Emmaus Road

Boring Men, Lions, and Marriage

2010-07-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

I used to think that marriage made men boring. Growing up, all the images I saw of men I wanted to emulate involved things like fast cars, concealed weapons, super-secret missions, and usually some womanizing. With a wink and a smile these men would rush into danger, disregarding their own safety, defeating evil and kissing pretty girls. None of those men ever had wives, and even when they got the girl at the end of the movie I was pretty sure they never married them. Most of that came from movies, which I realize can be somewhat fictional, but I felt the same way about men I knew in real life too. When I was young I had a hero, his name was Dan-O. He was a Birkenstock wearing pseudo-hippie from Seattle, as far as I knew his last name was “O,” and he did whatever he wanted. I remember that his hair was long, sometimes he sported a beard, and he wore these loose fitting european shirts like he was a beat-poet or something. I can remember being a kid and him tossing me into the air like a rag-doll, then he would throw me over his shoulder and carry me around the house. He could do cool things like juggle flaming bowling pins, and once just for fun he went to Spain and learned to play the Flamenco. Sometimes he would come over and teach my brother and I about sailboats, other times he would talk about his world-traveling adventures and my brother and I would stare on in wide-eyed wonder. To look into his blue eyes was to look into the face of adventure; he was a magnificent machine of a thing. To this day Dan-O isn’t married, and today he lives in Alaska on a boat. As far as I know he is happy.

Lets contrast that with the people I knew who were married. First you have to understand that the married people I knew existed within the conservative church-going culture, so already I had that going against me. I would see them mostly on Sundays, and they always wore cardigans and collard shirts, they smiled a lot and never talked about sailboats or juggling flaming things. They all had good looking families with matching cardigans and collared shirts, and wives who cooked good meals. They always seemed nice enough, which I guess was ultimately the problem. None of them ever seemed dangerous, or edgy, or controversial in any way. In fact, if I had a word to describe them it would probably be “subdued.” Then later I came to learn that some of these men had secrets, they had affairs with other women, some of them even left their families. Other times we would go camping with a few other families, and I learned more things about what married men were good at. They could assemble a tent. They could operate a grill. They could tell their kids to stop doing things. All very useful things, no doubt, but when you are a kid you are still naive enough to want to do something really special, like be an astronaut, or captain a ship, and it was demoralizing to think that maybe no one ever grew up to actually do those things. And it made me wonder at when these men stopped wanting something unique for themselves, when they decided to become an accountant or a banker or salesman.

When you are young these things leave impressions, and its hard to erase these early ideas of what married men are like.

I once read in a book about a guy who was at a zoo and saw a huge lion in a cage. The lion was big and beautiful with fire in its eyes, and the sign next to it read Panthera Leo, which I guess means Lion in Latin. He said that the lion was the biggest he had ever seen. He said that this lion was meant to be roaming the savannah as King of the Beasts, taking down gazelles and running free. But instead it just lay there, unable or unwilling to move, sleeping away its days in a small cage. He said that men nowadays are the same, great dangerous things but confined to a small cage. And as soon as I read it I realized that what he said was true, it was something I had felt for a long time but couldn’t put words to.

I felt called to get married a long time before I did. And even though I had my parents as a model, and they are very happy, because of what I had seen of married men growing up I wanted nothing of it. I had decided that I would never become a caged lion, and I still had some small hope of becoming an astronaut, so marriage was definitely out.

I ran away to Korea for a year, and I learned to use chopsticks and eat raw things and even speak some of the language. While I lived there I knew lots of smart, adventuresome unmarried people. These people seemed to be living the life, unattached and able to pick up and move wherever their hearts desired, they were nice and for the most part, happy. I reveled in this freedom, I lived somewhat irresponsibly at times, but then one day something changed. I was watching this movie directed by Sean Penn, who is a great actor but a little crazy in real life, about a guy who runs away to find himself. At first it sounded cheesy to me, like every other movie about the same thing, but this one was different. The main character wants to escape his comfortable existence and his rich parents who want to send him to an Ivy League school, so he burns his money and runs away. The movie chronicles his journey as he encounters people and places that are beautiful, and, like me, he revels in his newfound freedom. But by the end of the movie, after all he has been through and experienced, he finds himself without food in an isolated wilderness somewhere in Alaska, where he eventually starves to death. I remember being struck not so much by his dramatic death, but by what he wrote in his journal just before he died: “happiness is only real when shared.” After all his grand travel and adventure and freedom, the last thing he wrote, as a sad, broken human being, was that his happiness had been empty. To be honest I wanted to disassociate with the main character, because he was tragic, but deep down I knew he was me.

I’ve been married a year now, and maybe I’m a little boring. Maybe. But so far I’ve found that the complacency that I saw gripping so many married men can be resisted, it can be beaten back. It’s a conscious decision that has to be made every day, and its also something that has to be creative. I say “creative” because the truth is that as a married person there are lots of domestic, boring, uncreative, utilitarian necessities that have to be done. But that’s just life. As soon as I stopped resisting those things, and focused on finding adventure where I could, the sooner I found a happiness that I could share with my wife. I’m still pursuing the passions of my heart; this last year I’ve been to the Middle-East, and soon I’m moving with my wife to Pennsylvania to learn about law at Penn State. And the thing is, everything I do now is enhanced, it’s like looking at something beautiful through a magnifying glass instead of with the naked eye, everything is that much clearer and simpler. Now I get to share the things I care about with someone that’s not facebook, someone who will push me to do even crazier things with my life. Instead of making me boring, marriage has made me more exciting, and it has given me more than a real happiness; it has given me a real peace.

Of Mystics, Memories, and Futures

2009-07-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

In his book Saints and Madmen, Russell Shorto says that there is only one difference between a psychotic and a mystic: he says that a psychotic is inflated by his experiences, while a mystic is humbled by them. According to Mr. Shorto it’s that simple, the line is that narrow. A mystic takes what he has seen and heard and done and is humbled by its magnitude and holds those memories in reverence; while a psychotic understands his blessings only in light of himself and sees them only as a reflection of his own grandeur.

After 13 months of living in a foreign country and being blessed beyond what I dreamed, I am flying back to America tomorrow. I am entering that crucial time of reflection, an attempt to understand what all this has meant, what it means, and what it will mean. Thus far I know only one thing: if I am to fall into one of two camps, let it be that of the mystic.

My last two weeks have been really wonderful. I have spent time with my Korean friends, with my Korean family, and also with the beauty that is Korea. Saying goodbye to my school was particularly heart-wrenching. Many of the students hugged me, told me that they would never forget me, and gave me awesome cards they had written in broken English. To be honest I really didn’t think it would be as hard as it was to leave. I have spent so much time in that school, I have taught hundreds of classes, spoken to hundreds of kids, and suffered through cafeteria food countless times. As scared as I was when I first began teaching, now I can’t imagine life without it. It’s amazing how life shifts things like that. And if there has been one central theme to my time here, to my life, perhaps it is this:

The fear of something is always worse than the thing that is feared.

It’s incredible how this has proved true over and over again. Whatever I have been afraid of has never been worse than how I imagine it to be, to the fear I have created and in my mind. It’s really been a liberating concept to embrace.

**But before I get ahead of myself, allow me to divide this final Korean essay into a few pieces, each of which I hope will draw together and create some kind of puzzle, (although it's picture will no doubt be abstract.)

A Brief Note on the Nature of Unpredictability. A year and 4 months ago I could never have told you that I would go to Korea, let alone live there, for a year. Nothing could have been farther from my mind as I busily applied to law school and worked at my full time job. Suddenly I was ripped from that situation and thrown into one of the most difficult and rewarding situations of my life, one that necessitated the embrace (awkward though it may have been) of unpredictability. Embracing this concept is incredibly difficult for me. I have a great friend who I respect very much who really encourages me this way, because I am very high-strung and stressed and cracked out on caffeine most of the time, but he is one of the calmest people I know, and no matter what variables are handed his way he engages them with the calm faith of a man who understands what is worth worrying about. We are the same age, but he has embraced unpredictability, he has embraced the unknown, and all the freedom that comes with it. I wrote a while ago in my journal, in the midst of my teaching and traveling and planning for a marriage, that I really had no control over my life. That I was nothing but a small boat being tossed about in a storm, subject to wind and wave and every manner of nature's furry. That, for a person like me, is horrifying. For my friend whom I mentioned earlier, that's just a part of life to roll with. For me it means that I can't plan my future with any degree of accuracy, it means that my planning each year in advance is frivolous at best, and irresponsible at worst. All this because any plan I make is ultimately ephemeral. Fleeting. Temporary. So, this time has forced me to confront the darker, grittier side of human life on this planet. To bear the weight of uncertainty on my shoulders while clinging to the strength that is faith. To accept the fact that my boat will be tossed about by the wind and the waves, but to pray that God is in the wind.

A Note on the Continuation of Hope. I was speaking with a friend of mine a couple of days ago. I hadn't seen her in two years, not since an economics conference in Boston, and we were catching up about all that had happened since we last met. I have to mention, she is brilliant. She goes to an Ivy League school and will soon graduate with all the honors that her prestigious degree confers, and she will go on to do great things. So we were talking and she was telling me about how she had been traveling, how she had seen many beautiful and terrible things, how she had worked in the Netherlands at the Hague, and how the immense egoism and hypocrisy of the International Criminal Court had driven her away. She told me that she wasn't as idealistic as she had been, that after seeing so much she no longer felt compelled to become an international lawyer, that the life of altruism she had always dreamed of was not for her. She told me that she would rather embrace life at her Ivy League school and life in the lavish reality that it provided. And to be honest, I don't blame her. It was something that I struggled with a great deal after traveling this winter. A friend of mine once asked me how anyone, with eyes open to the world, could maintain hope. I'm not sure I have an answer yet, but I am thankful that the bitterness and cynicism that enveloped me for some time has dissipated, and that I remain today as much in love with traveling and experiencing as I ever have been. Hope is a tricky thing, and I think if we hope in anything less than perfection we are destined to be let down. I was, and I am learning to move past our broken nature to something lasting, to something greater.

A Note on the Enigmatic Nature of Time. I am, or possibly am not, in my mid-twenties. In America I am 24, in Korea I am 25, either way I am looking at about a quarter century. I am learning to be ok with this, but I have noticed, with a degree of alarm, that each year moves with a speed with which I am not yet accustomed. Upon leaving for Korea, my year-long commitment might as well have been an eternity, (because when you leave to a mysterious Asian country any period of time beyond a few months it seems like forever.) Yet here I sit, sipping a coffee in Seoul, South Korea, and wondering where the time has gone. I know intellectually that time has passed, over a year has gone by, but when I think back I can remember vividly arriving for the first time. My first bites of Kimchi, failing my language classes, taking taekwondo, and losing feeling to my legs as I sat cross-legged for hours on the floor. These things just happened, and yet they happened a year ago. And I don't think that this is tragic, or sad, or happy or anything; it just is. It's the strange reality we live in. I really struggled with trying to understand this, until I heard a man a respect very much, Dr. Ravi Zacharias, put this this way: He observed how strange it was that we humans should be constantly remarking at the passing of time, as if it were unexpected: "how tall you have grown!" we say, "where has the time gone?" we wonder. Indeed how strange it is that we constantly remark with surprise at the passing of time, although to our physical bodies, time is the one constant thing we have. It is as strange as if a fish were to constantly marvel at the wetness of water. Such an idea would be strange indeed, unless the fish was one day destined to be a land animal.

**So, to communicate some of what my last two weeks in Korea have been like, check out these pictures:

I went on a final hike with my homestay family, reminding me again of Korea's incredible beauty.
When we reached the top of the mountain, sweating and out of breath, the first thing my homestay family did was buy rice wine and popsicles. How awesome. How Korean. When asked if I would like a cool alcoholic beverage to hydrate myself with, I politely declined.
I was invited back to Chuncheon, the town I spent my first 6 weeks in Korea living in, to deliver a lecture to the new Fulbright Grantees who had just begun their orientation. It was weird. Here were new grantees, in the exact situation that I had been in one year prior. I stayed in the same dorm, and sat in the same room I had sat in for hours during my orientation. Things really came full circle, it was good and right to be back. Then we ate the Chuncheon famous dalk-galbi, something I had been craving since I left a year ago. It was good!
I encountered what has been voted one of the most difficult things to adjust to here in Korea: throwing TP in trash cans. I spent some extra time hanging out with my Korean friends in Cheongju, getting to know them has been one of the highlights of my time here in Korea, and I did some more hiking and found more beautiful places, each distinctly Korean.
I also spent some quality time dressed as a pirate with my coteachers. We believe in keeping things loose.
Finally I hung out with my students, playing fun games and eating pizza with corn and sweet potatoes on it, shooting rubber-bands and throwing pencils into the ceiling. This is the part that I will miss the most.
I have reached the end of my grant to South Korea, I have reached the end of my adventures here and to my teaching. I leave here deeply humbled and honored to have had this opportunity, it has been a blessing in good times and in bad, and I emerge a better man, a more complete man, for it. It's the end of an era for me, and I am running headlong into the next; I don't know how to do it any other way. This next stage of life will also be full of blessings, although it will be much different and will require me to grow up in substantial ways. I feel a sense of loss, but I am heartened by the hope that rises before me, in all its uncertainty, with all it's unknowns and questions and risk, which is perhaps why I feel so ready for it. Because I know that whenever I encounter difficulty, risk, danger, unknown, I am headed in the right direction, because to be fully alive you can't be safe.

Awakenings, or, Live, Love, and Leave

2009-07-03T02:29:00.000-07:00

I have entered my final days of this great Korean experiment. This is my last weekend in Cheongju, and that sobering fact is just beginning to settle in as I have intentionally kept my self busy enough so as not to think of it. Leaving is a funny thing, it’s something that tugs at those tender heartstrings that we try so hard not to pull. Sometimes when I think of it I shake my head and laugh, because it’s one of the only actions that we perform repeatedly in this life yet it remains one of the hardest to do. Therein lies the beauty and the difficulty of travel, the art of constantly coming and going, of living, loving and leaving.

I will be honest with you; I am a bit of a sentimentalist. I enjoy reminiscing and thinking and learning and really searching through the pages of my recent history. So I beg your forgiveness in advance as I indulge with relish in this weakness of mine.

When I first came to Korea a funny thing happened: I didn’t eat breakfast. Or, rather, I couldn’t eat breakfast. Although I was confident that I wanted to be in Korea, I suffered from a crippling anxiety that subtly manifested itself in its ability to paralyze my capacity for food eating before noon. Not that I really cared, honestly, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of eating rice and kimchi at 7:30am. I tell you this because if someone were to paint a picture of my first few months in Korea it would be something abstract, employing many different colors and drifting far outside the lines. I suppose my expectations were met. I had expected nothing but a massive change, and that is what I received. For the first month I endured, along with dozens of my Fulbright comrades, a 6-week orientation that ran a bit like a military boot camp, complete with a drill sergeant walking up and down the halls with a megaphone at 7am to wake us up. Needless to say this form of motivation did little to decrease my anxiety. I remember one day in an orientation seminar being asked to write down why we had come to Korea, what our motivation was. I paused. It was such a basic question, perhaps the most fundamental question there was, yet I struggled to put into writing exactly why I had ventured around the world and landed here. What I eventually wrote was something like this:

“I am not here to teach. I am here to experience, to learn, to grow, to understand beauty and to learn to live in uncertainty. Teaching is just the vehicle. The means to an end.”

The day after we wrote these statements I received what was to me a rude awakening. We were sitting in our orientation class again, and we were told that if we went home early, if we did not finish our grant period, that we would have to pay Fulbright back for our flights to and from Korea. I listened without really hearing, each word falling heavily into place like a prison door clanging shut. “You…will…pay…us…for…both…of…your…tickets.” I did the math, “ok, each ticket is around 1,300 dollars, times two, that equals 2,600 dollars…oh dear,” I concluded, “I don’t have that kind of money.” My mouth slid open, I stared dumbly at the pencil on my desk as if it held the answer to my dilemma, as if it would sprout legs, arms, and a mouth, jump up and show me a way out of this quandary. Please understand, I had every intention of staying for the duration of my grant, but its one thing to say that you will live somewhere for a year, and its another to be locked into it via the threat of financial ruin. I officially had no plan B. Ultimately it was good for me, I reacted by pushing myself a bit more and acknowledging that I couldn’t afford anything less than success in this venture.

Fast forward to last night. I was sitting on the floor around the dinner table, with my homestay mother (Mrs. Bang) and father (Mr. So) on the other side, pouring another glass of Hite (the only Korean beer that they drink) and talking about Mongolians. “Did you know that years ago the Mongolians went into China, then into Alaska, then down into Canada, the US, and Mexico, and ended up in South America, in Peru?” Mrs. Bang asked. “No,” I replied. “I had no idea.” “And,” she continued, with a pleased look on her face, “that is why today the people from Peru farm the same way we do here in Korea. And they perform the same ceremony before harvest that we do.” Right on cue, Mr. So jumped up from his cross-legged position, beer in hand, to demonstrate. Dipping his pinky finger into his glass, he started flicking beer out of the glass and onto the floor with incredible volume and speed. Mrs. Bang, who had not anticipated this demonstration, started slapping his legs, telling him to stop throwing beer on the floor, and that he would have to clean it up. After he had emptied about half the glass, he stopped with a big, pleased smile across his face.

Moments like that I’ve found are hard to replicate. They are endemic of the comfort I now feel living in Korea, a comfort that has taken a while to achieve, but I now feel deeply.

So in a week I will leave this. I will bid goodbye to all the places I ever visited, to all the coffee shops I ever indulged within, and to all the beautiful people and places I have met and seen. Just as I've awakened to the beauty of this experience, so will I leave this and awaken to another beauty, another adventure greater than this has been. I will move on to greater and better things, I really believe that, and I am excited to do so; but that fact doesn’t make leaving any easier.

Korean Yodelers, and Indian Musicals: Life with a new family

2009-06-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

I just moved into a new homestay last week. I know, it’s only a month before I leave, but the last family I was with had downgraded to a two bedroom apartment, and with all five of us living there it was a bit cramped. So my new homestay is a bit bigger, and consists of one 12 year old daughter and two proud, doting parents. One of my homestay father’s favorite pastimes is shaking my hand; an operation that he performs with clocklike regularity almost hourly. As he shakes my hand he smiles deeply and uses the only English phrase he knows, “nice to meet you!” It doesn’t matter that I met him four days ago, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve repeated this phrase four times already today, but I obediently smile, nod, and respond, “it’s nice to meet you too.”

Such peculiarities are common and usually highly comedic in this household. My homestay mother is a kind woman, short, with curly black hair and a perpetual smile, her chief concern seems to be making me happy. That, and talking almost incessantly. She has a decent understanding of English and makes the most of it. Around meal times she moves at a dizzying pace around the kitchen, chopping vegetables and talking about everything from her love of international music to how she met her husband to her love for watching Indian musicals. To be honest, she is so sincere and so kind that I really don’t mind, and as long as I smile and occasionally nod, I provide her with all the confirmation she requires to continue chattering happily. My homestay sister (Tammy is her English name) is a cute girl with a bit of a lisp, red-rimmed glasses and just enough missing teeth to make her look mischievous. Her first love is her fish. She has three bowls of fish in the living room and her favorite pastime is sitting hunched over them, trying to guess which fish are pregnant and which fish are in love with one another. Occasionally I will hear screaming coming from the living room. This is usually her signal that one of the fish has given birth and she has subsequently begun the chase to catch those fish and put them in a separate bowl before their inevitable consumption by less scrupulous older fish. Not surprisingly her excitement is not limited to fish; she is excited about almost everything, from completing a math problem to waving excitedly as I walk in the door every evening. On the second evening at my new homestay Tammy and I went to Baskin Robins to get some ice cream to take home. When we got home Tammy showed me that the people at Baskin had put dry ice around the ice cream to keep it cool, and then, with a twinkle in her eye, she said, “teacha, watch this!” She grabbed all the dry ice and threw it into our only toilet, causing a geyser of bubbling white smoke to burst upward. She threw her hands upward in wizard-like triumph as the bathroom filled with the smoke, fogging her glasses and causing her to reach blindly for the door.

It was the same night that my homestay mother had brought me to a local concert in a nearby park. A couple hundred people showed up to clap along with whomever entered the stage. The ground was littered with blankets upon which young kids and the elderly sprawled awkwardly, fanning themselves with complimentary fans that had been provided and occasionally eating from open containers of homemade kimchi. It seemed to be just another concert, one of the many that I had attended (or been forced to attend,) but suddenly a group came on stage that caught my attention. It was a group of Koreans singing literally the last form of music I would expect a Korean to sing: they Yodeled. Let me tell you, if you think that Koreans can’t Yodel let me tell you; they can. These people were talented. I stood in awe, jaw dropped, incapable of tearing my eyes or ears away from the harmonious melody that was being uttered from the mouths of those I least expected to do so. After several songs (some of which included audience participation, that’s right, I did some Yodeling,) we decided to go home where my homestay mother said she had something special planned.

