I'm in the midst of some serious research.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure I should point out that this pretty much is my favorite activity.
However today I am finding it more than a little bit challenging for a number of reasons.
1) The challenge of a specifically vague research topic. Yes, I meant to say "specifically vague." What that means is that I am researching a really narrow topic that as far as traditional academic work is concerned has not really been specifically studied. It's actually really awesome to be part of a developing field, but this aspect is not so fun. (
So if anyone knows of great academic resources out there on military interaction with local communities send them my way.)
2) When researching anything on the internet it is common for things other than your specific search to come up. It is very time consuming to wade through all of the slightly related items that come up, even when using an academic site like JSTOR (
my personal favorite) or a university library.
(
Don't even talk to me about wikipedia or I will harm you).
3) Research ADD is perhaps my greatest challenge of all. I'm a big nerd, I know this, but I am genuinely interested in so many things. So if my search on "U.S. Military Intelligence Interaction Indigenous Communities" brings me articles on Mesoamerica during the Contact Period or the Letters of George Washington or Healing Practices in Australia's Outback it is very hard for me to not bookmark these items. The result of this is that I end up with 142 saved citations and only probably about 75 of them directly relate to my research.
Here are my top 5 completely unrelated cites:
Kevin Dawe
Reviewed work(s):
The Passion of Music and Dance: Body, Gender and Sexuality by William Washabaugh
British Journal of Ethnomusicology, Vol. 6 (1997), pp. i-vi+1-219
L. Carl Brown
Reviewed work(s):
The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq by Fouad Ajami
Foreign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 5 (Sep. - Oct., 2006), pp. 1-184
Paul R. Williams
Reviewed work(s):
Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Polity on the Brink by Francine Friedman
Slavic Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (Autumn, 2005), pp. 491-709
Richard H. Davis
Reviewed work(s):
Saints, Goddesses and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian Society, 1700-1900 by Susan Bayly
Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 114, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1994), pp. i-ii+1-144
Gregory Forth
Reviewed work(s):
Conceiving Spirits: Birth Rituals and Contested Identities among Laujé of Indonesia by Jennifer W. Nourse
American Ethnologist, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Nov., 2000), pp. 801-1016
It has been a rough couple of days and I am feeling exceedingly uninspired.
However, I refuse to be defeated.
You might think that I have some sort of irrepresable sunny disposition but you would be wrong. You might also think that I'm totally delusional.
Here you would be wrong again.
I'm only mildly delusional and I chose to be sunny because I hate feeling bad/angry/sad more than anything. I detest having knots in my stomach or feeling my heart ache. It's the worst and I refuse to feel that way for long.
I do think that is essential that you allow yourself to feel those crappy feelings in order to move past them and that is exactly what I am going to do.
A dear friend of mine once noted that I make myself calenders when I am feeling overwhelmed and he couldn't have been more correct. Writing out what I have to do when is one of the best ways that I know to get my head on straight and to focus.
This is not the method that I am choosing today.
Today I'm going to share some quotes that warm my soul.
"And people laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas you have to use big words to express them, haven't you?"
"Marilla, isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"
"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it's such an interesting world. It wouldn't be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There'd be no scope for imagination then, would there?"
“As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted.”
“We must have ideals and try to live up to them, even if we never quite succeed. Life would be a sorry business without them. With them it's grand and great.”
“I am well in body although considerable rumpled up in
spirit, thank you ma'am.”
Louisa May Alcott
"A little kingdom I possess, where thoughts and feelings dwell; And very hard the task I find of governing it well."
"I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don't think any one will deny us."
"Let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won."
"Painful as it may be, a significant emotional event can be the catalyst for choosing a direction that serves us - and those around us - more effectively. Look for the learning."
"We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving, and we all have the power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing."
William Carlos Williams
“It was the love of love,
the love that swallows up all else,
a grateful love,
a love of nature, of people,
of animals,
a love engendering
gentleness and goodness
that moved me
and that I saw in you.”
“Hold back the edges of your gowns, Ladies, we are going through hell.”
E.E. Cummings
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Truman Capote
"I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like.... It's like Tiffany's...."
"But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up.... If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky. "
Harper Lee
"They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions... but before I can live with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."
"The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box."
"I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
Mark Twain
"It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened.
"
"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further... And one fine morning - So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Jane Austen
"I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine."
"Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger."
"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book!"
"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion."
"Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains."
"You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.
"
"I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun."
So I was just reading one of my new favorite blogs (http://volcanicensemble.blogspot.com/2010/01/mexican-bitch-and-wardrobe.html) where the Sassy Curmudgeon listed her "top ten wardrobe staples that are not made of sweatpants" and I was similarly inspired.
The following is a list of items that I would save if fleeing from a fire in my home.
(Clothes only because I can't actually think about this subject in terms of my books without needing to take an ativan).
1. My jean jacket - this is by far my most treasured article of clothing. There are many many pictures of me in it. I have been mocked for it. But I simply don't care. I recently decided to invest in pants not made of denim so that I can wear my jean jacket more often. I actually have three of them but my favorites of favorites is with me in Knoxville - she is featured below.
(Why did everyone let me have red hair for so long?)
2. My sunglasses that I purchased in Vancouver - they are perfect in every way.
(P-Ed thinks that they are hecka cool even though he wears ray-bans)
3. My red rain boots. They make me feel like Wonder Woman and Dorothy all at the same time.
No picture of these boot. WTF?
(I guess you are just going to have to believe me when I say they are amazing. Bummer.)
4. Pink pashmina. It was the first one that I ever bought and it is my very favorite of all.
(Pashmina in Sintra!)
That's it for now - more to come. This is going to be a bit of a project as I have vowed to follow the example of The Sassy Curmudgeon and not include things made of Sweatpants.
Here is another gem from Coco:
"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening."
Coco Chanel
Okay.
I don't actually believe that I have powers of precognition but here's the deal.
I just watched Obama's State of the Union (I love this man, I don't care what anyone else thinks. He is a great leader and an unbelievably great speaker) and he mentioned a couple of things that I have said on The Down-Slope.
1) He said America is strong and resilient. I said that I am strong and resilient. Those actual words!
2) He said that he can't do it alone. I said that he said Yes, WE Can not Yes, I Can. (Not identical wording but for sure the same message)
He also said that it shouldn't be so hard for people to get an education which is something that I've been saying for years and actually, for the last couple of days in particular.
Seriously, all my delusions aside, I don't believe that I have powers of precognition.
What I do believe is that Obama and I are totally on the same page and would for sure be friends if we were to meet.
Which brings me to a new goal: Meet President Obama and become besties (not really, though because I hate that word. Besties. Bleh) or maybe pen pals.
I am little obsessed with my neighbor. And his girlfriend.
Not in a weird way.
That's not true - this is pretty strange.
My neighbor across the hall is a very charming, handsome European gentleman. I'm fairly certain that he is from Spain or some similar Mediterranean type location.
He is delightful.
He is very polite and helpful and quiet.
Do you know who is not quiet? (
I am not the answer to this question, you smart-aleck)
His girlfriend.
His girlfriend is not quiet or charming or helpful. (
I don't actually know if she isn't helpful or not) She has an annoying laugh and a rolling backpack and I do not like her at all.
I'm sorry but she is simply not good enough for him. She's not pretty enough, not smart enough, not charming enough (
I also don't really know if this is true or not either)
I realize that it's clear that I am not living the most interesting life given my most recent obsession (
listening for them in the hallway) and that this is unbelievably judgemental and not at all founded in any sort of reality (
except for her annoying laugh) but I just think that he should be with someone more chic or something.
But as my dear Tony said:
"Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions."
—
Tony Kushner (
Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches)
Hell.
That's right. H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS.
hell.
I'm talking about Business and Professional Communication at the University of Tennessee.
Now, in all honesty, I have zero problem with speaking in front of people. (This is why I did not take Public Speaking as I think that I should be able to test out of it).
However, the one thing I don't really like to do is speak about myself (which is interesting, now that I think about this here blog thing). I don't mind having a conversation with someone and we get to know eachother. What I don't like is having to come up with 3-4 things that symbolize who I am as human, bring in objects associated with those things and then tell a room full of strangers, most of them between the ages of 18-21, about what makes me, me in under 2 minutes. I've said it before and I will say it again - It's a damn good thing that I talk when I'm nervous. This tendency has helped me out quite a bit in the past.
But here is the thing . . . I'm super insecure about having left a pretty promising career in arts education to go back to school and do something completely new at the age of 27.
I know, 27 is not old. But I'll let you in on a little secret . . . IT FEELS DAMN OLD WHEN I'M IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE WHO WERE IN THE THIRD GRADE WHEN 9/11 HAPPENED.
