syndromes and everyone seems to be able todiagnose themself with something, most often relating to stress and anxiety.Daily life seems riddled with risk and uncertainty and the potential forfailure. And in response we take protective measures to keep failure at bay. Deleuze,another academic, explains our desire for control amidst risk, and how thatleads to exclusion. Like in a gated community, you have to have the password toget into the secluded yet safe world behind the gates. Similarly, we can buildup emotional walls in a world where trusting strangers is just too dangerous.We wait for someone to come along with the password before letting them in on apersonal level. We are incredibly guarded against the possibility of failure.

But what about the beauty that comes from failure? Thegrowth that results from rebuilding after those walls have been torn down.Anyone who has failed miserably at something he cares about knows that he isstronger for it. The trick is having the courage to step outside the gatedcommunity in the first place, to live without walls at all. I think that if youtruly live like that, you’ll probably end up making a fool of yourself prettyfrequently. But I also think that in the long run, it’s all about perspective.When we are so zoomed in to our daily goals and successes, even small failurescan look huge. But if we zoom out, there’s a much bigger picture and all thatuncertainty fades into the background. If we zoom out, we can truly see all thebeauty in failure and the necessity to live life boldly and fail often. And so,though it’s easier said than done, fail big. And move on.

A little dose of goodness

2012-01-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

via thought at work

Creativity

2012-01-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

And

2011-12-04T09:08:00.001-08:00

Edward Viveiros De Castro addressing a 2003 conference on the subject of 'anthropology and science:'

"'And is a kind of zero-relator, a relational mana of sorts - the floating signifier of the class of connectives - whose function is to oppose the absence of relation, but without specifying any relation in particular. 'And' covers all thinkable connections, and therefore allows one to say all sayable things about the terms it connects [...]"

"But maybe not. Maybe there is a relation which 'and' excludes, perhaps because it is not a true relation - the relation of identity. Who would dream of giving a physics conference the title 'Physics and Science'? Physics is Science! We have to be able to imagine that anthropology isn't constitutively a science, at least not all the time, in all respects and in all relations, in order for us to imagine this contingent connection expressed in the formula 'anthropology and science'. A relation can be contrived, then, between 'and,' the minimal relator, and 'is,' the maximal substantializer, poles between which all our discourses and sciences are distributed. Now, if anthropology 'is' a science of something, it is undoubtedly the comparative science of the relations that make us human. But since comparing is relating and vice-versa, our discipline is twice over the science of the 'and,' that is, of universal relational immanence. Not of the 'is', therefore, and still less of the 'ought', - but simply of the 'and'. "

Life in a snowglobe

2011-12-03T07:50:00.001-08:00

I’m not quite sure how or when it happened, but I believe I’vefallen into a snowglobe. Without the snow, that is. You see, I’ve been livingin a strange Christmas-themed cityscape where time doesn’t seem to exist, atleast for me. I have no routine. I have no deadlines to meet or products tomeasure progress by. I only have classes three days a week and only attendmaybe two of those days. The rest of my time is to be spent thinking. Reading and thinking. So Iwander the snowglobe finding new Christmasy spots to sit and think. I drinkcoffee, I look at old stone buildings, and I read what others before me wrotewhile drinking their coffee and looking at similar buildings. I go out withfriends to Christmasy pubs and drink Christmasy drinks and talk about what theyhave been thinking. I go home to light Christmasy candles and drink hot tea andthink about what my friends have been thinking about.

And in all this thinking, I have thought myself into somestrange little circles. I’ve thought about anthropology and what it is and whatit means and if it’s possible to actually do it. I’ve thought about why myprofessors want us to think about what anthropology is and if they actuallyknow what it is and how to do it. Then I thought about what it is they areactually doing. And what I am doing? Andwhy? And what do I want to be doing? And where do I want to be doing it? Do Iwant to be at home? What is home? What constitutes a home? Does everything haveto be redefined? What does it mean if I have to redefine everything? Do I knowanything? Have I ever known anything? Will I ever know anything? What does itmean to know something?

It seems that maybe the point of this program was not toeducate me, but to uneducated me. To deconstruct everything and leave me towander in circles until I figure out which way I want to go. But in all of thisthinking never do I leave the snowglobe.

And then a few days ago, a funny thing happened. December. A crack emerged in the snowglobe.I remembered what December is: a period of time called a month. I evenremembered there existed things called calendars, strange diagrams of time.Those little squares with numbers in the corners were days. And in 14 squares, something else is going to happen. I amcoming home. I am leaving the snowglobe. I’ll be somewhere concrete again wheretime passes and there are people that I know that haven’t been consumed by deconstructivethoughts but by actual tasks that can be accomplished and checked off a list.People who actually know things, atleast in the sense that they believe they know things. And I can’t wait to seethem and talk to them. I’ve forgotten what life outside the snowglobe feelslike. But soon, I get to see it firsthand. And maybe it will remind me that I tooonce lived in a concrete world that changed seasons.

