Chapter 25
Saturday, April 30, 2005
"...Part of me wishes I'd never been kicked out of Devo."
Ahh, come on now, I almost missed giving a shout out and a Happy Birthday to Willie. I don't care where I go, or who I become, or how long I go between listening to an album or seeing a concert, Willie's music and his spirit will never leave me. Thanks, Willie, and I'll see you soon enough.
NBC wouldn't let me to direct link to Nelson...Secrets. So I got around it.
¶ 4/30/2005 08:29:00 PM 2 comments
NBC wouldn't let me to direct link to Nelson...Secrets. So I got around it.
¶ 4/30/2005 08:29:00 PM 2 comments
Friday, April 29, 2005
Any World (That I'm Welcome To)
SCENE: Outside on an upstairs patio of a typical college bar. It is semi-crowded with various members of society, mainly grad students and fans of the blues band playing typical covers songs. (Note: Regardless, they have a nice rhythm going on). Josh is sitting with his friend Cater and a few of Cater's comrades.
Cater: So you signed up for the Peace Corps, right?
Josh: Yeah, I'll be leaving in January.
Cater: Alright. That's awesome.
Josh: (takes a sip of his Shiner) Yeah man, I'm running away from all this. I'm just kinda tired of...you know, being here and everything. Paying bills. Just everything.
Cater: I hear that brother. You'll be gone for a while, too.
Josh: Maybe I won't come back. (takes another drink)
Cater looks at him and just shakes his head.
Cater: No way. No I hate to tell you man, not gonna happen. You have to come back to it all eventually.
Josh considers this thought for a moment. He fakes a laugh and starts to listen to the music.
Josh: (speaking) True. (thinking): I wish I would have stayed home tonight. What am I saying? That's not why I'm doing this at all. I have to find an excuse to get out of here as soon as I can.
¶ 4/29/2005 01:32:00 AM 1 comments
Cater: So you signed up for the Peace Corps, right?
Josh: Yeah, I'll be leaving in January.
Cater: Alright. That's awesome.
Josh: (takes a sip of his Shiner) Yeah man, I'm running away from all this. I'm just kinda tired of...you know, being here and everything. Paying bills. Just everything.
Cater: I hear that brother. You'll be gone for a while, too.
Josh: Maybe I won't come back. (takes another drink)
Cater looks at him and just shakes his head.
Cater: No way. No I hate to tell you man, not gonna happen. You have to come back to it all eventually.
Josh considers this thought for a moment. He fakes a laugh and starts to listen to the music.
Josh: (speaking) True. (thinking): I wish I would have stayed home tonight. What am I saying? That's not why I'm doing this at all. I have to find an excuse to get out of here as soon as I can.
¶ 4/29/2005 01:32:00 AM 1 comments
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Growing Up
"When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything; Scientist, Philosopher, Artist. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time." Sometimes. Butthead.
We come to certain moments in our lives when we just have to face the facts that we are growing up. One aspect of this problem lies in the fact that however the situation of our lives is playing out, as we become more aware of the world we can ultimately control how much we allow ourselves to grow up. We have the final say in how much influence we let the world have in affecting our lives. As I sit here behind a desk at work and type my thoughts into a computer I am reminiscent of the coming of age story of one Doogie Howser, M.D.. Dr. Howser was a young man forced into many adult situations long before most people ever have to experience them. We would watch these play out over thirty minute episodes every week, and the highlight (for me anyways) was at the end of this time when he would summarize his learning into the blue screen of his computer diary. In my life the best narratives about the joys and pains of growing up have come from popular television characters, including Dr. Howser, Kevin Arnold, Mike Seaver, and to a somewhat lesser extent the Golden Girls. And so as I have spent the last decade growing up I have often compared events to my life to events in these television shows about adolescence. Of course, I never had a Winnie Cooper and I'm certainly no brilliant surgeon, but eventually the tangible elements such as those disappear and what we are left with is very much the same things across the board. I don't know when I realized everything is not as it seems, but it was certainly before my parents got divorced. It was before I ever saw The Big Lebowski; but I guarantee you it was after I realized Jesus Christ looked nothing like that dude they have hanging up in churches across