When we got home my homestay mother sat me in a chair and turned on the computer. She had a smile on her face, as if she was tremendously pleased with herself and whatever she was doing, and she began to play a movie. The movie was on the computer, and was of her favorite genre: Indian Musical. So the movie itself was in another language, but it was ok she said because there were subtitles. Unfortunately for me those subtitles were in Korean. Our subsequent conversation, about ten minutes in, went like this:

Homestay Mom (HM): Jon, do you like this movie?

Me: Yes, only maybe it is hard to understand.

HM (shocked at what I’ve said): Really? Why hard to understand?

Me (equally shocked at her lack of understanding): Well, you know I don’t speak Korean, and since my Hindi is a little rusty I really can’t understand anything.

HM: Oh, you don’t understand, it’s ok. I explain movie to you…

Me: You really don’t have to…(wishing I could just go to bed and avoid this, but seeing how important watching this musical is to her)…well, how long is this movie?

HM: Hmmm, maybe three hours.

At that point I wished I could have said, “maybe I would rather light myself on fire and jump out the window right now.” But instead I begrudgingly submitted to this new authority and allowed her to explain to me what was happening every two minutes for the next three hours. It was a long night, but I have to say, there were some great song and dance numbers in that movie. I guess I see why she loves those movies so much.

So this is how my first week has gone with a new family. It’s been great, and I am really happy to be here, and to finish my time in Korea at a home with a family that is so kind and generous, even if they are a bit strange.

Mourning a Hero – and Defying Another.

2009-06-06T02:07:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago a tragic thing happened; the former Korean President killed himself. The sadness generated by this act was an interesting thing to witness, the Korean people united in mourning for this man who was, no doubt, a great leader in his day, but whose career was marred with scandal and charges of corruption. I am not qualified enough to say whether or not he was guilty of these things, but a great many people thought he was. Either way what happened was tragic. His rise to power was inspiring, making this end seem all the more unfitting. Across the country candlelight vigils were held to commemorate his life, and in Cheongju I attended an outdoor service where speakers, poets, and musicians, along with hundreds of the faithful paid their respects. There was a line of hundreds of people that stretched around the block, each person waiting to take off their shoes and bow in front of a picture of the president. Although I couldn’t understand much of what was being said, it was moving to see so many people paying tribute to a man they obviously felt great affection for.

Apart from this happening I have continued to take pictures of and around Cheongju, trying to gain a more accurate picture of what life here is like. Here are a few of the most recent:
This is Mr. Jo on his way to catch clams at Daechon Beach.

Taking the bus in Cheongju.

Homelesstown.

Last weekend I went to Seoul to work with the NGO I am apart of, and I happened to be near City Hall when a big protest was taking place against the current president, Lee Myung Bak. Such things have always fascinated me, and, against the strong advice of a few of my friends, I tried to get around the crowds of riot police engulfing the City Hall area and into the middle of the protest. After several minutes of well-timed maneuvering I made it to the center of the protest, surrounded by hundreds of passionate people chanting for the removal of the president. The atmosphere was electric. The protesters were surrounded on all sides by riot police, but this only seemed to encourage them, and they altered their chant from “out with the dictator,” to “down with the police.” It was great. The circle of police tightened, and the group grew more frenzied – frenzied, but not violent. I looked around me. There were all types of people among the protesters, old, zen looking Korean men with beards, mothers, fathers, even a few kids, and at the front of the protest were the students.
My respect for students has only grown as of late, as they are often so unrestrained and passionate (albeit often misguided) and eager to make they change that they profess. Like it or not, they are the ones who often spur change, who often give a voice to pressing issues, and who are idealistic and ignorant enough to attempt to do the great things that can, and often cannot, be done. Please don’t get me wrong, I know very little about the current administration and I certainly don’t know enough to actually give an opinion, let alone be a part of a protest, but to be among those protesters was a remarkable experience. Although it was chaotic, I had a strange sense of comfort, as if whatever brought together all those people was something genuine.
I spent about an hour standing in the middle of the group, and I met a lot of interesting people. One of my favorite people was an older Korean man who had taken it upon himself to slap an “MB Out” poster to every Police bus he could find.
Watching him one could easily see the relish with which he performed his duty. He was only stopped a few times, and each time he would continue immediately after.

I left only when a large group of “red police” showed up. They were riot police but meaner, with red tape on their helmets, body armor, shields and batons. Yes, I concluded, things were about to get ugly, and being beaten in an anti-government rally wasn’t how I had envisioned my day going, so I slipped out quietly. A few pictures:

The front lines.

The face of the other side.
A job well done.
Trouble brewing.

Just over a month left in Korea. Still uncertain about my future. Still excited at the prospects. Excited about new adventures, frightened about new challenges. Living expectantly.

The Finer Things

2009-05-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

I came to a startling realization about a week ago. This year long adventure has reached its last two months, and I am going to fly home and leave Korea, leave this culture, its people, its beauty. Thus, I have recently endeavored to enjoy the finer things that Korea has to offer, and I thought I would tell you about a few of my favorites.

1) Really good tea. This picture was taken in my favorite tea house in Insadong, Seoul. The tea house overlooks Insadong market, one of the coolest and culturally protected places in Seoul. Tree branches hang overhead and grass grows around small fountains on the floor of the house, all creating an incredible vibe, calming even the most frantic minds and giving one the chance to get in touch with his inner-self.

2)Spring. It's an incredibly beautiful time to be in Korea. Now that Spring has arrived the flowers are out in full bloom, the temperature is just right, the clouds seem a long way off and only stop by for occasional afternoon showers.

3)Culture. I have made it a point to enjoy Korean culture, I am trying to make it to culturally significant spots around town and around the Country before I leave. It's so easy to get locked into a routine that doesn't allow for much diversity, and it's even easier to choose the western fast-food restaurants over traditional Korean ones. But there really isn't anything like eating in the middle of a packed traditional Korean market, filled with all the smells, sights and sounds of such a unique place. This picture was taken at one such market in Seoul, it's name escapes me but it is one of my favorites.

4)"Konglish," or Korean English. There are some remarkable examples of Konglish all over Korea, but some of the best are in my school. One would think that, if a native speaker was on-hand (as I am,) it would be smart to have him look over things written in English before they were printed and posted on the walls of your school. This sentiment is apparently not shared by my principle, as we have some stunning examples of Konglish exhibited in our newly constructed English zone.

5)Clam-hunting. This is an exciting event that, until last weekend, I had not known existed in Korea. My friend Billy's homestay dad (Mr. Jo) is apparently an avid hunter of clams, and I received an invitation to go last weekend with Billy and Mr. Jo, so of course, I went. We drove two hours to the Western Coast of Korea, a place called Daecheon Beach. The weather was cold and rainy, and the wind had picked up near the beach to create a difficult set of circumstances for our clam hunt. We struggled against the wind and down to the beach and Mr. Jo proceeded to show us the art of catching clams. It went like this:

Step One, dig the top layer of sand away.

Step Two, look for small holes used by the cylindrically shaped clams and pour a generous helping of salt over the hole.

Step Three, wait for the foolish clam to take the bait and when he surfaces, grab him and utter a cry of victory.

This operation worked well and was surprisingly rewarding. There were other clam hunters on the beach with whom we engaged in a kind of silent competition, each of us trying to gain the upper hand and find an area with an abundance of clams. When they noticed us most of them would stare open mouthed for a few minutes, thinking how incredibly odd it was to see two tall, blond haired Americans digging for clams on the beach in the cold. Before we knew it we had spent three hours digging and grabbing clams on the rainy, windy, cold beach. We left with just over 40 of the strange looking creatures in our bucket, and that night we feasted on them at the Jo's apartment. Mission accomplished.

Mr. Jo and I: Clam Hunters.

So these are a few of the ways that I have been trying to enjoy Korea, to soak it up for the last two months. It is my goal to capture as much of what makes Korea unique in the next few weeks as possible, so be expecting more to come in a similar vein.

Of Expression, or, the Dynamo of Volition

2009-05-15T21:44:00.001-07:00

I’m not sure how life is supposed to be lived, how the veil of familiarity is to be lifted day after day to provide the kind of soul gripping experience that I so desire. And I wonder if we aren’t cheating ourselves, living only in one realm of life, only one corner of the vineyard, when the grapes taste far sweeter on the other side.

Here’s what I mean.

I was thinking the other day about limitations, and how I feel as though I am limited to experiencing only part of the vast goodness that I am capable of experiencing; like how we only use a small percentage of our brains, only instead of the cerebrum I am talking about the soul. I find myself caught in a certain form of expression, recently its been academic, as I was busy applying to 12 law schools and have since been writing supplementary material for them. But that form of expression, perhaps every form of expression, is by its very nature limiting. Without another way in which to express myself I grow dull and weary and tired. Hardly the romantic conception of life I had when I was young.

I love the way that Picasso put it, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I might learn how to do it.” What a brilliant thing. He finds himself directly limited by the breadth of his own experience so he attempts to move beyond that obstruction by simply doing that which he doesn’t know. Following this truth let me say that I have come to believe that in order for life to take hold of our spirits in abundance, in order that the closed rose of the soul might open in the sun to its fullest glory, we must find a way to express ourselves on a variety of diverse fronts. I am limited by the academy’s strict prose so I move to the flowing rhythm of poetry. I am limited by the use of an established vernacular so I move to the never fully established voice of art. I am constrained by brush and color palate so I move to the unconstrained depths of music, from whose well I often draw a voice for my soul. And shouldn’t that be our goal, the unfettered expression of nothing less than our own souls? To impede expression is to impede progress and growth and everything that you and I have it in us to become. I am beginning to wonder if the great sin that we fall into as we grow old isn’t necessarily the pursuit of money of other material things, but the unintentional limiting, confining, and constraining of the very expression of our spirits, of our very nature.

I can’t tell you how challenging that idea has been for me lately, and to tell you the truth nothing scares me more than impeding progress, be it mine, God’s, or society’s. This concept is one of the things that drove me while I was in Africa. Faced with college level classes to teach and few resources I wanted to hand off the assignment to someone more capable, but I could not rid myself of the nagging voice telling me that to drop that responsibility would be the first step toward stagnancy. It’s a slippery slope, the more the easy road is taken the more it becomes the only road. I can’t tell you how frightened I am of it. To be totally transparent, that’s one of the reasons that this time in my life is so difficult, because if I am not accepted by any of these law schools, these great judges of human potential, then I put one foot on the road toward every 50-something adult who asks himself where the time has gone and why he did not do more.

To put a capstone on this thought, I was listening to an interview with an incredibly successful businessman, a man who had made his millions and reached the top of his game. The interviewer asked a variety of questions relating to how and why he had been so successful, and towards the end of the interview asked the businessman what he wished he had learned sooner. The man’s reply was incredibly illuminating. He said that he wished that someone had told him that when you reach the top, when you summit the peak of material success, there’s nothing there. Nothing. He went on to talk about how he had been let down by this fact, and had come to terms late in his life that his priorities had been a bit out of place. How profound! How tragic. This is why I am convinced of the need to pursue a dynamic existence, one predicated on the belief that things can be better, expression can and must be realized in as many forms as possible, and the onset of a stagnant existence must be met by the uncomfortable actualization of expanded knowledge and abilities.

I readily admit to my own shortcomings, to my own lack of insight and understanding; I am a traveler on the dusty and mired road of life just as you are. My thoughts are always open to reproof and correction, and I welcome it. Thank you for reading this confused conglomeration of thoughts, and thank you Luther (my future grandfather in law) for reading this blog, lets smoke some cigars when I come home.

Everything is New

2009-04-17T00:54:00.000-07:00

“Then came April…Nature in that month sheds rays of enchanted light which, from the sky and the clouds, from trees, meadows, and flowers, pierce to the heart of man.” – Les Miserables

It is April. I have waited a long time for April to roll around; about 11 months come to think of it. And I remember the first time that I realized I liked April; it was four years ago and I was living in Washington DC, about eight blocks behind the capitol building. It had been cold, bitterly cold, a variety of cold that I had yet to experience until that point. I vividly remember standing on the Mall, mouth agape as I watched people in business suits skiing down the mall toward the capitol. Then as suddenly as the cold had come, it was gone, and the heartless cold gave way to warmth and life. It was as if creation itself was waking from hibernation and spreading its wings, flooding my world with light. I don’t mean to be melodramatic but that’s how it seemed, my time in DC was difficult, and the weather changing was a profound event. So here we are again, April, and things in Cheongju are warming up. I walked outside the other day and found the dead trees lining the road had changed their allegiance, instead of perpetuating the icy theme of winter their dead limbs had miraculously sprouted life, green buds springing up in mutiny against their former cold master. I am convinced that simple things like that are far underrated. How can you not feel uplifted as you find yourself caught up in such a transformation, literally watching the death of one thing giving life to another? It goes beyond simple transformation, I think the proper word might be birth.

Speaking of birth, one of my best friends and his wife just had their first child. His name is Enoch, and he is as beautiful a child as I have ever seen. Let me tell you that to miss this child’s birth was difficult, I love my friend and his wife and to miss such an important occasion seemed irresponsible at best, perhaps criminal at worst. So in an attempt to rectify the situation, I was constantly skyping with my friend while he and his wife were at the hospital. I got to know the nurses as they came and went, and even serenaded Enoch with a few licks from the guitar before he was born. After 20 some hours Enoch was born, and I missed it, barely. I called my friend’s cell as I was walking out of class, and the first thing I heard was the crying of a newly born child. Enoch had been born about 30 seconds prior to me calling. I don’t know much about those things, but for some reason tears began to form in my eyes and I found myself greatly moved. Nothing was said, nothing needed to be. Something profound had happened, something that defied the narrow constrains of language and would only be cheapened by its use. For all the value we place on language, there are places that even it cannot go. There are some emotions, some chambers of the heart best left unspoken of.

So if I had to choose a phrase to describe this time, this month, this season, it would be that everything is new. Everything is becoming new, moving toward life. Even in death something new comes. Big changes are on the horizon, big news is sure to come, life is evolving each day into something more dynamic, challenging, and profound. My most sincere hope in this season is that, as I find myself in the midst of this, that I might experience each emotion deeply. I so desire to deeply experience the pathos of this time, of this place, of these situations, and in so doing evolve into who I have it in me to be. Everything is new, and hopefully, so am I.

Of ignorance, respobsibility, and men's bathrooms

2009-03-28T01:50:00.000-07:00

It’s the weekend and I find myself in a funny kind of limbo, awaiting with some trepidation the oncoming week, yet doing so with a book in hand and the aroma of Kenyan Coffee around me. Where would I be without coffee shops? And I will be honest with you; I have always felt guilty when I relax, when I am not performing some kind of visible labor. I think many of you can relate. So times like this when I look at my hands and wonder why they are not producing something useful I take solace in the words of one of my favorite authors, Victor Hugo, who said:

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. – Les Miserables

By the way, I think it is worth mentioning that I am close to 800 pages into Les Miserables and I cannot overstate the impact it has had one me. Thus far it is one of the most powerful works of fiction I have ever read, and I would implore anyone to investigate its pages. Don’t be intimidated by its size; even the largest things seem small when you are enraptured by them.

So I am teaching, and have been for the last two weeks. And it’s been good to get back to school and begin a routine that doesn’t involve packing a bag and waiting in airports. I am glad to be back, and have had a lot of time to think about what I saw and what happened over the two months I was gone, and let me tell you I think Albert Schweitzer was right when he said that “the great tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he still lives.” And I see travel as being helpful and dangerous in that respect, as one (if he is honest with himself) will necessarily struggle with hope if he travels. It is not a question of if, but rather when. On the other hand if one is doomed to a life of familiar domesticity I see this internal death as an almost unavoidable obstruction, something that must eventually be reckoned with. And the question arises, as I think it must, about what is responsible for those of us who have been blessed enough to travel and experience and by God’s grace have not lost hope.

But before I go further, let me say something outrageous. I think ignorance is great. I really like being ignorant, and my guess is that deep down, so do you. In the words of every good cinematic villain, “we aren’t so different you and I.”

I have to follow up this disgraceful statement by saying that I think that ignorance will lead directly to the death that Schweitzer was speaking of, but you will surely be comfortable on your way to that end. Anyway my problem with a lack of ignorance is this: it requires something of you. If you cannot plead ignorance you must either betray your conscience and slip into denial, or you have to bear a burden and sacrifice something. And that brings me back to my question of what is responsible. What do responsible people do who have seen a need and are no longer ignorant? I am working on an answer to that.

Ok, on to lighter fare.

I have been sitting across from two young Korean girls here at Starbucks, and they have been taking pictures of themselves incessantly with their matching Spongebob cell phones. One of them holds out the phone, snaps a photo, they look at the picture and both giggle, then the cycle repeats itself. Incredible. Is this a cultural difference or just a teenage thing?

I will be back in Korean language classes starting next week! 나이스! I was sitting in the classroom on Friday waiting for my placement test as all the old feelings from July’s language class came flooding back. “oh dear,” I thought, “here we go again, back to everyone nodding an affirmative ‘yes’ while I alone shake my head and slowly say ‘no, I don’t understand.’” In short, I forgot what it was like to be the slow kid. Back to the character building experience that is language class!

And lastly I want to issue a short plea; it’s what I view to be the #1 social problem in Korea right now. Many of you who live here can sympathize, I’m sure. The problem is this: old Korean women cleaning public bathrooms and bumping into me while I am trying to do my business. That’s right, try going to the bathroom with an old woman with a mop directly behind you, scrubbing the floor and singing something in Korean. No matter which direction you turn and no matter how close you press yourself to the wall that woman is always somehow peering at you from an exposed angle. And the crazy thing is, I seem to be the only one who cares that the men’s bathroom is constantly being raided, without warning, by female janitors. None of the other men inside seem concerned. Come on, the rights of men in the bathroom should be universal, right?

Around the World in 68 Days

2009-03-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

Number of different countries visited: 8
Number of days it took to circle the globe: 68
Total miles flown: 23,374
Actual hours in the air: 40
Hours spent waiting in airports: 24
Number of different airlines flown: 5
Number of hours spent on buses: 10
Number of hours spent on trains: 26
Number of complimentary in-flight bottles of wine consumed: 7
Number of my bags stolen: 1
Number of bribes taken: 2
Number of times hospitalized: 1
Number of different languages I tried to communicate in: 5
Number of times I feared for my life: 2
Number of friends made: Too many to count

I'll be honest with you, after thinking long and hard I have decided that there is no way that I can sum up my trip around the world in words. I honestly wouldn't know what to write. So I think I will sum it up with something I wrote on the back page of my journal as I sat on a boat taking me across the crystal waters of the Gulf of Thailand.

"What is left to say.

The Sun rose every day despite what I had seen the day before.

I helped a lot of people, a lot of people helped me.

I saw the danger of human desire, I saw the beauty of human altruism.

I struggled with despair, I clung to hope.

What I saw made me sick, sometimes it made me cry.

I was afraid for my life, and I stared fear in the eyes.

Sometimes I ran, others I stood.

I was faced with decisions each day, decisions that built me up, and broke me down.

I was asked all the while what it was I really believed about the world.

And I was afraid that my answer would cause me to lose hope.

I haven't lost it yet."

The Honest Traveler

2009-03-03T22:45:00.000-08:00

I am in Korea now, but to be honest I’m not sure where my heart is. I keep asking myself, did I leave it somewhere on the dirt streets of Africa? On the white sandy shores of Koh Chang Island? In the jungles in the far north of Chaing Mai, Thailand? I’m not sure.

To be honest with you I have been struggling with a lot lately. This is for another blog, no doubt, but suffice it to say I have been asking questions that are fairly fundamental to living, questions involving how to live, or rather, why to live. It’s a loss of innocence, I suppose. One cannot circle the globe without experiencing it, unless they have lost touch with themselves. The truth is there a certain darkness to the world that we live outside of for the most part, a cruel, wicked thing that preys on our weakest elements. It’s the kind of thing that we are more inclined to believe in when we are young, more perceptive and enraptured by fairy tales. Every child who has ever heard his parents arguing knows it exists. And people analyze the problems that so plague this world and blame them on things like violence on television, socio-economic status, and the like. But the truth as I see it is quite simple really, and this truth has been central to my development as I have traveled; mankind is dark, and I include myself in that statement.

There were times during my travels through Africa when I fundamentally questioned the goodness of people. In fact most of my time there I did. When you are hissed at in the streets, yelled at by the ignorant and thankless, when you see families destroyed and meet survivors of incredible travesty, when you hear of 150 innocent people burned to death in a church miles from your home at the hands of a militia fighting “for God,” it's enough to make you question everything. I think there is a point, at least one that I reached, where simple answers don’t suffice. I couldn’t blame the problems I saw on “a few bad apples,” no, the problems in Africa and in Thailand are endemic of a much greater issue: the issue of man’s selfish and violent inhumanity to man.