2011-11-28T13:44:00.001-08:00

“But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use thephrase, a thought-tormented age; and sometimes I fear that this new generation,educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, ofhospitality, of kindly humor which belonged to an older day..”

James Joyce

Scenes from Scotland

2011-11-22T17:13:00.001-08:00

St. Andrews

Calton Hill, Edinburgh

St. Andrews

Edinburgh

Desiderata

2011-11-13T06:52:00.001-08:00

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.

[...]

You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be,

and whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful.

Strive to be happy. "

Max Ehrmann

Grapefruit tea

2011-11-12T17:27:00.001-08:00

Simmer 2 cups grapefruit juice, 2-4 tablespoons honey, 1 cinnamon stick, and a few whole allspice berries to melt away gray rainy days and leave you feeling fresh and cheery. Thanks Martha Stewart.

Feathers.

2011-10-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

I just love this video. Maybe it's because I'm missing forests, or maybe it's because childhood is a wonderful thing. Or maybe just because I like the lyrics and the feathers.

Paradigm shift.

2011-10-26T14:07:00.000-07:00

There are some points in life when it becomes so incrediblyclear that things are changing. That the world around you is changing. That youare changing. It’s not hard to imagine that these moments are most noticeable withstarting anew in a new place. In the last few weeks, I’ve seen that I’m beginningto undergo a process of incredible change, a paradigm shift if you will. I wasexpecting there to be a learning curve with starting grad school in anothercountry but expectations rarely translate into actually experiencing things.Everything, from buying groceries to comprehending a different educationsystem, has been a learning process, often by means of trial and error.

At university, I’m relearning how to learn. Unlike in theStates, professors don’t lay out in lectures what it is you need to know.Instead, they point the way to which readings might suit your own uniqueinterests within a given framework, such as political anthropology ordocumentary film. I’m relearning how to read. Read once for a general overviewof an idea. Read twice for the detailed nuances that the professors will expectyou to notice. Read three times to form your own opinion. I’m relearninganthropology. Much more heavily influenced by French philosophy thanGermano-American anthropology, Anglo-French anthropology has moved beyond post-modernism.Ethnography is viewed as the art of in-depth speculation charged with representationof social reality. Anglo-French anthropology steers away from the comfort blanketof science that has at times lead Germano-American anthropology to claimingethnographic data can lead to truth. Here, there is no one right answer abouthumanity. There is no ‘truth’.

I’m relearning vocabulary. New and seemingly unnecessary wordssuch as historicity and contemporeanity and bio-socio-biological are enteringmy list of words to pull out in extremely highbrow situations. I’m relearningwhat it means to be away from family and friends and what it means to buildcommunity here. I’m relearning how to make friends and how to manage my timebetween school and social life. I’m relearning how to cook. Fun fact for youAmerica: here, food goes bad after a few days instead of mysteriously lastingfor weeks without molding. After talking to a friend living on a farm inArgentina, I realized my tiny make-shift kitchen isn’t so different than hers;no microwave, no freezer, and only a limited space for storing cold items. I’mrelearning where to shop and where to buy foil and black beans and cornbread. I’mrelearning how to open doors (those damn Victorians had such heavy doors withall kinds of locks imaginable and no two are the same). Today I even learned what happens if a pigeon gets caught inside a train (after significantly raising the anxiety levels of passengers, he simply gets off at the next stop).

And of course I’mrelearning myself along the way. I’m currently facing the decision of where Iwant to do my summer fieldwork. I basically have 4-8 weeks to live in a culturebefore some hard-core hermiting while I write my dissertation. I’m decidingwhere I want to be in summer, and where I want to be in fall when my visaexpires and I turn to the job market. I’m deciding what at what level I want tocommit to anthropology.

All of these are things I’ve faced before and figured out inthe past, but once again they are changing. I’m adapting. It’s an odd processbut not an unwelcome one. It’s part of challenging the old mode of thought andbuilding on it. It’s what we all do, though at some moments it’s easier tonotice than others. So this is my moment. This is my change.

Prose and Cons and Fortune Tellers

2011-10-03T14:15:00.000-07:00

Prologue:

Once upon a time there was a girl who decided to move toLondon to study. From the moment she began the process of visas and housing andpaperwork, everything seemed to be going wrong. Logistically, nothing was goingaccording to plan. So one day, she showed up in London with no home, littlemoney, no bank account, and no idea what her academic year would look like.Despite all this, she was happy. The city charmed her like no other city everhad. She enjoyed the way people went about their days and soon began to sortthings out. Even then, things continued to go poorly. She got sick and wastaken in an ambulance (rather unnecessarily) to the hospital where she was toldshe had the flu. She couldn’t even bookthe same room in a hostel for a solid week so she resorted to moving rooms eachnight. Still, she was happy. And she found a lovely home in the heart ofNotting Hill. This, however, is her tale of one very peculiar day.