the world, and well before I was made aware that there was life outside the walls of my car. That sentence brought a very strange element into the equation. As I was typing it I came to the point where my mind was searching for a way to end it, and ultimately I landed on the only thing that has really been constant in my life over the past several years: my car. My 1997 Pontiac Grand Am with power windows that do not work most of the time. Addresses have changed, colleges and life paths are nowhere near their place five years ago; bedrooms have come and gone, my childhood home has been sold, my family has divided and moved across the globe. I don't recognize anything anymore, except my car. Even as I imagine selling it within the year, as I focus on getting rid of as much as I possibly can before leaving in January, it never occurred to me that my car has been the only thing I have had constant in my life for almost everyday of the past seven years. Something as trivial as that, imagine! This post is nowhere near where I expected it to be, that seems to be happening with these. So I was talking tonight with a girl I work with. She is originally from Venezuela and now lives here with her parents, although they still own houses and business' back home. She is getting her Masters in Education and student teaching this semester. She's a few years older than I am and was talking about her experience at University back in her home country, and how she came here to study English only and then return home. She talked about how when she arrived here she was so naive about the world, about life. She had been raised under her parents, never had to work while she was in school, and generally unaware of many aspects of the overall world. I know, we all can name a dozen girls and boys we know like this, but what she said somehow seemed different. As we talked she complained about her long days and being tired of all this working and going to class (okay, she wasn't the only one complaining!!!) but I couldn't help but correlate her issues with coming to understanding with my own feelings over the past few years. It's interesting what it takes for us to become aware of the world.For some of us, it seems the more we find out about the world, the more we can't stop realizing how life really is. This is all starting to look lame in hindsight, this post. Someone out there is going to read this and say "Hey kid, glad you could join the rest of us! The world sucks, we all realized that long ago, so get used to it." And I guess it could boil down to that, but I don't think so. I mean yeah, I have come to realize that we...that this world...well, I mean...yeah. Kevin and Winnie didn't wind up together in the end. But Kevin married someone, and he had a son he was able to play catch with.There's poverty, and murder, and hate in this world I will never understand. There's physics equations and biological matters that my brain will never grasp. There's books I never will read and girls I never will kiss. There are new cars & CD's I just can't afford to buy; there are friends I just let slip away and others I don't even know exist yet. I've come to realize that by realizing this I am growing up. The amount I let soak in on a daily basis is dependent on how much I want to grow up that day. Some days go by and I don't give a thought to how much I would like a new car with leather seats and a nice house in a comfortable suburb. Many days go by when I don't spend time in meditation and prayer. Days go by where I don't know what is going on in my world; then there are days when I can't get enough news. There are days where I cry and pray and talk to whoever will listen. There are days when I curse my car and her broken windows and question the direction my life seems to be taking. But regardless of what my brain is telling me that day, the fact remains that it all starts by me waking up. I can be in a bad way for months at a time but it all comes back to being given a chance to witness another day. So I guess there have been two constants in my life, and this one has lasted a lot longer than 132,000 miles. It's waking up; not closing my eyes, but opening them. My brain can be telling me whatever it needs to be telling me, but my senses are the ones I should really be listening to. There have been days lately where I have wanted to be a kid again. It's on days like those that you question if you really know how to survive growing up. ¶ 4/27/2005 01:19:00 AM 3 comments
"When you're a little kid you're a bit of everything; Scientist, Philosopher, Artist. Sometimes it seems like growing up is giving these things up one at a time." Sometimes. Butthead.