In Thailand I was beaten by two drunken Thai men who were out for blood, nothing else. I had done nothing to provoke them, I was guilty of nothing but defending my friend, a good man. And there is a point that I came to when I realized that there is a hatred and an anger that is so reckless and irrational there is nothing rational people can do to stop it. Reason will fail you, as it failed me. So what do you do when reason fails? When hope hangs from a string? How do you react to the unpleasant fact that wickedness and evil are far more rampant than you ever realized? These are questions I fear the answers to.

Two days ago I arrived home to Korea, a few hours later I received a phone call that my 19 year old little brother, whom I love with every facet of my being, was in a car accident and thrown from his vehicle onto the street. The car that hit him drove away and hasn’t been found. He will recover, but it will be long and difficult.

So I ask again, what do you do when reason fails?

I really don’t have time nor do I want to jump further into this issue now, I just wanted to share a bit of what I saw and came to understand. I will write more later, but I don’t want you to read this and get the wrong idea, let me tell you, humanity is worth something. I’m not sure how much, but the very fact that there is so much darkness proves that there is light. And how sweet that light is, if only I could spread it.

I have been listening to Jon Foreman’s song “Equally Skilled.” I think it is true, and it summarizes a bit of how I feel. Listen to it sometime if you can, in the meantime I will leave you with the lyrics:

How miserable I am
I feel like a fruit picker who arrives after the harvest
There's nothing here at all
Nothing at all here that could placate my hunger

The godly people are all gone
There's not one honest soul left here on the planet
We're all murderers and thieves
Setting traps here for even our brothers

And both of our hands
Are equally skilled
At doing evil
Equally skilled
At bribing the judges
Equally skilled
At perverting justice
Both of our hands
Both of our hands

The day of justice comes
And is even now swiftly arriving
Don't trust anyone at all
Not your best friend or even your wife

For the son hates the father
The daughter despises even her mother
Look! Your enemies are right
Right in the room of your very household

And both of their hands
Are equally skilled
At doing evil
Equally skilled
At bribing the judges
Equally skilled
At perverting justice
Both of our hands
Both of our hands

No, don't gloat over me
For though I fall, though I fall
I will rise again
Though I sit here in darkness
The Lord, the Lord alone
He will be my light.

I will be patient as the Lord
Punishes me for the wrongs I've done against Him
After that He'll take my case
Bringing me to light and to justice
For all I have suffered

And both of His hands
Are equally skilled
At ruining evil
Equally skilled
At judging the judges
Equally skilled
At administering justice

Both of His hands
Both of His hands

Are equally skilled
At showing mercy
Equally skilled
At loving the loveless
Equally skilled
At administering justice
Both of His hands
Both of His hands

Sanyu and Leaving Africa

2009-02-24T21:53:00.000-08:00

It seems that a bit of time has gone by since I last posted here; its only been about two weeks, but I have found that when you are traveling a lifetime of experience can pack its way into such a small space of time. Em and I spent all of our last week in Africa at Sanyu Babies Orphanage in the middle of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. Our time there was really amazing, and I found that I derived much more joy from hanging out with infants than I thought I would. Each kid had a unique personality that never ceased to amaze me. Some were quiet, most were loud. Some liked to play with their friends, most liked to hit their friends. Emily and I ran the morning preschool class with about 20 toddlers, and it didn’t take long for a few of them to establish a sort of “fight club” that involved them taking any toy they could and hitting their friends in the head. Keep in mind that these kids couldn’t walk. As hilarious as it was to watch these kids turn lettered blocks into weapons, inevitably I had a responsibility to keep the peace, and that is what I tried to do. Feeding time was the second craziest time of the day, we had all 40 kids lined up in small wooden chairs and had the enormous responsibility of hand feeding most of them some kind of mashed sweet potato. What little they didn’t either throw at me or drop down their shirts they seemed to enjoy immensely. The most difficult event of the day was bath time. Oh my goodness it was insanity. The kids all stripped down and one by one, stood in a line and were each taken by a large, serious looking African nurse and scrubbed mercilessly in a small tub of water. After this scrubbing they would emerge smiling and usually laughing and run towards me as I waited with a towel in hand. Drying a wriggling African child was such a task that before I could finish one, two more would come and tackle me from either side, drying themselves on my shirt. Before I knew it there were dozens of naked children running wildly around and screaming. I would chase them around the concrete floored room trying to grab them, and would eventually give up. Of course after this insanity we would have to change diapers (yes, I changed my first diaper there, and many more after it,) dress them and put them in their cribs. Wow. The whole process took about an hour and a half and by the time we were done we were exhausted and full of stories about the rambunctious children. It was really an amazing time, and saying goodbye to those kids was far more difficult than I had anticipated.

On the way out of the airport in Uganda I experienced one last touch of African “realities,” if you want to call it that. I had a 7-hour wait at Entebbe airport in Uganda before my flight on Ethiopian Airlines left. When I finally was able to check my bags the airport employee informed me that my bags were about 10kg over the allowed weight. He shook his head and said that it was “a large fee” to send my bags, but then said, in almost a whisper “I want to help you.” “Ok” I thought, but how could he do that when my bags were clearly over weight? There was an awkward silence for a few seconds while we each stared blankly at each other, until he said again, this time slower and even quieter, “I want to help you.” Aaaaaah. I began to think African and understood what he was implying. “So” I said, unsure as to how to proceed, “you want….money?” He nodded. “Like, this much money?” I said cautiously pulling a 5,000 shilling note out of my pocket. Without saying a word he quickly swiped it from my hand and shoved it into his pocket. So, to make a long story short he demanded 5,000 more but said that his manager was watching so he would find me later and collect it from me then. I still had three hours to wait at the time so I proceeded to hide myself from him as best as I could. Finally it was time to board and I thought I had successfully thwarted the money making plans of this corrupt airport employee. As I was about to step onto the plane to my dismay I saw the man emerge from inside the plane and walk straight towards me. I was surrounded by people at the time and curious as to what he was going to do. He waked up to me and asked me for my ticket, shooting me a demanding glance. Slowly I pulled the ticket from my pocket along with a 1,000 shilling note and handed them to him. He took the money quickly and said in a whisper “This is all?” I knew I had the upper hand because there was no way he could ask for more money in the position he was in so I didn’t say a word, I just shrugged.

So that is how I left Africa, with a parting reminder that there is a lot that needs to change. Any kind of sustainable change will have to take place first in the minds and hearts of people who are willing to change the culture of corruption and dare to believe in honesty and truth. It’s really a bold thing, if you think about it.

Entebbe Again, Monkeys, Tarzan, and Ants

2009-02-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Back in Entebbe, Uganda, and this time it's quite a different feeling. I am used to the sights, the smells, the overwhelming nature of this place, so it's a little easier to take in.

We are staying at the Airport Guesthouse, which is literally an oasis in the desert. It is nicer than most hotels I have stayed at in the States, and for Uganda, that is saying a lot. We have HOT WATER showers, good food, and ice cream for dessert! That will all end tomorrow as we head to Kampala for a tour of the Watoto Villages, and then on to Sanyu Orphanage where we will work for the next week.

A brief highlight of the last 48 hours: Today we went to the Entebbe Botanical Gardens, which was an incredible place full of huge trees, and giant vines hanging overhead. Our guide proudly told us that it was here that the 1930s Tarzan movie was filmed. I believed it, so much so that I grabbed a huge vine and swung 15 feet into the air. It was incredible. I let out a quick Tarzan-esq yell, and, after thumping my chest a few times, we moved on.

We came to a series of trees around which over 150 monkeys were playing and jumping around. It was amazing, they had almost no fear of humans so we could walk within two feet of them without disturbing them at all. There is something so freeing about watching them play, jumping from tree to tree flying through the air.

Unfortunately for me, in my ever-continuing quest for taking quality pictures, I ventured a little too far off the beaten path into some brush. As I was snapping a few pictures I felt several pricks on my feet, I looked down and saw dozens of giant ants covering my feet. It was the wrong day to opt for sandals. I had stopped directly on an ant hill to take my pictures, and in no more than ten seconds they had crawled up my legs and all over my body. It was one of the worst feelings I have ever had, it felt like my body was crawling. I ran toward Emily and our guide, trying hard to keep my cool but desperately swatting at the creatures that now covered my body. I knew I was in trouble when the guide looked worried and said, "oh dear, you might have to strip down." No way was I about to strip down naked in the middle of the Entebbe Botanical Gardens, so as he said this I started swatting furiously at the little beasts; smashing, clawing, pinching, slapping, doing anything I could to rid myself of this plague. Emily and the guide joined in as I danced around flailing my arms and shaking my jeans. So much for keeping my cool. Eventually all of the creatures were either dead and stuck in my leg hair and jeans, or on the ground. The guide, after examining the fallen ants remarked casually, "ah, these are safari ants, thank goodness, not poisonous." "Whew," I thought. "That was close." It was an experience, one that I sincerely hope never ever to have again.

Baptism and a Feast

2009-02-04T23:13:00.000-08:00

“You have been baptized!” said the grinning Congolese man as he entered my room. “Now that you have Malaria you are Congolese!” As he said this I wished I could share the same enthusiasm regarding my illness, but there was no denying it, I had been baptized in the waters of African disease, and I could now relate to the plight of the Congolese in a new way. I was tested a few days ago for Malaria and came up positive for not only Malaria, but also Salmonella poisoning, which explained why my insides were burning. I walked out of Maba-Conga Clinic with three new prescriptions and a promise from the friendly doctor that I would be feeling better soon. “Asante-Sana” (thank you in Swahili) was about all I could eek back. Thankfully, this disease has not debilitated me to the point of not being able to teach or do other important things like eat. To be honest the Salmonella has been far worse than Malaria, although one might guess the opposite to be true. Anyway, I should be cured within the week, and even now I have almost no lingering side effects from the sickness. In related news, Emily and I seem to be in a contest to see who can be sicker, and just after I one-upped her Malaria with my Salmonella/Malaria combo, she came down with Typhoid fever. It turns out she still has Malaria but has picked up a bit of a bonus with the Typhoid. Nice job. Hopefully my body won’t feel the need to one-up that.

Many other exciting things have been happening. I will try to do justice to a few of these events quickly:

The Superbowl was a few nights ago and, since the Cardinals were playing, we weren’t about to let a few thousand miles and a huge time difference keep us from watching it. To begin the celebration we decided to try to make tortilla chips and guacamole and subsequently spend the majority of the afternoon operating a kind of chip-making assembly line. Bethany, Luke, and Justin, the other three Americans here, all helped. Bethany made the dough and rolled it, I cut the dough into chip-looking pieces and handed them to Justin and Luke who fried them in a skillet. Emily threw on a bit of salt and before we knew it we had a few hundred chips ready to be enjoyed. The game didn’t begin until 1:30am our time, so we all went to bed at our usual time of 10pm, and woke up at 1am to begin the festivities. We had soda (actually cold from the fridge!) chips and guacamole, and a whole lot of team spirit. Unfortunately, most of you know the outcome of the Cardinals ill-fated quest for the Superbowl title, but what a game! Our little battery operated television actually lasted all four hours, and we went to bed at about 5am, only to wake up at 7 for English classes the next day. It was probably the best Superbowl party I have ever been to.

One of my favorite students, Amani, was involved in an accident on his way to a town called Butembo, a few miles south of here. He was in the back of a truck carrying close to 70 people that, while trying to make a sharp turn, drove off of a cliff and rolled several times. 38 people died. 38. And Amani was one of the few who survived with only minor injuries, he was back in class a few days ago and is a living-breathing miracle. Just watching him walk around and talk and smile and speak of God’s goodness is deeply moving. I learn so much from my students; I have learned the most from him.

A thunderstorm hit Beni yesterday that was the biggest I had ever seen. Dr. Kasali (whose home we are staying in) said, with a dire look on his face, “tropical rains, not a good thing.” He was right, the gates to our little compound flew open, the chickens and various animals living inside all screamed and squawked and ran in terror, the rain poured, the wind blew, and within 15 minutes our house was flooded with an inch of water. We spent the next few hours trying to soak up what we could and salvage those things that had been on the floor. It was wild; living in Arizona has not provided me with any experiences close to that.

Two days ago Emily and I took a trip to a Leprosy Camp in the nearby town of Oicha, we spent all day there and to say that it was a moving experience wouldn’t come close. First of all, let me say that until recently I was under the impression that Leprosy was a disease from Biblical times; an interesting sounding debilitation used conveniently for conveying poignant moral lessons. I had no idea that it was, in truth, a brutal disease that ravages people’s bodies and leaves them debilitated, helpless, and often deserted by their families and remains alive and well in most poor countries. The director greeted us and took us on a tour of the Camp, allowing us a chance to visit with and get to know some of the lepers living there. Seeing firsthand the effects of an illness that so altered the appearance of its victims was remarkable and profound, and to see the indomitable spirit of most of the residents was encouraging to say the least. The smiles I received from those with missing arms, legs, eyes, fingers, toes and teeth were enough to give me hope that life might be much simpler than I had imagined. After spending some time with the patients, we were told that the camp only had enough food to supply the patients with one meal daily, some beans and bananas, and that due to these realities most are often hungry. After hearing this we had an idea and asked the director if we might be able to buy the camp a meal, something nice, (by third-world standards.) The director was overjoyed at the prospect and hurriedly assigned two of his helpers to accompany us to the local market to buy the necessary ingredients. An hour later we returned carrying several pounds of meat, a huge bag of rice and ten head of cabbage. Emily and I tried to help with the preparation by cutting the cabbage, (a skill at which I am terrible,) and had our inefficiency consistently laughed at by the women who usually take on the cabbage cutting responsibility. Finally, after two hours of preparation we were able to serve the patients a meal, and it was incredibly rewarding. Each one cried out “Asante-Sana! Asante!” and shook our hands with whatever fingers still remained on their hands. To them this simple meal of cabbage, meat and rice was a feast, and I have to admit, as we sat down with the director of the Camp and his helpers for our meal, eating with our hands because of the lack of silverware, it did feel an awful lot like a feast.

Malaria, the Rebels, and English

2009-01-26T23:32:00.000-08:00

So to break the news, Emily has Malaria. She started feeling poorly a couple of nights ago and I thought immediately that it was probably the disease, as it seems to infect everyone in our town at some point. She is on meds and doing quite well, and should be back in action soon. Now all I need to do is go the last few weeks without contracting it!

The Rwandan troops, working with Congolese government troops, just caught the notorious leader of the Congolese rebels, Laurent Nkunda. This is big news here. Nkunda is responsible for a huge number of atrocities all across the northeast region of Congo where we live, things too terrible to write about, so this comes as a huge relief for many. The problem however is two-fold. First, there are still 6,500 Rwandan rebels hiding in the hills in our region, along with a huge number of Congolese rebels loyal to Nkunda. The question is, will these troops surrender now that Nkunda is captured, or will they fight on? Secondly, there are still large numbers of Rwandan troops in the northwest region, and for the most part people here don't trust them. These troops have sent Nkunda to Rwanda, but have refused to say if they will send him to the Congolese capital to stand trial for treason and crimes against humanity. So the issue is complex, but everyone agrees that life is better with Nkunda behind bars.

Finally, I am beginning my English course on reading tomorrow. I am teaching four hours tomorrow, four on Thursday and four on Friday. Then I teach all next week. Wow. The teaching load is a bit more than I was counting on, and I would be lying if I said that I know what I am doing, but nevertheless those students will be taught four hours a day for the rest of the week. What exactly they will be taught I don't know, but they will be taught. Oh the joys of being forcefully removed from your comfort zone and thrust in front of people!

For a cool map of the violence around Congo and our location, along with my travel around the world, go here.

"Congolese Realities" Chickens, Bucket Showers, and the Dark

2009-01-20T02:47:00.000-08:00

How do you get 25 screaming Congolese children to let go of your arms, stop dancing around you, and let you walk through the door to your house? That is the problem that I was confronted with yesterday as Emily and I went for our evening walk around town. Every time we go for a walk around our neighborhood we inevitably gain a following of literally dozens of tiny Congolese children who may be cute, but will absolutely not let you go when they have a hold of you. Last night a neighbor who witnessed our plight came to our aid with a newspaper in hand, literally shooing the kids away running around yelling. That being said, the walks we take around our neighborhood have quickly become a highlight of our time here. We have learned basic French phrases and are quick to wish our neighbors “bonsoir!” or “bonjour! Como sa va?” to which they always respond with a grin and returned greeting. Congo is an interesting place because of the variety of different languages spoken, Swahili, French, English, and two other languages are most common, so often they will combine them by saying “Jambo! Como sa va?” (hello in Swahili, how are you in French.) I have also learned this since my stay began: French is a far easier language to learn than Korean. Every day I try to learn a new phrase or few words, and I am enjoying it immensely.

Emily began her work at the local health clinic yesterday, and is eager to get in on all the action she can. I on the other hand have yet to begin my teaching as there are no English classes until next week, so my job has mostly consisted of being excessively friendly with the students here at the University and helping however I can. Some highlights thus far:

The people are incredibly friendly and constantly thanking me for coming to their country, for a country as ravaged by war as the Congo is, you wouldn’t know it by talking to the people.

I went to a three-hour French speaking church on Sunday that was incredible. Upon entering and sitting amongst the hundreds of people packed into a small empty warehouse, a song began, perhaps the most beautiful I have ever heard in my life. It began almost as a whisper, then was picked up by more and more voices until the entire place echoed with the sound of a beautiful African song. I was moved almost instantly to tears, (a completely unexpected reaction,) as the weight and power of these combined voices pressed in on me. Although I had no idea what they were singing about I was sure it was something deeply beautiful.

My friend Noweh has promised me that before I go I will kill a chicken. He will kill one soon to show me the mechanics of the killing operation, but the next chicken is mine! “You just, like this!” Noweh said to me, demonstrating with his hands the sawing motion used in the operation. “You must feel no pity! Do you pity Jon?” “No” I hesitantly said. “I don’t pity.”

Yesterday I was reminded again of the danger of the country when I saw a young boy run over by a motorcycle. The motorcycle hit him and rolled him forward a few feet before finally bumping over him, the boy’s books and things he was carrying flew into the air. The driver just kept going and never looked back, the boy slowly picked himself up, brushed off his pants, picked up his things and kept going. Unbelievable.

“Congolese Realities.” (Spoken with a soft African accent.) This phrase always makes me smile and is usually said by a Congolese person (often Noweh) to break any awkward tension each time something happens that is an inconvenience; like the bag we lost, like the extra money we had to pay the corrupt soldiers at the border, like no electricity but from 7pm to 10pm, the bucket showers we take. Yesterday we all laughed when we were in the car and we noticed the molding coming off from around one of the windows. “Congolese realities” Noweh said with a sigh, as he tried to fix it. The longer I am here the more I am learning to accept and even appreciate these “realities.”

Walking along our dirt streets last night a mother holding her baby came straight towards me. Without saying a word she held her baby up to me. Not knowing what to do I grabbed its hand and said hello; instantly her child opened its eyes and his face lit up in a beautiful smile. His mother did the same, smiling from ear to ear. I am consistently amazed at how little I have to do to make people happy here, something as simple as touching a child’s hand can have an enormous effect.

Thunderstorms. Every morning since I have been here from about 5 to 8am a thunderstorm strikes Beni, making the streets into mud and the metal on the roof sing. The crack of the thunder and the sound of the rain in Africa is unlike I have heard it anywhere, it is a sweet but indescribably powerful melody, sung to the surrounding hills and forests, sung to wake me up each morning.

Hope and Water in the Desert

2009-01-16T01:48:00.001-08:00

“This place is hope,” the tall, thin Congolese man standing next to me said as he held his hands out in front of him. “It is like a few drops of water in a vast desert.” A smile crept over his face revealing his white teeth that shown brilliantly against the dark color of his skin. He was taking me on a tour of the Christian Bilingual University in the DRC, a place with great potential but for now consisting of only one building with dirt floors and 90 acres of beautifully dense untouched land. He led me into the building and into the office of Dr. David Kasali, an energetic man with a soft voice and a deep soulful eyes. He showed us a map of his vision, a plan for the University that included dozens of buildings in and around the 90 acres they own. It is a grand vision, one that is slowly coming to fruition. The Congolese way of building is strange from a western perspective, they begin building and build until they run out of money, then they wait and when more money comes they continue building. So the University grounds are scattered with construction, construction that won’t continue until more money is provided. As Dr. Kasali gave us the tour of the University, the students that were on a break from class came and introduced themselves amidst much giggling and laughing as each student prodded the others into introducing themselves. Everyone was so joyful, so full of energy and life, and most had no shoes. Nothing rich about them but the smiles on their faces.