The scene:

Today was my first day of classes. Everything went about asI had expected. Basic introductions were given, classic anthropological filmswere watched, new friends were made. After classes, a friend and I decided toenjoy the hottest October in London in 100 years and join the crowds ofstudents sitting in the park.

Rising action:

While discussing tolerance and people’s inability to trustothers, two young men walked directly up to us. One took a few extra steps andstood behind us waiting for his friend. His friend knelt, holding out anewspaper in one hand placed directly on top of my purse and asked in a low andurgent voice something in another language. Sorry? What was that? Again, thequestion, spoken as if he needed help. A moment passed and he stood up, lookedat his friend and walked away. Still confused, we watched as the pair walked tothe exit of the park, then turned to each other and laughed beforedisappearing. Ten minutes later, I realized he’d taken my iPhone.

Furious, we immediately asked for the nearest policestation. No one seemed to know and as time ticked on, we gently reminded theuniversity office staff that they could simply google it. We were givendirections and set off. Ten minutes later, we asked again as our directions ledus nowhere. No one seemed to know where a police office was. Ten minutes afterthat, we stumble upon one only to find a paper note taped to the door that read“This office is closed.” Twenty minutes, one tube ride, and several wrong turnsmore, we find a police station marked by the characteristic Victorian lampoutside the door. “Sorry, you can’t reportit without the serial number,” came the response my inquiry. That serialnumber, however, was not to be found in this country.

Giving up on civilized systems, we hopelessly resorted tovigilante justice. The men who took my phone in the middle of a crowded parkwere bold. It could easily be assumed they had done it before and would do itagain. So off we went, back to the park and to all nearby parks to search forthe culprits, refreshing ourselves with self-defense moves on the way, should somethingdrastic happen.

We walked into a park and sat down on the grass only tosuddenly realize all the people around us were frozen in mid action. Suddenlywe heard, “And go!” and they began to move. Upon closer observation, werealized we had wandered into a film set and sat directly in the line offilming. Oops. We stayed put as it was a park and we looked like extras, butmade a mental note that should we find our culprits in this very location, anyconfrontation would now be on camera.

Then, we spotted him. A guy sitting alone with a black trashbag talking on a black smart phone. Was it him? I honestly wasn’t sure, but hestarted looking very suspicious of us. We, on the other hand, were lookingpretty suspicious ourselves. After thoroughly creeping the guy out, he stood upand began to leave. We followed. He stopped and lingered. We lingered. Then ina moment of desperation, I simply walked up to him and asked, “you look like afriend I met earlier today; were you the one I met in the park?” He wasconfused and didn’t speak English well but the longer I looked at his face andlistened to his voice, I accepted that he was not our guy. “Sorry, you just lookedfamiliar, have a good day!” He left. And so did we. I went home to try and getahold of the serial number and rethink my London strategy.

Climax:

While walking home, I began to ponder how really, in thecourse of the whole day, I had not been very upset. I hadn’t feltthat bad about the phone. While lost in my own thoughts, a Sikh man walking theopposite direction down the street suddenly looked at me at said, “you are verylucky. Very very lucky person. But right now, your luck is sleeping.” I staredat him. “I am a palm reader and I can see in your face that you have very muchluck, but for four more days your luck is sleeping.” He proceeded to tell me myfortune, all while I stood, silent, watching him. Passersby lookedquestioningly, as if to ask whether I needed help, if he was bothering me, butI didn’t feel threatened. Suddenly, after the entire day, I began to break downto this man who stopped me in the street to tell me my future. My eyes began towater just the slightest bit and he knew that I was actually listening. Nownormally, I am the last person to believe in fortune tellers. I generallyreckon that life just happens and we make reasons out of it afterwards. I don’tknow if I really believe in destiny, or more in our power toreact to things however we choose and that is what shapes our future. Whetherthis man was right or not, it was the tiny bit of hope that I needed at thatvery moment and the bizarre factor left me smiling the rest of the way home.

Resolution:

When I got home, I got the serial number and reported thetheft. I heard some good news that made my flat just that much nicer. I talkedto family and friends I hadn’t heard from in a while. All in all, I’m stillhappy. London still has a way of charming me and exciting me with itstraditions and opportunities. And who knows, maybe in four days, my luck willwake up.

London.