Sorry. I don't mean to yell.
It's not that bad actually, most people assume that I'm 21-ish, give or take. (I won't pretend that that doesn't make me happy) And I see people on campus and in some classes who are very clearly much older than I am and I am so impressed with them.
Because I know how hard it is. I know how insecure you feel.
I don't regret the path my life has taken for an instant - not a single moment of it. (Except maybe I wish that I had dropped physics my senior year of high school). What gets to me is the nasty voice inside my head that is telling me what a looser I am for not having gone straight on to a normal college and gotten a normal degree (who are we kidding, theatre degrees aren't normal). At the same time I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would not be the person I am today if I had followed the normal path.
Here is the thing that I realized today.
This is what made that seventy five minute class a living hell.
Every person who got up to speak today, to share these pieces of themselves with a room full of virtual strangers felt the exact same thing. Everyone was miserable and almost apologetic for the things that are important to them.
I don't ever want to watch that happen again - my heart was literally aching when I left that room. This was a room with twenty five beautiful, creative, focused, driven people. And every single one of them got up and laid themselves bare. But this today, this was torture. No one should be ashamed of the fact that they love their families, or soccor, or hiking, or anything. It's just not right.
I'm so proud of all of us - it's really hard!
I will happily do anything infront of an audience when it's not really me but a character.
I'm sure that none of them will ever read this, but the following quote is for them, the students of Communication Studies 240, Spring Semester 2010, TR 11:10
"We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot. "
Eleanor Roosevelt
"A women who doesn't wear perfume has no future."
So true, Coco.
So true.
But more to the point, I have a certain obsession with the way people smell.
(
Not that way, you sicko.)
Here's the deal. I hate the way many people smell bad. I don't think that it's hard to
not really have a discernible odor.
Shower. Wear deodorant. Clean yourself.
It's fairly simple.
This really becomes a problem for me when I have to ride the bus. The bus is bad enough in and of itself, but when coupled with sweaty, smelly people ...
I just can't handle it.
I'm not saying that I always smell like a summer rose, but good gracious I try!
I really, really do.
People of the World - please do your part. Bath your bodies. And if you are feeling particularly generous, maybe dab on some perfume or sweet smelling lotion. It will make the people around you happier.
Special Note - perfume and lotion does not take away odor that is already present. If you don't smell clean before applying cologne you are just adding to the problem.
When I was a little girl I was obsessed with weddings.
I would play with my dolls and inevitably, Barbie would marry Ken, She-Ra would marry Bow, Jem would marry Rio.
You get the drift.
My mother made me a bridal veil out of a white plastic head-band with flowers on top and a magenta chiffon-esq veil.
Beautiful.
I would wear this veil on a regular basis. I loved all things weddings.
Nowadays, not only do I have no desire to get married anytime soon, but the very thought of it makes me kinda ill.
If I do get married, I also have every intention of eloping or some such thing.
Maybe a Walk-Ins-Welcome Chapel in the Smokey Mountains . . .
The problem with all of this thinking is that I am also very much aware of being in my late 20's and I know that time is a tickin' . . .
I don't really want to be an old maid
I don't know.
What I do know is that I'm not going to figure it out anytime soon. And not only that, but whatever I think about the subject now is probably going to be radically different when/if I'm faced with making a choice about it.
That's cool.
Love however - love I will always believe in. I love the love.
It is the best.
"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."
James A. Baldwin
"It is not enough to understand, or to see clearly. The future will be shaped in the arena of human activity, by those willing to commit their minds and their bodies to the task. "
Robert Kennedy
I have a crush on Bobby Kennedy.
There, I have admitted it.
It's a feeling that has been growing over time and today I am ready to admit it.
It's more than he was so handsome and was fighting the good fight. I mean, that is enough to get my heart pumping, but it's more than that.
(He also, clearly had a great sense of humor: "People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him." And you know what a sucker I am for that.)
I think about him and the speeches he gave and how brave he was to stand up for what he believed was right. He could have changed the face of this nation. I think about him and just have to wonder what our country would be like if he hadn't been killed.
As far as I can tell, the only person who has gotten the younger voters stirred up in a similar way since then was Obama during the election. "Yes we can." I cried during that speech - I was so inspired and proud of us all.
I was proud of my contemporaries who voted for McCain. Because they voted. They were compelled to make their voices heard.