Our tour around the University was the final stop in our haphazard journey to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Emily and I enjoyed an 8 hour layover in London and made the most of our time by going to Tower Bridge, Picadilly Circle and Hyde Park. We came close to missing our flight to Uganda as I had inadvertently set my watch an hour behind the actual time, so it was not until we were on our way back to the airport that I realized my mistake, but thankfully we made it with five minutes to spare. After London we enjoyed another 9 hour flight to Entebbe, Uganda, at which we arrived at 8:30 in the morning. The first thing I noticed was the heat; the oppressive, humid, heat. We made it to our hotel that was a nice place and were greeted by a small quiet woman who spoke mostly through her deep smile. She showed us to our room, and left without a word. We decided that we needed to contact the Kasalis and ask about the status of the violence that had been reported nearby Beni. After wandering the dirt streets nearby looking for a phone to use, we finally found a small booth that people could use to call internationally. None of our numbers worked, and after trying for a while we gave up and decided to go to Kampala, the capital, and look for phones or internet cafes there. To get there we took a cab, or rather a bus packed to capacity with passengers, about an hour. During that time we drove at wild speeds, almost hit multiple people, cars, and bikes, and witnessed at least one collision between a motorcycle and biker. I don’t know much about Kampala, but I will tell you this: it is completely overwhelming. Thousands of people packed the streets, the air was filled with the noise of people yelling, laughing, arguing, bartering. Bota-botas weaved in and out of the people honking and calling for passengers, the air was filled with the hot humid smell of dirt and body odor. Needless to say I was confused. To make a long story short we got a hold of people in Beni, who told us it was safe to go, but we realized that we had to go back to the airport to track down the people who were supposed to fly us to Congo in the morning. So we made one of our sketchiest decisions to date: we decided to take a bota-bota the whole hour long trip to the airport. We knew it might be a little scary, but we were in for an intense ride. If he wasn’t weaving in and out of traffic, our driver was driving as fast as his motorcycle could go, passing cars and other bota drivers on the way. We arrived safely an hour later, having at one point ripped the left rearview mirror completely off of one of the cars we passed. It was close.

The next day we journeyed to Beni, DRC, a small city in the northeastern area of the country. To get there we took a small propeller plane that was deafening from the inside, as I was seated directly between the two propellers. First we flew to a small city called Bunia, a city that has seen a lot of violence in the last few years. As we exited the plane we were met by a beautiful Congolese woman who greeted us with a jovial “Bonjour!” (French is one of the primary languages spoken in the DRC.) She led us past rows of gruff looking soldiers with AK-47s and into a stuffy room marked with a small hand painted sign that read “immigration.” There we received our visas and were led out of the room and back to our plane. Along the way I made eye contact with a particularly rough looking soldier who smiled and said “Jesus” and started laughing. We gained a few more passengers and were informed that we were going to make an unscheduled stop about 45 min away. As we had no say in the matter we simply smiled and consented. 45 min later we bounced onto the runway at our stop, and I looked outside to see that the reason we bounced around so much was that we had landed on a tiny dirt runway. Greeting us this time were 15 armed soldiers next to a sign that read “Avec Joseph Kabila” (with the president.) Emily and I were cautiously surveying these soldiers when Emily asked me “Jon, what are those long stick things they are carrying?” I looked harder and responded “um…those are rocket launchers Em.” Three of the soldiers carried this deadly weapon in such a cavalier fashion that I wondered if they knew what they were holding. Thankfully we didn’t have to leave the plane this time and in a few minutes we continued on to Beni. We arrived and were met by Dr. Kasali’s brother and taken to our residence for the next month. The house we are staying at is more of a compound than a house as it is huge and surrounded by a large brick wall around which large amounts of frighteningly sharp barbed wire is coiled. We have a friendly night security man who patrols the yard with a machine gun, and at any given time there are 10 to 15 people living in the house so its never quiet. We have met tons of people, all of whom are eager to grab our hands, introduce themselves and smile. The level of poverty here is remarkable, many have no shoes, most have no work and nowhere to go so spend their time sitting in the shade of a tree. I am enjoying the Congo immensely, the love and the sense of community Emily and I have experienced thus far is like nothing else. Each day has proved to be an adventure, and I remain excited to experience all those adventures yet to come.

A Korean Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T00:14:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving from overseas is an interesting thing to experience. I decided to teach a lesson on Thanksgiving for my advanced class of 3-4 graders (kids 11-12 yrs). I started the class off with my usual question, “how are you today?” to which the students replied, almost in unison “It’s sunny!” I took a deep breath and tried again, “no, how are YOU today?” trying to mask my frustration under a friendly smile. This time the class became quiet as the kids pondered what was obviously a difficult question. Finally someone raised his hand and answered, “Tomorrow is Friday.” I clasped my hands together and prepared for what I knew would be a long 40 minutes. Later, when I asked why November 27th was an important day, I got a variety of answers:

1) Because it’s Christmas
2) Because it’s “a day for class”
3) Because “teacha here today”
4) Because it’s Halloween

“No, no, no and no,” I said. I finally got them as close as I was going to when they guessed “American Chuseok” (Chuseok is the Korean holiday that we foreigners dub “Korean Thanksgiving.”) So the lesson proceeded, and I hope I was able to educate them just a little as to what Thanksgiving really is.

So my Thanksgiving really has been a two-part experience. The first part of my Thanksgiving was a celebration that took place at the Ambassador’s house in Seoul. I have to say, the word “house” doesn’t do this place justice. The land that the Ambassador’s house is built on is directly next to a giant palace, and the residence itself is a huge Korean style house built from giant Douglas Fir trees shipped from the United States. To get inside you have to walk through a conspicuously huge metal gate that slides about two feet to the side, and after you walk through, quickly slides shut like a giant prison door. I was joined by the majority of my Fulbright colleagues and together enjoyed a huge American Thanksgiving feast complete with entertainment thanks to the “US Embassy rock band” (consisting of a couple of interns and two middle-aged guys who butchered classics like “Paint it Black" and “Take me Home Country Roads.”) All in all it was a great evening, and the new ambassador was gracious and kind to talk to (she is from Arizona, so that goes without saying.) Below are a few pictures:

The second half of my thanksgiving took place on Thanksgiving Day here in Cheongju. My principal, a few teachers and my co-teachers took me out to dinner at a favorite restaurant where we ate a not-so-traditional Thanksgiving meal of goat and duck. It was a great time. After making a toast to me, of which all I understood was “Joon Kerry,” my principal and vice-principal handed me their glasses to share a drink with them, and once again was grateful for Korean drinking culture and it’s ability to bridge language barriers.

As the night wore on, I became engaged in a semi-philosophical conversation with the teacher next to me, Mr. Hong. Mr. Hong is a really amazing guy, he speaks almost no English but the man tries harder than anyone I have ever seen to communicate, and he is not afraid to look goofy, which I suppose is why I feel such an affinity towards him. He would lean over to my co-teacher and whisper to her, asking her how to say something, then lean over to me and try to verbalize what he had just been told. Each time he could never get the words just right, and would have to ask her again, always preferring to say it himself rather than have her simply tell me. After a while of this, due to the strange nature of our conversation we had garnered the attention of almost everyone at the table. The subject that we were discussing was what he believed to be a serious subject, and, although impossible to recreate the conversation just as it was, I will try to give you a taste:

Mr. Hong: Jon
Me: Yes Mr. Hong.
Mr. Hong: (after a long translation from my co-teacher) You tink bot sol have?
Me: I’m sorry, what?
Mr. Hong: (after turning to my coteacher again) You tink wobot hev soul?
Me: (surprised at what I thought I had heard) Do I think robots have souls?
Mr. Hong: (a large smile lighting up his face) Yes!
Me: (not sure what to say) Well, that’s a difficult question. I think, (trying to structure my answer in an agreeable way) maybe robots don’t have souls. What do you think?
Mr. Hong: (sighing loudly) I tink, maybe don’t, but maybe do. You see Eewobot?
Me: Eewobot…..oh, you mean iRobot? The Will Smith movie?
Mr. Hong: Yes! Will Smif-uh! I see and maybe tink wobot hev sol
Me: Oh I see, well the robots in iRobot, maybe they did have souls, I guess its possible…

At this point in our conversation each of my co-teachers could barely contain their laughter, and I myself was having a hard time being serious. As absurd as the question of robots having souls seemed, to Mr. Hong it was a serious debate.

Thus went my Thanksgiving dinner. A time of laughter, friends and colleagues, and some poor goat that tasted great with kimchi. And the truth is, I am really thankful to be in this place. As strange as things sometime seem, as frustrating as cultural differences can sometimes be, if I am honest with myself I know that I am incredibly blessed. Blessed to have a great girlfriend, blessed to have wonderful family and friends, and blessed to know incredible people here in Korea, both Korean and American. There is so much I am thankful for, and I’m glad to remember it today.

Simple Times

2008-11-09T04:01:00.000-08:00

There may be no joy as pure, simple and complete as walking hand-in-hand with a young girl as she swings back and forth, kicking fallen leaves and singing to herself. Such is the joy given me by my youngest host sister, Dachan, who is seven years old and enjoys the blissful naivety so common to those her age. We walk around Cheongju, her tiny hand in mine, and collect fallen leaves from the trees lining the streets for her collection of brightly colored leaves. Most of the time this consists of her pointing to a branch high above her head and making me jump to grab whatever leaf she desires. It’s that pure kind of fun that most of us haven’t enjoyed since we were kids, before we had so much foolishness to worry and think about.

Teaching continues to be a good experience, my coteachers never ceasing to provide me with a bit of comedy, even when they don’t mean to. The other day I began teaching at 9 in the morning, and for some reason, most likely due to the delirium from which I suffer during early mornings when I am made to teach, I had that song, the name of which escapes me, that goes: “what the world needs now, is love, sweet love, it’s the only thing, that there’s just too little of” stuck in my head. So I was softly singing this song while the kids were busy at their worksheets, and, when I perceived my coteacher looking inquisitively at me, I asked her if she had ever heard the song I was singing. She said she didn’t know, so I sang it again, and she proceeded to repeat each line, in her thick Korean accent, as best she could:

Me: What the world...
Coteacher: Wa da wood...
Me: ...needs now...
Coteacher: ...need now...
Me: ...is love...
Coteacher: ...ee ruv...
Me: ...sweet love...
Coteacher: ...swee ruv...
Me: ...it’s the only thing...
Coteacher: ...ee the onry fing...
Me: ...that there’s just..
Coteacher: ...da there rust...
Me: ...to little of...
Coteacher: ...to rittle ruv...

She was so genuine in her attempt, and so sincerely wanting to sing the song correctly, that I had to try harder than ever to suppress my laughter. This is what I love about my coteachers: they aren’t afraid to try new things, to be silly, or to look foolish. If only we could all be so brave. They told me the other day that they thought that they were becoming more like me. Puzzled, I asked how, and they replied that they were making stranger facial expressions, using their hands more when they talked, and talking louder. This was comforting to me, as at least now I can say I have had some impact on the people of Korea, although it has yet to be seen if this impact is positive or negative.

What kids have taught me

2008-10-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

The kids I teach never cease to amaze me. The things they say, the things they do, the way they behave, all of these things transcend language barriers and make me laugh, cry, and everything in between. Kids say the darndest things, to borrow the tired adage; and let me tell you this is true universally, not just for one particular ethnicity, or language group, or society, as I have learned from my experience teaching the creatures that inhabit my classes. Although the stories are numerous, I will stick to two that have happened within the last week.

My assignment to the class was simple: I will say a word, and, in your groups, you will spell that word with letters on a felt board and hold it in the air when you have finished. I asked if they understood and they nodded a sedated affirmative; good enough for me I decided. The game began as well as I could have hoped, with the kids creating each word in their groups after I said it, and holding something resembling that word in the air upon finishing. Then, I encountered one of those moments in which I had no idea what to do, a moment that left me dumbfounded and exasperated, having no idea if I should seem angry or just laugh, but certain that a couple of 10 year old kids had got the better of me. I called out the word, “door,” and the kids began to work furiously in their groups happily accomplishing the task I had set before them. After each group was holding their assembled word aloft, I surveyed the results: the first group had correctly assembled the word “door,” “good job!” I enthusiastically said, throwing two thumbs into the air. The next two groups had also correctly assembled the word “door” to which I swelled with pride; but the last group had assembled something quite different, something different entirely. They had written on their board, and I will edit this for my readers who are of a more delicate persuasion: “f***er man.” Where several 10-year-old kids learned this nonsensical phrase is anyone’s guess, but I was shocked. I probably would have laughed, had I not been so intent on the other students not seeing what they had written. I practically jumped on their board and, in a polite but firm voice and with a forced half-smile, told them that they had assembled the wrong word. The next time around the word was “pirate,” and I hoped beyond hope that my troublemaking kids had resolved to amend their vile ways and spell with the tenacity and competence which I knew they possessed. I was wrong. When I came around to reading what they had pain-stakingly spelled out, I read, again to my horror: “you die.” Needless to say I took this less as a death threat and more as a couple of kids messing around, doing something that I would have done had I been their age. So I chose to assume the best; these were just kids who had tried to spell the word pirate and become confused, instead making a benign threat on my life of which they hopefully had no plans of carrying to fruition. This time I chided them more severely, making sure they knew that what they had spelled was most certainly not “pirate.” I told them that I was disappointed with them, and they had better spell the next word right or else I would take away points. So I called out the last word, “boat.” Again, the first few groups spelled it correctly, but my mind was already looking ahead to what sort of terrible sentence had been discovered by the last team, no doubt another threat or curse word of an unknown variety. This time, however, I was pleasantly surprised because, although they didn’t spell the word boat, they had managed to spell out “love teacher.” Needless to say, that team lost the competition, but they certainly won in terms of creativity.

The second story I that stands out is a lesson I implemented last week, and remains one of my favorite lessons of the semester. The lesson was about story, and each group in the class was to assemble a series of 6 pictures in any order they pleased and write a sentence per picture telling a story, which they would then read to the class. The pictures were these:

Here are two of my favorite stories, copied verbatim from the hurriedly scrawled writing of my students:

1) “Boy is sleep. And boy is get up. Boy was dug in grownd. But dog is climb. So he was shouted. And dog is wait. He is find a treasure. So he has a money.” This one has a happy ending and also includes some excitement with the dog, which I much appreciated, and is fairly detailed in the discovery of the treasure. This team knew what was happening.

2) “John was saw treasure in his dream. John was dug ground for find treasure with shovel. Next hole soil was return pile. John was dug and gug. Finally John found bong.” I enjoy this one particularly because they know how to spell difficult words like treasure and soil and shovel, and yet cannot seem to spell bone right. Then again maybe they wanted John to find a bong. I also appreciate their inventing the phrase “dug and gug.” I don’t know what it means but I want to do it.

So although these kids are young they are teaching me about the nature of playfulness and creativity, and helping me to not take myself too seriously, and for that I am grateful.

I'm not Glen, I'm not Jesus, I'm Jon

2008-10-13T02:15:00.000-07:00

Lately I have encountered several Koreans who have compared my looks to those of two famous people, and have left me shaking my head. In the last two weeks I have had literally six different Koreans come up to me and tell me I look like the guy from the movie “Once” which actually happens to be one of my favorite movies. The guy they are referring to (his name is Glen Hansard, and he’s Irish) has curly red hair that looks nothing like mine, but I guess is easy to overlook due to his having a beard. Its crazy, because the movie “Once” is an independent film, and most people I have talked to haven’t seen it, yet all these Korean people have somehow seen it and think I am the walking talking clone of Glen Hansard. So, that is person #1. Person #2 is…can you guess? Jesus! No I didn’t just swear, people keep telling me that I look like Jesus, to which I try to respond with something witty and Jesus-esk like, “you are forgiven, my son,” or “stop illegally downloading music, every time you do I kill a kitten in heaven.” Anyway, although I don’t claim to be like Jesus, nor do I claim omnipotence, omnipresence or the ability to forgive sins, I would be lying if I said I didn’t see this one coming. I mean, lets face it, the Jesus comparison is practically a default for anyone who wears the beard. Jesus made the look cool, I’m just trying to keep it in style.

Anyway, that’s the latest, and although I would not claim it to be a thought of much depth, I hope it will cause you to reexamine the stereotypes you hold, and to think twice next time you call someone with a beard Jesus.

Stranger in a Strange Land

2008-09-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

I don’t know how to begin, any thought I can offer will be incomplete by default, so I suppose the least I can do is offer up some thought, some observation about my life here in Cheongju thus far. It amazes me that, as of next Monday, I will have lived in Cheongju for a month, an entire month come and gone in what feels like the blinking of an eye. In many ways my life could not be better, I have a great homestay family, I have two of the sweetest homestay sisters I could have asked for, and my colleagues at work are far more helpful, kind and understanding than I could have imagined.

Quickly, a few notes about the people and things that make my life what it is:
My homestay sisters, Dabin (다빈) and Dachan (다찬) are young, 8 and 12 respectively, and still exist within the bubble of youthful energy, zeal, and ignorance. It is interesting for me, being so unaccustomed to having sisters, to discover firsthand the emotional ups and downs my sisters experience daily at what seems like the flip of a switch. They are nice and sweet one minute, and the next they are yelling “hajima!” (stop) at each other in the worst kind of nasally whiney voice you can imagine, and won’t even acknowledge my existence. I am learning to develop a kind of sensor that can detect such unfavorable moods so I can avoid at all costs. The girls and I play games a lot, when I am not at work, among the favorites are UNO, badminton, and yoga (my sisters have a book of yoga poses that we try to duplicate to the best of our ability.) Recently, Dabin, the older sister, has taken a liking to chess, and challenges me nightly to a game or two. Unfortunately, sometimes these games end in a bad way. For instance last night, at the end of our game, our interaction went something like this:

Dabin: Teacha there! I ween!
Me: No you killed my queen one move after I killed your king, therefore I win.
Dabin: No! My rules!
Me: Read the back of the box, those are the rules.
Dabin: No I kill queen so I ween!
Me (beginning to become annoyed): Listen, if you don’t want to play by the rules, then I won’t play anymore.
Dabin: No! You play my rules! I am weenah!
Me: No, you are not winner, you are cheater!

Immediately after this interaction Dabin began to tear up and ran to her mother. I began to see that my reaction may not have been best, but I remained resolute in that she was indeed a cheater and deserved to lose, she just needed tougher skin. So as you can see, living with girls is a bit different than living with boys, and I am still adjusting.

I am about to finish my first week of teaching at Namsung Elementary School (남성초등학교) and I have already lost my voice. This happened much sooner than I was expecting, as I was not expecting to lose my voice. But, due to the raucous nature of that jungle they call elementary school, my voice has met its untimely demise quickly. Everywhere I go, and I mean everywhere, students react in one of two ways:
1) They let out a high-pitched yelp and run and hide behind their nearest friend (which annoys me to no end,) or,
2) Punch their friends to gain their attention, point at me and together yell “teacha teacha nice to meet you!” or “teacha so handsome!”

I may never get used to the attention, I have to plan when I go places based on when kids will be out of the halls, and I have to be careful of when I walk pass other classes, because even the sight of me is enough to get kids yelling things and completely disrupt their class. As I sat at my desk today during my short ten minute break between classes I looked up from my computer to see a crowd of elementary aged girls standing in a semi-circle around my desk, saying nothing, but only staring very intently, examining me carefully, and it is weird after a while. I enjoyed the attention at first, but feeling like a rockstar has quickly devolved into feeling like a zoo animal, kids pointing their greasy fingers at me and yelling their incoherent English phrases.

Every morning I drink coffee with my principal: a kind old man who wears his pants up to his nipples and walks down the hall with fists clenched and a confident swagger. He is a powerful guy at my school, and he knows it. Unfortunately for me he knows no English at all. Our interactions usually go something like this:

Me: Annyong-hashimnika
Principal: Oh yes yes, prease ah sit down.
Me: Thank you
Principal (after several seconds): Ah, wesa is berry nice?
Me: Yes sir, the weather is very nice today.
Principal (after several minutes of silence): Ah, copee?
Me: Oh yes please, I would like some coffee.
Principal: Oh ah, ah (nods affirmatively as he calls his portly assistant who brings us our morning cup)
(At this point we both sip our coffee in silence for a while, both sitting and staring at nothing in particular, until I offer up some kind of slow, basic English phrase I hope he will know.)
Me: Rrrrhmmm (I do this to gain his full attention prior to speaking in a slow, deliberate manner) Do you like warm weather? (as I say this I use my arms and point to the sun as I gesture to him to indicate that I am asking a question.)
Principal (after a few seconds of looking at the ground): Ah, ah yes thank you berry much.
Me: Ok….but do you (gesturing to him) like (pointing to my smile) the sun (pointing out the window to the sun, then shrugging my shoulders so he will have no doubt that it is a question.) Do you? (I reiterate in hopes that somehow by repeating it it will sink in.)
Principal (after a long pause and more staring at the ground, looks at his watch and says definitively): Ah, about 10:30.

So this is how our interactions usually go, I have learned to embrace the awkwardness and let it be, for whatever reason he wants to drink coffee with me every morning, and other teachers tell me that is a big deal, so for now I will soak up the awkwardness, and enjoy the coffee.