2011-09-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

This isn’t quite how I’d hoped my first post would read butce la vie. After a week of running all over London looking for a place live, I’mtemporarily out of luck and settled in a hostel. The search is being put onhold since tomorrow begins my week and a half of being oriented, first to theUK, then to UCL, then to grad school, then to my department. Though it appearsto be overkill on the orientation, in truth I need it. Not because I look thewrong way when crossing streets or can’t figure out when to seat myself andwhen to order at the bar in restaurants, not because I’m stumped by the simple taskof finding a store to buy a hair dryer, but because I need some time to orientmy thoughts, to adjust to being on my own, homeless, and poor in a new country.

Sitting on the tube tonight listening to my music, the lyricof a song rung so true to this new stage of life; “I’ve come to test thetimbers of my heart,” it sang. What lies ahead of me is daunting. There is so muchto be overwhelmed by and it can be so easy to succumb to a feeling ofhopelessness and loneliness. I have a lot of adjusting to do and it will not beeasy by any means, and trust me, I’m feeling the pressure. But there is onesimple thought that helps. This is normal. It is completely normal to start anew life after college. Usually that includes changes, in location, in routine,in lifestyle, in people, and in oneself. It’s part of growing up and strikingout on your own. And with change comes months of being homesick, of missinggood friends, of missing everything familiar. I’ve seen friends move back inwith parents and get part-time jobs, seen friends move to new states to startschool and to live out of cars while job-hunting. Some friends set out on ajourney, travelling in search of something inside themselves. Some friends getmarried or set out alongside someone else. I admit now that I’m on my own path,I have the tiniest bit of envy for those who have someone with them when theystart over. But even then, making a new start is hard. My comfort is in knowingthat it will pass. Not necessarily soon, but it will pass. And I so look forwardto the day that I am so comfortable here that I’m dreaming up my next move. Butfor now, I’m testing the timbers of my heart.

Packing, as usual.

2011-09-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

I remember starting my blog for my trip to India with ashort post about packing. I wrote about how it didn’t feel real yet and I stillhadn’t started packing two days before. It seems two years later, I’m rightback in that same spot, two days away from another trip and not even pretendingto think about packing. Looking back, I was so excited for India. I can still rememberall the anticipation of the unknown. I had no idea what I was getting into andI love that feeling. This time around I’ve been so caught up in the bureaucraticdetails of paperwork, visas, housing, and budgets, I haven’t had any time toget excited. Until now. So here are the simplest things that remind me how muchI have to look forward to:

-Airports: I love the energy of people coming and leavinghome, work, and vacation. I love the people you meet and have random conversationswith. I love that everyone is temporarily connected by a feeling oftransition.

-Airplanes: I love packing my little bag with everything Ican possibly imagine I might need for 8 hours. I love take-off and watching thecity shrink below me. I love the fact that I am forced to set aside time tothink and rest and watch movies or read or write. I love tiny travel sized icecream and that I can use flights as an excuse to buy a five dollar magazine.

-The Tube: I LOVE PUBLIC TRANSPORT. I love the smell of the tubeand the blast of warm wind that precedes and follows each train. I love peoplewatching on the tube and wondering where they’re going.

-School: It is well known that I am a dork and I loveschool. I’m so ready to have a routine again that challenges me intellectually,to be around other students, to feel accomplished after spending miserable sleeplessnights of writing papers and finally turning it in.

-Living in another country: I love being the foreign one,even if it means making some sort of cultural blunder or offending someone byaccident on a daily basis. Everything seems exotic and new when you are out ofcontext. I love that I will be living with people from everywhere, whereeveryone will have different accents and different stories to tell and listento different music and speak different languages.

-OLYMPICS 2012: Ok so this is still a year away, but DUH, Iwill be in London for the summer Olympics!!! Life goal of attending the Olympicsis soon to be complete.

-The unknown: So this really is the main source of my stressbut let’s admit it, I kinda like having to think on my feet when travelling. Whocares if I have to show up in London and then find somewhere to live, figureout what classes I’m taking, and see just how accurate my budget really is.There’s a challenge in travel that draws me back every time, and it alwaysworks out in the end.

So here I go. I have two days to pack, a ticket to London,and no plan once I show up. Thankfully, my papa is tagging along for the firstweek to help me get settled. Let the adventure begin… again.

Fifteen minutes

2011-05-03T11:12:00.000-07:00

I will never understand the devastation in this world; how winds can lift up your life and throw it down again in a tangled mess upon the earth; how your boards and cinder blocks can stretch for miles and miles across open land while neighbors’ houses are perfectly intact.