We come to certain moments in our lives when we just have to face the facts that we are growing up. One aspect of this problem lies in the fact that however the situation of our lives is playing out, as we become more aware of the world we can ultimately control how much we allow ourselves to grow up. We have the final say in how much influence we let the world have in affecting our lives. As I sit here behind a desk at work and type my thoughts into a computer I am reminiscent of the coming of age story of one Doogie Howser, M.D.. Dr. Howser was a young man forced into many adult situations long before most people ever have to experience them. We would watch these play out over thirty minute episodes every week, and the highlight (for me anyways) was at the end of this time when he would summarize his learning into the blue screen of his computer diary. In my life the best narratives about the joys and pains of growing up have come from popular television characters, including Dr. Howser, Kevin Arnold, Mike Seaver, and to a somewhat lesser extent the Golden Girls. And so as I have spent the last decade growing up I have often compared events to my life to events in these television shows about adolescence. Of course, I never had a Winnie Cooper and I'm certainly no brilliant surgeon, but eventually the tangible elements such as those disappear and what we are left with is very much the same things across the board. I don't know when I realized everything is not as it seems, but it was certainly before my parents got divorced. It was before I ever saw The Big Lebowski; but I guarantee you it was after I realized Jesus Christ looked nothing like that dude they have hanging up in churches across the world, and well before I was made aware that there was life outside the walls of my car. That sentence brought a very strange element into the equation. As I was typing it I came to the point where my mind was searching for a way to end it, and ultimately I landed on the only thing that has really been constant in my life over the past several years: my car. My 1997 Pontiac Grand Am with power windows that do not work most of the time. Addresses have changed, colleges and life paths are nowhere near their place five years ago; bedrooms have come and gone, my childhood home has been sold, my family has divided and moved across the globe. I don't recognize anything anymore, except my car. Even as I imagine selling it within the year, as I focus on getting rid of as much as I possibly can before leaving in January, it never occurred to me that my car has been the only thing I have had constant in my life for almost everyday of the past seven years. Something as trivial as that, imagine! This post is nowhere near where I expected it to be, that seems to be happening with these. So I was talking tonight with a girl I work with. She is originally from Venezuela and now lives here with her parents, although they still own houses and business' back home. She is getting her Masters in Education and student teaching this semester. She's a few years older than I am and was talking about her experience at University back in her home country, and how she came here to study English only and then return home. She talked about how when she arrived here she was so naive about the world, about life. She had been raised under her parents, never had to work while she was in school, and generally unaware of many aspects of the overall world. I know, we all can name a dozen girls and boys we know like this, but what she said somehow seemed different. As we talked she complained about her long days and being tired of all this working and going to class (okay, she wasn't the only one complaining!!!) but I couldn't help but correlate her issues with coming to understanding with my own feelings over the past few years. It's interesting what it takes for us to become aware of the world.For some of us, it seems the more we find out about the world, the more we can't stop realizing how life really is. This is all starting to look lame in hindsight, this post. Someone out there is going to read this and say "Hey kid, glad you could join the rest of us! The world sucks, we all realized that long ago, so get used to it." And I guess it could boil down to that, but I don't think so. I mean yeah, I have come to realize that we...that this world...well, I mean...yeah. Kevin and Winnie didn't wind up together in the end. But Kevin married someone, and he had a son he was able to play catch with.There's poverty, and murder, and hate in this world I will never understand. There's physics equations and biological matters that my brain will never grasp. There's books I never will read and girls I never will kiss. There are new cars & CD's I just can't afford to buy; there are friends I just let slip away and others I don't even know exist yet. I've come to realize that by realizing this I am growing up. The amount I let soak in on a daily basis is dependent on how much I want to grow up that day. Some days go by and I don't give a thought to how much I would like a new car with leather seats and a nice house in a comfortable suburb. Many days go by when I don't spend time in meditation and prayer. Days go by where I don't know what is going on in my world; then there are days when I can't get enough news. There are days where I cry and pray and talk to whoever will listen. There are days when I curse my car and her broken windows and question the direction my life seems to be taking. But regardless of what my brain is telling me that day, the fact remains that it all starts by me waking up. I can be in a bad way for months at a time but it all comes back to being given a chance to witness another day. So I guess there have been two constants in my life, and this one has lasted a lot longer than 132,000 miles. It's waking up; not closing my eyes, but opening them. My brain can be telling me whatever it needs to be telling me, but my senses are the ones I should really be listening to. There have been days lately where I have wanted to be a kid again. It's on days like those that you question if you really know how to survive growing up. ¶ 4/27/2005 01:19:00 AM 3 comments
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Emptying Drawers
Yesterday my Peace Corps recruiter called me to check up. I hadn't responded to the e-mail she sent earlier and she just wanted to make sure I was okay with the Caribbean seeing as it wasn't my first choice. For the record I am. Also yesterday I received my medical kit in the mail. I have yet to read through all the information, but trust me, I'm about to get myself poked and prodded and tested for everything under the sun. I had an interview with one department in DC, I'm trying to set up another. Turns out my resume was sent to a few people at the Red Cross. I think I blew the first one, but oh well. We'll just have to see what happens.