Turning Wheels and Pulling Strings

2008-08-26T00:12:00.000-07:00

“That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think of how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.”
- Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

How profoundly true resonate these words of Dickens, even so many years after they were written. I love his allusion to iron and gold, to thorns and flowers, to these very different but equally binding mechanisms that hold us fast throughout our lives. And it makes me think. As I read this passage I did stop as the passage suggests, and I did think of what had led me here; of the peculiar and confused chain of events which did coalesce to create this very moment in which I am sitting, looking up at a clear blue sky somewhere in Asia sipping a Coke and writing this run-on sentence. It really is quite extraordinary, if you want to know. So I realized something, namely, that I don’t think that things change because of time and place, especially if those things are truths. For instance, Dickens’ basic observation, however rudimentary in its composition, is nevertheless profound and true, despite when it was written or what it was written in direct reference to. And regardless of who one believes has orchestrated such events, one cannot deny the truth that a chain of events has been set in motion, from farther back that we can know, and that those events make us who we are, shape what we do, and guide us to who we become. It is interesting for me to remember, a conversation I had with someone a few weeks back who works at the US Embassy in Seoul, and he was remarking of the nature of life and its habit of following a certain course despite an individual having no idea what course that may be. He was talking about his prestigious position at the Embassy, and the path he followed, (rather inadvertently,) to get there. He said that it was funny how things had worked out so well, and the whole time he had no idea that he was bound for such a position, nor that what he had done would work so to his advantage in his current career. “Its as if something is up there,” he said candidly to me, “turning wheels and pulling strings, pushing people towards certain places, and others toward different places.” He took a sip of his beer, looked away from me and at the rain falling gently beside us, shrugged, and turned back. “Its strange” he concluded. In a way, I agree. I doubt very much that this individual thought that the person “pulling strings” was anything divine, instead perhaps fate or some concept even more abstract, but what he said I think is true, as I have witnessed some such guiding presence in my own life, and I am certain I will continue to. I am not trying to make any kind of a statement, but simply an observation. And it makes me wonder if I will be looking back on this time years from now, marveling at how each event and each subtle influence somehow shaped what I will eventually do. But the interesting thing about this whole idea is that it mostly operates in retrospect; one cannot foresee the future any better than one can see through a perfectly dark room. As frustrating as this is, maybe it is good, after all. Maybe it forces us to live with some kind of faith that things will line up, that things are lining up, although all seems confused as of present. Maybe it forces us to believe something uncomfortable, to exercise a muscle seldom used, to force us into comfort when there seemingly is none. I am stubborn, I will tell you that, and it is hard for me to learn from things the first time through. But as I look back I am able to see something undeniable, something that I would do best to learn from and understand, something that would make my life easier if I were able to comprehend. Again, it is not my intent to make any kind of statement regarding the state of my existence or yours, I am not sure I am qualified to, there are simple observations from a simple man.

A Cause, a Protest, and Violence

2008-08-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

So I find myself with internet for the first time in several days, and oh my so much has happened. Indeed it would seem unfair to relate all that has happened/is happening in one short post, so in an effort to do justice to the recent events I have experienced, I will devote this post to one event in particular.

*Note: the picture to the left was take not 50 yards from where I was standing on the 15th of August in Seoul. Note the green dye from the water cannon on their arms, this dye was used to mark protesters for later arrest.

My friend Billy and I arrived in Seoul with the rest of our Fulbright group last Friday, and decided we wanted to see the town. We thought that Friday night was as good a time as any, and besides, it is only a city of 20 million people, so I was sure we could see most of it in one night. Anyway, so the two of us decided to do a few touristy things, like go to a palace and walk around the city hall area, and as we were doing so we saw riot police almost everywhere we went; not doing anything in particular, just standing around and looking bored. But nevertheless, everywhere we went we saw these guys, hundreds and hundreds of them in their black riot gear. So as night approached we were down by city hall, trying to find a sushi restaurant, and we ran across a large number of protesters, lighting candles and holding signs. A few people were making speeches to the crowd, and we stayed a few minutes as we tried to understand what they were protesting. We soon found out. As we were leaving, we were walking down a street and two lines of about one hundred riot police ran in front of us and completely blocked the road. The lined up with their shields in front of them and stood, staring at us, expressionless, waiting. We were obviously a bit confused, so we just stood there, about ten feet from these gentlemen clad in black, and waited to see what would happen. After a few minutes, several of the protesters came over to the line of police and started heckling and yelling at them. As the situation escalated we stepped back a few feet and tried to go around the line of police, and as we did we began to hear screams, and sirens, and yelling, and what can only be described as chaos. So we ran towards the sounds and as we did a truck with a water cannon passed us, its contents bound for unforeseen victims, and we began seeing more and more riot police, until they were everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Once we rounded a corner and a huge intersection came into view, we found the source of all the chaos. Thousands of people were running and yelling, many trying to evade capture by the riot police, many trying to escape the fury of the water cannon and tear gas that had recently been fired. The scene was complete and utter chaos. So, after a moment of deliberation I turned to my friend Billy and said, "Billy, we can stay here and be safe, or we can risk our safety, run into the this, and be in the middle of something we won't ever forget." With nothing more than a simple nod and smile, Billy and I ran towards the confusion. As we ran into the square, we were literally forced to dodge protesters and riot police as they ran around in a strange game of cat and mouse. We could see the water cannon, spraying the protesters and fleeing the scene, and we could see protesters yelling and fighting with the police. It was insane. As we tried to run across the intersection lines of police (50 or more in each line) would run at us, clubs drawn and shields raised, and we would dodge them as best we could and move on to the other side. Shortly after we entered the square, the police shut down the square completely, sealing off every possible exit to ensure that no one could get in or out. In between chaotic moments in the square we had a brief chat with a korean protester who informed us that the protests were against their President, and the fact that it was the Korean independence day made it a perfect day to protest and make their point. She said that they had been protesting peacefully with candles when the police came down on them, first with the water cannon, then tear gas, then beating them with their batons. She told us that there were around 10,000 riot police in and around the square, and maybe 5,000 protesters; not a fair fight if you ask me. Our conversation was funny in that while she was telling us this she would occasionally stop to yell at the police and call them names, or sing a song with several others about the police not being able to marry and how they are shameful, then return to our conversation with a completely normal tone of voice. Anyway, our conversation came to a brief halt when tensions among our group escalated and the crowd began to yell and push the police, who pushed back, which devolved into a mess with us at the center. As we were pushed towards the violent scene, we decided to try to use the chaos to our advantage and make our way beyond the square where we could comfortably stand (as we had been in the square for a half hour or more). So we were able to slip out and watch at a distance as the violence dissipated.

After we grabbed dinner and proceeded to walk around town a bit more, we continued to see riot police running in one direction or another. We ran across the water cannon truck re-filling at a fire-hydrant, and saw tons and tons of undercover police in plainclothes, (although they were anything but subtle, they all wore close to the exact same clothes and all had the same green plaid fishing hat, as if it would somehow make them blend in) always following the police at a not-so-discreet distance. Anyway, the night was wild and shocking and eye-opening and really made me think about the role of an individual in society and the role of police and government and....well maybe you should just ask me about it sometime. The final tally was 156 protesters arrested, which isn't bad considering all the people in the square. Here are some pictures from earlier in the protests, taken from a Korean newspaper:

teaching, philosophy, and hedonism

2008-08-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last two weeks teaching for the first time in Korea. I only taught three times, but each time I learned a bit more about myself, about teaching, about humility, and about what I believe good teaching is. Ok so let me start by saying this, I believe that if we take a step back and look at education from a broad perspective, really examine it and its intricacies, I think the only honest conclusion I can draw is that the burden of education should be placed on the individual, not the institution. Let me explain this. I was talking about this with a good friend of mine, a guy who is brilliant in so many ways, and he was talking about how, in a perfect world, it would be recognized that knowledge and education are paramount, even irreplaceable, within the construction and growth of any thoughtful autonomous individual. He went on to say, and I’m paraphrasing here, that if this could be realized, then there would be a radical and wonderful shift within communities, as people took ownership of their education, their future, and their lives. After all, the institution can only motivate through bribery, ultimately, and that can only go so far. Eventually students conducting their cost/benefit analyses will discover that this institutional bribery is only so fulfilling and can take them only so far, and that is where their contrived education meets its end. So the purest form of education and learning is one that is done for education’s sake, for the love of knowledge, for the love and desire of bettering oneself. Ok, so my utopian paradigm sounds fine, but it obviously has some serious flaws, and in terms of questions we might as well start with the elephant in the room, namely: if the highest and purest and most desired form of education takes place when the individual is motivated and takes ownership over his/her own educational destiny, how in the world do you motivate someone to be self-motivated and actually want to take the burden of education on themselves? And the answer is: I have no idea. Please, if you know the answer, let me know. So all this theorizing was just so I could make the point that, although I have these grand notions of what education should be and can be, I am at a loss as to how to implement them if the students have no innate desire to better themselves.

Ok so back to what I was saying about me teaching. So teaching is in some ways easier than I thought, and in some ways harder. It is easier in the way that I feel more comfortable than I thought I would in front of the kids I was teaching, and it is harder in the way that I am constantly wrestling with the dichotomy of wanting to be their teacher and also wanting to be a friend. I suppose this division could better be described as my desire to be firm and respected, but also do fun things and have my students like me. Yet even as I write this I find it funny that I can see what I am saying stems from some form of insecurity, some desire to be liked, loved. That reminds me of a conversation I was having with a friend of mine the other day, we were talking about what we thought God was, and we were discussing the idea of everyone in the world wanting one thing, that is, to be loved. And it made me think of how silly it was, how silly it is, that everyone seems to be looking for the same thing but is afraid to admit it to each other, like some dark secret that everyone shares but hides away. And here I seem to have provided a prime example of what we were discussing, that is, my inherent desire for love and respect and someone far from perfection telling me I am special. The other day I read this great quote from C.S. Lewis, and he was talking about how the problem with people is not that we seek pleasure, but that we are far too easily pleased. How profound. I see a parallel between his thinking and my hedonistic desire for love.

Alright, pardon the digression.

So the classes I taught had a good time, I think, and I was glad to see that. There were times when I felt a bit like a monkey dancing for change, but overall I think they learned something. The peak of my teaching experience came last week with a friend of mine, Billy, who is actually going to the same town, Chongju, with me in a few weeks. So we decided that, since the camp these students were attending was almost over, we would give them a fun lesson, something they could relax and have fun with. Our lesson was on “X-treme sports,” and ever time we said the word “X-treme” (which was a lot) we would cross our arms in front of us and yell it out again “X-treme!” So soon the kids picked it up, and for the last few days of their camp kids were coming up to me, crossing their arms and yelling “X-treme!” (ah let me tell you, it’s nice to see you have had an impact on a kid’s educational development.) Anyway, we played a few extreme games that culminated in a giant human pyramid that almost ended in disaster (you can watch the video on this page.) So it was fun, and the kids loved it, and I made a lot of small middle school Korean friends.

So now its on to surviving the last two weeks of language classes, which have definitely intensified as of late, and then its off to Chongju, the magical place I will spend the next year. Let me tell you, every day in Korea I feel humbled because of the significant, changing, and profound events that are taking place around me and to me. Just a couple of days ago, when the announcements were made for placements, Ms. Shim, the Fulbright director said “and now I will make the announcements as to where you will be spending the next year in Korea.” Woah, that statement alone absolutely blew my mind. My fate would be determined in the next few minutes, for the next 11 months, and I was utterly powerless to affect it. Like I said, humbling. But its good, it makes me appreciate things more, like the monsoons that have been sweeping through Chuncheon lately. Sitting in class, the storm announces its presence with a loud clap of thunder and the sound of rain dancing on the roof above us. And I find it so incredible that I can stand outside, just out of the rain’s reach, drinking warm coffee and staring into the furious rain as it pours itself out over the hills, the trees, over all that beauty. How perfect.

The Storm

2008-07-31T03:39:00.000-07:00

Come clouds and begin your joyful chant
Sweep in over hills and pour out your tearful rant
Eclipse the sun and turn day into night
So I might dream of the sun and of restored sight

* written in class, to the sound of thunder and rain.

Chongju, or 청 주

2008-07-30T04:52:00.000-07:00

Today was the day I had been waiting for, the day I received my assignment from Fulbright and found out where I would be living and teaching for the next year. The city is called Chongju, a suburban city of 600,000 in the middle of South Korea. I don't have much info yet, but I do have this picture of the school, which is supposed to be pretty nice. So hooray for change and for pretty schools!

Of Struggle, Progress, and Beauty

2008-07-25T20:15:00.000-07:00

How time flies. There are mornings that I wake up, and for a second I am unsure as to where I am, how I got here, and I am certain that this thing was nothing more than some wild fabrication in my mind. But only for a second. After that, the synapses begin firing slowly, and I begin to understand the complexly beautiful situation I find myself in here. It is a situation wrought with difficulty, predicated on the idea that I can be stretched, that I will experience pain, and that I will endure. I have come with this backwards idea in mind; that life is nothing without struggle, and instead of run away from it, it is best to meet it head on. To deny it victory but still allow it to change me, as I think it would anyone.

I will tell you now, I am terrified of failure. I always have been, if you want to know the truth. And I find it remarkable that when I look at my life over the past few years, it has been a dance of sorts, an awkward dance around things that are really difficult, things that I know I am not good at, that I don’t understand. And I don’t mean in an academic way; anyone can learn so mething new if you give him enough time. I mean in a way that fundamentally resists categorical struggle, a struggle that involves all my elements, that pushes them towards something greater through something inherently hard. It seems strange that, for some reason, people don’t change, people don’t grow up unless they are forced to, unless they are brought to their knees and told, “you don’t have what it takes. Do something about it.” It seems ironic that the only way one can really be pushed into being a better person, a more complete human being is through the very struggle that we try so hard to avoid. But I will say it again, I am afraid of failure. No dark beast conjures in my mind such grave things as this. But here I am, running headlong into a mist, into a fog that clouds my vision and through which I am perpetually tripping and falling, but ever pulling myself up to continue. I like the way Fredrick Douglass put it: “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.” So succinct, so poetic, so true.

I was thinking yesterday about beauty for beauty’s sake. An author I love once said that beauty seems to be the least selfish emotion that we can experience. That beauty is just beauty. But it is so easy to think of beauty as something that we see on vacation, that exists outside of what we experience daily. But that is a lie, let me tell you, the invitation is always open. It is so easy to see here, in both the physical landscape and in the people. My window opens to a beautiful view, the mountains stretch out into the distance, shrouded in mist with the sun penetrating just enough to create a glow as if God himself was lightly touching the hills, the trees, just for the pleasure of my wandering eyes. How lovely, I am often lost in it. I also think of yesterday, while I was at Tae Kwon Do, we were training with several kids, and we would spar across from them. I was sparring across from this beautiful little Korean girl, probably not more than 7 or 8 years old (but a black belt) and in between the Master’s instructions, without saying a word she would walk over to me and gently take my hand or my arm and adjust it so that I was doing the move properly. She would move my arm, step back, and I would smile, and she would smile back. And in that moment there was an understanding that crosses cultures, that crosses languages, and it was profound. My mind also travels to a couple of days ago, when a few Koreans came to visit a few of us Americans in our dorm rooms, and apparently word had gotten around that I played the guitar. The first question out of a few of their mouths was, “can you show me guitar?” At first I said, “no lets do it later, some other time” but as they insisted and brought me a guitar, I realized I had no choice. So I sat in a chair in the hallway of our dorm, picked up the guitar, and played two of my favorite songs. As I was playing, the crowd of Koreans grew bigger until we were completely blocking the hallway. Looking to each of them, smiling and clapping, was something special I can’t describe. We had this wonderful moment together, and when it was over I realized how thankful for gifts like that I am, because they make things so much better, so much richer, they make abstract things like beauty so much more tangible. A smile from a little girl, a beautiful sunset, music played from the heart and shared with friends, these are all things that have affected me lately and kept me sane, and for that I am grateful.

Pictures of Foreign Lands

2008-07-22T16:35:00.000-07:00

Hey I thought I would find a place to post all the pictures I am taking here. If you want to check them out you can here.

cultural confusion - my first two weeks in skorea

2008-07-17T07:56:00.000-07:00

(The picture to the left is me after several shot glasses of soju were knocked into glasses of beer during a night with the KEY Club (kangwon english yard club, a bunch of korean college students who want to study english) beer got all over me.)

Wow, how to sum up the last week and a half…there is so much that has happened, so much I have seen, experienced, done; and all the while I have maintained a healthy countenance composed of fear, excitement, and anticipation.

I suppose I will stick to a few of the more memorable events that have occurred thus far. I find myself with very little time for relaxation, in fact, orientation is keeping me so busy that I am often not back to my room for more than 10 min all day. But the time spent going going going is good. I am learning tons about the Korean culture, what makes them what they are, and how to interact as a foreigner in that culture. There are so many subtle things, so many elements that go into successfully navigating these uncharted waters. I am also spending a lot of time with the Korean language. 4 hours a day to be exact. The classes are fun for the most part, and, surprisingly, they are taught by Korean teachers who speak almost no English. It is amazing to me how effective they can be in communicating to us and teaching us while speaking entirely in a language we do not understand. In one of the more spirited interactions I have had with my teacher (she is young, maybe late 20s, and has a lot of sarcastic attitude) I took it upon myself to explain to her the meaning of the word sarcasm, so I said (in my most sarcastic voice) “I really like this class.” It was obvious she understood as she nodded thoughtfully and imitated me “I really like learning,” “yes” I said, “that’s it.” Then she said, in an incredibly sarcastic voice, “you are a really handsome guy.” The whole class erupted into laughter and I sat back, smiled, and decided to take it like a man.

I have been taking Tae Kwon Do the last three days, and I have really enjoyed it. I seriously feel like I am the Karate Kid, and am obsessed with somehow defeating the Dojo Master to claim my position of dominance. Our class meets for an hour every weekday night, and we kick, and punch, and kick, and punch, and run some laps, and stretch, and kick, and punch, and so on. It is really fun thus far, and, although I am super sore, I am determined to prove that lanky white guys can be TKD masters. Our Dojo Master is a great guy, I should say, and just watching him is a workout. He is a short Korean guy, without an ounce of fat on his body, who can do the most acrobatic things. Today while we were stretching he tried to get us to do the splits and other such moves that men of my stature are not supposed to try. Then he called someone from our group up front to show us how to kick and punch properly. He would kick full speed at the unlucky group member and stop just when he touched the back of his shirt. It was incredible to watch how close he was punching. Anyway, my point is, everyone was completely wowed by this guy and his crazy machine-like efficiency with which he moved. Oh, and on the first day he brought his daughter, maybe seven or eight, who is an accomplished black-belt, to demonstrate an entire routine for us. She was amazing and you could see the pride in his eyes as he watched his daughter perform.

Ok, a few other things. My new favorite desert is called something like “poppinsue” which is half ground ice, half fruit and black beans. That’s right, beans. An unlikely combination, but a tasty one nonetheless. We go out to eat fairly regularly, as everything is fairly cheap, and have enjoyed quite a few staple Korean dishes, almost always involving Kimchi. I went to my first Nolebang the other night, which was a time to remember. Norebang is a place in which you can rent out a small room with your friends and sing karaoke until the break of dawn…which is almost what we did. My favorite moment consisted of my rendition of a Tenacious D song and a lot of screaming Koreans. It was wild. Also I should note that since being here and hanging out almost every night with Korean people, I have noticed how open and honest they always are with everyone. Sometimes this is bad, like if they think you are overweight, but most of the time it is a doorway to awesome conversation and thought. They are so sincere, and will not hesitate to tell you that seeing you has made them very happy. This frank style of talk is refreshing, but is also somewhat intimidating because any judgment they make about you is likely to be verbalized.

Next week is the first week that I will be teaching at Camp Fulbright, an English emersion camp that kids will come to for two weeks to learn English. I have my first lesson planned, its about surfing and the environment, two things that I hope to blend together seamlessly and effectively. I am a bit nervous, but that is how these things go. I find that I am constantly trying to do the things I can’t do, or the things that scare me, so that I may become a better person, a more whole person. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the update, many more will follow soon!

Not in Kansas Anymore

2008-07-07T03:03:00.000-07:00

I left yesterday on a plane bound for Asia. South Korea to be exact. I have not been to bed since, and I am losing all sense of time as it exists to me. I left on Saturday at 7:30, and I arrived in Seoul at 5am on Monday, the changing time can be a tricky thing. Anyway, the folks who run this thing are trying to "help us" adjust to the time change by keeping us up for another couple of hours, it feels like a forced march on a sweaty, humid, summers day. The land is beautiful, green hills sprawling for as far as the eye can see, and until mid-afternoon fog swept in and around those hills like a ghost. I have had two meals thus far, lunch and dinner, and they both have included a variation of the famous "kimchi" dish. It is a cabbage like stuff soaked in chili-paste that makes it unbearably hot. And the great thing about Korean meals is that they don't believe in drinking water during their meals, they prefer to drink after, so the whole time my mouth is on fire from bite after bite of flaming kimchi, I have to sit and dream of the end of the meal when I can soak my mouth in ice-cold water. But besides that small issue, the food has been incredible. I have eaten more tentacles in the last two meals than I have had in a long time, squid and octopus being my favorite...and I enjoyed a great dish of beef, crab, mushrooms and noodles. So far so good. I also had the chance to walk around Chuncheon a bit and scope out the town. Well, needless to say its a bit different than Phoenix. Here are a few pictures to illustrate:

Ok, more to come real soon, I promise. But exhaustion is setting in and I need to rest. Sleep is coming soon, in the next few hours, and after that only more adventure awaits.