A friend and I went to help the neighbors of a professor sift through what used to be their house until a tornado barreled over it. They were trying to find their heirlooms and photographs and proof of appliances for insurance’s sake. As we drove into the neighborhood, we were taken aback by the trail of wreckage strewn between and over houses and over a ridge into another neighborhood. Half of a barn, a roof where a house used to be…

We pulled up to the address marked by a cardboard sign. The only intact piece of the house was the cement floor of a two car garage. The two cars had been lifted by the storm and tossed into trees before falling into what might have been the living room. It looked like an angry child had smashed a dollhouse. The floor plan of several rooms lay a little ways away where the outline of walls and bits of carpet or tile marked separate rooms. Our professor introduced us to the family. The father nodded to acknowledge us but had little to say. I didn’t know whether to smile to try and cheer him up or to apologize for his loss. Neither seemed fitting and neither would make much of a difference coming from a stranger who still had everything while he had nothing but his life. That however, was a miracle in itself.

The family had been sitting in their living room during the storms, believing much like I did until last week that it was just a bad thunder storm. Tornados didn’t hit east Tennessee. We have mountains that protect us. Suddenly, the family felt the pressure in the room drop. They ran to the cement storage area in their basement. As they opened the door, it flew off its hinges and into the air. The entire house was pulled by the storm off its foundation and dismantled by the winds while they were in it.

Unfortunately, only fifteen minutes after we arrived, it began to rain. All I did for the family was move a pile of cardboard boxes. I have no money to ease their financial loss. I have no home to offer them. I have no words of wisdom or comfort that will change their outlook. And my one tiny effort of helping sift through the rubble only lasted fifteen minutes. So what do you do with an experience like this? Add it to your collection of experiences, filed away until you need the memory to help you empathize with others facing a similar devastation? Write about it and post it on a blog?

And why do we read stories like this? To give us perspective on life and teach us to appreciate what we have or because like in cars on an interstate, we all want to turn and look at the wreck as we drive by? Why do we make movies about violence and destruction to watch in plush air-conditioned theaters when there is so much of it already in the world? Our culture is so rich that we are nearly isolated from true devastation and like curious kids, we’re drawn to accounts of it. But to those who have experienced devastation like losing a house or surviving war and genocide, when all you have left is your life, these accounts seem sick and detestable. So why am I writing this? Would the family I just met want to read a young girl’s thoughts on the destruction she only saw for fifteen minutes?

I don’t know. I don't know quite how to react but I feel that there are just as many questions to ask of an experience like this as there are lessons to be learned from it, and the more familiar we are with devastation, the more we will know how to react and how to help. I guess if nothing else, those fifteen minutes helps to put things into perspective and is a reminder not to make mountains out of mole hills.

Power of Words

2011-04-12T18:02:00.001-07:00

Faith in all forms

2011-04-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

Religion can become a convoluted and complex creature. It can foster just as much disjuncture as community at times. No religion seems to be found in its truest, idealistic sense; yet there can be incredible wisdom in every religion. And, in my opinion, an honest faith can be stunningly beautiful. So here are some of my favourite prayers and songs from many religions.

“If you see the soul in every living being, you see truly.”

The Bhagavad Gita

May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.... May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

St. Theresa's Prayer

The Islamic call to Prayer

ੴ ਸਤਿ ਨਾਮੁ ਕਰਤਾ ਪੁਰਖੁ ਨਿਰਭਉ ਨਿਰਵੈਰੁ ਅਕਾਲ ਮੂਰਤਿ ਅਜੂਨੀ ਸੈਭੰ ਗੁਰ ਪ੍ਰਸਾਦਿ ॥

Ikoaŉkār saṯ nām karṯā purakẖ nirbẖao nirvair akāl mūraṯ ajūnī saibẖaŉ gur parsāḏ.

One Universal Creator God. The Name Is Truth. Creative Being Personified. No Fear. No Hatred. Image Of The Undying, Beyond Birth, Self-Existent. By Guru's Grace

The Mul Mantra- The foundations of Sikhism

Tibetan Prayer Flags

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

The prayer of St. Francis

Maha Gayatri- a Hindu Mantram

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Traditional Gaelic Blessing

A Philosophy of Work

2011-03-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

Warning: The following is highly idealistic and potentially sappy. Forgive me.

To write a philosophy of work should be to write a philosophy of self. Every moment provides opportunities for the work of improvement; improving relationships, improving oneself, improving the surrounding world for others. This, I believe, is the work that we are meant for. When describing life in a prison camp, Langdon Gilkey notes the reciprocal relationship between work and life; “Only if a man works can he live, but only if the work he does seems productive and meaningful can he bear the life that his work makes possible.” We often draw lines between the work that pays the bills and the work that satisfies, deeming one as mundane yet necessary and the other meaningful but rare. I don’t believe these lines must exist. Yes, work by definition is something that requires effort. Work is energy exerted in hopes of producing a result. However, I believe it’s possible to put meaning into even the basest of jobs when focusing on improvement. Every task can be redefined by adding purpose to it.