I was up early on Saturday for a class field trip. We spent the morning and into the afternoon driving around Dallas on a charter bus. We drove through neighborhoods we had been studying and saw how they had changed. It was odd, if anything (picture a big white charter bus driving through bario streets at 11am on a Saturday morning, inside a bunch of college kids staring out the windows at people leading their everyday lives. Anthropology...) and proved to be an experience I will not soon forget. There's a reason we pay for this education stuff.
I am so worried about my future right now, about my next step, about my overall future. Everyday (minute) I am faltering, I am learning. I'm not praying enough, and I'm definitely not meditating or listening enough. I may be making progress towards the big picture but some days you really have to try hard to convince me of so.
In the eyes of the refugee though, who am I but someone who is able to make my own decisions. I am able to worry about my future possibilities. Just that I have possibilities, I have choices I can make.
I wrote much more last night. More than two hours of writing. I posted it but then decided to host it somwhere else and link to it. It hasn't been a good week, for one reason and another. Senioritis. Americaitis. Lethargy. Take your pick. So if you have some time and want to read more from inside of me, click here if you're interested in any of the following: James Bond, The Book of Matthew, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, or some Old Testement prophecy.
"And when you sleep
You find your mother in the night
But she stays just out of sight
So there isn't any sweetness in the dreaming.
And when you wake
The morning covers you with light
And it makes you feel alright
But it's just the same hard candy
You're remembering again."
¶ 4/24/2005 03:00:00 AM 1 comments
I was up early on Saturday for a class field trip. We spent the morning and into the afternoon driving around Dallas on a charter bus. We drove through neighborhoods we had been studying and saw how they had changed. It was odd, if anything (picture a big white charter bus driving through bario streets at 11am on a Saturday morning, inside a bunch of college kids staring out the windows at people leading their everyday lives. Anthropology...) and proved to be an experience I will not soon forget. There's a reason we pay for this education stuff.
A part of the trip was stopping and meeting with a medical anthropologist who was on the board of a refugee center in East Dallas. He told us about the many refugees in the area and the history of refugees in the city. Many have come from South Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam) or Africa (Sudan); but there were groups from everywhere. You know you read about these groups everyday in the papers, hear about them in passing. Listening to this man talk however I for once actually started to just consider the idea of a refugee and I became very sad. Sad in a way I hadn't felt before. Sad in the way that no matter how many cute girls I was tried to position myself around during the day (that's another form of sadness=lameness), after that nothing mattered. I just kept thinking about the idea of the refugee. Not the immigrant, who leave their country with visions of upwards mobility and a plan of hopeful success. But the refugee: forced out of your home, maybe never to return, maybe all of a sudden, with no prospects or ideas of where you will go or what you will do...or who you will become.
I am so worried about my future right now, about my next step, about my overall future. Everyday (minute) I am faltering, I am learning. I'm not praying enough, and I'm definitely not meditating or listening enough. I may be making progress towards the big picture but some days you really have to try hard to convince me of so.
In the eyes of the refugee though, who am I but someone who is able to make my own decisions. I am able to worry about my future possibilities. Just that I have possibilities, I have choices I can make.
I wrote much more last night. More than two hours of writing. I posted it but then decided to host it somwhere else and link to it. It hasn't been a good week, for one reason and another. Senioritis. Americaitis. Lethargy. Take your pick. So if you have some time and want to read more from inside of me, click here if you're interested in any of the following: James Bond, The Book of Matthew, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, or some Old Testement prophecy.
"And when you sleep
You find your mother in the night
But she stays just out of sight
So there isn't any sweetness in the dreaming.