People, People Who Need People

2008-06-22T09:43:00.000-07:00

I think people are meant to keep other people sane. As if God knew that the monotony of life would drive us all crazy unless we had someone to talk to, someone to laugh at our stupid jokes. Let me tell you what I mean. Today at work I was going crazy with boredom, as was the security guard (Angie), and I couldn’t find anything to occupy my time as my girlfriend was at work and I was tired of reading. I went back to the break-room for a Krispy Kreme doughnut to satisfy my sweet-tooth, and I ended up having a great talk with our maintenance guy Martin, who is the archetype of kindness and strong work ethic, about kids and what causes them to develop their small personalities. After a few doughnuts I came back to my stand and apologized for being gone so long to Angie who laughed and said it was fine. I know that was a simple interaction, between me and Martin and the security guard, but I kept noticing things: like the happiness it brought Martin and I as we shared stories of growing up and Martin told me about his kids, and the smile and laugh Angie gave (the first such smile I had seen all morning) when I told her that I had been talking too long in the back room. Anywhere else those interactions would have been much less important, even negligible, but here, in the midst of our boredom, they became bright moments in an otherwise dull day. It just strikes me as funny, I guess, how circumstances can change everything. People who wouldn’t otherwise get along reminisce happily about life, thoughts and feelings are shared in a way that would never happen unless these people were thrown into the same random situation at a random time in the same random place. It kind of makes me wonder if things aren’t set in motion purposely by something bigger, higher than me.

Of course there is a flip side to this, in which one can overcome circumstances to become good friends. I was talking to my friend Jared the Anti-Establishment Future Pastor the other day, and we were talking about the circumstances through which we met almost a year ago. I’ll just say they were less than favorable, and I admitted I thought at first that he was a tool, and he said that he thought I was a tool at first, too. But somehow we were able to move beyond that and into what has become a very wonderful friendship, one predicated on thoughtful discussion and beer brewing. So I guess circumstances can dictate societal pairings, and in some instances they don’t, but either way we as humans share the fundamental ability to influence other people; for better or for worse. It’s this crazy decision that we make every day, subconsciously or consciously, and because of it the world is literally a better or a worse place.

From the Desk of Jon Kelley

2008-05-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to create some web space for various writing I have done over the last few years. Most of it is academic, although I included an editorial I wrote for ASU's newspaper. Anyway, if you feel like enjoying some reading material, check it out here, I don't claim that its great, but I am fairly proud of it.

Swell Season

2008-04-24T19:15:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to what is probably the best concert I have ever been to, Swell Season, at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix. The Swell Season consists of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the stars of the Oscar winning film Once. I am a huge fan of the film, and had high hopes for the concert which featured music performed and written by the actors from the film. Needless to say, I was not let down.

The concert started unlike any I had seen. Glen walked to the edge of the stage by himself, holding his guitar. He waited for the hundreds of people inside to quiet down, and began to play a song, entirely unplugged, to delight of the utterly silent crowd. I was in the last row in the balcony, as far back as you can get in what is a big theatre, and due to the amazing acoustics I could hear every word and guitar string resonating perfectly. The rest of the concert was wonderful, and I can only liken the beauty of the music (featuring a guitar, piano, violin, mandolin and perfect harmonies) to what amounted to nothing short of a spiritual experience for me. After the show, my girlfriend, my friend Jared and I sat still in our seats as everyone around us left. It was almost as if we didn't want to speak for fear of detracting from the profundity of what had just transpired. As if we were playing back the last moments and notes of the night, praying that the melodies and harmonies would remain fresh in our minds and knowing that mere rhetoric could never encapsulate something that can only be expressed and understood through experience.

Anyway, after the show I performed my classic "kelley ambush" and was able to talk with both Glen and Marketa after the show. They are both really nice people, and after going to the Czech Republic (Marketa's home) I actually found something substantive to talk to her about. So it was the perfect end to a profound night, and if you have not seen the movie Once, get out and see it, or at least buy the Swell Season CD, its awesome.

Goodbye College, Hello Symphony of Change

2008-04-12T17:37:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhhhh. It is with a sigh and a smile that I write this. What you see to your left is what I have been working towards for four and a half years, thats right, a Bachelors degree. Thanks to ASU my "official" graduation was delayed a bit, but, after repeatedly calling the administration office, I got them to correct their error and place a big "GRADUATED" stamp on my transcript...or whatever it is they do. Let me tell you, my mind cannot take in the scope of what college has meant to me, what I have done, what I have seen, what this time gone by means. I can remember vividly that first day of college at NAU, the fear, the excitement, the anticipation. Wow, what an era. So much changed, so much of my worldview was rocked, I feel so different than when I started, yet, oddly I still feel the same.

Oh, see the map to the left? I'm going there. Living there, in fact. About a week ago, as I was sitting in a property rights class visiting Pepperdine Law, I received an email stating that I has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship. Wow, right? Yeah, it rocked my world completely. I suppose it is in some ways fitting, the end of one era and the beginning of the next. I was just talking with my girlfriend the other day, saying that there is so little that is really holding me here. So little that I am tied down to. Other than my close family and her, I have no real reason to stick around. So, on July 7th, 2008, I will begin the 12 and a half month adventure that will take me across the world and back, eventually. A few specifics: I get two months off, from the end of December until the end of February. I am only allowed to spend two weeks during that time in the U.S., so the rest of the time I will be traveling. Daunting? Yes. Exciting? Absolutely. I will be teaching English to elementary school kids in a city outside of Seoul 20 hours a week, and the rest of the time I will be writing and enjoying other scholarly pursuits, such as beginning a Masters Degree. Exciting, changing times are on the horizon.

Pray for me, if you would, that I would emulate the tax collector who beat upon his chest, saying, "God have mercy on me, the sinner."

Music, Concerts and Moses

2008-03-27T19:19:00.000-07:00

"For heights and depths no words can reach, music is the soul's own speech." Those words are displayed on a painting that hung in my parents bedroom for I don't know how long. As a kid I grew up seeing it, and never really was able, (or tried for that matter,) to grasp the concept behind its statement. Every now and then I am reminded, that is, the truth of that statement is revisited in my mind, and I feel like I understand its poignancy. I think that there is a moment in every kid's life when they realize that there are some things that cannot be accurately expressed by words, and that there must be another medium through which to express these things. When this realization hit me it was in the mid-nineties, for me the golden age of music. Third-eye Blind, Goo Goo Dolls, Pearl Jam, Cake, Dave Matthews, it was all so good, so rich in meaning and expression.

What got me thinking about all of this was a concert I went to last night at a local art gallery downtown. It was a small-time band called Limbeck that I have loved for the past five years, ever since they opened for The Format in Flagstaff, AZ, in 2003. One of their songs in particular has significant meaning for me, albeit mostly due to nostalgia. It was one of the first guitar songs I learned to play well, and I played it all the time, let me tell you. The song wasn't on their set list for the night, so, at a particularly opportune moment I yelled the name of the song and they played it. To say I was elated would be an understatement. As they played I saw my last few years strung out across the lines of the verses and chorus, deep meaning dancing like notes spread across a page, changing static to dynamic, trading prose for poetry. Subtlety, nuance, it was all there. I was reminded of Moses and his writing of Genesis. As he wrote he shifted from prose one minute to poetry the next, then back again. It is as if there were certain things he felt he could not communicate through prose, things too beautiful to be communicated through its limited means. I love that idea, as if there are some things that my mind simply cannot grasp, was not meant to grasp, that are inherently impossible for me to understand outside of the artistic realm in which reside song, poetry, and the like.

Anyway, if anything, check out the band Limbeck, their first record, "Hi, Everything's Great" is wonderful.

Food for Worms

2008-03-20T21:29:00.001-07:00

Keating: Seize the day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Why does the writer use these lines?
Charlie: Because he's in a hurry.
Keating: No, ding! Thank you for playing anyway. Because we are food for worms lads. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.

I think Robin Williams puts it well in the brilliant film, Dead Poets Society; we are food for worms lads, nothing more, nothing less. I have been thinking about this a bit lately, among other things, and I can’t shake the feeling that I am somehow wasting time. Like there are things grander and greater that I am destined for, and by working full-time as a valet I am somehow missing them. I hope it’s not true, and I think that its not, so long as I keep the vision, or, the faith, as it were.

Today I had the opportunity to speak with one of the top guys in Pepperdine Law, one of the schools I applied to, and he told me that, due to a number of factors, I probably didn’t have the best chance at being accepted to the school. My applying to Pepperdine was an uphill battle from the start, I knew that, but somehow hearing him vocalize what fears I had placed in the dark recesses of my mind initially filled me with self-doubt. I questioned my wanting to go to law-school, I questioned my confidence, and I questioned myself. It is a dark thing, I have to tell you, to acknowledge your own deficiencies and shortcomings; and it is a far more difficult thing to make your peace with them. So I allowed myself to give in to the doubt, to succumb to the voices of dismay, but only for five minutes…only five minutes.

I remember what I once heard Donald Miller say; that any good story is defined by antagonism. It isn’t just complemented by it, it is defined by it. Defined by the difficulty, the doubt, the darkness. I love that. When I really stop to think about it, the moments I feel defeated are swiftly followed by the moments I feel the most determined to fight back. It’s as if those moments exist to show me that life is hard, but that difficulty is juxtaposed with resistance. Resistance needs to be the defining element, not disappointment or professional discord. I once heard Will Smith say something in an interview that has stuck with me. When asked about what set him apart from other actors in Hollywood, he replied that it wasn’t his looks or his talent, but it was the simple fact that he was willing to, as he put it, “die on the treadmill.” Upon enumeration he explained that what he meant was that he would not be outworked by anyone. Someone else may be better looking or a better actor, but they would not be a harder worker. I love that idea, that it’s somehow not about how talented you are or competent or successful, but rather how willing you are to get back up. To defy the supposed reality of the human condition and in so doing refuse to give in to the enticing voices of discord. I want my life to be predicated on this principle of resistance, of refusing to believe for more than a few minutes that I am incapable of something great. I want today’s failure to be nothing more than the catalyst for tomorrow’s success.

Carpe Diem; another great idea from Dead Poets Society. An idea that calls into reality yours and my time here; it overlooks our successes and failures, our hopes and dreams, and asks us a simple question: have we seized the day? Have we made the most of what we have? Have we picked ourselves up from where we have fallen? In the end I know my story too will be defined by antagonism, and that I will one day be food for worms. How I sincerely hope that I will have the wisdom and the maturity to welcome my failings, and the strength to embrace struggle and resist.

Taylor

2008-02-24T11:24:00.000-08:00

After years and years of playing my old, beat-up guitar, I decided it was time to upgrade. This is the new object of my affection, my beautiful Taylor acoustic guitar. Oh how I love it. I have already spent many an hour sitting with it on my old couch, quietly humming along to its melodies while gazing out the window at a cloud laced sky. It seems to heighten my senses, bring me closer to a state of peace and calm where nothing matters but the notes sung from its wooden frame.

truth & risk

2008-02-15T09:57:00.000-08:00

"If something inside you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act - - truth is always subversive."

Anne Lamott in Bird By Bird

The Moment Between Certainties

2008-02-14T21:08:00.001-08:00

I find life to be a funny thing. Funny in a sideways, masochistic and occasionally uplifting kind of way. It seems to be full of contradictions, funny little nuances that might not be noticed unless one is willing to deeply think, deliberate, and eventually become confused. In that way thinking too hard will kill you. I am convinced of that. There are a million different problems and a million ways to solve them and there is simply no way that you or I can find the right solution to the right problem every time. Or even most of the time. And that is where I have a real problem, because, not only am I a constant thinker, I am constantly seeking to solve the problems of my life quickly and efficiently. Both of which are completely impossible.

I have tried, recently, to alter my lifestyle so it is more conducive to making good decisions and forging a palpable direction. I have tried exercise, I have tried something that resembles meditation, I have tried song writing and poetry and several other things to calm myself and carve out a positive niche. Which reminds me; a couple of days ago I found out that I have an ulcer. A stress-induced ulcer, to be precise. I know, so much for calming myself. It sucks, now I feel sick a lot, I occasionally feel light headed and I am generally mad at myself for allowing such an inconvenience to occur, which, of course, only aggravates my ulcer. Freak. I feel like one of those fat New Yorkers, running around in their ill-fitting suits yelling at whomever they can, only to stop momentarily and croak, “ack! my ulcer!” pop a few white pills and continue with their ranting. I’m too young for this. So this leaves me with a few options. My health insurance hasn’t kicked in yet, so I can’t take care of it the medicinal rout, thus, I am forced to keep myself at as low an excitement level as I can, and force myself not to worry about life. Ugh. I suppose in some ways its good, it will force me to slow down a bit, to stop worrying about everything. Which is a strange thing in and of itself. If you were to ask me if I feel stressed often, I would probable tell you no. But the truth of this is that there is some thing, some dark beast of a thing that lives inside me and denies me the luxury of relaxation and a guilt-free existence. I really need to work on taming that beast.

I just heard about a week ago that I am a finalist for the Fulbright Scholarship, which, I guess, is a big deal. If I am accepted into the program I will spend a year living in South Korea teaching English to Elementary School kids, bit of an environment change, I know. Both of my applications are off to ASU Law and Pepperdine Law, both great schools. I am still working full-time as a valet at the Esplanade, parking the cars, having a good time. Recently I have been restless, I guess ever since I graduated, and I feel torn between the inevitable change that I so crave and the safety and serenity that home provides. Subsequently, I have been into Bob Dylan lately, and I love his song “the times they are a changing.” So simple, so true.

I love how Don Miller puts it in one of his books, when talking about his relationship with God. He describes it as Jesus walking down a dirt road toward him, and as he comes closer he can see him with increasing clarity. At first only general things, the way he walks, the way he carries himself; then, as he comes closer he can see more detail, his complexion, the lines on his face. This is how I feel about God most of the time, he is on a dirt road, walking toward me. It takes time for me to understand him as I watch from a distance, studying his movements. And as I come closer to him, step by step, I can see more. I long to walk side-by-side him, as I would a friend. I think the beauty of life becomes more real, more tangible, when I stop trying to understand and predict it. When I sit back and try to live in the unknown, in that moment between certainties. I think that is where God lives.

Super Tuesday

2008-02-07T15:53:00.000-08:00

I attended John McCain's Super Tuesday party at the Biltmore on Tuesday. It was an awesome and crazy time. It reminded me a lot of my time in Washington DC; people running here and there, trying to meet and impress anyone and everyone who might advance a career. I can't say that I was completely comfortable with it, I have had enough of that kind of lifestyle, but, nevertheless, there is a strange attraction that pulls me like a magnet to such things. I don't know what it is. Anyway, the event was loads of fun. Here are a few pics.

After McCain's speech, I was able to meet and talk with one of my long-time favorite news anchors, Tucker Carlson. He is one of the most down to earth, likable guys you will ever meet in the political world. I was really impressed with him.

Well, it looks as though McCain is going to be the nominee. Crazy. Only months ago it looked as though he was going to drop out of the race, and now he is the only plausible nominee. Thats politics for you. I, of course, couldn't be happier to see my old boss where he is. I think, as I have since working for him, that he is a great man, a man of conviction, and the only man who could possibly win against a Democratic challenger.

Onward, Upward

2008-01-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

Check out my new blog, "Onward, Upward." Its basically just an outlet for me to ramble about things I have been doing lately, I am trying to leave the more profound...or at least deeper, stuff for this site. Anyway here's the link: http://jonisonwardupward.blogspot.com/

2007 Review

2008-01-20T14:21:00.000-08:00

So as 2007 is at an end, I thought it only appropriate to list some favorites from the past year. (Admittedly, I stole the idea entirely from my friend Nate, but, as they say, emulation is the most sincere form of flattery.) So here it is, may 2008 hold even greater adventures.

Favorite Times (In no particular order)

-Seven-
Airports

This summer I spent more time hanging around and sleeping in airports than I ever had before. I found that the best airports to sleep in are O’Hare and Newark, both have seats that you can fit under or in between, and neither seem to care if you are taking up a huge amount of space as you sleep. I took a few red-eye’s, spent hours on layovers, threw up constantly while in Heathrow (London), I spent a lot of time lost in Newark, and barely made it on time to a few connecting flights. All in all, I came to really enjoy being in airports and dread it at the same time because it meant the end of one adventure and the beginning of another.

-Six-
Getting a tattoo from a shady guy in Budapest

This is one of those experiences I only need to have once. It reads, Ego Sum Via Veritas Et Vita, which, translated from Latin, means “I am the way the truth and the life.” Jesus said it, not me.

-Five-
Toga Riders for Life!

On a whim, rode around Boston in a Toga for six hours with some new international friends. We made a lot of enemies among the drivers we encountered, but had an unforgettable blast.

-Four-
Staying in Boston, in New York City, and at NY cabin

Time at these three locations was crazy and amazing. I made friends I never thought I would and saw beauty in so many ways. The wisdom and goodness of people I met was unforgettable and never ceased to amaze me. Everywhere I went I met good people who offered me whatever they had in return for nothing. I remember with particular fondness a great conversation had on the steps of the chapel in the middle of Harvard’s campus, pancake making in the wee hours of the morning, incredible meals and hospitality in New York along with a great few hours spent with an old friend walking the streets of New York and talking about life, and the sweet and perfect serenity of the cabin and lake in the mountains in New York.

-Three-
Czech Republic

Beautiful country, wonderful people. This trip was one of my all-time favorites.

-Two-
Budapest

From surveying the city to cramming in a phone booth with six other people to enjoying a cup of coffee on the street, Budapest was an incredible place with so much to offer. We took a night cruise down the Danube river that was beautiful and unforgettable. Sitting at the rear of the boat watching the lighted city float by and talking with friends about life; that’s about as perfect as it gets.

-Two-
Sitting, Smoking and Talking on the Fisherman’s Bastion

Also in Budapest, from my perch in the window of one of these spires I could see the entire city of Budapest lit at night, glowing back at me. I would bring my pipe and tobacco to this point every night and quietly smoke while talking with whomever came with me. Again, serene, lasting memories made here.

-One-
Living at West Point

Living, eating, sleeping, and talking with the cadets at West Point was an awesome experience. The beauty of the place combined with the awesome combined intellect of the conference participants produced a really interesting time. I had never lived in a castle(ish) place, and had never been around such a beautiful place during the fall. I wish I had better pictures of this, but I lost every one I took due to a camera mix up...

Climbing

2008-01-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

I've been climbing recently. Literally and figuratively, I guess. I once heard someone say that we become the things we do, so, taking that sentiment to heart, I have recently spent some time investing in things that I really want to be a part of my life. I have been painting, songwriting, reading, singing, writing, biking, and now, climbing. Rock climbing is something that I have always wanted to try, but never had the chance to do outside of a gym. So, in the last week I have been twice, once to Queen Creek Canyon and once to the Praying Monk on Camelback Mountain. I will be the first to admit that I have faced easier tasks. Each expedition forced me far from the comfort of my usual thinking chair at home, and each left me with a feeling of elation upon reaching the end of the climb alive. Here are a few pictures of me climbing the cliffs at Queen Creek Canyon:

And here are a couple from the Praying Monk climb:

Sitting atop these peaks its impossible not to marvel at the simple beauty all around. Its strange to think that these rocks have been around for years prior to my existence, and will still be around years after. Every time I reach the top of one such peak, (only three times thus far, I might add) I have a mixed feeling of terror due to the imminent repel back to earth, and freedom at being so high, so untouched by the world and its busyness.

Anyway, life is uncertain. It always has been, but somehow I feel it more now that I am out of school. It's a funny, restless, feeling that I get all the time. Its as if I am itching to leave, to do something that hasn't been done, but at the same time I have so much commitment here, so much holding me to the grindstone. I feel like so much of what I hear is wrong, is unadulterated groupthink, as if it were a traveling salesman asking me to subscribe to some magazine or something. "Just sign on the dotted line and you will get 24 free issues of Status Quo magazine." In other words, I'm afraid that life will become static. The more I am confronted with this the more I realize that my spirit is not conducive to such subverted living.