In A Theology of Work, Dr. Terry Cross highlights the restlessness of the retired to explain that “what we usually dislike in our jobs is not the work but the lack of freedom that our jobs demand.” To Dr. Cross, God has made man with the primary purpose of a relationship with Him and the secondary purpose of work, of doing something. We enjoy work. We enjoy the effort; we enjoy the exhaustion and the results afterward. Work gives us the fulfilment necessary to enjoy life. I recently received an email from a friend travelling in Argentina and volunteering at an eco-farm. She described the farm as full of hard work, beautiful nature and good people. There was something relieving and refreshing that came from having found a good day’s work. She wrote “My body is feeling so useful and it is great. My hands are permanently dirty and covered in cuts and blisters already.” Reading the email, I couldn’t help but yearn for the same feeling. Yet, while I longed to be working under a tropical sun and feeling the earth in my hands, I know that there is just as much work to be done in an office or a classroom. And just as much meaning in such work.

In every mundane office job, there is a person who is affected by the work being done, be it a boss or another employee or a client. In every classroom, there is someone who has worked to prepare a lesson and someone who is working to learn. People are connected with every task, and in every interaction with someone else, an effort can be made to improve his day, to improve his mood, to improve his life. There is the work of listening, the work of caring, the work of taking action to help others. This work is no less meaningful than any other. And by making a habit of working to improve the lives of others, we are improving ourselves in the process. We are made to enjoy work, and by redefining the purpose of every task to include the work of improvement, there can be satisfaction in the simplest of duties.

7 Billion

2011-03-24T07:38:00.001-07:00

2011-03-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

PASSION

As a teenager
It is important to shake your fist at the gods
to run as far and as fast as you can into the dark
get lost, pass out, and wake up the next day
with a volume of new and troubling goals
and no plan whatsoever to help you achieve them.

As an adult
it is important to look back at how hard your fist shook
and how those gods still forgave you,
because they had been there too,
running and passing out,
and now that it is all here upon you
plan or no plan
those goals don’t seem nearly as troubling.

By Dallas Clayton via Thought at Work

The power of being a stranger

2011-03-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

I was walking up the stairs at school one day as a girl was walking down. As we passed, we smiled at each other and then she hesitated. She took another step down, paused, and ran back up three steps to where I was. “I’m sorry if this is sounds weird but you just look really cute.” I didn’t quite know what to say but before I had grasped the compliment, she was already heading back down the staircase. I went on my way but couldn’t help to think about how easily an unexpected compliment can brighten your day.

What is it about that moment, and hundreds of others like it when a stranger compliments you or performs a random act of kindness or simply starts an unexpected conversation that seem to have so much power to impact us, to brighten a day? I think the answer lies in the basic fact that it came from a stranger.

In anthropology, Marcel Mauss is known for his work concerning reciprocity and the act of giving. Mauss’ work centers around the practice of potlatch among the Kwakiutl of the Pacific Northwest where tribes would present rivals with gifts and feasts in an attempt to out-give each other. The tribe that could not give away or destroy an equal or increased amount of wealth was considered defeated. While similar practices of exchange and reciprocity have been studied as a part of economics, Mauss views the potlatch as relating to social structure and as symbolic of social relationships. He considers the three acts of giving, receiving, and repaying as social obligation. When Mauss coined the phrase “no gift is unencumbered,” he basically said that no gift or act of charity or kindness is done without expectation of return in some form. People donate money to charity for all sorts of reasons without always recognizing it: for tax breaks, for social status, out of tradition, etc. As in the case of the Kwakiutl, gifts were a way of gaining honor and prestige and the inability to give led to shame and loss of social status.

So what is it about a stranger’s gift, be it a compliment or kind act, that strikes us as so unexpected? Maybe it’s because with a stranger, there is much less social obligation. When a friend leaves you an encouraging note, there is some expectation to return the gift at a similar level, perhaps saying thank you, perhaps with a note in the future. When a stranger leaves an anonymous note of encouragement in your mailbox, as one incredible friend often does for her neighbors, there is no expectation of return. It is a gift in the truest sense. The giver may have gained a small bit of social status if she told others about the act or perhaps gained a sense of self-satisfaction, but largely, the gift was socially unrepayed.