But now that we are well past the campaign trail all we are left with are the talking heads on television. The older generation arguing with each other over things that are going to affect us more than them.
Were did everyone go? What happened to the power of our generation?
We cared. We argued. We voted.
And then we went away.
We cannot stand by anymore and let our parents and their contemporaries decide our fate as Americans.
This is our time. We have to take action.
Quite frankly at this point, I almost don't care what your action is. I care that you are active. I care that you are working towards something. That you are taking ownership not only of your own life but of your country.
I'm just as guilty of this complacency as anyone else and I promise to take part.
It's not enough that we get excited and voice our opinions every four years. That doesn't work.
Yes. WE. Can.
Obama never said "Yes I can." He said WE. And I have to believe that he included everyone into that WE, not just his supporters.
I'm going to end this with another great quote from my guy, Bobby:
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
Robert Kennedy
"Anthropology was the science that gave her the platform from which she surveyed, scolded and beamed at the world."
Jane Howard
It's very true.
I'm not sure who Ms. Jane is speaking of, but it just as well could have been me.
I love this world and the people in it.
On it.
In it.
Either way. I love the little intricacies of our every day lives that make us the same whether we grew up in California or Calcutta.
The loves, the lies, the every day moments that touch our hearts. And I love that we cling so desperately to our differences, trying to set our selves apart from one another. To be the "other." And in anthropology really all we are doing is observing this "other." Trying to figure out the equation of all of the millions upon billions of atoms and molecules that make up the human heart and soul.
All the while valiantly striving to not judge and to remain culturally objective.
I think that this in particular draws me in because I try to do that every day in my own "regular" life. I know that I don't always succeed. I know that I don't often succeed. But I am trying and I have to believe that that counts for something.
I've jokingly said many times in the last five or so months that I am doing an ethnography of the South by living in Knoxville. And I know that I myself am clinging desperately to my own "otherness" claiming that California is responsible for the features of my heart and mind. As if California is an entity itself.
This is a little problem that I have - I tend to anthropomorphize things that maybe I shouldn't.
Regardless, I think that maybe I have set myself up as a scientific observer here, maintaining a respectful distance from the community I'm observing rather than digging in and making myself at home.
I knew that this wasn't going to be easy, but I think that I'll be okay.
This life I'm leading is exactly what I wanted; to jump of the path that I had paved for myself and to traipse up and down the mountainside as I pleased.
I just watched that movie What the Bleep Do We Know, and it really got me thinking about alternate versions of reality that we could be living at any given moment. There have been countless times since I have made the move to Knoxville where I have had to pause because of deja-vu or even more to the point, an intense knowledge that I had dreamed these moments.
Not that I believe that I have powers of pre-cognition because I know that I do not.
But rather a sense of knowing that I am making correct choices.
I am choosing my own adventure for the first time in my life.
Following the direction of my soul.
I'm glad I finally listened.
"I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship." Louisa May Alcott
Yeah, okay. Right now it feels like my ship might capsize. I'm sure it will not.
Because I am a strong person.
Just ask my mother.
Because even if my ship were to capsize, naturally I would be able to turn it over and scoop all of the water out myself.
Because that is what strong people do.
They don't let their ships capsize.
Or they swim for land and make a friend out of a volleyball like Tom Hanks (
I don't think he was in a shipwreck in that movie).
Today I would rather float along with the wreckage. However, that makes me think about that movie with the two divers stuck out in the water. No good.
I guess the only answer is to stop the ship from capsizing or whatever else might happen in a storm.
Gross.
I am strong.
I am resilient.
Tomorrow I am going to apply for a job at a restaurant (
something that I vowed never to do again, but due to the storm . . . a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do . . . savvy?), work at my job at the Museum for an unbelievably long shift (
2 horas), and then do something else.
I don't know what.
I would take a walk along the greenway by my house, it really is lovely. But all I can think of is how if I do that by myself I will be asking to be murdered.
You know the drill, young woman lives alone, recently moved to the big city, walking along a quiet, wooded path.
What?
You think I watch too much television? Too many police dramas?
Guess we will never find out what would have happened since I am going to take the easy way out and not go for that walk.
Phew.
That was a close one.
No worries, folks. I will perservere.
Through the storm and everything.
Perhaps I will work on my Spanish.
Hola! ¿Cómo estás?
¿Te gustaría ir a dar un paseo?