And when you wake
The morning covers you with light
And it makes you feel alright
But it's just the same hard candy
You're remembering again."
¶ 4/24/2005 03:00:00 AM 1 comments
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
"No, you didn't call..."
HI Josh,
Congratulations, the placement officer has approved you invitation.
I don't know if I had called you Friday afternoon about your nomination, but just to let you know, I did get you nominated to the NGO advising program going to the Caribbean on January 26.
I will be sending you a nomination letter soon, and you medical kit will be arriving within the next 2-3 weeks.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Megan...
I guess I need to ammend my map. (see below).
Saturday, April 16, 2005
I heard that the truth is out there. This is where I find out...
...and this is where you pick up on the story of Josh. We'll begin with a map of the world...
A map of the world.
I live in Denton, TX (indicated by the black X) where I attend the University of North Texas. I will be graduating this summer. Over the summer I will more than likely be living on the island Grand Cayman with my grandparents (blue arrow).
After that...well I'm joining the Peace Corps. I have no idea where I will be living for the next two years of my life, but I've requested Eastern Europe or Africa (red arrows). Although, if this map is accurate, let's hope it's not Eastern Africa.
I hope that image makes you smile, it's the only reason I decided to post it. I found it doing a GIS, I hope they don't try to sue me (Center for Social Media gets the credit--I edited out their caption). It's not our world, we just inhabit it. And, I guess we paint it on our asses.
I'm actually a very serious person, lately anyways. A month ago I traded in my Blues Brothers, Animal House, Bad Santa, and What About Bob? DVD's for a new copy of The Killing Fields. I'm talking serious. I wish I would have kept The Blues Brothers. I miss that mall scene. You don't know what you got 'till it's gone. And you don't realize that what you do or don't own means absolutely nothing until you begin to write about it.
Anyways...
I've been recording the process over the past month offline. I wasn't sure how to start, or if I even wanted to create a blog. But this morning I came home from work and just sat down and started typing, and before I knew it the clock read 3am.
Anyways I have the past month recorded, and I'll find a way to upload it all. You'll laugh (unlikely), you'll cry (somewhat likely), you'll find yourself strangely captivated (highly likely). So this is everyone's life, from my perspective. I won't be keeping it as a diary (yet) but more as just a means to track my progress through the Peace Corps and around the world.
This is nowhere near how I expected I would do it. I think that's a good sign. So, here we go. ¶ 4/16/2005 03:51:00 AM 5 comments
A map of the world.
I live in Denton, TX (indicated by the black X) where I attend the University of North Texas. I will be graduating this summer. Over the summer I will more than likely be living on the island Grand Cayman with my grandparents (blue arrow).
After that...well I'm joining the Peace Corps. I have no idea where I will be living for the next two years of my life, but I've requested Eastern Europe or Africa (red arrows). Although, if this map is accurate, let's hope it's not Eastern Africa.
I hope that image makes you smile, it's the only reason I decided to post it. I found it doing a GIS, I hope they don't try to sue me (Center for Social Media gets the credit--I edited out their caption). It's not our world, we just inhabit it. And, I guess we paint it on our asses.
I'm actually a very serious person, lately anyways. A month ago I traded in my Blues Brothers, Animal House, Bad Santa, and What About Bob? DVD's for a new copy of The Killing Fields. I'm talking serious. I wish I would have kept The Blues Brothers. I miss that mall scene. You don't know what you got 'till it's gone. And you don't realize that what you do or don't own means absolutely nothing until you begin to write about it.
Anyways...
I've been recording the process over the past month offline. I wasn't sure how to start, or if I even wanted to create a blog. But this morning I came home from work and just sat down and started typing, and before I knew it the clock read 3am.
Anyways I have the past month recorded, and I'll find a way to upload it all. You'll laugh (unlikely), you'll cry (somewhat likely), you'll find yourself strangely captivated (highly likely). So this is everyone's life, from my perspective. I won't be keeping it as a diary (yet) but more as just a means to track my progress through the Peace Corps and around the world.
This is nowhere near how I expected I would do it. I think that's a good sign. So, here we go. ¶ 4/16/2005 03:51:00 AM 5 comments