As strangers, we hold incredible power in the smallest acts. I’ve heard the story, be it true or not, about someone at the drive-through of Starbucks on a busy day who paid for the order of the car behind him. When the car pulled to the window and found that the drink was already paid for, there was no one to thank or to return the favor to, so instead, the driver paid for the order of the car behind her. This went on for hours, each car paying for the one behind, until the line died out. The desire to repay the gift was passed on from stranger to stranger. Shows like Secret Millionaire and Extreme Home Makeover capitalize on the emotion and impact of unexpected and unreturned giving. And few can deny how inspirational they are. But it doesn’t take a camera crew or thousands of dollars to have the same impact. All it takes is being a stranger. Sure, a compliment may not match building a home, but the principle is the same. It is a gift without obligation. Keep that in mind next time you’re at the grocery store or school or work or anywhere you meet a stranger. Because in that moment, you have an incredible power to brighten someone’s day.

2011-02-05T15:14:00.000-08:00

"My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted until I discovered my interruptions were my work."

- a professor at Notre Dame

A moment for current events

2011-02-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

“It is impossible to predict the time

and progress of revolution.

It is governed by its own more or less mysterious laws.”

Vladimir Lenin

In class today, a friend and I were discussing the revolutions that are sweeping the Arab world. Another friend sat down to join the conversation, and when we asked if he was as obsessively following the events in Egypt, he casually replied, “Not really; it’s all happened before so I’m not that interested.” I’ve found that most college-age Americans are vaguely aware of the situation but widely unconcerned.

Since the moment I discovered Al Jazeera English and watched live as Mubarak dismissed his government last week, I have been hooked on the Egyptian protests. Millions of people are united against Mubarak in the most complex way. All across the Arab world, nations are facing mass protesting and rearranging their governments (ie Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen). Imagine if the US, Britain, France, and Germany all experienced huge protests and threw out their cabinet and parliament members all in one week. And no one had any one unified plan for who to elect after that. The dynamics of diplomatic policy, the economy, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions in the Middle East are all up in the air at the moment and to simply say “it’s happened before” may be true but no excuse for apathy.

So for those who are interested, here are some great ways to get caught up:

Twitter: AJELive, Anderson Cooper, Ayman Mohyeldin, Abdullah Mussa, Evan Hill
Article by Heather Keaney (a good solid summary of the Media, Demonstrators, and Western perspective of Egypt from Westerns in Cairo)
Al Jazeera Live Stream News
Timeline of Unrest and Protests in Egypt
Profiles of Mubarak, Shafiq, and ElBaradei
Official website of the Muslim Brotherhood

And to leave you with a moment that should inspire the peace-loving hippie in anyone: Christians formed a ring of security around Muslim protestors during today’s prayers.

A letter

2011-01-27T17:22:00.000-08:00

Dear UCL application,

Please write yourself. I am tired of pretending to know what I am talking about. But please do a good job because I would really like to live in London.

Best regards.

Wednesday

2011-01-26T11:34:00.000-08:00

"In the adventure known as life, there are some who live vicariously, and enjoy the ride from an arm chair, and that is good. But there are those who have a few chances to realize incredible, and life changing experiences; but they do not repeat them. They carry with them a growth and personal philosophy for the rest of their lives. And there are those for whom a taste is never enough; for whom the lust of adventure is nearly insatiable and if you add to that an overwhelming desire to create, and to share, then you get where I reside, and the end of one adventure only signifies the beginning of the next."

I found this quote today when searching through old emails. A friend sent it to me while I was in India, to describe the person he was becoming. I've know all three of the types described here and perhaps at times I've been each of the types. Two years ago, I left for India only having lived through books and movies. Three months later, I came home and set off for the UK, addicted to the travel lifestyle. But it's the second type described that seems to fit best. Afterall, you can never truly go back to anything. But you can cherish your experiences and grow from them. Even the simple ones, like an average rainy Wednesday.

History and Culture - Two Schools of Thought

2011-01-23T11:24:00.000-08:00

If I were to ask you when the Vietnam War began, could you answer? What about if I asked when President Lincoln was assassinated? Who decided his face should be on the penny? Or why do Americans drive on the right side of the road? Why do Americans eat with a fork or a spoon, instead of chopsticks or instead of using our hands? These are all questions pertaining to American history, people and events or customs that have played a role in America’s past. Yet my guess is that majority of Americans can only answer one, maybe two of these questions. Somehow, knowing the history of forks does not make us more or less American, nor does it change the fact that we use a fork and spoon daily. But if a curious anthropologist came to study American culture, chances are he may ask some of these same questions on the assumption that they will help him understand Americans and their tradition.

Anthropology seems to offer two opposing viewpoints on the importance of history in understanding culture. The first school of thought proposes that the history of a culture is irrelevant to studying the present day people who comprise it. Just like Americans do a thousand things a day that we have no explanation for, such as using a fork and spoon, every culture has norms and customs that its own people embrace without knowing why. In fact, majority of people in any culture seem to function without historical knowledge of their culture. For an anthropologist to learn about the emic or insider’s worldview, he should join the culture as a participant observer, and if the insider doesn’t know history, nor should the anthropologist.