Graduate

2007-12-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

So I graduated today. I took my last final a few days ago, and things went a little different than I had expected. I figured that the last day of college, this wild 4.5 year experiment, would end with some sort of fanfare, or cosmic boom, or at least something climactic. But to my surprise, after I finished my final, nothing happened. No band played. No celestial voice from heaven said, “this is my son, of whom I am well pleased” as I had expected. There was just silence. The weight of what had just happened began to set in, but still nothing happened. I stepped outside, the birds were still chirping, the sun still shone, students still walked from here to there, not one person stopped to say “wow man, you look different, you look like a college grad, an educated man of the world!” So I walked around outside for a minute, and thought out loud, “boy, life sure is a son-of-a-bitch!” I soon tempered myself, and walked back to my car in an uneventful, anticlimactic, bitter huff of sorts. So I began to think, and it helped me to think of life not so much as a series of sudden, life-altering events, but more as a sort of continuous, fluid thing. Like life is just meant to go from one thing to the next without seeming like the death of one thing leads to the life of another. I have this friend, and she has always been kind of crazy, nothing has ever stopped her from doing whatever weird or crazy things she has wanted to do. I just talked to her today after she got back from a trip to Australia, and she was telling me about how excited she was about graduating soon and moving to California where she plans to get married. I told her that I thought it was funny how different our respective ideologies were, about how unnerving the future is for me. Then she just told me, in this super matter-of-fact way, that she loves change, and wouldn’t have it any other way. It makes me wonder what it takes for someone to get into that mindset, to be willing to go anywhere or do anything at a moment’s notice. To, in a way, live without fear. Well there is no doubt about it, this is a new, scary phase of life for me. And now that college is behind me, there is only the future, the distant unknown. Well, here is to the future, whatever it may hold, may they be great things, and may they be things that will light some fire deep within my soul.

Steroid Video

2007-12-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

A project for school, supposedly informing students about the dangers of steroids...I'm not sure if we accomplished that, but we did get an A!

The Academy and The Score

2007-11-01T20:09:00.000-07:00

Ah, what a few weeks it has been. After waiting three weeks to get my LSAT score back I finally got it, and happily I found that I didn’t do terribly. Turns out I got a 155, which really isn’t as good as I wanted to do, but about as good as I deserved given my relatively short period of studying. But the great thing is that its over, this dark cloud of a thing is gone and can rain on someone else. Hooray. Another great opportunity that came recently into my life was an ASU sponsored trip to West Point Military Academy in New York for a conference on ethics. The invitation came as a surprise to me, and I had to compete against 18 others in an essay-writing contest for the spot, but eventually I got the nod and was on my way to New York for some time with America’s future military leaders. The conference was great, I lived with one of the cadets in one of the barracks in the heart of West Point, which looks just like a giant castle. The amount of discipline in their lives is really incredible to see, as I had the pleasure of waking up with them at 6am to the sound of “reveille” being played on the trumpet outside our window. From there, almost their entire days were planned out, minute-by-minute, with very little time for fun. Needless to say, it was a bit different than my life. Every freshman called me “sir,” which was nice, and we all ate at the same time in a giant 4,000 person dining hall which seemed to be straight from a Harry Potter movie. During the day I attended seminars and talked about everything from economics to business to philanthropy. We heard from military generals, news correspondents, and professional mountain climbers. It really was a good time. Oh, and on a side note, I made a fool of myself in front of ABC news’ Chief White House Correspondent, which wasn’t one of my better moments I will admit.

I suppose what I will most take away from that conference, other than the ideas and good debate that was had, will be the cadets I met at the Academy. Each of the people I got to know well are in their senior year, and each of them will be serving for 15 months as an officer in Iraq within the year. It was riveting to talk with them about how they feel about going to war, about commanding men, and about our country and their duty. It was interesting for me to learn that the most requested position within the cadets at West Point is that of infantryman. When I asked why, my roommate simply shrugged and told me that he and his fellow cadets wanted to prove to themselves that they had what it took, that they could fight for a cause that they didn’t necessarily believe in. Wow, I thought to myself. I told him that I didn’t know how anyone could deal with that amount of pressure, and he just shrugged again and went back to reading his book. So I am glad that there are people who are braver than me, who feel called to serve in hostile places, even if they can’t articulate just why.

So in short, life is good, I am almost out of college, which isn’t my favorite place to be, but I look forward to seeing what will happen next in my unpredictable life.

The day before

2007-09-28T11:52:00.001-07:00

Today is the day before the big day, which makes today the day that I hate almost as much as I will hate tomorrow. In a way I dread it and in a way I look forward to it, like the way a man who knows he will be sentenced by a jury just wants to hear the verdict, to get it over with, whether the outcome is favorable or not. Enough waiting, the day of reckoning is here. Ok, maybe I shouldn’t be so dramatic, “reckoning” is a bit much, but still I feel like I am sitting in a courtroom waiting to hear the jury’s verdict, to have them tell me whether or not I add up.

Its ridiculous, I know, to place my worth into a standardized test, to somehow associate my ego with how well I do or don’t do on this thing. I can’t tell you how many times I have told myself that. Either way I am still me, still flesh, bone, spirit. But there is something in me, some subtle beast of a thing that whispers quietly in my ear lies and deceit. Its as if part of me wants to fail just to prove its false point. I find that you can shout truth all you want and not quiet that small voice that whispers lies. But that’s what they are, lies, and I have power over them.

I have spent the better part of the last two and a half months studying for this thing. Countless hours denied to my friends, family, and girlfriend and instead devoted to a test. A stupid test. I don’t mean to sound like I am complaining, I have no problem with working hard for something, in fact, I have enjoyed some aspects of this study because it has forced me to work harder for something that I have done in recent memory. I only say this because I want so badly for it all to pay off. But that’s not my call to make, its God’s, and it is all in his hands now. My future will always be with God, not myself, and I trust him with that. Am I scared? Yeah, terrified. But in 24 hours this thing will be done and I can move on to greener pastures. So glory to God, not to me. Whatever happens I want it to be his will. He has taken me this far, and he will be faithful to take me the rest of the way toward whatever destiny awaits me.

Summer gone

2007-08-20T13:54:00.000-07:00

I’m not sure how to begin, or how to end for that matter. I feel like I am saying goodbye to an old friend. How to move on from this summer, it really is like saying goodbye to a wise old friend, one who has been there for me, whispering wisdom in my ear for the last few months. But I will start with this: I am convinced that everything I have seen and everywhere I have been and everyone I have met has in some way been a reflection of God. And if God is in these things than God must be good. It’s quite beautiful when I think about it really. I have thought long and hard and there really is no other way of understanding or quantifying the travel, people, and places that have been this summer, and the overwhelming goodness of people that I have borne witness to.

A quick, or not so quick, recap. (There really is something therapeutic about this for me).

In Boston I met all kinds of people from all over the world, all of them in some way just like me. And I was blessed to be able to talk with them and discover what their lives were like and how different yet similar we were. I was able to see quickly the depth of my ethnocentricity, and quickly it was impressed upon me that this summer was not about me, it wasn’t about my story as much as it was about a story being told to me. I learned a lot about economic theory and practice, and about libertarianism and government theory and how far from perfect the world is. I learned that fun is not something that only Americans understand, I rode around the entire city on a bike in a toga, I laughed a lot, I thought a lot, then I thought some more. I also saw first hand how smart some people are, and I realize that I may never achieve the intellectual prowess of some of these people but I am really glad that these people exist, that a lot of people know a lot more than me. I made three really great friends in Boston, one of whom was kind enough to let us stay in her apartment near Harvard for a few days while we saw and did everything there was to do in Boston. (My friend, though she may refute this, is one of the smartest people I know, she is one of those people who is so smart and has such a love of people that it blows my mind.) And there was one night that we sat on the steps of this church that is on Harvard’s campus, and we talked late into the night about all kinds of things as the stars above sang and danced, and it was all so perfect and lovely and it was easy to get the feeling that maybe this was what life was ultimately about. Experiencing people, experiencing life, experiencing God.

As I continued my journey to New York City I began to embrace the kind of freedom that comes with solo travel, that is, going and doing whatever you want whenever you want. I have to tell you, for someone whose life ordinarily revolves around a schedule, it was heaven. There I stayed with one of the kindest most generous families I know, and had a lot of great conversations with my cousin and my friend Patrick the freelance photographer. Patrick moved to NY a couple of years ago and literally lives paycheck to paycheck, hoping and praying that he will be provided with enough work to pay the rent in his apartment. But I have to tell you, he is one of the happiest, most fulfilled guys I know. Just talking with him was encouraging. He loves what he does, and, though things are sometimes hard, he wouldn’t trade his job for anything. For him there is something in the uncertainty, in the good times and the hard times, that he has grown comfortable with, almost in love with. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Moving on was hard by this time, as I had grown to resent all the goodbye’s I was constantly forced to give. But I did leave, hard as it was, and moved on to meet my family at our 110 year old cabin in upstate NY. I have to tell you, I can’t think of any place more serene, quiet, and perfect. The cabin is on a three-mile lake in the mountains, and the word beautiful doesn’t do it justice, not by a long shot. I came here as a kid almost every summer, and the place is filled with memories and beauty as far as the eye can see. It was the perfect place to hang for a few days and collect my thoughts, reflect on what the last few weeks had held. Each morning I would paddle out in our wooden canoe and chase the loons and fog across the silent water, hearing nothing but the sound of my paddle breaking the water’s surface. This place held a kind of peace that most only read about in books.

As this may be a bit longer, I will postpone the rest of this reflection until another date, but, in the meantime, here are some of my favorite pictures:

God and me: why I don't get it and why that's ok

2007-08-07T12:46:00.001-07:00

Life is a funny thing…I know, tell you something you don’t already know…but its full of contradictions and problems and triumphs and sadness and regret and all kinds of other things. I have been feeling these a lot lately, the different elements of life that is, and its got me all confused. Since getting back from Europe and the east coast I have been wondering at what God has for me, what I should be doing, how my life’s story is supposed to be told. And I am not sure how it fits, but lately I have been thinking a lot about God, and what an abstract and ridiculous concept the whole thing is. I mean really, there are times when I talk about God like he is a vacuum that I am trying to sell, like he is this incredible invisible product that all my friends need. And then I think about things like the enlightenment, and the whole scientific reason thing, and I think, “there is no way to absolutely prove God, to absolutely prove what I have been selling all these years.” I mean, my faith is by no means blind, or untried, but what it comes down to is that scientifically you can prove many things, but you can’t use science to get to or prove God. And if you ever did, God wouldn’t be God. I think that the nature of God is mystery. I can’t explain why I have the capacity to understand beauty, or why I feel pain or anger or joy, I just do. And so in a way, this is how I understand God, and my relationship to him; that he is on a vertical plane of existence and I am on a horizontal, and you can’t prove the existence of anything on the vertical because its not quantifiable, its not measurable, it doesn’t add up to enlightenment principles. Well, anyway, that’s that.

And I have also been thinking a lot about the Bible lately, and how I read it. I heard someone say the other day that Jesus didn’t come to start Christianity, and I thought that this was very beautiful and true because that means that Jesus didn’t have any agenda or hidden motives other than loving people. He wasn’t out to start a major world religion, he came simply to tell people and show them that God loved them. And I think that we get so caught up in reading each verse in the Bible like it has some secret magic in it, a key to unlocking some passage of our hearts, that we miss the overarching message that is screaming to be heard. Notice that Jesus tells stories, he talks in metaphor, he speaks in poetry and prose. He doesn’t give us lists or formulas, although sometimes I wish he did. So why? I wondered, if the sermon I hear in church on Sunday comes with a list or a formula for living a happier life why didn’t Jesus just give us that himself? Why did he always respond with questions and tell stories? But I think that his message isn’t a formula, it isn’t a four-step program to happiness, it’s a story about God loving people. The Bible, I think, is nothing more than stories about people’s encounters with God. So I realized that I have been reading all wrong, that I have been thinking about things all wrong, and I took some time to read through stories and not perform literary surgery on each verse. I can’t tell you how freeing that was. It was freedom from religion and boxed in formulas, it was simply relational, and I loved that.

So being back here is weird, its back to my job, school, responsibility, stuff like that. But I once heard someone say that life is like fine wine, it won't appeal to children. And I think that is true, life is what it is, it is difficult, and at some point in time I will have to come to terms with that. But I also think that life is full of adventure, and hope, and truth. And the truth of it is that you and I are deeply spiritual beings, deeply spiritual people, and whether we acknowledge it or not doesn't make it any less true. So I don't want to deny that to myself any more, because embracing spirituality, not religion, has made my life more complete.

Europe: english and bread

2007-07-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I have had internet access, and a lot has happened since that time, so I will make this as good a summary as I can. Freak I love summer, thats all I can say. My adventures thus far have been unforgettable, and the stuff that good and full lives are made of as far as I know.

We arrived in Prague after about 24 hours of straight travel, having been delayed at Heathrow airport for six hours due to security concerns. Let me tell you, there is not much to do for six hours in the world's busiest airport, ug. Anyway, so, after arriving at about eleven at night Prague time, we decided to go into the city at 5am the next day because we knew we would not have time the next day before we were bussed to our training in Malenovice. So, after an early morning and a quick tour around the nearly deserted streets of Prague, we had breakfast and headed to Malenovice, where we would meet with several other groups who were also teaching english somewhere in the Czech. The training in Malenove took place in a new and beautiful ski lodge, located high on a mountain and overlooking wooded hills and green meadows below. Wow. It was beaitiful. We trained there for two and a half semi-restful days, and then departed for our less than desirable second location: a hotel that had once served as a Communist training camp of sorts, and had not been touched by the hand of renovation since. Classy, was my first thought upon seeing it. The sinks were in the showers, which, I suppose, really does save one a bit of trouble in the long run, and the whole place reaked of smoke. Anyway, it turned out to be a lot of fun, and once the students arrived, the fun and sleep deprivation didn't stop. I found that I really do love teaching english, and it helped that the students really wanted to learn. I was able to form relationships with people who barely spoke English, but who were kind, thoughtful and smart. Ok, I am running out of time, I am supposed to meet several Czech friends at a local pub in ten minutes, so quickly...some of my favorite memories thus far: sleeping on airport floors, trying to read road signs in Czech, rap battling my friend Joe G, playing guitar briefly at a train station for money, searching for two friends lost in the mountains near where we were staying, continuous laughter and stories, meeting good people. It is amazing how kind people are. With all the crap that happens in the world today, one can begin to think that everyone is like that, cruel and self-centered. But I have found so many good people, people who really care and will give anything for their fellow man. I am staying in the house of one of my students, Martin, and I have not stopped eating yet. His parents had dinner going when I arrived, and it is still going now...three hours later. I have literally eaten my weight in food. One of the key rules here is to eat everything you are given, all of it. So that has become my burden to bear, and it has been a real pleasure thus far.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have eaten the equivelant of three trucks full of bread since being here. They love their bread I tell you, and that is most of what I have eaten until now. White fattening bread, all the time.

Life is good. Travel is good. Adventure is good. God is good.

Boston: journey around the city

2007-07-01T07:56:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been awesome, and have shown me in many ways how good life really is. I am still in Boston, even though I was supposed to leave two days ago. My friends Joe and Sarah convinced me to stay for the extra days, promising good times and memories, and the last few days have been nothing short. We have been almost everywhere in this city, each day we set out on our journey to cover as much of the city as possible and see as much as we can. Yesterday I was in a street performance in front of Quincy Market in downtown Boston much to the delight of a crowd of several hundred. I ate Sushi, saw the ocean, walked for miles and saw the sunset and I have to tell you that it was pretty perfect. I am enjoying this so much, this freedom that comes with travel and uncertainty.

I have been sharing a bed with my friend Joe, a big goofy guy from Cincinnati who is a social worker in the city, and, other than occasionally stealing the blankets, I couldn't ask for a better bed-mate. He is one of those guys who draws people to him, and I think his outlook on life is brilliant. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite people.

The history is everywhere out here, and almost every old brick building you can see has some historical significance. What is interesting to see are the old buildings, apartments, houses, and so on, and the giant corporate buildings lighted and standing tall behind them. The contrast between these two time periods provides an interesting commentary as to the progression of American ingenuity. Old and comfortable versus new and industrialized.

In a few hours it’s off to New York City where I will stay for the next few days. Parting is indeed such sweet sorrow, especially since I have made such great memories with these people in Boston. But all things must come to an end and it is time for me to move on with my journey, and, as always, it is exciting to think of what the future holds.A few pictures from my time...

This is a homeless guy who wouldn't let me go, he kept talking about how when he was my age he had toga parties too, and how he needed money to visit his friends in Europe...Why do these guys always singe me out?

Boston day two, three, and four: seminars and togas

2007-06-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been great, I have learned a lot, and I have not gotten much sleep. There are three points that summarize some of what I have learned so far, and they are as follows: 1) I have found that economics is infinitely more complicated than I had imagined, 2) I know infinitely less than I thought I knew, 3) the more I know the less I understand. These three truths cause me a great deal of intellectual pain the last few days as I have conversed, debated, and laughed with people my age from around the world. I spoke with a guy from Mexico City about immigration, I debated the pros and cons of a free-market system with a girl from Nepal, I picked the brain of a Harvard student and I got into a heated debate with a Russian over the role of eggs in a breakfast meal. The level of intellect on this campus really is amazingly high, and I find myself way out of my league yet enjoying every minute of it. I am learning more than I thought I would, and at a much faster rate than my brain can process so I am constantly referring to my notes and trying to master the language of economics.

Time is flying by here as there is so much to do and see and think about. It has been frusterating to me because it really does seem as though the more I know about free-market principles, profits and losses, incentives, and a variety of other economic related material, I find it difficult to understand what the right thing to do is. The more I learn about this stuff, the more I realize that the world is a complex web of ideas, each of which might hold some validity, and I feel less and less qualified to make the distinction between a good and bad idea. One obviously good thing that this time has given me is the opportunity to think, talk, and discuss deeply with other really smart people. Everyone should have this type of thing. It is constantly challenging everything I know, and forcing me to defend it daily.

Well, aside from all the academic thinking that has gone on here, there has been a bit of fun. My friend Joe and I were sitting at the social last night talking about what kind of fun things we could do today on our free day. He suggested that he and I rent bikes at a shop he had found so that we could tour Boston in a quick and fun way; I completely agreed, and, only half seriously, suggested that we do it while wearing togas. Joe loved the idea and the two of us were quickly devising a plan for the next day and how we would ride our bikes while wearing togas all day and all over Boston. Well, today we spent seven straight hours touring Boston on bikes, stopping traffic, getting honks, waves, yells, laughs, and everything in between. You see, our idea caught on and by the time we were ready to go, we had a group of 14 international students wearing togas and sitting on bikes.

A few highlights: stopping at Harvard school of law to get information and talk up my name...I may have been the first person ever to wear a toga in the ancient halls of Harvard, and hopefully the last. Completely stopping two lanes of traffic while 14 toga sporting bikers rode accross the stree to honks and plenty of obscene gestures. Riding along the Charles river at night and seeing the city, lit up in all its glory and set against a starry sky, cool wind singing a song of peace. Laughing with people from accross the world, all of whom, despite our differences, can appreciate the humor of riding through Boston in togas.

Here are a few pictures:

Boston day one: airports and economics

2007-06-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

It has officially started, the madness that is summer and adventuring around the world, and I couldn’t be happier. Travel yesterday was wild, and a bit tiring, yet I am safely here in Boston today. It all began with a midnight flight out of Phoenix to Chicago, where I spent three hours (from 5am to 8am) trying to sleep in a perfectly secluded spot I found on the floor sandwiched between a window and a row of uncomfortable seats. I lay there for a while, watching raindrops playfully chase each other down the glass and thinking how nice it was to see the sunrise while it was raining. I was able to sleep for close to an hour on the plane, and was also able to catch a bit of rest lying on the floor of the airport. Then, at 8am it was off for a quick two hour flight to Boston.

When I arrived I found my bag and followed the instructions I had been given for finding Simmons College, where the Poverty and Prosperity seminar would take place. This involved navigating a confusing and complicated subway system with all of my luggage on my back while being hassled by the occasional mentally unbalanced homeless person. After hopping on a few wrong trains I eventually found my way to Simmons and arrived at 1pm eastern time, and let me tell you, I was glad to have arrived. I found my room and, upon entering, found my roommate Daniel asleep on his bed. He woke up for long enough to tell me his name and that he had spent the night at the airport, and that he was from Moldova. Later as we talked, he turned out to be a really nice guy, about my age, and he was not at all offended when I told him that I not only didn’t know where Moldova was, but that I had never heard of it. Moldova, in case you were wondering, is a small country about the size of Maine sandwiched between the Ukraine and Romania, they speak Romanian. Shortly after meeting Dan, I succumbed to sleep and did so for close to two hours, until we were supposed to start at 4pm.

After the seminar we attended dinner and our social, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was, and still am, very impressed with the level of diversity of the participants involved in the seminar. I have thus far met people from Peru, Guinea, the UK, Austria, Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, India, Canada, Taiwan, Sierra Leone, and a variety of other places. Each of the participants is around my age, and each of them has unique and interesting stories and each brings with them a very different outlook on life. It really has been eye opening so far. Since last night I have attended two additional seminars relating to poverty and economics and several discussions in smaller groups. I have really been enjoying talking and learning all about global economics, something I knew very little about. Anyway, I am looking forward to my week here in Boston, and hope to see some of the sights when I am more rested and have more time, thus far we have been kept very busy! In the meantime, check out the pictures, some of which I will post here, but I will post all of them on another website that you can access by clicking on the link on the right side of the page.

Stickshifts and Safteybelts

2007-06-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

I have been working recently, a lot. By the end of the week I will have worked the last ten days in a row, that’s 80 hours of caffeine fueled work, not that I’m counting. And the thing of it is, I am not naturally good at this, at working all the time and earning money. I have always been focused on other things, and have never cared much about the pursuit of copious amounts of money. The truth is, and this is going to sound so gay, I would much rather write something, or paint something, or hike something, or travel to some distant place for an adventure. And sometimes I wonder if God messed up when he made me, if somehow I wasn’t wired right, or if maybe I am missing some key component that is meant to keep me sane while working long hours. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s the opposite actually. It’s that I hate doing stuff that I feel doesn’t matter in the least; i.e., every job I have ever had. On the flip side, I have a deep love of knowledge and learning, which is why I like college and higher education so much, because I feel like it matters, and I enjoy it. So when I spend 80 hours in ten days parking cars for rich people, I feel a little spent. So I have to rationalize this mundane crap with the higher adventure that I feel called to, and let me tell you its not easy. For many people I know it just doesn’t seem to be a struggle, they work the 9 to 5, they sell a computer or an electric toothbrush, they go home, and they are satisfied. And to be to tell you the truth, I really wish I was more like that sometimes.

I heard someone once say that there are two types of people in the world, “how,” people, and “why,” people. “How” people only ask the “how” of life, how will I get more money? how will I marry a beautiful girl? how can I pay rent this month? etc. “Why” people, likewise, only ask the “why” questions about life; why do I need a job to make money that I spend on myself? Why do I need a girlfriend? Why am I even here? Let me tell you, I am a why person, and I hate it. Why am I working this job all the time when I could be out having adventures and living large in different parts of the world and riding camels and such? That is a question that I have been chewing on recently. And to make matters worse, I have been reading the blogs of a few people who do live this way, one who is a missionary in Eastern Europe, and another who travels around the world taking pictures, and my goodness does it sound good. It sounds like freedom to me.

But I know this. I know God has placed these insatiable desires deep within me so I never stop asking for more from life, so I am never content to just be.

Well whatever I end up doing, I need to trust God with it, because I don’t trust myself. His word says he knows the desires of my heart, and he cares about them, and that is huge. That is possibly the most comforting thing I have ever heard, aside from the fact that God loves me. But ultimately life is an adventure, and I love that, and I will continue to take advantage of every opportunity I get to live large.

So the last few days have taught me a bit about hard work and simply putting your head down and doing something even if you feel like it won’t ever amount to anything. It’s the process, not the end, in which I can find meaning and hope. In this case the means justify the end, in fact, they create it. So I will patiently wait for my summer adventures to arrive, and in the meantime I will suck whatever meaning and depth I can from a Beamer and a manual transmission.

California Dreaming

2007-06-12T10:55:00.000-07:00

Let me first say that I am greatly looking forward to this summer, as it holds within its vast arms an array of joy, beauty, and opportunity. Ah yes, the summer of 2007. So it begins. This trip to California signaled the start of my summer and its adventures, and let me say that there may be no better way to begin one’s summer than with a free trip to California for four days. I headed to California with my girlfriend’s family, the Harmans, to attend the wedding of my girlfriend’s best friend, Jenny, in Irvine. The trip to Cali was good, I have always enjoyed road trips and took the opportunity to read and reflect on a variety of things. I was sitting, reading Emerson, and I nodded back and forth between Emerson’s words and trying not to drift into road induced sleep. I closed the book and shut my eyes for a moment, Emerson’s authoritative words echoing wisdom in my head… “God will not make his words manifest by cowards…” I stopped to wonder at his words and what they could mean if I really took them to heart. You see, I seem to have a problem with living in the moment, with not worrying about what is to come. I feel like I am constantly living in three different worlds, the past, the present, and the future. It is one of my greatest faults, I think. It makes me emotional and unstable to a degree, and I feel this restlessness creeping under my skin like some disease. Emerson addresses this problem, by making an example of a rose…“These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence…” Oh how I long for that. So, with the risk of sounding rather foolish, I will tell you that I spent the rest of the trip to California wishing I was a pretty rose, and I could sit under someone’s window or in a garden, and people would point and marvel at my beauty and simplicity, and I would simply smile to myself and think, “why yes, I am quite beautiful, thank you.”

As we arrived at our hotel in Irvine, I was greeted by a cool gust of air that tasted of salt and the sea. I must tell you now that I do not find much else as refreshing as I find that simple, relaxing, feel of cool California air. Its as if even the air senses that the coast is about relaxation and calm, and rejects the heat and busyness of urban life. After finding dinner at a nearby restaurant, we headed back to the hotel where I did a bit of solo exploring. After a journey to the gym and the hot tub, I sought out the lobby’s large chairs for a bit of coffee and a good book. As I was sitting there I listened to two girls sitting in front of me talking in a language I had never heard. After a few minutes of attempting to decipher what they were speaking, I decided to ask. A South-African dialect, they told me, speaking in a heavily accented English. Ah, I thought, interesting. I then proceeded to perform my best South-African accent (influenced heavily by Leo DiCaprio’s accent in Blood Diamond) with what I thought was a flawless delivery of the line, “That diamond is my ticket off this god-forsaken continent!” As I delivered this line I shook my hands a bit for effect and gave my best Leo face. Although not quite perfect, they laughed and told me that the accent was pretty good, for an American.

The next day we ventured to Huntington Beach, where we spent a good portion of the day leading up to the wedding. Upon arriving I was immediately taken aback by the shear beauty and size of the ocean. The waves crashing like free-form verse on the shore sang a vernacular for fish that sounded beautiful. I think that God must have created massive beautiful things like the ocean simply to remind us how small and insignificant we are and how big He is. As I stood, the words to one of Shawn McDonald’s songs rang in my head… “The same hands that created all of this, they created you and I…” Beautiful, I thought, and cold. The ocean is really cold.

The wedding was beautiful as well. Right on the beach, ten feet from the Pacific Ocean, the happy couple that was Jenny and Josh were married, much to the delight of several hundred onlookers. And it was nicer than I thought it would be, honestly. Despite the fact that the tide didn’t rise and swallow them into the ocean as they recited their vows, it was still a good, short, ceremony. To tell you the truth I have never been a fan of weddings, and every time another friend of mine with a foolish grin and a sparkle in his eye tells me he is getting married I roll my eyes and say, “sure you are…I’ll see you sometime next year.” I think all this has to do with some unconscious thought I have that neither my friend nor his fiancée have any idea what they are doing; and in their defense I have begun to think that I am probably wrong, but it is still easier to be pessimistic than optimistic because, after all, I am in some ways losing a friend. Yeah, I know, I can be pretty superficial and shallow despite the 22 years I have lived, but it’s my right to be superficial and shallow, so there. Anyway, I did enjoy the wedding, mostly because I got to watch my girlfriend, perfectly framed by the ocean and glowing a bit as if she was an angel from some celestial place, standing by her best friend as she was married. The whole thing was rather beautiful I suppose, and now Jenny and Josh are married and are very happy because now they can squeeze each other’s butts and such while other people are around.

All of this wedding stuff got me thinking about how Emerson talks about peace and love and truth and beauty, and he seems to think that they are some of the best things in the world, and, come to think of it, I guess Jesus thought the same thing. And the thing of it is, when two people get married and they have a Godly love burning passionately, deeply within them, you can tell. You can see it in their eyes, you can hear it in the way they talk about each other and how they glance at one another from across the room. It is as if some force has a hold of them and it radiates love, truth, beauty and peace. And what’s more, it pulls people to them. When two people love each other like Jenny and Josh do, people want to be around them, want to watch them, want to be their friends and catch some of their love for themselves. Anyway, all this to say that I think love and marriage are two beautiful things, and it’s a good thing too, because there is a shortage of true and beautiful things in the world.

We began the next day with a trip to Newport Beach, where we spent almost all day in the sun boogie boarding, playing in the sand and sleeping. A true summer dream. And I will tell you that it is during these times that I have these terribly romantic (albeit unrealistic) dreams of what the future could be, and I closed my eyes and tried to taste what it would be like to live a life completely devoted to surfing and playing beach volleyball. Other than the possible sunburns, that life seemed pretty good, and I resolved to incorporate that unrealistic vision somehow into my realistic future. Not an easy thing to do let me tell you. So I eventually came to a sort of semi-realistic collaborative compromise between my Id and Superego, and decided to eventually become a surfing lawyer. I could have waterproof business cards in my wetsuit and, just as I am coming out of the water, someone would ask me who I was to which I would shake my long golden locks of hair and reply, “dude, I’m a lawyer.” Then I would hand out a business card and slowly walk down the beach and into the sunset. I also thought about incorporating my love of poetry into that scheme, and I imagined myself sitting by a beach fire-pit at night and, under the stars and in the cool air, writing poetry and playing my acoustic guitar while my long blonde hair and beard blew quietly in the wind. So as you can see and as I earlier confessed, I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to things like this, and all of this was rattling through my mind as I spent a day on the beach.

The next day was equally enjoyable, with a trip to Laguna beach and a relaxing ride back to Phoenix in the back of a Chrystler Sebring. During this time I did a lot of thinking, because I knew that I was headed back to Phoenix and thus back to real life (at least for the time being.) And I had the hardest time rationalizing all the hours I would be spending at work in the next few weeks, and it seemed that happiness and relaxation were such fleeting things, like they were given to me only long enough for me to really miss them when they were gone. But as I thought and prayed about this on the way home I realized that I was making a huge mistake: I was assuming that I was entitled to something. I have this deeply embedded feeling that I somehow deserve a simple, stress-free existence, and that if somehow life does not line up with what I want then there has been some mistake. But I realize now that as God happens to say in His word, I have been bought with a price. I am not my own. And any fun vacation time I am allowed to enjoy is nothing more than the kindness of God, giving me something I don’t deserve because He is loving and caring. It is was a radical change in thinking if you want to know, and ever since embracing this thought my life has gained tremendous joy. Instead of feeling sorry for myself because I think I deserve some easy existence, I thank God for what he has given me and enjoy breaks from work when they come. It takes a lot of pressure off too. Instead of worrying about what I will do, who I will marry or what job I will work, I only need to worry about God and whether I am doing what he wants me to. To sum it up in a few words I would say that living this way is freedom. My girlfriend Emily tells me that nothing comes without hard work, and that I have to work just like everyone else and I shouldn’t get so emotional about it. She says that there is a point where you have to stop thinking about everything and just do it. I know she is right, but for some reason there is something deep inside me, some dark beast of a thing that pulls on me and makes me feel like life shouldn’t be so tough. Emily also tells me that I take myself too seriously, that I take life too seriously; and I guess this trip was good for me that way, because lying there on the beach, watching my friend get married, laughing and talking with everyone, I realized that this whole life is a gift, and that I should just relax and enjoy the ride instead of analyzing every little thing that happens. I am so blessed, and I thank God for it.

Fighting Indifference

2007-03-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is a guest editorial I did for ASU's newspaper about the dinner, about AIDS, about poverty, and about a few other things.

Fighting Indifference
By Jon Kelley

Suffering. I have always wanted to begin an article with that word. So much is contained within it, so much that you and I don’t understand. And to be honest, I am sometimes glad I don’t understand it, and part of me really doesn’t want to understand it. But the truth is, a good majority of the world lives with suffering and understands the dark reality of suffering all too well. Mostly you and I are disconnected from these people, miles away from any real notion of suffering and pain as the rest of the world understands it. We are as far as you can get from real hunger, disease, or poverty, and let me say that there is nothing inherently wrong with this. What is wrong, is sitting and knowing that this suffering is going on, and doing nothing. Indifference then, is a word we are all too accustomed to.

One of the most pervasive forms of suffering in the world today is the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS, an invisible killer that has ravaged major portions of the world, leaving millions dead and displacing untold numbers across the globe. People have called it everything from God’s judgment to a curse, but one thing is sure: it is tragic. The numbers are staggering. Today there will be 13,400 new HIV infections, mostly among low to middle income countries with 1,800 of those infections occurring among children under 15. Every day, 2,000 infants will be infected with HIV during pregnancy, at birth, or through breastfeeding. One American under the age of 22 will be infected with HIV every hour. Today, 10,000 people will die from HIV/AIDS. This is not a disease that targets only those who have lived a long life; it randomly selects its victims regardless of age, race, sex or income level. It destroys dreams, families, and futures, and yet it remains largely ignored by the public. It is easy for us comfortable Americans to watch CNN and, for a brief moment, shake our heads and sigh, wondering how so many people could find themselves with this disease. But we do nothing. We sit. And so, without trying to sound too self-deprecating, I humbly suggest that the disease is not the problem: we are the problem. Apathy. That is why more is not being done.

I have heard it said that education is meant to lead to activism. That college campuses are meant to be diverse intuitions full of ideas, debates, social concern and real change. So then it is only fitting that you and I should band together and do something about this, that we should be the start of some kind of real change. On April 1st, people from around the valley will come together for the Broken Bread Dinner, a night of education, awareness, and change regarding HIV/AIDS. During the dinner, Bo White, a member of the humanitarian organization Food for the Hungry, will speak and money will be raised for two different humanitarian groups, World Vision (a chief supplier of food for third-world countries,) and Blood:Water Mission (an organization that builds wells in Africa.) Apart from this there will be a dinner served (third-world style) and clips shown from a documentary called A Closer Walk. There will be representatives from both groups who will offer information on how to get involved further. Following the dinner, there will be a benefit concert held at Alice Cooperstown on April 27th at 7pm. The concert will feature local favorites Cigarbox, Bluejay, Ellington Effect, and Evan Brightly, and all proceeds will be donated to World Vision and Blood:Water. Tickets will be on sale for the concert during the dinner. The dinner costs nothing and is open to everyone, especially you, socially concerned college student. Come to think of it, perhaps it is especially for the unconcerned, because education can indeed lead to activism. And education, character, and conviction are certainly dangerous things in a world characterized by apathetic humanitarian disconnection.

So this is it. This is a way to stand up and try to turn the tide against suffering, against ignorance, against one of the biggest killers the world has ever seen. Join me, join hundreds from around the valley as we come together and take a stand for what could become a revolutionary movement. This is your chance to let your voice resonate and move people toward action. So what do you say? It’s not idealism. It’s not unattainable. Lets turn indifference into action, ignorance into knowledge, and apathy into responsibility. Lets be agents of change. Please register at www.brokenbreadmeal.com.

Broken Bread Dinner

2007-03-25T22:49:00.000-07:00

Please check this out, I think you will find it worth your time. I am going to MC the night and we are going to raise tons of money for AIDS and poverty relief in Africa. Register for the night (April 1st at 7pm at ASU West) at: www.brokenbreadmeal.com

What I Learned About the World

2007-03-03T20:54:00.000-08:00

So recently I have been reading this book called, “a long way gone” by a guy named Ishmael Beah. Ishmael is a native of Sierra Leone Africa, and his book is a memoir of the time he spent there as a child fighting in his country’s bloody revolution. It is graphic. The accounts are vivid. It is hard to read yet even harder to tear your eyes from the pages as his painful story unfolds. The war in Sierra Leone lasted ten years, and left the country in shambles. Ishmael’s story touched me, in a different way than most books have. I had someone ask me why I was reading it, and I couldn’t describe exactly why. I couldn’t put into words how badly I want to leave my ethnocentrism behind, how badly I want to leave my comfort zone and my luxurious American existence. It’s so easy here. But yesterday I had a conversation that put this in perspective for me. I am in an international human rights law class at ASU, and yesterday we were discussing various human rights violations that have occurred recently. The man sitting across from me, a large African man with kind eyes and a broad smile, began to talk about the things he had seen growing up in Africa, in Sierra Leone, he said. He spoke with great passion about the terrible things he had witnessed, and, though he did not speak very long, the entire class was a bit shaken by his account. After class I went to this man (his name was Ed) and I asked him if he would mind me asking a few questions. He turned to me, and with his deep African accent and a smile, told me that it was fine. I asked him about how he came to be here, and I told him that I knew a little about the civil war in Sierra Leone, but not much. He waited a moment, then told me that he had seen many terrible things in Africa, things too terrible to speak about. He said that he had smuggled his wife and two kids out of the country and into Guinea, the closest neighboring country. He and his family were placed into a UN camp, then sent to America where he has been since 1997. As he said all of this you could hear a real sadness in his voice, as if he was remembering something dark. After he told me this I asked him if he would ever go back to his country, to see the people he had left behind. As I asked this, suddenly his demeanor changed and he put his head in his hands. He just sat like that for a minute, and I quickly began to wonder if I had asked the wrong question. Slowly he looked up at me and said with almost a wince that he would never go back, that he could never go back. He said he didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t push him. I thanked him for his time, and in an instant he was back to his old self and with a smile and a mild laugh he shook my hand.

There is part of me that is wary of talking to people like Ed because they force me to examine an area of life that stretches beyond my convenient American lifestyle, forcing me to confront the darker regions of life. But more than I fear it I like it, I like it because people like Ed feel real and earthy, like he can say whatever he wants because he isn’t confined to boxed-in formulas and linear thinking. Most of the time I don’t feel real and earthy like Ed. People like him make me ask hard questions, like: why not me? and what am I doing to help people like that? But more than just the questions, he put flesh on an abstract idea I had that terrible things happened to good people. He is the manifestation of this idea, and, without him even trying, he showed me humanity that I wouldn’t have thought possible from someone who had undergone so much. It makes me wonder. And I hate it when I get like this, if you want to know the truth. But it makes me ask why people who don’t know God care more about these things than I do. Why they are more concerned with poverty, AIDS, and war than I am. What am I concerned about? I asked myself. The three things that popped into my head first were law school, the things that live under my bead, and Ann Coulter. Not very worthwhile, I concluded.

But I want to be worthwhile, you know?

A friend of mine, Joe the pastor, asked a couple of weeks ago how we could have an encounter with the God of the universe and not be any different. How we could remain unchanged. And I wanted to thank my friend for this powerful truth because it is so true. And the beautiful thing is that when you have really encountered God and want to follow him, you can’t help but care about these things. You can’t help but love people, you can’t help but want to change things. And that, I believe, is the real beauty of following Christ. That through him we can step out and love people, to be the physical manifestation of Christ’s love. And I think that is why people like Ed come into our lives, to shake us, to push us enough that we might wake up to who we are supposed to be. I feel like God is poking me, like he is pushing me with his finger, moving me toward being a guy who gives a crap about people.

This guy Don Miller says that the great trick of the devil is not to get us into some kind of sin, but rather to have us wasting time. I think this is true, and I don’t want to waste any more.

Poetry

2007-02-11T18:35:00.000-08:00

" I wanted to read her the works of
Montaigne and Cervantes and Emerson
and I wanted to slip her some tongue"
Albert Goldbarth

a begining, and the wall

2007-02-11T12:28:00.000-08:00

I suppose every story has a begining, and this is certainly no exception. For if every story has a begining than it surely must have an end, and I will tell you honestly that I will hate to see it end. But this begining is special in several ways, let me lay them out for you. The reason I am doing this is because I am recently turned 22 years old, and, with that landmark, have decided to make a few changes to my life, and in so doing I am certainly seeking accountability of some kind, which I suppose can be provided in some abstract way by posting my thoughts online. I will tell you now, that I do not want to be labeled as some eccentric 20 something, posting random thoughts online because he has nothing better to do. While the latter may be true occasionally, and, I have heard it said that it is in the early 20's that one begins to lose his/her mind, I am doing this simply to be real with you all, and with myself. I find that I have spent my whole life wearing some kind of mask, building up walls between myself and others, so think of this as me taking a pocket knife and begining to scrape away at the wall. I will tell you this, that I have recently discovered how much I love God, not Christianity or religion, mind you, but God. I have found that, in order for me to find meaning in this world, I need to take what I know of God in my mind, and somehow connect that with my heart. However I am begining to understand that there seem to be endless miles between the two, and any kind of collaboration can be tedious. I have made mistakes my friends, yes, many of them. The most recent may be ending a relationships with someone who I now think may have been the one for me. I cannot tell you the fierce irony that now presents itself, only after making what was a great mistake. I am many things, but a person who understands life is not one of them. I want to, I want to get this thing. So maybe that is also what this is, a begining, the gradual breaking down of a wall, and an attempt at understanding life. Thank you for reading this thing, I suppose in the end I am writing this much more for myself than any potential readers, but I do appreciate the awesome potential that comes with this online community thing, it's really pretty neat.