The second school of thought states that history is critical to understanding culture. Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, an early anthropological thinker, asserts that it is only along with historical context that present culture can be comprehended. For Tylor, history provides a look into the evolution of society, as a whole. From history, Tylor and other societal evolutionists points to the gradual progression from simple, “primitive” societies to more complex, advanced civilizations. Some later anthropologists adopted the theory of historical particularism, founded by Franz Boas’ work explaining that each culture is shaped by its individual and unique history, and can “evolve” at different rates to reach the same levels of development, but by different paths. Largely American Anthropology holds to historical particularism, emphasizing the importance of a culture’s history. Bronislaw Malinowski describes the role of an ethnographer to include being both a chronicler and a historian at the same time as the culture he wishes to grasp is “not embodied in fixed, material documents, but in the behaviour and in the memory of living men.”

So which school offers understanding of culture? In my opinion, both. When originally presented with these two schools of thought, I subconsciously leaned towards historical particularism and the need for historical knowledge when understanding any culture. However, I believe that each approach offers a different sort of knowledge. When I packed up my bags to go to India with the intent of studying a new culture and worldview, I couldn’t tell you a single historical fact about the country I would be studying. In truth, to me the entire appeal of India lay in the fact that I knew nothing about it. But by living with locals and to some extent conforming to the society around me, I learned customs and norms and language and all sorts of things you could classify as “culture.” It was only once I arrived home and settled in to write over 100 pages on India that I had to delve into the history of partition and conquest, colonialism and religion in India. Of course, learning this put the knowledge I had already gained into a whole new perspective. I began to take a broad look at India’s past and contemplate its future.

When you meet a person for the first time, there are all sorts of things you can learn about him. The more time you interact with him and the more experiences you share, the more you can learn about how he acts in different situations and get a picture of how he carries himself, what he enjoys or dislikes, etc. But once you know his individual background, his story, and where he has been in life, there comes an understanding of not only how he acts, but why. I think the same holds true for cultures. History may not be necessary for knowing how people think or act at present or on a daily basis as they may not know or recognize its effects in their own lives, yet history can afford us a sense of how a society progressed and changed, and provide an educated guess for how the same society will continue to change in the future. While studying culture up close in a narrow context shows the most minute and curious details, stepping back to take in someone’s history widens the field of view and allows us to make connections and predictions. Both are important and offer different opportunities for discovery and understanding.

A simple thought for a snowy day...

2011-01-11T16:03:00.000-08:00

In fourth grade, I had to memorize the poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. I remember reading the words written on a blue sheet of paper decorated with snowflakes which hung on the wall of the classroom. Something about the idea of stealing a moment in someone else’s woods to watch the snow fall resonates deeply with me. I’ve always loved the simplest moments when time seems to stand still and a quiet happiness settles over everything. But it’s the last lines of the poem that always come to mind, as if Frost knows a moment in the woods is just that, a moment. There is no regret as he continues on his way. With the end of winter holidays and all the laziness they inspire, tonight offers one last night to watch the snow fall. Tomorrow reminds me of all the ambition, excitement, work, adventure, and challenge of another semester which I’m eager to start. Though the moment was lovely, I'm glad it's once again time to look ahead.

“These woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.”

And others and elsewhere...

2011-01-08T14:13:00.000-08:00

Et alia translates from Latin as “and others; and elsewhere,” a fitting name for a blog so influenced by anthropology and a simple love of people and places. I have toyed with how exactly I plan to use this blog. I’ve considered reserving it for travel or maybe for telling the stories of people I’ve met while omitting my own adventures. I’ve thought about only posting simple moments of inspiration, be it in a picture, video, or quote. I’ve debated whether my thoughts belong on the virtual black hole of the internet, open to everyone but interesting to very few. For now, I think I will let it take its own shape. This blog will chronicle my journey out of undergrad and into whatever lies ahead- travels, stories, inspiration included. And for such a journey, I feel it only appropriate to start from home.

So few words in our vocabulary resonate so deeply with every individual as does the word home. Everyone needs a home. Wants a home. Seeks a home. Leaves a home, makes a home. Every man, woman, and child knows the word. Home can be a building, the wood, stone, or sheetrock that shelters you. Maybe it’s an intimate place that your eyes drink in after a long respite. Or maybe home is found in the faces of friends and family, the ones who know your deepest moments and smile just the same. Home is the strongest sense of the familiar. It is everything that you know, everything that is safe and comfortable. It is only with a sense of home that we are able to confidently venture forward. And it is home that welcomes us when we return.

So with that confidence, happy new year and here’s to home! Cheers mate!